Canterbury Park and Other Locales

I spent last week in Minneapolis and was able to spend some time at the Canterbury Park poker room.  I have been there once before and I was looking forward to going back.  I was hoping that my coworker Steve could also come with me but he wasn’t able to make it.

I wrote earlier about how the typical Foxwoods player was sort of the stereotype of the East Coast, badda-boom, badda-bing guy.  Well, the Canterbury player was just as much the stereotype of the northern Plains folk:  Really friendly, cheerful, talkative, and with an accent so thick that I could almost tell you a player’s address as soon as they started speaking.  I really had a lot of fun playing there.

Even the jokes at the table were more tame!  Here’s one that I got quite a kick out of:

This lady goes to the grocery store to buy some groceries.  She finished shopping and goes to the cashier to check out.  After she puts all her stuff on the conveyor belt, this guy comes up behind her to stand in line.  He looks at what she is buying and says, “Well, I can tell that you are single.”  The woman is quite surprised.  She looks at her purchases – milk, eggs, bread, that kind of thing, nothing out of the ordinary – and she can’t tell what he is seeing.  So she says, “Yes, I am single, but how could you tell?”  The guy says, “’Cause you’re ugly.”

I mostly played $8/$16 limit.  They were running a lot of Sit-n-Go’s the day I was there, and I kept wanting to play one, but the cash game was just too juicy to leave.  It was surprising how quickly the players at that level became more cautious once they saw how I was playing.  It was pretty much like a light switch clicked on about twenty minutes after I sat down.

I have some more work travel coming up, and by coincidence, they are to places that have nearby poker rooms:  Spokane (Northern Quest) and Kansas City (Ameristar, Harrah’s, etc.).  I may be heading out to New York City next month, and if so I may see whether or not I can extend a day or two and drive down to Atlantic City.  I did that once and really had fun there.  And then I am going to Pendleton, Oregon next month for a sort of vacation.  There is a big tournament playing there.

Meanwhile, I got invited to a cash game at my friend Thom in Burien’s house last night.  I was glad that I was going to be in town to play it, as much as I have been on the road lately.  It was really a lot of fun to play there, even though the stakes were lower than what I usually play (specifically, .10/.25).  Unfortunately, I nearly tripled up in only about three and a half hours of playing.  I was merciless at the table, pretty much stomping everybody except for Thom (who is a very good player) and Kim (who I never really had a hand against).  So now I don’t know whether they will want me to come back!  I guess I just can’t keep myself from going for the jugular whenever I see two cards in front of me.

I played one really big hand like a complete donkey and sucked out, felting one guy who deserved better.  I had pocket Aces, and my opponent turned the flush.  Now, I had a read on this guy that was so solid he may have well been playing his cards face up.  I knew he had that flush.  He (properly) went all-in, a huge overbet to the pot.  With the nut flush redraw, I called.  My 15% chance of grabbing another Spade came in, and I took all of the chips.  All I could do was apologize because it was such a pathetic play.

So why did I call the bet when I knew I was so far behind?  I guess for a few reasons, none of which I can really be proud of (and some of which aren’t even very good reasons):

•     I wanted to throw out an image of being kind of a goofball of a player.  I do that sometimes, usually early in a game, to mess with my opponents’ judgment of what kind of player I am. Sometimes it even pays off.
•     If I won, I could maybe put my opponent on tilt, and maybe a few other players too, and then tighten up and rake in the rewards.
•     I felt that I was a better player than most of my opponents, so if I lost a pot I could easily win it back by grinding the rest of the night.

Anyhow, I was pretty embarrassed at how the hand ended up, so for the rest of the night I played a lot tighter . . . and made even more money, although at least in a more respectable way.