Making up for lost time . . .

It's great to be blogging again! It's about 5:30 am, I just got home from work. I had one of the top 5 days in sales @ Vogue in nearly 12 years! In mc/visa alone we did over $6700.00, wow! I am absolutely 100% beat but it was really nice to see it come together like it did tonight.

Poker tip of the day:

Two of the biggest mistakes that players make in NLTH tournaments are:

1) limping when first into the pot. It is almost always correct to raise if you are the first one to voluntarily commit chips into the pot pre-flop. How many tables do you see player call, call, call, amazing! Nuff said.

2) In the middle and late stages of a tournament, when there are antes as well as blinds, I often see the small blind fold when they are getting enourmous pot odds to call. In NLTH if you are getting 3.5 to 1 pot odds it is always correct to call irregardless of your cards; 72o included. For example say at a 10 handed table the blinds are 400/800 and each player is anteing 100, therefore there is 2200 in the pot. Often times these donkeys limp and lets say that 2 players call the 800. The pot is now 3800. You are in the small blind w/ 72o and it cost only 400 to call. The pot odds are nearly 10 to 1, or nearly 3 times what is required to make the call! I see players w/ average sized stacks fold in this situation and it blows my mind. Big mistake. These are prime opportunites to hit the miracle flop w/ a hand that your opponents will never be able to put you on. This situation occurs in other positions as well. Oft times even if the pot is raised the BB will still have proper odds to call.

Enough for today, goodnight!

!kcithcS weN yM

Well I should still be in the low 50's out of over 2100 players, my last tourney really sucked . . . 13th out of 35 and the worst streak of dead cards ever. So to kill the monotony of the game I decided to enter all my chat !sdrawkcab. One player actually got mad at me and kept telling me to type in English, or Englis as he put it. He actually contacted the online duty manager who stopped by to remind us to use only English at the tables. Once he figured out what I was doing it was all cool. Most of the table seemed to enjoy it and I got Good Game all around after I busted out (except Kogs, the guy who didn't !ti teg)

Monster online tip of the year

(how to induce a bluff/ or get an all in call):

There is a technique that can help you win or place in far more than your share of online tournaments. In order to be successful in these things one needs to get maximum value out of their rare monster hands. It does no good to have to milk the pot on the river for a few extra chips, you need to give yourself the best possibility to double up your stack w/ your monster hands. Here is how you do it:

Set up: Early in the tournament when your stack is sometimes 100 - 200 times the BB you need to be fairly active. Play some educated "bad" poker. Limp a lot. When it is checked to you make small feeler bets, you need people to see you as a loose player who bluffs a lot, and as an idiot. Normally you will actually pick up enough of these pots to remain even or better, plus the pots are so small in relation to your stack that you aren't risking much.

Step one: Limp with all pocket pairs when atleast one of your opponents has a deep stack. It does no good to hit a set and only win a little.

Step two: Hit your set.

Step three: The Flop- Hollywood, if you are first to act do a slight pause and check. You are trying to do the "old" appears like I am done w/ the hand standard check and get it over with thing. If you are facing a bet you have to pause for several seconds pretending to mull it over, then grudgingly call. The speed at which you make your plays is crucial to getting the best chance for a big river bluff or to have them call your all in on the river. You ideally want to slowly build the pot, many players feel "pot committed" when they have bet twice or called 2 bets regardless of the amount of money. If they ever raise or call a raise this is even more true.

Step four: The Turn- This is a little trickier because it depends on the action from the flop. If they are the aggressor and bet into you it's time to re-raise. Your re-raise should be relatively small in comparison to their bet, usually the minimum. if they bet 1k into you raise them 1k. This accomplishes 2 things: First it builds a bigger pot and secondly it reopens their betting giving them a chance to re-raise you which will give you the double up you need.

If they check to you, you need to pause, pretending to think about the hand and then make a smallish bet, a feeler bet, of about 1/2 the size of the pot. If you are first to act and there was action on the flop you should also make this play. If you are first to act and there was no action on the flop you need to take a good look at the texture of the board, you want to feed them a little line, a bet you feel they will call. If they fold, well there wasn't anything you could do about it.

