Some more on preflop raise sizing

I got some responses from some of the RPT pros:

NSXT2 says:
I think 2.5x ish gets the job done just as well as 3x and 3x+. With the exception of some end game plays where I may go over 3x at times.... Bottom line is I want people calling with ATC as you say. Overtime, that benefits me. Especially when a larger stack decides to peel thin.

And GotSkillz says:
The reason why MTT pros make less then 3x BB raises when the antes kick in this.
At this stage in the tournament we are looking to take down alot of pots pre-flop so sometimes we are raising with a wide range.
It is neccessary to fold many of the hands we are raising with to a re-raise.
Therefore if we raise 2.5x BB instead of 3x BB then over the course of the tournament it costs us alot less to raise/fold. If you always raise 2.5x at these points in tournaments as opposed to 3x, then the difference in the amount of chips you lose when re-raised really adds up over time.
We are not too concerned with the odds the other players are getting and here is why, generally they are going to fold anyway if they are weak and call anyway if they have a calling hand and raise anyway if they have a raising hand whether your bet is 2.5x or 3x.. Some people even read the 2.5x bets as stronger because they incorrectly assume the player is making that raise to keep other players in the pot.

So basically this is in line with my prior thoughts. The main point I think is that at the ante level of the tournament and especially in late stages, this is raise or fold poker. So thinking about pot odds to call, might not be the correct mindset. Someone behind me is looking to re-raise and if he flat calls, I tread lightly because more often than not I'm looking at for a trap. The blinds can do whatever they want because they get the right odds anyway and they will play the whole hand out of position.

I'm glad this topic has been discussed because there are a lot of ways to skin this cat.

Waffles started it....

I read this on Waffles' blog and couldn't resist.

Comment on this post, and I will:

1. Tell you why I am friends with you.
2. Associate you with something - fandom, a song, a color, a photo, a word etc.
3. Tell you something I like about you.
4. Tell you a memory I have of you.
5. Ask something I’ve always wanted to know about you.
6. In return, you must post this to your own journal/blog.

This is now officially the worst meme Friday ever!
I promise to have some poker content up later. Promise.

VinNay
1. Ummm, we're friends? Up until about a month ago you thought I was a chick.
2. I associate you with aspciy flavored Indian dish. Like Lamb VinNay-Dalu. Not sure why.
3. I like the color scheme you chose for your blog. Purple on grey is kind of an interesting choice.
4. I remember you are the luckbox who won the first Blogger Luck Tourney. WOOOOOT!
5. Why did you think I was a chick? WTF dude!

TripJax is a wanker

A few days ago I get a text from TripJax about restarting our joint efforts with CineJax. He says he's been slacking off and really wants to get back into it. He has lots of ideas. He's going to post regularly. Yadda blah blah yadda...

I gave him the chance to post first but he is a woosy wimp and hasn't done squadouche yet.

So I will have to once again carry his lazy ass on this one here and take the initiative. Head over to CineJax to read my review of "No Country for Old Men". Best Picture of the Year - 2007. Yeah, I go for the big ones right away. It's how I roll. I have about 20 movies I will review soon.

And if you have any review requests, just let me know.

The Hoyazo Preflop Raise Sizing Technique - HPRST

One of the best post series in recent history has come from Hoy on pre-flop raise sizing. There is a big discussion going on about the topic and I wanted to get some feedback from the pros at RealPokerTraining about the issue at hand. I left this post on the members forum:

One of the players I highly respect (he won the 50/50 on FTP last week and final tabled it 3 other times last month) has blogged about pre flop raise bet sizing and I had a questions for the "pros":

Why do a lot of pros I see/read tend to make smaller pre-flop raises, especially when the antes kick in? The standard 3xBB raise will give a 1.5:1 pot odds to anyone to call and when antes kick in you have to adjust by raising more than 3xBB to get the same odds. I see a lot of players (lilholdem and Todd included as well as some of the other pros in the videos) who make much smaller raises. The main issue there is that it gives other players terrific odds to play crappy hands and sometimes even ATC poker, especially in the blinds. That is a great way to get a premium hand cracked.

Any thoughts?

If you want to read the terrific two part post from Hoyazo, the Hammer Player, head over to his blog:

Part 1; http://hammerplayer.blogspot.com/2008/02/preflop-raising-sizing-in-mtts.html
Part 2: http://hammerplayer.blogspot.com/2008/02/preflop-raise-sizing-take-ii.html

I hope to get some responses and see what they think. But for anyone who reads this and doesn't read Hoy's blog (are you kidding me?) just click the above links and do yourself a favor by reading his stuff.

Friday Fun Video - Bonerol

Not sure how many of you have seen this yet:

iTunes Meme

Instructions: Open up your iTunes and fill out this survey, no matter how embarrassing the responses might be.

How many songs total: 4,716
How many hours or days of music: 14.7 Days
Most recently played: Thought Of U (Panda Food Mix) - RMN (BuddyDank Radio actually shows up on top, but this might get boring if I list that)
Most played: 10 IN 01 - Paul van Dyk Members only - Members of Mayday (BuddyDank Radio - see what I mean?)
Most recently added: Changes (Catch 22) - NYC Sexy Mix - DJ Disciple, David Tort, DJ Ruff (BuddyDank Radio - again? What a degenerate!)

Sort by song title:
First Song: A.E.I.O.U. - Freez
Last Song: 99 Luftballons - Nena

Sort by time:
Shortest Song: 5 sec - Now Sports - Body Count (tied with a few other 5 second clips like Yo Vanilla by Vanilla Ice)
Longest Song: 18 min 22 sec - The Riot / Trip Harder / Everything Must Go (Chemical Brothers Remix) / I think I'm in Love (Chemical Brothers Vocal Remix) - The Chemical Brothers

Sort by album:
First album: Achtung Baby - U2
Last album: Zooropa - U2 (hmmmm..... Coincidence? Or the U2 conspiracy finally revealed?)

