Update from the WSOP Bluff event

Well I failed in another attempt to qualify for a WSOP event. Bluff was giving a $2000 WSOP package away in a $20 tourney at Pokershare. I had to sit out the first hour of the event since I was rooting on my son at his swim meet. As important as poker is to me, it pales in comparison to the importance I have on family. It was an easy decision to watch my son bust his ass and give it his all racing against kids that are all older than him. He left every bit of himself in the pool last night and I could not be more proud of him.

That being said I was one of the short stacks when I returned from the pool. Fortunately Pokershare has such a good blind structure that I felt I could wait for a hand. We were already down to 35 players when I started playing. I slowly built up chips, but I never even clawed back to an average stack before falling short in 8th place. My final hand I had 14 outs to win and double up but the card just wouldnt fall for me. I know I will get another chance though.

Since it was so late I could not even play much 1/2 NL. I ended the day up a whopping $4. Tonight I have a board meeting but then I should be able to play. I am thinking about entering the WSOP qualifier on Pokershare as well. Good luck to all of you out there.

Update from 5/29

Well yesterday was mostly spent playing in the pool with the kids. After about 6 hours of swimming and goofing off, I decided I would play a little poker and watch my Mets play. Unfortunately I did not do as well as the Mets did. Nothing that hurt the bankroll too much though. I played some 1/2 NL on pokershare and one hand pretty much killed my session. I had KK and I was up against AA with an all rag flop. I played my KK aggressively and then did not lay down when he went allin over the top of me. That move cost me $170 overall, and I ended up losing $60 on the session. I still have not learned to lay that hand down there, I am not sure I will ever learn that. I also played a $20 180 man SNG that I did not cash in, so overall the bankroll dropped $80, putting me at $12,773 for the year.

Tonight I will be playing in a tourney that Bluff Magazine is putting on for a $1500 WSOP seat. It will be played on pokershare. I will also play some more 1/2 NL and hopefully I wont run into KK vs AA again. If I do maybe I will get the AA this time. Take care and good luck to you.

Results from the Bluff Poker Tour and 5/28

Well yesterday was my anniversary, so poker really was not on the agenda. I was able to play in the Bluff Poker Tour, but I did not fare well. I got to enamored with KQ on a Qxx flop and ran into AA. I finished in 33rd out of 45 players. Not good at all.

I won almost $200 in a little over an hour of playing 1/2 NL though. My NL game is getting better and better. I am going to continue to focus on NL some more. I will go back to limit as well in another week or so.

So the bankroll has hit another high of $12,856. Hopefully we can break the 13k mark today. Good luck to all of you.

Results from 5/26

Well today was a much better day overall. Tourneys did not go well as I just really could not get as aggressive as I would have liked. The 1/2 NL cash game at Pokershare went well though and the bankroll has now risen to an all time high of $12,694.

Sunday is my wedding anniversary and we are celebrating it tomorrow night as well. No poker or updates from me until Monday. I will be playing in the bluff poker tour event at Pokershare on Sunday at 5pm. I am hoping to do much better than I have recently. Pokershare has served me well, so we shall see if that can continue.

Take care and enjoy the holiday weekend!!!!!!!

Results from 5/24

Well I am starting to feel much better today. I have not taken the pain killers at all today. I did play some tourneys yesterday and some 1/2 NL. I cashed in one 180 man SNG finishing 17th. I also won some money playing 1/2 NL. Overall the day's profits were $129. Not bad considering I put myself in a $300 hole when I took a shot playing 2/4 NL earlier in the day. I was playing that table fine when I took a huge hit on a hand that I flopped bottom set and my opponent called my all in with an overpair that turned into a winning set on the river. Oh well, at least I took a stab at it.

Tonight we have event 19 of the Bluff Poker Tour. I am currently 3rd in the standings. We play at Doyle's room which has never served me well. I am $163 so far today from the 1/2 NL tables. If that holds up, then we are looking at a new high for the year. The bankroll is at $12,463 as of this morning, not counting the $163.

