My Susurrations

Falling in love (with AK)

2011-12-05T21:27:00.001-08:00

I know better but it still happens way too often. I try to get too smart and maximize my profits (although in this case it didn't matter).

Imagine Sicily, 1934... (sorry, bad Golden Girls reference).

I was playing a ring game, NL Holdem, $0.10/$0.25 blinds. I had been playing for a while when I was dealt AdKc behind the dealer. 2nd under the gun raises to $0.75 and I reraise to $1.50. He was a pretty loose player and it seemed safe. Everyone else folded.
Flop comes 3dAdKc. He checks then calls my 1/2 pot bet ($1.67)
Turn comes 4s and I am still in love with my cards so I bet another 1/2 pot ($4.46)
River comes 2c and I am blinded by how good my cards are (or not). I push all in for another $14.08. You know how this is going to end - what does he have?

The obvious one I should have seen was a 5 for the straight but there is obviously a bunch of other hand (anything tripped). Given his behavior from the start I might have seen a small pocket pair and since he was with me from the beginning, you could guess 3s. In my defense he was a pretty loose aggressive player and as I said in the title, I was in love with my AK.

He turned over 33 and took the pot. I wasn't busted because I had a larger stack than him but it definitely made this the worse session since I started playing again.

Just to end my night on a nice note, I played a $11 S&G (not a bounty one) and managed to finish first. The last opponent wasn't overly happy and made some stupid comment which I have been using my $50 winnings to pleasantly forget about.

Bounty S&Gs

2011-12-05T17:51:00.001-08:00

I think my new love as an S&G type game is something called Bounty Sit and Go's. The concept works something like the following. Instead of simply paying an entry fee plus rake, you pay an entry fee, bounty plus rake. For example normally an $11 S&G breaks down as $10 entry plus $1 fee. In an $11 bounty S&G, it breaks down as $5 entry, $5 bounty and $1 fee.

So what does this mean and why I am in love with it. Well the bounty is paid to you when you take someone out. Or in other words, you put a $5 bounty on your head which is paid when someone takes you out. The down side is the prize pool is 1/2 (in this example) what it normally would be.

A couple examples from recent successes (we won't talk about the cases where it didn't work like this). My best example to date was about 9 days ago when I entered a $5+5+1 bounty S&G. Over the first hour or so I managed to take out 2 people which basically paid for the S&G. This is an important aspect if you are trying to be really careful with your bankroll.

Anyway, I kept winning and ended up with 5 bounties to my credit. It got much harder as the game went on and became much more like a traditional S&G. The top 20 or so positions paid and I ended up finishing in 4th place. Looking at the money is interesting.
I made $25 in bounties and $55 for finishing in 4th place. If I had played a normal S&G for this size of crowd, I would have made $110 instead of $80 ($25+$55) however I think I was much more likely to break even with the bounty approach. I find I almost always have my bankroll in the back of my mind and knowing I am in profitable territory makes the game much less stressful for me.

As an aside, when I tried a similar S&G this weekend, of course, I lost so quick I managed no bounties. It drove me to immediately try another one but all that was available for a $1+$1+$0.20 turbo S&G. So I snapped it up.

This one went more like the first one. I managed to take out 3 people for $3 and enough to break even. I made the final table again and this time because the turbo nature it was a continual all-in fest. Eventually it doesn't work out and I went out in 6th place for $11 prize. In both cases, I ended up winning around 7 times my entry cost which isn't huge but I will happily take it every day.

Back to it!

2011-12-05T07:02:00.001-08:00

After a couple years of not playing much poker, I am back into it again and slowly ramping up my play. I started playing at a site called http://pdcpoker.ag and have had some minor success (defined as my bankroll moving positive) there.

I will write some more from my adventures this weekend soon but I wanted to post some kind of "I'm back..." post as much for a reminder to me as anyone actually following this.

Good news or bad?

2010-03-26T19:58:00.000-07:00

I am playing a small S&G ($5.50) 9 person. It is early and I get KJ offsuit under the gun. I raise a couple BB just to make sure everyone playing is serious (and I am under the gun after all). I get called by a couple people including the big stack (1.5 times the average). He is batting 100% VPIP so this is no surprise. The flop comes 3A4 and I do a continuation bet of a couple BB. Our new friend raises about 10BB and everyone (including me) folds. I figured he has an ace. He is generous to show us that he has 34 unsuited for 2 pair.

I am grateful he was willing to play with 34o in the presence of a 3BB raise under the gun. One of these times I will get his money (if someone doesn't beat me to it).

Have you ever had this hand?

2010-02-24T23:15:00.000-08:00

You know the hand. You finally get dealt some good cards - pocket Kings just when you need them. You are not yet down to the push it all in stage but it is getting close enough that you are thinking about it.

The pocket Kings come along so you make a big raise kind of hoping someone will call you - but scared that if they do they will still suck out. So you make your raise and someone comes over the top. You decide this is probably the best hand you are going to see anyway so you push all-in.

Of course they turn over pocket Aces.

Well tonight I was that guy. Not the one with the Kings - the one with the Aces. It was a nice feeling to see someone play into my Aces that way.

It was even a nicer feeling to see them actually stand up through the river and win the hand - that usually doesn't happen on Riverstars.

This was in one of the cheap ($2+0.20) tournaments - lots of players (>3000) and it is still going. If I go out now, I will win a grand total of $7.31.

When you really do't want to go all in

2010-02-13T11:10:00.000-08:00

I haven't been playing that much - not like I used to but I wanted to post something about the hand I just played. I had to smile when it happened (because I have often been on the other side of this).

I am playing in a $10+1 180 person S&G at Pokerstars and getting some of the worse cards I have gotten in a while. I am usually a semi-loose fairly aggressive player but I was working on being the tightest player at the table. We were about 45 hands in and although our table had lost a couple players our table had been kept together since the start and I wasn't the only one playing tight.

Over a period of about 3 hands we lost a couple people and they were replaced with some fresh blood (I mean new players). Obviously they weren't used to such tight play because after about 4 hands one newbie complained "that this was the tightest table they had seen". I smiled.

The next hand I got dealt A10 suited. I was under the button and decided to min raise. As expected most folded but one of the short stacks pushed all-in. The guy in front of me decided to call and I, perhaps foolishly, decided to just call. The call was for just less than half my stack and since these were the best cards I had seen, I went with it.

It was clearly my hand as the flop came A10A. The guy in front of me decided it was his time to push. I smiled and called. The cards were revealed and the original all-in had pocket queens, the guy in front of me had pocket kings - they had me beat until the flop. The hand played out, I increased my stack by about 2.5 times and they broke our table up.

The last thing I saw in the chat box was the newbie saying "now that's more like it".

I smiled.

Time flys

2010-01-25T08:11:00.000-08:00

It has been over 3 years since I posted here and I have to blame a lot of it on my sheer lack of poker playing. Although I had never really intended this blog to be only about poker, it appears that when the poker stopped, so did the blogging.

To drive the final nail in the coffin and all that, I decided to revisit online poker playing last week and sure enough the urge to blog about it came with - the proof being this entry right here.

Given the challenge of getting money into poker sites now days I finally figured out the trick and used the eCheck mechanism that Pokerstars supports. My original intent was to use a check from one of my Canadian accounts but I discovered that Pokerstars assumes that if you live in the US, you would only have checks from US accounts. They are wrong but after a conversation with support, I realized that this was too difficult a thing to ask of them. They do support checks from Canadian banks if you live in Canada tho. :P

So last week I managed to get $100 into my Pokerstars account (which is the max you can write your first eCheck for) and decided to get back into the game. I had always liked S&Gs, so I tried a couple of a format I hadn't seen before. They are called Double or Nothing - basically 10 person S&Gs where the top 5 win double the entry (minus the rake). I found I had mixed success with these - people actually played quite tight (which was surprising) and I lost more than I won.

I then moved on to cash games - given my big bankroll I decided 0.10/0.25 NL was a good place for me to start. I put a few hours into this over a couple days and managed to eek out about $7/hr which I guess is pretty good given the limits I was playing at. It was fun at any rate.

Yesterday I decided to try one of the larger tournaments. They didn't have addons or rebuys but they had what they called extended registration which is really just rebuys by another name. Registration stayed open for an hour and you could reenter as often as you wanted. This took us from about 2100 original players to a total of 4791 when the first hour was up. I don't remember the numbers after that but by the end of 3 hrs I was in the money with 720 people left. After 4 hours we were under 100 players and I had actually been as high as 12th place at one time. During that 5th hour it was obvious my luck was running cold at the wrong time. I couldn't get any cards and the blinds were now in the 3k/6k to the 5k/10k range. I went out in 51st place at about 4hrs 40mins.

It was kind of neat to play the bigger tournament, especially when you are winning. It turned out that 51st place was worth $8.86. The tournament after all had only cost $1.10 to play. ;-)

By the sounds of it I am back playing poker, slowly, and back writing my blog.. Slowly..

No, I'm not dead..

2006-11-16T20:43:00.000-08:00

It is kind of hard to believe it has been 6 weeks since I last posted. However between having no internet at home for about a month, it took me a little while to get back into using the internet at home again.

Apparently a lot changed in the online poker world since I last posted anything. I won't make much of a comment about it other than to say that I closed out my pokerroom account (thanks to them wimping out) and still am playing at pokerstars.

I haven't played much poker tho. I played a couple tournies over the last couple weeks and managed to actually make the WWdN: Not last week. So this week I decided to play again (that is actually more of a choice than it sounds - I just haven't been into poker much lately). Of course while I was waiting, I discovered CC's Bash.

I hadn't played last week in it, and in fact didn't know much about it other than it appeared to have some of the regular crowd there so I signed up. So while waiting for the tourny to start (actually both of them since I was also signed into the WWdN: Not) I noticed that the Bash was Limit! Awk! I don't like limit, don't do good at it and limit tournament seems just painful. Unfortunately it was already too late to unregister.

So I fumbled my way along for the 1st half hour, then the WWdN: Not started. Now it got confusing - playing limit in one window and NL in the other. I struggled on.

We seemed to play in lockstep which each tournament - 8 players in one window, 8 in the other.. Then 7 and 7, 6 and 6, etc.. It was eerie. I couldn't follow the conversations in each chat window - I had trouble clicking on the fold/bet button at time.

As an aside, I have no idea how people actually play multiple tournament at the same time - my hat's off to those who do it successfully.

Through nothing more than pure luck on my part, I managed to break the bubble on the limit game and make it into the money. I moved up and before I knew it, I was heads up with the Doctor himself. I actually managed to come back and have a huge chip lead and force him all-in a couple times before my cards turned cold again and he returned to trounce me. We did manage to beat on each other for what felt like half an hour (it was probably 5 minutes).

Somewhere in the intensity of it all, I managed to be the bubble boy on the WWdN: Not tourney - not bad for really not paying too much attention.

Anyway, it was a great game CC and Pauly. I will certainly try to come back next time and add to my points (now that I have some). Please try not to make it limit again tho. ;-)

Staying in touch..

2006-10-04T12:58:00.000-07:00

After last weeks adventures, I figured I was all done. But oh, no, there is more to come.

As I discovered last week, my EVDO card which I use for internet access didn't like the area I was living in. That should have been all fine and fixed up when I returned to my normal location last Sunday. However, I found that a problem I was having with the EVDO card last week was the precusor of more problems to come. I managed to get connected once on Sunday and after that, it gave up the ghost. To the point where the computer doesn't even recognise it as a PC card anymore.

Of course I went to the Sprint store on Monday, and after spending 1 1/2 hrs "helping" the support guy realise that I really did know what I was talking about when I said it was dead - he insisted on having me bring in the laptop, uninstall the software, reinstall the software, etc.. All to get to the same conclusion I had. He then went on to say that since it was out of the 30 day warantee (and I didn't pay for the insurance), I would have to contact the manufacturer to have it replaced under their warantee. The card is about 60 days old.

So I am now in the process of waiting for an RMA number, so I can send the card in and wait for a replacement - regardless it means probably at least another week+ before I get internet at home again.

Huh? What do you mean the government banned online gambling? I guess I won't know anything about that til I get my internet back at home and I try to get to any of my regular sites. Amazing what happens when you lose your internet access for a couple days.

Anyway, I obviously won't be there again this week for the WWdN: Not, but if yesterday's WWdN turnout was any measure, we may have record crowds. I would be there if I could, but since I can't, now is the time to set the record! Good luck everyone!

Long time gone

2006-09-25T13:16:00.000-07:00

Amazing how time flys when you are having fun. I have to admit that poker has been pretty far from my mind that last couple weeks - and other than trying to set a record for the most consistent first person outs, I have played little poker.

I have not received much in the way or logos for the WWdN: Not. I am not a huge fan of the "knot" image - but it does seem fairly popular. Keep sending me logo suggestions and I will post something and then let people vote in comments. At the current rate, there wouldn't be much voting.

On a completely different note, this weekend was moving weekend for me. When my wife and I came down here to Southern California 2 1/2 years ago, we brought our 5th wheel trailer with us as a place to live. With only the two of us and our dog, this is more than enough room for us and it has the benefit of allowing us to live in park (fortunately not one of those parking lot type RV places).

The downside is that the place we are living is a county park, and every 7 months we are required to leave for a week - to prove we are not permanent or something. That was this weekend and we move back in next weekend. Now that wasn't enough - oh no.. The place we stay when we take our week out is nice and close, so it is a quick move. This time however, they are having power problems and the park is generally closed to RVs. Unless you have a reservation, and then there is no power there. Well, we did have a reservation and decided it was actually cheaper to buy a generator, than pay for some of the other alternative locations.

So yesterday morning, we get on the road and moved into the new park. Get the generator going and everything seems to be chugging along happily (literally - the generator chugs along..). The next problem I discovered was Sprint doesn't have as good of EVDO coverage as Verison and my internet access was down to 10 minutes at a time (at best). So I don't think I will be playing any online games this week - including poker. Oh well, beer drinking doesn't need internet to work good.

So while drinking beer and listening to the generator for about 4 hours, the generator started to sound really funny - it seemed unable to idle consistently and when under load, it couldn't handle it at all. I headed out to the truck (the generator is in the back of the truck) and noticed gas running out of the truck bed. About this time, the generator quits and with some small investigating I find the fuel line has come off the carb. I suspect it was loose to start with, and the vibration finally released it. With a little persuasion, I get it all hooked up and look at the air filter (which is soaked with gas). I wring it out and let it dry, then put it back together and fire it up. Back in business and back to the beer and tv. After all, what else can go wrong?

Well about 9 pm, the generator starts to run rough again - I am seriously starting to doubt this plan at this point. I head out with the flashlight, expecting to find fuel all over the place again. The generator sputters to a stall, but no fuel to be found. In fact I seriously figure, that was the problem - with the leak earlier, I ran out of fuel. No problem, I have another 5 gallon container, all ready to go. Except, it is one of those new fangled spouts which for the life of me, I can't figure out. It is supposed to prevent spills, which I suspect it does, since I couldn't get it to pour anything. At this point I considered pouring without a spout at all, but given the arrangement, I figured that would make my earlier fuel leak look like nothing at all. We decided that it could wait til today, in daylight, when we could get a proper funnel and just remove the spout and pour into the funnel..

So if you are actually still reading this, I have no idea why. Thanks tho, just in case I did have anything worthwhile to say. So this will be a noisy, week for me, with only internet at work. Enjoy the MATH, WWdN, Mookie and WWdN: Not, and I will try to keep up with the events during my lunch hour at work.

To logo or not to logo, that is the question.

2006-09-14T08:03:00.000-07:00

Mookie recently pimped our favorite tournament and he included an logo which I assume he created. It raised the question for me as to whether we should have a logo contest of some sort.
(Blogger won't let me upload the image right now)

And of course the obvious question 'Who is the woman?"

So since I really suck at creating logo type banners and such, I will make the following offer.

Send me your logos (for the WWdN: Not) and I will make a post in a couple weeks with all the received logos. Whoever has the most popular one (vote in the comments), will get a free entry into the following WWdN: Not.

You can send the logos to me (rgduff) at my favorite email place. (gmail).

See you all tonight!

A little late?

2006-09-10T09:15:00.000-07:00

Alright, I was tired Thursday night - L0K1 and I raced to see who could go out first. And we had Wil !!! there for the first time in quite a few games. He played very well and unfortunately managed to be our bubble boy for the night.

Now I admit that I cheated and didn't actually stay around to watch the end. I do know that our final 3 were playing a very strong game for as long as I was around. It was interesting that both Mungo36 and mookie99 were the ones who took out L0K1 and I, giving them a very early head start - and we all know how important that is.

Anyway, a little late, but congratulations to Mungo36 for winning and more importantly L8Bloomer for NOT winning. mookie99 rounded out the top 3.

Stay tuned for next weeks WWdN: Not The L8Bloomer Invitational!

