60 Minutes

OK, I guess I shouldn't have been expecting steak but I was.  Imagine my horror when I was served a hotdog.  A very pretty hot dog but not at all satisfying when I was expecting steak.

You have a preconception when 60 Minutes covers a topic.  You expect to be informed with facts.  Plenty of facts.  Numerous, substantiated facts.  Not only did they claim that online poker was illegal in the United States - which is blantantly wrong - they seemed to only skim the surface of online poker while painting the entire industry with the UB/AP dirty brush. 

I still hold out hope that the new administration will make an effort to not only repeal the UIGEA but to take steps toward taxing, legalizing and regulating online gaming.  I won't hold my breath but I will keep my fingers crossed.

PokerSlut Tour XII

 

Sunday nights.  But not this Sunday night.  

Enjoy your evening with your family or 

go watch 60 Minutes like I'm about to do.  

We'll be back next week with Season XII.

Doubles, Doubles, Toils and Troubles

Figured I would throw a double or nothing update in here since I haven't said anything in a while. Since the beginning I have played a total of 92 of them. My roll is slowly grinding up and I refuse to play anything else on Stars to screw that up. I still have about $65 to go before I move up to the $10 ones. In around 80 FPP's I am clearing a $40 bonus so that should help.

This weekend I tried 6 tabling to see how difficult it would be for the challenge in January. In the beginning at 10 handed tables it was fairly easy. I could keep up with my hands and generally know what to do before action came to me. Later on when you have to keep track of push/fold ranges and your standing in each one is when I was exponentially more difficult. My eyes were really stressing late. I ended up going 4-2 in that stretch so that could be a good sign. After that many at once I need to take a small break and let the eyes rest. I had all of the tables tiled when I did it. Maybe next time I need to try and cascade them and see what happens.

I have a good idea for a table mod but I doubt it could be done. When you have all of the tiles tables you can click fold when it gets to you already. If action comes on a table and you haven't selected an action I wish the table could expand to the front, make your action, then tile back so you can see all of them. Anyone know if this has been done before? IT people start working on that for me.

Here is a graph of my progress so far. (click to enlarge)

Bodonkey

The Bodonkey was last night. I knew it would be a smaller turnout due to Thanksgiving and I was correct, 20 runners. When you add in what Bodog kicks in the prize pool was more than double what it should be. Very nice. Nzgreen was to my immediate right on my opening table. I lost a few hands early and was sitting below 2000. I was able to chip back up a little bit when I picked-up A,K UTG and limped. Behind me there was a raise and a ship from a short stack. I shipped over the top and the short stack had K,Q and I was up over 3k.

I was able to build my stack from there until I ran into this hand vs Nz. He was getting short and raised it up 3x. I re-raised with A,K and he thought and called. Off to a J,9,4 flop Nz checks with about 1300 behind. I lead at the pot for 500. I picked this amount because I wanted the bet to say I am not folding if you shove. He ends up shoving and I obviously call. He had 7,7. I turned a flush draw but never got there and I doubled him up, leaving me in the 1900 range again.

I would like to solicit opinions on how the hand was played from both ends. I contend that Nz played it badly but he said that he put me on exactly A,K and was able to proceed the way he did. I think I make that I play AQ+ and 1010+ as well. Hard to say.

I was able to double again before the first break and I was sitting on around 4k. In the second hour I flopped some sets and got other premium holdings (if you count AA and KK). One interesting hand was against donkette who was in the BB. I raised it with the 97dd in middle position and she was the only caller. Flop comes J,7,x. She open shoves into the pot. This smells soooo much like a stop and go. I didn't take long to call but she had the Q,J. Bad read me.

Headed to the final table I was one of the shorter stacks. I was able to get a double and ended up grabbing the chip lead with around 6-7 left. I kinda just hung out there and with four people left two interesting hands happened.

The first hand I had the chip lead. Not too long before against the same opponent I was able to put in a check raise on the flop with bottom two pair. He folded. Fast forward a few hands I'm holding the 8,7 and call a raise from the same player. I put in the same check raise on the flop but he calls. I lead the turn and he min-raises me back. Plan gone wrong. I fold and am now 3rd in chips and still on the bubble.

