Another Aussie run:

Played in 3 of the Aussie free rolls this morning; busted out of one somewhere around 40 of 600+; busted out of the second one in 14th of 315, then made a deep run in the 3rd one.

Up until the final table, I had seen something like 16 flops, and 12 rivers, winning 10 of the rivers that I saw. And almost all winning hands on the river were all-ins. Even by the end of the tournament, I had seen only 18% of the flops. I played premium hands, and just a few speculative hands (and released them to any action if they didn't hit big or hit a big draw).

It's amazing what people will call you with. This one I got raised all-in on the flop:


Top pair / weak kicker. I raised preflop, too.

This hand was great: I pushed all-in preflop from the BB after 4 limpers; all but one of the limpers called me, and I got a MASSIVE chip stack:

How, I wonder, do you think K3o is good here? JJ I kind of understand (kind of), but K3o? And K10s after a push all in and 2 callers? Wow.

Here's another flopped set that I got raised all-in on the flop:


Top pair / crap kicker - I dunno. I mean, I know it's a free roll, but I guess people don't understand that if you actually play well you stand a better chance of winning the damn thing. Relying on luck will only get you so far.

On that same note, though, you just have to get lucky at least once in a tournament to take it down. I had barely played any hands, and had seen TrackStar488 raise preflop with A6o, 22; I saw him push with 88, so I'm thinking there's a damn good chance I'm ahead here. Since I hadn't played many hands at this table, I thought a tight image would get an "OK" hand to fold for his tourney life. I pushed after his raise, and he insta-called:


I had already typed "nh / gl ev1" in the chat...THEN the turn came. WOOOOO! I then revised my comment to "I mean...gg :)" That sent him spewing obscenities. Oh, well. One suck out is pretty good at this point.

Final table, I'm 3rd in chips. I push preflop after a very aggressive raiser put in a raise & it folded to me in the BB. A9s is no monster, but against his probable range I thought I was ahead, and I had enough fold-equity that I thought without a monster he'd go away. Proverbial coin-flip that was all but over on the flop:

I don't know who makes this call with 22 here. Oh, well - doubled me up.

I'm realizing now that I was behind more than I thought: that hand, and the next one were pretty much coin flops preflop. The one above I pushed; the next one I limped on the button and called the sb's shove. I can't tell you why, I just didn't think he had a big hand, and thought I may be in the lead, or another coin flip (at worst). That's what it turned out to be:

This catapulted me to the chip lead with 4 left.

We got down to 3-way, I was short-stacked due to a lost coin-flip (had to happen sooner or later). My M was at around 4 or 5, which meant I had one of two moves: push, or fold. Finding K3s in the SB, when the button folds, I wanted to just take the blinds and move on, so - I shove. He can't call there without a real hand, I'm assuming. Who'd have known he woke up to a real hand:

Oh, well - gg me. Bad timing. Chances of him waking up to aces there? I dunno... guess I could have folded and waited 'till my button, but I was getting so low on chips I figured chances were he wouldn't have a calling hand there.

3,600 runners; 105th place

3hrs 45 minutes of work, and I barely profit. Cheap entertainment, I guess I can call it :)

This was the $0.10 guaranteed $1,000 rebuy tourny on tilt. $0 + $0.10 to get in; 1,000 chips, rebuys are $0.50 at 1,000 chips or less, one 1,500 chip add-on for $0.50.

I played it pretty aggressive in early rounds, and only had to do one full rebuy (well, I did the initial one from the get-go to start with 2k), and did the add-on, so it cost me $2.10 to play. I had to get to 135th place to break even, and I went out in 105th place. Out of 3600 runners, I'm happy! Deepest I've ever gone in this big a field. I didn't think I'd like the rebuy deal, but I used it to my advantage, taking some extra chances early on (especially when I was just under 2K about 5 minutes before the rebuy period was over, I re-raise shoved with J10 soooted, figuring if I get called & beat then I rebuy and have as many chips as I had. I performed a nice suckout and doubled through :)

Besides that hand, which didn't have my tourny life on the line, I sucked out only once: I limped UTG with 66; one limper, small blind raises in what I think is a squeeze play, I shove when bb folds, limper folds and sb calls:


"Thank you, RNG," I said after the hand.

