Le Suckout Artiste

Tagged! You're it!

2007-11-14T15:54:00.000-05:00

Looks like I've been tagged. I have to apologize for my absence, let's just say October was a doozy. Tons of things happened in my life (good things mind you) but they've also left me beyond preoccupied so I could hardly find any time to sleep, let alone blog.

So without further a due...

A). Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog...
B). Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself...
C). Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs...
D). Let each person know that they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

I won't tag anyone since I'm wayyy late to this party but here we go:

1. From the age of 10 through 16, I played soccer at an elite level but I just quit out of the blue cause I was, well, dumb. I've been getting back into it lately and I have tons of work to do to even be considered decent.
2. I picked my nose well into my teen years (Disgusting, I know)
3. I played the organ for nearly a decade but I mostly did it to please my mom. Haven't played it in nearly a decade and I don't miss it much.
4. I was dealt pocket aces in my very first hold'em hand, believe it or not. I also folded them pre-flop since the guy who was explaining us the rules had me all confused.
5. I've kept in touch with most of my best friends from high school. I live in a fairly small town and most people stuck around so It' been easier for us.
6. I was a notorious slacker in school but I'm an absolute workhorse at the job for reasons that escape me.
7. I lost my virginity at 19 to some 33 year old skank I picked up at a bar. She was actually pretty good looking and I have no regrets about it but it's still not something I brag about on a day to day basis.

So there you go. I'll try to put an actual post up tomorrow or Friday at the lastest about my October to remember.

Later!

Where are you going with this?

2007-10-01T15:58:00.000-04:00

X-Grilfriend: So you're winning all this money at Poker but where does it end? Do you have a purpose or a goal? Where are you going with this?

Me: ...

-------------------

God bless my x-girlfirend. She really made a conscious effort to show interest in my various hobbies but I never really managed to give her the answers that she was looking for. Most probably because I didn't know the answers myself.

So where am I going with this? Here I guess. And by here I mean at the foot of small stakes NL Hold'Em. The first few steps towards the promise land, the land of milk and honey: NL 200$.

Why NL 200$?

Because that's where the money actually starts to matter. This is the level where a pro can actually make a comfortable living through Poker and an amateur can start raking in some cash that can make a significant difference in his day to day life.

I've accumulated nearly 2k hands at this level and I must that it's not that different from NL 100$. The leap from NL 50$ to NL 100$ seems higher than the leap from 100$ to 200$. I'm doing okay so far, winning a lil' bit. I'll take it, considering I literally got my teeth kicked in when I first moved up to NL 100$.

I went on a tear getting tons of hands in throughout the last week of September. As a result, I've managed to book another 500$ of rake back for the third straight month in a row. I'm hoping October won't be such a close call.

BTW, my tournament game has gone to absolute shit. I've never been anything close to a donkament expert but this is getting ridiculous. I hardly remember the last time I've made it past the first hour of a tourney. Bleh!

On Moving up and Taking Shots

2007-09-13T16:10:00.001-04:00

When I first decided to move up to the .50/1$ games last month, the plan was to play 50K hands at that limit and re-evaluate from there if a promotion was in order. After a month and half, it's pretty much safe to say that those projections were a bit too much on the safe side.

Since I play Poker for fun, I'm extremely fortunate if I can manage to put in 25K hands in a month. On average, I'd say I have topped at the 20K mark since march. My benchmark is the amount of rakeback that I earn monthly. I usually aim for 500$ per month. This is a pretty reasonable amount for the stakes that I play since it proves that I've made a valiant effort of putting in as many hands as I could in said month.

With that said, I figure I'll be around the 30-35k hands by the end of September and I definitely believe that a promotion is in order. Why? Because staying within your comfort zone in this game will hurt you in the long run.

When I first moved up to .50$/1$, I was already over-rolled for those stakes. I wisely decided to cut my teeth at this level first before sitting at 1/2$ too quickly. The result? I promptly dumped 1/3 of my online roll on the tables in a month. And I'm perfectly fine with that.

Bankroll nits never progress, they stagnate. How can you improve if you keep playing against the same level of competition for extended periods of time? Getting my head kicked in for a whole month did more for my game than beating up on .25/.50$ retards ever could. I had to re-invent myself, learn to three-bet light in position, when to pull off squeezes, when and how to properly defend your blinds, etc. All concepts that were not really applicable or necessary at the lower stakes.

I also realized that the games themselves were not that much tougher once you figure them out. In other words, playing at the lower levels would also have hurt me where it matters the most: At the bottom line.

Now I'm not advocating that you run up to the highest stakes possible that your BR can tolerate ASAP, Lord knows that is not my style. On the other hand, I actually think that it's just as bad, if not worst, to stagnate at one level with 100+ buy-ins.

If there's anything to take from this text, it's this: Take safe shots, challenge yourself and reach for the stars. Your bankroll and your game will improve as a result.

Holidays, Poker, Work and Tilt

2007-09-04T15:24:00.000-04:00

*Mic check, mic check, is this thing on?

Right, so where was I this time? Mostly travelling along the south shore of Montreal for a bit, enjoying the festivities of the International Beer festival amongst other things. That was the fun part of my absence.

The less fun part resolves mostly around tilt. Some Poker related but mostly from work. Nothing to do with one specific person, more with the moronic way they run things around here. I guess the worst part is that these morons can't basically do ONE thing right when I'm not here. Actually, I'd be quite glad if they failed while at LEAST trying to do something but no, it's almost as if they simply won't function if I'm not around.

It's pretty much gotten to the point that I specifically take my holiday at the absolute quietest times of the year just so I'm not totally swamped when I come back. You'd figure these idiots would do something to at least accommodate me but alas, I still wait in vain. I can't wait to find something else and see how they manage without me.

So in a word, I've been so swamped at work that the blog had to take a bit of a backseat.

Believe it or not, I still found lots of time to play Poker though! Let me rephrase that, I still found lots of time lose enormous amounts of money at Poker though! Nothing really special, running a bit bad and playing like absolute arse make for a bad recipe. Here's a graph that was taken a few days before the end of August.

You can add another 700$ down the drain on Cake Poker which almost adds up to a 2000$ loss; or 20 buy-ins if you will. The big spike in there was where the whole thing really went down south, a 12 buy-in loss in one day. I had stopped after four but I was so pissed at the various coolers and suck outs that I couldn't stay away. Boy did I learn the hard way the value of stop losses.

I did earn 520$ of Rakeback for the month and another 500$ since the start of September which takes me halfway out of the hole. If anything, a downswing forces you to take a step back and look at your game as a whole and make the necessary adjustments. The big thing for me was to bluff (read c-bet) a lot less, especially out of position. I've also layed down small pocket pairs in and out of position in three bet pots lately. It's all about controlling the swings and pushing the big hands really hard. Not the most exciting Poker to play but I can't really argue with the results.

I'll grind some more cash tonight although I'd really like to play a tourney. I might try to satellite my way in the 50-50. We'll see. I will be back tomorrow.

Later

Break Time

2007-07-31T16:01:00.000-04:00

All right, I think I've pretty much nailed all my goals for the month and it's time to take a little break to soak it all in.

July has been a great month. I've played tons of hands and I've managed to reach 700$ in Rakeback. The fact that I mostly played 50$NL should tell you that is quite a shit load of hands to run through in a month. Yes, yes it is and I'm now on the point of a burn out so It's safe to say I've earned a few days break.

My play in the past few days shows the effect of wear and tear. Playing through the motions like a robot tends to bring result that are less than optimal. I would often make stupid borderline calls, get caught making one too many fancy plays, chasing without getting the right odds, etc. The proof is in the pudding: In the last three days on Full Tilt Poker, I've managed to play more than 3.3K hands. My net result for these past three days? 3, 70$.

That's not a typo.

And that's not counting the debacle on Cake Poker either. Sheesh!!

I'll gladly take this one on the chin and debate that, at the very least, it's not a big hole that I dug myself into. But I definitely need to stay away from the laptop for two or three days. I've been more tilt prone lately and am just generally mentally exhausted. My hasty exit in the 50/50 is enough proof of that. I'll spare you the details, they're embarrassing enough for me to keep to myself.

I probably would have been unable to play tonight due to prior obligations and my brother is hosting a home game on Wednesday. Thursday is still up in the air at this point but I could easily find myself something else to do by then. As of right now, all signs point to me returning to the tables on Saturday at the latest, which I believe is perfectly acceptable.

My plan moving forward will be to move up permanently to the NL 1$ level. I don't think I have much more to prove at the 0.50$ level anyways. I've beaten those games consistently at a 10BB/100 clip through 50k hands which means I'm definitely ready to graduate. I am currently rolled for NL 2$ so the money wont' be an issue either.

I've dabbled in the 1$ stakes before so I won't be intimidated by the money all that much. I guess my target for the next few months is to hit a decent win rate for the next 50K hands and reevaluate from there if another vertical move is in order. My main priority right now is to deposit 2K on the Ipoker network. The games look ridiculously soft and I'd like to build something down there. I would now have my bankroll split across three sites: Full Tilt, Cake Poker and Titan. I figure I could two table on all three sites and play 6 tables at the same time. I'm so smrt!!

So enjoy the next few days, I won't be a threat to your money for a little while!

Doomswitched!!

2007-07-30T15:34:00.000-04:00

I was running so ridiculously hot for the past few weeks that I was simply waiting for the other shoe to drop. I was literally incapable of losing a hand at time it seems. Get the money in with the worst hand in a pair over pair situation and I'd hit my two outer on the river. If I had draw it hit, a lower pocket and I hit my set, etc. The results were especially ridiculous on Cake Poker where my 625$ in my account became 2100$ in a week and a half of play.

Enter last Friday.

Wow, where to begin? How about getting stacked three times with Pocket aces against flopped sets? Where have you ever seen such ridiculous bad luck as this? Run into a set with aces three times in less than 250 hands? None of Hoy's lucksack BS of winning 470 out of 470 with these babies. Not here that's for damn sure.

Other than that, meh the usual. Flop two pair, someone else rivers a higher two pair. Set going down to straights and flushes and my absolute favourite, getting nailed with two outers, on the river no less, by smaller pairs against my monster. And pocket kings is by far my biggest loser this month, I'm down 300+$ with them for the month of July!

I like to come here and vent but I'm not really that upset. Let's face it, it would be incredibly hypocritical of me to complain considering how freaking hot I've been running for this past month. In fact, the past few months have been really great to me. Let's put things in perspective, shall we? On may 1st, when Neteller pulled out of the Canadian market, I cashed most of my bankroll and left 500$ on Full Tilt and 500$ on Cake Poker. As of today, my Full Tilt account stands at 3800$ and Cake Poker is a dozen dollars short of 2k. Add the 600$+ dollars of Rakeback that will hit my account in the next few days and you can clearly see that things are going quite well in the land of the Artiste. Long may it continue.

I also won what was quite possibly my largest pot of my Poker career. Sitting at 1$ NL limit table 200 BB deep, I got all my money in with a flopped set of queens against pocket kings and some other moron with an OESD. I filled up on the turn and the river failed to bring a king to ship a ridiculous 300$+ pot my way. Maybe just maybe the doomswitch has been lifted. Guess we'll find out soon enough.

More of the same in store for tonight. I really want to play the 50/50 but I'm exhausted right now so maybe I'll take nap and see how I feel by then. If I can't make it tonight, I'll figure something else for the rest of the week.

Good luck at the tables!!!

Full Tilt crashed AGAIN last night

2007-07-27T15:42:00.000-04:00

I don't know if anybody else was aware but after the BBT freeroll disaster on Wednesday, Full Tilt pulled the same stunt against last night. What makes this even more infuriating (for me anyways) is that I was just about to stack some donkey who was chasing a flush and his miracle card hit at the same time as my full house! Needless to say I was pissed. To add insult to injury, I couldn't log in anytime soon after to find out what happens with the funds invested in the pot when a situation like that occurs? Does the hand automatically goes to showdown? We'll see when I come back tonight.

One thing is for sure, this whole mess has definitely encouraged me to move at the very least half of my roll from Full Tilt and relocate at Titan Poker for the next little while. I'll still keep some money on Tilt for tournaments and blogger donkery but I'll pay the majority of my rake elsewhere for the next little bit.

Last night's session was a doozey too. I logged on the tables drunk out of my mind and I started playing a ridiculous laggy style on a equally ridiculous amount of tables. I was timing out of tables all over the place like crazy. Net result? Up 6 buy ins on Full Tilt down three on Cake Poker. And two of the buy ins that were dropped had me considerably ahead when the money went in. Can't win ‘em all I guess. Now watch me lose out my gourd when I sit down at the tables sober tonight. Such is Poker my friends.

Right now I'm just trying to get as much hands in as I can before the end of July. I'd like to reach 500$ of Rake back for the month. Before last night's play I was up to 448$ so there's no doubt I'm going to make it there but if I could hit 700$, that would obviously be better. Regardless, I'll be looking to go all out in the next few days

I don't think I have registered for one tournament this week which is pretty disappointing. I have to keep working at these things if I hope to win a nice score. I want to hit the 50/50 at least twice next week and I'll enter a few of these 75$ Token frenzies while I'm at it. The 75$ tournaments usually mean big prize pools and fewer donkeys to work your way through.

Enjoy the weekend!

Tough night

2007-07-19T09:28:00.000-04:00

Got reamed badly last night. Dropped 4 buy-ins in 153 hands. Just not pretty. I checked my PT stats afterwards and my 0% hands won at showdown was worthy of a few lol's. Thankfully I quit the cash games right then and there before this whole thing degenerated into an all-out disaster.

In short, my QQ in the big blind was greeted by AA in the small blind. AK < A3 when some idiot keeps calling my over-bets with A crap kicker and he rivers his second pair. Flopped trip kings with KQ only to lose to a flush on the river and finally, got all my chips in the middle from the BB with AK against some 65% lag who calls with 77 and I promptly lose to a 2-7-2 flop.

GG cash games.

With cash games being out of the question for the rest of the night, I register for the 15$ 50/50 satellite. I chip up early and double up when I win a race with AK against 99. I have a nice stack but I doubt it's going to be enough to reach the magic 35 number. I pick up some chips here and there but I'm starting to fall behind and I need some chips. I finally find AK under the gun and I open for 4X the big blind. All folds to the SB who pushes it in for 600 more. I obviously call. He flips over Kh-Jh. lol. Flop: Ah-2h-2x. Care to take a guess on how that one finished?

So I'm now crippled and a few hands later I call an all-in push with Ad-8d. I spike an ace on the flop to beat 9-9 and I'm back in this thing. I pretty much fold my way into the tournament from there.

505/50 started off well, I chipped up quite nicely by winning two pots with 10-10 and JJ. Yes, this donkey was catching cards. I took my first hit when I defended my big blind with Qd-8d against a player who had been raising every hand that folded to him in late position. The flop comes up Q-10-8. Now I know this player will CB every time so I check with the intention pushing on his bet. He makes it easier for me by pushing himself. I call and he flips up KJ. 9 on the turn completes the straight and I lose a nice chunk of my stack. Great.

A few hands later, I open from the button with Ks-9s. BB pushes it in, the raise is not that much more and I'm getting two to one on my money. I have a fairly decent hand and at that price I decide to make the call. He flips up AK. I flop a 9 but an ace falls on the turn and I'm now crippled. What a freakin' night this is turning out to be!

I'm in push and pray mode now. A late position raiser makes it 3x BB to go and I push for 1k with 3-3. He insta-calls with Qh-Jh. Flop comes xh-xh-x. So I now have to dodge one bazillion outs to make it. I don't like my chances. Turn J, IGH.

GG tournaments.

GG Poker.

Close but no cigar

2007-07-13T15:27:00.000-04:00

The above screen shot was taken on Tuesday night, mere seconds after I busted out of the 24K. It was a good tourney, had a blast and that was my best tourney score in quite while. Kinda said ain't it? The most frustrating part is that I was tournament chip leader when the tourney was down to three tables. What happened? Lost some big races, paid off some people stupidly and, my biggest sin, a definite lack of aggression in the final tables. Looking back, I realize that there was many spots where I could have put in a 3-bet with weaker holdings but I lacked the necessary "mmph" to pull the trigger.

I'm still rebuilding the roll so I' won't spit on the 250$ but man, anything over 1K would have been HELLA sweet. One of these days...

Hoy has been raving about the 50/50 lately but the structure in the big money guarantees are pretty much all the same. 3k starting stacks, 12 minute levels and ridiculously god awful players in the early stages that simply seem to be hurry to hand over their chips. There's definitely an opportunity to make money here since these things hardly ever become push-fests and actual talent can come through in the end,

I really need to work on my aggression in the later stages of these tourney though. With the ante's and blinds being so large at that point, stealing blinds is important, yes, but stealing raises is even better. I'll experiment more with this in the upcoming week.

The 50/50 sounds really down appealing lately. I'll try to play it at least once this week. I'll enter those satellite frenzies and hopefully I can make it in on my first try.

This weekend should be pretty much all about the cash games. I'm attending a wedding reception tomorrow and a World Cup Under 20 quarter final game on Sunday. I'll try and fit as much Poker as I can in between all those events. Wish me luck.

Yup, still seeking...

2007-07-10T16:05:00.000-04:00

I've had a few more attempts at the 17.5K but nothing extraordinary to show for it yet. It's a really nice tourney to play, double stack and the field is usually less than 1000. Problem with it is that it starts at 2:00 in the afternoon. Stupid work.

There seems to be an alternative on the horizon though. I read on KOD's blog that the 26k guaranteed, and it's 8:00 PM start time, is now a double stacker? I'll probably take a shot at it tonight.

My strategy for these tournaments seems sound. I hardly ever bust out by getting blinded out and having to push with ATC or any ace; my nemesis has been to run into bigger pairs at crucial stages of the tournament (read: the final three tables). If for freaking ONCE, I could catch a break like that , I could maybe make some kind of score, although I'm holding my breath.

Cash games are going fine. I'm doing a better job of not overplaying top pair and making the big lay downs. I've been all about the breakeven lately but I'll take that over the losing any day.

Now that the BBT is over, I'm a little bit disappointed to see that the fields have shrunk so dramatically. Seriously, the Mookie crashed from a weekly 70+ runners to not even 40 in a week? Come on. You're probably all thinking, isn't this the guy who played a grand total of 7 events? (Might actually be even less). If I could have played more, I would have but I simply could not find the time. I'll still try to make it to the Blogger events but they will be taking the back seats to the daily guarantees, that is, until I make a big score. (Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease happen soon)

I'll see you guys out there.

Seeking Tournament Success

2007-06-29T09:12:00.000-04:00

Poker, to me anyways, is oh so cyclical. If you followed this blog for any amount of time whatsoever, you'll notice the same patterns repeating over and over again: Me loving Poker playing 1k hands for 14 straight days followed by me being bored with Poker and barely playing a hand in a month (ditto for posting here). Can't really help it, I've been like that all my life.

My recent switch to NL cash games has propped up my interest in the game again. I'm motivated and really looking forward to sit at the tables and get some hands in on a daily basis. The results have been more than acceptable, so that obviously helps a whole bunch.

The biggest difference this time is that I really crave playing tournaments. I don't really know where it came from but something just clicked and I keep daydreaming about making some kind of big score. We're NOWHERE near that yet but at least I'm playing in these things so that's a first step.

I went fairly deep in the Daily Double A on Tuesday, outlasting 667 of the 757 entrants before I pushed my queens into kings to send me home packing. The payout was laughable, 20$, not even breaking even since I registered for both events. Note to self, win tokens and play tournaments where actual money is being handed out.

The 14K on Monday was a bit more disappointing. I was really looking forward to playing this event since it's a double stack and the cost is a modest 26$ token. That thing was a grind from beginning to end. Couldn't catch a card to save my life and my steal attempts kept getting re-popped to the point that I was steaming and impatient. I met my demise shortly after the first break when my all-in re-steal with KJs ran straight into the BB's kings. Fun times!

All this to say that you can now expect to see me in the player's list of many of those 14k+ guaranteed tourneys on Full Tilt (ID: Papi Justify). Hey, I'm just some kid having big dreams of making a big score in this game. I'll probably play a bunch on Sunday and Monday (Although I'll be missing the Big game due to other obligations, lame I know) so hopefully we get to sit together at a final table! One can only hope...

Candy Canes is Gold (Part 1)

2007-06-20T13:00:00.000-04:00

(6 max) - $0.25/$0.50 - No Limit Hold'em

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Papi Justify [7h 7d]
Papi Justify raises to $1.75 from MP
SB raises to $5.75
BB calls $5.25
Papi Justify calls $4

If the BB doesn't call this raise, I'm folding since the SB is clearly reprensenting a big pair. As it is, the BB's call gives me the implied odds to try and flop my set.

*** FLOP *** [Jh 7c 9h]
SB bets $12.50
BB raises to $25
Papi Justify raises to $41.80, and is all in

SB is obviously betting his over pair here. BB's raises throws me off a bit. What is he raising with here that would call a raise AND a re-raise preflop? Pocket 9's or Pocket J's maybe? Slowplayed a pair of aces or kings?

