Thursday, January 18, 2007

Poker is Still Fun

Dear pokerenthusiast,
As you may be aware, NETeller has announced that it will no longer accept transfer requests from U.S. customers to online poker sites or allow withdrawals from online poker sites to your NETeller account, effective immediately.
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I got this message this morning. Great news for us all.

I started off the evening with my usual Razz tourney at 8:45 and The Mookie at 9:00. As I have been writing about this Razz for a while I’ll start with the Mookie today.

Early on I got involved with hoyazo and bdidde. I raised from early middle position with 9T suited in hopes of using my tight image early. The flop comes 784 so I have an open ender and plan on check calling but it is checked around. The turn shows another 8 and I know that either of these guy can make a play at the pot. I don’t think they have a hand and I will check raise any bet here. Hoy comes with a pot size bet of 285 and I raise it to 630. This number is important because I’m trying to show that I want a call while not being completely committed to the hand. Bddide folds and hoy lets it go. Now even though I’m behind here I have outs if he calls and I know that my image is such that I must have a hand.

A few hands later I wake up with pocket aces on the cutoff. SteelerJosh raises to 120 and I re-raise to 360. Don Morris pushes and I’m hoping for a SteelerJosh call but he folds. I call and we both have aces. Unlucky there but that’s OK.

I lost a big hand to tripjax when I hit TPTK vs. his KK. He made a bet after the flop and I raised to but him all but in and he called. I figured I was going to call any raise after that so let’s move all the chips in. That dropped me to 1075 chips but some room to work.

Later, sitting on the SB I called for 40 more with K4 suited with three others in the hand. The flop gives me a king and with only 705 chips left I make a bet of 240 into the 320 pot. I may have been behind just about any other king but putting in that bet showed I was committed and got the folds I was looking for.

I bought 4 blinds inside of one orbit to get me back to starting chips before this hand happened. I’m in the SB and hoy calls 100 from middle position. It’s folded to me woth T7 and I call the 50 to see a flop. The flop hits me dead in the face as in two 10s and a 9. SO now I have trip 10s from the small blind and I slow play them into waiting for the hoy raise to come and he pushes. Now I know that the push is the new slow play but I’m only scared of a few hands here and I need chips so the there is no question about the call. His pocket 3s were no good and I chip up to 2500 chips.

I lost some chips on a steal attempt to put me back to 2200 before I got involved with Iak. I raised preflop with AK to 480 and he calls. The flop comes 2d10c7c and he insta-pushes. Now I going into the tank and try construct his hand. He could be playing any two cards from that position but he has to have my hand defined. He is on a draw, probably the flush draw and if it is AK of clubs then he is free rolling. I eventually realize that it has to be the draw so I make the call with 1 second left on the time bank and see his 89 of clubs. I have the best hand and I’m way behind. I get lucky and dodge all of his outs (like 21 outs) and double up. Terrible call here but I like his play because he was way ahead. My read was bad and good in that I had him on the draw but not that draw.

I also sucked out when my pocket kings busted the hammer to move me to the 6000 chip level. This is when card deadness hit and I got slowly bled to death. I bought a few blinds to stay alive but got knocked out on the final table bubble when I open pushed with JJ and got called by Krazybangs 44. You know the outcome from here.

Overall I played well and got very lucky one time. If that last hand holds up then I’m in a great position but it was not to be.

******************************

Razz returned to the fore front as I made a nice run only to be knocked out on the final table bubble. There were two hands that made the difference for me as a whole. I had a made 8 on 6th and I was drawing to a 56 and/or 7 while my opponent had a higher made 8. I pair the board and he makes a 7 to beat me. The other two hands of note were calling down what appeared to a losing board for me but ended up a winner. A player had changed his betting pattern and after he had made a pair on the board I felt that he was trying to push me off my hand instead of trying to get my chips from me. My read was correct as he held three pair for a crap hand. I was sitting well again but with 9 left and the final table holding 8 it was going to be work. I was the small stack with 8000 chips and blinds were huge. 1 bad hand will cripple a player and it did. I’m happy with my play and will continue to play this event.

I also played the PL Omaha 2nd chance event and ended in fifth when my AKQQ was no good vs.7766. I don’t play this game much but it was a nice change of pace.

***********************
No poker tonight as I have to go and try to stop my heart again playing soccer. I have not heard from the doctor yet about my test results so that must mean I’m OK. If you fail to see any updates ever again then you will know what happened.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for playing in The Mookie last night.