That just my opinion, I may be wrong

UPDATED... Since this was a post about opinions, I just heard about this and wanted to throw two cents in. First, read the post by Richard "The Quiet Lion" Brodie. This has to top the list of the most ignorant things I have ever heard. Basically, RB was banned from all (yes All) Harrah's properties. That is Harrah's, Ceasers, all other states... and yes the Rio. So what does that mean. No WSOP for one of the "good" guys of poker. He must have done something really bad to deserve this and he did. He won at Video Poker. Unbelievable!!!! A game that has a built in house advantage. The only other game he plays is.... Poker... I am absoultely stunned at this and wanted to make sure I did my part about getting the word out. I'm not sure what can be done about it. Just publicize it, I guess.


I usually don't go off on opinions on people or things here; but what the heck. A couple of things that have crossed my mind in the past few days.

But, as usual, more on that later.

This is a poker blog so let me talk poker a little bit. I had a Tier-2 token and I decided to use it this weekend as I probably won't be able to use it in "The Big Game" as I play softball on Sunday nights. Anyway, it was the 11PM Central one which I don't remember the guarantee; but it didn't matter as I don't think that there was any overlay anyway.

I ran about average for the most part which isn't unusual for me. Anyway 354 people started this $75 buyin tourney and we are down to about 70 and I get KK. Two all-ins before and I was more than happy to call with my Cowboys. Even happier when they turned over A4o and JJ. My elation was flattened a bit when the flop went 537 and turn 6 to give A4 his straight; but at least I had him covered and would win a small side pot; but the J on the river sent me packing.

That pot obviously puts me squarely in the top 10 and looking good; instead, I'm out around 70th where 36 pay. Again, I will say it, you just have to be Lucky to go deep in these things and yes, the luck means mostly your big hands holding up. Oh well, what can you do. It's poker.

SNGs for the month having been going good with 47.62% ITM and 30.55 ROI but could be a lot better. A big difference so far is that my hands aren't holding up and I'm about even as far as the counts of 1sts, 2nds and 3rds. Case in point... my last SNG that I played we got down to HU and I have 11K to 2K lead. Lose about a 60-40 fav with K5 vs J8, Lose a race with AKs vs 55, fold to his all in (I had 62), then lose a race with TT vs AQ and I'm out in about 6 hands. All weekend, AK was my nemesis. I lost at last 4 times with it when I was dominating to AQ (twice), KQ and AT not to mention races that I lost with it. Brutal.

I'm about 1/2 way through HOH vol 1. Hope to have something in the next few days.

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

I was reading in our local paper's sports page. Somebody had an article more or less about being an ambassador for your sport. The gist of it was that he was comparing Michael Vick to LeBron James and pointing out how they are going in opposite directions. I don't think that is too hard to agree with him. He went on to say that LeBron is probably the most popular and visible player in all of sports. Oops.. While, LeBron has vaulted up to the elite, he has not reached the top. I'm not sure who it might be; but certainly, Tiger Woods might have something to say about that; but that's OK, it wasn't too far off.

Watching LeBron over these past couple of years and so far culminating to the NBA finals has been kind of fun to watch and I definitely am not a NBA fan. And it just more than him athletically. They guy just seems to be a genuinely good guy and it is quite refreshing to see (especially in the NBA). I wish him well against the Spurs. I will be pulling for them. I do really like Tim Duncan; but the rest of the Spurs don't do anything for me.. plus they have their championships.

Now, Michael Vick. I might have said the same thing a few years ago about him. At least the special part about watching him. Off the field seems to be a different story. On to the dog fighting. While I am 100% against this and realize that this is a felony, I just don't get it. Somehow, it is OK to go hunt and shoot birds, deer and whatever else that people hunt. It's OK for two humans to get into a ring and box and now with this UFC stuff even more than that. Other than one being illegal, I would love for somebody to tell me the difference. In my mind, it is kind of like alcohol vs pot. More or less the same thing; but one is illegal.

Anyway, I hope Michael and other pro athletes get their act together. I know, pipe dreams.

Kind of funny, related thing. I mentioned to Mrs Wonka about the writer saying that LeBron was the most visible and popular athlete today and... actually, I asked her who she thought might fit this description. After a pause and some thought, she came up with...... Barry Bonds... I just said, I don't know why I try to talk sports to you. Again, taking nothing away from Barry's accomplishments, the guy is about as unpopular as you get except for maybe in the Bay area.

Now, that article got me to thinking about poker. I recently watched two shows this week. One was the latest World Poker Tour event and was a replay of the 2005 WSOP Main Event final table but they had Joe Hachem and Steve Dannemann narrating. I love it when they do that to get their perspective during the game. One of those two guys came as totally refreshing and the other guy rubbed me the wrong way which was confirmed during the WPT event. Of course, Steve Dannemann was the refreshing one. Joe just seems overly cocky to me. While he has been an OK guy in relation to representing poker. In other words, he is no Mike Matusaw or Phil Hellmuth; but again, he just rubs me the wrong way.

One thing that got to me was the during the WPT event. He had QQ vs somebody's AQ. Flop was nothing; but an Ace came on the turn. He totally went off and was just like.. hey I'm Joe Hachem... that shouldn't happen to me... Well, of course he gets his one outer on the River and just starts jumping and yelling like a teenaged school girl. Let's have a little compassion for laying a bad beat on somebody. Also, he got bluffed off a pot and again... it's like... do you know who I am.. I am Joe Hachem... WSOP champ. Well, Joe, just play cards.

To me, Greg Raymer was and is a much better ambassador for poker. That is probably why he is my favorite poker (or least tournament) player. Daniel Negreanu is also one of my favorites.

So there you have it. As Dennis Miller always said. That was just my opinion, I may be wrong.

Have a good day!!

Ho Hum May

Nothing too exciting for the month of May... My bread and butter game (SNGs) continue to struggle even though I am stuck down at $6 Turbo land. More on that in a short bit.

Today starts the 2007 WSOP and there is always a bit of letdown knowing that I won't be there to play or watch. Of course, I envious of the many people making the trek down there. As usual, I will just have to live through the words of Pauly and CC and the crew.

One thing that I am going to do is play some fantasy poker. Basically, you pick 15 people per event divided by 3 tiers (A, B and C). Ah heck... here is the rules from website..

Each Event, the challenge is to put together a 15 player poker team that will earn you the most fantasy dollars in that Event, not necessarily the entire World Series of Poker*. Your roster for each event will include 15 poker players consisting of:
five "A" Players (earn triple the winnings in fantasy dollars)
five "B" players (earn double the winnings in fantasy dollars)
five "C" players (earn actual winnings in fantasy dollars) You can re-select your entire roster prior to each event or let'em ride. Note: Just remember that if you don't submit new picks, your most recent lineup will be used for the next event.

I have even set up a Group called "Poker Bloggers" if anybody is interested in joining to gain bragging rights. The password is "blogsaregay".

So far, I'm in 1st place... oh.. only 1 person in there. Feel free to pass info around.

You can get to the challenge by clicking here . If that doesn't work, just click on the cashier within Full Tilt and then go to My Promotions and at the bottom will be Fantasy Poker. I hope to see a few people in there.

Back to my SNG results. They looked something like this:

Games: 72
ITM: 36.11%
ROI: 17.69%

1st: 14 (19.44%)
2nd: 8 (11.11%)
3rd: 4 (5.56%)
4th: 9 (12.50%)
5th: 8
6th: 6
7th: 15
8th: 4
9th: 4

A couple of things stick out. I'm getting my fair share of 1sts. Not saying much due to the $6 level; but I'll take it.