Step five: The River- The river is actually simpler than the turn. If you are first to act and there has been action pause for just a second and then quickly push all-in. You are trying to appear like you are bluffing and made a rash spur of the moment decision. You will be surprised at how often top pair, crappy kicker will call you in this situation! If they are first to act and you set it up well, many players will bluff at you trying to steal the substantial pot.

Just like live tournaments, online tournaments are filled with level 1 thinking players who will fall prey to this time and time again. Even better players sometimes make mistakes because they will be seeing you as the fish based upon your earlier play. AXs is not nearly as good a candidate for this play because a) it doesn't hit as often, and b) when it does the flush cards scare people. Sets are very well disguised as are double gutter straights.

Current Skill League Ranking

I am currently ranked 51st out of 1980 tournament players @ Bugsy's Club. Click here and then enter jager777 to follow my progress. This is after only 6 tournaments! Of the 275 qualified players who have completed 7 or more tournaments I would be in 48th place. The problem I am going to have is that I don't have enough time to play many tournaments, alot of these players have already played over 25 tournaments so far this month. The current #2 player _boogieman, I destroyed heads up in my first tournament win.

Here are the stats from my last tournament win:

I played 202 hands and won 66 (33%)
I won 17 of 22 hands at showdown (77%) and won 49 pots uncontested! I saw the flop in 17% of hands that were not in the blinds.

It's been a while

I have almost forgotten how to blog. . . My deepest heartfelt apologies to everyone who has stumbled over here in the last several months.

I haven't been playing much poker lately, but have had a couple of cool poker experiences just recently. I was in Vegas for the Gentlemen's Club Owners Conference and Expo @ the Mandalay Bay and sat down for some 1-2 NL. I came up with a slogan for their poker room:

"If you can't beat the 1-2 @ the Mandalay bay, baby maybe you shouldn't play!" If you say it right it has a nice cadence to it.

I broke my first table there. The max buy in was $200.00, 4.5 hours into it I had $1150 and the table busted! I busted 4 players, and the rest had had enough.

In the virtual poker world I just recently started playing again. My preferred site is Bugsy's Club it's a relatively small site, but has awesome software, good small tournaments, and excellent support. They have recently started doing something really cool, they rate your tournament play and award 10k monthly to the players w/ the highest skill ranking. Your skill ranking starts at 1500 and is modified based upon these factors:

1) How well you do in the tournaments
2) The size of the field (# of players)
3) Your current skill rating (lower scores increase more with a good performance and vice versa)
4) The average skill rating of your opponets (how tough the field is)

You also must complete 7 tournaments to be eligible for the cash prizes. So far I have completed 6 tournaments and have had excellent results. 2 outright wins, and in 2 other tournaments I had positioned myself perfectly to cash and or win. In one I went out on the bubble (one before the money) when a player hit runner, runner to complete his straight. In the other tournament at the final table it got all in, my KK's vs. QQ vs. JJ and the jacks turned a set. So out of 6 tournaments I have won 2 outright, made the final table at 2 others, and busted out in the middle of 2.

Here is a hand that crippled me in one of the 2 tournaments that I didn't do so hot in, check it out and let me know your thoughts:

$10 buy in MTT @ bugsy's club, 35 starting players, 18 remain. Level 9 100ante, 400/800 blinds.

I have T22K, slightly above average. 10 players at this table. Straightforward (or so I thought), tight player in the BB has me outchipped w/ T25K.

I'm 4th to act and it's folded to me and I limp w/ As2s. (I used to over limp w/ AXs but have fixed that glitch, this time I decided to play it, mainly because the BB had a deep stack and I wanted his chips).

It's folded to the BB, who checks.

Flop: Ad Qd Ah

"Jackpot I think, how can I extract the most chips, hmmmm"

BB checks

"let's check and induce a bluff on the turn" check.

Turn: 5s

BB checks, "hmmm, why don't I throw out a feeler looking bet into the pot to encourage a raise steal"

I bet 600, BB makes it 4,300.

"excellent I think, lets just call, If I'm ahead like I think, perhaps I can get him to bet into me again on the river, If he is semi-bluffing a flush draw, so what, doesn't feel like that anyway, I think he's trying to resteal"

River: Td

BB bets out 11,100 "hmmm, I don't think he has diamonds but this bet is scary, perhaps he's trying to represent them, I can't lay down 3 aces here, can I, but I don't see any benifit to re-raising allin either, I call."

