Sunday satellites. Feelin good.

I played in two $13 DS satellites to the Pokerstars $500 month end tourney tonite. First one I busted on the first table fairly early which was too bad because I went on a roller coaster ride at the the end. From $1000 in chips to over $4000 and the chip lead and then two tough beats all in preflop the last being AK vs A8 and suddenly I was out. But I really felt if I had won that hand I very well could have won the table going away. I had them making bad calls. Oh well. The second satellite was a dream, it really started to click for me and I had the big breakthru. My play was solid. I waited for my opportunities and struck. Built small chip leads and by the time I got heads up I was about even with my opponent.
To be honest I made a very marginal call to get to heads up in the end of the three handed session that had gone on for awhile. However it had become a real push fest and both I and the other short stackboth only had about 2400 chips with 300/600 blinds and 5 minute levels. It was getting ugly fast. So when I picked up K9 in the BB I was ready to push in. The short stack pushed for me and I called. He showed J6o and the board blanked.

So when I got heads up I wanted to slow down the pace a bit. With about 6000 in chips it was time to make min raises and try to steal pots without committing all of it. The strategy paid off quicker than I could have hoped for as it took just 4 hands. The final hand of the table really was a dream hand. My opponent calls the BB and I check my hand 24o!!! Wow a free flop. Wouldnt you know it the board comes K 2 2. Fantastic flop for me. I couldnt believe it. As I was acting first I quickly checked. The quick check without hesitation is key here. I dont want him seeing me 'think' . I want to play very weak. If I hesitate it could be a tell that I have something I'm slowplaying. Which of course I am. But I don't want to throw out that tell. There arn't many tells in online poker but hesitation especially in headsup play definately can be. my opponent bets the minimum $600 and I smooth call him. Now this is where I'm really proud of the way I played the hand. The 6c drops on the turn. And I check again. This time with only the slightest hesitation. Probably imperceptible and he bets $1200. Now hes stuck in $2400 of his stack or about about 40%. He could still get away on the river so I now I really hesitate and 'think' and min raise him another $1200 and he just calls! My hesitation is just for effect. There is no way I want him getting away. I put him on either a big K and he is trying to string me along too or a pocket pair bigger than a 6. At least I'm hoping for that. The river is great for that scenario as it comes 7d and the board is K 2 2 6 7. Instead of checking the river I push the remaining 1800 chips in front of me and he is just allin when he calls. He shows his Pocket Jacks and that is that. So instead of pushing me off my big blind preflop which of course I would have folded he fell into a huge trap that really he could have mucked when the King flopped. By getting him to commit chips first on the flop and turn I was able to get him allin on the river with my trip deuces. By that time he really couldnt get away from the hand as there were way too many chips in the pot.....

As for the seat to the $500 Sunday tourney. Forget it. I withdrew from it for the $530 in tourney money instead. Once my $T bankroll is more robust then maybe I will think about playing in them. Until then not a chance. That's it for now. DonJ

Chillin and Poker

Yesterday was a good day at the poker table just because I played so much. Probably about 12-15 hours total. In the end I was up about 40 bucks but was deep in a $3 rebuy on Stars that with a couple of breaks could have been a big day for me. I ended up busting in 66th when my BB JJ busted to K9o on the button who was trying to steal the blinds which I believe were 8000-16000 or thereabouts. So I had it all in way ahead and would have doubled up to about 125000 in chips with a chance. It was dissappointing because about 2 hours in I was overall chip leader with about 63000 in chips and in full control of my table. From there I went card dead and just couldnt build on my advantage. For fun I played a 2400 entry turbo .10 tourney and finished 12th. This time my 1.48 payout LMAO came about when I busted when missing a flush draw for all my chips against two callers. I was getting a good price and really if I hit I was in a good position to play for the win which is the only place to be in those tourneys. Just for fun.

Other stuff going on...well not much really. Lisa got me into watching the BB Allstars cybercast. Yeah we subscribed....I know its sick but its very addictive too. Oh and Im loving the new Camcorder. I havent downloaded any of the clips yet. But they look really good so far.

