Poker Comic #12

Thanksgiving Weekend

Not much poker over the Thanksgiving Holiday. Relatives visiting and Thanksgiving hassles, along with some holiday shopping made it unlikely. I did squeeze in two freerolls at the same time, along with one SNG before bed Sunday night.

The freerolls were at Intertops, and I moneyed in both of them. Intertops mysteriously doubled the prize pool in one, so I made twice as much for my 5th place finish as the payout schedule indicated. My 20ish finish in the other netted me a big $.75 score. Still, it’s an infinite amount more than my buy in.

The other game was a SNG at Pacific. They are amazingly easy. I got a nice early lead with I held AJ in a J high flop. I called an all-in in front of me and turned a J and rivered a J. Pacific doesn't show you the loser's cards, even in an all-in, so I don't know if I sucked the guy out. I imagine I did, hopefully Kings or Aces. I got a big lead early, blew it, got the lead back, blew it again, then got a HUGE lead. Quads showed up 5 times in one SNG, once on the board to counterfeit a guy’s pair of jacks who was all in on a flop of 444. A moron called him with king crap offsuit. He did end up finishing second to me for the tourney so at least he got paid and the moron went out on the bubble. I think he just got tired of playing because we battled for so long. The other 8 players were pathetic. If you aren't playing tourneys at Pacific, you should be. And if you do, remember the referral code DuggleBogey for $90 worth of comps from PokerSourceOnline.com with a $100 deposit.

The only other "pokery" thing I did this weekend was watch movies. I got the special edition of "Rounders" on Friday with a Best Buy gift card (Thank you PSO) and watched it with the "poker pro" commentary running. Phil Hellmuth did most of the talking, of course. Johnny Chan and Chris Moneymaker were also pretty interesting. Chris "Jesus" Ferguson said about 10 words, only when Phil forced him to. When there were poker hands going on in the movie, they had plenty to say, but the rest of the film had them stunned into silence.
The other movie I watched, based on a recommendation from a PSO forum poster, was "Shade." What a piece of crap this movie is. Never mind that they completely misunderstood the concept of "table stakes" the central theme of the movie is "the best cheater should win." No legitimate card player would find this movie at all entertaining. Maybe a slight-of-hand magician might. And if you bought Sylvester Stallone as the ultimate card shark, you're a fool.

Poker Stars Freeroll

For the record, Poker Stars has the worst freerolls in the business. They're even worse than Party, and Party doesn't HAVE freerolls. I played in my first Poker Stars last night because King Lucky called me and we wanted to screw around. I asked him if PS had freerolls and he said "We missed it, they start at 5:00." I said "It's only 4:55." I think he was the 6000th entry. So He and I, along with 5998 of poker's finest set sail on a journey to win one of NINE seats into a tourney with the grand prize of $100. WooHoo!!

A small note about the quality of play in these. I am dealt AQo on the button, and I raise maybe 4x the BB. Two come along for the fun. Flop is AJT rainbow. Woohoo, top pair. I make a decent sized bet, both call. Turn is an offsuit Q, giving me 2 pair but a K kicks my tail. It's checked to me and I check also, hoping for an A or a Q and fearing a check raise. The river is an offsuit K. The board has the NUT. It checks to me, which is odd, so I go all in. I figure one of these morons will fold so I will at least get something out of this pot. THEY BOTH FOLD.

All those folks that told you the players at Poker Stars are the best on the internet were yankin' ya.

(I know I know, freerolls. But still, quite a hilarious hand.)

Craps Concerns

A lot of people were concerned about my playing Craps for my casino whoring at Reef Club Casino. Apparently there is a line in their policy that says that low risk Craps and Roulette bets will not be counted towards your bonus.

I took that to mean that if you bet both the pass line and the don't pass line you will not get credited with a bet towards your bonus. Same goes for betting black and red at the same time at Roulette. These are both terrible bets that you can't win but can lose. I guess they want to discourage this for bonus purposes. Otherwise I'm sure they want to encourage it.

One player even sent an email about his bonus requirements and the said he was $21 short because of a few Craps bets he made. This concerned me greatly. So I asked the live chat if Craps counted towards my bonus as long as I bet it straight, and the support person said yes. I was prepared for a fight when I did my cashout, but lo and behold, the money was deposited into my Neteller account yesterday, no questions asked.

So my Craps scenario is 100% valid and validated by me.

Another MTT Victory

"I am the best limit tournament player I
know."

DuggleBogey

This is a quote I actually said about myself on the forum at PokerSourceOnline. It's a bit misleading, since I'm the only person I actually know who plays limit tournaments. All my friends play NL exclusively, except maybe KingLucky who plays stud and omaha tournaments too. But he hates limit. That's what everyone says. "I hate limit tournaments."

