The Slag Pile

Upside Down Night

2009-10-19T17:05:00.003-05:00

Boy howdy, if all you had to go by in judging how to play solid poker were my results from last night, you'd get your junk cut right off over the long term. My 4-1 favorites, like KK vs. Q9s all-in pre-flop, were getting dusted off right and left, but whenever I got in a lower pair vs. a higher pair I was rivering sets like crazy. I even managed to win a short-stack desparation all-in call with 42s vs. two over pairs with a 2 on the flop and a 4 on the river, thank you very much.

After bubbling in two of the three tournaments I played and crashing out early in the third, the true crowning glory of the night came when I cleverly spent 45 minutes at a $100 NLHE ring game. I chucked a whole bunch of junk hands, stole the blinds a couple of times and whiffed on several flops, then hit TPTK on a J-high flop and got it all in against a flopped set of 4s. Hah! These 49-1 dogs are no problem, apparently, as I went runner-runner for Jacks full of Aces and doubled up instead of getting stacked.

Seriously.

Couldn't have played it worse and my reward is a profitable night putting me a step further away from what once seemed an almost inevitable return to bankroll oblivion.

I guess that's poker.

The Glory That Was the Hammer

2009-10-12T00:23:00.005-05:00

Every once in a great while, a hand comes along that reminds me of what used to be in the poker bloggerverse.

And he shoved into me on the river.

This lead to a fairly deep run--not to the level of the two $3 MTT FTs I pulled in the last week--until I made the huge tactical error of getting AA in vs. AKo, which of course leads to a KKx flop.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, the Dodgers Suck, You Know..

2009-10-07T20:50:00.007-05:00

And so it's on. The unexpected Cardinals are facing down the overrated Dodgers. That's a good enough reason to stay awake and alert, but then there's the friggin' Mookie!

No guarantees on the awake or alert parts, but I am registered for the Mookie and I will play in the damn thing.

Holy shit. Torre is bringing in Jeff "Frickin'" Weaver with the bases loaded in the fourth. I guess he can't get demoralized and give up facing one batter. Like clockwork, he gives up an obvious extra base hit that is called foul and mysteriously is NEVER shown on replay. WTF? I mean they show every foul tip from five different angles and we don't get to see this one replayed even once?

So let me get this straight. If this is playing out just the way Joe Torre wants it to, does that mean he hoped to be up by only two runs if the Cardinal pitchers proved unable to get anyone out? If so, he should be fired. I'm just saying.

Kanye West Sez, "I Got Nuthin'"

2009-09-13T20:44:00.006-05:00

So I made a pathetic attempt to feign relevancy by busting in on Taylor Swift's acceptance speech at the VMAs.

Anyone who has read my blog probably knows that Taylor Swift's music doesn't exactly intersect with my tastes. But, I have seen her live (15 year old daughters do that to you) and I respect her talents as a song writer and as an artist.

Kanye West, on the other hand, can't crank out a passable song with the assistance of massive vocal processing and I can't even classify what he produces as music. No sense of melody combined with vocal talents on par with mine = crap. He just might want to sit down and shut up before the entire planet realizes that. So, fuck him.

OK, so kudos to Beyonce for trying to make things right during her later acceptance speech. An awkward moment, but it's the thought that counts.

Mookie, Music and Working My Ass Off

2009-09-09T21:02:00.002-05:00

It's another Mookie and I'm on the road again. Or still.

In this economy I am grateful that my skillz are useful and that my employer continues to pay my healthy salary. I also should be grateful that I am so beloved that I am called up for emergency duty involving travel to a less-than-prime location three to four days a week just for the priviledge of working 12-15 hour days with our senior execs. Oh, the glory.

Room with a fridge this week means no mad bar dashes during breaks. Which won't be an issue thanks to a Gigli exit from the Mookie. AKs missed and I got frisky with 88 and a diamond draw against JJ with a better diamond draw. Of course the diamonds hit that hand and not on the AK hand. C'est la vie.

Time to play some redonkulous events and see if I can avoid going broke (again).

Live Blogging the Mookie...It's Just That Exciting!

2009-08-26T21:01:00.017-05:00

I'm running in the Mook for the first time in ages and having a go at the $28K simultaneously. That's multitabling action, which as you all know is a balla move to the max.

My first victim in the Mook is Lucko, who falls prey to my Aces full, when I raise pre-flop with ATo, bet out and call a raise on an AQQ flop, bet the turn and get a call, then shove and get a call when another A hits the river. No idea what he had and I can't post a screenshot because I am unable to load the latest version of Flash to be able to use the ultra high tech hand history thingamabob on FTP.

Pretty much treading water in the Mook, which still is good enough for 2nd closing in on the first break. The $28K is over, however, after I ran a stop 'n go with the nut flush draw head first into a flopped set of Qs. No more hearts for me, and that's that, as they say.

