New Year's Poker

The new year began with an almost unheard of event. After almost a year off, our regular “monthly” poker group actually got together and played some poker. To make things a little more special ,we even upped the buy-in from our usual $25/game to $100. We also increased our starting chip stack from $T700ish to $T1500.

We had 13 entrants, and I came in fifth, or maybe fourth. We both busted out on the same hand and I think the other guy had a few more chips than me.

Looking back at my play, I think I played fairly well that evening, with a few exceptions that I’ll get to later. I think luck just wasn’t on my side this evening. With getting into too many bad beat details I’ll just say that I had people dominated and all in on numerous occasions and they would hit their three outer to stay alive and seriously damage my chip stack. I lost an AJ vs KQ preflop all-in when my opponent flopped a straight. I lost AQ vs A9 all-in pre-flop when my opponent rivered a straight, plus a few other smaller hands that I don’t remember the exact details. I say this not to bitch about losing but as evidence that I think I was playing fairly well.


A big moment for me came relatively early on in the tourney. I had recently lost a fairly large pot and was failrly short-stacked. I had A9 under the gun and put in my standard 3xBB raise. Everyone folded except the BB who called. BB is a very loose aggressive player, and not someone who I would have wanted to call me. My plan is to go all in no matter what is on the flop. Its really my only choice at the time. Flop is rags, 236 or something similar. BB goes all in. Crap. He stole my move. He knew that was going to be my move so he had to beat me to the punch. I think normally I lay this down. I don’t think he has anything, but I can see him playing any hand in this scenario, especially from the big blind. He could K6, or A2 or a low pocket pair, and just gotten lucky. Or he too could have missed the flop completely. He could even think he’s bluffing yet still be ahead of me. Ultimately I figured I had to be better than him. If he has something he would have almost certainly checked, assuming that since I raised pre-flop I would bet here. If he has something he risks scaring me away with is all-in bet. So I do make the call, he does have nothing and I go on to win a big pot and coast into the final table.

There was a flaw in our tourney structure. We started with 13 players at two tables, and combined when we got down to 9. I don’t know if people were playing tighter than normal due to the increased buy in amount, or if the larger chip stacks played a roll, but no one went out until the fifth or sixth blind level. By that point the blinds were starting to become painful for everyone.

Once we combined the blinds were so high that any hand you played would almost certainly put you all in. That combined with the fact that the new bigger table meant you could see more hands for free, made everyone tighten up. No one hardly played more than a hand or two each orbit. No one saw a flop. It was real slow, and real boring. I don’t know if it was a fluke or if we just picked a bad chip amount/blind schedule but there was no action on the final table.

This is where I didn’t play so well. I had a lot of decent, but not great hands which I would continually fold. I was afraid that by raising I would run into a bigger hand and be pot committed into losing all my chips. Better to wait for a premium hand while the blinds squeezed out the lower players. The problem was the players with low stacks kept doubling up when they were forced all in, and eventually I was near the short stack list. Instead of taking advantage of the tight play I fell into the same trap as everyone else. When I finally did push, I ran into two hands both better than mine and it was over. The worst part is that had I folded that hand, then blinds would have forced out one of the other remaining players and I would have come in at least third and won some money.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Midweek Poker

My friend Aaron's wife is out of town this week and with his newfound freedom to do whatever the hell he wants he decided to host a small poker game at his house. We've done this sort of thing a number of times recently, where recent is sometime in the last year, and "a number of times" is three or four. It was still a school night so we couldn't play for too long, but we were able to get in a few 6 handed tourneys.

We started off with holdem because that is what we all know and love. I must be rusty because I couldn't find a hand I felt like playing for the first three or four blind levels in a shorthanded friendly, low-buy in game. Finally my cards got better, or I just loosened up and started playing, and things went pretty well.

Nothing really stands out until the hand I got busted on. I had AK on the button, and made a big raise, which Jason called. Jason isn't a very good player by any stretch of the imagination. He plays with us not for the enjoyment of the actual card game, but for the drinking and social aspects. He knows the rules, but not any strategy. He also takes great pleasure is his completely random betting and card selection habits because he knows it frustrates everyone to have no idea what he might be holding. And because of that he's probably a much better player than any of us give him credit for. He has built the perfect loose aggressive random image that I think he actually does a pretty good job of exploiting when he wants to. We all make a big deal out of his willingness to call almost any bet, and the nonchalant smirkiness of his raises but lately he's been laying hands down when appropriate, and only calling/raising when he has a hand. I just don't think we've really noticed, or given him credit.

Of coarse I'm telling you all this to explain why I bet into the nuts when I'd like to think I would have folded to anyone else in the same situation. Back to the hand, The flop is A45 and Jason quickly turns to his neighbor, who was out of the game and asks him a question. I'm fairly certain he asked if aces count as one. At this point anyone with half a brain would have put him on the wheel and gotten out, or at least tread carefully. I didn't do that. I either thought he didn't actually have that hand, or that he didn't realize that it was any good, and bet into him. Again and again, until we went all in on the river. He did in fact have the wheel, and he also had me covered by a couple chips. He went on to win the tourney.

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Round two was Omaha. Omaha still makes my brain hurt, but I think I might be starting to get it. Either that or the cards finally started coming my way. I was drawing to the nuts rather than hoping my two pair would hold up. I was taking advantage of other people's inability to remember they only get to use two cards from their hand, and I was actually getting good cards. I was rolling. And then, I don't even remember what happened, but before I knew it I had a few busted draws, and I fell into another one of Jason's traps, and I was out. Failing to money yet again.

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In the past few meetings such as this, round three was Razz, but our resident Razz expert/enthusiast wasn't there, and I didn't want to have to explain it/remember how to play, so we stuck with a holdem varient and went with pineapple. Or crazy pineapple. I don't remember which one is which and I don't feel like looking it up.

For those of you unfamiliar with pineapple, it is just like holdem, except you are dealt three hole cards. You must discard one of the hole cards either before or after the flop, depending on if you are playing crazy pineapple or just the regular sane variety. We played the version where you discard after the betting on the flop.

I never thought the decision on which card to discard would be so difficult, or have such a significant affect on the game, but it did. There were a number of times when people discarded made average hands to chase something better because they didn't think it would stand up.

On the very first hand I had KK9. The flop was KQJ, which looks pretty good for me, although I'm a little worried about a strait. I obviously discard the 9, and then cringe when a ten comes on the turn. Although, I don't know how confident I would have been having the low end of a strait, it would have been better than no end of a strait. The river was inconsequential and someone with T9 took the pot.

It was quite surprising how often the discarded card could have won the pot for someone else.

I didn't fare any better in pineapple than I in any of the other games. This time I was undone by overbluffing with my 722 which completely missed the flop.

Despite nothing to show for it, it was certainly good to play a game for the first time in quite a while. My wife is out of town next week, so I'll be the one hosting the games. Depending on how many people we have, I think I want to make it a cash game dealer calls it for an orbit. I've never run a cash game though so we'll have to see how it works out.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Actual Poker Played

Its a Christmas, er Thanksgiving, miracle! We actually scheduled and held a home poker game this week. One of my friends is going out of town to visit his in-laws for Thanksgiving. His wife left a few days earlier, leaving him home alone to fend for himself for a few days. So we had ourselves a little poker game.

We intentionally kept it small, and the goal was to play a bunch of quick small tournaments. I'm not sure how to actually accomplish a quick tournament without turning it into a complete luckfest, but that really only mattered for the first game.

We started out playing holdem, trying to get ourselves back into the routine. In an effort to speed up the game we halved the amount of chips that we normally start with and dropped the blind levels from 15 to 10 minutes. For the first few blind levels everything seemed to go normally, and maybe it was just coincidence but everyone's chipstack was more or less equal. Then all of the sudden the blinds were so high that any legitimate pre-flop raise committed you to going all-in on the flop and everyone tightened up. It turned into an all-in fest with no one really willing to call anything and the tournament dragged on way longer than we anticipated.

In hindsight I think decreasing the starting chips was a bad idea. Giving people more chips to start would allow them to stay in hands longer, without fear of going broke. Staying in hands longer gives them more time to hit a nice second best hand which would lead to bigger pots and faster eliminations.

After that we tried Omaha High. None of us play Omaha or have any idea what a good starting hand is, or when a good time to fold is, so this was more an exercise in comedy than poker play. While I think my hand discipline was better than most, I don't think I actually won a hand the entire time so I didn't last very long.

Our third game was Razz, in which I think I have a pretty big advantage, because I at least somewhat understand the concept. We had issues figuring out what the ante, bring in, and bet amounts should be, and after playing on FullTilt later I think we completely messed it up, but it probably doesn't matter.

We started Razz with a couple people absolutely refusing to understand what they should do. At one point someone said, "Just tell me when I have to put money in, and how much because I'm not folding" He would then start cracking up every time he got another card. I think he endend up hitting runner,runner,runner A25 to win the hand on the river.

I did well in the beginning of the tournament, but I think I ended up chasing a bit too much and went out third or fourth. I think the hand that did me in had me with two pair showing, but staying in. I had pretty good down cards though and I think I still had a ton of outs, but the seventh street brought me a face card and forced me to fold.

