08.21.08
Bonus Round
posted by Absinthe | 7:00 PM
So I completely forgot about today’s $1k (single rebuy) NLHE event. It was on my calendar, it was on my list, and somehow it took my wife saying “So the event tonight starts at 7?” to convince me that, right, I DO have one more event scheduled. So that’s where I am now. Not looking like a huge field; I’m hoping that since the main event starts tomorrow, a number of players will be pressing the fuck-it button early on. Golden hour now, as the sun goes down; if I’m still playing at sunrise I might be looking at some money.
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08.19.08
One Last Thing
posted by Absinthe | 3:00 PM
Wow, what an incredibly lousy run. But more on that later. $545 limit tourney today. Depending on the number of entrants (I’m guessing 130 max) I’m probably going to have to finish in the top three to get unstuck for the month. This is not the sort of outcome about which I am particularly optimistic. Fortunately you do not have to be an optimist to make good decisions - you just have to be an optimizer.
The good thing about a long losing streak - there is a good thing, really - is that it forces you to closely evaluate your play, and ask questions that don’t occur to you when you’re winning. Some of them are moot - early on in the series I pondered broadening my reraising range preflop, for example, since the second raise is the only one that gets any respect from these fields. I decided it was a solid tactical move - and it would have been had I ever gotten hands within that expanded range. I didn’t. Yesterday I played seven hours and worked my way up over triple a starting stack, and never had a starting hand better than 77.
Which leads to questions like, “is there a player out there who could take these cards up against these fields and pull out a win?” The best answer I can come up with, at the moment, is “I hope not.” Which will have to do.
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08.15.08
Friday
posted by Absinthe | 3:30 PM
$545 NLHE today, with one rebuy. I generally save those for an extra life rather than taking the stack right off. If the way I’ve been running were any indicator of future results I’d just save it entirely, but. When you’re winning, poker is a game. When you’re losing, it’s war.
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08.07.08
In Which The Limit Is The Thing It Is Taken To
posted by Absinthe | 3:30 PM
Limit tourney today. They’re an odd beast here - these fields are packed with players who don’t want to lay down bottom pair on the river facing a pot-size bet, so how can they do it when they’re getting 11 to 1? Early on the pots easily get that big. And why not? If I have a “playable” hand in level 1 or 2, you can be sure I’m taking a flop with it. The trick is to .. Actually, the trick is to flop big or draw out and get paid. Same as any other flop game except moreso, I guess. Probably a fast structure, but at least we won’t spend half the later levels waiting for people who failed Anteing 101 or Applied Don’t Argue With The Dealer.
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08.05.08
Legends 8: Time To Go To Work
posted by Absinthe | 2:57 PM
Got a late start today so this’ll be a quick one. $335 NLHE today, probably the usual minefield. And to play it I’m missing a) Pauly’s 5th anniversary tournament shindig and b) my wife’s birthday, proof once again that all you other married guys are playing for second, because I have the best one ever.
Cards have been pretty cold over the first two HE events; my “good” starting hands, in order of rank, have been KK, 88, 55, 44, 44, 33, AKo, AJs, AJo. The KK hand was pretty much my undoing on Friday; here’s how it went down.
Start the hand with about T4100 at 50/100 blinds. I raise from middle position to 350, SB (a solid player) calls. Flop comes 8s9cJc, a little scary. SB checks; I bet 500, he minraises to 1000, I go into the tank. I hate folding here because even a solid player will checkraise a tight player with top pair here. On the other hand the texture is, shall we say, unfavorable. I peek to see if I have Kc or Ks, since I know I had one black king. Spades. Damn. Not that the second-nut backdoor four-flush draw is anything special but it pays to know where all the emergency exits are, y’know?
So I’m in a quandary. I don’t want to lay down the best hand I’ve seen in three days in an undefined situation, but I don’t want to jam here and find out I’m drawing to two outs. Another card is highly unlikely to help me - if he has QT for the flopped straight, or if Kc comes and gives me a set but him a flush, my hand’s improved but is still behind. If I smooth call his raise and he fires the turn I’ve just wasted my call.
I end up embarking on a disastrous middle course, a play that either looks absurdly weak or incredibly strong - I threebet to 2100, making it just more than a minraise and leaving myself with only about 1500 in chips. It offers him easy odds but may be enough to buy me a showdown against top pair or get a free shot to outdraw something like bottom two. It definitely slows him down; he thinks for a while and calls, then checks the turn. Unfortunately the turn is 8c, making the board 8s 9c Jc 8c, about the scariest of all possible turn cards. I don’t think I have enough to get him to lay down any hand and frankly I’m not sure how I could be ahead given the action, so I check too.
River is Td, so there’s a pair, a three-flush and a four-card straight on the board. Ugh. He checks. I can’t think of anything I can beat or any reasonable hand he wouldn’t call me with and so check behind too, saying “kings”. Turns out he has pocket aces, meaning that I had the one hand in my range he could beat, and he had the one hand in his range he couldn’t bet. If I’d smooth-called the flop and pushed either the turn or river (if he’d given me the chance, that is; good chance he’d lead the turn), I’d have had enough chips to get him off the hand, but, well, that’s not what happened.
Blinds go up the very next hand and suddenly I’m a shortie, mildly tilted, get dealt 55 and decide to go hunting for a race. Unfortunately the woman two to my left has 66 and calls me. By the turn the board is 6789 with three diamonds, I have a diamond and she doesn’t, giving me a ridiculous number of outs given the situation, but none of them hit and I go home.
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08.04.08
The Well-Rested Cardslinger
posted by Absinthe | 3:00 PM
Went straight home after busting Friday, hoping to get some quality time with the family. Unfortunately the virus I picked up at a) Comic-Con b) the San Diego Zoo c) the Bike had other ideas. My skin hurt all weekend and I think I was out of bed maybe five hours total on Saturday and Sunday. There are worse times to get sick (today, for example, would have thrown my plans off but good). The most horrible thing was that the boy was sick too, with a robust fever for most of the weekend. He’s never really been ill before, just had the usual teething and colic issues, so we were seeing him literally more miserable than he’s ever been in his life, which was way more painful than feeling a little punk myself.
Today’s event: $335 Omaha 8. Which isn’t my best game, but fortunately doesn’t seem to be anyone’s out here, except for Shirley Rosario. (Who’s a very pleasant person to play with, but man, do I hope I don’t see her before the final table.)
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