Time flys

2006-09-06T14:35:00.000-07:00

It seems like just a day ago when I took off for Pechanga for the weekend. Time flies when you are having fun I guess. I did discover they have a nice structured, cheap to enter, tournament there. Apparently it is a regular 10am thing, with $20+5 entry fees and $4000 in guaranteed winnings on Saturdays. Might have to go back for that again.

Anyway, even tho I didn't make the WWdN: Not last week, I wanted to make sure everyone was thinking about this week. Come join us tomorrow for it!

What: WWdN: Not The hacker59 Invitational
Where: Pokerstars
When: Thursday, September 7th, 7:30PM PT
Which: Tournament: 31053234
Cost: $10+1 NLHE
Password: monkey

I knew it was going to be an interesting night...

2006-08-30T22:06:00.000-07:00

... when I decided to play in The Mookie. I used to play 3 regular tournaments a week - the WWdN, the Mookie and of course the WWdN: Not. I got to a point where it just seemed too much (or perhaps too much poker in general was the problem), so I cut back. Over the last month or two, I have only been playing the WWdN: Not, and the occasional other game - nothing regular.

So I decided this week that since I wasn't going to play in the WWdN: Not tomorrow (I am going away for the long weekend), I would play in the Mookie instead. The first hand I was dealt I had pocket 5s. I called and the button, SB and BB all join me. The flop comes 10104 and I bet out 40 - a test as much as anything. I get two callers and one fold. The turn comes a 5! for my baby boat. It is checked to me and I bet 40 again. The button (willwonka) raises 80 to 120 and the SB (surflexus) re-raises 160 to 280. I think about it and decide to push. willwonka folds and surflexus calls. Surf shows Q10 for trips. The turn is a 3 and that is it for both surflexus and the late registration (which ends when the first person is eliminated). 2:18 minutes! Sorry about that one Surf.

Anyway, it was the start of an interesting night for me - mainly because I actually managed to get cards often enough that I never really was hurting. Oh I had dry spells, but never long enough to seriously hurt my stack.

The first break came and I was doing well - the second came and I was competing for chip lead.
When we finally broke that damn bubble, we were at about 2:30 hours in. We played for a few more rounds after that and someone suggested we chop the pot. The chop was a good deal for everyone but 1st and 2nd place, but since we were all pretty close in chips, we all agreed to chop the money and play on for the title. This is my first time I have ever chopped a pot - kinda neat actually.

I am not sure everyone was playing as serious after that, but it certainly didn't last long and we finished in less than 3 hours with yours truly in 1st place.

I do have to say that winning this is actually much more important to me that most the MTTs I play. I have a lot of respect for most the regular players, and winning something like this is worth more to me than the money in any sense. I certainly would like to thank mookie for all the effort he puts into this every week and I am sorry to see him move it to Full Tilt. I don't have an account there and am not prepared to create one at this time. I hope everyone continues to have a good time and I wish it all the success.

-------------------

Don't forget, even tho I am not here tomorrow, you still need to come play the WWdN: Not The Anithri Invitational.

What: WWdN: Not The Anithri Invitational
Where: Pokerstars
When: Thursday, August 31th, 7:30PM PT
Which: Tournament: 30611882
Cost: $10+1 NLHE
Password: monkey

A little poker for a change

2006-08-29T08:34:00.000-07:00

As I have mentioned in previous posts, I have been playing a lot less poker over the last month or so. I can't really say why other than I needed to do something with my life other than play poker 5 nights a week and on the weekends.

I decided to play in a $10+1 tourny on Sunday at PokerRoom. PokerRoom has always had a sweet spot in my heart as I have made my best wins there. The biggest was a $1600 win earlier this year (I think it was this year).

Part of the attraction, I think, is the level of play is not quite as good as PokerStars. This makes it slightly easier to do well.

Anyway, as I was saying, I got into a 518 person, $10+1 tourny there on Sunday. I wasn't really getting any cards, and I usually play reasonably tight in those circumstances. I made it past the 1st break with less than average chips. As the game progressed, I was slowly getting chipped away at until I got to that point where you have to stand up and be counted, one way or the other.

I actually survived that phase and when we crossed the 100 people remaining boundary, I was in around 30th place or so. Unfortunately my cards turned a little better. You know, when you are getting bad cards, it is easy to play tight and avoid any confrontations. You only lose big, when you have big cards (and the other guys has bigger).

In this case, I had AQo - not great, but certainly better than what I had been seeing. The bad guy raises to 3 or 4 BB and I call. The flop comes Qxx rainbow and I bet out about pot sized (realising that I was pot committed if he called). He raises enough to put me all-in and I call. He turns over JJ and my Queens are looking really nice. Of course the turn comes a Jack and I am out in 90th place. The money started at 60th place.

This is not a bad beat story (it only sounds like it). I was quite happy that I had made it that far and lost to a 2 outer. (well, I wasn't THAT happy).

I took a small break, and then tried another tourny with much, much worse results (but it took a lot less time).

So that was it for Sunday. I got home yesterday from work and after a couple beer, decided I would look for more poker (I am not sure that is a good idea). Around 830pm, I found a $20+2 tourny about to start. There was 128 people to start, so it looked easier than the 518 from Sunday (hah).

Like Sunday my cards sucked and I chipped away at my starting stack. Nothing spectacular by the 1st break. I was in 17th out of 42 remaining . Nothing scary by this point, just a little blind (and pot stealing) and playing it tight.

The game tightened up considerably and somewhere in this hour, I found myself with pocket Kings. This was my best starting hand in a long, long time and I decided to play it fairly cool with a 3BB raise. I was in fairly good standing with lots of chips (2nd at my table) and not overly threatened by anyone. One player decides to call. The flop comes xQA rainbow. The other guy bets about 1/2 his stack (which I think was less than pot sized) and I think about it for a second then I clicked all-in! Oops - serious brain fart or something as that was not the way I wanted to play this. Of course he had an Ace, which held up and I was now hurting. We were at that point of the tourny where you can go from last to first and back again without trying hard. I was now in 17th out of 18. Because of the tight play, and big blinds, everyone was really close in chips and any move was significant.

I did however manage to squeak out some more steals and grind my way back to 4th out of 13th place standing at the break. Only the final table paid and we were in hand for hand play trying to break that bubble.

The tight play continued past the bubble and finally we were in the money (not that it was that much). I was about middle of the pack with 2-3 players with less than me when I called an all-in by the short stack with A9o. I figured he was desperate and it "seemed" a good idea at the time.
One of the big stacks called the all-in after me. The flop came 97x and I checked on the big stack bet 4k. Given this was 2/3 the pot, and it would definitely pot commit me if I called, I thought about it and decided to fold (cursing the big that he had better have this guy beaten). It turned out that they both ended up with the same straight and split. So at this point, I was the only loser and now the new short stack.

The next hand, I got JQ and decided that 2 face were as good as it was going to get before the blinds (at 1k-2k) were going to get the money anyway. I pushed and was called by an AQ. I don't recall what happened other than I didn't improve and went out in 7th for $128. Not bad, but it just seemed very disappointing in that I didn't play as well as I had hoped.

Oh well, it was fun. ;-)

---------

On another note (if you are still reading this far down), don't forget the WWdN: Not this week.

What: WWdN: Not The Anithri Invitational
Where: Pokerstars
When: Thursday, August 31th, 7:30PM PT
Which: Tournament: 30611882
Cost: $10+1 NLHE
Password: monkey

No Threepeat tonight, but

2006-08-24T21:00:00.000-07:00

a good try none the less. TROPHYHUBBY went out in 6th place of a nice 18 person turnout. NOT a record by any means, but a good turnout for a great game. slb159 managed to hurt me enough that I went out slightly afterwards in 8th place. BlkBltJones who won the tourny two weeks ago went out in 7th.

The fight for the bubble appeared to start with 6 left with everyone being pretty evenly split except for hoyazo who had about twice the stack of his nearest competitor. Anithri hurt slb159 and the final blow was delivered by L0K1 to take them down to the real bubble.

L0K1 raced with his 66 against Anithri's all-in AK to lose out when a K came on the flop. He managed to fight back with another 66 against Anithhri's AQ to win this time and get back in the game. The fight for the bubble was fun to watch, but finally L0K1 sacrificed himself to let the remaining players make it into the money. Of course no-one plays this for the money, but the right to say they are most capable of NOT winning in Thursday nights.

Congrats to the final 3, hoyazo, Anithri and NewinNov and we hope you will all come back next week for the WWdN: Not The Anithri Invitational!

Next week, I will be away for the long weekend and not here to contribute money to the game. It will be set up tho and hopefully we can find someone to report on it so I can see how everyone did.

Time flys

2006-08-23T21:13:00.000-07:00

I have been busy this week, away from my office doing some training. In fact this is my first computer use in 14 hours - which may not be a record, but it is a little unusual for me.

L0K1 is off HORSE'ng around and writing about his experiences. One of these days I will have to give it a try and see how I can do. I have only managed to play one game of poker since last week, and that was with my usual lousy results. I am going to head down to Pechanga at the end of the month, so maybe I will see if I do more in person.

Anyway, I wanted to make sure I mentioned the WWdN: Not The TROPHYHUBBY Invitational tomorrow night. This is the first time someone has NOT managed to win two weeks in a row, so I thought it was worth special mention - we won't want to let that happen three times or anything like that.

What: WWdN: Not The TROPHYHUBBY Invitational
Where: Pokerstars
When: Thursday, August 24th, 7:30PM PT
Which: Tournament: 30188246
Cost: $10+1 NLHE
Password: monkey

A quick one

2006-08-17T20:22:00.000-07:00

Tonights tourny was quick, with only 9 people showing up. My partner in crime, L0K1 sacrificed himself on the bubble to enable surflexus, TROPHYHUBBY and slib159 to finish in the money. suflexus was on fire and it allowed TROPHYHUBBY to be our first double winner (or is that loser?) with TROPHYHUBBY Not winning twice in a row.

So stay tuned next week for the WWdN: Not The TROPHYHUBBY squared Invitational!

It's time again

2006-08-17T12:00:00.000-07:00

Hmm.. Quiet week for me - at least in terms of blogging and poker. I don't think I have played since the last WWdN: Not tourny. Last night I got distracted by the Mrs who wanted to go out for dinner. She actually had the audacity of using the fact it was our 26th wedding anniversary as an excuse.

So when I logged into blogger today, they had a link up about trying out the new beta version, will all new bells and whistles and such. I am still looking for those, but at least it seemed to have moved my blog over to the new servers without problems. If you notice anything different or weirder than normal, let me know and I will look into it.

And finally, more than anything else, go get signed up for the WWdN: Not The TROPHYHUBBY Invitational:

What: WWdN: Not The TROPHYHUBBY Invitational
Where: Pokerstars
When: Thursday, August 17th, 7:30PM PT
Which: Tournament: 29778434
Cost: $10+1 NLHE
Password: monkey

aNOTher fun game

2006-08-10T20:59:00.000-07:00

Just a short note tonight. We had about our average turnout (18 - 2 full tables) and the game was fun as usual. Hoyazo went out early and was not impressed. We got live updates from Jules as she watched the PPV from the ME final table. The rest of us kept reloading Pauly's pages so we could get his updates. Congrats to BlkBeltJones, TROPHYHUBBY and my friend Quatloos for making it into the money in 1st, 2nd and 3rd. BlkBltJones told me this was his first WWdN tourny - nice way to start. I didn't have the heart to tell him this was NOT the real thing. Stay tuned next week for the WWdN: Not The TROPHYHUBBY Invitational!

The Big day in Pokerdom

2006-08-10T09:36:00.000-07:00

Today is the day that we will probably see a person who is reasonably unknown ascend to the throne of Pokerdom and be crowned the new King. (There is also a good chance that poker pro Allen Cunningham will make it too -- here's hoping).

We couldn't get the coverage that those of us who can't attend demand if it wasn't for the famous (or is that infamous) Dr. Pauly has been presenting us. Unlike some coverage, he cuts through the BS and gives us a great view into all aspects of the WSOP. My hat's off to you Pauly. We can all show our support to him by linking his blog and seeing if we can set some sort of view record for him during his coverage today.

--------------------

On a much more normal note, I hope everyone plans to attend tonight's WWdN: Not, even if Kat isn't around to defend her title:

What: WWdN: Not The Katitude Invitational
Where: Pokerstars
When: Thursday, August 10th, 7:30PM PT
Which: Tournament: 29328119
Cost: $10+1 NLHE
Password: monkey

NOT again

2006-08-07T10:50:00.000-07:00

My last post about suckouts and what is a suckout and what is not actually got my friend Jay/L0K1/Patch to make a post on his new blog about it. It is interesting that everyone has a slightly different definition and they all tend to be colored a little by the level of tilt that the victim is feeling at the time.

I have said before that I play a small, nickel and dime, game on Sundays. Basically if we can get three people together, we play. We do $5 buy-ins and it tends to get a little crazy at time, but usually in the end, not a lot of money changes hands. Well, yesterday, we had a friend from Canada visiting and of course my wife, Sherry, and I made him our 3rd so we could play poker. He had certainly played before as he spent a year down here working on a contract with a local company.

It was getting later into the evening (we play outside and the sun was pretty much set) and the following hand came up. At this point I was down one buy-in, but probably had enough chips to be considered break-even. Sean was not having a good day and was down about $20. Sherry obviously was doing good with all our money. I had 910h and called a 2BB raise. It was a family pot and the flop came 6s7d8s. I bet out 5BB (which was just over 1/2 the pot) and got two callers. You have to understand the level of bluffing that goes on in this game - so no information was given or gained by this play. The turn comes a 5h. I am happy so far with the nut straight and just bet out the same 5BB (deliberately underbetting). Sherry calls and Sean raises it to 15BB (almost 1/2 his remaining stack). Hoping to stack and isolate him, I call all-in. Much to my surprise (well, maybe not), Sherry calls the all-in with her stack. At this point Sean thinks about it and realises there are serious pot odds if he thinks he can win. So he calls. Everyone turns and they both have a 9 kicker and my 9-10 is in the lead. We look at everyones cards and try to figure out the remaining options. Sherry's cards are both spades, so she has a flush draw. A 10 on the river will give us a three way split.

We wait for the river, and as expected, it is an 8 of spades, giving Sherry the flush and everyone's money. Now given the way Sherry plays, I would call this a suckout. I seriously doubt she looked looked at the flush draw as a possibility. On the other hand, she's got my money and in theory, could have thought we all had 9s, and was going for the split with the flush draw as backup.

At that point, we decided it was a good time to quit for the night. I ended up down $10 and Sean was down $25. (But we all had a good time and that is really what it was about)

--------------------------------

On a completely different note, don't forget to get signed up early for this weeks WWdN: Not The Katitude Invitational. Even if the star herself will not be available to defend her title.

What: WWdN: Not The Katitude Invitational
Where: Pokerstars
When: Thursday, August 10th, 7:30PM PT
Which: Tournament: 29328119
Cost: $10+1 NLHE
Password: monkey

Suckout or NOT?

2006-08-06T10:55:00.000-07:00

I had never played any 45 SnGs because it always seemed you had to wait too long before they started. Then I signed up for the 45 SnG Challenge and discovered another reason for not playing them. I apparently suck at it. The closest I have gotten to the money is a 8th, 9th and 10th place finish. Oh well, I will plug away at them some more and see if I can avoid being in bottom place of the 20 people in the challenge.

The following hand was my finale in a 45 SnG yesterday. I was pretty much short stacked (blinds 200/400) with 1985 in chips. I was dealt KK and pushed. One caller called with AsJs. The flop came 3dQs4s, the turn was a Jd and of course the river was a spade (10s). Of course I went home in 9th place and just missed the money (again).

We see this kind of hand happening all the time and usually we listen to the loser complain about how they were sucked out on. Pokerstars is often refered to as Riverstars as it seems to happen all the time.

I certainly agree there are many times when suckouts occur, but I believe people often think that hands like the one I described were a suckout. I certainly didn't like the hand, but it was NOT a suckout. Especially in a case where the decision was made preflop. The caller in this case had two good cards, we were on the bubble and he had me covered 4 times over. The fact the cards were suited added to this decision. I would have probably made the call even if they weren't suited given his opponent (me) was so short stacked.

My point is the fact the cards were suited added value (I am not the math guy - they can tell you how much value). This value was based on the odds of 3 cards having the same suit out of the next 5 cards dealt. The fact the last card that matched happened on the river doesn't make it a suckout. Even if he would have had to go runner runner suited to get the flush, it would not have been a suckout because he made his choice before any of the cards were seen.

Now I used a simple example (although painful for me) with a flush and the decision being made preflop. But the same thing occurs whenever someone makes a one way choice (going all-in, or even getting pot commited). If the choice they made was based on getting certain cards and it was a valid choice, the fact the cards happen to come out on the river, or even turn and river, it is not a suckout.

Now this isn't to say that suckout don't occur. They do - all the time even. It is important to remember that it isn't a suckout if the decision made by the player included odds on remaining cards filling their hand. Of course nobody should be depending on runner runner odds to make their hand and if they did, you can call them a donkey instead.

