Archive for March, 2004

Ugh

Tuesday, March 30th, 2004

I think I just played the worst 2 hours of poker of my entire night. I knew my opponent had me beat, but I called him down anyways. I refused to believe that someone just happened to flop the nut straight. I chased and chased. It was ugly. At least the 90 or so hands I played have worked off some of my new bonus at Empire, so it offsets the pain somewhat. But only somewhat.

Oh well, off to my ultimate game. Hopefully I will fare better there.

PJK tourney

Tuesday, March 30th, 2004

Sunday night was the main event. It was the first weekly PJK Tournament organized by the lovely Felicia and I was nervous and excited. I had just had an abyssmal day at the tables on Saturday and was feeling pretty down about my poker play. It didn’t help that I was still feeling a little under the weather after my business trip last week. But, I figured that this was a good learning experience and I just had to try not to embarrass myself too badly. I think I managed that, even with a few marginal plays.

First hand, KQo in the BB, though for some reason there is no small on the first hand. I figure that I’m off to a good start, but everyone folds so all I get is the money I put in. Thankfully good hands would not be a rarity for me that night. I think I hit JJ, QQ twice and KK once in my 89 hands. I saw big slick a few times as well.

I punished Al earlier with JJ when he tried to buy the pot with AJo. I left him with T500 and he couldn’t hang long, going out second (Felicia went all-in with QQ on the second hand the tourney and ran into AA to be unlucky number one). Later on I put Grubby all-in with QQ, and it held. Against hdouble if was 89s that hit two hearts on the flop after I limped in. He re-raised me the pot and by all rights I probably should have folded, but since I had 3-4 times the chips he did, I took a chance and he was forced to call when I put him all-in after the 4h hit on the turn. He ended up having two pair on the flop and wasn’t happy to be out of the tournament.

Throughout the tournament I kept trading the chip lead back and forth with gpoker and was in pretty good shape when we merged to the final table. Roy Cooke, our guest celebrity, poker author and cardroom manager for Planet Poker, was seated at my right, and I was nervous being at the final table of a WPBT event. But my hands kept holding up and before too long Roy’s all-in AJs went down to AKo. Not long after that, I took out Antifuse with KK, which actually ended up a straight. A few hands later I had made the money. And I even had a reasonable shot at making it to the end. Alas, that was not to be.

My first problem came when I was up to T11800 in chips. This put me near to even with Mean Gene and gpoker, and a little over twice EOS‘s stack. Blinds are 200/400 and I find KJ of diamonds UTG. Good enough for me and I raise T1000. EOS calls from the button and everyone else folds. The flop comes 978, one diamond, two clubs. Not the best flop I could have hoped for, but I felt it was good enough for another T1000 bet. EOS comes back over the top all-in. Now, I’m a bit nervous here, as I had him well covered so I wasn’t sure if he would make the bet on only a draw. But if the board paired him, why would he have called the pre-flop raise, maybe A9, but I figure he probably doesn’t have a pair. Of course, while I am trying to evaluate the possibilities in my head, Planet Poker’s timer is counting down. You only get 20 seconds to make a decision, which is really not very much time. In fact, I didn’t have time to think about the 2 overcard possibility before the clock ran down and I called the T2200 to play out the hand. I was happy to see him flip over QT of spades, but half a second later I realized I lost the hand when a Q hit on the river. With the second diamond hitting on the turn, he was left with only 7 outs (2 jacks, 2 non-diamond queens and 3 non-diamond sixes) but he hit one of them and suddenly I was the short stack on the table.

The next hand two hands I made some marginal plays to lose another T3000, leaving me it pretty tenuous position.

Then came AJo on the button with T4000 left. I needed to double up and figured this I better do it here. But I wasn’t sure that an all-in bet would be called and I didn’t want to steal only the blinds (300/600 at this point), so I bet about half my stack, hoping someone would take control and come back over the top of me. As I had hoped, someone re-raised to put me all-in and I happily called. In a flash the hand was dealt, and my AJo went down in flames to EOS’s A2o that paired up on the flop. I was frustrated to have lost most of my chips on two hands where I had the best of it, but I suppose it was only fair after the good cards I had been receiving all night.

All-in-all it was a great tournament. The software was adequate, but the short timer really hurt when you had a tough decision to make. This is the first time I’ve ever been forced to call a bet online before I’d fully thought it through. I turned out to be ahead in that particular hand, but thinking about it later, I’m not sure it was a good call and I ended up losing the hand anyways. Much thanks to Felicia for getting it set up. And congrats to Genius of the Poker for winning the whole thing.

Once again, my obsession with matching players to sites rears its head so I’ve compiled a linked-up list of Sunday’s finishes. Now I just have to get around to putting together the page with the results from all the WPBT events.

PJK Tournament
1) gpoker – $199.50 (Genius of the Poker)
2) EOS – $99.75 (no site)
3) Mean_Gene – $59.85 (Mean Gene’s Poker Blog)
4) tpfelt – $39.89 (tp’s table talk)
5) Paulburbon (Paulsburbon)
6) Antifuse (Ryan’s Rantin’)
7) MaudieB (Poker Perspectives)
8) Lucas67 (Decker’s Journal)
9) Mckormick (Diary of an Online Poker Player)
10) RoyCooke (Planet Poker Cardroom Manager)
11) thechainsa (The Fat Guy)
12) RicksCafe (Rick’s Cafe)
13) PaulyMcG (Tao of Poker)
14) hdouble (The Cards Speak)
15) oysifly (???)
16) Iceyburnz (Icey in the world of Poker)
17) nevins aka Grubby (Poker Grub)
18) stinkypant (Dogs Playing Poker)
19) DontPokeMe (Don’t Poke(r) Me)
20) AlCantHang (Dead Money = AlCantHang)
21) DOMIT aka Felicia (Felicia Lee’s Poker Journal)

If I’ve made a mistake anywhere in these listings, please let me know.

