The Longest Mile

One of the hardest things I face in tourneys is the impending bubble. I really am split about what to do when I have a marginal stack and the bubble is approaching. For instance last night. I have 7K in chips and the bubble is fast approaching. What do I do? Should I hold out for the bubble. The blinds are 600/1200 and going up. There are ten left until the bubble. Any hand I play hard I am all in for. I have been playing this O8 tourney for two hours. So is it better to double my money by making the bubble or should I get aggressive and try and double up or bust?

Last night I chose to make the money. I did make a move against a small stack and lost about 3K. I was way ahead until he rivered a straight. He called my all in with AQJ6.. I was wayyyy ahead with my pair until the straight. I also folded an A2 s00ted with my 4K stack because I did not want to bubble. Either move could have been good or bad. I would have won the A2 low uncontested. As it ended up last night I did make past the bubble and not much more. It basically took to long for the small stacks to be blinded down and by the time I had chips I had to go all in. I had a decent hand with A23 s00ted, however, the flop of KKJ was not very pretty. Since KKJJ won I guess my KK99 was not too bad. Out in 30th place or so of 400.

So should I have not attacked the small stack with my pocket pair? HU these hands can be profitable and I was guaranteed HU. Should I have played my A2 s00ted? If the KKJ flop happened then I would have most likely bubbled out. It gets really tough at the end of these things if you do not have a lot of chips. Sometimes I decide it is better to bubble and sometimes I get a little sick of being 37th out of 400 and decided to cruise into some amount of money and satisfaction.

I still have not decided if it is better to make the money and then see what else you can do or just play like there is no cutoff. I have to believe that the latter option is the better one. I can take pride in being outside of the bubble so many times right? I mean I consistently almost make the money? One of these times it will pay off with that elusive first place win I so desire right? Does making the money mean more though? I mean if I limped in on the last four I bubbled in then I would have made 5% of the final money? If I keep doing that consistently I will eventually have made the final table money. One of these times I am bound to go on a rush at the right time too and I will hit that elusive first spot. I will then have the addition bubble wins to add on to that right? Who knows. It is such a hard decision and I am not sure either way is wrong.

Who Da Holdem Monkey?

So I have been trying out the SNGs for the fun of it. Trying to build something. Not drive myself crazy. So I start out with a few 10/1 SNGs. I lose both. One was kind of fun. I was playing with a guy who had a cowboy icon so of course I call him Bareback all the time. He ended up winning. He chides me for pushing, I.E. Being Aggressive, with <10xBB and 22 pair. I happened to be up against KK, however, even though I was at best 50/50, I beleive pushing with pockets when you are short stacked is a good idea. Calling and all in, not so good, but aggression can never be wrong.

So what do you do when you lose two 10$ SNGs? Play a 30$ of course. My luck continued to stay true here. I actually was the chip leader until the final table. I was in 3rd place and get QQ. Now QQ is a monster hand three handed so I push.. and he turns over Aces. Ouch. I am out in 3rd. I was hoping for more. Whatcha gonna do? Play a 50$! No no no.. I am back to even.. so I play an O8 tourney. I end up placing 36 of 400 for a whole $7 profit. Ok. At least I am not bubble boy. So Fluxer tells me I HAVE to play the turbo! This was when my night turned around.

I am trying to nor be too aggressive but I am down to $1500 in chips. Three guys before me bet there entire stack, it is $415 for me to call. I do so and I am raised. So I push all in to get one person to fold. It is four people. I have QJ. Nobody has me covered. I think I am getting great odds to call QJ s00ted. Anyone think differently? The cards turn and I am HAPPY to see AK, A8, A4. I.E. Even my luck can not kill me. So the flop is a Q and it holds up. I knock out three people in one hand and jump to the chip lead. I play a little aggressive with A6 of hearts. So I raise and the small stack (had 2K in chips vs my 5K) pushes me all in. So what do I do? Of course I call with a shit hand! It was freaking Donkey ass s00ted Mofo's? He turns over KK and the flop is A5 for two pair, and the river is a 5 to make me a boat and the defacto chip leader. My next brilliant play is to put someone with K9 all in with K3. The flop is A33. Turn X. River Ace. BOAT! Booyah! Now it is me and Fluxor HU. He gets cocky with 47c and my A2.. flops .. an ace and survives his straight and flush draws! Booyah! I am the luckbox tonight!

Frustrating Days

Just a little frustrated at grinding and losing a little every day.. so I went off the deep end and lost another $40. Heh. Anyway, still have a workable bankroll at $160. I think I am going to try some SNGs for a few days.. Mostly because I have been doing well in them lately. I think SNGs can be a good way to bring a small roll up quickly. If you avoid the 4-9th place finishes as much as possible you can do well. Shall report in later.

