Nothing important

It's been a while since I've posted anything here. With work and preparations for the holidays and a few other personal things I've played very little poker of late. As I've mentioned here many times, I moved to Orlando during the summer and have been living in a hotel for the last six months.

Well, I've come to the end of the line with Extended Stay. Last week I leased a house a few doors down from my brother's place. Four bedrooms, two baths, two car garage and a screened in pool and lanai. And yesterday I got cable with REAL high speed internet. I'm hoping this is the end of my poker playing connection problems. I did a couple downloads last night and got speeds that were ten times faster than what I usually saw in the hotel.

On Friday I'm taking off for Aurora to spend Christmas week with the family. There is a casino in town so I may get a chance at playing a bit of live poker. Otherwise I'm probably done with poker til next year when the WWdNot resumes.

To everyone who reads this, Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, and Happy New Year. Have fun and be safe.

Slowing down

I don't know if it's the strain of 87 blogger tournaments a week or if I'm just burning out on poker in general, but I didn't play much poker over the weekend and didn't play at all last night. I'm thinking maybe the confluence of tournament stress with the holidays is a natural sign that I should take a break.

I heard nary a word about the plans to put the WWdNot on hiatus, so it is... on hiatus. If anybody cares I'll start scheduling them again in January.

It seems my reminder of last night's tournaments fell on deaf ears. An amazing three players showed up for CC's Thursday Bash. Surprisingly, the WWdNot almost doubled that number, drawing an impressive five participants. I monied in both, though only because everybody monied in CC's. I took third place in both tournaments. Congrats to Nomad1539 for taking home the WWdNot and to NewinNov for besting DrPauly and me in CC's Thursday Bash.

I don't know if it's blogger tournament overload or just the time of year, but participation has been way down the last few weeks. I think the WWdNot will be going on hiatus until January. Unless I hear lots of screams of protest, the next WWdNot will be held on 4 January 2007.

There was some suggestion last night that the new time of 22:00 EST has screwed some people up. I personally prefer the earlier start time and I'm pretty sure most of the other east coast players do as well. This tournament was originally set up to be more convenient for the west coast players, but participation over the last few months has been dominated by east coasters, so I made the time change to accomodate the majority. I'm open to persuasion on this topic. Leave a comment if you have feelings one way or the other about the start time.

Tournaments Tonight

Just a quick reminder that the second attempt at the WWdNot the Nomad1539 Invitational is tonight, 22:00 EST at PokerStars. Password is monkey. All are welcome.

CC's Thursday Bash is at 21:30 EST at PokerStars. Password is pokerworks. Bust out of CC's Bash early and come play the WWdNot. Or just play them both.

I played the Mookie last night and had the misfortune of getting good cards early. I say misfortune, because they were cards too good to lay down. Mr. I-always-get-sucked-out-on Hoyazo took pocket kings up against my slyly slowplayed pocket aces and managed to flop a boat, which I paid him for quite handsomely. Didn't get sucked out on that time, Hoy. It seems he put my chips to good use as the last update I read had him making the final table. Not sure how it ended up.

If a tournament fell in the forest...

Apparently 10pm on the night of a major holiday is not a good time to schedule a tournament. Both of us who showed up for the WWdNot last night were disappointed when it was cancelled for not having enough participants.

Even more depressing is the reason I was actually around to try to play. I went back to the Hard Rock in Tampa to play in a $200+$40 MTT that started at 7:30. And this time I actually touched cards and chips.

The tournament started with six tables, but one table shut down pretty quickly so I'm guessing we had about 55 players. The format was decent -- 2500 in starting chips, blinds starting at 25/50, and what I'm guessing were about 15 minute levels. There was no visible clock. The TD just came to each table and announced when the blinds were going up. Play moved at a very decent pace for a live game. Everybody was taking their action in a timely manner. The only delays were for legitimate tough decisions (or what appeared to be such).

I got off to a fairly decent start. The details are a bit fuzzy. I recall slowplaying pocket aces to good effect. I remember flopping trip aces on another hand and shutting off the other guy's flush draw when I raised about 25% more than the size of the pot. He even commented that he needed one more spade, so I felt good about the big raise. I was up over 3500 at one point and thinking this was going to be pretty easy.

There was one hand, I don't recall the specifics, but I had good starters and had called somebody else's preflop raise. The two guys to my left both called. On the flop the guy in the BB, two seats to my left, put in a big bet and it folded to me. As I said, I don't recall the specifics, but I do remember there being a possibility I was beat. I looked over at him and he was sipping his coffee, holding the cup with both hands like a little kid, his arms drawn in as far as he could get them in front of him, basically making himself as small as possible. He was also glancing off into the distance to avoid eye contact. I went with Caro on this one -- strong is weak, weak is strong. He couldn't have looked weaker if he'd tried. The guy to my immediate left called the flop bet, but he folded the turn so I don't know if my read was correct.

Then came my mistake. I get AKo in late MP. Blinds are 75/150. It folds to me and I make it 450 to go. The guy in the cutoff, Mr. I-wish-I-could-be-invisible, pushed all-in. He had me covered. Then the BB, who would be down to about a M of 5 in a few minutes when the level would change, called all-in for 1500.

Now it's back to me. I figured the cutoff for a mid pair. If he had pocket aces or kings I don't think he'd have pushed like that. With the BB making the call, I think getting out of the way would have been the best decision. I didn't read the BB for strong, though I have no idea why. Just one of those hunches. But even if he wasn't strong, just having him in the hand screwed up the odds enough that my call would be pretty marginal. With 450 already in the pot, I was getting 3-to-1 on the main pot and I figured I was probably a coin flip with the big all-in. Of course, I can't say that all this was going through my head in quite so much detail at the time.

I made the call. And my reads were right on the money. The BB turned over AQo and the cuttoff showed TT. I think the all-in was a stupid move on his part. I had shown no inclination toward recklessness so far. Indeed, I hadn't bluffed even once. My 3BB raise is exactly what I would have done if I'd had a big pocket pair, so he was taking a huge chance.

The all-in call from the BB with AQo was even dumber. I'd have no problem with him making the initial push with that hand, but with a raise from MP and an all-in from the cutoff, any reasonable player would figure he was at a significant disadvantage and toss that hand without blinking an eye. I would.

So we go to the flop with me needing some help and one of my outs already in the BB's hand. The flop brings a K and I'm about to cheer (not really) when I see it also brought the cutoff his third ten. Two cards in the deck that help him and one comes on the flop. The river brought a jack, so the BB, who had no reason to be anywhere near that pot, fills a straight to take the main pot, the cutoff and his trip tens take the rest of my chips, and I'm heading to the rail less than 45 minutes after the cards were in the air.

I think my call was marginal but technically not incorrect. Given that I wouldn't have been hurting even if I'd given up my initial bet, I'm thinking I shouldn't have been risking it all on what I figured to be a coin flip (actually me at a slight disadvantage). There was still plenty of time. Vahedi says that to live, you have to be ready to die, but I don't think throwing all your chips in the pot on a coin flip is the way to tournament greatness.

The Hard Rock is doing some remodeling in their poker room and has temporarily moved all the tournament play to a separate room (which they poorly explained, but that's pretty much in keeping with the lack of explanations about poker room procedures). I went back to the main card room, but it was very busy and there were long waiting lists for all the tables. So, once again, I headed back to Orlando, having spent less time in the casino than I did on the road. I got back to my hotel just in time to sign up for the WWdNot that wasn't.

WWdN

The internet access in the hotel was working for a change last night so I got to play the WWdN. I got off to a great start, taking a decent pot from Iggy in the very first hand when his aggressive raise with KJo ran into my AQs and neither of us improved.

Then I seriously overplayed A8o in an attempt to steal the blinds from the button and ended up losing most of my stack. We were only at level 2 and I was down to just 465.

But I didn't give up. My comeback started when I doubled up with K9o against Mean G's pocket 7's. Some would call it a suckout, but I figure I just got lucky on a coin toss. No shame in that.

My comeback was complete when caspernene's hammer play ran into Shizumaru's 88 and my AA. I just called caspernene's raise, hoping to entice someone to make a move at the pot. Shizumaru apparently thought his 8's were good enough to make the move. Neither of us improved and I scooped a 2210 pot. It didn't put me in the lead or anything, but at least I was out of serious danger.

I was all set to almost double up again with my KK vs wigginx's 99 when he brutally sucked out a runner-runner flush and took two thirds of my stack. This left me with a M under 4. A second comeback was not to be.

Overall, I was pretty happy with my play. I clearly made a mistake trying to steal that early pot, but I was patient and worked my way back into contention. If the runner-runner flush suckout had gone the other way I would have been in great shape to finish in the money.

Tonight is The Mookie at Full Tilt. There will be a WWdNot on Thursday. If you're turkey'd out and looking for a little relief from the in-laws, please join us for WWdNot the Nomad1539 Invitational at PokerStars, 22:00 EST, password monkey.

Late weekend update

The internet in my hotel has been out the last two days so I'm late with updates. I'm sure this has caused great concern in the poker world. Of even greater import is that I missed Miami Don's big tournament Sunday night and MATH last night.

This hotel living has started to really suck. The room upstairs has been host to some circus people who liked to train their dancing elephants at 1 AM, the Chinese national gymnastics team who were practicing their floor exercises, and now a large dog who seems to be left alone a lot and relieves the boredom by running around the room every hour or so. In the last week in the room next door have been two separate couples who've had late night fights. The most recent one got physical and I was half expecting bullets to come flying through the wall. I can deal with all that, but when you toss in the internet access being down for two days in a row, it's too much.

