On the Scottwire

Pokerstars $11 Chiptalk.net weekly tournament

50 entrants

Early on I had some issues. My AA lost to 88 which hit their 8 on the river. My QQ had a Kxx flop and I got raised on the flop and decided to throw it away. So I was down to about 400 chips at the 25/50 level. Folded to SB who pushed all in and I woke up with AQ. He shows K7 and I double up when the ace hits on the turn.

Doubled up a couple more times and managed to take a bunch of chips off a weak player who kept min raising from late position.

With 7 players left I luckily doubled up when I pushed all in with 55, Megabit woke up with aces and I hit a set on the flop.

Now to my nemesis. This guy that never plays the tournament was a nutty player. Earlier he was one of two limpers at 200/400 and I pushed all in to 2800 from the Big blind and he called with J4s (he had about 12k chips). That was a nice double up for me.

So here is my knockout hand for your viewing pleasure. I sometimes half expect this in the beginning of a tournament, but at the final table?

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t600 (6 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: HTML)



saw flop|saw showdown



BB (t18344)

UTG (t13290)

MP (t14334)

CO (t13577)

Button (t10500)

SB (t4955)



Preflop: Scottwire is MP with Ks, Qs.

1 fold, MP raises to t1800, 3 folds, BB calls t1200.



Flop: (t3250) Js, 6d, Qc (2 players)

BB checks, MP bets t4200, BB calls t4200.



Turn: (t11650) Kc (2 players)

BB checks, MP bets t8284 (All-In), BB calls t8284.



River: (t28218) Ac (2 players, 1 all-in)



Final Pot: t28218





BB has 8c Tc (flush, ace high).

Scottwire has Ks Qs (two pair, kings and queens).

Outcome: BB wins t28218.

That is the worst flop call ever. Oh well I'll save my energy for the PSO freeroll Saturday.

Just a quick update. I haven't had any time to play at all. I've been keeping up with forums and podcasts but that's about it.

I got a 20% up to $100 reload from Party so I'll start working on that soon. I still have a Party Monster tournament entry that I have to play one of these Saturdays as well.

I will hopefully play a tournament or two tomorrow night but if not, I will definitely get to play Thursday night in the Chiptalk tournament on Pokerstars.

Good luck at the tables!

I played the 10:15PM $11 rebuy tourney on Pokerstars last night. I was mostly card dead for the first hour but I was on a great table with almost every hand all in. I finally got A8s and that was good enough to call a nutty all in with and the guy happened to have A8 also and we split the pot.

I had crap cards the whole time and at 50/100 I pushed my last 1200 with A7. Unfortunately the guy with A5 flopped 2 more fives and I had to rebuy.

Again no cards and I decided to not add on since I only had 1400 chips left and I didn't feel like putting more money in.

And then the chip building began. Second time around after the break I pushed 88 from UTG and got called by 2 players. Board came all rags and I managed to triple up against AK and A7.

Not much doing again for a while and at 100/200 I had about 2400 chips left. I had 77 in the small blind and there were 3 limpers. I thought about pushing but something told me to just limp in. BOOM A76 flop. I check, guy leads out like 1800, another guy calls, I push all in, they both call. I triple up and then some to about 8000 something chips. YAY

Got a couple of timely overpairs and managed to then eventually get my stack up to about 80k chips with KK. Unfortunately the next hand I get AQ, BB calls my raise and flop comes Q high. He pushes the flop and I call he has KK now. So I went back down to 50k. Went back and forth a while but I had plenty of chips to get into the money now.

Worked my way back up to 75k, and at 1500/3000 I raise to 9k with TT. Short stack pushes all in for 16k more and I have to call. He shows KK and I'm down to 50k again.

Work my way back up to 75k and I raise to 9k with A8s. Button calls. Flop is 422 and button only has 20k left. Last time this happened my continuation bet took it down. This time he called me with JJ and I was down to like 50k again.

At 3000/6000 it became push time and I managed to take down the blinds a few times but I finally had my A7 run into AQ and I was out.

98th place - $108.93

I was really feeling good after getting my stack up to 80k but I just couldn't get over the hump. Not bad though for only having $1400 chips after the rebuy period when there were guys with 50k at my table. I want that final table!@# may the flop be with you!

