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HULB Final

Son of Sue - 2
Grifter - 1

Much quicker rubber match. I came out more aggressive and it payed off in the end. On the 16th hand, I raised with 99 on the button. Call. Flop comes A93, 2 hearts. I bet half the pot. Quick call. Turn is a 5. I bet the pot, he goes all in and I call. He turns over A5 and the river doesnt help. Man down.

HULB 4

Son of Sue - 1
Grifter - 1

I was crippled when i slow played KK into a boat. Lost when A2 lost to K4 on the river.

HULB 3

Son of Sue - 1
Grifter - 0

He was short stacked, got it all in fron the SB with J8. Called with Q4. Boated on the river.

HULB 2

got it back to even. BLinds are getting up there. 40 80, 1500 starting chips. Playing the player, not the cards. This will be over soon.

Heads-up live blogging

The Grifter and I are are currently playing our first round game. I'm in New York, hes in Dallas. We are on Full Tilt as well as iChat. So we can see and hear each other. Middle of the first game and we cant play any more passive. Hes at an almost 2-1 chip advantage. largest pot so far was only about 300.

Tunica Hand 2: Results

Thanks for the comments. At the time, I pretty much hated the way I played the hand up to this point, but in hindsight, I think I might have ended up playing the hand okay for the wrong reasons. I don't think you can fold jacks pre-flop there, especially in a relatively fast tournament (40 min. levels). It's either call or raise, and I think most people prefer raise. I prefer to call and see what develops. If you raise there, I think you are committed to the hand. Plus, if you call, you might just get the bluff money from AK on the flop and get them to lay down without seeing all 5 cards. Finally, it gives you an opportunity to get more info from the raiser on the flop.

When the two players called behind me, it changed the dynamic of the hand. Now when seat 3 leads out with a 3/4 pot bet, it's looking (to me) even more likely that he has an overpair to my jacks. Tough spot to try and run AK through 3 people. I folded. The button folded. Seat 1 immediately goes all-in. Seat 3 sighs, and rather quickly makes a reluctant call with what I'm sure is aces or kings. I'm patting myself on the back at this point. Of course, he has AKo. Seat 1 has pocket nines. Turn is a jack for an unneeded nut-kick.

On the very next hand I get pocket jacks again and raise to $600. Seat 3 goes all in for around $1500 total, and I call. He has A8o (the old Randy) and spikes an ace on the river. Shortly thereafter, I'm gone.

Tunica Hand 2

In my earlier post, I eluded to an awful hand I played during event no. 12. Well, here it is:

We are in level three. Blinds are 50-100, and I’ve worked my starting stack from 2000TC up to 4200. I was down to 1600, but then I managed to get it all in on the flop against Wendell Barnes with an overpair to the board. He called with two overcards and a flush draw, but I managed to get lucky in the hand and hang on.

Seat 3 seemed to be a good, solid player who’d finished second in Event #9. Seat 1 was a wild man, anxious to get his chips in with any marginal hand. They both had around 8,000 in chips, leaders at the table. I was in seat 5. In the hand in question, Seat 3 is UTG, and Seat 1 is in the SB.

Seat 3 raises to $500. He had raised UTG one other time and showed down AQ to win the hand, but for some reason, I felt that was a rare, loose opening for him in that position. I felt he was very strong. I look down at pocket jacks. I call. Button calls. Seat 1 calls in the small blind. Big blind folds. 5 players to the flop, 2200 in the pot.

Flop is 762r. UTG leads out for 1500. I feel like he is very strong at this point. What’s your move? Results to come.

Batfaces Represent, NBA All-Star Weekend Style

First, let's hope this is my last post EVER with my current POS PC. With my sweet new computer en route, I could be good for as many as three or four extra posts this year.

Now, while while the rest of us sit at home during the February doldrums and either have hate-sex with our wives or insult our friends, fellow Batface Scott Fawcett has ventured to Las Vegas to:

(1). hang out with his fiancee and her parents

(2). play some motherfucking poker

(3). take in the NBA All-Star Weekend and hang out with the typical NBA All-Star fan

As of this writing, Scott has made the final three tables of the $1000 twice-daily buy-in event at the Bellagio. Among the remaining players are this guy, this guy and, of course, this guy. Best of luck Scott.

Tomorrow, Scott plans to take in the All-Star spectacle with his new found friends.

In other news, there may be a shocking, cataclysmic heads-up match forming between two Batfaces. While early money might be on this heads-up specialist, the smart cash will likely support this douchebag.

P.S. Some portions of this post might be inaccurate.

P.P.S. Am I the only person who gets misty at least three times during every airing of Tin Cup?

P.P.P.S. My girlfriend just broke up with me.

P.P.P.P.S. (gun clicking...)

Hello, is this thing on??

Not a lot of posting here lately, so how about some decent online poker talk?  For anyone lucky enough to still have money in an online account, have you found that the play has been much tighter than the normal online chip dump?  Now seeing that I'm a limit poker specialist, I normally play either 5-10 or 8 -16 and the play has been VERY tight since firepay shutdown.  I'm under the assumption that since people can't fund their account easily, people are much more "safe" with their money since they can't just deposit more after going broke chasing a 2 outer to the river.  I have been more profitable the last 4 weeks online than I ever have.  Is this just a limit phenomenon, or is it happening in the no-limit games as well?

Sorry Sang

Has anybody spoken to Sang today? Want to make sure he is ok. After reading this, his life might change.

Sir Charles

Better than Freeze at blackjack.

