I Reached One Goal for the Year

I had another crazy weekend with bankroll bleeding and coming up short. I did achieve a goal that I want to accomplish but come to the realization that I’m not ready to do this all the time.

One of the goals I had in place for this year was to achieve at least the bronze level in the Iron man Challenge on Full Tilt. I’m not really sure why I wanted to do this but other then to set a goal and get there. Now being that I have not been a cash player this made the goal a little harder to reach because I wasn’t playing in my normal comfort zone of MTT play. I also don’t have the time to play one table for hours to reach the 50 point level so I had to add multi-tabling into the mix. Add in playing FTOPS and some other tourneys and you have a path to destruction.

It started off pretty well when I two tabled 1/2 Razz as well as some other levels mixed in. I stayed tight and earned points at a slow rate but made my 50 points with a little time to spare each night. As the days went by I got tired of grinding and moved up to three-tabling 3/6 and lower in an attempt to get it done faster. This is where the most problem occurred because I’m not rolled to play 3/6 and with the maniacs at that level the swings can be huge. All-in-all I had a small meltdown of my bankroll during this run but finally made it early Sunday morning by hitting my 20th fifty point day. I wont be trying this again any time soon because I was spending to much time playing and not really enjoying the time at the tables.

I think it is great that I reached the goal. Anytime you put something out there that you have never achieved and you get it, it is a good thing. But making points your goal vs. winning money is not optimizing your play and I found that I was more focused on the pot sizes then watching the table for tells. That’s not to say I didn’t gain some good information from some of the donkeys playing Razz…Its just that I wasn’t playing nearly as well as I can.

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I leave for Coos Bay tomorrow morning. I’m secretly hoping the snow that will come tonight cancels my flight so I don’t have to go. I really think it is dumb to be flying across the country for a meeting with one company wjen we could probably do it over the phone. I may or may not play while I’m on the trip other then trying to get 1 point per day for the monthly free roll.

That is about it for today…have a great day.

Waffles is the nutz

In honor of waffles winning the KORD and his fantasic WOW play.

Waffles is th New KORD

Go to Brickin The Nutz for the whole story.

What's Going on and the KORD

Play the KORD on Thursday.

It has been a while since I have done a personal post so I guess I will throw a little up for the world to see.

Work still sucks and it is being capped with a special treat. I get to fly to Coos Bay Oregon to meet with a customer next week. That fun part of this is the location of Coos Bay and how it is that I get there with killing my self. You see, I have to fly to Seattle, then Portland and finally to Coos Bay in a one day trip from hell. I leave Chicago at 8:00 and land in Coos Bay at around 4pm for a grand total of 10 hours of being inconvenienced. Because we get there so late and the company we have to meet with is a good 30 miles away, I will spend the night at one of the fine hotels in the area that isn’t full. That leaves the Best Western as my only option. Anyway, we meet the next but can’t fly out until the 3rd day because there is only one flight that can get us to where we want to go. So I will be traveling for three days for a 1hour meeting that doesn’t really need to take place anyway. Fun times.

Baseball E. just finished up his first basketball season. He had a lot of fun and played really hard. He had a couple of games where he scored 8 or 10 points so I think he may give b-ball another try. He is now getting ready for one of my favorite sports…floor hockey. There is nothing like children swinging stick to get the blood pumping.

Speedy E. continues to play the violin. She has practice just about every day during the week but she apparently doesn’t need to practice on the weekends because she never does. I’m not going to get on her to much about it because I never practiced when I was learning to play the clarinet. She seems to have slowed down on the boy crazy stuff that young girls go through but I’m sure it is still waiting to come back around.

Softball E is still Softball E. She has pitching practice every Saturday and her team practice on Sunday. I for one will be ready when the season starts. I think I’m more excited about the new then she is. Anyway, her pitching coach was right when she said she would be throwing at least 5 mph faster by spring time. She is also right when she said at least 10. I know she is touching 60 from time to time and is doing it on a more regular basis. That’s a lot of fun for dad to see.

Mrs. PE has been busy with all of her stuff. Her final years as a girl scout leader is coming to a close soon and she continues to drive those kids to school on her school bus. No way I would ever do that.

SO that’s it for the PE house hold. I’m sure there is more but I only have so much in me sometimes.

