Ugh...I told myself to keep up with this blog, at the very least it allows me to keep my promise to keep playing poker as much as a full time job, 2 kids and wife will allow... I've been pretty stagnant the last few months. Things missed since last post: I've played 2 poker league games Season 11(Woohoo Poker League started!) starting in November and I'm looking forward to playing Three Rivers Poker Challenge Events mid February. I got 2nd in 2 of 4 Fantasy Football Leagues. I also played in a couple events at the Pittsburgh Poker Open while Poker Night in America was here and I got to watch pros Phil Hellmuth win the PPO Main Event against the likes of other pros Shaun Deeb(25th), Matt Glantz(2nd), Josh Brikis(13th) and David Baker(3rd).
I'll elaborate on Poker League in my next post, for now, this was written about the Three Rivers Poker Challenge back in June and I never "Finalized" it so here it is:
Well, based on the title you probably guessed that I'm not having good results... Three Rivers Poker Challenge came and went and while I ended up not playing as much as I wanted to. While not suggested for aspiring poker players around the world, some of my poker roll is being withheld for unplanned and immediate possible future family investments. I played 3 events, Event #2, Event#11: a satellite for the Main Event and Event #14. Overall I think I played pretty well. There were a few spots I wished I went with my gut to be more aggressive in a hand, a few spots I wish I was less aggressive...I dunno, I like to think I'm pretty inexploitable, or at least as possible that can be in a tournament. I think exploitability is more easily defined in a cash game setting, where there is no real end in a session, where a tournament has a finite beginning and end to it...
Event #2: started with 15K, 20 minute levels.
In the first 3 levels, 1st hour or so, I had Aces and Kings twice, Jacks and 8s and they all lost... My Kings went up against flops of A-Q-Q and 4 players to the flop. Overall I lost almost half my stack, albeit probably lucky I only lost that much. I even had to fold a top set of 8s on a 8-4s-5s board against 2 players when the turn brought the 6s and I bet out and was raised BIG by a pretty conservative/nit player...it was feeling a little hopeless until my set of 7s actually KOd a short stack, I then squeez shoved with K9 that 2 players called...oops, I hit a K on the river and I suppose they must've had mid pairs since they both folded...that felt lucky, tripled up to 18K. I doubled up again with 10s AIPF vs AQoff to put me up to 30K.
1000-2000 300 ante I rase to 4K with 9s, 1 caller and another overshoves to 16K. I shove and 1st caller folds. My 9s vs...ugh...10s... No help, I'm down to 18K. A few hands later I'm in the small blind and limp with 9-10hh. 4 players see a flop 10-9-5rainbow. I think for a minute, enough to go with a check as my first reaction, but also enough to yell at myself in my head while checking... My thought was that player next to me would probably shove most boards and I could go over the top. Unfortunately he and everyone else checked... Turn a 3c. I shove and get called by the guy who had 10s vs my 9s earlier. This time he turned a set of 3s and I got no help on the river...Out
In the end, I made it 26th out of 75 and if I just shove the flop there I would've had a really good chance to FT...NEXT!!!
I played a satellite for the Main Event
Event#14:
800-1600 200 ante. AKhh AIPF for 19400, another allin for less and another over the top...QQs covers both vs Aces(smaller stack) and I flop 1 heart 3-Jh-5, with a 10h on the turn, giving me everything I could hope for as a sweat on the river...only to drop a 10c on the river...Sucks about that hand was that I could've hit the last Ace, 3 Kings, 1 Queen, 9 hearts to win or at least come away slightly less than even by only beating the QQs that had me covered...too many outs, though if I have to go out, that's what I want, right...? This game I was KOd 61st out of 145 entries and I was playing pretty good I was hoping for a good run...Winner paid out 1390 and they paid out 15 spots, I think.
Play Where the Pros Play!!
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Monday, June 9, 2014
Played another Satellite, Three Rivers Poker Challenge coming up!
Ugh...Pocket Ks have been really gross for me lately... I played in the 9am Saturday satellite at the Rivers Casino. It was a satellite for the 225 weekend deepstack. The weekend deepstack grows throughout the month from 225 to 330, 440, 550 and if there's a 5th weekend 770.
I've played in a few satellites in the past year, 4 I believe and I've made it into the 550 once, "Almost Making It" so I'm confident in how to play them. This time I probably missed a few minutes of play before I sat down. I felt like it was a little bit of luck as I was at seat 3, table 3, '3' is a lucky number of mine as it's my birthday. I sit down and the dealer asks me if I want to buy the add-on. I'm thinking sure, but I ask how much for what and when he told me $5 for 500 I was like, wait a minute...usually you're getting almost the same price per chip as the tournament cost or even a better deal with the add-on... I've paid $25 for 5000 chips, so $5 per 1000. If I pay $5 for 500 more chips, I've effectively paid double and that would probably tilt me at the start of the tournament... So after processing...I said "ummm...no thanks, I'm good". I felt a little bad, I think they use the add-on to pay dealers or something...but I'm playing poker, not being nice...
