Year end stats

I thought nobody reads this stuff. But after looking at my stats I have seen the following:

1) Since starting to really track hits in mid March I have had 880 visitors (I am sure a lot of those are me checking to see that my posts are not a mess). Those 880 visitors had 1625 page views (not bad).

2) People from 57 countries read this blog:



I am especially in awe of the fact that there were people in Saudi Arabia, Rwanda and Madagascar who came to visit. Thank you so much!

3) There were 26% return visits (that is pretty good I think) - So thank you repeat visitors!

4) My top referrals came from these fine folks:
* Blogger Poker Tour
* Wicked Chops Poker
* Klopzi
* WY
* Tao of Poker

There were a total of 108 referrals or organic searches that led people to this place. I think some are just blogger surfers who fell in this hole by mistake. But they all still count!

Thanks to my referrers!

So in summary - Thanks for everything and Happy New Year!

Happy New Year and.....

Aces are good?

Played a crazy SNG where on one of the first hands I get Aces and then this happens:



So I dodge the flush draw and all the other 2 outers. But then a few orbits later this happens....



... and I dodge the flush draw but lose to a runner runner straight? I go from 88% fav to 67% to 72% to 0%. At least I didn't lose my entire stack on that one. Still ouch.

Bribing bloggers

I just read an interesting article on Joel on Software and all I want to know is where is my Ferrari 1000? Granted, nobody reads this blog so I probably wouldn't get a dollar to disclose state secrets (if I knew any) but it opened my eyes to an interesting dilema.

For more on the subject, go read Joel and also for all those ReviewMe folks, go look at PayPerPost and Performancing.

Weird Al cracks me up !!!

You just have to watch this:

Brutal (and other stuff)

Still plugging away at my $5 SNG challenge. I am not making much headway. Through 38 games I am ITM 51.85% of the time but my ROI is only 116.27% which is not very good, I guess. I have to admit that some of my play has been stupid and I deserve what I get. I am happy to be able to take it down half the time when I am in the money (seven 1st, five 2nd and two 3rd). Some beats have just been brutal:

PokerStars Game #7648478550: Tournament #39123890, $5.00+$0.50 Hold'em No Limit - Level IV (50/100) - 2006/12/28 - 16:18:14 (ET)
Table '39123890 1' 9-max Seat #8 is the button
Seat 1: gstar329 (1525 in chips)
Seat 2: boston bob x (2285 in chips)
Seat 3: Graz1 (1200 in chips)
Seat 4: RedRiverRats (2170 in chips)
Seat 5: Kajagugu (1865 in chips)
Seat 6: diyo (1995 in chips)
Seat 8: Letsdance75 (1845 in chips)
Seat 9: Wooofffe (615 in chips)
Wooofffe: posts small blind 50
gstar329: posts big blind 100
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Kajagugu [3s 3h]
boston bob x: folds
Graz1: calls 100
RedRiverRats: folds
Kajagugu: calls 100
diyo: calls 100
Letsdance75: folds
Wooofffe: calls 50
gstar329: checks
*** FLOP *** [3d 9s Qc]
Wooofffe: bets 515 and is all-in
gstar329: folds
Graz1: folds
Kajagugu: calls 515
diyo: calls 515
*** TURN *** [3d 9s Qc] [Qs]
Kajagugu: bets 1250 and is all-in
diyo: calls 1250
*** RIVER *** [3d 9s Qc Qs] [4h]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Kajagugu: shows [3s 3h] (a full house, Threes full of Queens)
diyo: shows [9d Qd] (a full house, Queens full of Nines)
diyo collected 2500 from side pot
Wooofffe: shows [Th Jh] (a pair of Queens)
diyo collected 2045 from main pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 4545 Main pot 2045. Side pot 2500. | Rake 0
Board [3d 9s Qc Qs 4h]
Seat 1: gstar329 (big blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 3: Graz1 folded on the Flop
Seat 5: Kajagugu showed [3s 3h] and lost with a full house, Threes full of Queens
Seat 6: diyo showed [9d Qd] and won (4545) with a full house, Queens full of Nines
Seat 9: Wooofffe (small blind) showed [Th Jh] and lost with a pair of Queens

