Tuesday, April 25, 2006

NOT WWDN and DADI 5

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.

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Hammer time at the WWdN

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.

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Its all over but the crying..

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

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!

Friday, April 07, 2006

Unfortunately we all think we have been there..

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!

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.

Monday, April 03, 2006

Its Hammer Time!

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

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

Thursday, March 23, 2006

I've gone to Hell and I like it

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.

Sunday, March 19, 2006

I hate flying

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.

Monday, March 13, 2006

Can you say straight flushes (plural)?

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. ;-)

Saturday, March 11, 2006

Onwards and downwards again..

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.

Friday, March 10, 2006

Double shootout

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

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

Thursday, March 09, 2006

Quatloos sighting

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

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

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Learn to think like a fish

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.

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Some prize

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?

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.

Monday, March 06, 2006

Continuing the S&G challenge

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