My Poker Blog

February 2008

February 26
I played in the HORSE and the Omaha Hi/Low tournament on PokerStars the other day. During the Omaha tournament, I played a pretty good game, but I didn't pay enough attention to one hand and that put me in jeopardy of being eliminated shortly after. I was involved in a hand while in the big blind and three flush cards and a possible low hit the board. I really had NO hand (a pair of fives and a live ace draw), but should have continued on with the hand because I didn't have a lot of chips left and 1/4 of them were going to be posted in the small blind on the next hand. I folded without noticing the whole situation and then immediately noticed when my small blind was posted.

The HORSE tournament went better than that and my game is coming along better. My Stud Hi/Low game is still a little weak, but I am certainly making progress in it. I have never really thought that Stud was one of my better games, but I won some pretty key pots in that game (it helped when I made 5s full against a set of aces). I ended up finishing in second place and won $4,000 for my finish.

When the two of us got heads up, he had a lead on me, but it wasn't going to be too difficult to get back into the game if I won a hand or two. He asked me "If we get within 20k of each other, do you wanna just chop it?" and I told him that I would definitely consider it. I didn't want to make any commitments because we were coming up to the Omaha portion of the game and I figured I would have the edge. When we got the Omaha, he seemed to make some really big hands. He was turning over some pretty strong heads-up hands and the weakest one of the bunch was something like QQT9. He flopped a set of queens and I flopped the wrap straight draw. When I made the straight on the turn, it gave him the full house and I ended up calling him down. Sometimes that is just the way it goes. Of course, a first place finish would have been nice, but I am certainly not going to complain.

February 24
I am spending a nice quiet day at home today and might even play in a couple of the Sunday tournaments which I haven't done in awhile.

The past couple weeks have been a little crazy with my Mom going to the hospital and staying for five days because of an infection (she is okay now), my uncle's birthday, getting my house redone (ceiling, crown molding, base boards and paint), old furniture going out, new furniture coming in.. I know I still could have written a little something, but my brain was just in 10 places at once. As a matter of fact, I forgot to go to the Media freeroll tournament where a seat to the WPT Invitational was awarded. I have to be out of my mind.

Regardless of the chaos, I have been doing well in the live action games. I finally got all my old hands (hundreds of thousands) inputted into my Pokertracker and I spent quite a bit of time going through my game and figuring out what was working and what was not working. I was a little surprised to see that I was a winner with QQ in Holdem (it sure seems like I lose too much with that hand) and I was a loser with A24Q in Omaha (which just comes down to bad situations).

The Commerce tournaments didn't go as planned. I wasn't able to play in a lot of them and didn't make the money in the handful that I played. The Winnin O the Green tournaments are coming up in a week or so and I should be playing a lot of those. I feel so much more comfortable playing at the Bike and think their tournaments are better. I like that their tournament room is strictly for tournaments (not like the Commerce where they have low limit poker in the same room) and since I am so familiar with the way things work (including the players), I feel like I have home court advantage.

In the midst of everything that has been going on, I have spent hours and hours on my websites and am really hoping to get all my definitions done on both sites (more than 600 total on both). I have had some help, but the process has been slow and painful. Feel free to take a look at the definitions that have been done on Poker-Vibe.

I promise that I will write my next journal entry within the week (going to shoot for two days). No more slacking for me.

February 11
I played in the Shootout yesterday at the Commerce and had a good time, but only lasted halfway through my table.

My table seemed to be pretty easy because nobody was overly aggressive and most of the players, I had a good feel for. I picked up a couple pots when it was obvious that the players didn't have much. Basically, I played well and didn't come out at the top in the end. No bad beat stories, no moronic moves. Just one of those days when things didn't work out and I didn't win a couple key races.

I don't think I will playing again at the Commerce until the next shootout event on Sunday. Other than that, I might play a little $15-30 Hi/Low ring games and then work a little more on my website.

February 8
I played two tournaments this week at the L.A. Poker Classic. The first tournament was the 1k Omaha Hi/Low event and I finished one out of the money.

The tournament started out good and I won some nice pots. I also feel like I picked up a few pots that I might not have tried to pick up when I first started playing the game. Overall, I was really pleased with the way I played almost every hand, but was not thrilled with the way I finished the tournament.

I always try to play to win. I certainly don't go into any tournament and hope that I can make it into the money. Making it into the money is just a bonus for trying to accomplish my main goal which is to win the whole thing. During this tournament, I didn't give myself a chance to do that by playing my last round the way I did. I was short chipped because I had lost two large pots. We were at 19 players (they paid 18) and my blind was coming up. I was dealt A2K6 and put the last of my chips into the pot and managed a split. I had $2,500 and I had to put 1k of it into the big blind on the next hand. All players folded to the guy in the small blind who was going to raise no matter what and for some reason I looked at all my cards and decided that I didn't like my hand. A lot of times when I am in that situation, I look at only 2-3 of them (to make sure I don't have 3 of a kind in my hand) and then automatically put my money into the pot because of the pot odds especially if it is against one player. I really screwed the hand up because I gave myself a very slim chance at winning by leaving myself with only 1,500 (and $500 of it had to go into the small blind). A couple hands later, I was dealt A599 and got my chips in, lost the pot, and bubbled the tourney. I have since hammered the lesson into my head, "Don't put 40% of your chips into the pot and then fold."

The following day I played the 6-handed turbo tournament and made it pretty far. The tournament was amusing because the levels went up so damn quick. There were 251 entries, and three hours later, I was eliminated close to the money. I think I finished about 35th (they paid 18). The one thing about this particular tournament is that every time I won a nice pot, the levels would go up and I would be short stacked again. Basically, all of us were short stacked and it came down to a lot of race situations and "hoping" that your hand was coming to come out ahead in the end.

I will be playing a few more tournaments in the coming weeks and will keep posting about the progress. The next event for me should be the 1k NL Shootout.

Until then, take a look at some of my poker definitions: bellybuster, shark, railbird, and boxed card.

February 4
I played the Stud 8 or Better tournament at the Commerce Casino's LA Poker Classic yesterday. Out of all the games played in H.O.R.S.E., Stud 8 is my weakest game and I welcome opportunities to help me improve my game.

The event drew about 170 entries even though it was Super Bowl Sunday which really surprised me. I made many mistakes throughout the tournament, but ended up making it down to about 30 players (they paid 16). I discussed many of the hands with Steve and think I learned a few lessons from the tournament. Hopefully, the lessons will help out in the next H.O.R.S.E. event I play in (probably the WSOP).

This week's online play has been a little volatile. I think I managed to pull out a small win, but I spent a lot of time playing and my return online is nothing like my return in B & M casinos. I have been planning on playing a little more live action poker and I did make a trip to the Bike earlier this week to play Omaha for a few hours. I always enjoy when I go to the Bike because it feels like my home casino (even though I worked at Commerce for over 10 years), but they only have smaller limit games. I enjoyed visiting and even playing in the $6-12, but I think my next trip is going to be to the Commerce. I heard they have a juicy $30-60 with a 1/3 kill Omaha Hi/Low game. However, my next trip to the casino will be to play in the $1,000 buy-in Omaha H/L tournament on Tuesday.