tilted behaviour

I couldn’t really be bothered playing online today, but Donnie was back in his grinding shoes . . . and it paid dividends!

He managed to finish 3rd/2,451 in the Full Tilt Poker $9,500 GTD Rush Rebuy. The buy-in was only $2.20 and he re-bought nine times, but walked away with $2,200 for his third place . . . nice run sir.

With Lynn heading to the gym and me and GG doing nothing, he happily(?) drove me to this place called Too Hotties to get my hair cut. As you walk in there were maybe six or seven hairdressers who were stunningly gorgeous and all young. There was a pool table, flatscreen TVs, massage chair, PS3 and XBox 360 all for the patrons or guests to enjoy.

“Do you guys want a drink?” asked the receptionist.

“I’ll grab a beer!” and extremely excited GG added.

As GG sipped on his Bud Light while getting a chair massage, a petite brunette named Lacey began on my hair. We exchanged normal haircut banter of work etc, and I found out that even though she is only 20-years old, she has never been out of the country! This shocked me, because at the same age I already had been to eight different countries with nearly twenty trips to Asia to holiday or visit family.

Ending the haircut with an awkward but enjoyable face massage, I was extremely pleased with the result, as nothing beats your personal hairdresser back home . . . and for $23 it felt like a bargain!

With GG and I a little hungry, we ventured next door to Firehouse Subs where I bought us some late lunch / early dinner before picking up Lynn on the way home.

We decided a few days ago that we were all going to play the Green Valley Ranch weekly $45 HORSE tournament, and tonight was the night for us to check-raise some senior citizens and have some fun!

Lynn didn’t really want to play due to her lack of knowledge in the games, but that still didn’t stop Donnie, GG, Jane and I donating our money as the $45 entry got us a 2,500 starting bank. Unfortunately the Tournament Director was a bit of an idiot – and although there were four tables in operation – they still managed to seat Donnie, me and GG in the one, two and three seats respectively on the same table. Throw in the fact that we were nine-handed and played each game for a fifteen minute level instead of eight hands, really underlined the quality we expected.

“So what order does the games go in?”

“What exactly is hi-lo . . . razz . . . or stud?”

These were just a handful of the comments that we heard in the first few minutes of the tournament as we all just gave each a look of Oh My GOD!

I chipped up pretty easily in the Holdem orbit, but then played a terrible Razz hand where my made 8-7 perfect was rivered by a guy after I bet every street in a mult-way pot. I managed to pick up some chips though, and finished the first break with 4,600.

With the blinds climbing every game, I tried to play tight in the stud games, but when we returned to Holdem I won about nine pots to get my stack up to 6,500 and then 11,000 by the Razz orbit.

Reaching the final table of eight with 11,200, I was sitting third in chips (chip leader had 33,500) with Stud being the game with an ante of 100 and betting limits of 500-1,000. My stack slipped a little as we lost just one player before I managed to win a hand in Stud Hi-Lo with two-pair against two lows; one of which was the losing hand of Donnie’s.

With only five people getting paid, once we lost seventh, we made a deal for the bubble boy and chuck in $10 each so that he would at least make some profit. Once he exited, I had 14,500 during the Omaha Hi-Lo orbit with blinds 500-1,000 and was sitting on the button.

The remaining four players then started talking deals of chopping the prizepool five-ways for $220 each. The player on my left only had 8,500 and Donnie 6,500 in the big blind, while the two players on my right had 25,000 and 18,000. I felt that I had a great enough skill edge to keep playing, and running ICM equities saw that I should earning a little more. I obviously was beaten into submission and took the deal as we made our way home.

Not having played online all day, I decided to load up a couple of tourneys on Full Tilt Poker to fill in some time before doing some work.

I busted a Rush tourney quite early, but was also playing a $3 PLO Six-Max Rebuy tournament. Although I was in for five rebuys, I had a better than average stack after the rebuy period was over with Donnie also still in. We ended up being seated on the same table for quite a while which was pretty funny as I held the chip lead with 45 players remaining of the starting 77. Once there were about 29 players left, I lost a couple of big pots here and there and slipped back to around fifth only to see Donnie exit when I guy – that I proceeded to berate afterwards – called off a pot raise preflop and then a pot-sized shove on the flop for 80% of his stack with just a straight draw for the wheel.

With only eight players cashing, I doubled a couple of short-stacks up when we were twelve-handed, and consequently had to grind the short-stack on the bubble. I then managed to find two massive double ups after flopping the nut full twice against two players and doubling in the first before eliminating the guy that busted Donnie in the second to take the chip lead into the final table with 40% of the chips in play.

