PLO Cash - Woot!

By the time I had taken care of dinner and watched a few shows, there were no good PLO tournaments running, and I didn't feel like waiting an hour to start one that I knew wouldn't get me to bed before 1am. So I sat down at two 10¢/25¢ PLO tables and set a one and a half hour limit for myself. I had a big day at work today and didn't want to overdo it, knowing that I needed to be on the ball.

It was a good night, bought in for $15 on each table and managed to profit $68. It was magically delicious. There were no real notable hands, but I think that people are drastically overvaluing their hands at this level. Lots of PF raising with AAxx unsuited. It's so obvious that I found myself calling with nearly any four cards that connected in some way, just to see if I could outflop them. I even once called with 777K just to see a flop. Unraised preflop from the SB with four limpers made it easier to call as well. Flop comes 335 rainbow, I check, BB bets 1/2 the pot, which seemed weak, so I call. Turn is the case 7. Woot. Needless to say, the bettor was not happy when I stacked her (she had 328K). Yes, playing 777K is pretty stupid, and I'd never do it in a tournament, but for shits and giggles in a cash game, why not?

Anyway, there was a lot of swearing and anger. I never really go there, but for those of you who play at higher stakes, is there more or less of the berating?

Lucksacks.

Ever had a game where you can do no wrong? Ever had a game where you can do no right?

Thursday was the last game of the quarter for the weekly CT game. Yes, I handily qualified for the QTOC, but I wanted to at minimum cash again. Things were looking a little grim late into the final table, but managed to make a few hands work for me. First one is a desperation push:


So I figure that the big stack is playing big stack poker and making a raise with a weak ace. I decide to put him to the test and push, hoping to get lucky. He takes a long time, likely 25 seconds of his time bank before ultimately calling. He must have thought that my range was SUPER wide to make this call. I was pretty amazed that he did, but, having a stack size like his, I can't fault him. Nice that it worked out for me.

Exactly one hand later:


It's like a dream come true! He makes exactly the same move, so this time I'm giving him more credit for maybe a pocket pair, but not higher than Jacks. I happily re-pop it again, and he pushes. Okay, so we're not thinking Aces, so I happily call. What an odd move. We just played a hand, that played exactly the same, and he's not giving me any credit for a hand. Now, if he pushes and loses, he's crippled. Bizarro world push I guess. Oh well, the good news is, is that the villian didn't cash. Muahahahahahaaa!

Work has been busy as stink lately. Good projects with good people make it all worthwhile though. Something new to me, is the concept of the editor going to set to pre-viz some of the effects and to show a proof of concept for some of the edits. I'm going to recommend that I always go from now on. Especially on multi-day travel jobs! I'm really thrilled lately with how well things are going at work. Ever since I became a partner, my outlook has changed, and there's a sense of rejuvenation. Good times. Now, if only I could learn to take all my vacation time...

By the way, who remembers "Waaasssuuup!", the Budweiser spot? Check out this fantastic spoof with all the original cast members. Classic.

LOL Donkaments

So I'm playing at jdunford's monthly "Donkament". Yes, he actually calls it that. I'm feeling good, as I just got out of the gym and was playing some good poker. It's pretty donkish, so as long as you play decent cards and have some sort of read, you can usually cripple people easily. There's a lot of strange betting patterns, but the people are pretty easy to read. Except a few of the regulars, I'd say I could do well.

Anyway, I'm telling the story of Queens vs. Queens that happened over the weekend, and mid-story, I look down at Queens. I raise an early raiser, get a caller, then it folds around to him, who pushes. I look at him and say "If you show me Jacks I'm going to be upset!" to which he replies, "Do you have nines?" Odd. Anyway, I call and the person who called on my left folds AK of spades face up. Yay! I feel like I'm way ahead as the numbers of probability are running through my head. He flips Queens. Hilarious. But not really.

I end up cashing (3rd) and profit a whopping $10. Which I proceed to lose very quickly in the cash game. My two pair gets cracked by a bigger two pair on the turn. My flopped top pair gets crushed by a runner runner flush. My set of tens gets busted on the turn by fricking 98o. I end up down over $100. Terrible luck. I don't know why I bother with cash games, I absolutely suck at them.

By the way, don't forget - if you're 90 years old and haven't bought a TV since you were in your 70's, it's time to make the upgrade!

Politics. The last you'll hear from me.

I really like it when people take soundbites and edit the best bits into new bits.



