The Rush

My ridiculous run of cards has continued at the poker tables. I deposited $852 (the most I could scrounge into Neteller from various quick site cashouts) into Party for the bonus, and after playing the 1142 required hands, withdrew $1632. I put $400 of that back into PokerNow. I ran that up to about $560, and then had a brief dryspell, dropping back down to $330. It was actually a bit of a relief to have a downswing in there, though I couldn’t really tell you why. Since then, I’ve built my PokerNow balance back up to $810, mostly just through straightforward play, insane cards, and bad players.

Since the beginning of February, my winnings at .25/.50 NL 6max: 22.96 BB/100 over 8500+ hands. I don’t think there’s any way that can hold for much longer.

I was going to save this for a few more days to hopefully get to title a post “Thirty seven?! In a row?”, but I just can’t wait anymore. According to Poker Tracker, since the beginning of February, I’ve been dealt AA 35 times. It’s always held up. Every. Single. Time. I’m not just pushing all in preflop and winning the blinds, either. I never made more than a pot sized raise preflop, and once (and only once) I actually slowplayed and just called a raise from the big blind. There were a few huge pots, and one fairly tough call, in there. I think some people will want some proof. This is the closest I can come:

Poker Tracker Guide

News of Hank and Iggy‘s Poker Tracker Guide has been all over the poker blogger world lately. I haven’t bought it, and don’t know if I will. I’m sure I’m losing money by not having it (though it is geared towards limit, which I haven’t been playing lately). I’m sure the content is very much worth reading and it would help me out a ton. The price is more than fair, and a tiny fraction of what it would probably help me win. There’s one simple reason I’m not buying it: DRM.

I’m certainly against piracy and copyright infringement (I write software for a living), and by no means think they should be just giving this information away. As I said, $20 is a perfectly reasonable price (and probably too low) for all the help this book will give. Iggy and Hank deserve to get paid for their hard work in putting it together. I just have serious issues with any sort of DRM, especially a system as restrictive as theirs seems to be. When (if) I buy an eBook, I want to be able to read it on my terms. I want to be able to read it on my Windows machine, my Linux machine, my Treo, and my laptop (if I ever get the damn thing fixed). I don’t want it to take over control of my computer while I’m reading it. I might even want to cut and paste a small section of it for a review, and not have to retype it. It appears I can’t do most of those things. I also don’t like invasions of my privacy (see the last sentence of the second paragraph below).

Note: The anti-piracy software we’re currently using does not allow users to access the file menu of other programs while the ebook is open. This means that while the e-book is open, other applications such as Poker Tracker will not operate properly until the e-book has been closed. We’re working on finding a better anti-piracy solution, and promise to send out new copies to everyone that’s purchased the book if we find better software.

To help prevent illegal access to the book, we only allow the e-book to be opened on one and only one computer. After you’ve completed your purchase, you will be directed to a web page that allows you to download a “zipped” (.zip extension) executable file (.exe extension). The first time you open this file, you’ll be asked to enter your personal access code that you received via email when you purchased the product. After entering this code, the file will function as a normal Adobe Acrobat file (.pdf extension), and you’ll never be asked to input your code again. Any attempts to open this file on another computer will result in a notification sent to our support team.

I don’t have a solution. I understand the need to protect it, but I also feel strongly enough about it that I’m not willing to buy it. I don’t like being treated as a criminal because other people are. When I buy a piece of media, it should be mine to do with as I please, short of mass distribution. Then, when it comes to fighting online crime accusations, the stakes couldn’t be higher. Working with experienced New Jersey internet crime attorneys means your defense strategy is backed by seasoned knowledge of state regulations and federal guidelines. They understand how to challenge evidence obtained from digital sources, ensuring that every aspect of your case is reviewed in detail.

If it was a printed paper book, I’d probably buy it.

GameTime +

Quick review: Get it. You need it. Here.

