Glenn's Poker Journal

Update and Pics

2007-01-29T18:35:00.000-07:00

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 2693651

OK, so, I know that I haven't posted much lately, so here's an update.

Basically, I've been playing PL/NL Draw high on Stars; hoping that I'll be able to cashout when I need to now that Neteller is no more.

Last week Felicia and I went on another cruise and I have some pics.

Felicia was feeling better as you can see from this picture

As Felicia stated before, I love cruising (-grin-).. just look at the overwhelming joy on my face here

Tried getting a little somp'in somp'in on the side, but man, she made it plain that she was taken, flashing ring on one hand and giving me the "talk to the hand" flip with the other

Seriously, we did have a really good time (me too--check out my hair too from Felicia's haircut she gave me; very good, eh?). Felicia even felt good enough to get up and dance with the crew:

Aiy-chihuahua! Mexicans have a thing for Chihuahua's alright. Figurines like this one below were found in tombs:

That was from a museum in the following town. Too pretty, had to show it, even tho pic is big:

Later for now :)

Merry Christmas

2006-12-25T20:56:00.000-07:00

So, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.

Beyond all these things {put on} love, which is the perfect bond of unity.

Colossians 3:12 - 14

Merry Christmas!

Address: Final Table

2006-08-30T07:07:00.000-07:00

While I've been having a good run at tournaments lately, I've been getting killed in cash games. It's so weird for me, for it used to be the exact opposite! At one point I told Felicia that she could continue to play tournaments if she wanted to, but I would only play cash games.

I think what eventually got me back into tournaments was trying to win her satellites/lammers during festivals. At Rio, Foxwoods, Commerce, Orleans, etc, I would play a ton of satellites. After I won or chopped a few of them, we found that I had a knack for it. It soon came to be: I would play the sats, give her the lammers, and she would play the tourneys.

From then, well, most of you know about my freeroll tourney successes. This sort of got me back into it a bit. Once I won my seat to the WSOP, we started playing more here at Laughlin. For whatever reason, I seem to only win at Riverside. (Although, I was all but locked up for the money once at the River Palms, until a one-outer straight-flush took me out..Doh!)

To give an idea how I'm running in the tournaments, I just got through chopping another one last night. The lady I chopped with had me a little outchipped, asked my name before shaking it for like the 3rd time (she was just 'pickled', as she put it, to 'be here', to chop it). Curtis had just pushed into the box (sorry, Curtis, I should have made her at least play one hand so that you could earn money on the down); he said, "His name is Glenn; address: final table. He lives at the final table."

With currently running so badly at the 4/8 (to the tune of -$20/hr! these past 3 months), it was a nice compliment. Back when Felicia and I used to play the tourneys at the Belle, we used to win enough that they would accuse us of cheating (no matter how many times I refused to soft-play Felicia, they figured that we were somehow colluding..yeah, I really wanted to keep knocking her out instead of both of us getting paid..yeah, that makes sense).

Anyway, it felt good to finally have some recognition :)

Now, I just need to work on the cash game!

Poker Nightmare

2006-08-10T09:27:00.000-07:00

Last night I had my first poker nightmare...

I'm in a tournament and just as I'm trying to look at my cards, the guy to my left raises out of turn. As the dealer is pushing his bet back because I haven't acted yet, I see AA. Of course, I limp. Guy on my left follows through and raises, and gets called in a couple places. I shove. Guy to my left calls, as does others. I see him turn up pocket 77's and I turn up my cards and see... pocket 77's. Huh?!?! I see someone else across the table has my AA! Then I also see that a 3rd person that called AI with... 77. Fouled deck. Redo. I was still wondering how my AA's got into someone else's hand when Felicia woke me up. Thank goodness, just a dream!

This was probably born out of the nightmare of a tournament that I played last night.

Early on, I limp in the CO w/ T9s after a few others, and the BB decides to raise. It's the first level at 25/50 and he makes it 250. He gets FIVE callers before it gets to me, so I go ahead and call too. Flop is T-high and he bets 500...? There's a possible straight and flush draw, and he's betting 1/6th of the pot? Sounds like he missed. It gets folded to me, so I make it 1500. BB just calls. On the turn is an offsuit 3 and he bets 1500. We started with 3000, so this puts me all-in. Now I'm thinking that he really had an overpair, but I still have my rebuy chip and figured that I might have 5 outs and that I'll call with all the money in the pot. Five outs? No, three. He had tried to steal the bringins, I'm guessing, with ATo and just got lucky. No 9 on the river and I do the rebuy.

This is where trying to put people on a hand in these small tourneys is really insane. All those draws out there and he bets so small with a relative monster of Top Pair Top Kicker. Then he does a small bet on such a vunerable flop. Too bad I was the only one that had anything, I would have folded my TP.

Later on, I flop a set of 4's on a board of 3c4h6h. It's 50/100 now and a middle position player bets 500 (there were 6 players to the flop). I make it 1000 and I get cold-called by the button and the SB, folded to the middle position who mucks (? I think he took a stab at the pot, and since he knows me, folded, probably any pair). Turn card is a death card: 7h. SB pushes in. I can either call all my remaining chips and hope to fill with only one card to come, or wait. I chose to wait.

Before the break, it's 100/200 and I have just under 4000 chips. So, my M (see Harrington's books) is > 10, but with the blinds about to double, I shove with AKs. Carl, a local that I've played with many times before, thinks he's making a loose call with... AKs. We both make K's full of A's and chop the pot. I made a whopping 100 from chopping the BB (Carl was the SB).

Very next hand, someone raises in front of me and I find KK. "Let's try this again", I said, and shove. BB moves AI (he covers me and the original raiser) and the original raiser goes AI and shows 88. BB shows AK. As I'm thinking "no ace, no ace", the dealer flops AA7, and I'm drawing dead. Ugh! I head to the cash game.

On a brighter note, I did chop the tournament at the Riverside the previous night. Combination of good play and good cards that mostly held up.

In the beginning of that tournament, I had to rebuy early (again) because my AK ran into the powerhouse of A6s (UTG) that choose to call my heafty preflop raise. Then he check-raised me and I called, getting about 2-1 on my money. He had flopped 2 pair and it held up. AK another time did NOT hold up and I thought I was doomed for the tournament. Before the break, I had AK yet again and was able to survive this time.

After the break, I choose my spots and shoved at times that I felt were either good timing or good hands. Once I got lucky to have A9o vs A8o and kicker played and I doubled. Made it to the final table, but only 4 paid on the relatively low turnout.
I had some really passive players, unfortunately to my right. However I did get lucky that one of the heathier stacks was directly to my left. Once or twice I stole from him because I knew that he didn't want to jepordize his chip position before the money (once it was him in the BB and passed to me in SB and I raised with 97o cause I just knew he would fold.. and he did).

The kid to my right was way too tight. Once he limp-opened [LO] the SB, and I found A4o in the BB. I shoved and he folded. To really show how tight he was, it happened again later in the tournament. He LO'd the SB and this time I found AA. Since I had done it once before, I was hoping that he might have something if I went ahead and shoved again. He folded ATo face up! He was even short stacked! I would have insta-called. (Really, I would have shoved pre given his chips stack; if I was up against AA, so be it.) Then, I showed him my AA to enforce his tightness -grin-.

I was lucky enough to have AA early against an early raiser, whom ended up calling my AI with KJs(?). Guy is even a dealer there and should have known to lay it down. I think he figured he had raised too much and felt he had pot odds and would try to out draw me. Once we were 5 handed, I managed to capture the chip lead. First from the AA vs KJ hand, then with QQ vs another early raiser with JJ. I had probably twice the chips of anyone. I'd have played the bully, but 2 of the other stacks were desperate and would call me with anything, probably, in order to double up. So, I just waited. Soon the bubble finally burst when it was short stack vs short stack in the blinds. Then the kid with the ATo busted himself as well and we were 3 handed.

Local guy [LG] to my left asked about chopping. I still had 1/2 the chips at the table, so I repectfully declined. Very next hand UTG/button limps. He's an older guy [OG] that has been playing well and I see him kind of like keeping his head down and I'm thinking he has a good hand. I only have 23 in the SB, but it's soooted, so call, hoping to bust OG slowplaying something with 2pr or straight. LG checks.

Flop comes down 764 giving me a gutshot, but no clubs (my suit) and I check. LG shoves and OG shoves. I turbo-muck and sit back to watch. LG has K5o for open-ended straight draw, and OG has 77 for top set. Set held up and OG had him slightly covered. With blinds at 400/800, and OG having only 20k less, we ended up chopping. With only 80$ difference between chopping and first, I figured it was best to chop.

Felicia brought up a good point after, however. I should have agreed to a chop of most the prize pool, but put aside like $50 or so and to play it out for that extra amount. Get some HU experience.

Next time, definitely!

Card Dead at WSOP

2006-08-03T15:26:00.000-07:00

Well, I made it for 13.5 hours, but that still wasn't good enough to survive day 1. I got knocked out when I shoved vs what I figured was a steal attempt of my blind. Dude's 66's held vs my AJo and I was out at 1:30am. I'm glad I got to play, but just wish I had more to work with.

Felicia asked me the day before how I was feeling. It was really weird. I was more excited when I initially won the seat. I think all that we went through trying to get the seat transferred, then to get actual confirmation, was such an emotional roller coaster that once I got there it was kind of like just another tournament.

It was a little surreal to be there at WSOP, having 10K in tournament chips, but still condensed into one stack. Seemed so anticlimatic. I wanted a pyramid of chips! If I remember correctly, we got 7 1K chips, 4 500's, 8 100's, and 8 25's. So almost a stack and a half. Hummf. (-grin-)

Anyway, during the first few rounds people were being tight. I was hoping to catch some hands, maybe sneak in with a suited connector, catch good and make some chips. I think the only suited connector that I limped with was 54s in late position and didn't get anything. I did get a draw and was priced on the flop, but didn't get there. Turn, guy bet the pot, the guy in between dropped, and I didn't think that the implied odds were there, so I just folded.

Few rounds later I'm in the BB with 97o and I got a free flop. This one Hungarian guy two to my left had limped in UTG+1. I think he'd only come into a pot 2 other times. So I kind of got a tightish impression of him, but it was still within the first hour, therefore, I didn't have a hard cast read of him. He could have just been card dead for all I know.

Flop comes Q99 with two hearts. I flopped trips. With two draws on the board, I lead out. This also disguises my hand to many, who would think that if the blind flopped trips that he'd naturally check in the hopes someone else would bet. The Hungarian guy [HG] called, one person folded, and a late position guy [LP] called. I figured that they were on a draw (possible hearts, possible JT); so when the turn brought an 8 that would complete the straight, I checked. HG checked, LP checked. Both heart draws? River is another offsuit (no flush), but a 7! I filled.

I think I bet 200 (half the pot) on the flop, so getting two calls, there was about 1000 in the pot. I did a weak-lead 200 bet again, hoping to be raised by a straight. HG raised to 500 and LP cold-called. Great, I thought, just what I wanted. I added 2 yellow 1k chips to the two black I had out there to make it 2200 to go. The HG dude looks at me for a little, then makes it 5000. Excuse me?

Meanwhile, the LP guy, who had called the bet and raise to 500, cold-called the 5000. Wow! I immediately started thinking that the HG must have limped with QQ and slow played his top full house to the river. Trying to put the LP on a hand, I was wondering if he had the straight or the case 9, but wasn't full. Can't raise because he can't beat a straight, or he slow played the straight on the turn, but with the raising thought a full house was possible, but won't lay it down.
So I figured I had at least had LP beat. What about HG? The alarm bells were blaring and he seemed confident. I tried talking to him: "Did you really just limp with QQ?." No response. "You have Queens full, don't you?" He says, "Excuse me?" in such broken english that I'm finally understanding that I'm not going to get any reads on him because he doesn't understand what I'm asking! Aiyaa. I looked at the pot that has over 12k chip in it and that I have to call 2800 more to make sure he didn't just raise with a turned 88's full or straight since the turn was check-check-check.

I really didn't want to be under 5k within the first round, but I didn't want to fold and find out that HG had a straight and LP had the case nine and my hand was good. Getting better than 4-1, I called and got shown what I feared: QQ for Q's-full on the flop. Back to the drawing board.

I kept folding hand after hand waiting for cards. I called a small raise once with 88 since there was another caller in between. No set and too many overs and I folded.

As time went on, I got shorter and shorter. I stole when I could. A couple times I got nothing and my flop bet was called. I wasn't able to defend a river bet, so had to give it up. (Once the pot was 3 handed so I couldn't call the bet when he was betting into 2 people; the other the flop was KKx. Since the player I was against was there during the Q's full hand, he knows that I'll bet trips. So when he called, I didn't think he was just trying to take it away, I think he really had it and was trapping.)

My best hand of the night was when I was in the blind and there was an UTG raise from a new guy at our table. I found AKs in the BB and shoved; he called with ATo. That really surprised me that he called, but it was good for me. There was a moment I thought I was out when the flop came ATx, but the river was a King and I had doubled up. I was almost back to the original 10k with about 9800.

After that, I was mostly card dead again. As my stack got below 10x the pot size, anytime I had a good Ace or a pair, I was AI. I did this once with AQs vs an early raiser. But I knew he didn't have to have a better hand then mine to raise. I was right when he folded. He saw how tight I was and said he had folded AJ. Once I tried to raise in late position with KJo. Same guy, who was the BB, remarked that the raise scared him more since I didn't just go AI. However when both HG and the BB called my raise, I figured I was dead. On a flop of AQx, HG bet and the BB raised, so I folded. I made a production of it though. I wanted them to think that I was still playing tight and that the raise was a huge hand. I sighed and said, "The one card I didn't want to see on the flop", referring to the Ace. I was hoping that they'd assume that I had raised with KK and that now I'm folding because of the bet and raise with the Ace on board.

This might have been able to allow me to steal a couple times that I did only raise and not go AI; once with J8o and once with K6o. The majority of the time, however, others were raising and I wasn't able to steal. And I never had a hand to come over the top.

My best hand, besides the AK where I doubled up, was 99. There was already an UTG raise and a cold-called by someone that I knew had to have AK or better (basically group one) to call, if not reraise. I figured with the implied odds, I'd call with my 99 and hope to flop. Flop was QJx. UTG bet 3/4's the pot and the other raised. I quickly folded, figuring the raiser for either QQ or JJ. He had JJ, the other KK. Just as I thought, if I had caught and they didn't, I could have doubled through. No set for me though, and I was back to the fight.

I kept getting blinded down, and no one would call my AI's. Once went AI 3 times in one round (AQ, AQs, AJ) and no one called me once! After that, it was the standard fare of 52o, etc. Once I stole UTG with 22. Again, no call. I thought about being maniacal, but at the same time, like I said, most of the time someone was raising ahead of me. That kept me from having the ol' "first in vigorish".

Finally, my last hand was that 66 vs AJ for me in the BB. It was 200/400 with a 50 ante. The guy who raised, I had seen raise with KTo, so he didn't have to have a hand. Plus, with my tight image, I know people attack my blind, and since I mostly didn't have much, I couldn't fight back. This time, the raiser was in late position and when I saw the AJ I figured 2 things: I could have the best hand; and/or with my image, he might fold. Either way, I had only about 7000 in chips when it costs 1100 to go around. If I didn't have the best hand, I hopefully had at least one over, if not two and it would be a coin flip. I was glad to see it was (my best chance to double), but no go.

Although I didn't make it past the first day, I outlasted over a thousand of the 2100 or 2200 that they had that day. I know I can do it, but some cards might have helped :p I never held a pair above 99 and that AKs was the best Ace that I held. Hopefully I can win a seat again next year and get another chance.

Until then, back to the grind!

Glenn

My Turn

2006-07-23T08:04:00.000-07:00

OK, it's my turn for suckouts :)

Felicia and I went to Riverside for cash games again, but then ended up at the Palms for the 8pm tournament.

We started out the night at Riverside to try to get Felicia's O8 game going. Not long after we got there, they started up the table. I guess people have been itching to play, after not having a game all week. They only had 6 names on the list, but the floor called the game (me included, only to start the game, then I high-tailed it out). Before the game even started, the table was full. Floor started calling names for a HE game too and asked if I still wanted on the list. Yes! Don't know why, but I can't win at that $2-6 spread limit Omaha8 game. Seeing the O8 table full, I told Felicia I was going to take the open seat. They even were able to fill my seat before the game started. All week couldn't get a game going, but they really came outta the woodwork last night!

I was called to a $2-6 HE game and made a little before going into a NLHE game. I limped in later position with AKo and had my first suckout of the night (suppose you could call it "re-suck"). There are some people who will raise to the full $8 with AK (2 to come in, you can raise 6 at anytime, to make it 8 to go), but I usually only raise AK in early position in this game. One thing I've learned about 2-6, if there are enough people already in the game, people will call anything. They think they have the odds, based on the people who called, but they DON'T when they originally came in for only called 2. They just don't understand. In some ways, this is good. When you have a premuim pair, they're making the biggest mistake. But when it's AKo, where your odds are severely lessened by having multiple callers, it really does no good. I've seen people lose a ton because they'll keep firing with Ace-high. These donkeys just don't know to fold top pair.

On the flop, it's KTx, and I get bet into for $2. OK, my first mistake. I figure it's someone with QJo looking for a cheap card, or a weak King, so I raise it to 8. I hear her saying something like, "we must have the same thing". That does NOT sound like QJo! Hmm. I figure if she has a set, she's raising me back, and we definitely do NOT have the same thing. I might have been in trouble, until the Ace on the turn. She checks, I bet, and she just calls. OK, not QJo, and prolly not AK, she might have raised or bet either of those holdings. River brings a possible flush and I check behind (even though I don't put her on the hand, now there's the flush and the straight that she could have been drawing with). She shows KTo for the flopped top two. I show my AKo for my 're-suck' and take it down with the turned top two.

In a little while, I get called for the NLHE game. No max buy-in, 2/5 blinds. I'm listening to Dee and Russ and they're talking about the game from last night. Said it was wild. One hand was bet the whole way; someone called a $300 river bet with AK-high. They didn't tell me if it held, since I was just listening in, but sounds good. After the ME, I'm going to have to sit in on these games more often :)

For my next trick, I will perform a one-outer!

Russ, one of the wealthy locals, cold-calls $80 preflop from Ernie, one of the dealers sitting in the game. Flop comes J55 with two hearts and Ernie puts out a stack of red. Russ puts him AI (all-in) and Ernie calls. Although it's not a tournament, there's no slow-rolling here. Russ says, "I'm on a draw", and turns over Ah9h; seems he kinda thought he could win the hand by the push. Ernie turns over TT and must have known his tricks, calling with an over card on the flop. Turn is a heart, and Ernie moans and hits the ATM.

Two hands later, after Dee and Russ are saying "Oh, man, he's going to be AI, AI, now," (referring to Ernie) I'm in the blind with 84o. Ernie is in the hand. Flop is A84 rainbow, and with no raise pre, only like 20 in the pot, Ernie says "AI". Gets to me and I call, thinking that he must have limped with AK or AQ. Nope, A8o... ouch. Blank turn, 4 on the river. Guy to my right, not wanting to say anything before hand, says, "That's the last one, I folded a 4". For once, I'm the one getting the one-outer. Ernie hits up the ATM again.

Felicia comes over not too long after and reminds me to call the Palms to ask about their tournament, since she says her game is no good and I need more tournament experience. Find out that they do have some people signed up, so we end up heading over.

There were a bunch of new players who didn't know what they were doing. Man, talk about lucky. We arrived at the right situation. Majority of the time, you just bet, and they'll fold. Felicia got trapped three times on her first table. Once, in her free play BB, a guy caught trips on the flop and checked. Queen on the turn pairs Felicia and when he checked again, she bet. Bet the river, too, but not too much, because she had no kicker, and he just calls. She turns over 2pair, and he turns over a full-house, with Q3 under-the-gun, LOL. Never raised. We figure he just really didn't understand the monster that he had.

I got slow played in the blind about midway through. Just me in the BB and the SB limps. AT8 flop and SB checks. I have JTo so make about a 2/3rd's bet. He calls. Turn is a Jack, he checks again, and I bet again. I was watching his eyes, and I felt he had something when he called the flop, but after I turned two pair, I figured, well, let's see how strong he is. I doubled my bet from the previous round, and he just calls again. On the river, since there was a straight possible, I just checked behind. He shows me top pair of Aces, but I show my two pair to take the pot. Sucked out again :p Ye 'olde "making my own luck." I think this was a good set up for later though; I bet, I have something.. riiiight ;)

Once again I didn't get a heck of a lot during the early part of the tournament, but then started getting hands during the later stages. Plus, got a bit of Axs hands that I used to steal. Once I did the "See? I have a hand when I'm raising" and showed an AQs to the BB who was short. This again helped my image, allowing me to steal the blinds a bit more then I usually do.

I think I ended up taking out a couple people, plus the blind steals, and I had a good stack. With only 16 total people who entered (in Laughlin, a $125 event is big dough), Felicia and I ended up at the final table together. She was a little short, being cold-decked, but almost tripled up with QQ vs. 55 and an unknown hand--the first PFR folded). A few others knocked themselves out, and we were down to 5.

SB completes the blind against the BB and they see a flop of TT9. SB checks and BB (who was really short for a while, but had been going AI enough to get his chips back up a little) goes AI and SB insta-calls. SB shows T5o and BB shows A9o. (Way to raise BB, lol, this is the same guy who tried to slow play me ;) BB says "nice hand" and figures he's toast, until it comes runner 9's to give him quads! SB is shocked, but takes it well. Not long after he's out and we're in the money!

I end up knocking Felicia out with AK vs her 66 (can't wait to see what she says in my comments -grin-) and I have a good lead over the other two. Billy, folding his blinds a little too often ends up going AI vs my blind, but for so little more, I call blind. I think he had me high carded, but I pair and it's HU.

Him playing me HU was like me trying to play Phil Ivey. I pretty much ran over him as I'd expect Ivey to run over me. I doubled him up a couple times when I tried to knock him out when he had only one chip left. Both times I put in the last chip blind, but he won each time. Finally, 3rd time was the charm; he limped again, and I had 77, a real hand for once, that held up and I won.

I finally got to play one out to the end. Felicia and I actually asked if they wanted to chop once we got in the money, but the others didn't want to. OK by me, good practice :)

While I 'effectively' won the one the other night, when we chopped 3-way while I had the chip lead, I really did win this one. Good feeling.

Glenn

Are you going to post?

2006-07-22T09:52:00.000-07:00

"Are you going to post? Are you going to post?"

This is the constant question from Felicia. But I try to wait for something interesting to say. I don't want to bore people with:

"Well, I lost today. Here are the hands. What suck outs. Oh, woe is me."

Just as bad is:

"Won today. Boy I'm a great player. See my rising bankroll $$$." -grin-

I like to tell stories. Perhaps like during the Orleans Open, the guy that took out the first THREE players at our table within the first hour or two (called all raises, pretty much), then lost all his chips before the dinner break (fortunately, some to me when I doubled up through him when I flopped top set vs his bottom two on a flop of T96 -- yes, he played 96o). Unfortunately, the rest of the tournament was boring as I about folded myself out of the money. Got card dead. Then caught QQ vs two limpers and the short stack who limped decided he'd had enough and called all-in with 33 and spiked a 3 on the river to cripple me. I made a last stand with A2s UTG and got called by A8s, which held. Pretty unexciting, so I didn't bother writing it. (Readers, all 2 of you -grin-, you'll have to let me know if you want me to write stuff like that up. If there is interest, I will.)

Once you've played enough poker, you've pretty much have seen it all. I mean, come on, what can be as exciting as when I tripled up at Binion's with top set vs middle set vs TPTK (top-pair-top-kicker)? What can be more depressing then having it AI pre-flop, flopping quads, then losing to runner-runner perfect straight-flush??

I can't say that I'm really that jaded (yet). I still get excited. Felicia always marvels at the fact that once I enter a card room, that I just gotta play. "Don't you look around? See if they have promotions, etc?" Um, I look around.. at the tables :-} What games are being spread, are there chips flying, or are people folding.

I have good days and bad, just like everyone else. Yesterday and the day before were bad days for cash games. I played some NLO8 on Stars. Got it AI on the flop with top set and got called by someone with top two with back-door flush that got there.

Since Felicia felt that my wanting to play some local tourneys was a good idea for practice for the WSOP ME (should I ever get any confirmation and my seat assignment from Harrah's), we ended up at Riverside last night and ended up playing the tourney there.

We went there for the cash games primarily. Felicia wanted to play their donk-fest O8, but there was no game going. She ended up playing 4/8 with me instead. As my cash game losing streak continued, she was running over the game. While I'm getting trapped with top two vs bottom set, she's catching premuim pairs and stealing with relative impunity. My card-dead self just couldn't compete. I even lost to her when I flopped TP from the BB vs her bottom two from the SB, ugh. Don't worry, when it was just HU on the river, I mucked to her bet, I figured TP no kicker was no good. She showed me her 63o two-pair, lol.

I continued being card dead in the tournament... As I said, we really didn't go there for the tournament this time around; however, there ceases to BE a cash game (4/8 anyway, there's always a 2-6 game) when the tourney starts. Though we don't like the structure and time limits as much at Riverside: 20 min levels on first hour, starting at 50-100, when everywhere else starts at 25-50; then 15 minute levels until the final table--huh??; then 30 minute levels at the final table--again, huh? Wacko. Still we ended up playing. It was either that or 2-6 spread limit. As Felicia said, "I'd rather cut off my right hand"; especially given my run of cards. I was hoping that I'd at least be able to manipulate at the tournament, as people fear getting knocked out.

Once again, being card dead for the first hour, I couldn't bring myself to try to do anything fancy. I like to actually have something to work with. I can say that I stole a pot when it was just HU, me in the BB and the SB limped. He checked, I bet complete air and he folded. But I knew he really had nothing, he was just too new, and I took the shot and it worked.

After that, I finally got a hand: TT. Since I've been reading Harrington, and I was UTG, I was looking at the blinds and my current "M", and decided that I really didn't want callers and shoved in (pretty much if I raise, I'm committed). I was immediately called by "Papa", one of the older guys from the Riverside that cashiers there. Since he knows I'm tight, I was sure I was sunk: AA or KK. Once it got folded around, I asked him if he has Aces, "uh huh", and he turns them up. I pat him on the back and say "nice hand, Papa". Then the flop comes down 789 with two spades and I have two black Ten's. Jack of hearts on the turn, and that sealed the deal. I told him that I was sorry, and he just grumbled. Although I hate sucking out on other's Aces, after 22 sucking out on my AA at the Palms (see my comment on the last post) and the QQ's out run by the 33's above, I got over it rather quickly -grin- .. what can I say, but, "that's poker".

After that, there was no stopping me. Felicia, in the SB when I was the BB (had gotten moved to her table), passed up trying to steal my blind, and I looked anyway found JJ and made motions to shove in my chips ;) . Finally was getting hands.

I got short again and when it was passed to me on the CO, I found K4o. With an M of something like 3 or 4, I just shoved it. Most the players to my left and in the blind were tight anyway, so I was just looking to pick up the blinds. I actually did get called AI by the BB (since she had no chips either) but I had her high carded: she showed QJo. I turned a King, which would have been enough, but I ended up making a straight with the 4 on the river, LOL.

Knocking out the BB brought us to the final table.

The first guy out at the final, I don't recall. He was short, made a stand and was busted. I think someone had an Ace that held against his K-high hand (don't recall).

Then I single handedly, seriously, got us to the money (top six). Short stack [SS] UTG limps, UTG+1, folds, I find QQ and shove. Then the call fest happened. Exactly what you don't want to see with QQ, right? Last position SS says, "well, I'm getting odds" and calls AI with KQs. BB SS calls AI with 86o. UTG SS calls with KJs. Wow. Flop is 8TJ with a heart (the KQs was hearts) and I'm seeing two people with a pair and one with an OESD. Turn is a low heart, giving more outs to KhQh. River is a Queen. I knocked out 3 people and propelled the rest of the table to the money (Felicia included).

Felicia was shocked that I seemed so blase.. well, I was a little nervous about getting out run. Later tho, she kept saying something about the case Queen. Finally I figured out that, since she was at the other end of the table, she thought the UTG SS had KK, not KJs, and that I had sucked out on his KK's with the last Queen in the deck. I was ahead the whole way, that's why I seemed blase to her, LOL.

After that, I think I played my big stack well. I did complete the SB against Felicia's BB rather than appearing to "dump" to her and fold my T2o. Once again, I was big stack and could afford to see a flop. I flopped bottom pair of deuces and bet out. She went AI with TP which held up after I called. Yes, we play hard against each other. Last thing we want is for someone to accuse us of soft play.

Anyway, someone took out of the others I think. Then the forth basically folded her way out. She went AI for my blind and I paired up where she didn't and we were down to three. "Dee", who is a local that I've talked about before, and Felicia and I. We ended up chopping it. I had about T190K , Felicia had T75K and Dee T80K. With blinds of 10K/20K, and soon to go up, it would just take one suckout for one of them to become chip lead. If Felicia wasn't one of the 3, I would have asked for extra via my chip position, but since she was, just did the even chop.

This was great for me after the suck outs at the Palms and the recent cash games downswings.

Yes, I do know how to play.

Ah, OK, good.

Glenn

It's one long game

2006-07-19T01:16:00.000-07:00

Tonight, it definitely was a loooong game... but that's not what I'm referring to (of course ; ).

Before tonight, I've been on a fairly good run at the 2-6 game (spread-limit), with an average of $25/hr. Of course I knew it couldn't last; variance would rear it's ugly head sooner or later. Tonight it did. Trips with King kicker lost to trips with smaller kicker.. that hit. Then JJ lost to A2 ('cause it was soooted: "well, normally I wouldn't, but it's sooted", he said after cold-calling the raise; ended up with a straight on the river).

This made me start the night at about a $50 loss. Did I quit? Nope. Game was too good. This one woman was showing her cards all the time; so many times she called down with bottom pair. At first I thought it was because this one guy got caught betting bottom pair with flush draw all the way. Then I realised: no, she just calls down anyone with any pair. People would chase all the way to the river, regardless of raises, regardless of paired boards. Good game :)

Finally, after 5 hours of play, I got a good flop of trips (again) with a good kicker (I was the blind, go figure -grin-) with one guy drawing to the OESD (open-ended straight draw), and another with some pocket pair ("I call... and I raise..."; "sorry sir, can't do that, it's a string bet"; so I got a nice free flop :) . I lead out with my Q9o on a board of 998 (might as well make JT or any other OESD's pay); called by draw; raised by Mr String-bet; I 3-bet; Mr Draw cold-calls 12; Mr String-bet calls. Bet, call, fold on turn. Check-check on river (draw didn't get there, so I gave him a chance to try to buy it.. figured he doesn't call if I bet anyway, unless he has me beat).

Good pot. Put me to $4 up. For a five hour session. Wow.

So, sorry Felicia for being so late tonight, but I had to try to come home a winner. ;)

At least I know that I'm in good company. I've heard how many top players, if they're losing, and the game is good, they'll keep playing to at least try to get even. It's that drive to win that keeps us going.

I know Felicia says, "you can't win all the time".

Maybe not, but I can sure try :D

Thank you Felicia!

2006-07-02T12:54:00.000-07:00

Do I have a great wife, or do I have a wonderful wife?

What other poker player would give up their a seat to the 10k WSOP Main event??

Just got an email response today, from an email that she sent, saying that the package will be transferred over to my name, no problem.

So, she's giving up her seat to me.

Thank you, baby!!!

Bah, I'm out

2006-07-01T16:05:00.000-07:00

Knocked out in the 700's in the WSOP ME finals (outta 3500 again).

AKs flopped top two, but someone else flopped set

-sigh- I'll try again next week ;)

Making Luck, and Charging Others

2006-06-27T13:52:00.000-07:00

After winning my seat Saturday evening, Felicia and I headed out to Vegas on Sunday.

My first couple sessions were great. I started at the Wynn 8/16, but the players where kind of tight and talking about how the 15/30 games were at different locations. I was able to finish one round only $22 down -grin-. (I defended my first blind with JTs, and flopped top two, but the late position raiser had flopped a set on me; we went to 4 bets on the turn... Doh! Flop was JT2; I just didn't put him on raising the blinds with 22; although 'set' was what I was thinking once he made it 4 bets.)

I moved to a 4/8 seat in a new game and found the fish that I was looking for. JTo flopped two pair again, but this time held up. A3o from the BB flopped bottom pair with nut flush draw (since flop was all spades to match my Ace of spades). Once an ace hit the turn giving me top and bottom and I bet again, the remaining player gave up. I more than made up for the 8/16 loss by the time Felicia came over to me and said "my game's no good, let's go".

We went to Bellagio and I got up to 80 ahead in their 4/8 game, until my luck just started to tank. All premuim hands lost; no draws got there; all steals were tharwted, CBGB's, etc. (CBGB => Continuation Bet Gone Bad; not the famous bar :) I managed to leave one stack ahead by the time that Felicia was ready. She got lucky with rolled Aces in her 20/40 stud game, and filled up against a flush and someone else caught in the middle. (Gooo Felicia :)

After Bellagio, we decided that we'd play some at Mirage (though neither of us like the room) while we waited for people to show for the dinner that Mason was holding for the 2+2 moderators. I ended up losing a rack in the 3/6 game... Oi! Set under set, losing to gut-shot straight and all kinds of things. I didn't want to get up because they were playing so badly.. but they were just getting there! Give you an example of how badly they were playing: I flopped quads with 'presto' on a board of 565, two spades. I got bet into, got a call, and I just called. Initial bettor check-called the turn, after the board double paired! Straight draw? Flush Draw? Drawing DEAD to either, yet he PAID a turn bet to see the river, drawing dead. He obviously didn't have a 6, since like I said it double paired: 5656. We would have gone to war. Just an example how sucky they were. Just too many lucky hands against me, or draws that just didn't get there.

This table, however, is where I witnessed the "Making Luck." It's been discussed about how people 'make' their own, and that helps classify them as a good poker player. There was one of those players at my table. (I'll call him Red, since he was wearing a red coat.) He'd raise either in late position or early position with a small pocket pair; everyone would check to him, and he would bet. THREE times he turned over a set. Yes, he got lucky. But this is the issue. No one ever charged him to get lucky.

Wrap your head around that one.

One hand, the guy that check-called him down had QTo for top two on the flop. I can't recall if "Red" turned or rivered the set, but he did NOT have it on the flop. Did Mr. Broken-wing, 'I'm not sure I have the best hand I'm just going to call you down', did he ever raise him? Nope. He could have bet the flop or check-raised it and made Red pay. Then, even if he was outdrawn, ie Red still called, he would have at least charged him to get lucky. Since it's 22-1 after the flop to get your set, he'd have to make 11 big bets out of the pot to justify his call. Perhaps every so often that will happen, but not enough to make the call correct to call a flop bet/raise.

However, when no one charges him, and he's the aggressor, they're just bowing to his bets; he's putting in what he wanted to put in anyway, so, he is not getting charged.

Remembering this, I took this thought with me when I played Wynn next. I got into another good game with a guy that would be maniacal at times. I witnessed him, twice, reraise someone that raised his blind. Once, at show down, he showed 96s. Of course it was no good, but at least the guy 4 bet him pre-flop and charged him. Later on in the game, I got in a hand with him.

Passed to me on the button, and I raise with KTs. Not the best hand, but still, it was passed to me, I had a decent hand, and raised (at this time of night, the game was starting to get tightish). He decided to try to take control and 3-bet me. I four bet. Yes, I had a marginal hand, but that didn't matter, I was playing the player. I'll have to say that I did get a good flop of KJx with two of my suit, but I did NOT slow play. When he bet, I raised. When he 3-bet, I reraised. He ended up mucking 44 face up.

