Close, But No Cigar

Again, sorry for the lack of posts here. I say that every post now, don't I?

Well I think I finally broke out of that damn break even stretch. I was finally able to get the month of March into the black on Sunday night by winning a couple buy-ins. About freaking time, if you ask me. I was starting to get a little sick of running into the top of everyone's range. During a quick 400 hand session on Sunday, I ran KK in AA, QQ into AA, KK into AK (Ace on flop), and AK into KK (No Ace on flop for me). WTF?

I played in the Riverchasers MTT last night and it was fun. I was the chip leader (or 2nd place) pretty much from start to finish, but busted in 3rd. I really wanted to win because earlier in the night, I told jjok that I would win and that I'd dedicate my win to him, lol. I think I played pretty good, if not a little aggressive. I played just this one table on my wife's laptop as I taught her some Geometry (she is tutoring a High School Student), and then we watched House. So I didn't have any other cash games or MTTs going to distract me.

If you are bored enough, I listed all of my hands that I got dealt at the final table and my action. Since we end up playing these BBT tournaments against a lot of the same people, I thought I would give my reads on some of the players here at the Final Table. Buddy was playing unusually tight tonight. I consider him one of the more aggressive PF players with a fair amount of 3-betting PF. ChampSampson is the crazy LAG at the table. It definitely helps to have position on him. He 3-bets and pushes a ton. He also min-raises a lot, but I didn't see too much of that tonight. Astin is the one that resembles my game the most out of these players. Fairly TAGish, but steals a lot in position. He folded to a lot of 3-bets though. (Champ had position on him). heffmike is a very solid MTT opponent, and probably one of the better blogger poker players (probably cause he never folds). I kind of consider him a calling station, and he defends his blinds like they are his children or something. Ha! The last person I can formulate a read on is 1Queens Up1. Or as I call him, Tighty McTighterson. He very very rarely attempted to steal blinds, even when it folded to him on the button.

Anyways, here are the chip stacks at the beginning of the FT. Follow is a listing of all of my 100 hands from the Final table. "ST" means I successfully stole the blinds. Enjoy!

Seat 1: BuddyDank (20,362)
Seat 2: OMGitsPokerFool (31,277)
Seat 3: Joanne1111 (28,775)
Seat 4: heffmike (24,294)
Seat 5: Schaubs (7,229)
Seat 6: scottc25 (16,605)
Seat 7: Astin (24,308)
Seat 8: 1Queens Up1 (12,548)
Seat 9: ChampSampson (17,602)