Monday Night

Monday, March 29th, 2004

I just got back from volleyball – we squeaked out a win at the end – and I’m exhausted. Unfortunately, that means my anxiously awaited post about Sunday’s PJK tourney is going to have to wait until tomorrow. I promised Felicia a good read and I don’t want to let her down. ;)

Home again, home again

Saturday, March 27th, 2004

I just got back from my California business trip last night. Started off great with a drive up the coast from San Francisco, before we turned back east to Petaluma, where we were staying. The business itself was very successful, though they were long days of meetings. And my boss upgraded our tickets to executive class on the way back, so it was great capper to a great trip. Unfortunately I’m feeling a bit under the weather today, so I’m taking it easy, hoping that it doesn’t develop into another full on cold.

I didn’t end up spending too much time reading about poker, but I’m hoping that taking a week off will give me a fresh perspective on my game nonetheless. Tomorrow is the first PJK (Poker Journal Keepers) tournament organized by Felicia over at Planet Poker and I’m really looking forward to it. Although I am a bit disappointed that more people don’t have their act together, as there are only 7 people registered to play as of right now. So, if you’re a PJK reading this right now, go make sure you have money in your Planet account and that Felicia gets your email address into Planet so that we can see each other across the felt tomorrow night.

Now I just have to go read the 100+ blog posts I’ve missed while I was gone.

Weekend woes

Monday, March 22nd, 2004

After my friend left Saturday I dove into the pools at Party to try my luck at 1/2. Apparently that was a bad idea and over the course of a long night I managed to drop 20BB after being up 10BB early. I found it a real struggle and never really felt comfortable in the games. Was probably a sign I should have called it a night early, but I was determined to play through and put a good amount of time into it.

Sunday I was doing a bit better, but it helped that I was hit by some good cards in an early afternoon session. I left after only a couple dozen hands with 12BB and some errands to do. When I got back home, I quickly dropped back close to even and had trouble putting anything together. I was feeling a bit better about my game however, I just wasn’t getting the cards to work with.

Ended the night at a PL 25$ table. Some truly crazy people there. But my big pot came with pocket aces. It ended up with a 8J423 board with 3 clubs. I was pretty sure he hadn’t hit anything but top pair, but I overbet by calling the pot (which was 12$ at that point) I was surprised (and frightened) when he called, but the pot was pushed to me and I happily made up back up to 12BB on the day. I figured he was just a typical Party fish calling it down, but I checked in Pokertracker later and saw he had pocket kings. Poor guy.

Overall the weekend felt like a real grind and I’m thinking that I probably need to take a bit of a break from poker.

But, the most important news coming out of this weekend is that Felicia has got the weekly PJK tournament set up with Planet Poker. She’s done a great job getting a much better structure than you can usually get at online poker sites, so it’s going to be a lot of fun. She is also promising celebrities, which could be interesting. If you’re a PJK (Poker Journal Keeper), even a unskilled one like I am, I’d highly recommend heading to Felicia‘s site and signing up. These tournaments are going to be a ton of fun and a great learning experience. All for the low, low price of twenty bucks.

Alas, this may be the last entry until the weekend. I’m heading out to California on business tomorrow and won’t be back until late Friday. But I’m hoping to take the forced break from poker to reflect on my game and to re-read some poker books so I’ll come in fresh to the Sunday tournament. Not that I have the slightest chance in hell of bringing home any money, but it would be nice if I could someone swing the final table.

Friday night poker

Saturday, March 20th, 2004

Well, I finished a disappointing 12th in my bi-weekly PLHE tournament. The pace of play was excrutiatingly slow, with many players chatting it up or paying more attention to the TV than the game. I didn’t see any good cards for most of the night, and a rather large stack was developing at my table after getting lucky on some large pots. He knew enough to bully us all around and it was impossible to get into a hand cheaply, and you didn’t know if he was holding another of his great hands or not. Eventually I went all in with a little less than T300 and AT of hearts. I get two callers and the flop comes AKQ of clubs. Not the most inspiring of sights for me, particularly when it gets bet and raised. After the 9 of spades hits on the turns, the shorter stack goes all-in and the bully calls. The short stack turns over TT and the bully A6. Suddenly I’m breathing a little easier and I’m calling for no club. Of course, I get my wish but it’s the last T and I’m out of the tournament. I was pretty frustrated and wandered the room trying to tell everyone my bad beat story. Eventually I calmed down, but it still stung that again I took an early exit from one of these tournaments.

Saturday I had a buddy in from out of town and we went to see Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Wow! It is a great mind-bending movie. I don’t know where Charlie Kaufman gets his ideas, but he is a genius. I highly recommend this movie. I’m still getting my head around some of it and I anticipate that it will keep percolating in my brain for a while yet.

