i played a little last night and for some reason i decided to be a hero and make some loose calls to show off how great my hand reading skills are.
the first time i called a c/r all-in w/ 99 on Jd6d5x board. action went ep raise, i flat call in the CO and villain calls out of the bb. checked to me on the flop, i stabbed at it and bb re-raised all-in. i bet 380 into a 760 chip pot and bb c/r shove was for 2.3k. i really ruled out a big hand since he's playing it so fast. i put him on a flush draw a large portion of the time and a weak Jack or straight draw to a lesser extent of the time.
i called and he showed me JJ for top set and was probably playing scared of the flush draw.
the second one was less dramatic. (and just plain bad) basically it was an over push from the blinds that most of the time is AK but also could be in the 99-JJ range. my 88 is in rough shape against that range but i managed to convince myself it was AK and called it off. he showed me QQ and it was another gg.
so not a great night play wise but those days will happen.
i've been cashing a lot in the $22 turbo sngs but it seems im always busting 3rd. i bucked the trend by taking down 1st in my last two of the night which felt good.
the limit holdem tourny stunk, i ran KK into AA again (thinking about changing the title of this blog to "Kings into Aces") which cost me even more than usual since we had a donk in between us trying to cap every round (including the turn) w/ a naked flush draw. that took a good chunk of my stack and then i played an AJ hand very well (imo) but got rivered by a guy calling multiple bets on the turn w/ a gut shot.
other than that i played 4 45 player sngs and took 5th in one and got knocked out at the midway point in the others.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
the world series finish off last nite/early this morning. another year in the books and another year that i have failed to play an event. this year was looking promising since i had a 13k bankroll put together but for a plethora of reasons i didn't make it.
im hoping that by next year i will have a roll big enough that i'll be able to play some of the smaller events and maybe try to satellite into the main event. it's weird but i don't really have that much desire to play the main event. i'd much rather play a bunch of the smaller events.
another goal that kind up just snuck up on me is the WPT North American Poker Championships. last year was the 1st year this tournament took place in Niagara Falls (Canada) at Fallsview casino. im only about a 25 min drive from Fallsview and it would be so sick if i could somehow satty into it. Last year they also had the Canadian Poker Championships held there a week prior to the WPT and had a much smaller buy-in of 2.6k.
i haven't heard anything about the Canadian Championships yet but the 10k is a go. they don't run any prelim events for this leg of the wpt since fallsview's poker room is only about 10 tables. from what i understand they totally revamp the casino floor just for this one week tournament.
i downloaded the satellite schedule and they have a lot of different options to getting in. it's pretty much like the party step sngs. i'm going to make an effort to get down there and play a few since last year i heard they were super soft and if that fails i might take a few stabs on ftp with the winners choice tournaments.
i also realized today that im only 2 months away from a planned vegas trip. i've never been to vegas (or on a plane for that matter) and i haven't booked anything of yet but me and a few friends are looking at going down in late september. this means i need to build up a bigger roll in a hurry! my original plans were to bring about 3k for playing purposes only and right now that would be case money which is not an option.
hopefully in the next 2 months i can keep improving, get a little lucky and take down some nice scores.
tg
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Sunday, July 15, 2007
bah to poker
just chilled out tonite and played a couple mtts on my laptop in front of the tv.
6pm, $26 had 888 runners.
i chipped up early to about 1900 and the lost this pot.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1267529
late in the first hour i got my double up.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1267540 - villain makes an absolute horrible call to my benefit.
in the 2nd hour i get another double thanks to more poor play.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1267545
after this hand i tightened up because i was pretty sure i had tilted the villain from the last hand. sure enough, i decide i've layed low long enough and start to open up and every time he 3-bet me.
the third time he showed me AK so i felt good about staying patient.
i got fairly short and decided to look for a re-steal opportunity since the late position players in my bb were stealing pretty weak. i made the re-shove here and he makes a nice call but i run goot.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1267556
sitting on a good stack and at a very aggressive table i decided to play my Kings a little differently. note the villain is the same from hand 2.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1267568
hard to believe but i looked this guy up on opr and he actually has some good scores.
anyways that knocked me out 95th, 14 short of the money.
the 7pm was very uneventful. i basically bled down to 2k and in the 2nd hour got it all-in short w/ A9 vs T9 and lost that one too.
the 7:15 limit went really well in the first hour and i had doubled my initial stack to 3k by the first break. everything that went right in the first hour went bad in the second and eventually busted 35th out of the 148 runners.
