Tonight! The Shield Series Finale!!!

Best show on Television, bar none. Well, tied for first with The Wire (I'm only through the first two seasons of The Wire).

I'm really looking forward to how the end of The Shield will play out. Will Vic die in a rain of bullets? Does he escape? The creator of The Shield has said that he hated how The Sopranos ended, so I expect a great ending tonight. Last week's episode was awesome. Him sitting in the room at ICE and confessing to everything was well done. Bravo!

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Poker has been brutal the last week. I guess it was expected though, with how well I had been running the last couple months. Now I am catching up on all the coolers and bad beats. I can't flop a set for the life of me, and Aces just haven't been coming my way much. KK and QQ have been running into AA way too often.

I'm thinking of moving down to 100NL for a little while and try out a new style. That or try Full Ring for a while. Or maybe play some HORSE?

I played tournaments last night, and only cashed in one. Guess which one? Yep, the PokerStars $10 Rebuy. I had a top 10 stack near the money bubble in this thing. I went out around 150th place with KQs versus ATo. I called a push by a guy who had pushed the 6 of 8 hands he had been at our table. WTF? I've never seen that strategy before.

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I did something last week that I haven't done in quite a while: read a book. I picked up the 3rd Option by Vince Flynn and whipped through it in less than a week. I picked up the next book in the Mitch Rapp series today, and plan on reading it over the holiday weekend. if you've ever read anything by Tom Clancy, I highly recommend the Minnesota native Vince Flynn. Highly entertaining books.

Cheers!

Happy Friday

Ahhh Friday's. I like Friday's.

We're all headed to the Dr office today to get our flu shots. Except they now have a flu spray instead of a shot. I hate shots, so I think I'll try out this spray thing. I've been known to pass out when needles are involved. And it doesn't even have to be a shot for me. If I'm in the room when someone else gets a shot, I still get really queasy. So I'm going to lobby for all four of us to get the spray. What a wuss, huh?

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So I was going to make a post the other day about how much of a pathetic day of poker I had on Tuesday. I played a couple tournaments, including the FTOPS NL Turbo event. I cahsed in two of the five MTTs I played, but they were just baby cashes.

I cashed in the Pokerstars $10 rebuy (again) and the Pokerstars 50/50 MTT. I had a top 50 chip stack throughout the rebuy, but went card dead at the wrong time and ended up going out with TT vs QQ. I was doing good in the 50/50 until I got busted out with AK vs Q9s. Some big stack raised PF and I pushed from the BB with about 13 BBs and he snapped called.

The FTOPS was a total joke. I lost half my chip stack in the beginning when I held 99. Flop was 875 all diamonds. I didn't have a diamond. but some idiot called my flop c-bet with 44 and hit a 4 on the river. How he calls a c-bet on the flop with 44 is beyond me. A few orbits later I doubled up with AA vs KK. There was a king on the flop obviously, but the turn was an ace. Then I called a raise from a short stack and lost to his K5o. I eventually went out with J9s when I flopped a flush draw and an OESD and didn't hit.

Cash games that night were an equal joke. I won't bore you the details, but I only hit one set (against a short stack), didn't get AA, QQ, or JJ dealt at all, and got KK 4 times, but only won the blinds all four times.

BUT, I prevailed, and the last couple days have been really good. Actually, I think yesterday might have been my new "Best Day Ever"™!


The big uptick there is when I went from $200 to over $900 in the span of 10 minutes on one table. Here are the hands:

This one was against a solid regular.

Full Tilt Poker, $1/$2 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 5 Players

BTN: $439.40
SB: $423.80
BB: $218.45
Hero (UTG): $200
CO: $226.15

Pre-Flop: Kc Kd dealt to Hero (UTG)
Hero raises to $7, 2 folds, SB calls $6, BB calls $5

Flop: ($21) Ah 9d Kh (3 Players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets $16, SB folds, BB raises to $48, Hero raises to $110, BB raises to $172, Hero raises to $193 and is All-In, BB calls $21

Turn: ($407) Qs (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

River: ($407) 9h (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: $407 Pot ($3 Rake) BB showed Qh Jh (a flush, Ace high) and LOST (-$200 NET)
Hero showed Kc Kd (a full house, Kings full of Nines) and WON $404 (+$204 NET)

The next three are all against the same guy. Thankfully in the middle of the hands he doubled up against someone else, so I was able to take +500 off of him.

