My First Fifty-Fifty

I started off well. I doubled up and won another pot in the first level. In the second level I picked up 10-10 and flopped a set on a J-10-7 board. There were 2 others who saw the flop and I had position on them both. The fist guy shoves for almost 3x pot. The second guy calls all-in. I have them both covered by alot and figure I'm ahead. I make the call to see 8-8 and A-K. So 8-8 catches a 9 on the river for a straight. I'm still an above average stack, but never really get anything going after that. I last 2 more hours and end up shoving back at the button raise. I have A-J and he calls with 3-3. Ugh, I don't improve and I'm out.

I hope to play many more of these 50-50 tournaments. There are a few sats I can afford. I still plan on focusing on the SNGs. They provide me with a good bankroll building opportunity. I think if I can continue playing them well I'll find my bankroll in the $1000's before too long. That being said I need to stop spending my bankroll on too many other things that keep it from growing faster.

50-50 sat

So once again I have taken my sweet time updating my blog. I guess that one time I could access my blog from work was a fluke. I haven't been able to since. When I'm home I'm usually much more interested in playing poker than writing about it.

Moving on... I have been playing mostly $10 STT SNG's. I started out on fire, but have cooled off over the last dozen or so. I've played about 25 so far, so 100 is going to probably be out of reach. I haven't decided to start the $20 next month or after I get 100 $10. Either way I look forwards to moving up.

So I decided to try to sat into the Fifty-Fifty. For those who are unfamiliar it is a daily FTP $50 $50k guarantee. I took out 2 people I the first 5 hands. I kept getting good hands and getting people to give me all their chips. Here I am the early chip leader.

I stayed near the top until we got down to about 30 people left. The blinds were getting high and just planned on folding into the $. I didn't fold every hand, but I wasn't risking my chips for many hands at all. Here I open fold A-K near the bubble for the second time.

I was last in chips when we finally broke the bubble. I pushed the next hand and only got like 2 callers. I got lucky and couldn't lose a hand. I out ran K-K with 8-2. I look forwards to the Fifty-Fifty later tonight.

I'm such a dumbass

I'm a little upset with myself. I entered a $1 rebuy super sat to the $500k. Unfortunately I will be going to NY and won't be able to play. I didn't even think about it before the super sat started. I thought about it about 1 hour in (they don't even last 2 hours). I ended up winning, but still don't think I can play.





The final hand...

Ozzy55 actually also won a seat. It took him like 4 hands to realize that I wasn't an idiot by pushing every hand. Maybe he wanted to try to beat me heads up.

I said I was going to post some about my $2 rebuy win, but I've had some problems with my FTP site. It hasn't let me download some of the images I uploaded from my desktop. I'll try to get something up, but it will be less than I planned.

Thank you NFulton for posting my first comment. I'd love to hear anything constructive from anyone else who stops by.

July 2007 - Goals

For starters I not only didn't post any June goals, I didn't make any goals for myself. Let's see how I did on my May goals.

1. I didn't make it to $500 in May, but I did top it once in June. After my $2 rebuy win, I played some $50 nl and jumped up before I lost most of it back.
2. I have continued to improve my choices in times and games to play. I can't say I haven't played sometimes lately without my 'A' game, but I have done alot better.
3. Still no $400k. Now Full Tilt has upped it to a $500k.
4. I played more than 50 SNGs.

Now for some July 2007 goals.

1. Continue to increase my bankroll.
2. Don't play above my online bankroll.
3. Satellite into the $500k.
4. Play 100 SNGs.

#2 is my most important goal this month; maybe I should have made it #1, but I wasn't really putting them in order. My realistic bankroll is really much higher than what I have online, but it would be much nicer to never add $ to Full Tilt again. #4 may be difficult for me; it really depends on how many days I'll get to play this month. I've never really done more than 2 tables at a time, and I'm not in a rush to.

Absence Apology

I have to apologize to anyone who has come here for new material to read. There are so many reason why I have not been updating. For one thing, I have not been playing much poker and therefore don't have much to talk about.

My office has added 'Websense' to our server. It is a pain in the ass. Apparently I can now, but originally all blogs were blocked from use. Websense is also smart enough to block all proxy servers and even information about proxy avoidance. Very annoying. I cannot visit CardPlayer.com either, because it is a gambling site. What is funny is I can actually gamble with no problem.

Enough complaining.

I won my first tournament (excluding freerolls) last night. It was a $2 rebuy. I will have more on that later this week. I am excited for my $400+ score though.

I again apologize for the lack of updates. Hopefully now knowing that I can visit the blog from work again as well as my recent win I will have more to write about and more opportunity to do so.

