Challenge Update

I started my SNG challenge last night by firing up two at once. I was playing really well in the start of both of the tournaments and managed to double up early in one of them. After a very long bubble I was able to finish in third place in one tournament while getting a 5th in the other after a donkey call I made losing most of my chips. I am not sure if I will get in any poker tonight as I am likely headed to the Jays/Yankees game with a friend.

Total SNG's played: 2
Money finishes: 1
total profit: -$4

New Challenge

I have been getting a little bored with poker lately and haven't been playing much. I am thinking I need to give myself challenge to bring back some of the fun for me. I think I am going to try a 100 SNG challenge. I am going to play 100 $10+1/SNG's over the next month and see how I do. Assuming I am an above average player at this level what type of return on investment should I strive for? 10%?

The thing is, my bankroll only has enough right now for about 25 buy-in's so if I don't do very well, I could bust out. I am going to take a shot though and assume that 25 SNG's is enough for me to at least break even assuming I am not running extremely bad. I am a pretty sane SNG player who doesn't take too many chances early, and I usually have a shot of getting at least 3rd place money even if I am not getting many hands.

I used to play a lot of single table SNG's, but thinking back it has not been the area where I have made huge increases in my bankroll. I have made more money in cash games and 3 significant MTT's wins. I have never tried to play this many SNG's in a month, so it should be interesting.

On a unrelated note, I am turning into quite the cook these days. I cooked some fresh rainbow trout last night and it was awesome. I am really looking forward to the leftovers that I brought for lunch today. Only one more hour!

Jopke

Protoge 2

I have played a little poker over the past week. I played a few of the 180 SNG's on Stars and in both ones I played I was patient and managed to build a good stack by picking up some good hands. In the first one, I got into a raising war with a guy when I had KK and he had JJ. We both got all-in preflop and I flopped a King on a rainbow. The rainbow included a ten and. The Queen on the turn raised my eyebrows and the Ace on the river sealed my fate. It was the worst beat I have taken in awhile and I got a little steamed. After I had calmed down I fired another one up and this time managed to work myself into the chip lead with about 50 remaining. My hands started to dry up and I dropped to about 5th in chips. The leader was at my table and I picked up TT and raised it and was re-raised by the leader. I don't know why but sometimes I just get it in my head that someone is bluffing. I called his raise and pushed to a queen high flop. He insta-called with pocket Kings and I am done and he is now a massive chip leader. I don't know why I do things like that. I was in good chip position and I was out of position on the table, I should have just thrown the tens away to the initial raise.

In other news, because I am a Full Contact Poker Charter member and I played the required 300 ring game hands I now have four chances to qualify for the 20 player tournament that will send the winner to Atlantis in the Bahama's for the Daniel Negreanu Protoge final table. I am thinking that each qualifier will have at the most 400 participants and the top 5 make it to the final. You are also allowed to play in all 4 of the qualifiers. Based on my recent success with smaller field MTT's, I am pretty confident in my game. I am thinking the field might be a little stronger than the Stars SNG's though. The first one is this Sunday, I might be up north but should be able to play.

Random Post: Allergies, Paper St House and Haunting

Allergies have hit me hard folks. I am pretty sure I have went through an entire box of Kleenex today and I still have two hours left in the day. The last piece of tissue sits on the box waiting for a snot emergency but I am trying desperately not to use it, to maintain a little self-control. Plus, I am sure my co-workers are tired of hearing me blow my nose by now so I will give them a break for a little while.

This is only my second year with seasonal allergies. I remember last year as soon as the first frost came, they were gone instantly so I have got that to look forward to. The crappy thing is that I love fall season, but now it is tainted. I think I am going to have to break down and go get some drugs, my nose is sore and cant take much more blowing.

No poker last night. I did however get down on my hands and knees and scrub down the beautiful old hardwood floor in my new bedroom. I wasn't sure about moving into an old house at first but I am at the beginning stages of love with this new place. It has character. Eventually it will be split into 3 different apartments but right now ours is the first that is finished. Since my roommate hasn't moved in yet, I feel like the guy(s) from fight club wandering around an old house in shambles. All I need is create myself an imaginary friend and start a club of some kind.

I also found my self secretly wishing that my new house is haunted. Not "Poltergeist" haunted, but just scary enough to keep me on my toes.

See what you get when I don't play poker?

Jopke

Waiting for the paint to dry...

I got home from work yesterday and noticed quickly that the baseboards and radiator in my room were still not painted. One of the guys doing the work mentioned something about how the spray paint wasn't going to work for the radiator and I told him it was no problem, even though all I want to do is start moving stuff in my room.

