Donkeys Always Win

Work and Cars

2010-06-27T08:44:00.000-07:00

Hi Dad,

I've been busy from 8 every morning until 1am or later working the club at an even higher level of intensity. The TV commercial, sign spinners and sandwich board campaigns have been exhilarating, I'm really enjoying the marketing aspect. Was able to put together a decent week for this summer, 13.5k, and a solid weekend with some relatively early business. I am also offering some food during happy hour, bags of chips, apples, and crock pot wings, lil smokey's, etc. It doesn't cost much and no one seems to care, or eat it. It's a little hassle, but mostly there because my signage says "FREE Food" which I think is a powerful psychological tag line for a sign to have. I have tweaked the signage some, taken out some of the clutter and reduced it to 1 primary line of text with 2 supporting lines of text. The sandwich boards are for guys to wear downtown from 11pm to 1:30 am. They also hand out $5 discount cards. Saturday was the best day we've had in a while and we were definitely due for it. It's hard to say for sure how much the gorilla marketing tactics helped, but I know they had some positive effect ... some of the patrons early and late could be directly connected to the new campaigns.

I have some interesting employees. One of them, Bob, reminds me an awful lot of my cousin Troy in appearance, mannerisms, etc. he even plays the bass guitar. He's a bit of a generation x slacker but his enthusiasm for the sign spinning is something I would have never expected, he tells me it's the coolest job he's ever had! He was also fired from his last job, partly because he like to twirl things all the time! He had no prior experience 3 days ago and is now flipping signs behind his back and doing some pretty impressive chops. A T-mobile (cellular company) promoter approached him in a hummer vehicle that had all sorts of graphic advertising on it, obviously a high budget outfit. He was trying to steal my spinner to come work for him. Bob wouldn't even accept his business card and told him that he wouldn't consider leaving my employ for any amount! Granted this campaign is only a few days old but so far its going well. I've got a couple of others who are good workers too, 2 of them with prior experience.

The guys at Vogue (except the DJ Josh Keller) have worked under Rob for quite some time and to them my ideas represent change, and they aren't always enthusiastically behind my ideas. They do their jobs and follow my instructions well enough but at times I don't feel like they are 110% behind me. This new crew I'm building, albeit quite a bit different from the Vogue crew, I really feel like I have their total support and respect- something I've never felt before when managing people. That in turn builds my confidence and allows me to be an even better leader and manager. Some of that started to carry through last night also when managing the club staff as well and that feels pretty good. Now if I can just keep some traffic coming through the doors, I feel an incredible amount of pressure to get heads in the club and when things are slow a couple of days in a row it's pretty tough on me. Though the staffs morale seems pretty good overall. I have a good crew of girls, the normal drama when you have over 25 girls in one building together, the club is cleaner, the lights show is leagues better than it was 6 weeks ago, and the overall atmosphere of the club is the best it's ever been. Customers are truly having a great time, and their smiles and compliments show it. I have tinkered with and updated the nightly specials a little bit, and also adjusted the pricing to a lower level that doesn't feel like such a rip off as measures to increase the volume of customers through the doors. Last night felt like it had all came together really well, now I hope we can build from it! My weight keeps dropping as this is the 4th day in a row that I have forgotten to eat more than one meal.

Included are a couple of pics: My original sign sketch, the first generation sign that is too cluttered, the 2nd generation sign that has the starbursts on it, the sandwich boards signs that the guys wear downtown, a picture of me in my work uniform, and Sarah at the bar next to the club, The Thirsty Turtle. (I was testing out the sandwich board to see how well it fit and walked over to the Thirsty Turtle. Sarah, the manager/bartender, wanted to try it on. We took this picture of her standing on the bar cleaning the mirrors and texted it to her Boss, the owner! It was pretty hilarious!)
I am hearing some positive feedback on the commercial as well since it started running Thursday evening. Here is a link to our new website's media page where you can view the commercial:
http://clubvogue.biz/blog/?page_id=48
(click on the link and then hit play.)