I posted before about how usually a person hates a game because they are not very good at it. There's more to hating limit than not being good at it. You can be good at limit and hate it too. Because it's less exciting than NL, or because it requires patience. A LOT of poker players are action junkies. I wouldn't say that all bad poker players are action junkies, but I would say that all action junkies are bad poker players. Patience is not the first virtue you are likely to find in a roomfull of poker lovers.

Limit poker is all about patience. It's tough to put you off your tough hands with raises, so if you have the patience to let the good hands come, you can make it very far into a limit tourney. Sure you need luck to win, just like every poker tournament, but you can wait longer for the luck to arrive in limit. It also helps when your opponents play poorly.

I got to the final table out of 236 players in dead last place, just over T12,000 in chips. The blinds were 1500/3000, and I was next on the BB. When you are short stacked in a limit tourney, you usually have to make a pre-flop commitment to play a hand all the way no matter what flops. I got 99 and made that commitment. I raised to 6000 when 6 or 7 limped, and they all called. I prayed for a 9, but instead got a flop of 667, two clubs. I checked, hoping to get a lot of players to come in. A couple did, when the chip leader raised to 6000. I re-raised what I had left, and everyone folded. He was on a draw with JTc.

This is a huge mistake on his part. He basically isolated the all-in player when he was on a draw. No club came and no Jack or Ten came, so he lost a pretty huge pot to me. He could afford the chips so that wasn't the problem. The problem is an ace came on the river and I'm sure one of the other players had one. He had a chance to knock out a player and improve everyone's take, and he decided to bluff them out of the hand. And you never know who you are letting back into the game when you do this. He let (modesty aside) the best player in the tournament back into the game. His punishment for this error? From an overwhelming chip lead, I knocked him out 4th.

With over 40K I soon took over the table and got to heads up, quickly increasing my lead to 210,000 chips against 20,000. I am a heads up DEMON lately. It helps that I have been a rock for the last hour and hopefully that image lingers in the mind of the opponent as I raise, raise, raise. Judiciously showing a pair of Kings here and a pair of aces there, I want him to think I am still a rock on an incredible card rush. I'm not showing the 42s he folded to when I raised pre-flop. When I finally won a huge pot when I made two pair on the river with my 23o, and rivered a straight with 57 after flopping OESD, it's too late for him to recover. I had the 10 to 1 lead at the fourth break, and it was over three hands later when the board showed four diamonds, and my Kd trumped his 9d.

The tournament took a total of four hours and eighteen minutes. You are going to get a lot of good hands in 4:18. If you have the patience to wait for them, you can do some serious damage.

The post that never was

I was going to post about the home game from this weekend, but nothing positive would come of that. I wouldn't be able to resist talking about the argument I had with another player who claimed that the dealer didn't have to be on the button. He apparently got upset at the last home game when the big blind skipped someone that wasn't him. I won a save and felt lucky to get anything.

These games are supposed to be fun and therefore I honestly don't expect to win them. If I were to play my real game there, nobody would ever play again. I soft played everyone at the table on almost every hand. Of course it came back to bite me in the ass, but I expected that. What I don't expect is for someone to have his head up his ass about the rules, and want to get into a brawl over it.

We had a lot of people cancel at the last minute and still had ten people playing so he may never get invited back. If there ever is a game again. I'm not sure I'd miss it that much. I'll play in any game they have, I'm already committed to that. But if nobody had another game, I'd probably be happier. One person suggested we find six regulars and have a dealers choice game once a month. I could live with that, if we got the right six people. And the pickings are quite slim. Maybe Maudie has a game I could get into that isn't full of people desperate to NOT have a good time.

On top of that I read too many blogs today. So many judgemental assholes out there, so little writing talent. Idiots in their early twenties that think they not only know everything there is to know about poker, but also about life. Trust me, they don't know shit, including proper spelling and grammar.

Poker Comic #11

Casino Whoring

We will take time out from the regularly scheduled Poker Bonus whoring for some Casino Bonus whoring. I have done the casino whore bit at PlanetLuck and Starluck casinos. They are both owned by Party Poker and there was an unbelievable promotion through Poker Source Online . The actual bonus wasn't as good with these deals, but the deal was better so I gave it a shot.

The PlanetLuck/Starluck deal was that you deposited $100, got $100 in bonus cash and got a $50 Amazon Gift card, as long as you wagered $1600. You had to play blackjack. I made about $150 on those deals combined, plus $100 in Amazon gift cards.

This one was at Reef Club Casino . What made this deal better was the fact that they had Craps. Anyone that knows a little about craps knows that if there is an amount wagered bonus element, then the thing to do is shoot craps, and to play "wrong." I like to play "wrong" in the casinos, but sometimes the shooter gets mad at you, because basically you are betting that the shooter, if he is betting on himself, and he usually does, will lose. I usually respond to a shooter who gets mad with a good ol' "Fuck you. If you don't like it, don't play."