Take care and thanks for the well wishes. Good luck to everyone.

A funny thing happened to me in a cave - Results from 5/23

Well I went caving with my son and his cub scout group. Now for those of you who have not met me, I am a big guy. I should not be trying to squeeze into passages in a cave. Plus I am claustrophobic as well (who knows if I spelled that right). Being a stubborn person that I am I went anyway. I saw many cool things but I would never go back and do that. It was four hours of sheer terror for me.

So we get to a point where we have to do a rope climb up to another passage. It is about 25 feet high. I go and do this rope climb and at about the 15 foot mark I fall. Luckily I grab on to a rock with my right hand and hang there for about 30 seconds before I grab another rock with my left hand. I pull myself up but I feel like my right arm was detached. Unfortunately we had two more hours to go.

I get home after we are finished I cannot lift my right arm. Sunday it is even worse. I cannot even lift a loaf of bread with my right hand. I go to the doctors and he says I tore all the muscles around my right shoulder. I partially tore the ones around my left shoulder. I am on a ton of painkillers and anti spasm pills. It is very tough to get comfortable at all. I am healing, and hopefully by next week this will just be a funny story.

As for poker, I am not playing as much do to the pills and them making me very drowsy. The bankroll is sitting at 12.3K and has not moved much at all. Today I am going to try and play some tourney and some more NL ring games. Good luck everyone.

Results from 5/19

Well I hope everyone enjoyed the Atlantic City post. I hope one day to have a Vegas post. First I have to get there though. Yesterday I played some 1/2 NL and a Bluff Magazine tourney. I finished 2nd in the Bluff tourney when my AA was cracked by 33. Man that is aggravating, especially at the end.

So as of now the bankroll is back up to the high of 12.4k. I am not going to get to play alot today due to the fact that I am going spelunking with my son in Tennessee. If I live through that, I will play when I get home tonight.

Tomorrow is event number #18 on the Bluff Poker Tour. I am still in 2nd place which would get me a $1500 WSOP seat. I want first though. We play tomorrow at 5pm at Absolute Poker.

Well that is it for now. Take care and good luck.

Atlantic City update

Well I am finally back from Atlantic City. We stayed at the Tropicana hotel which was very nice. We stayed in their Havana tower which looked really cool. It felt like you were walking down the streets of Cuba. The poker room was nice as well. There was about 40 tables in the room which was closed off from the rest of the casino. It is a no smoking room which I love. Being closed off meant it was quiet and smoke free. There were several TVs so you can watch some games while you play. My only complaint was their comp system is not great, at least not compared to the Gold Strike in Tunica. Basically you get $1 per hour that you play in comps. They also come by to scan your card every 30 minutes or so. At the Gold Strike you show the card when you buy your chips and then when you cash them out. That is all. Plus you play two hours and your meal is free. If you call in advance you can get their poker room rate which is $29 per weekday and $39 per weekend day. For that rate you must play 6 hours. I play 15-18 hours a day so that is not a problem. At the Gold Strike all my food was free. They just brought me several menus and I picked out what I wanted and they brought it to the table. I like that much better.

Because it was a bigger room I never had more than a 5 minute wait for a table. I was playing $1/$2 NL while there. The good thing about the way they handle the seating at the Tropicana is that once you are at a table you dont have to move. At the Gold Strike they have a "main" table and then "must move" tables. So if you are at a must move table and you like it but you are next to move to the main table it is tough luck.

So how did I do??? Well the first day I played very well most of the day. Unfortunately I had 3 hands that cost me about $700 total. On the second hand of the day I look down to find pocket aces. One guy raised and I flat called when everyone else folded. The flop comes Axx rainbow and he bets out $25 and I flat call. The next card is a J and he bets out $100 and I raise him allin. He calls and flips over AK which meant he was drawing dead. I double up to $400 right away!!!!! But what about those hands that killed me??? Here they are.

