Housecleaning

I cleaned up my side-bar a little today and removed some links to blogs that sadly have not updated in a long time. If I removed your link and you still wanted to be linked, please let me know at surflexus AT comcast dot net.
I haven't had time to update much lately because I have been playing a lot of live poker. I played a tournament Wednesday night. The top 3 got paid out of about 40 players. When it was down to three, my friend Gordon and I were both in the money. We were all three about even in chips. I managed to get the other guy all in while I was ahead but he hit an ace on the river which crippled my stack and I went out in third a few hands later. Gordon won several hands by re-raising all in then finally got stung when the other guy held AA and finished shortly after that in 2nd. I felt really good about my play in this tournament. I was getting really great reads on the other players using a combination of physical tells and sizes of bets. I'm getting better in live tournaments at being a little more patient between bets and thinking my way back through the hand. I utilize all former knowledge of the players in the hands along with current table conditions and anything that would cause them to be playing out of character to put them on a range of hands. With this information, I am making a lot of what I feel confident are great raises and even better laydowns. The times I saw their hands after a big fold, I had made the correct play.
I played Friday night at The Poker Cat Arena. It was a great time as always. We played in a similar fashion to the game at C.C.'s a few weeks ago. The player in the dealer seat calls a game and you play that game for a full orbit. The button skips the player that called the game when it comes back around and the next player calls a game. We play all the bracelet games and throw in a little Badugi and Chinese poker. There are a few variations played with double flops and reverse flops but we mostly stick to standard bracelet games. The play is good and I really enjoy these games. This week the pre-flop betting became a little more aggressive than usual, and I folded a few hands that would have been monsters post-flop; almost like telling a bad-beat story but without the bleeding...lol. In the beginning of the game, we only had four players and it was fun playing short-handed. If you have read my blog for any length of time, you know that I love short-handed play. I was running very well during these hands, but then the table filled and I had to slow down and adjust. I did a fair job of this and also tightend up a bit on my pre-flop range of hands. We discussed a possible weekend trip to Tunica.
Kurokitty is in the 400k on Full Tilt today. I will be an interested railbird. Go Kurokitty Go!!!!!!!!!!!