Tuesday, July 31, 2007

"My Immortal" - Evanescence

So I put my Chiefs tix up for sale on Ebay....10 yard line, 3rd row Chiefs side.... if I hadn't broken my ankle in February I'd be in KC The week of Sept 23rd.

Sad day indeed, theres always next year I suppose. Trips planned to ATL to see KC @ ATL, and maybe back to KC to see a home game. We'll see how that pans out.

On a positive not I may get Direct TV and dump stupid Comcast, if you haven't noticed they dropped NFL Network from the normal lineup and added to a sports package?? So lemme get this straight I pay $160/month for cable and internet and now I have to pay more for a channel I use to have 3 of? I call bullshit! Not to mention the horrible customer service I got when I was trying to see if Comcast was carrying the WSOP ME Final Table on PPV.

"Eye of the Tiger" - Survivor

3rd place finish in the MATH good for $124.80. I wouldn't be super excited except before the MATH started I got me a $26 token for $8.80. That pushed the profit over the hundo mark.

There's not too many times I feel bad about busting someone, but last night I felt bad about busting MikeMaloney. I had less thaan zip on the flop but I pushed all in trying to get him off the hand. Turns out he had limped in with a good one: J-J vs my Ah-9h with 2 cards to come im dead to an A or runner-runner 9s. A spikes on the river and I rail Mike. The whole table was in a downer after that and it bothered me that I had misread and pushed on a bluff (lately I've been trying to be a lot more cognizant of strong limpers.)

I was up to 10k before sitting to the right of Hoy and doubling him up, then donking loads of chips off to him. Later on he convinced me all my laydowns of his push were probably good moves when he showed A-A and K-K back to back.

Not too much action when it got down to the final table for me. Case hand that vaulted me to the chip lead was: J-J under the gun. At this point I have like 7k, there are 2 huge stacks in late position so I want to try and snag some limper money and hope for a big raise from LP. Lots of calls but no raise like I hoped for.
Flop: Ac-Qc-Jc
Yay a set but the worst frickin flop imaginable. With 6-7 peeps in the pot there is a chance someone limped with Kc-10c so I check, it checks around and I get a free turn card.
Turn: Th
Ugh the hand gets worse and worse. Now any K will do. Again it checks all the way around to the button, who proceeds to make a pot size bet (1,600). So its on me, I think of what my outs are: 3As, 3Qs, 1J, 3 10s. I can-t put anyone on A-Q, but I can put people on A-J, A-10, Q-J, K-x, and any flushes. Its more or less a donk call, but I want to gamble. I call, and the rest fold.
River:Q
So-so River, I can now beat any flush cept the Royal, which is the only hand I fear. I still cant believe anybody has an A-Q. If the button has K-Q I win. Button bets out 3k, I raise all-in for my last 6k, button calls. He turns over 10c-8c for the 2nd nut flush, I take the pot with Js full of Qs.

After this hand im up to 20k and its smooth sailing to the top 4. The top 4 was a tough field. I felt if I was going to win this one I had to pick my spots and be prepared to push. After about 20-30 mins of just swapping chips, Hoy took a huge hit to his stack and a few hands later was eliminated. I lasted about 5 more hands when I called with J-8o.
Flop:Ah,10h,9s
I flop an up and down, BB bets out and hoping I can push him off a flush draw I raise all-in. Pot is about 30k and its 7.5k for him to call. He takes a fes seconds to think but then calls with Kh-Qh. There goes one of my outs. Fulltilt doesnt want the drama so it gives the 5h on the t urn and my day is done.

Overall not a bad day for myself, i think. Had a good time and made a little cheese.

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

"867-5309, Jenny"

Don't be jealous, lol

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Some dude asked her for her number, and I said "Observer chat is a gift from the gods" and thus she gave me her "number."

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

"Down With The Sickness" - Disturbed

I have poker highs and lows that I just can't explain. I get home from a REALLY long day on no sleep and I'm trying to win myself a $26 token so I can play in the Hoy for cheap. After 3 $8 +.25 buy-ins and suck outs, I just buy in for the $26.

I played in the hoy for approx 20 minutes and in that time I won 1 hand and lost 2 to knock me out.

Win was a bluff on the first hand of the game, 1st loss was 8d-8c on a low 3 diamond flop, Buddy checks, I bet, he calls. Turn pairs the board. Buddy checks, I bet, Buddy calls. River puts 2 pair on the board. I bet about half the pot to try and dissuade Buddy from calling me. The worst part is he stalls while thinking, calls time and I listen on the radio as he says screw it and calls my bet showing a Q high flush...

