I'm not your DADI

Well the DADI was a fun time last night. Didn’t catch anything all night, but I managed to hang on till a little after break. After managing to get myself down to a nice small stack, around 1500ish I found myself in ep with KQo and pushed. Drizztdj called and turned over JJ. Hit a Q on the turn but the J on the river sent me to the rail. After that I managed to bubble in two six max sng’s.

It was just not a good poker night in general. After the second time that night that my Aces got cracked by marginal drawing hands I think I poured myself too stiff a drink. I managed to donk it up quite well in that second sng, don’t really recall how I went out in that one. To wind things off I sat down at a 25NL ring and continued to play the same. Don’t ask me how, but before I was down by 10% I realized I was too tired and too drunk to keep playing, so as soon as I finished my smoke, I shut down Stars and headed up to bed.

The only decision for today is; tourney, sng, or grind it out in the ring games…

One bit of good news though, I finally managed to successfully pull off my first Hoy and Reverse Hoy. Ya just gotta love that Hoy!!

Otis!!!

I hear that Otis has the difficult task of spending the next 10 weeks or so in Vegas. It seems he has been given the job of spending his days and night with Dr. Pauly and Grubby hitting the buffets, going to the Hooker Bar and paying for lap dances by strippers. Oh that and he is covering the WSOP for PokerStars on their official blog. Look for the feeds on the right and click them so Otis knows we care!!

Hate this Fracking Game

Unreal. That is all I can say. Get into a ring game, keep bouncing up and down between our buy-in. Finally get to 1.5 buy-ins and within two hands down to .5 buy-ins. Why? Cause some fuckers keep calling the pot sized bets to the river with their bottom pairs and catching their set or second pair on the river. KK v 93o, a three on the flop and a 9 on the river. No less than 8 OESD/FD’s failed to make either one. Open-ended STRAIGHT FLUSH DRAW fails to appear, and loses to JJ, but as we already know jjok. Left with .3 buy-ins, the poker Gods just waited for me to get to 1.5 buy-ins then started pissing all over me, I hate this fracking game and I vow never to play it again, or at least until tomorrow night, whichever comes first.

Nut Flush and Boats

<rant>What’s up with me making my nut flush with the card that makes the other guy a boat? That’s two for two now and I for one fail to see the humor in that. Oh well, what can you do, I hate this game so I guess I’ll head out to a live game and get my ass handed back to me lol!</rant>

Free Guinness anyone?

Well busted out rather late in the tourney last night, but I stuck around for a bit to chat it up and watch the final table. Pretty much no sooner than that final table started Don walked up to me and asked if I wanted to get into a cash game, as they needed just two more people. I told him I was pretty tired and only had $10 on me, but he said that $10 is good. Eventually I finally agreed and sat down with him, Jen, Pat and one of the bartenders (the other one needed to wait for the final table to finish up so she could close the tabs).

Since I was tired, I did a pretty good job of donking off my chips. I actually started off pretty good cause my first hand was JJ and as we all know, JJok. Made a nice little profit on that hand and the proceeded to give it all away, and then some. I think Pat was the first to bust out and then the TD of the tourney, Wayne, decided to join us. I was down to my last 4 and some change when I woke up with something and made a nice little raise and everyone called. The flop came and I made a nice little bet that kept all but Jen. The turn improved me and I pushed and that got rid of the bartended (I think it was Melissa). The river neither helped nor hurt me and I pretty much quadrupled up on that hand.

Jen busted out soon after and that opened up a spot for the other bartender Nancy. Nothing really stands out for me about that little side game other than both of our lovely bartenders both did a re-buy or two (that caught the attention of Corey who decided to a buy-in and join us) and when you are playing with them, the Guinness flows freely. All I can say is the Guinness is good, and free Guinness is just hawsome!

I think by about 1 am or so, I was exhausted, we lost a couple players and finally we broke it up. It was nice to cash out for four buy-ins made all the better by free Guinness from the tap!

