A Dolla And A Dream

First Score and Training Update

2011-01-13T21:51:00.004-05:00

This past Sunday I had my first significant score of the year. Finished 4th in the $3 rush rebuy for a little over $3k. It's probably not a coincidence that this happened after spending the week watching more vids than I've watched over the past 6 months+.

Hopefully, this is just a small sign of things to come.

I've sent out several PMs this week trying to find out more information from various online coaches. I have a couple of prospects, but I think I'll wait until Pocket 5s releases their new coaching "classifieds" feature. If you know any good MTT coaches for mid+highstakes, please let me know. Thanks.

Good Luck and Stay Positive.

Happy New Year

2011-01-03T23:38:00.008-05:00

Once again, I ended the year on a downswing, but hopefully, I can start off the year with a solid uptick like 2010.

Here is a wrap-up of 2010 and my goals for 2011.

1) Continue to maintain solid Bankroll Management rules
I took a lot of shots this past year. It worked out for me the early part of the year, but for the better part of the year, I just managed to eat up a good chunk of my BR.

2) Cash in the WSOP ME
Still working on this one. I'm 0 for 2. I did manage to chop a Venetian Deepstack tourney and min cash another.

3) Win a 6-figure score
Well, I'm glad to report that I managed to hit this goal. I was a part of the 7-way chop in Feb. 2010 FTOPS Main Event.

4) Play 2000 MTTs
Only played 1774 and that includes a fair amount of satellites.

5) Finish in the Pocket 5s Top 10 ranking for North Carolina.
Finished #31st

6) Develop a regular MTT training regiment
Somehow I managed to regress in this department.

7) Make some online buddies that can help improve my game.
Met a lot more people than I knew prior to 2010, but still need to improve a lot in this area.

8) Win 10 MTTs
Only won 3, but had a few more chops.

9) Play in a $5k+ buy-in non-WSOP live tournament.
Still need to work on this goal. I've finally gotton a passport, so I'm ready to go whenever I ship a sattie.

10) Play in 10 PokerStars Big Sunday tourneys
Hit this goal. Managed to play in 20+ tournaments.

11) Play in 10 FTP Big Sunday tourneys
Hit this goal. Managed to play in 30+ tournaments.

12) Play in at least 10 FTOPS and 2 WCOOP events.
Hit this goal.

Here goes my 2011 list:
1) Continue to maintain solid Bankroll Management rules
2) Cash in the WSOP ME.
3) Win a 7-figure score
4) Play 2000 MTTs
5) Finish in the Pocket 5s Top 10 ranking for North Carolina. Get into the Top 1000.
6) Watch 2 training videos each week and review one of my HHs per week. Find a coach and have regular meetings.
7) Make more online buddies that can help improve my game and exchange HHs or whatever to pick their brains.
8) Win 10 MTTs with no chop. (Live or Online)
9) Play in a $5k+ buy-in non-WSOP live tournament.
10) Play in 50 PokerStars and 50 FTP Big Sunday tourneys
11) Play in at least 10 FTOPS events and the WCOOP Main Event.
12) Play 5000 cash hands.

Most of all I want to dramatically improve my game and stay positive. I firmly believe that a positive attitude has a dramatic effect on my play and results. Hopefully, I can make great strides on improving my emotional control while playing.

Good Luck!

Blog Design Update

2011-01-03T23:08:00.002-05:00

It's been a long time since I've looked at this blog. One of my New Year's resolutions is to post more updates. So, I'm starting off with a new design template. This scheme seems to suit me a little better. The good part of blogging is that I can vent which seems to be a necessary evil for the life of a MTT grinder. Well, I'm back and hopefully with plenty of good news to report throughout the year.

Good Luck!

Quick Update

2010-04-16T22:34:00.004-04:00

It's been a while.

The Good:
Had my first, hopefully of many, 6 figure score. 7 way chop of the Feb. 2010 FTOPS ME. Was pretty exciting, but disappointed that I didn't win. I was open for chopping because we didn't reach the final table until about 8am EST. I was beyond tired. The frustrating part of the situation was that after the chop, I didn't realize that there was still money on the table to play for. This was my first chop on FTP since they released the automatic chop tool. So, I played half-heartedly thinking that all of the money was accounted for. Oh well, I expect to be back at a major final table in the near future. I'll TID then.

Also, won a Bracelet Race package on FTP. These are pretty cool. My third year winning a package. Hopefully, I can win the "real" package, a WSOP ME seat.

The Bad:
Running like shit on FTP. The doomswitch is on full blast right now. Killing my drive and confidence. Haven't done much of anything since the FTOPS final table.

The Ugly:
After chopping the 10re in Jan., don't think I've come close to even sniffing a final table. Running horribly on there like it's 2007. That resulted in me not playing on Stars on even a semi-semi-regular basis util January 2009. Hasn't gotton to that point, but it's getting close.

That's it for now. Good luck at the tables.

2009 Wrap-up and 2010 Resolutions

2010-02-05T20:37:00.004-05:00

Well, this is a bit late, but better late than never.

I ended 2009 on a sour note. Nothing like the end of 2008. But 2010 has started off pretty good. I've have my 5th winningest month since January 2009.

Now on to the 2009 wrap-up. Here are my 2009 resolutions and my thoughts about each, a year later.

1) Continue to maintain solid Bankroll Management rules
I was able to play well within my bankroll limitations. Even though I am just a part time poker player, I manage to not blow my roll by playing MTTs that I'm not rolled for. Spending my money on "toys" is a different story.

2) Grow my bankroll to $100k
Due to some life issues, I had to regularly take money out of my poker accounts to pay bills and such. Even without that, I wouldn't have hit this goal, but woulda been a helluva lot closer than I am now.

3) Win a seat into the WSOP ME
Although I didn't directly win a seat into the WSOP ME, I still was fortunate to play in it. I hit a $6k score in Vegas and was back by a few friends. I didn't cash, but definitely want to play again this year.

4) Win a 5-figure score
Technically, I had 2 5-fig scores, but one was for 19k and another score was just short, $9400.

5) Play 1000 MTTs
Hit this. Kinda hard to know the exact number because all of my databases include sats, but even if I take out 30% of that total, I exceeded 1000 MTTs.

6) Play 60,000 cash game hands
What's a cash game?

7) Climb up to $5/$10 6max
See #6 above.

8) Reach the Pocket 5s Top 15 MTT players for North Carolina.
I was at 15 for a couple of weeks at one point. Finished #17.

9) Develop a regular MTT and Cash Game training regiment
I had a few coaches and went through spurts of a decent training regiment, but this is definitely something that I need to continue to work on.

10) Win 10 MTTs
Only won 4.

Here goes my 2010 list (see any similarities?):
1) Continue to maintain solid Bankroll Management rules
2) Cash in the WSOP ME
3) Win a 6-figure score
4) Play 2000 MTTs
5) Finish in the Pocket 5s Top 10 ranking for North Carolina.
6) Develop a regular MTT training regiment
7) Make some online buddies that can help improve my game.
8) Win 10 MTTs
9) Play in a $5k+ buy-in non-WSOP live tournament.
10) Play in 10 PokerStars Big Sunday tourneys
11) Play in 10 FTP Big Sunday tourneys
12) Play in at least 10 FTOPS and 2 WCOOP events.

Most of all I want to dramatically improve my game. Good Luck to all!

WBCOOP

2010-01-19T23:04:00.001-05:00

I have registered to play in the WBCOOP PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! You too can Play Poker Online at PokerStars.com and take part in the WBCOOP which is open to all Bloggers by registering on WBCOOP to play.

Registration code: 505235

Crunchtime

2009-12-21T22:25:00.000-05:00

My holiday vacation away from my full time job began today. This time last year is when I kick started my nice 2009 poker run. I made over $10k during that break. Hopefully, I can have a similar, if not better run over this year's break to kickoff a huge 2010.

Happy Holidays!

The Collapse

2009-11-06T20:11:00.004-05:00

Well, I've finally completed my collapse on Full Tilt. This year started out so promising on that site. I was up $11k to start the year, after January. Now, I'm down for the year. Shit sucks. Just gotta keep trying to improve and hopefully my hard work will pay off.

Dear Full Tilt

2009-10-13T14:31:00.004-04:00

Here is an email that I sent to Full Tilts support and this person's response. Apparently, they receive these kind of emails on a regular basis.

SUBJECT: I Love Full Tilt Poker

"Dear Full Tilt Poker,

I am writing to tell you how much I love playing on your site. You have by far the best software in the history of the Computers. I love going to Las Vegas and wearing the Full Tilt merchandise that you send to me. Hopefully, one day I will win a seat into the WSOP Main Event or some other major live event and can proudly wear your gear all the way to the final table. One day, when I grow up, I want to become a Full Tilt Red Pro. That would be the best day of my life. In the meantime, I'd like to apologize for anything that I have done to make you upset. I didn't mean to log into another poker site. Honestly, I didn't. I'd also like to ask that you please turn off the doom switch on my account. I really would love to win money in one of your tournaments. I've heard that it's possible. Again, I apologize and wish you all the best.

Sincerely,

Andrew aka TheJunkie"

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

RESPONSE

"Hello Andrew,

Thank you for contacting Full Tilt Poker Support.

First of all, thank you for the very positive feedback ragarding Full Tilt Poker. I wish you the best of luck in your quest to be a top professional player.

Some players like to think that there is a button or switch at online poker sites that when flipped gives players terrible cards and horrible bad beats. The doom switch also has developed a counterpart known as the boomswitch which apparently gives players great cards and makes them unstoppable at the tables.

The whole concept of a doomswitch does not make sense for an online poker site. Please understand that a poker site makes its money off of rake which is a small portion of each pot played on the site. A poker site does not want to take your money because once you are broke you can no longer contribute rake. For a poker site, busting players with a doomswitch does not in any way increase revenue. If Full Tilt Poker made players who potentially would have spent many hours of happily playing raked hands on the site go bankrupt to bad beats they would be risking those players trying their luck at another site, or not playing for real money at all.

Conversely, giving great cards to all the players who are close to busting would also negatively affect profits. If the consistent players who play poker for a living were consistently losing to players who were getting fed the winning hands they would take their game to another site. This would cost a site a large percentage of players who play multiple tables forty or more hours a week. These players track their hands very closely and would be the first to recognize if there was a statistical discrepancy. Every high stake game you see being played is a statement by every player at the table that they trust the RNG at Full Tilt Poker.

Some players come up with more devious schemes for how this doom switch might operate in an effort to maximize profits for a poker site. However, these theories are no less speculative than theories about UFO's, secret societies, and mythical creatures. While it is easy to type up a reasonable motive for a poker site to rig action there is simply no evidence to support it.

The fact is that there are thousands of players who record every hand they play, and there has never been a manipulated shuffle discovered over a significant sample size. Players who have recorded a hundred thousand hands or more and taken the time to analyze the statistics simply do not write emails to poker sites accusing them of having a doom switch.

Regards,

Jamie
Poker Specialist
Full Tilt Poker Support"

Good Game Doom switch.

The Comeback of All Comebacks

2009-10-09T21:34:00.005-04:00

Well, the streak of venting on this blog leading to a tourney score continues. A couple days after my quick rant, I finally made a final table and closed the deal. This was a decent pickup, financially and emotionally.

I was able to keep my composure after getting pretty short stacked to make the final two tables. Then I sucked out versus a reg to make the final table. When HU came along I started down 3 to 1, but was able to take the chip lead. Then I managed to get down $73k to $1.4M and win the tourney. This was just amazing. Granted there was some luck involved, but a comeback that I'm proud of nonetheless. Hopefully, this will kick start my next upswing.

Note: My downswing on fulltilt is still in effect, so I am free to bitch about that. :-)

Suckout #1 vs PetieBigStacks from FullTilt:

I have shoved over this guys button raises 2 or 3 hands in a row and was counting on him making a tilt call.

I started HU down 3 to 1 and this save on the turn was a sign of things to come.

I was hoping for a hero call since I played my hand pretty weak.

After managing to take the chip lead, I got it in with a draw, only to be drawing dead on the turn. Notice my stack at the end of the hand. I am down to about $73k.

The start of my run.

I win a 60/40.

Suckout #2.

A sick hold.

Good Advice

2009-09-29T12:55:00.003-04:00

I was trolling through 2+2 today and came across a thread and response that hit home.

Original Thread:
How do you..
So last night I came pretty close to my first BIG cash, I haven't been an MTT player for long, about a month now.

First time i've really been that close to a large amount of money, but managed to go out in 13th, after being top 5 for a long time.

How do you guys deal with this? As i'm sure you've experienced it before.

I just generally feel like **** today, so close and the money I won doesn't seem to matter at all!
Just feel like that big MTT win will never come around..

Thanks
- Lncredible

Response:
if you don't have thick skin in this game you will never be as successful as you want to be. So many good players limit themselves b/c they dwell on their beats and misfortunes. You just have to let it go.
- M1cKmAcK

This is definitely something that I needed to read. I've been running like shit all year on full tilt and now that run bad is spilling over to PokerStars. Gotta try to stay positive and keep my cool during this downswing. Hopefully, it'll all come together when I'm on the verge of that huge score.

Good Luck!

Catching Up

2009-09-23T10:14:00.007-04:00

Wow, it's been a long time since I wrote a post. I'll just do a long recap so that I can start with more up-to-date happenings. Here are the highlights or lowlights of my summer in Vegas.

- I finally had a decent cash in a Vegas Tournament($6k) and I'm now listed in the CardPlayer database. I finished 3rd based on a 4-way chop in the 2009 Binions Poker Classic Event #6. There was a $200 buy-in and 246 entries.

- Next up the WSOP Main Event. I'm not a big cash player so I think the adjustment with playing deep stacked was even more steep than going from online to live. After a while I felt somewhat comfortable.

Day 1: I was definitely not given any breaks with my first table draw. I spent all of Day 1 with Andrew "Muddywaters" Wiggins, Josh Schlein and a handful of solid players. There were only one or two complete donks. Obviously they didnt last long. Not much happened. At the end of the day, I bagged 44275 chips.

Day 2: This day was very different than Day 1 in terms of moving. I was at 4 different tables. I started at a table with a couple of maniacs. Two were pros with some nice scores. One was Nam Le's brother. They looked like twins and he sported the Nam-esque Pittsburgh Pirates hat, so it wasn't hard to make the connection. I managed to get up to 50k but I couldn't move a guy off of AA with my busted straight draw. He tank called me down. I continued to nurse my short stack after getting crippled by a guy that tried to rep a hand vs my top two. I played it kinda bad and he got there. For runner, runner, straight holding J2o. I had to pay him off on the river. I was complete tilted after this hand. I figured that it was just a matter of time, but I'd bust and I proceeded to tweet that I had busted so I wouldn't have to get any more calls. Well, shortly after this hand, I was moved to a table with Tim Phan. I was only there for a couple of hands before being moved again. Next up was a table with Antonio Esfandiari. He had a mountain of chips. At this table I was able to stop the bleeding a little by using my short stack to resteal a few times with big ace type hands. The only other person that I recognized at this table was "dfish" from online poker. He was so annoying. I'm surprised that he could talk with Antonio's nuts in his mouth. I guess that's how early 20-somethings act. After being at this table for about an hour, the highlight of my tourney happened. A tourney director came to break up the table. He said that the person with the green card will be moved to the featured table. That was pretty cool. Dfish also stated that the person would get $10k, which I later found out was false. The $10k was only given if you started at the featured table at the beginning of the day. So, the Director proceeded to deal the cards, but he misdealt. He did it again and yours truly got the green card.

After going to the area, there was some confusion as to me really supposed to be there. After walking back and forth, they finally mic'd me up and I was there in livin color at the table with Phil Hellmuth. That was pretty cool. Me and my $17k stack. 5 chips. 3 orange($5k) and 2 yellow($1k). I didn't expect to be there long at all. It was at this time that I decided to let the cat out of the bag and send a tweet that I was at the featured table. A couple hands in, I finally picked up a big hand. I was dealt AA in EP with only about 20bb. I decided to tank, limp to induce a raise. It worked. I got it in vs AJ. He flopped a gutshot, but I held. My next big hand I had QQ and got it in vs AK. I held. Then from the BB, a shorty shoved into me and I called with KJs. Unfortunately, he had KQo, but I flopped a flush draw and got there on the turn. It was very cool. People in the stands were chanting my name like I was a superstar. I was there about about 3 and a half hours. Here are some clips from the episodes after they were broadcast. Unfortunately, none of my hands were shown because they weren't against Phil. I'm wearing a Michael Jackson t-shirt which I thought for sure would get me on TV, but I guess ESPN doesn't have any MJ fans. At the end of the day, I bagged up 58000 chips.

Day 3: After spending all of days 1 and 2 in the amazon room, I started off this day in the Brazilia room. It's like the red-headed step child when you're in the Main Event. Luckily, these tables broke quickly. I was at the table with Roland De Wolfe, but he was short and didn't last long. When I made it back into the Amazon room, I was moved to a table with a huge stack, the very friendly Kara Scott and a bunch of unknowns. The first big hand I played, I got a guy to call my shove on the flop for most of his chips. He had a pair of 9s. I had AKs which was a flush draw, overs and gutshot. I got there on the turn. Eventually, I was back to the dreaded 20bb stack(blinds 1000/2000) and I pick up 99 from MP. I decide to limp. The loosest guy at the table raised. My plan was to limp and get him to "raise the limper". I expected him to do this with a wide range. He had just shown a few hands where he attacked and folded to a 3bet. Unfortunately for me, after I shoved, he tank called and flips QQ. I didn't hit any kind of draws Good Game me. I lasted about 30 minutes before the dinner break. I peaked at about 78k. I finished like 1100 something out of 6600. As the saying goes, "I'll Be Back".

On another note, I was on tv again while the cameras filmed a big hand between the huge stack and an aggro guy. This happened right at the first break. The guy literally took 10 minutes to make this call. Scroll to around the 5:50 mark. I am shown next to the guy that attempted a big bluff against the big stack at our table.

Overall: It sounds kinda crazy, but for the most part I was card dead for the tourney. I saw AA once, QQ once, TT once, 99 about 3 times, 55-22 a few times and AK like 5 times. Not many good connectors and rarely hit any flops. After about 20+ hours of play, you'd think I see a better selection of hands. I think I did decent for my first big live tourney and don't think I played horribly, but I know I have a lot to learn and will be a better player next year.

- Well, I played some events in the FTOPS, WCOOP and Mini-FTOPS. I managed a few cashes in the mini, but that is all. The doomswitch is still on at Full Tilt. You'd think after 9 months they'd have some compassion, but I guess not. Hopefully, things will turn around on that site. I've been working a lot on my tilt control and I'm trying to stay positive. Before I would type "donks rule" in the chat after a beat, but now, I try to just only type nh and move on.

- To no one's surprise, I have a new coach. Seems like I change coaches like I used to change "girlfriends", every other week. Hopefully, someone will stick or at least turn on the light bulb. If the great Phil Ivey can state on national tv that he still has a lot to learn, there isn't a word or phrase to describe how much I need and want to learn.

