UFC & Live Event

It is always cool to get together with some friends to watch UFC and engage in some poker fun. Just played it sort of tight and then raised huge when I got a hand and stole some blinds to get to the cash. Finished 2nd in the first event when I pushed into AA when they doubled blinds to get the game over with.... I never complain when they do this stuff because I know I will cash in the next event (or at least that is the plan!).

By the time of the 2nd event we have the UFC event running which allows a couple well timed steals while the big fights are on! Guys are busy drinking and almost don't want to play anything but premium hands if they can help it. No problem I will put in a nice large raise and sit back and watch the fight and chip up. So that led to me winning the big event of the evening with the larger buyin.

To keep my invite to the next UFC-fish homegame I stuck around and donated to the drunkfeast post game so it doesn't look like I was trying to run away with their cash. By now it is so loose the only move is an all in because most raises are being reraised by a push. Lose a race and my evening was over around 2:30 am.

So +$240 for the night was a good way for me to end the year.

Over one year of rambling... so make this one long!

Hard to believe that I have made 140 posts over the last year about poker and other crap... mostly poker anyways.

Overall not a bad year but it could have been so much better.... going to take a good look at many aspects of my life over the next couple weeks to come up with some solid goals for next year.

That being said I decided yesterday to humble myself to the poker gods and not demand that I win every pot. With that small adjustment to my game and a couple coin flips going my way I am working to turn around an 8 buyin setback. Have to like some of the situations that have been thrown my way over the last week.

Here is the one where I knew I was due to turn things around.

First hand at the table and JsTx in the CO (post from late position a la Doubleas suggestion). Just called a 2.5x bb raise from MP and both blinds call as well. Flop is AxKsQs so nut straight but a flush draw is out there. SB checks, BB leads out with 1/2 pot bet, MP folds, I reraise to new pot amount but willing to let it go if board pairs or flush lands on turn. SB and BB both call. Question is what do they have? I put one on the flush draw and the other on two pair as that is the only reasonable thing they could hold that called the raise preflop. AA, KK and QQ all should have reraised preflop so discounting the fact that anyone has those hands.

Turn is a 3x so good no flush. SB checks, BB bets 1/4 pot, Hero reraises by more than pot and almost enough to put BB all in. SB folds and the river brings a 3x. SB pushes last $5 in the pot and I call.

What does the SB hold? Take a look at where all of us stood on the turn. The bugger had the A3s which is interesting that 3 handed it is even with the set due to the flush draw.


Board: Qs Ah Ks 3c
Dead:
equity (%) win (%) tie (%)
Hand 1: 19.0589 % 19.06% 00.00% { As3s }
Hand 2: 61.8988 % 61.91% 00.00% { JsTh }
Hand 3: 19.0423 % 19.05% 00.00% { AcAd }

Once the BB folds I am a solid 3:1 favorite to win....


Board: Qs Ah Ks 3c
Dead: Ac Ad
equity (%) win (%) tie (%)
Hand 1: 23.8215 % 23.85% 00.00% { As3s }
Hand 2: 76.1785 % 76.26% 00.00% { JsTh }

At least one of the two villians could figure out that my big bets meant that I had the straight. I bet slb would have about 5 pictures of a donkey with this post... for me it is just the start of an evening of poker. Reload put in a note that buddy will chase a draw for his stack and overbet pots against him to get my cash back!

Amazing how another year of getting kicked in the junk is starting to make me somewhat immune to other players bad decisions. Sometimes I throw out a bit of a jab at them for the bad play to piss them off but I am able to keep playing well. None of this of course applys to those situations against a super LAG who is hitting every hand against me. A big part of my downswing was a 3x buyin at one table where AA < KK (all in preflop), KK < AA (all in preflop), KK < AA (all in on a 6 high flop)... all in a matter of minutes. The only thought that goes through a simple minded brain like mine at a moment like that is "Shit that guy has my number!"

Last night I was clearing a bunch of hands for a big bonus I am working on with the Poker Savvy guys when slb mentioned that bloggers were playing NL200. Wow the stakes are getting bigger over time... bigger buyin tournaments and now bigger cash tables. Tried to join the table but had to wait 30 mins to get a seat. ScottMc had one interesting hand against me where I think he put me on AK or AQ and thought I just cbet a whiffed flop. He of course called my preflop raise with position with a one gapper and the post flop situation was like this:


Board: Td 6h 4h
Dead:
equity (%) win (%) tie (%)
Hand 1: 44.6763 % 44.72% 00.00% { 9c9d }
Hand 2: 55.3237 % 55.38% 00.00% { 7h5h }

Now some might say I was weak/tight by cbetting $15 at a $19 pot and then folding when raised to $45. Now I actually bet to get info and got enough of an answer that I was probably behind (good read this time). Now I could have called and then pushed if no flush hits on the turn but the $260 I had in front of me was a good chunk of my FT balance that I removed due to the shitshow with DuggleBogey. Now if we assume that it doesn't give him a hidden straight that is the only way I regain the lead in this hand. He just has too many outs and being a penguin I don't dodge well on land... something about the center of gravity being too low!


Board: Td 6h 4h 2c
Dead:
equity (%) win (%) tie (%)
Hand 1: 65.9091 % 65.91% 00.00% { 9c9d }
Hand 2: 34.0909 % 34.09% 00.00% { 7h5h }

Made about $45 at the blogger table and another $50 at a non blogger NL100 to run my month's cash winnings at FT to approx. $750. Gotta love that but I really have to play another 2,500 raked hands (0.31+ euros) on the B2B network to get a $400 US bonus plus $200 Euros. The players are bad but I have to play mostly 6 max tables which I am not used to yet. If you want to see weak/tight you should play against europeans as they love to see flops and fold to cbets. I think if I did just that I could end up with a positive win rate of 2 bb / 100 over time.

Well if I don't get the chance to post again this year, I hope everyone has a happy new year, close to the people they care about the most. Some of you might find me online mashing buttons and trying to win some cash or at least clearing that bonus.

Wild Night Playing Live

Headed to the live club for some poker goodness last night because Kat said she was going. Managed to move a meeting to a future date so I could be on time and sober for the $40 tournament.

In these tournaments you really need to catch some cards around the 30-45 min mark because there will be a few races to get to the final table. Instead my AQs < A10o and that crippled me. Very next hand QJs < 97o but at least I was short in that one.

The funny thing about playing a tournament and then going right into playing 1/2 NL is that some people don't adjust. Actually the play at the live table was the most action I had ever seen at a table (including online). To fully explain I will have to label a few players:
(Seat number, label, read)
1. Bay St. Buddy (BSB) - slightly loose, ABCish, a little tough to push off of a pot
2. Tough Guy (TG) - likes to raise with position and willing to go to felt to show his manhood
3. Scared Lady (SL)- tight / super weak (does she blog?) who says has been running bad
4. Scared Guy (SG) - tight / super weak (does he blog?) trying to play ABC at a wild table
5. Tournament champ (TC) - loose but had to play tight - won large live event
6. Super Maniac (SM) - Asian super loose, super aggressive ATM looking for action
7. & 8a. Maniac Tricky Guy (MTG) - very loose passive preflop , aggro push monkey post flop who likes to call with low cards
7a. Tight Asian (TA) - smart tight player with the worst seat in the house
8. Calling Station (CS) - dumb calling station who feels lucky sometimes
9. Fearless Guy (FG) - loose player who will float and catches cards
10. Hero (Hero) - all round excellent player who will play super-TAG this evening
11. TAG (TAG) - solid player who respects Hero's raises and is forced to make some tough calls

So we have a very full table with loose guys in the early and mid seats with tight/weak people in between and tight / aggro people at the end of the table. Super maniac decided he was going to give all of us as much action as we could handle!

For the first 3 orbits I don't even play a hand as I was watching raises and reraises all over the table. I finally get to see what SM was raising with and he was going to pay me off. MTG had just busted and bought in short for $50 and raises from MP to $10 and CS calls with his $65 stack. In the BB Hero raises to $50 with AKs to isolate the tilting MTG and get him into a race. He calls and so does CS so when he checks to me on the J high flop I bet $15 to put his ass all in as well. He says he is feeling lucky with his QJo and the turn and river are blanks so he wins a nice pot. That is the hand that proved to me that CS was indeed a calling station and he said he felt lucky. In the end I was lucky to be at a table full of so many losers.

So being a shorter stack I continued to play tight (didn't have cash on me to rebuy fully). SM had just lost a monster pot when his Q high hand got cracked by two pair that he tried to bluff on the turn! Everytime that happened he raised bigger on the next hand especially if he just rebought for more chips. On the BB when he raised to $22 (only a standard 11x bb raise) which was called by MTG as expected. Now with AQo I could just call but that would be weak and my starting hand selection is much tighter so I push while ahead. SM calls with 55 and I win the race with a Q high flop. Now the stack is starting to get back to normal.

Then the rush starts with a flush vs. TC that hit on the river where I flopped bottom pair and nut flush draw and he bet much less than pot and then check called my value bet.

Get pocket 10's UTG and just limp and call the raise to $6. Flop is 883r and the BB leads out for $15. I call along with one other to see the turn. Turn is a beautiful 10 and I try to not look all excited. BB leads out for $30 and I take a bit of time to see if he has an $8. FG is known to bet all streets when he thinks he is ahead and senses weakness. So I just call to see the river which is a blank and he bets out $65. Unlucky for me he folds to my push so I don't get his last 80 or so but still a nice hand.

Overall, just another wild night of playing live poker and winning $260. Darn shame that Kat missed it as Lee sat down at the other table and donked off a couple buy ins.

Poker IQ?!

Did this poker IQ test which was interesting and here were the results:



Poker IQ Score

Your Poker IQ Score of 115 shows how able your mind is in general. Anyone with a Poker IQ Score this high is considered to be of above average intelligence. This score is better than 76.83% of all persons taking this test. Most occupations can be comprehended with a Poker IQ this high. You should be able to handle almost all academic challenges.
You scored higher than your average percentile score in 7 individual ability categories. 3 of these better scores could be called statistically significant and may indicate special abilities, or that you were distracted on those parts of the IQ Test that counted more heavily in the other ability categories.