After that hand I picked-up a few pots and was in a healthy 3rd place with 4th having around 10 bb's. With blinds at 200/400 and myself sitting on around 9400 I picked-up K,K from the BB. UTG raised to 1600, a pretty high bet for this game so far. the SS folded, the SB called and it was up to me. I could either put in half my stack here or just ship it in and take the already sizable pot. I opted to raise it to 4000 to try and make it look like a steal. Original raiser folds and the SB calls. Flop comes J,x,x. SB essentially bet enough to put me all in. I shove, he calls and he has jack ace. The A hits the turn and I am crushed on the bubble. The headset took a beating after that. Why I get so mad is beyond me.

I really can't complain that much though. I did the EXACT SAME THING to a short stack with around 7-8 left when I raised, with K,10 and got reraised. Flop come K,X,X and I put him in. He calls with A,A. Turn K river 10. What comes around goes around. I'm happy with three points finishes and 3 final tables the last 4 events. Only two bubble prizes of t11 to show for it. If I keep getting there I like my chances.

Live Play

I was able to get out and play some live poker at the track again on Wednesday. I noticed an interest list for 50c/$1 on the board. Glad that they decided to do that. I saw Paboo when I first walked in and he said that it usually goes on Saturday night. First time I have seen Paboo in ages. I can imagine having a gaggle (sp) of kids will do that to you.

For playing a little over an hour I sure did pick up a lot of interesting hands. As usual I bought in for the full $100. I was down $20 early tyring to see some flops and then picked up QQ UTG. There was a raise coming from the table most of the hands so far so I went for a limp re-raise. Didn't work as 5 people called me. Flop comes J,7,4 rainbow and I lead for $10 and get one caller from the BB. The lone caller was a loose passive lady. In the couple trips around the table she would call all the way with who knows what. Turn was a another brick (maybe a 2?) and I bet out $25 after she checked and she called. River was a 10 and she checked, I checked back and my hand was good.

Next hand I played was A,9 off in MP. I played it badly against a short stack when I flopped an ace and check called. He shoved his $11 left on the turn and I called. He had the jack ace and I was no good. After that hand I bled a little and was down to $60 and I bought another $40 to get up to $100 again.

I picked-up the magical QQ again in MP and raised it to $11 and got the loose passive lady to call. Flop comes an all-under 2 spade board. I lead for $25 and she calls. The turn is the Ad and I ship for around $40 more and she turbo-mucks.

The hand I won the most on the day with was when an EP player raises to $5. About two hands before that he raised to $11 and got no callers as he showed the K,K. I was the only caller for the $5 with J,10 off. Flop come 10,10,5. I check called his $10 bet. The turn was a 7 and I checked. He lead for $10 again and I raised it to $30. He tanked for a minute and called. River was another 7. I lead out for $40. Now he starts talking. Do you have a 10, maybe a 7? I almost chimed in and said one of those but didn't, good thing. He made the crying call and after he saw my boat he flashed the A,A.

Only one other mildly interesting hand, I had J,J from the BB and after 4-5 limpers I raised it up to $15 and got 2 callers. Flop couldn't come much better with the A,A,J. I lead for a big bet of $45 here figuring anyone with an A is not going anywhere and I can get a good bit of someones stack in ahead. The other two folded and I took the pot. After about an hour and a half I got up with $205 in front of me good for a $65 profit.

Glad to see that not a lot has changed over there. I still recognized a bunch of players. When I first sat there were two seats open. I noticed the card protector of a tough player on the table when I first arrived. He was not around yet but that helped me pick my seat. A rarity for this place but when I left there were four tough players that I recognized at the table. I was more than happy to get up from the game and take the profit.

PLO Hand

Ok, it's been a while since I've played PLO.  I did some practice cash game before this MTT fired up.  This is the 6th hand of the tournament, probably the second hand I had raised.  I really didn't like the check raise on the flop but I did think I had outs.  When the turn hit I wasn't going to go anywhere.  The river just happened to be nice for my hand.


Click here to view a larger version.
Turns out the other guy was none other than Brian Devonshire.  Granted this is only a $5 Poker Road League tournament so I'm sure it meant nothing to him.  I was really to see his hand revealed at the end.