Make's ya and Break's ya

Well I don’t know about you, but I for one went out in a blaze last night. During Level 3 not too far from break, a new kid sat down at our table. I for one had never played against him before and I think only of our regulars had played with him once many moons ago. Well just before break the blinds were 50/100 and there was a mid-position raise to 300 or 400 and it folded around to the new kid, who pushed (he was short stacked, about 1500 in chips). The blinds folded and the original raiser called. He flipped over AdKd and the new kid flips 74o. Nothing hits but a 7 and the kid doubles up. He just wanted to double up before break or bust out early.

About three hands after break I’m in late position with several limpers I look down at As3s and for some reason made the call. The kid then made a min raise and everyone called, me included, the pot ended up with about 2,400 in it I think (I don’t recall if the SB joined us or not). Anyhooo, the flop came up KsTsX and the kid made a bet of 600 that I called. The river gave us a Jx and the kid made it 1200 to go. I took some time to think about this one (the three rum and diet’s no ice made counting the chips and doing the math a bit more problematic than usual), but I was getting 4:1 on my money so I made the call. The River was a Js so I made my nut flush, checked it to him and he put in his last 800 so I called and flipped my nut flush. Then this kid who had been playing marginal hands (as I found from other’s who had been playing him during the break) showed his pocket kings. Kings full of Jacks—wouldn’t you know he would get the one spade that would get me to call and make his hand at the same time.

Next hand I get AcQc and push my last 900, get the laughing calls of ‘he’s on tilt’ and then find myself looking at a reraise by Ed who keeps everyone else out and he flips pocket rockets. And AxQxTx and I am one card shy of drawing dead. A K or J fail to show up on the turn and I go join my fellow railbirds at the bar with a nice new rum and diet, no ice. I really do hate this game, can’t wait to see how I do tonight!!

The Thursday Tourney

Last night was fun, even if I didn’t make it all that deep into the tourney. I think Adam must have been on quite the lucky roll, he just could not miss a straight. 24o, sure, why not? 95s, he could fill it in. 68o, you got it, straight filled in. It was unreal, he could only lose with overs.

When Big T made it to the table with a short stack he announced that he wanted to go home and went all-in blind the first three hands he was dealt. Since he kept doubling up he had to start making smaller bets so people would call him. He doubled up twice more before he finally got his wish and the cards quit hitting him every.single.hand.he.played.

I did mange to build myself quite a stack at that table, seems no one wanted to call pot-sized bets on the river. And when they would min-raise my bets, I would triple their stupid min-raise and got them to fold. I would only lose if I went to showdown because the cards just seem to hate me in the later portion of the month. Haven’t quite figured that one out yet.

I think I just might get myself on Full Tilt this weekend and try out one of those marshmallow peep sex tourneys I keep reading about. Hope to see you there!

PokerStars Beta

I’ve been playing on the PokerStars Beta version of the software and I must admit, I like it a lot. The new skins are nice (though I think the skins should also apply to the lobbies), they have some nice new deck options and best of all, the resizable tables (once again I think this should also apply to the lobbies)! With my little 19” CRT monitor (I know, I know) the ability to make the adjustments necessary to the table sizes to get rid of that overlap is a blessing. So far, so good, and it’s nice that the Beta also does the auto-updates as well so you don’t need to keep checking back to see if there is a new beta available. Well done Stars!!

Calling Station

Haven’t been playing much poker over the past few weeks, no reason in particular just seems to have happened. Anyways, I think I’ll be heading out to the bar tonight to sit in on the regular Thursday game. The play at this bar is pretty much suck-out city, plenty of people who will play just about any two down to the river on the off chance that their 82o may well fill to a straight, or maybe they will catch trips, or two pair, or heck, high card 8. The sad thing is just how fracking often this happens. Must be the numbers thing, so many people doing it that someone is always getting their junk paid off.

There is one girl there that I just love to play with though, a wonderful remarkable calling station. Any pair or any Ace she will take to the river. One time she called me all the way down to the river, and I was betting it up the whole way. I had KQs, the board ended up something like KQTQA, so I was sitting on a boat, Q full of K and she was calling my bets all the way down, I think she put in about ½ to 2/3 of her stack into the pot. I was wondering if she maybe had KK, AA, or AQ, but no she did not. She turned over ducks!! That’s right, with that board she called pocket 2’s down to the river and put in a huge chunk of her stack. About the only time I ever see her fold is when someone goes all-in.