I have about $500 at the table when I get dealt 10s9s on the button. There is one raiser to $10 and 5 callers so I jump on the bandwagon and call. The flop comes KsQs8s. I am thrilled. Everyone checks to me so I bet $30. The original raiser is the only one that calls. The next card is the 3h. He checks and I go allin which would cost him about $250. He thinks for 5 seconds and calls with the As5d. He catches a spade on the river to win the hand.

Later on I flop top set of Jacks only to lose with runner runner straight. Then I am about to leave down $200 with $200 in front of me when I get dealt AK. I raise to $12 and get one reraiser to $30 and I call. The flop comes AK6. He bets out $40 and I reraise allin. He quickly calls with AA and I lose another $200 which put me -$400 for the day.

Day two went much better. I met my online buddy Duffy that day. We ended up playing at the same table which was bad for both of us. We had this maniac kid who at one time was up to $1200 in chips (max buyin was $300). There were also a couple of calling stations so it was a profitable table. When Duffy sat down I had run my $200 up to $550. I break about even for an hour with Duffy when I get dealt 77. There was a raise to $12 and Duffy, the maniac, a calling station, and myself were in with me having position. The flop comes AQ7. Swwwwwweeeettt. Calling station checks, maniac checks, and Duffy bets $40. Now what the hell do I do??? Should I slowplay my friend? I am not that kind of player so I reraise to $120 and give my best "you better fold before I take all your money, your wife, your house, and your children stare". The calling station and the maniac both fold and Duffy folds as well. To his credit Duffy said I should have slowplayed the pot. One of the other guys said I should have slowplayed and then gave Duffy the money back later (much better idea). Oh well. That day I ended up winning $520 to put me up $120 for the trip.

Anyway I will be back to posting more often now. Sorry for the delay. Hope you enjoyed my post. Take care and good luck!!!!!

A nice day but a little aggravation - results from 5/12

So yesterday was a very interesting day. I played a couple of tourneys on Pokershare with lousy results. Then I go play a .50/1 NL cash game on pokershare and win all my entry fees back plus another $108.

I then made the kids dinner and when I came back to play all the good tourneys at pokershare were over. They cater to the European market so they stop having good tourneys at like 8pm est.

So I decide to play in a 180 man SNG. Just as I get started five guys from the Bluff Magazine Forum decide to play in another 180 man SNG. They decided to do a $5 last longer bet plus the six of us would split any earnings equally. I figured what the hell, let me join in on the fun.

So I fire up a 2nd 180 man SNG. Both of these are the $20 one on Stars. I love those tourneys because the blind structure is awesome. In my first SNG I slowly build up chips during the first hour. At the end of hour one I am at about 5k. By hour two I am at 12k and pretty much in the money. Then hour three came and I started picking people off like crazy. When we got to the final table I was chip leader with 70k. With 4 people left I had almost all the chips. Then the aggravation came. One guy had connection problems and since we were at the final table they would give him like 4 minutes each round to make his move. He finally went out 4th. We knock out another guy and I am up 5-1 in chips heads up. He chips away and wins some small pots when we get allin with me holding 55 and him holding 33. The flop comes up 223 and I am stuck rooting for a 5 that never came. That gave him the chip lead and about 15 minutes later he wins the tourney. I was really upset with that 2nd place finish even though it was worth $720. I felt that I should have won if not for that damn 3.

So how did the other 180 man SNG go???? Well all 5 of my buddies finished out of the money (thanks guys!!!), with the closest being my buddy Jeremy who finished 20th. I reach my 2nd final table and finish 5th for $234. I won $5 from each of my friends and then we split the winnings.

So back to back final tables is a pretty damn awesome feeling. Hopefully that jump starts the bankroll again. It jumped $958 overall last night, which puts it back over 12k. Here is how it looks as of today....

Jan 1 bankroll - $5252
May 13 bankroll - $12,418
Profit - $7166

Today I am playing a live tourney at a friend's house. Tomorrow I may play late because I am spending time with my family. I am cooking dinner so hopefully I do not burn the house down. Take care and good luck.