I must have clicked on the wrong boxes a few times to be considered smart. Sort of like when I was in grade school and I started making a design and next thing I know they are calling me "enhanced".... Bobby would say "Hear that ladies?"

Another Fuel Personality Test

Sweet

Prick- ENTP73% Extraversion, 80% Intuition, 73% Thinking, 40% Judging

People love to hate you, because you love to argue. The strange thing is you probably took that as a compliment. Why, I bet you've already got a witty comeback all lined up ready to throw right back at me.

What you don't realise is that your inane obsession with debating pisses everyone off. Whatever happened to us all trying to get alone? I mean, you're so annoying people disagree with you for the damn sake of it! NOBODY cares about your abundant opinions. Trust me.

Believe it or not, but there's more to life than your expansive knowledge and sharp repertoire. When was the last time you showered? Brushed your teeth?
While you're up in Nevernever land, getting excited over future possibilities and your crazy theories, WE have to put up with your awful stench. I can smell you from here.
Your personality is ideal for that of a future lawyer and because everyone already hates you, you have nothing to lose.

Booyah Swag!

Received a nice parcel in the mail today from Booyah Poker. They sent me a couple hats and a tshirt with their logo on it. Very cool and so far I have to say that they are awesome for building their brand with the players who join. So Canadian's looking for a place to play for some NHL tickets or entry to CPT events join by clicking my banner above.

Tried playing the FT Bad Beat on Cancer event... was kicking ass but couldn't win a race if my life depended on it. Hopefully Garth goes on to place well and cancer gets beat worse than I did this evening.

Final table hammer drop

Got some sleep and wanted to post my final table hammer drop... wish a few bloggers were around to witness... only got a couple screenshots of it that don't do the hand justice. Wait I guess I could post the entire hand history here.





I thought he min bet the flop but it looks like he checked it and I bet out and he folded.

Well time to go cash out of the site since I don't have time to go earn anymore bonus before it expires for me tonight.

Your Player ID: Mungo36
Date and Time: 2006-12-16 20:09:32
Transfer Number: XXXXXXXX
Amount: $3000.00

DuggleBogey they responded to my email to them telling them that the screwed up in how to deal with players. There response was that I sent in my email but not from the email address registered with my account. What a bunch of BS and they should focus on the problem and not on the email address the complaints come from.

Pain into Pleasure?!! 2nd in 3k Guarantee

I am feeling quite good about myself with a solid placing in the 3k Guarantee event on Full Tilt that started last night at 3 am... so with almost no sleep I just wanted to post my results. I really played well at the final table where I started very short and managed to make every hand I play pay off until I took the chip lead.



Just so you get an idea of what the final table was like for me take a look at how the table looked.



The hand that should have ended it... of course a nice K on the turn and buddy is freerolling for 1st!



So I am tired and the baby Guin wants me to read her a book... going to do so feeling a bit better about my game. Funny thing was that this is a pot limit event and I really haven't played much pot limit in the past.

MTT's = PAIN

I have been trying to use my tokens since we can't trust Full Tilt to protect our funds. So signed up for the 11k guaranteed.... convinced the table that I am so loose and crazy when I get called by a guy with an overpair and I had a sooted hammer.

That ends up leading me to another hand with a board of AKK36 and I am holding 67s from MP and bet the flop, checked the turn and 1/2 pot the river hoping it looked like a value bet. The guy to my left calls with Q high and I win the hand.

The crazy painful hand is with me holding AJo in CO-1 with only one limper thus far so I raise it up to 3x bb (didn't want to mind letting it go if reraised). BB and the limper both call. Flop is J34r and it is checked to me and I bet half the pot which is a good %age of their remaining chips. BB calls and I start to worry about an overpair but the limper folds. Turn is an A and since he doesn't have more than a pot sized bet I know we are going to get all in. If he has a set I will be paying it off. He pushes and I insta call to see he has KK and a solid 5% chance to win the hand.... river K and I go from being a top 30 out of 300 left to a short stack. That hand would have put me in the top 10 overall for a good run to the money. Instead I go out 240th after playing some of my best poker (stop laughing now!).

I don't know how you MTT guys handle situations like that day in and day out... at least at the cash tables I can just rebuy and stake out my idiot all day long if I want. Sites like Booyah poker (see banner above) actually allow me to track my players so I can find the fishys so much easier.

Time to call it a week and take the little one to see Santa tonight and get her pic taken. She is excited unlike prior years where the old dude scared her. Tonight you might see me at the cash tables and the 10 pm 25k or whatever just trying to find a big enough donk to out donk me.

Interesting hand...

Talk about someone being able to laydown a hand when they know they are beat. Not even a crying call with a set.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?671391

And I managed to get a double Lemieux (66)but they didn't under the DQB comment afterwards. I liked the hand because I was against a loose aggro player so felt that by betting out I could get him to raise. Then when I got reraised I knew I had him so pushing was the only option.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?671395

Super night at the tables where I ended up approx. $350 plus some bonus money. Probably playing against people that hacked the Full Tilt site and it is such a shame that the site hasn't done something to take care of DuggleBogey yet.

Your Money is NOT SAFE at Full Tilt Poker

Just read DuggleBogey's situation with Full Tilt and it is f'n horrible. Happy to say that I won $75 there last night donking around after my company year end bash. I also cleared another $20 of my bonus but leaving lots of it on the table.

One thing I can say is that I will be taking a good majority of my cash out of that site so if it does get hacked then I won't loose much. Note that I will be updating my Full Tilt holdings from approx. 1,400 to 200 to play the Mookie. For the non-US players looking for a place to park your cash you should try out Booyah Poker. I think I will also be leaning towards changing my password at all the sites I play at and have a new password for sites to post and chat about poker.

How can sites ignore players that actually will give them bad publicity when we are all going to band together to bash them.

Full Tilt is acting so shitty over a few hundred dollars that they could have spent and received nothing but praise from the blogging community. The growth from the US players is starting to go to their heads and next thing they are acting like they are Party Poker.

NL100 Dominance

I haven't focused enough this year on building the bankroll. Updating the figure to the left sure gets me thinking about why you want to play the "A" game when you are at the tables. All I know is that when I sit down with the right frame of mind and a bit of time that I rock the NL100 tables. The problem is I often sit down just to put in the time and not totally into winning some cash.

Last night I didn't have any problem with the game at all. First of all started off the evening by going and watching the Leafs beat Tampa. Then caught the train home right after the game and managed to win about $160 despite losing $90 when my AA < KK all in preflop. I also lost a big hand when a guy hit his 5 outer after pushing all in (shortstack) with 2nd pair after I potted the flop with TPTK. My ability to just roll with the bad beats and continue to play solid poker is one of the keys to my game. People expect you to tilt and are shocked when you just move on to the next hand.

Over the next while I will get a good computer in the house (using my laptop now) where I can 4 table and that should help out a lot. Getting good at using my info from PT to figure out hand ranges, along with being able to mix things up to create an image. I usually like to be considered a guy who is loose enough to float people with any two cards as I get more calls of my big bets on the river.

Thanks to Fuel for his informative posts on overbetting for value which have improved my win rate. Now all I would like is the time to get in a few thousand hands a month... running about 1k hands / month with a 10+ BB / 100 win rate.... not sustainable. Of course if you check my sharkscope numbers you will see were some of the winnings are going! Add to that the -EV blogger events and you have a bit of a leak but well worth the cash.

Backgammon @ Gammon Empire - ReviewMe

This is a sponsored post by ReviewMe.

Backgammon is a game that has been played by many poker greats including Erik Seidel, Gus Hansen, and Stu Ungar. So why don't more of us arm ourselves with similar skill sets to these players?

Probably because we haven't found a site yet that offers us all the tables, guaranteed tournaments that we have grown accustomed to from our poker sites. Now is the time to try out Gammon Empire. Setting up an account is simple and you get $2 for using a valid email address. For those people who don't want to install yet another program on your computer you can always use the lite Java version.

One of the nice features is that players are all ranked so you can really pick a suitable opponent to play against. As a new player I have a grey icon next to my name but watch out for those guys labelled red! I do like the idea that the poker concept of rake is reduced for the top quality players. This site really focuses on making the costs of the game reduce for the high stakes players and the top quality players. Sort of like a built in rakeback program to keep the frequent players playing. Try it now vs. the other 10,000+ players currently on the site.

I did see that the site is currently giving away backgammon boards and you might want to try to get one of those to play live against your friends.

Slump Breaker

Had a great time playing poker with the SNG superstar RikkiDee live at our local club. He of course played great and ended up finishing 2nd while his very sweet young lady managed to get to the final table. The club has a good mix of donks like myself all the way to some solid players so it was cool to see a blogger in the cash. My hopes are usually dashed by the time the third beer goes down too quickly!

Played the 1/2 200 max NL cash game and had a couple really tough laydowns. I did start off nice and strong when the SB rasies to 10 (call him wild Asian guy!) and since there was already 6 limpers (including me on the button) they all called! Flop is Ah Kh 9x and it checks around and my J10d isn't looking that good and since these guys call raises on flop bets I check as well. Turn is a lovely Q and it checks to me again so I bet a bit more than 1/2 pot. The SB beats me to the middle with the check raise push on the turn and I am expecting a set. Instead I see he had AK and a nice brick river gets me to $300 quickly.

Now to the tougher hands... 24o in the SB and I limp because 8 limpers already in the pot. Flop is 2x 2h 3h and I figure that from the SB one of these guys is going to bet to take down the uncontested pot. LP guy bets $15 and I raise it to $60 figuring he is on a flush draw or a better 2. Turn is the Ah and he now could have a flush, a better 2 (hard to not fold that 4 kicker), or a full house... ack! He pushes for another $74which really gets me down to a baby flush or a better 2.... I go in the tank wondering about how the Benicio Del Toro looking dude could call my reraise. Was my bet size to small? I think I should have put him all in on the flop because these guys don't mind to pay for a draw.