BB shows AcTc for a full house. "Well that really sux, I wonder how Dutch would have played this hand . . . boy this kid really outplayed me here, but I've still got 5900 left, I'm gonna play my heart out"

Chow

2 Hours w/ Doyle Brunson

Nearly all of the World Poker Tour's season 3 alluded me. Work, the bar league and other activities conflicted with me catching one of my fovorite television shows. So I was delighted to open the brown Amazon.com package today that contained the 8 DVD set the best of WPT's season 3. The extras contain Shana Hiatt Bloopers and more importantly deleted hands. Episode 1 on the DVD is Bicycle Casiono's Legends of Poker, which Doyle Brunson goes on to win.

I haven't got to see alot of Doyle's play, but his results speak for themselves. I heard about this touney win and also of his 10th WSOP bracelet. I also got an opportunity to hear him speak to small group of people in New Orleans about a year ago. He mentioned how this tourney win really built up his confidence, he hadn't done so well in tournaments for a while.

This final table was especially interesting because when Doyle was Heads up with Lee Watkinson the total chips in play were over 200 times the size of the big blind. Lee had the lead when it got down to heads up. Doyle pretty much systematically destroyed Lee, and played what Mike Sexton referred to as "flawless" poker. Doyle does not play by the book poker. Hands that were especially interesting were ones where Doyle flopped a monster, a good example is when he flopped the nut straight (347) w/ 56. Doyle always takes his time to act and is very good at extracting alot of $ from his opponets. I'm not going to break down key hands but suffice it to say that getting inside of Doyle's head was educational. From a purely textbook viewpoint I feel that he risks more chips than he needs to at certain points but I could see how he was setting up Lee.

The final hand Doyle had Q9, and Lee Q3. They both flopped top pair and there was a possible flush draw on board (QJ7, 2 spades). Doyle checked, Lee bet 150k and Doyle went in the tank and went all in, Lee called. Doyle's hand held up. There are 2 factors that made the all in work here: first he was representing a flush draw, as this is how many players would play there, and secondly Lee was frustrated and made a rash call due to the fact that Doyle had gone all in several times recently and he had folded. The set up was perfect.

That Doyle is a sneaky, sneaky ultra aggressive player who is keenly aware of what hands he thinks you will have him on and see's these opportunities to trap.

I found Doyle's style fascinating and plan on watching this episode again soon, and break it down more thoroughly. Also I found a tell on stone faced Doyle that will come in handy the "next" time we play.

Another win

in Wednesday nights bar league.

I got off to a good start, but then lost most of my stack when my kings got busted by AJ. I've got about 10k in chips left, and the blinds are 1k/2k when this interesting hand comes up. 3 limpers and I look down and find 99 in the small blind. With only the big blind left to act behind me I have 4 opponets in this pot. I considered limping myself and trying to flop a set but quickly decided to push all in. Being relatively shortstacked I was concerned that some of the looser players would call. 99 is also a tricky hand to play in a multiway pot. Knowing that hitting a set is unlikely (8.5 to 1), and on top of that I' ve probably got the best hand, the prospect of narrowing the field to heads up, and going after those chips that I so desperately needed made the all in a very compelling move. Everything went according to plan. Only one player called, w/ A6s and my glorious nines held up nearly tripling me up. I wish poker was always this easy!

With about 18 players remaining I was in the top third in chips but still short stacked in relation to the blinds. I made it to the final table with an average stack and stole blinds when I could while picking my spots carefully and managed to make it to the final 3. Millard, a rock, took a bad beat and I was now heads up w/ a slight chip lead. Fortunately for me my opponet was a tell box, but after I chipped away at her she switched to all in mode. That made things more difficult and I layed down several hands untill this hand came up. Blinds are 16k/32k and I am a 2 to 1 chip leader. She is on the button and limps in. Remember she had been pushing alot, but I had a good read on her and sensed that she held a monster. The flop came JT4 rainbow pairing my T8. Normally this is a good hand heads up but I had her on QQ, possibly AA, KK, AK, AQ. I checked and she bet. I folded and called her hand which she showed! I love it when I do this, it really impresses the onlookers! I chipped away at her stack for a bit and then called her all in w/ JQs which held up for the win! I can honestly say that I played perfect poker from the nines on, stealing what I could and making excellent reads with no misteps!