Stupid Holdem

KtKatrina takes me down to 300 chips when she calls all in with KQ s00ted and rivers a queen. I hate HE. Bah! I then have to push with AT and AJ wins. He had SOOOO many chips there is no way he does not call me. Stupid HE!

Who's your daddy at Omaha Tourneys?

Guy “rivers” me .. I know, I said I don’t say that word anymore.. lol. This one was pretty bad. He catches a runner flush. I flopped the nut flush draw and missed everything. Ouch.

SirFWALGMan: wow
SirFWALGMan: well played
tirza: ty

Fucking fish. At least I didn’t tilt and play crappy hands and I was able to get back in it. Actually since we are on the subject of this idiot. He could have taken me out WAYYYY before the final table. Ya ya, I will get to that part soon. He folds a 100K pot that I put my last chip into on the river. LMAO. An ace hi coulda beat me because I missed my OESD and my low draw. Listen to uncle sir. If it is good enough to go to the river with, call that last bet.

I had a great time anyway. I played the 1$ O8 limit tourney. I am currently 5 of 7. With two guys all in. Anyway, I beat out over 540 people. Again, not the best O8 players in the world but an accomplishment anyways. First would be nice. Still 5 of 7.

I had a great time picking on Garth and Veneno too. It was a blast. Lets see if we can bring this puppy home. I think I have this tourney won though because I was watching family guy during my play and the whole stock market starts yelling “BUY WAFFLES!! BUY WAFFLES!!!”.

Oh well, 5th place is not so bad. 32x my Buyin and 132 tourney leaderboard points to boot. Anyone know what those do?

Too Quiet?

It has been quiet around here lately.. I have been totally at peace with my game. So no excitement there. I have not said the word river for 3 days. Bad beat. Pshaawwwww. None of those either. Even though my Stars account is not growing how I would like it I am ok with that too. I play my game and enjoy.

No spoon attacks or anything bad on the personal front either. It has not escellated to plastic fork attacks as I initially feared. It is all peaceful. As a matter of fact I had a nice night with my son between 15 hour shifts. I was teaching him to read using the socratic method. He had the right to get an answer wrong and I had the right to punch him for it. It was alot of fun. heh. My wife did not like it so much but we were just play punching and he was having a great time. It also caused him to focus more to avoid getting hit. You really have to catch that boys interest for him to take anything seriously.

So I am sorry to dissapoint you my readers but there are no train wrecks for you to watch. What? Your going to move on to the next blog.. umm.. hold on.. you know me... isnt that a little light on the horizon? It could be a train.. please come back.. you know me.. its bound to happen.. come.. back..

Horiscope

My Horiscope according to www.theonion.com:

Pisces February 19 - March 20

Your longtime wish for a better poker face will finally be granted this week; unfortunately, you'll lack the mental capacity required to play poker after the stroke.

Nothing Exciting

No exciting Poker news for today. Played a couple of tourneys and SNGs on Full Tilt and busted out finally. I will say this. It is tough to get a bankroll started on $50. Unless you want to play .02/.04 micro-limits for a year to build your bankroll up to a good starting point. I personally do not feel like doing that. I think that $200 is a good starting roll. You can play the small level SNGs, MTTs, and cash games. It is enough of a foothole that you can make a few mistakes. So as it stands I have a nice foothole on Pokerstars and am busted out of Full Tilt for now. I will be hitting FT again though in the near future.. I have even changed my image there. Instead of the ANGRY monkey I am now the Happy ManWoman Eating Plant. So until then it is Pokerstars for a bit..

O8 Tourney

Finished up 45th or something. I basically had no chance to make the money at 27th unless I was aggressive. The blinds were 1200 and I had about 3K. So I decide to push with AAKx. It is a decently strong hand HU so I raise to 1200 pre. I get called with someone who had basically J9. Not sure why he called me. I had him basically covered. So he flops a J with an OESD. I make him put most of his stack in the middle. He turns two pair and he rivers a boat. On the flop he had a slightly better draw than I did, however, if I had made a queen I would have had the higher straight. I also could have made a better two pair. Alas it was not to be. It is hard figuring out donkey plays but what can you do. I am at least pleased that I did not make any mistakes. No mental errors tonight despite working 11 hours today. So after that $20 MTT I am going to give the MTTs a break and play some cash for a day. I will then get back to them as they are very juicy on both Full Tilt and Stars. Thanks to Garthmeister for playing in this with me. We swapped 10%. He went out earlier than me but did well.

