I LOVE seperating people from their money!

Last weekend rocked from beginning to end! Saturday morning dawne and I woke up late so there was no way we were going to be in Shreveport in time for the 11am tourny. No worries, i'll just play cash games! We hit the road around 8am. We watched season 1 of "30 Rock" the whole way so the 4+ hour drive went by fast as we laughed our butts off! We got to the El Dorado around noon. Dawne's cousin's husband is kinda big cheese at the casino so our r0om was comped. Nice rooms. The bathroom was really big with a shower and a tub. Lot's of granite...etc. I like that. I love staying in hotels! So then we hit the buffett, it was so so.
Now time for some POKER! Dawne headed to the board walk to do some shopping while I headed to to the poker room.
When I got there there were 6 full tables. 3 of which were the last 3 tables of the tourny that i missed. The other 3 were 1/2 no limit. I got on the list and also asked if there were was any interest in a 2/5. She said no. Oh well 1/2 it is. I didnt have to wait too long before they opened a new table for everyone on the list. I bought in for $200, as did about half the table. The other half bought in for only $100. There were about 3 men at the table that wanted to play big pots...they really wanted to gamble. This made me very happy. That meant all I had to do was wait, pick the right spot and take a chuck of change from them. And that, my friends, is exactly what I did. I played for 3 hours and took $600+ off of them at a 1/2 game!!!! It was so damn easy! Man i love this game! Live poker is sooooo much easier that online poker. Wow, that fact was so glaringly obvious to me this trip.
So I racked up $840 took it to the cage and cashed out to get ready for dinner.
DINNER: OMG! So me and dawne and Stacy headed to the steak house and had the most delicious meal i have ever had in my life! We had crab cakes, quail, shrimp augratin, Filet and lobster!!!! For EACH of us! Dawne and I were going to split it but Stacy wouldn't hear of it! I could go on and on about this food guys. But "wow' is all i've got. So get this..the bill comes. it's $320 (we didnt have any drinks by the way..this is all food) and of course our meal is comped!! YES! I did leave a pretty hefty tip though. We were so well taken care of...it was awsome. Then we went walking around the casino with Stacy and she knew EVERYONE! And EVERYONE LOVED her. It was like walking around with a celebrity! Needless to say I never made it back to the poker room. We left the next morning having had a great day on saturday and extra $600 bucks in our pocket! (oh except minus the money that Dawne spent while she was shopping- she did buy 2 pair of jeans that look great on her though so well worth it!)
We got home by 1 on Sunday and spent the day watching football, laying in the hammock in our backyard, reading and soaking in the hottub! My kind of weekend!

Living the Life!!!

I took this picture while I was sitting in our house and playing poker on my laptop!!! And the best news is...I was winning money!!!! It does not get better than this!!!

The trip was awsome. That's my sister cracking a coconut and my nephew Carson and Dawne are playing Mexican washers.

We had an amazing week full of fun and relaxation!

On to poker. I've been playing online more with decent results. Pokerstars is running a new kind of sitngo called "double or nothing" and i did fairly well at it yesterday. I've only had a chance to play about 10 of them but i doubled my money 8 out of 10 times. I look forward to having some time this weekend to play alot of them.

Bad news..the 7 clans poker cup has been cancelled. I had a room booked for the whole week of those events...i was really looking forward to that one. Oh well. It's been rescheduled for February. Now i need to figure out another series of tournies to play.

Mexicoooooooooooo!!!!

We're heading to Mexico this weekend. We have rented this house for a week!!! I am so excited and ready for some serious relaxation!!! I was planning on playing some poker online while i was there but i just found out that there is no internet in the house....oh well it's probably for the best. Maybe i'll find some tourist who want to come to a "home game" in our rental house??!!

Next poker tournament is Nov. 8 and 9 in Shreveport.