Oh yeah. I've Been following the HORSE event on Cardplayer.com. What an amazing final table is set up. Doyle Brunson, Chip Reese, Phil Ivey, Jim Bectal, Andy Bloch, TJ Cloutier, David Singer, Dewey Tomko and Patrick Antonius. More bracelets there than the Jeweller down the block.

Spending Spree

Today was a down day for sure. Just some WSOP satellites and a couple of $6 sit and gos. I won one of those but sucked big time in the satellites. I was brutal!!
Anyway, I've got a hangover even though I haven't touched a drink in a week. I'm recovering from a trip to the mall! It was one of those trips where you know you've just spent more money than you'll make in a month. But you know ya gotta do it. By the end of the day I was giddy. Charge it!! I haven't tallied it up yet but I'm sure I was in the 2 grand range yesterday. On top of last weeks lawnmower and weedeater and all the rest of the costs associated with moving and carrying two mortgages....well I feel a bit sick of spending. Both Lisa and I are normally pretty tight with the money. But Wow once we got rolling it was like Well, we might as well keep going til we get everything. Ohh, and we still need to reroof the house and put in a wood stove before winter. Oh yeah and we need wood!!! I haven't mentioned that obvious one to her yet. LOL. But that's really f$%* all. Sigh......
Anyway, the buying spree yesterday was a sick one if only because really I didn't 'need' any of it. But want well most definately. First stop was Sneakers' computers for a DVD rewrite drive, an extra Gig of RAM, and a new 6600 GeForce Video Card so that I can play my Call of Duty 2 PC-DVD game. I haven't tried it yet but it looks sweet. And hopefully I now have the power to get thru a whole game of Civ 4. Anyhow after Sneakers we went by the townhouse to check on it. The complex looked better than it has lately but it still is so poorly run we will probably lose $20000-$30000 from what we otherwise would have gotten. I'm pissed at management but they won't even return our calls anymore. I digress! This is a story of the buying spree! So, then we headed over to the Sony store at Mayfair. I already knew what I wanted and Lisa was for it too by now. Brand spankin new Sony DCR-SR100 30Gig hard drive camcorder! We had a really nice salesman as opposed to the slick guy doin the head jags next too him. So we were lucky. He didnt hesitate to drop the price $144 when I told him I saw it for $1055 at Future Shop online. I had but I didnt tell him it was an out of date promo. ( I didnt know it was out of date until I looked it up when I got home) So I put that money to good use. An extra battery and a carrying case. This is one sweet camcorder and it is for the best cause. Our 8 month old Christopher. Again haven't used it yet but once I do will do a quick review on here. One more stop at Future Shop for new Altec computer speakers and DVDs andcases and Cds and we were done!
And tonite I recover and digest the tally. Ahhh well.. Finished up $128 at the tables and the bankroll is pretty healthy.
I have a week off work still and plan on playing plenty of poker. Still lots to do around the house ala steam clean carpets, wash floors and weedwack. And I definately want to mix in a few swims at the lake and for Gods sake get some people to come chill at the new house. Out for now. Sleep time.

Wow, what a month. New House!!

Well, its been a month since my last (and 2nd ever) post, so its definately time to get this blog up and running. So much has happened in the past month. I've barely had time to breathe. Moving from our townhouse to our new rural subdivision! What a great idea!! A yard for Christopher to play in and tons of space in our new house for Lisa and I to just relax! Yeah right!! Awesome feeling to finally be done.The poker has suffered but I'll get to that in a minute. I'm psyched to be in the new house. 3800 sq ft woohoo. But we will be renting out about 1200 of that. Combined with storage and garage our actually living space is still around 2200 sq ft. So I'm very stoked. I really didnt want my boy growing up in the city with no yard. Being out here is awesome. Trees on all sides of the house for privacy and lots of dirt for him to play in. Sweet. Oh and the deck. Already got the BBQ workin. Oh and theres room for poker tourneys here..........:) Thats our little secret. I haven't broken that to Lisa yet.

Ahh yes poker...Well, not so hot!! But considering all the excitement of moving and hassles of moving my adsl connection over I know its temporary. Truth be told I am not playing that badly. Im down a bit the past two weeks but my play is limited and the bad beats have not been! Oh yeah the phone company what a bunch of bozos. BUT I will get into that next time Gotta go for now y a donkeys.