Ameristar Casino

So I had some free time yesterday and I decided to spend it by trying out the Ameristar Casino in North Kansas City's Poker Room. Compared to the Harrahs room that I played in this past October, this place was really nice. 15 tables all nicely spread out throughout the room, friendly staff and good floormen all contributed to a nice atmosphere. The chairs were by far the most comfortable chairs I have ever sat in at a poker table. They were leather, reclined quite a bit and the height was fully adjustable on each chair.

They had several limit games and two NL games running, both with $2/5 blinds and a max buy-in of $300. Missouri has a law that no player can lose more than $500 an hour, so all chips a player purchases are swiped on their player card and must be done at the cashier, not at the table. I bought $300 of chips and took my seat after a short wait on the waiting list.

My very first hand I got KQo in MP. It was folded to me and I raised it up to $20 to potentially get credit for a total newbie who is here to have a good time. Because I also look so young, people who do not know generally do not give me credit for knowing what I am doing. When I am in Vegas, I will try to play this out a little bit more and experiment with some (intentional) amateur mistakes when I first sit down at a table. Back to the hand: the button calls and the BB raises to $60, I lay it down.

About 5 hands later, I am sitting on the button and six players limp to me. I look down at AA and raise it to $30. The SB contemplates and then says, "Make it $100." Internally I'm thanking him for making my life so easy, externally I am trying not to give off a reaction. All the limpers fold and I think for a couple seconds before declaring myself all-in. He says to me, "This is the worst call ever. I call." He shows AKo, I flip over my AA and there is over $600 in the pot. The flop comes 245. Turn 6. River 3. Split pot. It would have been such a nice start...

I take down a few smaller pots with hands like AQ, JJ, 67s and T9o, meanwhile building my stack slowly but surely up to around $500. I was then moved to the other table (the main game). As it turns out, the game I was in only acts as a feeder game to the main game. The main game looked a lot tighter than my table, but apparently I had no choice.

At the new table the first hand I played was TT, which I raised to $25 after one limper. I got two callers and saw a flop of JT3. I bet out $40, which was called by one player on a short stack. The turn came down an 8. I bet his last $60, he called and very proudly displayed Q9 for the straight. Certainly an interesting way to manage his stack and ignore all forms of pot odds, but hey, it's his money to spend. Unfortunately for him, the dealer whipped me out another J on the river for a full house.

A couple orbits later I had 87o in my BB and three players limped in front of me. I checked and saw a flop of 69J, giving me eight outs to a straight. The SB bet out $20 and I raised it to $60, trying to take the pot down right there. Everyone folded it back to him and he called. The turn came another 6 and he checked it to me. That did not change the situation much for me and I didn't think he was going to fold to a bet, so I checked behind. The river came down a K and he led out for $50. I thought that bet was kind of weak and seemed like a blocker bet. That King could be a good scare card for him, so I decided to raise it up to $150 on a stone cold bluff. He thought for a long while before laying it down. He later told me he had J9, not sure if I believe him.

I then went card dead for a good three hours before deciding to call it a night at around 1:30am. I played for around six hours and make a total profit of $380. At this point I am happy about any kind of profit, so this certainly was alright for me.

Other than that, I have just being doing some Xmas errands around town. In recent gambling news, Harrahs was bought out for $16.7 billion, Foxwoods is going to be building a new casino in Philadelphia and 888 founder Avi Shaked is offering Palestine $1 billion if they accept a peace offer by Isreal.