Pokerhands from the day:

My sets have not done well lately...
Quickest Freeroll today, again, my set is no good.
Kings hold up finally. This guy had been going all in pre-flop way too often, so I figured that I had him. However, the entire board was way too scary.
Queens hold up on Pokerroom?!

I dream of bad beats...


In my latest dream, I am playing on a bad beat table and I have pocket 9s. I call preflop and two other people call, I am first to act on the flop. The flop is 9c8d9d. woohoo. So I check, Guy in the middle checks, and the guy in last position bets $2. I raise to $4, the guy in the middle reraises to $25, third guy calls, I reraise a final time to $50. Call. Call. The Turn is a 8c. I check, all in. all in. I call. I am hoping, "please have pocket 8s, please have 8s." If I win against 8s, I would win about 15k from the bad beat jackpot.. The River is the Jd. I lose the hand...I am confused until I see that the third guy has Qd10d. I win 30k instead! Dreams can be so cruel.

The last two days have been a different downslope. Have had Aces busted by Queens and Kings. Had my Kings killed by Aces twice. I just busted out the first hand of a MTT with Kings versus Aces. So now I wait for the next one.

I am going for the dream tournament again and hope to net a few more dollars along the way. This time, if I win it, I hope to get the superbowl tickets and sell them for several thousand a piece (I have been told by a few people that I can do this).

I did place 7th last night in a 400 person $10/1 MTT, and got $100, but that has made up for the other losses on the $100NL tables...

My Play of the Week:

I am in late position and the limpers come around to me where I raise for $10 with AQ. Everyone folds to Jeff and Matt (in front of the button) who both call. The flop is A66. He bets out for 10, I call, and Jeff folds. A 4 comes out. He bets $15, I call, and a 7 comes out. Matt bets out $13, and knowing this guy, it seems to be a very weak bet. I reraise to $40 and he sits and thinks. He flips up an ace and I continue to just stare at the board. He flips up his second card, a J. I think for a second, and then announce “Oh you folded?” I pause for a one second to let people begin to protest and say that he didn’t fold, and then I say “Well, Good. You had me beat.” As I enunciate the word “beat” clearly, he announces “call.” I smile, flip up my AQ, and take down a larger pot.

I have read many threads that have talked about live play where a particular local player will flip up his/her cards against an unsuspecting tourist, the tourist…thinking that the hand is dead, will make some comment like mine above. The local player will then take the appropriate action, either go all-in or fold. Now, if Matt really thought I was that dumb, he should have gone all in, but he merely called. I am not sure if that was the right time to make that play (as it only gained me $30) and I probably can never use it again there. Matt smiled once he figured out what I did and a few people looked at me and said “That was a good move.”

For those keeping track, Matt was the villian in this hand.

My General Update

I promised an update this weekend and failed to deliver; however, I hope this will make up for it. My weekend activity has been very minimal:

I dropped 2 buy-ins on pokerroom at the $100NL over the last week (on 9/13) from overplaying a few hands. The biggest loser was my pocket jacks losing on a QQ3 flop to pocket aces. I should have either had a clue much earlier from the preflop betting/calling (I was hoping too much that he had AK) and either went all in on the turn to push him off (he was heavily contemplating folding on the river to my $22 bet, and if I had a full buy in, he might have folded then), or just have given up much earlier. This is slightly messing up my pokertracker results as I play on two different computers and the dreampoker results always come out horribly messed up with other hands. Sio I am showing to be a loser at this level despite being several buyins up over the last two weeks.

This weekend, I made some of the money back by tournament play (played two $5 freezeouts and placed in both of them, but both of them short of the final table, so I only made a $30 profit) and made half a buy-in back from NL play, all my play has been extremely short session.

I played at the $200NL club and left with $75 extra dollars. I was up over a full buy-in by the first two hours, but the last hour killed me with trips being killed by a higher kicker (Q v. K), and making some bad plays, however, my best play of the week (the one written above) occurred there.

I just didn’t do well at the dreampoker tournament, no cards combined with bad plays and lots of aggression allowed me to wither way in 31st.

Dearest Readers,

My recent updates have slowed down a bit with the restart of the school year. As some of you may know, I am a graduate student on route to obtain his PhD in political science (focus on international relations, comparative politics, and quantitative methods), and the school year has offered a busy start that has lead to a decrease in my ability to play and post.

This Weekend, I plan on taking a bit of time to do a proper update with plans for the future. Right now I think the challenge is on hiatus as I am not able to ride my rushes to higher levels given to the low amount of time I get to play daily or on the weekends...however, I have moved comfortably up to the $100NL level both online and live, and am consistantly cashing out with money at the $200NL level at a club I play at once or twice a week. So, the new goal/project will probably be to build a bankroll that allows a move up to the $200NL level for online play and start merging my online bankroll with my live bankroll.

So, this blog will not be neglected for long and has not died...and I am still able to read all of those who I kept up with over the summer.

I just came across my notes from last Spring on 2 stage least squares models (a particular kind of regression in econometrics that I may have to be using in a month or two for my latest paper) and about half the page is covered in odds calculations (done by hand) as the previous night I got busted out in a tournament when my aces were cracked by AQ (the AQ flopped a straight, we were all in pre-flop). I learned a lot from that class.

Been a busy school week so I have only been able to play two poker games this week. One at the town club I play at and I left with $125. Played a short $20 tournament before I went to bed (100 person), cashed out in 6th with $133. I have been running great lately...but I think I have studied and played enough to elevate my play to a level higher than it was before...and it is paying off.

Description of my prize: Welcome to Sin City, the worlds capital of 'anything goes and anything's possible'. VIP status will welcome you everywhere you go; from the moment your fully paid international flight or 2 fully paid domestic flights land till you move into your luxury suite for 3 nights. Brace yourself for a weekend you won't forget!

Brace yourself for a weekend you won't forget!

Great Weekend

Alright, I was going to make a second post about my big tournament finish, but the last 3 days have been great to me, so let me just post the summary as I reflect upon my recent plays:

Tournament at Turning Stone: Chopped Pot; +$1,306.
Online $100NL: +$250
Local $200 NL at a club: +$135 (an okay win for the evening).
DreamTournament: 2 paid flights, 3 nights stay at a luxury suite and VIP status at the Bellagio.

Turning Stone Report Part One: The General Report.

The school year has officially started and that makes it possible for my graduate student direct loans to be deposited into my bank account. My girlfriend, being someone who loves to play poker, but has not gotten much live play, insists that we go to Turning Stone for the weekend and play one of their daily tournaments. We decide on Saturday for their 11pm $85 MTT. It was actually about $90 as an extra $5 goes as a dealer tip and you get $500 extra in chips (starting stack is 4k). Entries: 205. Top 16 pay.

Julie ended in 31st as her pocket 10s get rivered against KQ. A really good showing for her first live tournament and I was excited to see her go so far. When she came over to tell me she got knocked out, one of the guys at my table said, “Wow, you are both in the tournament, you must be an amazing married couple.” When I told him about our relationship he apologized and advised me not to go out and buy a ring on his account.

So, I made the final table. When we got there, there was an immediate push to chop the pot and everyone, but me, had agreed to it. I checked the prize pool, and a chop would give everyone a better pay out than 4th place and I was in about 4th or 5th in chips, so I agreed to the chop. I took home $1,306, my best finish. Since I was in seat one, I was recorded as coming in first place, hopefully that doesn’t mean I got reported as taking home 4k…as the taxes would be horrendous.

Part Two will discuss the specifics of tournament play, where I got lucky, and some of my table tricks that worked out.