Brutal night...

I've been taking small stabs at 50NL but variance is rearing it's ugly, ugly head. I've had AA go down in flames 4 times, KK 3 times, QQ 4 times, AK 3 times... it's getting pretty ugly. Tonight I lost 200 BB in 2 back to back hands to the same guy when he cracked my AA with the mighty K4hh (h on the river of course) then he destroys my flopped full house (I had 55, flop Q5Q) with QJo - rivered J. He typed "ul" in the chat. I told him to go die in a grease fire.

Even with the millions of suckouts, I was able to pretty much break even... I only ended down about 1 BI, with an EV difference of $310. I guess it could have been much worse. I definitely tilted off at least 2 BI by tilt jamming fishies with bigger hands. I have to learn to control that...

Live blogging the Mookie

Haven't played the mookie in a while, figured I'd give it a go tonight, though I haven't been enjoying tourneys the way I used to. The weird suckouts in the late stages have been getting to me. Tonight though, I have a great feeling I'm going to go really deep...

10:00, first hand AA, gg.

TEAM WAFFLES CREST

Go Team Waffles! Strike fear into your opponents hearts!

Bad beats, Blaargh Style.

Last night I dropped almost 6BI at 25NL playing tired and stupid. Most of it was coolers/suckouts, but magnified by bad decisions and underestimating fishies holdings. Had to happen sooner or later, I was getting complacent. Stomach was hurting a bit, so didn't eat any dinner. Shouldn't have been anywhere near teh pokerz.

Woke up this morning puking my guts out with a stomach virus. Couldn't make it to the airport. So instead of sitting on a beach in Mexico right now celebrating my wife's birthday, I'm lying in bed trying to hold down yoghurt.

I'm not loving life atm.

Bound for Mexico

Have fun at the Blogger convention, I'm goin' down south for a few days for my wife's birthday. Hope there's a lot of degeneracy to read about when I get back!

A little photoshop help

Here ya go waffles, you looked like you could use a little photoshop help...

Weekend Update

Monster sore throat/earache kept me indoors all weekend, but all the tough poker players know you have to ignore the pain and play through it. I on the other hand took off work and cuddled with my wubby wabbity. After a lovely scented bubbly bath, I logged on at about 11 Friday night, dug myself into a hole at what I felt were soft tables, worked patiently at getting back to even and folded A LOT, and finally hit a couple hands in a row to put me above ground. It only took until 4am and @700 hands to do that. Waffles is right... I am the King of Morons... (does that mean I get more than 1 wife?)

Between Saturday and Sunday I played a few smaller sessions, and managed to build up pretty steadily. My only major suckout was QQ vs KK (Q on the river, biatch!). I was on the verge of folding, since the guy had never even 3bet me, let alone try to get in in... I knew this was AA or KK and should have dumped, but I didn't. Against a more aggressive player it's an instacall, against a tightie weakie, intsafold. Exactly 2 hands later I get AA vs AK. Pokerz are ez.

Since Thanksgiving I've chalked up an lol 35bb/100 winrate. I know I can't do that forever, but damn, it's nice wile it's lasting. My overall EV is about even, so I guess this run is due to good table selection and plenty of fish at 25NL more than anything else. I've been good about getting out if the fish leave or if I feel I'm at any kind of disadvantage (past the ones I was born with... luckily my opponents can's see my hideous disfigurements online).

I'm pretty much rolled for 50NL (that didn't take long!), but I'm going to test it out slowly. The TAG to fish ratio is much worse at 50NL from what I've seen so far. I played 1 table for about 50 hands this weekend, and it seemed it was 5 Tags vs 1 fishie. I left when he was eaten - not by me unfortunately, but still managed to be up by $5. So for now, I'll continue to take little stabs until I feel comfortable, and try not to freak out and spew like I did with my transition to 25NL. Yeesh.

We love you waffles!

Cheer up Waffles, you'll always be a winner!

Gratuitous Hammer shot...