A couple of friends and I played a few games at my house later, I won the first, got 2nd in the second tourney, and later won a heads up match. Not a bad poker day.

2 more cool things happened, One of the bar league players who plays a solid game asked to change seats at the final table saying he wanted to be on my left because I "terrify" him. Later at my house Aaron a winning online player who also plays in our league told me that he thought I was the best poker player he knew. Thanks for the compliments guys!

A nice run the other night

6 and 0 in heads up matches.

3 2 1 6 1 . . . 70.05 . . . 300

There are different perspectives one can tell a story from, and for this entry I decided to use the perspective of the bar tab. It tells a story too:

1 Chicken Wrap 6.25

Food Sub-Total 6.25

1 Captain Morgan Short 2.50
1 Captain Morgan Dbl 4.00
2 Bud Light Pint 5.00
2 Absolut Shot 6.00
3 Captain Morgan Dbl 15.00
1 Bud Light Btl 2.50
8 Lemon Drops 24.00


Beverage Sub Total 59.00

Total 70.05

I have rediscovered the world of beer; did you know that you can add a shot of vodka to your favorite lager to spice it up a little? I'm not sure my life will ever be the same since this discovery!

I started off w/ a captain to get warmed up in the 7:00 game, and quickly followed that w/ a double. Then slowed down a bit and switched gears to beer (w/ a shot), and paced my self well for the 10:00 money game. A few drinks into it and and things aren't going so well. Not because I'm drunk but because Suzzane keeps calling me w/ hands like T50 and catching! Before long my big stack is a little stack and things don't look so good. A couple of beats later and I'm down to 3 lowly black chips and w/ 3 full tables left I'm on life support. I will say this I never even thought about giving up and picked my spots well and w/ a couple of well deserved breaks managed to walk through raindrops and slowly build my stack back to a respectable level.

Final table time and we all have comprable stacks. Notice the entry on my tab for 8 lemon drops! That was my victory toast! Steve played a good game and had me way outchipped head to head, but I took it down in a very decisive manner! First place $300! If you haven't figured it out the 3 2 1 6 1 correspond w/ my finishes in our bar league in the last session.

Dutch and I had a conversation not to long ago about the "perfect path" or "the line" I believe was the term that D used. What he was talking about was picking the perfect spots, and following the line from where you are in a tournament to the winners circle. I certainly found that perfect path when I got shortstacked and never wavered from it. Anyway that's my random thought for today, cheerio.

Not much poker but

I did play in the bar league last week. Wed. night at Tropical liquors I got 3rd place in the first game, and 2nd place in the second game. Then on Thursday I played in the 7:00 game and got 1st! 3 games, 3 2 1 baby! The cash game is this tuesday and I'm now in first place for points and there is only 1 game betweeen now and the cash game for someone to overtake me.

Dutch and Joey both made final tables in Tunica this month, Dutch 3 final tables, Joey 2 but 1 was a big score for second place! Congrats guys. Also thanks Dutch for the link on your blog!

That Daniel Negraneu kid won another tourney, wow. I guess liberals can play cards too. lol

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Right now I'm sitting at Vogue, which by the way is now a wifi hotspot, in otherwords you can now fly around on the web anywhere in the building! Perhaps I will post more blog entries now, time will tell.

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I always thought highly of my Uncle Greg. He was a real go getter, who enjoyed high adrenaline sports like hang gliding, and scuba diving. Last week he went on a dive and never came back, lost at sea, how bizzare; Chris, her sisters, and Greg's family my thoughts and prayers are with you.