Here is the message I send out to people who respond to my craigs list ad:

Hi and thank you for your interest in this position! Club Vogue, The Gentlemen's Club, is the business you would be promoting. The shifts are primarily 6:45p - 9:15 p and 11p - 1:30a. The early shift utilizes the human directional arrow signs (sign spinning) and you would be placed at the corner of a busy intersection for example Business Lp. 70 and Providence Rd. The later shifts are downtown and employ a "wearable sandwich board" technique supported by discount cards that are handed directly to individuals. The response the last couple of days has been overwhelmingly positive! If this is something that interests you please reply and I will set up an interview. The rate of pay is $8.25/hr and payroll is processed every other Friday.

My ebay auction for my car ends tomorrow evening. I have 2 serious bidders and the high bid is now 19.5k. I have spoken with both bidders at some length and they both seem serious. I have told them of the rock chip, the hinge problem with the console, and the vaistech iPod integration system. The high bidder has a zero bid history, seems strange, but says he is approved at his credit union and would be over nighting a cashiers check, that sounds ok. He would also be shipping the car up rather than picking it up in person. I will need to have the car somewhat detailed.

I am also pretty excited about the new car Dad is getting and I'll be temporary custodian of. It has all the features of the car I have now plus some pretty outlandish features including power, reclining rear seats with seat massagers, an air ride suspension, rear and side rear window shades, a refrigerator, full sound system and climate controls for rear seat passengers. Here is a link to the new car:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140418684070&viewitem=&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWNX%3AIT#ht_756wt_938

I will feel much more at ease with a car that has 1/2 the miles of the one I have now and I wonder if my car is at a point where it may soon start having some pretty pricey repairs.

Thats what I've been up to. Maybe I'll write Greg Woods a letter today and perhaps play some poker, something I have had time to do much of lately.

Jay

What Now

2009-12-18T14:52:00.000-08:00

My poker results have been less than awe inspiring over the last several weeks. My full tilt account's high water mark was 5600, it's now down to 4006.77, a 1600 freefall. I have had some limited success on ultimate bet and am up 800 on that account but I feel like it's time to examine where I'm at in poker and evaluate my options. My ROI on Full Tilt over 240 tournaments is 19%.

Option 1: Switch back to full ring 100NL. I was beating the full ring 100NL game with a respectable win rate, 4PTBB's/100. I think the ring games are also good for one's overall poker growth. The only downside is they feel more like work and I don't enjoy them as much as the tournaments. I spend so much effort on table selection that it sometimes feels like more time is spent setting up the sessions than actually playing in them!

Option 2: Switch to the 6 max ring games. I have wanted to make the move from full ring to 6 max. I could step down to 50NL 6 max and see how that goes. It would still require the same effort in setting up the sessions but it would be something new and would be more exciting than going back to the full ring games.

Option 3: Continue playing the 24+2 tourneys on Full Tilt. My bankroll is still sufficient for this level and I really enjoy the ups and downs of going deep in the large field tournaments.

Option 4: Some combination of the above, perhaps #'s 3 & 4. I could play the 6 max games during the week, and tournaments on the weekends.

Any ideas or suggestions?

Like the script of a bad horror movie

2009-12-05T14:42:00.000-08:00

I am reeling from the worst bad beat/cooler poker has bestowed upon me. Imagine being sucker punched in the gut. That's pretty close to what it feels like both literally and figuratively. There will undoubtedly be more, and worse beats to come and for some strange reason that is comforting. Perhaps I can't get enough abuse!

The villain in this hand was the tournament chip leader, and there were 11 players remaining out of 1,135. First place paid over 6k.