About an orbit later I see a tight EP player raise to $10. A slightly loose but thinking player calls the raise and I look down at JJ. I decide to call with the hooks and see how many to the flop... sort of play it like 88 and look for a set and a huge pot or an easy flop fold that is inexpensive. A guy to my right calls and then my wild Asian friend from the AK hand raises to $106! The two EP guys fold and it is back to me. I figure this could be a crazy steal or he has AA-QQ and all of them have me so dominated. That is where I think I made the mistake. I know he is wild and I should have been willing to race there against him. Instead I fold and the guy to my left pushes his $150 in the middle with QQ. Wild man calls with 44 and they race.... to make it worse a J hit on the turn in what could have been the biggest pot of the evening! I was a little perturbed by both of these hands and ended up down a bit on the night.

Fun time and glad to see RikkiDee show up and show us how to play poker.... no more downbeat posts from him.

Pacific + fun FT token

Most bloggers know that I love to raise almost any hand preflop. Sometimes with position and sometimes without it which goes against conventional poker thinking. It really pays off when you flop a monster and no one believes your cbets! Well I notice 4 hands into a turbo token event that one guy has been super aggressive. I like guys who like to LAG it up early... so I raise with QJo and he calls. Flop is A J 4 with flush draw. I bet out 1/2 pot and he raises to 500... I put him on the flush draw and push and he calls with K4s. He hits and the stack is crippled to 150. Came back from that and busted the guy and went on to get my token. Very satisfying to know that even with few chips I can come back. Thanks again for Smokkee reminding me that in a token event a few weeks back that got me thinking things through.

Been a while since I updated my numbers on the left so I did that this evening... pathetic that I haven't really improved the bankroll since about March but I think my play is much better. Confidence at the cash tables and just as important is my increased patience. Recently the goal has been to try to play post flop against bloggers and see if I can confuse them. Wil told me he hates me so I must be doing something right! Hopefully he doesn't call customer service when I steal his BB 36 times in a row again!

Pacific NL100 was the place where I was working on clearing a bonus and ended up $160 or so which made for a good weekend.

The River and slb are ONE!

Got home late last night as I met up with a buddy to look at a couple stock ideas and a couple beers to open up the discussion. Almost forgot that the Mookie is now a FT event but eventually got registered for the 2nd chance.

slb was good enough to girlie chat with me and tell me how stud h/l works. Seems like a cool game and I will spend some time trying it out again in the near future. Managed to scoop a nice pot with a 6 high straight against MiamiDon in the 2nd chance with my new knowledge!

Of course slb managed to knock me out of the tournament during the holdem round and me being shortstacked with AA hoping to get all in. I did but by the river slb had already hit the straight. One way to defend your blinds from UTG raises!

Overall, I was happy with my play which didn't donk away like the night before when I got to the final table. Upon sober reflection it was sort of pathetic to donk away a chip lead like that so close to the money... that foolishness will have to be avenged.

On a good note I did manage to win some cash at my favorite Booyah tables...


30.11.2006 02:33:27 Leave Table $124.83

30.11.2006 02:31:25 Leave Table $185.00

30.11.2006 02:30:26 Leave Table $102.00

30.11.2006 02:20:47 Buy chips $80.00 <---- give me a full buyin

30.11.2006 02:20:08 Sit down at table $20.00

30.11.2006 02:02:24 Sit down at table $100.00

30.11.2006 02:01:16 Sit down at table $100.00

Not much time but a good reward.

PNIC + WWdN 2nd Chance

Played alright in two events tonight but managed to blow up soon after getting to the final table.

Luckily the cash game was good on Booyah again and now I have turned 700 into 1,500 on that site ($310 bonus dollars). Only playing NL100 so that is a nice run of cards where guys are willing to go all in with junk. There have been hands that I get sucked out on but I have managed to get my money in good against big stacks often enough to make up for the bad beats.

The Full Tilt bonus that I have is something that I probably should try to earn more of while it is available. As we approach the end of the year it would sure be nice to actually take a couple steps forward to my 10k goal.

Cardschat - ReviewMe

This is a sponsored post about Cardschat. The site is focused on being a new forum to discuss poker and also a site with valuable advice on strategy. In addition they review a bunch of the sites and have bonus codes if you are looking to setup through them. They are not offering rakeback or other promotions like some other sites but I would be more interested in the site's offerings if they did that. Hopefully, we see them step in that direction soon as it would generate more income from forum posters in the long term.

The guide section is very interesting and I will spend some time reading most of these articles. First off I don't know how to play Omaha at all which makes it tough to play HORSE .... actually I need a guide for all the games involved! Bankroll management issues? Well they have that covered along with poker books and a section on studying your game.

In the forums you will find a great community of players who have a bunch of tournaments that they use to get people to post more often. You need 15 quality posts in order to get the passwords to those events so join now and start posting. It should be interesting to get a few of the bloggers into these events to watch us clean up!

Booyah, even when drunk

Well managed to get home around 1 am last night feeling a little tipsy from 6-7 pints of beer, 4 shots of tequila, 1 jagermeister to round it all out. Played in a poker event that the dealer had to be the worst person to ever to hold that position. Turning over flops before people called bets and taking forever to catch up to the play. In the end I lost my chips to the guy who invited me which worked out for me so to the bar I go!

Like I said I was feeling tipsy but I fire up the Booyah!.... two table NL100 while watching Dexter (good show) and finish up $100 in about an hour. It was getting late and next thing I know it is morning and I am sleeping on the couch! Feeling good today and got some work done while catching up on the 60+ blogs that I read.

Going to keep playing this rush that I am on and hopefully I can start working up from my current low bankroll situation. The bar on the left needs to be updated... will get to that soon... I think.

9th Place LAG...

Managed to squeak into the money last night in the WWdN which was good. Made a couple mistakes late after building an alright stack and then way way overplaying TPTK against an overpair. So silly of me to do things that I wouldn't do any other time. Blaming that bad play on how tired I was playing last night.

Used the 2nd chance to work on my LAG skillz (sorely lacking) and managed to build up a nice stack. The good part of raising every other hand and then cbetting is that you win lots of small pots but you get to stack people when you hit really hard. Flopped a flush and bet out only to get raised! It rocks to convince people that you will bet with nothing and are willing to do it with your whole stack. Calling raises cold also gave me a chance to play post flop which is an area where I need more work. Spent time trying to figure out what hands a person could be holding to make plays against me. It was making poker fun again... have to try it again in a few more events. Of course it all ended badly when I put CJ on a pocket pair or missed draw and he was firing with air.... instead he had AA. Such a good read!

Had to turn down flying to Buffalo to watch the Leafs game and flying back because I am going out tomorrow night as well. Don't get me wrong I will be out for a bit this evening but just not for long. Tomorrow night is the NHL Alumni poker night money raiser for scholarships for kids.... damn thing sucks for structure so I will be pushing one of my first three hands to get to an early chiplead or bust.

Got out monday night and drank some Cakebread Cellars 2003 Cab which was good but way too young to be opening now. That still didn't stop 3 of us from downing 3 bottles plus a bottle of Caymus Zin. Paid for my drinks by taking the guys on at that point to HU poker for $50 / game. Smoked both of the guys and ended up with a few extra dollars in my pocket. Not a bad night overall but it will keep me in check over the next couple nights.

Another night saying Booyah!

Played well in the Mookie last night where ScottMc decided to limp reraise all in with 7's vs my Q's. River is the case 7 and he jumps to the early chiplead instead of me. Always nice when you get a big hand on the button and raise to 6x BB to punish limpers (but it appears to just be a steal). I guess my image is such that it wouldn't shock someone to see me pull that move with worse than normal cards. In ScottMc's defense he did see me laydown a couple hands to pushes by DuggleBogey who must fear my post flop play to either push or fold against me!

Moved over to Booyah poker for some fun playing some 1/2 NL online. Having played a few hours live at this level makes handling the larger bet sizes less of an adjustment. Played TAG for a couple orbits when I get into a blind battle against a LAG. He completes and I check with K2s. Flop is 10d, 9d, 2x and when he checks it is open betting season. Pot it and he calls so I put him on a draw. Another 10x on the turn and he leads out for $8 and I smooth call to control pot size. A harmless 5x falls on the river and he leads out again for $32 or just larger than the pot. This play looked very weird to me because someone with a 10 would not lead out with a bet on the turn. So in the end it appears that he had a draw that didn't make it so I called. Great read and he mocks me for being a calling station but I ignore him. 10 mins later looking at AQs gets me to raise to 5x bb (my standard TAG raise) and a short stack of $65 pushes from the BB. I call and it is against A10o. Love the push and my hand holds up... sweet. Table breaks so I move to another one. Get AA 3 hands in and do a standard raise. Short stack with $75 pushes all in and I call and racing against JJ. My hand holds and the night is getting better! This site is full of guys who like to gamble. Won a total of $170 before calling it a night. Going to spend a bit more time playing that site and building on my buddy list. Also earning a bonus that clears quickly at the 1/2 level.

Review ME!

ScurvyDog mentioned this site so I joined up because cash is cash... so this is a paid advertisment! All 3 million readers of this blog are going to love the stuff that I pimp on the site.

Signing up as a blogger is free and you get a rate that you're paid for each review, based your blog's Alexa and Technocrati rankings, as well as an estimate of your RSS feed subscriptions. You can make up to $250 per review (50% of the price is what you actually earn) depending on the page rank and traffic of your blog. Having more posts should increase your pageviews and increase your earnings. You can receive payment via PayPal/check.

Why not make some cash?! Everyone gets to review the ReviewMe site when they sign up. Now lets hope that they have a few poker related items for me to review. Everyone should note that all bloggers can be / should be truthful in your reviews, no need for fake positive reviews. So setup your new ReviewMe account and choose some key words where you want to be placed. Many of the poker bloggers are using: poker, casino, bonus, gambling to put them in the correct category. I am still a little unsure about how advertisers pick which blogs to use but these keywords could be the key to getting more jobs.

Now if we were also able to adjust our price lower to get some more business that would also be a nice addition to the features on the site. If there is a weakness on the site it would be the lack of current other offers for us to go about reviewing while our excitement for the product is the highest.

Victory in the Hoy!

Managed to not lose my composure at the final table like normal.... also only made one lousy call with Q10o when I called a re-re-raise of my steal attempt. Lucky for me that I ran into Q9s and my hand held up.

The tournament started well with me catching some cards vs. Mowenumdown who kept flopping sets that couldn't hold up against 53s (I hit a flush) and the fateful hand of 82o vs. 87 in a blinds battle where I flopped two pair and turned the boat. GG Mow and that chip lead really helped out.

