Online SitNGo win

I've been playing some online poker over at PKR for a bit. Mostly getting my donkey tendencies out of my system at the practice tables, as in the US, there is a stupid law that says you can't gamble for real money online. And as such I've been playing mostly the ring games.

It's all play money so it doesn't really matter too much. They give you 1k and if you loose it they give you more.

Well I decided to try a couple of the online tournaments. First I tried the 50 person 5 table sit-n-go. It was interesting. I played for about an hour+ and eventually most of the noobs were weeded out, and it was down to two tables. Then the real poker started. It lasted for a while and the final table was some good play.. except for one particular jackhole that bet huge into a dry side pot with 2 all ins and 3 other players. I folded and so did the other two. He had NOTHING. and BOTH all-ins survived because of it. Dumbass. In the end I finished 4th. I think I won, like 4k play money for my 550 buyin. It was a good time.

Then I played a 6 person sit n go with a bigger buyin. This was interesting. The buy in was like 1250. So someboday had to do a bit of winning somewhere before they could get onto this table. None the less it had an idiot, which we put out rather quickly. The remaining five played a a while some very respectable poker. I was chip leader through most of it, but lost the lead with 4 ppl left. I was card dead for a while, but managed to grind out some chips. Then it was own to two - me included. We were dead even on the chips coming into the final two. We played some very good heads up for a while, maybe a half hour, then he made his move; He went all-in with AQo, I called him (and had had him covered by at least a dozen big blinds) with KQs. Flopped a K: and rag rag to the end. I won! yay.

It's only play money. But I think I'm polishing my skills a bit, when working the small table, as I think I have a deficiency there.

Well I'm off to AC to see if I can turn those virtual skillz into hard currency.

-AllenKll

Winner, winner chicken dinner!

Read 'em and weep! 4th Place at the showboat's $85+15 2pm on Sunday!

There were 52 players, some winers, some good players, some complainers, some nice guys, and some green horns, and I beat out 48 of them, to land myself my first cash tournament win.

The question that is poking around my head is: could I have done better? I think so. In the end when we got down to the final 6, and I knew I was in the money, I had a pretty healthy stack, maybe even 2nd leader. As we all know when it gets close to the money, people tend to tighten up, and you can steal blinds and small pots rather easily, so that's what I was doing and got chipped up nice when we hit the final.

The issue was that I kept pushing once we were ITM. That led to a few bad calls, and that hurt me pretty good. There was one guy I had pegged as an expert player, and instead of thinking, I pushed him, he had the nuts, and pushed back leaving me with just 2k (as I had him out-chipped) when the blinds were 8k-16k I survived the big blind, but lost on the small.

Also, at the final table I made another mistake with the guy who finished 6th place. I hit the nut flush on the flop, and while proud I didn't push over the top, my min bet on the 6 3 10, scared the guy off. Had it been limit, that would have been the right move, but since it was no limit, I should have checked him down and pushed on the river.

So two big mistakes that cost me down to 4th place. had I not made those, I may have made it all the way. Or at least to 3rd, as the third place guy was out just a few hands after I was.

After the tournament, I was high on life, and went almost straight to the 1-2 table. This was a bad idea, I should have taken time to relax a bit and enjoy the win before thinking about playing again. As at the 1-2 table, I played about a half hour, the endorphins wore off, and I got bored right quick, and first medium hand I got, I pushed all in at about 87 dollars. I had mid pair and a straight draw. I know I should checked against the preflop raiser, but I was bored, and let it get the better of me. He took a while to think about it, and called with top two pair. I didn't catch my straight, and lost the $100 I sat down with.

So, three big memorable mistakes for the day.

Live and learn.

Live I did too, as I went to Red Square in the Tropicana for dinner later, and footed the $100 dollar bill. I still came home with ~$80 more than I left with.

What a Sunday...

-AllenKll

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So close...

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Woot!

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First top down ride of the year!

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Drunken marshmellow toasting

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Cinco de mayo is comming!

The Decision

Those of you that know me, know I've been talking about moving to Vegas. A pipe dream of sorts. Or maybe not.

I've come to a decision. Since a move like that is an obvious upheaval of life. I will give myself some time to think about it. How much time is the decision point above mentioned.

