Snuffy's 2011 Recap

Let's see how many people still have us in your reader.

Needless to say a lot of stuff happened to the poker world the last 12 months. I will go over how I did on my goals, Black Friday, my Hong Kong trip and some other random stuff.

2011 Goals

Let's see how I fared on the goals I set in the beginning of the year:

1. Play in two WSOP-C Main Events and one WSOP event – cashing in one of them. - Fail. I ended up playing in just one WSOP-C Main event and did not make it through the first day. I did however play two preliminary events in Tunica where I final tabled the $340 HORSE event and finished 4^th.

2. Make a realistic push to win a WSOP seat. It's safe to say that Black Friday fucked that one up for me. I was going to push hard to win a seat on PokerStars so I could get a 50k VPP head start on SuperNova in 2012. I did play a number of single table satellites at the Rio but opted to take the cash instead of trying to play a mega. We shall see how the bankroll looks in 2012 and maybe try a mega this year.

3. Learn online cash games. Again, this one fell by the wayside with Black Friday. I had no significant amount of money on any sites that still accept U.S. players and I had no real interest in putting money on either. I could start watching training videos now but by the time I would get a chance to play, I would have long forgotten it.

4. Play a minimum of three live cash sessions per month. This didn't happen either. Be it a combination of life expenses and work, I had neither the time not money to make this happen. I went multiple month stretches on two occasions this year where I didn't play any cash game sessions at all.

I don't have any real poker related goals for 2012. I would like to play more cash game sessions and try to stay away from tournaments for the most part.

Black Friday

This obviously hit everyone like a ton of bricks. I really wanted to put in the hours online this year and learn the game even more. I really wanted to make that push for SuperNova.

After being without online poker for the last 8+ months I can honestly say that I don't miss it one bit. My life is now a lot better without online poker. However, if they announced that online poker was to be regulated, I would be back at it in a heartbeat.

Right now I am getting by competitive fix by playing PS3. The Show and FIFA 12 have occupied my time.

Work

At the beginning of 2011 I had just started with the role of News Editor at Rakeback.com. I held that position until a couple months ago when I moved over to the content side of the company. I think Matt mentioned the title Content Manger once in passing and I ran with it. I am now the self-titled Content Manager.

We are now up to four sites with PokerVIP.com, Pokerbonus.net, and the latest addition, Pokerbonus.com.

I started working with the Rakeback team back in mid-2010 looking to add to the bankroll. I never dreamed it would turn into what I do now. I am lucky to work two jobs that I love doing when some people hate going to work every day.

Hong Kong

I took a two week trip to Hong Kong and Macau in October. I went during the Macau Poker Cup Championship. I played in one event and a number of step mega-satellites with noting really to show for it. By far the fun part of the trip was to meet all of the great people at Rakeback. I was well taken care of and they told me where to go, what to do and what to eat. I even had cow stomach lining.

Looking Forward

My 2012 and beyond looks to be moving along more and more with less poker, but you never know. Hitting the WSOP isn't on the top of my list this year but it looks like I will be in Albuquerque and Salt Lake City in June so a long weekend isn't out of the question. Other than that I have no poker trips planned for this year. I am looking at taking the whole family to Melbourne and the Aussie Millions in 2014. Start saving now.

This will probably be my last post for a long time. I tend to use Facebook and Twitter a lot more these days. You never know though.

Day 2 Table Draw

Here is my staring table draw:

Stanley Tavanese – 47200 - Amazon / 354 / 1
Bryan Barrile - 63000 - Amazon / 354 / 2
Humberto Brenes – 20700 - Amazon / 354 / 3
Keith Ferrera - 36500 - Amazon / 354 / 4
Matthew Livingston – 7100 - Amazon / 354 / 5
Robert Engle - 29100 - Amazon / 354 / 6
Scott Carlson – 6600 - Amazon / 354 / 7
Foster Hays - 9700 - Amazon / 354 / 8
Adam Bage – 82100 - Amazon / 354 / 9

Quick WSOP Update

First off congrats to Numbbono who cashed in the $1,500 HORSE event yesterday. He finished in 54th place for just under $4,200. Glad I had 5%.

I am on to day 2 in the $1,500 NLHE event. I have a woeful 6,600 (6.6bbs) entering the day. The event drew over 3,100 players and we have 490 remaining. Top 324 will cash.

Needless to say I need multiple double-ups early on.

My chip counts throughout the day yesterday:

1st break – 8,850

2nd break – 9,950

Dinner break – 18,800

4th break – 20,500

End of day – 6,600

In the 9th level I doubled up two short stacks. I can’t even remember one of them but the other was for like 6k when the tightest player at the table moved in from the cutoff and I had JJ in the big blind. Just no way I’m folding in that spot.

gogo me

October Trip

This one should be a ton of fun. It will be a three city tour taking place around early to mid-October. I will be spending 5 days each or so in Tokyo, Macau and Hong Kong.

My original plan was to make it to Macau for the APPT event in November. The APT was also planned for the same time. When the APPT folks decided to schedule the Main Event for the week of Thanksgiving I gave up on that idea. Also happening in the last couple of days is the close of the poker room at the Hard Rock in the City of Dreams resort in Macau. This used to be the home for the APT and now they have to scramble to find a location for the event.