Knocks me under half of my starting stack. So a few minutes later I'm dealt 6-6 on the button and I raise 4 times the BB, Buddy calls from the SB and Don calls from late MP.
Flop is Q-J-5 and I push all in for the remaining of my chips. Half hoping they respect my pre-flop raise, half-hoping they just fold. Apparently I have no respect as both called. Buddy ended up having K-Q and Don took the puppy home with Ac-10c when an Ace fell on the Turn.

And I am busted in 2nd to last place, and the confusement for me begins. What am I doing wrong?

Against my better judgement I play a $11+1 SNG and after being dealt Q-Q with a low flop I get all my money in against A-K and he snags an A... These kinds of losses just build on me mentally.

Monday, July 23, 2007

"Gin N Juice" - Cleetus T Judd

So on a whim I played a 24+2 14k guaranteed and this is what happened:

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Im disappointed in only a 4th place finish as I was playing extremely well, but the cash is nice.

Hand I lost on was J-10. Flop: 10-5-3 rainbow. I bet, someone pushes. I call

Opponent has: J-J. Goodbye me. Guess ill sleep now, seeing as i gotta get up in 3 hours...

Saturday, July 21, 2007

"Here I Go Again" - Whitesnake

My first losing session at Foxwoods in 4 trys. The final damage is -$150.
Still doing fairly well for the month, so I'm not upset at the loss.

Not sure if im heading there tomorrow, but i will try to get a good night's sleep so i dont tire out like last week.

Friday, July 20, 2007

"Rumors" - Timex Social Club

I try not to buy into the whole online poker is rigged thing (which is ironic since so many people complain about it, yet we are fighting to save it) but sometimes it just feels like something aint right.

Example:

5.50 900+ person tourney last night I grab J-J in MP. EP raised and I called. Flop Q-9-3 with 2 diamonds. EP bets 300, I raise to 900. He pushes all in for 300 more. I call. He turns over Ad-Kc. Im ahead. Turn: 10, River: J Runner-runner straight. Im crippled.

Few hands later I have Q-Q and I push all-in for my last couple hundred chips. 1 caller with 6-6.
Flop: 6 and I dont improve.

Bad luck? Maybe. RNG not so "random"? I guess.

I was talking to Joe one day about how when I had the best hand in a live game with 8s full, I was worried that the dude had something like pocket 9s and was gonna catch on the river.

So my simple conclusion is: Online poker ruins your live poker game.

Hitting f-woods again tonight so hopefully my positive streak keeps running. If I go on Sunday I think I want to try the 10am $340 buy-in game, see how my live multi-table playing is.

Thursday, July 19, 2007

"I'm So Tired" - The Beatles

I'm friggin beat. You can't just go to sleep after you do well in a poker tourney, no no no my dear friends. You stay up and analyze everything. "What did I do wrong?, What did I do right? What can I improve upon? What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?"

So although the tourney ended at 1:30ish I had to be tossing and turning for a good 30 minutes more, and here I sit nodding off as I type this.

Overall I'm proud of my performance, I feel like with every tourney I'm getting better reads and making less and less stupid decisions. I got berated from Alissa (aka Death Adder. j/k hunnybun I love you. Any GA fans out there?) for calling Mookie's all-in with my A-Q. She says she wants to be my "fold" coach as apparently my weakness is not folding. I'd agree that my head's up play was pretty bad, but I was trying to be aggressive. I got too aggressive and donked my chips off to better hands.

If I had to review some choice hands from last night I'd start with the one I posted last night in my Full-Tilt Tilt. I called 4k into a 10k pot, which was a mistake with middle pair. I put him on 2 overcards K-Q, K-J, Q-J since he pushed all in that flop, and more recently I had been making some good folds when people were re-raising all-in. I thought this was another attempt to just re-raise me all-in to bluff me out of a pot (which it was) so I put my money on a pair. As FT so loves to do the gutshot filled out on the river.

I think what most people in the tourney didn't realize is that this hand occured right before the second break and I was down to 1,350 when the avergae stack was closely approaching 10k. I doubled up when my 9s-10s caught a 9. And then I got back into the game when my Ad-2d caught 2 aces to beat K-J. I had a real shot to win this as I had a commanding chip lead after I knocked 3rd place out.

