180s

In part because I have gotten involved in a TLB contest on Two Plus Two, and in part because I like being miserable (I am after all a diehard follower of Northwestern basketball, see Sippinonpurple.com for details), I have decided to go back to grinding the $12 180s on Stars. The good news is I have running hot in them, but the bad news is they are slightly tougher than I remember them. In the good ole days, there were at least 5 or 6 complete morons per table, now it's down to 3 or 4. Even a lot of the fish seem to have made slight adjustments in their calling ranges and aren't giving up their blinds as easily.

That being said, these are still good value if you have the bankroll for them, so I'm going to keep at it for as long as I can stay sane. I'd really prefer to be playing regular MTTs, but I'm having trouble finding the time for long sessions especially now that football season has started. The WCOOP is underway and I hope to be able to play a few events, but my motivation isn't what it used to me and playing WCOOPs requires a pretty huge commitment, both in terms of time and the mental focus necessary, so we'll see what happens.

Thanks for reading,

George

Slump

haven't been posting because I haven't been doing anything worth noting. I got owned in FTOPS satellites and took a week off, came back yesterday and had a disappointing Sunday, although I did win a couple satellites to nearly get back to even on the day.

I'm back to the grind starting now though and to get ready for WCOOP. The extreme satellites Stars is running are a brilliant promotion; they add at least 25 seats to the prize pool and in exchange they make the tickets must play, which will make the actual events much softer. So we'll see if I can turn things around.

Thanks for reading,

George

FTOPS

I've played 3 FTOPS events so far, min-cashing in one and ~bubbling two others. The min-cash came Wednesday night in Event #1, a $216 no limit tournament. I was short stacked pretty much the entire time and could never get anything going, finally busting just after the bubble when I shoved A9o into aces.

The two bubbles came yesterday, as I was able to accumulate stacks in both the $129 and $322, but both times I went out near the money. That was certainly frustrating, but I'm not too disappointed as I felt I played pretty well and the cards just didn't fall my way. Playing in majors has really motivated me to step up my game; recently I've found that I get easily bored while grinding my normal schedule of smaller stakes MTTs in the $25 average buy in range, and my game often suffers as a result, but in the bigger FTOPS events I'm focused from the beginning and playing my A-game the whole time.

Lucko made a great run in the $129 FTOPS yesterday, but eventually bowed out with 3 tables left, so congrats/condolences to him.

Thanks for reading,

George

How MTTs have been going for me lately

Full Tilt Poker Game #22564727203: $18,500 Rush Guar (Rebuy) (174069986), Table 309 - 300/600 Ante 75 - No Limit Hold'em - 18:43:57 ET - 2010/07/24
Seat 1: abigballer (28,990)
Seat 2: Fast Louie1 (47,616)
Seat 3: KingPeKKa (34,630)
Seat 4: Onatole (59,165)
Seat 5: ALEMONTOYA (76,075)
Seat 6: Loretta8 (57,689)
Seat 7: kidkronik420 (120,991)
Seat 8: MoneysNewHome (13,753), is sitting out
Seat 9: rafitona01 (29,039)
abigballer antes 75
Fast Louie1 antes 75
KingPeKKa antes 75
Onatole antes 75
ALEMONTOYA antes 75
Loretta8 antes 75
kidkronik420 antes 75
MoneysNewHome antes 75
rafitona01 antes 75
Fast Louie1 posts the small blind of 300
KingPeKKa posts the big blind of 600
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Loretta8 [6h 6c]
Onatole has 8 seconds left to act
Onatole raises to 1,500
ALEMONTOYA folds
Loretta8 calls 1,500
kidkronik420 folds
MoneysNewHome folds
rafitona01 folds
abigballer folds
Fast Louie1 calls 1,200
KingPeKKa folds
*** FLOP *** [6d 6s Ad]
Fast Louie1 bets 600
Onatole has 15 seconds left to act
Onatole raises to 2,950
Loretta8 calls 2,950
Fast Louie1 folds
*** TURN *** [6d 6s Ad] [9s]
Onatole checks
Loretta8 bets 6,900
Onatole calls 6,900
*** RIVER *** [6d 6s Ad 9s] [Ts]
Onatole has 15 seconds left to act
Onatole bets 17,500
Loretta8 raises to 46,264, and is all in
Onatole has 15 seconds left to act
Onatole calls 28,764
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Loretta8 shows [6h 6c] four of a kind, Sixes
Onatole shows [8s 7s] a straight flush, Ten high
Onatole wins the pot (118,603) with a straight flush, Ten high

