So you wanna race?

I vowed to not limp into any hands in my monthly Friday night game. The field was 23 people, some of them are what I call PFA. They have learned that if you are in a pot, then you must be Post Flop Aggressive if you have the opportunity to bet at the pot first. This takes some finesse, and its something I struggle playing against. But last night, I think I devised a move that would prove to be an interesting foil. Racing. I left my comfort zone and became a move in specialist.

After losing some early hands, I practically folded my way to the final table. I had to be willing to take chances now, so I was pushing all my chips in on any unraised pot when I looked down at a pocket pair. This got me up to 5th with 4 money places. Even though there was a player with less chips than me, I still moved all in with another baby pocket pair and it held up. After making it to third, my luck ran out when I moved all-in against a button raise with A4s, hoping he had 33 or 22 or Kx. He called and flipped over 33. Could not have asked for better since he did not fold, but the flop and cards were all rags and I was out.

Randy was a 3 to 1 chip dog at this point, but came back to take first. His relentless betting after the flop was his key to chip accumulation all night.

My wife lost all her chips on the first hand of the night. She flopped TPTK and got stacked off against a flopped set of 2s.

I wondered all night why I will race when it looks hopeless (and come back on more than one occasion), but not early in the tournament when you could accumulate chips? The answer is, “its how I learned to play”. Early rounds are for survival, late rounds are for either dominating or moving in and doubling up.

The next morning I played in 2 big fields. The first was 450 and I was out 350 when my 88 lost a race to AK. It was over an hour into the tournament and I had slightly LESS than my starting stack. I put a guy all-in with AKo and he calls?! Did not really expect that reaction, especially early, but you need to win races in a big field, so I was glad to not see a higher pair. Still, the K came right away and I lost a race. Still, had I seen his cards, I would have made the same play. In a large field, take some races early. That’s what I was trying this day.

In the giant 6000 person free-roll, I just would not go out. I was on the ropes numerous times, but with 715 players left, I had an avg. stack size (slightly larger). Not great, but defiantly in it. I slow played a lot of hands for value. As expected though, one player had 100k in chips at this point, so you are still looking situations to get chips in the pot with an advantage of any size. Suddenly, there are 480 left and I am behind again. I look for another race… I found a situation that looked like a blind steal from the button. It wasn’t and I was out 416.

I think you need these chips earlier in order to avoid these situations later. Duh.

Cold Decks

Ok, here is the most depresssing thing about poker. I sit down in a tournament of 45 players. I am one of the better players, but still have to work. You start with 100 chips and the blinds are agressive after the first hour. So, I get 99 early and someone calls my big bets to the river and shows a missed st8 draw. So now I have 150 chips. Is it even POSSIBLE that I will never see a playable hand again? You tell me. I folded endless T4o, T4s, 82o, 62c,etc. I even tried to play the hammer on a bluff and even before the flop was raised and reraised. I folded. I had AT (my best hand ALL NIGHT) 3 times (each time in the SB) and by the time it got around to me a player was all-in. Can't call all-in with AT! (At least 1 of the times they saw a flop and I was the THIRD best hand). Everytime I tried to make a move to steal, there was someone with a big raise. I watched to see what WOULD have happened with each hand had I staying in and only ONE all night would have even HIT the flop (62c would have hit a st8 on a flop of 345, but a 2 came on the turn so its possible the raiser on the river had 67s).

I folded my way down to 53 chips and finally with my BB being next, decided to make my final stand with the second best hand I had all night KTo. Got broken by pocket ducks when the flip tripped him. Am I just making excuses? Don't we "have to make our own luck"? Are there times where that just is NOT going to happen? And the next day, do I have to be so depressed about it?

viper poker

I am working on selected aggression, or what I call viper poker. Coiled and ready to strike, you wait for opportunities. Sometimes its cards, sometimes it is weakness. I use it at a SnG where only 1st pays. I tried it today and won a table! This is encouraging. But at the same time, I am out of my comfort zone. I'll have to see how this develops going forward, but being aggressive almost always betting a flop with at least a continuation bet and making a move on a pot when the turn is checked and you against 1 or at the most 2 opponents. It also involves a fairly daring river bet if you think a single caller missed a draw.

I think this is going to be more effective in larger tournaments where people want to play tight and wait for made hands. It also means seeing more flops without the Big Boys (big poket pairs) or AK.

Blog moving here...

I have been keeping a blog recently to track my progress in becoming a competent and winning poker player. After 15 months, I finally think I reached the "competent" stage. I am going to spend tomorrow attempting to set up this page, post legacy content, and get everything up and running.

WPBT HORSE Event

Full Tilt Poker
March 13, 2005

So I played in the HORSE tourney on Full Tilt. I can't believe I almost missed it too. I finished in 10th place. I'm pretty excited about that. I did much better than I thought I would. I was as high as 4th place at one point. I blew it when I got killed on two Holdem hands in Level 16. I pissed away T20,000+ in chips in that round. Oh well. I had fun. I'll write up more later. Until then, thanks for setting this up Iggy!!! The final table is still going on.