Anyway, first hand I'm under the gun I look down at Cowboys. KsKh. blinds are 50-100 and I make it 350. 3 players call. Flop is A-4-4 with 2 clubs. I didn't feel like check folding, at least not yet so I bet out 500, keeping my range uncapped and hoping I might get some folders, keep options open for later streets. 2 folds, 1 caller. turn was a harmless 3d and we both checked. In hindsight I wonder if a bet here might win me the pot. River is a 7c. I check and villain bets 1200. This seemed really large and it appeared it was a good spot to steal, as why not check if he's got any showdown value unless he hit the flush, hoped I had an Ace I had to call with, etc... so I folded. I think it's a good fold, just sucked to have Ks first hand and lose, though... So ther I am, sitting on 4200, and I actually got myself down to 3500, blinds 100-200 before I shoved 7s, no callers. A few hands later I shoved A-9, no callers. I probably shoved a couple more hands to get myself back up to about 7K and the break, blinds caught up to us at 400-800 and I'm pretty good at sitting between 10-20 blinds 3-bet shoving and picking spots. It was entirely possible today would go this way. One hand I'd probably like to have back was A-9suited I folded UTG with about 9 BB. I know it's gotta be a shove, but based on a guy looking at his cards before I acted I could tell he had a really good hand. I folded and 2 guys went at it All in preflop with Aces vs Kings...Worst part is that I'm supposed to shove there prior to their all-ins and the flop brought 5-7-8, 6 on the turn and I'd have tripled up with the straight, K on the river just KO'd the guy with Aces. I wasn't bummed about the hand, I still felt like it was a good thing to get a read prior to making a play, but it did suck that if I hadn't I'd have been better off...
A few more spot-shoves I made it to break, with almost exactly starting stack, 5200. After the break, rebuys are over, 400-800, 75 ante and 5200 in chips, 7 handed I look down at A-Qsuited, UTG+2 and I shove. All folds and I showed since I would have to keep my tighter image to continue 3-bet/4-bet shoves until more comfortable. Next hand I'm UTG and sitting on about 6800 I look down at pocket 10s, nice. I shove again, this time guy to my left calls, all else fold. I'm thinking I'm racing or screwed until he flips over Ad-9d. I've favored about 70-30, except the poker gods didn't care putting out an Ace in the door card. I wasn't able to improve and I was out probably about 23rd, 3 tables, 2 with 7, 1 with 9, I think with rebuys there were probably 30-40 entries. So another satellite I think I played well, just no luck this time...or at least not when I needed it anyway...
Rivers Casino is hosting another Three Rivers Poker Challenge June 23-29th. These tournaments are cheaper than the last series so I'll get to play in 3 or 4 this time, see if I can't get some points/cash this time...get myself into the main for 900+100...wish me luck!
I've played in a few satellites in the past year, 4 I believe and I've made it into the 550 once, "Almost Making It" so I'm confident in how to play them. This time I probably missed a few minutes of play before I sat down. I felt like it was a little bit of luck as I was at seat 3, table 3, '3' is a lucky number of mine as it's my birthday. I sit down and the dealer asks me if I want to buy the add-on. I'm thinking sure, but I ask how much for what and when he told me $5 for 500 I was like, wait a minute...usually you're getting almost the same price per chip as the tournament cost or even a better deal with the add-on... I've paid $25 for 5000 chips, so $5 per 1000. If I pay $5 for 500 more chips, I've effectively paid double and that would probably tilt me at the start of the tournament... So after processing...I said "ummm...no thanks, I'm good". I felt a little bad, I think they use the add-on to pay dealers or something...but I'm playing poker, not being nice...
Anyway, first hand I'm under the gun I look down at Cowboys. KsKh. blinds are 50-100 and I make it 350. 3 players call. Flop is A-4-4 with 2 clubs. I didn't feel like check folding, at least not yet so I bet out 500, keeping my range uncapped and hoping I might get some folders, keep options open for later streets. 2 folds, 1 caller. turn was a harmless 3d and we both checked. In hindsight I wonder if a bet here might win me the pot. River is a 7c. I check and villain bets 1200. This seemed really large and it appeared it was a good spot to steal, as why not check if he's got any showdown value unless he hit the flush, hoped I had an Ace I had to call with, etc... so I folded. I think it's a good fold, just sucked to have Ks first hand and lose, though... So ther I am, sitting on 4200, and I actually got myself down to 3500, blinds 100-200 before I shoved 7s, no callers. A few hands later I shoved A-9, no callers. I probably shoved a couple more hands to get myself back up to about 7K and the break, blinds caught up to us at 400-800 and I'm pretty good at sitting between 10-20 blinds 3-bet shoving and picking spots. It was entirely possible today would go this way. One hand I'd probably like to have back was A-9suited I folded UTG with about 9 BB. I know it's gotta be a shove, but based on a guy looking at his cards before I acted I could tell he had a really good hand. I folded and 2 guys went at it All in preflop with Aces vs Kings...Worst part is that I'm supposed to shove there prior to their all-ins and the flop brought 5-7-8, 6 on the turn and I'd have tripled up with the straight, K on the river just KO'd the guy with Aces. I wasn't bummed about the hand, I still felt like it was a good thing to get a read prior to making a play, but it did suck that if I hadn't I'd have been better off...
