I'm in the mood...

I don't know, maybe I'm back into the mood for poker. Two nights in a row working on the quest. And last night I actually made modest progress. Up $1.59 for the session bringing the bankroll to $23.30.

I tried a few times to use the Phil Gordon approach. As I suspected, it didn't work particularly well. If you raise it a reasonable amount, people seem to look at it like, "It's only six cents more." If you raise it a lot, they seem to think you're trying to buy it and will call anyway. I suppose that doesn't mean the approach is a complete failure. My pocket aces probably took a considerably larger pot than they otherwise would have due to my early raise.

I have no hard evidence to back it up, but I'm of the opinion that at this level a strategy I'll call "tight speculation" is the right way to go. Normal tight aggressive play, modified to play a lot more speculative hands where you can get in cheap. If you don't hit the flop big or have a ton of outs to a monster, bail to any pressure.

Last night I got mostly junk right up until just before I had to quit. I was down over $1 at one point, but slowly worked my way back up. Then I hit a couple big hands. I would have had a nice double-up in there too if the other guy hadn't hit a 3-outer at the river to split the pot. I ended up losing money to the rake on that one.

The Bodog Blogger tournament is tonight. Not sure yet if I'll make that one or not. Give it a try if you haven't already.

Quest for fire

I seem to have again sort of lost steam with online poker. My quest to turn $5 into $5000 has bogged down at about $20. A bit shy of the goal.

Last night was the first time I've played in several weeks. The cards were not kind. I was actually lucky to finish the session down less than a dollar.

The bankroll now stands at... drumroll please... $21.71!!!

I have to admit I'm having some trouble reading the players in the shallow end of the pool. The play tends toward the erratic and illogical. One hand sticks out in my mind. I didn't lose that much, but I just sat there shaking my head afterward.

Just two of us in the pot. The flop brings an ace and two rags. Check, check. So when I catch second pair with a good kicker on the turn I figure I'm good. Nope. The other guy had a medium ace that I guess he wasn't proud of. I can't believe he thought he was slow playing it. Of course, I can't believe he didn't bet it out either, so my belief doesn't appear to count for much.

I was going through some old email today and came upon a Full Tilt article by Phil Gordon I hadn't read. He was basically espousing the raise-or-fold strategy for pre-flop play. I have a suspicion it wouldn't work particularly well at this level, but maybe I should give it a try anyway. Anything to get things moving again.

Still HORSE'ing around

I decided to blow off the MATH last night. No particular reason. Just didn't feel like it.

Instead I watched some TV. I've been trying to catch the end of the $50k HORSE tournament if ESP-freakin'-N will ever broadcast the final table. I've recorded about 92 instances of every episode leading up to the final 8, but haven't seen the ending. As there was little else on the DVR that caught my interest -- and SciFi preempted my usual Monday fare of back-to-back-to-back-to-back episodes of "Enterprise" -- I was watching the 93rd broadcast of the final two tables of $50k HORSE.

All this, of course, is leading up to me getting the urge to play HORSE. I found a $10 SnG HORSE tournament on Stars with six people already signed up, so I joined in.

I tried to play ultra-tight during the first round of hold'em. I took stabs at a couple pots but it never amounted to anything. O8 wasn't much better. I tried playing a few hands, but mostly watched as the other 7 players would each toss chips into the pot pre-flop and then shoot craps on the flop. For a while I thought I was watching the play money tables. I did scoop one quite nice pot that got me back to even.

Then came Razz. I've written about this a number of times before, but it still surprises me to see it unfold in front of my own eyes. I am far, far from an expert in Razz. I know how the game's played and I've spent a good fifteen, maybe twenty, minutes reading up on strategy. You want three low cards to start. There, I've given you the benefit of my half-vast knowledge of Razz. The reality of Razz at this level, however, is that I have the rough equivalent of Phil Ivey type skills at this game.

In other words, the vast majority of players in the cheap HORSE tournaments ($10 SnG) are bad at Razz. Really bad. So bad it makes horrible look good. So bad there's no word that adequately describes it.

Hand after hand I'm watching in utter amazement at the sheer stupidity of my opponents in this game. I do the bring-in with a K showing. It folds to the player at my right who's showing a 3. He folds. I've already got my finger hovering over the fold button awaiting his raise. And he folds. I don't care if I've rolled up a set of 3's, in his position that's an automatic insta-raise. All I see is 3 v K. I'm raising that every single time. I'd raise it twice if they'd let me.

I don't know, maybe some of these guys didn't even know the rules. That's the only explanation that fits some of the stupidity I witnessed.

Admittedly, I got a nice string of decent cards. Not great, but decent enough, especially considering the competition. But when they're also throwing chips my way when I'm showing a K, I mean, how can you lose in a situation like that? I went from mediocre stack to chip leader in the Razz round.

Sadly, my usual luck/skill with stud and stud-eight struck again, and I just barely made it out of those rounds alive. Last time I played HORSE I swore my stud strategy in the future would be to play as slow as humanly possible so as to minimize the damage that was bound to be inflicted in these rounds. I forgot to implement this strategy until I'd already given away most of my chips. I tried my best to survive to Razz again, but the blinds got too high and I couldn't make it. I bubbled in 4th to a horrible suckout from the chip leader.

The Bodog Blogger Tournament is tonight. Great overlay, so join in if you can.

Riverchasers

With my semi-hiatus from poker this month I also took a break from the blogs. There were still a few I tried to keep up with. I always enjoy Al's tales of booze and bacon. (The cuties don't hurt either.) I still think he needs to try the bacon flavored coffee at Boca Java. Julius Goat's player profiles are also not to be missed.

With my return to tournament play I've started reading some of the other blogs again. I stopped by Hoyazo's and skimmed through some of his recent posts. He's been advocating very tight play in the early stages of the larger blogger tournaments. His justification is success with this strategy in a number of tournaments and general lack of success when not using this strategy. I think what he recommends is a sound strategy, particularly against the highly unpredictable play of some of the more donkey-ish players, but the justification is classic poker fallacy -- drawing conclusions based on a very small number of observations.

All that aside, I decided to try playing a bit tighter tonight in the Riverchasers. Not that I play like a maniac normally, but in the tournaments with loads of dead money I've been playing a lot more speculative hands early in the hopes of hitting something big and picking up a huge pot. Tonight, with double stacks and the slower levels, we had mostly the same players at the table for a very long time. And something unusual happened. After obviously playing very tight for quite a while, when I made a move on a pot I got respect. Or at least it seemed that way. Admittedly, I'm doing just what I accused Hoy of above -- drawing larger conclusions based on a very limited sample size.

I do know that I took down a very big pot in level 5 on a stone cold bluff. It was a good situational bluff -- I'd actually been on a nut flush and straight draw that missed -- taking advantage of the board and the way the betting had gone. Man, there is nothing sweeter than stealing a big pot on nothing but air.

For a while I was actually near the top of the leaderboard. Well, much closer to the top than the bottom. I think I broke into the top ten once. Then came the river suckout that launched me on a downward slide. Plus, with the blinds and antes increasing, I was forced to play more marginal hands, few of which amounted to anything.

My only big mistake was on the final hand. I suspected I was way behind, but most of my chips were already in the pot so I figured there was little left to lose. If I'd folded when the other guy pushed, I'd have been left with enough for maybe one more round and absolutely no folding equity at all. So I called and then hit the rail, finishing in 40th. Not a stellar performance, but sometimes the cards just fall that way.

I believe this weekend will be spent in pursuits other than poker. My next tournament will probably be the MATH next week. Have a good weekend.

The Mookie

Played The Mookie last night for the first time in quite a while. Fantastic turnout -- over 100. Sadly, for me, it was not a good evening.

The tone was set early when I saw a free flop from the BB with T6o. Flop was 677. It checked around. Turn brings a 2. The coast looks clear, so I bet out 3/4 the pot. One caller. River brings a J. I don't really want to invest any more in this, so I check. Other player bets the pot. My first inclination was to fold, but my first inclination in these situations is almost always to fold. I thought a while and reasoned that this looked like he was trying to scare me away, so I called. (I'd also add that we started with double stacks and the blinds were still low, so if I lost it wasn't a disaster.) He turns over pocket 7's. Sandbagged by flopped quads.

I drifted for quite a while after that. Never losing much, but never winning much either. Then came the crippler. I get pocket 9's on the button. Blinds 50/100. Two limps ahead of me. I make it 500 to go. BB, who's down to M=10, pushes all-in. I'm getting better than 2:1 to make the call. If he's got an overpair I'm screwed, otherwise I'm way to the good. I call. He turns over AKs. Good call on my part since I'm actually favored here, getting better than 2:1 from the pot, and not in danger of busting if I lose. Of course the flop brings an A and I get no help.

My final hand I'm in the BB with QJo. It folds around to the SB who completes. If my stack had been bigger -- I was down to M=7 -- I might have raised, but decided to just check. Flop is AQ5, two clubs. SB checks. I figure he doesn't have an A or he would have raised pre-flop so I make a pot-sized bet. He check-raises me all-in. I'm thinking he's on a draw so I call. I'm right; he's got two clubs. Again, I get my money in with the best of it and getting bonus odds from the pot to boot. Again, I get outdrawn.

I know it's no biggie to lose two coin flips in a row. It just kind of sucks when they're the only two big hands you play all night.

I forget what position I went out in. It was way, way down in the pack.

Tonight is the Riverchasers event at Full Tilt. See you there.

Back some more

Maybe my hiatus is over. I played the Bodog Blogger tournament hosted by Smokkee last night. I got kind of slapped down fairly early and then didn't do much for quite a while. Bad cards, bad situations.

At some point, I think after the first break, I managed to get into some good cards at the right time and my stack took a nice jump. Then I was getting halfway decent cards for a little bit and legitimately raised a few pots in a row. It folded around every time. So I kept raising. And it kept folding around.

I've done this a few times in the past but always feel like I'm being horribly transparent. It seems inevitable that somebody will catch on and fight back, costing me a sizable raise, so I always back off after a while. But I pushed it farther and more often than ever last night. And got away with it.

