Rain in LA is always treated like a seismic event by the media. I think I first noticed this when we had that El Nino in the mid-90’s. Ever since then, not a year seems to go by without “Storm Watch YYYY” flooding the local news. That said, the weather this weekend has been pretty intense. I don’t think I’ve seen hail in LA since my primary school days when I lived in the Valley. Hail just doesn’t happen on this side of the hills. Or so I thought.

I was working on my third beer of the night when I got a call from The Film Geek.

“Hey you want to go to Commerce tonight?”

“Uh…”

We’d been tentatively planning to go on Sunday because Film Geek had to put in some hours working on Return of Pink Five, but Friday’s storm took out his machine, opening up his Saturday night calendar. Of course, I wasn’t really thinking about the ramifications of that event when I opened those beers. Let me just say that I don’t believe in drinking and driving. Especially in the rain.

I didn’t have too many options, and the few I had were shut down pretty quickly. Film Geek stated flat out that he wasn’t going to pick my ass up. Hank was already at Commerce working the tables. So if I wanted to go, which I did, I’d have to figure out if I could drive.

Well, I must be some kind of alcoholic because I did a quick status check and determined that yes, I could drive to Commerce. I’m so equipped.

The rain was already falling pretty hard as I drove toward the freeway. I hopped on the 405, which turned out to be its usual awful mess, and I hopped off it to take local to the 10.

The 10 was much, much better, but by this time, the rain was coming down in sheets. I had my wipers set to the highest setting and could barely see 20 yards in front of me. Being able to see was pretty important to me since I was going 70 while everyone else was going 40. Luckily, most people were avoiding the far left lane because driving through the standing water could pull your car right into the median. Even with AWD I got a little nervous when the car pulled a few inches sideways, but I figured coping with that was better than coping with 40 mph traffic.

I didn’t get killed

Commerce Casino was packed. There were already 30 people on the $100 2/3 NL list. The list for 2/4 probably had 60 people on it. In places where rain is not unusual, people go out in all kinds of weather. In LA, people usually stay home. The feeling is, if you lose one night, or even one weekend, a dry day will be here before you know it, so why bother getting wet? That the casino was packed is a testament to the draw of the World Poker Tour and the poker celebrities who would be in attendance.

I put my name on the list and wandered around to gawk at all the big name champions and professionals that I wouldn’t recognize (I don’t watch TV). Believe me, it’s even less exciting than you’d think. But I knew they were there because when I caught up with the Geek he rattled off a dozen names he’d seen downstairs in the high limit room or upstairs in the WPT tourney.

I found Hank over at what looked like a juicy mid-limit game. He was down over half a rack due to some bad beats, which meant that the table was primed to give him some massive pots. While I watched, Hank folded his pocket pair on the flop after some significant action on the first two streets. The suckers who were still in the hand lost to a guy who had flopped top set and turned the boat to win a massive pot.

“He could buy my car with the money in that pot.”

“Yeah.”

In case you’re wondering, that was me talking about my car.

Let’s play some cards

The list was moving fast. To me, that says there are people busting out in a single hand with crap. I just couldn’t hit those tables fast enough.

Well, maybe I could.

The obviously tight player in seat 5 folded most of his hands preflop, missed the flop with the rest, and gradually found himself short-stacked after the first 90 minutes or so. You’d be surprised how quickly you can burn through a stack just by limping and folding. I rebought for another $100 to give me some ammo for when I would actually catch a hand, then managed to catch a hand in the next orbit:

AQ: I limp in middle position with AQ and it’s raised in late position by a guy from Bluff Magazine to $15. Everyone folds, I call, and we see the flop heads-up. The flop brings A98. I check. The raiser checks behind. Turn is an 8. I bet out $20 and the raiser calls. River is a 7. I bet out another $20 and the raiser calls. I show my AQ and the raiser shows AJ.

I managed to catch a few more hands like this over the next couple hours to turn my down session into an up session.

AK: It’s raised in middle position to $15 by the owner of Bluff Magazine and I call on the button. It’s called by an Asian guy in early position who would ask for three new setups over the course of the night. Flop brings AKX with two hearts. Asian Setup checks. Bluff magazine bets $30. I call. Setup calls. Turn brings the 10 of hearts. Setup and Bluff check to me. I think about where I am, begin to take too long, get nervous as hell about taking too long, and figure I’ve blown my other options: “I’m all in.” There $135 in the pot, and it’s $120 for my opponents to call.

