Chip and a chair

"There's an old saying in poker that all you need is a chip and chair" - Doyle Brunson

Tonight I was not supposed to play poker.  I didn't feel well and probably should have gone to sleep around 12midnight.  However, I had a high class meal of 2 frozen burritos with cheese and salsa on top and a coke.  Then I started watching "Poker After Dark" and decided to fire up a little Sit N Go action.  

My first choice was a $5  + $0.50 6 handed game.  Sat down and started watching the field, taking my notes of their different betting patterns and tendencies.  A lot of poker is played when you watch your player and read what they do.  Online, you can't see the person reacting.  You can't see the twitch or the "look away" when they are trying to make you believe they have nothing.  However, you can watch a played limp in a pot and then re-raise a raise with AA, KK, QQ, or AK.  But don't forget, people are watching you too.  

Back to the game.  

A few hands in, I'm in the big blind and everyone folds to SB.  SB calls so I make an attempt to see where I'm at, so I raise.   SB folds and so I know where I stand and I begin to steal some blinds and punish the limpers.  Then I got punished.  

I woke up with Jc 8d in the BB and UTG and SB call.  I check.  Flop comes Jh Qs 8c.  I flop 2 pair.  Very nice hand.  Not a total monster as the Q can hurt me.  SB bets 40 and I raise to 160.  UTG raises to 280.  SB folds and I call because its only 120 to call into a 500 pot and I have two pair.  I'm putting UTG on an Ace.  Maybe AK, maybe AJ or AQ.  

Onto the turn, an As.  I check, UTG bets 255, half the pot.  So now I'm thinking, does he have a flush draw?  I call.  Bad move #1.

River is Qh.  No flush draw on the table and the pot is a little over 1000 and I have about 1100 left.  I push.  UTG calls and has Qs Js and he wins.  Bad move #2 was moving all in before he could make a move.  

So this leaves me with 65 in chips and blinds at 20/40.  From here, I picked the right spots to go all in, I got some great hole cards and I started doubling up.  Eventually, I got back into the chip lead and was able to win the tournament.  This was probably my best comeback ever.  It was a good win for me.  

From there I went on to a $6 turbo 6 handed SnG and didn't do to well.  I think the turbo games are not for me anymore because I spend the first few levels watching instead of playing and you can't always protect your blinds and stay around the starting stack.  

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Cash game was good to me tonight, sat at a $0.10/$0.25 6 handed table and took advantage of a lot of sloppy players.  It also helped that I got KK, KK, QQ, JJ, 44, AK, AK.  Got nice hands.  

Best hand was waking up with AK and flopping the nut straight.  I was heads up with a very loose player and I bet half the pot.  He doubled it.  I raised the pot.  He went all in.  Only thing I was concerned about was a flush draw that he could hit.  I called.   He turned up 9h Kd and I took down the $45 pot.  

I was about to get up to $53 and walked away.  Not bad when I sat down with $25.  

So now I'm going to go to bed, get zero sleep since it's storming outside and get back to it tomorrow.  

Ciao

KFAN poker lounge, $0.25/$0.50 cash game

For the past few weeks, one of the local Minneapolis radio stations has put on a Poker talk show on Monday nights. It's called the KFAN Poker Lounge and the 3 guys talk poker strategy, they talk about some of the games they've played, some of the hands, hands they've seen on TV, some of the big stories in the poker world, and they make fun of each other. The show is pretty good. I think it could be better because I really don't care about people bad beats and I am trying to not talk about my bad beats anymore, but none the less, I listen to the podcasts on Tuesday mornings.

They also have a poker chat room where local players can talk about the same stuff and I have actually read some pretty good posts. So recently, a poker chat (or rube chat as they call it) member decided to get a private tournament setup on Full Tilt.com and have players join in. The game happened last night. The buy-in was $5 + $.50 and we had 7 players. Not the best turn out, but it was fun. Here's some highlights:

- I started off early, firing fast and trying to take down some pots. Wanted to play aggressive early and get that loose image across the table. I think it worked actually. I was raising a lot preflop and narrowing the field down. I was about 50/50 in taking down pots after the flop.

- Due to my aggression, chips started dwindling away so I slowed down and concentrated more. From this point, I started limping preflop then firing post flop. This strategy was actually working a lot better and I was able to get back up to my original starting stack quickly.

- Then I got some hands. All while this was going on, the other players were playing pretty tight. Each hand was 2 or 3 handed and it would be a raise preflop, then a continuation bet or a reraise would usually take the pot down. Didn't see many showdowns.

