Don't drink and play poker

Things went south last week...VERY SOUTH! I had a TILT moment that I shall never forget...basically the TITLE SAYS IT ALL...Let's put it this way...I almost went broke...my wife goes out of town and all hell breaks loose at the UB tables. B- you had quite a point that you made in that comment, but it was more than the TD tables...it was the 7&7's on top of it...That's the bad news.

The good news is that I made a final table this week in my 3rd or 4th online tourney of the year. I finished 8 out of 974 for a whopping $120+. That made me feel pretty good. I took some time off after the debacle last week and it helped. I've been trying to lay low on the poker tables these days. I've played 2 SnG's and got 1st and 6th. The sixth place finish had an interesting final hand that has me wondering. I guess i'll get right to the point...

Preface: Tourney is playing VERY SLOW. For some reason everyone is either multi-tabling or on dial-up. Anyway, we are down to 6 and the blinds are 100/200, stacks are relatively even, I have about 2700 (in 3rd place), and there are two stacks around 1500-1800. I have been actually playing pretty tight, but have not shown down hardly any hands (actually 1 hand only where I had top 2 pair and put a guy all in with only top pair weak kicker, only to river a chop pot - I had AJs in the sb he had ATo). But the thing is, even though i've been playing very TAG, i've had good hands in good position that are not getting called preflop...so I was actually thinking that the table may think i'm trying to bully and steal using position only...so...on to the hand: KTs UTG+1 (thats UnderTheGun+1 Chris..or..the guy to the left of the guy next to the big blind :^} ), and raise to 600, which was my standard raise with good cards. The CO (thats CutOff, or the guy to the right of the button)makes it 1000 to go, and it folds around to me...I hem and haw and almost fold, but the pot was laying me 400/1900 or about 4.5/1...so I call. Flop is Q J 3 with two clubs (I have hearts and there aren't any on the board). I pause about 3-5 seconds and shove the rest of my chips in (2100 in to the pot of 2300. The re-raiser in the CO thinks for what seemed like an eternity and calls with 99. The turn and river blank out and i'm down to less than the bb and go all in on the very next hand w/ 94o (the snadly - remember that snad?!!), but run into the same guy with AQ who takes it down.

Here is my thinking into how I played it wrong: 1.KTs was probably not a hand I should've gotten involved in...as I said I had been playing TAG (TightAggressive), but not showing down many hands...therefore, I have a LAG (LooseAggressive) image. Even though I realized that, I still played it...or basically got caught with my hand in the cookie jar. I maybe should've played even tighter, but the blinds were racing and I had to make a move. 2.calling the 400 (a min. raise btw/) was correct I believe, but the JAM after the flop was sorta out of character for me. Although, if I had a hand like AK/AQ/JJ, I probably play it the exact same way. The thing is...a quick all in just seems like a draw to me in that situation...even if i waited for more than 5 seconds, it still looks fishy. 3.A bet of 1/2 to 3/4 of the pot would've taken it down for sure. I know I can't call that with the hand he's got and two overs on the board.

Well, I know that was probably a lot of explanation for basically a coinflip...he was 56%, I was 46% to win...but it's good to re-live it, although frustrating.

Thats all there is for now...I hope to not TILT so much in the future, but, as I said before, I will not forget it!

Running Goot!

Man, every table I sit down to play, the cards just seem to fall in my favor! Boy is it FUN to WIN!! I played some $1/2 TD today and actually booked a little win (+$28), I wouldln't have played if not for Syndrome sitting there! I actually lost a decent sized pot where I was dealt #5 and he made #3 to take it down. I kind of played it weird, and probably could've lost 1 or 2 less bets. I had one of those feelings before the last draw that I was beat, but I wasn't going to go draw. Oh well! I wish I could say the same thing about my little SnG adventure, although I haven't played that many, I am up, but not by much. It's weird, I have been getting my $$ in with the best of it, but sometimes the deck just doesn't really care that much. I need to take one down here soon!

MAY...

Well, May has started off pretty great. At the Triple Draw tables I am up $104! Hopefully by writing this blog I won't bring myself any bad luck LOL! I have been logging a lot more hours this month, mainly because I feel like I finally have gotten my head on straight again. I want to focus a little more on my single table tourneys though, as i've only played 2, and i'm I have one cash to show for it. The play hardly ever changes in these $5.50's, and I find them entertaining and fun! I have played a few NL ring games at the $10 level and have had some good sessions.

I am looking forward to June though since it is my birthday and we have a trip planned for AC. I can't wait! Hopefully I will get some much needed live action with some forum members (Snadly and SnadlysGirl), and maybe some more. It should be a great time.

I want to post some TD hand histories, but I really need to find a good converter. I know 2+2 has one but it doesn't always work. Oh well, more to come on that end!

April in the Black

So after a full month of record keeping with the new spreadsheet, it looks like I am in the black for April! Unfortunately last night I got a little greedy and lost about $20 or so. Although, it would have been more of a loss if I did not get second in a SnG. It seems to me that these are definitely the way to go to re-build. On UB they take about 1.5 hours so my hourly rate is much better than the stupid TD cash games. I did not play that much, and although I won about $30+, in the time I played, I'd have at least doubled my SnG cashes. I know i'm like a broken record, but if I could stay off those tables my bankroll would/could be much healthier. But aren't we here for fun?? Well that is exactly what those triple draw tables are!

I did play a live home tourney this past weekend and finished 3rd. It was a very fun time with some friends and the tourney was full of players that were basically sub-par. Their were actually only 4-5 players that I respected. The only thing that was not fun about the tourney though, was the fact that the "tournament director/host" decided to skip about 3-4 levels of blinds. We started with 3500 in chips with blinds at 25/50 going up every 20 minutes. Pretty standard right? Well, once we got past the 200/400 level he skipped 250/500 and 300/600 and went to 350/700 (which was not in the original plan). Then they skipped 400/800 and went straight to 500/1000. From there on they doubled the blinds, so when we got down to the final table with about 6-7 left, it turned into an all-in fest much like a World Poker Tour televised final table. I had only one "suck out" when I went all-in w/ 93o trying to steal the blinds and got called by the chip leader. I caught a 9 on the flop and two pair on the river to double up, and basically stood strong until we were in the money.

So now to May, I hope I continue to re-build. It's definitely a challenge, but it sure is fun!