I join a limit tournament by accident. ARGH

Very first hand I limp in and hit a set and its my turn to bet and I'm wondering where the damn slider is. DUH

So most of these players are horrible calling stations and I never got over 2500 chips.

About 180 joined and top 18 get paid. $16 tourney on Bodog.

I keep getting nailed on the river by people who call or raise with nothing.

Final 3 hands - about 30 players left, 18 make money:

I raise with A8 in MP3 and chip leader calls on button. Flop JT4. I bet he calls. Turn is Q. We both check. River is a 9. I check, he bets, I call..he has K5. WTF

I raise UTG+1 with KQ. chip leader calls again and so does the BB. Flop 553. SB checks, I bet, they both call. Turn Ace, SB checks, I bet again, leader folds, SB calls. River is another 3. We both check. SB shows K2 and we split the pot???? WTF again

Final hand I raise UTG with ATs, leader calls again, BB calls. Flop T82. BB bets, I raise (and I'm all in), leader calls, BB reraises, leader calls...yada yada yada, river 6 and chip leader shows 97 for the straight and I'm done in 30th...sigh

I also played a 4 player stud tournament with some chiptalkers. Finished 3rd there ...paid $11 to get in and got $8 back so no biggie there.

Hopefully I'll get to play again before Thursday. Guess we'll see!

Saturday night I hosted a $15 tournament that we had 8 people for. It's hard to get all my friends together so we hold one about every 4-5 months it seems. This was our 7th tournament in a little over 2 years.

We start with 300 in chips and 1/2 blinds.

I accumulated some chips early and got up to 360 or so off the bat but then nothing was working after that. I just kept running into bigger hands. I finally had to push with TT and my friend Mike woke up with QQ and got quad Queens to knock me out.

What a crazy game this ended up being. Mike wasn't done there, he then flopped quad Kings on a KK2 flop and a few hands later had Ax on an AAA flop. He had a couple of full houses and another set too. NUTS.

Then there is the flip side. Almost every all in we had, the underdog won.

AJ lost to A7
A6 lost to KQ
Ax lost to K9
another Ax vs Ax where the lower x hit runner runner flush
sorry I don't remember them all but the list goes on...

When it got down to 3, Mike took a nice chip lead when Mark pushed AK and Mike woke up with Aces to knock out Mark in 3rd and get to heads up. Mike couldn't hold on unfortunately and let Keith sneak in for the win after getting lucky a couple of times in the long heads up battle. Mike went all in with the best hand as the short stack and Keith caught a pair to win the tourney.

The one constant in poker for me lately has been the Chiptalk.net weekly Thursday night tournament. I've been busy working on a lot of different projects so I'm not sure if I'll get to play a whole lot this month, but I will make it a point to play Thursday nights.

I had another good showing last night. My second final table in a row and a 6th place finish out of 52 I think. I played well until I let myself get blinded too low. With 8 left I didn't really have an opportunity to steal blinds and when I did have a hand someone in early position already raised and I knew I was a dog. I finally had to push with 44 and got called by KJ who hit turn and knocked me out. Oh well.

--------------------------------

I forgot that I used my Poker Share points to get a book. I only had 1100 points so my choice was limited and I have to use them by Sept. 19 I think. I got "How good is your Pot Limit Omaha?" by Stewart Reuben. I probably won't be able to read it for another month or two unfortunately.

So my poker book collection now:

Read:
Theory of Poker - Sklansky
NL Theory and Practice - Sklansky
Small Stakes Hold'em - Miller
Hold'em for Advanced Players - Sklansky
Super System 1 and 2 - Brunson
Harrington on Hold'em Vol 1 and 2
Psychology of Poker - Schoonmaker
Play Poker Like the Pros - Hellmuth
Championship No Limit & Pot Limit Holdem - Cloutier
Little Green Book - Gordon

In the Middle of (oops I get sidetracked a lot):
Harrington on Hold'em Vol 3
Weighing the Odds in Hold'em - King Yao
Caro's Book of Poker Tells
Tao of Poker - Phillips
Tournament Poker for Advanced Players - Sklansky

Of all the books I've read, I think I've taken the least from Cloutier's book. I know a lot of people hate Hellmuth's book, but while his Hold'em sections suck, I did take some things from his sections on stud and omaha, so not all is lost.