First song that comes up on Shuffle: Rocco (Dave Clarke Mix) - Death in Vegas

Search the following and state how many songs come up:

Death - 10
Life - 66
Love - 231
Hate - 7
You - 469
Sex - 30

Denver... again

Heading out west again. Short one this time and no plans to play live. I played poorly last night and have made the following decisions:

1) Play less simultaneous games. Not because I can't follow all the action, but rather to do the following:
2) Follow ALL the action. By this I mean I want to focus on every player at my table and every move they make. Did they limp/call/raise/how much/flat/etc. ?
3) Talk it out. I usually don't have an audience when I play so I am going to talk out the hands with myself. I've read somewhere that this technique helps a lot.
4) Reduce tilt/boredom/drone play. I think that when I have too many games going I tend to go on auto pilot and not think things through. And when I tilt I blow up in every game.
5) Win!

I like the last one the most. Short and to the point. Win!!!

This is going to suck

There is pretty much no way I can participate in the BBT3 to make myself a factor in it. I know this may come as a huge relief to many of you since I crushered all but one doctor in BBT2. There is just no way I can play this many events. I guess I will have to wait for the "official" rules and see what I can try to play. If it's a point system for the TOC then it's going to be tough. If it's a winners TOC like last time, that might work out. Although realistically, I am putting a lot of pressure on myself to win one when I can probably play about 20% of the 55 events.

I am waiting with great ant...... icipation to see what's what.

No matter what, Al is the freakin' man. He can hang. He can dangle. He can shout from the rooftops. He can swing from the vines. He can swing his big dick around. He can do whatever the fuck he wants.

My only consolation is that poker is not going away. There is no hurry. I have to keep reminding myself of that. There's a tournament starting every minute. And a sucker born every second. You do the math.

Calling an all-in with 10 high? Rigged?

I know what you're thinking. You think I'm talking about the superuser account at AP and the end of the tournament where there was a very questionable call with 10 high. But you would be wrong, my friends.

I am talking about a great hand history discussion over at PokerNews about no other than Stu Ungar. Yes, he called an all-in heads-up with 10 high. Live poker is so rigged....

Would you make that call? I doubt I do.

Tourney Structure

Thanks to Jordan from HighOnPoker for giving me some pointers about tourney structures. I also took a look at what Jamyhawk did in his live charity tournament.

I want to get another big home game going. So instead of the usual, I'm changing it up a bit. We will plan on one long tournament with a double buy-in ($40) and $10 bounties. We will start at 8pm with 10,000 chips and play 20 minute levels. You might think this will take a few days to complete but here's the structure and an explanation:

Level SB BB Ante
1 25 50 0
2 50 100 0
3 75 150 0
4 100 200 0
Break
5 150 300 0
6 150 300 25
7 200 400 50
8 300 600 75
Break (color up 25 chips)
9 400 800 100
10 500 1000 100
11 600 1200 200
12 800 1600 200
Break
13 1000 2000 300
14 1200 2400 300
15 1500 3000 400
16 2000 4000 500
Break (color up 100 chips)
17 2500 5000 500
18 3000 6000 1000
19 4000 8000 1000
20 6000 12000 2000

After 4 hours of play when we start level 13, depending on how many players we get, we are looking at a total of 100 big blinds (if we get 20 players) or 150 big blinds (if we get 30 players) for all remaining players. I don't expect this game to go far past that level.

Whenever I see a tourney structure I immediately try to do the following calculation:
#Players x Starting Stack / BB
This shows me how many Big Blinds there are based on the total number of chips in play and will give an indication of when we start to run short. I also liked Jordan's rule of thumb about people starting to bust out when the BB is 1/10 of the starting stacks.

So according to that rule when we reach the 500/1000 level we will get a lot of bustouts, but I think it will happen earlier because of the antes. So I will plan for about 2.5 hours for that. As for my calculation that we will have 100 BB after 4 hours, this is exactly where I wanted to be. The thing that I hate the most about our tourneyhoods is that once a few people bust out, the blinds start to double and it becomes a shovefest. If after 4 hours of play we have 100 BB on the table, that will give a lot of play in the money as well as a nice heads-up ending.

This is all dependent on the fact that enough people show up. We haven't had big turnouts in the last couple of months. If we can't fill two tables I might have to revise this structure.

The other thing you might notice are the bounties. For some reason, people love these. I guess it's a bit of an added incentive. A killer instinct. Especially when you have cash sitting in front of a player and you can bust him and take it. Cash is king I guess.

Let me know your thoughts, if you have any. I will let you all know how the game went. I know it;s going to be easier than usual, cause Surflexus just replied that he will not be attending. It's always an easier game when he's not playing :-)

Speechless

Vegas.com has lost it. This is just too funny not too pass along.

Hoy wins 50/50!

No post up yet (slacker), but here it is:

It looks like he beat the WSOP Rapper/Tilt Instigator, Prahlad Friedman, heads-up:

More Tokens

So I tried my luck at more tokens. Played a session where I went 2:2:2 - 2 tokens, 2 bubbles, 2 lost.

The first token I won pretty much in the first 10 hands. 1st hand I get Jacks and see an EP min-raiser followed by a limper. So I pop it up nicely and they both call. Flop is JdTdX and min-raiser jams (first hand), limper folds and I call. He has pocket Tens, thanks for the chips. Then a few hands later I get Queens and the player to my left who only has a raise button on his screen shoves on a Queen high flop. Too bad, so sad he flopped bottom set of 4s to my top set. I doubt I played a hand after that.

The two I lost where ugly. In one I had 65o in the SB and saw a flop of 2h3h4. I check raised the BB a nice amount but he still shoved with Qh8h. Of course Flush Tilt rewards the FCD, but gives me an OESFD. But it was not to be. Someone likes to say that flopped straights never win. I agree.

The other one I lost was a race, when I had to jam my 600 chips with KJ and ran into pocket Tens. I flopped a King but he went runner-runner quads. It was a race, right?

The most frustrating are the bubbles. one was just stupid, where I shoved in LP with QQ and the button calls with AJo and the BB calls with A8o. Flop 8, turn Ace and I bubble to a 2 outer. JackAce had me covered by 20 chips so he got the token. Very nice.

I swear, if you people are not playing these tier one turbo tokens (2 tables) all day long you are missing out. Good luck.

