Has it been a while?

Well I pretty much did not play for most of January (how vague is that?). I did play the occasional sit n go but that's about it. I almost let February go by but a $200 bonus at Empire brought me back to life. I had a solid run and I remembered why I enjoy playing so much. Three tabling PLO8, PLO & NLHE was enough to jumpstart me - I'll be back to playing but not as much with the grind mentality. Bonuses have begun to dry up, at least to the point where they made low-limit grinding a possibility. This is good as now I can work on moving to higher limits, I certainly have the bankroll for it, almost $6K, and after about a month getting some solid hours back at 100NL I hope to move to 200NL on a consistent basis. I also want to give an honest try to some WSOP satellites and will move to more consistent $20 + $2 sit n go's.

Anyone read this? Drop me a line...see you on the virtual felt.

Last post of the year

December has been kind of a strange month, probably why I didn’t get a chance to post anything earlier like I had wanted. I finished off November pretty strong and anticipated that I would not play as much in December with the holidays and friends coming in town and spending time with family. Well, I think I blew past my regular bonus-playing schedule pretty quick, had some decent runs but then a bad one at Bet365. December 18th is the last date I have a record of playing any serious sessions. Since then I played some SNG’s at Bodog, nothing spectacular and then played some low-limit Stud and even some 25NL on Party for old times-sake. I felt like a break from the grind was due and it has been good to take some time away. I’ve been busy with friends and family anyhow but I have managed to sneak some time in playing a new game I hope to seriously take-up more this coming year, Omaha Hi-Lo. I’m playing 0.50/1 Limit to get a feel for the game, I had been thinking about it for a while but my friend Rod jumped into it recently and convinced me to try it, it’s a fun distraction from hold em. I don’t at all plan to stop playing hold ‘em, I hope to move up to 1/2NL in the coming months and NL Hold Em will still be my main cash game, but I think playing other games will only help my Hold Em play and overall poker play – can’t get too stale on one thing. Hopefully I can start to have more success in tournaments as well, tonight I stumbled upon a $5 buy-in tourney on Absolute Poker, with re-buys and add-ons. I did one add-on at the first break but couldn’t get much to play with (feel I always say this) and when I did come across Aces, wouldn’t you know it, it gets folded to me in the cut-off, I raise since I’m short compared to the blinds who have chips to gamble with and no action. More garbage and then I get AQo UTG, I limp intending to raise all-in if re-raised, one guy about 8K over me doubles it early, one short stack pushed all-in for less than the early raiser (earlier this guy calls off 80% of his stack on the turn and folds on the river for $700 in a 5K+ pot!!). I happily reraise all-in and this is how it goes below. Figures, right?

My roof just started leaking, I take this to be some kind of sign.



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Read post above to explain the build-up to this hand. Basically, AQo does me in again.

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Back in the day...

So the year is almost over and it’s hard to believe I’m still in full swing playing poker.  It’s been over a year since I started playing on a somewhat consistent basis. At the start, back in September 2004, all my play was at a weekly Sunday night home game with 4 other friend. We all got into it pretty deep and it became sort of a ritual. I remember winning the very first night, playing about 90%+ of my hands (no one ever raised preflop! We were all passive players…) I continued this way for a couple weeks more until I realized I had to tighten up a bit. We kept our weekly game going for a while until we all kind of outgrew it – some of us got tired of the game and some of us couldn’t wait to expand our game; I fell into the latter group thanks to lots of playing at work and then my inevitable jump into online poker. I started at PartyPoker (who didn’t?) and was half-way through my $100 deposit, playing $5 + $1 sit-n-go’s until I decided to try the 25NL tables and managed to win my money back and then some.

I think I intended to write a November recap post but recounting my early poker days seems like enough for now. The bankroll is at a level I never would have imagine back then (nothing to live off of course) but still something to be proud of. I guess I’ll wait till December actually arrives before doing my November recap. GL to anyone out there beginning their own poker pipe dreams.    

