SO out of shape

Played the Riverchaser's tournament tonight. Oh BOY am I out of shape tournament-wise. I forgot simple things like stealing. And restealing.

I made it as far as I did, honestly, due to one supremely lucky hand.

I got home a lot later than I had anticipated, and was still cooking dinner when we started; I missed about 5 minutes or so. 48th hand I was logged in for, I have JJ in MP. One limper before me, I pot-raise, button (who's been playing over 60% of the hands) calls, and the limper calls. Flop is T33. Limper checks, I bet 3/4 pot, button min-raises, limper pushes. I know I'm behind, and decide "wtf" because, quite honestly, I was tired and hungry and if I'm done I eat in peace and start on my paper. I called. Button called.

Limper: AA
Button:Q3 (trip 3's)
Me: in 3rd place.

There's always the turn, though:


I love a good suckout after a hard day's work. That vaulted me to 1st in chips (I had been 3rd or 4th from the bottom before this hand).

Not much excitement. I have one hand that I apparantly confused my opponent: I raised from MP, got called by CO. Flop is JJ2 rainbow; I check-call a 1/2 pot bet. Turn is a 9, and I lead out with 1/2 pot. CO takes their time, types "?" and ends up folding. I'm curious what they had.

I blinded out for a while without getting a heckuva lot of playable anything, and as I mentioned at the start - stealing has left my vocabulary a bit. I need to warm myself back up to tournament play, as I felt totally paralyzed.


And the Screw of the Night™ in the cash game: I flop trip 6's and get it all in by the river:


Awesome.

Thanks to riggstad for the shoutout on BDR; and I won the 2nd Riverchaser's TOC, millerd33 won the first. Oh, he doesn't have a blog yet....nvm...

Interesting stats:

Poker Tracker stats for just over 21,000 hands, of all combinations of starting hands I've played:

- I've won more with 54o than all other hands except 7
- I've won more with JTs than AKs
- I've won more with 75o than AQs
- I've won more with 7's, 8's, and 3's (each, not combined) than 10's


...perhaps this is either just fluke stats, or an indication that I'm overplaying big unpaired cards?

I think maybe I'm not that good

I lost a bunch online this weekend. A couple years back I had made a pledge to never play on Sundays - for whatever reason, I took more horrible beats on Sundays than any other days. I played super-early Sunday morning (5am) and did great, but between 4 & 8pm over a couple sessions I dropped about 5 buy ins.

Unfortunately, only 2 of those were gross beats; the other 3 I pretty much paid off way too many winners. I shoulda stopped playing way before I did. Discipline is lacking; I see myself playing poorly and think I can change it and get better. I haven't been able to much lately. Tilt, I think this is referred to as. :)

Roll isn't near as healthy as I'd like, so I'm in rebuild mode. Not in danger of busting, but if I run like that too much I will be. For a little while I won't be ashamed of small hit and runs. I'm also focusing on fundamentals: will likely drop the 2nd table, and play more conservatively.

This hand was a dream, though - AA in the BB, 2 limpers called my raise. Then... ah, hell, see for yourself:


Flop gets checked around. Turn, "Lost with AK" shoves. Guess he wanted to chase out flush draws (too late!). I think of coming over the top, but I'm hoping button has a flush so I just call, as does the button. I shove the river, and get called. Awesome.

That was a $25 pot. I took the $17 profit (I bought in for $8), and left. I'm roll building, and until I can move back up to dime/quarter, I'm going by the Ferguson Challenge rule that if the money in front of me is 10% or more of my roll, I have to leave when the blinds come around. And, unfortunately, $25 is more than 10% of my roll, so I folded a few crap hands and left when the bb came back.

Heater

UTG+1 standard raise to $0.35. I re-raise to $1 with QQ. SB calls. Original raiser re-pops to $4.

I don't like my position here. I hate to lay down QQ, but I take my time, and fold. We've both got very deep stacks for this game, and if a flop without an A or a K comes, it's going to look safe and I'll get stacked if he's got AA or KK. If he doesn't, then so be it and I lost a buck: there will be better opportunities to get my money in.

I guess that can be an easy fold, but it didn't feel like one. I wonder what I would have done if we each started with $8: would I shove here, or fold?

Definitely glad I folded though:



Was on a bit of a heater tonight, as I left this table with $29, left my 2nd table with $8.55, and later on sat down at a table and had this happen on my 2nd hand:



I re-raised preflop, he called/called my flop bet and I got it all in on the turn.

Left that table at $24.

Tulalip in 12 hours!