Heading East to Vegas

Before the World Series started I wanted to visit some friends in SoCal and play some golf and visit some of the local watering holes. Last Wednesday I flew out to Long Beach. My non stop flight was detoured through Canada and was forced to make a "gas stop" in Salt Lake City. A pretty crappy start to what is sure to be a great overall trip. This 4.5 hour flight turned into a seven hour journey, but not to worry because I was compensated with a $25 dollar voucher for a future Jet Blue flight!

During my stint (wed-mon) in Cali, I had a great time. We squeezed three rounds of golf into the mix, with the highlight being playing a great track called Strawberry Hills (?), this was a really nice course in Irvine California. My golf game declined at a rapid rate during the three rounds. Thursday morning, I got the short stick working and finished with an 81, but by the third round (and toughest course by far), there were a couple X's on the card as well as numerous three putz.

As far as the nightlife goes, I was expecting nothing less than complete chaos and I was not disappointed! During my stay a we hit up a bunch of restraunts including a great seafood place (crab legs hmmmmmm), outdoor Italian place, a Steak house by the Commerce and a little sushi place. Dinner was normally an apetizer (or pregame) to the night of festivities. One night we hit up this college type bar, where I swear Steveg is on the verge of world class level in Mrs Pacman. From there we managed to get on the pool table and proceded to beat all challangers for a couple hours...a blurry finish to say the least. Then when visiting Cali you obv have to hit up Sunset Blvd and do the whole bottle service thing at least once. On Saturday we made the trek northward and with only a few minor problems, including the police, lack of registration, a glass wall and no garage door opener we eventually arrived in LA and did the whole club thing. A good time was had by all !!

Sunday I played the online circuit for the first time in a longtime. I had built up some chips in the stars 1k event only to eventually go card dead and be forced to shove with 76s and run into the K3 ball to be taken down. I cashed twice, with a final table on FullTilt and a small cash in the stars $100 rebuy.

Off to Vegas

Monday morning the entire LA crew and I loaded up three cars and made the trek to Vegas. The Rio was expected to be a complete madhouse with rumors of the first event selling out. I headed straight over there was was alternate number 28. With 250 tables and only 1500 starting chips I was not expecting the wait to be very long. I was called midway throught the first level.

I feel like I played fairly well this tournament. I built by stack from 1500 to 2900. Then shoved over a raiser and bunch of callers with JJ, all folded except the initial raiser who called with AK and was unable to make a pair which increased by stack to 8k. I hung around there for most of the day, with my high point ~12k. I donked most of my stack with K4s defending my blind. A hand I may have screwed up on every street. Shoulda folded preflop, shoulda possibly raised flop, shoulda def folded turn....but anyway tournaments are dumb. I was crippled after this hand and ended up finishing ~315th. I would have like to make the money (270th) more to boost my tourney confidence than anything else. But anyway, my next event is the limit event tomorrow.

WSOP hand of the day
Every Tourney I play I will post my favorite hand. With the blinds at 25-25, a solid tight player makes it 125 UTG (first position) the next player makes it 300 and a New York Pro (MM) makes it 500 from third position. The UTG player shows me QQ and lays down the hand. The other guy calls 200 more.

The Flop comes AJx, check check.

The Turn is a blank and with the pot 1175 the first guy checks to MM who bets 200, the other player moves him in and MM calls with his set of aces.

Nice double up sir...

A Kid on Christmas Eve

Lately I have not played that much poker. Between The World Cup, The US Open, and a friends wedding poker really has not been on my mind. But now I have been getting a little antsy. The first event of the World Series of Poker (the dealers event) is this Monday, and the first “open” event is Tuesday; it’s the 1500 NL Event.

I was planning on skipping the first three events and playing the fourth event on Thursday. But lately I have felt like “A kid on Christmas Eve” and am ready to play some poker. I have decided to start my trip a little early and head out to LA this weekend, then make the drive into Vegas Sunday and play the first event Tuesday.

I am not sure exactly which events I am going to play this year. I am planning on playing all the Limit Hold’em events, both of the 1k NL rebuy events and the Main Event plus the first NL event (that’s nine events). Then based on the way I feel and how things are going I will probably play a couple other events along the way.

http://worldseriesofpoker.com/2006wsop.asp

Optimal Posting Strategy

One of the benefits of playing online poker is the speed at which the hands are dealt and played. There is almost no reason to ever post anyplace other than the Big Bland. You can make a case that in a 10 handed game posting behind the button on your first orbit may be slightly better expected value, but anytime you were “sitting out” and return to the game you should always wait until it is your Big Blind, even in a ten handed game. Here are two examples of the same player posting UTG (worst possible position), two times, in a ten minute time period. Pretty funny…

***** Hand History for Game 4522530700 *****

$100/$200 Texas Hold'em - Thursday, June 15, 15:03:28 ET 2006

Table Table 107580 (Real Money)

Seat 1 is the button

Total number of players : 5

Seat 2: i_dont_chop ( $1395 )

Seat 5: YeShalBAssGo ( $19454.88 )

Seat 6: theomichel ( $1500 )

Seat 3: LETZkickITup ( $5412.50 )

Seat 1: wiuwiu ( $4483.84 )

LETZkickITup posts small blind [$50].

