What a Game!

Well, I have found a new juiciest game in Billings, 3/6 Holdem at the Red Door Casino. I was hanging out with a few guys and they wanted to go play some poker at this casino. I decided that I might as well join them and just have fun playing poker just once this week. Sure enough, when I decided to enjoy myself, I run hotter than the sun. I sat down with $200 and ended up cashing out at $460 after only 2.5 hours and at least $50 in tips to the dealers and other players. That's a decent $3/6 hourly wage :). My strategy was just to raise and built monsterous pots with suited connectors and one gappers. Sure enough, the pots would become absolutely gigantic for a 3/6 game and I would wind up with at least the nut straight, but usually I had boats by the river. My best hand of the night was when I had 56s and I capped the pot with 6 others in. Flop came K56. I bet and others wanted to raise and I had no objection. Turn 6. Once again I get bet into and I raise. River 6, just in case :) And my friend has the King so he leads out again and of course I raise again. haha. He was pretty pissed when I turned over my quads with my "garbage hand." Anyway, that was one of the most fun nights I have ever had playing poker. I would raise with like 79 suited with 6 others in the pot, airball the flop, and then open fold because I knew I had no outs. Others thought that I was crazy, but my friends knew that my strategy was not stupid. Anyway that was a fun night that capped off a looong day.

I woke up this morning at 6:15. Yes, 6:15, amazing. That was 6 hours earlier than any other non-Sunday since summer began. I had to take a test called a PPST at 6:45. It is a standardized test that I have to take in order to get into Concordia's teacher education program. I have put it off for a whole semester, so I decided to finally get it out of the way. I finished after about 3.5 hours. The test wasn't too hard, but it still sucked.

After the test, I came home and took a three hour long nap and then I decided to play some online tourneys. I did fairly well in the 35K guaranteed, $33 buy in, on Party. Out of 1204 entrants, I grinded my way down to 29th place for a profit of about $200. I do not remember much about the tourney other than I ended up pushing for about 12 times the BB with QJo and 88 in the SB called me. Flop was JX8 and I was out. Oh well. I'll hit big in one of these sometime. I just love these $20 and $30 buy in tourneys. For me, they are way more profitable than all the major tourneys because the level of play is sooo much worse. Obviously though, I will have to hit top 3 if I want to make enough money to make these tourneys worth the time, but they are still good experience.

After I busted out of that tourney, I went to my grandparents' house to play pinochle with my aunt and uncle, who are in town. That was a good time, but the best fun was definitely yet to come. After pinochle, I went to a friend of a friend's house to watch the Ultimate Fighting Challenge on Pay-Per View. That was sweet! I couldn't imagine taking those massive blows to the face and having my arm almost twist off, all while being choked to death. Those guys are rediculously tough. After the fights, we went to the casino and enjoyed the fun 3/6 game. Well, I'm sure no one cares, but that was my crazy Saturday. Tomorrow, I'm excited because my girlfriend is flying in. It should be a fun time. That's all.

Time to Get Rolling again

So after 2 days off, I decided to hit up the casino tonight and play some 10/20. I played for about 4 hours and just could not get much going. I had AA cracked once in a huge pot to a gutterball on the river and I had two lower flushes with 3 on the board. However, as cold as that session seemed, I only ended up losing $200. Yay, there is a bright spot.

After the casino, I get home and I decide to enter in some small online tourneys for the fun of it. I am flying my girlfriend up here to Montana on Sunday so I told myself that I am going to get sick of poker before she gets here.

I entered a $20 tourney on Bodog and took 10th out of 43 entrants. I played well early on but I don't remember much more about that tourney. 5 got paid so no $$$ :(

I was also in a $50 on Full Tilt and was doing really well until I pushed with AK and 88 called me. I lose the coinflip and am out in 21st out of 111. 18 got paid so no money there either :(

Now to the so-so tourney of the night. A $10 Headhunter tourney on Jetset Poker. 45 people entered the tourney. Since it is a headhunter tourney, every player has a bounty on them (the bounties are higher for the players who are ranked on this site). So, since I never hardly ever play on Jetset, my bounty was the lowest at $3.82:) We get down to 20 people and I am just above average stack. The bad part was that I had yet to knock a player out so I had no bounty money. Then I went on a huge heater. I knocked out 4 of the next 10 guys out of the tourney. I was raising with almost every hand and they were pushing on me every time I had a real hand:). So we get down to the final table and I have 34,000 in chips. The person in second had 11,000. I was just dominating and taking names. I knock out 2 more guys and we get down to 3 handed (40K for me, 14K for JOANJET, and 16K for thetalk). I was on my way to my first multitable win (if you can call it that, since there were only 45 entrants and it was a $10 buy in :) ). Eventually, JOANJET and thetalk get all in and JOANJET won the battle.

