Thanks Al!

 Jason  Comments Off
Mar 292007
 

Just thought that I would regurgitate some info for all of my fellow degenerates out there from Al:

Now for a little bit of what I’ve been working on the side with some friends of yours.

A couple weeks ago I was able to hang out with Hoyazo down in AC for too short of a time, but long enough to kick some thoughts around. Separately we’d both had the idea of working something out between several of the blogger hosted events. I’ve working with Mookie in the past (the master of photoshop) and we quickly formulated a plan to see who’s the best among our blogger events. Hence was born the Battle of the Blogger Tournament challenge.

Starting next week, we are going to track and rank the players involved in the weekly MATH, weekly Mookie, and Riverchaser events (two $24+2 Sunday HORSE tourneys also) using the trusty PokerStars TLB point system. The challenge will last for three months. That is 13 weeks and 36 separate events. We want to see who is really the best player between the three regular events and should have MiamiDon (most recent Mookie winner) set the odds for us.

What do you get out of this?

Once we crown our ‘champion’ on June 28th, the three of us are going to buy that player into the Big Sunday night guarantee tournament of their choice on either PokerStar or Full Tilt Poker. A chance to play for the big money on our dime.

We also have other prizes to throw into the mix. PokerOnAMac.com stepped up first to sponsor the challenge and they decided to try something different from iPods this time. Thanks to PokerOnAMac, we’ll also be giving away a Nintendo Wii system and a Nintendo DS Lite.

We will be adding to the prizes and will update as they come along.

So here’s your challenge. Can you beat the best across three months and 36 events? Time to step up and show what you can do. The first event is the MATH on April 2nd, the last event is Riverchasers on June 28th.

A Disappointing Cash and a Neat Site

 Jason  Comments Off
Mar 292007
 

Played in a $15 buyin MTT on Stars last night. It started at 10pm so it was already later that I normally will start one of these things. Almost 4 hours later I had 3x my buyin put back into my account and went to bed. Not a whole lot stands out other than when I’ve been playing my new tight & uber-aggressive style, I get antsy even earlier than I used to once we’re in the money. I don’t know why that is. Last night it was giving away half my stack with KJ in the SB after raising and calling the BB push. I should have just folded and lived to fight another hand. It probably wouldn’t have mattered anyway as 3 hands later I push against QQ while holding JJ on a flop with all undercards, but I still need to learn to be more patient at that point.

While in our girly IRC chatroom, Garth started talking about a stats site that he had found. It is called “Official Poker Rankings”. Don’t know how official it ends up being but it’s got a pretty slick interface and combines the best of some of my other favorite stat sites out there. I definately think you need to take a look at the overall rankings with a grain of salt. Do I really think I’m the 6,000th best MTT player over the last 4 months? Not even close although I’ve been on a good run and played a ton.

Finding Leaks

 Jason  Comments Off
Mar 262007
 

Sometimes it’s hard to analyze your own game. Especially when you feel like you’ve been playing well but the results haven’t been reflecting it. I found a big leak for me I think. What is it? Well I’ve found that I am far to willing to take coinflips once I get a big stack. I play too much into my image at the table as well. If I have a pair of Ts or Js and there’s a raise or reraise in front I tend to push if it’s for less than 1/3rd of my stack. I figure that if my VPIP for the entire tourney is at say 12% (as it was last night) and I push for somebody’s entire stack (when they still are in good shape) that they will not be a donkey and call with say AJ or AQ. However, they seem to not have a clue about what I hold, just ‘Hey I have to paint!’.

You might say well you’re still ahead! True, but could I not just say call the raise and see a flop? Or just re-raise instead of push? I don’t know. Tight and aggressive is what wins and yes I’m doing both in this case. But when I have 3x the avg stack with half the field gone I have PLENTY of time to wait and have a dominating hand don’t I? Or is it correct to punish people and take and edge that I have when I hold a big stack? Right now I’m thinking it’s a leak in my game. However, I tend to also think that this is why I have a very healthy overall ROI in mtt’s even though my cash % is lower than I’d like it. Mostly this is due to grabbing HUGE stacks with this kind of play and finishing in the top 3.

How do YOU play a big stack?

Running for Dollars

 Jason  Comments Off
Mar 262007
 

Well not really, but it will be running for the farthest distance that I’ve ever done. The Army Ten Miler is an annual ten mile race here in DC. It is open to the general public although the military is a big chunk of the field. I have decided that I’m going to attempt to run this thing even though I’ve never run 10 miles at once in my life. I just figure that I need an excuse to get in really good shape this year apart from my twice-annual PT test. That is only a two mile run and so requires speed more than pure endurance.

This will also give me more excuses to use my Nike+ kit for my iPod. It’s a neat $30 add-on for an iPod nano that works like a fancy pedometer, uploading stats to a neat website. I’ve started linking some stats on the right so that anybody can keep track of how I’m doing. I’ll update my progress as I go along and we’ll see how I do.

Damn Weatherman

 Jason  Comments Off
Mar 072007
 

Yet again the weather people can’t make up their mind about how much or when it’s supposed to snow. It looks like I’m going to leave work on time today and the roads should be back to normal or at least drivable in the morning. This is the only downside to global warming. No snow days!!!

WSOP ME $160 DS

 Jason  Comments Off
Mar 052007
 

Well I just won my way into a double shootout sat for the WSOP Main Event on PokerStars. For those unfamiliar with this format, it is essentially two Sit ‘n Goes where the winners of the first table all advance to the 2nd. In this case, I spent $15.50 on a rebuy MTT to get my seat. In this tournament, 9th place or the final table first out, gets $30, which actually would even be a profit for me. 2nd through 8th get $160, which is the actual buyin for the sat. 1st place gets an $11,000 prize package which can be $12,000 if you agree to wear PokerStars logo’d gear at the ME.

Although I hadn’t played much lately, they have yet another new deposit processor that I tried out. It’s quick and easy to sign up and the 4% deposit fee isn’t exorbitant considering the current landscape. It does have the downside of not being able to cash back out to. But if I ever hit a big score I will just either actually get an epassporte account or request a check. These double shootouts on stars have always in the past been some of my favorite satellites and although I was planning on just trying some sats for the $1500 events, this was just too good of an opportunity to pass up. So hopefully you’ll see a big post with a screenshot later if I can punch my ticket!

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