One of Those Nights

My wife actually let me out of the house for more poker action last night since I was home so early Monday night. So I go to a friend's house who routinely hosts a $.50/$1 NL cash game with a $50 min/$100 max buy-in. This game usually has a good mixture of solid & donkey play. However, this night seemed to have more semi-solid players than usual. I needed to make up for my $200 fish-feeding from the night before so I planned on playing solid, aggressive poker.

The first big hand I won I limped from EP with A9c - questionable I know but hey, it's a dollar. One other limper then the button raises to $5. SB (a LAG) calls as do I & the limper. Four see the flop of 10h9h9d. Bingo! We all check to the button who fires only $8 into a $20 pot. SB calls & I check-raise to $40. Other limper bets & button goes into the tank. He says "if you had a 9 you would WANT a call", which is precisely why I raised so big; besides, there WERE flush & straight draws there so I wanted to make them pay. So button finally announces he's all in & SB folds. Now I have to figure out if he has pocket 10's, which I doubt since he made that comment. I tell him I don't think he filled up so I call. He shows AA, turn & river don't help him & I double up. Woohoo!

Later in the night my AA held up against QQ & my KK held up against something - they didn't show - stacking two other peeps. Long story short: I bought in for $90 & cashed out for $420. Woohoo! A $330 profit. I more than made up for the night before. Sure, the deck pretty much hit me in the face but someone still needs to pay you off, and I got lucky that they did.

I think my live play is taking a break for the rest of the week as my wife would probably change the locks if I went out again. Plus this weekend is our 1 year anniversary (it's Sunday) so I've gotta go find something nice for her on top of spending more time with her. But I do plan on playing in the Mookie tonight, so hopefully I'll see some of ya'll there.

Damn, I just can't seem to make a short post, can I? Take care all.

Cash Game Donkeys

I have made a concsious decision to play more live cash games or tournaments the next month as to get ready for the WSOP. So I play in a $1/$2 NL game last night at some guy's house I've never been to. He assured me there were plenty of bad players and man was he right. I mean, I saw one guy call a raise & call down on an A high board with bottom pair - and win! I'm salivating like Pavlov's dogs.

And I somehow manage to lose $200. WTF?!?!?!?!

The second hand of the night I get JJ in MP & raise to $10 after one limper. I get 3 callers. (?!) Flop comes 8 high with 2 spades. After one check I fire $50 into the $42 pot & all fold. I wanted to set an image to these fish that I was not one to mess with, as I was ready to put my money in there with the best hand.

After fishing around in some small pots I get JJ again in MP. After two limpers I raise it up to $12 & again get 3 callers. I get a beautiful flop of 8J6 w/2 diamonds. The flush draw somewhat concerned me (because these are fish, remember & usually will play any 2 suited) but I knew I had the best hand. I decide not to overbet the pot so I bet $30 into the $48 pot. Now that I look at it, that might have been a mistake. I prolly shoulda bet pot. Damn. Hell, these fish woulda called anyway.

I'm sure you can see where this is going. We get it all in on the turn even though another diamond comes & sure enough the fish hit his flush & I get stacked. I buy in for another $100 & lose that in 15 minutes trying to run a legitimate bluff on some guy fishing for a straight & of course he hits. I keep forgetting Rule #1: You can't bluff bad players. That hand cripples me & I get it all in for like $15 a few minutes later with The Hammer, but no miracle.

1 hour, -$200. Not a good hourly rate my friends. But I will be back next week to clean house. I promise. You all take care & please have better luck than me.

Lots to Catch Up On

Sorry to my one loyal reader for taking so long between posts. I usually post from work & I've been extremely busy the last few days. I know I could post from home but I'd rather try to make a little money, ya know?

Anyway, I played in my buddy's home tournament last Wednesday & ended up taking it down for a $400 payday. Man, that felt great. My confidence had been in the crapper lately so this helped me get back on track. I made great reads & went with them. For example, I limped from EP with 99. (I would normally raise but I had been raising a lot of pots & showed some bluffs, so I wanted to mix it up.) A pretty solid player 2 to my left raises from the cutoff. All fold, I call. Flop comes J5J rainbow. I check to see what he'll do. He decided to move all in. Keep in mind 1) I had a pretty decent stack & 2) I was getting over 2-1 to call (he was prolly below avg. at the time). I eyeball him & could just sense he was weak, prolly 2 high cards, AK or KQ, and making a move at the pot. After about 15 seconds I call & he tables KQ. He gets no help & goes home.

Made another solid read at the final table when I raise w/A9h & dude on my left goes all in. Again I got about 2-1 pot odds & again I felt this guy was weak. After about 1 minute I call & he tables KQ. My A9 holds up when the river makes me a straight but paired his Q, so it was confusing for a few seconds. What made it worse for him was he went out on the bubble & there were two stacks WAY smaller than his. I have no idea what he was thinking.