some side notes:
a) i hate rebuys on full tilt. i think i will stop playing for the time being. i really just don't feel they are that profitable for me right now. the lower limit ones seem to play so tight early. i usually find there are only one or two other players that double rebuy to start and it seems that i have to dump a couple rebuys just to try to loosen the table up. basically i have to play like a maniac and be willing to go off for a big number just to play it optimally which is not my forte.
b) i suck in the deep stack tournaments. its kind of funny but almost every one i play lately i end up down to 2k within the first 20 mins and have a constant up hill struggle to get back to having an average stack. im sure its just short term variance but it's frustrating at the same time.
6pm, $26 had 888 runners.
i chipped up early to about 1900 and the lost this pot.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1267529
late in the first hour i got my double up.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1267540 - villain makes an absolute horrible call to my benefit.
in the 2nd hour i get another double thanks to more poor play.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1267545
after this hand i tightened up because i was pretty sure i had tilted the villain from the last hand. sure enough, i decide i've layed low long enough and start to open up and every time he 3-bet me.
the third time he showed me AK so i felt good about staying patient.
i got fairly short and decided to look for a re-steal opportunity since the late position players in my bb were stealing pretty weak. i made the re-shove here and he makes a nice call but i run goot.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1267556
sitting on a good stack and at a very aggressive table i decided to play my Kings a little differently. note the villain is the same from hand 2.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1267568
hard to believe but i looked this guy up on opr and he actually has some good scores.
anyways that knocked me out 95th, 14 short of the money.
the 7pm was very uneventful. i basically bled down to 2k and in the 2nd hour got it all-in short w/ A9 vs T9 and lost that one too.
the 7:15 limit went really well in the first hour and i had doubled my initial stack to 3k by the first break. everything that went right in the first hour went bad in the second and eventually busted 35th out of the 148 runners.
some side notes:
a) i hate rebuys on full tilt. i think i will stop playing for the time being. i really just don't feel they are that profitable for me right now. the lower limit ones seem to play so tight early. i usually find there are only one or two other players that double rebuy to start and it seems that i have to dump a couple rebuys just to try to loosen the table up. basically i have to play like a maniac and be willing to go off for a big number just to play it optimally which is not my forte.
b) i suck in the deep stack tournaments. its kind of funny but almost every one i play lately i end up down to 2k within the first 20 mins and have a constant up hill struggle to get back to having an average stack. im sure its just short term variance but it's frustrating at the same time.
two final tables yesterday
and neither of them were in holdem!
i played a ton yesterday and ended up playing a total of 14 mtt's. it's pretty crazy since i think the most mtt's i've ever played in a day is probably 6. i usually find myself really burnt out after 5 or 6 tournaments if they haven't went well but for some reason every time full tilt advertised the next tournament in the chat i found myself registering.
anyways, here is how the day layed out.
started w/ the noon $26 nlh and busted about 15 hands in when i got AQ all-in pre vs Q9. i usually would never get it AI that early pre w/ AQ but this dude was a complete idiot and when he squeezed my raise it was a pretty easy shove.
i ended up grinding out a bunch of $22 turbo sngs and a 45 player sng until the next mtt i was interested in. ran well in the sngs and took 6th in the 45.
my next multi was the $10 rebuy pot limit omaha @ 1:30. i played it fairly tight and at the end of the rebuy period i was in for the minimum and had an ok stack. i eventually busted 54/125 fairly uneventfully.
next was the 2pm $26 deep stack. once again i busted very early, here's the hand. (no hh since ftp tournament hh's are horrible)
villain is sitting on about 2.5k and ep has about 850. i cover villain by 15 chips, blinds are 20/40
ep limps, i raise pot and it folds to villain in the sb who calls. from what i've seen of villain early he calls tons of raises and plays any broadway cards. when i raised pot i was 90% sure he was calling.
folds to ep limper who shoves for his 810. i decide to flat call for 2 reasons:
1) villain obv hates folding so he might decide to reship me here since i haven't shown that much
strength
2) even if he flat calls he's getting it all on the flop w/ any peice which is fine by me.
i call and villain calls.
the flop comes down KT7 and he open shoves his remaing 1600 or so into the 2500 chip pot. i insta call and he shows QJo for a straight draw.
he gets there on the river and im left w/ 15 chips. i like my play here, just a bit unfortunate to not hold up.
