Poker Ramblings of cmitch

Contact Info:

cmitchpoker@gmail.com

FTP T$, Upgrades, and BBT3

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Wow!! There is a lot going on at FTP.

Their new software upgrade just came out. The biggest additions are Tourney Dollars (T$) with an instant conversion to cash for a 5% commission (similar to 3rd pokerstars T$ exchange sites), auto top off of your stack in cash games (weeeeeee), no chat in all-ins or larger tourney final tables, Bracelet Races/WSOP packages starting soon, etc, etc.

Click here for a link to FTPDoug's FTP Answers 2/28 thread on 2+2

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BBT 3 is on!!!



Another big WOW!!! What can I say? Al has gone overboard in getting you truly awesome prizes for the Battle of the Bloggers 3!!!

Here is a sampling of the prizes in this series (straight from his blog):

"- 100% of the money used for tournament buyins will stay with that prizepool (with the exception of knockout tournaments). Full Tilt is not taking extra juice from the buyins to fund these prizes. That means we are going to have some monster payouts in each individual tournament on top of the prizes provided by FTP.

- We are going to be tracking the leaderboard throughout the entire challenge and will be paying out money plus FTP swag to the top players at the end. Below is how we will payout the final standings at the end of the challenge ($2,600 in prize money):
1st - $750
2nd - $600
3rd - $500
4th - $400
5th - $350
6th - 20th on the leaderboard will receive an FTP Jersey
Below is the formula we are using for the point system, top 25% of each tournament field will receive leaderboard points:
Points = 10 * [sqrt(n)/sqrt(k)] * [1+log(b+0.25)]

Where:
n is the number of entrants
k is the place of finish (k=1 for the first-place finisher, and so on)
b is the buy-in amount in dollars.
The leaderboard will be updated daily then loaded on BBTChallenge.com and on FTP's promotion page.

- In addition to tracking the overall leaderboard, we will also have a Player of the Month for March, April and May. The player who earns the most points during the events of that month will win one of the $2,000 WSoP Bracelet packages.

- The rest of the seats will be awarded at the end of the challenge in a Tournament of Champions. For the ToC We will be awarding the two Main Event seats and the remaining two $2,000 WSoP Bracelet packages. All you need to do in order to qualify for the Tournament of Champions is win one of the scheduled events during the next three months."
Go read up on all the details over at his blog!!! He is the M-Fing Man!!! I guess I'll be playing more tourneys that normal the next few months.

Been Too Busy

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

I checked my iron man points today to see if I could still qualify for Iron Level (have already qualified for Gold) this month and something immediately jumped out at me. I've hardly played any poker in the last week and a half.

I didn't play on Feb 20th but was credited 200 pts because it was one of the outage days. I was out of town unexpectedly on 2/20 and 2/21. I think that I literally played just enough on Friday night to get the 200 pts. I worked on Sunday night. I played the 50/50, a $26 tourney and the MATH on Monday. I guess I busted out of the MATH after midnight because I went out last night and didn't play. I am sitting at work at 6:30 PM writing this, so I'm not sure if I will get to play today.

Hopefully, I will slow down and get a chance to play a lot this weekend.

LOL - Big difference in the amount of play before and after 2/17


I've been really busy, so I haven't had much time for poker or posts. Hopefully things will slow down by the weekend.

In the meantime, I thought this was freaking hilarious. I can't believe how many famous people he got involved in the skit. (I'm sure a ton of you have already seen this.)


Live Life to the Fullest

Friday, February 22, 2008

A must watch video.

Busy Work Week

I was planning to try to get in a lot of hands this week, but then work got in the way. I got a call Tuesday afternoon from one of our clients asking what I had going on for the next couple of days.

Me: “Ummmmm, Why?” (while trying really hard to come up with some good excuse)

Client: “We need you to fly to San Antonio tomorrow for a project and fly back Thursday.”

Me: “Ummm, uhhh, ummm, when? What? Where? Ummm, When?”

A few hours later I was booking my trip. It wasn’t going to be as bad as I initially thought. One guy had to be back in town by 6 PM last (Thurs) night, so we booked a flight that left San Antonio at noon.