Now that that's out of my system, let's get back to the subject at hand. We played poker at work again on Friday so I got to give my new chips another workout. This time somebody else suggested a tournament, which I was quick to encourage, and I even convinced them to play with blinds rather than antes. I think everyone finally got the hang of the blinds, so there's hope that in the future we can do blinds even in the cash games.

The play wasn't much better than last time. Lots of big moves with total garbage. And even with 20-minute levels I don't think we got more than four or five hands in per level. I don't think this game will ever improve much because too many of the players are just there to have fun, and their idea of fun is to toss money in the pot and see what happens. If I hadn't been basically card dead both times we've played I'd probably be totally okay with that attitude. This time I only won a single decent pot, but still managed to take 3rd place.

After getting some dinner and taking a nap (I don't have nearly the tolerance for drinking all afternoon that I once did), I entered a 2-table $20+$2 SnG at Stars. I played a pretty decent game, only making a couple serious mistakes. The final five were all good players and it took a long time to finally get to heads-up.

My opponent was one of those players who like to push all-in whenever they think they have even a slight advantage. I think this style of play indicates a serious lack of confidence in one's ability to outplay an opponent. I suppose if I were up against a real pro it might not be a bad strategy even for me, but I still don't like it.

I tried to be patient and wait for opportunities to outplay my opponent, but the all-ins started coming more often and I eventually had to call with less than I'd prefer. My preference in this regard was well founded. I took 2nd for $105. Not a terrible result by any means.

Tonight is the WWdN at PokerStars, 20:30 EST, password monkey. I'm hoping the internet in the hotel will stay working long enough for me to play.

One of the sweetest A's I've ever seen

I didn't not win the WWdNot last night. We didn't get much of a turnout. Only nine intrepid Not'ers showed up. Not sure if CC is siphoning off players or if it was just the combination of the final DADI, CC's Thursday Bash, and the WWdNot all on the same night. I'm sure the lack of a plug on Card Squad didn't help. I can shout about it to the top of my lungs here and maybe one extra person might show up.

Anyway, even with only nine it turned out to be a pretty hard fought battle. My first big hand occurred after xkm1245 had been moaning about how he couldn't win a race to save his life. So I put him out of his misery... on less than a race. I flopped top pair aces, queen kicker, and four to the second nut flush. I did a hoy and put him all-in minus one on the turn. He tossed in the last chip and turned over JT of hearts for a flopped flush. But the river brought another heart, giving me the higher flush, and xkm went home a bit early. Xkm, at least I carried through on my promise to put your chips to good use.

Nomad1539 pulled out to a decent lead when his pocket queens held up against skeash's pocket sevens. He pulled way into the lead when he flopped quad tens and sent 23skidoo to the rail.

Caspernene took the lead from nomad1539 when he flopped a set of deuces and rivered a full house. He took advantage of his big stack and continued to accumulate chips, at one point having more than five times as many chips as the next closest stack.

Skeash was the next to go when caspernene outkicked him with a two-pair board.

I almost knocked myself out when I fell into the blogger coolness trap and put in a big raise with the hammer. Nomad, for reasons I still can't quite grasp, went all-in with JTo for 121 more than my bet. Getting about 20-to-1 from the pot, I had to make the call. I'm sure nomad was sweating a bit when the flop came 865, but his jack held on, pairing at the river.

That left darval and me competing for who would be the next to the rail. He won. Or lost, depending on your point of view. Down practically to the felt, darval called caspernene's all-in. His J2o inexplicably didn't hold up, and we were down to three: caspernene with 8792, nomad1539 with 1472, and me with 3236.

I dodged a huge bullet when, after raising pre-flop with junk, I luckily hit nothing on the board and was left with no real decision when caspernene bet the river, eventually showing quad fives.

Caspernene took a big hit when we both flopped four to a straight and I caught mine on the turn. I doubled up to 7569 and took the chip lead, at least for a while.

Nomad1539 took a bit from me on the next hand and the chips stacks were more even than they'd been in quite some time. We jockeyed back and forth for quite a while, with the chip lead changing hands several times. Nomad finally put a big hit on caspernene when his AQs all-in vs caspernene's pocket eights flopped a queen.

Caspernene tried to make a comeback, but nomad finally sent him home when he rivered a pair of aces.

So we entered heads-up play, nomad1539 with 12484, me with 1016, blinds/antes at 200/400/25. This figured to be a short heads-up session. But I doubled up on the first hand and won a few more small ones so I got to the point where my ass wasn't hanging out the back of the endzone.

This is already so long I'm sure there's nobody still reading, so I'll just say I managed to combine aggression with decent, not great, but decent, luck with the cards to finally swing things my way. On the final hand, I got pocket aces and decided to play it cagey, checking my blind. The flop came all diamonds and nomad pushed all-in. I had him covered better than 2-to-1 at this point so I made the call. He didn't have the diamonds, but he did have two pair. But the turn brought that sweet, sweet third ace and that was that.

While we didn't get a huge turnout this time, it was a very well-played game with a lot of scrappy comebacks. Thanks to everyone for playing. Congratulations to nomad1539 and caspernene for finishing in the money, and to me for winning!

Please join us next week for the WWdNot the Nomad1539 Invitational.

Blogstuff

A while back I hooked up a statistics thing to the blog here so I could see if there was anyone reading this. Some of the more interesting of the collected data concerns how people arrived here.

I'm guessing some are using the "Next Blog" button to check out random blogs. The previous page visited by some of these readers has been, well, interesting. These pages often have nothing to do with poker, or anything else I'm even remotely involved with. Several have been in languages other than English, which makes me wonder whether these visitors were confused by my page, the one right before it in the blog-ring, or both. Most likely the last.

Even more surprising are some of the Google searches that land people here. I'm sure the person searching for "chips a hoy" didn't find quite what they were looking for.

The one that really kills me is that all my rants about the crappy internet service in my hotel have landed me very near the top of a Google search for "Guest-Tek internet". I'll bet Guest-Tek is real pleased about that. On the even more amusing side is that somebody got here after a Google search for "Guest-Tek sucks". I guess I'm not the only one with that opinion of their service.

So, it is with an eye toward fair play that I must state the internet service in the hotel, while still not remotely close to what I would call "high-speed", has of late been reasonably reliable. I've only disconnected from Full Tilt a couple times in the last week, and I'm not at all convinced that isn't as much the Full Tilt software as it is my internet connection.

Full Tilt really needs to take a close look at how they deal with less than robust connections. Several times I've had to kill off the client when it stopped responding after a lost connection, and when I tried to log right back in it told me I had to wait for some kind of verification, apparently because it hadn't yet figured out I'd shut down and restarted. You really need to fix this, guys. Right after you fix that stupid NL bet slider. Why does everyone think they have to reinvent the wheel? Or the slider?

On a different topic, I wrote a long time back about a gizmo I ordered to allow me to see the very high and poorly positioned traffic lights here in Orlando without requiring a visit to the chiropractor afterwards. I've had the LightInSight on my windshield for a couple months now.

I'm a bit reluctant to post anything resembling a review because I never did install it according to their instructions. They said to clean the window, then wet the glass, apply the flexible plastic LightInSight, and carefully push the bubbles to the edge. I, like probably 98% of their customers, just stuck the thing to my dirty windshield. So, what follows is with that caveat in mind.

The LightInSight does work pretty much as they advertise. It brings an image of the traffic lights high overhead into view without having to bend and twist or even change your normal driving position at all.

The one problem for me is an unavoidable consequence of how it works. It's a Fresnel lens that bends the light, allowing a very wide field of view to be presented in a small area. The consequence is that everything appears rather small through the LightInSight. The traffic lights appear to be a fraction of the size they are when I look straight out the window. It works okay at night because the lights are much brighter than their surroundings, but during the day it can be difficult to detect when the light has changed. I find I have to keep staring right at the light in the LightInSight to be sure I catch the light change. It's better than having to bend over and crane my neck to see the light, but it strikes me as still not quite the perfect solution.

Of course, the perfect solution would be for the idiot traffic enginners to put the lights where they can be clearly seen in the first place. But that would be too easy. I better stop now before I end up posting the rant about Orlando traffic I said I wasn't going to do.

Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right

I'm not sure how to write this without sounding condescending and Phil Hellmuth-ish. I don't think there is another way. Maybe that's why Phil comes off the way he does.

Idiots. There I said it. There are complete, utter fools sitting at the poker table. Ignorant bastards who have no clue what they're doing, who have no justifiable right to sit at a poker table. Hell, who have no justifiable right to be let out of restraints.

Ordinarily, and as I've done in several of the last few posts, I would rejoice at their presence, but, and I'm sure you know where this is going, last night I got stung by one of these fools. I'm not really trying to rail against their presence at the tables because I know without them I'd have gone broke a long time ago. And I'm not looking for sympathy over a bad beat. No, I'm looking for advice. How do you deal with players who, against all common sense and, indeed, against their own true best interests, will play cards that make absolutely no sense in the situation?

I'm UTG with QQ in full table 2/4 limit. Naturally, I raise. UTG+1, a fairly tight, sold player, reraises. It folds to the SB who calls. I only have about 35 hands on the SB. He seems a bit loose, but not ridiculously so. BB folds. I cap it, the other two call. The flop comes AQ8, all diamonds. Dangerous, but not necessarily a disaster yet. I want to see where I stand so I bet. UTG+1 folds, SB calls.