Later and Good Luck at the tables.

WSOP 2k9

2009-05-26T00:56:00.006-04:00

It's just around the corner. I'll be out there Friday May 29th til Tuesday June 2nd. The Stimulus Special has my name written all over it. I plan on playing this and maybe MegaStacks or Deepstacks event. The Sun Coast tourney was my first time cashing in a Vegas tourney. Hopefully, that was just a warm-up to some real money. I'll also be back in Vegas right before the Main Event, the week of July 4th. Hopefully, I'll have a seat in the tourney. (Anybody wanna back me?)

Also, I've started a Twitter account. I will send text messages from Vegas during the various stages of the tourney to update my stack size, etc. Hopefully, I'll send "Final Table Baby!". You can follow me at http://twitter.com/junkiepoker.

Later.

The Secret to Making Money in Poker Tourneys

2009-05-24T00:48:00.002-04:00

Two things that I really believe that help in all facets of life.

1) Staying positive. This is my biggest challenge because I am a huge football and basketball fan. I grew up in a sports family so being emotionally involved is normal. I'm trying to work on not getting too high or too low. It can be difficult at times when going through stretches without a single cash. My poker chant while playing in tourneys is, "I'm gonna win this tournament." Feel free to use it the next time you play.

2) Charity. This is not so hard for me. I grew up not having anything so it's always been easy for me to give time or money to the less fortunate because I've been there most of my life and 90% of my family is still there. One of my New Year's resolutions was to give at least $20 each week to some charity or church. I've kept true to this for like 90% of the time. Whenever I find that I forgot a week, I'll double up the following week.

Try adding this to your life. I promise you it will help.

First Trip to Vegas for 2k9

2009-05-13T23:33:00.006-04:00

As I stated in a previous post, I decided to fork over the money and take a trip to Vegas and train with the online phenom, The Maven. Here's a trip report.

Well, it didn't start out too well. I took the worst bad beat of my life. Before heading out, Maven suggested that I rent a car. I thought about it, but decided to avoid it because I didn't want to deal with parking, getting gas, etc, etc. Boy did this bite me in the ass. I should have known something when a local on the plane asked where I was staying. I told her the Sun Coast. Then she asked how was I getting there. When I replied by saying a cab, she had this look on her face, like What The Fuck are you thinking. LOL. After getting off the plane, I went to the shuttle area to find out if there was a shuttle going to the Sun Coast. Of course there wasn't. Then I just waited in the long ass cab line. I told the cab driver where I was going and he paused as he closed the trunk. So, we're just riding down the freeway. I looked at the meter and saw it at about $19. Usually the cab to my usual spot, Ballys, is only about $20. I asked how much would this fare be and he told me about $50-$60. I said oh shit, turn around. After calming down, I just decided to finish the drive. That was unexpected to say the least. I was able to pay with a credit card in the cab, but I got screwed again because there was a $7 service fee. Go figure. The good news was that I found out a free shuttle would take me to the airport when it was time to leave. (even though I had to catch it at 6am)

This was actually the worst part of the entire trip. The casino was nice, they had some nice restaurants(T.G.I.F ftw) and even had a movie theater. I was tempted, but couldn't bring myself to fly to Vegas and go to the movies. The poker room was pretty small, but it was better than nothing. They ran a lot of limit games and only $2-$5 no limit. That's too big for me so I decided to play in a crappy $45 daily tourney to kill time. On Day 1 I was set to meet with Maven at 3pm and on Day 2 2pm. On Day 1, I played the daily tourney. Nothing much happened, but I saw how horrible live players play. I don't play much live any more, but the few times that I do play, I can see why online players are making more and more final tables of big televised tourneys.

After getting knocked out of the tourney, I took a cab over the Maven's house. He is sharing the house with online legend, Ari. It's a nice house but you can tell its a bachelor pad. There training center is sick. It looks like a huge garage that was split in two rooms. One room has black painted walls. There are 4 workstations. Each with a 30" monitor and a vertical 24" monitor. Two workstations were mirrors of a third. The second room was brownish and had 5 or 6 similar workstations. Ari and his student were in this room.

I spent most of my time next to Maven watching every hand of every tourney that he played. Before going out, I bought a digital voice recorder. This thing is great, I was able to record almost every minute that was spent talking poker.

Day 1: We started with intros. Maven introduced me to his two in-house personal assistants, Ari, and one of Ari's students. I even got to play with both of Ari's WSOP Circuit rings. They are pretty cool. They almost look like Super Bowl rings. Afterwards, we went over some general MTT strategy, etc. This was followed by watching him play and talk about various moves. He introduced me to a couple of moves that I have seen online but didn't really have in my tool box. One came at a good time because just before flying out, I discovered a leak in my game and was thinking about ways to plug it. One of Maven's tools plugs this leak. The night ended around midnight. Thankfully, Maven gave me a ride back to the casino. When I got back to the Casino, I grabbed a bite at my home away from home, TGI Fridays and then went and played Pai Gao for an hour or so to get some drinks. Day 2 was set to begin at around 2pm.

Day 2: To kill some time before heading over to Maven's house, I decided to play the Sun Coast daily tourney again. I ended up chopping it 4 handed. I had the chip lead and had no doubt that I would win. The only reason for the chop was that time was getting close. I needed to eat before going to Mavens and it takes 20-30 minutes for the cab to arrive. The chop was kinda funny. Did I mention that live players suck? Well, around 5 or 6 handed I was a smallish stack, not that anyone had a big stack because the structure sucked ass. But anyway, I was just shoving on them like crazy. Finally, this little ole lady had enough of it and called. I had KQ and she had K8. I felt kinda bad because she was obviously frustrated because I had the button when she was in the BB and this call/loss crippled her. So with the chop, at 5handed, they asked for an even chop. I had like 40k in chip, #2 had like 20k. I had my headphones in my ear, so I didn't look like a complete ass when I totally ignored them. When 5th busted, I was in 3-way pot with two short stacks. The guy that won had about 20k and I still had like 35k. At this time, I was ok with the chop because 1st didnt get much and I had to eat, leave. One guy was literally pissed that I didn't agree to an even chop 5 handed. I laughed and said that you've got to be kidding me. One guy had 1 or 2 big blinds and they wanted an even chop. Live players suck. LOL.

One interesting situation came up in the tourney. At one point early in the tourney, it was folded to the SB. I paused, looked down at Ten, Six. I paused again, and then shoved. But after I pushed in, I noticed the dealer flipping over the flop. My immediate reaction was to ask the dealer what was he doing. I didn't check. The floor was called over. It was ruled that since I took too long and the dealer did his usual tap and flip, that I checked. WTF? I hope this wouldn't be the case in a "real" tourney. Anyway, the SB shoved. I paused again. I had flopped mid pair with my six, but there was a flush draw out there. The SB said, "You can fold because the floor said that you just checked." So, I called. He had nothing, unless you call an over and a backdoor flush draw a hand. My hand held.

Day 2: So, I got to Mavens and the day was basically more of the same. I watched him play til like 11. It was nice to see him play in most of the big Sunday tourneys. He even sent me some of my money back because he busted "early" on Day 2. I thought that was cool.

Overview. So, the big question that people asked me when I got back to Raleigh. Do I think the training, trip was worth the money? It's kinda hard to say Yes or Hell No. It was very, very nice to see the "day and life" of an online poker professional. I think of myself as a full-time semi-pro, so seeing how they big boys play is nice. Here are some points that I took from the trip:

1) The workstations that they used didn't have any non-poker software except for firefox. And this was only to pull up peoples poker stats. So, I need to pay for the full membership to the online database and I needed to cleanup my PC to make it perform its best.
2) I need a large monitor.
3) They use Poker Tracker religiously. I have Poker Tracker, but rarely use it while playing. Basically this is costing me money, because all of the big boys use PT.
4) I have a few more big tools for my toolbox. This is always nice.
5) Don't play and be distracted by tv, the net surfing, etc, etc.
6) Contacts.
7) Watching pro play.
8) A bunch of other small things that I can't think of right now or put a price tag on.

Could I have been givin these things without going to Vegas? Probably, but I am a "seeing is believing" kind of person. I definitely believe a newbie would get the most bang for the buck, but it was beneficial for most intermediate players as well. So, if you fall into this bucket, I recommend taking the trip if you are serious about improving your game. I am always trying to get better and if that means taking a bit out of the several thousand that I have made, then so be it. I am no where near where I want to be skill-wise or financially, so training to become a better player can do nothing but help.

Wow, this was long. Til next time. Good luck at the tables.

First MTT Win on Stars

2009-05-05T16:46:00.003-04:00

Well, the poker gods shined on me once again after a bitch and whine post. On Sunday I won my first tourney on Stars. It was a $20 cubed for just under $9400. Not bad. For anybody looking for a nice deep stacked tourney for a low buy-in, I definitely recommend this 2pm-ish(EST) on Sundays. The initial $20 gets you 3k in chips. The rebuy gives you another 3k. So, that's a very deep 6k stack to start the tourney. I kinda just stumbled across this tourney. It's definitely on my regular Sunday tourney list now.

Usually, I try to capture a screenshot of all of my online poker milestone's but for some reason it didn't dawn on me til the next day that this was my first win on Stars. By the time that I realized this, the tourney lobby was already gone. Stars only keeps up the daily tourney lobbies for about 24 hours.

Because Stars offers chops, I would consider one if the chips are fairly even instead of flipping coins for a few thousand dollars. But this tourney was an exception. The other guy was so bad that I didn't even think of a chop. When we started I was down 2 to 1. After a while, I was up 4 to 1. Then I got unlucky when he hit trips on the river after all of the money was in on the turn. That gave him a 4 to 1 chip lead. Even at this point, I didn't think of chopping even if he wanted to. We were still deep and I had a huge skill advantage. So, as you know I ended up winning. It was only a day or two earlier that I told myself that I would buy that new Camaro after my next decent poker score. Well, this was the score. I contacted the dealership, but the problem now is trying to sell my current car. Hopefully, between now and the end of the summer I can win a lot more money and sell my car.

That's it for now. Good luck at the tables.

Downswing and Training

2009-04-21T15:27:00.004-04:00

It's been a while since I've written a post. Honestly, I haven't had much of anything to write about other than bad beat stories, so I'd rather just not write than clog this blog with those stories.

So, the SCOOP passed by and not much happened. I only played in 3 events. 2 low and 1 mid stake event. The start times are not geared toward East Coast players. Unfortunately, I didn't cash in either event, but I love the 3 level buy-in idea. I just think Stars didn't have enough reasonable sattys for the high stakes events.

As much as I love playing on Full Tilt, I have been getting crushed since Feb. I'm trying to stay upbeat. Things will turn around soon, but the MTT grind can definitely take a toll on my emotional state. To help this, I just played a cash game for 30 minutes, lost $150 and then realized why I play MTTs. LOL.

After the SCOOP, I took a week off. The break was needed. As long as I am playing decent, I'll chug along during a downswing, but when I start noticing a lot of bad play, it's break time. My first day back, I finally made another Final Table on Stars. Ended with a 3rd place finish for $7400. A decent payout, but I woulda loved to get another 5-figure score if I coulda won my race, QQ < AK.

Regarding training, for the past 6 months or so, I've been emailing TheMaven and his students regarding the program. I think this could really help my progress, but there is a good amount of cost to get into the program. For a while, I've been trying to find something to invest my poker winnings into and eventually decided to invest in myself by joining the program. My initial training period is in May. Hopefully, I can get started and show vast improvement in time for the FTOPS and WSOP.

Well, that's it for now. Maybe I'll be posting soon about winning a WSOP ME seat. I've still only played one sattie and finished just shy of the seat. Take care.

A Phone Call to Grandma

2009-03-13T21:12:00.007-04:00

I stumbled across someone's video on PocketFives. Here's a video I made about my phone call to my grandmama after my first 5-figure poker score.

*This conversation didn't actually take place. I am 100% sure that it would go like this. I didn't want to go there because telling this to my grandma, whom I love very, very, very much, is like posting an Ad in the local newspaper. So I just mailed her the money without the story. (Link to the original video.)

A Long Overdue Update

2009-03-11T13:25:00.004-04:00

It's been a while so, here's the latest happenings in my poker life.

I'll start with the FTOPS, well, after probably spending $1500, I finally won a seat into the ME. But that was all for nothing. I was able to chip up early, but proceeded to tilt my chips off to a guy that chased a gutshot and got there when the turn game me top, two. I'd like to take some credit for giving him his start for a nice run in the event. He finished in 6th place for $78k. Congrats! Appropriately, his id is "dump22".

Well, after the FTOPS concluded, I decided to take a break from poker. Running bad and playing bad is a deadly combination for anyone's emotional health and bankroll. I had no timetable for this break, only that I wanted to clear my head and start back playing when I felt the desire.

During this break, I did something very out of the ordinary for me, I watched TV. I'm not a big TV person. I'd rather be on the computer trying to find some way to become a bazillionaire. Other than basketball and football, there are only a handful of shows that I watch on a semi-regular basis. Well, during this break I was able to catch up on CSI, Lost, Cold Case, Without A Trace and my secret vice, American Idol. That's probably all the shows that I watch. I also managed to watch a few movies from my Blockbuster Online subscription. And I managed to work on a new website that I have in the works. All of this spanned the course of two weeks.

So, exactly two weeks after the FTOPS and the start of my break, I was reading through some posts on PocketFives. Coincidently, one was about downswings. After reading a lot of posts about people's various downswings and how they worked them out, I felt a lot better about my current "normal" 50 buy-in downswing. Thus, that was the fire that I needed to put in a days work.

I then proceeded to play a good number of the regular Sunday tourneys with the exception of the Stars or Full Tilt Sunday Majors. Well, long story short, I was able to secure my biggest score to date. Although it was a second place finish, I won just short of $20k in the Stars $150k $50 buy-in tourney.

Heres a screenshot:

Here are some hands from the Heads-up battle. I started down about 4 to 1 and was down 5 to 1 before making a come back. Well, after our last break, I went from being ahead 5 to 1, to being out of the tourney in second place. I'm always looking to grow and improve as a poker player and after losing my last two heads-up matches, I'm starting to study more about that aspect of the game.

Hand #1: This hand put me back in the game.

Hand #2: The first hand after the last break.

Hand #3: I played this hand horribly, but the guy was making some fairly thin calls with mediocre hands. I was hoping to get full value, but instead I valuetowned myself. LOL.

Hand #4 aka The Bustout Hand: Hopefully, this is the first of many 5-figure scores and a 6-figure score would be very nice.

Good Luck at the tables.

Andrew aka TheJunkie

FTOPS XI: Events #10 and #15

2009-02-11T19:15:00.005-05:00

So, I'll start with the good news. Of the 7 FTOPS events that I wanted to play coming into this series, 4 have passed and I was able to play in 3. (I know that is pretty lame for "good news".)

Well, Event 10 was going pretty smoothly. No big pots, just steadily going through the tourney as the field dwindled down. Then this hand happened.

Hand #1 aka The Bustout Hand: Event 10. I have no idea what he could put me on that he was ahead of given my postion and stack size. And it seemed a bit too spewy for him to hope for a race situation.

This is admittedly, a luckfest, but the $100k for 1st was well worth the gamble to hope for a run good session. It wasn't meant to be though. Chino Rheem finished 4th. That guy is on a new heater.

Hand #2 aka The Bustout Hand: Event 15.

I still haven't won my seat for the ME yet, so I'll grind those satties hard this week. Hopefully, I can win multiple seats to offset some of my run bad.

Good Luck at the tables.

The Collapse

2009-02-06T21:04:00.004-05:00

A few weeks ago, Full Tilt increased the starting chip stacks for the Nightly 50/50 tourney from 2k to 3k. This was great, but every since the change, for some reason, I hadn't made a deep run in this tournament. Prior to the change, I had 2nd, 3rd and 5th place finishes.

Well, last night I could finally see the writing on the wall. This was supposed to be my night to finally make it back to the another final table. With about 40 people left, I had chipped up to a nice stack which put me at the top of the leader board. I had about 250k.

As you can guess by the title of this post, poker can be a cruel game. The stacks were such that I couldn't fold any of my hands and I doubled up 4 different people. So, in a matter of 16 hands, I go from the chip leader to out in 31st place without tangling with any other big stack. This was the toughest way to go out of a tourney that I've ever had. Hopefully, this will lead to a run good stretch because I am due. A gold jersey would be nice. :)

Hand #1: The beginning of the end. I had told myself that I would fold to this guy's first SB shove without a AT+, 77+, KQ, type hand because he had gave me several walks, but I couldn't click the button.

Folded 1 hand.

Hand #2: Fairly easy call for me.

Folded 5 hands.

Hand #3:

Folded 1 hand.

Hand #4: I know the raiser is a solid player but this is an insta iso-shove with our stacks.

Folded 1 hand.

Hand #5: Sick

Folded 2 hands.

Hand #6 aka The Bustout Hand: Go figure.

For those keeping count, that's $250k to $0 in 16 hands. Take nothing for granted.

FTOPS XI: Event #1

2009-02-05T00:31:00.003-05:00

Please don't let this tournament be a microcosm of this FTOPS for me. Card dead for three hours and when I finally get into a "re-steal" spot, A9s runs into the COs AK. 33, 44, 77, TT, AJs. By far my best hands. Better luck next time.

The next event that I plan on playing is Event #10.

Weekend Update

2009-01-19T14:24:00.006-05:00

After bitching and whining, I finally cashed in a tourney. To no one's surprise, it was the FTP Nightly $10 rebuy. That is definitely my bread and butter tourney. I'm a little disappointed, but I finished 2nd. I was 4 for 4 in my HU matches for this tourney. Oh well, at least I got off the cashless streak.

Hand #1 aka The Bustout Hand:

I'm also happy that I managed a couple of cashes in Poker Stars tourneys. Back to back cashes in the $10 rebuy. Not much in terms of money, but a big boost in terms of confidence on that site after going over a year without a cash. A win in that tourney would be huge. Not only is the payout usually $13k but the field is about 2000 people. That's 3-4 times the size of the FTP $10 rebuy. I think the Poker Stars field is probably softer than FTP, but it is huge.

On Sunday I played the monthly $1 Million Guaranteed tourney on Full Tilt. There were 2200 people. 1st was over $200k. I had a few big hands early, but overall the tourney was pretty standard. Not much to talk about. Surprisingly, I only had one flip and I lost. JJ held against my AQ. That crippled me and I busted the next hand. My JJ got flushed down the toilet by KJs. Fortunately, this occurred just after the money bubble so I did manage to pad the roll a little.

I'm really looking forward to the upcoming FTOPS. Hopefully, I can win a seat into the $1k and $5k events. I will probably need to win two seats into the $5k in order for my BR Management nazi-side to allow my gambler-side play in the event.