- 2nd biggest hand of the night was against Ralvek (Andy) where I woke up with 2 beautiful ladies in my hand. I raised 3x and had 1 caller, Andy. Flop was all low, no draw, just dead. I bet about 2/3 of the pot I believe and Andy reraised me. There was now about 1K in the pot and I had around 750 left so I pushed all in and after some thinking, Andy folded. Good fold son.

- Biggest hand of the night was against PMAC. He is one of the KFAN Poker Lounge hosts and he talks a lot of talk. Just go here and you will see what I mean - http://www.kfan.com/pages/Poker.html. He is "Mackey" in the blogs.

Anyways, I'm in early position, and I wake up with the bullets. I have about 1100 in chips and I make it 300 to go, the standard 3x raise which a lot of people don't like. PMAC raises all-in to a total of about 800. I figure he has a pair or AK and I think he is putting me on either a middle pair, AQ, KQ, or a total bluff and steal attempt. I instacall and it's just him and I, heads up. AA vs KK. I love it. He laughs and I take the pot down. PMAC is quiet now and my goal of taking him out is complete.

Now I'm not saying I'm a great poker player because of this but the following factors did help me because he pushed when some would just call (though I was always ahead) :

- I bet 3x the BB. As I said, a lot of people think this is too low, while some people think this is standard. Since people think this is standard, a lot of people will put someone on Ax when they make this kind of move, making any pocket pair a monster.

- I played loose all night and kept the same betting patterns for all of my hands.

- No one can get away from KK, not even me, not even PMAC, when you are preflop and don't even have 10 BB's left in your chip stack.

So basically this hand just worked out in my favor this time. It bites me hard later.

Back to the game - I ended up finishing 4th when Andy got the last laugh and took me out with my so called "favorite hand" in poker, the Q2. I was SB, Andy on the button, blinds 60/120, here we go....

Andy calls the 120, I call with J10 offsuit. BB checks and we see a flop of Q J x rainbow. I'm first to act so I make about a 2/3 pot sized bet. BB folds and Andy reraises. Now I'm in the tank and I'm thinking of all the hands Andy could have. I come to the conclussion that he has a Q, but I can go over the top of him and either push him off his hand if he doesn't have AQ or hit 1 of my MANY outs and get lucky (50% of poker is luck right? RIGHT?). With this process, I push all in and Andy thinks for about 2 seconds before calling and flipping up Q2o. Q2o. Say it with me, Q2 offsuit. So Andy takes down the pot, I'm out of the game and a little annoyed because Andy tells me "I had to play it".

Why did you have to play it Andy, because you had a paint card in a 4 handed poker game and thought it would hold up against the 2 other players after you just smooth called preflop? No that's not why.

It's because I won a hand once with Q2 where I hit quads on the river and knocked a guy out of a game because the guy was drunk and stupid. From there, I joked that Q2 was my favorite hand and I would always play it, I even named a blog after Q2. However, I never play this hand unless I am in a small or big blind and stealing a pot at which point I would be raising preflop. And even if I did hit and someone went over the top of my reraise with All-in, I would call maybe 1% of the time because Q3 and every other kicker beats me. But Andy was the chip leader and could afford to lose 1000 chips to me if I did have AQ so he called my all-in anyways.

I'm not complaining, I'm just telling you about the hand that took me out and the reasoning behind the hand. You make your own judgement.

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$0.25/$0.50 cash game

Moving on to my cash game later that night. I sat down at the 25/50 cent table on Full Tilt with $50 to my name and started off hot. I was raising a lot preflop, reraising continuation bets and taking down some pots, playing really good poker I thought. I was up about $15 when I woke up with KK in late/middle position. The pot has already been raised to $2.25 so I reraised to $5. The SB reraises to $13. I think 1 thing and 1 thing only, he has aces. I even say it outloud. And then I push all my chips in to the middle and he calls. This is now a $90 pot and I have $20 left in my stack. My call was right and he has AA to my KK and he takes it down. What can you do there? Do you fold KK when you get reraised preflop? Maybe, maybe not. This guy had played a lot of hands already so I was thinking he could have anything but I knew he had a pair or AK. It was a race because at any point a K could have hit the table, but it didn't.