Since I kept raising him, I kept charging him, on his marginal hand, to continue. I had a hand, maybe not premuim, but better than average, and I kept up the pressure. I did NOT allow him to try to take the lead and charge me; I kept charging him to continue.

Fight fire with fire. Don't slow play a vunerable hand, trying to trap the aggressor (that's how my set-under-set hand lost to a gutshot; flop is JTx, he has JJ, I have TT, and he just smooth calls on the flop?? JT on the flop! Hello! Draw central... raise!)

With how loose people are playing today, there's not much reason to slow play. Make the people pay!

The Secret is Out

2006-06-27T13:35:00.000-07:00

Since Felicia put it on her blog, just want to post here to let you all know:

Yes, I won a seat for the WSOP Main Event. Yes it was under Felicia's account on Party.

We currently have a request into them about my playing it, since the only reason that I played under her name was that when we signed up, we could only do one per household and assumed that either of us would be able to play if a seat was won. We've informed them of this and Felicia's health issues, so we'll see what happens.

Meanwhile, since I found out that I can have my own account now, I'm going to try again. If I can win another, then kewl, situation solved. If not, well, we'll keep on them about her condition and see if we can get it switched over to me.

Know when to get up

2006-06-21T21:24:00.000-07:00

Hey all.. still riding that roller coaster of poker. Couple weeks ago I was up and down a lot, but still posted a little win for the week. Last week was kind of killer; so I was hoping that it would extend into this week. However, I ended up starting the week at a loss.. yesterday made up for it.. then today started at a loss again.. played some live poker and made up for it again! Aiyaaa!

So, the title. Yeah, I wanted to 'moral' the post about "knowing when to get up" (from a game).

See, a couple weeks ago, when I was going so up-down-up-down, I started out playing 4/8 and wasn't doing well. But I was on a list for a NLHE game, so I stayed, thinking "I'll get it back in NL".

I finally got to the table (after losing 50 at the 4/8) and proceeded to lose at NL.

We started the table short handed, and I never really have done well short. I'm a tight player by nature. In freeroll tournaments I really loosen up and "play". Bluffing if I think I can get away with it; semi-bluffing if I have a draw. All those kind of things that they teach you about in Theory of Poker, etc. That's great against weak opponents, like you find in freerolls. But players that know short-handed [SH] that you have to call down with second, and sometimes bottom pair.. that's a different story.

That's what was happening to me at that table. I'd limp in a bit looser, since you have to SH.. flop a draw.. bet.. get called. Sometimes I'd fire the second bullet, sometimes not.. I was always called down either way. When I had a hand, they'd fold. When I didn't, they'd be a callin'. Like it was written on my head. I know that I don't give many tells, least not for players at these limits. Plus, when I'm watching people, they're NOT watching me! So, I know it's not like I have some kind of tell-tale twitch on my face or something goofy like that.

Could have been just one of those nights. Or it could also have been because my opponents were playing "reasonably well". I don't want to play against people like that! I want to make sure that I play at a table where I have an advantage.

Tonight, it was same kind of thing. I started getting creamed at the NLHE tables online (just a few too many suck-outs, like: JTs calling my reraise and flopping 2pr on me; J6o flopping top-pair-no-kicker, and calling AI after I flopped the straight and shoved --multi-hand w/ a 2 flush-- and dude catches miracle runner-runner for boat) so I decided to do the ol' switchero and went out to the Riverside to play some live poker.

I started in a nice loose 2-6 (spread-limit) HE game. Won a good pot when someone tried to steal on the turn (no, thank you, I really have the trips--no kicker tho, so can't raise, though I did value bet the river when checked to -grin-).

Then I got called to the 4/8 game.

Mr. ATC from my 2-6 game came over and I placed myself to his left (just as Caro would advise: "money flows clockwise"). However, I ended up getting two dealers to my left, and a couple other decent players to their left. That I didn't like.

I played a little bit and made a little.. then got outta Dodge!

One of the hands that got me was when I raised one from the cutoff with KTo and got called by the BB (one of the decent players). I got a good flop of KQJ; so top pair and OESD (open-ended straight draw). Went: check-bet, turbo-call. Turn, blank: check-bet, turbo-call again. I see the guy watching me (another bad sign). I know that he's got something, but I still bet the turn for value. When he called on the turn again so quickly I figured he either had the same draw or something. Sometimes I will check the river, not just because I'm scared, but because if I'm in last position, I get to see the other's cards first before I have to table mine; and I like the info. Guy had a suited Queen. So, yes, I took the pot.

My point though, is that the players know that, via my position, I could easily have raised w/ AJ, or prolly any suited Ace, any pair, and would keep firing. In fact, one of the dealers played just like that. This creates a different dynamic at the table. Suck-outs will be higher; you will have to show down; and you will most likely be taken off of hands here and there by others pushing their hands more than they're worth.

I'm sure there are good players that would still be able to kill that game. I feel that I'm getting better and should be able to soon. I feel that my reads at times are just so *ON*, so *there* that I can almost see their cards. I just need to make myself act on them all the time!

To give a couple examples. Two different hands, I could tell that the one dealer playing was pushing with any pair and had just a marginal hand. One hand, he gets called on the flop, but checks the turn. OK, so either he missed or has an under pair. River, the ATC guy checks to him a third time, so he quickly fires on the river when a deuce falls. Now he may be pushing pairs, but I don't think he was pushing deuces! Sure enough: dealer is called on the river and shows 88; ATC guy shows A9o for top pair of 9's on the flop. So, here, dealer doing the quick betting on the river was a classic Caro of the "get-outta-my-pot" type. So, easy check-raise by ATC guy if he could have seen what I was seeing.

Same two players in another hand. Interestingly enough, the dealer showed the same hand, 88, after Mr ATC folded the turn. However, this time, he did the fire-another-bullet on the turn.. BUT, not after enough of a hesitation that I could tell was weakness. He thought about checking again like he did the other hand, but decided to play it differently. Once again, time for a check-raise.

Last example (did I hear a sigh of relief? haha) : ATC limp-opens UTG; I have AQo and raise; we take the flop HU. Flop is QJ4 and ATC check-calls my bet. Turn is another 4 and ATC does the quick bet just like the dealer (plus I saw him bet scare cards at the 2-6), so I call without much too much worry. River is a blank and he does the chip-grab-fake-out: he reaches for his stack, but then checks, like.. "I'd like to bet, but I'll just check it down". In other words, yes, he did bet the scare card and my hand is good. If I didn't have this thing about hating to be check-raised, I would have bet. However I did see him play J4s UTG in the 2-6, so I know it's possible for him to have a 4. I just think that if he had it, he would have bet it. Last thing he'd want is it to go check-check if he really had it.

So, he tables his J8o for second pair, I show my AQ and take down the pot. Once again, if I acted on my read, I would have won another big bet.

The history behind it is the value bet I talked about earlier during the 2-6 game which was betting my trips on a 3 flush board in late position with Mr ATC behind me. He had called me with bottom pair to make sure that I wasn't betting the missed draw... It was all hearts on the flop and it was checked around; I turned trips and called a bet; river, turn-bettor checked, I bet, ATC called me with bottom pair-missed flush draw. Therefore, I've seen that he will call river bets with marginal hands as 'thief-catchers'--just hoping that he's being bluffed.

I know that I'm getting there, I just need to grow another 'pair' and do it. (And, yes, I do mean another.. I already have a big pair for, other things.. just need one for poker -grin-.)

I definitely get the gun-shy syndrome though. I have been so beat up today at NL, that I was playing weak. That, combined with the fact that my table wasn't really a weak/passive table by any means, got me to get my butt out of the seat. I did the "just say 'thank you'", for winning enough to cover my NL losses (plus a tiny extra) from earlier today and took off. I'd only played for a little under 2 hours. Although, I would have liked to play more, I had the fortitude to know when to quit.

Like I said, I'm getting there. Now I just need to think and act on my reads when I'm pretty sure that I have the best hand value bet more. Otherwise, I'm just leaving money on the table.

Hope I gave you all something to think about. Play well!

God Bless :)

Whoohoo!! I'm international :D

2006-06-09T17:43:00.000-07:00

Felicia informed me that I'm getting a lot of hits from a French(?) site, "Hagbard", that's listing freerolls for people to play... at the bottom (of course, I'm at the _bottom_ -grin-) they link here to my main blogger page. Um, wait.. thought you said that there was some kind of strategy post?!?

Yeah, you see, that post is hidden in the archives! So, for all you people looking for that post, I'm going to do a "Best of" kind of thingie and add a link to the left. I'll do it right after this post, so you should see it there soon. If not, here's the link anyway:

http://bagsmode.blogspot.com/2004/12/online-freeroll-strategy.html

Have fun :)

On a brighter note (brighter??), I'm outta my slump! I found the ticket (for now anyway ; )

NLHE :-D

Heck, Phil Hellmouth said something about it being the best game.. well, at least Holdumb. But, that there limit crapola has been sucking the life outta me lately! I know, I know.. I talked a while ago about "Mastering the Micros", where I was actually having a good run playing 'that there limit'! Well, I also said that I was going to try to move up limits. I've been playing a ton of $0.5/$1 on Party and getting creamed. I've been down an average of 2BB/hr for the last couple weeks! Ugh!

Then I taught my doggie a new trick. He can dance now. Oh, wait, I was talking about me, not really the doggies. :p

Either way, that's false. There's nothing "new" to me about playing NLHE (don't worry, I'm not trying to say that it's not 'new' in the sense that I have nothing to learn... I have LOTS to learn). I just had been having a bad run in it and stopped playing for a while. Now I'm back and stackin' people like no one's business! Which just means that I'm due for some bad beats. LOL! (Just remember, that you're never "due"... you can miss ten flush draws in a row and still not be "due", you're still going to be a 4-1 dog on the next card, just like always.)

So, the last couple days of this week have been good, making up a little of my loses from earlier where I just insisted on playing limit regardless of the outcome.

Just goes to show that being able to switch up and play other games is a GOOD thing. Running bad in O8? Play some Draw. Running bad in Draw? Play some Hold'em. Running bad in Hold'em? Play some NLHE. Running bad there? Play some Stud/8.... ad infinitum...

Stir and repeat...

But make sure not to cream the mixture too hard or your cookies will spread too much on the backing sheet, resulting in thin dry cookies...

Of course, maybe you like that kind of thing....

Freak!

Ahh, memories :)

Alright, enough of all that!

So what's the message here? To me, it's that classic, "don't put all your eggs into one basket". If you start having a tough time in one game, just switch it up and play something different for a while. You might end up liking it, and you might end up making a little scratch, where before, you were lucky to 'scratch' yourself out of a hole!

Hope you all are well!

God Bless

Rocky Week

2006-06-03T23:24:00.000-07:00

I'm tryin', I'm a tryin'.. but the waters are rough!

I'm trying to swim in the poker waters, and the last couple weeks the water's been a might choppy.. but I'm hanging in there.

To give an example: Yesterday I started playing in the evening on Party... started strong and resisted the urge to do my standard hit-and-run.. so of course I started to lose. Won it back on one table, but down here and there on the other tables that I ended a couple bucks down. I was able to make a little in a 1/2 game that must have been rockin' before I got there (but of course was tight once I sat down).. therefore, I did hit-and-run there.

Then, I head over to Pacific for some NLHE. I got stacked twice right off (AA vs 95o, how could I ever expect to win over such a power house as 95o, LOL), but then stack two others (on a "brighter-side", _I_ sucked out on AA with 44.. bet my flopped set and was happy as a clam when he raised then called my AI). Unfortunately, one of the guy's I stacked was short, and I ended up down.

After putting in my stats for 4 hours of play, I was still up... 25cents. Ahhhhahahha! Aiyaaa! -grin-

While "up" is still "up", it's still a little disappointing. But again, I started the week at a loss, but made it back in a couple days. Then tonight I booked a win playing live.

Headed out to one of the local rooms tonight and made a little hit in the NLHE game that we got going short handed. Once again, the guy didn't have much in front of him (he was the one really bad player, so only did the min 100$ buy-in). I flopped a K-high flush from BB and got a call, then a raise from the fish. I was pretty sure the middle guy was drawing, so I chucked a black in to set the fish AI and (hopefully) force out the guy in the middle that I thought had the Ace. Once the fish said he called, the middle guy said he had the 5s for a GUT straight-flush draw... so I asked the fish guy if he had the As..? He turns over 77 for top set. So I sweat the next two cards; no pairing, the flush holds and the fish walks.

While I was donking (folding) in the 2/6 game, I kept hearing "raise, raise.. that's a cap" from the 4/8 game behind me. I got called to the NL game before the 4/8. But since it didn't seem that the NLHE game was going to fill, and the weakest link was just broken, I took an open seat I saw at the 4/8. Just as I sit down, 2 people got up to go eat. Oy! I blinded off about 30$ before I finally got my butt out.

I was able to steal a couple pots, but I got caught once, and I mucked to a raise. Figured it was slow-played when I was raised on the turn.. but it didn't matter, I had Ace-high, LOL. I just was trying to pick up the pot. It was 3-way; check-check-check on the flop; I fired on the turn; folded to raise; was shown 2pair (I played with the same guy on the 2/6 and the NL.. he was a 'talker', and since I talked with him, he did a courteousy-show).

Though I lost, I'm not really unhappy with my play; neither there nor at the NL. I just wasn't getting any cards at the 4/8.. best hand was KQo after an hour and a quarter worth of play.

Interesting hand there: Gets folded to the CO, who limps in. I was thinking of doing a Ciaffone if it got folded to me on the button... pretend to look at my cards and raise regardless (or maybe that's only if you're posting in the CO? -grin- I'm not sure, I was pretty much assuming to raise). Then the CO limps and spoils my plans. However, I looked and found KQo and figured I'd raise and get it HU.

What was interesting, was that the BB called (I was hoping to _fold_ the blinds, Doh!), but then, the CO mucks! Now I've read that there are times that it's correct to limp the SB, then fold to a raise. But it's almost never correct in 'limit' to limp in a pot, paying a full small bet, and then to fold to one more small bet!?!

Luckily, the BB didn't like the flop and folded to my continuation bet on a low board. Gotta pick up those small pots every so often ;)

Still, the blinds were eating into me the rest of the time getting nothing. Since I was a little up from the NL game, I ended up calling it a night.

Blah.

At least I'm up for the week now... and I'm even more thankfull.. Felicia is getting better!

Lot's to thank the Lord about :)

We're all healthy, the bankroll is building (albiet slowly), and I'm trying some higher stakes and not getting my butt handed to me (so far, anyway, haha).

This coming week, I think I'll keep trying these new games. I'm not "killing" them by any means, but I want to try to move up. If I only make a little, but am able to hang while moving up, it's still a progression.

Hope you're all doing well :)

God Bless

Riverside cash tonight after bad week :D

2006-05-26T22:09:00.000-07:00

Felicia is funny. I asked her if she minded if I go out and play some live poker, and she asks, "just need to get out of the house?" I replied, "no, I want to go make some money!"

I've had a bad week:
- Monday I finish a whole $5 up; but, a "win is a win", right?
- Tuesday, I end dead even for the day.
- Wednesday I took a small loss.
- Then Thursday I try to change it up and play NLHE. I got stacked 3 times. Once I had QQ, and when I was raised on the flop, I figured he was on a draw.. but he got there. Second, I thought I caught up when I turned top two; but, no, he didn't raise UTG+2 with AA or AK.. but 77 and he had flopped a set on me....doh! Third, I guess I was tilting.. and when it was raised in front of me and I had QQ, I shoved.. and was shown AA that held up. I got out of games at that point.

Tonight, I was hitting and hitting while playing the micro-limit HE online. I told Felicia I had to go play some live since I was running well and to try to make up for my losses yesterday. Well, I did :) It's nice when a plan comes together, LOL.

I'm writing this, not because I won though; but because I was so happy with my reads. That's one thing about live poker that I'll never get playing online (unless, perhaps, if I stop playing 6-9 tables.. ahhhhhahahahaha)... is the ability to be able to read people.

Sometimes though, I'm reading the wrong person. -grin-

So, I'm playing 2/6 spread limit HE to start. I called first and they told me they had a 4/8 game going. I asked if it would break up when the Friday night tourney started.. all I got was: "don't know". Brother. But, I've seen two 4/8 games on Friday nights before, and this being a holiday weekend, I thought surely they'd have one going. Wrong!

I won my first hand when I flopped a set and it held up.. I actually contemplated getting up while I waited for my 4/8 seat. But I saw they were mostly seniors that telegraph a lot and I'd probably be able to read them pretty well. I ended up getting stuck in a hand that I flopped top pair, good kicker. I almost mucked it with both a straight and flush draw out there. But no one was acting like they had it already and there were a lot of callers. I figured, dang, if they miss, this will be a nice pot. Of course, it was bet and raised on the river when the straight got there, so I was able to get out. Though, that made me down for the 2/6 game.. ugh. I just don't have a good track record for that stupid 2/6!

Finally they called me for No Limit. I asked them again, "no limit? not 4/8?" "Nope, no limit."

Kewl, whatever.

Sat down and a couple guys I could tell were from the NL tournament.. then a few more.. all from the tourney. Sometimes this is bad. But many times, it's good! They want to get back the money they lost and will play too loose or over bet the pots, like they're still in the tourney.

First hand I'm the Big Blind and get Q9o. I get a free look at a flop of KJT rainbow. Oh happy day. Now, I've had soo many straights out run, that I bet right out. I get called by one of the kids from the tourney. Turn, nothing threatening, but I hoped if he was going to chase, I'd make him pay and potted it. He mucked, and I showed. In the beginning of a game, I like to show when I have it so that I'll get respect later. I like to try to pick up small pots now and again when I can tell no one has anything ;) The kid thanks me for showing and we play on.

Later, I'm in the BB with AJs this time and only the kid and the lady to my left have limped. I figure no one's strong, I've seen both of them raise open before, so I make it 25 to go to try to pick up the pot. The lady mucks right away; the kid agonizes and finally calls. Flop is AQ8r and I bet 35. The kid insta-raises... something like 50 more. I'm watching him and he does the whole "Caro" act of looking away. I keep looking at him until he finally looks my way. I ask: "what? you flop two pair or a set?" He nods and and says, "Yeah." I was getting ready to muck, but then I didn't like the agreeing. But that Caro looking away... I said, "ok, I'll give you this one; but next time I'm looking you up." After I muck, he flashes me 88 for a set, saying "good fold. You showed me before, so..." I tell him thank you, and am internally pumping my fist, thinking, "yes, did the right thing, did the right thing!"

Few hands later, the kid raises to $15 UTG, I find 99 and call; so does the lady on my left. The lady has been pretty tight, so I'm hoping to get my set. I do :)

Flop comes down AT9r and the kid bets 20. I announce "raise" and make it 60. Lady pushes in. Whoo; where did that come from?

Kid flashes his cards to his buddy and mucks. (Friend later says something about, "that's why you're better than me, I would have called with AQ." Good laydown by the kid ; )

Now I have to worry about the lady. Can't be AA. With a raise and a call, she'd have to reraise, right? I ask her, "you didn't slow play AA, did you?" She just stares. Can't get anything. I'm just hoping it's not TT and call. She called preflop with ATo and had the misfortune to flop top two when I caught my set. She even did the TV thing and was calling for it: "Ten or an Ace; Ten or an Ace". Blank on turn; river is case 9. When you're running good, you're running good :)

Once again, I almost got up. Ye olde hit-and-run. I thought, I'm up about 170.. I'll blind down until about 150.. see what I get.. go home if I don't get anything.

Riiiighhhht.

Once again, in the blind I get a hand: AQo. But it's a 6 handed pot, so I just check. I get a Q-high flop, but it's all diamonds and I know my Ace is hearts. I probe bet it $20; I want to make 'em pay if they're drawing. Maybe let the Ace of diamonds hit top pair and think he out ran me ;)

I get min-raised to $40 and cold called by the button. "Warning Will Robinson! Warning!"

I'm looking at the raiser and I know that while at times that min raise is a made hand, trying to suck you in... too often its that someone's looking to get a "free" card on the turn. The inbetween guy did seem uncomfortable about calling, so I finally called, hoping they were drawing.

Turn is a blank, and the guy bets $25. Button calls. I think, think, think. I ask the dealer for time. Bettor looks confident; but is it Caro again? Acting strong but really weak? Still drawing? I mean, come on, only $25?

Then I finally said the most intelligent thing, pointing to the guy that was on the button : "I got you cold-calling the $40 on the flop....", and I muck. I really hate mucking TPTK (in limit, 99% of the time, I will call down with top pair, despite raises and I'm still shocked at times when I get pushed the pot with all the action that was happening).

On the river is another 7, pairing the board, and the turn bettor checks. But he did it like, ok button-dude, you keep calling, you have to have something... and at that point I knew I had him beat! I jump up out of my chair, not wanting to see what weak holding he won with.

I raked my hands through my hair and finally sat back down... in time to see the button stacking chips. "You won?" I asked. "Yeah, I had a flush. He kept betting for me.. plus, it was just 43suited.. at first I thought he might have a higher flush, but I'm not going to throw it away."

Yes! I was right!! That last thought before I mucked; the silent one in the middle. That's the one that you have to watch for. It took me a while.. I kept watching the guy that raised me.. but finally wisened up and made the right move.

Fortunately for me, Riverside has a high hand promotion and my quads 9's from earlier held up and I got $50 for it.. basically, what I lost on the AQ hand, LOL.

So, there you have it. "Never give up, never surrender!" (Yes, I watched "Galaxy Quest" this week ; )

And, yes, I finally got my butt out of the chair and said, thank you, I'll be taking this home so that I can book a win for the week... hahaha!

Hope all you're hands are holding up too. But if not...

"Never give up, never surrender!"

...

2006-05-25T17:04:00.000-07:00

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 7330476

Strange One...take II

2006-05-10T13:53:00.000-07:00

So I'm in the BB w/ big lick (69o), and get a free look.

Check/check on flop and turn of AQ5, A .. Q on river.

Now the guy to my left I've checked-called w/ Top pair good kicker to trap him since he likes to bet. So I'm really assuming he has absolutely nothing. I bet the river.. and he calls with a 45o...?? And I take it down with AAQQ, 9-kicker.

Booya.

Unbelievable.... "Thank you".

Need to change the A on Ace...

2006-05-10T10:20:00.000-07:00

I tell ya, someone needs to change the symbol on the Ace card.

It looks so powerful, that capital "A"! With the Big point at the top. And that single pip... Man, you see that dealt to you, and you do an internal (capital) "Ahhhhh!"

Then comes the next card... offsuit 2.

I mean, come on! I was pumped! Stoked! Primed and ready, as it were ;-)

Then I get the deuce (lower case). Its so deceiving too. With only it's 2 pips. Just one more than the mighty Ace's. Yet, it matters not. Such a disparity.

-Sigh-

Strange One...

2006-05-02T13:43:00.000-07:00

Felicia and I hit Vegas yesterday. Went to the Wynn to play: NLHE and 4/8 HE for me; 10/20 O8 for her. Slid over to the Bellagio for: the same for me; 20/40 O8 & Stud for Felicia. Then trekked over to the new Red Rock Casino for: more of the same for yours truly; and 4/8 Omaha high only and 4/8 O8 for the little lady...oh wait, in her own words: "I ain't no lady!!"

We hit up Red Rock because: 1) we just wanted to check it out; 2) cause Randy, a dealer who we know from Laughlin, said he was moonlighing there, plus another of the old Riverside dealers was there as well (Shelly, I think?) and to come give it a visit. So, we did :)

Sorry, Kurtis, we didn't make it to T.I... No mixed game, no O8, no Stud (no Draw... -grin-).

Red Rock was interesting and very nice. We can see why it's been an instant success. We also saw I.J. on the floor, who remembered us from 4 Queens. Very nice guy; definitely the best of the bunch in so far as staff is concerned.

On to the "strange one".

I'm in the 2/5 NLHE at Red Rock. Two monkeys at the table that kept getting stacked cause they were raising/playing hands like T2o for $25 preflop. I finally get a hand: Asian girl ahead of me raises to $25 (she'd tight, so I know she's got something). I look down to see AcAd. Since I know the donkeys downstream will call ATC for a mere 5xBB raise, I made it $75. Turbo folded around to her, since up until that hand, I think I VP$IP once (voluntarily pot money in the pot--for all you non-Pokertracker people out there) for about the first 45minutes that I'd been playing up to that point. She cold calls and we see a flop of 578, two spades (I don't have the As, recall). So, since I put her on either AK or KK (no, not QQ, seriously, she was that tight), I shoved. If she's suited to spades, I don't want her drawing; I'll take the 75$ tyvm! :-D

She thinks and thinks. I which point, I know she has the As. I tell her, "You know KK is no good, so you must be have the Ace of spades." She smiles and chuckles and I know that I've nailed it. So, she throws in her cards, face up:

Ace of spades -- knew that;

Ace of hearts...

What???

Of course, I waited for the dealer to muck her cards before doing anything else. However, after he gives me the pot, I show her mine (since there's little likelihood of our going back and I know she's green) and ask, "Why would you throw those away??" She replies, "I thought you had KK."

I pretty much just stopped there and did the mental, "just say 'thank you.'"

Mastering the Micros

2006-04-18T11:37:00.000-07:00

(BTW: I brought this over to my blog because of a comment on got about Party reload bonus stuff. Any additional comments are welcome; I'm always up for tips and hints on bonuses : )

Felicia asked me to guest post again. Kind of funny,
since I have my own blog.

I just never post anymore.
Just haven't been into it too much lately. I feel like
I'd be just talking mostly about hands; have the
desire to post Hand Histories (which she hates, lol...
can you tell I'm my wife's husband--or is that
redundant??--since I have the "lol" fever).

However, I just got through with doing the max reload
bonus on Eurobet on micro-limits. Originally, I
thought that I'd be playing primarily Draw Poker. I
have 700 hours on that game at the $1/$2 level and,
prior to the last 100 or so hours, had earned an
average of about 3BB/hr, or $6/hr. I had been
3-tabling and was looking to go through the bonus
quickly and earn a bunch at the same time.

Talk about best laid plans... Last 100 hours I'm
under 2BB's/hr.. on the last 50, just over 1BB/hr.
There was a month that I didn't have one winning
session. Month! I have never had a full month that I
didn't win at Draw before.

This really got me. I was used to NO variance.
"Security" at Draw was a big point for me. One of the
reasons that I quit dealing poker. I figured, jeez, I have
60,000 hands on this game and am beating it at $6/hr
per table and can 3-table it.. so that's $18/hr! I'll
be making almost as much as I do at work without having
to drive a half an hour each way; which of course will
save on gas and it will be like making more. I didn't
have to 'worry' about what I was missing from health
insurance, since they never gave me enough hours to
get health insurance in the first place. My own hours,
blah, blah, blah.

So I took the plunge and what happened? The big
Variance hit (note the capital "v" -grin-). Boy did
that make me nervous!

Live play was the same thing. I had almost 100 hours
playing NLHE at $2/$5 blind level, making close to
$20/hr. Suddenly I was losing, losing, losing. Lost
playing mixed games. Lost at Omaha 8-or-better from
$10/$20 down to the low $2-$6 spread limit game they
spread here in Laughlin.

What the heck was I going to do?

I started playing all different games online. I
wasn't comfortable playing $1/$2 or higher on any of
the games since I don't have the hours in on them like
I did with Draw; plus with my current down-swing, I
wasn't comfortable trying higher. So I started playing
the different games at the micro limits: $0.25/$0.5
and $0.5/$1 levels.

I tried Stud and Stud 8-or-better; talk about
variance. There'd be times that I hit-and-run for $8-15
on the $0.5/$1 tables; and times that I'd lose
that same amount. I have a $0.42/hr win rate for the
40hrs that I've played Stud 8-or-better at $0.5/$1
levels. LOL
Stud I'm a loser (only played 6 hours though); Razz,
I'm pretty much break even too ($0.2/hr).

Omaha 8-or-better? $0.76/hr at $0.5/$1 levels; but
twice that at $0.25/$0.5!

Hold'em? $0.47/hr at $0.5/$1 levels; but again, more,
even 3 times that at $0.25/$0.5. At two different
sites, I currently have a 3BB/hr (per table) win rate
for $1.5/hr per table.

So what did I do? You guessed it! I have, and
currently am, multitabling $0.25/$0.5 Hold'em (O8
tables are slower and take more brain power). On one
of the sites I can get up to (and actually handle) 9
tables at a time. Though normally I sanely run 6
tables at a time. Therefore, I can make about $10/hr.

Now I just have to stop hitting and running... after
playing 6 tables for an hour, I get a little mentally
exhusted.

I just thought that was indicative of Draw before when
I was doing that. I figured that it was just so taxing
playing 3 5-handed tables. After an hour of that, I'll
have played a fast 300 hands at short-handed tables.
Geez, now, after about an hour, I can get in 400-500
HE hands!

I did have to force myself to play several times a day
to work off the one bonus though. I needed 6000
points, and ended up having to get over 100 points a
day. Just think of all the hours that I had to put in
in order to generate enough rake to build up 100
points a day at $0.25/$0.5! (This is why, to me, the
current Party reload bonuses are a such big joke;
there's no way I want to have to do a timed bonus
again--and they want you to work off the bonus in just
a week! No offense, but blow me!)

Therefore, once again, I'm taking my tag-line of
"bilking the internet poker machine, six dollars at a
time" to heart once again!

Don't worry, though! This hero is building his
confidence back up ;) I'm just currently sticking to
ye' olde Limit Holdumb for the time being. I even
currently have a good 2BB/hr average going at $4/$8 HE
for my last 40 odd hours of live play. (OMG, it was
SUCH a good feeling racking up 5 racks of chips at the
Orleans one night!!)

So there's life yet in this playa!

Hope everyone had a good holiday weekend and are doing
well.

God Bless :)
Glenn

Easter Cancer Tournament

2006-04-15T10:23:00.000-07:00

I got this notice from Easycure and am reposting it here. I don't play on Full Tilt, so I won't be in the tourney. I know this sounds crazy (and I am), but I can't stand the colors, I get a huge headache while playing there. I put the background to "midnight" and turned off avatars, but the circus thing makes my head pound.

For a while, Glenn played there under my name, but he didn't like it, so we withdrew our money and deleted the software.

I am advertising it for EC because of the cause, but I won't be there. I'd rather just donate independently.

Here is the info:

What: Hammer Out Cancer - WPBT-POY Circuit Event
(Tournament ID 3381723 under the Private section.)
When: April 16th - Sunday
Time: 9pm EST
Where: Full Tilt Poker
How Much: $10 + $16
($15 goes to American Cancer Society so buy-in is 25+1)
Password: dahammer

posted by Felicia :)

Psychology

2006-03-07T14:46:00.000-07:00

Felicia is starting a new series: "Psychology of Poker"

Part I is already up.. make sure to check it out :)

Know the rules and promotions!

2006-03-06T15:21:00.000-07:00

OK, so, been playing mostly online.. but every so often Felicia and I have been going to the Riverside Casino in Laughlin to play. Usually I had been ending up in 2-6 (spread-limit) Omaha8 with her, however, I'm going to stop from now on. I've always been religious about keeping stats and I'm a loser in the game. Felicia feels that, while I play tight preflop, I end up going too far with my hands post. Seems like there is always odds to chase, since the people are so loose, but the stats don't lie; so she must be right!

This realization has made me start playing more Holdem there. I haven't done well at the 2/6 spread limit, but have at the 4/8 and NLHE games they have. So, I played some NLHE while I was there. Ended up 30$ even after raising w/ KK and QQ and getting no callers. Plus some flop bets that didn't get called. Too tight. I asked for my name to be put back on the 4/8 (had it taken off after I entered the NL).

I get seated to the left of this really loose guy (I'll call Tipsy-Tourist--he was drinking, but I don't think enough to call him the classic Drunk-Tourist ; ). He was in most of the pots. While I noticed that he'll bet any pair, he'll also bet if he thinks he might have the other person beat.

I happen to get AA. Of course, right? Why would I even bother to write it up, eh? (Yo! props to Canada, eh, dude? Take off! Eh? hehehe ... ok, enough of that.)

So, I raise with my AA after Tipsy-Tourist limps. There were one or two others in the pot. Either way, flop of Q9x; he bets, I raise and we're heads-up after he calls. Turn is an 8: he bets. I look at him and say: "I'm supposed to do that. You're supposed to check, and I bet my overpair. But maybe you thought I wouldn't bet your straight for you." He chuckles and I think I have enough information to be able to fold, knowing that I'm beat.

Tipsy-Tourist flashes me 98s, to show me I was beat.

I ended up for the session. Very next hand I get KK and, since the AA hand gave Tipsy-Tourist the Kill button, we went to 8/16 betting. Again he bet into me and I got two cold callers for 16. River completed a possible flush, so I didn't bet it, but didn't matter. I was still almost $100 up.

I started to tell Felicia the story later and she goes, "you got your $50 for 'Aces-Cracked', right?" I stopped talking and thought about it. Yup, she was right, the promotion 'Aces-Cracked' was going on while I was in the 4/8 game. Dang! Although it would have cost me another $16 to see the river, I would have gotten $50 to show my AA was beat at the river (provided that I didn't catch a Q or A on the river to beat him). I could have turned the $16 loss (from the raise pre and post), into an $18 win! (After paying off another 16 for the turn and river for a total of 32). It would have resulted in a total of $34 more to cash out, and would have put me well above $100 for the night.

So, make sure you know all the rules and promotions at any cardroom that you frequent! Could help out your bankroll!

God Bless

sometimes you just have to laugh

2006-02-19T19:32:00.000-07:00

I'm no longer a virgin... to being sworn at.

Today, I was doing another hit-and-run on the draw tables and I was told:
"bagsmode go to hell!"

Huh? I think this is the person that raised me with a smaller set of trips than mine, but hey, I was in the blind and didn't even 3-bet him post draw! Heck, he might have capped it, so I could have saved him 2 big bets; and this is the way he treats me?? -grin-

Later, as I'm waiting for the little lady (yes, I know she'll say she's anything but.. "hu hu, you said "butt") so that we can go out and play tonight, and I jumped back into the tables. I noticed that one player played every hand. I promptly added the little fishie label that I have on the player notes and moved on. One of the others at the table, however, just had to ask:

"t, do you ever not play a hand?"

response:

"no, what's the fun in that?"

I almost said my patented: "just say 'thank you'", but thought better of it. The same player ended the conversation with: "thought so", and I just had to laugh.

Too funny, to me anyway, so had to share.

Hope all is well with y'all ; )

Merry Christmas!!

2005-12-25T09:33:00.000-07:00

Merry Christmas everyone!

I dressed up Truvy special just for the occasion

Have a happy one all!

It's Rigged!

2005-09-17T12:37:00.000-07:00

Was talking with a friend yesterday who is having trouble believing that online poker isn't sometimes rigged a little for more action. Saying things about having the nuts 11 times on the turn in Omaha (the biggest suck out game) and being rivered everytime.

Since I play a lot of Draw (not as much as some, I'm sure), I see a lot of hands. Today, I got the oddity of getting quads dealt to me:

Seat 5: felicialee [JS,JC,JH,9S,JD] ($28.50 in chips)

Being UTG I just cold-called. If I did this at Paradise, everyone else would have folded and I would have been HU w/ the BB. Not on PokerRoom though. Fortunately enough, there seems to always be more new players that I haven't played with that don't know that I limp only about 1% of the time, and 99% of the 1%, it's because I'm pat. Someone else had limped behind me with a straight draw and, again fortunately for me, he got there :D

So, out of curiosity, I looked up in my stats how many hours that I played in the last month: almost 40 hours on the button. I do recall that this is the 2nd time within the last 30 days that I got quads dealt... but thinking back, I hadn't gotten it at all the last month (I'm not sure that I got it at all the month before, but I don't trust that I'm just not remembering correctly; therefore, I'm not going to include the previous month).