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Sometime yesterday, I decided that I was just throwing money away not getting in on the latest Party deposit bonus. I only had until midnight eastern to make a deposit to qualify, so I cashed out at as many places as I could to get the maximum bonus. Not enough cashouts made it to my Neteller account in time, so I only managed a big enough deposit to get $170 bonus, instead of the full $200. Most of that money came out of PokerNOW, so I’m going to be playing at the same tables now, just working off a bonus worth more than the rakeback. As soon as I’m done, the money goes back to PokerNOW (unless there’s a good bonus somewhere else).

Party recently changed the structure of their NL games. Due to the way they list them ($25NL, $50NL, etc.), it looked like what they did was lower the blinds. I didn’t really like that too much. I was happy playing no limit with .25/.50 blinds, and wanted to keep doing that. When the $25NL game went to .10/.25 blinds, I was a little annoyed. After thinking about it for a little longer, I realized that I could view it the same way as just allowing for a bigger buyin. The $50NL game now has .25/.50 blinds, so it’s the same game but with a higher maximum. If the games were listed by the blinds instead of the buyin, I might not have even noticed the change. My only worry with the change was that the games wouldn’t be as fishy, because people wouldn’t notice the change, or not want to get into a game with $50 (though you can still buy in short for $25 if you really want). Of course, I know at these levels the games will have plenty of fish, but there really need to be a lot if I wanted to maintain my 20.95 BB/100 that I had playing the game in February. 🙂

So far, so good. Looks like I had nothing to worry about. If anything, the players seem to have gotten even worse with the change. I was in the $50NL 6max game last night, and there was this one guy who was really awful. In about ten or fifteen minutes, he had dropped three buyins, for the most part playing crap hands. (One of the buyins was lost on a bad beat when he had KK vs AT all-on on a ten high flop.) Anyway, he had been showing down and losing lots of awful stuff. So when he pushed all in a few hands after another rebuy and I had QQ, I pretty much had to call him. Against anyone else at the table, I might have folded for so much money preflop (had already folded queens once preflop that night). Of course, that hand he had to have AA, and I doubled him up. Just my luck. He went on to double up again soon after and win a few more pots.

A little while later I almost tripled up when I made nut flush with KTs vs a jack high flush (only three diamonds on the board) and an AQ who had top pair. I never actually did any betting with this hand. I called a raise from the small blind, check-called with my draw on the flop, check-called with my flush on the turn. On the river, I was thinking about putting a bet out there, but I was pretty sure someone else would, so I checked. The big blind (who I had covered) went all-in, and the button (who had less than the big blind) called. All I could do was call with the nuts, and take down the pot. That put me in great shape at the table again. Then, the monster. The SB is the guy I doubled up earlier.

Party Poker No-Limit Hold’em, $0.50 BB (6 max, 5 handed) converter

Button ($58.55)
SB ($170.45)
BB ($48.15)
UTG ($46.55)
penner42 ($114.5)

Preflop: penner42 is MP with A♥, A♣. SB posts a blind of $0.25.
UTG calls $0.50, penner42 raises to $2.25, Button calls $2.25, SB (poster) calls $2, 1 fold, UTG folds.

Flop: ($7.75) J♦, J♥, A♦ (3 players)
SB checks, penner42 bets $2, Button calls $2, SB calls $2.

Turn: ($13.75) 8♥ (3 players)
SB checks, penner42 bets $4, Button calls $4, SB raises to $8, penner42 calls $4, Button calls $4.

River: ($37.75) 8♣ (3 players)
SB checks, penner42 bets $15, Button calls $15, SB raises to $158.20 (All-In), penner42 calls $87.25 (All-In), Button folds.

SB is returned $55.95 (uncalled).

Final Pot: $257.25

Results below:
SB has K♣ J♣ (full house, jacks full of eights).
penner42 has A♥ A♣ (full house, aces full of jacks).
Outcome: penner42 wins $257.25.