after that i played a couple more sngs and decided to play a $26 satellite into the $109, 60k guarantee @ 6pm. once again i ran fairly well in the sngs and after about 2hrs won my seat to the 60k.
i took a break/nap and got ready to come back for the 6pm.
the 60k has a great structure and despite having no real chips i managed to last into 3rd hour before busting 233/671.
next i was onto the 7pm $75. once again i had really no chips the entire tournament and when i finally picked up a premium i ran my AK into AA to bust 95/404.
the 7:15 $26 limit holdem was the typical roller coaster when i busted on a bit of a cooler.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1265623
the 8pm $26 didn't go well. i busted 889/1069 after making a bit of a silly play.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1265629
a bit embarassing looking at in hindsight but at the time he just looked so weak and i really thought he was full of complete shit. he was weak but i was weaker. bad hand.
next was the 8:30pm $3.30 nlh rebuy. i went off a bit in this tournament and the first hour was brutal. i ended up w/ the minimum 5k stack at the end of the first hour and was in for 10 rebuys and the add-on. early into the 2nd hour i went bust with this hand which is pretty bad. getting it in drawing dead, never good.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1266217
i was planning on the rebuy to be the last tournament of the night but i figured if i was still in the rebuy (which i was at the time) i might as well keep going.
i entered the $26 deep stack plo at 9:15. the tourament drew 171 players and i started off pretty slowly. i slowly bled chips until about 1/2 through the second hour when i took down a couple big pots and slowly started building up chips. before i knew it had about 30k w/ 30 players left w/ avg being around 15k. i hit a nice run of cards and stole some nice pots pre to keep building down to the money bubble of 18. from there i bounced between 30k and 40k until we reached the final table. we lost 3 players pretty quickly and i was sitting around middle of the pack w/ 60k. down to 5 and i was now low stack w/ 50k and the chip leader potted it for about the 4th time in a row. it folded to me in the sb and i decided to take a stand and reship w/ QQ9T single suited, bb folded and chip leader made an easy call w/ AAxx. i failed to improve and was out in 5th for $307.
during this i was also going semi deep in the nightly fifty fifty. ($55 buy-in, 50k guaranteed) early on i was making hands and ran up my stack to a peak of about 9k. things went really dry from there and on the money bubble (top 135 pay) i was sitting w/ about 6.9k at 300/600/75. about an orbit after the bubble burst i met my demise. after picking up the blinds i had 8.1k at 400/800/75 and in the sb i picked up KK.
the action went short stack shove in mp, mp donk cold calls, button thinks for a minute and then raises to 7k, i shove my 8.1k in and mp donk calls off the rest of his stack.
short stack showed rags, mp donk shows Td9d and button has AA obv. i come 3rd in the pot when T9s flushes on the river and im busted in 126th for a minimal cash.
the 10pm $26 was all over the place in the first hour. i had some really big hands but never really got paid off past the flop. i ended the first hour w/ about 2.5k but slowly dwindled down before making re-steal w/ 87o and about 13bb's from the bb and getting called by KJo. i ended up busting 419/1191 in this.
finally, my last tournament of the night was the 10:15pm $26 horse. the tournament had 204 runners and paid about 1.5k for first.
i lost a good chunk of my chips very early when in holdem i flopped an open ended straight flush draw against a set. as funny as it sounds, i didn't play another holdem hand till the final table. i was just completely card dead throughout the holdem portion which sucks since its my best game in the rotation.
i hovered around 700 chips for the first hour. i was picking up concealed kings during razz and A23 during stud hi. everything was backwards until i picked up a huge pot in stud hi w/ trip Kings. that put me at 3k going into the first break. in the second hour i hovered around my 3k stack for awhile before winning a couple decent sized pots and chipping myself up to 7k. before i knew it we were down to 30 people w/ the top 24 paying. the thought of cashing in a mixed game event pumped me up pretty good and i buckled down and tried to concentrate on each hand. i picked up lots of well timed pots and then got super lucky to have a very good mtt player dump me two straight pots in stud hi. i saw the blue lights once again and was sitting as chip leader w/ 6 left.
down to 4 and i was 2nd in chips. the chip leader had about 105k, i had about 89k and the other two players were in the 40-50k range.
then everything went down the tubes. i dropped a few small pots in razz but the blinds were so high that it put me down to about 60k. all of sudden we were all fairly close. then a big hand happened in stud hi where i made a very bad fold.