I get heads up with JOANJET (who is the highest ranked player on Jetset poker, she had a bounty of over $7). When we started HU, she had 40K to my 30K in chips (blinds were only 200/400 at the start, so there was a lot of play left). After about 20 minutes of play, she had grinded me down to 10K after I flopped second pair and the nut flush draw, but she flop top pair and I didn't improve. So I started to grind back. I doubled somehow and kept being aggressive with my button. I worked my way back to a chip lead and a 37K to 34K advantage when she bumped with AJ (blinds 500/1000) in the SB. I wake up with AQ in the BB and I push. She calls and I am 5 cards away from my first tourney win. Flop XXX. Two cards away. Turn X. One card away. River J. Greaaaat.

So I'm down to 3K in chips and the match is pretty much over. The VERY NEXT HAND I see A3 and push. JOANJET picks up K3 and of course calls because I am short. Once again I am in a dominating position, and I am still in that same position after the turn when the KING rivered. This site is reeetarded. JOANJET must own Jetset poker. haha. I know this sounds like its too unlikely to be true, but that is how it happened. Back to back hands AQ vs AJ and A3 vs K3. Oh well that was poker and I still gained valuable experience.

I collected $45.01 for 2nd place and $28.54 for my 6 bounties (tied for most in the tourney) for a grand total profit of $62.55 for that tourney and ended the night of online tourneys, after the other buyins, -$14.45. HAHA. I still feel that things are turning around and I am going to have a big day tomorrow. First I need a good nights rest...

Worst 30 minutes of my life!

I just lost somewhere in the neighborhood of $2,000 in the last 30 minutes. I had more 2 and 3 outers hit on me in those 30 minutes than I have ever had in a day. It was rediculous how many 2nd best hands I had. I hadn't played since I lost out of the 50K guaranteed on Pacific Poker yesterday when I got all in preflop with AA against AKd. Flop was dXX and you know the rest. I guess I have to take a longer break than 2 days. Oh well. Sorry about the venting.

World Poker Exchange... I love you!

Well I played a little over 2 hours today, mostly on WPX and a little on Pac. +$5,000. Life is great! Enough said, sleepy time.

Worst -$200 of my Poker Career

So tonight I went to the casino to play the juicy 10/20 game and it was just as crazy as ever. I was just dominating and taking names for the first 3 hours and was up $1200 or so. It was getting late and the table was down to 4 handed.

I was sitting with two of the biggest fish that I have ever seen. One of them was admitably bad. He has said repeatedly, "I call because I suck at poker" and "I don't play for the money, I just like the action." The other guy was a crazy player who strattled every time he was UTG, but he did not know how to play the straddle. I cannot express how bad both these players are....

So we get 4 handed and someone says, "Let's make this a 20/40 game." I happily agreed because I was sitting in a donkey stable. So for the next 40 minutes we play 20/40 and I proceed to go as cold as I have ever gone. I never won a pot or, for that matter, HIT A PAIR in those 40 minutes. No lie, NOT A SINGLE PAIR. But the worse part about it, was that Straddle donkey and Action donkey would love to turn over 62o, 93s, etc. on the river for bottom pair. Luckily, I was able to save bets because they would have their chips over the pot showing me that they were going to call, so I would just check. After that 40 minutes, I reluctantly stood up with my last $300 and called it quits. That was extremely frustrating!

However...now that I think about it, I played my first session on WorldPX (a poker site with NO RAKE) and I made a little over a grand. So I am actually up for the day. Wow my life is crazy when I can make over $800 in a day and still end the day pissed. Well after putting things in perspective, I think I will be able to sleep tonight. Bed time.

