Life Shouldn't Be A Fuckin' Grind

I will never be a poker pro, but my lifetime poker ledger is positive and I think that's something to be proud of.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Argosy Trip Report

As requested, I will go ahead and write about my trip to the Argosy's new Poker Room. Last Thursday I got off work at 11 pm and didn't have to go in on Friday until 11 pm for 3rd shift, so I decided to take a trip out to Argosy and check out the new Poker room. The Argosy is the biggest riverboat in the Cincinnati area and also the closest, but up until about 2 weeks ago they didn't have poker. Well, all that's changed and I have a feeling this will very much hurt the poker action at the other area boats. I got down there around 11:30 and found the poker room. It was smaller than I expected, and the tables were packed pretty tightly together, however I was pleasantly surprised by the number of tables they had running on a Thursday night. All in all, it looked like they were going to have much trouble with getting action in the room.

There were seats open at 4/8 and I sat down right away around 11:45. As soon as I sat down though, several people left and we had like 3 people at the table. We paused for a few minutes until a couple more showed up and we started back playing at 4 or 5. The first hand I remember playing we were shorthanded and I wanted to play, so I limped in with Q7o. The BB (an older lady who I'd played with at Belterra once) raised and I immediately hated my hand, from my history with her I knew that she was a decent player, somewhat TAG and definitely wouldn't raise out of the BB with junk. I called anyway since I had money in the pot and like I said, wanted to see a flop. I hit a dream flop of 779 and ended up cracking her KK with my trips and winning a nice sized pot. The game started to fill up a few hands later and I vowed not to play Q7o again.

After the table had filled up some I had a sequence of hands where I won all of my profit for the night. First I limped in with 33, flopped a set and managed to get in a couple of raises to take down a pretty large pot. Then, a couple hands later I picked up Ad6d and limped in. The flop came something like 5d3d9d, I'd flopped my flush. An EP player bet out and I just called planning to wait til the turn to raise. Well, the tight/solid older lady raised behind me and I decided to just call again. The turn was another diamond and that slowed things down some, but I think I still got 2 bets in from a couple of players, the river was a blank and after another round of betting I showed the nuts and raked a huge pot. The older lady told me that she had mucked a smaller flush and would have made a straight flush with my 6d. Just a few hands after that I found 88 and flopped a set with that, but didn't manage to get it all the way to the river. Still, at that point I was up over $200 after a just a little more than an hour of play.

The interesting thing about the session was that I played very loose pre-flop. I was constanty limping hands like 9s7s, 56s and the like. I also had one where I called a raise out of the BB with Td8d. I didn't really hit any of those hands though and I hovered for quite a bit. I did win a nice pot later on when I cold-called a raise on the button with KhQh and flopped top two pair. And I won another good sized pot when I limped in EP with KJo, called a raise and cracked KK when the flop came JJx. After about 2.5-3 hours the game started to get shorthanded again and I started to get really tired, I'd spent some of my profit limping in and trying to hit flops and I lost some when I raised with AQo, flopped top pair on an AKJ board and got called down by K2 who hit 2 pair on the river. By the time the game broke around 3:15 am I was getting very tired and I knew my play was deteriorating, so I decided to just rack up and go home with a $117 profit on the night. All in all, it was a fun night and the poker gods were definitely on my side when it came to hitting flops. However, oddly enough, the best hands I had pre-flop were 88 twice, AQo once, KQs and KQo once each and KJo once. I made virtually all my money off my two sets, my flush and a couple of other lucky flops. I saw no premium pairs and didn't see AK, and I still won a solid profit. It was a pretty fun night and it's nice to run more lucky than good every now and then. I actually won a couple of pots I'm not proud of, going in with the worst hand with the Q7o and the KJo and sucking out in spots where I probably shouldn't have been in there, but like they say in the Cincinnati Kid, sometimes poker is about making the wrong move at the right time.

Overall I was pretty impressed with the Argosy poker room. They had good game selection, a professional atmosphere and they did a very good job of keeping it smoke free (I walked out with my clothes smelling only faintly of smoke from the time I had to spend in the main casino to get in and out). I will certainly be back the next opportunity I get and I may even try to jump into the 6/12 game if they have it running again. I wasn't in the right frame of mind to play that high the other night, but next I may be. The only real drawbacks were that the bathroom is on the other end of the boat, so it's a bit of a hike and you're gonna miss a couple of hands when you go. I also thought the felt was a little softer than I'd like, it was kind of hard to move chips and cards on it, but I'd imagine that will change some as the tables get more use. Overall, I'd give the room 3.5 stars and I most likely will spend most of my live poker time there from now on since it's closest and will probably have the most action. I may still go out to Belterra for a change of pace from time to time, but it wouldn't surprise me if Argosy's room eventually shut them down.

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