How badly did I play this?

A Tale of Two Donkeys

Two Bodonkeys to be exact. I played in both the past week. I was able to make it to the final table in both but in two totally different ways. On Tuesday I was the short stack the whole tournament. Over the last three tables it seemed that my only move was to shove my constant 10bb stack. I ended up busting out in 9th place on the money bubble.

Thursday's event was the exact opposite. From the get go I had hands and when I didn't I never was played back at. In the first two levels I had it up to nearly 4k from the 2500 starting stack without showing down many hands. I hung around the 4500 mark when in a 3-4 hand stretch I was sitting in 14k when the second biggest stack was 6k. The first hand was against a stack that was about 2k less than me. I had 9,9 and raised and he called. The flop comes 4,4,2 and I lead out. He shoves for around 3x my raise and I call. He has the under pair (6,6) and my hand holds. A couple hands later I pick-up 8,8 and raise it up. I get 3-bet from one of the blinds and I flat. The flop comes 8,x,xddd. The blind shove and I snap call. He has the A,A without the Ad and I am now on the big stack.

I was able to take down 2-3 hands per lap after that occasionally having to fold to some 3-bets. When we made the final table I had around 16k and was around 2nd or 3rd in chips. Nzgreen also made the final table on the short stack. Twice he 3-bet my opening raise and I had to fold. The last time he ran into A,K and was busted.

With seven people left and Waffles t109 bounty still up for grabs he raises UTG to 1800 with around 4k behind. I am OTB with J,J and 14k behind and raise it up just short of what he had. It folds back to him and he ships. He tables K,Q off and we are off to the races, till the first card that hits the board, the K. There goes the t109 freeroll flip. I was knocked down to around 6k after that hand and ended up busting out in 7th shortly after that good for my buy-in back.

It has been a while since I have had the early stack. Its fun to raise every other hand and play the bully. I will be back next week.

On a side note AIPS did not go as well for me. I did manage to get my stack up to 6500 from the 3k starting stack at the first break. Most of my chips came in one hand where I called a raise with K,Qhh. Flop comes X,X,Xhhh and the raiser ships 6x the pot in and I call. I expected to see the naked Ah here but he had the A,A without the heart. In the second hour I was moved to HeffMike's table. He was in the big stack. I lost a little over half my chips to him when I called his UTG raise with 9,9 from the BB. On a K,K,4 flop I check raised half my stack and he put me all-in. I folded. It was all downhill from there and ended up busting not long after that.

I guess I remember something

Last night at about 5 to 9, I logged on to Facebook and saw someone's status remark something about an AIPS event. Well I had nothing to do and I seem to remember liking to play poker, so I played. I think all in all there were 77 runners after the late registration. Started fairly slow in this one.

Not much going early, the I saw a cheap flop in the SB with 47h. I think blinds were 30/60 at this point. Flop came KQJ all hearts. There were four people in, so I checked figuring someone hit a piece and would try and take it. Sure enough BB bets, fold, button calls, and I repop to a little more then 3x the original raise. BB smooth calls and then the button shoves. I saw him do this on a few other flush boards, so I closed my eyes and called, BB got out of the way. Button had A10 with the 10h, flopped broadway with an OESFD. Not bad but I run goot. I immediately piss those chips away getting aggressive with AK on a missed flop with bad texture for a tight player. Fold, fold, fold. Chip up a little here and there. Eventually shove AJ UTG at a 6 handed table, blinds 300-600 I had about 5000 and the BB wakes up with QQ. However AJ is gold everytime and I win.

After that I did a nice job stealing and being agressive near the money bubble. I was able to chip up to over 20K around the bubble. Unfotunately even for a deepstack tourny, 2.5 hours in no one had much room to play with. We get near the final table bubble and I go completely card dead. My biggest mistake during this period was not being aggressive anough post flop against a player who was willing to call whenever he had chips in the pot. I left a few opportunities to take pots from him on the felt so to speak and it cost me. I ended up getting blinded off too much and shoved K10 into AA on the final table bubble. My run goot skillz had run out and I was done. Still not a bad effort for the first return in a long while. Pretty happy with the way I played, but definately see some areas that need work.

