Full Tilt Poker 17k and the Mookie

I played in three tournaments yesterday. First, there was an FTP 18 player sit and go for a $26 token, I managed to score a token in that one only because Smokkee was in the same game -completely unbeknownst to me until it was down to 9 and I saw him directly to my left. Myself and two other guys had been fighting for the bubble for a good ten minutes when Smokkee apparently got tired of the pusstastic play and made a move. He ended up getting the $14 prize, which was damn decent of him, since I probably had no shot of getting through the other two short stacks without that (actually, the blinds would have forced both of them all in on the next orbit, but they would have forced me all in too. The blinds would have gotten to me last, but if either of the Continue reading Full Tilt Poker 17k and the Mookie

A thought on poker odds

There are all sorts of “odds calculators” and the such available on the internet. Hand odds, pot odds, odds of spilling your beer on your keyboard when you get a royal flush (I think I made the last one up, but who knows), etc. I am here to tell you that they are all a bunch of bullshit. I will give you an example: What are the odds that the guy at the table had a pair of kings when I had a pair of jacks? 100% I know because I played the hand, any “odds calculators” are talking out their ass. Is there a flaw in my thought process here?

Cindy Crawford + Alec, Daniel, Stephen, William Baldwin = something…

There really isn’t ever much on television at two in the morning. Last night I wasn’t tired enough to sleep and found myself flipping through channels. Alas, I had already seen all of the infomercials a couple of times (let me tell you, that Oxi Clean: Orange Action stuff isn’t worth nearly the 19.95 I paid for it, but they were giving away so much free stuff with it I would have been a fool not to order it) so I found myself at the high end of my Satellite’s channel list, looking at a free preview for the E! Action channel (at least I assume that is what it was, the channel tag said “eactn”). I had just finished watching The Butterfly Effect on that channel, and it was pretty good, so I figured I would give the next film a go as well. Of course since it was Continue reading Cindy Crawford + Alec, Daniel, Stephen, William Baldwin = something…

My first real MTT final table

I have been following what I assume to be the natural progression of the on-line poker player for the last couple of months. I have gotten to the point where I can finish in the money in a single table sit and go just by outlasting a few donks and outplaying a couple veterans. Of course the money in a single table sit and go isn’t that great unless you are able to finish in first with regularity, which I can’t. I can finish in the money probably half the time, and average second place. That means that I am actually making money, just not very much; I am making about a buy-in per ten games played. Certainly not a money making strategy, but it is good practice. I have been using that small profit to enter some of the larger tournaments with the hopes of improving on them as Continue reading My first real MTT final table

Random observations

I went to a job interview of sorts on Thursday. It lasted from 9:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m.. It was a position where I could have made a great deal of money (easily double my previous income to start) but which required about 20 hours of overtime a week. If I were about ten years younger, I might actually think about something like that, but at this point I am pretty sure that I don’t have it in me to work that many hours -and especially not with a two hour commute each way. But damn I need a job. I have realized, albeit about ten years too late, why I was never able to really excel at playing the guitar: I had been trying entirely too hard. I walked into the living room yesterday, picked up the guitar, and belted out part of Yngwie Malmsteen’s song Eclipse. Instead of Continue reading Random observations

Another final table at the WWDN invitational

As the name would imply, I made the final table at the WWDN last night. It was an uphill battle for sure, since my starting table had Smokkee, Hoyazo, Iakaris, and a couple of other people (whose names I can’t look up because I just now realized that I was playing with the beta version of pokerstars and it is set by default to not log history. A value that I had neglected to change). At any rate, Smokkee is the one I was really scared of. For some reason Hoyazo doesn’t scare me as much as he should -it probably has something to do with that cute little smiling avatar, so harmless… I almost went out of the tournament extremely early. If you read my site, you may remember that S.t.B. once said that they way I played a good hand almost got me in trouble. Such was the Continue reading Another final table at the WWDN invitational

When will I ever learn?

I really need to remind myself that when I am losing at poker I need to just quit playing for a while instead of playing my way back to a win. In my experience, if I am on a losing streak, I will continue to lose. Not only because the cards aren’t falling my way, but also because I make bad decisions in what seem (at the time) like decent positions to try to steal my way back into it. That never works. Yesterday I played in three tournaments (well four. I also played in the blogger championship and finished 1,024th out of 2,400 entrants, though I was not actually even here to see it. Had I been here, I am sure I would have donked out long before that.), and I performed terribly in the first, which carried over into the second and third. I was playing in all Continue reading When will I ever learn?

Okay, I lied

When I said that I put the guitar back in the spare bedroom never to speak of it again, I was lying. Sue me. I restrung one of them yesterday, ’cause you would be amazed what three or four years of disuse can do to the pretty nickel plated strings, unless you own a guitar, in which case you already know. Then it was time to Shred! Well, “shred” might not be the appropriate word here, I might be looking for something more along the lines of “Then it was time to hope I didn’t outright suck!” As I sat there plugging away at it, I started to remember bits and pieces of all of the songs that I used to play. I would remember one riff, play it, then try to remember the next part. Of course I could never remember the next part, so I would move on Continue reading Okay, I lied

Dead Cichlids

A little over a month ago, one of my wife’s friends from work gave her an enormous fish tank. I think it is 70 gallons, but I am not quite sure. It is 4 feet long, 15 inches deep, and 20 inches tall if that gives you any idea of the scale. To me, it is just fucking huge. The fish tank came fully equipped, even including fish. The fish are African Cichlids (if you want to know what they look like google it. To me they look like Koi fish, but the also look like Goldfish, so I am not much of a judge). There were 13 of the guys that came along with the tank. Well, obviously not all guys, since many of them were the children of some of the other ones, and I don’t think they reproduce asexually (of course I don’t know, I didn’t actually Continue reading Dead Cichlids

Decisions, decisions

Let’s say that you are playing a game of poker, say, Hold ’em for instance. Is it ever right to make a call when you know with absolute certainty that you are behind in the hand? Say, purely hypothetically, that you have an A-Q suited. Say, equally hypothetically, that it is raised to 3x the BB (which is 100 at this point), and there are a total of 5 callers (myself our hypothetical mark included). It is in a 180 player tournament, there are about 80 people left. Hypothetically, there are about 40 of the people with right around 2,000 in chips and you are one of them. The flop comes up, say 3-A-7 rainbow. First guy checks, you bet 600 (which is a pretty weak bet since the pot is at 1,500, but that is about 1/3 of your stack), next guy calls, then it folds back around to Continue reading Decisions, decisions