I push since I'm a donkey who can't fold a set to save his life.

SB raises to $59
BB calls $34

Ok, what the fuck is going on here?

*** TURN *** [Jh 7c 9h] [5c]
SB $0.60, and is all in
BB $0.60
SB [Qc Qd]
BB shows [Tc 8c]
Papi Justify shows [7h 7d]

Wow. SB is clearly clueless, how on earth could he ever think his queens are good after all that action on the flop? Oh, and gotta love that preflop call from the BB, I mean isn't pretty standard to call a raise and a re-raise with 10-8s preflop?

I obviously need help here so...

*** RIVER *** [Jh 7c 9h 5c] [7s]
SB shows two pair, Queens and Sevens
BB shows a straight, Jack high
BB wins the side pot ($35.60) with a straight, Jack high
Papi Justify shows four of a kind, Sevens
Papi Justify wins the main pot ($139.65) with four of a kind, Sevens
SB is sitting out

Ship it!!!

Falling flat on one's face

2007-06-19T09:48:00.000-04:00

Well, things didn't really turn out the way I would have hoped so.

I was SOOOOO excited to play the MATH for the first time in well over a year that failing so miserably left quite the bitter taste in my mouth.

1. I knew things were not going to be easy when I saw how tough my starting table was. (Smokkee, Colombo, Jordan, Huge Junk, C-mitch are the ones I can remember right now)

2. I definitely wasn't prepared to play this event properly. This is a double stack event, I played it like a single stack donkfest. Raising in early position with marginal holdings (and subsequently, folding to many re-raises), making loose calls from the blinds with crap cards, dumb continuation bets out of position with danger cards all over the place, etc. Definitely not my finest showing. I'll be back next week, making the necessary adjustments and hopefully making a run at the final table. Gah!

Btw, Cmitch, who busted me early in the tourney (I don't think I lasted an hour, which is pretty sad in a big stack tourney) ended up winning the whole thing. Now, I don't really keep count of these sort of things but people who knock me out of these blogger events tend to win them like a lot. It doesn't matter if it's first hour of final table, it seems going through me guarantees good results. So you now know what to do in the future; put a big fat giant target on my back and try to take me out early.

Oh and kudos to Jordan for making it all the way to third place. When I busted out, he was, I believe, the only player that had even less chips that I had before I was sent packing. Seems like that boy is running hot right now.

I wish I could say my night of disappointments ended there but I unfortunately decided to blow off some steam on the cash game tables. That was a mistake. I didn't play poorly, it was just fairly obvious that last night was not my night and the computer should have been off after the MATH.

The end result was a 3 buy in loss. The cash tables were pretty much a continuation of the earlier tourney. Missed flops galore, second best hands all over the place, etc. It's kinda sad, especially since I had position on a bunch of horrible donkeys that were hitting their magical cards left right and centre. I got stacked twice. The first time I pushed my queens on a flop of under cards and was called by another player holding pocket 10's who turned his freakin' set. *Sigh*. The second time was purely a tilt hand where I pushed my TPTK (Pair of nines with an ace obv) into some ‘I see 85% of the flops' monkey who had flopped two pair with 9-5o. Yeah, it was that kind of night.

So when did I finally call it quits? After then entire table limps in, I make it 5$ to go with aces on the button. Sb and UTG call. The flop comes out 9-7-2 rainbow. Utg leads out for half the pot, I really don't like it so I pot to find out where I stand. SB pushes, Utg pushes behind and I lol before folding my hand in disgusts. Sb's hand: Pocket 2's. Utg: Pocket 7's.

Like I said, just that kind of night.

About to play the Hoy!

2007-06-18T22:06:00.000-04:00

Man, it's been awhile. In what was probably the longest Tier one Sng in the history of Full Tilt Poker, I managed to bag a 26 token that I've already used to book a seat in this week Monday at the Hoy tourney. The Math, along with theRiverchasers tourney, are the two blogger events that I've played the least. I think I've played one Math tourney (Wayyyy back in the day when it was held on Pokerstars) and I have yet to pop my Riverchasers cherry. Now that I have somewhat of a bankroll on Full Tilt, I'm glad that I'll be able to play more of these events in the future.

The Unlimited Hold'em cash games have been kind to me this weekend I'm happy to say. After a nasty stretch of breakeven play (About 5k hands) it was nice to land on the positive side of things. There's really no secret recipe to obtain success at 50$ NL tables. Basic ABC poker will get the job done. It's a nice grind so I can't complain for now, but I can't wait to actually some real poker when I reach the 1$ tables.

Well, my MATH table just popped up so I guess that's it for me. Hopefully my next post will be all about me besting 50 odd blogger for a nice 500$ payday. One can only hope!

Later

Bubble Burster

2007-05-24T08:59:00.000-04:00

Last night was pretty much your prototypical meh Poker night. Cash games were woefully uneventful. Draws missed, a zillion little to mid pocket pairs failed to improve to sets, etc. I think I finished up 10$ which I promptly dumped on the Mookie.

I started the Mookie off with a bang, doubling up my starting stack less than 20 minutes in. I was just catching cards and flops were hitting my ass harder than a two thousand pound bag of bricks. I nailed at least three sets by the end of the second break and got my fair share of big pocket pairs: Kings twice, tens at least four times, AK twice, etc. It's no wonder I had a top three stack for most of this event, even a retard would be successful getting dealt the hands I was given.

So how the hell did I manage to bubble the final table? Weak tight bloggers grinding short stacks waiting for big cards led to my demise.

I'm quite simply shocked at how terribly WEAK some people play these things. Nobody is taking shots or stabbing at pots unless they have the goods. Many hands were folded to me in my BB when the blinds were quite significant (50-100 and up) and I was left shaking my head in disbelief at the consecutive amount of times where hands were simply given up to the BB.

So how was that bad for me? With around 30 people left, the tournament became a ridiculous push-fest where all the weak tight nits were jamming every playable hand they would come upon while I was stuck in card-deadness hell. It's also really hard to steal some blinds with junk like 3-9o when the nits behind are just waiting to go over the top with their 2500 stacks.

So my stack remained solid but I couldn't build on it or run away from the pack. It all unravelled for me in the last two tables. Whenever I tried to make a move, someone would come over the top for all their chips and I just couldn't find a hand to risk 50%+ of my stack. The Coup de Grace was delivered when I pushed Q7s for the cut-+off only to be called by the button with his pocket nines. I flop a queen but the dreaded nine came on the turn and IGHN.

I'm playing at my friend's place tonight and maybe I can squeeze an online session later. We'll see.

I'll see ya'll later!

Don't Call it a Comeback Part 27

2007-05-23T14:57:00.000-04:00

Huh, hi! It's been awhile hasn't it? Don't REALLY have a good excuse for not posting anything in nearly four months except that life got in the way. And whenever life gets in the way, Poker tends to take a backseat. I hardly played a hand in three months and while I'd really like to entertain the masses with the non-Poker events in my life, I'm quite simply too poor of a writer to try and take this blog in that direction.

But what have you been up to in these past months Mr. Artiste?

In no particular order: Attending my brother's wedding, organizing the bachelor party for my brother, broke up with my girlfriend, got buried under a shit-ton pile of work, reaching the playoffs for the first time in our indoor soccer league, losing promptly in the first round of said playoffs, intently following the NHL playoffs (Go SENS!) and destroying my Poker bankroll.

WHAT?

Well not destroying per say, but pretty much withdrawing all but 1K of the 10K I had earned in my 18+ months career. I didn't want to take any chances when Neteller announced that they were pulling out of the Canadian market so I pretty much hightailed it out of there leaving 500$ apiece on Full Tilt and Cake Poker (Rakeback you see).

and then what?

I've been playing sporadically. I've definitely quit min-bet Poker. Done. Finished. I simply couldn't stand rebuilding a roll playing 1-2$ limit so I moved up to the Cadillac of Poker, NLHE. So far so good, the results have been positive and my passion for the game seems to be renewed somewhat. I've been playing the absolutely dreadful 25$ tables but I am now on the verge of moving up to 50$. At that point, I'm hoping that I'll be able to grind out a nice little amount of Rakeback and kick the rebuilding phase into high gear.

I've been playing the Mook for the past weeks. I final tabled last week (finished 4th I think) and I landed well into the points the week before. If feels a little bit odd to be overjoyed at winning 80$ but such is the state of my roll those days and I'll take whatever I can get.

So yeah, catch me at the Mook tonight. My schedule is clearing up so hopefully I can manage to do this blogging thing more than once in a while.

Don't call it a comeback just yet...

Joyeux anniversaire Monsieur l’Artiste!!

2007-02-01T13:06:00.000-05:00

Yup, believe or not, it was my 27th birthday on Tuesday. I guess I can no longer call myself a young’un. Three shorts year ‘til thirty? Gross.

The best thing about celebrating your birthday in the middle of the week? Getting to hit the strip club in the middle of the week and getting drunk there and hitting them again with a different set of friends on the weekend to do the same shit all over again. Holla!!

I haven’t been posting much on the blog for the simple fact that I haven’t been playing much Poker lately. The reasons are twofold:

1. Too much drama in my life. GF drama (she’s now out of the picture, I think it’s for the best) and, work drama (just getting fed up of this place, my top priority for 2007 is finding something better instead of toiling around here)

2. Well, it’s time to admit that it’s getting harder and harder to find quality games and tables going out there. The past few weeks have been so frustrating as a cash game player for table selection that I was literally questioning my involvement in online Poker. Some nights have been better than others but one starts to wonder if the Fish are gonna be putting up with this shit for long? Yeah, us degenerates, bloggers and online pros will obviously seek alternative methods of depositing money online but what about John Q American, the 40 year old blue collar schmuck who was able to somewhat sustain himself against the biggest fishes at Party Poker but was regularly padding my roll? Not only has he lost access to his site but now they’ve taken Neteller away from him too? How long is he gonna stick around now?

All we can do right now is pretty much wait. Let’s see how this thing pans out in the near future and go from there.

My January was overall a + month but it definitely has vibes of ‘What might have been’. I know I reached my target of 500$ of rakeback for the month but I’m pretty sure I failed to play 20K of LHE. NLHE? Hee, I don’t think I’ve played 500 hands this month. Oh well, nowhere to go but up I guess.

Believe it or not, I kinda missed this blogging thing, I’ll try and do a better job of playing AND writing this month.

Thanks for stopping by!

Donkaments will be the death of me

2007-01-16T15:11:00.000-05:00

As I stated in my list of goals for the year 2007, I need to make a better effort of sitting down in some tournaments and put myself in situations to win a big score. Sooooo, I sat down at the Laptop yesterday with the intention of playing some tournaments. Browsing through the list of upcoming tournaments on Full Tilt two events ended up catching my eye: The nightly 25K guaranteed and the 10$ Double something (It’s basically a set of tournaments that start at 9:00 and 9:02 with some kind of promotions and what not tied into it.)

Time was slightly an issue since I didn’t feel like paying the full buy-in for the 25K, preferring to go the token route instead. I decided to enter one of the double and a two-table 26$ token donk and go.

My run in the double was short-lived. After doubling up my starting stack on the first hand (in a ridiculous one where my ATo became TPTK on the flop, Trips top kicker on the turn and Quads on the river) I promptly dumped 2/3 of my stack pushing KK into AA pre-flop a few minutes later. I was out shortly after when I pushed A9 from the CO into the BB’s AK. Let’s try this one again tomorrow, shall we?

The donk and go went well. I doubled up, again, in my first three hands. I flopped two pair and ended up going all-in against some tool who figured this was a good spot to call an all-in with an OESD. That was pretty much it. I barely played a hand after that and folded my way to a token. Off to the 25K I go…

And this was quite the interesting experiment, I’ll say. Ever played a tournament where you kept winning your races when you’re WAY behind when the money goes in but lose all the ones where you’re a huge favourite? These are usually the nights where you SHOULD be making the money and reaching final tables but, alas, it was not meant to be. I had started pretty nicely, doubling up my stack early and playing some sound focused Poker. That was until I had AA and TT cracked in succession to relegate me to short stack status. That’s when the circus started. Every single hand I ended up pushing with was behind but I kept winning the showdowns. A9>AQ when I flop two nines. 88>99 thanks to a four card flush that I spike on the river. A7> AK when I end up dodging a billion outs for my opponent and hitting a miracle 7 on the river. And yet, even if I’m winning all those races, I really couldn’t get ahead since I kept losing chips at critical moments that didn’t allow me to build my stack. I went out when I pushed A8 into the BB’s AK and no suckout to bail me out this time.

I believe there were 1500+ runners last night, which is a LOT of donkeys. I don’t really have the patience or the discipline to sit down and play such an event properly. Yep, that means the Crack Head Kid^tm made an other appearance as I started popping cash game tables open while I was folding myself to sleep in the tournament. At least the cash games went well, I ended up winning a couple of hundreds which easily covered the expenses for the night but still…

Will be doing again for sure, most probably on Thursday. I just need to get into some kind of groove and find out what situation works out best for me as far as number of tournament tables open, limits, etc. Once I get there, I can really focus on winning some serious Moolah.

Quick Weekend Recap

2007-01-15T15:45:00.000-05:00

I spent relatively few days on the virtual Poker tables this weekend; I’ve been fighting this nasty flu/cold combo that doesn’t really put me in the mood to do much. The few hours that I played were quite successful so that’s definitely a bonus. The weather has now turned to fully shitty for us Canadians so I expect to find plenty of hours to grind it up in the upcoming week.

I did spend quite a few hours in front of the boob-tube watching the NFL playoffs though. What can I say about the results? Nothing disappointed me more than the Sand Diego Chargers gift wrapping that game to Tom %$#&*# Brady and NE. I mean wow, how many chances did they have to bury these twats? The stupid head butt, Rivers’s HORRIBLE lob pass getting picked, the 4th down pick/fumble when a fucking DROP would have put the game away? By far the most ridiculous post-season display I’ve seen in quite some time.

I won’t say a word about the coaching. I mean you have the MVP of the league on your team who’s carving up the defence at will whenever he touches the ball and you somehow take the ball away from with 4:00 left in the game with possession? And go with an inexperienced QB who’s having a shaky game at best? WTF? That’d be like the Chicago bulls running their offence through Horace Grant instead of Michael Jordan. Geez…

What’s worst? We’ll now have to deal with weeklong media dick riding of Brady and Manning in a ridiculous gag fest of epic proportions. I figure it’s going to be New Orleans-New England in the big game.

I don’t have much about the games on the other side except for this: You have to admit that’s it’s pretty hilarious to hear various media outlets describing the Bears victory as a game Grossman didn’t lose. How insulting is that? Hee!

1-outered on the river

2007-01-09T17:09:00.000-05:00

Seriously, was Tony Romo’s gaffe as big as it gets as far as sports betting goes? If you had some serious money ridin’ on that shit, how pissed were/are you right then/now? Can we say that was the Football equivalent of some dumbass noob spiking his one outer on the river?

Lord knows my drunk arse was laughing itself into a fit when I witnessed the whole damn thing go down. Thanks for the memories Romo, although I’m sad that to say your career is now over. Oh well, at least you reportedly had the opportunity to bang Jessica Simpson which should be worth more than a Super bowl ring anyway. Well, it is to me.

I’ve been playing more and more hands of shorthanded Unlimited Hold’em (50$ tables) and things are going quite well so far. I refuse to say that I’m playing well since it seems the people I am playing against have the collective IQ of a turnip. Yessir, pay me off my obviously slow played flopped nut full after checking-checking and pushing on the river! Of course your QJ is good for all your chips against my kings when I push the flop of rags. And please, keep calling my all-in three bet when the flush card hits on the turn, after giving me unlimited odds to draw on you by checking behind on the flop.

Where the fuck did these people learn to play poker?

I’m playing my NL cash at Titan Poker right now. Lots of players at this level and their talents are, well, nonexistent. I have just about 600$ in that account, I’m hoping to grind that up to a 1000$ before making a move to the 100$ level and start playing some real Poker.

My Shorthanded min-bet game is all over the place on the other hand. It basically seems to be going all this:

Me wins lots of monies at 5-10$
Me loses lots of monies at 3-6$

Is it time to move up permanently? I’m way over rolled for 3-6$ and maybe that has started to reflect in the results. I’ll give it a try and see what happens. It’s a bit discouraging to realise that while I was up over a grand at 3-6$ a month, I am now down 300$ at that level!! At the other end, I’m up three grand at 5-10$. Is it possible to run bad at one level and better at another on the same site?!? We’ll stick with what’s working for now and time will tell.

The year that was and the year that shall be

2007-01-04T15:18:00.000-05:00

Did that title make any sense at all?

So what to say of our dear ol’ friend 2-0-0-6? All in all, I have to conclude that it was a success. My bankroll is now 5X bigger than it was at the end of 2005 and, in the end, that’s really what matters for a poker player. To be on the + side of things when it’s all said and done.

I’d like to think that my play has improved as a whole. I’m no longer a pure pre-flop player. I can now make plays on all streets. I can make the big laydowns, I can minimize my losses and extract value of my good and marginal hands. I can now think the game better, much better, than I could a year ago so kudos on that front also.

On the lesser side of things, my reaction to my first serious downswing (50% of my roll in about two months) was pretty disappointing. I hid and whined like a coward trying to protect what I had left instead of manning up, grit my teeth and dig my way out. I did get out of it eventually, but I definitely set myself back, way back, by being so cowardly. Lesson learned, those who repeat the same mistakes are what we call insane so let’s make sure we don’t end up in the loony bin of Poker shall we?

What now? Optimism. I believe I can make 2007 my real coming out party. This could be THE year where I leave behind the title of small stakes amateur and become a full fledge mid-limit semi professional. All the tools are there; a 5 digit roll, confidence in my abilities, eagerness to improve and the overall discipline to become a better player. To put all this nonsense in goals:

1. Play more hands! So simple yet so hard to achieve. I clocked the month of December at 25K hands, by FAR the most I’ve ever achieved in any month. Not only was this my best month ever financially wise, I also managed to break the 1K in rake back earnings in a month. Now I doubt I’ll ever be able to play that many hands in short little while (I had a bunch of days off in December) but a strict minimum of 15K hands per month and 500$ in rakeback should put me well on my way.

2. Expand my horizons. Which basically means seriously playing NL Hold’em cash games. This is where the money is folks. Now I love grinding the shorthanded limit games but the fact of the matter is there are far more donkeys and far more money on these NL tables. Now I’ve started putting in hours at these tables and the results have been average at best. I’ve been getting stacked a lot by sticking in my money as big favourite lately. Which basically means I’m on the right track and eventually, the money will come. I’ll put a floor of 5k hands a month to start but anything more will be greatly appreciated .Oh yeah, for some reason I’m really attracted to 7 Card stud so I really want to play some of that this year.

3. Play more tournaments. This one is a biggie. This is where the big money is to be made but I am nowhere to be found in these things. Am I the next Hoy, Smokee or Iak? Probably not. One thing’s for sure though, I’ll never come close to these guys unless I get my ass out there and start making moves of my own. And by moves I’m not talking about the occasional ‘Oh let’s sign up for this 10$ donkefest while I’m waiting for the hockey game to start in four hours’. I’m actually talking about winning tokens and playing 13k guarantees and up type tournaments. I actually need to take these things just as seriously as I do my cash games and the results will inevitably come.

4. Play more live. Options are a bit limited here since the closest casino (Where Poker is offered) is about a two hour drive away. I still have access to my fair share of low buy-ins tourneys in various pubs around the city with fairly decent structures but, again, I’m hardly ever around to take a stab at these. An issue here might be my lack of a live roll although that could be resolved quite easily if I simply decided to cash out 50% of my rake-back every month to build a live roll. Something I’ll definitely be taking a look at.

5. Attend a blogger event. This is pretty much a no-brainer. If there ever was a time for me to take advantages of trips and parties like this, it definitely is now. I’m single and I don’t have kids to look after (at least, as far as I know) so the time is pretty much now. Get those benders in while I can and sit back and enjoy the memories later when it’s all said and done.

There, that should be enough for 2007. I’ll definitely make a note of looking back at this list early in 2008 and see how I ended up doing. A toast to a great year!!!

Playtime’s over, time to get back to work

2007-01-02T15:28:00.000-05:00

Ugghhhhh!
-------------------------

- Me this morning hitting the snooze button for the umpteenth time while dreading heading back to work.

Fuck you work, you suck.

Kiss my ass.

*Ahem*

Well, it eventually had to happen. Holiday don’t last forever. It was good while it lasted but I was one of the many who was headed back to work after a way too short two weeks of, well, not doing much really. Those, btw, are the best kind of holidays. I pretty much lost the knack for heading out to 1084556 zillions places and ending up coming back more tired than I was before I left in the first place.