So, in the last approx'ly 80 hours, I got quads dealt twice. I hopped back on PokerRoom to see if they said how many hands per hour that we get. Sure enough, they do. And just like on Paradise, the numbers of hands are huge for Draw since it's only 2 betting rounds and the tables are only 5 handed. The highest I saw for a 5 handed table was 136. Since this seems so high, I even did a screen shot so that you'd believe me :)

I also noted that the lowest hands-per-hour was 76 on a 5-handed table. Split the difference of 60, add that to the 76, and you have a mean of about 106 hands-per-hour per table. I played ~80 hours the last couple months, which comes to 8480 hands. I looked up in SuperSystem I the chart "Probability Of Being Dealt Specific Hands Before The Draw (52-card deck - without Joker)". It states for Four-of-a-kind: 0.02% or 4,164-to-1 against. Since I played about 8400 hands, I'd say I'm on track ;)

Of course, this is only playing Draw and only playing on PokerRoom. But I must say, just think of it! If one online poker room did influence the card distributions for higher rake, all of them would! Why would any want to be left out of getting more rake? Plus, PokerRoom just instituted a bit more aggressive rake schedule (at least on the 1/2 Draw tables). Pots before weren't raked until the pot was $5. Now, a HU's pot, no raise, is raked 10¢ before the Draw. If they were influencing the deck to get more action, they wouldn't have to do something like this.

Just my two ¢'s :D (thanks again Pete : )

Interestingly, it's over 64,000-to-1 to be dealt a straight flush. Of all my recorded time playing, approximately 700 hours for at around 70,000 hands of Draw, I have never been dealt a straight flush. (Somebody better look into the software.. they're slacking ; )

My Stats Stuff.. or .. my "geekdom":

2005-09-12T12:21:00.000-07:00

OK, Bill Rini asked for a preview, lets see what I can do here.

This is the input:

----------------------------------------------------

OK, on the input stuff, the php stuff that figures out the currect date/time is not working on the Blogger site here. Basically:
value=< ? php echo date("Y-m-d") .. this will put in the correct date in the format 2005-09-12 for today's date. value=< ? php echo date("H:i:00") .. this will put in the current time in the format 12:26:00 for the current time. Notes: must have php loaded on your PC; there is no space between the less-than sign and the question mark, I separated so that the editor would not try to make some kind of html out of it. If the Insert radio button is selected, the action.php form that I send the information to will insert the information that I inputted into the database. If it's Totals Only, then, you guessed it, no insert just totals:

Grand Total	Duration
xxxx.26	xxxx.18

Today's Totals	Duration
xxx.xx	xxx.xx

GAME	LIMIT	$perHOUR	TOTAL_$s	TOTAL_HRS
5cardstud	1/2	-00024.47	-00046.50	1.90
adjust_bonus_re	0.01/0.02	000048.50	000194.00	4.00
adjust_bonus_re	1/2	000020.00	000020.00	1.00
draw	0.05/0.10	000000.22	000001.00	4.50
draw	0.25/0.5	000000.65	000039.50	60.00
draw	0.5/1	000005.03	0000xx.00	xx.50
draw	1/2	000005.84	xxxxxx.45	xx.80
draw	2/4	-00000.59	-00020.00	33.57
draw	3/6	000005.98	000038.10	6.37
draw	5/10	001283.33	000038.50	0.03
draw	tournament	000000.87	000016.00	18.25
Holdem	0.05/0.10	000001.67	000004.19	2.50
Holdem	0.10/0.20	000000.00	000000.00	7.00
Holdem	0.25/0.5	000001.11	000071.20	64.12
Holdem	0.5/1	000000.59	000064.24	107.98

And, oh there's more, no limit stats, tourney stats, stud, stud hi/low, etc.. I didn't include the whole table :p

In the table, I use a Java script that I got from http://javascript.internet.com. This script sorts the table that I create to output the values. The way the script works, I have to pad the table with zeroes so that it sorts correctly! There's prolly a better way.. I just haven't found one yet.

Also, the table that spits out is lifetime, over 2 years ago. That's since I start keeping stats on StatKing (I imported everything from the DB that I had on the other PC).

Since I play better then I did 2 years ago, created a totals only type input that will date range:

from date1...: />
to date1.......: />

from date2...: />
to date2.......: />

As stated in the previous post, I like to see a rolling month and 3 months to see how I'm doing currently. The dates, again, are produced from php:

$lastmonth = mktime(0, 0, 0, date("m")-1, date("d"), date("Y"))
$lastquarter = mktime(0, 0, 0, date("m")-3, date("d"), date("Y"));

...in the value of the form for last month: date("Y-m-d", $lastmonth)
...in the value for quarter: date("Y-m-d", $lastquarter)
...then the current dates is just: date("Y-m-d")

The output (complete with debug statements of the sql query that I use):
-------------------------------------------------------------

DEBUG: query=SELECT location, SUM(winloss), SUM(duration/60) FROM stats2 WHERE dat3 > '2005-08-12' and dat3 <= '2005-09-12' GROUP BY location

Location	Total	Duration
FullTilt	11.95	4.50
Intertops	xx.70	32.42
Pacific	-8.01	7.88
Paradise	36.50	5.62
PokerRoom	xx.00	xx.40
PokerStars	4.59	21.45
UltimateBet	4.51	18.85

DEBUG: query=SELECT location, game, l1m1t, SUM(winloss), SUM(duration/60) FROM stats2 WHERE dat3 > '2005-08-12' and dat3 <= '2005-09-12' GROUP BY location, game, l1m1t

Location	Game	Limit	perHour	Total	Duration
FullTilt	NLHE	0.05/0.10	15.62	1.25	0.08
FullTilt	O8	0.25/0.5	-4.20	-4.20	1.00
FullTilt	PLO8	0.05/0.10	3.21	6.50	2.02
FullTilt	razz	0.25/0.5	-1.71	-1.15	0.67
FullTilt	razz	0.5/1	-22.00	-2.20	0.10
FullTilt	stud hi/low	0.25/0.5	18.65	11.75	0.63
Intertops	Holdem	tournament	10.74	98.50	9.17
Intertops	NLHE	0.10/0.25	13.36	98.26	7.35
Intertops	NLHE	tournament	0.20	2.70	13.25
Intertops	O8	0.5/1	100.92	13.12	0.13
Intertops	stud hi/low	0.5/1	-2.73	-6.88	2.52
Pacific	O8	0.05/0.10	1.09	1.86	1.70
Pacific	O8	0.5/1	-18.28	-5.12	0.28
Pacific	stud hi/low	0.05/0.10	0.88	2.90	3.27
Pacific	stud hi/low	0.25/0.5	-2.90	-7.65	2.63
Paradise	draw	1/2	3.56	15.25	4.28
Paradise	draw	2/4	150.00	19.50	0.13
Paradise	O8	0.5/1	1.45	1.75	1.20
PokerRoom	adjust_bonus_re	0.01/0.02	10.00	10.00	1.00
PokerRoom	adjust_bonus_re	1/2	20.00	20.00	1.00
PokerRoom	draw	1/2	7.03	272.90	38.77
PokerRoom	draw	2/4	31.81	7.00	0.22
PokerRoom	draw	3/6	-38.29	-31.40	0.82
PokerRoom	draw	5/10	1283.33	38.50	0.03
PokerRoom	Holdem	1/2	0.00	0.00	0.57
PokerStars	NLHE	tournament	-1.60	-1.20	0.75
PokerStars	PLO8	0.01/0.02	0.32	0.12	0.37
PokerStars	stud hi/low	0.04/0.08	0.70	9.12	12.90
PokerStars	stud hi/low	0.25/0.5	-0.46	-3.45	7.43
UltimateBet	Holdem	0.05/0.10	3.01	3.41	1.13
UltimateBet	Holdem	0.25/0.5	-1.50	-7.35	4.87
UltimateBet	PLO8	0.01/0.02	0.65	8.45	12.85

DEBUG: query=SELECT game, l1m1t, SUM(winloss), SUM(duration/60) FROM stats2 WHERE dat3 > '2005-08-12' and dat3 <= '2005-09-12' GROUP BY game, l1m1t

Game	Limit	perHour	Total	Duration
adjust_bonus_re	0.01/0.02	10.00	10.00	1.00
adjust_bonus_re	1/2	20.00	20.00	1.00
draw	1/2	6.69	xx.15	xx.05
draw	2/4	75.71	26.50	0.35
draw	3/6	-38.29	-31.40	0.82
draw	5/10	1283.33	38.50	0.03
Holdem	0.05/0.10	3.01	3.41	1.13
Holdem	0.25/0.5	-1.50	-7.35	4.87
Holdem	1/2	0.00	0.00	0.57
Holdem	2/10	4.40	11.00	2.50
Holdem	2/4	-32.00	-16.00	0.50
Holdem	2/6	-32.00	-48.00	1.50
Holdem	tournament	10.74	98.50	9.17
NLHE	0.05/0.10	15.62	1.25	0.08
NLHE	0.10/0.25	13.36	98.26	7.35
NLHE	2/5	-30.50	-61.00	2.00
NLHE	tournament	0.10	1.50	14.00
O8	0.05/0.10	1.09	1.86	1.70
O8	0.25/0.5	-4.20	-4.20	1.00
O8	0.5/1	6.01	9.75	1.62
PLO8	0.01/0.02	0.64	8.57	13.22
PLO8	0.05/0.10	3.21	6.50	2.02
razz	0.25/0.5	-1.71	-1.15	0.67
razz	0.5/1	-22.00	-2.20	0.10
stud hi/low	0.04/0.08	0.70	9.12	12.90
stud hi/low	0.05/0.10	0.88	2.90	3.27
stud hi/low	0.25/0.5	0.06	0.65	10.70
stud hi/low	0.5/1	-2.73	-6.88	2.52

DEBUG: query=SELECT SUM(winloss), SUM(duration/60) FROM stats2 WHERE dat3 >= '2005-08-12' and dat3 <= '2005-09-12'

Grand Total	Duration
xxx.68	144.17

DEBUG: query=SELECT location, SUM(winloss), SUM(duration/60) FROM stats2 WHERE dat3 > '2005-06-12' and dat3 <= '2005-09-12' GROUP BY location

Location	Total	Duration
24h	-38.00	11.20
FullTilt	18.20	24.22
Intertops	xx.75	43.03
Pacific	-3.20	28.75
Paradise	72.25	16.82
PartyPoker	0.50	0.72
PokerRoom	xx.50	xx.93
PokerStars	2.36	46.40
Rio	-363.00	33.58
UltimateBet	5.37	21.35

DEBUG: query=SELECT location, game, l1m1t, SUM(winloss), SUM(duration/60) FROM stats2 WHERE dat3 > '2005-06-12' and dat3 <= '2005-09-12' GROUP BY location, game, l1m1t

Location	Game	Limit	perHour	Total	Duration
24h	PLdraw	0.25/0.5	-3.33	-37.00	11.10
24h	PLdraw	0.5/1	-10.00	-1.00	0.10
FullTilt	NLHE	0.05/0.10	15.62	1.25	0.08
FullTilt	NLHE	tournament	6.25	12.50	2.00
FullTilt	O8	0.25/0.5	-4.20	-4.20	1.00
FullTilt	PLO	0.05/0.10	-10.44	-15.35	1.47
FullTilt	PLO8	0.05/0.10	0.49	3.90	7.92
FullTilt	PLO8	0.25/0.5	-3.16	-0.95	0.30
FullTilt	razz	0.25/0.5	-0.37	-2.55	6.85
FullTilt	razz	0.5/1	9.39	10.05	1.07
FullTilt	stud	0.25/0.5	-0.67	-0.55	0.82
FullTilt	stud hi/low	0.10/0.25	5.00	1.25	0.25
FullTilt	stud hi/low	0.25/0.5	5.20	12.85	2.47
Intertops	Holdem	tournament	10.74	98.50	9.17
Intertops	NLHE	0.10/0.25	13.36	98.26	7.35
Intertops	NLHE	tournament	1.94	42.70	21.98
Intertops	O8	0.5/1	100.92	13.12	0.13
Intertops	stud hi/low	0.5/1	-0.64	-2.83	4.40
Pacific	Holdem	0.05/0.10	0.78	0.26	0.33
Pacific	O8	0.05/0.10	1.00	3.33	3.30
Pacific	O8	0.25/0.5	-3.25	-8.19	2.52
Pacific	O8	0.5/1	-18.28	-5.12	0.28
Pacific	PLO8	0.05/0.10	-1.80	-0.45	0.25
Pacific	stud	0.05/0.10	-0.34	-1.49	4.35
Pacific	stud hi/low	0.05/0.10	1.07	8.12	7.58
Pacific	stud hi/low	0.25/0.5	0.03	0.34	10.13
Paradise	draw	1/2	1.35	18.25	13.43
Paradise	draw	2/4	112.50	56.25	0.50
Paradise	O8	0.5/1	1.45	1.75	1.20
Paradise	stud	0.5/1	-3.75	-4.50	1.20
Paradise	stud hi/low	0.5/1	1.04	0.50	0.48
PartyPoker	Holdem	0.5/1	0.69	0.50	0.72
PokerRoom	adjust_bonus_re	0.01/0.02	10.00	10.00	1.00
PokerRoom	adjust_bonus_re	1/2	20.00	20.00	1.00
PokerRoom	draw	1/2	10.05	xx.65	xx.55
PokerRoom	draw	2/4	-37.50	-30.00	0.80
PokerRoom	draw	3/6	-38.29	-31.40	0.82
PokerRoom	draw	5/10	1283.33	38.50	0.03
PokerRoom	Holdem	0.5/1	4.41	0.75	0.17
PokerRoom	Holdem	1/2	0.00	0.00	0.57
PokerStars	NLHE	tournament	-1.60	-1.20	0.75
PokerStars	PLO8	0.01/0.02	0.32	0.12	0.37
PokerStars	PLO8	tournament	-11.00	-11.00	1.00
PokerStars	stud	0.05/0.10	0.97	0.34	0.35
PokerStars	stud hi/low	0.04/0.08	0.65	18.17	27.85
PokerStars	stud hi/low	0.05/0.10	2.52	0.63	0.25
PokerStars	stud hi/low	0.25/0.5	-0.32	-4.90	15.08
PokerStars	stud hi/low	1/2	0.26	0.20	0.75
Rio	mixed	5/10	-40.00	-120.00	3.00
Rio	NLHE	1/2	-52.35	-323.00	6.17
Rio	NLHE	2/5	63.76	234.00	3.67
Rio	NLHE	tournament	8.61	140.00	16.25
Rio	O8	10/20	-94.57	-331.00	3.50
Rio	stud hi/low	20/40	37.00	37.00	1.00
UltimateBet	Holdem	0.05/0.10	3.01	3.41	1.13
UltimateBet	Holdem	0.25/0.5	-1.50	-7.35	4.87
UltimateBet	PLO	0.01/0.02	-1.60	-0.80	0.50
UltimateBet	PLO8	0.01/0.02	0.68	10.11	14.85

DEBUG: query=SELECT game, l1m1t, SUM(winloss), SUM(duration/60) FROM stats2 WHERE dat3 > '2005-06-12' and dat3 <= '2005-09-12' GROUP BY game, l1m1t

Game	Limit	perHour	Total	Duration
adjust_bonus_re	0.01/0.02	10.00	10.00	1.00
adjust_bonus_re	1/2	20.00	20.00	1.00
draw	1/2	9.08	xx.90	xx.98
draw	2/4	20.19	26.25	1.30
draw	3/6	-38.29	-31.40	0.82
draw	5/10	1283.33	38.50	0.03
Holdem	0.05/0.10	2.49	3.67	1.47
Holdem	0.25/0.5	-1.50	-7.35	4.87
Holdem	0.5/1	1.42	1.25	0.88
Holdem	1/2	0.00	0.00	0.57
Holdem	2/10	4.40	11.00	2.50
Holdem	2/4	-32.00	-16.00	0.50
Holdem	2/6	-1.66	-5.00	3.00
Holdem	tournament	10.74	98.50	9.17
mixed	5/10	-40.00	-120.00	3.00
NLHE	0.05/0.10	15.62	1.25	0.08
NLHE	0.10/0.25	13.36	98.26	7.35
NLHE	1/2	-52.35	-323.00	6.17
NLHE	2/5	37.03	247.00	6.67
NLHE	tournament	4.73	194.00	40.98
O8	0.05/0.10	1.00	3.33	3.30
O8	0.25/0.5	-3.51	-12.39	3.52
O8	0.5/1	6.01	9.75	1.62
O8	10/20	-94.57	-331.00	3.50
PLdraw	0.25/0.5	-3.33	-37.00	11.10
PLdraw	0.5/1	-10.00	-1.00	0.10
PLO	0.01/0.02	-1.60	-0.80	0.50
PLO	0.05/0.10	-10.44	-15.35	1.47
PLO8	0.01/0.02	0.67	10.23	15.22
PLO8	0.05/0.10	0.42	3.45	8.17
PLO8	0.25/0.5	-3.16	-0.95	0.30
PLO8	tournament	-11.00	-11.00	1.00
razz	0.25/0.5	-0.37	-2.55	6.85
razz	0.5/1	9.39	10.05	1.07
stud	0.05/0.10	-0.24	-1.15	4.70
stud	0.25/0.5	-0.67	-0.55	0.82
stud	0.5/1	-3.75	-4.50	1.20
stud hi/low	0.04/0.08	0.65	18.17	27.85
stud hi/low	0.05/0.10	1.11	8.75	7.83
stud hi/low	0.10/0.25	5.00	1.25	0.25
stud hi/low	0.25/0.5	0.29	8.29	27.68
stud hi/low	0.5/1	-0.47	-2.33	4.88
stud hi/low	1/2	0.26	0.20	0.75
stud hi/low	20/40	37.00	37.00	1.00

DEBUG: query=SELECT SUM(winloss), SUM(duration/60) FROM stats2 WHERE dat3 >= '2005-06-12' and dat3 <= '2005-09-12'

Grand Total	Duration
xxx.37	xxx.22

---------------------------------------

This last table, shows the Grand Totals for the time period inputted. Plus it breaks it down by room and game/limit, so that I can see how well I do at the different locations. Then also breaks down just by game, so that I can see how well I do at each game, at each limit.

Eventually, I want to work something in there about the times and day-of-week as well. Already, intuitively, I know that I don't do well on Sundays, so I don't play. I'd like the DB to be able to tell me this time of information at some point so that I know what days and times I make the most money, so that I can concentrate my playing then. I just haven't gotten that far yet ;)

2nd in Tourney :D

2005-09-11T12:14:00.000-07:00

For all 8 of you (according to sitemeter ; ) who still come to my site daily to see if I updated, here it is :D

I apologize for not being one to write everyday, but when you do the same thing everyday (play Draw online) it's not all that interesting; at least to me.

At one point in the past (long past), I posted my results on Draw via StatKing. Since that time, I've gotten a new computer and, low and behold, that version of StatKing doesn't work on the newer hard/software of this machine. I found StatKing on the web, but found that you now have to pay for it (I had a beta version). So, I did what all computer geeks do and started to create my own. I now have a PHP web page driven by an Apache server with a MySQL database on the backend that I send all my stats to, and another PHP page that spits out the stats in nice tables. Things like the sites that I play on, the games that I play, what I've made, and what is my BB/hr for those games. I even broke things down into a rolling month and rolling 3 months so that I can gauge my progress! I know, nominate me for "geek king". -grin- (One second thought, I'd just have to be "geek prince", as people like Joe from www.lasvegasvegas.com have me beat hands-down for "geek king".)

After our last tournament foray at the Rio, Felicia and I have been concentrating on ring-games. One thing stats confirm is that tournaments can be -EV (perhaps others are savvy enough to be +EV, but, not us yet...I guess we are truly Sklansky devotees).

One thing that the stats had shown was that I was up overall for satellites:

Location	Game	Limit	perHour	Total	Duration

Rio

NLHE

tournament

8.61

140.00

16.25

So I made $8.61/hr playing satellites.. but this didn't compare to my ring game play at 2/5:

Rio	NLHE	2/5	28.69	134.00	4.67

..where I made $28.69/hr playing NL. Of course, I played less than 5 hours there, so using these results are less than accurate. They just fuel my "why do I play tournaments?" mindset. What also didn't help, were the last 3, yes 3 in a row, $225 tournaments that I played where I had the best hand going in but got sucked out on. One, an A4o vs. T4o.. T4o flops a full house. AA vs. QQ (all-in pre-flop); QQ flops a full house. QQ vs. JTs (and yes, this too was all-in pre-flop, JTs was loose raising woman.. why she called my all-in is beyond me): I flop quads, she gets runner-runner perfect for K-high straight flush.

Anyway, after this Felicia and I have been concentrating strictly on cash games. For a wonder, she has been playing online.. yes! FeliciaLee playing poker.. online! Hehehe.

I've had a good run playing Draw on PokerRoom. My first 100 hours I've had about a $10/hr average playing $1/2 limit. I've played the $3/6 a couple times; made a nice hit at the $5/10 the one-and-only time that I played (which I needed since I lost a bit at the $3/6 that day :-p )

All this, however, hasn't kept me from playing the freerolls at Intertops! :) At one point I had cashed out completely from Intertops after they started playing Draw at PokerRoom. But then I played some of their $100 freerolls for the heck of it. I think the first I got just barely into the money for a whole $0.65! (Where the heck did the "cent" symbol go on modern keyboards?? Just a little pet peeve.) Then, back-to-back, I won 2nd for $15, and first for $25. I suddenly had money in Intertops again. Started playing the ring games there; Felicia too, playing both the NLHE and the O8. I had a good run the few times that I've played the NLHE $25 tables always coming out ahead. The one time I lost my stack AI pre-flop w/ KK (at least no bad-beat.. guy min-raised pre w/ AA, which usually means, well, AA, but mostly AK or some suited connector), I got it all back after I got KK again vs. JJ and we both flopped sets. It's amazing how people cannot lay down a set after being check-raised. I guess at the $25 tables, there are not really any "big lay downs".

Now that Felicia and I have been playing, we've been able to play the raked-hands freerolls too. Last night, I actually took 2nd in the $500 one for $78.50:

Yippee! I held the chip lead a few times, but my tight play watched it drain away many-a-time. Not to mention that there were enough people being aggressive that my "sit-back" strategy worked just fine there. I'd get chips in a hand that would allow me to watch the others knock each other out; fine by me :) I got aggressive when I needed too, the couple times I got short, and my hands held up. I had a tight enough image that after the one time the guy to my left defended his BB and re-raised to put me all-in with my Ace-rag, the next few times that I raised his blind, he just folded (allowing me to steal once with T6s..but, I just couldn't pull the Harrington and re-steal with 62o from the button steal of my BB ; ).

After a rocking day up and down at Draw, it was nice to finish the day ahead after this win.

Just thought I'd share an update. Hope all is well with everyone.

Quote of the day

2005-08-23T21:49:00.000-07:00

fzdyer: i get tons of hits on my blog because of people typing in "enema" and "alcohol enema" photos, movies, etc
hrking: blogger traffic from the perverts rules

Quote

2005-08-16T20:52:00.000-07:00

For the serious poker players ;)

Just had to share this little tid bit from 2+2 posted by Barry Greenstien:

"..the probabilities for different possible startings hands are not all equal to a real poker player."

In other words, if someone is betting like they have the nuts, and the type of player they are needs to have the nuts to be like that, they have the nuts!! If you think in your head, "hmm, I have AK, there's a King on the board, how could he possibly have AA's or KK's? The only two hands that I could put him on the way he played the hand so far.. but I have both an Ace and a King! How could he have it when the odds are against it?"

Of course, if the person is the type to play every hand like he has the nuts, then you must resort to odds; however, my point is, let Barry's point sink in. If you know a player and he's playing like he has a certain hand, he probably really has that hand, no matter what the odds are against him having it. You must play your opponent as well as the cards.

Hope you all are well and I appreciate any and all that have taken the time to stop by and read this after not posting in so long :) As Felicia gets better, hopefully we'll be able to go out and play more in the future. I find that I only really like to post about live play, of which there has been precious few moments of.

Bahhhh (<--sheep impression)

2005-07-23T10:38:00.000-07:00

OK, I took the Personality Defeact test that Felicia pointed me to, since she saw it on Tom's site:

Robot
You are 71% Rational, 0% Extroverted, 0% Brutal, and 0% Arrogant.

You are the Robot! You are characterized by your rationality. In fact, this is really ALL you are characterized by. Like a cold, heartless machine, you are so logical and unemotional that you scarcely seem human. For instance, you are very humble and don't bother thinking of your own interests, you are very gentle and lack emotion, and you are also very introverted and introspective. You may have noticed that these traits are just as applicable to your laptop as they are to a human being. In short, your personality defect is that you don't really HAVE a personality. You are one of those annoying, super-logical people that never gets upset or flustered. Unless, of course, you short circuit.

To put it less negatively:

1. You are more RATIONAL than intuitive.

2. You are more INTROVERTED than extroverted.

3. You are more GENTLE than brutal.

4. You are more HUMBLE than arrogant.

Compatibility:

Your exact opposite is the Class Clown.

Other personalities you would probably get along with are the Hand-Raiser, the Emo Kid, and the Haughty Intellectual.

If you scored near fifty percent for a certain trait (42%-58%), you could very well go either way. For example, someone with 42% Extroversion is slightly leaning towards being an introvert, but is close enough to being an extrovert to be classified that way as well. Below is a list of the other personality types so that you can determine which other possible categories you may fill if you scored near fifty percent for certain traits.

The other personality types:

The Emo Kid: Intuitive, Introverted, Gentle, Humble.

The Starving Artist: Intuitive, Introverted, Gentle, Arrogant.

The Bitch-Slap: Intuitive, Introverted, Brutal, Humble.

The Brute: Intuitive, Introverted, Brutal, Arrogant.

The Hippie: Intuitive, Extroverted, Gentle, Humble.

The Televangelist: Intuitive, Extroverted, Gentle, Arrogant.

The Schoolyard Bully: Intuitive, Extroverted, Brutal, Humble.

The Class Clown: Intuitive, Extroverted, Brutal, Arrogant.

The Robot: Rational, Introverted, Gentle, Humble.

The Haughty Intellectual: Rational, Introverted, Gentle, Arrogant.

The Spiteful Loner: Rational, Introverted, Brutal, Humble.

The Sociopath: Rational, Introverted, Brutal, Arrogant.

The Hand-Raiser: Rational, Extroverted, Gentle, Humble.

The Braggart: Rational, Extroverted, Gentle, Arrogant.

The Capitalist Pig: Rational, Extroverted, Brutal, Humble.

The Smartass: Rational, Extroverted, Brutal, Arrogant.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 46% on Rationality

You scored higher than 0% on Extroversion

You scored higher than 0% on Brutality

You scored higher than 0% on Arrogance

Link: The Personality Defect Test written by saint_gasoline on Ok Cupid

Robot!

LOL!! No suprise there! You know who else would be very not suprised? My Mom and step-father; always talking about how I have no emotion. Well, what do you expect from a Robot??

BTW, Felicia must have answered something wrong when she took hers. She scored as a sociopath. I'm still alive though, so she can't be "The Sociopath"..hehe. I think she's "The Haughty Intellectual" (I truly think she's more gentle than brutal--more than she'll admit). Besides, "The Haughty Intellectual" is supposed to be compatible with "The Robot", where as "The Sociopath" is not ;)

OK, tag, you're it! Time for you to take the test as well! Bahhhhhhhh.

The "almost" hammer

2005-06-18T15:24:00.000-07:00

Felicia and I have been going to the Rio for hot WSOP action! Actually, in terms of the NLHE games, the competition has been tougher than last year at the 2/5 tables. One table I was at for only a couple hands, when the dealer remarked, "Wow, we're actually going to see a flop!” Um, “table change!!” Before I did though, I was finally the recipient of the "tourists" money.

First hand at this tight table I was dealt QQ. There was one UTG limper (the tourist), the SB completed, and when I found QQ, I made it 25 more. UTG called, SB folded, so I got to play HU. Now, Felicia and I had a discussion yesterday about having an over pair flop and to still bet out sometimes. She says she doesn't even look at the flop, just at the person and fires according to the read she is getting (as well as the player). The reason for this discussion is that TWICE yesterday, I walked into a game and got QQ first hand. I know, now this is 3 times! Amazing.

Some background: One of the tables from the previous day that I got the QQ first hand, an Ace flopped and the person that called me had a deep stack. I figured he was a tight player and that he must be sportin' an Ace if he called me. Well, of course it didn't occur to me that he could just be a loose player that has gotten lucky. I checked the flop, checked the turn when a King showed (now 2 over cards). He finally bet the river when another K showed, and I called to look him up: KTo. So much for his being a tight player. Loose that's gotten lucky. I, of course, hated the wimpy way I played it (“lift up your skirt” as they say) and Felicia gave me good advice for the future.

Back to our regularly scheduled program: When we left, our hero had raised his villainous limpers from the Big Blind with a solid pocket pair of Queens. The traitorous tourist called - no respect for our hero – while the small blind slips away, folding his cards and fading into the background like the slug he is.

The flop, of course, comes K-high, but I'm watching the tourist and he doesn't seem overly interested, so I plug out 40 into the 65$ pot. He hems and haws and finally folds. I asked him (conspiratorially, like, Mike Caro says to make friends with the guy on the left, while declaring war with the one on the right), "You didn't have a King, did you?” He says, "no QTs." "Oh, I had pocket Queens, you didn't want a Queen", I informed him. “I was looking for diamonds”, was his plea. Action! Gotta love it :)

It was a few hands after this the dealer made his comment about there being a flop. I didn't correct him about the first hand that I sat down. But it was a tight table. I recalled how the previous day someone said that they folded QQ against me on a 9-high flop after I raised in early position with KK. I guess I bet too much! –grin- Either way, I don’t want to be playing with people that will muck a premium over pair! Eeeck!

After the dealer’s remark of the tightness of the table, I was going to leave with my whole 20$ win from that first hand, when I got AQ UTG and raised it. The BB, who just suffered a beat, called and we saw a flop of 89J and he slightly over-bets the pot and I let him have it. But now, I was down $5. I thought, "Now I have to see if I can get it back". LOL

In my SB, there are SIX limpers. WOW. I see 73s, and complete with the great pot odds. Didn't think about it until later that with that many limpers on a tight table, I bet there's a profusion of high cards in people's hands. Anyway, the flop comes 753 and I bet 25, almost the pot. The tourist calls and all others fold. I'm wondering if he has some kind of 7. He didn’t raise, so I didn't put him on the straight. I bet out in the first place wondering if someone might come over the top with an over-pair, in case you're wondering why I bet it ;)

On the turn, I get a good card of a 3, giving me a boat. I check, he bets 25, I check-raise 100. He calls! Now if it was any of the other players, I might be worried about a set of 5's, not to mention that they have deeper stacks for me to loose more against, but I notice that he's only got 25 or so left (had some white in his stack), so I bet 30 blind. He called and I show my 73soooted (an almost hammer); he mucks and leaves.

And I was going to get up from the table! -grin-

Tourney at Fort McDowell

2005-05-21T18:02:00.000-07:00

Hello.. yes, I still exist -grin- Sorry for not posting much, as I hardly find time to play (or do too much of anything), now that I deal... However, Thursday Felicia and I traveled to Phoenix for a doctor's visit, and she felt well enough afterwards for us to hit Fort McDowell. Bonus! :D

Felicia heard tell of mixed games being played there and wanted a chance to play before she started chemo (she had an appointment with her oncologist the next day), so wanted to take the chance she might not have again for a while...

When we got there, the mixed game was not going yet, so she put her name on the list. I put mine on the 2-150 (sounded like the 5-150 game at Casino Arizona), then we both found that there were 2 seats available at a 4/8 stud hi/low table and we asked to sit there.

We played a few hands until we found out that we were, in fact, playing "hi/low", NOT "8 or better"...that is, NO qualifier! {And this was after Felicia had asked the guy at the desk if it was in fact "8 or better", and was told "yes", that it was...dork -grin-} We might as well have been playing Razz ;) And, actually, I had fun playing it :)

Passive, passive game... I loved it. Only a couple aggressive people, the rest just loved to check along and take and give free cards. A couple times I won the bring-ins and antes (50cent ante) on fifth after everyone checked on 4th. One of the times, the only other woman at the table had limped in with an Ace showing and checked 4th. After I improved on 5th (not sure if I already had the low or just 4 to it) I bet out to make others pay for drawing. Folded back to the lady, and she folds face up, showing her other Ace in the hole.. she limped with Aces, checked them on 4th, then folded them on 5th to a bet from an obvious low (draw or not)! LOL!!!

Felicia only played for about a half an hour when she finally got called to the 30/60 mixed game. I played on in the 4/8 stud hi/low. As I was playing, a lady came around to stamp cards people had with them. I found out that this was for a tournament that they had that night. You could get the cards and get them stamped while in live games before the tournament. Each stamp got you more chips. I found out that the tournament was only $30 and took a quick glance at the structure sheet ("hmm, starting with 1000T and starting level of 25-25, then 25-50, 50-75; 20 minutes levels....dang! Where do I buy in?!?").

I got myself one of the cards, and the lady went and gave me a couple stamps right away, like I had been there the whole time (bonus!). By the time that the tournament started, and I gave the dealer my seat card and the additional cards from playing in the live game, I started the tournament with 4000T. Beauty!

I played my speculative way with limping in with marginal hands, bluffing and semi bluffing. By the end of the first hour I had almost doubled up, ending with a chip count of 7500T.

One hand I was in the SB with A5o and completed after several limpers. Flop came 532 and I checked my TPTK--top pair, top kicker--and gutshot straight draw. I wanted to see if someone would bet an overpair or a draw; based on the bet, I'd either call, raise or muck...but it got checked around...hmm. Turn comes another 3, so I pot the scare card with my two pair, and I get one cold caller--I believe we were on the 25-50 level, I remember betting 300T. On the river came a deuce to double pair the board. I had thought about checking the river, thinking he might have a draw or an overpair, but I thought this was a great card to continue semi-bluffing and bet 300T again. My cold-caller looked in agony...flashed me A4s for the flopped wheel, and folded. :D I figured he would have raised me on the turn if he had flopped the straight, but now his slow playing got himself and trouble. After he mucked, I did NOT show...said something like, "ouch, runner-runner", and shook my head :p

Another interesting hand, I had QQ. At the 50-75 level, there were five limpers too me (besides the blinds), so I over-bet the pot and made it 600T to go; content to take the pot then and there. The BB asks, "proud of your pair?" I reply, "yes". But then he goes ahead and says, "make it 1000T". Uh oh... did I just bump up against AA or KK?? Newbie players seem to just love to min reraise with those. All the limpers folded to me. I then corrected him (and the dealer who was trying to tell me it was raised to 1000T) that he had to double the bet..I raised it 525T more, and since he didn't declare his reraise and put in too few chips, then his raise must be 525T more to 1125T. After all this I sat there considering whether or not I should call. I really didn't want to lose any of my lead when I could very well be up against an overpair and drawing too slim. While thinking about it and counting my chips, someone says, "you better call after all this". I think "yeah? you can bite me!"... Instead, I say, "hey, if I think that I'm too much of a dog, I don't need to." Finally, I notice that I actually have 550T just in green chips. I remove one and put them in to call. Flop comes down JXX rainbow. BB shifts in his seat, shuffles his cards and checks. Checks?? He min-reraised me with AK?? I figured if he's trapping me, so be it, but I'm not giving any free cards to AK and shove in. He shuffles his cards more and goes, "they were suited too", and mucks. Yup, AK.