About halfway through the game something clicked for our host and he went from tentatively calling whatever bet was out there because he had no idea where he stood, to actually figuring out exactly where he was in the hand and altering his aggression accordingly.

Not bad for Tuesday night. I can think of worse ways to spend it, despite my pretty poor showing. Now all we need to do is find a way to get a weekend game going with a decent amount of participants.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Poker? What's That?

Remember back in the days when I used to write stuff for this blog? Me too. Good times, good times.


It’s only been seven months since my last post. Everyone is entitled to a little time off right?

So why haven’t I written anything for a while, besides the fact that I’m pretty lazy? Well there are a lot of reasons really, but the main reason is that I haven’t much related to poker since that last post.

I haven’t played online almost all year. I still have money in my accounts at a few sites, but I just haven’t been motivated to play. Maybe it’s the difficulty in cashing out, either real or perceived that makes me feel like what’s the point?

I stopped reading poker books. This happened a while ago. I made it about halfway through Harrington’s first book, and stopped for whatever reason and I’ve yet to go back. I think with all the books I’ve already ready and all the blog posts I’ve gone over that I’ve just burnt out on strategy. And it doesn’t help that most of them go over more or less the same information over and over again. Yes I know, good players are always learning, but I have a short attention span and most poker books are pretty boring.

I stopped reading poker blogs. Even before I stopped writing I had stopped reading blogs as often. I think I oversubscribed to them, so I never had time to read everything. There were a select few that I would read whenever they had new posts, but most I would either skim looking for interesting topics, or just ignore. Now all the blogs I used to read have fallen into the ignore column.

I stopped watching poker on TV. I DVR-ed the WSOP this year, but never got around to watching them. Then last week my DVR flipped out and decided that CSI was a 500 minute long show, and to make room for it deleted everything else I had saved. So I’ll catch them on reruns if at all. I don’t even know who won any of events. I usually do FullTilt’s fantasy poker, but totally forgot about it this year. I caught a few minutes of an episode a few weeks ago and that was all I could stand.

I do miss High Stakes Poker which was by far my favorite poker related show, but my DVR can’t distinguish between new episodes and reruns, and since the GSN runs one new episode and 37 old episodes a week, I got sick of going through and deleting them all. I turned off the scheduled recording at the end of last season with the intention of turning it back on when new episodes start. If new episodes have started then I’m missing them.

I haven’t played live poker in many months. Our “monthly” game has happened once this year. I would be surprised if it ever meets again with any regularity. We tried to organize an office game a few times but it kept falling through at the last minute.

Every Memorial Day I get together with my good friends who live on the east coast, and we inevitably end up playing ridiculous poker games until the wee hours of the night while consuming entirely too much alcohol. This year poker was mentioned I think a total of zero times and I don’t think anyone missed it. Maybe it was because we were having too much fun playing rock band until the wee hours of the night while consuming entirely too much alcohol, or maybe it was because we’re bored of poker.

I’m not bored with poker. I still love playing, and would love to play more often, but I think at least for me that it has hit its peak in popularity and is on the decline. Is anyone else noticing this or is poker still as popular in your circles? I guess if I still read poker blogs I’d have more insight on this.

So what does this mean for my humble little blog? I don’t know. I planned on diverting the focus of the blog to be less about poker and more about whatever else I felt like writing about, but it turns out that I haven’t felt like writing about much recently. I actually did start a number of posts over the last few months, but I never actually finished them and I don’t care to anymore.

On the plus side, I’m thinking about entering some satellites for the Heartland Poker Tour this weekend, so perhaps I’ll have some exciting stories to tell next week. If not I’ll do my best to get some other posts out every now and then. But don’t get your hopes up.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

4th Annual Birthday Poker Tourney

Last weekend was the fourth annual "Mike's Birthday Family Poker Invitational Fiasco" where I futilely attempt to get my non poker playing relatives to learn how to play poker. As much as I complain about them not getting it, I think some of them may actually be starting to pick up on a few things. I think we even made it through the event without the traditional infinite check loop that they tend to get stuck in.

Lets go around the table and I'll introduce you to this year's players.

To my left we my wife's Aunt Karalee. She claims to have played a lot poker back in the day, and knows more or less what she is doing, but is quite rusty. She has issues with the whole betting "before you get to see all your cards and know exactly what you have" thing. Then again, I don't think I got anyone to raise pre-flop.

(note to self: Next year I need to stress raising rather than calling, and the benefits of limiting the field in a hand where you are favored.)

Left of Karalee was Uncle Jim who isn't a terrible player. He actually won last year or the year before. He is a little tentative in his play, but he did actually raise on occasion which puts him light years ahead of the rest of the table.

After Jim is my father in law and my wife's Aunt Char. I think the only reason they play is because I'm organizing it, and have very little intention to actually play or strategize. I think they are lost causes.

My wife is after them, and I'm proud to say that she is a pretty good player for someone who only plays once a year. I've forced to watch enough poker on TV where she understands strategy, and when to bet or raise or fold. She's probably better than half the people at our regular monthly games. I should also note that she started talking trash about a week before the event claiming that she was going to win and that she had a new strategy. That new strategy was to use the handranking cheatsheet that I provided for everyone.

My parents rounded out the table. They don't particularly care for the poker, but play just to humor me. They do however at least try to play well, and figure out what they are doing. My Dad is also one of the few players to actually use a raise. He's a maniac!

So on to the game. I tried to explain to everyone the value of good hand selection before we started, but I don't think may people paid attention since the average number of players seeing the flop at our eight handed table was 6.

I can't recall as many comical plays as in previous years. I'm not sure if its because they are actually getting better, or if I was doing a better job of moving the game along, or if I just don't find it humerus anymore.

A couple hand of note, which I feel bad about. I crippled my dad when I played ATs for a raise. He called and the flop was ragged, but with two of my suit. The turn was a king and one of the other fifteen people in the hand made a small bet, which he min raised. A bigger bet and I probably would have folded, but I didn't and rivered a flush to beat his AK. Of coarse on the river I made a big raise which he called.

I feel bad because he played a good hand, raised when he made top pair, and still lost. On the other hand, he should have raised preflop like I had instructed and bet more when he made his hand, so hopefully he will learn that for next year. I'm guessing not though.

The other hand was against my wife. I had wired nines and she had AQ. The flop was AQ9 and I took all of her chips, putting me in the chip lead for good. Not much she could do there. She flopped top two pair, and even though I raised her bets, and bet bet big when she checked, its hard to think your hand isn't good in that situation. Unless you've played a lot, and even then its tough to put me on trips rather than AK.

On the positive side, after I raised her bet on the flop, she was about to bet on the turn, and Karalee pointed out that she should check because she knows I'm going to bet anyway. So at least someone is paying attention.

The final three were myself Aunt Karalee and Uncle Jim. I had a huge chip lead and they stood no chance since they weren't willing to bet without a hand and the blinds were a significant portion of their chipstack.

I kept bluffing whenever they would check, and then showing my hand and pointing out that if they check it doesn't matter what I have, if I bet I've got a good chance of winning the pot. No one ever picked up on it though and even after it checks around on the flop and turn, they'd rather check around again on the river than try to steal the pot.

(note to self: Next year do a better job of explaining how to take advantage of position.)

So that was it. After that we got everyone to play wii games. Watching non-video-game playing relatives play Rayman Raving Rabbids is pretty funny. I'd recommend you try that.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

March Tournament Summary

We had a change in venue for our March Tournament. Our usual host was busy this week, and not wanting to slip into the mode where we wait four months for our next game, we rescheduled elsewhere. We also had to settle for the Easter weekend which cut down on the turnout.

Still, we had 13 and 11 players for our two games, which isn't horrible. I'm a little late with the write up so it may or may not be completely accurate. Its close enough though.

I have a new arch nemesis. My friend Jason, used to be an average player. What he lacked in skill he made up for in trash talking. He wasn't a horrible player but he lacked the patience and discipline to make it in a two to three hour tournament.

I'm starting to think that was an all an act to setup a loose image that he can capitalize on later. At some point last year he just turned a switch and all of the sudden he is winning, not just cashing, at least one tournament per night in our group. He managed to win our point total bragging rights competition last year despite the fact that we scheduled a number of events on days when he was out of town for business.

Going into the night I was leading the points total with two second place finishes, just barely ahead of Jason with his one win. He missed the first game last month because his plane didn't get in on time. So I have to finish ahead of him to maintain my lead.

Things don't start out well. The first hand of the game, I'm in the big blind with 42o, and he's in the small blind. It folds to him and he makes the stander 3xBB raise. First hand of the game, blinds are low, I'm not letting him establish control, so I call and flop two pair. He bets and then calls my raise. The turn is a jack which pairs the board and makes potentially counterfeits my hand. Check-check and the river brings a queen. He bets, and I make the call knowing I'm likely beat. Turns out I probably should have bet the turn because he didn't have a hand until the river and I probably could have taken the pot then. So we're one hand into the game and already he's up and I'm down. Great.