Turn is a non-diamond T. SB bets. What could he have? TT? Possible. A fairly poor call pre-flop, but still possible. AA? I can't see him slowplaying it like that with all the action pre-flop. AT? Not with the pre-flop action. KJ? Again, not with the pre-flop betting. Two diamonds? Which two diamonds would have caused him to call pre-flop? No, I can't see two diamonds. TT seems the most likely. I'm already counting my newly acquired chips. I raise, he calls.

River is a blank. He checks, I bet, he calls. He turns over KJo for a turned straight. KJo!

What idiot cold calls two raises from the SB with KJo? The rest of his play is fairly rational, though his lack of pushing the straight indicates he figures me for the flush, and that makes as little sense for me as it did for him.

So, how do you combat this? I think my analysis of the hand was correct, but to do a rational analysis of a hand you need players who behave in a rational manner. Looking at a raise from UTG and a re-raise from UTG+1, how can you not think you're way, way behind with KJo? No rational player would make that call. Ever. Not even if he knew UTG and UTG+1 were maniacs. He's down 2-to-1 against the worst of the likely pre-flop holdings from those two positions, and that's assuming he's only going against one of them. Against the both of them his best odds are on the order of 4-to-1 against.

Suggestions welcome.

Uh, nevermind

What I said in my last post about there possibly being something positive to learn from Mr. I've-got-two-cards-so-I'm-in's play, forget I even mentioned it. I went hunting for him last night and found him on a 6-max table. As I mentioned, 6-max limit and I don't play well together, but I did watch as he burned through over $250 in under 30 minutes at a 2/4 limit table. I've had the odd bad run where I've walked away down that much or more, but never on a single table and never in that short a time. 60BB in 30 minutes. That's 2BB per minute. My cat, if I had a cat, could play better than that.

Sadly, my performance at Full Tilt last night, while not nearly as disastrous as his, was not good. I made a few really good plays, even outright stole a few pots, but luck was not with me.

I'm up to 80% on the special bonus, which Full Tilt finally emailed me about, and have cleared $120 of my last reload bonus. I really hate leaving bonus on the table, but short of 4-tabling 5/10 eight hours a day for the next three weeks, there's no way I'm going to clear it all.

Even more encouraging is that combining my initial first deposit bonus chase, this bonus chase, and more than a few hours of non-bonus play in between, I've earned almost enough player points to buy a Full Tilt baseball cap. All those hours of play and I can now almost afford to walk around advertising their business. Such a deal.

I played the Monday's At The Hoy last night. It's probably best that I not say a whole lot about the experience because, assuming anyone other than me is reading this, there might be some hurt feelings. Let's just say much of the play I observed was quite donkerific and leave it at that.

Tonight is the WWdN, PokerStars, 20:30 EST, password monkey.

More Tilting

I'm originally from the Chicago area. While I don't closely follow football like I once did, I do like to watch the Bears whenever I get a chance. So I settled in to watch the Bears play the Giants tonight and completely forgot about the WPBT 'E' event that I wanted to play. Oh well, at least I got to watch the longest runback in NFL history. That was pretty cool. And the Bears came to life in the second half.

Just before halftime I figured I could handle playing a table or two of limit and still follow the game, so I fired up Full Tilt and went hunting for a good table. And I found one.

There was a guy at one table who was playing EVERY... SINGLE... HAND. He at least saw the flop, no matter what his cards, no matter how many raises there were ahead of him. Toward the end of my time there he did start folding before the river if there was a lot of action and he hadn't gotten lucky on the flop, but when I first sat down he was taking every hand to the showdown, regardless of whether he was playing the board or not.

The most amazing thing was the guy was actually up $50 when I left the table after 90 minutes. Unfortunately, I got very few hands that were worth playing. I took a few more chances than I normally would, knowing Mr. I-Don't-Have-A-Fold-Button would pay me off if I hit my longshot, but they never came in. I finally caught a couple winners toward the end and was able to walk away up a few dollars.

Watching this guy play got me thinking about style. I know his strategy, and I use the term loosely, is a big time loser, but it did highlight a few things. He was able to hang in because when he caught a hand the other players were often paying him off, not believing he actually had anything. I even got caught by that right at the end when I raised with pocket tens and he called with J6. The flop came 667 and I called him all the way.

Anyway, a few cheap chases and showing down total garbage at a table with thinking players might not be such a bad investment. Something to think about.

After tonight I'm about 70% of the way toward clearing my $100 special bonus and I've done about $120 of my reload.

Saturday at Full Tilt

I just finished the best limit hold'em session I've had in many months. I don't know if it's the escapees from Party or if there were just lots of drunks on Saturday night, but it was like days of old when the tables regularly had VP$IPs of 35% or more. I felt a bit like a kid in a candy store.

On one table there was a woman -- she was using a female avatar, so I'll make the dangerous assumption -- who I dubbed 'The ATM'. Not a clue how to read the board or figure if the hand she'd made was worth playing. She was a real delight. I don't like playing shorthanded limit. Don't know why, but I've just never quite gotten the hang of it and I get my ass kicked every time I try. I love 6-max NL, but with limit I need a full table. But I stuck around and played 4-handed, even 3-handed for a while, because this woman was still at the table and still had money to give away. I haven't seen anything like it in a very long time. Thankfully, I got a very healthy share of what she had to give away.

Then there was the player who aptly chose the donkey as his avatar. VP$IP over 50%. I have to give him some credit, though, he did have a pretty good grasp of how to apply aggression. At one point when we got shorthanded he was raising every single hand. It worked for quite a while. I knew what he was doing, but I wasn't getting cards that allowed me to do anything about it. Fortunately, that aspect changed. After sending a couple big pots my way, he backed way off on the aggression, at least when I was in the hand.

So, I actually had fun playing limit for the first time in ages. I sure hope the tables stay like this for a while. After tonight I'm back in the black for the first time at Full Tilt.

Full Tilt has apparently started individual bonus promotions. At least this is the first time I've seen one. They offered me $100 for getting 700 player points by December 1st. Since it clears at the same time as my reload bonus, it seems a no-brainer. Nothing to lose, $100 to gain. If you have a Full Tilt account, open the cashier and click on the My Promotions button on the lower right. You might have a little present waiting for you.

(Bubble Boy)**2

I played both the WWdNot the Hoyazo Invitational and CC's Thursday Bash last night and managed to bubble in both of them. I also learned an important lesson about my poker limits -- I can't effectively play two final tables at the same time. I especially can't play two final tables and chat at the same time.

Notable hands for me in CC's Thursday Bash included an early hand where I semi-slowplayed JJ against Iakaris. The betting on the rainbow 553 flop went back and forth until we were both all-in. Iak showed 77. My jacks held and Iak was gone.

I also got very lucky against host CC when I got it all in with JT on a QJ6 flop and CC turned over QT. The turn and river brought 8 and 9, giving us both the same straight and I lived to donk another day.

I was down to the veritable chip and a chair, having less than a big blind plus ante, and managed to hang on for quite a while longer. As CC said, "Loki is like night of the living dead." I eventually built my 212 to a much healthier 4500 and was able to pick up the consolation bubble boy prize when CC rivered a straight against Kat's trip tens and I folded my way into fourth.

In the WWdNot I took a fairly early lead when Speck'sBacon pushed all-in on a 543, two clubs, flop against my A5 suited in clubs. I figured I had TPTK and four to the nut flush, so I made the call. I filled the flush on the turn and that was that.

I was able to use my stack to pick up a number of smaller pots, but HighOnPokr somehow tripled up his original stack and then moved to my table, becoming the new sheriff, a position he knows how to play well. When the second WWdNot table collapsed, I had Jordan two seats to my right on both final tables. I guess it's marginally better than having him on my left, but having him anywhere in the vicinity has generally spelled disaster to my game.

And, in keeping with tradition, Jordan was the one who sent me down the road to ruin. With top pair jacks and a king kicker I thought I was looking pretty good, but the turn brought a third diamond and a strong straight possibility so I gave it up to Jordan's big bet. It was all downhill from there for me.

Congrats to Jordan on the win, CawtBluffin on the place, and S.t.B on the show.

Please join us next week for the WWdNot the CawtBluffin Invitational, PokerStars, 16 Nov, 22:00 EST. Password is monkey.

The WPBT visits the ass-end of the HORSE, stud hi/lo, this Sunday, 21:00 EST, at PokerStars. Password is wpbt72. Poker bloggers only for this one.

I'm also considering another visit to the Hard Rock in Tampa. I figure if I keep saying that I may actually guilt myself into carrying through one of these days. OTOH, there are lots of qualifiers for the FTOPS events this weekend. I wonder if they can outfit Frankenstein's monster in the special gold jersey?

The Mookie

Played in The Mookie last night at Full Tilt. Attendance was down, probably because the tournament was inexplicably scheduled an hour earlier than usual. No doubt a time zone snafu since Mookie is in Vegas right now. If I hadn't logged in to play some limit beforehand I probably would have missed it.

I got off to a real shaky start. Just a few hands in I get T3o in the BB. Four players see a flop of TTQ. It checks around. The turn brings a 8 and makes the board a true rainbow. Lucko21 comes out for 90 (still 15/30 blinds). I do a clever and sinister min-raise to 180. It probably seems less clever and sinister if you don't realize my typical move in this situation is to triple the previous bet. Two folds and lucko21 calls. The river brings a 7. There are a number of hands that beat me, but I think I'm probably still looking good, particularly with the way the betting has gone. I bet 210 into a 480 pot. Lucko21 calls and turns over J9 for the straight. I guess he was afraid of the full house, so it could have been a lot worse.

