Poker League Season 9 is over!

--disclaimer: I took waay too long to publish this...sorry...

Well, I worked really hard this season, entered the finale as the chip leader by a large margin, and failed to even cash...

If you've ever sat down and played against a player who just couldn't lose to you than you'll know what happened to me when I played against Ashley.  I started off promising, as chip/points leader I get to pick my table and seat after everyone else.  I naturally picked to have supreme position on Chris.  This is a generally good strategy usually since I would put Chris as a top tier player in our game, but bonus points because I won our season bet of most wins.  Chris would have to make specific statements I created instead of the usual call/fold/raise/all-in/check action words.  If he screws up he has to drink 3.  We also bet on how many times he'd screw up and I even let him set the line, (at 5?) and I knew he'd definately screw it up more than that so I took the over(and eventually won that bet)  Well, I was sitting at the table with the most chips, to the left of one of the best players and also whom I'd get to laugh at every hand: Example: "Fold" equated to him saying "Fred is my poker god" etc...  I also picked Craig to be first out and won that peice of the bet when I think he got a little bit unlucky with flopping a flush vs the nut flush.  I only picked Craig to be first out because I knew with his stack, he was the only one willing early on to risk it for more profit.  So he'd either be out early or be a contender early.  He was at the other table, with most of the players that started with lesser chips and after his elimination (or maybe the next...) there needed to be a rebalancing.  Of course the poker gods can't give me too much satisfaction and the program sent me to fill in Craig's old seat.  Strategically, I was fine with this, with my stack I should be able to just about run over the other shorter stacks.  Unfortunately, I suffered a few set-backs, a couple suck-outs and a few other stacks moved up to my level.  Jon and Heck got their stacks up to over 30K and I had about 45K so I tried to bully them a little and for the most part it worked.  My problems started while trying to eliminate the short-stack in Ashley.  It seemed no matter what the cards were, she hit when she was behind, I didn't get there when I was drawing, etc...  Then I made a huge bluff-gone-horribly-wrong against Jon when I raised preflop with A-3c offsuit. John called and the flop was all clubs, K-high.  He checked, I bet he called.  Turn was a brick and so I continued my betting and he called.  The river bricked as well and he checked, I bet out and he shoved for not much more.  I couldn't even call with Ace high and I know/knew he had something, just not as strong as a flopped flush until he shoved... So I cut myself in half, maybe more that hand and John jumped up to probably the chip leader at the table.  I couldn't beat Ashley in a hand so it was back to the grind of trying to take everyone else's (John and Heck's) chips, slowly but surely.  They were playing a lot of hands, at least Heck was....  Jon kind of went into "coast to the final table mode" I was able to get myself back into a decent size when we got to the final table, however, I ran into some bad luck, doubled a few short-stack players up and then when it was my turn, it wasn't meant to be.  My AK lost to a middle pair to cripple me and 3-4suited shove against 5 limpers lost(after hitting a 4) to A-7.

I'm satisfied with winning (almost) the most money this season.... by far the most during the regular season.  I'll probably get my name on the trophy someday, but that's really not the "complete" goal, right?  It's probably my lot in life to be "that guy" who hasn't gotten "there" yet....(pitty party's over!)  If Chris ever gets me the game log for the finale I'll probably remember a few hands, at least the ones that knocked people out and the order of which they went out.  I can say that Jon ended up winning the trophy again.  That actually hurts a lot more than it should, he's won 3 of the last 6 or something crazy...  I wish I didn't try my 3 barrel bluff on him when he flopped that flush, he was basically on a huge downswing up to that point....  ah well, I did get him to fold Queens against my Jacks earlier, though, live by the sword, die by the sword, I guess...  To another season next fall!!  Please get here quickly!

Poker League Season 9 Game 7 Results!