With that out of the way, I can say that whatever time off I had was pretty well spent. I did manage to play lots of Poker and wins decent amount of moniez, got my drank on like three gazillion times and I also got to indulge in my fair share of eating binges that would surely send me to an early grave were I to repeat them on many different occasions.

While I truly enjoy the slacking off, the family gathering and the booze, one annual tradition stands out for me whenever the festive season is upon us.

Boxing day shopping.

A lot of people in my surroundings would probably describe myself as somewhat of a tight wad. (That would be putting it nicely, penny pinching, tight fisted c*nt would probably be muttered by some...). The one day where I truly make an exception is December 26. It is but the one day where I’ll gladly drop hundred’s of dollars on stuff that are nowhere near essential, beyond superfluous and just, well, that I REALLY don’t need but hey, I gots to have my fun too.

Two years ago it was a 600$ digital camera that I’ve used maybe twice. Last year I picked up a 700$ home theatre system that I have yet to take out of the box (you see I was waiting to pick up a 50+” Plasma monster to hook the whole thing up but I lost focus somewhere along the way)

This year: Well, I actually was more conservative in my spending. Presenting, the Samsung 22" Widescreen LCD Monitor (225BW) that is now residing next to my laptop.

Pretty fricking gorgeous my friends. I had a bit of a hard time setting it up to it’s maximum resolution (needed to update my stupid video card drivers) but once I got that all figured out, Whoa! My laptop monitor now looks like a Tandy Monochrome piece of garbage standing next to that monster. I have yet to try playing DVD’s on it, I’ll definitely be up to that this week, but yeah, that was my frivolous spending of the year.
I also picked up these Swank PC speakers for 10$ (down from their regularly listed price of 50$). A pure boxing day deal, although it will be nice to finally get the laptop off those godawful internal PC speakers.

What about boxing day 2007? Meh, we’ll see once it gets here.

Thanks for coming. Tomorrow I’ll probably put up a short recap of the year that was and my objectives for the upcoming year. I’m expecting big things for myself in the Poker World for 2007, sort of like my coming out party which I can’t wait to share with whovever is left reading this sorry excuse of a blog.

‘Till next time!!

***Edit****
Wouldn’t you know it, this was actually my centenary post! As in a 100! Never thought I’d make this far to be honest. Hopefully I can reach that X 10 in the upcoming years!

ACCESS TO THIS INTERNET SITE IS PROHIBITED

2006-12-19T14:24:00.000-05:00

Reason: The Websense category "Proxy Avoidance" is filtered.
------------------------------

This is the message I’m getting when I am now trying to access my blog from work. WTF? Yesterday it seems I was the only victim but there is now quite a few that I can’t access from my workstation. I can still login to blogger though and I can read all the blogs through bloglines. For now. FU Canadian Government, you can’t make me work if I don’t feel like it!!

Poker has been fairly swingy in the past few days. I had another one of my relapses yesterday. You know the ones, quit a session up 200+$, log out, decided to squeeze in a few more hands only to lose everything you had won up until then + more. Tsk tsk, the crack head kid rears his ugly head again. Oh well, I’m still up nicely for the month and there’s nowhere to go but up.

It’s crazy to think that I’ve cracked the 500$ barrier in rakeback and there’s still more than 10 days left in the month. Man, was I ever doing this Poker thing wrong before. It’s insane to think that I could win over 1k a month simply by sitting down and playing hands, by gawd, Wes is banging out 5k in rake back alone on a monthly basis. Oh the possibilities. The yearly reviews will be popping up all over the blogsphere and mine is a bit of downer. On the + side, I quadrupled my roll in 2006 but it’s only now that I start to grasp what is really necessary to crush the online games. 2007 should be interesting for sure.

WWDN? Probably not, I'm still working on that X-Mas shopping thing. Yeah, I suck. I'm almost done though. Things are also looking for me health wise. I usually always manage to get crazy sick in the days leading to X-Mas but this year I caught the bug a few weeks in advance. Now if this shit can hold up for a few more days, knock days, this brotah should be golden. Wish me luck!!

Alive and Well

2006-12-14T15:50:00.000-05:00

Yeah yeah, I’m still here, still doing my thing. I’ve been playing Poker but simply could not find the time to blog. I usually write my posts at work but we’ve been absolutely swamped lately. I can’t freakin’ wait ‘til next Thursday when I finally start my X-Mas holidays. 7 straight days away from work, I don’t think I can picture anything better at this point. I need the days off, badly.

Poker is going well, still doing the grinding thing. It’s not the most exciting activity for sure, but it pads the roll. I should be getting a 300$ rake back payment either today or tomorrow and I’m on pace for a gargantuan 500$+ payment for next month. Looks like I’m finally doing this Poker thing right.

I’ve been enjoying the Vegas Recaps greatly. It seems like such great fun that I always end up kicking myself for not going. I simply have to make it to the next summer event. This is getting silly. If it ends up being near/around the WSOP, some nice possibilities will definitely arise out of this too. I’ll have the vacation, hopefully I’ll have the Passoport and the money shouldn’t be an issue.

IF I DON’T MAKE IT TO THE NEXT BLOGGER GATHERING I WILL PUT MY LEFT NUT ON E-BAY!

BOOK IT!!

There, maybe that is the motivation I need...

X-Mas shopping? I haven’t done shit yet. Nada, nothing, zilch, zero, etc. Yes, I am an horrible son/brother/boyfriend/friend/co-worker. Will be working on that this weekend.

Later..

A decent night

2006-12-06T14:32:00.000-05:00

Dabbled in three different areas of Poker last night and found some success in all three.

It all started off with my usual grinding of the 3-6 6max tables. After finding myself stuck a somewhat significant amount, I turned it around to a 200$ profit. The yo-yo was then headed back in the other direction so I decided to put an end to the madness with a 100$ win. Not the best but I’ll take it.

I then proceeded to finish third in the WWDN. Unfortunately for me, this was quite possibly the smallest turnout I’ve ever seen at this tournament. The prize pool was 300$ for Christ’ sakes! 48$ for third place, how sick is that? I don’t remember lots of hands, it definitely played like a three table SNG. I won most of the races I was involved in (AK beats sevens, KQ beats 10-10 and queens best AK) to give me a pretty solid stack when the game was down to three players. I then pooped the bed making loose calls here and there and finally get myself eliminated by eventual winner Maigrey on a 60%-40% flip (me being on the 40% side of things.) Hoping for a similar result but a better turnout next week for sure.

After my tourney bustout, I decided to load up the various Poker sites on my laptop to try and find some money that I might have forgotten about. Turns out I had about 350$ sitting in Titan Poker.

The whole Titan story is really a tragedy. They were a really decent medium size network that was incredibly FILLED with fish. Enter the online Poker ban. Since that tragic day, this site is nothing but garbage. LHE is pretty much dead except for the 0.50/1$ games and what’s left is some of the tightest rock gardens ever known to man.

I checked out the NLHE games and to my surprise, they had a LOT of ‘em going. I personally don’t mind playing at Titan since I’m getting 35% rake back on that network. So if there’s anyways I can get some hands in at that site, I’ll be more than happy too. So for the first time in my life, I sat down at a .25/50$ NLHE table. I played somewhat tight aggressively. The table seemed fairly tight. You’d rarely see re-raises of any kind, most pre-flop raise would end up taking down the blinds, etc. I played these games for about 30 minutes, just enough to get my first stacking. I was dealt pocket aces in the CO when I see the UTG player make it 2$ to go. All fold to me so I bump it to 8$ total. He calls. Hmm. The flop come 9 high rainbow so I bet about 2/3 of the pot. He calls. Hmm. The turn is an absolute blank , and villain check raises me all-in. I figure he has some kind of over pair and I make the call. He tables KK and I pick up his stack. Yeah! We’ll be doing more of that for sure from now on.

As much as I’d like to play the Mookie tonight, it seems I will have to miss out. I’m a little bit tired and it seems I might be coming down with some kind of cold. I’d rather get this shit now than during my X-Mas holidays so I’ll deal.

Have fun out there!!

And now for something completely different...

2006-12-05T11:09:00.000-05:00

Playing around on Youtube last night I stumbled upon a gem that I hadn’t seen in SUCH a long time that I nearly slapped myself silly for forgetting about it.

Alizée was a young french (as in France, not Quebec) pop starlet ala Britney Spears who released a few bubble gum pop hits in 2002-2003. The music, as you can imagine, was beyond atrocious, but that girl was quite simply the most adorable, cutest thing to ever walk on this planet. Things is, she could also turn on the sex appeal like no one else could. Here’s a video from one of her performances on a cheesy show called “Tube un jour, tube toujours” where she just looks astonishing.

I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say no women has ever looked this good on TV. Ever.

500$ swing? Standard!

2006-12-04T08:43:00.000-05:00

I’m sooooo in love with the craziness of these short handed games that I can’t believe I waited this long to start playing them. It all started on Friday evening when I booked a 150$ win. I left to eat dinner and watch a bit of TV before returning to the tables. Short session where I lost about 200$. Slept for the night and a played bit in the morning. -300$. Quit for the day and came back the next day. Booked a 200$ win early on Sunday and came back in the evening to win back everything I had lost up this point on the weekend.

Ain’t Pokah fun?

On the positive side, I think I played around 2000 hands in the first three days of December. This is what I’m talking about!

I really want to focus on table selection this month. My results obviously improve when idiots are sitting at my table, so the key is to now find the best way to sit with as many idiots as possible at my table. I heard you can filter players Poker Ace Hud or some non sense like that? Gots to find out more about this ‘fer sure.

I played a 180 SNG on stars last night and made it pretty deep. I’ve been busting out in the hundreds in my last few attempts at these so this was a nice change. As is the norm, I got knocked out of the 180's in heartbreaking fashion when I ran aces into kings. Doesn’t make sense you say? It does when all the money goes in pre-flop and two kings promptly drop on the flop. Fucking donkaments.

Anybody started their X-Mas yet? I haven’t done shit. I pretty much know what I’ll be getting for people, now it’s just a matter of getting off my fat ass and, well, doing it. My credit card is already in the ‘Don’t do anything stupid, you barely have anything left’ area so odds are pretty good that I’ll put myself in some kind of financial stranglehold to start the year 2007. I could always cash out my bankroll to...hmm no, that’s not gonna happen.

Later!

1 large on the flip side

2006-11-29T15:00:00.000-05:00

I knew that my last week plowing through the Full Tilt reload bonus was dreadful, I simply did not know how rough it had been. I checked out my stats for the past few days in Poker Tracker and the numbers were disturbing to say the least: Roughly 800$ lost through 1200 hands (or 135 BB at 3/6 6 max). Shit, that much?

Shitty but this time, I’m taking it all in.

As bad as my first serious downswing was in march (Lost roughly 50% of my bankroll playing games that were above me in more ways than one) my reaction to it was even worst. Instead of manning up and rolling with the punches, I whined and cried like a little girl on this blog and pretty much stopped playing in fear of going broke. Problem is, if you’re not playing, you’re not gonna win it back. As a result, my bankroll stayed stagnant, my game regressed and I set myself backwards in my personal Poker adventure. I am just now, making up for the time and the money that was lost back then. I basically threw away 6 months of this calendar year thanks to my cowardice.

My approach, this time, is completely different. Instead of hiding, I am CRAVING to sit my ass back down at the tables and sling some fucking chips. I simply don’t care if I lose my ENTIRE BANKROLL AS LONG AS I AM PLAYING WELL. Reviewing hands in this downswing has revealed that I’ve been overplaying my over cards way too much. While variance has made me miss 1243425345 flops in a row with AK, I shouldn’t be calling down all the way to showdown with ‘em like a brainless newb for shit and giggles. That’s simply bad play. I also need to do a better job of knowing when to quit. My crack head tendencies simply have to go. I simply can’t believe how often I’ll play and leave when I realize It’s not my day only to come back a few hours later and lose some more. Seriously, WTF?

I am better than this. I am bigger than this. And if I ever want to become someone in this Poker thing, I’ll have to handle taking the losses like a man, stick with it and come out of this shit smelling like roses.

Either that, or I’m simply a degenerate gambler that’s fallen off the deep end and for whom all hope is lost. Either way works for me.

Done and done (redux)

2006-11-27T18:03:00.000-05:00

It seems I’m in a bonus clearing spirit lately. I have now completed fully completed the 500$ Full Tilt bonus. End results? 1100$ profit for the good guys. So not only did I end up bringing home the full bonus, I finished with a quite few bucks on the up. And yet...

I’m really not all that satisfied with that tally. Fact is, I was already up a 1000$ with 200$ of bonus left to clear. You can pretty much picture the amount of losing to breakeven Poker that was played by my part over the remaining X hands to finish that sucker off. Bad run? Somewhat. Bad play, most definitely. I was guilty of making a few calls in situations where I simply could not be the winner. And Tilt hit me hard quite a few times also. What can I say, 6-Max is still a new game for me and I’m taking my licks. Again, I’m still grateful to be on the positive side of things rather than on the negative, but there is definitely room for improvement on that front.

On the + side, all that work on Full Tilt will as also netted me over 300$ of rake back. I should be receiving the money early next month. If there are serious cash game players out there who are playing without receiving rake back, I pity them.

Sooo, what’s next for me? For now, I don’t really know. I’m one of those types who’s motivation comes from clearing bonuses and such. I have a reload going on Titan Poker but that site is dying in a hurry. The games are rarely going so bonuses are incredibly slow to run through. We’ll see. I’m taking the night off to figure some things out and we’ll go from there.

Done and done!

2006-11-21T16:03:00.000-05:00

As projected, I managed to run through whatever hands I had left to clear the Royal Vegas Poker in an hour flat by three tabling 6 max short-handed tables. I finished the raked hands with a ridiculous 175$ profit. It all comes down to running sick hot. I don’t think I missed a draw last night. There’s also a lot of donkeys out there but winning over 50 BB’s at a 1/2 table is a bit over the top. Gotta take those days when they come your way I guess.

According to Vegas Poker Pro, I should receive my table cover in approximately 10 days. This is an incredible deal that folks simply shouldn’t pass up. There’s a bunch of sites in there where you can claim a prize by playing nothing more than 250-300 raked hands, a 75 minute job if you can handle at least 4 tables. Other than Poker accessories you’ll also find Books, DVD’s, gift certificates, etc. While I am now headed back to Full Tilt to finish the bonus, I’ll find my way to the land of Vegas Poker Pro soon after.

Royal Vegas Poker was my first experience at a Prima site and I guess I found it okay. I don’t think US players are allowed there anymore and it reflected in the traffic (I think the highest I saw was 7000 players). The software was absolutely horrible. I accidentally raised quite a few times in spots where I was looking to fold due to the odd arrangement of the buttons. It didn’t hurt me all that much but I can see how it could become really frustrating. A cool feature of the site is that they hand you over the 100$ bonus from your deposit straight from the top although you’ll be only be able withdraw after you raked in a 1000 hands. That 100$ is still there right now (I withdrew the rest of the profits) and I’ll probably take it to a 5/10 6-max table and swing for the fences. Those things usually never work for me but hey, gotta live a little.

WWDN tonight, I should be able to make it. I donked out it ridiculous fashion last week so hopefully I manage to make amends.

Good luck out there!

Breaking even-ness

2006-11-20T13:50:00.000-05:00

The lack of action on this blog is pretty much related to my few forays in the Poker world. I’ve mostly been sitting back and putting whatever hours I can at the tables towards clearing the Full Tilt reload bonus. So far so good, I am, I believe, a few dollars away from releasing 400$ out of the 500$ bonus. Not bad. I should definitely be done before the December 16 deadline.

Things have been somewhat tough at these tables lately. I’ve hit a batch of breakeven Poker over my last 1500 hands. It sucks, but hey, it’s better than losing. I maybe should have tried playing shorter sessions and quit when I was shortly ahead but stubbornness and greed got in the way of that and I lossed most of my winnings in the process. A change of scenery might be in order for me which segues nicely to...

**********

Free stuff!

I received an E-Mail the other day from the good folks at Vegas Poker Pro reminding me that I had some points left in my account. I hadn’t been back there in a looooong while so I was really surprised to see all the new Poker sites that were up there. By browsing through the free gifts that were being offered, my eyes caught a glimpse of a rectangular Poker table cover that would be a nice complement to our weekly home games. Cool. Even better is the fact that all I had to do to obtain said table was to play a measly 250 raked hands at Royal Vegas Poker (or many other sites).

Read that once again!!

This is unbelievable chump change to receive such significant gifts. Any serious multi-tabler would clear this in 25 minutes tops. Hell, I managed to rake in more than 1/2 of that in a hour of playing two micro limit shorthanded tables (and a 72$ profit to boot).

I should have this thing done in a hour tonight. I also have some 900 points laying about in Poker Savy so I’ll be looking into putting those things to use too. Should be a nice diversion before I go back running to the Full Tilt tables.

Good luck at the tables ya’ll!

Donkaments make for late nights and sore eyes

2006-11-15T15:56:00.000-05:00

On a whim, I decided to sign up for a 15$ Donkament on Stars last night. I was bored and this was the earliest one starting so I joined in. 3 and a half hours later, I was sent home packing with a payout of 3x my buy-in. Not exactly my favoured outcome but one I will take nonetheless.

It was just one of those nights where I couldn’t really get anything going. For most of the evening I was grinding a medium to short stack. I doubled myself up a few times here and there but was slammed back down whenever I attempted to make moves to give myself a significant stack. I met my demise when I pushed AK into some dude’s KQ where we both flopped a K but he turned a Q to send me packing. If my hand holds up there, I’m looking at making a solid run towards the final table but, alas, it was not meant to be.

I did notice the caliber of play was somewhat more sane. You still see the odd idiot pushing his whole stack in with any ace and a M over ten but other than that, raises definitely earn more respect here. It’s nice to see that re-stealing a button with a pair of 4's won’t be called by that same idiot with K-5s who promptly happens to flop a flush. Nope, none of that there. I guess what I’m really trying to say is that it’s time for me to start stepping up to the plate and play more of these “higher” buy-ins MTT’s (I use the term higher loosely) since I obviously have the money. If I have any hope of making big time money in this, that’s pretty much where I need to be.

Cash games are still decent, still plowing through the FT bonus. I’m think I’m over the 260$ barrier of cleared bonus so It’s now time to take this baby home. The play at FT is standard, you have your solid players but you have WAY more fishes there, thank God, which finally makes it worthwhile to play there. Playing all these hands there has finally allowed me to earn decent rake back for a change. I’m aiming for a 500$ rake back for next month. Won’t be easy but relatively doable.

Niagara Falls was all right, I guess. Didn’t get the opportunity to play any Poker (Travelling with your girl friend will do that to you) but I still managed to get a few hands in through my laptop at the Hotel. I guess I’m really a bona-fide degenerate now. Tsk tsk...

Don’t know if I’ll be able to hit the tables tonight, I really need a good night sleep after last night’s debacle. We’ll see I guess.

Cash games goot, Donkaments baaaaddd

2006-11-08T16:00:00.000-05:00

Yesterday shall be referred to as a night of contrasts for as high as I reached in one aspect of Poker (Cash games), the depths that I’ve stooped to in the Donkaments kinda spoiled the night for me.

While the amounts lost in tournament buy-ins is relatively small (I think the net loss was 20$ for the tourneys), the way that I got bounced was quite simply ridiculous. I don’t think I made it past the 15 minutes mark of ANY tournament I bought in for last night.

First up was 10$ 180 SNG on PokerStars. In what was probably the 6th or 7th hand of the event when I flop two pair from the BB holding Q-6 on a Q-9-6 board. Since there’s about a zillion limpers out there, I bet big to pick up the pot right away. I’m pretty satisfied to end up with only one caller. The turn brings a 10. I jam all my chips in to deny any draw that is out there and the idiot calls me and flips up K-10. I guess he figured it was a good time to play for all his chips with middle pair + gutshot. And what the fuck was that flop call about? He rivers a 10 and his trips send me packing. NH sir.

I proceed to grind myself 10$ at the 1/2 6-max tables and buy into another 180 SNG. I chip up quite nicely early against a bunch of idiotic calling station and sit a few hundred short of a double up at the 10 minute mark. It all goes away when I pick up KK UTG and make it 3x the BB at 90 total. Some tool calls from MP before the CO makes it 250 to go. Hmm. I respond by making it 600 and he replies by sticking a 1000 in.

Doesn’t the 4th raise mean Aces?

Yes, yes it does, and when I jam my stack-in I am not surprised to see them flipped up and IGHN.

I am DONKEY!!

Back to the 1/2 6-max table, grind myself another 10$ and givin’ it a final go.

In what was perhaps the 5th or 6th hand of my THIRD 10$ 180 SNG of the night, I pick up QQ in the SB and witness the entire table limp in front me. I jam and I am insta-called by the BB. Shit. Everybody folds and the BB flips up Ah-Kh. With the way my night was going so far, I pretty knew I was fucked right then and there.

