Nice Poker Night

I had a really good night of poker last night. I had plenty of time to myself, since the kiddos were spending the night at my mom's and my bride had to work. I wasn't really sure what I wanted to play, but I was thinking about some SNG action. I logged on to Pokerroom and noticed that the nightly $5+.5 MTT was getting ready to start and didn't look like it had too many players so I jumped in.

MTT Action

The tournament started with 463 players, and 40 would get paid. I really feel like I played well in this tournament. I don't have any big hands to report, because I mostly avoided confrontation in the early going. For a while my table was playing very weakly and I was able to take several small pots uncontested. As the blinds went up I was able to make a few timely steals to stay ahead of them. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to stay ahead of them forever. I lost a moderate pot two hands before the blinds went up to 100/200, and my stack was down to about T2000. I started to feel the pressure and began looking for an opportunity to double up. I found it a few hands later when I was dealt 55 in middle position. I pushed and was called by the button with AQ and the race was on. Unfortunately, he flopped a Q and I was finished - 83rd out of 463.

Overall, I was pretty pleased with my play. I was patient in the middle game and aggressive when I needed to be. Had the coinflip at the end gone the other way, I would've had a pretty good shot at holding on for the money.

Titan IB Status

Alright, what's the deal with Titan? I'm doing the Instant Bankroll there through PokerSourceOnline, and needed to earn 6000 Titan stars to get an additional $25 bonus. I missed the extra bonus by not completing the requirements on time, but I still needed to get 6000 stars to cash out the original $50. Unfortunately, Titan has now replaced the stars system with a new points system so you no longer earn stars for your play. Anybody know what I need to do to cash out now?

My new plan is to get the bankroll back over $50 (min. cashout amount), and then try to cash it out. If I can't, I'm sure they'll be more than happy to let me know. I made a pretty good stride towards that goal in a .05/.10 NL game last night. I bought in for $5, and had almost tripled up when the Mrs. arrived home from work. The bankroll there now stands at $43, so I'm pretty close to the $50 I need. The players at the micro NL games there are awful, so I think I'll stick with that game to build it up.

Family Poker Night
Tonight is the monthly family game at my Uncle's house. I'm ready for a little loosey-goosey rainy day baseball action to get ready for the big Christmas weekend. I'm going to introduce them to Crazy Pineapple tonight, so I'm interested to see how that goes over. I think pineapple will be a good fit for that game.

I'll try to check back in at some point this weekend, but in case I don't - Merry Christmas!

Two Days to Go

After today and tomorrow I'm off work for the rest of the year.  Yup, all next week I will be in my PJs playing poker all day (um, except for the whole visiting with relatives, playing with the kids' Christmas toys, spending time with the family thing).  Maybe I should revise that to say that I'll try and fit some poker into my busy schedule next week.   I had planned on knocking off very early tomorrow, except I now have a 3:30 meeting.  Who in the world would schedule a 3:30 meeting on Friday, the day before Christmas Eve?!  Oh yeah, my boss would.

I'm planning on getting in a ton of poker tonight.  The kids are spending the night at Granny's house, and my lovely bride is working this evening until 10.  Woo Hoo!   Look out PokerStars, here I come.

By the way, I busted out on Party last night.  I decided that I would go for broke with the $30 that remained of my free bonus there, so I played two $10+1 SNGs and bubbled out in both (have I ever mentioned that I detest the SNG format at Party?).  I then tried to take the remaining $8 and build it to $11 for one more SNG attempt.  Alas, my mildly lucky streak at blackjack came to an end and I was successfully able to zero my Party balance.  I don't ever plan to deposit any more money at Party, because I really don't like the site.  If they give me another free bonus in a couple of months, I'll play through it and attempt to cash it out, but that's the only way I'll be playing there.

See ya' at the tables!

Live SNG Results

I just realized that I never posted my results from the men's club tournament last Thursday.  Right after the meeting we started a $20 SNG and ended up with 10 players.  As usual, we agreed to pay first and second place ($150/$50).  I won't go into too many details, but I ended up finishing in second place for a nice $30 profit.  For me, that is about the highest EV game around.  The overlay is huge, because there are three or four players gauranteed to go out early every time.  The 10 player prize pool is only seriously contested by about 4 players - very sweet indeed.

Next live poker will be this Friday at the family home game.  For about six months now, we've been rotating hosting a monthly game with the family.  It's a $.25 dealer's choice game (rainy day baseball is by far the most popular game).  I think I'll introduce them to crazy pineapple this week.  I usually call either hold'em or omaha when I'm dealing, but pineapple is probably better suited for that environment as the third card allows for a little more action and some more interesting decision making.