Not a record, but a good turnout for us

2006-08-03T21:37:00.000-07:00

We had 22 intrepid bloggers and readers out tonight for a good game. The game was obviously too hard for me, so I went out in 16th and joined some of the others in playing a cheap cash game.

I shoulda quit that while I was more than doubled up, but I still managed to quit ahead enough to pay for the NOT tournament.

Anyway, back to the main event, as usual it was a feisty game and those who were knocked out or just late, railbirded (is that a word?) for those still in.
I had high hopes for fellow Canuck Guin, but he managed to be the bubble boy and allow last weeks bubble boy slb159, fellow Canuck Katitude and rspr41 finish in the money. rspr41 went out next with slb159 going on to win the event. Hmm.. There seems to be a Canadian theme going here.

Kat managed to NOT win, so next week you will all have to come congratulate her for NOT winning in the WWdN: Not The Katitude Invitational!

New blogger!

2006-08-03T13:34:00.000-07:00

I'd like to welcome my friend, and co-host on the WWdN: Not, Jay to the world of blogging. I know for a fact he has a lot to say about poker (not that you judge by the original post on his blog) and now all we have to do is get him to write about it on his blog. Feel free to head over to his blog and welcome him. You could even try asking him about his opinion on some poker, but look out if he is in a curmungeony (is that a word) mood.

With a little luck he will remember to play tonight at the WWdN: Not. Let's see if we can get the numbers back up to the 25 or so level. If we don't, I might just have to win it again.

What: WWdN: Not The chipperdh Invitational
Where: Pokerstars
When: Thursday, August 3rd, 7:30PM PT
Which: Tournament: 28896393
Cost: $10+1 NLHE
Password: monkey

More NOT this week

2006-07-31T13:25:00.000-07:00

As mentioned in the last post, slb159 and chipperdh have slightly different versions of what happened last week. Quatloos has managed to post some screen shots of various stages of last week's game as well.

Let's see if we can get back to breaking our record this week (although I don't really mind the smaller games - especially when I win).

What: WWdN: Not The chipperdh Invitational
Where: Pokerstars
When: Thursday, August 3rd, 7:30PM PT
Which: Tournament: 28896393
Cost: $10+1 NLHE
Password: monkey

NOT a great turnout, but a GREAT game

2006-07-27T21:39:00.000-07:00

Well everyone else might not agree, but I actually like the smaller format. We only had 10 people show up to play, although a few more showed up to railbird a little. We very quickly moved on to a single table when L0K1 took out waffles in what had to be the first or second hand. I managed to hang in there for the 1st half hour, then I went on a bit of a rush (well actually a huge rush) and took out a few people.

I can't take credit for talking out slb on the bubble tho. The credit for that has to go to our next tournament's namesake, chipperdh. Slb has quite the rant going on about it, so you can check his blog for that. surflexus did a great job of fighting with me for the lead and in a great hand I managed to sucker him when I had pocket queens and he doubled me up to take the lead. Of course he may not agree it was a great hand. ;-) He didn't have a chance after that and chipperdh and I were heads up.

This left me with a dilemna. If I went out in 2nd place, I would have to name the next tournament after me and I figured people might not understand that. The only solution was to go ahead and finish in 1st so we could have the WWdN: Not The chipperdh Invitational next week. It was a little harder than that, but in the end I won my first tournament / MTT / SnG in quite a while.

Overall it was a great game, suckouts, hammer falls and all.

Just a reminder

2006-07-24T20:44:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note to remind everyone to keep the WWdN: Not The A'arab Zaraq Invitational on their calendar this Thursday at the regular time:

What: WWdN: Not The A'arab Zaraq Invitational
Where: Pokerstars
When: Thursday, July 27th, 7:30PM PT
Which: Tournament: 28483571
Cost: $10+1 NLHE
Password: monkey

We tied the record

2006-07-20T21:19:00.000-07:00

We had a great turnout, tying our current record of 25 players. Not the kind of turnout that the other regular blogger and bloggee tournaments get, but I am happy with our little Thursday night game attendence. Congratulations have to go to shadowtwin, A'arab Zaraq and NewinNov for finishing in the money, and of course A'arab Zarab gets special recognition for Not winning. There was some mighty sucking out going on to make that final money showing, but it was very entertaining (as usual).

Once I managed to donk out in 22nd, and Guin managed to finish in 20th, we decided to go try a joint 45 SnG to continue with the challenge. Unfortunately this wasn't our night there either and we went out in 23rd and 18th respectively.

After I finished that, I went back and watched the final table of the WWdN: Not. Needless to say the railbirding and trash talking is part of what makes this so much fun. Stay tuned next week for the WWdN: Not The A'arab Zaraq Invitational.

Trying for more records

2006-07-20T10:30:00.000-07:00

Tonight is your chance to help Wes Not win the WWdN: Not The Boobie Lover Invitational. Go get yourself signed up right now, in case you are a little late arriving tonight.

What: WWdN: Not The Boobie Lover Invitational
Where: Pokerstars
When: Thursday, July 20th, 7:30PM PT
Which: Tournament: 28090247
Cost: $10+1 NLHE
Password: monkey

In other news, I tried another one of those 45 person SnGs again last night. I got down to 3 tables and limped in with KJ suited in the cutoff. The button and blinds completed for a total of 4 to the flop. The flop came KJ2 rainbow and it was checked to me. I decided to just slow play, checked, and the button bet $300. The other two players called the bet and with only ~T1000 left into a ~T2000 pot, I pushed all-in. The button calls and the other two fold. The button turns over wired 2s for 3 of a kind. They hold up and I go home.

I didn't think my play was that bad (always open to comments tho) but I didn't get as far this time as last time (when I bubbled out in 8th). Oh well..

45 SnG Challenge and the Boobie Lover Invitational

2006-07-17T12:07:00.000-07:00

I signed up for the 45 SnG Challenge that drewspop is running over here. It looks like fun, although my first attempt yesterday ended in a 19th place finish. I figure I have a month, so I will take my time and see how it turns out. The biggest challenge is waiting for the damn game to fill up most times.

Just a reminder that the regularly scheduled WWdN: Not is trying to break its current record turnout of 25 on Thursday. Come help Wes Not win again!

What: WWdN: Not The Boobie Lover Invitational
Where: Pokerstars
When: Thursday, July 20th, 7:30PM PT
Which: Tournament: 28090247
Cost: $10+1 NLHE
Password: monkey

No records tonight

2006-07-13T21:13:00.000-07:00

But we did have our regular 15 or so turnout. Congrats have to go to Iakaris, Boobie Lover and Mungo36 for their 1st, 2nd and 3rd place finishes - in the money. I actually felt I stood a chance for a short while, but was dissuaded when Wes sucked out on me and my final all-in with the hammer didn't stand up.

So stay turned next week for WWdN: Not The Boobie Lover Invitational!

WWdN: Not The tonight

2006-07-13T12:21:00.000-07:00

So much for my WSOP 150 challenge last night. I took a muscle relaxant for some shoulder problems and promptly fell asleep. I don't think it helped my shoulder much, but I will keep the medicine around in case I need help sleeping.

Other than that, just a reminder about the WWdN: Not The mowemdown Invitational tonight, same time and place as usual.

What: WWdN: Not The mowemdown Invitational
Where: Pokerstars
When: Thursday, July 13th, 7:30PM PT
Which: Tournament: 27691916
Cost: $10+1 NLHE
Password: monkey

Patience

2006-07-11T23:18:00.000-07:00

They say patience is an important part of playing poker. I actually agree whole heartedly and am usually a fairly patient player.

Well tonight I wanted to make another attempt at the WSOP 150 at Pokerstars, but sat outside enjoying the cooling evening a little too long tonight and when I came in, there was no interesting tournaments starting for at least 30 minutes.

Given I didn't have the patience to wait, I found one in the regular tournament tab which was about to start. I figured I could afford it as it cost a grand total of $1.10. I like to occasionally play the cheaper tournaments because they usually have a larger field and it makes for a different game than the smaller tournies.

We are now on the 3rd break, and if I went out right now in 23rd of 773 players, I would win a grand total of $3.41 (minus my costs for a net of $2.31). That isn't what this is about tho. It is about having the patience to out last 750 other players. The break is about over, so we will see how long I last after this.

At just about the 4 hour point, I was the serious short stack and on the final table button. I had A7o and the flop came 568 rainbow and I pushed figuring high card and an outside straight draw. My caller had A5 for the baby pair and it held up. That was it for me in 10th place for a grand prize of $8.12.

Overall I was lucky to get that far - back to that patience thing I guess. I had really lousy cards for a lot of it and the crowd at this level were pretty agressive. I played real tight (lousy cards helped) and when I finally got something I usually doubled up (and needed it at that point). Eventually that luck had to give out. I'm happy enough - now only if that had of been a $10+1 instead of $1.00+0.10.

Trying for the WSOP 150 at Pokerstars

2006-07-10T22:19:00.000-07:00

So I read my email and I decided I would try to win myself an entry into the WSOP 150 giveaway this weekend at Pokerstars.

I took a look around, hoping for one of their double shootouts that I like so much, but all they had were various flavours of freezeout and rebuy events. I decided I would give a $3+0 rebuy event a try - the main reason was the more expensive events didn't pay as many positions (less people playing, etc). Sounds kinda backwards typing that, but generally the cheaper events have more payout (and a bigger crowd to fight).

So I battled my way through the 1st hour, rebuying more than a few times (I think I spend $15 or so) and finally a more normal game started to appear. The advantage was that most these types weren't that quick at switching from the all-in fest of a rebuy, (especially a cheap one) to a more normal game and they were quickly eliminated.

The disadvantage of this format tho was there were only 16 seats to the Sunday tournament, and 610 players. The other disadvantage is the rather long slog to make it into the top 5% which is all that won anything (top 25 positions actually).

If you're still reading this, now you know what it feels like to play this. We are now down to 43 players and we have been at it 3 hours and 43 minutes - it seems like forever. I also just discovered that the player chat is disabled for some reason - I assume there was a problem somewhere and pokerstars disabled it? I have never seen that before, but I know the chat worked earlier.

I am not sure I can make it now. The blinds are up to $3000/6000 + 300 and before I finished typing this, I got sucked into an all-in (my M was about 4) and I was in the big blind. I had the great hand, 53o and the flop came 599. I was pretty pot commited so I pushed and the other person in the hand called and turned over KK. I never improved (I had a 2 outer) and I went out in 33rd. Which kinda sucks after playing for 3 hours and 53 minutes and do not even make the money.

Oh well. I am happy with the way I played, which is an improvement over a couple of weeks ago. I plan on trying this every night this week except for the WWdN: Not night (and if I go out early there, perhaps that night as well).

WWdN: Not The mowemdown Invitational

2006-07-07T20:37:00.000-07:00

Here's everyone's chance to help break the record for next week by registering early. Come join us to see if mowemdown will Not win again next time:

What: WWdN: Not The mowemdown Invitational
Where: Pokerstars
When: Thursday, July 13th, 7:30PM PT
Which: Tournament: 27691916
Cost: $10+1 NLHE
Password: monkey

Record turn out tonight..

2006-07-06T20:51:00.000-07:00

I was amazed that we got 25 people to come out to try to dethrone MiamiDon tonight. I expected a slightly less than usual turnout, given the mad rush to get to Vegas and all. In the end, Mookie succeeded, taking Don out in 6th place and then after taking some bad beats goes on to finish in 1st place!!! As usual, congrats have to go out to Mookie, mowemdown, and hacker59 for their 1st, 2nd and 3rd place finishes (in the money). Next week, stay tuned for the WWdN: Not The mowemdown Invitational!

Last Chance

2006-07-06T09:02:00.000-07:00

For those who haven't headed to Vegas yet for the big party, tonight is your last chance for a regularly scheduled blogger event. The winner from two weeks ago was our favorite knight, Sir Waffles and because we do it the way we are Not supposed to, this weeks event is named after the 2nd place finisher, MiamiDon. For those who aren't going to Vegas, here is your chance to win a tourny while all the others are out playing live games.

What: WWdN: Not The MiamiDon Invitational
Where: Pokerstars
When: Thursday, July 6th, 7:30PM PT
Which: Tournament: 27048121
Cost: $10+1 NLHE
Password: monkey

Blah (redux)

2006-06-22T20:51:00.000-07:00

Over the last month or so I have been playing really lousy - perhaps more than just the last month - whatever. This is not a case of the cards treating me bad, but rather just my play being way off. I find I am making mistakes that I know I shouldn't make. I don't have the patience I know you need. I could make a list, but it is not relevant.

I don't play as often as most the people I play regularly with (all you bloggers and blog readers) but I still play more than enough - certainly many many times a week. I orginally wrote this about a week and 1/2 ago. Right after the last WWdN:Not. And never posted it.

I did however take a little time off and missed out all the fun this week.

I played one of those double shootout tournies to the Sunday Millions on stars last week and still managed to make a donkey move to go out in 3rd when I called an all-in with Ax (lousy kicker) against a flopped set of 7s on a Ax7 flop. Oops - donkey isn't gone yet. I continued to stay away some more and then played a $5+0.50 MTT on Pokerroom last night and did alright. I finished in 61th place of 381 (top 40 payed) but at least I felt I played right and knew what I was getting into when I went all-in, shorted stacked with AQo. The chip leader, who called my all-in had 99, so I was happy with a race at that point. (Of course he flopped a 9 which he didn't need, but at least I was happy with my play.)

So other than my regular Sunday live nickel and dime game, I have only played twice. I plan to continue at this rate til Thursday when I will rejoin you to celebrate the WWdN:Not the MiamiDon Invitational!

What: WWdN: Not The
Where: Pokerstars
When: Thursday, July 6th, 7:30PM PT
Which: Tournament: 27048121
Cost: $10+1 NLHE
Password: monkey

I hope everyone has a fun and safe July 4th long weekend!

WWdN: Not for me

2006-06-22T20:15:00.000-07:00

Once again I manage to do good at the beginning, then donk the chips away in stupid moves and crash and burn. No matter, we had our regulars turn out for the WWdN: Not and everyone had a good time. Congrats have to go out to SirFWALGMan, MiamiDon and surflexus for their top 3 finishes in the money.

There will no WWdN: Not next week as the DADI 7 is running at basically the same time.

So the next WWdN: Not will be in two weeks, named after MiamiDon for finishing 2nd in tonight's event. See you at the WWdN: Not the MiamiDon Invitational.

This week in poker

2006-06-19T19:39:00.000-07:00

I decided not to play the Blogger event on Pokerstars yesterday. Not because of Father's day, but because I had a few people over and we decided to play poker in person. I managed to get to 789th place or something in the blogger tournament without even being there tho.

I also got an email from TripJax telling me about the upcoming DADI 7 tournament and the fact it was going to be on a Thursday night. I told him that I thought the best idea would be to not have a WWdN: Not the tournament that week. So we will have one this week and the person who finishes 2nd will get the tournament in two weeks named after them.

What: WWdN: Not The
Where: Pokerstars
When: Thursday, June 22nd, 7:30PM PT
Which: Tournament: 26730122
Cost: $10+1 NLHE
Password: monkey

And the following week, we will all have fun at the DADI 7 instead.

Not results

2006-06-15T20:53:00.000-07:00

Once again I manage to start off weak, get real strong in the middle, then blow it (usually with donkey moves). Oh well, it is great fun every week anyway and this week it is about slb159, valencia, and mickdog who finished 1st, 2nd and 3rd in the money.

We had a good (for us) turn out tonight - I was a little concerned with mookie's gang away and I wasn't sure how it went last week. I was thinking that we need to start naming these things like the "other" blogger tournies. So starting with the week after next, the tournament will be named after the person who finishes 2nd next week. In other words, place second next week, and we will name the tournament after you.

Why second you ask? Because this is Not the way you normally do it. ;-) Call it a consolation prize for letting some other slacker beat you.

Comments, as always, are welcome.

I'm back

2006-06-13T08:32:00.000-07:00

We got back Sunday afternoon having driven a total of 3680 miles in less than 10 days. The trip was a great success, but that is way too much driving. I now need a week long vacation to recover from my vacation.

I did manage to actually play a little poker, but a lot more slot machines at several of the places I stayed. The problem with playing poker was the limited choice of tables, so I fed the slot machines and watched the stupid video games they build into them these days.

So it is time to get back into my "normal" poker routine with the WWdN tonight, the Mookie tomorrow night (is there a mookie tomorrow night?) and the WWdN: Not on Thursday. Info on the WWdN: Not is below:

What: WWdN: Not The
Where: Pokerstars
When: Thursday, June 15st, 7:30PM PT
Which: Tournament: 26231098
Cost: $10+1 NLHE
Password: monkey

On the road

2006-06-03T08:09:00.000-07:00

I am currently passing through Scipio, Utah with my wife driving up I-15. The road just turned to shit and is bumpy as hell. Very hard to type.

I am using my Verizon cellular EVDO internet card and if it wasn't for the bumps and the hard to see display in the sunshine this is quite useable. Last summer when we tried a similar road trip, the internet didn't work as well.