I'm also looking forward to the WSOP ME Sats. FTP has started running WPT LAPC Sats which are nice. Hopefully, this is a new trend given that they are a major sponsor for the WPT now. They are running $200, $300 and $500 weekly sats til the event which is around mid-Feb. I posted a suggestion that they change their sats to $200 or $300, a $500 and a $1k. Makes more sense to me and that is basically what they do for the WSOP ME for an identical prize package. The $500 Sat had 60 players with 2 packages being awarded. A $1k with the same number of players would have awarded 5 seats.

Oh, I was finally picked in the P5s OT Competition. I was picked by Yogiblair in the 2nd round. The comp starts in February. Hopefully, I wont be the weakest link. That would be a nice time to run good. Especially, in the FTOPS events. I think I can settle for bypassing my first 5-figure score and going straight to 6-figures. :)

Later.

Quick Update

2009-01-15T11:18:00.003-05:00

This year started off with a bang. Picked up a win and had another session which I final tabled two MTTs at the same time. Wow, what a difference a week makes. I can say that I am well on my way to playing in 1000 MTTs for the year, but not much else has gone to plan this past week. The usual run bad stories. If I'm ahead, I get ran down, or I get coolered or my bluffs run into monsters....blah, blah, blah.

Last night's session was the first since I updated my resolutions, which I really tried to focus on being more decision oriented rather than results oriented. I must say that overall, the session went a lot smoother. There were a few bad decisions and no cash, but it helped me avoid tilting after a few beats. Practice makes perfect, so hopefully this will make for a better year.

Although, I have only had like one baby cash in the past week, technically, I'm up. I won two Sat seats into this Sunday's Full Tilt $1M Guarantee tourney. The buy-in is $535. I used one for the tourney and one for my FTOPS Event #10 buy-in. I hope to win a couple more seats. That would lock up all of my FTOPS buy-ins very early and let me focus on my MTTs for the P5s OT Competition. BTW, the draft is supposed to start today.

Pause

2009-01-13T17:23:00.005-05:00

"When we are winning, we feel invincible... When we are losing, we feel like we may never win again... The most difficult aspect of poker is remaining humble and mentally steadfast during highs and lows. This is a lesson I continue to focus on."

-Rex55

After this past weekend, this quote has hit home hard.
(Adding to my New Years Resolutions.)

0) Stop being results oriented and focus on making the correct decisions.
0a)Work on controlling tilt.
1) Continue to maintain solid Bankroll Management rules
2) Grow my bankroll to $100k
3) Win a seat into the WSOP ME
4) Win a 5-figure score
5) Play 1000 MTTs
6) Play 60,000 cash game hands
7) Climb up to $5/$10 6max
8) Reach the Pocket 5s Top 15 MTT players for North Carolina.
9) Develop a regular MTT and Cash Game training regiment
10) Win 10 MTTs

Daily Schedule

2009-01-13T00:46:00.006-05:00

I've finally settled on a daily MTT schedule. Since I have a full-time day job, my schedule consists of all evening tourneys. One of my New Years resolutions is to play 1000 MTTs over the course of this year. That averages to about 3 MTTs per day. Here is the list of tourneys which as of right now, give me the best shot at reaching this goal, and hopefully make a lot of money along the way. My plan is to play some combination of these tourneys on a nightly basis. I'll play more on the weekends to offset any light days during the work week.

(Poker Stars, I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.......Mrs. Cleo says that the curse is over.)

Full Tilt:
$26 Freezeout at 8pm
$55 Freezeout at 9:30pm
$26 Freezeout at 10pm
$10 Rebuy at 10:30pm

Poker Stars:
$28 Freezeout at 8pm
$20 Rebuy at 9pm
$55 Freezeout at 9:30pm
$11 Rebuy at 10pm
$33 Freezeout at 11pm
$28 Turbo Freezeout at 11:40pm

I'll also occasionally mix in some satties for the Sunday Majors or (FTOPS, WCOOP, WSOP, etc), a $50 cubed rebuy, $100 and $75 freezeouts.

I'm also going to participate in the Pocket Fives OT Team Competition for February 2k9. At least that is my plan. I have to get drafted in order to actually be in the comp. The draft will start on Wednesday Jan. 14th and finished by Friday Jan. 16th. I hope to get drafted because that will add even more fuel to my fire to do well in MTTs. I don't want to be the weakest link. The comp lasts for the whole month. I registered as a mid-stakes player and my new schedule fits nicely within the requirements for the competition. As soon as I know the results of the draft, I'll post the details.

FTOPS XI Schedule

2009-01-07T01:31:00.004-05:00

The upcoming FTOPS schedule has been released.

As always, I'm looking forward to playing in the FTOPS. My winnings have increased with each of the past two series. Hopefully, that trend will continue and I can have a GREAT series.

Here is the full schedule. I have bolded the events which I plan on entering and italicized the events that I hope to satellite into.

The Full Tilt Online Poker Series XI Schedule:
(Event # Date Time Buy-in Game Guarantee)

#1 2/4 21:00 ET $200+16 NL Hold'em $1,000,000
#2 2/5 14:00 ET $240+16 PL Omaha/8 Knockout $200,000
#3 2/5 21:00 ET $200+16 Stud $100,000
#4 2/6 14:00 ET $300+22 NL Hold'em 3x Shootout $200,000
#5 2/6 21:00 ET $200+16 Limit Hold'em 6-max $150,000
#6 2/7 14:00 ET $500+35 PL Omaha 6-Max $300,000
#7 2/7 16:00 ET $100+9 NL Hold'em w/ Rebuys $500,000
#8 2/8 14:00 ET $240+16 NL Hold'em Knockout 6-max $600,000
#9 2/8 16:00 ET $500+35 NL Hold'em Heads Up $500,000
#10 2/8 18:00 ET $300+22 NL Hold'em $1,500,000
#11 2/9 14:00 ET $200+16 HA (half PLHE, half PLO) $150,000
#12 2/9 21:00 ET $1,000+60 NL Hold'em Second Chance $1,500,000
#13 2/10 14:00 ET $200+16 NL Hold'em (1R/1A) $300,000
#14 2/10 21:00 ET $500+35 HORSE $300,000
#15 2/10 21:00 ET $200+16 NL Hold'em Turbo 6-max $500,000
#16 2/11 14:00 ET $200+16 Omaha/8 $150,000
#17 2/11 21:00 ET $300+22 NL Hold'em 6-max w/ Rebuys $1,000,000
#18 2/12 14:00 ET $200+16 PL Omaha Heads-Up $100,000
#19 2/12 21:00 ET $300+22 NL Hold'em 4x Shootout 6-max $300,000
#20 2/13 14:00 ET $200+16 NL Hold'em 6-max $400,000
#21 2/13 21:00 ET $300+22 Razz $150,000
#22 2/14 14:00 ET $5,000+200 NL Hold'em (2-Day Event) $2,000,000
#23 2/14 16:00 ET $100+9 PL Omaha w/ Rebuys $350,000
#24 2/15 14:00 ET $120+9 NL Hold'em Knockout $750,000
#25 2/15 18:00 ET $500+35 NL Hold'em (Main Event) $2,500,000

First MTT Win of 2009

2009-01-06T14:33:00.005-05:00

Well, it didn't take long to get my first win of the year. It's amazing how I literally went years without a single final table. The past two weeks I've had 3 wins, albeit in the same tourney, but wins nonetheless. And the past three months I've made a decent number of final tables. I'm very thankful and this is very encouraging for a strong 2k9.

Here are some hands from last night's win:

Hand #1: This hand sparked my deep finish. I was card dead for most of the beginning of this tourney. This was the first spot where I thought I could pick up some good chips uncontested or HU. Well, it didn't end up being uncontested or HU, but this win definitely propelled me for my run. It was kinda funny when the hands were shown, I was calling for the 9, but had no idea I had a lot more outs than just the 9. (7, 8, 9 or T)

Hand #2: In retrospect, and after some discussion with my coach, I realized that my play in this hand was pretty bad. I don't think it was awful because with my style I make a lot of high variance, high risk, reward type of plays that I have learned to deal with. KK+ is in my range for making this play.

I hadn't played with bdybldngpkrplyr prior to this tourney, but I know that he is a successful MTT player and was my biggest threat at the table. So, I was willing to gamble to get him out as quickly as possible. I just didn't think that it was this big of a gamble until the cards flipped over.

Hand #3 aka The Money Hand: We are about even coming into HU play. I had about $1.8M in chips and he had about $1.7M. I was able to grind away at him and get it in ahead for once.

Happy New Year

2009-01-01T20:48:00.004-05:00

2008 ended with a bang. Hopefully, that was the start of a white hot 2009. This time last year my main, if not only, poker goal was to use solid bankroll management to build my bankroll.

Here are my New Year's Resolutions/Goals for 2009 in no particular order:

1) Continue to maintain solid Bankroll Management rules
2) Grow my bankroll to $100k
3) Win a seat into the WSOP ME
4) Win a 5-figure score
5) Play 1000 MTTs
6) Play 60,000 cash game hands
7) Climb up to $5/$10 6max
8) Reach the Pocket 5s Top 15 MTT players for North Carolina.
9) Develop a regular MTT and Cash Game training regiment
10) Win 10 MTTs

Wow! Just typing these goals gives me shivers thinking about what if........

Happy New Years!

Back 2 Back

2008-12-24T21:46:00.006-05:00

Wow!

Last night I took down the Nightly FTP $10 rebuy MTT. I also won this tourney in October, my first MTT win. The exciting part of this latest win is that I also won the tourney on Monday. Yeah. I won the $10 rebuy two nights back2back. That is sick. I really hope the end of 2008 is the precursor for a monster 2009.

Nam Le speaks the truth, in the December 23,2008(Vol. 21/No. 25) issue of Cardplayer:

"In tournaments, it's all about being positive. When good things happen and you're around positive people who do good things, it's contagious. It keeps your spirits up and your confidence high. Whenever somebody does well, it keeps the group's spirits up and everyone motivated to keep playing. This game is so grueling and we spend so much time on the road that it helps a lot whenever somebody does well' it picks us up"

Here are some hands from the two tourneys:

Hand #1 (12/22/08 Rebuy):

Hand #2 (12/22/08 Rebuy) aka The Money Hand: I was able to use a betting tell that I had picked up during the last three tables to slowly grind him down.

Hand #3 (12/23/08 Rebuy): This was a close call to me. I decided to pass up on my possible edge because I believed that I had a better edge against the field.

Hand #4 (12/23/08 Rebuy): Poker is easy. This hand erased a greater than 2 to 1 deficit going into HU.

Hand #5 (12/23/08 Rebuy) aka The Money Hand:

ONE TIME!

2008-12-17T21:59:00.005-05:00

Putting my Nostradamus abilities to good use.

Not So Fast My Friend...........

2008-12-09T16:23:00.004-05:00

Well, my training hasn't gone as well as I had hoped, but I have definitely made some progress. I have found a MTT coach and started watching some Cash game videos on DeucesCracked. I found a cash game coach, but I'm reconsidering my decision to play 6-max cash games. My reasoning was that to move up to high stakes, I would have to be a good 6-max player. Although this reasoning has some truth to it, I now think that I can become a better Full Ring player and make a decent income. For one, a full ring game simulates more of the live games that I have access to. This alone wasn't the reason to push me toward FR, but it helped. The main reason for me deciding to focus more on FR cash games rather than 6max, is because I think in today's game, FR may actually be a little more softer than 6max. If this proves to not be the case, then I'll fall back to my original plan.

So, during this training period, I haven't put in much volume in MTTs. It's tough for me to play during the week because I have a full time job and I wanted to have a few sessions with my new coach before jumping back in. Well, this past weekend I had to scratch the itch and dove in head first. Friday night I managed to play in 6 tourneys, but only had a minor cash in Full Tilt's Nightly 50-50. Saturday night was a different story. I cashed in 2 MTTs out of the 4 that I played. Not only did I cash, but I final tabled both the Nightly 50-50 and the $28k Guarantee. That was a very good feeling. Playing two final tables at the same time. I didn't even get upset when I lost with AA vs JJ for the chip lead on the bubble of Full Tilt's $11pm 6max KO tourney. Unfortunately, I didn't win either tourney. I finished 2nd in the 50-50 and 7th in the $28k. Still a decent score. I feel like a 5 figure score is on the horizon, but actually winning a tourney seems like it was so long ago now. Still can't complain, I'm ridin the wave.

Here are my bustout hands from this past weekend's final tables. Check out the new replayer.

Hand #1 aka The Bustout Hand: Who actually gets a hand in the BB? LOL. Final table of the $28k Guarantee.

Hand #2 aka The Bustout Hand: Who actually gets a hand playing HU? LOL. Final table of the Nightly 50-50. I really should have folded. This is definitely a part of my game that I need to work on.

GG 2008

2008-11-20T14:35:00.004-05:00

I know there's still a little over a month left in the year, but I've decided to use this time as a transition period. My #1 goal in poker for 2008 was to establish and maintain sound bankroll management practices. The lack of proper BR discipline has killed me in prior years. Well, I think I was able to accomplish that goal with flying colors. (At least on Full Tilt. Still working on Stars.) As the year comes to a close, I'm starting to think about poker goals for 2009.

In 2008, I was able to grow my bankroll by 700% and that doesn't include the thousands that I cashed out via check or P2P. I hope to continue this trend for next year. In order to help with this cause, I plan on hiring a cash game and a MTT coach. I've worked with a few people this year, but none have stuck so far. For the past month, I've been running bad in my cash games. Maybe when I was winning, I was just a bad player running good. Either way, significantly improving my cash game and MTT play is at the top of my preliminary list of 2009 goals. I'll quantify these goals later. There's a lot of money to be made playing poker and I want more than my fair share. (Greedy Americans) I've always wanted to have complete financial freedom and as of now, poker seems to be the most viable short term solution.

So, during my transition into 2009, I plan on doing more training than playing. Primarily by watching a ton of Cash Game and MTT videos from PXF, Cardrunners and DeucesCracked. I have been a member of PXF and CR for a couple of years and rarely watch videos. I joined DC a few week ago. This is definitely a leak that I need to plug. And as I mentioned before, I plan on hiring a couple of coaches and getting in a few sessions. This will put a little dent in my BR, but in the end it should be well worth it. I also want to try and make a name for myself in the online MTT scene. In Late-October/Early-November, I had a little taste of success and I loved it. Most of the top 100 in the Pocket 5s rankings were virtual unknowns at the beginning of 2008. Hopefully, I can start my story in early 2009.

I'll have a 2 week vacation from my 9-to-5 around xmas. I plan on using that time to put in some volume, depending on where I'm at in my training. I really would love to win a seat into the PCA, but Stars doesn't run many good satellites for the PCA Sunday Mega Sat. My official list of goals will be posted early next year.

Good luck at the tables.....that I'm not sitting at.

FTOPS X: Main Event

2008-11-17T08:21:00.003-05:00

Here we are. The FTOPS Main Event. The tourney that I've been looking forward to playing for three months since my deep run in the last FTOPS ME. This is the last big online tourney for the year, so that added to the anticipation.

I love playing poker and playing on Full Tilt, but it can be so fucking cruel at times. In a nutshell, it came and went so fast that I was in shock after that dreadful pop-up appeared that said "Dumbass, you're out the Tournament." I was so pissed that I had to go smoke for the first time in over 3 months. I "knew" what he had, but my style of play is so risky, that I couldn't bare to take the safe way out in this situation. I guess karma is a bitch because earlier, I had been discussing with another player about not folding KK preflop in an online tourney. LOL, Doh.

Overall, this was my most profitable FTOPS. I only had one cash, but it was a decent score and I won multiple Main Event seats. My last FTOPS was profitable for me as well. Hopefully, that trend will continue and I can make a big score in the next FTOPS which should be held in February.

Hand #1 aka The Bustout Hand: The tourney started off very well for me. I was getting some good cards and picking up some chips. I was up to about 9800 chips within the first half an hour. Then everything came to a screeching halt. This was the perfect setup for this guy. He was in the BB with a classic squeeze situation to disguise the strengh of this hand. When he basically put me all in, I figured that most typical online players would take this line with QQ+ and AK. Some donks with an even wider range. I definitely feared AA, but in the end, I couldn't bring myself to fold. Better luck next time.

Full Tilt Poker, NL Hold'em Tournament, 30/60 Blinds, 9 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

BTN: 9,096
SB: 6,404
BB: 10,490
UTG: 7,160
UTG+1: 7,435
UTG+2: 7,225
Hero (MP1): 9,180
MP2: 15,287
CO: 4,500

Pre-Flop: (90) K K dealt to Hero (MP1)
3 folds, Hero raises to 180, 2 folds, BTN calls 180, SB folds, BB raises to 750, Hero raises to 2,400, BTN folds, BB raises to 6,000, Hero raises to 9,180 and is All-In, BB calls 3,180

Flop: (18,570) 5 2 3 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
Turn: (18,570) 2 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
River: (18,570) J (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: 18,570 Pot
BB showed A A (two pair, Aces and Twos) and WON 18,570 (+9,390 NET)
Hero showed K K (two pair, Kings and Twos) and LOST (-9,180 NET)

FTOPS X: Event #19

2008-11-14T18:43:00.004-05:00

I was looking forward to playing this event. I small buyin and plenty of chips. Unfortunately, it ended not too long after it began. I finished 1382 out of 2526. The top 279 cashed.

Hand #1: This hand still bothers me. I guess I shoulda shoved. His line just completely screwed my brain. Oddly enough, if he shoves, I insta call. He put me in a shove, fold spot. A call was very bad. Not sure what he has that I'm beating which he wouldn't want to shove over my re-raise. Maybe I just over analyzed the situation.

Full Tilt Poker, NL Hold'em Tournament, 100/200 Blinds, 9 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

UTG: 5,266
UTG+1: 10,558
UTG+2: 13,020
MP1: 4,170
MP2: 9,580
CO: 9,445
BTN: 15,026
Hero (SB): 5,040
BB: 3,560

Pre-Flop: (300) A K dealt to Hero (SB)
UTG folds, UTG+1 raises to 600, 5 folds, Hero raises to 1,800, BB folds, UTG+1 raises to 3,000, Hero folds
Results: 3,800 Pot
UTG+1 mucked and WON 3,800 (+2,000 NET)

Hand # 2 aka The Bustout Hand: My run bad switch is still on. I wouldn't have felt as bad if he had spiked the Ace or King.

Full Tilt Poker, NL Hold'em Tournament, 120/240 Blinds, 25 Ante, 9 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

MP2: 7,378
CO: 12,936
BTN: 14,480
SB: 4,365
BB: 9,130
UTG: 8,140
UTG+1: 15,971
Hero (UTG+2): 3,315
MP1: 4,890

Pre-Flop: (585) 5 5 dealt to Hero (UTG+2)
2 folds, Hero raises to 3,290 and is All-In, 4 folds, SB raises to 4,340 and is All-In, BB folds
Flop: (7,045) 9 4 9 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
Turn: (7,045) 7 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
River: (7,045) 7 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: 7,045 Pot
SB showed A K (two pair, Nines and Sevens) and WON 7,045 (+3,730 NET)
Hero showed 5 5 (two pair, Nines and Sevens) and LOST (-3,315 NET)

Please, please, please, let the Main Event go much better than this week has gone.

