DADI, Why Don't You Love Me?

I played in the Donkeys Always Draw Invitational, DADI 8, last night. I'll let Vince and Mike do the play by play for us.

Mike: MrsBuzz opens for a raise. Folds around to the small blind, a Father of 3 girls from Houston, and he raises with his pocket 9s. That's a nice hand to have in the small blind.

Vince: He's looking to get a few chips from the blinds and test out the initial raiser.

Mike: And over to the young kid from Atlanta in the big blind......

Vince: Uh-Oh, Fireworks, he's picked up the Mother of All Hands, Weapons of Mass Destruction, a Pair of Aces! He's got showtunes going off in his head.

Mike: How's he going to play it Vince? He's already seen a raise and a reraise. Does he just call or.....wait a minute, look at that...he raises it up to 3000! I like this bet Vince, he's hoping someone is playing AK or a high pocket pair and wouldn't mind a little confrontation for some chips and he's saying "come on, let see some gamble."

Mike: MrsBuzz folds and JJOK calls from the small blind.

Vince: Flop comes X, 9, 10.

Mike: Oh no, this could spell disaster to the fine young Auburn grad. That was just the card that JJOK was hoping to see on the flop.

Mike: Some betting may have occurred on the flop, I was too busy looking at the cocktail waitress to notice. Here's the turn.

Vince: Another 10, JJ has made a boat.

Mike: Looks like BrainMc is about to make a play....He's counting out some chips....That second 10 has him worried. He's wondering if his opponent was playing 10,10 or A,10 suited.

Vince: Little does he know, it was the 9 on the flop that put him behind.

Mike: Well there he goes, he's putting his opponent on a pair of Jacks, Queens, or Kings and pushes all-in.

Vince: JJOK gladly makes the call and shows his dominating hand.

Mike: Brian is hoping for an A or a 10 for a bigger boat. One card to go...And he doesn't get it!

Vince: JJOK successfully cracks Brain's Aces with his nines.

Mike: Well Vince you know what they say with Aces, you can win a little or lose a lot.

Courtney: Tough break there Brain.

BrainMc: Well, I felt good about my play for most of the night. I didn't have to rebuy and I just took the add-on to minimize my cost. I tried to play conservative like my boy, Mow. I just didn't put him on that hand and it cost me.

Courtney: Tell us about the hand that knocked you out tonight.

BrainMc: I was just telling my wife a couple of hands before about how much I like JJOK and how friendly he is. Now all I can say is @#%%&** him. LOL. Hopefully he put my chips to good use took down the whole thing. Next time my pretty, next time. So Courtney, you wanna go get a drink, I heard you got fired.


A funny thing about this hand. After I raised up to T3000, we had a power blip. Fortunately, I had my PC and modem on a UPS. LOL. I can only imagine how pissed I would have been if I had had my hand folded because I timed out. The poker gods tried to get me out of the hand, but technology , ummm, saved me. Thanks APC for your wonderful product. I would have only lost T3000 if I wasn't using you. HaHA.

Pardon My Play

I played in the Bloggerpod game Sunday evening with almost 50 others. I was catching great cards and when I wasn't, I was able to still get some chips with some bullying. I did try to sneak in a hammer once but got caught for quite a few chips. I thought this was one of my strongest games lately and I was having a really good time. I was either the chip leader or in the top 5 for most of the first 45 minutes. Then I had a huge brain fart and got so cocky about my play that I am still disgusted. I made a move against jedipii, the blind / bigger stack, for absolutely no reason. I had pocket 7s and then the flop came 9 9 10 or 9 10 10, I don't remember. Here is where my brilliance shines.....I bet, he raises big, and then I go all in. WTF? Of course he had me beat. I have no idea why I did that. I could have easily folded after his raise and played my way to some new tunage, but hee haw, that's how I roll when I get big headed with a large stack.

Thanks to Mike / dbirider at pokeronamac.com for sponsoring the prizes.

SNG Challenge

Even though I didn't register for the SNG challenge, I decided to give it a test run to see if it is something I'll try in the future. These stats don't count for anything, but I am glad I'm trying these games. I'm only doing the $1 variety since this is all my bankroll will currently allow for doing 15 straight tourneys. I will post my results here and just refresh as I add more completions:

1) 12th I played this one really well but then turned greedy and got caught.
2) 16th I was playing pretty well but eventually ran out of cards and blinds.
3) 23rd It seems I'm slipping, but when you the flop trips up your pocket queens, who knew the BB / chipleader was holding K 10 for the nut straight? I felt really great about my play and just ran into the wrong hand against the wrong chipstack.
4) 28th Booooo!

