I think I played with 3 of the slowest players on PokerStars last night. It was a standard $20 SnG. As an aside: these take a *lot* longer to fill than the $10 or $15 ones, that is going to suck as I try and move up buy-in levels. Every. Single. Time. These. Players. Waited. Until. 15 Seconds. To. Act. Basically it sucked. I tried searching to see if they were multi-table masters and this table was getting divided attention- but nope, just the one SnG. PS blinds already climb pretty quickly, and adding near a minute to each hand just gets it to crap shoot levels. I ended up bubbling after losing a race and getting severely short-stacked- but when it is four handed and the blinds are already $200/$400, it does not matter much. Oh well.

I am actually doing quite well in my personal SnG series. I won a $20 on Sunday, and moved much closer to the next level.

As I mentioned above, I might need to move to another site with more players at the 20-30-50 levels because Stars just does not have the saturation of players at that level. That probably means Party, but I have not really done any research into that.

Non Poker: I played golf with a few people yesterday, we played 2 man teams, best ball skins. We had an 8 skin lead after 9, so we upped the ante to one skin for 10,11,12, two skins for 13,14,15, and three skins for 16,17,18. We were still up 8 after 12, but then we pushed 16. Luckily I made a big put on 17 to get the hole and the halved skin from 16. That put us up 14 with 3 to go. But damn, was it hot yesterday. I got fully baked. That is what you get when you tee off at 12:20.

I ran before work, had my enchelada fix, took a brisk walk (3+ miles) after dinner. Now I am ready for the Mookie.

42 players tonight. Very nice turnout. Things ran pretty well for me, I caught on fire near the end of the first break and took the chip lead. And I sat there or nearby as we dropped to two tables. As we approched final table, the junk kept getting kicked- nothing pretty about the way we do it in the Mookie, that is for sure. Made the final table, but out in 9th when my Mook runs into AJ on a 48J flop.

For those keeping track at home: The over under on locals making the final table was 4. I was the lone one, so the under wins. Also, 6:5 for a World player to win- well, that pays even though I don’t know the winner yet.

During the event TripJax and I setup our time to play heads up. This historic event will take place this upcoming Saturday, May 27th at 3PM eastern (2PM for me). It is on PokerStars. Come railbird for Trip as the favorite as this underdog takes his shot at the man, the myth, the legend. (heh). Look for the “TripJax vs Gilain DADI 5 Bounty Heads-Up Match” under the private tourneys.

Got to play the WWdN game last night. I started off like a donkey, but survived to to make the first break looking ok in chips. Ended up 18th of 68 with no real suckouts or spectacular hands. At least I didn’t play like crap.

Then I sat in a $15+1 Turbo SnG. I have played the cheaper $6+.50 ones, but those are true crap shoots. This one is a bit better- it got to heads up and went back and forth for at least 30 hands (and seeing as it is a turbo, about 4 blind levels). I ended up winning it, which is a nice feeling.

This is a full week-plus of solid, cash positive, non-angry poker. Is that even possible for me?

The Mookie is tonight. Named after me no less. Come play, I’ll do my best not to be a total donkey.

First the SnG progress. Not so good on Tuesday where I finished 6th and 6th. My first one on Wednesday ended in 9th when my KK ran into AA. Ooof. The 2nd one was not as bad and I scored a 3rd place finish putting me only down a few bucks for the night. Why not join The Mookie? Well, maybe because these 10+1 MTTs are *huge* -EV for me. Oh well, I have a good time so lets play.

For the first hour I chipped up nicely. Top 5 or 8 in chips most of the way. Felt good and solid. 41 players tonight, 5 pay. That is a tough one but better than 10%, so fair. One of the Stars’ milestone hands was dealt just after the 1st break, and no- I didn’t get my share. The 2nd hour was survival. If you read Mookie’s report, I just got lapped by the field. I never really had better than 10BB. I just kept enough to stay alive. I made the final table (first one in awhile) but was still very much hurting. When it got to the bubble, Mookie and I *combined* had less than an average stack. It looked like one of the two of us was going out 6th for $0 and the other 5th for $32 or something. As a joke, I offered to chop 5th (which really wasn’t a bad deal). Mookie did end up bubbling. Then I ran my KQ into a KT and doubled up timely. I kept chugging away and chipping up. Suddenly I was getting cards again, making the right bets, and quickly moving up. I ended heads up with drewspop and had a 3 to 1 chip lead. I only doubled him up once, but ended up sucking out hitting a 6 outer on the river to take him out. To be fair I was about 30% to win pre-flop 🙂 This is my biggest single cash online, and maybe with live as well.

You want to know how -EV these MTTs are for me? I cashed for 165 or something last night, which puts me $-1.00 over every event I have in PokerTracker (15 or something). That does not count the smaller private events which are counted as single or two table SnGs. It does feel good to have a big night though.