Eventually, via balls and proper timing (i.e. luck), I built a very nice stack and was able to openly bully the table with near impunity. It's been rare that I've been able to do this, but I think I like it.

My game felt good last night, at least until we hit the final table. I had a bit of trouble shifting from five players back to nine. And there was another big stack at the table so I couldn't blindly raise with the knowledge that nobody could put a serious hurt on me. I never really hit my stride again. I ended up bubbling, finishing in 6th.

Kudos to Bodog for sticking with this blogger effort. Given the low turnout in September I assumed they'd terminate the offering when their initial commitment expired. Instead of backing off, they lit the afterburners. They're now adding over T$500 to the kitty, giving each of the top five finishers T$109 in addition to the normal prize pool. Rumor had it finishers 6 through 9 got T$11, making it a freeroll, but that wasn't mentioned in the payout schedule.

Bodog's commitment to this appears to be paying off. We had 22 players last night. A bit short of the 82 the MATH drew on Monday, but considering the last time I played this it was basically a one-table SnG, 22 is a big improvement. If you haven't been playing in this one, you should consider it. A $500+ overlay spread over the fairly small field is quite good, even if it is just T$. They've got a few pretty rich tournaments that will give you opportunity to turn those T$ into some big US$.

Up tonight is the next BBTwo event, The Mookie. Full Tilt, 10pm EDT. Password is "vegas1".

I'm back, sort of

I've been on kind of a hiatus from poker. No real reason. I guess I just got tired of it. The PokerStars Blogger tournament was about the only poker I've played this month.

Last night, however, I decided to join in the fun with BBTwo. Sadly, the Tier One SnG I played to win my ticket was more eventful for me. I got a rush of very decent cards early in the MATH, but didn't win a whole lot with them. Languished for a long time, got lucky on an all-in, got unlucky on another all-in. Ended up in 50th of 80-some. Just as well. I'm not sure I could have stayed awake long enough to final table, let alone win.

As I said, the Tier One SnG was far more exciting. Early on I did battle with some fool who absolutely fell in love with the 8's up he flopped. Sadly for him, I had a six to go with the pair that came on the flop. I ended up with quads, and he still wouldn't believe his 8's weren't good. I toyed with doing a small value bet, but figured the best way to get him to call was to look as desperate as possible. Pushing all-in on the river did the trick.

In another hand I was once again called a donkey, this time by someone not even in the hand. It folds to me in the SB. I've got A4o, a semi-legitimate hand in this situation. I raise. The BB figures I'm stealing and tries to re-steal. I call. Cards and chips fly. I end up catching an ace on the river. Turns out he had Q7.

Maybe three hands later Mr. I-like-calling-people-donkeys gets into a hand with this same guy. The hand plays out in a similar fashion. The one guy again has Q7 and the donkey-caller turns over A5. I guess the donkiness of the play is dependent on who is involved. Anyway, I found it rather amusing. I did resist the temptation to make comment.

Next up in the BBTwo is The Mookie on Wednesday. Hope to see you there.

Pokerstars Blogger Freeroll

I played the blogger freeroll yesterday. My tablemates and I had the misfortune of being seated with an aggressive maniac. Fourth hand of the tournament there was a small raise, a call, and the maniac pushes all-in. Of course, nobody wants to risk their whole tournament this early, so everybody folds. He raised every single hand for about the next 40 hands. And won most of them uncontested.

One guy finally caught a hand he thought he could play sheriff with. Turns out the maniac flopped a set and turned a boat. Minus one player and now we had to deal with an aggressive maniac with more than twice as many chips as anyone else at the table. It wasn't pretty.

I ended up folding a number of hands I would have liked to have played, but wasn't willing to play at what I knew the cost would be. For the most part I wasn't getting cards anyway. The only hand worth mentioning was when I got pocket aces and flopped my set. I played it cool, waiting for Mr. Maniac to go crazy, but he was very restrained and even folded when the other guy in the hand put in a small bet. I did get the other guy to contribute to my cause, though not as much as I'd have liked.

After almost two hours of folding everything in sight, my M was under 10 and I decided to make my stand with pocket 9's. Unfortunately, the other big stack who I thought was just trying to push me around actually had aces. I went home somewhere in the low 800's. Not a good showing at all.

In retrospect, and particularly if Stars had posted the payout schedule early in the tournament, I probably should have picked a couple hands with any kind of promise and pushed back against the maniac. The prizes didn't start until fairly late and the bottom ones were the kind of thing that you wouldn't turn your nose up at but you probably wouldn't wait in a long line to get one either. I don't mean to be critical of the prizes -- it was very generous of Stars to do this -- I'm just trying to be realistic about the relative values of the prizes.

Anyway, thanks to Pokerstars for hosting this. If you do it again, please don't start me at a table with a maniac.

Poker Stars Rules

First Full Tilt kicked back all the rake in the BBT. Very cool of them. Then Bodog decided to get in on the action and tossed in an overlay on each of their blogger tournaments. Thank you Calvin. Now, Poker Stars has thrown down the gauntlet.

On October 14th they are hosting a $40,000 freeroll for poker bloggers. No, I did not put too many zeros in there. $40,000. I don't want to knock the other sites because they've been very generous, but, damn, $40k. That's some serious green for a freeroll that hasn't had a million feeder tournaments. Makes me glad I've moved most of my action back to Stars, even if I am still in ankle-deep waters.

It's too late to start a blog to get in, but if you've had one for a while and have been making regular updates, click the flashy thing on the right and get yourself registered for this.

Nothing new here

It's been a while since I last posted so I thought I'd write up something. But I have little poker-related to report.

I played the WPBT SnG last week, but that was it for the whole week. My performance was not exactly great. For a while I was getting cards at just the right time. Somebody would push all-in just as I was dealt a sweet pocket pair that held up. I knocked out the first three players and doubled against the big stack. Alas, my luck did not hold out quite long enough. And, I must admit, my heart really wasn't in it. My thought when I busted out was -- good, now I can go do something I really want to do. Probably a good thing I haven't been playing much.

I'm still on my quest to turn $5 into $5,000. Well, maybe "quest" is over-stating it. Mildly interested pursuit might be more accurate these days. I'm sure my interest will pick up again in a week or two. Maybe once I discover how badly most of the new TV shows suck.

I'm so proud

Tonight, at $0.01/$0.02 6-max NL, I was called a donkey. I was just bursting with pride. And laughing my ass off. It reminded me of the old Firesign Theater bit, "We're all bozos on this bus."

Actually, this was even funnier than I at first thought. I had pocket kings. There was one limper ahead of me. This was a table that had shown no respect for normal sized raises. I didn't necessarily want to scare everyone away, but I didn't want to take kings up against five other players. I made it 5BB to go.

Okay, here's the funnier part. The guy who called me a donkey called my raise with A2o. Donkey do as donkey see.

I won't go into the full blown analysis. Let's just say I thought it might have been a marginal call. Turns out I had 11 outs, well into make-the-call territory. I river a king to beat his flopped two pair and he went into call the other guy an idiot mode.

In all fairness, this IS $0.01/$0.02. I imagine most of the players aren't even considering what the other guy might have. He saw his two pair and wasn't thinking at all about me raising before the flop or the fact that there were three hearts out there. His push wasn't a bad move, but he needed a lot bigger stack to make it a bad call for me.

Anyway, I loved the donkey stuff. I thanked him just before he left the table.

The quest is getting back on track. The bankroll is back up to $23.94.

The Weekend

The Quest took a bit of a hit this weekend. Several down sessions have added up to a mini-slide. Just when I thought it was impossible to lose in the ankle-deep waters of $0.01/$0.02.

In some ways it's tougher way down in the shallows. I never know if my opponent is staying all the way with bottom pair, despite the obvious straights and flushes that are possible, or if he's smart enough to realize the dangers and would never have ventured so far without a premium holding. I lost a buy-in on second nut flush when the other guy had the ace.

There was a bit of that kind of thing mixed with a number of sessions where nothing hit and I did little but blind off until the table broke.

The bankroll now stands at $21.33.

Tonight is the second Bodog Blogger tournament. I've not read any other announcements, so I'm hoping the password is the same as last time. Since I'm freerolling the next several, I intend to be there. Details are in Monday's entry from last week if you're interested. Great overlay, so I encourage you to join in.

I'm a card rack

The first Bodog Blogger tournament was last night. Only 12 runners. With the Bodog-supplied bonus, the top 8 got bonus tournament dollars, the top three also got money. Pretty good overlay.

I did my best impression of Astin, getting the right cards at the right time. I couldn't tell you how many times I called an all-in and it ended up being pair over pair, with mine being just a bit higher. And holding. It wasn't all gravy -- I recall one hand where I came out on the wrong end of full house over full house -- but it was way more positive than negative. I ended up taking down the whole thing, personally knocking out all but a two or three players.

The first half hour or so I felt really out of it and disoriented. It was partly that I haven't played much at Bodog and their layout is a bit different than most other places. But I also think my couple weeks wading ankle-deep in the shallow end of the Hold'em pool has not done anything positive for my tournament game.

I kept waiting for a hand where six people would all limp into the pot and then check it to the river. Yeah, right, in a blogger tournament.

It's a good thing I've played so many of these blogger things before so I could almost run on autopilot through the first hour. I think I did finally get in the swing of things after a while, though I never did feel really on my game.

I wish I could say I played a great game, outsmarting my opponents at every turn. But that would be intellectually dishonest. I made a few good plays, but 80% of what got me the win was pure luck with the cards.

Thanks to whoever it was organized this. Hopefully we can get more pimpage for next week and get a decent field for the start. The tournament is open to anyone who writes or reads a poker blog, so, if you're reading this, you're welcome to join in.

New Blogger Tourney

Bodog has apparently gotten on the blogger tournament bandwagon. They are now offering a blogger tournament on Tuesdays at 20:35 EDT with a $125 added bonus from Bodog.

I've played Bodog before and have one serious issue with their software. The text is too damn small! The layout is real sleek and sexy looking, but most of the onscreen writing is so small my old eyes can hardly read it. They keep sending me emails telling me I still have money there. Each time I open their client, check out a couple tables, and then notice I can't read half the screen.