I was a little pissed off so I went and heated up some leftover chicken and fired up Poker Stars for my first session in the new house. I decided to play a $4/180person SNG. I have won two of these previously but have been in a little slump recently.

In either the first or second orbit I pick up AA in early/mid position. UTG+1 min raises to 40. Sorry, no min raises allowed so I bump it up to 100. Here is where it gets interesting. The guy in to CO pushes and the button calls! It is folded around to UTG+1 (who has been playing like an idiot but won a couple pots so he has me covered) and he calls. I call, not realising that this does not put me all in, but leaves me with 10 so the cards are not exposed for the flop. The flop is good for me, low cards and a rainbow. UTG+1 puts me all in and I call. So here is what the three guys called my re-raise with. CO has AKo. I kind of understand his play here but do you really want to risk your whole tournament here with AK? I wouldn't. I would likely just call here or make a smaller re-raise. No reason to push here. The button cards are KQo! Now I am really confused, he called a three raises with KQ, I guess I shouldn't be that surprised for this buy-in but c'mon! The UTG+1 flips 76o! WOW! So I bet you can tell where this is going, right? Wrong! My aces hold up and I almost quadruple up into the chips lead with almost T6000. Things kind of slow down for a while as my cards disappear.

Here is another situation that I thought was interesting but I am not sure I made a good play. The player on my right is tilting huge after losing a big one a few hands earlier. Since then he has been raising quite a few hands. I wish I had my hand history with me to get the details right but since I am at work I can't get them. Maybe I will correct this when I get home. Anyways, he raises and I call with AJ of clubs. I have position on him but I figure if I reraise he will push me all-in and that is not the type of hand I want to call all-in with even though I think he has nothing. The flop gives me no pair but does have two clubs, giving me the nut flush draw. There are no high cards on the flop. He pushed the rest of his stack which almost has me covered. I thought about this one for a little while. I was fairly certain he was bluffing but he could have easily made a little pair which still beats me. I do have a monster draw though but do I want to risk the rest of my chips? If he wasn't on tilt, I would have thrown this hand away and felt good about it. If I through it away now though it was really going to bother me, especially if he showed his cards to me. I wish I could say it wouldn't bother me, but it would. Another leak in my game. I call and the cards are exposed and sure enough, he no pair, no draw. I hit my club on the turn and he is gone and I am back into the chip lead.

I wont bore you with the rest of the details (too late), but other than that hand I think I played a really solid game. I did get a little out of line with A9 and pushed right into AQ on the bubble. Thank got the board saved me with two pair and a king so neither of our kickers played.
Anyways, I took 2nd for a cash of $144. I should have won the thing, but that is a story for another day.

Bachelor Party Poker

This weekend I went to a bachelor party after I had spent the majority of the day moving into my new place. It was nice to eat some BBQ, drink some beer and hang out with some buddies for one last hurrah in Guelph before I start a new adventure in Toronto.

The Bachelor in question proceeded to get drunk...like really drunk. I was in fine form as well, but not compared to him. I bought him a cider at the first bar we went to and about 2 minutes later he had dropped it on the floor. I am surprised we didn't get booted. From there, we decided to head to the strippers. We were only inside for about 30min before the groom decided to leave and pass out in a ditch outside. So we were all rounded up (some of us kicking and screaming) and we headed back home. I was just starting to get into the whole stripper experience again, as it had been awhile.

When we got home the bachelor was put safely in his bed and the rest of the guys decided to play poker. We had two tables of 8 going, 40 chips each and blinds of 1/2. Not much time to wait for cards. I was dealt AKs UTG and raised it up and everyone folded. I thought it was going to be an action table but I guess no one wanted to go out in the first hand. I didn't pick up much of anything for the next while and lost a few small ones until I looked down and my M was 3. Man, I was really not paying attention. A few hands later I was UTG and looked and saw A8 of clubs. I pushed and it was folded around to the BB who had an enormous stack and called with TJo. He hit a ten and a jack on the flop and I was done. I joined in on the losers table for the cash game and ended up winning my buy in back by playing some serious donkey poker. I would call every hand and ended up hitting quite a few flops. Just some serious drunk poker.

I have to play more live poker. I guess I need to find some places in my new city.

Jopke

Blogroll

I have finally gotten around to making a blogroll of blogs I like to read. Some are bloggers I have been reading for years, others are new to me but have contributed to this site by reading me and commenting and I thank them for that. When I finally saw all the blogs in list form I realised I don't read as many as I think. I need to start finding some more I guess. Any suggestions?

Jopke