Harrah's New Orleans

Trip Report:
Dawne and I flew to New Orleans on Saturday morning. About 12 of our friends were already there celebrating a birthday. This was perfect because Dawne had friends to play with so I was free to hit the poker room and not feel guilty!
I played all day Saturday and about 3 hours on Sunday. I had a great time! I played 2/5 and even 1/2 while waiting for a 2/5 seat. The games were playing big. I think i bought into a 1/2 game for $500 and and I bought into a 2/5 game for $800.
I'm not going to go into alot of details right now because i don't have much time to write but I ended the weekend up around $440. Could've been better, could've been worse. I would have won more but i took a big hit to my stack when i flopped 2 pair and and a lady rivered a straight even though i was NOT giving her good odds to keep calling me. oooooohhhhhh welllllllll.
Sunday I played differently than i usually do. I was just in a good mood and just felt like splashing around in alot of pots and having fun. It was probably the most fun i've had a poker table.
All in all it was a great weekend! I'll post some specific hands later.

New Orleans This weekend

I'm heading to Harrahs New orleans this weekend. Dawne will be playing with her friends and I will be playing with my little friends (my little friends are are round and red!). I'll check back in on Monday to post my results.

This post has nothing to do with my dog...

but I just had to put this picture of her on here becasue it makes me laugh so hard when i look at it!!!! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!

Anyway on to poker talk....

Before i recount my weekend i want to mention a book that i just finished reading called How to Turn Your Poker Playing Into A Business by Ann-Margaret Johnston. I recommend it if you are uncertain about how you are taxed on you winnings whether poker is a hobby or your profession. It was an interesting read and definatley something i'll refer back to.

ok on to the poker playing

Friday morning I woke up did a few things a round the house, took Lucy for a walk then loaded up and hit the road. It took me 2 1/2 hours to get to Isle of capri, I got there around 12:30pm. I tried to check in but they did not have my room ready yet. No worries...I certainly knew how to pass the time! The buffet!! Ha! You thought I was going to say poker huh? WEll, yeah the buffet and then I headed up to the poker room. I approached the sign in desk and got put on the 2/4 and the 5/5 list. I preferered to play the 2/4 but i really didn;t want to wait for a long time so i figured I'd just play whatever came up first. They were just starting a new 5/5 table so that's where i took my seat but as it turned out there was someone at the 2/4 that wanted a seat at the 5/5 so we switched and everyone was happy. The big stack at my table was around$1000 so i was able to buyin for $500. And a way we go! First of all let me just say that if you havent played at the isle prepare your self!...This game plays so loose and much higher than 2/4. A standard raise is $20-$25 and still 5 players will see the flop! It was a very volatile game! I was debating what my strategy would be for this kinda game...there was so much gamble in it...so i figured i'd just jump in there and gamble too! :) One key hand that I won alot of chips in was a rare time that I was in the big blind and got to check my option with a Q 6. The flop came QQx. I bet $35, got called by one person. The turn was a 6....sweet full house. Now i bet about $75 and got raised to around $150, i called. The river was a blank I bet $150 the guy moves all in for about $250 I call and win a monster pot. I win a couple more small pots and build my chip stack up to around $1,100 in about 2 hours. Now here is where poker gets tricky for me. When to stop playing??? Well my first mistake was calling Dawne and telling her that I was up $600+. Of course she wanted me to stop playing right then...get up, cash out! But what was I supposed to do...go sit in my hotel room after only playing for 2 hours??? I came to play poker! So i promised her that i would play tighter for the rest of the day. Right. In all honesty I did tighten up but i took one really bad beat that cost me alot of chips. Here is the brief version: i was in the hand with 7 5 suited. the flop comes 775. Dream flop obviously. The problem was someone else had a seven too with a higher kicker. He hit his kicker on the river for a bigger full house. That hurt. Anyway I was up and down for the next few hours...never dropping below my initial $500 buyin. I finally got up and cashed out with about $150 profit. It was better than losing money but it still would have been nice to have won more.

:(

On to day 2. I woke up and drove to coushatta. The plan was to play in their 2/5 game for a couple of hours then play in their $230 tourny.

I had to wait for about 30 minutes before i got a seat I bought in again for $500 and only played for about an hour and a half before the tourny started. I honestly can not remember any remarkable hands....I just know that cashed out for about $660 so again a profit of $160. Much better though considering i didnt play for very long.