Results from 5/11

Well last night I played in the Bluff Poker Tour. It did not go well for me. I played exactly four hands before I was eliminated. I played AQ, AQ, 88, and AK. I lost all four of those hands.

So after that I played a couple of $5 SNGs with some friends, and then I played a little .50/1 NL. I lost a huge hand playing NL when I flopped 2nd set to someone who flopped top set. Overall for the day I won $60 though. Not bad.

So I am at $11,460. I will play some tourneys and some .50/1 NL games as well. Tomorrow we have a live tourney and then I may play some late Sunday before my Atlantic City trip starts on Monday.

Good luck to everyone!!!!!

AAAAARRGGGHHHH - Update from 5/10

Well another poor day for me. I have been trying to play in the bigger $ tourneys some to test my skills. I am getting further along, but no cashes yet. I am not overly concerned since I feel I am playing them correctly. But mix those results in with some downright horrible suckouts in 5/10 and that is a recipe for a bad day.

So the bankroll has take a little nosedive down to 11.4k. I am sure it will make a comeback, but I am getting tired of not making any solid momentum. After my Atlantic City trip I am going to rethink my strategy a bit.

Today is event #15 of the Bluff Poker tour. I am still in first (yea!!!!) but I would really like a solid final table showing to increase my small lead. The event is at 9pm on Pokerstars.

Other than that I will play a little NL poker and maybe another tourney or two. Good luck out there.

Weekend + Monday Update

First of all I am sorry that it took a couple of days to get an update. I am still here, and I am still playing poker. So what has happened lately???

Well I have been victim of a scam. I saw that $816.75 was missing from my checking account thanks to a Neteller Insta-cash transfer to 24hr poker. I have never opened an account there, and I have never used the insta-cash feature. I spoke with their investigations department and I am not the only one that this has happened to. In fact if you search 24hr poker or Neteller on any poker site I am sure you will find others who are victims. My advice to you???? Call support at Neteller and have them turn off the insta-cash feature. Then check your Neteller account every single day.

Other than that I gave the 25k tourney at Pokershares a shot. It was a $100+$9 entry. To date I had never paid that much for a tourney before. It was quite an experience. Out of 189 players I finished 98th. The tourney paid out 33 people. I played with Ari for an hour. He is the #2 ranked player on pocketfives.com. I had a good time and I will do it again.

So with my Neteller account frozen I have not been able to move money around like I used to. I am mostly playing tourneys right now at this moment. I am mixing it with some NL tables. I will continue that for the rest of this week most likely. Starting on Monday I will be in Atlantic City for 3 days in meetings, but I will get some $1/$2 NL live poker in. That is why I am concentrating on NL right now. When I get back I will play limit again.

I also finished 13th in the Bluff Poker Tour event on Sunday. We were playing for a WSOP seat as well. I had soooooo many beats it was sickening. One that hurt me was when I called an allin with AA. He had 33. I flop another A but with two spades. He goes runner runner spade for a flush. I get eliminated when I push allin for 4800 which was a 4xbb raise. I had AK and the caller had A3. The flop comes AQJ. Turn is a rag and the river is a 3. Man I felt like I was punched in the gut.

So now my bankroll sits at $11,820. Good luck to all of you.

MTT Madness - results from 5/5

Well last night I decided not to play any 5/10 games at all. I pretty much just played MTT and SNGs. The MTT tourneys at Pokershare are sweeeeet right now. I have not seen one guarantee that they have had enough players for. So every one of the tourneys has an overlay. I played in their $5 entry, $500 guarantee. We had 84 players so they had to throw in the last $80. I finished 1st for a $150 payday. I pretty much dominated the field, and was chip leader all the way.

I bubbled out of their $33, $3333 guarantee, finishing 27th when they pay 17 people. I played pretty well, but good cards were hard to come by. They had to add $600+ in order to make the guarantee.

Then I played in their $25, $2525 guarantee in which they had to add $1400 to make their guarantee!!!! I finished 2nd which was worth $530. A couple of bad suckouts cost me first place heads up. I am still happy with the payday though.