I think I will be in AC the night before Thanksgiving. Why drive when you can get a cheap room and get drinks for a buck in a 50 dollar tournament? I got an idea, maybe I'll write a trip report! Snuffy whaddya think? That is of course if I can remember anything that happens, cause well, poker is going to be the vehicle to drink, not the purpose of the evening. We'll see how that goes.

Steady As She Goes

So far its been smooth sailing in the double or nothings. Its been a long time since I have found something that has been profitable over a long period of time. Here is the graph so far (click to enlarge):

Fairly consistent with no significant downswings. I will take it. I have to admit that it is quite a grind though. I have days where I want to play as much as possible like yesterday. Other days I don't want to see a single hand of poker. Once I add about another $70 to the roll I will be able to move up to the $10 ones. Per loser64, the quality of play at that level is the same. We shall see.

What Have I Learned After 30 Days

Here was the final tally:

Overall: 41-23
Total Profit: $76.90
ROI: 23%

I managed to never have a losing day throughout the challenge. I loaded everything into Poker Tracker 3 and will post up a graph when I get back home later in the week. I haven't gone through any hand analysis as of yet. I think the only thing worth looking into are some of my hands and what I did with them in the first two levels. After that hands play themselves.

I played another one tonight that was kinda interesting. When we reached the 125/250 level we still had all 10 people left and the shortest stack was still over 1000. Every once in a while you run into one of these. Hopefully not often otherwise I am going to have to rethink this prop bet :)

Congrats to NZ for his 2nd straight deep run in the Cake $100k Sunday tournament. One of these days you will win the flip late which will be the difference between a $1k cash and a $25k cash. You can see his profile from his recent Mookie win here.

Don't forget Tuesday is the main event of the Corporation Poker Tour. It should pretty much be a victory lap for Blazman and his likely season four title.

Prop Bet Anyone???

A am thinking about putting together a prop bet for the month of January. I want to play 1000 double or nothing sng's on Poker Stars. I want to see what kind of odds I can get from people. Here would be some of the stipulations. Feel free to add some that you think would be needed.

1. Money would be held in escrow by an agreed upon third party.
2. Odds of the bet would be 5-1 (your $5 to my $1, this may be negotiable).
3. I will take action in increments of $5.
4. scottc25 on Pokerstars will start on January 1, 2009, 12:00:00 server time and end January 31, 2009 at 11:59:59 server time. All sng's started in this time frame count.
5. I will play only $5 turbo double or nothings.
6. I will show a profit.
7. The minimum number of sng's completed will be at least 1000 (meaning I can do more). If I fail to play 1000 in the month I automatically lose the bet.
8. All stats will be tracked via Poker Tracker 3. I will provide copies of the database to the bettors.
9. Anything else????????????


Let me add a couple of items that may make this more difficult. I have a full-time job so playing all day every day is not an options for me. I can always squeeze in some games during lunch and slow times. I have a 2 1/2 year old that requires a LOT of time. That is all.

The Perfect Storm

Or how not to play online poker for over a month. OK, so I'm not dead. I have not fled the country. I'm not in a gimp box at the bottom of a pawn shop. I promise. Mostly. So here's what the hell happened. There's nothing earth shattering here just a series of events that conspired to make me play zero online poker or really care about playing it at all.

Problem 1: Right before Snuffy flew in the first weekend in October to hit up AC, I took a ball smashing at the virtual felt. Probably the biggest downswing I've had all year. So I was looking forward to playing live, it was fun, I played decent. Note to Snuffy: The trip report is long gone. I suck. Hire better writers next time. Problem 2: Right before that MrsSnarf started back to work full time hence putting the child in daycare. Sed child who was sleeping through the night decided it was time to get up every 2-2.5 hours once Mom and Dad both had to work. Problem 3: My baseball team was starting a run into the post season. I have watched so many piece of shit Phillies teams over the years that I relish evey postseason game. Watching Wayne Gomes, Travis Lee, Bruce Chen, Kevin Cefcik, and every other piece of crap you can think of, makes you appreciate playoff runs more then you can possibly understand. Now you couple the fact that these games didn't finish til after midnight with Problem 2 and my ass was dragging. Problem 4: Work blew up. Without going into the gory details of my ever exciting computer programming job, we basically had an outside vendor in with the hardware we had to interface with. They were here for 2 weeks, which meant 2 weeks of almost 50 hours on top of Problem 2 and Problem 3.