Not Much Poker Lately

I haven't been playing much poker lately. There are many reasons why, some good some not. I have been trying to play golf alot lately. We are having our annual golf outing here at work, so I am trying to practice so as not too make too much of a fool of myself.

The golf outing will actually be a best ball tournament. We will have players of all caliber playing. (well at least from terrible to pretty good. No pros or really even close I think.) I am not very good myself, but I don't suck either. I can hit the ball well alot of the time, but probably not even most of the time.

Golf is really difficult.

Moving on... I also have not been as motivated to play poker as much as usual. I gave myself a shot at the FT Daily Double last friday. I did OK, but didn't cash in either event. I was close in both, but close doesn't really mean anything.

I also lost three big hands when I was >90%. I don't recall them right now, but they were bad beats and I have to move on.

I will post soon on my goals for June and my results for May.

Other Blogs

Well before I ever started my own blog I was reading other poker blogs. Almost all of them have inspired me in some way. I am able to get some insight that would not be as accessible on a forum. It has also been nice to read the progression of some of the bloggers. Some of the blogs I read often and enjoy the most are:

Regularly Updated (At least more than mine):

AlCan'tHang
Blinders
Cracknaces
Fuel55
Hoyazo's blog
Loretta8
Pauly's Poker Blog
Rizen Poker
Smokkee
Tripjax

Others:

LUCKOWNAGE - Lucko21's blog.

sprstoner's blog

CBal's blog


This is what I have for now. I plan on updated this post from time to time and linking to it from the right side of this page.

Edited 1.10.08

Why First Place Is So Imprtant

I have been continuing to have success at the $5 SNG. I have now played 45. I started off only really playing 1 table at a time. I am now playing 2 table pretty comfortably. I plan to move up to 3 tables soon. I have been in the money in nearly half of the 45 so far. My ROI is 25.5%, but it still moves around an awful lot with each one I add. I realize that I have to play many more before that number is very accurate.

I noticed a couple days ago after I had played 5 SNGs that I had a losing session. It was disappointing because I cashed in 2 and bubble another. So I had finished in the money 40%, but my ROI was negative. I had finished 2nd and 3rd. I had already known the importance of finishing in 1st, but it really hit me there.

I also realized that overall I was not getting 1st enough. I feel like I have been very aggressive on the bubble and been finishing in 4th alot also. I have mostly been losing the heads up match at the end and coming in 2nd. I think I may be too aggressive at this point sometimes. I have been caught stealing and not wanted to play for all the chips too often.

My updated graphs:

A (dead) Link to My Blog

I often check to see how people have found my blog. Using my Bravehost Counter I can see what the referring websites are. I was surprised to see one that I was unfamiliar with.

http://omahahands.blogspot.com/

So thank you Brian for possibly giving me some more traffic. One of these days I'll start making some extra $ from my affiliate links.

Edit: The blog with the link was gone just as fast as it appeared.

Quick exit in FTOPS IV Event #3 Sat

Well, I'm not very happy with my quick exit. I picked up A-J of hearts in the BB on the very first hand. Flop was J high and bet all three streets. Someone had called with a flush draw and second pair even on the river. So great start right? Well yeah, but I blew that really fast. A few hands later our table was split up and I was off to a new table.

My first hand at the new table was the following:

Full Tilt Poker

Blinds: t20/t40

9 players

Converter

Stack sizes:

UTG: t1500

UTG+1: t1500

MP1: t1500

MP2: t720

MP3: t1455

Hero: t1945

Button: t1710

SB: t2940

BB: t2175

Pre-flop: (9 players) Hero is CO with jd jh 3 folds, MP2 calls, MP3 folds, Hero raises to t160, Button calls, 2 folds, MP2 calls.

Flop: 8s qh 3c (t540, 3 players)MP2 checks, Hero bets t300 (I was hoping the C-bet would just take this down now), Button calls (He took half of his allotted time and I was thinking A-K or pp, maybe 10-10 or 9-9) MP2 folds.

Turn: 5h (t1140, 2 players)Hero is all-in t1485 (well in hindsight this was obviously a total donk move, but I thought there was a good chance I was ahead and expected a call. I think a check would have been just fine, and again in hindsight, the right move.), Button calls all-in t1250.Uncalled bets: t235 returned to Hero.

River: 7c (t3640, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: t3640)

Results:Final pot: t3640

Hero showed Jd Jh

Button showed Ah Qs

I was really surprised to see A-Q. I really would have expected a raise from A-Q here. In the end I really blame myself for being such a donk, but I need to get over it.

At this point I was still in the tourny with a short stack. I needed to start pushing and hope to get lucky. Unfortunately this is what happened.

O well. Better luck (and decisions) next time.