That hand played out like this: Dealt Ah-9h on the button. I had just tossed this hand one hand before when there was a decent raise. This time I raised it up and Don pushed all-in (I really hate that raise, more later) this time I thought about it and I figured he really could have anything in the SB, and he was the short stack at the table. If there was any a good time to take a stand it was now. He flipped over A-6o and I cruised.

I hate the all-in reraise. HATE it. Not just doing it to me because I pick and choose my spots, but its a weak move in my opinion. Yes you are most assuredly guaranteed to pick up the blinds and whatever the original raiser tossed out there but the trade-off is you are risking your entire stack on what could be crap if the raiser woke up with A-A. And if you re-raise all in with A-A you need a CAT scan, WHY would you chase someone out of a pot? Unless you are 100% sure the person has a call-worthy hand or you've been screwing around with him and he thinks you are just bluffing with him again, it makes no sense to me. Short stacks I understand but if you are average to chip leader in stack size it shouldn't even be a thought in your head.

My .02

Grats to MM again for a game well played. I was so close to getting the Mookie interview I could almost taste it!

"Break Stuff" - Limp Bizkit

Ugh,online poker:

Full Tilt Poker Game #2990366949: The Mookie - Crazed Poker (22691435), Table 2 - 200/400 Ante 50 - No Limit Hold'em - 0:06:06 ET - 2007/07/19
Seat 1: snakster (3,985)
Seat 2: irongirl01 (14,630)
Seat 3: PokerBrian322 (7,835)
Seat 4: pvanharibo (12,810)
Seat 5: mookie99 (10,560)
Seat 6: wwonka69 (4,200)
Seat 7: swimmom95 (10,815)
Seat 8: crazdgamer (6,560)
Seat 9: JTS102 (6,195)

HOLE CARDS ***Dealt to PokerBrian322 [Td 7d]
snakster folds
irongirl01 folds
PokerBrian322 calls 400
pvanharibo calls 400
mookie99 folds
wwonka69 folds
swimmom95 folds
crazdgamer calls 200
JTS102 checks
*** FLOP *** [9c 7c Jd]
crazdgamer checks
JTS102 checks
PokerBrian322 bets 2,050
pvanharibo has 15 seconds left to act
pvanharibo folds
crazdgamer raises to 6,110, and is all in
JTS102 folds
PokerBrian322 has 15 seconds left to act
PokerBrian322 calls 4,060
crazdgamer shows [5h 8d]
PokerBrian322 shows [Td 7d]
*** TURN *** [9c 7c Jd] [3d]
*** RIVER *** [9c 7c Jd 3d] [6h]c
razdgamer shows a straight, Nine high
PokerBrian322 shows a pair of Sevens
crazdgamer wins the pot (14,270) with a straight, Nine high
*** SUMMARY ***Total pot 14,270


And after being down to 1k in chips right before the second break after this hand, I roar back and place 2nd.

Grats to Mike, its a win he well deserved.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

"Three Times A Lady" - Lionel Richie

So I haven't updated in a bit, but I've been here, there, and everywhere.

Sunday I ended up back at Foxwood's again and after being down $150 I got dealt 8-8 (after watching WSOP last night I believe 8-8 is the new A-A, more later) in middle-late position. Limper table, with a super aggressive player in the BB. No raises, 5 limpers.

Flop: 5-5-3 Not bad for me but with both blinds a little cautious on my end. Checks around
Turn: 8 Bingo, bango, bongo! Good news is I have the best hand out there, bad news is its a small pot (12 bucks). Checks around to me again and I throw a $15 bucker out there figuring if some unlucky sap has a 5 we will find out quick. One caller, the button.
River: 6 Im trying to figure out what I can bet to get this guy to call/raise me. I figure I might get him to re-raise me if I overbet the pot a tad. I toss out a $50 bet. "Raise" the button says as I exhault inside with glee. He pushes $100 in. I re-raise the last $50 or so he has and he calls quick. "Full house" he says 5s full of 6s, I turn over my 8's full and I take down the pot.

Now as I was pulling all those chips in he made some comment about "do that again, i dare ya" and I'm baffled because 1) I got a free turn card 2) I bet the pot then an overbet on the turn and river (which he called then raised) and I did something wrong to this man? ITO went up!