I have now opted for the Macau Poker Cup Championship series in October. The series has 12 events with the Main Event carrying a $20,000 HKD ($2,600 USD) price tag. I probably won’t play that one unless I can satellite my way in. A couple of tournaments I am looking at are the 6-max NLHE and the PLO events.

The first stop of Tokyo is still up in the air. My co-worker at Rakeback was planning to go to Tokyo around that time and I decided to take a look at flights to see if it would work. Surprise, the cost difference was only around $150 or so. I hope to make this happen.

The second stop will be Macau for around five days or so. I really want to see if the cash games are everything that people make of them. Last time I was there back in 2007 it was the start of poker in Macau. I played the first ever APPT event there and the only cash games were on the electronic tables.

The last stop will be in Hong Kong. One of by big regrets the last time I was in Macau was my failure to go check out Hong Kong. I mostly hung around the casino and never went out and did anything. I won’t have that issue this time as I know people in the area.

One thing I really want to do is put faces to names at the Rakeback offices. I just hope they don’t put me to work when I’m there

WSOP in T Minus Five Days…

My annual WSOP trip is just a short five days away already. Now that the WSOP has started I can feel the excitement building up. Getting a chance to play tournament poker on a daily basis will be good. Now I will probably swear off tournaments by the time I leave, but that passes in about two days after I fly back home.

My schedule will be more of a play as I feel type of thing. At most I believe I will play a single WSOP event, unless I run like god in single table satellites. The most likely event would be either the $1,500 NLHE on Saturday or the $1,000 NLHE on Sunday. If I can find a cash in that event or a significant hit in one of the other events I play, I would look to play the $1,500 Stud 8 event on Tuesday the 14th.

As always you can follow my Twitter account to see how I am doing. Also, I will be posting any blog worthy news over at Rakeback.com under the WSOP Diaries headline. You can check out my writings along with Numb’s as he plays his first ever WSOP event this year.

If you follow my Twitter you probably saw my next scheduled trip. I will do another blog post here shortly on that. Really excited about that one.

Players Try Merge Network Out With a Free $5

Warning, I’m going to try and sell you something, kinda.

If U.S. players have been hesitant to put money online after Black Friday, here is a chance to try out one of the Merge Network skins. Rakeback.com and Black Chip Poker are giving new players a free $5 with no deposit required.

All you have to do is click on the Rakeback banner add over on the right of the screen and open a new account. If you are viewing this in a reader click here and open your account.

Once you have an account do the following:

1. Click on ‘Rakeback Offers’ tab near the top of the page.
2. Click on the Black Chip Poker link and follow the instructions to download the poker client.
3. Go back to Rakeback and have your account tracked to get 41.5% rakeback. Simply click on the ‘Rake Tracking’ link at the top right of the page and enter your Black Chip Poker account to have it properly tracked.
4. Go to the promo page here and follow the instructions to get your free $5.

I decided to use the money and see if I can get the balance up to $100. If so I will start grinding out some cash games. Give it a try and see what you think.

Plan B???

It’s time to get of my Snarf-like streak of not posting on the blog. That would mean that Snarf would actually have to show up on the blog every once in a while though.

Well to say the last two weeks or so has been a bit hectic would be a massive understatement. Ever since the news broke the workload over at Rakeback.com has been big. First thing was trying to keep up with the news and write about it for all of the players. The second phase was adding new rooms.

Since April 15th we have added Carbon Poker, Ladbrokes and BlackChip Poker. We also added Players Only and as soon as it was posted we had to take it back down. there will be three additional rooms to launch this week (one US friendly). We are also working on a sister site that is set to open in the upcoming weeks.

So back to online play it looks like I won’t be winning my WSOP Main Event seat on PokerStars this year. I actually didn’t have a whole lot of time to grind steps sit & go’s before the ban hammer was dropped. BTW, I requested my withdrawal Tuesday afternoon via direct bank transfer and the funds arrived in my account on Friday. Even in the wake of this PokerStars is a classy organization. When online poker becomes legal again in the U.S, and it will, it would be a shame to not have PokerStars there to play.

I was planning on going to the WSOP June 7-14, until last week. Turns out my son’s graduation from pre-K (yes they have that now) is on the evening of the 7th. My new date are June 8-15. The 8th will be a wash as the only flight option was a mid-afternoon one and I will miss the start of all of the days events. Here is my new planned schedule:

• 6/8 – Cash games
• 6/9 – $235 WSOP 2p Deep Stack NLHE
• 6/10 – $235 WSOP 2p Deep Stack NLHE
• 6/11 – $350 Venetian DSE NLHE
• 6/12 – $350 Venetian DSE NLHE
• 6/13 – $240 Golden Nugget Stud 8
• 6/14 – $200 Binions NLHE 6max

One of those days (probably the 9th or 10th) I am going to most likely grind single table satellites all day. I want to play around ten $125 – $225 single tables to try and accumulate $4K in lammers. If I am able to do that I would like to get back to Vegas right before the Main Event to play one or two of the $2K mega-satellites.

If all of that works out and I actually win a Main Event seat (that’s’ a lotta if’s), I honestly don’t know if I would play it. My whole goal was to play the Main Event this year so I would have a VPP head start for Supernova the following year. That’s no longer an option so I think having the cash to add to the roll would be better.