I complained about this a long time ago and was told I was not the only one who had mentioned the problem. I just opened their client and it looks like maybe they've increased the font size a bit. I'll have to try playing a bit tonight and see how it goes.

Anyway, if you're interested in playing in this new blogger tournament, here's the info (blatantly stolen from Biggstron's blog):

Bodog is pleased to announce it’s first ever Poker Blogger Tournament with added prize money courtesy of Bodog.

As a poker blogger, I am delighted to extend this invitation to you to play in this tournament, taking place starting on August 28, 2007.

Bodog is adding a total of $125 in bonus money to the tournament. If you are one of the last 5 players to be eliminated prior to being paid out by the standard payout structure, you will get your buy-in returned by way of a $10 bonus. If you finish 2nd in the tournament you will receive a $25 bonus. And if you finish first, Bodog will give you a $50 bonus.

This is a limited invitation-only tournament so the field will be comprised only of other bloggers and their readers. It’s Bodog’s way of saying thank you for acknowledging your contribution to the great game of poker.

The tournament will run weekly on Tuesday evenings and will require a password for entry that all invited bloggers can promote within their community.

Details of tournament:

* Start date: Tuesday August 28, 2007
* Tournament Name: “Online Poker Blogger Tournament” at Bodog
* Entry Password: bodogblogger
* Buy-in + fee: $10 + $1
* Payout: Standard Bodog payout structure
* Bonuses:
o T$50 bonus paid to 1st place finisher.
o T$25 bonus paid to 2nd place finisher.
o T$10 bonus paid to the 5 players that are eliminated prior to payouts.
+ These bonuses will be awarded within 24hrs of the tournament completion.
+ T$ = Tournament Credits. These can be used as a buy in to almost all scheduled tournaments at Bodog and have a ratio to cash of 1:1.
+ T$ can also be combined with cash to buy in to tournaments.
* Day of week: Tuesdays
* Start time: 8:35pm ET

Bodog has committed to run this tournament every Tuesday through October 2nd. If participation warrant’s it, we’ll be able to keep it running and possibly increase the prizes and/or turn this into a poker league with an ongoing leader board!

The Weekend Quest

For the first time in eight months I had some rather serious trouble with my internet connection on Saturday. And, wouldn't you know it, I lost connection after betting pre-flop with pocket kings and pocket aces. It was like some cruel cosmic joke. And, of course, since these were no-all-in tables, I was folded out of both hands. Talk about your poker nightmares.

I was still able to turn a very small profit before giving up for the night.

My internet was out entirely during the early afternoon today, Sunday, so even if I'd been inclined to play the WPBT, I couldn't have anyway. It also dropped once again tonight. Fortunately, that was before I began playing.

I played for about an hour tonight without connection incident. Again I made just a small profit. It would have been more without a couple idiot suckouts. Oh, well.

The bankroll stands at $27.18. I may need to go back to multi-tabling. This is going too slow.

The Quest, Session 20

Played two not terribly long sessions tonight. Nothing really exciting to report. Aside from a net $0.75 loss with my two pairs of pocket aces, I didn't catch a whole lot in the way of cards. No big triple ups or anything exciting like that.

I do think I need to figure a way to start padding the bankroll faster because playing at this level is going to ruin me for "real" play. There are far too many people who see about 80% of the flops and refuse to fold even if they have no draw.

In one hand tonight the flop came AAA. It checked to me holding Kx so I put in a small bet. One guy calls, as I eventually find out, holding 82. 82. On a flop of AAA. It's one thing to think I might be bluffing, but what are you going to do with 82? He made no attempt to play back at me; just called and checked to the river. It's brilliant play like this that gives me the feeling I need to get out of this neighborhood.

A small net win tonight leaves the bankroll at $26.09. Still a long way before I can really afford to move up.

The Quest, Day 14

I'm having a small internal conflict on how to number my Quest entries. This is day 14 by the calendar, but I've only played on half those days. I'll figure something out. Maybe I'll just switch to sessions since the graphing program will count those for me automatically.

Today was a good day, at least so far. There's still time to play some more if I'm so inclined.

I've been getting a bit bored with playing just one table. I always seem to find a table with one or two people who aren't paying attention and always take near the full available time on every decision, regardless of how trivial. So today I decided to play two tables.

As tight as I normally play, you'd think there would be few times where I'd be in active hands on both tables, but it happened quite a lot. Maybe I'll get used to it eventually, but right now I can't see how some of these guys can play 8 or 10 tables of NL at once. Limit I can understand, but NL requires so much more refinement. Maybe these are the guys who are always holding up the action on my tables.

I got off to a good start on both tables. Then on the first I was dealt KK. I made a reasonable raise. One caller and one guy who pushes in for about $0.50 more. I called and the other guy called. The flop brought the card I least wanted to see -- an ace. I checked and the other guy still active pushed all-in for $0.65. I knew I was all but dead, but I couldn't bring myself to fold it. Stupid, stupid call. One of them had AQ and the other AK.

Not too much later I got KK again. UTG+1 had raised it to 2BB and there were two callers ahead of me, so I raised to 10BB. All three of them called. The flop came K55. Payday! I checked. Somebody made it $0.32. I called. One other guy called. The turn brought a third heart and I just prayed somebody had two hearts in the hole. Check, check, $0.50, call, call. The river was a blank. At this point I only had $0.34 left in my stack so I pushed it all in. Two callers. I tripled up. The table broke up a few hands later.

At the same time on the other table I was dealt AA. Again somebody makes a stupid min-raise and there are two callers ahead of me. I make it $0.18 to go and get two callers. The flop is 9 high with two clubs. I bet $0.42, one call, one push to $5.28. I was afraid this guy had flopped a set. I'd seen him make this same play once before when he had a set. But I made the call and so did the guy behind me. Turns out the pusher just had TP and the other guy had a flush draw. Neither improved and I took down a $8.47 pot. Pretty juicy for $0.01/$0.02. This table also broke a few hands later so I decided to call an end to the session. Only played for half an hour but it was my best session so far.

The bankroll is now at $25.51.

The Quest, Day 11

Lost most of a $2 buy-in when I pushed with Anna Kournikova against a guy who was raising almost every hand. He actually had a pocket pair and turned a set. Bad luck for me.

I bought in again on another table. There was one big hand early where I ended up with tens full and the other guy had a ten so he was willing to contribute heavily. It's always nice to take down a big pot early in a session.

The rest of the time on that table were small pots and a few steals. I walked away from that table up $2.15, making it +$0.15 on the night. The bankroll is now at $16.60.

I've put a graph of my progress off to the right on Blogspot. It's a small hassle updating it so I'm not sure if it will always be up to date. I'll try to keep it reasonably current.

Quest, Day 10

The quest suffered a minor setback tonight. I ran pocket queens into pocket kings and dropped a $2 buy-in. Fortunately, two other up sessions of $0.68 and $0.66 softened the blow somewhat. The first negative day, but those are bound to happen.

The bankroll currently stands at $16.45.

Quest, Day 9

Played for about 90 minutes tonight. I caught a couple big hands, in at least one case entirely due to an opponent laying a trap and getting snared in it himself, but mostly I got crap cards that were just slightly better than everyone else in the hand. Tonight was the karmic payback for all those nights when PokerStars seems to be dealing nothing but coolers. I couldn't count how many hands there were where five people stayed until the end and ALL missed the entire board. And nobody even took a stab at the pot. (I would have, but I discovered early that some of these guys would never fold.)

Finished the night up $1.03, bringing the bankroll to $17.11. The play tonight was a bit more like what I've always expected at the very lowest rung of the NL ladder.

I recently started watching some Ed Miller videos on limit Hold'em. In one of the sessions he brings up what should be an obvious point but is often overlooked, especially by me -- don't expect your opponents to play the same way you do. There are many ways to be successful at Hold'em (and many more ways not to), so even if you and Phil Hellmuth are peas in a pod, it is still possible for someone to play almost exactly opposite and make a profit.

Tonight I sat with a number of people who played not remotely like I do. A couple were seeing close to 90% of the flops. Some refused to fold if they caught even the tiniest piece of the board or had a little pocket pair, regardless of there being obvious straights, flushes, and far higher pairs quite likely. People with hands I would have recognized as highly likely to be in the lead all the way would check it all the way down. It was very confusing and more than a little unsettling.

I'm a bit concerned this may be teaching me some bad habits. OTOH, each table seems different and I've been adjusting my play to fit the situation. Tonight, for instance, I quickly realized I needed a winning hand to go up against one of the other players because he refused to fold. It didn't always take much, but I knew I couldn't bluff my way to victory with him. So I could either come out of this a far more flexible player, or I could almost completely ruin my game.

Quick Quest Update

I moved The Quest to PokerStars tonight because they offer nano-NL. They also don't double the rake for the players in the shallow end of the pool like Full Tilt does. PokerStars takes $0.05 out of each $1 in the pot. Full Tilt takes $0.05 out of every $0.50 in the pot. I realize this is still pretty cheap entertainment, but it doesn't seem entirely right that those at the low end, who can least afford it (unless they're donks like me on some odd quest), pay 10% and those at the high end pay no more than 1%. Okay, that's my rant for the day.

I played $0.01/$0.02 6-max for about half an hour. The max buy-in is $5, but I figured with my $15 bankroll I'd do better buying in for $2.

I learned something surprising and totally unexpected tonight. It turns out the players at $0.01/$0.02 aren't all that good. Who knew? It wasn't the complete donkfest I was expecting. Very few crazy all-in pushes with junk. It was mostly people seriously overplaying their hands -- kind of like me playing limit.

It didn't hurt that I went on a mini-rush when I sat down. AA, KT that flopped trips, and A9 that won pre-flop with a small raise. With that nice 25% bump to the stack I just played it pretty tight from there on. Stole a few obviously orphaned pots, but nothing else all that risky.

Walked away with $2.98. For those keeping score, this brings the bankroll to a giant $16.08. I only wish my complete bankroll was getting that kind of ROI.

