AIPS Recap

(click through for hand replayer)
New season, new night, new site. AIPS IV is upon us.

After the redonkulous freeroll the week before I wasn't sue what to expect. A total of 168 runners for the $5 private tournament was impressive. With 1500 starting stacks and 15 minute levels there was plenty of time early to pick your spots. Wait for the Brazilians to spew.

I really didn't pick-up anything or play over the first 20 minutes. My first playable hand was at the 15/30 level when I picked-up 1010 in MP.



I'm not going to go crazy with 1010 in this spot pre-flop. I will limp and try ans see a cheap flop. The 4x raise behind me is not too concerning. The SB call helps. On the flop when the SB makes an overbet of 500 into the pot this SCREAMS of a flush draw. He is not going to have an overpair in this spot as he would have raised pre-flop. Flopping a set doesn't make sense here either. The range I had him on was a flush draw or top pair. Time to get it in and hope it holds.

Three hands after that I pick-up 77 in the BB.



Standard suck re-suck action. Happy to know that I only put bets in when I was ahead. After that hand I was sitting on 4200 and at the top of the leader board early. I pretty much held steady for the rest of the first hour and had 4155 entering the break.

At the end of the first hour and into the second hour I had a Brazilian (mercon2008) at the table that just loved to shove pre. One limper, shove. Folded to him, shove. He was shipping 20-30 BBs in the middle. His/her stats were around 35/25 if I remember correctly with an infinite aggression factor. Since he was two to my right I wanted to get a good hand and limp and let him shove over the top. I got my wish at the 75/150 level when I limped KK UTG. He ships 2880 in the middle and I make the snap call and see A10hh. Better than expected but I assumed I was going to look at an ace there a lot of the time. My hand holds and I am up around 8k.

I was really quiet the rest of the hour. Only notable hand was taking out a 1500 short stacks A8 with KK again and I ended the level with around 7300.

Beginning of hour three was the same at the end of hour two. Absolutely nothing to play. I went around 50 hands without a sniff of anything. We were near the money bubble and I had a lot of medium stacks at the table. I was able to raise with air 2-3 hands per lap to grind up a little.

Shortly after the bubble Blazman was looking to get a stack going. He was to my immediate right and when it was folded to him and he shipped I had a snap call with A8 soooted. He showed J6 off and the board bricked out and I was up to 14k and looking good.

A few hands later at the 300/600 level I picked-up 99 UTG and raised 3x and was called by the button. I flop middle set with an ace and two hearts. I cbet 2k and get shoved on for about 6k. He has either the flush draw or the ace, most likely the ace. I was wrong, he had the KJhh. I fade the rest of the board and am up to 23k.

At the start of the final table the stacks were as follows:

Seat 1: edwardm111 (26873 in chips)
Seat 2: ornycjv (24775 in chips)
Seat 3: richsmuv21 (36132 in chips)
Seat 4: Zyzzyva999 (43819 in chips)
Seat 5: scottc25 (20191 in chips)
Seat 6: Nuance613 (20441 in chips)
Seat 7: RexTownsend (18915 in chips)
Seat 8: nzgreen (19494 in chips)
Seat 9: Poeben (41360 in chips)

Two Corporation players make the final table, woot!

Early on I found zero spots to play. When we were down to 8-handed I was finally able to pick-up some hands and find some good spots. I was able to work my stack all the way up to 53k without showing down a hand. Down to 7 handed I woke-up wih JJ on the button and took out zyzzzzzzzzava ( sp close?)



So with 6 people left I was sitting on a monster stack. Here were the chip counts after I raised the next hand, flopped a set, and won a decent pot on the flop.

Seat 1: edwardm111 (18020 in chips)
Seat 2: ornycjv (20706 in chips)
Seat 3: richsmuv21 (47377 in chips)
Seat 5: scottc25 (81613 in chips)
Seat 6: Nuance613 (35664 in chips)
Seat 9: Poeben (48620 in chips)

Not long after that I run into the cooler when my KK runs into AA by a 16k short stack. Win that one and I'm near 100k with the next biggest stack being 36k. Damn it.