To set up the hand a little, our villain had been playing very aggressively and I flopped the nuts, the best possible hand. Fate had smiled on me at exactly the right moment. With a set of tens my only concern was how to extract the most chips from my opponent! With a safe board (no flush draws and few straight draws), and an aggro villain who was the pre-flop raiser, I had all the ingredients for a slow play. I checked and the trap was set. When he checked back the flop I had mixed emotions. I would have preferred that he bet out and started to build a pot but also felt that he may have been slow playing an over pair and that I might be able to double up. I bet out the turn to start building a pot, but was hoping he would raise. When the river hit, and we got all of our chips in, I was keenly aware that A4 beat me, and that while that hand was in my villains range of possible holdings it was so unlikely as to not be a legitimate threat, like monsters under the bed. I was in great position to coast into the final table with a nice, newly minted chip stack. I was starting to sense that this was going to be the tournament that I had been waiting for, the one that would propel me to the next level. These thoughts were all flickering through my mind as I re-raised all in. He called and his cards showed; my mind instantly recognizing his A4, the one hand that was lurking in the depths of my brian, the one hand that was so dreadful, an ancient horror perhaps, one of such evil that we dare not speak of it lest it come true.

My stomach tightened and I felt like puking all over my computer.

An hour, maybe two has passed and I'm obviously not over it. I've been to subway and back, but my thoughts still drift to this hand, like a mental booger, clinging to my finger in spite of my best efforts to fling it off. Garbage in garbage out. It just wasn't fair. But thats a lie. It was absolutely fair in the cold way that stats, and numbers, and math, and cards can only be. They are incapable of being unfair, at least without dishonest human manipulation- cheating.

The casual observer would have maybe commented on the hand, most likely uttering "wow" but would have chalked it up to just another run of the mill typical bad beat. And a gut shot straight hitting on the river happens all of the time. But this doesn't do it justice, not by a long shot. It's more than just the circumstances and direct affect the outcome of the hand would have on me too. Sure if I win that pot I'll be a shoe in for the final table, the tournament chip leader, and likely finish in the top 3. But none of that accounts for the myriad of complex details that were below the surface, thoughts that were racing through my mind, evaluating the hand, the strategies that were in play and the mental jousting. With the information that I had it was not a mistake to shove all in on the river, even knowing that A4, (and 6,4 but that hand wasn't in his possible range of cards) would beat me. It would have been a mistake not to. The litmus test is are there hands that he would call with that you beat? And the answer is yes. He was a loose aggressive player and all of these hands were in his range, and these are also hands that he would have paid me off with: AA,KK,QQ,JJ,99,88,77,66,55,44,33,22,AT,KT,QT,JT,A9,K9,Q9,J9,98,97s. As the hand played out I intuitively knew that their were dozens of permutations of hands that I beat that he would still call with, and only the tiniest sliver that would beat me. Then of course there were all of the hands that he wouldn't have called with. He had exactly A4, the one and only possible holding that beat me. How sick.

I am now going to let this one go, and instead focus on more constructive things like becoming a better player.

Full Tilt Poker $16,500 Guarantee No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t5000/t10000 Blinds + t1000 - 5 players - View hand 408182

SB: t70667 M = 3.53

Hero (BB): t282891 M = 14.14

UTG: t713009 M = 35.65

CO: t325032 M = 16.25

BTN: t121758 M = 6.09

Pre Flop: (t20000) Hero is BB with T T

UTG requests TIME, UTG raises to t22999, 3 folds, Hero requests TIME, Hero calls t12999

Flop: (t55998) 2 T 3 (2 players)

Hero checks, UTG checks

Turn: (t55998) 9 (2 players)

Hero bets t30000, UTG calls t30000

River: (t115998) 5 (2 players)

Hero bets t60000, UTG raises to t130000, Hero raises to t228892 all in, UTG calls t98892

Final Pot: t573782

Hero shows T T (three of a kind, Tens)

UTG shows 4 A (a straight, Five high)

UTG wins t573782

An interesting Spot and E.C. practice

2009-11-22T12:01:00.000-08:00

In order to continue to improve at poker I am going to need to analyze the game on a deeper level, and one way to do that is to work out equity calculations. Comparing your pot odds, and likelihood of winning the hand against your opponents likely range of holdings and then making the correct decision in tricky spots separates the great players from the average. This hand is particularly interesting in that there are many possibilities that our villain could hold and our equity may not be immediately apparent.

