Railing Buddies

It was a fun night railing buddies in the FTOPS Main Event and the Big Game, both on FullTilt.

I snuck down to the basement after supper in a sort of chaos and stress induced meltdown, searching for my Bose headphones and poker combination which provides a retreat for me from all of it. I had visions of playing in Don’s Big Game, but eventually I ended up heading back upstairs to be with Sweetie. She had fallen asleep with The Little Guy, so I brought her back downstairs to watch some TV, which she did only briefly before falling asleep again.

It was a big night for our collection of buddies. Hoyazo ended up first out of the ME followed by a bigtime AA shove from the button against Fuel. Lucko hit the rail, and I thought my good luck charms would keep Raveen on a nice roll but it wasn’t meant to be. cmitch got very close to cashing, which left everyone’s favorite linguist iakaris as the sole cash from our crew, busting out in 137th. Alec Torelli (traheho) ended up atop an illustrious final four, taking out top cash game and donkament luckbox Boosted J (19 year old Justin Smith) in 2nd, tsarrast in 3rd, and Robert “Miss Lulu” Williamson in 4th.

I decided if I could win the buy-in on FullTilt, then I’d play in The Big Game. I did, but then I didn’t get there in time as usual and sat on the sidelines. Fuel ended up bubbling on what he claimed was a horrible call by Pauly with a board I think of Q-10-9 (Pauly called his shove with 44 maybe to Fuel’s AK). Pauly ended up taking the victory over jjok and Maudie for a nice score. Zeem also went out in 5th, and Raveen put a very bad beatdown on our good buddy Waffles, to full effect.

I continued a bad habit Friday evening, getting stuck over $600 before finally ending up $78.90 for the night (albeit six hours later at around 4:30AM Saturday morning). This is probably the third or fourth time I’ve done this, and I must confess I’m flying a little blind since I don’t have PokerTracker up and running on my new laptop (new from four months). My other laptop is being repaired at Best Buy, and I haven’t gone through whatever I need to get PT up and running here, which means I’m only guessing at my core causes of getting so stuck. Some of it is variance, some of it is major suckouts (a couple of undersets on the river taking out my big hands), but I’m pretty sure most of it is Bad Play 101, my normal series of leaks. Would I be up $3k if I hadn’t cratered a collective $3k first? Who knows. I definitely got paid off more frequently with top sets by folks who had seen me bluffing with air, but I believe I’d be on a serious positive run if I’d just played more solidly from the getgo.

All of this has been in a return to my ghey game of choice, midstakes LHE, where I am simply a successful player. I’m hardly the best player ever, but I am successful at limits up to $15/30. I haven’t weathered the storm above those stakes as I don’t have the stomach of pushing through the invariable tests that come from these guys when they see fresh blood in their midst. I don’t think there is active collusion at these higher levels, but there aren’t very many new players that make forays into $30/60 LHE. The better players become bettor players, simply raising the stakes of the game to three-bet and four-bet preflop to see what newbies are made of, check raising flops and turns to see if the fresh tuna has the roll to stomach it. I haven’t before, nor do I have a great interest doing it now. I’ll simply hang tight with inching my bankroll steadily up.

Hope everyone has a good day today, and talk to you soon.

ADDENDUM 2:30PM

Even a blind squirrel will find a nut every now and then, compliments of the value overbet…

Full Tilt Poker Game #1829959877: Table Camden Rose – $0.50/$1 – No Limit Hold’em – 13:57:51 ET – 2007/02/19
Seat 1: no1bagsfan ($97.95)
Seat 2: jepate ($24)
Seat 3: Kalbar8 ($100)
Seat 4: MCKELLAR ($31.20)
Seat 5: dalilama1 ($102.30)
Seat 6: jhazen ($102.80)
Seat 7: slizzle12 ($17.50)
Seat 8: BigJo Daddy ($199)
Seat 9: csquard ($79)
Kalbar8 posts the small blind of $0.50
MCKELLAR posts the big blind of $1
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to csquard [6h Ah]
dalilama1 folds
jhazen folds
slizzle12 folds
BigJo Daddy folds
csquard raises to $4
no1bagsfan calls $4
jepate folds
Kalbar8 folds
MCKELLAR folds
*** FLOP *** [3s 5h Qh]
csquard bets $6
no1bagsfan raises to $12
csquard calls $6
*** TURN *** [3s 5h Qh] [Ad]
csquard bets $63, and is all in
no1bagsfan calls $63
csquard shows [6h Ah]
no1bagsfan shows [Qc Tc]
*** RIVER *** [3s 5h Qh Ad] [2s]
csquard shows a pair of Aces
no1bagsfan shows a pair of Queens
csquard wins the pot ($156.50) with a pair of Aces
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $159.50 | Rake $3
Board: [3s 5h Qh Ad 2s]
Seat 1: no1bagsfan showed [Qc Tc] and lost with a pair of Queens
Seat 9: csquard showed [6h Ah] and won ($156.50) with a pair of Aces

ADDENDUM 3:50PM

Sickest hand in the history of poker maybe?

Full Tilt Poker Game #1830086866: Table Vasari (heads up) – $200/$400 – No Limit Hold’em – 14:21:11 ET – 2007/02/19
Seat 1: Son-in-Law ($67,608.75)
Seat 2: durrrr ($77,241.75)
durrrr posts the small blind of $200
Son-in-Law posts the big blind of $400
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
durrrr raises to $1,200
Son-in-Law raises to $3,600
durrrr calls $2,400
*** FLOP *** [Td Ts 7h]
Son-in-Law bets $5,000
durrrr raises to $15,700
Son-in-Law calls $10,700
*** TURN *** [Td Ts 7h] [5h]
Son-in-Law checks
durrrr has 15 seconds left to act
durrrr bets $57,941.75, and is all in
Son-in-Law calls $48,308.75, and is all in
durrrr shows [6h 8h]
Son-in-Law shows [Th Tc]
Uncalled bet of $9,633 returned to durrrr
*** RIVER *** [Td Ts 7h 5h] [4h]
durrrr shows a straight flush, Eight high
Son-in-Law shows four of a kind, Tens
durrrr wins the pot ($135,217) with a straight flush, Eight high
Son-in-Law is sitting out
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $135,217.50 | Rake $0.50
Board: [Td Ts 7h 5h 4h]
Seat 1: Son-in-Law (big blind) showed [Th Tc] and lost with four of a kind, Tens
Seat 2: durrrr (small blind) showed [6h 8h] and won ($135,217) with a straight flush, Eight high