Royal Vegas

I sat down to night to finish the last few hands I had left at Royal Vegas to get another 2 free books from ITH. Well, as it turns out this may have been the juiciest table I've ever run across. I only needed 100 raked hands or so, but I just couldn't leave...wound up playing about 500 hands of 1/2 6max for a total of +$100. I should see another +$50 in bonus show up soon too, so not bad!

It's a shame the software is horrible at RV, the games seemed pretty fat. But I felt like I was playing poker on my old Atari 2600, so I'm not sure I'll be back.

Anyway, that was a good night...+150 and 2 free books. I'm smiling like a butcher's dog!

Stale

I still haven't played too much lately but no biggie since I've been running pretty bad. I'm almost at 4K hands @ 2/4 and am about even over the last 1K. Barring a big turnaround the 4K hand update will be pretty stale.

I've played a few SNG's with no success, but managed to take 1st/100 in the ITH league tonight :) I'm happy about that considering I was down to the felt after the first break.

I signed up for another 2 free book offer from ITH at Royal Vegas today and have just about cleared the 200 raked hands to get the goods. HOH2 will make a great read on the flight to Vegas for the convention!

BTW, the trip to Denver was fantastic...I need to figure out how to upload some pictures to the blog. The scenery was absolutely amazing, and the wedding was a blast!

Off to Devner

I haven't really played a lot in the past few days. That 4 hour session of 4 tabling 6-max the other night really burned me out. I played in the ITH tourney last night and watched Geo live at the bike for a few hours. Tonight I deposited at pacific for the first time to take advantage of the ITH 2 free book offer. I ordered Super System II and Caro's Book of Tells :) If anyone hadn't tried the ITH free book deal yet, do it - it's fantastic!!

Anyways, I still don't really feel like playing, and my flight leaves at 6AM for Denver (going to a cousin's wedding)...so I think I'll just call it an early night.

That's alot of hands Wade!

I had just about written off the last party bonus since I had 650/1050 raked hands left to play in one night...equal to 1300 2/4 hands in one session. I mentioned something about it in IRC, and geo says '4 table 6 max, no sweat'. I laughed for a second, and then said wtf...and gave it a go.

Well, I did get in all my hands in record time...all 1K hands in 4 hours. But - that is by far the most stressed I have ever felt playing cards. I can barely handle 1 6max table, so what the hell was I thinking? I finished down about -$50 for the whole 1000 hands, but cleared the $150 in bonus, so I guess it was worth it. Shit, now I'm 100% physically and mentally exhausted.

Suffice it to say I will definitely not be doing that again anytime soon. The good news is my 2/4 BR is now $2130. I'm setting the bar at $2400 for my move to 3/6...can't wait!

AC trip report

I'm bored, so here's a long-winded trip report to read assuming you're also bored...

Saturday morning I woke up and realized I had done absolutely zilch with my week off, so I decided to use my last night and drive down to AC for some live action. When I arrived at the Borg around 8PM it was a total zoo. My normal game is 6/12, so I put my name on what looked to be a short list for a seat. 2 hours later (and -$40 at video poker) they finally called my name. I bought in with my normal $350 and took seat #6.

This was no normal 6/12 table.

To my left was a woman in her 50's named Barb who seemed like a pleasant person. At the other end of the table were a bunch of loud obnoxious kids who didn't look old enough to drive. The table was very loose and very aggressive and very fishy.

About 3 orbits in I find myself with KsQs in the BB. Barb open raised UTG and only SB and I called. Flop was something like K,2,10 with one of my suit. SB checked, I bet, Barb raises, SB folded, and I called. The turn came Js giving me tp2k, OESD and 4 flush, so I bet out again...Barb insta-raises me, I call. River is a Q, giving me top 2 pair. At this point I put her on a made flush, str8, or a set, so I check and she bets...I call. She shows down Axo and I take a nice pot...and here's where the fun starts.

She looks at me in disgust and YELLS "HOW COULD YOU CALL ALL MY RAISES?!!!! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE DOING. ARE YOU TOO STUPID TO TELL THAT I WAS REPRESENTING KK??!!! I CAN'T STAND THIS SHIT, I SHOULD NEVER HAVE LEFT 10/20!!!"