Things turned around shortly after that however. I had pocket kings and my raises and bets kept getting called by the new guy. I haven't played with him before so I didn't know what to expect, but I was certainly nervous when he kept calling. I ultimately went all-in and he called turning of an unimproved big-slick. That hand doubled me up and put me in pretty good shape overall. AK looks pretty and all, but when you are raised pre-flop, and you don't improve by the turn, maybe its time to fold. That mistake allowed the new guy to watch a few more hours of the NCAA tournament than those of us who had to concentrate on cards.

I'm not sure what happened after that. We were playing short handed so the blinds came around often, and I just wasn't hitting flops. Before I knew it I was the short stack and shortly after that busted out in 6th or 7th place out of 13. Very disappointing.

Oh and Jason went on to win.

Game two didn't start out much better. We only had 11 which meant two short tables, and my table was more aggressive than I would have liked considering I wasn't getting cards. I was all set to call it an early night, pushing all in with wired eights oni a king high board, but was generously called by a medium ace that never improved.

Those chips gave me enough to survive to the table combine and then some.

In order to reclaim my first place leaderboard position I had to win and Jason couldn't money, so I had two goals at this point. Jason was crippled on a KK vs QQ hand against his girlfriend, but was taking the chip-and-a-chair mentality and doing well with it. He went all-in on three or four consecutive hands and either doubled up or stole the blinds to the point where he almost had enough chips to start rally playing again.

Then he tried the all-in trick one more time, only this time I had a pair of eights in the hole, and called him. He had two face cards and the board danced all around them, but he didn't improve and he he was out. Phase one complete, now I just had to win.

I managed to cash, but by the time we were heads up I was tired, and willing to gamble a little too much. I pushed with any somewhat reasonable hand and got called by a better one for yet another second place finish.

So on the plus side, I've finished in 2nd 3/4 times this year. On the negative side, my heads up game, which I used to think was pretty good in live poker, has not been performing very well. Maybe its a lack of practice and a sign that I need to start playing online again.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

February Home Game

Our first tournaments of the year were last night, and after two events I'm on top of the leaderboard with two second place finishes. Oh wait, I probably shouldn't have given that away yet. Makes the rest of the story kind of anti climactic. Or does it? There might be something really exciting that happens later on if you don't read the full post. I'm just sayin'.

Turnout was pretty low last night. Almost none of the occasional players showed, and many of the regulars weren't able to make it. We were originally planning on playing last weekend, but decided against it since it was SuperBowl weekend and we weren't sure if some people's wifes would let them come out and play two nights in a row. Maybe we should have tried it anyways.

Game 1

Game one had 15 players, a number of which were arriving late. I was getting great cards in the early going of this tourney, which is unusual because I usually end up playing real conservative in the beginning of game one and thus not playing many hands. Everything seemed to be working right. My pocket pairs were turning into sets on the flop with three players betting ahead of me, my suited aces were making flushes, and my garbage was also missing everyone else, letting me successfully bluff the pot.

I the midst of this amazing run where I was dominating the table and already counting my first place winnings, I'm dealt a pair of jacks. Bobby, to my right limps in as he usually does, and I raise. It folds to Shane in the big blind, who just arrived in time to prevent his cards from being auto-mucked. He's a little flustered as he tries to figure out the blind level, the chip count, his cards, etc, but he calls anyway. Bobby also calls.

The flop was almost perfect. Jack high, but with two spades. I have the jack of spades. It checks to me and make a half pot sized bet, content to take the pot here, before another spade comes off. Two callers. As of now, I have the nuts, and no read on either of them. Bobby is relatively new to the game and overly passive. Shane I haven't played with in years. So when a third spade comes on the turn, I'm not too happy, but it checks around to me so I take another stab at it. As long as they don't have the flush already I'm certain they'll go away.

Shane calls. After some deliberation, and some friendly table talk Bobby folds. I have to give Shane credit for a flush here, so I don't plan on betting the river. I'm just praying the board pairs. Instead, it brings a fourth spade and this time Shane makes a small bet. I'm 98% sure I'm beaten here, but it was a small enough bet that I have to call. He turns over a pair of queens, including the queen of spades. Not a bad hand for your very first one. Bobby shows that he mucked a pair of aces, include the ace of spades.

Its a good thing I had been running so well early on, because if I hadn't been, I very well could have gotten myself knocked out on that hand. But I still have some chips to fight with.

A few hands later, Shane is selected to move to the other table during a rebalance. He takes most of the table's chips with him.

My luck soon retruns though as I get pocket aces for the second or third time, and I get have Aaron in the big blind to my left. I raise just enough to almost put him all in. He thinks about it for a while, contemplating the implied odds of the joy and satisfaction of taking my chips vs. the agony of me knocking him out. Ultimately he decides the blinds are getting too high and his stack too low so he decides its now or never and proceeds to give me the remainder of his chips.

Archie then brought to our table to replace Aaron. He's a little short stacked, but proceeds to go all-in on almost all of the next 10 hands or so, taking the blinds and all of the limpers chips, and moving close to the chip lead. It was pretty funny to see Bobby limp almost every hand and then act surprised and angry when Archie pushed. Again.

After that I don't think there was a lot of excitement in game one. Either that or I'm just getting too old to remember everything. Shane ended up finishing in third place, I took second, and Archie won. I was a little disappointed in my heads up play. I wasn't very patient and couldn't really get in a good rhythm. Archie had had probably a 2-1 lead when I pushed preflop on a complete bluff, and he called and took it down. It was a frustration move after he I tried bluffing out of the previous pot to no avail.

Game 2

We lost few players, but picked up a few and game two had 16. Jason, last year's season winner was at my table this time, although he arrived a few blind levels late. He has a good act where he clowns around and pretends to be real loose and random, and he talks a lot of smack, but he's actually a pretty good player.

Archie is to Jason's left, and shortly after arriving Jason challenges him to go all-in blind if they are in the blinds and it is folded to them.

Of course upon hearing this, the table folds to them the next time they are in the blinds. Jason looked at his cards though and says he doesn't want to do it. And limps. Archie, still not having looked at his cards confidently pushes, and Jason meagerly calls.

On a side note, I like both of their plays. Archie knows Jason doesn't like his hand enough to go all-in, so his two random cards have a decent chance of winning, and Jason could very well fold. Jason knows he's playing against two random cards so given the fact that one of his cards is an ace, he's probably in good shape.

As it turns out Archie has a pair of eights, and Jason A4o. Jason doesn't improve and is bad shape.

But I help him out shortly after that. I pull the good old hammer bluff. I make just under a 3x BB bet, and the table starts questioning why so big? I point out that the blinds just went up, and its a fairly standard sized bet. It was really meant to be a normal sized bet. Otherwise I would have just pushed all in.

Jason reluctantly calls, or I guess raises, since he was a few chips over what I had bet. I don't remember what he had, but it doesn't matter because I didn't get any help on the board.

After that a number of the shorter stacks at our table drop and Jason, Archie and I survive to the final table.

At this point the blinds are big enough compared to my relatively small chip stack that the all-in or nothing strategy adds about a third of my chip stack to my total each time. Throw in a few wins and before you know it, I'm back near the top of the remaining players.

It ultimately comes down to Jason and I. He has probably a 2-1 or 3-2 lead on me and I never come close to catching him.

It would have been nice to win one of those, but I'll certainly take a couple of second places.

If you've read this far in hopes of getting to the exciting part that I promised in the beginning, then you're a sucker. All I'm going to do here is point out that this is my third post already this month, and those of you who took the under at five are going to be way off.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Spontaneous Poker

A bunch of us were hanging around after work on Friday, trying to figure out what we were going to do that night since our significant others had all made plans that didn't involve us. And lo and behold a poker game sprung up!

We went over to Aaron's and played a few short handed tourneys. There were six of us, five of the better players from our monthly game, and one guy who could be good if he wanted to, but he seems to have fun playing anyway and doesn't seem to want to dedicate the time to read a book on strategy. It was a good mix for a friendly poker game.

The first two games we played were holdem. I finished second and third. It was a low buyin event and we were just messing around, so I was a little more aggressive than I would normally be, which I think did me in. I was bluffing a lot, and willing to put all my chips in with hands I usually wouldn't consider playing. That ultimately led to my demise in both games, as the more patient players took my chips.

But the holdem wasn't the interesting part. After those games someone suggested mixing it up a bit, and we ended up playing Omaha. I'm probably the second most experienced Omaha player in the group and I've probably seen under 100 hands in real games. So there was some obvious confusion as no one knew what makes a starting hand, or what you should chase or how many cards from your hand you get to use.

Smack was the only one of us who really knew what he was doing. Not that it helped him much. The turn would almost always give him about 20 outs and the river would always be a blank. And then he would whine about it for the next three hands. So he busted first. I don't remember when I went out, but it wasn't much later than Smack.

So I then got to sit there and watch Jason, who has absolutely no idea what he is doing run over the table. He would bet more to be confrontational than because he new what he had, but it worked, so who am I to criticize?

Since that wasn't confusing enough we decided to play some razz. Noah and Smack had both played a little razz, but I think I was probably the best/most experienced out of the group. I used to play micro limit razz when I was drunk and wanted to play poker without wasting a lot of money. So as I was saying, I was probably the best razz player there, which of coarse meant I went out first.