The other thing is my highest count of finishes was way down in 7th with over 20% finishing there. Wow, how does that happen. Sure, I'm aware of plenty of bad beats put on me early; but didn't know that many.

I'm going to really try an concentrate this month on tournies... both SNGs and the occasional MTT. Plus, for the first time in my life, I am going to really concentrate on studying. I'm committing myself to read some books this month. I've started on the First Harrington book. To force myself to read, I hope to put occasional reviews and/or thoughts of the part of the book that I am reading. I hope to have something up on the 1st half of HOH soon.

So, we will see how it goes. I doubt, I will document my SNG challenge as I have in the past; but I will probably post some occasional updates and hand reviews.

Have a good day!!!

7 Random Things

OK, OK.. I'll succomb to the to pressure. OK, no real pressure, but being a non-conformist, I held out as long as I could. Although, my biggest reason for not doing this is that I have led about the most boringst life that you can lead so not much to read here; but I was tagged by a couple of bloggers so I will go ahead and post a few random things about Willwonka.

1) I am a huge Dallas Cowboys football fan. I was actually born in Dallas but only lived there for 5 years where we then moved to Kansas City. We stayed there for only 3 years when we moved to St Louis. I have lived here ever since; but as they say, you can take the boy out of Texas, but you can never take the Texas out of the boy. I have a room dedicated solely to the Dallas Cowboys... ok, check that.. I had 2 daughters now which took away my Dallas Cowboys room; but the Dallas Cowboys ceiling fan remains in there. Like I said, I have two daughters. If I had a son, his name would have been Troy Daniel (for Troy Aikman and Danny White) and I would have called him Roger (for Roger Staubach); but that didn't work out and we had two girls. Their names are Landry and Lily which of course are named after famous Cowboys. I'm sure that you can figure it out. I'm excited for the future and have already bought a Tony Romo Jersey as I believe he is the man.

2) I have been married for almost 7 years which is truly a miracle that somebody could put up with me for that long. I was a little older when I got married (over 30); but Mrs Wonka was certainly worth the wait. We actually worked together for a little while before we started seeing each other. The office quasi frowned on inter-office type things so we didn't tell anybody. This went on for 11 months and 11 days before I popped the question which was done in a unique way. I am a huge Rocky Balboa fan (my wife wasn't) so we went on a vacation to DC/Philly/Atlantic City. While in Philly, I made arrangements to visit the Philadelphia Zoo to recreate the proposal that Rocky gave to Adrian in front of the tiger cage. The zoo was more than cooperative and they actually alerted the media and 4 TV stations and 2 newspapers were there to record the event. My wife had not seen Rocky II so she thought we were just seeing spots from the movie. Luckily, she said yes and that is how our office found out about us as we were on the St Louis News that night. A few people said that they basically fell out of bed because they couldn't believe it.

3) As I mentioned before, I am a huge football fan and played it from age 8 through High School. I had a few offers to walk on to small colleges but decided against it. To this day, that is one of my biggest regrets. Although at 6'2 210 pounds, I would have been killed, I would of had the time of my life. The regret was kind of doubled as I asked my dad years later if he was disappointed that I didn't at least try and he said yes. Part of the deal leads to my to my most embarrassing moment. OK, not really a moment; but embarassing fact maybe. I have never been able to bench press my weight. I'm just not sure how that is possible for as much as lifting as I did in High School; but it is what it is. To this day, I have never climbed a rope or pole. Just weird.

4) Religion or should I say Christiananity is very important to me. I was born and raised Souther Baptist and married a Catholic. We have both compromised and now go to an Evangelical Free church which is OK by me. To me, religion is not the important part. It is your faith and belief in the Bible that should set the standard for your life. I don't drink, nor smoke, no cuss (what do I do); but I obviously do gamble. So there is a fine line between my faith and the many vices that are out there today. To me, as long as you stay within the means (money) of your bankroll, gambling shouldn't interfere and it hasn't for me. The problem that I have is the time factor. I will agree that I spend too much time gambling (mostly poker) that could be used for more important things. My wife goes as far as to say that I'm addicted. Don't know about that; but it is worth noting.

5) Like I just said, I don't drink. I didn't drink at all in High School; but things were different in college For whatever reason, maybe being away from home or whatever; but I was definitely different there that I was at home. I only lasted one year in college before the money ran out. My parents made too much for loans but not enough to pay for college. I quit and went home and worked for 1 1/2 or so years. From there, I paid for my college which is one of my more prouder moments. You would think that since I was paying for it, I would have taken it more seriously; but noooo. I got caught in the college life. Nothing major; just partying too much and not paying enough attention to school. At the end of the day, my grade point average was at 2.499. I needed a 2.5 to be able to get my degree (in accounting). I tried everything that I could to get teachers to raise my grade. I even went to my golf class instructor which I took my last semester and tried to get him to give me extra credit which was warranted because I played plenty of golf; but never turned in scorecard for extra credit. Going from a B to an A in golf would have done the trick; but the instructor had already left for the semester and nobody would change it. I ended up taking some Income Tax class for two weeks in what they called a winter intercession class and that did the trick and I graduated.

6) I used to be a pretty big reader; but I was as slow as molasses. My favorite being Stephen King books. No doubt, my favorite book being "The Stand". Sort of related is that my favorite movie (besides Rocky and other Sylvestor Stallone movies such as First Blood) is Shawshank Redemption which of course is a Stephen King short story. So being a slow reader, I don't read much these days (besides blogs... lol). I have never read a poker pook in its entirety except for biography type books (Chris Moneymaker and Matt Matros); but hope to change that real soon. More on this subject in a few days.

7) and lastly, I think my best quality is my ability not to worry about things. As the Bible says in Matthew 6:34, "do not worry about tomorrow today as today will have enough trouble of its own" is kind of my life slogan. My wife is/was the exact opposite as they worried about everything. She has made great strides here and is able to cope with things much better.

So there you have it and there you are.

I'm sure that there is nobody left to tag so if you haven't been tagged and you are reading this, consider yourself tagged.

Have a good day!!!

Back to the Drawing Board

After a little success with some MTT with the Mook and a home game $350 win. I'm back to where I was before. Now with my puny amount of dollars on FTP, I am doing a little ladder challenge to build bankroll via SNGs... So right now with the roll hanging around $250 (mostly from Mook), I am back to $6.50 SNGs. First, let me say that it was a little hard a first to go back to $6.50 SNGs when I was used to do $50 or $33 dollar ones; but it is what it is. The thing that really helped me was that went back to the roots and remembered why I play online poker. For the fun of it. It's a hobby.

I've mentioned in other posts where I was going to see what my win percentage was when I got my money in the middle or how I fared when I got in as a favorite. Well, I still hope to do that and I have written a little Access query to help me with that; but it is still has some manual work to it so I will do that at some time. There is also an 2+2 article on this. A little too technical for me probably; plus I think you need SQL version of Poker Tracker which I have not done yet.

Instead, I am going to post the last hand 7 of the 8 tournies that I played in today. I was in the money for 2 of the 8 which luckily I won both of those.

Tourney #1

It is what it is. This one is on me. I should have been all in on the flop. Results in White underneath hand.

Full Tilt Poker
No Limit Holdem Tournament
Blinds: t200/t400
4 players
Converter


Stack sizes:
UTG: t1450
Button: t8230
SB: t2040
Hero: t1780


Pre-flop: (4 players) Hero is BB with :kd :td
UTG folds, Button raises to t800, SB folds, Hero calls t400 (pot was t1400).