the bring in had a 4 up and i raised w/ TT in the hole w/ an Ace up. the bring-in called. we both caught rags on 4th and i bet and he called again. on 5th i caught another rag and he caught an Ace and led out into me. it looked so weak to me and although i have almost no stud experience i thought for sure he was trying to take the pot away from me.
at this point the pot was a decent size and i was sitting w/ 42k behind. instead of raising i just called for some reason. it was a classic donk move, too scared to raise and not willing to fold. on 6th street i caught an Ace and he caught a rag and for some reason that i still haven't figured out i simply check/folded.
he dragged a big pot and showed me a lowly pair of 5's. i was so fucking steamed at myself. i totally read the situation right and just didn't have the confidence in myself to go with it. that's very dissapointing and i won't let it happen again.
i was left w/ 30k after that and w/ a 1k ante i was running out of time. for the next 12 hands im guessing i was the bring-in about 8 times which just totally destroyed my stack. eventually i was all-in pre 34J against KKJ. i managed to make 2 pair on 6th but he hit a flush on the 7th to send me packing in 4th.
4th paid about $375 but i wanted that win so bad. not even for the cash as much as the win.
that was it for the day. all in all a pretty good day but it could've been a lot better.
i'll write more later but this blog has gotten way to big.
tg
i played a ton yesterday and ended up playing a total of 14 mtt's. it's pretty crazy since i think the most mtt's i've ever played in a day is probably 6. i usually find myself really burnt out after 5 or 6 tournaments if they haven't went well but for some reason every time full tilt advertised the next tournament in the chat i found myself registering.
anyways, here is how the day layed out.
started w/ the noon $26 nlh and busted about 15 hands in when i got AQ all-in pre vs Q9. i usually would never get it AI that early pre w/ AQ but this dude was a complete idiot and when he squeezed my raise it was a pretty easy shove.
i ended up grinding out a bunch of $22 turbo sngs and a 45 player sng until the next mtt i was interested in. ran well in the sngs and took 6th in the 45.
my next multi was the $10 rebuy pot limit omaha @ 1:30. i played it fairly tight and at the end of the rebuy period i was in for the minimum and had an ok stack. i eventually busted 54/125 fairly uneventfully.
next was the 2pm $26 deep stack. once again i busted very early, here's the hand. (no hh since ftp tournament hh's are horrible)
villain is sitting on about 2.5k and ep has about 850. i cover villain by 15 chips, blinds are 20/40
ep limps, i raise pot and it folds to villain in the sb who calls. from what i've seen of villain early he calls tons of raises and plays any broadway cards. when i raised pot i was 90% sure he was calling.
folds to ep limper who shoves for his 810. i decide to flat call for 2 reasons:
1) villain obv hates folding so he might decide to reship me here since i haven't shown that much
strength
2) even if he flat calls he's getting it all on the flop w/ any peice which is fine by me.
i call and villain calls.
the flop comes down KT7 and he open shoves his remaing 1600 or so into the 2500 chip pot. i insta call and he shows QJo for a straight draw.
he gets there on the river and im left w/ 15 chips. i like my play here, just a bit unfortunate to not hold up.
after that i played a couple more sngs and decided to play a $26 satellite into the $109, 60k guarantee @ 6pm. once again i ran fairly well in the sngs and after about 2hrs won my seat to the 60k.
i took a break/nap and got ready to come back for the 6pm.
the 60k has a great structure and despite having no real chips i managed to last into 3rd hour before busting 233/671.
next i was onto the 7pm $75. once again i had really no chips the entire tournament and when i finally picked up a premium i ran my AK into AA to bust 95/404.
the 7:15 $26 limit holdem was the typical roller coaster when i busted on a bit of a cooler.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1265623
the 8pm $26 didn't go well. i busted 889/1069 after making a bit of a silly play.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1265629
a bit embarassing looking at in hindsight but at the time he just looked so weak and i really thought he was full of complete shit. he was weak but i was weaker. bad hand.
next was the 8:30pm $3.30 nlh rebuy. i went off a bit in this tournament and the first hour was brutal. i ended up w/ the minimum 5k stack at the end of the first hour and was in for 10 rebuys and the add-on. early into the 2nd hour i went bust with this hand which is pretty bad. getting it in drawing dead, never good.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1266217
i was planning on the rebuy to be the last tournament of the night but i figured if i was still in the rebuy (which i was at the time) i might as well keep going.
