Poker Words - A Poker Blog

Mostly a recount of my poker exploits along with a bunch of random other stuff just for fun.

Sunday, February 23, 2014

WSPL Goes to Vegas Episode 03/06

Things actually went well this game. For the most part. Although I think the key hand was quite a bit of luck.

Very early on Jason S is the short stack at the table and goes all in. Jason K calls. Jason S has 55 against K's kings. S spikes a five on the flop and halves K's stack. K I'm guessing this puts K on tilt pretty bad. The very next hand I have 88. A couple players limp and I raise. K goes all-in. I call, and he shows 29o. I knock him out and get a decent sized stack in the process.

For most of the rest of the tourney I play tight, and bide my time, picking up some small pots here and there as people knock each other out. I'm never the big stack, but I'm never short stacked either.

Until we get down to three handed. Jason M (seriously, no more jason's allowed in the league) has had more than the rest of the table combined for quite a while. Greg has been bouncing up and down, and I'm holding steady, but getting close to desperation time.

The fatal hand comes after Greg has taken a bunch of chips off Jason. Jason raises, and I look down at A7s. I figure three handed, I'm probably ok. Plus I think a bet of about a third of Jason's stack will scare him off most hands anyway. Maybe I was right about that, but it didn't matter because he didn't have most hands. He had AK. In hindsight, he doesn't raise much so that raise was probably and indication of a pocket pair or high ace. If I had just called his raise, I could have gotten out after missing the flop. I would have been in trouble but I would have lived to fight another day. Instead I'm out in third place. I just barely missed out on some much needed points, and cash. Hopefully this is a trend and I can ride create some momentum to finish off the season strong. Half way through its not looking too good.

The surprise of the year has to be Jason M though. I would have put his odds at making the top two at 100:1. He's cashed in three of the last four tourneys though to take a six point lead overall. I'm not convinced that there isn't a good amount of luck in those finishes, based on some of the hands I saw him play tonight, but you can't argue with results.

Here are this weeks results:


  1. Jason M
  2. Greg
  3. Me
  4. Jason S
  5. Mark
  6. Noah
  7. Aaron
  8. Archie
  9. Shane
  10. Jason K

And the overall standings

  1. Jason M (50)
  2. Aaron (44)
  3. Mark (41)
  4. Greg (37)
  5. Jason S (36)
  6. Archie (32)
  7. Shane (31)
  8. Me (25)
  9. Noah (18)
  10. Jason S (16)


Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

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Sunday, February 16, 2014

WSPL Goes to Vegas Episode 03/05

So I've decided I'm no longer any good at poker. In fact I'm pretty terrible. I have no reads on anyone. Every time I try to take a stab at a pot I get raised, every time I'm tentative I find that I was ahead, and get sucked out on. The only thing that ever seems to go right on me is playing 72o. I got it in the BB this time around. The small blind was the only other player in the pot and he limped in. The flop was rags, he bet and I raised forcing him to fold. Other than that. Bad night for me.

I'm incredibly frustrated with my play lately. I think a lot of it has to do with rust, but I don't know how to fix that. Online play isn't an option any more, except for this league, and I don't have time to go to the casino. At this point I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be playing in the WSOP this year unless I can convince a lot of people to stake me. It would take a miracle for me to place in the top two of the league, and I've had a few very large and unexpected house expenses that have made my wallet a bit weepy. I don't think I can justify the full buy in this year.

We'll see.  It looks like there is going to be a large group of people going to Vegas this year so I'm at least going to do that.   Maybe things will turn around by then.

 Here are the standings for this week, and overall.
  1. Greg
  2. Jason M
  3. Jason S
  4. Mark
  5. Aaron
  6. Noah
  7. Shane
  8. Jason K
  9. Me
  10. Archie

Over all.

  1. Aaron (41)
  2. Mark (36)
  3. Jason M (35)
  4. Archie (30)
  5. Shane (30)
  6. Jason S (30)
  7. Greg (26)
  8. Me (17)
  9. Jason K (16)
  10. Noah (14)



Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

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Sunday, February 09, 2014

WSPL Goes to Vegas Episode 3/04

So, yeah...

