Doing Better at $1/$2

Since I updated last Saturday, I've been playing a little but not too much. On Sunday I played some $1/$2 and did pretty well. Over about 4 hours I won just over $400. Weirdly, I didn't really play any big pots. I just ran well and played small ball for most of it.


I then played some more yesterday and did well. Last night I had an interesting hand where I flopped a set of 9s on an A95 rainbow flop. A really tight player (who was also the preflop raiser) put in a 3rd raise on the flop and I sort of considered folding. I ended up moving in over his 3rd raise for a little bit more and he only had AKs. It was so weird for him to play the hand this way -- I thought the only hands he could have were AA and 55 (leaning more heavily towards AA since he raised some limpers). Does he think I'm going to go nuts with AQ here? This was just a weird hand by him. I woulda insta-folded AK when someone put in a 2nd raise on this flop unless my opponent was a total retard. He actually accused me of a slow-roll since I took some time after he put in the 3rd raise on the flop. I felt bad cause there's really no way I was actually gonna fold, but it did require some thought.


I then played a bunch this morning and was able to stack two guys -- one guy with 77 vs. AT on a 47AT2 board and the other guy with TdTc vs. ThTs on a 4h2d7d5d7d board. Sweet that I hit the freeroll in the 2nd one; I never hit those.

So far I've almost cut my losses in half from the debacle a couple of weeks ago. I'm feeling a more comfortable in the game and I am running a little better. It feels good, and I think I'll stay in this game as long as things keep going ok.

In addition to playing the cash games this morning, I played a PLO tourney and didn't go anywhere. I was in the top 10 in chips or so almost an hour in (only like 150 entrants) when the following hand occurred. A loose, bad player in MP opens with a pot-raise, all fold, I call in the SB with Ad2d3h4s, BB folds. The flop comes Ah9h3c. I check, he bets 800 (pot size), I c/r the 3200 (pot size), he moves in for 1200 more, I say "oops" and am surprised to be well ahead of his Kh7h4c6s. He gets there with the 5h on the river and I give up most of my chips. I love PLO.


One more thing I want to do is to keep track of ome of my results here. So far, here are my overall results in the NL cash games.
$0.5/$1: $3406.70, 9673 hands, 17.61 ptbb/100
$1/$2: -$1130.95, 3863 hands, -7.32 btbb/100

And my bankroll is currently $8352.72. I guess this is pretty good considering that it was down to $2700 about 4 months ago.


I also have the home game tonight, which I plan on winning. Good luck to everyone who's
playing against me.

I'm Playing Again

Ok, a lot of poker (for me) has happened since my last post. So let's get down to business.

The day after I officially took the break detailed in my previous post, I was bored so I decided against my better judgement to play some more $1/$2. Of course, it did not go well. I ended up going broke on Stars, getting the last $70 I had into the pot preflop with QQ vs. AKo and losing.

I then put $500 onto Party, which I lost in 215 hands. The hands I lost a bunch of money with were: A2 vs. 45 on an A23 flop, 88 vs. 82 on a 226 flop, and KK vs. 66 on a 246 flop. These all probably seem like fairly reasonable nhands to lose with, and maybe they are. But obviously things just weren't going right. I won exactly 1 pot that netted me more than $20. So after losing this $500 I decided to give it a rest, which lasted for about 3 days.

At the beginning of this new/actual break, I ordered 5 poker books. I bought a bunch of books on NLH because I realized that I didn't really have any books on that game in particular. The way I've learned NLH is by reading the NLH sections of Phil Hellmuth's book and Super System 1, by playing a lot, and by posting/reading on some poker forums. I actually received Super System 2 today, so hopefully I will get to read that over the next week or so. 4 more books are also coming (and at least 2 of them are purely on NLH), and I will post if I read anything of particular interest that I learn from them.


My break ended by me getting drunk with some friends on Friday night and seeing Snakes on a Plane, which by the way is one of the most entertaining movies I've seen in a very long time. After the movie we went to my house and drank some more, then everyone was in bed by about 2:00am. I decided to fire up the poker-box and play some $0.50/$1.00. I won a little less than $500 over the course of about 450 hands (2+ hours of 3-tabling). Let's just say that I flopped 4 sets and got paid handsomely on all of them, than hit a few other draws and otherwise played well to win the rest. Apparently, buttershots on the rocks + poker = $. This was a great night and I was very happy to be playing again.