A few more spot-shoves I made it to break, with almost exactly starting stack, 5200. After the break, rebuys are over, 400-800, 75 ante and 5200 in chips, 7 handed I look down at A-Qsuited, UTG+2 and I shove. All folds and I showed since I would have to keep my tighter image to continue 3-bet/4-bet shoves until more comfortable. Next hand I'm UTG and sitting on about 6800 I look down at pocket 10s, nice. I shove again, this time guy to my left calls, all else fold. I'm thinking I'm racing or screwed until he flips over Ad-9d. I've favored about 70-30, except the poker gods didn't care putting out an Ace in the door card. I wasn't able to improve and I was out probably about 23rd, 3 tables, 2 with 7, 1 with 9, I think with rebuys there were probably 30-40 entries. So another satellite I think I played well, just no luck this time...or at least not when I needed it anyway...
Rivers Casino is hosting another Three Rivers Poker Challenge June 23-29th. These tournaments are cheaper than the last series so I'll get to play in 3 or 4 this time, see if I can't get some points/cash this time...get myself into the main for 900+100...wish me luck!
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Don't Blink or you'll miss The Pittsburgh Poker Open Event #28!!
Well, I "should" be able to pick up my availability to play more tournaments as spring/summer rolls around. I did find some time to play in the PPO Spring Series Event #28. I got to the casino with 10 minutes to spare the start time of 7pm. This was interesting...there were 3 players signed up... I was going to decide to not play due to the lack of interest, possibly due to the Borgata events at the same time and the whole Easter weekend thing(This was Monday, though...) They were apparently going to play the game out no matter if 3 was the total and give out a trophy, and have rebuys till 9:30pm(though I'm not sure what would happen if there could end up 1 player left prior to 9:30 would the game be over or would they just sit there and take tons of blinds...?) I was curious to see what could happen and why not try to win a trophy(I'd take ANY trophy at this point). So I was #4 and we sat 2 players at a table for about 5-6 minutes when a few more stragglers came over and by the end of the first level we had 2 full tables(near full) about 16 players. 2 players were quickly KO'd at the other table. My table was pretty straightforward with pretty tight play happening, nobody getting crazy and nobody taking over. I was down a little and up a little when 5 minutes in....The 3rd level, a girl who'd played apparently pretty tight up to this point(55 minutes isn't a good indicator, but it's all I got...) raised 100-200 to 600 in early position(70BB effective stacks, 14K). I look down at pocket Ks and make it 1500. The fact that she raised 600 wasn't necessarily a red flag, 3x wasn't un-standard at this table at this time. I was pretty much making 2.3x raises and my 3bet 1500 isn't all that large. I basically figured she'd call with A-Q and below Js, possibly raise higher than that and maybe the 1500 smallish looking raise could make a few A-Q and below to possibly 4-bet me but not necessarily look committed. All folds around to her and she makes it 4K. I'm pretty pumped about this, however, I also instantly feel gross in my stomach, like there's a possibility that her entire 4bet range is only AA....
I hope if her possible range is still (on the tight side) Qs and up+ AK I don't think I can ever think of folding.(right...?) I don't like Calling, it allows me to get outplayed by an Ace on the flop if she's going to shove a lot of post-flop hands after putting in so much and it's near 1/3 of my stack. However, at the same time, I don't know if she'll also ever call a shove with anything but Aces...Oh well, I shoved and she called, just as I feared Pocket Aces, dryest, most boring board you could ever lay your eyes on and I couldn't even vie for a 14 players left tournament trophy...couldn't even make the final table...gross...
It's been a while since I've had a legitimate cooler and so early...so I guess I was due pretty hard...
Can't wait for next time...hopefully sooner than last time...
I hope if her possible range is still (on the tight side) Qs and up+ AK I don't think I can ever think of folding.(right...?) I don't like Calling, it allows me to get outplayed by an Ace on the flop if she's going to shove a lot of post-flop hands after putting in so much and it's near 1/3 of my stack. However, at the same time, I don't know if she'll also ever call a shove with anything but Aces...Oh well, I shoved and she called, just as I feared Pocket Aces, dryest, most boring board you could ever lay your eyes on and I couldn't even vie for a 14 players left tournament trophy...couldn't even make the final table...gross...
It's been a while since I've had a legitimate cooler and so early...so I guess I was due pretty hard...
Can't wait for next time...hopefully sooner than last time...
Monday, April 7, 2014
Where did I go?!? Am I back!?