Setup must have a heart, since he’s fairly conflicted about his decision, but he was probably thinking about how much of his stack would be left if he called. This goes on forever. I want him to fold. I think I’ve got Bluff beat pretty well (he probably has 4 outs with AQ or AJ), but Setup can possibly outdraw me, and I’m pretty satisfied with the pot as is. Ultimately he folds and accidentally flips one of his cards up. A king.

Bluff stares at me. Actually he stares at everyone in heads-up situations. I try to stare back, end up smiling, then look away as I feel the sweat start to flow and my skin start to buzz. I want him to call, but I think I’ve missed my opportunity to double up through him. He takes a long time and says I don’t have the flush. He then mucks his hand and says he has kicker trouble. I guess he had AJ.

62: After a cigarette break, I find that I’ve missed my blinds. I decide to post the blinds in the cutoff, and look down to find 62. What a shitty hand. I figure I’ve just lost $5 for nothing. The flop is 5- or 6-way, and contains a 6 as well as two overcards. It’s checked all around and I check. Another overcard falls on the turn. Checks all around. Something else on the river. Checks all around. Lots of ace high and other unpaired hands are shown, and my lowly sixes are good.

AA: I’m in early position and decide to limp-reraise. This isn’t the kind of table that will see a 6-way flop after a raise to $20. I’m not sure this is the kind of table that will let me limp-reraise, but I figure I want to make the aces pay, so I take the risk. The new guy who lost 60% of his stack on his first hand overplaying top pair good kicker (QJ vs J8 on J8X flop after a raise to $15) raises behind me to $15. There’s a call from an old Persian guy in middle position and everyone folds to me. New guy has just another $25 or so left, so I raise to $45 hoping to isolate. Now that I think about it, this would have been unlikely to happen with all the money in the pot. New guy gets flustered, but calls anyway. The old Persian guy quickly puts all his chips in (about $10-15 more). I call and we watch the flop come out T98. Fuck. There is a distinct straight possibility here. The turn is a K, the river a rag. I show AA, new guy shows JJ, and old Persian guy shows QQ. Wow. New guy leaves, completely disgusted. I wish he hadn’t lost so much of his money with QJ.

KT: It’s towards the end of the night. I’ve got KT in the big blind and another new guy to my left raises to $10 preflop. Surprisingly, he gets four callers, and I decide to call along. Flop comes KQJ. I check to the raiser and he bets out $20. Surprisingly, he gets no callers, and I decide to call with my top pair/OESD. Turn is a rag, I check, and the raiser goes all-in for $35. I hadn’t realized he was so short-stacked. If I had, I probably would have put him all in on the flop. I call. River is another rag, and I wonder if I’m outkicked. I flip up top pair and he flips up second pair, ace kicker.

Not my hand

The one person who made multiple buy-ins seemed to be a truly bad player. If he limped and it was raised, it didn’t seem to matter how big the raise was, he wasn’t putting his hand down. In fact, once he put any chips in the pot, he seemed to be committed to seeing a showdown almost every hand. I never got heads-up with him, which was a shame.

The most notable beat he put on a guy went like this: Bluff Magazine raised pre-flop to $15, MultiBuy called, and an early limper wearing a fedora re-raised over the top. Bluff stared him down, decided his Jacks were no good, and mucked. MultiBuy re-raised to put the limper all-in. Fedora had AA vs. MultiBuy’s 52 suited. MultiBuy flopped a pair and turned two pair. We were stunned.

Aphorism 1: It takes a better hand to raise than to call. Aphorism 2: The cards have no memory. Neither, apparently, does the Film Geek. Later in the evening, Fedora raised it up with AK, and Film Geek re-raised all-in with T9 suited. Flop came down Q86, giving the Geek a double-gut. The turn was a rag, I think. The Geek started chanting “Jack! Seven! Jack! Seven!” The river? A Jack, giving the Geek the nut straight. So rigged.

Getting paid more than minimum wage to play poker is always a good thing.

I cashed in my chips up $156 and felt fairly lucky. On the whole the players were playing decent cards, if somewhat passively. There wasn’t a lot of money outside of the blinds to be won with a bluff, and the pots were generally small compared to the ones I’d seen at San Pablo. Besides MultiBuy, the players generally limited themselves to one rebuy throughout the night. Enough players would bust or get tapped by their spouses to cycle new players in, but the action was definitely not what I’d expect on a Saturday night at Commerce during the WPT.

There’s still a few days left to the LA Poker Classic, but I think I’ve shirked my other responsibilities long enough. It’s time to get back on track and put poker on the back burner.