Closing in on the first break, I make a huge error and get TT in against a short-stacked LJ's K3s. K on the flop and a 3 on the river for good measure. Two-to-one favorites are so lame. I did rebound with a few nice hands, including a flopped set of nines on the last hand, which puts me in fourth (which is all the places that pay in tonight's huge field of 31) out of 22 remaining. Beats a sand wedgie, I guess.

The depressing state of my poker for the evening forces me to listen to some uplifting music to avoid going on mega tilt. The sounds du jour are Emperor's seminal Black Metal work, In the Nightside Eclipse. Melodic Norwegian Black Metal at its best; and with competition from disturbing peers like Burzum and Mayhem, that's saying something. Among the awesomeness on this disc is a cover of Bathory's classic, A Fine Day to Die; one of the greatest songs ever written. Another advantage of this approach is that I don't have to listen to the inane commentary on the WSOP reruns on ESPN.

This just in: ChippyMcStacks is NOT happy that I called his AQ pf raise with my QTs and hit a ten on the flop, then called his open shove. Wait..I don't care! That put me into second place. Wait again...WiredAces77 apparently imploded out of first, which means...FIRST at the FT.

A three-minute run to the lobby bar to get a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and I'm ready to rock.

And then out in 8th when my aggression caught up with me and Lightning called light and behind, but out flopped me on two hands. GG

And thanks to ScottMc for the mystery bonus. Maybe there was a bounty on NumbBono of which I was unawares or perhaps I broke more than a personal record on the three-minute lobby bar run.

Finishing up the night with Internet porn and Death's The Sound of Perseverance.

I'll Just Post When I Win, Thanks.

2009-08-17T15:56:00.001-05:00

If I become king of the teeny tourneys, is that all bad?

Swiss Family Jestocost Returns!

2009-07-31T14:55:00.006-05:00

I'm back home on U.S. soil after a great trip to Switzerland. Much great scenery was enjoyed, good food was eaten and acceptable Swiss bier was drunk. No poker was thought of at any time.

It's an undertatement to say that the Swiss Alps are incredible. We spent a fair amount of time travelling by trains (which run frequently and always are on schedule) and every ride took you from one glorious vista to another. Here's the standard view from the balcony of our apartment in Lungern, a small town about half way between Luzern and Interlaken.

And here is just a random waterfall also visible from our balcony. We hiked up to the base of this fall one afternoon.

I believe the mountain visible in the distance on the first shot above is Ballenberg. The mountain accessible via gondola and chair lift from Lungern, the peak of which actually can't be seen from the town, is Schönbüel. The shot below is from the far side of Schönbüel, just below the peak, at about 6,000 feet. That's Lake Brienz, with the town of Brienz on the near side of the lake and Interlaken barely visible at the far end. Beyond Interlaken is Lake Thun, which is absolutely beautiful.

The highest we actually got on a mountain was around 7,000 feet, on both Mt. Pilatus outside Luzern and in the Grimselpass. There are much bigger mountains in Switzerland, of course, and below is a view of the Jungfrou range which has several peaks higher than 14,000 feet. This was our view from the terrace of the restaurant where we had lunch in the town of Murren.

That's all on the travelog front for now. As promised (or threatened), I will be at the tables for a full slate of MTTs on Monday night and maybe for a brief appearance at some point this weekend. It's possible I have forgotten how to play the game, which could mean that I suck less or it could mean that I suck more. Either way, it certainly means that there will some easy chips out there for the taking.

Hello Again and See You Later!?

2009-07-13T12:36:00.001-05:00

And so another gap in postings ends with another post that doesn’t have a whole lot to offer. Par for the course, most certainly.

This return to posting also will end almost immediately, as I take to the skies tomorrow en route to a two-week vacation in the Swiss Alps. We fly into to Zurich, then take the train through Lucerne and about another hour out from there to Lungern, where we will be based. Mostly day trips are on the schedule other than a two-day jaunt to the Swiss-Italian town of Locarno. If I can avoid altitude sickness and find good bier, all should be well.

I’ve been good (OK, better, if not good) lately and confined my play to micro tournaments for the most part. That includes a steady diet of things like the Daily Dollar on FTP or the nightly $2 $4K Guarantee on Stars. Other than a final table in a random $3 MTT on FTP, however, I have little to show for my efforts. Still, I’ve rebounded from the depths and have a little bit of breathing room as far as the bankroll goes for the time being. Two weeks away from the tables also should help staunch the bleeding.

I did manage to score a $26 token in the $1 Token Frenzy last night on FTP, FWIW. This was particularly nice as I managed to overcome—both chip wise and emotionally—a ridonkulous beat about midway through the event. After an EP raise and a call ahead of me, I saw a flop from one of the blinds with QTo and flopped top two. I bet out, got a call from the EP raiser and a few folds, then it went bet, raise, push, call after a glorious Q hit on the turn. My opponent flipped over AA and proceeded to nail one of his two remaining outs on the river to stage a 19-1 beat down on me. Fortunately, that only took half my stack and I managed to chip back up in short order and hold on for the token.

