I told Steve I would blog about Table Mountain. The big picture of it is that it took me eight hours to lose one hundred dollars. I think the eight hours is an important stat so you can know that I didn't just gamble crazy money away. Here are the thoughts on Table Mountain...and whether or not I think it is worth a trip down to Fresno.

THE ENVIRONMENT

We didn't start playing until around 11:30 to 12:00 it seemed. We didn't get there until late since we waited for my family who was getting back from a Bulldog game and working at Tomos. The casino is fairly close and easy to get to. We had to travel the freeway for about 5 minutes and then get on another road that took us pretty far from the freeway. You turn a corner and there it is. First impressions was that it was cold as fuck. But the casino turned out to be relatively nice. I definetely wouldn't but it on par with Cache Creek, but it was fairly huge. Now for the bad part, I didn't really seem to mind the smoke at Cache Creek, but Table is pretty bad. A assload of slots and other card games. My dad and I made our way to the Pokerroom.

THE ENVIRONMENT PART 2

Did I say pokerroom? I meant to say poker cubicle. No matter. How ghetto is this. You sign your own name on the board. Perhaps everywhere else does this, but my spoiled ass always has some asian guy who can't spell Brendan remotely close. The games they had running were as low as they come. Well that is somewhat exaggerated, but I was hoping they were running a 4-8 game. The tables if I remember correctly...6 running 2/4, 3 running 3/6 kill, 1 running 6/12 kill. Not exactly my cup of tea, but what better way to check out 6-12 swings than by playing a 3/6 kill. I opted for that. In the meantime I signed on for 2/4 since 3/6 seemed to be moving very slow.

2/4

Within 15 minutes of sitting at 2/4 I was already up around 25 bucks. It is amazing how bad people play poker. You can believe me or not, but these guys only bet when they had it. So if it came down to check, check, check to me...I bet and I win. Amazing. After looking back on it I should have stayed at 2/4, but 3/6 was calling my name so I asked for a rack and got up.

3/6 KILL

Now I don't want any of you thinking I am a bad poker player so I'm going to just lay it out on the table. I'm not whining, and I have no excuses. I honestly have no regrets with the way I played and always got my money in with the best of it. With that being said, nothing I am going to tell you right now is exaggerated. I know my memory isn't the best, but I was paying very, very close attention to this table...

This was the best table I have ever seen EVER. Online, live, different card rooms, playing against John Ho (haha)...without a doubt the best table I have ever seen. So how did I lose money and not come up? I will honestly say that someone like Jonathan probably would have made around 300-400 bucks in that eight hour session. So why not me?

To put it simply, I have never been drawn out on so many times. I'm not sure exactly what the odds are and Jonathan will probably correct me, but in four hands, COUNT 'EM...FOUR, people stayed in with no pair on the flop. I bet into it figuring out that all four my hands at that point were in the lead. The turn brings some blank card that is still not higher than my holding pair. The river of course brings the same turn card. A 180 to 1 shot I believe (correct if I'm wrong) and in the end they all had a set. Well I lost money that way.

There was this one girl who everyone gave credit for being a good player. I will say that being lucky does make you a good player. I'm not going to criticize her at the table, but I will here. At the peak I saw that she had about 600 dollars in chips in front of her. You must be thinking, "wow, what a player." Well I saw her get down to about 100 dollars in chips at one point. How did she accumulate that many chips? I swear to god, when she went on her 600 dollar spree, she made nothing but full houses and gutshots. I kept track in my head because it happened so many times. It was truly a site to see. By the end of her spree that got her about 600 dollars in stacks...she had (and I could be off by 1 or 2) made 5 full houses, 6 gutshot straight draws, 5 flushes AFTER she needed a runner, runner.

So she was having a good day. I can't fault her for that. The only problem was that I couldn't get any cards after her luck streak ran out. She dumped 500 dollars to everyone else at the table except me. Truth is after I sit there for a long ass time without a hand to play, I try to make something happen just to keep my mind mentally ready in case a hand comes up. So every 30 minutes I might play a questionable hand to try to make something happen. For the next 6 hours I won 6 pots total. One of them being a KILL pot which kept me in the game. But in the final hour and a half or so I started getting cards and then getting drawn out on.

The session was brutal. Was I ever on tilt. Nah. I was more angry at the fact that it was such a good table with everyone gambling like crazy and I couldn't get a decent run of cards to take advantage of them. I could go ahead and say that I only lost one hundred, but looking back on it I can honestly say that I probably lost about 300-400 dollars...or the oppurtunity anyway. It hurt.

I told my dad who actually staked me the money (and he reassured me he would do it again in which actually means a lot to me) that at a certain point I'm sure I would have gotten up and left if I was at Garden or Bay, but it has been a while since I have been frustrated at the card table so I stayed at that table to test my tiltability. Well I'm happy to say that I was fine. The people at the table were prime for the taking, but you cannot rely on bluffs if everyone at the table is gambling. In this case you need ammunition. It didn't come to me that night and I'm cool with it. AND yes I believe you can be a bit frustrated (like I was about losing all the action) but not be on tilt.

CONCLUSION

Table Mountain is an alright place. I'm more interested in their other, real cardroom, CLUB ONE. I'm sure there is a button charge there though. Would I say we should all go there for a trip? Well for me the food (TOMOS) is worth it. I wouldn't have gone so late and wouldn't have stayed as long, but like I said we got a late start. I like Cache Creek a million times better since at least their poker area is smoke free. Table Mountain had people smoking next to me which was not pleasant at all. I'm not sure how to spell it, but Chachancee is also right there...okay never fucking mind. I just called Club One down in Fresno and they are strictly a cardroom with some event rooms and shit, AND THEY ALSO DON'T HAVE A FUCKING BUTTON CHARGE. Okay so yes, I do think that we should go to Fresno one of these weekends after hearing about that shit. Tomos then Club One. Fuck me...I'm glad I was smart enough to call to see...so in conclusion, FUCK TABLE MOUNTAIN. Haha.