Again I screw up

I screwed up badly. At least a good guy took my chips. Here is the setup. I have plenty of chips. I look down and see 234. I turn a 5 and the next card is an ace. So I get into a HUGE raising war before I notice it is not razz but stud instead. Umm.. no, not even Stud low. So I basically had to call with my 5 high straight which got creamed by a K high straight. Umm.. I really need to stop doing something because I am making the worse mistakes lately that have nothing to do with my game. I am not sure if it is because I have not been sleeping or what.. Anyway not the way I wanted to end April's HORSE tourney. Especially since I had a good shot at a final table appearance possibly. Oh well.

Who Knew

What the hell is wrong with me? Is this what poker is supposed to feel like? I keep playing these O8 tourneys and cash games and one thing is missing from my game. It has been a constant companion in the past. The impending doom of a suckout. I have no feeling that I ever get sucked out on in O8. It is weird. I mean you would expect with four cards that I would be moaning about bad beats every second of the day. Twice as much even. I just do not feel it. I do not feel like I have to win coin flips in these MTTs. I feel like I get my money in with good cards and get out of hands I am likely to lose. The hands I choose to risk my stack with are suitably strong to avoid the suckouts. I am sure I will have some but mostly either I play it right or play it wrong and I know which one it is. No luck. No suckout. Just wait and outplay my opponents.

Even last night when the guy flops his second nut flush. Yeah, he got lucky. However I totally messed up the hand. So I had no feeling that I was sucked out on. I guess with the four cards in play in O8 I have no sense that I am entitled to win. No hand is so much favorite to another pre-flop. It is your post flop skill that decides the game. In HE it is exactly opposite. I feel like my AA is entitled to beat your Q2 especially when I push you on the flop.. and when you pair your second card I am pissed.

So maybe I have found a little Zen of Poker in playing O8. I still have a ton to learn and I may eventually start feeling entitled to win. Either that or all that folding puts me to sleep. Who knows.. Who cares.. I am just going to enjoy it.

IDIOT

I screwed up so bad. I had 10K in chips. I was 21 of 38. Two to the money in a 300 person PLO tourney and I have AA. Which is a good hand in Omaha. It is also double s00ted. So the guy who has been raising my blind all day raises me. I re-raise ::: BUUUUUT I did not pot it. I guess it was indecision. I then pushed on the all diamond flop and of course he has the K2 of diamond to knock me out 1 off the bubble. What the fuck was I thinking. I dunno. I hate when I make REALLY stupid mistakes. I could have EASILY waited for two people to bust and then kicked some ass. I would have also been happy if I had pushed pre-flop and the guy had hit his miracle flush. At least then I would have played it right. This way just makes me sick. Oh well, at least I outlasted Drizz and Kameela whatever that buys me..

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, in all the after game down, I beat Chris Furgeson in two games tonight. heh. I was in the 7-Stud and PLO with him and finished MUCH higher than him in both.. so I am better than Chris! heh.

The White Boy Is Back

Sometimes you have good weeks. My MTT game has never been better than this week. As I mentioned yesterday I was ITM in an O8 and Bubble boy in a Razz MTT. This should have shown you my vast superiority in all games of poker not just HE.

Tonight I decided to add on to my MTT run with TWO ITM finishes. The first one I am the most proud off in a way. I entered one of those $2 HE tourneys. I ended up busting out 39th of 1700! I beat up on 1660 people. Albeit they were not the brightest bulbs in the poker world.. but that is hard to do. I did it without a single suckout also. The thing that got me deep into this was catching good hands late. I had a decent stack of 10K in chips and I went on a run where I trippled up. This set me up for a hand where another 30K stack tried to draw out a gutshot straight on my set of kings. I ended up holding up and doubling to 60K. I then went to a high of 138K until I finally busted. I am not really sure how I screwed up but anyway. While it was dissapointing to not make the final table I did well and should take pride in that.



The next one helps me have a workable bankroll again. I scored 4th of 200+ in an O8 MTT. I played super tight and got cards when I needed them. One of the most memorable hand was when I was drawing to a nut hi/lo, missed both, and still won the pot with Ace high. That is EXTREMELY rare in O8. The 4th place finish in this 10/1 MTT netted me over $200 and brings the bankroll to around $260. So I have something to work with on Stars. Next stop: Full Tilt.



Oh, and peeps. Beware of me in the HORSE tourney for these Waffles are cooking!!!!!

O8 on Full Tilt

Played a little O8 last night with poor results. I think to play the game you have to be in the right frame of mind or else you start chasing everything. I was actually up a little on Full Tilt early on but started giving it back.

I also played the O8 10$/1 Tourney. I ended up placing 15th or so for a small payout. It is a fairly easy game to beat. It usually startes with a few hundred people or less. As a matter of fact all of these non-HE tourneys seem to attract <200 fields on Full Tilt. I have tried one Razz and one O8. Placing ITM and bubble boy in them. In the bubble boy match I would have made the money except for a mental error. I THOUGHT I was HU with the small stack so I raised. Actually a large stack was also in the hand. He of course re-raised me with 235. I called that bet and folded the flop when he caught a 4 and I caught nothing. If I was paying enough attention I would have just limped. That was enough of a loss to knock me down and eventually lead to my bubble. So initial scouting seems to show a nice soft game. However you need to make final table to make any good money.

