Thursday, August 9, 2007

Welcome to JoboPoko!

Since I'd like to become a more regular member of the poker blogger community, I've moved my poker posts over from Live Journal. I've back-dated them to their original dates, so they make chronological sense. (In case anybody's wondering how I've been "On Blogger Since August 2007", but have posts from August 2006.)

In addition to now having a poker-only (or at least poker-mostly) blog, I'm going to use this as incentive to update more often. Wish me luck! (Or better yet, leave a comment reminding me to post, if you haven't seen an update in a while.)

Saturday, June 9, 2007

I'm out

I felt pretty comfortable at my first table, and though I had a rough start, by the first break (2 hours in), I had chipped up to 4.5k from my 3k starting stack. Shortly before the break, who should walk in and sit two seats to my left, but Phil Hellmuth. I stole (according to him) his blinds a couple times, and I called an all-in bet from him with ATs (He was pretty short-stacked). He also had AT, and we chopped.

By the time that table broke (shortly before the 2nd break), I'd chipped up to 7.5k. Unfortunately, I was apparently in the seat-of-death at my new table. (The last 5 guys sitting at that seat had busted.) I stuck around for a while, but every time I raised, the guy two seats behind me went all-in (he had me covered), and I couldn't call (with hands like AJ, JT, 77). That set up the dynamic for the hand I busted on.

By this time, my M was down to about 5, so I was ready to play a hand for all my chips. I found AQ of clubs 3rd to act, and limped in, hoping the guy two seats behind would raise me, as usual. But he just called, and that let in the blinds for cheap. The flop was 378 with two clubs. The small blind bet 1/3 of the pot, and I figured that I had two overcards and the nut flush draw if he had a pair. I push all-in, he calls with a worse flush draw, and an inside straight draw. He pairs his jack on the turn, and there's no A,Q, or club to save me on the river, and I'm out.

I got greedy by just limping before the flop, and I paid for it. In retrospect, I'd rather have pushed all-in pre-flop, and won the blinds and antes with my AQ.

Oh well. It was definitely a fun experience, and I'll come back next year. Now I'm off to find a good cash game, and there are some other smaller tourneys I might play while I'm here.

I'm in

Table 200, seat 7, in case you want to stop by. ;-)

I think I had very good timing for the registration line, and only had to wait about 20 minutes. By the time I was done, there were enough people that the last one in line would probably wait 90 minutes. I pity the fool who waits until tomorrow morning to register.

OK, off to dream of quads, and get up in time to join some folks for brunch. 'night.

Thursday, June 7, 2007

WSOP or Bust!

...or more likely, WSOP and bust. ;-)

I've decided to play in event #15 ($1500 no-limit Hold'em). I'm leaving for Vegas after work tomorrow, and taking Monday off, in case I make the final table.

I didn't decide to play until it was too late to pre-register, so I may have to forgo sleep to stand in line when I get there. We'll see. I'll try to update at the end of each day.

Sunday, January 28, 2007

WPBT cash

Well, I made the final table and the money in my first Poker Blogger event, the World Poker Blogger Tour event #1.



I went on two nice streaks, one early-on, which put me in the chip lead for a while, where I got AA a couple times and KK a couple of times. Then, when we were down to 2 tables, I got another streak where short stacks were pushing into me, and I would call with a hand *just* good enough to beat them. 66 vs 55, AT vs A9, etc. I was 2nd in chips going into the final table. I lost a race in a blind vs blind situation, and was back down to average stack, then went card dead for a while. Aside from one exciting moment, I basically folded my way into 5th. My M was about 6 when Mean_G, the big stack at the table raised my blind. I had K9, and thought it was a position raise, and pushed. I was wrong, and he called with AT, and IGH 5th.

The exciting moment was one of two times I dropped the hammer in a bluff reraise. I very rarely bluff reraise in my regular game unless I really smell weakness (which I didn't in either case here), and let me tell you, it really gets the heart pumping to put 40% of your chips at risk with the worst hand!

Anyway, I had fun, and it's always nice to finish in the money. I hope I'll get to play in more of these, and get to know some of the folks better, since I already feel like I know many of them from their blogs.

Raveen took it down. Nice going!