I am in the midst of brainstorming for pre-WSOP articles. Anyone have ideas on what they would like to see? Right now I have the following articles in my head:

• Other events around town (Venetian, GN, Binions, etc.)
• Non-pokery things to do (Red Rock, damn Dam tour, etc.)
• Places to eat (need locals help here)

Levity

That Erik Seidel is en fuego.

So nice of the folks at TheMicros to give him some love.

PokerSlut Tour XXI Stud

PokerSlut Tour XXI Razz

PokerSlut Tour 8 Game

PokerSlut Tour XXI PLO8 DS

PokerSlut Tour XXI

Please join the Home Game early to ensure that you will be able to register. 

As always, the game will start at 8:00pm central.

PokerSlut Tour Moves To PokerStars

The PokerSlut Tour has had a long run at Full Tilt Poker but that is coming to an end.  The Tour will be moving to PokerStars to take advantage of their Home Game feature.  If you want to play in any future Tour events you will need to register for the PokerSlut Tour Home Game.

Three new games will be added to the rotation: 2-7 Triple Draw, 8 Game Mix and Badugi.

The Tour will be taking this week off but will start up again next Sunday night on PokerStars.

ChipMeUp–Buying A Piece of the FossilMan

I was scanning for poker news two write about and I see that Greg ‘FossilMan’ Raymer was selling pieces of himself on ChipMeUp. I have looked at the site before but never more than a passing glance. I decided to delve a little deeper and see what it’s all about.

I opened up an account and it was fairly easy to deposit money. I opted to throw $40 on the site and had to sent it to Tony G on PokerStars followed by an e-mail to ChipMeUp. After I sent the money and e-mail I had the balance in my account within five minutes.

I bought five shares of Raymer in the NBC Heads-Up event this weekend. My $15.55 investment could net me $450 if he goes on to win it. He won his first round match and only needs to win one more to get me a small return on my investment.

Rungood FossilMan, rungood.

Vegas Summer 2011 Plans

I have my hotel booked already for Vegas this summer. I am at Harrah’s from the 7th through the 14th of June. Couldn’t really beat the $35/nt weekday rates. I have taken a look at the schedules that are out so far (WSOP, Binions and Golden Nugget). The Venetian schedule will probably be $300s and $500s throughout.

My tentative schedule looks like this:

6/7 – $200 HORSE (Binions) or $230 HORSE (Golden Nugget)

6/8 – $1,500 NLHE Shootout (WSOP)

6/9 – $300 NLHE (Venetian) or $200 NLHE (WSOP)

6/10 – $1,500 HORSE (WSOP) or $300 NLHE (Venetian) or $200 NLHE (WSOP)

6/11 – $1,500 NLHE (WSOP) or $230 PLO (Golden Nugget) or $300 NLHE (Venetian) or $200 NLHE (WSOP)

6/12 – $1,000 NLHE (WSOP) or $230 Stud (Golden Nugget) or $300 NLHE (Venetian) or $200 NLHE (WSOP)

6/13 – $230 Stud8 (Golden Nugget) or $300 NLHE (Venetian) or $200 NLHE (WSOP)

I’m not going to play four WSOP events. I will pick one or two of these to play. Depending on how the trip goes I am contemplating coming back right before the Main Event to play in one or two of the mega satellites.

I am still going to try hard to win a seat online on PokerStars. I was planning to start in February by building up as many step 5 tickets as I could so I am ready to play each of the $700 megas on Saturdays/Sundays when they launch. Work has killed me and I have only had a chance to play a total of six step 2s so far. I somehow finished in 3rd or 4th in five of them for a redo and finished 5th in the remaining one. That drop down to step 1 ended in a 4th place finish for me good for $1.50.

I will keep grinding these in March and will probably make it to SilverStar this month, as long as work doesn’t get in the way.

WSOP-C West Palm Beach Recap

Since I am writing this as day two is ongoing you can guess how it went. I am going to break this post into two parts, Odds and Ends followed by the Main Event.

Odds and Ends

When I arrived at the poker room on Saturday afternoon around 4:30 I wanted to walk around and see what kind of a place they had and also register for the 7pm mega-satellite. The room or rooms had a total of 65ish tables split between two levels on complete opposite sides of the building. The walk between them was no more than a couple minutes though.

In the state of Florida apparently it’s difficult to add additional tables for a tournament series, or so I have been told. It will be interesting to see how the WPT gets around this when their event at the Hard Rock Hollywood goes down. Not adding additional tables and the split between the rooms seemed to cause problems from what I saw. Throughout the two weeks they had to routinely shut down cash games in order to make space for tournaments. When I looked at the cash game lists on Saturday and Sunday they were endless, unless you wanted to play $2 straight limit hold’em. I would imagine your wait would be multiple hours.

The other major bummer was the lack of single table satellites. I believe I saw lists for $40, $65 and $125 ones that were quite long. Not once when I was there did I hear one go off. WSOP officials are going to really have to give the location a second thought if they are going to keep it on the schedule.

I tried registering for the 7pm mega about two hours before it started. That didn’t happen as their ‘system’ didn’t have it available yet. When I went back at 6:45 or so I registered without a line to speak of so it wasn’t terrible but it wasn’t great either. When playing the mega we didn’t have a tournament clock as three events were going on already and they only had three clocks available. Guess that $60 license for an additional clock was too much.

