Friday, March 04, 2005

Iggy, Iggy, he's our man!

Looks like Iggy pulled through with another one!

The next online tournament for both bloggers and readers will be on Sunday, March 13 at 9pm EST.

We will be playing HORSE, and the buy-in is only $5.00. The tourney will be held at Full Tilt Poker.

I'm sure there will be tons of bounties, added money and bubble prizes.

I will post more as soon as Perry Friedman confirms that this date and time is okay.

Be there, or be, well, since I have no life, way cooler than me!

Felicia :)

Get on the HORSE!

Glenn has a good post up about some recent play at the Palms. Go check it out!
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Since both RGP and WPT fan site are holding their own, private HORSE tourneys on Full Tilt, I came up with the shockingly original idea that we should hold our own HORSE tourney there, too!

Betcha never saw that one coming out of left field, eh?

Iggy just wrote Full Tilt to ask about a private HORSE tourney for us. Yippee, I don't have to do anything more, just sign up and go!
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I proposed to Dan that I write up an occasional poker newsletter for the Palms. Their $500 added tourneys have been such a success that the Palms might actually become a "real" cardroom in Laughlin!

No, I won't take money, that would mean I'd have a commitment to be nice, PC and a responsibility to do the newsletter regularly. Can't have a real JOB, now, can I? :)
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I finished 4th in the WPT Fan private HORSE tournament.

I was short stacked almost the whole way through, taking some hits early, then treading water for the next two hours, haha! I'm good at playing short, since I'm almost always in that position these days during tourneys.

The play was pretty atrocious. RGPer's are much better HORSE players than the crew at the WPT fan club site :)

I had to go into a pretty passive mode until we got down to two or three tables, because they were literally calling huge bets with anything. Guys calling two or three bets cold in Razz with a king underneath. Calling all the way with two nines in the hole, etc. Someone said that the hole cards automatically shuffle on FTP at showdown, but if they did, they surely didn't shuffle mine. Maybe that is an option somewhere?

Stud 8 was funny, too. Guys making it two or three bets on third with the third highest doorcard (showing a ten, when two people left to act were showing a queen, king or ace). Just crazy stuff, stuff you would expect from kids who have never played poker before and are playing with matches.

Since hiding in the weeds is a good tactic of mine, that is precisely what I did, until I had a lock. Unlike the other night, this time I got lucky and when I pushed my hands, they held up.

One horrific beat I observed was when a player started with A234 in Razz and hit every brick in the deck, while his opponents started with crap (well, one did start with a three-card eight, but it was an eight-six or something that should have been tossed when he observed how strong the A234 was).

Anyway, I'm going to read some blogs and finish my coffee.

Have a great day!

Felicia :)

Monday, February 28, 2005

Clear Skies!

So what's been going on since last Thursday? Well, I surely wouldn't know, since, for whatever reason, when my blood sugar is bad I tend to lose huge portions of my memory! Maybe that is a good thing :)

Okay, so I went to play on Friday night at the Palms for the $100+15 tourney that Glenn got for $50.

I lost, what's new? I lost to a three outer. Nothing new there, either.

The average chip count was about 15k when we got down to the final two tables, I believe. If anyone was there, and is reading this, please feel free to correct me, because my memory is horrible right now.

Anyway, I'd been at the same table all tourney. So had the player in the one seat, who was the chip lead at our table. He had about 30k. He was actually playing pretty well, for a Laughlin tourist.

I was the BB in the eight seat. The nine was empty. He was UTG +1 and raised in a steal attempt, which he had been doing quite frequently, properly, with double the chips as anyone else (or more).

My BB was 600, I believe. The chip lead put in 2k for a steal attempt. I knew he didn't have anything, and that he had noticed that I had really only played one big hand during the entire tourney, shown down, and that I was mega-tight.

Anyway, in an attempt to resteal, I went all-in for 10k more with AQo.

Because he had 30k, he didn't even think too long. He called with KTs. I caught a queen on the flop, so I was in a pretty good position, since the ten couldn't hurt me anymore. Naturally he caught a king on the river. He even blanched and apologized. At first I acted all hurt and yelled at him, but then I made sure to tell him I was just joking.

Interesting that today's players feel that calling off 1/3 of their stack is no biggie.

Another thing that I am still working on is playing more hands, building up more chips early in order to keep myself from being at the mercy of the cards, the mercy of luck. Yeah, sure, to WCP calling a 10k all-in is just stupid, but to mediocre players, this is nothing, to lose 1/3 of their stack when drawing so slim. So I have to up the ante, I have to have more chips. Would he have called 15k? 20k? That is what I should have had by that point.

So once again, it wasn't "just another bad beat," I'm still playing badly.
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I'm having some fun online lately. Iggy used to laugh at me for playing freerolls and micro buy-in tourneys online, saying I was so much better than that. Perhaps one of the problems (or advantages, I'm not sure) that I have is that I treat all limits the same. I play seriously no matter what the stakes are, and I have just as much fun! Sure, everyone gets more excited over a win that might be one million than one dollar, but I do play just as seriously.

I do adjust my game, by the way. Adjustment isn't what I'm talking about here, I'm talking about playing seriously rather than for recreational purposes only, and playing because I want to. In those respects, I am just as happy playing a freeroll :)

Anyway, to get to the point, I've been playing some O8 tourneys online and have cashed in 2:2 at Stars. Both were $1 buy-in's, I believe. Fun, fun stuff!
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Last night we played in the Palms tourney. It is $40 plus one optional rebuy/add-on for $40. I came in 18th, Glenn came in 14th, Tanya came in 8th. All out of the money.

I played many more hands, and built up some chips early. At one point I had 17k, so I wasn't quite as tight as I usually am.

I went out, once again, in the BB with AKs. A man I've played against before, who is a loose player (we got to HU at a final table once) was in the cutoff with a billion chips. He raised only 2x the BB, which was odd, but I totally put him on a blind steal. Since a very tight player was on the button, and called the raise, I wanted to get him out of there, so I went over the top. The cutoff had AA, so I was doing just what he wanted me to do, dangit, lol. At least I was completely dominated this time. No more one-outers to add to my collection, haha!
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I'm still trying to figure out what is going on with the Plaza. I still have my hotel reservation for the duration of the festival.

Tanya has a call in to Ben Magee, the TD there. Dan also went up there last week to talk to Ben, since he'd never sent the lammers down to the Palms, nor had he returned Dan's calls.

Anyway, Dan says they still haven't decided on anything! No firm contract yet with a TV station. No satellites (multi-tiered or otherwise). No decision on the 4% or 5% juice, no advertising, no nuttin!

Figures! I always back losers.
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Iggy and Hank wrote an e-book about optimizing Poker Tracker. Congrats, guys!

Go have a look: http://www.pokertrackerguide.com/
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I think I'll play some low limit tourneys online tonight. They have the juice-free shootout at the Riverside at 7pm, but, although I feel a billion times better, I'm not sure I even want to go to town.

Good luck everyone!

Felicia :)