DADI Tonight

I'll be playing the DADI tonight. I've teamed up with Smokkee and Wes to make a go at outlasting the other 3-player teams. I kinda like our chances but anything can happen so we shall see.
My friend Gordon (trkfix) obliterated a tournament last night to qualify for the Sunday Million on Party.....best of luck Sunday Gordon!!!!!

2 MTTs and a Chair

I played two multi-table tournies today. I never had a huge chip lead in either one, just some chips and a chair. I stayed in good enough shape to wait for good cards and finished in the money in both.
The first was a 4 buck 180 player on Stars. I finished somewhere around 14th. I don't remember anything out of the ordinary happening in this one and I think I played fairly solid.
The second was a 10+1 MTT on Full Tilt with 369 players. I made the final table on this one and finished in 6th place. I went out with AK when I ran in to KK and failed to pick up the ace. Thanks to Garth for hanging out with me the final hour of the Full Tilt tourney.
I was planning to play the WPBT Razz game tonight, but I played the Full Tilt tourney for several hours and I've decided to take Mrs. Surf out to dinner and a movie.
Good luck everyone at the tables this week!!!

Mookie # 3 !!!!!!

It's late and I have an early work morning but I just wanted to thank everyone for the great time at The Mookie tonight. It was a great time. I was thrilled to hang on to make the money and I can't even believe I won it again!!!! Great job to everyone at the final table. It was a really tough field to get through and you all played great!!!

17k Guaranteed on Full Tilt

I made the money tonight in the 17k on Full Tilt. I placed 60th out of 1,047 entrants. There's not really anything unusual to talk about in this one. I just stayed tight and caught AA a few times along with one very nice flush for a triple up. Big thanks to Chris for staying up and railing me. He has to get up early and I really appreciate it.

BrainMc Hosts Game

I attended the game at BrainMc's last night. It was a small turnout but I had an excellent time. The players were: BrainMc , 23Skidoo , Mowenumdown , Rags, and myself. We played a couple of freezeouts. From the beginning of the first game I could easily tell I wasn't playing at the typical home game. Everyone there was an exerienced player and a lot of thought went in to their moves. Rags started out very tight until he hit a hand and got some chips in front of him. He played the role of big stack well and shifted gears forcing the action to ramp up. I went card dead for a while and found myself short-stacked. I hit two very lucky hands and managed to hang on long enough to finish second behind Rags.
In the second game we shortened the length of the blinds and play was a little more aggressive. I went out faily early when 23Skidoo hit a set and short-stacked me followed by Rags hitting an overpair against my pocket sixes. 23 Skidoo took over this game and took 1st with Rags taking 2nd with another solid game.
Mow took a couple of really bad beats during the night. I cracked his AA with 78 suited by flopping a 7 and hitting runner runner for a boat. 23Skidoo took down Mow's AQ with KQ after they got it in with a Queen on the flop, Ski hitting his King on the river. That kind of night can be really frustrating, constantly getting the chips to the middle while being ahead only to get sucked out on over and over. He took it well but I know it was very disappointing for him.
Thanks to everyone who attended and especially to BrainMc for hosting. I had a really great time and hope we can do it again soon.

Good luck to everyone today in the PokerStars blogger freeroll. I hope someone I know wins the seat to the WSOP main event. It is a huge field and should be lots of fun.

40k Guarantee Tourney

I placed 44th in the 40k guarantee tonight out of 2,308 entries. My friend Rags made the final table and chopped 3 ways for 7 grand.....Way to go Rags!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tunica Tourney and Okie-V (sorta)