That took about a third of my stack. I lost another good chunk when big slick didn't pan out. Not even through the second level and half my stack was gone. Things were looking grim.

An apparently good bluff brought my part way back. Then came the big hurt. A big blind special provided a flopped straight, but runner-runner diamonds put four of them on the board and I had to fold to rmbj494's river bet. He showed the ace of diamonds.

I was down to the felt and pushed with pocket eights. They held and I almost tripled up. I picked up a good bit more somehow during a disconnect.

I generally like the Full Tilt software. They need to work on the bet slider, but it's generally pretty good. Except for their disconnect logic. It's terrible. It takes forever for the software to recognize it has lost connection and then it takes even longer for it to establish a new connection. They really need to work on that.

From that point I pretty much got blinded away, eventually running AQo into pocket jacks. I finished 10th. Not terrible considering the bad start and the level of the competition.

Tonight is the WWdNot at PokerStars, 22:00 EST, password monkey.

Weekend and more

This past weekend I had every intention of going back to the Hard Rock in Tampa to try out the newly-smoke-free poker room, but life intervened. There are two things I really hate about living in a hotel. The crappy internet service I've discussed ad nauseum already. The other major drawback is having to schlep the laundry downstairs and pray there's a machine available. There have to be close to one hundred rooms in this Extended Stay hotel, and they have just four washing machines. Three times this week I tried to do laundry, only to find all the machines in use.

By Saturday I was down to the very last of the clean clothes. So, when the opportunity arose for a home-cooked meal combined with doing laundry someplace that wasn't a public facility, the Hard Rock took a back seat. My sister-in-law made a lovely lunch, I did three loads of laundry, and then I virtually used some of my FT $25k winnings to buy ice cream for everyone at Cold Stone.

On Sunday I just wasn't in the mood to drive for a couple hours so I played lots of poker online instead. I continued my run on the Tier One tournament ticket tables at Full Tilt. I swear, you win one or two good hands in these things and you can practically coast into the money.

I'm still trying to decide if I prefer the $8 turbos or the $6 regular ones. For a patient player like me, the $6 ones should work better since there's less of a rush to make a move, but I found myself wondering when the damn thing was going to get over with on the last one I played. The turbos move at a very swift pace, usually taking well under an hour.

Last night, Monday, I actually got involved in another pasttime and didn't play any poker at all. I had intended to do Mondays At The Hoy, but I lost track of time on this other project and before I knew it The Hoy was well under way.

Tonight is the WWdN, PokerStars, 20:30 EST, password monkey.

Full Tilt $25k

I've been listening to hoyazo talk about the FT $20k for so long, now that they've increased it to $25k guaranteed, I just had to give it a try. So when I got home tonight I sat down at one of the Tier One $8+$0.70 turbo satellites which award $26 tokens to the top five finishers. I got a token from the first one.

I'm not really sure what to say about the $25k. I was close to card dead the entire time. A monkey could have played for me. Fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold,... Wait until seriously short-stacked. Push all-in with anything remotely resembling a good hand. Hope for the best. Rinse and repeat.

I went through the hand history and counted. I won 6 pots of significant size the entire tournament. On five of them I pushed all-in. On the sixth I called somebody else's all-in. I picked up about six more of considerably lesser size. In only one of those did I have a really strong starting hand.

Yet, 98% crap cards the whole time, and I still managed to place 74th of 1403 for $64. I'm not sure if that speaks to my ability to pick my spots, to maximize the return from crap, or to just sit back and let the idiots kill each other off.

If I had gotten anything at all in the way of cards I think I could have gone much further. One or two big hands when I wasn't short-stacked and desperate was all it would have taken. So I'm hopeful I can score in this one again. I just wish they'd start it earlier in tne evening. It was past 1am here when I was eliminated. That's getting pretty late for having to work the next day, so I'll probably only play on weekends.

WWdNot the Guinness Invitational

We had a lackluster turnout for the WWdNot last night. With hoyazo's late registration we made it all the way to 12. Perhaps the new starting time along with the change to standard time threw people off. We can only hope.

Congratulations to xkm1245 on a fine tournament and on particularly strong heads-up play against a very tough opponent. xkm1245 and hoyazo slugged it out, toe-to-toe.

I bubbled when I accidently pressed the raise button holding J9o. I was stupidly doing something else and just about to click on another application when it came my turn to act and the "Raise" button popped up right under my cursor. (I got tired of the single-click protection and turned it off. Idiot.) Hoyazo came out with a big bet on the flop. There was a chance my second pair was ahead, but I also thought I could capitalize on my accidental hoy-trademarked min-raise indicating a big pocket pair. I guess hoy remembered the last time I bluffed with that. He called, showing top pair, and I was toast.

Please join us next week in WWdNot the Hoyazo Invitational, PokerStars, 11/9/06, 22:00 EST. Password is monkey.

Patience, Grasshopper.

The Mookie missed the goal of 66 players this week, drawing only 59. It's yet to be seen if this means Al will bring back the big German chick. Still, 59 is a very respectable turnout for these events. I'd be thrilled if the WWdNot ever drew 59 players.

I have commented before that "Zen and the Art of Poker" can be summed up in two words -- "patience, Grasshopper", the latter only lending a pseudo-Zen-like feeling to the former, at least for those who've seen "Kung Fu". My moderate success at The Mookie last night can be attributed largely to that advice.

We were well into things before I took down my first big pot, and even that only brought me back to slightly under average. Another long wait and I returned from the brink of elimination when I doubled through last night's luckbox, Iakaris, my AJo holding against his A9o. Some time later I sent Ike home when his pocket 4's got counterfeited by two pair on the board and I outkicked him. The luckbox finally deserted him. (I mean no disrespect to Ike here. He's a good player. But I think even he would freely admit he got very lucky on several occasions last night.)

This put me in pretty good shape, even taking the table chip lead for a brief time. Along the way from brink of elimination to healthy stack, several times I resisted the temptation to make moves with highly questionable holdings. Patience, Grasshopper, patience.

I was able to hang on until we were in the money, finishing in 6th. Congratulations to FishyMcDonK on the win.

Please join us tonight in the WWdNot at PokerStars, 22:00 EST, pasword monkey.

What a Monday At The Hoy!

I probably won't see another good hand for at least a week. I was on fire last night at hoyazo's Monday tournament at PokerStars. I did my usual patient waiting bit, holding out for good cards before making a move. In "normal" tournaments I like to play more speculative hands early in the hope I can catch a big hand and stack one of those guys who are looking for any chance to push all-in. But the blogger tournaments are generally too aggro to play many cheap hands, so I prefer to wait for the cards.

Wrybagel had been pushing the table around for some time, taking advantage of his significant chip lead (at least over our table). He'd already suffered a major setback when he bluffed into hoyazo's queens, but just a few hands later he was doing it again. This time I pushed back. Surprisingly, he called and turned up Q7o. My A9o held, actually improving to a pair of nines, and I had a healthy stack.

The whole table seemed to run into connection problems and we had several players who were disconnected for quite a while. Oddly, I had no connection problems at all for a change, except for when my connection did its nightly timeout and I had to log in again. That is such a pain. Anyway, I was in position to take advantage of the disconnects, and I did, eventually taking the chip lead.

From there on I either got great cards or used my stack to bully the table, building to where, at one point, I had more than three times as many chips as the next closest player. It appeared a foregone conclusion that I'd walk away with this one.

Then the luck went cold. I got hit with a couple suckouts that brought my stack back down out of the stratosphere. Ultimately, however, I have only myself to blame for my slide from sure victory. I fell prey once again to assuming other players willing to push with the same kind of crap that I would. Twice I made that same mistake. I really need to make that one Harrington phrase my mantra -- bets usually mean what they seem to mean.

Congratulations to NewinNov on the win and to Wannstache for taking second. We played a long time with the three of us and they continued to play heads up for quite some time. Well played both of you.

Tonight is the WWdN, PokerStars, 20:30 EST, password monkey. Wednesday is the Mookie at Full Tilt, 22:00 EST, password vegas1. Thursday is WWdNot, PokerStars, 22:00 EST, password monkey. Note the time on the WWdNot has moved up 30 minutes from its previous starting time. This is a permanent time change (assuming there isn't a revolt).

Weekend Poker

My poker weekend got off to a bad start. We initiated my new chips in a game after work on Friday. Only one of the guys plays with any regularity, and that only on the play money tables at Party. It was exactly the kind of game one would expect from inexperienced players, the kind you can take to the cleaners given enough time or the right cards. I had neither. Ended up the big loser, down $40 in less than two hours.

I realized I take my poker maybe just a bit too seriously when the near constant ring of cell phones and people leaving the table to take calls started to really irritate me. Getting nothing but folding cards probably didn't help.

I've started reading How Good Is Your Limit Hold'em? by Jacobs and Brier. If the book is any indication, I may have a better understanding of why I'm not winning at limit. I'm not sure I can fix it, but at least I have some idea of what's broken.

Overall it seems a worthwhile read, but I do have one critical comment concerning the format of the book. They talk in the opening of their more natural presentation of hands, going from start to finish on each hand rather than splitting the book up into separate discussions of pre-flop, flop, turn, and river, as do many other books.