The tourny started at noon. And to be honest I was sort of wishing that i hadnt registered for it already becasue i would have liked to just keep playing the cash game. Mainly because i heard that the tourny only had like 40 people in it. Usually there is 100+ people but the hurricane aftermath was keeping alot of the texans away. Anyway, it started out well. Early on i flopped a full house holding a suited A5 and won alot of chips, then i floped 2 pair holding AQ again alot of chips, I raised with a 35 of diamonds and ended up making a flush and won alot of chips.....but then thing took a turn for the worse. The problem was with so few people there there was not as many chips in play therefor with the increasing blinds everone was feeling short stacked quickly. The whole tourny just played differently. Several people were discussing this. It basically sucked. Anyway i lost alot of chips to this guy that went AIPF with A9. I had pocket kings, i had to call. He ended up catching an ace of course. Then i was short stacked with about 12 people left. I was just looking for spots to double up. I picked up some decent hands managed to double up once with an A 8 spades and made the nut flush but it still didnt get me back in the game. My final hand (just short of the money) was a pecular hand. At this point i was looking for any ace to shove with. I picked up A2 suited in the big blind. Only one person had called my big blind everyone else folded including the small blind. I shoved. He had about the same amount of chips as me so i was thinking he would need a pretty good hand to call off all his chips with. He called me with 3 6 offsuit. weird. whatever. he hit a 6 on the flop. i never hit my ace and i was out. The bad news is that i did not cash, the good news it that i am happy with the way that i played and i cant see any mistakes that i made.

Back to the cash games!

I had to wait a bit for a seat then they started a new table that was a must move table. I played at the first table for about 15 minutes without any thing exciting happening except some guy being rude to the dealer. He made a string bet, (I saw his hand clearly go over the line), so the dealer wouldn't let him put more chips and he kept arguing with her. I kept my mouth shut but he was definately wrong. If he had kept on with it i might have said something to him. As it turned out he quieted down and then i got moved to the MAIN table. This game had been going on all nite long so there were some monster stacks on this table. Probably $20k on the table. I was really not thrilled to be moving to this table with my measly $500 and as it turned out i didnt have to! This guy Paul who is a regular was just telling the floor that he wanted to move from the other main table to the MAIN table, i hadnt even sat down yet so with a couple of nods of our heads it was decided...i would take his seat at the second main table and he would take my seat at the MAIN table. Getting all this??? Ok so now on to poker.....i like this table! This table was a little bit loose to but nothing like the Isle. The was these two black guys that were really kicking up the action and trying to bully people out of pots. Their chips stacks were up and down from $200 to $500 from one hand to the next. I was avoiding them. There was one person on my left that i was very anxious to get into a pot with though. I dont mean to sound rude but this guy was the fishy fish fish. Example: I had Ace Queen. The flop came Axx. He could not lay down his pocket queens to save his life (or his chips) I won about $200 off of him. He reloaded and i took another $75. I was very nice to him when i was taking his money though. He reloaded alot, $200 each time. He was in the whole maybe for about $1200. Bummer for him. I really wanted him to stick around but the problem was that one of the black guys was being kinda a jerk to him trying to intimidate him. So stupid. So the fish finally left. And several of us kinda came down on the black dude like saying.....man, why did you run him off??? Some people just dont get it. I mean if someone is losing a bunch of money why would you want to run them off??? I was trying to be really sympathetic when i took his money...kinda like "sorry buddy, it could happen to anyone you played well" even though he didn't. whatever. The only other hand i want to talk about (this post is getting long) is one where i had pocket aces. I raised preflop got a couple of callers. Flop came A T x. It was checked to me I bet, one person folded one person called. Actually i cant remember exactly how it all went down. Basically a jack hit on the river. The guy bet $45 and i thought about it and decided to just call just in case the guy had KQ and had just made a straight. Well that was in fact exactly what he had and so he beat my set of aces. The reason i am writing about this hand is because even though i lost this hand i only lost about $80. Several people at the table commented that it was incredibly disciplined of me not to go broke with that hand. So yeah that was good. looking back i should have bet bigger to push him off his draw. but at least i realized when i was beat and lost the minimum. soooo anyway i finally deicded to head home around 7pm. up another $175.

All in all:

cash games: + $485

tourny: -$230

not a very profitable weekend. oh well i had a great time and i at least i didnt lose money!!

Damn Hurricane Ike

Well first let me say that me and my family are fine and all our property is fine and I hope yours is too.
But the hurricane kinda messed up my Tunica plans! :(
Oh well, new plan: Friday 9/19 I'm off to Isle of Capri. I'll play cash and the 8:30pm tourny and spend the nite there. Saturday morning i'm heading to Coushatta to play in the noon tourny then heading home. At least I'll get a little bit of poker in the week!
Hope you're all doing well!

