G'morn'n

CardsChat is having a Guys VS Gals event, where a team of guys plays a team of girls. The girls win this thing every year.

The women have some good players, but the men have the best players. With 25 boys and 25 girls in the first event, even after one of the best males dropped out the men still have the top three, maybe even the top 5 players.

I assume it's been this way each year. But the women consistently beat the guys.

Women tend to play more conservatively, and I think (especially in this Guys VS Gals event) the men are just pushing too hard and overplay their hands against women. Then the women wait for someone to stick their neck out at an inopportune time, then chop it off.

In other words, if you scored a typical tournament men would win most of the time. When you make it a men vs women thing, then the guys will shoot themselves in the foot trying to outplay the women.

Let's put this another way. If you take the average female and the average male player, I think the woman will be go father in tournaments than the male. But if you take the top male players and the top female players, the males are better. The males draw from a larger pool, and they are more apt to be the loners willing to spend all day at a table (or computer) to get the thousands of hours experience it takes to be a top player. Women tend to have distractions like friends and family that eat their valuable poker time.

Anyway, I'll be on the guys team this year (I missed last year) and we have a new player that

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I traded $100 off one site to another last night, so a moderator will have funds to trade with people who need it to play the Guys VS Gals event. I sort of like keeping my money on this site, and it moved me down so I'm no longer rolled for $50NL, so I decided to play some $25NL to work my way back.

I played a short session this morning, which was my first ring session in a long time.
It went well.

Fist pump

I had a not-so-good run in some games lately. The right moves, with bad results. You know, stuff that is *supposed* to happen as a part of normal variance.

Last night in the $27 Step 2 game I won a ticket to, I got all in with K/K pre-flop and lost to A/K for 2/3 of my stack. I managed to finish with a Step 1 ticket after shoving from the button with J/Qs and losing to the SB and BB who had A/x and K/x on an A/K/x flop.

Anyway, today I ran very well.

I played a $5.50 tournament and came in 3rd.
I played a $3.30 super-turbo and won it.
I played a freeroll and got to the final table.... getting KO'd just in time for...

The Big One:
Since August I've been playing the CardsChat Heads Up tournament.
Tonight I played the final matches... and won!


This is my favorite win of the year. I've won a lot more money in other tournaments this year, but having the title of Heads Up Champion is worth more to me.
I consider myself a better than average heads up player, and believed I had a pretty good chance of winning this, so it was gratifying for this to come into fruition.
Yeah, I cold decked a couple people, but I don't think I did any crippling suckouts.

Rings

I mix it up with a shorty.

Feh!

I knew this guy was weak. I totally knew it.

Good freaking call.

Anyway... keep losing monies.

2 Sunday Games

I played the OFC game on FT.

Early on I have 7/8s on a 4/5/6 rainbow flop. Someone raises, I re-raise, somone shoves, the original raiser folds, and I call.

He shows A/5.

Turn is a T, river is a 2.

Then the chips move over to him. What the... ?!?!?!

Ends up I misread the flop. It was really 5/5/6. Ugh!

I don't usually play with my daughter up, and I was chatting with a guy who was in the same game at another table, so I just got distracted and misread it.

It was a stupid mistake, and cost me the $5.50 buyin.

Later I played the weekly CardsChat.com Sunday game, and played it with extra effort. :)
Here's a spot where I get tricky:

...I can dodge with bullets, Baby!

I ended up getting heads up when the other person had a 3-to-1 chip lead on me.
I caught up a little but just wasn't able to make it happen. I think I was about 50/50 to win in that situation, but it just didn't work out this time.

The winner was the person with the straight flush in the other hand. My $5.50 investment paid $73.80 for the 2nd place, so I can't complain.

I cleared my third step in the Take Two bonus on Thursday I think. I have $25 in bonuses guaranteed, and I'll unlock the last $25 on Saturday assuming I play every day this week.

I'm getting enough on Full Tilt that I'm considering making a deposit so I can cash it out if I want to. I guess I'll wait until I get to a point that I feel like I'll play a lot to unlock the 1s time deposit bonus.
I always considered my FT account a play account, but it keeps getting bigger, so I'm starting to care about it. ;)

Continues...

The slump continues.
I had unchecked the "post blind" option because I had decided it was my last round of the session. I was up $7 at the time:


A few hands later I had J/J and only lost $4.50 even though someone else had Q/Q, as the turn had 6/7/8/9 on the board.

