Yet another Poker Post! whoot!

No happy ending for those of you who want to skip to the end....

So I play the $200+$30 NL at the Hilton, eh, Grand Sierra again. 6000 starting chips. Here's a few hands:

Early on 25-50 I get QQ and raise, to be called by the BB. Flop J-9-4 and I must be good. He checks, I bet 2/3 pot. Turn is a little rainbow card and he check-calls 3/4 pot this time. River is another brick and he checks again. Now what? I tell myself he's got AJ or KJ and I must be good, but I ate a big bowl of "Nitties" for breakfast so I check behind. He tables JT and I steam a bit for not getting another 1200 out of him.

I get QThh in the CO and raise, the BB calls. Flop comes Kh-Qs-Jh. Wow. OK, count at home with me-

Ah/2h/3h/4h/5h/6h/7h/8h/9h/9d/9c/9s/Ts/Tc/Td/Qc/Qd/As/Ac/Ad

yep, 20 outs. Especially good to know when the BB check-raises me all-in with K6o. Turn 4c. River 9d and I'm a winna.

I move tables and my unfortunate tendency to raise at will causes my opponents to 3-bet me often. Since I don't have much in the way of cards, this blows.

Then I play a hand very badly. Like KK vs Aaron Kantor badly. I have T7hh in mid-position and limp after a couple limpers. The button has a monster stack and he comes along. Flop is T-9-9 with one heart. I bet when it gets to me and I'm headsup with the bigstack. Now here's the weird part. I'm thinking to myself "I need an 8-- an 8 would give me an OESD- that would be good" So the turn is another heart, giving me the flush draw as well as top pair. I check, button bets, I call. I have about 15K left at this point. He has a zillion chips. The river is the 8c. I check, he bets 2000. Now this is the part where I have to do a piss test or something. See, my brain is still on the turn. I'm still thinking "I need an 8 (or a heart" In fact, I'm pretty sure that I have a straight at this point. I snap-raise to 5K. He shoves. Holy crap. That was unexpected. F word. Well, my straight is hidden and might be good. Let me think about this. OK, whats the board? T-9-9-4-8. What's my hand again? T7. 7-8-9-T-- oh shit. Well kiss my gritz if I didn't just turn my hand into a bluff without even knowing it! I fold. Please to be taking 1/3 of my stack Mr. Don't-need-anymore-chips-from-me.

At one point my BB of 300 is raised by the CO to 1200. He has another 3500 behind, and I'm sitting with about 10-11K. I have ATs. So I ponder my options here. I could just push, or I could wait for the flop and then push. I tank awhile so he must know I have a hand. Its sort of strange, because I know all my chips are getting in the middle, but for the life of me I can't decide if it should be now or later. I call. Flop Q-T-5. Before I can act, the CO shoves. Dude, your stop-and-go is all backasswards here. So he pulls his stack back. Now I ask the dealer, just to make it clear, that if I shove he can still fold. She agrees. I say "OK, I'll give you another chance, I'm all in" Snap-call with the mighty Q4 off suit.

I drift below average. At 400-800 a short stack shoves for 2450. The Q4 guy calls. Another shorty goes all in. Action to me. I look down at AA. Got to get the rest of Q4's money in, so I make a neon-sign blasting raise to 5000. Q4 either can't see the danger, or is overcome with the pot odds and calls. Flop 6-2-2. Q4 shoves with 77. I snap and hold, knocking out the two shorties and putting Q4 on life support. Above average at this point.

After this I suppose the best description is that I failed to change gears. I went from 35K in chips down to 17,100 at the dinner break, with blinds at 800-1600/300. I did this not with any big hands, but by raising and then getting re-popped, or having my C-bets raised or just plain old playing shitty. With a low M after dinner I really just wanted a double up opportunity. There were 37 left, paying 18. We re-drew at 3 tables and one of the guys from the previous table who knows I'm somewhat maniacal is in the SB. I have him covered by 5500 chips. (How do I know this you ask? Silly rabbit...) At 1000-2000/400 its folded to me in the CO with AQo. I consider shoving, but I make it 6000. The SB shoves and there is really no way I can fold this spot so I call. He has 66 and turns a set and rivers a boat and I bust out 25th.

Playing the charity kidney jen harmon tourney on wednesday, the 3K on thursday, and I'm holding my decision on the 5K after that.

Quads is good.

So it seems there are at least two people out there who look at this blog from time to time and say "hey- haven't been playing cards lately?"

Been playing a lot actually, just not writing about it. I've been playing online once or twice a week. This consists of logging on sometime between 6 and 7 PST and playing all of the FTP tourneys between then and the Turbo Fifty at 10 PM. Sometimes later. If you look at the OPR site, you'll see that I've run pretty good for the most part, although there have been stretches that I would like to forget. And I have more evidence for the ultimate doomswitch-- I'm 8 tabling FTP tournies the other night with decent stacks in most of them and getting close to the bubble when I get in good on each table and lose to a 2-6 outer or runner runner about 6 times in a row over a 5-8 minute span. BAM! No soup for you!

Whatever.

So I'm at the Hilton (Grand Sierra) and I donk out of the Omaha tourney fairly early and decide to sit in the 3-5 NL game with $1500. The game is really good. There's an old guy in seat 3 who comes in for $20-$30 every single hand. Awesome. The guy directly to my right seems OK, but he's one level behind me I figure, as he'll fire out the flop but give up to my float steal on the turn. The people to my left are all stacked and solid, and for now I think that if they are repopping I can get out of the way. So I'm at this game for about an hour and I realize that its a school night and I better be getting home. Just stupid to even sit down really. I call up for some chinese take out, so I'm on my last orbit. On my 2nd to last hand, I get 44 in EP and raise to $15. I get 4 callers. I flop 4-4-7. Fun fun. I check. Guy with a $500 stack to my left bets $60, and then the kid to my right calls. Oh my. I hope one of them flopped a boat. I call. Turn is not a 7. I check. Old guy fires $200. Kid folds. "How much you got left?"-- "OK, I'm all in" He calls but I never get to see his hand.

So its pretty cool when they are betting into you when you flop quads. Even nicer when the card room has a bonus for a high hand. And it just depends when it hits. So quad 5's for instance was worth about $45. Quad 8's must have just been hit, cause it was only $30. Quad 4's though, were worth over $375. Very sweet.