Truly Up

Friday, March 19th, 2004

Was feeling a little bit under the weather again, but the tables at True and the last of my bonus deposit were beckoning. Unfortunately, the holes in my game that have been plaguing me all week were still not completely plugged, and a little impatience at the table had me hovering at 10BB down. Since my biggest problem is having the patience to wait for good cards, especially when I have my premium starters cracked, it should hopefully be helped by moving off True to a faster playing site.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that the fish weren’t in the waters. And I was even one of them. I get stuck with A6o in MP and decide that I want to see a flop. The board comes J5A(4)(K) and I call bets all the way along with two others in the hand. The better turns A2o, called A3o, and my A6 takes it down. I could not believe that there’d be two other people in the hand with such weak aces – I didn’t even feel that I should really have been there. But I don’t think it was completely a bad play, as I had seen both players call bets – and raises – with only second or third pair, but even with that assessment, I wasn’t getting quite good enough odds on my money (figured it was probably a 3-1 chance my hand was good).

Later on I’ve pulled back to even (and my 10$ bonus is unlocked) so I was just playing out my last orbit before calling it a night. Nothing but the most premium of cards would get me into the game. Of course, I look down and see AA, an old friend who hasn’t come calling in a while. I raise it and we’re down to four people in the hand. Board comes TQK, all hearts. UTG bets out and I’m a bit concerned, but I’ve got the Ah, so there are some outs even if he does have the flush. But really, I just figure him on top pair, maybe two pair, so I raise. Everyone calls and the turn comes Jd. I’ve got the straight now, and UTG just checks so I suspect that my hand is good and I bet. The other two fold and it’s heads up going to the river. A king hits the board and I groan when UTG bets out. I make the crying call and he turns over his KJ for the boat. I was just about to leave a couple dollars up on the night, instead I’m in the hole and it’s getting late.

But I guess the poker gods felt bad about the pummelling they just gave me and they start sending me flops. Two hands after the aces I limp with QJo and drag a small pot when a J hits on the flop and the field folds after the turn. The next hand in the BB blind my QJo turns into two pair. I try to slowplay the big field, but there are no betters, and the turn bet folds most of the field. I pull in another small pot. Then it’s 42o in the small blind, but since the SB is still a full bet, I see the 4J4 on the flop. I again try to slowplay but the field folds to the button’s first bet (which I flat called) and I only get the check-raise on the turn and bet on the river. Still, my -5BB pocket aces just got made up with +10BB in good flops. I play out the next orbit and see the flop only once, where I fold my AQo with a Kxx board.

This put me 6BB to the good for the night. And I’ve unlocked my last 10$ bonus. The last three night’s of play have made up the cost of the WBT II event, plus a little extra for my backroll, so I’m at least satisfied, if not exactly happy. There were some huge fish at True and I really should have taken more money off them. I mostly feel good about my play, but I know my lack of patience was hurting me at times. Hopefully when I move back to Party, or another faster dealing site, that won’t be as much of an issue. Or, you know, maybe I could just learn to be more patient at the table. Nah! Why should I do any of the work?

Tonight is the 5th of my bi-weekly tournaments. We’re getting a few new bodies and we might finally hit 18 players. Hopefully I can continue my trend of money finishes, but maybe this time I could win it. Again, that’s going to require some patience, particularly when we get down to the last few players. I always get frustrated trading blinds back and forth and end up picking a bad moment to make a move.

Tuesday

Wednesday, March 17th, 2004

I’ve now officially been on my diet for a full week. I’ve lost 8 pounds, but that is just weight I’ve put on since my last push. And the weight always comes off quickly when I start eating healthy again. Then I hit the wall (as I did at the beginning of the week) and things stay constant for a few days before the loss slowly begins again. There will probably be a small relapse because of St. Patrick’s Day today, but it’ll be back to the grind tomorrow. I want to get back to fighting shape for sports this summer. Not that I’ve every really been in fighting shape (in terms of weight) but if I can play sports at the level I do now, dropping another 20 pounds will do a lot towards stepping it up.

I had my usual Tuesday night ultimate game last night and we played very solid for a convincing victory. I had an old teammate subbing for us and it was great to get to play with her again. The familiarity between us and another player on my team made for some great plays. I’m going to have to start seriously thinking about what I’m going to do for ultimate in the summer however, as my usual team has fragmented somewhat.

I swung by the bookstore on my way home and discovered a new book by Guy Gavriel Kay while making my usual circuit. Kay is one of my favourite authors and his Finovar Tapestry trilogy is perhaps my favourite book. It is always a pleasure to find a new novel of his on the shelf. I also broke down and picked up the hardcover of The Da Vinci Code. I’ve been hearing good things about this book forever and I devoured his previous two novels when I tracked them down in paperback, so I’ve been looking forward to reading this. I thought I’d have the patience to purchase the paperback, but with 30% off, plus an additional 10% with my discount card, I couldn’t resist. I also saw the trade for Gibson’s Pattern Recognition and added that to my bag as well. I came very close to grabbing the hardcover of Neal Stephenson’s Quicksilver, but it didn’t have that 30% off sticker, so I held back. Of course, I just checked online now and Indigo has it listed online as 30% off, so I may have to order if after finishing this post.

Of course, the reason why I stopped into the bookstore on my way back from ultimate was to check to see if they had the most recent issue of Canadian Poker Player. I figured the magazine’s title summed me up pretty well, so I decided to pick it up and give it a read. This is the third issue, and the first available at retail outlets – the first two were distributed only at casinos. Some of it was good, some not so good. And it was nice to see a listing of all the legal poker rooms in Canada – not too many of them.