200 lbs. That's my decision point. I've been teetering plus/minus around 233 lbs for a number of months now, and I'm tired of it. I want to get to my final goal. Starting today I'm back on calorie counting 100% of the time. Not just during the week.

30+ pounds... which, if I lose 2 lbs a week will be 15+ weeks. Rounding up, that's about 4 months, at the minimum. At that point I if I am still toying with the idea, I am going to do it.

I suppose publishing this might be a bad idea. Those of you who want me to stick around are going to sabotage my diet to keep me here longer. But I figure, taking the time to write it down will be good for the motivation side of things.

This is some of the worst writing I've ever done.. But let's just say the whole thing is more of a brain dump than an essay.

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Pretty trees no the way to atlantic city.

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Insane test picture

This post was just to test if I can send from my phone.. and to get it all set up.
The next post will be of lovely flowing trees.. if it works..

21

I went to the movies again last night, and saw 21. 21 was based on the true life story portrayed in the book "Bringing down the house." A book that I actually read years ago, when it first came out.

Spoilers included. Read at your own risk.

Anyone that knows Me, knows that I hate when people compare movies to the original concept book. So I will not compare them; nor will you see the words "The book was better" written with any meaning. I might however use examples from the book for illustrative purposes.

So, the movie was decent. I am an avid fan of beating anyone at their own game, and beeting the casino is especially appealing. So the base concept of a card counter's adventures in Las Vegas, is extremely appealing. However there was this forced plot that required Ben(the lead character) to HAVE to join the Blackjack team in order to try to pay for medical school. It all seemed rather contrived, in an attempt to make the protagonist seem more moral in the beginning, to be able to amplify his fall to the bottom, when he hits it. The truth is, people are greedy to begin with. By nature if given the option of having money, and not having money - all other motives aside - anyone with at least an 1/8 of a brain will choose having money.
With that in mind, you can begin to see why I think that aspect was forced.

Once you're into it though, it becomes a bit smoother of a ride. He studies, he counts cards, he wins money, he falls from grace and looses everything, he tries to get it back. Pretty formulaic, and unfortunately it ends on a happy note with him finding a way to pay for medical school anyway. Life is not like that. Further, I would have thought the casino industry would have a vested interest in him going out on the low note, as the real Ben did, in order to illustrate that card counters can't win in the long term. Which, while completely false, is what any good casino would want you to think, so as to not take them for everything they had.

The card counting system that was used in real life was represented fairly well, and I enjoyed reliving the experience of learning how it works, which I thought the director did a great job of conveying without getting bogged down in the details.

I especially liked the scene in the beginning with the numbers on the cards flashing like someone was taking a mental picture of them, and storing that information. Very nice touch. That being said however, the rest of the movies cinematography failed to wow. There was one particular fly-in over Vegas that was grainy and out of focus. I thought for a moment it might even had been stock footage from somewhere.

I'd say it's worth a matinée viewing which is about as high as I would go with a rating system, because seriously? how many movies are really worth 12 bucks for one viewing...

Superhero movie

So, I just got in from seeing superhero movie.
I must admit I was a little disappointed... There were some chortles here and there... but in all it wasn't nearly as good as some of the "genre" movies I've seen. Date movie sucked worser for sure. but any of the multitude of scary movies would beat this one down... I think the problem mainly stemmed from it being too close to the plot of Spiderman.

Had they incorporated a better mash of superheros, and perhaps mixed the storylines a bit more, I think it would have been much better...

Maybe It was supposed to be a direct rip on spiderman? If that's the case.. than it wasn't too bad.

all in all I'd say if you have that unlimited netflix thing, throw it on there with some low priority, and see it if there's nothing else on...

I shoulda went in to see 21.

Probability and Poker

I guess I've hit a new low in my despization of probability to the point of, I blew off my teusday night study session, and went to play poker instead.

You know what? I don't feel bad about it either.

I'm failing probability; I know that. So why try so hard anymore? I'm not going to. I'll glance at my notes, before class, and will continue to do the "no-credit" homeworks. But I'm not busting my ass anymore. Fuck it.

First Blogger based blog

What should I say?....

FIRST POST!!!!1111!!!1!