Also during the mega we had to bag our chips and move from the first floor room to the second floor room. This killed a little over five minutes of play. When the levels are 20 minutes and you only start with 60bbs its kind of a big deal.

The mega ended up generating 24 seats and I busted with six tables remaining. Only interesting thing was when I was down to t1400 and blinds jumped to 200/400 I doubled two hands in a row with AQ vs 1010 and KK vs QQ. I ended up busting when I shoved my 10bb stack in the cutoff with J10dd and the button found a call for 80% of his stack with A5dd. Soul read obviously.

Main Event

I opted to play the 11am flight which ended up getting 469 players. Surprised actually that only 244 played the late flight but a total of 713 is a solid number. Play was only scheduled for nine levels to accommodate the two flights and would end at the 300/600 level. With t20k to start a number of people would be advancing to day two, or so I thought. Only half the field survived the day.

All tables were set for nine handed and the five seat was in the well for late registrants. When cards were in the air there was only myself and one other player to my direct left at the table. The nine seat checked in but didn’t show back up for over an hour. We actually played heads-up for about 15-20 minutes. I was able to win about 600 chips in that time. A younger kid was the third to arrive and promptly tried to bluff me on the first hand when I flopped top pair and turned top two and wound up winning a t1500 pot.

As players slowly made it to the table by the end of the third level I was able to work my stack up to around t25k. A lot of small pot wins and nothing major of note. The game dynamic was good and most people were making 2.2x – 2.5x raises. Played a lot more hands because of that.

In the 4th – 6th levels the story would be win a few small pots and then turn around and lose it all back in one hand. One of the late arrivals was playing about 80%+ of his hands and was willing to throw chips in the middle. When we lost our first player about the 5th level he was replaced with a t40k stack who was a fairly aggressive player. I played a few hands where I flopped top pair, marginal kicker but folded after I faced big flop raises. I went to the second break with around t22k.

In the 7th – 8th levels the wheels fell off. First hand back I raised, flopped top pair and threw out a cbet of t900 and faced a raise to t3300 and folded and was back to the starting stack. The first of two big hands that would spell my fate occurred when I called a small raise with QJ along with two others. Flop comes 109x and ep player cbets for 900 and I call. Next to act flats and the 4th player puts in a raise to 2300. Original raiser calls, I call, then the 3rd to act who flatted shoves for 14k. Fold, fold, fold. Obvious set in that spot.

The hand that pretty much ended it for me was against the older guy in the nine seat. He raised UTG+1 and it folded to me in the BB and I called with QJ (again). The player was fairly straight forward and cbet every flop and turn. Flop comes KK7 rainbow and I check called his cbet looking to check raise any turn card. Turn was an ace. I checked, he bet t2300 and I check-raise to t7100 thinking he can’t call unless he has one of the two kings. If he does have one of them he is insta-shipping on me. He thought for about 20 seconds before calling. After my raise I had about t7400 behind. River is a brick and I bet out t6k. Dunno why I didn’t just shove. He gives the big sigh and two seconds later throws in the chips and turns over AJ. He really thought he was beat but decided to call. If I win that hand I am sitting on t30k or so and in plenty good shape. I didn’t and I busted less than a lap later.

When I was down to t15k at 250/500 I felt like I was short but really knew I still had 30bbs which is plenty. Not the best performance I have put together. I thought about staying for the last $345 the next day but ended up taking off.

Sorry to the people who had percentages of me. Figures I would cash the one of three events in February that wasn’t a part of the deal. I did offer a free cut of that one so all was not lost for them.

Next up is Vegas in June.

PokerSlut Tour XX $1 Rebuy

ZIPS Survivor

Well this should be interesting. Decided to sign-up for ZIPS Survuvor. Details are at the new web site here. I have a feeling I need to keep winning to survive in this one.

PokerSlut Tour Stud Hi/Lo

PokerSlut Tour XX HORSE

Tunica–Rest of the Trip Report

Figured I should write up the rest of the trip report before it becomes ancient history in my mind.

Thursday

I arrived in Memphis around midday on Thursday. The first thing I played was a $65 single table satellite. We were down to 3-handed and I had t4200 and the other stacks were t4200 and t1600. At 200/400 the short stack folded the button and I found A-9 in the SB. I shipped and the BB woke up with A-J and I lost. That’s just a terrible way to play the hand there. I need to preserve my chips and see if we can knock out the short stack. Add to the fact that I was having my way three handed there is just no reason to push all in. I did chop the last longer though.

I played two more single table sats on the night and whiffed them both. I moved on the the cash games and sat in a 1/3 game for a few hours. I made enough money to pay for the single tables and wound up with around a $100 profit on the night.

Friday

Friday was pretty much a disaster for me. We started off at the Horseshoe playing 1/3. Over about 5 hours I dropped $700 in the game. Nothing was working. Twice in three hands I lost to a two outer. I had a flopped nut flush lose to runner runner quads on the first hand. I think I lost the absolute minimum of $100 on that one though. The other hand I lost to a rivered straight flush when I had my opponent all in on the turn.

