Outkicked

Cigar Poker

2006-03-20T08:42:00.000-05:00

This past weekend I was able to get a group of 8 guys (plus myself) together for a little on-line tournament poker at Pacific Poker. This group was all from an on-line cigar community I frequent: www.botl.org. It's a great group of people and I've grown to call quite a few of the people over friends.

The organization for this event didn't go as well as I had planned. A good part of that was me not doing enough research. Another good part of it were the fault of Pacific and how they do things. They still do not put together private tables. I was told my suggestion to do so would be bumped up to the development team. The same response I received well over a year ago when I asked then. And of course they do not allow people to play on multiple tables. This, along with the somewhat chaotic form of cumminication that IM is caused our first attempt to get everyone on one table to be a disaster. We ended up with 6 people on one table, 2 on another and one who didn't make it on to a table at all. I ended up on the table with one other person and managed to be one of the first people knocked off the table. I took a big hit when someone called my bluff on the river with a J, x offsuit (K,Q and J on the board). With few chips left and some erratic play I was bumped within minutes.

Things settled down after this as people got knocked off tables and regrouped to play together on another tourney table. At one point we managed to get 6 or 7 of us on one table with only one person left at another table (he went on to take 2nd place). A good friend of mine who is a total novice to tournament poker and online poker managed to do quite respectably finishing 2nd in two tournaments (a 10 person and a 6 person). Strangely enough, he played both of these games very conservatively (hehehe, dig, dig). I managed to scrape out a first place in my second tournament. An attempt at a third tourney with three of us didn't work out as once again we were swamped with incoming players before all three of us....well, me in particular, were able to join up. Fortunately for me, the other two were knocked out quickly in that tourney allowing us to sit in on another. I once again hit an early exit while the friend mentioned above was able to push on and hit his second, second-place finish.

Overall, the feedback I received was extremely positive with everyone enjoying themselves. Trashtalk was abundant as were the bad-beat stories via IM. Hopefully if we are able to put this together again we can be a little more organized, learn from our past mistakes and, well, play at another site that allows private tables! We'll see.

Is it horribly wrong...

2005-07-12T17:38:00.000-05:00

to be Royall PISSED to come in third on a crappy little 2.50 buy-in 6 person Sit-n-Go? GAHHHHHHHH!

The very best I could have hoped for was a measly little 6.50 pay-off vs my money back for third. I was in second place chip-wise with JJ on the BB. The guy just ahead of me with chips called my 500 chip raise on top of the 50 with A,Qo. The flop was wonderful with 2,2,T. I immediately went all in after his check and he CALLED. A,A immediately flew off the top of the deck. I swear, the deck was taunting me. It was.

BAH!

Can't be upset with how I played it, but Damn!

Oh well. At least it was only a couple bucks! ;)

JW

And the rich get richer...

2005-07-11T15:25:00.000-05:00

No amazing revelation there, now is there? I just wanted to throw out a quick post on this because I've seen this situation alot recently. Last as a watcher, and previously as the recipient of the phenomena, so to speak.

Yesterday I played quite a bit of poker online and one game across the street. I was on a bad run online getting sucked out on left and right and hitting miserable cards the rest of the hands. So after getting busted out of yet another tourney after having A,A cracked by J,J on a starting board of 9,6,8 (runner runner straight but of course), with just a few bucks left in the account, I decided to go all or nothing and bought in to a small buy-in multi table tourney. My chances were much lower with the ever increasing blinds and small starting stack, but I figured either I'd be busted or have a chance at making some decent money.

Well, luck was with me and I took second place in this tourney, more than making up for my recent losses. What struck me during this tournament was that having that ever wonderful chip lead is such a powerful weapon. It allows you the luxury of doing something that most others can't think of without very powerful hands. Calling. Now I know that word sends shudders down your spine (Raise or Fold!), we all know it has it's place in our chosen game. And I tell you, it was simply amazing how many folks fell at my feet during this tournament, because of that big stack I managed to amass. I knocked out more people in this tournament than ever in any previous tournament.

In these quick, turbo style tourneys that are so prevelent online, especially in the low buy-ins, the stack is more often than not a requisite rather than a luxury. Certainly one can make their way up through the ranks at around the average chip stack, but more often than not, the average chip stack is still short-stacked when compared to the blinds. So the ability to raise even 1 bet can sometimes steal more than your fair share of blinds. Of course people in these tourneys get desperate fast so the All-In is always a factor.

I saw the same situation at the later live game I played. The very first hand saw an All-In and a call with 9,9 against J,J. Within the next 30 minutes we had lost another two players to the All-In and had two very large stacks. Hand after hand went either to the left or right of me as if those stacks were magnets, drawing in the chips. I unfortunately lost a huge chunk of my stack when I raised an early better only to have someone go All-In over the top of me while the player to my right called and with not that strong of a hand I folded. I would have lost, so it was a good fold, but I had crippled myself and soon left the game.

At any rate, that's my crappy analysis of this week's play. And now I'm going to go put it to work on the 6 person tournament in which I just knocked out two players with my K,To which just filled up to take out who know's what and 9's full. :)

Here's to felt under the fingernails. JW

Sometimes you can do everything wrong...

2005-06-22T11:52:00.000-05:00

and still win. Played a quick SNG today during lunch and everything went my way. One of the quickest I've played I think...under 35 minutes. Started off early hitting a rivered flush with Jh,Ts on the second hand to take out one player. Hit the J on a K,7,J flop with two hearts. Runner, runner hearts gave it to me. I'm sure I was losing on the Turn, but was so deep into the hand I had no choice. Took out my second player a few hands later when 8,To in the SB improved every card (trips on the River) and rivered a boat to beat a for sure flush as the T on the river was the fourth heart. Less than ten hands later A,Qo in the SB again hit Broadway on the river for the majority of the next largest stack's chips. It took less than ten hands to finish off the last two opponents with As,Jd for a rivered flush (4 to the Flush on the flop) and K,7o for a pair of 7's and the win.

Plenty of seriously questionable plays in this tourney but lady luck smiled on me this day. Some nice cards didn't hurt either. :)

Ah well, back to the grind of real work for a few more hours.

The fall...

2005-06-21T19:22:00.000-05:00

from indisputable chip leader (more than double the next stack for instance) is always a horrible feeling. No question. The fall from indisputable chip leader...better than double the next stack for instance...during the final three people of a two table sit-n-go to third place in a matter of 4 hands, when 1rst place would have doubled my meager bankroll...now that just plain SUCKS!!!

Ah well, I guess at least I can laugh about it. Here's how it went down. With three of us left, and the chip count basically 10K (me), 5K(to my right) and 1.5K(to my left). On the button I found J,3 of hearts. With the short stack having acted tame up until this point and the half-stack to my right doing the same I called the BB as did the SB and we were off. The flop was a beautiful 6h,3s,Js. Two pair on the flop. Up until this time I had had trouble getting play from either player so I was hoping someone had caugt a piece. Sure enough the BB came in for 1K and I immediate raised him all in. Short-stack folded and the turn and river came out in the typical flash of cards that Pacific is famous for (and that I hate by the way). The turn was the 6c and the river was the Td. I had avoided the flush I figured I was up against. Good deal.
Except I wasn't up against the flush, now was I? Nope. I was up against Jd,Ts. And now I was the half stack.
The next two hands were nothing worth mentioning except for the fact that everyone played and our new Stack turned out to play as tamely as he had as half-stack. Then I found 3,4 of spades on the button. I found two of my spades on the flop and tried to take the pot right there with a 3x raise of the stack's 500 bet. No going as stack decided to play. I then tried again on the blank turn with an All-In. Unfortunately Stack had hit two pair with J,2o and decided to come along for the ride. No spade on the river and I was out in third.

It's amazing how quickly one can go from hero to zero, no? ;)

Now...back I go into the fray once more.

Keeping up the "rep"...

2005-06-20T09:35:00.000-05:00

Well, this weekend was a bachelor weekend for me as the wife was visiting her Mom and Dad at the hospital. As a quick update for those following, my wife's Mother recently went through a bone marrow transplant for Leukemia. She is doing very well and we are keeping our fingers crossed.
At any rate, I played a bunch of poker over the weekend, both online and at the IT-Guy's place. My online experience was harsh. Up and down and all around. I finally one a two-table SNG right before the live game on Sunday to bring myself just over my recent re-buy. All weekend long I was hit with the worst of beats. Flopping Q high straights on a rainbow board only to have someone call me and catch runner runner for the flush and AA getting smacked down by 2,2 when the board flopped 5,8,2 rainbow are just two of the more memorable ones. I made it to the money in a couple of MTTs but they were all low buy in so the payouts at the lower end (where I got taken out) weren't worth much.
I am constantly amazed at those who play online tournament poker who don't have the slightest clue as to how to play, when in or close to the money and someone is all in. People constantly...and I do mean CONSTANTLY bet at empty pots. I've had to fold more times than I can remember to idjits that can't even take out the all-in player. So here's a quick note for anybody reading this who's new to tournament poker: when you are in a pot with multiple players where a player is all in and there is little or nothing in the side pot, DON'T BET AT AN EMPTY POT!!!! There is a much better chance with everyone staying in the pot that one of you will be able to beat the all-in player. Which really, should be the point. Less players means you are closer to the money. I see far too many people bet others out of an empty pot only to see the all-in player win when one of the other players might have taken him out had they been able to stick in through the river. Now, if you flop, turn or river an absolute monster then by all means go ahead and bet. Just be absolutely sure you can be extremely confident that you have the all-in player beat.
This situation came up last night at our live game. I was on the SB or BB, not sure, with 2,2. A player in middle position went all in for less than one more full bet. He was called by three other players: myself, the person to my right, and the person to my left. The flop came down A,2,x rainbow and the person to my right immediately bet out for 3-4 times the big blind. At this point I was quite sure I had the all-in player beat with my trips so I went all in over the top. The other player folded and the original better called. He had A,middle and I took the entire pot down. The other person who folded, had he been able to stay in the pot would have won it with a runner, runner flush. The all-in player didn't show but I got the feeling he had A,X. So who knows if the original better had the cards to take him anyway. Now, I have to say I was certainly happy with the way this had gone down as I probably would have bet on the turn when the second club hit just to let everyone know I could take the all-in player out, probably would have gotten called, and would have lost on the river. However, the moral of the story stands. The original better had no business betting at a completely (there was no side pot) empty pot with A, rag. when he paired his Ace on the flop.
Don't bet at an empty pot, with an all-in player in the mix, when that person's departure moves you that much closer to the money.

So, now that I'm done with my rant: I was able to fit in two games last night before heading off to pick up the wife. I ended up splitting 1rst and 2nd place prize money with my opponent in each case after a few hands heads up. To speed play along in both cases and because of almost eqaul chip stacks it only made sense to chop. The way the payouts were set up you lost a little if you would have one first and gained a little if you would have taken second. In the second tourney, by the time it reached heads up, the blinds had reached their highest point of 50TC/100TC with only around 1K TC on the table. As both of us had almost equal chip stacks, at that point it was basically a crap shoot. Unfortunately I wasn't able to stick around for the last game which, had I been able to, would have had 13 players!

So, as the title of this post says, I was able to keep up the "reputation" I have in this game. Thanks for reading, keep those cards in the air and that felt under the fingernails!

Being stupid...

2005-06-15T14:25:00.000-05:00

Hey, look at that...less than a week and I'm back here already...something must be wrong. ;)

Been playing SNGs lately and been up and down and all around. Currently a couple of buy-ins below what I bought back into Pacific for. And I should have, at a minimum, been about even after my second lunch time game today. The first one was a bust as I was first out. The second one went quite well. Took almost two full revolutions around the table before I could play a hand to start off with and I played well all the way up through there being only 4 of us left. For some bizarre reason, maybe because the game ran past the lunch hour (oops), the chip leader started posting and folding. There were only 3 of us to play at that point and one low chipp'ed player. I raised the non-existant player every chance I was given (which was quite a few) for free chips and was playing fairly aggressively. Unfortunately this led me to doubling up the short-stack. This, really unfortunately, led to him playing more agressively and by the time our fateful last hand arrived I was back in the middle of the pack at about 1300 chips. Everyone folded to me in the SB and I automatically raised the BB with 8,T diamonds. Guess what?
BB was no longer gone. He immediately re-raised. We were at 150-175 or so blinds so I only had 800 chips left and thought the BB might just be protecting his dwindling stack so I raised all in. And ran right into A,K. Bye-Bye on the bubble. Gotta hate that. Should have folded and looked for a better hand, but that's life.

On the plus side it looks like I should be able to play as much as I want this weekend as the wife is heading out to visit the in-laws.

Wish me luck!

Strike that...wish me cards! ;)

Bi-Yearly Post?

2005-06-10T07:42:00.000-05:00

LOL, that's about what it works out to, no?

I haven't posted in 6 months as was pointed out to me this morning by The World's Best Poker Blogger. The correspondence was quite welcome and made me feel more than a little guilty for not checking in on SO MANY of the excellent blogs out there for so long. Quite frankly, with so many out there, it got to the point where I was spending more time reading than anything else! So, no promises on how often, but I am going to try and stop by more often.

An update on what's going on in my life. The Mother in Law received her bone marrow transplant earlier this month. Please say a prayer if you do that kind of thing as she and her family need all the strength they can get to make it through this. It's all a waiting game right now.

I have a brand new watch thanks to a more than generous and wonderful friend. I mentioned I was looking at this watch (hopefully the link works, it's the Nighthawk from Citizen) and the crazy fool sent it to me as a VERY early b-day gift.

My newest craze is cigars and it's where most of my money goes. I've always enjoyed smoking the occasional stogie, but never realized how "deep the rabbit hole" went, so to speak.

I'm still playing poker, believe it or not. Nothing near the amount I did less than a year ago, but I still make visits across the road at the local game as often as I can get away with and I can still be found at Pacific on occasion hitting up a low dollar SNG or two...or three. hehehe. I'm still doing well across the street, though my last visit was a lousy first out and 3rd place for my money back. I wasn't playing good poker, plain and simple. I do give myself credit for actually making it to 3rd as I was low stacked early and had to scratch and claw my way there. I feel I probably made a mediocre decision on my second to last hand though. I was in the SB and raised with A,3o as a steal attempt. BB came over the top and after scratching my head for a bit folded to be shown 6,6. I only would have had one live card, but at this point I'm not sure it wasn't an all or nothing deal. The ver next hand I went all in with 3,3 and was called down by A,K suited. A K on the flop sent me home for the night. Unfortunately the standard game has switched to Sunday nights instead of Saturday nights. I found out later they played 2 more games which had to stretch until well after midnight. Just too late for this 8-5 grinder.

The play on Pacific has been up and down. As I don't play as much any more, when I do I tend to want to play too many hands and need to get that under control. I'm still just a tad over what I bought back in for a few weeks ago, but haven't been able to make much headway. Hopefully that will change in the near future, but it's slow going only playing "now and then".

Well folks, that's about it for me at the moment. Not overly exciting, but a post none-the-less.

Here's to cards in the air and felt under the fingernails...

non-poker update

2005-01-06T10:33:00.000-05:00

Well, this has pretty much nothing to do with poker, but then again I haven't posted in almost two months, so what the hey. Here's what's new with me.

I'm sure there are plenty of you out there that will understand this. Yesterday we went through another round of "Lay-offs" or "Reduction in Force" or whatever the hell the current politically correct BS term is for it.

In our particular company, which was purchased within the last 2 years, we have been through 4 years of this stuff. After yesterday's round everyone got together at a bar (our lay-off ritual) and in discussions the situation was related to a game of Survivor. So I guess i can say I've survived another round. Unfortunately, in this game of Survivor, you don't get to vote off the people you don't like and you don't get a prize at the end. Unless you consider more work with less resources a prize. In this game, all you lose are friends.

Everytime this happens you think it won't be as bad as the last time. Yesterday we knew what was happening in the morning and everyone laughed it off. We've been through this before, bah, this is no big deal, we are either here or not, what's to get upset about? Well that lasted right up until they started pulling people into the conference room one by one. Then it hits. That pit of the stomach feeling when you see your friends being axed one by one.

Now today it's back to the grind, working with what we have and waiting for management to wrestle all the extra work into some form of recognizable order. And on we go...I guess I'll have to form a new alliance (lunch group) now, eh?

Languishing...

2004-11-19T08:35:00.000-05:00

That's pretty much the category my blog falls into right now folks. Work has been kicking my ass lately and Poker just hasn't had the same draw it once did. Part of that is surely due to an extremely bad run that dropped over half my bankroll. It's hard to keep going with something like poker when you are doing nothing but losing. I've pulled the majority of my money out of all of my accounts, spent quite a bit on a few different things (that was fun, I must say), and am relegating Poker back to the slot in my life where it was fun: recreation. I simply don't have the drive or discipline to attempt to make poker anything more than that. I'll keep reading, keep playing when I can, but I want poker to continue to be fun.

Unfortunately, that means you won't see quite as much posting on this blog. I hope a few of you will still drop by now and then. Hey, with as many poker-blogs as pop up every day out there, one less to read on a day to day basis should be a good thing, right! ;)

Seriously though, I want to thank everyone out there for their support. The poker blog community is a world in and of itself and there are some truly great people inhabiting that world. Keep those cards in the air and may the flop help, more than it hurts.

JW

GO VOTE!

2004-11-02T08:18:00.000-05:00

Hey! You! What the hell are you doing reading this here drivel? GO VOTE!For Bush of course!;)

Hmmm....what to write about. I'm seriously spending all my energy at this particular moment crossing everything crossable in hopes for the outcome of this election. One, that my guy will win, of course, and two, that we won't have some long, drawn out fiasco again. And this coming from someone from Florida! Oh well. Whoever you are going to vote for, get out there and vote. The lines are sure to be long, but it's worth it. More than ever, your voice DOES count!

OK, ok, poker blog and all. I played in a tournament with the WGPBE(also known as Heafy) this past Saturday night (Sunday morning for him). It was a great time. It's actually only the second or third time I've ever played online with someone I knew. Go check out his write-up as it is sure to be better than the drivel you'll get here. He has one of the best moments from Oceans 11 as his movie quote, how can you go wrong? He also has some incredibly momentus news at the end, pay attention! OK, back to the Saturday tournament. Right before we started I jumped into Yahoo Messenger so that we could chat back and forth (I've never gotten into the IM thing before) and it was pretty cool. Figuring we would have to be giving each other play by play the whole way as Pacific doesn't allow you to watch other tables if you are playing in the tourney I steeled myself for the usual play at Pacific: a few morons but mostly tight, tight, tight. Heaf sat down first and told me he was on Table 19 (you sure it was 28 Heaf?). Well what do I see when I click on my "seat me" button? "You have been seated at table 19." No way! Two seats to my right was the Heafster. I don't know what the odds on that were, but I already felt like we had one the tournament! To make a long story short, we both bounced up and down, each of us making some great plays and some less than steller plays. I particularly remember the play Heaf talks about in his post. I don't know what he called with, but when he told me I just didn't get it and asked him why he called. The response was priceless: "No f***ing idea!" It was nice to be able to make some calls on what people had ("He's chasing a flush") and type them in on IM so that someone else knew if you were right or not. Thankfully, most of mine were right this time! ;) Late in the tourney with about 60+ people left we were broken up. I was hanging below average while Heaf hit a nice hand to take him just over the average. I made a stupid call with something like 5,8c and made a move at the pot with a 4 flush and got called by a pair of Jacks. Didn't hit the 5th club and I was out right around 60. I sweated Heaf for the rest of the tournament and he squeeked his way into the money. Short stacked and on the BB with 5,5 he made what I thought to be the right move by pushing with one or two limpers. Unfortunately one of them called with a pair of 9s and that was all she wrote. A good time, that's for sure.

That's it for the poker scene for now folks. I know my posts have been sparse lately, but I've been drawing back from the poker scene some. I still love playing but the game was just taking up too much of my life there for a while. I've withdrawn the bulk of my money from both Pacific and Party and am working on rebuilding at the lower limits again. I need to get back to the fundamentals and find the fun in the game again. We'll see how it goes.

Now go VOTE!

Oops! Just checked my mail and I got an email from a new blogger. Nice looking site, worth a look: BigSlickPoker

Birthday Poker...

2004-10-25T07:27:00.000-05:00

and getting hammered by "Every-Day Ray".

This was my second trip to the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in wonderful Tampa, Florida (and the second time I lost there, damnit!). This time I got to check out the Hotel though, and let me tell you, those rooms are Saaaaaa-Weet! I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that they are brand new, but they really were beautiful. Which was a good thing since you can't help but be reminded that you are in a hotel room when the neighbors come in at 5 in the morning still partying! It may be new, but the walls still aren't that thick.
My wife had gotten me and 3 of my buds two rooms, but as it worked out, only one of my friends was able to stay so the wife drove out and stayed the night with me. I left a key for her at the desk and never saw her until we finally went up to the rooms a little after midnight. She made it a point that she didn't want to cut my night short or interrupt. What a gal, eh?
I don't think any of us made it out of the casino in the positive, but we had a blast. We all met up at about 4:30 in the main bar right at the entrance. We checked in and headed out to the poker room where one of the guys had already put our names on the list ($1/$2). We figured we would have to wait for quite a while and once we got called would probably not start on the same tables. Well, things moved right along and about 25 minutes later three of us were called, and made it on to one table! I think we must have used up all of our luck right there! Not 15 minutes later the last of our group was able to transfer to our table. I hit a couple of good hands early on to go up about $20 including a pair of jacks that hit their set on the flop. One of my buds, sitting next to me missed hte royal spade flush by the Qs. Took down a nice pot but said his heart was hammering hoping for that Qs on the river! LOL ($6,500 Jackpot at the time). Other than that, all I can say is that we had fun. The title of today's blog pretty much tells you everything you need to know about my big bad-beat. An old timer who was introduced to me by the guy in the seat next to me as Ray, followed by Ray trying to articulate "Every-Day, Every-Day" in a mumbly, mush voice (stroke?), nailed me with the hammer when I held pocket Ks. He hit the damn full house with the hammer, can you believe it? The whole night was pretty much more of the same for all of us. Sets of Ks, Qs, Broadway straights, Pocket Aces, Pocket Ks all being beat down by the crappiest of hands. I did manage to hit a full house with 5,6h when two 5s hit on the flop. The beautiful part was that the 2 on the river to give me the FH was the last of the diamonds needed for a flush. I thought I had two people with me chasing the flush and it turned out that the older lady in the 8 seat was holding K,5. Bah. At least she had been in one of the blinds.
About 9:30 we all got up and went to dinner. One of our number had to bolt at that point so three of us went to the "Green Room" for some decent food courtesy of the wife. After scarfing down Steak and Eggs we said good bye to the third member of the "team" and me and my last bud went to see about getting back on the tables. "So, how many in front of us," I asked as we got up to the desk. "Nine...unintelligble last syllable". "19?" I ask hoping against hope. To which I get that, you must be an idiot stare, and a reply of, "No, 90." Yikes! We wander the slot machines for a little bit and finally decide to go burn a couple of stogies out near the pool where there is an outside bar with no one but a security guard watching the game. We head up to the rooms, get and cut our cigars only to get stopped by the old guy checking room keys (before you can get on the elevator) when we try to go back outside. We are informed that the area is closed, even though we were out there 5 minutes ago. So we end up in the sports bar watching the game smoking the stogies until about 12:30. Deciding it's been a long enough weekend (Party bash in the neighborhood until 3:30 in the morning the night before) I decide to head to bed after one last look at the Poker room. As we pass by our names are finally on the very bottom of the second column showing on the overhead screens. The way the list has been moving, that means at least another 45 minutes to an hour. Oh the Humanity!

Picked up a nice little souvenir that was pointed out to me by one of the other players, the premier issue of "Bluff Magazine". Only made it through the first few pages but I have to say, I'm liking it more than All-in so far. Lots and lots of short articles and some cool features. It just looks more like a professionaly published mag than All-in does. Gives me a reason to wander up to the Casino now and than then too!

Thanks to all who sent the birthday wishes. I had a blast and feel as young as ever!

Happy Birthday to Me!

2004-10-22T09:10:00.000-05:00

That's right sports fans, I am officially thir....thir...thirt...excuse me...THIRTY! Ack. Had to spit that out. Everybody keeps telling me I'm old for some reason. Especially my wife. Of course, that just means I have to reminder that if that is the case, she was old a MONTH ago! :)

But I can't make too much fun of the wife, I'm too lucky for that. The little vixen planned a night at the local casino for myself and 3 of my friends from work. What a woman. Two hotel rooms and a free pass to gamble...what more could you ask for?!

Many thanks to -EV for the birthday wishes!

And belated best wishes and best luck to the man, the absolute friggin' legend, IGGY! God damn I've got some catching up to do. I take a little miny hiatus and people start turning pro on me! Go tear 'em up Igster!

That's it for today folks. Nothing special, I'm gonna go attempt to enjoy my Birthday while at work (read, try to do as little friggin' work as possible!).

Yikes!

2004-10-21T07:05:00.000-05:00

My blogging has been dismal lately! There just aren't enough hours in the day recently. My poker play has been fairly limited. In fact, I've only played twice in the last week! Once at IT Guy's last Saturday and one little 2 table SNG at Pacific on Tuesday. We played a series of 3 SNGs for $20 each with 4 people for the first two and 5 for the last one. I came in 3rd, 1rst and 2nd. That 2nd hurt as I had a decent sized chip-lead on IT-Guy head's up and called him all-in with pocket 8's to his pocket 3's. He hit a 3 on the flop and I was the underdog. Not long after I got booted by a hand that I can't seem to remember. A fun night of poker, unfortunately ruined by too much alcohol intake on my part...maybe that's why I can't remember the hand that knocked me out? Oh yeah, one thing that almost had me in stiches during one of the last two games. I raised IT Guy with the hammer. He re-raised me and I laughed and mucked my cards face up, saying, "you caught me". The look on his face was absolutely priceless!
The two table SNG was your typical, "getting-no-cards" type of game. I folded a crap load of hands including some stinkers that just kept hitting flops: A,4o hitting two pair on the flop; Q,8s hitting a Q which would have been the best hand, etc. I was able to steal a few pots here and there because of my tight image and took down a nice sized pot half-way through only to lose all of my winnings (leaving me with the starting chip count) within 2 hands. The cards kept not coming and I went out in 9th when my 8,7 suited hit an 8 and straight draw and lost to 8,10 for the higher straight. Such is life, no?
If you don't believe me, just go as the WGPBE. He's having a rough time at the micro-limit tables over at Pacific. Much thanks to him for signing up through my banner up top. Feelin' the love my friend! I've suggested he try out the MTTs at Pacific as they are, in my mind, the softest MTTs out there. Well...maybe soft isn't the right word. They seem to be (for the most part) the perfect mix of idiot wild maniacs and rational play. There are still quite a few people playing ridiculous hands and chasing for all they are worth, but raises actually get respect and it doesn't take long to get to the point where most of the people playing are actually playing something resembling poker. Keep at it WGPBE, you'll get there!

So, that's my poker stuff for now. I've got some major catch up to play on all the great Blogs out there, but my time has just been incredibly limited. I dove right in to my newest hobby, cigars...well, re-dove in would be more appropriate I guess as I've smoked off and on for years. My Father-in-law gave me a really old, unused for years 25 count humidor a long time back and I could never get it to hold humidity. Funds were low at the time if I remember correctly and I just couldn't justifty the price of filling that puppy up. Something else came along and snatched my attention away and that little box just sat there for a few years. Well, recently while shopping for a present for said Father-in-law, I came across a great deal for a beautiful 100 count humi. I snatched it up along with 3 or 4 'gars. Well, now the dang thing's practically full along with the 25 count (which is doing "ok" in the humidity department) as well as a nice sized Sterlite container set up as a humidor. Can you say addictive personality? At least my poker winnings have paid for all of the expenses. This of course means my bankroll is slightly depleted, but what the hell...if you can't spend some winnings now and then, what's the point?
For what it's worth, there is a cigar community out there that rivals the Poker Blog community, except that they are on a bulletin board. If you smoke and are interested drop me a line. It's a great place to hang out and does almost as good of a job of killing work-time productivity as blogging! :)

Tomorrow is the big 3-0 folks. That's right. JW is going to be officially OLD. Well...kind of. It's amazing how, as you progress along the numerical age scale, ages that you used to think of as old no longer really qualify. I'm sure plenty of you young pups in your early 20s are snickering, but trust me...it comes soon enough. And of course, all of you 40 somethings are laughing your rear ends off, knowing just the kind of pain I have in store for me in 10 years, I'm sure.
At any rate, the wife is taking me out for dinner and a movie tomorrow, so if you happen to be reading, drop me a comment on what you suggest we go see.

Thanks for reading all. Keep those cards in the air!

Affiliate troubles

2004-10-14T10:11:00.000-05:00

OK, I'm a little peeved at the moment. My good buds -EV and Heafy (also known as the WGPBE) are trying to sign up for Pacific through my links and it seems as if Pacific has terminated their affiliate program with no warning what-so-ever. It seems a little fishy, so I'm waiting for an answer back from them. Weird thing is, they still have the part of the site up that tells you how to become an affiliate! Strange stuff going on here folks!

I'll keep you all posted on the outcome, but in the meantime, if you aren't already fishing the waters of Party Poker, signup with Bonus Code: OUTKICKED!!!

Take care folks. My newest arrival of Cigars just hit the dock so I'm off to sniff that fine cedary aroma! And I guess I better get back on the tables and win some money so I can pay for all of this tabacco-y goodness!

JW

Back to the Blog...

2004-10-13T09:47:00.000-05:00

Thanks for the patience all.

The trip to visit the in-laws was great. 6 straight days away from work, how can that possibly not be good?? It hurst coming back, let me tell you. Work has settled back down surprisingly quickly. Normally when I'm gone for this long it takes me an entire week to get caught up. From what I understand my back-up was very busy while I was gone, so many thanks in that direction.

The wife and I flew out mid-day Tuesday, arriving in Milwaukee late afternoon. We spent the rest of the day settling in and getting ready for what promised to be (as always) a jam-packed week. I wasn't disappointed.

The next day we golfed for the first time in probably 6 months with the in-laws. They live in a golf community that has three courses. In fact, their house sits directly on the tee box of #2 for the course we played this day. Let me just say that playing golf for the first time in 6 months with a guy who you find intimidating in the first place, and who has been playing multiple times a week for the past few months, is a little nerve wracking! Thankfully I settled down by the time we hit the back 9 and finally started hitting some decent shots. I still ended up posting a whopping 118, but that's not absolutely horrible for me. My best score ever was posted the last time I really played and it was 98 or so. It rained the next day so we weren't able to play, but the following day we were able to make it out for a quick 9 holes before heading on out to the Potawatomi Casino. This round went much better. It was kind of amusing, the Father-in-law and I ended up playing with another member and his son-in-law. What made it all the better is that the other son-in-law was no better than I was and probably a little worse. It's always nice not being the worst golfer in a foursome!

So, let's get on to the stuff you guys come to read about, POKER! After our round of golf we cleaned up, had a quick lunch of wonderful pastrami, corned beef and salami sandwhiches. My Brother-in-Law had given his parents a gift certificate for a Jewish Deli in MI and let me tell you, it was good stuff!
This trip was mainly for my benefit. The original trip for this month had been to Las Vegas but due to some scheduling conflicts it was cancelled. My Mother-in-Law fealt bad as she knew I was really looking forward to the trip so she set up this excursion to the Potawatomi (or as -EV calls it:Powotaowomomoaoaoamoai). She had asked me how much time I needed and I had told her I would like 3-4 hours if possible which, to my delight, she said wouldn't be a problem. Well, if you knew this family as I do you would know that this was slightly optimistic. :)
After a late start and a couple of stops/detours we finally made it to the casino around 3:45 or so with dinner reservations in the city at 7:30. This wasn't too bad I figured, a good solid 3 hours no problem. Yeah, right. I made a bee-line for the card room on the second floor with the Father and Brother-in-law in tow.
The Card room is a little glassed in room just off of the HUGE bingo hall. And when I say little, I mean little. It's not overly cramped, but if there is more than 10 tables in there I'd be very suprised. The limits spread were 2/4 (kill), 5/10(kill), 10/20 and 20/40 though the 10/20 and 20/40 limits were interest lists as far as I could tell. I didn't ask, but it sounded like they were finally getting the 10/20 game going around 5 or 5:30. I put my name on the list for 2/4 and was told I had somewhere around 45 minutes worth of wait and that I had to stay in the room as I wasn't a club member (club members got beepers). This wasn't a huge deal to me as I didn't really want to wander the casino. Right about 35-40 minutes later they called my name and I took the 7 seat on Table 1. There was an oriental guy to my right who seemed to be a calling station, a group of 3 guys starting in the 1 seat who were your typical "we know everything" players and some other assorted players. I didn't get the feeling that anyone sitting at the table was way above my ability. Ages ranged from 30-40 something for the most part with one old timer who got severely lucky on a run of hands and went up big. It was very passive with almost no pre-flop raising and 2, count-em, 2 re-raises after the flop the entire time I was there. Oh yeah, and one of those was mine!
Seeing how passive the table was I raised in MP with my second hand with A,7o just to see whath the heck a raise would do. About half the table dropped (Tight-Passive!?) and the oriental guy to my right and I went all the way to the river when an A hit the board. Unfortunately after my initial raise after the flop he just check-called me all the way down with A,J and I was officially JW-Outkicked. As he called me I had to flip my cards first and when the A,7o hit the table I could tell that even though I had lost the hand, I was going to like the results. The three guys on the end of the table started witht he disgusted looks/snorts and very audible, "he raises with A,7 off!!??" comments. This worked too well the very next hand as I peaked at my hole cards to find A,A! Unfortunately, calling station to my right called me all the way down to hit a straight, or flush, can't remember on the river to take it from me. After this the table loosened up substantially, though that one end of the table still was extremely tight. In fact, the guy in the 1 seat was constantly complaining that he got no action, and that when he did people outdrew on him. It really was kind of sad to watch, 90% of the time if this guy raised, everyone dropped. I kept wanting to call but I had squat. Of course, when he got called down he would get all pissy when he got outdrawn playing crappy cards. The most memorable was J,3o hitting a 3 on the flop to get outdrawn on the river for a 5 high straight. And he complained htat his pair of 3s got cracked! Lovely.
Midway through my session I hit a Q high straight-flush on the river. I don't remember how it went down, only that the 10 of diamons was the river card. I really want to say I had 8,9 diamonds. On the flop I had 4 to the flush and the inside straight draw. I tried ramming and jamming but the one guy that stuck with me would only check-call. When I flipped it over the dealer (the best one I saw by the way) called out, "hat on 1!". Apparently they were giving out hats to any 4 of a kind or better the previous day. Turns out they were out and I got stiffed. No freebie for me. Cheap bastiges! ;)
There really wasn't much else interesting during my session. I won maybe a total of 6 hands and ended down about $54 dollars. I really should have just taken the entire wad I brought and sat at $5/$10 but I just couldn't make myself take the chance of blowing everything I brought with me. Maybe next time.
Oh yeah. There were still two of the original three guys on the end of the table, one of them being the guy in the 1 seat that got no action. So after I racked up my chips I made it a point to stop, turn around and say, "Oh yeah, by the way...if you want more action, be sure to raise with A,7 off when you first sit down...works every time." Then I walked over to the cage. Good times.

The rest of the family blew money at craps, roulette and blackjack making for a fun trip depositing in the "bank of Potawatomi".

All in all a good experience. I just wish I had won some! :)

I'm Baaaaaaaaaaack!

2004-10-11T14:20:00.000-05:00

Quick post today folks. Catching up on 4 days worth of work is a biatch. Here's some things I'll be talking about when I get a chance to get caught up:

Playing at the Potowatami Casino: straight flushes, no hats and raising with A,7o.

Playing Golf for the first time in months, in Wisconson, in Ocotober, with the in-laws.

Cigars!

There you go! Interesting reading, I know, but it's all I can squeeze out for now. Heck, I'll probably have to spend the rest of the week just trying to catch up with all the regulars!

JW

Vacation!

2004-10-04T09:39:00.000-05:00

I'm off for a nice long vacation starting tomorrow, so most likely no posts for a week. I'm sure you will all manage! ;)

The weekend didn't go so well. The wife and I finally got to the horseback riding thing, but it wasn't really what I was looking for and the wife's horse bucked her off!! Scared the living crap out of me, let me tell you. She jumped right up and got back on the horse though. My girls tough! :)

Poker was a horror this weekend. I really just can't do the NL thing. Dropped almost 3 buy-ins at the $50NL tables. And believe me, with all but one insane suckout they were all due to piss poor play. Hopefully the trip we have planned to Potowatami (surely spelled wrong) will go better this coming week.

On the plus side, I have a bunch of cigars on their way through the mail that will be waiting for me when I get back from vacation. WhooHoo! I'll finally get to fill up the new Humi.

Sorry for the short and crappy post all. Trying to get all the work stuff out of the way so that my back-up doesn't have to pull her hair out trying to keep up while I'm gone.

Happy fishing while I'm away!

And it continues...

2004-09-30T08:43:00.000-05:00

I may just have to give up on the NL tables for the time being. Talk about loose! Pre-flop raises mean just about nothing unless you make them huge and even then there's no guarantee that the guy calling you won't have some weird, wacky hand. I guess this should be good, but I'm getting killed. Between $25 NL and $1/$2 yesterday I dropped $78. That's not cool. I've now bled away half of my profits for the month. Bah.

The good news is that I've gotten Poker Tracker up and running. As yesterday's play was done at work I'm forwarding the hand histories on my computer home. Anyone know if I'll run into problems just dropping those histories into the folder on my home computer? I'm also going to have to figure out the auto-rate feature. Does anyone know if it has automatic settings? Or am I going to have to download those files from the people that I saw on the forum???
Seriously, does anyone know of a good guide out there on how to get the most out of this program? I know it's great, everyone uses it, and I can already see that it is going to provide me with all kinds of wonderful info, but not if I can't decipher what it's trying to tell me damnit. Please, if you know of a guide, drop me a line.

Looks like Iggy beat me to the punch on a tournament for October. Not that it will probably matter as I've gotten a grand total of maybe two people who have expressed interest in my charity tournament. Of course, it probably doesn't help that I Party is requiring a certain number of sign-ups to host the thing. For more info, please read this. If you guys want to play at Party(Bonus Code: OUTKICKED) then I need to start hearing from people. If this doesn't work out I'm going for a smaller site next month. I've played in enough other sites that I enjoy, but that just don't have that many people. So if this doesn't work it's on to one of those. I have a feeling that unless I can give people a date ahead of time and just say, "sign up if you want" that this thing just aint gonna fly. Of course, that will also negate the free entries and bounty that are associated with the Party(don't forget bonus code OUTKICKED!) tourney.
Last but not least, if you haven't figured it out, you can always just throw a donation to the charity by clicking on my charity links.