[9h 5h]
[2d 8s]
[9h Th] ST
[Qh 3d]
[9h 8c]
[Jh Jd] ST
[6c 3s]
[Kd Ts]
[4c 9s]
8 Left - 2nd in chips
[2s 7h]
[Kh 2d]
[Ts 9s] Schaubs pushes SS with K6s. I win on [9d 6s Jd 9h As] board
7 left - T-1st in chips
[6d Ks]
[5d 6s]
6 left - T-2nd in chips
[9h 4s]
[Qh 3s]
[Ac 3h]
[6s 8h]
[Th Qd] raise from CO. Astin in BB calls. Flop is [4h Qh Qc]. I c-bet 1/2 pot and he folds. I show.
[2s Kd]
[Js 3s]
[Kc 3s] SB calls, I check in BB. Flop of [7c Kh 4s], it goes chk-chk. Turn Ace, I bet, Champ chk/folds.
[8c 7c]
[4s Qh] ST from BTN
[6s Kd] ST from CO - Now Chip Leader
[5s 2s]
[3h 8c]
[5d 3d]
[Jd 4s]
[7c 9s] ST from BTN
[Kc 5c]
[4s 7d]
[Ad 4s]
[9h 4s] in BB. SB completes. Flop [Ac 7c Qc] and I fold to a bet from SB
[Kd 3c]
[2d Kd]
[Ts Ah] ChampSampson opens for 4444 (800/1600 blinds). I 3-bet to 13000 from the CO and he folds.
[Ks Qs] I open to 4000 from MP. HeffMike pops it to 15000 from BTN. I fold. I Still have Chip Lead
[2s Ks]
[7s Js] SB completes I check. It checks to river and I fold to bet. Board is [6c 6h 3c Kc Qh]
[9d Td]
[5c 9h] raise from BTN. HeffMike calls. Flop is [7s 2s Td] and heffmike donk bets and I fold.
[Ts 7c] ST from CO
[3h 7d]
[Kd 2d]
[5h 4s]
[Qh Qs] in SB. Astin opens for 4800 (800/1600 blinds) with 23.5k in his stack. I push and he folds.
[Jd 4c]
[4c Ac] ST from CO
[8d Qs]
[2c Qc]
[3c 5c] folded to SB AGAIN and he completes. I check. Flop is [5h 2c 7c]. Champ chk/folds to my bet.
[Ts Kc] ST from SB
[9d 9s] Raise from BTN to 5000 (1000/2000 blinds). heffmike defends. Flop = [Ac 8s Th] it goes chk-chk. Turn [Tc]. chk-chk River is [7s]. heffmike leads out 2/3 pot and I call. He shows [2c 5d]!
[Qh Tc]
[Kc 7d]
[Kc 3d]
5 left - I'm Chip Leader with 75k. Mike has 66k. Next closest is 15k.
[5s 2d]
[6c Ac] in SB, and I fold to Queens Up push. Probably good against Tighty McTighterson.
[Ks 8c] ST from BTN
[2h Qs]
4 left - OMGitsPokerFool (75,575) Joanne1111 (11,150) heffmike (77,929) 1Queens Up1 (18,346)
[6h Qh]
3 left - OMGitsPokerFool (75,325) Joanne1111 (10,900) heffmike (96,775)
[3s 4d]
[2h 5s]
[9s 5d] ST from BTN. heffmike calls. Flop = [3s Ts 8d] I c-bet, mike calls. We check down the rest of way Turn = [2h], River [8c]. I shoulda bet river, as he shows [9d Jh] and wins with Jack high
[3h Ad] in BB. Fold to Joanne's push. Meh.
[Ah As] in SB. heffmike raises from BTN. I call. Flop = [Tc 3d 8d]. I chk, he bets 8775 (3/5 pot) and I raise small to 19000. he calls. Turn is [2s]. Pot has 52k in it. I push for 33k and he folds. Arg. I should of done the ole Root Beer Float play.
[3c 2c]
[Qs 5c]
[Jc 3s]
[Kh 4s] ST from BTN. mike calls. i check flop and turn, and fold to his river bet. Board was [8s 9s Qc Ac 7s]
[2h 9d]
[2s 4s]
[2d Qh] ST from BTN. Joanne pushes and I fold.
[Kd Jh] in BB. mike compeltes SB, and I raise. Flop is [2d 4h 9d], it goes chk-chk. Turn is [7s], he chks, I bet and he folds. Whoa.
[Kc Kd] ST from SB
[Qd 4d]
[8c 2s]
[5h 2s]
[8h Td] ST from BTN. mike calls (duh). Flop is [6h Qc 8d] it goes chk-chk. Turn is [Tc]. Mike leads, I raise 2.5 his bet and he folds.
[Ac 9c] in BB. mike completes in SB. I raise and he folds.
[Ad Td] ST from SB
[Tc Js]
[Tc Ts] in BB. mike opens from SB, I push, and he folds.
[Qd Tc] ST from SB
[2c 3d]
[5c Qc] folds to me in BB
[9d Kh] ST from SB, Joanne calls. Flop = [5c Jh 5s]. I c-bet, she calls. Turn is [4d] and I chk-fold to her pot size push.
[3h 5c]
[Ks 5c]
[4d 3s]
[3s 9s]
[2c 4d]
[Qs Ts] ST from SB
[Kc 2s] ST from BTN
[9h Ad] mike and I get it in PF. he has [Ac Ts] and I dbl him up. 3-way tie now.
[8c 5s]
[4d Kc] ST from BTN, Joanne pushes and I fold
[7h Ah] in BB. mike completes, I raise and he folds.
[8c 6s]
[6c Ad] ST from BTN. Joanne pushes, and I call. I lose to her [8d 8c]. Doh!

There you go. I thought I played pretty good poker. That call on the end was probably bad. I got dealt way too many deuces (21 of 100 hands at the FT) Yuck! But I did get each of the Premium Pocket Pairs once each. No AK-AJ though. Bleh.

Cheers!

Bah!

It's funny how easy it is to get burnt out on poker and blogging about poker. The last couple months, poker and blogging can best be described like this: I get excited to play or look forward to writing about an interesting hand, thus I plan out when and what I am going to do. I'll surf at twoplustwo, or copy some hand histories down that I know would be interesting to talk about. But then when it actually comes time to play, or in the case of blogging time to write, and then my interest is gone. That pretty much sums it up. Right now, I am looking forward to maybe playing some cash games for a little while tonight. But I know that once I have time, I'm not going to want to anymore. Bah!

My ADD is getting the best of me. On Tuesday night, I decided to play before bed, and I found some really good tables and made a decent amount of money. Since I was only playing cash games, I knew I could quit at any time. But last night, I played some tournaments, and about two hours in, I was bored. I wanted to quit. But I was still in the middle of two tournaments (The Mookie and the 50/50). So what did I do? I sat out and played some Call of Duty for a little while. Then I came back and donked out of both relatively quickly. I didn't want to play anymore, so I basically played like an idiot (4-bet showing with 96s in the Mookie).

Maybe it has to do with me running like crap again. January was breakeven. February was good, but ended like crap and I didn't play much. And March is back to breakeven. Right now, there is no way that 2009 comes even close to my 2008 in terms of $ won. I don't know, maybe things will turn around, but the games have gotten a lot harder in the last couple months, IMO.

*************************

It's pretty rare for me to discover some new music from someone I have never heard of before and totally love it. Most recently it was Kings of Leon, and prior to that, maybe the band Red. But the wife and I were watching Saturday Night Live this past weekend, and we were both really digging the musical guest that night, Ray Lamontagne. Obviously he isn't an unknown, since he is on SNL. But neither of us had heard of him. Check out his performance from SNL this past weekend.




I went out and got his album the next day, and it is pretty good. Nice jazzy, bluesy, relaxing music.

Cheers!