It is a HUGE leap from 15th to 1st in the O8 tourney. I had 5K nearing the final table and the chip leader was already at 18K. The blinds also were so high that whatever hand you chose to go with you were committed to. I ended up pushing against a loser with AA2 s00ted. He had AJx S00ted, no low, and caught a runner-runner straight to take the pot. My final $700 in chips was able to hold me up
for another two spots in the money but I was basically doomed.

So in conclusion these are fun, cheap, tourneys that allow you to practice skills in games besides HU. They are not too difficult to cash in however making the good money could be hard. I highly reccomend them if you just want to enjoy playing a tourney.

BTW - Hella, I have heard you can get Orc's blood out of your wedding dress by using a mixture of unicorn tears and leave from an umpa-lumpa tree. heh. I was actually thinking of signing up for an account on the way to work today..

Mac Heads Unite

For any of you Mac Heads..

We are pleased to announce that Full Tilt Poker is now available for the Mac®.

This is no half-baked, Apple-compatible web-based poker program like you'll find at some other sites. We've designed the first, native downloadable software specifically for the Mac, and it includes all of the great games and features PC players have come to know and enjoy, including the ability to take notes on other players, view instant visual hand histories, and choose your own avatar from our extensive list.

No Poker

I was itching to play last night but I was working until 10PM. It was cool though. I got to chat with April for a little. She introduced me to the site http://www.touchofclasscatalog.com. Search keyword poker. Now the site itself is interesting but what is REALLY cool is the ZOOM feature all of there items have. One of the best implementations of a zoom I have ever seen!

I was telling April how much I want to win the HORSE tourney.. or at least place ITM. I need another notch on my belt. It was a good time last year with the first place finish in Saturdays with Pauly and the forth place finish in the DADI this year. Hopefully Kat will give me a boost early on.. heh. She was the unfortionate victim of some excellent cards I had in the final two Pauly's.

I also got to chat with Hella. She has tempted me with the fruit of ULTIMA ONLINE. DA DA DAAAA.. I know if I start playing that game though I will be found dead of starvation after a six day binge of playing. So I will leave it to her. She is doing very well with her 24 million GP starter home. I have not seen her other house, the one in the Hamptons, but I am sure it is nice too. She has to stop wearing that wedding dress into battle though!

So after I worked until 10PM I did my second favorite thing at work until 1AM. I watched Anime! I know I am a nerd. So what. A guy at work brought in 30 gigs worth of Naruto. It is the entire series in good quality video. It is Japanese with English subtitles. You can actually catch the American version on Cartoon Network Saturday nights. What, you want to know the plot? Ok. I guess I owe Veneno some explaination for why I can not play her HU.

It is basically set in a semi-tech / semi-feudal Japanese land. So they have (some) computers and video but no cars, guns or paved roads. Go figure. It follows the story of a young Ninja named Naruto and his clan. Excellent Ninja battles and weird Ninjitsu powers abound. It is also very bloody. Naruto is basically a charector that has a Demon Fox imprisoned in his body as a baby to save the village. He grows up with all of his peers shunning him because they sense their parents fear of what is inside of him. Instead of becoming a bitter angry person, like I would, he holds onto his dreams of one day become the head ninja of the village and proving to everyone he is the best. The battles are really cool and the different powers and skills that each charector weilds are interesting. The battles are not simply I put this move on you and you lose. It is alot of deception and planning ahead to defeat an enemy. Sort of like a chess match. This makes the battles more interesting. Anyhow, thankfully, there are only 169 episodes and I have finished going through 120 or so.. I should be able to get back to Poker very soon. If anyone should happen to find this post while Googling Naruto.. Poker is fun too so click on my Full Tilt banner and sign up!! Arigato!

WARNING! WARNING WILL ROBINSON!

The following is a public service message brought to you by the letter G and iamhoff. He mentioned to me in comments that he played some O8 and had a hard time. I think like any Poker game anyone can play. It is easy. A card game. No problem. However there are layers upon layers of playing this game. I have maybe seen past layer one but I by no means know anything except the tiniest bit more than the casual player. So I guess I will spew some faulty strategy and see what happens.

When I first started playing O8 I was L0 Newbie. I played SORTA tight. My basic strategy was any hand that worked well together was a good hand. What is the fault in this style?

