Cash Games During New Orleans WSOPC Event
Unfortunately, the glory of winning a circuit event was not in the cards for me this year, so after missing the money in three tournaments I decided to just play cash games. I had heard that cash games in New Orleans were action packed and it was pretty easy money. This sounded great to me as I had tournaments and expenses to cover, so the last four days of my trip I decided to see if the critics were correct. I found that although the critics were correct, it wasn’t as easy as it sounded.
The first day I was there I decided to play 5/10 NL Hold’em. There was no max buy in which was right up my alley and there were a few people who had over 6k in front of them. There were a few guys playing a decent size pot as soon as I sat down; there must have been about 2k in the pot. I was astonished when the players flipped over their cards and one guy had a pair of 6s that came on the river which was the lowest pair on the board and the winning hand was pocket 7s. This seemed like a great game to be in with this much action going around. There were a few similar hands where there were big pots and mediocre hands that ended up winning.
I got into a pot with Kc8c, and the flop came Ac 10c 8d. I immediately bet out $45 and got called by a bald headed guy to my left. The turn came 3d. I checked and my opponent bet $50 and I raised to $170 hoping he would put me on a big hand and fold. He ended up calling, so I had to put him on a big ace at the very least. The river was a Qh and I was hoping this would be a scare card for my opponent. I bet $260, and he ended up calling me. I was sure that he was going to flip over AJ, AQ, AK or maybe two pair. Instead, he ended up showing me 10s 6s. He said that he “just had a feeling I was bluffing.” This made me completely perturbed because if he had such a good read on me then I need to reassess my career in poker. After intently scrutinizing his every move I found that he had trouble laying a pair down in any situation. This meant that I couldn’t pull a lot of bluffing moves against this player because he was going to call me down with bottom pair on the board.
There were some really good local players in New Orleans, but it seemed like the vast majority of tourists playing had minimal knowledge of advance poker plays. This makes the games hard to beat when you are not catching any cards. It limits the plays that you are able to make against more advanced players who may be able to lay down top pair to a bluff. On the flip side, there were great opportunities to make a substantial amount of money. On several occasions I was able to make the most out of my winning hands knowing that my opponent would not be able to lay down top and middle pair even if they had no kicker. Although this type of play limits one to play more ABC type poker, it can often be more profitable as you can gain maximum value from winning hands.