After that Shadowtwin was nice enough to not crack my 5's in a coinflip and I was off to the final table! He said that without his chips there was no way I was going to win it.

Fuel had some bad luck at the final table to bubble but played his usual aggro game to put a run at winning the tournament. In the end it was CJ standing toe to toe with me and luckily I held a good chip lead. He did manage to chip into it a bit but then I started to get more aggro and it paid off. Won with AJ vs. 99 with the J on the turn all in preflop.




The funny thing about the results is that I am usually finishing where Hoy finished, and he usually finishes where I finished... if that makes any sense!



Edit: Forgot to mention that I also managed to not totally tilt when my warm up $10 SNG ended poorly for me. One of the things I seem to do when I am playing my A game (stop laughing!) is that people get tilted by my plays. LAG player to my right raises from the button and I repop it to about 40% of my stack with Q high. He folds and I don't show. No comments but I could tell that he wasn't enjoying my TAG play pushing him around the couple times we tangled. Down to 5 handed when the hand happened that should have ruined my play in the Hoy. KK in the SB and the superstar LAG raises again which is what I expect everytime it folds around to him. I reraise for 50% of my stack to make it appear that this move is a steal. He pushes and I call.... villians hand A3o! A on the turn and I get to focus on the Hoy. Damn the effect of playing back at someone hard gets people to do silly things. Win that hand and cashing is certain and 1st is a good possibility. In the end you wonder what hand range the villian put me on prior to the push since fold equity really wasn't there.

Playing with DeezNutz!

Sorry for the poor hand history... it is a Booyah poker thing.


$10 - NL - 9 Seats
13245401-2
Holdem No Limit
20/40
[Nov 10 21:59:15] : Seat 1 : joinus has $2,000
[Nov 10 21:59:15] : Seat 2 : bodder has $1,960
[Nov 10 21:59:15] : Seat 3 : queen99 has $2,000
[Nov 10 21:59:15] : Seat 4 : bigredbadge has $2,000
[Nov 10 21:59:15] : Seat 5 : Wolverine630 has $2,140
[Nov 10 21:59:15] : Seat 6 : TIMBO26 has $1,980
[Nov 10 21:59:15] : Seat 7 : Mungo36 has $1,960
[Nov 10 21:59:15] : Seat 8 : thevicker has $1,960
[Nov 10 21:59:15] : Seat 9 : DeezNutz! has $2,000
[Nov 10 21:59:15] : TIMBO26 is the dealer.
[Nov 10 21:59:15] : Mungo36 posted small blind.
[Nov 10 21:59:15] : thevicker posted big blind.
[Nov 10 21:59:15] : Game [2] started with 9 players.
[Nov 10 21:59:15] : Dealing Hole Cards.
[Nov 10 21:59:15] : Seat 7 : Mungo36 has Ks 5h
[Nov 10 21:59:23] : DeezNutz! called 40 <---- EP call looks funny - be careful!
[Nov 10 21:59:24] : joinus folded.
[Nov 10 21:59:25] : bodder folded.
[Nov 10 21:59:25] : queen99 folded.
[Nov 10 21:59:26] : bigredbadge folded.
[Nov 10 21:59:35] : Mungo36 : well played wolverine
[Nov 10 21:59:36] : Wolverine630 called 40
[Nov 10 21:59:39] : TIMBO26 folded.
[Nov 10 21:59:41] : Mungo36 called 20 <--- complete
[Nov 10 21:59:41] : Stakes: 20/40 Current level: 1 Next level in: 7 min.
[Nov 10 21:59:43] : thevicker checked.
[Nov 10 21:59:45] : Dealing flop.
[Nov 10 21:59:45] : Board cards [3s 9s 2h]
[Nov 10 21:59:47] : Mungo36 checked.
[Nov 10 21:59:48] : thevicker checked.
[Nov 10 21:59:55] : DeezNutz! bet 160 <----- looked like a cbet from EP or weak overpair
[Nov 10 22:00:00] : Wolverine630 folded.
[Nov 10 22:00:01] : Stakes: 20/40 Current level: 1 Next level in: 7 min.
[Nov 10 22:00:11] : Mungo36 called 160
[Nov 10 22:00:14] : thevicker called 160
[Nov 10 22:00:14] : Dealing turn.
[Nov 10 22:00:14] : Board cards [3s 9s 2h 6s] <---- bet the scare card and try to take it down
[Nov 10 22:00:21] : Stakes: 20/40 Current level: 1 Next level in: 7 min.
[Nov 10 22:00:22] : Mungo36 bet 166
[Nov 10 22:00:25] : thevicker called 166 <--- don't like the call
[Nov 10 22:00:26] : DeezNutz! folded.
[Nov 10 22:00:27] : Dealing river.
[Nov 10 22:00:27] : Board cards [3s 9s 2h 6s 4c] <---- miracle card!!!
[Nov 10 22:00:39] : Mungo36 bet 666 <---- bet like I have the K high flush
[Nov 10 22:00:41] : Stakes: 20/40 Current level: 1 Next level in: 6 min.
[Nov 10 22:00:42] : thevicker called 666 <---- call felt better than a raise!
[Nov 10 22:00:44] : Showdown!
[Nov 10 22:00:44] : Seat 7 : Mungo36 has Ks 5h
[Nov 10 22:00:45] : Seat 7 : Mungo36 has Ks 5h
[Nov 10 22:00:45] : Mungo36 has Straight 65432
[Nov 10 22:00:48] : Seat 8 : thevicker has 3h As
[Nov 10 22:00:48] : thevicker has Pair: 3s <---- why I love this site.
[Nov 10 22:00:48] : Mungo36 wins 2,304 with Straight 65432
[Nov 10 22:00:56] : Hand is over.
[Nov 10 22:00:56] : Stakes: 20/40 Current level: 1 Next level in: 6 min.

CC's Thursday Night Bash

Looking forward to some real fun action tonight with a ton of places to play. To start off we have the typical D2S, WWdN Not, and now the CC Bash! Trying to win all these events should keep me playing a bit tighter than I did last night on Booyah Poker.

Check out Riverrun's blog if you want to help him with his pimpage requirement at Booyah. The site is full of some of the worst players I have ever seen at the cash games. Lots of action and hopefully positive variance will hit me next time. Waited over an hour to try to bust two complete over aggro guys and only got a small piece of each. Played a couple small MTT's as well to try to get used to the horrible structure that they have on that site. Have to triple up early but then keep on applying pressure to build the stack to be a monster. Levels of only 8 mins and blinds that jump from 400 / 800 to 600 / 1,200 makes it tough to play slow. I did finish 16th out of 138 in a $10 MTT but could have done better if it wasn't 3 am.

The Raptors game last night was just amazing. Had great 2nd row courtside seats and got to see the Iverson vs. Bosh all night... the steak dinner at Harbour 60 was also a fantastic way to start out the evening. Nothing like a 10 oz Filet with some crab legs plus all the trimmings with some zinfandel to wash it all down. The good thing was that post game I didn't run to the live game to catch up with Astin as that could have put a dent in my pocketbook (in addition to reading about my donkish play the next day).

In other news my case of Dowie Doole 2004 Reserve Shiraz just arrived at my office. Might want to open a bottle once I win the 1st place prize that Pokerworks is adding to CC's event.

Big Game - Lucky Night

The excitement I had to play in the Blogger Big Game had me pumped all day. Had to go to work on Sunday but managed to get my head clear (had to avoid wine at dinner) and ready to play well.

TripJax seemed to enjoy calling all of my raises with what felt like any two cards and betting large into me on the river. Folded KK once to his madness when the A hit on the turn card I already had him on a set. The next time I raised was with AKo, TripJax calls, SB calls and we see a flop.

As 5x 3s --- so the flush draw and potential for sets is what is on my mind at this point. SB leads out with 1/2 pot, I think about raising but felt that keeping pot small but I have Trip on a draw if he calls. The insta call worries me but if he had a flush draw it would make sense to call here. Sets become less likely because he would have to raise against two players.

Turn 6x. Looks like a harmless card and when the SB bets 3/4 pot I figure I am ahead and push 1,900 in chips in the middle. TripJax reraises my push and TPTK looks like the trash that it is. SB folds and I see the bad news.


Board: As 3s 5h 6h
equity (%) win (%) tie (%)
Hand 1: 18.1818 % 18.18% 00.00% { AhKs }
Hand 2: 81.8182 % 81.82% 00.00% { 6s5s }

Nice to see that my hand reading skills were so accurate. He is drawing to a flush or full house. Luck prevailed and a miracle 3x hit on the river and I take an early chip lead. Next orbit in the BB with AKo vs. 1010 and the stack is growing nicely.

So it was starting to look like I could go far in this premium event with a large chiplead early giving me time to sit back and wait for solid starting hands. If I did make a mistake it was not leaning on players like Smokkee at this point. Post flop I am not as good a player as him, but I can push lots of chips in the middle and put the pressure on him. Instead I played textbook TAG poker.

My luck peaked with the following hand. In BB with 88, facing a standard 3x raise from MP and I call. Check raise Budohorseman all in on the flop and wasn't too happy running into set over set.




At least I put those chips to good work and managed a nice 3rd place finish. Thanks to the luck factor and the chips I managed to steal in these hands made it possible!


Congrats to Sprstoner and Smokkee on the finish.

Big Game

Haven't played much poker lately but I will stop by this evening for the BIG GAME that MiamiDon puts on at FT.

Looking forward to donking away my nice tier II token in quick fashion.

Hope to see everyone out tonight.

In the meantime I get to try to figure out income trusts and new taxation rules here in Canada.... fun fun.

Win Win Win Guin Guin Guin

Had a good time playing this monday in the Hoy. I was looking forward to hearing his commentary on how horrible my play was at the final table. Sort of embarassing to even rethink many of those hands. Like raising from UTG+1 with AJs and getting reraised by Iggy and pushing all in because I thought he was on a steal. He calls with AK and a J is the first card off of the deck and the chiplead is mine!