I guess I could have played this hand in two different ways, but I don't know if the results would be different. Even if I raise the all-in on the flop I am sure I still get called by the two pair and I am dead on the turn. The only play I that might have worked would be to raise pre-flop? But with a pair of 3's I am not sure I can call a re-raise. So boat over boat pretty much sucks. I went from hands in the air when the guy called to hands on my head when I saw his cards. Boooo....

Anyone out there have a different way to play this hand?

=============

Other stuff:

1) I made the money in the FTP 25K again. I gambled on the very first hand with TPTK against a guy who pushed with two pair and made a bigger two pair on the river to double up. I then managed to extract a double up from a big stack who had position on me with a nut flush I made on the turn. That brought me to this point in the first few minutes:



I then went completely card dead for about a full hour and suffered a serious beat from an Ace-rag push who sucked it out on the river. I made the right calls but the cards were not helping. Ended up ITM but not very deep. Still a fun time was had by all and I actually got KajaWife excited about the possibility of taking down a $7.5K+ first place.

2) I was bored and decided to play some of the PS mega freeroll satellites (I have no idea how some people play these and then have to play again for $1000 prize pool). I ended up playing Razz and 7HL and made some pretty good plays, including this one:



3) I played a Tier 1 on FTP and got Aces twice within 25 hands. The first hand was very sweet (DQB):



The second one was at a good time as well (I didn't get called to my surprise). You can also notice that we were down to 4 players in 25 hands, which is unbelievable:



5) Saw Phil Ivey 2-tabling and donking off his money to someone with serious balls to sit down with Ivey in the first place:

Am I the only one who can't win an MTT?

I am feeling extremely inadequate right now:

1) Lucko - 25K win
2) SNG Machine - 16K guarantee win
3) Smokkee - Every satellite he enters - wins

I need to do something about this. I used to win (not that much though). What am I doing wrong?

Good job guys. You're all my heroes.

More challenge updates

Sooooooo...... It looks like it will take some time to double up and I need to push that thought right out of my head. I can't get sloppy and careless which I did tonight in a few of the games. 15 SNGs under my belt so far and here are the stats:

Places:
1st - 3
2nd - 3

The rest don't matter, right? No bubbles and no thirds either. I usually get it all in and lose a race when heads-up to lose the lead.

Stats:
15 games
ITM - 40% (6 times)
ROI - 130.91% ($25.50 profit)

It's nice, I like. Oh I saw the Borat movie today and almost coughed up a lung laughing so hard. I don't want to spoil it for those who haven't seen it yet, but the naked fight with the producer is one of those scenes that will probably offend everyone. And at the same time, it is pure cinematic genius.

Oh, and the language he speaks when the subtitles show up is actually not Kazakh. And he curses up a storm, too. I like.

Back to poker, I think having a goal is important. I played in about 5 MTTs on FTP tonight and played like a total Donk with a capital D. I especially loved the insanity of the PLO8 where some tool started bad mouthing me after the first hand when I raised the pot in middle position. I swear, it's like the guy suffered from Tourettes or something. Anyway, I need to think of a way to play better in the MTTs.

I went to but a few books for KajaWife for the holidays and ended up buying 4 poker books:
1) Harrington V2
2) Gordon's Green
3) Gordon's Blue
4) Busting Vegas (not really a poker book but I enjoyed "Bringing Down the House" so I figured why not)

Any idea what I should start with? Come on people, leave a comment once in a while. I am trying my best here.

SNG Challenge update

Yes! I am on my way. I started out playing a single SNG and took second:



So back to my old habits. I decided to fire up 4 SNGs at the same time. I played pretty well in all of them but lost a couple major pots to awful calls that sucked out. I am actually getting more and more used to this. I managed to crack Aces with my Queens in the first game so I can't complain. So I was out in 5th, 6th and 7th in three of the games.

