My Poker Games

April 2008

April 29
I played in the player appreciation tournament at the Bike the other day and only made it through about 1/4 of the field. The tournament structure was fast and it was pretty much a shove match after the first break. As soon as I came back from my break, I called off all my chips with pocket eights. I made a good read and picked the perfect spot, but my hand didn't hold up against my opponent's AJ.

Once I left the tournament, I went to play some live action. I was going to play Omaha, but the board was kind of long, so I played the $200 buy-in No Limit game instead. Immediately, I lost my first buy in when I flopped the nut flush draw with two overcards to the board. I rebought for $300 more and then lost that fairly quickly as well. I had AT on the button and two players limped in front of me for $5 each. I made it $30 to-go and only one player from the blind called my raise. The flop was AQT rainbow, he checked, I bet the pot and he called. The turn was a four of hearts. I moved in and he called. The river was another heart and he showed me T6 of hearts. Nice! I hated the way this session started, but I certainly wasn't going to leave. I was sitting in the best game I have been in in ages. I eventually left a few hours later and was pretty close to even. The main thing is that I had a lot of fun.

I just completed my definition section, so if you ever wanted to know what the terms backer, calling station, boxed card, color up, complete hand, etc means, then take a look.

Congrats to David Chiu for winning the 2008 World Poker Tour Championship.

April 23
I played in the Omaha Hi/Low tournament at the Bike a couple nights ago and ended up finishing in fourth place. There were 96 players and they only paid one table and there was a while there that I didn't think I was going to make it.

When we were at two tables, I lost a fairly big pot and was kind of short stacked. As a matter of fact, a lot of us were short stacked because the blinds were kind of high. Fortunately, I was able to win a hand and then another, so I was pretty certain I would make it into the money. When we got down to 11 players, I started dreading knocking out that 11th person because I knew the tournament directors would say, "there has been a proposal, to pay the bubble so if there are no objections, then we will not have to go hand for hand." Any player who plays for profit HAD to object because there was one guy sitting there with one chip and one guy who was sitting there with three and a couple others who didn't have much more that that. Why would pull money off the top to pay these players? We would be giving away money if we did. I knew I had to object, but the player who does always receives such crap about it. There was one player at my table who I thought would object and he actually did when we lost that 11th player. And exactly like I thought, he got an earful from some of the players.

There was one hand that I wasn't involved in where a player simply outplayed his opponent. The guy who got outplayed was upset about the whole situation and gave the other guy a lot of shit. I was sitting directly next to him when he went on his rant and the guy on the other side of him saw things the way I did, "The other guy made a great move and outplayed his opponents." Basically there were four players in the hand with one player all in preflop. There was a low out there and the first lady was betting the whole way and both of the remaining players were calling. On the river, the second guy made a pair of kings. When the first lady bet out again, the second guy raised it and the last guy ended up mucking. The guy with the pair of kings got 3/4 of the pot and the last guy said he folded aces. Elementary.

The final table was crazy. As I said, the blinds were high and everybody was short stacked. The whole table combined only had 20 big bets and the chip leader had 5. I was second in chips when we started the final table and after one hand, I was one of the shorter stacks on the table. Basically the final table played out like this: Play a hand and win - you are the chip leader. Play a hand and lose - and you are eliminated. I obviously won a couple hands since I managed to get fourth place. I was even chip leader for two whole hands. Overall, the event was a lot of fun and the final table was a blast because the guys were really cool including one of my friends Richard (who I haven't seen in two years). He ended up finishing second.

April 19
I haven't been playing very much this week because I have been working on the site. I am planning on launching a new section and I am hoping to have it complete within a week or two. All week when my friends have called and asked what I was doing, my response was always the same, "The new section of course."

So last night, I finally decided to play some poker, but I wanted to play HORSE because I could always work on my weaker games. The only game that I could find on PokerStars was a 6-handed $3-6 game, so that is what I played. I ended up making about $100 and enjoyed myself at the same time. The table was kind of chatty and we had a nice time talking with each other.

I sent an email out the other day to my contact at the Luxor and am hoping that she is going to take care of my room during the World Series of Poker. My friends and I usually share an adjoining suite and it makes the time spent in Vegas even more fun. Since I haven't heard from my host yet, I am getting a little nervous about finding a place to stay. I guess I could pay for a hotel room, but who likes to pay in Vegas?

I am looking forward to the series and plan on playing in 11 events (not including the main). Almost all of the tournaments I chose are mixed poker games. I think the one No Limit Holdem game that I have marked down is the No Limit shootout which I managed to finish in the money last year. I am hoping to do better than I did last year because only coming close in a lot of the events was a real downer.

April 12
I finally decided to play my step 5 satellite ticket for a World Series of Poker Main Event seat the other day. I just waited and waited for a time when I didn't think anybody would interrupt me and at a time where I felt really good physically and mentally. My strategy worked for me and I ended up winning my seat into the 6th and final step.