Late Night Ring Games

I sat down last night to play some NL ring games while Paul was away enjoying his Foxwoods trip. I sat down kind of late for me since I had to go to work today (I'm wasting "valuable" work time to post this). I logged on around 9pm and played for awhile. Then Iggy showed up to my table. I had a blast playing with him. I don't think we ever played together online (other than tourneys). It was my 1st time. Soon enough, other bloggers sat down and joined the party. Al Can't Hang, Otis, Badblood, and a few others. I was doing well until my KK got cracked and I lost my stack. Re-Buy anyone? I bought back in and stormed back. I caught AA and KK and doubled up both times. Each time, both my opponents called my preflop raise and tried to scare me out of the pot by putting me all-in on the flop. Little did they know I had some monsters in my pocket!! Each time, both guys had top pair Q's. All this happened while Iggy was getting a refill (beer I assume). He came back and the table was in full force with several other bloggers. I was coasting along until AlCan't Hang sat down. He was "effed-up" as he put it. I love playing poker with Al when he's hammered. He was a riot (as always). He took a big hand from me which set me on tilt a little. I lost most of my profits shortly after my hand against him. I limped with A-medium and he called. The flop was A-K-Q. I bet and he went all in. I called. He mentioned something about making a donation to me. Prior to me calling, I had one of those should I or shouldn't I call a drunk Al? You never know what a drunk Al has. I thought he was bluffing. I called. What a mistake. He had two pair and beat my pair / flush draw. Ouch. I don't mind making donations to friends. It's better than losing to some clown, right? Anyway, I was in the process of telling Al to spend my money wisely and as soon as I finished typing my comments, ACH went all in on the flop. By the way, this was the very next hand after he beat me. One person called ACH. ACH had 66 vs JJ (I think) and lost his stack. Ouch my money and Al's money was gone in an instance. Ouch. Al left shortly after that. He was really hammered (so was most of us) plus it was around midnight. As soon as Al left, I kind of went on tilt. Some of my losses were bad beats but some were also sketchy calls on my part. Oh well. Live and learn.



The hammer was dropped several times by a number of bloggers including yours truly! By the way Iggy, the next time you raise $2.79, be warned . . . I will call (lol). You most likely had the "canadian" hammer in the hole! At one point in the night, Iggy caught me with my hands in the cookie jar. We both checked on the flop and I bet the pot on the turn. He re-raised me and I folded. He most likely had nothing. But since I knew I had absolutely nothing, I had to fold. Nice play Iggy.



Badblood joined after Otis and Al. BB made some funny ass comments. He sat down at the table and was real quiet for awhile. Then all of a sudden, he types in the chat . . . "I should've took a piss before I sat down!" LOL. I couldn't stop laughing because he said the same exact thing in the stretch limo in Vegas when we were heading to Sam's Town. Badblood be funny! I signed off not too much later. I played for over 3 hours and had a blast. I knew last night was not going to be a night of profits as soon as the gang showed up. I had a great time though. I haven't been able to sit down at the late night blogger tables because my brother and I can't sit down at the same ring game tables (IP address b.s.). Party Poker won't allow us. And since my brother was away last night at Foxwoods, it gave me a great opportunity to sit down and goof around with everyone for a few hours. Usually, I'm relegated to playing on other tables and being a railbird at the blogger table, so last night was fun. I look forward to the next time. By the way, I'm willing to bet money that AlCan'tHang doesn't remember last night.



On a side note, sorry to SnailTrax for bailing on him last night. I was just saying goonight to everyone when he showed up at the table. I was really tired and played longer than I wanted. Next time Daddy!!!



I need to get cracking on my trip reports.

Home Game

Sunday, September 26th



I played in a poker game at a BBQ the day after Al Can't Hang's party. It was low limit. $3 was the max bet. We rotated the poker games every full orbit around the table. We played 5 Card Draw, Limit Holdem, 7 Card Stud, Follow the Queen, and Guts. Follow the Queen is just like 7 Card Stud but there's wild cards. The queen is always wild. Any card that comes immediately after the queen is also wild but that card can change if another queen comes out. 5 of a kind is frequent in this game. Follow the queen killed me. I had 5 threes and lost a huge pot to 5 Kings. My first 5 cards were 3-Q-Q-5 (wild in this hand)-3 and lost to runner runner 5 Kings. Ouch. I lost a $60 pot. I won most of it back in a game called Guts. There's a progressive pot that builds up after a while. I hit the hand that won the biggest progressive pot of the night. And I did it with A high. I beat everyone including the ghost hand. Gotta love that. We had one buy-in and one person walked away with all the money at the end of the night. The night ended when the heads up play turned to NL Holdem. Q's full beat 6's full and ended the poker game. I drank alot of alcohol at the BBQ and ate even more food. I had a great weekend. I also made plans with my brother to go to Las Vegas. Vegas can't come any sooner!!