What have I learned at level L0.1 so far? I am glad you asked. This jackass game is not a SPLIT game. Whaaat? Sir has finally lost his marbles and thinks this is a HI game, no wonder he never makes any money. HEY HEY HEY! Shut up I am not done yet. If you play O8 as a split game and look for half the pot and think you got away good you are stupid not playing optimally. Think of the game as a scoop game only. The ONLY hands you want to play are ones that WILL scoop pots. If you have a good shot at scooping and the flop kills one side of it you MAY need to re-evaluate what to do.

believe me I laughed at Drizz for playing so tight but when you see it in action it works. When you see what hands the fish usually lose money on and see what hands you end up losing with it ends up making total sense.

So which hands have a good chance of scooping? There are several great books out there and I suggest you go buy one and read it if you want to play O8. Krieger has a good one that I have and Zee's is acknowledged as one of the best books out there. The best hands in Omaha are Ace high flushes with a two and three for a low. Weaker hands that you can also play are hands that have 4 low (under five) or high (10 or greater, aces included).. the high cards you really are looking for a flop with no low draws. With the low cards if you do not have an ace you want to see one on the flop or have your straight draw. Also A3 s00ted hands with two high cards or two low cards are very good.

You always play an A2. Now I have not figured out why this is because even though it gives you the nut low it does not give you an automatic high and you stand a chance of getting quartered. I will need to read up on that.

The other thing in Omaha is STRAIGHTS AND SMALL SETS SUCK AND TOP SETS ONLY SUCK A LITTLE LESS!!!! believe it people. Most small sets are beat by larger sets. The nut set usually needs to make a boat to win. Otherwise the 6 other people in the hand PROBABLY have some sort of flush draw. There is almost never a hand without a flush and any flush usually is made by someone in the pot. If you flop the NUT straight in HE you usually bet it hard. In O8 you need to go slow. Especially at the lower levels. At the higher levels people will know when to fold and you can possibly bet out. However at the lower levels they are all chasing and are bound to catch something. With my NUT straights I always check the flop and re-evaluate on the turn. I MIGHT put a bet in on the turn. It is a totally different story if I have the NUT straight and the NUT low. That kind of hand I can bet because I will usually not lose both of those.

Anyway, alot of this information probably sucks so go buy a book. I know I rambled and probably lost people. So go buy a book. I am still learning. Bottom line: I think if you play really tight, only play hands with high scoop potential, fold alot, and stop overvalueing straights and sets you will do well. I suck at advice so go buy a book. I will however continue to give you faulty advice as I keep learning more in my quest to become a winning player.

Cool Beans

I think I am running out of titles for my posts with Yowezers and Cool Beans. Oh well. It was a great night. Hell, it has been a great Poker week. I had MY BEST EVER O8 night. I quadrupled up on a table smashing the fish into little pieces as I had three of three flush draws AND swept many of those pots with the 2nd NUT low. Man I love O8 at 3AM.. the drunks are out and the game is good.

I then went over to Full Tilt. I played some Razz to start out. I actually ended up with a profit. I have a basic razz strategy although I confess I know nothing about the game. Basically I play pretty tight with 3-low cards to start or no play. I then want my 4th low card by 4th street or sometimes I will see 5th if I have a nice low draw. Anyway it worked tonight as I got TWO NUT Razz lows. A2345, the wheele baby! Booyah! It was a lot of fun.

I played Veneno HU and did not fair as well. I was way ahead and then let her back in the game. My bad. I dunno if I got bored or what but she ended up winning.

So after that we both go ahead and enter a $10/SNG. I probably should avoid these on FT because I only have $65 (with tonight's wins) but what the hell. I ended up coming in first place. Veneno was a close third. I have no strategy information for this SNG. As I play more O8, Holdem has become a fun diversion. Frustrating in its ability to reward bad play. I guess I have always though this but my attitude is sort of shifting. I basically do not care if I win these HE game. If I get pissed off that someone outdrew me with crap who cares. It is not my main game right now. It is an exciting diversion. The crack-cocaine of my Poker world these days. I like it for its speed and stress but it is not my bread winner right now.

So basically I am up $15 for the night on FT AAAAAND I am freerolling in April's HORSE tourney. If you do not know what "APRIL'S HORSE TOURNEY" is.. it does not involve barn animals even though she IS from TEXAS. The details are on her blog. Basically. Full Tilt. HORSE. January 20th. WBPT. Be there. It is going to be a hell of a lot of fun.

Yowzers

sooted said...

I was just thinking the other day after reading one of your posts that you have definitely matured this last year - at least in your approach to poker, and in your writing style.

Thanks man! I really appreciate that. I feel a little different over the past few months. I will so however I am fast losing the idea that I will EVER be at peace with HE again. It still drives me crazy. Even last night (Sorry Felicia close your eyes, bad beat story coming) when I pushed a guy in twice in our heads up match with DOMINATING hands on the flop and got sucked out on. I kept my cool.. and eventually lost on a bad move followed by an even worse call. However other forms of Poker have started to appeal to me alot.