Disappointed but happy at the same time...

Today I played my first live tournament for more than $5. It was a $200 + $25 NL Holdem tourney with a $100 add on or rebuy. I decided not to waste anytime and I added on at the start of the tourney. Surprisingly, I was the only person out of the 48 entrants that chose to do this. Eventually, everyone ended up adding on the 3,000 chips which was the same as what we started with. They decided they were going to payout 6 places with first place being around $5,000. So I started the tourney with 6,000 chips, 3,000 more than anyone else...

My first table was crazy! I had a psycho aggressive Native American on my left who was 21 years old, a 35 year old black guy on my right (who lost out of the tourney after rebuying in less than 10 hands), and the rest were a bunch of guys in their 50's or higher. I won a nice pot with KK early without having to show it down. I was up to about 8K in chips when I was dealt 99 in MP. There was one limper and I decided to raise 4X. Button called, limper called. Flop Qc 4s 4c. I bet 3/4 of the pot, button calls, limper folds. I think to myself, "old guy, probably flush draw." Turn 5d. Pot is 1,500 and he has 2,000 left so I put him all in and he auto calls with QQ. Oops. River 9 just to laugh in my face. So I was down to about 4K in chips and still fine... My table is the first to break and I get moved to a table where there is no really big stack. I steal blinds and not much went on for the next hour before the break. A few a my friends came to root me on and we went out to eat during the hour break. I had 5,500 in chips with the blinds going to be 100/200. I needed to make a move. Shortly after the break my table was broken again. I was moved to the table with the biggest hee haw (we’ll call him Donkey) in the tourney on my right and two tight olds guys on my left. The old guy on my left was the casino owner who was fairly tight and was short stacked the whole time. The old guy two seats to my left (I'm guessing he was at least 80 years old so we’ll call him 80 year old) was the chip leader by far in the tourney. He loved to limp and then take down pots (usually because he was hitting the nuts every time). His chip stack was getting ginormous. So with 27 or so people left, I was still sitting around 5,500 in chips when I picked up 99 in the BB (blinds were 150/300). Cutoff, with about 4,000 in chips, pushed all in and I decided to call because I am starting to get desperate and there is a good chance I have the best hand. He flips over QJ. Flop XXQ. I’m crippled. Turn J. Nice life dealer. River NINE! I can’t believe I peeled that off. I NEVER DO THAT TO PEOPLE! So I’m sitting there with a slightly under average 11,000 in chips. I’m in decent shape now.

As we continue play, I get to talking with the casino owner on my left and he says that his son is sitting across the table from us. He also said that his son is a professional poker player. I think nothing of it and continue play. Let’s call them son and father for the future. I also found out there were 5 to 10 "pros" in the field, but I've never heard of them.

As we get down to two tables, I start picking up some big starting hands. I steal blinds and get up to about 14,000 in chips when I pick up AA on the button (blinds 300/600). Son limps UTG (I do not think that he is a very good player because of all the limping he does with his big stack). Anyway, I raise it up 2,000. Father, out of the SB, flat calls! Then son calls. Flop XXX. They check, I bet, they fold, and I take down a nice pot (once again not showing down my hand). Son gets knocked out by Donkey in a huge pot soon after.

A few hands later, I have AQd in EP and I raise my standard raise. Button, who I considered the best player at the table other than me (we’ll call him Decent), pushed me all. I decided that my tourney was not going to end here, so I laid it down and he showed AQo. Oh well, I’m still alive and kicking.

A couple hands later, I pick up AKh in MP. I raise standard and son flat calls out of the SB. Flop comes As Jd 10h. He checks I bet ¾ pot. He starts putting on a 3 minute show of agony. I am trying to decide whether he is acting or if I really have the best hand. After he just calls, I decided that I had the best hand unless any scary cards come. Turn Qh, giving me the nuts for the moment and the royal flush draw. He checks and I decide to check behind him. After looking back at this, I probably should’ve bet since he could’ve had J10 and I gave him a chance to boat up. River, the blankest of blanks, a 2c. He checks, I decide to bet almost all of my chips. I did this so it looked like I could get away from it if I was raised. He looks at me and angrily mucks his hand. The whole table starts saying “The kid just played you like a chump.” I started becoming known as the young kid who has skills. All the dealers were all impressed with my play and started cheering me on when they were on their breaks. The tourney director, who dealt when I played 10/20 at this same casino on Thursday, was my biggest fan. She told me that she’d give me $20 if I knocked out Decent. I agreed to the bounty and Decent and I continued to joke about it the rest of the tourney.