BTW, nice call with AK there, moron. Probably some idiot who learned the game from watching WPT final tables where AK is the pre-flop NUTS of PushBot Poker. They do it on TV ya’ll, I’m doing it to!!. Playing for my whole stack on a coin flip in the first level of a tourney is where it’s at!!. Pokr Rullez!!!

Flop brings two hearts. Fuck me, 15 outs to dodge twice. I don’t like this. Turn is a black 9, IS THERE HOPE? Nope, river brings the 6 of hearts and IGHN.

Oh well there’s still the WWDN, where I know I won’t get called by AK in the first level of the tourney if I ever decide to push. I hope so anyways!

Early second level, I find QQ (yup, those bitches again) in EP and make 4X BB to go. I am called in MP by XXX (Name withheld to protect the stupid), and everybody else folds. Flop is Q-10-X rainbow. Hmm, nice. I pretend to be weak by betting half the pot. He calls, I put him on AQ or A10. Turn is 9, I bet half the pot again and he calls. Hmm, I’m a bit confused here but I figure I’m still ahead. River is a complete rag and I bet 2/3 of the pot and he re-raises me all-in. WTF?? I have a hard time seeing how I can fold three queens in this spot, beside most of my stack is already in the pot. I make the crying call and he flips over KJo for the turned straight and IGHN. Dear lord, nice call with a crappy dominated hand like KJ after and UTG raise. I will admit that my milking bets did give him the right price to stay in on the flop but seriously K-J off?. Just one of those nights I guess.

On the + side, I won 350$+ playing cash games so the whole evening was obviously not a waste. But man, do these tournaments beats ever kick the shit outta ya!

So, I left work early today…

2006-11-07T16:25:00.000-05:00

Crazy thing, some dudes doing some kind of maintenance work drilled a hole through a pipe that sent water flying through the walls of our work building early this morning. It was pretty silly; I had barely sat down to start the day only to be greeted by the fire alarm. They had us wait outside for a few before promptly sending our asses back home. Hey, I’ll take it!

Since then, I managed to hit the gym early and managed to grind off some more off that ridiculously slow Full Tilt bonus. I have now collected 200$ out of the 500$. I won’t complain too much about the length of the deal since at least I’m getting some Rakeback, but damn, if I manage to complete this thing by the end of November, it would be quite the accomplishment.

Now that all the reservations have been made, I can officially declare that I will be spending the upcoming weekend in Niagara Fall, Ontario! *Cheers* Just a trip with friends where we’ll be hoping to hit a few strip clubs and get in some live Poker action. Now, we (Should really say I) hardly never hear about the Poker scene in Niagara except that the waiting lists to find any kind of seating arrangements at a NL Hold’em table is brutal. I read this particular tidbit YEARS ago so things could have changed by now but I don’t really know. If anything, I wouldn’t mind taking a few stabs at some Donkaments while I’m there.

I still don’t know if I’ll be able to make it to Vegas for the December 9th weekend. I’d love to be there, but my schedule is hazy as @#$% at this point. I’ve still never had the opportunity to visit Las Vegas, which is a travesty that I hope rectify shortly, so hopefully things turns out positively in that regard.

I’m in a tournament playing mood tonight so I will definitely hit up the WWDN. I’ll also sign up to whatever events suits me either on Stars or at Tilt.

Good luck!!

Kickin’ it Live

2006-11-02T13:18:00.000-05:00

Tonight will be a special night. I’m heading to a live tournament that will have over 250 runners. This is by FAR the largest live tournament I’ve ever attended.

It’s a charity event. 35$ of the 40$ buy-in will go towards charity. Prizes will be distributed even to Gigli so it won’t be a life or death big time pressure affair but still, pride will be on the line.

The first or second post in the history of this blog relates my first live tournament. The field was pretty big, the stakes were higher and I didn’t have a freakin’ clue about what I was doing. I didn’t know about fishes, donkeys, re-raising, bankroll, pot odds, position, etc. It’s insane how far along I’ve come in two years. I’m not where I want to be right now, but I have a feeling I’m heading in the right direction and the best is definitely yet to come.

I guess we could say that tonight is the night where this whole Poker thing comes full circle for me. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate it than a really nice showing (IE Final table) in this tournament. It won’t be easy but if I can play solid and focus all the way through, I believe I can go deep in this thing. We’ll see.

******

The Mookie was alright last night. I came in 15th. I had built myself a pretty nice stack but I horribly bluffed off half of my stack while the blinds were really big (a beginner’s mistake really) and I finally met my demise when I pushed AJo into FishyMcDonk’s AK and IGHN. On the plus side, I won more money than 1st place at the Mook by playing 3/6 SH after the tourney so all in all, it was a good night.

One down and many many more to go

2006-10-30T13:36:00.000-05:00

Well I FINALLY managed to complete the Pokerroom 500$ reload bonus sometimes in the early hours of saturday. End result: 181$ profit.

Out of a 500$ bonus.

What a fucking tragedy.

In all fairness, I got stuck miserably early in the reload process so any profit could be considered somewhat of a victory. But DAMN, did I ever get frustrated losing $ after $ against Scandinavian morons who figure it’s a good idea to cold call three bets with 6-2o and river FH's to crack your AA's and seeing them defending their play with such nonsense as "Pot odds dictated the call".

No, I didn’t get it either.

Anyways, a dollar earned is always better than a dollar loss so let’s just rejoice on that for now and move on to just as big and just as good other things...

Which, of course, would mean the 500$ Full Tilt reload bonus. As you all know, Full Tilt and myself have quite the hateful relationship going on. The anal raping was in full force in the early going when I kept losing with silly little hands like flopped sets and straights to runner runner FH and such bullshit. "Here we go again!" I yelled. The tide seems to have reversed and I now find myself down a measly 10 big bets. I also released 60$ of said bonus so there’s obviously lots more work to do.

My discipline at the table has been lacking lately. I’ve been guilty of running back to the tables mere minutes after booking solid wins, only to give it all back, and sometimes more, in the span of 50 hands. Such are the swings of shorthanded limit poker. So for the month of November, I’ll have to work on quitting the game when I’m up a decent amount instead of finding new and interesting ways of pissing it all back in mere seconds.

Good luck out there fellas!

Missin’ out on the Big Game

2006-10-23T12:36:00.000-04:00

Ah well, almost. I came this close to winning a @#$%^ ticket to the big game but I bubbled on the tier two satellite. I was once suckout away from making it too. Some moron pushed his AQo from the button only to see the big time chip leading BB wake up with Kings. This push was beyond stupid since I was all-in by default in my BB in the next hand! Well AQ sucked out an ace on the turn and managed to double himself up. I got dumped on the very next hand. I won't wait 'til next Sunday to try and win the next, I can tell you that.

While I was on Full Tilt, I managed to get a few hands in towards clearing that never ending bonus. Is it possible to be eternally non profitable at a particular site? It doesn't matter what stakes I'm playing or what games even but the end result is always the same: Me + Full Tilt = -$. Flop a set? River will bring someone else a flush or a straight. Turn a straight? Villain rivers a FH. It just never fails and it's pretty @#$$%# annoying. Yesterday's biggest doozie (and there were many) was probably this gem of a heads up pot:

Me AK

Flop: A-A-3
Turn: 3
River: 3

Villain's hand? J3o

I love Poker.

*********************

Would you believe me if I told you I'm STILL not done with that Pokerroom bonus? This week should be the last stretch but man-o-man do I ever want to get out that place. I'm getting killed by these Scandinavian morons who figure it's fun to cap pre-flop with 3-5o and manage to river their flopped gutshot to crack your sets of aces. Is life so good in Scandinavia that they can afford to piss money away like this or what?

Sittin’ in the Big Game

2006-10-20T15:05:00.000-04:00

I really couldn’t find much time to hit up the satellites to this thing this week and said time on the weekend should be scarce. No matter, I HAVE to get it on this thing. I’m heading to a home game tonight and then to a Pub with a few friends. I could try to squeeze in a SNG when I come back but I will be under the influence of massive quantities of alcohol. I have very few hours to work with on Saturday but my best chances will definitely be on Sunday IF nothing else comes up. If the satellite route fails, I guess I’ll just have to splurge out the money for this thing from my ‘Roll cause, Hey, I’m a Balla just like that.

Holla Holla Holla!!

All good things...

2006-10-19T13:04:00.000-04:00

Well it was a good run. My consecutive blogger final table appearances ended at three. No one to blame but myself for this one since I simply did not show proper respect to the tourney. In case you hadn’t figured it out, I had a couple of cash games tables opened, trying to kill off bonuses while playing the tourney. +EV this is not, if anything, it made me play poorly in both.

I don’t remember much from the tourney, I really didn’t play that many hands. I won two respectable pots while defending my blinds with absolute air and lost a fairly big one to DoubleAswhen I re-raised his opening from the button with AJo only to see him come back over the top all-in for a pretty much my whole stack. I had to let that one go. My next key hand was a double up when I stood up to the table bully Huntsvegas Poker. Now this guy had a HUGE stack, at least 3X as big as anybody else at the table. He had gotten into the habit of open-raising every single hand that was folded to him and lord knows they were plenty of those. Having enough of this crap, I pushed from the BB with 10-5s on another hand where he pulled off his spiel . A really crap hand, but I really just wanted to see him stop this nonsense. He calls me with J7s. Ooookay. I guess he figured he’d be live. He did spike a J on the river but that one card also happened to give me a flush. C’est la vie.

I got dumped not too long after. On_Thg made a 3 X the BB opening from the CO and I made it 9 X the BB from the small blind with AQo. He cold called the raise. I pushed the flop of unders and he insta-calls with Jacks. I blank turn and river and IGHN.

Complete donk move by my part and I definitely deserve to be sent home for it. I really wasn’t paying attention to the table so I didn’t have any clue if he’s the type to steal-raise a lot nor did I even give him credit for a hand when I pushed. I’ll be back at it again next week, hopefully this time I’ll bring my focus to the table.

Three-Peat!!

2006-10-18T14:19:00.000-04:00

I final tabled the WWDN last night which, I believe, makes it three final tables in my last three blogger events. I guess it's safe to say this donkey is running hot. 6th place was my final destination last night, although it should have been higher. Or lower, if you consider the god-awful suckout I pulled out with less than 15 players remaining (JJ against KK, spike a J on the turn).

This ride to the final table was not smooth sailing through and through in the least. I ran into monsters all night long. QQ, KK (twice), AK, it just never stopped. It sure as hell didn't help that I horribly misplayed my middle pairs and an embarrassing handling of a small pair of 3's led to my demise. In a strange reversal of fortune, I won a HUGE pot with QQ besting AK only to lose all those chips with AK against QQ a few hands after. I'm pretty sure I won the rest of my races after that so there's your definitive answer as to why I've been so successful in these lately.

I did win a few $ at the cash games which is always nice to see. Nothing major, but it's a win. Hopefully I get to squeeze out better results tonight. Can't forget the Mookie either.

On the fantasy Hockey side of things, so far so good. I'm in the top three of the 50 person pool at work, trailing the leader by maybe 4 points and I'm leading the one with my friends. While, this obviously means NOTHING, the season is all of two weeks old, it's still better to start up at the top than bringing up the rear. If I can avoid the ridiculous injury bug this year, I can do some real damage in these things.

The Seven Day Itch

2006-10-17T13:21:00.000-04:00

Seven days ago, I snatched the silver in a blogger event for the second time in the past two weeks. Running well? Surely it plays a part but I'd like to think that my willingness to play more hands after the flop, making more moves on 4th and 5th street and seeing way more showdowns has helped improve my results tremendously. And these successes are not only related to < 100 blogger fields, I've gone fairly deep in other 400+ tourneys recently as well. The significant cashes are not there yet, but I'm sure those will come when I start playing bigger buy ins tourneys regularly.

The transition to 6-Max is still going quite well. I'm now over the "dealing with the swings" part of the game and I'm just loving the idea of seeing tons more flops and constantly having to make read based decisions and such. I'm telling ya'll folks, you are greatly missing out if you limit yourself to Full Ring. Shorthanded usually means worst players, action junkies, more hands and most importantly, bigger pots. I've played over 5000 hands any my results, so far, are decent. I'm not “Crushing the games” per se but I'm not embarrassing myself out there either. I've reloaded the max at Full Tilt and I'm data mining the 3-6 tables as we speak. Looks like this will be my next destination once I'm done with the never-ending Pokerroom Bonus.

BTW, are the Sens pathetic or what? Granted I'd rather see them struggle now than in the Postseason (again) but it's really quite appalling that the high salary players are, without ONE exception, the worst players on the roster. Now, obviously, this will not last, but it is beyond ridiculous. With that said, I really hope they split Heatley from Spezza soon. Heatley is good enough by himself to carry a franchise on his back let alone one line. I say pair him up with Fisher and Schaeffer and watch him do his stuff. He'll be more useful that way than waiting for feeds from “Giveaway” Spezza.

I'll see you guys at the WWDN tonight!

Grin-din'

2006-10-10T13:48:00.000-04:00

Grin-din', when you know what I keep in a lining
[Censored] better stay in line,
When you see a [Censored] like me shinin' (Grin-ding!)

The Clipse
----------------------------

It's that time again, rollin' up them sleeves and grindin' down the bonuses. I’m having a blast playing the 6-max games. It’s definitely more entertaining, you actually FEEL like you’re competing, trying to out play an opponent as opposed to the nut peddling exercise that is full ring. I was running quite well for a short little while but I’ve hit a few snags. Right now, my biggest leak is not cutting my losses short. I’ll spend a good chunk of a session being stuck, get back to even after a sweet card rush only to stubbornly lose it all trying to make it bigger. Gotta stop doing that.

I’ve played a few different limits, mostly 2/4 and 3/6 and both seem to play the same. I’m way over-rolled for these games but I get to enjoy learning the nuances without losing my mind due to astronomical losses. I’m getting there though and I’m hoping to be really profitable in those games soon.

I managed to break the top 30 of a 5$ tournament on Titan on Saturday. My reward for the 3 and a half hour tourney session? 11$. Yay me...

Poker Takes a Backseat

2006-10-05T13:50:00.000-04:00

Haven’t been hitting the tables much in the past few days. Hockey season is now fully upon us and I now find myself submerged in fantasy drafts, hockey pools and just general hockey watching. Boy am I ever happy to have hockey back. And we spanked the Leafs yesterday for good measure. Whoo!!

I haven’t played a hand of Poker since Monday. I’ve been working on the Pokerroom bonus and cleared around 1000 out of the 5000 points necessary to release the 500$. All my sessions have been winners except for one. And yet, I find myself sitting on a paltry 32$ profit. Should have been over 200$ but I did lose a nice chunk of change in that one dreadful session. It should be noted that all this play is at 2/4$ 5-max, it seems I’m really getting a hang for the game and I’m not really interested in going back to Full Ring for anytime soon. We’ll see how long this lasts. I should be able to squeeze in a session later tonight.

Poker, we Hardly Knew ye?

2006-10-02T15:03:00.000-04:00

Boy, these republicans have sure been hard at work lately! When they’re not too preoccupied spanking it to porn chat with underage boys, they’re busy voting cookies laws to banish online gambling. Nothing will entertain you more than the bullshit reasons they come up with for said ban:

Republican Dickhead :"Gambling is a serious addiction that undermines the family, dashes dreams and frays the fabric of society..."

Fair enough. But why stop there? Why not eliminate out all the Casino's where degenerates run too on a daily basis to waste their paychecks playing slots and blackjack? What about that billion dollar cash cow that is sports betting? Or alcohol, doesn't it fuck up lives too?

Ah yes, that wouldn't work since Bill Frist and the people who will finance his campaign make money by the ton of the back of these degenerates.

Which is what this is really all bout: The old boys club not getting their cut. Period. A lot of those online gambling servers are located in the Bermudas, the Barbados while others are on Indian reserves. All those billions and billions of dollars of rake that some odd 20 million American Poker players are paying are going straight into the pockets of black and red folks. And lord knows these fucktards don't want to see black and red folks get rich off the backs of white folks.

While Party Gaming surrendered quicker than the French at the sight of a German, I doubt online Poker is really going anywhere. It might be less available on television, whether it be programming or advertising, but I'm pretty sure American players will have plenty of options to choose from (I figure Full Tilt, Paradise, Absolute and Pokerroom will continue to go on although I think Stars will go the way of Party). We'll probalbly lose a shit-ton of fish though.

I wouldn't recommend COMPLETELY cashing out your entire bankroll and giving up the game altogether. If it might put your mind at ease then sure, withdraw some, but leave yourself something to play with and wait and see how this whole thing plays out. I'd cash the fuck out of Party right now though.

Bringing Home the Silver

2006-09-28T17:39:00.000-04:00

If I could pick a theme to properly describe last night it would probably be “A Night of Firsts” as I FINALLY managed to final table the Mookie, FINALLY managed to cash in it and was all but one suckout away from winning the whole thing.

Why the name Papi Justify? I created my Full Tilt account before the whole blogging thing came about. I believed it’s inspired by some character in the incredibly shitty movie “The Skeleton Key”. I contacted Full Till to have it changed but they seem frown on those type things since they would not want to upset the various notes that Poker players have on me. Whatever. I guess me CONTINUALLY bringing business to that Rock garden paying Rake (minus my 28% rake back) should not allow them to grant me this one favour?

As for the tourney, well, it was one of those nights where my bad plays were rewarded and I ended up going deep in the process. You’ll have those nights playing cash games too, making the wrong moves at the right time and Voilà. Case and point:

In the 2nd level, I make it 3.5X the BB from the button with KdJd. Zeem re-raises me from the SB. Since I have a decent hand for a button-SB battle + position, I decide to make the call. The flop is Kc-Xc-Xc and he immediately bets out. I pause for a bit and I simply can’t see him having a King and I won’t give him credit for a flush right away. I put him on Ac-X. His bet was not anything frightening so I decide to peel one off and move in on a safe card on the turn (I have him covered by a little bit). Said turn is a complete blank (although it gives me a gutshot straight draw) and he moves in for his last 550$. The pot is enormous at this point and I make the call with what could be the best hand, if not at least I have some outs. Well he didn’t have one ace, he had two. So I was a bit shocked to hit my gutshot on the river and send him packing.

Oops.

Well I put him on a hand and I stuck with it. So I deserve some credit for that, right? *Crickets chirp*

That hand put me near the top of the leader board but I then proceeded to lose every single hand I was involved in for a little while to knock me back down to the middle of the pack. I clawed my way back up by lifting a big one off of Waffles when he tried to move me off a hand on a complete bluff and I brilliantly outplayed Will Wonka in a battle of the blinds where I extracted maximum value with my flopped to top pair to his flopped middle pair + top kicker.

Iak’s arrival to our table was good for me, although dreadful for him. Seated two to my right, I knew he was going to take multiple stabs at my blinds. I successfully shot him down twice in his early attempts to slow him a down quite a bit. I think I had him on Tilt by the end since I got him to call off his entire stack with Second pair+ good picker when I was clearly representing top pair.

Breakdown of the hand: He makes it 3x the BB from the CO. Knowing his range is quite large, I make it 9X the big blind with As9s. He thinks for a bit and makes the call. Flop comes A-J-x. I immediately put him all-in and he thinks for quite a long time before making the call with Q-J. He blanks the turn and the river and I sit atop of the leader board.

I coasted to the final table from there. I don’t remember much of the details but the final table was brutal. My stack went up and down like a Yo-Yo since I was really aggressive. Better that than being blinded off I guess.

I made it all the way to end thanks to some @##$ hands holding up for once. You know all these tournaments where you kings get killed by AK yet your AK goes down in flames to 2-2? Well, last night was the opposite of that. I doubled up with pocket fives against A-5s to bring me back near the top and I burst the bubble when I knocked Will Wonka with AK versus his A7s (after a ridiculous re-suck by my part). Luck was also greatly on my side when I doubled up through PresDaveLee after I push from the button with 7-5o and he calls me with J-10s. His rivered jack also happened to give me a rivered one card flush. To add insult to injury, I knocked him out of the tourney when I ran my 8’s right into his 10’s but spiked an 8 on the turn to finish him off.

Finally, the good ol’ “If you live by the suckout, you die by the suckout” held true when I got all my chips in with 6’s against Duggle’s A5s on 235 board when he spiked another 5 on the turn to finish me of for good.

This tourney kicks ass!!

It seems a bulk of my playing time in October will be spent at Pokerroom.com as I work my way through their pretty nice 50% up to 500$ bonus. Give it a try if you can!

Poker Absentia

2006-09-26T15:38:00.000-04:00

I haven’t played a single hand of Poker since the DADI H.O.R.S.E tournament last week. Just couldn’t find the time. H.O.R.S.E was a kick ass time though. I’d say I did pretty well (Bubbled the final table) considering I had never played 3 of the 5 games. I obviously made a ton of mistakes that cost me somewhat, my biggest one being overplaying a pair of aces in O8/B hand that cost me 3/4 of my stack. Never really had a chance to recover and that was it for my ass. Really looking forward to playing another one though!