Tomorrow I'm hosting a tournament at my house so hopefully I make a good showing :) Wish me luck and have a good weekend.

I haven't had time to play but I am still trying to keep up with all the forums, news feeds and strategy articles.

So I decided to start putting them all on one page so they are easily accessible.

If you want to make use of it, you can find it here:

http://www.scottwire.com/feeds/

The left column is links to the sites I go to and the right two columns are RSS feeds that will automatically update every 15 minutes.

If you use it please let me know if you have any suggestions for good sites or feeds!

Steelers 28, Dolphins 17

Thank you Mansion!



Quick tourney results:

$11 rebuy Wednesday night: finished 260ish of about 1500

$11 Chiptalk tournament tonight: Finished 8th of 48 - won $20

Haven't had any time to play the last few days. I played one heads up tourney for an hour on Monday night with a couple of chiptalk guys. Only 3 of us signed up and I luckily got the bye and went on to win the tournament.

I've started reading King Yao's Weighing the Odds in Hold'em Poker and so far the first few chapters are just just a refresher course on odds and counting outs. He does add one new way to figure out if the pot is big enough to continue on with your hand but it seems a bit overkill. I'll let you know if I find any good nuggets in there.

Mansion closed the doors on the sportsbook promo. They reached 5000 people so there is now a potential 5 million dollar payout for them if the Steelers win big. I got in at Steelers -5 but some were lucky enough to get in at Steelers +1 after big Ben had his appendectomy. Good luck tomorrow night to all who got in on this offer. If you're still looking to hedge you may want to try Sports Interaction through Boogster. $120 bonus from boogster...the catch is you have to wager $500 in the sportsbook. So depending on how much you want hedge, this may or may not be advantageous to you.

GO STEELERS!

Playing: -$138.70
Bonuses: $422.16
------------------
Total: $283.46

It finally happened. My first losing month at the tables since I started taking the game seriously. It was a month of best hands on the flop disintegrating by the river. $100 of my loss was from two $50 NL buyins where I had trips and a set. Most of the rest of my play was from 2/4 limit and tournaments. where was about even on both.

I did win the ChipTalk Quarter Tournament of Champions which was a $22 sit and go and I managed to cash in an $11 rebuy tourney. Other than that I just got hammered all month long. Murphy's law in full effect.

Maybe I should go back to the NL cash games. I think I want to keep trying the big tournaments though for the chance at a big score. Not sure how much time I'll have to play this month though.

I jumped on some 3/6 tables and even a 5/10 table once this month and actually held my own and showed a small profit. I then went down to 1/2 6max and got reamed by all the fishes. Runner runner flushes were the bane of my existance there.

Oh well. Enough complaining. We all have bad beats and streaks. I don't feel like much of my game is off. When I start to tilt I know I'm making some mistakes though. I'm finally going to break out Weighing the Odds in Hold'em by King Yao, which I earlier this year but never read as I was making my transition to NL at the time.

I'm about 2/3 the way through Harrington on Hold'em Vol. 3. This book is a goldmine. I have gotten a lot of the book in terms of how to think about certain hands and situations. I'll have to go back and reread the first two volumes as well. I wish I had time for everything.

I wish I had the balls to move up in stakes. One of these days I'll move up permanently. I just still don't like losing more than $100 in a day. At my bankroll level, I should be playing way higher than I am, but I'm using some of the money as supplemental income at the moment. Once I have a full time gig again, maybe I'll feel more comfortable taking my shots.

I went down to Atlantic City yesterday for a friend's birthday to play in the $60 Showboat 2pm tourney.

Man these players are horrible. 2 people on my table called every big raise with crap.

An hour into the tourney:

I have 3700 chips (start with 5000) and blinds are 100/200

4 limpers, I raise to 1000 from BB with AA and get 3 callers. ( I should have raised more I guess)

I push all in (about 2700 chips into a 5000+ pot) on a T42 flop and one nut calls with 55 ...Turn 3...River 6 for the runner runner straight.

Pushed as the short stack a few hands later, got 4 callers and no love.

I'll put up my August report soon. I think this is going to be my first losing month :( not counting bonuses.

Thank you to all signed up for mansion through the PokerSavvy link! Greatly appreciated! GO STEELERS GO!