rigged site

Atlantic City trip report

Unfortunately, a lot of what happened in Atlantic City is unprintable on this blog. I can tell you about some poker hands I played though. My first night down there I jumped into a $1/$2 no limit game while severely intoxicated and lost a couple hundred, mostly on this hand:

I'm on the button with about $300 in front of me, a couple limpers, I decide to make it $15 with the mighty 72 of diamonds (it seemed like a good idea at the time). I get one caller, a middle aged Asian man who has been in almost every pot. The flop comes JT7 rainbow, he checks I decide just to check for pot control. The turn pairs the 7, he checks, I bet $20 and he calls. The river is a 6, no flushes possible. He checks, I bet $40 and he mini-checkraises me to $80. At this point it's so obvious he has it but I can't fold to a min-raise on general principle so I call and he has 76o and I lose a big pot. Thankfully I won back the money I lost there at Pai Gow.

I also played in a $100 live SNG at the Borgata with Kimmer. Right away I get AJo in the big blind, there are 3 limpers at 25/50 with 3k starting stacks and I decide to make it 300, which was probably too aggressive that early. I get one caller (a middle aged white guy) and the flop is 942 rainbow. I bet out 350 and he calls. The turn is a king and I decide to try to represent it and bet 700, he thinks for a bit and calls. River is a ten, and I decide to just give up at this point and he checks back right away and shows J9o. So I lose half my stack right away.

A couple orbits later though I get KK in middle position, a guy in EP limps, I make it 200, the guy I'd just lost to calls in the SB, Kimmer calls in the BB and the limper calls. Flop is JT5 with a flush draw, SB leads for 500 and it folds to me and I shove, he calls with QJ and I hold and get back to just over the starting stack.

There was a hilarious hand I wasn't involved in, UTG makes it 200, a girl in late position raises to 700, middle aged guy calls, UTG calls. Flop is 973r it checks around, turn is a 7 it checks to the girl who bets 1500 leaving herself 300 behind. Middle aged guy immediately says all-in, and he barely has her covered. UTG folds and the girl immediately folds getting about 15 to 1. Middle aged guy then shows 77 for quads, and the girl asks him why he didn't just call and thinks his shove was a mistake because it forced her out of the hand, so great.

Anyways, I played very few interesting hands the rest of the tournament, I mostly just shoved on people in late position and I won a ton of pots with no showdown. I won a couple 60/40s against tiny stack's all-ins and eventually got down to 3 handed. The structure paid $700 for first and $300 for second. I was comfortably in 2nd, with the middle aged guy the chip leader on my left and a short stacked nitty old guy to my right. The bubble lasted forever as the old guy would keep waking up with hands when he got down to 2 BBs, so he'd double and hang around a few more hands. The nice thing was that the middle aged man didn't want to mess with me at all on the bubble and let me steal a lot, so I took over a small chip lead.

Finally the old nit busted and I was heads up, but at a slight chip disadvantage. He asked me if I wanted to do an even chop and I agreed to it. It may have been slightly -EV but I was getting tired and the blinds were huge so I don't think my edge was that big. $500 was still solid especially since I was so short early.

I also had another winning session at $1/$2, but I don't remember it well due to all the white russians. Overall I won money for the trip though, both at poker and at -EV pit games, so I ran incredibly hot. I should definitely quit while I'm ahead at pit games.

I haven't been playing online at all, maybe I'll get back into that soon.

Thanks for reading,

George

Atlantic City

spending the holiday weekend there with Kimmer and a couple of our other friends, probably going to break the casinos.

Trip report to come

Sad Day for Online Poker

no more French fish =(