The last game was much better. I took it down in two hands. Got AJ twice in a row. First hand was up against 99 and I flopped a set of Jacks. Next hand was another AJ and my opponent pushed his short stack with 10-8 and never connected:



Stars SNG Challenge Stats:
ITM - 40%
ROI - 130.91%

Not bad. Could have been much better though.

Clean tilt

I have managed to clean my bankroll of many annoying sites. I hope I was also able to clean my play of this lagging tilt I have been on for a long time now. How do "clean tilt" You play some donkey poker and lose money on purpose. I think...

Anyway, Mansion Poker is no more. Since I could not even figure out how to get their site to load and there was no way for me to withdraw my money I just blew it all playing like an idiot. Fun times.

I also, threw away my Poker4Ever bankroll, but I didn't have a lot there and I don't think I will miss it that much.

I did decide to do three things:
1) I moved $165 from Full Tilt Poker to PokerStars so that I can start a new challenge and play in the MATH and CC's Bash.
2) I moved another $55 to DreamPoker because they were giving me $50 instant free just to make a deposit. I will start a new challenge there as well.
3) I will play on Full Tilt Poker every day and try to cash in on their 12 Days of Christmas promotion.



So what are my new challenges?
1) I will play 30 - $5 SNGs on PokerStars and track my progress. If at some point I double up the challenge will end and I will move on to play $10 SNGs and if I double up again I will go to $20 SNGs. Let's see how that works.
2) I will play 10 - $5 SNGs on DreamPoker and do the same. I will also play micro limit cash games with the extra $50 they give me and see how I do. I will probably need to clear some rake minimum in order to be able to cash out, but I have a tendency to either go bust or make the bonus, so we'll see how that goes.

Good luck to me on these challenges....

Best Week

Ever !!!

This site is hihihilarious. I added it to my bloglines since they come up with funny stuff all day long. I especially enjoyed the Jib Jab Nuckin' Futs year in review.

CC's Partner Contest

So first of all, I have to do some serious pimpage and let every one (seriously I think I only have one reader) of you that tonight is CC's Thursday Bash on PokerStars at 9:30pm EST.



Second thing to notice is that I have added CC to my list of linked blogs on the right (for any of you reading this through blogger).

And now to the task at hand. CC asked all the candidates to answer a simple question: Which two people would you choose besides yourself and why? If you don't know who we are then go read this first.

I would try to make the experiment interesting by going two different routes. Probably the young buck (Neil or maybe even Bayne) and the real-life dreamer (Mark or Kat).

I like the young buck approach because these guys have an almost unlimited amount of time and energy. They are not bogged down by the responsibilities of a job, wife/husband, kids, mortgage, high blood pressure and other ailments. They can devote a lot of time to poker. They can withstand some serious swings.

The dreamer category, in which I also fall into, is for the folks who can't make poker their topmost priority. They have a lot of other things to take care of and need to struggle to find time to play. They don't have the luxury of multi-tabling for hours on end or the ability to go deep into a 5 hour 100+R tourney to win 25K (lucko is my hero!).

So to sum it up, see how you do with two players, one who has unlimited resources and one that is extremely limited. They will probably develop two completely different strategies and hopefully the same results.

Boats on the river

I played some cash game madness last night and lost three huge pots when I flopped the nut straight and lost to two pairs that made boats on the river. I thought about it a few times and I don't think there was any way I could have played these hands differently. My straight gave my loose opponents two pair and there is no amount of money that I could bet to get them off the hand. Slow play didn't work. Medium sized bets didn't work and even an all-in didn't take.

I have not been keeping track but I think I have blown through about half my bankroll so far between the donkey plays on PS and these fun cash game hits.

Not sure what to do right now. I might just give it a rest since I may be playing frustrated and that is no way to go about doing things.