Our return flight was San Antonio to Houston to Orlando. We showed up at the airport around 10:45 AM, checked out flight status and it read that it was delayed 30 minutes. We would be cutting it close since our layover in Houston was only 45-50 minutes. We hurried through the security strip search (not quite, but it feels like it sometimes) and when we got to the other end an announcement came across the PA system: “Flight XXX has been cancelled.” Ummm, uhhhh, ummm, when, What? Where?

We quickly went back to the check-in desk and booked a new flight that was supposed to leave around noon also. It was a direct flight that had 2 intermediate stops. San Antonio to Dallas to New Orleans to Orlando. To make a long boring story a little bit shorter, we arrived in Orlando 2 ½ hours after we were scheduled on a flight that departed 1 hour late and waited on the Dallas runway to takeoff for 45 minutes. Good thing I got three servings of peanuts though.
I’m not sure how traveling salesmen handle it. I would go crazy after of couple of months of traveling like that.

I didn’t log onto the internet the entire trip, so I am obviously way behind on reading blogs and forums, didn’t play any poker and didn’t get a chance to put up any posts. I'm going to try and catch up a little today.
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Quantity vs. Quality

I’m wondering if my posts as of late have been sounding to woe is me. Maybe I have been whining too much about the coolers, bad beats, etc (even though I’m trying not to post them anymore.)

A comment by TheRealDMoney made me think:

“Not that i know either way but the feeling i've been getting is your cash game has had alot more variance in it over the past couple months then i've noticed previously.
Have you just been playing without reviewing hands and stats etc?
Or have you been putting in the time to keep your A game up?
What has been your main game? 1/2NL 6max? or have you been jumping around levels alot as well as table sizes (HU, 6max, 9 or 10 handed etc).
Just curious.”

The short answer is that I have been trying to concentrate more on quality vs. quantity. At times, I have been guilty of not playing my best because I wanted to get hands in when I should have been sleeping or doing something else. I have played while watching TV or doing other things.

I’m guessing TheRealDMoney’s comment had been brewing but he finally posted it when I said, “think that I'm going to limit myself to 1 or 2 tables if I'm doing something else (watching TV, talking to my wife, surfing the internet, etc, etc, etc) and 4 tables max if I am playing without any distractions. No more 6 tabling until at least the end of the month.”

I guess that sounds a little negative. I posted it because I have been letting distractions get in the way. There is no way I can play my “A” game on 6 tables while watching TV and carrying on a conversation with my wife. I also noticed that my reads start to drop off after about 1 hour if I am playing 6 tables. This is why I decided to strictly limit myself to either 2 or 4 tables for the rest of the month.

I don’t think that my cash games have had any more variance than normal for the past month or so. I did experience quite a bit of variance a few months ago though. I took time out and really reviewed a lot of my losing and winning hand histories, found some leaks and plugged them. The last month or so has been decent (cash game wise), but I haven’t been playing nearly as many hands as I would like so the ups and downs may appear magnified even though they aren’t.

The biggest thing (leak) that I am still working and still have problems doing is leaving a table if a good hyper-aggressive player has position on me. Sometimes, I put myself in unnecessarily difficult spots that could be avoided by just moving to a better table.

I address each of TheRealDMoney’s questions:
Have you just been playing without reviewing hands and stats etc? – Sometimes. I am trying to make a concerted effort to review the previous session before playing the next.

What has been your main game? 1/2NL 6max? or have you been jumping around levels alot as well as table sizes (HU, 6max, 9 or 10 handed etc). My main game is currently 2/4nl 6 max. I spent a lot of time jumping into SNGs, FTOPS sats, FTOPS tourneys and some random mtts earlier this month and had poor results. I was kicking myself because, I knew that I should have just stuck with the cash games and I’m sure some of that frustration has come across in the blog.

As far as comparing the variance, the more hands that you put in the smaller the variance looks on a graph. The two graphs below show a month where I played 50k hands (10/07) vs. this month’s 12.8k hands. At first glance, the variance on the 50k hand graph looks much smaller than the 12.8k hand graph. This isn’t the case though. The 50k hand graph has a 10 buy-in downswing, but the biggest downswing on the 12.8k hand graph is only a little less than 6 buy-ins. In theory, if you carried the current month graph out through 50k hands it would wind up with approximately the same total for 50k hands as my October graph.

