Return to The Vic

A return visit to the VIC resulted in a completely different experience.

This time, I dropped by Monday night at 7:30 and waited an hour for a seat at the low limit table. I had been watching for a while. You pick up a lot of information watching, especially when there is no deal. (At the low limit tables, no dealer is supplied). When I took my seat, I was seated with the following players:

Starting to my left …

Left 1: A regular, who actually stole an empty seat in the commotion of a rebuy tournament starting in another part of the room. He was a tall man, shaved, and wearing a sport type polo top. And he wore sunglasses. But he was not stupid. But he was aggressive and would push the weaker fish off his pots.

2: An older lady from Dubai who had more money than sense. She did not how to play at all, but still played dumb in order to get away with very amateur moves like over betting the pot. She would see a raised pot and there would be like $15 in the pot and she would just push with like $100 and take it down. This worked often and she would sometimes show 2 pair when she did it. Still, I was drooling at the prospect of hitting a strong flop on her.

3 & 4. Asian middle aged gentleman (30s) who seems to at least know each other. Neither played particularly bad, nor did they play awful.

5: This guy was a trip. He wanted to be table captain, had to constantly but nicely encourage seat 2 to take an action and always wanted to initiate friendly conversation. Oh, and he always bet when ahead, and folded when behind. No bluffs.

A guy who played so few hands, I almost forgot who he was. Seemed lost
This guy was a bigger guy who played very vanilla.
eventually the nobody was replaced by a well to do woman who played tight.

I play for like an hour and fold for like an hour. I literally folded by 60 down to 30 and had to take another 40 to get back to 70. Then I folded that down to like 30 and change. Finally, something happened!

I let Mr. Aggression on my left bet every street after I check every street. I am playing A8 on a flop of A9A. When he has my down to 20, I simply push since he already made the pot so big he has to call. I even rivered the boat.

You would think the traps would get more obvious, eh?

But a few hands later I get a big pocket pair and get into a pot with seat 7. When the flop is all under cards, I let him bet and take a decent pot.

A round later, I could be more obvious if I wrote TRAP on my forehead, while playing a game of Mouse Trap and singing “Trapping days are here again”.

I raise a small 3x with ATs and seat two will always play for 3 if she plays. I flop top two and simply check to see if she does her all-in move, trying to look weak by actually just looking like I hit nothing. She goes for the stack and pushes in over 100 putting me all in. I insta-call, the trap so obvious that she did not see it? I taught her a lesson she would never forget. She bet 20 on the flop from then on for the remainder of the night.

I doubled up one more time when I decided to see a flop with 77. The flop was 3 clubs and me with a set of 7s. Little did I know I was the WORST hand against a flopped nut flush (seat 7) AND a straight (seat 8). Both with position on me. I check. But the bet was only 15, and the lady in seat 8 called, so I called to see one more card. And lo the board paired! Straight bets, I call, flush raises, straight calls, I go all in, flush calls, straight finally folds. And the nut flush is bust and goes home. By now I am up over $300.

Seat 5, realizing he was no going to win any money now, leaves. I played for another hour, but folded most of the time. Seat 2 continued to play with a seemingly unlimited bankroll in a purse that never left her lap. Seat 4 was replaced by an accountant looking guy who played old school. Raised every pot, aggressive post flop. I figured I could slow him down, but got a run of hands with a 2 in them. For like an hour. By now I am too tired, but was comfortable I could have beaten them all night.

All in all, not a bad return. But that first hour of bleeding? Oh was that painful.