In the early middle stage of a multi-table tourney we open raise with 89s, the button and big blind both call. We flop middle pair and an open ended straight draw. The big blind check raises all in and we have a tough decision to make.

Full Tilt Poker $38,000 Guarantee No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t20/t40 Blinds - 9 players - View hand 383965

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

CO: t3755 M = 62.58

BTN: t2293 M = 38.22

SB: t4653 M = 77.55

BB: t2198 M = 36.63

UTG: t3833 M = 63.88

UTG+1: t2790 M = 46.50

UTG+2: t4355 M = 72.58

Hero (MP1): t2673 M = 44.55

MP2: t3450 M = 57.50

Pre Flop: (t60) Hero is MP1 with 9 8

3 folds, Hero raises to t120, 2 folds, BTN calls t120, 1 fold, BB calls t80

Flop: (t380) 8 7 T (3 players)

BB checks, Hero bets t240, BTN calls t240, BB raises to t2078 all in, Hero requests TIME

Should we call or not? The answer might surprise you. Here are the steps we need to take to make the correct decision:

1) Figure Pot odds

2) Figure our equity vs. villains range of holdings

3) Convert equity percent to a decimal

4) Compare equity to pot odds

Pot odds: 1.6 to 1

This part is straight forward and exact. After our villain shoves, there is 2938 in the pot and it costs 1838 to call. Pots odds are 1.6 to 1 (2938/1838 = 1.59)

Equity vs. villains range:

This is a little trickier to figure and is not an exact science. First you need to determine the possible hands that you are up against then estimate the likelihood of each holding and finally compare the winning chances of your hand against his entire range of possible holdings.

In this particular hand this is the range of hands and % likelihood that I have assigned to our villain. The use of a poker calculator like Poker Stove is the easiest way to determine your equity vs. various villains holdings.

Villains Hand Our equity

Flush Draw ~50%

Top Pair, Top Kicker 47%

2 Pair 30% - 50%, average 40%

Set 28%

Top Pair, open ended 27%

Bluff 85%

Now we need to assign a likelihood to each holding. This is just our best guess.

Villains Hand Likelihood

Flush Draw 25%

Top Pair, Top Kicker 20%

2 Pair 20%

Set 15%

Top Pair, open ended 10%

Bluff 10%

(Equity X Likelihood)

Flush Draw (50 X .25) + TPTK (47 X .20) + 2 pair (40 X .20) + Set (28 X .15) + TP Open Ended (27 X .10) + Bluff (85 X .10) = (12.5 + 9.4 + 8 + 4.2 + 2.7 + 8.5) = 45.3

So we can now say that our equity against his range of holdings is 45%!

Now we need to convert that percentage to a decimal for the purposes of comparing it to the odds the pot is laying us to determine whether or not we should call.

45% = (100 - 45 or rather 55 to 45) = 55/45 = 1.222

Since the pot odds of 1.6 are greater than 1.2 we have a definite call!

As an aside even if our villain had more chips and the call was twice as much, 3676 chips to call instead of 1838, (and assuming that we had enough chips to make the call) it would still be correct to do so as our pot odds would be 1.3 to 1, which is larger than the 1.2 required!

In the actual hand I went into the tank and made the call. Our villain showed 9T for top pair with an open ended straight draw and had us crushed. We lost the hand and busted out of the tournament but we can rest easily knowing that we made the correct decision, and that folding would have been a weak play.

It hurts. Will work for cookies . . .

2009-10-26T08:45:00.000-07:00

My friend David just ran a marathon, finished it respectably, and he's a decade my senior. I prefer to not stray too far from the comfy confines of my Herman Miller Aeron chair. That changed 5 minutes ago. I am still panting as I write these words. Technically, by generally accepted height and weight ratios, my 6'1" frame supporting 207 lbs is just good enough for membership into that not so elite club of obese Americans.