So after all that to say online poker was the last thing on my mind may be the understatement of the century. My Wii traveled to the shore with us Labor Day weekend, it didn't get plugged back in until last Friday. I finally got to play CHIMPO-CORPO-POKER Series on Tuesday and I think I'm going to start playing more now. Here's my latest delimma. I don't know what I want to play. I need to rebuild the roll a little bit but the thought of grinding out cash game wins is about as unappealing as changing shit filled diapers. If I just stick to blogger mtts, my roll will continue to disappear. Maybe it's time to get back in the SNG swing. Not sure. Maybe I just need a good cash game session under my belt to feel better. We'll see, but hopefully you will be seeing me back at the virtual felt. Probably not nearly as much as I used to be, but that's OK with me at this point.

Oh yeah, and I didn't watch a single second of WSOP coverage on ESPN. Not one episode. But that's another post for another day.

Ouch

Well I got kicked in the fuckin' junk in the Bodonkey again last night. For the second straight tournament I ran KK into AA. Tuesday night was still with three tables to go and last night it was nearing the final table and I busted in 11th. I was glad to see guest blogger nzgreen final table a blogger event for the second night in a row.

The double or nothings at the beginning of yesterday were a dumpster fire. I went 1-2 in the first two sets and then decided to 5-table and went 2-3. I have come to realize that I am not advanced enough to play that many at a time. I can follow the action just fine but I can't follow where I am at in it in relation to the other stacks. I guess I will stick to three tabling a little longer.

I was fortunate enough to have a nice turnaround at the end of the night. I had a 2-1 and then while railing nzgreen at the final table I was able to put in a 3-0 sweep and ended up making a whopping $1.30 on the day.



Day 26: 2-1
Day 28: 9-8
Overall: 41-23
Total Profit: $76.90
ROI: 23%

Here is a little graph. The beginning isn't completely accurate cause I bunched wins and losses for the first 15 together.

I did it all for the mookie

I'd read a few posts from Snuffy about his runs in The Mookie and decided to give it a go myself.

I got lucky early to take the chip lead. This was a FT double stacked tournament, so with blinds at 20/40 everyone is still pretty deep. Julius_Goat (2640) opened 3x UTG, and got flat called by UTG+1 (2315). It gets folded around to me in the BB and I make the call with KQo (I have 2925 behind). The flop comes, 7h Th Ac, I check to the preflop raiser who make a continuation bet of 210. UTG+1 makes the call and I decide to peel one off to see if I can hit my gutterball.

This is one of the few spots where I will make this call - the stacks are deep, meaning I'm getting great implied odds, and I can close off the betting on this street (there is no one behind me to repop it).

I call the 210 and the Jc on the turn gives me the nuts. Betting out here will give the game away so I check. I'm sure Juluis has a big ace and is going to want to bet again to protect his hand, then I can spring my trap. Sure enough he fires 800 and gets called again. I shove into the now substantial pot and both players make the call. Julius has Ah Jd for top two, and UTG+1 has Qh 8h for a flush draw and a gutshot. The river is a meaningless 3c and I scoop a massive pot and knock out two players.

I then got moved to the host's table and was pretty quiet through the next few blind levels due to a lack of hands. Tried to steal the blinds with Th 7h from MP and got called by pocket 5s. I lead the 4s 9s 7d flop and get called. Checked the 9h turn and called a pot sized bet. I then lead the river (3h) with a big enough bet to put the guy allin and get called. Turns out I was bluffing with the best hand, who knew (certainly not me!).