Meanwhile, I’ve still been pounding the Casino bonuses. I avoided going busto on William Hill, cashing out with a 10$ profit. While it is a tragedy, I’ll gladly take it considering how down and out I was throughout this one. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to redeem myself on their monthly reloads.

While I truly appreciate the break from grinding the LHE tables to Gamboool it up at Casinos, it’s pretty clear that the quality of my blog has suffered deeply because of it. I’m not a really good writer (English IS my second language after all) so it’s a bit hard for me to bang out 1000+ word essays about my daily non-adventures. Now if we consider my laughable Poker Skilz, it’s quite obvious my game is not up to snuff to put out solid, thought provoking Poker strategery content. I’m still fairly new to this blogging thing so hopefully I manage to find my voice sooner than later.

Whatever Poker I’ve allowed myself to play this month (Tournaments) will even have to make way this week for other obligations. Mostly Fantasy Hockey drafts, or hockey pools for us canucks. I have a few sessions setup for today and tomorrow which, unfortunately, conflicts with the Mookie and the WWDN. Hopefully next week!

Lady Variance, I am Thy Bitch

2006-09-20T15:39:00.000-04:00

When I first read Scurvy’s guide to profiting from Casino bonuses, I was quite perplexed by his comments regarding the role that variance plays in Blackjack. We obviously all know how cruel that bitch can be in Poker, but in Blackjack?

Oh hell yeah...

How so? I’d say I’m approximately 75 hands away from busting out completely of William Hill Casino, if that. How did it happen? If only I knew. I’ve simply been running ice cold. I follow the stupid BS strategy chart and make 1$ bets. It just seems every single hand that I’ve been playing, the dealer is showing an Ace or a King has an upcard. If I hit 21, he ties. I get 20, he ends up with 21. 19, he has 20, etc.

400 hands to go, down to my last 50$ (Out of 180$), I can’t wait to see how this will end up. (Hint: I think it’s spelled B-U-S-T-O)

*********

Played the WWDN last night, again, fairly poorly. Impatience and blatant stupidity were the main culprits of my downfall this time. I couldn’t get ANYTHING going, card dead, rarely finding a spot to steal some blinds, etc. I finally met my demise when I pushed 95s from the BB on a re-steal after a button raise from Bdidde. He had been raising a lot of pots so I figured I’d look him up. While I was only a 3 to 2 dog to his AK, his flopped Ace + four nut flush put a damper on my meagre hopes quite quickly.

I’m a such a donkey...

*********

I miss Poker.

More specifically, I miss grinding the cash games. On the + side, I stuck to my guns and worked on the Casino Bonuses this month but man, Blackjack ain’t Poker that’s for damn sure. Ten more days and I can get back at it, not a damn moment too soon might I add. I already have my challenge picked out for October too. Probably something like 5K hands of 2/4 LHE 6-Max. Nothing better to cure Poker absentia than Poker OD.

Weekend Wrap up and Various Coming and Goings

2006-09-18T15:53:00.000-04:00

Where on earth did this nice weather come from? I, for one, am not going to complain, but it’s still pretty shocking to be on the back end of a three day bender of mid-twenties temperature and gorgeous sunshine. A little tease before the crap kicks in?

*********

I haven’t been blogging much lately since Poker play has been scarce around here. I’ve mostly been grinding down Casino bonuses. I did manage to complete the Pokerroom reload bonus (for a nice 1000$ payout) and finally cashout my winnings on the whole Mansion Steerlers deal. Onwards and upwards!

*********

Found the time to play two tournaments yesterday. A 5$ MTT on Stars and a 10$ MTT on Pacific. I made baby money in the 5$ but got knocked out near the bubble in the other.

An interesting hand from the 5$ tourney. With blinds at 100/200$ with a 25$ ante, all fold to me on the button with 5-6o. With antes in play, I’ll raise 95% of my hands in this situation. I will only consider folding useless junk like 8-2o and that depends mostly on who is in the blinds. So I make it 650$ to go and I get called by the big blind. Flop comes out 4s-7h-8h. Cha ching! The BB checks to me and since there’s a possible flush draw out there, I bet 40% of the pot. The BB reraises me (I’m thinking flopped two pair) so I jam and he insta-calls with KK. Ah, when slowplaying goes bad. He blanks the turn and the river and proceeds to let me hear it for the next 25 minutes. “Who the hell raises with 5-6o”, ”You’re a donkey, where the hell did you learn to play Poker?”, etc. I was gonna put an effort to try and explain that with the blinds being what they are and the ante’s in play, this is pretty much an automatic raise when all fold to you on the button but I didn’t bother. I was praying for any type of hand so I could raise his blind again and bust him but alas, the Poker Gods were not on my side...

So I’m moved to this new table and my stack is not in the greatest shape, a wee bit under the average. With blinds at 300-600/50, I make it 1800 to go from MP with 55. I get called by the button and everyone else folds. At this point, the pot is ginormous and I’m moving in on any flop that looks safe. I’m worried about 66-99 but I have to take my chances. Flop comes 3-3-6, so I move in. Button thinks for a while and calls with AJo. So he pretty much calls off 60% of his stack with no pair and no draw. NH, buddy.

Turn: A (of course)
River: J (Why not)

I had an atrocious feeling as soon as I saw his hand turned over. I NEVER benefit from stupid play, they ALWAYS draw out on me.

*********

The day after I wrote that whiny post about the one outer I happen to lose another one in similar fashion. AA flops a set, turns aces full of kings which also gives my opponent quad kings. To quote my friend: “Man, if you were sitting at a badbeat jackpot table for those two hands, you’d probably be up 20K by now”.

Yes, yes indeed.

I shall now go weep in a corner for my troubles...

The Infamous One-Outer

2006-09-13T14:38:00.000-04:00

Me AA
Vilain 10-10

Flop: A-Q-10
Turn 3
River: 10

Yes, that was in a cash game and yes, it cost me a ton of money. It was capped both on the turn and on the river (5/10 LHE) . I thought about quads for a little while but there’ SO many other holdings he could have at that point that I figured I was losing money if I didn’t jam.

Can’t really blame his play on that hand either, he had a freakin’ set, there’s no way he could have gotten away from that hand. And when that river card falls...

That’s Poker.

I played the WWDN last night but I played it EXTREMELY poorly. I started up pretty well but my crack head tendencies reared they’re ugly heads again and I soon found myself loading up cash games and casino bonuses to work through in between hands. Not surprisingly enough, my arse was busted when I pushed on the turn with a flush draw since it seems I was getting bored.

Speaking of Casino bonuses, I’m halfway throughs the 1600$ Wr’s at Planet Luck and I’m down about 35$. This one has been a pain in my arse since the beginning. I don’t think I was ever up for one single bet. There still plenty of hands to play so let’s hope variance is kinder to me throughout the second half of this nonsense.

I also need 800 or so more points to complete the Pokerroom.com reload bonus. These things are such an unbelievable pain in the arse that I simply cannot wait to be done with it. The main problem remains that game selection. It's simply appalling to see what's being offered sometimes in the evenings. Seriously, a 5/10 LHE with a 35$ average pot?

While you’re here (all 0 of you) make sure to stop by Hoy’s blog and congratulate him on another fine run (and payout) in another MTT. He sure plays those good.

Summer’s over, it was great, Thanks for the Memories

2006-09-11T15:59:00.000-04:00

Hate to say it but it’s true. Freezing my balls off come night time as well as in the morning already makes me yearn for the days of summer. And to think that snowstorms, shovelling and block heaters are around the corner makes this Poker Player quite the unhappy person.

With the summer festivities freshly behind us, I’m already looking forward to picking up the slack in the physical activity department. Mainly kicking it up a notch at the gym. I’ve been lifting weights for 5 years. Fairly serious stuff, at least 4 times a week on average. I pretty much got into it when I graduated university and I never looked back. It’s quite simply the best medicine out there: gives you tons of energy, keeps you stress free and clears up your mind like nothing else can.

When summer rolls around, I usually mellow out a bit on the lifting. Really hard to find the motivation go there after a gruelling day of work and temperatures in the mid 30's (Celsius obviously). I tend to skip a day here and there, dick around with the cardio, forego a few exercises. I usually also abstain from using protein supplements during the good season. It’s just such a drag to carry all that in your stomach in the super warm weather.

All good things must come to an end they say, as I’ve been gearing myself up to go back at it pretty hard starting tonight. I really went overboard with the junk food lately; I pretty much ate some kind of restaurant crap food every single damn day last week. I am blessed with good genetics in the sense that I can get away with eating tons of crap without it really affecting my weight (I seriously believe that I could go on the ‘Supersize me’ diet and end up 20 pounds heavier unlike my dad or my brother who gain weight by simply WATCHING a McDonald’s commercial).

Cardio, weights, protein shakes, can’t wait!

On the gambooling front, Poker went well for the weekend and I also completed my first casino bonus (Finished with a grand total of 212$ at Starluck casino (100$ deposit + 100$ bonus + 12$ profit)) and I’m already a 1 /4 through Planetluck casino WR’S (down 30$ but who cares really). I’m hoping to finish that one this week and hit another before the weekend. I’m also gonna make an effort to play a few tournaments. I’m also working my way through a 250$ reload bonus on Pokerroom (plowing through these things are a bitch) so I’ll grind down as much out of it as I can and see where that gets me.

And They Did Just That

2006-09-07T23:53:00.000-04:00

Thank you Steelers-D for coming up huge in the clutch.

Thank you Culpepper for whatever the hell you were thinking on those back to back picks.

And finally, thank you Mansion for the free 1000$...

Memo to the Pittsburgh Steelers

2006-09-07T14:20:00.000-04:00

Just win baby.

Getting Screwed by the Man

2006-09-05T15:34:00.000-04:00

Boy, Ben Roth’s appendix sure picked the right time to burst didn’t it? You almost wonder if Mansion dumped boatloads of money onto the Pittsburgh Steelers to have their guy sit out the opener. Maybe they setup that motorcycle accident too, you can never be to careful when money’s involved after all.

What a train wreck.

The games are played for a reason, right? If not, they’d give Brazil the WC every four years and my Ottawa Senators would have, at the very least, three Stanley cup banners hanging from the rafters. Que sera sera, I’m not hedging the bet (fairly impossible anyways since I locked it at -4.5 for the Steelers - good luck finding that line somewhere) . I’ll let the chips fall wherever they may and I’ll pick up the pieces afterwards.

This weekend was pretty relaxed as far as gambooling is concerned. I wasn’t around much so I squeezed all that I could to some pretty decent results.

First up was completing the Party Poker reload bonus to the tune of a 200$+ profit. Quite nice, but the rake, Jesus Christ, that rake...

How bad? I somehow payed MORE money in rake than what I actually deposited in my account when it was all said and done. Unless there’s a reload of some kind over there, it’s pretty much a no go for the low limit grinders. That rake will suck your bones dry. It seems I’ll only be back to grind the full ring 10/20$ games and up. I figure you should be safe from that nonsense up there.

I also finally started grinding the casino bonuses and so far it seems to be going good. I’m down 11$ a little less than halfway through the whole thing. I was up to 50$ at one point but variance caught up in a nasty way and I kept running into blackjacks, 21's or 10's for the dealer for a long while to knock me down to where I am right now. It’s nothing major really, 1$ a hand and follow the chart. It’s pretty mindless fun. I figure a regular Casino bonus can be completed in two days. I’ll set my target a 5 for this month and we’ll see how that goes.

So on tap for tonight should be more Blackjack and maybe an appearance at the WWDN. We’ll see!

August Failures

2006-08-31T14:37:00.000-04:00

While I’ll continue to hit the tables hard in August, I will also turn my attention to the plethora of Casino bonuses that are floating around. I’ve seen other bloggers grind their way through these to great success so I decided to join myself. I’ll research the subject a little more and I’ll try to set up one tonight.
----------------
- Suckout Artiste

Ah yes, that would be me talking out of my arse crack at the beginning of the month.

I should add that my intentions were good, it seems I simply forgot to compute the fact that I’m an unreliable lazy wanker into the equation. Oops.

How bad was it anyways? How about I haven’t even opened a Casino Website? Don’t even know if they have websites for $$%# sakes.

To be written on my Poker epitaph when it’s all said done:

Suckout Artiste
R-I-P
1980-20xx
Lazy bum who didn’t play enough hands and
wouldn’t get down and dirty and grind

Moving on...

It must be said that not grinding Casino’s is somewhat related to me actually winning at Poker. Yes, imagine that! Profits! Lame excuse but I am significantly up for the month after an up and down start (Would have been a significantly upper month if I could have won a few pots with hands like AA and KK yesterday, Fuck you very much Party Poker) so all is not bad.

What now?

Finish the Party Poker reload bonus tonight (A few hundred hands left, if that) and withdraw every single penny out of my Poker accounts towards Neteller. I’ll be leaving some at Pokerstars to play the Blogger events. It boils down to Casino bonuses throughout September.

What can I say, desperate men do desperate things in desperate times. Besides, it’s only for a month and there’s so much money out there that I don’t want to just leave it on the table. I also have a copy of Hold’em Poker for advanced players that I’ve never even opened (It was a Christmas gift) so maybe I’ll use some of my spare time in September to work myself through that.

P.S What’s the over/under on me dumb self going on massive BJ tilt and destroy my bankroll by making 100$ bets? Can’t wait to find out.

As if I had Never Left...

2006-08-30T11:03:00.000-04:00

There’s really nothing quite like it. You sit down and wait patiently for your big blind. You’re dealt KK on your first hand, raise it up, bet on all streets and lose to some maroon who hits his gutshot straight draw on the river of a paired board.

Good ol' Party Poker, it's as if I had never left indeed.

After datamining the place for a week (Including a 21000 hands import that put my Laptop KO for approximately 8 hours ) I was finally ready to sit down and play with some Donks.

Seriously, were the players always this terrible?

It’s ridiculous how three or four morons would be in for the ride all the way to the river on every second hand. Don’t these people care about money? And where the hell DO they find all that money? And yet, the biggest net winner in my week of dataminig is a calling station who sees over 48% of the flops and never seems to fold a hand. He made almost 1K just last week. Long run and all but damn, that’s a lot of money for a LHE 3/6 player.

I’ve adapted well to the change. I’m up about 90$ after ~ 400 hands after being down a bit on the first day. I’ve been getting reamed with big pocket pairs again but that should solve itself in a bit. I’m also clearing a reload bonus at the same time so I’m expecting a nice 75$ boost in the near future. I’ll gladly take it.

I played the WWDN yesterday but I didn’t do well. I started off fine but I was guilty of committing one of the cardinal sins of Online tourney play: Thou shall not open cash games while playing a tourney. I bounced not too long after making suspicious plays with suspicious holdings. I REALLY need to work on that.

I don’t think I’ll be able to play any Poker either today or tomorrow as I have plans with friends. I’m off work on Friday but I have a bunch of errands to take care of + a home game in the evening.

It seems my only gambooling in the next few days will be to dump a 1100$ on the Steelers and hope they can pound Miami by at least 5 points to earn myself a cool grand.

Yup, I definitely need help...

A Shorty but a Goodie

2006-08-25T15:42:00.000-04:00

Short one today, really didn’t play much Poker last night. The tables were just terrible. I was stuck around 100$ for most of the session. I was catching cards but I couldn’t get any action with them. Gotta love picking up aces three times and win the blinds each and every single time with ‘em.
Managed to win a few pots here and there until I won a decent size one when I turned a 10 high flush. I quit with a 50$ profit. Pretty lame but what can you do?

*****************

Still datamining Party. I should have more than 15 000 hands when it’s all said and done. I won’t have time to play tonight so I’ll be picking up some more. I should finally get a chance to sit down and start fish hunting the 3/6$ tables tomorrow. Can’t wait to get at it.

*****************

Whatever happened to Gus Hansen? Remember when he used to win all kinds of shit? Was he really a donk who got lucky a bunch of times?

Later...

Selling my Soul to the Devil

2006-08-24T15:04:00.000-04:00

Well I had to do it. Following Wes’s recent advice on how to datamine the living shit out of Party Poker, I’ve had my desktop running 24/7 picking up info on all the idiots, tourists and donkeys slinging chips at the 3/6 game. It seems to be going good so far, I already have more than 5000 hands in my database and it’s still picking up some as we speak.

Why the change of heart? My sites full of weak-tight rakeback collecting donks are just a pain in the arse more than anything else. You can hardly find a good game anywhere and what you do end up finding is full of the above mentioned weak tight donks. With at least 20 full ring 3/6 tables running at Party, I should have my hands full for awhile. Looking at some of the numbers of the donks in there, I’m salivating already. Should be fun!

Ran the Mookie last night. Don’t know what it his exactly about this tourney but for my money, it’s easily the best tournament in the blogpshere. I like it’s starting time, the play is somewhat loose and the players are always chatting and seem to really enjoy being there.

I started up well. I mostly hung around the top 10 chip-stacks for most of the first hour. I donked off 500 chips trying to get cute with the hammer but I recuperated those fairly quickly. The turning point of my tourney occurred in a hand that happened 5 minutes after the break. Iak had just been moved to our table and he was pretty much doing what I wanted to do at this stage of the tourney: Open raise lots of pots and steal some blinds. Since he was seated immediately to my right, this obviously created some problems for me. I was pretty much waiting for a decent hand to trap him with and go from there.

The perfect situation seemed to present itself when I picked up KQo on the button and all folded to Iak in the cut-off. Fully expecting him to raise it up as he had been doing since he came to our table, I was COMPLETELY thrown off when he decided to open limp from his position. I decided to call right behind.

Mistake #1.

It didn’t take long for me to realise the gravity of my error when I saw Jules complete from the SB and the BB checking his option. I pretty much hated my hand right away. KQo is a bona-fide top pair hand, not really the kind of hand you’re really willing to go to war with, especially in a multiway pot unless the flop pummels you over the head. I was a bit relieved to see all check to me the 4s-Kh-7s flop. Not wanting to give any free cards to any draw out there I led out for 2/3 of the pot. Jules in the SB insta-pushed and I called.

Mistake #2.

I didn’t call right away. I actually used a huge chunk of that 60 seconds timer. Unfortunately, I used it for all the wrong reasons.

Every single fibre in my body was screaming to fold this hand. The only possible hand that she could be holding that I was beating was a flush draw. Yet for some strange reasons, watching that counter ticking down, I was convincing myself that she was indeed holding the draw and I should call. She obviously wasn’t on a draw, but her bottom two pair made short work of my TPSK and I was crippled all the way down to 750$.

I didn’t quit. I stuck in there, fought for every single possible chip that I could get and found myself back up to 1500$ without ever seeing a flop. Unfortunately for me, after pushing and stealing blinds with marginal crap, I ended up picking up my first truly Push-worthy hand, AK, when someone else was holding 10-10. Since I expired all my race winning karma in my 3rd place finish in the WWDN earlier this month, it was quite obvious I would end up getting dumped on that hand. C’est la vie!

Had a blast, did some good things, especially in the first hour when I small balled my way near the top of the chip leader board, and I did some dumb things, as usual, but I’m definitely hoping to be back next week to avenge myself.

Later...

Time Flies When You’re Having Fun

2006-08-21T15:22:00.000-04:00

A week already, huh? Vacations sure as hell do no improve the relationship of a would be Poker player and his blog. I really wanted to put something out there before I left but time simply ran out on me and I just couldn’t make it. Hey, what’s done is done so let’s move on shall we!

Until yesterday, I hadn’t played a single hand of Poker since Wednesday. That might have been a mistake however since I was running really well for the past few. Until last night. Which just ended up being one of THOSE nights. The ones where your flopped sets don’t make it in the end and your big pairs get called by 4 players and an ace flops, obviously when you do NOT have pocket aces.

Disappointing night, but I’m still doing fairly well for the month and besides, it’s all about the long term blablalbla... I’m still craving some action big time so I’ll definitely be hitting the tables hard this week, starting tonight.

How sad is it that I’ve yet to sign up for any Casino bonus when this was my #1 goal for the month? Pretty %$#$ sad I’ll say but again, I’m hoping to rectify this situation this week. I’ve decided to split my gambooling into two sessions, the first will be Poker and the second will be Blackjack. Simple enough, right? Can’t wait to see how I manage to screw that one up.

The 6-max tables have been, so far, pretty good. I’ve been a winner in most of my sessions. Sometimes big, sometimes small, but I’m definitely on the "+" side of the equation which is always a good thing. I’ll try to get 3000 hands in at the 1/2$ level and evaluate from there if a move to 2/4 $ is in order.

Growth and the Poker Player

2006-08-15T16:06:00.000-04:00

I often find myself daydreaming about where this whole Poker adventure started a year ago. My first ever LHE session where I left up 28$ in less than hour or my 5 straight cashes in 5$ SNG’s. Feeling on top of the world when my bankroll finally reached the 100$ mark.