I don't know if this will mean any more blog updates, but it is a cool experience riding down the road, checking your email and surfing the net.

Note: Do not attempt this while driving!

Just an update

2006-06-01T21:16:00.000-07:00

The WWdN:Not is over for this week and Hoyazo, trying hard, was unable to make it a threepeat. Mungo36 dominated the end game with both GScottW and MacDaKnife finishing 2nd and 3rd. It wasn't a record turnout (unlike the Mookie last night) but it was a great game (as usual).

With a little luck, someone will post the results next week so I can see how everyone did.

Miscellaneous Ramblings

2006-06-01T09:27:00.000-07:00

With deference to our favorite Mad Man, Waffles posted a great interview with Hoyazo about his recent winning ways. It goes into some depth of his thought process and has a few gems about playing blogger events. He evens talks about the genesis of the "Hoy" and "Reverse Hoy"!

On a related topic, I have been contemplating the Hammer lately. It started a few weeks ago when I observed a few bloggers calling an all-in with the hammer. Short of going out in a blaze of glory, or being so short stacked that it didn't matter, or just hoping to suckout, this did not make any sense to me. To me, playing the hammer was all about using it to bluff in a scary situation when the other guy doesn't have the nuts. Make him/her lay down the second best hand, only to show off the hammer and try to tilt that person. Obviously others opinions differ.

My most recent run of hammer luck went completely wrong on me tho. Last Tuesday in the WWdN, I managed to get up to a nice T4500 or so when I was dealt my first hammer of the night. I raised preflop, bet on the flop, got raised and put the other guy all-in. Unfortunately he called on a straight draw (I think) and managed to fill the thing while my hammer withered.

Ok, so that happens. Within a hand or two, I get another one. At this point I figure it has to work, so I go at it again. This fails just as miserably. At this point I am down to scant hundreds of chips and manage a few rounds before I am out. I think I am going to swear off the hammer for a while because certainly my luck with it is currently on a down swing. Silly concept anyway. ;-)

Don't forget the WWdN: Not the tonight:
What: WWdN: Not The
Where: Pokerstars
When: Thursday, June 1st, 7:30PM PT
Which: Tournament: 25596231
Cost: $10+1 NLHE
Password: monkey

And the following week, I am on a 3500 mile road trip and won't be around. The tournament is already set up for it though, so I hope all the regulars have a great time and someone can report on the results for me.

What: WWdN: Not The
Where: Pokerstars
When: Thursday, June 8st, 7:30PM PT
Which: Tournament: 25599892
Cost: $10+1 NLHE
Password: monkey

That's it for poker content. For anyone interested, we (my wife and I) are driving from SoCal to Calgary/Edmonton Alberta and back over the next week and a bit. The plan currently is as follows:

Friday (tomorrow): Get as far as Mesquite Nevada
Saturday: Butte Montana
Sunday: Calgary Alberta (about 1550 miles to this point) - meet up with yongest son who is also driving in.
Monday: Pick up oldest son at airport in Calgary, meet with my sister who is organising this.
Tuesday: The reason for all this is a family reunion/surprise birthday party for my mother who turns 80 in June. Surprise! Hopefully no heart attacks.
Wednesday: Family visting time
Thursday: Drive 200 miles north to Edmonton to visit more family and friends (and back to Calgary that day)
Friday: Head south to Butte again
Saturday: Back to Mesquite (if we make it that far)
Sunday: Home again

All I know is I will need a vacation when I get back from my vacation. I doubt I will do much blogging, or poker playing during this trip, however I am staying at a casino in both Nevada and Alberta. Anything is possible.

Its been a long long weekend

2006-05-29T18:59:00.000-07:00

But a good one. We had our regular Sunday game and actually managed to have up to 6 players at once. Unlike last time, my cards weren't that good (and I played like a donkey as usual). It was fun tho and that is what THAT game is all about.

I managed to get sucked into a tourny today at PokerRoom and was forced to play it for 3+ hours, only to have the cards turn lousy (as in I had good cards and the other guy has better) when I made the final table. I hit the 3rd break at 2nd place and finished in 6th. Not a bad finish if I didn't know I could do much better.

Then tonight, I play in the DADI on stars, get off to a good start and end up with my pocket 8s hitting a set on the flop. I decide to slow play (1st mistake) and the turn comes a 3rd club. Surflexus goes all-in and I understand he is representing a flush. I also know we have played enough to consider that it might be a bluff - so I call. (2nd mistake). I am now at T110. I managed to actually grow it back to pretty much the starting stack. I then flopped another set and watched it grow to 4 diamonds. I was bet into and I folded. At this point I was crippled again and never recovered. It was fun, with the same crowd as usual.

Speaking of usual. The WWdN: Not this week is set up:

What: WWdN: Not The
Where: Pokerstars
When: Thursday, June 1st, 7:30PM PT
Which: Tournament: 25596231
Cost: $10+1 NLHE
Password: monkey

And the following week, I am on a 3500 mile road trip and won't be around. The tournament is already set up for it though, so I hope all the regulars have a great time and someone can report on the results for me.

What: WWdN: Not The
Where: Pokerstars
When: Thursday, June 8st, 7:30PM PT
Which: Tournament: 25599892
Cost: $10+1 NLHE
Password: monkey

Its all over including the crying

2006-05-25T22:37:00.000-07:00

Although we managed to leave a few players behind with the new/old time for the WWdN: Not, we had a reasonable turnout and a good game. L0K1 and I managed to go out real early, but the regulars continued on to a great finish with Sowbug bubbling, drewspop finishing 3rd and smokkee and hoyazo going at hit heads up for quite a while. After much interesting play, hoyazo finished off for a great finish.

I went on to try my luck in 180 SnG and after 2 hours of play, I went out slightly pre-bubble in 25th place. It was fun, but disappointing to get that close and not make the money.

Oh well, maybe next time..

Mookie's over, WWdN: Not is next

2006-05-24T20:54:00.000-07:00

The Mookie is over for me tonight (15th place, mainly through suckouts), so this is a reminder for the WWdN: Not tomorrow night. In particular, it is now an hour earlier, so let's see some more Central and Eastern time zone folks come have a good time.

What: WWdN: Not The
Where: Pokerstars
When: Thursday, May 25th, 7:30PM PT
Which: Tournament: 25198207
Cost: $10+1 NLHE
Password: monkey

Oh yeah, apparently there was a bounty on Mookie's head tonight and I managed to prevent him from getting his haircut tonight. I wonder what I won?

Online Poker Blogger Tournament

2006-05-23T20:24:00.000-07:00

Played in the WWdN tonight and managed to get my TPTK busted by slow played Aces. Oh well, it was fun (as usual). Then I discovered this:

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 7330476

This should be a given for our regular blogger crowd. ;-)

Same place, new time

2006-05-22T17:09:00.000-07:00

I still can't beat mookie it seems, but by popular demand (or lack of complaints), we have moved the time up an hour.

What: WWdN: Not The
Where: Pokerstars
When: Thursday, May 25th, 7:30PM PT
Which: Tournament: 25198207
Cost: $10+1 NLHE
Password: monkey

1st place!

2006-05-22T10:20:00.000-07:00

Or how I spent my weekend.

I started my Saturday applying an old fashioned wax job to my new car. I am not in good shape for the elbow grease required and in the shade it didn't look very different. But in the sunshine, wow, it just glowed. For a short while there, I didn't think it was worth the effort, but it made a huge difference (which means I will have to get in better shape by doing this more often - and no, I will not do any one elses cars to stay in practice).

After all that hard work, I had to drink a beer or two (I do admit I lost track) and never got around to look at my computer at all on Saturday. In fact I am not sure what happened to the rest of Saturday.

So I got up Sunday morning (stiff and slow moving) and decided my comfy chair was as far as I needed to go. I decided to crack open the laptop and see what was happening out there in poker blog land. I do have to admit the TripJax meme is certainly making it's way around. I don't normally do that kind of thing, but I found it interesting to read what everyone had to say.

I then headed over to Pokerstars to see what was happening. I noticed I missed the 5 billionth hand, so all the juicy fishness that came with that was probably dried up. I then looked for an interesting tournament or S&G to play and didn't find anything starting soon (it is the instant gratification thing coming into play).

I decided to fire up the Pokerroom client - I haven't played there in a little while and tend to switch back and forth between that and Pokerstars. Wandering through their client, I found a MTT about to start. It was a $30+3 which is normally above my bankroll, but I figured I would give it a shot.

When it started there were 178 people signed up. Because this is less than 200, they only paid out the final table. The good side of this is the prize money was higher (less to share it with), the bad side is you have to get into the top 10 to get in the money.

At the first break, I was at about 5k. Slightly better than average, but hanging in there.

At the second break, I was on a roll and in 2nd place with about 46k in chips.

The 3rd hour was very much a rollercoaster with the blinds increasing like crazy and all the short stacks going all-in. This was a juicy environment to chip up in, but you still need to be lucky to survive the suckouts. I got hit a couple times and actually went into the 3rd break at 22k. The good thing at this point was we were down to the final table (and in the money). The bad thing was I was in 7th of 7.

I managed to squeak through a couple hands, do a little blind stealing and watched number 7 and then 6 go out. The blinds were big enough and everyone was in the 30k range, so every hand, people seriously changed position. At this point I went on a mini-rush (I love these) and personally took out number 5, then 4 and was now the chip lead. With the chip lead and the momentum I had built from the mini rush, I never looked back and in the time blurred recall of the event, it seemed like seconds later, I cleared out the two remaining opponents and the game was over.

The nice thing with this was I was in first and I won a record (for me) $1602.

Wow. That was nice.

I figured that was it. I had just burned off all my poker luck for the day, week, month etc..

Now I normally play a small home game on Sunday afternoon/evening. And I mean small. It is usually 3-4 of us and we play high stakes. It is a cash game and $5 will buy you $50 of chips. Our blinds are $0.50 and $1, so we are effectly playing nickel and dime.

Unfortunately it clashed with the WPBT event (which looked interesting) but one has to do what one has to do.

We started at about 2:30 in the afternoon and other than a break for dinner, played through to 10:30 at night. I admit I was playing a little crazier than normal (well, maybe not), but at one point I was into my 4th buy-in ($20 invested). But I truely was lucky yesterday and managed to work that investment back up to end the evening with $600 in chips. After paying back my buy-in, I was up $40. Which is a great way to end your day when you are playing nickel and dime poker.

How was your weekend?

WWdN: Not times

2006-05-19T11:56:00.000-07:00

Waffles just suggested we look at the time we start the WWdN: Not and consider starting an hour earlier. Some points pro and con:

The original WWdN:West Coast Warmup that Wil started for the west coasters was at 7:30 (Pacific) to make it easier for those who have to fight LA traffic to get home after work.

A significant partion of the players who show up are from further east and making it easier on them may help attendance.

Hmm.. Those points are both pro changing it.

So I would like to get some comments from those who will or have attended about changing the time to an hour earlier. Any west coasters who this will cause a problem for need to speak up!

"Not" my night

2006-05-18T22:07:00.000-07:00

Well that sucked. I swear I only played 5 minues (3 minutes and 21 seconds to be exact) and I managed to call an all-in with TPTK and be beaten by a straight.

Regardless, it was a great game (for everyone else) and we had a good enough showing to make it a fun game. I was really worried at the end that surflexus was going to win again. I think it is great he is doing as well as he is doing, but it is more fun to spread the wins around. (This was the real reason I donked off early - to give someone else a chance.)

Congratulations have to go to hoyazo for a great game and a nice finish, knocking out surflexus in 2nd place. Out own Waffles finished up in the last money place fighting hoyazo all the way. Well played guys.

I did manage to end the night up $23 in a 100NL ring game, so I am net positive for the night.

Twice beat

2006-05-16T08:33:00.000-07:00

I am slow this week on writing anything here. I had plans to write someone about the use of the hammer in blogger events (and still may). However I noticed I have now been beat by both mookie and surflexus in announcing the WWdN: Not The this week.

Same time, same place as last week:

What: WWdN: Not The
Where: Pokerstars
When: Thursday, May 18th, 8:30PM PT
Which: Tournament: 24776895
Cost: $10+1 NLHE
Password: monkey

And as usual, I will be playing the WWdN tonight and the Mookie tomorrow night.

Its "Not" time again

2006-05-11T20:24:00.000-07:00

Once again we have our regularly scheduled WWdN: Not The tournament. The turnout was slightly better than last week and once again I have to thank all the advertising for it from the readers out there.

I have to give a big shout out to SURFLEXUS who has managed to win the Mookie back to back and has now followed up with a win here tonight. I tried my best but he cleaned up on me heads up, even though I had a 2 to 1 chip advantage when we went heads up.

Thanks to all who came out to play (or to railbird), it was fun - as usual. See you all next week at the WWdN, the Mookie and, of course, the WWdN: Not.

I got lucky tonight!

2006-05-10T21:24:00.000-07:00

Where's your mind at? This is a blog about poker. ;-) I played in my new Wednesday standard tourny, The Mookie, and managed to hang on long enough to make it to 30th place. This is not the part where I got lucky (although it is fun). I will be there again next week.

So I decided to play one of my favorite shootouts. This plan was short circuited by the wait for another one to start. I was impatient (not a good trait playing poker), so I decided to play the turbo version of the shootout. Given the 5 minute blinds, I figure I should try to at least attempt to limp into just about any hands - I needed all the lucky flops I could get. This actually worked pretty well, but alas, not well enough. I went out around 30 something again, so this is not the part where I got lucky.

I still wanted to play something different, so I figured I would try a $20+2 single table SnG. This is above my normal SnGs where I play at the $5 or $10 games. This game seemed to be going pretty well until this hand came up:

Poker Stars
No Limit Holdem Tournament
Blinds: t10/t20
9 players

Stack sizes:
UTG: t1400
UTG+1: t1400
MP1: t2040
MP2: t2280
MP3: t940
CO: t1580
Button: t1430
darval: t1490
BB: t940

Pre-flop: (9 players) darval is SB with Qc Qd
UTG raises to t60, 4 folds, CO calls t60 (pot was t90), Button calls t60 (pot was t150), darval raises to t190, BB calls t180 (pot was t390), 2 folds, Button calls t140 (pot was t570).

Flop: 5s 6c 4s (t690, 3 players)
darval bets t500, BB folds, Button calls t500 (pot was t1190).

Turn: 7c (t1690, 2 players)
darval is all-in t790, Button calls all-in t730.
Uncalled bets: t60 returned to darval.

River: Ac (t3150, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: t3150)

Results:
Final pot: t3150
darval showed Qc Qd
Button showed 3d 3s

Well that sucked. Here I am, 12 hands in and down to t60 after a stupid all-in bet. I didn't figure the guy for a 8 or a 3 and obviously I was way wrong. I took the approach that this was just a new challenge (albeit a potentially short one) and tried to see how far I could get with my 60 chips.

Now I got lucky. And lucky and lucky again. Then when there was no luck left I started to play smarter and kept going. Once again, luck had a role, but 50 minutes later, I got this in my email:

PokerStars Tournament #24536393, No Limit Hold'em
Buy-In: $20.00/$2.00
9 players
Total Prize Pool: $180.00
Tournament started - 2006/05/10 - 23:21:52 (ET)

Dear darval,

You finished the tournament in 1st place.
A $90.00 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

Congratulations!
Thank you for participating.

Now that was a nice way to end the night. ;-)

Mookie beat me too it

2006-05-09T09:14:00.000-07:00

I was going to post something like I did last week, with a list of tournament which I planned to play in, but Mookie beat me to it. Regardless, I plan on the playing the WWdN tonight, The Mookie tomorrow and of course the WWdN: Not The on Thursday. I will see what else fits my schedule.

What: WWdN: Not The
Where: Pokerstars
When: Thursday, May 11th, 10:30PM CST
Which: Tournament: 24388333
Cost: $10+1 NLHE
Password: monkey

See you there.

I love double shootouts!

2006-05-06T21:58:00.000-07:00

Pokerstars has these regularly scheduled double shootout tournaments, which cost $10+1 and lead to two entries in the Sunday Million Tournament, or $215 in tournament dollars (which can be used for anything but cashing out).

I have played these before and tonight was the second time I have won it. In almost all of these games I have played tho, I have the feeling that I am dominating the other players. They can get lucky (and do) but I just feel it is an easy game. I am not complaining about it - in fact I will use it to work on my bankroll.

Tonight was interesting. I had just signed up when I called an neighbor and asked him about something for tomorrow. He invited me and the wife over for drinks, etc. I said I would check and wasn't sure. Then I remembered the tournament and, of course, the unregister time had just past. So I told my wife we could head over as soon as I blew through this tournament. I decided to play loose and agressive and I assumed I would not be long for this game.

I played at least 70% of the hands, in a lot of cases with any two cards. My extreme agression got me a lot of pots and the few times I was called I managed to suckout with some really bad cards. This made for a lot of pissed off players - especially the ones who lost to this kind of play. You can't imagine the things they were calling me. ;-) Needless to say I wiped out the last person in the first match with another suckout. That person was nice enough to tell me that I would never get anywhere playing that way and I needed to learn to play better. I thanked them.