Played a few more hours on True Poker last night as well. Was running pretty well, but then my connection died – after a raise with a premium starting hand, with my all-in protection having been used about 23 hour previously – and my fortunes began to turn. This time I can pinpoint most of the bad play that cost me money, though I had my share of bad luck as well. I was actually down to 7$ of the 49$ I came to the table with at one point.

But for the second night in a row I buckled down after some bad play and started playing solid poker. I think I’ve been associating the True Poker interface with the type of play I saw at the tournament in the back of my mind, and haven’t been playing correctly on tables where 6 people may call my pre-flop raise. My big hand was an AKs that turned into trip aces on the flop. Oddly enough there were two people in the hand, one of which raised a bet ahead of me. I was worried about the made boat, but I’ve been too paranoid recently so I re-raised and the bettor and raiser called. The raiser leads the bet on the turn, a blank that gave me a four-flush. I raised it up and the other two called again. On the river (made my ace-high flush)it was checked around to me and I extracted a single bet from each of them. The raiser ended up having pocket tens while the other had A7o. It felt real good to drag that 20.5BB pot, my biggest in quite some time.

I fought on for another hour or so after that, but it was getting late and I called it a night down 2.5BB. But I did unlock the next 10$ of my bonus, so I turned a small profit. I should be beating these games straight though. There are a lot of fish willing to pay me off. I just have to be careful not to grow fins myself every once in a while.

Taking the plunge

Tuesday, March 16th, 2004

Well, tonight was the night. After squaring away some work I brought home, I started up True Poker to take my chances at my new 1$/2$ limit.

First thing I noticed is that True Poker really doesn’t believe in anything smaller than a 1$ chip, as both the big and small blinds were a dollar. So, instead of 1.50$ an orbit, it’s 2$. That just goes to make the deposit bonus (of which 10$ is unlocked for everyone 100 raked hands) even less of a value. No matter. I’m not a fish. I am a poker player. I’ve read my Sklansky. I’ve ground my way up through the lower limits. This game will be no sweat for one such as I!

Fifty dollars later, my confidence isn’t quite so high. There was some bad play in there, but a lot of it was cold cards. I was playing my premium cards hard, but never got paid off. KK turns into a set on the flop, but the flush possibility hits on the turn, and the river brings a fourth club on board. Otis from Up For Poker. You can go read his post about how he has parlayed his 196$ tourney win from the WBT II into a very comfortable bankroll at True Poker. He looked to be doing reasonably well, but I couldn’t catch a break and eventually dropped the entire 50$ in chips that I’d brought to the table.

Oddly enough, I wasn’t too bothered by it and after sitting two hands, I bought in for another 40$. I knew I was playing reasonably well, and there was definitely money to be made at the table. In fact, most of my losses were from being staying in hands far too long. Over the next few orbits I managed to drop another 10$. Then Otis and the other big stack left the table and my luck started to turn.

My hands were starting to hold up and I was able to work my stack up to 59$ before the table broke up. But I was feeling in the groove so I quickly hopped onto another nearly full table. My solid play continued to pay off, and I managed to make some good reads on some rather scary boards to drag some pots I would have run away from at the last table. By the end of my 3.5 hour session, I’d brought my stack up to a respectable 89$. Still -0.5BB on the evening, but I view it as a big win after a bad run of cards. And with the first 10$ of my bonus added to my account, I’m actually up 9$ on the night and I’m a quarter of the way towards unlocking the next 10$.

In the end, I was pretty happy with my first night at 1/2. It felt a bit more serious than it probably should have, as I’m still playing for pretty low stakes, but I think that was in part due to the atmosphere created by True’s interface. It also could have been because was watching Rounders while playing.

WBT II redux

Monday, March 15th, 2004

UPDATED: Well, I’m a lot closer than I was, but there are still some holes. I have the names of all but one player (assuming Boygza was Boy Genius) and I’m only missing a couple corresponding links. The top 15 spots are solid, but after that things start getting a bit less sure. Chris Halverson‘s hand history from the tournament was a big help. Also, if anyone has the finishes from the first WBT handy, please send me an email. I’m going to put up a separate page with WBT result histories, maybe even a money leaderboard or other stats.

Well, I couldn’t take it anymore, so I’m going to try to put together a list of the finishes from the WBT II last week. It’s more to put the some of the names together with sites than who finished where, but it’s probably good to have a complete listing for posterity. So, here’s what I have so far from making the rounds today and collecting what information people had in their blogs.

1) Otis B Dart (Up For Poker)
2) ChrisHal (Chris Halverson’s Blog)
3) PaulyMcGrupp (Tao of Poker)
4) STICKandMOVE (STICKandMOVE)
5) FeliciaLee (FeliciaLee.net)
6) Frobozz aka Grubby (Poker Grub)
7) JasonHoldem (Poker Odyssey
8) AlCantHang (Dead Money = AlCantHang)
9) LiquidSwords (From Guppy to Shark)
10) Boy Genius? (Gambling Blues)
11) Maudie (Poker Perspectives)
12) minorthird (down to the felt)
13) deguillome aka TheYeti (Tales From a Yeti Suit)
14) tpfelt (tp’s table talk)
15) Mr. Decker? (Decker’s Journal)
16? John51 ()
17) ()
18) Sean? (Anistropy)
19? Grubette (Poker Grub)
20? DailyGrinder (The Poker Hermit)
21) ()
22) ()
23) ()
24) ()
25) ()
26? Bgal00 ()
27) Iggy (Guinness and Poker)
28) Hdouble (The Cards Speak)

TheFatGuy, by proxy (The Fat Guy)
Ugarte (Ugarte’s Poker Grovel)
Rick Blaine (Rick’s Cafe Americain)
Jeremy (Love and Casino War)
Waboman ()

Question marks mean I’m not sure what name they were using in the tournament. If you can fill in any of the blanks here or fix any mistakes you, please drop me a note. Hopefully I’ll be able to piece together the rest of this by the end of the week.