I've been really busy the last couple months. Lots of personal things going on and work has been pretty time consuming... All of which has been taking away from my Poker playing, unfortunately. Some things just can't be helped and I'm lower on my bankroll than I'd like to be. At the start of the new year I planned(resoluted?) on playing at least at first every Sunday game until I could afford more expensive games. I had a good start, played in 3 tournaments, 2 rebuys and 2 cashes. Taking my alotted $150 and making it just under $600. Since then I've played in a few Poker League games with my friends and I think since my January tournaments, I'm not playing as much as I'd hoped I could, therefore, I'm not playing as well as I know I can... I noticed this at the finale for said Poker League when I pretty much bled chips when I shouldn't have and my 10s didn't hold up against AK when I could've turned things around. I shouldn't need to let things get to that point, at least not in the way I did... Oh well, I think I'll be able to turn a new leaf with the Pittsburgh Poker Open Spring Series and onward. I would've liked to have had at least 2K to play in a few more tournaments I felt were the best deals(guarantee's, etc..), however, I'm going to be held to playing 3 tournaments, 2 of which are satellites and one 100+25. I think that's the smartest thing to do with my bankroll for now, that would put about half in danger if I only put out 1 rebuy per satellite and hope to go with 1 buy in of the 100+25. The 100+25 isn't even a guarantee, which most of the others are, except they are almost double the buy-in so it's just not really do-able for me yet...even playing in these 3 are stretching my roll into uncomfortable territory, but as soon as May I should see an increase in my bankroll-repositories with which to refresh from on a monthly basis.
My plan is to play
1. Saturday April 12th 9am re-entry satellite into Event #6(It's speculative but probable I miss this.)
2. Monday April 14th 7pm 100+25, 20 minute blinds, 15K to start
3. Saturday April 19th 9am re-entry satellite into the Main Event
(There are 4 days scheduled for the Main Event, Friday Day 1a, Saturday Day 1b, Sunday Day 2, Monday Day 3)
These plans would change in the event I cash at one or more of these, causing me the ability to play another event. There's an interesting Pot Limit Omaha for 100+25 on Wednesday April 16th 7pm. I'm not really good at Omaha, though I'm expecting most other players can't be that much better and I would suspect that most other players might even be much worse than myself. At the very least if I had a larger roll it would be fun to play in this event...
My original plans from last summer were to play in either the WSOP this year or at least the next Pittsburgh Poker Open Summer Main Event, so it's still possible one of these could still happen this year...keeping the dream alive!
Poker League Season 10 Regular Season results
Shae, Craig and Jake really made a nice run in the final 2 games to up their scores. Shae ended up with the most KOs in the regular season, based almost solely on the fact that she KOed 12 players the last 2 games. I got a little unlucky to be first out Week 6, there were 8 or 9 all-ins survived prior to my all-in that was unsuccessful. That game, at least from the early few KOs could've gone a lot of different ways. I missed Week 7, however, Shae kept up her demolishing ways and I heard the game was over around 11pm, easily the earliest a game has finished up in a few years at least...
The finale was this past weekend and in the interest of "not so long blog posts"(Too late!) I'll write up a seperate entry for the finale.
My plan is to play
1. Saturday April 12th 9am re-entry satellite into Event #6(It's speculative but probable I miss this.)
2. Monday April 14th 7pm 100+25, 20 minute blinds, 15K to start
3. Saturday April 19th 9am re-entry satellite into the Main Event
(There are 4 days scheduled for the Main Event, Friday Day 1a, Saturday Day 1b, Sunday Day 2, Monday Day 3)
These plans would change in the event I cash at one or more of these, causing me the ability to play another event. There's an interesting Pot Limit Omaha for 100+25 on Wednesday April 16th 7pm. I'm not really good at Omaha, though I'm expecting most other players can't be that much better and I would suspect that most other players might even be much worse than myself. At the very least if I had a larger roll it would be fun to play in this event...
My original plans from last summer were to play in either the WSOP this year or at least the next Pittsburgh Poker Open Summer Main Event, so it's still possible one of these could still happen this year...keeping the dream alive!
Poker League Season 10 Regular Season results
| Player | Week 6 | Week 7 | Total Points | Dropped Total |
| Heck | 0 | 5 | 52 | 52 |
| Jake | 9 | 12 | 52 | 52 |
| Terri | 7 | 7 | 49 | 47 |
| Chris | 5 | 4 | 49 | 46 |
| Fred | 2 | 0 | 46 | 46 |
| Shae | 12 | 10 | 39 | 39 |
| Jaime | 8 | 3 | 42 | 39 |
| Jon | 6 | 2 | 36 | 36 |
| Craig | 10 | 8 | 34 | 34 |
| Chivers | 3 | 9 | 34 | 31 |
| Sean | 4 | 6 | 30 | 30 |
Shae, Craig and Jake really made a nice run in the final 2 games to up their scores. Shae ended up with the most KOs in the regular season, based almost solely on the fact that she KOed 12 players the last 2 games. I got a little unlucky to be first out Week 6, there were 8 or 9 all-ins survived prior to my all-in that was unsuccessful. That game, at least from the early few KOs could've gone a lot of different ways. I missed Week 7, however, Shae kept up her demolishing ways and I heard the game was over around 11pm, easily the earliest a game has finished up in a few years at least...
The finale was this past weekend and in the interest of "not so long blog posts"(Too late!) I'll write up a seperate entry for the finale.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Failing a Satellite
So I played in a River's satellite to try to get into the 225 Saturday deepstack a few weekends ago. The Rivers has been having three $225 deepstack tournaments a month with a Month end $550 deepstack tournament. I've previously played in 1 Rivers satellite of this type to get into a $550 deepstack back in July/August - talked about it my ALMOST MAKING IT post.