Of course I now had a 40 minute wait til all the other tables finished - apparently when you don't play crazy like, the game actually takes longer to finish.

By the time we started again, I had already decided to not go visit, so the play on my part was much more normal. I still had the same feeling that if it wasn't for their luck I would clean up. When we got down to 4 players, I had 8000 in chips and I don't think anyone had more than 1800. We moved around a little when we got down to 3 players and with one guy severly short stacked, it was pretty quick until we got rid of him and ended the game.

I cashed my tournament entry in for some more tournament cash, but I do like those shootouts. I highly recommend them to others who play in the blogger tournaments - if you can play well in those, you will love these.

Definitely more of these on my agenda.

SoxLover Rulez

2006-05-04T22:12:00.000-07:00

We just finished this week's WWdN:Not tournament and congratulations has to go to SoxLover. Althought he played a really solid game, suckouts and bad beats almost changed the outcome. In the end, consistent good play (and nice deck with good cards) allowed him to finish in a dominating position.

We had a good turnout tonight (compared to a couple weeks ago) but didn't quite make the attendance from last week. Thanks to mookie99, 23skidoo, CarmenSinCity, SirFWALGMan, bdidde, smokkee, yosoyveneno, and DuggleBogey for playing and making the game a fun one. Special thanks to L0K1 for setting it up for us.

For those who's blog didn't get linked above (or I got them wrong), let me know in a comment and I will correct it.

WWdN: Not The tonight

2006-05-04T15:44:00.000-07:00

After last weeks huge (well, it was relatively huge) turnout, don't forgot to come by tonight and see if we can set a new record.

What: WWdN: Not The
Where: PokerStars.
When: Thursday, May 4th, 8:30 PM PT
Tournament: 23665235
Password: monkey
Buy-in: $10+1

My poker week

2006-05-01T21:15:00.000-07:00

This week is shaping up to be a regular tournament type week. We have the regular Tuesday Night WWdN Tourny:

What: WWdN: IlliniFan Invitational
Where: PokerStars.
When: Tuesday, May 2th, 8:30 PM ET
Tournament: 23665235
Password: monkey
Buy-in: $10+1

I plan on following this on Wednesday with Mookie's:

And then on Thursday, I haven't decided whether I want to register and then show up late for this (it starts a little early for those of us on the west coast and have to work):

But I will certainly make it for this west coast friendly (we really need a cool graphic):

What: WWdN: Not The
Where: PokerStars.
When: Thursday, May 4th, 8:30 PM PT
Tournament: 23665235
Password: monkey
Buy-in: $10+1

Please spread the word and see if we can get maximum attendance at all of these events.

Thinking about the stool

2006-05-01T17:40:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking a bit lately about my 3 legged stool. I was trying to understand why I don't tend to see myself sucked out upon as often as some people. I think it comes down to how much you are trying to maximize your profit vs. how much variation you are willing to withstand.

I tend to be quite aggressive when I get starting cards. In many cases I will continue to push hard with my bets forcing the other player out of the hand. The advantage of this two-fold:

Much less suck-outs
Reveal very little of your cards

The disadvantage of this is you aren't really maximizing your profit.

Or are you? If you mix in a fair amount of bluffing in the above scenerio and develop a reputation as a tight, aggressive player, you can make profit in places that normally weren't possible.

Fundementally this is based on the idea that it takes better cards to call aggression than it does to bet/raise with them. By seldom revealing your cards, and always being aggressive with them, it takes really good cards for your opponent to call.

I think what I like best is even when they know you are doing it, it is still a hard call to make. Of course sometimes they make it and you actually have the cards you are representing. You can milk that play for the rest of the time you are at that table after that. ;-)

Of course you also have to mix your play up a little - it is really easy to stop being aggressive when you aren't really getting the cards - you just back off a little. If you are getting the cards, you have no reason to not continue the aggressive play.

The caveat here is you have to play with players who will actually recognise that you might have a hand - playing this way in a school of fish might not work as well. I suggest you try it when playing with bloggers - especially if you have the Hammer. ;-)

Obviously the devil is in the details and how much and when you do this makes a big difference. I adjust to the table I am playing with, the day of the week and lastly the phase of the moon. It appears to work fairly well for me.

Tell me what you think?

WWdN: Not The lives!

2006-04-27T20:26:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Biggestron, Surflexus and Mookie, we managed to get a record 360% attendance at tonights WWdN: Not The tournament. We even managed to get our favorite geek and namesake to show up and enjoy the game with us. I also want to thank Jay (L0K1) who I keep asking to set these things up for us.

The event was attended by a regular whos-who of the blogger community.

In the style of many blogger tournaments, the Hammer was spotted on many occasions. This particular occasion was just a little stressful to me.

darval: posts big blind 50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to darval [2h 7d]
Gilain: raises 150 to 200
darval: raises 300 to 500
Gilain: calls 300
*** FLOP *** [Th Kc 8c]
darval: bets 500
Gilain: calls 500
*** TURN *** [Th Kc 8c] [9s]
darval: bets 2260 and is all-in

Really long delay - sweat drips onto my eyes and I can't see.

Gilain: folds
darval collected 2025 from pot
darval: shows [2h 7d] (high card King)
Gilain said, "damn it!"
Garthmeister said, "HAMMER!"
Quatloos said, "ya!"
darval said, "now that is way way too stressful.."

After what seemed like an awful long game - personally I think these bloggers are wimpier than they claim to be - we finally managed to get past the bubble. I would like to thank all those who arranged for me to win the tournament in appreciation.

Stay tuned for the same thing, same time next week. Thanks once again for playing.

The Big O and the WWdN: Not The

2006-04-27T17:19:00.000-07:00

Last night I decided to check out the "The Big O" tournament on Pokerstars. I had heard about it before but hadn't played since I thought it was a private tournament. I think we had about 34 players with a large portion of familiar faces(?) from the regular WWdN and other WPBT tournaments. The game was a lot of fun and I managed to place 7th, final table, but out of the money. I plan to make it a regular part of my poker schedule.

I was thinking about playing in the next WPBT event (which is Stud) on Pokerstars this Sunday but my wife figures I should take her out to dinner instead (it is her birthday after all). I may have to skip this one for the sake of domestic bliss.

Lastly a reminder. There are only two of us signed up for the WWdN: Not The at this point. Time to go get yourself signed up if you are interested:

What: WWdN: Not The
Where: PokerStars.
When: Thursday, April 27th, 8:30 PM PDT
Tournament: 23734651
Password: monkey
Buy-in: $10+1

One more time

2006-04-26T10:08:00.000-07:00

I admit it, we are beggars for punishment. We are going to try one more time for a Thursday night, left coast friendly, WWdN wannabe tournament. Hopefully with the support of some more bloggers we can break our all-time high attendance record of 5 players.

What: WWdN: Not the
Where: PokerStars.
When: Thursday, April 27th, 8:30 PM PDT
Tournament: 23734651
Password: monkey
Buy-in: $10+1

Spread the word, pimp it up.

NOT WWDN and DADI 5

2006-04-25T08:06:00.000-07:00

Time sure seems to fly when you don't pay attention and all of a sudden it has been 5 days since I wrote here. Personally I blame it on my new car which has been keeping me away from my computer. Or perhaps it was trying to get my backups off a crashed linux server which took all my time. Or it could have been my sunday home game with Jay (L0K1 on PS) and Sean. Man, this HAS been a busy couple of days.. ;-)

Anyway, we had high hopes for our WWdN: Not, or NOT WWdN, especially after we had mention last week by Wil in his post at Cardsquad. Unfortunately we had no-one show up - literally no-one. I mean we were willing to run with 5 people, two weeks in a row. Anyway, it is canceled for now (and probably forever).

On a much more upbeat note, the DADI 5: WSOP Satellite was last night and it appeared to have all the regular bloggers from the normal Tuesday WWdN tournies. I went into it with the goal of actually getting some points for the WPBT Player of the Year leaderboard. Not that I play that many of those tournies either, but it was a combination of that, and the WWdN that made me do it.

I knew I was in for an interesting (and I feared quick) night when I saw my starting table. I started on Table 2 with: StatikKling, L0K1, IlliniFan, Wil Wheaton, Up4Poker and Gilain. I figured it might be one of those TV nights where the hands all look like they were made for television.

Early on (4th hand), I had some interesting hands, with Wil and I running into each other heads up. The first one, I had KdJd and the flop came 4c Qd 8d. Wil apparently had AQ and bet out 300. I raised 500 more on a semi bluff and after thinking about it for a while, Wil says:

Wil Wheaton said, "kings?"
Wil Wheaton said, "i can't believe i'm folding AQ"
Wil Wheaton said, "long levels. big stacks. sigh."
Wil Wheaton: folds

It wasn't much later when I ended up in a 3 way (With Wil and Gilain), preflop with AKs. We take it up to T120 preflop and the flop gives me 4 to the nut flush again and I semi-bluff enough to scare them away. So far the semi-bluff with flush draws seems to work well. At this point, we are a half hour in and I am at T4250 - all is good in the world.

About 7 hands later, I end up with a AKs, flop TPTK and doubleas raises my T300 bet to 1200. I don't believe him and come over the top pushing all-in. He folds and admits:

doubleas said, "damn..hammer"

At this point the cards have been too good to be true and that has to change. I am at T5945 and in good shape.

My cards continue to be on fire and shortly before the break I bust out zagga with AA over KK which held up. This puts me just before the 1st break with just over 10k in chips.

Of course my hot run of cards can only last so long and as the cards turn cold, my stack starts to dwindle. Before it gets too fara down, I end up in another heads-up, pre-flop with Wil. I have KQs and raise to 3BB. Wil re-raises it 6BB more and I call (bad call in hindsight, but I was still thinking I was on hot cards). The flop misses me completely but I continuation bet anyway for another 500. Wil thinks and curses and lets it go. That turns out to be one of the last good hands of the game (for me).

Wil ends up going all-in a few hands later with 77 and get dominated by IlliniFan who has QQ. The QQ turns into a full house and Wil was finished.

The slide continues with me hanging on by the skin of my teeth. Just before the 3rd break, I made the mistake of going all-in (I mean I was running out of chips) with my KQo. I was up against wwonka who had pocket Aces (of course). I had slightly more chips than him, so when the flop gave me a pair of Kings and the turn gave me a set, I felt sorry for him since he did have the better hand. Welcome to poker I guess.

That suckout managed to catapult me into a chip stack where I could coast to the final table. My cards were never again as hot as they were during the 1st hour and a bit. I managed to squeak through to a 7th place finish and had a great time doing it.

Hammer time at the WWdN

2006-04-19T22:14:00.000-07:00

I played in the WWdN last night and did my normal early exit. I made it to about 65th or so out of 98 and the only interesting plays that I can recall at this point were a couple of nice hammer plays.

PokerStars Game #4669835096: Tournament #22928623, $10+$1 Hold'em No Limit - Level I (10/20) - 2006/04/18 - 20:39:05 (ET)
Table '22928623 7' 9-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: 23skidoo (1850 in chips)
Seat 2: Astin (1430 in chips)
Seat 3: kaellinn18 (2135 in chips)
Seat 4: memento2199 (1460 in chips)
Seat 5: malice51 (1440 in chips) is sitting out
Seat 6: darval (1105 in chips)
Seat 8: GCox25 (1440 in chips) is sitting out
Seat 9: MikeRH (1100 in chips)
kaellinn18: posts small blind 10
memento2199: posts big blind 20
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to darval [2h 7c]
malice51: folds
darval: raises 60 to 80
GCox25: folds
MikeRH: folds
23skidoo: folds
Astin: calls 80
kaellinn18: folds
memento2199: folds
*** FLOP *** [Qd Ts Td]
darval: bets 200
Astin: folds
darval collected 190 from pot
darval: shows [2h 7c] (a pair of Tens)
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 190 | Rake 0
Board [Qd Ts Td]
Seat 1: 23skidoo folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: Astin (button) folded on the Flop
Seat 3: kaellinn18 (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 4: memento2199 (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 5: malice51 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: darval collected (190)
Seat 8: GCox25 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: MikeRH folded before Flop (didn't bet)

The ongoing discussion at the table was I should have slow played it more and made more money. I was not that confident, but when the opportunity presented itself, I tried again:

PokerStars Game #4669946527: Tournament #22928623, $10+$1 Hold'em No Limit - Level II (15/30) - 2006/04/18 - 20:48:54 (ET)
Table '22928623 7' 9-max Seat #9 is the button
Seat 1: 23skidoo (1920 in chips)
Seat 2: Astin (1240 in chips)
Seat 3: kaellinn18 (2270 in chips)
Seat 4: memento2199 (1230 in chips)
Seat 5: malice51 (1380 in chips) is sitting out
Seat 6: darval (1345 in chips)
Seat 8: GCox25 (1560 in chips)
Seat 9: MikeRH (1015 in chips)
23skidoo: posts small blind 15
Astin: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to darval [7s 2c]
kaellinn18: folds
memento2199: calls 30
malice51: folds
darval: raises 30 to 60
GCox25: folds
MikeRH: folds
23skidoo: calls 45
Astin: folds
memento2199: calls 30
*** FLOP *** [Tc 6s 3c]
23skidoo: bets 120
memento2199: folds
darval: raises 180 to 300
23skidoo: calls 180
*** TURN *** [Tc 6s 3c] [Qd]
23skidoo: bets 210
darval: raises 775 to 985 and is all-in
23skidoo: folds
malice51 has returned
darval collected 1230 from pot
darval: shows [7s 2c] (high card Queen)
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 1230 | Rake 0
Board [Tc 6s 3c Qd]
Seat 1: 23skidoo (small blind) folded on the Turn
Seat 2: Astin (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 3: kaellinn18 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: memento2199 folded on the Flop
Seat 5: malice51 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: darval collected (1230)
Seat 8: GCox25 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: MikeRH (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)

That one was fun, but it was way too stressful as 23skidoo took a long time to think about it before folding.

Our WWdN: Not tournament actually got mention by Wil in his post at Cardsquad, so we set it up early to see if we could get more registrations.

What: NOT WWdN
Where: PokerStars.
When: Thursday, April 20th, 8:30 PM PDT
Tournament: 23351606
Password: monkey
Buy-in: $10+1

Once again, feel free to spread the word. Note that the name changed slighly to match what Wil called it in his post.

Its all over but the crying..

2006-04-13T21:31:00.000-07:00

The second WWnD: Not tournament is over and it lasted about 54 minutes. That's not a bad time considering we only had 5 players again.

L0K1 who has contributed enough to pokerstars over the last few years that they let create tournaments was there (Thanks again Jay)
PhilLogan who was there last week and wanted to duplicate his win again.
Me (darval) who did a real lousy job of advertising.
KtKatrina who was new this time and
Sowbug. I should have asked the new players where they heard about it.

I suspect I can convince L0K1 one more time to do this next week. If we keep getting 5 players, we can decide whether we want to keep doing it or not.

Oh yeah, I won! ;-) It was a great game but I have to say that I was just plain getting the cards. I don't normally do that well.

Just a reminder

2006-04-13T08:52:00.000-07:00

For those left coast WWdN fans who have missed the weekly tournament designed for our timezone, this is a reminder for the WWdN: Not! tournament:

What: WWdN: Not!
Where: PokerStars.
When: Thursday, April 13th, 8:30 PM PDT
Tournament: 23026502
Password: monkey
Buy-in: $10+1

Feel free to spread the word!

Unfortunately we all think we have been there..

2006-04-07T14:38:00.000-07:00

I'm not going to call it a downword spiral. Yet.
But I'm in the midst of my worst run thus far.

With these words, Iggy is expressing something we all fear, and every time it happens, it seems worse than the last. Sometimes it even is worse than the last. The problem with random cycles, and most up and down cycles are just part of random variation, is they come in the small and big varieties. And as we saw with Hurricaine Katrina last year, the down cycles can be a real bitch.

Hang in there Iggy, take a little break, recall why you love the game so much, and come back stronger and better than ever.

And on a more positive note: Thanks for the pimp Iggy.. Appreciated. ;-)

WWdN: Not!

2006-04-07T09:03:00.000-07:00

Over the last couple weeks, some of us left coasters have mourned the apparently loss of our Thursday night West coast WWdN tournament. Last night we tried to do something about it.

We created the WWdN: Not! tournament. It was scheduled at the same time as Wil's tournament used to be, same password and all. Unfortunately we waited til really late before creating it - in case Wil created one, and therefor probably missed a few people who checked in looking for it.

Congrats go to Phil Logan for besting a difficult field of 5 to win the inaugural WWdN: Not! tournament.

The plan for next week is to do the same thing if we don't see an official tournament created by Wil.

If Wil has any problem with this, we will obviously change it and keep everyone up to date on the new plans.

Its Hammer Time!

