A Brand New Day

A new name for my blog, and a new start for my blogging.

I have decided to give my blogging and my poker playing a new start in the new year. Everything starts over again! My bankroll progress will be started at my current bankrolls, which is $383.68 on Full Tilt, $13.00 on Bodog, and $10.00 on PokerStars. I will be blogging my poker playing every time I play, and I will even be tossing in posts about other things in life that may be causing changes in my poker playing, or just because I want to chat about it. I will still be playing my live tournaments also.

With so many things up in the air in my personal life, with trying to start a family, this may be my last real chance to play in any World Series of Poker events for the next few years. Therefore my goals on Full Tilt will be to get myself back to the WSOP again this year, for another $1,500 event. I also want to play and cash in a Full Tilt Seris of Poker event sometime this year. Additionally, as most of the Blogger events are held on Full Tilt, I want to try to win at least one of each of them this year. My MATH win from last year doesnt count towards that. I realize that with concentrating on larger tournament that my bankroll on Full Tilt may take some shots, and I am ready for it and will reload if necessary. I however will follow the 5% rule (Dont buy in for over 5% of the total bankroll), so there will be some serious satellites, as my current bankroll only allows a max buy-in of $19.00. However, I have already signed up for with a Tier-2 token for the Big Game on January 20th, so hopefully I can cash (or win) that and add to my bankroll. My Bodog goal is to play the blogger event there to increase my bankroll with tournament dollars, and work it up that way. For PokerStars, I will play microcash games, and work on increase my bankroll there. I however will NOT play cash on PokerStars while playing tournaments on Full Tilt or Bodog. ONE SITE AT A TIME!!!

I hope this will be entertaining for some of you, and by putting my play up here I hope to have those bloggers and readers that know this game better then me to help me become a better player.

As a promise to my wife, I have told her I will not play this week much, so most likely the earliest I play is Friday night, but more likely early next week. In the mean time I will be reading Phil Gordon's Little Green Book (I have already read hsi Little Blue Book), and learning more of the game that way. I also have the WSOP home series tournament this Friday (5 events, most points in all events wins the seat). I final tabled the 1st event, but did not play the 2nd or 3rd events, so I am out of the running for the WSOP seat, but I get a 4% piece of the winner, and a chance at some side cash and valuable live experience for playing, so why not! I should have some feedback from that sometime this weekend.

Big Game Pimping

I will be there. I already have my token, and I bubbled last month and took a horrible beat the month before, so I am thinking it is my time. Get out there and get your $75 tokens and join in!

Riverchasers, and SNG problems

Played Riverchasers last night, which had an non-BBT2 number of 92 players, which was amazing. Lost 1/3 of my stack earlier, but just tightened up and good solid poker. I finally doubled up when my Pocket 10s game me a set on an 4/9/10 flop, that gave my opponent two pair. A 4 on the turn game him a full house 4 over 9s, but my 10 over 4s was better, and even the 9 on the river giving him 9s over 4s still wasnt strong enough to beat me. Got some premium hands at the right times, but finally ended up going out 17th when my AKs lost to 1010 when another 10 came on the flop.

As far as SNGs, I am trying the $5 turbos, but have cashed once in six attempts. The other I bubbled twice, then a 7th, 8th, and 9th (lost 3rd hand in with QQ < AA on a 2/4/10 flop). Need to play a few more to see if I am just running badly, or playing badly, but if my MTT play lately is any indication, I am just running bad in the SNGs.

Time to play the Daily Double tonight, and maybe work on some more SNGs.

MATH Win

Ok, lets be honest. There were 12 players, its was a $6 rebuy, and I got lucky when I chased a flush on the next to last hand, fully sure of the fact that I was a big underdog to Hoy, especially when I started heads up at 10-1 underdog in chips. But I hit my draws, I got a LOT of great cards in the heads up against Hoy, and I managed to win my first Hoy tournament. Which has really been a goal of mine since I first played it over a year ago. I feel good that I managed to play the rebuy period well enough that I never had to rebuy, and even though it was only worth 2 big blinds when the add-on came, I took it because I was low on chips. I felt really good about how I was playing my position when we were short handed, and how I would open up my hand requirements depending on how many players and what my position was. I had a big fold when we were down to 3 players, as I was last act and the short stack went all in, and then Hoy called, while I had AK. I figured I may have been better then the short stack (I was) but I was likely racing with Hoy (I was). The board came down with two Kings, so I would have scooped it all and been much closer to even with Hoy to start heads up, but all things considered I still think I made the right play. Thanks again to Hoyazo for hosting the event, loved the format for a smaller group like he knew he had. Wish I was able to play on New Years Eve next week, but I will likely be out and drinking/play cards live.

Good poker night

Started by firing up my laptop in the back row of my accounting class (yes, even at 38 years old, I am still taking college classes). Decided just for fun to play a single table SNG and a multi-table touranment to try and win my way into the 50/50 last night. After being under 1000 chips in the SNG with 6 people left, I played good tight poker and pushed when I needed to, and won my seat there. I proceeded to really run over the people in the multitable tournament for the beginning hour, being in the top 3 most of the time. I faded back to 8th during the 2nd hour, but held on there and with 10 people getting seats, I ended up getting another $55 put back in my full tilt account. Played the 50/50 and the Mookie, and was card dead in both for quite a while. I eventually lost out in the 50/50 during the 2nd hour when I got outdrawn. In the Mookie I lost the first 2 hands and about 1/3 of my chips in less then 2 minutes, so I was 93rd out of 93 just 2 minutes in. I dipped below 1000 chips about 30 minutes in, but worked my way back up above 3,700. Got hit again in the second hour, and worked my way back up again! I eventually ended up being the Mookie bubble boy, as I finally died in 10th place, when my 77 push as the small stack went headups up with AKo, and the flopped King was more then I could come back from. Felt really good playing though, and I think my middle game has gotten some improvement from the suggested reading suggested in the comments a few posts back. Taking the weekend off, but will be back in time for the BIG GAME on Sunday!

Live Poker

Played in my monthly $80 Big Dog Series of Poker touranment this weekend. Only 31 came out to play, being in December and holiday stuff going on. I came in very tired from the week of work and it showed! I totally misread a hand, but ended up sucking out to keep from being eliminated. It tilted me so badly, that I ended up chasing with two pair knowing my opponent had 2nd nut straight. I ended up donking out of the whole thing in 21st, when my KJs lost to AJo. However I was stuck there for another 2 hours, as my wife ended up winning the whole damn thing. She runs good!

Weekend of close misses

Play a bit this weekend as the wife shopped, and did alright for myself. Attempting to qualify for the Aussie Millions 25 seat tournament, I ended up being one off for a seat to the $100+$9 qualifer on purpose, when I realized that I had no chance of making the tournament time to play. So I played for the cash prize of $92 (for a $26 buy-in) and got it. I also played in a tournament to qualify for the $750,000 Sunday tournament, and this time I was bubble boy. I didnt push when I had 3 of 6 players limp in front of me with me having an M<1.5, and would have flopped trip 5's and won the hand. Instead I push the next hand, get one caller, who runner/runners a straight to beat my 2 pair.

Tonight is the 6-max NLH for the MATH, so I plan on being there, so should you!