On the virtual felt my $1/$2 limit HE game is going great. I decided to play that instead of .50/1 because I know I can play with the guppies at 1/2. I've gotten back over $500 in the ol' Party account after waffling around $440 for the longest time(lol, like a week). So I'm getting closer to that goal.

On Stars I got lucky/played like a champ & won a $4.40 180 man SnG Friday night for a nice $216 payday! My first MTT win! Woohoo! Then last night I went deep in a $10 MTT, taking 33rd out of over 1600 for $57. The last 2 hands I showed down were horrible suckouts, the first in my favor & the second crippling me. On the first we were at 5 tables & the short stack UTG went all in; I called with AQ. UTG shows KK & even flops a K. Well, I'm done, right? Wrong. Turn 10 River J for a runner runner straight & he's gone. I apologized profusely for that.

At three tables I get KK in MP, UTG raised 3x (blinds were 2,000/4,000 200 ante) & I shove with 58,000. Dude 2 to my left goes insta-allin with TT& UTG folds. Flop: AT6. Noooooooooooooooo! I'm crippled & IGH next hand w/A3. Oh well, I guess I deserved that.

Overall my confidence is back. I truly believe I can play with those guys at the Main Event. I'm looking forward to it now. Take care.

Back to Basics

After watching my poker bankroll take a dive during the last month I decided to change things around. Instead of trying out new things I'm going back to bread-n-butter ways to show a profit. I need money to gamble with in Vegas, right?

First I withdrew from FTP & deposited in Stars. As I said before, the Bracelet Race quest wasn't working out. Plus, when I would try to add to the BR by playing SnG's - usually my best source, if not limit HE - I would get killed. So I gave up & moved my money to where I know I can profit - Stars SnG's. Stars BR ~$280, want to get to at least $400 in a month.

Second I quit playing SnG's on Party which, ironically, I was tearing up a few weeks ago & have suddenly gone cold. Instead I'm concentrating on .50/1 LHE, where I have at least a 5+BB/100 ratio. (Again, I don't keep stats on PokerTracker, but I do make money.) I mean, why do I play anything else? The play at that level is soooooooo bad it's unreal. I sat for a little over an hour 2-tabling last night & made a tidy $31. Not a ton but good for that level. Party BR now at ~$460, as soon as I get to $600 (300 BB) I'll start at 1/2.

Total, I want to get my online BR to over $1,000 by the time I leave for the WSOP in a little over a month. This is totally doable as long as I don't get crazy & start chasing lost money.

There, I did it. I finally put down goals for the world to see. Now I have to accomplish them!

BTW, no Mookie tonight. Playing at a friend's home game tourney. It's only his second week hosting so I gotta show some support. I'll report on that tomorrow. Goals for this tourney: 1) build a big stack early or go home, 2) if still around by first break, money.

Take care.

Been a Few Days

Sorry for not posting yesterday. I was extremely busy at work, got home & took a nap, then got PokerStarred in the MATH. Thanks for hosting a great tournament Hoy. Look forward to playing every week & maybe taking some money off you!

Let's wrap up the weekend & hope it doesn't take a full page to do so. Friday I took the day off of work (and poker). Mrs. Stump, our 6 year old daughter & myself drove to Austin for a little family day-trip. I had scored tickets to the Round Rock Express game that night to see Roger Clemens pitch his last warm-up before coming back to our Astros, so why not make a day of it? We stopped in the Texas History Museum for a couple of hours of time killing before heading out to Dell Diamond.

For those who have never been there, Dell Diamond is an absolutely beautiful minor-league facility. And it was packed to the gills. For a stadium that reportedly holds 8,700, they somehow packed almost 14,000 in there. Wow! We had a great time despite the mass of humanity. Our daughter spent time playing in the playground while the wife & I sat on the grass & watched the game. Good times.

Saturday my 12 y.o. daughter flew into town for 6 weeks this summer. I love having her here. She lives with her mother in Washington state, home of no internet gambling, and only comes to visit during the summer & Christmas. So my poker playing may slow down a bit while I try to spend much quality time with her.

On the poker front I decided to give up my quest for a $2,000 package on FTP. That site is just not very friendly to me. I know there is variance & I know we all get sucked out on. But when I get it in as at least a 70% favorite & lose about 80% of the time, something is wrong. I don't mean to whine but I get QQ vs. 99 flop a 9, AK vs. TT no help, or AK vs. TT flops an A rivers a T. I mean most every time. It got so bad I was calling it before it happened! So screw it, I'll put my $$$ back into Stars, where they're at least running a bonus & I can play blogger events every week like the MATH, Mookie, WWdN, and so forth.

