Colorado casino poker beat

By Mark Lasser

There can be days when you’re playing well and losing. Heck, there can be weeks, months, even years. Sometimes when you’re losing you have to examine the table and make sure you aren’t out of your league. Other times, you look back and realize you’re playing great poker and getting whupped anyway, and there’s just nothing you can do about it. Such was my July.

So how do you know if you are playing well and losing or if you’re getting outplayed by better players? One way is to examine odds and being true to yourself.

Early in the month I got into one of the new 1-2-100 spread limit Hold’em games at Golden Gulch. I had $100 in chips and $100 in my pocket. After half an hour of folding I look down at “cowboys.” I had about $75 on the table and bumped the big blind from $2 to $15 bucks feeling good about my pair of kings. The table was hyper-aggressive and I felt a re-raise was likely. Sure enough, another player takes it to $30. I push in and he calls with AJ off suit. Flop comes Q-10-K, giving me a set and him a flopped straight. I was about a 2:1 favorite before the flop and he was calling to get even money as a 1:2 dog. I still had 7 outs but they didn’t come. His call with AJ unsuited was horrible if he put me on AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AK or AQ. It wasn’t even a great call if he put me on an under pair. I outplayed him but still lost. Let it go. Deep breath. Exhale.

About 15 minutes later I’m dealt “American Airlines.” I’m thinking I’ll at least get even with these aces and can build some winnings before going home. If I’m lucky, I’ll get three callers. Three players limp in for the two bucks and I bump it only to $10. I just showed the table KK so I wanted to mask some of the strength. Several players after me fold and the guy before the button raises to $30. I push in my entire $100 and he calls turning over 10-10 as if he was 300 percent sure he had the best hand. At this point I’m a 4:1 favorite for even money and he’s the fool. He hits a 10 on the flop and I’m played to the felt.

As I slip away from the table busted, I know I played perfectly. I should have been up several hundred bucks. I should be treating my wife to dinner, flowers and a pedicure. Instead I’m putting a bag of Combos on my credit card for the long drive back through the canyon.

The rest of the month wasn’t much better. Flopping two pair and losing to runner-runner straights and flushes. Making a pair of aces with AK and watching a guy with jacks calling the whole way hit one of his two out on the river. Bumped off two satellites for the Heartland Tour on the button.

So what do you do? Nothing. That’s all you can do. If you’re playing great and getting called when you’re ahead; if you calculate pot odds and make the right bets; if you correctly put your opponents on bupkis and make completion bets that they call and call and call until their low pair turns into two pair, well, you just have to trust it will work out in the long run. At times like these you should hit the ATM. Borrow money from your pals. Do what it takes to stay in the game. What you shouldn’t do is go on tilt. Don’t start loosening up just because your opponents are winning with K5 off suit. It will catch up with them in the long run.

— Mark B. Lasser is a Denver writer and international poker player. He regularly plays in Colorado, Arizona, California and Nevada. His work has appeared in Bikini Magazine, Blue Travel and Warp. Readers can send questions and comments to him at ColoradoPokerMark@comcast.net.