Attendance was a bit off for the WWdN: Not The last night. My co-host darval was absent due to his current living conditions which include a lack of basic amenities like reliable high speed internet and electricity that doesn't depend on you keeping the generator tank full. Quatloos probably would come up with some lame excuse like sitting at a blackjack table or attending some fancy wine event. Anyway, we had seventeen tough competitors for last night's tournament.
I continued in my quest to play and hit more of the Negreanu-style small connectors and one-gaps. For a change, a few of them actually came through. Fairly early I caught a straight when I went with 75s. Unfortunately, the board was not kind, bringing up a third 3 on the river. The obvious full house threat kept me from maximizing my gain. To make matters worse, Darzog had the idiot end of the straight, meaning I had the potential to really hit this one big, but the 3's scared us both away.
Looking back over the hand history I see I was catching some decent hands early. Shadowtwin's apparent slowplay of his AK which flopped TPTK allowed me to fill my straight on the river. I kept hoping he'd come over the top of my bets, but no such luck. A few hands later I caught AA. We didn't make it past the flop, but it was still a decent pot for early play.
Shadowtwin got it all back and then some a bit later. It folded to shadowtwin in the SB. He completed, I checked my massively powerful 83o. The flop came A87, rainbow. Shadowtwin made a pot-sized bet. I reasoned that if he had an ace he would have raised before the flop, so there was a chance that my 8's were actually ahead. I put in my standard 3x raise, making it 600 to go. He pushed all-in. If it was a bluff, hats off to shadowtwin. I was now faced with putting all but 15 of my chips in the pot on a pair of 8's with an ace on the board. He certainly could have been holding 87, and I suppose a less aggressive player might have simply completed pre-flop with A8 or A7. Regardless, there's no way I could make the call, so shadowtwin made off with a third of my stack. Well done, shadowtwin.
My next time in the BB brought another exciting hand. My 97o turned the nut straight on a rainbow board. I wasn't too happy when the river moved me down to second nut, but I figured it unlikely that Wyscan would have bet the turn with just an inside straight draw, so I put in a few more chips on the river and got back what I lost to Shadowtwin.
From there I just blinded off until I was getting close to short. Made a move against Budohorseman with A5s. Looking back at the hand history I can't imagine what I was thinking. Blinds were 75/150 and I still had 1600, giving me an unadjusted M of 7. Budohorseman made a standard 3BB raise and I pushed with A5s. Now that I think back, he'd been stealing quite regularly. Several times he turned up the hammer after he made away with the pot. I guess I figured he might be stealing again and I could either re-steal or, maybe, my ace was good. He called and turned up KJs. Not a pure steal, but also not the greatest hand to be calling an all-in with. My ace held, improving to a pair on the river, and I doubled up to 3200.
My newly increased stack didn't last long. When NewinNov pushed his rather short stack into the pot pre-flop, I figured my A8s might be good, so I pushed as well. He turned over AKo, it held, and I was back to 1800.
My roller coaster ride continued a few hands later when I pushed with 66 and got a call from Speck'sBacon with the big stack holding KQo. My 6's held and I was up to 3800.
The next dip came when I gladly called shadowtwin's all-in with my KK. He turned over AKo, promptly flopped two more aces, and again took a big chunk of my stack.
My night ended when I pushed pre-flop with AKo and got a call from Budohorseman with QQ. His queens held and I finished in 5th.
Sunday is the WPBT Circuit Event #9, PLO8 at Full Tilt, 21:00 EDT. Assuming I play, this will be my first PLO8 tournament. I'm sure it will show. I tried practicing a bit last night at a cheap PLO8 ring table. I did okay, but, as one might expect at a nickel table, the sophistication of the players was a tad on the low side. For much of the time it played a lot more like limit than PL. Several times I was able to steal by tossing in a pot-sized bet when I had good starters. My understanding is that this is the way the game should be played -- max bets early with promising hands so you can build the pot for the times that they hit. The other players didn't seem to appreciate that. I walked away up a few bucks. Maybe I'll try a couple practice SnG's before the main event.
Next week we have all the usual blogger tournaments. I'm sure I'll post again before they start.
29 September 2006
28 September 2006
The Mookie and other tidbits
Played in The Mookie -- Iak's Coronation last night. Forty-four players showed up. Mookie live-blogged the whole thing. This one did not turn into a marathon like some others recently. It was all over in just under two hours. Congrats to DuggleBogey for outlasting the rest of the field this week.
I'm afraid my performance was short and rather unsensational. One quickly shut down bluff, several unsuccessful attempts at catching a hand with suited connectors, lots of folding and blinding down, followed by a quick flameout when I pushed with A6o when my M dropped below 5 and ran into csquard's pocket 7's that held. I won three hands the whole tournament, all of them simply picking up the blinds.
I've been on a run of bad cards lately and they obviously continued into the Mookie. At least they've mostly been non-starters so they haven't been terribly costly. Except for when my 64 ran headlong into a wheel in Razz. That was my biggest single loss at limit in a very long time.
On a somewhat brighter note, while waiting for The Mookie to begin I got into a single table SnG at Full Tilt. My cards there were also fabulously unspectacular until with the blinds at 60/120 it folded to the SB who completed and let me play K3s for free. I flopped the nut flush and the SB had the misfortune to pair his ace. He pushed it all in on the turn and I doubled up. Some slightly better cards appeared and I went on to take second.
Since my exit from The Mookie was a bit earlier than I expected, I popped over to PokerStars and played another SnG. In this one I actually had one of those highly speculative small suited connector hands come through for me. I flopped an inside straight flush draw. My call of an almost pot sized bet was probably marginal considering I was drawing to the lowest possible flush and an inside straight, but I just had to see one more card. The turn filled my straight and the other guy folded to my purposely weak check-raise.
This was another of those situations where I'm never sure if I should take the bird in hand or go for the flock in the bush. In this case I was a bit concerned about him drawing to a better flush so I decided to do the check-raise. As I said, it was a pretty weak check-raise -- 240 on top of his 180 bet into a 260 pot -- but I'm guessing he was on second pair or maybe just semi-bluffing with a flush draw and he bailed. Decent pot, though, for that stage of the tournament.
When we got down to five, I made a play with ATo that ended up being very costly. I think my initial raise to 3BB (75/150) was okay, but bluffing into a 899 flop after my opponent checked was pretty stupid. He pushed all-in in response. I knew I was almost certainly beat, but getting better than 3-to-1 from the pot I thought the chance of him bluffing was worth making the call. Actually, knowing what his cards were, I was way into correct move territory by making the call. His pocket 5's made him a not quite 3-to-2 favorite. But the 5's held and with the blinds increasing to 100/200 on the next hand, my M was reduced to 2.
I picked up a few pots by pushing all-in, then lucked out big time when my all-in with A8o was called by AKo and I flopped trip 8's.
When we hit the bubble the table went very tight and I took advantage, slowly building my stack to where I at least wasn't in serious trouble from the blinds. Basically, this allowed me to hang on until we were heads up. I went in at a serious chip disadvantage and the other guy played the situation well. A few hands later I had another 2nd place SnG finish. Hard to turn much of a profit taking second at $10+$1 SnG's, but it's way better than being first out.
Don't forget the WWdN: Not The Mak_K_4_Life Invitational tonight, 22:30 EDT at PokerStars. Password is monkey.
I'm afraid my performance was short and rather unsensational. One quickly shut down bluff, several unsuccessful attempts at catching a hand with suited connectors, lots of folding and blinding down, followed by a quick flameout when I pushed with A6o when my M dropped below 5 and ran into csquard's pocket 7's that held. I won three hands the whole tournament, all of them simply picking up the blinds.