Unfortunately after losing one, I played a massive pot holding K♥ K♠ 9♥ 4♦ against A♥ A♠ J♣ 8♠ after I raised, he potted, and I put him all in. The board ran out 6♥ 9♦ 9♣ Q♠ 10♠ to see the suck, re-suck cost me a chip stack of well over half the chips in play.

Not letting it deter me, I still continued to open fairly regularly to pick up the blinds while also making some sneaky check-raises in blind-on-blind battles with the virtual nuts. I still managed to lose some crucial pots to prevent me returning to my once powerful stack, and consequently when I reached heads-up play, I was nearly a three-to-one underdog in chips.

I managed to take a few dints out of his stack, but he pushed back a couple of times to see me slip back to a three-to-one underdog before this final hand occurred.

Seat 1: tRaMSt0p (90,516)
Seat 3: molchun17 (305,984)
tRaMSt0p posts the small blind of 5,000
molchun17 posts the big blind of 10,000
The button is in seat #1
Dealt to tRaMSt0p 8♥ J♥ 7♣ 7♥

tRaMSt0p raises to 22,500
molchun17 calls 12,500
*** FLOP *** J♣ 7♦ 9♠

molchun17 checks
tRaMSt0p checks
*** TURN *** J♣ 7♦ 9♠ 4♠

molchun17 bets 22,500
tRaMSt0p raises to 68,016, and is all in
molchun17 calls 45,516
tRaMSt0p shows 8♥ J♥ 7♣ 7♥

molchun17 shows 9♣ 7♠ 5♠ 4♥

*** RIVER *** J♣ 7♦ 9♠ 4♠ 9♥

tRaMSt0p shows a full house, Sevens full of Nines
molchun17 shows a full house, Nines full of Sevens
molchun17 wins the pot (181,032) with a full house, Nines full of Sevens

With the final hand occurring around 5:30am, I was fairly disappointed not to take it down and top off a good day, but will take the $159 for 2nd/77 players.

As I mentioned in my last post, I would hopefully have something interesting to post here related to poker . . . and now I do!

I recently made a deposit on Absolute Poker to take advantage of 30% rakeback and supposedly soft players. With a fair chunk of money on PKR, it sucks because I can’t play on that site while I’m still over in Las Vegas – and not wanting to play on PokerStars or Full Tilt – I decided to choose Absolute Poker for some low-stakes cash game grinding.

Starting at just 10NL and 25NL to get use to the software and the players, I’ve noticed that the players are incredibly weak-passive, with the majority of them being terrible short-stack players. The one adjustment I have made in my game is opening my range when entering the pot with a raise, because it is so easy to pick up the blind, and if you eventually get some action, you can easily outplay them on the flop or turn. As for the short-stackers, I’ve noticed that they will often call off a good percentage of their stack preflop and simply check-fold to the majority of c-bets. When they shove over your open however, it is normally the nuts!

With Donnie playing a heavy MTT schedule, and GG moving over to sit-n-gos, they both managed to lure me back to the tournament grind also. I had back-to-back cashes in the Absolute nightly Sniper 3k GTD KO, where I finished 61st yesterday and 40th/667 tonight when I shoved my Aces from the small blind for 12k (at 500-1,000) over the under the gun’s open of 2,275 with J♠ 10♠. He called it off (el oh el) and flopped a straight draw, turned a pair then rivered two-pair. First was $800-ish, so it was pretty disappointing to bust for a virtual min-cash.

Donnie, Me and GG grinding online . . . degens we are!

I ran deep in a PLO rebuy, but got bounced a few levels from the money when my A-A-Q-J was all in on the flop of 10-9-3 against Q-J-10-7 and K-Q-J-2. The turn landed an Ace and the river a 7 to send me crashing out in a pot that was for the chip lead! There is a $11 Rush 135-player tournament that we’ve all been mucking round with, and I final tabled one of them the other day; but was denied a win when my 7♦7s couldn’t hold against Ace-10. However it was the $10+1 $9,500 KO GTD today that really broke my spirits!

After winning a huge pot when my A♠ K♠ made a flush against Kings, I began playing a Carter Phillips-esque poker of raising nearly every hand to build a stack, before taking down this pot.

Then a few hands later, I made a straight on the turn, but my opponent bet-folded from the blinds before this hand went down a few hands after that.

As we approached the money (189 of the 1,875), I was looking to improve my already top-ten chip stack so I could have a good crack at the $3k-plus first prize. Unfortunately, I would play this pot out – which if I won – would have lauched me to the chip lead with a five-time average stack!

I did manage to sneak into the money and eventually bust in 81st place for a $32 payday (courtesy of a few KOs) after my 6♥ 2♥ went down to 10♠ 6♠ on a 6♣ K♠ 6♦ 10♥ 8♦ in a blind-on-blind battle after all the money went in on the turn.

Although I’ve been wanting to focus on cash, playing tournaments with the boys have got me back into the grind that so many people seem to love.