That token should come in handy on the night of August 3, when I get to play bachelor and have the entire house to myself. I can’t get too crazy with things as I have to work the next day, but a full schedule of uninterrupted poker fun, some beer consumption and the ingestion of foods that no one else in my family will touch definitely will be in the offing.

Excellent!

2009-06-21T00:52:00.002-05:00

Another night of junk kicking; wherein AK < AQ and 99 < 44 and that's how every tourney ends. Sweet!

When Donkeys Languish

2009-06-19T12:28:00.001-05:00

Over a month without posting must be some kind of recent record, but no one seems to be complaining or concerned. I’m definitely in a bit of a funk as far as the old poker table goes. It’s hard to discern whether my play is a result of that funk or is the cause of it. Regardless, I feel like I continue to make strides toward becoming a better player and at the same time I still have holes in my game through which you can drive the proverbial truck.

It would be one thing if these were completely new holes that develop as my game changes and I deal with the differences in playing a tougher group of opponents. But, for the most part, they are just the same holes that get patched, blow open again and have to be repatched. Right now I’m calling off too much money in situations where there’s a good chance that I’m beat. Or I’m finding myself unable to believe that, for example, my opponent actually called a pre flop raise out of position with the one crappy hand that has me beat; which, of course, they do time and again.

The biggest hole of all is bad bankroll management, which leads me to build up a decent roll and then piss it away by playing too high for too long. It’s fine to “take a shot” every once in a while, but when I empty the chamber firing shot after shot and don’t happen to capitalize on any of them I eventually have to reload or drop way back down and grind my way back up. And that’s where I find myself today. Not broke by any stretch, but well down from where I was a couple of months ago.

The money’s not the issue per se, although the fact that reloading just became significantly more challenging thanks to our fine federal government is a bit of a bother. I have plenty of money and if I lost my entire roll a few times over it really wouldn’t be noticed. It’s the fact that I know the issue and should be able to manage it better, but I just don’t. Plain and simple.

So right now my play is schizophrenic at best. On the one side, I have days or tournaments in which I play like crap and call off my stack in situations where I should be folding (or should never have gotten into in the first place). On the other, when I do play well it just seems that I can’t win a race or fade somebody’s three outs.

Other than a first in that $3 MTT last month, my other big online poker successes have been a double cash (my first ever, WTF?) in the FTP Daily Doubles. Oh, and a second in this week’s HORSE edition of the Dookie for a cool $16.50, baybee. I now have a higher net in the Dookie for the year than the #5 player on the leader board, which is nice.

Meh. Standard. [Insert your favorite Internet cliché here.]

Some bloggers, on the other hand, are having their way with the WSOP.

Congrats to LJ and CK for a couple of close-but-no cigar cashes and to sprstoner for his nifty third-place payday in event #13. I still am bitter at the guy for the sick beat he put on me in the only tournament hand I think I’ve ever played against him, but I’ll suck it up and hand him the props he is due.

Another blogger with a nice, albeit indirect, score at the WSOP is Jamyhawk, a fellow St. Louisan who had a 1/52 slice of event #28 winner Mike Eise as a result of a series of WSOP qualifiers that a local group ran over the course of the last year. Pre-tax that amounts to about $12K by my calculations.

That's that, my friends. I'll try to spew out another post or two before I head to the Swiss Alps for a two-week vacation over the last half of July.

A Little One, But I'll Take It…

2009-05-14T16:18:00.003-05:00

…especially after an extended run of junk kicking that I have endured over the past two months. Losing races, 4-1 faves, getting my pair counterfeited on the river, blah, blah blah. In fact, this was my second MTT final table in the past three days.

I've played a few of these recently and it's good lightweight fun. I diddled around for quite awhile, then got my first bump into 10th with 263 left when I flopped a set of Ks and was able to induce a call from a QJo on the AKx flop with an OBFV. A while later, I was able to get TP2K in against my flopped set with a similar move. I must be disguising the OBFV better lately because for a while I've been getting folds to them and calls of my all in bluffs, which is the exact opposite of what I'm going for, obviously.

Another key hand came in a blind-vs. blind battle with me having 67s in the BB. The SB completed and I checked. The flop came with two clubs and the SB checked. I bet and he called. The turn completed my flush and it went check, bet, call on the turn and again on the river. He showed down one of the most poorly played pocket rockets that I've seen in a long time.

I muddled around in the top 10 for most of the rest of the tournament. Then, heading for the FT bubble I set up a stop-and-go that worked out better than I had hoped when I flopped trip Ts with KTo. AJ had been happy to call my apparent bluff and the K on the turn sealed the deal.