Bloggerpod tourney

Mac Poker

My First Cash Game

Well I finally did it.....I dipped my toe in to the world of the cash game. Up to this point, I have only played tournaments or SNGs. I spend an amount I am comfortable with for entertainment in hopes of winning 2 or 3 times my buy-in. This time, I was one of those people who only had $5.12 left on one of my accounts and it wasn't enough to play in a 5+.50 SNG. I decided to see if I can win a few pennies to get me back enough to play 1 more SNG and try something different in the process. I was one of those sad sacks that brings it all to the table with $5.10. I splashed around for about 45 minutes in a .05/.10 at Hollywood Poker and went to bed with 7.25. Go me! I realize that this was a very small buy-in, but that's all I had. I think I will try some mini-micro-nano games as well. Have I changed over to the cash games? - Uh, No. Will I do it again? - Hell yeah! I wouldn't mind trying to play some cash games in the desert if there is a WPBT Winter event, so I will get in some practice between now and then. Do they have nickel / dime tables in Vegas? LOL.

My Brother's New Ride

He's got me thinking about trading mine in on a cruiser style. Now I know I'm getting old! This is his 2002 Honda VT750 CD Shadow Deluxe American Classic Edition (ACE).

So Many People...So Few Teeth

Stacie and I did some work around the house this weekend. I finished staining our deck and she did a bunch of gardening. To help in future landscape maintenance, we had some poured concrete edging done around all of our beds in the front yard. It turned out very nice and we are excited about keeping the grass out of the beds and the mulch contained.

When I wasn't working in the yard, I watched a little poker and 3 Brave's games. Stacie and I watched The Matador at our neighbor's house. I really enjoy my setup, but they've got the kickin' home theater with nice chairs, overhead projector, big screen (7-10 ft), and a great surround system so we enjoy heading over there to watch a flick every now and then. We all really enjoyed the movie. I thought Pierce Brosnan did a good job trying something a little outside of what we normally see him doing. We also watched Elizabethtown. We both really enjoyed it and I thought Kirsten Dunst was perfect for her role. I think Alec Baldwin is terrific in any movie that he plays the boss. I loved his performances in The Cooler, Along Came Polly, Fun With Dick and Jane, and Elizabethtown.

Even with everything we did get done, we didn't plan very our weekend very well because we missed the social event of the year. Yee-haw! Yes the General Lee was present.

Baseball and Poker

This weekend I enjoyed watching my beloved Braves finally take a home series. One of the broacasters, Don Sutton, made a comment that started me thinking of some parrallels with Hold'em. After a play that didn't go so well, he made the distinction about letting the play occur versus forcing a play to occur. I think maybe that has been one of my problems. When I start to feel desparate, I don't show enough patience or when I'm ahead, I overplay a winning hand and don't take advantage of the possibility of winning more of my oponents chips.

The pitching action of the game reminded me the most of the importance of mixing up your game. If you throw nothing but fast ball strikes, the're gonna go yard on you. Pitches that are truly in the strike zone are good locations for batters to hit. Its the speed, movement, or location on the corners that get them to wiff. You've got to get your opponents to chase balls or hit your pitches and make mistakes that you can take advantage of with subsequent pitches. Not unlike betting the flop, turn, and river. This is nothing real deep or earth shattering, but it just came to mind as I am watching a batter swing at a "terrible" looking pitch. As you're watching him, you wonder why did he swing at that? Then you realize that the pitch initially looked like something else and by the time he swung, it was too late to change. Why did it look like that? Because the previous pitch or two was the setup and when the batter was behind in the count, the pitcher was able to take advantage of this weakness without having to throw a perfect strike. You can also see the other side this during the second time through the batting order. Now the batters have seen more pitches and it becomes easier for them to recognize what position they are in with each pitch. This makes it important for the pitcher to be able to vary his delivery. This brings me back to the importance of changing up your game within the game in order to be successful. I'm not saying I can do it yet, I just know it needs to be done.