Monthly Archive for June, 2007
Bayne was yet again the steamroller last night in a BBT event. This one being a MATH event. When one of the Penner boys stated in IRC that he was coming to rail me at the final table I knew it was about to get bad. 4 hands and 3 people being busted by Bayne, to include myself, did nothing to dissuade me of this. I went out in 4th. After watching Bayne have a few big hands in a row and bust two people, I pushed over the top of his raise UTG with AT thinking that there's no way he's going something good enough to call me. At this point I was 2nd in chips and had at least half his stack. Boy was I wrong. He had AK and busted me.
Columbo was gone after just another hand or two when he flopped middle pair on a low, non-threatening board and figured Bayne was trying to push him around. Nope. Bayne had flopped two pair I believe and Columbo goes to the rail bemoaning his fate of being the latest victim of Baynes' horshoe in a dark place.
Oh well. It was my first cash in a MATH tourney. That's always a good thing because #1, I don't play very many of them and #2, I normally play like a complete donkey in blogger gatherings. For some reason I just totally play like the field of a $1 rebuy in these things most of the time. I've done well in them when I actually put my mind to it as I won the WWDN twice, won the blogger bracelet race (don't get me started again about my WSOP dream), and have now final tabled and cashed the MATH. I really don't play these things all that often although I'm probably ahead in them if you take them all into account.
At the same time last night I secure another cash, this one being the $3 rebuy. Not much to note here, I just got unlucky with QQ against KK against one of two people that had me outchipped. Once you're in the money though and before the final table, there's no way I'm laying the bitches down in something like this. Too many times you're ahead and the money at that point ain't worth a damn anyway. So I went out 60-something and took home like $15.
I also played the $20 rebuy. I tried the pushmonkey, build-a-stack tactic early on and threw too many rebuys in. I still felt like I had an edge on the field though so I kept at it and just tighted up a bit. I had a huge stack actually by the end of the 2nd hour, being 14th out of like 90. This one was not meant to be as I got distracted by the better half and made a huge donk move of pushing over the top of a big stack with AT. Not her fault that I'm a dummy and couldn't do two things at once. It was simply me being impatient when I'm in great shape late in a tourney. That's the biggest leak of my game and one that I'm starting to get plugged. Not this time however and I went out like 30 or 40 from the money.
Remember how I said that I was still alive in both the Daily Doubles after my 2nd place finish the other night? Well I was able to hit the cash around avg stack in DDA and so had consecutive cashes for the first time in quite awhile. Of course once in the money I went card dead and the high price of the blinds forced me to make a few moves and I went out in 66th. Still finished ahead of about 1000 other donkeys. DDB I finished 300-something as I never really got into a good position there but a top-half finish still made me pretty happy.
I finally subscribed to the PokerDB at the Bluff website. Yes there are free websites like OfficialPokerRankings that provide good information. Bluff just is laid out slightly better and the info seems a little bit more complete. After studying my stats, I have a very solid ROI in the $24 and $10 tournaments at FTP. Both in fact are well over 100% and are where I also have the most entries. I've lost money in the $69 tournies, although I really want to start playing more of those as the sample size is still small compared to the others and I feel that the level of play isn't all THAT more difficult. I'm solidly in the black at the $500 level as well, although there's only 3 entries there and my 38th in the FTOPs VI Main Event explains that 
For some reason I actually have not done great overall in the peeps, especially lately. I think the level of play has improved greatly overall, with about half the field knowing what they're doing. That leaves you about 2-3 short of the token when it becomes a pushfest. I don't care for that and it's not saving me a bunch of dollars by playing them. So I will continue to mostly just buy in directly at the $24 level and save my token time for the level 2 ones for the $69 tokens.
Oh, and a big congrats to Chad on his taking down the $26k guarantee on FullTilt. The dude has been on an absolute tear lately in the $24 guarantees lately. I can only hope that I can emulate his results now that I've got my game back on track.
For some reason I actually have not done great overall in the peeps, especially lately. I think the level of play has improved greatly overall, with about half the field knowing what they're doing. That leaves you about 2-3 short of the token when it becomes a pushfest. I don't care for that and it's not saving me a bunch of dollars by playing them. So I will continue to mostly just buy in directly at the $24 level and save my token time for the level 2 ones for the $69 tokens.