From there I limped to the final table and was at death's door thanks to a steady run of hands that included mostly unpaired 2s, 3s and 4s. Then I desperation shoved with QTs and was mortified to see two calls followed by an all-in reraise from one of the leaders. One of the early callers folded and I was in against 77 and KK. The K on the flop put me on life support, but I somehow managed to go runner-runner straight to shoot me back up into first with five remaining.

More incredible crap hands followed, but I managed to stay in the top two until the deck finally hit me. With three left I picked up KK and got 88 to shove into me. that sent me into heads up with a nice chip lead and I pounded on the other player with decent hands until he got frustrated and shoved when I happened to have AK. No help for his two undercards and that's all she wrote.

I'm going to angle to play in the Mookie next week, so perhaps I will see you (singular, I assume) there!

Fun MTT on Stars

2009-04-15T16:40:00.006-05:00

The $109 $15K turbo MTT that runs nightly at 7:30 p.m. on Stars is a fun little event. For one, it almost never goes off without the pool being at least twice the guarantee and on many occassions it runs with a $50K+ prize pool. Second, it's over in about three hours even when 500+ players are signed up. Third, you get a host of "name" online pros and assorted Supernovas and Supernova Elites. I actually like playing against these types of players more than I do against the uber donks in the nightly $40K and other lower buy in events. (And it's OK for me to call them uber donks, since I myself am an uber donk.) At least I like playing against them in the early stages, because they know how to fold and radical shit like that. I'm just guessing (hah!) that they would shred me to ribbons in the later stages.

Below is a shot of me taking out noted online MTT god Chad Batista, aka lilholdem, who has $1.9 million in tournament winings on Stars alone. He had played almost no hands, just a few steal attempts that he had to drop after pressure from the blinds or on the flop, and made a short-stack shove with ATs. I woke up in the BB with AKo after and called. Since I had doubled up a few hands earlier after winning a race with JJ vs. AQ, this put me up near the top of the leaderboard for a brief while.

After that, I hung in there in the money spots for quite some time before a shorty shoved and I called off one-third of my stack with KTo. I figure I was ahead of his range, but of course I couldn't even have two live cards as he showed KQ. That hit knocked me down into push-and-pray mode, where I held until close to the bubble. Then I took this ridiculous beat at the hands of successful online MTT player and blogger, sprstoner. Even though I was a 15-1 favorite after the flop, I knew my fate was sealed when the second heart came on the turn and I was right. I was done on the next hand when my sooted connectors failed to, well, connect. Sprstoner didn't do too much better and went out only one or two places after me.

If I had held on in this or, god forbid, pulled in a decent cash, I might actually be able to play it more often. As it stands, however, the $109 buy in is too rich for my current bankroll and I'll have to rebuild before I try it again.

So F'in Rigged!

2009-04-08T15:17:00.003-05:00

And I wonder why I can't ever seem to break through.

Proof That I am Cursed

2009-03-29T23:37:00.002-05:00

Well, maybe not real statistically significant proof, but the anecdotal evidence from tonight's outing seems to me to be reflective of historical reality. During the course of several tournaments, I was involved in five key races. I lost three and won two. Not much to go on there. In those same events, I had two major suckouts and suffered seven significant bad beats. A little more to go with there, but what's the most frustrating element is that four of the seven bad beats and one of the lost races put me out of tournaments. And since I only played in nine tournaments on the night, that means that I went out on bad beats in close to half. Three of those were river jobs the other was just your standard AJ < 97 situation.

Blech.

Another Close Call…

2009-03-20T15:39:00.002-05:00

Reasonably proud of this one, as I survived desparation mode with a few key double ups heading for the money bubble and hit the cash positions in sixth place. I worked my way up the ladder into the top three and took a nice chip lead with a massive suckout after I made a steal attempt with K8o and was priced in to call a shove from a short stack with AA. K on the flop, K on the river and I was in first with 11 remaining. I was still in the lead at the final table, albeit not by much, but went card dead or had a mediocre hand facing a raise in front of me. Other than a few steal attempts, nothing much was happening. Then I lost 2/3 of my stack with KJo vs. KJs when we both flopped second pair, but he rivered the flush. After that it was off to the races with AJo vs. 88, but no help was forthcoming and I went quietly away with $686 and change.

The buy in for this event is a little steep for my budget, but I played it yesterday and went fairly deep. I would have been in a sweet postion in that one too, but made the mistake of getting AA in vs. QQ pre flop. My 4-1 favorites are just like chum in the water for whoever I'm up against. I don't know what's worse; that hand or the two coolers. Things were looking snazzy there too, as I won a small pot with KK and drew KK two hands later. I raised and got called, then we got it all in on a low-card rainbow flop and my opponent flipped over AA. Two hands later and short stacked in the blinds, I found AK and ran that straight into AA. So, over the space of five hands I had KK twice and AKo once, and ran into AA two times. Awesome.

