Location: Orange County, California, United States
I've been playing holdem for two years now. I play online at very low limits on UB, Stars, and Full Tilt. I've hosted poker at my place since July '04, with a $10 cash game on Thursday nights and a $10 tourney on Sunday nights. Thursdays now alternate between a $20 NL cashgame and a limit HORSE cashgame. Sundays are now $20 rebuy tourneys. Good times.
I enjoyed a limit Omaha/8 sng this evening on Full Tilt - my first attempt ever at one of them. To my surprise, Change100 took the chair two to my virtual left. It was no surprise, however, that she ended up busting me in 5th when I got overly optimistic from my small blind with some sort of please-fold-your-BB-to me trash hand (QJ42ss).
She had chips, and the cards to defend her big blind. Her low was one pip better, and my wishful straight draw never got there.
I felt a little out of sorts at the table. I definitely have a lot of work to do as far as when to continue being aggressive in a hand. Folding at the right times wasn't much of a problem, but betting and raising where it would've helped is on my O/8 "to do" list. I was the table donkey, but screw it, it's a decent $5 lesson.
I took a cheap shot at a Main Event seat tonight. Well, sorta.
Full Tilt has freerolls running on a regular basis. Step 1 is an 1800-person deal where 36 advance. A few days ago, I finished 21st in one of them. That moved me along to Step 2.
Step 2 was tonight. 629 entrants who had to win their way in. Top 9 moved on to the Big Deal Freeroll in late April. That's Step 3, where the top 20 get Main Event seats. Yeah, you can freeroll your way to $10K seats in the Big Dance. How can you not love Full Tilt?
Tonight, I played reasonably well, and finished 67th. I even had the best of it when the BB called my all-in preflop steal. My A4-clubs against his KJo. The river was the ace I needed, but the fourth spade made him a flush.
Thursday night had its normal cast of characters at my homegame. Nothing much out of the ordinary about the nine regulars seated around me. We've played with each other enough to have a good feel for tendencies at this point.
It's a $10 max buy-in game, and Albert and I each had at least $25 in front of us when the following hand came up. Albert raised to a $1 in EP, and Shawn called in position. I had QQ in the small blind, with the aggressive JP Tarheel in the BB. I gave thought to reraising, but decided against it. Shawn's calling with anything. Albert has been quiet lately, so he may have a big hand, or he may have gotten bored and decided to put in an early raise with a suited connector. I thought a call, with the hope of trapping, wasn't the best idea, but a good gamble this one time to mix up my game.
I'm a weak/tight player, and sometimes I feel the need to throw my regular opponents off.
I called, as did JPT. The flop looked good for me, so I checked, figuring on trapping: J-6-6, rainbow. I had a hunch that nobody had a six in their hand.
JP jammed the $4 pot for his remaining $5.50. Clearly, he's got a jack. With any six, I'd expect him to checkraise any bet from Albert or Shawn. I waited expectantly for Albert and Shawn to fold to me, so I could make a fairly easy call.
Then, Albert did something I didn't expect. He called JP's bet. Shawn folded, then I went into the tank. Surely, Albert has made the same read I have - JP has a jack. So, that means that Albert can beat a pair of jacks. There's almost no way Albert would call JP with tens or nines or AK, thinking JP was betting with a baby pocket pair or a stone cold bluff. At the very least, Albert has AJ. KK and AA are much more likely than the other two queens.
I was sure of this laydown, and I had been going out of my way recently *not* to be so damn weak and fold, fold, fold in marginal/bluffable situations. I folded my queens face up, before they showed.
JP had jack-ten. Albert had kings.
Go me.
As a prologue, Russ and Skipper (who had busted out earlier in the evening and were watching Barker play online) asked me, "Why didn't you reraise preflop to see where you were?" It's a valid question, even though I hate the "to see where you were" part. It costs me an extra $3 to reraise preflop, and that's only if I'm smart enough to fold if/when Albert pushes all-in. If I reraise, then decide that my overpair is good later, I stack off to Albert.
And I got really lucky that JP is aggressive, had a J, and my overpair was only one pip better than top pair. If it's a jack, I have kings, and Albert aces... it's rebuy time.
I celebrated my birthday yesterday, treating it as I would any other day off. I haven't had more than one day a week off in a while, and I credit the new schedule for it. This week, I have five bartender shifts, no serving shift. Pretty sweet.
I have absolutely no explanation for my luck during Tier 1 sng's. For those of you unaware, they are $4 single table sng's that pay a $26 tourney token to the winner, and $10 to second. Nothing for third. They also come in $8-turbo and $6 flavors, with two tables condensing to a few chips for the top 4 spots.
