Saturday, April 22, 2006

Hysterical Haircut

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Wild Card Games Banned!

End up with a pretty big game last night. But bad moves and poor timing equaled a losing start for me. Turn it around with solid play and get back a little extra even towards the end. Until the last hand of the night. Super Hold Em. 3 Card Craziness. Make it even crazier, add a wild card-3s. I am dealt AJJ. Todd has 444. Josh has K3?. Flop KJ3. Turn 4. River J. AJJJJ, naturally, and I still lose a $450 plus pot. 3 people with quads, 2 of them natural. No 5 of a kind allowed so KK33J wins. Fuck me. Fuck wild cards. Down a buck and a half after 4 1/2 hrs.

Woke up this morning for my CardPlayer Rep freeroll. 32 entrants, 16 showed, $500 prize pool, took 3rd when I ran into the cooler at then end. Hopefully that'll net me $75 or so.

Lost yet another H/U match-not looking especially good in the pre-season I have to admit. 4-6 now. Battled for a while then it came down to 2 hands: A5 v A7, the 7 ended up playing when a 6 came on the river instead of chopping, then the very next hand-A6 v 68, 6 on flop, 8 on river. Playing a qualifier for a $108 ticket, 2nd out of 6 left, 4K in chips. Snapped Aces when I miracled my 2nd pair on the river. 7s are still hot-cfinn had 77 v KQ, Q flop, 7 river! Shortly after, my 77 makes 4 of a kind when I flop 766, turn 7! Bust out in 4th when I run into cfinn's KK w/my 33 and get a little less than half my buy-in back. Poop. Bust out 1st of our 4 man SNG when Gil calls my made flush on the flop w/the nut flush draw as well as top pair and spikes another spade on the river.

Friday, April 21, 2006

$5 1+1 Re-buy. 1st hand, AQ, middle position. Raise, get some callers, flop Q98. Get check-raised deep by a blind so I fold and see an AT?!? from the check-raiser and 2 Queens w/crap kickers!?! Almost go for the re-buy to back my stack then find some Aces in the hole to re-raise pre-flop with, flop top set, check-call and slam the turn. 99 calls and I end up rivering boss full to further seal the deal. Call a raise in position w/33, flop 979, decide to keep going, 9 turn, 3 river, actually a great card as it gives both my opponents flushes, one even Ace high! Another 33 flops a set on AK3 and gets full action from a donkey with an Ace. 25th out of 100 remaining at the first break, add-on puts me @ 8455. Run into Aces w/an AK right after the break; after getting re-raised pre-flop I initially think to fold, then decide to push. Wrong move Big Slick, say adios to half your stack. Proceed to play the pots I enter smashmouth-style, slowly building myself back up. Up to 11K w/yet a third 33 that stands against an AK.

$8 Qualifier for a $54 ticket. Play one suited 72 to the death a year. So here it is. Raise after 1 caller from the middle, 1 of the blinds calls as well. Flop a suited 345, giving me any spade for a flush, any Ace for a wheel, or any 6 for the 2nd nut straight, as I am crediting nobody w/a 67 in the hand or the straight already. But both callers go all-in over my bet anyway. OK, I call. KK, 33. And a spade on the river to triple up!!! Limp early w/AQ, flop AQT, double through the fool who tried to push me out w/A5 when a 6 hits the turn. Run into a wheel right afterwards unfortunately for me. 3rd at the break, 7 left out of the original 35, with 7919 in chips. Got down to 4, which guaranteed me a ticket, so I made a play but my opponent rivered a small pair, which if he hadn't, I am positive he would have folded. Whatever. Got another shot at the Aussie.
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Move on an unraised pot from the BB w/77 and run into AA limping on the button in the $5 Re-buy. 7 on the river!!! 7s make another set later on and KK twice cuts down two all-ins to propel me to the final table. 8 left out of 226, 132K after JJ picks up a nice pot on the flop. A bad play then a pair of 8s in the hole that get run down leave me low until my A6s outflops a 55. AT goes all-in and I call w/99, A flop leaves me with less than 2X the BB and I'm out in 6th.

Yet another home game tonight still as well to play...

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Tuesday night, the casa, 7 guys, 7 hours, around $700 on the table, half of which I ended up with. Won 3 of the 4 all-ins by Ben for extreme gratification. 2 pair twice (once with the 4s and 6s!), one time he held ATs v my KJs on a suited QTx flop and I couldn't outrun him, then the last time I held Rockets. Felt real good all-around all night-that great rush that comes from that combination of good cards, smart play, and perfect timing. Only made a few mistakes over the course of the night I think, and they were early on. Not trying to brag (as great as a solid winning sesh is), just trying to describe how I felt. Like the concept of flow as proposed by that psychologist Csikszentmihalyi that we discussed in one of my classes last quarter.

Wednesday night. Finally got to play some softball. After 4 weeks of rain-outs. Even then it was only a pick-up game as the opposing team forfeited due to an insufficient roster. Played a few freeze-outs afterwards at the house (even putting a bounty on my head for one of them!) but placed no better than 2nd. Missed the Neg-O and pushed down to 8th. I should be able to play next week since our game doesn't start until 9:30.

Thursday night. Decided to practice some more H/U play but after winning my first one in 3 hands I think it was, I opted instead for a MTT, a $50 qualifier for the upcoming Grand Series of Poker. Haven't been able to get a whole lot of online play in as our internet connection has been real shaky past 2 days for some reason. Donk out of the MTT and return to practice, continuing my downward spiral, with 2 more H/U losses, bringing me down to 4-5.