Oh, and a big congrats to Chad on his taking down the $26k guarantee on FullTilt. The dude has been on an absolute tear lately in the $24 guarantees lately. I can only hope that I can emulate his results now that I've got my game back on track.
So on Saturday I decided to take a shot at the $500 deepstack tourney at the Venetian since by this point I had made some of my money back but not really enough to hit the WSOP event that I was originally slated to play in. I was doing pretty well, having hit the nut flush against somebody with the 2nd nuts and not getting too crazy. So right at the end of level 4 I decided to give all my chips to the worst player at our table. He played almost every pot, bluffed constantly, etc.... I had top pair, middle kicker on a board that was double suited. He had limped in EP as he did basically every hand and then had called my raise out of the BB. So I fire out a pot sized bet, not really minding if he calls as I knew I could milk some chips out of him. Of course the flush came on the turn and for the life of me I don't know why I did this, but I overbet the pot by a large amount. My mind had frozen as I KNEW he would have called me on the flop with even a 3 high flush draw. Of course he came back over the top for only like $1k more and I had to call just in case he was attempting another stupid bluff. He had Q4 s000ted and crippled me. Right after the break I pushed trying to triple up with 57s, hit a pair on the flop, only to lose to A5 that was also in the hand. So not a good tournament for me really.
That night it was back to MGM for some of the lovely 1/2NL competition on hand. I had proceeded to run over my table almost exactly like the day before, getting my stack up to about the $800 mark. At this point, the other bloggers were ganging up on the tourists with big stacks at a table opposite mine. I thought about sitting down but with the stack sizes over there and me having to take my entire stack over with a move, I decided against it. I should have just gotten up from my game and put my name on the list again. I know that some folks out there weren't thrilled that I was staying at my table trying to make money. But after the start of my trip I didn't really want to sit with 4x the buyin against a bunch of people I knew to be good players especially when I didn't have much more than they did. Next time I will not err on the side of caution and just try to have fun!
Sunday was just a nice lazy day lounging by the pool with the better half. That night though I decided to show her my newfound craps skill and play a little blackjack too. Who'd have guessed that there would be a monster roll about 15mins after I show up to the table and I walk away up more than $300 thanks to learning the art of 'pressing' from Bayne. Thanks dude!
So in summary, the trip ended up being fun in the end and I got some great gamb00ling karma after Wednesday night, winning at every damn thing I did (other than $20 in slots). For the winter WPBT event, I plan on doing less poker, more drinking, and more hanging out with everybody.
So after my stunning run Friday morning at MGM I was able to have a smile on my face when I got back to Hooters to wait for my girlfriend to fly in by the bar. I of course decided to play some video poker and get my free drinks in. Rarely have I played this game but at least it's more interesting than slots! Over the course of the next 30 minutes or so I proceed to hit a number of decent hands, order two drinks, and cash out with a $27 profit when she walks through the door. More good karma! I'm very happy she's in town and we proceed to chill out for a few hours at the hotel.
That night she gets all gussied up in a skimpy little dress and we hop a cab over to the Palms to meet up with her friend Melissa, who happens to be an independant VIP hostess with contacts at many of the major resorts. We also are introduced to her whale of the evening who was a major league pitcher for 7 seasons with the A's and Orioles. Next thing you know we are wisked past the long line of people waiting to pay their $40/pp for entrance and enter an elevator with a dude wearing a dark suit and earpiece. The elevator shoots up 53 floors in the blink of an eye and we are deposited into the promised-land, the Playboy Club.
Now let me be the first to admit that I was more than a little excited at the prospect of going there. Visions of bunnies, boobs, and fur dancing in my head. However, in all reality, the Playboy Club is just a few high roller tables, some VIP bottle service seating, and a bar. Other than the dealers wearing bunny outfits it was a complete letdown. I was in for a pleasent surprise though when we headed upstairs to Moon. This part of the club was hopping! The DJ knew how to lay down the tracks, the roof over the dance floor opens up to the sky, and our whale got a table OUTSIDE and ordered 5 bottles of booze for everybody. With the weather mild and a fantastic view of the entire strip we were able to party our asses off and had a great time.
That was my Friday in Vegas.
To be continued......
