Now that the WSOP is in town, many other poker rooms are offering ‘special’ tournaments, I assume, to capture the influx of players. The buy-ins for the WSOP are prohibitive for many, though this year there are several $1,000 tournaments. Still a grand is too much, so it is nice to see that there are tournaments catering to the lower limit players, but still offering excellent structures and chip stacks.
There is hardly a paucity of tournaments to play year round, but for the lower limit player, these 40, 50, 60 dollar buy-ins offer terrible structures--usually 20 minute blinds and starting stacks of 3,000 to 4,000. Those games don’t allow any ‘play.’ After an hour the blinds have increase three-fold and one need to start pushing all-in.
This past Saturday, I played in a tournament that offered terrific blind structures and starting chip stacks: 40 minutes and 12,000 chips, respectively. These types of tournament are usually more expensive to play year-round, but not this time of year.
The Grand Series of Poker at the Golden Nugget offered the above tournament for $135. Truly awesome. It even received a ‘good luck’ and ‘hello’ from Phil Hulmuth, in person. The series continues through July with buy-ins ranging from 135 to 235 to 500 and the most expensive, 1,000. Every day there is one going on and most of the time two. The tournaments don’t just offer No Limit. There’s stud hi-low, Omaha, pot limit, HORSE, etc.
So when I played the room had two games going—stud high-low and no limit hold ‘em. The stud tournament had 119 players and the no limit had 372 players. As I was playing no limit, I really did not pay too much attention to the stud game, but did note how many players entered. The hold ‘em tournament paid out 37 places with 1st place offer $8,700—not too bad for 135 bucks.
I started playing at noon and busted out about 3:30 with still well over 260 players left—it’s a grind. My poker run is still going terribly wrong, and this tournament proved no exception as did the subsequent games I played over the weekend. What’s new there? Nothing. However, stupid is as stupid does and thus stupid will enter in another tournament. The Nugget is not the only place offering these ‘special’ tournaments, but it’s the best one for the price that I have found.
Showing posts with label tournament. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tournament. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Thursday, June 3, 2010
The Poker Gods Hate Me; or it is not a trend if it happens all the time
I decided to play a limit game for the hell of it. Try to refine some basic strategy as I had not been playing for a while. Easy myself back into playing, as it were. The trend last time I played was not good. Amazing suck outs, always on the wrong side. The bad beats simply forced me to stop playing for a good 6-7 months. It was not worth playing when miracles happen for everyone in a hand with me. So a limit game might help easy into the no limit game I normally play. Now I am coming, painfully, to the conclusion that I am not very good, and simply should stop playing al together. Or understand that when I do play, I won’t win, no matter how I play. I plan to give a deep stack tournament at the Nugget this weekend a go. If the “trend” continues, well, I must stop playing for good. It’s the only sensible thing to do.
So I am in a 2/4 game at the Green Valley. I think I won a hand or two and was up a bit. How misleading that was. The comes this gift.
I was in middle position, and look down at 10,10. Pretty good, but nothing to get crazy about. In a 2/4 game, there are always, always, multiple folks to the flop no matter if there is a raise or not. So I call and there maybe 3 or 4 to flop.
The flop comes 6,10,6
Holy shit, I flopped a full house. I have the best of it, unless someone has pocket sixes. Perhaps, I think, things are changing for me. This is the poker gods laughing at me and spiting my very attempt to play poker. Expect that I am an atheist. Quite a confusing state, to say the least. Fourth street is a blank, an 8. The board reads thusly:
6,10,6, 8
I raise the bettor. It is just the two of us at this point. The river is a six; the board is
6,10, 6, 8, 6
When the my heads-up player bets, I know, I know with certainly that she has a six. And sure enough, when I call her bet, she flips over 3,6. Sadly for me, awesome for every asshole that I wind up in a pot with, she has quad sixes.
The numbers:
Tens heads up, the odds are 86% to win against a 6,3. In a 2/4 game, one is never heads up before the flop. So the true odds are not known, but after the flop I was heads up.
So I had pocket 10s. After the flop I am 96% to win. So I raise her bet and a blank comes: 8. So now I am 98% to win. She checks and I bet; she calls
She has a 2% chance of winning and wins. The thing is that this happens all the time, and by all the time, I mean every time I play. At least every time that I can recall. This is why I have slowed down and have not played much at all.