I've been on a run of bad cards lately and they obviously continued into the Mookie. At least they've mostly been non-starters so they haven't been terribly costly. Except for when my 64 ran headlong into a wheel in Razz. That was my biggest single loss at limit in a very long time.
On a somewhat brighter note, while waiting for The Mookie to begin I got into a single table SnG at Full Tilt. My cards there were also fabulously unspectacular until with the blinds at 60/120 it folded to the SB who completed and let me play K3s for free. I flopped the nut flush and the SB had the misfortune to pair his ace. He pushed it all in on the turn and I doubled up. Some slightly better cards appeared and I went on to take second.
Since my exit from The Mookie was a bit earlier than I expected, I popped over to PokerStars and played another SnG. In this one I actually had one of those highly speculative small suited connector hands come through for me. I flopped an inside straight flush draw. My call of an almost pot sized bet was probably marginal considering I was drawing to the lowest possible flush and an inside straight, but I just had to see one more card. The turn filled my straight and the other guy folded to my purposely weak check-raise.
This was another of those situations where I'm never sure if I should take the bird in hand or go for the flock in the bush. In this case I was a bit concerned about him drawing to a better flush so I decided to do the check-raise. As I said, it was a pretty weak check-raise -- 240 on top of his 180 bet into a 260 pot -- but I'm guessing he was on second pair or maybe just semi-bluffing with a flush draw and he bailed. Decent pot, though, for that stage of the tournament.
When we got down to five, I made a play with ATo that ended up being very costly. I think my initial raise to 3BB (75/150) was okay, but bluffing into a 899 flop after my opponent checked was pretty stupid. He pushed all-in in response. I knew I was almost certainly beat, but getting better than 3-to-1 from the pot I thought the chance of him bluffing was worth making the call. Actually, knowing what his cards were, I was way into correct move territory by making the call. His pocket 5's made him a not quite 3-to-2 favorite. But the 5's held and with the blinds increasing to 100/200 on the next hand, my M was reduced to 2.
I picked up a few pots by pushing all-in, then lucked out big time when my all-in with A8o was called by AKo and I flopped trip 8's.
When we hit the bubble the table went very tight and I took advantage, slowly building my stack to where I at least wasn't in serious trouble from the blinds. Basically, this allowed me to hang on until we were heads up. I went in at a serious chip disadvantage and the other guy played the situation well. A few hands later I had another 2nd place SnG finish. Hard to turn much of a profit taking second at $10+$1 SnG's, but it's way better than being first out.
Don't forget the WWdN: Not The Mak_K_4_Life Invitational tonight, 22:30 EDT at PokerStars. Password is monkey.
26 September 2006
I used to be good at MATH
My Monday At The Hoy was relatively uneventful. I finished 7th of 22. The only real high(?)light was when Wil caught me making a hammer play and I stupidly decided to call his all-in. It wasn't the dumbest move I've ever made as I was getting better than 4-to-1 on my call and I was only down 2-to-1 against a random hand. Okay, so Wil probably had better than a random hand to push against my raise. But I made the call and Wil turned over TT. The flop brought me a 7, but it also brought a couple 3's, taking away three of the outs the 7 provided. RiverStars let me down, not bringing another 7, and I doubled Wil up with chips I could ill afford to lose at this point.
Looking for any reasonable opportunity to push, I came very close to going with 53o from the SB when it folded to me. After a few seconds reflection I decided instead to fold my powerhouse and greenie523 showed AA. I can dodge bullets, baby!
I subsequently doubled through csquard when my pocket 4's held up against his KQo. But hoyazo's call of my ATo all-in to a Q63-rainbow board turned out to be good when his 54o rivered a straight. And that was my Monday At The Hoy.
Looking for any reasonable opportunity to push, I came very close to going with 53o from the SB when it folded to me. After a few seconds reflection I decided instead to fold my powerhouse and greenie523 showed AA. I can dodge bullets, baby!
I subsequently doubled through csquard when my pocket 4's held up against his KQo. But hoyazo's call of my ATo all-in to a Q63-rainbow board turned out to be good when his 54o rivered a straight. And that was my Monday At The Hoy.
25 September 2006
Slow weekend
Not much exciting on the poker front this weekend. Played some $0.25/$0.50 6-max NL at CD Poker in an effort to clear some of the enormous bonus I have pending. They sent me a 60% to $720 reload offer a few weeks ago. I had some money just setting in my Neteller account, so I put $1000 in on the bonus offer. That gave me a $600 bonus. I'm not sure if I overlooked some of the fine print or what, but a couple days later another $750 bonus showed up in my account. So I've got $1350 in pending bonus.
Unfortunately, it clears at such a slow rate that if I was 4-tabling $2/$4 eight hours a day for the next three months I seriously doubt I could clear it all. Of course, this would require there to actually be four tables of $2/$4 going. Plus, CD Poker is not compatible with Poker Tracker, so 4-tabling becomes much more of a challenge.
So far I've just been playing one table and at a limit with which I'm comfortable. The play at the NL tables seems a lot less disciplined than at the limit tables, so I've been sticking with NL. I'm up a bit, maybe $50, on play, so it hasn't been time completely wasted, but after several hours of play I'm still a couple hours away from clearing the first $10 of bonus.
The carrot of $1350 bonus is hard to resist, but this is starting to look nearly impossible to clear. Even if I'd been playing here a lot over the last few months and was at their highest VIP level, it would still be extremely difficult to clear. With several of the Cryptos changing their bonus terms to be much more favorable to the player, I'm thinking my time is best spent elsewhere. (William Hill increased their bonus to £10/hour for this month. If you have an account there and haven't done the bonus this month, it's well worth your time to do so.)
I also spent more time at the Razz tables. This game depends very heavily on you getting cards. Fortunately, there are still enough fish playing this game that you can be card dead for an hour and make it all back in one hand. I was at a table at Full Tilt last night with some people who clearly had no clue what they were doing. As I watched one guy's play I was almost positive he thought he was playing stud high. I mean, how do you raise into someone showing 53 when you're showing two face cards?
Which brings up another topic that still mystifies me. There was one guy at the table last night who was extremely aggressive. If he was in a pot, he was raising. And he seemed to have no idea how to read other people's hands. Several times it was obvious to me he had effectively no chance of winning, yet he was still raising at every opportunity. Just the kind of guy you want playing when you've got a great hand.
Yet some idiot at the table insists on deriding the guy for raising all the time. It takes a special kind of stupid to type anything but encouragement to a player like this. Here's the one in a hundred (in this case maybe thousand) player who has virtually no clue what he's doing, but he doesn't let that stop him from tossing chips in the pot. He's the player around whom poker dreams are formed. And some moron has to stroke his own ego by making fun of the guy. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Never, under any circumstances, make a negative comment to a player like this. There is absolutely no upside for you in doing so.
In this case I did something that was almost as stupid. I told the moron to shut up. He'd either gotten it out of his system or realized the error of his ways, and he did what I suggested, but the damage had already been done. Mr. I-Always-Raise stopped raising at every opportunity and stopped playing every hand where his first card wasn't a face card. The golden goose had been slayed. Nice work jackass.
On the blogger tournament schedule this week we have Mondays At The Hoy, tonight at 22:00 at PokerStars, password hammer. Tomorrow, Tuesday, it's the WWdN, 20:30 at PokerStars, password monkey. Wednesday it's The Mookie, 22:00 at Full Tilt, password vegas1. And Thursday it's WWdN: Not The, 22:30 at PokerStars, password monkey. Please join us if you can.