After the break, I found out that the levels were now only 15 minutes...what?!? I quickly got up and got one of the structure sheets and looked more closely: after the first break all levels were now only 15 minutes. Additionally, after the 2nd hour, all levels had an ante AND all levels doubled; no more gradual increases. Can you say, "let's hurry them up and get the tournament over?" I also failed to read that there was a $20 add-on for 2000T more chips. I was more than 2K over anyone at my table, so I didn't take the add-on; had I read the rest of the structure, I probably would taken it anyway. My bad for not reading more carefully ;-(

I did over play one hand after the break. I open-raised in mid-position with 77 and the BB called. The flop was T53 and the BB lead into me for 300T (the amount I raised to pre-flop with the blinds at 50-100). I was thinking that he was putting me on high cards like AK or AQ and that I totally missed so bet into me...I raised him 500T more, reprsenting the overpair. He called...oops...wonder if he really has the Ten or he still just doesn't believe me. Turn comes a Jack, and he leads into me again, this time for 500T. Huh? Beginning to think he either has AJ (which he might have bluffed with on the flop) or JT, which he would have just pulled two pair. I consider the fact that I'm most likely beat and fold.

Not long after the break, our table broke and I got moved to the 2nd to last table. This was a terrible move for me. My cards went cold and my passive players were gone. I got moved to a table with a very aggressive player 2 to my right, raising me out of most pots that I actually got something that I would have liked to play, but nothing strong enough.

Once, this aggro guy showed the table a bluff (which of course was the worst thing he could have done). While obvious no one can have a hand as often as he raised, once you show a total stone bluff with 84o (yes, that was his cards), people tend to find the balls to start playing back at you. Fortunately for me, I was one of them. I found JJ in the SB after a raise of his and I shoved all-in, he called, and I doubled through (unfortunately, I had been so blinded down, that it was correct for him to call, and it really didn't dent his stack, nor make mine overly healthy again).

I sat and waited while I got blinded down some more until I found KQo UTG and shoved in. Aggro-guy goes, "I call, I actually have a legitimate hand". The blinds fold and I find that I'm a coin flip against TT. Q on the flop, and I double through him again. This finally put enough of a dent in him that he was left with about as many chips as me (about 7000T and I think we were at around the 400/800 level...I would judge that when I got to his table, he had about 20,000T! His aggressive ways had been catching up to him as he kept getting reraised by better hands).

Finally, somewhere after the 2nd break (i.e. into the 3rd hour of play), Aggro-guy put in the last of his chips on my BB. Fortunately for me, it was only about 1/2 of a BB for me to call. The SB goes, "ah, I'll just call". Later he stated that he was going to go all-in, but decided to just call ... I'm assuming he was hoping I'd call too and we'd check it down vs the all-in. Check it down we did, even though I made a straight on the river and was last to act; I figured after checking all the way, he couldn't call a bet anyway, plus, figured it would be rude :p

Aggro-guy chuckles, shows his cards to the people on his right (where I couldn't see) and mucks face-down. We all tell him "good game" and play on.

At one point I actually got on a little run and went all-in a few times and got up to about 16000T. We were at the 750-1500 level and I see from the tournament clock that I have average chips, although little more than 10x the BB. Ouch! Its a crap shoot now.

After more blind-offs and desperate stacks shoving all-in time and again (and me getting nothing), I'm getting short stacked yet again. I went all-in once or twice and was treading water when we finally got to 13 people left and hand-for-hand...with the final table getting paid. Tenth got $85, almost triple my buy-in, so I went into Sklansky mode and folded, folded, folded!

At 11 handed I was UTG and close to all-in. I thought, geez, I might have to risk being the bubble. Then, I saw the UTG player on the 2nd table take a huge hit that put him all-in on his (and my) BB. When it got folded to our SB and he raised all-in, I promptly folded me 52o and watched to see if the BB from the other table got knocked out...he did! I had folded my way to the final table!

I drew seat 6 and figured that I'd be going all-in the next few hands (since I didn't even have a BB left) and I was the shortest stack anyway. Then, first hand of the final table, the guy to my immediate right goes all-in in front of me! With how short I was, I thought it pretty stupid. He gets called and he shows A6o (??) vs AQ for the caller. Dummy gets a 6 and doubles up. I then folded the next two hands thinking, if these people are going to be that dumb, I'll let them knock themselves out and see if I can move up another position...9th was $110, another $25 if they're so stupid as to not wait for me.

Two hands later I get 66 and figure I better stick in the chips; they stopped being stupid it seems ;) After I put in my remaining 2000T, someone raised to try to get it heads-up. Folded to the chip lead and she looks agonized, but goes ahead and calls. I figure I'm in deep doo-doo, but nothing I can do now, just hope no one flops anything.

Flop comes down TTx, the original raiser looks at the chip lead who's frowning and checks to her. She says she's all-in and the raiser says something like, "I hope you have it, I'm laying this down". I'm thinking to myself, "a ten? She called a raise with...what...AT? Must be soooted." It was soooted alright.. but not ATs... try QTs. Let me follow this up so that you can say, "ooooh, I see"...I found out that she works there...she's a dealer. OK, everyone now: "ooooh, I see!" HAHAHA

Anyway, I got no miracle 6 on the turn or river and I was out.

Still, was nice to get to a final table and get a cash! :)

I went over to Felicia looked over her shoulder and saw she was about 300 ahead in the game. I said, "hmm, you're not doing too badly.. but I tripled my money, can you say that?"

HEHE

Felicia in Chemo-land

2005-04-04T14:34:00.000-07:00

One day Felicia came across a white rabbit, saying, “you’re late! You’re late for a very important breast exam!”

So off she went to the doctor’s to have an exam. Finding the lump, proceeded to dig and dig, sending Felicia into a painful journey; wishing he’d at least have let her have a toke or two for the pain.

After the lump was extracted, banter ensued where the Mad Dr insisted there were two tumors, not just one.

The Queen, finding out about the TWO tumors, said “OFF WITH HER BREASTS!!”

Afterwards, Felicia is given a bottle that says, “Drink me”, and away she goes into Chemo-land!

SP Glenn :-D

2005-03-10T18:28:00.000-07:00

Being the South Park junkie that I am, Felicia told me about the SP image creator at http://www.planearium2.de/ , knowing that I wouldn't be able to resist making my own:

Bilking The Internet Poker Machine

2005-03-06T22:29:00.000-07:00

OK, most people that read this blog probably got my link from Felicia, so you know about her experiment with drinking…

So, I’m reading my web comics while playing one of the freerolls on Intertops (this one with a total prize pool of $2005 : ), and I came across this one:
http://twolumps.keenspace.com/d/20040526.html

Felicia was keeping Anisotropy in the loop as to my being in the money for the tournament—she loves how much I cash in these things, even if it’s pennies.

When I informed him that I actually got the $5 pay scale, he told me: “hold out for at least $7, so you can both go to the taco bell afterwards and still have some change.” Hehe.

Once I got to the $6 mark, he states: “your motto should be ‘bilking the internet poker machine, six dollars at a time’, for all the money you get from freerolls.” LOL!!

Although it’s more like 65 cents at a time; the minimum payout for the $100 tournaments that they have daily. But, I have made the final table on those a few times, so have made some money here and there. Got up to $10 when I finally got knocked out: short stacked, late position, I shoved with 88 and got called/lost vs. KK.

There you have it, my bilking of the internet poker machine!

River Palms ... Walking Back to Texas

2005-02-28T16:33:00.000-07:00

OK, last week I was able to report that I finally cashed in one of the local tournaments for the first time in a while. Last night, we played the $40 tourney again, this time I didn't cash... but some interesting stuff happened, so I'm blogging about it anyway :-D

As an aside, I got 2nd in one of those freerolls that I play on Intertops--just $15 since it was the $100 prize pool, but out of a large field--so that made me feel good. Of course, the same day, I made the money a 2nd time--for pennies in another $100, lol--but was out very quickly in the $10,000 prize pool freeroll they offered! Ouch! I laid down top two in a big pot after a large raise, thinking the other guy turned a straight. Later in chat, he says "two pair", ugh!! I ended up all-in w/ TT or JJ on a low board, and someone chased and got their overcard :p

Since in the Palms tournament, we start w/ 3K in chips (after the dealer add-on), I thought I'd play some more hands like I do in the freerolls that I'm always cashing in. I kept getting suited connectors to limp with (I was at a nice passive table without much raising) but never got any flop. In the BB during the 50/100 level, this kid makes it 200 to go after a few limpers. He successfully knocks out people behind him, but I knew all the limpers would call one more BB raise...so with T9o in the BB I called. Flop is 9-high rainbow, and it gets checked to the kid. He chucks in another 200. I'm thinking, OK, he's got AK or AQ and missed but is shooting anyway. So I check-raise to get out the others in between to 600. I got everyone out, then the kid looks at his cards again and calls. On the turn is another little card and I lead out for 1000 (this is leaving me with only another 1K and change, but I'm not expecting a call. Kid looks at his hand again and he doesn't seem happy. Suddenly, he shoves all-in. Oh, boy...did I step into it? I call "time" and start to think. I don't want to give up the pot, that will really leave me short and I don't want to have to do my one rebuy already. Remembering how he didn't seem happy on the turn, I stated that I was going to make a loose call and put in my stack. Kid turns over T9o! LOL! Same hand. River is inconsequential, and we split the pot. Made a couple hundred, and saved myself almost 2K...whew!

I end up getting moved before it's my BB to another table, to take the BB, missing a hand (ugh). I get moved to a table with Pat to my direct right, a local whom we've played with many times before. Good player, can be aggressive, doesn't need to have hit the flop to bet it. Right away she raises from the SB with KQs. I muck my junk, but she gets several calls from the many limpers. ATx on the flop, two spades (her suit), so she bets--less than what she raised, can you say "missed?"--and she gets a couple callers. J on the turn gives her the nut straight and she goes all-in. She gets called by another local who knows how she plays and shows AQ for TPEK (top pair, excellent kicker). K on the river makes it a split pot. Pat was not happy, lol.

When it got to my button, again there were several limpers, Pat was one, and I found AKs. I was debating how much to raise and thinking about I'd probably get callers either way, so I shoved. One of the early limpers, I'm going to call "Sly-older-guy" or SOG, for reasons you'll find later, says "all-in, 'eh?". I replied, "the pot's big enough", and smiled. All fold to Pat, who thought about it and called. I thought for sure she must have a pair. Instead, so turned over ATo! I've played with her enough times that she should have known that no matter what I had, I dominated her hand! She says "you got me", after seeing my hand, like she went all-in and I called with the better hand. Weird. No help to on the board for her and I double up with AK-high.

Break hits, I take the optional $40 rebuy/add-on for 5K chips, bringing me up to 10,500.

During the now 200/400 level, Pat open-raises in late position and I find KK. Not wanting her to call, having an Ace flop and have her outplay me, I just shoved in. All fold to Pat and she's acting like she's having a minor fit. I say to her "I have much better than last time", and she goes "so do I". She was having such a fit and didn't seem like she was going to call, so I guess that's why I said that. Plus, I guess I didn't want to get sucked out on by an Ace. She flashes me 99 and folds. I do a courtesy show of the KK.

Later in the same level, Pat limps in early position and I find AQs. Trying to narrow the field, I make it 1600 to go. Loose guy to my left is reaching to call, just as the guy to his left shoves in! Shover notices he acted too early, and takes his chips back. Now, the guy in between knows Shover wants to go all-in, but puts out the chips to call anyway...? Shover shoves. Dude in sunglasses down-table puts all his chips in. The blinds fold, Pat folds. I find that it would be another 6K to me, so I fold, knowing there's already a call and someone else that will probably call too (I don't want to take my chances with AQ, suited or not, in a four way pot!). As expected, Loose-guy to my left calls.

Shover: A7s .. say what?
Sunglasses: KK .. figured as much
Loose guy: Q8s .. asssphinctersayswhat?

River brings Loose-guy a straight with the Q, but then the dealer calls out "flush"; that last card brought the A-high, nut flush for Shover. Pat remarks that she folded QTs and would have made the straight, too. I chuckled and told her I had AQs (partly to let them know that I wasn't raising with "nothing"). Too funny, 3 of us in a row would have made a straight, and lost to a flush had the all-in-fest not occurred.

During Pat's BB, someone down table decides they need to get some chips and shoves with A6o. Pat called from her BB...with J9s. I really don't understand this call, just like with the ATo. Next hand it gets folded to her in the SB and she goes all-in for her last 2K. I find A7o and ask her if she's gambling again. In the recesses of my mind was trying to get thru and say that if she says "yes", she means "no"! But the monkey brain said, "ok, I got an Ace, I call". She flips over KK and I tell her "nice hand". No Ace, flop, turn, river. Dealer says, "3, 4, 5, 6, 7..straight". I didn't even see it. Patty gets up and told her that I was sorry, but she stalked away. I know the feeling.

Then, I lost a large chunk of change. At this point, I had a fairly good stack, still a little ahead of the 10K mark, when Loose-guy to my left desides to go all-in 2 hands in a row (the 2nd being my BB). I could see people being tentative about limping, wondering if Loose-guy will just shove when it's his BB. I find KQs and complete the SB, wondering the same thing, but unable to fold the hand. BB checks, and we see a flop of 522, two diamonds, my suit. I check (probably first mistake). Loose guy fires a min bet of 400 into the pot. Sly-old-guy looks at his cards and calls. I'm wondering what to put him on. I saw him look at Loose-guy before limping. I was thinking that he had an over pair and was trying to trap. Looking at his cards, I'm also thinking that he might also have the diamond draw..AJ or AT diamonds? Lady in between calls, and I call too, wondering if I'm drawing dead.

Turn is no help to my draw, an offsuit J, and I check again. This time Loose-guy puts the rest of his chips in, about 2400. SOG calls, still looking at his cards, and the lady inbetween calls. I ask for time. I'm still wondering if SOG or the lady are also on the flush draw, but I feel that's just playing scared. Plus, if I win this pot, I'll have a ton of chips, and I'm getting my odds. I call.

Diamond on the river. Wondering if I really wanted a diamond verses a K or Q, I checked. Sure enough, SOG bets 2K, just enough to make me call (which I do) to see what I feared (and half expected), the nut flush.

I got moved to another table, this time SOG on my direct left. Blinds go from to 300/600, probably the only time they don't double.

I get AA, try to figure out how much to raise and end up just plunking a bunch in the center. I get no call, of course. Once someone limped in my BB, I find JJ and again shove, and again no call. I probably should have played the AA differently. I needed chips.

In my SB, I have KTo and complete after a couple limpers. Someone should have raised out the BB, but no one did. Then, the BB (SOG) throws his cards forward, remembers its his blind, and takes them back! The dealer doesn't say squat, but some of the players look at each other and don't say anything. I'm going to be working there, so, not wanting to look like I'm taking a shot, I don't say anything either. Flop is K-high, and I check, thinking that someone might have limped with KQ or KJ and I don't want to call if someone else fires. I gets checked around. I bet out on the turn and SOG anounces "raise". He doesn't raise unless he's got the goods, so I muck my top pair/straight draw to a big raise. He tells me he had two pair.

Then, 2 or three people are going at it: "his hand should have been killed", "he threw it forward". They get a ruling, after the fact, that yes, it should have been killed. Thanks guys, too late now! Nice to hear that while seeing him rake in chips that should have been mine.

Later, Felicia gets knocked out when SOG traps her. It's folded to him in the cutoff and he looks and sees Felicia in the BB and another woman in the SB. He's debating what to raise. Then puts in double the BB, 2K. Oh boy, I'm thinking, that's just begging for a call. JJ, a local on the button, flat calls the 2K. SB folds, and Felicia goes all-in. I'm thinking, OK, if she has AA, what's the other guy got? SOG calls, JJ folds. Felicia turns up AK, and SOG .. AA. Felicia put him on a steal and shoved. Felicia gets no help and she's out. :(

After paying blinds and the KT debacle, I'm down to 6K at 1K/2K blinds. In my BB, lady that was the SB above goes all-in, and gets called in TWO places; one being the SB, who I noticed folding and folding. I find 23s in the BB, laugh and fold. Of course, I would have made another straight :p

SB, gets folded to me and I find AKs. "Thank you", I said, and follow with: "All-in!". SOG goes, "all-in? Oh, it's only 2000 more?". I said, "that's all, you can call and double me up or," at this point I flip up my cards as he put in the call, "I'm walking back to Texas!"

SOG turns up Q9s, diamonds again; again, getting the flush.

Indeed, I'm walking home -grin-

Glenn

River Palms Cash (4th)

2005-02-22T13:46:00.000-07:00

I finally got in the money at the River Palm's! This weekend Felicia and I played the $40 buy-in tournament at the Palm's and I managed to get 4th :-)

Felicia wanted to get out of the house with all the bad weather that was coming our way, so we ended up getting a room at the Palm's for a couple nights. We played one of the morning $10 tournaments ($15 with the dealer add-on) and I was reeling with the "crap-shoot" quality of the amount of chips/blinds/time-per-level. It was awful! Not to mention, that the first 3 levels were limit hold'em; waiting till after the break to turn to NL. Needless to say, I didn't make the money ;-)

On Sunday, Felicia reminded me about the $40 tournament. At first I thought, "oh, no, not another tournament with a terrible structure." Then she reminded me about the T2K in chips and the 30 minute levels. {The blinds were actually 20 minutes for the first hour, but then 30 minutes after that.} Plus, with, again, a dealers' add-on for $5, you could chip up to a total of T3K. Finally, although not technically a rebuy, you could add-on at any time within the first hour of the tournament for an additional $40 for T5K in chips. So you can either try to play on $40 for T2K, $45 for T3K, or $85 for T8K altogether.

Our table seemed to be more conservative and didn't do the add-on until the break after the first hour. Felicia told me that most her table did the add-on right away so they could have the full T8K to play with.

Being a conservative table, there was a lot of folding and not a lot of crazy play. I'll have to say that this helped me. A few times I was able to limp with a marginal holding to see what developed. Nothing really did, so I never got any good chip lead or anything. First decent hand was AKo during the 25/50 level; raised 2 limpers to T200. I was able to knock out the blinds, but both limpers called. After a flop of Kxx, two suited, I took down the pot with a T600 bet after I was checked to. This held me for a while.

One nice thing about being tight, they tend to believe you when you steal. I had A2s in the cutoff, raised to 3xBB and was folded to. After this, I pretty much had to sit on my chips as I got absolutely nothing. I probably should have stolen more, but I like to have something to steal with ;-)

Another time the it was folded to me in the cutoff, I had KJo and raised to T1000. This time I got a cold call from the button, a min-reraise from the SB to T2000, and a cold call from the BB. If I was HU, I would have just mucked it, knowing that I was beat. However, knowing that the button would call (and seeing that the SB actually only had 400 left after the raise), I called getting 7-1. Predictably, it was all little on the flop. The BB called the SB's all-in (so I didn't have to after missing the flop ;) and we got to see that the SB held TT. The BB was on a draw, that got there, and the SB was out.

The BB was an Asian guy that I played with in the side games twice. I knew his MO. He'd bet draws, but if he had absolutely nothing, he would check. This was good for me. He knew that I was tight and would fold if he had nothing playable. Also, I knew that I could probably take him off a hand if he had nothing.

All that is well and good if circumstances go your way; unfortunately, they don't always!! -grin-

Once again, our table was on the tight side for most of the night (as people were busted, there were some that got moved to our table that weren't so much). But I remember one guy in seat-1, I'll have to name "Bulldog". No, it wasn't because he wore those silly T-shirts regarding stupid attitude stuff (like the don't have enough people with attitude problems), but that the poor man had such an under-bite that it gave him a bulldog appearance. So, watching Bulldog fold-fold-fold, I fully expected him to fold to my open-raise in mid-position when I held ATo. I got cold called by the Asian guy, and then by Bulldog in the BB! Ouch...Probably dominated here. Flop was KsQsX. Bulldog checked (he was an opponent that would check-raise..so), I checked, Asian bet. While I know that he bets draws, Bulldog called all-in (being tight he was constantly short-stacked). Knowing that I was beat in at least one spot, I folded. Asian had As4s for the flush draw; Bulldog had AQo for 2nd pair. Asian misses the flush, Bulldog takes down the pot that I might have knocked him out in with a J on the river for the straight! I'm not sure that Bulldog would have checked again, thinking that I might have checked a set of K's on the flop... We'll never know :-p

Anyway, I got short-stacked later in the tournament. I had only 2 1/2 the BB; there were like 2 or 3 limpers, and I look to see AA in late position! I chuckled, tossed my remaining chips all-in, knowing there was no way I was getting anyone to fold. Then I even get an over-call, also all-in, from the button! Oh boy, I really didn't want a multiway pot with AA...or did I?? They stood up with a final board something like KQJ-K-x. On the flop, the Asian shoved in having flopped two pair with QJ, but I resucked with the K on the turn :) Now I had some chips!

I actually got AA another time in the tournament. Spinnerman (one of those guys that have the round-metal card cappers that they spin) open-min-raised UTG in the 10-seat). Bulldog cold called for 2/3's of his chips (?why not just stick them all in?) and I have AA again and shove. SB thinks about it for a little...this guy was moved to our table and was definitely NOT a conservative player, he saw most flops and stayed about even...he eventually called all-in with K8s. While I didn't want a multiway pot again, it saved me. Spinnerman chucked his (what we learned later) medium pocket pair, Bulldog put the rest in with 77, and we saw a board of Q7x-x-8. So, SB only made a pair of 8's with his K8s, Bulldog pulled down the nice main pot with his set on the flop, and after I pulled in the side pot, I found that I only lost T1500; phew!

I mostly sat on my chips as we came to the bubble and I was finally in the money for the first time in a while :-D.

I stole some here and there, putting my chips in with AK and TT and KK.

Once at the final table I got a whole bunch of nothing. Short-stacks were taken out here and there. Bulldog finally got the boot. Asian guy got short and shoved in twice; no call once, another he got a call, and his KQo made a one-card flush on the river for him to double up. Spinnerman was still (he had a huge stack when he got moved to our table, and with selective aggressive play, kept it...plus, sucking out on QQ TWICE with AK helped!).

One of the people that got moved to our final table, directly to my right, was a guy that I've played with before that makes me look loose! Only one limper, he's short-stacked, so doesn't complete the SB with A3o. He didn't like his kicker, so he didn't play, even though there was only one limper, a dealer, who was very loose (dealer and loose.. Aren't they synonymous?). Board was something like A35xx and the dealer never bet. I won with a pair of 5's and he showed QTo. Tightguy tells the Spinnerman, to his direct left (after the seat redraw for the final) that he would have had two pair with his A3 but didn't play it. Brother! If she had an ace, she would have raised!

Tight guy, of course, got himself blinded out after a while. He did get AK once, but Spinnerman had already raised with AK himself, and they just split the blinds.

OK, we get down to 6 players, I'm still getting no hands and I just had to give up my BB. In the SB, the guy to my left had about as many chips as me, so I can't really wait him out unless the blinds change. Only one limper and I see KJo in the SB. If I complete, I only have T3K more, and the blinds are now T3K/T6K. I know there's no way to raise out the limper, and possibly not even the BB, since he only has a few chips left too. But he'll be all-in in the SB. So, I complete, hoping that he won't go all-in (watching him play, seemed he was just trying to reach a higher spot, so felt he wouldn't). No raise from BB and we see the flop, turn and river cheap. Limper bets the river when a possible flush gets there. I can't see him bluffing in this position, being that either of us short-stacks would probably call with any piece of the board as we had no chips left. Since I just had K-high, I mucked and held onto my 3 remaining chips. (From a high of T45K, to T3K...Wow).

Very next hand, blinds go up to T5K/T10K, guaranteeing that the guy on my left is all-in in the SB. He doesn't survive and there's only 5 left. Spinnerman is UTG and raises, I fold, the SB calls, BB (other large stack) goes over the top all-in and Spinnerman folds to the big reraise. SB calls all-in with AQo. BB has AKs and makes a nut flush on the river! (Spinnerman said he had a pocket pair.)

There I am, sitting with a mere 3 chips, and the SB, who could have waited me out, gets knocked out instead! I, of course, get knocked out in the BB with 43o, but end up getting $360! (They paid the full final table, so was a little spread out, but still top heavy with about $980 going to first.) Spinnerman ended up winning after having his QQ hold-up in a final all-in battle.

I still need to be more aggressive to try to get to the higher money, but either way, I'm happy for the cash in this otherwise dry spell!

Yes I'm still here..here's a hand for the ages:

2005-02-18T12:06:00.000-07:00

Yes, I'm still here. As you heard, Felicia and I had a bad run at Commerce and we've been licking our wounds, trying to grind our bankrolls back.

While playing some Draw on Paradise, I just had a monster hand that Felicia told me to remember for all those times that I want to complain about bad beats. While I did NOT put a bad beat on seat1 (I had the best hand all along) it's one of those hands that would definitely qualify for a bad beat jackpot, if there was one.

So, posted for posterity:

Game #xxxx - $1/$2 5-Card Draw - 2005/02/18-12:49:(CST)
Table "Lalona" (real money) -- Seat 3 is the button
Seat 1: seat1 ($47.25 in chips)
Seat 3: seat3 ($73.25 in chips)
Seat 5: seat5 ($17.00 in chips)
Seat 7: seat7 ($40.00 in chips)
Seat 9: DOMIT ($36.50 in chips)
seat5: Post Small Blind ($0.50)
seat7: Post Big Blind ($1)
Dealing...
Dealt to DOMIT [ Qs ]
Dealt to DOMIT [ Qc ]
Dealt to DOMIT [ Qd ]
Dealt to DOMIT [ 3h ]
Dealt to DOMIT [ Qh ]
DOMIT : Call ($1)
seat1 : Raise ($2)
seat3: Call ($2)
seat5: Fold
seat7: Call ($1)
DOMIT : Raise ($2)
seat1 : Raise ($2)
seat3: Call ($2)
seat7: Call ($2)
DOMIT : Call ($1)
Discarding...
Dealing...
Discarded by DOMIT [ 3h ]
Dealt to DOMIT [ Ks ]
Discarding...
Dealing...
Discarding...
Dealing...
seat7: Check
DOMIT : Bet ($2)
seat1 : Raise ($4)
seat3: Fold
seat7: Fold
DOMIT : Raise ($4)
seat1 : Raise ($4)
DOMIT : Call ($2)
*** SUMMARY ***
Pot: $31.50 Rake: $1
seat1 lost $12 (showed hand) [ 6h 6c 4d 6d 6s ] (four of a kind, sixes)
seat3 lost $4 (folded)
seat5 lost $0.50 (folded)
seat7 lost $4 (folded)
DOMIT bet $12, collected $31.50, net +$19.50 (showed hand) [ Qs Qc Qd Ks Qh ] (four of a kind, queens)

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Quote of the day:

"Pokeris a 'group awareness program'...play accordingly."

http://pokerworks.com/blog/blogger.html
Linda Geenen -- Poker Works

River Palm's Room Rates (say that 5x fast ;)

2005-02-10T19:29:00.000-07:00

FYI: The Poker Room Manager at the River Palm's is trying to get $10 room rates for poker players!

He's been having some great turnouts lately for tournaments... close to 100 people in their $500 added $10 tournament last couple nights. $10 buyin, $5 dealer add-on; rebuys ($10 1st couple levels--$20 next 2 levels) and $30 add-on at break. But, potentially, you can play the tournament for $10, only. With the $$ added, not a bad deal ;)

PS: I haven't written anything up regarding Commerce since there wasn't much truly notable (and I didn't want it to sound like a whine feast -grin-).

Pairs Are King!

2005-01-25T16:20:00.000-07:00

Played the Shootout at Riverside Casino last night and made the money this time!

Last time, I _did_ make the final table, but I only got the $50 (buy-in back) consolation prize going out in 7th position; only the top 5 get paid from the main prize pool. So, I’ve won the “shootout” table 2-out-of-2, and made the (serious) money 1-out-of-2.

The shootouts are a little different there. Normally when you think of a shootout, there is only one winner per table. Since the Riverside is not a large card room like Bellagio, they only do 5 tables for the first round, then the top-two, or last two standing, advance to the final table.

Last week, the first time they had the shootout, I made the final table when my 44 stood up against 2 others: A3s and AQo. This week (yesterday as of this writing), I made the final, again, based on small pairs that held up.

We didn’t bother getting to the room super early this time, as last week it didn’t sell out. Last week we ended up playing for about 3 hours to make sure we got a seat (many of their tournaments sell out), in a tournament that didn’t completely fill up to the maximum of 50 players. I’m guessing it’s partly due to being a Monday night, and possibly partly due to no rebuys, LOL.

I got to play two hands in the ring game before starting the tournament, KQo and AQs, catching no flop either time. This sucked since we had an action table and any good hand was paid off.

Got to the tournament table to see two others who made the final table the week before, plus another player that I recognized as a solid player, chewing on a toothpick. Not the easiest of tables, I thought, but in the end, I was kind of wrong. Only one player was super loose, an older player named Bob. He was one of the final table people. And he was just as loose this time, too. Calling an obvious over-pairs pre-flop raise with 99. Over-pair shoved on the flop of T9x, and Bob couldn’t get his money in fast enough. This made him chip-lead for a while. But as all loose players, can’t keep it unless they continue to get lucky.

I played tight myself in the early rounds. During the second round, it got folded to the button who limped. Button was an older guy (yes, _most_ of the players are older –grin-) who was probably legally-blind; he had funky glasses with what looked like thick magnifying lenses fitted about an inch and a half over the first pair of lenses giving him a kind of bug-eyed look. Tight-lady in SB completed. I saw AKo in the BB and decided to check. I had a feeling that I could trap the button who I felt would bet either way. This before has burned me, catching no flop and having to give it up to any bet. However, if I got no flop, it might be because the button is sacking AA or KK and is trying to get some value, but I took the chance either way. Flop came AQx. I was pretty sure that the button would have raised to just steal the blinds with AQ, so I went ahead with my check-raise plan; after the SB checked, I checked too. Sure enough, the button bet, and I check-raised all-in. He thought about it, looked at his hand again, and then mucked. I think this was a good play for me, not only to get a bet I might not have initially if I just raised pre-flop, but also to let the others know that I was capable of trapping.

Between this hand and just a couple steals with AQo and A9o (actually, I think the A9o was an all-in that I survived when I spiked a 9 vs. a better Ace, but I was short-stacked), I was still about even in chips from the start after the 2nd level. I need chips badly!

Caught my first double up not long after when a tight older guy went all-in in early position, folded around to me in the SB and I found 44. I sat there looking at the guy and his chest started heaving. Hmmm, he doesn’t want a call, I was thinking. If he had AA, KK, QQ, he’d be more sure and calm. Of course, could be heaving because he DID have AA, but I need chips. As a famous dame (who doesn’t like to be called a lady) once said, “you have to be willing to die, in order to live.” So, I called all-in. BB thought about it for a second and got out of the way. I turned up my 44, never slow rolling, and the old guy turned up…AQo. Yippee! I was ahead. 44 stood up for me last week against two players, and stood up for me this week too! I raked in my T3K chips and waited for another opportunity. This left the gentleman with only T300, not even enough for the T400 BB. He went all-in, then all-out, the next hand.

At this point, I think we were down to five players, when I got my next, sort of big hand. I say “sort of”, because I think I basically broke even with JJ! Solid-toothpick guy was still in, and folded UTG. One short stack, who might have stolen a pot from me, went all-in UTG+1. Next player, the blind-guy from the AK hand earlier went all-in over the top. I look down in the SB and see JJ! I dislike going against two others with Jacks, but we were getting close to crunch time and I had to believe that they both could just have big Aces and not an over-pair, so I shoved. The BB looks at his hand, and I guess cause he just got lucky a hand or two before, plus, being close to crunch time, decided to call with Q9s! Not the best of hands considering all the action, he was really gambling. Blind-guy is the only one who had me covered, the other two were shorter, which was good for me, as it came, little, little, little on flop; little on turn; Queen on river! Ugh! I ended the hand with T2800. I can’t recall what I started with, but I think I _might_ have gotten a couple extra chips from the side pot between Blind-guy and me. So, I knocked out one player (the UTG+1, he held TT), put a good dent in the chips the Blind-guy had, and the BB quadrupled to about T6K (allowing him to just fold his way to the final).

Crunch time…what is it? These first two shootout tournaments, the Riverside decided to put a time limit on the play for the first table! Last week, it was one hour; this week it was 5 levels (15 minute levels, so just one more level than last week). We were on that last level. Solid-toothpick guy, understandably, looked surprised and said something like: “there’s a _time_ limit on a shootout?” Course, it’s up to him to read the rules, but I’m glad he didn’t, he probably would have been much more aggressive.

Knowing that he had to pick up chips, Solid-toothpick went all-in UTG. Me, back in the BB, I find 22. I still need more chips to get into 2nd place so I go all-in. BB, Mr. Q9s right-fully folds (although he did actually think about calling, dummy), and Solid-toothpick spikes a Jack on the flop with his AJo. But the river comes the miracle two-outer, giving me deuces-full on the paired board :-D (Solid-toothpick tried to say that I sucked out on him, and I stated that I had the best hand to start with. He tried to argue _that_ too! I checked it out in twodimes.net and found that, yes, I was right…so :-p to Toothpick!:

http://twodimes.net/h/?z=69445
pokenum -h as jc - 2d 2h
Holdem Hi: 1712304 enumerated boards
cards win %win lose %lose tie %tie EV
As Jc 811193 47.37 891623 52.07 9488 0.55 0.477
2d 2h 891623 52.07 811193 47.37 9488 0.55 0.523

After the end of that 5th level, it was just Mr. Q9s, myself, and Blind-guy. Blind-guy ended up being about T800 shorter than me, so it was Mr. Q9s and me to the final! Two-for-two for my shootouts.

At the final, I did the optional $20 add-on to try to get some more chips. Alan, the TD, wouldn’t allow us to chop the 3rd guys chips from the shootout, meaning that I was at a chip disadvantage from the start! They don’t restart us with even chips at the new table, which Felicia and I think is wrong in this type of shootout. If anyone knows a site that shows the rules for a shootout, let us know; we can’t find any.

So at the final, we all start out kind of tight, which is good for me. Only problem was I had only about T8K _after_ the add-on, and the blinds started at T400/T800, since that’s where our table left off. (Another thing about the shootout that we feel is wrong; starting out at the same level the last shootout table left off at.)

First level I stayed even when I just stole the blinds with raises with AQo and ATo. Then I got card cold and got a whole lot of nothing, nothing, nothing; deja vu of last week!

Got to a point were I was just thinking about surviving to the money. Granted, 5th was only $110, but that’s better than just getting the $50 back—I’d be making _something_. A couple people had been knocked out right away; people who were also short-stacked, made a move or defended and lost.

Once down to seven, there was a raise from Leon, a younger local (yes, we do have some younger locals ;) who drinks too much and becomes very obnoxious (see Felicia’s “buttmunch” post). Older short-stacked guy who saw Leon raise earlier with QJo (to get called all-in by QQ), called. Another younger guy on my right (this table, for once had half the table a younger crowd—under 40, so I get to count myself, hehehe), I’ll call him Tipsy-tourist since he was drinking too much and I’ve never seen him before, said “alright, all-in!”. I immediately put him on AA or KK, since he was really tight for a younger guy. Leon called, and the short-stack called all-in, since he was pretty committed by that point. Leon showed QQ, older guy had AJs, Tipsy had KK. Flop is Q99; obnoxious Leon flopped a full house. Turn, King, for the turned bigger full house! I was very happy, lol. Short-stack was knocked out. Tipsy-tourist congratulated him and we were down to six, the bubble.