And yet, more often than not, it’s not those modest successes that have me reminiscing of times past but the progress and strides that I have made in my play. Fact is, I was a complete bot back then. I did “things” because books instructed me to do said “things” . In a sense, that was the right way to get started since anything else than a really strict template will lead you down a path of confusion and many headaches and heartaches throughout your initial learning process.

For me, the formula use to be: Win a big pot = Happy, Lose a big pot = devastation.

Needless to say, that shit got old fast.

Of course, losing sessions still suck, the penultimate goal of the game is to make money after all. But enjoying the game strictly from the decision making aspect makes it *that* much better.

Having played so many hands and having seen so many flops, my Poker instincts are now getting more refined. The area of my game that’s benefited the most from this is my hand reading ability. To put it bluntly, I can now smell bullshit from a mile away and I can often enough put a player on a specific hand with pinpoint accuracy.

The bad beats still sting, yes, but I still get some kind of satisfaction when I realize that my read was correct and my opponent caught up/sucked out on the river and my play was fine.

And that, is growth in a Poker player.

Popping the Vegas cherry

2006-08-14T15:37:00.000-04:00

While there’s nothing official yet and we still have to figure out when we’re leaving, where we’ll be staying and how long will be staying, it seems I’m pretty on much on my way to Vegas for the first time! Woot!

It’s pretty much myself and two friends who are planning to spend 3 days or so in Sin City. Ideally we’d be over there in October. Perfect weather and no tourist overpopulation nonsense. Just thinking about it makes me excited, can’t imagine what it’s gonna be like a week before takeoff.

Poker was ‘aight’ this weekend. Slight gains here and there, nothing major but at least the bankroll is moving in the right direction. I have actually started playing the 6-max tables again, this time dropping all the way down to 1 / 2 and the results so far have been satisfying. Although this has mostly nothing to do with my play but more with the fact that players who are sitting in those games are absolute clowns. It’s crazy how many idiots are out there who figure Ace high might take down a four handed pot. Guess I should shut and enjoy the money.

On the negative side, I have yet to start chasing any casino bonuses, which was supposed to be one of my main goals for the month of August. There’ still plenty of time to correct that so hopefully I manage to get a chance to give it a go.

No MATH again for me tonight, which sucks, but I should be around for the WWDN tomorrow.

Laaaaaaaate

The 12 million $ Donkfest

2006-08-10T07:49:00.000-04:00

As you all know, there’s a tournament being played right now that will determine who is the world’s best Poker player. Obviously, this title doesn’t really mean anything, but we pretty much have to accept it and move on. If one were to scratch the surface just a little deeper, we’d be hard-pressed to recognize this tournament as anything worthwhile since the play in this thing has been, at times, nothing short of embarrassing, especially now that we’re closing in on finding our winner.

How bad is it? Open pushes with ace-rag with M’s around 20, calling off 40-50% of one’s stack on a gutshot and a over card, all-in re-steals with lowly pairs with stacks of 30-35 big blinds and it goes on and on and on. Let’s face it, the Poker explosion has gone a bit too far and it’s time to reel it in a little bit. The World Series MAIN EVENT is being played like a late night 10$ Poker Stars MTT. It’s pretty sad to think that the game’s top prize is being disputed by low-limit push bots who can’t even begin to understand the concept of big stack play or worst, post-flop play.

You really have to like Allen Cunningham’s chances at this point. Most of the Internet maniacs are gone and real Poker should be played at the final table where he is BY FAR the best player. It was pretty laughable to see him start the day as a middle of the pack stack, carefully pick his spots, since he understands the stack to blind ratio, and easily quintuple his stack in two hands. Really wonder what those three donks who busted out in the first 12 minutes were thinking. Tsk tsk...

It’s time to raise up the buy-in for the ME, plain and simple. Yes, it was cool to see a nobody win it a few times, but this thing is no longer about skill, it’s a complete lottery. I don’t wanna see a low-limit loser like myself making donk play after donk play and sitting at the final table with a cool shot at 12 mill while better players get sucked out by idiots hitting runner runner quads in pots they had no business being involved in to begin with.

Hanging ‘em up

2006-08-08T15:54:00.000-04:00

I think it’s time to put an end to my days as full ring LHE grinder.

This decision has nothing to do with a downswing or running bad, I’m actually up a bit lately, but mostly due to the fact that these games are just plain terrible nowadays. And for that, I blame Rakeback.

Before Rakeback was widely introduced to a bunch of smaller networks (Prima and Ipoker come to mind), you’d easily be able to sit at a full ring 5-10 table filled with donks where 6-7 handed flops were the norm. Hard to NOT make money in that situation. But now that Rakeback is an industry standard, Weak tight grinders are usually hanging out in those waters making most of these sites barely profitable. You’re pretty much looking at a bunch of nut peddlers trading around their money while extracting a tiny profit from a 28%-35% rakeback deal. Not cool.

After grinding in these for just about a year, I really feel like I’m due for somewhat of a change.

The word around town is that the crap players crave the shorthanded action since it’s faster and they get to play more hands. Which would also mean that these fish are basically tripping over themselves making dumb mistakes in the hopes of winning big pots. I think this is where I need to be right now. My game is improving, I can feel it. I’ve especially made progress in my hand reading ability. Playing more hands and seeing more flops should definitely allow me to progress to the next level in that regard.

So what now? I’ll probably take the rest of the month off from cash games and pad up the roll with the various casino bonuses around. I will also be studying the shorthanded game to make sure I am well prepared when I make my moves in there.

I’ll also focus some more on tournaments. Believe it or not, I actually cashed in my last three online MTT’S. No big scores yet, but I pretty much made the money without breaking a sweat. It’s crazy how much of a difference winning hands where you are significant favourite when the money goes in can improve your results. It’s also a matter of the various adjustments that I’ve made in my game, mostly making things happen in the middle stages of the tournament instead of waiting for them to happen for me. I’m no longer depending on good cards to get anywhere in those things, I just focus on abusing the living crap out of the players and go from there. I still need to tone it down and pick some of my pots better but at least I’m on the right track, my game is progressing.

This Year’s Girl and WWDN Thoughts

2006-08-03T12:16:00.000-04:00

Poker Beauty Joanna Krupa

This young woman is pretty much what the WSOP 2006 ME is all about. The 25 year old Polish beauty who has graced the covers of Playboy, GQ and Maxim seems to have survived day 2B of the event (That Cardplayer coverage is quite shyte, so I can’t really be sure). Quite a refreshing change of pace from the middle aged fat arse white dudes that are usually showcased in these events. So who was the star of ESPN’s feature table yesterday?

Daniel Negreanu.

Yup, the most annoying dork in the Poker industry. I guess we needed MORE footage of Mr. Daniel coaching the table on why such and such play was wrong while being ‘entertained’ by his terrible jokes in between.

For fuck sakes...

THE POKER GODS HANDED OVER A HOT BIKINI MODEL WHO CAN SLING SOME FUCKING CHIPS, STICK THE CAMERA ON HER AND LET US WATCH!!!

************

5 months ago, I final tabled the WWDN in my first ever appearance. Haven’t had a sniff since. Until this week when I finally managed to snatch third place to put a end to this endless drought.

I changed some things in my game lately and it seems some positive results are starting to appear. I played a big total of ZERO hands outside of my blinds until they were up to 25/50. That was part strategy, part I was dealt absolute crap for the first hour of the tourney. I really focussed more on my table though, paying close attention to whom would raise from where with what, etc. Crazy how easier it is when you’re not running three cash game tables on one side and downloading porn on the other. I might be up to something here.

I didn’t see a single decent hand until the 90 minute mark. I mostly picked up chips on blind steals and re-steals. I got extremely fortunate when I re-raised what I felt was a positional blind steal with a lowly Q4s and I was insta-called by said raiser. I say fortunate since I flopped trip queens and won a decent sized pot.

What also really helped was that I managed to get paid off with by big hands. You know that awesome feeling you get when you pick up aces after folding crap for 1 hour and manage to only win the blinds with your 2.5x blinds raise? Well that wasn’t me last night. My pocket aces allowed me to bust Weak Player, who was one of the bigger stacks of the tourney, when I flopped a set and induced him to push his whole stack on a bluff when I showed weakness throughout the hand.

It was pretty much smooth sailing after that. Busted some more players with AK and KK, doubled up some short stacks here and there, suck out on some people, etc. I was pretty much on autopilot until we were down to three handed where we moved chips around until I busted when I jammed with TP+Flush draw but lost out to Aquavere’s TP higher kicker.

While making it deep in a blogger event is quite the anomaly for me, I must say that I was incredibly surprised at the passivity of the players with the blinds so high. Players would auto-fold the button on so many occasions that I was literally dumbfounded. I remember open raising 6 of the 9 pots in one orbit and never meeting resistance once. Quite interesting to say the least.

Following that, I now crave playing tournaments again. I obviously won’t quit my LHE cash games, but I definitely want to splurge more in the 10$ MTT’S that are out there. I really want to make it deep in one of those for a sweet payday, perhaps I’ll add it as one of my goals before the end of 2006.

Later!

It Was the Best of Times...

2006-08-01T15:24:00.000-04:00

...and by God, it was the worst of times.

Lat night was perhaps the most frustrating cash game session I’ve ever had the displeasure of taking part of. It all started when my aces, queens and a flopped set were cracked in back to back to back hands.

Enter Tilt.

I pissed off the rest of my buy-in on some really donkalicious play before leaving the table to gather my thoughts and attempt a comeback. It was not to be. While I managed to do extremely well at the 2/4 tables, I pretty much sat around 2 hours of complete 3/6 card-deadness while donkeys were spewing chips left right and centre. I finished the night down 48$ thinking of what might have been.

And yet, I really can’t remember the last time I had this much fun playing Poker. I don’t know what it was but it really reminded me of the days of yore, when I was toiling at the .25¢-.50¢ tables and a 7$ profit was considered a good night. To this day, I still believe that was the period where Poker was at it’s best for me. It was all about the love of the game and the aspirations of moving on up the highest limits possible.

I guess we can really call it a resurgence of sorts. I probably played more hands of Poker last week that I did for the first three weeks of July. It this a bad thing? Of course not, I’ve pretty much been a consistent winner at all the levels I played at. Getting more hands lessens the impact of variance. There’s also this little thing called Rakeback...

While I’ll continue to hit the tables hard in August, I will also turn my attention to the plethora of Casino bonuses that are floating around. I’ve seen other bloggers grind their way through these to great success so I decided to join myself. I’ll research the subject a little more and I’ll try to set up one tonight.

I really doubt I’ll have time to hit the WWDN tonight but I’ll stop by and sweat towards the later stages.

Later

Click

2006-07-27T23:35:00.000-04:00

Poker is quite the odd little thing. You can memorize every single piece of literature on the subject that there is out there but that still won’t mean you understand most of it. It’s through your experiences, your successes and your failures that the pieces of the puzzle will slowly fall into place.

I’ve been playing this game seriously for just about a year. The difference between the player I was then and the player I am now is otherworldly, and while I still have decades full of learning to look forward to, I can safely say that I’m very slowly but surely heading in the right direction.

I believe I had one of these "click" moments in the past few days, as if another piece of the puzzle fell into place. I’ve been complaining a lot about running badly, losing with the best starting hands, suffering unusual amounts of suckouts, etc. I finally had to take a step back and look at my game as a whole and ask myself if I was truly being honest with myself through all of this.

The answer was a resounding no.

The fact of the matter is I ran insanely hot for two months tripling my bankroll by playing games I had no business sitting into yet. To make matters worst, this upswing not only made me ridiculously overrate my skills as a player, it also made me turn into quite the arrogant asshat (For instance, I had sworn off reload bonuses as they were too much of a grind for such meagre rewards)

What had to happen happened. Leaks that were not as much as an hindrance at the lower levels caught up to me in a hurry and the downswing combined with my bad play had me crying uncle like a little bitch.

Humbled, I dropped down in limits to sort out various kinks of game.

I was in the midst of grinding out a little profit in a 2-4$ session a few nights back when back to back busted draws with Big Slick had me right back to square 1. I folded a trash hand and I found myself looking at AK for the third time in four hands! The pot was raised in MP right in front of me and I hesitated. Now, any LHE player will know that this is an automatic reraise with AK but the sting of the two previous losses had me hesitating on my next move. I finally gritted my teeth and threw in the 3-bet. Flop came A-3-8 rainbow. I look good here. He checks, I bet, he check raises me and I cap. Turn is another A, so unless he has 8's or a ridiculous pocket 3's , I’m pretty much golden. It turns out he had pocket queens and I pick up a nice pot.

Click

Of course, there's nothing special here. I'm not reinventing the wheel. It's all over the Poker books: Cards do not have a memory, every single hand has no relevance to the ones that preceded it, it's all about the long run, etc. Yes, we know all that stuff, but we don't really know, you know? It's like that stupid kid who's been told a million times not to stick his tongue on the metal pole in the winter yet he keeps doing it until he ends up getting stuck in there real good or, the guy who bangs that stripper with no teeth without wearing a rubber. You know you’re not supposed to do these thing but we still do, right?
I don't know why it happened at that very moment but that's when I finally got what the long run is all about. The beats are just that, beats. I pretty much shrug them off now The chips are just that, chips, and everything's gonna be alright as long as I make the right decisions.

Duh!

Another Day, Another Flame out

2006-07-26T15:47:00.000-04:00

Got dumped in 34th spot of the WWDN when I pushed my rivered two pair into my opponent’s rivered straight. It was a heads up pot, I was big blind and she limped from UTG. Was really hard to put her on that hand (7-5s) but at that point, the pot was bigger than my stack so there was no getting away from this one.

Watching the blogger tourneys, I’m really wondering if you can get anywhere in those things without catching cards? The field is usually really strong and aggressive and every pot is hotly contested. The big pots at my table usually involved two players with really good hands (two pair vs Set or Trips with Ace kicker vs. Trips with K kicker) or big confrontations pre-flop between big pairs. My biggest hands were a pair of 6 in the big blind and KJs. No big pairs, no big ace-x, simply rags.

The fact of the matter is, if I intend on competing at the higher levels of Tournament Poker (doubtful), these situation will surely be the norm. I guess I really need to add the re-steal to my repertoire of moves in tournament situations. There were definitely quite a few opportunities where I felt my opponents were trying to pull a fast one on me but I just couldn’t pull the trigger and come over the top. At this point, it’s only a matter of confidence and I’m hoping that once I’m able to pull it off successfully, I’ll be able to go down that path many times again. I’ve already gotten over the barrier of raising the blinds with absolute garbage, this should be the next step.

Loaded some cash games afterwards, started well, finished disastrously. Some bad beats in there, though more bad play by myself. I think I found the next thing I need to work on, making the big lay downs. Some of them are not even that big, you know you’re beat but you still call that extra bet with your two pair or set when the guy obviously has a straight or a flush. My reads are right more often than not, and yet, I still hesitate to act on them from time to time. Must. Fix. This

If anything, this move down in limits has allowed me to see more of the big picture. I’m still making mistakes but the costs are less. At least I now have an idea of what to focus on. I can finally make some progress in my game that had, truthfully, stagnated for far too long.

It's not them, it's me

2006-07-24T23:55:00.000-04:00

The BloggedPods event was pretty much a non-factor. I busted out early when my double belly buster + flush draw didn't connect and I lost to a player holding top pair second kicker. I wanted some chips early so I gambled on a 15 out draw that unfortunately didn't come through. It happens.

I won't complain about calling off your whole stack early in a tournament with TPSK since this is typical of these low buy-in tournaments: Donks playing two card Poker.

Who's the real fish here?

Here I am, willingly shoving all my chips on a come hand against an unknown opponent in a low buy-in tournament. What exactly am I hoping for here? For all I know, this guy could be one of those players who have never heard of the fold button before. Again, what am I hoping for here?

What sets a great Poker player apart from an average one is his ability to adapt to his surroundings. If he's up against loose aggressive maniacs, he'll TAG his ass straight up. If he's playing against Weak-Tight Donks, he'll raise and re-raise every other hand. AND, if he's playing against level 1 weaklings, he won't jam his whole stack on come hands on the first level of a tournament.

Notice I didn't mention being a favorite when the chips went in? That’s beside the point. I should never have been in that situation to begin with. By putting all the chips in, I’m pretty much denying myself an opportunity of outplaying the Donk and luck ends up settling the issue.

Too much time is spent blaming the play of weaker players for the inadequacies in our own play. If you really believe that your play is superior to theirs, let your skills do the talking and pick up all their chips. For any time you let a weaker player get the best of you, the problem is not him, it's you.

PokerOnAMac Blogger Tournament

2006-07-22T10:48:00.000-04:00

I’m registered in the BloggerPods poker tournament by pokeronamac.com

I have registered to the BloggerPods tournament. This 1$ tournament, exclusive to bloggers, will give me a chance to win all kinds of amazing prizes, like IPODS, and such.

Hurry up and register since the tournament will be held tomorrow (July 23rd) at 6PM!

Striving for?

2006-07-18T14:53:00.000-04:00

One of the finest cash game players in the blog-sphere, The Law School Drop-Out, posted quite the eye opening post the other day.

Before we get to that, we need to put in perspective just how good of a player he is. He has been crushing the 30 /60 Limit game for more than a year. He’s also started tearing apart the 10/20 NL cash game on Party Poker. His most impressive feat, IMHO, was to exceed his self imposed 40 000$ in 30 days challenge when he managed to win 50k in 28 days!! Unreal stuff.

He had recently talked about moving up to the higher 80/160 limit and earn his stripes there. Unfortunately, it started with a 20 K loss. This was followed by a 10K drop. Followed by a 12k’er.Finally, one more 5 digit loss.

All in all, our poor friend lost 60 000$ in the span of 5 days playing on-line poker.

Read that line again.

That’s more money lost playing Poker than my GROSS salary for the year.

Although our friend has recouped 2/3 of his losses already, it does make one think. What are You/I/We hoping to achieve by playing this game? Could you/I psychologically handle such enormous losses in such a brief period of time?

I’m not a gambler at heart. I can’t stand –EV games since they're, well, -EV. I don’t see the fun in pissing away money bit by bit. Poker is somewhat of a medium in all of this. A skill game where $$ is awarded for your good play. Games where you can, to a certain extent, minimize the effects of luck on your results. Having fun while earning money, it can’t get any better than that.

Yet, at what point does Poker stop being a game? Where is the fun when the weekly swings are as big, if not bigger, as your yearly salary?

My initial goal, when I started playing this game somewhat seriously, was to become proficient at all the major types of games (Hold’Em, Stud and Omaha). How do you define proficient? I figure beating all these games consistently at the 10$/20$ level should make one a solid Poker player.

Will that truly be enough though? Human beings are greedy by nature. I don’t happen to escape that rule either. Whenever I’m running well at any level, I already start looking at the bigger tables trying to spot some juicy action. Although I have yet to be punished for taking those shots, it does seem to show that my inner greed seems to be yearning for more.

Only time will tell if the noble quest for perfection will be overtaken by the naked ambitions of greed.

A New Challenge and Mookie Thoughts

2006-07-13T14:08:00.000-04:00

Here's how the month of July has been going for me at the cash tables:

Pick up AA, cap it pre-flop with the loosest idiot at the table. He has 10-8s, flop comes 10-8-10

Pick up KQs on the button; raise it up, mp limper calls. Flop comes 4-K-K, limper had pocket 4's

Cap it three ways preflop with AA, flop comes 5-5-J, one of the cappers had pockets queens, the other idiot had 95s

Raise from the cut-off with AA, both blinds call, flop comes 2-8-10. Small blind has 10-2s; big blind has 10-8s

Looking briefly at PokerTracker, my two biggest losers for the month are pocket aces and pocket kings! Aces held up 30% of the time and Kings 40%.

Needless to say you won't make money at this game if you're losing constantly with the best starting hands in Hold'Em.

What now? I can't win a pot to save my life so it's pretty useless to wander around aimlessly while destroying my bankroll. I figured I needed some kind of challenge or goal, something to give some kind of purpose to my play.

So I decided to pick up Jordan's limit challenge.

It's pretty simple. Start from a certain amount at a specified limit and when you reach a certain point, you move up. Here's the chart:

Start $ Limit Play Until Drop Back
$25.............10/.25...........$55.....................$0
$55.............25/.50..........$110..................$50
$110...........50/1.............$215.................$100
$215...........1/2................$370................$200
$370...........2/4...............$550................$350
$550...........3/6...............$750................$525
$750...........4/8...............$950................$720
$950...........5/10............$1500...............$915

I intend to start with 215$, playing 1 / 2 LHE at two websites. I wouldn't be able to take the damn thing seriously at anything lower. Do I plan to go all the way with this? I might, don't really know, I'll stick to it at least until the downswing seems to subside. If anything, it should bring a purpose to my play, something that has been lacking big time for me lately.

