What’s up everyone? I’m definitely riding a big poker high right now as I have been to the casino five times the past week and a half and walked out a winner all five times. So to some of my friends who have been wondering where I’ve been, I have had my butt planted in a chair winning some B&M games.

As some of you may know, I just recently started a full time job about two months ago so I haven’t really had a lot of time or cash to play for recreation recently. Prior to last Saturday the 12th, I hadn’t been to a casino in about six weeks or so. But then last Saturday night came around and there wasn’t anything going on, so I was chatting with a friend who decided to meet me up at Ameristar in Kansas City. Their spread for the night was $3/$6, $10/$20 and $20/$40 HO (Round of Hold’em, round of Omaha), and maybe a NL thrown in there somewhere. Right when I got there I asked the poker room manager where the $10/$20 game was and started checking it out from the beginning. <READMORE>

When I first started playing poker I played the $3/$6 at Ameristar a lot just because it was a fun game and a good way to get my bearings in a live ring game. During that time I became familiar with who the $3/$6 players were and who the bigger players were. Well when the poker room manager pointed out the $10/$20 game that night I saw four $3/$6 players there that I knew for a fact didn’t belong. My eyes lit up and I immediately started thinking…well I’ve got X amount in my bank account right now so I could go sit in that game if I really felt up for it.

But I was up there with my friend so he and I went and sat at a $3/$6 game and started playing with me getting up about every 20 minutes to go take a peek at the $10/$20 game. I eventually couldn’t sit there and play $3/$6 anymore…and anyone who has ever played $3/$6 I’m sure knows the reason why. So I got on the $10/$20 list and in about 30 minutes I went from $3/$6 to my name being called for $10/$20, ATM, cashier for chips, and I was in the game. Well the players in that game were exactly as I had hoped and the next thing I knew I was up $600 in about 2 hours and I got up and left happy and satisfied.

So after doing really well that Saturday, I went back on Monday night after I got off of work. They only thing they had going that night was a $3/$6 and a $100-$300 buy in no limit with $2/$5 blinds. Well I had to wait to get into the NL game and played $3/$6 in the meantime while waiting. After about 30 minutes or so, I got up and left that game being so upset and frustrated that I have officially retired from $3/$6 Texas Hold’em (live games that is). It is impossible to beat a table full of eight TV players. That game might as well be played having all players throw $18 bucks in the middle, turn up the cards and see who wins. But I eventually got seated in the no limit game and left up about $200 more.

I went back on Tuesday and played $15/$30 and won about $150 or so. But then I realized that game was a lot harder because playing during the weekdays, I was up there playing with all the regulars who were up there every single day and really knew what they were doing. So I think from now on I’m just going to keep my casino trips limited to the weekend…which leads to the NL game I played last Saturday the 19th.

It was the same kind of format as earlier in the week; $100-$300 buy-in with $2/$5 blinds. There was already a main game going and the poker room manager called a new list to start a feeder table into that main game. Well I was on the feeder table for about 30 or so minutes and up around 45 bucks until they called me over to the main game where the fun began. While I was sitting at the feeder game, I got up for a while and ran into a guy I knew casually from playing games together up there. He said that he was watching the main game for a while and said that it was really crazy; people going all-in every other hand. So needless to say I was thankfully aware of that before I got over there. And about 5 hands into the game, I was sitting there with pocket 9’s in about a 6 way pot looking at a K97 rainbow flop. The guy in second position bet $25 and one guy behind him called. I raise it to $125 and what comes next…original better asks us both how much we have left and says, “Ok, I’m all-in.” I called and was really glad to see him turn over pocket 7’s, set over set. That hand took me from around $335 to $700ish in about 15 min at my new table.

I played at that table for several more hours and ended up leaving up around $900. My goal towards the end of the night was to get to $1000 but there at the end of my night I was sitting there with about $1400 in front of me and got check raised on the river by a guy with $70 bucks in front of him. At that point in the night, they had moved several people over from the feeder table with less than $100 and I didn’t have any opponents left that I could have really won anything significant off of. So I called it a night, tipped the dealers, went to the cashier, cashed out $1380 and went home.

I have had a phenomenal week and a half at my limits and hope to be able to keep it up in the future now that I have some work paychecks coming in and am building a bankroll through playing. I just recently graduated from college so a lot of my money recently has been going to paying off old debts. That’s why I had to take the big layoff for a couple of weeks there, but hopefully as that debt starts to go down my wins will continue to keep going up up and up. I’d imagine for the next couple of weekends however you can find me at Ameristar or Harrah’s up in North Kansas City. Hope all of you are doing well and as always, feel free to say hi to me at the tables or shoot me an email at Hogan24poker@hotmail.com. Good Luck All!!
</READMORE>