She is just so good to the few of us who have recognized this pattern in her. Ace high, call to the river, happily donking off ½ her stack. The nice thing is that know if you get the river and have nothing, you will be looking at an Ace high or better. I tested this theory once. The board had a potential straight on it and I was pretty damn sure she didn’t have it, so I made a big bet on the river (I had missed that straight but bet to represent) of about 2x the pot, which was a good chunk of her chips. She of course called and showed the tourist. She played her A high and hit a 7 on the turn so she just kept donking off her chips and that’s when I knew she would be a good future donor for the rest of time.

One of these days I hope she joins us in one of the cash side games after she busts out of the tourney. That would be just so damn sweet!!

Eventful Weekend

Well this past weekend started with the charity tourney on Friday night. We ended up with 148 people there and brought in $11,980 after the prizes were paid out. Unfortunately for me, my cards at that game seemed to set the tone for the rest of the weekend. You know the type, mostly garbage cards and when you get something marginal you find yourself going to river no matter the bet, and usually find yourself behind once you get there. And then on those three hands you actually do did, you get absolutely no action. Oh well, I busted out of that one just before the second break started.

Saturday, my brother, nephew and I took dad out to the ball game. Saw the Brewers take on Cleveland, and they actually won it in the ninth. I must admit, I do not do baseball. I needed to confirm that it was the game where people swing a stick and try to hit a ball thrown in front of them. In all, it wasn’t too bad. The new Miller Stadium is very nice. Our seats were pretty much behind home plate and slightly to the left in row 13. It was nice to see everything nice and close and as an added bonus, there was easy access to the bars serving Leinies.

Sunday was the big blogger tourney on PokerStars. I think there were 2,247 people in this one, I ended up busting out 170th. Cards were just plain garbage the whole time, I’m actually surprised I lasted as long as I did. Only got pocket pairs about 8 times and the best of those were Jacks. Oh well, there’s always next year!!

Memorial Tourney this Friday

Well, this Friday we have the John Crawford Memorial Tournament to play. There are a decent number of people who have pre-registered/paid for the event, so it looks like it’s going to be a good one. Since this is a $50 tourney with $25 re-buys and a $25 add-on, I set the over/under at $108.25 per person at the end of the re-buy/add-on period. MsJoanne took the under and I have the over. The prize is John’s seat in the WSOP. The entire package is: $1,500 buy-in, $500 spending cash, hotel, and airfare.

If this is like all the other tourneys that we have had, we should have a ton of people show up at the last minute to sign up for the tourney. I would be surprised if there is less than 100 people at this one, because if that is about right and my over/under is damn close, then that will be about $10,825 that will go into a trust fund of John’s kids college expenses once they hit that age.

I only know of a few people who will not be there. The reason for them not being there just makes me sick. One of them has a daughter ‘graduating’ from pre-kindergarten. That’s right, you heard it, graduating from pre-kindergarten. Come on, wtf?!?! I had graduation from high school and from college. What’s up with people nowadays? Graduation from pre-k, kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, what have we come to? Hell, I think we should celebrate the fact that I got home today without killing that fucktard that made a right hand turn from the left turn only lane across 3 lanes of traffic so they could be two cars ahead. I should probably be more understanding, after all, that fucktard was probably rushing home to celebrate his kids graduation from 1st grade and had to give him his graduation present: Grand Theft Auto III, Hot Coffee Unlocked!

Update: It was a successful tourney and it looks like just under $12,000 was raised for his kids and put into a trust fund for them. Just hope we can do this again next year!

MTT "1/2 Life" Theory

I have several friends who play mostly home games and our small live tourneys who have asked me how long it takes to play some of these huge MTT’s on-line. I told them that for any MTT of 1,000 or more plan on about 4.5 hours. They asked 4.5 hours per thousand? I said no, about 4.5 hours for 1,000, 2,000, 5,000 or more.

My theory goes something like this; during the first hour you will lose between 50-65% of the players, same thing with the second hour. From the third hour on, you will lose between 65-75% of the players. By midway through hour four, the blinds and antes are so huge, it is very difficult to keep your M above 10, so there tends to be quite a bit more pushing with marginal hands so you do not get blinded out.