Did you hear that Obama is using the Xbox 360 to advertise? Many of the EA games provide dynamic billboards in their games, and Barack is using them to reach the younger, cooler? potential voters. Hope it's working.

PLO (LOL) Donkaments

Played a $4.40 Turbo PLO tournament last night and took it down. I'd love to say that it was all skill, but I'd be lying. In a turbo, there are so many situations where you get your money in with less than the nuts and hope that you can dodge a few bullets. What I DO like about this style of game, is the speed in which it's over. I don't have to stay up for hours on end. This was perfect, less than two hours for 291 players.

The biggest thing I noticed about last night, was my level of focus. No music, no TV, no lights, nothing. I felt completely and utterly absorbed by the game.

The new Macbooks and Macbook Pro's came out yesterday and I'm thrilled with the new design. The Macbook is essentially just a smaller Pro model, and would probably run Final Cut Pro quite handily, making it an easy decision for my next toy. Plus, get a little VMware fusion running on that puppy and I can finally start to try some of these other poker sites. I'm interested in Bodog and maybe even trying out this new SpadeClub. I've been doing a little research on the latter, anybody got any inside info?

Canadian Thanksgiving

Was out west over the weekend visiting the wife's family. My father-in-law took me to one of his favourite hangouts, the Cash Casino. Yikes. What. A. Dump.

Eight tables, two cash games of 1/2 going and a $180 holiday tournament. Nice slow blind structure and capable players. Also some of the worst luck I could imagine. Late into level four and I'm sitting on the average chipstack. I look down at A10o in late position (one off the button) I 4x it to 800. Button folds, SB folds BB calls. Flop comes Q, 10, 8 with two hearts. BB bets 1000. I call. Turn is a J of hearts. BB pushes. I fold. Likely should have folded on the flop.

Next hand I look at pocket Queens. I 4x it again. Guy to my left calls, BB calls. Flop comes 7, 8, 7. BB pushes all in. I have him covered and want to isolate, so I push. I'm thinking to myself, he's got an overpair, no credit for a seven. Worried about guy on my left, and even more worried when he starts to chuckle and turns over pocket eights for a boat. He says "Hurr, I've got the Nuts!" lol. m'kay. And bb turns over pocket Queens! Drawing dead, I leave in fricking 30th place. There went $180. Actually, There went $360, because my father-in-law didn't bring enough cash with him, as he thought it was a $40 rebuy tournament. Sigh.

New Macbooks and Macbook Pro's today. Might have to buy myself a present!

Cashed again.

Made it to 97th of 3780 in yesterday's $30k Guaranteed. Only good for $50-something. One interesting thing did come out of the whole thing though. I actually used one of the tools Pokerstars provides in a way that I think it was actually meant to be used.

The Hand Replay feature allows you to go through past hands at the table and replay them slightly faster than real-time. It starts with the outcome, and with one click, you're reliving the hand.

I raised from early position with A10o, hoping to really just steal the blinds and antes. I get a push all-in from mp from a player I remembered that had made some bizarre moves before. I madly clicked through the Replayer and looked for any hands where his hole cards were exposed. Saw that his range was pretty wide and made the call.



Looking at the numbers, I'm getting the right price to call, so mathematically it made sense, but sometimes it's good to have a little more info. I don't use Pokertracker or any sort of HUD, so this replayer is actually quite valueable to me.

CT game tonight. I'm still in the top ten, but need to perform well tonight in order to solidify my entrance to the QTOC.

Meh.

So I cashed yesterday. 78th of 1836. Not bad. Made a few mistakes but also managed to make an informed call.

See below:


It just seemed to me like total bullshit that he'd have a King, and a rather weak play if he did. If he pushes and has a King, what are the chances I'm calling? Pretty low I'd say. If he wants to get any kind of value here, he checks and hopes that I bet. If he had a King he would have had the deck pretty crippled, so I didn't think that'd be the play. I didn't even think he had a pair to be honest, at best Ace high.

A few hands later, I was crippled when my flopped set of jacks ran into a flopped set of Aces. Horrible. Not five hands later, the same guy flops a set of Aces again vs. a flopped set of Kings. So sick. He ended up finishing 15th.

I didn't bother playing the Monday night CT game. Razz is by far my favourite of the Stud games, but I still hate it and couldn't bring myself to waste any money on it.

