Dump & Run

Not a whole lot to report for this weekend, other than some displeasure with Full Tilt for causing me to prevent my blogger tourney cherry from being popped yet again.

When the BloggerPods didn't go off last weekend as planned, I signed on either Sunday night or Monday morning when Full Tilt was again available and signed up for the rescheduled tourney for this Sunday. I know this for a fact because I got bothered at least once this week by a freeroll whore who would've seen me on the list and wanted the password. But lo and behold I wander upstairs no more than a minute before 6:00 (I may or may not have been dozing in front of the NASCAR race and my wife had to yell at me), fire up Full Tilt, and I was puzzled when a table didn't open. With SNGs you have to go the SNG tab for your tables to open, so I went to the tournaments tab. When a table didn't open this time, my heart sunk. Sure enough, I flagged down the BloggerPods tourney, it was f'ing SEATING, and there was no seat for me. If I just would've planned to be up there a couple mins early just incase I'd have been fine, but the poker gods gave me just one more big ol' fisting.

Other than that, I killed my home game on Friday, so that was nice. I broke the same guy early in both of the first two tourneys (combination of good luck and his terrible LAG style) and managed to cruise to nice little wins in them, then in the third, while I never did anything huge I played a strong tourney and hung in for 3rd and a little profit. I won $55, which isn't too damn shabby for $5 tourneys and only 12, 12, and 10 players. That brings my cash bankroll up to $190 again, and makes me feel at least a little bit better about my roll with plans to head to Council Bluffs on the 23rd and play some 3/6 with a buddy. We planned to go play a session at the local casino, then I remembered I've got an $80 voucher from my trip to CB for the WSOP, plus they sent me a free buffet, so I figured another $80 (that I actually didn't lose but they thought I did, so it is truly free money) to the roll and the buffet is totally worth the 3 hours of drive time and $20 or so in gas. So I'm excited to get back to a live session for the first time since late Jan, but I will definitely be steering clear of 1/2 NL for a while, and am looking forward to being able to play some straight up math poker at the 3/6 table.

Played 2 SNGs on Saturday that I was pretty indifferent about. In the first one I made steady forward progress and then doubled up through the LAG chip leader when I flopped a set and he flopped TPTK and I got it all in on the turn. I should've taken the thing down easily, heading into heads up with an 8k to 5k advantage, but I doubled up my opponent when I knew I was beat w/A-rag. He had AK. I struggled back up to about 8 to 5 a couple times, but ended up getting all-in PF in the BB w/QK vs a limped AA. Not much I can do there. He picked a perfect time to limp rockets, but my money probably would've gone in preflop no matter what. It just never felt like I was gonna win after I got my money in bad and knew it against that AK. The 2nd one was actually a really nice test of game as I went up early, then had what I felt was a very well excecuted bluff with unimproved suited gappers in a raised pot called down by an unimpoved AJo after I called PF, bet the medium rainbow flop, checked the face card turn, and then bet 3/4 pot on the river. I thought it was a pretty good bluff for a flopped set, but my opponent didn't buy it. So after that and a bunch of unimproved preflop limps I found myself nearing the 10xBB mark w/9 left. I started hitting a few hands and scooping pots with pushes and managed to work my way back up into as high as 2nd with 7 left. After a couple more dropped there were 5 of us, all with stacks in the 2k range and the blinds relatively low. We passed some chips around for a while and it looked like a couple might drop, but they'd always manage to get back in it. Eventually the blinds got to be significant so I got to the point where I was less waiting for another couple to drop and more looking for my own spot to get it in. I found that spot w/KQo on the button and even though there was a PF push in front of me, I really felt like I'd be in good shape. This guy was a pretty competent player, so I figured if he had a real hand, he'd want value, so I figured I was 40-60% and made the call. He showed 9s, and when I flopped two pair I just didn't feel like I was out of the woods. A 9 on the river confirmed my suspicions and I was out in 5th. I won a whopping $.90 on the session, but it was my first winning session in over a week, so I walked away feeling good about the fact that I was even making hands and in a position to cash. At the same time, I managed my heads up match terribly and am not happy about it.

Probably won't be playing a whole lot this week for various reasons (anniversaries and 69 degree weather keeps a guy away from the computer pretty easily) throughout the week plus the fact that we're headed to Kansas City to party with my brother for St. Patty's Day. My shirt should come in the mail today. On the front it has a leprechaun with a beer and says "Official Irish Drinking Team" and on the back it has "Windbreaker" and the number 53, my old basketball number (and the hand I've been considering to be my bluffing hand). So it should be nice to take a little road trip this weekend and party in a unique place for St. Patty's Day.