2006-04-03T20:04:00.000-07:00

This was my best hand of the game:

PokerStars Game #4512870748: Tournament #21868191, Hold'em No Limit - Level II (15/30) - 2006/04/03 - 21:42:28 (ET)
Table '21868191 3' 9-max Seat #5 is the button
Seat 1: misst74 (6890 in chips)
Seat 2: ArtofSuckout (4640 in chips)
Seat 3: FFLPlague (7900 in chips)
Seat 4: darval (3050 in chips)
Seat 5: moosebms (4035 in chips)
Seat 6: GoIrish89 (4360 in chips)
Seat 7: DrPauly (4675 in chips)
Seat 8: FatTabbyMama (4980 in chips)
Seat 9: TonySopran0 (4440 in chips)
GoIrish89: posts small blind 15
DrPauly: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to darval [7s 2h]
FatTabbyMama: folds
TonySopran0: folds
misst74: folds
ArtofSuckout: folds
FFLPlague: folds
darval: calls 30
moosebms said, "i catch them now. go dead later im sure...."
moosebms: folds
GoIrish89: calls 15
DrPauly: checks
*** FLOP *** [2c 9c 2d]
GoIrish89: checks
DrPauly: checks
darval: bets 30
GoIrish89: raises 60 to 90
DrPauly said, "ucla is killing me"
DrPauly: folds
darval: raises 210 to 300
moosebms said, "im playing too many hands to begin with, lol"
GoIrish89: calls 210
*** TURN *** [2c 9c 2d] [Jh]
GoIrish89: checks
darval: bets 300
GoIrish89: calls 300
*** RIVER *** [2c 9c 2d Jh] [6d]
GoIrish89: checks
darval: bets 600
GoIrish89: calls 600
*** SHOW DOWN ***
darval: shows [7s 2h] (three of a kind, Deuces)
GoIrish89: mucks hand
darval collected 2490 from pot
FFLPlague said, "HAMMER"
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2490 | Rake 0
Board [2c 9c 2d Jh 6d]
Seat 1: misst74 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: ArtofSuckout folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: FFLPlague folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: darval showed [7s 2h] and won (2490) with three of a kind, Deuces
Seat 5: moosebms (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: GoIrish89 (small blind) mucked [9s As]
Seat 7: DrPauly (big blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 8: FatTabbyMama folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: TonySopran0 folded before Flop (didn't bet)

I finished 69th of 93, after doubling up 3 different people including Dr. Pauly. At that point there was no money left to pass around. ;-)

Back to Poker

2006-04-03T11:01:00.000-07:00

After spending way too many days in Oblivion, I decided on Saturday to actually try my hand at some poker. Pokerstars has these double shootouts for seats to their $1,000,000 Sunday tournament which I have played before.

The trick to the double shootout is you play at two tables. There are 64 players, basically 8 tables of 8 players each - I am sure there are other formats (9 tables of 9 players, etc..) You play your table until you are the winner and then each winner moves on to the final table.

In this particular game, it cost $10+1 to play and everyone on the final table received $35, except the top two positions won a seat at the big game (worth $200+15).

I have played this about 5 times now with 2 early finishes, 2 bubble finishes (2nd place on the first round table) and now 1 win! Yeah!

I looked at playing the tournament on Sunday (always neat to play in a tournament with $1,000,000 in prizes - like I do it all the time), but decided my bankroll needed the money more than I needed to play in the big tournament. I can afford many more tries and perhaps one of these times I will actually play in the big game if I win.

So on that high note, I went off to play a semi-regular home game which got scheduled at the last minute for Saturday night. We started off with a S&G format for $20 each. There were only 5 of us to start with, so we made the prizes a 60/40 split for 1st and 2nd. I managed to become the first person out and played dealer for the rest of that tournament.

I should have realised that this was a sign of things to come, but when we started our cash game, I was off to a great start helping our host rebuy on two occasions. I don't know what happened after that but I managed to get into a few too many situations where the cards turned against me. My friend Jay (L0K1 of Pokerstars and WWdN fame) managed to suck out on an all-in which doubled him up and Dave (the infamous Quatloos) seemed to take his share of lucky cards (as usual). All in all, I ended up down $100 bucks for the night - it has happened before - even tho last time we played I was up about $140.

Unlike the last couple times I busted tho, this time I was ok with it. Not that I want to repeat it, but I guess winning $215 earlier in the day made it all right.

On the other hand, with my bankroll at Pokerstars $215 richer, I will have to try my hand at Iggy's blogger WSOP satellite tonight:

Blogger WSOP Satellite Tourney
PokerStars - Private Tab
April 3rd - MONDAY
9PM EST
$30 +3
No Limit
Password: socoshot

I've gone to Hell and I like it

2006-03-23T11:43:00.000-08:00

Hell, or Oblivion as it is called in this case, is the latest version of the Elder Scrolls by Bethesda Softworks. For those who haven't gotten it yet, it is a computer Role Playing Game (RPG) - probably the best one to released this year and ground breaking for many years to come.

Since my travel last week, this has been the next largest consumer of my time since Tuesday, when it was released. Given my S&G Challenge, this might be a better way to spend my money.

I am not really planning to review it - you can follow the links to thier site and read all the reviews. More just make a couple comments on it.

Being a fan of the Elder Scroll series of games, I have been following the news about this game as it progressed through development (not as fanatically as some people - they seriously need a life). As the game started getting previewed, it was sounding more and more exciting. The graphics are <insert superlatitive here>. The game play is <insert more superlatitives>. I actually bought into it a little and was expecting to be completely blown away. I have a fairly recent computer (less than 6 months old) and it was more than their recommended system in power.

I got the game on Tuesday, and as soon as I was home from work, I installed it. My wife is used to me not paying attention, but I went out of my way to emphasize that I was not available.

Now after all the hype, I was disappointed. As someone in the software business I should have known better. Now the graphics are fantastic - I don't know what I expected - perhaps something as good as the CGI you see in some movies. It wasn't that good. It was however better than I would have expected if it wasn't for all the hype. Some of the outdoor scenes are incredibly expansive - expecially when viewed at high res on a wide screen display.

But what I think will make this game the champion I think it is - is the game play. It is very very immersive and between the audio, the graphics and more importantly the story telling, you get sucked right in and keep wanting to go back.

One of the things that impresses so far is the completeness of it. The Elder Scrolls series of games are known for their open endedness. You can do just about anything you want - very little is scripted. If you don't follow the main story, so be it. If you are following a quest and decide to do something completely different in the quest, it handles it (I mean there are obvious limits). It is very neat to decide to do something you just thought of and discover the game handles it in a way that is natural and looks it is was the normal thing to do.

The computer guy in me is amazed by the AI that drives the NPCs - the non player characters you see in the game. They are not scripted, but rather have a bunch of rules and schedules which drive them. They go about their daily lives, including eating, sleeping, working, fighting, etc. They see strangers (either other NPCs or you) and stop to say hello and have conversations. Did I mention this is all voice acted, so you can actually overhear the conversations between two NPCs on the street? If you can imagine the level of effort that went into a game where all the conversations are voice acted, it is completely open ended in terms of what you want to do. There are over 16 square miles of scenery to explore, and more than 1500 different NPCs. Overall it is supposed to take 25 hrs to just play the main story line and 200 hours to do all the quest. Wow.

Anyway, if I don't appear to play as much of that other game (poker) as normal for the next little while, you can be assured I will be on the computer playing the this game.

I hate flying

2006-03-19T07:28:00.000-08:00

Last week I had a short notice business trip to Chaska Minnesota. I flew out on Wednesday and back on Friday evening. It all started when I had to fly out of LAX instead of Orange County airport. Of course the timing was just right so I could compete with morning rush hour traffic to get to the airport on time. Did I mention I hate flying?

I then get to the airport, stand in line to get my boarding pass. I was smart enough to not check any baggage, so I skipped the baggage x-ray line. I ran into a co-worker in the line to get in the security line. That wait passed fairly quickly and we moved on to the real security line (don't ask). Once we were in the real security line for a while, so TSA guy came by checking boarding passes and leaves me in my line, but puts my co-worker in another (shorter) line. Did I mention I hate flying?

So my line slowly shuffles forward and the departure time for my flight approaches. Finally they come around and start pulling people from the line who were on my flight. My co-worker has long since cleared security and disappeared from sight. I now get my chance and manage to get through security with only one do-over. I had to remove my belt buckle and try again. Did I mention I hate flying?

So I stumble out of security, holding my pants up, trying to stick my laptop back in its bag, while dragging my suitcase and get hailed by a collection of co-workers (in total 9 of us were on this trip). Apparently our flight has been canceled and we are in a new line to get new boarding passes for a different flight. Did I mention I hate flying?

So after waiting for 45 minutes in the new boarding pass line, we get our new boarding passes and have an hour and a half to wait for the flight. Now Northwest, who we were flying, has this new "oversell the flight" policy. Part of their "get out of bankrupcy" plan no doubt. Unfortunately this means everyone is stuffed into the plane as much as possible. Did I mention I hate flying?

So we finally get on board and I am sitting in the middle of row, seat 20E, and there is no place to store our carry on luggage by the time we board. Apparently the DC10 overhead compartments are smaller than normal, so you get less bags in them and most of the people in our group had to then check their suitcases. Now the seat itself is exactly the same width as me. This means once I am sitting, I can no longer get into my pockets. So I have to sit with my arms crossed on my chest so I don't take any space from my seatting companions. Fortunately we had a strong tail wind, so I only had to sit this way for 2 and 1/2 hrs rather than the expected 3 and 1/2. Did I mention I hate flying?

Now because snacks are costing Northwest soo much money, you now have to buy your snacks (assuming you want them). I decided I would just buy the alcohol and try to make the flight slightly more tolerable. By this time I had the tray table out, so I had to fold it back into the arm rest, after putting my book somewhere, so I could semi-stand to get into my pocket which I couldn't access while sitting. I bought two drinks at once since I had no dillusions I would see the flight attendant again and the hassle of getting money was too painful to repeat. Did I mention I hate flying?

We finally get there and have only two more lines. The line for the baggage claim, since we had to check our carry on baggage and the rent-a-car line. At this point, it is now past supper time and all I have managed to accomplish all day is to fly to Minnesota from California. And I get to look forward to the same fun on Friday.

Now I really don't hate flying, I just hate having to drive to the airport, standing in a bazillion lines, cram myself into a airplane seat and pay $1 for a bag of peanuts and $5 for a drink. So next time I will pick a closer airport than LAX, one without long lines and fly first class. At that point I will only dislike flying.

Can you say straight flushes (plural)?

2006-03-13T18:34:00.000-08:00

Ok, I am playing my S&G challenge, doing as well as usual (which isn't too good) and I get this hand:

NO_LIMIT TEXAS_HOLDEM $5+$1 (Real Money), #239,146,524

Brownsville Single Table Tournament, 13 Mar 2006 8:42 PM ET

Seat 1: Isle1183 ($2,130 in chips)
Seat 2: eagle eye 94 ($1,500 in chips)
Seat 3: pepsi man 1 ($1,500 in chips)
Seat 4: BIG T-BAG ($1,490 in chips)
Seat 5: vaxovaxo ($1,120 in chips)
Seat 6: mash035 ($1,500 in chips)
Seat 7: perks420 ($1,440 in chips)
Seat 8: kdawg1245 ($1,500 in chips)
Seat 9: boogy3 ($1,500 in chips)
Seat 10: darval ($1,320 in chips)

ANTES/BLINDS
vaxovaxo posts blind ($10), mash035 posts blind ($20).

PRE-FLOP
perks420 folds, kdawg1245 calls $20, boogy3 folds, darval calls $20, Isle1183 calls $20, eagle eye 94 folds, pepsi man 1 bets $100, BIG T-BAG folds, vaxovaxo calls $90, mash035 folds, kdawg1245 folds, darval calls $80, Isle1183 folds.

FLOP [board cards 6S,QC,10C ]
vaxovaxo checks, darval bets $200, pepsi man 1 calls $200, vaxovaxo folds.

TURN [board cards 6S,QC,10C,KC ]
darval bets $300, pepsi man 1 calls $300.

RIVER [board cards 6S,QC,10C,KC,9C ]
darval bets $720 and is all-in, pepsi man 1 folds.

SHOWDOWN
darval wins $2,080.

SUMMARY
Dealer: BIG T-BAG
Pot: $2,080
Isle1183, loses $20
eagle eye 94, loses $0
pepsi man 1, loses $600
BIG T-BAG, loses $0
vaxovaxo, loses $100
mash035, loses $20
perks420, loses $0
kdawg1245, loses $20
boogy3, loses $0
darval, bets $1,320, collects $2,080, net $760

It doesn't show it there, but I had J10o with a Jack of clubs. Cool I thought, I should have bet less at the end and see if I could get him to call, but I was happy.

It didn't seem like that many hands later, but it might have been:

NO_LIMIT TEXAS_HOLDEM $5+$1 (Real Money), #239,198,938

Brownsville Single Table Tournament, 13 Mar 2006 8:56 PM ET

Seat 1: Isle1183 ($2,050 in chips)
Seat 2: eagle eye 94 ($1,315 in chips)
Seat 3: pepsi man 1 ($800 in chips)
Seat 4: BIG T-BAG ($1,450 in chips)
Seat 5: vaxovaxo ($2,190 in chips)
Seat 6: mash035 ($1,840 in chips)
Seat 7: perks420 ($2,355 in chips)
Seat 9: boogy3 ($1,250 in chips)
Seat 10: darval ($1,750 in chips)

ANTES/BLINDS
boogy3 posts blind ($15), darval posts blind ($30).

PRE-FLOP
Isle1183 folds, eagle eye 94 folds, pepsi man 1 folds, BIG T-BAG folds, vaxovaxo calls $30, mash035 folds, perks420 calls $30, boogy3 calls $15, darval checks.

FLOP [board cards 9D,10S,8D ]
boogy3 bets $300, darval calls $300, vaxovaxo folds, perks420 folds.

TURN [board cards 9D,10S,8D,10D ]
boogy3 checks, darval bets $300, boogy3 calls $300.

RIVER [board cards 9D,10S,8D,10D,6D ]
boogy3 checks, darval bets $300, boogy3 calls $300.

SHOWDOWN
darval shows [ 2D,7D ]
boogy3 mucks cards [ 6S,7S ]
darval wins $1,920.

SUMMARY
Dealer: perks420
Pot: $1,920
Isle1183, loses $0
eagle eye 94, loses $0
pepsi man 1, loses $0
BIG T-BAG, loses $0
vaxovaxo, loses $30
mash035, loses $0
perks420, loses $30
boogy3, loses $930
darval, bets $930, collects $1,920, net $990

At some point later, I got into a heads up match with the chip lead. I slightly underbet this flop and I think he thought I was trying to steal it. His all-in was met by my call and my top pair held up.

NO_LIMIT TEXAS_HOLDEM $5+$1 (Real Money), #239,256,241

Brownsville Single Table Tournament, 13 Mar 2006 9:10 PM ET

Seat 1: Isle1183 ($1,050 in chips)
Seat 2: eagle eye 94 ($723 in chips)
Seat 3: pepsi man 1 ($1,374 in chips)
Seat 4: BIG T-BAG ($1,450 in chips)
Seat 5: vaxovaxo ($2,223 in chips)
Seat 6: mash035 ($2,015 in chips)
Seat 7: perks420 ($3,275 in chips)
Seat 10: darval ($2,890 in chips)

ANTES/BLINDS
perks420 posts blind ($50), darval posts blind ($100).

PRE-FLOP
Isle1183 folds, eagle eye 94 folds, pepsi man 1 calls $100, BIG T-BAG folds, vaxovaxo calls $100, mash035 folds, perks420 calls $50, darval bets $300, pepsi man 1 folds, vaxovaxo folds, perks420 calls $300.

FLOP [board cards 7C,QH,AD ]
perks420 checks, darval bets $400, perks420 bets $2,875 and is all-in, darval calls $2,090 and is all-in.

TURN [board cards 7C,QH,AD,3D ]

RIVER [board cards 7C,QH,AD,3D,8C ]

SHOWDOWN
perks420 shows [ QC,9C ]
darval shows [ AH,KD ]
perks420 wins $385, darval wins $5,980.

SUMMARY
Dealer: mash035
Pot: $6,365
Isle1183, loses $0
eagle eye 94, loses $0
pepsi man 1, loses $100
BIG T-BAG, loses $0
vaxovaxo, loses $100
mash035, loses $0
perks420, bets $3,275, collects $385, net -$2,890
darval, bets $2,890, collects $5,980, net $3,090

You would think after all this, I would win. I didn't even finish in the money, with a 5th place finish. Blah.. Straight flushes are cool tho. ;-)

Onwards and downwards again..

2006-03-11T14:33:00.000-08:00

Got up nice and early this morning and figured I would continue my S&G challenge and see what I could do. The first game went all right, until I got busted out of course. I ended that one in 5th. The next one was a total waste (of course it only took 4 minutes) and I busted out in 10th. Then it sorta clicked (or I got a bunch of players I could beat) and finished in 1st. According to my self imposed rules, that mean my next game was at the $10+1 table. At this point, my $5+.50 games were actually break even (up $0.50). But I had lost both $10+1 games. So the next $10+1 game went just as good (bad) with a 7th place finish. I moved back to the $5+0.50 game and finished up with a 8th place finish.

