My New Home is Live!

OK, I was able to import my old blogger content (sweet) and get the feed up and running. Here are the details:

The Blog itself is at: http://www.darkrune.org/blog/

The RSS feed for Bloglines and the like is: http://www.darkrune.org/blog/?feed=rss2

Hope to see everyone at my new home.

New Home

I am in the process of moving to a new home on my hosting account. I will update this blog with the address and site feed for the 3 or 4 of you that actually read this :)

i think it is time for a break

I have been running bad the last week. Not just bad. But *really* bad. I bombed out of two SnGs on Thursday so I dropped to the 6x12s which have treated me pretty well. Not so fast, my friend.

These are the last three bust outs. A combination of bad timing and bad luck:
Bubble time. AKo against Ah7h. Flop is two hearts, Ace on the turn. Money goes in. Heart on the river. Busted.

5 left. Short stack. All of my money in against two people with AQo. Both of them have A-10. Looking good to tripple up here. 10 on the river to bust me.

Bubble time. 9-10 on the SB, limped. Flop is 9-Q-10. Money goes in. Two pair pretty solid against Q-8. J on the river.

I'll have to look at PokerTracker, but I think this is 12 SnGs with no cashes. I have lost well over 20% of my bankroll on Stars during that time. Everytime I think I am having a good event (getting people to push their flush into my full house for example), I end up getting blanked late.

It may be time to step back for awhile, do some reading, maybe some meditation, kick the neighbors dog, anything but play cards...

Can you speed it up? Just a little?

I think I played with 3 of the slowest players on PokerStars last night. It was a standard $20 SnG. As an aside: these take a *lot* longer to fill than the $10 or $15 ones, that is going to suck as I try and move up buy-in levels. Every. Single. Time. These. Players. Waited. Until. 15 Seconds. To. Act. Basically it sucked. I tried searching to see if they were multi-table masters and this table was getting divided attention- but nope, just the one SnG. PS blinds already climb pretty quickly, and adding near a minute to each hand just gets it to crap shoot levels. I ended up bubbling after losing a race and getting severely short-stacked- but when it is four handed and the blinds are already $200/$400, it does not matter much. Oh well.

I am actually doing quite well in my personal SnG series. I won a $20 on Sunday, and moved much closer to the next level.

As I mentioned above, I might need to move to another site with more players at the 20-30-50 levels because Stars just does not have the saturation of players at that level. That probably means Party, but I have not really done any research into that.

Non Poker: I played golf with a few people yesterday, we played 2 man teams, best ball skins. We had an 8 skin lead after 9, so we upped the ante to one skin for 10,11,12, two skins for 13,14,15, and three skins for 16,17,18. We were still up 8 after 12, but then we pushed 16. Luckily I made a big put on 17 to get the hole and the halved skin from 16. That put us up 14 with 3 to go. But damn, was it hot yesterday. I got fully baked. That is what you get when you tee off at 12:20.

A night at the mookies

I ran before work, had my enchelada fix, took a brisk walk (3+ miles) after dinner. Now I am ready for the Mookie.

42 players tonight. Very nice turnout. Things ran pretty well for me, I caught on fire near the end of the first break and took the chip lead. And I sat there or nearby as we dropped to two tables. As we approched final table, the junk kept getting kicked- nothing pretty about the way we do it in the Mookie, that is for sure. Made the final table, but out in 9th when my Mook runs into AJ on a 48J flop.

For those keeping track at home: The over under on locals making the final table was 4. I was the lone one, so the under wins. Also, 6:5 for a World player to win- well, that pays even though I don't know the winner yet.

During the event TripJax and I setup our time to play heads up. This historic event will take place this upcoming Saturday, May 27th at 3PM eastern (2PM for me). It is on PokerStars. Come railbird for Trip as the favorite as this underdog takes his shot at the man, the myth, the legend. (heh). Look for the "TripJax vs Gilain DADI 5 Bounty Heads-Up Match" under the private tourneys.

Another decent night of poker

Got to play the WWdN game last night. I started off like a donkey, but survived to to make the first break looking ok in chips. Ended up 18th of 68 with no real suckouts or spectacular hands. At least I didn't play like crap.

