Tonight's Mookie

Gonna try something different tonight. Am going to try live blogging of the game, as far as I'm concerned at least. May go further after I get KOed but not committing to anything. Hell, might not be able to keep it up as far as my participation goes but we'll try.

It's 15 minutes to start and 95 runners at the gate so far. Will we break 100?

We start with 114 runners and I find myself at a table with Josie and Riggs for familiar names

A lot of folding early but Josie has lost about half her stack to NYRambler.

Lose my first hand of playable cards to Riggs. Lousy flop so not a lot of damage

Seems Waffles is at the table and I just recovered some of my chips thru his good graces (hah)

Seems Waffles donated again. I'm going to get ripped if this keeps up.

Tough fold. Raise in position and get reraised by niktak. Flop gives me TPTK but niktak bets out fairly strong. Too early to push, overpair probable.

Riggs scores double KO, including Josie when he turns a set of Ks

Pick up some chips from Mattazuma when my A-Q turns out better than his K-Q on a A-K-J-x-x board

KK, gets no action from a 3xs raise. Oh well.

Waffles has just informed me he has a feeling I'm going out before him. Hey, anything is possible.

Just split a pot with Jamyhawk. PP9s lead all the way until we both river a straight. Called down with A-9. I then get called by Waffles on a J-8-8 flop with A-K. Doesn't anyone believe me when I bet?

Well, it's better than Monday night. I made first break and even have some chips. At least the poker gods ain't playing tricks tonight (except that split pot) On the whole the cards just suck so I'm folding a lot.

NYRambler just dropped the hammer on me with a reraise to my raise. Thing is, I wasn't a whole lot better.

Damn, K-K again, in SB, and all fold. BB folds to raise.

Take some chips off MaggieO. She minraised my BB and I call on general principle and smack the flop. She calls flop and turn bets and folds to value bet on river. Was I called down by another A-x?

Waffles shoves and called by myself and Jamyhawk. I hit the flop and bet and am called. Turn brings a 3rd spade and even tho I have top pair with nut flush redraw I check and Jamy shoves. I fold, he has Q-Q, Waffles A-T. River a 3 and Waffles is gone, so much for his feeling tho it was almost a draw. I lose half my stack.

Jamyhawk just takes out VinNay. He's on a roll. Called VinNay's shove of his raise with A-8 to VinNay's 3-3 and caught a straight.

I'm out. A-K shove with about 11 BBs. MaggieO had raised and Chippy McStacks called and both called my shove. MaggieO, with Q-J catches a J and Chippy with 7-7 and my A-K go begging.

I find CK has taken my seat and as she is live blogging, and does a much better job at it than I, I guess I'll shut down for the night.

Thanks for the listen.

A matter of priorities

Started the Poker from the Rail tourney in a blaze. Caught Quad Js and got a quick KO when Columbo filled up. Even a blind squirrel and all that jazz. Caught another KO when I caught Qs a couple orbits later and Willythe wise shoved his pp10s. Nothing for either of us on the board and I take chip lead for a bit. Didn’t last long as the very next hand I run K-K into Avoque’s A-A and hand over almost half my stack. About one orbit later I hand over half of what’s remaining to Xsyyunx when my flopped top 2 run into their flopped middle set. Never saw that one coming considering I had one of those 8s in my hand. Worked myself back to about 2500 chips with a few small pots here and there but go out a few orbits later when I my A-Q flops TPTK but Julleus is holding a K-K. Had some outs on the river as an A, a Q or a club would have given it to me but alas, no suckout and I’m out before the first break. Oh the ignominy of it, quads, two early KOs and I can’t even make first break. Oh well, I told the table I was there to donk chips and no one can say I’m not a man of my word. The Mookie on Wed. You know, been away from Tilt for a while and forgot how much fun these games can be.

OTOH I got a really good shave today. My mother was doing some Spring cleaning over the weekend and in one of her closets found two single edge razors, one double edge and, wonder of wonders, an injector. Gave to my father to give to me. Glorioski Sandy, didn’t know she was a reader. What’s a poker tourney compared to a close shave? One just has to have their priorities straight.