I am REALLY enjoying limit O8 for instance. I have a totally different mind set with that game. I am finally figuring out how it REALLY works.. how basically all my thoughts on split games were TOTALLY wrong. I am at peace with the game. I make a few bucks a night or lose but I do not care. Not because I hate the game or am dispassionate about it but because I understand it. I am at peace with it. The suckouts are so much a part of the game. It is ME that affects the outcome. I can truely see that when I play.

Now do not get me wrong. I have ALOT to learn but I am hoping this is a game I can finally play the way you are supposed to. Dispassionatly with alot of enjoyment and profit.

I also signed up for the FT affiliate program. If you click on the FT banner and signup I become your master. I get like 20% of your rake for life or something. I dunno. It sounded cool when Veneno told me to do it. So if anyone is not playing on FT go and signup NOW!

Go work on catching up with Al. We jumped from 20 map entries to 32+. I am very proud of you.. but we have a ways to go. So if you have not signed my map then go do it!! NOW!!

I am crushed that the Patriots are mortal again. A little more about that when it is not so fresh.

Last but not least I am now the proud owner of a fish tank. We have to wait until tomorrow, when the tank is settled, to get some fish. However the filter is filtering, the Sponge Bob house is waiting and the kids are driving me insane. We are so ready for fish. My son asked if he could get a puffer fish. Umm, sorry, no. So he is settling for whatever hardy fish will not die in the new aquarium and a sea frog. Pretty cool things these sea frogs. They are frogs. However they do not breath air. All the do is hang at the bottom of the tank and eat whatever the fish miss. After the tank settles we will get some better fish.

Hanging with the Enemy

I did my first AlCantHang Dial-A-Shot. He was sitting at the bar, closing it down, and gave me a ring. I was truely honered. Of course all I had to shoot was Mike's Hard Lemonade. Kind of lame. I need to go grab a bottle of SoCo for these occassions.
Does Al ever stop talking when he is drinking? It was a riot! I can not wait to meet the guy.

I had my first winning night at O8. I doubled up. Winning $5. Woo hoo! Of course I lost that on two HE tourneys. Oh well. I played a little 7-Stud H/L Micro with Al also. That was indeed fun. I also had to pay Jordon five bucks for the last longer tourney. Now here is the deal from now on though. If ANYONE invites me to a team-last-longer tourney it is going to be the individual from whatever team that lasts longest who wins it for the whole team. None of this aggregate score bullshit.

So the roll stands at +$5 and growing slowly and responsibly I guess. We will have to see how long that lasts. Oh yeah.. if you have not read it yet, Texas is having a HORSE tourney. What is HORSE? I have no clue but it sounds like fun. JUST KIDDING! It is - Let me see if I get this right. [H]oldem, [O]maha, [R]azz, [S]tud and Omaha [E]ight. It rotates every turn of the blinds and is EXCEPTIONALLY fun. If you do not know one of the games you either fake it or check-fold that level. If Texas gets her act together this should go off on January 20th. Is there a bounty on Texas? Like a state flag or pair of guns? I have not seen one yet but it would be excellent.

Call to Arms

Come on people! What the hell are you doing? Sign up on my darn map! Are you telling me that AlCantHang has a better blog than me? Well.. ok, maybe, but.. are you telling me he has more readers.. oh, yeah, umm.. Well at least we can do better than 20 people! Al has freaking 80+ and growing. So get off your asses and add yourselves to my map!! Several notable people are missing. You know who you are. Do not make me come after you. The link is on the side. Geez. I at least though I had the most dedicated people!

Felicia and the Final Table

You finished the tournament in 4th place.
A $47.00 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

I won money in an PLO8 Tourney. I played well. I played smart. I sucked out twice. Once when I should have and once when my inexperience paid off. It was pretty cool hitting a one outer twice in a tourney. It felt really good.

I was substituting in for Trauma for the last longer team. I had two star players on my team. Drizz and Daddy. Too bad they both dissapointed me greatly (lol). I used Trauma's luck instead of my own and boy did it work.

The first good early hand I had A2xx of spades. The flop comes a WONDERFUL two spades and two low. So there is no way I am folding this hand. Joanne puts me all in with her set. It was HU so this was not a bad move at all. Did I mention that Joanne scares me? Anyway she turns the boat with the card that gives me the nut low. So I am thinking we are going to split. A four of spades hits on the river and I am like "Great I hit the flush too late".. except all the chips start flying my way. It turns out I hit the straight flush on the river. I did not even notice THAT draw. Sorry Jo! You still scare me.