Obviously, this was a great hand for me. Preflop, I made the standard (pot) raise. After the flop, my only goal (of course) was to extract as much as possible out of the hand. Most people with aces would probably check the flop, so I didn’t. I made a weak bet at it compared to the size of the pot. I wanted to try to represent an AK, and appear afraid of the jack. On the turn, I did the same thing again. My small bet ($4 into a $13.75 pot) was designed to get a caller if someone only had an ace, and make it appear my hand wasn’t that strong. When I got checkraised another $4, I immediately knew the SB had a jack, and I would likely get all his money unless I made quads on the river to scare him (or he made quads on the river to beat me). The 8 on the river was a beautiful card. Only two hands could beat me (JJ, 88), but more importantly it meant only three hands could beat anyone who had a jack (without an ace kicker, AA, AJ, 88). He had to figure he had the best hand given my weak bets (but not checks to slowplay a monster) earlier. My bet on the river was chosen to get the button to call. I knew I was getting checkraised for a lot of chips. I figured the button probably had the case ace. As expected, the button called, and the SB went all-in. I took a little time before calling, in hopes that the button might as well, but the pot was plenty big for me.

I stuck around for another hour or so, and ended up leaving the table with over $300. So far, I’m making 28.75BB/100 in March at the .25/.50 NL 6max game (incidently, PokerTracker treats the two games as the same, because it sorts them by blinds, not buyin). I don’t expect this number to stay anywhere near this high, but I’m gonna ride the good run as long as I can. Oh, and I’m 440 out of 1192 hands done with clearing my bonus.

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Party Poker No-Limit Hold’em, $ penner4242 (6 max, 5 handed) converter

UTG ($24.5)
MP ($18.75)
Button ($23.65)
SB ($26.35)
penner4242 ($55.86)

Preflop: penner4242 is BB with A♥, 2♥. SB posts a blind of $0.25.
UTG calls $0.50, MP calls $0.50, 1 fold, SB (poster) completes, penner4242 checks.

Flop: ($2) 4♥, 5♥, 3♥ (4 players)
SB checks, penner4242 checks, UTG checks, MP checks.

Turn: ($2) 5♦ (4 players)
SB checks, penner4242 checks, UTG bets $0.75, MP raises to $3, SB folds, penner4242 calls $3, UTG folds.

River: ($8.75) 8♠ (2 players)
penner4242 bets $5, MP raises to $10, penner4242 raises to $15.25, MP calls $5.25 (All-In).

Final Pot: $39.25

Results below:
MP has 5♣ A♣ (three of a kind, fives).
penner4242 has A♥ 2♥ (straight flush, five high).
Outcome: penner4242 wins $39.25.

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Saturday was the Central Coast Poker Championship. The final field ended up being 760 players, with the top 80 getting paid. First place was $50,000. This was only my second big live tournament. Since the first one, I have played in a lot more online zimpler go pikakasinot tournaments, and have a much better idea what I’m doing.

My seat assignment was table B-3, seat 5. This meant I was going to be sitting there for a long time, as they broke tables from the higher rows first. When we started, the table was extremely tight, but not aggressive. For the first two orbits, there were no preflop raises, but also no showdowns. A bet on the flop or turn usually took the pot. The first preflop raise at the table came (of course) on my big blind, and I don’t remember what my hand was, but I had to throw it away.

My first real “decision” to make came when I was dealt AQo on the button, with the blinds 50/100, and it wasn’t really a hard one. UTG raised to 300, and the next guy reraised to 600. The reraiser had a big stack (he had doubled up with QQ vs KK earlier). I threw my hand away, and UTG called. The flop was Axx, all clubs, UTG checked, and the reraiser made a big bet at it. The other guy folded, and the winner flipped over his aces. I don’t remember if I had the Q♣, but even so, I probably couldn’t have called his bet on the flop. Good preflop laydown. 🙂 A little while later, I get 88 in early position, and raised to 300. I got one caller. The flop was 889, and it went check, check. I bet 300 on the turn, and got called, and 500 on the river and he folded. I wish he had had something, anything, to call me with. Anyway, it was nice getting quads, I just wish it could have happened later in the tournament when the blinds were bigger. Right before the first break, I got dealt KK in early position. I raised to 3x the BB, and everyone was already getting up to take their break, so no one wanted to play with me. That would be the only pocket pair above eights that I’d see all day.