A few hands later I pop three limpers up to $4 with A/9s on the button. A shorty-limper shoves back (after the first two folded) and I call the additional $4. He has 8/8 and I fail to hit.

Down a full buy in ($50). Feh!

Then I get TPTK against a 42% VPIP'er and he has a set. -$7 (This guy was the short stack from earlier, but he beat others to have a full stack)

Ok... just now... same guy that sucked out on me in that replay hand.
I have A/K. I raise flop, from button with A/K and he calls from button.
4h/7c/Qh flop.
Check/check.
Kh turn (giving me 4 to the nut flush and TPTK).
He bets, I re-raise, he calls.
Rag on river. He checks, check.
He has Th/Jh for the flush.
-$25 more for me.

This game sucks.

Ugh

I'm on a cold spell.

Last night I lost 1.5 buy ins at $25NL in my fist (two table) session.

After midnight I went back on and got K/K really early... VS pocket vowels. Ugh. Down $25 the first round.

I cashed for a whopping $3 in a freeroll, but otherwise nothing has been happening lately.

With an hour until I have to pick up my daughter I meant to sit at a turbo double-or-nothing (35 minute game) but accidentally sat at a standard one, which can take 50 minutes.

I had a nice stack when a short person opened in early position and I called with J/J. The flop was T/T/7. He had A/T and I was down to $1k. :(

A little later a guy who VPIP'd 60% limped in. I shoved with my 5/5. He called.... with 8/6! We blanked the flop. The turn was a 6 and the river was an 8.
Game over for me.

Computer woes

I do computer repair and took an abandoned laptop with a busted screen and replaced the screen & video cable. At the same time my PC has developed disconnect issues. It just won't maintain a connection and I don't know why.

Since my old laptop is an *old* laptop I installed poker software onto this new one and have been using it for the past few days.

The other day I got a phone call from a friend that my Twitter account (which I had never used before) was advertising "legal marijuana" and posting it to my Facebook account. I logged in and changed my password.

Well, in the middle of play last night I had some severe lag. I noticed that there was a lot online activity even after I quit all online applications (including Windows Updates).

Installed Norton Antivirus and got a warning that the hosts file was tampered with. For those not in the know, to go to a website your computer uses a DNS (domain name service) that converts "Google.com" into a numeric address. The hosts file on your computer overrides that. It can say that "Google.com" is the wrong numeric address, in which case every time you try to go there you are redirected to the wrong address. Malware (viruses and trojan horses and advertising software) likes to tamper with to send you to their sites, and keep you away from antivirus sites.

So anyway, I found out that this computer has a backdoor trojan on it and it was most likely sending off anything I typed to a third party.

Once I removed the trojan I changed my poker passwords (they use the extended security anyway, so key logging will not work), changed my Twitter account again, and changed any other password thing I could think of that I may have accessed on this computer.

Such a hassle.

I'm still having trouble where my Symantec won't update. I'm assuming that something in the registry is locked or something like that. I probably had to use the Symantec uninstall tool to remove it all, and start over. But until then I'm using a free alternative.

Oh, here's my entire ring career on this laptop. As you can see, I just do short sessions to unlock the bonus. That Truly table where I won $17 is the one where I lost $25 in hand #2 when my 6/6 and his vowels both made sets on the flop.


Ok... off to bed.

Oh yeah.... I railed a game with Phil Ivey, Durrrr, and Patrik Antonius. The latter two tangled, with Durrrr calling PA's shove on the river.
Result: Patrik Antonius wins the pot ($581,070.80) with a flush, Ace high

BOOOooooOOOWOOoooWOOoo!

I played the $25+$2 satellite to the game in Aruba. I was totally card dead. If it wasn't for some desperate stealing my stats for the game would have been 5/5.
Anyway, nothing happened and I got blinded 50-something'th out of 120-something people.

I had a 20% stake in a friend who was down to 130 chips early, and managed to finish the game in 4th place. Not bad. This was a winner-take all tourney, with $1,000 paid manually to people who cashed. I heard it's paying 63 places, but have no idea how it breaks up. I'm sure the 20% I get of his cut will be more than whatever scaps of the $1k are left by the time they get to me.

Take 2 Progress
I forgot to two-table yesterday to get my points toward the Take 2 bonus. That's two missed days. I only need 25 days, so I've still got wiggle room.