Manage to stay out of too much trouble until the bubble where I called a raise with A5o (I know horrible). Flop is 468r and I push to steal this hand and get called by JJ. A 7 on the turn and we were in the money... sorry to whoever took that beat as it was probably the worst play I have made in a long time... and that is saying a lot.

HU against Iggy was probably the highlight of the night but he just schooled me badly until he took all my chips. 2nd isn't bad in that event where the buy in is a little larger (maybe it should be token sized).

On Tuesday I finished 9th when I reraise from the SB with AQ vs. a button raise from a super tight player (listen to your reads and notes) and he calls with AK. GG me... Well at least I am getting to a couple final tables but recently the deck has to hit me in the face and give me chips to play my game. Have to work on being short and also grinding out better results.

Tokens

Did a good job and won my tier II token last night. Too bad it was 30 mins too late to join the big event. You would think with double stacks and all that Waffles (and others) would allow us slackers a chance to play!

Nice to see that the donk fest doesn't change much with the bigger buy in.

Very happy with my play last night. Funny when you aren't chatting away and focusing on what others are doing can result in some better play. Smokkee was at the final table but got into a raising war with a calling station (who would later finish 6th) and that sent him home earlier than expected. He was good enough to remind me to take my time when I lost my first race with JJ vs. AQ. That has to be one of my biggest problems that I force the play once my chip stack falls below average instead of waiting for good spots to attack.

Now how weak is it to fold AKo when you are 2nd in chips and the chipleader raises from UTG? I did this when we were 7 handed because of three things: 1. The raiser from EP is the only one who can eliminate me from the event out of the cash. 2. Up to that point this player was tight and this was the first raise I saw in a few orbits. 3. Two players had smallish stacks so folding would let them continue to get blinded out.

Reducing my natural aggro thoughts near the bubble has been one thing that has improved my results in cash games. Now hopefully I can take that experience and turn it into better online returns.

Also just realized last night that Fuel is an ibanker. Gotta love how a guy who works crazy hours (don't ibankers like to work 100 hours+ / week?) can find time to kick butt in cash games. Gotta let me know the next time you are in Toronto... I still may have a couple interesting investment ideas for you.

Adding Fuel to the Fire!

Glad Fuel stopped by to clarify the progression thoughts. Basically I do agree we should all attempt to improve and hopefully outline a few goals to get us to measure our progress. For me the progression to become a better player usually gets interupted by other areas that I am trying to improve on. Try going two weeks with no poker other than a couple blogger events that you caught at the last minute. My poor wife loves the call to register me for an event that I will be 30 minutes late to start (sometimes she just donks me out of a bunch of chips during that time). For me that isn't the way to play your best without getting mentally prepared prior to a tournament. But if I want to play most nights that is sort of the rushed situation I find myself in and probably why I donk away so quickly vs. good result nights.

Astin asked me one night what changed in my play to final table a blogger event plus the D2S event on the same night.... my response was that I decided to not suck at poker that night.

SoxLover you don't make 1/10 of the mistakes I make in tournaments but hopefully you cut your errors in half and I move to only making 5x your errors! Getting involved with Waffles is never a mistake if you can suck out on him like a champ!

Had my darn internet connection go down while I was chip leader in two token events yesterday afternoon (also the reason I wasn't involved in the Mookie). Ended up with one token and must have been blinded out of the other one. Darn needed both of those so I could start winning the step 2 events so I could suck out on MiamiDon in the big events!

Lots of live play

Been donking it up live lately. Overplaying overpairs is back in my typical game style that I thought was gone... always nice to regress. That cost me $170 but managed to play well for the rest of that session and reduce my loss to $90. Astin mentioned some crazy loud mouth that we get to play against that is just such a fish. Saw the guy slowplay QQ in the BB with 5 limpers and then get pissed when the button flopped a straight against him and he got stacked. In the future I think I will only play live when guys like that are at the table.

Fuel made some comments about how many bloggers don't progress while others jump to the next level. It isn't a race to progress and each of us will advance at our own pace. The blogger events are ones where I do try to play my best and learn from players like Soxlover. I have to say in all the events that I have seen a player like him he has yet to make a really silly play. Now I can only hope to reduce the number of errors in each event but it sure won't happen overnight. Many bloggers are just out to have a bit of fun and to meet a few other people with similar interests... again playing in the big game would be fun but it just takes more work than most are willing to put into the game. So I don't think we should judge other players by the ability to jump up in levels.

In actual fact I have been working on playing a bit more of a LAG style of play. Most of the guys are playing TAG so it is fun to mix it up. On the few nights when I am reading well and messing with people I think I can put together about 30-45 mins of good poker. Not great but good enough to get me a few solid results in blogger events. MTTs have been tough on me with few good cashes over the year. Setting better goals for 2007 is something that I will work to setup. Work is going to be tough until the end of the year with me taking it up a notch.

Lets just all try to work to help each other from making the obvious mistakes... like me calling 2 pushes in front of me with 22 in the BB. Easy fold but my horrible reasoning was that they might be on Ax and are taking out each others outs. I will run a few scenarios to see what they would need to make my decision correct... the more I think about it the more likely it was a huge mistake... see still learning. very slowly!

New live location tonight...

Hopefully I can get the same positive result. Went online last night and just donked away a few bucks with slb. Tried to win a token but the bloggers in the event weren't that lucky with V finishing 10th as the best we could muster.

Feeling sleepy today but I will try to nap a bit prior to heading to the poker tournament tonight. Kat and Astin will probably attend but I should try to get Astin to bring more of his co workers. Want to have the guy who called my all in with something like J2o sitting at my table!

Tonight I didn't round up too much of a crew of crazy guys to make the pot fatter. I know that the bloggers love a few of my buddies that love to donate $300-400 to the table prior to heading home.

Love playing for short amounts of time. Just logged onto Titan and within 15 mins won almost $60 playing NL100. Just too easy when people call your value bets. Like the guy who called $12 on the river with pocket 10's with the board of K57 5 K. I had KJ and actually made a small raise preflop and bet every street. Nice donks that I usually try to outplay when the way to beat NL100 is to hit a hand and bet away.

Getting ready for the Mookie

Had a good night last night when I had the opportunity to almost take down the WWdN 2nd chance event. The highlight was for sure knocking out Wil as bubble boy with my UTG raise with 36s when I flopped a 6 vs. his A7.

My play last night could only be seen as slightly reckless with a couple double barrel bluffs (both shown). That did get sipsey1 to call an all in with 3rd pair when he turned an 8 on a J high board. Kind of tough for him when the only hand range he had me on was that I had two cards!

When we got to the money the first time DuggleBogey reraised me all in I gave him respect. Then he tried that move on me again a few hands later where I had him just covered. So I call with J8o and flop an 8 but he rivers the straight with his pocket 7's. Sweet call, great flop, bad river!

I did want to mention that on my trip to LA I loved the beaches. It isn't summer anymore and they are mostly deserted during the day but it was perfect for Canadians. Water is bath water warm so I know that the El Nino effect is going to play havoc on weather this winter. Would love to get back down that way again but so many other places to visit with the family.

Bill Frist = Shithead

I was going to do my writeup this weekend of my lovely week in LA but spent most the weekend sick and in bed.

Late tonight I get an email asking about my thoughts on this igaming legislation that was pushed through at the last hour. Well it just f'n sucks. Frist is doing this to build a platform for a push to become the next president in the US. I might be Canadian but I will fork over some good poker earned coin to ensure that doesn't happen. Regulate the industry similar to the way you handle land based casinos... this isn't about gambling addiction since you allow horse racing and state run lotteries you retarded ass. Poker players are probably the most logical people who play at a casino since we rely on skill vs. pure luck to win. Lotteries should be banned in my mind because the idiots who buy those tickets have no clue that it is another tax.

On a cruise I was on last year I went to the casino on the ship to look around. Spent 45 minutes there and went back to my room and the wife asked "How much did you lose?" "Lose I responded? I couldn't even find a game I would be willing to play because the odds were so poor" completely sickened by the cash others pushed towards the dealers. Prior to poker I probably wouldn't mind "playing" a few games at the casino but now.... it is just so -EV.

Don't ban those gambling activities Frist as you keep saying sorry to the Aboringinals for stealing there land by allowing them to run casinos. Oh but those casinos are on land and people don't get addicted there right?

The fishtank called the US not allowed to play.... this is the worst thing that could happen to online poker. I am devastated .... not much else to say.

As I heard at Disneyland... it is a small world after all!

Sorry Smokkee

This will be short but wanted to finally post something since getting back to Canada. Wanted to get out at the Commerce Casino and meet Smokkee but instead I was trying to get my little girl to sleep. She was sick for the first three days of the trip and to top it off the first night was our request for a crib wasn't relayed to the hotel. All of a sudden I have the job of keeping her from falling off of the darn bed. Wife didn't want me running off leaving her to tend to baby Guin... now who knows when I will get to meet up with anyone in LA.

Hopefully I can catch up with you Smokkee at one of the Vegas events. Owe you and your girlfriend a few drinks for not showing up.

Another solid Thursday night

Finished 7th in the D2S9 and 5th in the WWdN Not. I played a nice LAG style last night and I think I really had people doing some weird things.

Mookie calls a check raise against me with TP no kicker?!! I did love him saying donk call before doing it. Lets see what the situation was on each street. First he raises from the button to 3x bb. I figure suited connectors are good enough to see a flop since I had a bunch of chips and could be calling with anything!


Board:
Dead:
equity (%) win (%) tie (%)
Hand 1: 55.0018 % 54.77% 00.24% { Ad5d }
Hand 2: 44.9982 % 44.76% 00.24% { 9c8c }

The reality was that I wasn't that far behind. Flop was 7c, 10s, Ac. I check to Mookie and he bets 1k and I raise to 3,636 (double lucky). OESD + flush draw puts me into the lead with 9 high! That didn't stop Mookie from going all in which was 200 more than my bet.


Board: Ac Ts 7c
Dead:
equity (%) win (%) tie (%)
Hand 1: 43.2323 % 43.23% 00.00% { Ad5d }
Hand 2: 56.7677 % 56.77% 00.00% { 9c8c }

Turn gives me even more outs. This also keeps me much closer to even in the hand but no longer in the lead.