Unfortunately, it clears at such a slow rate that if I was 4-tabling $2/$4 eight hours a day for the next three months I seriously doubt I could clear it all. Of course, this would require there to actually be four tables of $2/$4 going. Plus, CD Poker is not compatible with Poker Tracker, so 4-tabling becomes much more of a challenge.
So far I've just been playing one table and at a limit with which I'm comfortable. The play at the NL tables seems a lot less disciplined than at the limit tables, so I've been sticking with NL. I'm up a bit, maybe $50, on play, so it hasn't been time completely wasted, but after several hours of play I'm still a couple hours away from clearing the first $10 of bonus.
The carrot of $1350 bonus is hard to resist, but this is starting to look nearly impossible to clear. Even if I'd been playing here a lot over the last few months and was at their highest VIP level, it would still be extremely difficult to clear. With several of the Cryptos changing their bonus terms to be much more favorable to the player, I'm thinking my time is best spent elsewhere. (William Hill increased their bonus to £10/hour for this month. If you have an account there and haven't done the bonus this month, it's well worth your time to do so.)
I also spent more time at the Razz tables. This game depends very heavily on you getting cards. Fortunately, there are still enough fish playing this game that you can be card dead for an hour and make it all back in one hand. I was at a table at Full Tilt last night with some people who clearly had no clue what they were doing. As I watched one guy's play I was almost positive he thought he was playing stud high. I mean, how do you raise into someone showing 53 when you're showing two face cards?
Which brings up another topic that still mystifies me. There was one guy at the table last night who was extremely aggressive. If he was in a pot, he was raising. And he seemed to have no idea how to read other people's hands. Several times it was obvious to me he had effectively no chance of winning, yet he was still raising at every opportunity. Just the kind of guy you want playing when you've got a great hand.
Yet some idiot at the table insists on deriding the guy for raising all the time. It takes a special kind of stupid to type anything but encouragement to a player like this. Here's the one in a hundred (in this case maybe thousand) player who has virtually no clue what he's doing, but he doesn't let that stop him from tossing chips in the pot. He's the player around whom poker dreams are formed. And some moron has to stroke his own ego by making fun of the guy. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Never, under any circumstances, make a negative comment to a player like this. There is absolutely no upside for you in doing so.
In this case I did something that was almost as stupid. I told the moron to shut up. He'd either gotten it out of his system or realized the error of his ways, and he did what I suggested, but the damage had already been done. Mr. I-Always-Raise stopped raising at every opportunity and stopped playing every hand where his first card wasn't a face card. The golden goose had been slayed. Nice work jackass.
On the blogger tournament schedule this week we have Mondays At The Hoy, tonight at 22:00 at PokerStars, password hammer. Tomorrow, Tuesday, it's the WWdN, 20:30 at PokerStars, password monkey. Wednesday it's The Mookie, 22:00 at Full Tilt, password vegas1. And Thursday it's WWdN: Not The, 22:30 at PokerStars, password monkey. Please join us if you can.
22 September 2006
DADI, why does surf ALWAYS have better cards?
Last night I played in the D.A.D.I #9 limit HORSE tournament at Full Tilt. I did okay through much of it. Made the final table in so-so shape. One double-up and I'd have been back in it. By that time, even though this was limit, the levels were so high that a double-up was quite possible. Wwonka69 delivered the lethal, if not final, blow in O8 when his hand with about a million outs finally filled on the river. I held on for a while longer, but never really recovered from that hit. Finished in 7th.
I have to say that my general observations about HORSE appear to apply to the blogger community as well, though, perhaps, to a lesser extent. There are a lot of people who are -- dare I say it -- fish out of water when the game isn't Hold'em. I don't claim to be an expert in any of these other games, O8 still makes my head spin, but I have played most of them casually for quite a few years. Seven stud I've played since I was a kid, back before dirt was invented. So I have at least a clue or two about the back end of the HORSE.
Razz is the worst in the fish-out-of-water regard, which is odd because it's probably the simplest of all the games that make up HORSE. It's usually pretty easy to see where you stand. Sure, there's still the unknown of the down cards, but very often they don't even matter. If you can keep track of which small cards have been folded -- and online you could simply write them down -- the odds are easy to calculate. Yet, time after time, I see people chasing hands when they have no chance of winning. It reminds me of the way online Hold'em was a couple years ago -- filled with people who enjoy playing but haven't the first clue about what they're doing. Ah, the good ole days.
I find HORSE more fun than plain Hold'em if only because of this much greater variation in skill level among the players. Most of the people sitting at any online Hold'em table have some clue about what they're doing. Sure, you occasionally still run into the clueless guy who's five beers into a six-pack and thinks his bottom pair is gold, but those guys don't seem to be in the abundance they once were. It used to be you could readily find low limit ring Hold'em games with a table VP$IP in the 40-50% range. Today I'm happy to find one in the mid-twenties and am thrilled at anything over 30%. Almost everyone has bought at least a few clues and the low limit tables at many places are rock gardens. On the other hand, the fishing is still pretty good in the HORSE trough.
Kudos to Full Tilt for taking my advice and putting the name of the current game in the window title bar. This makes it so much simpler to figure out what the current game is. Just a word of advice -- always check what game you're playing before you bet.
Then there was the WWdN: Not The Darzog Invitational. Darval is working on the record for most consecutive early exits from this tournament. His play is obviously slipping since he doesn't have me to help hone his skills every Sunday. Congratulations to caspernene, Mai_K_4_Life and RoccoBoxer for making the money. Razzies to surflexus for yet again having better pocket pairs than me. I swear I'm just going to sit out the next time I'm at a table with surf. No matter what I have, he's got something better. ALWAYS. I sucked out on him in The Mookie, but no such luck last night. He delivered a crippling blow when my pocket 6's went up against his pocket 9's. Seriously short stacked, I was thrilled to see pocket 8's, and then crushed when surf called my all-in and turned over pocket rockets.
Join us next Thursday for the WWdN: Not The Mai_K_4_Life Invitational, 22:30 ET at PokerStars. Password is monkey.
I have to say that my general observations about HORSE appear to apply to the blogger community as well, though, perhaps, to a lesser extent. There are a lot of people who are -- dare I say it -- fish out of water when the game isn't Hold'em. I don't claim to be an expert in any of these other games, O8 still makes my head spin, but I have played most of them casually for quite a few years. Seven stud I've played since I was a kid, back before dirt was invented. So I have at least a clue or two about the back end of the HORSE.
Razz is the worst in the fish-out-of-water regard, which is odd because it's probably the simplest of all the games that make up HORSE. It's usually pretty easy to see where you stand. Sure, there's still the unknown of the down cards, but very often they don't even matter. If you can keep track of which small cards have been folded -- and online you could simply write them down -- the odds are easy to calculate. Yet, time after time, I see people chasing hands when they have no chance of winning. It reminds me of the way online Hold'em was a couple years ago -- filled with people who enjoy playing but haven't the first clue about what they're doing. Ah, the good ole days.
I find HORSE more fun than plain Hold'em if only because of this much greater variation in skill level among the players. Most of the people sitting at any online Hold'em table have some clue about what they're doing. Sure, you occasionally still run into the clueless guy who's five beers into a six-pack and thinks his bottom pair is gold, but those guys don't seem to be in the abundance they once were. It used to be you could readily find low limit ring Hold'em games with a table VP$IP in the 40-50% range. Today I'm happy to find one in the mid-twenties and am thrilled at anything over 30%. Almost everyone has bought at least a few clues and the low limit tables at many places are rock gardens. On the other hand, the fishing is still pretty good in the HORSE trough.