In other news, my business trip was postponed until next week, so I make have to take the plunge to the 1/2 tables earlier than expected. Maybe even tonight.

Name change

Sunday, March 14th, 2004

I started this site with the name tp’s tidbits for lack of a better idea when I first threw things together. I wasn’t really happy with it, but I figured since I wasn’t actually dropping the URL anywhere, I had some time to change it.

But then Iggy stumbled across it somehow – I still don’t know how – and mentioned me in his blog to his millions of readers. And I started getting visitors.

I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with this space, post about poker, about life, about games, about … whatever, so I just left things the way they were.

Of course, anyone who’s been reading for the past couple weeks knows that my posts have focused mostly on poker. This is partly because it’s my major interest right now and partly because I enjoy being a part of the great poker blogging community that exists out here on the web. I’ve felt some trepidation about making non-poker-related posts because of the small audience I do have and I’ve been considering splitting off a separate blog for other writing.

But, that time is not yet. I’m enjoying my poker blogging and I don’t feel too pressing a need for other expression, so I’m going to continue on as I have been. But I still need a better name. I’ve settled on tpfelt for my cardroom name (though I have different ones on Party and Empire), but I couldn’t come up with anything for the site. It finally hit me 15 minutes ago. I couldn’t get away from the alliteration, but at least it was something a little more appropriate.

Welcome to the newly rechristened tp’s table talk. Enjoy your stay.

Choice Freeroll

Sunday, March 14th, 2004

I’d like to officially thank The Poker Hermit and Grubby for their words on Choice Poker. I’m 143 dollars richer thanks to their advice. First was the 23$ from the bonus, then the 120$ I just won from placing third in the new player freeroll.

With a good finish like that, you might figure I could weave a riveting tale of my ascent to the money. You’d be wrong, though. I was short stacked early and didn’t really like my chances to even make the money. There were 55 players in the tourney, after those who didn’t show up were pared away. But, I got called all-in in the first 5 minutes when the table was still mostly automated folding stations, and I was forced to abandon a sizable investment in the pot. Shortly after that the tables merged down to just those present and the tournament was on for real.

I managed to keep afloat for the next hour or so, maintaining my T800 stack (started with T1200) and snuck into the money (10-20 paid 20$) with T1100. But then things started clicking, I stole some pots going all-in and caught some cards. Before I knew it I was at the final table with T30K, double the chips for the next player. Suddenly I had the advantage, and hdouble was sweating me from the rail (he’d gotten the start time wrong, so missed the tournament. I think Grubby was still monitoring the action as well, after finishing 14th. BoyGenius from Gambling Blues was also there, and recognized my name from the WBT. Unfortunately, he didn’t make the money, as he was dominated going all-in and was beat the whole way. A good bet anyways.

And then there was RaySmuckles, who I assume is The Poker Hermit, though I could certainly be wrong. He made it to the final table as well, but went out when I put him all-in after he raised before the flop with pocket fours. I hit a pair on the flop and he was done in 6th.

I played reasonably well for the next bit, but the chips were evening out as it came down to the last three. Things went back and forth for a while and I was starting to wonder how long we’d end up going on for. That impatience led to a very bad call that took most of my chips, and my all-in from the SB didn’t catch, so my night was over. I was pretty happy at the time, but the more and more I think about it the more upset I get with the call. It was just a stupid risk for my chips, and it cost me at least $80, as I had a good shot to at least make second. And first was certainly a possibility. But, I didn’t take the time to think things through fully and it cost. Still, it’s money for nothing, so I can’t really complain.

And it’s my biggest single table win ever in poker. I had a few home game sessions that ended with similar totals, but that was Canadian dollars. Also my biggest day – 152$. And my biggest weekend – 194$ (hmmm…thought that I had topped 200$, but I forgot the 10$ I dropped at Choice on Friday). I did get a bit lucky in the tournament, but I also made some good plays, and I definitely played solid in my ring games. So overall, I’m feeling pretty good about poker right now. Of course that means I’ve got a business trip this week, so I won’t be back to the tables until next weekend to try my luck at 1/2. I think I’ll tuck a poker book in my bag and do a little brushing up.

Good weekend

Sunday, March 14th, 2004

Well, it’s official, I just topped the 400$ profit mark(418.49 to be exact) across my various accounts, so I’ve finally met the requirements I set to move up to the 1/2 limit game. Still small potatoes, but I’ve managed to build my bankroll from pretty much nothing, so I’m happy with myself. And it took just a couple days under two months.

I started the weekend with just a limit more than 310$, so the tables have been very good to me. But I also think I’ve been playing better poker. Of course, the 30$ bonus I unlocked at Choice (really only 23$, as I lost 7$ unlocking it) helped a lot, but so did a the ~40$ wins I posted both Friday night and this afternoon. And I still have the Choice freeroll tonight to try to make my weekend even sweeter. And to top it all off, I was able to download the first two episodes of the WPT and found Rounders for a reasonable price at HMV, so I’ve got a bunch of poker to watch. I’m on a pretty good high right now and I’m feeling a bit invunerable at the tables, so I think it’s time to take step back, maybe cook up a good dinner.