The second big hand was one that shows my lack of experience in O8. I actually know that the bottom set usually sucks but it was either HU or two others in the hand and I THOUGHT I was good. I push all in with my set of 3's and get insta-called with a set of 6's. I am lamenting my loss of a huge amount of chips when.. yup.. you guessed it "DEMS QUADS BIATCHES!".

With those two double-ups I was able to cruise to the final table. It was tough. I folded a ton of hands and got extremely short stacked. Once I made the money I was able to push in with a few good hands and was 3rd in chips for a while. I folded and played my good hands HARD and was able to hold on until 4th place. I actually had a decent hand but the HUGE stack had SOOOOO many chips that he was putting people in on every hand. It was the correct way to play the final table IMHO. It paid off when he flopped a 9 and turned a set. No low for my hand. He shortly after took out Felicia and ZeemJr. Zeem feel free to post your blog in the comments if you read this. I never caught it. So the winner ended up being Jestocost. He played a hell of a game.. and Veneno spotted him 11K in chips which did not hurt either. She ended up in 7th. I was also impressed by Jordon making the final table since he does not play O8 often. All in all a very enjoyable game and a great time for the bloggers. Alot of big names showed up like Al, Iggy, and Mr. Bracelet himself.

It was really fun playing with Felicia too. She and DuggleChicken were probably the best O8 players at the final table. She did say my Blog is the worseworst ever. I *think* she was somewhat kidding. I respect the hell out of her Poker knowlege and her willingness to express her opinions. Even if she really does think my blog is the worse I respect that too.

Fluxor

Profile: Fluxor
Blog: http://www.wiredpairs.blogspot.com

I have recently been talking online a lot with a great blogger named Fluxor. He is a really a cool kid. Only 19 and enjoying life as a gambooler. If I was 19 again I might give it a shot. The reason I like him so much is he is WORSE than me with his whining and crying and even rivals me in playing above his head and busting bankrolls. If you have not read his site it is fun to read. I enjoy it because I see a lot of my own faults in him.

One day I am at work and Flux IM’s me. Every five minutes I am getting an update on either a huge win while he plays 600/NL with his 2K bankroll or a huge suckout loss. It was cool. I also like when he compares himself to really good bloggers when he has seven sessions logged.

Anyway, he is a crazy maniac and a good player. He should do well if he can get his act together. He has very good instincts. However I really believe nobody can win long term playing above there head. Not that I am going to stop mind you. I wish him the best and hope he gets his bankroll in order again and starts playing slightly more responsibly. He is definitely my soul brother as far as poker goes. It will be interesting to see how we both wind up.

Omaha

I am trying to be responsible. Really I am. I decided to play some limit O8. I lost a couple of buyins. I actually think I played tight but played a few hands wrong. You know the ones I am talking about. The ones where your gut is telling you there is no way you should call but you do anyways. Those ones. At least I did not do that often. I still have alot of work to on my game. Rome was not built in a day.

DADI Special Olympics Blogger tourney starts tonight (wed). It is on Stars. It costs $10/1. It is Omaha and the password is blogsaregay. Come by and play if you want. It should be easy money with me in it. At the worse it will be fun. Go see HighOnPoker for more details I guess... In addition there is some last longer thing so if you want to team up with me I need a team.

Such a Nerd

I am such a Nerd but I love this map thing. I check it every morning (one morning so far) to see if anyone has signed up. Our good friend Ingoal is the furthest visitor from Germany so far.. I predict a Hella Map soon..

Too Cool..

Al as usual has found the coolest, useless, thing on the Internet. So go to my map too!!!!

75-Token Full Tilt

Played in some freeroll (FPP Points) for a $75 token on Full Tilt tonight. It was cool. No bad beats. Although I witnessed many. I decided since only three paid I would push with 88 and the guy who called with AJ hit his jack on the flop. It was all over. Finished 109th of 280 so not so bad. It was relaxing at least. Ohh, and I would not normally suggest calling an $1800 bet with a $5K stack with AJ.. not a +EV proposition usually.

New Hobby

I found a new hobby today. Play as many low-limit (1$, FPP's, etc..) Poker games as possible and DO NOT get involved in any hands. Just watch. Now, pretty soon, you will be ROLLING on the floor laughing at the plays people make. It is very cool.

A shame..

Please everyone bow your heads for a moment of silence in our friends time of hardship. Our thoughts and sympathy go out to you in your time of pain. I wish I could console you as you work through the pain.

Luck Box

Check this hand out.. and guess which guy to my right pushes all in on the turn?

Hell Shift

You enter work at 9AM. You leave work at 4pm THE NEXT day. Now that is a shift. What can you do? Thank GOD you are a contract employee and get paid hourly.. also, that the demo went well even though the software sucks right now. I now have two weeks to fix it. So I crashed on the sofa for 6 hours and here I am! Booyah! Baby! Time to take it to the fish!!!