October 2007 graph (with 10 buy-in Downswing)


Feb 1-20, 2008 Graph (with 6 buy-in downswing)



I like comments like TheRealDMoney’s because they really make me go back and review aspects of my game. After reading through my last few posts, his comment, and my recent thoughts (see last post), I am focusing on Quality vs. Quantity. I’m going to work really hard to keep from falling into to playing in robot mode.

Me No Likey Elevators & Random Stuff

Monday, February 18, 2008

FTOPS/Tourneys

First of all - I hate the FTOPS. I played the Main Event and never really got much going and wound up going out with a flush versus a full house. I played a few other tourneys without cashing - I forgot how frustrating they can be.

I think that I am only going to play cash games for the rest of the month. No tourneys other than a blogger tourneys and maybe a few smaller buy-in tourneys for a break from the cash grind.

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Multi-Tabling

I have been playing anywhere from 1 cash game table to 6 cash game tables at a time. I think that the optimal number of tables for me is four as long as I am focusing 100%. I can play 6 tables but wind up missing some reads and playing too tight, especially if I'm not 100% into playing. I think that I'm going to limit myself to 1 or 2 tables if I'm doing something else (watching TV, talking to my wife, surfing the internet, etc, etc, etc) and 4 tables max if I am playing without any distractions. No more 6 tabling until at least the end of the month.

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Blog Links

The bloglines links on the right are pretty out of date. I am going to go through them and delete the dead blogs and add some long over due links.

Let me know if you want me to add your link. I know that there are a lot that I am missing.

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Old Elevators are Scary



This isn't poker related but I have been meaning to post it for a while now.

A few weeks ago, I was on an inspection of an 18 story beach condo for a legal case. A ton of people were on the walk through - lawyers for both sides, architects, engineers, a rep from the insurance company, etc, etc. I think that there were 13 people including the property manager.

We had been taking the elevators in shifts - usually 7-8 max people on each trip. About halfway through the day, we were heading from the 8th floor to the 12th floor. Three guys took the stairs while we were waiting for some people to come out of one of the condo units. I almost followed them but I was waiting for one of the guys to come out of the unit. Just then the elevator opened. Nine of us piled on. One person was still standing outside the elevator and the property manager said, "We can fit one more.", so she squeezed on.

The property manager pressed the button for floor 12. The elevator started to go up, stopped, dropped a couple of inches and then stopped again. I thought, "Great, we are stuck in the elevator. I wonder how long before we get out of this thing?" A few minutes later my thoughts changed to "Get me off of this freaking elevator!!!!" The elevator tried to go up again, but instead it dropped about 6" and then the brakes caught. About 30 seconds later it did the same thing again. Then again about 20 seconds laters. Then again about 15 seconds later. The 6" drop repeated about every 15 seconds for a few minutes!!

The insurance rep (half) jokingly said, "I hope everyone's life insurance is paid up."

The property manager who had been there since the building opened called the maintenance guy on her phone and said, "Yeah, I've never seen the elevators do anything like this before." That is when I started to get really nervous. Did I mention that she had been there since the building opened. I pressed the 8th, 9th and 10th floor buttons in hopes that the elevator may open on one of those floors. She said, "I wouldn't press those buttons if I were you." LOL - wtf. Should I just wait until we drop all the way to the basement? :)

Shortly after this exchange, she found the key and was able to stop the elevator. A few minutes later the maintenance guys were able to open the elevator and we climbed up a few feet to safer ground. Weeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We dropped probably between 1 and 1 1/2 floors while we were on the elevator - pretty scary stuff. One of the guys said it was probably one of the three scariest moments of his life.

I decided to take the stairs for the rest of the day and took the stairs the entire day on the next project that we walked.. I need the exercise anyway.