Kudos to Full Tilt for taking my advice and putting the name of the current game in the window title bar. This makes it so much simpler to figure out what the current game is. Just a word of advice -- always check what game you're playing before you bet.
Then there was the WWdN: Not The Darzog Invitational. Darval is working on the record for most consecutive early exits from this tournament. His play is obviously slipping since he doesn't have me to help hone his skills every Sunday. Congratulations to caspernene, Mai_K_4_Life and RoccoBoxer for making the money. Razzies to surflexus for yet again having better pocket pairs than me. I swear I'm just going to sit out the next time I'm at a table with surf. No matter what I have, he's got something better. ALWAYS. I sucked out on him in The Mookie, but no such luck last night. He delivered a crippling blow when my pocket 6's went up against his pocket 9's. Seriously short stacked, I was thrilled to see pocket 8's, and then crushed when surf called my all-in and turned over pocket rockets.
Join us next Thursday for the WWdN: Not The Mai_K_4_Life Invitational, 22:30 ET at PokerStars. Password is monkey.
21 September 2006
Monied in The Mookie... or... Man, do these cards suck!
If you're reading this from the actual blog page and not through an aggregator or reader, then off to the right is a list of poker books I've read. It's not an exhaustive list, just some titles that came to mind when I discovered the "list" element on the Blogger page template. Among those titles is "Zen and the Art of Poker". This is a book that gets a lot of recommendations. I personally found it rather repetitive, going around and around a central theme that can be summed up in two words -- Patience, Grasshopper. (Okay, only one word was really necessary, but it sounds a lot more Zen-like when you put "Grasshopper" on the end.)
And that pretty much sums up my experience at The Mookie last night -- patience. I got a long, long stream of some of the worst cards I've seen in ages. I don't mind running the occasional bluff, but I do like to go into it with something that has a slightly better than average chance of turning into a real hand. Last night I had few chances even at a reasonable bluff. (I know the hammer -- 72o -- is popular in these blogger events, and I've played it before. Franklstein even wrote about one of my luckier hammer plays. But after pissing away stacks of chips on this kind of bravado, I tend to stick with reasonable starting hands unless the situation is particularly favorable to a stone cold bluff.) So I did a LOT of folding. I don't know, maybe this turned out to be a good thing. At least I didn't waste a lot of chips chasing hands that weren't to be.
On the plus side, I was able to capitalize on most of my good starters, which is the only reason I was able to hang on as long as I did. That, and one lucky suckout fairly early when my pocket nines ran into surflexus' pocket kings and I turned the set. Other than that, it was mostly solid poker and getting cards at the right time. More than once I was on or near the ropes and managed to catch a good hand just in time.
Contrary to other recent experience, I was able to successfully pull off a couple slowplays last night. It's great when it works, but, man, does it suck when it doesn't.
The final table seemed to drag on forever. I don't know if it was my horrible wireless connection at the hotel or if people were busy playing three tournaments at once, but it appeared that some folks were really dragging their heels on every single decision. For a while there I thought I was playing near the bubble in some giant freeroll. The sense of dragging on wasn't helped by the chips aimlessly wandering from pile to pile. The chip lead must have changed hands about three dozen times before we made it past the bubble.
For me the marathon ended with blinds at 800/1600 and antes at 200. With my stack at 8k, this gave me an unadjusted M of less than 3. MaimiDon pushed his 7k into the pot and I called with AQo. His pocket 8's flopped a set and rivered full to leave me with crumbs that the small blind scooped up next hand. Oddly, my 76o didn't dominate, and I was out in fifth, the first money position.
Don't forget the WWdN: Not The Darzog Invitational tonight at 22:30 EDT at PokerStars. Password is monkey.
And that pretty much sums up my experience at The Mookie last night -- patience. I got a long, long stream of some of the worst cards I've seen in ages. I don't mind running the occasional bluff, but I do like to go into it with something that has a slightly better than average chance of turning into a real hand. Last night I had few chances even at a reasonable bluff. (I know the hammer -- 72o -- is popular in these blogger events, and I've played it before. Franklstein even wrote about one of my luckier hammer plays. But after pissing away stacks of chips on this kind of bravado, I tend to stick with reasonable starting hands unless the situation is particularly favorable to a stone cold bluff.) So I did a LOT of folding. I don't know, maybe this turned out to be a good thing. At least I didn't waste a lot of chips chasing hands that weren't to be.
On the plus side, I was able to capitalize on most of my good starters, which is the only reason I was able to hang on as long as I did. That, and one lucky suckout fairly early when my pocket nines ran into surflexus' pocket kings and I turned the set. Other than that, it was mostly solid poker and getting cards at the right time. More than once I was on or near the ropes and managed to catch a good hand just in time.
Contrary to other recent experience, I was able to successfully pull off a couple slowplays last night. It's great when it works, but, man, does it suck when it doesn't.
The final table seemed to drag on forever. I don't know if it was my horrible wireless connection at the hotel or if people were busy playing three tournaments at once, but it appeared that some folks were really dragging their heels on every single decision. For a while there I thought I was playing near the bubble in some giant freeroll. The sense of dragging on wasn't helped by the chips aimlessly wandering from pile to pile. The chip lead must have changed hands about three dozen times before we made it past the bubble.
For me the marathon ended with blinds at 800/1600 and antes at 200. With my stack at 8k, this gave me an unadjusted M of less than 3. MaimiDon pushed his 7k into the pot and I called with AQo. His pocket 8's flopped a set and rivered full to leave me with crumbs that the small blind scooped up next hand. Oddly, my 76o didn't dominate, and I was out in fifth, the first money position.
Don't forget the WWdN: Not The Darzog Invitational tonight at 22:30 EDT at PokerStars. Password is monkey.
20 September 2006
Exactly what I was talking about
My exit from the WWdN last night was a perfect example of what happens when I try to slowplay. I get KK in the big blind and it folds to Katitude in the small blind. She completes and I check, hoping to cash in big with my cowboys. The flop is rags, but there are two diamonds in the rough. Kat bets 90, large for the size of the pot, but still just 3BB. It's still early in the tournament, the diamonds concern me a bit, and I'd be happy to take the extra 90 and come away clean, so I make a pot-sized raise, assuming Kat will fold. She calls. I suppose I should have clicked the bet bar a couple more times to clearly deny odds on the flush draw. As it was, Kat was getting 2-to-1 on a perceived 37% chance (actually 33% since I had one diamond) of hitting her flush. Close, but a technically correct call, even discounting implied odds.
The turn brings the third diamond. Kat bets 90 again. Given that the pot was up to 510, this should have set off the alarm bells, but no such luck. I'm not sure what I thought about the small bet, but it didn't scream, "I've got the flush." Maybe if I'd played more with Kat I would have recognized this trickery for what it was. Without that experience, my brain didn't know what to think of it, and apparently disregarded it. I again put in a roughly pot-sized raise to cut off odds on the flush draw. Kat makes the call.
The river is a 7, filling three different possible inside straights, though I strongly doubt that to be a consideration in this hand. Kat puts in the rest of her chips, 520. At this point it should have been blatantly obvious that I was beat. Conspicuously small bet on the turn, a call of my pot-sized raise, and now the rest of her chips. Kat's plenty smart enough to know a bet like that into a pot like this isn't going to scare me away, so it has to be a value bet. One of these days maybe I'll get disciplined enough to lay down hands like this. Kat turns over the Q6 of diamonds and walks away with almost all my chips.
I'm going back to pounding the pot when I've got strong but vulnerable hands. A nice raise from me pre-flop, Kat folds the incredibly weak Q6s, and I live on to donk off my chips to someone else.
I last a few more hands and, to add insult to injury, go out when my flopped top pair jacks with an ace kicker run into KK.