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One poker hand, this one is from a $500 tournament in Tunica. I arrived in T and played a $65 satellite and won! So I was set for the next days $500 tourney. I took it pretty easy that first night, and went back to bed around 12:30 because the tourney started at noon. Instead of waking up refreshed, eating a light breakfast of fuit or perhaps shrimp I slept through 2 wake up calls and was nearly 2 hours late showing up to the tourney. Each player started w/ 1500 in chips and I figured on the way to the tourney that I should still have close to 1200 to play w/ so all is definately not lost, however, my focus, and state of mind where not where they should have been! I felt rushed and out of touch. After folding for the most part, and donkeying off a pot, after about 20 minutes this hand came up:

Me approx. 900 in chips in the cutoff (1 before the button). Under the gun player (first to act) makes a big raise about 5 times the big blind, fold, fold, fold, then a player 2 to my right tries to limp. He was unaware that the UTG player had made a big raise. The floor was called over and the ruling was that he could fold his hand, but the limp stayed in the pot or he could call. He decided to call but it was obvious to me (and probably everyone else at the table) that he was weak. 2 thoughts, first when a not so great player over raises pre-flop you should automatically consider that jacks are a likely holding and in this case that thought certainly crossed my mind. secondly wow there is alot of dead money out there! What to do . . . . . . well I squeeze apart an A3o, hmmmmm now what. Well here's exactly what you should do fold, fold fold. But my donkey ass pushed all in knowing the guy that was asleep at the switch would fold. I was right but the other dude didn't, he did have JJ and they did hold up. Ouch, one mistake is all it takes in NL Texas hold'em to find yourself at the rail! Even I wouldn't normally "donk" off my chips like that, but for some reason I just felt rushed, showing up late, and all. Don't make the same mistake I did.

db

Finally a real post

S just got back in town from Boston last night and brought 8 live lobsters w/ her. S, another couple we are friends w/, and I feasted and played a little poker, It was the nuts.

You may know I have been building my club back up for the last 3 1/2 months. Things are on track and doing well. Now I finally get a chance to step back a little and play more poker! The timing couldn't be better because this month there are 2 major tournaments, a WSOP circuit event and a WPT event both in Tunica, MS. It is a little interesting that Jack Binion is no longer hosting the WPT's World Poker Open but instead is hosting the WSOP circuit event. It will also be interesting to see which 10K event gets the most interest. The WPT event is a f 5 day event from 1/19 - 1/23 and the WSOP event is a 4 day event from 1/24 - 1/27. My guess is the WPT 10k event will eclipse the WSOP Circuit 10k event, but I wouldn't be suprised if the WSOP preliminary events are the nuts. I plan to attend at many events as possible, starting with a slew of $500 NL Hold'em events the first of which is Jan. 5. If any of you are planning on attending either of the tourneys send me an e-mail! I will update trip reports from Tunica.

I promised myself . . .

that I wouldn't let my blog go over 1 month without being updated. This post will probably only technically keep my promise true. Work continues to go well, and poker continues to be pushed to the back burner. I have been hanging out w/ this really cool girl, S, and she hosted a poker game at her house Sunday that was alot of fun. Dutch Boyd is still in Columbia, and we have formed a few games "around" him if you will. As an aside, Dutch is a hell of a nice guy, and a hell of a poker player.

I've gotta run errends for work now, but will try to do a more thorough update soon!

Next Weeks game is at . . .

The club's freeroll tourney now starts at 8:00 pm every Monday. Last nights game was excellent! Hope to see you there.

New Monday Tournament at Vogue

Every Monday night at 7pm I am hosting a free roll tournament at Club Vogue. It is free for poker players to enter the club, free to enter the tournament and we are giving away cash prizes: $50 for 1st place, $20 for second and $5 for 3rd. Additionally the winner gets a cool trophy and there are other cool prizes like hats, shirts, and V.I.P. passes. Rounds are 40 minutes long and each player starts w/ 2500 in chips. Since the blinds start at 25/50 this format allows for more play and has created a very competitive final table each of the last 3 weeks. And the sweetest part of all is that on Mondays private dances are only $10!!! In 3 short weeks this has become hands down the best free bar tournament in Columbia, don't miss out on the fun.

All work and no play makes Jay a . . .

Last Wednesday I held an amateur night competition at the club and it was a smashing success! & hot amateurs, 1 comedy relief act (fat girl) and a full house. Everything is still heading in the right direction. I wish I had more time to make updates, and especially play poker! Maybe this Sunday I can do both. Chow for now.

So far so good

Staying incredibly busy! Work is definatively headed in the right direction! Wish I had time to update more, will as soon as possible.