Blogger Poker Tour Final Event

Folks, the BPT is sending 2 players to the Aussie Millions. Last chance to get some points is this Saturday. Please go check out the BPT and try to win your seat!

Home game cashes

Finally. First game I came in 3rd out of 12. Second game I was 1st out of 10.

I have been slightly frustrated with my monthly game lately and this was a nice change. Granted we had less players and some of the calling stations were not present, but I decided to alter my game plan and managed to play very solidly most of the night.

The good news is that my image as a big bluffer and aggressive player plated to my advantage as I was able to get people to call my bets with close to nothing. And I had the stone cold nuts almost every time that happened. I like the fact that I was able to get more value out of my river bets and get not only one, but sometimes two or three callers.

Example 1: I get 88 in late position. I raise 3xBB and get the button to call as well as the SB and the BB. The flop comes 7-6-6 with two clubs. At this point I know that if anyone is one a flush draw they will call and not raise. So with the blinds at 50/100 and the blinds checking I put in a 500 bet into a 1200 pot. I get the button to call as well as the BB. These two are on a draw for sure. No way either of them has a made set. The turn is my magic 8 giving me the nut boat. Only hand I should fear is quad 6s or a higher pocket pair making a higher boat on the river. My read is that neither of these scenarios is real and I let both opponents draw to their flush and they get it with a river club (I think it was a low card). BB checks, I give a little oscar worthy performance and count out 600 chips. The button calls as does the BB who mucks when he sees my boat. Button shows his flush (not even close to being the nut flush) and grumbles. I rake in a huge pot of 4500. Sweet.

Example 2: I get 22 on the button and raise 2xBB. Since by now everyone has figured out that I like to raise in late position I get about 4 callers who limped before me. I make my set on the flop and call a smallish bet from early position that gets called by the whole table. At this point I figure nobody has made a better set. Someone could be slow playing a better set but I doubt it. The turn is an Ace and now I re-raise for value and value I get. Two callers are all-in on the river and my set knocks them both out with two pair of Ace-rag for both. Love it.

Anyway, the other good news is that I didn't try to tell anyone how to play. My buddy C managed to piss everyone off by being the poker lesson giver while getting knocked out in the early stages of both games. I did give one piece of advice to another C who flopped quad 5's and still bet the flop from early position. I told her that she has an almost unbeatable hand and should let her opponents bet into her to extract as many chips as she can. She said she just got nervous because she had never been in this position before and didn't know what to do. I told her she need to let aggressive players make mistakes when she has a hand like that and she is known to be a calling station.

Next hand I flop TPTK and she checks ahead of me. I put out a nice bet and she goes all in with the rest of her chips. I have to call because it was not that much more and of course she slow played an overpair and thanked me for the lesson. Damn!

Life gets in the way

I was going to do my first ReviewMe review this weekend for a site called Cardroom Supply but life got in the way of this important task. I feel bad since I accepted the review but did not complete it in time.

So just to show everyone at Cardroom Supply that I didn't mean it I decided to review it anyway. I took a goood long look at the site and it seems very easy to navigate. I love the free shipping over orders of $100 which would make them very attractive.

I actually saw the prices of the high end tables and was shocked a bit, but then I talked to a couple in my neighborhood who are finishing their basement and they were going to buy two tables that were even more expensive. I told them about the site and I hope they make their purchase there instead.

The other item I liked was the 1000 13gram Chip Set with Acrylic Carrier. It looks just like the ones they use in casinos to haul chips around. And for $245 it is a great deal.

Anyway, that's it for me. Sorry again for missing my deadline.

Now, if I am already reviewing sites I have to tell everyone about one of the better internet shopping experiences I have ever had. I decided to find a song that KajaBaby (AKA Baby Tilt) likes to listen to on XM Kids. The only place I found it was on a site called CD Baby. I ended up buying two CDs and that's when the fun really started. First I got an automated e-mail confirming my purchase and telling me they love me:

CD Baby loves Kajagugu!