I made a few blind steals here and there when I could, but never really got much in the way of cards. There were only a few critical hands for me in the tournament. With the blinds 100/200, it folded to me and I raised to 600 with K♣Q♣ from the cutoff. The big blind reraised me 1000 more, and I had to throw it away. I was dealt Q♦4♦ in the small blind, and there were four limpers ahead of me. The big blind rarely raised, so I called. I was a bit shortstacked at the time, and I pushed all in on the 8♦x♦x flop. I got called by the nuts (88), and hit the A♦ on the turn. He didn’t pair up on the river, and I doubled up. That hand actually crippled him, and he went out a little while later. With the blinds 400/800, I called a minimum raise from the small blind with 88. The raiser was all in, and several other people called as well. I flopped a set, with two diamonds on the board, and immediately pushed all in to drive out the flush draws. Everyone else folded, and I took the pot. I just barely managed to hang around to the point where the blinds were 1000/2000, with 6000 in chips. I looked down at KJo UTG, and pushed in. I got called in two places, by the button and the big blind. The flop was pretty good for me, a 79T rainbow, giving me a double gutshot straight draw. The other two players checked it down, and I hit my beautiful queen on the river. The button had AK, and I never saw the big blind’s cards, but I tripled up. That would be the most chips I’d have during the tournament. A little while later, a player busted in 81st place, and I made the money. Two players actually busted on the same hand at that point, and they paid them both.

I pushed in for the rest of my chips (2x BB) UTG with ATo. The button went all in, and the small blind called (for all his chips, the button had us both covered). They turned over KK and KJ. The final board ended up being T9xQx, the small blind took down the pot, and I was out in 71st place. Given the complete lack of good hands I was dealt, I was very happy with that result. I got paid $275 on the $220 entry fee, and played idn poker  for 7.5 hours. It was a good experience, and convinced me that if I’m ever in a tournament like that and actually manage to get dealt a few good hands, I can probably do pretty well. Overall, lots of fun. I also got a hat.:)

You can also check out some fun and exciting games at dewi222 here.

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I haven’t been playing much live poker lately, for a variety of reasons. For one, I went on a really bad losing streak (bad beats, mostly; four or five two outers hit against me after the money was in over a couple of week span). Another factor was the massive rain we had here last month closed the road to get to Chumash. There’s another way, but it takes 15 minutes longer or so to get there, and I really am that lazy. Plus, I’ve had a lot of comps to finish at ECD and PSO. Those are done, now.

Saturday, I went to the singles bowling tournament in Lompoc, with the intention of going to Chumash afterwards. I didn’t do too well at the bowling, but the poker more than made up for that. The real reason I wanted to go to the casino was to sign up for the Central Coast Poker Championship. I figured I’d sit down and play a little poker, too, but not stay all night like I had in the past. I got seated at 10:30 and set myself a 3 hour time limit: I was going to leave at 1:30am.

The NL game there has changed quite a bit since the last time I was there, about two months ago. First off, they changed the blinds from 2/3 to 2/5, but the $100 max buyin stayed the same. The game went much smoother with these blinds, simpler raises, and less making change, but $100 doesn’t give you much to work with at a $5 big blind. They did change the rebuy rules, too, so if you get below $50 you can rebuy $100 more instead of just up to $100. That helps with that problem a bit, I guess. I never had to deal with it. After folding for a while, and not getting much of anything, I get AJo in MP. It folds to me, and I raise to $15. The small blind reraises to $30, and I call. The flop is AQT, and he checks. I bet $25, and he calls, leaving himself with only around $20. At that point, it didn’t matter to me what the next card was, I had $20 more that was going into the pot. The turn’s a nice looking K, so I have the nuts, and the small blind goes all in for the rest of his money. Obviously, I call. He flips over KK, the river’s a harmless 2, and I take down the pot.

