David and I headed down to the ESPN Zone restaurant/bar to watch the Badgers game. The sports book for NY NY is just across from the ESPN Zone so we were able to make our wagers for some of the games prior to the start of the early games. Dan was catching up on some sleep since he got back from the Wynn very late.
The Badgers crushed Purdue at Purdue's place! Woo Hoo! That's a good start to what I was hoping would be another good day. I played solid poker yesterday, felt rested, and was ready to go to war again. Dan, David, and I decided to play at the Venetian's poker room that evening. We made the trek on the Strip to the Venetian, and I got seated at a $1/$2 No-Limit table, and Dan got seated at the table behind me (also $1/$2). David got seated at my table. I was really trying to turn up the intensity so I went into my "mean" mode. I didn't speak once during the first hour and a half at the table other than when I ordered my first drink from the cocktail waitress. I would just stare ahead into nothingness really. If I was in a hand with someone heads-up they just got that same stare at them the whole time. I noticed it was quite difficult for anyone to maintain that stare with me for more than a couple seconds. It was really quite boring and hard to maintain. My chip stack did quite well. I seemed to have an intimidating effect on the table, moving all-in quietly on decent pots and then just waiting for people to fold. After the initial hour and a half I had worked my stack to over $400 from the original buy-in of $100, so I decided to completely change it up and I got chatty.
This seemed to work well, too, as some of the players who I had gotten involved with pots were now trying to get in any pot I played. I was still playing pretty tight though. At one point we got a player at our table that I think was waiting for a higher limit game to open up that decided to raise every hand to $20 or $25 preflop. He would then just move in after the flop if he got any callers. He was talking trash, but I wasn't getting any cards at the moment. So, I did the one thing that I know how to do well when I'm not getting into pots with a player...I put him on full tilt, baby. This player, let's call him Abdul since I don't know what it was but he looked like he could be an Abdul, raises a pot and gets called by two players. Now, after his being at the table 10 minutes I think a couple players had figured out his game and were waiting for him to pull his crap. One of the players from this table that I thought was pretty decent was in the hand, and when Abdul moved in on the flop this guy promptly calls him. The board had something like K-8-8 on it and the decent player showed his AA right away. Abdul didn't show his cards, but when the turn and river hit he started to muck them. Now, at most cash games if you're dealt in to the hand you can request to see the cards of any player that has a hand at the showdown, which this was, so I immediately declare before the cards hit the muck "Turn his cards up." This is usually not done as it's considered a breach of etiquette. When it is done, it's almost always done by the other player(s) involved in the showdown, not an outside player. Abdul half jumps out of his chair reaching for his cards saying to the dealer, "Don't show him." This of course is exactly the reaction I want so I sort of half get out of my chair, lean over towards the dealer and quietly say, "I was dealt in to the hand. The hand went to a showdown. You will turn over his cards." The dealer immediately turns over 3-2, showing Abdul's bluff. The fact that he was bluffing wasn't the point. It was getting Abdul rattled that I wanted. Abdul even got the floor person called over about it. It was really unfortunate that I couldn't find a hand that I could make work while he was seated with us. Believe me I tried. Abdul was almost never taking his eyes off me while I had cards the rest of the time he spent with us. Unfortunately for us, his seat opened up about 20-25 minutes after his hand being shown and he left. He was down, but I wanted everything he had.
The rest of the session went without incident, and I did give back some of what I had won, but I walked out of the Venetian up a little over $150. We headed back to the hotel, where we got some rest prior to Sunday's Packer game.
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