Flop: :9d :2d :ah (t1800, 2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets t400, Hero calls t400 (pot was t2200).


Turn: :qh (t2600, 2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets t400, Hero raises all-in t580, Button calls t180 (pot was t3580).


River: :ac (t3760, 1 player + 1 all-in - Main pot: t3760)



Results:
Final pot: t3760
Hero showed Kd Td
Button showed Kh Qs showed Kh Qs


Tourney #2

Obviously a huge favorite when chips went in.

Full Tilt Poker
No Limit Holdem Tournament
Blinds: t40/t80
8 players
Converter


Stack sizes:
UTG: t2290
UTG+1: t2070
Hero: t1495
MP2: t2345
CO: t1460
Button: t1645
SB: t525
BB: t1670


Pre-flop: (8 players) Hero is MP1 with :ac :js
2 folds, Hero raises to t240, MP2 folds, CO calls t240 (pot was t360), Button calls t240 (pot was t600), SB folds, BB calls t160 (pot was t840).


Flop: :6h :5h :4d (t1000, 4 players)
BB checks, Hero checks, CO checks, Button checks.


Turn: :ad (t1000, 4 players)
BB checks, Hero is all-in t1255, CO calls all-in t1220, 2 folds.
Uncalled bets: t35 returned to Hero.


River: :th (t3440, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: t3440)



Results:
Final pot: t3440
Hero showed Ac Js
CO showed Ts Ah

Tourney #3

Another dominating hand down the tubes.

Full Tilt Poker
No Limit Holdem Tournament
Blinds: t120/t240
5 players
Converter


Stack sizes:
UTG: t3425
CO: t3260
Button: t5280
SB: t210
Hero: t1325


Pre-flop: (5 players) Hero is BB with :tc :as
2 folds, Button raises all-in t5280, SB folds, Hero calls all-in t1085.
Uncalled bets: t3955 returned to Button.


Flop: :5h :5d :2s (t1565, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: t2770)



Turn: :5s (t1565, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: t2770)



River: :3h (t1565, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: t2770)



Results:
Final pot: t1565
Button showed 4s Ad
Hero showed Tc As

Tourney #4

I actually came back and won this one; but another beauty anyway...

Full Tilt Poker
No Limit Holdem Tournament
Blinds: t250/t500
3 players
Converter


Stack sizes:
Button: t3090
SB: t4200
Hero: t6210


Pre-flop: (3 players) Hero is BB with :8s :4d
Button calls t500 (pot was t750), SB calls t250 (pot was t1250), Hero checks.


Flop: :4h :8c :6d (t1500, 3 players)
SB checks, Hero checks, Button bets t1000, SB folds, Hero raises all-in t5710, Button calls all-in t1590.
Uncalled bets: t3120 returned to Hero.


Turn: :kc (t6680, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: t6680)



River: :kd (t6680, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: t6680)



Results:
Final pot: t6680
Hero showed 8s 4d
Button showed Kh Td

Tourney #5

Are sure this isn't River Stars?

Full Tilt Poker
No Limit Holdem Tournament
Blinds: t60/t120
6 players
Converter


Stack sizes:
UTG: t465
UTG+1: t1495
CO: t5780
Hero: t2190
SB: t190
BB: t3380


Pre-flop: (6 players) Hero is Button with :kd :jh
3 folds, Hero raises to t360, SB calls all-in t130, BB calls t240 (pot was t610).


Flop: :kc :jd :as (t910, 2 players + 1 all-in - Main pot: t570, Sidepot 1: t340)
BB checks, Hero bets t500, BB raises to t2410, Hero calls all-in t1330.
Uncalled bets: t580 returned to BB.


Turn: :qc (t4570, 1 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: t570, Sidepot 1: t4000)



River: :ad (t4570, 1 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: t570, Sidepot 1: t4000)



Results:
Final pot: t4570
Hero showed Kd Jh
SB showed 4s 3h
BB showed 8h Ac

Tourney #6

More fun on the river..

Full Tilt Poker
No Limit Holdem Tournament
Blinds: t40/t80
7 players
Converter


Stack sizes:
UTG: t1215
Hero: t1420
MP1: t2655
CO: t2955
Button: t1080
SB: t2750
BB: t1425


Pre-flop: (7 players) Hero is UTG+1 with :as :kc
UTG raises to t320, Hero raises all-in t1420, 5 folds, UTG calls all-in t895.
Uncalled bets: t205 returned to Hero.


Flop: :3d :9s :2d (t240, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: t2550)



Turn: :jd (t240, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: t2550)



River: :qd (t240, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: t2550)



Results:
Final pot: t240
UTG showed Kd Ah
Hero showed As Kc


Tourney #7

This one only took 3 hands for me to exit. Sets are definitely not golden.

Full Tilt Poker
No Limit Holdem Tournament
Blinds: t15/t30
9 players
Converter


Stack sizes:
UTG: t1500
UTG+1: t1410
MP1: t2070
MP2: t1410
MP3: t1365
CO: t1485
Button: t1395
SB: t1365
Hero: t1500


Pre-flop: (9 players) Hero is BB with :kc :kh
UTG calls t30 (pot was t45), 3 folds, MP3 calls t30 (pot was t75), 2 folds, SB calls t15 (pot was t105), Hero raises to t230, UTG calls t200 (pot was t290), 2 folds.


Flop: :qd :td :ks (t520, 2 players)
Hero bets t420, UTG raises to t840, Hero raises all-in t1270, UTG calls all-in t430.


Turn: :jd (t3060, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: t3060)



River: :2c (t3060, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: t3060)



Results:
Final pot: t3060
Hero showed Kc Kh
UTG showed Ad 7d




There you have it and there you are. 8 tournies... $2 profit. Good Times.



Any thoughts or comments (especially on first hand and last hand) would be appreciated.

Current Top Ten

With winning the Mook for the second time, he asks you to post your top ten blogs as opposed to his typical Player profile. It is posted there; but I thought I might as well post it here.

As I mentioned, I have over 100 blogs in my bloglines so I read a bunch. Today's top ten might be different than tomorrow top 10; but as of right now, there are some of the blogs that I am enjoying.

1. High on Poker / Low Limit Grinder / Three Jax - These were really the first guys that I hooked up with during my beginning blog days. These were the guys commenting on my blog when I started and if not for that, I probably wouldn't have lasted very long. Even though my blog is not near as active as it used to be, these guys still continue to crank stuff out and I see them on my Bloglines list, I make a point of seeing what they have to say.

2. Hoyazo - One of things that I most look for in a poker blog is actual poker content that I can relate or learn from. Hoy continues to crank posts day after day with strategy and thoughts. His rants also set him apart as they are pure joy to read... even when I was the rant-ee one time.

3. Mook - Of course... How does a guy get one of the most popular blogger touraments out there. It starts with his blog. Very well done. Of course, I love the tournies; but I also really look forward to the profiles of the winners as it is fun to warch.

4. Plan 3T Gong - I can't say enough about this guy and his SNG posts. If you want to talk SNG and SNG strategy, this blog is a good as any.

5. Counting My Outs - Still one of my favorites as he puts out hand histories and asks for opinions on the hand. While I don't always agree with him, I enjoy his thoughts and the thoughts of the commenters. He is also good and keeping us up to date on the current state of online poker.