My Current Stats

I have played in exactly 37 live tournaments

I have cashed in exactly 16 of them (ITM: 43.24%)

ROI: 131%

I'm Such A Donkey

I played in a tourny over the weekend and I ought to have my poker license revoked (if a had one that is). So here is the jist of the story:

$325 buyin

48 players

super long structure (12 hour tourny)

top 8 cash

first place makes $5,800

I play well all day. Pretty tight in the beginning but once i got my aces cracked by K8 I totally loosened up my game. I mean why sit around waiting for good cards if that is going to happen right?? Anyway we get down to 2 tables. I have a pretty decent stack (about 25bb). I was chipping up pretty good thanks to this one guy. I totally had his number. He was super LAG and everytime he raised I wanted in that pot because i knew i could outplay him postflop. He always gave me credit for a big hand thanks to few monsters that I showed earlier in the day. So if the board had an Ace in it i was betting like I had it whether i did or didnt. He always folded.

I had another big hand with someone else. I will recount that now:

I'm in middle position, i look down at 2 jacks, i raise 3 times the bb. I get one caller, the guy in the bigblind. This guy was a pretty good hand reader. I had been with him most of the day and he made some sick reads. Anyway the flop came AJx. This was a dream flop for me if he had and ace. If he didnt have an ace i probably wouldnt get much action. He checked, I bet but not too big because i wanted to see where he was and try to get some money out of him. He called. Sweet...he had an ace, probably AK and thought he was trapping me or maybe he didnt raise because he was scared that i had ace jack? The next card was a blank. He checked again. Now do i want to bet small or big? I thought about it abit and decided to move all my chips in the middle. He made a great laydown with ace king and said "i think you have a set of jacks". Damn, anyone else probably would have payed me off in that spot. I still won a pretty big pot though.

So on to the hand that maked me want to kill myself.

I hadnt seen any good cards for awhile so when i looked down at QJ in late position i figued it was time for me to at least try and pick up some blinds and antes. (at this point we are down to 12 players and the blinds and antes are significant) Everyone is tightening up some because we are so close to the final table of 9. I raise and get one caller. I would prefer to have just taken it down right then obviously but oh well lets see what the flop brings. 3c4s5s . Action is on him, he bets and before i know what the hell i'm doing i am moving all my chips in the middle. It was as if something took hold of me and just did it! I had no hand and no draw. WTF?????? I didnt even THINK about what I was doing. So he thought about it for a second and reluctantly called. He probably figured me for an overpair but he had 6c6s which made him open ended and gave him the odds to call my over pair (which i didnt have!). It sucked so bad having to turn over that QJ. I stood up, told him 'good call' and started getting my stuff together. I had 6 outs. about 24% to win. well the turn brought a 7 of spades giving him a straight. i was drawing dead. as i was leaving i saw the river card was an 8 of spades giving him a straight flush. even if i had an over pair i still would have lost. that actually made feel a little bit better for some odd reason.

So after playing for 7 hours i was out in 12th place. Man that one sucked! Dumb dumb dumb. I think i got possessed or something. Why did i shove? What is wrong with me?

Anyway i will say this: I really feel like i got my monies worth in this tourny. Clive may rake alot on his cash games but his tourny entry fees are very fair. We were fed and treated to tourny with the best structure i have ever played. Yeah it was a little bit warm in his house and there was a really loud parrot behind me for awhile but over all...well done. It saved me a drive to coushatta.

The only negative thing i have to say is about the first dealer that we had. He was awful. I think our table was at a disadvantage in the first couple of hours considering that we saw less hands than the other tables due to this inexperienced dealer. For $325 you expect someone that knows what they are doing. However once it was broght to clives attention he remedied the problem and pulled the guy out.

Anyway I guess that all for now.

Football and Poker!!!

Oh man can this Sunday get any better??? I think not! I have tourny here in Houston with a $325 buyin...probably 60 people....and of course football will be on!!! I love football no matter who's playing but when the Cowboys are on...oh yeah! Romo is my boy! If anyone wants to put some money on the game let me know. The spread is currently 6.5 points.

Hope you have a great weekend, i'll be back on Monday to recap my Sunday Tourny. Ciao!