Now that's how you defend the SB, waffles! I had enough history on the dude to know that he loves to fold to 3 bets, so I'm just helping him along....

Full Tilt Poker $0.10/$0.25 No Limit Hold'em - 5 players - View hand 402077

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter



CO: $26.74

BTN: $21.24

SB: $24.86

Hero (BB): $29.00

UTG: $17.56



Pre Flop: ($0.35) Hero is BB with 2 7

3 folds, SB raises to $0.75, Hero raises to $2.75, 1 fold



Final Pot: $1.50

Hero wins $1.50

Decent month/night

Finally got the hand importer to work (user error, of course)... it only downloads 10k hands and I had been requesting all of November. I didn't realize I had played more than 10k hands last month.

So the month ended up pretty well. Like I've mentioned before, I ran above EV at 10NL, switched to 25NL somewhere around hand 6k and spazzed out, got my shit back together and I'm playing better again.

Last night I played a couple of quick sessions for about 334 hands and did ok. I ran at 77bb/100, which of course is totally sustainable. I'm putting in an order for a new yacht and a gold-plated laptop right now.

So... hand of the day. This is hand 245 above, where it looks like I'm the biggest lucksack on the planet. I'm assuming the way I played it is pretty standard, but I'd like some reassurance here.... (sorry that my hands are fairly conventional, I'm trying to tweak the standard parts of my game before I delve into the tougher situations)

Full Tilt Poker $0.10/$0.25 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 399964

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter



CO: $25.00

Hero (BTN): $53.87

SB: $25.00

BB: $26.05

UTG: $31.32

MP: $25.35



Pre Flop: ($0.35) Hero is BTN with K J

3 folds, Hero raises to $0.75, SB raises to $2.50, 1 fold, Hero calls $1.75

I make a standard raise from the button with a medium strength hand. I get re-raised and just call. If I hit any piece of this flop, or if it's a dry board I'll put him to the test and see whether he's just restealing, or he does have a real hand. Since he's raising from the SB, I give him credit for mid pair +, probably AJ+. I expect a flat with low pair, weak broadway or Ax suited.

Flop: ($5.25) 8 2 8 (2 players)

SB checks, Hero bets $3.50, SB raises to $14, Hero raises to $51.37 all in, SB calls $8.50 all in

I hit 2nd nut flush draw, time to see how far he wants to go. I don't expect any 2's or 8's in his range, and my original assessment stands. I see his huge re-raise as protection for an overpair, I think 99 or TT (maybe JJ) make the most sense. He leaves himself no room to fold, so I put him in hoping that my 2 overs are still good, as well as the 2nd nut flush.


Turn: ($50.25) 9 (2 players - 2 are all in)

I run goot sometimes.

River: ($50.25) 5 (2 players - 2 are all in)



Final Pot: $50.25

Hero shows K J (a flush, King high)

SB shows T T (two pair, Tens and Eights)

Hero wins $47.74

(Rake: $2.51)


So my thinking is I want my $$ in before the flush card hits. I'd be happier without a paired board and maybe a OESD to go with the FD, but I'm pretty sure I'm good here most of the time. Better way to play this? Fold PF? Fold flop? Not enough of an edge to continue? Standard? What's your thinking...

1k goal reached

Got to play poker pretty much all through t-giving. I grabbed an extra airport base station from work and installed it at mom-in-laws and was up and running in no time. I ran way below EV, but managed to play well enough to stay even (get stacked by river 1 outer, work back up, get stacked by river 3 outer, work back up, rinse, repeat). My hands finally started holding up and I ended up passing the 1K mark for total earnings. The good thing about the past weekend is I'm finally playing a solid game. I'm feeling pretty comfortable now in 25NL and looking toward 50NL somewhere around the 1500 - 2000 mark. Just have to stay focused and keep grinding it out.

