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My Trip To Hollywood Park Casino


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This post has been inspired by the "Trip Reports" that I really enjoy reading at work. Also the Jackpot report. I know, I'm a newb... I've been lurking for a while now. Anyways...I'm in a long distance relationship so my poker is usually played on weeknights while my weekends are spent in Phoenix with my girl, who likes Bingo but hates poker...you get the picture.This past weekend I stayed in Los Angeles because I have a baseball game. I was excited because I knew this meant I could spend some quality hours on Saturday playing poker. I showed up to Hollywood Park Casino at 9:30 am (yes, I really went that early. I woke up at 8 am to go to Nike Town and get some shoes that were released).My starting game of choice was the $100 max buy-in with ridiculous blinds of $2-$3, some sh!t that can only be pulled off in L.A.Well when I got there I sat down at a table that was about to break--I made it five-handed. The table was happy to see new blood as they had been playing all night long and probably four out of the five were dozing off in between hands. The player to my left was a guy probably 75 years old who played about 2% of his hands and always raised to $20 when he had something. I probably wouldn't even call him with QQ. He slept in between hands to the point where the dealer threw the "Out" button at him and told him he would wake him up in a few circuits. When he finally woke up, he reminsced about the good old days when players dealt to each other (before the casino started collecting jackpot drops) and lowball was the game of choice. I never tangled with him.In the first hour I played tight, as I usually do before my dumb a$s starts loosening up. I never look at my cards until it is my turn to act. I'm in the small blind and a middle position raises it to $15. One guy calls and the button goes all in for about $85. I look at my cards and am pleasantly surprised to see AA. I move all-in for about $90 also and the other two players fold. Aces hold and I've doubled up. Very next circuit I'm in the small blind again. UTG raises to $15 and one self-proclaimed gambler calls. This is a guy who I believe is Russian, wearing a skin-tight spandex shirt with man boobs and looks like he was one of the terrorists in Die Hard. He's got a lively spirit though and has repeatedly told the table he is a gambler. So he calls and I look at my cards and good god almighty the kid has AA again. I raise it to $50, UTG goes all-in for about $100 and Russian says "What the hell I'm here to play" and goes all-in for $85. I show my cards before the flop, river comes and both players muck without showing. Now I'm at at about $540 or so. This is when it all goes to hell. There is a player that I've played with regularly at "The Park." He's an americanized Indian guy about 25 who loves to side bet with me because he feels it puts me on tilt. So he sees me at the table and sits down. He immediately asks the old sleeper on my left if he can trade seats so we can side bet (which by the way is not allowed by the casino). The sleeper refuses and goes back to sleep. About 30 minutes later the sleeper is called for the stud game and leaves. The guy on my right, who is an old moron who has been trying to convince me to leave the cards alone before it is too late (age wise) says he'll give me $10 to trade seats. Instead of trading seats, I take the side betters seat to get on his left (seat 4), side better takes old sleeper's seat (seat 3) and preacher takes my seat (seat 2). I have no idea why I got out of my seat, definitely a huge mistake. Immediately side better tries to get me to bet him. I tell him "Nah man I'm not doing that (crap) today, it's bad luck for me every time." But he convinces me to make a few $5 bets on who will win the next hand (this is what we always do). When we do this, it always causes either one of us to start raising with marginal hands like J-10, Q-10, etc. just to try and win the pot pre-flop so we win the side bet. I get crap cards and he wins two bets in a row. Then I tell him let's bet on more random stuff like card colors, etc. He says "No, that takes no skill. Winning pots takes skill maaaan." So my response to this was "Okay, it's 12 pm right now, let's bet $20 on who will win more money by 1 pm." We agree on 12:30 pm. The first hand after this bet is made, I pick up JJ UTG. I smooth call the BB as Preacher has established himself as someone that raises 50% of the hands. The button makes it $15 and Preacher calls. I sense a lot of weakness from the raiser and I know Preacher has nothing as usual. So I move all-in to isolate the raiser (who has about $85). Raiser thinks for a while and goes all-in. Preacher folds. Raiser calls with AsJs and of course flops an Ace, I lose about $100. So now I'm down $100 in this piece of sh!t side bet. Next hand I have Qd10d and I raise to $10 to try and build a pot. Pot gets to about $40 pre-flop and the flop comes two diamonds. Some guy bets the whole way and I donk off another $80 trying to catch the flush. Now I'm down to about $300 and pissed at myself for ever getting into the bet. I keep telling myself "I would have played the Jacks the same way, he just hit the three-outer." blah blah. Anyways I lose most of my stack due to this side bet and end up having to give him the $20 on top of it. He leaves the table for some other table. As soon as he leaves, I get KK on the button. UTG raises to $20, I re-raise all-in to about $150 and he calls, with AA. The flop comes AKQ and the whole table starts yelling "Jackpot" which did not hit and we had to catch the case K to hit the Jackpot, which was 17k at the time, plus the double jackpot light was on so it would have been 34k. Obviously we did not hit it and I go bust. I rebuy.Ten minutes later -- I kid you not -- I hear a guy yell "You ****ing idiot, you just made the biggest mistake of your life!!" So I look over at this other table and as soon as I look, the whole table erupts in cheers yelling jackpot and jumping around like crazy. I go over there and who hit the low hand in the jackpot? Side better. What a b@stard. He flips QQ, other player flips Ad10d on a board of AA6A4 and they win the jackpot, which was not double anymore. So on top of my $30, side better wins about 8.5k for 50% of the JP with low hand. I end up leaving the table and on my way to the cashier see someone I know so I struck a conversation and three minutes into it I hear another round of screams and commmotion coming from..... the table I just left. I look over and some drunk piece of **** (2 pm) is in my table, at my seat giving drunken high fives to everyone yelling "I wasn't even gonna call!" So I go over there and they guy that sat down in my seat had Qh10h on a board of KsAhJhKh10h (royal flush vs. quads) against KK. So the seat that I was sitting in for five hours hit the jackpot also and I think I will never side bet again.Luckily, I have turned my $40 freebie from party poker into $360 in the last two nights. Peace..