Gene, one of the older locals in a wheelchair, was the bubble. He played a great game, but I think a little too tight (see Felicia’s posts on “Polio Gene” from Canterbury). He got one good double up to stay ahead of me on the waiting game of getting into the money, but then I doubled up too to stay in. I had to fold T4o after Tipsy-Tourist went all-in from the SB to steal my BB. I couldn’t see him raising without a better hand than T4o and I prayed for a better hand next round or for Gene to bust. Next hand, it again got folded to the SB, me, so I just put my chips in blind. BB quickly called and turned up AJs; oops. I turned up J4o, just a little dominated ;) A4x on the flop…4 on the turn, I got another two-outer to stay alive.

This meant Gene had to made another move, but this time got bumped on the bubble. Everyone at the table, all the young guys, got up to shake Gene’s hand and congratulate him on a good game. That just tickled me pink and gave me hope about the new poker players to see them being so gracious.

We talked about chopping—and with my amount of chips I was happy to—but the Tipsy Tourist on my right asked for a break for a “Day of Reckoning”. I thought this meant that he had to take a dump and joked with him in the men’s room, lol. When he headed for a urinal, I said, “hey, you said ‘Day of Reckoning’, so I thought for sure you’d be headed there”, pointing to one of the stalls. He laughed and said he just meant he had to think and pee. Which, to me meant, no chop.

Sure enough, after the break, he said he had too many chips and wanted to play for first. I completely understand, he had more than anyone else, but the blinds at this point were T2K/T4K. When I got the BB and it got folded to him again in the SB, he went all-in. I saw 55 and called. Tipsy turned up A6s and the race was on. Flop came two of his suit and I thought for sure I was out. I had to dodge six over-cards AND 9 clubs; giving him a 56-44% advantage on the flop. I was able to survive, put a good dent in Tipsy’s stack, and actually became co-chip lead with the guy on my left.

At this point, Tipsy goes, “ok, now do you want to chop?”. Even he chuckled. After counting out what I had T22K, with being in the SB next hand, I really only had 5xBB. Plus, player on my right had exactly the same count. Tipsy still had between T15K-20K himself (we never did get a count from him). So I agreed to the chop. Considering how I went from the chip dog with only 2xBB to chip lead in only 2 hands, it’s too much of a crap shoot and I took the $466 on the 5-way chop.

So, for that night, pairs were king!

We’re headed to LA tomorrow for Commerce’s LA Poker Classic.

See you in a few weeks!

Sidestep Shuffle

2005-01-15T13:49:00.000-07:00

Let’s recap. I posted about variance, where I basically whined about how I was losing and that I shouldn’t worry about it, its just variance… Then I posted about how I finally got on a great run and won back all I had lost in one session. Now, I’m down just a dribble in the past week, pretty much breaking even. What’s the deal here? Not winning, not losing…just doing a sidestep shuffle.

I played a tournament with Felicia a couple days ago at the River Palms, didn’t get much going there. My nemesis, Sammy the dealer, was downwind of me this time, picking off my bluffs. Our table is very passive and tight, and I steal when I can; when Sammy’s folded and the two people to my left are telegraphing they’re going to fold anyway. It’s amazing how people do this time and again without thinking about it. They hold their cards like they’re ready to fold when the action gets to them. Even the BB did this one time. I had K9o on the button. I really didn’t have _that_ many chips, and wouldn’t have stolen if it were Sammy in the BB; he’s too loose and might actually call me. But these people were easy! It was like the BB just assumed someone would raise and he’s telling me, “hey, I got crap here, go ahead and raise…look, I already have my cards off the table, ready to put them in the air and flip them to the muck!”

So, I make little steals here and there, keeping myself even. Once I got checked into a straight in the BB, but with a pair on board, no one would call any bet and I guess I really didn’t have to have anything that hand, they were so disinterested in the pot. So, we get to the break, and I’m still in without having to do a rebuy (bonus!). I bust one guy out after I get AK in the cutoff and he’s in the BB with KQ, short-stacked, and takes a stand.

After going past the 500/1000 blinds again, I have about 10K. UTG limps (new person that got moved to my table with a big stack) and I’m next to act and see QQ. I figure if I raise, I have to raise enough to get Mr. Big stack out of the hand. I’ll have to raise at least 3x the BB to 4K. That puts my in the 50% realm of my stack, though. If you’re going to go in for 50, you might as well put it all in. So that’s what I did. I shoved all-in…and get quickly called by one of the tighties to my left. I wait till the action is down table, turn to her and say, “You have Aces don’t you?” Of course, she nods, but it wasn’t really a question. I get no miracle and I’m out (she doubled up with Aces earlier and had me covered…by one chip, lol). So, I’m out, but at least I didn’t have to do any rebuys in this one and got in, and out, relatively cheap.

At home, it’s the same kind of thing. I win a little here; win a little there. Then take a hit where I lose most or all of what I just won. Oy!

Last night we ended up at the Riverside to play their tournament. I play the 2-6-spread limit game and Felicia gets in the tournament. I did get on the alternate list for the tournament, however, because Felicia tells me that they switched to 20-minute levels and I thought I’d give it a try.

It’s an hour into the tournament before I get called to take my seat, literally at the cutoff before they stop allowing alternates in. I’m able to take an optional rebuy and the add-on without playing a hand (the hand I sat down during was the last before the break). So, I get to sit down when the blinds are at 200/400 with 5500. Not too bad, let’s see what happens.

First hand in the blind and I had to let AJo go. A kid that I saw folding, folding, chucks in an oversized chip and the dealer _asked_ if he wanted to raise, which of course he says yes to. They have a rule there that if someone puts in one an oversized chip without stating “raise”, that it’s NOT a raise, but a call. I want to see a flop with AJ! So I try to debate it with the dealer, but he’s new and says that he asked if it was a raise…ugh. Jxx on the flop (late position person called), and the kid comes out betting 1K, the same as the raise. Hmm. Either he’s trying to extract more, or he really didn’t hit the flop. I’m trying to decide if he had it or not, but I think not. I might have lost some chips on that fold, but I still think I have to fold AJ to a raise when I have more than 10x the BB to play with.

Since the kid is to my left, and another person that I’ve played with before (and therefore knows how tight I am) I’m able to steal the blinds from them one round with A9o. Another time, I’m in early position (and the blinds are up to 400/800) with AA and I’m thinking about how much I have to raise. Once again, there’s a limper and I’m thinking the old, “OK, if I raise 4x the BB it’ll pretty much be a…let’s see…” and then think to myself, “hmm, with all this hesitation, it almost looks like I’m unsure of my hand. I wonder if I’ll be more likely to get a call looking like I _don’t_ want a call.” So, I shove in. The tight kid on my left thinks about it for a bit and folds. Everyone else folds, including the limper. Wanting people to keep folding to my raises, I show. Kid says, “oh, and I almost called too, I had pocket tens.”

Later, after going thru the blinds again, I get AKo and raise to 2400. I guess I should have shoved here, because this time, the kid DOES decide to come after me and goes over the top. This time though, he was the one that took a little time. So I think if he had to think about it, it might be a coin flip. I need chips, and even though I could release and still have about 5K, that’s really not a lot to work with, and I have odds to call with a coin flip. So, I call and get shown JJ, what I was hoping for, an under-pair. If he suckered me with my same play with AA or KK, I’d be really hurting. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any help and I was still out. But, once again, I think I made the right play, even if it was perhaps over aggressive. I keep thinking that I want to try to not just squeak into the money.

Back at the side games, I count my odds and go for the straight with the two over cards. I get there, but with someone else and I end up splitting the $80 pot, after the money that I put in the pot, I’m about $30 up still, not bad. Helps when the flopped two pair _and_ the flopped set call two cold (the guy to my left had the same hand and raised all-in) then called my 3-bet. The guy with the set was to the immediate left of the guy with two pair. One raise from him and I would have had to fold. But nooooo, he slow plays and gets bit!

Twice before the tournament a similar situation happened. THREE times my table saw a player raise with KK and flop a set of Kings. Only once did that player NOT get outdrawn. Who was the player? Me. Why? I didn’t slow play. Both the other sets slow played. First, they also didn’t raise the full amount pre-flop. I did. I may not have won as much as I could have, but I did win.

I also got a table share of the Bad Beat Jackpot that was hit at another table: $35. Not huge, but good enough for just sitting there. As I lost $27 before the tournament, then dropped $60 for the tournament, my $50 win (including the $35 table share) kept me out of a big hole.

Combined with a couple small wins during the day, I ended the day -$11.51. Well, it’s better than the $40-50 losses I had at the beginning of the month! But still, what’s the deal here? Up-down, up-down.

Sounds like I’m doing the “horizontal bop”…I wish!

No, it’s more like the “sidestep shuffle”.

Mpeg from PokerClan Tournament!

2005-01-13T01:35:00.000-07:00

Just thought I'd share the following. It's an mpeg that was taken during the PokerClan tournament. It shows a hand where Felicia limped in early position and I raised. It got folded around. The blinds folded. With only Felicia left to act, folds her KQs face up. I look at her like "you folded that?", and show her my KQs! The look on her face was priceless.. for me anyway.. hehe.

http://www.frontiernet.net/~bagsmode/FelFolds.mpeg

Any change? (Tournament report incl'ed)

2005-01-11T14:38:00.000-07:00

Never understand why anyone would want to take my picture. I don't change! Check this out, taken yesterday:

So? Do I look any different from the picture that I have at the top of the page that was taken years ago? No, at least I can't tell. -grin-

This was taken during the tournament PokerClan put on at the Plaza in Vegas yesterday. I was very glad to be able to participate and had a great time meeting with everyone and playing some fun poker.

Felicia and I debated on the way back: it's not exactly positive EV to play against other good poker players, is it? At the same time, we had a lot of fun. If we dropped some cash along the way (during the ring games that followed) it could be considered entertainment for the night. Either that, or we're just trying to justify losses, lol.

We got there a little early; I think Felicia got us out of the house early, knowing that if we tried to get to Plaza more "on time" for the tournament, that we'd hit rush hour traffic. I put my name on lists. Felicia gave me a hard time, as always, "can't be out of the action for one minute, can you? You just have to play!" OK, I admit it, I'm a poker-holic. I got into a 1-4 spread-limit stud game. I was able to finally play some stud! I mostly folded, as there are no antes in this game, so tight play is rewarded. I got checked into KKs-up once, and AAs-up another. As the tournament was almost starting was when I was pulling in my winnings for the AAs-up and I remarked, "hey, I got my money back, ohh, plus $1." Next hand, I get 2c for the bring-in, there goes my profit!! LOL. After that hand, I cashed out the same $40 I started with and headed to the tournament table.

We ended up playing 11-handed, and I got the 11th seat. Normally, I won't play local tournaments, as the structure is usually terrible. However, since this was a tournament put on by poker players, they had a pretty good structure, starting with 25/25 blinds, 20 minute levels, and T1000 of chips. Not bad, and the levels did NOT double every time. I would have a chance! So I ponied up the $100+10 and got settled to play :)

I never got AK or AA, but I did get AJs and AJo and raise-opened each time. Once, winning the blinds, no contest. Another, I got called, spiked an Ace on the flop, bet out and the only pre-flop caller folded.

Interesting hand came up where Felicia limped opened, the one player in between us folded, and I looked down to see KQs. I noticed Felicia limp once or twice before, and at least once fold to a raise. I know she doesn't slow play, so I couldn't put her on AA or KK. I always watch the action to my left as well, and saw at least one person with chips and figured others would come into the pot if I just limped behind. Not wanting the blinds to get a free shot to spike trip deuces, bottom two, or some-such, and to try to limit the field, I raised. The potential callers folded, as did the blinds, as did Felicia! That surprised me. Then she further surprised me by showing me KQs as her hand! I showed mine and asked why she didn't raise? She said she was hoping to make a big hand and bust someone. With my raising everyone out, and her feeling that she was dominated, she folded. One of the players to my left also stated he folded AQ to my raise. Wow, tight table.

After a while, with the blinds every increasing, I only really managed to stay about even in chips. Pokerclan Founder, Jon, would raise occationally in late position with weak hands, so once when he raised and Felicia went all-in (short-stacked at this point) and I was getting something like 3-1 on my call from the BB. I did call with A2s. After talking about this on the way home, Felicia said that it was pretty marginal; better if I had more chips. I'll have to admit that she was right.

Finally I got a great break when Tanya, a very aggressive player to my left, went all-in UTG. It got folded to me in the BB and I found KK. I said, "oh, yeah, I call." Tanya ended up having 33, got no help, and I doubled through. Was Tanya's play bad? Well, if I can fold an early position caller and a late position player, both with group II hands, then you'll realize that everyone was playing pretty tight and definitely going by the adage that it takes a much better hand to call a raise, than to make one. She was looking to buy her blind money, but just got caught versus a group I.

Later on after more players had been knocked out, I went all-in with AQ and bought my blinds for that round.

Felicia got knocked out when she called all-in with KK. Raiser had A4o and spiked that ever present Ace.

We got to the bubble-time and out, and then I was in the money! The group had decided to pay the top 3. Third place would get 20%, which would get Felicia's and my buy-in's back, at least, if that's what I got.

That's what I got! Blaize, the player to my immediate right, knocked out so many players that he had a huge stack. Biggest hand was his AK, vs 22, vs JJ. KKx on the flop, and the other pairs didn't get any help.

Once we were 3 handed I tried to work on my tight image and raised with QJo. Blaize called. I was hoping that he was only calling due to his stack and hoping to bust me if it came little, litlle. So, although leary of the over card on the flop of KQx, I still bet out anyway. I just made sure that I bet enough to fold him if he didn't hit, and low enough to get away if he did. He check-raised me all-in and I reluctantly folded. I kinda had a bad feeling from the way he reacted to the flop. But I needed chips to have any chance of winning. He folded his KdTd face up; giving him top pair and second-nut flush draw. Dang, talk about hitting! No wonder I had a bad feeling.

Then, Blaize doubled up the other short stack. She only completed the SB, so Blaize set her all-in, thinking that she'd fold. She quickly called with ATo and, Blaize, chuckling, turned up his "Big Lick", 69o, which fell to a final board showing two Tens.

Since I was now the short stack, I called all-in when Blaize raised my blind. He had K9o and I had A8o. A 9 on the turn with no 3-outer Ace on the river, sent me to the rail with third place earnings.

After that, we all had a blast playing mixed games at a limit of 2/4. Felicia and I still managed to drop too much in the game, but it was wild and crazy. Knowing this, is why I raised and then called a reraise with the 2nd nut flush during an Omaha high hand. I was hoping that the other was betting two pair or a set on the flop. No he was betting the K-high flush draw. When the Ace of suit came on the turn and he still bet, I raised him, only to get raised back. Then he goes, "don't pair the board", and that even more made me think he was on a set! Instead, when he bet the river, he did in fact have the KJs for the nut flush. Ahh, well.

Sucked in the cash games, but at least I placed in the tournament!

Thanks again to the Pokerclan crew for a fun evening! :)

Can't Sleep, I'm Dancing

2005-01-09T03:09:00.000-07:00

Right now, I’m reminded of a David Lee Roth video. He’s dressed/made up like a fat, producer; and, in response to a question, says, “I can’t think, I’m dancing.” Well, I’ve been tossing around in bed, too keyed up to sleep, because I’m dancing on the inside.

Felicia felt like going back out tonight to play poker, even despite the Riverside not having a tournament on Saturday. We called the River Palms, they were doing $25 sit & goes, but were told that it might not go. Not wanting to have Felicia just sitting and waiting for a tournament that might not ever start, we ended up at the Riverside so that she could play Omaha8. I got on the 2-6 lists and the NLHE list.

I played one hand at 2-6; I got A6s in mid-late position and limped. A6x on the flop, someone bet 4, another called, and I raised the full amount to 10. Initial bettor called, middleman folded. Checked to me on the turn, I bet the 6 and got called. River, check-check, and I showed down my two pair and took the pot.

Once I was UTG, Lenny, the brush, called my name and said, “no limit?” Huh? I thought it was just an interest list, I didn’t know they actually had a game going…kewl! I said, “Oh, yeah, I’m on my way.”

I grabbed a stack of red from the desk on my way there; sat down in the 4-seat and tucked a C-note under my stakes, after seeing that most people had around $300. While waiting for the blind, I got to try to inventory the players a bit. Couple dealers at the table: Carlos, long black hair in a ponytail, and another I didn’t know the name of in the 3-seat. Carl, a loose, calling station from the Belle was in the 5-seat. A young gun, Raymer-wanna-be, complete with the snake eyeglasses, was in the 7-seat. One seat was a loose, older man that I’ve played against before too, couldn’t remember his name.

I finally get the blind and it’s raised from 4 to 15 by the 6-seat (we were playing the 2/4 blinds again). I looked down to see pocket Jacks. I’ve been burned before with re-raising and then having an over-card fall, so I just called to see the flop and to see what reaction to the flop I could tell from the 6-seat. After calling the 15, I look over at the 6-seat to find that he’s looking at me! Hehe, that’s a first for the Riverside. So, my action first, I look to see a flop of Qxx. With the guy only raising to 15, and him checking me out, I’m putting him on a non-pair, hopefully AK or AJ. Could be AQ, but I take the initiative and bet 20 on the flop to see what he does. He looks at his cards before mucking and I get the flash of an Ace before they hit the muck. For whatever reason, I “courteous-show”. Part to show I had a hand; that I might trap with a big pair; and possibly that I don’t need to have top pair to bet.

The dealer to my right busts out the AK-guy a little later. Dealer limps UTG, I fold, AK-guy raises to 20, all fold to dealer who calls. 77x on the flop: check, check. Hmm. Turn is an off-suit deuce, and all hell breaks loose. The Dealer checks, AK-guy bets 30, Dealer check-raises to 60, AK-guy goes all-in and Dealer calls! When the dust settles, AK-guy turns over AA, slow-played on the flop. Dealer turns over pocket 2’s for the turned boat! Dealer had AK-guy covered, and AK-guy exits.

Dealer, who’s going to be the blind the next hand, decides he’s going to cash out, and I move over my stack to his 3-seat so that I can have a better view of the rest of the table. Carlos ends up taking my old seat, so that I have him to my left. There was a small confusion as the dealer (in the box) was trying to tell me that Felicia (who joined our game in seat 8) asked for the 3-seat, but after I took it and Carlos moved, declined the seat change. California guy takes the vacant 8-seat.

Whatever fire started a kindle when that Dealer made the boat with the deuces, just kept building to a nice flame.

I got a couple small pots here and there. Like flopping top-pair-no-kicker from the blind. Check-check, all around on the flop; I pot it on the turn and all fold. I pick up A6s in late position. AKx on the flop, checked to me, I bet, all fold.

Then the first big hand happens. Another older dealer, OD, comes and takes the 2-seat. He limps UTG and I make some comment like, “playing already?” The guy is a good player; Felicia and I have played in tournaments with him before. I’m next to act and find AA! I make it 30 to go. Carlos looks at me and asks, “are you sure you didn’t mean to put out blue?” (Blue, single $1 chips ;) I said, “yep”, and he reluctantly folds. I fully expected OD to fold, having to know that I probably am as tight as Felicia. Instead, he easily calls the 30 and we see the flop 2-handed. AQ3 on the flop--OD checks and I check behind. Turn pairs the 3’s: AQ33, and OD bets 70. I raise to 170, OD calls all-in (he started with 200). He turns over AJo and I table my AA for Aces-full. He played the one hand and I got his whole stack. Ouch.

Later, I get QQ UTG and reach for chips to raise. Carlos to my left starts saying, “don’t do it.” I respond, “you can always go over the top”, and finish my raise to 30. Carlos calls and we see the flop of TTx two handed. I don’t put him on a Ten; maybe AK, AQ or another PP. I’m _hoping_ he doesn’t have AA or KK, but decide to put him to the test and see where he’s at. I lead out with 40. Carlos turns to me and asks, “you didn’t flop quads did you”, and folds his JJ face up. I tell him that I had him beat, and showed him my QQ.

Don’t ask why I showed that time, I guess cause he’s a nice guy and chopped with me once that he didn’t need to. He had called UTG and it was folded around to me in the BB with Doyle’s hand, T2o. Carlos asked if I wanted to chop and I said sure. The dealer told me he had to deal it out and Carlos and I agreed to check it down. After he was shoved the pot with two pair, he gave me my $4 blind back. I thanked him for that, and perhaps made me show him the Queens, to at least let him know that he was beat. Later, he told me on my Aces-full hand, he would have had the nuts. He folded 33 to my raise, knowing that I probably had AA or KK. I tried to give him a red bird for folding, but he wouldn’t take it; “part of the game” he said.

Later, I limped early with TT, Carlos limped and an old guy in the 10-seat (I’ll call Sailorman, due to his no-mustache, split beard) raised 20 to 24 total. I called the raise and Carlos, seeming to not like my flat call, folded. Sailorman and I took the flop alone. Flop is J98, two spades, and I have two black Tens. I’ve been watching Sailorman, and he rubs his forehead when he’s drawing, which he did when he saw this flop. Having 2nd pair, an open-ended straight draw and backdoor flush draw, I lead out 40. Sailorman rubs his forehead _again_ and calls. Turn brings a low spade. Now I’m open-ended and 4-flush. Sailorman still doesn’t look happy, so I bet 60. If there was anyone that was just an open book and didn’t want to call, it was Sailorman. The river is an off-suit 5 and I check and he checks behind. I table my TT and he shows 77! He was calling me down with an under-pair and inside straight draw! (He also had the 7 of spades, which, of course, would have been no good vs. my Ten.)

After that hand, I got a good suck-out on Felicia –grin-. Carlos is the BB, I’m the SB. It gets folded to Felicia who makes it 25 to go. Folded to me and I see JJ. Ugh. I could very well be beat, or she could be on AK. With her not playing many cash games, I’m not sure where she’s at. Plus, I have Carlos to worry about. He’s a loose player, and if he calls, spikes a pair to beat an unimproved AK, I’m going to feel really stupid mucking JJ. So, I complete, and Carlos is in agony. He knows that we both have big hands (remember, he’s a dealer and has seen us play), but he has a hand and calls to see the flop. I try to watch Felicia, but like I’m going to see anything on her face. All the while, she’s going, “you two are calling my Aces???” Flop comes down Jxx and I look at her. She knows right away and says, “If you flopped a set of Jacks, you better bet!” Hahahaha! Dang, no slow-playing the wife!

There was another consideration, however. With a husband and wife in the same pot, neither of us wishes to be thought of as colluding. Therefore, I did two things I would normally never do. I plopped in a full stack of red, and after Carlos visibly jumped in his seat, I turned over my JJ to show my top set. Might as well, since she just told the whole table what I had anyway! Carlos mucked and Felicia tossed her Aces face up. The dealer in the box was confused, wondering what was going on. Felicia told him, “well, I’m not calling him--he’s got top set!” She let me have it for out-flopping her too! Telling me I’m going to sleep on the couch, and how could I call her when I know she has Aces. How could I lay down Jacks? If it were just the two of us, I would have no problem. But with someone else in the hand, there’s still potential to a make a hand to bust the other guy, so I couldn’t lay it down. Then she goes and tells everyone what I had so I couldn’t try to slow play it. LOL!

Wow, what a night! I ended doubling through my 320 buy in! So, yes, I can stop whining now, haha. Didn’t I do a post a while back about bringing on the no limit? What have I been thinking?

Ahhh, now that I have all that out of my system, I think I can finally sleep!

Good night all. God Bless.

Variance

2005-01-08T17:21:00.000-07:00

OK, I'm still in the stink-hole, downward-spiral section of that lovely term "variance". Or "Standard-deviation", whichever floats your boat; mine's sinking, however.

After having pat full houses outdrawn on me twice in Draw and just losing, losing, losing, I called it quits for the day and did some reading.

Later that night, Felicia and I went out to the Riverside. I started in the 2-6-spread limit HE game. She got a seat in the O8. Those tight old biddies that play the O8 wouldn’t play six handed. In fact, a couple would only play _eight_ handed. Come on people, its only ONE $2 blind!

To help get the game going, I moved over to the game when Felicia asked me. Of course, once I got to the blind, I flopped the _second_ nut flush, with a gut-shot straight flush. I bet out, and get called by one of the old ladies to my left. I don’t know if she has the nuts or a set when she calls, but I should have known when she still bet out on the river that she was happy with her hand. After that I had a small set in the BB. Following Ray Zee’s advice, I check it with 2 low cards and a flush draw. I at least saved some chips as the flop was checked and I failed to fill on the river and dumped it when the flush got there. Still kickin’ it in Omaha 8’s or better at the Riverside! LOL.

Felicia gets called to the tournament, and I couldn’t get my chips off of the Omaha table fast enough. I head back to the 2-6-spread limit game. I made a little come back after getting some chips with AA and KK. Then, I get KK again. UTG was about to limp, and then decides to make it 6 total. I made it 12 and he calls me. AJx on the flop, and he makes to go for his chips and checks. Now, the older crowd does this a LOT. I’ve seen some newer players do this as well, when they are trying to induce a check. So, does he have the Ace? Inexperience showing through and neural pathways bending his hand towards his chips before realizing he should perform the standard “check-to-the-raiser”? Or instead, is he really wanting a check, so that he’s faking to his chips as if he _wants_ to bet…a la, “acting strong when weak”? Since he only raised to 6 pre-flop, after pondering if he should, then not popping me back, I went ahead and bet, hoping he was on a smaller pair. After I bet and he called, I figured he either has the Ace, maybe two of them, or JJ. Ten on the turn put a possible straight on the board and he checked to me and I checked behind. Ten on the river again, again he looks like he wants to bet, but thinks better of it with a possible boat and possible straight. I’m pretty sure he has the Ace now and I know that he’ll call after I checked the turn, so I just show my KK. He turns over A4o. Ace-FOUR!? He raised UTG with this hand, and then called a max re-raise. So, in one hand, I pretty much lose what I had gained before with the AA and KK hands. Ugh.

After a bit of the tournament players got knocked out, we finally got a NLHE cash game going :) I have only, so far, played with “overs” buttons. This means that the game stays we usual, unless the only people left for contention of the pot have “overs” buttons. If this latter is the case, then the betting is No Limit. While I’ve been in games like this before, I don’t think that I personally have even been in a pot with just other “overs” players left. I’m just too tight that I don’t get involved as much. With just a single $2 blind, there’s no need to get too out of line. I do loosen up here and there. I DID play 79s UTG my last hand before going to the NLHE game, hehe. Made a boat and got called down all the way. (Yes, this was a rather loose call, but when 7 players on average see the flop, I will occasionally do it.)

I racked up my chips and headed over to the NLHE game: 2/4 blinds, no max buy-in. Bonus! I see that most people just have a couple hundred in front of them. I go ahead and buy-in for 340-350 (whatever the extra chips were from that last pot from the 2-6 ;). Only one guy buys in for a bunch, about 500. Fortunately, I know the guy and he’s probably not going to be involved with me unless he’s really got something.

I’m glad to see the one drunken guy at the table double through early off of Mr. Deep (from above). He flopped the nut straight and Mr. Deep caught up with the 2nd nut on the turn and calls Drunk-guy’s all-in. Only problem for me is that drunken guy starts bluffing off his money like crazy and I get no piece of it.

I only get one pot the whole time. I limped in the cut-off with K8s after seeing 4 limpers besides the blinds. I spike top-two and amazingly, gets checked to me. I pot it, hoping that with so many people in the pot that _someone_ has a piece enough, but all fold. At least it bought some blinds for me to see flops with their money ;)

After a while, I pretty much am hardly playing; combination of getting no cards and wanting to watch Felicia as she’s getting closer and closer and then finally in the money in her tournament. At least someone’s making some money around this household :p

Can I join the club?

2005-01-06T13:58:00.000-07:00

OK, decimated again and Felicia says, "Let's get out of the house". Sounds good to me. Change of environment, change of settings, actually seeing the players. The sights and sounds of chips. Also, there's to be a tournament with $500 added. Bonus!

So, out of the confines of the house we go, over the mountain (I forget the exact height that a hill needs to be before it's called a mountain, but this sucker is tall enough for me. edit: Felicia says 5900 ft.), and back down to our little Vegas, Laughlin, Nevada.

I got a kick talking to one of the floor guys when calling in our names for the tournament; he said that they expected 50 for the tournament. LOL! I wish they got 50! Unfortunately, that card room just doesn't pull that kind of crowd.

One of the dealers looked at me funny when I sat down at her tournament table and said, "You're playing a tournament? I thought you didn't play tournaments?" I replied, "well, they're adding $500 this time; and besides, do you see any ring games going?"

It was true, all the ring games broke up so that people could get in on the tournament. I even saw people that I've played with from the Belle that normally never play at the Palms. Ionizer Bob and "Big" Gene was among them. Tanya of Panther Poker was out as well. (If you read Felicia's posts, you'll know who I'm talking about ;)

I immediately asked for a table change when I saw that both Bob and Tanya was to be to my left. And Bob almost doubled up within the first few hands off of a raise that 1/2 the table called, and then I called too, being I was in the blind and getting something like 11-1 with T8s. Flop is T high, and although I might have the best hand vs Bob, I wanted to see what the others did. So, I checked, Bob bet and it was folded back to me in the BB. Forgetting my aggression that I've been using in the online tournaments, and my read, I just called. My suspicion that I had the best hand was confirmed when he checked behind me on the turn. Ugh, I should have raised him on the flop, as the river brought 4 flush on the board and I didn't have that suit, checked, he bet, and I folded.

While this didn't leave me short stacked right away, it didn't help my chip standing and I ended up played short for quite awhile. I wasn't getting much in cards anyway, so figured I'd save my rebuys until later and hopefully start catching. Finally, toward the end of the 3rd level, I was going to have to rebuy regardless, as after the BB, I'd be all-in on the SB, and was about to take my first rebuy so that I'd have some chips just in case.

However, UTG I get moved to another table..Felicia's. Ugh, again! I also see, to Felicia's left, two to my right, is Sammy, a dealer from the Riverside, with a huge stack of chips. I get stuck in the BB, almost all-in, with the premuim hand of 35o. Sammy limps in, as does the SB, and I check for a free flop: T38, all spades, the suit of my 5. So, I chuck in the last couple blacks I have and Sammy calls, SB folds. Couldn't be worse; he has the T for top pair, and a J of spades. River brings the 4th spade, and I do my first rebuy.

When I was in the cutoff, Sammy open-raises from 400 to 1000, and I look down to see 88. I know Sammy enough that I probably have the best hand, and if not, I need to double up anyway, so I go over the top all-in. Sammy calls and turns over 66. Better odds than I hoped. River brings a 6, I exclaim, "Sammy!"; Sammy just says, "You knew it was coming." Rebuy!

Once I get UTG, I have 2600; 2000 my rebuy got me, and 600 from getting the blinds when I raised with AQ. UTG I see ATo, not the most premium hand, but since other big stacks got moved to our table and the levels about to go up soon, I raise to from 400 to 1200, trying to gain some ground. Sammy calls from the SB and we see an A-high flop. He checks, I toss in the remainder of my chips, and he calls turning over AKo (even spikes a K on the river for good measure) and IGHN.

I could have done another rebuy, but I already was stuck enough for one day. Plus, if I stayed, I'd pretty much have to do the add-on, which was another $30. I saw that there was a ring game going and went to an open seat.

I guess I was steaming a little bit, because I tossed in 2 chips to see the flop with T5s, but I was aware enough that I was in late position and no one else had opened. The guy in the SB was one of the regulars that I've played with before, and the button, another. Both know my playing, and I'm probably mostly considered a rock. Flop comes AAK, BB checks, I toss in 2 (this is 2-6 _spread_ limit) and I get the pot. I love this game. Of course, I'm so up and down with it, I still do much better with online Draw. But sometimes the people are just so plain.

Two younger kids sit down and things start to change. About 5 limpers ahead of me and I see 42s. Call. Seven players to the flop. This is more what I'm used to for this game. We see a flop of 265, gets checked to me, and I bet the 6. The kid behind me folds and I get one caller, a calling station that likes to draw, and everyone else folds. Bonus! 9 on the turn and the calling station checks. I say, "I'll see if that flush comes first" and check behind. He smiles and checks an offsuit river card 7. I bet again with my big bottom pair and he folds ATs face-up, saying "you were right about the flush." Yeah, I know, thank you :)

As time goes on, the kid to my right starts raising a bit, eating into my stack and I start waiting for an opportunity to catch him. I'm on the button with 88 and limp. He makes it 6, again, from the BB, the few other limpers call, as do I. Flop is Jxx, kid bets, folds down to me on the button, and I raise him. No reraise, so I'm guessing he's betting a small pair again. He checks the turn and I bet out. He checks the river. I've seen him give up on the turn before when he thinks he's beat, so I just show my 88's. He turns over KJo. He raised about 4 people with that hand. Ugh. So, my read was right and wrong. I know he raises on meduim strength cards and I was good before the flop. With no reraise I didn't put him on the Jack, not until the call after the turn. That put a big dent in my stack.

I limp a couple other times, with no good results. I ended up calling a max raise once with 44, a hand I normally will muck for that max raise. This time, however, so many people called the raise, I actually had my 8-1 to pop a set! Amazing. No set.. on the flop. 4 was on the turn! Either way, two people got into a raising war on the river (shutting out the original raiser). Two boats: Queens full of 7's and Queen's full of 4's. Yes, two people played Q7 and Q4o for a full raise (meaning $8 preflop).

As the blind is starting to get to me, I see Felicia standing and find out that she busted from the tournament. She says she'd like to go when it gets to my blind, so I do something I have only done twice before in my 2 years of playing. I straddled. UTG, I placed 4 chips out preflop. I get 2 limpers, the BB completes to 4 and I look down to see...

THE HAMMER!

I chuckle and check to see a flop of...

J72 rainbow! BB checks, I chuck in 5 chips, they all fold and I get to show off my Hammer!

The dealer tries to correct me to say, "that's 'Waldo'" (the local term for the hand) and I just tell them that "The Hammer" is the online Blogger term for it. Not that they have any idea what a Blog is. But regardless, I had fun taking down my first pot that I had raised, even if it was dark, with the Hammer.

Can I join the club now?

Ah Brother!

2004-12-29T22:12:00.000-07:00

Ah, brother! I folded 33 on the flop and it would have won. No, no miracle 2 outer that would have given me the set…no. The pre-flop raiser was betting no pair, and the caller just had AJs, for Ace-high! In other words, any pair was good.

Geez, I’m going through a lot of this recently, don’t know about you other guys. As Felicia posted, we played live recently in Laughlin, and I had a ton of those situations from the 4/8 game. So much so, I left for my own sanity!

Posted behind the button with “Big Lick” (thanks, Richard!) 69o. I folded to a raise…would have cracked AA with 2 pair (in my defense on this one, it was a kill pot, it would have cost me 3 more SB’s (full-kill).
UTG I folded Q9s; would have had 2nd nut flush…54s of the same suit took down the huge pot.
69o again in BB, folded to raise…again, two pair (straight won though)
Folded 76s on button for…the straight flush, the mortal nuts.
I watched in awe as two people bet and raised the turn that would have brought it to me. Just a lowly straight won the pot, not even the Ace-high flush. No flush at all. Geez, what I pot I missed.

Sometimes I just feel like I’m too gosh-darn tight! In a tournament, we’re 2 away from the money, and I’m one of the 3 short stacks. I could try to ride them out, and hope that they don’t double up, or I can take a shot. I find AQ UTG and raise, UTG+1 cold called and UTG+2 3-bet! Oh brother, what did I step into? So I call to see the flop, T-high. I checked and the 3-bettor bet, of course, but now what do I do? Often, I’m more afraid of the guy in the middle; he cold-called my raise and then the 3-bet. If I call, I could get check-raised by the guy in the middle. So, I do the tight-thing and fold. What did the others have? BOTH had AJo, no pair on flop/turn/river. The cold-caller called down the 3-bettor, and I would have won the whole thing.