Razz is known as one of the more frustrating games you can play. Rather than drawing to a hand, you start with a hand and hope you don't draw out of it. Nothing is more frustrating than starting with four to a good low hand and then ending up with three pair.

So playing razz is rather frustrating. Dealing razz, can be quite fun. Especially when you get to laugh at your friends as you deal them quads and get beat by a pair of kings. Good times. At one point Noah claimed, and I think he's right, that he had the bring in eight hands in a row. And when he wasn't starting with paint as his door card, I was pairing just about everything he had.

And he was losing to Jason who, like the other games we played, doesn't have a real firm grasp on appropriate strategy. Jason was starting with something like Q[J7] and hitting a seven low on the river with unbelievable regularity. I don't think I could have stacked the deck better. And he won again. The worst poker player in our group by far took 2/4 events. And I took none. But I still had a great time. Hopefully we can turn this into a more regular event and start introducing more games. I can't wait to get a guts tournament going. (Kidding John. I still refuse to acknowledge guts as a legitimate poker game.)

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

November Tournament Summary

Here we are in the 11th month of the year and our monthly gathering is getting together for the fourth or fifth time. Nice work.

Before I get into the wrap up, did any one see the Illini game on Saturday? You know, the one where they knocked off #1 Ohio State? Just wondering. When I went to U of I I think the football team had a total of five wins over four years, so when they've gotten to the point where they can contend with and beat ranked teams, Its pretty exciting.

Back to poker. The game was supposed to start at 5:30. Of course the Illini game was just ending and since a large number of attendees are alumni, many of them were late. We'd normally just blind them in, but it was about a third of the field, and we weren't sure exactly how many of them there were, so we figured we'd wait since they claimed they were ten minutes out. By ten minutes they must have meant 45. But its ok because we were finally playing poker and the Illini won. Have I mentioned that yet?

We were expecting a big turnout since we haven't played since May, but alas only had 21 people show up, seven of which were new to the group. The game itself was painfully slow. I don't know if it was all the new people, or just who happened to end up at which table, but on just about every hand there would be at least one, and often two or three occasions when we'd all be sitting around waiting for someone to act who had no idea that the action was on them. I'm not against talking about non-game related things at the table, but you still have to pay attention to the game.

I was also fairly frustrated because very little that I was doing was working. There were a few players at my table would call almost anything which pretty much forces you to get a good hand as bluffing is all but impossible. I don't consider myself to be someone who flat out bluffs very often, but I do things like continuation bets and stealing orphaned pots that are like bluffing. I'm more just betting that no one else has anything than that I can make them think I have a monster.

In the first game I got crippled by losing a couple of all-ins against smaller stacks . In the first case I had 73o in the BB and got to see a free flop of A33. Hooray for big blind specials. I bet half her remaining stack and she called. The turn was a rag and I put her all in. She calls with an Ax and hits another Ace on the river. Not the end of the world because she didn't have many chips to begin with, but enough of a hit to prevent me from entering as many speculative pots.

Shortly thereafter I made a decent sized preflop raise on the button with AT and one limper. I think I have a pretty tight table image, at least among the people still in the hand, so I was expecting everyone to fold right there, but the big blind pushed for his remaining stack. I figured he had a middle pair, or a decent ace, so I was probably behind, but I was getting decent enough odds to call plus the satisfaction of knocking him out was enough to justify the call. He turns over JQs, which was about the best I could have hoped for, and then he hits a Jack.

I played small stack poker from there on. We combined to two tables at 16 players, and then we were down to 8 and ready to combine to one when I busted out. I was in the small blind and had 89o. We were four handed and the other two players had limped. I had enough chips to last a few more orbits, but I wasn't doing great. I thought to myself I should fold and get to the 8 person table where I could wait for a premium hand to push with, but I was getting 7-1 on my money and couldn't fold. The flop was 77T giving me an open ended straight draw. I pushed hoping no had a piece of that, or that I'd hit my straight. The BB had gotten a piece, with 7x so I was in big trouble. Until a Jack came on the turn. I was looking to be in pretty good shape for the final table. And then the case seven came on the river. Bleh.


Game two didn't go much better for me. The whole late arriving crowd as well as a number of other players, bailed on the second game since it was so late so we only had 13 players. I should have dominated my starting table as there was a ton of dead money there, and the only really good player seemed determined to either go out first or last, with strong leanings towards first.

Unfortunately I wasn't patient enough. I also got screwed by paying too much attention to what people had done on prior hands and just assuming they were doing it again. In the first example, the guy to my right had called all the way to the showdown with a pair of tens when an ace had hit the flop and the river paired the board. I had a weak ace, and had anyone else been in the pot I probably would have folded, but I knew that he was capable of calling with a weak hand. And it paid off.

A few hands later I was in a similar hand with him with A8 and an ace on the flop. This time it was me following him to showdown where he turns over big slick. Maybe I should have folded, but he just as easily could have had a pair of sevens, or a weaker ace.

Later on I was done in by the player I mentioned earlier who seemed determined to bust first or build a huge stack. The blinds were getting high, we were four or five handed, and he had on a few occasions he had shown his garbage cards after making large pre-flop raises. He had made another pre-flop raise, of the same amount and I had A5s in one of the blinds. Again I figure I have a tight image, plus we are short handed and he's very likely just trying to steal the blinds, so my A5 is quite possibly the best hand, so I push. He thinks about it for a while and then calls, turning over A9 and knocking me out. Booo-urns. Better luck next time.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Friday Night Home Game - October

After a missing the past few months I finally made it back out to Friday night game last night. I wish I had some better results to report, but at least I got back into a live game.

$2/$4 Limit

We start out with a few hours of $2/$4 limit holdem. I've done well at the limit section of this game the past two times I've played, but not last night. We started out ten handed, and things were going fairly well for my as I was playing aggressively and actually getting some respect for my raises.

I felt a big momentum change early on and after that there wasn't much that went right. I folded A4 off suit in early position. Not a bad play especially since no matter what I did I could expect 4-6 callers, and even if I hit an ace or two pair I wouldn't be confident in my hand. The flop is 44x with an ace on the turn putting a flush draw out there. It was a huge pot and I know you can't get mad when you fold garbage and see that you missed a monster, but that could have set the tone for the night.

The only other decent hand I had was pocket jacks which ran into pocket queens on a very ragged board.

Shortly after that hand we split up into two 6 handed tables, and I got stuck as the dealer. Its real hard to focus on the game when you are worrying about dealing all the time, but I went on a horrendous run of cards where I didn't get anything remotely playable for an hour and a half, as I gradually chipped down by paying the blinds and the occasional hand that I tried to take a shot at.

$50 No Limit Tourney

After the limit poker and some pizza there's $50 no limit tournament with an optional $10 survivor pool where the last one standing takes all and an optional $10 head hunter option where you win $10 for knocking people out. I entered the survivor and head hunter games as well.

I managed to finish in third place out of 13 runners, but it wasn't exactly pretty. In the early going I won just enough pots to pay for the blinds as they came around and barely anything more. We start with $T100 and blinds go $1/2, $2/$4, $4/$8 and then we chip up 10 to 1 and start back at $1/$2. I had ten chips when we combined to one table and chipped up.

A few all-ins with big slick got me up to $T17 and then I just sat there as everyone else busted themselves. The blinds go up real fast and it turns into a shove fest, so if you can get enough chips where you can sit back and wait for an orbit or two for a real premium hand you'll find yourself practically in the money.

That strategy works ok until we got down to three players and while I had a decent amount of chips it was no where near the other two. The first hand three handed was K3 and for some reason I pushed. Big stack called me with QT. I caught a three on the turn, but he picked up a ten on the river and I was out. I offered to deal for the heads up battle which lasted all of one hand as they both pushed with garbage and the chip leader won again.

A third place got me almost back to even for the night. I would have been nice if I could have taken someone out in the headhunter challenge, or won the last longer pool, but alas no.

$50 No Limit

After the tournament we play $1/$2 no limit until eveyone goes home. My run of horrible cards continued as I folded over and over and over. Finally I opted to play A8 and saw a flop of 838. There was a large bet and then a raise ahead of me. I pushed all in, and the raiser called. Finally something was going my way. There's no way he played 83 is there? And he didn't. He had a wired threes giving him the boat. REBUY.

I re bought and folded away my blinds for another few orbits until the two guys I carpooled with went broke and we called it a night.


Despite the fact that my results were less than stellar I still had a blast. I forgot how much fun a poker game can be. And its a good thing because in a few weeks my regular "monthly" game will be getting together for the fourth time this year. That's right in 11 months we will have had four events. And since I'm guessing we aren't going to get anything going for December, that's a pretty poor average.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Friday Night Poker - July

On Friday I returned to my newfound home game. The setup was the same as last time, although non of my friends from work made it out.
One of the things I really like about this game is that they mix it up. They play limit for a few hours, then a no limit tournament, and after that some no limit table games until there aren't enough people left to play.


$2/$4 Limit

I'm still struggling to get used to how loose this group plays. There are probably five or six players seeing a flop on average and I can't figure out cards they actually consider unworthy of playing. On more than one occasion I folded a middle or bottom pair in family pots only to find out I would have won. I struggled not to play every hand and hoping I could flop a monster because the implied odds were outstanding.