I don't have a screenshot of my HEM graph, but here's my PTR graph in it's place:

The low point/blue dot is where I started 10NL 6 max. The yellow dot at the top is close to where I started 25NL. The dip after the yellow dot is where I spewed all those chips.... pretty sure I'll be able to control that from here on out... Even with all that, I seem to be running at about 3.12BB/100 at 25NL - only 5k hands, so doesn't mean much, but at least I'm on an upward trend for now.

My goal at this point is to make it to 100NL. From what I understand the game at 200NL and above starts to change pretty drastically. I don't think I have the time/energy to dump into making a profitable run at higher stakes. Hey, I'm such a fish now, I shouldn't even be thinking about it, but there you go. I learned a long time ago to not put any time or number of hands constraints on my goals, but I am trying to practice good bankroll management and if I go on a downturn, it's back to 10NL until I'm back up. I have the time. I have the desire. Guess I'll find out if I have the chops...

Get it together man!

Quick update today, no graph. Not sure what's going on, but it looks like the HH request feature isn't working correctly (or HEM is munching it wrong). I've been downloading my HH at work to post graphs (I play at night at home). The HH beta import shows me at a profit for 25NL. HAH! I wish.

On Friday I fired up FT for a quick session just to pass some time. I broke every one of my rules: don't play tired, don't play while drinking, don't play distracted. Over the last couple months I had strictly adhered to these rules (I've been beer-free for over 2 months) and my results showed it. This weekend I broke the rules and payed for it. I was inches away from crossing the $1k mark. I proceeded to spew 3BI in about 25 hands. And I mean spew. I think I shoved on an UTG raise with AJo. I forget the other hands, but they were equally as bad. I tightened up immediately after that, but the damage was done... run bad set in and I lost another 3 buy ins to cracked AA, cracked KK and a couple messed up coolers. What should have been a fun 1/2 hour of poker turned into a 6 hr session trying to make my $$ back. By 3am I was 1/2 way there but couldn't stay awake any longer. It was too bad too. I had a talker to my right that was down $1400 according to PTR (at least $200 of it that night at my table) that was pretty much giving $$ away. He rivered me a couple times so it was pretty swingy, but ended up on that table.

I took Saturday off, but Sunday went no better. Again, I was tired, drinking, not making the best decisions, and not running well.

I took a couple days off and last night got back to basics. No beer, kept the session short, and played a decent 21/19 game. Was up to about $45 and ready to quit when I got KK on the button, raised the CO limper and BB who were both 45/0 spazzes, BB shoves for 30 something bucks, I insta call and he shows A9o (which was actually the frigging TOP of his range). He had slow played every big hand he had previously, so when he shoved I knew I was way ahead. Of course he turns an A, but I'm happy to get it in with odds like that. I stuck around for a few more minutes, but I had made up my mind to log out, and that's what I did. Spazoid hit-and-ran right after he won with his A9 anyway, so the table became much less profitable.

So I'm 4 BI down from my high point, and looking to grind back up (and beyond). Hopefully I'll be able to control the spew sessions and get back to the steady upward graph that I know and love.

Have a groovy holiday all. Hopefully I'll have a few minutes to play, as I know this will be a fish filled few days, but will be tough to get away from the family (because I enjoy their company, not because I need to get away).

Moving along...

Seem to be hanging on ok at 25NL, though I spew monkeyed last night chasing a fish that couldn't find the fold button. Worked my way up to about 2 BI profit early on when an aggro fish sat directly to my right. For the next 200 hands, I couldn't hit a flop to save my life, and finally started tilting off $$ by calling flop, turn, fold river over and over again with AK, AQ KQ etc... Missed every street, knew by his betting he hit at least a pair and would felt it with as low as a pair of 3's, which I couldn't even beat. Was a great way to get rid of money. At one point, we both had $60 stacks and if I held out for long enough, I'd eventually felt him for the entire amount. Instead, I gave him most of my chips, and only got them back when I hit a set over his flopped 2pr. At the same time, I bluffed off all my profit on the second table by representing the frigging card the other dude was holding. Could have been worse, but definitely could have been much, much better. Obv. from my redline, I'm still attacking in most of the right places and getting folds when I want them. Now I need to work on hanging on to it when I have it...