I donked off a bunch of chips to heffmike (3 time AIPS winner, and has also won The Mookie three times) when I decided to resteal with 96s. He'd opened from the HJ and CO a few times, and my dumb brain decided he was doing it light. Of course with his stack size he was not:


Not long after this the two big stacks at our table, lucko21 and PinkyStinky, got it allin preflop. lucko tabled AK to PinkyStinky's QQ and they were off to the races. A king hit the flop and lucko doubled up to take a massive chip lead. It was about this time that lucko started open raising every pot. A trait he would carry through to the final table.

lucko was running hot (cracking aces with Q6s) so I tried to stay out of his way. I won a couple of pots by using his aggression against him, eg. checking top pair on the flop after I raised pre, which induced bluffs from him on the turn and river.

We got down to four and I handed lucko one of the worst beats ever with the A and the J:


He was out not long after when he shipped K6 into the BB's AK. gg.

I went into heads up against Schaubs who had a nearly 2:1 chip advantage - 91,624 vs 49,376. I won the first hand, which was a massive 45k pot, with top two pair and gave me a slight lead. Not long after we got it all in on an ace high flop. Schaubs had A8 vs my AQ and it held to give me a Mookie on my first shot.

Thoughts From The WSOP Final Table

I finished-up watching the final table and had a few comments and thoughts. First off I did listen to the audio broadcast on Sunday on and off most of the day. Like everyone else I think its a crying shame that they only devote two hours of coverage to the final table. This table deserved at least 3-4 hours. They left one segment for heads-up play as it was already edited before heads-up started on Monday. Two hands out of the 100 plus heads-up battle. If you only saw the telecast you would have thought Eastgate was ahead the whole way. What actually happened was that Demidov took the lead early and then gave it back.

One other major, major etiquette thing and just downright bad thing was was when Scott Montgomery was eliminated in 5th place. Dennis Phillips piped up and said that he folded a 6. That's not the issue. The problem was when after the hand he flipped over the muck pile and fished out his 6 to show it. First off never do that shit. Secondly, and most important, he exposed the mucked hands of the two other players that were not in the pot. I would think that Mr. Phillips has played long enough to know better.

I must say that other than that one thing the players acted with the utmost amount of class in front of the cameras. We can give Chino a pass on swearing at the ESPN cameras in his bustout interview (which they didn't air). It was just a horrid question. I think that Peter Eastgate will represent poker very well. Its about time some real class was shown at the table, well played sir! Maybe Hellmuth can learn a lesson or to. Them idiots from Northern Europe can sure play!

Double or Naught Update

Day 25: 3-0
Overall: 30-14
Total Profit: $70.90
ROI: 31%

Goooooooooo Binions!

So I get an offer from Binions in the mail the other day. They are offering 3 free nights in the middle of December. You will never guess what I was invited for, a damn slot tournament, lol! Back during world series time after busting out of their PLO tournament and donking off $200 in their PLO and PLO8 half and half game I wander over to sign up for their frequest players card. One of these days I am going to tile a wall with them I have so many.

I sign up for the card and the attendant says if you put 100 points on the card within 24 hours come back and you can get a free t-shirt. Thats doable. I have plenty of time since Zooks is getting shitfaced on doubles over at the LHE tables. First $100 into the Wheel of Fortune machine it goes. It lasted for a long time and I was about 20 points shy. Another $100 goes in and after burning $50 of it voila, I have a free (read: $150) t-shirt!!! Apparently now they think I'm a slot jockey.

I had no plans of going till I asked my wife and she said what the hell, how often do you get free rooms. I also have a free ticket on Southwest and US Scareways. Only expense would be for a rental car and gas. I can live off of my comp dollars from Harrah's for food, tyvm Caesars food court. Now all I need to do is find someone else to go to cover the rental car and I am golden.

Great timing for this (other than the money thing). The Five Daimond WPT event is starting that Saturday. Maybe with a little luck I can play a single table satellite or two to try and get in the mega-satellite and try and win my way in.

ROI

Pretty much looks like I am going to fall way short of the 100 double or nothings I wanted to play in a month. What I find myself doing is when I go 2-1 in the first set of the day I just quit for rest of the day and lock-up the win. Not the way to go about building a roll but I guess that doesn't matter too much.

Occasionally now I have noticed that people are getting the hang of there. I still think there is money to be made but the expected ROI is going to decrease gradually over time.