We played a cheap $60 tournament over at the Gold Strike that night. I was all over the place in that one having some fun. I ended up busting somewhere in the middle of the pack when I had QQ v AK v 66 all in pre-flop and ended up in 3rd place after the hand was over. We made it back to Harrah’s after that and I played one more single table satellite and won nothing.

Saturday

First thing on the day was the $555 ring event. Looking at the field I certainly didn’t pull the easiest of tables but there were two players who were pretty bad that everyone was going after. With 12k to start there was plenty of time to sit back and wait for hands to happen. At the first break I barely increased my stack to 12.3k. Before the second break I fell all the way down to 7700 when I ended up chopping a hand with AA when the board ran out a straight. At the second break I had 8600 coming back to 22bbs.

When we moved to 300/600 I was all the way down to 10bbs and had a shove stack. I ended up shoving a total of 5 times before the dinner break with no callers. One time a player opened to 1500 and I shoved my 6k with A-A and he folded. What? At dinner break I had it to 15k coming back to 500/1k.

The very first hand back from dinner a 12bb stack shoved in EP and I found Ad-Kd in the SB and re-shipped. He turns over 7-7. Flop K, turn 7 and I am down to 3bbs. A couple hands later I get my last 3bbs into the middle with 22 against A-Q. Q in the door followed my a 2 and I double. I shoved another hand and I was back up to a 10bb stack again.

The bustout hand was kind of interesting. The button who had been fairly active early threw out 1500. I think he was intending just to call but he was forced to min-raise and I had Q-10 in the SB. I called and the BB called. Flop comes 10-X-Xcc and I ship. Button tanks for a bit and finally calls with Ac-8c. Well crubs didn’t get there but the A did on the turn and I was out the door in the 160s, paid top 45.

From my last post you saw how I ended up doing in the cash games that night and subsequent tournament on Sunday. It’s always good to make it home with more money than you left with.

Next up is the WSOP-C Main Event down in West Palm Beach at the end of the month. I will get there the day before the Main to play one or both of the mega-satellites. Getting in on the cheap would be good.

WSOP-C Tunica HORSE Recap

On Saturday night in the poker room I mentioned to Jerry and Brad that if I could turn $200 into $1k in the cash games that I was going to stay an extra day and play the $345 HORSE event. It took a few hours at 1/3 to go from $200 to $500. After dinner I sat with $500 at a six handed 2/5 game and 20 minutes later the table broke and I had $900 in front of me. Close enough, I’m playing HORSE.

There were a total of 76 runners and just the final table of eight would be paid with 1st winning just under $7k. We started with 10k in chips and 40 minute levels with the game switching every eight hands. The early levels of the tournament meant pretty much nothing. The only good thing about them was figuring out who the idiots at the table were. I saw more defending in Razz with jacks and queens than I have ever seen in my life.

At the end of the first three levels I was sitting on 9.2k. In the 5th level there was one guy who apparently didn’t want to be there. He was gone for ages and comes back during Razz and says he want to complete dark. Well you can’t do that but he was the bring-in with the K and decides to complete. I’m next to act with 3 wheel cards and 2-bet. Everyone folds and he calls. Pretty sure you can guess what happens after this but I make a J low to his 10 and I lose a big pot. I was able to build back up a bit and at the end of the 6th level I was above my starting stack at 11.3k.

In the 7th – 9th levels is when play really picked up. I worked my stack up to 20k on one particularly sick read. In LHE I raised UTG with A-10 and just the BB called. Flop comes K-J-3 and the BB leads and I call. Turn is a 6, he checks and I check it back. River pairs the 3 and he leads again. The line he took really looks like nothing otherwise he is betting the turn. I called and he said “Good call, I missed diamonds” and my Ace high was good. I really would have looked like an idiot if he turned over something like 4-4 there. When we reached dinner break at the end of the 9th level I was sitting on 18k and when we came back the betting would be 600/1200.

Starting in the 10th level there was still six tables playing but not for long. We dropped to four tables fast and I was still on a slightly above average stack. When we dropped another table I was slipping below average. With 19 players left I doubled-up to 28k but was still kinda short.

With two tables left is when I started to accumulate some chips. When we were down to 16 I had half the average around 30k or so. With 15 remaining I scooped a big O8 pot to get to 42k. I flopped a flush draw, nut low draw and an overpair heads-up against an all-in player. I busted the 13th place player in a razz hand to climb to 65k when my opponent was all-in on 4th with 3 wheel cards and a brick against my 3 cards to and 7 and a brick. I binked a 4 in the river to make a 6 low to beat my opponents worse 6 to eliminate him. I recognized him from the tournament trail before. He is horrid when he loses and swore approximately 20 times before he left the table.

When we were 11 handed I lost a huge pot in Stud to drop to 39k and was in a bit of trouble. I was able to win quite a few pots in a row after that and when we were down to 10 people I busted the next player in LHE when he got his last 4 bets in pre with AK against my AQcc. Flop was QXXcc and he was dead to two outs. They didn’t come and I was up to 90k to start the unofficial nine handed final table.

Starting the nine handed final table I was in 4th or 5th in chips. In back-to-back Stud hands I was on the losing end to the same player and dropped all the way down to 48k. When we lost 9th place I was sitting 6th in chips with 44k with two players down to less than 20k. One of the short stacks got his last few bets in with QJ83 and wound up with runner runner boat to quad up to 80k. The next shortest stack let himself get so low that when he played it didn’t matter and he busted.

