Garden City

Finally sat down at the spread limit game at Garden City. It's a $100 buy-in, $3-100 spread limit, with $1-3 blinds. I doubled up right quick when AA held up to the river against a sneaky player holding a straight draw. The next few rounds I played tight, stealing 2 hands to keep my stack even. Then, during my big blind, several players limp including the small blind. I check with 65o. Flop comes 554. SB bets I call. Everyone else folds. Turn 4. He pushes $100. I raise all-in (maybe another $85). River blainks. He flips over 94o I rake a shit pile of chips.
I hate to say that I hit and run, but I pretty much did. Chad showed up took one look at the list, which was 30-40 players long and said, "yeah, not gonna happen". So I played a couple more rounds, bought the dude I crippled a couple drinks, and cashed out soon after with 4x buy-in.

Initial impression: This game is definitely beatable. There are some horrendous players. Some think they're tricky, a couple really are. Most are very transparent.
I had the 10 seat. To my left, a mid thirties caucasion guy, a prop player badge. Played solid, aggressive style. Next to him, a young asian guy. Wild hair. He wore three layers of grimy polo shirts, an a funk'dified Tan sweater. He was sweating and grinding his teeth. He played very aggressive usually all-in on the flop. Re-bought twice. Then a dark skinned gentleman; mustache, Oakley sunglasses, and a stoic demeanor. Then a young college looking kid. That is, skinny, light curly hair, argyle sweater. Probably Stanford grad student. A young philipino or islander who was a spitting image of BJ Penn. He started with a big stack but got caught bluffing a couple hands and had about a buy-in left in chips. Then and older white guy. Very friendly nice fellow who played poorly. Then the sneaky player. White, late thirties, stocky, talky. He liked to play low suited connectors hoping to draw. Liked to call out his opponents hands. Then the young hyper-aggressive player to my right. Derrick I think he said. Nice enough guy. Boisterous. Talked it up. He was showing tons of preflop bluff raises. The prop player was itching for a piece.
These guys were decent players. I would try and stay away from the prop player. But for the most part I think I could do good in this game.

In order to win at this game: Play a smart tight-aggressive game, pick on the fish, and stay away from the good players. Pot control will be crucial. Since you're starting with so little chips relative to the blinds, Picking your moments is of the utmost. Remember, big pots with big hands, small pots with small hands.
Picking up on tells will be big. Look for shaking hands, pulsing neck, nervous lookaway, chipglance, weak leads, reaching for chips, reaching to fold.
Advertising will work against good players. Fake a chipglance, when bluffing, fake a chipreach. Watch to see if they are studying you. Fake a pre-muck and raise. DON'T BLUFF AT BAD PLAYERS. Beware a good player calling your raise. Bluff at good players on scary boards. Check-raise more when strong. Choose a time to leave... either +/- $ amount or a certain number of hours. Get up when steaming!

Good luck. (Except for Chad)