Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Stud H/L

Omg, what a boring game for a tournament. It was TalkingPoker league night and the game was Stud H/L. I made it to 8th, but after having played for almost two hours by then, I was so freaking bored, I wanted to gouge my eyes out. Ugh. I don't think I will be playing that game again unless it's for a league.

Monday, January 21, 2008

Donking it Up

So, as you can tell, I've been playing mainly at Cake. Mostly their $20NL tables, but every once in a while, taking shots at $50NL. Well about a week ago, I was playing SnGs at Stars and running really badly. I mean super bad. Nothing was working for me, and it wasn't even really to super donkey people, a lot of it was good play the cards just didn't want to be my friend.

Because of that, I started to tilt. So, for me so I don't start making stupid plays or move up to chase losses, I withdraw my money when I tilt. So on Stars, I took out everything except for $80, enough to last me for the league games at TalkingPoker.com and quit poker for the day.

Well, last night, I was bored and knew I couldn't focus much on Poker, but there wasn't much else to do, so I decided to donk it up at the low limits at Stars. Well, I have a bit more money on Stars and for a quick session a sick BB/100 (see the pic below). Too bad that wasn't a higher stakes game. I guess Stars realized how bad it had treated me and decided to give a little back.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Poker Night

I've come to the conclusion, I suck at talking about our monthly poker night. I don't put the effort into keeping track of the key hands. I really should keep notes, but it's just a friendly home game so I don't think I ever will.

Anyway, last night was a small group, but still fun. Only eight of us total. A few people forgot, a few couldn't make it. And one guy, Mike C, broke his toe, he lives outside of the city so he couldn't drive in for the game.

So it was really a one table sit 'n go. I was getting the cards which is always nice. I was dealt KK three times. AA once and a few other pockets, one of which hit a set after several limpers. It also helped that while I was getting dealt hands, I was getting some decent hits to the flop. Especially since one of our regulars, Chantel, was fairly predictable in her betting. If it was checked to her on the flop, she'd bet. She was pretty consistent on 3-barreling it too. So, with my weak and medium strength hands, I would mix it up with calling down, or leading the flop. And with my strong hands, I would call it down to the river, then check/raise.

It ended up her, myself, Brett and Rob in the final four. The money and points bubble. We played at that stage for a while. I did most of my chipping up here, slowly taking the chips from Chantel. She was the first to go out of the four. I forget how the hand played out, but, later, Brett ended up really short, he had literally seven chips in front of him. Except for blue (which he had one of) that was pretty much only a couple of each denomination.

Then Rob and I get into a big pot. He raises in front of me. I look down and see KK so I think about smooth calling, but decide to reraise. Actually, I had reraised Rob a few times during the tournament and I think he was getting tired of it, so he pushed. I insta-called and he shows AT. Surprisingly, my hand holds and it's down to Brett and I.

First hand HU, Brett goes allin. I look down at KQo and insta-call this too. He shows KT and it doesn't improve. Woohoo!! First league of the year and I take it down and with two kills!

There was a cash game going, but I wasn't in the mood for it. It turned out that Rob and Brett didn't either, so we suggested a $5 buy-in turbo. We would halve the length of the blinds and lower the number of starting chips. Everyone decided to join, so we had another 8 person SnG running.

The game was definitely set up to go fast. Within a couple hands, there was a allin and Mooney was out. The players were dropping like flies. It played almost as fast as a Turbo online. This time the final four were myself, Brett, Rob and Mike H. Almost the same players as last game. I don't remember the specific hands, but Rob goes out first, I then suck out on Mike H and I'm heads up with Brett again.

This time, there's a few more hands. Both of us trying to steal blinds from each other. The final hand came when I had KJs. I raise and Brett goes allin. I immediately call and he flips A7o. We both cross our fingers and watch the cards come. He spikes a 7, but I pull ahead by hitting my J. Then, I think it was Mike H, who says something like, "Well it looks like Nikki has won this again, unless the another 7 comes!" So, as if on cue, the 7 comes and I'm out. Brett just barely had me covered. A second is almost as good as first and it was tons of fun too. I'm definitely looking forward to the next months.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

OMG!

Amazing! I finally got a gold card from Cake! It took damn well long enough!!

Running Bad at $50NL

I'm playing at Cake and doing very well at their $20NL tables, but every time I move up to $50NL, I run bad. I mean really, really bad. Just check out this hand below. I guess it's a good thing he was a shorty!

HOLD'EM NO LIMIT ($0.25/$0.5) - 2008/01/15 - 14:09:06 (ET)
Table 'Cake: Pebble Beach (6-Max) 11423' 6-max Seat #10 is the button
Seat 1: rjstaats ($7.15 in chips)
Seat 2: bluffarini ($68.10 in chips)
Seat 3: alfredo59 ($5.70 in chips)
Seat 8: Aviendha ($60.95 in chips)
Seat 9: JeNNiBaBii87 ($7.65 in chips)
Seat 10: wolfen ($110.00 in chips)
rjstaats: posts small blind $0.25
bluffarini: posts big blind $0.50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Aviendha [Ah As]
alfredo59: calls $0.50
Aviendha: raises $1.75 to $2.25
JeNNiBaBii87: folds
wolfen: folds
rjstaats: calls $2.00
bluffarini: calls $1.75
alfredo59: calls $1.75
*** FLOP *** [Ad Jc 4s]
rjstaats: bets $4.90 and is all-in
bluffarini: folds
alfredo59: folds
Aviendha: calls $4.90
*** TURN *** [Ad Jc 4s] [Ts]
*** RIVER *** [Ad Jc 4s Ts] [Qh]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
rjstaats: shows [Jh Kd] (Straight, Ace high)
Aviendha: mucks hand
rjstaats collected $17.90 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $18.80 | Rake $0.90
Board [Ad Jc 4s Ts Qh]
Seat 1: rjstaats (small blind) showed [Jh Kd] and won ($17.90) with Straight, Ace high
Seat 2: bluffarini (big blind) folded folded on the Flop
Seat 3: alfredo59 folded folded on the Flop
Seat 8: Aviendha mucked hand
Seat 9: JeNNiBaBii87 folded before Flop
Seat 10: wolfen folded before Flop

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Happy New Year!

I just realized that last year, I made a post on New Year's Eve. I was planning on doing that again, but of course, I forgot. So I will post something now. If you need a reminder here is the post.

It's so funny reading that now. I'm definitely not micro-grinding anymore. I typically play $25NL or sometimes when I find a good table $50NL. I would love to post a graph as it's been a good year, but if you've been reading my blog, you'll remember I lost my database when my computer crashed.

I don't play tournaments as much as I want to, but it's really hard with a 2 year old running around. I can play after he goes to bed, but I only have a couple hours before I go to bed myself. I could stay up late to play them, but then I wouldn't really get any sleep and that's no good either.

Well, here's to next year and hoping it holds good things for all of us.