A little background for the non-craps players out there. Craps seems intimidating because of all the different kinds of bets and all the yelling and screaming and jargon and whatnot. It's a very simple game. A player bets and rolls the dice. If he makes a 2,7,11 or 12 you either win or lose the bet. If a 4,5,6,8,9 or 10 are rolled, he continues to roll until he rolls that number again, or rolls a 7. That's the whole game. Will the shooter roll the same number twice without rolling a 7. You either bet that he will or he won't.

It gets more complicated when you talk about the bets, and that's because of odds. The real reason craps is so popular is because after the point is established (one of those numbers that isn't a 2,3,7,11 or 12) you get "true odds" on your bet. That means you will win the same amound depending on the chance of that number rolling. Say the point is 4. There are three different ways two six-sided dice can roll a 4, but there are six different ways to roll a 7. So you get double your money if you are betting on the 4.

The converse is true if you are betting AGAINST the 4. You have to bet $10 to win $5, but there is twice as much a chance you will win it. There is no house edge on these bets.

At THAT's the most important factor in this casino whoring story. If you can wager twice as much and have twice as much chance of winning, and THE AMOUNT WAGERED is the most important factor in the bonus, you can essentially bet HALF as much as necessary.

I played craps for about 20 minutes, betting "wrong" the whole time and had $1000 wagered with ease. I even profited $64 while doing it, so I actually cashed out $264. I don't know about you, but $164 profit for very little risk in 20 minutes is a GREAT deal for me.

The Really Exciting Part

When I got home from Kansas City, I logged on to check my email and to check on the reaction to the flaming post I left on the PSO forum. One thread had the title "We are giving away a cruise trip in the next 24 hours." Interested? I sure was!

It turns out that one person who won the cruise tournament suddenly cannot go. They hadn't issued the tickets or bought the plane tickets yet so they decided to just give the cruise package away to someone who was SURE they could go. They said they wanted to give it away to someone who participated in the forums a lot, someone who won the 10,000 PSO point prize in the last few months would be given the most consideration. I won it two months ago, so I fit pretty good in this category.

The second category was a person who had participated in the most Promotions. When Absolute confirms my raked hands on their next report, I will have done THEM ALL. Nobody could surpass me in this category.

The third category was a tie breaker, based on the number of posts in the forum. I have the most posts in the forum of any customer, by almost a third. Nobody else is even close on this one. It's nice to know being opinionated and having a big mouth, along with some slow time at work can pay off.

So when I entered, they basically called off the contest and gave the package to me. I really tried hard to win the cruise in the tournaments, even to the point of getting RZ to play in the last one Saturday night because I couldn't make it. He finished 180th out of 399, so I figured my chances were gone. Never give up!

When I started playing poker online last year, I just thought it would be a good cheap way to kill some time and have a lot of competition and fun. When I started winning and learning and getting more involved with the community, it started looking more like a full fledged hobby. But when I got associated with Poker Source Online this really started to take on a life of its own. I started talking about poker a lot more, thinking about poker a lot more, and enjoying the community of poker players a lot more. I have gotten a lot of my friends into poker, and all of them have taken advantage of Poker Source Online in one way or another. Free chips, free tournaments, free poker tables, everyone is profiting, and having fun. But this takes the cake. I am getting a FREE CRUISE TO CABO SAN LUCAS, all expenses paid, just for participating in their site, and playing poker. I would have played poker anyway, and I participate in their site for myself, to keep myself entertained and to talk about poker with people. I would have done it for nothing. This is all too much.

Thank you Poker Source Online Again I say. If anyone is playing poker online with any frequency, and they are not part of an affilliate program, they are stupid. If it's one different than Poker Source Online they are just playin CRAZY.

Absolute Insanity

This weekend was absolutely insane, in every possible way. Well, in every possible GOOD way. Almost.

Things started poorly on Friday night when I was the FIRST person eliminated from the poker league. I had done so well the week before that people were gunning for me. Third or fourth hand in I got AT on the big blind, and Actyper (another PSO regular) raised from 20 to 100. I called and hit an ace on the flop. I checked, he bet 100 and I raised to 400. He would later say that that raise was WAY too high and he thought I was trying to buy it. The pot was already 310, so I don't think it was that outrageous, I was just trying to send a clear signal that said "I HAVE AN ACE." He called and the turn was a 10, giving me two pair. There was also a queen on the flop, so I thought momentarily about KJ but dismissed it. This time I led out with another 400, and he still thought I was putting a move on him. I have only posted about a zillion times on the forum that I play TIGHTER that TIGHT early in multi-table tournaments, but he ignored this and called again. The river was a disaster. A queen counterfeited my pair of 10's and now I was beaten by Aces, Tens or any Queen, along with KJ. He had me outchipped and went all in for my last 600, and like a stupid fish, I called. I was so upset that he was stupid enough to call my first two bets, it put me on tilt. Maybe I was pot committed with 800 in the pot already, but I came back from 600 last week, there's no reason to think I couldn't do it again. Instead I took that opportunity away and called to see his KQ. Yes, he called with a pair of queen and a king kicker to a big raise after the flop with an ace on the board. Yes, he called a big bet on the turn with only a pair of queens and a gutshot straight with an Ace and a Ten on the board when the straight could already be made. He made two fish moves, and I made one.