Day 19: 2-1
Day 22: 2-1
Overall: 27-14
Total Profit: $56.50
ROI: 26% (easy ROI calculator here)

From what I read over at 2+2 a decent ROI is around 10% but that is at the higher levels. I still think I am running way ahead of expectations but I'm not sure. The sample size is still too small to show a decent pattern.

I am sitting on 18 BI's at the $5 level. Playing the ultra conservative mode I am going to wait till I have 20 BI's at the next level before I move up. I just don't want to reload again and again. Been there, done that. Now I wish FT would get these up and running. I could feed my coke (read: blogger tourneys) habit then.

Buy A Card

At the last home cash game I attended we played some dealer's choice games.  The game I found the most interesting was called "Buy a Card".

Each player is dealt 4 down cards.   Then the next 3 cards are placed one at a time on the board.  The first is the "cheapest" card - in this case 10¢.  The next card carried a 20¢ price tag.  The third card would run you 30¢.  The remaining stub was then placed next to the "flop" and if you wanted to buy the top card it was going to cost you 40¢.

The player to the dealer's left had the option of folding or buying a card from the board.  When a card is bought from the board the top stub card is then turned over to replace the purchased card unless a stub card was the chosen card.  This was done for 4 rounds leaving the player with 8 cards in his hand.  The players then show their best 5 card poker hand.

Now, the fact that I won at least 4 of these hands man have something to do with why I liked playing this game.  I hit 2 full houses and two flushes to win sizable pots.

I liked the fact that seeing what cards my opponents were picking was helpful in determining what kind of hand they might be pursuing while, at the same time, it was pretty easy to see what cards I needed were out.  It was also easy, provided you started with decent enough cards, to try to go for two hands at once.  I started out chasing a flush once but backed into a full house.

This game is easy enough to play: no wild cards to keep track of, no cards that kill the hand and force a redeal.  All in all, an easy game to play which is key to the success of dealer's choice type games.  There's a good chance I'll be calling this game in the future.

Double or Nothing Update

Days 9-17 I did not play.

Day 18: 2-1
Overall: 23-12
Total Profit: $47.70

Corporation Poker Tour Tonight

on Full Tilt
Pot Limit Omaha 8 or Better
21:00 server time
$5+0.50
password: anteup

Going Back In Time

I was listening to the latest podcast of Cash Plays with Bart Hanson and a great question was asked.

If you could send yourself a brief message back in time to when you started playing poker, what would it say?

That's a great question. At first thought I might say don't even start to play but I love playing poker too much. Another answer I could come up with is to not take as many shots at bigger games as I have done in the past. I think the best answer I can come up with though is Learn Pot Limit Omaha as fast as possible. I could have had a jump on the game. All this time I spent playing Razz back in 2005 and 2006. Damn it!

Let's take the question one step further. If you could change the way you played one hand in the past, which would it be? That one is unfortunately all too easy to pick. Back to the 2006 main event. Late in the second level I had just doubled up to 32k (back then you started with 10k). In the same lap I am in the big blind with 8,7 and see a flop 6-ways for free. 600 in the pot and the flop comes down A,8,7. I lead from the BB with a pot sized bet of 600 and only the UTG player calls. He had around 20k to start the hand and was playing very loose and moderately passive. The turn is pure gin, another 7. With 1800 in the pot I lead for 1200 and get called. With 4200 now in the river is a Jack. I lead for 2000 and get raised to 5000. What the fuck just happened. The one thing that came to mind was A,7. Not sure why you would play that UTG though. Before I called I said this is the greatest just call I have ever made cause I am not folding. He flips over, wait for it.........

J,7!!!!!!!

What the fuck just happened? If I fade the 3 outer on the river and conservatively say he just calls my river bet there I am up to 37k in chips with the blinds at 50/100. With that stack I could almost walk into day 2 and see what happens. I know I would have tightened up a ton cause that's how I played back then. Instead I am down to 25k. Keep in mind that 250 bb's is plenty of chips here. I however never recovered from that beat and was knocked out in level 4 when KK<QQ all in pre-flop for my last 10k. I actually thought about it before calling my opponents 3-bet shove, lol!

The simple answer is to take a walk after I won the pot. Go get a soda, go to the bathroom, whatever.

Still kills me to this day.