I can buy into the basic premise, but then they change direction three or four times in each hand. They mix "hypothetical" scenarios for the hand in with the "actual" play, resulting in a confusing mess. After two or three hypothetical twists on the flop play, I find it very difficult to get back to the actual hand, and the physical presentation in the book doesn't make it easy.

For instance, they'll have something like this. You're dealt A♠ 9♦ in the cutoff.
Mr. Aggro UTG raises. Mr. Telephone in MP calls.
Question #1. You (a) fold, (b) call, (c) raise.
Reverse the positions of Mr. Aggro and Mr. Telephone. Mr. Telephone UTG calls, Mr. Aggro in MP raises.
Question #2. You (a) fold, (b) call, (c) raise.
Reverse the betting. Mr. Telephone UTG raises and Mr. Aggro in MP calls.
Question #3. You (a) fold, (b) call, (c) raise.
The flop comes A♥ 6♠ 4♠. Mr. Aggro bets and Mr. Telephone raises.
Question #4. You (a) fold, (b) call, (c) scratch your head trying to remember who's sitting where and who did what before the flop.

It gets worse as further scenarios are discussed on each street and the problem gets spread across three or four pages of the book. (This was an example of my own making which doesn't really do justice to the issue.) I think they would have produced a better book if they'd stuck with their original idea of presenting each hand as it is actually played. If they wanted to do variations, put them after the complete presentation of the original hand. I have enough trouble trying to figure out the answers without being confused about who's sitting where and who did what when.

I can't say that the first four problems in the book have had a significant impact on my limit poker. I played a few hours on Saturday and again on Sunday, still trying to clear as much of my Full Tilt bonus as possible. And I continued losing a lot faster than I'm earning bonus. I got so frustrated with the suckouts at limit that I switched to NL on Sunday. I can't play four tables of NL like I can limit, so the bonus clearing takes a big hit, but I usually walk away up at least a bit so I think I'm probably better off sticking with NL. I won about $40 in an hour of $0.25/$0.50 NL, much of it due to somebody running KK full speed into my AA.

I also played a few more of the $8+$0.70 turbo $26 Tournament Ticket SnG's. If you can get any cards at all these things are pretty easy. Unfortunately, I was card dead on the last two. I did win a ticket in the first one I played. I guess that leaves me down $0.10.

It's amazing to me how a "turbo" tournament can attract so many incredibly slow players. Every time I play I end up at tables with people who take close to the maximum time on every decision. I could almost see how this would play to your advantage if you'd doubled up early, but not when you haven't won a single pot. Given my recent connection problems from the hotel I should be the last one to complain about others being slow, but when I delay the game I'm not doing it on purpose or out of a lack of attention. It's very annoying to see people with no apparent connection problems continually delaying the game.

Tonight, once again, is Mondays At The Hoy, PokerStars, 22:00 EST, password hammer. Please join us.

WWdNot

It seems Joanne's prediction concerning last night's WWdNot was right on the money. Despite Iggy quite effectively playing big stack poker during much of the final table, Joanne, helped just a bit by quad aces, was able to take the lead and become the final table bully. And she filled that role admirably.

I managed to fold my way into the money when Ursus Aureus moved all-in, followed by xkm1245 raising all-in, followed by Joanne calling. I was tempted to call as well, being down to an M of 8 and AQo being the best starters I'd seen in ages, but I very wisely decided my hand wasn't good enough to go up against two all-ins and a call. Ursus Aureus turned over Q9s, xkm1245 showed QQ, and Joanne revealed the incredibly powerful A9s. Joanne turned her flush, Ursus Aureus and xkm1245 went home, and I backed my way into the money.

One other hand clearly worth noting involved Ursus Aureus and wwonka. There was a bit of posturing before the flop and wwonka got it all in on a flop of Qh Ts Th. Wwonka shows QQ, giving him queens full of tens, and Ursus Aureus shows Ah Kh, giving him, well, nothing. The turn brought a worthless flush for the golden bear, but, the river... ah, the river. The river brought the money card. The one card in the deck that could help -- the jack of hearts. Royal flush the hard way. Ursus Aureus' royal cherry. Talk about your bad beats. Great hands.

It was decided by acclamation at the final table (okay, I brought it up and no one complained) to move the start time of the WWdNot up 30 minutes, to 22:00 ET. So be sure to join us next week at our new time in the WWdNot the Guinness Invitational. PokerStars, 22:00 ET, password is monkey. Note also how I've very cleverly run the "Not" into the "WWdN" to form "WWdNot". Credit to Joanne for referring to this as the "dot not", which gave me the idea.

Play poker from your casino/hotel room

Progressive Gaming International and Harrah's Team Up to Offer New Server-Based Game: The World Series of Poker(R) ''Peer to Peer'' Texas Hold'em System for Both Wired and Wireless Formats in All Regulated Gaming Venues Worldwide

LAS VEGAS, Oct 23, 2006 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Progressive Gaming International Corporation (NASDAQ: PGIC) ("PGIC"), a leading provider of diversified content and technology products and services used in the gaming industry worldwide, announced today it intends to introduce an exciting new way to play Texas Hold'em poker: the World Series of Poker(R) "Peer to Peer" Texas Hold'em game.

The World Series of Poker "Peer to Peer" Texas Hold'em gaming system will be designed to allow patrons to play poker on a wired or wireless device on a secure intranet server managed from within a casino in jurisdictions where it is legal to do so. A poker player will be able to play World Series of Poker "Peer to Peer" Texas Hold'em at a variety of locations within a casino, without the need to be physically located at a poker table. Players may be able to play within the casino property at a bar, restaurant, and even poolside.

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My Mookie

Played The Mookie at Full Tilt last night. Despite an extended campaign to get the turnout up to at least 80, the attendance fell well short of that goal. I think we can expect Al to keep up with the disgusting pictures until more folks show up.

I was doing okay until I fell in love with my flopped TPTK and ran headlong into wwonka69's set of sixes. I doubled him up and knocked my stack in half. I hung on for quite a while longer, but never recovered from that. In fact, I didn't win another hand.

Played $2/$4 limit Hold'em for about an hour while waiting for The Mookie. Actually came out ahead for the first time in recent memory.

Also played a $8+$0.70 turbo Tier One Tournamet Ticket Tournament. That just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? Was effectively card dead. Won just three hands the whole tournament. I did go out in a blaze of glory though. Stone cold bluff on the flop against another shortie. Unfortunately, he'd caught a big enough piece of the flop to make the call.

Tonight is WWdN: Not The Surflexus Invitational at PokerStars, 22:30 ET. Password is monkey. This tournament was originally set up to appeal to the west coast players who find the Tuesday WWdN start time of 20:30 ET a bit early. Over the last few weeks I've noticed a vast majority of the players have listed locations in the Eastern and Central time zones. Since we seem to have missed the mark as far as appealing to the west coast folks, I'm thinking about bumping the time up to 22:00 ET. Any feedback on this will be welcome.

Another less than thrilling WWdN

Less than thrilling for me. Wyscan and HighOnPokr looked to be having pretty good nights.

I didn't get a whole lot in the way of cards and mostly stole my way to a reasonably healthy stack. I was never close to the chip lead, but neither was I dangerously close to busting out until my semi-steal attempt with ATo ran into PugMaggie's pocket nines. She was getting short-stacked and decided to make her stand, pushing all-in against my 3BB raise. I pondered for quite a while and finally made the call. It was the right decision -- me just a slight dog and getting 2-to-1 on the call -- it just had an unfortunate outcome for me. I hung on for quite a few hands after that, but never really recovered.

I need to find a way to never sit at the same table with HighOnPokr. I swear he can see my cards. We're in the blinds. It folds to Jordan. He completes and I'm happy to check my Brunson. Flop comes 22T. Birds are singing in my head. Check, check. Turn is a K. Jordan checks, I very coyly check also. River brings a 8. Jordan checks yet again. I bet 200 -- pot-sized, but we're at the river with no action so far. Jordan folds. Best flop I've had in ages, and I win 1BB.

Several other times we're in similar situations -- it folds to the blinds, Jordan completes, I check. He checks the flop, I bet my crap hoping to steal and he comes over the top. Or it goes the other way. I catch something on the flop, bet it exactly as I would if I were stealing, and he folds. It's uncanny. And it wasn't just last night. It seems to happen every time we're at a table together. I'm telling you, he can see my cards.

My internet connection from the hotel has been uncharacteristically good of late so I'll probably play The Mookie tonight at Full Tilt. I played some $2/$4 limit there last night before the WWdN trying to clear some more of that big bonus. If I can learn to listen to that little voice in my head I could actually be pretty good at that game. But, alas, I often feel the need to verify whether the voice is correct, and it usually costs me dearly. At the rate I'm going, I'll be out of FT bankroll long before I'm out of bonus. But at least my connection was good.

Speaking of the hotel, I've found another reason to move aside from the often unreliable internet service. Whoever is staying in the room one floor up from mine has regularly chosen 1:00 AM as the time to begin training his dancing elephants. Actually, elephants would probably be quieter.

Monied At The Hoy

Had a pretty good Monday At The Hoy. Got some decent cards, apparently made a few good plays, and managed to finish 3rd, though I think that was as much due to staying out of the way toward the end as it was good play on my part. Surflexus continued his tradition of making good laydowns to my strong hands. At least I think they were good laydowns. I didn't actually see. I need to figure out how to outfox him.