6. O-Poker - Cmitch is one of those guys that I wish you could emulate. His MTT and NL cash game success rivals most anybody. He has definitely put in the time to study the game such as subscribing to sites like CardRunners which I need to do at some point.

7. CC - What can you say about this guy... other than he is one of us. He is a family man that shares alot of the things that I go through (i.e. kids, religion, bankroll, etc..). Truly one of the people that I look forward to reading... whether it be a series, trip report, tourney recaps... he just has a way of putting it that is easy to relate to.

The next few are how the trues pros play and it is fun to follow...

8. Brian Townsend... in a recent blog he talks about having a good month of May... about 1.4 million. It was nice watching him on High Stakes Poker and to follow his honest dealings as go through the world of High Stakes Poker. One of the Cardrunners guys that keeps a pretty active blog. You gotta love it.

9. High Stakes Poker... Just a report of how the pros are faring. It is not uncommon to see somebody win or lose over 500K in a session. While it is inconceivable to relate to this, it is fun to follow the ride. What's even crazier is seeing how they handle some of these hands. If they were playing 25 cent / 50 cent, we would just call them one of your typical donkeys; but these are obviously not donkeys.

10. Daily Quiz - Just a daily quiz of how to handle a poker hand and then the blog writers give their opinion. Most of the times, it is taken from high stakes cash game or tourney. Again, I don't always agree with the writer or with the majority of the voters; but it is fun to play and often times educational.

There you have it and there you are. Have a great long weekend.

Better to be Lucky than Good - MOOOOOOOOK

I wrote something a few weeks ago about Tourney success being about luck or good play. Read it here , if interested. I believe I finally concluded that it is both. There are obvious great tourney players such Rizen or the like; but man luck has to be part of it... after all , it is gambling.

I've also been watching the tourney hand histories that are posted on 2+2 and this re-assured my theory because there were plenty of suck outs on almost every tourney that I watched. I definitely encourage anybody to take a look at them as they are very interesting.

Well, my FTP balance was on life supports. I was prepared to head back to Walgreens to reload. I had enough for the MOOK and 3 $6 Turbo SNGs... Instead I opted for the Mook and 2 SNGs.. Things weren't too promising as I finished 4th in both SNGs... All you can do is get your money in good... which turned out to be a little ironical when talking about the Mook..

So without further adieu, let's talk business. Anybody who is anybody was playing the Mook tonight... minus a few Lost viewers. We still had 66 people turn out which ain't bad.

As usual with this things, there were many recognizable faces... My table had:

Lifesagrind
pvanharibo
Mattazuma
chitwood
leftylu
cracknaces
bayne_s

Things started off well.. Pkt 9s on second hand... stole blinds

8th hand I get KK in EP and I put a 3x raise and get called by lifesagrind. Flop comes TQ8 (2 spades). He then puts about a 3/4 pot bet out there and I immediately raise. No slowplaying this early in the action.. LAG folds.

2 hands latter, what do I see... KK in the BB. LAG (on the button) puts a 3x raise / steal and I just call. Flop comes 636.. I check and he puts out a pot sized bet. I know he doesn't want to be called... so I call... Turn comes T.. and goes all in... Unfortunatley for LAG, it is a easy call for me and he doesn't improve so I have doubled up in the first 10 hands. Just like the doctor ordered. He had A5o, by the way.

7 hands later, I get another pocket pair, although this time it is only 77 this time. I am in early position with plenty of chips (top 3) so I want to see a flop cheaply and just call. Everybody else folds until it gets to bayne who raises to 135 (15/30 are the blinds). Everybody folds and I have my first real decision. With my chips, I go ahead and make call. So far, everything is going my way (is that lucky?) as the flop is KQ7 (2 diamonds). I check and Bayne throws out 210 into a 310 pot. Board is scary enough to me that I'm not slow playing... again early in tourney.. no need to get fancy... I raise to 510 and he folds.

I then fold 15 hands and low and behold the rockets come my way. I raise it up and Cracknaces lives up to his name and calls with 88 and flops a set and doubles up threw me. His smooth calls obviously should have been a warning sign but I was feeling pretty indestrutable. That quickly changed as I drop down to 1800 chips and the middle of the pack.

I then go pretty card dead... picking up blinds here and there... losing blinds also... I have to wait 44 hands for my next confrontation.. albeit minor. I'm in the BB with AQo.. JoeSpeaker puts a EP raise and I'm not doing anything fancy at this point.... I call. Flop is J high and he bets out I fold... He shows AJ... It is simply amazing how dominated hands are winning these days. That puts me about 1700.

Nothing major and I chip up to about 2500; but the blinds are catching up to me.... I catch MikeMaloney in a steal and get some chips... from there is was just blind stealing... and chipped up to 6140 so a little breathing room but no much.. This leads me to my worse played hand probably...

I'd be interested in your thoughts...

FullTiltPoker Game #2496131697: The Mookie - Katie's Mom (18851745), Table 7 - 200/400 Ante 50 - No Limit Hold'em - 0:03:37 ET - 2007/05/24
Seat 1: leftylu (8,436)
Seat 2: AlCantHang (4,725)
Seat 3: DDionysus (4,625)
Seat 4: willwonka (6,140)
Seat 5: NightRanger (2,947)
Seat 6: Drizztdj (3,800)
Seat 7: MiamiDon (3,946)
Seat 8: InstantTragedy (4,673)
Seat 9: BuddyDank (1,331)
leftylu antes 50
AlCantHang antes 50
DDionysus antes 50
willwonka antes 50
NightRanger antes 50
Drizztdj antes 50
MiamiDon antes 50
InstantTragedy antes 50
BuddyDank antes 50
BuddyDank posts the small blind of 200
leftylu posts the big blind of 400
The button is in seat #8
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to willwonka [Js Jh] ... Good hand... but obviously dangerous.
AlCantHang folds
DDionysus calls 400





Do you raise to isolate.. do you want to see a flop... I got a lille fancy play syndrome in my head and just called... planning to raise anybody all in if they raised.. The table had plenty of preflop raises so it would not have been unusual.



willwonka calls 400
NightRanger folds
Drizztdj folds
MiamiDon folds
InstantTragedy folds
BuddyDank folds
leftylu checks





Dang!!! not only did nobody raise... but nobody else even played...






*** FLOP *** [7d Qc Ks] HATE that flop...
leftylu checks
DDionysus checks
willwonka checks
*** TURN *** [7d Qc Ks] [5s]
leftylu checks
DDionysus checks
willwonka checks
*** RIVER *** [7d Qc Ks 5s] [9c]
leftylu checks
DDionysus checks
willwonka checks
*** SHOW DOWN ***
leftylu shows [6s 4d] (King Queen high)
DDionysus shows [Tc Ts] (a pair of Tens)
willwonka shows [Js Jh] (a pair of Jacks)
willwonka wins the pot (1,850) with a pair of Jacks

So it gets checked down... I think my biggest misstake was preflop where I could have probably got DDionysus. all in preflop..





Thoughts?





From there, I was able to make it to the final table... I was probably around 5th at the start of the final table... Top 8 paid with Zeem a huge leader (especially after 2 fortunate rivers before the final table). I played it pretty tight. It didn't take too long to break the bubble; but once we were down to 7... it stayed that way for awhile.





I'm able to knock out the man, the myth, the legend in a battle of the blinds... He tried to steal with 96o or should I say 69o and I was lucky enough to have AK and have it hold up. I then got AK on the very next hand; but only called a preflop raise and folded to c-bet on a 482 board. Very tight here; but AK has just killed me late in tourneys as of late. I have plenty of chips so I am not desperate so I will wait to fight another battle.





