Bubble Girl Extravaganza

Hey guys. I played the $560 at Harrah's this weekend and the $1100 satellite at Borgata yesterday. I think I played super well, and I experimented with many new moves, and strategies. I really feel that in every live tourney, I am bringing my online game to it. Additionally, my reads are more and more spot on than ever. One area I really need improvement on is the middle stages of my tournaments. I believe that I tighten up too much, as I am less likely to put more chips at risk as the blinds go up, and this is why I find myself short stacked late game. Once I improve this area of my game, I feel that I will be more profitable than ever.

At first, I was extremely distraught over what a disasterous weekend I had because I played 23.5 hours of poker with $0 profit. Then, I reflected on it more. The truth is I am going to bubble a lot of tourneys, and when I cash, I am going to final table, not just cash. My time is coming, it is close. I feel it in my heart and soul. The silver lining is that this was 23.5 hours of experience gained. I did play really well. I gambled a bit in some spots, and I got lucky a few times. It was excellent. Below are some hands from the tourneys this weekend. Please comment on what you think.

Little tidbits that I found humourous this weekend. A guy from LI, a hispanic guy with a strong accent- super nice and when he speaks, its so cute, I always want to laugh. He is hilarious. He also does not like to fold. So late in the Borgata tourney, he and I are at the same table and utg shoves for 10k (blinds 1k-2k). Cheeky (our friend from LI), has about 35k and is utg +1. He calls all in. Everyone else folds. UTG turns up pkt 10s. Cheekie looks at his opponent's hand and goes, "Oh my god man, you have two of my outs" and proceeds to turn up A10. I almost fell off my chair laughing, it was hilarious. Cheekie is also the ultimate luckbox and hit an ace on the turn after flopping a flush draw w the 10 of sp in his hand. A little while later, Cheekie raises in middle pos to 4.5 x the bb, and the bb, who only has 7 bbs, shoves. Cheekie looks at him and goes, "come on man, i was just trying to stole the blinds." LMAO. He is so cute and funny. I <3 him.

At Harrah's, early in tourney, my dealer said something, and I did not hear. I asked what he said, and he replied "Honey, I was talking to myself out loud." I found that statement intriguiging. If he was talking to himself and it was NOT out loud, wouldn't it just be thinking to himself? And hence, isn't that just plain thinking? Food for thought.

I also watched a thing on CNN about the bail out and the proposed amount. That got me thinking- what is me and jon's bailout? between my student loans, the mortgage, the jeep, a few credit cards...gives me shivers. I better win some f%$king tournies. LOL.

Ok, enuf of all that. Hands from Harrahs:

QQ 15 minutes into tourney. I get dealt QQ on the button. Table has played relatively tight so far, but no indication of how players really are, it is too soon to tell. A player that Jon final tabled Mohegan Sun tourney with is in seat 4, across from me. He is obviously a terrificly bad player. Unbelievably so. In any case, he had limped utg. MP player raises to 150 (blindes 25 50). Because I am in position and I am very comfortable playing post flop. bb calls and utg limper calls. Flop is 7 4 2 rainbow. I am 90% sure I have the best hand. Utg fires 200,means nothing. PFR raises to 600, I cold call bc I don't want to reraise right here. I can control the actionb etter on the turn. I felt that pfr raised flop, to take down pot. UTg call the raise as well. Now pot is big. Turn is 7 sp, which I am not concerned about. UTG and PFR check to me. I bet 1200, utg calls, as it turns out later, "to trap me" and prf folds. River is 10 which is a bad card for me. I put utg bad player on 10 jj within his range. He bets 1500. I swear, if any card but 10 or j or ace comes, i shove. i call, bc pot is big, and he has pkt 10s and is shocked to see my hand, which is exactly what I was hoping for. Sigh. Down to 4500 in first 15 min.

An hour later, blinds 50 100, I have ak dd in mp. I raise to 275, with 2800 behind. BB makes it 800. I was really unsure of what to do. I thought he had AQ, AK, 10-kk, but i didnt think he would raise so big if he had aa. I reluctantly shipped it in, hoping for race and he had KK. I was getting up to leave, and AUTO ace on river. Weeee. Up to 6400.

At the same table, a few hands after my double up, the kid in the 10 seat, who was decent player, a bit tricky- leadign out on draws, making plays, etc, raised to 800. We had a bit of history at this point. I had about 6100 at start of hand. I look down on button and find AA. I reraise to 2k hopin it looks like a move. BB is our terrible moh sun player. He looks down at his hand and says, how much u got left? I show him a bit nervously trying to hollywood a little. As soon as he asked how much i had left, I knew he was shippin it in. So he ships it, predictably. Kid folds, but I know wants to call. BB has Aq diam and my AA hold, up to 13k. Moh sun guy out. There is a good chance he will never cash in a tourney again, he is in top 20 worst tourney players i ever saw in my life. Soon thereafter, our table broke.

I hover at 13-15k for about 1 hr. I get moved to my third table, with blinds 200 400, and 50 ante. I get involved in a few pots and my stack goes up and down. I decide I do not want to get too involved with a tricky internet player in the 1 seat who is running over the table, but I am not going to back down to him either. The following hand arises- first hand I decide to gamble. UTg limps, another players limps, I find A7 dd. I limp, internet guy limps on button and sb and bb check. We take flop 6 way. Flop is 10 9 3 with two diam. I m like, here we go in my head. sb and bb chk, utg bets 2200. I raise to 7k with about 8k behind. The reason I decided to raise so much is bc I have an awkward stack. Second, I put utg on q10, j10, possibly k10. he would raise pre with k 10 and a10 i thought. button folds, and sb thinks forever and folded what turned out to be two pair. I was trying to rep a set iwth my bet and that i was tryin to push fl draw out and that's what he put me on. SB was solid too. Utg thinks for less than 10 seconds and says I am all in. Im like, here we go. So I call. He has K 10 os. Turn is 10 and I hit on river. he was visibly upset but I really dont think that he should shove there. Then again, how dare I try to bet people off top pair?

I have way more interesting hands, but I am going to focus on tournies. Good night and good money!

Lucky C and Ace.