Party Jackpot

Last weekend the Party Poker Bad Beat Jackpot went to about 650K and so I moved some money from PS to Party and decided to try to play the 2/4 game. Over the weekend I turned $100 to about $450 and missed the Jackpot that hit on another 2/4 table while I was playing. The loser with quad Qs won $228K, while the winner with a straight flush won $118K. Everyone at the table got $14K for just being there. I think 20% of the Jackpot goes to the next one and so a few hours later it hit again on a smaller, but still nice, Jackpot of about $180K.

A few notes about playing the bad beat tables:
1) I played very loose and very aggressive - and it paid off.
2) I had to play stupid starting hands that could get me in the Jackpot eventually. Especially suited anything that could become a straight flush.
3) I saw 2 Royal Flushes and a bunch of quads hit while I played, which is completely out of the ordinary. I think the reason this happens is that people just play more hands and call down bets to see if they can make anything happen.

I still don't like Party because their tournaments suck. I might try to play some of their step tourneys and see if that is any good. I can't complain though with the amount of money I made over the weekend...

Another Final Table on PS (8/900)

Made another final table on a PS $1 no-limit with almost 900 players. I was in the lead for a long time until I got my AA cracked by a 76h, just because I slow played it. After that there was no more of the slow play and I eventually made it back to the top spot and held for a long time. So very wild play by the big stacks was eventually rewarded and I was sitting in 3rd position before my final hand:
A7d in late position called a big raise to two seats before me (very loose player). Everyone folds and we are one on one. Flop comes J72 with a diamond draw. Raiser raises a very big amount and I call. Turn is a black 10 and once again big bet and call. Eventually river is a rag and raiser puts me all in. I call and find that he played this whole hand with a 10-7 off suit to win it with two pair. So I am out in 8th place because I am an idiot. I could have easily folded after the bet on the turn. But could not get away from it. The truth is I thought the guy was bluffing. But he could have beat me with a J or 10 anyway.

I think I have to attribute my great play lately to using PokerTracker and PokerAce HUD. I am able to see into the behavior of the other players at the table and adjust my game accordingly. I especially like to see the tight pre-flop aggressive post-flop players and stay away from them when the bet big.

Quite a Week (2/604)

Well it's been quite the week. I made 6th, 4th and 2nd in a few SNG's I played. But the highlight was coming 2nd out of 604 in the $1 Limit tourney to collect about $86. Not sure if I have just been luckier lately or does it have to do with using PokerAce HUD. It overlays player stats on screen and quickly lets you see how aggressive the other players are or how tight. I know for a fact that pushing the tight players got them to fold. One of the best stats I use is percentage of showdowns won. It uses the PokerTracker DB. Another cool feature is that it shows you the mucked hands so you can see what the player who mucked actually had.

Blogger Tourney Back On

OK, so since PokerStars wrote and told me my blog needs to be two months old, i registered using my Golf Blog instead.

Bay 101

Bay 101 trip report - I had an hour to kill before my flight home from SFO so I went to see if Bay 101 is a nice place. Except for the fact that there is no-smoking allowed the place is not very nice. I got on the board for 2-4 or 3-6 whatever came first and ended up sitting in a very loose 3-6 table in seat 2. Bought in for $100 and played way too aggressive the first few hands. Lost some big pots and got down to about $40. Now everyone thought I was the big fish which worked well because I got called more often when I held the winning hand. Ended up the hour with about $240 after losing a big pot with AKd to pocket 8s (board was 4-8-10-K-4).
I think I played well but I was very nervous. Especially after winning a big pot, I had trouble stacking up the chips. Rookie!

Bad Beats - Not Mine

The bad beats continue on PokerStars. This time it wasn't me. My buddy Chris made it to the final table and was in 7th place when the following hand came up: Chip Leader raised (as usual) in early position and Chris had pocket 9s. He went all in and CL called with AKo. Flop came 9 - 10 - 4 with clubs drawing but nobody had clubs, so no worries. At this stage Chris is 98% to win. Turn Q, River J and Chris is out in 9th place instead of getting to 2nd place in chips. That just sucks. The lesson learned from this is to maybe just call and wait for the flop. If CL misses the flop does he then push with two overcards or does he fold? We'll never know.