So at this point.. the chip counts are:





Zeem 33K


Night Ranger 20K


WW 18K


BoneDaddy 15K


leftlylu 8K


a10419 6K





Night Ranger then slow plays his Aces and loses to BoneDaddy's flopped set of sixes. He goes out next hand. We also lose a10419 so we are down to 4.. AGain with Zeem a big leader.





I get AJ and raise it up and leftylu raises 13K all in and I make the call. He turns over A7s and AJ miracously holds up and we are down to 3.





Zeem 41K


WW 30K


BoneDaddy 28K





So anybody's game.





A few hands latter I get KK (again.. 5 times in this tourney) in the BB... Zeem raies about 3x... and this time I just call as Zeem is plenty aggressive.. as long as an Ace doesn't fall, I'm ready to go stack with it. Flop comes Qs7h7c... I do fear the hammer a bit; but check... Zeem puts out a c-bet.. which I go ahead and do the raise here... he re-reraises all in and now I am really fearing the hammer... I have to call and he turns over KQ and my hand holds up. So now we have a new leader..





WW 62K


BD 28K


Z 9K





Zeem lasts about 10 more hands and his J5s loses to my J9s.. so we are now heads up.





You always hear about long heads up battles in these things. My HU battles are not usually that way. As a matter of fact our heads up battle lasted 5 hands.





Before we get to it... I always say to win a tourney.. you need to win the races... play AK well ... and most importantly .... GET LUCKY!!!!





I'm sure I had my share of luck in this game... and the biggest one other than the last hand which we will see in a minute was when I was on life support was way early when I get TT. I have 1600 chips and the blinds are 60/120. I'm in middle position and decide to just to raise all in and call it a day... well, unfortunatley cracknaces had QQ... while it took him a while to call, he did call and I thought I was on my way down to watch Lost... Full Tilt did not let me down and the board flushed and neither of us had the flush card so we chopped and that gave me the life line that I needed.





Now onto the last hand...





Chips stacks are 73K vs 25K in my favor. I get A4s in the small blind. Bone Daddy has been doing plenty of raising so I decide to try a trap here and call - reraise... So I called... and as expected BoneDaddy raised... and then (again as planned) I re-raised him almost all in (about 7K shy). Unexpectantly, he re-raised me back all in.. I obviously have to call here now.. and things are looking bleak when he turns over TT... even worse after a flop of JKT.. so now an ace does me no good... I need a Queen... Turn... 4d.. DOH!!!!.... River QUEEN QUEEN QUEEN QUEEN. I couldn't believe my eyes... In case you don't believe yours, here is the screenshot..

So there you have it and there you are... My second Mookie win. I do feel bad winning it that way as I have been on the other side of that too many times. BoneDaddy played great and probably deserved to win. He especially loved the re-steal from the BB.

Best Hand in Poker

So what do you know... even a blind donkey can find a winning hand (more on that later)... as usual, I played in the Hoy . It is obviously a great tourney... especially now that it is a deep stacked. I continued to get points in the BBT , but no cashes yet. Last night, I tried something new... I tried getting my chips in with the worst of it... They didn't work for me either.

Somewhat questionable move. I was among the top 10 and then in a couple of hands moved down to last; although, I still enough chips to be in play and not desperate. I actual chipped back up to about average when the following hand.

FullTiltPoker Game #2376677530: Mondays at the Hoy (17511686), Table 2 - 150/300 Ante 25 - No Limit Hold'em - 23:51:13 ET - 2007/05/07
Seat 1: a104l9 (2,240)
Seat 2: summer_babe (5,450)
Seat 3: willwonka (4,308)
Seat 4: ChapelncHill (28,120)
Seat 5: jjok (4,185)
Seat 6: lester000 (3,940)
Seat 7: cemfredmd (4,550)
Seat 8: mtnrider81 (9,210)
Seat 9: IslandBum1 (2,240)
a104l9 antes 25
summer_babe antes 25
willwonka antes 25
ChapelncHill antes 25
jjok antes 25
lester000 antes 25
cemfredmd antes 25
mtnrider81 antes 25
IslandBum1 antes 25
summer_babe posts the small blind of 150
willwonka posts the big blind of 300
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to willwonka [5c Qs]
ChapelncHill: gg kat
katitude (Observer): later kids
ChapelncHill: sorry again
katitude (Observer): don't
ChapelncHill has 15 seconds left to act
ChapelncHill folds
jjok folds
lester000 folds
cemfredmd calls 300
mtnrider81 folds
IslandBum1 folds
a104l9 folds
summer_babe folds
willwonka checks

Nothing to exciting here... Heads up with a middle position limper.

*** FLOP *** [7s 5h 7h]

What do you do... I obviously like this flop as I paired up. My plan was to check with the intention of check raising...

willwonka checks
cemfredmd bets 975

Hmmm big bet... What kind of hands to you put this person on....

My thoughts were 88-99 or 2 broadway cards. It felt like to me that he didn't want a call. What do you do? I thought I may be behind to mid pkts; but I thought I could get him to lay them down. Here is what I did.

willwonka raises to 3,983, and is all in...

Well, I was wrong... he took a little while to think... but called with JJ and IGHN.

The limp threw me off as well as the big bet. Any thoughts?

But the hand of the night for me also received a little discussion... I'm not sure I agree with the majority on this one.. but they are probably right... Here is the hand in it's entirety


Full Tilt Poker
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $30/$60
8 players
Converter


Pre-flop: (8 players) Hero is BB with :kc :qc
5 folds, Button raises to $210, SB folds, Hero calls.


Flop: :tc :as :2s ($450, 2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $300, Hero calls.


Turn: :jc ($1050, 2 players)
Hero checks, Button checks.


River: :ac ($1050, 2 players)
Hero bets $800, Button calls.


Results:
Final pot: $2650

An argument could be made for me playing this badly on all streets... So let's put out a 4 part questionnaire.

#1... Call preflop raise of 210 by the button from the BB (3.5 BB) with KQs out of position? My stats showed raiser to be fairly tight... but could have been just a blind steal. As it was fairly early in tourney, I'm not looking for huge preflop pots so I called. Thoughts?

#2... Flop isn't terrible; but isn't good. I check. Button Continues with a 300 chip bet into a 450 pot. I'm not sure of the right answer here. With plenty of chips and a gut shot straight and back door flush, I'm OK with seeing another card. I call.

#3... Turn... I couldn't have picked a better card to come. What do you do? I could just lead out.. but I'd rather trap with my huge draw... I check... Rats... Dealer Checks behind...

#4... River... Boo-Yah... Runner Runner Royal... What do you do? The consensus was to push which was my first thoughts as well; but would I get called? I thought no... If he had an ace, he could have made trips (seemed unlikely since he checked the turn)... would he call with a bad kicker? Would you? Dealer has 1210.. pot is 1050.. I put out 800... hoping that he goes all in with this obvious looking bet that I want called. Well, he just called with his A6o and I won a pretty good pot; but didn't knock him out.

I really don't think he calls an all in with his tourney on the line with so many things that beat him. Any straight, any flush and AT+... who knows... I wasn't too upset with the result.. It turned out to really bite me as the Dealer made a really big comeback.

Well, it was fun, as usual and I'll give it go again on Wednesday playing the Mook

Tourney Success - Good or Lucky?