This is just a happy automated email to let you know a real person will email you as soon as your package is sent, and you will also receive a paper receipt with your order in the mail.

Then I got this gem:

Your CDs have been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CDs and polished them to make sure they were in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CDs into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved 'Bon Voyage!' to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Saturday, December 9th.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did.
Your picture is on our wall as "Customer of the Year". We're all exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!


Thank you once again,

Derek Sivers, president, CD Baby
the little CD store with the best new independent music
phone: 1-800-448-6369 email: cdbaby@cdbaby.com http://cdbaby.com

So how much fun is that? Thank you Mr. Derek Sivers for showing a little creativity in this grey world of internet commerce. Thank you!

Argh !!!

I tried to go for the Aston Martin Freeroll by playing a 100 FPP double shootout on PokerStars. I played solid and tight and only once we were down to three did I realized that we were actually playing a double shootout. I saw the DS in the title but thought it was a Deep Stack tournament (Full Tilt Poker uses the same acronym). Not only were we down to three, but I was the short stack. I ended up taking it down after several suckouts for both players when we were heads-up:



On to the final table and once again playing tight and solid I chipped up and made some good plays. But it was starting to get very aggressive and eventually I had to push against a big raise with A9 of clubs. The villain had me covered and called with his A8 suited. But PokerStars did not disappoint and gave him the 3 outer on the turn to knock me out in 4th. So 4th out of 100 is not bad and I am pretty happy to have finally won a single table SNG, but since only the top spot paid an entry I got nothing for my effort. At least I made a good read....

RIP Croc Hunter

I thought the croc hunter was a funny guy. Someone just sent me this video titled "Crocodile Hunter Meets His Match" and I thought it was too hilarious to not post it. I love the Joan Rivers comment at the end the most:

I'm an excellent driver

Got an e-mail this morning with a link to the GMAC driving test. 20 questions that rank your driving knowledge where 70% is a passing grade in most states. Try it out here: GMAC Test.

I scored an astounding 95%.

$.01 UB Bankroll and some things never change

I decided to leave UltimateBet and move my money to Mansion Poker. Why? Because I was getting sick of their software, alternates and suckouts. Although I am not mad at the suckouts and have learned to live with them I figured I might as well change location. So I have one shiney penny left in my UB account.

Another reason for playing at Mansion is that they are adding 250K spread over some of their December tournaments. Not sure I can play that high to begin with but I guess it's a good reason. Also, the awesome folks at Poker Savvy have a very easy deposit bonus you can clear in no time.

So I logged on and played my first tournament on the site. A $400 guaranteed $10 buy-in that got 54 players signed up. I played so tight that whenever I did make a raise everyone folded. Eventually I slow played KK against a short stack and doubled him up when an Ace came on the turn and I tried to represent an Aces, which he had. Doh! I continued to push my medium stack but as we were getting close to the bubble my connection really slowed down. I saw each card being dealt separately and slowly. Every action took 5 times longer and it was just getting unbareable. And here is my final hand:

DEALER: Game starts, Hold'em, hand #15783426
DEALER: Your hole cards are Q K
DEALER: The flop is K 9 8
DEALER: The turn is 7
DEALER: The river is 9
DEALER: zack454 has 9 Q and three of a kind, nines
DEALER: zack454 wins 2,870 with three of a kind, nines
DEALER: InTIMidate has 8 8 and a full house, eights full of nines
DEALER: InTIMidate wins 3,190 with a full house, eights full of nines
The tournament is on a 5 minute break.
You finished the tournament in 12th place.

9 places paid. I was in the SB when TIM pushed pre-flop UTG. Big stack 454 called and I called as well. I pushed on the flop and zack called. So as usual I bubble out in an MTT. This one was not all my fault I think. I could have stayed out of that hand and tried to fold my way into the money, but making the money is usually not my intention unless there is a gigantic overlay.