(Hey Change!) I've played in six of these now, and have three chips to show for it.
My luckboxing started on the second hand dealt, with some idiot play. I hate min-raises, and responded with a call out of my BB with K6o. I don't know what possessed me to believe my top pair, rag kicker was any good, but I shoved all-in on the turn and my opponent had KJo. The river was my three-outer six, and I had just doubled up in donkey fashion.
Ok, so I've got chips and a horrible table image. Time to do what I do best: fold. Nobody's going to give any of my bets any respect anyway. I played perhaps two hands in the next 3 blind levels, calling a min-raise with 66, then ditching on the all-overcard flop to a bet.
The next hand I raised was jacks, in the cutoff. The BB defended, and I couldn't help but check the flop: Q-J-J. Them is most definitely quads, beeches. A ten on the turn was nice. The turn and river went check-small bet-call. He had KTo. Looks like I could've put in a decent bet on the flop, too.
Heads-up was against the other box of luck at the table, the guy who busted two players with ATo when he flopped and turned a ten against both players' KK. He favored trapping top pair during heads-up play. It bit him in the ass on the last hand. I button-raised with J9-suited, and took my free card when he checked the Q-T-3 rainbow flop. He also went check-call when a 9 hit the turn. He checkraised me for all of it when another 9 hit the river. I called, figuring if he had a better hand, my hat's off to him. He had QJ. He had picked the wrong time to stick in a big raise.
I got my first ever root canal this week, but no good drugs to go with it. Just some not-nearly-as-nice-as-vicadan ibuprofen.
So I've been either sleeping, on drugs, or in pain recently. And I've tried to play poker in this condition. I don't recommend it.
I've had some fun donking around at the $5 HORSE sng's, and recently found the 4-person heads-up double shootout. I won the first one I tried, which probably just caused me to think, "hey this is easy". The next two saw me defeat the first player only to lose after much back and forth in the second match. I was very amused when I defeated the first opponent on the fourth hand and watched the other table to scout out the competition. Still, good fun, and probably a decent tune up for Heads-Up Challenge 3, which I've apparently missed. Oops.
In preparation for the glorious UNC-Duke game, I gave poker-regular John P Tarheel a call to see if he had plans for the game. He did - in the Bay area. He suggested I hit Rudy's in Newport Beach. Plenty of tv's, pitchers of Guinness, and the owner is a Carolina fan!
My roommate drove, I drank Guinness and watched a great game. I even talked trash with the other owner... the Duke fan. It turns out that Rudy's is a huge UNC hangout, but the actual person Rudy is a Duke fan.
After the game, I was pumped. And really buzzed. My roommate suggested we hit the Reraise homegame, in Anaheim. He was driving, I was good to go. Picked up an 18 of Miller Lite on the way.
The Reraise homegame is a very interesting one. I was the first one of the Tustin group to play in it, and it was exasperating. The buy-in is $20, the blinds are 25/50 cents, and the regulars are aggressive to the point of absurdity. Overall, the play was poor, but it was very difficult to navigate all the bluff-raises, semibluffs, and suckouts. The regulars from the Reraise homegame are often seen at my game, busting out early and often, or stacking up copious amounts of chips.
I sat down and was into my 3rd beer when reason left me. EP raiser had already gotten 3 callers, so I closed the betting with T9-hearts from the BB. The flop was 7h-6h-3c, and my buzz bet my whole stack into everybody else in the hand, about $20 into a $16 pot. I got called immediately. And again. Two callers? Crap.
Them, 77 and 33. Top and bottom sets. At least I'm drawing live.
The turn is the 8 of hearts. Excuse me, did I just hit a straight flush? Yes, yes I did.
WOW.
Somebody later remarked that it was the only time in the history of the Reraise game that people were drawing dead by the river.
Play continued with me making several overbets, but never getting crushed in a hand. Amazingly, I ended up for the session.
I ended up in for $20 and out for $108, and I paid for Russ (who drove us home) and Barker at Del Taco. We had had an agreement that the big winner would pony up, and that was me. Though really it's a wonder I didn't bust out, considering how sloshed I was.
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I've also been tabbed by Joe Speaker for the LA cool kids meme thing. I've only lived in the OC for five years, so I'll have to modify it a little.
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I just finished an interesting night of Full Tilt poker. Two wins in $5 HORSE sng's in three tries, and a final table in the $5 late night NL holdem tourney. 8th out of 138 feels nice, even if it is only $20.
