Friday, March 31, 2006

More foxwoods

Played some more tourneys
4th out of 10, getting rivered multiple times in all-in battles with smaller stacks. We were at the part of the tourney where pushing with Kx-suited was not a ridiculously bad play, and I was hovering around 4M when I got knocked out.
5th out of 10
3-way chop for 1st out of 10. I triple up early w/QQ and never look back as chip leader. I also luck into some pocket aces against a calling station who didn't luck into a flush with his KTo that he called my raise with. He stayed the whole way on his split pair.
7th out of 10 - I push AKo too hard and end up in a 3 way all-in against KJo and QQ. Nobody catches, QQ wins.
8th out of 10 - Dismal cards, and the guy on my left raises every time I limp. I eventually push w/43s against QQ. I pair both my cards, but the board also pairs.

I played 20 minutes of 7 stud and lost, so it was red evening, but I'm in the black for this trip to connecticut.

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Foxwoods

Played 1/2 NL for 90 minutes at a very tight table, made a small profit after paying the parking meter. There was one loose cannon who called and raised with weak holdings, at least six rocks, and maybe 2 or 3 who didn't seem to be strong players, but didn't get into big trouble either.

Played a 10 player 65/15 sit'n'go, chopped for first. Three players seemed clueless, three were questionable, one was playing 'kill phil', so it was beatable. We played for two hours with 15 minute blinds before we got to two-handed, and the other guy wanted to chop since he had already signed up for another tourney when he was down to 150 in chips early in the tourney and came back to be the chip leader.

Sunday, March 26, 2006

Casino Windsor

Played 45 minutes of 3-6 limit, caught nothing worth seeing the turn for, switched to no limit.

In the first 2 hours, I caught a fair amount of decent starters and called lots of limp raises with suited connectors, small pp's, suited aces, and the occasional goofball hand, and connected with no flops. I tended to inevitably give up on the flop.

About 2 hours in I made a well timed steal on the turn for an uncontested pot. Then I started a streak.

Starter: Kd Jd, call a 6BB raise. Flop Ad xd xd, I check and somebody else bets half my stack, and I push to beat a crappy flush.

Starters Ax 2x (offsuit) that I'm allowed to limp. Flop Ac 2x Qc. I make a pot sized bet and get two callers. Turn is also a club, and I check and fold after a little consideration. (I fould a tell on a young surfer dude that was golden.) The other player doesn't see the tell and calls, confirming he was chasing the nut flush with Kxs, so I dodge a bullet.

Starter Ax, and I call a raise from a frequent bluffer. Flop Axx, and I bet it, he calls. I bet the turn, he calls, I bet the river, and he gets the message and goes away.

Starter 3s 5s (I learned some new tricks from Fonzie ;-) and the flop is 2s4d xs, and I bet it to see who's got anything, and the frequent flopper calls. I bet the turn without improving, he calls. I hit my straight on the river, but he had already planned to fold it seemed.

Starter TT, another player who tends to value bet pre-flop (surfer dude) bets 5BB. I call, and the perfect flop Ax Xx Tx, with a flush draw on board. I'm early, so I check, P1 bets, and Surfer overbets the pot to half his stack. I push, and I'm 3 bucks shy of covering him. He calls after agoniziing, and flips AQo, which was a pretty big kill.

Saturday, March 25, 2006

F's Cash Game 3/24/06

Played a 1/2 cash game with many of the luminaries of the social group last night. I was down to less than half my buy-in when I hit a hot streak, eventually leaving with my Buy-in plus 5 times buy-in.

Most of it can be attributed to one hand, after I had already multipled up to a healthy stack. I'm in the BB, and the raise is 3BB with at least 3 callers. I see 8h 6h, which is certainly playable in a cash game.

The flop is 4c 5d 7c, and I make a quarter-pot bet to see who's chasing the flush. I get reraised to pot-sized by F (from NA), who's been playing wild and catching all night. I give it a moment's consideration and I push my stack, which is an overbet if there ever was one. I knew I had best hand at the flop, but there were too many ways to beat me in the next two cards.

F gives it some consideration and calls, with the straight on the other end (3c 6d). He has a club, so he's got a runner-runner draw to win, or he can catch one of the other 3 eights to split the pot. He makes neither. He hadn't seen me play anything as weak as 68 all night, he later said, which was true. I had been folding quite a bit, and had shown down JJ and QQ and not much else.