Tunica Hand 1: Results

Thanks for the comments, well, at least from Gonz. I think his comment probably represents the conventional wisdom. As it turns out, I had pocket nines, felt like I was both ahead and had positive equity in the hand and wanted to stay as aggressive as possible. This is not a hand I would normally play in this spot with this stack, but I definitely would have felt I was ahead as I folded. So I decided to err on the side of aggression and move in this time. By the way, both blinds folded. If either woke up with a monster, I'm an idiot.

I rarely get really specific about what I think everyone has (or the range of what everyone has) in the moment, but rather prefer to trust what I feel recognizing that my feel takes into consideration a lot of factors that I will come to consciously as I reconstruct a hand. (By the way, that is not a reflection of my reading ability at all, but more a reflection of my inability to think very clearly in the heat of the moment.) In this instance, my initial thoughts were the original all-in was not that strong, the call from the cocky kid was not that strong, and the call all-in for less in seat 9 was almost irrelevant. Therefore, I felt like I had everyone beat, and I will gamble against the cocky kid for a chance to go really deep with a big stack and some fold equity (I actually thought it was about 50-50 he would call).

The cocky kid immediately said, “I know what that long look means” (meaning my ten second stare at my cards) and folded AQ face-up. All-in UTG had pocket sevens, and seat nine had A8o. When I turned over my nines, the cocky kid exclaimed, “wow, what a terrible play!” It was kind of awesome. A queen came on the flop, but I dodged an A, seven or two eights and added 15,000 to my stack. Cocky kid then said, “you’re getting a call from me the rest of the way, I can promise you that.”

In looking back, I think the key aspect of my decision to move in with the nines was the likelihood that cocky kid and probably one other of the players was holding an ace, thus cutting down their chances to win. I think cocky kid realized this, too, but probably assumed he was dominated by me anyways (with AA, KK or AK). It would have been interesting to see if he would have folded AK.

By the numbers, it ended up I was risking roughly 5,600 to win 15,000. Pre-flop, our winning chances were as follows:

99 58 %
77 17 %
A8 25 %

That was a little surprising to me as I would have guessed I was somewhere in the high 40s. Now, assuming AQ calls there, I would be risking 19,000 to win 28,000. Here are the winning chances:

99 45 %
77 17 %
A8 6.4 %
AQ 28.5 %

So, either way, it turns out my decision was pretty well support by the math, of course assuming I was right about the strength of my opponents hands.

Tunica Postscript--What did I play and how did I play it? Part 1

Somewhat ironically, the only tournament from the World Poker Open that does not appear on pokerpages.com is the $500 Second Chances Tournament on Sunday, January 14th. So you'll just have to take my word for it that a total of 3 batfaces entered the 185-person field, and two made the final table: Celeste and yours truly (Celeste, after nursing a short stack and getting ridiculously lucky time after time, finished 5th for $4600. I finished 6th, cashing $3900). Scott was eliminated somewhere around 60th place. In any event, I think there were a couple of interesting hands that might be worthy of some comments. I am ultimately pretty happy with the way I played each of them, but I realize that they may not have been played optimally.

The tournament was my third and final event during our Tunica trip, and to that point I'd played pretty lackluster, weak tournament poker. Two things occurred that changed the way I would be play in the final tournament: (1) watching Zach cash in our first event, and seeing how, like at the WSOP, he played fearlessly. Yes, perhaps misguided and overaggressive a times, but he was simply not going to go quietly, and as you looked around his table, you began to recognize the other players seeing that in him and adjusting their play to avoid confrontations with him; and (2) my horrific mistake in the $1,000 NL event (won by Devil Fish). This will be the subject of a later post if I'm man enough to own it.

So coming into our final event, I was dead-set on not being afraid to push chips around and not be pushed around. Fortunately, I managed to get some pretty good hands and chip up early with very few showdowns. Then I played a hand that seemed to confirm my newfound willingness to play faster. I found 8-9 suited in the cut-off and raised. A good player who had a few less chips than me was the only caller in the big blind after a short think. The flop was 876r. He checked to me and I bet half the pot. He called. The turn was a 2, completing the rainbow. He checked again, and I bet half the pot again, now having committed close to 40% of my stack to the pot. He immediately check-raised all in, I quickly called and he tabled AQ. The river blanked and I basically doubled up.

Thereafter, I cruised to the final three tables as probably one of the top five chipleaders. Right about this time, I was moved to a new table.

Hand #1:

I am in seat 4. Seat 6 is the clear chipleader in the tournament with about 50,000. I have around 19,000, third at the table. Seat 8 is an extremely cocky, tattooed and blinged out kid of maybe 24. He has around 24,000 and clearly assumes he will cruise to the final table. Seat 7 has around 5,600, and seat 9 (I think a friend of Scott's) has around 2,000. Blinds are 300-600 with a 50 ante, so each round is costing us 1,350. While I'm well above par and not in blind danger, the blinds are about to go up, and I know that the volatility of the tournament will mean I just can't sit around. I had played maybe 2-3 hands at the new table, and it was my button.

UTG (Seat 7) moves all in for 5600, obviously with some kind of hand, but also realizing he's got to take a stab at the blinds and antes while he's still a threat. Seat 8, our cocky friend, thinks, makes a couple of comments about what he thinks seat 7 might have and calls. His call screams of something like AK, AQ or a middle pocket pair in 99-77 range. I think he would have raised to isolate with any real premium hand as he's looking at adding over 7K to stack. Seat 9 pushes in his last 2,000 getting the proper odds (almost 4-1) to do that with almost anything, and it's folded to me. I look at my cards for a good ten seconds and then move all-in. What's my range? What do you think seat 8 had?

Results to come.