The Streak Ends

After 13 months of straight Iron Man qualification at Full Tilt, I can no longer qualify this month. Having recently purchased The Orange Box I was engrossed in a game of Portal last night and completely spaced on playing poker. I had already taken to many days off from the tables and now I can no longer qualify for the month.

It's been a personal matter of pride for myself that I could keep the streak going so I'm a little disappointed right now. Fortunately when I make Iron Man status again next month I will be able to take in a pretty decent bonus. I will miss out on my increased bonus medal counts though which really sucks. I was wanting to collect some more to make a purchase from the Full Tilt store but now it will take a little longer.

At least I'm winning money at the tables this month (now that I've publicly stated that you can expect the obligatory "worst day ever at the tables" post)

I'll post and end of month recap and some numbers tomorrow.

My Will Be Done

There are times when poker just isn't about the cards...


Seat 2: wheaten ($81.45)
Seat 3: lifesagrind ($48.25)

lifesagrind posts the small blind of $0.25
Ruud27 posts the big blind of $0.50
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to lifesagrind [Kd Th]
Oak1974 folds
jcraw70 calls $0.50
Baschti84 folds
Glastoki folds
wheaten calls $0.50
lifesagrind calls $0.25 - Seeing a flop here is an easy decision
Ruud27 checks

*** FLOP *** [8h 3d Kc]
lifesagrind bets $1.50 - Top pair out of position, it's time to see if I can have this cheaply
Ruud27 folds
jcraw70 folds
wheaten raises to $3
lifesagrind raises to $5.50 - I know, what the hell am I doing. Problem is... he could put me on just about anything here, and I can put him on trying to take this away from me.
wheaten calls $2.50 - His call is telling

*** TURN *** [8h 3d Kc] [9h]
lifesagrind bets $11 - I have to continue considering my flop play
wheaten calls $11 - I know I'm beat here... but I also know he isn't 100% secure in his hand. Considering my play up to this point I'd have to put him on KJ, maybe KQ

*** RIVER *** [8h 3d Kc 9h] [2d]
lifesagrind bets $31.25, and is all in - I have two choices, check and fold, or push. I know he has me beat, but I also know he believes I could have him beat. I take the only reasonable choice left to me... push
wheaten has 15 seconds left to act
wheaten folds
Uncalled bet of $31.25 returned to lifesagrind
lifesagrind mucks
lifesagrind wins the pot ($33.25)

*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $35 | Rake $1.75
Board: [8h 3d Kc 9h 2d]
Seat 2: wheaten (button) folded on the River
Seat 3: lifesagrind (small blind) collected ($33.25), mucked

Moral of the story: Playing the player can be more important than playing your cards. (Just don't get too carried away with it)

Sunday Tournies

Everybody knows about the Sunday majors.

Well here's the two I'll be playing in tonight.

The Poker Grind.net presents...
Date & Time - Nov 18th @ 10pm
buyin - $20+2
Where - Full Tilt , click Tournament > Private
Name of Tournament - The Poker Grind.net Bounty
Password - thepokergrind

and

The Big Game

A Little Presto Sauce

By far my most interesting hand since switching to No Limit Cash games this month.