As a note, I play mostly low limit tourneys on-line (i.e. buy-ins of $20 or less, fees not included). For those of you who play higher limits does this hold true? For that matter, what do you think of this theory for the low limit tourneys; does this seem about right to you?

I also caution them about the first hour. I guesstimate that on average, at least one person per table will push during the first orbit. I remember getting KK on the third hand of a tourney so I made a standard raise of 4x BB for a total of 80 and the guy to my left did his math (80+20+10=110) and figured it was time to push. He did get two callers but I decided to fold. The first pusher had JJ, the second AQo, and the last one had 77. I don’t remember which one hit, it was either a J or a Q, but just like that we lost two players. Our new chip leader did not last to the end of the first hour and was quite generous with his chips. Nothing worse to me than getting an excellent hand during the first 15 min of play cause it seems like any raise will get someone to push, and that monkey will have 86 soooooted and inevitably catch their two pair to take it down. Make it past hour one and then you can start playing some cards.

Now do yourself a favor and go visit a beautiful poem, or ode by AlCantHang, it brought a tear to my eye as I'm sure it will to yours as well.

20th

Last night I played in one of the MTT’s on PokerStars and went out in 20th of 1,596. I was playing a good game, had my ups and downs but the hand that took me out almost made me puke. I had KcTc in the SB and called. The flop had a K and two clubs and the BB, who was short stacked, pushed. The chip leader at our table called, as did I. The turn gave me a T for two pair and I bet and was called by the stack. River put down a 2c and I bet 25k. The big stack pushed and I called. He showed AcJc and both me and the BB were sent to the rail, and the big stack of our table was now the big stack in the tourney (I had been in 5th).

I told my friend, MsJoanne, about this and she asked if I had been worried about the Ace. All I could say was, no, not really. I had to look at it this way, of the 13 clubs in the deck, five of them are out, and only one of them could beat me. He would also have to have two clubs, one of which had to be the Ace in order for him to win. If I had laid it down my M would have been about 3 or less, but the next level blinds would have me pushing every hand. If I won, I would have been the tourney chip leader with around 425,000 or so, but instead the other guy now had around 465,000. With only one card in the deck that could beat me, the only foolish thing to do was fold. I’m pretty sure any flush would be calling or pushing. In fact, if he had re-raised me, I would have pushed (course his re-raise would have left me with no choice for all intents and purposes).

Other than that, things went quite well and I think I played some good cards. I made a bad call or two, a bad fold or two, other than that I was playing some good selective-aggressive poker. The scariest part was after the second break when the cards just refused to work with me. I went two blind levels with only one pot each and didn’t see more than six flops between those two levels. A few times late in the game I had a rollercoaster ride of 100,000 down to 35,000 and back up, three times in all if I remember correctly, until I hit 178,000 and pretty much stayed there until the end no too long after.

To date, this was my deepest finish in a MTT, and the first time where I really had a good shot of making the final table, or taking it down for that matter. I can only hope that one day the poker gods will smile upon me once again and allow me to make it even deeper. Then again, it might be because all I drank was water this time and left the booze on the shelf….

Sweet Short-Handed Play

I decided to pass on the 180 person sng’s and stick to the single table ones. I started with a nice warm up, a $5+.50 nine person sng and finished 3rd. Then I decided to track down one type a friend of mine had told me about, a six person $12+1 sng. So I sat down, played it and took 1st. Well that was sweet so I decided to try another, and took 1st again. Well, since it was now double sweet, how could I possibly resist one more? So I fired up yet another one and this time took 1st again!

I always considered myself to be a decent player at a short-handed table, and a pretty good heads up player at my level of play. I’m not sure if this confirmed that theory or if I just happened to find myself up against some really bad players, especially heads up. In fact, every time heads up started, I found myself to be out stacked by about 3:1 and in one case by more than 5:1. Fortunately for me, they usually would let me at least limp in from the small blind, and most of them did not seem to realize you could do more than a min raise. And a pot sized bet—forget it! I found a formula that worked well there, any raise of 4x the BB would get a fold about 75% of the time, a pot sized bet, usually on the turn or river (assuming there had been previous betting) would buy you the pot about 95% of the time, and a raise or re-raise of 3x their original bet got folds to me 100% of the time.