The rest of the session was more being amused by the super aggressive person at my table. He had re-raised me out of 2 pots early on and showed both hands, J-J (I had A-K) and 7-7 (I had hit top pair "Q" with a K kicker. I tended to just avoid him as I didn't want to tangle unless I had the Planters. Anyway, great story about him. He's talked people out of their hands and everytime he did he had them beat (very easy to read, it was his betting patterns that were sporatic) in once such hand he played his BB "blind". It limped around to him and he raised to $10 without even checking his cards. 4 callers.

Flop: J-4-4 He leads out for $25 (still hasnt peeked) and he gets one caller in early position (she just joined the table and had posted) as soon as she calls he peeks.
Turn: J Bets out $50 and EP calls
River 5: He bets out the remaining stack that EP has. Shes goes into the tank, while the whole time he is just saying "I got you, just fold and save your money. Think of it as a Christmas present" etc etc. She ends up calling.

He has J-5 and she has A-4. I laughed my ass off.

Left up $275, making the weekend a + of $505. Not a bad haul.

MATH was a disappointment this week. Bad luck and trying to deal with Comcast reps at the same time combined to take me out. Q-Q with a flop of Q-J-9, all-in and Island turns over K-10. Later on I had 10-10 vs Island's K-K. Game over. Mookie tonight, gotta get back in the cash so I feel like I can prove im not a one donk wonder.

I ended up buying the WSOP internet broadcast last night after I took a nap. Started watching after 7th place was eliminated on a bad beat K-J vs J-8. Stayed up till 1am EDT to watch the Russian double up on Yang. I didn't think Yang could win the thing after that, but he was not to be held down. A cool 8.25 mil, not a bad haul.

Mookie tonight, hoping for a cash.

Saturday, July 14, 2007

"Money" - Pink Floyd

Another profitable night at f-woods! On Friday the 13th no less.

Was up 30-40 bucks rather quickly thanks to J-J. Then made a questionable call with 9-9 on a Board of Q-J-8.

Guy I was up against was a crazy nut, still have no idear if he was drunk or not for most of the night. Any way. I raise to 10, he re-raises to 22, i call. Im thinking he has maybe a-k, a-q but possibly could have had anything. I have seen him make some crazy calls in the last few hands only for him to catch runner-runner or even just one card to give him the pot.

Flop: Q-J-8 rainbow. I check, he moves all in for the rest of his money 42 bucks. I'm getting 2-1 on my money for the call, and i sat there for awhile figuring where I am. If he has A-K it eliminates 4 outs for me, but im 60/40 to win. If he has A-Q, A-J, K-K, or A-A i have 6 outs and am about a 3 to 1 dog. So looking back on this hand, I should've just folded since pot odds were poor and only one scenerio was a winning one for me. So anyway, I call. He turns over A-A and I am down $70 bucks from my buy-in.

The next hour consisted of folding horrible cards and losing twice when I made 2 pair on the flop to better hands as the board played out. Then my luck changed.

Seat number 2 gets filled by another drunk guy who just barely avoided a fight at his other table (his words) because he called a $20 raise with 2s,3s and made a flush to beat the raiser who grabbed 2 pair on the flop.

Seat 2 was annoying, loud, and very abusive of the dealers and waitresses. Needless to say, the table mood changed to dismay when this guy showed up, but I was thinking $$$$$$$$$$$$.

Seat 2 was immediately showing weakness. He played at least 6-7 straight hands in a row,showing bluffs on 2 out of the first 3. Then he made some "great" calls to be taken for at least $150. His first fold occured after seat 6 made what he called a "string bet." He contended that seat 6 made two motions of his hand when he raised the pot. Seat 6 did move his hand twice, but at no time did he reach for more chips, all the chips bet were in his hand. Dealer ruled it was not a string-bet and seat 2 demanded to be refunded his 2 dollar bet.

Finally my time to shine baby! Seat 10 raises to $20, seat 2 calls. I look at my hand and see 10-10. I call. Seat 6 also calls.

Flop: 10-7-3



S2 bets $20, I bet $100. S6 folds, S10 pushes all in for $100+ more, S2 pushes all in (less than $100), I push all-in.

S2: I dont remember but it was garbage
Me: 10-10 for a set
S10: A-A
Turn: J
River: 3

I rake in a $500 pot.
S2 initially made some stupid comment but then commented that it was a good hand. Tilting commencing.