Oh. My. God.

I just went through the security screening on my way back home. First thing I notice is they let me through without checking ID. Nice.

But that is not the point of the post. They didn't want we to take my shoes or belt off so obviously that triggered the alarm and I had to go over to the wand waver. He did the usual inspection but at the end he totally slid both hands down my zipper line on the front of my pants.

My first instinct was to punch him in the face, but I managed to stop myself. I was so surprised I just couldn't stop laughing. This is a real first for me. I was laughing for about 15 minutes after it happened.

Good, ummm, job?

Dario

If I saw this at my poker table I would probably not be able to stop laughing. Yes, I would probably end up losing all my chips too, but it will all be worth it. Thanks, Dario. And thanks PokerStars Blog for the photo.

Fuck Presto (5/180 & 68/1497)

I played a $20 180-SNG on Stars and totally dominated from the point we were at around 28 players down to the final 5. Chip leader, no resistence, a thing of beauty. Shorties were just sucking out left and right and shoving chips around the table. Eventually I get hit by a 2-outer by the second biggest stack and I am crippled:




Screw you Fuel55!!!

Anyway, Still a nice 11xbuy-in cash. I'll take it. These games are so soft, you have to try them.

I also played the 22K guarantee and made it to 68th out of 1497 mines. I made a few mistakes but the big blow was when the tightest player at the table goes nuts with Q9s , flops a boat and turns quads. WTF RNG?

I cashed in a couple of others as well but nothing important.

On FTP I can't get anything going. The two outers and rivered flushes are absolutely killing me. I followed Jordan's advice and won a bunch of tier one tokens. They are so easy if you can avoid the awful suckouts. I played 12, won 5 tokens and cashed twice in 6th, so 7 out of 12 paid. That means that for a total buy-in of $104.40 I made a profit of $53.60 for an ROI of 51.34%. That's a great return if I can keep it going. Now all I need to do is manage to use one of these tokens for a big score.

Anyway, with the BBT3 coming around soon, I need to turn it around on FTP or I am toast. Not sure how many events I will get to play. With events every day of the week, it will be a tall order. I'll have to see what the rules are.

Anyway, leaving for the airport in 2 hours and I should try to get a little sleep. Later y'all!

One more gripe

Sorry, I'm still bored.

Do they intentionally make toilet paper in Europe out of tree bark and then pepper it with glass shards, scrap metal, coarse salt and sulfuric acid? Charmin would make a killing over here. If I brought over a Costco sized bag of double ply Charmin they would make me king of a small country for a year over here.

WPT?

I am still bored so I figured I will share a thought.

Why do they still call it the World Poker Tour? They just released their season 7 schedule and outside of one Niagra Falls event, all the events are in the US. In fact, Borgata and Foxwoods get two events each and the Bellagio gets four event. That's out of a total of 14 events!

I guess that PokerStars is blowing them away with the success of the EPT and the new APPT. My prediction is that the WPT will continue to crumble and as poker gets introduced to the rest of the world a true World Poker Tour will emerge to take its place.

And if we can get over legislative issues PokerStars will eventually go public and become the undisputed big boy of the industry. Well deserved since they didn't cave like PartyGaming when the UIGEA was shoved down our throats.

Booya!

Convention floor musings

Good lord I'm so fucking bored.

Today is the third and final day of the show and nobody showed up. The organizers probably knew this and brought in a bunch of high school kids. They are roaming the exhibits trying to score free chocolates, soft drinks, Haribo gummy bears and pens. I have none of those so I'm off the hook.

I can't even say I can't speak German in German (what a fun sentence that was).

Telecom and Call Center shows are bo-ho-ho-horing. They try to spice them up by infusing Wii and Xbox games and raffles, dressing up booth babes in racing or soccer gear and all kinds of other pathetic ploys. Hooray for creativity. Not.

Speaking of booth babes, they are anything but. I swear I saw one of them put her cane away behind the display in her booth. And why do they have so much make up on? My guess is they try to cover all the acne caused by all the smoking. Good habit that is.

Random group of high school girls walked by and one of them could have given Hollywood make-up artists a run for their money. Imagine the geekiest stereotype possible. Lopsided pony-tail and bangs. Librarian beer bottle glasses. Upper lip mole. Big pimple on side of nose. Argile sweater on top of wrinkled white wrongly buttoned white collared shirt. Plaid skirt (even I know argile and plaid don't mix). Knee high socks that have reached end of life on elasticity and now display some pretty hairy legs (and by that I mean the legs aren't pretty, just hairy). And the final touch had to be the smile, which looked like some kind of banged up piano with mangled white and dark teeth. I hope this visual haunts you all like it will me.

They are very fond or their apple cider here. But they always mix it with soda. Last year I asked why they don't just make carbonated apple cider and this year they finally realized the market potential and have a limited supply of it. But I just figured it out while typing this. Before the miraculous merge they would get to sell two bottles for one drink. Now they only sell one. Smart.

I hate wearing suits. Or ties. I took the tie off after the first 20 minutes. I almost showed up in jeans and a t-shirt today, I swear.

I love talking to people and then standing around smiling awkwardly as they start a discussion in German. I give it 5 minutes and then walk away. Backwards. With the same fake smile on my face. They were not going to buy anything anyway. I'm just sad that I don't have my ninja smoke bombs with me so I can vanish in a cloud of smoke instead.

My feet are killing me. And who the fuck thought of installing these bright hot lights right over my head?

At least people don't try to give me their resumes like at the free exhibit halls in the US.

Why do German women either have blond or pitch black hair? Nothing in the middle.

And why do so many German men use hair gel? And then try to mold it into a faux-hawk?

Optometrists must make a killing here with all the fancy frames people are sporting. Fancy shmancy.

Wow, I'm so bored...

Axel

His name tag said Axel Pfeuffer and he looked like a clean cut, well groomed, educated fellow. He was kind and polite, held our doors open and put our bags in the trunk. That all changed when he finally got in and took his seat in front of the wheel.

Buckle your seat beltz, bitte!