I accepted, and added more chips to bring me back to $50. About 20 minutes later, I had something like A8 and raised. BB called and the flop came down giving me the A, but there were 4 spades on the table. So the process was, I bet $2 into a $3.50 pot on the flop with an instacall from the BB. Check/ check on the turn and check/check on the river. My hand was good, but I was upset because I should have made a potsize bet on the river after he checked the flush draw on the table. I was upset because I didn't get the best value out of my hand. Then 10 minutes later, I had another chance with the same guy.

This time I have pocket 10's and I raise to $2. Same guy calls me, I think his name was WhiteClrRedNeck or something. We will him Joe. So the flop comes 10 4 5 with 2 spades again. I am first to act and I bet 2/3 the pot, instacall. I'm on to something here.

Turn is an 8s. Flush draw on the table, I have a set, I bet the pot to see where I am, $10 into it. Instacall. He doesn't have a flush or he would have reraised me and if he is slow playing, good for me because I could pair the board and dominate him. River is an 8c. I have my boat, he has maybe a flush, maybe 2 pair, maybe a smaller boat. I bet the pot, $25 and put him all in. He calls and I take the $90 pot down. He had A10o the whole time and though his kicker was good. He probably peed a little when he got 2 pair with top kicker.

So with this hand, that put me actually $10 ahead of my original starting point, so my lose earlier with KK to AA was nullified and I was happy. I played a little more and finally walked away with $71, $8 down. Not a bad night. And I had fun.

See you at the tables..

Reflecting on tournament play

So I posted a pretty quick post last night after finding my way to the rail during the Omaha Limit Hi/Lo game I was involved in and I wanted to reflect a little more today on my game.

As I stated last night, there were a few maniacs at my table that I think held me back from playing hands I normally would. I was playing the players last night more than I was playing the cards and I think in Omaha, you have to play the cards more the sense of hitting flushes and straights. Also, since it was Hi/Lo, I knew I wanted to get my money in good when I could possibly scoop with the high and the low so I wanted to get in against players that would play higher cards and I would go in with lower cards, maybe a wheel draw or something. I think this hurt me.

One hand I folded that is sticking with me was last, when I was down to about 700 in chips and needs to make a move. I had a call and a raise behind me with a very loose player to my left so I was expecting a reraise from him, which happened and the pot was actually capped before the flop (4 bets made). However, I should have been in this hand from the start. I had Ad Jd 10h ?. I know the 4th card was a black 7,8, or 9. I folded.

The flop came J J 2 and the turn was an Ace. This would have been a big hand for me even if I split the pot and I would have been resurrected. However, I didn't play and shortly after I was out.

The only other hand I think I should have played different was when I flopped quad Kings. Yup, quads. There was 360 in the pot and 3 players after the flop. UTG checked, I checked and cutoff bet 120, the max. UTG folded and I called. And there is the problem, I just called. I think if I would have raised here, the cutoff would have maybe folded, fearing a set on my end and I would have taken down the whole pot. What my call did was tell him that I have maybe 2 pair and he was ahead of me. The turn was a 5d to make the board K 2 K 5. I checked again and the cutoff bet. This time I did reraise and he just called me. The river was a 7. check, bet, call was the sequence and I show my quads but he shows that he is eligible for the low and we split the pot. Very sick. Instead of moving up to over 3K in chips, I was stuck at 1600, where I started the hand pretty much.

So there is a little more analysis of the game. Overall, I'm about 50/50 satisfied with my play.

After I said goodbye to the Omaha game, I fired up a quick 6max $6 + $0.50 SnG that would pay out $23.50 to the winner. I was very satisfied with my play here. I got my money in good, folded when I felt like my hand was second best and was able to win the game, took about an hour. 3-handed was very back and forth and it took awhile to get down to heads up, but I was able to eliminate the 3rd place player with pocket 9's up against A x with a dead board. Heads up saw 2 lead changes as my 7's lost to 9's to swap the chip lead and then my J's held up to Q 10 to give me the lead back and I closed out the game about 3 hands later.

Up next is possibly the KFAN SnG on Full Tilt tonight at 8PM. If I don't play that, I will maybe play some cash game and then I will be in a $10 + $1 NL Hold Em tournament on Sunday starting at 2:00PM. This game is $5,000 guaranteed prize pool.

See you then.

View from the rail

It's been exactly an hour and I just busted out in 594th place.  I made it half way through the field.  

Unfortunately, I was at a table with a lot of maniacs chasing straights and the low hand and then calling the river just to see if their 8 wins them the low.  I folded a lot of hands I probably shouldn't, but my strategy was to play tight until at least the 3rd hour but that bit me in the ass.  