I won a few pots early and nursed my profits while folding quite a lot. I think I won with an unimproved big slick and then had evey one fold by the river when I had aces the next hand. There weren't very many raised pots but it seemed like whenever I had a marginal hand that I might try to limp into a family pot with someone would raise ahead of me and I would have to fold.

I was back down to about even when I picked up another couple big hands in row. The first time I had AQ and caught my ace on the turn and a queen on the river. I got called down by a guy with a weaker ace how was hoping his kicker was still good.

I think I was dealt the same exact cards for the next hand and had about 30 callers to my preflop raise. The flop was all spades, which was the same suit as my ace. There was a bet and a raise ahead of me, but the pot odds dictated that I stick around so I did. The turn paired the board and it was checked to the raiser, who bet. The river brought my fourth spade and there was a bet and raise ahead of me. I was very much concerned that someone had picked up the boat, but they could also both have flushes, so I raised again. The guy on my left had rivered a smaller flush and the guy to my right had flopped a baby flush but couldn't chase the rest of us out of the pot.

I finished up about $100 which is the standard buy in for that game. Things are looking good again, and I'm becoming an even bigger fan of this game.

$50 Tournament + $10 Head Hunter + $10 Last Longer

Last time I won this tournament. I was fortunate enough to double up early on and didn't have to worry about the fairly aggressive blind schedule.

I wasn't so fortunate this time around. For the first few levels I was basically treading water, and slowly drowning. I could steal some pots here and there, but the blinds were killing me and I missed my fair share of flops which took some big chunks out of my chip stack. We had started with 12 players which gave us two table of six players, so going card dead was extra painful as those blinds came around quickly.

I was in the big blind at 4/8 with 83s when it was folded to the button who min raised. I called hoping I could get lucky and double up, or for a flop that I could bluff at. The flop was K85 and I pushed, praying that he didn't have a king. He was the big stack at the table so he called even though he though I had king. He turns over QQ and things are not looking good for our hero. Lets just say the guy wasn't too happy when I proceeded to hit a runner runner strait to stay alive.

At the next blind level we chipped up 10 to 1 and dropped the blinds back to 1/2. I had 9 chips and was one of the low stacks at the table. I think one of my strengths is being able to play good small stack poker, and I used the all-in very much to my advantage as people kept limping ahead of me, and then folding.

I had worked up to 26 when the blinds went up to 2/4. I was no longer a short stack, and I was starting to like my chances again. I was starting to take over the table and there were only two more people left in the last longer pool both of whom were on life support.

Then trajedy struck. There was a raise ahead of me, and I look down at a pair of snowmen. I push all-in again fully expecting him to fold. Even if he doesn't I'm probably ahead. He does call with pocket fours. You already know where this is going. The flop was 356, the turn a queen and the river a 7 to give him the straight and send me home. Well not quite home, but to the $1/$2 no limit game. On the plus side I got knocked out by the only guy not playing the head hunter option so I got my $10 back for that.

$1/$2 No Limit

The no limit game gets to be a bit crazy. I think the buy in is too low at $50 max. Get involved in any decent sized pot and you are almost guaranteed to be all-in. Lose a small pot or two and it only makes it more likely that you will have to be all-in on your next hand. Couple that with the loose play and there are lots of rebuys and lots of money on the table.

I couldn't get anything going in this game. I didn't get many good cards and when I did, they wouldn't hit and I burned through my first buy in fairly quickly. My second buy in didn't work out much better. I lost about half just through blinds and small lost pots. I tried pressing my luck by push my remaining chips with A5s on a flop with two of my suit. I got called by the guy with over $300 in front of him and top pair, and I didn't improve.

I was only about midnight at that point, but there were only four other people still left and its about an hour drive home, so I cut my losses and called it a night. Hopefully next month will work out a little better. There's even rumblings that our normal "monthly" tournament may happen next month.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Office Poker

We had an office poker game on Thursday. Since our regular monthly game is in its three or four month long summer hiatus a bunch of us at the office couldn't take the withdrawal symptoms anymore. So we had a small home game.

There were ten of us playing, with a rather wide variety of skills/experience. We had our good players which consisted of, in no particular order Archie, myself, Noah, Jason and Aaron. And by no particular order I mean best to worst. Then we have Jason and C-Bass who are your typical play too many hands too aggressively type players. They will occasionally amass a huge chip stack due to there sheer aggression, and a few big hands, but ultimately their style is their downfall and they get eliminated fairly early. Then we have Tracie, Jullian and Richard who have either never played before, or have not played in years. They all had cheat sheets and we spent an hour before the game playing some practice hands as we were waiting for everyone to arrive.

The game itself was a lot of fun, but it was more because of the people in attendance and the conversation/banter than the actual card play. The card play was horrible.

I think I played four hands the entire tournament, and won only one of those. I think just about every hand I had contained a four and either a six or an eight. If I was really lucky maybe I would get T4o or maybe even J4.

Somewhere in the second blind level ($T10/$T20 - we started with $T75) I get my first remotely playable hand ATo but I'm out of position UTG. I decide to play it anyway and pop it to $T50. Julian is the only one who calls. Since this is more or less her first time playing I figure I have a pretty good shot of being ahead, and bet another $T50. She calls. So much for bluffing. Now I move into check to the river and hope I hit a card mode. I don't improve by the river and she turns over big slick. Oops.

The blinds go up a few more levels and I get my next playable hand. Good ole 72o. Noah, my arch nemesis is in the big blind as I raise it 3.5xBB to $T125. Noah's short stacked after losing a large amount of chips to Julian when her nut flush beat his not so nut flush. He thinks about calling for quite a while saying that he is either going all in or folding, but he can't decide which. Eventually he gives up and folds. I show my cards and smile.

Now, playing the hammer is sooo two years ago, but the implied odds are phenomenal. I'm fairly certain that the next time Noah's in the blinds and I have aces, and make the same raise, he's going to go all in without a second thought. Or maybe I'm just trying to set him up for another hammer bluff knowing that he reads this here blog on occasion.

Noah gets his revenge later on though. I have JJ in late position with $T30/$T60 blinds There are three limpers ahead of him, and he min raises. It folds to me and I push all in for my remaining $T575. The limpers fold and Noah calls with JhTh. The flop gives him two more hearts and the turn an inside straight draw which he his on the river to take a size able chunk out of my chipstack.

I held on for a little longer after that before pushing all in with pocket fives and getting four callers, one of which fopped a pair of tens to put me out of my misery.

I missed the final results because Guitar Hero was calling my name but I think Archie ended up winning with Aaron in second and Jason in third. Other than the crappy cards I had it was quite a fun night and hopefully we can turn it into a more regular thing.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Jedi Reunion 2007

Hey look! Two posts in one day.

Memorial Day weekend means its time to get together with a bunch of my good friends from high school in for an annual event we affectionately refer to as the Jedi Reunion. Yes, I like Star Wars, why do you ask?

This year's reunion was somewhat more tame than in years past. There are a couple of reasons for this. The first being that with the exception of my wife and I, everyone had a child under the age of one. That means sleep is a precious commodity and staying up until the crack of dawn isn't much of an option any more. Not that I can stay up that late anymore anyways. The other reason is that John, our host was suffering from food poisoning and couldn't drink as much as usual. More often than not he's the one instigating the excessive drinking that often accompanies this weekend, but he was somewhat restrained on account of illness. At least that's the story he gave. Could be he's getting soft in his old age, but for now I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

In addition to the regular shenanigans that accompany these weekends we did actually play some poker. Or what loosely resembles poker to the untrained observer. We played a 6 handed cash game with each player taking turns calling a game for an orbit.

Last year John kept calling a game called guts, which I refuse to acknowledge as a poker game. The game works as follows: Each player is dealt two cards and then must decide if they are in our out. The dealer counts to three and player that are in hold their cards while player that are out drop them. If more than one player remains in, the winning player takes the pot while the losing players must match the pot for the next hand. Play continues until only one player stays in and he beats a blind "Ghost " hand.

It's retarded. It takes an hour to play through a full "hand" and more or less negates any actual poker earnings that you may have made. We might as well just roll dice with the high roll taking the pot. I tried to declare it as an illegal game but it was John's house so it was his rules and he called it. The fact that he knew it pissed me off certainly didn't have an effect on his decision to call that game.

My wife tried to back me up by calling Euchre and Kings in the Corner when it was her turn to pick a game, but for some reason those games weren't allowed.

All in all, the play was abysmal. More time was dedicated to arguing about, talking about and deciding on the music being played on the Comcast music channels than actual play. An average hand took about five minutes to play. Maybe next time we should start playing before we're fairly well intoxicated. Then again we'd have to start around noon.

The only real significant hand that I remember was when I was in the small blind and John was in the big blind. It's probably not a good idea for us to sit next to one another since we tend to antagonize each other for no good reason. For example I would cut the deck for John to deal and he would pick it up and start shuffling. The first time or two I think he just didn't know what he was doing. After I yelled at him he did it on purpose for the remainder of the night.