Before 8th was eliminated though I was able to double-up in LHE when I defended my BB with K-Q. Flop come queen high and I was able to get my last four bets in and was against A-10. Turn was a Q and I doubled to 73k. When we reached five handed I built my stack up to 120k which was good for 4th place but would bleed down a bit after that.

Once we lost 5th place and the blinds at 10k/20k I got my last 50k in the middle in O8 with Q-Q-8-6hh. All three opponents saw the flop and I ended up winning the low half after the ace river killed everyone else’s low.

My bustout hand happened in Razz. The Q brought it in and I completed with (A-Q)6 and the Q defended. 4th street brought me a Q and my opponent a J. I bet again and he called. On 5th street I catch and 2 and my opponent a 5. I lead again and he put me in for my last bet and I called. Hands were:

Me: (A-Q) 6-Q-2 vs Opponent (6-3) Q-J-5

On 6th I caught a wheel card and my opponent caught a 2. On 7th he flipped up and 8 for the 8 low and I was drawing live but peeled a J and I was out the door in 4th for $1,991. I think Razz is my El Guapo now.

I will take it. I think I still could have moved up to 3rd place and after that it would have been a lot of work to get any higher.

One hand in particular that I questioned my play was when we were four handed and the shortest stack at the table had 3 1/2 bbs left and raised UTG in O8. The two big stacks folded to me in the BB and after posting I had 4 bbs left with KJ66 single suited. If I put in 2 1/2 bets to put him all in that leaves me with 1 1/2 bbs if I lose but I have a chance to eliminate a player. The expert O8 player says fold and the other person I asked said fold as well. I ended up folding leaving myself with 4bbs and him with 5bbs.

Tournament equity wise I was wondering if I should play just about any four cards there. Either way I play the hand I will be 4th in chips if I lose or fold. It was the last hand of O8 and Stud games were up next which I like my chances in a little better. That was probably the dominating factor in my thinking.

The tournament recap is on the WSOP site now. Look at the chip counts. The short stack entering is the one who finished 2nd. Greatest luckboxing at a final table I have personally witnessed in a while. What made it a little worse was when he won he would yell ship it. From a 45 year old dude, seriously?

Next up for me will be the WSOP-C Main Event down in West Palm Beach at the end of the month.

WSOP-C Tunica Quick Update

Finished 4th in the $345 HORSE event today. Will give a proper wrap-up once I get home and get some sleep. Gotta catch a flight in 5 hours.

Super Bowl Sunday!!!

Enjoy the Super Bowl!  The PokerSlut Tour will not be playing tonight so all of you degenerates can eat like pigs, drink like fish, and win/lose your bankroll at the sportsbook.  Oh, don’t give me that look.  You know who you are.

PokerSlut Tour XX PLO DS

Selling Shares for February WSOP-C Events

In February I will be playing two WCOP-C events:

• 2/5 WSOP-C Tunica $565 NLHE (includes $10 dealer toke)
• 2/27 WSOP-C West Palm Beach $1,610 NLHE Main Event (includes $10 dealer toke)

Since I am lazy I will copy what CK has used in the past for her share sales with a couple of edits of my own.

I am willing to sell up to 10 shares for $23 per share. Each share represents 1.06% of the aggregate buy-ins (assuming I play both events) and entitles the purchaser of such share to 1.00% of my gross winnings (pre-tax / pre-tokes) for each event. If I have the rungood of a lifetime and win the Main Event in West Palm I would get a seat to the $1 million event at Caesars in May. The purchaser of each share will receive 1.00% of any gross cash winnings.

In the event that I am unable to play in any or all of the events, purchasers will receive a pro rated refund of the share price, to be paid by the method of my choosing.

If you are interested in purchasing a share, email me at snuffysports at gmail dot com before 12:00pm ET on Friday, February 4, 2011. In your email, please tell me how many shares you wish to purchase. Sending me an email DOES NOT guarantee that you will be able to purchase any shares or the number of shares requested by you. I will send an email in response to all inquiries no later than 7:00pm ET on Friday, February 4, 2011. The response email will indicate if there are any shares available to be purchased by you. You ARE NOT entitled to purchase any shares unless I have indicated as such in the response email.

I will accept Full Tilt, PokerStars, PayPal or in-person cash payments for the price of the shares. Due to the limited number of shares, please DO NOT make any payments until I respond to your email and advise you that you are part of the purchaser pool. All payments must be made no later than 12:00pm ET on Saturday, February 5, 2011. If payment is not received by that time, you will forfeit the right to purchase any shares.

Payment on shares (if any) will be made via one or more of the following methods: Full Tilt, PokerStars, PayPal or in-person cash payment as agreed to by both purchaser and me. Taxes on any payment on shares are your responsibility. You agree to provide taxpayer identification numbers and other relevant personal information at my request so that I may comply with tax regulations regarding any gross winnings / payment on shares. If you do not provide any requested information, payment on shares will be delayed until I have received such information.

I reserve all right to make any deals regarding allocation of the tournament prize pool. If a deal has been made, I will advise you via email as to how the deal affected the published payouts. Payment on shares is determined based on the actual payouts, not any published payouts, regardless of the source.