Friday

Saturday, March 13th, 2004

There’s definitely something about the green felt of Party that is good for me. I had another good night yesterday, really focusing on just one table and putting together a 38.5BB run. The cards were good to me, but mostly it was a good table. One hand we ended up with a flush board and the other 2 players in the pot decided to bet, the first led the bet and the other re-raised me and I capped. I was just lucky enough to have made my first straight flush online, the first player had 2 hearts, but at least the other guy had the ace (and I should be glad he didn’t check raise me on the turn). But, with 8$ profit on the last round of better alone, it was a good pot for me. Lucky definitely, but I was glad to get payed off.

The key to my night was to really focus on playing good poker and ignore the money. I’ve been focusing on turning out profit (multi-table, real basic poker) for the past month and it really hasn’t been working out for me. I have a hard time staying focused. But, I’m going back to the frame of mind that I had when I won my first big nights. I thought perhaps I had just been really lucky in my first month of play – and that still may be the case, and may have been again, last night – but I’m feeling that I just may be a decent poker player after all. Now, I just have to get the patience for better table selection. I know all my big wins have been due to good tables, so I’m going to have to get better at tracking them down.

I wasn’t focused completely on the Party table I was at, however. I was also haunting an ultra-low .25/.50 table at Choice, the only one with more than 1 person sitting at it at the time. Unfortunately, the two players there weren’t actually playing, so it was a long wait for any action. But, the Choice website said I’d unlock a dollar for every 5 raked hands I played and their rake structure takes something from pretty much every pot, so all I had to do was play 150 hands and I should get my bonus. And hopefully an opportunity to play in the $1000 freeroll on Sunday. I did eventually get some action and played a bit of heads-up and even ended up with 5 people at the table at one point, but it was very distracting having hands moving that quickly when I was trying to pay attention to my Party table where I was making some real money. Ok, for most readers, 30 bucks probably still isn’t ‘real’ money for a night’s work, but I’m going at this methodically and need to hit the 200BB mark to move up limits. I was down and then even, down then even, and even managed to get up a couple dollars, but I wanted to put in an even 100 hands and managed to piss away my $10 table stake in 10 minutes where I wasn’t paying much attention. That was a little frustrating in the face of a good evening otherwise, but after I confirmed with Choice support that all those hands counted, I’m 117 hands towards the $30 bonus, so I ended up making money on the evening. And according to The Poker Hermit and Grubby all it takes is 50 played hands (I imagine it is raked hands, but the site rakes pretty much every hand) to play in the Sunday $1000 freeroll. I’m already there, so I’m again talking with Choice support to work things out. Support there seems decent, as I got a response within 12 hours about my bonus, but they forgot to address my question about the freeroll.

I noticed an email yesterday talking about some patch for Poker Tracker. Something about Advanced Note Exports. Curious, I started playing with it a bit last night and I have to say it is going to save me a ton of time! I’ve been going through Poker Tracker recently trying to formulate some useful notes based on player performance, but I’ve seen so many players (1800 at this point) that it is a very time-consuming process. And some of the effort is wasted as I’m sure there are many of those players I will never encounter again. Tracker can now automate that process for you, allowing you to export a whole slew of stats (from last date seen to BB/100 to how often they raise pre-flop). Now instead of trying to go over these stats and provide a summary for 1800 players I may never see again, I can export some of the most important stats, and interpret them only for players I actually share a table with. What a huge time saver! And you can set up various criteria for which players have their stats exported as well, so you won’t have stats for players who’ve only played 2 hands. Now I just have to figure out which stats I want to see…

Oh, just got the reply from Choice customer support and I’m now registered for the freeroll on Sunday. This is a very good deal folks. If you deposit from Neteller, you get a 20% bonus up to $100 and it only takes 5 raked hands per dollar to unlock (and I unlocked most of mine playing heads-up .25/.50) . And if you manage 50 hands before tomorrow, you can play in the $1000 freeroll, which still has pretty low attendance according to The Poker Hermit and Grubby. The only problem is that the site is the ghost town, but you should be able to find a few bodies to unlock your bonus against if you haunt a table while playing elsewhere. I’ll probably be around a bit more later today looking to unlock the rest of my bonus, so keep an eye out for tpfelt.

EDIT: Oops, I attributed the Choice advice to minorthird instead of The Poker Hermit as I should have. My apologies Hermit. I had been thinking minorthird because I have been waiting to see if he manages to put together the full list of finishes from the WBT II. At least I had the link right.

Choice Poker

Friday, March 12th, 2004

Per the advice of The Poker Hermit by way of Grubby I signed up for Choice Poker to try to qualify for their $1000 freeroll on Sunday. There’s even a nice 20% bonus if I deposit from Netteller, where I just happen to have some money. The only problem is that site is so empty, there aren’t any live tables for me to play my fifty hands at. Hopefully some people will creep on a bit later. That freeroll sounds like too good of a deal.

I’m doing fairly well at my Party table however, up $10 in my first couple of tables. And I feel like I’m playing some very solid poker, mostly by not focusing on the money.

WBT II @ TruePoker revisited

Friday, March 12th, 2004

What a hectic day I’ve been having, getting stuff organized for multiple projects, running between meetings. I finally just got a few moments of my own to make a post.