Got my HH from last night with FT's new HH beta. Pretty cool new feature, looking forward to the final version.

ugh.

So how many times can you get it in as a favorite and get your balls slapped.... let me count the ways...

I'm about 2 BI down in EV. I made up for it in non-showdown aggression, which was really good practice. I 3bet and 4bet the hell outa folks and it mostly worked out. Gotta try to keep that up, definitely some $$ to be made.

10 bucks of my bonus cleared, so my night was essentially a wash. Tired and cranky. Good night.

How would you play this?

Finally taking some small stabs at 25NL. things are still going pretty well here at casa BLAARGH. I find there are a lot fewer really weak spots at 25NL... 10NL is full of crazies. I'm trying to tighten up my game a bit to compensate, but below maybe too tight? Whaadaya think?

Full Tilt Poker $0.10/$0.25 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 374714

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter



SB: $26.22

Hero (BB): $25.75

UTG: $11.02

MP: $5.00

CO: $5.83

BTN: $19.33

This is pretty early on in the session, MP has been pretty tight so far. I've been able to steal his blinds on every round. This is the first time I've seen him raise. I've been somewhat active and my numbers are high because I've gotten a few playable hands.

Pre Flop: ($0.35) Hero is BB with Q K

I get QKcc in the BB. So the question is... do I:

A) Balls 'o Steal: Shove for his shorty $5. 

B) Wimpasaurus: Call and see what happens on the flop

C) Why are you even playing this game???: Fold

A, I think he folds everything but TT+, maybe JJ+

B, I can probably put him in on any favorable flop, and get away from anything that looks stupid with minimal damage.

C. Well, he did seem pretty tight, but come on... I'm sooooooted! But he does have my range pretty much crushed the times he's not raising baby pairs, Unless he has an unlikely JQ or KJ

Which of these options is most +EV over time? If I shove and win, I get .25. If I shove and he calls, sometimes I'm racing with baby/mid pairs, lots of times I'm crushed by AQ, AK, AA, KK. Even though I have a Q and a K, those are still viable hands. Obviously a better read on him would be preferable... and maybe just folding is the most +EV because he folds his blinds so much....

For the most part I prefer aggression. I didn't include a rr to 2.50, as that would probably have the same effect as shoving and put him in control of the hand, plus it would commit me to the hand anyway if he shoves...

Pokerstove KQcc vs top 10% - actually seems pretty good....

Text results appended to pokerstove.txt

 167,805,792  games     0.297 secs   565,002,666  games/sec

Board: 

Dead:  

equity win tie      pots won pots tied

Hand 0: 41.229%   36.70% 04.53%      61582773  7602597.50   { KcQc }

Hand 1: 58.771%   54.24% 04.53%      91017824  7602597.50   { 88+, ATs+, KJs+, QTs+, AJo+, KQo }

1 fold, MP raises to $0.75, 3 folds, Hero calls $0.50



Flop: ($1.60) 4 3 T (2 players)

Hero checks, MP bets $1, Hero folds



Final Pot: $1.60

MP wins $1.52

(Rake: $0.08)


Yeah, I'm a big pussy. Fuck you. So what do you do?

SECTsing the Cherry*

So.... as of last night, things are still going well at 10NL. Above is the graph of my progress since October 12th, when I started 6max. According to HEM, I'm a frigging lucksack. Which is only partially true. I DEFINITELY had a few good suckouts early on. The rest it seems, is pretty much just running well. My big hands are holding up. I'm getting in what I believe are good spots with fish.

Which leads me to this graph:

I read this post by Gugel (anskypoker.com) about a program called SECT. It computes your equity by street, rather than by when you got it all in. Read his explanation, he does it much better than I could. I think the above graph shows a more accurate picture of my play. Yes, I'm still running well overall, but I've been getting in with good equity to begin with, which is what I'm most concerned about. Don't get me wrong, I can still spew with the best of 'em, but I'm really trying to fix whatever leaks I can find.

