O-Poker

Heads Up Challenge
I signed up to play a heads up challenge against a group of other bloggers. (I guess I need to pratice my heads up skills.) Should be a lot of fun. I have played 3 heads up SNGs in the last month, one heads up match at a final table of a MTT for a win, and several times heads up at the end of full table SNGs. I liked johnybax's response when a railbird came to our tourney table a couple of nights ago and asked if he plays heads-up. His response, "I play heads up 3 to 5 times a day at the end of mutli-table tourneys." The funniest part of his response is that any given day that could be a true statement for bax. He is a chip vacuum in tourneys and ranked #1 by pocketfives for a reason.

Anyway, the heads up tourney has 16 entries and everyone puts up $25. Top 4 are paid - $200, $100, $50, $50. You are matched up with someone each round and play the best of three $5 heads up SNGs – winner advances. I get to play the winner of the last heads up challenge (tripjax) in the first round. I will either get some respect in the second round or be quickly forgotten. You can click here for all the details and match ups - heads up challenge. I will put links to all the challengers blogs soon, but screwed up the first time I tried. I am website challenged.

Bubble Boy
I played two satellites last night. The first one was a $73+$7 for a seat into the Saturday MTT $650 WPT Super Satellite. The tourney had 58 entries and paid 6 seats, 7th gets $175, and 8th gets $165. I busted out in 9th place. The guy to my left was going all in almost every time I limped or raised from the small blind. I was last in chips with 3,800 chips, but the blinds were still manageable at 300/600. I picked up 1010 and raised 3xBB. He pushed all-in and I called. He had A9. I was out on the bubble in 9th when the board came KKJJ8. Ugh, hard way to go.

The second satellite that I played was the $36+$3 MTT for a seat into the Sunday $215 tourney on pokerstars or $215 tourney dollars which can be used for any pokerstars tourney or SNG. The tourney had 88 players and paid 14 spots and 15th got $122. I was rolling along pretty good and then went card dead when we got down to two tables. The play was horrible. The small stacks at both tables were folded around to several times. When we reached the bubble the short stacks probably survived about 10 all-ins in a row. Suddenly, I was in big trouble. Any short stack loses one of their all-ins and I get my seat. The blinds were now 600/1200 and I needed to get a hand because the big stack at the table was all in almost every hand. I folded the 47o that I got in the big blind after two were all in behind me. The shorter stack won. Next hand in the small blind I get A10 and have no choice but to call the big stack – I was down to $1,250 in chips after posting the small blind. Big stack had 78 and the board came 23456 and I was out in 15th for $122.

Two satellites, 4 hours in front of the computer, Net profit $3!!!