Full Tilt Poker, $1/$2 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players

UTG: $439.40
MP: $408.70
CO: $223.45
BTN: $408.95
Hero (SB): $399
BB: $217.15

Pre-Flop: Qd Jd dealt to Hero (SB)
UTG folds, MP calls $2, 2 folds, Hero raises to $10, BB calls $8, MP calls $8

Flop: ($30) 9d 2s Qs (3 Players)
Hero bets $20, BB folds, MP calls $20

Turn: ($70) Qc (2 Players)
Hero bets $42, MP calls $42

River: ($154) 9s (2 Players)
Hero bets $119, MP calls $119

Results: $392 Pot ($3 Rake)
MP mucked Ac 2d (two pair, Queens and Nines) and LOST (-$191 NET)
Hero showed Qd Jd (a full house, Queens full of Nines) and WON $389 (+$198 NET)

Full Tilt Poker, $1/$2 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players

BB: $439.40
UTG: $217.70
MP: $223.45
CO: $408.95
Hero (BTN): $597
SB: $207.15

Pre-Flop: Ks Ac dealt to Hero (BTN)
UTG calls $2, 2 folds, Hero raises to $10, 2 folds, UTG calls $8

Flop: ($23) Qd 3s 2h (2 Players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $15, UTG calls $15

Turn: ($53) Kd (2 Players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $38, UTG calls $38

River: ($129) 8d (2 Players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $85, UTG calls $85

Results: $299 Pot ($3 Rake)
UTG mucked Kh 7s (a pair of Kings) and LOST (-$148 NET)
Hero showed Ks Ac (a pair of Kings) and WON $296 (+$148 NET)


Full Tilt Poker, $1/$2 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 4 Players

BB: $167.15
UTG: $200
BTN: $408.95
Hero (SB): $743

Pre-Flop: Kh Qc dealt to Hero (SB)
2 folds, Hero raises to $8, BB calls $6

Flop: ($16) Ts Ad Js (2 Players)
Hero bets $14, BB calls $14

Turn: ($44) 8h (2 Players)
Hero bets $36, BB raises to $72, Hero raises to $721 and is All-In, BB calls $73.15 and is All-In

River: ($334.30) Qs (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: $334.30 Pot ($2 Rake)
BB showed Jd 8c (two pair, Jacks and Eights) and LOST (-$167.15 NET)
Hero showed Kh Qc (a straight, Ace high) and WON $332.30 (+$165.15 NET)

Not too shaby, huh?

Cheers!

A Full House And A Royal Flush

A Full House is three of a kind and a pair, right? Well, in April of next year, my own home will be a Full House: Three Kids and Two Parents. My wife and I will officially be outnumbered, as Child #3 will be making an appearance some time around the end of April. Yikes!

We told the kids a couple weekends back and they both are really excited to have a new baby brother or sister. Of course, they are always arguing over what it will be. It's kind of cute actually. I wonder what they will really think when the baby arrives, since one of them is going to have to share a room, haha.

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I'm not sure if this is my first Royal Flush, but I think it is the first where I actually made some money off of it. Villain was an agro donk, and I pushed on the flop with my nut flush draw, and gutshot Royal draw. River was the beautiful ten of hearts. Woot

Full Tilt Poker, $1/$2 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 4 Players

Hero (UTG): $213.35
CO: $147
BTN: $159.30
BB: $56

Pre-Flop: Jh Ah dealt to Hero (UTG)
Hero raises to $6, CO folds, BTN calls $6, BB calls $4

Flop: ($18) Kh 2s Qh (3 Players)
BB checks, Hero bets $14, BTN raises to $28, BB folds, Hero raises to $207.35 and is All-In, BTN calls $125.30 and is All-In

Turn: ($324.60) Qs (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

River: ($324.60) Th (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: $324.60 Pot ($2 Rake) Hero showed Jh Ah (a Royal Flush) and WON $322.60 (+$163.30 NET)
BTN showed Ad Kc (two pair, Kings and Queens) and LOST (-$159.30 NET)

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So far this month, it has been really up and down. I don't think I am playing my best poker right now. I need to get back to being patient. I've ramped up the aggression a lot this month. The games are getting really agro lately, and I have been 4-betting a lot more (and it has actually worked most of the time). When you get more aggressive, variance also becomes a lot higher, as you can see from my monthly graph.

I plan on playing in tonight's FTOPS event, which is a turbo NL event. It should be fun!

Cheers!

October Results

What's happening folks? Not much here. I'm getting over another cold, even though it's been in the 70's up here in Minnesota. What's up with that?

I've played a decent amount of poker lately, but just haven't felt like writing about it. October ended up being my best month ever in terms of cash game play. Actually, it was twice as good as my previous best month.

And, I finally got in more than 10,000 hands! I haven't done that since May or June!


I played in FTOPS Event #1 last night. I couldn't really get anything going. I had an average chip stack during hour 2, then ran into AA with QQ to knock me down. Then I built my way back up to average, but couldn't hit anything during hour 3. My best hand was QQ (Twice, the other time I was against another QQ and we chopped). I got AK once and 3-bet with it, and my c-bet got raised on a T high flop, so I had to let that go. I eventually got knocked out when I pushed my 10BB stack with pocket 4's and got called by JT. Huh? Oh well.

Nothing else to report from the MTT side of things. I haven't played too many of them. I went deep in the $10 PokerStars Rebuy a couple weeks back, but only made $150 from that when I busted around 40th place or so.

Cheers!