Off to the beach. Back in a week with a decent and growing bankroll. May have to hit at least a couple of the BBT events even though I have no realistic chance of doing anything vis a vis the rankings or the ToC; short of winning one of the damn things that is.

Oh, and my car is ready to roll so it's time to send the piece of shit Chevy back to Enterprise. I keep hearing that American quality is back and maybe that's true with Buick, but if the car I'm driving is any indication Chevy has a long way to go.

Adios!

Well, well, well…the excitement is palpable.

2009-03-16T12:47:00.001-05:00

Can you feel it? No? Hmmm. Guess that I’m not the only who’s not charged up by this sorry little blog in the last few weeks.

I think I continue to play better and over the last week have won another $12 turbo 180-man SNG on Stars, had a deep run (12th) in the morning $14K Guarantee on FTP, final tabled a $5K Guarantee 6-max MTT on Stars (yes, an actual final table for ME on Stars) for $720 and busted Scott Fischman out of the 50/50. Yay me. I’ll spare you the ubiquitous bad beat stories and just be happy with my t-shirt (provided that it ever comes, unlike the shirt I already should have after busting Karina Jett a few months ago).

The final table on Stars did save the night, which started with me getting out of the gates faster than I ever have in the FTP $35K Guarantee. Just a few hands into the game I hit one of those rare dream situations where I woke up with AA and found myself as a 30-1 favorite all-in, pre flop against two opponents with AKo. No miracle board for them and I tripled up and vaulted into the chip lead with something like 1,200 runners still alive. A few hands later I ran into some nabob who for some reason felt that J8 was good on an 8xx board facing a preflop raiser and was happy to call near pot-sized bets down all the way to pay off my QQ. That padded my nascent lead and I held on in the top five for quite a while, before a series of misadventures had me heading for the rail with nothing to show for my early success.

In the life beat category, my car is having $1,250 worth of cosmetic body repair work done thanks to my idiot neighbor managing to back into the side of it while it was parked in my driveway. It takes a diagram to fully explain how that is possible and I’m not patient enough with MS Paint to make one to post here. The biggest beat of all may be that I get to spend this week tooling around town in a sexy, bright red Chevy Cobalt.

I also appear to be over a nifty bout of benign paroxysmal positional vertigo that was oh so enjoyable for about a week. There’s nothing quite like getting full blown room spins from just rolling over in bed or reaching back to wipe your ass on the toilet. It’s been over a week since the last real spins, so hopefully my upcoming flight to Florida for Spring Break won’t become an epic disaster by triggering a relapse. I do have some Antivert that I plan to take in advance of the flight just in case.

And if the plane doesn’t trigger anything, perhaps I can set off a spell by swimming with the dolphins at Discovery Cove or on a roller coaster at Busch Gardens Tampa. It’s always nice to have something to dread when thinking about your upcoming vacation, so I’ve got that going for me.

Perhaps I can blame the Fastidijituity post on some kind of pre-vertigo dementia? Or not.

Altruisitic Punishment and the Poker Player’s Perspective

2009-03-02T17:24:00.003-06:00

An article in today’s Washington Post discussed how the emotional response to the current round of government rescue plans may play a role in causing some of them to fail, even if from a practical, objective perspective they should work. There was a very interesting section in which one economist discussed the results of a game developed to test the concept of altruistic punishment in general (not in the context of the current environment) and here’s what happened:

Four people are given $5 apiece. They are then told to contribute one after the other to a common pot. If the amount in the pot totals $12, they are informed, each player will get a $6 bonus. In an ideal world, each player would give $3, collect the bonus and go home with $8. The temptation, however, is to free-ride -- to contribute less than your share and hope someone else gives more.

Experiments show that when players No. 1, 2 and 3 contribute only a total of $7 -- far less than their share -- No. 4 faces a dilemma: If the player puts in the whole $5, the common pot will reach $12. A purely rational, selfish player would pony up the $5 in order to get the bonus, because it is always better to go home with $6 than with $5.

But the experiments show that large numbers of people refuse to do the "rational" thing. Seeing that they are being played for suckers, they contribute nothing. They forgo the extra $1 in order to punish the selfish players who came before them.

So, what’s your play?

For me, I guess I view this situation and life in general as most comparable to a cash game. If I come out ahead, that’s the play to make. It’s no skin off my nose if someone else comes out a little farther ahead in any given situation. I may note that they are a douchebag and keep that in mind for potential future situations, but I’m not going to pass up a guaranteed win just because someone else might win more.

Now, back to our usual programming.

My New Band

2009-02-27T16:07:00.002-06:00

Here's the first album from a new band created via a meme I glommed from Poker Peaker (apparently via Gracie).