FTOPS X: Event #8 and Event #9

2008-11-11T00:26:00.004-05:00

Well, Event #8 was pretty much uneventful. I was card dead for the majority of my time in the tourney. I busted 584 out of 3499. The top 390 cashed.

Hand #1 aka The Bustout Hand:
Full Tilt Poker, NL Hold'em Tournament, 400/800 Blinds, 100 Ante, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

BB: 19,088
UTG: 14,242
MP: 20,943
Hero (CO): 11,464
BTN: 20,633
SB: 73,695

Pre-Flop: (1,800) K T dealt to Hero (CO)
2 folds, Hero raises to 11,364 and is All-In, BTN folds, SB calls 10,964, BB folds
Flop: (24,128) J 6 3 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
Turn: (24,128) 3 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
River: (24,128) Q (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: 24,128 Pot
Hero showed K T (a pair of Threes) and LOST (-11,464 NET)
SB showed J A (two pair, Jacks and Threes) and WON 24,128 (+12,664 NET)

So now I'm 0 for 2 in cashing this FTOPS. Then came Event #9. I made a deep run and busted 42 out of 5370. I was so close to making a big score is this huge field. Hopefully, I can get the job done in another event.

Hand #2: This table has been extremely aggressive. When the guy limps UTG some alarms went off in my head. He had been playing very tight and not involved in any pots. But as soon as another guy limped, I muted those alarms because there was over $90k in the pot that I could pick up.

Full Tilt Poker, NL Hold'em Tournament, 10,000/20,000 Blinds, 2,500 Ante, 9 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

BTN: 265,341
SB: 424,556
BB: 228,375
UTG: 349,920
UTG+1: 414,980
UTG+2: 1,975,474
MP1: 878,153
Hero (MP2): 421,488
CO: 360,100

Pre-Flop: (52,500) 8 9 dealt to Hero (MP2)
UTG calls 20,000, UTG+1 folds, UTG+2 calls 20,000, MP1 folds, Hero raises to 418,988 and is All-In, 4 folds, UTG calls 327,420 and is All-In, UTG+2 folds
Flop: (767,340) A 2 K (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
Turn: (767,340) A (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
River: (767,340) 9 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: 767,340 Pot
UTG showed K K (a full house, Kings full of Aces) and WON 767,340 (+417,420 NET)
Hero showed 8 9 (two pair, Aces and Nines) and LOST (-349,920 NET)

Hand #3 aka The Bustout Hand: The guy opening from the button was playing very laggy. Unfortunately, this was the first time that I was able to see his hand to confirm my suspicions. I had folded TT from the SB to one of his re-steals earlier before I started to question his motives. I think the overcall here is horrible. Anyway the button raiser went on to win the tourney and the $200k+ payout. Congrats! Surprisingly, UTG+2 clawed his way back to finish in 2nd place. Congrats to you as well.

Full Tilt Poker, NL Hold'em Tournament, 10,000/20,000 Blinds, 2,500 Ante, 9 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

UTG: 302,841
UTG+1: 452,056
UTG+2: 183,375
MP1: 668,272
MP2: 369,980
CO: 1,910,474
BTN: 938,153
Hero (SB): 148,136
BB: 345,100

Pre-Flop: (52,500) T A dealt to Hero (SB)
6 folds, BTN raises to 935,653 and is All-In, Hero calls 135,636 and is All-In, BB calls 322,600 and is All-In
Flop: (853,336) 8 Q 9 (3 Players - 1 is All-In)
Turn: (853,336) K (3 Players - 1 is All-In)
River: (853,336) 9 (3 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: 853,336 Pot
BTN showed 2 K (two pair, Kings and Nines) and LOST (-345,100 NET)
Hero showed T A (a pair of Nines) and LOST (-148,136 NET)
BB showed Q K (two pair, Kings and Queens) and WON 853,336 (+508,236 NET)

FTOPS X: Event #1

2008-11-06T00:34:00.005-05:00

This event was a $216 buy-in 6-max freezeout. I didn't plan on playing this event because I don't play a lot of 6-max NL, but I was played a $50 sattie and won a seat.

Unfortunately, I didn't cash in the event. I busted 1028 out of a huge field of 5124. I have a tendency of playing too aggressive at 6-max tables and not giving anyone much credit. I need to work on those things before playing in another major 6-max tourney. I will occasionally practice in the low buy-in MTTs. If I am lucky enough to sattie into the 2-day $5k 6-max event, I will have a major dilemma.

Here are a couple of keys hands and some thoughts about both.

Hand #1: Give the Pro Chips.
Well, before raising, I recognized Wretchy and knew that he was looking for a spot to reshove. So, my decision was to raise and call if Wretchy shoves, but fold to a shove from one of the other stacks. Or fold. I don't like limping in this spot. I thought that Wretchy could shove with a lot of hands here and was hoping we were flipping. Guess my spidey sense is flawed.

Full Tilt Poker, NL Hold'em Tournament, 200/400 Blinds, 50 Ante, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
BTN: 9,502
SB: 30,479
BB: 14,566
UTG: 14,306
MP: 8,625
Hero (CO): 12,623
Pre-Flop: (900) 4 4 dealt to Hero (CO)

2 folds, Hero raises to 1,000, BTN raises to 9,452 and is All-In, 2 folds, Hero calls 8,452

Flop: (19,804) 9 6 A (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
Turn: (19,804) 2 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
River: (19,804) 7 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: 19,804 Pot
BTN showed 6 6 (three of a kind, Sixes) and WON 19,804 (+10,302 NET)
Hero showed 4 4 (a pair of Fours) and LOST (-9,502 NET)

Hand #2 aka My Bust Hand: The "Re-Re-steal" Gone Bad.
The bad thing about this hand is that I have only been at the table for maybe one orbit. This was just bad. The player was an unknown and probably wouldnt be making a move. I felt like I had enough fold equity to make him fold non-premiums. So, I guess I was correct, but what I didn't plan on, was him having a premium. LOL. GG me.

Full Tilt Poker, NL Hold'em Tournament, 300/600 Blinds, 75 Ante, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
CO: 19,905
BTN: 80,973
SB: 31,998
Hero (BB): 23,059
UTG: 13,123
MP: 42,347
Pre-Flop: (1,350) T T dealt to Hero (BB)

UTG folds, MP raises to 2,000, CO folds, SB raises to 7,000, Hero raises to 22,984 and is All-In, 2 folds, SB calls 15,984

Flop: (48,418) Q J 9 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
Turn: (48,418) J (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
River: (48,418) A (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: 48,418 Pot
SB showed Q Q (a full house, Queens full of Jacks) and WON 48,418 (+25,359 NET)
Hero showed T T (two pair, Jacks and Tens) and LOST (-23,059 NET)

Maybe next time. Who needs $195k anyway? The ME will have a $400k+ payout. LOL.

My Top 10 Ranking

2008-11-05T23:15:00.006-05:00

Well, as a nice confidence booster, I set my personal Pocket Fives Rankings to display the top 10 Players in Raleigh, NC. Surprisingly, I'm listed at #6.

LOL. I guess it could be worse. I could display the rankings within my household. I'm guaranteed to be in the top 2. My 4 year old's push fold strategy seems to always get the best of me. LOL.

What A Difference A Year Makes

2008-11-05T19:51:00.003-05:00

First of all, I want to congratulate President Elect Barack Obama. Yes We Can!

Well, it was around this time last year that I was near the low point of my online playing journey. Financially and emotionally. Late 2006 I deposited $600 into Full Tilt and cleared all of the bonus money. But around October of 2007, for one reason or another I was down all the way around $350. I remember winning a satellite seat into the FTOPS ME that was held in November 2007. I ended up cashing in the event for about $750. That was the first time that I had cashed in a FTOPS event. That cash, along with my 2008 New Year's resolution enabled me to grow my bankroll to well more than I have ever won playing poker.

FTOPS X starts today. I am really excited about this event because I wasn't able to play in any of this year's WSOP or WCOOP events. I'll only play a few events, but hopefully my run good magic will carryover from October.

Good luck to everyone that plans on playing.

One Time !!!!!!!

October Update

2008-10-29T00:45:00.007-04:00

October was both the Best and Worst month of my poker "career". It started with sooooo much potential. I was up over $1500 in the first week and took down my first MTT. Then the bottom fell out of the sky. I finished down $700 for the month at the cash tables. Like most down swings it was a mix of bad luck and bad play. I haven't dropped down but have decided to watch more videos and limit myself to 1 or 2 tables until I get my swagger back.

Here are a few hands that epitomize my cash game sessions for the month.

Hand #1: Suicidally Unlucky

Full Tilt Poker, $1/$2 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 8 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

Hero (MP1): $196.10
MP2: $204.60
CO: $177.95
BTN: $130.55
SB: $167
BB: $108
UTG: $159.70
UTG+1: $154.20

Pre-Flop: 5 5 dealt to Hero (MP1)

2 folds, Hero raises to $7, 4 folds, BB calls $5

Flop: ($15) 2 8 5 (2 Players)
BB bets $15, Hero raises to $40, BB raises to $65, Hero raises to $189.10 and is All-In, BB calls $36 and is All-In
Turn: ($217) 4 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
River: ($217) T (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: $217 Pot ($3 Rake)
Hero showed 5 5 (a flush, Ten high) and LOST (-$108 NET)
BB showed A K (a flush, Ace high) and WON $214 (+$106 NET)

Hand #2: Donk Play
Full Tilt Poker, $1/$2 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

BB: $36.75
UTG: $172.10
MP: $214.35
CO: $121.80
BTN: $298.90
Hero (SB): $130.30

Pre-Flop: A J dealt to Hero (SB)

3 folds, BTN raises to $7, Hero raises to $24, BB folds, BTN raises to $59, Hero raises to $130.30 and is All-In, BTN calls $71.30

Flop: ($262.60) 7 7 4 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
Turn: ($262.60) 2 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
River: ($262.60) A (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: $262.60 Pot ($3 Rake)
BTN showed A K (two pair, Aces and Sevens) and WON $259.60 (+$129.30 NET)
Hero showed A J (two pair, Aces and Sevens) and LOST (-$130.30 NET)

I'm determined to be a solid, winning cash game player, so I am going to really work to improve my play. It's ridicuolus that I am a member of not 1, not 2, but 3 training sites and rarely watch the videos. Hopefully, that will change before it's necessary to become a News Year's Resolution. I love playing MTTs, but know if I ever want to pursue a full time career in poker, cash game success is a requirement.

So that is the bad. The Best part of the month was my MTT results. I cashed for more than $10k in MTTs for the month. Coming into October, I had one lone Final Table appearance back in 2005 in a $6 MTT. I chopped it for about $800. Here are my five final table cashes for October.

Date

Buyin

Tournament/Event

Place

Entrants

Winnings

10/3/2008

$10

NL Hold'em+Rebuys

556

$4,230.00

10/4/2008

$50

NL Hold'em+Rebuys

184

$725.63

10/17/2008

$24

NL Hold'em

702

$1,422.25

10/23/2008

$24

NL Hold'em

682

$750.20

10/31/2008

$50

NL Hold'em

853

$4,100.00

Please excuse the screwed up formatting. Those are first, seventh, third, fifth and third place finishes. It sucks that I could only pull out one win.

It's exciting for me to think about how good I could become if I could hookup with a good, winning poker coach. Anyone up for the task?

I could just pray that I'm a luckbox for the rest of my life.

Hand #3: Donks Rule
Full Tilt Poker, NL Hold'em Tournament, 15,000/30,000 Blinds, 4,000 Ante, 3 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

Hero (BB): 1,583,445
BTN: 663,058
SB: 428,997
Pre-Flop: (57,000) 5 T dealt to Hero (BB)
BTN raises to 78,550, SB folds, Hero calls 48,550
Flop: (184,100) 5 6 8 (2 Players)
Hero checks, BTN bets 100,250, Hero raises to 1,500,895 and is All-In, BTN calls 480,258 and is All-In
Turn: (1,345,116) T (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
River: (1,345,116) 2 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: 1,345,116 Pot
Hero showed 5 T (two pair, Tens and Fives) and WON 1,345,116 (+682,058 NET)
BTN showed J J (a pair of Jacks) and LOST (-663,058 NET)

My First MTT Win

2008-10-05T12:00:00.000-04:00

After years of playing poker, I've finally won my first tournament on 10/03/2008. It was such a relief and only further fed my hunger to be the best poker player that I can be. I crushed the final table. It wasn't pretty. I really liked the way that I turned up the heat. There was one hand during 3-handed play where I sucked out, but for the last couple of tables, that was the only time that I got my money in behind. Even then my tourney life wasn't only the line.

Well, it took a while to get to my first final table and get that win, but wouldn't ya know, I made my second final table the very next night. This time it was the nightly $50 cubed on Full Tilt. It's funny how you can go from lovin life to hatin life. I was lovin life after winning on Friday. On Saturday, I was hatin life because I came to the final table, 2nd in chips, but finished 7th. I learned a lot from both finishes. Hopefully, with some more hard work and luck, it won't take long to get my next win.

Poker is Easy

2008-09-29T23:40:00.003-04:00

Why can't poker always be this easy? LOL.

Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Seat 1: RedDragon85 ($200)
Seat 2: zedjr ($241.80) -
Seat 3: spd264 ($407.35) -
Seat 4: Tschizzl ($136.05) -
Seat 6: El-Maverick1 ($218.75)
Seat 7: TheJunkie ($96.75)
Seat 8: URaACEhole ($197)
Seat 9: FitzChivalry99 ($82.65)

PRE-FLOP:

spd264 posts small blind $1
Tschizzl posts BIG blind $2
Dealt To: TheJunkie

FOLD El-Maverick1
RAISE TheJunkie ($7)
FOLD URaACEhole
RAISE FitzChivalry99 ($82.65)
FOLD RedDragon85
FOLD zedjr
FOLD spd264
FOLD Tschizzl
CALL TheJunkie ($75.65)

FLOP:

Pot: $168.3

TURN:

Pot: $168.3

RIVER:

Pot: $168.3

SHOWDOWN:
FitzChivalry99:

TheJunkie:

TheJunkie collected $165.3 from main pot with four of a kind, Queens

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $168 Rake: $3

Final Board:

Seat 1: RedDragon85 didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 2: zedjr button didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 3: spd264 small blind folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-1)
Seat 4: Tschizzl big blind folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-2)
Seat 6: El-Maverick1 didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 7: TheJunkie showed [Qs Qc] and won 165.30 with four of a kind, Queens - Net Gain/Loss: ($82.65)
Seat 8: URaACEhole didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 9: FitzChivalry99 showed [Ah Kc] and lost with two pair, Queens and Sevens - Net Gain/Loss: ($-82.65)

Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

September Update

2008-09-29T20:33:00.001-04:00

Sorry it's been so long since I've blogged. As you may have guessed, September didn't start off nearly as well as I ran in August. This is just my second month primarily playing NL cash games. Well, after two and a half weeks of running bad, I decided to move up to $1/$2 NL. The reason that I made this decision was not because of some flawed thinking that I need to move up to win back the couple of hundred that I had lost playing $.5/$1. I truly believed that I was playing well, but the cards were just not falling for me and I wanted to take a shot. If it didn't work out, I had no problem playing in my usual $.5/$1 limits. My bankroll can handle the move, so off I went. Well, to make a long story short, I've been playing $1/$2 since 9/17 and have promptly had the most profitable month of my poker playing life. (knock, knock on wood. one day left to go)

It sounds odd, but I think the players at $1/$2 are actually just as bad if not worse than the $.5/$1 players. I've made so many sick overbets for value that seem to get paid off over and over again. My decision grind out the cash games has been very profitable for me these past couple of months. Being that I have a full time job, the variance of playing MTTs is too much for me to consistantly grow a bankroll without playing cash games. I still love MTTs and still play SNGs, but in order for me to achieve my goal of playing in 2009's WSOP, grinding cash games will be the only way to set me up for a sick run of playing Satties into the Main Event. This year, I was extremely disappointed that I only played one Satellite to get into the ME. I have had some very good success playing in the smaller Satellites, but whenever I won a seat into the bigger ME Satellites, I was too disciplined to play because the Satellite buy-in was a very big portion of my bankroll. Hopefully, I will be able to play in many of the Thursday $1k Satellites that they usually run. With a little luck, I will win one if not more seats into the big show.

Here is an interesting hand that I recently played. I hadn't been playing at this table that long to get any type of reads. I now know that sunfish2 is a regular and irishprince10 is a donk. If I was able to replay this hand, I would probably just call the turn bet and hope for a free showdown.

Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Seat 1: Chainicheck ($452.70) -
Seat 3: sunfish2 ($200) -
Seat 4: NSS ($131.50)
Seat 6: TheJunkie ($317.40)
Seat 7: ValiantOne ($281.85)
Seat 8: irishprince10 ($377.70)
Seat 9: I Aw Rin ($211.40) -

PRE-FLOP:

Chainicheck posts small blind $1
sunfish2 posts BIG blind $2
Dealt To: TheJunkie

FOLD NSS
RAISE TheJunkie ($9)
FOLD ValiantOne
CALL irishprince10 ($7)
CALL I Aw Rin ($9)
FOLD Chainicheck
CALL sunfish2 ($7)

FLOP:

Pot: $35

CHECK sunfish2
BET TheJunkie ($25)
CALL irishprince10 ($25)
FOLD I Aw Rin
CALL sunfish2 ($25)

TURN:

Pot: $110

CHECK sunfish2
CHECK TheJunkie
BET irishprince10 ($44)
CALL sunfish2 ($44)
FOLD TheJunkie

RIVER:

Pot: $198

CHECK sunfish2
CHECK irishprince10

SHOWDOWN:
irishprince10:

MUCK sunfish2

irishprince10 collected $198 from main pot with Ace Jack high

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $201 Rake: $3

Final Board:

Seat 1: Chainicheck small blind folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-1)
Seat 3: sunfish2 big blind mucked [6s 7h] - Ace Nine high - Net Gain/Loss: ($-78)
Seat 4: NSS didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 6: TheJunkie folded on the Turn - Net Gain/Loss: ($-34)
Seat 7: ValiantOne didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 8: irishprince10 showed [8s Js] and won 198 with Ace Jack high - Net Gain/Loss: ($122)

Seat 9: I Aw Rin button folded on the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-9)

Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

My Biggest Chip Stack in a MTT

2008-09-22T20:29:00.007-04:00

As a last ditch effort to Satellite into this year's WCOOP Main Event, I decided to play in a $5 turbo rebuy. Each seat into the ME was valued at $5200. This satellite, awarded 4 seats with 5th place getting $200. Well, I was able to make it down to the final 17 as the chip leader. Hand #1, shows the hand that put me over $1 million in chips. (That was so sweet.) Hand #2 shows the outcome of a hand that crippled me. Had that hand held up, I would have had about a 400k chip lead over #2. But it was not meant to be. I ended up busting out in 16th place. And wouldn't ya know, the turbo tourney, ended like 15-20 minutes after I busted. FYI, fetter123 ended up as the bubbleboy only grabbing the $200.