So after this beat, I was cracked and proceed to lose. I buckled down and only played premium hands—did not matter. I then played rags, did not matter. More later
So I am in a 2/4 game at the Green Valley. I think I won a hand or two and was up a bit. How misleading that was. The comes this gift.
I was in middle position, and look down at 10,10. Pretty good, but nothing to get crazy about. In a 2/4 game, there are always, always, multiple folks to the flop no matter if there is a raise or not. So I call and there maybe 3 or 4 to flop.
The flop comes 6,10,6
Holy shit, I flopped a full house. I have the best of it, unless someone has pocket sixes. Perhaps, I think, things are changing for me. This is the poker gods laughing at me and spiting my very attempt to play poker. Expect that I am an atheist. Quite a confusing state, to say the least. Fourth street is a blank, an 8. The board reads thusly:
6,10,6, 8
I raise the bettor. It is just the two of us at this point. The river is a six; the board is
6,10, 6, 8, 6
When the my heads-up player bets, I know, I know with certainly that she has a six. And sure enough, when I call her bet, she flips over 3,6. Sadly for me, awesome for every asshole that I wind up in a pot with, she has quad sixes.
The numbers:
Tens heads up, the odds are 86% to win against a 6,3. In a 2/4 game, one is never heads up before the flop. So the true odds are not known, but after the flop I was heads up.
So I had pocket 10s. After the flop I am 96% to win. So I raise her bet and a blank comes: 8. So now I am 98% to win. She checks and I bet; she calls
She has a 2% chance of winning and wins. The thing is that this happens all the time, and by all the time, I mean every time I play. At least every time that I can recall. This is why I have slowed down and have not played much at all.
So after this beat, I was cracked and proceed to lose. I buckled down and only played premium hands—did not matter. I then played rags, did not matter. More later
Monday, April 26, 2010
Field report from the felt-lines:
After my minor morning tournament success, I decided to play in the late night tournament, the 11 PM. Those can be a little more fun since the tourists have been boozing it up all day.
My play was fairly strong and solid for the 1st part of the tournament—up to the initial break. I was aggressive and had only one show down. I think I chipped up to about 10,000 right before break. One hand really helped me and demonstrates really how clueless some players are.
I looked down at A,10 off suit and so raise to 400 when blinds are 50/100. A serious raise as I was in middle/late position. The button calls and everyone else folds. I had watched the button play and was not terribly impressed. Although, I thought that I would like to have sex with her if circumstances conspired to put us together. She was maybe 40ish; and had that lived-in look that many middle-age women have. One’s mind wanders sometimes.
The flop is 8c,kd,8s. I am first to act and want to stay aggressive. I hope this flop missed her, but I am certain she’s playing paint. She had been playing that way generally; she was a calling station. So I fire a bet; 1,000,-two black chips. Call. I am certain she caught a piece of this flop now. I think she has big slick, but I don’t know. But I am sure she caught some of the flop, however and because she simply called, I think she has a King. Next card is Qh so the board reads 8c,Kd,8s,Qh. Hmmm. I check, and she checks behind me. The last card is a miracle Jack. Broadway. Lucky. I bet 2,000. She calls, and I take the robust pot.
What did she have? She had K.Q. I was amazed she did not come over the top. She flopped top pair and only called. I could see her not coming over the top on the flop. She had two pair: Ks and 8s. Since I raised perhaps she put me on A,K, like I thought she might have. But after the turn? She had top two-K,Q, and she checked? This is a terrible play by her.
Let’s consider the situation. If I had flopped a strong, monstrous had like, say, a full house, maybe I raised with K,8—but not likely, or maybe I had A,8 and flopped a set, but raising with A,8 is unusual, or maybe I raised with pocket 8s, for the unbeatable quads, the call still makes little sense.
For starters, if those situations were true, there is no way I am betting on the flop, at least most of the time. If I have that dominating of a hand, with possible exception of A,8 or rag 8, I am not really concerned about anything and want to extract as many chips from her as I can by allowing her to “catch up,” as it were. So my bet on the flop communicates quite a bit. It says, in the very least, “something makes little sense here,” for some of the reasons I just pointed out. So her play should have been to re-raise me to at least 3000. That’s a difficult bet with a scary board, but seriously, what could I have had? Pocket A,A were the only thing to be realistically afraid of, and if one thinks a player has A,As, and one calls to see what the flop brings, then after said flop provides nothing, the obvious choice, the only choice is fold. The only other reasonable assessment by her was that I had A.K. So the check on the flop is maybe okay.