S7 who I shall call MA. Yankees Fan or MYF for short was the big stack at our table, got involved in 2 pots with S2 and both times MYF caught a runner to beat him. Tilting going DEFCON 4. After my hand with S2 noone was backing down from him. I ended up making a sidebet with S2 that next time he and S6 got heads up he said he would win. $10 of my money said he wouldnt. He busted out before the bet could be ruled in either of our favors.
The hand after he got beat by MYF for the second time he pushed all in for $44. I look and have A-K, I raise to $100 to isolate (he announced what I was doing to the table as well) everyone folds and he turns over J-7. K on the flop nets me some more of his money.

He ended up getting involved in another pot with MYF who caught a 2 outer (consecutively on the turn and river) to beat him yet again. And finally he blows. He berates MYF first, then the quiet asian dealer second. He walks away from the table, comes back and berates the dealer again for dealing runner-runner. Then he leaves for good.

Next 2 hours were quiet for me. I only got involved in a few more hands, both were when I was on the button.
1st: A-7 sooted. FLOP: A-8-7 Bet, call from a new seat 10. Turn: Blank. Bet, call. River: A Bet, and again a call. She flips over a-9, I flip the boat.
2nd: A-4 Flop: A-A-Q Bet, call from a new S7 who's name shall be Decked out Yankees fan with a Cast or DOYFC. Turn 8. Bet, call. River: 5. Bet 20, Raise from DOYFC to 40. Call. I showed the A and he mucked. Guess he thought his Q was good.

And that was my night. Up $237 when everything was all said and done. Bankroll is up to $1137 from $300 on June 23rd. Not too shabby!

Friday, July 13, 2007

"Sweet Child of Mine" - Guns N Roses

UGH! From $369 I'm down to $288 on FT. Keep getting screwed in nl cash games. Everytime I hit Top Pair/Best Kicker I'm always running into a small to medium set.

And in SnGs I feel I'm playing very well, tight-aggressive play. What happens is when it gets down to 4 or 5 people I get under pressure to take smaller stacks out until I bust. And I'm going bust with good hands. J-J vs dude's A-K and he grabs a K on the flop. Stuff like that. Online is just a whole different monster from live cards.

And speaking of live cards, tonight I make my triumphant return to Foxwoods to see if I can build on my stack. I'll take being up even $100 at the end of the night, I'm not greedy. :-)

Thursday, July 12, 2007

"My Favorite Mistake" - Cheryl Crow

My favorite hand in the whole wide world is 5-7 sooted or not. Back in my early Foxwood 2/4 days a talkative dealer was telling our table about the "godhand". When prompted what was the "godhand", the dealer explained that 5-7 always seemed to flop 2 pair or a straight, and that some of the dealers there saw this and started referring to this as the "godhand." (My gf's cousin has since married a poker dealer at F-woods and he does not recall any dealers talking about this, of course he doesnt deal poker primarily either)

So as a young poker pup I was intrigued by this hand and got to test its magic out about a week later.

2/4 limit game, full table, and I am in late position.

5c, 7c dealt to me. No raises, just limpers and I call.

Flop 8c, 6c, X

EP bets out, I call.

Turn 4c B-I-N-G-O

EP bets, I call again with the nuts

River X

EP bets out, I raise, EP re-raises, I re-raise. She looks at me and I say, "If you want we can just go all-in because I'll keep raising." EP (who is obviously new to the poker scene) stops and asks "I thought you could only have 3 raises per round?" Dealer and about 3/4ths of the table tell her in heads up play you can keep on going. So unfortunately she just calls instead of re-raising. And she turns over Ac-10c, while my first straight flush in a casino holds up to win. The mystique of 5,7 begins.

Lately 5,7 will flop me a straight only to be beaten by a wicked, horrible flush draw. And even more recently a chopped pot when 2 opponents who had lesser straights with a 5 in their hand got a 7 on the river for a 3 way chop. Haven't had any really big hands in NL with it yet, course I tend to shy away from it when theres a raise in a cash game or tourney.

Second favorite hand has to be 6-6 just because it feels like I flop a set more than the 1 in 8 they say you will.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

"Ode To My Car" - Adam Sandler

So I just crapped out of the Mookie. Tonight has just been a shiztacular night for poker. After the cash game debacle with dudeds making 2 outers to win etc etc.

I'm down almost 1k early in the tourney, and slowly build my stack back to over 3k when all stupidness breaks loose.

I grab 9-9 in Middle position, EP raises 4 times BB and I call. Short stack at our table calls.