Then I sat in a $15+1 Turbo SnG. I have played the cheaper $6+.50 ones, but those are true crap shoots. This one is a bit better- it got to heads up and went back and forth for at least 30 hands (and seeing as it is a turbo, about 4 blind levels). I ended up winning it, which is a nice feeling.

This is a full week-plus of solid, cash positive, non-angry poker. Is that even possible for me?

The Mookie is tonight. Named after me no less. Come play, I'll do my best not to be a total donkey.

New news from Apple

As some of you might have read about, Apple and Nike have joined up to do some workout related iPod items. Check out the release page here. Pretty neat stuff. They are going to do workout playlists from iTunes, link in a foot module to measure distance and pace, and then be able to track workouts. Now that I have started to run again in the morning- this might be useful to get the distance and pace up.

Poker related: I have played in 4 SnGs in the last few days. They are the 6x12s that others have mentioned (6 top, $12+1 games). I have 2 2nds and 1 1st, which is a pretty nice result. They also take less time than the full 9 top tables, which can be handy if time is not guaranteed (later night for example). I have made enough bank roll to step up a SnG level so I will probably do that next.

The WWnD event is on Stars tonight which is always a good time and The Mookie is tomorrow. Technically I am the defending champ, so I probably should play, eh?

All the cool kids are doing it

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 7330476

a pretty good wednesday

First the SnG progress. Not so good on Tuesday where I finished 6th and 6th. My first one on Wednesday ended in 9th when my KK ran into AA. Ooof. The 2nd one was not as bad and I scored a 3rd place finish putting me only down a few bucks for the night. Why not join The Mookie? Well, maybe because these 10+1 MTTs are *huge* -EV for me. Oh well, I have a good time so lets play.

For the first hour I chipped up nicely. Top 5 or 8 in chips most of the way. Felt good and solid. 41 players tonight, 5 pay. That is a tough one but better than 10%, so fair. One of the Stars' milestone hands was dealt just after the 1st break, and no- I didn't get my share. The 2nd hour was survival. If you read Mookie's report, I just got lapped by the field. I never really had better than 10BB. I just kept enough to stay alive. I made the final table (first one in awhile) but was still very much hurting. When it got to the bubble, Mookie and I *combined* had less than an average stack. It looked like one of the two of us was going out 6th for $0 and the other 5th for $32 or something. As a joke, I offered to chop 5th (which really wasn't a bad deal). Mookie did end up bubbling. Then I ran my KQ into a KT and doubled up timely. I kept chugging away and chipping up. Suddenly I was getting cards again, making the right bets, and quickly moving up. I ended heads up with drewspop and had a 3 to 1 chip lead. I only doubled him up once, but ended up sucking out hitting a 6 outer on the river to take him out. To be fair I was about 30% to win pre-flop :) This is my biggest single cash online, and maybe with live as well.

You want to know how -EV these MTTs are for me? I cashed for 165 or something last night, which puts me $-1.00 over every event I have in PokerTracker (15 or something). That does not count the smaller private events which are counted as single or two table SnGs. It does feel good to have a big night though.

The one skill I have begun to work is using my breaks. Two examples from last night:

TT in mid-position, I bump it to 4BB and get someone in early position to call. The flop is Q-rag-rag rainbow. It is checked to me and I continuation bet about 1/2 the pot. I get raised 3-fold. There are not a lot of hands that beat me, but I start counting them and realize that this is bad money if I call. I fold.

Later in the night I get JJ in early position. Again 4BB bet and Mookie calls. Flop is 998 and I make it a bit more than 1/2 pot. He raises me to put me nearly in. I have to call time on this one, but I fold. He comments on how his raise was too big.

In the past I might jam with either of those two hands, especially the 2nd one. There were plenty of times when my continuation bet took the pot, so it is certainly the correct play most of the time. I just have to watch the re-raise and who is just making a move and who has the goods. Obviously either of those hands might break me and I would not have cashed last night, so it worked out for me there. What was that golden rule? It is better to win a small pot vs lose a huge one. It might be better to say it is better to let go of a small pot vs bust in a large one, but I can be a pessimist.

The big boss from Rational is here today. He is going to screw up Enchelada Thursday, so I am already unhappy.