It was pretty much a steady climb from there. I pretty much have only three other hands worth talking about. A new player had just sat down, and I hadn’t really had a chance to see him play much. In EP, he raises the minimum to $10. I call with KQo on the button. The flop is Kxx. It checks to me, and I bet $20. He raises another $20. I really didn’t know anything about him, and almost gave it up right there, because I didn’t want to have to call down the rest of his stack if he had AK. Finally, I called. The turn was a blank, and we both checked. The river was another blank, and he bet $15. If I had thought about it a little longer, I would have raised on the end because of his check on the turn, but I just called, and he turned over KJ. Another hand I get A♠J♠ in the big blind. A decent player (but one who plays a lot of hands) raises to $15 from MP. The small blind calls, and I call. The flop is A♦T♠3♣. SB checks, and I bet $20. The raiser folds, and the small blind raises another $40. I think for a long time, and push in the rest of my chips. He calls. The turn is the Q♠, giving me nut flush draw, and the river is the Q♦. I never saw his cards, but my two pair, J kicker was good. I think he had AT and I outdrew him. One more hand, against the same player. I limp in EP with Q♦8♦. A bunch of other limpers, and he raises to $15. I call, as do a few others. The flop is 5♥6♥8♥. He checks, and I bet $20. It folds to him, and again he raises me another $40. I think for a long time, and finally call with the intention of going all in on the turn if it’s not an ace, king, or heart. It’s a wonderful Q♣, he checks, and I push in. He folds what I assume was a high flush draw, and I take down the pot.

Those were pretty much the only sizeable pots I had, but I took down a few small ones as well. I finished +$343, and did actually leave at 1:30 (well, as soon as the blind got back to me after 1:30). Alas, I never got to play a hand with the maniac we had sit down at the table who lost $500 in about an hour. He made some pretty crazy plays, and just in general didn’t know what was going on. He called all-in on an 6 high flop with KJo. I really thought he was good and was dropping $200 quickly to start and then would start playing well afterwards, but he just kept playing badly, and left about a half hour before I did. The highest pocket pair I got all night was 88, and I had to fold it preflop (didn’t put any money in with it). I got AKo once, in the big blind, and raised enough to buy the limps. I didn’t really get good starting hands, and didn’t even hit any good draws. With QT, there was a flop of 99J, but I had to fold my open ended straight draw to a big bet on that one. I don’t think I ever flopped a flush draw. Somehow, I managed to post a nice win anyway. More importantly, live poker was fun again. 🙂

As far as online play goes, I’ve mostly been playing NL at PokerNow (Party skin, where I get rakeback through ECD). It’s pretty soft, and I’m doing well there after losing a ton at the 1/2 limit game there. I played a bunch of .50/1 stud at Fast Poker, mainly because it clears the hand requirement for the ECD comp quickly since you ante every hand. I ended up making like $20 doing that, and learning a bit more about how to play stud. I also finished off the Poker Metro (Prima skin) comp at ECD and Golden Palace comp at PSO. I have pending bonus money at a bunch of places, but don’t really want to play anywhere other than PokerNow at the moment. The games are just that good.

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Softball

My company softball team had our last game (I think) of the season last night. We were 1-6 or so, and the only game we won was the game I wasn’t at. Last night, we played against the one team we beat. They had a double header that night, their first game against the only undefeated team in the league. That team now has one loss for the season. I walked in the first inning. I don’t like walking in slow pitch softball, but only one of the pitches was even close. I ended up scoring, and after one inning we were up 6-4. Our second inning started off with two quick outs. I followed with a two out single, and we went on an 8 run two out rally. I got two hits in the inning. My next time up, I grounded into a double play (I woulda beat out the throw, but I thought there were two outs), and my last time up I lined out hard to left center. I didn’t botch anything in the field, and almost made a really nice play on a ground ball off the third baseman’s glove (I was at shortstop) to get the runner at first. Almost. We won the game, 22-9. It was a good way to end the season.

Baseball

Stupid Marlins. They signed Carlos Delgado, which means the Mets didn’t. The Mets traded for Doug Mientkiewicz instead. If he can return to his 2003 or 2001 numbers, I can deal with that, though he’s certainly no Delgado. If he hits like he did last year, they’re gonna need to get someone better. At least he’s solid in the field.