My new table!

I ordered my table!! Here it is!!!I t should arrive in 8-10 days!!I am so excited! I'm such a nerd I know!
Too bad we dont have a big game room to put it in. I'm thinking what i'm going to do is move my desk out and put it in my office at home.
Then i'm going to buy a big piece of glass to put on top of it so it will be a combo of poker table/desk. Good idea huh??!!

Mid-America Poker Classic

As I mentioned before I am traveling down to Tunica in about 10 days. I'll be there from Sept. 15th -20th. Here's my schedule for those who care:

Monday: fly in, check in and play some satellites

Tuesday: 11:00am NLH

Wednesday: 11:00am NLH

Thursday: 11:00am NLH

Friday: 11:00am NLH

Saturday: checkout, fly home

(Note: Evenings/nights will be filled with cash games and satellites)

Wish me luck!

Home Game!

Well I'm going to be hosting my 3rd home game on Sept. 27th. I'm looking forward to it! It's only a $25 buyin and I am anticipating several newcomers to the game of poker...so it should be a fun/non serious game. The first 2 home games I had were small...maybe 10 people at each. One was at my birthday so i made everyone play. Hopefully this one will be a bit bigger. Maybe 2 full tables??

My new chips will be delivered by Monday the 8th. I just ended up ordering a set of Nevada Jacks.....not too too fancy but beter than the set that I had.

I still haven't bought or built a new poker table so we will be using the 2 nonfancy ones that i have.

I've got some tourny management software on my computer, i've got cut cards, dealer buttons and seat cards so i think i'm good to go.

There is a tourny this weekend here in Houston that i'm thinking about going to. It has a $325 buyin. I still need to get the "ok" from my honey though. I think she has mixed emotions about my poker playing. She liked the extra $2500 I just put into our personal account (I keep a seperate poker account per her request) but on the other hand she thinks i'm obsessed and dont pay enough attention to her. She has said that wishes that she was a poker chip sometimes!!! Ha! I think my next blog should be devoted to poker and relationships.

bye for now

Tunica in September!!!!

Ok it's booked! I will be playing several events in the Mid America Poker Classic at the Horseshoe Tunica from Sept. 15-20!!
I'm super excited! I got a cheap flight for $340 and the poker room rate at Harrahs was $40 per nite!!!!!
The structure for these tournys is terrific. I will be playing in 4 of the $340 events and a few other satallites as well. The $340 tournys have a PF factor of 19.84, awesome.
Thats all for now!

A Desicion to be made.

ok so i played the coushatta $230 again on 8/23. as i have mentioned before i have played this tourny 4 times and made the final table all 4 times. i knew a time would come that i woulndt make the final table but i dreaded it. would this be the one?

about 5 hands in to the tourny i look down at pocket jacks. long story short there is alot of raising and reraising going on...lots of money in the pot. then the flop comes something like 8 6 2 (2 clubs). alot more betting a raising and rerasing ensues then the turn. a 3 of diamonds. then i bet, shortest stack goes all in and another guy goes all in. wow...i have a decision to make now. i'm sure that i'm up against a set or a pair better than my jacks. but i call because i have so much invested in the pot and there is SO many chips in the pot from all 3 of us!!!
we turn over our hands and to my suprise: one guy is on a flush draw and one guy has a pair of 9's. my jacks are so far the best hand holy crap!!!!! the river is a blank and I basically triple up within the first 15 mintes of the tourny!!!!!!
for the next few hours i am playing soooooo good!!!! i am taking down every single pot that i enter with the exception of one hand which even though i lost the hand i lost only a few chips. i had an Ace high straight but i checked it down because there was 4 spades on the board and i did not have a spade. my straight was beat by the flush but like i said i didnt lose much on that hand.
anyway i'm totally in the zone and before i know it we are down to 2 tables!!! i have plenty of chips to get to the final table. in fact i could just fold my way to the final table if i wanted to! but here is where i had my big desicion to make: i could play super tight not play any big pots no matter what cards i had and make it to the final table for the 5th time in a row and cash for maybe 2k ooooorrrrr i could really go for it and try and accumulate alot of chips while everyone else is tightening up and try to get the final table with a moster stack and go for the win of 6k!!! Obviosuly option B was more risky but i felt like at this point i had already proven to myself that i could make the final again if i wanted to so i decided to go for it!
a hand came up, i had pocket queens. i raised and got called. the flop was all little cards, did not look dangerous at all. i bet and got called. the turn was again another little nothing card. i moved all in and got called by pocket kings. river did not help me and i was out in 15th place becuase he was the only person who had more chips that me at out table. oh well...thats poker.
it was a bummer, 2k would have been nice. but i'm still happy with my decision to go for it even though it didnt tuen out like i had wanted.