************

I signed up for the Mookie last night in a attempt to redeem myself for an absolutely embarrassing performance at the WWDN. Things started pretty slowly while every single player at my table was doubling up as if it was the new “In” thing. I made my first successful move when my pocket 7's outraced AKo to end a 452345 losing streak of races in tournaments. Seriously folks, I almost cried. That double up gave me some chips to play with. I chipped up here and there, maintaining myself amongst the average stacks until I knocked out Bob Respert in a battle of the blinds where we both flopped top pair but I had him out kicked which earned me a pretty decent size pot. And then, I finally picked up a hand…

At 100-200 blinds, I make it 550 to go with Kings at UTG+1. The table was playing really tight and I didn't want to only pick up blinds with my first decent hand of the evening. 2.5X the blind seemed like a decent sized bet. Everyone folds to the button (xkm1245) who makes it 1200 to go, leaving himself 2400 behind. I happen to have him covered by about 100 chips. Ecstatic with this turn of events, I push and he insta-calls with AKo.

************

Let's pause for a second and talk about something that's been bothering me a lot lately. What is it with online players and their fascination with AK? I simply can't believe how many players are willingly calling pushes with AK early in tournaments when their stacks are deep. While it's true that it dominates all non pair hands, you're still at best either a 60/40 % favourite or 50/50 against any pair. Again why?

xkm1245 here makes an enormous mistake. An UTG raiser pops it to 2.5X the big blind. That's strength . He picks up AK from the button and he decides to raise it up. Not a bad play, although a call would have made sense since he will have position throughout the hand. He decides to raise it up and I push all my chips right away. That's a shitload of strength. What hands I am representing here? What range of hands would put in a raise from UTG and flat out push after being played back at? QQ+ and maybe AK. So why call off your entire stack (Remember I have him covered) when you're either behind or tied at best? His answer in the chat box when my Kings were turned over (“Mother effer”) seems to imply that he actually thought he was ahead! Meaning he was playing his cards and his cards only.

Now I should be ecstatic about this call. I'm a huge 70% favorite to pretty much double up my stack and be in the top three in chips for the tournament. But since I'm spending so much time on this, it obviously didn't happen, and a fucking ace fell on the turn and my ass was crippled.

************

But what can you do? I put my chips in as a huge favourite but the cards didn't fall my way. That's Poker, the long run, blablabla…

Anyway, I hope to get started on the limit challenge tonight. Hopefully I don't end up losing my entire roll trying to get stupid thing off the ground.

Zidane Speaks!

2006-07-12T15:18:00.000-04:00

"The words he said concerned my mother and sister."

In other words, the French captain was sent off in the final game of the World Cup for a Yo Mama joke!

Whoever ends up coaching the US national team should have these boys hard at work cranking up the nastiest, vilest, sickest Yo Mama jokes on earth in preparation for 2010. The WC would be theirs to lose!

See you at the Mookie tonight!

It’s freaking hot in herre

2006-07-11T14:47:00.000-04:00

Man ALIVE, its nice outside. Its days like this you’re really grateful to be alive.

I finally got off my lazy arse and bought myself a headset for my computer. I put off buying this damn thing for so long that I’m almost embarrassed to say since when. No matter, it’s here now so I can finally get down to business. Now I need to find myself some blogger addresses and get this show on the road. What the hell is a dial-a-shot by the way?

I didn’t play any Poker last night so I’m pretty anxious to get back to it tonight. What’s really nice is that my schedule is completely clear for the evening, no lifting, no soccer, just Poker. This treat could not have come at a better since I’m absolutely fucking knackered.

I’m really enjoying reading the various trip reports from the bloggers who were lucky enough to hit Vegas. You almost feel like you were really there. I have to make it for December. That’ll probably be my vacation time for the year so hopefully all will go well and I’ll be able to make my first foray into Sin city.

On tap for tonight, LHE cash games (let’s see if I can win a freakin’ pot tonight) and the WWDN. My tournament game has been coming around lately, so let’s see if I can burst the bubble bullshit and get myself some kind of score.

Later

Back to the drawing board

2006-07-10T15:12:00.000-04:00

After a wonderful month of June, July is off to a dreadful start where I’ve been dropping out BB’S out of my arse crack as if it was gonna out of style. Seems like my downswing is back in full force. *Sigh*

Limit Hold’Em is a pretty straight forward game. Nut peddling really. You sit and wait for your good hands and you play them hard. That, and that alone, should be enough to make you a winning player at the lower limits. Problems arise when those good hands go down in flames to a bunch of mouth breathers who’ll play any suited two and river trips or 2 pair to crack your aces, kings, etc. over and over and over and over...You get the point.

What to do? There’s nothing you can really do about it. A hiatus will not work. You have to ride out a bad streak. It’s pretty much a never ending cycle, sometimes you’re up, sometimes you’re down. They really call it the grind for a reason, it’s all about grinding out a few measly BB’S here and there and somewhere down the road it should lead to some kind of change in your back pocket.

My best advice would be to drop down limits. If you’re gonna play entire sessions without winning a single freakin’ pot (Happened to me a few times this week) might as well be doing it at the 1/2$ table instead of the 5/10$ table.

Not that I’m getting Rakeback at a few websites, I’m starting to wonder if I should move back temporarily to the land of Party Poker. I just miss the terrible players and it might be a good idea to splurge around in there to repad the roll. I’ll see how the rest of July unfolds, I might be overacting a the moment, but it’s definitely something I’ll keep an eye on.

BTW, while checking out WSOP updates on the Cardplayer website, I stumbled upon this new Pokerroom, Naked Poker. There are no words. I haven’t laughed this hard in weeks. Let’s make it NSFW just in case. Some of their promotions are quite interesting, one of them being winning a date with a Penthouse model (I guess Playboy girls have too much class to hang out with Online Poker geeks). Can you say disaster waiting to happen? I’m sure Miss Penthouse will be thrilled to hear some 21 year old 16 tabler with a winrate of 4.5BB/100 go on and on about why putting in that 5th bet on the river when his 17 outs draw missed on the end might be +EV. Poor girl.

Anywho, I probably won't make the MATH tonight but the WWDN should be a go so hopefully I catch you guys there.

Later

Bubble Boy

2006-07-04T13:21:00.000-04:00

Well last night was a first: I was bubble boy in a live tournament. My last hand? Pocket aces. I shit you not. Douchebag chip leader felt it was his duty to call every all-in at the table and he kept winning the showdowns going in with the worst hand more often than not. His Q6s turned a straight to send my rockets down the crapper.

I played alright, I was also very fortunate to catch some cards. I received aces three times, which is crazy since I’ve never received them once playing at that place before. I doubled up with them once, picked up the blinds on the second and the last time was mentioned up there. I had a decent stack but I was constantly meeting up with resistance whenever I was making a move on the blinds. Basically, I couldn’t build myself a huge stack so most of my tournament was spent grinding it out with an average sized one. Maybe next time.

I need to come up with some sort of plan to create a myself a serious live bankroll. I dipped into my wallet to pay for the tournament last night. You’d figure someone making thousands a month could somehow withdraw a 150$ every once in a while to create a live roll. Which is what I plan to do.

I had some pretty good results running cash games this weekend although I did hit some kind of snag yesterday. I’m really excited about hitting the tables tonight to win some of that back.

I still have that 25$ that Party Poker put in my account which I’ll blow on a few 10$ tournaments. I haven’t cashed in a tournament in a decade, I figure it’s bound to happen soon. It would be all kinds of cool if I could manage to bag a huge score using Party’s free money. Crossing fingers.

WWDN tonight, I should be there so hopefully ya’ll will be too

Later...

Children, it’s time to head home!

2006-06-29T16:06:00.000-04:00

It’s DADI time! My last outing at the previous one was fairly decent. I barely made it to final table where I was promptly dumped on the first hand (Short stack and what not). It was my first time playing a pot limit tournament so kudos to me!

No Limit is the name of the game tonight which means more tools to hang myself stupidly early on for no apparent reason! The key, for me, is discipline. I can’t start opening up 4 cash game tables if I’m bored or try to bully pots with J8s because I have position.

Yes, I can be THAT dumb.

Funny how I know I’m doing stupid stuff, I’m fully realizing that it clearly won’t work and yet, I still go through with it? Am I completely hopeless?

There’s a pretty wicked new promo right now on PokerSourceOnline where you can get a 150$ Amazon gift certificate for opening up a new account at Pokerroom.com. What can you get for 150$ on Amazon? How about a brand freakin new 1 GB iPod Nano? You’ll have to do this quickly since the deal expires on the 30th of June (midnight pacific time more specifically).

Other than that, I’m still running fairly well, grinding it out to the tune of bonuses and rakeback. My win rate is also pretty good so It’s been smooth sailing on all fronts. Long may it continue.

Hope I get to see you all tonight!

So far, so good

2006-06-26T15:45:00.000-04:00

The start up to Absolute Poker has been going well. The software is a bit ugly, if not atrocious, but there’s a fine selection of games available and the play is quite fast. Most importantly though, is the ability to clear bonuses while collecting rakeback, which is all kind of awesome. Definitely some interesting numbers for me to keep an eye on throughout the month. I’m up a few hundreds so far and I plan on hitting the tables again later tonight so let’s hope I can keep it up.

The WSOP is now officially underway. I had set a goal to at least make it to some kind of 1500$ event in the next three years and I can safely say that I won’t be getting there for a loooong while. For one, my tournament game is beyond atrocious at this point, so that would be a complete waste of a thousand dollars. Time is definitely on my side to improve it’s just a matter of putting in the actual effort to do it.

I’ll try to make it to the Monday at the Hoy tonight but I can’t really guarantee anything. I’ll definitely swing by to rail on the good folks at one point though.

Later....

Absolute Pokah!

2006-06-22T14:21:00.000-04:00

It’s pretty much settled, I’ll probably signup with Absolute Poker as early as tonight. Thisisthenuts.com hands out a pretty decent deal, 100% deposit bonus up to 750$ plus you get to collect rakeback at 28% while clearing said bonus. They also, apparently, offer tons of reload bonuses so I’ll try to take full advantage of that at the same time.

The month of June has been pretty good to me. I’m 200$ short of hitting 2k, which would be one of my best months ever. With eight days left in the month, I’m hoping that a new playing site will help me get over that hump. Again last night I had to take a night off since I couldn’t find a decent 5-10$ LHE game going.

I also received a copy of Harrington Hold’Em Volume 3. I haven’t read it completely yet but what I saw seemed to have been worth the wait. The book mostly focuses on post-flop play, which is definitely interesting. I’ll try to finish it this weekend and post a quick review here.

Good luck at the tables all!

Live Blogging the WWDN

2006-06-21T07:58:00.000-04:00

In the efforts of improving my dreadful, rapidly decreasing tournament game, I will be live blogging the WWDN this week. If I know someone out there is reading whatever it is I'm doing in these things, I'll be less likely to act like a chip spewing moron (Yah right...)

- Initial table: S.Nickerson, GRobman, aquaverse, Yours truly, Garthmeister, Maudie and Serne. Decent turnout tonight, 65 peeps

- First hand dealt is 3-9o. Mucked

- While this is going on, I'm checking out the girls of Hollywood Poker. And boy, do I ever wanna do all kinds of nasty stuff to Mary Castro

- Well that was quick. First table is already broken (It took about 4 hands!) when Maudie's pocket 8's go down in flames to AQo who rivers a flush

- New table: Mungo36 aka Guin (MIA at this point), mamboking79, xkm1245, R-Gee, myself, SirF, TransFish, Garth and NewinNov

- Hammer's been dropped already

- Haven't seen a flop yet, nice cards but not good enough to play this early

- Win my first pot (700 chips) in a battle of the blinds where I flop top pair and R-Gee calls me all the way down with second pair

- Only 3 people gone so far

- Lose a few chips in a battle of the blinds where I now have middle pair and he has top pair

- Mungo is now in the house

- Still checking out the chicks at Hollywood Poker. I am now in love with Ashley Dorezo

- I might dump her for Erin Muller though

- Currently down to 56

- I've still haven't seen a flop outside of my blinds.

- And I am now out in 53rd. Ran QQ into Guin's KK and that was all she wrote. With blinds at 15-30, he made it 100 to go, I bump it to 300 and he pushed. I'm almost getting 3-1 so I make the call and IGHN.

I could've laid that down but the odds were good and I wanted to get some chips early. You win some, you lose some I guess.

Couldn’t find a decent 5/10 LHE game afterwards so I pretty much called it a night. It seems I need to find another Poker room to play with. Come next month I might migrate to Absolute Poker. They offer continuous bonuses AND you can collect rakeback while clearing ‘em. Sounds good to me.

June Objective Cleared

2006-06-19T14:50:00.000-04:00

Well, I am now done with that stupid Full Tilt sign up bonus. Too bad it resulted in me losing my ass out there. Again, low stakes LHE games at Full Tilt are ridiculously -EV and I’m seriously wondering if I should play there still. There’s really not a whole lot of donks, and tons of tight aggressive players. Where is the profit gonna come from? You pair of aces will only make money if another player has pocket kings or queens. Hitting a big flop doesn’t often lead to a big pot. The end result? A basically break even game where most players end up losing to the house rake.

Enter rake back. My plan for next month is to play a thousand hands on Full Tilt and another thousand elsewhere to see what kind of results I can come up with a full rake back source for the whole month. It should be interesting for sure.

I had a soccer game yesterday afternoon so I missed out on the World championship of Bloggers tournament. I really didn’t have any hopes or aspirations for this thing so I’m not that bummed about missing out. The field was a pretty solid 2200 people. That’s a shitload of donkeys. My first Internet tournaments were the Pokerroom daily freerolls. 2400 entrants duking it out for a 100$ payout for first place. My best result was taking third place once for a 50$ reward. The beginning of these tournament was almost always a laugher. You’d often see 3 or 4 players all-in on the very first hand of the tournament with gems like k-6s or A-3o. All this to say that making it through a huge field like this is no easy task and you really need a good combination of solid cards, good fortune and timing.

I’d really like to bang out a couple of hands tonight but I’m heading out with some friends to watch game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals. Should be a dandy!

Later

The Good Grind

2006-06-14T15:43:00.000-04:00

I am now fully back into the comfortable zone of grinding. It is it what it is. You play your hands the way they should be played. If they hold up or your draw hits, you win, if they don’t, you shrug it off and move to the next one.

Running bad is hard on the common folk. Losing a thousands of dollars in a few months, weeks or days for a non gambling guy like me will affect your outlook on tons of things. The game is not fun anymore, we fear playing it. We expect, even anticipate, over cards when we see a flop with pocket queens. We back away whenever we get raised on the turn. We play the game with a losing mentality and results end up taking over making solid decisions.

I’ve been through two major downswings in 2006 already and I’m still digging my way out of the second one (Almost out). Did I really learn anything throughout these hard times? I think so. After going through a whole month of losing with the best three starting hands in Hold’em and suffering all those beats that you hear/read about over and over again, I now realize that the biggest culprit in all of this was my own play. Playing in that weak-scared mode to protect my investments further magnified the problems. The pots that I won were smaller than what they should have been, since I backed away from putting more money into pots in fear of another loss, and I ended up losing pots that aggressiveness might have won me outright. Easy to see how you can get yourself stuck into a pretty nasty hole that way. Never again.

I played the WWDN again last night. Lost most of my stack on a semi-bluff all-in where my 12 outs didn’t hit. Winning that huge pot would have launched me towards the final table. Maybe next time?

Thing is, I don’t really know if I’m gonna play this tournament anymore. The people are cool and all but the stakes are becoming a bit low for my levels. I’m hardly focussed whenever I’m playing it since I’m multi-tabling cash games and pulling in pots that are bigger than what first place in that tournament pays. We’ll see how it goes I guess...

Just to prove how much of a self-contradicting moron I am, I will play the Mookie tonight since I have nothing else to do. I also think that today might be the last day of the NHL season so I might check that out for a bit, but I should definitely be ready for the Mook.

You’re oh so swingy…

2006-06-07T08:39:00.000-04:00

Last night was a bit of rough. After a +600$ win on Monday, I nearly dropped half of that yesterday. Just your typical run of the mill variance BS. Oh yeah, I ran into quads twice. Yup, I ran into freakin’ quads twice in the same evening. And I had good hands too, obviously, so that cost me a bundle. Odds on this happening please? *Sigh*

The WWDN was an absolute disaster for me. I wasn’t feeling it, I was distracted and I pretty much brought my C- game to the table. This resulted in my worst ever finish in this thing, 57th out of 67. Just flat out terrible.

Still working on the Full Tilt signup bonus. I’ve now released 480$ out of 600$. I should have this completed by the end of the next week. With that said, I really need to add that the LHE games at FT are absolutely terrible. Could this place be more of a rock garden? Most hands rarely ever see a flop and the only way you make any money is if two players start up with big pocket pairs. I won a huge one with AA against KK, my only pot at FT that was more than 6BB but everything else will pick you up the blinds or fold everybody at your flop bet. Haaate!

I don’t know if I’ll have much time to hit the tables tonight since I’ll be heading out with some friends. I’m pretty tired so I might just take a night off and rest these tired old legs.

Beer and Boobies

2006-06-07T08:02:00.000-04:00

The international beer festival was a hoot, crappy weather notwithstanding. This being my third straight year of attendance, I have been branching out more and more into different types of beer and I've become more appreciative of a finer product. For my first year there, I stuck to run of the mill beers like Alexander Keith's, Rickard's Red, Heineken and such. A sip of Stout would have had me running for the hills. Now, though I simply cannot get enough of it (Stout).

My first few samplings were mostly of the Black kind. I stumbled upon the McAuslan brewery where I got to sample their Oatmeal Stout. Dayummmm that was some good shit! I like my stouts strong, with a really hefty chocolate taste and this one hit the spot pretty damn well.

I then proceeded to the next pit stop, the brewery "Le Grimoire". The girls handing out the beer here were better than anything else in that damn place. They had quite possibly the most beautiful girl I've ever seen in my life, a brunette with gorgeous blue eyes. Yum! Their stout, "La Noire Soeur" was okay, but the chocolaty taste was somewhat missing.

I then had nice discovery by sampling a Porter, my first ever btw, called 'Le Corriveaux'. Now this I liked a lot. Really reminded me of the Oatmeal stout I had a few minutes before and I was pleasantly surprised.

And then, the goddess that knocked me flat on my ass, "L'aphrodisiaque" from the brewpub "Dieu du ciel". Easily the finest alcohol liquid I've ever put in my mouth. Folks, this was like drinking milk chocolate beer. A nice dark tan with a syrupy foamy head; coupled with a ridiculous cocoa after taste that sends your senses in ecstasy. Yes, it was that damn good, it is now my life goal to find this thing in a bottle so I can drink some at home.

Since this event was held in Montreal, you can pretty much expect to be surrounded by hot chicks. It's pretty much a given, Montreal always brings out the pretty. One of my friends had just a bought a digital camera so we pretty much went out of our way to ask hot chicks to take some pictures with us. Cool thing about hot French chicks, they'll pretty much do whatever you ask for as long as you're polite. Here's what I mean:

This one's boobs are just as big as my freakin' head. And I have a big head...

I was asking this one if her boobs were real, she pretty much laughed it out saying "Oh, you silly black man you..."

Can't wait to do it again next year!

PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker

2006-06-04T21:03:00.000-04:00

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 3816309

Home game with the Donks

2006-06-02T16:06:00.000-04:00

I barely squeezed in a few hours at the virtual tables last night. Mostly positive, I’m now back in the black on Full Tilit by 4$. Yay! It’s a start.

Nope, the crux of my evening was spent donking it off with some friends in a home game. Think of it as the Mookie Uber-lite. Most of these guys don’t really care about Poker, they play for fun, but getting better or worst doesn’t really matter to them. I can definitely see some improvements in all of them, but that’s not really important.

With that said, last night’s donkfest reached incredible levels of absurdity. The format is pretty simple; 5$ gets you 2000$ in chips, blinds start at 25/50 increasing every 15 minutes and unlimited rebuys during the first hour.

The rebuys are usually really for one guy. He actually knows more about the game than the others, but the guy simply can’t lay down a hand. He knows he’s beat, he says out loud that he knows that he’s beat yet he calls anyway. He re-bought twice last night. Funny thing is, yesterday, for some reason, everyone kept doing the absolutely worst possible plays to get themselves in awful situations and eventually getting themselves stacked.

For instance, unlimited rebuy guy raises it to 3x the blind from UTG, my brother flat calls and they see the flop heads-up. K-9-4 and the preflop raiser bets out, my brother reraises and other guy pushed. My brother calls. Pre-flop raiser shows AA my brother shows 10-10(??). My brother turned another ten though and stacked the guy.

By the end of the first hour we had reached an unprecedented 6 re-buys for a 5 player tournament!!

I pretty much stayed away from the nonsense and had built myself a nice stack by busting someone when I flopped top two pair to his TPTK. I picked up a few small pots here and there but that was pretty much it. Some luck box, who had stacked 4 players with ridiculous suckouts and re-sucks, was bullying the table by catching or hitting everything in sight. It was sick. I actually ended up going out first after the re-buy period when said Luck box raised from the button and I pushed with AQ from the small blind. Turns out he had KK. I flop two aces (!) but he turns a K to send my arse to the rail.

