Still Around

Might begin posting more once my Fall Poker League starts up in September. New house, 3 classes and work make little time for poker. Will try to play in Dr. Pauly's tourney tonight.

Remembering BS

Over the last couple of days I have been getting in trouble with AK. I have been running into situations recently where I am calling big raises or all in preflop with AK. What worries me is that I don’t think enough before calling, I just call. I used to take pride in my ability to fold AK in certain situations. For some reason I can’t find the fold button. Of course the situations where calling with AK or reraising all in with AK is the correct move (short stack, etc), I seem to still be playing correctly. It’s those situations when a normal player thinks my AK is probably not good here, that I am messing up right now.

Just as a reminder to myself.

I CAN EASILY FOLD AK.

Not Prepared

That’s how I felt going into the Stud Tourney on Saturday. I had read up briefly on some strategy for Stud Tournaments but nothing really substantial. It didn’t make a difference after I realized we were playing NL STUD. Yes that’s right, NL STUD. Which I have never played or really even seen before. It was all kinds of fucked up. I went out before the second break and was happy with that it happened. Imagine being in one mind set and ready to play a certain game that you haven’t really played before. Then imagine that game being entirely different than from what you imagine. I was on GAME tilt. Now a major tournament (see last post) for this type of Stud is in 2 weeks, so I need to prepare. I have some ideas of how to now adjust my play, but does anyone have some suggestions? Of course other than don’t play.

New League

I am in a poker league that has a Stud Tourney this weekend. It’s a cheap buy-in, so I don’t mind that I haven’t really played stud except for once or twice. This league consists of several regular events consisting of Holdem, Omaha, Stud, & Crazy Pineapple for a 15$ buy-in. 3 major tourneys consisting of Omaha, Stud, and Crazy Pineapple for a buy-in of 25$ and a Main Event (Holdem) for 50$. Also, a final tourney for the top point earners. Some cash for KO leaders and points leader at the end of the season.

It’s a well run league, there are 9 people that run it and at each tourney they all have a responsibility. One person runs the software, one runs the buy in, one records the knockouts paper and some one else does the chip ups during the breaks. They are all considered dealers so you never have to deal. You sit down and this person deals for the table the whole time, which works well when you have tournaments beside holdem. I love that they do this and I am sure it makes it easier to run the league, I hate running a tourney myself, I always feel rushed at the beginning and like everyone else is just sitting around waiting for me. Which they usually are.

The first tournament (Holdem) had about 40 people but I missed the tourney. The second event was an Omaha tourney had 29 runners and I was able to make the final table, money and earn bonus league points. We will see how Stud goes as I am trying to quickly read up on some strategy. Our next tourney in 2 weeks is the Stud Major, so I need to get up to speed fairly quick.

Watched FTOPS #17

Anybody else catch the later stages of this tourney. When I logged on to FT at 6PM on Sunday, John Newcombe if I remember correctly was sitting at ~35,000. The blinds were something like 2500/5000 with 200 antes. This is from memory so not sure. His M was clearly under 10. Everyone on the rail was calling him an idiot for not pushing with any 2. He was content to blind down if needed. He was in 19th place out of 19 remaining. Payout was appr. $ 8000. 90% of the rail was continuing to criticize his play. Fast forward several hours later and he goes out in 4th for a 170000+ payday. Unreal. I'm not sure really what it says about his strategy but it was pretty amazing to see.

I still dance a fine line when dealing with M and the end of tourneys. When I first read Harrington on Holdem, it took awhile for me to correctly play his strategy when your M is 10 or less (basically I played poorly for several tourneys). Eventually I had deeper thoughts on M...but I deleted all my old posts.

New Meaning to Pain at the Pump

The pain Exxon executives feel in their backs from carrying bags of money around.

Exxon set an annual profit record by earning $40.61 billion last year - or nearly $1,300 per second in 2007

Life Update

Finish Masters Program

Move back to Michigan (staying with family)

Michigan economy sucks

Find job (not ideal job)

Wife can’t find job (specialized job in a non-profit field)

No privacy

I’m in a rut…