So overall for the day I posted a profit of $621. This is where the bankroll is as of this morning.....

Jan 1 - $5252
May 6 - $11,973
Profit - $6721

I only started on Pokershare because they have the next stop on the Bluff Poker Tour which is tomorrow at 5pm. Pokershare is throwing in a $1500 WSOP seat for the event. You really should check this site out. Best of luck to everyone out there!!!

I am a BPT bum - results from 5/4

Well last night was the 13th stop of the Bluff Poker Tour. We played at Full Tilt and we had 469 players. If you remember correctly, I was the in first place in the point standings for the main event WSOP seat. So how did your leader finish? 359th. I had some limpers at the 50/100 stage and decided to make it 500 to go on the button with AQ. Everyone folded but one who went allin for 1000 more. I called since I was getting 2.5 to 1 odds and I figured only AK, QQ, or AA would have me killed. He flips over 22. I dont improve and I am out.

I am not sure if the push there was the right thing to do. I could have just flat called and saw a flop, but I did not want to play AQ against 5 people. I also thought that I could take it down right there. Overall I was disappointed with the finish, but I am still holding on to first place (barely).

I did finish in 2nd place in the 1k guarantee at PokerShare. It was a $5 entry tourney, and I won $190 for 2nd place. Unfortunately I gave half of that back at the 5/10 tables, so my profit for the day was $83 overall. Here is where the bankroll stands as of now....

Jan 1 - $5252
May 5 - $11,352
Profit - $6100

Right now I am in a $500 guarantee at Pokershare. I am leading with 16 people left. I have already cashed, but hopefully I can take first. Good luck everyone!!!!!

The slide continues - results from 5/2

Well I tightened up my play. Sometimes though you can do that but still lose. That is what happened last night. I was much happier with the play overall though. I know that slumps happen, and I will break out of this one. I played one WSOP freeroll thanks to Bluff Magazine but I did not place well. I made one big mistake reraising with 1010 on a 762 rainbow board against a tight player. He called allin with AA (who can blame him) and won the pot. That left me short stacked and I pushed with A8s to knock out some limpers. I get called by Q10 and of course a 10 pops up (why the heck couldnt it pop up when I need it) to kill me.

Then I played in one $10 SNG at Stars and finished 3rd. To show you how bad I am running, check out this hand....

*********** # 23 **************
PokerStars Game #4816196526: Tournament #24103433, $10+$1 Hold'em No
Limit - Level III (25/50) - 2006/05/02 - 22:22:44 (ET)
Table '24103433 1' 9-max Seat #5 is the button
Seat 1: HeartlessJon (1445 in chips)
Seat 2: machineman55 (1085 in chips)
Seat 3: donkeykilla (2205 in chips)
Seat 4: Isabella7 (2795 in chips)
Seat 5: dpdsr (840 in chips)
Seat 7: billinga (1280 in chips)
Seat 8: Mesq_Lady2 (220 in chips)
Seat 9: VirtualPlaya (3630 in chips)
billinga: posts small blind 25
Mesq_Lady2: posts big blind 50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to billinga [Tc Td]
VirtualPlaya: folds
HeartlessJon: folds
machineman55: calls 50
Andruw3117 [observer] said, "she played j3, thats the horror lady"
donkeykilla: folds
Isabella7: folds
dpdsr said, "I was wondering when someone would poinrt that out"
dpdsr: calls 50
billinga: raises 200 to 250
Mesq_Lady2: calls 170 and is all-in
machineman55 is disconnected
machineman55 has timed out while disconnected
machineman55: folds
machineman55 is sitting out
dpdsr: calls 200
*** FLOP *** [8h 2s Th]
billinga: bets 200
dpdsr: folds
dpdsr said, "she paid 30 to see a flop with suited cards in late
position"
*** TURN *** [8h 2s Th] [8s]
*** RIVER *** [8h 2s Th 8s] [Jd]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
billinga: shows [Tc Td] (a full house, Tens full of Eights)
dpdsr said, "vnh"
billinga collected 60 from side pot
Mesq_Lady2: shows [8d 8c] (four of a kind, Eights)
Mesq_Lady2 collected 710 from main pot
Isabella7 said, "sux"
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 770 Main pot 710. Side pot 60. | Rake 0
Board [8h 2s Th 8s Jd]
Seat 1: HeartlessJon folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: machineman55 folded before Flop
Seat 3: donkeykilla folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: Isabella7 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: dpdsr (button) folded on the Flop
Seat 7: billinga (small blind) showed [Tc Td] and won (60) with a full
house, Tens full of Eights
Seat 8: Mesq_Lady2 (big blind) showed [8d 8c] and won (710) with four
of a kind, Eights
Seat 9: VirtualPlaya folded before Flop (didn't bet)