First of all, I usually play poker with 2 card protectors. First one I use strictly for my cards. It's the first chip I've ever received. a Venetian $1 chip, I strictly use this as my card protector. My other one has changed throughout the years, but the most recent ones have either been a Boston souvenir chip my wife got me when she went to, ugh Boston(duh) and the one I've been using is a Pittsburgh Penguin's chip I have no idea where I got it... This day I think my daughter must have been playing with them and I couldn't find them(took 3 weeks to finally find them) So I went to this tournament stag...or it felt stag...
There seems to be a pattern developing that every tournament that I've played lately at Rivers seems to have a massive(relative) turnout. There were 56 buy-ins for this particular satellite that one of the dealers mentioned there's usually 30-ish. I played 2 buy-ins. First buy-in I was really card dead and the 1 hand I tried to bluff my opponent had basically what I was trying to rep. The other 2 hands that were decent starting hands ended up being second best. I raised with A-Q and got 2 callers, c-bet the 10 high flop and got raised by caller1, caller2 called so I mucked. The other hand was my last I raised with pocket 7s with about 15 bets left, got re-raised by a pretty active player. I called and shoved a 4-6-8 flop, my opponent called with Ks...nothing helped and I was out pretty early. (I actually didn't shove the flop, I put all my chips in except for the 100 denomination chip I was using as my card protector...ugh... the turn was a brick so I checked cause I thought it would be funny and then shoved the Q river...not that it mattered)
I rebought and was put on arguably the most action packed table in the place. Blinds and antes were high enough that we should lose players fairly quickly until the dust settles a little bit, but we were literally going through players ever 3-4 hands. I admit I got lucky, with the A-Q,7s from the prior buy-in not panning out, my first hand I played, possibly 2nd hand dealt I looked down at pocket Ks in late position. A raise and reraise prior to my turn was enough for me to shove. I got called and Ks won over 10s. 5 or 6 hands later I look down at pocket Aces. I played them a little tricky. Based on the dynamic of the table being pretty aggressive I called an early position raiser, flop was pretty dry so I check-raised him all-in and he called me(it felt like this particular player would respond better to aggression than to continually give him rope) He flipped over A-Q and was pretty much dead and rebought(I almost had another shot to KO this same guy later when he shoved and I had 5s, but based on the situation at that time I didn't want to risk 1/4 of my stack for a possible flip/possible dom situation) I pretty much played 3 big hands and was able to just about coast to the final table. This satellite paid out 6 players, 5 got a buy-in of 225, 6th got 209. We lost 2 players pretty quickly and I was able to battle my stack from having 5 bets to 15 bets with blind/ante shoves. However, the blinds were going up at an insane pace. We went from 3k-6k to 5k-10k, with 10k-20k coming next... I had just gotten my stack to about 48K, probably 3rd or 4th at the table. Blinds went to 5k-10k across the table from me, meaning in 4 hands I'd be the BB for 10k. I went from having 9 bets to 4. So I look down at A-8. My immediate thought was to fold, everyone was playing really tight at this point, folding all the way around, so while I know only bigger hands are calling a shove from me, I should be able to pick up the blinds and antes just about all of the time. That's what I thought when I shoved all-in. Probably the Shortest stack in the room shoved for 17K, all else folded. He held 9s and I hit an 8 on the flop, though nothing improved and I was down to 30K and I doubled up the shorty... Next hand I look down at AKsuited...thinking if I made a mistake with the A-8 I felt like I had to make up for it here, so I shoved...the new short-stack called with pocket Aces and I lost another 20K...Next hand I was UTG and had 9500 left, looked down at 5c4c and folded, hoping to win the all-in in the blinds hand... I ended up having Q-6 and lost to A-Q when we both hit Qs and an Ace on the river. I went from thinking I was getting the buy-in to holy crap being out and not really knowing what happened within 4 hands... Usually I'd say that's poker but I think I made a few monumental mistakes. I think that even though I had only 4 bets, there were other stacks that were lower than mine and I should probably figure that I'm favored to make the top 6 if I just fold and hope 2 shorter stacks don't win their all-in moments. I read an article waaaaaaay back in 06 with a follow up in 09 written by Bernard Lee on ESPN about folding Aces in satellites when you're pretty much guaranteed the spot. I felt like I was less guaranteed the spot than the situation he explains in his article, however, I was probably in better shape than I realized...
A few hands after I was KOd the 1st short stack I doubled up shoved and was KOd. What happened next was really interesting. There were now 6 players left, 5 get a buy-in 6th gets 209. Not much of a difference, but still a difference. Well, the uber-chip leader comes back to the table(he'd sat out the last 20 minutes or so since he was probably a lock at a spot) and the super short stack guy at this point put out there the option of playing 1 hand and the worst of the 6 would get 6th place. The hilarious part of this was that he ended up getting the table to agree to this right as he would've been the BB, and almost all-in anyway. Everyone agreed, including the 2 super-stacks who had about 12 blinds(over 100K at 5-10K) for some reason... The dealer puts out the last hand and the chip leader, again, he'd previously been sitting out for the last 20 minutes because he was pretty much guaranteed a spot so long ago ended up being the loser of the hand. I think he ended up buying into the 225, however, he cost himself $16 when he didn't have to...blew my mind. I was in awe at the fact that the short stack was almost all-in and prior to the deal got everyone to agree to give him the same shot they all had to get the buy-in ...awesome job guy!