Well, enough ranting. Gotta get back to work. See ya'll on the virtual felt. Take care.

Party Delivers

For those who may not know I won a seat the the World Series of Poker Main Event a few weeks ago. I won it through the PartyPoker Steps, starting all the way from Step 1 for $11. It's a very interesting story that would make for a GREAT story should I go deep in the event:

My buddy Heath told me about a promotion Party was having. They were depositing $75 in the accounts of people who hadn't played there in a while. The only catch was that you couldn't withdraw until you played 750 raked hands, at which time the money became "yours". I hadn't played there in months so I thought screw it, let's see if I can getthe bonus.

I get home that night, log into Party, & they said I was eligible for this bonus, do I wanna try it? So of course I sign up & jump right to the .50/1 limit HE tables, what I was playing until I blew my last BR on there (that's another story unto itself). I quickly lose about $5 - $10 so to hell with that, let's play some $25NL. Playing very tight aggressive I built up to around $125 after a day or two.

It was at this time I decided what the hell, let's play in a WSOP Step 1 & give it a run since I've got a little profit. I was still only ~400 hand away from withdrawing but I figured that unless I did something completely stoopid I would have funds to withdraw. So I enter this Step 1 & finish 3rd, which won me a freeroll back into Step 1.

I played in another Step 1 that day & won it, advancing to Step 2. Decided to play in the Step 2 that same afternoon & came in 2nd, winning entry into Step 3. Now I'm feeling pretty good that at least I got that far on a whim & that hey, I might actually be able to make a move in this thing.

I wait 'til the next day to enter the Step 3, where I again finish in 2nd, advancing to Step 4. Wow. I can't believe I've made it this far. I decide to take it easy & wait until the next day to enter Step 4.

The next day was a Sunday & it was early evening when I decide to enter the Step 4. It took a little while to get 10 people together, but after about 10 minutes of waiting we were off & running. I wasn't that surprised to see how different the play was from Steps 3 to 4. It was much tighter & way more aggressive at that level. I took down some early pots with aggressive play & not so great cards. With about 5 peeps left I went on a rush & knocked the next 3 peeps myself, leaving just 2 of us & an entry to Step 5! Holy shit! Now I whooped it up to the point that Mrs. Stump was telling me to be quiet. I didn't care; I only had 9 PEOPLE standing between me & the Main Event! Woohoo!

I didn't play Step 5 until The following Thursday. I checked every night when I got home to see if a table was filling but no luck, until Thursday. There were already 7 peeps there, so I checked the table to see if I recognized any names. Nope, didn't know any of 'em. I sit down & 5 minutes later we go to town.

I'll get into specifics of the Step 5 action at a later time, but we all know the end result! I just wanted to go back to this time because today Party transferred the $1,000 spending money into my account. So I got a seat, $1,000 spending money(which I used $700 for airfare for Mrs. Stump & myself), and a free room at the MGM Grand as long as I wear PartyPoker logo gear. Pretty damn sweet. I'm also excited for my wife because this will be her first time in Las Vegas. I can't wait to show her around, as I'll have plenty of free time between playing days(4 starting days?!). Can't wait! More later. Take care all.

I'm the Donkey

Couple of frustrating days on the virtual felt. It seems Lee Jones has transferred to Full Tilt and repeatedly pushes my suckout button because everyone either (a) sucks out on me, or (b) wins the race. I don't mean to sound like I'm whining, just stating fact. Of course, I don't keep stats like many good players do so I don't have solid proof, but just take my word for it. Besides, it's my blog...if I wanna whine the dammit I will!

To totally contradict myself I finally broke thru on FTP last night & won my first $11 SnG. I've finished ITM a few times but hadn't taken one down. Now that I've got that monkey off my back....

I entered the $5.50 H.O.R.S.E. MTT on FTP yesterday & surprisingly took 16th, for a ~$8 payday. I say surprisingly because, while I love limit hold 'em, O8B, & can play a little Razz, I completely blow at 7-stud & 7-stud hi/lo. Don't get me wrong, because I play O8B I understand the concept of stud hi/lo (I think - trying to scoop) so I guess I can hold my own, especially with the other donks at the $5 level. (Don't hate, I'm one of 'em, too!)

I was playing well and was 1st or 2nd in chips with 3 tables left when I made the worst error ever. Keep in mind I had 3 other tables going - a $11 SnG, a NLHE cash game, & another NLHE MTT - so my attention wasn't where it should be, especially that late in a tourney. I get dealt (2,3)A & raise it up when it gets to me, after comeone else completed. He calls & I get a 5 on 4th street. Perfect Razz hand, right? So I raise it up again. Long story short I end up with a beautiful 6-high hand when I realize we're playing 7-stud. Oops! Lose 1/3 of my stack. Dropped from 2/18 to 11/18. Well that costs me & I finish 16th. Damn! Lesson learned.