Good Study Weekend

It's been a good weekend to watch football and study poker.  It's taken a lot of effort, but I've purposely stayed away from the tables over the weekend.  I wanted to really spend some time digesting Harrington's second book , especially the problems around inflection point play.  My plan is to start a personal SNG challenge at a couple of the scattered sites where I have really small bankrolls - $30 at Party, $30 at PokerRoom, $40 at Titan.  I'm going to go for broke and either build the bankrolls to respectable levels at these sites or bust out altogether.  Once that is finished, I will transfer the winnings to Stars and focus my play there.  Stars is #1 in my book, and I'd rather give them my business than any of the other sites that I have played.  I'll still chase a PSO promo every now and then on some of the other sites, but I will pull the money back out as soon as the promo is complete.  The only other possible site where I may play long-term is FullTilt.  I give Stars the edge, but Tilt is right there in terms of software, tournament structure and game selection.

I've learned so much about what I have been doing wrong with respect to the inflection points in my tournament play.  First of all, I've never properly adjusted my play as I fell through the yellow and orange zones.  I always had a pretty good sense that I either needed to go all-in or fold as I got near the red zone, but I never gave as much respect to first in vigorish as I should have.  I'm anxious to take my newfound knowledge back to the virtual felt and test it out in some SNG action - that starts tonight!

Good news on the fatasy football front - my team, the Pack Attack, is in the super bowl for my league next week.  I'm gauranteed a pay day of at least $80 and possibly $120.  The bad news is that in the wake of the Colts' loss yesterday, I probably won't be able to count on much production from Marvin Harrison.  At this point I don't know if he will even play.  Hopefully Johnson and Johnson (Larry and Rudi, my running backs) will have big games and take some of the sting away from not having Marvin.  I've got my fingers crossed, so we'll see.

Lazy Bugger

Say it with me, "L-A-Z-Y, You Ain't Got No Alibi!"

Yup, that's the reason I haven't blogged in a few days.  Not too busy at work.  Not too busy at home.  Just plain lazy. 

I have been making pretty good use of the time at the poker tables though.  I've completed my free $50 welcome back bonus at Party (it looks a lot more like $30 than $50 now, but it was free).  O8 is most definitely the way to go for clearing bonuses on Party, I think.  The .5/1 games are waaaaaay looser than the same limit hold'em games, usually 8 or more players see the flop with little or no pre-flop raising.  It's a virtually lock that approximately 98.996% of the hands will be raked.  Keep nice, tight O8 starting requirements and you'll clear the bonus with pretty small risk.   I dropped $20 while clearing about 75 raked hands of hold'em before I switched over.  I two-tabled O8 and cleared the other 425 hands in a few hours with the bankroll dead even.  The minimum to cash out at Party is $50, so the money is stuck there for while.  Maybe I'll start a personal HU or SNG challenge there to see if I can either build up the bankroll to a respectable amount or bust it altogether.

The only other place I've played recently is Titan.  I've completely given up hope of earning the $25 bonus on the PSO Instant Bankroll promotion there, but all is not lost.  I dropped the banroll so low there, that I wasn't even comfortable playing the lowest limit hold'em games (I was down below $10 at one point).  What to do except blow the rest on a little bit of -EV fun, right?  Well I tried to blow the remainder on blackjack, but the game wouldn't let me lose!  The $10 is now $40 exclusively from playing a couple of sessions of $1 blackjack.  I guess it's back to poker to try and finish earning the 6000 stars I need to even be able to cash the original $50 of IB (I probably only have about 5900 or so to go). 

Tonight is the men's club meeting at church, so I'll have a little live SNG action and a lot of cold brewski.  I don't have any more cousins who are expecting right now, so I should be able to actually make it to the meeting this month <fingers crossed />.

I finally picked up volume 2 of Harrington on Hold'em last week, and so far I am hugely impressed.  I enjoyed the first volume immensely, and I really like Harrington's style.  While many of the topics in volume 1 were covered in some of the other books that I have, volume 2 is unique.  I haven't seen any other book that gives as much quality treatment to the late stages of a tournament.  The discussion of inflection points is easily worth 100 times the price of the two books together.  I'm really looking forward to finishing up the second book and then going back and studying both books together.

That's a wrap for today.  Hopefully I've gotten the laziness out of my system and will be back with ya soon!

Ouch!

I'm not typically one to belly-ache about bad beats and such, but I just have to relay my session on Party last night.  I've never experienced a spell like I went through last night.  I was on a fantastic rush of starting cards - and losing nearly every time!  I really though my mind was playing tricks on me, so I went back and reviewed Poker Tracker after the session just to make sure. 