To sum up my satellites so far, I've played in 2, one in July where I made it to the 550(top 2) and this past one for the 225 where I was KOd in 8th because I was probably dumb... I would've liked to have a 100% satellite payout for just a little while...
First of all, I usually play poker with 2 card protectors. First one I use strictly for my cards. It's the first chip I've ever received. a Venetian $1 chip, I strictly use this as my card protector. My other one has changed throughout the years, but the most recent ones have either been a Boston souvenir chip my wife got me when she went to, ugh Boston(duh) and the one I've been using is a Pittsburgh Penguin's chip I have no idea where I got it... This day I think my daughter must have been playing with them and I couldn't find them(took 3 weeks to finally find them) So I went to this tournament stag...or it felt stag...
There seems to be a pattern developing that every tournament that I've played lately at Rivers seems to have a massive(relative) turnout. There were 56 buy-ins for this particular satellite that one of the dealers mentioned there's usually 30-ish. I played 2 buy-ins. First buy-in I was really card dead and the 1 hand I tried to bluff my opponent had basically what I was trying to rep. The other 2 hands that were decent starting hands ended up being second best. I raised with A-Q and got 2 callers, c-bet the 10 high flop and got raised by caller1, caller2 called so I mucked. The other hand was my last I raised with pocket 7s with about 15 bets left, got re-raised by a pretty active player. I called and shoved a 4-6-8 flop, my opponent called with Ks...nothing helped and I was out pretty early. (I actually didn't shove the flop, I put all my chips in except for the 100 denomination chip I was using as my card protector...ugh... the turn was a brick so I checked cause I thought it would be funny and then shoved the Q river...not that it mattered)
I rebought and was put on arguably the most action packed table in the place. Blinds and antes were high enough that we should lose players fairly quickly until the dust settles a little bit, but we were literally going through players ever 3-4 hands. I admit I got lucky, with the A-Q,7s from the prior buy-in not panning out, my first hand I played, possibly 2nd hand dealt I looked down at pocket Ks in late position. A raise and reraise prior to my turn was enough for me to shove. I got called and Ks won over 10s. 5 or 6 hands later I look down at pocket Aces. I played them a little tricky. Based on the dynamic of the table being pretty aggressive I called an early position raiser, flop was pretty dry so I check-raised him all-in and he called me(it felt like this particular player would respond better to aggression than to continually give him rope) He flipped over A-Q and was pretty much dead and rebought(I almost had another shot to KO this same guy later when he shoved and I had 5s, but based on the situation at that time I didn't want to risk 1/4 of my stack for a possible flip/possible dom situation) I pretty much played 3 big hands and was able to just about coast to the final table. This satellite paid out 6 players, 5 got a buy-in of 225, 6th got 209. We lost 2 players pretty quickly and I was able to battle my stack from having 5 bets to 15 bets with blind/ante shoves. However, the blinds were going up at an insane pace. We went from 3k-6k to 5k-10k, with 10k-20k coming next... I had just gotten my stack to about 48K, probably 3rd or 4th at the table. Blinds went to 5k-10k across the table from me, meaning in 4 hands I'd be the BB for 10k. I went from having 9 bets to 4. So I look down at A-8. My immediate thought was to fold, everyone was playing really tight at this point, folding all the way around, so while I know only bigger hands are calling a shove from me, I should be able to pick up the blinds and antes just about all of the time. That's what I thought when I shoved all-in. Probably the Shortest stack in the room shoved for 17K, all else folded. He held 9s and I hit an 8 on the flop, though nothing improved and I was down to 30K and I doubled up the shorty... Next hand I look down at AKsuited...thinking if I made a mistake with the A-8 I felt like I had to make up for it here, so I shoved...the new short-stack called with pocket Aces and I lost another 20K...Next hand I was UTG and had 9500 left, looked down at 5c4c and folded, hoping to win the all-in in the blinds hand... I ended up having Q-6 and lost to A-Q when we both hit Qs and an Ace on the river. I went from thinking I was getting the buy-in to holy crap being out and not really knowing what happened within 4 hands... Usually I'd say that's poker but I think I made a few monumental mistakes. I think that even though I had only 4 bets, there were other stacks that were lower than mine and I should probably figure that I'm favored to make the top 6 if I just fold and hope 2 shorter stacks don't win their all-in moments. I read an article waaaaaaay back in 06 with a follow up in 09 written by Bernard Lee on ESPN about folding Aces in satellites when you're pretty much guaranteed the spot. I felt like I was less guaranteed the spot than the situation he explains in his article, however, I was probably in better shape than I realized...