On a brighter note, I still made the money. I just want to, some day, be able to call down with more assurance; to be able to reach the bigger money. I’m always in on the small payouts.

Of course, being on a bad run, currently, doesn’t help. It’s amazing when you play a ton of poker, the big hands that you get at times and can still be down.

Omaha 8 or better, sometimes there are 7 or 8 people to see the flop. So I limped in, even though mid-position, with 5332 double suited. Hey, I can make a straight flush! And, I did! Turned the 6-high straight flush. Get bet into, beautiful, and I raise. Capped on the river. Do I see the Ace-high flush? Nope, A3 for the nut low. Nut low?? And he’s capping it with me? I could have had the flush AND A3 and three-quartered him! Dummy. So, big hand, but what did it matter? On the turn and river, it was just the two of us, and we split it.

Dealt pat full boat twice in the last two days in Draw high. Both times I limped in. Once, I did get raised and I was able to reraise and get a call post. The other, it was just me and the blind. Who, of course, check-folded after I stood pat.

Felicia keeps telling me that I can’t always win. Yes, true, there is variance in poker and that’s what makes the games good. There will be those times that the suckers out draw you. Like the dude that was playing every pair, every draw, and twice and get 555 dealt to me, and both times he got his 2 outer to beat me. He’s so passive that he doesn’t raise post with his trips, he doesn’t know if he’s good or not, just calls, calls, calls… It can be frustrating.

However, I did book over $1000 over the last 4 weeks, so I should be happy.
:-D <<-- See? Happy smile! This with only one good session at the casinos (during the Blogger sessions…you can read previous posts for that one). Meaning that about 80% of that was all done on my grinding at $1/2 Draw and $0.50/1 Omaha 8. I hardly played any NLHE this month. Took a break. So, if you’re having a frustrating time…those fishies outdrawing you time and again…take heart! You are not alone! Hehe. Just ride it out. It all evens out in the end. Take care all, and God bless!

How about a show of support?

2004-12-21T13:07:00.000-07:00

OK, Felicia is getting raked over the coals for providing the same candid journal that everyone has always been gratefull for.. So where's the show of support?

Before she started posting her own webpage, she had posted periodic tournament and cardroom reports and opinions on certain forums. So many people liked it that they asked her to post in this forum and that forum as well. "Can I put your story up on my website? It was just so good I want to share!" This is the type of response that she would get. Finally, one of the bloggers got her to do her own page so that she wouldn't have to be transferring her reports and stories all over from one place to the next. This she did for the readers, not for herself.

Time and again she gets flamed for stating her mind on her own personal journal, which she started for her readership, not just for her. How about some of you people that really enjoy the candid opinions letting her know? She considering stopping. I'm sure some of the readers that can't take her straight-forward, no-holds-barred approach would probably love it, even though you'll hate it at the same time. For those that would hate to see her stop, please tell her! Let her know how much you appreciate the blog. She took down comments, but you can still email her (she just posted her addy) and let her know that you'd like to continue to see her work.

Oh, yeah, now I remember!

2004-12-15T09:52:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Joe and Joe from lasvegasvegas.com for providing pictures!!! The ol', "Oh yeah, I remember that..." was happening a lot via the pics. Great to have an event captured for future prosperity.. ok, not prosperity, more like, "A what tournament? Sonny, speak up, the hearing aids are already turned up. Oh, yeah, I recall those days, he he."

OK, first up, I'm not sure if anyone else posted about it, but the blogger to the far right, GRob, was the first to drop the hammer during the tournament! Need I say he didn't cash? Just joking :-P It was fun, though.

It was the first hand. I believe I was UTG and folded. Badblood was next and limped (AT he told me after the hand, limping in early position? -grin-), Bill was next and also limped. Then, our hero raises to 350! Remember this was first hand, blinds at 25/50. Everyone folded and, after the dealer pushed him the pot, he turns up his cards: 72o. The table goes nuts and he gets up to take a bow :)

The following picture shows Hank, Grubby and Joe (respectively). This picture reminds me that I never got to meet Grubby. I didn't even know he was there until he got busted out of the tournament and he was headed to the pit with Eva, Al's wife.

Looking at the pictures, I know now why I never got a chance to meet Grubby. Felicia and I got to meet and talk with Marcel Luske. He was talking to us about how so many tournaments don't give you enough play (either too little chips, too little time, or both).

What I also remember is that he kept talking, and talking... giving examples, etc of how you can't "play" if you have no chips. OK, Marcel, I get the point.

Can you see in the distance in this one? He's still talking... I'm looking for a way out...how did Felicia escape? Help!

Finally! Maudie to the rescue :-D Thanks Maudie!

As you can see, now Marcel has Maudie in his grasp... sorry Maudie!

[Now, I hope you all know that I was just making fun ;) I had a great time talking with Marcel; discussing issues just like I was one of the other pros -- like I'll ever be to his level (but I will darn well try! :) ]

I thought that this was a good pic of Felicia and me as we listened to the speakers.

I even asked a couple questions:

Pauly came up after the talks, gently touched my shoulder, and said, "Great questions, Glenn", then walked away. Um, thanks Pauly, Mr. PR. You're going to be a manager one day, I can tell ;-)

Here we see Maudie all-in with AK (must have taken Marcel's talk to heart ;) and Badblood behind her massaging her shoulders.

Or was he really? Trying to give her support? Or trying to strangle her for folding that 72o the hand before... just look at that shirt:

Oh yeah, then there was Al.. raising my blind. He says "200" and puts in 400 in chips. I called for the floor. No offense Al, I haven't even looked at what I've got, it might not even be worth a min raise, but I'll get in for the cheap if I can :-D

I thought that was a good shot of me at the poker table... trying to stare down the competition so that I might be able to decide what to do when the action got to me. Then I saw this picture... do I look like I'm pregnant or what?? (Yes, that's me in the one seat.)

Finally, we have the picture of Felicia and Pauly, after he presented her with the cowboy hat that was a bonus award to the winner. I didn't post this pic for that though... I posted it because of Pauly's shirt! Get a load of that thing! It's a good thing you were in Vegas, probably the only place they'd forgive you for wearing something like that (hehehehe).

Alrighty then! Enough busting :) We all had great fun, if you couldn't tell.

Thanks again to Pauly for putting together this great time, and to Joe and Joe for the pictures!! It's great to be able to look back remember all the fun we had.

I coulda been a contenda

2004-12-13T09:36:00.000-07:00

Bad beat ahead... be forewarned! LOL

I'm posting this after reading Wired Aces' post "It would be different if I got outplayed..."

I'm doing well with my strategy for my freerolls, cashing in 2 of 4 last night, one of them being the $500 one for those with 500 raked hands for the week. I got $20 for my efforts of reaching the final table, and getting out drawn with the best hand, of course, why else would I be in the hand? ;-)

Now if this guy didn't know what I had, which from his play it really seems he didn't, then he really deserves the title I gave:

#Game No : 1294349705
***** Hand History for Game 1294349705 *****
Hold'em Trny:7852153 Level:13 Stakes (1500/3000) - Sunday, December 12, 23:26:56 EDT 2004
Table $500 Freeroll(159780) Table #1 (Real Money)
Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players : 8
Seat 1: Seat 1 ( $28260 )
Seat 3: Seat 3 ( $1630 )
Seat 4: Seat 4 ( $26970 )
Seat 5: Hero ( $22746 )
Seat 6: Seat 6 ( $33603 )
Seat 7: Seat 7 ( $16592 )
Seat 8: Seat 8 ( $11283 )
Seat 10: Moron ( $25916 )
Trny:7852153 Level:13
Stakes (1500/3000)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hero [ Ad Ah ]
Seat 6 folds.
Seat 7 folds.
Seat 8 folds.
Moron raises [3000].
Seat 1 folds.
Seat 3 folds.
Seat 4 calls [2250].
Hero raises [3000].
Moron raises [3000].
Seat 4 calls [3000].
Hero calls [1500].
** Dealing Flop ** [ 6d, 8h, 5d ]
Seat 4 checks.
Hero bets [1500].
Moron raises [3000].
Seat 4 folds.
Hero raises [3000].
Moron calls [1500].
** Dealing Turn ** [ 3d ]
Hero bets [3000].
Moron calls [3000].
** Dealing River ** [ 2d ]
Hero bets [3000].
Moron raises [6000].
Hero raises [6000].
Moron raises [6000].
Hero is all-In.
Moron shows [ 4d, 4c ] a straight flush, six high.
Hero shows [ Ad, Ah ] a flush, ace high.
Player Hero finished in 8 place and received $20
Moron wins 2754 chips from side pot #1 with a straight flush, six high.
Moron wins 51492 chips from the main pot with a straight flush, six high.
Hero has left the table.

The day before the blogger tournament

2004-12-12T13:52:00.000-07:00

The day before the blogger tournament, Felicia and I made our way to Vegas early, as we combined the trip to take our Yorkie to the vet to get his teeth cleaned. Plus, the specialist that previously performed a throat surgery on Dax stated that he would find time to come over and check out his progress.

After dropping off Dax, we headed to Excalibur to check out if anyone was there yet. We found our way to Luxor and we started meeting people. Mas, we found playing 2/4, I think. Was fun talking to him and watch him folding, lol. We hung out for a little, knowing that some people stated that they were going to play the noon tourney at Luxor. Eventually, Badblood and Otis came in and we chatted for a little.

As their tourney was starting, Felicia and I ended up going to Bellagio after finding out that there were games we wanted to play going (there was 15/30 and 20/40 stud and three 2/5 NLHE games :). Once there, Felicia mingled to say “hi” to all the tournament players that she knew while I put my name on lists. We both were able to get into games fairly quickly (although I ended up in a 1-5 stud since there was a long list for 8/16 HE and 2/5 NLHE). We both found our games too tight (probably just too early in the day) and ended up leaving.

Eventually, we headed back to Excalibur and there we found everyone from Luxor, plus a few more arrivals: Pauly, Al, Mrs. Can’t Hang, and a few friends that people somehow roped into coming out. I was able to get into a 1/2 NLHE game and Felicia joined, hoping that we’d be able to somehow arrange for a strictly blogger table. I got a list set up for Omaha 8 and was able to get Excalibur to change their normal limits of 4/8 to 2/4, since most were not O8 players and just wanted to play for fun.

In the meantime, Felicia and I were tearing up the NLHE game. Those low-limit games can be really profitable if you can get some cards and hit some hands. I had AJs in the BB that held up with an A on board and a caller to the river. Felicia got pocket KK’s and, after raising to $15 or $20 pre-flop, got FOUR callers. She just shoved in on the flop and got a caller and doubled up. After seeing her get so many callers, when I found AA after a couple limpers, I made it $30 to go. I actually got one caller, who I found out later was “Big Mike”, Al’s friend, who ended up putting the last of his money in with AJo. Big Mike had suffered a hit earlier, losing with AA to a pair of Queens on the flop that eventually tripped up and he couldn’t get away from his hand. I also was able to see a cheap flop when I limped UTG with 33 and no one raised. I got a set on the flop of 3J8 and thought to myself, “OK, I don’t want a 7 or Q on the turn to complete a straight.” I over bet the pot (I think 20), knowing that people cannot lay down hands and got 2 callers. Turn, Queen. Ugh. I checked, one guy bet 25, the other called, and I called hoping to fill on the river. Some off-suit, non-pairing rag on the river and we both check-called another 25 from the same player. Turn/river bettor turned over AJo for the flopped TPTK and the other guy wouldn’t show. I tried to get him to show since I was last to act, but I didn’t want to cause too much of a stink and tabled my set. Non-shower said, “nice hand”, and mucked.

I did have one hand that didn’t hold up for me. I got AJo on the button and limped after several others. Jxx on the flop and someone bet out a nickel. With TPTK, I raised to 30. The nickel guy tried to toss in his last few single chips, but since he tried to go back for it after the call, the dealer wouldn’t allow it. I asked him how much, and I tossed in the extra 6 to put him all-in on the turn. He turned over AJs; I tabled my AJo and said, “nice hand”. Then I saw he had AdJd, and the turn had improved him to 4-flush. The river filled him in for the nut flush and I was very glad he was short-stacked. Note to beginning players: don’t leave yourself short! I pretty much always top-up if I get short. I will over buy and stick any extra chips (if the buy-in is limited) in my pockets so that I can add them to my stack later just in case.

After a few big all-in hands in a relatively short time span, large chunks of chips moving from one person to another, usually leaving one of them bust, the game started to sober up. Felicia said, “This game is dying, let’s get up at our blinds.”

I think after we got up, we went up to Krispy Kreme, as Felicia had promised Al a “tour”. I said, “What, are you going to do a ‘Vanna White’ in front of the window [where they show them making the donuts]?” When we got there, the machine was shut down, so Al said that he’d buy all the glazed they had to get the machine cranked up again. Then, I pointed out the trays and trays they had lined up, all filled with glazed donuts - all prepared for late Friday night in Vegas munches. Al: “oh, never mind.” Al ended up getting two-dozen plus one glazed (one to eat ASAP) and picked up the chocolate one that Felicia took a tiny nibble of on our way back (since they still don’t have the sugar-free donuts yet).

After we got back, Al was smoking on the rail and munching on his Krispy Kreme with Big Mike, and sharing more with others. Al really wanted to give Omaha a try so I kept going up and getting a “status” on the list. They finally got it started when I assured them that all the players that I found among our group that I had added to the list were indeed there at the time and would move to start the game. We finally got it going, completed with two locals, to make a full 10-handed game. We had fun swooshing the money around. With it being only 2/4, I’m hoping that no one got too hurt. I believe Al actually ended up in the game :).

At the start of the game, one lady had sat down, I think realized she was in the wrong game, and left. Another lady filled this empty seat, but this one got us going. During this point in time, we were expecting Maudie at any moment. Felicia remarked that the new arrival could fit the description we had for her and wouldn’t it be funny if that was Maudie pulling a fast one on us; just sitting down at our game without introducing herself. Well, she neither said, “yes, I’m Maudie”, nor, “no, I’m not, now shut up about it”—grin--but we did have a good laugh with her… While at the table, Al was downing SoCo shots. Once, upon getting a refill, set it down on the table that was sitting between him and the lady. All of a sudden the lady starts turning purple, exclaiming that she was sorry but she just drank Al’s drink accidentally; all the while fanning herself after the unexpected hot liquor was coarsing down her throat! She laughed along with us and Al gave her the rest of his water, “don’t worry about it, here, drink this.”

Felicia was trying to organize a group sushi dinner while we were playing, but only ended up getting me, Al, his wife, Evie (?), and Big Mike to go with us. We needed to get out that way as it was to pick up Dax from the vet. We picked up Dax, who was pronounced healthy and doing well by the specialist, and now with clean teeth! I had Dax on my lap in the back seat and was preparing Evie (sitting next to me) for a terrier onslaught, when Dax hopped over onto her lap! Felicia and I remarked that the anesthesia must still be working in him, lol. He even went to Al’s lap. Now we _knew_ we had a drugged up little puppy!

We finally got to the restaurant and had a time gorging ourselves on tons of sushi from the all-you-can-eat menu :) We chatted it up and had a great time. There was even a drunken party of old ladies there doing shots and banging on their tables. It was hilarious. Al very generously took the bill and wouldn’t accept anything from me for Felicia and I…thanks again Al!

After dinner, we dropped everyone back off at Excalibur so that we could check in to our hotel, get the puppy settled, and rest ourselves up for the tournament the next day. We pretty much crashed once we got into our room at Travelodge. We had had a blast and couldn’t wait to meet the rest of the crew and play the tourney :)

[See the previous post for details of the tournament.]

Pics from blogger tourney and some hands (edited)

2004-12-11T21:12:00.000-07:00

OK, I suck at taking pictures!! LOL, so they didn't all turn out.. either out of focus or I moved too much when taking them.. so, of the 17 pics I took, here are only 8 that are really worthy of airing:

Before the tournament, we all met in a conference room to chat, have some bagels and coffee and listen to a couple of the pro's. I tried to take pics of them speaking, but I have a cheapo camera and no zoom.. prolly find some good pics on lasvegasvegas.com at some point in the future.

Here, however, is a good one with Mas (Poker Genius) and Felicia:

Once we went down to the poker room, I found myself next to Badblood and Bill:

Then "Mystery Man" and Linda:

Down table from me was Otis and Al:

You can also tell that I was in the 1 seat from this pic and, therefore, didn't have a clear pic of the other two in the 9 and 10 (and I'm sorry, I forget who was there :p )

On that first table, I really only got one good hand, JJ, that I ended up having to fold after the flop. I raised in late position to T400 (T50/T100 blinds), and Boy Genius min reraised to T800. I figured I was up against a higher pocket pair, so I just called and hoped to flop a set. Flop of Kxx had us both checking the flop and turn. He finally bet the river and I mucked, just happy for the free cards to try to out run him. {Unless he was just blowing smoke, he told me - after we were both out - that he had QQ during that hand.}

After that hand, it got folded to me again and I found suited Varkonyi and kinda tilt-raised; successfully stealing the blinds.

Al took me off of a chopper. Linda, finding really no good hands, shoved all-in with 66 UTG. Al debated and debated and finally went all-in over the top with AQo. Not really wanting to battle two all-in's, I mucked AKs. Badblood then goes over the top of both with KK. WOW, what a hand. Then Al about triples through when he spikes one of the two remaining Aces. I would have chopped, as the final board was TTATx; we both would have had T's full of A's.

I got a free play from the BB later with K5o. Flop of 234, I potted it after the SB checked, and they folded to me. My last hand I played at that table, I believe I stole the BB from Badblood with A7o.

At the new table, I found myself in about the cutoff seat, which was fine with me as I would have been button next on my last table. I folded, folded, folded. UTG I found AQs. Hmmm, I really hate this hand. I felt I debated too long and that people would know I'm not that strong and finally folded. Then I berated myself that I was "too tight, too tight, too tight!" Max was talking around and I told him to hit me or something, I just folded AQs cause I was UTG. He said, "You folded AQs?? I don't want to talk to you no more", and walked away. LOL!

I was raised off my BB and then on my SB, it was raised again and I went all-in with 77. The pair held up vs. A4s and I doubled through. Towards late position, it was raised UTG, folded to me to find TT. The guy was pretty tight and I hadn't seen him raise much so I kind of studied him. Once before I saw him raise and he was just about hyperventilating; yet this time he wasn't. I felt he wasn't as strong, so I went over the top all-in. He called, turned over AQo. My TT stood up and I now had some chips :) Which was good, as I didn't have anything else for quite a while.

At the final table, I took a chunk outta Hank (I kinda forgot about pics at this point ;) when I went to steal his blind with A7o; he defended with A6o, and with too many low cards on the board, the 7 kicker played. After that, I got no hands (ok, I stole the blinds one time with AJo ;) until it got down to 5-handed (in the money) and I got folded to in late position with A9s. As the blinds were T1K/T2K and I had T10K, any raise would commit me, so I just shoved all-in. Max Pescatori found AKo in the BB and quickly called me. His AK stood and IGHN {I-go-home-now}, cashing for $80 :p

After I got knocked out, the other short stack, Steve Hall finally got finished off and it was up to Felicia, Max and Julie:

Julie had a lot of chips at one point, but I think she was over her head a little against both Felicia and Max; she had tough competition with two really experienced players to go up against. Finally it was just Felicia and Max. They battled back and forth...

Max was the first to try to put Felicia all-in:

Then Max tried to limp in the SB, Felicia returned the favor going all-in herself:

Knowing that it would just be a crap shoot from there, Max and Felicia agreed to a chop of $450 each (1st was $600, 2nd $310); and they played for bragging rights and the final $10, shoving all-in on the last hand: Felicia with K7s and Max calling, finding AJo in the BB. Felicia ended up turning a 7 and told Max not to look, it was all over:

A great time was had by all.. a big thanks to Pauly for getting it all together!!

On our way!

2004-12-10T09:15:00.000-07:00

OK, we're on our way to Vegas for the blogger tourney!! :)

Seriously this time...

"OK, let's go thru this again... got the bags?"
"Check"
"..got the bankroll?"
"Check"
"..got the bath stuff?"
"Check... wait! I need my pillow.. you know I can't sleep without my pillow!"
"OK, get your pillow.......

OK, one more time.. we got the bags...."

And now for an "intellegent post"

2004-12-07T14:00:00.000-07:00

So after I got through posting all the pictures, I laughed and said, “I know, stupid post”. Felicia just sits there and says, “I could put you down, but I’m not going to”. Hmm, does that mean she’d like to? Hehe.

Therefore, I endeavor to create an intelligent post!

I’ve currently been reading a book that I found in a local bookstore chain. I, of course, put the book back on the shelf and searched online and was able to find the book for 1/3 of the cover price :-D. Once I finally got it, I was able to read my new (slightly used) book called “A Tour of the Calculus”, by David Berlinski, a fellow Pol.. {Why he insists on always calling it the calculus is beyond me, but he does it throughout the entire book.}

The major thing that interested me about the book is the writing. The New Your Times has a quote on the cover from a review: “Playful, witty, highly literate… a wonderful and enlightening book.” That’s the book, pretty much to the tee!

To give you an example, here is a quote that I was reciting to Felicia on our way to the car after the bookstore visit: “An irresistible inference is in conflict with an inescapable fact [Zeno’s diamond-bright little argument serving to invest the ordinary with a lurid aspect of the impossible].”

Zeno is a Greek from the 5th Century B.C. that argued to cross a room you must first cross 1/2 of the room, then 1/2 of that, and so on. In this manner, crossing by halves, you will never get to the other side. Interesting argument, but as the author points out, given infinite time, we’ll pretty well be there. Reminds me of a day in high school math class where one of the class clowns was goofing off as usual. Our teacher at the time, Mr. Seymour (old school, down to the crew cut and plastic, black rimmed glasses) was talking about some fractional progression that was very similar. He told our class clown that if he went and got a basketball from the gym and let it bounce on the floor that it would never stop bouncing, since it was always bouncing a fractional amount less each time. Well, the kid jumped right up and headed for the door saying something like, “I’ll go get one!”

Ah, Mr. Seymour. He was one of my favorite teachers. I recall one time I didn’t do the homework (math came so easy to me, I didn’t always bother to do it… most the time doing it during class) and he asked me to do a problem on the board. Duh! Well, I got up there and started doing a Pooh Bear since I forgot the formula to use: “think, think, think…” Eventually, I figured if I couldn’t remember the formula, I’d have to recreate it, because I knew he wouldn’t let me go back to my seat until I tried something. I ended up reproving the formula in a round-a-bout way, solving the problem and somehow knowing it was correct. After I got to my seat I saw him looking at the unorthodox method I took to solve the problem. He just nodded and said, “It’s the manipulation of numbers, Bagrowski.” That’s been one of my favorite quotes ever since.

But I digress (-grin-). Back to the book…

He, David Berlinski, starts talking about the natural numbers and how they go on forever, and how could you conceive of “forever” without thinking of the natural numbers? But, ah, there’s a problem with the natural numbers. Addition and multiplication work just fine, but what about subtraction? Say if you try to take 5 items away from a group that only consists of those same 5? Natural numbers begin at 1! Of course, now you have nothing, but what is that nothing called? “It required an act of profound intellectual audacity to assign a name and hence a symbol to all that nothingness. Nothing, Nada, Zip, Zero, 0.” I just cracked up over that statement: “…profound intellectual audacity…” LOL!

This sets the stage for discussion of negative numbers. Then fractions. I feel like he’s going to make sure to start from stage one to get all the way to calculus (sorry David, the calculus). Which I suppose is just as well, I’ve forgotten so much since high school and college.

Yes, I was geek enough that I took calculus in high school (ok, “pre”-calculus). It allowed me to breeze through my college calculus courses. Having only qualified to skip 2 of the 4 calculus courses that I had to take for Computer Engineering, I opted to start right at the beginning. I was able to talk my mother into this (since she was paying for my college at this point) and she knew that I could skip the first two, by postulating that I might need an easy course or two to help ease myself into college. Boy, I was right.

Of course, by the end of my 2nd year, it wasn’t college that was the problem; it was my blind drive for women. Having attended an all boys high school, and not being the most social of people, girls were just wonderfully plentiful and beautiful and, well, you know ;) It’s not that I never dated. I actually had a girlfriend in my Sr. year. I just never had any nookie! Now I was trying to catch up. Stupid. I ended up having to drop out of that college and go to the community college instead… where I ended up majoring in pool (billiards). Such a misspend youth. And now here I am playing poker!

Since I seem to have turned this “intelligent post” into nostalgic recollections, I’ll cut off my ramblings right here! Let me just end by saying, if you enjoy mathematics (perhaps you were a geek like me ;) I highly recommend this book, “A Tour of the Calculus”, by David Berlinski. He’s got a great sense of humor and an affinity with word play. And besides, he’s Polish!

Take care, God bless.

Another Stupid Pet Pic

2004-12-07T10:24:00.000-07:00

OK, we now own a cheap digital camera and I've been taking pictures of Felicia and the dogs. So, since I don't post much, may I submit the following into the current silence (-grin-)

introspective truvy

head banger

another stupic pet pic

that's my baby!

yes, I'm this boring

What do you want from me? I'm he one taking all the pics!!

Online Freeroll Strategy

2004-12-01T11:14:00.000-07:00

Felicia mentioned something about my getting in the money a large percentage of the time on freerolls and it was requested that I post something of my strategy. Well, I don’t have any guidelines that I strictly adhere to, but I’ll give some pointers of things that I do and look for. I don’t feel that I have any earth shattering advice for many people, but perhaps some of what I do needs to be repeated to pound into the brain ;)

(Disclaimer: remember this is for the NLHE freerolls that I play; this may or may not help you in pay and/or limit tournaments, but I don’t play any pay ones online—only live—so I don’t have any experience to know if it works.)

Beginning of the tournament: Notice who is actually playing, and who is sitting out, having signed up, then forgotten about the tournament. Sometimes it is over 50%.

This is where experimentation starts. Most people are playing a little cautiously and trying to figure everyone else out. Take advantage of this and play a little looser. I don’t mean become a maniac, but marginal/speculative hands will have much more value. Additionally, if you miss, since most people are being cautious, they may not necessarily call you down either. Bet those draws, semi-bluff, do all the tricks until you start getting called down. I’ve had tables with other bluffers, who, of course don’t believe anyone else either, and have had to stop this technique right away. I suppose I could be like a lot of the others and play conservatively, folding, folding, and see how the others play first. However, using this “first strike” method, I have been able to build up chips a majority of the time for later. Conversely, this method has led to a quick ‘out-the-door’… remember I’m playing freerolls, so for me, nothing invested, nothing lost.

Once the blinds start going up, usually around the 3rd level, it’s time to start tightening the play. Opponents that you have been playing with might get confused with this as well; it’s always a good thing to confuse your competition. They’ve seen you play more hands and now you’re not. You might get more calls from these people. Many freeroll players are completely unaware, however; so don’t expect to throw off too many people.

Now that you’re playing tighter, the newer people (as many are going to be getting bumped out) are watching you play tighter. When you’re in a hand, they’re going to believe you. Yes, once again, these are freerolls and there are going to be a ton of people who don’t believe you, but heck even pay tournaments have those people, so no surprise here. However, most of the time you’ll be able to steal in later positions with weaker values. Just keep in mind who you’re trying it against. As part of the tighter play, I will NOT try to steal from a chip leader, not unless I really have something (e.g. ATo in the cut-off).

If you go for a steal, you must follow this up with a bet on the flop. I’m assuming here that you realize that by “steal” I mean that you were in a last position (button or 1 to 2 from the button) and no one else has come in; therefore, you should be-—preferably-—HU with the big blind (ok, preferably, you bought the blinds no contest, hehe), at most vs. two others. If you have more than two opponents in the hand with you on a steal attempt and miss the flop, do NOT bet. Hopefully you still have last position and if they check to you, check behind and take the free card. If you raised with a weak ace, get your ace on the flop, bet and get called… proceed with caution! Remember that it takes a better hand to call a raise than to make a bet. Unless you’ve watched your calling opponent turn over very weak hands, you don’t want to be betting a weak ace when it’s entirely possible that you’re beat. Don’t try to “bet” your opponent off his hand. You raised in late position, most people are much more suspicious of a raise from late position.

OK, betting. I stated that you must bet your steal on the button regardless considering that the above conditions were met. Now, say those conditions are met, how do you bet? The same way you always do. This means that if you’re the type of person that, if you have a monster hand, you bet bigger than the rest of the time, it’s time to change! I played some poker with my nephew this past Thanksgiving and he was hilarious… checking when he had nothing, betting just a little with weak hands, all-in when he had a good-great hand. Every time that he bet big, I just folded (to his credit, he started to realize this, but too late, I had most the chips ;). Too many people do this in their normal play. The reverse is also true, going all-in on a draw or when they’re weak. I’ve seen so many people with a premium pair < AA check-raise all-in when an ace hits the flop. What?? Check-raising ties a player to the hand; you’ve gotten them to commit chips, which normally keeps them IN. I much prefer leading out if I’ve raised, see the resulting action and take it from there.

Later play: Towards the end of the tournament I’m normally average to short-stacked. I am rarely the chip lead with my more conservative play. This may not be for most people, but after spending an hour to accumulate chips in the early stages, I don’t want to blow them by still playing loosely and end up spending that time for nothing. During the later stages I try to hang on and get into the money. If I’m short stacked, there’s really nothing else to do but go all-in if I have a good hand. There’s really no other way to protect it. If I have average chips or better, raising is the better play. Example: the other night I had average chips in the middle of the tournament. I’m in UTG (under-the-gun, first to act) with AQs and have been playing tightly. Although a group II hand, I’m not going to throw this away. I thought, heck, I might just steal the blinds with this one (if people saw how tight I was, and here I am raising… unless they have a great hand, they’re not calling). Well, this one guy that hardly ever raised went all-in for more chips than I had, and a short-stack called. Easy muck, even without the short-stack calling. I had observed the all-in player and he had only shoved before with high wired pairs. This time around he had AKo, not exactly the correct play in my thinking, but I was right in knowing that I was beat (interestingly, the short-stack had AQo… no ace, no queen dealt, I would have been out).

Once again, I just raised with my AQs so that I could have the luxury to be able to fold should someone go over the top of me. I did raise because you don’t want someone in there with a weak hand out flopping you, or chasing a straight/flush to run you down. This is a tournament; you still want to limit the field. (Another example of bad tournament play: I’m shorter stacked later on and I have JJ on the button… several limpers to me, no raise, so I shove. Caller? Early limper with KK. Flop? Axx. If I had NOT shoved, he would have allowed someone with a weak ace to out flop him. Do NOT slow play, especially in early positions.)

Sklansky: Yes, I often Sklansky my way into the money. This means that I if I’m short-stacked and close to the money, but not in it yet, I will still fold marginal hands like small pairs and weak aces (AT, AJ, sometimes AQ) in early position. Heck, if I’m close enough, I might fold it in last position, even if I’m in position to steal! This is providing I have enough chips to out last the shorter stacks. My first priority is to get in the money. If I’ve gotten this far, I don’t want to blast myself out after spending 2-3 hours getting this close. Now if you’re really short and you are in steal position, you HAVE to go all-in with those marginal hands (first to open) or else you blind yourself out, you’re that short. There’s a time and a place, monkey*!

“First to open” brings up a point I don’t think many realize. You have to be first to open (i.e. to steal with a marginal hand short-stacked) depending on your stack size, opponent’s stack size, etc. If you have a limper or more, that’s more money in the pot for it to get “protected”. If the pot’s big enough, someone might call you down for the value that they’re getting based on the pot size, regardless of how tight you might be and now here you are shoving all-in. Even if you have AA and shoving is the right move, since there are a number of people that have limped, one or more people might still call with all the money in the pot from the limping.

Once I’m in the money, I play more aggressively. I’m getting paid, that was my first goal (and the point of the tournament). Now I want to be paid more :-D All-in’s are more frequent for me. I want to get higher in the money, and the only way to do that is to build chips. If I’m already average or above in chips, then I play more cautiously, but as I stated, I normally am not at this stage.

I hope this helps. I have a vet appointment for our Dax-a-monkey so I must go now.

[* ask Felicia –grin- ]

Sklansky vs. Hit and Run

2004-11-28T13:09:00.000-07:00

Someone asked me why I hit and run when I’m a Sklansky reader/believer. Meaning that many times I talk about making some money then getting out of the game. Why don’t I stay if the game is good?

Well, this hit & run is done online, not live. There are differences in online play. There is much more turnover in online play; so much so that it makes online tables look like a revolving door compared to live. In live play, unless the table is bad, you pretty much stay where you are. You get to know the players and how they bet. Online, you might not play with the same players for long enough. And if you do, it usually seems the looser ones go bust so fast and leave that now that information is moot.

I’ve tried sitting and playing for hours online, however for me, I seem to make less and less. Who knows, maybe it’s undiagnosed A.D.D. –grin-. Or the people that DO stay also get to know my play and won’t give me action. Either way, I find it better for me personally. To each his own.

Touring Arizona - Part 2

2004-11-18T01:14:00.000-07:00

The next day Felicia and I went to the Biosphere II. It was really neat to see the place and take the tour. $20 was a little high, but we both really enjoyed it. After hitting Red Lobster, we went back to the Desert Diamond.

I started out playing 3/6 again. I made a mistake of calling early position with a small pocket pair during a kill pot. I didn't realize the kill was on and after I called, late position raised and I had to call that. Then I get a straight draw with the pair and now I'm stuck to the river. I ended up having to muck to the river bet, I was pretty sure the raiser was wired, and I was right. There was an all-in player in the hand and I got to see the showdown: QQ. I ended the table almost even when AK stood up.

Then I got called to $3/6 Omaha. Felicia, since there was no Stud being played, ended up playing in this game. She said it was good, so I tried it out. I got so few hands that when they called the list to open a 6/12 table, I couldn't rack my chips fast enough. Yeah, it was a good game, but I was getting no playable hands.

At this $6/12 table, oh my! It was great! There were two ATC players. One had bought in for 2 racks from the get-go (they use $2 chips for the $6/12 game, so he bought in for $400)! Once again, I was getting no cards though. I did make a good isolation play that brought me up a few chips. 88 in early position. Mr Two-Racks raises UTG (I saw him raise _limpers_ with ATo) so I reraised. My tight image did not go unnoticed, and I get the desired effect of heads-up. He bet the flop and I raised, he reraised, I capped. K on turn, he checks, I check. K on river; check-check and MHIG. Not long after this, the game broke as people started to head to their tournament table.

I ended up finding out that the first 5 rounds were played LIMIT and then the rest of the tournament was NL! HUH? Weird. Felicia wanted to cash out right then, but they wouldn't let us.... we already paid. Felicia ended up doubling up rather fast. Yes, during the limit portion! Can you say "bad tournament players"? My table was a bit more aggressive. I get AA and I had someone capping it on ME! Of course, 74o took down the pot. I am now at one win for the last 7 times I held AA. Did I mention it was capped preflop? As I said, "bad tournament players".

Then I get AKo taken down. Flopped a K, but someone else flopped a set. With another AK in the hand with me, the pot was bet hard. I ended up having to take a rebuy (I didn't have to do one the previous tournament). Before the first break, I got AKo that stood up and I had some chips again. Then, last hand before the break, I have QQ in the SB, the BB reraises all-in, and Mr 74o caps; limp-reraising. I catch a Q on the flop and am all-in by the river, which paired the board and I double through again. Chip and a chair baby!