AIPS Season Recap

Not too bad of a 2010-2011 season for me in AIPS this year.

• 17 Events Played
• 6 Final Tables
• 5 Cashes
• 2 First Losers
• 1 Win

I ended up finishing in 4th place, my best overall placing in the four seasons I have played. This bests my 10th place finishes in the previous two seasons. The three people ahead of me played 23 of the 24 events. I don’t think I could have climbed any higher than 3rd though if I played more.

My cashes this year were in Stud, Limit Hold’em (the lone win), 2-7 Triple Draw, HORSE and the last event of the year, 8-Game Mixed. Notice a trend there? Zero No Limit Hold’em cashes.

The first career banana secured my spot in the $500 freeroll next week. Unfortunately I am going to be in Tunica, most likely playing the $550 event that day. Guess I will have to figure something out.

The last event of the year was a long one in 8-Game Mixed. We sat the final table of six three hours in. It took 90 minutes before I was eliminated in 4th and one other in 3rd on the same hand. I think everyone had the chip lead twice while four handed. I had built up a near 3:1 chip lead early at the final table but couldn’t hold it. Congrats to Heffmike for capturing his 4th career banana.

WBCOOP - 1/27 Live(ish) Blog

14:00 - WBCOOP started up for today. Played last night for the first time on the series and had trips lose to a flush draw like five minutes in. Let's see if I last longer this time. I know nobody at opening table.

14:12 - Recognizable faces in the field:
CKBWoP
DaFoundation (who is already out)
Easycure
gadzooks64
Rakewell1
SmBoatDrinks

14:22 - 20 minutes in and I'm playing 0/0, sitting at t2700.

14:30 - Won my first pot outright - t3261

14:37 - Nice, first hand I raise I hit top pair and run into a set - t1500.

14:45 - Still won only one pot. Good news is I have a shove stack now - t1100

14:55 - t1k or 10bbs at the first break. One shove not called.

15:07 - UTG shipped A-10 and SB called with KJ. Board runs out xx10Kx - Out 518th.

PokerSlut Tour XX PLO DS

A Type of Angle Shooting That’s Allowed on PokerStars

I was going to write about trying to satellite into the Macau Poker Cup next month but something came up during a stage 1 satellite for the event today. I think the best way to describe it is a form of angle shooting. It is allowed, but it’s just dirty in my opinion. I plan on sending an e-mail into PokerStars about it this week to see how they respond.

I was registers for a $10+1 satellite into the stage 2 $47 satellite. The structure is a turbo (5 minute blinds) with 1500 to start. Registration is open for the first 60 minutes, which turns out to be very key in the story. In the beginning we had less than two tables to start. When we reached level three we were up to three tables. The number of tables stayed steady for the first 30 minutes or so. When one busted another registered.

When we reached the 45 minute mark the craziness started to happen. Hoards of players started registering. When we started level 12 the blinds were 800/1600/150 and people were registering with less that one big blind. We had around 17 people remaining with 14 or so winning a seat. We ended up getting so many players that 17 seats would be given away and 18th received $31 (83 total registered). When registration closed there were around 30 or so players left.

The Angle

When the late registrants would sign-up they would immediately disconnect. They would stay disconnected until right before the time bank ended. Then they would reconnect and use their whole 60 second time bank before folding. We had two of these players back-to-back so a single hand lasted about one level. With this strategy it was possible for these players to win a satellite seat by never playing a hand if they registered at the right time and got a seat behind the button.

With the blinds getting so high we were losing 2-3 players per hand. I went from an 8k stack and 5th/20 (before the onslaught of late registration occurred) to being in trouble and possibly missing a seat. When we were a couple of seats away I was in the big blind for 3k. After posting the big blind I had enough for the small blind and one more hand after before I would be all in for the ante. We ended up busting a player and the button moved to me so I skipped my small blind. On that hand the bubble burst and I won the seat.

Being able to register and not even play a hand to win a seat is just wrong. That’s not poker. In order to show a profit it has to work once every four times which I think are pretty good odds using that strategy. I think they should cut off registration when the starting stack reaches 10bbs, or 25 minutes and five levels in satellites.

I’m interested to see what PokerStars has to say.

I will get to talking about the Macau Poker Cup tomorrow hopefully.

PokerSlut Tour

There is no PokerSlut Tour game tonight because I’m being a total degenerate at the Harrah’s in St. Louis.  If I run QQ into a set of 6s one more time I might have to beat the shit outta the douchebag I see with Dr. Dre headphones.

PCA Satellite and an Overall Fun Day

I was looking around on PokerStars the other night and I saw they were running satellites to their $1,500 side event on Saturday. I watched the satellites that night and the $215 one generated one seat. I thought what the hell, let’s try and win one of those tomorrow.

DoylesRoom Double

When I woke up the next day I also was thinking about my $100 I have on DoylesRoom. I wanted to double it or bust it. With my roll I sat at a 100NL full ring game. Fairly early on I spotted two players that could potentially double me up. I played a ton of pots with them and within 80 hands or so I was up to $170. One of the bad players left and shortly after that the other one left too. I was bleeding down and after a couple more laps I was down to $140 and I was going to get up and try later. That was until one of the bad players sits again.