The title pretty much sucks and the picture is just weird, but the band name is kick ass. Ours is the Kingdom, at least the Wiki entry that the random feature took me to, actually is the fifth album by English folk/black metal band Forefather. If you haven't heard them before, they're one pretty slick duo with a sound somewhat along the lines of a few of my favorites, like Wintersun, Ensiferum, Equilibrium and Amon Amarth.

Don't even start with me on the mad MS Paint skillz.

Fastidijituity

2009-02-18T15:09:00.001-06:00

There. It's on the Internet at last. Let's just hope Pink Geoffrey isn't closing in.

What can I say. I took a lot of drugs when I was younger.

Vegas TR

2009-02-12T12:04:00.002-06:00

I'm just back from three nights in Vegas and generally had a good time. I stayed at the Palazzo and did all of my playing at the Venetian as a result. They have a very nice room, an excellent nightly tournament and mostly pleasant players overall.

Popping the Live Tournament Cherry

I played the nightly tournament three times with nothing to show for it, which is disappointing, but it was a relatively low-cost way to get my first live tournament experience.

The first night I played way to tight early; at least in part because I was completely card dead. Still having seen what were some less-than-marginal hands win showdowns form some good-sized pots early, it's clear that I should have been spalshing around a lot more when the blinds were $25/$50 and starting stacks were $7,500. I think I played way too scared when I was in a hand too, probably resulting in some bad laydowns with medium strength hands after the flop. I came back from the first break in push and pray mode, which worked great for one hand and not so good on the second, when I pushed A3o from the button and the SB woke up with QQ. No help on the board for me, and that was that.

The second night I went in convinced not to make that same mistake again, but badly misplayed the first hand of the night and dropped nearly 20 percent of my stack right out of the gate. Then, I was pretty much forced to play tighter than I wanted and wound up in the same position again. My first shove (KK) netted me the blinds and antes, then my second shove a couple of hands later had me nicely ahead with AJs vs KQo, but the Q on the flop ended that pretty quickly.

Here's a quick recap of the first hand and I'd appreciate any comments. I obviously have no reads other than some superficial first impressions, but the key player is directly to my right. He's a young guy with close-cropped hair and a leather jacket, and obviously is a regular. The cards come out and I find AJo UTG and pop it to $175. It folds around to the BB, who calls. The flop comes three low clubs and I have the A of clubs, so I bet out about $300 when the BB checks to me and get reraised another $500, which I call. The flop comes an offsuit J, but now I elect to just check after it's checked to me. When the river comes a complete blank, the BB checks, I bet $500 and he reraise me to $2,000. I tank, of course, and finally determine that I'm not willing to risk $1,500 more on the first hand, so I fold.

Poorly played on every street, IMO. First, an open raise with AJo on the first hand of night might have been a good idea from a later position, but UTG it's asking for trouble. Second, the flat call of the flop check raise is OK only if I'm willing to make something out of it on a later street. Third, the check on the turn when I get help just screams weakness and sets me up to have someone make a move on me on the river. Finally, the river bet, which I was thinking of as a value bet, is terrible if I'm not willing to put up or shut up.

At the time, I equated his flop and river check raises as meaning he had flopped the flush or two pair. In that case, the fold was a good one as played. But in thinking about the hand after the fact, I'm more of the opinion now that he put me on exactly what I had--a decent hand, but not a big hand--and made a bet he was pretty sure I wouldn't call. I also have the benefit now of having watched him play for another couple of hours and know that such a move is well within his arsenal. That fact alone reinforces the initial pre-flop raise decision that set this chain of events into motion.

Your thoughts?

The third night of the tournament I was much moire relaxed and, on the whole, played better. I did make a rookie mistake on an early hand that likely wound up costing me. This time, I'm in the SB with AQs and it comes around with maybe one limper to the cut-off, a young guy from NY with a PokerStars jacket and shades, and he pops it to $175. The button folds and I grab a $500 chip and toss it, saying raise as it leaves my hand. The dealer rules my verbal declaration was too late, however, and my bet counts as a call. This allows the BB and the limper to call for cheap, and I'm done with the hand when the flop misses me completely. I'm not entirely sure the dealer was right there and a couple of the other players raised questions about the ruling without me saying anything, but he wouldn't back down. I got no cards the rest of the tournament, for the most part, and wound up going out when I reraised an old codger all-in after he bet the pot on a 97x flop. My A9s was no match for his set of 7s, unfortunately.

Cash Game Post Mortem

I played three cash sessions of $1/$2 NLHE in all and came out ahead in two out of the three. Of course I dropped $400 in the one losing session and only won $200 in the two winning sessions, so it was a net loss. Once again I had a great time, however.

