Review Week - Part 2

More fun last night.... As usual, I looked forward and played in the Weekly Mook. Always a good time... except for when you finish 55th out 55 players.. DOH!!!!!

I don't remember who it was but they limped UTG and I believe the button and SB also limped. I had KJs and checked (early in the tourney). Flop comes Jxx and bet out and get min raised by UTG. Turn comes x and I check raise and get called. River comes J and I insta push. UTG pauses for a bit; but calls with AJ and IGHN. Good Times.

I also played 1 SNG last night and find myself with a huge lead on the bubble. I finished... uh.. yep.. 4th... on the bubble..

Also playing a 5/10 table and low and behold find myself stuck $250 on beats like AQ losing to AJ, TPTK losing to flush on river.. set losing to straight... etc... etc... luckily I found my way back to make $2 overall in ring play. Woohoo!!!

I also lost $4,000 playing BlackJack... luckily it was just a time filler while I was listening to my college basketball team (Missouri State) lose another game to Creighton and it was only play money... ;-). Play money aside, it is kind of fun to play 3 handed at $200 a piece and doubling down with 7 against a 6. Obviously, it doesn't always work out; but again, it was play money.


So why again to we play this game called poker?

Enough of this silly poker talk... This is review week and since I'm obviously not in a poker mood, I will make my SNG Training site review the last of the 3 reviews that I will do. So much like our buddy 3Jacks and his CineJax, I am going to throw a movie review in for good measure.

Let it be known, that I don't get to see as many movies as I used to since Baby Wonka 1 and 2 arrived on the scene other than Pixar and Disney type movies (not that there is anything wrong with that); but me and Mrs Wonka finally got a chance to go see a movie and the movie of choice was Rocky Balboa.

A little disclosure. I am a huge, huge Rocky fan (even more so that Wonka). I have watched the previous 5 movies more times that I care to remember. I even proposed to my wife in front of the tiger cage in the Philadelphia zoo and re-enacted the Rocky proposing to Adrian scene from Rocky II. There were also 4 TV news cameras and 2 Newspaper crews to follow the action. Our 15 minutes of fame, I guess.

Anyway, I went into the movie with very low expectations because I too believe that these have carried on too long. Having said that, I still wanted to see it. Funny thing, this movie was actually getting pretty good reviews (as per imdb.com).. in fact it was being rated as the 2nd best Rocky Movie.

On to the Review... The movie more or less starts out with a retired Rocky working in his resteraunt called Adrians which is obvioulsy named for his wife... his late wife as it turns out. What, a Rocky movie without Adrian... say it ain't so. OK, it's so. Rocky Jr has also grown up and is on his own in the business world. Pauly is still the same Pauly.

One night in the resteraunt, they are showing something from ESPN that has a virtual boxing match against the current champ, Mason "the Line" Dixon and Rocky and without surprise Rocky wins which of course this spurs on speculation that the current champ should fight the 60 year old Rocky. In fact, AJ Benza (from High Stakes Poker) is the promoter of the fight. So, if you can get past that "thing", then I think you will really enjoy the movie. It brings back a couple of characters from the original movie (Spider Rico and Marie) and does a great job in closing the Rocky book.

Marie actually becomes a big part of the movie and at some points, it looked like there was going to be some romance there which of course would have been a huge mistake... but Rocky perhaps gets the wrong idea and says something like ... "Yo, Adrian may be dead, buy she really isn't dead to me..." so that threw away any kind of story line there and it went back to more of a father daughter thing which for me... worked.

Without question, my favorite part of the movie are the moments after the fight. I won't go into details or spoil the ending; but for me it did exactly what it should have done. A fine finish to a great story. As usual, the music is good. The training scenes aren't quite the same; but the guy is a bit aged so I didn't expect much out of the training and fight scenes.

5 stars out of 5... Of course that is a little biased..

