The Bicycle Club

Well I was able to squeeze in one day of poker while on a family vacation out to L.A. In previous trips, I have blogged about trips to both Commerce and Hawaiian Gardens. This time we went to another famous L.A. poker house, The Bicycle Club.

My BIL (Brother in law) and I decided to hit up the 1pm tournament, named the After-Nooner. They got about 140 players or so, and the buyin was a modest 40 bucks. They gave you 2000 starting chips, and the structure was fast, with levels being 20 min long.

Sadly, I was completely card dead the entire time I was in. I busted somewhere in the middle of the pack, where I pushed AQ into Tens, and lost the flip. By this time, I was down to 1500 chips, and the ante's had kicked in at the 100/200 level. Of course, the play was quite superb, as seems to always be the case in Live tournament poker. One thing that did stand out, was the amount of 3 betting that was going on. It seemed to me that this was alot more prevelant than in past visits to L.A. poker rooms, and even some shove 4 bets as well. So the aggression factor was definitely on the rise.

At one point, a big stack came to our table, and sat down in the 6 seat. I was in the 4, and a really huge donk was in the 3. Well in about 3 hands, the donk had all of the big stacks chips but a few hundred. It was donk power at it's finest. In the first hand, Donk calls a 3x raise from an UTG raiser and so does big stack who was in the BB. Flop comes A36. UTG pots, Donk flats and so does BB. Turn comes an offsuit 7. UTG bets 3/4 pot, Donk Calls, Big Stack calls. River is an offsuit 8. UTG Bets, Donk shoves, Big stack tanks, and finally calls, UTG folds. Donk has T9....big stack as A7. Nice hands.

Very next hand.....Donk opens 3x. Only Big stack (now medium stack) calls. Flop comes A35 all hearts. Big Stack leads for pot, Donk calls. Turn is a blank. Big stack shoves, Donk does his best impersonation of Hellmuth as he sloppily shoves his chips in, and declares, 'Nuts'. Yup, he had 24 of hearts and had flopped the straight flush. Live poker is Rigged!

Amazingly, the Big Stack, who only had a few hundred chips left, somehow made the final table. I don't know where he ended, but he must have been paid back by the poker gods, in a big way. My BIL cashed, so it wasn't a complete waste of time for him, as he got the bottom pay out of 45 smackeroo's.

While he was still in the tournament, the Bike started up $60 Sit n goes. Never had seen that at a live poker house, except for satty's. Well, I took the last seat in one, and on the very first hand I got dealt QQ. I remember thinking about how card dead I was in the tournament, and now I get QQ on the first hand. Well apparently the poker gods were paying me back too. I got dealt QQ twice, KK, AK, TT, JJ all in the first 10-15 hands. Needless to say, I wound up busting everyone at the table, and won the thing about as effortless as I ever have. The one big hand where I busted 3 players in one shot, was with QQ. They had AK, AK and TT, and all the money went in on the flop. Mind you, we started with 500 chips, so if you got in on a raise pot, you were pretty much committed. Sadly, it was the last Sit N go, as the tournament was winding down. I guess they only run those, to quench the appetite of those early busters from the tournament, and get some more $$$'s obviously.

After BIL busted, we went over and played a little 3/5 cash game. To say this was a good game, would be an understatement. AGAIN, SADLY, I was dealt every possible assortment of trash there is to be had in Holdem. So I had to sit there and watch as 3 very live 'pescaditos' were giving there $$$ away. My BIL was able to cash in nicely, hitting a flush and flopping a straight and getting paid off each time. To give you an idea how good this table was, there was a guy who was CALLING $150+ river bets with ACE HIGH!!! It was unreal to say the least. The only hand I was dealt to speak of, was when I called an Asian women's preflop raise with AQ. Flop came Q high, which in this game should have been the nuts, but she sadly had KK, but with only 40 bucks left in her stack, I wasn't going anywhere, and proceeded to donate to her stack. So after all was said and done, I came out a $15 net winner! Hey, a win is a win, right? ;-) My BIL did much better, and left a very happy camper, being up 3 or 4 bills.

Given both BIL and I are responsible Dads, we decided to call it a night early, and headed home, back to the little ones and the Mrs's, who had been very cool about giving us the day to go out and play! We are a couple of really lucky Dad's!

2BA