YeShalBAssGo posts big blind [$100].

theomichel posts big blind + dead [$150].

***** Hand History for Game 4522576191 *****

$100/$200 Texas Hold'em - Thursday, June 15, 15:13:05 ET 2006

Table Table 107580 (Real Money)

Seat 1 is the button

Total number of players : 6

Seat 2: i_dont_chop ( $1395 )

Seat 5: YeShalBAssGo ( $18192.88 )

Seat 6: theomichel ( $4180 )

Seat 3: LETZkickITup ( $6490.50 )

Seat 1: wiuwiu ( $2878.84 )

Seat 4: slopoker805 ( $9045.50 )

LETZkickITup posts small blind [$50].

YeShalBAssGo posts big blind [$100].

theomichel posts big blind + dead [$150].

US Open

I very rarely bet sports, but here goes nothing ... Some random golf bets.

Wager Type: Proposition/Future

Selection 1 : Golf US Open Odds To Win The Tournament Odds to Win the US Open 6) V. Singh +1400 Risking 166.99 to Win 2,337.86 USD ---

Selection 2 : Golf US Open Odds To Win The Tournament Odds to Win the US Open 15) S. Appleby +6000 Risking 167.00 to Win 10,020.00 USD ---

Selection 3 : Golf
                    US Open
                    Odds To Win The Tournament
                    Odds to Win the US Open

                    48) R. Sabbatini  +15000

                    Risking 167.00   to Win 25,050.00  USD


Lets bring it home Rory !!!!!

Random Blog, No Poker

Yesterday I went to play in a charity golf tournament for my friend, Walter Poirior, who went missing in Bolivia, while working for the Peace Corps. The tournament was canceled due to rain, but I stayed around the course, ie the clubhouse bar, for the better part of the day catching up with some old friends. By the end of the night, the blackjack game was on !!!

--

Recently my cellphone has been getting slower and slower, or more laggy if that makes any sense. When I press a button I literally have to wait 2 seconds for anything to happen. I am hoping that this is due to its memory being filled. I am currently going through erasing all text messages one by one; seems like there has to be a “clear all button” but I certainly can’t find it. As I’m going through there are a couple messages in the “inbox” that made me laugh when reading them out of context.

“upstairs pay him off”

“No tv’s in tents?”

“I puked”

“talk obv” – kinda funny text message right ??

“Those don’t exist in our world sir” – no idea what I could have said to prompt this response

I also cleared my picture memory, here are some of my favorites...

My sister and company went to Ireland for St. Patricks day.


This one has been in my phone for a while and I was unable to read the box on my phone, and it was just a picture of a brown box. After downloading it to my PC, I see why the picture was taken..."young turkey parts," hmmm

Friends birthday party, people were breathing fire, drinking a bottle of "Mr Blue."


Here, everyone likes a little bit of "cold tea" in the middle of the night.




These last two are just classic summer time activites. Cooking on the grille and hanging out with friends having a couple Miller Lite's.

Never Forget Who Pays the Bills !

At the beginning of May my plan was to learn to play and beat 2-7 triple draw. I deposited $2500 into my Ultimate Bet account and wanted to run it up, playing only triple draw on UB. Well……I did only play triple, but I did not fare that well. All in all, I lost ~12k throughout the month. I was a small winner in the 10-20, I lost about $4500 in the 30-60, and a little over 7k playing 80-160. I do feel like I have improved my play during the course of the month. Most of my sessions were at the 30-60 level, and I was sitting alone and taking on all challengers. This is clearly poor game selection for a new player to the game; but I wanted to learn, and the best people to learn from are the best players. I also took a few shots in the 80 game, and did not fare that well, but the swings in this game are big, so for now I will call this “variance.”

Also throughout May, I played some stars 100-200 and did not fare that well there either. This was clearly my own fault, I borrowed 10k from a friend, and in general when going to pay someone back the online preferred method of payment is always Stars. Out of pure spite, I decided I did not want to use my own money to pay back the full 10k, and bought in for 5k and tried to double it. Both times I busted my account, before finally giving in and depositing 10k and just paying him back….steep interest rate I created there.

Now on to something much more positive, Party Poker Results. The majority of my play during the course of the month was Party Poker 50-100 and 100-200. I played 21K hands of 50-100 with a win rate of 1.23BB/100, and 13k hands of 100-200 with a win rate of 0.91BB/100. With these wins I was easily able to overcome my UB and Stars’ losses and make it a very good month.

June plans are still very much in the air. Party Poker has had server problems the last couple days which motivated me to open up an account at World Sports Exchange (http://www.wsex.com/). They are offering 100% rake back which adds up very quickly. I also plan on playing more 2-7 triple draw as well as some Omaha to get ready for live cash game play in Vegas during the World Series of Poker.