I’m not sure if I’ll continue with it on a full scale effect, but probably will dabble a little when the cash games are running on the low side . . . don’t worry, I’ll keep you updated on all the bad beats I deliver and am delivered in return!

With the WSOP now wrapped up and Donnie and I predominately having the house to ourselves, our days consist of listening to music, nanna-napping on the couch and a lot of online poker!

Playing a small MTT schedule on Full Tilt mixed with cash games on Absolute Poker, I might delay the poker talk for a few days until I get some interesting hands, and instead share with you some of the songs that have been on loop over the past few days.

Listen to them, like them or share them . . . it doesn’t bother me, but I assure you that they will continue to play wherever I am in the world!

I also wanted to include the song Silly Boy by Eva Simons, but couldn’t find a version that let me embed it.

Simons is a Dutch singer who won Popstars in 2004 as part of the band Raffish, before embarking on a solo career last year after this song was leaked, and then gained popularity, online.

Simons has a style and look of Rihanna mixed with Lady Gaga, but her biggest drawcard is a hairstyle that for some reason reminds me of a Tyrannosaurus Rex!

Check out the song here.

After doing some household tasks during the day, Donnie decided that it would be a good idea to play The Orleans $75 nightly tournament.

We picked up his friend Bob from around the corner, before making our way to the Strip to pick up Jane from work. Once at The Orleans we registered for the tournament and grabbed a quick bite to eat before settling into one of the best nightly tournaments in Las Vegas.

The levels lasted twenty minutes for the first three levels before switching to thirty minutes thereafter and we all began with a 7,500-chip starting bank as around 68 runners entered the tournament. They also allowed you to repechage – or re-enter – over the duration of the first three levels . . . something that Jane took advantage of!

My first major hand came when I opened to 375 at the 75-150 level with 9♥ 9♠ from middle position and was called by the player on the button as a 9♦ J♣ 4♥ flop fell. I fired out 475, and the button called, before calling 1,175 when the turn landed the Q♣ as we both checked the K♠ on the river. I scooped the pot to move to 9,925 after he tabled his inferior 8♠ 8♣ before reaching the first hour break with just over 9,000.

With blinds at 150-300 and now a 25-ante, there was two limps ahead of me, and I decided to do the same from the button with 5♠ 4♠ as both the blinds completed to see a five-handed flop of 9♠ 8♠ 5♦. The under the gun limper led out for 700, and after one fold, I bumped it to 1,850. The blinds passed, and he tank-folded to see me climb to 11,175.

My table broke, and on my first hand in the big blind I squeezed to 1,700 over a limp for 400 and a complete from the small blind with Kings, but got no action as I moved to around 12,700. Then with blinds at 300-600 I opened to 1,500 from under the gun with 9♦ 9♥ and was called by the button and big blind to see a K♠ K♥ 6♠ flop fall. I really wanted to fire out a bet, but checked instead, as the button fired out an overbet of 7,000. The big blind folded, and after some deliberation, I did too while slipping to 8,700.

Just as the end of the level was nearing I felt that I need to try and pick up some chips. With two limps for 600 in front of me, I made it 2,300 to go from the cutoff with Q♥ 10♥ and was called by just the original limper as a J♥ 3♠ 4♥ flop fell. He checked, and I shoved for 6,000 and some change as he instantly called tabling his 3♥ 3♣. The turn landed the 7♣, and river the Q♣ to see me exit in 32nd place or so to join both Jane and Bob on the rail.

Donnie was on a complete roller-coaster of a tournament, but still held a comfortable chip stack as we sweated his potentially deep run . . . well we did all have 5% in each other . . . so that was a little of an incentive too!

After walking around The Orleans for a while, I decided to take a seat on a $2-4 Limit Holdem table to kill time while Donnie hopefully shipped the $1,590 first prize.

Buying in just for $200, I raised the first five hands – all with premium holdings of course – but was unable to make any hands as my stack somehow slid down to $120 within the first few orbits. Finding the powerful K♦ 2♦, I rivered flush after it was capped on the flop and the turn in a five-handed flop to see my stack soar to $220.

My Aces were then cracked by Ten-Nine before my A♠ 8♠ lost to Ace-Six on a 6♠ 6♦ 4♠ 9♣ A♥ before it was then my turn to crack Aces with 5♦ 3♦ when my straight draw improved into a flush. I then three-bet pre, capped the flop and turn before exchanging two bets on the river with 4♦ 3♦ on a 8♦ 6♥ 4♥ 3♠ 3♥ board before making a discipline fold on the river with Ace-King against Aces-up and a set. My final hand saw me flop Broadway with K♣ Q♣ and hold as I collected a mighty $10 profit as Donnie collected $385 for his 4th place before we all ventured home.