It was more a command than a request. The thin horn-rimmed glasses came off and a pair of space age Oakleys took their place on a slightly twitching nose. He popped his neck once to left and twice to the right and cracked his knuckles. Then he put on a pair of fingerless black leather driving gloves and I knew he meant business.

Where to and when do you need to be zere?

The first part was understandable, but the second half made me tremble mit fear. What taxi driver asks you a when/where question? Crap.

Estrel convention center and take your time. We're in no hurry. Please...

My plea trailed off at the end as he put the car in gear and we took off. He pulled a quick left hand u-turn out of the hotel taxi line across 6 lanes of traffic and barely missed a young lady on her bicycle. A little verbal hissing at her for being there in the first place and he floored it.

The first light we got to was red but as I quickly realized, apparently the Oakleys filter out that part of the visible light spectrum.

Then we hopped the curb in an S-shaped intersection. While we were in the air you could hear the engine revving up and the wheels spinning above ground. We landed with a thud and the G-force hit us as we zoomed on. It was kind of fun.

Fun in the Grand Theft Auto sense of the word because it felt completely surreal. Handbrake turns, squealing tires, narrow maneuvers through standstill traffic, back alley shortcuts. I could taste the metallic flavor of adrenaline in my mouth. Yumm-o.

I was about to say something but then just decided to let it go. He's obviously channeling Jason Statham in The Transporter right now and this doesn't look like it's his first time either. How often do I get to live an action scene like this?

The rest of the ride was a complete blur. I noticed it was not the same route we had taken the last few days. We actually drove through some depressed parts of the city and if I remember correctly through a farmer's market at one point.

When we made it to our destination the meter showed about a half Euro less than we payed the day before. The gloves came off and the horn-rimmed glasses took the place of the Oakleys again. He was out of his seat in a flash and opened our doors. He had our bags ready on the curb. We quickly paid him and said our thanks.

My name iz Axel. What time should I be here to pick you up?

EuroRant

I've probably done this post several times in the past, but I can't give up a perfect opportunity for a little Euro bashing.

I can sum up my feelings about life in Europe in one word: Dull.

Now before you all start flaming me for this, I want to make sure you understand I am not looking at it through tourist eyes. Of course visiting Europe as a tourist is exciting and amazing, but the day to day life is extremely mediocre. What do I mean by that? The little things that make a difference as far as comfort in life are missing. Here are some examples:

Beds:
I don't understand why it's so hard to make larger mattresses here. My hotel room is nicely decorated, has a big flat screen TV and free high speed Internet. But my bed is two teen beds pushed together to make one queen sized bed. So uncomfortable. Even if they can't get bigger mattresses they can do two simple things to make the situation better. They can put a queen sized mattress cover to make it look like one bed and they could tie the middle legs together or get a single frame so that I don't find my ass on the floor between the beds in the middle of the night. The tile IS very cold!

Smokers:
I've already covered that one. I will probably keep hocking up loogies for the next week. Ugh.

Bland food:
Yes, the fancy restaurants serve good grub but that falls on the touristy side. The regular stuff is so bland. And how many varieties of sausage can they make?
On the bright size the portions are normal. Unlike the US portions that could feed a village in Africa for a month.

TV:
Why do they have to dub everything? Is illiteracy so profound that they can't read subtitles? Must I watch The King of Queens in German? Leave the damn English in there and give your viewers and opportunity to absorb a second language. Foolish.

Service:
This is probably my biggest gripe. I am a great tipper. My standard tip is 20% and for exceptional service I go well past that. But when you stick a service charge in the bill you take away any incentive your staff might have to give better service. They don't expect a tip so they don't care. So everything becomes a mediocre mess.

There's more but this post is bringing me down. I finally managed a good night of sleep and the jetlag is under control. I might attempt to play some MTTs tonight although my flight is at 6:30am so I have to watch out and not start too late.

I have a funny taxi story, but I will post it later. Cheers for now.

Smokers

Apparently, Germans are physiologically incapable of breathing fresh air. Correct me if I'm wrong about this, kind readers, but they smoke everywhere. And that includes inside the fucking exhibit hall. That's right. Right where I get to stand from 9 to 6 spewing corporate propaganda and breathing in their second hand smoke. Well, they don't smoke AT the booth but rather right outside it. You know, where there is an invisible barrier of ionic protection and air filtration. I guess they got so used to the Berlin wall that they assume there are invisible walls everywhere. BTW the wall has been down for almost 20 years. Wow.

So that's my little morning rant. Fuck you, smokers. Oh yeah, the booth next to mine actually gives away lighters as their swag. I just might go over there and torch their carpet or something later.

As for poker, I was all ready for a big score but of the 15 tournaments I played last night I didn't cash in a single one. It was either total card death or some inexplicable calls by my brilliant opponents who couldn't seem to lose. The fact that I could not win a single race was not helping either. By the time I hit the Bodonkey it was 3am and I pretty much handed my stack to BuddyDank who only plays Aces and apparently gets them twice per orbit.

I think I will take tonight off and just sleep or watch movies. Or not.

I looked into some live action again but all I could find was a Pot Limit 7-Stud game. No way I sit down at that table. No way.

More from the comedy family & flight menu

I board and take my seat in business class. Row behind me I see the wipe-out kid and his mom. Grandma walks up and says: "they had a mix up with the seats, I'm all the way in the back". The mom just shrugs. Grandma is crestfallen and drags her carry-on to coach. Alone. For the next 8 hours. Meanwhile the damned kid is screaming out blast off count downs. Good thing Delta passes out ear plugs.

On a lighter side, the menu looks good. Here's what I will have:
Moroccan crab salad
Cream of asparagus soup
Grilled beef tenderloin and shrimp scampi (with lemon risotto and sauted zucchini and squash)
Fruit, cheese and a vanilla ice cream sundae

I will probably hit a couple of double Bailey's on the rocks and snore it up all the way to Tegel. Good thing Delta passes out ear plugs.

Bigus Geekus

How big of a geek am I? I wired up a spare baby monitor (with video) to my slingbox so that I can watch KajaKid sleep at night wherever I am on the planet, if I am not at home.