Poker

I’ve been working off another promotion through PSO, this time the Golden Palace one. I should be finished with it tonight. I’m down around $25 there, after being up around $90 my first night. I’ve just had a string of really bad luck, but I’m perfectly happy with how I’ve been playing. Last night I had AAx4, KKx2, QQ, JJ, TT and none of them held up. I think my last 7 pocket aces have been cracked there, mostly playing 6 handed. Amazingly, I’ve really gotten to the point where I can just shrug it off and move on. I’ve also gotten to the point where I can lay it down when I know it’s beat, even at 1/2 limit, which is a good thing. Unfortunately, I couldn’t lay down my AQ to the A379T board with a lot of action. I was beat by both A3 and A7. I think that was the only hand I really misplayed and cost me more than it should have. I should have folded to the flop action. Overall, I do like Golden Palace’s interface and software, though it only wants to let you play at two tables at a time. You can trick it by getting on the waiting list for a third, which will then pop up when your seat is available. I’ve read that it’s a real pain to cash out from there, though, but I don’t want to do that yet.

I also did something last night I thought I’d never do: I signed up at a regular online casino (not a poker room) similar to คาสิโนสด UFABET. ECD has a promotion through Music Hall Casino for 600 ECD points. The EV of meeting the wagering requirements at 50 cent blackjack was around -$6, and 600 points is the equivalent of $60, so it’s a +EV move. I had to make some changes to the autoplay strategy (check the ECD forum for details) to make it play perfectly, and then just set it to autoplay enough hands to clear the requirement. The variance worked out in my favor, and I made $75 doing it, too. I busted out my bonus money, but overall it was a good first experience at a regular online casino. I’m not against signing up for more, but will only do it when its +EV, so there needs to be a bonus or promotion that makes it worth signing up.

I got my complete set of chips through ECD and PSO now. I don’t know what I’m going to spend the rest of my points on, but I’ll figure it out. Those cards in there weren’t the ones that I got with the set; those are my Binion’s Horseshoe Kems I got in Vegas.

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I’ve recently signed up at PokerNow (a Party skin) through ECD for their rakeback program. I’ve been wanting to get back to Party for all the bad players, but didn’t want to play anywhere that I wasn’t getting anything else back in return, since I’ve started doing all the comps at ECD and PSO. So I signed up, and started playing with the fish. I just about broke even while clearing my $100 deposit bonus, and then had an awful, awful run of cards, and some pretty bad play because of it. I lost about $360 playing 1/2 6max for three days or so. The deposit bonus helped soften that a bit, as does the rakeback, but it still stings. I’m not at all claiming I played perfectly and it was all the cards’ fault, but let me give you an idea of how bad of a run this was. At 6 handed tables, over the course of three days play, AA has held up 53% of the time, AKo 37%, AKs 23%. Shorthanded (hell, even full ring, probably) those numbers should be much higher. KK has done well, but other big pairs have awful percentages for this stretch. To make it worse, almost all of my AA that lost got rivered and I was pushing them hard when they were good, so I lost that much more with them. The awful run and terrible players that beat me put me on tilt a little bit, and my play worsened because of it, so I lost more money. I decided to take a break from the ring games for a few days, and try out the SNGs.

That turned out to be a good idea. I played 23 $10+1 SNGs, and had 4 firsts, 4 seconds, and 4 thirds, for a 58% ROI (I love PokerTracker), or $145 profit. I don’t know how I feel about Party’s SNG structure, but while it seems like it’d be too fast (start with 800 chips, and blinds go up every ten hands, I think), it’s manageable. They do turn into all-in fests towards the end, but even then, it seems to work out pretty well. Even if I don’t like the structure, if I can make money at them, I’ve gotta play them. I don’t particularly like their multitable SNGs, even though the blinds are timed instead of by handcount, because the payouts aren’t high enough for the amount of time it takes. I’d rather just play the single table ones, I think.

