Live Poker Is Hilarious

-- Status Update --
2009 VPPs:	196,507
SNE Pace:	32107 AHEAD
Currently Playing:	Valkyria Chronicles (PS3)

Today was a special day in that it marked my first trip to the casino to play live $1/$2 NL in quite a long time. If it is even possible, live poker is softer than I remember it. My good friend Will and I sat down at a table at the Grey Eagle for a little under 4 hours. Every single player that played with us during that stretch was a fish. Even the better players (whom the dealers indicated were regulars) were terrible. The hands I was involved with were pretty standard, and I ended up +$224 CDN on the session.

Will's night was much more interesting however. We were getting ready to head out, with his stack sitting at around $550 total (similar to mine at the time, we both bought in 150BB deep), playing what was going to be one of our last couple hands. A lady who was unsurprisingly very bad (and a bit of a bitch) straddled, and got a few callers. She had a large stack, a little over 250BB ($500) deep. Will raised it up in MP with 88 to $20 (which after a caller or two would be a small raise for live poker, lol). Lady who straddled reraised to $50, Will called and they took a flop. Flop came 679, two diamonds, and lady checked. Will bet nearly the full pot, $100, and got check-raised all-in by lady with her AA. At this point he's basically priced in to draw to his ten outs (lady had Ad, so the flop equity is actually 63% to 37%). He needed to call ~$350 to win ~$750 in the pot, so with 37% equity this is a +EV call. Obviously, if her three betting range from the straddle is only big pairs, then the play up until the final flop decision is very much -EV, but the decision to call at the final point is a correct one.

Thankfully, Will ended up spiking a ten on the river, and ended the night +~$850 CDN. Not too shabby when a couple online grinders walk into a live game for a few hours and take it for over $1k between the two of them.

After the live poker adventure and some all you can eat sushi followed by new cartoons I did manage to get a quick online session in. Despite only playing a short 4000 hands, I'm excited that March is off to a solid start as my winrate is at 5.5ptBB/100! I'll settle for 2ptBB/100 on the month as a whole.

You may have also noticed that my "currently playing" section in the status update changed from Persona 4 to Valkyria Chronicles. I finished Persona 4, which while not as ridiculously long as its stellar predecessor, still took me a solid 65 hours. It was a very good game, but most definitely not in the same league as Persona 3. I did enjoy Persona 4's murder mystery theme, but it unfortunately lead to a rather anti-climactic end boss/ending. I've since picked up Valkyria chronicles, which won RPGRamer's Game of the Year Award for 2008, and I can already tell why. Not only is it innovative in several areas, it possesses a level of polish that is rarely found in games these days. Hopefully I'll find lots of time to play it over the next couple weeks.