One Hand at Harrah's Joliet

I haven't updated my blog for a few weeks due to being busy at work and therefore fatigued, and otherwise having been busy with some side endeavors. However, I did get out to play poker several times, taking one blow after another directly to the nuts.

After taking losses at Harrah's Horseshoe Hammond and Par-A-Dice  Casino in East Peoria, IL, I decided to go back to a poker room where I've had much success: Harrah's Joliet. I drove up to Harrah's on Sunday and was able to pull a profit out of one of my favorite slots, Hitchcock Theater, before hearing my name called to be seated at a new $1/2 NL table that was being opened.

 After playing a few hands, it became obvious that several of the players at the table were bad. Very bad. I chipped up quickly but went card dead for a long time. I was doing my best to be patient even while seeing one drunk guy virtually giving his whole stack (about $700-800) away. I'll just focus on one particular hand that earned me a rebuke from a fellow player.

The scene: I was on the button in seat one, probably down to about $350. Several players limped in as I looked down to see A-4os. If I had a more powerful hand I might have tried to push everyone out (ha!) with a big raise, but I decided to just call. The small blind completed, and then the big blind raised to $12. Not surprisingly, each of the players who limped in called. When it came to me, I gladly put in two redbirds. The flop: a sweet, sweet 2-4-4! Shades of the Poker Grump! Much to my surprise, the original raiser in seat two bet $70! He looked to have ~ $240 in front of him. As expected, all the other players folded until it was my turn. I hollywooded a little, but not too much so as to give away my hand strength. I smooth called. The turn: the case 4! Seat two put out a stack of $100. Now it was time to hollywood again. I probably overacted, giving out an Al Gore sigh.

After taking a bit of time, I slowly pushed ahead a stack of $100. By now, I'm sure seat two knew he was doomed. The river was some sort of rag that I don't remember, and seat two pushed out the rest of his chips and said "If you've got a four you have me" (duh!) and tabled pocket queens. I softly said "Yes, I have a four" and turned over my cards. At that point seat two got very frustrated and ranked on me for hollywooding. Before I could respond, he quickly took off. Other players said "nice hand" as I stacked the pot o' chips. I was back to around $600 and decided that a restroom/drink break was in order.

Later on Twitter, I tweeted  Last night a guy at my table was pissed off at me for Hollywooding. Was the proper protocol for me to announce "I have quad fours. Please fold your queens and save the rest of your stack?"

I mean really -- the object of the game is to get ALL the chips, right? Fortunately, seat two left the game before I had a chance to point out that his $12 raise wasn't going to get anyone at that table to fold, which he should have known. Had he made a sizable raise, most players would have likely folded, including me.

After losing a decent amount of chips getting outplayed by one guy and then getting rivered by a few, I chipped back up, took my profit, ate, and began the 100 mile drive back home, feeling good that poker seemed to once again be looking up.

Thanks for reading!