Hopefully, I will drink some rungood juice from PokerStars. I'm trying to end my unofficial boycott of PokerStars, but situations like this make it tough.

Hand #1:
After this hand, I would have 1081746 in chips. This is the largest amount of chips that I've ever accumulated in a MTT. Unfortunately, my high would be shortlived.

Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Seat 1: Takouba ($556085) -
Seat 2: arribax ($231509) -
Seat 3: 64u2 ($616742) -
Seat 4: RonnieBReal ($649596)
Seat 5: Tumpke ($620430)
Seat 6: fetter123 ($681907)
Seat 7: TheNutts77 ($961746)

PRE-FLOP:

arribax posts small blind $30000
64u2 posts BIG blind $60000
Dealt To: TheNutts77

ANTE Takouba ($6000)
ANTE arribax ($6000)
ANTE 64u2 ($6000)
ANTE RonnieBReal ($6000)
ANTE Tumpke ($6000)
ANTE fetter123 ($6000)
ANTE TheNutts77 ($6000)
FOLD RonnieBReal
FOLD Tumpke
FOLD fetter123
RAISE TheNutts77 ($150000)
FOLD Takouba
FOLD arribax
FOLD 64u2

TheNutts77 collected $192000 from main pot

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $192000 Rake: $0

Seat 1: Takouba button folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($-6000)
Seat 2: arribax small blind folded before Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-36000)
Seat 3: 64u2 big blind folded before Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-66000)
Seat 4: RonnieBReal folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($-6000)
Seat 5: Tumpke folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($-6000)
Seat 6: fetter123 folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($-6000)
Seat 7: TheNutts77 collected 192000 - Net Gain/Loss: ($126000)

Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Hand #2:
A hand or two after Hand #1, I ran into this situation. I was sick that two Aces were gone and my JJ still couldn't hold up. If I would've won this hand, I was very certain that I would've snagged my seat into the WCOOP ME. That's a $5200 seat.
(I'm still wiping away my tears. LOL.)

Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Seat 1: Takouba ($1280170)
Seat 2: arribax ($309509)
Seat 3: 64u2 ($502742)
Seat 4: RonnieBReal ($51511)
Seat 5: Tumpke ($506430) -
Seat 6: fetter123 ($597907) -
Seat 7: TheNutts77 ($1069746) -

PRE-FLOP:

fetter123 posts small blind $30000
TheNutts77 posts BIG blind $60000
Dealt To: TheNutts77

ANTE Takouba ($6000)
ANTE arribax ($6000)
ANTE 64u2 ($6000)
ANTE RonnieBReal ($6000)
ANTE Tumpke ($6000)
ANTE fetter123 ($6000)
ANTE TheNutts77 ($6000)
FOLD Takouba
FOLD arribax
FOLD 64u2
CALL RonnieBReal ($45511)
FOLD Tumpke
RAISE fetter123 ($591907)
CALL TheNutts77 ($531907)

FLOP:

Pot: $1301325

TURN:

Pot: $1301325

RIVER:

Pot: $1301325

SHOWDOWN:
fetter123:

TheNutts77:

RonnieBReal:

fetter123 collected $1.09279e06 from side pot 1fetter123 collected $178533 from main pot

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $1271325Main pot: $178533
Side pot: $1092792
Rake: $0

Final Board:

Seat 1: Takouba folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($-6000)
Seat 2: arribax folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($-6000)
Seat 3: 64u2 folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($-6000)
Seat 4: RonnieBReal showed [Ah 3s] and lost with a pair of Aces - Net Gain/Loss: ($-51511)

Seat 5: Tumpke button folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($-6000)
Seat 6: fetter123 small blind showed [Ac Jh] and won 1271325 with a pair of Aces - Net Gain/Loss: ($703418)

Seat 7: TheNutts77 big blind showed [Js Jd] and lost with a pair of Jacks - Net Gain/Loss: ($-597907)

Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Relative Position

2008-08-28T09:43:00.001-04:00

I'm constantly trying to improve my game by reading forums, articles and occasionally a few chapters in a book. Today, I stumbled across an article posted on pokernews that really lit a few light bulbs for me. This isn't anything that I haven't thought about or recognized during a tournament, but it was well written and very useful info to keep in mind while playing.

Here's an excerpt:

"An important aspect in an MTT is position. Most players understand the importance of being in a good position and play accordingly. However, many players only focus on their absolute position. So is there another position? Yes, this is your relative position. Your absolute position is your position before the flop. UTG is early position and the button is late position. Your relative position is your position after the flop with respect to the initial raiser. During the early stages of a MTT (especially one with a low buy-in) you will often find yourself in 5-way pot. Try to make it easy for yourself after the flop. Let's say you're in level one of a guaranteed tournament and you get a nice drawing hand on the button. Your first thought: "Nice, I have ace crackers in the best position." Then you get the following situation: blinds are 10/20, UTG limps, MP and MP+1 limp as well and the cutoff raises to 100. ..........You have a great position here preflop, but after the flop you are in the worst relative position. ..........But look what happens when you call here. Once you call, the other players will be getting good odds, and you will see that, in most cases, the rest of the limpers will call as well. In this situation the big blind calls, as well as MP and MP+1. The flop shows , so it's not a bad flop. If the cutoff has you can stack him here if, for example, a shows up on the turn. But what happens? Everyone often checks to the initial raiser, after whom you are next to act, with 3 players still to act behind you after the initial raiser fired out a C-Bet.

As you can see you are in the worst relative position in this situation, and many players often make the mistake and call with their straight-draws, after which the other players are free to check-raise and pick up the dead money you left in the pot. ..........If we take the example from just now but have you sitting in MP+1, you would be in the best relative position, as all the other player would have to act before you after the initial raiser bet, after which you have a lot more information to base your decision on. This will save you chips that you will definitely need in the later stages of the tournament.

- Robert Jan Hoogendoorn"
Read Full Article

My New Workspace

2008-08-26T12:23:00.001-04:00

For the past couple of years or so, I have been primarily playing poker on my Dell Inspiron laptop. Well, the time finally came for me to upgrade my work environment. At first I was going to buy another laptop, but decided to go with a PC because I wanted a larger monitor and upgradeable hardware. I'm a fan of Dell computers, but at the last second I decided to go with a Lenovo desktop. This is a picture of the PC. It was on sale this past weekend at TigerDirect. I figured that I would use this with my current PCs monitor to expand my playing surface. Well, after seeing how tacky it looked, I decided to just buy second identical monitor, but wouldn't you know that when I went back to TigerDirect the very next day, all of the bundle packages were sold out.

The cashier suggested that I order it from them and save half of the shipping costs. This was a good idea. The only problem is that she eventually found out that they couldn't order any because they are so short or out of stock at the warehouse. Doh!

Thank god for eBay. Fate would have it that some guy in Canada bought the same bundle package, but he didn't want the monitor. Of course I bid on the auction and won. It's being shipped today and should be here by this weekend or early next week. It cost a little less than ordering it from TigerDirect.

The Veriface software is very cool, even though I can't get it to work and the monitor is gorgeous. Here are the details.

Lenovo IdeaCentre K210 Desktop PC LCD Bundle - Intel Pentium Dual Core E2140, 4GB DDR2, 500GB SATA II, DVDRW, Intel GMA3100, Webcam, Veriface, Flash Reader, Vista Home Premium SP1 (T70-2107), 19" LCD

Specifications
Display Type: Widescreen LCD
Viewable Screen Size: 19 inches
Condition: New
Operating Systems: Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium SP1
Platform: PC
Orientations Allowed: Vertical
Form Factor: Microtower
Bays: 2 - 5.25" Drive Bays
Internal Bays: 2 - 3.5" Drive Bays
Available 3.5" Drive Bays: 1
Available 5.25" Drive Bays: 1
PCI Slots (Total): 1
PCI Slots (Available): 1
PCI Express X1 Slots (Total): 2
PCI Express X1 Slots (Available): 2
PCI Express X16 Slots (Total): 1
PCI Express X16 Slots (Available): 1
PCI Express Slots (Total): 3
PCI Express Slots (Available): 3
Expansion Slots: 4
PS/2 Keyboard Connectors: 1
PS/2 Mouse Connectors: 1
Serial Communication Ports: 1
Parallel Ports: 1
USB Ports: 6
Input Video Signal: VGA, DVI w/HDCP
LAN Ports: 1
Audio Out Jacks: 2
Line In Jacks: 1
Microphone Jacks: 2
VGA Ports: 1
Processor Brand: Intel®
Processor Class: Pentium® Dual Core
Processor Number: E2140
Processor Speed: 1.60GHz
Processor Interface: Socket LGA775
Processors Supported: 1
Processors Onboard: 1
Additional Technologies: Dual-Core Technology Intel® Extended Memory 64 Technology
Contrast Ratio: 1000:1
Memory Type: DDR2
Memory Size: 2.0GB
Brightness: 300 cd/m²
Total Memory: 4.0GB
Response Time: 5 ms
Memory Speed: DDR2 667 (PC2-5300)
Horizontal Viewing Angle: 160 degrees
Memory Slots (Total): 2
Vertical Viewing Angle: 160 degrees
Memory Slots (Available): 0
Maximum Memory Supported: 4.0GB
Maximum Resolution: 1440 x 900
Interface: SATA II
Capacity: 500GB
Speed: 7,200RPM
Cabinet Color: Gloss Black
Dimensions With Stand: 14.6" x 17.4" x 7"
Unit Weight: 13.2 lbs.
Power Consumption: 36W
Optical Drive Type: DVD±RW Dual Layer
Interface: SATA
Type: Media Reader
Capacity: 16-in-1
Audio Description: Integrated Audio
Graphics Description: Integrated Graphics
GPU/VPU: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3100
Video Memory: up to 256MB Shared Memory
Video Interface: VGA (15-Pin D-Sub)
Communications Description: Integrated LAN Support
Interface Type: RJ-45 - Ethernet Connector
Chipset: Intel PRO/100
Data Transfer Rate: 100Mbps; 10Mbps
Power: 250 Watt
Mouse Type: Optical
Buttons: 3
Scrolling Capability: Vertical
Connection Type: USB
Keyboard Type: Multifunction
Connection Type: PS/2
Height: 15.25"
Width: 7.3"
Depth: 18"

Full Tilt Sunday $750k Guarantee 08/24/08

2008-08-26T12:13:00.000-04:00

There wasn't anything too interesting that happened during this weeks tourney. My schedule is basically to play cash games and SnGs during the week. Also some satellites for the Sunday Major tourney. Occasionally, I'll play the 50/50 at 9:30pm(EST) or $28k at 10pm(EST), but for the most part I just play the big Sunday tourney as my week's lone MTT. I think that I'm going to start adding in some more weekend tourneys to my schedule. In particular, the $65k at 8pm(EST) on Saturday or Sunday and the Sunday Mulligan. It's kind of disappointing when I wait a week to play a single tourney and bust early. Playing more mid level buy-in, big payout tourneys will be good practice and hopefully will lead to a good score.

As usual, we started with a 3k stack. Here are my chip counts while I lasted:

Break #1: 6365 (Included a couple of spews that I need to fix.)
Break #2: 6145 (I was card dead for this whole hour.)
Peak During 3rd Hour: 10780

Here is one nice hand where I doubled up through online pro "Tmay420". Poker is easy when flopping the 2nd nuts.

Hand #1:
Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Seat 1: Tmay420 ($7,655) -
Seat 2: JOSHSIL ($3,451)
Seat 3: TheJunkie ($5,230)
Seat 4: THEPUSHER1186 ($10,067)
Seat 5: pez102 ($8,150)
Seat 6: Rivertranced ($4,191)
Seat 7: Short Bus Ryder ($10,905)
Seat 8: zanshin1 ($11,746) -
Seat 9: WildcatAJH ($12,308) -

PRE-FLOP:

WildcatAJH posts small blind $170
Tmay420 posts BIG blind $340
Dealt To: TheJunkie

ANTE Tmay420 ($25)
ANTE JOSHSIL ($25)
ANTE TheJunkie ($25)
ANTE THEPUSHER1186 ($25)
ANTE pez102 ($25)
ANTE Rivertranced ($25)
ANTE Short Bus Ryder ($25)
ANTE zanshin1 ($25)
ANTE WildcatAJH ($25)
FOLD JOSHSIL
CALL TheJunkie ($340)
FOLD THEPUSHER1186
FOLD pez102
FOLD Rivertranced
FOLD Short Bus Ryder
FOLD zanshin1
FOLD WildcatAJH
CHECK Tmay420

FLOP:

Pot: $1075

CHECK Tmay420
CHECK TheJunkie

TURN:

Pot: $1075

CHECK Tmay420
BET TheJunkie ($340)
RAISE Tmay420 ($1200)
CALL TheJunkie ($860)

RIVER:

Pot: $3475

BET Tmay420 ($2000)
RAISE TheJunkie ($3665)
CALL Tmay420 ($1665)

SHOWDOWN:
TheJunkie:

MUCK Tmay420

TheJunkie collected $10805 from main pot with a full house, Queens full of Eights

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $10 Rake: $0

Final Board:

Seat 1: Tmay420 big blind mucked [9h Tc] - a straight, Queen high - Net Gain/Loss: ($-5230)
Seat 2: JOSHSIL folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-25)
Seat 3: TheJunkie showed [Qc Qs] and won 10,805 with a full house, Queens full of Eights - Net Gain/Loss: ($5575)
Seat 4: THEPUSHER1186 folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-25)
Seat 5: pez102 folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-25)
Seat 6: Rivertranced folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-25)
Seat 7: Short Bus Ryder folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-25)
Seat 8: zanshin1 button folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-25)
Seat 9: WildcatAJH small blind folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-195)

Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Hand#2 aka The Bust Out Hand:
Here is another situation, which is becoming far too common for me, where I bust prematurely while calling all-in for an "obvious" race. Sometimes I let my emotions get the best of me. I am really trying to work on that. What you can't see in the hand history is that this guy and the small blind had been re-popping me a few times the last couple of orbits. Before I was dealt a hand on the button, I said to myself that if I get a hand worth raising that I would be playing for stacks pre-flop if one of these guys re-popped me. Sure enough it happened. Being that he had such a weak hand, I believe my thinking wasn't completely flawed. I just wish I had a bigger stick to take to the fight.

Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Seat 1: Hari_Jizou ($7,353)
Seat 2: JOSHSIL ($6,031)
Seat 3: TheJunkie ($6,810) -
Seat 4: THEPUSHER1186 ($13,102) -
Seat 5: pez102 ($9,630) -
Seat 6: Rivertranced ($4,766)
Seat 7: Short Bus Ryder ($7,355)
Seat 8: zanshin1 ($13,036)
Seat 9: WildcatAJH ($12,848)

PRE-FLOP:

THEPUSHER1186 posts small blind $200
pez102 posts BIG blind $400
Dealt To: TheJunkie

ANTE Hari_Jizou ($50)
ANTE JOSHSIL ($50)
ANTE TheJunkie ($50)
ANTE THEPUSHER1186 ($50)
ANTE pez102 ($50)
ANTE Rivertranced ($50)
ANTE Short Bus Ryder ($50)
ANTE zanshin1 ($50)
ANTE WildcatAJH ($50)
FOLD Rivertranced
FOLD Short Bus Ryder
FOLD zanshin1
FOLD WildcatAJH
FOLD Hari_Jizou
FOLD JOSHSIL
RAISE TheJunkie ($1000)
FOLD THEPUSHER1186
RAISE pez102 ($9580)
CALL TheJunkie ($5760)
UNCALLED pez102 ($2820)

FLOP:

Pot: $14170

TURN:

Pot: $14170

RIVER:

Pot: $14170

SHOWDOWN:
pez102:

TheJunkie:

pez102 collected $14170 from main pot with a straight, Ace high

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $14 Rake: $0

Final Board:

Seat 1: Hari_Jizou folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-50)
Seat 2: JOSHSIL folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-50)
Seat 3: TheJunkie button showed [2s 2d] and lost with a straight, King high - Net Gain/Loss: ($-6810)
Seat 4: THEPUSHER1186 small blind folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-250)
Seat 5: pez102 big blind showed [Ad 9d] and won 14,170 with a straight, Ace high - Net Gain/Loss: ($7360)

Seat 6: Rivertranced folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-50)
Seat 7: Short Bus Ryder folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-50)
Seat 8: zanshin1 folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-50)
Seat 9: WildcatAJH folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-50)

Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Full Tilt Withdrawal Issues Update

2008-08-23T15:15:00.000-04:00

In a previous post, I mentioned how Full Tilt's cash pickup option was the best thing since sliced bread. Well, fate would have it that they removed this option only a couple of days after I was fortunate enough to get my money. That's a bad beat.

So, now I'm back to the unsolved mystery of finding out how I can withdraw money from my Full Tilt account. Well, today I was fortunate to stumble across a post on P5s that mentioned the Full Tilt Forums. Now for all of this year, I have almost exclusively played on Full Tilt and not once was I told or heard about their forums. The link is actually and obscure link at the bottom of their website. After visiting the forums, I came across a most glorious forum titled, Players Transactions. Basically, this is a forum to conduct various player transactions. The threads of most interest to me were people trying to trade Full Tilt cash for PokerStars cash. Ding! Ding! Ding! Of course, there is a price for everything. I was able to successfully exchange $520 in Full Tilt cash for $500 in PokerStars cash. It sucks to pay this $20 fee, which is negotiable between the two parties, but this is a small price to pay in order to get my check in a timely fashion and not be worried about it bouncing.

Be sure to read the "sticky" posts before you conduct your first transaction. To no one's surprise there are scammers out there, so they give you some tips and even have a list of suspected scammers.

As a side note, you can also by FT points on this forum. They usual sale for $4 - $4.50 per 1000 points. So, I may be able to get my table faster than I expected.

Coaching Search Update

2008-08-21T14:40:00.000-04:00

For the better part of this year, I've been searching off and on for a coach to help me with my MTT game. I am a member of PXF and Cardrunners. I read some of the forums. But just watching videos and posting hands in isolation can't replace the value of one on one interaction.

Well, I haven't made much progress, but after my last couple of MTTs, I realize that I should conclude this search sooner rather than later. I've found a few new sites that list some very successful online players as available coaches. Hopefully, their online success can translate to success in being a coach as well. The main problem with these players are that they make so much money that there has to be a significant financial gain to take them away from the tables to coach. I've heard that it isn't uncommon to come up with some creative compensation plans to pay these high profile coaches. Maybe like some amount of money per hour and a cut of some tourney payouts.

Do you know of any good coaches that are looking for an eager student? If so, drop me an email.

FTOPS IX Main Event Review

2008-08-20T10:35:00.000-04:00

(Warning: This is a long ass post.)

Well, the FTOPS ME finally arrived. Although, I don't think it has the same prestige as the annual PokerStars' WCOOP, I love that Full Tilt provides us with a quarterly tourney series that has multiple events with life changing money to be awarded.