That's about it for today folks. End of the month and quarter at work so things are a bit crazy. Happy reading and damnit, let me know if you are interested in my tourney! :)

Swimming WITH the fish...

2004-09-29T08:17:00.000-05:00

If you haven't been here in a day or so, please go here! This is important stuff folks.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...The emphasis on WITH is intentional. Swimming WITH the fish. As in being PART of the school. As in I WAS the fish last night. I can only hope and pray that no bloggers were on my tables last night.

This was supposed to be a GOOD thing. I guess I can't yell at Iggy as I didn't actually use his referall, but at this moment I'm inclined to be the first person to disagree that Party is a wonderful thing. It's hard to love a site when you blow through your first deposit, ya know?
I know I caused myself problems last night, but I think the Poker Gods might have been paying me back for my quick hit and run at the 3/6 tables at Pacific the other night. I was really looking forward to Party(Bonus Code: Outkicked!) for a few reasons.
First, I wanted to multi-table. Done. -$170 on two tables of 2/4 over two hours. Yuck. Icky cards combined with not hitting any of my draws combined with trying to increase my aggression=one ugly ass session.
Second, I wanted to play No Limit. Pacific still doesn't have any of these and maybe that was a good thing. Done. -$134.40. That's one $50 table (-$94 in 15 minutes) and one $25 table (-40.40 in 1 hour and 25 minutes). I did ok at the $25 table and was even doubled up at one point, but a series of bad decisions took care of that really quickly. I need to do some research before sitting back down at these tables.
Last, I wanted to use Poker Tracker. This is the one thing I haven't been able to do yet. I downloaded the trial version this morning but couldn't get the patch for the Party histories that are on my computer to work. I requested my hands, but of course almost none of my 2/4 hands are included because of that F'ing 100 hand limit. I played close to 185 hands last night, only got the last 100 hands. Hopefully the problem with the PT patch was related to me trying to use it with the demo, we'll see.......Just checked the web site and the front page says it can be used with the demo as well so I'll have to try again when I get home. Oops...checked again and it looks like I was trying to import them the wrong way. Still doesn't explain why the program took a crap when I tried to download the patch.
OK, so I've whined enough, right? So let's get on to the good part of last night...and the reason I can't friggin stop yawning. I was up till about 1am last night because I played the $10K Guaranteed tourney at Pacific...and finally cashed! I don't have the exact numbers here, they are at home, but I finished 12th out of somewhere between 750-780 players. My best finish yet but I'm nowhere near satisfied. I want on that final table and I want 1rst place. My last hand was an ill timed blind steal. It folded to me in the SB with J,2d with the blinds at 2500tc and 5Ktc. I pushed the remaining 25Ktc or so I had and the BB went into the tank. He used up every last second he had before finally calling...with K,6o. Oh the Humanity! No help for my J or 2 and one diamond shy and I was out in 12th. I probably could have folded my way to the final table as there was a minute stack on our table and some short stacks on the other. Instead, I tried to grab 5K in free chips and got caught with my hand in the cookie jar. That move, I'm sure, cost me at least $60 in prize money. As I've said before, amazing how disappointing cashing can be. At least it managed to mitigate my losses at Party (Bonus Code: Outkicked, come take some of my money before the fish get it all!) some.
Thanks go out to the Poker Grub for being so vigilant in his bonus watch. Thanks to the reload code on his site, combined with the 20% deposit bonus they gave me for my first deposit I have $150 in bonuses waiting to be cleared. Of course I got my $25 referral bonus from -EV, but that cleared so quickly that it just managed to get thrown away at one of the NL tables. Guess that means I only really lost $15.40 at the $25 table so that's not a horrible thing. Still would have been better had I closed the damn table out when I was up to $50+. Especially as it led to the most embarrising moment of the night at Pacific. I was in a hand with someone who had about half of my stack when on 4th street he threw a huge bet out. I was in a hand on the NL table and meant to lean over and fold on the Tournament table, but instead hit RAISE! That really screwed me as it dropped my stack horrendously. Thankfully I hit a hand 2 or 3 hands later and took two players out at once bringing me almost back to even. There is nothing worse than hitting the wrong button when alot of chips are involved.
An interesting note that I'm trying to figure out, but am not about to call up Party and ask about: somehow my total deposits+cleared bonus-losses from last night do not = my current balance...and in a good way. I was down just over $300 on Party last night. Take away the $25 bonus I cleared and I should have been down $275. Somehow I'm only down $245. As far as I can tell I haven't cleared any of my second bonus yet, but maybe I have and it either isn't showing yet or I don't know how to read the Bonus Screen correctly. As far as I can tell you have to clear the entire bonus before it is released and I haven't done that yet. So either some magic fairy at Party has seen fit to mitigate my losses some, or I somehow miscalculated from the hand histories. Either way, I'm not about to complain about it!

OK folks. I've got lots of blog reading to catch up on. Please, please go and read yesterday's post if you haven't made it there yet. It is in reagards to the Charity Tournament I'm planning.

Charity Tournament Update

2004-09-28T12:43:00.000-05:00

Oy Vey. My Charity Tournament for Team in Training is not going nearly as well as I would like. As I'm heading over to the ultra-fishy waters of Party Poker(use Bonus Code: OUTKICKED!!) at the end of the month I've been trying to see if they would host. For the record, I'm still going to be playing at Pacific, as the waters are still just as fishy as ever. I just wanted a change of scenery. I want to multi-table and use Poker-Tracker and I can't do either at Pacific. So, if you are already playing at Party(Bonus Code: Outkicked!!) and want another place to fry up the fish, come on over to Pacific. Let me know you've come over and deposited and I'll get you some extra cash($25-$50, depending on how patient you are). It will come straight from me, no having to clear a bonus.
So, back to the Team in Training Charity Tournament. Party will most definately host for me. Of course, they want 50 new sign-ups to do it! Getting a little big for their britches, don'tcha think? They also want between 100-150 players for the tournament. If the last tournament was an average-above average turnout (78 if I remember correctly) then I'm in for an uphill battle. So, here's the deal. I'm here to ask (beg) for your help loyal reader. I'm not going to go spam everyone's blog comment sections asking for help, I just don't think that's right. I have a fairly decent number of readers swinging buy on a day to day basis and most of you have made yourself known at one point or another. So I'm simply going to trust to those who I know read this and the rest of the blogging community. You know why I'm trying to raise this money (if you don't click: Team in Training). All I ask is that you spread the word to as many fellow bloggers/readers as possible.
My original idea was to have a tournament where part of the buy-ins went to the charity. That is changing for the moment. I'll still have the tournament, but with the requirements I'm getting from Party I'm gonna change things some. First of all, I can't imagine that they would deny setting up a tourney for me if I hit 25-30 new signups (of course you never know). So here's the deal. Any and all sign-ups to Party utilizing Bonus Code: OUTKICKED will play in the tournament as a free-roll (assuming it gets set up at Party). I'll transfer the funds to said sign-ups before the tournament. Further, if I receive as few as 10 new sign-ups from now until October 18th, the money I earn from your sign-up (minus your entry fee) will be donated directly to the charity. In addition, if we reach 30 sign-ups I'll offer a $100 bounty to anyone who knocks me out of the tournament (a laughably easy bounty to earn, I assure you). And to keep true to the idea of a "Charity-Tournament" I will request that anyone cashing in the tournament donate a small portion of their proceeds. This is, of course, not a requirement. In fact, if you are one of the new sign-ups and cash then you needn't bother-you've already donated by signing up with Bonus Code: OUTKICKED
This all assumes we are able to get the sign-ups and tournament entries I need to get Party to host this thing. Regardless of whether the tournament goes through or not, I'll stick to what I've outlined above. Anyone signing up for Party using Bonus Code: OUTKICKED between now and October 18th will basically be making a donation. The bonus I get from their signup will be funnelled directly to the charity. So what say you, fellow bloggers and readers? Are you up for the challenge? Come on! Remember, I'm the one that has to walk 13 miles! :)
Wow. That has to be more whoring in one entry than I've seen anywhere! At least it's for a good cause (well...most of it!).
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A little actual poker content shall we? After being let go half way through the day yesterday do to the power outages in the area, I headed over to downtown Tampa to meet the wife for lunch. After that I was tasked with visiting the grocery store (amazing how bare that place gets after a Hurricane). After that, I finally got to play some poker. I played probably an hour and a half of 2/4 bouncing up and down and all over the place. I saw it all during this period: great hands, crappy hands, suckouts both for and against, and of course your obiligatory whining from players getting beat. I ended up about 8 or 9 BBs down in this session, but it was fun. Not often that I lose and still say I had fun, but there you go. I went through multiple tables and hit a whacked-out bunch of maniacs on my second table. Here's my first hand:
I sit down UTG and post the out of position blind (yeah, yeah I should have waited, but what the hell) and get dealt K,Js. The guy to my left also posts so there are already 3.5 SBs in the pot. I raise it and the next guy 3 bets. Just as I'm starting to think "this should be interesting," I watch 4 of the 6 remaining players cold call 3 bets! At this point I figure I've got to be behind, but if I hit the spades I'm going to get a monstrous pot so I go ahead and cap it to see just how crazy these people are. Sure enough, every single person calls and there are 5 of us to the flop. The flop hits 8s,4d,Jd. Not the double-suit I was hoping for, but I do have top pair, second best kicker and a back door flush and straight draw so SSHE tells me I need to go after this, which I immediately do. SB checks to me and I bet out only to be raised by the EP raiser. This time we actually lose one player by the time it gets to me and I pop it for a third bet. This is, of course, called around and I figure there has to be at least another J out there and a couple of diamond flush draws. The turn brings us the 2h blowing both of my backdoor draws (does anyone else have a problem trying not to giggle when you say backdoor draw?). It's checked to me again and I bet out again. This time I'm just called around. Good deal, at least I'm in charge of the table right now, but I'm still figuring I'm easily beat at this point, but the pot is now $97 and there is no way in hell I'm dropping my hand. The river is the 9c putting a possible straight on the board if anyone stuck around with 7,T or Q,T...a distinct possibility with this many people in the pot (still 5!). Again it's checked to me and again I bet out. This time we lose two players but two call me ($109 pot). The good news is I wasn't beat. The bad news is I was tied and had to split the pot with EP+1 who held Kd,Jh. EP of course then gave me all kinds of crap for capping with K,Js. No idea what he had as he's one of those who dropped on the river. I later got into it with another player (who kept buying in for $50 on a 2/4 table) when I and one other short stack busted him when both of us hit our flushes on the river. I had K high and took a decent side pot while the short stack took the main pot with an A high. Whiner had hit top set on the flop and couldn't fathom why I was ramming and jamming with a 4 flush on the flop. I guess the poker gods felt bad for this chump though as he turned his next $50 into $130-150 after hitting a string of nice hands. Actually, it was within 10 hands. I know this as I decided to keep track of this "pro's" number of hands played. Out of those 10 hands...he played 9 of them. I kid you not.
I had been keeping my eye on the MTT tab and decided to jump on a cheapy $5+.50 at 4pm. This lasted exactly 1 hand I am embarressed to say. I flopped top two pair and lost it all to a rivered straight. Yuck.
At this point I decided to try my luck at the 3/6 tables for what little time I had left before the wife got home. Not sure what I was thinking as sitting down at the highest limit I play in with only 15-20 minutes to play is about the stupidest thing I could have done. Fortunately though, it worked out. I took down the very first pot with 9,7d on the river without showing. I hit my 9 on the flop and another deuce on the river must was enough to scare out the last guy when I bet it. I then hit the following hands:
K,10o: -4.5BBs Why again do I play this F'ing hand?
Ah,Ac: +7.25BBs Flopped a boat and had someone betting into me the whole way. Everyone folded to my river raise, so I guess they were trying to steal as I can't imagine the river K scared anyone that bad.
Ah,As: +10BBs That's right loyal reader. You are reading that correctly. The rockets graced me twice in two hands, and I WON with BOTH! I figured there was no way in hell I was winning with this hand again, especially as I didn't have to show down the previous hand. Sure enough the board threw up a small pair and a Q on the flop to make it interesting. I played it hard and fast and finally hit the river with one other player who must have had Q,x as he couldn't beat my Aces up.
That right there made the day postive. Thank you Poker Gods for not bitch-slapping me for being stupid.
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Well, that's about it for today fellow bloggers. Don't forget! Bonus Code: OUTKICKED!
JW

2004-09-26T20:30:00.000-05:00

Well, the wife's horseback riding present didn't work out this weekend due to good ol' Hurricane Jeanne. I'm truly getting pissed with these stupid storms. Not only have we been hit or affected by 3 hurricanes this year, they have all managed to hit on the weekend! They don't even have the courtesy to hit on a Monday or Friday to give us a long weekend. Bah.
At any rate, I called up the horse ranch around 4pm on Saturday to see if we were still a go and got, "boy, I'm glad we caught you." Not a good sign. I had given them my work number, not thinking, so they couldn't call me at home. We rescheduled for next weekend which will be during something they call Horse-O-Ween. Clever, huh? We'll see.

We had spent the earlier part of the day at a hair salon, both of us getting hair-cuts, and out hunting Tampa's Cigar stores for a B-Day present for the Father-in-Law. He wanted a 3 cigar carry case that would hold three 52 Ring-Guage, 7 1/2 inch long cigars. I enjoy a cigar now and then and have tried to keep some in the past. My Father-in-Law gave me an old, small humidor that I could just never get to work. I have a feeling it was partially due to my lack of understanding and partially due to the fact that it is so old and doesn't have a tight seal anymore. Well, in our travels I came across a shop in Ybor City (huge bar area and historic Cuban town in down-town Tampa) who had some great prices on Humidors. They didn't have what we were looking for on the holder so I took one last wistful look at the humidors and walked out. We found what we were looking for later and I told the wife that I wanted to pick up a few cigars but that we really should go back to the shop with the humidors as their prices were much better than the place we bought the holder. After choosing 3 stogies I wandered back over to the Humidors. Both the wife and I agreed that the prices were just awesome and since my birthday is coming up next month I went ahead and took the plunge. I now sit in my den with the wonderful smell of an open humidor (too much humidity right at the moment). Now all I have to do is fill it! That should be the really fun (and expensive) part.

The good side to this was that IT-Guy was having a game. I had misunderstood him the weekend before. Some of the old hands showed up including the guy who I seem to constantly suck out on at the river. Thankfully, though he did drop two buy-ins, I didn't play more than one hand against him. He played very few hands and won not a one. I spoke with IT-Guy after he had gone regarding his play. This particular player had been on a tear before I showed up, cashing probably 4-5 times in a row. Since then, nada. IT-Guy says his game is just completely off, he has no confidence. It's easy to see. Very little raising. Calling too much. I hope he manages to get his game back somewhat. I enjoy playing with him and of course, enjoy taking his money when I can. Two copier-salesmen and one of their girlfriends showed up for the second time. Fun people to have around. Somewhat arrogant, but that comes with the amount of money these guys pull down I guess. For the record, the girlfriend took down second place in her first real tourney. Solid play. If her boyfriend can teach her to raise she's gonna be trouble. We went with $50 buy-ins with re-buys for the first 2 hours. I hit a decent pot straight off to take a smallish chip lead but followed that up 3-4 hands later with a devastating hand. I was in MP with the speedlimit (5,5). Their were 4 of us to the flop which came down A,A,8 (2 suited). It checked all the way around and the turn came down a beautiful 5. I checked it and 2nd place's boyfriend bet out. I smooth called as did one other player. The river was a rag that put a three flush on the board. I bet out hoping someone had hit a strong flush. It folded to copier-guy who raised me. I raised him almost all in and he immediately went in. A quick call from me and I turned over my hand asking, "can you beat 5's full?" The answer was a gut shot, "yeah, Aces full." as he turned over A,8 for the flopped full. This left me very short stacked and two hands later I was rebuying. I wasn't terribly worried about the re-buy as it was very early and (from past experience) I couldn't have given my chips to a better player. He bled some of my chips away and I got the majority of them back on a hand that I sadly can't remember.
We had some perfect examples of both the good and the bad of rabbit hunting. This game allows the rabbit hunt as long as no one in the hand objects. The first example wasn't really a rabit hunt. I had an open ended straight draw to broadway when the turn put two J's on the board. Copier-Guy2 put out a huge raise ($35) and blew me right out of the pot. The pot was pretty big but I just couldn't justify calling what equaled probably 1/3rd of my stack on a draw. The player I mentioned above also agonized before folding. Copier-Guy1 called him so we got to see the river which, of course, was an A. Both I and the other player who folded were both in serious pain as we both had the Q. Copier-Guy2 took the pot with his trip Js. The second example was an actual rabit hunt. On this hand I was in a pot with Q,To in last position. I had top pair on a board that wasn't very scary by the time we hit the turn. Copier-Guy2 started a stare down/chat-for-information once the turn card hit. I had bet fairly large on the flop and he had called quickly say that he "didn't believe it". Once the turn came he started in on the same thing. He was first to act and took a good 3 minutes or so trying to get me to tell him something. I had chased a flush(open end straight and flush draw) earlier and he thought I was doing the same on this hand. He finally decided to check and the player to my right, without hesitation, pushed for about 80% of his stack. I had never put this guy on a hand and he has a habit of bluffing now and then, but he was putting me to a decision for about 60-70% of my chips. Top pair, medium kicker...I agonized over it but in hte end I just couldn't do it and tossed my hand. Copier-Guy 2 did the same and the other player flipped over A,8 for middle pair! I was in agony but Copier-Guy2 called for the rabbit and with no one disagreeing the dealer burned and turned the river A. Layed down to a bluff, but had I put him all-in (my only other choice besides folding) I would have been short stacked again.
I still have a problem with trying to bluff un-bluffable players and gave way too many chips to 2nd place girl when I knew she had paired the A on the board and couldn't help trying to push her off the hand. She had been playing Aces with weak, weak kickers all night but still knew when her kicker was weak. I almost had her laying down a hand on one pot, but waited too long and tried to steal when she was far too invested in the pot. I finally went out 3rd to the eventual 2nd place mostly thanks to the 4th place finisher (the guy who bluffed me off that rabit hand) when he lost to the chip leader.
The good news? I cashed. The bad news? 3rd place got me exactly my money back. Oh well! At least I didn't leave down!

Played a little today (Sunday). A little over an hour for two sessions of 2/4 and I finished up somewhere around 15 BBs. Weirdest hand of the day.
I'm down a little bit in my first session and get hit with the Black Ks in EP+1. I raise it up and get 1 caller (CO). Flop comes rainbow of 8h,3s,9d, a beautiful flop for me. I'm figuring I'm going to be taking down a miniscule pot here when I bet out, but CO comes over the top. I 3-bet it and he caps it. I'm a little worried about a set here, but I've been trying to up the aggression factor so I'm not backing down. The turn is the Ac. Not a pretty card, but if I'm worried about the set then this might work for me as my betting patterns had to be screaming K,K or A,A. I bet out again and again we cap it. At this point I'm sure I'm screwed. The river is the 4d and I check it. CO bets and I call figuring I'm beat, but no way I'm folding to one bet on the river. He turns over Q,8o. Middle pair on the flop and he played it like a monster. Gotta love it15.5BB pot on that one.
I'm finding that I'm having trouble when I sit down at the table initially. I'm trying to assimilate the pot odds and such from SSHE and I think I'm playing too many draws because of it. I'm terrible with math which doesn't help any. My only hope is going to be memorizing the most common draws. Gonna have to make myself a cheat sheet that I can hang near the computer.

My second issue of All-In finally arrived on Friday. I'm really kind of pissed off at these people. I've sent an email and left to messages with their answering service so far asking when I would receive my next issue. I also asked for them to contact me so that I could make sure my mailing address was correct. No response whatsoever. On the plus side, this is their second issue and inside is their second article by one of our own. Great little article on the card rooms in Vegas by our one of our friends at Up for Poker. I want to say it was CJ, but I really just don't know. This second issue is a little more sophisticated than the first, which is good to see. I'm still hoping the layout work gets better as it goes on...only time will tell. They've got a good thing going with Phi Gordon where he reports on various home games of the rich and or famous. I can't complain about any of the articles (haven't read the Ben Aflek one yet), but I can say this: I hope they get more content. At this point you are getting 6 or so articles with an editorial page. I'd like to see more articles but I'm guessing that will take time. And of course, I'm hoping they get a little more timely on their delivery. Their "upcoming events" section was completely out of date by the time it hit my mail box.

Well, this entry may get added to throughout the day if I come with more as I'm probably going to be extremely bored today. The power is out in the area I work and we are on Generator power. No air conditioning. My contact management system is down, so I can't contact customers. Should be interesting. Oops. BRB, everyone's getting called into the conference room for a meeting. Great, it get's hot in there even when the power IS on!

Hey, there is some common sense within our Management team. We are shutting down at noon. WhooHoo!

Weird messages and weird sessions...

2004-09-24T16:27:00.000-05:00

The weirdest answering message I've ever received:
"You have one new message...beeeeeeeeeep...(recorded message)This phone call is from a Correctional Facility and is subject to monitoring and recording. If you do not wish to accept this call, hang up now..."
WTF?? There was more to this, but that's about the jist of it. There was no actual person after the message so I have no idea what it was all about. I have to guess it's a wrong number...at least I hope so! Don't think I know anyone who would try to call me if they got thrown in the slammer.

Got to play about an hour and a half of 2/4 after work. It was one of those sessions that was both horrible and wonderful at the same time. Over the period of 45 minutes, I made an absolute tear through the players at my table. I ran up an amazing 42 Big Bets in that time! Unfortunately I needed all but 11.5 of those to just get even. I wish I could say that the dip downards was due to bad beats and suck outs. Too bad for my ego that I can't. I tried to up my aggression, but did it recklessly, taking the couple of decent hands I was dealt way too far. Trying to get a handle on how far to take draws based on the advise of SSHE factored into things somewhat, but that was more my fault in trying to apply concepts I'm not familiar with. Thankfully I was able to reign myself back in, applying only the concepts I was sure of and playing the game I as comfortable with.
Even with all my bad play in the begining of the session, the play I was most upset with was my last pot. It went like this:
Q,8c in the SB. UTG calls the BB and everyone folds to me (short handed) and I raise. BB folds and UTG calls. Flop comes T,7,8...all of diamonds. I bet out. It's possible that UTG has 2 diamonds but I'm playing the odds that he doesn't. He has yet to fold to one of my raises. He raises and I re-raise and he calls. OK, that's that. He doesn't have the flush. Turn is the 9s. I bet out again and again he raises. I still don't believe him and I've got outs that I'm happy with so I re-raise. Here's where the trouble starts...UTG caps it. OK, now I must be behind, but with all the cash in the pot I can't fold to this bet so let's see the river. The river is the Jc. Here's where I piss myself off. Straight on the board. I see that. And I think, crap...split pot and check. UTG checks too and I win with my Q high straight. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Nothing saying that UTG would have called, but man I'm missing that extra bet.
Let me know if you have thoughts on this. Most of it was my read on the player, but it could have just as easily been wrong. I obviously had him pegged for not having the flush (maybe 1 diamond in his hand?), but I'm guessing he must have had something on the turn to cap it. I can only guess he had the 6 in his hand. Either that or he had the Ad and was praying for the 4th to fall. I really wish Pacific had a function that let you see peoples hands when you reach the showdown.

Real Quick...

2004-09-24T10:38:00.000-05:00

Short and Sweet today.

Played some .10/.20 Omaha and Omaha Hi/Lo last night. Got my rear handed to me. Lost 30+ BBs. LOL, at least it was only .10/.20! I knew I was throwing away money, just didn't feel like folding I guess. I think doing this in the ultra-low limits now and then helps me to keep from tilting when playing for the real stakes.

Maudie and Todd got the name challenge. Sorry if it wasn't clear, the challenge was to decipher "Hidden1s". I knew it wouldn't be terribly challenging. Pocket Aces. Hidden=Pocket, or in the Hole. 1s=Aces, the card equivalent to 1 in the deck. Nothing spectacular, I just thought it was clever.

For some reason I'm not getting all of my comment notifications. I'll have to check my Bulk Email Box in Yahoo, some of them may be getting thrown in there for some reason.

Some interesting threads going on in Texas Hold'em-Poker.com :
The first one involves playing in low limits and whether or not you should always raise if you are the first one into a pot. A response that I couldn't resist replying to:
I have recently started that crap about raise or fold and I have lost more money that way than ever before. If you play like that, people will lose respect for your bluffs. THIS IS THE BEST WAY TO BECOME A FISH. If I see someone raise the blinds all the time, they become such an easy mark because I know this style, and if they don't hit, they still bet.. and will usually call a raise of the same amount, or sometimes even come back over the top, and then.... SNAP! mouse trap set and locked. Don't listen to the hundreds of people who say this style is good. They're tricking you into playing like that. It's like the sharks saying,,, "It's good for all fish to swim very slowly and in a straight line..in large groups."
This next one seems to be pretty dead, but it came around at the same time we were discussing Buy-ins and Stack Size recently. Proof positive that some people just don't take advantage of the information that's out there. This guy posted this after this thread had already reached 2 pages and everyone had pretty much agreed that the buy-in to any limit should be between 20-30x the BB. I of course had to respond to this as well:
I usually start with 40 bucks at a 2-4 table. You can deff put up a good fight with 40 but I like it because it keeps me playing tight until I make some money.
Wow, just so much wrong with that statement it gives me the chills.
Something that always gets me on this particular board. I don't visit RGP or 2+2 all that often so I don't know if it happens there or not, but these guys CONSTANTLY switch back and forth between limit and NL strategies. You can go on and ask someone a question specifically related to limit play, and the first response you'll get back is: "Well, you need to put a bigger raise out there to protect your hand." Don't get me wrong, alot of these guys are very good players and they usually have some good advice. It's just that so often they don't take the time to bother noticing what type of game the person asking the question is actually playing.

Alighty then. I said short and sweet so I'll leave it at that. Hopefully some poker play tonight after work while the wife is at her step class.

Ramblings of a semi-sane person...

2004-09-23T07:25:00.000-05:00

No poker play to speak of right now, but plenty of poker-blog related stuff to find below. I had all kinds of ideas last night on stuff I wanted to blog about, but my short term memory being what it is, I've forgotten all of it. I think I need to pick up one of those digital voice recorders to carry around. Of coures, I'd probably forget the stupid thing so that's probably not the answer either. Not sure where this entry is going to go today, so bear with me loyal reader. Strange that I can say that seriously. According to StatTracker I actually run between 15 and 25 return visitors per day. That's amazing and humbling all at the same time. Sincere thanks to everyone out there who slog through my ramblings on a day to day basis.

No one has responded to my online name translation challenge (hidden1s) yet, so I'm going to hold off. Seriously folks, this one is really easy. So that tells me that either I'm the only one that finds it seriously amusing, or that it's not as obvious as I thought. I'm guessing the former.

Florida seems destined to get hit by a hurricane this season. Ivan coming all the way back down the coast, across Florida, back into the Gulf only to REFORM into a Tropical Storm! How freaking bizarre is that??? Jeanne looks to be making a loop around itself just so it can line itself up to come back at the East Coast of Florida or the Carolinas. Karl seems to be behaving himself, but then we have Lisa out there...who knows where that one will go. I'll be really happy when this hurricane season is finally over. The only good thing to come out of this wacky weather so far is a week (so far) of fairly cool weather here in the Tampa area. That's ALWAYS a good thing.

Work pretty much sucks. I've been in this job now for 4 and a half years (wow, it's been awhile) and in that time the job has changed tremendously. When I started out this was almost strictly a sales job. Sure there was plenty of paperwork, but there was a ton of support as well. With the buy-out of the original company a little over a year ago things took a turn for the worse IMHO. We are now little more than clerks or secretaries who also have a number (sales quota) to meet. The amount of support is significantly lower than what it used to be and the work load is significantly higher. Add to that the fact that this job is starting to look more and more like a dead end with no real avenue for advancement and I'm really not happy anymore. I still get a rush when putting together a nice deal, but just as can happen in poker, the longer I go, the less joy there is in each sale (pot). In other words, this has turned into the grind. And an ugly grind at that.
I have plenty of contacts in the industry, mainly from people who have left the company (either before or after the aquisition) and a few have set me up with possible opportunities to move. Unfortunately none of those opportunities panned out. So I now find myself in a position that relates to one of Iggy's recent posts. To quote:
And now for the worst type. The one I personally relate to the most, the Complacent type, who improves radically until he hits a plateau, and is content with the radical improvement he's made to get off a few plateau's, and doesn't mind staying at this last plateau because it's comfortable and familiar, and he doesn't worry about getting off it.
Sadly, I think I fit into this category as far as my job goes. My growth during the first 2-3 years in this job was, for lack of a better word, staggering. A combination of hard work, some moderate sales talent and being in the right place at the right time now and then led me to a place as one of the top sales people. Then the market went to shit, I made it through multiple lay-offs watching friend after friend let go or leave, and the fun just started to leak away. Now, I'm uncomfortably comfortable, if that makes sense. I don't like the job as much as I used to, the atmosphere is deteriorating, but I make a decent living (as it relates to yearly earnings). One that I believe would be fairly difficult to duplicate at a new place starting from scratch.
I still have a number of co-workers (mostly other sales people) who I enjoy working with, but our management team is uninspired and seems to undervalue its employees more and more with each passing day. I really should start looking for a new place to work, but when you get right down to the nitty gritty...I find my self in a state of disquiet. Starting over is a scary thing.

Just spent an hour and half (an hour of which was my lunch "break") in a sales meeting to discuss a system we have in place that has a ton of problems and makes our job that much more difficult and time consuming because of said problems. 1.5 hours. Chances of much of anything getting changed due to the meeting? Slim to none. I expect one or two minor changes, which will truthfuly help, while the majority of the problems stay exactly the same. Cathartic? Sure, in as much as any bitch-session can be cathartic.

All kinds of poker blog-related shtuff today. I swear the lot of you (BG) save up all of your posts for two or three days and then post them all at the same time just to drive me nuts trying to keep track of it all! First of all, let me say how updset I am that I'm going to miss Al's upcoming Philly/AC bash. If you haven't heard or are on the fence about this monumental little gathering, let me fill you in on the poker literati that will be there: Grubby, Pauly, the Blogfather and BG. I'm sure I'm missing someone(s), but you get the idea. The fact that I hail from the area (Jersey, right across from Philly) makes it even worse. Just thinking of all those cheesesteaks and all that AC action makes me want to cry.
As I mentioned above, I think BG managed to save up like 5 days of post before actually putting them out on the web. I can forgive him though, on the basis of one little piece of one of those posts. This line had me laughing so hard last night that it scared the dog out of the den:
And lo, did Jeremiah take the concubine behind the stables and yea verily did he bend her over and make her exclaim unto the heavens the name that is our Lord.
Just classic. Of course it had to do with a hot little 17 year old which brought to mind my trip home last night. I drive by the back portion of a high school's athletic field and the girl's track team was out. 17 and 18 year old girls... running or cool-down walking with their arms over their heads...wearing low-rider gym shorts and brightly colored sports bras...man it's a wonder I made it home without running my car into a ditch. I tell you, they didn't make 'em this way when I was that old!!! Sick and perverted, that's me!
This part goes out to too many bloggers to list, but at least I know Sean is with me on this. We all know Phil Helmuth is a whining little biatch. No argument. That being said, I firmly stand by my belief that a large portion of that whining is pure posture. This is of course in relation to the ESPN TOC aired the other night. Too many times he was mouthing off and it was just way too obvious that he was just wasting time/acting before bluffing. Lots of players do it by just sitting back...looking at their opponent....looking at their cards...sigh...look at the opponent...muck. Even though it is OBVIOUS from their hole cards that they intended to do nothing else the entire time! Come on folks, I know it can be hard to look past the comments that spew from Helmuth's mouth, but do try. And for all of you out there that think Annie flipping over the 9 really tilted Phil...think again. He said he put her on two pair, exactly the hand she had. Her turning the 9 only, and NOT the other card just told Phil that he was correct. I would wager money on it. And for the record, I really don't think I like Annie. Cute? Yes. But there's just something about her. Add to that Negreanu's comments on her over at RGP and some other random comments I've seen and I just get the feeling she can be a real nutcracker.
Based on Sir's latest post, I really need to get my ass over to Party. Way too many bloggers playing together at the .50/1 tables and I'm missing out damnit!
Gotta give some props to Maudie as she has posted an incredible entry on Poker Progress. *Edit: sorry Maudie! Didn't mean to leave that hanging!*

Ugarte has an interesting write-up on a recent home game that he appears to be (have been??) a regular at. For the real interesting stuff, check out the comments section. I happen to agree with Ugarte, but obviously I wasn't there and the host believes he went too far. I don't see it in the post, but it doesn't sound like the host has the same recolection of events. Cat fight anyone?
There's lots more out there that I haven't gotten around to yet, but above is a good sampling.

I've had limited conversation with the Blogfather regarding setting up the Charity Tournament I'm working on (gonna have to come up with a catchy name for it here pretty soon). He's given me some tips and I'm just waiting now to hear back from Party. The first couple of responses were lightning fast, but now it's slowed down a bit. For whatever reason, my contact wants to talk to me on the phone which of course makes it difficult as I have no idea what time zone he might be in. I've given him some times when I could talk but have not heard from him yet. Of course those times are lunch (went out yesterday and forgot the phone, have a work meeting today) and after work (was at the Y yesterday), so even that's not working out too well. He didn't call as I have caller id on all of my phones, but I hate not being around when I give someone a time to contact me. The first response was very positive so hopefully they can help me get this thing rolling. Here's hoping you will all be interested!

OK. Enough rambling for today, this is getting long. Hopefully something more coherant and less boring to come. Thanks for stopping by-JW

2004-09-22T07:43:00.000-05:00

Alrighty then! I have quite a few thoughts to put out to the blogosphere today, but they are all jumbled. Not sure if I'll try to reorganize them before posting or not. If not, I apologize to any who are easily confused!

Last night was the normal Poker night but it was somewhat curtailed. The wife and I have finally gotten going in earnest on our Team in Training fund raising. We got our first batch of emails out and already the donations are rolling in. Last night we had to work on altering our letter so that we can take one in to the YMCA tonight to be posted as well as correcting some emails. This cut into "Poker Time", but whatcha gonna do? Some things are more important than Poker *gasp*! I've received a response from Party Poker to my charity tournament request. It is very short, but positive. From the sound of it they are willing to work with me on it. I'll keep you all posted on the progress.

There is so much poker on TV nowadays it's almost impossible to keep track of it all. Not only did I get started on Poker an hour late last night, I missed the first hour of ESPN's Tournament of Champions. I had no idea it was even on. I know I had seen adds for it, but I just hadn't payed attention to when it was going to be on. I must say I enjoyed it more than I've enjoyed most of the Poker Superstars Tournament. Seeing Doyle in that Cowboy hat cracked me up. Not sure about the last hand where he went all-in without looking at his cards. I can't figure out if it was a true steal play or if he was just ready to be done. As to the final two, what a pairing! I'm not sure which of them I dislike more. I seriously had trouble figuring out who I wanted to root for! I'm sorry, but the little crying fit by Annie when she knocked out Howard was just too much. You were both there to win and you both knew it. If you feel that bad go buy your brother something with the $2 Million prize money. I'm sure most of you had no problem picking who to root for as Phil is everyone's whipping boy, but I just cant get over Annie's arrogant, bitchy rant after getting knocked out of the WSOP. Then again, Phil was his normal everyday self. It's almost painful to have to listen to what spews out of his mouth. I'm almost convinced that 75% of what he says is said intentionally to creat a "Poker Persona" if you will. He can sit there in the interview and say, "why can't I just say "Nice Hand" and be done with it" all he wants. Too many of his rants were just obvious posturing yet sounded exactly like those that don't seem to be posturing. Anyway, can't say I was sorry the way it turned out. Annie is obviously one of the best players out there (regardless of gender) and when she isn't scowling or pouting she's pretty darn cute, so what the heck. I also have to say that I really liked the trophy they had set up. I thought that was pretty cool.

OK, so on to the poker that was being played while this televised poker event was going on. I wanted to take another stab at the 10K guaranteed tourney that Pacific puts on every night at 10pm EST so when I sat down at about 10 minutes after 9 I didn't have too much time to play before it started. I went and signed up for the tournament and then wandered over to the 2/4 tables to see if I could find a juicy one. I scrolled down to the almost full tables and found one with one overly-large stack ($2K+), a couple of buy-in level stacks ($100) and plenty of short stacks and sat down. I'm not sure what universe I entered when I clicked the "Sit Here" button, but this was the tightest 2/4 table I've ever seen. During some hands I actually thought I heard a faint "squeeeeeeeeeeeek...squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek..." coming from the computer screen. Never could locate what was causing that sound...guess I need to take my screen in to be looked at. Anyway, the session went fairly well. I was trying to put into use what I've been reading in SSHE (more on this later) and it seemed to work fairly well. After 45-50 minutes I stood up with a modest $37 return. I had one very noteable run of cards where I received K,K, raised it and one the blinds and one extra SB when no one wanted to play. I typed, "awww...my cowboys are sad" in chat and got no responses. The very next hand was Q,Q which won a modest pot without improving. The very NEXT hand was K,Qo! Unfortunately I had to fold this one on the flop as there was no help and some heavy betting. Weird.
I stood up with about 5 minutes to go until the tourney and grabbed a drink. Apparently I would have been better off skipping the tournament as I went out in the first 15 minutes. This time by getting hit with A,Ko two hands in a row. The first hand took down a small pot and the second one busted me. Oh well, wasn't meant to be.
After this I jumped back onto a 2/4 table for 30 minutes or so. I had planned to play for an hour or two, but once I had made back my buy-in for the tournament plus a little extra I just wasn't interested in staying up any later. The deck was being fairly kind to me as I got hit with the Cowboys twice more during this sitting. I won the first hand with 1 player calling me all the way down to the river. Thankfully a K hit on the river to give me trips which I'm pretty sure I needed as there was an A on the flop. No re-raises or raising going on, so if he had the A it was weak. The second time that same player got his revenge on me though. He raised it in a multi-way pot and I re-raised it. Blanks all the way through with him +1 calling. The river was a J and both players checked to me. I really wasn't happy seeing the J. As soon as it hit I was just waiting for him to bet out. When he didn't I should have just checked it (I think). Instead I bet and got check raised. Of course he had the little boys in the pocket and had hit trips on the river to beat me out of a very nice pot (would have put me up about $50). This is one place where I think I might have a whole in my game. If I've got a good hand and I'm sure I'm good all the way to the river, I'm in last position, and the last card hits and everyone checks to me, should I bet it? I'm just not sure. I mean, if that last card gave someone a pair that I can still beat then they are probably going to call and I'm up an extra bet. If they were drawing they are probably going to fold if they missed their draw. Otherwise, I'm getting check raised or at bets called with a hand that can beat me. I guess this is what they call betting for value, but I'm having trouble here. Please feel free to let me know what you think.
My last hand was interesting. I got dealt Qs,Tc in mid-late position and called into an unraised multi-way pot. The flop came down Ts,3s,Jh. MP bet out and I raised (I can't really explain this, but I wanted to up my aggression some and I just didn't think he had the J). Two players called as did the raiser. The turn was a beautiful Qc. I had the straight to worry about but bet out anyway. Two players called. River was the 8h putting up a straight if someone had the 9. EP comes out betting and it just smells. Again, I can't explain it...I guess this is what you call "poker instinct"? Initial raiser called and I raised it. Both players folded. So, although I started with a crap hand and didn't raise it pre-flop, I think my aggression payed off here. I don't think I pushed anyone off of a better hand here, but I may have been beat on the flop. What say ye? How often does your "poker instinct" tell you to play something in a way that probably is not optimal?