A few hands after I was KOd the 1st short stack I doubled up shoved and was KOd. What happened next was really interesting. There were now 6 players left, 5 get a buy-in 6th gets 209. Not much of a difference, but still a difference. Well, the uber-chip leader comes back to the table(he'd sat out the last 20 minutes or so since he was probably a lock at a spot) and the super short stack guy at this point put out there the option of playing 1 hand and the worst of the 6 would get 6th place. The hilarious part of this was that he ended up getting the table to agree to this right as he would've been the BB, and almost all-in anyway. Everyone agreed, including the 2 super-stacks who had about 12 blinds(over 100K at 5-10K) for some reason... The dealer puts out the last hand and the chip leader, again, he'd previously been sitting out for the last 20 minutes because he was pretty much guaranteed a spot so long ago ended up being the loser of the hand. I think he ended up buying into the 225, however, he cost himself $16 when he didn't have to...blew my mind. I was in awe at the fact that the short stack was almost all-in and prior to the deal got everyone to agree to give him the same shot they all had to get the buy-in ...awesome job guy!
To sum up my satellites so far, I've played in 2, one in July where I made it to the 550(top 2) and this past one for the 225 where I was KOd in 8th because I was probably dumb... I would've liked to have a 100% satellite payout for just a little while...
Monday, February 10, 2014
Poker League Season 10 Game #4 Results
I finally got the "official" results through e-mail the other day:
I would like my spot to be more undisputed, however, Heck is points leader, I'm points after dropped leader. Heck is also winning on KOs and cashes for the season:
I have a few good ideas for Chris' costume, my favorite idea I'm going to have to create it myself so I've gotta get on that soon. I also need to get a few KOs to help widen the gap, no way do I want him to have any chance of overtaking my lead in the final regular season game. I just have to play my game and they'll come as they always do. Only 3 games to go before the finale!
| Player | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Bounty Bonus | Total Points | Dropped Total |
| Fred | 9 | 12 | 7 | 12 | 40 | 33 | |
| Heck | 12 | 9 | 10 | 10 | 41 | 32 | |
| Chris | 10 | 8 | 3 | 9 | 1 | 31 | 28 |
| Jon | 8 | 0 | 12 | 7 | 27 | 27 | |
| Terri | 7 | 7 | 9 | 8 | 2 | 33 | 26 |
| Jake | 4 | 10 | 0 | 6 | 1 | 21 | 21 |
| Jaime | 5 | 5 | 8 | 5 | 23 | 18 | |
| Sean | 6 | 6 | 2 | 0 | 14 | 14 | |
| Chivers | 3 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 15 | 12 | |
| Shae | 2 | 0 | 6 | 4 | 12 | 12 | |
| Craig | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 4 | 4 |
I would like my spot to be more undisputed, however, Heck is points leader, I'm points after dropped leader. Heck is also winning on KOs and cashes for the season:
| Player | Knockouts | Cashes |
| Heck | 11 | 4 |
| Fred | 9 | 3 |
| Jon | 5 | 1 |
| Chris | 4 | 2 |
| Terri | 2 | 1 |
| Jake | 1 | 1 |
| Craig | 1 | 0 |
| Chivers | 0 | 0 |
| Jaime | 0 | 0 |
| Sean | 0 | 0 |
| Shae | 0 | 0 |
I have a few good ideas for Chris' costume, my favorite idea I'm going to have to create it myself so I've gotta get on that soon. I also need to get a few KOs to help widen the gap, no way do I want him to have any chance of overtaking my lead in the final regular season game. I just have to play my game and they'll come as they always do. Only 3 games to go before the finale!
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Poker League Season 10 Game #4 Recap!
Wow, already past the halfway mark!! Game 4, we were missing a few players, Craig and Sean, so tables were split 4 and 5. I was at the 4 table and since we were starting this way and didn't want to take multiple blind levels to play hand for hand we decided not to(we probably should've instituted hand for hand at some point, however). I bet with Chris that 1st out would be prior the 8th level(20 minute blinds with a break would be near 3 hour mark). 1st one out was somewhere around the 11th level, it was Chivers. 1st, 2nd and 3rd one out should have actually been somewhere around the 8th level, though, there were 2 short stacks at the other table, I think Chivers and Jake and our table, Chris around that time all had something like 10 bets, 2-3K. Chris lost a lot of his stack early. He was making really loose calls all over the place. He called 3 barrels from Jon with A-2, flopping a gut-shot and hitting a 2 on the turn. He called Jaime with Ace high and another hand he called a turn and river bet with an under-pair. He was really trying to make hero-calls all night. Finally he had 3K left and went into Craig-mode(decidedly, Craig-mode is now official for all-in or fold situations) At about the same time, Chivers and Jake were in Craig-mode also, this was about 7 or 8th level. Chris was able to win a few shoves and got himself back to a respectable 5K or so when I found myself sitting on a little over 4K when I went into "Craig-mode". It was at this point we realized how much of a disadvantage our short-stacks were to the other table's short stacks. We went through a hand roughly in maybe 1 1/2 minutes for a full hand while the other table was taking a lot more time than that even on B vs B hands or an open and all fold hands. We decided to sit and wait out a hand and we literally watched the time go from 18 minutes left in the blind to 12 minutes left in the blind while the other table went through 1 hand and a shuffle and deal into the next hand...ugh! We must have played 30 hands more than them at least...So while we played the last couple hands as a "hand-for-hand" style I "survived" and Chivers went out. He said he played his best poker of the season. Terri was destroying the other table from the start, apparently holding Aces a few times, Ks and Qs. One hand he held 7s and hit a set, just owning everyone.