I was playing two tables at .5/1, and in a little over an hour I saw 134 hands.  I was dealt aces three times and lost twice.  One time my flopped set of aces lost to 6h4h which caught a runner-runner straight flush.  I laughed when it happened, but I laughed a whole lot more at the chat box banter that ensued.  Another player was screaming that the site was rigged and the first player was a mega-fish because his runner-runner flush lost (he had Th2h!).  Both of these 'players' cold called pre-flop raises and a flop check-raise with these hands.  They were both immediately added to my buddy list.  Unfortunately I was two slow with my fingers to get a screen grab of the hand - it would've made a nice decoration for the Cracked Aces blog!

I was dealt kings once UTG, and won the blinds when everybody folded to my raise - I think that was the only hand the whole night on either table that at least 3 or 4 people didn't see the flop.  Lost with queens and jacks, once apiece.  Won once and lost once with Tens. 

For a while it was getting to the point where I was dreading being dealt big pairs, because I just knew that I was going to lose money on them.  The crazy part is that I ended the session close to even.  Just as big pairs were my downfall, little pairs were my salvation.  I flopped sets with deuces and sixes late in the session and won good size pots both times.

Check Out Bestpokerblogs.com

Jordan's High on Poker was recently the blog of the week on bestpokerblogs.com. If you've not been reading High on Poker, go read it now - I'll wait...

OK, now that you're back you should also check out bestpokerblogs.com. BPB provides feeds and reviews of a ton of poker blogs. I probably should stay far away from there, as I already spend more time reading poker blogs in bloglines at work than the law should allow. I can't stay away though. Must. Read. More. Blogs.

Seriously though, thanks to Jason for adding this humble blog to the listings. It's an honor to be included among such talented poker writers.

Nervous in Vegas

I have to admit, I held something back from my initial Vegas trip reports but it's time to come clean.  I mentioned that I was nervous the first couple of sessions, but I didn't go into any detail on exactly how nervous.  I was petrified.

Everything was new, and I didn't have a clue.  Didn't know how to sign up for a game.  Didn't know how (or where) to buy chips.  Whatever you need to do to play live poker in Vegas, I didn't know how.  Prior to the trip, I had minimal casino poker experience.  I had been to Caesar's Indiana exactly twice, both times with a buddie of mine that played somewhat regularly.  And yet here I was in the poker mecca, getting ready to sit down and play against [I imagined] the hungry sharks just waiting to take my bankroll.

Here's a little illustration from the first couple of sessions.  My second night in town, I was playing at the MGM Grand.  About ten hands into the session I picked up KQs in the cutoff and raised.  Four players saw the flop of AJT, rainbow - my nut straight.  BB bet out, MP called, I raised and button folded. BB and MP called.  Turn is blank. I raise MP's bet and BB folds.  River is blank, and the betting is capped between me and MP.  MP turns over AJ for two pair and my straight is good.  No problem, right?

Then the dealer starts pushing a very big pile of chips towards me.  As I begin stacking the chips, the Australian guy across the table says "You OK, mate?"  When I ask what he means, he tells me that my neck is bright red.  My hands were shaking so badly that I could hardly stack.  MP jokes, "I think we've got a pretty reliable tell for when you've got the nuts, right?"  I tried to laugh, but my throat was too dry.

By the end of the trip I was feeling fairly comfortable at the table.  OK, that's a lie, but I was less uncomfortable.  I had the mechanics of the game down enough to start paying a little bit of attention to my opponents.  I was able to get into a rythm and start enjoying the game.  I was finally able to talk and joke with the others at the table and the dealers.  What I learned from the experience is that I really need to play more live poker.  I'm missing out on a lot of fun by sticking to internet only play.  It's much cheaper (and faster) to play online, but it's a heck of a lot more fun playing live.

I bring this up now, because I am insanely jealous of those of you that are getting ready to head out to Vegas for the blogger tournament.  I can't wait to get back to Vegas to play some more, and I really wish that I was going on this trip!  Ah well, maybe next year. 

Churning on Titan / New Bonus at Party

Woohoo!  I've got roots in my sewer line again!  Looks like I get to take tomorrow off from work and rent a power snake with a root cutter on it.  Nothing like spending the morning getting covered with splashback poopie from the main drain line.  Maybe since I'll be off anyway, I'll reward myself by spending the afternoon playing some poker.

Speaking of poker, I just got an email from Party letting me know that they've credited a $50 come back bonus to my account.  Sweet, a bonus that I'll actually be able to clear (500 raked hands).  That's in stark contrast to the Titan instant bankroll promotion.  I've decided that I'm not going to worry about the additional $25 bonus at Titan too much.  I've got a free $50 to play with there, and I'll eventually play through enough to be able to cash it out.  Or I'll bust out.  Either way, once the IB is completed I doubt that I'll be playing at Titan any more.  By the way, I know that I'm nowhere near earning enough Titan stars to even be significant, but does anyone know how I can find out exactly how many I have?  I don't see any place in the software or on their website where I can look it up.