*FLOP* 5h,9h,3h

Meh, good and bad. Original raiser checks so I stick a pot sized bet out there to scare any small flushes out possibly. Short stack raises all-in for her last 500. OR folds. So I say what the heck and call the 500. Kh-8h. Of course!

TURN Js, River Ad. Im fuggin crippled.

So im floatin along until I am in the SB with 4,5o. Folds to me and I figure I maybe can snag the BB off his hand. 4x BB bet. BB calls. Flop is a rainbow of J, 2,3. So with my OESD I push the rest of my 800 into the pot, BB quickly calls. What does he have? J-J of course! None of my outs come, but the board tosses 2 4s out there for me. Thanks! And im gone.

All-in-all, tonight was a big downer. Joe didnt fair much better then me as he got bumped out in 54th.

"The Long and Winding Road" - The Beatles

Wanted to continue my history of poker so I can keep up to date on all new happenings.

I started online poker on a whim when I saw an advertisement for Party Poker. I played online on the weekends or mostly any other time I couldn't make it to the casino. About a month or 2 after I started on Party, Moneymakerism of Poker began. All of a sudden Party was swamped with all sorts of donks and fish looking to make a quick buck. A highlight in my PP career was when they ran a contest to see who could play the most hands between 12am and 8am. I was up all night playing 3 tables 6 handed. I ended up placing 3rd and got $50 bucks.

A certain hand that I will never forget (and ultimely led to me leaving PP all together). Playing a 1/2 limit game I get A-Ko UTG. I raise. Cocky SOB on the button calls. Flop is Q-J-10 rainbow. I bet, cocky SOB says in chat "I have nothing but I'm going to call you anyway because I'm going to win. Turn: 7. Bet and call. River: 10. Bet, raise from cocky, and call from me. He flips over 10-7 for the full house. The rest of the night this guy was just being an arse and took me for a good portion of my buy-in. After that night I decided to look elsewhere for games.

I found a startup site called The Gaming Club Poker Room and they were offering a free $15 for anyone who signed up (no deposit required) and after losing 3 bucks I turned that around to $35. Another neat thing this website had was if you met a certain rake amount you could participate in the 1am freeroll. The prize pool increased for every person entered. One night before a change was made to the payout I took the freeroll down for a prize of $660 for first. Eventually I went on to cashing $1400 out of this site without ever putting a cent in.

Beginning in 2004 I grew dienchanted with poker in general. So many people were crowding the 2/4 tables at the casino that had no clue what they were doing it was almost virtually impossible to turn a profit anymore, even if you played only the best starting hands.

After a whirlwind 2 years, I gave up on poker. My gf and I bought a condo. I got the big screen HD TV i always wanted as a poor kid, bought a new car. Life was good. I got addicted to a MMORPG called FFXI where I met some awesome friends that I still communicate with to this day.

More recently I broke my ankle on 02/17/2007. Really bad accident, broke all 3 bones in the ankle and ended up in emergency surgery with 1 plate and 9 screws to hold me together. 5 grueling weeks I spent literally on my back, on the couch in my living room. Bored out of my mind I played video games until I feel asleep (only way I could fall asleep as the pain was too intense to fall asleep normally).

So I got back to work and had to go through some pretty intense rehab (more mental then physical) and my PT and I got to talking about poker again. All of a sudden, poker was a fore-front image in my mind again. My buddy Unimpressed (Joe) and I hit the casino and after striking out at 2/4 decided to do a 120 SnG at Foxwoods. After being barely alive most of the tourney pcoket 8s gave me the chips I had been lacking. Combine that with about 5 A-Ks in a row and I ended up winning the whole darn thing. $500! I had a fever again, and the only prescription was more poker!

More recent events: 06/30/2007: Won another $1080 pot at 1/2 NL. This time I felt a lot better when I won versus sucking out the first time.

Seat 9 (calling station for the most part) raises to $30. Very interesting because he had not raised in the 3 hours I had been sitting at this table. I put him on A-A or K-K. Seat 2 (maniac drunk guy who I had doubled up for 200-400 in the last 5 hands) goes all-in for $26. He could have anything. Seat 5 (new guy to the table) calls $30. I look down at my hand to see 6-6. I figure seat 1 on big pair so I want to see if I can out flop him. I call, everyone else folds.