Overall, I have now paid out $143 and won $105. Not going the right way after 23 games. My exit conditions are 100 games, $100 lost, or $100 won - which ever comes first.

So after those rather disappointing 3 hours, I decided to head over to Pokerstars and see what was happening there. I found a $5+0.50 MTT starting in a few minutes so I joined the fun. 1630 players. I made it through the 1st hour with better than my starting chips, but less than average stack size. I didn't make it through the second hour and finished in 468th place. The money (for what that was worth) started at 297th.

Time to leave poker for a while and go see if anything is happening in the real world.

Double shootout

2006-03-10T21:30:00.000-08:00

I tried my second double shootout today. I found it interesting compared to my first one. The last time the first hand started with KK and I managed to go all-in to find out the other guy had AA. It was a real quick game.

This time I had AK on the first hand and I got into the same situation - the "other" guy decides to go all-in and I thought about it and folded. One guy did call and I was able to see the hand. The "other" guy had AA. Good call I guess.

I managed to spend the next hour in last place. We started with 8 at our table and I managed to be last place right through to 3 players. Then for the next hour, we ground it out. I managed to move up from last to first - the hard way. These guys wouldn't call most raises, so I could continuely steal. I felt like I owned the table. Once and a while they would get cards and fight back and since I rarely had cards, I just folded. I even called with the hammer one time, flop completely missed, I bet and they folded - so I showed it. I don't think they understood what happened to them. ;-)

Unfortunately once we got heads up, and were there for a while, the other guy finally started to get smart and go all-in. Since I rarely had cards, I only called when I had a chance. Obviously not winning. I started to think he was getting carried away and called an all-in with second pair. He had top pair and it help.

I was crippled and started to grind it out again. Unfortunately the blinds were finally big enough that I had to get into the all-in type of play. It worked everytime until the last.

It was fun tho and I suspect I will do it again.

Continuing the S&G Challenge

Before the shootout, I played a couple S&Gs. I started like I did last night with a 7th place finish (it didn't take long) and then like last night, I finished 2nd in the second one.

So far, I have played 18 tournies. I have paid out $110, won $80 for a total todate of -$30.00

Wow - scary

2006-03-10T10:58:00.000-08:00

I didn't think he was that scary, but apparently the Quatloos sighting scared everyone away from the WWdN last night. I was disappointed there was no tournament and I couldn't even find anyone posting something about why. I even went ahead and took advantage of the rare pokerstars reload bonus, just to be prepared.

So in preparation for my favorite Thursday night MTT, I continued my S&G challenge. I only got 2 in before going to stars to play (and afterwards I was so disaapointed, I watched TV instead). I actually managed to finish in the money in one of them, so it was a net sum gain (not much tho).

1. 7th place finish.
2. 2nd place finish.

Total to date: -$34.00

Quatloos sighting

2006-03-09T18:50:00.000-08:00

I have it on good authority that Quatloos, the unbelievably lucky WWdN winner from last week, was sighted moving from Las Vegas to LA to play in this weeks tournament. He almost got stuck in the traffic jam on the 605, but got "lucky" again and is ready to gambool with his cards tonight and show all those bloggers how to really play poker.

WPBT Player of the Year

2006-03-09T08:50:00.000-08:00

As a newly minted poker blogger I am considering playing the events for the WPBT Player of the Year. Now there are some issues with this for me. I am not a good Omaha, stud or any of the other variations, player. I don't have an account on Full Tilt. The buy-ins are a little above my comfort level.

On the other hand, I like the comradery of playing in the twice WWdN tournies. I have even managed to money a few times in them.

So maybe if I just treat it as entertainment, go have a good time and enjoy myself it will be fun.

Sounds like a plan. Or I am just trying to convince myself.

I guess I have a couple days to decide.

On a different note, I continued to set new records in my S&G Challenge. I played 4 games at $5+0.50 and didn't manage to even make the money on one of them. I don't know if it is the fast levels, a weird mix of cards (I am getting starters, but very little completes) or what. The games from last night went like this:

1. 7th place finish.
2. 7th place finish.
3. 5th place finish.
4. 5th place finish.

Total to date: -$38.00

Learn to think like a fish

2006-03-08T11:26:00.000-08:00

Having recently played some 2/4 LHE at a B&M casino, I found this post by Felicia a very interesting read.

Kudos to Sirfwalgman for pointing it out to us.

Some prize

2006-03-07T18:55:00.000-08:00

I mentioned in my last entry that Boody P was the first person to comment on one of my posts. I told he won a prize for that. It was a bit of a joke, of course, but my payback was a little more painful than I intended.

Tonight was the regular Tuesday WWdN tournament over at Pokerstars and I ened up on the same table as Bloody P. Things appeared to be going swimmingly until this hand came up:

PokerStars Game #4211189781: Tournament #20540898, Hold'em No Limit - Level I (10/20) - 2006/03/07 - 20:44:41 (ET)
Table '20540898 9' Seat #5 is the button
Seat 1: Lasner (1060 in chips)
Seat 2: Gilain (1390 in chips)
Seat 3: dsheep (1105 in chips)
Seat 4: FishyMcDonK (1555 in chips)
Seat 5: smalldog (2460 in chips)
Seat 6: darval (1430 in chips)
Seat 7: Systems2005 (1410 in chips)
Seat 8: Bloody P (1340 in chips)
Seat 9: FatBaldGuy (1590 in chips)
darval: posts small blind 10
Systems2005: posts big blind 20
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to darval [Qd Qc]
Bloody P: raises 80 to 100
FatBaldGuy: folds
Lasner: folds
Gilain: folds
dsheep: folds
FishyMcDonK: folds
smalldog: folds
darval: raises 160 to 260
Systems2005: folds
Bloody P: calls 160
*** FLOP *** [2s 3s 7s]
darval: bets 400
Bloody P: raises 400 to 800
dsheep said, "hey - no raises, D!"
darval: raises 370 to 1170 and is all-in
Bloody P: calls 280 and is all-in
darval said, "oops"
*** TURN *** [2s 3s 7s] [9h]
*** RIVER *** [2s 3s 7s 9h] [3d]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
darval: shows [Qd Qc] (two pair, Queens and Threes)
Bloody P: shows [Qh Ad] (a pair of Threes)
darval collected 2700 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2700 | Rake 0
Board [2s 3s 7s 9h 3d]
Seat 1: Lasner folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: Gilain folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: dsheep folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: FishyMcDonK folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: smalldog (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: darval (small blind) showed [Qd Qc] and won (2700) with two pair, Queens and Threes
Seat 7: Systems2005 (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 8: Bloody P showed [Qh Ad] and lost with a pair of Threes
Seat 9: FatBaldGuy folded before Flop (didn't bet)

It was not the prize I wanted to give - although there might be a lesson in here somewhere.

So perhaps the lesson is to explain my thought process, and hope something can be learned here.

I had a high pocket pair. My original raise was for two purposes. The main one was to reduce the number of players in the hand to no more than 2 or 3. The second was to see/test the response to the raise that was on the board. If he had raised all-in, I would have had to think hard about calling it - and given this was early in a tournament, I probably would have laid it down.

The flop was pretty scary - I bet 400 as a test and I should have be concerned with the min raise, but I couldn't see the previous action being on suited cards. It may also have been a read on his play, but I am not sure of that. For whatever reason, I felt the right move was to push all-in and prevent a draw hand - maximize my overpair while they were still good. In hindsight, I am not sure this was a great move, but it seemed right at the time.

I am not sure why he called this, other than perhaps the belief I was bluffing. The board was even scary if I had gone in with the hammer.

Of course once he called, it was all over by the crying. I am curious to see what others think of this (in particular whether I should have pushed on the flop). I also hope Blood P is not too depressed to tell us what he was thinking at the time.

If a tree falls in a forest with no one to hear it, then does it make a sound?

2006-03-07T08:21:00.000-08:00

I have to admit, that as I get more into this blogging thing, I start to wonder what is the point if no-one is listening? I started thinking about this more yesterday when I read Wil Wheaton post "On the rise of trollblogs". For just a short time I thought about what I could post to stir it up enough to generate traffic. I then realised that generating traffic was not what it really about (for me anyway) and that I didn't care. Well, I cared, but not enough to change the reason I was writing this blog.

Continuing the blogsphere thing, I went looking to add to my rolls any interesting blogs I could find. Now I admit in some cases, they were people I knew or had worked with and in others just random blogs I happened to come across.

I did some searching for QNX, the operating system I work with every day on Technorati to see if anyone actually tagged their posts about QNX and found almost nothing. This led to some more creative searching and I found blogs from some people who I know do a lot of QNX work. The first is from CAMZ, a fellow QNX consultant, and at one time we were co-administrators of QNXZone, a website dedicated to QNX issues. The second I found was from a former co-worker of mine, ApM, who has two blogs. One is a livejournal called "c is for cookie, but that is insufficient" and the other is a more technical one called "geekstorming". ApM has an interesting sense of humor, but one you catch on to it, it makes for facinating reading. Unfortunately neither of these guys are very active in blogging, so updates are few and far between.

On a slightly different note, being a Canadian living in the south land, I like to keep up to date on some of the world issue from a Canadian perspecitve with Alec Saunders .LOG. He is an active blogger who always has something interesting to say about different issues.

So while this post is sitting draft form, Bloody P has to go ruin my 0 for 0 track record by actually reading my blog and posting a comment.

Continuing the S&G challenge

2006-03-06T20:12:00.000-08:00

OK, so yesterday I finished with a 1st place finish. According to my self imposed rules, I moved up to a $10+1 S&G. This started off ok, but when push came to shove, I played bubble boy and finished in 4th.

A slight setback, but there is still a long ways to go. I jumped right back in with a $5+$0.50. Now in this one, I had an interesting hand (no hand history, so this is from memory).

My stack was about 2600 at this point. I was UTG+1 with K10s. I limped and about 5 players followed. The flop came a nice K10x. I did a min bet and the short stack 2 positions after me went all-in. In his case it was about 200 more. The guy after him follows suit and goes all-in as well (this time for about 500). I was happy at this point and then the guy on the button (who has a stack about the size of mine) calls the all-in. Now this was interesting cause he just called, rather than going all-in. I read this to mean either he had forgotten he was not last to act, or he was not confident enough to risk all his money. Either way, my mind was made up and I pushed all-in. He thought for a second and called.

Now Pokerroom has this feature (which I think is cool) where they show the percentages when all the remaining players are all-in. I like this feature. In this case, it showed 76% for me to win. I don't know how many times I have seen this before and it always seems to work til the river, when the chips slide to someone else. The turn came up and I was watching the percentages (it changed to 70%). The river missed and I watched over 6000 chips slide my way.

The rest of the game went fairly quick til we hit the money. It then seemed to take longer than it should. I suspect it was because we got there faster than we usually do. Normally the blinds are higher by the time you are down to three. No problem. I used my stack to basically raise every hand (and get out of the way when these guys actually got cards). It took a little while, but eventually I got rid of both of them and finished in 1st.

I then had to move back up to the $10+1. I played this a little bad. I suspect it was not adjusting fast enough to change from a big stack, short handed game, to a small stack, 10 player table. Either way, I ended up finishing in 6th place.

So tonight, I finished like this:

1. 4th place finish
2. 1st place finish
3. 6th place finish

Total to date: -$16.00

S&G Challenges

2006-03-06T12:22:00.000-08:00

I was playing in a tournament on Sunday morning at Pokerroom and was already reading some websites at the same time (a really bad habit if I do say so). On one of the sites, someone was talking about personal S&G challenges - basically you set a goal and try to achieve it (27% ROI or double your money in less than xxx days or whatever). This led me to think about my own S&G performance.

The tournament I was playing at the time was one of those qualifier satellites where you get tickets to another satellite. I don't know why I was playing it, other than it was the next one starting when I checked at the site and poker is poker you know.. With all this thinking about S&Gs, I almost lost track of the tournament. There was about 69 people in it and the prize pool was 8 tickets and one cash prize. I managed to get to the "money" but literally got the money, going out in 9th place. Which was ok since I wasn't really in it for the tickets.

So with the tournament out of the way, I decided on the format for my personal challenge. My goal was to make $100 in less than 100 S&Gs. I also decided I would stop being foolish if I lost more than $100. I also decided I would take the following approach:

1. Start at $5+0.50 10 person S&GS
2. If I win, move up a level (ie to $10+1 S&Gs)
3. If I money, stay at the current level
4. If I lose, move down a level (with $5+0.50 being the lowest)

I had always thought I was doing pretty good with S&Gs. Generally at least breaking even, usually bubbling when I didn't make the money.

Well, let me tell you. I played 7 S&Gs before I had to deal with real world things in the afternoon. The fact I played 7 should give you a hint. I ended up playing just under 3 hours with results as follows:

1. 8th place finish
2. 9th place finish
3. 10th place finish
4. 6th place finish
5. 8th place finish
6. 7th place finish
7. 1st place finish

There is a message in this somewhere. ;-) I need to rethink my S&G strategy somewhat. Tonight I will move up to a $10+1 and see how fast I can fall back to the $5+0.50 level.

Total to date: -$13.50

Technorati (and Sir Waffles)

2006-03-04T09:24:00.000-08:00

As a newbie in the world of blogging (reading or writing apparently), I discovered Technorati after it was mentioned yesterday in Wil Wheatons blog. It seemed like a pretty cool site and I followed the links and prompts and "claimed" my blog. After I did what was required, I discovered I had a rank of Rank: 1,125,742 (0 links from 0 sites). I had to laugh at that - what other choice was there? Either way, it seemed like an iteresting place to keep an eye on, and I also followed the options and added some links in the left column here, related to their site.

While exploring the blogsphere and seeing what was up, I also came across this thing called frappr? in Sir Waffles blog. Apparently there is a competition to see who can map the most of their readers. I joined in since I are one. ;-)

Amazing Amazon (not!)

2006-03-03T10:49:00.000-08:00

Alright.. I have used Amazon for a few things and have generally been
happy. Today on the other hand, I want to reach through the internet
and stranggle someone there.. This is not a normal feeling for me and
it shows you how frustrating it is.

It started off with an email from the Amazon Prime thingy. I have
been using my 3 month free trial and they notified me that it was
ending and I was going to be automatically charged for it unless I
changed something.

Ok, so I decided that since I had free shipping, I would order
Oblivion (which ships on March 20th). I went on their site and
ordered that - paid the extra for 1 day shipping (since it was only
$3.99). I then decided to grab a book since I was there anyway..
Click click and all done. I noticed they shipped separately but no
problem, since one was available right now and the the other was
pre-ordered.

Ok, now is when I got a little carried away. You know how they list
stuff that relates to what you order? Well they had some poker stuff,
and I saw clear plastic chip trays as well as cut cards. I'm thinking
I can use my free shipping to get the little stuff that ain't worth
buying because of the shipping. Click on the trays, click on the cut
card (a big 69 cent purchase). I'm happy so I go back to normal work
(or browsing as necessary).

I then notice I have some more email, so I go read it. chipsandgames,
an amazon partner has processed my order for the clear plastic trays.
A $14.99 item which then gets a $8.65!?! shipping charge. I am
contemplating this when another email comes in saying my $0.69 cut
card is now shipping with a $7.06!!!!! shipping charge.. I start
mumbling in my cube.

I go back to Amazons site and find out that, oh yeah, partner shipping
isn't covered by Prime. Great... grumble grumble.. I can live with that,
caveat emptor and all. But the stupid 1-click buying didn't
allow me to combine orders, so I try to write support at Amazon with
their email forms. I end up in this "***Please fix the areas
indicated below.***" loop with no areas indicated below. I then try
to use Internet Explorer - in case this is yet another thing I can
complain to Amazon about. That doesn't work either.

So at this point, I am about ready to go cancel my Amazon orders
altogether. I did write chipsandgames and (their email address
worked) and they said they combined my two orders and reduced the
shipping charge (I don't know how much, but it is a start).

Blah.. And to think I started my Amazon experience today, actually
thinking serious about paying for Prime membership..

S&G sized WWdN

2006-03-03T10:37:00.000-08:00

Obviously there was a party and some of us weren't aware of it last night. It had to be the smallest WWdN tourny since I started playing them. There was at least one interesting part. Jay (L0K1) and I play a semi-regular home game with a guy named Dave. Dave keeps forgetting when these WWdN tournaments are on and usually remembers when the game is 1/2 over or something. He emails screenshots of "interesting" plays - usually when we get busted out, etc..