On a completely unrelated note, I watched "Aftermath: The World Without Us" a documentary based on the book of the same title. Very interesting to watch a program that does a good job of succinctly summarizing a novel. Good photography and effects made it all seem very believable. They spent a lot more time on what would happen to the animals than the book did, but it seemed to work. Nothing on the fact that this history has repeated itself a number of times with former empires, but given that it was only two hours long, that can be forgiven. I recommend either the book or the show. Book is obviously much deeper.

What a weekend of garbage.

I went completely O-fer this weekend. Not a single cash in 8 attempts. Completely horrible performance. The best thing I did this weekend was clean the house. So sad.

I wouldn't say that any of plays were terrible, but as I approached the bubble, comfortably looking at an easy cash, and likely even better, I seemed to have a Matusow-style blowup. There was a PLO tournament that I was killing, but it went severely south after this:

PokerStars Game #20954955119: Tournament #110965747, $10+$1 Omaha Pot Limit - Level X (300/600) - 2008/10/05 17:00:41 ET
Table '110965747 10' 9-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: KP666 (69854 in chips)
Seat 2: Racing CdeM (5156 in chips)
Seat 4: mattythatguy (12225 in chips)
Seat 5: formalberto (22614 in chips)
Seat 6: Chakuza4 (11636 in chips)
Seat 7: 1 Sexy Cat (5500 in chips)
Seat 8: chucky11x (5580 in chips)
Seat 9: Muppinger (8292 in chips)
mattythatguy: posts small blind 300
formalberto: posts big blind 600
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to mattythatguy [8s 7c Kd Ad]
Chakuza4: folds
1 Sexy Cat: folds
chucky11x: folds
Muppinger: calls 600
KP666: calls 600
Racing CdeM: folds
mattythatguy: calls 300
formalberto: checks
*** FLOP *** [6c 9d 5d]
mattythatguy: bets 2400
formalberto: folds
Muppinger: folds
jdog42 is connected
KP666: raises 7200 to 9600
mattythatguy: raises 2025 to 11625 and is all-in
KP666: calls 2025
*** TURN *** [6c 9d 5d] [9c]
*** RIVER *** [6c 9d 5d 9c] [Ts]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
mattythatguy: shows [8s 7c Kd Ad] (a straight, Six to Ten)
KP666: shows [Jd Qd 5c 5h] (a full house, Fives full of Nines)
KP666 collected 25650 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 25650 | Rake 0
Board [6c 9d 5d 9c Ts]
Seat 1: KP666 showed [Jd Qd 5c 5h] and won (25650) with a full house, Fives full of Nines
Seat 2: Racing CdeM (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: mattythatguy (small blind) showed [8s 7c Kd Ad] and lost with a straight, Six to Ten
Seat 5: formalberto (big blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 6: Chakuza4 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: 1 Sexy Cat folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: chucky11x folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: Muppinger folded on the Flop

This is sort of run of the mill when it comes to PLO, as so many things can change from hand to hand. But it still sucks when you're so far ahead in a hand, only to be absolutely crushed on the turn. This sort of thing happened over and over again the whole weekend. I couldn't get people to lay down weak pairs on boards that I was betting aggressively. I'm not sure if I'm giving something away, or if Pokertracker is telling people something. I really wish they would ramp up their development on the Mac side.

I'm sure I'll bounce back.

EDIT: Gah, it just happened again, only this time, I have nobody to blame but myself.