Poker play will be sparse this weekend since I’m leaving for Montreal tomorrow to attend the International Festival of Beer. This will be my third straight year of attending and I’m pretty stocked about the whole thing. I’ll raise a glass to you bloggers when I’m out there.

Later

Another WWDN flameout

2006-06-01T13:43:00.000-04:00

Man that tournament is really starting to piss me off.

Let's recap; it's pretty much the same damn thing that's been happening in this one for me lately:

Build myself a top five chip stack by the first break? Check

Donk off chips by stupidly trying to bully the table waving my big stack like a big stick demanding respect? Check

Completely annihilate said stack by running big hands into monster hands for ¾ of my stack? Check

The Coup de Grace was applied by Garthmeister this time. A short stack moved all-in and I reraise to isolate with my pocket jacks. Garth moves all-in behind, I barely have him covered but the pot is laying me 3-1 so I pretty much have to call unless I'm sure he has AA-KK or QQ. Yup, he had KK. I actually flopped a jack but he also flopped a king, so I was pretty much destined to go broke on that hand.

Oh well!!

Cash games have been running a bit smoother lately. I made around 400$ in the past two days on various web sites but lossed about 140$ on Full Tilt. It seems FT hasn't received the message that the "repeated kicking’s to my junk" era is coming to an end and they should consider letting it go soon. Why am I still playing there? Rake back. Most specifically, working on their stupid signup bonus so I can get paid fully.

Here's the deal, most websites will not allow you to receive rake back while you're clearing bonuses. You pretty much can't have your cake and eat it too. Had I put any thought into this, I would have deposited the absolute minimum on the site, and I'd be enjoying fatass 200-300$ rake back payments instead of the scrap that I've been getting for the past two months. Let that be a lesson to you kids out there, if you're gonna register to a new website with the intent of getting rake back, deposit the absolute minimum amount that the site will allow you to. You'll end up getting paid quicker and better rake back than those stupid never ending signup bonuses.

I don't really know if I'll have a chance to hit the virtual felt tonight. I’m heading over to some friends for some beer and Poker so my time schedule is a bit cloudy at this point. Hopefully I can manage some dough in this one also.

Later...

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

2006-05-30T08:14:00.000-04:00

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!!

2006-05-29T08:01:00.000-04:00

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

2006-05-16T12:25:00.000-04:00

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

2006-05-15T12:58:00.000-04:00

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

2006-05-01T15:59:00.000-04:00

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.

D.O.A at the D.A.D.I

2006-04-25T17:28:00.000-04:00

The tournament, for me, was a grind from the get-go. With the blinds really low, I picked up some really nice hands but my raises folded everybody. Chips were pretty hard to come by, I never managed to get my starting stack over 3500. It was that bad.

What finished me off was the arrival of Tournament Chip leader Drizz at our table sitting to my left. Really hard to make some steal attempts when this beast re-raises your entire stack on a whim. To make matters worst, I picked up some really decent holdings while he was in his blinds and he still wouldn’t hesitate to re-raise me for all my chips. Arghhhhh…

As Drizz kept crushing and eliminating everything in sight, we were moved to another table. Drizz followed me there but he was away from me at this point. This table though was filled with stacks around my size, if not smaller, all waiting for prime opportunities to push. In other words, to make a move, you needed a hand. I pushed with KQs only to be called by some short stack that had me barely covered, with pocket 9’s. He flopped a set and rivered quads to banish me to the rail and that was that. Frustrating but fun. I’ll get ‘em next time.

I’ll try to put in some time at the limit tables tonight. My exile has lasted long enough and I’m ready to make some money again. I’ve decided to play at the Party Network for a little bit; I just like the freedom of finding tables at whatever stakes you wanna play.Let’s see how it goes.

Feeling better, playing better?

2006-04-24T12:52:00.000-04:00

Still not feeling 100%, but definitely getting there. The cough is pretty much gone. My nose is still stuffed a little bit but compared to where I was two days ago, I’ll take it.

For some crazy reason, I didn’t really feel the urge to play poker lately. I sat down for something like 45 minutes yesterday, but I was pretty much going through the motions and not playing anywhere near my best. I guess I’m in some sort of Poker funk, I’ll get out, of that I’m not too worried, I just need to find something to aim for. A goal maybe?

Tonight is the DADI, which should be nice. If there’s one thing I can be proud of lately, it has to be my tournament play. I think the biggest mistake most people make in tournaments is going broke early trying to accumulate chips. For one, there’s a lot of luck AND skill involved in pulling that off, and two, few people know how to really play the big stack. There’s nothing sadder than watching a player who quadrupled his stack in the first level be blinded down to average-size by not getting involved enough.

I still say the patient solid strategy is better at these small stakes tournaments. Don’t risk your stack making stupid moves in the first two level for no apparent reasons. Wait for your prime hands and let the ‘wanna be pros’ knock themselves out making moves at the pot by open-raising from MP with 3-4o when the blinds are 25-50. As the blinds rise, your aggression and your boldness level have to follow suit. Be observant of the table. If a player is always raising when all fold to him, re-raise his ass when it comes up to you with any semi-decent holding. He’ll throw his hand away, trust me. You just need the courage to pull that trigger. It’s these little things that end up making a big difference in the end.

I hope I can get a good vibe going early in the tournament. Success in tournaments is often related to circumstances as much as your play. Ever get that feeling that you’re gonna do well right from the start? That’s what I’m hoping for tonight when I sit down in front of the laptop. Besides, I really think I’m due.

Sick again!

2006-04-19T17:59:00.000-04:00

Unreal, after fighting a cold for 2 weeks, I managed to pick it up again! I’ve been coughing like a Mofo for the past two days and I generally feel like complete shit. Yay me!

I didn’t play any Poker yesterday, playing sick has to rank up there as a definite –EV experience so I took the night off. It kinda sucks that I missed the WWDN but there will be other nights. I will signup for the Mookie tonight though. Wednesdays is usually the day I watch America’s Next Top Model with my Girlfriend (UGH) but she’s gone for the week so that frees me of that burden.

Don’t really know what I’m gonna do as far as Poker concern. I know I’ll be dropping down limits while I’m fighting through the downswing but I don’t really know where I want to play. I’m really tempted to go back to the Party Network. They have a reload bonus going on right now and I kinda miss the shitty graphics, the buggy software and the god awful customer service. It sucks that I’m not getting rakeback there but their gift store is really nice and I’ve received both of my Items in perfect condition. We’ll see I guess.

Losing

2006-04-18T09:10:00.000-04:00

Well folks, the past few days were rough. They say it’s through adversity that we learn the most about ourselves, to this I would like to add that it’s through losing your ass off that we learn the most about Poker.

What did I learn? Nothing that I didn’t really know before.

YOU. WILL. LOSE.

On some days it’s just inevitable. It doesn’t matter how many books you have read on the subject, no matter how many fishes are sitting at your table and no matter how many BB/100 you’re crushing the game at your current limit; those days will eventually happen. The days were nothing ever goes right. The days were the fishes who usually donate their money to you will river their 22-1 dog or catch that 4 outer every single time you hold a big pocket pair. THESE THINGS WILL HAPPEN AND IT’S ALL ABOUT HOW YOU REACT TO THEM WHEN THEY DO.

I’ve just gone through four straight days of losing and it sucks. Big pocket pairs not holding up and getting rivered by gutshot straight draws that manage to hit? Check. Huge draws missing? Check. Tilting chips away like a dumbarse calling all the way down to the river with bottom pair? Check.

150 BB down was the end result (That's 1500$ in 4 days). Nothing too drastic, it basically sets me back to where I was at the start of April. But what it does tell me is that I have a LOT to learn about this game, especially the psychological aspect of it. It seems I’ve yet to acquire that level of maturity in Poker where you can solely focus on making the right decision and not on the results. Not an easy thing to do, especially when most of your losses occur with the best starting hands in Hold’em. Yes in the long run I’ll end up with the chips and yes, these idiots chasing me with their gutshot straight while getting nowhere near the right odds will go broke before long but damn...

So what’s the plan now?

#1 - Drop back down to 3/6 and reacquire my confidence which is all but shot right now

#2 - Focus on what’s working for me lately. I’ve cashed in my last three MTT’s including a 4th place finish at a 400 person 10$ tournament on Pokerroom for a 250$ payout. The other two were in 180 SNG where I stupidly got all my money in way ahead only to lose twice to rivered flushes.

I’m not mad or bitter. A wee bit frustrated, that’s it. I won’t quit the game obviously, I’m still having the time of my life. But Poker has thrown me the gauntlet and it’s now up to me to stand up and meet the challenge.

Poker’s being mean to me…

2006-04-14T19:25:00.000-04:00

Ugh, what a brutal run. I’m currently stuck into a nasty funk. It’s simply sick how the fish manage to hit their two outers against me on suck a consistent basis.

The losses are not that bad, I pulled the plug before mayhem, but it still boggles the mind at how quickly EVERYTHING can go down in a hurry when playing poker.

I have few days off at work so I’ll do the same regarding LHE cash games. I refuse to play through a downswing since it nearly cost me my sanity as well as my bankroll earlier this year. I’ll be focusing my energies on playing some tournaments in the hopes of hitting a big score. At the very least, it’ll be good to have my focus in another direction. Earlier today, I bubbled the final table of a 180 SNG on Pokerstars when my flopped top two pair got rivered by flush. What else is new, really?

Bunch of stuff

2006-04-12T08:23:00.000-04:00

Two nights ago, I was dealt pocket aces 5 times throughout a two hour LHE 5-10 6 max session. Yup, 1-2-3-4-5 times. I only won once with them. 20% sucess rate with aces. 20 freaking percent with the preflop nuts, the odds-on 4.5 to 1 favourite. Pocket aces is the starting hand with the greatest expected value of them all. The key word here is “expected”. Never confuse expectation with guarantee or you’ll be banging your head on your desk a lot if you have a night similar to this one.

********************************

Played the WWDN last night. Never really got anything going. My chipstack was pretty much average throughout the night. Most of my money came for stealing blinds and such. I went out when I got all the money in with AK diamonds against a AK hearts and the flop came up all hearts. What are the freaking odds of that happening, 15 to 1?

********************************

Finally got to play a HU match against Veneno. Man alive is she ever aggressive. No limping in with this gal, it’s all bet-bet-bet-raise-raise-raise. There’s basically two ways to beat those aggressive players: You either check-call them all the way down if you have a medium strength hand or make ‘em pay through the nose with traps if you have a monster.

I was pretty lucky to win this one. I rivered a flush with the same card that gave her a straight. Again this is the exact scenario where Will Wonka finished me off in the HUC#3 only I ended up on the winning side. I’m looking forward to playing her again.

********************************

I just finished Phil Gordon's Little Green Book : Lessons and Teachings in No Limit Texas Hold'em and it is quite the fine read, I must say. I ordered it through PSO so it was pretty much free. Gordon’s writing style is clear and simple. He doesn’t go crazy in-depth like Sklansky, which makes it way easier to digest. His chapter on Pot odds is the best one on that topic that I've seen yet. I wouldn’t recommend this book as an introduction to NLHE, Harrington on Hold’em will forever hold that spot IMO, but Gordon’s book should be the next one on the list.

My Date with Willy

2006-04-10T13:28:00.000-04:00

Had my HUC#3 semifinal date with Will Wonka last night and I came back with quite the sore junk. The first two matches were short little affairs. I hardly remember the details, but I think the first one ended when I flopped a pair of tens to take out his pocket pair of nine’s. The second match was also a quick little thing. Ironically, the final hand of that match was a replica of the final hand of my last match against Aussie Dave when I got all the money in with A9 against AK. No suckout for me this time though and it’s off to the rubber match.

Man alive, was this one ever long. I had him down early but he grinded his way back up. Now I was way down, but I grinded my way back up. The damn thing went 140 hands, just to give ya’ll an idea. The final hand was rough. I flopped a pair and an OESD where I called down to the river to catch the perfect card to hang myself, my straight card. He pushed all-in. The board had three spades on it. Did he have it? It was a tough spot to be in, my stack was way short and I just couldn’t see myself folding that straight. I called and he flips over the turned nut flush. I was drawing dead from the get go. That was a really tough match. Now I don’t really know much about Fishy McDonk but Will Wonka will be tough to beat.

I was a bit disappointed about the lost, I really started believing that I could win this damn thing. Can you imagine the traffic for my blog if did win? Plus a chance to go one-on-one with Iggy? *Drool* I would’ve become a superstar!

While clearing my last few hundred hands at The Gaming Club, I realized that I love shorthanded poker. I stepped up to my usual limits for a few hours and I proceeded to pound the living crap out of the table . +60BB playing 5-10$ poker? That’s unheard of and obviously won’t last, but I can see why these games are so profitable. You make your money in LHE by cashing in on your opponent’s mistakes. All players see more flops in shorthanded poker, therefore, they make more mistakes. And the bad players at these games make so many freakin’ terrible mistakes that they’re basically tripping over themselves to hand you over their money. Case in point:

I pick up Jd-10d in the big blind when the biggest whale at the table raises preflop (No big surprise here, he’s been raising every hand he’s seen so far) The second biggest whale at the table calls from the small blind and I obviously call from the big blind. Flop comes 4-J-J. Nice. Now I just sit back and enjoy the ride. SB bets, I call, other whale raises, sb 3bets, I call, whale caps, all call. Turn is a 10, I now have the nuts. SB bets, I call, Whale raises, SB 3bets, I call, whale caps, etc. The river comes a blank. And just like that, all the action dies. The small blind checks, I bet, they both call and I pick up the monstrous pot (It was over 30BB) . What did they have? SB J-6, which kinda sucks for him. The other whale had AK. This is a 5/10 $ table people. 5 FUCKING 10!?!!

I can also see the other side of coin though. On a bad day, the brutal beats by these godawful players add up REAL quick at these short tables and the losses can become quite astronomical. I’ll keep playing them for a while to see where that takes me.

With all bonuses and gifts out the way, I can now focus on playing my regular games. Tonight, I will start piling up the Full Tilt tokens. I wanna go to the WSOP dammit!

The Champ was here...

2006-04-07T12:31:00.000-04:00

----------------
If you still want to hate, I've got a big blue veiner you can gag on.
----------------
The Poker Champ

Why Champ? Why leave us after getting us hooked on your brilliant, brilliant stuff? *snif*

I’m pretty much the new kid on the block so I didn’t know one thing about the Champ. It was only this past Tuesday, when every known Poker blogger on the planet came out of the champ closet, that I got the opportunity to find his blog. Folks, if you haven’t done so yet, go read the whole thing. It’s really, REALLY worth it. I haven’t laughed this much in years. Wether he’s agonizing over the bad play of donkeys (whom he calls tourists) or bashing other bloggers (“No worries, I know his game sucks shit”) the whole thing had me on the floor laughing from beginning to end. The reason why he probably had so many people fooled though, and I would have been one of them btw, is that he was really gamer. The man could play some cards. Witness him crushing the 45 SNG challenge or his final table showing at the WPBT WSOP satellite. Kudos to those responsible.

Here’s a brief summary of how Poker has been for me in the past two days:
AA: 1 for 4
KK: 2 for 6
QQ: 0 for 8

How the fuck I am suppose to win money if I keep losing with the three best starting hands in Hold’Em? Ironically, I’m actually up 1.73 BB for those two days so I guess it could be worst.

I’m almost done clearing those 750 raked hands for my last PSO gift. You really burn through these things quick when you’re 4 tabling 0.50/1$ 6-max. I’m also up on the site so far which is also a +. I’m really starting to get the hang of 6-max. Once I’m done with this bonus, I’m gonna move up to 3-6$ 6-max and see if I can get something going at that level.

Full Tilt LHE games are on temporary hiatus for me. For one, they are absolute rock gardens and the suckouts are getting to me something harsh. I’ll dabble in NL for a while and I’m also gonna start stockpiling a shitload of 26$ tokens. I’m due for a big tourney score, I just need to put myself in those situations more (meaning actually playing a tournament instead of talking non stop about playing more tournaments)

Now you fucking tourists can all gag on my big blue veiner.

Why champ? *snif *

WWDN, HUC#3 and more

2006-04-05T08:14:00.000-04:00

Dear ArtofSuckout,
You finished the tournament in 9th place.
A $24.50 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

Congratulations!
Thank you for participating.
--------------------------------------

I was tournament chip leader, or in the top five, from the start of that thing all the way to the bubble. Unfortunately, I got tangled in a pot with a bigstack with pocket 10's only to lose and that knocked my ass down to shortstack status (He, of course, went on to win the tournament)

The final table was your typical internet 12 minutes blind level two card poker all-in fest where whoever was the first to enter a pot would usually be doing so with a push. I pushed UTG with J-10o only to run into AK and that was the end of that.

I also managed to win my HUC3 match against AussieDave. It went the distance. The first match lasted about 10 minutes. I was grinding him down until he pushed with A high on a connected board where I gambled with my OESD that I hit on the turn. I had him down big time in the second match but he caught some good hands and slow played them to perfection to take over the chiplead. He finished that one off when I pushed with Ax into his pocket queens. The last match, again, started off the same way with me grinding him down and him attempting a comeback. The final hand was quite simply a ridiculous suckout on my part. I moved him all-in with A9 only for him to flip over AKs. I flopped a 9 and that was it. I felt really bad about that one.

I think I’m playing WillWonka next so I’ll E-mail him to set that one up. The final 4 baby, that’s what it’s all about!

I probably won’t be able to play any poker tonight, which sucks since I really wanted try my hand at the Mookie invitational, so I’ll probably be back at the tables on Thursday.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it to Vegas for the WPBT in July (Stupid work), but man, a Hooters Hotel and Casino?

Tempting isn’t it?

WPBT WSOP Satellite Recap

2006-04-04T15:54:00.000-04:00

First off I just want to thank Iggy for putting this whole thing together, it really was quite the experience. And an incredibly classy move of him to reach into his own pocket and find the money to send an extra blogger to the WSOP. Thank you Iggy!

The tournament was awesome. It was my first deep stack tournament ever and man was I stoked. I love it when you can actually wait and play a tight solid game early and switch gears at ease when the format allows it. I was pretty much card dead for the first 90 minutes combined with the fact that I was at a table full of maniacs meant that no chips were going my way. My stack was pretty much going one way, down, while my cards kept missing flops and my bluffs kept getting busted. I was down to 1800 chips at the two hour mark.

That’s when I started getting cards and playing smarter. I doubled up with pocket 10's against Gcox’s pocket 8's. I then won a huge pot when I limped KK UTG and got it all in the middle against the big blind’s 6-5 offsuit (don’t know what the hell he was thinking). I picked up some nice pots here and there and suddenly found myself as tournament chip leader with about 30 people left.

Again, all this is possible thanks to the structure. In a regular 12 minute blind level tourney, all my chips would have ended up in the middle at the beginning of level 4 with K-10o or some other marginal holding since I couldn’t catch any cards to save my life in the earlier levels.

The turning point of the tourney, at least for me, happened at the 100/200 level with a 25 ante while holding KK in the big blind. It folds all around to Garth on the button who makes it 500 to go, the small blind calls and I pop it to 1500. Garth folds and the small blind calls. Flop comes 10-J-6. The small blinds immediately goes all-in. What could he have here? Pocket jacks or pocket 10 would not have gone all-in, J-10 would not be involved in this pot. A-J? Perhaps but that should also have been folded preflop. I put him on Queens, it’s the only hand that made sense in this situation. What does he have? Pocket 3's. I shit you not. He claimed he was tired and wanted to go to bed. Guess what happens next? He rivers a 3. That one pretty much took the wind out of my sails and made me play like a steaming idiot. If I win that hand, I’m way ahead of the field with a 40 000 stack instead of middle of the pack with 25 000 chips. It also infuriates me that someone who has pretty much quit sticks in the game and messes it up for people who actually want to compete. Why don’t you just turn off the computer and check/fold for the rest of the tournament?

The rest was pretty much uneventful. I was trying to steal raise my stack back and was pretty much spewing chips all over the place. I doubled up a shortstack Gcox by putting him all-in with top pair top kicker on a one suit board (while holding no card of that suit mind you) when he was clearly representing pocket aces (What can I say? I was steaming ) He went on to ride that momentum all the way to third place and I was later bounced by going all-in prematurely with pocket 7's only to run into pocket 9's.

I’ve learned a LOT about my game during this thing. I really need to tamper my aggression and not just do it for the sake of doing it. When I raise it up preflop, don’t automatically go into Harrington on Hold’em mode and blindly throw a continuation bet out there. It’s ok to be weak-tight sometimes, you just need to know when to shed that image, etc.

There’s another one of these things in a few weeks and I’ll be there for sure. I’ll be ready and focussed to take it to the next level then.

On tap for tonight, WWDN and my HUC3 match so that should keep me fairly busy.

Later