Back to the hand, I decided I'd raise blind and popped it to 3xbb. He called blind. I bet about half pot, still blind, on the flop and he called. On the turn I had to look. I had nothing, but I figured if I bet after looking he would assume I had a hand and at least look at his. I don't know why I thought that because he's a stubborn bastard and would have called any bet out of principle. He called both my turn and river bets. I had picked up nothing and he paired one of his hole cards so I erased all of my earnings on the night on that hand.

In other gaming news, for the geeks out there reading this, I'd highly recommend the board game Carcassonne

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

New Home Game Details

So, as I mentioned last post, I found a new home game. Or more accurately a new home game found me. A coworker of mine invited the poker crowd to his old regular game which he hasn't attended for about a year. I've been suffering from poker withdrawal so I took him up on the offer as did one other guy in our crew.

Setup
First let me tell you a bit about the setup that they have for this game. Our host had converted his basement into a full bar. He had the whole setup, four beers on tab, wide assortment of hard liquor, barside video game system, basically anything you would expect to find at your local drinking establishment he had. I was more than a little jealous. There was a $10 fee upon arriving, but that covered all the beer you wanted plus pizza that would be ordered later. I'm pretty sure I got my money's worth there.

Our host also ran a very well organized game. I think some people may have been annoyed by it, especially your more control freak types, but I certainly appreciated it. He kept the games moving, had clear standard operating procedures and well established routines that made it easy for new players to figure out how everything works. I haven't been to a lot of different home games, but I can't imagine anything operating more smoothly then he had this game going.

Limit Poker
One of the things that had me excited about this game is that they don't just play tournaments, which is what my usual game does. They start off with a few hours of $2/$4 limit then go to a $50 tournament and follow that up with a $50 NL cash game. I was anxious to try out my cash game skills in a live setting.

We played ten handed when we first arrived, and after a while when a couple more people showed up we split into two tables of six. I finished up a few bucks after the allotted time.

I think I could have been better except that I kept giving people more credit than they deserved. I would hit middle pair with a strong kicker on the flop but have to fold when there was a bet and a number of calls ahead of me because I had to assume someone had at least hit top pair. Then I would see that the pot ends up going to the guy that flopped bottom pair and didn't improve. I guess that's where being aggressive comes in handy.

I also lost a substantial amount of chips fairly early on when I flopped a King high flush and Archie, one of my coworkers flopped the Ace high flush. It was a family pot as most were so I was rooting for no more spades to come up throughout the hand. If a fourth had come up on the board it probably would have saved me some chips since I would have worried about someone having the ace. Instead Archie let me bet for him then raised on the river when I all but had to pay him off.

Still, I finished up with more chips than I started with so I was pleased with my results.

Tournament
After two hours of limit and a break for some pizza we started the tournament. It was a $50 buy in plus an optional $10 for the head hunter option and another optional $10 for the last longer bet.

For the head hunter option everyone participating got a special chip and if you knocked them out you claimed their chip. After the tourney you turned them in for $10 a piece. The last longer option was a simple side bet, winner take all, on who would last longest in the tourney.

We had 15 participants, all but one of which were also playing head hunter. I think only 5 people entered the last longer pool. The structure was a little different than I'm used to but I think it worked ok. Blinds were 20 minutes. You start with 100 chips and blinds at $T1/$T2. Then it goes 2/4, 3/6, 4/8, 6/12, 10/20. At 10/20 we color up 10-1 and reset the blinds to 1/2.

Things went well for me in the tourney. In the first orbit when I was in the big blind I got to see a free flop with 47o. The flop was 56X two suited so I called a small bet with a open ended strait draw. There was one other caller. The turn brought my eight and I raised the small blind's bet. The third player in the pot pushed all in. The small blind backed out and I had to check my cards to make sure I actually had the straight. I did, and if he has 7-9 then good for him. I call and he turns over a flush draw before pushing his stack my way. One head hunter chip for me.

I didn't do a lot for quite a while after that. We combined tables shortly thereafter and one ran over everyone, amassing more chips than everyone else combined. I took out my second victim when he pushed all-in preflop with AJo. I called with a pair of jacks and dodged the ace. Unfortunately he was the one guy not participating in the headhunter portion, so no bonus prize for me there. It may have been a loose call there, but it was the best hand I'd seen in a while, and the blinds were starting to creep up there fairly quick.

Four positions paid. When we got to five handed it was me, my two coworkers, the monster chip leader and a small stack. After a number of all-ins in which the small stack always came out ahead, Archie finally busted out on the bubble. I'd feel bad but that put me in the money. And he made back plenty in the cash side game. More on that later.

Four handed we were all pretty even. The small stack had won a few all-ins to be formidable and the big stack had lost enough where he was no longer very far ahead of us.

The biggest hand of the tourney for me came when I tried a steal with 82s. I got called twice which I was not too happy about. The flop gave me some hope though with two diamonds, although the cards were pretty scary with AKJ. I had two options. I could check and probably fold, or hope that my preflop raise would be respected and I they would think I hit the flop and go away. I pushed all-in hoping they didn't hit the flop hard enough to call. They did. I don't remember what they had though. I think one guy had flopped a straight and the other had an ace, or maybe two pair, but I don't remember exactly. What I do remember is that the turn completed my flush and it held up, putting me in the chip lead where I didn't look back.

I should mention that heads up against Pete, the guy who invited me to the game I did suck out on him to win the game. I had T2s and he had Jx with a flop of 4TJ with one of my suit. I pushed, he called, and I runner runnered a flush to beat him. I should also mention that we started heads up with him way ahead of me and I battled back to the point where I could win via said suckout.

So I won the tourney plus four bounty chips including my own. So far its been a good night.

$50 NL

At this point it was midnight which is where my ability to concentrate on cards rapidly declines. We're also an hour and half away from my house as we traveled way out into the middle of nowhere to this guys house. I wanted to try some NL though and didn't want to be the guy who leaves after a big win so I decided to play some NL. Plus we carpooled and I didn't want to force Archie and Pete to stop playing. We decided to stick around until 1:30 then call it a night.

The play I witnessed at the NL tables was amazingly bad. Since I knew I was tired, and drunk from all the free(ish) beer I was playing especially tight. Add to that the fact that for at least the first two orbits I didn't see a card higher than a seven, or two connected or suited hole cards and lets say I wasn't putting very many chips in the pot.

So my first respectable starting hand is AQ suited and I raise the $1/$2 blinds to $12 after a number of people limp. Everyone makes a big deal about how this is the first hand I've played and how I must have a high pocket pair or something. And then at least five of them call me. I think the flop was nine high and it was checked around to me. I have about $35 left in front of me and the only reasonable bet I can make is all-in and hope everyone folds. I get a couple of calls, one guy on a draw and another having picked up bottom pair with his 84o. I don't care. Its late, I'm tired, I'm still way up and I'm ready to go home. Then I hit a queen on the turn and take down a monster pot more than doubling up. The other guy made some comment about my play, but how do you call a preflop raise with 84o against someone you know is playing super tight, and then how do you call his all-in with bottom pair? You deserve to lose those plays. Even if you are ahead at the time.

I didn't get involved in any big pots after that. I still played tight and everyone still acted surprised when I played a hand, yet still called my pre-flop raises with garbage.

The guy that had bet into my straight in the first orbit of the tourney had amassed a stack of over $600 from his $50 buy in. He would play any two cards under any circumstances and just kept hitting. It was sick. If you ever got a hand you could be almost certain he would pay you off, but alas, I couldn't pick up anything. I think we were all just concentrating on those chips and how easy they should be to claim because before we knew it it was 3:00am and we had to call it a night. I think the three of us all ended up ahead a good amount when all was said and done. It was a lot of fun and I hope I get invited back because I was really starting to miss poker.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

New Home Game

The details will have to wait until at least tomorrow because I just got home and it's way past my bedtime, but I just wanted to report that I found a new home game and hopefully can add it to my monthly poker schedule.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Late April Tournament Summary

What's this? We actually had enough interest in our monthly tournament series to get two in this month? Inconceivable!

Game 1 - 21 Players
I don't have a lot to report about game one, other than I'm still frustrated with our starting chipcounts. Lose one big pot early and you have to rely on a whole lot of luck to catch up.

I didn't have much going for me in the first game. I went back to my try-to-see-a-lot -of-flops-early-in-hopes-of-hitting-something-big strategy and bled chips instead. And whenever I would try to steal a pot that looked like it should have missed everyone I got reraised.

My big downfall game when I was in the big blind and flopped top pair and a inside straight draw with JTo. The small blind bet and I raised. Early position called, and the small blind reraised. She was playing real tight all night so I had a feeling I was beat, and didn't want to try to draw to the straight, so I folded. Lucky for me I guess as early position went all in and small blind called. EP had pocket queens, and small blind had flopped the straight that I was thinking about drawing to.

That left me with enough chips for all-in or fold, but I was card dead and it seemed like the pot was always raised before it got to me so I had no fold equity whatsoever.

I finally tried pushing when I got 54o for the third time in four hands. Unfortunately I was called by a medium ace, and I didn't improve so I was out fairly early.

Game 1 - 20 Players

Only 20 players for game two. My starting table was almost the same as the starting table for last game. I had the same people on either side of me, and Pwerna(sp?) who had been my nemesis last game was across from me again.