PokerStars Game #20975997487: Tournament #112085930, $15.00+$1.50 Omaha Pot Limit - Level V (75/150) - 2008/10/06 13:44:56 ET
Table '112085930 11' 9-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 2: mattythatguy (5770 in chips)
Seat 3: Eaglee- (3090 in chips)
Seat 4: 101SOLO (12110 in chips)
Seat 5: Wine Pusher (4760 in chips)
Seat 6: SenorRisto (3235 in chips)
Seat 7: ElViSaRaTa (2045 in chips)
Seat 8: BillyGoatGrf (1557 in chips)
Seat 9: BonScott80 (4615 in chips)
101SOLO: posts small blind 75
Wine Pusher: posts big blind 150
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to mattythatguy [8c Ac 7c 7d]
SenorRisto: calls 150
ElViSaRaTa: calls 150
BillyGoatGrf: folds
BonScott80: folds
mattythatguy: calls 150
Eaglee-: folds
101SOLO: calls 75
Wine Pusher: checks
*** FLOP *** [6c Tc 5c]
101SOLO: checks
Wine Pusher: checks
SenorRisto: checks
ElViSaRaTa: checks
mattythatguy: checks
*** TURN *** [6c Tc 5c] [5h]
101SOLO: checks
Wine Pusher: bets 300
SenorRisto: folds
ElViSaRaTa: folds
mattythatguy: raises 550 to 850
101SOLO: folds
Wine Pusher said, "TT?"
Wine Pusher: raises 2450 to 3300
mattythatguy: raises 2320 to 5620 and is all-in
Wine Pusher: calls 1310 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (1010) returned to mattythatguy
*** RIVER *** [6c Tc 5c 5h] [8s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Wine Pusher: shows [Ts 2c 5s 2h] (a full house, Fives full of Tens)
mattythatguy: shows [8c Ac 7c 7d] (a flush, Ace high)
Wine Pusher collected 9970 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 9970 | Rake 0
Board [6c Tc 5c 5h 8s]
Seat 2: mattythatguy showed [8c Ac 7c 7d] and lost with a flush, Ace high
Seat 3: Eaglee- (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: 101SOLO (small blind) folded on the Turn
Seat 5: Wine Pusher (big blind) showed [Ts 2c 5s 2h] and won (9970) with a full house, Fives full of Tens
Seat 6: SenorRisto folded on the Turn
Seat 7: ElViSaRaTa folded on the Turn
Seat 8: BillyGoatGrf folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: BonScott80 folded before Flop (didn't bet)


All things considered, he's likely calling any flop bet with his awesome two pair, so chances are I'd be dead again. If he thinks I've got tens, then he raises and I push, wouldn't you consider letting the inferior fh go? I dunno.

Blew it.

I totally sucked in the weekly CT game. Couldn't get anything going at all. Didn't really understand the last hand either. Just look at how it played out:

Not really sure I could have made a bad play there, just didn't pan out. Oh well.

The weekend is upon us, and I plan on playing many tournaments. I hope there's good news to report on Monday.

Also signed up for that Pokerstars affiliate program, but I can't for the life of me figure out to get the damn thing set up. Did this do it?

Chiptalk

So not only do I love poker, I LOVE poker chips. They are easily the best part about gambling. Holding them in my hands, throwing them into the center, scooping a huge pot of them - it's awesome, and a very addictive sub-hobby of poker. I'm a member/moderator at Chiptalk, mecca for many collectors of singles and full sets of retired casino, and custom poker chips.

I got into the whole collector hobby back in 2005, and have been hooked ever since. It's an excellent community of very knowledgeable members. If you have any questions whatsoever, it's THE place to be. The Chipboard is quite good as well, but I can't stand the format of their forums.

I personally own three sets of custom chips, and am always in the market for more.

Anyways, not only is it a site dedicated to chips, there's a heckuva lot of poker strategy discussion. Many of the members are ridiculously good players. We've got at least one pro, and many semi-pros. One of which just took second place in the WCOOP 8-game final. He won $46k for his trouble. Not bad...

To that point, we have weekly private tournaments, on Mondays and Thursdays on Pokerstars. I'd say that I'm one of the more consistent players, always in contention for the quarterly tournament of champions. By almost pure fluke, mixed with a lot of luck and very little skill, managed to win the yearly tournament of champions last year. Super fun, and also very entertaining to play with the same die-hard group every week. I'd love to set something like this up live, but getting people to commit is hard.

Another member started running a Heads-up Tournament and I'm happy to say that I won the first match. Now I'm up against Dr. Lecterrr and I can't say I'm too happy about it. I know that he's aggressive, unpredicatble, and willing to push if he's shown any weakness. Wish me luck, and check out Chiptalk if you have any interest or questions, you won't be dissapointed. Your wallet might be...

PLO

I think I've found where some of the money is online. PLO (and to a lesser extent PLO8) is a great place to find the cash. I've been playing a couple of tournaments daily, when time permits and the results speak for themselves. Not always a HUGE cash, but cash nonetheless.

I really like Omaha. It forces me to think a lot more than I did when I played Hold'em, and I'm finding that it helps my Hold'em game as well. I still think that I tend to play a little too much Sheriff on the river when the board pairs. Drives me crazy that someone will stick around for 5th street when it's been potted on fourth. Can anybody run the numbers for filling up on the river when you have a pocket pair down?

Most of the people playing these tournaments don't really know how to play Omaha. I don't claim to be an expert, but I know enough to fold a set on a scary board. I've seen a lot of people go broke with a pair of aces down, and three to a straight, or three to a flush on the board. Aces aren't nearly as strong in Omaha. There's just too many cards out there that can crush you.