I have since stuck to the $.5/$1 game and have played about 2800 hands over the last week, winning just short of $1500 in the process. Yes, I'm running good here. I also think I'm playing pretty well, and I'm not sure why it doesn't seem to be translating to the $1/$2 game. Maybe I'm doing something wrong or maybe it's just dumb luck. I'll figure it out eventually either way, but right now I see no reason to try to move up again since my PokerTracker stats tell me that I'm making about $44 an hour playing 2 tables of $.5/$1. I certainly don't claim this rate is sustainable, but I think (in disagreement with a friend of mine who is a 2+2'er) that one could maintain a rate of about 2/3 of that (something like 12.5 ptbbs/100). Again, this will get sorted out eventually.

Besides running good and winning money, I've been playing so much because I'm incredibly close to having enough frequent player points (FPPs) on Stars to get the 30Gb video ipod. In fact, as of this writing I have 19824 points and the ipod costs 20000 points. So I'm damn close. But I'm a little tired of poker right now, so the wife (the person who is receiving said ipod) might have to wait a few more days for me to finish up this quest.

I have also been playing some tournaments and have had nothing even remotely interesting happen, except for when I bubbled the $20 deep stack PLO tourney on Stars this week (a tournament that I won the last time I played it). I got all in for a monster pot on the flop with a set vs. a naked flush draw and he got there -- a little frustrating but nothing too exciting.


I have also played some live poker in the last week, 3 times in fact. I went to an Indian casino near my wife's parents' house in Santa Barbara and played a $1/$2 NLH game with a $50 (!!!) max buyin. Yes, 25 BBs was the max buyin. So it wasn't very much fun. I lost two buyins here. The first was with AQ vs. 46 on an A46 flop. I think it's pretty much impossible to get away from a hand like top pair when you only have 25BBs. A preflop raise and a flop bet/raise pretty much gets you all in. Then I rebought and lost about $35 by getting all in preflop with KK vs. 99 and losing to a flopped set. I decided that this structure was gay and that I wasn't going to put any more money into it, so I began to play the short stack. I got $16 in with JJ vs. AQo and doubled up. Fast forward, lose a few pots, then I get my last $24 in with AQo vs. QQ and lose. I then watched my wife and her mother win about $200 playing penny slots. Awesome. I played $40 on the slots and lost it all very quickly. I suck at slots.

We also played the home game this week, for which we only had 4 players. How hard is it to not schedule shit on Thursday night every week, people? Anyway, we played a 4-game rotation tournament consisting of Chicago (stud with high spade in the hole getting 1/2 the pot), limit hold'em, pot limit omaha, and no limit 2-7 triple draw lowball. We played 3 rounds of the rotation then we played NLH for the remainder of the tourney. I didn't fare too well during the rotation games due to Brian the luckbox (a very loose player who plays every week). He made an 85 low on his first hand of triple draw and a wheel (23457) on his 2nd. I think he won pretty much every pot in all 3 rounds of triple draw. He also played a ridiculous pot against me during the last round of Chicago where I had a full house on 5th street and the 8 of spades in the hole. He had a flush on 6th street and no spade in the hole. 4 bets went in on every street and he ended up catching the Ks on his last card to escape with 1/2 of a pot that contained about 42% of the chips on the table.

In the last round of limit holdem I was all in vs. Brian with JT vs. A4 on an AJ3 board and I hit a T on the turn to almost triple up. I then decided to tighten up big time until we got to NLH, since I now had a reasonable amount of chips and I felt like I had a huge advantage over the other guys at NLH. So that's what I did. When we started playing NLH there were 3 people left. I only had about 9BBs so I was in push-or-fold mode. I picked up a bunch of blinds by moving in with AJ, AQ, AJ, and AK during the first few minutes. I then moved in from the SB with 99 and was called from the BB by Brian's Ah4h. He flopped a flush draw but missed and I ended up doubling up and taking the chip lead. Brian then knocked out the other guy and I got Brian head up. I chipped away at him slowly, finally getting him all in with JT vs. J9 on a 893 board, rivering the 7 to finish him off.