The good news is he took this MONSTER chip lead and finished 21st out of 45 people. Good show. Don't worry Actyper, you're not a fish. I flamed him pretty hard on the forum, but I was really just kidding. He had a pretty good comeback with "You like Hellmouth so much you're starting to act like him." Touche. (No idea how to do the accent over the "e")

I played a STT on Pacific to console myself. I only had a few bucks in there because I cashed out my original deposit so it was just a 10+1. It was an incredibly dominating performance. I had 4500 of the 8000 total with 6 players left. I had 7200 with three left, and knocked the third place player out with 72 (The HAMMER!) I dominated the heads up game and basically got the guy to fold until he was all in on the blind. I bet those guys hated me. I was pushy, greedy and all kinds of mean. It felt GREAT!

On Saturday I drove up to Kansas City for KingLucky's home game. I started out very poorly. I even had to reload after about an hour. But then someone called a round of Omaha and everything turned around. I made a bunch of my draws, usually with a dozen outs or more, and even when I didn't I won anyway. That got me healthy, and things just got better and better. By the end I think I had doubled or tripled my buy in. It's a very small stakes game, but it's still nice to win once in a while. I had gotten abused the last two times out, but I made up for it both times by hitting big at the casino. I joked that I would probably lose at the casino this time because I won at the home game.

But that turned out to be false. My first hand at Ameristar Casino was 88, which I like to call "The Crazy Eighty-Eight." (Any Kill Bill fans out there?) I caught an 8 on the flop and got the boat on the turn. I never touched my buy in money again. I was up $250 on my first session of Hold 'Em, and took a break and played some Let It Ride with King Lucky. I lost $20 playing LIR, but won that back at the craps table. It was a real struggle, and considering how much I got down originally, a $20 profit was a real accomplishment.

I returned to the Hold 'Em game and won another $150 in pretty short order. There was plenty of Laundry to be done...at one point I asked the dealer if they sold ski gloves in the gift shop for the cards he was dealing. But I won a few monster hands that made the whole game worthwhile. I only bought back in for $80, it's what I had in loose bills and I figured I could reload if I needed to. I did get all in twice, but won both of those. Once I held 77 on a kill hand. A kill is when someone wins two hands in a row at 3/6, and the game becomes a 6/12 game with a forced bet of $6 by "the killer." I just called the $6 with my 77 but got raised afterward to $12. I went all in (limp reraise!) for $16 and got called by the original raiser and another player. The flop was Q7Q. Just what you want when you have no more money to bet, a flopped boat. It got worse. The original raiser bet out and the other player folded. We flipped our cards and I apologized to the raiser when he showed AA. The turn revealed the case 7, and suddenly my heart raced. "If there's an ace on the river, you've got the bad beat!" I said. We quickly added up the pot and realized there was enough in it to qualify, and I screamed "COME ON ACE!" It was a 4, but wow, what an exciting hand. The Bad Beat Jackpot amount was over $38,000, and my share would have been nearly $10,000. The AA player would have won $19,000+ and each player at the table would have had over $1,500. The table mumbled and grumbled about it for a good half hour. Nothing like a close shave with $10K to get your heart pounding! Instead I won $48.

But I came back big with that $48 and left the table when my plays made my neighbors irate. When I check raised the guy to my left when I caught my KKKJJ boat on the river, he said "Were you ever going to bet your hand?" I replied "Why would I, you were doing just fine!." I pissed off the guy to the right of me when I held TT and called his pre-flop raise. He bet all the streets and it got down to just he and I, with the only over on the board being a King. I said "I think I'm beat but I have to call," and he showed 77. As I was stacking my chips I said "I was almost positive you had me beat that time," and he said, very unhappily "Then why didn't you fold?!?" I was thinking "There was $80 in the pot and it was just $6, what do you think I'm a fucking retard?" But all I said was "The pot made me. Too much odds." This didn't satisfy him and he started getting more and more irate. Time for me to go.

Session three ended up dead even, but the table was a ton of fun. I was really sweating being put at the same table, because the same two guys were there. Luckily they started a new table and everyone was there to have a good time. I really enjoyed it, and broke dead even. After tips even, so I was happy.