Anyway I was up around 23K in chips after that hand and I was still seeing good starting hands. I picked up AK suited the very next hand and stole blinds. A few hands later, I pick up AA on the cutoff (Decent’s BB). I raised my standard raise and the old guys fold over to Decent. I was just praying that he pick up a mediocre hand so that he could push on me because he was dying to go over the top of me once. He stares at me once with a fishy look before he looks down at his cards. He mucks and turns his 8 10 off over in disgust. He tells me that he was going to push on me with anything decent there. I then decide to show my AA so that everyone knows I am not raising with garbage every hand. So I didn’t get action, but at least I got some respect this hand that might’ve helped me in the future.

People start getting eliminating and I am sitting fine. There are 13 left and we are now 6 handed at my table. Decent was moved to the other table, so it was just me, Father, 80 year old, two other old guys, and Donkey. Since Father and 80 year old were tight, I raised every button where it was folded to me and they never defended their blinds. The game was getting easy.

I raised their button with nothing and stole. Next hand in the cutoff, I raised with nothing and stole. Next hand, I raised with 79s and stole. Then all of a sudden I was under the gun and I look down at KK. This was such a perfect spot because I had just raised the last three hands. The old guys were getting pissed…

With KK UTG, I standard raise and 80 year old calls. Flop comes Q57 rainbow. Beautiful. I knew that 80 year old was going to at least call, so I bet the pot. Sure enough, he calls. Turn 4, still rainbow. I bet big again and he calls. He was definitely in check call mode, so I knew he had a Q, probably QJ or Q10. River 6 making the board Q4567, kind of a scary card, but I wasn’t too worried. I decided to check and he decided to throw the rest of his chips in (which wasn’t that much) so I called. He flips over Q9 and I rake in the biggest pot of the tourney while knocking out 80 year old. I am now second in chips in the tourney, only behind Donkey on my right.

We get to the final table and I am still second in chips. Decent is short stacked in seat 1, another 80 year old is in seat 3, I am now in seat 4, Father is in seat 6, in seats 7 and 8 are two guys who are around 23 years old, and Donkey is in seat 9. Since 6 people are paid and I am big stacked, I was going to pick some good spots to steal because the blinds and antes were getting big and I am second in chips.

So we start playing nine handed and two guys get knocked out really fast. Then Donkey limps UTG with KQo (blinds 500/1000 antes 100) and the button picks up AQ and pushes for 18000 more. Donkey thinks for a while and of course calls because he is a donkey. He actually lost this hand though. Sorry that is an unneeded hand to mention but I just want to emphasize how much this guy sucks. Donkey still leads the tourney though in chips after this hand.

We are then seven handed at the bubble and I pick up 82o UTG. Fold Right? Wrong. I standard raise it (all of my standard raises were only like 2.5 times the BB because I was always able to steal for cheap, so why not?). Everyone folds to SB, Decent, who is the short stack. He thinks long and hard and finally mucks. BB folds, and I take down the pot with 82o. I live for this.

A few hands later, I am the cutoff and I pick up AJo (blinds 1000/2000 antes 200). Donkey limps UTG, Decent limps next to him, and I raise it to 9000. I really wanted them to fold but of course I knew that Donkey would call, but I still had position on him. He says out loud how he is so sick of all my raising and he is going to have to see a flop with his rags. He called and the flop was K94, yuck. I bet 11000 and he pushes all in on me because his 92 suited (that’s what I put him on anyway) hit second pair. I had to fold and was a little upset that he hit that flop. I absolutely KNOW he did, he is not capable of making that play with nothing. I was still sitting fine however, probably 5th in chips.