I was in shock. WTF was that all about? How do you respond to something like that? I just kept my mouth shut, but she went on ranting and insulting most of the table anyway. After a few more hands she announced she was leaving to go play 20/40 because she can't take all of us fish. Jesus tapdancing christ, what a bitch!

Anyway, she gets up and a drunk kid at the other end of the table decides to change seats and move next to me. My lucky day. His greatest talent was announcing pot odds to everyone at the table while hands were being played.

There were also 4 more 21yr olds at the table drinking heavily, swearing profusely despite warnings from the dealer, and misquoting Sklansky during every hand. It was getting very annoying, and with each pass of the cocktail waitress it got worse.

Just when I thought things were at their worst Barb shows back up at the table with her last $120!! She bitches for a while about losing 'her' seat and then takes the open seat #3. It was about this time that one of the drunk kids announces that the winner of any pot > $100 has to buy shots for the whole table. Most of the table hearidly agrees that this is a wonderful idea. I say nothing.

A few hands later one of the drunk kids from NYC hits a big pot and about 10 minutes later the waitress shows up with 9 shots for the table...Courtesy of Mr NYC. By now the Dealer is becoming very aggravated by now with all the delays and cursing.

I accept the shot, but say I'll only have one. Despite this they started taking turns ordering shots for the whole table every 20 minutes or so and are becoming plastered. It gets even more exciting when Barb takes another 'bad beat' from one of the kids and a violent argument ensues. She goes on full-bore tilt and raises the next dozen or so hands until she busts. Now the whole table is tilted and drunk, and the swearing has reached an all-time high. The dealer tried to calm people down a few times with no luck. At one point I was so annoyed I was ready to ask for a floor person to give a lesson to these punks on table etiquette, but since I made out pretty well during the whole period, up a few hundred bucks, I suffered through all the BS.

Finally one of the drunk foul mouth clowns notices I'm big stack and demands that I tip the waitress $25 and order another round for the table!!! I politely decline, citing that I only had that one shot for fun, but am not drinking. They keep on pestering me and arguing with each other over the next few hands. The dealer warns them several times to keep pace with the action and stop swearing, and I even ask them twice to pay attention and hurry up.

Now, here's the final straw...the kid to my left stops in the middle of a hand and announces to the table that he won't fold or bet until I agree to buy drinks. I didn't feel like arguing (they were getting pretty violent now with the swearing and insults), so I pulled an all-time classic move. I looked him in the eye while asking the dealer for a rack - then got up and left...with them yelling at me the whole time. God that felt good.

At that point I had a nice stack so I took it to an open 10/20 table. It was a much more pleasant crowd, even though I only played a few loops before calling it a night. I was calmed down enough by then that I didn't complain to the room manager as I initially intended to.

It was about 4AM when I called it a night and I didn't have the energy to play again in the morning...so I drove back home and played a few hands of 2/4 online - in peace and quiet!!

3K hand update

Tonight's session was pretty good. There was one maniac at my table that was running 94%/45% and was really running people over. He was sitting one to my right and I took advantage as best I could. A good example was him UTG+1 open raised and I 3-bet with JKs to isolate. Flop was AJ3 rainbow...as expected he bet and I just called him down every street to beat his pocket 4's. Lovely.

On a sadder note I busted out 5/12 in my homegame tonight, but it's excusable given that I didn't see a pocket pair or A all night. It's about impossible to make any moves in this game without cards with all the calling fish, so I'm ok with folding my way OTM waiting for cards.

As promised here's my 3K hand update...I am probably way tight, but am still happy with my BB/100. I def need to start tweeking my game.



Total 2/4 BR is now $2,081 including bonuses (started at 1.5K). Another $150 in June reload bonus on the way this weekend :)

Blah

The last 3 days have been a little rough. I signed up for the 'ITH observation project' that poster wynton started, and had a few people rail a 200 hand session at 2/4. I think I play poorly when I know people are watching...maybe it's subconscious desire to make things happen by brute force. My starting hands were probably running below average but my aggression was way up...not a good combo. I got a kick out of knowing Nside (a fav poster of mine) was at my table but I couldn't figure out who he was. Anyway I finished the session -21BB and have had all break even or slightly losing sessions since. I think my last 500 hands are about -30BB...no sweat, could be worse.