Later in the tournament, someone shoves all-in with AQo and I end up with KK on the button and reraise all-in. AQ has almost as many chips as me and I almost double up when he gets no help. Now I have 6000T and pretty much sit on them. I try to steal the BB when I'm SB, but both times the BB ends up going all-in. What am I going to do with 85s for 2000T more? Muck, that's what ;-)

I go for a steal in late position with ATo and get reraised all-in by a short stack. Fortunately it's not much more for me to call and I get shown a worse Ace. He gets no help and I add back to my stack.

Finally, I get to the final table! This is the first time for me in a while.. final table in a live tournament (not counting satellites; remember I made the final table during a WPPA super multitable satellite).

Did well. Made steals with good cards. AT, AQ. One time I got AQ, someone else had the same hand and we chopped the SB (he was BB).

Then the killer happened. I was BB and the SB thought he'd try to steal my blind. I woke up with KK and reraised all-in. He looks at me and says something like, "I really have a hand", and then he sees my KK and groans, tabling his AJo. Yes, he got his Ace on the river. This left me with almost no chips (Mr Ace-Jack-off just doubled through no too long before the hand and had almost as many chips as I).

With blinds at 1000/2000, I ended up shoving in with K7s and I got called by the BB. He ALSO had K7s. Would you believe the flop was K7x?? Amazing. So I end up chopping the SB with the BB. 'woo hoo' (lower case intentional -grin-) Once the BB got back to me, I called the SB raise blind to find KQo. SB tables JTs. I flop a King, he flops a flush draw... and of course, he got there. However, I got 5th place money, about double what I put into the tourney, making it even for Felicia and I.

Ah well. I had fun and was happy with my play. The current chip lead was very aggressive and I felt like I could take him out if I could trap him enough if those KK's would have held. Such is poker.

Again, I was happy with my play. I had so many good reads on the players. I could usually tell when the people behind me had a hand and when they didn't. They always looked at their cards first. Sometimes holding chips when they were going to raise. Some of the older people holding them to stop others from raising. One of the young guys to my left would shuffle his chips or tap the table when he was going to muck; hand over the cards to protect when he was playing/raising. I pretty much knew when I could steal and when I couldn't, but I always made sure to have something; worst I ever had was Q9s on the button.

As long as I have a good structure (like the non-doubling all the time and 20 minute levels), I know that I can do well. I look forward to entering more in the future. I'll keep you posted on results ;-)

Touring Arizona - Part 1

2004-11-17T10:05:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've posted. Mostly I have just been grinding it out online, which is really not as interesting as live play, so haven't felt the need or desire to post anything about it. I suppose I could vent on how my AA's and KK's have been cracked (even after flopping sets), but you're not here to hear me whine... at least I doubt it.

Most recently, Felicia and I have been traveling around Arizona. Felicia did a lot of touring of the state looking for a house before we both moved. I was still in West Virginia at the time taking care of selling the house. Now, Felicia decided that I needed to see some of the state that we're living in. Plus, visit some of the casinos that I've not been to along the way. Bonus! :-D

First stop was Casino Arizona. So big they have two! We went to the "tent" that had the poker room. The place is huge! Big screen tv's all over the walls; ton of poker tables with all kinds of limits. Of course they made sure to include house games like Blackjack so they can profit from the operation ;-)

Felicia got on a $15/30 stud list, but people weren't moving too fast. I found a $5-150 spread limit game... yes, $5 - 150 spread limit. This is their version of NLHE. They have some kind or rule (for the tribe I'm assuming) that there can be no wager over $150, so this is their answer. It pretty much worked. Since they have a max buyin of $300 for the game, there were only a couple times that I was sitting there that someone would have liked to shove in, but had more than $150 and therefore had to stick to that wager.

Felicia was told that the $5-150 game was no good, but when I was there watching, I saw just a few too many young faces and had to take the open seat. Sure enough, it proved to be just enough of a good mix; some tight players, some loose. First time that I raised, I had AKo and made it $15 to go. One caller, KTT on the flop, I bet, he folds. So, they were observant enough to see me fold-fold-fold for the first round or two to figure out my hand. Was nice to get my blinds back :-)

I managed to get one of the kids' stack when I got to see a free flop with Doyle's hand: T2o. Flop is T32 and I bet the pot. I got called in 2 places. Another rag on the turn, I bet the pot again, around $70 this time, and one of the kids, raised all-in for about $72 more. With the rags on the flop, it was possible to have a straight, straight draw (he had bluffed before on a draw), or a lower two pair. I called. After the dealer put on the river, I told him I had two pair and tabled my hand. The way he was acting I thought it was good. Sure enough, he looked at my hand, looked back at his, back at the board, mucked. This brought me up to almost exactly $500.

Then I get a string of cards that went nowhere, and made, I feel, a couple good laydowns. The oldest guy at the table, probably in his 60's, would make it $15 to go pretty much whenever he was first to open. Not a bad stradegy. I never had anything worth defending in the big blind the majority of the time. Then I got QQ. He made it $15, I looked and saw the QQ, so made it $45. I figured if I just double it, I'd get it head's up, but do I really want to make it cheap for him to spike an ace or king? Unfortunately, an early position limper reraised $150 more. Old guy mucks, and I study the kid. Early position and limped. I watched him since he sat down and have mostly watched him fold-fold. I put him on AA or KK, most likely AA. He probably was waiting for the old guy to do his normal raise and reraise him. I just happened to get caught along for the ride. I mucked. Someone across from him told him to be careful when folding, he flashed an Ace. So, I felt pretty sure I made the best move. Even if he only had AK, I'm not about to spend $300 (since after his raise he did have about another $150 behind--he had bought in for the full $300) on a possible coin flip.

A few hands later I get JJ and raise open for $30 and got reraised another $30 to $60. This was the guy that went all-in earlier in the session with AQo. I had just gotten to the table, someone had raised in early position to $15, I muck AQo myself (figuring I'm dominated), and then a couple people call the $15. Until it gets to my man. He shoves in for about $70 more. Folds around to the kid on his right who calls with 44. My man turns over AQo and spikes a Q on the flop. I had wondered if he was capable of shoving like this often and that's why he got called with the pair. After watching him for about an hour, I think it was more just that he was looking to steal all the limpers and just got lucky. After that hand, he played pretty tight.

So, back to my hand. By this time, my man here has about $300. I'm putting him on a higher pair, just because his eyes are bugging a little bit and he's usually very calm. With him reraising only another $30, I called in the hopes to spike a set. Qxx on the flop, I checked, he seemed in a hurry to get in a $150 bet, I folded. Later in the session, I got to talking to him, and he stated that he had KK. Now, he could be lying, but after watching him go from the AQo steal to fold-fold-fold, I think I made the right move.

It sounds like I make a lot of folds and that people could be making moves on me. It's possible, but at the same time, I feel that I often make good reads. There have been too many times in the past that I have made a read, called anyway, and found that my read was right. For example, when Felicia and I were at Foxwoods, I played the $5/5 NLHE game there; twice I was able to catch bluffs. Ironically, both times I had A9s and turned two pair. Both times on the turn, the 9 brought a flush not of my suit and someone acting before me bet out. Just didn't smell right. Bet was too big and I was the flop bettor in later position. I either expect a check-raise or a smaller "feeler" bet. Shoot, with two pair, I'd probably call if they bet small too. Both times my hand was good. One, a guy was semi-bluffing with one of the suit. The other time, the kid was shaking his head saying, "I have nothing, small pair".

Then this happens. Game just started, older guy is UTG and straddles. Few hands later there are a ton of limpers and I have AA on the button. I make it $40 to go and get called in FOUR places. Checked to me on a flop of J62 and I bet $160. Older guy check-raises all-in for about $300 more, which is what I have. First thing that goes through my mind is "set". Next, I recall him straddling and wonder if he's on AJ. I think about the other hands that I caught people bluffing and figure that I'm probably not too wrong in calling. I call; I get shown a set. Once again I feel that I should have acted on my read.

Interestingly enough, I did get confirmation on my call. I was able to met Greg Raymer at Foxwood's through Felicia. The two of them had contact through 2+2 and were finally able to meet. I told him about the hand. He said something to the affect of "unless you're clairvoyant or crazy, you can't lay that down" (based on the chip counts and lack of any real read since the game pretty much just started). He's a very nice guy and it was great to meet him.

So, at Casino Arizona, I went from my $300 buyin, to a high of about $500, to cashing out around $360. Still up, but it did kind of suck having to lay down so many hands. I had so many pocket pairs that just didn't hit. 33 in the big blind, gets raised to $15. For $10, as long as the guy has at least $100 behind, I'll see the flop for a chance to bust him. I bled off some chips, but it could have been worse, and a win is a win. :-P

to be continued...

Getting Friendly With The Pros

2004-10-10T21:18:00.000-07:00

OK, been wondering what to put down on “paper” regarding my excursion to Orleans with Felicia during the WPPA tournaments. I, as always, played mostly ring games while Felicia did her tournament thing. I did play a bunch of satellites as well, but the majority of hours I played ring games.

Some memorable hands:

First big hand was AA vs. KK. I got into the same habit of hitting and running initially and would sit down at a table, make a bit, and get up. One of those times that I sat back down again, was at 6/12. I missed the BB and asked if I could post between the blinds to “buy” the button. I was told “no”. Um, ok… this really isn’t true, but I knew by this time that I wouldn’t have to post behind the button in the 6/12, so that was fine by me. (The only reason that I really asked is that it gives the initial [mis]conception that I’m an ‘action’ player.)

Once I finally was able to get cards in the cutoff, I looked down to find AA! I raised the one limper. The button reraised! Limper folded and the button and I capped it. By this time, I’m putting the button on KK. I just sat down, the guy doesn’t know me, so he’s not going to just assume that I have AA. There’s only one combination of AA left, so I have to assume KK for him. The flop further confirmed this: AKx, all clubs. We capped again. QJ or JT of clubs? No way, he flopped 2nd set and was more than happy to put in the money with a set.

Turn: case Ace! In the frenzy, I did the automatic “check” when getting quads. He thought for a second, but still bet. I, of course, raised, then bet the river blind (which was probably stupid, but it all went on so fast –grin-). He did the crying call. He said after the hand that he thought maybe I had AK. That would mean that all the Kings were out; plus I capped preflop. I know that he doesn’t know me, but that meant that I had to put the 4th bet in before the flop with AK? Then capped again on a suited flop with just two pair? Either way, he was beat by the turn if I held AK. But there was so much in the pot, I don’t blame him for the river call at least. He would have been screaming if I showed him QQ with the Qc if he folded the turn [QQ with Qc is the only other hand –other than AA- that I could put me on if I was him].

I also recall him saying something about the Bad Beat jackpot. Well, I did try to give him a free turn. Once he bet, all, well, "bets" were off and I raised! Besides, if he truly thought about the Bad Beat, he'd have to call my turn check-raise in the hopes of catching the case King for the possible 25k he would have gotten for the losing hand. So, I know he's stuck on the turn... and besides, I did check to him, all he had to do was check behind and he would have gotten a free look at the river.

And, yes, I played one more orbit and got up, LOL.

OK, that one was a good hand. How about a bad one?

AA again. This time me HU with a local pro in the 10/20. He limps UTG, I’m UTG+1 and raise. He said something like, “I thought about doing that”. Probably to try to tell me he has a good hand; hint, hint, lol. So I spar back, “you should have so that I could reraise and protect our hands”. AKx on the flop, two spades (not the Ace). He checks, I bet, he calls. Turn is another spade. He says, “now I have to look if I have a spade”, and I said, “yeah, me too, I do remember one was black”. He checks, I blabber something about still being able to fill and bet. He calls. Oh brother. Me and my big mouth. River, another spade! He bets. I lay down my hand. He said something about not giving out information. I nod, knowing that I did a very bad thing. So much for getting “friendly” with the pros.

I think the reason I said something about filling, was that I didn’t feel he’d chase a flush on the last card, HU, knowing that a pair would counterfeit the hand. But, what I didn't think of was with 3 spades on the board, that would only mean the Ace of spades would pair it. If he had the Ace of spades, he would have known that all his 9 outs are clean. Once again, I shouldn’t have said a thing, just keep firing and let him guess. If he did have the Ace of spades, knowing that particular person, he would have called anyway. He chased too much heads-up.
Interestingly, the majority of time in any one session, I was either hitting, or I wasn’t. Twice I cashed out of the 10/20 about 500 up. But there were also some sessions a couple hundred down! Either the cards were there or not. I hardly was just a little up or a little down. That made it a little different for me, other than my normal hit and run. I tried to do that a couple times, but then it was like, well, what else am I going to do? I’m here for a long time! So, I’d go back to playing.

Once Felicia caught me almost to the felt at the 10/20 in one hand. She asked "how come you don't have any hundreds tucked under your chips?" "I DID; most of my hands haven't been holding up!" Course, I was saying that after raking in a pot with my AK that caught the gutshot for Broadway on the turn. I ended up getting most of my money back, but was still almost 200 down for that session; ouch!

Sometimes after a good hit, I’d freeroll it in a smaller game. Once, I made my way to the 4/8 table, just to be destroyed! YAAA! Worse, it was mostly, from one hand. The Orleans has 1 and 2 dollar blinds on their 4/8 game; so if it’s not raised (which would be to 6) you can get in for 2. One hand I was in late position with a few limpers with 66 and called. The flop was KQ6, two diamonds. An early position limper and I went to 6 bets on the flop. I kept thinking after he 4 bet, that he couldn’t have limped with KK or QQ, and maybe had JTd for the straight/flush draw or KQ. After I made it 5 and he made it 6, I said out loud, “QQ is good”. I called the turn and the river to be shown what I now knew he had: QQ. He definitely would have raised with KK, but QQ, he wanted to make sure there was no Ace or King on the flop (unless a Queen was there too). One of these days I’ll muck knowing that I know…you know?

After that hand, I really didn’t make any headway and cashed out after the biggest of the fish left. So much for the freeroll. Blah!

I tried Omaha a few times and NEVER got ahead in that game. Once on the turn, I had the nut low as well as the nut flush draw. The bettor to my right I put on the flopped nut straight. I thought about raising, but knew that I’d just get reraised and no one with a set is going anywhere (being low limit Omaha). Sure enough, I get counterfeited on the river, do the crying call, just to see A5 (with a small set) take down the low. The armchair commentators at my table went back and forth “I’d have raised on the turn with that hand”! Then the other, yeah, but she (the A5) had a set, she wasn’t going anywhere”. No one hit the better play, my smooth calling in the hopes to not lose anyone and scoop the whole pot should the flush hit! Omaha is a trapping game. (Oh, and by the way, the _other_ better play would have been to fold to the river bet, knowing that someone else most likely had a better low… another “one of these days I’ll muck knowing that I know…you know”? –grin-)
As for satellites, I was ahead on those too, until I started playing the supers. Three at 500 a pop a piece. The only reason that I played is that they were giving away free seats, giving a great overlay; plus, Felicia made a cash in two of the tourneys. One super I chopped a satellite for, so made 1/2 my buy in (minus the 60 for the entry of the sat). Then ended up coming in just 2 spots short of the seats. They paid the top 3 (short of the seats) and I ended up getting 450 in cash. The other 2, I bombed out.

One of the other supers, I lost a race against AK vs. my TT. My opponent was short stacked and took so long to call my raise that I knew he had a marginal hand, so I called his all-in. This, though, left me short stacked. Once the blinds were 150/300 with 25 ante, I had around 1300 left and tried to steal the blinds with K9s when passed to me on the button. I pushed, but was called by the BB (Warren Karp) who just happened to have QQ. Getting one Queen on the flop wasn’t enough, he went and busted my possible straight draw on the turn by getting the case Queen on the river for the mortal nuts.

Last super that I played, I started strong. Very first hand I get 63s in the BB, and 8 players to the flop! I get a beautiful flop of 245 and bet 300. The blinds were only 25/25, but with all the green in the center and 2 clubs on the board, I over bet the pot. Folded all the way to the button who raised me! I shoved and he folded. So I gained about 800 in chips on the first hand. Later, I got dealt AQs, raised and got one caller. AJT on the flop and I bet the flop and turn. My one opponent folded to the turn bet, saying something like, “I hate small kickers”. Well, don’t call with that crap then! (-grin-)

Then, nothing, nothing, and more nothing! Once the blinds were 150/300 again (no antes yet), I called the SB with JTs of spades. I got a possible flop of Axx, two spades. Only problem was the table that I was moved to, people loved to trap. There were 4 others in the pot with me: the BB and 3 limpers! I’m sure one of them had to have an Ace, so I checked. It got checked all the way around. Hmm. Turn, Jack. I shoved all in for my remaining 1100 with 2nd pair and flush draw. Short, tubby, stubby-fingered trapper says “call” and tables his A8o. I get no help and IGHN. Ugh! That was almost as bad as his limping in with KK and QQ other hands that I saw. I only hope he didn’t get a seat with his calling, calling, calling! Hehe.All in all, I was mostly happy with my play. I guess I shouldn’t have shoved the two times that I did. The K9s hand, I had enough chips to wait for a few more hands. The JTs, I pretty much knew someone was probably slow-playing an Ace and should have checked. Felicia agrees with my move in terms of the low amount of chips that I had left. Plus, there were 2 hands that I could have played and won and gotten some chips on that table and wouldn’t have been so desperate, but those people limping with strong hands kept me from taking some chances that I could have taken. However, I played against mostly pros each time and felt like I got far enough that I’m liking my game in a good structure as that was. If I can win some satellites, I think I’ll start playing some of the good structure tournaments with Felicia.

Back to the Four Queen's

2004-09-15T17:57:00.000-07:00

Felicia and I went back to Vegas for more of her “studly” Stud tournaments. While there, as always, I played the cash games.

OK, I’ll admit, I did do one satellite (-grin-). We got to the Four Queens kind of early on Monday. Last time we were there early, I noticed that there weren’t many cash games going, being downtown, LV. So, when they started calling for a $65 satellite, I figured I’d give it a go. I was able to chop one the last time we were there (I only got 1/4 of the prize pool that time though, as I was a serious chip dog HU, but the guy was willing to chop, so I took it).

As the sat was filling, we were in need of one more. One of the regular players that also always plays the side games said, “John will play, he’ll fill up your table”. Later, I came to find out that John is a “Horse”. Someone that another player backs, and gets a piece of his action (normally someone that doesn’t have the money himself, so needs someone to finance him).

It was mostly uneventful, as I did my normal “fold, fold, fold” until I had a hand. I stole once or twice with raises with AK and AQ. Other than that, just like the previous sat that I played last time, I got KK, got a caller, and doubled up. This allowed me to get to the final 3. Myself, John the Horse, and an older lady (OL) that actually played pretty well (although she did have a way of holding her cards that I could tell if she had a hand or not).

At this point, John and I had the chip leads and he starts in with “When you and me get heads-up we’ll chop, OK? You wanna chop?” Now, I didn’t really like that he did this right in earshot of OL, but wasn’t entirely sure she heard it. I tried to gauge from her face, couldn’t tell, so just kinda did the “smile-and-nod”…”yeah, sure, ok”. Most of the final 3 it was raise, fold, fold. Fold, raise, fold. After a while, the lady asked if we’d do a “save” for 3rd (i.e., 3rd gets their money back). John asked his backer and he said “no”; so, on we played. Both John and I had her all-in, and she’d win, getting some chips back. Then we’d steal the blinds from her and she’d have to go all-in again. After a while, John agreed to the save for 3rd.

I started with the biggest stack, but then got whittled down with her going all-in and the three of us shuffling the chips around. At one desperation point, she called my raise (A5o) holding 93o. She made a full-house! Very next hand I had 44 in the BB, John had folded, she put me all-in w/ KQo, but my 44 stood up and I had chips again :-P

Eventually a pivotal hand occurred where she took almost all John’s chips and suddenly he was the chip dog and then out. Good thing for him that he agreed to the save, as he was the one that ended up needing it!

I had more chips then the lady as this point (being the one who finally knocked John out). I asked her if she wanted to chop and, even though she seemed reluctant to, she agreed. She said “I think I can take you, I play a lot of heads-up”. I laughed and said that I knew that was part of my game that I needed to work on. Either way, she gave me a compliment that I was a good, patient player.

Felicia finally got a Razz satellite going and I made sure she was settled so that I could “wander”. This usually meant that I’d go walk from Four Queens to Binion’s and Golden Nugget and see who, if anyone, had any games going. I found a 1/2 blind NL game at Binion’s and was able to grab a seat.

I love Binion’s, btw. The poker tables have always been good to me there, and there is never a shortage of characters! This table was no exception. To my left was a LAP (loose-aggressive-player) that had a habit of making it 5 or 10 to go each time. Of course, he _had_ to be on my left, meaning that I never got a free play from the blind, it was always raised. He was chatty too. He talked it up the whole time with a guy to my right that they ended up knowing each other. “Yeah! I thought that was you! I still have your number…” Yap, yap, yap. A true LAP (-grin-). Made a few hands here and there and was mildly up when LAP got called to the main game (they actually had two games going and mine was the ‘must-move’).

Then an interesting hand happened. A younger guy (I’ll call GQ since he had that look about him, although very soft spoken) sat down in LAP’s seat. GQ was BB, I was SB and another loose younger guy (YG) was UTG. YG limped, no surprise, and it was folded to me. I look down to see T2o; Doyle’s hand. Normally I’d chuck it, but it’s only 1 chip to me and we’re basically short-handed with only three in the pot…maybe a T will be good :-p I chuck in my chip and GQ goes, “Let’s make it five straight”, tossing in a red. YG, of course calls, as I look back at my T2o thinking, “there you go, burning chips”. YG looks at me and says “come on, you’re half way in”. Oh brother, “Alright”, says I, replacing my white for a red.

We three see the flop of ATA. I chuckle, knowing my T is no good and check. Come on, a weak raise when against just 2 people, to me has to be a big Ace, or KK/QQ. A Ten is just not cuttin’ it. I check, GQ checks, YG checks. Turn (ATA)T. I laugh again; I turned a boat and can’t bet it! I say “I check my boat”, GQ says “I check mine” (yup, big Ace), and YG says, “I’m checkin’”. River, would you believe is the case Ten?

So the board is now ATATT. I don’t see any nervousness from GQ, I think he’s been checking the nuts and hoping someone would bet his hand for him on the flop and turn. Now, the river changes things. I put him on an Ace from the start, so I go ahead and chuck a red bird into the pot to test the waters (I have to get _something_ for my quads ;). GQ makes it 15, raising me 10 and YG gets out while saying to me, “You bet $5?” I double GQ’s bet to 30 and he quickly puts in a bit more (turned out to be 65). I wonder for a min if he flopped quad Aces on me but I reraise anyway, again doubling his bet. He thinks about it and says “I gotta call you”, and shows me exactly what I was thinking he had: AK...for the flopped trips, turned boat, rivered 2nd best hand. I show him my T2o and go “It’s a Doyle!” (Unfortunately, I think that fell on immature ears :p )

After a little while, I was moved to the main game. I didn’t like it. Even with the LAP in the game, it just didn’t seem like a good line-up: no good soft spots. After an orbit I left, but still with a smile on my face due to the Doyle hand.

The next day Felicia and I got to the Four Queens poker room and she got another satellite going, so off I wandered back to Binion’s. This day they had an interest list for the 1/2 NL (no game going yet), and 4/8 with a long list of people waiting, and a 2/4 with an open seat. Action junkie that I am, I took the 2/4. Man, with seven people on average seeing the flop, I was limping a lot. Plus, of course, first hand I have a hand (QQ) and of course, no one believes me and I get beat by massive schooling.

With all the limping, I’m down about 40 until I got a hand where I actually had the pot odds to chase a gut shot! I flopped top pair, but someone that I had been watching raised pre-flop so I knew he was on an over pair. However with all the callers before the flop and him raising from the BB, there were at least 14 SB’s in the pot pre-flop, for 7 BB’s. On the flop, it’s bet and called in at least 2 other places, so I call too with my JTo on the board of T87. Turn is a Q, no help, but still bet, call, call, so I call with 12 BB’s in the pot. River is the 9. Now with only a J needed for a straight, it’s check, check, check to me, I bet, call, call. Original raiser: AA (ouch). One of the callers: J9s for the flopped straight. Slow played it the whole way and let me get there. If he raised the flop or the turn, I would have known one of my cards was gone, didn’t have the odds and gotten outta Dodge! He claimed that once the Q fell he couldn’t bet. I don’t understand this, as it wasn’t until the river that a better straight was possible. Either way, that put me almost back to even, getting almost a stack and a half back (and that was with splitting the pot). After that, KK held up for me and I was a stack up for the game. I cashed out and headed back to check on Felicia.

At the Four Queens Felicia was playing the side game. This time ‘round, it was 10/20 half Razz (in honor of the Razz tourney) and half Stud/8. I love watching Felicia play the cash games, she always looks so confident and in her element. Sometimes seems more so than tournaments just because there’s no pressure. She doesn’t really care if she wins or loses. You can still play to win, to enjoy the competition, but not be effected by the beats. She does well in these games. After a little while a satellite she was waiting for filled up and she left the game to play. I watched them play Razz a little and then it was turning to Stud/8. I asked if she minded if I played and she said to go ahead. I played tight, had to fold a low draw once when I bricked and another player was showing a 3 and a 5 for a possible wheel draw. But later I scooped a good hand against the same player. She went to the river with me but folded on the end. I had the 2, 4, and 6 of spades showing first 5 and I lead out when the 6 hit. I had made my 6 low on the river (I had the A of spades but no flush, and I actually had paired with the 6’s on fifth, but she didn’t know that ;) When she got her river card she was looking and looking for a reason to call, couldn’t find one, and I scooped a nice 120+ pot. Once the half hour was up, I got up, having never played Razz live.

I watched Felicia in her tournament, but she’s been running badly and getting beat when starting with the best of it. I know the situation all too well…that’s what happened with me last week! She’s a trouper though and takes the beats well.

The next day it was back to Binion’s for a very uneventful day, in terms of poker leaving –$5 after an hour, but very fun session. One of the players from the previous day was there and we ended up chatting it up. He was from Key West and talked about a good game that he runs. He takes no rake as he makes more in tips since he deals it. Plus, he plays the games as well! He says he mostly wins there too! It’s amazing the people keep coming back ;) We had fun conversation and it made me realize just how much I like playing at Binion’s. It’s a poker player's poker room. Poor lighting, colorful characters, dingy old setting. I know I’m strange, but I love it :-)

The Key West dude was talking about having left due to the storm coming, so I had to plug Iggy’s post about playing in Aruba. I also found that Key West dude either had friends or lived at one time (can’t recall which) in West Field, NY, where my grandparents used to live—small world!

Key West dude (KWD) and a silent old man (SOM) both ended up cracking my AA’s one hand. I brought it in for 20 (10xBB) and they both called me. Dang, action on my AA’s! Flop is 986, all diamonds and I have clubs and hearts. Best hand pre-flop and I can’t bet. KWD bets 25, and SOM tosses in a call without thinking about it. I do and KWD says “I know I got you beat, but I’m more worried about him”, pointing to SOM. I flash my cards to the guy next to me, a very solid player, and say “there was a point in time I would never have folded, but let’s see if I’m right”. OK, I knew I was right, but I just couldn’t help myself. Felicia keeps bugging me to wear headphones when I play so that I don’t talk too much and give away how I play :-P

Turn is off suit rag and it goes check, check. I curse KWD for making me fold my hand, now wondering if he was on a draw. River, no more diamonds (which is what KWD was hoping for) and bet out again. SOM points his thumb up to signal a raise and grabs for a bunch of chips. KWD turbo-mucks and goes “that’s what I thought”. As SOM is pushing his cards out of the way so the dealer can push him the chips, KWD says “at least show me diamonds”. SOM, silent as ever, gestures to the dealer to flip up his cards and we get to see A5d for the A-high flush on the flop. Solid guy on my right tells KWD that I mucked AA and KWD says he had two pair on the flop. Can you believe that? Talk about loose, calling 10xBB with, what, 98 (hopefully, but not necessarily) suited, and A-rag suited? No wonder I love this game! Now do you understand why I got up after KWD left. (-grin-)

I ended up back at Four Queens to watch Felicia, where I got called “eye-candy” by one of the lady tournament floor people. “Whoohoo, did you hear that Felicia? I got called ‘eye-candy’”, I said with a big grin.

After making sure Felicia was doing well, I went back to my wandering. This time ending up at Golden Nugget where I ended up sitting next to a Dapper Dan (DD) type that I’d seen play before. Apparently he’s a regular, knows a ton of people, and currently looking for his new ex-wife…hopefully, with sisters. Yes, poker is just full of characters! He had the zoot-suit going, complete with corsage. He claimed to have a bunch of flowers so he’d be prepared should he meet someone. He also had wads of cash on the table so big he needed 3 different money clips! Someone joked about him having ten thousand, and he laughed and said, “If I had ten thousand, I’d be leaving, ‘cause I’d be about seven grand stuck!” LOL.

I got a good pot there when I did the o’ limperoo with Acey-deucey suited. I got checked into runner-runner, again, and made a wheel. With about 4 others in the pot with me, I wasn’t proud of the idiot end of the straight, so I chucked the single red into the pot to see what action I got. I got raised 20 more. I didn’t like it, but I called. And wouldn’t you know it, someone slow played a set, just to get beat out. He finally bets when he’s beat! Did I already say I love this game?

Today (Wednesday) was the last day of our stay. I found a 1/2 NL going again at Binion’s and sat down. This time nothing was standing up and I left a bit down after an hour. For a while it was a fun time playing with the local pros, one of which was very chatty and a little sarcastic. But then he started getting beat and his sarcasms turned mean and I was wishing I had my headphones. He really started tilting when he got his PP (pocket pair) beaten by…drum-roll please…32s! Yes, for the _rivered_ flush! “How can you pay 25 pre-flop with deuce-trey?!?! And then you say ‘here take it all’ [the guy shoved all-in], after we just shook hands!” Oh, man was he steaming! Even though I was losing, I was just waiting for a time to bust him (well, double through—he was another one of those with a wad of hundreds in front of him). Unfortunately for me, that time never came.

I got the old guy with the 32s in a later session, however, when he tried to draw out against me. I had ATo and limped in mid position, he had A9o and we both flopped our side cards. I was first to act, potted it and he called. Ace on the turn gave me top two and after I bet again he went all-in on me for 25 more. Even if I thought he might have a set, I can’t not call for 25 more. I was happy to see that he had two pair as well, but of course I had the best hand and took down the pot when no 9 came on the river. He did get some of his money back later, when he claimed he flopped a boat when I flopped trips. I had a suited Daniel Negreanu (T7s) and limped in mid position. It got raised from someone in late position to 10, but there were so many others in the pot called that I called too. The flop came 877 with 2 clubs and I decided I was happy with the size of the pot and would just take it down with a bet of 40. The old 32s man, shoved all-in for over a hundred more and I went into the “tank”. I’d seen him bet big, but never go all-in. We had a split pot before where be both flopped trip 5’s with Ace kickers and we had a fun little raising war until the board double paired on the turn and we checked the river. As soon as he bet weak on the turn I told him we now had the same hand and I was right. His A5 was unsuited, but I just meant I didn’t know his side card, but I was sure he had a 5 and that now the side card didn’t matter, cause he I know he didn’t have a 6.

Back to the 778 hand, everyone folded back to me after he shoved in. After thinking for a little bit, I showed him my 7 and asked him if he had an Ace kicker again. He said ‘yes’. I didn’t believe him but I still didn’t like the fact that he shoved in. I kept thinking he was stronger than me and I finally folded. Now I know that poker players lie but he said, “I had ya' beat sonny. I had a canoe, do you know what that is?” I said that I didn’t, but I was thinking that I could figure it out. “A big fullhouse is a ‘boat’, if you have a little one, it’s a ‘canoe’”. So he basically was telling me he had 87 for sevens-full-of-eights; the smaller of the possible fullhouses. Whether he had it or not, it was a good move and I laid down my hand.

I still ended up 55 for that session. Lately my reads have been pretty darn good. I also folded a smaller pocket pair (though still an over pair to the ragged board) when I felt the smooth call by one of the other players would only be with another pp. He said later he had a “made hand”, which means a pp, and I knew I was right. Only misread I did was when I had implied, if not pot, odds to draw to my AK over cards (since I put in a preflop raise) with a board of: QTx. I _really_ only wanted a J, since I was unsure if my A or K wouldn't give someone two pair or a straight. The bettor in the hand I put on AQ or at least KQ to cold call a raise (since he acted after me) after watching him play for a bit. K on turn, after I folded of course, and on the river he and the only other in the pot (a calling station) turn over QJo! I didn’t think that player would call with such a hand, and either way, I was already bit once by the calling station slow playing KK on me, so I laid down my overs to the decent size flop bet. Even though I might have misread his hand, I still think it’s a lay down with that board and a bettor and a caller.

After returning to Four Queens, I found Felicia still in the Stud 8 tournament. She still had chips but had just lost a hand and was back down to where she started. I found a 4/8 HE side game going (of all things, they usually only played 10/20) and I started to play. I dropped almost 40 a little too quickly playing short-handed (I really need to steal more, but was also cold-decked) and then we started playing 1/2 NL (Whoohoo!). I still didn’t get many hands and ended almost 50 down, canceling what I just won in the last session at Binion’s. Ahhh, well, such is variance.

All-in-all, I had a good time. I wish Felicia was able to place during one of her tournaments, but she had a few too many out-draws. We both started home exhausted and ‘pokered-out’!

I just finished pounding this out, and Felicia has just gone to the bedroom after I said “almost done” for the 3rd time, so I’m going to post this and ask that you forgive any English errors, as my editor is MIA :-P

Bring on the No Limit Baby!

2004-09-08T18:01:00.000-07:00

Well, I don’t know about the rest of you guys, but I’ve been working it, working it. And it’s not always roses. Last month I tried to do the Online Internet Challenge (OIC) after WhiskeyTown (http://www.whiskeytown.blogspot.com/) talked me into it; darn you! OK, I’ll come clean… he didn’t talk me into it, he just told me about it and I thought I’d give it a try. So instead of my normal grinding at the $25 NL tables on Party (with my Paradise Draw thrown in here and there) I started playing the limit $.50/$1 tables on Party again.

Boy in the beginning, it was great! After having a losing month (after my disastrous “shot” at 15/30), I was really running well. Ran my $40 “buy in” (for the OIC) up to a little over $80, then started playing $1/2 on Party for the first time. I had some ups and downs, but eventually got up the OIC ‘roll to about $100. Then, nothing stood up! I’d get all the “monster”/big pairs broken (Ed Miller calls AA & KK “monster” pairs in his celebrated book, Small Stakes Hold’em). Seemed I’d always end up with these big pairs with limpers already in (a few times I had these hands right on the button), and I knew my raise was getting no one out! As my mother would say “telle est la vie, telle est la guerre, la vie est dure! (Such is life, such is war, life is hard!)* They would get run down, be dominated from the start (KK vs AA), or somehow get outdrawn. My really strong hands, like flopping a set, nut straight, etc., I’d seem to get no value out of! Like they knew what I held and would just fold to me.

Even through all these beats and struggles. I persevered! I said, “a little variance isn’t going to get me down! I can ride the storm! This is why I waited to play these levels anyway isn’t it? I built my ‘roll on Party up and now I can weather the bad times.” However, the bad times kept coming! Ugh! What gives? Either the table’s too tight or too loose. Get no hands at a tight table and you just blind away money. Get hands run down on the loose tables and I call/raise off money. I get AKo and raise and get 3 callers. Flop AJx, I bet, get 2 callers. J on the turn, I bet, get raised, I am lone caller (could be same hand, could be semi-bluff, so I call). Q on river, I check-call to see AQo! I was in the lead the whole time, until the river. Ugh!