Tonight it's The Mookie at Full Tilt.
The turn brings the third diamond. Kat bets 90 again. Given that the pot was up to 510, this should have set off the alarm bells, but no such luck. I'm not sure what I thought about the small bet, but it didn't scream, "I've got the flush." Maybe if I'd played more with Kat I would have recognized this trickery for what it was. Without that experience, my brain didn't know what to think of it, and apparently disregarded it. I again put in a roughly pot-sized raise to cut off odds on the flush draw. Kat makes the call.
The river is a 7, filling three different possible inside straights, though I strongly doubt that to be a consideration in this hand. Kat puts in the rest of her chips, 520. At this point it should have been blatantly obvious that I was beat. Conspicuously small bet on the turn, a call of my pot-sized raise, and now the rest of her chips. Kat's plenty smart enough to know a bet like that into a pot like this isn't going to scare me away, so it has to be a value bet. One of these days maybe I'll get disciplined enough to lay down hands like this. Kat turns over the Q6 of diamonds and walks away with almost all my chips.
I'm going back to pounding the pot when I've got strong but vulnerable hands. A nice raise from me pre-flop, Kat folds the incredibly weak Q6s, and I live on to donk off my chips to someone else.
I last a few more hands and, to add insult to injury, go out when my flopped top pair jacks with an ace kicker run into KK.
Tonight it's The Mookie at Full Tilt.
19 September 2006
My rather short Monday at The Hoy
My first foray into "The Hoy" was interesting, if considerably shorter than I expected. We had twenty-one players, so started with three seven-handed tables. Our table had Joanne1111 AWOL, so we were really six-handed from the start. And then Columbo777 pushed a bit too hard on the second hand with a 9-high straight only to be outdone by Iggy's ten-high straight. Iggy finished the job on the very next hand. So, there we were, three hands into it, one elimination, and effectively playing five-handed already.
Despite Columbo777's little flare-up, play was rather tight through the first level. Squeaky, scary-for-a-blogger-tournament tight. I was seated to Joanne's right, so several times I got to steal her blind as it folded to me.
I was doing okay. Between stealing the blinds a few times and taking one small-ish pot, I was up to 1650 when we hit level two. Then, about halfway through the second level, I get KQs in MP. It folds to me. Mind you, we're still effectively five-handed because Joanne still hasn't shown up. So I make it 3BB to go, just hoping to take the blinds. Iggy calls from the button.
The flop comes K73, two clubs. I figure I have to be ahead here. No way he called with 73, and I have to think 33 unlikely as well. 77 is a possibility, but given the situation I would have expected a bump before the flop to see where he stood. Same with any K hand that has me beat. I bet slightly less than the pot and again Iggy just calls.
The turn is the 9c. The nine is inconsequential, but that makes the third club. I check with the full intention of coming back over the top if Iggy bets. He does bet, but a lot more than I expected. 700 into a 585 pot. I can't see him doing this with the flush. I suppose 99 is a possibility, but, again, we go back to my expectation that he would have re-raised me before the flop. I still think my check-raise plan is a go, but now that Iggy's bet so much I have only two options -- fold or push. I push, he calls, and turns over AKo. The river is an 8 and I'm gone.
I mentioned in a previous post my lack of confidence in the way I play hands such as Iggy had. If I had played AKo that way, sure as hell Iggy would have had two little clubs or JT or been screwing around with 73o. So I almost always play the big but vulnerable hands strong, just hoping to take down more than the blinds. And I miss out on opportunities such as this. I suppose the fact that he'd already doubled up gave him a bit more latitude to take the chance.
Anyway, that was my Monday at The Hoy.
Don't forget the WWdN tonight at 20:30 EDT at PokerStars. Password is monkey.
Despite Columbo777's little flare-up, play was rather tight through the first level. Squeaky, scary-for-a-blogger-tournament tight. I was seated to Joanne's right, so several times I got to steal her blind as it folded to me.
I was doing okay. Between stealing the blinds a few times and taking one small-ish pot, I was up to 1650 when we hit level two. Then, about halfway through the second level, I get KQs in MP. It folds to me. Mind you, we're still effectively five-handed because Joanne still hasn't shown up. So I make it 3BB to go, just hoping to take the blinds. Iggy calls from the button.
The flop comes K73, two clubs. I figure I have to be ahead here. No way he called with 73, and I have to think 33 unlikely as well. 77 is a possibility, but given the situation I would have expected a bump before the flop to see where he stood. Same with any K hand that has me beat. I bet slightly less than the pot and again Iggy just calls.
The turn is the 9c. The nine is inconsequential, but that makes the third club. I check with the full intention of coming back over the top if Iggy bets. He does bet, but a lot more than I expected. 700 into a 585 pot. I can't see him doing this with the flush. I suppose 99 is a possibility, but, again, we go back to my expectation that he would have re-raised me before the flop. I still think my check-raise plan is a go, but now that Iggy's bet so much I have only two options -- fold or push. I push, he calls, and turns over AKo. The river is an 8 and I'm gone.
I mentioned in a previous post my lack of confidence in the way I play hands such as Iggy had. If I had played AKo that way, sure as hell Iggy would have had two little clubs or JT or been screwing around with 73o. So I almost always play the big but vulnerable hands strong, just hoping to take down more than the blinds. And I miss out on opportunities such as this. I suppose the fact that he'd already doubled up gave him a bit more latitude to take the chance.
Anyway, that was my Monday at The Hoy.
Don't forget the WWdN tonight at 20:30 EDT at PokerStars. Password is monkey.
18 September 2006
Contortionists Unite!
I didn't intend for this blog to be nothing but poker when I first started it. Well, I didn't specifically intend for it to be anything when I started. But all the posts so far have been about poker. Time to change that.
If you've been reading between the lines here you'll know that I recently moved from southern California to central Florida. I still have my townhouse in Orange County, the one in California, and am still living in a hotel in Orange County, the one in Florida, but I've been in Florida for three months now so it's looking like the move is more or less permanent.
Several weeks ago I started preparing what would probably have been a multi-part blog entry on the traffic situation here in Orlando. (I'll summarize -- it sucks.) I'd like to think it would have been funny and biting and made some good, if highly sarcastic, suggestions about how to improve things, as if the non-existant traffic engineers in Orlando have been breathlessly awaiting my verdict on their efforts. But, this weekend, a friend sent me a link to some automotive web site which contained, among other things, a rather lengthy rant on the state of traffic in Utah, of all places. (I've driven up and down Utah and didn't notice the drivers there being significantly different than anywhere else in this country, so maybe it's a matter of perspective.)
After reading (okay, skimming) most of this article I came to the realization that rants about traffic are a lot like bad beat stories -- everybody's got a bunch and nobody wants to hear them. So, my witty observations on Orlando traffic have hit the editorial bit bucket.
But, I am going to impart one particular portion of my traffic rant because I've come upon what could be a rather ingenious solution that doesn't involve traffic engineers or re-striping lanes or moving lights. And people in areas other than Orlando could benefit.
One of my big complaints concerns the placement of traffic lights. Whoever it is that designs, and I use that term very loosely, the layout of the lights here (and in several other communities I've visited in New England) often pays little or no attention to whether the lights will actually be visible to traffic that stops near the limit line. (That's the big white line that you're supposed to wait behind.) In probably half the intersections here the driver in the first car behind the limit line has to contort himself into a position likely to require a visit to the chiropractor in order to actually see when the light has changed to green. They place the lights WAY up high and about three feet in front of the limit line. It's beyond stupid. But it's also extremely common.