My funniest hand of the night was when we were down to three and, having been card-challenged for some time, I finally got some decent starters, KQs. Mungo36, who had a pretty big chip lead, had been running roughshod over the table for quite a while. He did his typical raise to 666 (blinds 100/200), Iggy folded, and I called from the BB. The flop is AKQ, two-suited. I've been playing like a real wuss for the last couple dozen hands so now's the time to take advantage of it. I check. Mungo36 does a Hoy, putting me all-in minus one. Of course, I call. The turn is a blank and I resist the urge to toss in my last chip. Mungo36 checks also. The river brings another K. I can't resist any longer and put in my last chip. Mungo36 calls and turns over, you guessed it, the hammer! He was suited and caught four to the flush on the flop, so his putting me almost all-in wasn't a complete bluff. Still, I got a good laugh out of it. I suggested it would have been funnier if he'd folded when I tossed in my last chip.

My final hand was pretty stupid. Iggy and I were almost even when I get A4s and raise to 600 (100/200/25). Iggy calls. Flop is 4QK, two diamonds and only one of my suit. I caught a piece so I figure I need to bet something. I toss 1000 into a 1200 pot. Iggy pushes all-in for another 4211. This is a huge overbet. The safe move is obviously to fold, but I keep wondering about the big bet. I'm thinking flush draw, meaning I'm ahead, so I call. I was right about the flush draw. He had two diamonds. Unfortunately, one of them was the king. Stupid move on my part calling with bottom pair.

Congrats to Iggy for winning and to Mungo36 for playing through the cabernet fog to take second. Tomorrow is the WWdN at PokerStars, 20:00 EDT, password monkey.

Hard Rockin'

Having not played live poker in almost two months, I've been getting really antsy to feel some real cards and chips. The live poker situation here in central Florida is rather grim. Florida has this ridiculous law that allows poker, including home poker, but makes it illegal to bet more than $2 at a time. This is actually an improvement over the previous situation where the total pot was limited to $10, but it still limits legal poker to the just screwing around level. And from what I've read, the $1/$2 limit games you find in the casinos and at the tracks are everything you would expect from such a game -- exhorbitantly high rake and percent seeing flop approaching 90%.

For some reason, tournament poker has escaped these archaic limits. So, if you're looking for legal no-limit poker, tournaments are the only way to go.

With all this in mind, on Saturday night I decided to make the 60-mile drive to the Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Tampa. Traffic was horrible getting out of Orlando and not much better the rest of the trip. It took me about an hour and twenty minutes.

I bypassed the ground level parking in favor of the parking garage. As I stepped into the elevator to get to the casino level I was hit with a smell that I'd long ago forgotten but which instantly screamed, "Casino!", at me. I don't know if it's some kind of air freshener used only in casinos or if it's just the mix of two dozen varieties of cologne and perfume in that tiny space, but it's a smell I only recall coming across in casinos. It created a feeling of coming back to a familiar place of good memories, even though I'd never been here before. Scent memory is a powerful thing.

The casino itself is little but a giant room filled with slot machines. Poker is apparently the only live game in the place.

I wandered about a bit to get a feel for the place and eventually found my way to the poker room. I've only played poker live in a casino once before (well, twice, but one of those was a lifetime ago, so I don't count it anymore), so I'm still a bit intimidated by the whole thing. I decided to railbird for a while and try to get a feel for how things worked.

Right next to the rail they have a couple "Poker Pro" all-computer tables they use for the cheaper tournaments. No chips, no cards, no dealer. Nothing but touch screens inset in the table at each player position and a large flat screen display in the center of the table. It's like playing online only all the people are physically in the same room. Since about half the tells exhibited by most players involve looking at or handling the chips, this would seem to have little benefit over playing online.

At the live tables they were spreading $1/$2 Hold'em, $2/$2 Hold'em, $2/$2 'Action' Hold'em, $1/$2 Omaha, $1/$2 Omaha Hi-Lo, and $1/$2 Stud. I have no idea what the 'action' part is. I looked around for some kind of explanation but couldn't find any. I didn't bother to ask. There were also tournaments from $120 to $1050.

Maybe it's just a west coast thing, but I was under the impression that most card rooms had gone non-smoking quite a while ago. Not so at the Hard Rock. The main casino floor had a lot fewer smokers than one would find in most Vegas Casinos (at least the last time I was there) and there didn't seem to be all that many smokers in the poker room, but there were some. (No offense to you smokers. I'm allergic and sitting in close proximity to smokers causes me significant discomfort.) They did have a sign posted saying the poker room would be going smoke-free as of 1 November.

After watching the action for maybe twenty minutes, I put my name in for $1/$2. I was tempted to try a $120 tournament, but there no names on the list. I'm not sure if that meant they were running effectively non-stop or if nobody was interested in playing at that level. I might have been willing to go for the $225 tournament, but there were no names on that list either. I figured I'd get my feet wet at $1/$2 and then ask about the tournament situation.

For the next half hour I watched my name slowly climb the list. The whole time I was thinking, "I could be back in my hotel room playing online, earning bonus money, and not sucking in all this second-hand smoke." Based on what I'd seen, I figured I was still 30-45 minutes from getting seated when I decided I didn't want to stand around any longer. So I turned around and left without having been dealt a single card.

I could have sat at Omaha, but I've played just enough Omaha to know I stink at it. Which probably meant I'd have an advantage over about 80% of the other people at the table. I guess I could have played Omaha while waiting for a seat at Hold'em. At least I'd have been sitting rather than leaning against the rail.

I'm willing to give it another try after the poker room goes non-smoking. And given that Neteller has announced they're going to block US player transfers to gambling sites, I may have little choice but to make the run to Tampa every couple weeks. This sucks.

Chips Ahoy!

Over the past year, through affiliate poker site offers, I have acquired three of the cheap Chinese dice poker chip sets. Three may seem a bit excessive, but new poker site deals kept coming up at ITH and I already had copies of the poker books I wanted, so the chips seemed the best of the available items. I figured two sets would allow me to host a decent sized tournament and I could always give a set as a gift.

But having three sets got me thinking. If I could round it off with a few more chips of higher denominations I could do deep stacks tournaments. (The chips don't actually have denominations, just colors. But I was thinking along the lines of sticking with standard color and denomination assignments. I'm funny that way.) So I started looking for a case that would securely hold 1,000 chips.

The search eventually lead me here. This was the best case I could find for 1,000+ chips at anything approaching this price. The only other sturdy alternative appeared to be something like a Pelican or Stormcase. I have a Stormcase for some of my radio gear. I like it a lot, but the wheeled cases aren't dimensioned properly for chips. To fit 1,000 chips you'd end up with a case that's much bigger than the chips. And price-wise you're already pretty far up there so you might as well go for the case that will hold 2,000 chips. And that case is so big it's intimidating.

I sort-of moved to Orlando before I did anything about assembling all my chips into one giant set. I say 'sort-of' because while I've been here for several months, most of my belongings, including my chips, are still in California.

So here I am, chip rich, yet without a chip in sight. And I'm dying to get some of my co-workers involved in poker. So I get the idea of buying another cheap set of chips so I'll have some here in Orlando. I thought about doing another new-user deal at ITH, but I've already played at all the sites they currently have deals with.

While looking for chips I ended up back at Poker Chips Depot where I'd first checked out the 2,000-chip case. Since I was last there they have built chip sets around this case. The prices are quite good and one of the available sets uses the exact same chips of which I already have 1,500, meaning I'd be able to mix and match chips to cover almost anything from a low level cash game to a multi-table 10,000 starting chip tournament.

So I'm now the proud owner of a set of 2,000 poker chips. I picked colors and quantities to mix with what I already have. The original sets were heavy on the white (1) and red (5) chips, so I ordered what would seem a disproportionate number of green (25) and black (100) chips, adding purple (500) and yellow (1000) chips to the mix. If I deviate from the standard colors and say the yellow chips are worth 5,000, I'm just a bit shy of 1,000,000 in chip value. Deep stacks with rebuys anyone?

The chips and the case came boxed separately. Once I got all the chips in the case, the first thing I noticed was that this thing is heavy! The chips alone weigh over 56 pounds. The case adds probably another 10 pounds. It's a good thing the case has wheels because my back wouldn't put up with moving it very far otherwise.

My general impression is that the case is sturdy enough to hold and transport the chips as long as reasonable care is taken during transport. I wouldn't check this at the airport and expect it to come out intact at the other end.

The latches are sufficient to keep the case from popping open during normal handling. They are the type with a loop of wire that fits over a fixed post and compresses against the post when the latch is closed. These strike me as much more secure than the simple flip latches used on the other cases I have. But I'm stil not sure they would keep the case secure if it was dropped from more than a few inches.

The handle on the case is sturdy and seems well attached. The case does not flex at all when lifted by the handle. Again, I don't know that I'd trust it with rough treatment by professional baggage handlers, but it should serve adequately for carrying the chips to and from poker games.

As mentioned previously, the case has wheels. There is also an extendable handle to make it easier to pull the case. This handle feels a bit on the flimsy side, having quite a bit of flex to it when pulling the fully loaded case. My guess would be this is the weakest link and will be the first part to break. Still, with a bit of care, I don't think it's likely to break soon.

The chips are stored in two layers of 1,000 each. The top layer is formed by four removable trays, each holding five rows of 50 chips. The trays are constructed of wood covered in velvet. They have sturdy woven fabric handles secured to each end.

The bottom layer is a single velvet-covered wooden tray with ten rows holding 100 chips each. The dividers stick up above the top of the chips, so the top trays rest on the dividers, not on the chips in the lower level. There's actually room for about 105 chips in each row, but the chips fit very snuggly and it's almost impossible to remove them without having some finger room at the end of each row.