In honor of Pauly and the WGPBE and their respective posts on poker names, I ran into a name last night during my second sitting that was either very clever. I don't know if the person who came up with it meant it in this way, but either way it was cool. The name was "hidden1s". Not that it should be very hard for you, my extremely intelligent reader, but I'm going to let everyone chime in with what I thought was so clever about this name. I'll post it in my next blog if no one figures it out (not likely). So go ahead and leave a comment with your guess.

Back to SSHE by Ed Miller. I have to say that I like this book better than WLLHE by Lee Jones so far. Though WLLHE is a great book, I just think that what I've read of SSHE is better put together for me. I'm still in the Pre-Flop section, but I really just started reading it in ernest. I had started weeks ago, but got sucked into a couple of novels. It's quite amusing in certain places where you can see the Sklansky influence. I'm guessing that most of the intro sections where the use of "we" is frequent are by Sklansky. Very arrogant, but understandably so. For instance:
"You should not deviate from these recommendations by applying your own broad preflop concepts. You will usually be wrong."
or
"Similarly, do not conclude, 'These recommendations are way too tight. I can playu a whole lot more hands.' You will be wrong, and it will cost you money in the long run."
Like I said, some what arrogant in its wording, but for good reason. Hell, as to the second quote, I was actually thinking that some of their recommendations were LOOSER than I expected! At any rate, as I've already said, this is an excellent book. If you are swimming the low limit waters, make sure you pick this one up (unless, of course, you are already destroying said limits).

That's all for today folks. Let me know what you think of that hand name and my "poker instinct" question. Also, don't forget to let me know if you are interested in my charity tournament.
JW

Bubbles suck.

2004-09-20T12:52:00.000-05:00

Here I sit, having just busted out of my second SNG with minutes to go on my lunch break. Lost the first one in no time and in the second I bubbled after giving up 3rd place in chips in a hand to be described below.
How horrid can my opponents be, I mean really? I'm pretty sure not one of the players I went up against put the slightest thought into what their opponents might have. I know I should be playing utterly and mind numbingly straight up with these types, but that is just extremley hard. Some examples of the wonderfully intelligent people I was playing against:
I hold 9x in the SB. Flop comes 9,6,6. I put out a bet of 3-4x the BB and get called...all the way down to the river and have to split the pot with another 9.
Same guy and this is the hand that lost my chip position when we are 4 handed. I have 4,4 in the BB. All 4 players in and the SB min-raises it. All Call. Flop comes 9d,Ah,9c. UTG bets min, two folds and I call. Turn 9h and I bet 5xBB. Call. River K and I take another stab at it..this time 10xBB. Call. What does he have? 5,5. I know I was trying to steal here early on, but come on. I go big on the River when a K hits and you call with 5,5? I don't know, maybe I'm giving my opponent too little credit.
My final hand went down like this. Get dealt 10,Qh on the button. Raise it 3xBB and get 2 callers. Flop comes Jd,5s,Kh. Checks aroudn to me and I figure an all-in will take it down and if not I've got some outs. One guy lays down and the other guy calls with A,Qo. No help on the turn or river and he takes it with A high. Calling all in with what amounts to an inside straight draw (one sided). Oh the Humanity! as Iggy would say.
And just to show I'm not (too) biased, here's a beautiful example of the level of play at this SNG from early on (2nd hand) that benefited me. I get A,6d on the button. 4 callers to me and I call as does the SB. BB checks and we see As,Ks,Kh as a flop. Not the flop I was hoping for, but at least there's an A, right? Yeah sure. SB min-bets it and gets two callers to me. I smell something here and figure the SB is trying for a steal with no K that didn't work. No one popped him so either they don't have the K either or they are slow playing so I bump it 3x the SB's bet. SB and UTG call and the other guy drops. The Turn is a beautifl Ac. It checks to me and I throw a 150TC bet out. SB calls and UTG folds. River is 3d and I throw out 350TC. SB has 550 left and calls. And can't beat my hand!!! I guess maybe he did have the K, but that's what you get for min-betting trip Ks.
I hate bubble finishes...HATE 'EM!
This weekends one session went very well, so these little micro SNG ($5 and $10) don't hurt much other than the sting that comes with losing at any time for any stakes. The wife's shared "surprise" party went off very well. There were a ton of people there for D's B-day and enough of the neighborhood folks that she had plenty of people who she knew. We headed over about 9:30 and didn't stumble home until after 4:30 in the AM. This croud knows how to party, that is for SURE. Sunday was a loafing day for the most part and I got to hit the virtual tables for about an hour mid way through the day. I could have stood up after about 15 minutes and the result would have been the same, but I was there to play and plus, I was hoping for more of the same! Here's the highlights (3/6):
4th hand in. I get dealt the black 2s in first position. From watching the table I've noticed that there is very little raising going on. Very loose-passive. So I limp, and have this conversation with myself:
"Bad move, dumbass. Why are you calling in 1rst position with the absolute worst pair possible? Hey, teh table is loosy goosy and there isn't alot of raising on, it'll probably be the exact same as if I had limped in late position. Sure, you know this from the 3 hands you've seen so far."
Well, I turned out to be right. There were two entry blinds in MP. Everyone between me and them called and they both checked. LP and the Button fold, SB completes and I'm feeling pretty good. Right up until the BB pops it. Bah! Oh well, I've got major odds at this point so I go along for the ride along with all but one of the initial callers. And what hits me square on the noggin as the first card off? 2d baby! Rainboy 4,9 completes the flop and the BB brings it out. I raise (no way I'm slow playing with this many people in) and we get two callers. BB helps it along by popping it for a 3 bet and I cap it. We lose the other two players and BB calls. Turn is the Ac. I'm not too happy about this card as this guy could easily be playing A,A considering the strength of his raises. He checks it and I bet. Smooth call. River is the 6h. Again he checks so I bet it again. And he...are you ready for this?

Are you sure?

$6 bet into a $90 pot...

And he raised pre-flop...

And he 3 bet the flop...

Ready?

He FOLDED! I kid you not. No idea what this guy was holding, but what he could have had that wouldn't have been worth a $6 crying call into a $90 pot is beyond me.

I fold the very next hand and for my 6th hand after sitting down I get A,5s in the SB. This time the dealer must have been dealing trash because only two people called the BB. I raised it and all three came along for the ride. The flop was just about the best I could hope for: 9s,Ad,4s. Top pair and a flush draw to mitigate my shitty kicker. I come out firing to see if I can take down the pot now by representing a strong A (thank you pre-flop raise). No go as the BB calls, 1 fold and 2 raises it. I re-raise and 1 cold-calls two bets while 2 calls. I figure at least one of these guys is on a flush draw so I'm in pretty good position. Turn is a black Q, but the wrong black Q. I come out again still representing the strong A. This time BB folds and 2 calls. The river confirms that yes, I am getting smacked in the face by the deck with the 6s. Of course I bet it out and 2 immediately raises it. Thank you oh Poker deities! I re-raise and he caps it. I call and he flips over 10,Qs giving me the $108 pot. 6 hands and I'm up just shy of $125.

I manage to take down another pot six hands later with Qs even with the K on the flop. No one else hit anything and I got a small pot. This set up a lot of folding and two hands where I took decent starters too far (A,J all the way with nothing is the main one I remember). I hit a hand mid way through that I just really enjoyed. I got dealt Q,Jo in late position and when it folded to me popped it up. Everyboyd folded but the guy who was in the early flush pot with me. The flop brings me nothing, and as he checks, apparently nothing for him either. The turn is a 3 and the fourth suit on the board. He bets it and I decide to abuse the short stack as I'm sure he has nothing. I re-raise him and he folds like yesterday's laundry. Nice little $31 pot.
My last hand I hit two pair on the turn, somehow dodge anyone having a flush draw when the thrid diamond hit on the river and take down a $55 pot which brought me right back to where I was after the 6th hand. I probably could have at least doubled up had I stuck around but it had been an hour and it was the wife's birthday, so I closed out with a nice profit and spent the rest of the day lounging with the birthday-girl.

On the Team in Training front, we got out our emails to the family and friends this weekend. I also got an email back from Paradise on running the Bloggers/Readers Charity Tourney. Waste of time. Their reply basically said that they had no way of awarding a percentage of the buy-ins to the charity and that they did not do half-priced re-buys or add ons. In other words, it basically read, here's how we do our private tournaments. It doesn't come close to what you are looking for, but let us know if you want to go with us anyway. Oh well. I'll have to keep trying. My next stops will be Party and Stars. I hope I can get some attention as I don't play on either yet, though I plan on joining Party next month. If anyone else has a site to suggest or wants to approach their site for me, I would greatly appreciate it. Here's how I want to set the tourney up:
Texas Hold'em or Omaha No Limit. $20 buy-in with $10
re-buy's for a set period and a $10 add-on (re-buys
and add-ons at half price for the same number of chips
as the initial buy-in to encourage re-buys).
60% of the intial Buy-in would go to the charity while
20% of the re-buys and add-ons would go to the
charity.
The percentages and exact dollars are not set in stone
yet, but that is the general idea.

Please, be sure to let me know if you have any ideas on this topic. I really want this to be a success but I don't have any experience in setting these things up.

There's all kinds of good blogging going on out there. As is to be expected, the BlogFather has an excellent post up. For anyone else out there who just can't stand sifting through all the trash that is RGP now a days, Iggy is an invaluable resource. Plenty of good stuff from Paul Phillips regarding some "creative editing" during the WSOP and plenty of Josh Arieh comments, on both sides of the fence.

Just in case there is someone out there who isn't visiting his site on a daily basis like a hungry cat visiting the local trash can, HDouble is back with a great post on aggression at the higher limit tables.

I'm still waiting to hear from DoubleAs and F-Train on how their luck went at the Borgatta Open.

Pauly wasn't able to cap his run at the Aussie Million, but he has a good write up on the tourney. Go give your condolences.

And of course, if you somehow haven't heard, Al is having a big bash over on the east coast. Wish I had the time and funds to hop up there, but I don't. Hope everyone has a blast.

I'm sure there is all kinds of other great bloglicous goodness out there, but I haven't had a chance to hit it yet. So instead of rambling on here, I'm going to go do that.

Buy-ins: inspired by SirFWALGMan

2004-09-16T16:35:00.000-05:00

So, SirFWALGMan got me to thinking with his post regarding how much people buy in with. It's a topic that I've wanted to blog about for some time now but just haven't gotten around to. For the record, I always buy in with 25 Big Bets when sitting down at a limit table. The responses to Sir's question seem to put me right in the middle of the average of 20-30 Big Bets.
So, what bugs me? People who sit down with their entire bank roll or 200 or more Big Bets. At any point in time you can log on, check out the 2/4 tables at Pacific, and find people with $1265.40, 643.87, 870.65 etc. in front of them. All of those numbers were taken from Pacific real-time by the way.
Note to self: not a good idea to log on to poker site when trying to blog about something...MAN are there alot of juicy 2/4 tables going! There's more 2/4 tables now than I've ever seen before! Ok, back on topic.
I just don't understand what these people are thinking. The numbers don't intimidate me! ESPECIALLY when they buy in with something like this. It's funny when you ask these people why exactly they buy in with these amounts. They never give you a straight answer, and everyone I've asked has gotten indignant about it. Really, when I see that much money sit down, all I think about is how much of it I can take. The more money sitting in front of you, the more you can bleed away when you start running bad or go on tilt. And most of these people that I see sit down with that much cash do just that. Occasionally you will see someone do this who can actually play, but I believe that the majority of these players are weak. Why? Because they think that the "big stack" gives them an edge, and they are not confident enough with their game to play without this imagined edge.
Of course, there is one more posibility that could lead to this phenomenon. Laziness. Most sites, when you sit down at a table, give you two options: "Entire Bankroll" or "Other Amount" which you need to type in. I'm not quite sure why they decided to institute the "entire bankroll" button. I just don't see a benefit to it. Maybe they hope the people with more money than brains will sit down with their entire bankroll more often, lose it more often, and hence rebuy more often?
An interesting observation about this phenomenon is that it is almost TOTALLY limited to the online world. Only online do you see people sit down with this much money. If you see somone at a table at the card room or casino with this kind of money...they won it. Does it automatically deserve respect? Hell yes! Until you learn otherwise, you have to respect someone with a ton of chips in front of them at the casino table. No one buys in with $800 at a casion 2/4 table.
So, the obvious question, I guess, is how does this affect my online table selection. Strangely enough, I don't search out tables with huge stacks on them. Though I don't mind, and will be sorely tempted to make fun of you if you sit down with a ton of cash at my table, I'm not nearly as willing to sit down at a table with people who are already sitting with a ton of cash. First of all, there is always the outside chance that they actually did win a majority of what is in front of them. More importantly, I want to sit with people with too LITTLE money in front of them. It's later in the evening now and there are no perfect 2/4 tables for me to copy down. Earlier there were quite a few. Here's my perfect 2/4 table:
Grama172 $72
Ark01 $40
Zagosh $82
Rndr97 $26
777AA $139
5thStrt $65
pkrKng $39
MoNk92 $112
MaStEr $43

(How did I do on the names Pauly?)
There you go. 1 empty seat for me, a couple of people above what I would consider the minimum buy in (who will hopefully lose money to the fish to keep them in the game) and a majority below. Of those below there are 4 who won't even be able to make the most of a monster hand. That's the way I like it. Of course tables like this are very rare, and they don't tend to last long as those extreme short stacks tend to bust quickly. But I'm always looking for a table with at least a couple of folks well below the minimum buy-in. They are more likely to be poor players, running bad, or on Tilt.

So, there you go. My thoughts on the topic. Yours?
JW

Omaha Misery

2004-09-14T20:53:00.000-05:00

Happy almost-hung-over Thursday morning to you. What's that you say? You aren't almost-hung-over? That's ok, I am. Had to drown my sorrows with plenty of amber liquid last night. Omaha's a bitch, ya know? Well, maybe not Omaha, but Omaha not played with a dedicated, and skilled dealer.
Before I get into the details of the actual game, I think some set up is called for. The Host (D) has a game every couple of weeks to once a month depending on his schedule. Most of the players are people he works with or used to work with. Tonight IT-Guy and his friend would be joining us so there would be a couple more truly solid players at the table. There are 2-3 decent players in D's regular game and the rest run the range of calling station to barely knowing what they are doing. There's nothing wrong with this as it makes for a very soft game, but it can cause some awkward moments. I've been working as hard as I can in each of these games to educate everyone on the rules of the game and have had limited success. Almost everyone places their bets in front of them now instead of throwing them into the pot, for instance. And forget about the minimum raise being double the amount that was previously bet, that's way too complicated. Actually, that's not right. It's not complicated, let's just say that these guys aren't fond of rules so you kind of have to pick your battles. Last night I had to pick just one such battle.
We had decided on Omaha ($20 buy-in, re-buys until 9PM) and were busy spending 20-30 minutes trying to get the starting chip stacks figured out. Once this was done I dealt a quick hand of Omaha to explain to the least poker saavy player how the game was played. This didn't go so well as for the first 5 hands he was still arguing about how many cards had to be used from where...ugh. At this point D comes out saying that players were going to have to declare their hands. I about choked on my beer. I've played Omaha a few times and consider myself OK, but know that even the most skilled players sometimes misread their own hands. Apparently D had gotten screwed in a hand at the last dealer's choice game when someone corrected an opponents read which lead to D losing the hand. I had to argue this one and did. The skill level was just not high enough to play declare and I knew it would cause problems when someone misread a hand and realized it too late...little did I know that someone would be me. I won the argument, but unfortunately no one was paying attention when D reversed his ruling.
So here's the group from last night. Starting with myself at the very end of the table and going clockwise: Me, IT-Guy, D, IT-Guy's Solid Friend, 9pm (this guy shows up for the comraderie, he's not a poker player, if he's got chips at 9 they are going into the middle on any hand so he can lose and go home), The Mouth, The semi-Rock (won one hand all night long and probably only played 8-10 hands total), Nice Guy (can't figure out anything else for him...fairly solid) and just to my right Loose Calling Station.
This game truly proved that for those who don't know the game, Omaha is a major action game. We had 6-7 people for every flop with 3-4 people calling bets on the river on each hand. I'll give you an example which epitomizes the night's play:
Hand 2. Everyone calls the BB to see the flop which comes out Kc,Qc,xh. Our hero has T,J,x,x. It checks to IT-Guy who bets somewhere in the 60-80tc range (blinds 10/20). 7 callers. Turn, xh. Again, IT-Guy bets this time 100+tc. Everyone calls with The Mouth talking about how he can't fold with the pot this big. I have IT-Guy figured for trips and am praying for a non-heart, non-club A or 9. Sure enough the As hits the river and our hero now has the nuts. First to act and I check to IT-Guy who immediately pushes all-in. The Mouth folds, Semi-Rock calls, Nice Guy calls and I'm starting to get worried. I check the board again. No pair on the board...no 3 flush...I've got the nuts, what are these guys possibly calling with? Oh well, I'm gonna get an insanely large pot so I happily call. Well, IT-Guy had hit two pair on the flop and just couldn't let go, time to re-buy. What did the other two guys have? J,T. One had J,Tc and was looking for the royal, the other had J,To just like me. Three way split! Three of us with the EXACT same hand, down to our pocket cards. Unbelievable? A fluke? Then consider this. This was the first of two broadway straights I split three ways. I was short stacked towards the end of the re-buy period, hit broadway on a flop with two diamonds and pushed. IT-Guy and Nice Guy called. The turn was a J and the river a diamond. IT-Guy had K,T and Nice Guy had the same hand I had (J,K I believe). Broadway was shown down at least 8 times throughout the night. I lost with it when a spade 3 flush counterfeited my hand (had the flush as well, but not high enough).
A-high flush? At least 5 times. Quads once and multiple full houses. I saw exactly one hand that didn't reach the river before it got down to 4 people.
My demise? Two hands. The first against Solid Friend when I mis-called my trip Queens as Queens and Tens. He called Queens and Jacks and raked the pot. The Mouth knew I had the better hand but didn't say anything as he never heard the reversal on the "declare" rule. To make it worse, he waited just until my opponent raked the chips into his stack to tell us about it. Does it say something that the guy who had consumed 1 and 1/2 20 ounce glasses of Jim Beam and water could see the hand clearer than the guy who had only had 3 beers? I'm sure my face turned a very un-sightly shade of purple for the next half hour.
Shortly after the re-buy period ended I hit trip Aces on the river and pushed with an obvious straight possibility on the board hoping to push IT-Guy off his hand by representing the FH. No such luck and I was busted in 5th. The final ranking was The Mouth (coming from a seriously short stack all the way back to first), Solid Friend and in third IT-Guy.
All in all a fun night of poker, pool (on D's brand new table) and beer. It was definately good to get a game of something other than Texas Hold'em together. And at least I wasn't alone in my mistake misery. Nice Guy flipped over his Aces-Full at the river without giving Solid Friend a chance to bet thus forfeiting his hand. Later in the game he mucked his cards after mis-reading his hand (he had K's up against Solid Friend's Q's up) again giving Solid Friend a tainted pot. Heck, I'm used to luck being a factor in tournaments as far as how the cards fall, but luck in being on the receiving end of other people's mis-reads and mis-cues? Weird, to say the least.

Read on for Tuesday's poker fun.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Okay, so it's Wed morning and the following is my Tuesday night blog-while-playing-and-watching-WSOP entry. After re-reading and editing I got to thinking. Dangerous, I know. I'm playing an awful lot of SNGs and tourneys lately. I beleive this is a bug I caught from the other bloggers out there as the SNG/Tourney play seems to be the game du jour right now. Nothing especially wrong with this, except that I'm really trying to improve my limit game and I can't do that if I'm not playing any limit poker. I played the tournaments last night for specific reasons. First, I wanted to practice a little for tonight's game, which by the way sounds like it will be an Omaha tournament. That should be fun. I need alot of work on my Omaha game, but with this group of people I should still be even or above average skill wise. Secondly, I was watching the WSOP coverage. So not only does playing tournaments kind of "gel" with what I'm watching, it also allows me to not pay quite as much attention to what I'm doing. I know that sounds horrible, but I've found that when playing low buy-in tournaments that I can get away with not paying as much attention until late in the tournament. In fact, you'll notice where this hurt me a few times in my notes below. But even if I do manage to bone myself by not paying attention, the risk factor is low due to the low buy-in. If I were playing 2/4 limit I would have to pay much more attention and I would be putting more money at risk.
Tuesday night:
2 16+1.60 2 table SNGs tonight. Lost the first one in 12th place. Overplayed a pair of Qs to lose a substantial chip count. The second one went much better but I found myself down to 4 people and severely short stacked. Luckily the guy in third place decided to go out first giving me 3rd place which was all I could manage. These two games were looser than I could believe. I wouldn't be surprised if there were some SINGLE table SNGs that lasted longer than both of those 2 tablers. Everybody likes their cards. I watched one hand with 4 people on the turn when there were 3 Aces on the board! In fact, the very first hand of the tourney I was dealt J,J in hte SB (I hate getting dealt decent hands on the first hand of a tourney). 6 people called the BB and I raised it up 3x the BB. 3 people called. The flop came x,A,Q rainbow. I bet out 120tc to see where I was at as I had raised pre-flop and everyone FOLDED! What were these guys calling with??
Playing another SNG, this time a $5 one since I'm still watching the WSOP. So here's some running commentary:
Level 1
Got too involved in a hand and lost a third of my chips. I'll learn not to play those early hands one of these days.
Just had to split a pot with a guy when the board beat both of our kickers (had him outkicked until the river). I hate that!
Does no one fold in these things? Wow. Limp fest.
Here we go. All in with K,Jd. Another short stack beat me in, but I'm still going. Cross your fingers.
Yes! Yes! Triple up baby! And now I get A,Jo. Raising it up. Let's see how many people want to stick around. 2. Damn. 4 diamonds on board. Hit my straight...should I call this bet from the short stack on the river? Yes... split pot.
Level 2.
Won a hand with 7s. Weird, not sure what the other guy was in with. Get this, I have the Hilton sisters, I raise it to 200 and get, 3! Callers! Bet of 70 in front of me, I raise it to 280 and get a caller! WTF? Turn and river are friggin Ks. I don't like this. 500tc bet. GAHHHHH! Gotta fold. SOB. Down to 1K chips and 4th on the table.
Took down a tiny pot with a semi bluff. Calling the BB with a pair of 5s. Nothing on the flop or turn, gotta drop. Good thing, guy with Js hit his set on the flop.
Calling the min raise in a community pot with 5,6hs. No help on flop. Gotta go.
Level 3
Raising it up with Q,10 to steal got caught. Re-raised. Thought he was all in, damn. Wow, managed to take it down with a stone cold bluff on the river. Next hand K,Qo in LP. SB raising, it, I think he's steamed! :) Got the K on the flop, but the A on the turn scares me. Let's see if anyone has it, checked to me. Yep, SB had it. Hit his kicker for second pair too. Bah. There goes that money back again.
And then there were 5.
8,10 in bb. Flopped the straight. How much can I get? A little, not much. Only one player with me.
K,8h on the BB. Ugly flop. 6,9,9. Hmmm hit my K, but 4 in. Hah! Took it down. I like it. And now I get K,Qo.
Hit my K. Hit my second K. Damn third diamond on the river though. Wow, I got suckered on that one! Guy had pocket 7s and hit his set on the flop. My second K gave him the dang FH. Bah.
Heads up against the short stack with K,Qh, damn, he had the A, no help for me and I can't get rid of his ass.
Level 4
Can't seem to stay above 1K. Wait...rivered a full house, now I'm above 1K! :) Chip leader.
Mis-called. Need to pay more attention, just gave away some chips. Somebody made a weird sized raise and I thought it was an all in. Wasn't even double the BB.
And then there were 4. Bubble time.
Blinds folded to me, I likee. A,K in SB. No takers. Must be that tight, tight, gotta make the money time for everyone.
A,9o in EP, raise for the steal. Caller, Bet on flop takes it down.
Kd,9c. All diamond flop. Hoping for the last diamond. Got it, but I couldn't get the guy to bet when I checked it to him. Should have bet.
Short stacked him though. Next hand A,Jo, but can't get him to call. Folding A,2c. I'll let everyone else battle it out. All three in on the flop. Here we go, short stack is all in. Bah, he triples up.
Now we have a different short stack though. Hah. Took him out. Flopped an 8 with 2 Ks and he tried to bluff his way through. In the money and chip leader by double the next guy.
Lost some trying to steal a pot. Short stack hung in and now he's not so short stacked.
I love these guys that want to let me check my way to a pair on the river. Back over 4K.
Level 5
Still three of us. We each have about double the next guy's stack.
Just got raised, re raised half of his stack and took it. K,10c.
A,4c takes it with a 4 on the flop.
Dang, can't get a hand to take out the Short Stack. Keep folding my blinds to him.
Tried with J,9s, but he didn't want to play.
J,J. Nobody wants to play.
A,6c here we go, ss all in. Dang it, split pot, exactly the same hand.
Q,J h and I hit the flush to take him out finally.
6199 to 1801 chips.
Level 6
5,3 in bb and I hit two pair. Rivered flush? Nope, higher two pair. SHouldn't have slow played.
Dang, screwed up with the slider button and only raised an 800 chip bet to 1K...holy crap, he folded!
Tennis anyone?
Can't get him to call...guess I should be scared if he does.
Dang, doubled him up. J,To loses to 99.
Level 7 already
7s for the first hand in level 7 and he folds to me. Bah.
This is getting tiring, I think he just folded 6 times in a row.
Just lost a chunk to a coin flip. Bah.
SOB. This guy keeps killing me with his calls. I hit A,Q and he calls all in with 7s and hits the set.
He's all in and I have 9,7c, no thanks.
Chip lead's bouncing back and forth now.
Son of a Bitch! I go all in with K,Qo. hit my Q on the flop and he hits a damn runner, runner straight to the 5 with A,2o! That sucks!
Again, amazing how much winning money can suck when it's not first place, eh? Low stakes game, but I should have taken him out much earlier. Oh well.

WSOP coverage. So I wonder if everyone is going to be saying how lucky Greg Raymer was this year and that he can't play, ala Moneymaker last year. First two hands they show on the final table are huge suck outs to knock people out. And he almost took out another guy until the river gave the other guy a flush. Hopefully there's been enough coverage and enough stories out about Raymer that people know he's a good player to start with, but I bet there are still a bunch of people at the water cooler at work talking about how this game is all about luck. Yep, see, Dan Harrington just came from behind to hit trips on the river to double through Raymer. I'll have to listen to one of the guys at work talk about how it's always the worst hand that wins. Ah well, at least this stuff brings the fish to the tables in droves.
Wow, the announcers just won't let Arieh go. He just plain screwed himself with that outburst 2 episodes ago and now he's busting on this kid for calling with 5s. Huh, maybe he had a read on you Josh? I feel sorry for him, I really do.
Guaranteed a million dollars for 5th and up. Wow. That's just not even fathomable.

On the Blog front:
Head over to the ICP's and Sean of Anisotropy's Blogs. Both are having a rough time of it at the .50/$1 tables. I have confidence they will both break through, but we gotta support your fellow bloggers!
Maudie has confirmed my fears in relation to Full Tilt. Too few players and a horrendous structure to their bonus=no money from me.
If you have somehow managed to miss the stylings of Mean Gene, he is, as always, a MUST READ. This guy cracks me up constantly. His comments on Dan Harrington and fiddling with his TV color controls had me rolling on the floor.
Felicia Lee has, as usual, has an awesome tourney write up. If I ever decide to take up Stud I'll have to take lessons from her!
Iggy is having a little identity crisis due to a blogger article telling him his posts should be shorter. Go give him your opinion, I say LONG LIVE THE UBER-POST!
Pauly has a really interesting post on screen names, go check it out.

I've got alot of input on my Bank Roll question from my last entry and I'll make sure htat makes it into the next entry, for now this one is already long enough. Here's to reading those Omaha hands correctly! JW

Bank Rolls and such

2004-09-14T14:02:00.000-05:00

OK, I'm grasping at straws here for content as I've got no real poker stuff to speak of. Tonight is the designated on-line poker night with the WSOP playing and tomorrow night I'll be playing in a neighborhood game, so that should change quickly, but at the moment I don't have much. I don't know what the format of the game will be on Wed as it is still being decided. It could run anywhere from the standard THE tourney to an Omaha tourney to Dealer's Choice. Should be interesting. I just hope I'm not seeing the responses from everyone on the email chain as I think there are only three people that I've seen responses from. I really don't want this game to fall through as it is my one chance at live poker for a while. There was no game last week and this Saturday is the "surprise" birthday party for my wife.
That's a pretty funny story. We were at the guy's house (D from here on) who is having the upcoming game last week and partying it up when it came out that both my Wife and D's B-days were within one day of each other. Well all of the sudden our next door neighboor (H from here on out) came over to me trying to be discreet (lots of beer makes it difficult to be discreet I guess) and whispers to me about this surprise party they are having for D and that it would be cool to combine the two. Sounded great to me and I agreed to get with her later on details. Well, a couple of days ago my wife comes up to me and says, "so when's my surprise party?" I just kind of looked at her stupidly and said, "huh?" That didn't work and she told me that it had been pretty obvious when H had started whispering to me the other night. Oh well, she doesn't like surprises anyway.
So anyway, no poker that night obviously and I'm taking her for a moonlight horseback ride for her B-Day present the following weekend so no poker then either. I'd love to pick up enough cash at this game to be able to pay for her present and dinner at The Melting Pot (probably her favorite restaurant). But either way it will be coming out of my Live Poker BR.
So that brings me to the topic I was planning on tackling in this here blog entry. Bank Rolls. Not what size you should have to play in X limit. I think everyone reading this probably has a pretty good handle on that and there are those with more experience that can delve into that topic better than I. What I wanted to write about and solicit input on is how you treat your bank roll.
I have two Bank Rolls currently. I have my Live Play BR which I use for neighborhood games, local cardrooms and the Casino. Then I have my Online BR that currently resides on Pacific. I started with about $45 in my live BR which I turned into $300+ in a short period where I just plain dominated my local neighborhood games. I then hooked up with Pacific when Cardplayer Magazine offered a 100% match. As Pacific lets you play with their money I stole $100 from my live roll, deposited in Pacific, got my match and immediately pulled back my $100 and put it back in the live BR. I've since taken the Online roll up to a sum that allows me to comfortably play 2/4 while taking the occasional shot at 3/6. Currently the Live BR is about 1/3rd of the Online BR and it fluctuates up and down a bit as I tend to use it for lunch money now and then and "Dinners on Me" when I don't feel like eating what we have at the house and need to convince the wife.
So, I've established that my Bank Rolls are made up almost entirely of earnings and that I do, from time to time, spend money from the Live BR for things not poker related. However, I find that I am extremely stingy with said BRs. I have plenty of expensive hobbies that could easily take big chunks out of my BRs, the most expensive of which is my meager firearms collection. I have plenty of "I wants" on the to-be-collected list, but I simply can't bring myself to use my poker earnings in that way.
So this leads me to the question of, "what exactly do I want to do with my Bank Rolls?" So here are my answers, as best as I can figure:
Live Bank Roll: Keep healthy enough to always be able to play in the neighborhood games while hopefully building it up slowly. I also plan on continuing to use this for those minor expenses that I can't justify spending money we "earn" on. Further, I've always told the wife that I wanted my own Bank Account at some point so that I would be able to buy gifts for her or self-presents without having to worry about her seeing the expenditures or clearing something with her first. As we just don't have the disposable income for this to happen and won't for the forseeable future, the Live BR is going to have to pick up the slack. In conclusion, me thinks it's time for another tear through the local games! Come on Poker Gods, help me out! :)
Online Bank Roll: Growth, Growth, Growth. I pulled out some chunks from here to add to the live roll a couple of months ago, but managed to drop all of that at the local Casino and Card room. I don't know if having that much in the Live BR is such a good idea. I don't plan on pulling anything from the Online BR simply to add to the Live BR unless I need to do so due to a bad run in my live play. I am planning on moving my current Online Roll to (probably) Party so that I can multi-table at the end of this month. I hope to build the BR up within the next couple of months to the point where I can comfortably play 3/6 if I wish. At that point, my strategy will most likely change some. If I can move up to 3/6 and remain profitable I'm going to start taking half of my profits out every month to help pay some bills. I don't know how this will go, or even if half of my profits from a month of 3/6 will be worth while when applying to bills, but we'll see. I had set myself a goal of being at 4/8 or 5/10 by the end of the year, but as we close in on the last quarter of the year I don't know if that is feasible or not.
So there you go. Those are my current plans for both of my bankrolls. I treat my Poker Money as just that, Poker Money...for the most part. I don't have the income to simply replenish my roll with other income if I bust out, so I have to do this. That being said, I think that this is the only way to treat a BR if you are serious about playing. A recreational player can simply scrounge together the cash for a game now and then, but I don't see myself as a strictly recreational player. I see myself as someone who enjoys the game and is good enough to be able to bring in a little extra cash with his hobby. So in the end, that's my goal. I want to reach a limit (probably 5/10) where solid play will bring in enough profits on a monthly basis to pay some bills and at the same time fund some of my hobbies. We'll see if 3/6 is enough to start this trend...if I can reach that goal. If it is, and I can stay profitable through the end of the year, I may delay the jump to the higher levels so that I can pull out some cash for a Christmas present for me.

So, here are some open questions for all of the bloggers and poker players out there. How do you handle your Bank Roll? Do you just dip into the bank account when you need money to play? Do you have a specific "Bank Roll" that is only for poker? How do you handle the profit from your poker play? I'm curious, let me know what you think.

Some actual poker content to come soon, I promise! JW

A wonderful, beautiful, long-awaited day!

2004-09-13T07:52:00.000-05:00

*Warning...Warning...Warning...Political Content...Warning...Warning...Warning*
OK, you've been warned. If you are anti-gun or just don't want to read about politics, skip down a ways and look for the ...end Political Content...statement.
I've mentioned once before that I am a gun nut. I don't hunt, mainly because I've never had the chance, but I love target shooting and the action gun sports (IDPA and the like). I'm a firm believer in the right to keep and bear arms and the so called Assault Weapons Ban has been a thorn in my side for 10 years now. But NO MORE! As of today the AWB has expired. The liberal anti-gun lobby did their best, but the community of law abiding gun owners did better. I won't get into too many details (though I will be happy to discuss on a person to person basis via email) about the AWB, but suffice it to say that it was a completely useless bit of legislation that did next to nothing to curb gun violence. It was marketed to the American people with the use of completely false and misleading information.
Thanks go out to all of those folks who took the time to call, write and otherwise contact their representatives. And for those of you who don't realize how huge a victory this is...go back and find one time when Americans lost a "gun right" and then gained it back. To my knowledge this is the first restriction on firearms to be reversed. It says alot that the only way this legislation was able to pass was with a "sunset" stipulation built in.
One last thought folks. Eternal Vigilance. The ONLY reason we got these rights back was because of the built-in "sunset" clause. Without it this would have been an almost impossible fight. Educate your friends. Set a good example. And above all else, keep your representatives up to speed on how you feel on this issue. The Brady group isn't dead and they won't let this lie, trust me on that.
End Political Content...End Political Content...End Political Content...End Political Content...

OK, back to poker and other non-inflamatory postage.
Fairly uneventful weekend for poker. Won a little $5 SNG on Friday waiting for the wife to get home. That was a wild and crazy little tourney. I then played a short 30 minute session of 2/4 on Sunday which brought me a $29 profit. I took $5.50 of that and played another little SNG, this one even more fun than the one from Friday, even though I bubbled. Two people gone in the first round. One of the guys who was chip leader for most of the Tourney was a big talker which always livens things up. He wasn't a trash talker which was nice, but for some reason just loved telling people what hand he had right before he bet. I'm sure he won a couple of pots when people folded, but he set himself up the first couple of times when he actually did have the hand. A fun opponent to play against as he was fairly tricky. I managed to stay out of big pots with him but lost a few small ones calling min bets on the river with A high or a lower pair than he had. There were a couple of just ridiculously bad players as well. One who was either truly bad and started to get lucky at the end or was REALLY tricky took me for a huge pot when I made a dumb move. I had 8,8 in the SB and raised it. He raised it about half of his stack and I immediately put him all in as I was sure he had a couple of large connectors. I was right, it was A,K but the K on the flop took me down to major short stack. Bad decision on my part. We were down to 4 players and I really shouldn't have bet that many chips on what I knew would be a coin flip. Shortly after my blind steal attempt with A,4o was slapped in the face by K,K hitting its set on the flop to send me out on the bubble. Ah well, at least it was enjoyable.
And that's about it on the poker front. I've been lying low for awhile, cooling off so as to reestablish some good will with the wife. There was no game in the neighborhood on Saturday night which kind of hurt. I got a call from a buddy (the one who hit the multi no Paradise in one of my last posts) who was going up to the Hard Rock Saturday morning and I declined thinking that the wife would be none to pleased if I just took off for some unscheduled poker. Of course when I told her what the conversation was about she said, "you didn't want to go?" D'oh! Then later in the day she mentioned the neighborhood game so I knew I was good to go that night...only to find out later that there was no game going. Missed opportunity, but oh well, it was a good day with the wife. We managed to get back on track with our Team in Training training with a 3 mile walk. I've been slacking on the tournament planning front, but I promise I'll get something together here in the near future. So far we are at $0 on the fund raising front and that's not good. Hopefully between the online tourney and the live one I'm planning I can make up for a fairly large chunk of the money we have to get raised. I'll keep you all posted.

A little bit of pimpage to end the post. Go check out TonyTal's blog. He's from the group over at Texas Hold'em Poker.com and just got started up recently. He's another Florida west-coaster.
HDouble, as usuall, has a good post up with a review of SSHE by Ed Miller which I am currently reading. The BlogFather is teaching us curse words in Spanish in his latest Aruba post and Mean Gene proves he can blog about anything with more hair styling adventures. Check out Pauly's latest for info on his upcoming chance at a tourney in Australia. Good luck Pauly!

That's all the time I have for today folks. I've still got lots of blogging to catch up on but I have to make my way into my Maldito mandatory lunch web training for which I'm not being paid for and for which I had to bring my own lunch to. As Iggy would say, Oh the Humanity!
JW

All-In Alert!