It is easy to analyze after the fact, but this seems clear, especially after the turn that she needed to bet or re-raise any bet. After the turn, she said top pair and checks? No way. She has to realize that. A poor play that I liked because she chipped me up; and she was sexy. Things don’t last forever, however.
Those players in the tournaments I play in abound. They often chip me up, unless they get lucky, which happens enough. Despite my strong play, alas no success here. At least no cash, but I did go deep in the tournament. Sometimes going deep is a win, a moral victory, which means “you’re a loser.”
Although this hand did not bust me out of the tournament, (I hung on far a long time after) it was the hand that sealed my fate. A little after the first break, the table I was on got broken up. I was sent to another table, right next to this fairly hot chick. She had on a tank top, revealing her ample and lusty breasts. Plus she was friendly—from Texas. She smiled a lot, and I immediately thought it would be great to sex her. She was pretty, friendly and a little flirty. I am positive every dude at that table had similar thoughts.
I saw her in the earlier tournament and knew she had a husband—good looking guy. Perhaps they were here for a swinger’s convention, I thought. Maybe they get off on having a guy fuck her as the husband watches. The trick was, how best to find this out without appearing to look like a complete perverted degenerate. I did not find out. I am still not sure how to broach that subject. The thing was, I put a brutal beat on her later in the tournament, which is like getting fucked, but without the fluids or mutual fun.
Anyway, I am in the small blind, next to a huge chip stack. Fucking shitting position to be in. I do have a nice chip stack, 9,000 or so. Strong for this point in the tournament. Everyone folds except the button, the hot chick in town for the swinger’s convention. I look down at Frosty The Snowman—pocket 8s.
The blinds are 200/400. I make it 1,200 to go. There is really one way to play middle pair. Be aggressive or hope to flop a set and play passive. I was aggressive, figuring the big blind would fold. The big blind calls, and hottie from Texas dumps her hand, complaining about the raise, but not in an irritating way. I thought it cute. Anyway, I am concerned about the big blind. I had not been able to see him play, but he did have a stack. He could be a guy who calls everything and has gotten lucky; or he could have a hand. Not good. I am praying for an 8. But God does not listen to atheists, so the flop comes Js,9c,Jh. Fuck, a big miss. However, I want to be aggressive, (I see no other way to win this pot) so I fire a 2,000 bet, hoping the jacks missed him and he would respect my pre-flop raise. He smooth calls. Fuck, fuck, I am fuct, I think. The next card is a blank, like a 6 or something. I check; he checks behind me. Hmmm. The next card does not help me and I check. He bets 4,000. In this hand I’ve lost 3,200, a third of my fucking stack. (This happens all too often to me.) I debate for awhile about this and almost talk myself into the call. Perhaps, he’s totally full of shit and is using the big stack to push me around. I even count out the call to see what I would have left. Not much at all. So I fold. Turns out that was the correct play. He told me later on break that he had a full house. I guess, he could have been lying, but he was flirting with the Hottie, discussing a bad beat he had given to her; he fucked her too, so I think it was a moment of truth.
Anyway, that hurt and the next hand, the table is broken up. I am put across the table from Macy and thus can intermittently look at her tits. This is a much better table. The Big Stack, who eventually knocks me out, is at the table too. Turns out, he played well. Not in very many pots, but played aggressive when in. Oh well.
So I am getting kind of short stacked after being blinded down a couple of times without a hand. I am the cutoff and need to make something happen. The blinds are at the doorstep, for fuck’s sake. I look down at A,J off suit, so all-in. Fold, fold and then Macy looks at her hand and starts to complain about the all-in, and so on. She does so in a flirty, non-threatening way. She calls my all-in and the table folds. She turns over Queens after I show my small penis of a hand. She has me dominated, but seems resigned to a brutally fucking by pointing our how her queens had lost to Big Stack’s ducks earlier in the evening. It sort of turned me on.