Fortunately I did not lose many chips, and I was able to cash. It sure was aggravating though.

So tonight will be alot more playing since I dont have anything going on. The bankroll now sits at $11,220. Hopefully that is as low as it gets. Take care and good luck everyone.

Not a good start to May

Well yesterday I continued my slide. I played at another very loose 5/10 table, and I could not take advantage of it. Not only did I not win, but then I booked my 3rd straight losing session. I am going to look into this session some more, but my early indicators say that I need to tighten up some. Overall I lost $200 for that session.

I did play some tourneys, but I had no cashes. The best I played was at PokerStars. It was a $10 tourney with 1393 people. I ended up finishing 268th when my KQ lost to Q10 when he rivers a flush after we both hit our Q on the flop.

So the bankroll has dropped to $11,356. Not a good start, but hopefully we can learn and build from these experiences.

Good luck to everyone.

Weekend/April Recap

Well another month is in the books. I had a terrible weekend at the 5/10 tables that cost me about $800 over the weekend. Some of that was ridiculous beats, some of it was tilting about the ridiculous beats. On Saturday I flopped a set six times and lost all six. One of them was on a pot that was over $300. I had pocket aces when there was a raiser, and a reraiser and two callers before me. I just called because I did not want to show the strength of my hand and the original raiser capped. So five people spent $20 each to see the flop. The flop comes AJ2 rainbow. Obviously this is awesome for me. We cap the flop action, but there are only 3 of us in now. The turn is a 7 which brings two hearts on the board. Again me and the reraiser cap the turn and the one guy just keeps calling. The pot is at $300 before we get to the river which comes up a black Q. The original guy bets but now the caller raises for the first time since the preflop action?????? I am wondering he cannot have K10 could he??? All this time on a gutshot. So I just call. The original bettor also just calls. So we have a $360 pot in 5/10 limit, the highest I have ever seen. The hands??? Well I had the set of Aces obviously. The other raiser had a set of Jacks, and sure enough the guy who has called all the way through flips over K10o. It took all my energy not to throw something at my TV or to keep from punching my laptop.

So I was not proud of my play that day at all needless to say. Sunday we had our 12th stop on the Bluff Poker Tour at VIP Poker. I finished 13th out of 116 people. Those points will now put me in first place overall. I am very excited about the prospect of winning this tour. While I know that I am a llllllloooooonnnnnggg way from winning one of the prizes, it would easily be my greatest achievement in poker. Last year I had the lead at the halfway point and then went on vacation for a month and missed 5 events. When I came back I was 13th in the standings, and I climbed back to 9th overall. This year I should not miss any more events. Event number 13 is at Full Tilt on Thursday at 9pm.

So thanks to this horrible weekend I only made $139 for the month!!!!! That is horrible. Here has been my profit each month...

January - $1609
February - $22
March - $4596
April - $139

To say this is extremely weird is taking it very lightly. My bankroll now sits at $11,618 overall. This unexpected result has me cancelling my plans to move up to 10/20. I will continue to play 5/10 this month. If I can post at least a 1.5bb/100 hand month, then I will move up. If not, I will stay the course.

So tonight it is more 5/10 and of course a tourney or two. Best of luck out there to all of you. Lets hope May is a much better month!!!!!!