So, another regular season of Poker League is in the books and I fell a little short of my desired 80 points with my most recent 2nd place.  I'm actually pretty happy with my season, though.  Poker is about making money and nobody did that as well as I have, or even close this season.  I won $65 this game($50 profit) to add to my $450 for the rest of the season.  I've played 7 games with at least 10 players each game and I've gotten top 3 all but one(paid).  Week 3 my A-8 failed to beat out an all-in call with QJsuited that knocked me out early.  This past game, I was never really in a spot to win the game from about 4-5 players on, though I figured the longer I survived the better chance I had.  I suppose anytime I can get heads up I have a decent chance to win it.  I don't think I was prepared for the large blinds at the time and made a few small mistakes that with such small stacks compared to the blinds, end up magnified.  All in all, I made a few good folds, a few nice plays in some good spots, but the top 5 was really all about survival this game.  I think the top 4 lasted the longest a money-bubble has all season but I'll have to analyze the game first to determine the truth in that.  Here are the final standings.  Unfortunately Ashley made final table and got 6 points and while it doesn't look like she boosted herself all that much from 8000 to 8500, she really hurt everyone else's stacks in the process.  Prior to her 6 points I could've had over 50K with my points and everyone else's stacks suffered, too.  So while it might look like she only gained 500 chips for 6 points, she really kept the gap between her and the other players a lot smaller than they would've been.






Here are the final standings for Poker League Season 9:

Player	Week 1	Week 2	Week 3	Week 4	Week 5	Week 6	Week 7	Bonus	Drop Total	Chip Total
Fred	14	14	3	11	12	14	12	1	78	39,000
Jaime	8	11	5	9	9	11	8	2	58	29,000
Chris	2	7	12	14	8	9	7	1	58	29,000
Chivers	10	9	10	8	6	12	4		55	27,500
Jake	9	10	6	5	4	10	14		54	27,000
Jon	7	6	8	6	14	5	9		50	25,000
Sean	0	2	11	10	10	6	11		50	25,000
Shae	5	1	14	12	5	8	3	2	49	24,500
Terri	11	4	9	7	0	7	10		48	24,000
Heck	3	12	4	3	11	4	2	1	38	19,000
Craig	12	8	1	4	7	0	5		37	18,500
Ashley	4	5	2	0	0	0	6		17	8,500
Steve	6	3	7	0	0	0	0		16	8,000

Poker League Season 9 Week 6 Results!

Here are the results of game 6.

Player	Week 1	Week 2	Week 3	Week 4	Week 5	Week 6	Total Points	Dropped Total
Fred	14	14	3	11	12	14	69	66
Jaime	8	11	5	9	9	11	55	50
Chris	2	7	12	14	8	9	52	50
Chivers	10	9	10	8	6	12	55	49
Shae	5	1	14	12	5	8	47	46
Jon	7	6	8	6	14	5	46	41
Jake	9	10	6	5	4	10	44	40
Sean	0	2	11	10	10	6	39	39
Terri	11	4	9	7	0	7	38	38
Heck	3	12	4	3	11	4	38	35
Craig	12	8	1	4	7	0	32	32
Steve	6	3	7	0	0	0	16	16
Ashley	4	5	2	0	0	0	11	11

My 3rd win of the season, 5th cash.

Game 7 is this weekend, followed by the finale next weekend!

Wish me luck!