Lost ANOTHER 21k shortly after that on this hand:



I would like some opinions here. I think I did OK in this spot. After the hand I was all the way down to 30k and 5/6.

I pretty much held my own over the next 30 hands of so and when we were down to 4 handed I found the A and the J in the SB:



Fuckin Blaz hand. Out if 4th for $70 something. Don't care about the $, I wanted the plastic produce.

There is one really sick bluff I ran at the final table. I will try and find it and send it in for hand of the week.

Strategy Post - More Information

Following up on the previous post. If I told you the game was actually $0.10/$0.20 NLHE with a max buy-in of $20 does that change your play?

Strategy Time - Comments Needed

We are playing in a $1/$2 NLHE 7 handed home game. Max buy-in is $200 and we have just re-bought. Relevant stack sizes are as follows:

CO: over $200, has us covered
SB: $100
BB (hero): $200

It's folded to the cutoff who limps. SB completes and we check from the BB with 8s8h.

Comment 1 here:???

Flop comes Jc10c8c. We flopped bottom set on an all club board.

SB checks, we bet $10, CO raises to 30, SB re-raises to $90.

Comment 2 here: What is our play???

Players in the hand are fairly solid.

After some comments I will add additional detail.

Corporation Heads-Up Tour

Lots to write about but I will leave you with this.

Every 2nd Tuesday of the month I am going to change the game type. This week it will be No Limit Omaha 8 or Better. Next month it will be PLO. All other weeks will still be NLHE.

Predator, you in?

How can I miss?

(click thru for the hand replayer)


Before the flop I'm a big favourite (73/23), when the money goes in I'm still a slight favourite (61/36), yet I miss them all. sigh.

Giggity Giggity

Nah, it's not as good as you think. Now that the Winter of Snuffy is over, I think other people are allowed to post. Actually I may not be allowed to post any more, but that's besides the point. At any rate, while I have not been playing alot, I have been starting to play more regularly. It seems some semblence of balanace is coming back to my life. Er, well, as much as I expect to get. I was running well maybe 3 weeks or so ago then hit the shits. Fairly badly too. Bad plays, bad beats, setup hands you all know the drills. Since enthralled in this quagmire of a slump, I have been trying to refocus a little.

Truth is that I have never truly recovered from the slump I hit in late September/early October. That one was the biggest ass kicking I've taken online to date. Sans the Phillies in the World Series to stop me from playing, my bankroll may have taken an even bigger kick to the balls. Ever since then, I've been trying figure out where and what I want to play. One thing I have come to realize is that I am not going to truly build my bankroll until I start to play more cash games. I desperately need to get better at these lower limits because there is still so much atroucious play. I think my biggest problem is getting bored with one thing or another (ring, sng, mtt). I think the best thing for me is to keep mixing it up, but more consistently play some ring every night. We'll see how that goes.

Fast forward to the last few days, I've had straight winning sessions at 25PLHE, cashed in BoatDrinks tourny last night, and won the Corp Poker last night. To be honest I don't think I played great in any of them. The cash wins have been mainly just getting hands to hold up and not getting myself in marginal situations (what a brilliant idea). Played well enough in the two tournies last night, fairly tight. Probably too tight in the HU, but it was a little challenging trying to multi-table shorthanded HA and HU NLHE. But in whatever sense I got the job done. Sometimes luck and few good breaks are all you need.

On a non-poker side note. Go read Tao of Poker today if you haven't yet. As someone on the younger side of the musical spectrum that grew up listening to all of my mother's music from the 50's and 60's, I can appreciate the influence that those men had. That being said, I had no idea it was 50 years ago yesterday.

Coropration Heads-Up Tour Tonight!

We will be live streaming tonight at 9:30pm eastern. Go here to listen: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/pokersoup