Home Game Blues & Travel

Here's what we're going to cover in this post:

1) Home Game Card Death
2) Revelations 1 and 2
3) Travel (no live poker planned)
4) Comedy gold

Let's get to it, shall we?

We finally had enough people to run a full ring home game in the hood last Friday. We actually ended up with 14 people, so we played on two tables and merged at 10. The host is a newbie host so we will forgive him the crappy paper cards and lousy Mac tourney clock. He had a keg left over from the Superbowl and we had a prime directive to finish it. Sam Adams keg, yumm-o.

What I will not forgive is the crappy cards I got. For the 5+ hours I played I got exactly 3 pairs (33, 55, 66) and as far as I can remember one AK which beat KJ early on. Total. Card. Death.

I can live with it and find my spots but with the bad structure and some questionable play, it was hard to make any moves with nothing. I mean, what can I do with 92o, J4o, Q3o? I can't recall any connectors, let alone suited connectors, let alone suited cards at all. That said, I managed to bubble (4th) the first tourney and bust around 6th in the second.

My bubble bust-out hand is the exact inverse of what Jordan had going for him at the Lawyer Game. I get dealt A7o on the button, four-handed and with blinds at 500/1000 with only around 2500 chips left I can't wait any longer and jam. Bobby calls it from the BB with JTo and makes trip tens to send me packing. Ealrier Bobby was involved in a 4 way all-in where his ATo made trip tens on the river to crack Kings and two other forgettable hands. All I can really say is meh.

The second game was pure torture and eventually my patience ran out when I shoved Q9s UTG into the SB's Kings. He was short so I had a little more than the BB left and played the hand blind for all my chips. I think Surflexus took me out with his massive stack on his way to take it down. Good job Surf!!!

So I want to touch on two subjects while I have them in my head right now:

1) Meh. I think this is my favorite new poker term. I am just not feeling it. I haven't played many bloggaments lately and only try to make the Bodonkey on a weekly basis. The other times I've played I have been kind of bored. So you are probably going to read a lot of Mehs for a while.

2) The bloggers are killing my neighborhood games. As Tony G likes to say: "They are ripping them apart!". BrainMc gets his monthly poker allowance whenever he sets foot in one of our games. And Surf has been doing pretty well himself. But in general, it is nice to see my donkeyhood get schooled. Time after time after time. Go bloggahs!!!

So as the title suggests, I am hitting the road again. Nothing like the great CC the explorer (seriously, how long has he been on the road?). Just a week trip to Berlin. Meh (see how fun it is to use it?). Last time I was there I could not find any real poker. I will probably just play online late into the night against aggro Euros. Fun times.

On to comedy gold:
Sitting in the business lounge in JFK, waiting for my connection to Berlin right now. Family comes in with kid, mom and grandma. The kid is a total spaz and can't sit still for a second. Doesn't help that the two adults keep sending him to get "just one more cookie" from the desert buffet. He comes back and grandma wants to get his interest with some pictures of the family. But instead he trips on one of the dozens of handbags these two have scattered around on the floor. He totally wipes out and takes their side table, coffee cups, cookies, cheese and crackers straight to the lip. Big cry baby scene ensues with lots of drama. There is no way to calm the kid down. He is crying so hard he is about to cough up a lung. Eventually grandma figures out the magic words to calm his whiny ass down: "want another cookie?". Pure comedy gold.

WHW Answer

I don't know if my update to the WHW post shows up in RSS readers so you can head over there or you can just read it here:

I had Ks9s
He had T6o

???? WTF ????

Who has what? (now with answer)

This is an intereating hand I played last night. I won't show the holdings but just the action, this way you can all try to guess who has what. This is in the money with 135 left:

FullTiltPoker Game #5235233954: $28,000 Guarantee (39049335), Table 38 - 600/1200 Ante 150 - No Limit Hold'em - 1:04:03 ET - 2008/02/13
davvanC sits down
davvanC adds 29,000
Seat 2: bill789 (46,940)
Seat 3: TeddyKGB II (28,207)
Seat 4: Mydirtymoney (40,834)
Seat 5: Kajagugu (38,977)
Seat 6: eat da fish (39,608)
Seat 7: QDent (19,388)
Seat 9: domster123 (37,239)
bill789 antes 150
TeddyKGB II antes 150
Mydirtymoney antes 150
Kajagugu antes 150
eat da fish antes 150
QDent antes 150
domster123 antes 150
bill789 posts the big blind of 1,200
The button is in seat #9
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Kajagugu [?? ??]
TeddyKGB II folds
Mydirtymoney folds
Kajagugu has 15 seconds left to act
Kajagugu raises to 3,200 - There is no SB and I have been very quiet for a long time. Usually when I raise I get folds.
eat da fish folds
QDent folds
domster123 folds
bill789 calls 2,000 - Only BB calls.
*** FLOP *** [6h 3s 8s]
bill789 checks
Kajagugu bets 4,300 - Pot is 7450 and I make a c-bet after BB checks.
bill789 raises to 8,600 - I get min-re-raised.
Kajagugu calls 4,300 - And I call.
*** TURN *** [6h 3s 8s] [Jh]
bill789 bets 12,000 - This is about half his remaining stack.
Kajagugu has 15 seconds left to act
Kajagugu raises to 27,027, and is all in - I jam.
bill789 calls 15,027 - He calls.
Kajagugu shows [?? ??]
SenorPokes sits down
SenorPokes adds 27,208
bill789 shows [?? ??]
*** RIVER *** [6h 3s 8s Jh] [7c]
Kajagugu shows ?????
bill789 shows ?????
bill789 wins the pot (78,704) with ?????
Kajagugu stands up


Put yourself in my shoes, put yourself in his shoes. What do you think we had?

UPDATE:
Well thanks everyone for commenting and taking the time to analyze this hand. I will say right away that this was not a bad beat and probably more of just bad play on my part. There were a lot of places where I could have folded and I probably should not have been in the hand in the first place. The reason i was in the hand was that I was trying to look less of a tighty-mc-tighty so that when i actually got a playable hand I would get some action. Doing it from MP against just the BB was a good spot. But then I took it too far and busted from the tourney.