2004-09-10T15:32:00.000-05:00

After jumping over to Chris Ferguson's new web site after the Poker Prof mentioned it I clicked on Jesus's link over to All-In Magazine. I've been slowly opening the damn mail box and peaking in for months now hoping to find the next issue of this mag only to be dissapointed an more and more aggravated each time it's not there. Well, the web site has a new front page picture now with good ole Ben Afleck on the cover. Hopefully this means I will soon find the next issue (again hopefully, improved) very, very soon. A review will follow.
With any luck it will show up in time to be reading material during our "hunker-down" (god I hate that phrase) time during the impending Hurricane Ivan.
JW

Envy

2004-09-10T10:29:00.000-05:00

Short and sweet today folks. I'm feeling envious today. First, I got a call from my bud at work last night and he was about to come right through the phone he was so excited. He had just won the $10+1 buy-in, nightly 7pm Turbo tournament on Paradise. He beat out 624 other players to take down a $1400+ 1rst prize. His last hand was the Cowboys to take out both of the other players left. Talk about a rush. Went and leapfrogged my current online bankroll in one sitting. Ah well, I'm happy as hell for him. He's done nothing but improve his play over the last year.
Next I have to read about how Iggy, DoubleAs, Asphnxma and a few others from our wonderful community are heading to the Borgata Open in AC. Jealous, jealous, jealous. Gets me to thinking though. I'm going to have to make a goal to make it into a major tourney (even if it's one of the smaller tourneys associated with it) next year.

Played some .05/.10 Omaha Hi last night. Didn't know how much time I had to play, didn't want to risk much and have been wanting to work on my Omaha game. It went pretty well. I was up to $9 from my inital $5 buy-in at one point and finished at about $7.25. I still have alot to learn about this game, but for starters I just tried to play only double suited where I also had at least one str8 possibility and double pairs obviously. I like the game, I just don't know enough of the strategy. But hey, you can't go wrong learning at .05/.10 I guess!

That's it for today folks. JW

Going public with our lives.

2004-09-08T15:41:00.000-05:00

I was reading Boy Genius's most recent post and it really got me thinking. He has apparently run into an issue where someone from his past found his blog, found a reference to themselves and got a little pissy. This has led to him censoring himself somewhat. What a pitty, and I don't mean that sarcastically. I can only hope that most of us don't suffer from this type of self-censure, but in reality, I'm guessing just about every one of us does. Hell, I know I do. My wife, to my knowledge, has never read anything on this site and I'll be quite happy if she never does. I don't sit around typing out stuff hurtful or mean spirited about her, but the stuff I write here really isn't meant for her, ya know? In fact, though this will most likely sound incredibly weird, I consider this blog an almost-private journal. I love the fact that I have readers that come back to my site to check up on my ramblings and who are interested in what I type, so how can this be possible? Well, I've only clued in one person I know in "real-life" to this blog. I know he reads other poker blogs and knew that at some point he would stumble on mine and probably figure out who I was, so I took the initiative. Other than that? No one. Not my wife, not my Mother, Father, In-Laws, not even the guys I play poker with have been told where to go to look for this little site. And I'm plenty happy that way. I type whatever I feel at the time in this here little blog and I don't want to feel like I can't say something because I might hurt someone's feelings.
I'm still hesitant to put too much personal content out there as, well, some things are just that private. But mostly, I love being able to poor out my soul on the web for others to read, comment on or just plain laugh at. It's weird how this blog can at times count as my private journal and at other times my link to a large community of people whom I have some connection to, limited as it may be.

So, in the spirit of BG's post, I'm going to actually attempt to reach out and touch a few people who are currently absent from my life, but who I don't want to be. Both are college buds and both were in my wedding. Unfortunately we all moved to different states, and in one case a different country after college and have managed to lose touch. First is my best-man. Yes you read that right, I haven't talked to my best man in...jeez, probably been 2 years now. I believe I pissed him off when I took way too long to reply to an email asking me about a trip I had taken to the Carolinas. I'm terrible at keeping up with communications, but I can assure anyone out there that it is definately not person, it's just me. His name is Chris Utermohle and if you are out there reading this Chris, drop me a line. Next is a mutual friend of mine and my wife's Michael Oppenheimer, better known as "Oppie". Mike moved out of the country to Sweden after college and when the computer we had took a dump it completely dropped most of our email addresses. We were never able to find Mikes and have never been able to regain contact. I'm going to go ahead and publish this today guys, even though I don't have anything lying around to check to see if I came close to spelling your last names correctly (which I'm sure I didn't), but I'll do my best to correct that.
So, here's to long lost friends and private thoughts meant for the public.

As this is a Poker blog, here's some really quick poker content. I steamed off a good chunk of winnings yesterday at 2/4 by playing horribly and playing when I knew I didn't have the time to devote. That's a major leak for me that I really have to plug: playing when I either know I don't have the time, or can't be sure how much time I have. I then jumped up to 3/6, played some good poker and made back the majority of my losses, leaving me down $34 for the day. One of the 2/4 hands I remember that truly sent me on my way to tilt was between myself (in LP) and the CO on a short handed (7 players) table. I got dealt the fish-hooks and raised it up after it was folded to me. CO came over the top and everyone else folded. I capped it and he called. The board was ugly but I just had this feeling that he was full of crap. Well, the feeling pre-flop was right, but when the third spade hit it made his 8,7s anything but crap. That one really pissed me off. 3 betting with no one in the pot with 8,7s? Made me wish I didn't have a time constraint or that I could get dealt some decent cards. This guy was in every pot and was, except when he was taking mine, bleeding his money to everyone else at the table.
On the TV poker front, I've been trying to catch up on the Poker Superstars tourney that was aired on Fox Sportsnet every morning (thanks to my DVR). Could they show less hands? I seriously think the first 3 hands I watched were followed by commercials.

OK, that's enough. I want to keep this one fairly short as my last few posts have been out of control.

Here's something for me to leave you with. I'm sure I'm not the only person that does this. I constantly day dream about getting dealt the rockets, hitting an A,K,A flop and getting bet into by a guy with pocket Ks. So what's your dream hand?

Second.Longest.Post.Ever.

2004-09-08T07:21:00.000-05:00

OK folks, lots to blog about today. I'll start off with blog stuff as my last post had almost nothing in that arena. Hank got me all philosophic or something, so forgive the first part of the post. Then I want to comment on the WSOP coverage from last night and assholes in the WSOP in general. Sound like strong language? Well, I think it's deserved. Read on.

After reading through Hdouble's recent post I had some thoughts of my own on Tilt that I figured warranted a post. As aspiring "good" poker players, we all strive for that elusive state of "Tilt-Proof" where the bad beats are just another hand that we forget just as soon as the cards hit the muck and we've said our, "nice hand" to the fish who sucked out on us. Many a player/blogger has commented on the fact that this does sacrifice some of the joy in poker and I believe this is correct. To be truly tilt-proof you have to treat your losing hands just the same as you treat your winning hands, thus you can not be overly happy about winning as this will most definately lead you to being overly irritated (and susceptible to Tilt) at the losing hands, especially the bad beats. Now, there is one caveat to the "forget the hand as soon as it is over" comment. Of course, this is that you must take stock of the hand and how you played it to make sure there is not a lesson to be learned from the loss (or win). That being said, I think it is obviously easier to avoid Tilt on loosing hands in which you were outplayed or made some mistake that you can immediately pin down.
This then, must be the first step in avoiding Tilt. Learning when you have been "beat" and when you were simply out-played. Now, I hear you scratching your head out there and thinking, "JW, this isn't any profound statement...did you smoke something you shouldn't have"? The answer is; I know and unfortunately, no. This is simply the set up for something slightly more profound (emphasis on slightly).
In reading HDouble's post, I read this little tidbit, which is what got me to thinking:
Over and over again, I get emails/read posts/hear from new players that go something like this: "I'm only playing premium hands but I've lost $xxx in my first month, what am I doing wrong (or poker is all luck), etc. etc."
And the key to the statement above, I believe, is "new players", which I think we can extend to learning players. Now don't take that tag to far, we are all, always learning. That is if we truly want to be good poker players, or for that matter, good at anything in our life. There are always lessons to be learned, but I'm speaking here of those of us that are still learning the ins and outs of playing good poker. Be it Small Stakes, Mid Stakes, Large Cash Games or tourneys, we are all studying the game to become better. And we all start in the same place:as uneducated players with the idea that "poker is all about luck".
Now, the truly new player knows nothing about pot odds, playing tight-aggressive, position, etc. Thus, the truly new player is almost Tilt-Proof from the start. He/She thinks that most of poker is about luck so getting his top pair cracked by a 1- outer on the river is no big deal; that's what luck is for after all. Only when the new-player becomes aware of some of the finer points of poker does said player truly get introduced to the Tilt-Inducing "bad beat". Only when they understand that their flopped set of 7s is a 94% favorite over their opponents 8,3 of clubs do they truly understand the "bad-beatedness" of said opponent hitting runner, runner for the flush. They have passed the stage of saying, "anything can happen, there's still two cards to come" and reached the, "he has to hit to perfect cards to beat me" stage.
The more we learn in the beginning, the more susceptible we are to Tilt. In fact, I will go so far as to say that there is no amount of learning that can make one Tilt-Proof. We all know about the "long run". We all know that individual sessions don't matter and that we should treat all of the poker we play as one long session. Every single poker text out there says the same thing. As a student of the game we can't help but know this. Yet knowing all of this somehow doesn't protect us from Tilt. For all but the most lucky of us, experience is the only thing that can lead us to the zen-like state of Tilt-Proof. (A side note: Doesn't Phil Helmuth profess to be a studier of Zen?) The only thing that can lead most of us to the state of Tilt-Proof is the repetition of that ignoble blow to our tender region that is the bad beat. Only coupling this along with the knowledge that said bad beats mean nothing in the long run can we slowly approach the coveted state of Tilt-Proof.
So, here's to removing your cup and spreading your legs! Grin and bear it ladies and gents, it's the only way.

I really have to hand it to all of the poker bloggers out there, you guys keep me in stitches. Between the Boy Genius's story of mangling IKEA furniture and Al's picture of the new Louisiana quarter, I was soundly amused yesterday. I forwarded the quarter picture to my wife and even she laughed out loud at work. Let me tell you, that's something. It looks like the news of Full Tilt's 100% match has made it around the blogging world and Maudie has even jumped onto the site. I wish her much luck. I just don't see their bonus being worth the effort (.06 of your bonus for every $1 in rake you pay!). Hey, I love the hat and shirt (this is a large? I need to diet) I got from their "Poker in Athens" deal, but with so little action on the site and that wacky bonus clear policy are going to keep me away for a while.

I'm just now getting into SSHE by Ed Miller. By "just getting into" I mean I've read the intro by D. Sklansky. We all know about his arrogance, if from nowhere else than from Mean Gene's "Sklansky is your sex bomb" post. I'd never experienced or read anything first hand other than re-posted quotes from Sklansky to see this arrogancem, but woohee does it come out in the intro to SSHE. You would figure that someone as intelligent as Sklansky would be able to figure out that bashing everyone who doesn't agree with you 100% isn't the best course of action. I guess not. Seems he's the perfect example of why Pride is one of the 7 deadly sins (hey, it's even the 1rst Deadly Sin!). Oops...I had to look up the sins to make sure it was the 7 deadly sins. Found this on a Catholic web site talking about the sins:
If someone else's pride really bothers you, you have a lot of pride.
Guess those who live in glass houses..., eh?

And now we move on to the subject I mentioned up at the very top. The WSOP Coverage and assholes at the WSOP. I played about 2 and a half hours of poker last night during which I also watched the WSOP coverage. And the very end of the 2nd epsiode, where Josh Arieh knocks out Demetriou really had me pissed. I mean, T,9h vs Ad,Jc with a flop of Kh,As,Qh and he acts this way when he was called? That had to be the most class-less moment of the entire WSOP coverage (I'm sure there was worse that wasn't shown). I just love the fact that Arieh goes off on Demetriou for calling with the A,J. You can see it in his face. He KNOWS he got caught. He knows htat Demetriou made an awesome call and he's just PISSED that he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. I can almost understand the reaction and being a little dickish before you manage to suck out, but when you catch your miracle card, it's time to back down and apologize IMMEDIATELY for being such a jackass when the cards were flipped. Admit that you were just amazed he could make such a great call and that you got lucky. Listen to his voice when he says "it's on". He's SHAKING! Believe me, it wasn't with righteous indignation. He's shaking with adrenaline, and that adrenaline was from FEAR. When those cards were flipped he saw his entire tournament flash before his eyes because he KNEW he was at best a coin flip to win. When the blank fell on 4th street he was a 3:1 dog (I hope my odds are right, could be off some) and knew it. Then when Demetriou comments about being humble Josh throws the most INSINCERE apology out I have ever seen. You can even see it in his eyes. And his wife (hotty that she most definately is)? I'm a bit surprised at her reaction. I understand her being happy about him not being knocked out, and I know TV editing can do wonders, but I'll tell you, my wife would have been glaring at me with a look that would shatter the cameras if I acted that way, and she'd be right to do it. Though he has now come out and posted a "sincere" apology on RGP after last night's episode, his actions were still inexcusable.
Of course, he is by no means the ONLY person that should be raked across the coals for their behavior at the WSOP. Anderson's "JAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" at every hand he wins is ridiculous to say the least, though it may actually be unintentionally offensive. He's stated that it lets him get his emotions out and I can see that. However, it still looks like taunting when you are the losing player, I'm sure. Add to his ranks Fischman, Alex Powers, Matusow and all of the other ass-clowns shown at this year's WSOP and it starts to really add up to a sad note for the future of poker.
No one wants to watch boring poker. We all want people to root against (Helmuth?), but I for one do not need the antics of these idiots to find someone to root against/for.
One last comment on the coverage: You just had to love the one crew member during the "what poker players do for real work" section of the show who said, "I just can't work for the MAN." I just couldn't stop laughing at that one.

OK, if you've managed to make it this far down (Seond. Longest. Post. Ever? Hank?) you deserve some insight into the current state of my game. I can say that I was quite pleased with most of my play last night. I played two sessions of 2/4 and a little $5+.50 SNG in honor of the WSOP coverage. I busted out in 5th no the SNG after getting absolutely no cards. I think my best hand the entire time was a pair of 6s (this was a carry over from my first session of 2/4). The only hand I won was 2,3c that hit the straight on the turn to take a good chunk early on. The table was mighty loose and there were 4 people gone before the blinds ever moved to the 2nd level. Steals didn't work and after one pot where I lost a big chunk I never saw another playable hand. Oh well. My two sessions of 2/4 were both positive. The first session was mostly a fold-fest. The best hand I saw was a pair of 6s. Strangely enough, every pot I won in that first session with the exception of the 6s and a K,To in the BB, were all suited 1 gappers. Weird. The second session was more of the same in the beginning. I missed a flush draw early on and then soon after got dealt A,Q; the best hand I'd seen all night. I played it strong but got no help on the flop. Everyone checked the 3rd club on the turn and a Qd hit on the river. Next to the A, it was the worst card I could have seen. One of the MP players was slow playing the flush and I lost a good chunk on that hand. More folding, folding, folding, followed by 8,2h in the BB. Hit the 8 on the flop for top pair, worst kicker, the Kh on the turn for the flush and took it down when the 8 hit on the river. Worst hand I've won with in quite some time. Then I hit two nice starting hands in a row. Folded around to me with K,Qd in the SB which hit top two pair on the flop only to have the board show a straight by the river. Unfortunately there were also 4 hearts on the board. I'd bet the entire way but when it was checked to me on the river I checked only to be shown a pair of red 7s by the BB. Next hand was A,Qo which hit TPTK on the flop and held up. Lots and lots more folding followed by the 8,10s in the SB for the last hand of the night (would have played the rest of the orbit if I hadn't hit, but WSOP coverage was over). 4 flush on the flop which was completed on the turn to take down a very nice pot. End result? Up just over 12 Big Bets for the night, something I'm more than happy with right now.
A good month should see me with a large enough bank roll to move most of my money to another site where I can start multi-tabling, leaving enough in Pacific to keep up with the tournaments which I thoroughly enjoy despite the structure.
Enough for today, lest this trump the length of yesterday's post. Thanks for reading all. JW

2004-09-07T15:35:00.000-05:00

Stupid ****ing, Moron ***** Dumb ass idiot!!!!
No, I'm not posting something I typed in chat when being handed a bad beat, I'm beating myself about the head for completely screwing my stat counter code in my template. I had two stat counters going: Reinvigorate and StatCounter. Reinvigorate had to go as I wasn't impressed and someone told me they were having problems. Well, turns out I took out the very beginning of the code for StatCounter as well. Hence the comment below about no one reading. Sorry all, I should have had more faith!

Puzzle pieces

2004-09-07T08:31:00.000-05:00

Welcome back folks. It's been a wild and crazy weekend. Hurricane/Tropical Storm Frances wreaking havoc...well kind of (at least I got out early on Friday!), lots of poker and other stuff to blog about. I'll warn you now, this is going to be a long one. Not all of it may be interesting, some of it I hope will. It also may be somewhat disjointed as bits and pieces were written at different points during the weekend with some of it being written this morning. So, if you dare, read on.
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The more I play poker, the more I realize that the knowledge it takes to excell at the game is alot like a jigsaw puzzle...at least to me. The more I play, the more experience I gain, the more those pieces fit together. It's not enough to know that you need to pay attention to postion, or that you have to play tight before the flop, or that you need to play the hands you do play aggressively. Even if I put all of those points together, all I have is a a larger piece of the puzzle, and one with some pretty large holes in it at that. You know that the pieces belong because you've been told they are all part of the puzzle. Some of them even fit together to form a larger piece, but just like a real puzzle, you can't necessarily make out what that piece is trying to tell you.
I'm sure I could draw that metaphor out even further, but I've probably lost most of you already. During my Monday session, which you can read about below, some more of the pieces fell into place. I can only hope they don't fall back apart. I lost quite a bit in the first hour, alot of wich came on bad beats, or at least on hands that were great starters. Like a snowball rolling down a hill, more dollars added themselves to the loss by playing poor starting choices, playing out of position and calling bets or raises that I could have saved. I finally realized this, tightened up my starting hands and, for once, truly took into consideration not only position, but also pot odds. For instance, I know that I can safely enter a pot with a small pair or small suited connectors in late position. At least, that's the bit of knowledge that was stuck in my head. Now, deep down I knew there was more to that statement. I've read, over and over again, that you can enter pots with lots of players with small pairs or small suited connectors in late position. I knew this, I had read it, but I had never truly accepted it. Pair of 3s in LP and everyone's folded to me? Sure, let's play it. 3,4c in LP, 2 players in the pot? Why not? Today, I finally recognized that these were positions I didn't need to be putting myself in. Do I have the odds to be chasing this draw? Is the pot going to be worth it if I do hit my hand, or am I going to be winning a pot that is made up of mostly my money? Another of those time honored truths finally made it into the mantra that runs through my mind when I'm playing, and that is: you are here to win money, not pots. More pieces of the puzzle, falling into place. Here's hoping they stay put and I can recognize what they are trying to tell me!
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Had a wild and crazy evening on Pacific Friday. Played a couple of 20 seat SNGs and finished appallingly low in both in a very short period of time. Yikes. Also finished quickly in a $10+1 MTT. As my tourney play wasn't clicking I went over to the 2/4 tables. After an hour and a half I finished up over 10BB but my play was mediocre at best. Harkening back to my post on card-rushes, I certainly didn't have any here. If I won a hand I would play the next hand. Unfortunately, most of those hands, while they did hit, hit for second best. Yuck.
For instance: A,Ko in MP takes down a nice pot and I get K,Qd the very next hand only to run into K,K directly to my left. Two diamonds on the board, but the third didn't appear. This followed by 6,9o (I know, I know, but I like this hand for some reason) which hits a 6 and a 9 on the flop. Unfortunately the other card was a 7 which made the BB a straight with his 5,8s.
This was pretty much the way it went the entire time. UP, down, down, UP, down, UP, down, down, etc. Couldn't string any wins together so I consider myself pretty lucky (especially with some of the hands I'm playing) that I finished up like I did. I really, really need to tighten up some. That being said, let me note a very interesting "lucky" hand that hit me twice during my sitting. Very early on I got T,7 of clubs in LP. The table is pretty loose-passive and when it gets to me there are 5 bets in the pot. I decide that I want the button and a chance to take the hand down if I miss so I raise it. To my dismay the Button re-raises and I know I've gotten my hand caught in the cookie jar. 3 players call both bets cold around to me and I'm now getting 16-1 on my call wich I make. The flop is absolutely beautiful, so long as no one is holding X,T where the x is a 6 or higher than a 7: 6d,Th,Td. It checks to me and I bet. Button raiser drops and I get three to the 5h turn. I bet again and get one caller to the river which is the 7d. Could I BE any more lucky on this hand? I bet, and the one person with me calls and I take down the pot with my FH. No idea what the other guy had as he didn't show and didn't comment.
So, halfway through my sit I get the old T,7c again. This time in the SB. I complete the bet and it's 6 to the flop, which is: 6c,9h,Kd. It checks all the way around and we see a Th on the turn. I bet out and get two callers. The river? You got it, another T, this time of clubs. I try for the check raise hoping one of the other players has something and put my first raise as a steal, but to no avail and I lose a bet (if they would have called). This happened to me twice during this sitting and it's just a perfect example of letting FPS (Fancy Play Syndrome) get ahold of you. Unless you are SURE someone will bet into you, BET THAT HAND!
This is obviously not a normal starting hand, but one time in the SB and another in LP and I'm not terribly embarresed telling you, my faithful readers, that I played it. No worries, it won't become a new starting standard for me.
So, after ending up from my hour and a half of 2/4 I jumped on to the 5pm $30+3, $2000 guaranteed MTT. Unfortunately, I didn't look closely enough to notice that it was a LIMIT tourney! Bah! I was seriously not happy about that, but decided to play it for what it was worth anyway. 99 players so first prize was a wopping $880 or so.
The beginning of the tourney went ok as I managed to hit some big hands early on to double my stack. I then hung around average until about the halfway mark when the blinds seriously started to move up. Around this time I was able to start a nice little run that took me up to chip leader within, I would say, about 15 hands. I tell you, there is nothing better than playing with the chip lead, NOTHING! I held a strangle hold on that lead (over 6K in TC more than the next closest person) until after the second break and right into the Final table. I stole blinds at will and took down pots with check raises and re-raises (sometimes with nothing). Then I lost a big pot when I took K,3 of hearts way to far against the BB who ended up having K,10o. A few hands later I lost an even larger chunk when J,10h got smacked around by J,J (by the way, by the same guy as the last hand I talked about). This took me well out of the chip lead (down to 12Ktc) with the limits at 500/1000tc. I failed to realize that I had lost the power of the big stick and tried a few blind steals with questionable hands that were either called and raised on the flop or just plain re-raised. The final indignity was my all-in on the SB with T,8h called by the BB (about 645tc more to call to the biggest stack on the table) with 8,2o. He caught the 2 on the flop, the 8 on the turn and I was out in 6th place with $178.20. A nice take down to be sure, but isn't it amazing how PISSED off we can get when we win? I was so focused on first place and that $880, sitting pretty with my big ole stack of chips, that I was just incredibly unhappy with that $178.20 pay off.
Of course that only lasted until Saturday morning when I logged in all of my games and figured out that I had started off the month up $158. I'm still miffed that it wasn't $700 more, but oh well. All the more incentive to catch that elusive 1rst place finish in a MTT.
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Went out with the wife today (Saturday) to the mall. As she had no reading material and I'm almost out (just a few pages left in The Bourne Legacy) we decided to hit the Walden Books to see what we could pick up. Well, I don't think we will need to do any book shopping for a while! We picked up a total of 10 books. John Grisham's The Last Juror, Dune: The Battle of Corrin, Autumn Bridge (the sequal to Cloud of Sparrows, mentioned in a previous post) by Takashi Matsuoka and of course a couple of Poker books. Both Small Stakes Hold'Em by Ed Miller and Theory of Poker by Sklansky. Walden had a surprisingly large selection, albeit very disorganized. I had some hard choices to make. They also had Championship No-Limit and Pot-Limit Hold'em by TJ, Tournament Poker for Advanced Players by Sklansky, and Tournament Hold'em by, well, I can't remember who that's by. All of which I wanted of course. In the end I decided that T.O.P was one of the "bibles" that I just had to have and since I just finished up WLLHE by Lee Jones I went with SSHE so I could compare the two. And let's be honest...I'm gonna be in the world of small stakes for some time to come.
Kind of a funny situation. Obviously we are getting ready to be hit by Hurricane (probably Tropical Storm) Frances anytime now, but here we were shopping at the mall. We both had our cell phones and received non-stop calls from family checking in. They all found it strange that we were at the mall, but hey, the sun was out!
No Poker today, but we did have a nice little "Hurricane Party" at one of the neighbor's houses. He's in the middle of redoing his house and just finished putting tile in the front room. On top of that...was the brand spanking new pool table. I think it was in about 4pm Friday afternoon and he told me he had non-stop visitors from that point on. Go figure! Had a good time. Played pool, drank beers and played this really cool movie trivia game called Scene It! Of course we made the mistake of playing guys against girls and the guys got their rear ends handed to them. Oh yeah, this one's for my buddy over at PokeronFilm: there were TWO questions on The Princess Bride! Inconceivable!
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Sunday. Also known as Poker Day and getting yelled at by wife for playing poker-day. About 4 hours of online poker ending down $20.60. One 2 table SNG, which I placed second in when I ran into A,A. One MTT in which I was knocked out extremely early. And one 2 hour+ session of 2/4 in which I couldn't manage to get anything together and ended up down 12.5 BBs. The coupe de grace? JJ in the CO, Folds to the player to my right who raises. I re-raise. BB calls, initial raiser caps it which I happily call as does the BB. Flop comes 2 clubs with 5,2,T. Checks around to me, I bet and get check-raised by the initial raiser. I re-raise (stupid...stop to think, why would he check raise here? Isn't it possible he has Jacks beaten?) and he again caps it. At this point we lose the BB. I finally figure out that I might be in trouble and check call it to the end to find the raiser with T,T. That hurt. Of course, this was just typical of what I had during the entire session. J,3c in the BB with only the SB calling. Catching two pair on the turn only to have the Q from the flop pair on the river giving my opponent a bigger two pair. The one set I make on the flop being beat by a runner, runner flush (guy holding K,J and the J was the matching hand, had nothing until the river); not laying down Ks when a A hit the flop (one of these days I'll learn that friggin' lesson); A,Qh being beaten by 5s when the 2 (that's right, drawing to the inside) hits on the river, me betting all the way. Added to this was a ton of great starting hands that just couldn't hit a flop. So, I'm not terribly dissapointed in the loss, though that last hand contributed half of my entire loss. The funny thing was, I was praying for another J on the flop before the cards came out so somewhere in that muddled head of mine I must have known I was behind. Gotta tune into that inner voice a little more.
Got into it with the wife later that night when IT-Guy called to say he was trying to get a little $5 game going. This put her over the edge but at least led to a discussion on what was going on. Too personal to blog about, sorry, but needless to say Poker was only a small part of the problem. It was certainly the whipping boy, but there are alot of factors leading to her being so pissed at me playing so much. After hashing it out for about 30-45 minutes we got things started on the right track and she actually agreed to come over to the IT-Guy's for the $5 game as it was going to be IT-Guy, us and one of the regulars and his wife (over because their power had been knocked out). This was a good thing I thought. Someone's wife is over, which will surely liven up the game and make it more of a social thing and less of a "poker game". Nope. Wishful thinking I guess. I love the games at IT-Guy's place. The players are serious about the game, but not so serious that it's like playing with mutes. There is plenty of good natured ribbing going on, but not a lot of talk about anything other than the game. And if there are two people who play at these games that talk even LESS than everyone else, it is IT-Guy and the friend who happened to be over this fateful night. I know this, and had I thought about it I might have even realized that this might be a problem. I've stopped by a couple of times when these guys are playing to say hi and have never stayed for long as they are so focused on the game that conversation is stilted to say the least. The other wife was not very talkative either and this led to the night being a bust in the "get the wife to see that poker can be fun" vein. We played a game "for fun" before playing for $5 and apparently this was not enough for the wife to learn enough to feel even a little comfortable playing the game. She was knocked out first which led to her sitting around doing nothing for quite some time. Thinking back, I should have asked if anyone minded her sitting behind me while I continued to play so she could at least see what I was playing. bad husband, bad husband! It ended up heads-up between me and IT-Guy and after 20-30 minutes of almost-no-flop Hold'em, trading chip leads back and forth and me realizing that the wife's patience was wearing dangerously thin, I asked if we could chop so that they could start up another game. I owed IT-Guy a loss for taking me out last time with K,4 to my K,T but that would have to wait for another time.
The wife and I said our good-byes, which lasted about 15 minutes or more (everyone became much more animated once the cards were out of the air), and headed home. Of course this led to more discussion no whether or not Poker can be played "for fun" or if it's "always about the money". The wife's conention was that even though it was only $5 that it was still all about the money as no-one would help her with her decisions (folding, etc.). I checked her hands that she folded if I wasn't in the hand now and then and let her know that she had made the correct decision (everytime she folded she had). I just couldn't get her to understand that it made no sense for the other people to help her as it would only hurt them. "But it was just for $5," she would say. I just couldn't get through.
I've told her about a certain player at the other neighborhood game who comes to the games, plops down his $20 and at about 9pm his chips are going to start finding their way into the middle of the pot no matter what hand he holds and no matter how many chips he has. He is ALWAYS gone at 9pm and everyone knows it. He doesn't care about winning, he is just there to get away from the wife and kids for 2-3 hours and he's willing to pay $25 (buy-in+pizza) to do so. She brought him up during this conversation with the comment that she didn't understand why I couldn't approach the game more in the way that he did. What!? I just couldn't get through. I tried explaining that I didn't really care one way or the other when I left. Hell, I still had fun if I'm the first or second person busted out and I'm walking back to the house at 8pm, but no way in hell am I throwing away chips just to leave by a certain time. I enjoy playing the game. Win or lose, I enjoy trying to win! Now I know that if I was a loosing player and could not improve that I would stop enjoying the game, but that isn't the case. I also explained that I don't go to the game to get away from her, I go to the game for the poker...completely opposite of what this guy does.
Well, just like with poker, somethings in life are like a jigsaw puzzle as well. And the last piece, that has been staring me in the face forever, finally fell into place at this point. The wife will, most likely, never understand or be able to come to terms with what drives me to play poker. Our minds are just wired too differently when it comes to this subject. And I can't tell you how much it hurts to realize this. (warning: afterschool special-ish emotion to follow) Anyone who is married I think will understand this, but maybe not. My wife is also my best friend. I love sharing things with her and it truly sucks that I cant share this aspect of my life. Granted I've given her reason not to get to involved with my interests throughout our life together as I tend to bounce from interest to interest with almost no warning. That being said, some things have stuck around. I've been playing poker for a little more than 2 years now, off and on. I've collected knives since I was in high school (though I haven't aquired any in the recent past) and I'm also a gun nut. I have a large collection of Hockey Cards (they are for sale by the way) and I simply gave up that hobby to transfer the money from that hobby to another. There have been many more passing interests and fads, but the core interests stick around. Unfortunately the only one that my wife is at all interested in is Golf, wich neither of us has played in months. It puts a certain strain on a relationship when things that are so important to you are simply a nuisance to your significant other, no?
Ok, enough sappy relationship stuff, none of you want to hear it I'm sure. Suffice it to say that my poker playing will be on a fairly strict schedule from here on out.
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OK, so I told you I would get to Monday's poker and here it is. I tried the 2 table SNG again and was bumped from the final table at some point before the money (5th place). I then went to the 2/4 table and sat down on a roller coaster. At one point I was down $71. I rebought to bring myself back up to $100 and at the end of 2 hours quit at -$6. I was kicked in the balls early when my A,K hit a flop of K,9,Q rainbow only to run into 10,J. A few small pairs that didn't hit sets and many unplayable hands after wards my KK ran into 7,8 on a flop of 9,10,8 with a turn of 8 to put me away. Five hands later the Hilton sisters were cracked by 6,7c by the river club. Not an auspicious beginning by any means. I hit a slight reprieve with the snowmen hitting their set on the flop with 4 people calling to the river trying to hit the 4th heart for a flush. Three or four orbits later with nothing to play (at least two orbits not playing a hand except the BB) and nothing hitting the flop and I was down $50. Then a string of hands finally hit to give me 3 good sized pots in the space of 8-10 hands. The rockets held up, 4,5c in LP hit the str8 and K,3h in LP played strongly on a short handed table took down the pot on the flop when it helped no one else. This was followed by a long string of folding and two played hands that both took down pots to bring me to within $6 of even.
As mentioned above, about half way through some of those puzzle pieces had finally fallen into place and I had hit my stride. I could have continued playing and finished up I'm sure, but I had played for two hours and the wife was done with what she was doing so I hung it up on what I considered some good lessons and a good session. That's probably the first session where I've finished down yet still been happy with how I played. Progress I say, Progress!
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A note from my last entry. After checking out Full Tilt it's doubtful that I'll be playing there at this time. thought he 100% match is juicy, there is hardly anyone playing and I don't see it being possible to work off that 100% match in 3 months if I max out the deposit. I mean, come on...2-3 tables at most going at .50/1 or 1/2?? And here's how the match works. You get up to 3 points per raked hand at 1 point per $1 in rake. Each point is worth .06 of your bonus. Yep, 6 measly little cents of your bonus. Of course Full Tilt makes sure to point out that you can earn up to $18 of your bonus per hour. Technically this is true. If you play every hand at 2/4 or above and the rake is maxed every single hand. Even putting in $600 I wouldn't feel comfortable playing 2/4. Even if I did, I certainly wouldn't be in every single hand. And even if I wanted to multi-table I probably could never put together more than 2 tables at once. Doesn't sound like the most profitable situation to me.
I haven't completely thrown out the idea yet, but I think I'd be better off at somewhere like Party, Paradise or any of the other large rooms with lots of people playing.
On the blogging front, I guess I shouldn't feel bad about not being up to date as Stat Counter tells me that no one else was reading over the weekend either...at least no one was reading this here humble blog. So, off I go to read up on everyone elses weekend and hopefully to find another one of those pieces of the puzzle.
Thanks for reading-JW

Bonuses and politics...in other words, a poor post.

2004-09-03T08:27:00.000-05:00

Not much happening on the poker front. Haven't been able to play much this week. In fact, no poker since the beginning of the new month. I should be able to correct that after work while the wife is at the gym. Here's hoping I can start out the month on a positive note!

I'm going to have to give serious thought to depositing to Full Tilt Poker this month. Get this...100% deposit up to $600!!! Yikes! Of course they have the standard B.S. where you have to play so many hands...for them it's about bonus points. I'm not sure I understand it perfectly, but I think the way it works is you get up to 3 points per raked hand you play (1 point per dollar). For every 20% of your deposit you earn in points that amount of your bonus is released to you. So if you deposit $100, for every 20 bonus points ($20 in rake) you get $20 released to you. I'll have to make sure I have that right before I jump in, but dang, up to $600! That there be some bonus whoring folks! You have 90 days to earn your bonus. 3 months to hit $600 in rake off of a $600 deposit while only having to stay even? I think I'm up for that.
Of course, I've been trying to connect for the past 10 minutes to see what the games are like and can't get on...that doesn't bode well.

OK, I blame Paulsburbon for the following political rant. ;) He had quite a bit to say the other day regarding Ahhhhhhhnold's speech at the GOP convention. I've commented directly to him on some of the points he made so I guess that is what got me in the "political" mood. I'm a Republican. I don't believe in everything the Republicans do, but over all my political thoughts mesh more with the GOP than the Dems. As far as politics go, I think it's a dirt word. I hate election campaigns. I've yet to see one that wasn't a thinly veiled (or not) smear campaign with each side (GOP included) stating facts and non-facts in whatever way will make it sound like they did something good and their opposition did something bad. Give both parties the exact same facts regarding just about anything and both partys will have adds out the next day bashing their opposition and/or claiming credit for the good things those facts point out. It truly is sickening. A perfect example? (of course against the Dems :) ) An article on Yahoo News today; a portion of which reads:
"For the past week, they attacked my patriotism and my fitness to serve as commander in chief," Kerry said. "I'm going to leave it up to the voters to decide whether five deferments makes someone more qualified than two tours of duty."
Ummm...anyone else out there find this as asinine as I do?
Side note: Asinine is defined as: marked by inexcusable failure to exercise intelligence or sound judgment. That just made me laugh. I love that definition and now that I know it I think Asinine just became my favorite word.
The last time I checked Cheney was the one with the 5 deferments. Kerry is running for president, no? So why is he comparing his military service to that of Cheney's, the VP? Or is the quote simply misleading and he is actually comparing Cheney's military record with Edwards. Now that could be the case. Edwards must have stellar military record. Now...let me check...no, no, I stand corrected: Edwards has no military experience. In fact, Kerry himself attacked Edwards for his lack of military experience when battling for the Dem nomination.
OK, rant and sarcasm mode off. I just had to get that out of my system. Sorry for the political content! :)

Back to Poker.
Go over and read Hank's post. If anyone can truly explain the "You have to trust your Parachute" comment, please enlighten me.
Chris Halverson has some commentary on the scary-loose play at Canterbury's 4/8 tables.
Make sure you go over and wish Pauly luck on his attempt to visit Estonia and the Speed Poker Championships.
And go say hit to Uwannabet? He's got a pretty sad beat down tale from his last live tourney.

Just a short little post today folks. Don't forget to drop me a line if you are interested in the Team in Training tourney I'm trying to set up. And if you aren't, don't forget to go donate!

Thanks for reading-JW

WSOP coverage and other tidbits.

2004-09-02T07:49:00.000-05:00

"Well, I walk into the room...Passing out hundred dollar bills..."-Big and Rich: Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy.
Anybody else just love the beginning to this song? I'm not a huge country fan by any means, but when the WSOP comes on and this starts playing...I just love it!

