I just settled all my lawsuits, F*&%$# you D.A.D.I

Barely made it to the final table. Literally played one hand there. Was in the big blind with pocket 3's when a button raised my blind and I moved all in with my pair (I was big time short stack at that point) he flopped a queen and the rest, as they say, was history.

Things started fairly well for me. I picked up pocket aces on my second hand to launch me to the top five spots in chips. I dropped some along the way with some misplaced aggression here and there, but lifted a huge one of Hoyazo with a well timed pot-size reraise bluff on a ragged board and a post oak bluff on the turn. He might have more details about the hand, with pictures included, but I think my hand at that point was KJ high. I also sucked out huge with pocket tens against pocket queens when I flopped my set. Opponent was Aussie-someone? I’m sorry, I’m really terrible with names and I should really start taking better notes during these things.

My first ass kicking happened when I ran pocket queens preflop into Bone Daddy’s pocket Aces. I failed to improve and that pot cost me big. I was middle of the pack by then and I was sunk to bottom feeder status when I ran into President Lee and rockets again!!

I was now bottom third, if not last, and I had to rely on steals and a few suckouts to give me back a decent stack. The final nail in my coffin happened on the following hand: I pick up 10-8s on the button and I raise pot. Mookie, one of the tournament chip leaders at this point, calls from the small blind. Flop comes Q-10-5. Mookie checks it, I bet pot and he reraises pot which also puts me all-in. I tank. Mookie had been reraising me a lot lately, making it really hard for me to pick up easy pots. Would he really play a queen this way? You figure he would reraise AQ or KQ preflop. At worst, I’d lead out with on that flop with QJ. With my stack pretty much bordering on nothingness, I make a crying call and he flips over 10-6. Cha-Ching, there’s over 5000 chips in the pot and if I win this one, I have the tools to make a run a the title. Turn K, river Q, we split the pot, and life runs out of my body.

Pot Limit is kind of cool. It’s not really that different from No-Limit. The one big difference is that you can’t open raise all-in preflop unless you’re the mega shortstack. By the flop, especially when the blinds are high, the pots are so huge that it pretty much plays out like a No-Limit hand. It was nice a change of pace though. Kudos to those in charge.

I played some cash games for the rest of the night, pretty uneventful, I think I finished down a 100$. Just a night of plain dead carding. When I left to go to bed, Hoy and PresLee were duking it out for the title. I wasn’t really surprised to see who won this morning, Hoy put out another dominating display.

I really think Hoyazo plays these things at another level than the rest of the bloggers. I seriously think he has a 200% edge over the rest of the field, he is that damn good. I really wouldn’t be surprise if a year from now we read weekly posts on his blog about multiple 22k and 17k wins at the Stars and Party Poker 100$+ tournaments. Keep up the good work Hoy!

I hope to see you guys at the WWDN, my first in almost two months!

Holidays Holidays!!

Summer's in full force kids! Sorry for my lack of updates and posts in general as I've been away on holidays. It's summer ya'll, turn off the damn computers and get yourselves some sun!

My first excursion of the summer was at Canada's finest amusement park, Paramount Canada's Wonderland. It's pretty much your typical amusement park, thrill rides, overpriced junk food and dumbass teenagers. We had a blast over there, myself and two friends. Well, at least two of us did. One of the guys got sick in one of the rides early in the day. He usually handles'em well so Lord only knows what happened there, but his day was pretty much shot to shit.

Other than that, me and the crew have been hitting the clubs non-stop. Again, it's summer ya'll, the absolute best time of year to scope out the ladies in their finest summer outfits. Besides, most girls are up for a good time at this time of year *nudge* *nudge* *wink*wink*.

Still, this is a Poker blog and I'd like to think of myself as somekind of a Poker player so let's get back to that. I really haven't been playing much lately, but whenever I've been playing, I've been winning. I Crakced open the books (Small Stakes Hold'em and Winning Low Limit Hold'em) and I retooled my game big time. Let's just say my game picked up QUITE a few leaks during the past few months. I will try to hit the tables hard in the next few days since I'm heading out on another excursion next weekend, Le festival mondial de la bière (That would be the Beer Festival for you english folks) .

Tonight is the DADI Pot Limit event. I've never played a Pot Limit tournament before, but it doesn't really take a genius to figure out the subtle nuances of the game already. Pot Limit is more of a drawing game than No-Limit. You can't go all-in on the turn to chase away the calling stations and, well, chasers. Mostly, it's really about manipulating the pot size and inducing your opponents in making lots of mistakes. It should really be interesting.

I hope to see you guys tonight!

The Long Road to Recovery

Step by step. We’re making progress.

A pretty uneventful night at the tables. Small but consistent wins. Wins. I haven’t been able to say that word in over a month. It definitely feels good to be able to think positively about the game.

Few things I noticed. My game is now much more disciplined. I’m simply not trying to force things, I just let the game come to me. I have yet to record a huge winning night, but a few small nights of wins are just as good. A return to basicS really helped out tons.

I also received a E-Mail from Absolute Poker saying that they had deposited 10$ in my account. Last time they did this, I blew it all on a five table SNG going out on the bubble. This time, I managed to take down a 2 table SNG for a 70$ reward. I now have some kind of bankroll on Absolute Poker. I’ll try to make it big by playing low stakes MTT’S and SNG’S. The size of the fields are right around what I like, between 100 and 200 players, and the play is generally soft. My ideal situation would be to book a win in a 5$ MTT and go from there.

Renewed Confidence

Hi, still alive? I was just ridiculously involved in the NHL playoffs lately, which left me very little time for Poker. Now that my team is out (stupid Sens or should I say stupid Sabres?) I’ll have more time to hang around the virtual tables.

I did hit the tables briefly this Weekend and the results were mostly positive. No massive score or anything but slow and steady increases to the roll. Biggest mistake I was doing lately was trying to win back too much all at once, hoping to wipe out huge losses in a few sessions. As you can imagine, that only managed to create frustration for myself and extremely poor play as a result. Quite the vicious cycle...

But I’d like to think that those days are behind me. I now sit down at the table with a winning mentality. I really want to try and focus on playing my best on every single hand. Whatever happens will happen, but I try and make sure to bring it on every occasion.

Think positive! While the morale is generally in the toilet while losing, expecting bad things to happen to thyself will usually result in such. A positive outlook on things really does make for better experiences at the table.

It’s all between the ears, 85% of that game is anyways.

But yes, it really feels good to be back.

Time to get back to work

I haven’t played a single hand of online poker since the DADI 5 last Monday. No Poker pretty much means no blogging. I was pretty much involved in the NHL as well as the NBA playoffs. Now that the Ottawa Senators are through and not likely to play a game ‘til next Friday, I can back to the virtual felt. About bloody time too.

The break was definitely nice too. I get the feeling that I was playing a bit too much out of necessity and not really to have fun. While it’s obviously always enjoyable to rake in the dough by the hundreds, this mentality leads to a ridiculous stress that is oh so unnecessary.

I did think a lot about the game during my time off, especially my objectives and where I really want to go with all this. For instance, why this virtual 5 digit bankroll goal of mine? As it is, my bankroll allows me to play most games at the 10/20 level comfortably. Hell, I could reasonably buy-in into 100$+ tournaments on a daily basis if I really wanted to. So why? Why put this overbearing burden on my shoulders? Why stress myself into earning X amount by X date? To validate all of this and give it a purpose? Or is it to prove myself that I’m a winning player?

Those answers I have yet to find. All I know is I’m pretty much ready to get back at it. Time to have some fun. Again.