You have been Served

I was thinking about this on the way to work yesterday: Full Tilt - You have been served, by Poker Stars. What do I mean by this? I REALLY like the upgrades to the software that PS made recently. The controls that allow you to hide finished games, sort games by monitary groupings, etc.. are really cool. The one thing that used to annoy me about PS was the endless scrolling. I find that Full Tilt annoys me in the same way. It is a very minor issue and would not cause me to stop playing at FT but PS has shown the way guys and you should give the people better filters. How about some new cute and fuzzy animals too? Cmmon! Have you added any Avatars in the past year? No, Layne Flack doesnt count to anyone except Texas.. So anyway, I still give Full Tilt my A+ stamp of approval but there is some room to improve. I would not be surprised if they had though about these things already and possibly had something in development because they do care about the players.. we will just have to wait and see what happens..

Royal Vegas

I bought in for $50 to the site on the advice of Veneno. So far not alot of luck. Not really surprising. However I had fun playing some Stud and Limit HE. The HE got a little frustrating when i kept flopping well only to be beat by that one hand that could be me.. like when there was no raise pre-flop and I was the blind. I had 26h. Flop comes 22K. Turn was a six. As I start counting my chips he flips over his pair of Kings.. Never was ahead but kind of frustrating to catch the perfect cards to set you up.

I also played a nice tourney. Came in 37th of 185. Not too bad. I could have done better but basically played two hands poorly and lost 4K. I was then very small stacked and had to push with a horrible hand - KK. Of course QJ calls and flops a set and turns a boat. I probably would have called myself. Only because this guy was a big stack (18K), he only had to call off 2K in chips and he was getting 3-1 pre-flop on his QJo. I mean why not. Oh wait, I am not an idiot.

Actually I would not mind hearing some opinions on this hand but calling a raise of 2K and a call by a guy who has 3/4ths of your stack with QJo seems a little risky. Of course once you flop JJ and turn a Q you look like a fucking Genius. I would personally actually only rate his play marginally poor.. I think a case could be made for making that call. That is why I am asking for opinions.

Anyway, besides a couple of bad hands and busting out my fifty I had a decent time. The software is not great. The HUGE tables make it hard to multi-table and the betting controls for the NL game suck. It takes me almost all of my time to raise the proper amount. The fish at the site are Royal. I can not tell you how many times second and third pair called me down to river two pair or a gutshot straight draw called down for his win. If you are luckier than me you will do well. Hell, I might even be able to win against these guys.

Overall I would rate Royal Vegas a B-. It tries. It is not bad. However it will not become one of my favorite sites.

Comments

How many times are you going to go on about losing with a 65% favourite?!?! Thats poker, and it happens to us all.

- Dangerous

From the comments section .. new reader? I dunno. It brings up a good point and the gist of what I struggle with in Poker. It is not that I always expect to win when I am ahead 80% plus, but once or twice would be nice? I probably exagerate a little, it is a trait, but it just seems like I do not win these one of four times. I does not seem like I win the coinflips or much of anything. I know this is probably just me being down and seeming like nothing is working but it is how I feel and that is all I can share here.

It brings up a more important point though.. if the best you can usually hope for is 55-60%.. and aewsome odds have you winning 4 of five times if the stars align and .. then is there really alot more to Poker than luck? Instead of poker being about skill with a little luck thrown in, it really seems more like it is all about luck with a little skill thrown in.

It is funny how a little perspective changes your thinking. Over a year ago when I could not lose if I tried I figured it was all skill and luck had nothing to do with it, however, now that I have had an extended losing streak its all luck and there is no skill involved. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle and is probably somewhat different for every player.

Just as a side note, I also agree with Iamhoff. I have enjoyed watching Poker on TV lately. It is fun to see the one outers hit for a Matusow and Phil go ballistic. I am not sure if that gives me more or less hope about Poker. I guess it just gives a different view of the game..

As far as how many times I am going to whine about an 80% favorite losing.. probably alot more times. The blog in a way is for the people reading it. I enjoy that aspect of it. It is nice to have a little notoriaty and to be able to see other people's perspectives on the game. It is a GREAT community we have here to. However the blog has also grown into a nice outlet for ME. If I am lamenting the beats then I am going to spill that out onto these pages.. if I am riding the wave to the top you will hear about that.. whatever I feel I need to get off my chest will come out here. Sometimes it will be really excellent writing.. some days/weeks/months it will be a huge cry fest, who know's there might even be some strategy posts. So take out of it what you want. If you get tired of reading then leave. If you have nothing better to do at work then stay. The blog will continue on giving it's own version of what Poker is.. one person's version in a world of players.. my version of the truth and nothing else. Take it or leave it.