Table Wood Plank - $0.25/$0.50 - No Limit Hold'em
Seat 1: anal_yzer85 ($92.45)
Seat 2: joepoker77 ($48.25)
Seat 3: drchad ($24.50)
Seat 4: drossxyu ($80.80)
Seat 5: electricladylnd ($49.05)
Seat 6: Quickfox7 ($43.15)
Seat 7: lifesagrind ($57.70)
Seat 8: cashinchecks1 ($36.70)
Seat 9: pete1974 ($15.40)
electricladylnd posts the small blind of $0.25
Quickfox7 posts the big blind of $0.50
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to lifesagrind [5d 5c] - lets see a flop shall we
lifesagrind calls $0.50
cashinchecks1 folds
pete1974 folds
anal_yzer85 folds
joepoker77 folds
drchad calls $0.50
drossxyu raises to $2.25
electricladylnd folds
Quickfox7 folds
lifesagrind calls $1.75
drchad calls $1.75
*** FLOP *** [2c 5s 2s]
lifesagrind checks - Life doesn't get any better, let's see who has what here
drchad checks
drossxyu bets $4
lifesagrind calls $4 - Please call drchad
drchad calls $4 - YES!
*** TURN *** [2c 5s 2s] [9c]
lifesagrind checks - How bad does the bettor want this
drchad checks
drossxyu has 15 seconds left to act
drossxyu bets $9.75 - ohhhh he likes his hand
lifesagrind has 15 seconds left to act
lifesagrind raises to $20 - Here's an amount you can call
drchad folds
drossxyu calls $10.25
*** RIVER *** [2c 5s 2s 9c] [5h]
lifesagrind bets $31.45, and is all in - Smooth and creamy, all you can eat
drossxyu calls $31.45
*** SHOW DOWN ***
lifesagrind shows [5d 5c] four of a kind, Fives
drossxyu mucks
lifesagrind wins the pot ($119.40) with four of a kind, Fives
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $122.40 | Rake $3
Board: [2c 5s 2s 9c 5h]

Seat 4: drossxyu (button) mucked [2d 2h] - four of a kind, Twos - Ouch, sucks to be him

Seat 7: lifesagrind showed [5d 5c] and won ($119.40) with four of a kind, Fives

It happens, rarely, but quads over quads is always a guaranteed double up.

Robbing The Piggy Bank

errr... bankroll.

I've been watching for online bargains in an attempt to find a new laptop to replace my aging Dell. What I really wanted to buy was a Powerbook Pro but two things... cost and lack of Vista support meant I had to find a windows machine. With my new and hopefully successful career as a home PC support guy, most of my clients (when I get clients) will more than likely be on either XP or Vista machines. I needed to familiarize myself with Vista as well as be able to dual boot both it and XP.

I had settled on looking at refurbished machines as I felt that would give me the most bang for my buck and still be able to have a decent machine. This lead to spending a lot of time refreshing pages from wholesalers since this type of inventory moves quickly.

I've owned AT&T(yes they used to make laptops), Toshiba, and Dell in the past but I've heard good things about Acer and wanted to give it a try. As luck would have it I found the best deal on a new machine and oddly enough at a Best Buy. I now have an Acer Extensa 5620 and even though it's not a top of the line machine it is infinitely more powerful than my old machine and capable of running WoW just fine. (that was important criteria, my old laptop couldn't show all the texture maps. I often wouldn't see the mini map and the terrain was always just colored square patches, no roads, no nothing.)

At any rate I'm now enjoying my new toy and will be playing poker on it for the first time today.

SNG Maddness....NAH!

One would think that Full Tilt's SNG madness over the weekend would have played right into my strengths. I applaud them for the idea, but the implementation was poor. I simply wasn't prepared to devote four straight hours of multi-tabling. If I could have picked my own four hours it would have been easier but with their time restrictions I simply couldn't fit it in.

I really didn't want to fit it in either though. I've been playing the cash games over the past week (since Nov. 1) and been doing pretty well. I've gotten in 1,026 hands so far and I'm running at a very nice 27.5PTBB/100. This is well above expectation but I'll take it where I can get it.

October Meet November

Another month has come and gone and the older I get the quicker time seems to pass. I'm not sure what causes this phenomenon but I wish it would stop.

At any rate it's time to asses the previous months play and things went decently for me. I managed a 16.9% ROI on my SNG's and of the 4 multi-table tourneys I played in, I final tabled one. Not too shabby.

I'm looking to change gears in November and focus more on the cash games. The urge to play them has been building for a while so I'm going to give in. Abandoning my previously played 6-max cash games for the slower paced full ring should help ease the transition from SNG's. Beyond that there really isn't much to tell. See ya next time.