So what did I have? Ks9s. Mediocre hand, but for my inital intention good enough. If I get folds I'm fine. If I get re-popped I can easily fold.

But the BB decided to defend his blind and I flopped the second nut flush draw and two overs. The only reason I called his min-check-raise was the draw. I really should have folded to the 12K turn bet instead of jamming there.

But what did he have that he obviously could not fold? T6o. Yes. You read that right. Deep in the 28K with only 10% of the players left. He called with T6o. Good call, I guess? Must have sniffed out the busted draw from the tightest player at the table.

I should not bluff. I should not bluff. I should not bluff.

I actually have a post-it on my monitor that says: "NO BLUFFING". But sometimes I can't help myself. Bad move against the wrong guy at the wrong time. but calling with T6o? Really? Wow.

You should all go read the following article on Plan3t Gong: What The %^&* Do Check-Min-Raises Mean??
That site is great for a lot of strategy and insight.

I will try to post more of these kinds of WHW (Who Had What?) posts in the future. I will probably not disclose who actually won the hand next time.

Thanks again for the comments.

Meh

I was going to write about how awful playing poker feels right now, but instead I won't.

Well, maybe just a little. At some point last night I had 9 tourneys running. I do this to combat the boredom of folding. I think maybe 9 is too many. But I barely made mistakes, so I'm not sure.

Flopped set over set twice - nice.
Flopped set loses to turned higher set - so nice.
Flopped OESD + flush draw, turn paired the board and made my opponent's two pair into a boat, river gave me the straight - very nice, 6 outer gets there once versus my 17 outs twice.
Many other sick and stupid beats, like Aces vs Queens - standard.
And one that I will post separately as a quiz to see who can figure out who held what.

Stay tuned....

Back? Gammon? Black? Jack?

Oh, I can still remember the days when I was a high-school senior. Those last 4 months when we were studying for our finals. Booooooooo-ring! Studying? Tsk tsk. I spent me days at the beach, playing backgammon with my buddies. We used to order a couple of ice cold watermelons and just sit all day and play and play. Lit final? Who cares? History? It's all in the past anyway. Am I ever going to need French? Je n'est ce pas.

So When I saw Backgammonmasters.com a few months ago I decided to give it a whirl. It's a fun site. They have everything from straight up matches to tournaments.

But now they've gone and one-upped themselves. They turned the place into a full-fledged online casino. They totally redesigned the lobby to become a fully integrated online casino platform. I have not deposited there yet so I am not sure how friendly it is to US players, but since it's probably categorized as backgammon, it might not fall under the evil UIGEA. But who knows?

The best part of any online casino is BlackJack, I think. it is the game with the least house edge and if you play perfect strategy and get lucky once in a while you will make money. You should check out the basic blackjack strategy guides the site has to offer.

Anyway, hit it up and see if you likes. I'll probably just head on over to the beach, order another watermelon (this time with some Bulgarian cheese, yumm-o) and play some backgammon. Yeah, right. In my dreams!

Politics

I can't vote. I pay a lot of taxes, but can't vote, so there.

But I am following the political insanity closely (if watching CNN once a week is closely). Not out of interest as to how this will affect my life but rather out of general curiosity. I have found out long ago that politicians are liars and have to live a life of constant compromise. So they eventually do what everyone wants and it doesn't really matter who's doing it.

I am very curious to see who the next president will be. I just read that the mormon is gone and so that pretty much leaves the baptist nut and the POW to duke it out. We all know how that's going to end. Unless the baptist brings Chuck Norris to the fight.

On the other hand we have the dual headed chimera we can call Clint-bama. Or maybe Bara-llary. Or even Obanton. Yeah, that's it. Obanton it is. On Tuesday she had a slight lead, then now he has a slight lead. This one will go the distance.

So what are the options:
1) A funny, smart, nap-prone septuagenarian.
2) The first woman (evil, kinda scary) president.
3) The first black (fresh-prince, inexperienced) president.

The suspense is killing me. I am not sure the country is ready for 2 or 3 just yet. I am not sure the world is ready for it, but the world doesn't get a vote. Neither do I for that matter.

They are all the same to me. None of them is too far from center, too liberal or too conservative. None of them will hurt the country more than the current regime has done. They will all try to make things better, because making it much worse is going to be hard to do and none of these people read books up-side-down.

It's almost like a chess game at this point. On the surface it seems like 1 is going to take it down if he's up against 2 or 3 on their own. Just my gut feeling, nothing more. The reason I think that is the case is because there will be a lot of people who will be terrified of a "first" at this country's current fragile state.

So what can 2 or 3 do about that? The only obvious solution is for them to go at it together. Sure that means two firsts, but in this case two firsts are better than one. Hell, the country has seen a woman secretary of state and a black secretary of defense, so why not a vice president in either of those roles? I am pretty certain that a 2/3 or 3/2 ticket will have a strong showing against 1. They will bring together a lot of support from both sides and might even take it down.

Like I said, it's gonna get inerestin' up in here....

Thoughts?

Bodonkey blow up & Bye Bye HUC6

I was running real good in the Bodonkey and then had an awful hand against JL514. Enjoy:

Hand Number	1100773601
Start Date	2008-02-05 23:27:11
End Date	2008-02-05 23:28:03
Pot Size	$23,906.00
Rake	$0.00
Game Type	Hold'Em
Play Mode	Real
Table Name	Online Poker Blogger Tournament
Structure	NL
Community Cards	Ac 6d 4c Qh 9d

Player Information

Screen Name	Seat Position	Cards Dealt	Start/End Amount	Total Bet
JL514	1	Qs Qc	$11,578.00/$23,906.00	$11,578.00
WhatsTheNuts	2		$9,965.00/$9,915.00	$50.00
Kajagugu	3	As Ks	$14,510.00/$2,932.00	$11,578.00
Drizztdj	4		$5,285.00/$4,835.00	$450.00
Riggstad	5		$8,165.00/$8,115.00	$50.00
Abby17	6		$8,031.00/$7,981.00	$50.00
mehJacksRok	7		$12,506.00/$12,456.00	$50.00
kurokitty	8		$19,810.00/$19,760.00	$50.00
MiamiDon	9		$7,680.00/$7,630.00	$50.00