Then I proceed to lose 2 buy-ins playing $25NL on Party by being a donkey. The first time I don't remember (thank goodness) & the second time I raise to 1.50 OTB after 3 limpers w/AKh. Get 2 callers. Flop comes K3x. Checked to me, I bet pot, one fold, get check-raised double my bet. I go all in, dude insta-calls & wins w/33, flopping a set. Damn! Gotta remember to quit overplaying TPTK in cash games. I'm sure I got put on that dude's Buddy List.

Well that's about it from here. Gotta go home from work. Maybe I'll see some of ya'll at the Mookie tonight, if I feel up to playing. Take care.

Couple of Close Calls

So I'm driving to one of my buddy's house Friday night to play in our bi-weekly tournament named "The Bobalooga". Our host had been taking a break lately so we hadn't gotten together in a couple of months. Needless to say we were all anxiously awaiting the good times.

As I'm driving down the local tollway going about 65mph I notice the 5 or so cars in front of me are suddenly slamming on their brakes. So I do the same when I hear a loud "POP" & my brake goes to the floor. Oh shit! I glance to my right, see no one there, & swerve to avoid rear-ending someone. This had happened once before about 2 years ago. A simple brake line had burst. I had the ability to slow down but couldn't stop abruptly.

Now the dilemma: Do I do the sane thing & turn around to go home? or do I plow on knowing it won't get much worse whether I drive home now or at midnight? Being the degenerate I am I continued to the Bobalooga, where I made the final table and finished 9th out of about 25 peeps. Not bad considering I had other things on my mind.

Saturday I got the brakes fixed to the tune of a few hundred & played a little online. During which I transferred some $$$ into Full Tilt to try to get a $2000 WSOP package. I know I'm running out of time but better late than never. I've already got my Main Event seat so I'm trying for just a little more. Yeah, I'm greedy like that!

Once on Full Tilt I promptly joined a $6+.60 18 man SnG to try to win a $24 token. Fellas, if you haven't tried this approach to get a token you are missing out. Very easy. Finished Top 4 & got my token. I waited until the next night (Sunday) to try to cash it in.

Using that $24 token I entered the Bracelet Chase for 2 Guaranteed $2,000 WSOP packages. With a little over 200 peeps the top 2 got packages and 3rd - 11th got money. A long shot, I know but it was worth it to me at the time. After an uneventful first couple of rounds I started catching cards & went on a MAD rush. Next thing I know I'm chip leader at my table. Then the rush continues & I'm chip leader of the whole damn thing with like 70 peeps left. I mean I caught AA three times - once back to back & busted 2 guys in the process - AK twice, AT twice, QQ twice. All in about 1 1/2 hours. It was sick. But I'll take it!

Then the inevitable happened - I went completely card dead for the last 1 1/2 hours. That, I'm discovering, is one of my biggest flaws. I become one of the chip leaders in the middle of the tourney & can't seem to hang on to the finish. Friends of mine have told me to steal the heck out of the blinds when they start getting high, but I have a hard time steal-raising in position with rags like 7-2 (no offense Hoy), 6-4, 8-2, J-3, etc. Whenever I decide to steal I always seem to run into someone who has a powerhouse. Any advice here would be wonderful.

So anyway I wuss out in 10th place for a $56 payday, missing a $2,000 package by 8 spots. Don't get me wrong, a 900% profit is always nice but I was completely disappointed with myself for not at least making the final table. Hopefully I'll learn from any of the countless mistakes I made & try to take more chances. We'll see.

So I guess I'll play in the Monday at the Hoy tonight with my new-found blogger friends. Hopefully they take it easy on me tonight. Yeah, right!

Hello All

Hey all. Just signed up today. I'm looking forward to sharing my poker life & some personal life with the world. I must warn you that I am not a literary genius nor do I pretend to be. I pretty much write how I speak, so please bear with me.

I currently play .50/1 or 1/2 Limit HE at Party, along with $11 or $22 SnG's. I also play most of my tournaments on Stars, usually $4/180 SnG's or up to $10 MTT. I also have money in Noble & am about to redeposit in Full Tilt. I am not currently trying to satellite into the WSOP Main Event because I won a seat thru the Party Steps! Woohoo! I am redepositing on FT to try to satellite to a $1500 event or bigger. We'll see.

I hope to track my progress rising thru the limits (1/2 & beyond) & thru MTT successes (hopefully). I have read & subscribed to people like Hoyazo, drewspop, MiamiDon, Smokkee, Carmen SinCity & a few others & hope to imitate their "expert" writing style. Again, we'll see how THAT shapes up.

Thank you for reading. I hope to keep you somewhat entertained, and just maybe we can all learn something in the process. Take care.