...unfortunately 66 is the hand that did me in at the end. No, my decision on how to play the hand is what did me in at the end. I limped in late, bb checks, bb checks a Qc10cx flop, I fire 1/2 pot, calls. Turn 4h, bb checks... what do I do? STOOOPID me shoves. Was hoping a flush draw, but nope - just Q2. Top pair / no kicker, called 3/4 of his stack against my shove - and I'd been playing SUPER-DUPER tight. Oh, well. Should be more careful there -- small pre-flop raise and that pot was mine at the beginning; if he still called and called my c-bet, I'd re-evaluate on the turn, but I should probably fold to any action, as it is I have 66.

All-in all, though, I was very happy with my play. I made some positional steals; I made some steal re-raises when the flop c-bets seemed weak... happy. As it was when I won like $1.50 in the Ferguson, I'm now unsure whether I'll play this one again. It's good practice, though, for bigger games - and for me, good to see how I feel about rebuy tournaments (which I like really - I played this last weekend, and while I didn't cash, I really like the flexibility the rebuy-period can give you. Plus it's often obvious who's trying to not do any rebuys and cash from the bear minimum, so you can use that time to take advantage of those tight-nits.).

As I've been rather disinterested in playing online this whole past week, it was a good way to get back into the swing.

Maybe I'll try one of the rebuy sit and go's to the $750K tomorrow... I was planning on hitting the Tulalip tomorrow afternoon, but I'd bag that if I get into the Sunday Major. I'm going to re-evaluate the Tulalip-thing tomorrow and see how I feel about it.

2-table sit n go's

Started to really dig these. The $5.50 18-person sit n go's are either super-duper-fishy, or I'm simply on a heater. I swear, though, something has "clicked" in my tournament play, and I wish I could put my finger on it. I've cashed in the last 5 or 6 18-seaters I've played, including one win, 2 2nds, 1 4th, and the other 2 or 3 were 3rd. I took one seriously awful beat last night; an uber-aggressive guy holding about 70% of the chips in play was big-betting everything; when I was shortstacked and he shoved in the SB, I figured my J10 was probably already ahead, but either way I couldn't fold at that point. Here's how the hand played out:

Alright, I'll spare ya the details: dude had like 20K, I had like 2500, he bet 3K I called with J10o; he's got 8 3. Hits an 8 on the turn and a 3 on the river (or vice-versa). Thnx, gg.

I've found one of the strategies I use is to basically let people make mistakes, and then capitalize on them. There are so many players that will play and overplay hands like 2nd pair that I just wait for opportunities where they overplay a hand and I take it from them. Bunch of the players around this level don't know how to bluff at a pot: they'll min-bet 100 on the river into a pot of 800; I have anything I'm calling but most likely I'm raising. Too many players over-use the check/raise too, which I'll use to my advantage when I have a big hand and when I have a drawing hand (I swear if every player I played at this level lost the check/raise from their repertoire, they'd get more chips from me - honest! I'm willing to pay a certain amount for certain draws, but if they bet me out they don't stand a chance to take more chips from me on the turn).

Look, I'm not saying don't check-raise: in fact I actually use it slightly more today than I used to (I used to almost never use it), but it's got its places.

Anyway, the poker playing is going well for me lately. Even ventured back into the $10 stt world last night (where I used to almost exclusively play), and took 2nd. As usual, one boneheaded move heads up crippled me, but I was happy with the 2nd. I think I'm ready to tackle the $10 18-seaters next. Just hope I don't run into Riggstad, but I guess that's expected since I think he spends most waking hours in those games.

I'm tired; I'm going to bed real soon. I forgot about the MATH; hopefully one of these weeks I'll remember. Wednesday is The Mookie:
When: Wednesday. 10pm ET
Game: NLHE Deepstack
Buyin: $10+1
Password: vegas1

Don't forget to visit my writing blog as well; not much creative-stuff flowing recently but some thoughts (and questions) about Life, the Universe, and Nothing. Comments are always welcomed.