At this point she is 70% to win and not be metaphorically fisted by me. Come on Ace. The flop is ugly. The flop is 10,2,9. Now she is 84% to win. Shit! the turn is a 7 and she is still 84% to win. Then I call out, 8, come on 8. And the river is an 8. She got total fucked by me, which is what I wanted all along, but not exactly in this way, you understand. A straight to the jack. Hey maybe, I can get back into the tournament here. However, even with the double up I am only at 9,000. Not enough with 2,000/1,000 blinds.
Macy is polite about the bad beat and I apologize for it, but I am not even close to being sorry about this. She smiles and goes to the rail to watch the table. Two hands later, my demise comes hastily. I have Jacks and push all in. There are two callers, so I am sure I am fucked. Yep, I am up against 88s and AAs. Bad luck. AAs win. As I walk to the rail, however, Macy rubs me on the back and says “it’s alright,” or something like that, and I feel my dick twitch. It’s nice to be rubbed by a new female. Hmmm, perhaps I should figure out how to broach the swinger’s thing. In the end, I bummed a smoke and lost more money playing blackjack. Have I ever pointed out how fucking stupid I am? Blackjack is a loser, for losers. What was I doing?
My play was fairly strong and solid for the 1st part of the tournament—up to the initial break. I was aggressive and had only one show down. I think I chipped up to about 10,000 right before break. One hand really helped me and demonstrates really how clueless some players are.
I looked down at A,10 off suit and so raise to 400 when blinds are 50/100. A serious raise as I was in middle/late position. The button calls and everyone else folds. I had watched the button play and was not terribly impressed. Although, I thought that I would like to have sex with her if circumstances conspired to put us together. She was maybe 40ish; and had that lived-in look that many middle-age women have. One’s mind wanders sometimes.
The flop is 8c,kd,8s. I am first to act and want to stay aggressive. I hope this flop missed her, but I am certain she’s playing paint. She had been playing that way generally; she was a calling station. So I fire a bet; 1,000,-two black chips. Call. I am certain she caught a piece of this flop now. I think she has big slick, but I don’t know. But I am sure she caught some of the flop, however and because she simply called, I think she has a King. Next card is Qh so the board reads 8c,Kd,8s,Qh. Hmmm. I check, and she checks behind me. The last card is a miracle Jack. Broadway. Lucky. I bet 2,000. She calls, and I take the robust pot.
What did she have? She had K.Q. I was amazed she did not come over the top. She flopped top pair and only called. I could see her not coming over the top on the flop. She had two pair: Ks and 8s. Since I raised perhaps she put me on A,K, like I thought she might have. But after the turn? She had top two-K,Q, and she checked? This is a terrible play by her.
Let’s consider the situation. If I had flopped a strong, monstrous had like, say, a full house, maybe I raised with K,8—but not likely, or maybe I had A,8 and flopped a set, but raising with A,8 is unusual, or maybe I raised with pocket 8s, for the unbeatable quads, the call still makes little sense.
For starters, if those situations were true, there is no way I am betting on the flop, at least most of the time. If I have that dominating of a hand, with possible exception of A,8 or rag 8, I am not really concerned about anything and want to extract as many chips from her as I can by allowing her to “catch up,” as it were. So my bet on the flop communicates quite a bit. It says, in the very least, “something makes little sense here,” for some of the reasons I just pointed out. So her play should have been to re-raise me to at least 3000. That’s a difficult bet with a scary board, but seriously, what could I have had? Pocket A,A were the only thing to be realistically afraid of, and if one thinks a player has A,As, and one calls to see what the flop brings, then after said flop provides nothing, the obvious choice, the only choice is fold. The only other reasonable assessment by her was that I had A.K. So the check on the flop is maybe okay.
It is easy to analyze after the fact, but this seems clear, especially after the turn that she needed to bet or re-raise any bet. After the turn, she said top pair and checks? No way. She has to realize that. A poor play that I liked because she chipped me up; and she was sexy. Things don’t last forever, however.
Those players in the tournaments I play in abound. They often chip me up, unless they get lucky, which happens enough. Despite my strong play, alas no success here. At least no cash, but I did go deep in the tournament. Sometimes going deep is a win, a moral victory, which means “you’re a loser.”
Although this hand did not bust me out of the tournament, (I hung on far a long time after) it was the hand that sealed my fate. A little after the first break, the table I was on got broken up. I was sent to another table, right next to this fairly hot chick. She had on a tank top, revealing her ample and lusty breasts. Plus she was friendly—from Texas. She smiled a lot, and I immediately thought it would be great to sex her. She was pretty, friendly and a little flirty. I am positive every dude at that table had similar thoughts.