Soon after, Decent was knocked out as the bubble boy. However, I did not knock him out so I did not collect my $20. Oh well haha. After he got knocked out, they we had two small blinds and a big blind. Everyone folded to the button who was also a SB (blinds 1000/2000 antes 200). Button calls, I have Q10c so I call, and BB checks. Flop Ac 2s 4c. I check, BB checks, button bets 10,000 into a 7200 pot. This is a suspiciously huge bet, so I push all in on him for another 30,000. I did not think he had an Ace and could call, but if he did, I would still have a lot of outs. BB folds, and button calls and flips over A8. Turn Jd, giving me a gutty along with my flush draw. River X. I get knocked out of the tourney in 6th place for a whopping $620. Six and a half hours of tourney play for a net profit of $295. booo.

I am really disappointed because I was completely dominating the final table before that AJo hand. I was the best player there by far and I had the chips to take complete control. Throughout the whole tourney, no one ever went over the top of me without AQ or AK. I know this because I only twice did someone ever reraise me preflop and those two hands are the ones they showed.

There are also some positives as I look back. My last hand was the ONLY time throughout the whole tourney that I was all in. Another plus was that I was only in ONE coinflip situation and that is when my 99 held up against that guy’s QJ on the XXQJ9 board. My two 99’s and the final Q10c were the ONLY THREE HANDS in the tourney that I was showed other than my AA after stealing. I felt my reads we exceptional for my first live tourney aside from the 99 versus QQ boat early on. Overall, I am disappointed but excited at the same time because I know that I can play live now and that I still can improve a lot. My biggest accomplishment today was the compliments I received throughout the tourney. I received them because of my poker skills as well as my politeness. Those compliments made me feel a lot better after the small profit. I thank God for giving me the chance to play and do well in that tourney today.

Montana Casinos = Fish Ponds

After playing a lot of online poker this week, I decided to go find a game at a casino. Nothing beats having the actual cards and chips in your hand. I hear about this 10/2o game at Doc and Eddy's casino. I go there for the first time and the game is being held way in the back of the casino. I walk in a every one greets me nice and they tell me to have a seat. So I buy in for $550. I sit down and start playing. The people seemed to be extremely nice. But there was not one good card player in the whole room. So we were 8 handed and I was playing fairly tight. For the first hour, every pot I entered, I was hitting every flop. I flopped a set with 77 and two pair with both A8d and 89s. Apparently, these people are not used to getting check raised and I was doing that all night. I would continually check raise the turn and all of a sudden I would hear the F-bomb from the person I raised. HAHA. This happened at least ten times throughout the night. They weren't necessarily mad at me, but they were mad at themselves for betting their marginal hands and allowing me to check raise them.

Anyway, I profited about $500 over the course of 4 hours or so. However, I was sitting in a horrible seat because the aggressive fish was on my left. I wish I could have been on his left so that I could three bet him and isolate him because he plays every rag possible. I guarantee that if I go there every night, $500 would be the minimum I would make in a 4 hour session. Overall, that was a fun night that I will have to check it out again.

I also found out that Doc and Eddy's will be having a $200 + $25 tourney on Saturday with a $100 add on. I am definitely going to have to hit that up. They said that there should be 100 people in the tourney which will make for a nice size prize pool. You start with 3000 chips with the add on being another 3000. So I will probably add on right away. Well, I am really excited for that tourney tomorrow. I'll update after I win it. Peace.

Sets Everywhere!!!

Tonight was unbelieveable. I have never hit more sets in one week than I had tonight. With every pocket pair that I had, it seemed I would flop or turn a set with it and usually get paid off. For most of the night, I was playing a 30/60 table (Dave was at my table) and a 15/30 table. At one point in time, I had flopped top set with 10 10 on the 30/60 table and turned quad 5's at the 15/30 table. I was just on fiah. I was taking Dave's money left and right until he rivered a flush on me for a $700 pot. That fish! Oh well, I guess I deserved it after I turned a set when he flopped top pair. P.S. Thanks for capping the turn with me Dave.

Anyway, I played later on in the night on Pacific and Titan and I ended the day up around 4K. It was a nice way to come back from my two day break. I am now back home in Montana and I can't express how nice it is not to have any stress of work or school on me. This week, I am going to catch up with a lot of my high school friends and hopefully get a lot of poker playing in. It's great to be back!