So, what's the solution, aside from firing all the current traffic engineers and hiring people who actually have a clue? I bring you LightInSight, a wide angle Fresnel lens made of flexible plastic. Using just a bit of water, it adheres to the top of your windshield somewhat like a decal and brings into view those pesky traffic lights that are dangling practically over your head. I have one on order and will post an update once I've tried it out. If it works as expected, my neck will be extremely grateful.
Now that I've gotten the non-poker stuff out of my system, I'll remind everyone of this week's blogger tournaments. Tonight it's Monday at The Hoy, 10pm at PokerStars, password: HAMMER. Tomorrow it's the WWdN, 8:30pm at PokerStars, password: monkey. Wednesday it's The Mookie, 10pm at FullTilt, password: vegas1. Thursday it's WWdN: Not The, 10:30pm at PokerStars, password: monkey. All times are EDT. Please join in.
If you've been reading between the lines here you'll know that I recently moved from southern California to central Florida. I still have my townhouse in Orange County, the one in California, and am still living in a hotel in Orange County, the one in Florida, but I've been in Florida for three months now so it's looking like the move is more or less permanent.
Several weeks ago I started preparing what would probably have been a multi-part blog entry on the traffic situation here in Orlando. (I'll summarize -- it sucks.) I'd like to think it would have been funny and biting and made some good, if highly sarcastic, suggestions about how to improve things, as if the non-existant traffic engineers in Orlando have been breathlessly awaiting my verdict on their efforts. But, this weekend, a friend sent me a link to some automotive web site which contained, among other things, a rather lengthy rant on the state of traffic in Utah, of all places. (I've driven up and down Utah and didn't notice the drivers there being significantly different than anywhere else in this country, so maybe it's a matter of perspective.)
After reading (okay, skimming) most of this article I came to the realization that rants about traffic are a lot like bad beat stories -- everybody's got a bunch and nobody wants to hear them. So, my witty observations on Orlando traffic have hit the editorial bit bucket.
But, I am going to impart one particular portion of my traffic rant because I've come upon what could be a rather ingenious solution that doesn't involve traffic engineers or re-striping lanes or moving lights. And people in areas other than Orlando could benefit.
One of my big complaints concerns the placement of traffic lights. Whoever it is that designs, and I use that term very loosely, the layout of the lights here (and in several other communities I've visited in New England) often pays little or no attention to whether the lights will actually be visible to traffic that stops near the limit line. (That's the big white line that you're supposed to wait behind.) In probably half the intersections here the driver in the first car behind the limit line has to contort himself into a position likely to require a visit to the chiropractor in order to actually see when the light has changed to green. They place the lights WAY up high and about three feet in front of the limit line. It's beyond stupid. But it's also extremely common.
So, what's the solution, aside from firing all the current traffic engineers and hiring people who actually have a clue? I bring you LightInSight, a wide angle Fresnel lens made of flexible plastic. Using just a bit of water, it adheres to the top of your windshield somewhat like a decal and brings into view those pesky traffic lights that are dangling practically over your head. I have one on order and will post an update once I've tried it out. If it works as expected, my neck will be extremely grateful.
Now that I've gotten the non-poker stuff out of my system, I'll remind everyone of this week's blogger tournaments. Tonight it's Monday at The Hoy, 10pm at PokerStars, password: HAMMER. Tomorrow it's the WWdN, 8:30pm at PokerStars, password: monkey. Wednesday it's The Mookie, 10pm at FullTilt, password: vegas1. Thursday it's WWdN: Not The, 10:30pm at PokerStars, password: monkey. All times are EDT. Please join in.
15 September 2006
Mixed bag
First, last night's WWdN: Not The. Congrats to KT_Bluestone on the win and to Darzog for Not winning. That pre-game Razz warm-up must have thrown Darzog off a bit. Sorry to say I didn't hang around to see the finish. It was already a bit late here in Orlando when I bubbled the final table.
Please join us next week in the WWdN: Not The Darzog Invitational, 21 Sep at 22:30 at PokerStars. Password is monkey. Attendance has been growing of late, and we'd sure like to see that trend continue.
Speaking of PokerStars, they have another deposit bonus running through next Tuesday. 20% to $120. They don't have these often, so jump on it now. It looks, however, like even PokerStars is watering down their bonuses. Last time they raised the clearance requirement from 5x to 7x. This time they've also added an expiration date. It's still pretty generous -- six months -- but it's a little disappointing to see them moving in this direction. OTOH, if they start offering more frequent bonuses, it might be a fair trade-off. I may have to start playing more ring games at Stars. It's too hard to work off the bonuses with tournament play.
Please join us next week in the WWdN: Not The Darzog Invitational, 21 Sep at 22:30 at PokerStars. Password is monkey. Attendance has been growing of late, and we'd sure like to see that trend continue.
Speaking of PokerStars, they have another deposit bonus running through next Tuesday. 20% to $120. They don't have these often, so jump on it now. It looks, however, like even PokerStars is watering down their bonuses. Last time they raised the clearance requirement from 5x to 7x. This time they've also added an expiration date. It's still pretty generous -- six months -- but it's a little disappointing to see them moving in this direction. OTOH, if they start offering more frequent bonuses, it might be a fair trade-off. I may have to start playing more ring games at Stars. It's too hard to work off the bonuses with tournament play.
14 September 2006
My First Mookie
I guess I'm getting into this whole blogger thing a lot more than I ever suspected I would. Now I've got blogger tournaments listed on my Google Calendar. Addictive personality.
So, last night was The Mookie. My first time in this one. They should have been more gentle. Eh, just kidding.
The first thing I need to do is apologize for delaying the game. My connection was horrible for much of the tournament. I lost count of timeouts in the first hour. I'm still living in a hotel here in Orlando and am subject to the vagaries of the wonderful wireless system they have here. Sometimes it works fine. Then there are times like last night where even Yahoo! and Google don't want to load completely. This, more than anything else, is going to force me to find an apartment where I can get a reliable, wired connection.
I had one real donkey hand fairly early where I got the stupid idea that my rivered bottom pair might be good and called Surfkiller's pot-sized raise. His mighty third pair crushed me. I don't know what I was thinking. Well, okay, I was thinking he was trying to buy it, but, unless he was on a stone bluff, I would have needed more than bottom pair to win it anyway. Dumb.
I got moved from my first table, but my lousy connection caused the handover to not complete, and I unknowingly sat out several hands, including one where my pocket 8's would have turned into a boat. I can't begin to describe the frustration of seeing a hand like that on the screen and not being able to get the software to respond.
So, it was with a disconnection-folded full house as backdrop that two hands later I decided to push with QJs into blipbloop's 3BB raise. I was honestly just trying to end my frustration and slowing of the game. blipbloop, with more than double my stack, called with A6o. And then came the flop that dreams are made of. KT9, rainbow. I was actually back in this, though I still had a sucky connection.
I was shuffled to another table -- this time the handover happened without incident -- and ended up sitting with mookie99, surflexus, and several others with whom I am less familiar. Fifth hand at the new table I get presto in the big blind and am faced with a 3.5BB raise from surf. I thought for a long time on this one. 3.5BB smelled a lot like two high cards, so I figured I was slightly ahead. But surf had twice my stack and this was already looking like all the chips were going in the pot before it was over. Did I want to risk it all with just a slight advantage and little chance of improvement? My M was still over ten, so I was far from the panic stage. I decided to fight another day. Then surf very kindly showed his teensy little pair of aces. I can dodge bullets, baby!
