Live-blogging an UB MTT

All the cool kids do the live-blogging thing. I thought I'd give it a try.

I'm a micro-limit kinda guy, and the $5 MTT ($3500 guaranteed) is my speed. Rather than hit a dive bar, my roommate and I have decided to play poker this evening. He's in a 6-handed SnG as I type this.

7:54pm: Ravioli's almost done. The chianti is breathing. I've borrowed my roommate's The Strokes cd for musical accompaniment.

8:02: And we're off to a flying start, 764 players in total. J2-offsuit. I had seen so much of J2o a month ago that my homegame buddies started calling it 'my' hand. Would've rivered a losing two pair. Losing caller had Q2-suited, pair of twos, queen kicker. I like this table already.

8:06: I like it when the bad preflop player busts the sound one. Min-raise, pot raise, pot reraise. Min-raiser folds, pot raiser pushes, reraiser calls with kings. Pot raiser was playing AJo, and flopped an ace. Please don't move me.

8:09: I defended my blind with KTo, the check-folded when EP bet out on a T-9-8 rainbow flop, and both other players calls. I lack the balls to raise everybody off the hand, due to the straight draws out there. EP wins the hand when they all check the turn, and his A6 hits an ace on the river.

8:11: I get cute and raise in the CO with T9o. Button and a blind call, and the blind bets into us with an all-diamond A-K-x flop. His bet gets it.

8:15: Plenty of multi-handed, limped flops, so I join in with a QT-diamonds. Q-J-7 rainbow flop, I bet 100, get five callers. FIVE. Turn is a 9, putting two clubs on board. Bad-playing big stack bets the pot into me. Apparently I haven't activated my brain yet. I call 600, leaving 670 in my stack. Stoooopid. Ace of clubs on the river, and he pushes. I fold. I suck.

8:19: It's official, I'm bad at this game. I raise in EP with pocket 8's, get three callers and a reraiser. I push what remains of my 670 into the middle, and get called by the reraiser with 9's. I flop a boat and more than double up. I'm back above my starting amount. And vowing to play better poker.

8:21: Folded my BB to a raise and a reraise, pitching A9o. There, that's not hard. 8's versus 10's, and the eights river a straight. Set of tens no good. And the underdog PP wins again.

8:27: The players at my table are addicted to seeing the flop. So this changes my strategy a little, at least until they bust out, or the blinds go up so they aren't as comfortable. I'm going to limp in with hands where I don't want to see 4 preflop callers. Any pocket pair lower than queens.

8:30: That didn't take long. I limped in MP with 9's, and the aforementioned bad-playing big stack potted it from the SB. One caller before me, I call, and there's one call after me. 6-6-3 flop, two clubs. SB leads out with 250 into a 750, and gets a fold. I smell horrid weakness. I push for my remaining 1200, and it gets back to the SB. He thinks. And calls. With two big clubs, right? Wrong. AK-offsuit, red. No help for him, and I've doubled up to 3.3K with the BB at 30.

Against good players, I've probably just gifted my stack to somebody. But we're in a $5 MTT, and we're not good players. (Yeah, even me. I should be out already.)

8:35: Big-stack (un-retarded, probably) min-raises from UTG, and I muck a MP AJo. Big stack wins the hand with A4o, a pair of fours by the river. And the table breaks. Nooooooooooooo!!!!

8:38: New table, I'm the BB with A9o. Two limpers, a small raise, another caller, and I muck. UTG limper pushes all-in for roughly 1.6K, everybody folds. Interesting.

8:40: 3x BB raise from me on the button with The Hammer. SB goes all-in for 2K, shows me AQ-spades after I showed my Hammer. Even more interesting.

8:44: The Strokes out, Kanye West in. Two black kings in EP. Reraiser on the button has me covered. I smoothcall preflop, and see Q-Q-8, two hearts. Check, check on the flop. Ace of hearts on the turn. Fuuuuuuuck. My last ditch bet, 600 into a 900 pot. He raised, making me commit my last 2.1K. I declined, and folded.

8:48: Rockets in the big blind, an EP raiser, and a LP caller. I pretend I'm on tilt, and push. EP calls with jacks. Normally great, except the board reads 6-5-4-3-2 by the end of it. Doh.

8:56: Pocket 6's UTG. Limp. The SB completes, BB raises. It's less than 10% of my stack to call, and he's got me covered. SB folds. J-6-5, two spades. Flopping a hidden set gets my pants snug. He bet the pot into me. Roommate Jeff was lurking over my shoulder and asked "Flush draw? Gonna raise it up?" Nope, time to get greedy. Turn was a brick, and he bet enough for me to call all-in, showing me pocket 4's. The river was the case 6. As better bloggers have written, "Them's quads, beetches." 4.4K in my stack, BB at 60. I'm 77th out of 351. Top 80 paid, and first clocks a sweet $878. That would more than double my online bankroll.

9:03: first break. Kanye is flowing, the wine tastes good, and I feel infinitely better than I did after my QT and 88 retardation. Time to buckle down and money in this bitch. This is the blind level I LOVE, 50/100. This is where it gets expensive for the bad, lucky players who have built up a nice stack. This is where the flame-outs start to happen. Let's try for that not to be me this time around.

9:14: coughed up some chips making a play from the BB. Unraised pot, a MP player and the SB. A-8-7 flop, I bet 200 into a 300 pot. MP thought and called, SB folded. Turn was another ace. Representing ace-small, I bet half the pot. He called. Surely, he must have an ace. Brick on the river, and we checked it down. K9 for me, A2-spades for him. Blah. 3.8K in my stack. On the upside, I almost got trip aces to fold.

9:17: pocket 3's in MP. Unraised pot, 7 saw the flop. Seven! Q-6-2, two diamonds. I didn't flop it, so I dropped it. A4-off takes it from 62-off when the turn and river go A-Q. Three pair no good!

9:21: I refuse to fold when I have plenty of chips and somebody min-raises my BB. I called with 84o. We checked a 9-9-2 flop, then I bet 200 into a 400 pot when the 8 hit the turn. He called, and I check-called for 100 when the river was a K. He showed me... oh yeah, Big Slick. I love you, calling with overcards with one card to come.

9:23: I won a small hand with KK on the button. A bigstacked blind called me with QT, flopped top pair, and min-bet into me. I had planned to make my move on the river, but it was an ace, so I forced myself to call there too.

9:24: New table, I raised it up in LP with A8-spades. Bigstacked blind called me with AKo, and min-bet into me with a Q-Q-J, two diamond flop. I raised him on the flop, he called. He min-bet again on the turn, a brick, and I called. River was a brick, and I couldn't force myself to put a big bet in. 2.2k after that.

9:28: 87o free look at the flop. Q-7-6, two clubs. SB min-bets. (Fuck min-bets!!) I raise 4x that, and the LP limper calls. Turn is the K of diamonds, with two diamonds now on board. I push for about the pot, praying for a fold. Wrong. AQ-diamonds had the best hand and the best draw. Out in 266th.

Ok, so that wasn't a great show of poker prowess. I pick poor spots. And really, I should've not put in another penny after AQ called my flop raise. Call it tilt. Or poor play. I should know better.

And that's another $5 of my poker education. Ignore the last table. Ignore the last hand. This is a new day, a new hand. Think, and play. Even if your instincts are whispering an answer you don't want to hear.