Why I Love/Hate Online Poker

Ok so yesterday logged onto Pokerstars and here is one of the first hands that i played (i'll just give the brief version):

There is a raise in front of me, I have KK in late position so I reraise BIG, some other fool calls with an 8 3 offsuit knowing that there was a raise and big reraise in front of him. Guess what the flop comes??? yep....8 3 Q. My hand does not improve from there and I lose the hand. That's why I hate online poker.

Of course I eventually won it all back from him and other fools that play so dumb. And that's why I love online poker.

Anyway, I ordered some samples of cloth and vinyl for the poker table that we MAY be building. Ok that we ARE building. What the hell. Why not take on another project! If real estate and poker don't work out then maybe i'll become a poker table builder!!

Online Poker

In my last post I started writing about online poker and my inability to make any real money at it. I certainly have not been able to match the results I've had playing live poker. BUT>>>>I think i'm going to try again. I've been reading alot about bankroll management and also about cash games as opposed to tournament poker and I think I'm getting a better handle on it. I'm ready to try out my new strategies. I am going to start at the micro limits .05/.10 with a $200 starting bankroll on Pokerstars. I'll track my results here on my blog. This is obviously much lower stakes than I play live. (When I play live I usually play $2/$5 at coushatta.) So .05/.10 will be a challange to take seriously but I really think it is best for me start at the bottom online and work my way up. I also have a pretty cool monitor that is fairly new that I want to multi-table on. I'm not talking about 20 tables or anything like that, the most tables i play is 4.
Wish me luck on my endeavor!

Poker on the Brain

If I am not playing poker then chances are I thinking about poker in some way. My latest idea is that I want to start hosting a regular game at my house. But before I do that I want to have just the right poker table and chips. Sure I have a table and chips now but the table is just one of those fold-up tables (nothing too fancy) and the chips are just a basic set of white, blue, black ceramic like chips with no values on them.

I want a badass poker table and a badass set of real clay chips. I'm all about the accessories!!!! I'm going to post a picture of the table that i want. What do you think? I can have them make it without the cup holders. Or here is the really crazy idea: Dawne and I are thinking of building it ourselves!!!! I have the plans and I think we can do it! If we decide to do it I will post our progress on this blog.

I've been collecting poker chips for few months now and I have recently aquired some antique chips on Ebay. I also bought a copy of the original United States Patent that was submitted by Harrahs for the poker chip as we now know it. Like I said if I'm not playing poker then I'm thinking about poker!!!

My next tourny is on August 23rd. It's the $230 at Coushatta again. I'll be staying for the weekend and playing some $2/$5 cash games on Sunday. In the meantime I might venture back to Pokerstars. I swore to myself that I was finished with online poker but I keep getting sucked back in....and then sucked out on! Why cant' I win online???? I do pretty well live, I even drop down in linits when I play online but still no cashes to speak of.

IN THE MONEY AGAIN!

Well I had a very profitable weeekend at the tables so I figured now would a great time to begin blogging about it.
I got up early on Saturday morning (Aug. 2) and I drove the 3+ hours to Coushatta Casino all by myself. :( Dawne (my gf) and Lucy (my dog) were going to go with me but Lucy hurt her leg last week while plying with one of the cats so we figured it would be best for her and Dawne to just stay home.

I arrived at the casino around 10:30am which gave me enough time to check into my hotel, freshen up and head over to the poker rooom.

Ahhhh the sound of poker chips!!!! God I love this game. I registered for the tournament which cost $230 and started at noon. I like this tournament, it suits my playing style. I have played it 4 times now and I have cashed in it every single time. We start with 8000 in chips, the blind levels last 20 minutes for the first 4 rounds then 30 minutes after that. Overall the tourny last about 7-8 hours depending on when we decide to stop playing and chop the pot. (Usually around the final 4 players). This tourny draws a little over 100 players each week so the prize pool is about 21k.