Review Week - Part 1

It's been a while since my last post. AGAIN, running bad (or just playing bad) has been the direct contributer.. I've probably gone through 2K... My Win $ at showdown over the past few weeks is at a horrid 40% which is almost unbelievable... but since I lived it, I believe it. SNGs have also been on the down side of the normal roller coaster that I ride... so the SNG Fest is officially over as I blew through my account balance on Full Tilt and haven't worked on a new e-wallet yet. My rakeback provider was nice enough to give me a partial payment for the month early so I do have a couple hundred dollars at Full Tilt; but I'm going to take it slow and easy.

I won't comment on the whole Neteller thing as there is plenty out there other than to say that it is just unfortunate.

Instead, I'm going to take of this blog space with a few reviews mixed over a few days... A little TV poker review, a SNG training site review and a non poker review...

We'll start with a TV Poker Review. Has anybody had a chance to watch Late Night Poker? At first glance, this is a great, great show. 6 world class players in a 20K buying winner take all SNG. Another nice twist is that there is practically no commentary. We get to hear most all of the table talk... not to mention that Shana Hiatt is back. The first week was actually pretty good as it had Phil, Mike the Mouth and Sheiky and Huck and Gus and Daniel, I think... so there was plenty of talk including an expected blowup by Phil Hellmuth who vowed never to play again... oh wait... he returned for the 3rd tourney..

Now, the second tourney is where I want to focus my attention. This was a table of WSOP Main Event Champions... Moneymaker, Gold, Ferguson, Doyle, Chan and Carlos.. I couldn't wait... I will say that I have NEVER been more disappointed in a poker show. First, there was practically no table talk. Shana finally got Jamie Gold to talk a bit. Say what you will about Jamie Gold (and they are probably all true); but I think this guy is getting a bit of an unjust rap. He may not be the best poker player in the world and he fully admits it; but he does enjoy it and for the most part is fun to watch. Unfortunatley, without much surprise, he had an early exit.

Now, for my real beef. The play has been... hmmm how do you say this... especially when it is about world champions.... suspect. Things like limping UTG... limping with Aces.. minimum raises.... etc, etc.... It's about enough to make me scream... not to mention that they had to take 2 hours to decide to fold when they were caught with a weak hand or bluffing... Of course, they showed their hands a bunch.. AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!...

To their benefit, it was a pretty deep stack tourney with a lot of play and they ARE world class players that pride themselves for their post flop play. The thing is... I didn't see it. Other than Moneymaker (who I of course was pulling for being one of the many people in this game because of him) who would make some moves, everybody else was a bloggers nightmare.... Weak / Tight.. I've never seen so many people pushed off of hands or not aggressive.

Perhaps that is why they have millions and I am almost Busto... I'm going to give it another week and see how it happens as this week it is Sammy Farha, Mike the Mouth, Phil, Andy Bloch and a couple others I can't remember right now..

Especially since High Stakes Poker is back on with original episodes, they will be my first priority to watch. The first episode was classic as usual as Gabe Kaplan and Daniel actually traded places and Gabe actually won some pots by bluffing.... nice!!!!

I'll be attending the weekly Mookie Tourney so I will see you there... Stay tuned for further reviews coming this week..

SNG Break and Mook and 25K (DQB)

I decided to take a few days off from playing SNGs. I have played 50 or so this month and will get back to them shortly. I will also post the stats by the weekend.

One thing I look forward to every week is the Mookie tourney. It is always fun to get together and play poker with fellow bloggers. Things started off nicely when I flopped a nut flush against Donkeypuncher and he folded to my river raise... I few hands later with pkt 8s and put in a raise on a K high board and this time he had the goods so I was back where I started. Not much happened until Mr 3Jacks hoyed me with his sooooted Big Slick. I smelled a rat a called with my pkt 7s on a 9 high board.. I continued to move up and with Pkt Tens there was some action; but on a K high board I hold to fold to the pressure.