So on that note.... I'm thinking I might start posting some hands and graphs as I go along. There are already too many of these kinds of blogs out there, but I think I want to do this more for myself to check my progress... and if anyone else is into it, great... if not... fuck you, you're an idiot. If nothing else, it will be a good forum for Waffles to make even more fun of what an absolute fish I am.

*with deepest apologies to Jeanette Winterson for soiling her title

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

Sorry for the super long delay in posts (not that anyone reads this drivel anyway). It's not that I haven't been playing, I have been. A lot. A real lot.

Summer Bankroll Challenge decimated my bankroll. I managed to go from a high of around $800 to a low of about $400. Truthfully it had nothing to do with the challenge itself, it was a combination of running really bad and trying to learn to play cash games. I was playing 25NL FR at the time and playing a really high variance LAG style and not playing it all that well...

I moved down to 10NL, lost a bit more, but studied quite a bit. Switched over to 6 max which, for whatever reason seems to be the right move. I also happen to be running super hot. I think I'm at about 10bb/100 over 10k hands right now. I'll save my views on how I'm running for a later post, as I don't think HEM tracks EV in a reliable way.

So last night, I blew past my goal of getting back to $800 thanks to a fish that just could not find the fold button. I got him all in 3 times on the river while he was chasing runner runner gutters. Maybe he was drunk. Maybe he just has $$ to burn. Maybe he just doesn't care about the 50 bucks. All I know is he was paying me off big time. I cashed out about $3 short of my goal after the fish left and decided to fire up a $5.50 18 man sng. 2nd place and I'm somewhere around $820.

My goal now is to move back to 25NL and see how that goes. I still have some serious leaks to fix, but I feel a whole lot more comfortable in a whole lot more situations. Maybe I'll keep this blog updated more often... we'll see.

By my own rules, I'm allowed back in the Mookie. If I drop below $800, I can't join. So.... hopefully see you all on wednesday....

And congratulations to Waffles aka "Super Turbos" for getting sucked out in 4th place last night...

Proper Bubble Play

2 months 2 million

These guys look a bit stiff in front of the camera (and why wouldn't they - I mean c'mon, when you get down to it they're a bunch of button mashing nerds - I don't mean that in a mean way either...), but it looks like the producers figured out ways to liven the whole thing up. Tilt room - lol.

Video Game - E3 2009 - 2M2MM

He makes more sense than most weathermen...

Mookie massacre

Played the worst game of poker in my life yesterday.... well, I'm sure I've played worse playchip games when I started, but at least then I had an excuse. Was finally home in time for the Mookie last night and looking forward to it. That always seems to be my first mistake... every time I just randomly log into a game I do well. When I spend all day looking forward to a game I play like an idiot. 

Very early on it folds to me in the SB, I make a standard steal raise, get flatted, don't pay attention to any of the warning signs, cbet the A high flop instead of shutting down. A third club hits the turn (I have hearts) and I intend on check-raise bluffing (see what an idiot I am?), but he checks behind. I definitely know he has no clubs and fire a near pot size bet on the river and of course get called by AJ for top pair on the flop. Just like that, half my stack is gone on an idiotic bluff. He thought about that river bet for a while, not sure if he was contemplating folding or raising. Either way, I couldn't have butchered that hand any worse than I did, and there was no reason at all for me to be making a move like that so early with crap cards and no real read on my opponent. 

From there I maintained my 1500 chips for a while, making steals where I could, but pretty much card dead. I finally get below 1k with I think 200 blinds and shove JTo from EP and I'm out to ATo. 

I'm pretty sure this was my worst showing in a Mookie ever. Need to think before I act. Been bombing out on the bubble of my last few 18 mans I've played as well - pretty much the same stupid shit. Time to get my act together and concentrate.