The whole table was card dead, with the exception of one guy who pretty much ran over the rest of us. By the time we combined I think he had more chips than the rest of our table combined.

I basically just sat there and folded as the blinds slowly ate away at my chip stack. The only exciting thing that happened, was that I successfully pulled of a Hammer play (is that still cool with the in poker crowd?) which impressed most of table. The sad thing is that hand wasn't significantly worse than most of the other cards I had seen in the past three or four orbits.

The only reason I lasted as long as I did is as follows. Our friend Seabass (C-Bass?) had invited one of his friends to play, but he was going to be late, so we just blinded him in. I guess there was some road construction and detour on his way because he was considerably later in arriving than we expected, and he didn't have many chips left. He finally got there in the big blind, I think at the $T30/60 level, with me on the button. I looked down to see big slick, suited, the only decent hand I'd seen in over an hour and raised to $T200. He called. And then pushed all-in with his remaining one or two hundred on a ragged flop. I called more out of frustration than anything else as I was tired and ready to go home, and pissed that the only good cards I had seen weren't going to hold up. He turned over 83o grabbed his beer and said "thanks for the game guys". He had me covered by $T75 though, so he got to stick around, and actually built up his chipstack to rather impressive size before ultimately donking it off with a similar play at the final table.

The hand of the night involved a few of my coworkers who had been trading verbal assaults all night. We're at the final table with six or seven players remaining, and Aaron in was in the big blind. Jason raises 3BB preflop, which at this point in the tourney is a pretty sizable amount. Aaron looks genuinely offended that his blind was raised. To make matters worse, Jason flexes his arm looks over and kisses his bicep. I don't know if he wanted the call, but he got it. Aaron flexes both arms and asks Jason if he has tickets to the gun show. (Note, neither of these two will be confused for athletes/body builders by anyone with at lest partial eyesight in one eye.)

And we're off. The flop is JK7, two clubs, and it goes check check. The turn is another jack and Aaron leads out. Jason calls. The turn is a queen. Aaron thinks about it for a while then asks Jason if he has the stones to call as he lays out a rather large bet. Jason calls for nearly all of his remaining chips and turns over AKs for the rivered straight. Before he has too much time to gloat Aaron turns over his JQo for the rivered full house and Jason goes into shock for a while. Aaron says the only reason he called in the first place was because Jason pissed him off with his little pre-flop routine.

For the remainder of the night Jason offers Aaron a chop, or else he'll have to settle for second. And Aaron refuses every time, until ultimately Jason ends up winning the whole thing beating Aaron heads up.

My demise came with five players remaining. I had a comfortable chip stack, probably in second, but way behind Aaron after his gun show performance. I haven't played a hand for a while, as I've been card dead and hoping some of the smaller stacks would bust out. I was in the big blind with $T2900. Blinds were $T200/400 and Aaron min raised to $T800. My wired fours were the best hand I'd seen in a while so I called hoping to either flop a set, or be able to steal the pot with the right flop. The flop was AAx and I lead out for $T1000, hoping he didn't have an ace. His reraise told me he did I folded, going from comfortable second place to struggling to stay alive in a few quick seconds. I held on to get fourth place which got me my money back, but that hand was the one that did me in. I don't know how else I should have played it, other than check folding the flop, or not calling pre-flop, but if I do that the blinds are just going to bleed me dry in a few orbits.


Barney Frank

I was glad to hear that I wasn't the only one that knew about Barney Frank's new bill, although I'm either overly pessimistic or everyone else is naive or overly optimistic as the general consensus was that they were overturning the anti gambling bill. No one seemed to consider that submitting the bill doesn't actually make it law. It still has to be approved by both houses and signed by the President, so it still has a long way to go. Maybe they can sneak it onto some must pass bill like they did with the AIGIA

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Early April Tournament Summary

Not wanting to wait until the end of the month for our monthly game we had a mini pre-Easter game this evening. We actually had a pretty good turnout considering the holiday and change in venue.

I had some work to do to make up for my abysmal performance last month where I went out early in the first game and first in the second.

For game one we had 16 players, two tables of eight. My table was weird. There were a couple of guys at my end that knew what they were doing, but at the other end were or four of the callingest calling stations in the world. And one of them kept hitting with his high pocket pairs hand after hand. I stayed out of the action at first because my cards sucked and then because I knew I wouldn't be able to push anyone off a hand and didn't have good enough cards to try to see if they would hold up. On the other hand, they were fairly easy to read. When there are a bunch of cards near each other and the guy looks at his hand, then the board, then his hand, and kind of nods his head as if he's counting the number of cards in a row that he has, and he keeps stopping at four, you might call that a tell.

I had a medium sized chip stack throughout the early stages. I really only had one hand that I played poorly. I limped on the button with KQo, and Ray, one of the previously mentioned calling stations called, and Jason in the big blind also called, although before calling he went to his chips like he was going to bet and then thought better of it. My impression was that he had a big hand, but since he was already in the hand he wanted to slow play it. That's usually what I'll do with big hands in the blinds.

The flop was KQJ two suited, giving me top two pair. At first I worried someone may have hit a straight, but didn't think it likely. I lead out, and Ray pushed all in. Now what I'm really worried about is a set, but more likely he has AK, or even AQ. This is definitely the sort of hand where he would risk all his chips even though there are a million ways he could be beat. Then Jason goes all-in over the top. Now both of them are all-in and while I have them easily covered, I should have folded right away. Jason's pre-flop actions confused me though and I put him on a high pocket pair. I settled on aces because what are the chances that he has the last two kings or queens left in the deck? Again I figured it was more likely he had big slick, or maybe aces. I convinced myself they were over valuing their hands, and so I called. Jason had AT for the flopped straight. Ray had JT for bottom pair, but he caught an ace on the river to chop the pot. The river had been particularly brutal to Jason tonight.

After that hand I didn't do much until we combined at eight players. I was one of the shorter stacks when we did combine. The blinds ate at me for a bit until I was at the all too familiar all-in or fold mode. I pushed with any pair or any decent face card, and actually won quite a few uncontested pots doing so. The only problem with that is that every time you do it you lessen your credibility and sooner or later someone will call. Depending on your cards you may not mind a call, particularly it they lower their standards because they don't believe what you're representing, but unless you've got a monster, you don't want too many calls when you're all-in preflop.

Fortunately for me, when that time came that I was no longer believable I had aces. It was the perfect scenario. I had pushed three or four hands in a row to the point where now I had just enough chips that I was no longer in all-in or fold mode. And it was folded to me in the big blind where I look down to see bullets. I make a slightly larger than min raise to make it look like I have nothing and am trying to steal the big blind and it works to perfection as the big blind pushes all-in with his Q9o.

After that I coasted as other players eliminated themselves, and soon found myself heads up with Archie. Archie is a pretty good player. He's generally good at sensing weakness in his opponents and punishing them for it. In fact I think Aaron is still whining about being check-raised out of a huge pot in the early stages.

Anyways, Archie and I battled back and forth for a while until once again I got aces, and again, raised preflop just enough to make him suspicious. He pushed all-in, as he had done a few other times when I had made weak raises, and I beat him into the pot. So far so good as I win the first tournament.

Game two only had eleven players and was not exactly run smoothly. I've been unsuccessfully lobbying for larger starting chip counts so we can actually afford to lose a hand or two, but we accidentally found another solution. When you forget to start the blinds counter and play 45 minute blind levels instead of 15, it accomplishes more or less the same thing in giving you more room to maneuver with the allotted chips as increasing the starting amount would have.

Game two didn't start out well for me. I had Shmoo to my right. As I've mentioned before Shmoo is impossible to read. I don't think there is any significant logic to his bets which would be brilliant if he did that on purpose, but I don't think he does. When you are in a hand with him, you just have to hope he doesn't hit anything, because he may call you with any two cards. I kept limping into pots with him because I was sure that if I could hit something he would pay me off. The problem is he would min bet on every street, and I couldn't hit crap, so I soon found myself as the short stack at the table as I missed draw after draw.

Then it finally happened, I flopped a straight with JQ on a AKT board, and he actually started betting into me. I couldn't believe it as he kept pushing and eventually got me all-in, doubling me up. A hand later I flopped a set with my pocket fives and took another large pot off of Rich, who entered the night atop this year's points leaderboard.

The final table for game two was largely uneventful. At least I don't remember anything significant right now so it must not have been too exciting. I did attempt to steal the binds with the hammer, but was reraised all-in and forced to fold.

Ultimately I got to heads up with Noah, who I've probably played more poker with than anyone else. Although we don't think we've ever been the last two remaining. At least not in recent memory. Probably because whenever we are at the same table one of us self destructs and ends up out thinking themselves and losing most of their chips to the other. Anyways, heads up was back and forth for quite a while and we were at nearly identical chip stacks when we got all in preflop, my fours vs. his twos. He spiked a third two on the turn, and I was all but done.

That last hand not withstanding, not a bad night. Outside of the last two hands of the second game I don't think I was ever in serious jeopardy. I was all-in a few times, but I think I was either a big favorite, or not likely to get called. Everything just kind of went my way. Hopefully I can ride this momentum back into the online poker tables. Or at least into the next big game later this month. We'll see.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

March Tournament Summary

I fully intended to get a few practice Sit-n-Goes in online this past week in preparation for our March tournament, but somehow I managed not to. In hindsight, perhaps that wasn't the best move, as if tonight's results are any indication I certainly could have used the practice.


