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...

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

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.