Quest Update

My big poker quest has not progressed markedly in the last week. I've been spending more time losing money at limit in my quest for Full Tilt Strawman status. I find limit extraordinarily frustrating. It seems the only way I've had any success at all is to play fairly passively and run away at the least sign of trouble unless I have the nuts.

I'm also noticing that my time at the NL ring tables and in NL tournaments has affected my limit game. Not so much in the way I play my hand, but in the way I perceive others playing theirs. After playing so much NL, I find I have a far greater tendency to think people are bluffing. In NL this is always a concern. In limit, at least for most players who are playing within reason, say VP$IP < 30%, bluffing is the rare exception, not the rule. I don't know how many times I've put in two or three big bets knowing full well the other guy caught his straight or flush, but being unwilling to accept it. Those single bets just don't seem big enough to chase me out after being conditioned to pot-sized bets in NL.

I'm going to push on with my Strawman quest this month. I just hope I don't deplete my bankroll before I make it.

On my other quest, to turn $5 into $5,000 at the NL ring tables, yesterday was the first time I've played in the last week. I caught a couple decent hands and managed to avoid falling into any traps. I was up $5.70 for the abbreviated session. This brings my bankroll to a whopping $15.10.

I've been thinking about moving my quest to PokerStars because they have the nano-tables where $15 is a lot closer to a reasonable bankroll (though still on the light side).

What is your favorite color?

A friend and I were discussing that freeroll tournament I posted about a week or so ago. As I did during my semi-live blogging, I was complaining about the minuscule prizes available. He replied that it was all for fun anyway, so what difference did it make.

I've been thinking about that, and have to admit that while I once kicked ass at the limit tables, something changed about two years ago and I've done nothing but lose at limit since then. More recently I've been playing close to even, but certainly not picking off fish like I once did. Exploration of the reasons for this change would probably fill many blog entries, so I'm just going to state it as a fact here and move on.

As has been discussed in many blogs of late, thanks to Miami Don bringing it up, the odds of making big money playing tournaments are very questionable. I said to one of my co-workers a while back, tournaments are like lotto where skill can get you a few extra tickets. (I read somewhere recently that Barry Greenstein stole that from me. Last time I pass my pearls of wisdom along to Barry.)

So that leaves NL ring. I am slowly coming to the realization that I may not have the cojones to play NL ring at the level required to make really good money at it. I am not a huge risk taker. One of the guys I work with went sky diving a few months back. He emailed everyone video of he and his wife jumping out of a perfectly good airplane. To me, that's borderline insanity. I clearly don't have the danger gene.

NL Hold'em at the level required to make real money still strikes me as very dangerous. Maybe I'll get used to it eventually, but, at the moment, I just can't bring myself to buy in for more than about $100, and even that makes me very nervous.

So, where does all this lead? It leads to the realization that if I'm not playing poker strictly for the fun of it, I'm deluding myself.

At least for the near future, I'm setting aside concerns about seriously growing my bankroll -- which is probably for the best since it hasn't moved significantly in a positive direction in longer than I can remember -- and going on a quest to have fun with poker. I've decided this quest shall be one of those rags to riches chases, and have therefore begun a seriously under-funded attempt to turn $5 into $5,000.

Okay, this maybe sounds like an attempt to do exactly what I just said I wasn't going to do -- grow my bankroll. I suppose it is, but that isn't the point of the quest. The point is to see if I can do it and how long it takes.

I've started with $5 at the $0.05/$0.10 NL tables. As I said, this was a seriously under-funded beginning. My first session made it look like it would be easy. I more than doubled up in no time. But then I took some bad beats and got stung by some idiots drawing against all logic and the odds at inside straights and hitting them at the river.

After five sessions I've grown my original $5 to $9.40. If I can double that up five more times I'll have enough bankroll to safely play at this level. Wish me luck. I'll post updates as the quest unfolds.

I'm also thinking of trying the Ironman thing at Full Tilt. I've meant to do it before but always forgot about it until the month was half over. This time I got started early, so I may make it. The only problem is that I can't multi-table NL very well, so I tend to play limit when doing point chases. I don't know if I can survive a whole month of playing a couple hours of limit almost every night. I'm not sure my bankroll can survive it. (The "quest" bankroll is virtual. I have a bit more than $9.40 in my Full Tilt account.)

NETeller came through!

I checked my bank account this morning and my NETeller withdrawal has already been processed and the money is in my account. I must have been at the head of the line.

I hope the rest of you have as much luck with this.

The Poker Mindset

I've added a new poker book to the list off to the right there (assuming you're reading at blogspot), The Poker Mindset: Essential Attitudes for Poker Success. (What is it with these poker authors and their titles that are longer than my arm?) I haven't actually finished reading it yet, but since I got a free review copy I figured it only fair to add it to the list. I'll be posting a full review when I finish.

The Weekend

The weekend is a bit of a blur in my mind, which is to say there was little of special note that occurred. Friday I went to dinner at a very nice Italian restaurant. We got there in time for "happy hour", which included two-for-one tap beers. Four Peronis and a Sambuca later, I was very much in the mood for the Friday Donkament.

I don't remember too much of the donkament. I recall more people showed up than the week before, I again didn't have to rebuy (other than the initial top-up and the add-on), and I didn't repeat my win from the previous week. And I fell asleep almost as soon as I busted out. Yeah, I'm a real lightweight when it comes to alcohol these days.

Saturday I played a HORSE tournament at Stars. My recollection is of being mostly card dead and never getting anything going. I finished well out of the money.

My successes this weekend were at the cash tables. I played a bit of 6-max NL and did pretty well. There was one guy at my first table who was raising almost every hand. He was clearly pushing the table around and I immediately started looking for a hand I could use to play sheriff. I found it in A9s. I limped, expecting him to raise, and he didn't disappoint. The flop came 8 high with two of my suit. I checked, he bet, I check-raised, he re-raised me all-in. I hate calling all-ins with just a draw, but I figured I had at least 12 outs, possibly 15. That priced me in. Turn was an ace and the river brought a 9. I doubled up and Mr. Raise Every Hand started playing a bit tighter after he bought in again.

My other really big hand was surrounded by odd circumstances. The guy sitting to my right had been playing ultra-tight for a long time. I had almost 100 hands on him and he was about 18% VP$IP at 6-max. I mostly stayed out of his way. Then, all of a sudden, he starts making pot-sized raises almost every hand. It was like he'd been on autopilot, folding to any action, and then switched over to maniac mode. The table had been playing very tight for a while so it's possible he was just trying to take advantage of that.

I finally get a decent hand, AQ. He makes his pot-sized raise from UTG. AQ not exactly being a monster, I decide to just call and see what the flop brings. No help. He puts in a small bet. I've got nothing, but given the number of times he'd been raising lately, I figured I might actually be ahead. I call. The turn brings an ace. I end up all-in and he calls. Turns out he's got KK. Maybe the guy was still playing just as tight and happened upon a great run of cards. I almost felt sorry for him as I was stacking his chips.

It's probably just a short run of decent luck, but 6-max NL in the shallow end of the pool is looking like fairly easy pickings. Play pots cheap when you can. Mostly wait for good cards. Take a stab at orphaned pots, especially when you can do it cheap. Then just sit back and watch as your opponents make mistakes.

For those who haven't already heard, Neteller is finally releasing money to US players. Get it while you can.

That's Mr. Donkey to you

Still somewhat riding the high of my weekend wins, I sat down to play a bit last night. I managed to Gigli+1 from a FTP ticket tourney when some clown showed no respect for my TP, calling with bottom pair on the flop and catching trips on the turn.

Since that had taken only five minutes, I immediately signed up for another. I left this one even sooner when I again seriously overplayed TP.

Then, realizing I needed a real donkey event if I was to do anything worthwhile, I signed up for a $1 rebuy. Just like on Friday, I was able to get through the rebuy with just my initial two buy-ins and the add-on.

I was doing okay considering how bad my cards were. I more than doubled on the one good pocket pair I caught. But much of the rest of my little bit of success was due to suckouts.

The guy sitting to my immediate right was playing pretty tight, but every time it folded to him in the SB he'd toss in a raise. I was getting nothing so there wasn't much I could do to fight back without taking a big risk. Finally I'd had enough and pushed back with a massive J2. He had KJ, but I managed to catch runner-runner for a small straight.

This type of thing happened several times. He'd put in a raise, I'd push back, and he'd have something better than I did. Every time. Sometimes I'd get lucky, sometimes not. Nearing the money -- a whopping $6 -- I was getting short and needed to build my stack to get beyond the bubble. After what seemed like an eternity I finally got a hand worth pushing with: AQ. I'm in the BB. There's one limper and then my "friend" in the SB makes it 3BB to go. I push, he calls (which he probably would have done regardless of his cards given the massive 2BB raise my push represented), and turns over AK. It's deja vu all over again, except no suckout for me this time. I hit the rail just a few spots short of the money.

I was kind of surprised at this rebuy. A $1 rebuy is usually a total donkfest. Five-way all-ins with only one guy having anything resembling a real hand. But not this one. There were some rebuys, but not nearly the number I'd expected and very few of them as a result of totally crazy play.

There's something unsettling about this. I've noticed a similar trend in the last several rebuys I've played. I'm not entirely sure what it means, but I have a suspicion it's not good.

An old story

I was checking for new stuff on Julius Goat's blog and re-read one of his very funny player profiles -- Pvt. Pooosh. On this reading I was reminded of a live game I played in at Darval's a long while back.

There was a new guy in the game who was bragging about how he played online poker all the time and totally killed the game. In Darval's game we would always buy in for $5 and get $50 in chips. We all knew each $1 chip was only ten cents, but we tried to play like they were real dollars. For some reason, the new guy and one other player had bought in for $20 instead of the usual $5. No biggie.

So we start with the usual $0.50/$1 blinds. First hand the new guy raises to $25. $1.50 in the pot, and he raises to $25. Of course, everyone folds. A couple hands later he does the same thing. And again. And again. Finally he says, "I thought you guys were poker players." Someone responded, "We are. That's why we're folding. Your bets are way out of proportion to the size of the pot."