Thanks for listening

The BBT is back

Al’s at it again. No, not destroying some bar’s supply of SoCo but organizing the BBT., the Battle of the Bloggers, a set of tournyes over the next few weeks that offer a great set of prizes, courtesy of Full Tilt and Al’s effort. Full details can be found on Al’s site here. Come out and trash talk your favorite bloggers and see if they are as good, or bad, as they think they are. The BBT starts tomorrow, Sub., April 17th with The Invitational, an event I am only going to be able to rail as I am a mere Z-list blogger but I will be participating in some of the opens on Mon and Wed as long as my senility doesn’t kick in and make me forget starting times. Will probably rail tomorrow nights Invitational for a while to see who is playing but I have 2 fairly big tourneys on the personal calendar for tomorrow, the forum wars I have discussed in previous posts and a 35K guarantee sniper that I won an entry to last month, both on AP, so I will be a bit distracted,. Hopefully I last log enough that is. So, see you at the BBT. Thanks Al.

A good month so far

It’s been a hot couple of weeks on the poker front. As stated earlier I won the Buy in league I play which brought a couple of nice bennies although AP has reduced the guarantee from 40K to 35K on the tourney entry I won. Now that my daughter has gone back home I plan on playing it next Sunday night. Looks like they get somewhere around 350 players so should be interesting. It’s on AP so that’s a plus for me. Prefer the structure on the AP/UB sites to any I’ve played. There was a 30K deep stack listed that I inquired about as I much prefer a deep stack to a sniper but alas, it seems the agreement is for a sniper. I can change to the 25K on a Sat. but no deep stack.

Speaking of AP, this month’s GFN war games are being held on that site. A godsend considering Power Poker last month. The structure allows you to play some poker and even make a mistake or two rather than turning into a bingo fest after an hour or so. I prefer it as I said and so far it shows. I duplicated my showing of the first game last month by finishing fourth but in last night’s second game I followed it up with a second place finish last night which put me in a tie for first overall in the player standings. Should have taken first as I had a huge advantage going heads up but a misread or two, a change in my opponent’s style and a bit of luck on his part and I was vanquished. The change was a good move on his part as it caught me off guard but it was risky and that was where the luck came in. He caught when he had made a few questionable calls but I can’t blame him for the plays as earlier I had been forcing him off a lot of hands so he had to start playing some or get bled to death. It’s funny that the luck was on his side at the end because I hit a run of it earlier. It seemed the deck had come up and slapped me in the face as I seemed to win almost every race and even squirmed out of a few dominated situations. I was even being referred to as the luckiest guy online by some people. Yea, I’ll admit I was lucky, you have to be to go deep in tourneys but it wasn’t the kind of luck where you call a raise with 4-9 sooooted but the luck of winning the coin flips and the occasional suckout in a dominated situation but if people want to think it’s all luck hey, go ahead. I’ll happily take the second place as I was down to 400 chips at one point in the game. That’s one of the things I like about AP, I was able to wait a bit for a decent hand to make my play. At Power I would have been forced in to an atc shove almost as soon as I had hit the 400 chip mark. Two more games to go in this month’s wars. Hoping to keep myself near the top of the rankings.

Speaking of the top of the rankings and Power I got a pleasant surprise this week. I’ve been playing these games mainly for bragging rights and the freerolls the forum gets, never thought about personal prizes outside the tourney payouts. Given that I really didn’t care for Power Poker didn’t think I would be seeing much of the site. Reading the forum posts however I saw that the top 9 finishers received $111 and the rest of the participants got a $10 tourney coupon. So I go in to Power figuring I’ll check out this coupon thing and blow it on a quick tourney. Imagine my surprise that while I’m looking for the coupon I run across $111 in my account. Top 9? I hit the top 9? Except for that fourth place finish I thought my game sucked. Went to the results site and there it was, a tie for ninth. How the hell did that happen? Not going to complain though. While I might not like their tourney structure there seems to be a bunch of crazies at the Limit HE and PLO tables so I’ll work on my ring game with the money. So far I’ve added another $50 to the bankroll there. Another reason I wish to stay near the top of the rankings is that while last month the top 9 got the same payout this month it’s a graduated payout on the order of a final table.

Well, we’ll let it go for awhile. Still itching for some live play but with my foot still screwed up an AC trip ain’t happening for awhile unless I get someone to drive. Might give my opinion on the McNabb trade as if anyone gives a damn but for now, thanks for the listen.