Well, no poker playing last night, but I did get to watch the WSOP coverage I taped. Plenty of good stuff, including the heart breaker of watching Doyle get busted out. Speaking of which, if there is anyone out there that doesn't believe televised coverage of the WSOP is the best thing for poker since Kem Cards, they are out of their mind. Watch the hand where Bradley Berman knocks out Doyle Brunson. Bradley calls an all-in from Doyle with A,7o when Doyle has pocket 10s. I can't remember or didn't see how close Bradley was in chips or how much he might have had Doyle out chipped by, but come on. A,7o is a calling hand when Doyle goes all in? Somebody who has a better memory or can watch this hand right now let me know, had Berman already raised the pot or something? Was he pot commited? This is a no brainer fold. And the exact reason why I love televised coverage of the WSOP. Not only does it generate interest in our beloved game, but it convinces fish that any two cards can win. As evidenced by a guy a work with commenting on how, "the crappier hands always win," after watching an episode. Yeah, because those are the hands ESPN decided to show.
This brings up another comment on the Wed. morning quarterbacks that like to disect the play of everyone they just watched. The epitome of course is everyone ragging on Moneymaker last year, but there's plenty of it this year as well. They see hands being one by underdogs. They see pros making moves that are questionable. And all of the sudden they just KNOW that they know better than these people. OK folks, one more time. So far we've seen 6 hours of coverage of the WSOP. This coverage encompassed 5 days worth of the tournament (6 really as day 1 was split into two fields). 6 DAYS folks! That's 12 hours X 6 days=72 hours worth of play compressed into 6 hours. Go play that many hours of tournament poker and tell me that you won't find yourself making some questionable plays. These guys made plenty more questionable plays that we never saw, but they made sure that the cost wasn't too high and they made sure that the MAJORITY of their play was solid.
Let me put it another way. We've seen just over 8% of the total hours. Considering we never stay at one table for the entire hour of coverage, and adding in commercials and that silly "The Nuts" feature, we probably see AT MOST less than 1% of an individual's play. Chew on that one.

I got that little thing from one of the home games I play in. One of the guys that was playing (the semi-rock I mentioned in my post) was wearing a shirt that read and all us non-IT people had to ask what it meant. Yes, even me. :)

So, went to a Team in Training shoe-fitting last night at a local Finish Line. I've got to say, I never knew how much went into shoe fitting if you did it right. I've also found a new shoe store from here on out. I love patronizing places where the sales people KNOW what they are talking about and aren't there simply to make it easier for you to extract the cash from your wallet. I've been having shin-splint and arch issues recently and the girl who helped me knew exactly what the issue was. She grabbed a pair of shoes, I put them on and it was like a miracle. It felt completely different than any other shoe I've worn. My typical shoe shopping trip goes like this: walk into store, spend 5 minutes convincing overeager sales person to leave me alone until I've found a shoe I like, look for a shoe that I like the looks of and the price of, track down now non-eager sales person to get me my size, try on shoe and if it doesn't make my foot hurt buy it.
Never really put much thought into whether the shoe was giving me the right support in the right places.

I've so far gotten one response on my Team in Training tournament. Come on folks, isn't there more interest out there? I'm guessing my readership just isn't up there enough right now for people to be seeing it. I'll be trying to get in touch with the majority of the bloggers here pretty soon and maybe I can get some of the bigger folks out there to pimp the tourney for me. From the comments I've read on most blogs I don't think I want to hold the tourney at Pacific as most weren't too impressed with their structure. So let me know if you have suggestions. In the mean time, if you know you don't want to play in a charity tournament, feel free to go ahead and donate here. It's for a great cause folks. Plus, you aren't the one who has to walk 13 miles! :)

Some background, as I don't think I've covered it yet. Last October my Mother-in-Law was diagnosed with Adult Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (AML for short). It came on extremely fast. Over the course of a few weeks she went from feeling "off" to one day being so tired and worn out that she couldn't get out of bed. It was truly the scariest thing I've ever witnessed. She went through three bouts of Chemo before, thank GOD, she entered remission followed by more post-remission treatments called "Consolidation-Chemo". If you've never had any experience with Chemo-therapy, I think a quote from my wife sums it up quite well: "It really should be a form of torture."
We are now almost a year from the time she was diagnosed and she is doing fantastic. So far, knock on whatever wood you have available, there have been no signs of the disease returning, but we have a long way to go yet. To truly breathe that sigh of relief you have to wait two years. At that point the survivability rate jumps dramatically. Even after two years we will be looking forward to about the 5 year mark before we are truly able to consider her "cured". So pray to whatever Deity you believe in and please, consider donating whatever you can or playing in my up-coming Charity tournament to help us fund the fight to cure this ugly disease.

OK, onto some blog stuff. First and foremost let me throw out my most sincere thanks to the Blog Father for his pimpage on yesterday's blog(update: 21 hits ALONE from Iggster's site, thank you again!). To have someone who defines "poker-blog" say, "I've been reading him for quite awhile now and so should you, " means more than I can say. Check out his latest Uber-post for some great reading and a whole slew of new poker-blogs to keep up with. Oy-vey.
Paulsburbon has some interesting politcal commentary regarding the "Governator's" (his term, but I love it) recent speech at the Republican Convention. A warning, Paul's a Democrat. Not that that makes him a bad guy! ;)
BadBlood is getting the "too much poker" speech from his wife. Boy can I relate! :)
Grubster has a new hand of the week. If you can figure this one out, you deserve a medal.
SirFWALGman always has some good stuff, and his "I tried to lose...I really did" post has an interesting take on playing short stacked in ring games.
Be sure to go check out StripperbyNight's site as she has just announced she is going to go pro in January.
And if you haven't checked out PokeronFilm be sure to give him a shot. I really enjoy this guy from Down Under's blog. A quick example:
It's funny what people claim to be. Howard Stern one day decided to call himself "The King of All Media" as a bit of a joke. Before long, it had become a moniker that the world was using for him. His theory was that if you called yourself something long enough, loud enough and as many times as you can, soon people will start to believe you. With this in mind, I now proclaim myself to be "The World's Greatest poker blogger ever!", and I am running sessions on how to improve your poker bloging for $99.95 a head (pay in advance). Remember, it must be good because it is coming from "The World's Greatest Poker Blogger Ever!".
And give his "name the starting hands" challenge a try. That should bring some truly hilarious moments.

OK, I'm guessing that's about it as I'm having to rack my brain for things to write about. That usually means I'll just end up writing pure crap and none of us wants that!
Thanks for reading. JW

WLLHE Review and breaking a Cardinal Sin of Poker.

2004-09-01T16:25:00.000-05:00

Let me tackle the title in reverse. I think I commited one of the cardinal sins of Poker last night. I was sitting at Pacific last night at 2/4 seeing if I could make a run at erasing some of the -$250 on the balance sheet. I had already managed to erase $39 due to my first place in a $10+1 SNG during lunch. What a rush that was. I was short stacked till almost the end. I hit one or two hands and then got all in with pocket 3s when I flopped my set. I was up against two players, one of whom had a 4 flush. The 5th hit on the river but it was the case 3 giving me Quads. Threes were lucky for me again on the last hand when my Q,3o made trip threes by the river.
But back to my night-time session. I sat down around 8pm as the wife wanted to watch Last Comic Standing, in which I have no interest. The WSOP coverage started at 9 so I was looking forward to a nice long 3 hour session of 2/4 wild and wacky poker. Things started out as best as one can hope for. I was in the CO having posted my out of turn blind and was dealt pocket 6s. A player in MP raised it one bet and I called to see the flop with 5 other players and 13 1/2 small bets in the pot. The flop came 3s,10s,6h giving my set but making me worry about the flush draw. It came around to me with the original raiser betting out and I raised it. 3 players stuck with me to see the magical turn which brought me the case 6c. I checked it and the Button bet out. The original raiser dropped, I called and it was 2 plus me to see the river. The river brought the 10c ending the flush draw chances, but giving me hope that someone had just filled up their full. I bet out and the button raised with his 10's full. We capped it between the two of us and I showed my quads for a 21.25 BB pot. Nice way to get started, eh? I got lucky here and there (catching a 7 high straight on the river with my 6,7 sooooted when all I had before was a paired 7) and the only hand I was really disappointed with my play was when my J,J ran up against A,A and I couldn't lay it down even when the A hit on the flop. Really, really dumb on that one, but oh well. And then came the fateful last three hands. They went as follows:

10,10 in the BB flops it's set on an all diamond board. No flushes to take down a 11.75BB pot.
A,A hits a rag flop and takes down a small 5BB pot.
A,2 in a 6 way pot on the button takes down the pot when everyone folds to one bet on a flop of 9h,3c,4s. I call and it's two way. Jc hit's the turn and we both check. 4c on the river and it's checked to me so I bet. He folds telling me he folded A,K. 4BBs.

So, where's the problem I hear you asking?
A little background perhaps. Sloejack has an interesting discussion going on with some of the bloggers regarding card rushes. Check out his site for an intro a couple of posts back and keep track as he should have a post dedicated to the subject coming up. In our discussion I stated that card rushes just happen, but can be made better/worse/or completely missed depending on how they are played. As Sloe points out, Doyle is a firm believer in rushes and advocates playing every hand after you win a pot, to a reasonable extent, to take advantage of rushes. After all, card rushes aren't necessarily getting AA,AK,QQ,JJ,KK dealt to you in a row, after all. They involve that word us serious poker players try to push out of our vocabulary...LUCK. Card rushes more often involve getting more than your fair share of good starting hands as well as hitting flops with less than premium or even marginal hands. They allow you to string together a large percentage of wins in a set number of hands. They come and they go at the whim of the poker gods, but the truly exceptional players can recognize when they materialize and use them to absolutely decimate their opponents. You see, the art of the card rush also involves table image. After all, your opponents are thinking, he can't have a monster AGAIN! You look like you are trying to run over the table, which of course, on some hands you are. But your opponents are often slow to realize that you are hitting more than your fair share of good hands and they will call or even play back at you to "put you in your place". And when you DO have that monster AGAIN, you make alot more money than you might have. You also are able to win a few hands because a couple of those players on the table DO believe in luck and DO think you just might have hit that monster AGAIN when in fact you haven't. Point in fact? That last hand above when my A,2o was able to win against someone holding a better hand. I credit that solely to the two previous hands and the fact that even though I didn't show the A,A, I told the entire table about it and commented that I was getting hit in the face with the deck. Table image+Card rush=More Money.
So, where's the sin I keep talking about? Have you caught it yet? That's right, I said LAST THREE HANDS. I had to "stand up" after that A,2o hand. My wife had made a comment when I left her to go to the den about not seeing me for the rest of the night. It was 9pm, time for the WSOP, but Father of the Pride was also debuting and she came in to see if I wanted to watch (read thinly veiled threat that I BETTER come out and watch it) as we had both commented on wanting to see it. The WSOP coverage was of course being taped on the DVR so I really had no excuse (that the wife would accept) to not turn off the evil poker program and watch TV with her. So there you go. I stood up from the table during a palpable card rush when the game was good and I was playing well. Come to think of it, that's probably breaking two cardinal rules, don't you think? The next hand dealt to me was T,8o which I folded to a raise before clicking the ole "Leave Table" button. I probably would have folded it even if I wasn't getting up from the table, but who knows? As I remember I was in LP and there were already like 6 bets in the pot, so following Doyle's advice maybe I would have played it. I guess it's a good thing that Pacific's hand history software doesn't show you a hand where you fold and leave the table before the flop.
I finished up $139.50 for the night, more than doubling my buy-in within an hour of sitting down, so it is hard to complain. This still left me just over $100 in the negative for the month, but I can live with that. It could have been alot worse considering my play throughout the month.

OK, so I promised a write up of Winning Low Limit Hold'em (Second Edition) by Lee Jones and here it is. I've only read through it one time, and that is by far not enough, but I can definitely recommend it with out a second thought. Most of you have read this book already, but for those of you who haven't, I hope the following is helpful.
First of all, as the title states, this book is geared towards Low Limit Hold'em. Playing 30/60 in Vegas? Don't read this. Playing online in anything up through 15/30 in some sites? This book is a must read. If you've never played Hold'em before, make sure you pick up something like Poker for Dummies (no, I'm not kidding) so that you can get a grounding in the very basics of the game. Think you have a pretty good handle on the game? Win fairly often when playing against people who also understand the game? But for some bizarre reason keep getting your ass kicked by all these fish at the low-limit tables on-line, or in the wild card rooms of California? Welcome home. This book is for you.
This book was originally written to help people playing in the crazy games in California where, I believe, the term No Fold'em Hold'em was coined. I'm sure the authors had no idea how applicable the text would be to online poker. Of course, No Fold'em can be found in alot more places than California nowadays as well. Just pop into any of the card rooms in Florida. With the laws keeping the stakes down at the $1/$2 and $2 flat range, No Fold'em is alive and well, believe me!
I've heard that compared to Small Stakes Hold'em by Edward Miller that WLLHE is on the passive side, and I can't argue with that. WLLHE should help you win more and, more to the point, lose less when playing low limits. There is really nothing earth shattering in here if you've been doing alot of reading all ready. They keys are playing premium cards, playing position and pot odds. Oh yeah, and he might mention not bluffing the fish. ;)
So, if you are looking for a good book to help you in your low limit struggles, go pick this one up. And while your at it pick up SSHE which I'll be doing ASAP.

On the blogging front, I'm still struggling to catch up with everyone. Real life keeps getting in the way. For now, be sure to check out Boy Genius's post entitled NEXT. It had me laughing the entire morning. Between that and reading Mean Gene's blog I'm really feeling inadequate in my writing. I mean, this blog is mainly for my own benefit, but I would love for it to be an interesting read as well. And when I read these guys I'm just in awe. Makes me happy my two or three loyal readers are sticking with me!
JW

41 Outs!

2004-08-30T20:26:00.000-05:00

Weekend Report:
I had a very up and down weekend. Scratch that, I had a very DOWN week. I was looking at some sessions from last week and including them in my calculations. Yikes. I played a little on Friday and lost about 17BBs in 2/4 in a very short session. I then, mistakenly, sat down at 3/6 on Saturday and after an hour and a quarter left up 19BBs. I tend to sit down at 3/6 by mistake quite a bit. Trust me, it’s not some BS I’m typing here to throw you off, it’s just very easy when you are trying to find a good table on Pacific Poker to scroll a little too far down and not double check the stakes. I actually made it through 2 or 3 hands the other day before realizing that the big bets looked weird when they came down. “What’s that red doing under that blue chip,” I was thinking. D’oh! For the week I was down just shy of $22 $300, which really isn’t, IS all that bad. I had some truly horrible play going on in quite a few sessions as was pointed out to me by Sloejack and Asphnxma in their comments to my 8/27/04 post. Both pointed out that I was playing some terrible hands in bad position. Man, it just hurts to realize this. I still remember, not too long ago, finally realizing the power of position and watching my play improve dramatically. It’s frustrating and embarrassing to see that I’ve already forgotten that valuable lesson. So, without some serious upside during tomorrow night’s play I’ll have my first down month since playing seriously.
Sitting here typing this now, it doesn’t hurt so much to say that. It kind of feels like my first loss in our neighborhood games. I had gone probably 6-7 tourneys in the neighborhood before I finally managed to not cash. I knew it was coming, it was inevitable. Unfortunately, I didn’t fell that way with the online front. I knew that I might not be able to sustain the tremendous growth I had seen in my bankroll, but for whatever reason it never really occurred to me that I would have to watch it shrink. Of course keeping such close track of my online play and understanding that my losses came not (totally at least) from variance, but from my own bad play, made it even harder to swallow.
On a positive note, I hit my second straight cash in the neighborhood live games on Saturday. It was a fun night with about 9 people showing up for a $50+rebuy’s tournament. We expected upwards of 14 people, but as usually a bunch of people bailed. These tournaments play something like online as the host bumps the blinds up every 18 minutes with a 5 minute break every hour. This keeps the games going and usually gets us out before midnight/1am. There were a few regulars and a few new guys. One of which was a copier salesman who I believe is trying to gain my neighbor as a client. He was a decent player from what I could tell and fun to play with. We only had one guy who really seemed to be fishy, though I think the salesman’s friend might have been slightly fishy due to his loose play. I busted out fairly early on after winning a few early hands and then dumping everything on a bad call. After re-buying I took a breath and plunged on to an eventual second place finish against my neighbor (let’s call him IT-Guy from here on out as he is, well, an IT Guy and that’s easier to type). I’ll write about that heart breaker in a second.
I had my first tense moment with another player at this tournament. I was in a hand with one of the regulars who is really tight. He will take quite a while to make decisions now and then and you can tell he’s figuring out odds and trying to put you on a hand and he doesn’t bluff much. He’s one of the regulars I try to avoid playing too many pots against. I was holding K,X (I don’t remember the x) and there was a possible straight and possible flush on the board. As I remember (and trust me, you don’t want to rely on my memory) we had both checked the flop. When the K came I bet big and he went into the tank. Well all of the sudden the damn peanut gallery opens up and two of the regulars (one of which is a good friend of IT-Guy) start commenting on whether or not he should call. This really started to piss me off, as I truly didn’t want the call. I ended up taking down the hand when the other guy missed his straight draw, and I made a comment about 1 player per hand. The IT-Guy’s friend took it the wrong way and said something like, “I’ll say whatever I want to say”. Well, we hashed it out a few minutes later when he figured out why I had said what I said and we moved on, but those kinds of arguments can get kind of ugly, so I’m glad it worked out. I also managed to, for like the 3rd or 4rth time, river one of the regulars (the other guy from the peanut gallery above by the way) to knock him out of the tournament. No kidding, it’s happened in probably the last 3 straight tournaments that both of us have played. I’ll call his all in or put him all in and find out I’m behind only to take the pot on the river. This time I hit the 3rd or 4th of my suit to get my flush. I think we both started with pairs and he had the larger of the two. He’s none to happy about it either. I remember a grumbled comment about not playing if I showed up next time.
So, on to the fateful finish. IT-Guy and I had been going back and forth for a bit with him having me out-stacked probably 3-2. I was being pretty aggressive with any decent hand and had pushed him off quite a few hands with pre-flop raises. Well, he was getting tired of me pushing him around (he told me this after the hand) and when I got dealt K,To I raised it up to somewhere in the neighborhood of $36 (blinds 6/12). He pushed in and I thought for a second and decided I had to take a chance. I flipped over my K,To and he turned over K,4o! I couldn’t believe it. I had his ass dominated 6 ways from Sunday. Things were looking even better after the flop of x,x,5. The turn had me ready to rake the chips with a second 5. I was leaning over the table chanting, “No four, No four, No four…” thinking to myself, “41 outs, I’ve got 41 outs” when one of his 3 outs flipped on to the table. That miserable 4 cost me $160, or at lest a very good chance at $160 as I would have had a huge chip lead after this hand. I couldn’t be too upset though as I had doubled up even though I had to re-buy.
One final note that I thought was amusing. You can tell how competitive IT-Guy and I are as one of the players noted about halfway through our heads-up play that he was impressed that neither of us had brought up a chop. We both just kind of smiled and kept going. To be completely honest the thought never even crossed my mind. I chopped the last time I played here and to be truthful I was sorry I had only because I didn’t get to keep playing!
At least I managed to get my live bankroll just a little healthier while watching my online bankroll shrink.

Monty Write up
Well, I outlasted 47 other players and I have to say I’m very pleased with that. Of course I would have been happier going further, but with the field we had it’s hard to be upset. I got to play with CJ from Up For Poker and Todd the Commish, who’s blog I’m sorry to say, I’ve never even read. Other than that we had mostly readers at our table I believe. You can check out CJ’s write up for corroboration, but this was probably the tightest table I’ve ever played in a tourney. And that was great! I have to say I truly enjoy playing tournament poker with others who know how to play. There is serious thought going into every move. You pay for not raising/betting enough, limping, etc. Made a bad move? You can be pretty sure the next person to act will make you pay for it. My last hand was one of these bonehead moves. I was on the Small Blind(150tc) with about 1800tc after posting my blind. Iggy was on the Big Blind(300tc) (about 4-5 hands after he joined our table) and I limped with 5,7o along with two others to make for a 4 way, un-raised pot. The flop was a ragged 2d,4d,7c giving me top pair, shitty kicker. I bet 600tc into the 1200tc pot only to be immediately re-raised all in by Iggy who had me covered. I figured maybe he was going for the semi-bluff with some high diamonds and decided it was worth the risk. Well, turns out he had top pair, top kicker with his A to send me on my way. Oh yeah, and had he had the Diamonds I would have been finished as well as the turn was the Kd. In retrospect this was a bad play. I either had to commit myself with an all-in (I still would have gotten called I bet, but it would have been a better move), or, even better, folded to Iggy’s all-in. Oh well. Like I said, wit these kind of competitors, you are going to pay for those bonehead moves.

On the blogging front. I’ve been remiss and haven’t had a chance to do much blog reading. So, if you don’t see yourself mentioned below, it’s probably because I just haven’t had a chance to catch up yet. I think I must be channeling the BlogFather as this post is starting to feel like an uber-post. Go check out his latest post to see if manages not to gloat after winning his own tourney.

Check out Iggy’s newest write-up. Always good stuff and here’s a great piece of wisdom that I snaked from his site:

Abdul on Tilting.

“Maintaining emotional control: You say you are mystified by the
phenomenon of tilt. Suppose you would be put to death if you did not make a
profit by 6 am. Imagine then how you would play if you got stuck. Imagine your
emotional state if you lost a rack to a 1-outer! As you got more and more stuck
and it got later and later, you would become increasingly desperate, and quite
logically so. Instead of stepping down in stakes due to shrinking bankroll and
poor emotional state, you would step up in stakes. At 5:55 am, if still stuck,
you would play *every* hand, in a quite logical attempt to get even and avoid
the guillotine. This is my theory of why players act this way. They place great
value on winning today, little value on winning overall. My prescription to
remedy this problem is to track your winnings and graph them, concentrating on
making the graph go up, learning that the little dips are just inevitable noise.
If you're too lazy to do this, at least keep your poker "wad" banded and
separate from your personal money, and concentrate on making the "wad"
grow.”

Boy Genius has some amazingly funny stuff in a recent post regarding some questions one should ask prospective girlfriends. The questions are great…his answers are even better!

On the additions to the blog roll, check out the following blogs who I have just added. They’ve been around for quite some time, but I just stumbled upon them recently:
• Decker: Another Tampa Guy.
• Stick and Move: check out his posts on the Olympics. Priceless.
• PaulsBurbon: Poker and Politics, what more could you want?

OK, so I’ve mentioned this before and you will be seeing quite a bit more on it in upcoming posts. My wife and I joined Team in Training, a part of The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. If you’ve seen any of the “race for the cure” type fund raising situations then you are familiar with this type of set up. There is no “pledge this amount per mile” associated with this, just a certain amount that you need to raise. You’ll see the above link on most of my posts from here on out as it takes you to the site where you can donate. I would be exceptionally grateful if you were to donate…however, considering you are reading this blog, there may be a more enjoyable way for you to donate. Yes, you guessed it…a charity poker tourney. I don’t know if I can pull it off yet, I have to get in touch with some of the card rooms to see what can be done. I know there were plenty of complaints about Pacific Poker, but as that’s my home site right now, it might just be held there…we’ll have to see. If anyone else wants to suggest their home site I’m up for suggestions, but would appreciate it if you would do some investigating for me to see if they would even be interested in doing a charity tournament. Since I’m talking about a “Charity Tournament” I guess I should explain what I mean. It would be your standard Blogger/Reader Tourney with a buy-in of somewhere between $30 and $50, possibly with re-buys, possibly without. 70% of the proceeds would go to the charity; the balance would go into the pot. We all play for money, so I understand that a 70% rake is high, but it’s for a great cause! Go read about it at teamintraining.org. If I could do a re-buy tourney I’d like to do a half-price rebuy with the majority of the re-buys going into the pot and only a small amount going to the charity to even it out and to build up the pot for the players.
I’m going to try to have one of these tournaments live at home as well, so I figure with two tournaments I can probably get a good chunk of the fund raising out of the way. So please, if you think you might be interested, drop a comment or an email my way so I can get a feeling for who is in. Feel free to request a certain type of tourney/buy-in, etc. But definitely let me know what you think.

OK, I think that’s about it for now. I think I might actually try to get some poker in tonight!

Here’s wishing you good cards. JW
(Addition: OMG, there is nothing worse than sitting in a SNG and finding out halfway through that the dang thing is a satellite and only pays first place! Of coure I went out in 3rd with 10,Js vs K,Qh.)

What is this "Tilt-Proof" you speak of???

2004-08-26T12:20:00.000-05:00

"Listen, here's the thing. If you can't spot the sucker in the
first half hour at the table, then you are the sucker."-Mike
McDermott/Rounders

With all of the resources on
the web, I still couldn't find the quote I really wanted which goes something
like this: "Man, I caught a frozen wave of cards like you only read
about!"-Worm/Rounders

Both quotes are appropriate I believe. I got one comment from Sloejack yesterday on my posted hands, and though he flat out called me a fish, I can't argue. The hands I was playing were pretty marginal at best. I can say that the table texture led me to play some of the hands which would be true, but there are still alot of questionable cards, and even more so, questionable plays in that list of hands. Thanks for the comments Sloejack. I don't care if someone calls me a fish if they are offering constructive criticism.

The second quote? Well, that pretty much describes the second half of my day yesterday.

I got to play quite a bit yesterday (is folding playing?). An hour at lunch, an hour after work and an hour in the evening. Funny thing, if I had quit after the first 3 hands in each session I'd be up quite a bit. Go figure. I'm still playing some fishy poker and I really need to work on that, but overall I wasn't TOO disappointed with HOW I played, just the results. Yeah, yeah, yeah...it's all one big session (I think I'll have a poster made of that saying and hang it behind the computer), but the losses still hurt, especially the way they came. The title of the post pretty much says it all. I'm still searching for that elusive "Tilt-Proof" mind set. I didn't tilt during play for the most part last night, but I sure as hell tilted right before I signed off. Read on(some of the below written last night):

I broke my cardinal rule last night, and I really feel bad about it. Went off on some poor sot when he sucked out on me at the river on the last hand of the night. It really was horrendous, though I guess I should have asked some of the other players if they had me beat already, which is possible. I mean I really let loose too. I feel like a jackass right now (used that one in the string of names I let fly actually), but what are you going to do. I'm running bad, getting cold decked, any other euphamism you can use for just plain getting your ass handed to you when playing poker. Some of the beats will follow, but needless to say I gave back everything I made back earlier in the day. See below for the quick writeup I did on my lunch session:

Well, hit a little on the 2/4 tables at lunch today. At one point I was up 22.5 BBs, but gave all but 10 BBs away over the course of the hour. Still 10 BB/hour is a win rate I can deal with, especially on the loose 2/4 tables. After reviewing the hands I didn't make any really boneheaded mistakes either, wich is something I'm REALLY happy about. I gave away 3.5 BBs on the very last hand I played wich I could have avoided, but really, if they guy calling me had half a brain I would have won 1.5-2 BBs. I got dealt 9,9 in first position and raised. The guy directly to my left called and everyone else including the blinds folded. Flop was K,J,6. I bet, he took almost all of his time and called (must of put me on over cards that didn't hit). Turn 6, I bet he called. River 3, I bet and he called. He turns over J,3c. Surprised he didn't raise me on the river. I know this seems like a stupid play, but I read weakness (correctly) and really though I could put him off his hand. Guess not! The only other hand that really hurt was A,Ko. Raised pre-flop and got re-raised. Called it and called him down to the river. He had hit 2 pair on the flop with Q,8o and his third 8 on the turn. I had TPTK. Really should have laid it down to the bet on the turn with two 8s showing.
48 hands, 12 of which were blinds, played 17 hands, won 5. The very first hand I hit an open end str8 draw and the nut flush draw with 3 diamonds on the flop. Hit the 4th diamond on the river to take down a monster of a pot. Back above the millenium mark in the bank roll...barely.

I really feel I played a lot of good poker yesterday. I played some bad as well, but for the most part, I played by the book. I realized I'm playing a few too many small pairs from early position, but I believe that is also a little bit of tilt due to getting nothing in the way of decent hands.
So, here's the story of my last two sessions.
The second session wasn't horrible. I played more 2/4, though I must say, about half the time I was at the table this game played like a 30/60 game! I mean tight as a frog's ass, I kid you not. Of course the table decided to loosen up just as I hit A,Ko on the SB. 4 limpers plus the BB and I raised, 4 callers. Flop 10s, Kh, 7h. I bet out with my TPTK, one fold and LP raised and was called by the button, I re-raised and all three called. Turn 8s, good deal I'm thinking...no heart. I bet, and get two callers. River, 2d. All RIGHT! I'm golden I think. I bet, and get only one caller...the guy in LP who raised me on the flop. K,2 spades. King, effing deuce of spades for 2 pair. That was pretty much the only noteable hand for that session. I folded a ton of hands and hit a couple of decent pots, but that hand and a couple of brain-farts managed to leave me closing out down a couple of dollars.
Then came the third session. The soul crushing, tilt-causing, explecitive unleashing session of...yes, you guessed it...I have no discipline...3/6. I knew I was playing better, knew I was playing more disciplined than I had been and decided there was really no reason for me to stay away from 3/6. Yeah well. Maybe because my Bank Roll isn't healthy enough for the swings of 3/6 if I lost? But none of us go in expecting to lose, right? At least I can laugh about it, that says something, right?
OK, so onwards. I hit a massive pot 4 hands in when my pair of 10s mysteriously held up against 4 players who I can only assume were drawing at a spade flush. The guy that stayed with me the whole way must have had a smaller pair than me or a couple of over cards, I don't know. But nobody was more surprised than me when the pot slid my way at the end. I had an over pair on the flop, but an A and a Q on the turn and river scared me. The rest of the table checked to me on both occasions so I figured it warranted bets. Probably a questionable play, but with re-raises I still had two of the three players who followed me to the river pegged as flush chasers. Alot of folding followed with the exception of an A,K hand where I raised pre-flop. Took a stab at the pot on the flop and had to fold on the river to a bet when I got no help. Then came the last four hands of the night. They went as follows:
8d,Td in the Cut-Off. 3 limpers in front of me and I call. Button and the blinds call. Flop: 8s,10c,Qd. Checks around to LP who bets and I raise. 2 callers and the better calls. Turn the 9s. Crap, not good. Checks around to the original better who I don't figure for the str8, just not the kind of hand he would play. He bets I raise and EP check-raises. Now I'm in trouble. River is the 6c. EP bets, original better raises and I fold. EP makes it three bets and shows down J,K for the inside str8 on the turn. Original better folds, but maybe I had him misread, but either way, I'm guessing he had me beat. This hurt, mainly because it was the first good hand I'd seen in quite a while and I knew I was going to have to leave the table in a few minutes. Not a good time to be playing. I know that, yet I still stuck around for three more hands. Bad move. The next hand I dropped a couple of bets on bottom pair and a flush draw that didn't materialize. Folded 7,3o in the next hand. Then got dealt Qd,Js in MP. Good hand to finish up on I figure. EP Loose-Aggressive player raises and I call to see what ends up being a 6 way flop. Flop: 5h,Jh,Qs. This looks familiar. 1rst pos bets, L-A guy two bets and I three bet. CO cold calls the three bets and the original better and raiser call. Turn is the 4d. 1rst pos checks (I've got him on a Q), EP bets (A,Q? possibly Js or the last two Qs but he's not re-raising any of my raises) and I raise. LP again cold calls both bets as does 1rst pos. EP completes and we are off to the river. 10d. OK, this is REALLY starting to look familiar. Wondering if EP has A,K, but he checks. I bet and LP raises. F*CK! 1rst pos calls, EP folds and I make the crying call. Only to have LP show down...are you ready for this...8 f'ing, 9, f'ing offsuit! This guy cold called two bets preflop with 8,9o. Cold called THREE bets on the flop with an inside straight draw to the ignorant end of the straight. Cold called two bets on the turn when he didn't hit his draw and hit the miracle card on the river. Had I been going up against A,K or 9,10 I would have understood more, but 8,9o!!!??? Now I know I should want this guy in my game every time I play, but when you add up the 2 two-pair hands getting cracked in 4 hands and the fact that I HAD to get off the computer, I just lost it. I think I could have handled it if I would have been able to continue playing. It still would have sucked and my mind still would have been absolutely scrambled at his play, but I think I could have sucked it up and continued playing with the knowledge that I would be able to make it all back if he stuck around. Instead, I had to shut down my computer down $120 for the day after a huge beat. Again, it's all one long session. I think I'll get that tattooed somewhere prominent...
Some positive thoughts I need to focus on:
I got rivered. Plain and simple. It happens, that's poker. I lost some money, big deal.
I'm still up over $900 and all of it is someone elses money. I didn't even have to invest any of my money to get here (thanks to a 100% match deal I got when I joined Pacific).
And one more time, just for shits and giggles, IT'S ALL ONE BIG SESSION.

OK, enough of the whining and complaining. I promised answers to the quiz which I'll provide today, and I've been promising a review of Winning Low Limit Hold'em by Lee Jones (doing me alot of good, isn't it?) which I have in draft and you should see next week sometime. So, for the two people who took the quiz, here we go. The quiz came from TexasHold'em-Poker.com and was posted by Skel. Here are the answers he provided:

1) You fold because the BB is going to call you for sure. With his chip stack so low he is pot commited. You have little chance of winning with a 27. Never play a suited hand that you would play unsuited. It is not your job to eliminate people from the tournament.

2) This is an automatic all in raise. When contiplating a steal you should always be aware of the SB and BB's chip stacks. Since the BB is pot committed he is going to call. Except I threw in the 2nd awareness rule. When on the bubble you should always be aware of what has happened on the other tables. The guy with 20,000 chips on the other table is out of the money unless someone with a lower chip stack loses on this hand-for-hand. Raise all in and if either the SB(with 10,000) or the BB (with 1000) calls they are at risk for being knocked out of the money. If the BB calls and loses he will be 19th place and the 20,000 stack guy will be 18th.

Raise all in. SB and BB will fold and take the automatic payday.

When trying a steal, the cards you have do not matter at all. You might as well not even look at them. If you raise with 2h7h you are making people think you have something good. You want everyone to fold and take the pot uncontested. Its important to pick up those blinds/antes uncontested in tournaments. Don;t remove that weapon from your arsinal even if your hole cards suck.

Hand for hand is played one person away from each increase of money. Or one person away fromt he money (the bubble.) Each table plays 1 hand and waits for the other tables to complete their hand. Then each table deals another hand, then waits till each table is done with that hand, etc. It keeps going untill someone is knocked out. The reason for this is so that people dont just sit there taking up all their time and waiting for someone to be knocked out. You cant stall when it is hand for hand.

An add on to explain it a little bit more

The game is now hand for hand and someone on another table with 20,000 chips (lets call him Ja) went all in and lost. Now Ja is going to be in 19th place, which is out of the money unless soemone with a lower chip stack goes all in and loses. Why would the BB on your table now call when he knows he is guarenteed 18th place unless he calls and loses?

3) You put him all in. Ya put him to the decision. He has to call 14,000 more so he isnt pot committed. You are on the bubble, unless he has AA, KK, QQ or AK he will most likly fold. In addition I would go all in with almost anything in that position I wouldnt fold my BB as chip leader when a small fry trys to steal it.

If the roles were reversed and you were the 20,000 guy and were gonna play the pot you should go all in with your 20,000 chips preflop. Unless you have AA or KK, then you might want to slow play.

I can't argue with any of the thoughts above. The only caveats are that the people you are playing have to be just as aware of the rules and the situation as you are, otherwise the plays that they are expected to make might just change.

That's where I'll leave you all for today. Plenty of good blogging going on out there. Check the roll to the right.-JW

Advice requested.

2004-08-25T14:05:00.000-05:00

Ever get the feeling you have too much to blog about? I mean I knew I was long winded, but damn. So, the bottom of this post is a request for help. If you read yesterday's post you know that I got beat to hell on the 3/6 table. I'm looking for some insight from some of the bloggers out there on what they thought of the hands I posted. But before we get there, let me try and get some content in that is actually worth reading! ;)

Last night was the Team in Training meeting. I must say I wasn't too impressed with how they put this meeting together, but it's hard to be too critical considering why they are there. I just don't like being bombarded by people. I hate walking into stores and being accosted by sales people (strange for someone who's in sales, right?) and this was about the same. They had their sponsors there and most of them were trying to sell something, or so it seemed from a distance (I didn't get close enough, or make eye contact, to find out). We filled out our forms, spoke to some of the event people (I felt like I was in a sorority social or something), watched a quick presentation meant to jerk the occasional tear and headed out as soon as possible. Directly into one of Florida's trademark massive thunderstorms. Rain so hard you can barely see 20 feet in front of you, everybody driving with their blinkers on (makes it really easy to know when you are turning people!) and lightning bright and often enough to make it look like daytime. All the while my wife is sitting in the passenger seat with her eyes closed repeatedly commenting that if it were her driving we would be pulled over to the side of the road. What's the fun in that?
For those who don't know, Team in Training is a marathon thingy done by the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. It is basically training to walk or run a half or whole marathon, or to participate in a triathalon or Century ride (100-mile). I really want to dedicate some time into explaining why I'm blogging this so keep an eye out over the next few blogs for a detailed write-up. Suffice it to say for now that this is one of those fund-raising things and I'm contemplating putting together a Blogger/Reader Tournament to raise money. Again, keep an eye out here for an update soon.

The Mother-in-Law called last night to talk to the wife and I guess she must have figured out how much I was looking forward to Vegas...either that or the entire family has caught on to the fact that I have the poker bug, bad. We are going to visit them in October. They live in Wisconson close to the Wisconson/Illinois border and she has discovered the Potawatomi Casino. Apparently there is some world class restaurant there so we are going to be spending a day there. Yay! Anyone reading from the area? Any info would be appreciated.

There was also two poker games going on in the neighborhood last night. How horrible! Two games and I couldn't play at all. The game across the street was 3 handed NL Hold'em with the serious players. I stopped by there to say hi during their second game and watched one guy go out with a flopped set of Ts to a turned Flush. I knew Trips boy was in trouble when Flush boy check-called with absolutely no hesitation in his call. There was a possible straight on the board as well. Not sure if Trips was on tilt or what. Flush boy just doesn't bluff that much.
Before this I stopped in on the wild and wooly dealer's choice game down the street where my chips were being passed to the most obnoxious of the players (the Mouth). Not that bad of a guy I'm told, but definately earns his nickname. I stopped by there long enough to watch The Mouth choose Omaha and river the host with a full house to beat the host's turned straight. Yikes. I think the host ended up with about .75 left in front of him (chips were in nickel up to dollar denominations and the stakes were NL). Only six people, kind of expected more. I guess the rest of the crew just prefers the tournament games.

Oh well, this should leave me with enough wiggle room with the wife to play Saturday night across the street and Sunday at the blogger tourney. I hope. Speaking of tourneys, -EV left me a comment on my last tournament write up suggesting I check out Fox and the Farmer written by Chuck Thompson. A great read and I suggest it to all tourney players. Nothing earth shattering or new, but written in a way that makes it easier to understand perhaps. He suggested that I may have been too much of a farmer at the late stage of the tourney. I'm intersted in more feedback on that, anyone else want to comment? I've re-read the last part of my write up and I don't think I really backed off that much. Maybe I missed one or two steal attempts, but for the most part it seems I lost my chips on steal attempts that didn't work! Like I said, I'd appreciate more input if anybody has it to give.

OK, this will be the mucho boring part of the post, but I'm hoping some people out there with more experience will be willing to struggle through it and offer advice. Feel free to email me, or leave comments, PLEASE.