Changed our rotation to start off with me playing the first match of the season, this Sunday, against the Cigar Lovers. Pole-smoking references have already been made. Taking on the Kielbasy Posse in the middle of the season and DN for our last game. I think others believe us to be underdogs in the league, but I have high hopes. And hopefully a propensity to suck-out on my opponents, preferably on the river for greatest effect.

Monday, April 17, 2006

FCHUPL Schedule Released

The schedule was released today (http://www.alternativehockeyleague.com/fcphu/). We are in the Hearts Conference in the Stu Ungar Division, along with Negreanu's Cheap Thieves, the Cigar Lovers, and Broccoli(?!?). Through process of random selection, Theresa will be playing for us as the home team this Sunday against the Cigar Lovers. Scott has Week 2 vs the Thieves as the Monday Night Match-Up. I play Week 3 vs Team Canada. Chris and Mathias follow. Serious smack-talk has commenced in the Forums (I may have already verbally cashed a check that my ass can't pay DN-but it was well worth it). Started off practicing with some micro-level heads-up SNGs. 1-1 so far. Try some more tonight after I get some homework done and watch 24.

Now at 3-3. Beat WLAces, the Canadian student who got to take on DN in a $500 H/U SNG tonight, when he sits down before my teammate. Then I proceed to lose 2 out of 3 matches with Scott.

Aussie Daily

$54 buy-in, 114 entrants. Raise to 750 @ 75/150 blinds from the BB, SB calls w/KT. Flop QJx, get check-raised all-in for an easy call, 9 turn, 8 river. Out in 37th. Argh.

Sunday, April 16, 2006

Easter Sunday

A3 on the button in a $10 MTT, 549 flop, have to call the pre-flop and flop bet 'cause I'm priced in for a great pot. 2 on the turn gives me the wheel, 1 player ahead of me moves all-in, know I have by far the best hand right now, called by another player in front of me, I re-raise all-in, called again, river a motherfucking 3 to kill my hand by giving the asshole who called all the way on an inside straight draw his nut straight-WTF?!? On to a $10 SNG. I raise and get lucky, spiking trips on the flop, then the board pairs again for a higher full house on the turn. Not so lucky. Flop an up-and-down, turn a flush draw, river Broadway. And a $5 1+1 Re-buy. KQ, flop K57 in the SNG, once again check-raised by the little 2 pair. Fuck, it's either that or the Aces killing me. Last 200 chips flop 2 pair but up against made nut flush. AJ is dominated by AK then apparently can't beat KQ either so it's re-buy time on my other table. Chips are flying around-that's the draw of re-buys, catching a couple big winners early on. Watch AK v TT v KJ v A8s all-in pre-flop, KJ9, 9, T. 88 v TT v 33, I fold 22, 3 flop, wasn't there a 66 in there too? Watch 22 suck out a 2 on the river to crack Aces. Micro-mayhem. All-in w/AK, called by ? and AQ, A on both turn and river to triple up! Then I pull a classic Ben move-piss off a big chunk of chips right before the break then compund the problem by spacing the add-on. Hey, I'm always up for a good challenge. Dumbass. Wrong move, right time works as my play gets called by A9, my ugly K9 hitting one of its 3 outs and becoming beautiful, doubling me up. Then I move w/99, AQ calls, Ax9 flop, doubles me again. Get in cheap late and make Aces up for a good 'un. Double up big-time when AJ calls my AQ and we both score trips but my kicker has the edge! 14720, 33rd out of 61 @ the 2nd break. Out in 46th when my KQ can't outrun 88. Damn-only 6 more to the money. Guess I ought to go do my homework anyways.

My buddy was just asking me about real money poker sites and besides FCP, I still have an account at UB for the CardPlayer freerolls (wish FCP had an UltimateBuddy program-and when the hell are they gonna start their referral program?) and that's it. I like the Bounty Tournament at Doyle's and the DeepStacks at PokerStars (real iron-ass poker!) but the fields at Stars are just so vast.

So Dean is now at FCP too, as HottChef0, and he is battling Ryan heads-up right now (and it is a battle indeed) in our weekly game. Got Vatche and Weakdraw in on it too. I blew out 1st (of course) when my AJ was dominated by Ryan's AQ. Then I watched Dean call all his chips off with an Ace high and spike an Ace the very next card on Vatche's pocket 6s. Then he called Vatche's all-in with a K7, dominating Vatche's Q7, as well as nailing a King on the flop. He then knocked out Linux's AT with his KT, pairing his King again. Then he eliminated Weakdraw with a pair of Queens. Blew out of a $10 1+1 re-buy with A5 v 44 on a A34 flop. Poor Vatche, been watching him take some mighty blows lately-this tourney again he disappeared suddenly after building a solid stack. In the $20 1+1 $20K Guaranteed right now as well, hanging on and trying to find a hand as we are down over half the field. Was doing fine up to the 1st break, started building a nice little stack but the 2nd hour has given me zilch, taking me back down until I move w/22 and am called by the original raiser w/96s?!? Flops flush draw but that's it, even get a 2 on the river, double up, phew. My KK beats AQ and I just might make it to the money... Been in this tourney for 4 hours now. 885 entrants, I finish in 45th when I move w/A8, called by A5, makes a wheel on the river. Top 5% of the field, not too shabby. OK, homework time for real now...

The McDonald Sandwich

So I've decided when I make a big win, I'm gonna treat myself to one of these bad boys: Wagyu beef, fresh lobe foie gras, black truffle mayo and more-all for $148!