Poker League Season 5 Game 6 Recap

We had 3 players missing so 10 total this week.  Heck was player #5 at our table but was going to be 30 minutes late.  Chivers must have taken a few tips from my short-handed strategy and was preflop raising and postflop raising like a bat outta hell.  I only assume he was getting smacked by the deck but by the time I wanted to do something about it I had folded myself down to about 5700, starting with 8K at 25-50.  Finally, after 2 levels, Heck showed up mid-way into 100-200 no antes, level 3.  2 orbits or so go by and Heck "continues" his pre-to-showing-up tight nature, playing 2 hands but making Chivers pay him off, building his stack back to a slightly above healthy almost starting stack.  I was also able to put together a string of hands to put me to just below starting stack
Heck's 3rd hand of the night went like this:
So we're at 100-200 with 25 ante, 5-handed(10 players, 5+5) and I'm(7500K stack) under the gun and I look down at AKoff so I raise it up to 550, folds around to Heck in the BB(next to me) and he makes it 1100.  I 4-bet it to 2500 and Heck calls.  Flop comes out A-8-4 rainbow and Heck bets 3500, I shove and he insta-calls, flipping over A-Q, no help for him and he was crippled to about 1000 in chips.  I was sitting on a nice stack of 15K now, Chivers back to about 9K, Chris at about 7K+ and Jaime down to about 5500 and Heck at 1100.  The next hand I thought for sure Heck would shove anything hoping to take my BB but he only called, I raised with K-10 and he folded. Next hand he went all-in and Jaime and I both called, her in the BB, me in the SB.  I had K-6off and the flop came A-5-3, I checked, Jaime bet 1500 and I folded, she flipped over Q-9 and Heck had J-8 or something insignificant that never improved and he was first out.  Now we play with 2 tables up until top 8 so we're immediately hand for hand, which I think lasted for probably close to an hour(it was longer, but we took a super long pizza break).  Looking around at my table it appeared to me that Jaime would probably be the final table bubble as she was sitting around 20 BBs with the rest of us at least double that.  I attempted to bleed her a little bit but she played more aggressively than I was comfortable with and I just ended up increasing her stack and in turn dropping my stack from 15K to about 11K.  About this time, Jon at the other table was the final table bubble soon after the pizza break.

Final Table:
At the head of the table(not necessarily seat 1...)was Chivers with me to his left, then Terri, Shae, Jaime, Sean, Jake and Chris to Chivers' immediate right. 

Jake had a pretty large stack and Shae was probably in 2nd place.  I had dispersed a lot of my above average stack from Heck to Jaime in the last couple hands prior to the final table.  I pretty much sat out of the final table until after a few KOs.  I believe Terri was the first one KOd.  She was pretty card-dead from what I witnessed.  She was just about forced to go all-in with less than a blind, K-2 suited and a small prayer.(Update: Sean was first at the FT knocked out, then Terri soon after)

I was actually getting a little low and was able to 3 and 4-bet shove a few preflop pots to take them down.  This added up after a little while and I found myself a decent sized stack after a few more KOs.  By the time we got to top 4 I had amassed a top 2 stack and was able to take a large chunk from Jake and he was knocked out soon after.  Jaime didn't last very long at top 3 and Chivers and I had massive stacks comparable to the blinds going into heads up.  Our battle lasted over an hour, which should break the record as longest heads-up battle of the season but in the end my AK was able to hold up against his K-10 and I accomplished my 3rd win of the season.

So with game 6 in the books, I've accomplished 3 wins, 5 cashes, not necessarily Greg Raymor-on-HPT-escue, but not too shabby eh?  It should be good enough for player of the year honors :-) and we still have 1 game before the finale left this weekend!

Poker League Season 9 Week 5 Results!

I'm still in first, but there's a lot of jockeying to do from pretty much 2nd on down.  And I'm not totally uncatchable if I'm not careful...

Player	Week 1	Week 2	Week 3	Week 4	Week 5	Total Points	Dropped Total
Fred	14	14	3	11	12	54	51
Chris	2	7	12	14	8	43	41
Jaime	8	11	5	9	9	44	39
Shae	5	1	14	12	5	39	38
Chivers	10	9	10	8	6	43	37
Jon	7	6	8	6	14	41	35
Sean	0	2	11	10	10	33	33
Heck	3	12	4	3	11	34	31
Craig	12	8	1	4	7	32	31
Terri	11	4	9	7	0	31	31
Jake	9	10	6	5	4	34	30
Steve	6	3	7	0	0	16	16
Ashley	4	5	2	0	0	11	11

There's only a 9 point difference between 2nd and 11th place, almost a point a place.  This weekend should start to seperate the final table stacks.
Hopefully I can increase my lead and stack this weekend!

Player	Dropped Total	Dropped Chip Total
Fred	51	37,091
Chris	41	29,818
Jaime	39	28,364
Shae	38	27,636
Chivers	37	26,909
Jon	35	25,455
Sean	33	24,000
Heck	31	22,545
Craig	31	22,545
Terri	31	22,545
Jake	30	21,818
Steve	16	11,636
Ashley	11	8,000