Hand Actions

Player	Action	Action Data
WhatsTheNuts	Ante	$ 50.00
Kajagugu	Ante	$ 50.00
Drizztdj	Ante	$ 50.00
Riggstad	Ante	$ 50.00
Abby17	Ante	$ 50.00
mehJacksRok	Ante	$ 50.00
kurokitty	Ante	$ 50.00
MiamiDon	Ante	$ 50.00
JL514	Ante	$ 50.00
WhatsTheNuts	Set dealer/Bring in spot	2
Kajagugu	Ante/Small blind	$ 200.00
Drizztdj	Big blind/Bring in	$ 400.00
JL514	Card dealt to a spot	Qc Qs
WhatsTheNuts	Card dealt to a spot
Kajagugu	Card dealt to a spot	As Ks
Drizztdj	Card dealt to a spot
Riggstad	Card dealt to a spot
Abby17	Card dealt to a spot
mehJacksRok	Card dealt to a spot
kurokitty	Card dealt to a spot
MiamiDon	Card dealt to a spot
Riggstad	Fold	$ 50.00
Abby17	Fold	$ 50.00
mehJacksRok	Fold	$ 50.00
kurokitty	Fold	$ 50.00
MiamiDon	Fold	$ 50.00
JL514	Raise	$ 1,080.00
WhatsTheNuts	Fold	$ 50.00
Kajagugu	Call	$ 880.00
Drizztdj	Fold	$ 450.00
	Betting round completed	Last active pot = $3,010.00
	Card dealt to table	Ac 6d 4c
Kajagugu	Check
JL514	Check
	Betting round completed	Last active pot = $3,010.00
	Card dealt to table	Qh
Kajagugu	Bet	$ 2,400.00
JL514	All-in	$ 10,448.00
Kajagugu	Call	$ 8,048.00
	Betting round completed	Last active pot = $0.00 Side pot 1 = $23,906.00
	Card dealt to table	9d
	Betting round completed	Last active pot = $0.00 Side pot 1 = $23,906.00
Kajagugu	Showdown	Show card: Pair As Ac Ks Qh 9d
JL514	Showdown	Show card: Three of a Kind Qc Qs Qh Ac 9d
JL514	Hand result	$ 23,906.00

I like my smooth call pre-flop and I was hoping to get a c-bet on that flop, but the turn was the real issue. I paid for it dearly and got bounced in 11th, 2 away from the final table and money. Still made the points, so not all is lost there.

UPDATE: The top 5 bubble players each week will win a free buy-in to next week's Weekly Tournament. (T$11 will be credited to these players' Bodog account within 24 hours after the completion of the tournament). So I guess I got that going for me.

While all this donkfoolery was going on I was trying to totally pwn Fuel55 in the HUC6 matches. I took down the first one but then made two awful calls in the second to give it away quite easily. Then in the third I had him on the ropes and down to 350+ chips but he came back to take it down. I am by no means a good heads-up player and Fuel, while he loves to complain about his awful cards, runs like a deity. Anyway, good luck to you, fish monger, in your pursuit of a HUC title.

Replay is up

If you go to the Stars lobby and look sort by ID you will find my triple shootout win replay at the top: ID = 5755.

All criticism accepted.

Clever

Go to Google.com and type 'finding Chuck Norris' and hit 'I'm feeling lucky' button. Clever.

Come on Kaja!!! (10/1753 & 45/480)

The night started with probably my worst play EVER! I kid you not.

Right at the $75 Token Frenzy bubble. 31 left. 29th gets 50+ and 1-28 get the token. I am sitting pretty. I get KK in the BB and UTG big stack raises x3.5. I am already telling myself to fold those damn cowboys. I was already thinking about how proud I am going to be of myself that I was able to fold Kings. But then the Button moves all-in.

FOLD FOLD FOLD FOLD FOLDDDDDDDDD!!!!!

JAM!?!?!? Why the hell would I do that? Where is my brain? So then UTG calls both our jams. He has 89o and the button has AJs. UTG makes two pair and sends us both home. 31st and 30th place for me. What a fucking idiot. I almost shut down the computer and went to bed right there. Stupid idiot. I could easily fold or even call and check it down. Why would I risk my token like this? Full blown brain fart there. I swear I even smelled something kind of burnt.

But I was doing well elsewhere.

In the Daily Double A, I was near or in the money and had a decent stack. I got blinded down and got screwed a couple of times and got real nice and short. Short stack play is pretty much, wait, wait, wait, jam, pray, wait, wait, wait, jam, pray. And I did that all the way to 10th place. We were 5 handed and I jammed ATs into AQo (SB) and TT (BB). Yay me! Queen flops and I am out on the Final Table bubble. That one hurt. Still, 10th out of 1753 tarded lemurs is not too shabby.

Then I played the 16.5K KO again and went deep there, too. I will say it again, the play is just plain awful in this thing. I don't know how these people can even afford it. As soon as the bubble burst I get AQs in the BB and the Button raises, I jam short, he calls and shows A6o and hits the 6 on the flop. This was the who-knows-how-many 2/3 outer of the night. At least I cashed. 45th out of 480 runners. I think I play this one too safe though. I only got one bounty.

So from the 3 cents and 2x$75 tokens I had I now have over $700 and 2x$75 tokens.

Stars tourneys were a big bust. Not sure why I even bother playing on the weekends. The minefields are worse than the DMZ in Korea, I swear. And I went a little crazy with the buy-ins. I need more bankroll discipline.

The table talk was hilarious:

badfishjr: GL ALL!!!!
badfishjr: sincerely
badfishjr: is anyone else seeing less of their cards than usual?
badfishjr: and a tiny flop?
badfishjr: seriously, what's up with the tiny cards or is it really
just me?
badfishjr: good god, no one will answer me on my other table
either, somebody please just acknowledge you can hear/see
me, please
Kajagugu: your chat must be banned
badfishjr: haha, from everybody but you?
Kajagugu: lol
Kajagugu: yes - everyone but super users
badfishjr: well are your cards small?
Kajagugu: only when I shrink the screen
badfishjr: well i'm at a another table the same size and the
cards are twice as big
Kajagugu: is it a bigger buy-in?
badfishjr: but i added an inch to the screen and now it's normal
so no one worry

That guy was cracking us all up with his stories about sitting in his trailer and drinking white zinfandel straight out of the bottle. Good times.