A Royal Roller Coaster

Thursday, February 14, 2008

I had a crazy night at the tables (400nl). I went up two buy-ins right out of the gate but then things started to fall apart. Nothing was working - I won't go into all the gory details because I am trying to keep from posting bad beat, suckouts, coolers, etc. By the end of the night, I managed to claw my way near my high point of the night thanks in part to the Royal Flush below. It's nice to get a Royal Flush, but it is even better to get paid off when you have a Royal.

Graph of roller coaster night


Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Seat 1: ($896.40)
Seat 2: Sitting Out
Seat 3: ($394) -
Seat 4: ($402) -
Seat 5: ($420.50) -
Seat 6: cmitch ($394)


PRE-FLOP:
Seat 4posts small blind $2
Seat 5 posts BIG blind $4
Dealt To: cmitch


RAISE cmitch ($14)
CALL Seat 1 ($14)
All FOLD

FLOP:
Pot: $34


BET cmitch ($24)
CALL Seat 1($24)


TURN:
Pot: $82


CHECK cmitch - Please bet. Please bet.
CHECK Seat 1 - ugggh - might be tough to get paid off on this hand

RIVER:
Pot: $82


BET cmitch ($72) - Let's take a stab and hope he bites.
RAISE Seat 1 ($200) - Bingo looks like he has a big hand - crossing my fingers that the river filled him up.
RAISE cmitch ($356)
CALL Seat 1 ($156)


SHOWDOWN:
cmitch:

MUCK Seat 1

cmitch collected $791 from main pot with a Royal Flush

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $794 Rake: $3

Final Board:


Seat 1: Seat 1 mucked [Jc Td] - a full house, Tens full of Jacks - Net Gain/Loss: ($-394)
Seat 6: cmitch showed [Ah Qh] and won 791 with a Royal Flush - Net Gain/Loss: ($397)


Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

If it seems fishy it probably is

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

The villain seems to float a lot and plays ATC from the button. I had seen him make a quick pot size bet on the river from the button a few hands earlier with bottom pair, no spade on a board that contained 4 spades. He was called by another player with 2nd pair, no spades. My general impression was that he would bet every time someone checked to him after they had bet earlier streets.

Full Tilt Poker Game $2/$4 - No Limit Hold'em
Seat 1: ($196.40)
Seat 2: ($445)
Seat 3: cmitch ($400)
Seat 4: ($725.70)
Seat 5: Villain ($434.90) - running 39/14/2 over small sample
Seat 6: ($1,328.20), is sitting out

Seat 1 posts the small blind of $2
Seat 2 posts the big blind of $4
The button is in seat #5

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to cmitch [Js Ks]
cmitch raises to $14
Seat 4 folds
Villain calls $14 - Likes to play the button every time; usually raises or 3 bets on the button with any pair/any two big cards
Seat 1 folds
Seat 2 folds

*** FLOP *** [Tc 7s 4c]
cmitch bets $28 - standard contiuation bet against this vilain
Villain calls $28 - I think he is raising almost every time he has any draw or top pair

*** TURN *** [Tc 7s 4c] [9s]
cmitch bets $72 - Was going to give up on the hand, but this card drastically improved my hand.
Villain calls $72 - This kind of threw me off. Hadn't really seen him just flat call a 2nd barrel.

*** RIVER *** [Tc 7s 4c 9s] [Qc] - Made nut straight, but it also completes a flush draw.

cmitch checks - I decide to check and let him bet. I'll make my decision to call based on his action.

Villain bets $320.90, and is all in - He insta-shoved (absolutely no delay). Based on his past actions combined with the insta-shove, I was guessing he had something like 2 pair, missed straight, smaller straight, outside chance of a set, or air. I didn't feel like there was any chance that he had the flush when he insta-shoved.

cmitch calls $286, and is all in - Insta-Called.
Uncalled bet of $34.90 returned to Villain

*** SHOW DOWN ***
Villain shows [5d 4d] a pair of Fours - He might want to find a better hand to float with.
cmitch shows [Js Ks] a straight, King high
cmitch wins the pot ($803) with a straight, King high

SNG Bubble Follow Up

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Thanks for all the comments on the hand yesterday. I was really at a loss for the correct play - especially since it was a turbo sng.

