All Quiet-ish

Not much to update with really, except that I took a huge risk over the weekend that *almost* paid off. I bubbled the $215 PLO weekly on Saturday. It all ended with this terribly played hand:

PokerStars Game #22268651936: Tournament #120442095, $200+$15 Omaha Pot Limit - Level X (400/800) - 2008/11/22 14:58:33 ET
Table '120442095 9' 9-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: shine (54180 in chips)
Seat 2: dapalma150 (39593 in chips)
Seat 3: TurnRiva (15907 in chips)
Seat 4: 8oggo8 (8655 in chips)
Seat 5: Riverloser (21435 in chips)
Seat 7: Ronenon (18697 in chips)
Seat 8: GHand69 (25205 in chips)
Seat 9: mattythatguy (11630 in chips)
TurnRiva: posts small blind 400
8oggo8: posts big blind 800
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to mattythatguy [Ad 8h 7c Ac]
Riverloser: folds
Ronenon: raises 1600 to 2400
GHand69: calls 2400
mattythatguy: calls 2400
shine: folds
dapalma150: folds
TurnRiva: folds
8oggo8: folds
*** FLOP *** [2s 4c 2c]
Ronenon: bets 6400
GHand69: folds
mattythatguy: raises 2830 to 9230 and is all-in
Ronenon: calls 2830
*** TURN *** [2s 4c 2c] [6d]
*** RIVER *** [2s 4c 2c 6d] [9c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Ronenon: shows [6s 7h 6c 8d] (a full house, Sixes full of Deuces)
mattythatguy: shows [Ad 8h 7c Ac] (a flush, Ace high)
Ronenon collected 26860 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 26860 | Rake 0
Board [2s 4c 2c 6d 9c]
Seat 1: shine folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: dapalma150 (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: TurnRiva (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 4: 8oggo8 (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 5: Riverloser folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: Ronenon showed [6s 7h 6c 8d] and won (26860) with a full house, Sixes full of Deuces
Seat 8: GHand69 folded on the Flop
Seat 9: mattythatguy showed [Ad 8h 7c Ac] and lost with a flush, Ace high

I couldn't believe my terrible preflop play in retrospect. RAISE PRE-FLOP WITH ACES!!!!!

There's a decent discussion going on over at Chiptalk, check it out!

I took a 4th place last night in a $33. Yay-ish. If I had have stopped and thought about things on the last hand, I could have walked into 3rd easy, and maybe even 2nd. It was one of those hands where I raised pre with an excellent starting hand, and then totally missed, and felt like I was committed so went all the way with it. I should have realized that the guy in front of me was calling/chasing, and I should have shut down. Oh well. Lesson learned. FT still boggles my mind some times.

Woot!!!!!!!!1111one

Not really a brag, as I'm nowhere near the caliber of some of the other players on CT, but I took second in that PLO tournament from yesterday.


Headsup was impossible. He had me outchipped 5 to 1. I still managed to make it interesting and got to a 2 to 1 disadvantage. He literally hit every single flush draw though, which sort of made it hard to beat him. I didn't feel too bad losing against him though, as his results are very impressive.

I've started to find that I'm running into the same people over and over again in this specific tournament. Not a lot of US players in these. Far more Europeans and Canadians are playing PLO methinks. To that point, I wish that I could easily run some sort of HUD. Is it worth it for Omaha? That's something I'd like to figure out. The numbers returned must be completely different from those returned for HE. Since starting hand value is so much higher, it'd be interesting to see the breakdown. Does pokertracker support Omaha?

Okay, I was wrong.

And happy to admit it. Raising with AAxx is smart, especially when you can get it all in pre-flop. I'm literally astounded that people will call off HUGE stacks with medium/junky hands. This was a serious WTF moment, and I'm still not sure what was what.



Does this make sense to anybody? Here's how the hand played out:

PokerStars Game #21949175712: Tournament #119387159, $15.00+$1.50 Omaha Pot Limit - Level III (25/50) - 2008/11/11 13:11:32 ET
Table '119387159 18' 9-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: Boss121 (3210 in chips)
Seat 2: Ayers Rule (4070 in chips)
Seat 3: Oswaldo (2590 in chips)
Seat 4: tgsundling (2625 in chips)
Seat 5: The Dad (1960 in chips)
Seat 6: cityspirit (3665 in chips)
Seat 7: uctavi (1965 in chips)
Seat 8: mattythatguy (8215 in chips)
Seat 9: Archaic (5415 in chips)
Oswaldo: posts small blind 25
tgsundling: posts big blind 50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to mattythatguy [Ad 6c Jd Ac]
The Dad: folds
cityspirit: folds
uctavi: folds
mattythatguy: raises 125 to 175
Archaic: calls 175
Boss121: calls 175
Ayers Rule: calls 175
Oswaldo: folds
tgsundling: raises 900 to 1075
mattythatguy: raises 2700 to 3775
Archaic: folds
Boss121: folds
Ayers Rule: raises 295 to 4070 and is all-in
tgsundling: calls 1550 and is all-in
mattythatguy: calls 295
*** FLOP *** [4d 6s Js]
*** TURN *** [4d 6s Js] [Jc]
*** RIVER *** [4d 6s Js Jc] [Jh]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
mattythatguy: shows [Ad 6c Jd Ac] (four of a kind, Jacks)
Ayers Rule: shows [Qs Th 9h 5s] (three of a kind, Jacks)
mattythatguy collected 2890 from side pot
tgsundling: shows [4c Ks 3d As] (three of a kind, Jacks)
Ayers Rule is sitting out
mattythatguy collected 8250 from main pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 11140 Main pot 8250. Side pot 2890. | Rake 0
Board [4d 6s Js Jc Jh]
Seat 1: Boss121 folded before Flop
Seat 2: Ayers Rule (button) showed [Qs Th 9h 5s] and lost with three of a kind, Jacks
Seat 3: Oswaldo (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 4: tgsundling (big blind) showed [4c Ks 3d As] and lost with three of a kind, Jacks
Seat 5: The Dad folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: cityspirit folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: uctavi folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: mattythatguy showed [Ad 6c Jd Ac] and won (11140) with four of a kind, Jacks
Seat 9: Archaic folded before Flop