Here's a number of hands from the night before last. They are posted backwards, I'm hoping that doesn't really matter. So in other words, the first hands posted were some of the last played. The table was $3/$6 and for about half of these hands (the first half you see) the table was fairly short. 5-7 people. The table was also quite loose compared to most of my forays into 3/6. You'll see my starting hand, how much I invested, my position, and comments. Abbreviations (CO=Cut Off, BB=Big Blind, SB=Small Blind, EP=Early position, MP=Middle Position, LP=Late Postition, FOF=Fold on Flop). I've omitted any BB hands that I folded pre-flop or on the flop. Green hands are hands I won, but please look at them also. Just because I won doesn't mean I played them right.

8c,10c $3 (CO) FOF
Ks, 4h $9 (SB) All Fold, I raise, BB calls. Bet on A,8,Q diamond flop wins it.
Ac,5h $3 (EP) FOF, shouldn't have called with this hand.
Kc,Kh $33 (CO) Raise. 3 call. Board all rags, 6 on flop, 10 on river. Bet the whole way, SB stays with me the whole way to hit 6s and 10s on the river.
Qc,10c $36 (SB) Re-Raise EP raiser. 3 way pot. Flop 7c,Jc,9d. Bet all call. As, bet, fold, raised, re-raise, call. 3d Bet, only guy to hang calls all in. How many more ways could I have screwed this up?
Qs,9h $3 (LP) FOF
Jc, 7c $18 (EP) Called BB. Bad call? Open end str8 on flop, hit on river betting all the way.
Ks,3s $3 (CO) FOF
As,2h $3 (SB) FOF, maybe fold this pre flop as I'm only invested for 1/3 of the BB?
5d,8d $21 (BB) Top Pair and one diamond on Flop, Fold to raise on Turn with Ad. (No diamond hit on river.)
Ah,5s $12 (MP) Straight bluff win when rags hit on the board.
10s,Qs $21 (LP) Raise, 4 way pot. Flop, Js,Jh,8s. Bet, Raised, Re-raise. Check and call to river, no str8 or flush materialized.
Kc,8s $12 (Button) Flop 3 clubs, no 4rth.
10d,Jc $12 (MP) Call raise from EP, inside str8 on flop. Flop checked, call bet on turn (bad call). Shouldn't have called a raise with J,10o and shouldn't have chased the IS Str8 to the river.
Jh,9d $6 (LP) call BB and EP, raised, call raise (6 people to flop). FOF. Bad call in LP?
Kc,2c $15 (LP) call 6 people already in pot. Flop Ac,4s,6c. MP bets, I raise, 4 way. no club to complete. The next hand was the hand right before this one.
8h,10h $27 (Button) Board 9d,7h,8c, Qs, 7s. PP 10s wins it after I 3 bet the flop. Check to the river, called one bet on river.
Ac,4d $12 (BB) LP caller all fold. Bet all the way on rags and take pot at show down.
Qd,9h $6 (MP) Trip Qs on flop. 2nd to act, bet, no callers. Probably should have checked here, but hoping someone read it as a bluff.

This accounts for about half (the last 40) of the hands for the night. There were also two A,Ko hands were I lost $30 each hand because I couldn't let go of the hands. Discipline, it's all about discipline. I just checked how many hands I was involved with and it's a bit scary. Of the first 41 hands, I was involved in (including hands when I was one of the blinds) 24 hands. The second 41? 30 hands! Holy crap am I playing way too many hands. I can account for probably 18-20 of those hands that were blind hands, and that may be estimating low as we were short handed on some of these tables, but still!

OK, I couldn't stand it, I went back to the hand history, and out of those 82 hands I had the blind approximately 30 times. I might have missed a few, but that means out of the 54 hands I was involved with, 55% of them were some sort of blind. That makes me feel a LITTLE better. Obviously the short handed play brought that blind around quite a bit. That still means I played 29% of the hands outside the blinds...but I can't decide if that's high or not with all the short handed play. Thoughts?

So, let me know what you think please. Any thoughts are appreciated.

If you made it all the way down here thank you very much, and don't forget to comment/email! :)

Thanks-JW

Play by Play

2004-08-24T20:59:00.000-05:00

OkeeDokee. This was all done last night and I haven't edited it except for spelling and grammer (and probably missed some of that as well). I warn you, it is stream of consciousness and a play by play of the 10K guaranteed tourney last night written as things happened.
Very cool, I have my first couple of answers to the quiz. If you haven't seen it go down two posts and take a stab at it. It will stay up until tomorrow as this post is way too long as it stands. Hopefully a couple more people will give it a go. I hope this isn't too terrible to read. If you make it all the way through, thank you. Please feel free to critique the play. Just for clarification, the bold, tiny print is the tournament play by play.

Oy Vey! What a night. It's not over as I start typing this, I'm taking another shot at the 10K Guaranteed at Pacific. We'll see how it goes.
The rest of the evening has truly sucked. I played AWFUL! I sure do seem to be saying that alot!
AQo, raised it 4x bb and got a caller. A on the flop, pot size bet and I'm off with my first pot.
So back, to the crappy play I've been having. I don't necessarily think it has anything to do with the fact that I'm playing 3/6, but I can tell you that will soon stop. I'm moving back to 2/4 until I have gotten my bankroll a little more healthy.
Trying a steal with 5,8spades. No luck. Ahh, but got it with the bet on the flop.
I'm really not that far down, but I'm back below $1K as we speak and I was just over $1200 before the beginning of the day I believe. Like I said, some of this is due to some just awful play, but alot is also do to some major beats. Losing with K,K to 6,10h when the guy called me all the way to the river with his paired 6 on the flop only to hit his 10 on the river. That kind of thing was happening all night. But it's probably my fault as I was playing way too loose. I think I was getting alot of calls simply because I got caught too many times raising my four flushes on the flop (5 straight that didn't hit).
2nd hand. We'll see a flop with Q,9h. Two hearts, this could be cool...another heart or a 10 does me well. Oops, second K. Ahhh, they checked it and I river my Nut flush. And I'm getting action. Nice pot, should have raised him all in though I think.
So, baring a win or major cash in this tourney, I'm back to the 2/4 tables to rebuild. Blech. The 3/6 tables were quite crazy today. Very loose and aggressive. And I just played as shitty as I've played in a while.
Watching the WSOP. Wow, what an entertaining epsiode. So far I've seen Fischman put in his place when he was needling Doyle by another player saying, "When's your book coming out?" to Fischman. LOL! I had to pick myself off the floor on that one.
Holy crap, some guy just took down a pot with A high. And he was the one that went all in and was called! Gotta be careful here. Crap, he took the table chip lead from me to! Grrrr.
And we've seen every single crew member knocked out. That's a great thing! :)
K,Jc. 4x bb raise, two callers, yuck. No help but rag flop. Bet the pot....fold...fold. Cool.
Also watched Annie Dukes infamous K high bluff called by A high. Man did she bitch about that! I remember watching the news as it came out of the WSOP.
K,9o steal attempt. No go, one caller and no help on flop. Bluff, missed it. Didn't lose much though. Now playing 2,3d with a limp. Pretty passive so I should be able to get in to see a flop. Got in, but no help, gotta fold.
Hot little chick playing right now. A photo assistant for Maxim. Best lookin' chick I've seen yet at the WSOP.
Just put some guy in with Q,10o. Crap, came over here to type this and missed the dang show down. Pretty sure I won though. Cool. Ok, I've written about this crap before, and I complained to Pacific with no satisfaction. I just got moved tables, and guess what? I'm directly in front of the F'ing blinds! BB special with 6,3 and I'm getting raised out of it. I swear if this continues to happen I'm reaming someone's ass at Pacific. SB with 7,3s. Might actually see the flop with this if I'm not raised...bah, bad flop. Go figure! :)
Ooh...commercial for HERO with Jet Li. That looks pretty cool. Too many movies I want to see right now. AVP, Bourne Supremacy, Excorcist the Beginning, Manchurian Candidate, Village...and now Hero. Hey! Cute Maxim chick made it into the money. God, can you imagine being in the money at the WSOP? I can't. I think I'd have to post and fold for a round and take a walk just to get the jitters out of the way.
Holy crap this table is loose as hell! 8 handed and 5 to the flop! Folded K,2h. K on the flop, probably out kicked and I certainly couldn't have called that pot bet. Bah, blinds up to 50/100 and I have 1397tc, just BARELY shy of the average. 7,8s in the BB...fold around....wow, all the way around and I win the blinds. Hmm...two all ins in front of me and I have A,9o. Riased, it, got a caller, won the side pot. One player out on that hand. Now I'm on the button with 9s. Raising to 400tc. SB is tihnking about it, only has 1 90 more and he just calls. All in and he can't beat my 9s. Wow, now I have 10s! Raise in front, I call and theres three of us. This guy's small stacked to, just raised him almost all of his stack. And he folds. What a rush! Just over 2x the average now.
Have to say I like Matusow, but I'd hate to play against him. He can be abrasive for sure. Hah! They just made fun of Doyle for being so stone faced.
Just lost 300TC...called an all in that was 200 more on my bb, folded to a 300tc bet on the flop when my A,3d saw no help. A,T o. Calling an all in. TPTC, betting it. Call. ANother bet, ooooh TWO PAIR on the river, another player gone. I'm just the terminator or something today. A,Qo on the button. Come on heart beat, slow down. 2x BB raise. Blind steal. Man, you have to be careful about typing while you play, sometimes it ends up in the chat box! I think I'll go close that now as I fold my 5,7o. LOL, flop is 7,2,5 all hearts. Wonder if I should be upset. Not going to find out, min bet takes it down. I'll be re-checking this tomorrow before posting, but I hope this stream of consciousness stuff isn't god awful to read! :)
Wow, two more players all in. Some guy just hit a monster with the nut flush on the river. Had to be 3600TC in that pot. Yuck, level 5 with level 6 coming in 8:28, already at 75/150. 4605TC right now which is right about 2x the average and right about half the biggest stack in the tourney. Shouldn't have folded that A,9. Two pair on flop. 10,2d from the BB took it with a smaller two pair. That could have been fun.
4,4 in bb. No joy on the flop. Check to me, I'll bet. Anyone else got anything? Apparently, got re-raised...gotta fold. Crap.
Another player all in on the table, and one who just left himself with 204tc, all in boy doubled up. Oh well.
10,5c on the button...oops,bigger stack trying the steal, and gets it.
Q,Jo in the cutoff. Re-raising guy before me who I'm sure is on a steal. Q on the flop. 1K bet takes it. Up to 5605TC.
On a side note, I leant my chips to a neighbor for a game tomorrow and I REALLY MISS THEM! I have nothing to shuffle, nothing to twirl...I think that's why I'm typing all this out. I have nothing to do with my hands!
Awwww...cute girl from Maxim got busted out. By cute girl!
Ooooh, suited hammer, but in first position, sorry Grubby, gotta throw it. All in from button. Called by BB and MP. Good fold on my part looks like. Come on, somebody bust him, dang, all in boy wins.
Q,6o in the BB. where's the steal I wonder? No steal. No help on flop, gotta fold to min bet. SB Ac,2h. Yuck. Folding it.
Recess. Time to hit the bathroom if I don't get a good hand...A,7, steal? Good to go, welcome to the first intermission. 231 players left out of 771. Avg stack: 2677, smallest, holy crap (LOL), get this, 1! Biggest 10,768. I've currently got 5,605tc.
So, I'm wondering if this ESPN SC segment on Poker and kids playing is the first negative TV segment on poker. I was wondering how long it would take for it to rear it's uglyhead.
150/300 coming back from the break. Wow, in the first 2 hands we've dropped 11 players. Yikes.
Ah, crappy ass hand in the BB 2,5o and short stack next to me called. 3 to the flop. I'm out. Small stack takes it and almost triples up. J,8o in SB, see if I can steal back some...nope...pot size bet does it though. Had four to the straight.
Funny how tight, and at the same time loose, these tourneys can be on Pacific.
Man, this guy just called the small stacks all in with bottom pair with the flop being all of one suit! Dumbass, another short stack doubled up.
105 to go to the money and dropping pretty fast.
Good thing I got some decent hands earlier, because everything is crap now.
Can't even get anything in the blinds. 5,2o. Very cool, folded all the way to me. I like that! :)
Ope, giving back the SB to a early position raise. Another crappy hand anyway.
Stakes up to 200/400. Trying the steal with a suited Doyle Brunson (10,2). Worked.
5,2o again, what is up with that fricking hand? Cool, short stack go bye, bye. Too bad he didn't do it to my stack.
Folding...heck, don't know if I've got the right name for it, so I'll call it porn (or Big Lick, but I think that's A,Q right?): Suited 6,9
3,7o in the BB, big all in raise and two people already in the pot. Bye Bye. Big Stack called and lost. Made him a short stack. Put him all in with Q,4 on the SB and took him out.
Keeping my head above water, but can't seem to keep myself at that 2x Average Stack. Currently 7707 with average being 4751.
Another suited hammer, clubs, but the guy before me raised it. Crap. Not a good flop anyway. :)
A,Jc. 4x BB raise. No callers. Next hand 5,5 limp. All but two to see the flop. No 5. Gonna have to fold to a bet. No bet, but 3 diamonds out now. Gotta check again, somebody'll bet it. NO! wow. 600 bet, probably get called by someone with something. Ha, raised. Damn. Guy had two pair, hit his A on the river and his 9 on the flop. At least he took out the all in.
J,2 on the BB, 5 to the flop. Ugly flop. Folding to almost pot bet.
K,5 in SB. Dang, everyone wants to play now. Raise, gotta drop.
110 left.
Blinds raised and I have K,Jo on the button, couple of limpers. See if I can take it right here. 2K bet. Yep, nice pot.
Gets back what I just lost in the past few hands.
Average stack is growing fast. Around 6K now. I'm just about 2500 over that with 8457.
No idea what I folded and two 10s just hit...I really think I had a 10. Probably not.
38 to the money.
BB with J,3o. Dang BB is 500tc now. Crap. Lots to the flop and it didnt hit me. Bet, and I'm gone. Oooh, but it's an all in from a small stack, nah, can't give him more.
A,6 folding to a probable blind steal, but too risky right now.
Dang, can't catch a hand right now. And the guy to my right keeps calling the BB whenever I want to steal.
J,6s...raising it 1K. Guy to right calls. 2K on missed flop, fuck he raised me. DAMNIT. That hurt. Down to 4207tc
KQs. Raise 1K again, another call, short stack though. Wow, left himself with 501 and didn't call that when I bet it!
Blinds up again, 300/600.
27 to the money and I'm under average. Yuck. Guy to right probably gonna raise me. J,7o.
Nope, short stack before him. 929 to me. Gotta fold it. Damn.
SS to my left is all in on the BB. 9,10o. Damn, same guy all in again. Gotta fold.
Awesome, two players gone in one shot.
20 to the money.
Come on other players, drop like flies!
K,8s on button. Raising. Big stack called. No help on flop, he's betting big, damn, gotta fold again.
Down to 4357tc. Shouldn't have played that with the big stack in.
15 to the money and I'm half the average. Dang it!
Pretty much all of my tools other than all-in are gone now. I hate being at push or fold when I'm this close to the money. 11 players to get to the money. One guy on table all in. Dang it, he won the hand.
Gah! Hamstrung. A,9...probably should have pushed but...well, actually, never mind. One guy on my table gone. Nice.
BB, J,7s. Check, 7 on the flop. Also K. Dang, re-raise. Can't call with bottom pair. This guy's got my number (Guy to Right.)
Calling the BB with 2,6. 6 and Q on the flop, bet in front...gotta fold. Damn. 8 players to the money.
Q,2 Suited on the button, raise before me. Bye Bye.
The next round of blinds will eat me up. I need a hand. 1357TC, serverely short stacked.
Wow, Guy to my Right just got busted!
Q,Jo, this is it boys. 6 to the money, but I don't have a choice
NO help, biggest stack had A,9 and took it with A high. Ahhhh! So close, yet so far! And now all I get to do is try to go to sleep at almost midnight when I'm on adrenaline from this stupid tourney!
GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Good night all.

Games, Games everywhere, and not a one to play.

2004-08-24T12:30:00.000-05:00

I'm apparently having readership woes. Not a single response to my quizz?? Come on folks, scroll down to the last post and chime in.

I managed to give back 6 BBs today during lunch at a 3/6 table. Not terribly upsetting as I was up 5BBs at one point and down over 17BBs at one point, so not a bad come back. If I had had the time to really play I believe I would have been back in the black before too long. I really need to learn at some point that these lunch poker sessions are -EV. If I'm going to do them I really ought to be playing them as hit and runs or if I just can't resist at least playing at lower limits. At any rate, her are some highlights...or maybe lowlights as it were:
A,A holds up on a board of Th,2c,3c,8d,9d with 2 people following me all the way to the river with what I can only guess was a club flush draw. +8.5 BBs
A,9o getting trounced by 7,6o when he hit his str8 on the turn vs my 9 on the flop. -5.5 BBs
8,8..and this one SUCKED! 3 to the flop in an unraised pot. Flop of 2s,4h,Ac. 1rst to act checks, I check, knowing the guy to my left will bet at it even though I know (from his play) that he doesn't have the A. He bets, EP folds and I check-raise. He calls. Turn Ah. I bet out, he calls. I'm thinking, what the hell? River is the 6d. I bet out again and get RAISED! I'm sitting there thinking, WTF, I know this guy has been raising every damn A he's seen. I call and what does he turn over? 6,6. Bugger! -4.5 BBs
An embarrasing -4 BBs when I tried to bluff with 7,10o and hit my 7 on the flop.
And two hands later an even more embarrasing -5 BBs when I couldn't release K,K to a flop with an A on it. Turns out the guy really going after the pot had two of the matching 5s from the pot so guy with A,Q who would have beat me anyway lost as well.
+2 BB when my raise and subsequent bets with A,Jo scared off the one player with me after the flop (all spades).
+4 BBs when my Q,4o limp brought me four to the straight which completed on the turn.
+4 BBs when my A,7 hit two more As on the flop.
-6.5 BBs when I raised it up with Q,Js and got one caller. I bet it all the way down and hit my dang Q on the river with a 9 and a 10 on the board. The other guy followed me all the way through with K,Jc and no clubs on the board.
+5 BBs on the very next hand when my 9,5o in the BB increased on every street from a pair, two trips, to a full house.
+4 BBs when my A,K hit the TPTC on the flop and held up.
So, one suck out (two if like me, you belive K,J boy would have folded on the river without making his str8 as I do, but hey I was dominated) and some hands I really should have gotten rid of. That K,K hand was a really amateur move. Bah...I'm pretty pissed at myself about that one. Ah well, we'll hopefully make it up tonight while watching the WSOP coverage on ESPN.

I'll be missing what is likely to be one hell of a game this Wed. I've mentioned before that there are two guys in the neighborhood besides myself that play. They both host games. The guy across the street hosts the more serious games while the guy down the street has a bunch of buddies over every couple of weeks (or as it happens this time, ever month). This is the game I'm gonna miss. It truly sucks, but it's for a very good cause. My Mother-in-Law was diagnosed with Leukemia about 6 months to a year ago. She has battled her way through the chemo and made it to remission (YEAH!) and has been healthy for a few months now. At this point we just keep our fingers crossed that she makes it through the next two years with no relapses which should mean she's beaten it for good. SO, the wife has signed us up for a walk for TEAM IN TRAINING, an organization designed to raise money for leukemia treatments and cures. The intitial meeting is tomorrow night so that's where I'll be. Oh, and you can all expect to be hit up for donations soon enough! Now all I have to do is figure out how to get my lazy, fat rear-end in shape for this, way to long, walk. Speaking of which, at least I won't have to go to the gym tomorrow! So, tonight I'll be dropping off my chips at this guys house so that everyone can have fun splashing chips around tomorrow night while I'm out learning how far I have to attempt to walk without killing myself. To top it off they will be playing this game as a straight cash game and not a tourney as usuall. I've been trying to convince them to do that and they finally agree, on the night I can't make it! (wow, I really should post some of the trash-talking that's going back and forth on email for this game, it's very entertaining!)
OK, I couldn't resist, here's the last email. Maybe I'm glad I'm not going?
Alright, ladies, it’s official. We’re doing a nice, loose free-for-all tomorrow night…dealer chooses game. Bring small bills to keep the night ending confusion to a minimum, and bring alcohol. Lots of alcohol. And call in sick on Thursday, ‘cause this’ll get nuts!
Of course I could easily join in after we got home...but we'll have to see if I've managed to save up enough brownie points. I have a definite game on Saturday across the street so that would be two games in one week...that usually gets me in hot water. Of course, I have another game I am most likely going to miss as well. The guy across the street had an in for one on Saturday afternoon and had reason to believe it would be very soft. He can't play as he'll be working, but he wanted to turn me on to it. Unfortunately the buy-in is half of my current live bankroll. If only I hadn't squandered all that cash at the card rooms! Seriously though, if my Bank roll were back at it's highest point I would probably have taken a shot at this game without a second thought. Maybe I'll suggest my neighboor half stake me! Oh well...another time.

So, on to blogger news. As I'm sure most of you have heard, the MMPBT (also known as the Monty Memorial) is back on for this Sunday at 9pm. If you weren't able to sign up in time or just couldn't make the last one, go over to Guinness and Poker and sign up! It should be a sweet deal with $500 added to the prize pool by Pacific.

Back from trips are -EV and Sloe Times. -EV has some interesting write ups on his trip and his play in a recent MTT. Sloe seems to be making up for lost time with, count em, 4 substantial posts. And one of em has Eye Candy pictures! Gotta love that Vampire chick!

Boy Genius has some very interesting IM chat posted between himself and his ex-wife. Some pretty revealing stuff in there, I admire him for being able to post something that personal. It's also kind of comical as well.

Be sure to check out Helixx and his trouble at the .50/1 tables...and success at the $25 NL tables. Also, check out Up for Poker, the newest addition to the blog roll.

A quick note on the Olympics. Way to go USA in women's Beach Volleyball! It almost wouldn't matter if they won or not, they just are so cute in those non-existant bathing suits! But even so, Gold and Bronze medals, way to go girls. As to all the hooplah regarding the Men's all-around and Paul Hamm. I really have to say, everyone needs to stop their whining. I mean come on. Yes it really sucks that the Korean guy got shafted by the judges on his start value, but you know what? I'll bet every single gymnast has either been shafted or had the benefit of someone else being shafted during the olympics. The judging on this stuff is incredibly subjective and they've already show where the Korean benefited from this (to the tune of 2/10ths of a point) earlier...SO STOP YOUR BITCHING! That goes double for the Russians. Good god but that Khorkina woman is a bitch! Somebody told me she's a model? Gah, I don't know for what but I don't think so. Would explain her attitude though. But to come out with a statment that she didn't win because she wasn't American?! She thinks she was robbed...did anyone show her the tape of her last performance? OK, enough of that. For some real Olympics coverage, go over to Poker on Film. His is much more entertaining than mine.

OK, 'nuff for now. Check out that quizz below and let me know what you think. And don't forget to sign up for Pacific Poker!
JW

Bloggers Scorned...

2004-08-23T11:01:00.000-05:00

Well, as you already know if you've read my previous post, the Monty Memorial was "nozzed up" last night. I almost fee sorry for the folks at Pacific...almost. The blogger community seems a pretty volatile group, and not very forgiving. Don't get me wrong, I'm as pisses as anyone about what happened last night, but I've played on dozens of poker sites and have run into problems with every one I've played at. I have to imagine that the rest of the community can say the same. It's really just a shame that Pacific had to pick this particular tournament to screw up on. It absolutely amazes me that they confirmed the tourney to Iggy just yesterday morning and still couldn't get it up. It seems obvious that they figured out that the group that was to play at this tournament were not going to let things lie as I received the following (as it turns out form) email in response to email to support last night:

Dear Member/Blogger,

Please accept our sincerest apologies for the non-start of the Monty
Memorial Tournament as organized by ?Iggster?.

I can assure you that this matter is being fully reviewed by our
technical department, and you will be contacted by our Promotional
department regarding this matter as soon as possible. We do appreciate
that this has caused great inconvenience to yourself and the other
players, and will be taking this into account.

Your satisfaction is our top priority and we are always willing to
listen and understand our member's needs and concerns. We value your
time and thank you for your patience.

Regards,
Kim
Member Support Representative
Pacific Poker

Not very comforting, but at least it was an almost immediate response isntead of their standard form, "we've recieved your email and get back to you" response. I am still hopeful that Pacific will do something to correct this grievance. And yes Heafy, I'm aware I still have banners for Pacific up on the site. I still hold that despite it's faults, of which there are quite a few, it is a very fishy site that can be very profitable.

Speaking of Heafy, go check out his site Poker on Film. He's got a great style of writing and his reads are always entertaining. Plus, he refers to his girlfriend as a "distraction" when it comes to poker. Gotta love it. Further, he's a fellow Princess Bride fan as can be seen by his post on 8/19/04. In response, I offer one of the best dialogues from that movie. It's probably not nearly as funny in writing but it's absolutely priceless in the movie:

Inigo Montoya: You are sure nobody's follow' us? Vizzini: As I told you, it would be absolutely, totally, and in all other ways inconceivable! No one in Guilder knows what we've done, and no one in Florin could have gotten here so fast. --Out of curiosity, why do you ask? Inigo Montoya: No reason. It's only... I just happened to look behind us and something is there. Vizzini: What?! Probably some local fisherman, out for a pleasure cruise, at night... in... eel-infested waters...

[In the boat in the morning] Inigo Montoya: He's right on top of us. I wonder if he is using the same wind we are using.

[Vizzini has just cut the rope The Dread Pirate Roberts is climbing up] Vizzini: HE DIDN'T FALL? INCONCEIVABLE! Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

I still crack up every time I see this film.

So, I promised a recount of Friday nights poker. When the wife came home she decided to take a nap before we went out to a going away party later that night. I took the opportunity to jump on a 3/6 table with somewhere between an hour and an hour and a half to play. Well, 22 hands and 27 minutes later I was 6 dollars shy of doubling up and decided it was better to pull a hit and run now than play till it was time to go and risk losing some of what I had already won. I don't recommend the hit and run tactic much, I'm more of a "play the hours, not the results" kind of guy, but hey, I needed a nice little pop! Some highlights from that session:
I only wish I could see what this guy played. I'm in MP with Kc,Qd and raise it. Amazingly I get 6 calls. This from a table where you could actually blind steal now and then! Flop comes 6d,Qs,4s. It checks to me and I bet out. The player to my right raises and is called in two places. I make it three bets and the guy next to me caps it. Turn is the Kh. I check, he bets and I check-raise. He calls. River is a 6c. I've put this guy on a flush draw or a Q with J or A kicker so I'm hoping it wasn't Q,6. I bet and he calls. Whew, no 6. Wish I could tell you my read was right, but he folded. 18.5 Big Bet pot. That was my last hand. The first one was almost as good. J,2h on the button with a "enter the game" blind posted. 2 people in EP call the blind, I check, SB folds and BB raises, we all call for a 4 way pot. Flop, 3h, Jc,2s. BB bets and is called. I two-bet it and everyone calls. Turn is the Qc. BB bets, two folds and I raise. BB calls. River is the Ah. Yuck. A,Q is a possibility for the BB but I'm guessing not as he hasn't re-raised me so when he bets out I raise. He calls and my two pair hold up. Again, really wish I could have seen his cards. 15.5 BB pot. I only won 3 other pots, but I didn't lose much in between and those two pots pretty much made the session.
I also changed my mind last night. I just couldn't not play some so I jumped on a couple of $10+$1 SNGs. The first one was ugly as I was out during the first level. I was doing ok when my A,5o (why did I play this stupid hand again?) ran into A,J. My last hand was an All-In semi-bluff with 5,3 spades when the board put up two spades. I got called by A,x spades and neither of us hit. The next one was much better, though it took forever! People really get tight when it gets close to the money. This worked wonderfully for me. I tried a steal with 10,3o and it worked. I then got hit in the face for the next 5 or 6 hands and went from a medium stack to chip leader. Steals and raises pretty much worked flawlessley for a good 5 or 6 orbits before one of the shortstacks managed to double up a couple of times redistributing the cash on the table. When it got to be heads up I had a slight chip lead but got smacked in the face a couple of times by some all-in re-raises that I couldnt' call. The hand that sealed my fate was As,10c. On the button the other guy raised it to 1K (blinds of 250 and 500) and I re-raised him another 500 (I thought the stupid raise button would make it 2K but oh well). He called it with 5,3c. He hit his 5 on the flop, I hit nothing and didn't make a big enough move on the pot to make him go away. He hit his three on the river and I doubled him up. Oh well, second place left me with an $8 profit for the night.

OK, one more little poker tid-bit for you before I sign off for today. I came across this at one of my usual hauts and I will give credit to who came up with it after you all have had a chance to weigh in with your thoughts. This is a quiz relating to tournament play. In each case teh number of chips mentioned for each player are after any blinds have been posted. This should get some interesting responses from the blogger community considering the occurance of the Hammer in the first two hands.

1) No Limit Holdem Tournament
Blinds 1000/2000
19 people left and 18 get paid
You are chip leader with 120,000.
You are on button and have 2h7h. All fold to you. SB has 10,000 chips and BB has 1000. What do you do?

2) No Limit Holdem Tournament
Blinds 1000/2000
19 people left and 18 get paid. Play is hand for hand and someone on the other table with 20,000 just went all in and lost.
You are chip leader with 120,000.
You are on button and have 2h7h. All fold to you. SB has 10,000 chips and BB has 1000. What do you do?

3) No Limit Holdem Tournament
Blinds 1000/2000
19 people left and 18 get paid
You are chip leader with 120,000.
You are the BB and have KhQh. Middle position player with 20,000 chips raises to 6,000 preflop. All fold to you.

What do you do?

Let me know what you think. I'll post the answers given by the creator of the quiz later. In the meantime, I owe an apology to the Poker Prof as he somehow got deleted from my Blog roll. Also, make sure to check out F-Train with his reviews of NYC poker clubs. Be careful though, he may be a snitch as one of the clubs he reported on got closed down two days later! ;)

Here's hoping the Monty Memorial gets reschedules and goes off without a hitch, and at a time and place when I can participate!!
UPDATE:
Pacific has made good. They are crediting everyone who was registered with $25 and they are going to add $500 to the prize pool for the re-scheduled Monty Memorial. I'll have to check with Iggy, who knows, maybe we can get some more people in on the reschedule. At any rate, here's the response I got from Pacific:

Dear Jason,

This is Mike Herea, the Promotions Manager here at Pacific Poker.

I would like to humbly apologize for the non-appearance of the
guinessandpoker.com tournament which was scheduled for August 22nd 2004. We
experienced unforeseen circumstances which have stopped us from starting
this event. I would like to ensure you however that we are doing our
best to make sure that there will not be a repeat.

I’m aware that you were scheduled to play in this tournament and as a
gesture of goodwill and to show how much I value you, our member; I have
credited your account with a $25 bonus – so don’t wait logon today and
play.

The good news is that the guinessandpoker.com tournament will be
rescheduled and you will be updated – more details to follow.

Again please accept my sincere apologies and thank you for your
anticipated understanding in this matter.

Good Luck at the tables and play well.

Yours faithfully,

Mike Herea
Promotions Manager
Pacific Poker

So, as I had hoped, Pacific did just about what I expected to make things right. They basically made our reschedule a free-roll and added money to the prizepool. I'll check with Iggy to see if he is re-opening the registration for the tourney once we have a reschedule date.

-JW

Absolutely Ridiculous

2004-08-22T20:25:00.000-05:00

What a joke. The powers that be at Pacific Poker have managed to completely SCREW the Monty Memorial Tournament. Check out Iggy's site for the scoop, but I'm guessing Pacific will be getting skewered in the up coming blogs over the next day or two. I can't even begin to explain how immensely pissed off I am at this moment. Not only did I avoid poker (mostly, more to come on my one session of the weekend tomorrow) so that I would have a little leeway with the little lady, I managed to get myself even deeper in the doghouse with her because of this tournament. That's right, my wife is pissed off at me for a poker tournament that WON'T EVEN HAPPEN!!!! Hell, that's half the reason I'm blogging right now. I don't want to go into the other room and have to say, "the tournament was cancelled."
Here's the scoop. The wife is a fan of Last Comic Standing. I personally can do with or without it. It wasn't my favorite show. I like stand up comedy, but the show was just a bit cheezy for me. So at any rate, the comedians from LCS have a tour going right now and they were at a local club this past week. Well, she decides on Thursday (I think, maybe Wed?) to see if she can get tickets. She asks me if we can go Saturday, "or is that off limits" (a reference to the local home game usually held on Saturdays). Like I said...she's been pretty irritated at me. I tell her, no, no problem. I didn't know if there was a game, but wasn't planning on going anyway as I had the MMPBT going tonight. Well of course every F'ing show was sold out except the one tonight at 9:30. To make a long story short, the wife became extremely peeved when I told her I needed to think about it as I had this tourney planned. Apparently I'm not aloud to, "think about it", as I knew how important seeing this thing was too her. I did? So, now that she's probably been planning on a way to kill me in my sleep for the past few days, Pacific goes and SCREWS ME EVEN FUTHER! Right along with every other person that signed up for this thing.
BAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
It's 9:38pm...if any of the bloggers out there are reading, I may sit at the 10K guaranteed since I'm staring at their damn lobby anyway. And since I just cashed in enough bonus points to pay for the entry. That's right my readers, I've wagered over $15,000 cumulative dollars on this site. Figure out how much that is in rake. I've been meaning to head over to Party Poker. Looks like I might be doing it sooner than I planned and with my entire BR instead of just a couple hundred bucks.

Disregard last comment. I'm going to bed. Screw giving Pacific any money tonight. Here's a transcript of my email to their support for what it's worth. We'll see how they respond. I'd like to hope they will make things right:

I absolutely can not understand this. I logged on at
about 8:40 to wait for a tournament that has been
planned for more than three weeks to start, only to
grow slowly confused and aggravated when I couldn't
find the tournament.
I have been trying to get more and more people to sign
up on this site, have signed up for an affiliate
account which is now set up on my personal site. I
have been telling people over and over again why they
should be playing at Pacific. And now this?
I can only imagine that due to the "Poker Blogger"
community you had over 50 new real money signups over
the last week to two weeks. How is it possible that
EXTRA attention was not payed to making sure that this
tournament would go off without a hitch, I wonder?
I would greatly appreciate a detailed explanation as
to what happened with this tournament. I would also
highly recommend some form of compensation to the 75
people who made the effort to set aside time in their
schedules for this tournament, only to have that time
wasted.
Please take this seriously. The group of people who
set up this tournament take online poker very
seriously and have played on most of the sites out
there.
From my previous dealings with your customer support
team I have faith that you will do the right thing. I
simply wish more effort had been taken to make sure
things had proceeded without a hitch in the first
place.

JW

TGIF

2004-08-20T07:42:00.000-05:00

Happy Friday all! I'm in a much better mood today, but have no real poker content to blog about. Agh! How awful! I've taken this week as an almost off week. I'm trying to finish up Winning Low Limit Hold'em by Lee Jones and in general trying to just take a step back. I also just picked up the Bourne Legacy. Yesterday I said that it was by Robert Ludlum, wich is of course incorrect as Mr. Ludlum is no longer with us. Eric Van Lustbader has picked up the torch for the Bourne series. I read some of his Eric Linnear books ages ago, specifically The Ninja and White Ninja if my memory serves. It appears that he has now moved into the pure fantasy realm with most of his books and as that is a genre I read a little of I guess I'll have to check them out. So I've got a few other things to keep me busy right now.
There are a couple of reasons for me dialing it back.
First, I want to try to gain some ground back on the home front. I've really ticked the General off on the poker front in a couple of ways, so hopefully staying away until the Monty Memorial (sorry if you haven't signed up yet, the cut off was yesterday) will help the situation some.
Second, I wanted to "recharge" the poker battery before the tourney.
Third, I really needed to take stock of what was going on with my poker game. I've not done so well this month, that much I knew, but I wanted to take a look at why. A trip over to Poker Charts and a look at my poker-log helped out. As I think I mentioned, I've been quite remiss in keeping track of my play recently (other than on this blog of course). So yesterday I spent about 10-15 minutes logging all my recent play in to Poker Charts and writing it into the log. What I found? A few things:

I'm not down for the month, I'm actually up about $35. A negligable amount, but up none-the-less.
I completely switched (lost?) focus this month. Last month was almost strictly $2/$4 limit. This month started out as $3/$6 limit month, but quickly turned into MTT and SNG month. I've played maybe 3-4 sessions of $3/$6, a couple of $2/$4 sessions and the rest has all been tourney play. This has obviously been nowhere near as productive as my month of $2/$4 limit play, but I enjoy tourney play and wonder if I was making up for playing so little of it last month. Either that or I am just an undisciplined twit. I'll let you decide.
I could have done quite a bit better with some self-discipline. The other nights Tournament fest, jumping buy-ins willy nilly is a great example, as was my dropping an entire $2/$4 buy-in in the space of 30 minutes because I wasn't in the right frame of mind to play correct poker. I believe discipline is one of the hardest traits to aquire, but one of, if not THE most important to have if you are to succeed at poker in the long run. We all have our minor slip ups along the way, and maybe that is what this is. But I still need to treat it as a lesson. The quicker I learn that undisciplined play loses REAL, HARD EARNED cash, the better off I'll be. Obviously we try to think of our bankrolls in a non-monetary way for most poker situations. This is a case where it helps to remember that, hey, that's real money in there moron!

*WooHoo! Nothing like a big order to brighten up the day! Sorry, I know none of you care, but I'm in sales and it's been a while since I've had a pop like this. At least it's in tiny print, so you can just skip over it! :) *

So, a little introspection is good for the soul, right? The month is well over half over and I think I'm going to cut back the poker for the rest of the month, have fun at the Monty Memorial and see if I can't eak out a slightly positive month by the time we hit the 31rst. I know that sounds entirely results oriented, but really it's not. BTW, for a good reminder of what that topic can do see the ICP's recent post. If I end up even or down some for the month it's not going to tilt me or anything, but obviously I would rather end on an up note. It's all one big session so in the scheme of things this month isn't going to matter all that much, which is why I can take the rest of the month easy and not really focus on "grinding out" the Big Bets, so to speak. Being that I have a real job that pays the bills and keeps me covered on the medical side, I don't have to worry that this month is looking like it won't be a substantially money-generating month. That's a good thing as I don't believe my game is anywhere near where it would need to be to do this as a living (nor do I believe it every really will be). For someone on the other side of this equation, check out Lord Geznikor's site. That man has some cohones, let me tell you. He's been doing the pro-poker thing for about 7 months now and is struggling currently, but God bless him for having the courage to take a shot.

Bah, I really need to learn more HTML. I hate that when I use the bullet list feature that the rest of my post is double spaced when ever I hit the enter key.

LOL. I've gotten quite a few people at my place of work interested in Poker and just listened to one of them who I refered to Pacific tell me how the site is rigged as he got repeatedly sucked out on at the river last night losing all of the money that Pacific had given him. Gotta love Low-Limit poker.