He understood we thought his bets were too big, but it was pretty clear he didn't understand why. He toned it down a bit after that, once or twice slipping back into gigantically oversized bets.

After a while I asked him where he liked playing online. Based on what I'd seen of his play, I figured I'd go look him up online. He said he only played at Yahoo. Yahoo? Suddenly it all made sense. He was used to betting fake chips that had no value, so it didn't matter if he bet $5 or $5000. Both bets were actually worth $0.

I may have told this part of the story before. I'm too lazy to go back and search my own blog. Fairly early we get in a hand where I had something like A4 and there were two aces on the board. We get to the river and I make a small value bet. He comes over the top big. At this point I figure he's got an ace and is almost sure to have a better kicker. I even said out loud, "I think you have me outkicked." So I folded.

He very proudly turns up something like 97, which paired with the board. He wasn't turning it up to wave his bluff in my face. He was proud of his big two pair. There's a pair of aces on the board, and he was pushing hard with aces and sevens. Okay, noted. I also noted that he seemed a bit confused at my comment.

I won't attempt to discuss any of the rest of the action except to say that most of his chips were sitting in front of me before we were finished. And it was pretty easy pickings once I knew what he thought of as a really good hand.

The moral of the story, if there is one, is to be patient when you run into Pvt. Pooosh. Time your action just right and all his chips will become yours.

A long time ago, at a poker site far, far away, a friend had won a seat in a freeroll. He was unable to play and asked me to play in his stead. I agreed before realizing what I was getting myself into.

Turns out it was a limit tournament. I feel very strongly that limit Hold'em does not lend itself well to tournament play and try to avoid limit tournaments like the plague. But I'd already agreed to play, so I did.

I was doing regular email maintenance and came upon a message to my friend narrating the progress in the tournament. Think of it as tape-delayed live-blogging. You may find it amusing. You might find just a wee bit of sarcasm here and there. You've been warned.

Started out doing pretty good. Won a couple decent pots. Then I get TP aces on a ATx board. I bet, two callers. Turn is a blank. I bet, one fold, one call. River is a K. I figure I'm still ahead so I bet. Raise. TP isn't that strong so I call. The bloody calling station turns over QJ. She's stayed through all that on an inside straight draw. Idiot.

We're midway through level 4 now and I've been card dead ever since losing to the calling station. Not even anything remotely playable. If the cards don't improve this is going to be over soon. I hate limit.

First break. Blinded down to 750. Meantime, the calling station, down to 500, pushed hard with ATs from UTG+1 and was rewarded with two callers holding air. She's up to 1600. There is no justice.

The calling station just got eliminated. Without me having a chance to get back any of your chips.

Just got my best hand so far -- 33 -- and had to fold to a raise.

We just tripled up with A8 that completely missed. A-high with the 8 playing as kicker. Up to 1350 now. Maybe I should just play the junk.

Two hands later I get 66. Folds to me. There's a sit-out in the BB, so I raise hoping to scoop. Big stack calls. Flop is QQ6. More than double again.

Just rode AJ to victory over same big stack. We're back in this. 4300. Average is 2800. Amazing what getting some cards can do.

Dropped 1000 on some good starters that didn't pan out. 3300. Blinds at 100/200. Average up to 3900.

I just noticed, they're paying 20% of the field in this thing. 564th gets $0.70. We got a shot at the money! Unfortunately, serious money doesn't start until... uh, 1st? Why are we playing in this?

Just got moved to a table of big stacks. This should be fun. Still card dead. Haven't seen a winner since that AJ hand. Did dodge a stacker when I folded AJ to a raise. Raiser had AQ and two A's fell on the flop.

Oh, great. Finally caught a hand, AK, raise UTG, and it folds around.

Just picked up a small pot with KJs. Then lost it all back when I raised from the SB with K4o, not noticing someone had already called. Ack. Gotta pay more attention.

100 more eliminations and we're in the money!

Just got moved again, but we dodged the blinds. A free round. Weehee!

KK in the SB. Up to 6300.

I can't believe it. These idiots are slowing play trying to be sure they get $0.70. OMG, we've gone to hand-for-hand. For $0.70? This is torture. 64 tables still in play and we're hand-for-hand. Arggggghhhhhh!!!!

We made the money! And, more importantly, we're out of hand-for-hand for another 100 eliminations.

Second break. We've got 5700 with blinds going to 300/600. 45 more eliminations and we're up to $0.80!

I tried a couple well-situated bluffs that fell completely flat. Folds to me in the SB. BB is very short. I raise, he re-raises, I call. Turns out he's got T3. Okay, so I was bluffing, but what the hell is he doing coming back with T3o? He went all-in and the pot was laying about 40:1, so I called with air just hoping to catch something. I didn't. Down to 2600. But we made the next money level! Another 100 eliminations and we move to $0.90.

We're on the ropes -- down to 1400 -- but we're gonna make the next money tier. $0.90!!!

We've got less than 2BB. I pushed with A8s. No help on flop, or turn, but we win anyway. Up to $6k! Half the average stack, but off life support. We may make the $1.00 payout!

We're up to $1.00, but it's not looking good. Haven't had a hand since the Hoover administration. Oh, wait, AKo on the button. We're all-in against QQ. Rivered a K! Crap, at this rate I could be here all night making $0.10 an hour. Just got moved again.

We're up to $1.10. This is getting exciting.

Shit! I just doubled up. 13.5k. We could be looking at some serious money in this thing. I'm talking $2.00, maybe $2.20.

Wow, first "regular" hand I've played in ages. 77, call from MP. Blinds call. Q high flop. Check, check, bet, fold, fold. Up to 16.7k. Blinds are at 800/1600 though. We're gonna make $1.20.

AKo. Up to 20k. Moving to $1.30.

Third break over. Blinds at 1k/2k and we're down to 15k. And, more good news, the chip leader just sat down on my right. Wonderful.

Got moved. At least no ginormous stack to my right.

$1.50! We made $1.50!!!! Yay!! Only 15 more to $1.60.

Out in 98th on the cooler of coolers. Four pocket pairs. We had the smallest, but it was worth it on the off chance of catching a set. You're now $1.50 richer. Yee hah!

I'm Donkerific

After a rather trying day at work on Friday, I was definitely in the mood for some donkey poker. The blogger donkament on FT was just the ticket. I got my head into the right place by eating some leftover pizza while downing a few beers.

I'm not going to begin to talk about the play. There were some accusations that a few of the participants weren't exactly into the spirit of the whole donkament. I must admit I didn't wildly push with any two cards whenever the mood struck. I did that last time and ended up re-buying eleven times. This time I was a bit more careful, though still far more risk taking than normal. I ended up just doing the initial rebuy to build my stack and then the add-on at the break.

Two hours later it was down to jeciimd and me. I had a pretty big lead, but jeciimd was getting tired so we agreed to just start pushing until someone won. (There wasn't even close to enough money at stake to go find somebody to chop it.) I get 85s, but push as I promise. Jeciimd showed 44. I catch a 67 on the flop and a 9 on the turn to end the torture. Don't remember how much my big win was, but I don't think it covered the pizza and beer. And the pizza was a sunk cost.

Sunday night was WPBT 07 Event #7. Seems that interest in these has waned just a tad. Only ten runners in a $24 HORSE tournament.

Full Tilt outdid themselves in the card rack department tonight. I got quads four times (and was able to win something with them). I saw at least two other players with quads too. One of my quads was in Stud. I got dealt AAA. Naturally, I was pumping the pot from the beginning and was all-in on 5th street. My opponent had K's, caught a second pair on 6th street and a boat on 7th street, but I caught the 4th ace on 7th street to take down a pot I desperately needed. Pretty sick to fill the full house only to lose to quads filled on the same street.

Despite the good result above, I've decided I really don't like stud. After more years playing it than I care to admit, you'd think I'd feel some comfort with the game. But I feel completely out of my element. I'm okay with Hold'em and am feeling much more comfortable with O8 and Razz, but stud just doesn't feel right. I've decided my best tactic is to play really, really slow and hope to get through that round playing as few hands as possible.

Speaking of slow play, I swear some of these guys play slower than my grandmother, and she's been dead for ten years. Every stinking hand we're waiting on the same people. I'm sure some of them are playing multiple tournaments, but it's just plain rude, especially when it's an invitation-only event like this. If you can't give sufficient attention to the game, don't play. Okay, enough ranting.

iam23skidoo brought his chips to the final table in a wheel barrow. He had 2-1/2 times the stack of the next closest player. And he kept building it. It wasn't until we were down to just four players that a bit of a dent was made.

pvanharibo bubbled when iam23skidoo played big stack poker, calling her down with squat and getting lucky at the river.

Khanwoman, who had been hanging on by a thread for quite a while, was the next to go. She was dealt a pair of tens in Stud Hi, but I caught a third 7 on 4th street and put her all-in. She didn't improve and hit the rail with 3rd place money.

skidoo and I started heads up almost even in chips. I had him on the ropes after taking down a huge pot with quad fours. But skidoo fought back, taking the lead and eventually having me down 3-to-1 in chips.

A couple very good hands got me back in it. We traded the lead several times before I caught a couple good hands in O8 to get him down and finally put it away.

I will say I now understand why at the WSOP last year they switched the HORSE tournament to all Hold'em when they hit the final table. When you're down to just a few players, split games suck big time.

It feels good to have won one of these, even if there were only 10 runners.

Win some, lose some

I played in the FTP $24k last night. Not my best performance.

I tried to get something going early, but without any success at all. Every time I'd make a move, somebody moved back even bigger. I dropped almost half my stack on an ill advised move with KQo when the flop came up low and ragged. The other guy pushed all-in and I ran away with my tail between my legs.

A few hands later I sucked out against the same guy when I took my 88 against his KK and caught a set on the turn. That got me back to my starting stack.

I decided it might be in my best interest to wait for some actual cards before making another move on a pot. So I drifted sideways for quite a while.

Then came one of those hands where the action builds throughout the hand until somebody pushes all-in, but by then the pot is so big it's still giving good odds. I limped with a mid-suited ace. Several others limped as well. The flop brought an ace and one card of my suit. There was a min-bet and two calls. My ace didn't feel strong enough to make a move, so I called and hoped for the turn to bring me something good.