I even started playing 4-tables at once to try to lessen the variance. Hmmm, just seems I’m losing faster! LOL!

Yesterday, I finally started playing the $25 NL games again, hoping the change would be good. What was I thinking playing limit? Oh my goodness! Doubled through yesterday, doubled through today, and I have my ‘roll on Party almost back up to where it was before I started this whole nonsense (just five bucks shy ;).

So, what does this all mean?? Stick with what you’re good at! I know I’m a good NL player. I know that I can beat the games for a decent BB/hr. I can play limit here and there for a change, but I was trying to play exclusively limit. There have been discussions on boards about which has the higher variance, and its “hands down” limit. My nature is to abhor change; variance is change… in the wrong direction. :-P

Therefore, bring on the NL baby!

* [I got this from spelling from Babel Fish, so if anyone finds fault with it, tell them! The actual word that my mother used for ‘tough’ was something like “domaj”; supposed to mean ‘tough’, but Babel Fish gave me “dure” for tough. When I reversed it, it gave me back ‘hard’; go figure.]

Taking A Shot?

2004-08-31T18:05:00.000-07:00

Kept thinking that I’d write this “trip” report up; so, here it is.

Felicia and I headed up to Vegas for her to either play a tournament at Bellagio or Binion’s. Bellagio ended up being sold out, so we’d have to end up at Binion’s for the tournament. As long as we were there at Bellagio, however, we ended up playing some ring games.

I found out last time that we were there they started spreading NLHE cash games, so I put my name on the list. Felicia said, “I’d thought you’d want to get on the 15/30”. I thought about it and, although I’ve not played that high yet, I have played 10/20, and I’ve grown as a player since then. I also have been reading Ciaffone’s Middle Limit book and so far haven’t come across anything much new (granted I’m still towards the beginning ;). So, I figured, “sure, why not give it a shot”.

I, of course, got called for the 15/30 before the NL. I pretty much folded until I was next on the list for NL. I almost picked up when it got to my BB, but it was taking so long to get called I decided to go one more round. Of course, I get KK in the BB. I always wait until the action gets to me to look, and, interestingly, there were already 4 callers. It had pretty much been raise-fold-fold, or limp-raise-fold-fold-check-bet-fold. Tight table. I almost didn’t raise with all the limpers, but that would be weak, so I did the mandatory raise, knowing that everyone would call. I tried to watch the faces of my opponents before I looked at the flop, but they were actually looking at me (we’re not at the low limits here ;). I looked and bet the Q-high flop of Q67, 2 hearts (of course, both kings are black, no help there). I got called by two players. Turn brings an off-suit 8; that would have been a little lower than I put my competition on, so I bet out. I get raised by one of the players that seemed to pretty much be straight forward. I almost folded, but he was mid-position. Is he semi-bluffing the draws? I’m actually hoping he has trips that I can possibly outdraw and just call. No help on the river and I check call to see T9s hearts. Yes, it was a gut-shot, but he did have the heart draw too. Still, I didn’t put that player on this hand. He seemed too straight forward to be playing those cards from mid instead of late position. Of course, after paying the BB AND getting my KK cracked, I got called for NL.

I played that for a couple hours. Worst structure that I’ve encountered. It’s a 200 max buy in game with 2/5 blinds. Leaves you too short for the blinds really. Plus, you’re not supposed to top up until your under 100! Additionally, there were 3 tables, the first two “must move” to keep the main game full (this, with a list of about 10 names). Blah! I paid some raises with pocket pairs here and there, and basically got blinded down getting nothing. Finally it was time for Felicia and me to get to Binion’s for her tourney.

I played the 1/2 NLHE at Binion’s and did better there. I was up 20 at one point after getting AQs and betting the draw on the flop, then turning the Q (TPTK). My lone opponent folded the turn (folded up, showing me his 66 that didn’t hit). After that, it pretty much was fold, fold again. When Felicia got knocked out and I folded to UTG, I had $1 extra…yippee! Hehe.

It was only 10ish (pm) and we elected to go back to Bellagio. There was a 20/40 stud game that she found attractive, so, back we went. I watched the 15/30 HE and liked the table. A maniac and a drunk guy. Didn’t care for the others as much, but thought I’d give it another shot. I can’t lose all the time, right? Wrong!

First hand I’m in, the maniac raises (no surprise) but there had already been a couple limpers and I knew the people would call. I was getting around 7-1 to call with my Kx suited so I called. No draw, so folded to flop betting. I folded until I got AKo UTG +1. Drunk guy is to my right and he limps. He’s not horrible, but not great either, doesn’t know when he’s beat. I’m able to get it HU when I raise and we take a flop of QJx. He checks, I semi-bluff and fire out. He calls. I already feel that I’ll check the turn, take the free card if I don’t improve. K on turn. Yes this brings a possible straight, but I don’t think the guy is so bad as to have called with T9 UTG or called the turn with AJ for a gut-shot. However, he bet into me. I put him on KT (since he didn’t bet the flop, I can’t put him on KJ or KQ, although it’s possible). I quickly raise him. OK, let’s see if he raises, then I’ll put him on the straight or two pair. No raise. Good, I’m good. Until the river, that is: 9. The act he puts on is soo funny (or course it could be no act, he was just that toasted and really unsure “did I really get there?”), he cranes his neck…loooooks at the board …looks back at his cards…looooks at board…”check”. I turn up my hand, and say, “I know you have the T”. He tables his KTo. Ugh. I knew I was ahead until the river. Oh well, next hand.

Again I pretty much am getting nothing. I think I folded 22 or 33 in early position, that was about it, until I finally get TT in late position with a bunch of limpers. There weren’t a lot of limpers usually, but the maniac was back (he took walks every so often, and I think if he limped people came in for the action he was sure to generate). So, I don’t raise, and see a cheap flop. Jxx, there’s a bet and a call by two solid players and I muck knowing TT is no good.

After more folding, folding, I finally get TT again. UTG+1 is a woman I’ve seen play before and respect and she raise-opens. I know that she could just have a high Ace (AK or AQ) and since drunk guy is caught in the middle (cold calling her raise) and the maniac has already folded UTG, I reraise. I also figure, if I’m beat (she has a higher pair) she’ll pop me again and I’ll know where I stand. No reraise, both call, and we see the flop 3 handed. Flop comes QQx, two clubs (I have the Tc). Checked to me. I don’t like the Queens on the board, I could easily put the woman on AQ but bet anyway to see where I’m at. Of course I nail it and am check-raised. Drunk guy is sober enough to get out. Again I wonder if I’m being played at and figure I’ll see the turn to see if there’s another club or my 2-outter (hey if the fish can get ‘em!) There were 14 small bets in the pot at this point, not quite what I need, but I if I could get my T and get into a raising war with her, I _might_ have the implied odds. Also, I know I just didn’t want to give it up. Turn is no help (no club, no miracle T) and the woman bets out. I sit there, not believing that for the 4th time I had a premium hand I got out drawn again.

She now does something that I thank her for. I think she knew that I was getting run down and, I’d like to think, understood that I knew what I was doing. She takes the hand that she was holding her cards with and points at the 30 that she bet, kind of like, “here’s the bet, I bet 30”, but while she’s doing it she’s flashing me the Q in her hand. So it was more like, “hey, I’m not trying to play you, I really have the Queen”. So, I fold and that’s that.

After a few hands I hear the floor man announce there’s open seating in the 8/16 games (there _was_ a huge list before) and I ask to be moved. I get a seat at a table and, man, what a difference! I feel like I’m back at the 2-6 games in Laughlin. I made about $42 in about 1/2 hour to an hour.

Geez! What the heck was I doing at 15/30? Oh yeah, taking a shot!

Live Gives More To Write Home About

2004-08-21T18:09:00.000-07:00

Hi. Yeah, I know. Where the heck have I been? I’ve been grinding it out online mostly (besides the 2 weeks I was gone with Felicia to Missouri). For some reason, online play, although can still be somewhat exciting, just doesn’t hold a candle to live play the majority of the time. Live play give me more to write home about ;-)

The other night Felicia and I went to our new watering hole in Laughlin, the River Palms, and I more than doubled up on a limit table. I don’t do that often! Out of 4 pocket pairs, I hit sets twice. I was able to check-raise both times. Only one was called to the river though.

The first one I had 55 in the BB. Late position guy makes it straight $6 ($2-6 spread limit, only one blind—me—for $2). I’m looking at the 4 limpers and I know they’re going to all call the extra 4, so I shoot for the implied odds and call. Sure enough, call, call, call, call. Ahh, low-limit no-fold-em hold’em. There’s just some things you can count on in that game. Flop comes 985. Happy days! Check…just too many people, plus the late position raise to not have someone bet. Classic “check-to-the-raiser”, and he bets $4. I raise the full Monty into the field. Fold, fold, fold to one cold caller for the full $10. This guy is a weird one. Older gent with his salt and pepper turning mostly salt, he’s looking in his 60’s. To look at his face, he’d look like some business exec. That is until you get to the Harley shirt that says “To ride or not to ride, that’s a stupid question”. Then comes the second dichotomy: The bike shorts; as in the tight shorts that serious bicyclists use. Huh? Scary picture.

Anyway, pre-raiser calls the $6. While nowhere near maniac, this guy has been doing most of the raising at my passive table. Good amount; mostly gets control of the flop. To this point, hasn’t showed down a hand. I’m hoping he’s got an over pair that he can’t get rid of. Turn’s a blank, deuce I think. I bet, biker- bicyclist calls, decent pre-raiser mucks (AK?). River pairs the board: 98529. I think that while biker- bicyclist could have 98, he just didn’t give enough action and put him on the straight draw, although I’m hoping he just has a bare 9 and bet again. He folds.

Very next hand I’m button w/ 9d8d and see a cheap flop of QdJd4d. Wow, nice. Decent guy is in the hand again and bets $4, again. Calling station local (CSL) is next to act and flat calls; I absolutely know he has at least one diamond. I raise to see where I’m at. Early limpers fold, Decent guy (DG) just calls, CSL calls. OK, I’m thinking I’m ahead, but if I’m not, I got one out: the Td :-D Turn is blank; check, check, bet, call, call. River is a blank. Check, check. At this point, I was worry about DG slow playing the nuts on me and I just check. Turns out that DG had QJ for flopped top two pair. CSL, of course, had the Ad—he showed; he loves to show his hands.

Other set hand, again, in the BB I have a pocket pair: 88. Just a couple limpers, including CSL. As I’ve said, some things you can count on in low-limit. Folding anyone with a raise here would just not work. Doesn’t matter how much of a dog their ace-deuce off-suit might be, it’s not going to happen. I check for a free flop of: Q8x. Once again, I happily get a bet after checking, by CSL. Here a check-raise might just get everyone to fold, but at least I got one bet and do the check-raise. All fold but CSL, who thinks better of it but calls anyway. Why do people feel so stuck when you check-raise? Like you’ve offended them? Being a local, he should have known that he was beat, he's seen me play often enough and I fold 90% of the hands! He even mumbled something under his breath like he knew he was behind but called anyway. He had QTo and called me to the river; unable to fold his top-pair-no-kicker.

Last night I played at Sam’s Town, where Felicia continued her cashing streak, this time against a large field (I think there were 6 or 7 full tables)! I, as always, played the cash games.

Started playing 4/8 with $1-$2 blinds. Nice :-) Can get in cheap, so people were playing very loose. For example, I saw 24s got runner-runner for the flush. I was astonished when I saw this exact same hand do the same to me at the Palms when I flopped top set of Jacks. Both times, the 42s hand had no pair on the flop, only one spade. Both times, they went to the river. If I had hit more, I would have won a ton, they were such calling stations. But you so often get the odds to draw, you find yourself bleeding chips here and there. Twice I had the odds for the gut shot alone (regardless of the extra odds I had for backdoor draws) with 8, 9, 10 people to see the flop!

Once I got there. Had 98s in the SB. Flop of AT6 rainbow. Old guy bets. I’m sure he has the A, but there’s 9 callers to the flop, there’s one of my suit, and 7 others that I’m sure someone else will over-call. Spade on the turn. Now I’m stuck with the flush draw and gut shot and check-call. 7 on the river. I bet, old guy calls down.

Besides that, there was only one other really good pot. The tournament was loosing enough players for a No-Limit game to start getting enough players on the list. I’m UTG+1 and have JJ. I’ve had the hand once before with a couple limpers that I know are not going to fold, so I didn’t raise. Sure enough, K on flop, old guy bets, I know he has the king, so I muck. It goes to showdown and I was right. This time, I raise as first in. Get 3 callers! I pray for all little, and it comes 345. Not exactly what I was looking for, but bet anyway and all 3 call. 5 on the turn; blah. Any of these loose players could have a 5, but I say “I’ll bite” and put in my 8. Call, call, call. Geez. Last card is an 8. If someone had a straight, they would have flopped it, but I just check either way. Check, check, check. It’s so funny when you don’t give the opponents a chance to muck and hide they’re holdings, and instead are left with looking miserable to show. Asian woman calling station in late position actually flipped up here 72o to show her open-ended straight draw on the flop. Yes, recall, everyone in the hand flat called a raise to be in this pot—both blinds folded. Someone showed royal-rag, with the rag a 6 for another straight draw. I dodged a couple and was able to take down a nice pot.

UTG, just as they’re calling for the NL game, I get TT. Feeling frisky, I raise again. Again I get multiple callers to see a flop of Axx. Tight old guy in old of the blinds is one of the callers, so after he checks, I check too. Checked all around. Turn, blank, tight old guy bets and I fold my unimproved pair that I know is behind at this point, and run off to the NL game.

I ask what the buy-in is, and they tell me min of 100. OK, so, any max? No. Kewl; unless someone tables a grand (hehe). I add a C-note to my stack (after finding out that 100’s play) to make sure I cover what others have. What limits are we playing? Seems it was supposed to be a 2/5 blind game, but some thought it was only going to be a 1/2 game. Being there are only 5 people at the table, all agree to the 1/2 so that we don’t lose anyone and we start. I’m used to being dealt for the button, but the dealer gives the 9 seat the button (no 10 seat) and tells Dave (from 2+2) on my right in 2 seat (no 1 seat) he’s small blind, and I’m big (in 3 seat). I joke, “hey, if I knew you weren’t going to deal the button I would have taken the 10 seat!” I chuck in my 2 and get to see a free flop of A82. I have 82o in the big blind, but with 2 spades, no free cards! I bet 10 and I get the first pot. We have a ton of limping going on these first few hands. One involving two slow-played high pocket pairs; no help to lower, and AA takes it down.

Not long after, raising gets a little more prevalent and it’s not uncommon for someone to raise to $15 pre-flop. $15 at a $1-$2?? I feel this is a little insane, but in a way, makes for good trapping. Dave takes down a good pot when he gets the better on the turn in a 3-way pot. All had group ones! UTG makes it 15 to go (we saw him do this with ATo so we’re not expecting much from him). Dave makes it 65 for a raise of 50. Late position thinks and thinks. Finally cold-calls 50. UTG calls 50. T95, 2 diamonds. UTG bets 50 himself, this time. Dave shoves all-in for his remaining 106. Cold caller (CC), calls again! UTG just calls. Turn is 5d. UTG and CC check-check. River is another blank and check-check again. Dave says “ship-it” before he sees the hands and tables AdKd for the flush. UTG shows JJ and CC shows QQ. Nice turn card!

Couple hands later (or before? I don’t recall), I limped in with 88 fairly early. This can be a risky play, but can pay off if you hit. I have been folding, folding, and I think people noticed that (since so many were tournament players), so with me limping up front, there was no raise. Go figure, people actually paying attention? With no raise, it’s not too uncommon for a bunch of limpers at our now full table, and this time I think we had 6 or 7. Flop is T87, two hearts. Scary, but I have a good hand, so I over bet the pot with the multiple draws: $20 to go!. CC from previous hand calls me, and button shoves in. Folds around to me and I lean over in my chair and say “J9? You flop the straight on me?”. He just looks at me. I’m trying to count the money and have the dealer tell me how much to me and I blew a fuse. Although I’m counting the money CC put in the pot, I completely forget he’s in the pot. While I’m trying to figure out if I have odds to call to fill, I’m also thinking he could have two pair, 9 with flush draw, overs with flush draw, just the flush draw…all this is rattling my brain. Felicia, over at the tournament table (where I just saw her go from a short stack and almost out to one of the chips leads...go, baby!), says something to someone like “that’s my husband over there pulling his hair out”. I noticed that I had both hands to my temples with both my index fingers scratching at my scalp. Must have been a very comical sight :-p I look over at her and (doing a Puggy Pearson, trying to get a tell) say “I flopped a set, but I think someone flopped a straight.” I look back at the button, and now he’s not looking at me. Hmmm.

Finally, I decide I can’t give it up. I could be ahead, but if not I had redraws to fill or quads (it could happen! –grin-).

I do something bad and flip up my cards after I call. I was thinking so hard on what the button all-in had, I forgot about CC being in the hand…doh! Staring at 88 for 2nd set, CC still shoves in his last 30-odd chips he had left. I say “your still in the hand? OMG”, and slap my hand on my cards, like that’s going to help! He says, “don’t worry, you’re ahead”, and flashes me the 9 of hearts for a straight draw, at least, runner-runner flush draw. Button, surprising me, says, “yeah, you’re ahead”. He doesn’t show his cards though, even being all-in. I’m thinking, ok, I have to dodge a Jack, a Six and most likely a heart. I recall a black 4 on the turn, don’t recall the river, but it wasn’t one of the above, and I took down the pot. Whoohoo!

Now Dave and I am the big stacks at the table. Not too surprising. I did try a steal once with my big stack. I’m in the BB w/ KQo and see a flop with Dave and a loose limper of 88x. Check, check, check. Turn 6; Dave checks, I bet 10. Loose guy thinks and calls. Dave mucks. I’m thinking he’s scared of the 8 but still wondering if he has it. No, I think he doesn’t like it. River is an Ace. Could have hit him, so I try the old, bet enough that it looks like I want a call, without spending too much to lose should I actually get called: I make it 15. He thinks again, he’s nervous, doesn’t want to call, but does anyway. He looks at me and asks what I have, “nothing, K-high”, and he turns over –gasp- Q6o for the turned pair. Oops, hand caught in the jar ;-) But you gotta love the information!

After that only one real memorable hand was a 166-1 shot that got there…for the other guy!

Again I have a BB special: 75o. Button limp-opens, Dave tosses 1 chip in and I knuckle. Flop is 757, two spades. My, oh my. Dave checks, I check, button tries to steal and bets $7. Surprisingly Dave calls. I could take it down now, but I just flat call. Off-suit J on turn and it’s checked around. River…Jack. Dave fires out $20. Oh brother. I look at Dave and shove my cards to the dealer, telling him not to muck, but that I fold. Button folds. Dave shows me QJs, spades of course, he was drawing dead to the flush. I have the dealer show him my cards and give Dave a friendly shove as he laughs. The button is like, “you could have bet”. I laugh too and say “yeah, yeah, but it only cost me $7 to slow play and hope one of you got a spade” (button was on the same flush draw). Best laid plans and all that. All in all, I was over 200 up for the night. Felicia cashed too.

All around, it was a good night.

“It’s your turn”

2004-07-31T18:10:00.000-07:00

I’ve been told it’s my turn to blog. Too funny :)

I actually have been thinking about blogging; I just thought that I really didn’t have too much interesting to say. Felicia accuses me of writing too many hand histories. I kind of like ‘em. Like my hitting quads the last couple sessions. It’s always fun to have the mortal nuts. It’s just such a no brainer :-P

I’m in the SB w/ 22. Folded to late position that _min_ raises. Like that’s going to get anyone out! 23x on flop. Hit my set :-D Um, check. 2xbb bet from late-position-guy (LPG). I’m wondering if he just has AK or was just trying to steal the blinds, so he doesn’t really have anything. So, I just call. Case deuce on the turn, a beautiful thing. Check. 2xbb bet again. Thought about raising, but, really, don’t have much to be afraid of. If he hit a set, he’d be betting more. So, flat call again. Another beautiful thing, Ace on the river that completes a possible flush. I lead into him, just praying he was looking for an A. LPG goes all-in! Um, gee, ooh, ahh, ok, call. :-D Yes, he had AA, the river filled him. Little did he know he was drawing dead.

In Draw, I raise from the SB w/ 333xx and get called in THREE spots. Boy, no respect. Haha. Too many people in the hand, so I forget about hiding the trips and draw 2. I get a 5 and the case 3! One person drew 1, so I’m hoping he got there, so I bet. Heck, someone limping w/ AA might have gotten there and, seeing me draw 2, would think they outdrew if they got a 3rd A. Sure enough, I get raised. Unfortunately, by the BB who drew 1. He hit his draw. I thought this would drive out the rest of the field, but, interestingly, someone flat called the 2 cold! Higher trips? I pop it again :) Drawing guy just calls, the middleman decides he’s beat and folds. Yes, the drawer hit his straight.

In NLHE, it seems my biggest hands are always from hitting sets. Especially, set over set. I raised in early position w/ TT and got one caller. Flop comes 9c8cX. I bet the pot, due to the possible straight/flush draws, and again get flat called. Didn’t like that. Over pair? Hit set? JcTc? Doesn’t matter any more to me as a Ten hits the turn. I truly do not put anyone on QcJc, so I push. Caller had 99, for the _flopped_ top set, which I beat on the turn. Oops.

But then, these type of scenarios have paid me back for times that I was out run. AA beaten by AJs…AJs??? What are these monkeys thinking? And KK beaten by QQ; Q on the river. Worse part was paying off the river, and being raised by the 3rd person in the pot that got the flush with the Q. I wasn’t sure if the lady was a dunce enough to possible raise w/ AQ, thinking that she might be able to get me off my hand. But with the raise and reraises preflop, all the money in the pot from the flop and turn betting, I felt I needed to call. Then came the reraise, and I pretty much knew I was sunk (there was a pair on the flop). But, I still overcalled, yet again, with all the bets in the pot, as I was getting almost 20-1 on my call. Looking back, I _should_ have folded to the raise. The lady really was clueless, which means she does NOT just have AQ. For her to have raised, she has something strong. I should have known the clueless don’t think about overcalls, what-have-you. I should have known she could beat two pair.

Misplayed TT from the SB. Thought I’d be sneaky and just see the flop. Flop brought rags with possible straight, straight draw and flush draw. Got called all-in by short stack and middleman. Middleman got the straight, short stack got the flush. Third again. Raise, monkey, raise! The short stack might have called me anyway, but I would possibly have lost less (as the middle man had me covered and probably would have folded his rags to a pre-flop raise).

All in all, I’m up, and I like that. As you can tell, yet again, there were stumbling blocks in the road. But there always are. It’s part of the game. I get close to my goal for the month, and I slide back down. Get back up. Slide down. Fortunately, it’s been more like 5 steps forward, 3 back. Then another 5 forward and another 3 back. So, I’m still moving forward, inch by inch. Still recording positive numbers. I may not be playing 8 tables of 15/30, but I’m moving forward.

Every so often, I’m still playing the raked hands freerolls and placing. Got 3rd in the last one for $52 :-D Can’t complain about free money.

Hope y’all are having fun out there. I know I am ;-)
May the flop be with you, and all that.

OK, tag, you're it! Touch black, no touch backs!

Don't Push

2004-07-15T18:11:00.000-07:00

OK, I'm being pushed to write... pushed? I'm supposed to be a wuss; I'm not an "aggressive" writer! LOL

I've been doing better so far. Haven't had so many beats as to keep me negative (in life as well as wallet ;) Although I did get a top set of JJ beaten by 42s.. and yes, runner-runner spades, only one on the flop. Huh? Where do these people come from? But, why do I care, as long as they keep playing :D

I did get my share of hands. 88 that flopped a set: BB bets, gets a caller, I raise; call, call. Then on the turn he bets into me again! Raise! Call, call. Was JT8 on flop, so, no Q or 7 on river and I felt safe betting; no callers. So much for being a wuss, eh?

As stated, I'm doing better. I almost doubled my stake at Paradise since my last posting, so draw is running well ('cept for today...TTT ran up against a pat straight at the 2/4 table, capped pre...doh!)

Also doing OK on Party. Haven't been playing as much as before, and haven't been able to do the freerolls. Felicia has been wanting to play the live tournaments at the Palms, so I've been playing the cash games. Their tourneys are always during the raked hand freerolls, so I haven't been concentrating on the playing there. I got AA busted by AJs once (someone raised w/ TT, I reraised, and AJs cold called 20xbb... TT reraised, I went all-in, and AJ called another 30xbb! Of course, he got there, flushed my AA; but I got my stack doubled thru twice in diff sessions with other premium hands..as I've said before, it evens out in the end :).

With everyone else seeming to have the tournament fever, I'm glad to have some people agree with me on the tournament comments re Tommy Angelo. I'm glad I'm not the only one that feels "stuck" in tournaments. I really hadn't thought about it too much before. I had the feeling that I really didn't want to be there, but didn't know exactly what it was. Now I know :-Þ

I find it interesting though that I had been doing so well on the raked hands freerolls. I would think that the people playing over 50 hands would be people that play a lot. How is it that I'm playing a tournament against frequent players and doing so well? I would think the players that play often (and I see some of the same faces at the freerolls often too) would be better. Maybe that's what I need: higher caliber opponents. They keep me focused as they're not just yahoos. However, being freerolls I don't have to sweat the money, so I'm more comfortable. I guess once my bankroll swells to mammoth proportions (I should be so lucky), I'll be more comfortable playing tournaments.

For now, it's just grind, grind. I'm happy. I like playing poker. I play some D&D, play some poker, have some coffee, grind, grind. We go out to the tournament at the Palms, she plays the tourney, I stick to ring: grind, grind. And, I'm happy. I like it. Suits me fine.

Felicia says I'm a sucker. Hmm. X-Þ
Maybe I am. I admit I don't watch the pots enough. I don't always verify when they're splitting the pots (say someone's all-in) and make sure the side pots are right. Make sure the rakes right. I figure we're paying the dealer, they should know what they're doing. But yes, they make mistakes. Sometimes I forget to ask for rake reduction if it's shorthanded. The other day I passed my HE seat up to keep the stud game going. Why? I actually like stud. I want to see more people play. If it's known that stud is seldom played there, then I won't have a game to play if the HE game is full. So, it's partly selfish reasons as well.

There now, I'm a wuss AND a sucker! So see? No need to push.

You Wuss

2004-07-01T18:12:00.000-07:00

“You wuss. Hand 2, cut your hand off for betting the turn. Wusses don't bet with draws. They check. That's why they are wussy and that's why you lose to them. Think aggro-wuss and when you've got a huge draw and chips are moving and your realistic chance at that moment of taking the hand down without a showdown is zip, then betting is just macho leftover that totally disrupts your wuss factor which is what I think you need to get better at in games where opponents will actually give you more money as they try to punish you for being a wuss.”
~Tommy Angelo

The above was in response to a forum post on how a particular player should have played his hand in an overly loose-aggressive game.

This, after reading Hank’s thoughts on aggression with AK preflop, makes me want to say “hmmm”. Of course, everything in context; as is the standard answer in poker: “it depends”. LOL!

Felicia got me turned onto Tommy Angelo, and I’ll have to agree, he’s a very good writer. Not to mention funny. Funny is good. In Iggy-speak:
funny > non-funny.

Mr. Angelo basically nailed it on the head as to why I dislike tournaments:

“Tournaments and Me

I make a living at poker by choosing when to enter a game and when to leave it. These options give me the freedom to choose my state of mind, and to choose my opponents…. But when I enter a tournament, I surrender control…It’s like I am paying for a chance to win the right to play in the worst game in the room.”

Man! Talk about nailing it! I can’t get up; I can’t leave; I can’t hit and run. I’m stuck. Not to mention the whole “surrender control” thing. I’m a Dom, I can’t help it, and I don’t like not being in control. In tournaments you seat where they tell you, move when they tell you, etc, etc, ad infinitum. When they make terrible decisions, instead of being able to find a different table, or just leave, I have to stick it out; I already paid for the seat.

If you haven’t checked out his site, you should give it a read: www.tommyangelo.com

That statement “betting is just macho leftover that totally disrupts your wuss factor” really cracked me up. “Wuss factor”, LOL.

I feel like a big wuss sometimes myself. I could have taken his advice this morning. Flop a set, turn fills in a straight, but do I check? No. Pump the pot! Pump the pot! Make the wusses pay; get that extra river bet! Yes, he had the straight and waited to the river to raise. Doh! Mr. Straight was probably being the wuss himself, as the turn that gave him his straight put 2 diamonds in addition to the 2 spades on the board. He waited to the river to ensure he still had the nuts then. And there goes dominate Glenn, firing at the pot…fire, fire, fire! Why always be afraid of the nuts? Fire! Doh, doh, doh!

[Hmmm, spell check doesn’t know by “doh”…Bill Gates never watched the Simpson’s?? Come on Bill! I mean, it’s juvenile, but it’s good mindless fun. Live a little! :-D]

Speaking of “wuss factor”s, reminds me of whining…whine-factor? I’ve been doing good in some freerolls. (Yes, I just said I don’t like tournament; these are free after putting in so many raked hands :) Last night though, I’m seeing that I’m probably going to sneak into the money. 15 left, top 10 get paid, 5 shorter stacks than me. Down, down, down… I stay in 10th place almost the entire time. Down to 11. Short stack is all-in in the BB. I’m in the BB with QQ. Figuring that if we both bust, I’ll still get 11th due to having more chips. Flop: “no ace, no king” goes the Glennie-monster chant. Fire! Turn, “no ace, no king”…Ace. Check, bet, call, all-in. I’m watching the other table, as I see that the all-in short-stack show AA and take down the main pot, I see my competition’s cards show J9s…then I see the river, 3rd third spade, and the pot got to him. Doh!

As Felicia said, “you can’t complain too much, it was a freeroll, and you’ve cashed in half of them!” Which I have and she’s right, as always. I love my wife. She’s my rock. I can wuss out on a lot of things, but she keeps me strong. Just let me say “thank you, Felicia”.

I reported earlier this month that this one has been rocky, and it has. Up and down, up and down. But I’m still plugging. At one point I was almost $100 down in Draw, the one game I hardly ever lose at. I got that down to just -$29 by the end of the month. Which means since that point, I won between 60 and 70. So, cool, things are getting better. Which evened out the time that I lost my stack twice on one table; thought I had the nuts, and the other guy turns over straight flush! But then, I’ve had my share of suck-outs too. All-in with JJ preflop (what was I thinking?) and get called by AA, of course. Beautiful J on the flop, and I double through. I even typed “sorry” in the chat. He left after the next hand.

Should I have not said that? Is it considered rude? Don’t know. I’ve been there, and I was trying to commiserate. What can I say; I try to be nice. But what was he doing calling all-in before the flop…doesn’t he know that AA gets broken too? It’s better to be the one going all-in, not calling! Wuss. Hehe.

It’s a joke, son. Don’t you get it? Don’t you turn away when I’m talking to you! Foghorn-leghorn anyone? Anyone? Buhler… Buhler… is this mic on?

Why drink beer when there's caffeine?

Coming back

2004-06-24T18:13:00.000-07:00

I’m on the come back!
Haven’t written much as this has been a hellacious month; but I’m coming back.

I left Commerce Casino almost 500 up when Felicia and I stayed there, but then I hit some bad runs.
Example: I call a raise from the BB w/ KJ (probably my first mistake, but there were a few people in the pot) and catch a good flop of KJx.
I bet, original raiser (OR) raised, middleman calls (MM); I reraised, OR capped, MM called.
Blank on turn: I bet, call, call.
T on turn: I think about the possible straight, but bet anyway
OR calls, MM raises; I call hoping to see KT or JT. Nope, AQ.
MM called all that way, cold calling raises on the flop twice to catch the gut.

But, as they say, things tend to equal out. Like when I was playing a freeroll and limped in w/ Td9d and got a flop of: 8h8d7d. Yes, there was a pair on board, but this was a freeroll, so when someone in the SB bet, I raised. Turn, blank: SB bet, I raised. River Jd, he bet, I [missing the fact that I just got the straight flush] called. SB shows 77 for the flopped full house. Oops! LOL.

So, I have been getting sucked out on, misreading my hands, and calling bets/raises that I shouldn’t, probably due to frustration. Usually a hit and run player, I play on Party for 2 hours and have $3 to show for it. Then again, the other day I find that I only need 5 more raked hands to qualify for that night’s freeroll, so I sit down at a couple tables. One I post behind the button and find myself w/ 3c2c. I think to myself, hey, at least it’s suited! He he. Flop is Jc6c3d. BB checks, limper bets, I call, BB calls. Turn is an offsuit 2. BB bets out (straight?), limper calls, I raise (hey, I got two pair and a flush draw), BB raises, limper calls, and I call (knowing I have at least 11-1, not recalling how many people saw the flop). 9c hits the river :-D Bet, call, raise; BB reraised(?), limper folds, I just call, wondering if my 3-high flush is good; it is!

15 BB’s up in one hand. Sweet. It all equals out. Now I’m just waiting for it to equal out to the point that I at least have at much as when I came back from Commerce, lol.

Since I stated that part of my being down is probably frustration and bad calls, I’m starting to read again. I get into the bad habit of not studying for periods of time. I recall when I first started playing that I felt like every time that I started reading, I was losing. When I stopped reading, I started winning again. I look back at that period and know that I was confused and would over-analyze; I just didn’t have the experience. Now a days, the reading isn’t apt to confuse me as it did before.

I reread a document I have for Draw strategy and found that I wasn’t re-raising enough on two pairs before the draw. While this might increase fluctuation, it’s not getting the money in the pot when I probably have the best hand (knowing that the original raiser will raise on one pair). I also found that I’m slightly too tight in the blinds when there’s a raise. Gotta keep reading. Keep my mind fresh. This isn’t like school where I’ve learned a formula and I use it time and again in subsequent equations and the formula gets memorized. There’s a formula here of sorts, but sometime situations require alterations.

For example: I know player X will limp with any pair, possibly small two pair. When player X raises, do I call with KK or AA? They could have trips or possibly be pat (have a complete hand: straight, flush, boat). Depends on my odds. Plus, I could get there (make trips myself) and still lose (if they have AAA, or are pat). Then there’s player Y who will raise any pair QQ or higher, TT or higher if on the button. Say I call with KK in the BB. What do I do when I don’t improve and he bets? There are many times when I probably have the best hand and fold, but I don’t know. I have to go on my judgment of the player and the situation (are there multiple opponents? Good players won’t bluff into a large field as it’s more possible someone will have improved and will call).

In all this I have a tendency to lose track of the proper times and values to call. I feel this is all part of the learning process. I have to keep reading and rereading to keep all this information fresh. Keep me on the right path.

There is a tendency in human nature to make the same mistakes, even if you've been warned of the mistakes. I hope that you, reader, if you must make the mistake yourself before you learn, that at least you will realise that you have made a mistake and not do it over and over. Here’s hoping that the two or so people that read this are keeping up with their studies. Keep yourself fresh and in tune.

Take care.

Ugh!

2004-06-15T18:15:00.000-07:00

Well, I hope you all are faring better than I. I'm having a heck of a time of it.

Get a load of this one:

River (board: 8s 9c Tc 8c Jd):

FeliciaLee bets
Bohunkbodine1
Tman517 folds.
FeliciaLee re-raises
Bohunkbodine1 re-raises
FeliciaLee calls.

Showdown:

Bohunkbodine1 shows 7c 6c.
Bohunkbodine1 has 7c 6c 9c Tc 8c: straight flush, ten high.
FeliciaLee mucks cards.
(FeliciaLee has 8d 8h.) ... in other words, quads