…but that’s been the state of Poker@Studioglyphic this past week. One would think that a change of scenery might mix things up enough to take a bit of the grind out of bonus-whoring, but no, clearing a Paradise bonus is as excruciating in Oakland as it is in LA. So far I’ve managed to keep my head above water, which is a hell of a lot more than I can say about my last bonus-whoring experience at Empire, but there’s just no joy at the virtual tables.

I made my way out to Casino San Pablo Thursday night to check out the local action and try to win enough money to cover my airfare. San Pablo’s run by a landless Indian gaming tribe, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. I know that tribal casinos aren’t necessarily subject to the same gaming laws as the card rooms, though they aren’t quite able to do the full Vegas-style casino either.

Sadly, there’s no roulette.

In fact, the only real difference I noticed was the fact that one could smoke anywhere inside the casino with the exception of the poker room. I grabbed a mug of coffee, had a cigarette, and put myself on the list for no limit.

San Pablo’s a pretty small place compared to the LA casinos, so they only had a regular table and a must-move table going. The main table had some pretty big stacks sitting in front of some of the guys. At first I thought this might be a problem. I imagined a table with 6 or 7 sharks devouring the buyins of the Moneymaker wannabes one at a time, but as I settled down at the must-move, I realized that all I needed to do was get a hand and someone would pay me off. Easier said than done:

glyphic: Couldn’t catch a damn flop on a seriously juicy table.
glyphic: How juicy? I raise to $20 and get four callers.
glyphic: Pots are regularly $80-100 on the flop
glyphic: People pushing whole trays of chips at each other.
HDouble: lol
glyphic: Damn. I hate being a bystander.

One guy rebought at least six times. He was a loose aggressive player who gave up at least two buyins to another guy who held cowboys at least half a dozen times throughout the evening. These cards held up every time but one.

In contrast, pocket queens was the best pair I had all night, with the rest being fives, fours, or twos. If I had big cards, the flop was coordinated rags or board pairs. If I had suited cards, the flop would be three of another suit. If I had small to medium connectors, the flop would be all broadway. When you keep limping with playable hands hoping to get in on the action, it doesn’t take too long to erode your stack.

I basically won three times in 6 hours: pocket queens, QJ on a jack-high flop, and AK on a king-high flop for my last hand of the night (I went all in for $46, chopped with an AK caller).

There was one hand that wiped out my first buy-in:

I flop two pair with A8 on a AJ8 board. The flop is checked all around. The turn is a T, and a guy in EP bets $20. I raise to $40. A guy in LP pushes. EP calls and I call for the rest of my stack, which amounts to $30 or so. EP’s A9 vs. my A8 vs. LP’s AJ. Oof. I don’t necessarily regret this hand, considering the size of my stack and the pot.

There were two hands I did regret:

I folded AQ on a 99X flop to a timid bet by the preflop raiser. I wanted to call, but I was irritated about missing yet another flop and decided to muck. The turn and river were aces.

On another hand, I folded KJ to a 3x raise. On this table, 5x raises were pretty standard and were almost always called by 3-4 people. I would have flopped top pair with a board pair out there to make me nervous. The action was checked to the button who made a small bet to represent trips trying to build the pot. It would have been an easy call and the turn would have given me kings full. Blah.

But these two hands probably would have made up the deficit from all my limping and possibly more. Once again I’m reminded that mistakes, even minor ones, can be very expensive.