I started with a quick two-hour session on my arrival day and played 100 percent sober, as I had meetings coming up in the afternoon. That meant tight, tight play and I really only had one big hand, when I flopped top two with KQo and got Ax with a pair to call me down the entire way. That put me up $100+ and I played very few hands after.

The next session came after the tournament that night and it was a drunken doozie for sure. I wound up playing for about five hours and the general flow was this: Buy in for $300, double up, bust, rebuy, build new stack up to $800 and cash out about $700. I'm a bit hazy on the details of the first run up, but the bust was precipitated by a hand that I think my opponent misplayed (although he disagreed). I get JJ in middle position and raise it up to like $15 (standard for the table) and he calls from one of the blinds. Flop is all undercards and I bet, he raises and I bet enough to put him all in. He calls with AK and turns and A to take a big chunk of my stack, which I then donk off.

My big hand of the night came after my rebuy, however, and netted me a $600 pot. I'm in JTo in MP and play along with a bunch of other limpers and the blinds. The flop comes down T high and also gives me some kind of back door straight possibility. There's some betting and we see a turn that gives me an open ended straight draw to go along with my top pair. I bet, he shoves for like $200 more, I have him covered and call. The river straightens me out and his set goes down in flames. Oops! I goof around for another orbit or two, then make the unusually bright decision to rack up and leave with a small gain for the night. I probably got eight free Fat Tire's out of the deal, but spent another $50 in tips, so all was well.

The final night was a not quite as drunken session following my exit from the tournament. This one started out very well as I won around $75 on the first hand I was dealt and had that stack sitting in front of me before the chip runner even brought my $300 around. I called with A9s, flopped an A and got an unimproved 22 to come along for the ride; weird. From there, it was mostly up and at one point I was sitting with around $500 before I lost a decent pot (can't remember the details) to an Asian guy two to my left. That dropped my stack to around $175 and I put another $100 out on the table. I chipped up a bit on a few nondescript hands, then lost my stack on a hand that was close to a mirror image of my big hand the night before. I raised and saw a A high flop with A8o; the board had maybe some kind of straight draw out there too, but it didn't concern me and I bet and was called by the same Asian guy from the last hand. An eight comes on the turn, which obviously gives me two pair but also completes an inside straight draw. I bet out $100 and he puts me all in. I consider the scenario and conclude that his flop call and the reraise were consistent with him hitting a lower two pair on the flop and putting me on a naked A. I call and he shows that he had, in fact, called the flop bet with 9Ts and an inside straight draw, which got there on the turn. That finished me for the night and I was out of there.

In the end, I came out of this Vegas trip poorer, but not as depressed about the quality of my play as I was on my first two poker trips. I learned a lot about live tournament play in three short appearances and, overall, played a decent cash game even while drunk. The biggest factor behind not being depressed, however, probably is the fact that I'm actually decently rolled now, so the losses didn't decimate my bankroll and set me back to playing $1 SNGs like previous Vegas sessions have. I'm sure I'll be back some day, so keep watching the blog to find out when your chance to take my money comes along.

LOL Calling Ranges (and other crap)

2009-01-26T11:47:00.003-06:00

I don't know, maybe I'm old school or just old. I remember shit like the gap concept and, for the most part, attempt to apply it to my play. Fortunately, from a theoretical perspective, many of my opponents pay no heed to such timeworn cliches. Unfortunately, from a practical perspective, it just seems to make no fucking difference.

Three hands in the three $11x180 turbo SNGs I ran on Stars last night have me scratching my head. Maybe it's what I should expect in these kinds of events, or perhaps these are reasonable calls and I am an idiot. Or maybe, as Dr. Pauly suggests, this is some kind of sign that the assembled donkeys, lemurs and fishies sense that the end of the online poker world is at hand and they are spewing their rolls in a frantic attempt to profit before the apocalypse strikes. I just don't know anymore, so you tell me.

Hand #1—I actually won this one going in ahead, but at least one of the calls has me perplexed. I've gotten short stacked thanks to a run of bad cards and whiffing those flops where I had a playable starting hand. I'm down to around $1,200 chips and the blinds are at something like $100/$50 and are going up very soon, so I'm looking for a hand to go with. An early player who has me covered by a bit limps and it folds around to me in LP, wherein I find AcQc and shove. The BB, who has be covered by 3x calls as does the EP limper. The BB shows KhQh and the limper flips over KJo. The board comes all baby cards and my A high takes it down.

In the interest of fair warning, the next two hands represent bad beats.

Hand #2—With about six table still playing and mine running seven or eight handed, I am short stacked (as is just about everyone in these things at this point) and shove from LP over a standard raise from an MP player who barely has me covered. I don't know about you, but if I am him I am looking for a decent hand if I'm going to call here. Of course, I'm also not making a standard raise from MP with Qd9d, so what do I know. One Q on the flop and another on the turn, and IGHN thanks to a "superstar call."

