Thursday, October 26, 2006

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.

Monday, October 23, 2006

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.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

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!

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

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!

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

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.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

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.

Sunday, October 01, 2006

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!