Busto Mookie, Segundo Dookie

So these blogger tourny's I've played in just kinda get me riled a bit. I get tired of ppl making moves that I know have GOT to be steals, yet I just don't have enough to risk against it. Or other such stuff. Tonight I played well I thought. Lost some after the start, gained some back - still below average, but with a healthy stack I picked up AKs in MP, & standard raise. Button, with about half my stack shoves. Folds to me, I call - AQ. Q on the flop seals it for him.

Worst part about this? Afterwards, he says in chat, "Sorry gsw, I had a bad feeling you were going to flip over AK, too." Nothin' like rubbin' salt into the wounds.

Yada yada yada some hands later I've been going backwards, & pick up 10 10 in the BB. Button makes a standard raise (thieving I fiugre), I shove - button calls with KK, thanks gg.

Busted JUST in time for the start of the Dookie HORSE tourny. Give me razz, Stud Hi & structured betting & I can do quite well. As a matter of fact:


For most of the tourny I hovered in the top 5. By the time we got heads-up I was so severely outchipped that it would've taken a miracle. And no miracles tonight, ladies and gents. I was, however, quite happy with a 2nd place finish. Almost all of the 3-handed play I sat back and blinded out; it looked like riggstad was on a mission to bust himself so I figured I'd let him (I got a bit cold-decked too). Last game we played was Stud Hi/Lo which is probably my weakest game, so it was only fitting I should go out on that one.

I may start entering some more stud tournaments actually -- I played one two weeks ago on tilt (their weekend forum tourny, top 3 prizes were $26 tokens, & a little cash for 4-6). For the vast majority of the tournament I was the leader. There's something about that game that makes it that much easier for me to try to pull off bluffs: even if I have garbage underneath, I see the other guy has garbage up and just attack him. Well that tourny I ended up out in 5th (blinds get so high that one bad hand and you're crippled); but it was fun and I played really well. In tonight's Dookie the two games I collected the most chips during were Stud Hi and Razz.

Perhaps it's time to branch out of Hold'em games.

Multi-table maddness

I just started multi-tabling sit n go's. First I tried 2 9-seat turbo's. One problem there was that I only decided to try the second one after like 10 minutes of the first; I think that actually hurt my performance, since blinds and all were staggered a bunch; and the time it took to get the windows set up right, to register, etc... I took 3rd in one, and the other one, where I was 2nd in chips, when tragedy struck:

I had gotten into the habbit over making huge preflop overbets with KK or AA - enough so that if a shorty called me they knew it was for their tourny life. I'm fine with that, in the turbo's they gotta start taking a chance, and I want them to feel like they can double-through right quick. Well, this time the other big stack shoves. Hoping he was just getting sick of my overbets (was really man-handling the table on the flop too), and/or picked up AK, I instacalled, and saw this:




Yea. Bummer. Doubt I could have gotten away from it; if I had made a more standard raise, and the guy came over the top, I would have had to call/shove. At the levels I'm playing I can't assume that the 4th raise means aces -- it could mean QQ, JJ, 1010, 99, A5s, AQ, AJ, A9s... given this guy didn't let on to me that I should peg him for anything other than the typical lower-limits player, and plus the fact that I had been such a bully that I thought he was trying to take control of the table from me. Oh, well.

Next, I decided to register for 3 6-seat turbo's at once. That was FUN! One of them, I literally did not win one hand- not one! And still went out 3rd! The other two I (ahem!) won! One was great - I got a decent lead fairly early, and pressured the table whenever I could. With the 6-person format only paying 2, it encouraged me to play faster, more aggressively... I played to either win or bust trying. I'll tell ya, players hate to be constantly beat-up on. I found a good balance between pressuring with big bets, and not over committing chips to the pot or willy-nilly doubling up shorties. The other one I won, though.... sweeeeeeet!!!!