Playing The KORD and The Return of Focus

I almost forgot to get the KORD started for this month. It is the same structure as normal with a $7 + .70 buy-in and will continue to have the $2 bounty. I’ve added a little something to the prize pool because I can. I won a last short bet the other night for $25 and thought it would be nice to give this free money away. For a little added fun, Instant Tragedy will be broadcasting the event on IT Radio brought to you by BDR. I will be on live with him giving the play by play. The tourney is on Thursday the 21st and takes off at 21:30. The password is “pokere” as always. Tell all your friends and come out to play this fun event.

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After playing a big buy-in like the FTPS Razz, I find that I have a little issue with staying focused for the next few days after words. This isn’t good for the bankroll but I think I need to play and work through these issues. I think it has something to do with the large percentage of my bankroll I just burnt through and thus the hangover has to work its way out. Eventually I think I’ll be able to leave this feeling of remorse or ineptitude fall of my shoulders like the rain. I think it fits into the same class as getting use to higher buy-ins for cash games. I have not gotten use to losing such a big chunk of cash even though I technically bought in for much less then the $322 buy-in.

Saturday night I was sitting around watching a movie when I got an IM from Kat. Kat wanted to play a SNG so I jumped on and also signed up for the PLO deep stack that takes off at some point every night. My hangover seemed to be in place as I slowly lost half of my chips in each tourney. I felt uninterested and scattered as I bled chips all over the table. My frustration came to a head as the big stack raised my blind yet again. But this time I had TT and came over the top for my tourney life. His AJ didn’t catch up and I now had a little over starting stack. I started to feel good again and started to make some bets. I eventually caught another pocket pair and went after the big stack again. He insta-called with his KQ and lost the race again and now I’m sitting pretty we move a little deeper into the tourney and we have Kat and I vs. some random player. This guy was passive and we took turns taking his blinds. Eventually he started to play back. This was the time I got TT and took him out for a heads up battle with Kat. She had a 2-1 chip lead and raises me on the first hand. I have AT and push expecting to fold. She calls with her Q9 and hits the winning pair on the river. It was fun and I was feeling good again.

During this time I was playing the PLO tourney. As I said before, I gave away a bunch of my chip on stupid plays. I made the decision to double back up or go home when I hit a set of kings to double up. I stayed tight from then on and doubled again through the same guy. A bit later I hit another big hand…and then another and I’m 4th with 34 players left. This is when card death hit but I had a big stack and made the money easy. When we got down to 14 players I was sitting in 10th but a double way from an easy final table. I took a big pot down with KK for a steal and then looked at aces the next hand. I raised it up and got pushed by another stack. We get it in and his KKQJ hits 2 pair and I’m done. I had a shot at a good finish and I probably over played my hand but those are the breaks.

How did I do in the FTOPS Razz

I could go into a long explanation of how it did but you can find it at BTN.

part 1
part 2
part 3
part 4

Thanks for the railing...I have a list of railbirds at BTN.

The next KORD will be on the 21st. We should also have radio coverage of the event as IT said he will do it.

FTOPS #14...RAZZ

For weeks I've had my eye on the satellite for FTOPS event #14 that took of last night. It was a $55 sat. for a $322 ticket and being that event #14 is Razz, it is right up my donkey alley. But there were problems.

I called home as I was leaving work and was informed that the internet was down. This isn't a good thing when you need to use it for your qualification needs so I'm in the dumps the whole ride home. The bright side is that comcast said it should be up in plenty of time for me to play. To make a long story short, I was up and running in plenty of time.

This sat. was a little different then most of these I have played...Razz tourneys anyway. The table was tight for much of the early stages and players actually stayed away from chasing. I eventually moved to a new table where things returned to normal. I hit a few big hands at the right times during play and what do you know...I'm 6th place with 25 to go to the money. From this point on I stayed mega tight and bought enough hands to keep my stack even. As we hit the bubble, one guy started raising every hand and even though I could have played back at him from time to time, I stayed away unless I was sitting really good. Anyway, the bubble broke at my table when a medium stack got involved with the huge stack. The medium guy had more than enough chips to fold to the cash but chased away a seat. I feel very good about my reads and even though I may have gotten lucky, it was luck at not being sucked out on.

If I can make reads like last night and get a little more luck I feel like I can go deep.

A Little Something

I've been playing a lot of Razz lately so much of my writing has been over at Brickin The Nutz. I did have a solid weekend with some deep finishes in some other events but nothing of real earth shattering news.