Played a few $2-$5 HU sngs afterwards, then decided to try a couple $10's just to see what the competition was like. WTF. Is it a standard thing in the $10's for idiots to monkey shove every f*cking hand? I played 3 different guys and they were exactly the same... it looked to me like they just wanted to coin flip for ten bucks. I ended up down $10 for the night and called it quits.

The good thing was.... no tilt. I was a bit disappointed in the way I played the Mook, but quickly shrugged it off + played reasonably well in the HU games. Even the $10 monkeys didn't get to me. Guess that's something...

Face the Ace

Mildly entertaining. Weird choice of a host, as Schirripa doesn't seem to know all that much about poker and seems kind of uncomfortable. I'm sure that goes away after a while as everyone settles into the show, but I doubt he'll get the chance for a season 2.

What bugged me the most was when Schirripa asks the pros "should he continue on?" it was painfully obvious that the pros were told to try to keep the contestants playing. Obviously the studio wants them to keep playing, as win or lose it adds more drama and more screen time to get to know the contestant better if he's personable. The chances of some random guy finishing off 3 pros in a row, even with the quick blinds has got to be pretty small. You could tell Ivy just wanted to say his lines and get the heck out of dodge. Maybe I'm just reading too much into it, as I don't know Lederer personally, but he looked like he had a struggle with trying to lie without lying by laying out the odds of the dude actually being able to pull it off vs the pot odds of winning.

The first dude got incredibly lucky and I think he knew that he was in waaaaay over his head. He made the right decision to get out while he could. No idea if the basement dude will pull it off, but even with the quick blind structure, I give him maybe 40%. He's pretty much playing his cards, and the pros are trying to bluff the unbluffable, but once they figure out that raise means strong check means weak, they'll have a field day.

The whole thing looks to me like deal or no deal, and plays pretty much the same. 

All in all, I give it a rating of "whatevah".

Tiltlessness

*Also posted in SBC

Been playing a few of the $3+.30 90 deep turbo KO sngs lately. I can't even believe how bad the play is on these things. There is absolutely NO poker going on... everyone is so in love with the KOs that they will shove at the slightest provocation.

Donkey heaven. I'm in my element. I am King Donkey. I'm the donkey the other donkeys look to for advice. Buy high, sell low. That's not herpes, don't bother seeing a doctor. You do look kind of fat in those pants, darling.

I can take these things. Easy strategy. Don't go for the KO just for the sake of the stupid 50¢, play tight, get them to gift you their chips, go for the win.

The problem with bad play is it's infectious. After 2 hours of mouth breathers shoving with the worst possible hands and winning, you start to think that it's a good idea. That's my excuse anyway. Really, I pretty much just suck. Hard. Awful play. What the hell was I thinking play. Who the f hit my all in button, I'm gonna kill him. And I wish I could say it only happened once.

I'm 3rd in chips with 32k (leader has 36k). We're on the bubble. 10 left, 9 pay. I can sit back and wait for the shorties to bust, then take out the rest on the FT. No problem. It folds to me in the SB, I raise to 7500 with Q8o. I would very much like the BB to go away so I can take his 2700. The douche flats. WTF. He has 14k behind. You know where this idiocy is going... I'm out of position with weakass cards against a station that flats 1/3 of his stack in the BB and isn't folding his very obvious Ax.... I flop my 8 on 68Ar.

Luckily my finely honed poker sense allows me to shove all of my chips in virtually assuring I will bubble this thing.

I'm now down to 10k. Shortie is down to 2k, less than 1BB. I can fold to the $$, but that's not how I roll. I'm a steamroller. I can roll over bullets, baby! I roll off the barstool into my own pool of sick. I roll bums for fun and profit.

I have J9o on the button. Pure gold! You suckers are in for it now!

Let me take a moment to talk about tilt. I read the Tommy Angelo book. I don't tilt.