The sweetest part of it is the chip count when we started heads up:

Seat 2: gsw61515 (1,150)
Seat 3: award623 (7,850)

That's right - I was outchipped almost 8-1. Remember: never count yourself out. What I had to do here was pressure whenever I could. After winning a small checked-down pot with a high card, next hand gave me A9 on the button, so I shoved. I almost expected him to call with ATC, but he actually had a hand:

Seat 2: gsw61515 (1,150)
Seat 3: Villain1 (7,850)
Villain1 posts the small blind of 150
gsw61515 posts the big blind of 300
The button is in seat #3
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to gsw61515 [9s Ad]
Villain1 calls 150
gsw61515 raises to 1,150, and is all in
Villain1 calls 850
gsw61515 shows [9s Ad]
Villain1 shows [6s 6c] <--- a pair, but thankfully I have overs
*** FLOP *** [Ah 4d 8d] <--- kaBOOM!
*** TURN *** [Ah 4d 8d] [3s]
*** RIVER *** [Ah 4d 8d 3s] [Jc]
gsw61515 shows a pair of Aces
Villain1 shows a pair of Sixes
gsw61515 wins the pot (2,300) with a pair of Aces

So, one coinflip won, doubled up. Need to keep applying pressure. He knows one more double-up and we're basically even. Next hand QJo, min-raised to 600. When the flop brought a Q I shoved, he folded. Gave me a walk the next hand (side-effect of constant pressure: they're less willing to play marginal/atc-type hands). Next hand I have Qxo, raise to 900, calls. Flop is K high, Villain1 checks, I shove - FOLD. Constant pressure. I was playing to win, and win only. I pressured enough pots that I got to this point w/o a showdown since the A9o hand:

Seat 2: gsw61515 (4,450)
Seat 3: Villain1 (4,550)

Yep, by applying constant pressure, I got to even. I also, of course, got lucky that he didn't have a hand during this time (or not a hand big enough he was willing to gambool with it). But most of the flops I was shoving were ragged enough that it was doubtful he would have hit them. Once I got a few chips, too, I didn't shove anymore -- raises, and flop bets, but no shoves -- I never bet enough to be committed to a pot unless I wanted to be called. The one time he played back, I folded - he so rarely did I figured he had the goods that time. I dunno if he did.

At this point, the following hand happens:

Seat 2: gsw61515 (4,450)
Seat 3: Villain1 (4,550)
gsw61515 posts the small blind of 200
Villain1 posts the big blind of 400
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to gsw61515 [Kc Ks] <--- yippee!!
gsw61515 raises to 1,200
Villain1 calls 800 <--- double-yippee!!
*** FLOP *** [2h 3d Qs]
Villain1 bets 2,400 <--- yes! he hit a Q & pot-committed himself!
gsw61515 raises to 3,250, and is all in
Villain1 calls 850
gsw61515 shows [Kc Ks]
Villain1 shows [9s 7h] <--- wait - where's the queen?!
*** TURN *** [2h 3d Qs] [2c]
*** RIVER *** [2h 3d Qs 2c] [5d]
gsw61515 shows two pair, Kings and Twos
Villain1 shows a pair of Twos
gsw61515 wins the pot (8,900) with two pair, Kings and Twos

This turned out to be quite an unlucky hand for my opponent. I was at first surprised to see no pair/no draw, but honestly he made a great play - if I didn't have a real hand, the stop n go here would have worked great. Unlucky for him. But this is the part where if I had raised with rags, and had no pair/no draw, I don't call him. He only had made a play at one or two other pots HU, which I conceded to him.

One of the great things about being involved in two HU matches at once was that the pressuring became instinct. I didn't think much at all; I didn't agonize over decisions -- while I concentrated on some more intricate play in the more evenly matched HU game, the short-stacked one became about pressure only: I pressed when it seemed like I should, and then used most concentration to out-maneuver the guy in the other match.

Multi-tabling seems to lead me to make more automatic decisions, letting instinct and already learned-skills take over... playing 4 limit cash games I was more successful than playing one higher limit cash game.. why? Less fancy thinking, less time to concentrate on "what ifs" and my brain gets to a bit of an auto-pilot mode, and less playing marginal starting hands (still a big weakness in my limit playing).