Finally, I went to the local Indian casino with that 2+2 friend of mine to play in the $1/$3 NLH game. I had a few interesting hands here. Let me share them with you.

1) The guy directly to my left min-raises UTG for $6 and has about $15 left. All fold, SB calls, I call from the BB with J5o. The flop is KJ5, SB checks, I check, UTG moves in, SB folds, I call. He doesn't show his cards and I win.

2) About 1/2 hour into the game, I raise to $12 from the CO with AsQd, the button calls, the BB calls. The flop comes KsKc7s, BB checks, I bet $25, button calls. The turn comes the Ac, I check, SB (who had floated the flop and bet the turn on me a few times already -- the same guy from hand #1) bets $35, I move him in for about $120 more, he calls with KhJh, the BB says he folded AQ, and I hit the apparent case A to win the pot. I was a 43:1 dog there against his hand, which is pretty bad. But I was pretty sure he could have an A there too. Lucky me.

3) UTG limps, a few others limp, I limp from the CO with 8d7d, button limps, blinds limp. Flop comes Ks7c8c. Check to UTG, who bets $10, 1 caller, I make it $40, UTG moves in for about $210 more, caller folds, I think for about 10 seconds and call, UTG has AcKc for the monster draw, I luck out and he misses and I scoop another big pot.

At this point I have about $700 on the table, but this is also about the last time anything goes right for me.

4) I open-raise to $12 UTG with KK. I get 3 callers, including both blinds. The flop comes A46 rainbow, the SB moves in for about $40, SB folds, I fold, other guy folds, SB shows A6o. Yea... good hand to play for 1/5 of your chips preflop buddy. It was funny. I showed the KK when I was folding and I got several comments on how good of a laydown it was. Maybe I'm too tight, but I didn't even consider calling here when the guy moves in on 3 other people and I hold less than top pair on an almost draw-less board.

5) I open-raise to $12 in EP with AdQd, I get about a zillion callers. Flop comes Qs8s4s, check to me, I bet $40. Next guy to act calls, button (who is a tremendous donkey) calls all in, all fold. Turn is the 9c, check check. River is the Tc, check check. Me and the other guy have AdQd and AhQh, tremendous donkey (TD) has 9c9d (note the lack of flush draw) for the turned set. Ok, I 1-outered some guy then got 2-outered myself. I can live with the justice.

6) A few hands after hand #5, a zillion limpers limp to my BB and I check with 88. Flop comes 89T two diamonds. I bet $10, TD makes it $20, A6o guy from hand #4 cold-calls. I really can't see calling here, as there are too many turn cards that destroy my hand and I have little idea what the cold-caller or TD have. I make it $55, TD moves in for $90 more, cold-caller folds. Now I have a better idea of what TD has, and unfortunately for me I currently can't beat it. But I am getting the right price to suck out so I call. I miss my boat and TD's 67o takes all the money. TD leaves a few minutes later. This, by the way, is the only set I flopped in the 7 or so hours I was there.

7) An new but apparently aggressive player raises his 3rd pot in a row to $15 from MP. I call right behind him with 66, all fold. Flop comes AQT. He bets $10, a bet which totally reeked of weakness. I make it $40, he thinks for about 45 seconds and calls. Turn is a 9, he checks, I bet $60. He thinks for about a minute and folds, claiming he had AK. I'm not sure I beleive him (I would easily believe AJ or KK), but why would somebody say that they're laying down a stronger hand than they really are? Don't people usually do the opposite?

All said and done, I end up leaving ahead by about $375. 1/2 of this money was from some random drawing that I won when I first got there (for $180).


I played a little bit of .5/1 today and stacked some guy with 88 vs. JJ on a 89T flop. I'm a little tired of poker right now, so I might try to take the rest of the day off to drink and do some other foolishness like watch the Charger game tonight. I'm back to running well and it feels pretty good. I hope things go well for everyone else also.