In my rush to post about the WBT II yesterday, I forgot to include the list of the winners. So, today I’d like to officially congratulate the following:

1) Otis B Dart from Up For Poker ($196)
2) ChrisHal from Chris Halverson’s Blog ($140)
3) PaulyMcGrupp from Tao of Poker ($112)
4) STICKandMOVE from STICKandMOVE ($84)
5) FeliciaLee from Felicia’s Poker Talk ($28)

Particular kudos to Otis, who was the only player from my starting table to make the money. Hopefully that’ll be me next time. I had been planning on trying to collect a complete list of the finishes from the tournament, but it looks like minorthird over at down to the felt started on that, so I will leave it to him. If you played in the tournament, I’d recommend heading over there to tell him where you finished. There are still a few names from the WBT that I couldn’t place with a particular site, so it would be great to make all those connections.

Speaking of not making the money, I played a little poker last night. I hopped onto Party, hoping that my luck would be different than it has been for the last month on Empire. Sure enough, the change back to green felt spelled money and I quickly went up 10BB within 5 minutes. The next half hour didn’t change much so I took a break to get some things done around the house.

When I came back to my computer, I decided I’d try my luck in a 10+1 SNG, so I checked which tables were able and sat myself down. After the table was full, the cards were dealt. What’s this? Face down cards? That’s strange. Why does everyone have 2 face down cards and 1 face up? Ah crap. I’ve just sat down at a seven card stud SNG. Oops. So much for the 10$ I’d won in my ring game.

Now, I’ve played tons of seven card stud, but never online and never in a casino (as I’ve yet to play poker in a casino). So, this was new to me. But I actually ended up doing not too badly. Managed to bluff some pretty good pots and made some halfways decent hands. I actually had the chip lead at various times over the course of the game before losing it to my aggressive play. I even had a good chip lead going into the final four before I lost it chasing someone I was sure I had beat. Eventually I was even with the second and third player in chips, maybe a hundred or so below when I got pulled into a pot and ended up going all-in with trip aces and lost to a boat, kings over sixes. Now, he was showing the sixes, but only had one king up. I was burned by my aggressive play earlier as I knew he would have called me down with only two pair, figuring my ace pair was the best I had. And he had a 4-1 chip advantage over me. And he had just won about 5 hands in a row with ridiculous cards and I was looking for revenge. But I ended up out on the bubble. If I’d only sat back and been cautious, I could probably have drifted into third, and maybe even second. But no, I have to be aggressive, even in a game I don’t have all that much experience with. Serves me right.

I ended up going back to the ring game and managed to turn a small profit on the night, but it was disappointed after I should have ended up 20$ or 30$ to the good. And now it looks like I might have to consider loading up at Planet so I can get into Felicia‘s regular sunday night game that she’s starting up. I’m not sure I’m really ready to start making my blogger donations a weekly affair.

World Poker Blogger Tour II

Thursday, March 11th, 2004

Well, I managed to accomplish my two goals last night. I won a hand and didn’t bust out first. That honour belonged to hdouble. And I won far more than one hand. For the first three levels, all I had to do was raise before the flop – sometimes with good cards, sometimes with not, but at a reasonable frequency – and then raise again post-flop and sometimes post-turn for the few people left in the pot to walk away. Only once was I forced to fold when someone came back over the top of me, and I never showed down a hand. I wasted a few good down cards this way, but the flop never hit me, so it ended up working out.

Of course, once one of the other tables broke up and we had an influx of new players, this strategy didn’t work so well as Chris Halverson came back over the top all-in when I tried it. So, now I was going to have to start to play. Of course, that didn’t last long as I got deep into a pot chasing the nut flush with Kc9c. Not sure why I let that happen, but after the turn, I committed most of my remaining 550 against the 4000 pot. No luck for me and I was left with a piddly 15 chips. UTG I went all-in with Ks4s and went out of the tournament in 14th place out of 28. So, I made it past the halfway mark, which was much better than I hoped for, though at one point I had doubled my starting chips and actually began to think I might luck into the money.

TruePoker, the site that kindly hosted the tournament, was an interesting change from the Party/Empire interface, but there were a few frustrating quirks. The biggest in my books was the insta-all-in feature. If someone went all-in and was called and cards were turned face up, the remaining cards were dealt instantly and the pot pushed to the winner. No drama whatsoever, and you often lost the pot before you even realized what was going on. In one instance, I saw a river 7 to go with my pocket pair before the cards disappeared and heard the dealer’s voice call a flush while pushing the chips to my opponent. And to round out the “unique” complaints for Felicia‘s over/under:

– fast blind structure
– breaks cut into the time for that level
– insta-all-in
– voices got annoying (particularly the disconcerting robot laughter)
– bet slider (the buttons were slightly better, but I don’t understand why you can’t just type your bet)
– no tournament lobby to view progress
– hard to decipher bet amounts (it was difficult to see how many chips people had put in, particularly at the far side of the table, and there was no way to have this always-on like you could for player names and chip amounts)
– hand histories only available 10 at a time.

My thanks to Iggy for setting the tourney up, and Felicia for setting up the chatroom afterwards so I could talk to some of the bloggers that I didn’t get a chance to play with during the tournament.

Another day, another dollar

Wednesday, March 10th, 2004

Well, I think I’m on the mend, though I’m still not feeling anyhere near 100%. Hopefully I’ll remain coherent enough to get through my day at the office and to avoid going out first in tonight’s World Poker Blogger Tournament. Unfortunately I only got about 3 hours of sleep last night, so we’ll see how things go.