The turn brought another mid card of my suit. Unlikely to have been of great help to anyone else. One of the other players put out a weak bet. With TP, four to the nut flush, and nobody showing great strength, it was time to make a move. I raised to slightly less than the size of the pot. The bettor called.

The river paired the low card on the board. The other guy pushed all-in. I'm figuring him for a hand like mine -- a weak ace. I can't see him playing bottom pair (now trips) the way he has. Maybe he had bottom two pair and just filled, but pushing all-in doesn't seem a smart way to play that. Nope, I'm thinking we've both got aces and fives and both playing the jack on the board as our kicker. So I call.

I was wrong. He didn't have an ace. He didn't have a five. He had QJ. I took down a very nice pot and was suddenly pretty healthy.

There was a long period of going nowhere. Then I get TT in MP. UTG and UTG+1 both limp. This looks like a good time to make a move with both of them showing weakness. I pot it. It folds back to UTG who thinks a bit and then pushes all-in. He has me covered by a wide margin. It's possible he was weakly playing a big pair hoping to get action, but I'm leaning more toward a simple re-steal. I call. He turns over KJs. The flop is Q6T with one of his suit. The turn is a blank but he rivers a 9, giving him the straight, and I go home in 500th of 1100-some.

I don't normally like to be calling all my chips on just a coin flip, but I figured there was a chance he had a smaller pair and I'd have been going in a big favorite. Plus, I was down to M=10, so I needed to make a move soon anyway. When you add in that the pot was laying me 1.6:1, I guess it was the right move.

Later in the evening I played another Tier One tournament. It was a real roller coaster ride. Up and down and up and down. I was in deep trouble on several occasions, but each time managed to extricate myself, eventually getting past the bubble as the dominant stack. I felt pretty good after that one. It was like I actually had a clue about what I was doing.

I'm not sure yet what's up for the weekend. Maybe I'll check out some of the FTOPs prelims.

I'm an idiot

One of these days I'm going to start writing down all the poker lessons I've learned. Hopefully this will keep me from having to relearn them the hard way.

Lesson for today -- when somebody you've sat next to all tournament, who has a VP$IP of 12%, who you've never seen even hint at bluffing... when this guy raises, believe it. And believe that he knows he has something.

I played a simple $20 SnG at Full Tilt last night. Did nothing but keep my head afloat for a long time. Then I triple up with KK vs JJ vs AK. Next hand I catch QQ and add a bit more. In two hands I go from second to last to a very comfortable chip lead. I hung on to the lead for a long time by basically doing nothing. Eventually we get to the bubble with me still in the lead and I start stealing pots. Not every pot, but often enough that I started feeling full of myself, as if I could take every pot just by putting the other guy to the test. Then I ran into someone who passed the test.

I raise to 300 with 88 from UTG. BB comes over the top big, making it 950 to go. I guess I figured with such a big raise he either had two big cards or a weak pair. I know at this point in the tournament I'd definitely be slowplaying a big pair. So I pushed and he insta-called with KK. Thinking it through, maybe it wasn't THAT stupid of a move on my part, but I still shouldn't have risked it. I could have given up the 300 and still had the chip lead.

Two hands later I pushed with TT, got called by 77, and bubbled when he turned a third 7. From chip leader to gone in three hands. Basically, one mistake cost me the tournament.

On Saturday I ventured back to Stars for the first time in ages. It had been a long time since I played a regular SnG (the one above was played on Sunday), so I decided to try a $10 single table just to see if I still knew how to play those.

Second lesson for today -- when you are clearly the stronger player heads-up, do not be in a hurry to get things over with.

I may never really learn this one. I've fallen victim to it I couldn't tell you how many times.

A corollary of this one is that if a player appears to be out of his element when heads-up, he probably won't catch on during this session. If you keep raising with air and he continues to give it up without a struggle, when he does come back at you it almost certainly means he's got something. The odds are very slim that he's caught on and is fighting back with nothing but chutzpah.

As you may have guessed by now, I finished 2nd in the Stars SnG.

I also played a Tier One SnG at FTP where I had a brief lapse of situational awareness. I went into the final table in very good shape. The kind of shape where you can pretty much fold your way to a token.

And then, on the ticket bubble, I get AQo and for just an instant forget that my goal is survival, not stack building. I push all-in with nothing but shorties left to act. I know better than to do this. In almost any other situation it's a good move, but not in a multi-way satellite.

One of the shorties, quite inexplicably, decides to call with J3 sooted. Okay, my move was stupid from the perspective that I was risking a lot to build my stack at a time when it didn't really need building. But to call an all-in with J3 sooted? It's one thing to think somebody's trying to buy the pot, but you still need to have something to go against them with. For the life of me I can't understand that call. Naturally, he caught a J and I didn't improve.

Then my KK goes down to KQo when he rivers a straight. I bubble the ticket, picking up a few bucks for my trouble.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

ct4um8

The worlds of texting and online poker playing on occasion intersect in the chat window. It's more an intersection of concepts than anything else. Beyond a few very obvious bits of shorthand, the typical texting abbreviations don't much apply in the chat window and, unless you're texting your poker buddies, the poker abbreviations don't much apply to the wider world of texting.

We've all seen the usual -- "nh", "nb", "gg", "gla" (usually preceded by several "gg"s and the word "observer").

I was watching the WPT LA Invitational the other night. At one point Miami John had just put a horrendous bad beat on a younger player. Before the next hand, Miami John looked across the table and said, "I'm glad I won the hand, but I'm sorry about the way it happened."

The young guy replied, "I'm glad you said you were happy you won the hand. I hate it when guys say they're sorry when you know they really aren't."

I'm sure we've all been on both sides of this. Having put a horrible beat on someone and wanting to express that you know you got extremely lucky, as if that will somehow make it better. Having suffered someone hitting their one-outer at the river to send you to the rails and seeing them type "sorry" in the chat, knowing it's not really true.

We need a saying for this situation that adequately expresses both joy at having won and some small token of sorrow for the other player's loss. And, just as importantly, we need a shorthand way of saying it.

It is with this in mind that I give you "ct4um8" -- crocodile tears for you, mate.

"Crocodile tears" because I just swallowed your stack, yet I'm still shedding tears "4u". And "m8" just because it sounds friendly and reminds me of Crocodile Dundee.

Please feel free to borrow ct4um8 and use it whenever it seems appropriate.

Rebuy, cash, and BBT

For some reason I can't quite fathom, I played in a cheap rebuy tournament last night. I used to hate these things. The crazy play in the rebuy period would drive me nuts. I'd spent so much time keeping my inner donkey in check I just couldn't embrace the idea of letting him out, if only for a little while.

Now I've learned to successfully thread my way through the donkey period, well, most of the time, and get to the point where play becomes a bit more normal. I wouldn't say I've gotten to where I love rebuys, but I don't hate them anymore.

Rebuys do generally exhibit some characteristics that can give great advantage to a knowledgeable, careful player. There are usually LOTS of donkeys playing these things, particularly the cheap ones. This presents many opportunities to greatly increase your stack during the rebuy period.

I've been loosening up my play a lot during this time. Not to the point of being totally nuts, but I'll play any two tightly connected cards, pretty much any suited connectors, any big cards, any suited ace, assuming I can get in cheap. I'll be generous when calculating implied odds to justify making what would otherwise look like a donkey call. I called one inside straight draw last night because I knew if I hit it I'd get the other guy's stack. I did.

A side effect of the looser play during the rebuy period is that a larger percentage of donkeys will make it through the first hour with very large stacks. This provides a second chance at taking away huge stacks for the cunning player.

These cheap rebuys also seem to simply attract a lot more donkeys. Idiotic play can be seen well past the bubble. I suppose this alone does not distinguish rebuys from regular tournaments, but it does seem to be observed with greater frequency in the rebuys.

Last night I played a $3 rebuy with a $6,000 guaranteed prize pool. I don't know if it was just an off night or what, but Full Tilt definitely lost money on this one. Even with the rebuys and add-ons, we fell considerably short of $6,000.

My first table seemed to be populated by people who'd never played a rebuy. Hell, I think most of these people hadn't even played much NL. One other player and I were the only ones to take an initial rebuy. Play was not the loosey-goosey stuff you normally see. I don't think I've ever seen so many min-bets and min-raises in one tournament before. They appeared to all be escapees from limit.

I had a few hands where I made good reads and was able to capitalize. At one point I think I made it to about 20th on the leaderboard. My first big hit was when somebody slowplayed pocket rockets, caught his set on the flop, and I had the misfortune of turning two pair. He played it well enough that I actually pushed him all-in.

By this time the disparity between big stacks and small stacks had grown quite large, and some of the big stacks were taking advantage. This made it tough to do much without cards, and those had pretty much dried up. I went out just before the second money increase. $2.70 profit for my three hours.

When that was over I decided to go play in the shallow end of the NL pool. If not for one hand where I got suckered by a too-big river bet I would have done a lot better. As it was I still walked away up 20BB in less than an hour. Not too shabby. Certainly a better per-hour rate than the rebuy.

Finally, the BBT. There has been a lot of discussion on various blogs about the points system and how extending the points all the way to the 50% mark resulted in people playing unusually tight, some even folding their way into the points. There are a number of issues here and some of the arguments don't seem to hold a lot of water.

Hoyazo in particular has been critical of the system and what he believes are resultant changes in the way some people would ordinarily play. I find this argument more than a bit confusing. Earlier this week he mentioned in his blog that one of the points of the blogger tournaments was for bloggers to have a place to hang out together, blow off steam, and feel free to play like the donkeys they so hate to suffer suckouts from in "regular" play. (Thanks, BTW, for making my good read of your too-large river bet sound as though I was some calling station who benefited from your sudden urge to act like a donkey just because you could.)