I saw her in the earlier tournament and knew she had a husband—good looking guy. Perhaps they were here for a swinger’s convention, I thought. Maybe they get off on having a guy fuck her as the husband watches. The trick was, how best to find this out without appearing to look like a complete perverted degenerate. I did not find out. I am still not sure how to broach that subject. The thing was, I put a brutal beat on her later in the tournament, which is like getting fucked, but without the fluids or mutual fun.
Anyway, I am in the small blind, next to a huge chip stack. Fucking shitting position to be in. I do have a nice chip stack, 9,000 or so. Strong for this point in the tournament. Everyone folds except the button, the hot chick in town for the swinger’s convention. I look down at Frosty The Snowman—pocket 8s.
The blinds are 200/400. I make it 1,200 to go. There is really one way to play middle pair. Be aggressive or hope to flop a set and play passive. I was aggressive, figuring the big blind would fold. The big blind calls, and hottie from Texas dumps her hand, complaining about the raise, but not in an irritating way. I thought it cute. Anyway, I am concerned about the big blind. I had not been able to see him play, but he did have a stack. He could be a guy who calls everything and has gotten lucky; or he could have a hand. Not good. I am praying for an 8. But God does not listen to atheists, so the flop comes Js,9c,Jh. Fuck, a big miss. However, I want to be aggressive, (I see no other way to win this pot) so I fire a 2,000 bet, hoping the jacks missed him and he would respect my pre-flop raise. He smooth calls. Fuck, fuck, I am fuct, I think. The next card is a blank, like a 6 or something. I check; he checks behind me. Hmmm. The next card does not help me and I check. He bets 4,000. In this hand I’ve lost 3,200, a third of my fucking stack. (This happens all too often to me.) I debate for awhile about this and almost talk myself into the call. Perhaps, he’s totally full of shit and is using the big stack to push me around. I even count out the call to see what I would have left. Not much at all. So I fold. Turns out that was the correct play. He told me later on break that he had a full house. I guess, he could have been lying, but he was flirting with the Hottie, discussing a bad beat he had given to her; he fucked her too, so I think it was a moment of truth.
Anyway, that hurt and the next hand, the table is broken up. I am put across the table from Macy and thus can intermittently look at her tits. This is a much better table. The Big Stack, who eventually knocks me out, is at the table too. Turns out, he played well. Not in very many pots, but played aggressive when in. Oh well.
So I am getting kind of short stacked after being blinded down a couple of times without a hand. I am the cutoff and need to make something happen. The blinds are at the doorstep, for fuck’s sake. I look down at A,J off suit, so all-in. Fold, fold and then Macy looks at her hand and starts to complain about the all-in, and so on. She does so in a flirty, non-threatening way. She calls my all-in and the table folds. She turns over Queens after I show my small penis of a hand. She has me dominated, but seems resigned to a brutally fucking by pointing our how her queens had lost to Big Stack’s ducks earlier in the evening. It sort of turned me on.
At this point she is 70% to win and not be metaphorically fisted by me. Come on Ace. The flop is ugly. The flop is 10,2,9. Now she is 84% to win. Shit! the turn is a 7 and she is still 84% to win. Then I call out, 8, come on 8. And the river is an 8. She got total fucked by me, which is what I wanted all along, but not exactly in this way, you understand. A straight to the jack. Hey maybe, I can get back into the tournament here. However, even with the double up I am only at 9,000. Not enough with 2,000/1,000 blinds.
Macy is polite about the bad beat and I apologize for it, but I am not even close to being sorry about this. She smiles and goes to the rail to watch the table. Two hands later, my demise comes hastily. I have Jacks and push all in. There are two callers, so I am sure I am fucked. Yep, I am up against 88s and AAs. Bad luck. AAs win. As I walk to the rail, however, Macy rubs me on the back and says “it’s alright,” or something like that, and I feel my dick twitch. It’s nice to be rubbed by a new female. Hmmm, perhaps I should figure out how to broach the swinger’s thing. In the end, I bummed a smoke and lost more money playing blackjack. Have I ever pointed out how fucking stupid I am? Blackjack is a loser, for losers. What was I doing?
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