$1/$2 NL

I'm writing you from Cumberland, WI which is about 15 minutes north of Turtle Lake, WI.  In Turtle Lake, there is the St. Croix casino which houses a nice poker room and No Limit Hold Em, which cannot be found in Minnesota due to laws.  

This was the first time I have ever played live No Limit cash game with people I have never played with.  And at $1/$2 blinds, pots can reach $100 pre flop, so you have to be ready to play.  I bought in for $200 and had an extra $100 waiting in case of a reload.  I sat down a the table and the button was 1 seat to my left.  Dealer asked if I wanted to by in for $2 and I declined.  The look he gave me was amazing since I would have to wait 7 hands before I could play 1.  What did I do in these 7 hands?  I watched and learned.  I learned a lot of about some of the players there.  The 65 year old woman with about $100 in chips, sunglasses, and white hair who would cold call you if she had the nuts and would fold if she missed.  Or how about the middle aged man that would raise a lot of pots in early position and then check if he missed.  Or the guy that raised to $14 EVERY time he had a pocket pair.  Idiot.  

OK, so I played from 9PM to 11PM and in this time, I walked away up $123.  So now the stories.  The first hand I played, I had 10h 9 h in late position and called a preflop raise of $10.  On the flop, I flopped a King high flush with a straight flush draw.  The preflop raiser bet and I called.  On the turn was a Qh, which gave the board 4 cards to a flush, but there was now a royal flush draw on the table.  Preflop raiser checked and I bet $30 and he folded.  

Next big hand was where I was able to limp preflop with As 7c.  4 other players in the game limped and the flop was Kc Ah 7c.  BB bet $8 and UTG + 1 called.  I raised in middle position to $24.  It was folded around to UTG + 1 and he called.  Guess what he has, flush draw.  I knew it.  I'm not an idiot.  So the turn is a 10s and it is heads up and checked to me.  I bet $40.  $40 into about a $56 pot I think.  UTG + 1 calls.  Turn is his club and he goes all in.  Now why the hell would I call?  Idiot.  Seriously.  I fold, stating that I know he hit his flush and I showed my Aces up and half the table knew this guy was possibly the luckiest guy in the world.  However, only me and 1 other guy knew the guy should have folded after the turn.  Not too bad of a hit to me since I was up going into the hand but I wasn't too happy.  

Final big hand that needs to be talked about is where I got KK in UTG + 1.  I raised to $10 preflop and got 1 called.  Flop comes down 3d 2s 2d.  I bet $16 and this guy in late position went all in.  I knew he didn't have a 2 because he was a very tight player.  Probably had Ad 10d or something, but I never really looked at his hand.  I called after much thought and told him he was drawing, flipped over my Kings and they held up.  HUGE POT.  In all, I think it was about $170.  This put me at $300.  I hung around for a couple more hands and the last hand I had was Ad Kd, raised $10 preflop with 3 callers.  Bet $20 on the turn when my King hit and everyone folded.  2 people called out that I had AK, it was sick.  

So none the less, I had a successful night with my first attempt at $1/$2 NL.  It was a good night.  I'm sure I will make my way back for some more action.  

Now I'm off to bed...

See you at the tables.

SnG's, family games, and the WSOP

Hello to the one person that reads this.  

Just some quick updates for you and where I am at right now and what I am doing.  Been playing a lot of Sit N Go's online lately.  Played games ranging from $5 to $13 for the buy in.  Haven't had a lot of success until today where I was able to take down two $13 6-handed games.  Both games I had to concentrate and play good poker, no mistakes.  I was actually short stacked early in both games but got my money in right and made some good moves.  

One thing I've learned on PokerStars is that you have to expand your hand requirements, which isn't too difficult for me, but when K6o hits a set of 6's on the flop and you can get the best value out of it, you know you have to switch things up.  

What else has been going on?  Well let me tell you this now, never make a bet with me that you will last longer in a poker game than me, especially when I have played with these people for more than 2 years.  See, Chad Hurst made a horrible mistake of putting $10 on the line that he would outlast me in the latest Hurst house game.  I took the challenge of course and took full advantage of this bet.  See, knowing that Chad Hurst wanted to last longer than me in this game told me that he would play tighter than normal, because one screw up by him would mean he was out $5 for the game and another $10 to me.  The worst part about it though would be the fact that I could brag about this victory.  

So I was aggressive towards him and made crazy moves, like all in with 10c 2c.  I knew he would fold unless he had a monster and his body language will tell you a lot.  

Long story short, I won and he finished 2nd and it was a great heads up match and I was happy to share it with Chad Hurst.  He can be a good poker player, when he had side bets on the line.  Larry Pfost once again did not win and that has got to irritate him greatly.  It makes me laugh.  He taught all of us this game and then we sat down, practiced, read books, and watched TV and now we destroy him.  

Finally, I want to share some thoughts on the most recent WSOP event aired on ESPN.  It was the $50K HORSE event and Scotty Nguyen won.  On paper, this all appeared fantastic, but when ESPN showed us what really happened, I think it left a lot of amateur poker players sitting there wondering "What?".  

The attitude that was shown at the final table by Scotty Nguyen was horrible and I think uncalled for.  He was dropping the F bomb non-stop, he was showing the crowd his cards, and just acting like an ass.  I hope he sees this and doesn't allow it to happen again, but I have read that this is the true Scotty Nguyen when he drinks and that it will not change.  We will see.  

Attitude aside, I think he played ok.  I got lucky a lot and needs to realize that, but he is an amazing tournament player and will go down as one of the greatest when it's all said and done.  

That's my time.  I'm out.

Update

So again it has been forever since my last post and I apologize. I haven't been playing a lot of poker, but have still been getting my share of games in.

In the last post I talked about how I was going to get rich by playing nothing but SnG's. Well, I still play nothing but SnG's but I'm not rich yet. Full Tilt was not very good to me in the $10 SnG's. I dominated the $2 SnG's, winning like 8 out of 9 that I played and having a 5 game win streak. It was crazy. Then I'd move up and nothing. Eventually, I ran out of my money on Full Tilt. However, I played 30 SnG's with an average by in of about $7 approximately and I ended up spending over $200 on SnG's, but I only won like, $180, so back at zero.

Since then I have taken a break from Full Tilt and moved on to Poker Stars. I have put in $116 in my account and right now am at $98. I was down to $0 at one point and had to reload. Poker Stars is a completely different site. The players are aggressive to the point they are silly. I've seen raises with 92o, calls of 4x raises with 86o, all-in with 72o and they still had 8 BB's. I know the standard is 10, but with 8, you can wait for better cards. These people tend to give up easily and will call with Jack high and hit their miracle card.

You can't control them, but you can control the way you play, which is what I have been trying to do. I just finished up a 9 man $11 SnG where I took 1st place for a nice $45 payout.

Onto the live game, Season 2 of the Poker League will be starting September 9th. $12 buy-in with $10 going to the prize pool and $2 going to the end of the year pool. 18 games total to be played. Should be fun. I hope we have at least 6 a week. Played some cash game at my place a couple weeks ago and I cleaned up. I sat down with $40 and had 4 other people. 2 bought in for $20, 1 for $40 and 1 for $18. 1 person walked away with $23 and I walked away with the rest. You do the math.

It's a $75 profit for me.

I guess that's it for now. I'll try and update more often.