So, this raises a question. Is the "regular" style of play hoy is used to seeing in these blogaments the bloggers' "A game", or is it a donkefied version they save for these events to blow off steam? If hoy's contention that bloggers are donkefying their play for the blogaments is true, then perhaps what he was witnessing in the BBT was the real "A game" because they'd suddenly started taking these tournaments seriously. This would mean the only real change was that people were being serious about acquiring points. That would seem to be the objective of the BBT, so it should come as no surprise.

I would agree that there were changes in play style due to the artificial, second bubble created by the points at the 50% mark. Again, this is to be expected if people are taking the points seriously. It's no different than the money bubble. If you want a tournament with no bubble play, then you need to make it winner-take-all.

Hoy is suggesting the points be moved to the 20% mark rather than the 50% mark. I don't believe this does anything to fix the "problem", it simply moves the goal line. Instead of two bubbles separated fairly widely, there will be two bubbles fairly close together.

I believe Jordan came far closer to the truth of the matter. The points are there to encourage long term participation. By making it harder to get to the points, you are going to discourage those who don't score big points early in the blogament series.

My suggestion on the points embraces Jordan's concept and goes in the opposite direction of most other suggestions. I say change the formula so everyone gets points just for participating. To make it so simply showing up and giving a mediocre performance week after week won't get you to the top of the leaderboard, some changes to the formula will be necessary.

This season the BBT used the PokerStars TLB formula, modified to give points down to the 50% points for each tournament. The formula is:

Points = 10 * [sqrt(n)/sqrt(k)] * [1+log(b+0.25)]

Where:

n is the number of entrants
k is the place of finish (k=1 for the first-place finisher, and so on)
b is the buy-in amount in dollars (excluding administrative fee).

My suggestion is to further multiply this amount by some factor representing the amount of money won in the tournament. I'm no math whiz so maybe somebody has a better suggestion, but my first shot would be to multiply by sqrt(1+m), where m is the number of dollars won. The new formula would be:


Points = 10 * [sqrt(n)/sqrt(k)] * [1+log(b+0.25)] * sqrt(1+m)

Where:

n is the number of entrants
k is the place of finish (k=1 for the first-place finisher, and so on)
b is the buy-in amount in dollars (excluding administrative fee)
m is the amount won in dollars.

This gives everyone points so they can look at the leaderboard and see something other than a blank next to their name. It encourages a sense of participation. This formula also results in a single bubble where the money begins. Those who win big money get big points, those who consistently finish near the bottom still get to be less embarrassed when they look at the leaderboard.

As always, your comments are welcome.

A good start at MATH

I got off to a great start in the Mondays At The Hoy tournament last night. Sadly, I was unable to carry through from the good start.

I've mentioned before that when hoyazo and I get into a hand together I often get the impression of two boxers warily circling each other in the center of the ring, each waiting for the other to attempt the first punch. Last night we were more like two super-heavyweights, feet planted firmly, determined to see who could take and deliver the most punches. Rocky and Apollo in the middle of the ring. Only without the funny shorts.

The very first hand I get 54o on the button. It folds to me. I want to play the hand and figure I might as well toss in a raise at this point. (This is a double-stack tournament so I've got plenty of chips to waste.) I make it 3BB. Both hoyazo in the SB and dnasty13 in the BB call.

Flop comes K54 rainbow. Hoy bets out 220 with 270 in the pot. Dnasty13 folds. Naturally, I call.

Turn brings a T, still rainbow. Hoy checks. I bet 450, a bit more than half the pot. He calls.

The river brings a 5, giving me fives full of fours. Hoy checks. I really don't have a good read on what he might be holding here. Maybe a middle pair. Possibly a weak king. Something like jacks or queens wouldn't be inconsistent with his play so far. Maybe a straight draw, hoping to hit on the river and bust me.

Since he's come this far, I'm figuring he's probably going to call my river bet, so my objective is to maximize my return. What is he most likely to call? A smaller value bet? An overbet that looks desperate? I opt for the latter. Sadly, hoyazo folds. Thinking I missed an opportunity to extract more chips, I'm still not too upset at picking up over 800 chips on the first hand.

Round 1 to Patchmaster.

Not too much later Hoy and I got into another battle. Unfortunately, Full Tilt or Poker Tracker or somebody managed to lose the hand history. And my memory of the hand is a bit hazy. I recall having K-something and hitting a king on the flop. Chips started flying and hoyazo eventually pushed all-in. I went into the tank. He certainly could have had me beat, but running through the action in my head it just didn't add up. I made the call. Hoy showed just an unpaired ace.

Knockout in the second round, Patchmaster is victorious. It should be interesting to read what Hoyazo has to say about this hand.

I had more than doubled up before level one was over. This was certainly the most chips I'd ever had in a blogger event this early. And I built the stack even more, having over 7000 sometime in level 3. Then I ran into Astin, the card rack.

I get AQo and make a pot sized raise. Astin calls. Flop is AK6. I bet 250, about 2/3 the pot. Astin raises to 750. I decided to play big stack poker and push him all in. He calls and turns over pocket sixes, eventually catching a fourth one on the river just to rub it in.

I don't know about Astin. He plays a ton of hands, way more than can possibly be justified by his cards. And he plays them very aggressively. Yet it seems every single time somebody makes a run against him he's got the goods. At one point later in the evening, after he'd built up a healthy stack, he was raising practically every hand. And winning almost every time somebody called him down. An aggressive card rack is a bloody nightmare to play against.

As for me, Astin's quads were the beginning of my demise. I still had a very healthy stack, but I just wasn't connecting on much. My stack began to dwindle. I got most of my chips back from Astin later on, but by then things had changed drastically. Astin had a huge stack and I was down to M<10. I eventually went out in something like 17th.

I guess next up in the blogger world is The Mookie on Wednesday.

Slow weekend

Another slow weekend for me. I didn't play any poker at all until late Sunday night. For some reason I got the urge to play right about the time I should have been heading off to bed. Figured maybe I'd hit up one of the $8 Turbo Tier One tourneys and pick up a ticket for tonight's MATH.

I get seated and we're about to get underway when I look around and find smokkee a couple seats to my right. I expect to see these guys in the blogger tournaments, but it always kind of freaks me out to bump into bloggers in open tournaments. Smokkee got moved to the other table fairly quickly and I didn't see him again until we made the final table.

It was a pretty good tournament for me. I actually caught a few decent hands, not that I was able to capitalize on them to any great degree.

Only one major suckout, and even on that the other guy was the one who made the mistakes. It folds to me in the SB and I raise to 600 (100/200 blinds) with air. BB, with M=4 even before posting the blind, simply calls with what turns out to be a pair of fours. The flop is T62, giving me bottom pair. I bet enough to put him all-in. He calls. I just don't get this. If he wants to play the fours, he should have pushed before the flop. I probably would have let it go and he'd have increased his M to 6. After the flop, looking at two overcards and a flush draw he decides to toss in the rest? If he read me for a bluff and a c-bet, more power to him, but I have a tough time believing it. I turned a deuce and he went home out of the money.

That suckout left me in a very healthy position and I was able to fairly easily work my way into a ticket.

I'm still troubled a bit by the people playing in these things who clearly don't grasp that optimum strategy at the final table of one of these is quite different than in regular tournaments. When five of the final nine win the top prize, the goal is not to amass the most chips, but to eliminate other players. When a shortie pushes all-in and you have a healthy stack and a good hand, you don't re-raise. You call and hope all the other big stacks behind you do the same. Collectively you have far more outs than any of you individually. You don't bet other people out of the pot unless you have THE nuts, and even then it's a marginal play unless you think you can suck another player into an elimination.

It may seem against the rules, but passive collaboration is the best strategy. The big stacks should be joining forces to eliminate the little stacks.

Smokkee and I both got our tickets. I'm going to use mine in tonight's MATH. Hope to see you there.

My Big Game Sunday

Sunday was a day of big poker tournaments for me. Earlier in the week I won a ticket to the Full Tilt $500k at 6pm, and then there was the final BBT event, Miami Don's Big Game, at 9:30pm.

I wish I could say the outcome was better. I finished in the upper half of the $500k field, but still well out of the money. And my Big Game results were roughly the same. The only bright spot was that I got just enough points to squeak into the top 50 on the BBT leaderboard and qualify for the freeroll.

In the $500k there was one guy at my first table who was the poster child for calling stations. How somebody who plays like this ever got into this tournament is beyond me. Maybe it was a case of more money than brains. Of course, I shouldn't be bragging when it comes to the brains thing. I'd already identified this guy as a calling station, but I still made a run at a bluff against him. Against anyone who knew how to read the board the bluff probably would have worked, but not against the calling station. And I clearly should have known better. I did get it back when he checked his way into my hitting a straight and then, with a board of A3456 and him holding AK, called my large river bet. I was very sorry when somebody else busted him a short while later. I was hoping he'd luck into getting somebody's chips so I'd have a shot at taking them from him.

And that was pretty much the only high point of my $500k. I went card dead and just could not get anything going. It was very disappointing.

I tried to get my mind cleared and ready for Miami Don's Big Game, but it was tough to shake off my exceedingly lackluster results in the $500k. I certainly had no delusions of winning, but I had hoped to money. So with a bit of a cloud already over my head I started the Big Game.

Naturally, my table was filled with total pushover players. Lucko21, hoyazo, MiamiDon himself, jeciimd, irongirl01, TripJax, ChapelncHill, and Kajagugu. Yeah, pushovers, right. You'd be hard pressed to come up with a tougher blogger table.

Fairly early irongirl01 and Kajagugu got into a big battle that turned out set over set, irongirl on the losing end. She was put out of her misery a few hands later. Really bad break for irongirl.

Hoyazo and I got into an interesting hand together. Considering the number of times hoy and I have been at the same table, it's surprising we've not gone head to head all that many times. The times we have there has been enough trickery that we now both seem extremely wary when we find just the two of us in the pot. I usually get the impression of two boxers dancing around each other in the middle of the ring, each not sure he wants to be the first to make contact.

This time was no different. He raised to 3BB and I called from the BB with 66. The flop was somewhat uninteresting. I check after a bit of a pause. Hoy thinks a bit, then checks. The turn paired the board. I check. Hoy bets 280 -- about 2/3 the pot. I raise to 720 and hoy eventually folds. I thanked him for the dance and we went our separate ways.