Multiple Table Tournies are great to play in... probably one of favorite things. Definitely, the thing that has won me the most money... so what I do... I play (or historically have played) mostly limit holdem... because... Yikes... I don't know why. Probably for the mere fact that I haven't been successful with them has made me keep playing to try and figure things out.

Anyway, tournies are where it is at for me lately. My question is really more of the rhetocial nature. Do you have to be good or lucky to be a successful tourney player? Obviously, since you see the same faces on Pocket Five Leader Board or any of the typical leader boards, you have to be good. You obviously have to have the skills. But there are too many of us (types like me) that probably don't play enough or just don't get it. As I have mentioned, by watching a few hand histories from 2+2 MTT Forum, you have to be lucky. Let me say that again... If you are going to deep into a MTT, you HAVE to be lucky. Of course, this is no surprise as poker is gambling; but the question I seek is how much skill and how much luck. Again, rhetorical as I don't think there is an answer.

So what is starting this thougth process. Dah.... Running Bad... I've recently taken a look at all of my all in hands in the past couple of weeks (not including hands where there were people that had 3 or less BBs) to see how I've been doing. I haven't finished the final tabulations as I am also including SNGs but the results aren't too encouraging. Basically, I am making 5 categories:

Way ahead... more than about a 70% favorite
Ahead... somewhere in the 60's% favorie
Coin Toss
Behind.. somewhere in the 40s%
Way behind... less then 40%

We'll see how it turns out.. just from a top down look.. I am winning about 40% overall in the last 2 weeks for all of my all ins... I would expect that number to be over 50% as I would like to think that most of the time that I get my chips in the middle, I am ahead... and no worse than a coin toss. I will be really interested to know how that turns out. One thing for sure as I am doing this, you certainly seem to remember the bad beats more than the times that you suckout or similarly, the coin tosses that you actually do win.

Here is what seems typical for me these days.

I am playing in a $7,500 gurantee $24 buyin on FTP the other day. I thought there was going to be a huge overlay in this tournament; but it as usual, it filled up quickly at the end and there was no overlay; but I still played. 380 or so people playing.. We get down to about 90 people and I finally get a good hand with two Red Aces. Blinds are 150/300 and I am in the SB. Folds to Cutoff who raises to 1055. (Nice!!!)... Button Calls (Nicer!!!!)... SB (our Hero) says no time to play around, let's shove our 4,200 chips in the middle. I happy to take it down here... BB folds and so does cutoff.... Button takes just a couple of seconds and calls.

What range do you put him on... he is getting around 2-1 to call. What kind of hands can you call with? Also, this call would put him all in (not me)... although it would leave me with only 200 chips. Well, he turned over 76s. In my mind, I was pretty shocked that he called the original raise with this hand... and even more shocked that he called my all in re-raise.

Well, the flop was all spades including a 6 (he had clubs)... but nobody had any spades.. however, the river did bring a 7 which gave him two pair to more or less kill me. Had I won this hand, I would have moved to the top 10. Two really sad notes here. He lost all of his (my) chips a few hands later.. And also a few hands later, I got AA again... but at that point it was too late. Went out around 83rd.

Can anybody explain this call on the first raise or on my All-in?

Now, let's move to the Mook last night. Not much is happening for me although I am staying a float with nothing more that stealing blinds with the hammer (3 times). I can't remember for sure; but I think there were about 73 people last night. We are nearing the 2nd break and I barely above water. I am in last place or around there as things moved around. This hand comes down where somebody (who I will not mention because it is besides the point... This is not a Hoyish type rant; but more about good vs luck) from the MP raises around 3 times the BB and I reraise for 1000 chips for more with AJs. He doesn't have to call as it would not cripple him if he lost; but it would sure leave a mark. Any way, his calling hand of choice was A7o. Am I feeling confident.... NOOOOOOO!!!.. and didn't take long to find out the bad news as the 7 came on the flop... and just to rub it in, a 7 came on the turn and a 7 came on the river to give him quads and IGNH in the low 20s.

Now, I realize a lot of this is just poker; but really how much is MTT success contigent on luck? Those 2+2 tournies, I watch, there are at least 2 or 3 hands that the guy has won that he shouldn't have. The Mook winner last night... same thing... Coin Tosses have to be won... Big hands need to hold up... That's the lucky part.. The skill is knowing when to bet and check... knowing when you can steal some chips.... reading players... etc, etc... and many, many people have this down.

Well, I will continue the fight and see where I end up. I'm around 30th in the Blogger Challenge leaderboard with no money earned. While, I'm not way disappointed with that, I just know that it could be much better if I were just a little bit more..... yep, you guessed it. Lucky.

For All you MTT Experts out there.. Quick Question

A rare 2nd post of the day...

So as I mentioned earlier, I have been watching some MTT hand histories via PXF hand history tool. Again, these histories are available at 2+2 in the MTT forum . This particular hand was very, very interesting to me.. You don't have to be a PXF subscriber; but you do need a free login and password.

So let's set it up. We are watching a $109 6 man tourney on FTP. The guy we are watching is a guy that is up there on the pocketfives leaderboard. In other words, the boy can play and the buyin is high enough to have generally good play. We are at hand 152 of the tournament with blinds at 150 and 300. We are in the SB...

Stack Sizes go like this:

UTG: 11264
Hijack: 4693
Cutoff: 5650
Button: 1845
SB (us): 14275
BB : 26830

We get dealt Qh7c.

Obviously nothing to exciting and most likely will let it go; but UTG and HJ call so he makes the call and the BB checks so we are 4 handed. I don't have any reall problems there.

Flop comes: 9hJhTh

Not a bad flop giving us an open ended straigh flush draw. What is your move?

He checks. I certainly don't mind that as you want somebody to lead into you (or so I think). Well, the BB obliges and leads out 300 into a 1200 pot... HJ then bumps it to 800.

Now what do you do.. It's going to cost you 800 into 2300 pot.

Again, this player, is much, much better than me. Do you just call getting almost 3-1 or are you ready to get your chips in the middle as quick as possible.

Here is what I probably would have done... I would have re-bumped to 1800-2000. My feelings is that I can't get my chips in the middle fast enough and if my raise scares people off... so be it.

Well, he folded... which is the point of this post. As we all know, I am a documented donkey (and no I don't have a problem being called that... it is what it is )... How do you not at least call this?

Well, let's proceed on... remembering.. decisions not results... BB called the raise...

Turn cards came.... 6s

BB checked and HJ bet 1200 and got called by the BB.

River... 7h... BB now leads out 1200 into the 5200 pot and gets called. and the BB turns over Jc8h for the striaght flush.... so he obviously would have taken a bunch of our chips... although not all of them most likely as you would have probably just called with a Qh flush.. or even folded it then... not likely raising as it was definitley a call me type bet.

I would appreciate any thoughts on this hand..

BTW, this guy went on to win the thing... so obviously worked out for him.

Another Day... Same Result

Quick post..

Played the MATH... about 59 runners... late position raise/steal>>... I reraise with AQ... and get 3 bet... by now.. I have to call and I am all in... he turns over AJ... No Jack comes; but 4 spades do come and I don't have one... he does... IGHN around 56th..

Full Tilt had over 75000 people online last night... wow... but... still having problems. No SNGs were running last night... maybe that was good news.... I did see the Tier 2 token frenzy had 200 people in it... wow... I'm sure that there were a bunch of bloggers... It is very hard for me to get to the computer before 9PM Central... I actually missed the first 5 or so hands from the MATH... a couple of which would have been nice... including the hammer hitting a straight.