Being that a major portion of my bankroll is generated from satellite wins, the FTOPS is great because there are a ton of satellites available to help pad my bankroll. I was able to win multiple seats to Event #10, three seats into the ME and a few others here and there. So in a sense, the ME itself was a "freeroll" because I was up from winning multiple seats.

I went to bed on Saturday at a reasonable time for me, 2am, in order to get enough sleep so that I would be energized for a long night of poker on Sunday. Well, I woke up at around 10am and took care of some house work before plopping into my office chair. After playing for about 5 hours and only winning one seat to the FTOPS Event #24, I decided to chill for a couple of hours before the ME began.

6pm arrived. Showtime.

Not much happened during the first hour. We started with at 5k chip stack, but at the first break I was down to 4890 in chips.

I tried my best to stick with my small ball approach. The blinds were low and no antes were involved so I just wanted to steadily build up my stack without getting into any difficult decisions for my tourney life. During the second hour, the first hand that I was dealt was AA. Fortunately for me, another player was dealt KK. He had me covered. We got all of the chips in pre-flop and my hand held. Unfortunately for me, in the last hand before the second break, I was in a pot with the same guy. This time I held KK and he held AA. What are the odds of that happening? After that loss, I was still sitting on about 10k in chips at the second break.

A lot of fireworks happened during the third hour. I picked up a few hands and got paid off. At break #3, I had just under 26k in chips. Not much happened during the fourth hour. I was at pretty much the same stack as at the last break, but lost a big pot just before the fourth break. Now I had just over 16k.

During the fifth hour, the money bubble was burst. I was very short during this bubble. So my stack prevented me from gaining any "free chips". I had to basically sit back and watch the big stacks steal all of the pots. Patience grasshopper. I knew it would be ON as soon as the bubble burst. It didn't take too long for the bubble to burst. When it did, I was sitting on about $9k. An orbit and a half later, I was sitting on an average stack of 40k without a single showdown. At the fifth break, I had 48k in chips. I managed to chip up some more and had about 129k at the sixth break. I wouldn't last long enough to see the seventh break. My stacked peaked at about 180k. I really like the way I was able to chip up from break to break for the most part. This is an area of my game which I would like to become very good, chipping up, without playing huge pots.

The tourney paid out the top 648 players. #1 got $430k and #665 got $725. 4880 people began with dreams of a $430k payday. From about 1000 players on to the end of my tourney, I just went completely card dead. It was pretty painful. I had to rely on a bunch of moves in order to march on. A couple of hands deep into the tourney I sucked out pretty good. Here they are:

Hand #1:
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Seat 1: Tsc02 ($21,288)
Seat 2: Fzth1 ($84,508)
Seat 3: Kid_Chino ($43,358)
Seat 5: aka_advanced ($112,937) -
Seat 6: TheJunkie ($41,195) -
Seat 7: m_reed05 ($76,351)
Seat 8: jeystyle ($126,062)
Seat 9: The Lipton Kid ($132,005)

PRE-FLOP:

aka_advanced posts small blind $1200
TheJunkie posts BIG blind $2400
Dealt To: TheJunkie

ANTE Tsc02 ($300)
ANTE Fzth1 ($300)
ANTE Kid_Chino ($300)
ANTE aka_advanced ($300)
ANTE TheJunkie ($300)
ANTE m_reed05 ($300)
ANTE jeystyle ($300)
ANTE The Lipton Kid ($300)
FOLD m_reed05
FOLD jeystyle
FOLD The Lipton Kid
FOLD Tsc02
FOLD Fzth1
RAISE Kid_Chino ($7200)
FOLD aka_advanced
RAISE TheJunkie ($40895)
CALL Kid_Chino ($33695)

FLOP:

Pot: $85390

TURN:

Pot: $85390

RIVER:

Pot: $85390

SHOWDOWN:
TheJunkie:

Kid_Chino:

TheJunkie collected $85390 from main pot with a flush, Ace high

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $85 Rake: $0

Final Board:

Seat 1: Tsc02 folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-300)
Seat 2: Fzth1 folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-300)
Seat 3: Kid_Chino showed [9c 9h] and lost with three of a kind, Nines - Net Gain/Loss: ($-41195)

Seat 5: aka_advanced small blind folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-1500)
Seat 6: TheJunkie big blind showed [Td Kc] and won 85,390 with a flush, Ace high - Net Gain/Loss: ($44195)
Seat 7: m_reed05 folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-300)
Seat 8: jeystyle folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-300)
Seat 9: The Lipton Kid folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-300)

Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Hand #2:
Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Seat 1: NaStEE_Nas ($75,050)
Seat 2: Fzth1 ($97,488)
Seat 3: stensture ($96,909)
Seat 4: Not da MaMa ($68,762)
Seat 5: aka_advanced ($130,286)
Seat 6: TheJunkie ($88,239) -
Seat 7: m_reed05 ($80,333) -
Seat 8: jeystyle ($130,512) -
Seat 9: The Lipton Kid ($73,088)

PRE-FLOP:

m_reed05 posts small blind $1700
jeystyle posts BIG blind $3400
Dealt To: TheJunkie

ANTE NaStEE_Nas ($400)
ANTE Fzth1 ($400)
ANTE stensture ($400)
ANTE Not da MaMa ($400)
ANTE aka_advanced ($400)
ANTE TheJunkie ($400)
ANTE m_reed05 ($400)
ANTE jeystyle ($400)
ANTE The Lipton Kid ($400)
FOLD The Lipton Kid
FOLD NaStEE_Nas
FOLD Fzth1
FOLD stensture
FOLD Not da MaMa
FOLD aka_advanced
RAISE TheJunkie ($8500)
FOLD m_reed05
RAISE jeystyle ($13600)
CALL TheJunkie ($5100)

FLOP:

Pot: $32500

BET jeystyle ($17000)
RAISE TheJunkie ($74239)
CALL jeystyle ($57239)

TURN:

Pot: $180978

RIVER:

Pot: $180978

SHOWDOWN:
TheJunkie:

jeystyle:

TheJunkie collected $180978 from main pot with a flush, King high

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $180 Rake: $0

Final Board:

Seat 1: NaStEE_Nas folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-400)
Seat 2: Fzth1 folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-400)
Seat 3: stensture folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-400)
Seat 4: Not da MaMa folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-400)
Seat 5: aka_advanced folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-400)
Seat 6: TheJunkie button showed [7c 5c] and won 180,978 with a flush, King high - Net Gain/Loss: ($92739)
Seat 7: m_reed05 small blind folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-2100)
Seat 8: jeystyle big blind showed [Ks Jh] and lost with two pair, Kings and Jacks - Net Gain/Loss: ($-88239)

Seat 9: The Lipton Kid folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-400)

Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Yeah I got my money in bad, but I don't think these were horrible spots to takes these lines. It just worked out for me this time. Of course I'm not used to getting this deep in a huge MTT field and definitely not used to having lady luck on my side in a MTT. Thank you lady luck. BTW, I learned a new chat expression during this tourney. "fist pump". You will be seeing that a lot from me. Hopefully, I will be giving a lot more fist pumps and a lot less "donks rule".

Here is my bust out hand. I took some heat for making this call from the railbirds. It kind of made me question my decision. I couldn't even sleep well that night. Look at the hand and then I will give you some insight into my thought process.

Hand #3 aka The Bust Out Hand:
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Seat 1: xcaptain84x ($38,474)
Seat 2: Fzth1 ($266,782)
Seat 3: stensture ($48,976)
Seat 4: Not da MaMa ($90,517)
Seat 5: aka_advanced ($102,475) -
Seat 6: TheJunkie ($109,278) -
Seat 7: m_reed05 ($51,033) -
Seat 8: jeystyle ($228,012)
Seat 9: MUPokerPlayer ($237,192)

PRE-FLOP:

TheJunkie posts small blind $2500
m_reed05 posts BIG blind $5000
Dealt To: TheJunkie

ANTE xcaptain84x ($600)
ANTE Fzth1 ($600)
ANTE stensture ($600)
ANTE Not da MaMa ($600)
ANTE aka_advanced ($600)
ANTE TheJunkie ($600)
ANTE m_reed05 ($600)
ANTE jeystyle ($600)
ANTE MUPokerPlayer ($600)
FOLD jeystyle
FOLD MUPokerPlayer
FOLD xcaptain84x
FOLD Fzth1
RAISE stensture ($14444)
FOLD Not da MaMa
RAISE aka_advanced ($101875)
RAISE TheJunkie ($108678)
FOLD m_reed05
FOLD stensture
UNCALLED TheJunkie ($6803)

FLOP:

Pot: $228594

TURN:

Pot: $228594

RIVER:

Pot: $228594

SHOWDOWN:
TheJunkie:

aka_advanced:

aka_advanced collected $228594 from main pot with three of a kind, Fives

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $228 Rake: $0

Final Board:

Seat 1: xcaptain84x folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-600)
Seat 2: Fzth1 folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-600)
Seat 3: stensture folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-15044)
Seat 4: Not da MaMa folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-600)
Seat 5: aka_advanced button showed [5d 5s] and won 228,594 with three of a kind, Fives - Net Gain/Loss: ($126119)

Seat 6: TheJunkie small blind showed [As Kd] and lost with Ace King high - Net Gain/Loss: ($-102475)
Seat 7: m_reed05 big blind folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-5600)
Seat 8: jeystyle folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-600)
Seat 9: MUPokerPlayer folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-600)

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The initial raiser was very short. His raise and from playing with him, seemed more like he was trying to steal the BB from another short stack. He either had a monster or nothing. (BTW, I thought his play in this hand was pretty bad. FWIW) I had a hand that was strong enough to shove on him, but after the button shoved All-in, I had to pause. Why would this guy be shoving on a small stack when I have plenty of chips for him to try and take? At this point, I was more focused on the big stack and less so on the short stack. Even if the short stack had me crushed, there would be plenty of chips in the side pot. The range that I gave to the big stack was TT-55, AJ+, KQ+. With 20BBs and not many good spots to open, I decided that this spot was as good as any to try and double up which would result in me having a Top 25 chip stack. In order to win tourneys, you have to win these flips. (At least that's what I've heard and read, given that I haven't won jack shit. LOL) So, I called and lost the flip. GG me. Don't let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya.

Afterwards, I opened pokerstove and saw that I was actually a 58% - 42% favorite over his range. So I felt a little better, but wanted to hear the thoughts of my fellow PoketFivers. Here are some of the responses that I received:

"If he is shoving 55 then he's shoving AQ and AJ i imagine. Pretty standard call for you i say."

"I think its standard. Big field, 20bb, you need to chip up soon. Here's a great spot. And you have the chance to win a huge pot if original raiser calls. EVen if he doesn't, lots of dead money in there with his bet, blinds and antes. Now ur getting fantastic odds to take a coin flip. Don't think twice about this imo.

Unless theraiser was opening like every other pot, then that shove wtih 55 is atrocious, eh?"

The most important response came from AJKHoosier1. He is currently ranked by PocketFives as the #1 online player in the world. This was his response:

"i was actually watching this table and obv ur call was super standard. i can see the reason for fear being the fact that aka_advanced is reshoving on a guy with 10 total bbs who raised to almost 3x (fwiw really dont love the 55 shove), but especially if stens had shown a tendency to raise/fold in donkish fashion, then you gotta imagine aka is shoving AJ+ etc. which is more than enough to justify ur AKs... along with the fact that it's, well, AKs"

All in all, I was at ease with the payout, but by no means satisfied with the outcome. Finishing 160th out of 4800 and a $1700 check will help out my bankroll rather nicely, but that isn't why I play in MTTs. #1 or bust.

This tourney was the deepest that I've finished in a Sunday Major so far and it was the biggest payout that I've won in a MTT. More importantly, this tourney added massive amounts of octane to my poker fire. Good luck at the tables and thanks for reading.

Congrats to my tablemates!
Not da Mama(24th), jeystyle(30th), MUPokerPlayer(34th) and aka_advanced(39th)

What Would Daniel Do? (WWDD) 8/15/08

2008-08-16T01:56:00.000-04:00

Well, tonight I actually played poker with people that I can see. LOL. I played in our weekly home game. As I've mentioned in previous posts, I'm trying to transition to be more of a small ball player. I've read Daniel Negreanu's Small Ball chapter in his latest book to try and help with learning the style. He is probably the poster child for this style of play. Undoubtedly, there will be some growing pains coming from more of a long ball style.

Here is the situation in question.

We started with $5k stacks. The levels are 30 minutes. At this point in time, the blinds are 75/150, I have about $3600 in chips and I am the big blind. We are 8-handed. A loose passive lady(UTG+3) limps for $150, the button a solid player that hasn't been out of line makes it $550. The small blind folds. I look down at AKo. There is $925 in the pot and about 15 minutes left in this level. The limper can have a very wide range of hands. I think her range includes Ace rag, small pairs, small connectors and hands like KT, QT, JT. If she had a big broadway hand or premium pair she would raise. The button wouldn't raise with a very wide range. Something like, 88+, KJ+, AT+. Obviously, I can't fold. So my dilemma was, do I raise or do I call? If I raise, how much?

The limper had about $4k behind and the button had about $7k. The pot represented just shy of a third of my stack. After posting the blind, I had 23 big blinds remaining. If I had around 10 BBs, this would be an obvious shove. My stack size is in the tricky area for me, 15-25 BBs. Raise folding would be a horrible play, so I decided to shove to "resteal". Unfortunately, the button wasn't trying to steal the pot. He woke up with Aces and they held. GG Me.

I try not to be results oriented. Of course, if I knew he had Aces, I would have folded. My questions around this hand are in relation to my "new" style of MTT play. Since I am trying to be a small ball player, should i have just called the $400 and see what developed on the flop? Everything that I have read from Negreanu emphasizes keeping the pot small. But he also stresses playing in position. So I was faced with keeping the pot small, but having to play the hand out of position or take my usual long ball approach and try to take down the pot right there. So my question is What Would Daniel Do?

8/14/08 Session

2008-08-16T01:35:00.000-04:00

Well I've been running pretty well for the past week, but this session didn't go as planned. I knew my run would eventually slow down. I ended the night being down a couple of hundred. The hand below summarized my night. Ironically, earlier in the day I read a blog post from a pro poker player stating that 4-betting with air should be a part of every players arsenal. I guess I wasn't the only one to read this post. LOL.

On a positive note, like I mentioned before, the fishy satellites are good!!! I won my seat for this week's FTOPS Main Event.

Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Seat 1: BuzzFreedom ($76.65)
Seat 2: dubmusic ($30.10)
Seat 3: HrVorragend ($16.50)
Seat 4: TheJunkie ($75.35)
Seat 5: TCB-78 ($139.85) -
Seat 6: briancheng ($338.80) -
Seat 7: watrwedoin ($40.40) -
Seat 8: Shooter5656 ($87.30)
Seat 9: pattimac ($100.40)

PRE-FLOP:

briancheng posts small blind $0.50
watrwedoin posts BIG blind $1
Dealt To: TheJunkie

FOLD Shooter5656
FOLD pattimac
CALL BuzzFreedom ($1)
FOLD dubmusic
FOLD HrVorragend
CALL TheJunkie ($1)
RAISE TCB-78 ($2)
FOLD briancheng
CALL watrwedoin ($1)
CALL BuzzFreedom ($1)
CALL TheJunkie ($1)

FLOP:

Pot: $8.5

CHECK watrwedoin
CHECK BuzzFreedom
BET TheJunkie ($4)
RAISE TCB-78 ($12)
FOLD watrwedoin
FOLD BuzzFreedom
RAISE TheJunkie ($30)
RAISE TCB-78 ($60)
RAISE TheJunkie ($73.35)
CALL TCB-78 ($13.35)

TURN:

Pot: $155.2

RIVER:

Pot: $155.2

SHOWDOWN:
TheJunkie:

TCB-78:

TCB-78 collected $152.2 from main pot with a straight, Six high

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $155 Rake: $3

Final Board:

Seat 1: BuzzFreedom folded on the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-2)
Seat 2: dubmusic didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 3: HrVorragend didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 4: TheJunkie showed [6d Kd] and lost with two pair, Kings and Sixes - Net Gain/Loss: ($-79.35)
Seat 5: TCB-78 button showed [4c 4d] and won 152.20 with a straight, Six high - Net Gain/Loss: ($76.85)

Seat 6: briancheng small blind folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-0.5)
Seat 7: watrwedoin big blind folded on the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-2)
Seat 8: Shooter5656 didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 9: pattimac didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)

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FTOPS IX Main Event Satellite

2008-08-14T00:34:00.000-04:00

Warning. This is a little bad beat story. You have been warned.

I wasn't pissed that I lost the hand, but more so that I have been waiting all week to play in this satellite to the FTOPS Main Event, and busted in the 3rd hand. Oh well, there's always tomorrow. I usually win two seats by playing in this fishy satellite.

Hand #1
The more that I think about it, the more I know that I should have folded. Not because I thought I was behind, but because it was so early in the satellite. I think I'm an above average satellite player, but still make these mistakes from time to time.

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Seat 1: x3rces ($1,985)
Seat 2: Kiep Do Den FT ($2,000)
Seat 3: dukeabtu ($1,955) -
Seat 4: TheJunkie ($1,970) -
Seat 5: dhUltralisk ($2,000) Sitting Out -
Seat 6: dobriak ($2,045)
Seat 7: 53095 ($2,045)
Seat 9: RJA34 ($2,000)

PRE-FLOP:

TheJunkie posts small blind $15
dhUltralisk posts BIG blind $30
Dealt To: TheJunkie

CALL dobriak ($30)
FOLD 53095
RAISE RJA34 ($60)
FOLD x3rces
FOLD Kiep Do Den FT
FOLD dukeabtu
CALL TheJunkie ($45)
FOLD dhUltralisk
RAISE dobriak ($2045)
FOLD RJA34
CALL TheJunkie ($1910)
UNCALLED dobriak ($75)

FLOP:

Pot: $4030


TURN:

Pot: $4030


RIVER:

Pot: $4030


SHOWDOWN:
dobriak:

TheJunkie:

dobriak collected $4030 from main pot with a full house, Sixes full of Threes

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $4 Rake: $0

Final Board:


Seat 1: x3rces didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 2: Kiep Do Den FT didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 3: dukeabtu button didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 4: TheJunkie small blind showed [Jd Jh] and lost with two pair, Jacks and Sixes - Net Gain/Loss: ($-1970)
Seat 5: dhUltralisk big blind folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-30)
Seat 6: dobriak showed [6d 4s] and won 4,030 with a full house, Sixes full of Threes - Net Gain/Loss: ($2060)

Seat 7: 53095 didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 9: RJA34 folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-60)

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8/12/08 Session Hands

2008-08-13T14:07:00.001-04:00

Here are some interesting hands from a recent session.

Hand #1
On the turn, I was kicking myself for not re-raising preflop. That way I would have a better idea of where I was at. I was scared of a set of tens, but also thought that JJ and a suited AK may be in his range. A set of 3s or 7s doesn't seem likely because most people would not reraise with those hand preflop. They'd want to set mine for cheap. Maybe I'm just a tight cash game player. I ran my timebank down to 1 second before making my decision.