So when I put my fist through the dog, that wasn't tilt. When I pummeled the dog through my wife that wasn't tilt. When I put them both in a blender, that wasn't tilt it was breakfast, shame to waste a good energy drink. When steam came pouring out of my ears making a whistling sound, that wasn't tilt (just good comedy). When I tickled the Guinea pig... ummm... what was I talking about?

Oh yeah. Tilt. I don't do it. Got it?

It took every ounce of will to not throw my laptop across the room. I mean, come on. I cost myself at least $2 in profit in that spot. I can keep these things in perspective. It takes at least a $3 loss to smash a $4000 computer.

I ripped apart my ipod headphones instead.

*Martha Stewart moment:

Ipod headphones make a lovely noose or garrote that will fit over just about any Guinea pig neck. Try it at your child's next birthday party and really surprise her!

I immediately logged into a $5 sng. It's always a good idea to get right back on that horse after learning a valuable lesson.

That's when the internet connection went down.

I'm up for the challenge....

Started a new blog for the bankroll challenge.

The streets will be strewn with the carcasses of my fallen donkey brethren (and sisteren)!

SUMMER BANKROLL CHALLENGE BLOG

She rocks!

YOU HAVE NO CHANCE, GIVE IT UP NOW!

SUMMER BANKROLL CHALLENGE

MHG
Dr. Chako
High on Poker
KenP
OhCaptain
Riggstad
Aposec72

CONGRATS BLOGGERS!!!

I have to apologize to a few bloggers out there. My Mookie win has completely overshadowed some deep blogger runs in the WSOP. So if you haven't done it yet, go give my favorite bloggers CK, LJ and Stoner some sloppy wet blogger love. When you wipe yourself off, you can come back and continue to worship Blaargh, your true lord and master of HU playchips 4 rollz.

VICTORY!!!!!!!

The unthinkable has happened... I took down the Mook last night. A Mookie win has been my goal since I first found out about blogger tourneys.  I've been getting closer and closer, with my last 3 mooks all ending up in final tables. I'll try to do a proper writeup later, but for now I'll leave you with this beautiful sight:

Definitely my life...

I CHIP DUMPED TO QUEENSUP!

But not on purpose...

I only played in the BBT 3 times this month, and Final tabled all 3. Was hoping to be the dark horse in Hoy's predictions, but alas I had to settle for 3rd place in last nights Mookie.

I played pretty well early on, chipped up steadily, and had my big hands hold. At the final table I was doing well until Lucko (shorty) decided to call (after using up most of his time bank) my AIPF shove (AQdd) with 22. I hit the Q on the flop, but get rivered by the inevitable 2 outer. A little while later I take him back down with AA, then threw a beat on him myself when my A9ss spiked a 9 to take out his AQ and knock him out of the tourney. I freely admit it wasn't pretty, but I'll take what I can get...

After that, it all went downhill.... no other way to say it, but I played awfully when it got down to 3 handed. I basically gifted my stack to Queens. He was big stack and pushing the two of us around and I had absolutely NOTHING to push back with. After blinding down to about 30k I finally decide to stop and go with AQdd, but of course Queens insta calls with presto (and hits an extra 5 on the turn for good measure) and I'm out in 3rd.

Oh well, there's always next year. Probably won't be able to make the sunday games, so I'll take this opportunity to throw out a big thanks to Al for putting the BBT together.

FT #2!

Two final tables, two reall #!##@$% bad shoves... this time out in 7th in the brit 55 < AA. In my own defense, I had been getting 3 bet, 4 bet 5 bet, !@#$!! in the @ss etc, etc... from jimdniacc for the entire tourney, and with my powerful hand reading skillz, decided that the only time he had AA I would shame him by shoving over the top and sucking out. Unfortunately, the only thing sucking was me. Had a good time, though... drank lots of Samuel Smiths Lager in honor (or should I say honour) of my good British friends. (Well, I have no friends, but the Brits are far enough away that they can't so anything about it. )

Congrats to Aposec for taking it down... Smokee put up a great fight, but was outchipped and had an uphill battle.