My latest post on BTN is about playing in you comfort zone and getting use to higher levels. Because I'm really a new player to cash games, I can see and feel the effects of playing to high. Check it out if you have a chance.

The girls basketball team at my high school is really kicking ass. They are 28-2 right now and will be playing in the sectional championship on Thursday. I would make the drive to the game but the FTOPS Razz event will be in full swing so I guess I will have to wait until the super-sectional. Anyway, there are no seniors on the team and thus should have at least two chances of getting to the state finals. Go Royals.

Finally, I will be having the next KORD tourney on the 21st of February. I don't have the banner ready yet but it will be at 8:30 central time unless I screw it up again. Look for a little extra added to the prize pool.

Busting a Pro and Driving in the Snow

A I sat at my desk, finishing the work I had been procrastinating, the boss came by and said we could go home. He has done this before but this time it was 1 in the afternoon. I felt the joy of free time surge through my body until I realized I couldn’t leave until my guys left. One of them worked until just after 3:00 so I stayed the whole day.

At 5:10, I backed out of my parking spot and headed for the street. Little did I know that a world of confusion lay in waiting as I proceeded down the snow-covered street. I caller Surf to tell him the great news about the snow and to give him crap about getting to leave early when snow was still hours away. Anyway, it didn’t take long for me to realize that this would be a long 26 miles.

Generally speaking you need to have traction to drive a car. Last night was different because there was no point in thinking about traction. The main idea for the night was to be able to stop if I had to. Cars were in the ditches everywhere as the high winds and blowing snow made an ice rink out of the streets. These roads may have been the worst I have ever driven on. The funny part is that almost every car in the ditch was a SUV. Everybody thinks that they don’t lose traction and that they can get unstuck if they do slide a little. SUV morons where everywhere. They like to drive close to your bumper even though there id no way they could stop if they had to.

A wonderful night of driving ended around 7:00. Not bad for 26 miles. That’s a good marathon time.

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I didn't play much last night. I have a meeting today that I was getting ready for and so I fired up a HORSE tourney to kill the dead time in between thoughts. I eventually got seated with Richard Brodie and he had a monster stack compared to mine. Well, I played my tight game and hit a big hand with rolled up kings in stud h/l and did it again the next hand with the same kings. Now with some chip power I waited for a chance to pounce. We finally got involved during the Omatard portion when he was short and on the big blind. It was folded to me on the button and I raised my A466double suited and he reraised…It was gamble time for his short stack. To make a long story short, my 66 was good and there was no low. I knocked out a pro and got my buy-in back and will be getting my t-shirt in the near future.

I watched the Mookie and the big cash game for a while. Waffles attempt at big stakes lasted 1 hour and 11 minutes. I’m sure he has some commentary on his game at his site. Anyway, I finished my work and went to bed early so I could have plenty of time to make it to work.

Yes the roads still sucked.

No Love for the Pats

I remember a team that went 18-1. That team led the league in defense and was 2nd in offense. The 85 Bears. They won the Super Bowl. They will always be remembered as a great team that closed the deal. The same cannot be said for the Pats.

A Little Poker and a Little Snow

I left work on time yesterday but not early. The boss came through and said we could leave early because the roads were getting bad. This would have been great if it had been more then 15 minutes before it was time for me to go home. And I would have had to use personal time to do it. Hell with that.

We ended up getting about 10 inches of snow before it stopped a little bit ago. Schools are closed and the roads were covered but most of the morons stayed home so the drive to work was easy. Last night it took me 2 hours to drive the 26 miles home so this morning was wonderful.

I played the Riverchasers last night. I has been a while since I have played that and I made an ok run but never did get a lot going, I had one nice pocket pair that I squeezed with but had a lot of nothing overall. I used my image to take some pots as I tried to find a spot for a double. It came when a superstar made a call of my push with his A8 and hit a 3 outer to cripple me. I really don't understand when calling a push with A8 will ever be a winning play unless I truly am a donk and think it is a good hand. I guess I could have been pushing with 22-77 so it could have been a coinflip but wow. I went on steam cycle but stayed off the tables. I eventually went to 3/6 Razz for a bit and made a small profit for the night.

I may try and get a Razz cash game going with some bloggers from BTN. Come find me and check us out.