Taking a Break -- Officially (Short Post)

I just got done playing for a few hours and things went poorly again. Very poorly. I'm not getting paid on my good hands and I'm paying off with 2nd best hands. It's probably a combination of running bad and tilt, but I think it's time for a week off. This whole nightmare session culminated in a hand where I got a $300 pot together as a 61:1 favorite and lost it. Let me summarize the action:

UTG limps, UTG+1 limps, I limp UTG+2 with 4h4d, the SB completes and the BB checks. The flop comes 2d4sKs, giving me middle set. SB checks, BB bets $2, UTG calls $2, UTG+1 calls $2, I make it $16, SB moves in for $135, I call. Turn and river come TcTs and I lose to his KhTh. No kicker, no backdoor straight draw, no backdoor flushdraw, just top pair. And it beat my set. Gross.


I am definitely playing somewhat poorly and running pretty bad on top of it (these things seem to feed off one another also), so I want to take a break for a week or so. I also will have some work ramping up over the next few weeks anyway, so it's a good time to take a break anyway.

I hope things are well with every else.

Not So Good

I just 3-tabled the 1/2 game for about 3 hours and the results were less than stellar. I played poorly, and ran into some tough hands. On the 3 tables, I won $50, won $120, and lost $510.

First of all, I'm stacking off way too easily when it's pretty obvious that I'm beat. If I get raised on the flop with top pair and I'm facing a tight opponent, I should usually just fold. But sometimes I don't. This hand is a combination of tilt and not paying enough attention. I sort of though he was on a draw (it's a relatively coordinated board), but that's no excuse for playing this poorly.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $2 BB (9 handed)
BB ($140.80)
Hero ($264.90)
UTG+1 ($294.10)
MP1 ($86.40)
MP2 ($72.40)
MP3 ($198.20)
CO ($191)
Button ($80.95)
SB ($201.55)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with Ad, Js.
Hero raises to $6, 5 folds, Button calls $6, SB calls $5, BB calls $4.
Flop: ($24) 5h, Jd, Th (4 players)
SB checks, BB bets $6, Hero raises to $24, Button folds, SB folds, BB raises to $66, Hero raises to $210, BB calls $68.80 (All-In).
Turn: ($368.80) 4h (2 players, 1 all-in)
River: ($368.80) 3d (2 players, 1 all-in)
Final Pot: $368.80
Results below:
BB has Ts Td (three of a kind, tens).
Hero has Ad Js (one pair, jacks).
Outcome: BB wins $293.60. Hero wins $75.20.


This next hand is just totally retarded. I rammed on the flop because I thought there was just as good a chance of him having JJ or QQ as there was for him having AK. I think I need to start folding AQ before the flop until I can learn some discipline. Is this that bad of a play on my part (I know it's bad, but is it that bad)? Can he actually have JJ or QQ here? Will he fold those hands?

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $2 BB (8 handed)
UTG ($200)
UTG+1 ($269.20)
MP1 ($235.45)
MP2 ($239.80)
CO ($645.15)
Button ($191)
SB ($146.95)
Hero ($506.35)

Preflop: Hero is BB with Qc, Ad.
1 fold, UTG+1 raises to $18, 5 folds, Hero raises to $100, UTG+1 calls $82.
Flop: ($201) Td, 2s, Kd (2 players)
Hero bets $120, UTG+1 raises to $169.2, Hero calls $49.20.
Turn: ($539.40) 6d (2 players)
River: ($539.40) 6s (2 players)
Final Pot: $539.40
Results below:
Hero has Qc Ad (one pair, sixes).
UTG+1 has Kh As (two pair, kings and sixes).
Outcome: UTG+1 wins $539.40.