One thing that I forgot to mention - the guy to my immediate right was pretty tight. He had given me walks almost every time. He folded every time someone shoved on his blind except the one time that he had AA. Does knowing that one of the remaining players is too passive for a turbo sng end game change your mind?

To recap, the hand went as follows:

$110+$9 turbo SNG
Blinds 200/400 (go to 250/500 in less than 1 minute)
5 handed - 2 ultra short

Seat 1: beanmo (515)
Seat 2: PokerToronto (115)
Seat 6: bballbilly77 (6,460)
Seat 7: cmitch (4,690)
Seat 8: wpm65 (1,720)

wpm65 posts the small blind of 200
beanmo posts the big blind of 400
The button is in seat #7

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to cmitch [Qs Td]
PokerToronto calls 115, and is all in - obviously no choice for him
bballbilly77 folds - big stack
cmitch calls 400 - I call to hope to knock out both shorties
wpm65 raises to 1,720, and is all in - not sure why he didn't just call
beanmo calls 115, and is all in - obviously no choice for him

cmitch ?????

Several people commented that I should have pushed instead of limping. I disagree. If we knock out the two short stacks then we are itm. I thought that the button would also limp and we could get into a 4 way pot with a great chance to knock out both of the shorties. It looks like Hoy and Kaja (and probably Fred and Mike) were the only ones that felt the same way.

It is 1,320 to call. If I call and lose then I am sitting at 2,970. If I call and win, I am heads up about even in chips. If I fold, I am left with 4,290. If I call there is a very good chance both ultra-short stacks go out and we are itm.

I was really hoping someone would run the math for me. I tried to run 22+, AJ+ vs. Q10o vs. random vs. random and I think I broke pokerstove. I never could get it to work. It had run 14 billion scenarios and said that it was still 0% complete!!

So what did I do?

I was playing to win. I felt like his range was any pair and AJ+. I wouldn't mind getting in with Q10o against two random short stacks hands and 22-99 or any two non Queen face cards. Also, given the fact that the blinds were going up the next hand, there were two short stacks all-in, and I had a passive player to my immediate right I felt like calling was probably close to correct. If I win, I am in great shape to win the sng. If I lose, is having 3k chips really that different than having 4k chips when the blinds ae 250/500? It is pretty much push or fold time at that point anyway.

I ran into one of the hands in his range that I was worried about, but got very lucky.

cmitch calls 1,320
wpm65 shows [Ad Qd]
beanmo shows [3d 5c]
PokerToronto shows [Kc 8d]
cmitch shows [Qs Td]
*** FLOP *** [9s 9h 6s]
*** TURN *** [9s 9h 6s] [Th] - BOOM!!!
*** RIVER *** [9s 9h 6s Th] [9c]
wpm65 shows three of a kind, Nines
cmitch shows a full house, Nines full of Tens
cmitch wins side pot #2 (2,410) with a full house, Nines full of Tens
beanmo shows three of a kind, Nines
cmitch wins side pot #1 (1,200) with a full house, Nines full of Tens
PokerToronto shows three of a kind, Nines
cmitch wins the main pot (460) with a full house, Nines full of Tens
PokerToronto stands up
beanmo stands up
wpm65 stands up
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 4,070 Main pot 460. Side pot 1 1,200. Side pot 2 2,410. | Rake 0
Board: [9s 9h 6s Th 9c]
Seat 1: beanmo (big blind) showed [3d 5c] and lost with three of a kind, Nines
Seat 2: PokerToronto showed [Kc 8d] and lost with three of a kind, Nines
Seat 6: bballbilly77 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 7: cmitch (button) showed [Qs Td] and won (4,070) with a full house, Nines full of Tens
Seat 8: wpm65 (small blind) showed [Ad Qd] and lost with three of a kind, Nines

I think that the math would probably dictate a call, but am not 100% sure. I guess I felt like the possibility of being in position to win the sng heads up out weighed having 3k vs 4k chips with 250/500 blind levels.

I went on to win heads up a few hands later.

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BTW - go congratulate Hoy for his 3rd place finish in the FTP 50/50. Awesome job!!! Now is a great time for him to be getting back into his groove with the WSOP sats right around the corner.