i entered the $26 deep stack plo at 9:15. the tourament drew 171 players and i started off pretty slowly. i slowly bled chips until about 1/2 through the second hour when i took down a couple big pots and slowly started building up chips. before i knew it had about 30k w/ 30 players left w/ avg being around 15k. i hit a nice run of cards and stole some nice pots pre to keep building down to the money bubble of 18. from there i bounced between 30k and 40k until we reached the final table. we lost 3 players pretty quickly and i was sitting around middle of the pack w/ 60k. down to 5 and i was now low stack w/ 50k and the chip leader potted it for about the 4th time in a row. it folded to me in the sb and i decided to take a stand and reship w/ QQ9T single suited, bb folded and chip leader made an easy call w/ AAxx. i failed to improve and was out in 5th for $307.
during this i was also going semi deep in the nightly fifty fifty. ($55 buy-in, 50k guaranteed) early on i was making hands and ran up my stack to a peak of about 9k. things went really dry from there and on the money bubble (top 135 pay) i was sitting w/ about 6.9k at 300/600/75. about an orbit after the bubble burst i met my demise. after picking up the blinds i had 8.1k at 400/800/75 and in the sb i picked up KK.
the action went short stack shove in mp, mp donk cold calls, button thinks for a minute and then raises to 7k, i shove my 8.1k in and mp donk calls off the rest of his stack.
short stack showed rags, mp donk shows Td9d and button has AA obv. i come 3rd in the pot when T9s flushes on the river and im busted in 126th for a minimal cash.
the 10pm $26 was all over the place in the first hour. i had some really big hands but never really got paid off past the flop. i ended the first hour w/ about 2.5k but slowly dwindled down before making re-steal w/ 87o and about 13bb's from the bb and getting called by KJo. i ended up busting 419/1191 in this.
finally, my last tournament of the night was the 10:15pm $26 horse. the tournament had 204 runners and paid about 1.5k for first.
i lost a good chunk of my chips very early when in holdem i flopped an open ended straight flush draw against a set. as funny as it sounds, i didn't play another holdem hand till the final table. i was just completely card dead throughout the holdem portion which sucks since its my best game in the rotation.
i hovered around 700 chips for the first hour. i was picking up concealed kings during razz and A23 during stud hi. everything was backwards until i picked up a huge pot in stud hi w/ trip Kings. that put me at 3k going into the first break. in the second hour i hovered around my 3k stack for awhile before winning a couple decent sized pots and chipping myself up to 7k. before i knew it we were down to 30 people w/ the top 24 paying. the thought of cashing in a mixed game event pumped me up pretty good and i buckled down and tried to concentrate on each hand. i picked up lots of well timed pots and then got super lucky to have a very good mtt player dump me two straight pots in stud hi. i saw the blue lights once again and was sitting as chip leader w/ 6 left.
down to 4 and i was 2nd in chips. the chip leader had about 105k, i had about 89k and the other two players were in the 40-50k range.
then everything went down the tubes. i dropped a few small pots in razz but the blinds were so high that it put me down to about 60k. all of sudden we were all fairly close. then a big hand happened in stud hi where i made a very bad fold.
the bring in had a 4 up and i raised w/ TT in the hole w/ an Ace up. the bring-in called. we both caught rags on 4th and i bet and he called again. on 5th i caught another rag and he caught an Ace and led out into me. it looked so weak to me and although i have almost no stud experience i thought for sure he was trying to take the pot away from me.
at this point the pot was a decent size and i was sitting w/ 42k behind. instead of raising i just called for some reason. it was a classic donk move, too scared to raise and not willing to fold. on 6th street i caught an Ace and he caught a rag and for some reason that i still haven't figured out i simply check/folded.
he dragged a big pot and showed me a lowly pair of 5's. i was so fucking steamed at myself. i totally read the situation right and just didn't have the confidence in myself to go with it. that's very dissapointing and i won't let it happen again.
i was left w/ 30k after that and w/ a 1k ante i was running out of time. for the next 12 hands im guessing i was the bring-in about 8 times which just totally destroyed my stack. eventually i was all-in pre 34J against KKJ. i managed to make 2 pair on 6th but he hit a flush on the 7th to send me packing in 4th.
4th paid about $375 but i wanted that win so bad. not even for the cash as much as the win.
that was it for the day. all in all a pretty good day but it could've been a lot better.
i'll write more later but this blog has gotten way to big.
tg
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