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Seat 1: johnny9x ($26.25) -
Seat 2: NDirish80 ($283.65) -
Seat 3: GonzoKovac ($339.60)
Seat 4: DearDeer ($87.90)
Seat 5: MClark79 ($100)
Seat 6: TheJunkie ($93.65)
Seat 7: PocketJaKKd ($232.90)
Seat 8: HammyHam13 ($83.85) -

PRE-FLOP:

johnny9x posts small blind $0.50
NDirish80 posts BIG blind $1
Dealt To: TheJunkie

FOLD GonzoKovac
FOLD DearDeer
FOLD MClark79
RAISE TheJunkie ($3)
FOLD PocketJaKKd
RAISE HammyHam13 ($6)
FOLD johnny9x
FOLD NDirish80
CALL TheJunkie ($3)

FLOP:

Pot: $13.5


CHECK TheJunkie
BET HammyHam13 ($10)
CALL TheJunkie ($10)

TURN:

Pot: $33.5


CHECK TheJunkie
BET HammyHam13 ($67.85)
CALL TheJunkie ($67.85)

RIVER:

Pot: $169.2


SHOWDOWN:
HammyHam13:

TheJunkie:

TheJunkie collected $166.2 from main pot with a pair of Queens

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $169 Rake: $3

Final Board:


Seat 1: johnny9x small blind folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-0.5)
Seat 2: NDirish80 big blind folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-1)
Seat 3: GonzoKovac didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 4: DearDeer didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 5: MClark79 didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 6: TheJunkie showed [Qs Qc] and won 166.20 with a pair of Queens - Net Gain/Loss: ($82.35)
Seat 7: PocketJaKKd didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 8: HammyHam13 button showed [9c 9s] and lost with a pair of Nines - Net Gain/Loss: ($-83.85)


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Hand #2
This was a very crazy hand. I had no idea what this guy could have to make this a "correct" play. Had to be a monster or complete air. In the end, I gave him credit for a monster.

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Seat 1: fogz1 ($15)
Seat 2: JayCe 24 ($100)
Seat 3: sharky7878 ($42.60) -
Seat 4: kidfiness ($113.10) -
Seat 6: fdlgn6368 ($109.95) -
Seat 7: Stanmans9 ($100) Sitting Out
Seat 8: kentowin ($45.95)
Seat 9: TheJunkie ($101.70)

PRE-FLOP:

kidfiness posts small blind $0.50
fdlgn6368 posts BIG blind $1
Dealt To: TheJunkie

CALL kentowin ($1)
CALL TheJunkie ($1)
CALL fogz1 ($1)
CALL JayCe 24 ($1)
CALL sharky7878 ($1)
CALL kidfiness ($0.50)
CHECK fdlgn6368

FLOP:

Pot: $7


CHECK kidfiness
BET fdlgn6368 ($5)
FOLD kentowin
CALL TheJunkie ($5)
FOLD fogz1
CALL JayCe 24 ($5)
FOLD sharky7878
FOLD kidfiness

TURN:

Pot: $22


BET fdlgn6368 ($16)
CALL TheJunkie ($16)
RAISE JayCe 24 ($56)
FOLD fdlgn6368
FOLD TheJunkie
UNCALLED JayCe 24 ($40)
MUCK JayCe 24

JayCe 24 collected $67 from main pot

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $70 Rake: $3

Final Board:


Seat 1: fogz1 folded on the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-1)
Seat 2: JayCe 24 collected 67, mucked - Net Gain/Loss: ($45)
Seat 3: sharky7878 button folded on the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-1)
Seat 4: kidfiness small blind folded on the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-1)
Seat 6: fdlgn6368 big blind folded on the Turn - Net Gain/Loss: ($-22)
Seat 7: Stanmans9 is sitting out - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 8: kentowin folded on the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-1)
Seat 9: TheJunkie folded on the Turn - Net Gain/Loss: ($-22)

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Hand #3
I guess I lost the minimum in this hand. Thanks for the river check. I probably would have made a crying call on the river had he made a small bet, but can't see myself calling an All-in bet. I felt like A1plus1's weak $1 flop bet opened the door for NDirish80 to take control of the pot with as little as an 8 or value bet his Ace. Luckily, I was able to cheaply find out that those were value bets. Unfortunately, my hand was just good enough to pay him off.

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Seat 1: johnny9x ($99)
Seat 2: NDirish80 ($200)
Seat 3: GonzoKovac ($319.65)
Seat 4: DearDeer ($80.75) -
Seat 5: VBDave ($163.70) -
Seat 6: TheJunkie ($89.15) -
Seat 7: PocketJaKKd ($210.55)
Seat 8: marketa555 ($100)
Seat 9: A1plus1 ($230.25)

PRE-FLOP:

VBDave posts small blind $0.50
TheJunkie posts BIG blind $1
Dealt To: TheJunkie

FOLD PocketJaKKd
FOLD marketa555
CALL A1plus1 ($1)
FOLD johnny9x
CALL NDirish80 ($1)
FOLD GonzoKovac
FOLD DearDeer
CALL VBDave ($0.50)
CHECK TheJunkie

FLOP:

Pot: $4


CHECK VBDave
CHECK TheJunkie
BET A1plus1 ($1)
RAISE NDirish80 ($5)
FOLD VBDave
CALL TheJunkie ($5)
FOLD A1plus1

TURN:

Pot: $15


CHECK TheJunkie
BET NDirish80 ($11)
CALL TheJunkie ($11)

RIVER:

Pot: $37


CHECK TheJunkie
CHECK NDirish80

SHOWDOWN:
NDirish80:

MUCK TheJunkie

NDirish80 collected $35.15 from main pot with three of a kind, Aces

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $37 Rake: $1.85

Final Board:


Seat 1: johnny9x didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 2: NDirish80 showed [Jh As] and won 35.15 with three of a kind, Aces - Net Gain/Loss: ($18.15)

Seat 3: GonzoKovac didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 4: DearDeer button didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 5: VBDave small blind folded on the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-1)
Seat 6: TheJunkie big blind mucked [Ah 5h] - three of a kind, Aces - Net Gain/Loss: ($-17)
Seat 7: PocketJaKKd didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 8: marketa555 didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 9: A1plus1 folded on the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-2)

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Full Tilt Store

2008-08-12T01:13:00.000-04:00

When I first started playing on Full Tilt, I set a goal to earn 25,000 FTPs to exchange them for a customized jersey. While, I'd still like to have one, I'm not as excited about them as I once was. Now I have my eyes on a new prize. A cool poker table to go into my poker tableless house. I "just" need 180,000 more FTPs. At my current rate, it'll only take another 2-3 years. LOL.

FTOPS IX Event #10: $300 NLHE

2008-08-11T01:06:00.000-04:00

I've been able to satellite into the past five or so FTOPS Sunday NL Holdem tourneys fairly easily, but only have one cash. I was actually looking forward to this tourney because I was having a pretty good weekend. One Time Full Tilt!!! But it wasn't meant to be. Another FTOPS tourney, another non-cash finish.

I'm still in the early stages of trying to become more of a small ball player than my current long ball approach. Things went well during the first hour. I was able to chip up to about 5500 from the starting chip stack of 3000, but that was short lived. Here are two key hands that occurred right after the first break.

As a side note, congrats to HUMZIE for finishing in 23rd place for a nice pickup of $5550. He was the chip leader with about 70 people left. Must be nice. I didn't play many hands with him but he was chatting it up with Beth Shak a lot.

Hand #1:
Can I actually get away from the second nuts in this hand? As soon as he called I knew what he had. I figured Clements was making a move given the action, so I wasn't too worried about his raise.

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Seat 1: TheChipsMaster ($2,190)
Seat 2: HUMZIE ($2,775)
Seat 3: Guzzinator ($3,245)
Seat 4: Scott Clements ($3,905)
Seat 5: Shahin86 ($3,450)
Seat 6: TheJunkie ($5,600) -
Seat 7: fergwrx ($3,580) -
Seat 8: Galeforce12 ($3,470) -
Seat 9: Beth Shak ($1,480)

PRE-FLOP:

fergwrx posts small blind $40
Galeforce12 posts BIG blind $80
Dealt To: TheJunkie

FOLD Beth Shak
FOLD TheChipsMaster
CALL HUMZIE ($80)
FOLD Guzzinator
CALL Scott Clements ($80)
FOLD Shahin86
CALL TheJunkie ($80)
CALL fergwrx ($40)
CHECK Galeforce12

FLOP:

Pot: $400


CHECK fergwrx
CHECK Galeforce12
CHECK HUMZIE
CHECK Scott Clements
CHECK TheJunkie

TURN:

Pot: $400


BET fergwrx ($400)
FOLD Galeforce12
CALL HUMZIE ($400)
RAISE Scott Clements ($1050)
RAISE TheJunkie ($5520)
CALL fergwrx ($3100)
FOLD HUMZIE
FOLD Scott Clements
UNCALLED TheJunkie ($2020)

RIVER:

Pot: $8850


SHOWDOWN:
TheJunkie:

fergwrx:

fergwrx collected $8850 from main pot with a straight, Ace high

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $8 Rake: $0

Final Board:


Seat 1: TheChipsMaster didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 2: HUMZIE folded on the Turn - Net Gain/Loss: ($-480)
Seat 3: Guzzinator didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 4: Scott Clements folded on the Turn - Net Gain/Loss: ($-1130)
Seat 5: Shahin86 didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 6: TheJunkie button showed [Js 9s] and lost with a straight, King high - Net Gain/Loss: ($-3580)
Seat 7: fergwrx small blind showed [As Jd] and won 8,850 with a straight, Ace high - Net Gain/Loss: ($5270)

Seat 8: Galeforce12 big blind folded on the Turn - Net Gain/Loss: ($-80)
Seat 9: Beth Shak didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)

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Hand #2 aka The Bust Hand:
This hand is a prime example for why I'm trying to learn how to play a small ball strategy. This should have been an easy fold.

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Seat 1: TheChipsMaster ($2,070)
Seat 2: HUMZIE ($2,095)
Seat 3: Guzzinator ($3,245) -
Seat 4: Scott Clements ($3,135) -
Seat 5: Shahin86 ($3,570) -
Seat 6: TheJunkie ($2,020)
Seat 7: fergwrx ($8,850)
Seat 8: Galeforce12 ($3,310)
Seat 9: Beth Shak ($1,400)

PRE-FLOP:

Scott Clements posts small blind $40
Shahin86 posts BIG blind $80
Dealt To: TheJunkie

RAISE TheJunkie ($240)
CALL fergwrx ($240)
FOLD Galeforce12
FOLD Beth Shak
CALL TheChipsMaster ($240)
FOLD HUMZIE
RAISE Guzzinator ($1280)
FOLD Scott Clements
FOLD Shahin86
RAISE TheJunkie ($2020)
RAISE fergwrx ($2320)
FOLD TheChipsMaster
RAISE Guzzinator ($3245)
CALL fergwrx ($925)

FLOP:

Pot: $8870


TURN:

Pot: $8870


RIVER:

Pot: $8870


SHOWDOWN:
Guzzinator:

TheJunkie:

fergwrx:

Guzzinator collected $2450 from side pot 1 with two pair, Kings and FoursGuzzinator collected $6420 from main pot with two pair, Kings and Fours

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $8Main pot: $6
Side pot: $2
Rake: $0

Final Board:


Seat 1: TheChipsMaster folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-240)
Seat 2: HUMZIE didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 3: Guzzinator button showed [Kc Kd] and won 8,870 with two pair, Kings and Fours - Net Gain/Loss: ($5625)

Seat 4: Scott Clements small blind folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-40)
Seat 5: Shahin86 big blind folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-80)
Seat 6: TheJunkie showed [Ac Qs] and lost with two pair, Queens and Fours - Net Gain/Loss: ($-2020)
Seat 7: fergwrx showed [Jc Js] and lost with two pair, Jacks and Fours - Net Gain/Loss: ($-3245)

Seat 8: Galeforce12 didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 9: Beth Shak didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)

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My First Full Tilt MTT Final Table

2008-08-10T22:20:00.000-04:00

Well, it has taken a couple of years, but today, I finally made a Final Table in a MTT. I've made a ton of final tables in satellites, but not in MTTs. This was my first on Full Tilt. The tourney had 599 players. It was a $20k monthly freeroll that I play for being a member of This Is The Nuts. If you are looking for rakeback, please sign-up and use my referral ID: TheJunkie. A link is posted in my sidebar.

Well, this trip to the final table didn't last nearly as long as I had hoped. I only played 5 hands and finished in 8th place. The payout was only $500. That $5000 was oh so close. Hopefully, it won't take another two years to get to my next MTT final table.

HAND #1:
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Seat 1: WildCrazyJohnny ($291,008)
Seat 2: MrBuffett ($125,156)
Seat 3: Hsun ($33,494)
Seat 4: AO1715 ($96,807)
Seat 5: MyEntourage ($166,147) -
Seat 6: TheJunkie ($38,990) -
Seat 7: goodgollymolly ($27,264) -
Seat 8: GINBABYFKIT ($19,654)
Seat 9: JK1984 ($39,980)

PRE-FLOP:

TheJunkie posts small blind $2500
goodgollymolly posts BIG blind $5000
Dealt To: TheJunkie

ANTE WildCrazyJohnny ($600)
ANTE MrBuffett ($600)
ANTE Hsun ($600)
ANTE AO1715 ($600)
ANTE MyEntourage ($600)
ANTE TheJunkie ($600)
ANTE goodgollymolly ($600)
ANTE GINBABYFKIT ($600)
ANTE JK1984 ($600)
FOLD GINBABYFKIT
FOLD JK1984
FOLD WildCrazyJohnny
FOLD MrBuffett
FOLD Hsun
FOLD AO1715
FOLD MyEntourage
RAISE TheJunkie ($38390)
FOLD goodgollymolly
UNCALLED TheJunkie ($33390)
MUCK TheJunkie

TheJunkie collected $15400 from main pot

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $15 Rake: $0

Seat 1: WildCrazyJohnny folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-600)
Seat 2: MrBuffett folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-600)
Seat 3: Hsun folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-600)
Seat 4: AO1715 folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-600)
Seat 5: MyEntourage button folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-600)
Seat 6: TheJunkie small blind collected 15,400, mucked - Net Gain/Loss: ($9800)
Seat 7: goodgollymolly big blind folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-5600)
Seat 8: GINBABYFKIT folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-600)
Seat 9: JK1984 folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-600)

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HAND #2:
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Seat 1: WildCrazyJohnny ($275,258)
Seat 2: MrBuffett ($140,156)
Seat 3: Hsun ($37,944)
Seat 4: AO1715 ($123,957)
Seat 5: MyEntourage ($139,643)
Seat 6: TheJunkie ($35,240) -
Seat 7: goodgollymolly ($15,314) -
Seat 8: GINBABYFKIT ($44,658) -
Seat 9: JK1984 ($26,330)

PRE-FLOP:

goodgollymolly posts small blind $3000
GINBABYFKIT posts BIG blind $6000
Dealt To: TheJunkie

ANTE WildCrazyJohnny ($750)
ANTE MrBuffett ($750)
ANTE Hsun ($750)
ANTE AO1715 ($750)
ANTE MyEntourage ($750)
ANTE TheJunkie ($750)
ANTE goodgollymolly ($750)
ANTE GINBABYFKIT ($750)
ANTE JK1984 ($750)
FOLD JK1984
FOLD WildCrazyJohnny
FOLD MrBuffett
FOLD Hsun
FOLD AO1715
FOLD MyEntourage
RAISE TheJunkie ($34490)
CALL goodgollymolly ($11564)
FOLD GINBABYFKIT
UNCALLED TheJunkie ($19926)

FLOP:

Pot: $41878


TURN:

Pot: $41878


RIVER:

Pot: $41878


SHOWDOWN:
TheJunkie:

goodgollymolly:

goodgollymolly collected $41878 from main pot with a flush, Ace high

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $41 Rake: $0

Final Board:


Seat 1: WildCrazyJohnny folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-750)
Seat 2: MrBuffett folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-750)
Seat 3: Hsun folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-750)
Seat 4: AO1715 folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-750)
Seat 5: MyEntourage folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-750)
Seat 6: TheJunkie button showed [Qc 8c] and lost with a straight, Queen high - Net Gain/Loss: ($-15314)
Seat 7: goodgollymolly small blind showed [Kd 6d] and won 41,878 with a flush, Ace high - Net Gain/Loss: ($26564)

Seat 8: GINBABYFKIT big blind folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-6750)
Seat 9: JK1984 folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-750)

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HAND #3:
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Seat 1: WildCrazyJohnny ($263,258) -
Seat 2: MrBuffett ($146,906) -
Seat 3: Hsun ($50,694) -
Seat 4: AO1715 ($120,957)
Seat 5: MyEntourage ($136,643)
Seat 6: TheJunkie ($17,676)
Seat 7: goodgollymolly ($21,548)
Seat 8: GINBABYFKIT ($32,658)
Seat 9: JK1984 ($48,160)

PRE-FLOP:

MrBuffett posts small blind $3000
Hsun posts BIG blind $6000
Dealt To: TheJunkie

ANTE WildCrazyJohnny ($750)
ANTE MrBuffett ($750)
ANTE Hsun ($750)
ANTE AO1715 ($750)
ANTE MyEntourage ($750)
ANTE TheJunkie ($750)
ANTE goodgollymolly ($750)
ANTE GINBABYFKIT ($750)
ANTE JK1984 ($750)
FOLD AO1715
FOLD MyEntourage
RAISE TheJunkie ($16926)
RAISE goodgollymolly ($20798)
FOLD GINBABYFKIT
FOLD JK1984
CALL WildCrazyJohnny ($20798)
FOLD MrBuffett
FOLD Hsun

FLOP:

Pot: $74272


TURN:

Pot: $74272


RIVER:

Pot: $74272


SHOWDOWN:
goodgollymolly:

WildCrazyJohnny:

TheJunkie:

TheJunkie collected $66528 from main pot with a pair of Queens

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $74Main pot: $66
Side pot: $7
Rake: $0

Final Board:


Seat 1: WildCrazyJohnny button showed [Jc Qc] and won 3,872 with a pair of Queens - Net Gain/Loss: ($-21548)

Seat 2: MrBuffett small blind folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-3750)
Seat 3: Hsun big blind folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-6750)
Seat 4: AO1715 folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-750)
Seat 5: MyEntourage folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-750)
Seat 6: TheJunkie showed [Qd Ac] and won 66,528 with a pair of Queens - Net Gain/Loss: ($48852)
Seat 7: goodgollymolly showed [Jh Qs] and won 3,872 with a pair of Queens - Net Gain/Loss: ($-21548)

Seat 8: GINBABYFKIT folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-750)
Seat 9: JK1984 folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-750)

