Token Post

Saturdays have been spent on Full Tilt lately. I had planned to shovel my snow and get some other things done that I have been neglecting, but the weather got a little warmer last night and I didn't have any snow to worry about when I rolled my ass out of bed this morning....er, afternoon....so I eventually made my way to the computer. Held off on the poker until I decided to get a few hands in while Cousin Mark was showering before we went to lunch. Oh look, a juicy 2-4 limit speed table has an opening. That's just what I need for a quick hit and run.

Not so much. It was very juicy, and donkerific and it also ate up half a buy-in by the time Cousin Mark got out of the shower. So much for earning my lunch money.

Lunch was great, but I was still stinging from my limit loss so I was eager to get back onto FT and find another weak table. So far so good. Found a 1-2 limit table that suited me well and I am working on tripling up my buy-in. I love LHE because of the return I see but it's very boring, so I decided to try one of those token tourneys I've heard so much about. 8 bucks, 18 players, top 5 get tokens and 6th gets $10. Sounds simple enough. Even though I'm not a fan of the turbos on FT, I decide that that's the best format of the bunch for me today and jump in.

I know that one tournament doesn't really qualify as a random sample, but if all these token sats are like this I really need to toss my hat in the ring more often. The amount of scared money in this $8 sat was amazing. Very easy to chip up early after sitting out an orbit to get my "tight" image, and once I became the chip leader at my table I only had opponents play back at me two or three times. Long story short I pounded the money and token bubbles and was the big stack when we got down to 5. As a result, I am now registered for the first WPBT event this year for just under 1/3 of the buy-in.



Hopefully I can stay awake long enough to do some damage tomorrow night, and I really hope that I can play in more events this year than I did last year. I think I made it into three last year before life got in the way of my poker again. One of my poker goals for the year is to be more involved with the blogger games again, so this should be one step toward that. And hopefully Don will keep the Big Game going on a monthly basis. I am always up for the bigger buy-ins.

We had a good time at the Pistons game last night, but the game ended badly as the Wizards pulled out a two point victory. The last five minutes of the game were pretty exciting as the Pistons looked out of it until then. When Sheed hit a fade away to tie it up after trailing for more than half of the game, the crowd went nuts.

Wings/Avs tomorrow as a replacement for football. The rivalry doesn't have the punch that it used to, neither does hockey for that matter, but it's still always a good game to watch. I just hope that it's on CBC and not just carried by NBC.

You don't say....

Warning, this could be misconstrued as poker content. Read on.

This weekend was up and down at the tables for me. I ended doing rather well over all, but the swings within each session were horrible. Glad I am a super donk and chase my losses.

I won more than enough in cash games to justify entering Don's Big Game on Sunday night. Last time I played in it I ended up chopping with Don, and this time around he won it outright after a chop that left about $100 in the mix for the first place finisher. Blogger Big Games are so rigged.

For me the Big Game started off well enough. I chipped up early by mixing it up in a few pots and getting paid on my nut flush. Things were going well, and I was the early chip leader when I looked down at pocket aces. I thought I had played enough to get somewhat of a LAG tag for the game thus far, even though it was early, so I was pretty confident I could pull in a decent sized pot here. I make a standard 3x raise and get one caller, our tourney host. Innocuous jack high flop with two clubs and Don bets out at me, 200 into a 225 pot. I think about pushing here but elect to just call. Seven of spades on the turn can't help him at all, yet he bets out 500 into a 625 pot. I put him on AJ clubs, but would expect a little bigger of a bet if he wanted to bet the turn. I loudly proclaim, to no one cause I am alone in the room, that I am no doubt ahead and reraise all in. Insta call. Don flips over pocket 4s and a flopped set. DOH!

Maybe a better player doesn't double Don up there, but that's just not me. My m.o. in the blogger tourneys is get the chip lead as soon as possible and use all that rope to hang myself in some elaborate manner. I'm getting rather good at it, I just need to play more of the blogger games.

A couple hands later I drop another 400 to Don when I 3x raise from MP with AK and he repops me from 120 to 400 from the big blind. Flop comes rags and Don bets out about 1/2 of my stack and I am forced to throw it away cursing my luck. I am now 18th in chips out of 18 remaining players....at least I didn't bust out 1st as we only had 19 runners.

Not too long after that I double up when I flop a flush and someone pushes with top pair and a draw at a better flush. Thankfully the river was kind for once and I didn't exit earlier than Iak who wasn't even playing. As a matter of fact, after building my stack up quit nicely into the top 5 of chips once again I ended up going out in 8th, just two spots ahead of the m.i.a Iak, when I ran my AQ into Hoy's AK. Oddly enough, that was the second consecutive hand that AQ got all in preflop against AK. Rigged.

After I busted out I did a couple quick things around the house and sat back down in a limit game, not ready to be parted of my $75. Unfortunately I didn't downshift from the tourney quick enough and found myself in a hole pretty quick. As I battled back I decided to take a shot playing with the bloggers at the 1/2 NL table. At one point I had a Rounders moment as it very much seemed we were all targeting a couple of the non-bloggers at the table and pretty much staying away from each other. "You don't see Pirahna eating each other do you?"

Glad I did it. It was only about an hour or so, but I had a good time and walked away from the table up $74.75. I figured that only paying a quarter to play that much with the bloggers was quite the value and it was time for bed.

Hopefully sooner or later my work schedule or sleep schedule will permit me to play a few more blogger games this year. Everyone has a few poker resolutions, and this is one of mine. I have always enjoyed the blogger games, but hated getting up for work an hour or two after they were finished. I need to make adjustments and see that I get into a few more games each month.

Side note: My links are all effed up cause I got so sick of my last blog template and discarded it with haste. I will build my blogroll up soon and get my linkage back on track.

Re: I suck

What the hell do I know about football anyway? It's not like I spent the majority of my formative years training and practicing for the next game, breaking down film from my first year of high school on. All those years spent at the Silverdome while the Lions were still there....OK, bad example. I could go on, but why? It's obvious I know nothing about this game anymore. January has been total suck sausage for my picks. My heater from Vegas is now a cooler. The NFL playoffs used to be my wheelhouse....now I am just under the bus. I hate this game!

Week 2

Here are the picks for week 2 of the 3M Playoff Challenge.

Mike (18 units):

NE/SD under 46.5 ~~ 6 units
Phi/NO under 49 ~~ 3 units
SD -5 ~~ 3 units
Phi +5.5 ~~ 3 units
Ind +4 ~~ 3 units

Max (16 units):

Bal-4 ~~ 8 units
NO-5.5 ~~ 4 units
Phi/NO under 49 ~~ 4 units

Mark (10 units):

Bal-4 ~~ 10 units

Playoffs

This week's picks for the 3M Playoff Challenge:

Max:
Sea -3 for 3 units
KC +7 for 2 units
NE -8.5 for 1 unit
NYG +7 for 2 units
Dal/Sea Over 46.5 for 1 unit
KC/Ind Over 50.5 for 1 unit

Mark:
Phi -7 for 5 units
KC +7 for 5 units

Mike:
KC/Ind Over 50.5 for 3 units
NYG +7 for 4 units
NYJ +8.5 for 3 units

Right now it's halftime of the Indy/KC game and Indy is up 9-0. Not looking good for any of our picks so far.