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Caribbean Poker Classic 2008; cash game nightmare

Wednesday, December 17th, 2008 | Mark | Caribbean Poker Classic 2008

This article is a part of the Caribbean Poker Classic 2008 series. Follow the link to read more about how I got to go on the trip in the first place.

Roughly 5 short hours after my 7th place finish in the 400$ tournament, Artur and I were once again back on tourist duty. This time our proud ship had dropped its anchor just outside Charlotte Amalie, the capital of St. Thomas, one of the US virgin islands. Funny thing about St. Thomas is that it was a Danish colony from 1666 to 1917 where it was sold to the US together with Saint John and Saint Croix for 25000000$. Due to its Danish history, many of the street names in Charlotte Amalie were similar to street names in Copenhagen, which is were I live now.

After conferring with my trusted Lonely Planet we decided to spend the day on Magens Bay, voted one of the top 10 beaches in the world on several occasions. Turned out to be a great choice. We found a nice empty spot at the far end of the beach with nice snorkeling and a great view of rock faces densely covered with vegetation and Pelicans fishing the waters. On the way back to the ship Artur physically dragged me into Hooters because for some reason he enjoys watching babes in skimpy outfits. Crazy Dane! Below are some pictures from our St. Thomas excursion.

 

 

 Cool cash!

 Artur on Magens Bay

 

Rear view of a big ass fish…scared the hell out of me the first time I saw it.

Chilling

Best of Hooters

 

Scary poker contant below, parental advisory recommended!

I decided to spend some of my winnings from the tournament on some cash game action. The 1/2$ games in the poker room were pretty juicy. Straddling and restraddling was allowed which in some cases meant that the 1/2$ tables were more like 2/4$ or 4/8$ tables. In addition to this take semi drunk poker players with large egos and you get the general picture. Artur and I formulated our own little cash game project and I donated 120$ a head for starting capital. The plan was pretty simple….make money:-)

Only problem as I was soon to discover: I seriously suck at playing cash games. On top of this I was amazingly card dead. During my first 2,5 hour session my best two hands were 44 and AQ. The lack of playable hands turned me into a pathetic calling station. I was calling raises with QJ unsuited, K9 and an especially great call of 6xBB with 44 in early position. I raised once with AQ but folded after a raise and a re-raise behind me. I ended up busting out with a terribly played K9 (not my best moment). Luckily Artur doubled his stack to 250$ which meant I hadn’t lost any money. Thanks Artur!

Strongly motivated to do better on my part, we continued the cash game project the following night. Again I experienced massive card death. My only playable hand for 3 hours was pocket 7’s which I folded to a raise. Blinded down from 120$ to 51$ I experience a temporary brain meltdown which convinced me that going all in preflop in an unraised pot in middle position with 89 suited was a good idea. My mind was in tournament games and M values which is just plain old stupid when you are sitting in a cash game. I get called by KK and lose my stack. In a fit of rage I returned to our suite and tossed an orange as far as I could over the railings. That helped!. Kicking the chairs around on our balcony also helped a lot.

I wanted to revenge my bad play so I allocated a final 140$ to play some solid cash game. I play a bit better but lose half my stack in a bluffing attempt. Double up a bit later with KJ against 55 but end up losing it all in an awful anticlimax of my poker adventures. I receive AQ UTG and throw a 25$ chip into the middle. Unfortunately I had forgotten that you have to either announce a raise or throw in at least two chips. Throwing in a single chip counts as a call. I was bummed out to see several calls all around. The flop was Q63 and I end up all in against the button who had called preflop with Q6 due to great pot odds. With that hand my cash game adventures were over. Artur actually managed to make quite a nice profit that night but for good reasons he didn’t feel like continuing the cash game project with me. We decided that he could keep his winnings.

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Tags: Caribbean Poker Classic 2008

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