From there we went to Harrah's Casino so I could take a look a the brand new poker room over there. It was really nice. Quieter than Ameristar's room, and everything was shiny and new. The Plastic cards glided over the brand new felt like there was no friction at all. The rounded edges on the $5 chips made chip shuffling a breeze, and I was happily shuffling away as I fold fold folded my way along. I barely saw a hand worth playing, and my starting hand requirements are VERY LOW in a casino. Like fish low. Like I won a big hand with 47s earlier in the night. Scaly. Smells like tuna. Anyway, I did manage to win a big pot with Q9 that ended up being the nut straight from the turn.

We got back to KingLucky's in time to see the Simpsons, so we were out from 2AM to 7PM. I slept Sunday night and drove back to Oklahoma on Monday. That's when the really exciting part started.

Blog Problems

Well, it finally came time to address two major problems with my blog.

Problem number one was that when I started posting the poker comics, it moved my sidebar all the way to the bottom of the screen in Internet Explorer. I didn't notice immediately because I was using Foxfire, and the problem didn't occur on Foxfire. Well, there was a different problem where the Poker Comic and the Sidebar text would overlap, but that only existed when the Poker Comic was at the top of the page. When my laptop hard drive ate itself, I never reloaded Foxfire and got to see what was happening in IE, and it was pretty darn ugly. Of course all that was missing was my counter, and who cares about that besides me. But then I decided that I needed to address problem number two, and that would make problem number one much more important.

Problem number two was that I didn't pimp any other bloggers in a links section. I knew link sections were easy to do, I just never got off my ass and did it. I am mentioned in a ton of other bloggers' blogrolls, and it is just plain RUDE of me not to reciprocate. But in order to have a blogroll on the sidebar, you'd actually need to be able to SEE my sidebar.

Problem one was solved by tinkering with the blogger template for a while. Problem two was even easier, I stole the formatting from someone else's blog. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, you know.

So now the blog works correctly, I think. Probably not at all screen resoultions or in all browsers, but screw all that, I'm not enough of a geek to care.

Poker Comic #10

Tourney in a nutshell

#Game No : 1156199249
***** Hand History for Game 1156199249 *****
Hold'em Trny:7057010 Level:6 Stakes (150/300) - Monday, November 08, 22:32:47 EDT 2004
Table $250 Freeroll(129289) Table #1 (Real Money)
Seat 6 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 2: ELguapo420 ( $295 )
Seat 3: ERIC3988 ( $715 )
Seat 5: BNB2003 ( $1930 )
Seat 6: chrisguy ( $1385 )
Seat 7: DuggleBogey ( $2864 )
Seat 9: Growlrrr ( $1980 )
Seat 10: INYOURQUEEN ( $5895 )
Seat 1: allus ( $940 )
Seat 8: JBONE74 ( $1865 )
Seat 4: CMENOW ( $2155 )
Trny:7057010 Level:6
Stakes (150/300)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to DuggleBogey [ Ah Ac ]
Growlrrr folds.
INYOURQUEEN folds.
allus folds.
ELguapo420 folds.
ERIC3988 folds.
CMENOW calls [150].
BNB2003 folds.
chrisguy folds.
DuggleBogey raises [225].
JBONE74 calls [150].
CMENOW calls [150].
** Dealing Flop ** [ As, 7h, 3h ]
DuggleBogey checks.
JBONE74 bets [150].
CMENOW raises [300].
DuggleBogey calls [300].
JBONE74 raises [300].
CMENOW calls [150].
DuggleBogey raises [300].
JBONE74 calls [150].
CMENOW calls [150].
** Dealing Turn ** [ 5d ]
DuggleBogey checks.
INYOURQUEEN: dam
JBONE74 bets [300].
CMENOW calls [300].
DuggleBogey raises [600].
JBONE74 raises [600].
CMENOW raises [900].
DuggleBogey calls [600].
JBONE74 is all-In.
** Dealing River ** [ 4s ]
DuggleBogey bets [300].
CMENOW is all-In.
DuggleBogey shows [ Ah, Ac ] three of a kind, aces.
JBONE74 shows [ 6h, 8h ] a straight, four to eight.
CMENOW shows [ Ad, Kc ] a pair of aces.
Player CMENOW finished in 129 place
DuggleBogey wins 245 chips from side pot #2 with three of a kind, aces.
DuggleBogey wins 580 chips from side pot #1 with three of a kind, aces.
JBONE74 wins 5595 chips from the main pot with a straight, four to eight.