In addition to playing poorly in a few big pots, I got the cooler (a seemingly great 2nd best hand) a couple of times at the table where I lost $510. In this first hand, I have no idea why the guy didn't break me, I guess he was scared of 66 and AA. I'll tell you this -- I'm breaking him if the situation is reversed. I was incredibly surprised to see the pot go to him.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $2 BB (8 handed)
MP2 ($294.80)
CO ($96.95)
Button ($59.05)
Hero ($214.45)
BB ($200.70)
UTG ($270.65)
UTG+1 ($203)
MP1 ($311.40)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 6h, 4s.
1 fold, UTG+1 raises to $4, 4 folds, Hero calls $3, 1 fold.
Flop: ($10) Ac, 6d, 4c (2 players)
Hero checks, UTG+1 bets $4, Hero raises to $18, UTG+1 calls $14.
Turn: ($46) 4h (2 players)
Hero bets $24, UTG+1 calls $24.
River: ($94) 2h (2 players)
Hero bets $65, UTG+1 calls $65.
Final Pot: $224
Results below:
Hero has 6h 4s (full house, fours full of sixes).
UTG+1 has Ad 4d (full house, fours full of aces).
Outcome: UTG+1 wins $224.


Then, of course, there's the ole' set over set hand where I lose a ton. I'm actually starting to question whether I should have called the $180 raise on the flop with bottom set. This guy was a fairly tight player, but can't he still have Q9 or JcTc or something here? I sort of auto-called because I'm a donkey who can't fold anything, but maybe I should have considered folding here. Is that crazy-talk from someone who's running bad or should I actually consider folding a set?

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $2 BB (9 handed)
SB ($29)
BB ($190.95)
UTG ($98.40)
Hero ($211.15)
MP1 ($306.65)
MP2 ($226.95)
MP3 ($193.70)
CO ($317.40)
Button ($195)

Preflop: Hero is UTG+1 with 4d, 4h.
1 fold, Hero calls $2, 3 folds, CO calls $2, 1 fold, SB completes, BB checks.
Flop: ($8) 4c, Qh, 9c (4 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets $5, CO raises to $10, SB folds, BB folds, Hero raises to $28, CO raises to $315.4, Hero calls $181.15 (All-In).
Turn: ($532.55) 7c (2 players, 1 all-in)
River: ($532.55) Jh (2 players, 1 all-in)
Final Pot: $532.55
Results below:
Hero has 4d 4h (three of a kind, fours).
CO has 9d 9s (three of a kind, nines).
Outcome: CO wins $532.55.


One last hand -- this one filled with glory for me. I actually love the way I played this hand. I tried to imagine how a donkey would play the hand with just a 5 (I figured the other guy for a big flush).

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $2 BB (8 handed)
Button ($286.75)
Hero ($194)
BB ($386.75)
UTG ($157.35)
UTG+1 ($118)
MP1 ($138.85)
MP2 ($248.60)
CO ($197)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 5s, 5h.
UTG calls $2, 5 folds, Hero completes, BB checks.
Flop: ($6) 8d, 5d, 5c (3 players)
Hero checks, BB bets $4, UTG folds, Hero calls $4.
Turn: ($14) Jd (2 players)
Hero checks, BB bets $8, Hero raises to $26, BB calls $18.
River: ($66) Td (2 players)
Hero bets $30, BB raises to $60, Hero raises to $162, BB calls $102.
Final Pot: $390
Results below:
Hero has 5s 5h (four of a kind, fives).
BB has Qh 6d (flush, jack high).
Outcome: Hero wins $390.

Here are the things I like about the way I played this hand:
1) Check-raising the turn says "I just have a 5 and I don't want you to draw to a flush (figuring the other guy already had the flush)". My opponent draws to the 6-high flush anyway.
2) My blocker-looking river bet of $30 into a pot of $66. This bet says "I have a naked 5 and I want to show the hand down."
3) When he mis-raised the river I tanked for a while then jammed. This is also a play someone might make to move him off a flush if I just have the 5.

This guy somehow calls me on the river with the 6-high flush. When I went to the hand history to see what his hand was, I started at it for like 3 minutes because I thought I was misreading something.


I think I'm done playing poker for the day -- I need a break. Considering my bad play, bad beats, and cold decks, I'm only down $350 in the $1/$2 game after 2000 hands. All things considered, I feel pretty lucky right now to only be down that much. If I removed any of those individual factors, I'd be above ground right now in this game. Hopefully I can come back tomorrow (or whenever) and be refreshed and play well.