As far as tourney play...I've sat in the coral twice this week and made the 2nd break each time only to bubble out. I made the money in the sun once, but was pretty far back so I can't call it a payday. Oh - I got a free entry into the $109 buyin $100K sunday MTT at bodog for this sunday as a gift promo...that should be cool.

No SNG's for me this week, aside from watching a few step 6 WSOP games at party. There is a player 'gamboholic_' that is pretty fun to watch. She/He/It is always playing in a step 6,5,and 4 at the same time whenever I log in. Rumor is she's a bot, but I don't think so. She does little things like pause when acting or sometime showing cards/sometimes mucking, that make it seem like a real player. (A pretty damn good one too...she really seems to have figured out the key to success in the step tournies - aka lots of all in's against players who are too tight with their stacks after grinding through 5 steps to get there.)

I hope to get in a few hundred hands towards the June Party reload tonight...let's hope this little downswing starts to turn around. 3K hand update coming soon...

2K hand update

Happy anniversary to my blog! One week old already...brings a tear to my eye.

Anyway, just passed 2K hands last night at 2/4. Was the first real grueling session and my first substantial swing at 2/4 so far. Although it was only -21BB it still stung, but I suppose that's to be expected since the level is relatively new to me.

On the plus side, I followed that up with a nice session today...i'm almost at 100BB in winnings already. I'm also 3/4 through my 700 hands for the pokeracenow bonus, and the June reload is waiting for me next. So my initial 2/4 BR of $1500 is now $1923, with another $250 in bonus on the way this week...I'm pleased with that after just 8 days!

Here's my 2K stats. I suppose I'll continue to post 1K updates as an audit trail.



Not a lot to read into this, although I'm starting to suspect I may be folding too many winners given my 60% won at showdown.


Let's see...any non-poker related updates? Not really, my life is pretty sad.

POKERACENOW

I deposited the 1K back into party this morning and tried out the pokeracenow bonus. It worked, and I notched up 200 hands towards it. I was behind the entire session until the very end - and quit dead even for the day. That's the beauty of boni chasing...even with out winning a penny I still earned $20 or so of prorated bonus.

Tonight's my last night oncall and then I get next week off. I should have the rest of the bonus cleared in no time.

No beer, no sleep.

I didn't realize how much I give up during my oncall shifts...missed my golf league, home game, and the ITH league all in 2 days. More significantly I get pratically no sleep and absolutely no beer for a whole week. This sucks because I love sleeping. The only thing I enjoy more than sleeping is sleeping after beer. Ah well, work is work.

I played one quick 2/4 session this morning and finished about even. Cashed out enough for the party pokeracenow bonus...it should be ready for me to reload back in later tonight. I am a dirty dirty whore.

So...I'm already up $330 at 2/4 including one bonus. Assuming I break even clearing the next boni I'll have cleared 100BB's at 2/4. Yes, I'm already eying up 3/6 after next to no time at 2/4....i'm such a buffoon. Let's see how the next 2000 hands go first - one day at a time.

Month End batch and SNG's

What a shitty night at work. I'm oncall nights this week monitoring some health care claims payment systems. They all ran their beefy month end batch cycles last night, and they all sucked. Every 5 minutes was a new crisis. By the time my shift ended I just wanted to slam my head in my car door, vomit, and pass out. I settled for some poker instead.

I quickly decided on two $5+.5's at Stars and quickly took 1st and 3rd. I am AMAZED how bad the play is in the $5's. I mean wow. Just sit back, play your good cards, and let everyone else beat the hell out of each other...sure fire way to ITM. Think I'll play them for a while and pad my Stars BR...just hope I don't pick up any bad habits on the way.

I also signed on to party for 50 hands of 2/4 just to see if my connection was working ok. It seemed fine, and I took in a few small pots to finish $18 ahead.

Well, apparently a little success at the tables was all I needed to cure the urge to slam my head in the car door. Good thing I didn't lose. Time to catch some Z's now.