Gordon (trkfix on Party) and I went to Tunica this weekend. We played a NL hold 'em $100 buy-in tourney Friday night at The Grand. There were 30 entries so it was a 3-table tourney. We started at the same table. Gordon made some great moves early including a nice sting to the designated maniac and gathered a large stack. I sat back and made mental notes on everyone at our table. The blinds are 50/100 and I look down in the small blind to find 7d,8d and limped in to join 4 others. The Big Blind checked and the flop was 4d,5d,6s. I checked and the Big Blind bet out 300 which everyone calls around to me. I know this hand can easily get counterfeited with 6 players in the hand so I go ahead and shove. They all fold except for the maniac. He picked a bad time to hit top pair. My hand improves to a straight flush on the river and I have a big stack.
Gordon and I both made it to the final table in great shape. He gets A Q and raises it up 4,000. A big stack at my end of the table re-raises him enough to put him all in. Gordon decides to fold and this leaves him in dangerously low shape. He goes all in under the gun with about 550. I look down in middle position and I have Kc,Jc. It folds to me and I shove all-in. I think Gordon is ahead of me and I am trying to isolate and pick up the rest of the blinds. Everyone else folds and he has 4,2 offsuit. He hits a 2 on the flop to take the lead but I spike a King on the end and he's out in 10th. The top five make the money.
It gets down to 7 of us and I find myself getting blinded down to a medium sized stack when a wonderful thing happens; a 3-way all in and 2 are eliminating putting the rest of us in the money.
The big stack at the tables starts tilting a little when he loses a hand or two on bad beats and I call his all in with A 7. He has KQ and hits a queen on the flop. I hit an ace on the river and I'm a big stack again. I use my chips to defend my blinds and steal a few others and we are soon down to 3 players. We strike a deal with a 3-way chop and we each get $600.

Saturday I played another tourney at The Gold Strike. It's a $125 NL freezeout. I played this tournament but I don't really have much to tell you about. There were 63 entries and 1st paid a little over 2 grand. I had no cards the whole time and it was a very aggressive table. I never felt I had a great chance to steal or get any of these folks to fold their hands. I just blinded down for an hour and a half waiting for cards that never came. I finally got 8h,9h in the big blind and was able to see a flop. I hit 2 more hearts on the flop and shoved my small stack all-in. I get called by a big stack that is chasing an Ace high flush so I'm basically drawing dead.

Saturday night I played some $4-$8 limit and went red-hot for an hour and a half and won a few hundred. I checked my cell phone as I left and saw that I had missed a call from Okie-Vegas. I quickly ducked in to Replay's Bar and prepared to return the call. It was awesome getting to talk to you guys. I know you had a great time and I will definitely be there next year!!!

Good Times

I really enjoyed playing the Monday at the Hoy tourney last night. It was a great field of players and very fun.

I was also watching the Monday 1k WSOP qualifier where Smokkee was making a great run. He was a very short stack for a long time, showing great patience until finally going on a run and getting to 3rd in chips at the final table. It would be easy to sit on the sideline and quarterback his final table play, but I just want to say "GREAT JOB SMOKE!!!" Learn from the experience, enjoy the $3,500, and keep on rockin'!! I hope you get to that main event. I know I'm going to be trying like hell to get there too.

I arrived home from Trivia Night tonight and pulled up Stars to check on the WWdN tourney. It was down to 3 players: Matt , Guin , and Wil . Matt had a small lead and they were on break. When the break was over, Matt hit a king in a hand against Wil where he was a slight dog. He then made a tough call with bottom pair to knock Guin out and take it down. Great Job Matt!!!

Okie-Vegas is this week and I am really disappointed not to be making the trip. I know you guys are going to have a great time and I look forward to hearing all about it.

A Hill And A Curve

I live just over a hill. There's a sharp curve right in front of the house. It's raining tonight and cars keep coming over the hill too fast and doing 360's. I've been home from work for an hour and I've seen this four times already. That got me thinking..............I see people do that all the time at the poker table. They play their hand fast and reckless and absolutely do not have a brake pedal when the hand takes a sharp turn on them.
I just had a really big hand in a multi. The blinds are 300/600. I am dealt QQ in the small blind. Mr. Big Stack (fairly loose) is in early position and bets 1,600. Mr. I Just Lost Most of my Stack goes all in with his last 3,000 one off the button. The button (solid so far) goes all in with 5,000. I think he's trying to isolate; I think I will do the same....All in!!! Mr. Big Stack calls..uh oh. Biggie and Solid both have 10 10 and I now have 28,000 chips...hehe. Now I just made a HUGE dumb mistake. I coasted with 28 to 32 thousand chips for about 30 minutes when I get AK in the big blind. There are 5 limpers around to me. I bet 5x the BB and the first limper immediately goes all in with 40,000. Everyone else folds. I know, I know....this reeks of a slow played pair of aces and I know not to call........................sigh

