My First Royal Flush

WOOT! I love it! too bad it was only limit...
I bet that sucker to the end!

only got about 4.60 for it... but still very exciting!

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

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.