During one of the SNGs, I was pretty shortstacked with four players left.
Party Poker No-Limit Hold’em Tourney, Big Blind is t400 (4 handed) converter

Button (t2000)
penner4242 (t495)
BB (t2425)
UTG (t3080)

Preflop: penner4242 is SB with 7♥, 2♣.
2 folds, penner4242 raises t95 to t495, BB calls t95.

Flop: (t990) J♣, 9♣, T♦ (2 players)

Turn: (t990) 2♥ (2 players)

River: (t990) 2♦ (2 players)

Final Pot: t990

Results below:
penner4242 has 7h 2c (three of a kind, twos).
BB has Ah 8d (one pair, twos).
Outcome: penner4242 wins t990.

I pushed in from the small blind because I was already in for almost half my stack, and doubling up T295 later wouldn’t really do much for me, anyway. Plus, I’d need to do it in the next few hands. I didn’t really have much choice. The only reason I wasn’t all in on my big blind with any random hand was there was another player all in before me, so folding could have gotten me to the money (I didn’t have a good hand – if I did, I would have called). So I doubed through to T990, doubled up again two hands later with the Hilton Sisters, and then fourth place busted a few hands after that. Had I only doubled through once with QQ, I wouldn’t have survived. I owe my placing in that tourney to the Hammer.

After a few days of the SNGs, I decided to try the ring game again, and have recovered $72 of the losses there, so far, in under an hour of three tabling the 1/2 6 max (2.43 table hours). Hopefully, the cards won’t turn as bad as they were before anytime soon.

Oh, by the way, in case you couldn’t tell: I love PokerTracker. 🙂

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It’s been quite a while since I played a multitable tournament, so I figured I’d do that tonight instead of my usual three tabling the 1/2 games somewhere. It was mostly because I don’t have any pending bonuses anywhere right now. I figured I’d play for an hour or so, get knocked out, and stop. I kinda wish I was right, because playing for 4 hours, beating out 595 players, and only coming in 6th for $84 was a bit disappointing. Still, $84 on $5.50 isn’t bad. I don’t really have much in the way of interesting hands to talk about, except the first two hands of the tournament.

The very first hand, I get dealt A4o in the big blind. UTG raises the minimum, a few people call, as do I. The flop is a wonderful 235. I don’t remember exactly how the rest of the hand played out, but I took down a pretty decent pot on it. Next hand, I get dealt KK in the small blind. There’s a raise and a call before me, so I reraise. The original raiser goes all in (on the second hand of the tournament – no rebuys), and I call. He turns over KJ. The flop is a scary AQx, but no ten hits the board, and I end up with around 5000 chips on my starting 1500 after two hands.

I would stay at around 5000 for the next two and half hours or so, before finally getting some hands and building my stack up. I made the final table in third place with $149k, but just couldn’t hit a flop with my AK and AQ, and had to fold JJ to a bad board. I lost most of my chips when I had 88 somewhat shortstacked and it ran into QQ. Very next hand, my A3 ran into AQ, and I was out in 6th. Not bad for my first tournament in months, though.

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I just finished playing the hands required to get my 6000 points (use promo code PSO) at Poker Source Online at Bodog Poker. It was pretty quick, three tabling the 1/2 game. Not quite as quick as it could’ve been, since they don’t have 6 handed tables, only full ring, but quick enough. I only signed up Monday night. 🙂

When I started, I deposited $100 in there, and quickly lost $50 of it Monday. Tuesday, I put in $200 more so I’d have enough to play three tables at once, and now I’m up $140 overall there. It took a while getting used to ten handed tables again, but they were plenty profitable once I did. I like the interface, and although they have some network problems that cause slowdowns at times, I have a feeling I’ll probably be playing there more in the future. They have an unlimited 10% deposit bonus, too, apparently. I got my initial $10 bonus, but haven’t seen the next $20 one yet, though.

Anyway, PSO is pretty similar to ECD as far as how the signups and playing out the requirements work. You sign up at the site, sign up at the poker site through their link, deposit $100, and play the required hands. Not much to it. 6000 PSO points (use promo is roughly equivalent to 600 ECD points, or $60 (or 300 chips). Remember to tell them that metsfan sent you. 🙂

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That’s 16, and counting.

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