I'll leave you with an interesting hand from my last 2/4 session. This was one of my last hands the other day and I think it is one of those that really puts low-limit into perspective. I don't think I played it all that well, but I'll let you guys chime in on that aspect:
I'm in UTG+2 with Jh,Qd. Folds to me and I limp in expecting (from the way the table has been playing) that everyone else will probably also limp and I'll be able to take my Q,Jo into a community pot. No such luck as it folds to MP and he raises. Everyone else folds and I call the raise.
Flop: 6s,Kd,Qh
I check, MP bets and I call as I'm putting him on two high cards, just not sure if one was the K.
Turn: 3s I check, MP bets. I raise to see if he has the King and MP re-raises. Ok, at this point I'm probably dead, but I'll call and check/call it down to see what happens.
River: 5d. I check, MP checks and I show my pair of Queens.
Unfortunately, Pacific doesn't have any way for you to see the other player's hand if he folds and that is just what MP did. I can only guess A,Jo or A,x maybe A,6, but wow. I just couldn't believe that I won this hand.
What do you think? I had been watching this guy and he was pretty loose-aggressive. Other than that, I didn't have a big read on him.

*warning, religious content*Ok, one last thing, and this has been added after the original post. I just read this on Yahoo news and it truly BURNS MY REAR! I consider myself Christian, but I'm not the biggest fan of organized religion (I may or may not get into this at another time, this is a poker blog after all). I just have a problem with being told how I can worship, or that I have to do this or that to be a good Christian. I have other hang ups with religion in general, but they would make for a looooooooooooong post that I doubt any of you would care to read. So anway, check out this article. Absolutely ridiculous. I challenge anyone to defend this position.

Thanks for reading-JW

Bah Humbug.

2004-08-19T11:01:00.000-05:00

Not much to post today folks. I'm in a major funk of a mood, pissed off about all manner of things, none of which I believe you would be interested in. Not to mention none of you need to be reading things that will bring you down, right?
On the positive side, I managed to win back my losses from the day before yesterday during a quick lunch session yesterday. I actually ended up plus $10 or so. Nothing spectacular, just some ABC poker at $2/$4 with a little help from the deck.
Right now, I'm going to go play some micro-limit Omaha just to blow off some steam. Love the game, I just need to get better at it.
As to some real content, check out the blog role over to the right where you can find some bloggers who might actually have something to say today.
Before I go, let me get the obligatory pimpage in for the Monty Memorial Tournament over at Pacific Poker (sign up through one of my banners, please!). Sign up and play folks, it should be a great time.
Here's hoping you are all having a better day than I am. -JW

*EDIT*
So...no Omaha. Nobody was playing in the micro limits so I headed over to the .05/.10 Texas Hold'em table. Finished up $1. Amazing what people play on those tables. Quite amusing.
At any rate, here's the real reason I decided to come back and add to the post. I was browsing the Yahoo News section and came up with this article. I'm not sure whether to laugh or call my local representative. I mean come on, if I was single maybe I'd be interested in this...assuming I got a chance to "test drive" the new merchandise *wink*, but I'm not happy as it is with how my tax money is spent. This certainly doesn't improve my attitude on this issue. Oh well, it's worth a chuckle, so check it out.
-JW
*EDIT*
OK, last edit, I promise. Go check out Sloe's page, good stuff. He get's special mention for having the new Bourne book by Robert Ludlum up. I love that series and had NO IDEA there was another book out. I'm inbetween books so it's perfect timing. Time for a run to the local book store!
-JW

2004-08-18T07:13:00.000-05:00

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Yep, that's me. A complete moron. Somebody explain to me how, without having my state of mind altered by any legal or illegal substances, I could manage to be this stupid. I managed to drop my bankroll below the magical $1K mark last night. And I actually won a SNG. Why is it I couldn't be happy with that win? Am I a masochist...or sadist...whichever one likes hurting themselves? Here's how it went down folks:
I sat down at
Pacific Poker last night having decided to play some SNGs during the WSOP coverage. I really enjoy tournament play but hadn't done much, with the exception of a couple MTTs recently. I didn't really want to be up as late as I would need to be to play the $10K guaranteed MTT so hence the SNGs.
My first tourney was a $10+1 buy-in NL game. Pacific starts you with 800tc in these lower buy ins by the way. No relevance to the story, just to let you know. I'm pulling up the hand history right now, just so I get this truly ugly hand correct. It really is mind-numbingly depressing when you open the hand history for a SNG and find one freaking hand to look at. Yep, loyal readers, that's right. I went out on the very first freaking hand. Our hero is UTG and dealt T,J hearts. I raise the minimum and get three calls, one being the BB. Good deal, as is usually the case, the $10+1 are showing their usuall weak-tight structure. The flop comes 8c,9c,7h. What a flop! I don't like the clubs so I bet the pot (170tc) to shut out any draws. The button immediately goes all in for an additional 600 and it's up to me. I decide I can't lay this hand down and start praying for no more clubs figuring this guys on a semi-bluff. The turn is a Js, which might counterfiet me, but isn't too ugly. The river is a nasty little 3 of clubs. The button turns over 10,J clubs. Ouch! Yeah, he was on a flush draw...a straight flush draw with a made straight! Yikes. I'd appreciate some comments on this. Anyone that would have laid this down?
Next, I jump right back in the saddle to another $10+1 SNG and win it handily. I really just handled table the entire way. Blind steals, bluffing at the right time. Everything just seemed to fall into place. These tables really are a joy to play. For the most part you know when someone has a hand if you can manage to make it past the first few levels as they are much tighter than most low buy-in SNGS.
So, what do I do? Turn off the computer and enjoy the rest of the WSOP coverage? Why would I do that? Play another $10+1 SNG? Well hell, I just won $28 right? Well, that must mean it's time for me to try the $30+1 SNG, right? Suuuuuuuuuuuuuure! That sounds like just the ticket! OK, children...can you say, Second Hand? Who reading this would not throw away K,Qo to a large raise? Eh? Anyone else stupid enough to play this? Here's how it went down: I'm dealt Kc,Qh in MP in the second deal of the tournament. UTG raises the min. He did this the first hand as well and had nothing. I'm sensing a pattern and decide to put him to a test and re-raise. I'm ok up to this point...no big deal. It folds to the CU who calls and the button raises it to 275tc. It folds to me and here's where I some apparently underpaid, overworked peon inside my head decided to flip the "Poker Common Sense" lever to off. I decide, for some reason, that he probably doesn't have that great of a hand and is playing position so I re-raise him to 490. OK, so maybe Bill (that's what the patch says on the greasy smock of the underpaid peon) only moved the lever down to the "Low" setting before, but that didn't stop him from throwing it to the "Off" position as soon as he saw me make this move. UTG folds and the button immediately moves all in. At this point I'm just pissed at myself. It's the second hand of a SNG and I've gotten myself into a horrible position again. I should just fold this no matter what, but as early as it is I still have no idea what this guy has so I call (actually leaving me with 10 chips). I can say I got 3.15-1 on my money, but I have no idea if that's good or bad pre-flop. I CAN say that it didn't matter worth a damn one way or the other. I should have folded period. It was too early to throw that much money around, especially with K,Qo. *Excuse me while I ask my coworker if my gills have receeded yet.* As I've mentioned before, Pacific Poker doesn't flip over the cards until the board is dealt, so there was a slight minute of relief as the flop brought me 4d,Qd,7d to at least give me a Q. The turn is a 6c and the river a 3s. At this point I'm praying the button had A,Ko. No such luck as he turns over a pair of black Aces. I manage to quintuple up on my next hand when I got dealt 6s and went all in with my 10 chips hitting a 6 on the flop for a set. Two hands later I go in with A,3 one hand before the BB and lose. 5 hands and I'm actually down for the day after having won.
Well, my friends, the stupidity does not end here. Figuring this was a fluke, knowing I had made a stupid mistake and knowing I could play better I went right back to the $30+1 tables. Now, for the record, let me say that, inexplicably, the $30+1 tables are WAY looser than the $10+1 tables. I'm not sure why, but the play at these tables seems pretty horrendous (discounting my play obviously;) ). So, I make it to the 8th hand (already one person gone at this point by the way) in this SNG and get Ac,Kh. in the SB. There are 2 callers to the blinds and having seen that small raises are not getting respect I bump it to 220tc. The BB folds and the other two players call. The flop is Ks,3s,Jd. Again wanting to shut out the flush draw I throw in for 300tc only to see both players AGAIN call. The turn is the Qd and I move in the rest of my chips. The player to my immediate left calls and the other guy goes all-in over the top wich is of course called by the player to my immediate left. The river is the 2d. The player to my immediate left turns over Ah,3d!!!!! This IDIOT calles two all-ins with a one sided straight draw with two flush draws on the board! I'm just about ready to do a tap dance at this point as the main pot is 2960tc which will give me a huge chip lead early on. Then the LP guy turns over Qs,Jh for two pair. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH! Somebody tell me if I'm right in believing that neither of these idiots (I know the guy with A,4 was an idiot) should have been in this pot after the flop? An 11xbb raise pre-flop and a half-pot size (only one of the players (the idiot) could have bet that pot comfortably without simply going all in as we started with 1K) on the flop. How on earth did Q,J guy rationalize this call I wonder? Thoughts please. I'm guessing I should have slowed down when the Q hit, but I'm really not sure.
OK...so, surely my reservoir of stupid has run out by now, right? WRONG! I sat down next at a $50+5 5 person Pot limit table. My only saving grace is that had it not taken so long for my registration to actually register I would have immediately clicked the "unjoin" button. I immediately, having clicked the Join button realized that I was doing something completely stupid but didn't get the chance to get out before the tournament filled. This one lasted 17 hands. I simply could not get any respect for any of my raises and I couldn't hit anything with those raised hands. I lost a good chunk on the third hand when my Q,Jo hit a Q on the flop with an A and another player raised me out of the pot. Later, A,Ko killed me when a J paired on the turn and I had to drop the hand: bet pot preflop, one caller. Flop 9,6,J and I take a pot stab at it hoping the other guy didn't hit and get re-raised. Should have dropped here, but decided to call to see if I could hit on the turn. That has to be one of the stupidest moves I make way too often. J on the turn and I had to lay it down. Very next hand I'm dealt K,9s in the sb and I complete the bet. BB checks and we see a three way flop of Kc,10h,9c. Two pair. I'm back in the game, right? Checks to me and what do I do? Hold on, let me check with my guy down at the bottom of the stupid reservoir...he assures me there's plenty left, so why don't we check this? The turn is a 4c. Ironically, this card could have saved my ass. Instead I bet out, get one fold and a raise. I go all in (of course) and get called by the guy who floped the nut straight with K,Qo. The river is a 2s and I'm down $89 for the night. Only 15 Big Bets at my current limit (3/6) but it brings be below my comfort zone at that limit, so I'll be dropping back to 2/4 for a bit. God, but my nads hurt.
Onto some less depressing stuff. As I mentioned, I spent the time in between getting my head handed to me at the SNGs watching the WSOP on ESPN. The folks over at TexasHold'em-Poker.com have an interesting thread going on the Most Annoying Players at the 2004 WSOP. I'm sure there were some people to add to that list last night. I don't remember his name, but there was one kid that was just an ass the entire time. The most entertaining moment, though, had to come from, who else, Phil Helmuth. He was, as he usually is, un-fashionably late again. But the best Helmuth moment had to come from his interview, when ESPN was talking about his "poker brat" and the fact that he was trying to change it. Phil then actually manages to say that he thinks he is turning it around and getting "a reputation as a Gentleman of Poker"! Oh lord how I laughed. I don't know which SNG that was during, but unless it was during the win I think I'm going to blame the loss on my out of control laughing at this remark. Wow...just Wow.

I also added some more links over on the side.
Poker Grub is one I've been reading for a while, I apologize for not getting it up sooner. Always good stuff there.
Also, check out Anisotropy. Great writing style and good content. By the way, the word means: exhibiting properties with different values when measured in different directions. Wrap your melon around that one.
Don't miss out on Lord Geznikor's site either. He's recently (February) taken the plunge at trying poker for a living and has some very interesting commentary going. Check out his last few posts for an explanation of deus ex machina. Show me one person out there who can seriously say they haven't dreamed of deuse ex machina saving the day and I'll show you a liar. I've been day dreaming these types of scenarios my entire life, just never knew there was a name for it. He also get's a shout out as, though he's alot farther along, we have the same general feeling regarding our work (when he had a job that is). I find myself walking into my office day in and day out wondering how I'll make it through the day...LG finally decided he couldn't and took on the world of professional poker. Look him up.
HDouble is finally back from Vegas with a miny trip report. Also, as always, if you have't already, get your arse over to Iggy's and Pacific Poker to sign up for the Monty Memorial Blogger and Reader tournament. Come on folks, sign up for Poacific, drop a little cash in there, get the match and pull your money back out! That's right, Pacific Poker will let you play with their money. You have to bet it a bunch to pull it out, but who cares, it's free money? So go sign up, put in a little money so you have the $20 for the Monty Memorial and send your user name and email to Iggy! Not to mention you can come be part of the group of people kicking my but in just about every game I play!!!
Here's hoping my game is in better shape than last night for the Blogger tourney!-JW

Holy crapload of blogs Batman!

2004-08-17T07:52:00.000-05:00

Seriously! How on earth does everyone keep up with all of them! I mean, it's not like I'm trying to keep track of everyone. I only keep track of those that grab my interest. There are so many people out there posting great stuff every day, it really makes one self-conscious about one's own blog, ya know? Oh well, I guess I should see it as a reason to make sure my blog is up to par with everyone else. And at least for today, I'm going to do that by supplying you with a bunch of reading! Seems lazy I know, but dang, it's alot of work keeping up with all these bloggers! So with no more ado, here's a bunch of reading, and a bunch more blogs added to the roll:

SirFWALGMan: Always a good read. He has a special place on this blog, as he's the one guy I know who has the same problems with his significant other when it comes to poker. Hopefully I can get enough posts up to make it to his "Readers List"!
Uwannabet?: Here's hoping he makes it to the "beginner's table".
Guinness and Poker: As always, a must read. There's a great Uber-post from yesterday, and today he has the attendance list for the Monty Memorial Blogger/Reader Tourney. If you haven't joined yet, get your but on over to
Pacific Poker and email Iggy with your screen name! He also has a great post of an interview with one of my poker idols, Daniel Negreanu.
Boy Genius: Gotta love this guy. Check out some interesting thoughts on porn for a giggle or two. Also, what's with all the bloggers being on this music kick lately?
-EV: Always good reads. Check him out before he heads off to Vegas. This guy is a posting machine, and I admit I have some catching up to do.

And now for the new (to me) blogs. How have I been missing some of these guys (and gals)?

Bad Blood: Check out his write up on a recent $5 MTT over at Party Poker. Good stuff.
OJ's Poker Blog: Another dealer/player. Always an interesting perspective. I don't know about the rest of you, but I truly enjoy hearing about poker from the "other side" of the table.
Poker on Film: A newer blog from Down Under with some good stuff going on. A great read on his latest tourney. He was looking for a deck of cards from each of the following casinos: Bellagio, MGM Grand and Mirage (the three from Ocean's 11). He may have already gone the Ebay route, but if you can help him out, let him know.
F-Train: Not sure how it took me so long to get around to this one. His last post is a good one on posting without embellishment. Also, keep an eye out for his upcoming review of NYC card rooms. Also, if you play SNGs, check out his previous post for some great strategy.
And last, but definately not least, Stripper by Night: She gets on the list just because of the title of her blog. It also doesn't hurt that the third blog I read said, "shooting stuff seems like a fun time." That's right folks, yours truly is a gun nut. So, check out Taylor for some great commentary on her job, and her poker prowess. She plays much higher stakes than I do and I'm not sure if I covet a look at her or her bankroll more!

OK, so there you go. The poker roll off to the right grows and grows. Yikes. And I am sure there are plenty of great blogs out there that I am still missing.

On to a serious subject regarding poker. There is an ugly law going to the Senate soon known as the Internet Gambling Funding Prevention Act. A mouthful, but basically it is aimed at keeping us from funding online "gambling" sites. Be sure to check out www.profreedom.com for a form letter to send to your representatives. Don't sit on your hands on this folks, this could be UGLY!

Is anyone watching the Olympics? I saw an article on Yahoo saying that viewership was down, you can look at the seats in the stadiums and see that there is no one there watching live...whatever happened to the Olympics? Hmmmm...well, maybe it started when they added BADMINTON as a Friggin' Olympic sport! I kid you not. I flipped over this morning before heading out to work and Badminton was on. The Koreans had just whipped the Chinese. Really kind of makes you sympathise with Full Tilt's bid to bring Poker to the Olympics, doesn't it?(Sorry, can't find the web site for that, they may have taken it down. Speaking of, I finally got my USA Poker Team hat and T-Shirt last night. Cool stuff. Took long enough though.
And speaking of taking long enough, where in the burning flames of hell is the next issue of All-In Magazine?! Please, if you know anything about this, post a comment or send an email. Am I the only sucker to actually subscribe to this rag?
I truly wish I had some decent poker content to blog about people, but other than trying to finish up Winning Low Limit Holdem by Lee Jones, there just isn't anything poker related going on over the past couple days. I hope to play some tonight while watching the WSOP on ESPN...we'll see. I've hit a major stand still recently. I documented a win (finally) in my live game in my last post, but my online bankroll has been hovering between $1K and $1200 all month. And I've even had the help of a referal from a friend ($50). I guess it's to be expected, but I had a meteoric rise in the bankroll over the first 3 weeks in July and since then it's slowed to a crawl. I'm pretty sure I'm up for the month (I've also been remiss in keeping track of my stats), but not by much. Oh well, hopefully back to the grind tonight and I'll have to work on getting my stats updated. Letting them lapse is nothing but lazeness and I think it's actually hurt me. I do better when I'm keeping track of exactly where I'm at. It makes me truly examine things when I have a bad day and it keeps me motivated when I'm on a roll.
That's all I've got for now. I hope you enjoy the links above and the rest of the drivel I've thrown against the wall above. Don't forget the Monty Memorial Tournament and please sign up at
Pacific Poker if you haven't already.

Good Blogging to you! -JW

Where's the wind?

2004-08-15T20:09:00.000-05:00

*warning, spoiler info on first episode of Poker Superstars Invitational included*
Well, no posts for a couple of days, but I can blame (almost) lots of poker and Hurricane Charley for that. No I didn't get hit by the Hurricane, hence the "(almost) lots of poker". We were supposed to get Charley shoved right up the throat of Tampa Bay but at the last moment he decided to take a right hand turn and hit land in Fort Meyers. This prompted my wife to wander over to the window Friday, repeatedly muttering, "where's all the wind?".
Thursday was spent preparing for our soon to be non-existent Hurricane threat and getting my den in order. Check out my previous posts for some info on the shelves I'm putting up. They are finally all up and the entire room, with my wife's uncanny knack for knowing exactly where to put stuff, has finally come together perfectly.
Friday came and there was absolutely nothing to watch except "Hurricane Charley" coverage until the PGA Championship finally came on around 2pm. Speaking of, does anybody else think watching Phil Mickelson is like watching a good player that continually get's rivered (puts lipping out)? And typing that, anyone else think I'm relating too many things to poker?
Ouch. Speaking of rivers, Chip Reese just got rivered by Gus Hanson to be the first person out at the Poker Superstars Invitational.
So, about half way through the PGA coverage I got a call from my Poker Neighbor to tell me he had a game going. This was a little surprising as he had already told me he definitely had a game planned for Saturday. Now, in my last installment you all heard that I have been getting into some hot water with the little woman about how much I've been playing poker. -EV left me a very supportive note that reads as follows:

WEAK!!! What do you have planned for Saturday? Home Depot, pick up some wallpaper, and then Bed, Bath, and Beyond if you have time? Ok, so I'm 99% kidding, but really, I thought you left yourself open to some needling when you wrote that. I ask my fish if its cool when I go out to play... their answer never disappoints me!

I'm hoping there are a few bloggers out there reading who can stand up for me here. To -EV, and all those other single poker studs out there, I entreat you to sincerely enjoy your Bachelorhood as it relates to poker. I found poker after I found the love of my life and unfortunately, my beautiful, loving, wonderful wife is none too impressed with my other love. In fact, and I'll wager most other married guys out there know where I'm coming from, she's none to impressed with anything that takes time away from "US". Well, as Doyle just said on TV, "it takes a special woman to be married to a poker player". Thankfully he didn't say "professional" poker player, which would have kept me from being able to use that quote.
Oooooh....Doyle just went all in over the top of Phil Ivey...this could get ugly.
So, again, for all of those non-married poker addicts out there, enjoy it while you can!
Doyle gets knocked out by Phil Ivey catching As and Ks to beat out Doyle's Ladies.
So, back to the issue at hand. I went to the woman to get my permission. It didn't quite come. She gave me the old, "you know what I would prefer, but I don't run your life,"...yeah, right. So, I thought for a second, and decided, screw it, I'm playing. Good thing too. Saturday's game was a bust which would have left me pokerless (live at least) for the long weekend. It also was a good thing because I managed to break my losing streak. The kid who broke me the last tournament (see last installment) and I agreed to split the pot after going back and forth for about 30-40 minutes and trading the chip lead over and over.
Holy crap! Gus just got hugely lucky again to take a huge pot from Howard Lederer when Gus's 7 hit a FH when the third 7 hit on the turn, killing Howard's pocket Cowboys.
He had hurt me early on in the tournament when he convinced me to lay down a pair of Jacks with a 10 kicker on a stone cold, ballsy bluff. There was a King on the board and I was scared of it. He figured I didn't have the K kicker and took a stab at it. That one hurt. I had him at a 3-1 chip dis-advantage when we went heads up but he doubled up on me when I put him in with the hooks and he called with A,J catching his A as the first card off the deck. We had a great turn out for such a short notice game, 8 players with a $20 buy-in with rebuys for the first hour and a half. There was also to be a $10 add-on but multiple call-ins from people who were "coming, we promise" and never showed up killed that as we called an end to buy-ins and add-ons with three people left at about 11:30pm.
Oh boy, TJ vs B. Greenstein, TJ with A,K and Q,Q for Greenstein. Greenstein takes it with the hand Doyle got kicked out on.
So, the kid and I split $200 down the middle and both went home happy. I'm a big fan of Daniel Negreanu's and he's a huge opponent of making deals, which I can understand, but in a game with a bunch of friends who aren't going to be offended one way or the other, it's no big deal. We split as we knew the game could go well into the early morning and as our host was already out (in 4th or 5th) and we didn't want to tie up his home for much longer. This brought my live bankroll back to exactly half of what it was at its highest point.
Speaking of Daniel, I got to catch the end of Championship Poker at the Plaza. Glad to see Daniel take the win. I just love watching this guy. He has to be one of the best pros out there when looking at both ability and attitude. I did think it was quite funny that they needled him about his "69 Grand isn't even enough to buy a car with!" comment when he got busted out in the last tournament FSN broadcast.
Saturday, after finding out that the "definite" game was a no-go, I sat down on Pacific Poker to play in their $15+1.50 buy-in, $10K guaranteed tournament they have every night. I had my best finish ever in this tourney (84th) but unfortunately was not able to cash. I made some mistakes and got a little unlucky at the end. That, and I have a big beef with how Pacific Poker handles their table moves. Every SINGLE F'ing time I was reseated, I was moved directly in front of the blinds so that the very next hand I would be hit by the Big Blind. And almost every time this happened, I had just FINISHED paying the damn things! They'll be getting an email from me on that one, though I doubt it will do any good. So, now that I'm done whining, here's some detail on how it all went down. I never made it much over the average stack during the tourney. I made a questionable call very early with Q,8 suited to knock out a player (I had 800+TC and his all-in was for about 400TC) when my 8 hit. I don't know what he was holding as they keep the hole cards down until the end of the hand for some bizarre reason and only show both if the person has "muck losing hands" unchecked. There was already some cash in the pot so this helped me get back to right around average. I managed to play solid poker over the next hour or so and then lost a chunk of my stack when I had to fold AJ in late position after re-raising an EP player $1200TC (I started with about $3400TC) only to be re-raised All-In from the SB. EP called the All-in and though I ached to call, AJo just isn't a strong enough hand for that. Turns out SB had A,J and EP had 8,8. EP took the pot with no help for A,J. The same player went out the very next hand after with Q,Q when three players went all-in. Two hands after that with the blinds having gone up to $250TC/$500TC (me having only $2325TC) I was again moved to another table directly in front of the blinds. Luckily the guy right before me busted out so I only got hit with the SB. I was dealt the crabs. EP called and I went for the steal with a raise to $1K TC (too small, but I didn't have much to begin with). EP called. The flop came Ah,Jc, 6h and I made the dubious move of going all in with the remaining$1325TC. I took a chance that EP didn't have an A and got burned when he turned over Big Slick. To rub it in, a K hit on the river and I was out in 84th, 24 spots out of the money. I've made it my mission to win this tourney with it's $2K+ 1rst place price and I believe I could have done it with a few cards. The fact that I was able to make it so far with very few playable hands bolsters my confidence. Oh yeah, one of my "playable" hands was the Heart Hammer. I took down a nice pot when my blind steal raise didn't get both blinds out of the hand, but my post flop bet was able to take the pot with the all diamond flop.
So there's my poker for the weekend. I sense the looming "conversation" with the wife regarding my poker play, but for now, all is good. I'm going to have to set a certain couple of days during the week where I play and sit out the rest for a while. At least I have the olympics to watch for a while! Speaking of, what's with the attendance?? Anyone else feel like the olympics have lost their luster over the past few years? Maybe I'm just remembering things how they weren't, but seems to me they were a much bigger deal when I was younger. Oh yeah, God bless women's beach volleyball! Whoever decided that the uniforms would be almost as skimpy as string bikinis deserves a great big Thanks.

I feel like I'm edging towards a semi-uber-post here, but I've got more stuff to spout on about. Before I get to some non-poker content, please go sign up at Pacific Poker for the Monty Memorial Poker Blogger Tournament being set up by Iggy. Heck, even if you aren't going to make the tournament, sign up at Pacific Poker! Come on, help out a blogger! :)
I'm afraid I don't really have any content from my fellow bloggers yet as I haven't read anything from any of them for the past 3 days. I promise plenty of linkage to all my fellow bloggers tomorrow. And from the looks of Iggy's newest post I'll have plenty of new reading to check out.

So, I promised a book review on Winning Low-Limit Texas Hold'em by Lee Jones in one of my earlier posts. This is still coming, but I have only made it about half way through the book so far. This mainly due to the fact that I was able to pick up the last two editions of Tales of the Otori by Lian Hearn. This is just a great series if you are interested in feudal Japan, Samurai, Ninja, etc. The story is set in a fictional land that resembles Feudal Japan with a little bit of magic (more in the form of ESP and such than straight magic) thrown in. I also need to pick up the next book in the series from Takashi Matsuoka Autumn Bridge. His first book, Cloud of Sparrows was excellent and is set in 19th century Japan, about the same time period Lian Hearn's books are based in. Interestingly enough, both books have a character named Shigeru. I can only guess that this must be a fairly common Japanese name, or that it has some historical significance. So again, if you are interested in Feudal Japan, pick up these books as they are all great reads.

OK, that's it. This post has taken two days to write and I've run out of steam for the moment. I hope you all enjoyed the read, and if you made it to here, many thanks. Oh yeah, don't forget to sign up on Pacific Poker ! What's that? I already mentioned that...oh, ok. ;)
Thanks for reading-JW

Unexpected Poker

2004-08-12T08:06:00.000-05:00

Well, I got some bonus poker in yesterday. First of all, after sticking around work a little longer than the norm (it's 5:01, why am I still here?) I headed home to find a message from the wife saying she was going to be late. Wednsdays are usually our "Gym day", but as it was 30 minutes before she would have to be there for her Yoga class, that was pretty much a bust. I sat down at Pacific Poker on a 5 person SNG as I figured I could sqeeze one of these in before the wife made it home. Well, as luck would have it, I was able to (it was a squeeze) and grabbed a quick first place.
Once the wife made it home we sat down to dinner and I got a call from my Poker Neighboor saying he had a small game going from 8:30-10:30. This has never happened before, and once the wife gave her go-ahead (reluctantly) I headed over. $20 buy-in for 50 TC, 18 minute levels to keep things moving. We actually ended up with 8 people wich is huge for an impromptu game. I unfortunately hit all of my hands early and had to continue folding, folding, folding as the blinds krept up rather quickly. I was down to almost nothing when I hit AA and doubled up. Alas, it wasn't meant to be as I finished in 5th place when my 4 flush on the flop didn't hit its fifth. Soon after it dropped to heads up. The guy who took me out is a young guy who has gone from being a complete noob to being a pretty darn good player in the space of a couple of months, though I'm concerned he may be a little deep. He played a 22 hour session the other day! That being said, although he played yet more that weekend and even missed work on Monday because of it, he finished up $600 for the weekend. Not a bad rush! At any rate, it was kind of funny as he had brought a buddy with him who was sitting to his right. For the last 30-40 minutes of the night he kept telling his buddy he was going to call him if he went all in no matter what he had. This he did and managed to take him out when his J,4 beat his buddy's A,K suited when he paired his 4 on the river. Ouch! I left at about 10:40 with the play heads up and both players with about even chip stacks. I'll have to wait for Saturdays game (which sounds like it might end up being one of the largest we've had) to find out the outcome. I've lost my last 3 outings at this venue and I am truly hoping to turn things around on Saturday. I started out here winning 5 out of 6 times so I guess a few losing nights were to be expected. Let's hope Saturday is my next win as there promises to be a decent amount of cash at this game.
On to the world of blogging. I'm sorely backlogged on my reading and I promise I'll get to everyone soon. In the meantime, those that I have read:
Check out Iggy's for some very good stuff. Today he has a very interesting re-post from RGP about the upcoming tournament on ESPN. Yesterday's post holds some great advice on defending the blind. And don't forget to sign up for the blogger tournament at Pacific Poker!Everyone's invited, bloggers and readers. Sign up through my link, or Iggy's, get a little cash in there ($20 buy-in for the tourney) and send Iggy your user name and the email you used to sign up with.
HDouble goes into defending the blinds further and discusses his foray into the world of $15/$30. Big shooter. ;)
Chris Halverson has some good trip reports and Mean Gene is having some computer problems, but apparently has some live poker to report on when he's fixed his problems. Huh, thought you were on a break from poker Geno! ;)
Check out Boy Genius's most recent post on an interesting non-poker issue. This one strikes close to home for me as I have a non-TiVo DVR (via the cable company) and would hate to lose my ability to fast forward through annoying commercials.
Like I said, I owe a bunch of bloggers out there some reading, so expect more links later today or tomorrow.
UPDATE
Got some more reading done, so here's some more stuff for you all to check out:
Go check out -EV at FoolandhisMoney. Always good stuff here (and it doesn't hurt that he plugged my humble site!). He's on his way to Vegas soon, so stop off and wish him cards (who needs luck?).
The ICP has some good stuff on a really strange hand with ATo and a good write up on one of his local Indian Casionos that just opened up a card room. Sounds alot like the rooms down my way there ICP.
Check out the Poker Prof for a good little conspiracy theory and some write ups on the WSOP from the other night.
Last, but by no means least, check out SirFWALGMan for some great write ups on how his NL play is going.
I'll leave you with an interesting little rumor that is floating around today. It appears that Mr. WSOP 2003, Chris Moneymaker himself, is on vacation in the great state of Florida and was actually playing cards at Derby Lane yesterday. Wow, what I would have payed to see him sucked out on by some 85 year old lady playing 3,9o! :)
Thanks for reading and don't forget to give a Pacific Poker a try. You get a 25% match and support a poker blogger as well! What else could you ask for?! ;)
Thanks for reading-JW

My first Hammer and the future of poker.

2004-08-11T15:44:00.000-05:00

Wow, a whole day without blogging...that sucks. Not only did I not get to post yesterday, I didn't even get to read. I know I have a ton of blogging to catch up on...hopefully I can manage that tomorrow. I took a sick day yesterday and have payed for it all day today. Absolutely swamped at work.
Oh well, I did get to play some poker yesterday evening and was able to lay my first smack down with the hammer. I was playing a two table SNG at Pacific Poker and we were probably 20 minutes in. I had already hit a few decent hands to put me with a nice sized stack when I got dealt 7,2 spades on the small blind. I called into a medium community pot and hit two pair on the flop. Proceeded to let everyone else do my betting for me on the flop and took out a small stack on the turn when he called my all-in (for him) bet. The River brought him no opponent and the stack of chips came sliding its way to me. Apparently no bloggers on my table as I got no response to my, "Hammer Time!" comment. Unfortunately my luck didn't hold when I made one of the stupidest moves I've made in a tournament. I had K,Jo on the button and had already decided to blind steal. Everyone folded to the guy to my right who called. I decided, "screw it, I'm gonna try for it anyway". I raised it 4x the BB and both blinds folded. The guy to my right re-raised me the minimum. He had me out chipped by about $500 TC and I decided to enforce an image of "re-raise me and be forced to a decision for all/most of your chips" so I re-raised all in. He immediately, get this, RE-RAISED all-in(why on earth did he do that instead of calling I wonder?) with Big Slick offsuit and the board brought neither of us any help to put me out early. This was the same guy who had gone all in on me about 8 hands earlier with A,6p when I was holding Big Slick and sucked out on me when he hit the 6 on the turn (A on the river just to really piss me off) so I should have known the all-in re-raise wouldn't scare him. That being said, he had had an extremely good run of cards and there was no way I was figuring him for a hand like Big Slick. Oh well, such is poker-life.
So what's this "future of poker" stuff in my title? Well, two days ago I went out for drinks with a buddy of mine from work who I don't get to see too much (he travels while I'm based in the office watching my derriere grow larger). He met me at a local pool hall where he proceeded to remind me why I never bet on my pool play. Another guy from work joined us and during one of the games between the two of them I scouted out the room and noticed three young kids (no older than 13) sitting at a table with cards. I took a closer look and sure enough, they were playing Texas Hold'em. The funniest thing? One of them had a sheet of notebook paper in front of him and was keeping track of who owed what! These three kids were playing .25 NL Hold'em. I actually sat down with them for a hand (my wife says this makes me creepy) and after I asked them to deal me in for a hand one of them kept asking me what we were playing for! I finally got them to agree to play a hand for fun and won with 9s. Funniest thing I've seen in a while.

Well, I'd love to offer more today, but it's time for me to bug out of here. I'll try to have something more interesting up tomorrow. In the mean time, pray for Hurricane Charlie to come close enough to close work, but not close enough to do any real damage! Oh yeah, and try out Pacific Poker and help support my infant blog! :) -JW

Somebody find me a plumber!

2004-08-09T09:56:00.000-05:00

Well, the weekend was a complete bust as far as poker goes. The Saturday night home game I was so looking forward to didn't happen. I caught my neighbor as he was heading out for the night and he told me he had moved the game to every other Saturday (it was rarely ever every Saturday anyway). Wish I had caught him earlier in the week so I would have known. He told me he was heading out to Derby Lane, a dog track in St. Petersburg, FL which you've seen if you watched Oceans 11, for a tournament. I decided to follow him out a little later as a friend at work has told me how soft the non-tourney tables are.
Well, he was certainly correct. I think I saw a dozen hands raised all night (not counting the ones I raised). Very little pre-flop raising, very little raising post-flop and people calling to the river with absolutely nothing. I lost a chunk of change when I bet all the way through with KQs with no help on the board when the lady to my right called me down with an A (A on the board for a pair). She proceeded to tell me, "I had to call you, I folded earlier today and I had somebody beat". Bah, stupid me for trying to bluff the fish. Other than that it was a night of river beats and not so great cards. I clearly remember folding at least 10 hands in a row b4 getting A,Qo in the CO and having everyone fold to me! What kind of crap is that??? I raised it, got one caller and won a very small pot when the one caller decided to muck on the flop. I had PPs 8-9 times during the night and failed to hit the set on the flop on any. I would have hit it on one hand on the turn but also would have lost to a Flush on the river, so good fold there. So a disappointing night down $85 over 2 1/2 hours. I should have stayed home with the wife and racked up the brownie points!
I'm not sure what is up with my live ring game. So far, in my last two visits to the local aquariums I've lost $250 or so. The first visit, documented in my "JW's Part Time Quest" post I did not play even close to my best game. The other night I feel I played a decent game, but just couldn't hit a hand. So I'm not sure if indeed I have a leak as the title of this post suggests, or if I've just run into some cold cards and bad luck. I have a feeling I may be playing too many hands. For some reason it seems easier to click that fold button online than to toss those cards away.
I certainly could not have asked for a better table. The absolute definition of Loose-Passive. I saw A,A and K,K cracked twice respectively because those playing the hands didn't play them correctly. I also saw my A,A cracked when 4 to the flush hit on the river. Strangely enough I actually had the hand won until that stupid river card. There was one woman to the right of the dealer who would call all the way with nothing. She actually bet into me on one hand when the turn gave her a matching 2 and I had a K on the flop to match the one in my hand. Also had one older guy, who had been pretty docile all night, go ballistic when the dealer mucked his A,A. He picked up the hand, looked at it, and tossed it down in front of him. It was obvious that he was in the wrong, but he got pretty belligerent about it.

Some choice comments from the lady on my left, who at least kept me entertained:

"I never win with Aces, never."...from me: "Yeah, tough hand to play."
"I'm sorry," after taking a pot from Guy on Right of me, GOR: "yeah, you should be."...Lady, "I didn't check and raise you did I? I didn't check and raise him, did I? I'm a Lady."...me, "I would have check-raised him in a heart-beat."..Lady, "well you aren't a lady, are you?" LOL.
After winning the pot with 7's full of K's (set on the flop of K,Q,7) in response to GOR's comment that she didn't raise, "I've played with that guy (far end of the table) before, and I was scared that he might have K,Q." She's talking about the one guy on the table other than me likely to raise and she's scared of the K,Q in an unraised pot.

The average age of the table had to be well into the upper 50's as the only people under that age were myself and one gentleman sitting to my immediate left. A couple of younger folks joined in 3/4's of the way through the night, but for the most part, the place looked like it was in St. Pete (for those of you not in Florida, we have lots of retirees).
I'll have to make it back soon, how can I resist these kinds of tables? Not to mention their tournaments are low buy in ($45) with a 10% rake. The only other tourneys in the area are at the Hardrock and the buy in's are all in the $100s.
I finished up the weekend by playing for another couple of hours my neighboor's house. He had a little $5 and $10 tourney, 4 person and 3 person respectively. It was supposed to be a $5 with rebuys and an add-on, but not enough people showed. Placed 3rd and 2nd respectively to drop the live-game bankroll by $100 even.