#Game No : 1156239925
***** Hand History for Game 1156239925 *****
Hold'em Trny:7057010 Level:7 Stakes (200/400) - Monday, November 08, 22:41:24 EDT 2004
Table $250 Freeroll(129289) Table #1 (Real Money)
Seat 5 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 2: ELguapo420 ( $285 )
Seat 3: ERIC3988 ( $1540 )
Seat 5: BNB2003 ( $2830 )
Seat 6: chrisguy ( $985 )
Seat 7: DuggleBogey ( $1922 )
Seat 9: Growlrrr ( $1530 )
Seat 10: INYOURQUEEN ( $5347 )
Seat 1: allus ( $340 )
Seat 8: JBONE74 ( $5245 )
Seat 4: diodukio ( $7109 )
Trny:7057010 Level:7
Stakes (200/400)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to DuggleBogey [ Qd Qs ]
JBONE74 folds.
Growlrrr folds.
INYOURQUEEN folds.
allus folds.
ELguapo420 folds.
ERIC3988 folds.
diodukio folds.
BNB2003 folds.
chrisguy folds.
DuggleBogey shows [ Qd, Qs ] a pair of queens.
DuggleBogey wins 300 chips from the main pot with a pair of queens.


#Game No : 1156258898
***** Hand History for Game 1156258898 *****
Hold'em Trny:7057010 Level:7 Stakes (200/400) - Monday, November 08, 22:45:30 EDT 2004
Table $250 Freeroll(129289) Table #1 (Real Money)
Seat 9 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 2: ELguapo420 ( $285 )
Seat 3: ERIC3988 ( $1540 )
Seat 5: BNB2003 ( $1945 )
Seat 6: chrisguy ( $2670 )
Seat 7: DuggleBogey ( $1922 )
Seat 9: Growlrrr ( $1230 )
Seat 10: INYOURQUEEN ( $4147 )
Seat 1: allus ( $340 )
Seat 8: JBONE74 ( $7145 )
Seat 4: diodukio ( $5909 )
Trny:7057010 Level:7
Stakes (200/400)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to DuggleBogey [ Ac Ah ]
ELguapo420 folds.
ERIC3988 folds.
diodukio calls [200].
BNB2003 folds.
chrisguy: wow, jb
chrisguy folds.
DuggleBogey raises [400].
JBONE74 folds.
Growlrrr folds.
INYOURQUEEN folds.
allus is all-In.
chrisguy: lol - dodged another bullet..
diodukio calls [200].
** Dealing Flop ** [ Kd, Qc, Th ]
diodukio bets [200].
DuggleBogey raises [400].
diodukio calls [200].
** Dealing Turn ** [ 2d ]
diodukio checks.
DuggleBogey bets [400].
JBONE74: had the best hand i thught intill that queen came up
diodukio calls [400].
** Dealing River ** [ Qd ]
diodukio bets [400].
DuggleBogey calls [400].
diodukio shows [ 8d, Qh ] three of a kind, queens.
DuggleBogey shows [ Ac, Ah ] two pairs, aces and queens.
allus doesn't show [ 9d, 8s ] a pair of queens.
Player allus finished in 84 place
diodukio wins 2520 chips from side pot #1 with three of a kind, queens.
diodukio wins 1120 chips from the main pot with three of a kind, queens.
this is silly
allus has left the table.
Game #1156264427 starts.

Everyone shoots angles...

One kind of annoying thing did happen during the PSO League that got under my skin.

While the tourney was going on, many PSO members participated in the Online Chat going on at the PSO Chat site. I was enjoying the chat, as several people from my table were on there, and they are pretty funny guys.

When the last person on the final table that was also in chat got knocked out, I started talking more in chat, just because I knew it would be more fun and entertaining for them and myself. I was talking about hands a lot, not necessarily during the hand, but certainly afterwards. The other heads-up player was called Zagnut99, and there was no Zagnut in chat, so I assumed he wasn't there.

I was completely wrong. I also assumed that if he was there, he would have identified himself a long time ago. Also not true. There were a few people in there that had different names in Chat from what they were in the Poker Game, but they were careful to tell who they were. One person even put his chat name next to his poker site name with a pipe between them. It was very clear that you were supposed to identify yourself in chat. He was JD something in chat, and when the game was over with he typed into chat. "Thanks for the game, I'm Zagnut99." He had been in the chat the whole time, listening to everything I had to say about how I was playing, and just kept his mouth shut.

I don't mean to imply that he broke any rules, or that he even definitely gained an advantage. Hell, if he didn't catch his 35% flush, I doubt he would have won the tourney at all. I'm just saying, that's a SHITTY way to be. This was a VERY friendly small stakes tourney. The prizes available outside the prize money are probably worth a total of $20-$35. It's not worth being a shit about, that's for sure.

Poker League Event 1

Well, I contiuned my bonus whoring activities, but this time I opened an account at Absolute Poker so that I could Participate in the Poker Source Online Poker League event that kicked off Friday night.

The structure was good. Around 43 people, which is not bad for a first time event, started at 1500 chips. I dislike the 9 max tables at absolute, but that was one of just a few things wrong with absolute.