All-in all a good evening.

My worst mistake? My last rotation, and I straddle, and F (from KB) makes a smallish raise and I call blind and we're heads-up. I bet blind on a T98 board, and he reraises me. I ask for his stack size, and I call his raise. I had something, but I totally couldn't get a read on him, and folded on the turn to his agressive betting, rather than risking so many chips just before leaving. I either should have pushed him all-in on the flop, or gotten out of the way. Peeling a card off for a price was just stupid.

I also laid down KK to F (the host) early in the game, who had been bluffing a lot, but bet into an Axx flop. Not necessarily a stupid play, but not very swashbuckling.

Friday, March 24, 2006

E's Game

Back to the Candy store. Eliminated in the second stage after catching two decent starters in quick succession. First was TT, which I reraised the bettor on with on the null flop, and was pushed all-in with. I felt a reasonable chance I was beat, so I mucked, which was half my stack. Then it was AKo, with which I made a very high, steal-the-blinds raise, and I was called, and beat by A7s, who called my all-in (the other half of my remaining stack) on the flop with an outside straight draw. They won.

I discovered a few tells on myself I need to work on.

(Himitsu da! Tokei no koto, chotto hayai no koto, kangae to no toki wa arimasen. Sono ato, all-in no toki, chotto dansu shite imashita. )

Played some good 1-2 NL cash game for a few hours after getting knocked out so early.

Saturday, March 18, 2006

E's game

Played the candy store game Thursday and bubbled, 6th out of 24. Knocked out 3 players w/AJs, and got knocked out by AJo. The blinds were a little too fast for my taste; by 2.5 hours in, unless you had a huge stack, your only options were push or fold, so there were an awful lot of all-ins with weak starters.

Down to $150 at pokertards. Played a bunch of 20$ big tourneys mid-week while travelling and closest I got was 27 out of 180.

Friday, March 10, 2006

PokerTards $ - Continues to hover around $200. Anytime I get ahead, I make riskier investments, hence the yo-yo.

Party Poquer - I followed D's link to goberude.com, and couldn't pass up the free 75$ in real PP money I found there. So far, I completely hate the user interface, and I notice they charge a much higher rake than tards. The limit play is definitely beatable at the .50/1 level. I'll probably play enough limit to (whore) my free money and then never go there again.

Head's up Stud - Played with a buddy last night, at a nickel a chip, we got the betting structure slighly wrong, but not enough to matter. After 90 minutes of play I was up $3.50, which I mostly attribute to not chasing with crappy hands. It was a lot of fun, and for head's up/short-handed play, I think 7-Stud is much more entertaining than HE.

Friday, March 03, 2006

A bad call one way, and then the other

Live Tourney, I have 5650 in chips, the blinds are 100/200 w/25 antes. 2nd to act at a 9 player table. AKo. I call.

Mid-position player makes it 600. I've played with this player before and know that she'll raise on a lot of different hands, but not on junk. I call in preference to reraising.

There is 1725 in the pot.

Flop: A87 two-suited. I check, she bets 500, I reraise to 1000, and she calls without a moment's hesitation. There is 3725 in the pot, and I have just under 4K in chips.

Turn 9 of another suit. I bet 1000, and she puts me all-in without a moment's hesitation. This should have been an easy lay-down since I've never seen this player make a bluff, but I overthought it. I considered the possibility that she had QQ or KK and felt that I was on a bluff, (but that wasn't the kind of play she makes), which was the ONLY way that I wasn't beat. (Trips or two pair were both very reasonably possibilities based on the betting so far. I didn't think she had raised with JT, although I know many players who would.)

I make the crying call for my last 3K in chips, and sure enough she turns over 99 for trips and I'm drawing dead.

If you consider the reraise on the flop with face-up cards, she was paying 3725/500, or 7 to one odds for a 47 to 2 chance for trips on the turn. If I was guaranteed to go all-in if she hit, then she was getting 7725/500 or 15 to 1, so she was still getting incorrect pot odds for that call. A forgiveable sin, since I hadn't represented a monster pre-flop or on the flop and she could have easily put me on KQ or some weaker pocket pair. My plan was to extract the most chips possible, since I felt strongly that I was ahead on the flop.

My sin, calling when you know you're beat, was unforgiveable. Bad/Tilty call.