"Ashley Revell and the Plaza Poker room during the WSOP"

The Plaza has a nice poker room in that they are fairly liberal with food comps and they were far enough from Binions that the wait for a table was under an hour. The players there are generally somewhat serious, as they would have to be to be able to find this somewhat out of the way room, so it's not easy money (unlike say, the Excalibur), but the people are friendly and I enjoyed playing there. The night before, my friend had made some good cash out of some very loose players and I was hopeful to follow in his footsteps. On the other hand, I was feeling a bit low for having lost $200 plus a couple nights before, easily my biggest poker loss to date, so I was more hoping not to lose than to win. Not the right way to go into a no limit game.

The guy to my left at the Plaza poker room no limit table was English and was very aggressive. I asked him if he was there for the WSOP and he said something in a very thick accent that I didn't entirely understand, but I think the gist was that he was a pretty accomplished player. My strategy for no limit games is often to see cheap flops and trap, but this guy was constantly raising the flops such that my $2 calls were quickly folded. I believe I went down to $50 without even seeing a showdown. Perhaps I won one hand where I flopped top pair, bet and then everyone folded (+$10)....that was cancelled out by another time where I did the same thing, was reraised and then folded. I also had one notable hand where I had K8s and the top card on the flop was an 8 (no flush draws). The man to my left bet $10 and I thought about it before folding...in hindsight, if I wasn't prepared to call that, I really shouldn't have been playing.

2 kids sat down, along with a college friend of mine, and the Plaza game got more fun for me and I loosened up a bit. I still wasn't hitting any flops and hardly getting any cards to even call the blinds with. And the guy to my left was becoming a real problem as he knew that if he raised $7, I would fold most any hand. FINALLY, I got KK and raised it $10. 2 people called (not the guy to my left) and then a 3rd person made it $100. Unfortunately, I only had $30 at the time and so only won $50 when my KK beat his QQ. Notable that 2 aces fell on the flop so the guy really did me a favor by raising as surely one of the other 2 people had an ace and I would have lost another pot. It turns out that this kid actually was a current student of my college (Columbia) and it was fun hearing him talk about goings on at Columbia like the attempts by Columbia graduate students to form a union. They were there to root on their friend, Daniel Feldman?, who had won a spot in the World Series of Poker via a Partypoker.com satellite. Him and his friend definitely made it more interesting and he won some daring pots.

From that point on, my stake fluctuated from $25 to $75, finally settling on $52 when I left. If I think about all the tips I gave dealers and cocktail waitresses plus the rake, I bet in a home game, I would actually have had $80 or so....but I didn't play all that well and I could easily have lost all my money. For example, on one hand I had JJ and got one caller on my $10 raise. I hit another J on the flop and got too much into trapping, almost letting the guy catch an open ended straight draw. We checked the flop and I made a lame $10 bet on the turn. He didn't call my all-in bet on the river and wouldn't have unless he'd hit the straight...he might have called it on the turn though since I didn't have much money....but it was stupid for me to let him draw for cheap. Another hand, I had 59 and saw the flop as the big blind. 2 9s came and I checked the guy on the button raised $10. I reraised all in and he folded. That was a pretty good play as he was pretty tight and might have folded something as good as J9, thinking I had a better kicker....but he could easily have had a 9, called, and beaten me. I doubled one more time through the Columbia kid, who didn't really mind as he was making a killing on poker and craps that day anyways, so my hands were a tiny dent. Wish I remembered the hand.

I kept wanting to leave and eat, but new interesting players kept coming. There was one guy who came and pulled wads of hundreds out of his pocket to have $8000 behind, even though the average stack at the table was around $150. He was a good natured and amusing fellow who strangely didn't really bet that much and claimed that he always told the truth about his hands (yeah, right!). Even more notable was that Ashley Revell sat at my table (http://www.onlinecasinoreports.com/news_show.asp?id=521), the man who got famous by putting his life savings on red in a British casino. He was a fun player who raised a lot, something I didn't mind since he was on my right. He actually bankrupted my college friend when my friend made only a modest preflop raise with AK which Ashley called with K4. The flop came K48 and they both checked. Then a Jack came and my friend bet half his stack trying to prevent a straight (AQ?). My friend had a reputation as a tight player, so Ashley had to think, but he eventually made the right call and reraised him all in. In hindsight, if my friend had gone all in to start, Ashley probably wouldn't have called...but that's the beauty of hindsight. Still, if you're going to go bust, it's nice to do it to someone semi-famous...:)

In all, I definitely got my moneys worth from the table, especially when you include all the drinks and the coffee shop comp we got from the Plaza. The only unfortunate incident was when one man got all beligerent when Mr. Revell didn't flip over his cards on his all in. It's fine to want to see called cards, but the guy decided to phrase things in the ugly "I don't know where you're from but this is how we do it in the USA" kind of way....and we wonder why foreigners don't like us? That's the kind of "Patriotism" we don't need. Incidentally, Ashley said he was boning up for his spot in the 2nd group of the World Series of Poker...guess he's got the gambling bug...:) He's a nice guy and I wish him the best of luck.

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