The tournament started out fairly slow because nobody wanted to play except for one player. He was involved in every pot and I was hoping I would get at least one good hand so I could play with him. I made one call early on with QJ of diamonds when I had position on him, but let it go when I totally missed the flop. I didn't get another hand to play against him before he was eliminated (which wasn't too long after the tourney started). I tried to buy one pot in the hijack seat, but that didn't go over well either. I decided to just sit patiently until I actually got a really good hand. That time came when I had a little more than $1,100 in chips and the blinds were $50-100. The players folded to me on the button and I raised with AK. One of the guys from the big blind pushed (he had me covered) and I called. Fortunately, the guy had KJ and my hand held up. I was the chip leader after that hand.

I played an extremely patient game and made some big folds including folding A3 in the big blind when it got folded to the small blind and he made a small raise. I wasn't looking to get involved with hands like A3 that could only lead to trouble. The main thing is that I wanted to get down to four players because I could then open my game up because I was freerolling. The tournament awarded another shot at step 5 if you finished in 4th or 3rd and if you finished in 1st or 2nd then you got to advance to step 6. Once I got down to four players, I was still the chip leader because I had picked up a few small pots. I was really happy when I was finally able to eliminate the last player (especially because I still would have been chip leader if I lost the hand). I don't know how long it is going to take me to decide to play step 6, but I will make sure to write about it when I do.

April 4
I played in a few tournaments yesterday and finished in the money in two of them.

The first cash was ridiculous. I played for several hours and ended up winning $9. The tournament was a small Razz event ($10) and I signed up because I like working on any of the games I play in HORSE. There were over 100 players and finished about 14th. Even though I barely made any money, I at least got some Razz tournament practice in.

Later on in the evening I played in the $77 No Limit 6-handed event and finished in seventh place. I was having one of those days where almost all of the hands made sense to me and I was able to deduce what my opponents had successfully. An example of this was when I was in the big blind with QJ. All players folded around to the small blind and he called and I just checked. The flop came Q82 with two diamonds. He led out into me, I raised and he pushed. Both of us had a lot of chips, but he had me covered. I thought about it for a few seconds and realized that he would have raised me preflop with a higher queen or a pocket pair, so he either had a weaker queen hand, a flush draw, or possibly a hand like 82. I called and he showed the flush draw (with middle pair). I escaped a diamond and after winning that hand, I was one of the chip leaders. It is always a nice feeling when I am on spot with my reads of the situations and its even better when I do it for the majority of the tournament.

Because we were playing a 6-handed tournament, we started playing hand for hand when our table had three players. The big stack on my table was just destroying us by pushing all-in every hand. Every round was costing me about 10k and I finally took a stand with QT of hearts. There were a couple people with less chips than me, but I didn't want to wait it out and go to the final table without a shot at winning the thing. Anyway, I did have a better hand than my opponent (he had 83), but he hit two 3's on the flop and I was done.

I have been playing in a the Step program on PokerStars hoping to win my seat for the main event at the WSOP. I am on step 5 at the moment. I passed step 4 about a week ago, but haven't found a good time to try 5. I want to make sure I am very focused, alert and can play without being interrupted. I don't want to go back down to step 4 again! It took me awhile to pass it because I kept getting thrown back to step 3 or breaking even and repeating step 4.

April 1
I decided to hang out at home Sunday and play some online poker.

The first tournament I played was the 45k guaranteed $11+ rebuy tournament. There were over 3500 entries and I did a great job wading through a large portion of them. At one point, I lost a huge pot and still managed to make a nice comeback and have better than average chips. I was very happy with the way I was playing and the way I was analyzing situations until the following hand took place. The player in the cutoff made a standard raise and I called from the blind with AJ. The flop was AT8. I check raised the guy and he reraised me the minimum. Alarm bells should have gone off and it should have been an easy fold, but I sat there thinking for awhile. I had built my lead back up and I wasn't going to broke in the hand. In fact, I still would have average chips if I made a push and got called, so that is what I did. Instead of running through the possibilities of his hand, I was just thinking whether I was going to eliminated or not. Needless to say, he called when I pushed and showed 88. It took me awhile to let the hand go because it was such a moron play on my part. I couldn't really beat much because he wasn't going to reraise with ace rag and I couldn't beat AK, AQ, or AT. I made an attempt to comeback again and it looked like it was a possibility until I overplayed a pair of sixes because I thought my opponent was on tilt. I ended up going out shortly after I lost with the sixes and then signed up for the HORSE tournament.

It is nice that PokerStars started offering guarantees on their HORSE and Omaha $215 tournaments. The fields have been over 100 players since they started the guarantees which is a nice change because they have only been getting about 50-100 players. I didn't do very well in the HORSE event. I lost a lot of chips in the first round of Holdem (KK, AK and AQ went down in flames) and never really recovered. I signed up for the Omaha tournament and hoped it would go better.

There were 158 entries in the Omaha Hi/Low event and I finished in second place. I worked really hard and felt like I was playing with purpose and focus. The guy I ended up getting heads up with played really great and we had a long battle. He had me outchipped when we first started the match and I got even with him a few times. He ended up making some hands at the end of the tournament when I totally blanked and once again had me in pretty bad shape. Even though I didn't win, I was pleased with my overall performance and with the $5,056 payday.