With the bad one sitting again I decided to press on. He bought in for $45 and lost it. Bought in for $45 again, lost it again. Bought in yet again for $45 and then doubled it to $90 when I got to play a pot with him. He was down to $86 when the hand started. I limped A-K UTG and the bad player two to my left raised to $6. Folds back to me and I jam. I took the line knowing that he is calling off with most pairs and A-10+. Well he was near the top of his range with QQ. I was OK with flipping. Board runs X-X-X-X-K. Nice river. I hung around a couple laps and left with $201. Goal accomplished.

PCA Satellite

I had enough for a step 1 in my account but was planning on adding $200 if need be. I was able to win the step 1 and immediately registered for a step 2. With 8 left I have near my starting stack all-in with A-K against K-J when the board runs out A-J-X-X-J. I reload the account for $200. The plan was to play a step 3 and get a win to play the $215 satellite. If I missed I would still have enough to play the $109 seat only satellite.

The step 3 was interesting. I folded almost every hand until the 50/100 level and I was sitting 6/8. Two big stacks tangle and now I am 6/7. I shove once with no calls. Then two big stacks tangle again and I am 5/6 but still way short. After that the other short stack and I trade the 6th place spot a few times with our successful shoves two big stacks tangle yet again and I now have a redo locked-up. We quickly drop to four handed and then down to three handed and I am the short stack. I get a double and am even with second place. I get it in with the chip leader and double again and now I am in first. The last hand was fairly interesting

I am in the chip lead with around 7500, second has 3800 and third has 2200. We are playing 200/400 when the SB jams for his 2200. I have KQ in the BB and it’s 1800 to me. Looking at numbers quickly if I call and lose the stacks will be 5300 for myself and the others have 4400 and 3800. Would you call in this spot? I’m thinking it’s an easy call since I will still be in first. I did and he had A,3. Flop comes K-J-10 and I hold and get the win. After the hand the dude lights up the chat box saying how horrible of a call it was. As a side note I saw him on the next night playing a step 4 and he was in the middle of a 20 minute verbal war with someone else at the table.

Now with a step 4 in hand and $120 in the account still I opt to play the $109 seat only satellite along with the $215. We end up only getting four runners and the satellite doesn’t guarantee a seat and payouts are $215 for first and $185 for second. Too bad cause I end up winning it. When the $215 rolls around there isn’t enough people for a seat in that one either. I opted to wait and see if it would get close to a seat and then late register if it does. It doesn’t so I opt to keep the step 4 and play it at a later date.

With over $200 in the account and a step 4 I think I am going to play some more steps tournaments and try and build up some 4’s and try for a WSOP Man Event seat this summer.

Also, good luck to change100 in the $1K Women’s PCA event today. According to Pauly she is in first headed into day two.

WBCOOP 2011 Style

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! The WBCOOP is a free online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers, so register on WBCOOP to play.

Registration code: XXXXXX 842949

PokerSlut Tour XX Stud

2010 Recap, 2011 Preview

What a difference a year makes. I was looking back at my goals for 2010 and I only had two. First one was to be profitable. Pretty safe to say that never happened. On a good note I showed a fairly healthy profit over the last 3-4 months of the year. The second goal was to not drop $300 a pop in tournaments and stick to cash games. I really didn’t play a lot of big tournaments this year so that’s partially a win. I did play a couple in the $200 range while in Vegas for the WSOP though. This will be a significant change for 2011 but more on that in a bit.

2010 Recap

• The beginning of the year saw the start of Rush Poker. I had decent success early, not so much in the middle, and then a little profit at the end of the year.
• In February I had a nice little trip to Winstar.
• I also made a quick side trip to Vegas in February with part 1 here and part 2 here.
• In June I finally won my first AIPS banana.
• Also in June was the WSOP trip to Vegas. Part 1 is here, part 2 is here.
• My post in July included my first ever trip to Commerce Casino and a little bit on our new poker limits in Florida.
• In late August was the most significant item of the year for me. I wrote about my new writing job at Rakeback.com.
• In September my turn towards the live tournaments worked out well.
• In November I was promoted in my writing job which really changes things. See my 2011 preview section below.
• December saw the WPBT in Vegas. Part 1 and part 2 are done. Some day I will get to the rest if I can remember.

2011 Preview

The writing job as helped a lot financially. So much so that I can actually try and build a poker bankroll again along with giving the family some nice presents along the way as well. So let’s talk goals for 2011:

1. Play in two WSOP-C Main Events and one WSOP event – cashing in one of them. I already have the WSOP-C event in West Palm Beach at the end of February lined-up. After that I might play the one in St. Louis in early April. I think one WSOP event is doable this year as well.

2. Make a realistic push to win a WSOP seat. I’m still up in the air which way I’m going on this one. it may be the online steps route or it may be through single table sats and the megas at the Rio. Either way if I win it I should be sound enough financially to actually play the event.

3. Learn online cash games. I have never really put forth the effort to grind online cash games. I am going to make a push this year to play more. I started off the year already grinding at DoylesRoom. Rakeback has a $50K rake race and through the first five days of the month I am around 110th which would be good for $100. That would even cover my losses too .

4. Play a minimum of three live cash sessions per month. This one might be a tough one to pull off. I will try hard though.

That’s about it. Wish me luck.

PokerSlut Tour XX Razz