Very next hand I get QQ and smokkee wisely abandoned his 3.5BB raise when I pushed. I'm often uncertain how to play these hands. Obviously QQ is a strong hand at this point, but far too often I've seen it go down to A-crap when the board is unkind. I'm plagued by the feeling that I'm missing some big opportunities by pushing hard with QQ or JJ when there's something in the pot worth taking now. A smooth call, a flop devoid of A's and K's, and I may have ended up with smokkee's stack. But if an A or a K falls on the flop I have almost no choice but to check-fold and instead of increasing my M to 15 I've decreased it to 10. A bird in the hand...
A bit later I get QQ again and watch in horror as my connection again goes south and jjok and smokkee end up all-in, each with weak suited aces. As the hand played out it was lucky I got disconnected since smokkee turned his flush, but I can't help think my pre-flop all-in might have changed things up a bit. I guess we'll never know.
Several disconnections and a lot of crappy cards later, hoyazo doubled me up to 4800 when my 88 held up against his AKo.
My next big hand I played rather uncharacteristically. I almost never slow play big pairs. But when I looked down to see AA, I also noticed everybody left to act was in the M=5 range. I was hoping a simple call might sweeten the pot enough to convince one of them to make a move. irongirl01 raised it to 4BB and I pushed, knowing she was committed. She turned over AQo
and I became the second biggest stack at the table.
Then came one of those hands that was either stupid or near-brilliant. We're down to five players at this table, waiting for a couple more eliminations to make the final table. I get A3o. Ordinarily I'd fold this without a second thought, but we're five-handed and it folds to me on the button. I make it 4BB just hoping to take the blinds. But surflexus is having none of this and calls from the big blind. The flop comes ATT. Surf quickly makes a pot-sized bet. I think for a few seconds and push it all in. Yes, I know there's a real good chance I'm beat here, but if surf doesn't have a big ace then I'm probably taking this one right now. He thought for quite a while, but ultimately made the call. And his AQ took it down. If I'd had a bigger stack and could have made it more expensive or if his kicker had been just a bit smaller, I think my all-in would have taken it. I guess I'd rather go out in a gutsy, if ill-advised, blaze of glory than get blinded out.
So, that was my first Mookie. Hopefully I'll have a better connection for the next one.
So, last night was The Mookie. My first time in this one. They should have been more gentle. Eh, just kidding.
The first thing I need to do is apologize for delaying the game. My connection was horrible for much of the tournament. I lost count of timeouts in the first hour. I'm still living in a hotel here in Orlando and am subject to the vagaries of the wonderful wireless system they have here. Sometimes it works fine. Then there are times like last night where even Yahoo! and Google don't want to load completely. This, more than anything else, is going to force me to find an apartment where I can get a reliable, wired connection.
I had one real donkey hand fairly early where I got the stupid idea that my rivered bottom pair might be good and called Surfkiller's pot-sized raise. His mighty third pair crushed me. I don't know what I was thinking. Well, okay, I was thinking he was trying to buy it, but, unless he was on a stone bluff, I would have needed more than bottom pair to win it anyway. Dumb.
I got moved from my first table, but my lousy connection caused the handover to not complete, and I unknowingly sat out several hands, including one where my pocket 8's would have turned into a boat. I can't begin to describe the frustration of seeing a hand like that on the screen and not being able to get the software to respond.
So, it was with a disconnection-folded full house as backdrop that two hands later I decided to push with QJs into blipbloop's 3BB raise. I was honestly just trying to end my frustration and slowing of the game. blipbloop, with more than double my stack, called with A6o. And then came the flop that dreams are made of. KT9, rainbow. I was actually back in this, though I still had a sucky connection.
I was shuffled to another table -- this time the handover happened without incident -- and ended up sitting with mookie99, surflexus, and several others with whom I am less familiar. Fifth hand at the new table I get presto in the big blind and am faced with a 3.5BB raise from surf. I thought for a long time on this one. 3.5BB smelled a lot like two high cards, so I figured I was slightly ahead. But surf had twice my stack and this was already looking like all the chips were going in the pot before it was over. Did I want to risk it all with just a slight advantage and little chance of improvement? My M was still over ten, so I was far from the panic stage. I decided to fight another day. Then surf very kindly showed his teensy little pair of aces. I can dodge bullets, baby!
Very next hand I get QQ and smokkee wisely abandoned his 3.5BB raise when I pushed. I'm often uncertain how to play these hands. Obviously QQ is a strong hand at this point, but far too often I've seen it go down to A-crap when the board is unkind. I'm plagued by the feeling that I'm missing some big opportunities by pushing hard with QQ or JJ when there's something in the pot worth taking now. A smooth call, a flop devoid of A's and K's, and I may have ended up with smokkee's stack. But if an A or a K falls on the flop I have almost no choice but to check-fold and instead of increasing my M to 15 I've decreased it to 10. A bird in the hand...
A bit later I get QQ again and watch in horror as my connection again goes south and jjok and smokkee end up all-in, each with weak suited aces. As the hand played out it was lucky I got disconnected since smokkee turned his flush, but I can't help think my pre-flop all-in might have changed things up a bit. I guess we'll never know.
Several disconnections and a lot of crappy cards later, hoyazo doubled me up to 4800 when my 88 held up against his AKo.
My next big hand I played rather uncharacteristically. I almost never slow play big pairs. But when I looked down to see AA, I also noticed everybody left to act was in the M=5 range. I was hoping a simple call might sweeten the pot enough to convince one of them to make a move. irongirl01 raised it to 4BB and I pushed, knowing she was committed. She turned over AQo
and I became the second biggest stack at the table.
Then came one of those hands that was either stupid or near-brilliant. We're down to five players at this table, waiting for a couple more eliminations to make the final table. I get A3o. Ordinarily I'd fold this without a second thought, but we're five-handed and it folds to me on the button. I make it 4BB just hoping to take the blinds. But surflexus is having none of this and calls from the big blind. The flop comes ATT. Surf quickly makes a pot-sized bet. I think for a few seconds and push it all in. Yes, I know there's a real good chance I'm beat here, but if surf doesn't have a big ace then I'm probably taking this one right now. He thought for quite a while, but ultimately made the call. And his AQ took it down. If I'd had a bigger stack and could have made it more expensive or if his kicker had been just a bit smaller, I think my all-in would have taken it. I guess I'd rather go out in a gutsy, if ill-advised, blaze of glory than get blinded out.
So, that was my first Mookie. Hopefully I'll have a better connection for the next one.
13 September 2006
WWdN: bdidde Invitational
I played the regular WWdN last night. The past few times I've played it my heart wasn't really in it, but this time I was determined to get my head in the game. So, no side HORSE or Razz games this time. I kept to a pretty tight, conservative game through the first break. Most everyone at the first couple tables I was at were also playing very tight, so I was able to take advantage of that a few times and steal the blinds with crap. I didn't abuse it though. Much.
Then I got moved to a table with KentAllard. Kent was having a very good night. He had a big stack when I moved to the table and took good advantage of it. He was also getting cards. Tough combination to do battle with. I mostly stayed out of his way.
I was happy with my play through the first break. I kept to the game plan, only taking chances when the odds of success seemed especially good. Things didn't exactly fall apart after the break, but they did start to unravel a bit. My cards went cold, the blinds kept rising, as they always do, and my stack started shrinking, as it does far too often. I held on to take 23rd. Nothing to be ashamed of, considering this tournament had 60 of the toughest opponents you're likely to find in any one place online.
Once again I'll toss out a reminder of WWdN: Not The l8bloomer Invitational, this Thursday at PokerStars, 22:30. Password is monkey. Please join us.
Then I got moved to a table with KentAllard. Kent was having a very good night. He had a big stack when I moved to the table and took good advantage of it. He was also getting cards. Tough combination to do battle with. I mostly stayed out of his way.