I hope everyone else is having a better day than I am...

Happy with recent results

Lots of stuff has been going on in my poker life recently. First let's talk about me getting 4th in the $10+R tournament the other day.

I wanted to wait a couple of days before I wrote about this because all I could think about before now was the hand where I got in with KK vs. J9 and lost. When you're not actually playing the tournament, it's easy to see the payout and say "sweet, you won $3k". But when I'm playing a tournament and I get that close to a huge finish, all I can think about is how I didn't win -- at least for a few days afterward. In other words, it felt like I lost $3k instead of won it. I can only imagine how Allen Cunningham is feeling right now...

On the bright side of things, I won $3k. This is a big addition to my bankroll, which is now close to where is was when I took out $5000 a few months ago to pay for my wife's bionic cat. Did I play well to finish this high in the tourney? I think so. Did I get lucky as hell also? Definitely. Let me tell you about the 3 times I drew out pretty big to win the pot. This doesn't incldue the times I got in against a short stack as a 3:2 or 2:1 dog or whatever, cause I won a bunch of those too.

Drawout #1 -- 19% equity in a 3-way pot) We were barely in the money and all the short stacks had gone from survival mode to double-up mode. A shortie jams from MP for like 6BBs with ATo. I wake up with 55 on the button and jam also. The BB (who I have covered by only a few BBs) has AA and comes in. I river the 5 to knock both players out.

Drawout #2 -- 30% equity heads up) With about 500K chips and with about 25 players left, I raise to 120K (3BBs) in EP with KhKs. The BB, who has about the same number of chips as me, calls. The flop comes Ah4s5s and the BB moves in. I used a bunch of my time bank on this one, because this wasn't a clear fold. It wasn't a clear fold because I had been playing with the BB for a few hours and hed seen her do the ole' stop-and-go 3 or 4 times out of the blinds already. The only time she showed down was with 94o on a 468 flop, which was called by the raiser's KK in that hand. So I end up calling, getting shown 4h5h, and turning the A to win. I realize that my play here is pretty gross, but I sincerely thought she would move with any 4, 5, A, or draw. I also still think I was right to call, and that I happened to run into the stronger part of my opponent's range. Who puts in 1/4 of their chips in preflop with 45s anyway?

Drawout #3 -- 32% equity heads up) We were 6-handed at the final table with blinds of 40k/80k and I had about 750k. All fold to the SB who min-raises, I move in with Ah2h, he calls with KK, I flop the A to suck out. I'm certain this was the right play.

I also took a few beats, but those weren't too interesting. I didn't get hit by the deck with starting hands or anything, but I was able to steal blinds almost with impunity throughout the tournament. And when I got caught with my hand in the cookie jar, I was never against a huge hand. I consider this stuff a form of luck also. Overall I'm happy with how things went and I'm fairly pleased with the result, although the higher finish would have been nice too. Ok, let's move on.


I also managed to hit my goal yesterday of winning 1000 ptbbs at the $0.50/$1.00 NL game ($2000), which means that I moved up to the $1/$2 NL game. So far, I've played about 1600 hands at that level and have lost about $70. Nothing super-interesting about it. I've gotten stacked a couple of times by getting drawn out, which would have made a huge difference in my results up to this point. These games aren't quite as soft as the $0.50/$1.00 games, but they're damn close.

I'm really not upset about the beats I've been taking in this game -- I've been running pretty good for a while and I'm not too surprised to be hitting a rough streak. In one of the drawouts where I got in with A9 vs. 45 on a 469 flop, the guy rivered the 5 and apologized to me. I genuinely didn't care about the fact that he sucked out, I was just happy that he put his money in so bad (he called my allin reraise on the flop). It was weird that I didn't care. Maybe I'm just happy because I'm up $5000 in the last month and a half, maybe I'm becoming more experienced so I've stopped caring about results. I don't know which, but I'm proud of myself either way.

I'm probably going to play some more cash games today. Let's hope things go well.

A $3100 Drawout

I don't want to say too much about this right now because i'm sort of in a state of despair, but I just finished 4th in the $10+R ($35K Gtd.) tourney on pokerstars this afternoon/evening. This is fine and good, and I'll probably be happy in a couple days. But I want to complain now, so let me just explain how a river card cost me $3100.