The bottom tray is secured to the case with screws and, I believe, adds to the overall strength of the case.



The chips I got are the cheap plastic Chinese chips with the metal inserts. I have no delusions of these being casino-quality chips, but they're certainly an improvement over the all-plastic chips readily available in many discount department stores.


They should provide many years of service (particularly if they get used as much as the 'free' chips I got through ITH). And I really can't complain at all about the price. Less than 6 cents per chip, not including delivery.

Two Not Monies in a Row

I monied for the second week in a row in the WWdN: Not The. Third this time instead of second. Not sure I like the direction this is headed, but I'll take the money.

Congratulations to hacker59 for the win and to surflexus for getting next week's tournament named after him. Extremely welled play, both of you. Helluva laydown, surf.

Turnout was down this week. Probably a combination of darval still being without internet and not doing any blogging and Joanne not pimping us on Card Squad this week. Still, we had a few new faces and the competition was extremely tough, as always.

Hoyazo has been doing in depth hand analyses recently. I'd like to have a go at a similar thing with a few hands from last night. Sadly, I do not have a hair trigger on my screen capture, so there will not be pictures of the hands at each step along the way. You'll have to make due with my descriptions.

My first big hand came in level 3. Let's call this hand #1, just in case anyone wants to refer to it in comments. We're six-handed. I get ATo in the CO. Not normally a hand I get overly excited about, but I've been doing nothing but folding (and timing out -- again. Damn you Extended Stay Deluxe!) for a very long time and it's a hand I don't mind seeing a flop with. I raise to 150. (Blinds are 25/50.) The button calls and the blinds fold. Two of us see a flop of 43T, two of them spades. TPTK on a flop that's unlikely to have helped my opponent more than it did me. The spades are obviously a concern. I bet 300 into a 375 pot. In retrospect, I should have bet a bit more than the pot, say 450, to cut off odds on the flush draw. My opponent raises to 800. I've got 915 left. What do I do?

Hand #2. We're at level 7, blinds at 100/200, ante 25, down to four players. I get a rather lackluster K3s in the BB. UTG folds, button puts in a rather weak raise to 500. SB calls. I'm in the chip lead by a narrow margin, but have both of the players in this pot covered by quite a bit. I decide I can afford to make the call. If I hit the flop big I might be able to stack one of these guys and get us off the bubble. If I don't hit the flop big, I'm probably gone.

The flop comes 6KK, rainbow. I think that qualifies as big, though I'm really hating my 3. Check, check, check. Turn brings a 5 of the only suit not already represented. SB min-bets. 200 into a 1600 pot. I have no clue what this means. I suppose the safer route, being concerned about my kicker, would have been to just call, but then I'm still confused about the min-bet and I've learned nothing. I raise it to 800. Still a pretty weak bet given the size of the pot, but it's just a feeler. Button folds, SB calls.

Now comes the card of which poker dreams are made. The case king floats in on the river. I'm no longer concerned about my weak kicker. The SB bets 600 into a 3200 pot. He has 3121 remaining. Obviously I'm going to raise. How much?

Finally, hand #3. This is very late in the tournament. We're down to three. I have a very narrow chip lead. We're all close enough that one hand could swing it in any direction. Blinds are 200/400 with antes of 25. I get 88 on the button. Decent starters for three-handed, so I go with the standard 3BB raise, making it 1200 to go. SB raises 2000 to 3200. BB folds. What's your move?

Again, congratulations to hacker59 on the win. Please join us next week for the WWdN: Not The surflexus Invitational, 26 October, PokerStars, 22:30 ET, password monkey.

Not WWdN Tonight

I skipped playing the WWdN tonight. No particular reason. Well, I was playing a tournament at Full Tilt and didn't want to strain my fragile internet connection with the incredible demands of two poker sessions going at once. I've bitched about the internet here in my hotel before, but the horribleness of the connection just keeps on keeping on. It was particularly bad with Full Tilt tonight, though I gather I wasn't the only one having problems.

Having read Mookie's piece about Iak's Full Tilt tournament token strategy, I had to give it a go myself. I played in a number of qualifiers at Interpoker trying to win my way into their $500k guaranteed tournament, back when $500k was a big thing and not less than half the prize pool Stars and Party offer every week.

I knew from those qualifiers that a different strategy was called for, particularly when it starts getting close to "the money". That was a lesson I stupidly learned the hard way. We were on the bubble, I had the second biggest stack and could have sat out and gotten a ticket to the big show, but I got involved in a hand with the chip leader. I don't recall all the details, but it goes to the river and I've got the second nut hand. He needs two specific cards to beat me. He pushes all-in. I think for a long while and finally decide the odds of him having those two cards are slim, so I call. Of course, he's got the nuts, and I give one of the short stacks a free ride to the $500k.

I finally got my ticket to the $500k, though it cost me a lot more than it should have. And I finished the big tournament well out of the money. But I learned a lot, so it wasn't time or money completely wasted.

So tonight I jumped into a 2-table $6+$0.60 Tier One SnG. I got one decent hand the whole time, AA, and everyone folded to my wimp-ass min-raise. I guess they all know that trick. I finished in 8th, which is nothing to write home about, but considering the cards I was dealt I was reasonably happy with my play. Plus, again considering the crap cards, the overall strategy showed promise. One or two decent hands and I would have been able to cruise into the final four.

Next I tried a $8+$0.80 turbo. Same basic format, but the blinds go up every two minutes and there are five tournament tokens awarded instead of four. I again didn't get much in the way of cards until I was getting rather seriously short stacked. I caught a couple decent hands and was able to ride those into the winners' circle. It's pretty stupid considering all the prizes are the same, but Full Tilt plays the tournament all the way out. I took second, though everybody realized it was dumb and there were lots of all-ins with garbage once we'd made it past the bubble.

Then I went back to the $6+$0.60 because nobody was signing up for the $8+$0.80. I bubbled, mostly due to a couple other players getting lucky on desperate all-ins. I wasn't in much better shape, but I had a slightly larger stack. My stupid bloody connection also crapped out on me right in the middle of one big hand. I didn't get to see the board so I have no idea how it would have played out. I gather I was folded because my chip stack was somewhat smaller when I re-connected.

So, one for three applying the Iakaris Token Hunt strategy, with one bubble. Not terrible and I'm just slightly ahead money-wise. If I'd gotten any kind of cards at all in that first tournament I'm sure I could have gotten a lot further.

Now I'm debating whether I should use my $26 token for a Tier Two SnG or if I should play it for money. I'll probably go for Tier Two in the hope of getting in to Miami Don's Big Game this Sunday. Though I'm sure I'll be thoroughly outclassed there.

Razz'berries in the WPBT

The WPBT "R is for Razz" tournament was last night at Full Tilt. I once again had a terrible connection. Not as bad as on Thursday last, but annoying nonetheless. I'd like to blame the connection for my poor performance, but since I finished second on Thursday with an even worse connection, that probably wouldn't fly.

Razz is mostly about getting cards. Before the last card falls, two-thirds of your cards are right there for all the world to see. If you've got crap, everyone knows it. You can bluff if your down cards are bad, but you need to have good up cards or you're not going anywhere.

Last night I got dealt a long series of great 7-stud starting hands. I think I had three decent starting hands the whole time. I got bricks on fourth street in two of them and on the third, as good as my cards were, somebody had better. My hand history, which for some reason doesn't include the first two levels, shows me winning one hand. By that time I was seriously short-stacked and it was a small pot that only forestalled the inevitable for a short while. And I was bluffing because I was actually paired in the first three cards. I just happened to have two great up-cards and the other player got unlucky on fourth street. I have recollection of winning another very small pot early. Not a good night for me at all.

Of course, things were not improved by the fact that this was a crowd that, while probably not expert in Razz, had more than a vague clue of what they were doing. Winning in Razz ring games is generally pretty easy due to the presence of at least one or two complete idiots at most tables. The kind of people who will call your fourth street bet when you're showing 23 and they have two face cards up. There were none of those people in this tournament.

Tonight is Mondays At The Hoy, PokerStars, 22:00 EDT. Password is hammer. Hope to see you there.

Not monied again!

Right off the bat, before I get into anything about the tournament, I want to send a big "Thanks for nothing" to GuestTek, Inc. at globalsuite.net for providing one of the worst internet connections I've ever used. I'm still living in a hotel here in Orlando and, as such, am subject to the often crappy internet service provided by GuestTek and the hotel here. To paraphrase Joanne, it not only sucks, it swallows. The crappy internet connection, more than any single other thing, is going to force me to find more permanent housing here so I can get real internet access.

I also have to apologize to everyone who was sitting at my table. As frustrating as I'm sure it was watching me time out again and again, I assure you it was even more frustrating at this end.

Enough of that; on to the tournament. Pretty good turnout again tonight. With the last second arrival of Hoyazo, we had 21 tonight. Too bad you couldn't stick around longer, Hoy. ;-) Darval is still without internet at home so I had to take care of all the hosting duties. Tiring work, that.

I was going to add descriptions of a few hands, but it's very late here and I'm getting tired. So I'll just say there were some good hands, there were some bad hands, chips got exchanged, players were eliminated, I went home $52 richer, and, most importantly, I finally get to name the tournament after myself. I may post more tomorrow (actually later today), but that's it for now. Congrats to hacker59 on a fine tournament.