Well last night he remembered in time and put in an appearance that anyone playing or watching at the time won't forget. Sir Waffles wrote about it here:

I also joined one of the smallest WWDN's in history. I made the final table but busted out first hand. I was bluffing against Quantloos which is a bad idea since that guy NEVER EVER NEVER FOLDS. I had not seen him play so I had no idea. He called my all in with A7o on a AKQ and maybe flush board. Oh well. Perhaps he reads my blog. I saw him make FAR WORSE calls and EVERY SINGLE TIME HE SUCKED OUT.. I mean it was crazy. It was for sure his night as he easily took first. Congrats! Everyone was a little pissed at the guy I am sure.. I found it a little amusing. It was almost like the male version of Veneno!

I do have to admit I will rethink my home game strategy with him after watching that play. My advice to Dave (Quatloos) is to go buy a lottery ticket.

I hate being first out!

2006-03-01T18:11:00.000-08:00

I hate being first out! and I can honestly say that it has never happened before. I will blame it all on the format.

For the first time I tried a double shootout format satellite on Pokerstars for the (now) $1 million tournament on Sunday. The format is 8 tables of 8 players which play their table until there is one person left (no table switching). Once everyone has wiped out their table, the winners form the final table. 2 seats for the sunday tournament are up for play, and 6 $35 2nd place prizes.

It seemed like a cool idea, and I was placed in the #1 position on table 5. My cards were a cool pair of pocket Kings and I was on the button. I raise to an even $100 and the SB raises to just under $400. I thought about a big raise, but just min raised. He comes back forcing me all-in and I think for a sec about his pocket Aces and decide to call anyway. Of course he DOES have pocket aces and although I end up with both a straight and flush draw by the river, nothing happens and I get to be first out. Blah!

Pechanga and Limit Poker

2006-02-26T07:39:00.000-08:00

So Friday afternoon, Jay and I went down to Pechanga (about 1 hr south of where I live, if the traffic wasn't in the way) and decided to see what it was all about. Although I have played a few games in Vegas, I normally just play online.

We arrived in late afternoon, found the self-parking area easily (much easier than some of the places in Vegas) and wandered into the casino, looking for the poker room. I was actually impressed with some of the slots and stuff I glanced at on the way - as a technical person (read geek), I am always impressed with the technology. Anyway after wandering around the casino and following the signs (I swear they make you take the long way - or the casino was bigger than I expected) we went up the escalator and found the poker room.

Now this was the first time for Jay in a B&M poker room, and my experience in Vegas told me to take it real easy and play something simple. We signed up for the 2-4 limit (the minimum spread they offered) and got seated right away. (There was lots of tables and they seemed to be seating people with no more than a 5 minute wait).

Now the table I was at appeared to be the geriatric retirement table. I swear I wasn't even sure a couple of the players were alive. It did appear to be like everything you hear about at low limit tables - no foldem holdem was in full play. I still tried to play my normal tight agressive game, but that didn't really work well. The tight part was easy as I never got any cards worth playing (for the first 2 hours anyway) and when I finally got something (pocket Kings), I raised one BB preflop and everyone folded. At this point (I hadn't been paying enough attention) I learned that they have a flat rate of $4 per hand - when basically meant my hand won me about $4.

At 6pm, they started this jackpot thing where you needed to have AAA1010 or better and have it broken by something better (basically a bad beat jackpot). They also had to use both whole cards in the hand. This jackpot thing certainly woke up the seniors at my table and they got all excited. According to one fellow, the only reason he was still playing was to win the jackpot. I kept my mouth shut and nodded to agree with him. He commented on my previous pocket Kings that if the Jackpot was going, I shouldn't have raised as it was important to see the flop.

At this point I had been slowly bleeding blinds and was down about $80. Fortunately my cards changed and I managed to make a mini comeback. We decided to take a break about 45 minutes later and I was back up to being only down $25. Jay on the other hand had the same cards as me, minus the mini comeback.

We took a break for supper and came back in about an hour.

By this time, it was 8:30 or 9pm and the texture of the crowd had changed. The seniors had mainly gone home and there was a much younger crowd there. We still got seated right away and continued our bad card streak. Although I had previously had a couple good sessions in Vegas playing low limit holdem, this night reminded me of all the reasons I hated limit. I slowly bled blinds and although I managed to get slightly better cards than earlier, I never managed to get back up to my buyin and finally quit after midnight down about $40.

Overall, it was fun tho, and I figure I will be back again. Although they weren't advertising it online, they were spreading a cheap $40 NL game which I think I will target next time.

Back in the day..

2006-02-23T14:13:00.000-08:00

Although the intent of this blog is to be slightly more general than just being about poker, that is not obvious from reading what I have posted so far. I was looking over the old site where I used to have my blog and realised I should create a link from there to here and vice versa.

If you look through the old blog, you can see that most of my activity revolved around my interest and participation in the QNX community. I am still an avid QNX user and developer, but my non-work interest appears to have been sucked into this thing called poker lately.

So going forward, I will try to post about things other than just poker. I will try to reflect my current interests more evenly in the blog (or not).

Deep Stacks (again)

2006-02-19T09:42:00.000-08:00

I think I have a love/hate relationship with these deep stack tournaments. I keep telling myself I won't play them anymore after never finishing above 600th, but then the next weekend I am back there again.

The play is different in subtle ways. You still get the people who don't realise that and play like it is a normal fast paced S&G or tournament. But in general, the play is more sophisticated than that. Most players realise they are in for a long slow grind and play accordingly.

This is not a live blog of the tournament or anything, but I am using it to keep notes and comments as I go. I suspect if I published it, it would be a live blog.

2nd Hour

My relationship continues into the second hour of the tournament. I have been playing really tight and laying down anything that wasn't top notch. Of course now I get into a fight with big slick and although I was smart enough to get out of it, it still hurt a little (well more than a little). Fortunately deeper stacks mean I can survive this and keep going, but I am going the wrong way.

3rd Hour

Of course I am not blogging much - I never said I was good at live blogging. I am surviving which is not the way to play this game. I seem to trade a bad play (or suckout) for every good play I make. Blah..

As usual, I get into a fight with A10o, there was a 1 BB raise and I was on the button. I called and the flop hit my A. The short stack to my right raised 1k, so I went all-in figuring he would have done it if he was confident. Of course he was pot commited anyway and call. He had AJ and it stood up. I am down to 4 BB and all ready to go all-in on the next face or ace.

We knew this was coming. I finished in 522nd place out of 1578 when my K3 couldn't grow up and was beat by a pair of Jacks.

One of these times I will either learn, or quit wasting my time on the deep stacks tournaments.

Moving day and a couple tournaments

2006-02-18T21:54:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was moving day for me. About twice a year we move our 5th wheel trailer to a different site and yesterday was the big day. I think the anticipation is harder than the actual move, as once you get all 20,000 lbs on the road and moving, it seems to be rather anti-climatic (which is the way I like it).

So after my not that exciting day yesterday, I had planned to play my normal deep stacks tournament over at pokerstars on Saturdays. Those plans got squashed as I was invited to a late breakfast and missed the start time by an hour or so. So I wandered over to PokerRoom and looked to see what they had lined up.

They have this thing called a Royal Tournament which is a $10+1 event with $10k added in tickets to their large $1000+0 event called the Grand Tournament. There was about 2300 people signed up and it was about to start, so I figured what the heck, why not.

A deep stacks tournament this was not, and although I last almost 2 hours, I was eliminted in around 600th place. Being a beggar for punishment, I looked to see what else was available and there was nothing on the regular tournament board which interested me. I went over to the S&G tab and found what they are calling a Centurian Cup game about start.

These are basically 100 person S&Gs with a portion of the rake set aside for a weekly leaderboard type prize. I joined into a $5+0.75 game and played along.
One hour went by, then another and all of a sudden we were in the money. I like my short handed game and when we were down to 5 players, I was in 1st place and called a double all-in. It just seemed like a blink and we were down to 3 players. The second place player and I were pretty close stack size wise and he got into a fight with player 3. Unfortunately player 3 was nice enough to go all-in and seriously increase the size of my competitors stack. This stack advantage was used well by the other guy and he managed to kick me out into a 2nd place finish.

Overall it was a good game and I was happy to have made enough to pay for my last couple tournament entry fees (and then some). All in all, a good day.

Variation in play

2006-02-11T08:05:00.000-08:00

When we listen to all the forums and websites out there, a common theme is the issue of variation. It can be described as a run of good luck, or more often a run of bad luck. Although there are definitely patterns and cycles of good and bad cards in any deal, my latest hypothesis is that it is partly caused by the way we think.

Our perception of our recent "luck" is based on the way we remember things. We tend to remember the losses and the "bad beats" much more than we remember the suckouts and good plays which benefited us. Part of this has to do with our ability to adapt. You can see this every day in your life outside of poker (you do have a life outside of poker, right?) We quickly adapt to a noisy or smelly environment and soon don't even notice, until you leave and come back, or someone else points it out.

The same thing happens at the poker table. When you start to play at new table, it takes a certain amount (results vary by player) of time to get familiar and adapt to the play at the table. If you play tournaments, like I do, you may end up changing tables a lot. To make this worse, if you play at multiple sites, the play at each site can vary hugely. Once you adapt, your perception adjusts to this new baseline and your memory of how you played highlights a completely different level of play.

All in all, this means that when you think back over the last month, your recollection of your play focuses on the exceptions to your changing baseline. Your mind convieniently flattens the baseline and gives you a distorted view of your play. In some cases, this make you think you had a consistently good (or bad) month, when in reality your play was probably varied than you think.

Before you say, what about the reports I get from tools (like pokertracker, or whatever), I want to make a comment or two on them. I actually like them, but they are potentially part of the problem if they are not used correctly. The problem is they go exactly the opposite direction and try to assume a completely unbiased rating. Good play is not the same from one table to the next, never mind one site to another. The same can be said of bad play. Although they can give you stats like VPIP and showdown % and any other stat you can think of, these measures have the most value when measured against the table average in each case.

Are they useful? Of course! But like anything, they are just one form of feedback and you have to figure out how to incorporate them into your mental picture of how you are doing.

Perhaps this is obvious to everyone but I figured I would try to articulate it and see whether this makes sense in writing. Your feedback and/or comments are always welcome.

CanonBall Tournaments

2006-02-09T19:58:00.000-08:00

I was waiting to play my regular WWdN Thursday night tournament and decided to see what was happening over at PokerRoom. They have this tournament which they call a Canonball. It has turbo levels for the first 6 levels (3 minutes per) and then switches back to the normal (12 minute) levels after that.

It has a pretty intense feel as the turbo mode kicks in and all the players get into all-in mode. I managed to survive that, a little ahead of where I started. My plan was to then switch to my more normal mode of play. Unfortunately the rest of the players still seemed to be in a turbo mode. The rush had also built up some pretty serious stacks, so the free for all continued. The biggest thing was you could pick and choose and survive. We made to the 1st break with just 2 to go to get into the money.

The money was not really the issue (it was a $5+0.50 buy-in).

At this point I had about $4900, the blinds were 400/800 (going to 500/1000 after the break). I was on the button, so the farmer in me said I can wait out two people and at least get my buy-in back (I hate busting out on the bubble).

The round started with me getting moved to another table right away (well after the first hand which I folded). This unfortunately put me back under the gun (argh) but gave me AJo. I pushed and everyone folded to me. This allowed me to pay for the upcoming blinds.

In the end, I lasted about 5 more hands (which was into the money) and went out in 38th place. I pushed with QQ and I was called by two people with Ax. An ace came on the flop and that was it.

Overall, the canonball format was an interesting variation - especially if you like turbos. I am not sure it is for me, but I might be convinced to play it again since I won a net of $4.34.

A Chip and a 3 legged Stool

2006-02-04T10:08:00.000-08:00

Although I am no-where near proficient enough to be spouting poker philosophy, I couldn't resist the temptation - given my own blog and all. I have been playing poker (the online, holdem kind) for about 15 months now and although I have been winning more than I am losing, I now know enough to see I have a lot to learn.

Over the last couple months I have been forming an internal philosophy of how I play poker. I am generally a tight agressive player, but with time I realized that is not enough. I generally play tournaments, not ring games, so these ideas only apply to S&Gs and tournaments. The game is not about the cards, but rather the people we are playing with. Of course the cards matter, but in many hands and situations, they are much less important than you think. This is my first attempt to articulate the philosphy I have developed. Feel free to comment and give me feedback.

My 3 legged Stool

The three tenents of my philosophy are initiative, position and situation. Now, of course, these can be interpreted to mean just about anything, so I will try to explain how I use them.

Initiative

Initiative is interesting because it can be used differently in each position and situation. When you are in the early positions, you can use initiative to represent a strong hand. Using the its harder to call than to bet philosophy, you can often steal pots with this alone. If you are in a middle or late position and someone has already taken the initiative from you, you can re-seize the initiative, with the caveat that this will only work if you are sure they are bluffing, or you have the cards to back the action. If you are in a hand where you, or someone else goes all-in, this effectively closes the door on initiative. If you are the pusher, you ensure they can't steal initiative from you (although you close a lot of other doors with that move). If they do it to you, you have to decide whether your cards beat theirs - that is all that is left.

Position

Position is not as simple as the closer to the button, the better your position. When combined with initiative, it is often better to be in an early position so you can use that initiative to set the stage for whatever play you have in mind. Often players in late positions will try to take advantage of their positions and by using initiative in early position you can prevent that. Too often late position only gives you the ability to fold, especially with weak starters or in a game where the blinds and stacks are such that initiative wins unless someone has really good cards.

Situation

Now I have to admit that this tenet is a bit of a escape. It gives me an excuse to explain why the other two tenets didn't work. This is where you need to use your experience, and your read on the other players to know whether they have a good read on you, whether they have cards, etc. A large part of this philosophy is based on getting a reasonable read on your situation and then taking advantage of it if you can.

How and When I use it

When I am playing in a tournament, I start off playing the tradition TA (Tight Aggressive) model. I have my starting cards and if I don't hit them, I just sit out. After some amount of hands, I start to get a read on the table. It helps that I start to get recognised as a TA player. As my comfort level moves up, I will start to take advantage of a situation or two to steal the blinds. Generally this doesn't make a huge difference early on. It pays for the blinds and lets me comfortably wait for the better hands I need in case we go to showdown. All that really matters is that the opponents are sophisticated enough to actually recognise you are representing something (some low entry tournaments take a while to weed out those players).

At some point you get to the place where this works the best. In any case, you have certainly hit the point when you approach the bubble. Generally players tighten up and play more defensive when they are close to the money. At this point when the majority of players are waiting for good cards, you are able to ignore your cards and purely play your initiative and position. One advantage of this is even if players know you are doing it, they almost always have to have better cards to counter it (or more bravado).

My experience with this has shown that it reduces variance somewhat as I am less dependent purely on geteting good cards. I recently played a tournament where I noticed that out of the first 18 pots I won, I had only gone to showdown once - that is not normal, even for me. Of course the cards matter, but if you want to consistently finish in the money, you need to play more than just the cards.

I would love to hear what you think about this concept.

Poker and WWdN

2006-01-28T16:51:00.000-08:00

Over the last couple weeks, in particular this week, I have been playing on Wil Wheaton's weekly tournament. They have changed day of the week since that link, but if you are a pokerstars player, you can usually find them on Tuesday and Thursday nights.

Anyway, I played the last couple weeks and have had a great time. The concept of the tournament is to provide a place for both bloggers and readers of poker blogs to play poker together and have fun. And in particular, having fun is what it is all about. I am a poker player of medium skill, which to me means I know generally what I am doing, but know that I have a long ways to go. I do win occasionally and manage in the money often enough, but realise that there is a long way to go. ;-)

Wil's tournament is different that most in that the group is friendly and it is more like a home game than your traditional online game. The entry price is low enough to not be a huge issue and the game usually feels like it is not about the money, but rather about the enjoyment of playing a game with a bunch of friends.

Regardless of your level of play, if you are a poker fan and have an account at pokerstars, it is worth the effort to make the next WWdN tournament and have a good time.

Welcome

2006-01-20T21:07:00.000-08:00

Although I have done some minor blogging before, I decided that if I wanted to get into it a little more, I would have to use a more mainstream site. Once that decision had been made, the hard decision remaining was to find out an appropriate name for the site.

Of course at this point, I had a complete lack of imagination and after staring at my computer screen for several minutes, I had an idea. I went to my google home page, turned on the word of the day and I was presented with a word that appeared very appropriate:

Susurration \soo-suh-RAY-shun\, noun:
A whispering sound; a soft murmur.

. . . the soft susurration of the wind through a stand of whistling thorn.
--Ann Jones, "Kenya on horseback," Town & Country, August 1, 1994

Across the road I can make out the grassy park that runs along the sand and hear, in the distance, the steady susurration of the Atlantic Ocean.
--Michael Dirda, "Excursions," Washington Post, January 2, 2000

There was the predictable noise of offence being taken on the Conservative side of the House. But it was low and muted, a mild susurration in the backwoods rather than an outraged gust of anger.
--Andrew Marr, "Making a prime minister of the President," Independent, March 30, 1994

This place will be my soft whispering for anyone who cares to listen. We'll see where that leads us as I try to experience this adventure called blogging.