When we were down to 4 players in the tourney, two of the other players and I were trying to work out a chop and the 4th guy wouldn't agree. He actually sat out supposedly to discuss a deal, then quickly sat back in to take the blinds. He is a dirtbag, and I will probably email pokerstars to see if something can be done about this. But I digress. The other two and I agreed to chop the money using chip equity when he got knocked out, as he was the shortest stack at the table (I had him outchipped by a few hundred thousand).

Sooner or later the short-stack dirtbag moves in from the button with J9s and I wake up with KK in the big blind. I obviously call, the flop comes 567, turn J, river 8 and I'm crippled. I'd like to figure out just how much money that river card cost me.

For starters, the payouts for the top 4 were:
1 -- $11220.00
2 -- $6283.20
3 -- $4039.20
4 -- $2917.20

And the chip counts, had I won that pot, would have been:
lordscythe -- 4240582
cardxfactor -- 1397880
me -- 1404538

Therefore, the respective equity of our three stacks at that point would have been $9033.88, $6249.32, and $6259.19.

I don't know of any ICM (independent chip modelling) calculators that compute tournament equity when you're 4-handed, but my equity is probably something like $3150 when I lose that pot.

So for me this river card cost me roughly 6259.19 - $3150 = $3109.19. So depressing. This is a pretty expensive river when you're bankroll is $6k ($9k now).

I'll post more of the interesting shit from this tourney some other time -- i don't feel like doing it right now.

Another Day, Another Dollar

Quick post here. When I woke up this morning I decided to play a little poker since I didn't have much work to do. Here's my first hand from this morning.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (8 handed)
MP2 ($55.60)
Hero ($100)
Button ($77)
SB ($30)
BB ($34.50)
UTG ($107.35)
UTG+1 ($106.30)
MP1 ($92.50)

Preflop: Hero is CO with 3h, 6h. Hero posts a blind of $1.
UTG raises to $3, 3 folds, Hero (poster) calls $2, 3 folds.

Flop: ($7.50) 3d, 6s, 9d (2 players)
UTG bets $5, Hero raises to $15, UTG calls $10.

Turn: ($37.50) Jc (2 players)
UTG bets $5, Hero raises to $35, UTG calls $30.

River: ($107.50) Qc (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $47 (All-In), UTG calls $47.

Final Pot: $201.50
Main Pot: $201.50, between Hero and UTG. > Pot won by Hero ($201.50).

Results below:
UTG has Ah 9h (one pair, nines).
Hero has 3h 6h (two pair, sixes and threes).
Outcome: Hero wins $201.50.


Then this same guy reloads for like $33.90 and I stack him for that too with Qd7d vs. KT on a KdTd7Jd board.

I then decided to register for and play a $20+R that was starting sooon after on Stars. I ended up doing well and having a completely monster chip lead when we were down to two tables. I then lost a race for a pot that would have given me about 1/4 of the chips in play with 14 people left.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t8000 (7 handed)
SB (t83977)
Hero (t409524)
UTG (t280710)
MP1 (t193002)
MP2 (t65808)
CO (t71138)
Button (t162680)

Preflop: Hero is BB with Ad, Qc.
4 folds, Button raises to t24000, 1 fold, Hero raises to t120000, Button raises to t162280, Hero calls t42280.

Flop: (t326560) 6s, 9h, Kh (2 players)

Turn: (t326560) 3c (2 players)

River: (t326560) Kd (2 players)

Final Pot: t326560
Main Pot: t326560 (t326560), between Hero and Button. > Pot won by Button (t326560).

Results below:
Hero has Ad Qc (one pair, kings).
Button has Jh Js (two pair, kings and jacks).
Outcome: Button wins t326560.

Instead, I was back to having a marginal stack which I ground down to nothing by being absurdly card-dead. Finally, I got the last 7BBs in with A7o vs. QQ to knock me out in 7th. I can't complain because I won 4 or 5 races before losing that big one. It was worth $975, so I'm not going to complain. $7000 would be nice though.