1st hand at the final table I shoved, pretty sure I had Ks. Heck asked Chris "How's he been playing" as if he wanted to call me pretty light. Honestly, I can't even remember if Heck called me and I doubled up or he folded...Most of the tournament was a blur...One hand I do remember, I think Jon either opened or shoved all-in for a small amount, maybe 5 blinds, Terri went all-in over the top(chip leader) and I looked down at pocket Aces and called, Terri had 10s. I won that hand and pretty much crippled Terri and got myself up to a really nice stack. I think I was 2nd in chips, Heck in 1st, Chris 3rd and Terri 4th. Terri went out next, I think Chris KOd her. Heck ended up KO-ing Chris and then Heck and I went heads up for a little over an hour.
We went back and forth a bunch, I tried to slowly wittle him down but we ended up switching stacks a ton mostly staying even. Heck's been really good this season, cashing in all games. Winning game1, 2nd place losing to Jon last game and now top 2 in this one. Final hand I got lucky and I was hoping to trap Heck, he raised and I wanted to 3-bet but decided to "trap" and called with K-9, I flopped a K and decided to keep the rouse going, I turned another K and he shoved the river with an A-6(paired the 6) and I probably thought a little too long for the call... Heck can either make the worst play in the world or the most ingenius play in the world and lately he's been getting lucky when he's had the worst of it(K-8 One-time! vs Ks) and getting action when he's got the best of it. I called and it was over. I was told I was undefeated at Heck's place, however I know I was out early one time but I have won the other 3 times, 2 of those times were against Heck Heads Up, 1 last season, 1 this season.
Fred and Chris KO Bet:(We both KOd 2 players)
Fred: 9
Chris: 4
Possible Season 10 Great/Terrible Storylines:
Heck and I play Heads Up for the trophy this year, and Heck has beaten me twice the other 2 times we were Heads Up for the trophy so along with the last 2 heads up matches I've won, he's definately due to beat me...These are probably self-fulfilling prophecies somehow...It would really suck to have Heck's name up on the trophy for a 3rd time, especially since I don't have my name on the trophy at all, and most especially if every time Heck won it was Heads Up against me...Maybe Craig will miss the rest of the season, only to show up and win the finale...? Maybe Season 10 is when we'll get one of the women of the league to be the "Luckiest Bastard"??...Maybe I'll finally get to be the Luckies Bastard...time will tell...
1st hand at the final table I shoved, pretty sure I had Ks. Heck asked Chris "How's he been playing" as if he wanted to call me pretty light. Honestly, I can't even remember if Heck called me and I doubled up or he folded...Most of the tournament was a blur...One hand I do remember, I think Jon either opened or shoved all-in for a small amount, maybe 5 blinds, Terri went all-in over the top(chip leader) and I looked down at pocket Aces and called, Terri had 10s. I won that hand and pretty much crippled Terri and got myself up to a really nice stack. I think I was 2nd in chips, Heck in 1st, Chris 3rd and Terri 4th. Terri went out next, I think Chris KOd her. Heck ended up KO-ing Chris and then Heck and I went heads up for a little over an hour.
We went back and forth a bunch, I tried to slowly wittle him down but we ended up switching stacks a ton mostly staying even. Heck's been really good this season, cashing in all games. Winning game1, 2nd place losing to Jon last game and now top 2 in this one. Final hand I got lucky and I was hoping to trap Heck, he raised and I wanted to 3-bet but decided to "trap" and called with K-9, I flopped a K and decided to keep the rouse going, I turned another K and he shoved the river with an A-6(paired the 6) and I probably thought a little too long for the call... Heck can either make the worst play in the world or the most ingenius play in the world and lately he's been getting lucky when he's had the worst of it(K-8 One-time! vs Ks) and getting action when he's got the best of it. I called and it was over. I was told I was undefeated at Heck's place, however I know I was out early one time but I have won the other 3 times, 2 of those times were against Heck Heads Up, 1 last season, 1 this season.
Fred and Chris KO Bet:(We both KOd 2 players)
Fred: 9
Chris: 4
Possible Season 10 Great/Terrible Storylines:
Heck and I play Heads Up for the trophy this year, and Heck has beaten me twice the other 2 times we were Heads Up for the trophy so along with the last 2 heads up matches I've won, he's definately due to beat me...These are probably self-fulfilling prophecies somehow...It would really suck to have Heck's name up on the trophy for a 3rd time, especially since I don't have my name on the trophy at all, and most especially if every time Heck won it was Heads Up against me...Maybe Craig will miss the rest of the season, only to show up and win the finale...? Maybe Season 10 is when we'll get one of the women of the league to be the "Luckiest Bastard"??...Maybe I'll finally get to be the Luckies Bastard...time will tell...
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