I grabbed a quick bite to eat just before the tourny then drew my seat card and sat down at my table. Unfotunatly I drew a table that I knew would be one of the first to break. Basicaly that meant that any table image that I worked to cultivate would be worthless when my table broke and we were all sent to different tables. What this meant is that I would not waste any chips on "advertising" in order to gain more profit in future hands.
Things were pretty uneventful for the first hour or so. By the first break I was still at about 8000 chips, I had not chipped up at all but the blinds were still so low that I was not worried at all.

Sure enough after break I began picking my spots and chipping up. To be honest I don't remember any key hands, I had no major double ups and I never had to put my tournament life on the line. I just slowly and steadily built my stack, always staying well above average in chips by using good hands or well timed bluffs. In fact that is always the way it has been for me in this tourny. Slow and steady all the way to the final table. (In future tournys I will jot down some notes on interesting hands so that I can post about them)

Once we got down to the final 2 tables I began getting more aggressive. As usual everyone else tightened up because they so desperately wanted to make the final table. I was able to pick up alot of blinds and limps to further build my stack. Once we were down to about 12 players I really started applying pressure and was able to go into the final table with a very healthy chip stack. One key had I remember is being in the big blind and it folds around to the smal blind who min rasied me. I called with I think a 78suited with a plan to take the pot away regardless of what the flop brings. The flop did not hit me. I remember it had king. The small blind bet into me and I moved over the top all-in with nothing. I had him covered so I was basically forcing him to decide if he wanted to end his tourny so close to being in the money. You know he might even have had a king but he layed it down because he sooooo badly wanted to cash. He said "That was a gutsy move". I smiled as I raked a decent sized pot.
On to the final table...

Of course right away someone suggested chopping the pot right then for about 2k each. A few people were for it but as I have done many times before...I held out. I told them that I would be open to a chop but not just yet. We kept playing and knocked out 1..2..3..4 players. Once we were down to six players the idea was brought up again to chop. I said I would be willing to but not for an even chop as I was second or third in chips at this point. Basically first got $3100, 2nd and third got $2800. We finished around 6:30pm so all in all not bad for a days work. That's about $430 per hour! Did I mention how much i love poker????

Afterwards I had a terrible headache. I almost always have bad headaches after long tournys. I am concentrating so long and doing so many mathmatical calculations that my brain just hurts! I hit the buffett and then headed up to my room thinking I might clean up and rest and then hit the $2/$5 table later on. That didnt happen. I watched a movie (Mr. Woodcock) talked to Dawne on the phone then attempted to get some sleep in that concrete bed!!! ( Not the Tempurpedic that I am used to thats for sure!!)

The next morning I woke up early hoping to get in a few hours at the $2/$5 table before my next tourny. I was also hoping that there would be some people at it that had perhaps still be there from the night before. Hopefully they would be very tired and give me some of their money!!! I bought in for $500 at a brand new table so no sleepy people that I could see. A few regulars and about 3 donaters. I spotted them right away and tryed to play pots with them. I only had time to play for about and hour and a half but in that time i made about $200. Most of that came from this guy trying to buff me out of a pot. By the river I had only made second pair but there was something about his $75 bet that made me think he had nothing and was just trying to bully me. I called it and sure enough...it was all mine! Plus it showed the rest of the table that I would call them down if I didnt think they had it and not to try and push me out of pots. I cashed out and got ready for my next tourny.

This buy in was only $150. The structure was the same but it had a much flatter payout...it paid the top 20%. There were 140 people i think. This was a private poker tourny for a league from Houston. I am not going to spend alot of time writing about this other than to say that the majority of these people did not know how to play very well and many of them had no concept of poker etiquitte. It was painful. I can't tell you how many times I wanted to just get put out of my misery so that I could go and play the cash games whick I knew were getting juicy by the minute as these awful players were busing out of the tourny and heading over there. Ahhh but my competiveness wouldnt let me so I kept on grinding away and eventually got my aces cracked and went out in like 13th place for $220 (inlcuding one bounty). Considering I played that tourny for like 6 hours it was a HUGE waste of time.

All in all it was a great weekend though. I can't wait to go back. And I can't wait till my next blog! This is fun!