I moved sideways for a long time until I managed to get very lucky against columbo. Like they always say on TV, the third raise means aces or kings, and I should have paid attention. Columbo raises, I re-raise with AKo, columbo pushes for 1500 more. At this point there's over 4000 in the pot so if he's got anything other than aces I'm getting the right odds to make the call. I do, he flips up kings, and I flop an ace to take down a very juicy pot.

Sadly, I got rather full of myself and ran my top pair no kicker nut flush draw into loud423's set of fives. My newly won chips quickly made their way into loud423's stack. A short while later I got some of it back when my AK proved stronger than loud423's A6.

I later took another fair sized pot with QQ, but that was pretty much the end of the road for big pluses in my Big Game. With blinds/antes at 200/400/50 and my stack at 5590 I found AKo UTG and raised to 4BB. MiamiDon, renown for pushing all-in with pretty much any two cards, makes the push and I call. He shows 99, I don't improve, I hit the rails.

As I said toward the beginning, my 17th (of 45) place finish gave me just enough points to squeak into 50th spot on the BBT leaderboard. So, assuming real life doesn't get in the way, I'll be at the freeroll.

NETeller Co-Founder pleads guilty

The Associated Press is reporting that NETeller co-founder Stephen Lawrence has pleaded guilty to a charge of criminal conspiracy. Lawrence acknowledged in federal court that NETeller's processing of financial transactions with online gambling sites was illegal under US law.

I'm not sure this bodes well for those of us expecting money from NETeller. On the one hand, it will probably help speed those transfers since a portion of the case has been resolved. On the other hand, I have to wonder how many individuals will be receiving subpoenas along with their NETeller checks.

The government has said it can't deport 12 million illegal immigrants. Let's hope they'll be similarly incapable of going after a few million poker players.

Missed it by THAT much

I was really hoping to pick up in the Riverchasers last night the points I needed to make the BBT top 50. Alas, such was not to be the case.

I had a fairly early score when a SB special came through for me. Three limpers ahead, I completed with 94s. Yeah, it's a crap hand, but they were SOOTED! Seriously, I was getting 9:1 on my money. I'll call with any two getting those kinds of odds. The flop was 794. I was able to ride it to a pretty nice 1350 pot.

This gave me enough chips that I probably could have folded my way into the points. In retrospect, I should have clicked the "sit out" button just like I was thinking of doing. But, no, I couldn't do anything smart like that.

I pretty much moved sideways for quite a while and was maybe half a dozen eliminations from the points. Then I get QQ. I do a standard 3BB raise. TheWhisper78, who has been abusing the table with his big stack for quite some time, pushes all-in. There's 450 in the pot and he makes it 4655 to go. Slight overbet. I figure this is nothing but a steal so I make the call. I'm right as he shows KTs. I'm 2:1 to take this down, double up, and be in a good position to make the money, not just the points. Of course, the flop comes KK9 and I go home before the first break.

Anxious for more punishment, I jumped right into the $26k. I was doing so-so when I made the mistake of running a perfectly good bluff against what I can only assume was a calling station. Admittedly, I had nothing but a big card, but this fool calls my all-in for all but the last 500 of his chips with nothing but second pair and a mediocre kicker. He could have walked away with a few lumps, but still in decent shape. Instead he decides to risk most of his stack on second pair. While the board could have been better for my bluff, there's no way he could have reasonably figured me for bluffing here. There were far too many perfectly reasonable hands that had him in a world of hurt. I should have recognized from all his min-bets that he was the kind of player who wasn't smart enough to lay down a hand like that.

Still feeling the need for pain, I decided to jump into another Tier One ticket tourney. I tried something different this time. It's the first I've noticed the heads-up tournaments FT has. Four players, heads-up, winner take all. I won my first table. The second table we went back and forth for a while. I thought I was going to cash in when I caught pocket 9's and turned the set, but I slow played too long. I made my move on the river. Sadly, the river brought the third spade and the other guy had two little ones in his hand.

I need to re-learn the lesson of not being in too much of a hurry when heads-up. It was kind of fun, though, so I think I'll give it another shot. I used to be pretty good short-handed and heads up, but playing all these blogger tournaments and Tier One ticket things I find I'm not spending as much time in normal short-handed situations. The heads-up ticket tournament is cheap and looks like it might be a good way to keep in practice.

The final BBT event is Miami Don's Big Game on Sunday at 9:30 EDT. While I don't look forward to playing two big tournaments at once, I'm definitely hoping I'll still be playing the $500k when the Big Game starts.

Closing on goal

The Mookie was last night. Decent turnout with 72 runners hitting the virtual felt. Not quite up to the level established last week, but quite impressive nonetheless.

My dearth of cards and skill at losing coin flips mostly continued. I keep trying to tell myself I'm making the right moves -- tossing another $600 into a $1800 pot when you're almost certain it's a coin flip is still the correct move, right? -- and therefore "winning" according to the Sklansky definition. I just haven't figured out why my chips keep ending up in someone else's stack after all these "wins".

I did have one hand where my all-in with KTs against 98o was victorious. And one major suckout when my all-in with 55 ran into QQ and I flopped another 5.

There was one hand in particular where I decided to pay attention to my spidey sense, but I have no idea if my judgment was correct or if irongirl01 bluffed my pants off. I raised to 3BB from UTG with AJo. Not something I would ordinarily do, but it was getting late and I needed to get something going. Irongirl01 called from MP, everyone else folded.

Flop is 42T rainbow. I c-bet 2/3 the pot, irongirl01 calls. The alarms really went off here. She was down to about M=9 before the hand started. What could she possibly be holding that would justify calling pre-flop and just calling a crap flop like this? To put 1000 in the pot with just 1000 left behind makes no sense unless she's got a monster or she's setting up a very dangerous post oak bluff. Or she's a calling station, but I know that's not the case. Irongirl01 is probably capable of the complicated bluff, but I'm not sure she knows me well enough to know if I'd read the suspicious behavior and react as desired to it. That kind of thing needs a stone cold, dead on balls accurate read. Kudos to her if that's what she did.

The turn was a blank. I decided I was done putting money in this pot. She put in a meager 500 bet -- half her remaining stack, but only 1/5 the pot -- and I let it go.

Should you happen to read this, irongirl01, I'd love to know what you were holding. Well played regardless of what you had.

Down to about M=7 and blinds going up in seconds, I pushed with 88. Somewhat to my dismay I got a call from sellthekids. To my great dismay, Maudie also called. My 88 vs sellthekids' 44 vs Maudie's TT. I turned my set, but Maudie re-sucked at the river, sending sellthekids to the rail and leaving me with crumbs. I was gone two hands later, finishing in 24th and getting me closer to my goal of top 50 on the BBT leaderboard.

Tonight is the last of the Riverchasers BBT events. See you there.

Dead, dead, and dead again

The MATH was last night. To warm up and expecting to cover my entry price cheaply, I played one of the Tier One SnGs. As I've written many times before, these are usually pretty easy, especially the turbo ones, since 5 out of 18 get the top prize. Playing for 4th or 5th is a lot easier than playing for 1st.

I might just as well have flushed my entry fee. I didn't get a single decent starting hand the whole tournament. And every time I got something marginal -- good enough to come in first, but not really good enough to call a raise -- someone ahead of me would have raised it. I did make the final table (about as tough as breathing), but didn't last long after that.

Figuring the dearth of decent cards couldn't continue, I immediately signed up for another Tier One SnG. Well, I was wrong. The dearth of cards could continue. I did manage to catch one great hand when a very speculative play came through and I slow played it successfully. But I lost it all back to the same guy a while later when I flopped a baby flush and he had two big cards of the same suit. I obviously knew it was a possibility, but it was only a 2.5% chance of him having two cards of that suit. Mine were small enough it was a virtual lock that his would be higher, but, still, it's 2.5%.

So I bust out of the second SnG having backed into a couple decent hands, one of which didn't have a favorable outcome. No good starters in two tourneys.

Along comes the MATH. I figure all the bad cards should be out of my system by now and I should get some great starters. Yeah, right. The only premium starter I got all night, I raise, everybody folds. Perfect.

I still managed to hang in to very near the points bubble, but I was very close to the cutoff and would certainly have felt more comfortable if my stack was just a bit bigger. So when it folds to me in the SB and I'm holding TT -- the second best starting hand I've seen all night -- I make a normal raise, half hoping the BB folds, half hoping he doesn't. He doesn't. The flop seems unlikely to have helped. The BB has been making plays at pots all night, and has a huge stack, so I figure I'll make my stand here by trying to entice him to make a play and then pushing in the rest. I check, he makes a suspiciously small bet (at least in retrospect I think it was suspicious), I push all-in and he insta-calls. When his chips beat mine into the pot, which is very tough to do online, I knew I was in trouble. He turns over AA and I hit the rail.

I'm normally very stoic about these things. I try to pattern myself after guys like Paul Darden and John Juanda rather than Hellmuth or Matusow. I didn't throw a temper tantrum or anything, but I felt like I'd been kicked in the gut. Instant deep depression.

I tried to get outside myself and think about why this hit me so hard. It wasn't losing three tournaments in a row. I've had far worse losing streaks. It wasn't missing the points for the BBT. There are more opportunities to get the points I need to make the freeroll.

I think I finally came up with the answer. It dawned on me that a big part of why this hit me so hard was that I don't often get slow played so effectively. The slow play with the flush earlier in the evening was effective, but in that case I was clearly aware of the possibility and simply discounted it due to the long odds. That it turned out that way I can simply chalk up to bad luck. This one completely blind-sided me. And that doesn't happen very often. I'm thinking that's a good thing. I don't know, maybe I'm just desperately searching for a silver lining in this dark cloud.

Tonight I'm planning to take a shot at the 50-50 I've been hearing everybody talk about. Wednesday is the Mookie. Thursday is Riverchasers. For sure this time. I checked the schedule. Sunday is the final BBT event, Miami Don's Big Game. I already have my ticket and am anxiously awaiting my chance to kick some Big Game butt.