Yesterday, I did something I haven't done in well over a year. I took a day off work. Wifey and I went to the museum and spent a few hours there poking around. We hadn't been since they refurbished it last year, and I was very pleased with the job they did. After the museum, we went for a wine & cheese snack in this cute little place in Yorkville. Fantastic selections on both - I let Wifey do the ordering. She has a very good palate.

We shopped a bit, decided against a $1500 espresso/coffee maker and ordered take-out sushi from our favourite place. I figured that days like these are just about perfect, and it would be ideal if I were independently wealthy, so I could do this any time I wanted.

In PLO, no one is a Donkey.

Pre-flop raising in PLO is stupid. Nearly anybody who does it has one of two hands. Either AAxx, or KKAx.

If I call with a speculative hand in that spot and hit, invariably that person will pot it, with a naked pair of aces. At least at the levels I'm playing (10¢/25¢). You could argue that raising is just building you a bigger pot, but I dunno. I've seen it not work out enough that I don't think there's much point.

I wish that I had Pokertracker (for Mac - hurry up already) so I could see some of my stats over the last few thousand hands. But I suspect that I've won more by NOT raising preflop when holding big hands.

Which is where the Donkey comment comes in. If I happen to make a loose-ish call when I suspect someone is raising with the typical holdings, and flop something good, and win at showdown, I get called a Donkey. Is that fair? Starting hand value is so close that raising isn't really going to force anybody out. They can't really fault me for calling. PLO is a game of suckouts and bad beats, that's just how it works.

I think being good at PLO strengthens your NL game. By constantly getting it in with the best of it (and losing) it prepares you for the volatility of NLHE. It doesn't sting as much for me anymore. Plus, it really makes you look at all the angles.

Win with the Ace High.

That doesn't happen to me very often. That triple-up (and the subsequent hands) propelled me from the basement to the bubble in the CT game.

Wow. The CT game gets moved to Wednesday for the first time since it's inception over three years ago, and we get the biggest turnout of the year! 47 CT'ers donated to the Seitz333/cdnmoose fund.

As bait, a few of us added extra prizes to sweeten the deal if we got over 40 players. I agreed to pay the bubble entry to next week's game, and it snowballed from there. I was lucky enough to bubble, thus winning myself my own money, and $5 from jojo. I joked that the next time, I should offer a add-on to the winner (so I can win).

I'm thrilled to see the numbers shoot up for this quarter, let's hope that the trend continues, and that moving the game to Wednesday's was a good move. Welcome to all the new faces that came out to play, I hope to see you again.

Also, if you're new to CT, you should check out Seitz's website to view the all0time stats for the CT games, so you know who not to bluff (jojo)!Tournament Stats

Tilt-ish

Just finished playing the MMN game on CT. Let's just say that in HORSE, I hate the RSE part. I was also playing a PLO tourney on FTP, and was actually doing quite well, especially after this hand:


Things were going swimmingly, until I got cute with Aces double suited, and just called a PF raise from the button. The flop seemed harmless, and I bet, he repopped it and I should have folded. But I continued with the hand. Turn brings an offsuit 7, and I check, he fires again, and I just call. What a donkey. I gave him half my stack and actually got tilted. It hasn't happened in awhile, but it really hurt when I saw his total crap J, Q, 7, 2. Might be time to take a little break from PLO.

Redeeming hand from earlier today:


Yes, I sucked out pretty huge here, but this is why you shouldn't play 2285 to a pot-sized raise preflop. Seriously, WTF?

Royal Cup

I played an awesome live tournament this weekend. Cdnmoose recruited me and a few other chiptalkers to play on his team, and it was easily the best time I've had for $50 in a long time.

The game consists of teams of 8, playing a mixed bag of games over the course of 12 hours. PLO or 7Stud, followed by a LHE, NL, and Headsup SnG. All spots are awarded points for their respective finish. I finished 2nd in PLO (which was my preferred game of PLO & 7Stud), 4th in LHE (which I royally suck at), 1st in the NL game (Woot!), and a bust in the Headsup. My team captain told me that the guy I was headsup against was extremely aggro and would raise with any two cards. I took him at his word, and after the guy limped, I raised with AQs, he re-raised 1/3 of his stack, and I decided to push. He insta called with bullets and that was it. Ouch. As it turns out, if I had won that headsup match, we would have finished in 2nd overall in points rather than 3rd. Oh well, there's a lot of "woulda coulda shouldas" in this type of tournament.

I had a blast and would easily do it again.

I got verbally berated by BigMike (CT) because of my flat call from the button with pocket threes after it had been three bet PF in Limit. I deserved it. Bad move on my part!

Here's my busto in PLO. We got it all in on the flop. What a heartbreaker river card!