I was happy with my play through the first break. I kept to the game plan, only taking chances when the odds of success seemed especially good. Things didn't exactly fall apart after the break, but they did start to unravel a bit. My cards went cold, the blinds kept rising, as they always do, and my stack started shrinking, as it does far too often. I held on to take 23rd. Nothing to be ashamed of, considering this tournament had 60 of the toughest opponents you're likely to find in any one place online.
Once again I'll toss out a reminder of WWdN: Not The l8bloomer Invitational, this Thursday at PokerStars, 22:30. Password is monkey. Please join us.
11 September 2006
WWdN: Not the L8Bloomer Invitational
Please join us this Thursday at 22:30 EDT in the WWdN: Not The L8Bloomer Invitational at PokerStars. Password is monkey.
I'm hoping to last longer than five minutes this week. (Maybe I shouldn't be playing ring HORSE at the same time, eh?)
I'm hoping to last longer than five minutes this week. (Maybe I shouldn't be playing ring HORSE at the same time, eh?)
09 September 2006
Interpoker Downtime Tournament
Interpoker apparently had some unscheduled downtime this week and offered three $10k overlay tournaments today to make up for it. I wasn't affected by the downtime, but I'll go for a $10k overlay if I can get one. Two of the tournaments required a minimum number of player points to have been earned recently. I played the one of these with the lesser point requirement.
603 players started this $25+2 with a total prize pool of just over $25k. First place was worth $5500.
I had the misfortune of getting some marginally playable hands early. I like to play the Negreanu types of hands early if I can get in cheap. The theory is there's lot of dead money early in these things and you have to put some chips in the pot to have a stab at it. One of these days the dead money won't be me. So I took a couple hits early. Then I managed to catch the idiot end of a straight (it was unlikely anyone had the upper end) and ran headlong into a flush. Not even out of the first level and half my stack was gone.
Eventually I had to start taking big chances. A couple uncontested all-ins kept me alive. Then, with blinds at 25/50 and my stack at 590, I pushed with 88. Things were looking very grim when I got two callers, one of whom showed 99. Luckily, I rivered a third 8, giving me 8's full, and boosting my stack to 1820.
There was one very big stack at my table who kept using his stack to maximum advantage. I don't begrudge him that, but it still sucks to be on the receiving end of that behavior. I had to give up on a couple pots where I was probably ahead but just didn't feel right risking it all after my mini-comeback.
I played it pretty tight and watched my newly restored stack dwindle due to the blinds. Finally, a hand came my way. UTG with TT I made it 3BB to go (blinds 75/150) and got two callers. When the flop came 992 I pushed the rest of it in and got a call from somebody holding 55. My tens held and I was up to 3965.
Eventually, the blinds again catching up to me, I got a bit too ambitious and ran a pair of pocket fives into pocket jacks. I don't think my all-in was a bad move, just unfortunate timing. I had the bigger stack so I was still alive with 1465.
A few well-timed all-ins saw my stack grow back to 4465. The blinds were now 200/400 with an ante of 25. This made it well worth stealing the blinds, which I did a few times, eventually building my stack to 7250.
Then I got very lucky again. My 77 ran into JJ, but I rivered a third 7 to take down a 18k pot. This moved me from the out of the money area to about fifth place. I could have folded my way into the money from here. But, of course, I'd never do that.
There were several players at my table who were near the bottom of the money list and obviously just trying to hang on long enough to get something for their time and entry fee. As we got within 20 spots of the money, they started to slow play at every opportunity. I can't say as I blame them too much -- they were simply acting in their own best interest. And I'm not sure it would have helped much if Interpoker had started hand-for-hand play a lot sooner. Both tend to drag the game out to an agonizing level.
I was able to somewhat take advantage of everyone's survival instinct bubble play and take down the blinds and antes -- which ranged from 300/600/75 to 600/1200/150 while we approached the bubble -- more often than I would have otherwise. Not to the point where it was obvious, but once or twice a round. To my surprise, the one guy at my table with more chips than me seemed to back off on the aggression at this point.
Once we passed the bubble, play became somewhat more normal, though a few players were clearly just trying to hang on til the next payout level.
The blinds and antes and a couple almost good enough hands whittled my stack down considerably. I was finally forced to push with AJo and was called by AQo. He flopped two more queens and I was out in 23rd place for $188. Not bad for a Saturday afternoon when I was battling a cold.
603 players started this $25+2 with a total prize pool of just over $25k. First place was worth $5500.
I had the misfortune of getting some marginally playable hands early. I like to play the Negreanu types of hands early if I can get in cheap. The theory is there's lot of dead money early in these things and you have to put some chips in the pot to have a stab at it. One of these days the dead money won't be me. So I took a couple hits early. Then I managed to catch the idiot end of a straight (it was unlikely anyone had the upper end) and ran headlong into a flush. Not even out of the first level and half my stack was gone.
Eventually I had to start taking big chances. A couple uncontested all-ins kept me alive. Then, with blinds at 25/50 and my stack at 590, I pushed with 88. Things were looking very grim when I got two callers, one of whom showed 99. Luckily, I rivered a third 8, giving me 8's full, and boosting my stack to 1820.
There was one very big stack at my table who kept using his stack to maximum advantage. I don't begrudge him that, but it still sucks to be on the receiving end of that behavior. I had to give up on a couple pots where I was probably ahead but just didn't feel right risking it all after my mini-comeback.
I played it pretty tight and watched my newly restored stack dwindle due to the blinds. Finally, a hand came my way. UTG with TT I made it 3BB to go (blinds 75/150) and got two callers. When the flop came 992 I pushed the rest of it in and got a call from somebody holding 55. My tens held and I was up to 3965.
Eventually, the blinds again catching up to me, I got a bit too ambitious and ran a pair of pocket fives into pocket jacks. I don't think my all-in was a bad move, just unfortunate timing. I had the bigger stack so I was still alive with 1465.
A few well-timed all-ins saw my stack grow back to 4465. The blinds were now 200/400 with an ante of 25. This made it well worth stealing the blinds, which I did a few times, eventually building my stack to 7250.
Then I got very lucky again. My 77 ran into JJ, but I rivered a third 7 to take down a 18k pot. This moved me from the out of the money area to about fifth place. I could have folded my way into the money from here. But, of course, I'd never do that.
There were several players at my table who were near the bottom of the money list and obviously just trying to hang on long enough to get something for their time and entry fee. As we got within 20 spots of the money, they started to slow play at every opportunity. I can't say as I blame them too much -- they were simply acting in their own best interest. And I'm not sure it would have helped much if Interpoker had started hand-for-hand play a lot sooner. Both tend to drag the game out to an agonizing level.
I was able to somewhat take advantage of everyone's survival instinct bubble play and take down the blinds and antes -- which ranged from 300/600/75 to 600/1200/150 while we approached the bubble -- more often than I would have otherwise. Not to the point where it was obvious, but once or twice a round. To my surprise, the one guy at my table with more chips than me seemed to back off on the aggression at this point.
Once we passed the bubble, play became somewhat more normal, though a few players were clearly just trying to hang on til the next payout level.
The blinds and antes and a couple almost good enough hands whittled my stack down considerably. I was finally forced to push with AJo and was called by AQo. He flopped two more queens and I was out in 23rd place for $188. Not bad for a Saturday afternoon when I was battling a cold.
06 September 2006
WWdN: Not The hacker59 Invitational
Just a quick reminder about 31053234 Sep 07 22:30 WWdN: Not The hacker59 Invitational at PokerStars. Password is monkey. This week we are honoring hacker59 who did Not win last week's event.
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