I have heard people complain and complain about Pacific Poker software. It's a dream compared to absolute poker. The only thing that is better about Absolute is that you can run multiple tables at one time. If your system can handle it. My new computer, running at 3GHZ and 512meg of memory was struggling to run ONE table at absolute. I heard someone say you could run 7 tables at once, but I think that would choke a Cray.

Anyway, I deposited $100 there, got $35 bonus cash (play 100 hands, get $10 released at a time, I dunno how the last $5 gets released.) I played a few hands before the tourney so I could get a feel for the site. The sounds are shitty, the look and feel are shitty. Playing at absolute is like wading through waist deep shit, basically. I quickly lost $10 at a $.50/$1.00 table, that I played because I couldn't get into a $1/$2 table, and nobody was playing at $2/$4 tables. The 6 max tables seem to be popular. Not with me, however. Finally a spot opened on the $1/$2 table (35 minutes on the waiting list) and I won my money back, plus enough to pay for the league entry.

In spite of the software shortcomings, I did pretty well at the League. They will be playing 4 events in 5 weeks (Thanksgiving weekend is off) on Friday nights. I took second in Event 1, which won me 500 PSO points and put me in good position in the league standings. It seems like if you can make the final table in all 4 events, you will have a good shot at winning the whole thing, which is more PSO points. The buy in is $5+1 so I also got nearly $50 for my second place finish. That should help me clear my PSO bonus at Absolute, which requires 300 raked hands for 6000 PSO points. When I clear it I should have 27000 PSO points, and no idea what I want to spend them on. Plus whatever I win for playing in the league.

Two critical hands I played were one where I got myself way way overcommitted with only Ace high, but somehow I won the hand when the other player checked behind me on the river and couldn't beat the ace.

When we were down to 3 players I got AJs with the chip lead and the board flopped AAJ. I min bet and the second place player min raised me. I smooth called and checked the turn, which was the worst possible card for me. Another J. While it guaranteed me I couldn't lose, it made it either a sure split or easy for my opponent to lay down his hand. He made another bluff attempt and I just called again, which was probably a mistake. I should have min raised him. He might have called it, although any aggression here probably would have induced a fold. Hoping he would feel pot committed and maybe representing bluff, I went all in on the river, and he layed it down easily. He came back and beat me in the tourney when he had a slight lead and I didn't play my Pair of Jacks with an Ace kicker aggresively enough and he caught his flush on the turn. T3 of hearts beat AJ for the title.

PSO Sweetens The Deal

If anyone out there isn't working with an affiliate program, now is the time.

Poker Source Online has upgraded their promotions. Now instead of getting a free 300 piece chipset, you can get a 500 piece chipset. Really nice clay chips, about $100 in stores or ebay. Or you can take their PSO points. Instead of 6000, you get 9000, which equates to $90 in their online store. You can get Amazon or Best Buy gift certificates, or they have a good selection of poker supplies and books. You can even get American Express gift certificates, which I think work just like AmEx travellers checks.

I have convinced RZ to finally do a promotion through them. Here's the deal. He is going to deposit $100 into Pacific Poker. For referring him I get $20, which I split with him. He receives $50 in bonus cash from Pacific Poker, and then $90 in PSO points. Altogether we will be getting $160 in value, and all he has to do is play 250 raked hands of poker. He doesn't even have to contribute to the rake, any raked hand he is dealt counts. He could theoretically go play Omaha Hi/Lo and fold every hand for 250 hands (great thing about Omaha Hi/Lo, even at $.50/$1.00, nearly every hand gets raked because 7 or so see the flop) and still make money on this deal.

What's the catch? Well, Pacific doesn't have NL or PL poker ring games. Limit only. You can only play one table at a time, so it will take 5-6 hours to play the 250 raked hands. And to cash out the bonus money, you have to wager 20x the amount, so to collect the $50, you have to wager $1000. But you can cash out your deposit amount anytime you want and just play with the bonus until you have wagered enough or it is gone.

PSO has also started a rakeback program through Ultimate Bet. You get 20% of your rake back in PSO points. Not cash, but better than nothing. Gift Certificates make great Christmas Presents, and it's not even re-gifting.

If you are playing poker on a daily basis, as I am, and you are not getting "something extra" when you play, you are a SUCKER. There are comps to be had people! Get 'em!

If you sign up with Poker Source Online be sure to say you were referred by "dugglebogey" on the registration form, and I will paypal half the referral fee to you as soon as I get it.

Poker Comic Returns! #9

One of those nights...