Hand #2:

He left a short time later... not that I saw any bad plays that I was hoping to exploit. I just dislike it when big stacks leave the table.

So I'm down a buy-in ($25) right off the bat. Doh!

Later I made a bluff vs someone who I think had middle pair ($9 pot)
Followed immediately by a 6/6 making a set for a ($19 pot, he folded on the river).
Then a little later I do this and show the guy the bluff afterward:


Four hands later:

8/8 is not normally in my all-in range for 6-max, but this was a special case (because everyone hated me at this point) and I'm glad it worked out.

Ok

Hit some rings and made more than I lost yesterday. Blah blah blah.

I enjoy heads up play and the last two years I got sucked out on to lose way too early in the CardsChat annual tournament.

Well, tonight I became the first finalist. (Pardon the old bracket)


Games are set up and played by the participants. They just have to be completed by a certain date.
Anyway, I cleared the left side of the bracket and will play one of four possible people in the finals. I know of the quarter final games is Sunday at 5:00. Hopefully I'll be to busy winning the Aruba satellite to watch it. I don't know about the other quarter-final game. And there's no telling when the winners of each of those game will play the semi finals. (The semi-finals + are a best of 3 series, while all earlier rounds are single elimination).

Oh, and there's some money added, giving increasing bonuses to 4th - 1st, so since I'm guaranteed at least 2nd place I'll either get $35 or $75 depending on how the games go.

Anyway, I'm off to bed.

Bloop!

I unlocked the $10 bonus today. It only cost me $11.50.

Early on I got into a blind VS blind hand when my A/Q flopped TPTK and he flopped a set of 4's.
With the aggro betting after the flop, I should have folded instead of putting that last $10 in. I knew better. Oh well. :(

A bit later I had a chance of redemption. When we got all-in and I saw his cards, I started counting the money:

Ugh.
I lose $.70 to the rake.

Then this hand came up and I just knew the river would bend me over and have its way with me:

That guy was aggro (81/63) and was shoving a lot, taking pots without a challenge. I didn't think twice about calling.

Making that $8.14 on the coin flip helped get me back on track, and I whittled my $25 loss down to $11.50.

I didn't even have to use my A-K... I got to say it was a good day!

Yesterday there was a "shooting stars" event where a $5 bounty was put on my head as one of the stars. I put an additional $5 on my own head, and then offered $50 to anybody who declared me the prettiest (posting it in that thread) before the game, then knocked me out.
About half the field admitted I was prettiest.

It was a $5 buy-in tournament so going all-in on me paid nearly 11 times your buy-in. That means that shoving on me with any two cards is a +EV move.

Obviously I wasn't playing coin flips VS people I can lose $50 to so I played pretty tight. I did get it all-in vs people who could have claimed the bounty twice, but I won both.

I had a lot of "raise with A/Qs, get shoved on, then fold" situations. It stunk, and was far less fun than I anticipated.

I was eventually whittled down to almost nothing and had 4:1 to call a shove with my J/6, and I'd be blinded out soon anyway, so I called and lost to two overcards. The guy I lost to did not have a claim on the bounty.

Anyway, that game was a miserable experience. I felt shackled.

Today I slacked around the house all day. I was actually up early (well, 8:00 AM) but I was literally in nothing but my boxers until after 1:00.
I had planned on going kayaking, but I decided not to. I'd gone Saturday and the river was so low I had to carry it more than I liked.

TODAY:
...was a good day. As I stated earlier, at midnight I won some $ and cleared a $5 bonus.

Also...
PokerStars Tournament #193256615, No Limit Hold'em Buy-In: $7.00/$0.50 USD 90 players Total Prize Pool: $630.00 USD Tournament started 2009/09/06 14:46:40 ET Dear SvgePenguin, You finished the tournament in 1st place.

Weeeee!
Well, don't get too excited. It was a satellite, so 20 other people got first place. I won a $27 ticket to a Step 2 game. I've never won one of those. I mean, I've won more Step 2 tickets and some Step 1 tickets from Step 2 games, but I always get sucked out on and can't make it to Step 3. It's a tiny sample size though, so no biggie I guess.

After that, this:


So I'm batting 100% today.
Oh... well... I lost $2 at one of my ring games when I quit after midnight. But if you consider I only got the $5 bonus because I was at that table, that's $2.50 equity right? So 100%. ;)

Anyway, today was better than I deserved.