Warriors

So the Golden State Warriors are finally looking like a real basketball team.  There is lots of speculation and hope for this season. Now there is speculation about a possible trade involving Kevin Garnett. A friend sent me a link to this article where they talk about the possibility of Garnett coming to the Warriors and what that would mean. At one point the articles talks about the Pacers or Pistons and how they might be interested as well, but since they already have team chemistry they might not be as interested in Garnett.

“But those teams have chemistry and a real shot at a title without Garnett, so both might be reluctant to go all-in at deadline time.”

Just goes to show you, poker pervades everything.

Long Road Ahead

After what seemed like a bad start to the month and just a slow grind in general, things have picked up a bit towards the end of the month. I have added another Prima site and play on these sites is pretty good. The network has a lot of loose Party-like players with reasonable bonuses. Now that the Crypto bonuses have pretty much dried up I may stay at this network for a while. Overall, I feel I have added a notch of aggression to my play which is definitely good. I will need to keep working on it as I hope to slowly move up to 1/2NL in the coming months. I guess one day I’ll just have to sit down at a 1/2NL table and see how it goes. I definitely have the bankroll for it now, I’m a peep over $4.5K and it feel pretty rewarding to look at that number and think how not too long ago, $500 seemed like a lot and the 100NL on Crypto where a challenge. Hopefully, I will be saying the same about my current game, down the road.

I’m trying to make a real effort this time to post a bit, at least every couple of days. If there is anyone who reads these posts, feel free to drop me an email or leave a comment. And good luck on the tables.

What if...

What if Steve Dannenman had won the WSOP Main Event? I can’t even begin to imagine that unlikely scenario, let alone that he came in 2nd. One of the things that made it somewhat interesting is how Hachem, who at one point was down to almost only 2 million, with other guys in the 15-20 million range, came back to win this. It seemed he played pretty solid and only really tried a move once with his Q7s against Kanter’s wired 9’s. Such a shame how Kanter knocked out Fossilman, had Fossilman made it to the final table (and no doubt he would have, had he picked up that monster pot if Kanter doesn’t suckout) it would have been arguably the greatest WSOP feat. It would have been great to witness that, not firsthand but close enough. Ah, my WSOP dreams will keep waiting.

Been playing a lot on Prima sites, they have a ton of skins and very soft tables. As long as I can keep from losing major pots to these guys chasing down their 7-high flush draws on paired boards, I should be OK. Lately, I’ve been getting an itch to try out another game, I feel my Hold Em game has progressed nicely, there it still a lot to work on but another game like 7 Card Stud might help me to fill in some leaks while learning a new game if that makes any sense. Don’t want to be too one-dimensional. I hear Roy West’s is the book to get for beginners. Hopefully I can pick this up over the holidays.

Party $2,500 Freeroll

Just played another Party freeroll, did the $2,500 Freeroll and placed 251 out of 2,416 players, top 10% so not too bad. I was trying to play a bit more aggressively since in the past I think I have played way too tight and feel like I waste three hours for nothing. In general I want to work on more aggressive tournament play but it was a bit difficult with no hands at all to begin with and some bigger stacks showing up at my table. Always seems like there are a couple guys who have ridiculous amounts of chips within the first 10 minutes. Doubled up with AJ, raised the blinds and hit top pair on the flop, some guy called with A7s and turned his flush draw but nothing came. Another double up later with Queens then I felt like I might have some shot at placing near the top. Lot of cold cards followed with big blinds that hit nothing but I still had about T5500. I raised UTG + 1 with Kings to 1200 with blinds of 200/400 and got no action. Right after that happened I thought I should probably have limped and re-raised all-in since the table was pretty active and someone was sure to raise. But I couldn’t really call it a misplay and a couple of hands later UTG limps, next guy raises to 1800, I push all-in with Queens again, UTG calls all-in, right away I feel beat, like he has Aces. The initial raiser folds which was good and UTG shows Kings. UGH! The sad part is that he flops a set and I turn a set as well, damn Party. I was over this guy by T533 so very next hand I have As3c, one limper for 400, I push, BB calls and so does limper. The flop brings nothing, but the turn gives me the nut flush draw, bet and call, the river brings the Ace so I feel I may have a shot, then limper shows Ks9s for the King high flush. Well, just two hours spent and it was fun for a while so maybe next weekend.