Board: Ac Ts 7c 8h
Dead:
equity (%) win (%) tie (%)
Hand 1: 54.5455 % 54.55% 00.00% { Ad5d }
Hand 2: 45.4545 % 45.45% 00.00% { 9c8c }

River was a blank and I lose a big chunk of my stack and ended up going out soon after. In my defense after that was that I was deadly tired from too much partying the night before. Just glad that I was able to switch things up from time to time to keep people guessing.

In the D2S at the final table I was so outplayed by Zapper. He came in 2nd but I didn't have in his hand range suited one gappers which is what he used to defend his bb against me. If anyone else at the table raises in that situation I think he lays that hand down but against me it wasn't a bad call. He flops two pair and when I cbet and got raised I should have folded. Bad cbet since it put me in a spot where calling with AQ on a J high board was sort of my only option. As mentioned before but that was a truly horribly played hand on my part.

Off to LA tomorrow and I will get the chance to meet up with Smokkee. Looking forward to that as he can help out my game for sure. If I can pull it off I will try to make it to the tournament that is going on but right now I don't think I will make it.

Big Night - Mansion Hedge, D2S, WWdN Not

One solid evening of poker for me last night. In addition to poker I was also looking forward to the Steelers game finishing (had the hedge on so didn't care who won though leaning towards Pits winning of course).

The first tournament of the night for me was the Donk2Shark event. Finished 3rd and had a few chances to finish higher but couldn't win a couple races. Happy with my play in that event where preflop raises are given a ton of respect. The guys are generally tougher on each other than we are in blogger events (Waffles and MiamiDon excepted!) without the teaching. Lots of PXF guys which all seem to play a similar tight aggressive style. Not a problem... adjust a bit and try to give a less tight appearance to get them to overplay hands.

While the final table of the D2S plodded along the WWdN: Not got started. In early rounds of blogger events I like to start off quite aggro to keep people guessing. Won a large pot with TPTK when TP 2nd kicker called my overbet. Those extra chips allowed me to almost coast to the final table. I did make one stupid call with AJo when L8Bloomer raised large. That was one of those moments when you are in a big hand on the other table and your brain turns off. Soon as I hit call I knew I was dead... sure enough he had AQ and I doubled him up. He used those chips wisely since we ended up HU for the tournament.

The topic of Sharkscope results came up during the 5 minute break which didn't have me looking very good at all. My results in MTTs that are non blogger events haven't ended so well so I show up as a fish. The truth is that I am an alright player when I focus... but a donk when I don't.

Looking forward to getting to play live with Smokkee in a couple weeks. The goal is to play well in a live event at the Commerce Casino. Take out Ben Affleck! We will see.

Mansion Hedge Bet On

Just got the hedge bet on for the Steelers game to ensure a $480 win as long as this game doesn't end in a tie.

Time to let all my buddies know how to put this thing on... hopefully a few of them thought the cash was worth it!

Another Wednesday night live action

Kat called me yesterday and said that Astin and her were going to go take down some cash at the poker club. Looking outside it was a beautiful looking night so I asked Mrs. Guin if I could go play some poker. She understood but mostly I think she agreed because of my comment "I am in the zone and should win this evening." We are going to LA in a couple weeks and she probably has a few things she *needs* prior to the trip. So off to the club I go....

Played alright in the $40 tournament but the hammer couldn't hold up all night long. Got reraised preflop by the tightest player at the table on the first attempt. Tried to push a shortstack off of their blinds with it and somehow lost the race. That left me very short and I found myself in the SB with 77 with a raise and then a push ahead of me. With more chips I let that hand go no problem but figured that if I got lucky and found myself against two AK-Ax type hands I might be in good shape. Instead vs. 1010 and A9 and the 2 outer didn't find the board and I finish 12th (Out of 30).

Astin was already crushing the cash tables when I sat down while Kat continued to the final table of the tournament quite shortstacked. My buddy L had already headed home after donating to the cash table yet again. Kat did join us soon after and having 2 other bloggers at a table makes for a fun evening despite being card dead. Lost $57 of my $200 starting stack (1/2 NL) with AQ on a Ad 10d 8x board and I cbet $25 and called the min raise. We both checked it down and he showed the AK. Good thing I didn't go broke with TPGK but would have laid it down to any large bets on 4th or 5th street. The guy I was playing against knows me quite well so I knew he wasn't trying to pull a move with that min raise.

About an hour into playing at the table and I realize that I have only raised 2 hands thus far. I did call a few times with hands that didn't seem to want any part of the flop. Like Astin said "I would have had a boat if the Q I had, was a K, and that 2 I had, was a 4!" True enough.

Kat was winning lots of hands and Astin hit a straight flush against me. Sadly he didn't have to use both cards or he could have won 2 jackpots with that hand. Just as Astin took off for the evening on my last orbit I finally hit my hand.

910d in MP, 5 of us limp (including blinds) and see a flop of 9c 10c 4s. Top two pair and when it checks to me I bet $10, SB reraises to $20, BB smooth calls. Darn min raise... so I decide to call and figure I am done with the hand if a scare card hits. The BB I know from playing against him in the past that he chases draws. The SB has been loose and somewhat agressive but 44 could cause him to min raise to build the pot.

Turn is a 5s so it is a brick in my book but it might give these guys more outs. Pot is $70 so when checked to me I bet $50 (no free cards) hoping to isolate the BB since his hand range is easier to determine. Instead the sound of "call" and "call" makes this a big pot.

River is a 2h. It also dawns on me from the SB's chatter that he could have been playing an overpair in a very weird way. I figure that if I bet less than the $97 I have left into this $220 pot then I have to call a reraise. Checking is out of the question because then one of them pushes and I probably have to call. So I push all in and when I get called by the SB I figure I am toast. Two pair was good and I end up the evening +$180.

Kat's bike was acting up when I was heading out. Hopefully CAA managed to get her bike going so she could get home. She said she had lots of fun meetings to attend today.

Donkey to Shark and WWdN

I have to say I think I played quite well last night. Managed to extract maximum value when I had the best hand and also played tight while for most of the evening. I did end up pushing in the WWdN due to other issues and flopped a set to suck out but the resuck showed up.

Anyway, it was my first D2S event and had a chance to see some of the PXF guys in action. Overall, it is a much easier game to be patient rather than blogger events where you almost always get reraised. As a few more bloggers get over there to play I think it will impact the pace of the game a bit.

Looking forward to next week's event:


Lets find out where the star players are online!

Fun Baseball game

Had great seats near first base which were 12 rows up. Had a great view of the Jays dugout when they all rushed underneath when the manager and pitcher started to get rowdy.

All I can say about the Jays is that only an idiotic team could lose an 8-0 lead. I was shocked it took so long to change the pitcher when everyone started swatting all of his pitches. Why wait for 8-5 to pull him? Anyways, it was a good game with tons of scoring.... my buddy hadn't been to a game in years so it was cool to drag him out.

No poker last night as I was out socializing two nights in a row... I think I will be in bed early this evening.

Over 100 rambling posts

Didn't get much time to play on the weekend... been donking it up at Pacific working on that PokerSavvy bonus. Not having much luck at the tables as SNGs and MTTs really mess with my cash game.

I finally got Doubleas book on friday and have only read about 30 pages. Looking forward to the rest of the book.

Tonight I will miss the Hoy because of a baseball game that I am attending... Jays vs. A's. Should be some fun as I had an extra ticket and invited a buddy to join me and someone else is paying for our dinner and drinks. Only way to go to a baseball game... lets hope this nice weather holds up.

No 3peat

Well I wasn't able to defend the 2 week reign as the local poker champ. I think I did play solid poker with one bad blind steal and also some bad luck.

Got all in preflop with my AA vs. K2o. Managed to split that pot. Here is how pokerstove looks at my odds:


Board:
Dead:
equity (%) win (%) tie (%)
Hand 1: 88.5015 % 88.30% 00.21% { AcAd }
Hand 2: 11.4985 % 11.29% 00.21% { Kh2s }

Not sure how often I have hit that 0.21% type of outs but after the flop I am lucky I didn't lose the hand!


Board: 5c 4d 3h
Dead:
equity (%) win (%) tie (%)
Hand 1: 78.1818 % 76.46% 01.72% { AcAd }
Hand 2: 21.8182 % 20.10% 01.72% { Kh2s }

Still well in the lead and the odds of splitting are still quite low.


Board: 5c 4d 3h 2d
Dead:
equity (%) win (%) tie (%)
Hand 1: 93.1818 % 86.36% 06.82% { AcAd }
Hand 2: 06.8182 % 00.00% 06.82% { Kh2s }

Back to being safely in the lead. The the river comes down with a 6 and ruins my little party.

I did get QQ really early on the button and had both blinds call my raise and had to fold on a scary flop. One guy flopped the nut straight and busted the other guy so glad the A on the board made it easy to fold. Also had JJ and just took it down on the flop when a flush draw flopped and I bet more than pot into a calling station. He decided to not call this time which was good and bad for me.

Astin was out again last night and he outlasted me but we didn't have a last longer bet in place. In the end I bailed from the ring game quickly because one of my buddies lost about $400 and wasn't in a great mood. So we went out for a few beers and that probably cost me less than playing in that crazy loose aggressive table.

Poker Savvy Summer League

BrainMc beat me up HU to take down the first league event. Hopefully I can put in a few other good finishes and get some of that prize money.

Just started playing on Pacific Poker and they have some of the craziest turbo tourneys I have ever played. Starting stacks are 800 so basically hit TP and push and hope for the best. That strategy managed to take down a 35 man event and also a 5 man event last night. The problem is that I need to get on the cash tables to earn off my bonus so I can get my ipod.... just a couple more sites to clear with Poker Savvy and it will be done. I might just get the cash and then buy an ipod video at bestbuy. Not sure yet but I do have some points with PSO that I have yet to spend and poker wants to buy me a gift.

Oh I did try to play solid poker for a while in the WWdn: Not but then when Hoy went out with AA vs. his bro's KK I lost focus. Aquaverse has improved so much as a player over the past few weeks it is amazing. He pulled a squeeze play on me last night which I didn't expect to see... grrr. Now the penguin is growling!

Live Event - Defending My Title

Managed to take down the $40 buy in event at my local card club. The prize for first was $460 this week so over two weeks I have managed to turn $40 into $820 of pure profit. It is amazing what can happen when your big hands hold up for an entire event.