So, no poker... I watch a movie with Mrs Wonka... Little Miss Sunshine... DO NOT... and I repeat.. DO NOT waste your time with this movie.

That's it... enough said.

Yet Another Forgettable Weekend

Poker is such fun....

I was going through the 2+2 forums Thursday night and came across something in there MTT Strategy forum.. It is people that have supplied their hand histories for the tournaments that they have been in. They are pretty cool to watch. You can find them here. It uses the Poker X Factory replayer. I only watched two of them and it more or less confirmed a few things. First and foremost.. You need to get lucky. and secondly.. you need to win the majority of your races. It was almost depressing to see so many races won and suckouts by these people. And alot of them playing the higher limit tourneys. Simply amazing. So is it true that it better to be lucky than good?

Friday night I played in our normal monthly 2nd Friday of the month game. We had 13 people show up. We are down to about 7 people and I get it all in with ATs for A6s... Of course he hit his 6 on the turn and takes me out. We played a second game and we are on the bubble and I get it all in with K9o... get called by 72s (say what you want). I don't have a problem with the call because he was the huge stack it was next to nothing for him to call. A 9 on the flop had me feeling good until I saw runner, runner diamonds to give him his flush. Some nights, it is just your night. A few hands prior to that, this same guy called an allin with 10 high (and this time it was not an automatic call) on the flop. Turns out the all in guy was on a flush draw with 65s and didn't hit and 10 high won it.

I got home and played an SNG and did get a win; but I continued to play and donked off $200 on AP Ring game..

I played in the Token Frenzy on Saturday night and won a token into the big game. Thanks Hoy for pointing those out. I will definitely give those another try. The Big Game was going pretty well through the first break as I was at least at Average stack most of the time. Every tourney has a critical hand that will either make or break you. I don't remember the the people involved other than they were both kind of short stacked (along with me). I have 88 and one of the shorties goes all in... Yep.. have to race so I am ready to call when somebody else pushes all in... I'm torn and fold and then both had Ace Something... and 8 comes on the flop and I would have more or less tripled up. No guts no glory... Does anybody else make that call?

Meanwhile, I go 0 for 6 in my Sunday SNGs... First 2 were bubbles where in both cases the short stacks caught their suckouts or got the right cards at the right time to survive; but I didn't have the same luck. One SNG was a pretty big leader with 6 people to go... I do a 3x raise with KK and somebody pushes me all in. Easy call of course and he turns over TT... Nice... except for the T on the flop.... 3 hands later I am out when my 99 lost to AT and then the next hand 99 lost to AQ. From riches to rags in about 4 or 5 hands... DOH!!!! At that point, I just called it quits. Very disappointing end to the weekend.

I do plan on playing the MATH tonight as I did win my token to that as well playing a 6 man SNG.

Hopefully, things will turn around.

More Good Times

It was a fun day yesterday reading and writing about my "donkiness". It is really quite hilarious about the whole idea of calling other players donkeys and burning them at the stake when they are donkeyish... but then again, they want to play with donkeys...

One final comment on the hand yesterday. I wonder if anybody (including myself) thought I was ahead when I made that call. I know I didn't think that I was. Do you think I would have made that call if I knew he had me dominated? Absolutely not. +EV or -EV.. who cares. If I have the chip stack to afford it and the implied odds justify the call along with any reads that I might have (right or wrong reads). Live with it. I truly do not know very many people that aren't going to call 200 chips with JTs when they will still have 63BB behind if they don't hit the flop. OK, there could have been some really bad flops with me such as T high... Do you really think I'm getting all in on that flop? Do you really think I'm raising that much with TPMK.. No.. I go into pot control mode and take it from there. Sure I would have lost some chips.. but most likely not all of them.

OK... there are many people that would not have limped in with that hand and I certainly respect that. At this early juncture of the tournament, I didn't feel the need to raise. Truthfully, I want people in the pot with JTs. I don't want to scare anybody off. I am confident enough in my post flop play to deal with any complications that might arise. Later in the tournament, I would be raising with that.

I have said again and again, that the only bad play in poker is when it doesn't work.. As a matter of fact, I wrote a whole entry on it once. I maintain that poker isn't always about having the best cards. You have to be willing to gamble a bit. Most of TAGy types don't gambool it up too much; but I really have no problems with people that do... except for when they outdraw me of course. If you want to raise me with 72o... great.... it is especially great if it gets me to fold. The fact that I don't fold and you lose does not make a difference. If it worked, it was a good move.. if it doesn't, it wasn't. Simple as that. One thing is for sure, that if you are going to make moves like that, you need to have a reason for it. For example (and it is a bad example)... Did you see where Brad Booth bluffed with 4 high against Phil Ivey's pocket Kings? Everybody was saying what a great move it was and you know it was.... Why???? Because it worked... Does it make it bad movie if it didn't... Yep.... So I hate it when commentators are berating bluffs before they find out if it worked. Let the action happen first before you give your ultimate comments.

OK.. A couple of other things... I say all of the above to say this... We are already know about the well documented exchange betweeen myself and some other notable blogger. No more to see or hear there. Let's move onto the Mook last night. Would you believe on the 12th hand, I got into another confrontation with suited connectors. In this case I was in the Big Blind with 98s and it was limped to me and I just checked. Hopefully everybody is ok with that. ha. Anyway, I flopped the flush. Unfortunately, my PokerTracker did not record this hand for some reason so I hope I have most of this right. I believe I put a 1/2 pot bet out there and the EP limper (I don't remember who it was and it isn't important) raised me a good bit. This raiser had a huge stack compared to me.. anyway back to me... what do you do?

You have to believe that your flush is good; but you have to believe that there are plenty of outs against you. If I push, I do have enough chips to make him think about it... and that's what I did. After a bit, he did call and turned over ATo with the Ace being the flush card and a Ten giving him a pair. I don't remember if was top pair or not. Anyway, I was surprised to find out that my hand is still about a 70% favorite... The turn card... Ace.... River Card... Ace... IGHN...

Should I rant about losing to a 30% shot. Nope... That's poker. He made the decision to draw out and that is what he did. That is the way it goes. So... No name calling here.. I'll just move on. I'll just keep trying to put my chips in with the best of it.

One final thing... Where do I find those Tier-Two Token Frenzies... I would like to give one of them a shot. I did win a Tier-One token last night that will be my entry into the Hoy next week; but I couldn't find Tier-Two.

Busto and Am I Donk?

2nd part first... oh never mind... We'll find out if I'm a donk a little later in the post...

Wow, has it really been over 2 months since I have posted? That is truly amazing as something I so thouroughly enjoyed just kind of fell by the way side. It's probably not so hard to figure out why. Going Bust!!!!! Let me tell that it sucks!!!!

Now, did I literally go busto and lose every cent that I had on poker.. nah... because as I have mentioned before, I took my original $60 that I first deposited on Poker Stars and turned into $14K by more less grinding my way up. I few big tourney scores of over 1.4K each helped. Probably the game that I enjoy the most is Limit Hold'em and not so surprisingly, it is probably the game I am the worst at as it rather astonishing to see the amounts of money that I have lost playing this game.

This year and the last half of last year is and was just utterly demorilizing. I also found something even worse... BlackJack... Why anybody would play online blackjack (other than the bonus chasing with a structured plan)... I found that you can go on even bigger tilt playing blackjack... Last week during one of infamous melt downs, I played blackjack. The good thing is that I hit 4 blackjacks... the bad thing is that the dealer also hit blackjacks on those exact hands... Add that up with many other things and you go bust..

