Day 116: Like Taking Candy From Babies

Wow, I had the most beautiful 1/2 table at Harrah's this evening.

I'm still a sick puppy, with a head full of phlegm like you wouldn't believe, so I decided I didn't want to stress myself out tonight playing 2/5. I wanted to have a nice, relaxing few hours of poker, then retire to my room and get a lovely night's sleep in preparation for tomorrow's tournament. I thought sitting down and putting a big buy-in at risk amongst decent players would not be soothing, although it might be both interesting and potentially profitable. My main thought was: there are going to be a lot of tournament players donking it up at 1/2; why not visit the fish pond and just drop a line over the side?

And so I did.

The guy to my left told me about every single one of his hands. Every. Single. One. He was ridiculously loose and just a catalog of bad habits and tells. He kept explaining to me how he always wins online. "I raise, I bluff, they fold!" Yeah, buddy, whatever. I proceeded to call him down with 10s on a 993 flop despite his massive re-raise. His heart was beating a mile a minute and I knew I had him. He eventually showed AK.

I spotted the rocks, the TAGs, and the mice. I dodged the couple of good players and then basically took everyone else to the cleaners. It was just really, really easy. (It helped, as always, that I didn't get massively outdrawn at any point.)

As a result, I completely covered my buy-in for the tournament tomorrow, my travel expenses, and profited an additional sweet chunk of change on top of that. This means I'm essentially free-rolling the tournament, and I can play without any any money-angst whatsoever, which will be really nice.

And if I bust out, who cares? The poker room was jammed full of people. They were running FIVE TABLES OF 2/5 (which in my experience is unheard of at Harrah's). They even had a full 5/10 table! So if things don't go my way in the tournament, why I'll just mosey on back down to the poker room and play cash all day and night.

The prospect makes me giddy, frankly.