I did pull off a suckout when I was shortstacked. Raise standard 3x bb with QJo from MP. A microstack pushes all in which is less than my raise and another guy pushes and it will cost me 1/2 of my stack to call. Blinds were increasing next hand and my read was that one would have Ax and the other would have a small pocket pair. So I called and they both had AQo! So I call for 2 J's to hit the board and I get one on the flop and the other on the turn to win the hand. Talk about establishing yourself as a loose insane player early. Stole the blinds a couple times to get to the final table.

Got JJ when we were six handed and the wife calls me to tell me she is going to the gym in the morning. So when it is raised and then a super tight player pushes all in I fold because everytime the wife chats with me it is super bad luck! The guy can't believe I folded J's and shows me pocket 9's. Great timing sweetheart! A maniac at the table started busting people with junk but he raised every pot for the next 15 mins. Finally, we get to the final four and a super tight player turns push monkey now that we are in the money. He gets called by maniac and the maniac puts him out 4th. This is the point where I felt that I could really win this because I felt that I was a best player playing. Blinds are now 1,500 / 3,000 and I have 20k when 3 handed play starts. Time to steal blinds just to stay alive and they both tightened up to help me out! Finally the maniac calls my all in bet from the SB when I have KJo vs. his J5s! Nice call out of him and my hand holds up and now I am the big stack at the table. He goes out in the next hand and we are HU. First hand I get A4o and decide to push to keep him guessing and he first asks how much are the prizes for 1st and 2nd. The answer is $460 for 1st or $230 for 2nd. Based on that info I put him on a weak ace but I was very happy to see A3o when he called.

He was left with 4k of chips and that became the new BB! It felt good to win the same tournament two weeks in a row to make me feel like my play can be good sometimes. For a live event I find that mentally it is easier to prepare than when playing online. Now if I could just put that type of concentration to my online game I am sure that my results would improve.

WWdN Not the way I wanted to lose!

Kat crushed my chances last night when she smoked my AA's all in on the turn vs. her TPSK but she picked up a flush draw as well... Just so no one thinks I played it slow I did my usual raise preflop (which was slightly more than 3x bb to round to the nearest 66 - 666 in this case). She leads out at me on the flop with an approx. 1/2 pot bet (666) I reraised her by almost 5.4x her bet (3636 - double lucky bet! which was larger than pot to prevent flush draws). How she called that is beyond me (maybe the beer she was drinking was having an effect on her pot odds calcs!)other than my image might have her thinking that she was ahead. I was surprised that she called and then I figured that if she had a set then I would pay her off, since most of the cash was in the middle at this point. So all in we go on the turn and the river kills me.


Board: Jc 9c 5d
Dead:
equity (%) win (%) tie (%)
Hand 1: 72.6263 % 72.63% 00.00% { AhAs }
Hand 2: 27.3737 % 27.37% 00.00% { JdTd }

Not sure on the 3rd board card but I remember a rag being there. So I picked a great time to get a lot of her chips into the middle.


Board: Jc 9c 5d 2d
Dead:
equity (%) win (%) tie (%)
Hand 1: 68.1818 % 68.18% 00.00% { AhAs }
Hand 2: 31.8182 % 31.82% 00.00% { JdTd }

Added the flush draw which improves her chances but no way either of us are backing down now from any bet due to pot odds. All in time!

Lets look at the hand that rspr41 managed to beat me on to make me a super short stack.


Board:
Dead:
equity (%) win (%) tie (%)
Hand 1: 64.3397 % 64.11% 00.23% { Ac4s }
Hand 2: 35.6603 % 35.43% 00.23% { Jd3h }

My read was that it was his 15th push in about 5 orbits! Get my money in ahead and hope he doesn't hit. Damn J is the first card off of the damn deck. I need bigger edges but I am not one to back down from a race!

I noted on slb's blog that he played awesome and he amazed me with his quiet way of handling his bad beat when his AK vs. my QQ had a K hit on the turn... river is a Q and I survive. Nice that as a shortstack I can win the coinflips... but when you need one to take a commanding lead you just can't get it done. Riverstars... I am starting to hate the site... I do prefer Full Tilt as I get rakeback on that site. The point I was making is that slb deserved this win and it won't be the last.

So 4th was my best showing in a couple weeks and I was pleased with my final table performance. Tough crowd to beat so I should be happy but being bubble boy is always tough to accept.

2 posts in one day... it must be a friday before a long weekend... well I am spending this afternoon sailing and drinking beer on a beautiful sunny day. Should be a blast.

Tough hand - read prior post first

So here are some stats from that hand I mentioned in the prior post… looking at top 2 pair and I figured he hit his set, but the straight was a definite possibility to me as well. Tight passive players just don’t lead out for 60% of their remaining stack with junk, but I knew that he wanted to end it here.


Board: As Kh Th
Dead:

equity (%) win (%) tie (%)
Hand 1: 17.5758 % 16.77% 00.81% { AcKd }
Hand 2: 82.4242 % 81.62% 00.81% { TcTd }

I am not good against a set.
---


Board: As Kh Th
Dead:

equity (%) win (%) tie (%)
Hand 1: 17.9293 % 17.47% 00.45% { AcKd }
Hand 2: 82.0707 % 81.62% 00.45% { QdJd }

I am not good against a straight.
---


Board: As Kh Th
Dead:

equity (%) win (%) tie (%)
Hand 1: 91.0101 % 90.20% 00.81% { AcKd }
Hand 2: 08.9899 % 08.18% 00.81% { KcTd }

In actual fact I was crushing the guy but with my luck buddy would have hit his 2 outer!
---

Won a live MTT ... Game Turning Around?

Wow, I almost can't believe I won that tournament last night. 3 table MTT with $40 buy in and I took down the $400 for first place. Kat and Astin were also playing in the event, with Astin to my right for the first table. Kat got frisky early, and found herself on the rail waiting for the lucrative cash game. Don't ask her about her hand with the boat!

These tournaments look great with 4k in starting chips and a 25/50 starting blind structure, but in the end the blinds go up too fast. 15 min levels means only a few hands before you start to get to the 200/400 level and hopefully you have chips to fight back the blind stealers. My first big hand was 64h UTG (50/100 level) with me limping in. I was playing tight (limping with this hand to switch gears a bit) at this super aggressive table and it gets around to CO who raises to 2.5x bb. Astin calls and I follow suit and see a 763 rainbow hit the board. Checked to the raiser and he makes it 300 to go. That was quite a small bet into an 800 pot so I called figuring that a 4, 5 or 6 give me a hidden made hand. Turn is a 6 and I check raise him all in. He calls with J's and bricks the river and I am chipped up.

Got to the final table with about 3.5k in chips and then robbed Astin of all of his to start my final table domination. I pushed with AJs and Astin had AKo and I manged to hit my 3 outer. Felt bad taking out a blogger at the final table, since there were others I would rather eliminate. My AKs rivered 10's to knock out another player. In another hand, a Q on the river gave me a set of Q's to put a guy out who paired his K on the turn.

Now we get to the hand of the evening for me.... AKo and blinds are 500/1000 so I raise to 3k from MP. There are three shortstacks left, out of 6 players (less than 5k) and I am the chipleader with about 35k in front of me. BB has 20k and he calls my raise. My read on the BB is that he is tight passive, and he was at my first table to my left and had not see me show any poor hands when I turned over my cards. So the pot is 6500 and he leads out with a 10k bet on a flop of Ax Kh 10h. Damn top two pair.... either I am really ahead or really behind in this situation. Why would he leave 7k behind? What would you guys do in this situation? Raise, call or fold? What hand does the opponent have?

I will wait for someone (if anyone gets this far!) to respond before I reveal what happened.

Live Action & Playing Online Tired

On Saturday night I managed to play a bit of live poker with a loose bunch that don't know the rules well. Shit like raising less than the BB works in this game and I try to not sound like such a picky guy when it happens. One hand I raised a hand (blinds 25/50) to 150 and got reraised to 200... I ask what the hell is that type of raise and the table thinks it is acceptable. 3 callers and it gets back to me so I push. Hate min raisers who can't put in a real raise.... hate calling stations who don't know how to fold unless they think they are against a monster.... they all folded in this case and I turned over my cards which I hadn't looked at... Q7o.

Big hand of the night for me was in a side game of 5 players with winner getting 80% and 2nd getting their money back. 25 minutes into the HU I get all in with my A9o vs. K6o ... the the flop is just beautiful!

Board: Kh Ks 6c
Dead:

equity (%) win (%) tie (%)
Hand 1: 00.3042 % 00.32% 00.00% { Ac9d }
Hand 2: 99.6958 % 105.98% 00.00% { Kd7s }

Turn is A….

Board: Kh Ks 6c Ad
Dead:

equity (%) win (%) tie (%)
Hand 1: 04.5448 % 04.56% 00.00% { Ac9d }
Hand 2: 95.4551 % 95.70% 00.00% { Kd7s }


River is another A. And all is right in the world again!

Played a bit of cash last night on FT with slb and he managed to bubble a Paris Hilton token after stacking me with his runner runner straight. Pushed with AK on a K high board and figured that one of the guys would call with a worse K (other guy in the hand had bottom two pair). I doubt he will have a post on his site with a bunch of ranting from me. Bad read but good result... that happens in poker. Made a few dollars playing the cash tables but I have to work on TPTK vs. 40% of full buy in stacks. Hard to make any bet at all without getting the odds to call the reraise.

DADI: Got Smokkee'd!

Built a good 7k stack early in the DADI due to a player who rebought and pushed all in on every hand. My problem had is when I flopped top two pair with a flush draw on the board. So I bet more than pot and Smokkee called. Turn puts the flush on the board and I bet trying to figure out if he has the flush. Both of us are capable of representing a hand so that makes it even tougher on me to put him on anything. He calls and the river doesn't give me the boat and I end up calling his value bet and there goes my big stack.

Next hand AKs doesn't hit my flush and my stack dwindles some more. Then I end up putting about 6 buyins into the pot and endured bad mouthing from a serious player. Luckily I joined Waffles for some NL25 action and ended up $100 so a plus evening overall.