So Am I bust... not really.. however, I've taken my bankroll from 14,000 to 2,500 which more or less feels like busto. I'm not looking for any pity. Actually, it may be a blessing in disguise as originally, I was playing this just as a hobby and the pure joy of playing. I can remember sitting down at the 10c/25c no limit tables with $5 and having a grand old time. Then the worst thing happened, I had success and had it early.

So anyway, I'm back to low stakes and will have to re-learn to enjoy poker for the game of it and not the money of it as it was never about the money. I never withdrew anything. For a real quick chuckle, head out to Sharkscope and punch it willwonka at Fulltilt and you will see a rather amusing graph.

Now onto the reason that I brought myself out of semi blog retirement...

Am I a Donk? The short of it is... yes, of course; but that is besides the point.

One of the truly enjoyable things that a like is playing in the weekly blogger tourney. This was at first only the Mook as I never did have any money over at Stars to play the MATH. Anyway, the battle of the blogs started and Hoy-man moved his tourney over to FullTilt.. Nice... now I can play in both... and so far have really enjoyed both the MATH and the MOOK. I sometimes don't chat it up as I have multiple tables going on; but I usually enjoy reading.

Speaking of Hoy, he is truly one of the truly gifted writers/bloggers and I really enjoy reading his stuff.... Especially when it comes to his rants... You know you have made it in the poker world when you become the subject of one of his rants and are called a donkey. Today, that was me.. WoooHoooo.. Not that I feel a need to defend myself; but what the heck.

He continues to berate the play of the poker bloggers as compared to the alleged much more sophisticated play of the normal MTT player. Of course, I whole-heartedly disagree with him; but whatever...

Let's get to the hand at question.... first as published on his blog.

"Yours truly managed to donk out early once again, thanks to a highly questionable call by another donkey blogger of my preflop raise, coupled with a flop that not only hit my hand very well, but miraculously hit the donkey's hand even better, creating the perfect storm of rediculousness"......

......"Similarly, last night in the Hoy, when I raised preflop very early in the event with my AJs and the flop came JT5, I just wasn't in a mindset to put the donkey blogger who played back at me on the flop on a hand like JTo. He called my preflop raise into a heads-up pot with that hand! The realization is really starting to sink in finally that if I expect to do well in these blogger tournaments, I need to adjust my play from the kind of play I am used to seeing in the larger events. Bloggers do call preflop raises heads-up with 5-high ("but it was sOOOOOooooted!" Ha!). They do it all the time. Bloggers do call preflop raises heads-up with easily and often dominatable hands like JTo (a hand which I in fact was dominating last night before the flop came down). Many bloggers' play is such that they would even defend these moves after the fact. These fuckers actually think this is the way to play the game. "

OK... I then replied and thought he might need to check his facts... he promptly said that he had screen shots... OK... I've now come back and looked at the hand history... Let's walk through the hand...

First the facts... We are playing the HOY where it is a double stacked tournament meaning that we are starting with 3,000 chips. A very fine addition to the tournament by the way...

On the 22nd hand of the tourny... in other words.. very, very early.. my table looked like this... (sorry no screen shots)...

FullTiltPoker Game #2175700494: Mondays at the Hoy (16336999),
Table 1 - 20/40 - No Limit Hold'em - 22:17:45 ET - 2007/04/09
Seat 1: HighOnPoker (4,564)
Seat 2: katitude (2,680)
Seat 3: willwonka (2,775)
Seat 4: wwonka69 (3,070)
Seat 5: hoyazo (2,510)
Seat 6: Zeem (2,675)
Seat 7: Wippy1313 (2,696)
Seat 8: lucko21 (3,030)
Wippy1313 posts the small blind of 20
lucko21 posts the big blind of 40
The button is in seat #6

Very nice table... don't you think...

I'm sitting at T 2,755 and Hoy is at T2,510 as The Devil's Advocate is running over the table early on as chronicled on his blog..

I look down and have JTs (yes they were indeed suited and yes they were indeed hearts)

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to willwonka [Th Jh]

Jorden and Kat both fold.. OK.. yes, I'm in early position; but I'd love to see a flop with JTs for cheap so I call the 40... yes... early on... blinds are small.. I have over 68BBs

Anything out of the oridinary yet? Anything donkified yet?

The wannabe wonka folds and Hoy raises it up to 240 from the cutoff spot. Everybody else folds including the blinds leaving me with a decision to call T200 into a T340 pot. What do you do?

Obviously, if you are Hoy, you fold; but let's think about it a bit more... Now, I'm not even getting 2-1 (about 1.7 to 1) but it is close. JTs is not really a hand that you want to see heads up. On the other hand, what is Hoy have in his bag of tricks... Do I put him on big hand... Not really but could be, as I have seen him make moves with less (perhaps not so early in a tourney.. who knows).. Put it all together and a 200 chip call is not out of the question with JTs... even heads up and out of position... although not ideal. If I miss the flop and have to fold, I still have over 63BB.

So, let's recap with the hand history up to this point..

** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to willwonka [Th Jh]
HighOnPoker folds
katitude folds
willwonka calls 40
wwonka69 folds
hoyazo raises to 240
Zeem folds
Wippy1313 folds
lucko21 folds
willwonka calls 200

Now for the all important flop...

*** FLOP *** [Td Jc 7c]

Nice.... Of course, I'm checking to the raiser... who gladly puts out a pot sized bet:

willwonka checks
hoyazo bets 540

What does a donkey do next? Slowplay... Raise... or fold...

hmmmm... not folding... at this stage... no need to slow play... I'm happy to show my strength and call it a day...

willwonka raises to 1,440

OK... I get to take home a nice pot... I'm telling Hoy that I have him beat... so what does he do?

hoyazo raises to 2,270, and is all in

oops.... let's think back... he showed strength preflop.... followed it up on the flop... and now is re-raising me...

What do you do?

Well... only 830 to call so it really is a no brainer... but what do you put him on??? Does he have over cards or over pair... did he hit a set?

As it turns out:

willwonka calls 830
hoyazo shows [Ts As]

Wow... 2nd pair with really no draws...

willwonka shows [Th Jh]
*** TURN *** [Td Jc 7c] [2d]
*** RIVER *** [Td Jc 7c 2d] [9h]
hoyazo shows a pair of Tens
willwonka shows two pair, Jacks and Tens
willwonka wins the pot (5,080) with two pair, Jacks and Tens
wwonka69: boom
hoyazo stands up
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 5,080 Rake 0Board: [Td Jc 7c 2d 9h]
Seat 3: willwonka showed [Th Jh] and won (5,080) with two pair, Jacks and Tens
Seat 5: hoyazo showed [Ts As] and lost with a pair of Tens

Now, for the record, who is the donkey..... Not only was his play post flop questionable (which he admits), his documented recap of the hand was way off.

He said that I had JTo.... Obviously I had JTs
He said that he had AJs... He obviously had ATs

So for what it is worth... after looking back at the hand, I wouldn't have played any differently... Does that make me a Donkey... probably...

Anyway, I look forward to continue to playing in these blogger tourneys and look forward to continuing to read the Hoy man's blog which are among the best out there in poker blog land. I just hope he checks the facts before he posts again on something like this. It sucks to lose when you hold a dominating hand... but my guess is that he is not the first player to lose with this...

I could tell you about.... oh never mind... you get the point... maybe another day...

Hopefully, I can post more often...

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.