On the non-poker front, my Den looks like it will finally start to come together this week. I've been fighting with these stupid F'ing shelves...you've seen them, the look like a thick piece of wood hanging on the wall with no visible support...for about 3 weeks now. They sell them at Pottery Barn, IKEA, all kinds of places. We got ours online from a fairly well known place for about half the price of what we normally see. Well, the mounting system was about the stupidest thing I've ever seen. Living in Florida, I don't have the luxury of Studs on my outside walls. All I have is drywall and then about 1 1/2 inches of space until you hit the concrete block. It makes hanging things on outside walls a pain. That being said, their mounting system was terrible: hard to use, and it did not mount the shelf level(front to back), no matter how tight you mounted them. So after doing everything conceivable to mount these I finally packed them back up and they are waiting to go back to the store. We ended up sucking it up and buying the Pottery Barn Shelves which go up on the wall in a matter of minutes with no major headaches. So, anyone looking for this kind of shelf, save yourself a headache and go with the Pottery Barn version (I've also heard Ikea's are easy to hang).

OK, now that I've bored you to tears with my stupid shelf story, back to the Poker Blogs out there (edit: I forgot a couple!!!):

Check out Poker Prof for some good blogging with some visual stimuli other than words.
Any bets on how long Mean Gene lasts with his, "hiatus from poker"?
Dr. Pauly has a new Hilton Sisters challenge. Time to win yourself some Art!
Keep an eye out at AlCantHang's for an upcoming report of his NL travels at the Borgatta.
Maudie's back from her trip to Taos with part 1 of her trip report.
Check out -EV for some fun reading and his unabashed hissy fit at getting his Rockets cracked. Nice to know we all go over the edge now and then! ;)
Also check out uwannabet?'s stuff. His last post is on a topic near and dear to my heart, berating bad players at the table.

Lots of other good blogging going on out there...it's so hard to keep up!

One last thought for you all. I caught the beginning of the rerun of the Pot Limit Hold'em event at the WSOP last night (you know the one where Phil H whines some more?) and I caught something that I thought was just hilarious. Anyone else out there see this? There was a Levitra add on the felt!!! I'd be willing to bet that the WSOP could stop taking a rake on the tourney entries next year and not lose a dime the way the are going with this advertising.

Well, that's about enough from me today, I think this is edging towards one of them uber posts that the Blogfather is so famous for. Speaking of, be sure to check out the Blogger tourney he's setting up at
Pacific Poker
. And if you don't have an account, and don't sign up through Iggy, besure click here
Pacific Poker.

Here's hoping you all had a better weekend than I did! -JW

Even Steven...well, almost.

2004-08-07T14:58:00.000-05:00

Blogging on a Saturday...I wonder if this will become a habit? I have to say, I truly enjoy the experience of sitting here pouring out my thoughts for others to, hopefuly, read. Heck, I don't even have to say hopefully as I have been getting more traffic on this site than I ever dreamed possible, having only been up and running for less than a week. I have to thank my boys/gals over at TexasHoldem-poker.com for checking me out as I see plenty of hits coming from there and I REALLY have to thank HDouble as the majority of my hits are from his site and, I'm guessing, his mention of me in yesterday's blog. And of course, thanks to all the other blogger brothers and sisters checking me out.
Well, we are about 4.5 hours away from the home game tonight (I still can't wait) and I have to go check the fridge pretty soon to see if I need to pick up some beer...who am I kidding, when is it not good to pick up more beer? The guy who hosts recently got some software to count down the blinds, breaks and all and he has a nice 17" Flat Panel display on his computer that he uses to keep everyone up to date. You almost feel like you are at the WSOP. ;)
At any rate, I decided to sit down at the tables for a bit this afternoon to warm up a bit for this evening. I really think I've been leaving money on the table, so to speak, by not getting into more multi-table tourneys, so I decided to jump on the next $10 buy-in multi NLHE event. I had about 1/2 hour before it began, so I made the mistake (that I often do) of sitting at a ring table first. First I sat at a $2/$4 table figuring I didn't want to risk as much with so little time available. Well, that table broke up quickly and I joined the exodus after I hit a 5.5 BB pot. Wishing I could have stayed with that guy, that pot was won with a pair of 10s when my 7,10o hit another 10 on the flop. There was also an A up there and I bet out. Called all the way down and the guy couldn't beat my 10s with the following board: 10d, As, 2h, 9h, 4d. What on earth, I wonder, was he chasing? So...after this I decide what the heck, no reason to drop down levels so I go hit one of my $3/$6 tables. Off to a pretty good start when my Off Suite Big Slick holds up to win a 12.5 BB pot with Ks and 2s, A kicker. Well, then came the beat of all beats my loyal readers. I have searched for a definition of bad beat online, but have not found one. Based on the conversations over at TexasHoldem-Poker.com it seems that alot of people have their own definitions, but I believe I offer you the epitome of bad beats with this hand. So for your viewing horror:
Hero is in seat 10 (to the immediate right of the computer dealer) and on the button. Our Hero is dealt the almight American Airlines (As,Ac) on a table that is likely to have at least 6-8 people in the pot before it reaches him, allowing him to get all KINDS of money in the pot with the best hand in poker. Well, our hero is somewhat dismayed when UTG raises it, but figures he has at least one person to thoroughly trash on this hand...I mean, come on, he's not likely to keep more than 2 people in with raise that early right? Wrong. UTG+1 calls, fold, fold, RAISE!!!, fold, Call, and our Hero caps it. The blinds fold and everyone calls. A 5 way pot capped, our Hero couldn't be happier. Flop comes 4d, 2c, Qd. UTG leads out and it is called around to our Hero, who of course, raises it. UTG re-raises, and two of the three to act before our Hero call. Hero thinks about it for a second and says to himself, "Pocket Qeens in UTG...damn" and calls the re-raise. The Turn is an ugly 8d putting three to the flush on the board. UTG leads out and UTG+1 calls. MP folds and Hero calls figuring he's done for but not knowing the table enough yet to be sure. River is the 4c and UTG goes all in for $5.50, UTG+1 goes all in for $3 and our Hero calls. Somehow, with Pacific's weird software, I don't get to see what UTG was betting with the whole time, but apparently he couldn't beat my As and 4s. However, UTG+1, the amazing poker genius that he was, could with his 4h,6d (!!!!!!!). 5.5 Big Bets down the gutter my dear friends. That was by far one of the ugliest beats I've ever taken. Truly makes me wonder what was going on. Who in their right mind, fish or no, would call 4! bets pre-flop with 4,6 off? And not know they are beat when they hit middle pair on the flop? Oh well, I'm not bitter or anything.
5 or 6 hands latter, with none of those being winners, it's time to jump into the $1K guaranteed $10 buy-in MTT with only 250 people or so (God but Pacific loses some ugly money on some of these MTTs). We start off well when I land in the small blind with 7h, 10s on the first hand. Unraised pot and I call 10TC to see the flop which is a beautiful 8s,7s,10h. I check it, button bets (dang I was hoping for someone early to go after this hard) and I raise it the min. Three callers to see the turn of...7c. OK, time to go get some virgins for the poker gods. I again check it and AGAIN the button is the first to bet, but at least he goes after it with 75TC at this point. I again check raise him the min and again he calls. This time I bet out 160TC and he calls. Don't know what he had, but he couldn't beat my FH. This put me in the chip lead right off the bat. I was able to stay up there until the following hand: 25/50TC blinds and I'm on the button with A,K diamonds. Raise it up to 200TC and the SB raises all in for for 450TC more (leaving me with 450 or so if I call and lose). I call, SB has QQ and I get no help. Very next hand I'm given 10,10 one off the button and go for the Semi-steal when their are two limpers. All-in only to run into the same guy who had the Qs with A,A. Oh well...so much for that MTT, out in 150th. I want to get into another, but the next one doesn't start for about 30 minutes so I decide to check out the SNGs. Aha! A 2 table SNG with a buy-in of $8+.80. Not alot of money, but there aren't any others close to full that are in the range I want to buy in at, so I jump on.
Ladies and Gentlemen, let me tell you, as one of my opponents said, I OWNED those two tables. A lot of patience and a little bit of getting hit in the face by the deck now and then and I'm back to even (+$3). I won't bother recounting any of the hands, but I can tell you that it took me till about a 3rd of the way through to get a good chip lead, and I never relingquished it from that point on. When it got to heads up I had a 7-1 lead on the other guy.
One thing I did want to comment on was the name of the guy I went heads up with. He just had one of those names that you find extremely funny, so long as you aren't losing to them. The name was something like IWinAgn. I had to wait halfway through the tournament, but he finally won two in a row and came out with the, "hey, I won again". Cracks me up. To all of you out there with funny screen names, more power to you.
All right, that's all I can punch out right about now. Wish me luck tonight and go check out some of those excellent blogs over on the right. Afiliate program's finally here, so click on this link
Pacific Poker to sing up, Please! You get a nice bonus, I get a little and everyone's happy! I'm tellin' ya, the water be FISHY! Thanks for reading all.

JW

Quicksand, blog-style.

2004-08-06T08:50:00.000-05:00

Yikes! Man, this blogging thing is out of control. I'm getting mentioned, getting hits (which I'm tracking now thanks to a hint from HDouble) and actually getting some comments! Wow, amazing how cool that feels. :)

Anyway, no poker to speak of again last night. The wife's car battery went kaput and I had to drive from home all the way to her work to wait with her for AAA. I am seriously looking forward to tomorrow nights neighborhood tournament. I haven't played in one in 2-3 weeks. The buy-in has jumped recently from $30 with re-buys to $50 with no rebuys. Less money to lose if I don't make the cash as I only ever re-buy once, but I really liked the re-buy format. We'll see if the current format sticks. I'll post a report of the tourney on Sunday.

I've had a link stuck out to the side that I never mentioned so I'll go ahead and pimp it now. It's called Dealerbuttons.com and they do stainless steel dealer buttons and card protectors. I purchased a dealer button from their first run and love it. It's heavy as hell but cool as shat at the same time. The card protectors are also very nice, I just haven't had a chance to pick one up. The prices are not outrageous either. So if you have some nice chips, and don't care for the little white plastic hockey puck, check these guys out.

I'm sticking with Outkicked as the title of my blog. I found "Not so Dead Money" finally, I somehow had set up two accounts, but I see no reason to move all of this over there and confuse people. I think I like Outkicked as a title better anyway.

Now, on to all that new reading I have to do. There is so much out there that is just amazing, I can't believe it. All kinds of new blogs popping out of the wood work (like me) and all those established ones that just keep pumping out great posts. So, without further blabbing, here's some stuff to check out:

HDouble at Cards Speak popped my blog-reading cherry and he hasn't disappointed since. I've been spending time in his archives and I found some great stuff..
Both are from January's archives. First is his thoughts on Morton's theory (1/2/04), something that every low limit player should read and understand. All of us who swim in the LL waters know about the schooling of the fish, or have used the phrase, but this is the first time I have seen it truly explained so that I really understood it. Next comes some great stuff from Daniel Negreanu (how did I forget to put that link up?), one of my favorite pro players on 1/31/04. It's a discussion of when to move up and take a shot at higher limits/buy-ins. I think it is something that most low-limit players do without truly thinking about it. Most of us just can't resist that shot at bigger money. Of course it's the ability to know when you have to drop back down and the persistence needed to build the bankroll back up when it doesn't work that marks the better players.

Iggy announced the next Blogger/Reader tourney in one of his famous uber (if you ask me, super-uber) posts. Check it out. I'll be doing my best to get online for that one, especially since it's at Pacific, my current stomping grounds.

OK, some new stuff I have to link up:
Check out Chris Halverson's blog. Good stuff on the Midwest poker scene.
Also be sure to check out Linda at Pokerworks for some amazing stories from a dealer at the Bellagio.
Uwannabet has some funny stuff, I repeat, some funny stuff going on over at his new blog.
Fool and his Money is another low limit player getting started in the blog world. Look out for a trip report from him on an upcoming trip to Vegas for a try at the LL NL tables.
SirFWalgman has some interesting semi-stream of consciousness stuff going on. Looks like he posts while playing. Kind of interesting to follow along with a session with him. He also earns a special place on my blog as his most recent post notes that his wife thinks he plays too much poker. I feel your pain brother!

And since one of my brothers above mentioned bonus whoring, I'll stick out there an offer to refer anyone who is intersted to Pacific (if you haven't already hit Iggy's link). I wish I could just stick a link up, but I'm still waiting for my affiliate application to come back. Email me at kodies22@yahoo.com if you are interested. You get $25 +25% on your deposit and I get a nice little toke as well. Come on in, the waters...fishy!

OK, guess it's time for me to go catch up on all this great blogging. Back to the quicksand I go!

JW

What's one more?, and Harry Potter nonsense.

2004-08-05T09:41:00.000-05:00

Jeez. No poker to comment on, at least not my own. I'll give you a little bad beat taste from a friend who I got into poker later. Mainly this post is about the addictiveness of reading blogs. Good lord. I started with three that I have been reading for some time. I've actually been spending my time reading archives to catch up. Well, that's been put on hold as I made the mistake of following some more links from HDouble's site. I've since added THREE new links over on the side. If you are looking for a laugh or something to pick up your spirits, check out Mean Gene's site. He sure managed to brighten my day yesterday. I read through every post he had for this month and laughed my fat ol' rear off. This morning I discovered Pauly's and Pauly's brother's blogs. Gotta love anyone who's got pictures of the Hilton sisters on their blog! That being said, make sure to check out Iggy's site. The man has a knack for finding pictures of female tennis players in compromising positions. *que Home Simpson drool noise*

I always wondered how these people who's blogs I read found the time to read all of those silly links on the side of their page. Now I have to figure out how I will find the time!
From reading Pauly's blog I now understand that it is proper blog etiquette to link those who link you. Well, I'm not sure how good I'll be with this little rule. I'm linking those who I like reading, hoping that anyone reading this humble little journal will also find something interesting in the blogs I link. I don't plan on getting into the habbit of dropping notes to everyone I link letting them know I've done so and I am most definately not looking for a courtesy relink. If you like what you read, by all means link me up! I most assuredly appreciate it. If you are not impressed, for whatever reason, don't link me up! I promise you I won't be offended.

OK, so to reveal myself as the bookwormy nerd that I am. I'm a huge Harry Potter fan. I resisted for quite some time, but finally was brow beaten by family into reading the first book about the time the 3rd or 4th came out and was absolutely hooked. So, with that out of the way, I was checking out the news on Yahoo today and came across some of the cast of the next movie (haven't seen the third movie yet, waiting for video) and found out that they had cast the girl to play Fleur Delacour. I personally don't think she is anywhere near goodlooking enough. I don't have a hosting site so I can't post the picture yet, but check out her site www.clemencepoesy.com for pictures. And boy are there pictures! She may not be good looking enough to play the hotty Fleur Delacour in the PG version, but apparently she could play her in the R/X-rated version! ;)

Ok, so let me end with some poker, even though it was my buddy and not me:
Said buddy (we'll call him BB) get's into a SNG. First or second level gets dealt A,K sooted. Bets big, gets a few callers. Flop comes A,K,x. Bets big again and gets called by one guy, all the way to the river, which is a 5. Any guesses what river boy had? That's right, the wired pair o' 5s. I assure you my buddy wasn't slow playing. So, this is bad, but it ends well. BB manages to take his remaining 160 or so TCs and wins the tourney, heads up against...yes, wired 5s boy. Nicely done BB.

Here's to the work-productivity killing world of blogs.

JW

The "Quest" as promised

2004-08-04T12:12:00.000-05:00

To start off, I have to send thanks out to both H_Double and Iggy for their emails/comments on the new blog. Also, my most heartfelt condolences on the loss of Monty, Iggy's cat. Few things hit harder than the loss of a cherished friend.

OK, so on with it I guess. Following is a compilation of posts that can be found in their original form on TexasHold'em-Poker.com entitled "JW's Part Time Quest". To everyone out there who kept pace with me through the original posts, thanks for the encouragement and comments. A very brief introduction, as most of it is covered in the posts: the wife went out of town for the week so I decided to see how "playing the hours and not the results" would go. I was playing $2/4 exclusively.

July 25, 2004: Hi all. I've mentioned this in other posts, so here's the thread where I'll keep you all up to date on my progress. I can only say I hope it gets better at this point! Here's the set up. I've been playing 2/4 limit for almost a month now and have done, what I would consider, very well. I will be bach'ing it this week so I decided that I would spend each night playing poker for 4 hours (hence the part time as it is not 8 hours). I wanted to see if I was really just on an incredible streak or if my skill level was really up to the level that my winnings suggested. I started my Quest with 325 Big Bets. The Quest wasn't really supposed to start until tonight, but last night the significant other was packing and getting ready for her trip so it started early. I played 3.9 hours of 2/4 limit last night. As you can guess from above, I really should have waited another night. The fish were insane at the tables I played at and I was getting hit with a terrible string of cards. I also believe one of the tables may have had a group of colluders on it, but that's probably just me steaming, I'm reporting the suspicious behavior and I'll let you know if anything turns up. *Nothing came of this, and I'm dissapointed with how Pacific handled it.* Now that I have the excuses out of the way, after analyzing my play, I played like crap. I payed more than the Big Blind to see almost half of the flops, played well over 3/4s of those hands past the flop and only won 16 percent of the hands for the night. I was overvaluing hands, calling when I knew I was beat and trying to bluff calling stations. Over all some of the worst play I've had.
For the night I ended up 78 Big Bets on the negative side. I hadn't had enough though, so I got back on this morning (had an hour between dropping off the wife and going to work, bad idea) and quickly dropped another 22 Big Bets to bring me to an even 100 big bets down. I've got to tell you, that hurts something fierce! My best win was 49 Big Bets over 2 and a half hours so these two losses easily wipe out my last 4-5 wins. I've always been a huge proponent of "play the hours, not the results" so, undeterred, I will be hitting the tables again tonight with a much tighter strategy. I believe I know what I did wrong, and I do truly believe that dictated a loss last night (it was just me that made it such a HUGE loss).
So, we will hope for better cards tonight along with better play. Some examples of my beats (notice I didn't say Bad beats as I shouldn't have been in alot of these hands):
A,7 loss to AQ when the flop came A,7,Q A,K loss to 5,5 with a board of 7d,9c,Jc,Ac,5c with a pre-flop raise and bets all the way through.
A,6 in the BB loss to A,8 with board 9,A,7,3,A
A,10 loss to A,7 with board A,7,Q,5,J A,7 to A,5 with bard A,8,5,3,10
A,7 to J,10 lost A high flusht to Jacks full of 10s
And my favorite: A,K with a board of K,J,Q,7,A losing to...are you ready for this? 8,10 off. This was very early on in the night and I think it let me tilt for a while so that also accounts for some piss poor play. But as you can see from above, these were some pretty crappy hands that I shouldn't have even been in on and I just kept hitting 2nd and 3rd best. There were many more, lots of lost bluffs and hands way too embarrasing to post, but you get the idea. So, we'll see how tonight goes!
July 26, 2004: And the *ss whooping continues! One of these days I'll have to learn not to play at lunch! Check out this heart breaker: I'm down 11 Big Bets and waiting for the blinds to clear me to jump off, hoping to hit a hand to bring me a little closer to even. Big Blind roles around and I get what I've been getting for the past 3 sessions, Big Card, Little Card. Ks,8c. Every one folds to the player 2 before the button who calls. Everyone else folds to me and I check. FLOP: 10d, Kd, 10c. I bet out, other guy calls. TURN: Qd. I figure I'm beat here, but decide to bet just in case. Other guy raises and I call knowing I'm beat by the flush but paying one more bet to see if I can hit the 10 or the K on the river. River: Low and behold, there's my 10h. Now, I'm guessing this guy doesn't have the 10 or K,K. I'm figuring Ad,xd. I bet, get raised, reraise, he caps it and I call.
What does he turn over?
Not the Ks, not the 10, but the A,J diamonds for the Royal Flush. Down another 22.5 Big Bets.
July 27, 2004: Day Two Update. Not a bad night, but not a great night either. I got a late start so was only able to play 3 hours of limit (I had decided to play the 10pm 10K guaranteed on Pacific). I finished up 12.5 BBs on my 3 hrs of limit. I tossed 13 BBs back before jumping off for the tourney, but again this was my fault. The table I was on died at about 9:20 and after getting a drink, letting the dog out, etc; it was 9:30 and I decided to jump on another table until the tourney started (stupid, stupid, stupid). The tourney went fairly well, but I made one big mistake and got unlucky on my last hand to get kicked out. A little background before I give you these hands. Very few flops had more than 3-4 people and many of them had 2-3 people. Most hands saw a preflop raise which kept the number of people down and let you know if someone had a hand. Here they are in that order: 1. Sitting about average with 3200 chips in the BB(300). Get Ad,2d. One caller in UTG position, everyone else folds to me. I check and we see the following flop: Qd,9d,Kc. I'm out of position, but figure the other guy probably didn't hit as he didn't raise pre-flop so I bet just over the size of the pot on the semi-bluff. Other guy raises me the minimum leaving him with only 463 chips which would still leave me with about 1400 if I put him all in. I do so and he turns over K,Q. The turn and river are both clubs and I take a significant hit. 2. After another round of blinds and I'm down to 830 chips itwo off the button. I'm praying for a hand at this point, and as the cards are being dealt I see a Q and start talking to the computer (we've all been here right? ) pleading for the other Q. Sure enough I am rewarded for me begging with another Q. It folds around to me and I go all-in. I need a call so I can double up here and all of the big stacks will act after me so I'm pretty confident I will get one. Well everyone folds to the BB who thinks about it for a good 6-8 seconds before finally calling and flipping....J,5 off! And he only had 2900 in chips when he called! I'm jumping for joy until the board falls as follows: 9d,7c,5h,10c,8s giving him the runner, runner, double inside str8. Finished 145th or so out of 650 or so.
In keeping with the first post, here are some mistakes and beats from day two:
1. Q,Q in EP. Raise, three callers. Flush hits on the turn and I can't lay it down. 6 BBs gone.
2. Q,Q (again!) in the SB. MP raises, 4 callers including myself. Flop: 8s,6c, 10h. I bet, 3 callers. Turn, Js. I bet, 3 callers. River: 7d. I bet, 2 callers, raised by the button, calls around and he shows 10,9 spades for the mircale str8. Another 6 BBs gone.
3. J,2 spades in the BB. 3 callers to the flop of J,2,6 all of diamonds. I fail to make the sensible decision and 3.5 BBs to the 3,10 d flush.
That's really all the interesting ones. I threw away some bets on pocket pairs that I should have released, and for some odd, bizarre reason on J,8 suited with nothing on the board to help me...must have been my dog playing while I was in the john. Anyway, there's day two for you.
Day 5 has experienced a change of plans. I was considering hodling a little home tourney for some friends but received a call from an old work buddy who is coming into town and we are going to meet at the HardRock Casino in Tampa (don't get too excited, it's 1/2 or $2 straight bet Poker, slots and Bingo). The Poker there is usually no fold'em so it shouldn't be too different from what I'm used to playing right now. And to those who were discussing the "lunch playing" with me...I'm goin' out for lunch today!!!
July 28, 2004: Well, we are through the 3rd day and the quest is going nowhere near as well as I had hoped. Yesterday was a slightly negative day, but not really a bad one I guess. I finished down about $9, but basically that means that my $15+1.50 entry into the 10K guaranteed tournament only cost me $9. This is a very good thing as I got busted out very, very early. Two mistakes, no bad luck this time. Again getting caught with the semi bluff with 4 to the nut flush and hitting Jacks with my pocket A,Js and running into A,K with a K and a J on the flop. As to my limit play, over almost exactly 4 hours I ended up 2 Big Bets, so basically a break even day. I've got to say, I've really started to question my ability to win at this level (with the exception of the first day where I don't need to question, I know I killed myself there). I expected my winnings to tone down some over these 4 hour sessions, but I didn't expect it to tone down this much, ya know? Then again, I know I'm playing much better over the past couple of days. I also know I've run into the wrong end of variance on these tables. I've managed to not go on tilt when I hit a bad beat (and that's a feat with the number I'm taking) which is a good thing, but I'm not hitting the hands to make up for those beats.
Here's some notable hands from last night:
1. 6 hands into the night, and the first hand I've played. I'm in the big blind and get hit with 8s,10h. Ick! 5 plus me to see the flop. Here's what hit: 10d,7c,9d. OK, top pair and open end str8 draw. Not bad, though I'll have to watch those two diamonds. I don't mind the two diamonds at this point as it will keep some people in. I bet out and we lose 1 guy. Turn is the Qc. Ok, no str8 yet and an over card, but let's bet it and see where we are. Lose one more with 3 calls. River 6c. There's my st8. I bet, get raised, reraised and after I call it gets capped. The guy that capped it was hanging on to A,2 of clubs. hit's runner, runner for the damn flush.
2. This one was a ton of fun. A,Ko UTG on a short handed table. I raise and get two callers. Flop is 2d,10d,Ah. I bet, both call. Turn is 9c. BB checks, I bet, next guy calls and I get raised. I reraise figuring the guy was on a high A and was trying to disguise his hand. One fold and the raiser calls. River 4h. I bet, he calls and he turns over 9,10.
3. A,A in the SB. 3 callers, I raise, all three + BB call. Flop: Kh, 7c, Qh. I bet, 3 call. Turn 5d. I bet, 3 calls. River: 4c. I bet and the guy across from me, appropriately named "Tardman" raises me. I call and turns over Q,4o.
Beyond that I had 4 flops with 4 to the flush and didn't hit one. In fact, out of 192 hands I didn't hit a single flush. I had 6 hands with small (9 and below)PPs of which one held. I got involved in (not counting the beats detailed above) 3 pots where I put in 2.5 Big Bets and didn't win, and 5 where I put in 3-4 Big Bets and didn't win. Other than that, I was either out after the flop or I was winning the hand. I've gone over the histories and I threw away some bets on the 8 pots I just mentioned, but other than that I don't think I could have played much better.
July 29, 2004: Welcome to day 4. I have to admit, I was seriously reluctant to sit down at the computer last night. I got started late; playing 4 hours a night after working an 8 hour day isn't easy if you don't want to be up terribly late. I got home, fixed dinner and sat down to watch a show I had taped while I ate. Once I finished I took a deep breath and went into the den to fire up the computer. . It didn't take me long to get over my reluctance and the table I had sat down at was quite fishy with some truly bad, weak-passive players on it. Almost from the beginning I was getting hit with some decent cards, though I was worried when my second hand was A,J hearts and I hit two hearts on the flop and failed to take the pot. My very next hand made up for it though when my Cowboys held up for a nice pot. In the end I was able to jump up to well over 37 Big Bets (profit) within an hour. I truly wish I could have held myself there so that I could have added the winnings I finally bagged 2 hours later. Yep, that's right, I went at least an hour and a half with nothing. The night finally turned around right before it was time for me to jump off when I hit trips twice in three hands when the board paired one of my hole cards. I managed to finish up 40 Big Bets for the night. Not bad for 3.5 hours, 11.4 Big Bets per hour. Definately the best night I've had in a while. I have to say I was pretty happy with most of my play as I managed to hold on to the money I made, for the most part, without throwing it at bad hands. I believe that has been one of my leaks for quite a while. If I'm up my starting standards might slip, I might play more hands, just because I've got the money to do so. Not last night and I was proud of that. Here are some recaps of some interesting hands (note for the first time we have some good ones!): 1. Threw away 5.5 BBs early on when my A,9 hit Aces on the flop in a large community pot. Lost to Qs hitting their set on the flop. 2. Lost another 4.5 BBs when my Js got cracked by a K on the flop. Couldn't lay 'em down. Three of us in the pot, one guy chasing the str8, the other guy in with K,9 till the bitter end when he hit K on the flop. I guess he doesn't know about the possibility of being outkicked! 3. These next two made up for the one above as they happened immediately afterwards: A,10 in the BB with 4 other players. Flop 7,8,9 rainbow. Turn 6, river Q. The one guy that stayed with me on the river had A,Q. 16 Big Bets in profit on that pot. 4. Very next hand is K,J spades in the SB. Two spades on the flop, K on the turn and I win it with Ks to take a profit of 12 Big Bets. 5. My next hand is a pair of ducks which I fold to a raise, and immediate after that I hit K,Q suited to take down 9 Big Bets profit when I hit my K on the flop. 6. I fold the next 4 hands and hit two more in a row when my K,Jo hits Jacks and holds up for 4.5 Big Bets and my A,10 diamonds hits a 10 on the turn to hold up on the following board Ks,8d,9d,10h,Kc!!!!! Talk about a bit of a rush, eh? I won't bore you with any more, but needless to say I finally started hitting some hands. Couple of flushes, a really nice pot when my pp 6s hit the set on the flop. I also, of course, entered the 10K guaranteed tourney last night, but I'm sorry to say my luck didn't hold. I went out somewhere around 230 out of 710 players. I was never above 1/2 of the average chip stack the entire night. I stayed alive with blind steals and a few well timed bluffs. Of course, as often happens when you are not getting cards, a non-well timed bluff put an end to me. I made a weak bluff (minimum bet) at a pot and got called and then raised on the river. The following hand I went all in when, for the first time that night it seemed, there were more than 2 people in the pot. I had 10,7 suited and 300 chips left and decided to pray for a miracle. It didn't come and off I went to bed. All in all a pretty good night. For those of you following from the beginning of this thread, I also received a response from the site administrators regarding the possible collusion I reported. I won't post it yet as I want to wait to see how everything turns out, but I can tell you I was not happy with the response. Tomorrow: A night at the Hardrock.
July 30, 2004: Last night, I met an ex-work buddy at the Hardrock in Tampa. Traffic was a biatch and it took me more than 35 minutes to drive 10 miles. That's traffic in Tampa for you near the 275, I-4 Split. I'm sure it didn't help that Dave Mathews was in town right across the street from the Casino...I'm sure that added to the traffic. Of course it also added to the traffic inside the Casino, if you get my drift. Hell, screw my drift, I'll spell it out for you. There were more hot little college honeys in the bar at the front of the Casino than you shake a....ummmm....stick at. Bare midriffs, low-rise jeans, perky little...well you know, barely non-see through shirts with an obvious lack of bras in the room made it for the best bar I've been to in a looooooooooong time. It took me about 15 minutes after I got there to find my buddy who already had a beer for me. After the initial, "how ya been" chit chat I quickly found out that, 1)it takes forever to get a beer at this bar right now and my buddy has a tab open, so we'll have to refill and close out before leaving for the poker room, and 2)though my buddy knows what Texas Hold'em is, he's never really played before. This, I figured out after I had explained the blind system for the fourth time. At this point I decided I wasn't really going to worry about the game, I was just hear to have fun. Or was that after my buddy handed me my second beer and what this bar called a "shot" of Kamikaze?
I tried to give my buddy some basic advice as we finally cashed out at the bar and went to find the poker room. Well we found it, and also found out that at least one of us should have immediately walked over and put our names in. Signed up for $1/$2 after waiting in line for 10 minutes and there were 50 people in front of us. At this point we walked around, my buddy still not understanding that poker, bingo and video slots were all there was to be had at this place. After one trip around the place we (I can't believe I'm admitting this) sat down at a couple of video slots and commenced the losing for the night.
At this point let me say that the place looks really nice. It's got a nice feel to it, heads and shoulders above what the old Seminole Casino was. It's less than a year old and it shows. By the way, did I mention that the girls at the bar in front had the best uniforms? It almost would have been worth visiting the bar without all the college chickies...well...maybe.
So an hour and a half after I arrive we finally see our names on the plasma screen displays hanging in front of the poker room. 10 minutes later we are being called up. *a note here: if your name is on the screen, don't stray far, they have a PA system, but it doesn't work worth a damn* As we wanted to play on the same table I asked if we could get two seats together when we got to the desk. They knew we would be asking this, but didn't have anything immediately available. The girl asked us if we wanted to sit at the $2 straight table where she did have 2 seats and I THINK we told her we would wait. Well, a minute later she was waving us to a table. We sit down, and it's a $2 straight bet table. Oh well, we both brought $200 with us, so what the heck.
What the heck, sure. Like I said, I was there to have fun and I did, though it would have been more fun if I had not dropped all $160 that I put on the table. The play here was quite a lot like what I was used to. A couple of solid players and lots o' fishies. Anyone who says that online deals are rigged for action should have seen the boards at this table. Full flushes on the board, str8s on the board, a full house on the board (the last hand I played which I'll detail ina bit), and more str8 and flush draws than you can shake a stick at. I had my A,A busted; both of my K,K; A,K (this one by a set of jacks when a guys pockets hit on the flop), along with a myriad of other decent hands. My last hand was a Q,J off suit which I raised deciding all of the remaning $12 I had was going in no matter what (this at 12:30 am) and my buddy stayed in with 2,3o to hit Quad 2s when the board was 2,2,7,2,7. At least the last of my money went to him!
I must say I have a new respect for Chipco chips. Wow are those suckers easy to shuffle. I think I still prefer the feel of clay, but I'm not sure any more.
Some miscellaneous notes: I hate tipping. The rake is friggin' 10%! Why am I tipping??
I hate even more being given an attitude from the waitress when I ask her how much my coke is and she says it's free. I thank her and go back to the game...guess she was expecting a tip from the tone of her "thank you".
Some lady hit a diamond royal flush wich pays $100 (your kidding right) and went nuts. It's only $100 lady. The Spade flush paid $8K on Holdem and $16K on Omaha, all other suits are a measly $100.
People can't help but bitch about bad beats in person. I had some kid trash talking me to the guy next to him when his pocket Kings with a K on the flop got cracked by my Flush which I hit on the turn.
The dealers are heads and tails above those at the horse track. They know what they are doing and most of them were pretty fun.
So ends the quest. The wife comes back tonight and there is all kinds of house picking up that needs to be done. It didn't go as planned, but I've learned some lessons for sure. I've picked up another book to read (WLLHE by Lee Jones) and I'll be picking up more as I get the chance. I have a long, long way to go, but I feel like I'm on the right track. Thanks for reading.

OK, well, this is an awful lot of posting for one day, so I hope I don't bore anyone to absolute tears. If you made it this far, congrats and thanks. One more note, as it relates to the above: From poker tracker, my progress for last month in $2/4:
51.66 hours over 26 sessions. 193 Big Bets in earnings (oh the horror of realizing this could have been 300 Big Bets if not for that one session) with a win rate of 3.75 BBs per hour and an avg. win rage of 7.25 BBs per hour (anyone who can explain the difference would me more than welcome!).

Blogfused

2004-08-04T08:58:00.000-05:00

Wow...I had absolutely no idea how deep the world of blogs went. I'm not proficient in HTML and I'm starting to figure out that this is going to have to change if I want my Blog to look decent. The sheer number of templates or skins out there for blogs is amazing. Hopefully sometime in the near future I'll get a clue as to how all of this works and get a decent look for this litte journal o' mine.
I played about 3 hours of poker yesterday, and strangely enough, each session was 1 hour long, almost exactly. I normally try to play for a couple of hours at a time, but things didn't work out that way. Honestly, for my first two sessions it was me not being able to listen to that little voice saying, "you really don't have enough time to play". I played for an hour at lunch, an hour while the wife worked out on the treadmill and another hour while watching the WSOP last night.
*side note*Did anyone watch that Razz tourney? I like nothing better than seeing Dutch and his crew lose (especially Fischman, that guy rubs me the wrong way), but what an insane game! I've never seen so many unhappy, or downright pissed off poker players! I mean, has anyone ever seen Lederer that pissy (when he went off on TJ)?? Bah! Good thing I have a Digital Video Recorder. The wife and I walked the dog and I was able to fast forward through everything to see who won.
OK, so back to yesterday's play. I've decided to step up to the $3/6 level even though when I started,my bankroll was slightly anemic for that level. All three sessions were profitable yesterday and I'm closing in on the 200 Big Bet level for my bankroll. I won't feel truly comfortable until I hit the 300 Big Bet level, but if things stay the way they are going I have a feeling I'll be at this level for a while. Reasons: 1)It will take me a while to get to the 200 BB level for 5/10 (the next level available on Pacific) and 2) the play at 3/6 suits me. I'm amazed at the difference between 3/6 and 2/4. While 2/4 isn't quite as wild as 1/2, it is still very, very wild. The swings there were pretty ugly. 3/6 on the other hand is surprisingly tight. In one of my sessions yesterday I was actually able to steal the blinds a couple of times...that's right, I said steal the blinds in 3/6. Now not all of the tables are this way, but that's a good thing. They just aren't quite as loose/wild as the 2/4. 3)5/10 actually looks like it might be going back to the 2/4 style of play, which is scary to me with that much money at stake.
So, without further ado, here are a couple of the memorable hands from yesterday:
1. This one was from my last session and had I quit after it I would have would have cleared 5-6 more BBs than I did, but hey, that's poker. I'm on the Button and am dealt 5c,5h. UTG calls, UTG+1 raises, next two players call and it folds to me. I know the guy to my left will call with anything and I'm farily certain, considering the play so far, that I won't face a re-raise unless someone has A,A or K,K so I call. My "buddy" to the left surprises me by folding as does the BB so we are down to 5 players...less than I hoped for...and we have 12 small bets in the pot. Flop is 8d,2c,9h. Original raiser bets out and it's called around to me. I figure UTG to call so there will be just over 16 small bets in the pot giving me 16 to 1 on my money. Honestly, I didn't have that figured out when I was playing, I simply new that there was quite a bit in the pot, I didn't expect a raise, and if I hit the 5 on the turn that the implied odds were great that I would get quite a bit of play from at least one of the other players so I called even though I should have been getting 23+ to 1 for my money to try for the set on the turn. Well, I got lucky and the 5s hit on the turn. Our Raiser leads off again and is AGAIN called around to me. I decide he's got an overpair and the others must have hit a small piece of the flop. The only cards I'm really worried about are 6,7, but I don't think they are out there due to the betting. I raise it, UTG folds, our raiser calls as does one other player. The river is the 2h. It's checked to me, I bet and get two calls turning over the set of 5s for an 18 Big Bet pot.
2) Towards the end of my second session, and this one hurt. A,Kd UTG. I raise it and get two callers. Flop is ugly at 5d, 8c, 9h and the SB comes out betting. I raise, figuring him for an 8 or 9 and figure I'll represent an over pair and see if I can hit the overpair on the turn. The button smooth calls and the SB calls as well. The turn, my beautiful As. SB again bets out and I figure, well, maybe he's on A,x and was trying for the same hand I was. Fine with me as I've got top kicker so I raise. The button folds and SB calls. River is the 5c and the SB finally checks and I bet it out. SB calls and flips over A,8 for two pairs. I had him on his hand, I just never put my flop and turn guesses together. Needless to say, putting people on hands is something I REALLY need to work on.

No other hugely stupid plays yesterday, but I've been working on tightening up my game for the past couple of weeks, and I believe it is working. I'm currently working my way through Winnnig Low Limit Hold'em by Lee Jones. This is a great book so far and I'll post a review when I'm done with it.

I promised in my last post that I would be posting about my recent "Part Time Quest" and I'll try to get that up later today. For now, I think that's all.

JW