And, just once more, let me say how painfully awful the GuestTek internet services are. Extended Stay Deluxe, listen up. I'm going to be leaving your hotel simply because of the freaking awful internet access. Even at $4.99 per stay, it's a rip-off.

My Kowboys got Ironed

Played The Mookie at Full Tilt last night. I was actually doing okay, mostly due to one hand where my semi-bluff with a flush draw was apparently the best hand and PercentileDoom folded to my all-in. At least he said my flush draw was the best hand. I probably shouldn't admit that he read me cold, but he did.

Then came this hand. I was thrilled to see smizmiatch raise it pre-flop and then irongirl01 come over the top. With over 750 in the pot already and this still being fairly early in the tournament, I figured a big move here was warranted. There was a good chance I would take it down right now, and if I got a caller I was still in great shape. Or so I thought. I push, irongirl01 calls, and I'm suddenly way behind. The cavalry did not charge over the hill to rescue my kowboys and I moved from being in great shape to being in a bad place. I lasted a while longer, but this was the fatal blow. Ended up finishing 34th of 58.

I had earlier in the day taken advantage of the Full Tilt 50% reload bonus, so as long as I was there I decided to play a bit of limit to work off some of the bonus. Full table limit has gotten so tight it's almost not worth the trouble. The $2/$4 and $3/$6 tables at Full Tilt all had percent seeing flop in the low 20's. Not to mention all having waiting lists. I ended up playing three tables of $1/$2. Caught some good hands early and was up a fair amount, but lost most of it back and ended the night roughly even.

Between early evening play, the Mookie, and the following limit play, I cleared $12 of bonus, which is way more than I've ever cleared in a single evening at Full Tilt before. Sad statement about bonuses at Full Tilt there. Last month I cleared $90 of bonus at William Hill in less time.

If you've cashed out of some other sites like I have, you might want to move some to Full Tilt to get in on the bonus. Full Tilt has said they're staying in the US market and, slow bonus clearance rate or not, I think they deserve the support of the poker community for taking a stand. They will be seeing more of my business than they have in the past.

Tonight is WWdN: Not The Ursus Aureus Invitational, PokerStars, 22:30 EDT. Password is monkey. Please join us.

Lackluster WWdN

Played the WWdN last night and absolutely could not get any traction at all. My chip count only went in an upward direction a couple times, and then by just a few chips. Finished somewhere in the middle of the field. I had Hoyazo just to my left for my last half hour or so, but we only went head-to-head once and I quickly ran away when he came over the top of my bluff. My night ended when my all-in with pocket eights ran into AQs which rivered a flush.

Tonight is The Mookie at Full Tilt, 22:00 EDT.

They call me Mr. Victimizer

Hoyazo gave me a nice write-up in his blog today, so I guess it's only fair to do the same. Yes, it's true. I am The Victimizer. That's Mister Victimizer to you.

I'm not going to say much about the hand in question other than I was playing the player, not the cards. From here I will just quote Hoyazo.

In my mind, although the Victimizer hasn't been playing the Hoy long, he clearly knows my slow-raise strategy with pocket Aces, and he is using it against me. So I know he must have Aces. But at this point, even facing the third raise preflop, with still a solid 600 or so chips left in my stack, I'm not going to fold the Kings. So I move it all in.

Given that Hoy was convinced I had the aces, I don't think I made a bad play here at all. It was a convincing bluff that didn't work. Nothing to feel bad about there. Once Hoy's gone all-in, I'm getting 4-to-1 from the pot and am just slightly worse than 2-to-1 against if he has anything short of aces. That was a distinct possibility, but given his tricky nature, I can't see him putting in the big raise pre-flop with aces. If he'd min-raised I probably would have run for the hills.

So I made the call, hit the flop big, and Hoy went home early. That's poker, babee.

I'm sure you'll take your revenge before long, Hoy.

I went on to take fifth. Out of the money, but respectable given the company.

See you tonight at the WWdN.

Moving up

As I think I mentioned in a previous entry, I've been toying with the idea of moving up to some more expensive tournaments. Not that I've been finishing in the money so consistently in the $10 SnGs that it's obviously time, but more the apparent impending implosion of online poker that makes me feel I should do something with the bankroll while I still have a chance. I've been playing way, way below what my bankroll will reasonably allow so it's not like a few $50 or $100 tournaments would put me in any danger of going broke.

Anyway, this weekend I took some action on this sort-of plan. Largely spur of the moment, just like most of my big poker decisions, I jumped into a $30+$3 SnG at Full Tilt. Got total crap cards and watched as a couple of lucky jokers sucked up a lot of chips and started bullying the table. I finished in 6th.

I immediately jumped into another of the same, again getting total crap cards, but this time hanging on to go out on the bubble.

Last night I played a couple $20+$2 SnGs at PokerStars. Yet again, I finished out of the money in both.

My record of moving up and finishing out of the money in all four tournaments would seem to not bode well for this endeavor, but my observations differ somewhat from the results. In none of the four tournaments did I see anything that scared me. There was a fairly regular mix of donkeys, lucky donkeys, and decent players. The least of the players in any of the regular blogger tournaments would have not been uncomfortable at any of these tables.

So, until the bankroll starts getting thin, I think I'm going to stick with the slightly more expensive tournaments. OTOH, if my cards don't improve soon (I knew I blew several weeks worth of luck in the last WWdN: Not The) I may be hitting the thin bankroll stage a lot sooner than expected. I'll keep you posted.

Tonight is Mondays At The Hoy. 22:00 EDT at PokerStars. Password is hammer. Hope to see you there.

Deep stacks limit

It's been a long time since I last subjected myself to one of the PokerStars deep stack tournaments. My first experience was with the Friday limit hold'em version, maybe six months ago. I got into it spur of the moment -- clearly a mistake given how long these things can last -- and seven and a half hours later I busted out in something like 27th. Along the way I seriously considered suicide several times. I think limit hold'em is a horrible tournament game. I theorized that the larger starting stacks and longer levels would allow for skill to play a much larger part. Perhaps they do, but limit hold'em still sucks as a tournament game.

So, why would I want to repeat this nightmare? Beats me, but I did. Tonight I rushed home from work, casting aside the opportunity to drink fancy $12 martinis at some trendy bar with my co-workers, and signed up for the deep stack limit hold'em tournament. (Sorry to digress, but I just have to say that a martini is made with gin, dry vermouth, ice, and an olive, though I prefer mine with a twist. Expensive vodka mixed with Cointreau or Kahlua or Peach Schnapps -- Peach Schnapps? -- does not magically become a martini just because you pour it into a martini glass. A chocolate martini? Give me a break. Call me old school, but I like the martini of Hawkeye Pierce. Gin poured over cracked ice, gently swirled, then strained into an iced glass while the bartender quietly whispers the word "vermouth" under his breath. That is a martini.)

I should have gone for the foo-foo martinis. What a colossal waste of time! I've never played at one table with so many slow, lucky donkeys. At the first break one idiot had a VP$IP of 80%. I don't think I've ever seen one person get so consistently lucky. The table VP$IP was over 40%. Frequently there would be six people seeing the flop following a capped pre-flop betting round. I seriously haven't seen play like this since I hit up the beginners tables at Party. Several times the suckouts were so bad I had to sit out and just walk away. I took a 20-minute dinner break right in the middle of play because of the suckouts and just generally horrible play. Shortly after the second break, the 80% idiot, who had built his T5000 starting stack to over T12,000 at one point, busted out. So the donkey play caught up with him, but not before he ruined the chances of a number of decent players to get somewhere in this tournament.

I made it past the fourth break, but busted shortly thereafter, in 70th-something place. Considering how few hands I won it wasn't a bad finish. Well out of the money though.

One of the benefits of these deep stack, long level tournaments is that you get to spend more time observing the play of the opponents at your first table. This is especially so with limit since it's virtually impossible for anyone to bust out in the first hour. One of the drawbacks of these deep stack, long level tournaments is that you get to spend more time observing the play of the opponents at your first table. And when they're fools who aren't paying any attention to the game and are constantly timing out, a few days taking advantage of the accomodations in Gitmo start to look good in comparison. I don't think my table played any more hands per 30-minute level than are normally played in an average 10-minute SnG level.

This whole thing starts to remind me of my relationship with Sears. When I first got out of college and moved to California, I went to Sears, where America shops, to buy a refrigerator for my new apartment. Sears had given me a credit card with a whopping $50 limit when I was still in college with no job, so I reasoned now that I was making infinitely more money than I was when they gave me the card, it would be logical to expect them to increase my credit limit to, say, $350, so I could charge a refrigerator. I won't bore you with all the fine details, but suffice it to say that after two weeks of making do with an ice chest in my apartment, Sears and I parted company without having consummated a deal on a refrigerator. (And they managed to screw up application of the payment I made closing out my account, so months later I get a call asking why I haven't paid the bill. They never did remove all the accumulated interest charges.) I swore I would never shop at Sears again.

Yet, every decade or so I seem compelled to re-experience the pain of shopping at Sears, just to remind myself why I hate Sears and will never shop there. I did it when I decided Sears would be a good place to buy a new vacuum cleaner and waited a full 90 minutes for a manager to come and authorize my check (which they would have accepted without question if I hadn't been honest and told them I had recently moved and not gotten new checks yet). And then I waited another 30 minutes for them to locate the thing in the warehouse.

So I'll probably subject myself to the torture of deep stacks limit hold'em again in another six months. Unless, just maybe, I've learned my lesson for good this time. Yeah, right.

I feel much better now that I've vented.