Flop: 6-3-3

Bingo! I hit the second best flop for me (6-6-3 being the best). Seat 1 leads out again with a $30 bet. Seat 5 calls. I raise to $130. (pot at this time is around $180). Seat 9 calls, Seat 5 folds.

Turn: 2

Seat 6 checks. I am now certain this dude has A-A. I figure this dude will call whatever I bet (which he had called in hands before and got lucky) so I push all-in. He calls of course and flips over A-A. Cool thing is the River was dealt right after he said call and flipped his cards and the river was a....

River: 9

I let out a medium sized yes! And rake the pot in.

Then this past monday with $31 left in my full-tilt account I decided to play this MATH tourney for a bunch of bloggers Joe got my acquainted to, and I ended up coming in first for a prize of $364.80.

Im done for today! Ill keep updating my poker ventures, tonight is the Mookie (another blogger tourney) and I'll try to follow-up my MATH win with a Mookie Win.

"Don't Fear The Reaper" - Blue Oyster Cult

Ah my first venture in the blog-o-sphere and it feels gewd. I guess I should start off by introducing myself.

My name is Brian and I'm 27 years old and live in CT. I've watched the WSOP for years and seen the movie Rounders without ever seriously considering of becoming a poker player. Right around the time Varkonyi was winning his bracelet I began visiting the local poker places Fox woods, and Mohegan Sun here in CT. MS closed down its poker room in 09/2003 so I continued playing at Foxwoods. At one point it seemed like poker was my full-time job, I was going to Foxwoods Monday thru Friday from noon-5:15. I'd take my gf to work, drop her off, go to Foxwoods then come back and pick her up at 6. My real job, a wedding dj, only usually occured on Sats and Suns so it left plenty of free time to poker it up.

Maybe it was begginer's luck but I had a very profitable year in 2003, while not rich enough to afford fancy things like "new" glasses and prescription (for my very bad eyes), playing straight up poker I found I could turn a profit to buy things I needed.

Eventually I found myself wanting to break away from the 2/4 fixed slump and tried my hand at Act 1s for Foxwoods World Poker Finals. On my 2nd attempt at an Act 1 I finally got a break with a free buy-in to an act 2. I promptly made it to the final 2 of the Act 2 and lost when my opponent's pocket 6s held up against my K-Qo. I bought in again at the act 1 and promptly made it straight through to the Act 3 (after setting a foxwoods record at the time of turning a table satellite into a 4 hour heads up marathon).

The Act 3 was an awesome expierience I paid only 60 bucks to get there. I met Mike Sexton and shook his hand (before I even knew who he really was, he started the WPT broadcasts a year later. Previously I had known him as the guy who won the inaugural WPF at Foxwoods in 1992.) Out of 96 people i placed 17th. With the blinds/antes increasing I pushed with 9-9 and got called by K-K, my dream was over. 7 away from some money, and 8 away from a $10,000 seat. I was proud of myself being that was my first multi-table tourney. My gf and her dad were there to watch me and it felt special. I didnt attempt to enter an act 1 until 2 years later, I again made it through to an Act 3, but I finished in a more disappointing 23rd out of 92. I had 7-7 vs J-J vs A-K. A-K took er down.

After that first Act 1 I started to grow bored with limit, and irionically Foxwoods starting offering a 1-2 NL game max buy-in $100. I tested this game out with mixed success until 09/07/2003. That day I won my first huge pot. I was up to $400 from my original $100 buy-in and got As-2s on the button. 2 spades on the flop and grudingly I donkey called to the river where the 9s made my Flush the nutz. Maniac at the table who had been making big bets to scare everyone out bet $200. I almost pooped myself. 2nd guy called maniac's bet. I could barely contain myself, I'm sure my face was beat red from all the screaming going on inside my head. My turn to bet, somehow I managed not to yell out "all-in". Maniac looks at his cards, pauses for 15 seconds and folds. 2nd guy calls the extra 250 I put in. He turns over pocket Qs for a set and I show my nut flush. It took me about 5 minutes to stack all my chips, made much harder by the fact my hands were trembling. Maniac managed to let out this tidbit, "I had a flush too but I was trying to scare out a higher one." I highly doubt he flushed from the way he had been playing all afternoon, but it didnt matter after that. I racked my chips, tipped the dealer 10 bucks and called my gf's mom to inform them we are going to an expensive dinner tonight on me.

I think thats enough for one post, I'll get to online poker and my middle poker phase in another one.

Take it easy and may the deck always hit you in the face.