Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Whoo hoo

Whoo hoo, the rush continues. Last night, our card clud had the second Omaha game (I missed the first one), and I actually won it! That makes me 4 for 4 in making the final table this month. And tonight, I finally took 1st in a WWdN. I must admit, I had a damn number of lucky draws and rivered my way on up. I’ve had more bubbles in that game than I care to count, a few cashes, but damn it was nice to finally win one. OK, it’s late so off to bed I go!

Monday, September 25, 2006

Pokery Goodness

Getting that excited/nervous feeling for Friday night. In just a few short days I’ll be up on the stage playing in the ‘Best of the Best’ tourney while about 200 others are playing in the Second Chance tourney for their shot at the big game in October. Rumor has it that we are playing for a buy-in to one of the Heartland Poker Tour games. I’m pretty sure they are out of MN, they offer satellites around the area in many of the Reservation casinos in the area. A number of their big games pay a couple 100K, so I like my odds there.

And it looks like the card club is making some changes for this year. It looks like the top nine this time will be playing for buy-in to a $1500 NLHE in the 2007 WSOP, as will the winner of the, now annual even. This time it will be for a 10-month period to match up with the WSOP schedule and then it will be an annual event. Me likey!

Last year, I missed the first 2/3 of the season, mostly because I had never heard of them before. I only had two months to play and get some points, but I made it with plenty to spare. For this six-month period, I have been in the top 9 since the start, and I actually took an entire month off, that is one month with zero points and I’m still sitting at 7th place! If I had kept my average that month, I’d be an easy 3rd place.

Well the clock has reset and we are now working on the 10-month totals, and this is month number one. So far I have only played a whopping huge three times and it looks like I am in the top 10, and with still better than a week to go in the month I should have little trouble getting into the top nine.

Oh, and one more sweet little change, on Monday’s they will be having Omaha Hi playing on a rotating schedule between two of the locations. You can be sure I will be at them, nice to get a break from NLHE every once in awhile and I could use some work on my Omaha game, as I have never played this one live before.

On the Hold ‘em front, I have been working on closing one hole in my live game, and so far it looks like I have been doing it well. Before, I was not getting paid off all that well with many of my good hands. Since I have started working on that aspect of my game, I’ve been raking in bigger pots than I had before by keeping people around longer, giving them good odds to call, even when they know they are beat, or even raising into me because they think I am weak and making a value bet. Thanks Hoy, I can credit you for helping me with that one!!

Don’t forget the upcoming games:

Tuesday night, WWdN Invitational on Stars, 7:30 PM Central Time, $10+1, password: monkey.
Wednesday night, The Mookie on Full Tilt, 9:00 PM Central Time, $10+1, password: vegas1.
Thursday night, WWdN Not the Invitational on Stars, 9:00 PC Central Time, $10+1, password: monkey.

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Fuck It

What the FUCK?!!?!?! I managed to run into 2 flopped flushes and 3 flopped straights tonight, not to mention the fucktards who could not be bet off their draws, just ungoddammenunfucking real. I should just shut down and get my ass to bed, but no, I feel compelled to bet off the rest of my fucking bankroll, I’m just a fucktard on tilt now just going to make it worse, but at least I am aware of it!!

I don’t fucking get it, fucking calling down to the river with shit and catching (yes with fucking big bets) and everyone raising you fucking 10x your fucking bet, I mean what the fuck is going on, I just give the fuck up!

500K Marshmallow Peep Sex

Seems to be about time for an update. Saturday was kind of so-so. Had three tourneys running on Full Tilt, actually three sng’s. One of them, it turns out was Razz, it was supposed to be NLHE, but I guess the lines swapped just as I was clicking and not paying too much attention. Imagine my surprise when I saw myself with three cards!! Had that one been stud, I would have been ruling!!

As for the other two, one was a satellite for the 500K and the other was a marshmallow peep sex tourney. I finished 2nd in both. The one for the 500K really pissed me off as that one ran a good three and a half hours. Last hand I had two cards (don’t remember which) and we both were in it for a small raise. I flopped two pair and bet about ¾ the pot and go raised. I pushed, he called and hit his four outer for the gut-shot. He just had me covered as we had been pushing the lead between us for a while. Ah well, at least I cashed in both of them, but that $500 buy-in for the 500K would have been sweet!!

As for the live games, well I’ve only played three so far this month with two final tables, so at least I’ve got some points. I’ll need to make a bit of a run here at the end of the month to get in the top nine again, this time around the top nine are playing for a buy-in to a $1,500 NLHE event in the 2007 WSOP. It’s a sad thing, well not for me, but I’ve only played three times, with two final tables (only the final table gets points) and as of now, I’m only 30 point out of the top nine and 60 points from the top spot. All those other poor souls play at least 3-4 times a week.

