Quick Stories

I went back to Boulder Station for the first time in a while; I had just busted out of the Mirage NL holdem rebuy tourney and didn't want to play anything that required too much thinking. So, I went and played the 4-8 half kill omaha game. One of the regulars who I've seen there every time I've gone was talking to the guy next to him after losing another pot.

"I hate this game!"
"But you still choose to come and play everyday."
"Yeah, the other day I was talking to this guy who said that if someone told him that he had to come to the casino every night for eight hours and play 4-8 Omaha, he'd be furious and crying Bloody Murder. I thought about it and realized he was right. But for some reason I come here and do it anyway."

Incidentally, I won only one pot for the 2 hours I was there and lost $200.

Earlier tonight I went to the Wynn, and the only table with open seating was the 10-20 HORSE game, where they switch off between holdem, Omaha 8 or better, 7 card stud 8 or better, Razz, and 2-7 triple draw. At first I decided to just wait around because I don't know how to play most of those games well, and barely know the rules to a couple of them. Then I decided to play anyway. I've been so focused on no-limit holdem that it's become rather intense, and I figured it might be fun to try something different. The first game was O-8, then deuce to seven. This was the first time in my life I had ever played this game. The first hand I showed down 76432, the second best hand possible. The next hand I ended up with 87542, and my only opponent had 87543. After staring at the two hands for about 10 seconds I finally realized I had won the hand, triumphantly sliding out my 2 for my opponent to see (he still hadn't figured out who had won either, and neither had the dealer).

Daniel Negreanu had been hanging around and it turned out he wanted to play in our game (just for fun obvioiusly), but the table was full. We were just starting another round of 2-7 triple draw, and one of the players at my table said, "Daniel, play deuce for me," meaning he wanted Negreanu to use his chips to play the round of deuce to seven.
"No, the other players don't want me playing, especially not with all the raising I'm gonna be doing!" Negreanu then sat at the 5-10 NL game instead. That's the closest I've come so far to playing against one of the poker stars.

Despite mostly playing games I'd never played before (or hardly ever), I made $300 in 2 hours. Not bad.