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.