 That stuff I mentioned last post about not playing scared trying to eeek out each point. Nevermind. Still playing like crap.

 Things started out well enough, but after the third blind level I don't think I won a hand. I just couldn't pull the trigger on anything, and I wasn't hitting my flops.

 Weak bad play = early exit for me.

 Here are this week's results and the overall standings

Week 4

  1. Aaron
  2. Shane
  3. Archie
  4. Mark
  5. Jason K
  6. Noah
  7. Me
  8. Jason S
  9. Jason M
  10. Greg (DNP - out of town)

Overall

  1. Aaron (36)
  2. Mark (30)
  3. Archie (30)
  4. Shane (27)
  5. Jason M (24)
  6. Jason S (22)
  7. Me (16)
  8. Jason K (14)
  9. Greg (11)
  10. Noah (10)



Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

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Wednesday, February 05, 2014

WSPL Goes To Vegas Episodes, 3/2 and 3/3 Plus live Poker

I've been slacking on my WSPL-GtV updates. I'm not sure how interesting summaries of small tournies actual are, especially when I'm not to happy with my performance.  So lets talk about my play overall.

In season one I was pretty successful playing a fairly conservative game.  I knew that I could run up a bunch of middle of the road performances, plus a win here and there to advance to the WSOP.  And it worked for me.

In the second season I decided to play more aggressively.  I tried to get involved in more hands and to push my advantage in  the early stages.  I did OK, but often found myself in trouble, losing critical points in the standings with early exists.  I ultimately finished in third place.  The top two consisted of a fairly loose aggressive player and a very measured conservative player.

This year my goal was to play simple, smart, conservative poker, a revival of my season one strategy. My goal was to not put chips at risk unless absolutely necessary.  It the first two matches that led to a boring game where I couldn't get enough chips to stick around very long.  It also lead me to fold a fair number of hands that I think I could/should have won because I was playing scared.

The same thing happened in the live game.   A friend started hosting what is turning out to be a pretty large monthly game.   I'm not a huge fan of the blind structure, and he makes one person be permanent dealer, which I don't like, but other than that, its a good tournament.   I played pretty solid for the first hour, chipping up slowly.  I lost couple pots when I couldn't chase some less than stellar players off of their garbage hands, but I was still in good shape at the break.

Then the blind schedule got aggressive, and it was getting close to all in or fold mode.  I got my aces cracked by the aggressive guy at the table when he flopped two pair.  And while that was annoying it wasn't what angered me about the game.  Looking back at the first hour, while I did have more chips than I started with, I left many opportunities to have even more chips by being overly conservative pre-flop, and not being willing to take a chance with anything other than super premium hands.  Had I played better early on I wouldn't have been in a situation where I had to get all-in and I could have escaped that hand with at least a chip or two.

Back to the only other thing worth noting is that Aaron has gotten super tilty, despite winning the first game.   Its one of the small joys of playing with him, seeing how angry he gets after losing.  Twice when he was in the BB I was dealt 27o.  I raised pre-flop hoping everyone would fold so I could show my hand and tilt him more.  Both times though I was called before it got to him, then hit either trips or two pair on the flop and went on to win big hands.  Good times.

Here are the results from the last two weeks and the overall standings.  We took a break for the Superbowl, but we will be back on this Sunday and every Sunday for the next nine weeks.

Week 2:

  1. Archie
  2. Shane
  3. Jason K
  4. Jason S
  5. Me
  6. Aaron
  7. Noah
  8. Mark
  9. Greg
  10. Jason M
Week 3:
  1. Jason M
  2. Mark
  3. Jason S
  4. Me
  5. Greg
  6. Archie
  7. Noah
  8. Aaron
  9. Shane
  10. Jason K
Overall Standings (points)
  1. Mark (24)
  2. Jason M (23)
  3. Archie (22)
  4. Aaron (21)
  5. Jason S(20)
  6. Shane (16)
  7. Me (13)
  8. Greg (11)
  9. Jason K (9)
  10. Noah (6)

Its going to be a close one this year.  The top 5 are separated by only 4 points, and any of the bottom 5 can get right back in it with a win.







Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

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