Well, that's all for now. Good night!

More Cashes (15/1287 & 32/738)

Played well tonight and went deep in a couple of massive MTTs.

On Stars I played in the $15 tourney and ended up 32nd of 738. Not a big cash, but a good run. Fatal mistake in the following hand:

POKERSTARS GAME #14973163556: TOURNAMENT #75734811, $15.00+$1.50 HOLD'EM NO LIMIT - LEVEL XII (600/1200) - 2008/02/01 - 01:03:20 (ET)
Table '75734811 77' 9-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: Kajagugu (38578 in chips)
Seat 2: 1952MGTD (68118 in chips)
Seat 3: Detabolik (54469 in chips)
Seat 4: CharginWapos (6386 in chips)
Seat 7: buurmadu (66423 in chips)
Seat 8: boney211 (35330 in chips)
Seat 9: welshFARg0 (30030 in chips)
Kajagugu: posts the ante 125
1952MGTD: posts the ante 125
Detabolik: posts the ante 125
CharginWapos: posts the ante 125
buurmadu: posts the ante 125
boney211: posts the ante 125
welshFARg0: posts the ante 125
1952MGTD: posts small blind 600
Detabolik: posts big blind 1200
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Kajagugu [Jc Jd]
CharginWapos: folds
welshFARg0 said, "vnh"
buurmadu: folds
boney211: folds
joeybdb is connected
welshFARg0: raises 1799 to 2999
Kajagugu: raises 4201 to 7200 - I guess this is the problem. Why so little? I should have just jammed here I think.
1952MGTD: folds
Detabolik: folds
welshFARg0: calls 4201
*** FLOP *** [Ts 8d 8c]
welshFARg0: checks
Kajagugu: bets 7200
welshFARg0: raises 15505 to 22705 and is all-in - WTF??? He could make this move with almost anything and unless he has an 8, I might be OK to call this.
Kajagugu: calls 15505 - Bad call?
*** TURN *** [Ts 8d 8c] [Kh]
*** RIVER *** [Ts 8d 8c Kh] [9h]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
welshFARg0: shows [9c 8h] (a full house, Eights full of Nines) - Well played. I probably let it go to my raise pre-flop but he felt priced in and hit his miracle flop. Anything else there and he is gone.
Kajagugu: shows [Jc Jd] (two pair, Jacks and Eights)
welshFARg0 collected 62485 from pot

I wasn't out but I quickly jammed AT into AQ and was done. I have to learn to control these bet sizes and stay away from these situations. This was a bad mistake, both pre-flop and then on the flop.

In the Full Tilt 28K I made a deeper run and came out in 15th of 1287 players. I made two big mistakes:

FullTiltPoker Game #5074933508: $28,000 Guarantee (37836209), Table 44 - 1500/3000 Ante 400 - No Limit Hold'em - 1:44:59 ET - 2008/02/01
Seat 1: ilovephish (61,940)
Seat 2: Kajagugu (145,518) - At this point I am somewhere in the top 5.
Seat 3: daisuke2k (52,436)
Seat 4: Gemini2626 (48,566)
Seat 5: InFamous11 (76,078)
Seat 8: RitasBoss (109,574)
Seat 9: imnotphilivey (222,026)
ilovephish antes 400
Kajagugu antes 400
daisuke2k antes 400
Gemini2626 antes 400
InFamous11 antes 400
RitasBoss antes 400
imnotphilivey antes 400
ilovephish posts the small blind of 1,500
Kajagugu posts the big blind of 3,000
The button is in seat #9
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Kajagugu [Ac 6c]
daisuke2k folds
Gemini2626 folds
InFamous11 folds
RitasBoss folds
imnotphilivey raises to 9,000 - Button steal?
ilovephish folds
Kajagugu calls 6,000 - I can afford to see a flop I guess. I should re-steal here I think with my stack vs. his.
*** FLOP *** [3c Qd 2c]
Kajagugu has 15 seconds left to act
FULLQUIVER sits down
FULLQUIVER adds 50,488
hatex sits down
hatex adds 274,171
Kajagugu bets 16,500 - Flop the nut flush draw and bet it out.
hatex: dude
imnotphilivey raises to 33,000 - A min-raise? Did he hit a set?
Kajagugu calls 16,500 - I'll see one more card.
*** TURN *** [3c Qd 2c] [Td]
Kajagugu checks - If I give up here, I should not put any more money in the pot.
imnotphilivey checks - Well he's going to give me a free card? Great!
*** RIVER *** [3c Qd 2c Td] [3h]
Kajagugu bets 25,600 - I missed and made a bad bluff here. The pot was around 80K+, I thought this would look like a good value bet.
imnotphilivey calls 25,600 - He calls, so I know I'm dead.
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Kajagugu shows [Ac 6c] a pair of Threes
imnotphilivey shows [9s Qh] two pair, Queens and Threes - Nice steal with Q9o.
imnotphilivey wins the pot (139,500) with two pair, Queens and Threes


Anyway, that knocked me down a lot. Blinds were huge and I was just looking for a spot. Eventually, I make a crying call in the SB with barely any chips left and quadruple up. And now that I have chips I jam 44 UTG right into the chip leader's 99. Another bad move. I can fold those 4s easily and look for a better spot.

From now on I am going to ask these two questions:
1) How much should I bet in this situation? Think about bet sizing!
2) Can I wait for a better spot? Is this the optimal move right now?

Anyway, I am very happy with my January results. I have rebuilt my bankroll on both sites, I have 3x$75 tokens (won another one tonight with the WaffleMan) and I had two wins under my belt.

I also had a great time watching Bayne go deep in the 50/50, Surflexus almost win the Blogger Triple Crown (MATH, Mookie and RiverChasers) for January and TripJax donk it up in high limit HU SNGs. You rawk like a mutha!