Next game is Sunday, June 8th.  $10 + $1 NL Hold 'em, $5,000 guaranteed.  See you then.

MSOP Update: Event 6 - $15 + $1.50 Limit Omaha Hi/Lo

Just throwing a quick update as we reach our first break.  An hour in and I am about 300 under my starting stack.  I'm playing pretty tight and actually lost 1 hand on the river that I had after the flop.  It was pretty sick, but it happens in early levels.  

Here's the starting numbers in the tourney:

1,072 entries

$16,080 Prize pool

$3,618 to the winner

After break one, there are 1,008 players left.  It's going to be a long night and hopefully I will have more updates.  One more quick note, Full Tilt Poker pro Scott Fischman is playing in the game.  Pretty cool.  

See you in an hour.

I'm back

I have been gone way to long from this blog. I feel like I abandoned it so it's time to pick up the pace again.

Since my last blog, I have not played too much poker but what I have played took a lot of energy. After my 3rd place finish at my families home game, I played some cash games with my brothers where I was up and down. I was able to come out firing early and steal a lot of blinds. I also make a lot of continuation bets and was able to take down pots using such madness.

Chad Hurst finally caught on after I kept showing bluff and bluff to put him on tilt. He raised me one hand with nothing and I got caught, but I was able to use that to my advantage once the big hand showed up and Chad came along for the ride.

After that, I started playing a lot of tournaments online at FullTiltPoker.com. The first game I played was a $10 PL Omaha Hi with re-buys and 1 add-on. I used 2 rebuys and the add-on for a total of $40 into the game. Winner of the game would take home over $900 while to top 18 got paid. I played for about 4 hours before busting out in the top 25.

It sucked because I was so close to the money, but it was a good game, I thought I played well and my time will come.

Next up was a $1 NLHE game with 1 rebuy and 1 add-on. Again, I used the rebuy and the add-on for a total of $3 spent. This game had over 600 people in the game and when all the dust settled, I came in 9th. 9th out of 600 which means a final table. This was huge and I felt really good about my play. I was able to get into some cheap pots and lay down my hand when I knew I was beat. I was able to maximze my winnings while minimizing my loses. The final hand was a tough pill to swallow but finishing 9th was well worth the 4 hours I played.

Other than that, I played a few cash game hands over the last 2 weeks and that's about all the poker I have played. Last night, I played 3 $10 + $1 SnG's, finished 3rd, 1st, and 3rd. They were 6 man games, so the 3rd and 3rd got me no money, but the 1st payout left me ahead. Again, very satisfied with my playing as I was able to control a lot of my own action and trap a lot of players with their Ace rag. I think the best thing I did last night which gave me good finishes was that I took a lot of notes on different players and instead of saying "this guy raises with Ace/race", I would keep notes like "this guy played this hand this way with this flop". The notes were more detailed. I used it to my advantage a lot.

Another thing that has started is the World Series of Poker. I have been following the games online and a lot of the big named pros have been non-existent. However, the $10K PLHE game had an amazing final table and I can't wait to watch it on TV.

With the WSOP comes Full Tilt's "Mini Series of Poker". The games started May 30 and will go until July 5th, when the $100 + $9 NLHE game will be played with a guaranteed prize pool of $250,000. I'm about 90% sure the prize pool will greatly exceed $250K. My thought is that there will be about 4000 players involved in the main event.

From now until then however, there are a lot of games being played daily and I have decided to play some of them. Here is my schedule of games:

Event Date Time (EST) Game Guaranteed Prize Pool
6 June 3rd 20:20 $15 + $1.50 Omaha Hi/Lo $3,000
15 June 8th 15:20 $10 + $1 NL Hold 'em $5,000
39 June 21st 15:20 $15 + $1.50 NL Hold 'em $7,500
49 June 28th 15:20 $15 + $1.50 NL Hold 'em $5,000
50 June 29th 15:20 $100 + $9 PL Omaha $20,000
54 July 5th 18:00 $100 + $9 NL Hold 'em $250,000

Events 50 and 54 will be decided on how well I am playing. The events leading up to those will cost me a total of $60 with the change to win some big prize pools. Like I said, I think all of the guarantees will be exceeded as there is also a watch up for grabs that will let everyone know you were a MSOP winner. It's not the WSOP yet, but I'm excited for this.

That's it for now. Cheers.