It will be interesting to see if this trend continues. It’s probably just Variance tossing her hair back and giving me that seductive stare, just trying to lure me onto a path of destruction and –EV play. What can I say, I’m weak and I will follow her for a while. If I’m lucky, I may have actually just found that sweet spot for my level of play. Time will tell!

For tonight

I think that tonight I'll be playing some sng's and then move on to a ring game or two. Right now I'm debating if I want to tackle another one of the 180 person sng's or just play a couple single table ones. So far I've done all right with the 180's, cashed in about 1/2 of them, but sadly two of them were not the final table, so overall I'm still negative on them. I guess we'll see once I get home and how we are for time.

Well, my friend had fun in the last WWdN and then we moved onto a ring game. She keeps telling me how she hates the ring games and would prefer to stick with the sng's and the tourneys. While I too prefer the sng's and tourneys, it did not take me long to realize that if that is all you play, it makes for an excellent way to piss away your bankroll. The ring games are defiantly where the money is. While it is too soon for me to tell for sure, I think her main problem is that she plays the ring games the same way she does the tourneys. There is some difference in how you have to approach these two very different styles of Hold'em if you want to remain profitable.

At least she's a lot closer than Sue is, Sue plays tourneys live but opts for Limit Hold'em online. Sadly, she also tries to play the game the same when for all intents and purposes; they are two completely different games!

powered by performancing firefox

Donking on the WWdN

Last night was a fun WWdN. I convinced my fried MsJoanne to join us, so I spent about ½ my time sweating on her, and as a result, play quite poorly early on. She went out in 44^th, so not too bad for her first time there. I lasted a bit longer and went out in 24^th (I think, we were down to 3 tables). After that we hopped onto a micro NLH game where I just had some fun donking off chips while drinking some Dt. Mountain Dew and tequila.

Next week I think it will be time to focus a bit more on the game, haven’t cashed there is quite some time. Heck, why aim so low? Next week I plan not only to win it, but also take Wil out and get the naming rights for the following weeks tourney!! So There!

powered by performancing firefox

The name is DuMass...

Last night, I started at an interesting table. For some strange reason, one guy decided he would spend the first level just trying to buy all the blinds. That translates to betting 200-400 on every hand at the 10/20 blinds. Of course all that meant was that after an orbit or two people would call then raise him on the flop and he would end up losing. He did get one person out and got a caller to fold when he raised her (she should have re-raised him from the start) and got himself a nice stack to keep up his hyper-aggro (stupid) play. Eventually he got all in with her before the blinds went up…it went something like this…

Him: Raise, 300.
Her: Re-raise 600.
Him Call.
Flop: K Q A
Him: 600
Her: Call
Turn: Q
Him 1200
Her: Call
River: Brick
Him: All-in
Her: Call
Showdown:
     Him: Q full of A
     Her: K full of Q
Him: Cool—starts to scoop the pot.
Table: No, she won it.
Him: But I have the Ace’s.
Table: Her three Kings beat your Three Queens.
Him: But I have the Ace’s.
Table: The pair only counts if the trips are the same.
Him: But I have the Ace’s.
Table: Sorry man.

Two hands later he went all in with his 97o UTG and lost his last 340.

About two weeks ago I saw a hand that I will probably never see again. Two people in, Flop is 2c3c5c and betting goes on. Turn is a brick and they check. River is 4c and they bet, raise, re-raise re-re-raise and call. She showed an Ac5h and he had a 6c8c. We were all shocked to see two straight flushes in the same hand. It was funny when he started pushing the chips to her before we stopped time to let him know that his 6 beat her A. He called himself an idiot for not realizing that and just habitually pushing to the A ‘high’ flush. The TD bought the table a round to celebrate this most rare occurrence.

As for me, I’ve had a pretty decent run online. In my past six sng’s I’ve bubbled 3 times and finished 1st three times so all in all not too bad. Now if I can just keep that going along with ring game winnings my bankroll should be pretty healthy by the end of the month.