SNG Bubble Advice

Monday, February 11, 2008

I am not sure of the correct play in this situation. Hopefully, some of the better SNG players can give me some advice on the right play since I don't play many SNGs.

$110+$9 turbo SNG
Blinds 200/400 (go to 250/500 in less than 1 minute)
5 handed - 2 ultra short

Seat 1: beanmo (515)
Seat 2: PokerToronto (115)
Seat 6: bballbilly77 (6,460)
Seat 7: cmitch (4,690)
Seat 8: wpm65 (1,720)

wpm65 posts the small blind of 200
beanmo posts the big blind of 400
The button is in seat #7

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to cmitch [Qs Td]
PokerToronto calls 115, and is all in - obviously no choice for him
bballbilly77 folds - big stack
cmitch calls 400 - I call to hope to knock out both shorties
wpm65 raises to 1,720, and is all in - not sure why he didn't just call
beanmo calls 115, and is all in - obviously no choice for him

cmitch ?????

It is 1,320 to call. If I call and lose then I am sitting at 2,970. If I call and win, I am heads up about even in chips. If I fold, I am left with 4,290. If I call there is a very good chance both ultra-short stacks go out and we are itm.

I'm sure someone can tell me the mathematically correct play here keeping in mind the short stacks, the blinds about to go up, and the crazy aspect of the end game of a turbo sng.

Blogger Deep Stack Cash Game Recap

Thursday, February 07, 2008

Gnome had a great idea in setting up a Blogger Deep Stack Cash game. I wasn't sure how much of a turnout he would get for a 4/8nl cash game with a min/max buy-in of $800/$1,600. I wasn't even sure if I was going to play because I am trying to only play within my current online bankroll. I try to play with a min of 20 buy-ins even if it is just a one time game. That would mean a minimum of $32k ($1,600 x 20) to play the game somewhat comfortably. Eventually Fuel talked me into to playing. I decided to only buy-in for $1k, not reload, and leave if I lost my original $1k. Obviously that is a poor way to approach a game, but oh well.

The turnout was better than I expected:
weak_player - not sure if I have the right link since the blog was last updated 1 year ago.
smizmiatch - The host
RecessRampage - I figured he had the biggest advantage since he has probably logged more full ring hands than most.
Fuel55 - Dead Money :)
Bone_Daddy84 - Didn't know much about his cash game play before this game.
RakeFeeder - same as bone daddy - wasn't sure about his cash game style.
Waffles - Weeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!! Helped liven up the game and played fairly well, but probably a few too many hands for a full ring game.
thepokergrind - Same as Bone Daddy and Rake Feeder
Me - calling station

I went into the game with the idea of not playing any big pots unless I had a monster. I planned to pick up the small pots that looked to be easy picking, play big pots with big hands, and take some pots away from anyone that got a little too aggressive. Nothing earth shattering there.

I only had a couple of interesting hands.

Hand 1 - The first hand of any interest happened in the first few orbits. I called (in position) gnome's preflop raise with 67s. Everyone else folded. Flop came Ah5h10d. He led out for $50. The bet seemed a little weak to me for some reason. Maybe he had bet bigger on previous flops. I'm not sure. So, I decided to try to take down the pot right there. I raised to $152 figuring that he couldn't continue without an Ace. He re-raised me. (I guess I shouldn't have told him before we started that I wasn't reloading if I lost my stack.) I folded and he showed 66. Nice play and the best hand!!!

Hand 2 - I was dealt 1010 in the SB and decided to disguise my hand my flat calling thepokergrind's late position pf raise. Flop was pretty good for my hand - 9s8s9h. He made a small bet and I flat called with the intention of check raising a good turn. Another good card came for my hand - 7d. I checked planning to c/r and he bet pot. I figured the pot size bet for either a bluff/semi-bluff or a monster. If I c/r the turn, he is probably folding most hands I beat and shoving hands that are beating me or shoving a big draw (straight and flush draw). I decided that the best risk/reward was to just call and see what the river brings. I couldn't be worried about letting him catch up. The river was perfect - 9d (put trips on the board). If he had an overpair or a 9 then so be it. It may look weak, but I felt like checking was the most +EV play. It gives him the opportunity to bet if he missed his draw. He bet pot and I called - again no reason to raise because only a better hand would be calling my raise. He had QJo and I won a decent sized pot.