I didn't think I was going to have much poker content this weekend as my folks were in town and I spent most of the weekend with them. As I was cooking dinner for my mother's birthday on Saturday I peeked in at a freeroll tournament that had just started at Intertops. It was beeping me and saying I only had 5 seconds left to act and I saw AA so I hit the raise button, raising the 15 blind to 30. The flop had a A so when the action checked to me I hit the bet 15 button again. About 4 callers and action checked to me on the turn so I clicked 15 again. That struck me as really odd because it should have been 30. I looked up at the window title and saw the unexpected NL in the title. This was a NO LIMIT tourney, and I thought it was limit. A player behind me went all in. I looked at the board again and saw Ace King and Jack, and knew I was in trouble. I should have tossed it in right there but I hoped he was overplaying two pair and called his raise on 4th street and his all in on the river to see his QT and I was down to T20. Funny stuff. At least I cashed in the Intertops $250 freeroll on Friday night, so I would have something to blog about.

But Intertops had it's $1500 500 Raked Hands Required tournament on Sunday night, and I somehow had enough hands to play in it. There were more than 360 entries, and I made sure to check this time, it was a LIMIT tournament. I won an insanely large number of hands early, catching straights and boats every time I saw a flop. The first 45 minutes of limit tournaments are pointless however. I worked my T1000 up to T3000 in those first 45 minutes, but after the first break the blinds and speculation hands quickly ground that down to T1700. Still, people were beginning to get knocked out and I checked the payout schedule. $9.75 for 4th place, not bad for a freeroll. I was determined to get some money out of this tourney that started at 8:00pm but felt later because of Dayling Savings changing back to Central Standard Time.

I ground and ground, holding on for the no-shows to get knocked out. There is usually around 50% no-shows at these intertops tournaments. I'd think a 500 raked hands required tourney would be different, but sure enough there were only 5 of us actually there at the first table. If you can hold on and get close to the second break, the no-shows should have been blinded out and you know how many you have to make it through to see the money. After the second break, there were about 50 left, so I figured I could walk into 40th place, an I was right. 40 came quickly, and the next level of payout was 30th, so I held on and made it with just under the big blind amount. I got UTG with less than 1200, so I went all in with J9 hoping to win at least the blinds. 3 came along with me and I made a straight to the queen and tripled up. The next hand gave me Q6 of spades on the big blind, which I got to see for free. Three spades on the flop and the small blind going all the way with me put me around 8000. A tiny big of breathing space. The next BB gave me 24 of spades. I said out loud to Ms. Bogey, "Nice big blind, the flop had better be Ace-Three-Five." Sure enough A35 hit the board and the button had A3 and we capped the whole way. This win gave me enough to squeeze my way into the final table. 10th place paid $15 and went up $15 for each person who got knocked out. I vowed to hang on as long as I could. I was 8th in chips, and figured $45 would be very respectable if I could maintain my position. I caught AQ of clubs on my button and called pre-flop. The flop had Ace-Jack-Rag and called a bet by and EP player. I checked the stacks and although she had me by a lot, I could call all the way down and still survive. The turn was a King and she bet again, I called. Turn was another Ace. Now the only hands that beat me were AJ, AK, and A-whatever that rag was, and QT. She wasn't the tightest player in the world, catching a lot of goofy straights to get to the final table. One player even complained that she was the "King of Straights," and she corrected him to "Queen of Straights." She bet the river. I raised it, and she called, which told me I was good. She flipped 10-7o and I moved into 2nd place in chips. She had bluffed the whole way, and called with nothing. She tilted out the next hand, even though she had over 20k in chips left. Maybe it was past her bedtime. She took 9th, and I was guaranteed my $45.

I handled the chips well. I was barely in 2nd and didn't hold onto it for more than a hand, but I did let the chip leader knock out most of the other players. I took one out when he overplayed his AT against my AA. Neither one of us improved, but I was marching up the payout schedule. Finally I got heads up, but my 50k in chips was up against his 320k mountain. I went into standard SUPER-AGGRESSIVE heads-up mode, and took a few pots with lucky catches. If I held two rags, he would check all the way and I would catch a match on the river. I clawed up to 90k and hit a big hand. I held J5 and the flop was J75. I checked, hoping for some action and he bet. I just called. Turn was an Ace, and I hoped to hell he had a naked ace. He did, and bet it. I rasied, he re-raised. Turn was another 5, and he bet out. I raised and he typed "You probably have me kicked, but I gotta see," and called. I typed "boat," and he said "nh."

It was the most civilized heads-up game I think I have ever played. We almost never capped, and rarely bluffed. I called once when I caught a 2 on the flop with my 42s and he bet on the river to try and steal with an unimproved 53. He said "nice call." I just took pots from him at a very steady rate, until finally I caught two pair and he got all in with a pair of 10s. I caught a lot of cards down the stretch, but he folded a bit too much even when I didn't.

$375 for around 4 hours of limit poker. With a buy-in of $0, that's an infinite profit. I'll sure take the boost to my meager bankroll.