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wow, very well written. unfortunate that you missed on those jackpots. sidebetter could've tossed you a couple greens after winning $8K, but such is life. next time give him a kick in the nads.good writeup though.

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Where do you play ball sir?
Thanks for the comments everyone...I play ball here in the greater L.A. area in an adult league called VABL. ( vabl.com ) I'm a washed up ball player now. I also play in a few basketball leagues. Do you play ball in L.A.?
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Thanks for the comments everyone...I play ball here in the greater L.A. area in an adult league called VABL. ( vabl.com ) I'm a washed up ball player now. I also play in a few basketball leagues. Do you play ball in L.A.?
****, hell no man. I play competetivie SLOW PITCH SOFTBALL!! :D:club:
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This is a guy who I believe is Russian, wearing a skin-tight spandex shirt with man boobs and looks like he was one of the terrorists in Die Hard.
I am not sure why (probably because the word boobs is in it) but this was my favorite part.Excellent write up.thanks
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my weekends are spent in Phoenix with my girl, who likes Bingo but hates poker...you get the picture. You definitely had a better weekend that usual I would say :club: Nice report, always go with your gut and just say no to side bets!! Good luck
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PC-Nice read. Hollywood is such a dump these days. Gl in the future.I play all over LA. Maybe I'll see ya someday.BTW- The $400 NL game at Hollywood is much juicier!!!!!
TP -- The $400 game at HP is incredibly juicy, but unfortunately my bankroll doesn't allow me to play in that game yet. Those guys are extremely crazy though. My friend started on a $100 table, parlayed it to the $200 and then to the $400 and won over 3k on the $400 in a short amount of time. I've thought about doing the same just for the hell of it. But I hate losing a couple buy ins and then having to leave the table just when I feel like I know the players.Where do you usually play?
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