Hand #3—Twenty-two players left, 18 pay and I'm sitting in about 14th place. With my stack size and the blinds/antes, I'm in push or fold mode when I wake up with AQo in the BB. It folds around to the CO, who has me covered by just a bit and makes a standard raise. The button and the SB fold, and I shove. The CO thinks for not too long at all, really, before making the call with A6o. Yippee! The flop comes A high, the turn is a blank and, 93 percent favorite be damned, his three-outer hits on the river and IGHN in 22nd courtesy of another "superstar call," my friends.

So, what's up with that?

Cash Games

On another front, after steering clear of cash games for the past few months I have dipped my toe back into the $50 full-ring NLHE waters in the interest of shaking off some of the rust in advance of my upcoming Vegas trip. I do plan to play a couple of tournaments (Venetian and Caesar's 7:00 p.m. events, most likely), but expect that I will spend at least a few hours at $1/$2 NLHE (Venetian and MGM, most likely) while I am there. After booking a few small gains in sessions on FTP and Stars, I dropped over a buy in during a one-hour session last night.

Some of this was relearning that I have bad habits, like overplaying top pair. What really stood out, however, was the "tricky" play of a few of my opponents. And by tricky play I basically mean things like limping UTG with QQ and open limping in MP with AKs. In both cases I hit top pair on the flop, but lost a pretty penny to an overpair on the former and a better kicker on the latter. My bad on falling in love with top pair for sure, but those guys have to be long-term losers with those moves, right? Now I just have to be smart enough to exploit those plays rather than pay them off.

Lifetime Profit?

I don't have good enough records to be sure, but I think I may finally be in the black over my poker career. I started last year with $100 online and this year with $2,000+ even after $2,000 in withdrawals. Sure, there's some ad money in there too, but I'm pretty pleased with that turnaround. What's more, almost all of it has come from MTTs in the last four months.

It's particularly satisfying in that back in September I set a goal to build enough of a bankroll to be able to play in Vegas when I go in February. Not only have I amassed an offline roll bigger than I had originally hoped, I've been able to send some money back into the family account too. Hopefully that will result in a reduced static level around the old Jestocost household.

Huh!? Won the Daily Double B

2009-01-07T01:50:00.001-06:00

Sweet!

Happy Belated Friggin' New Year

2009-01-06T16:13:00.005-06:00

Yeah, well, things are off to a decent start with the booking of a first place finish in a Stars $12 turbo 180 SNG to the tune of $594. That's the second of these I've won in the past couple of months and it simply begs the question of why I don't play them more often. The answer being, I'm too stoopid to stick with something that appears to be working. Maybe I'll work on that as a goal for 2009.

I also played in the Stars $40K guarantee $3 rebuy, which officially has become an unwieldy monster. There were 5,499 god damn entrants and the prize pool hit $65K. That's thank to the guarantee and the ungodly 90-minute unlimited rebuy period that starts the thing off. I actually cashed and ran fairly deep; if finishing in 311th can be considered deep. This tournament used to be kind of fun and it had decent payouts, but now it's almost intolerable. That, of course, probably means I'll play it at least once a week for a while. I loves me the prospect of some big payout that I'll never see.

In other goal-setting thoughts, I'd like to come up with some goals that are performance related, but not dollar win focused. It strikes me that improving my final table, top three and win percentages as reflected in Pokerdb stats might just fit the bill. That will involve some actual research into what kind of numbers the really good players post, where those are in comparison to my current numbers and what is reasonable for me to achieve, so let's see if I ever get to it. But it's the thought that counts, right? It might also involve Bluff getting the database updated so that you can track the current year, but maybe that's too much to ask.

Tonight

Tonight finds me on the road, which means a decent slate of FTP MTT's is in the offing. I'll start off with the $21K guarantee in about 30 minutes and see where that takes me. It's a Zen sort of approach that almost certainly will lead to some poor bankroll management.

Vegas in February

Yes, folks, I do have a Vegas trip planned for a conference February 8-10. I'll be forced to stay at the Palazzo at the Venetian, so it's a tough gig indeed. I even managed to pull a grand off of FTP (via bank transfer, no less), so there's even a marginal bankroll in hand. The Venetian will be running their deep stacks event and, unfortunately, the noon start times won't work for me. If their nightly tournament is still going off, however, I'd like to play that. If not, a Caesar's tournament side trip probably will be on the agenda. Beyond that, I would like to ring up a fair number of 1/2 NLHE hours at the Venetian and/or at MGM, but I'm open to other suggestions too.

That leads me to two requests/offers. One, any suggestions for where and what to play while I'm there would be greatly appreciated. Two, any bloggers or readers who might like to meet up for poker and/or socialization should post a comment or drop me an email.

God Help Us All, is FTP Run by Divorce Attorneys?

2008-12-31T12:16:00.005-06:00