The Coach's Game, A SNG Win, and a Bankroll on Stars?!

Hey all. I'm back again for what has become a weekly update. I swear at some point things will slow down, but as of right now I'm *maybe* getting any poker in 3 days a week. Ideally I'd get a few SNGs each night, but right now the ol' lady and I are living life to the fullest before the weather shuts us down.

Anyway...on to the poker. I mentioned in my last post that I got an invite to a 1/2 NL ($50 max buyin) homegame and I was planning on playing it. Well, me and two other buddies got there shortly after 2 and needed to leave by 5:30 to get back home to get ready for my Halloween party. I also mentioned last time that this game is SOFT. I lost a little money last time we played, but that may have actually been the first time I played cash, and I really didn't know how to take money out of a loose game. My buddy, though, won upwards of $300. So needless to say, we were expecting big things. And I'd have to say, the way things have been going for me, I was thrilled to walk out of there $35 richer.

Things started off about normal for me. Just craptastic cards. Nothing I could play. And I was *nervous*. Fact is, I didn't really have $100 to lose at the moment, so I didn't wanna blow my first $50 and sit nervously on money I couldn't afford to lose. I know this goes against several rules of playing good poker, but I wanted to play, damn it, so don't kill me over it. Anyway, I literally folded for the first hour. Nothing playable to the point where I could even complete the SB. Now, I know I should be in pots mixing it up with a loose game (and the game picked up right where it left off 2 years ago when we played), but I was playing scared. I needed something good to happen before I could really settle in. I even folded QJ a couple of times, which is a good fold in a tough game, but a marginal one in a loose game. One time I'd have made two pair and lost to higher two pair, and the other turned into a *huge* pot where I could've lost plenty of money drawing to at least the turn. So I was content with my folds and keeping my chips in my tray. Because even though they were playing loose, they were showing down big hands in the end. So after an hour we filled up to 9 and split into 2 tables. I had been blinded down to $38. If you do the math, that's literally 4 Big Blinds, and 4 small. I had played NOTHING. Weak/tight at its finest. Hell, the whole session can be summed up in 3 hands, so here goes nothing.

With $38 in my stack, I find AK in the big blind. It folds around to the button, he makes a raise to $6, SB folds, I pop it to $18, he looks at me and goes "I haven't seen you play a hand yet", and folds. SCOOP, and I'm back to $45. Not too long later I'm sitting in MP and a new guy next to me raises to $15. I look down...one ace...and another. I raise all-in to $45, it folds around to the original raiser, and he insta-calls. I show my aces and he shows a Q. Board comes Q-high, scaring the bejesus out of me, but then he peels up his other card, which is an Ace. Regardless, I've got 2 outs to dodge, and I have NOT been surviving 2-outers, so I was by no means feeling relieved. This time I hold up and the $90 pot is mine. Halfway through the session I'm up, and I finally settle down a little. I play a few pots here and there when I can get in cheap, and really just hover around the $90-100 mark. With $97 in my stack and 5:24 on the clock, the BB is coming my way, and I decide its my last hand. It folds around to the button (a different player than the button before), and he sticks in his last $11. So I'm not seeing a free flop. SB folds, and I look down at AK and call. He shows J10, flops a J, and the suckout strikes again. So with $86 and in the SB, I have another last hand, its garbage, I chuck it, and cash out for $85. But perhaps more meaningful than the money this time is some confidence. I sat down at that game scared out of my mind, but after doubling up I got to play a little poker, and while I didn't do anything remarkable, I actually got to have fun.

One of my buddies ended up down over $50 and the other ended up cashing out up around $170. They need to have this game more often.

Moving on, I got to play a little bit on Monday online. I played 2 SNGs, and I actually won one of them. I'll be damned if the deck wasn't hitting me in the face a little bit! It was pretty fun. I don't really recall the other one, but I think it was a fairly routine card-dead loss. Anyway, I've got $12.XX in my FT account at the moment, so I will live to see at least 5 more SNGs!

Then last night I decided to play in one of the "Join Daniel Negreanu in the Bahamas" freerolls at PokerStars. Of course its a satellite to a satellite to play in a SNG where the winner gets a trip to the PCA, but what's cool about the first and second levels is that they actually pay cash to the top 12.5 and 15%, too. For a guy with some free time and never having had a bankroll on PokerStars, its worth signing up for. I played one of these a couple weeks ago and got off to a good start, more than doubling early, only to get smacked by a 6-outer when all the money went in with me as a favorite on the flop. Cest la vie. Anyway, after starting with 10,000 players, we were down almost 6900 after the first hour, paying 1250. Insane. I built up some chips early, and then lost a few away, then doubled up when I had a 70% preflop all-in hold up. By the first break I was sitting just outside of the cashing window, but a double-up away from easy money. And when I quadrupled up when my KK held against 22, 66, and a couple of unders about halfway through the 2nd hour, I was as good as gold to cash. I *almost* gave it away when I thought about pushing my 66 in the BB against an MP raise, but I stopped myself and said "This is one of those times where you get your money in dominated and go broke and hate yourself afterwards" and just called the min-raise and check-folded the flop. PF min-raiser had QQ, which held, and I felt good about avoiding that disaster. A short time later we made it into the $1 cash level, and now we needed to play down to 603 to get me another buck. I couldn't find a spot to get my money in for the next 20 mins or so, and I finally pushed w/KJo UTG with barely 3xBB, was called in two spots, and lost to AJ when an A fell on the river (not that he needed it). I was out in 730th, outlasting 9270 players before the 2nd break. That's nucking futs. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that I was sitting at a table with 4-5 dead stacks for the first hour and a half, so that went a long way toward making this 730th out of 10,000 finish seem "easy". We were playing 4-5 handed with blinds up for grabs 50% of the time, so it was pretty simple poker. Nonetheless, a deepish run is a deepish run!

So I have one whopping dollar on PokerStars, my first real money ever on the site, and it seems I'm well on my way to pulling a Chris Ferguson. ;-) I'm not gonna dip into my real cash until these freerolls are over at the end of November (I can take my one shot a week), and I'm going to see if I can build up a little more and expand my options. The cool thing is that at sites where I've had cash (PokerRoom, Poker.com, Mansion, Full Tilt), $1 isn't worth jack, but PokerStars has .02/.04 limit tables and .01/.02 NL tables, and $1.20 9 player SNGs. So if a few things go my way, building my PokerStars bankroll from $1 isn't the most daunting task by any means.

So by no means do I have enough results to say I'm out of the woods on what is approaching a 6th full month of running bad, but the last three times I've played poker I've had positive results, but almost more importantly, some opportunity to have a little fun. If nothing else, I can be thankful for that!

Oh, and one more thing, being 20ish days and 850 posts behind in my reading, I just saw today that Fuel55 was kind enough to toss me a link documenting my bustout from the WBCOOP or whatever that big blogger tourney on PokerStars was that I sucked ass in. He's one of my top 3 favorite bloggers, so I was quite humbled that he even knows who I am. If you don't read his blog religiously, start now. I'm looking at you, PokerWeblogs.com patrons. Fuel is a genius poker player at all levels of NL cash games, and he knows his way around a tourney, too. He's equally as good of a teacher, teaching unbelievably valuable, complex lessons in simple, conscise methods. And he fills in the gaps with his amusing "series" (ie "Presto is Gold", "Flopped Straights Always Lose"). We won't even fault him for being Canadian.

Happy Weekend, everybody. Have a good one.