Might not make it to the mook - gonna try my hand at the live donkey fests at foxwoods.

MOOK FT!

Final Tabled the Mookie for once, but spent my short time there fighting back and forth with Bam for short stack honors. I finally managed to get a few chips, but pissed em away shoving over the top of CMitch's raise with A8 sooooooooooted, who totally donkey called me with AK. How dare he call BLAARGH! with that crap hand for not very many of his chips.

BLAARGH not blog in long time due to world domination plans and bingo three nights a week. Will try to post more.

Stop looking at me, you freak.

3D Turnaround for Blaargh. not sure if I will stay in 3d, or go the 2D route, or even keep this design - still experimenting.... Definitely won't use the shiny look, but it always makes good eye candy... "Test drive the all new 2009 Blaargh, now with rack and pinion steering and extra stiff shift"

MY CRAPTACULAR PLAY AND APOLOGY TO MOOKIE!

From mookie:

Right before the first break I passed up an opportunity to get a big stack. In a limped pot I flopped a flush with T7c on a Kc Qc 6c flop and led out. Another player on a shorter stack jammed and then a big stack shoved over the top. After tanking and momentarily forgetting that I was playing The Mookie, I folded figuring my flush was no good. Seeing the hands of the other two players brought me back to reality, the shorty had 5c 4c for a flush while the big stack had KQ for two pairs. Doh!



I'll out myself on the flush hand mookie talked about... been thinking a bunch about it, as I feel the reasoning I went through in the short amount of time before I had to act was somewhat solid, but the end result was that I shouldn't have been making that move at that time.

My first BIG mistake was limping in with KQss... I should have either raised or folded, and I even thought that to myself as I hit call... I think a decent raise would have definitely folded Mookie, and probably folded shorty, unless he was really in a gambling mood with his 54cc - but I had no idea how weak or strong either of you were - and by limping I didn't find out anyway... dumb move.

I don't have the HH with me, but I believe mookie made a 1/2 - 3/4 pot raise after the KcXcQc flop, then shorty shoved. My feeling was that shorty was weak and trying to pick up a bunch of chips on a scary board. I really had the feeling he was on a draw there and I was willing to gamble on it. If I'm correct, I'm 65% to win, if I'm wrong, I go down to 18%. I didn't know those numbers at the time, I just had to go with the gut on it.

Mookie was playing pretty tight most of the game, and I put my chances of getting him to fold to a shove pretty high. I think he would have checked the nuts there and wait for one of us to bet out, but instead he made the raise. I'm sure there are times where he would bet out the nuts, but I didn't get the feeling that was the case. I was correct on both guesses, but unfortunately shorty was weak with a made low flush, not a draw... cest la vie....

I came very close to folding, and I def should have, but I thought my evil plan had merit in the 15 seconds I had to think it through and pulled the trigger. Looking back on it, there was NO reason for me to risk those chips that early in the game, particularly since I felt I had a pretty good feeling for the table and was chipping up fairly easily. This is a BIG leak of mine lately, where I'll play good solid poker for a while, then all of a sudden blow up and take unnecessary chances when I don't have to. I bubbled the Brit game on Sunday doing the exact same thing, though my odds were a little better at 50/50, I didn't hit and was out soon after.

The worst part about that hand was I tilted in a major way right afterwards and bombed out right after the break. I still had enough chips to play with, but I made a couple more bone headed plays and that was that.

So.... the long and short of it - sorry I made you fold the best hand Mook.... hope this at least explains that there was some thought behind it, even if it was rather flawed. Trying my best, and love playing the mookie, so thanks for the tourney!

ok, actually tried it this time...

I think I'm much closer to the one below, though...

How do they know????

This isn't fair to waffles....

I do this for a living....

I can only eat about half though. Walkers get stuck in my thorax. 

SCREW 2008

Glad 2008 is gone. Tremendously painful end of the year. Seriously. Depressing. Understandably no urge to play poker or post, but Blaargh is back now, ready to tear up the micro limits!