My Story (as requested)

I have played various forms of poker as long as I can remember. My father taught me to play blackjack at a very young age and my mother taught me to play chess. My father, mother, sister, and I played some kind of competetive game almost every night.
I played all the sports they offered in my town and my parents were at every game. I joined the Army after school and went to Airborne School and even joined the boxing team. After the Army I continued to play sports for another 15 years.
I met up with some really great business mentors along the way who helped me in the business world and I began to have success moving up the corporate ladder. As I moved in to a management position and my income grew, so did my sense of responsibilty to my family. I made a decision in the late 90's that I could not risk a sports injury which could result in the loss of what for my family and I was a very large income......so I hung up the cleats and put the balls and raquets and bats in the closet.
I was making more money than I had ever made in my life, but I missed the competition of sports. Poker seemed like a good outlet to replace this without the risk of a serious injury. I'm not one to put money in to something without feeling fairly confident that I have a fighting chance of getting something out of it so I began to read books on the latest craze of poker, Texas Hold 'em.
I read and read and read. I downloaded Party and started playing a little at the play money tables. I gained confidence but lacked the experience to be very good, but I could tell I was getting better every time I played.
A co-worker told me about a live tournament he was going to play in and I thought that sounded like a lot of fun with a chance at winning some money. It was a 200 dollar buy in tournament, but he told me about it a few months in advance so I just put aside about 25 a week and began to save up to play it. I met a salesman at work who had just moved to town from Las Vegas. He talked about poker all the time, and from all the books I had read he seemed to know what he was talking about. I told him about the tournament and asked him if he would like to play in it. He said yes and asked me if I would like to split our winnings. I said sure.
The day of the tournament he just seemed so relaxed and ready. He smiled and smiled all day and I was excited as well. We went to the tournament and there were over a hundred people there. I had never played hold em live before. I made it to about the half way mark and ran in to pocket aces when I held Ak and I was out. My "partner" was doing well still and had a nice stack of chips and he was really having a great time. He just kept smiling and knocking out all these people that looked so serious. He knocked them out one by one until they were all gone. We walked out of there with over six thousand dollars.
I deposited a hundred on Party and gave my wife the rest. (this really helps cut down the static if you do this.)
I played sit n gos and built it up to 300 bucks. I played some 10 dollar qualifiers for the Super tournaments on Party and qualified for 5 of them. I made the money in 3 of them, each time for over 800 dollars. Then I qualified for the million and made the money in it too for another 800. That's when I started my blog....that very night!!!
I started going to Tunica and Biloxi and playing live. I have been a winner at the tables every trip but one.
The biggest win of all came late last year when I came in 2nd in a 10 dollar multi on Party and won about 3,500 bucks. I used this money to take some shots at the 5/10 and 10/20 tables on Party. It went fairly well but the swings were bigger than my bankroll could take. I was very fortunate to stop playing these on the tail end of a very good session. I need a little more time at the lower limit tables before making the move back up to these.
I decided to cash out the money and again give it to my wife. (i really can't overstate how much freedom that has given me to play) She began playing serious after this as well and has become a very good player. (she has made 2 final tables in live tournaments)
There have been a couple of what seemed like really long streaks of bad luck, but I just keep my cool, try to learn from them, and keep growing. I plan on taking some shots at higher tournaments over the next several months. I'll let you know how it goes.
Good luck at the tables this week everyone!!