Blah Blah Blah

Damn I suck at poker right now. Going to only play blogger events and small cash games.... lost over 300 last night playing like a donk... I don't know where the loose passive crap comes from and I know it is wrong but I want to see a flop! The confidence isn't there so I think I will spend more time reading and much less time playing.

To top all of that off I think I am going to try to get to bed much earlier.

SNG Challenge - Suckout night

1st event tonight reraised preflop all in with JJ (my computer was acting up so I couldn't stop and go) vs. AK and K on river. Out 32nd.

2nd event flopped top two pair vs. flush draw with mid pair all on on the flop and flush hits on river. Out 42nd.

WWdN: Not the is going to start soon so I will play another 45 SNG. Lets hope I can win a race in the next one. Or at least let me suckout against MiamiDon in the blogger event! Well donked out of that as well tonight.

3rd SNG lost to another flush draw with TPGK. Amazing how I can't get anyone to fold with a push. I think betting smaller might get a couple more folds.

4th SNG tried to wield the hammer and could not get a guy to fold KQo while reraising preflop.

5th SNG got 18th place when my JJ got up against 88 and he hit his straight on the river.

Ouch .... beat up hard two days in a row.... time to catch up on some sleep.

Donking it up live

Had a blast playing poker with Kat last night. Unfortunately, I was donking it up pretty badly but hopefully they remember that the next time we sit down. The reraising a buddy with junk probably contributed to the situation where getting respect at the tables was difficult. The biggest change playing live vs. playing in the blogger events is the number of calls. Live play usually reminds me of a couple levels lower online.

Of course I made mistakes ... TPTK lost half of a buy-in on that one, flopped two pair and saw the flush hit on turn and straight hit on river (folded to bet), bluff got called (don't bluff calling stations), lost an all in with AQs vs a buddy with 73o (he called me without looking at his cards - he was defending his blinds) and vs. K10 where a pair of 3's is good. That and one last missed flush draw with an overcard and couldn't connect. See you later $300. Get it back next week.

Kat bubbled because she doesn't have any use for cash or something like that! :-(

Looking forward to putting up more points in the SNG Challenge but I won't drop to the $1 tables to get that done!

Bad Start to the Day

I knew I should have ordered this book direct from the author but I wanted it quick.... Grrr.

Order Placed: July 6, 2006
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Pressure Poker : Poker Strategy and Tools to Improve Your Game, Scott Gallant

Updated Shipping Estimate: August 12, 2006 - August 26, 2006

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So I guess I will be donking it up until mid-September now. If you haven't ordered yet you might want to get to the front of the waiting list.

SNG Challenge - Slow Start

So tonight I started the SNG Challenge and things were not going my way. In the first tournament I got into a blind war with the chip leader on the final table bubble. When my flush didn't hit IGH in 10th. That was all I could play while little Guin was sleeping.

Later in the evening figure I will give it a shot and put up some early pressure. The donk in me was fighting to be let loose and this resulted in a finish of 30th when I raise 5x bb against an aggro player. K high flop and I drop the hoy only to be called not just by K better kicker but K better kicker which is also 2nd pair!

Third event.... this one was the one that put me on tilt... call a min raise (lots of that in these tournaments) and flop comes down giving me nut flush draw. I push and buddy calls with 2nd pair! Of course that holds and I finish in 45th! How many points do I get for that?!

4th event... 44th place 'enuff said! Grumble.... go tell the wife that I suck and she laughs at me and heads to bed.

On the girlie thing I am chatting with Pres Lee and mention that in the next one I want to finish higher than the 40's or last 10 mins at least. I find if I reset the bar low then it is easier to get off of tilt.

Had a beautiful hand that gave me the chiplead which I had for most of the tournament. Get KQo in MP2 and come in for my standard raise (rounded to the nearest 36 - so instead of 120 which would be 3x bb it was a 136 raise) and get one caller and then the BB min raises me. Call and other guy calls. Flop is AJ10d and I have Kd. So nut straight with nut flush draw. I can't put either on two d's since all face cards except for the Q is accounted for. The min raiser bets out 60 into an approx. 600 pot. The guy was annoying and I figured he had AA that he couldn't laydown so I pushed. It surprised me when both called. Min raiser has KK (okay what a donk!) while the other guy at least has J10 and is drawing to a full house. My hand holds up and they both go home.... 40th and 39th.... my first goal is met and I have a bunch of chips to play with.

So I get to the final table and get over the darn bubble and then start to have some fun. We are 5 handed and I have lost 2 hands to the same idiot calling station that has been able to stick around far too long... So he comes in with a min raise and I reraise him so he will be all in if he calls because I hold the holy grail of starting hands.....

As you can imagine there are some that wouldn't make the reraise play like that but lets see how it turned out:

Took the lead on the flop and that increased a bit of hope for the villian but the Hammer is GOOT! Back in the chip lead and ready for more soul crushing. This move really puts the table on edge because they have no clue what you are holding now.

On the next hand that I have a picture of is where I get min raised (no respect for the min raise - NONE) and flop an OESD so I lead out and end up all in with villian holding Q8o. If they were willing to get all in at that point you figure they could have pushed preflop and I would have folded.

So now I hit and they go home in 4th. In the end (this post is too long and I need to get to bed!) I took down 2nd place. So not bad overall but a few big suckouts for me to do that well. Thanks to all those who spent time cheering for my donk moves. Presdavelee liked watching me push a guy all in on a 10 high board (he reraised me preflop and I called)... somehow he called my raise with KK and I proceeded to turn my 103s into two pair on the turn to send the guy home.

How about my 33 holding up vs. 1010 heads up? The guy did get lucky a little later on when he thought his A4o was good against my AQs. Rivered a K so my kicker didn't count and that would have left him crippled. Oh well win some and lose more!

WWdN Not The Winner Again

Had to settle for third last night when Iakaris finally decided to stop letting me go over the top of him again. I did get a little careless on that one with Q8o vs. his A10o. Good job Iak and Wes for outlasting my push monkey style at the end there. I was playing for first and wanted those 1k of chips to end up in front of me.

Pokerstove results:

Board:
Dead:
equity (%) win (%) tie (%)
Hand 1: 63.6679 % 63.47% 00.20% { AcTh }
Hand 2: 36.3320 % 36.13% 00.20% { Qh8d }

I feel if I actually concentrate I can go far in almost any MTT I am playing in. Last night I don't recall any suckouts and my big pocket pairs held up. Looking forward to the SNG challenge.

Also decided that if I was going to play some cash games then winning some money should be the goal. So 200 hands of NL100 yesterday +$80 and 60 or so hands against the bloggers (plus assorted donks) +$14. So a step in the right direction for a change.

MiamiDon thought I either read him too easily or just misplayed my hand to put him out of the tournament last night. I raise with 33 and call his min raise (I don't fold to min raises Don very often!) and the flop is 9 4 4. At work so I don't have suits but I might edit later with a pic if I took one. I lead out and he raises (he has been playng a TAG style so I have him on high cards and I don't think this flop helped him) so I reraise to put him basically all in. Also of note is that I would still be alive if I double him up so max pressure applied to the shorter stack. He pushes with AJ and I take down the hand. Good read or just lucky?! Let me know.

Going to be trying to get into a bit better shape (couldn't get much worse) and I hope that will help me concentrate longer while playing. Always a poker angle to most things these days but it makes things easier with the wife when I am home more often as well.

Mookie Mookie Mookie

I managed to luckbox my way to the final table last night in the Mookie. At the first break I had a 2k chiplead but then started to get tired. What that means is that I stopped attacking the blinds and stopped defending until about three other people at the table had similar stacks.

Luckbox moment of the night happened with 15 people left and Up4Poker sat down to my right. He proceeded to raise about 3 out of 4 pots and mentioned that he was working on his image to exploit it later. Since we were getting closer to the bubble I figure he will laydown A-small to a reraise especially since my stack was 60% of his stack. He raises again and I assume he is stealing so I reraise all in with K9o (but this is based on the fact that he hasn't seen me play a pot yet and he has been raising the last few hands) and he calls with JJ. I river the 9 high straight and back to 1st in chips overall.

It is at that point that I should and I knew I should tighten up my play. Instead I end up raising with Ax and Mookie comes over the top. I end up folding to his lead out bet on the flop and my stack advantage is gone. So instead of using the luck I was given to a good advantage I end up donating chips away. Eventually I was put between Garthmeister and Hoyazo and it was a blind stealing chipfest at that table. Dnasty13 who eventually won the entire tournament played some awesome poker at that table to stay above water.

Iakaris was bubble boy last night and he stayed very level headed about getting reraised at least 6 or 7 times preflop. He is a tight player and I know he isn't raising with junk like most in the event, so going over the top on him (happened twice last night - showed him JJ the second time) could get a person into a lot of trouble.

CC showed some awesome play that even after I was out of the tournament I wanted to see more of his LAGGY style (only reason for going to the cash table). He sure knows how to committ to a hand and apply maximum pressure.... once I read Doubleas book I should be able to deal with this type of player! slb was unstoppable in the cash game last night (he rivered me again for a few dollars!) which is good because he can crush that level consistently. I learned the hard way that playing calling station with bloggers will get you hurt (one typo cost me a bit as well when I overbet a pot with KK on J high flop $22 into a $3 pot!). MiamiDon is another player that I want to watch closer going forward as he is so solid. They probably wouldn't believe me when I say that I am usually just a TAG style player.

My death in the tournament came with a stupid push with 55. I was going to fold since Up4Poker limped from UTG which was weird (he said he had 55!). In MP and I should have been thinking more about other shortstacks and moving up the ladder a bit instead of pushing. If I limp then Hoy raises big and the BB calls and then I can get away from that hand.... so easy with hindsight. That is the problem of playing tired in that you eventually can't think properly... small pocket pairs try to see the flop cheap. Hoyazo pushes and so did the BB (can't remember who it was) and it was 10's for Hoy holding up to give him a huge chip lead.

Lately, I have been working on the LAG style of play a bit more especially in MTTs. Twice last night I managed to get guys to go all in against me on a flop with nothing but 2nd pair. Nice when you hit a hand that you can get paid off since most think I am donking around by reverse hoying them for the 3rd time in 3 hands!