Game 1

Game 1 had 24 participants, eight people at three tables. I tried to see a lot of cheap flops in the early rounds because I often feel like I play to tight at the beginning and never have a decent stack towards the middle stages. That plan didn't work out so well, as I continually missed the flop completely, and had any attempts at stealing a pot called three ways, or raised.

We were only a few blind levels deep and I was already frustrated by my lack of cards when I got wired sevens on the button. It folded to me and I raised 3xBB. Surprisingly Aaron called out of the small blind. He's been known to call by bets just out of principle, but more often that not I think he looks to stay out of my way unless he has a premium hand. The flop was 5 8 J, nothing that I would imagine helped him, so when he check called my half pot bet I figured he had pocket pair, of some sort. I was debating about whether I should push on the turn in hopes of pushing him off his hand, but his bet made up my mind for me and I folded. He told me later he had pocket tens.

That left me as one of the low stacks, but not in absolutely horrible shape. I really wish we started these tournaments with more chips so that I could afford to lose a few hands early on without feeling crippled, but the games probably take long enough as it is, so there isn't much I can do.

A few more orbits of card deadedness (yes that's a word) and look down at KT under the gun. I don't want to play the hand, but if I don't the blinds are going to claim a third of my remaining chips in the next two hands, and I won't be able to push any one off a hand after that. So I go all-in, hoping I still have enough to scare any decent hands off. Jason almost folds, then calls with AJo. I don't improve, and I'm done for that tourney.

Side Game

One of the good things about getting knocked out early in the first game is that you are able to get into the side game. Unfortunately things didn't go much better for me there.

Six of us played, and the table was fairly passive. A lot of family pots and limping preflop, which was ok with me because my cards weren't great and I was able to win some hands that I would have folded to a preflop raise.

When we got down to four players I started going on a run. I had strong aces three or four hands in a row, and my raises won me the blinds each time. They were fairly high at that point so I was more than happy to keep winning them. Then I got cowboys under the gun and raise again. The guy to my left pushes all in. He has me covered by a little. The small blind calls. I put the guy to my left on aces, and the small blind could honestly have anything based on his style of play. I was hoping they both had Ax and I called. The guy to my left did have aces, and the other guy had tens. Of coarse he picked up a third ten on the flop and I was out of that game too. Not that it mattered since the guy with aces would have beaten me anyways.

Game 2

We had three tables of seven players to start the second tourney. My table consisted of 5 people at what used to be our weekly game when we first started playing years ago. When three of those people are at the same table, I'd consider it a tough table. Not what I was looking for.

This one was short and sweet. And by sweet I mean brutally pain full. Like someone just walked up to you out of nowhere and kicks you as hard as they can right in the balls, then walks away. Not that I'm still tilting or anything.

There was one important hand as far as I'm concerned, and this was it. We're at blind level 3 T$15/T$30. I'm in the BB. We started with $T600. I have about that much left, maybe a little more. I haven't been involved in many big pots to this point. I'll go through the hand once, just with the facts, then I'll review with my thoughts at the time. I'm curious you think you could have made it out of this hand with chips.

I have bullets. UTG+1 raises to 60. It folds to me and I call. Flop is king high rainbow. I think it was KJ7. I bet 90, he calls. Turn is a 8. I bet 200. He pushes all in. He has be barely covered. I call. He has pocket kings. The river doesn't help and I'm the first one eliminated from game 2.

Now lets replay that with my thoughts, and let me know what you would do differently.

Preflop: I only call because I didn't want to scare him off. I don't like reraising out of the blinds and out of position. Had someone else called then I would have raised to try to knock one of them out or even take the pot right there.

Flop: When he calls my bet I put him on either AK or KK. I'm trying to convince myself that he has AK and he's going to pay me off, but I have this sick feeling that he has the kings.

Turn: When he pushes all in I'm 95% sure he has Kings. There is also a straight possibility, but there's no way he raises preflop with 9T and then calls my bet on a gutshot. I could see him pushing with AK, but I could also see him getting scared and slowing down when I keep betting. I call knowing full well that I'm beat, but on the off chance that he was overvaluing his top pair, and it cost me.

So do you get away from that hand at all? There are a number of places where I could have done things differently. Preflop I could have raised. I don't think that would have changed the outcome thought because there's I don't see him folding there. Maybe it would have gone further to convincing me he had Kings which would have allowed me to fold on the flop, but I doubt it. I was pretty sure he had kings and called his all in anyway.

Once he flops top set there is no way I can push him off the hand, so can I get away from it? I probably should have folded after he pushed all in. I made the right read, I just bet against what it was telling me. I think the difference between a good player and someone who gets knocked out first in that situation is the ability to make a tough laydown even when they started with the best possible hand.

I don't know. I'm not usually great at making reads but tonight I made two great (if perhaps obvious) reads, one in the side game when I predicted aces and one in game 2 when I predicted kings, and in both cases I went against the reads and busted because of it. Frustrating.



The Aftermath
If I wasn't in a poor enough mood after my craptacular performance tonight the following happens:

I had left my poker chips at our host's house last time since I got knocked out and didn't feel like staying until the end. Since we weren't using my chips tonight, I got to take them home. As I get inside my house and turn to lock the door, the lock on the nice wooden chip case that I have, breaks open spilling 500 chips all over my stairway and shattering the handle of the top tray for the case. Let's just say I might have taken that a little better if I hadn't just finished playing some of my worst poker ever.

Bah.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

September Tournament Summary

Worst. Tournament. Ever.

After skipping quite a few months, we got together tonight for our monthly poker tournament. On the plus side, turnout was great. We had 20 people show even though we were only expecting about 15. On the negative side, I played like crap and won exactly zero dollars.

We played two tourneys. The action started off fast in the first one, with Aaron and EJ seeing a flop of AXX with two diamonds. I don’t remember the exact amounts, but it went something like this: EJ bets, Aaron raises, EJ reraises, and Aaron calls. The turn brings a third diamond, and EJ pushes all-in. Aaron agonizes over his decision for a while before folding pocket aces face up. He obviously put EJ on the flush, but I think that’s a horrible read. EJ is trying to chase away the flush draw and if he had hit the flush, probably wouldn’t have tried to push Aaron out of the pot. Later that night EJ claims to have had AK, which I have no reason to doubt. I think if it wasn’t for the fact that it was the first hand of the night Aaron would have called that bet.

A few hands later Smack makes a large preflop raise and is called by Paul. Smack checks the flop of KJ4 and Paul bets $100. Smack pushes all in and Paul insta-calls. Smack has a set of fours, Paul has pocket aces. The turn is a Q, and the river a T giving Paul the runner-runner flush to cripple smack.

A few hands after that I have Aces when Smack pushes all in. I call, and my rockets hold up, knocking him our first. Maybe I can finally gain on his commanding points lead on our leaderboard. Except that I don’t think I saw another flop rest of the game. I picked up a few small pots preflop, but other than that I sat and folded my J4o, J3o, and 85o’s for about an hour and a half. I swear Jacks, fours, threes, eights and fives were the only cards in the deck. Eventually the blinds put me out of my misery as I just couldn’t get anything going. Despite my overly tight uber folding performance I finished in 7th, which isn’t horrible, but isn’t exactly anything to be proud of.

Game two went considerably worse. For the first three or so levels my cards were absolute crap. Again I didn’t play a hand, even though my game plan was to loosen up and try to his some flops.

I was beginning to forget what paint looked like when I got KJo with Aaron and Noah in the blinds. As I’m looking at their blinds to try to figure out what level the blinds are at, and how much I should bet, they comment about how I’m eyeing their chips and how I’m probably just raising because it’s them and I’m an asshole. Noah claims that he’ll reraise me if I raise his big blind. Aaron backs up his talk by folding, and Noah just calls.

The flop is K48 and Noah leads out for $200, which is about half my remaining stack. This is why I hate playing pots against him. I have zero read. He could A) Have absolutely nothing, and just be defending his blinds. B) have something average but not great and hoping I missed the flop. C) have a pocket 4s or 8s and have hit a set, or D) have some combination of K48 and a big blind special.

I put him on a pocket pair, and I was hoping it was in the 9-Q range. I raise all in. He calls with AK and IGHN. It was probably a horrible call on my part. There wasn’t much I could beat other than a bluff and I think I put too much weight on the likelihood that he was in fact bluffing. Plus I was frustrated that that was the best hand I had seen since my aces on level two of the prior tournament that I didn’t want to lay down the hand.

I think I was definitely hurt by the fact that I haven’t been playing a lot of poker lately, I couldn’t really get in a groove and play comfortably. Although getting some decent cards every once in a while might have helped. I don’t know.

I’m still thinking about playing the PokerStars Sunday Million Guaranteed tomorrow. I probably won’t since I don’t feel like I’m on the top of my game right now, and I’ll have a fair amount of other distractions, but I really want to play in that tourney at least once, and this may be my best opportunity for quite a while, so I’ll have to see how I feel tomorrow.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com