Hand 3 against Waffles - The table had been pretty tight and I think that I had a tight image at the time, so I raised from the CO with 78o. Waffles called. Flop came 77K. He donk bet into me. I flat called. Turn was 10h. He led into me again for a little less than pot. I flat called again. I think this is where I made a big mistake. I should have re-raised him and he might have shoved a hand like AK, KQ, or flat called with a weaker King. I felt like he might make another pot sized bet on the river. The river had to be a scare card for his hand - Qh. He checked and I made a bet small enough that I thought he might call. He thought and folded. I'm not sure what he had, but I would guess Kx or something like 88 or 99.

Hand 4 - Not much to say other than I could have lost a lot more here. Opponent was one of the non-bloggers at the table.

I finished up around $400 from a high point of about $700. Weak Player was the big winner thanks to getting all in with a set over set and flopping a set of 2s against AA. Fuel played great but ran into some horrible situations like flush vs flush.

Here is the win/loss of the players in the game (including the non-bloggers at the table):

























I had a great time playing and I'm looking forward to the next time gnome gets one of these going.

FTOPS Starts Tonight

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

About a month ago I put up a post with the events that I want to play. I have played three or four sats and have qualified for one of the tourneys so far - FTOPS #1. I'm going to try to play a few more sats over the next week and hopefully qualify for some more events.

Below are the events that I hope to play:

FTOPS #1 $216 NL Holdem - Qualified last night in the $55 super sat. I'm exhausted today because my son is sick and was coughing a lot last night. I guess I'll have to get the caffeine ready.

FTOPS #9 $322 NL Holdem (Sunday) - I've tried to qualify for this one twice without any luck.

FTOPS #10 $1,060 NL Holdem 6 Max (Monday) - I may play one or two of the turbo $163 sats. I'm not 100% sure that I want to play this one since I am usually exhausted on Monday nights.

FTOPS #18 $2,620 NL Holdem 2 day event (next Sat-Sun) - I haven't really seen any sats to this one other than the turbo on the start day. Anyone know if they are planning on having any sats to this one? I would like to play, but I'm not sure a $500 turbo sat is the best use of funds.

FTOPS #20 $535 Main Event - Will probably wait until next week to play sats for this one.

If I get the urge, I may play a few other events but it is tough to play any during the week because the finish so late/early depending on how you look at it.

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I played the first round match of the HUC6 and pretty much got worked over by ck31. I lost two straight turbos to her mainly due to my over aggressive poor play.

I'll be rooting for her to beat up on Fuel in the next round.

January Recap

Monday, February 04, 2008

I worked a lot in January and had to deal with a ton of work related stress (not going into the work stress details on the blog). As a result, I didn't get in as many hands as I wanted to. There were times that I didn't play as well as I should. There were quite a few bad beats and coolers, but I also sucked out a few times. I had nights were I felt like rant posting and putting up all the set over set hands, especially when it happened on two tables within five minutes. I didn't post them and won't because I am trying to steer clear of bad beat/coolers posts. No one wants to read them.

I think I can sum up Jan. in three words....

Break even sucks!!!

I had some big swings and never really could get things going. I am trying to do a better job of table selection and I think I did well in that area. It definitely played a part in the swings though because I getting all in a lot more often against some weak players and you can only win so many 65/35 or even 80/20 situations.

Overall Results
Target Hands for year = 275,000
Hands Played in Jan = 14,105 (7k short of avg monthly target)
Target ptbb/100 = 5.0
200nl ptbb/100 = 4.92
400nl ptbb/100 = -4.82 (small sample though - 4k hands)
Overall Win/Loss = $468 (obviously disappointed)

My plan for Feb is to play only 200nl until I get at least 15k hands of 200nl. I'll re-evaluate after that.

200nl - I focused on playing less tables towards the end of the month and it really paid off.

200nl graph (Jan)


400nl - Lots of swings. The big spike down at the end was the two set of sets within a few minutes of each other plus a few other hands.

400nl graph (Jan.)

Overall Graph (Jan.)