All in all, it was a fun tourney. I ended up in 5th place out of 57 runners. Congrats to Donkeypuncher who finished out and won the thing. Congrats also goes out to Zeem who has finished in the top 3 both weeks.

-----------

I also had a token sitting in my FT account so I decided to try the 25K guarantee. Things started off bad but was able to get back to my starting stack about 20 hands into it; but then lost some more... My 47th hand was something that you don't see that often... Take a look

FullTiltPoker Game #1574453299: $25,000 Guarantee (11040995), Table 103 - 40/80 - No Limit Hold'em - 22:42:56 ET - 2007/01/10
Seat 1: adavis3232 (1,113)
Seat 2: soren d (1,202)
Seat 3: RITTER88 (1,120)
Seat 4: The_Lee (2,325)
Seat 5: superbugsly (5,175)
Seat 6: rivered25 (6,348)
Seat 7: deric421105 (3,365)
Seat 8: crackhead1 (5,992)
Seat 9: willwonka (1,085)
RITTER88 posts the small blind of 40
The_Lee posts the big blind of 80
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to willwonka [Tc Ts]
superbugsly folds
rivered25 raises to 240
deric421105 folds
crackhead1 folds
willwonka calls 240
adavis3232 folds
soren d folds
RITTER88 folds
The_Lee folds
*** FLOP *** [Qh Td Qd]
rivered25 checks
willwonka checks
*** TURN *** [Qh Td Qd] [5s]
rivered25 bets 80
willwonka calls 80
*** RIVER *** [Qh Td Qd 5s] [Th]
rivered25 bets 160
willwonka raises to 765, and is all in
rivered25 calls 605
*** SHOW DOWN ***
willwonka shows [Tc Ts] (four of a kind, Tens)
rivered25 shows [Qc Qs] (four of a kind, Queens)
rivered25 wins the pot (2,290) with four of a kind, Queens
willwonka stands up
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2,290 Rake 0
Board: [Qh Td Qd 5s Th]
Seat 1: adavis3232 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 2: soren d (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 3: RITTER88 (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 4: The_Lee (big blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 5: superbugsly didn't bet (folded)
Seat 6: rivered25 showed [Qc Qs] and won (2,290) with four of a kind, Queens
Seat 7: deric421105 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 8: crackhead1 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 9: willwonka showed [Tc Ts] and lost with four of a kind, Tens

DQB!!!!!!! only my Quad Tens were not goot.... losing to Quad Queens.. He even slow rolled his call to make things worse.. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and saying that he was probably on other tables... but one would thing when you flop quads you are kind of paying attention to the table...

So my journey in the 25K guarantee was a very short one.

OH well...

Suicide Watch

I was on Suicide Watch Saturday Night... OK, not really; but what a way for my Cowboys to lose. The first thing I want to say is that... Tony Romo...... You are..... forgiven... I am not at all putting this loss on you. True, you did not have a good game; but there were so many other things that stuck out...

• Terry Glenn fumbling
• Roy Williams continuing to blow deep coverage
• Defensive line not stopping Seattle after the botched field goal and letting Alexander go for 20 yards (or whatever)
• Game planning by the coaches
• No pressure on the QB
• Dropped passes
• Bad passes

Also, for the record, I don't think that Whiten had the first down although obviously he made it past the 1 1/2 yard line. Doesn't really matter.. 4th down is 4th down and they are going to kick the field goal.

I can't remember the last time that I was so down about a game. I almost wish they were blown out than to lose that way. OK, not really.

I certainly hope that there are changes for next year and I think it starts at the top. Bill Parcells was a great coach. I did not see that this year. Maybe it was the coordinators around him. Obviously, TO needs to go. He is nothing but a cancer to the team. It starts out kind of small like it is now; but just keeps growing.

Anyway, there you have it. I am continuing to play SNGs this month. Again, more or less break even after 50 or so SNGs as I am really faltering on my end game. More on that later in the month. I'll post stats tonight.