I managed to get a little bit of poker in yesterday, but nothing spectacular to report. I pretty much ignored all my weaknesses that I’ve mentioned here and lost a bit of money. I think I might need to take a little bit of a break from poker. Just a few days to recharge my batteries and get over this cold. Then again, maybe I just need to focus a bit more when I’m at the table.

Oh, apparently the Canadian Idol winner Ryan Malcolm is downstairs at BMG right now. And I don’t think I could care any less. Celebrity is a very strange thing.

I found out the price for the table we test drove on Friday. He wants $370 (Canadian, about $275 US) for it. It’s a very good table, but it’s going to take a while for me to make the money back for it with the $2 entry fee at my bi-weekly tournament. I’m leaning towards getting it, as I’m not sure I’d ever get one cheaper, but I’m hesitant about dropping that much money.

Struggle

Monday, March 8th, 2004

I just had the most thoroughly miserable day. Was feeling pretty ill and I managed to drop $20 at a table in Empire over the course of an hour. I guess I should have stuck with the plan and not ventured into a game while doped up on medication. But I was pretty bored just reading in bed all day, even watching Season 1 of Alias stop being interesting. I was playing ok poker, but had a few brutal suckouts that were pretty demoralizing. I really need to start stabilizing my play. Whenever I get down, I start concentrating on making my money back instead of focusing on playing good poker.

Because I was unable to round up a sub for my volleyball game tonight, I ended up playing. I had some experience with the opposing team before, so I was pretty sure they would have defaulted us for not having 6 players, even though we had a good reason. After I was able to shake myself out of a bit of a daze, I played not too badly. In fact, our whole team player pretty well and we won what was our better matches of the seasons. We always seem to play better against better teams. But I got home feeling a bit run down. After a shower though, I wasn’t quite ready for bed, so I hopped on Empire.

I decided to hit a 5+1 SNG for a little practice before I surrender my money on Wednesday. I had intended to hit a limit table – how that would be practice for the tournament is an interesting question – but didn’t check and ended up in a pot limit game. I realized it was for the best, as it would be better practice. For the record, fish at a 5+1 table are crazy. Someone went out on the very first hand. And they didn’t even have much of a hand.

I played pretty cautiously, waiting to hit a hand to try to earn some chips. As I determined who was reckless and who was a bit more solid, I started stealing a few pots to keep pace with the blinds. Enough succeeded to keep me slightly ahead of the curve. As we got closer to the bubble, people started to tighten up and I started to take advantage, stealing where I could and putting pressure on the small stacks. Going in to the last three, I had a small chip lead.

The final three did not last very long as my opponents were very happy to call me when I put them all-in. And they called with pretty marginal hands. It was the quickest I’ve ever finished a tournament in the final three. And it was a nice $19 in my account.

Of course, I couldn’t be happy there. I was only a quarter away from breaking even on the day, so I went back to the .5/1 table to try to squeeze out a small win. Of course, my 97 in the big blind turns in two pair on the J97 flop, but the AT stays in to hit his runner runner broadway straight. So, instead being down for a quarter, I’m facing down for $5. I guess I’ll need to concentrate on playing good poker.

Struggle

Monday, March 8th, 2004

I just had the most thoroughly miserable day. Was feeling pretty ill and I managed to drop $20 at a table in Empire over the course of an hour. I guess I should have stuck with the plan and not ventured into a game while doped up on medication. But I was pretty bored just reading in bed all day, even watching Season 1 of Alias stop being interesting. I was playing ok poker, but had a few brutal suckouts that were pretty demoralizing. I really need to start stabilizing my play. Whenever I get down, I start concentrating on making my money back instead of focusing on playing good poker.

Because I was unable to round up a sub for my volleyball game tonight, I ended up playing. I had some experience with the opposing team before, so I was pretty sure they would have defaulted us for not having 6 players, even though we had a good reason. After I was able to shake myself out of a bit of a daze, I played not too badly. In fact, our whole team player pretty well and we won what was our better matches of the seasons. We always seem to play better against better teams. But I got home feeling a bit run down. After a shower though, I wasn’t quite ready for bed, so I hopped on Empire.

I decided to hit a 5+1 SNG for a little practice before I surrender my money on Wednesday. I had intended to hit a limit table – how that would be practice for the tournament is an interesting question – but didn’t check and ended up in a pot limit game. I realized it was for the best, as it would be better practice. For the record, fish at a 5+1 table are crazy. Someone went out on the very first hand. And they didn’t even have much of a hand.

I played pretty cautiously, waiting to hit a hand to try to earn some chips. As I determined who was reckless and who was a bit more solid, I started stealing a few pots to keep pace with the blinds. Enough succeeded to keep me slightly ahead of the curve. As we got closer to the bubble, people started to tighten up and I started to take advantage, stealing where I could and putting pressure on the small stacks. Going in to the last three, I had a small chip lead.

The final three did not last very long as my opponents were very happy to call me when I put them all-in. And they called with pretty marginal hands. It was the quickest I’ve ever finished a tournament in the final three. And it was a nice $19 in my account.

Of course, I couldn’t be happy there. I was only a quarter away from breaking even on the day, so I went back to the .5/1 table to try to squeeze out a small win. Of course, my 97 in the big blind turns in two pair on the J97 flop, but the AT stays in to hit his runner runner broadway straight. So, instead being down for a quarter, I’m facing down for $5. I guess I’ll need to concentrate on playing good poker.