Monday, October 23, 2006

An update

Dearest Readers,

As some of you may know, I am currently a graduate student in a quantitative political science department, and much of my time has been taken up with working on that, but in between writing papers, trying to come up with game theoretical models of civil conflict and terrorist activities, and replicating statistical analyses, I am able to sneak in a few games.

In the Poker Source Online League, I finally made it to the final table for the first time and took a fourth place victory. While this only moves up to 20th in the league, the league has now officially paid for itself. The prize was only $50 (I made a small cashin in the top 16 before), but I also won a side bet that generated another $70 on top of what I won. While my play was okay, I received lots of love from my KT and KQ hands. Both of them cracked AK, and I played KT against a reraise against my steal and got very lucky flops.

I also attempted to play in the Pokestars $1 million tournament and was reading and playing quite well. Built myself a comfortable stack past the half way mark and ended my run in 2,400th place when I misread a player horribly. I have learned a bit more about my reading ability and I think I may attempt the $200 buyin as the payouts are relatively ridiculous if I get far enough. While it is an expensive tournament, it will be good overall experience.

I want to write a game theoretic article for twoplustwo.com, but I need a break before I can do that. I have officially found out that I will be going to Vegas for an academic conference, so time to both study my ass off and look into at least one good tournament for the weekend.

Sunday, October 01, 2006

Wooo!

Had the Poker Source Online free roll on pokerroom last night. 300 entrants, $10,000 guaranteed. With a large amount of luck (my pocket 7s cracking pocket aces, back to back aces near the end to knock out 4th and 3rd places), I ended up in 2nd place. This is my largest tournament finish yet (my previous largest was the $1,550 from Dream, followed by the $1,306 at Turning Stone). It is slightly bothersome that my two largest finishes were in free rolls, but I am still moving on up.

Prize: $1,600