It's been a while

I have almost forgotten how to blog. . . My deepest heartfelt apologies to everyone who has stumbled over here in the last several months.

I haven't been playing much poker lately, but have had a couple of cool poker experiences just recently. I was in Vegas for the Gentlemen's Club Owners Conference and Expo @ the Mandalay Bay and sat down for some 1-2 NL. I came up with a slogan for their poker room:

"If you can't beat the 1-2 @ the Mandalay bay, baby maybe you shouldn't play!" If you say it right it has a nice cadence to it.

I broke my first table there. The max buy in was $200.00, 4.5 hours into it I had $1150 and the table busted! I busted 4 players, and the rest had had enough.

In the virtual poker world I just recently started playing again. My preferred site is Bugsy's Club it's a relatively small site, but has awesome software, good small tournaments, and excellent support. They have recently started doing something really cool, they rate your tournament play and award 10k monthly to the players w/ the highest skill ranking. Your skill ranking starts at 1500 and is modified based upon these factors:

1) How well you do in the tournaments
2) The size of the field (# of players)
3) Your current skill rating (lower scores increase more with a good performance and vice versa)
4) The average skill rating of your opponets (how tough the field is)

You also must complete 7 tournaments to be eligible for the cash prizes. So far I have completed 6 tournaments and have had excellent results. 2 outright wins, and in 2 other tournaments I had positioned myself perfectly to cash and or win. In one I went out on the bubble (one before the money) when a player hit runner, runner to complete his straight. In the other tournament at the final table it got all in, my KK's vs. QQ vs. JJ and the jacks turned a set. So out of 6 tournaments I have won 2 outright, made the final table at 2 others, and busted out in the middle of 2.

Here is a hand that crippled me in one of the 2 tournaments that I didn't do so hot in, check it out and let me know your thoughts:

$10 buy in MTT @ bugsy's club, 35 starting players, 18 remain. Level 9 100ante, 400/800 blinds.

I have T22K, slightly above average. 10 players at this table. Straightforward (or so I thought), tight player in the BB has me outchipped w/ T25K.

I'm 4th to act and it's folded to me and I limp w/ As2s. (I used to over limp w/ AXs but have fixed that glitch, this time I decided to play it, mainly because the BB had a deep stack and I wanted his chips).

It's folded to the BB, who checks.

Flop: Ad Qd Ah

"Jackpot I think, how can I extract the most chips, hmmmm"

BB checks

"let's check and induce a bluff on the turn" check.

Turn: 5s

BB checks, "hmmm, why don't I throw out a feeler looking bet into the pot to encourage a raise steal"

I bet 600, BB makes it 4,300.

"excellent I think, lets just call, If I'm ahead like I think, perhaps I can get him to bet into me again on the river, If he is semi-bluffing a flush draw, so what, doesn't feel like that anyway, I think he's trying to resteal"

River: Td

BB bets out 11,100 "hmmm, I don't think he has diamonds but this bet is scary, perhaps he's trying to represent them, I can't lay down 3 aces here, can I, but I don't see any benifit to re-raising allin either, I call."

BB shows AcTc for a full house. "Well that really sux, I wonder how Dutch would have played this hand . . . boy this kid really outplayed me here, but I've still got 5900 left, I'm gonna play my heart out"

Chow