EDIT: I meant to just quote Ice Cube with the title to this, never thinking that A/K is a poker hand. Come to think of it, I did *not* have A/K all tournament. Weird coincidence.

Looks like I won't be going to Aruba: Link

Update as of September 6, 2009:
UltimateBet has not set up any of the Ultimate Aruba Experience Tournaments as of yet. There have been some problems with the tournament set up, and to be honest, they are refusing to simply communicate with us. We are trying to resolve this issues as best we can, but it is very hard to reach a solution when none of our contacts follow up with us. We have been attempting to fix the issues several times a day for over a week, and will let you all know what the situation is once we hear back from them. As of right now, there are no satellites for the Aruba Events, nor a Freeroll Event, nor the Main Event. We apologize for any inconvenience, but until we hear back from someone at UB, there is nothing we can do.

I'm guessing this means that UB had tentatively agreed to pay for a large chunk (if not all) of the $8,500 prize package ($5,000 +$500 tournament entry, plus $3k for travel/food/hotel expenses) and now that they see that they are going to lose a lot of money on this so they are balking. I'd guess that 300 would play this satellite, and they'd be making $2 in rake on each player. Plus 75 tickets were handed out (I won two). It all adds up to a big loss for UB.

My guess is that this event will not happen. The OFC does a lot of stuff and assuming they continue to operate they'll have to make some sort of amends to the 70-something people who won tickets. I'd be happy with getting some sort of equal value for my two $25 +$2 tickets I won. I don't have a lot on UB so that'd be a nice boost.

Otay

I waited until midnight to two-table and hit my day 5 of the Take 2 promotion.
I figured I'd play pretty conservatively, but on hand #1...


A little while later I tangled with another shorty.

The shove on the flop made little sense unless he had A/K, so I called.
My read was wrong, but I'm not complaining.

Anyway, I got into two iffy pots that I'll lose about half the time and I won them both so I'm happy.

On the second table I lost a little over $2. Nothing really happened there. My big blind middle pair lost me $1 to a top pair/no-kicker and my 7/7 failed to hit after I opened and someone with A/A min-raise-3-bet me and the caller. He showed his vowels after we folded to his flop bet but I figured vowels or K's were most likely.
Anyway, nothing interesting happened on that table.

Today is day 6 of the Take 2 promo, and I missed day 1, so today I unlocked my $5 bonus. I haven't received it yet, but I should have it by the time I wake up tomorrow.

Full Tilt full schmilt!

I decided to participate in the Take-2 promo on FT. It has various levels.
If I two table for 5 days this month, I get $5.
If I two-table 10 days this month I get an additional $10 ($15 total).
If I two-table 15 days this month I get an additional $10 ($25 total).
If I two-table 25 days this month I get an additional $25 ($50 total).

Well, I 4-tabled today. I played three $25NL tables, and one $50NL.
Guess which one I got felted on!

The hand:

Tight player raised to $2 UTG+1.
I call with 7/7.
It's folded to the BB, who calls.
The flop is 3/7/Q, all diamonds.
Opener raises to $4.
I raise to $13.
BB folds.
Opener shoves.
I call.
Opener shows A/A, with one diamond.
Turn 5d.
River Jh.

Ugh. I'm out $50.

At'll teach me to play above my bankroll limit on FT.

I still have $180-something, (and never deposited), but bummer. :(

Yatta yatta

On Monday I played a CC $ added event and got a little too aggro, which put me out in 7th or 8th. I still cashed for a few bucks profit, but I was disappointed because I picked 5 people to make the top 5, and they were all in (including myself) until that hand.

I hit the CC FT freeroll tonight. 144 players.
I played 369 hands and was dealt 7/2 nine times. I think on average I'd get 7/2 4.5 times.
I got A/K twice, which is about half as many times as I should have got it.

I got HU and my K/T hit a T high flop. The turn put a flush draw up and the river put the third spade *and* gave any 4 a straight. I was able to fold when he raised, and he showed the T/rag of spades, so I got out just in time. It still cost me $21k though.

I had about 130k to his 85k. Then I disconnected for a long time.
When I got back, he had 130k and I had 85k. :(

A bit later...
I opened with A/Q of hearts, he min-raised me, I shoved, he called:


I figure that bad beat cost me $20. Oh well. It's not like the game cost me anything but time.

The play in the freerolls isn't very good, but it was a good supliment to the WSoP I was watching on TV.