The one skill I have begun to work is using my breaks. Two examples from last night:

TT in mid-position, I bump it to 4BB and get someone in early position to call. The flop is Q-rag-rag rainbow. It is checked to me and I continuation bet about 1/2 the pot. I get raised 3-fold. There are not a lot of hands that beat me, but I start counting them and realize that this is bad money if I call. I fold.

Later in the night I get JJ in early position. Again 4BB bet and Mookie calls. Flop is 998 and I make it a bit more than 1/2 pot. He raises me to put me nearly in. I have to call time on this one, but I fold. He comments on how his raise was too big.

In the past I might jam with either of those two hands, especially the 2nd one. There were plenty of times when my continuation bet took the pot, so it is certainly the correct play most of the time. I just have to watch the re-raise and who is just making a move and who has the goods. Obviously either of those hands might break me and I would not have cashed last night, so it worked out for me there. What was that golden rule? It is better to win a small pot vs lose a huge one. It might be better to say it is better to let go of a small pot vs bust in a large one, but I can be a pessimist.

The big boss from Rational is here today. He is going to screw up Enchelada Thursday, so I am already unhappy.

After a very lackluster performance on Wednesday, I sat down with some trepedation yesterday.

My fears were realized when I was bounced 9 of 9 from my first SnG. I then played two more finishing 3rd and 3rd to squeak out a small profit for the night. That is until I joined the WWdNOT presented by Darval.

It took two hours- but I ended up bubbling, AK s00ted is not match against QQ even when you flop the flush draw. Surflexus took the whole thing down. I did make Jordon my personal whipping post early in the event though. Sorry about that. [Ed: I pooched my first version of the results; thanks for the heads up Mook]

On the plus side, the weather has been amazing with highs in the 80s so I was able to mow my disaster of a lawn yesterday. It only looks a little crappy now rather than like *total* ass. It is finally Friday, and I plan on taking it easy this weekend. It probably won’t happen- but I really want to do a bit of yard work and maybe do some more on my poker table.

Speaking of poker tables, if anyone knows of a source for inexpensive 4″x4″ table legs could you leave a comment? I really don’t want to pay $50 a peice for them.

In my third SnG last night, it got down to four players and one of the two players started tapping on the glass. He mentioned sharkscope to the mouth of the table, and how he is constantly losing money. The only thing the mouth said in response is “cheater”. Which is an interesting, but flawed, way to look at it. I had not said a word the who event- mainly because in the middle I got chips and then donked them off trying to bully without a 4:1 or 5:1 chip advantage. I had two thoughts when these two started mouthing at each other:

1) Why tap the glass? If you know the guy is a fish, just take his money. Knowing his stats via things like SharkScope and PokerTracker give you an advantage, great. Now just play.

2) Is it really “cheating” to know that the big chip leader has an ITM percentage of 10% or a ROI of a negative amount in SnGs? I think this particular fish (according to SS) was just pissed off that anyone knew how much money he has pissed away over his poker career.

Thoughts?

Busted out mid-pack in the Mookie last night. I do know that I donked off some chips on a steal attempt late and was forced to push and didn’t get there. I was hot decked early, and played very solid to be a force and take most of Bone_Daddy84 and Darval’s chips. But then nothing. Oh well. I had fun.

I then decided to continue with my personal SnG challange by plopping down at a 10+1 SnG. I did really well early and took a good size chiplead into a dumbass play where I raised with 99 and called a re-raise all-in to a mid stack. He had JJ. The math was not there, I should have laid it down. I was able to get back up to average chip stack and lost AA to AK to be busted. He hit his two outer on the river to take out the rockets. Grrr.

I gave up poker for the night. If I can’t play smart *and* I get unlucky it is time to save the cash for another day.

Darval is running his WWdNOT tonight. It is a late game for us central time folk, but if I am up I am going to try and make it.

It is very odd to be part of a huge corperation. We don’t have the direct oversight (yet) but you can feel the presence in everything, email, software, badges, POs, the list goes on and on. Oh well. At least I am getting paid through next year.

Played the WWdN event on Stars last night. Well, played is an exaguartion. I was late to show up so I post and folded 7 hands (including QQ doh!). 8th hand: AK sOOOted. Pop to 4x BB. One caller. Flop is KJ5 rainbow. Bet 80, raised to 260. I popped it to 700. Re-raised all in. And here is donkey me! I called. TPTK no good against trip 5s. I hit an ace on the turn to give me a miracle chance. Nope. Out first. Oh well. No more virtual felt last night as I decided it was time to go for my walk and catch up on TiVo rather than piss away money.

At least the guy I gave my money to ended up winning. That is worth something isn’t it?