Don’t forget the upcoming poker blogger madness! Tonight is the WWdN Invitational on Stars, password: monkey, tomorrow night is the Mookie on Full Tilt, password: vegas1 and Thursday night is DADI #9 also on Full Tilt, password: pokertrust. Be there!!

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Raise, Re-raise, Re-reraise, All-In!!

Maybe I should be paying more attention to the ME coverage of this years WSOP. Recently I have noticed that if there is a raise, a re-raise, and the occasional re-reraise, the original raiser always goes all-in. This happened to me at least eight times yesterday and I for one just don’t get it.

For example, early on in the tourney (50/100) I look down at KK and make a raise to 300. The girl on my left re-raises to 600 and it folds around to me. I re-raise her and additional 1600 (total of 2200 each) and she declares all-in. I take about 2.6 seconds and call her. She flips up 77 and my KK turns into a straight. This happened two more times before the table was broken up. It was just unreal; every single time I said re-raise the original raiser went all-in. So tell me, is this a new trend or was it a full moon or something yesterday?

One player said they thought I was trying to buy the pots because of my bet sizes. I guess they must just play a bit different than I do, but I guess I could have been paying a bit more attention. If one of them raised, it was typically a min-raise or a 3x raise pre-flop. After that, they would typically keep throwing their initial bet into the pot, unless they hit big where they may bet 4x to 5x the BB on the river. Me, I had a weak two pair with a set potential out there so I bet half the pot to see where I stood. The guy accused me of buying the pot. Sorry, that just me, 1/3 to ½ the pot to see where I stand, the rest of you just keep betting the equivalent of the pots and keep increasing those pot odds all the way down to the river.

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Tanner Evers Night

Well that sucked, before the Tanner Evers Charity Tourney on Full Tilt, I sat down to a single table SnG. Took down a nice pot or two, then called a min-raise from the BB with JT. Flopped a straight, made it ¾ of the pot to go (don’t remember the pot size) got raised, I re-raised, got re-re-raised, so I push. The guy shows two pair, KQ and catches a boat on the river. Oh well, one more try before I move to a cash game before the tourney starts.

Unreal, granted I was on flush draw, well, a royal flush draw actually, I was betting the hell out of it and got called down to the river by bottom pair, and by that I mean ducks!!! Still in it, but not by much, at least I get to work on my short stack play.

Well, took myself from the short stack and managed a 2nd place finish. Game took forever so I called an all in with a pretty weak hand, but the charity game was about to begin so I had to do it.

The charity tourney did not go so well, NewInNov took me out pretty early when he had a boat on my two pair (caught his A on the river, damn him for not representing pocket A’s lol). At least he took my chips to play heads-up, glad I could help sir. Check out Mookie’s blog for a recap of the game.

After that it was SnG fest where I moneyed in 50%, not too bad, at least I’m not down for the night!

Level 3

“You know I’m one of the best players here.” That’s what Brian ‘I see 80% of the flops’ McKenzie said to me after he took 4rd this past Saturday.

“Yeah Brian, you are up there for sure, too bad people don’t respect your raises.”

Good thing he doesn’t know that I typically set the over/under for him busting out at level 3 blinds, level 2 if he’s on his fourth tequila when the tourney starts.

This past Saturday he just kept getting unbelievably lucky and catching cards. Every. Fucking. Time. And yes, I started at his table and this time I did not make the level 3 blinds. Oh well, cant win ‘em all. At least he respects his play, me, I just like his chips.

On Sunday I made a huge mistake, one that never leads to a good night. I played a number of hands during level 1 and 2. For reasons that are not yet clear to me, for some reason during the first two levels of this tourney, a raise of 3-5 times the BB typically means that there will be 4-6 people seeing the flop with you at an 8 handed table. With 10/20 blinds a raise to 200 is pretty meaningless, and will not chase anyone out of the pot. It is not uncommon to see pots of over 2k during 10/20 blinds, and that’s with everyone starting with just 1,500 in chips.

And then something magical and mysterious happens, the blinds hit level 3 at 50/100 and suddenly people start folding their marginal/garbage hands to raises of 3-5 times the BB. I’m not sure what it is that causes this sudden shift, maybe it’s the fact that after the chip up’s, people see fewer chips at the table and are not able to let them go quite so easily. This seems to hold until the blinds hit 1,000/2,000 at which time it’s like we’ve warped back to level 1. I guess this is not quite as bad in reality as the M’s are getting a bit low for many still in, but it seems like too many are willing to go broke with garbage (ie, 48o) when they can still play a good 7 or 8 more orbits.