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HAND #4:
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Seat 1: WildCrazyJohnny ($244,832)
Seat 2: MrBuffett ($142,406)
Seat 3: Hsun ($40,194) -
Seat 4: AO1715 ($113,457) -
Seat 5: MyEntourage ($150,893) -
Seat 6: TheJunkie ($65,778)
Seat 7: goodgollymolly ($3,122)
Seat 8: GINBABYFKIT ($31,158)
Seat 9: JK1984 ($46,660)

PRE-FLOP:

AO1715 posts small blind $3000
MyEntourage posts BIG blind $6000
Dealt To: TheJunkie

ANTE WildCrazyJohnny ($750)
ANTE MrBuffett ($750)
ANTE Hsun ($750)
ANTE AO1715 ($750)
ANTE MyEntourage ($750)
ANTE TheJunkie ($750)
ANTE goodgollymolly ($750)
ANTE GINBABYFKIT ($750)
ANTE JK1984 ($750)
RAISE TheJunkie ($65028)
FOLD goodgollymolly
FOLD GINBABYFKIT
FOLD JK1984
FOLD WildCrazyJohnny
FOLD MrBuffett
CALL Hsun ($39444)
FOLD AO1715
FOLD MyEntourage
UNCALLED TheJunkie ($25584)

FLOP:

Pot: $94638


TURN:

Pot: $94638


RIVER:

Pot: $94638


SHOWDOWN:
TheJunkie:

Hsun:

Hsun collected $94638 from main pot with a pair of Eights

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $94 Rake: $0

Final Board:


Seat 1: WildCrazyJohnny folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-750)
Seat 2: MrBuffett folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-750)
Seat 3: Hsun button showed [8c 8s] and won 94,638 with a pair of Eights - Net Gain/Loss: ($54444)

Seat 4: AO1715 small blind folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-3750)
Seat 5: MyEntourage big blind folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-6750)
Seat 6: TheJunkie showed [As Ks] and lost with Ace King high - Net Gain/Loss: ($-40194)
Seat 7: goodgollymolly folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-750)
Seat 8: GINBABYFKIT folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-750)
Seat 9: JK1984 folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-750)

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HAND #5 aka The Bust Hand:
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Seat 1: WildCrazyJohnny ($243,332)
Seat 2: MrBuffett ($140,906)
Seat 3: Hsun ($93,888)
Seat 4: AO1715 ($108,957)
Seat 5: MyEntourage ($140,393) -
Seat 6: TheJunkie ($18,834) -
Seat 8: GINBABYFKIT ($47,030) -
Seat 9: JK1984 ($45,160)

PRE-FLOP:

TheJunkie posts small blind $3000
GINBABYFKIT posts BIG blind $6000
Dealt To: TheJunkie

ANTE WildCrazyJohnny ($750)
ANTE MrBuffett ($750)
ANTE Hsun ($750)
ANTE AO1715 ($750)
ANTE MyEntourage ($750)
ANTE TheJunkie ($750)
ANTE GINBABYFKIT ($750)
ANTE JK1984 ($750)
FOLD JK1984
FOLD WildCrazyJohnny
FOLD MrBuffett
FOLD Hsun
RAISE AO1715 ($18000)
FOLD MyEntourage
RAISE TheJunkie ($18084)
RAISE GINBABYFKIT ($46280)
CALL AO1715 ($28280)

FLOP:

Pot: $116644


TURN:

Pot: $116644


RIVER:

Pot: $116644


SHOWDOWN:
GINBABYFKIT:

AO1715:

TheJunkie:

GINBABYFKIT collected $56392 from side pot 1 with two pair, Aces and TensGINBABYFKIT collected $60252 from main pot with two pair, Aces and Tens

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $116Main pot: $60
Side pot: $56
Rake: $0

Final Board:


Seat 1: WildCrazyJohnny folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-750)
Seat 2: MrBuffett folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-750)
Seat 3: Hsun folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-750)
Seat 4: AO1715 showed [3c 3h] and lost with a pair of Threes - Net Gain/Loss: ($-47030)

Seat 5: MyEntourage button folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-750)
Seat 6: TheJunkie small blind showed [6c 6d] and lost with a pair of Sixes - Net Gain/Loss: ($-18834)
Seat 8: GINBABYFKIT big blind showed [As Th] and won 116,644 with two pair, Aces and Tens - Net Gain/Loss: ($69614)

Seat 9: JK1984 folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-750)

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Getting Full Value

2008-08-08T11:19:00.001-04:00

Gotta love the play at .50/$1. I thought for sure that I would see some form of an Ace when this guy called. Like AT or AQ.

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Seat 1: TheJunkie ($130.60)
Seat 2: AndyH17 ($95)
Seat 3: kaizoku318 ($123.55) -
Seat 4: phunkiemonkey ($105.50) -
Seat 5: kouun ($100) -
Seat 6: primemutton ($100)
Seat 7: yea right b ($111.85)
Seat 8: NavY749 ($100)
Seat 9: briancheng ($157.55)

PRE-FLOP:

phunkiemonkey posts small blind $0.50
kouun posts BIG blind $1
Dealt To: TheJunkie

FOLD primemutton
FOLD yea right b
FOLD NavY749
FOLD briancheng
RAISE TheJunkie ($3)
CALL AndyH17 ($3)
FOLD kaizoku318
CALL phunkiemonkey ($2.50)
FOLD kouun

FLOP:

Pot: $10


CHECK phunkiemonkey
BET TheJunkie ($6)
CALL AndyH17 ($6)
FOLD phunkiemonkey

TURN:

Pot: $22


BET TheJunkie ($10)
CALL AndyH17 ($10)

RIVER:

Pot: $42


BET TheJunkie ($111.60)
CALL AndyH17 ($76)
UNCALLED TheJunkie ($35.60)

SHOWDOWN:
TheJunkie:

MUCK AndyH17

TheJunkie collected $191 from main pot with a full house, Kings full of Queens

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $194 Rake: $3

Final Board:


Seat 1: TheJunkie showed [Qh Ks] and won 191 with a full house, Kings full of Queens - Net Gain/Loss: ($96)
Seat 2: AndyH17 mucked [Tc 9c] - a straight, King high - Net Gain/Loss: ($-95)
Seat 3: kaizoku318 button didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 4: phunkiemonkey small blind folded on the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-3)
Seat 5: kouun big blind folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-1)
Seat 6: primemutton didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 7: yea right b didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 8: NavY749 didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 9: briancheng didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)

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Full Tilt's Check Pickup Withdrawal Method

2008-08-08T11:18:00.001-04:00

For the past two months, I've been having a lot of trouble withdrawing some money from my Full Tilt account. The first time, they issued a bunch of bonuses and deposited $100 into our accounts because their payment processor issued a bunch of bad checks. This seemed great. The money I tried to withdraw was placed back into my account and they sent me an email stating that I should try the check request again. So I did.

That led to three weeks of constantly taking disappointing trips to the mailbox, I nearly exploded. After a week of constant email complaints, my money was finally deposited back into my account along with $50. This time, it was suggested, which I planned to try out anyway, the Cash Pickup withdrawal option. After about 2-3 days, I received an email giving me the details of the pickup. The money was sent via Moneygram. This was new to me, but appeared to be similar to Western Union. I was still a little nervous, but found a Moneygram center in my local Wal-mart. I went there, filled out a Receive Cash form, showed my ID and got my cash. That was a long two months to get my money, but it was such a relief. I will definitely use this withdrawal option in the future. Hopefully, it will continue to work this smoothly.

Good or Bad Laydown?

2008-08-08T00:46:00.000-04:00

The villain has been playing a tight, solid game. I have been reasonably active, but not out of line. I am playing with this guy at two tables. I have shown Aces get cracked twice in big pots, a nut flush vs. a baby flush and some good top pair type hands. I took his raise UTG to be a decent hand. 88+, AQo+. So, I leaned more to the bigger raise because I figured that I would get a call from a tight range of hands. He made what appeared to be a crying call. He nearly timed out before making the call.

I wasn't all that thrilled about the flop, but his raise set off the red flags. I figured that he would reraise with KK preflop, so the hands that I can see him raising are 99, TT, JJ, AQ and maybe QQ. I didn't think he was the type to push his draws this hard.

After calling his flop raise, his virtual All-in turn bet forced me to fold. Granted I was a little gun shy because I had AA cracked twice in the previous hour by 99 flopping a set. The more that I think about the hand, I think that there was a decent chance that he had AQ. What do you think? Good or bad laydown?

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Seat 1: DuraAce ($141.25)
Seat 2: primemutton ($100.90)
Seat 3: DegenerateTrash ($104.25) -
Seat 4: TNN4731 ($118.10) Sitting Out
Seat 5: Chomper44 ($118.40) -
Seat 6: iemdavid ($179) Sitting Out
Seat 7: TheJunkie ($197.20) -
Seat 8: briancheng ($147.95)
Seat 9: yea right b ($107.30)

PRE-FLOP:

Chomper44 posts small blind $0.50
TheJunkie posts BIG blind $1
Dealt To: TheJunkie

RAISE briancheng ($3)
FOLD yea right b
FOLD DuraAce
FOLD primemutton
FOLD DegenerateTrash
FOLD Chomper44
RAISE TheJunkie ($12)
CALL briancheng ($9)

FLOP:

Pot: $24.5


BET TheJunkie ($12)
RAISE briancheng ($35)
CALL TheJunkie ($23)

TURN:

Pot: $94.5


CHECK TheJunkie
BET briancheng ($70)
FOLD TheJunkie
UNCALLED briancheng ($70)
MUCK briancheng

briancheng collected $91.5 from main pot

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $94 Rake: $3

Final Board:


Seat 1: DuraAce didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 2: primemutton didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 3: DegenerateTrash button didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 4: TNN4731 is sitting out - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 5: Chomper44 small blind folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-0.5)
Seat 6: iemdavid is sitting out - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 7: TheJunkie big blind folded on the Turn - Net Gain/Loss: ($-47)
Seat 8: briancheng collected 91.50, mucked - Net Gain/Loss: ($44.5)
Seat 9: yea right b didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)

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Is it really possible to lay down AA PreFlop?

2008-07-20T01:16:00.000-04:00

Needless to say, this was initially a painful spot, but ultimately an "easy" lay down on the bubble of a satellite into the $535 Full Tilt $1M Guarantee tourney. I was #2 in chips of the remaining players. Even though this guy had shoved All-in several times in a row, I couldn't risk bubbling with such a deep stack knowing that there were plenty of 4k-ish short stacks. As I've shown in a previous post, AA in not invincible.

For the record, this is the first time that I've folded AA preflop, live or online, in my poker playing career. I've always wondered if I would have the discipline to make the correct decision. I guess I do.

FYI, I won a seat after the bubble burst five hands later.

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Seat 2: TheJunkie ($18,017) -
Seat 3: jvcuevas ($4,411) -
Seat 5: ShipITUPS ($14,447)
Seat 6: Rich Craft ($7,819)
Seat 8: juliotrimmer ($26,637)
Seat 9: StoliMan ($9,676) -

PRE-FLOP:

TheJunkie posts small blind $300
jvcuevas posts BIG blind $600
Dealt To: TheJunkie

ANTE TheJunkie ($75)
ANTE jvcuevas ($75)
ANTE ShipITUPS ($75)
ANTE Rich Craft ($75)
ANTE juliotrimmer ($75)
ANTE StoliMan ($75)
FOLD ShipITUPS
FOLD Rich Craft
RAISE juliotrimmer ($26562)
FOLD StoliMan
FOLD TheJunkie
FOLD jvcuevas
UNCALLED juliotrimmer ($25962)
MUCK juliotrimmer

juliotrimmer collected $1950 from main pot

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $1 Rake: $0

Seat 2: TheJunkie small blind folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-375)
Seat 3: jvcuevas big blind folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-675)
Seat 5: ShipITUPS folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-75)
Seat 6: Rich Craft folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-75)
Seat 8: juliotrimmer collected 1,950, mucked - Net Gain/Loss: ($1275)
Seat 9: StoliMan button folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-75)

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New Poker Rule

2008-07-18T19:13:00.000-04:00

There should be a rule that certain hands cannot win vs. AA when the money goes all in PreFlop. LOL. Here's a hand on the bubble of a satellite into Full Tilts Monthly $1M Guarantee. We are down to 14. 13th gets $380 and the rest get the $535 buy-in.

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Seat 1: UMWolverines ($12,107)
Seat 2: TheJunkie ($3,095)
Seat 3: get moola ($17,298)
Seat 4: BluEsq ($8,996)
Seat 5: bayne_s ($8,434) -
Seat 6: haveaniceday04 ($16,655) -
Seat 8: ChanH415 ($15,970) -

PRE-FLOP:

haveaniceday04 posts small blind $250
ChanH415 posts BIG blind $500
Dealt To: TheJunkie

ANTE UMWolverines ($50)
ANTE TheJunkie ($50)
ANTE get moola ($50)
ANTE BluEsq ($50)
ANTE bayne_s ($50)
ANTE haveaniceday04 ($50)
ANTE ChanH415 ($50)
FOLD UMWolverines
RAISE TheJunkie ($3045)
FOLD get moola
FOLD BluEsq
FOLD bayne_s
FOLD haveaniceday04
CALL ChanH415 ($2545)

FLOP:

Pot: $6690


TURN:

Pot: $6690


RIVER:

Pot: $6690


SHOWDOWN:
TheJunkie:

ChanH415:

ChanH415 collected $6690 from main pot with a full house, Fours full of Sevens

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $6 Rake: $0

Final Board:


Seat 1: UMWolverines folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-50)
Seat 2: TheJunkie showed [Ah As] and lost with two pair, Aces and Sevens - Net Gain/Loss: ($-3095)
Seat 3: get moola folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-50)
Seat 4: BluEsq folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-50)
Seat 5: bayne_s button folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-50)
Seat 6: haveaniceday04 small blind folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-300)
Seat 8: ChanH415 big blind showed [8d 4c] and won 6,690 with a full house, Fours full of Sevens - Net Gain/Loss: ($3595)


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Three New Additions to my Poker Library

2008-07-17T14:05:00.000-04:00

This post is from my old blog back in March 2008:

If there was a competition for the largest library of unfinished poker books, I would win it, hands down. Over the years, I have accumulated a good number of "must read" poker strategy books, but have not completely read any of them. I have started most of them, but have rarely read past the first chapter or two.

Well, it has been a while since I have bought a poker book. There are a few on the horizon that I plan on adding to my collection. For example, Rizen, PearlJammer and Apestyles are working together to write a potential classic about online tournies. Daniel Negreanu is releasing "Power Hold'em Strategy" and Dan Harrington is releasing a couple of cash game books.

Recently, I decided that it was time to add to my collection. I settled on the three books that are listed below. The Sit'n Go Strategy and Professional Hold'em books are published by 2+2. They have a long history of producing very good poker books and both of these have good reviews. Professional Hold'em is a cash game book. I enjoyed the Kill Bill book and based on some good reviews, I expect Kill Everyone to be just as good.

Ideally, I would post my own review of these books, but given my history, it may be a while before I finish them. With that said, I have been reading the Sit'n Go Strategy book and really enjoy it. This will probably be the first book that I read from start to finish. I am about half-way through it. There are many good hand examples and a lot of good strategy discussion. Some of the strategy I have known based on instinct, but with the explanations in this book, I should be able to make the better decision more times than not. Hopefully after reading this book, I will be able to fine tune my style so that my results are less like a roller coaster and more of an upward climb.

Better Bankroll Management for 2008

2008-07-17T13:57:00.000-04:00

This post is from my old blog back in February 2008:

One of the drawbacks that I have had in the past due to having a good paying job, is that I've developed EXTREMELY poor bankroll management discipline. I look at the big payouts of the bazillion MTTs available on Stars and FullTilt, then just buy-in or play many satellites without taking into account how the buy-ins effect on my bankroll.

"I can just reload if I hit a bad stretch."

Fortunately, I haven't had to reload often over the past 3 years or so, but that mentality is detrimental to building any kind of significant bankroll that makes all of this time that I spend playing poker, worth it. So, my #1 News Year's Poker Resolution is to develop and maintain sound bankroll management discipline.

The guidelines that I have adopted are those used by Chris Ferguson in his project to start with $0 and build it to $10k. Here are his rules:

* Never buy into a cash game or a Sit & Go with more than 5 percent of my total bankroll.
* Don't buy into a multi-table tournament for more than 2 percent of my total bankroll.
* If at any time during a No-Limit or Pot-Limit cash-game session the money on the table represents more than 10 percent of my total bankroll, I must leave the game when the blinds reach me.

Nothing ingenious, but very good rules to keep me out of trouble. I have actually used these rules for the past couple of months and it has worked out thus far. Along with following these rules, I have created a spreadsheet that tracks the fluctuations in my bankroll and the acceptable buy-ins. I update it after every day of playing poker and get a good visual of the changes in my bankroll.

If you have similar issues with bankroll management, I recommend that you try out Ferguson's rules, or something similar. And maintain some sort of spreadsheet to track your bankroll. Email me if you want a copy of mine.

I want to be a Sit-n-Go King

2008-07-16T13:51:00.000-04:00

This post is from my old blog back in February 2008:

I think that I have found my poker niche, Sit-n-gos. Cash games are too boring for me and MTTs, which I love, are hard to maintain any kind of stable profits without winning. SnGs are relatively quick, I can gain a decent ROI and they allow me to use my favorite NL Hold'em weapon, "All-in", to beat on people. We'll, I have been reading a lot of posts on the major forums and watched a bunch of SnG videos from Cardrunners and PXF. All of this has taught me a lot, but I know that I have a lot of room for growth. Currently, I am grinding out the $11 turbos on FullTilt. I love turbos because we get into push/fold mode pretty quick. I am making money, but not nearly as much as I think that I can make. My goal is to be a regular $200+ buy-in SnG player by the end of 2008.

Well, I have decided to take my training a step further and hire a coach. I've bit the bullet and decided to work with Jennifear from pocketfives. She is a winning and respected low stakes SnG teacher. I contacted her the other day and we are scheduling my first lesson. She sent me an email that kind of blew my mind. She was able to dissect a lot of my known SnG leaks based on the stats from my play. I was impressed with her analysis. Anyway, here is a quote from the end of her email. Not sure if it was just her sales pitch, but I'll take it. LOL.

"I'm really looking forward to this. It's obvious to me that

- you love this game
- you are very good at this game
- you want to get better so you seek help
- you have the potential to be very very very freaking good

I can't wait to help you get there.

Jen"

That's 3 very's and 1 freaking, but who's counting.

Hello Poker World

2008-07-15T12:57:00.000-04:00

Well it's time for me to take part in one of my other online joys that doesn't involve seeing flops, Blogging. I intend to keep this blog up-to-date as much as possible. Given that I play poker on almost a daily basis, I should have plenty of interesting hands and stories to share. Hopefully, you will be able to follow me as I successfully pursue my goal to get paroled from my cubicle prison.

Here is a scene from the best poker movie ever made, that summarizes the joy that you can only get from the felt.