My first couple of strides into my first run in ages and I felt like a new born colt, my legs faltering and I nearly fell. At less than 1/10th of a mile I started cursing myself, berating myself for being so stupid. "This is f#@$ing stupid, what are you thinking" I told myself and then quickly chastened myself, silencing those self defeating thoughts. It was at about this point that my saliva started tasting salty, my head got woozy, and I began to feel like I was going to vomit. I hadn't even made it 1/2 a mile! My goal was to jog to David's house which is less than 1 mile from my own and then limp back. Things actually became a little easier or perhaps I just got used to the pain, for the next bit. A large gradual down hill slope probably helped in this regard and yes I was acutely aware that I would be facing that particular landscape feature again in the not so distant future from a different perspective all together.

I did make it to within site of David's house, and I managed to jog back up the hill, albiet at a slower pace. Back on the main road I walked for one block and then jogged the last stretch. It's a start, we'll see where it goes.

Oh yeah, poker has been running good. Still beating the ring games but switched back to tournaments for a while as a change of pace, the grind was starting to burn me out a bit. Had 2 deep tourney cahses yesterday, finished 280 out of 10,600, and later finished 22nd out of 2,141. Hopefully I'll crack another one of those deep field tournaments soon . . .

Had a nice monopoly score last week too, won $300 in $100 a game monopoly. Managed to steal victory from the mouth of defeat twice as I walked through raindrops. And hit a nice little option lick for 2k profit in 24 hrs, all in all not a bad week.

Off to help a friend with his ongoing computer problems in exchange for his mothers chocolate chip cookies! lol

Letter to Full Tilt Poker

2009-08-31T10:05:00.000-07:00

It is my hope that Full Tilt will approve my request to receive rakeback. Their policy is that current account holder can not sign up through an affiliate and that the rakeback is only available to new players, on new accounts. I have heard of cases where players have written Full Tilt and they have made exceptions to their policy, but have never talked to any of them personally. I decided to wait until I received the highest level in their frequent player program before making my request. I achieved that level today.

On another note it is the end of the month for my ring game experiment. It went well. I will post my results, stats and more for the month soon.

To whom it may concern:

First I would like to say that I enjoy playing at Full Tilt Poker very much. The selection of games, top notch software, customer service and atmosphere truly set Full Tilt Poker apart from other sites. Good Job!

"Dedication. It's when players hit the table every day. They're tough to beat, because they've stared across miles of felt and flipped over thousands of cards.

There's also another type of dedication, which is when you show your appreciation for a special group of people."

As a player who has recently attained the highest level of your rewards program, "Iron", exceeded that level of play with Iron Man Plus points on several days, and having not missed a single day at the tables in the entire month I certainly hope that you carefully consider my request and show some of the "appreciation" that you promise.

I joined Full Tilt Poker several years ago when I was first learning about poker, with no inkling of the concepts of "rake" or "rakeback". I did not sign up through any affiliate. As a frequent player and valued customer my request is that you allow me to align my current account with an affiliate who could offer me rake back.

It strikes me as patently unfair that a player who had never played at your site before would be eligible for those rewards and a loyal player of several years like myself would not be. Additionally I know personally other players who have had existing accounts with Full Tilt Poker, and who later were allowed to receive rakeback.

According to my records I have contributed $1,143.80 in rake during the month of August. I am anticipating increasing the amount that I play and the total rake that I contribute. I would like Full Tilt Poker to be the primary poker site that I play at however if I am unable to receive rake back I will have no other option than to choose another site as my primary site.

With your approval of my request I am looking forward to many years of rewarding poker on your site!

Warm Regards,

James Yeager
jyeager1@earthlink.net

10K+ Hands $100NL Full Ring on Full Tilt. Graph & Stats.

2009-08-17T16:53:00.000-07:00

I started this experiment on August 1st. 4 losing days out of 17. At this level of play I have stats on 121 players with over 5K hands in my Poker Tracker database. Only 2 players have a higher BB/100 than I do and neither of them have over 6k hands. 64 of those 121 players have a positive win rate. Here are some average stats from the winners compared with mine:

Winners Stats: VP$IP 13.33 PFR 9.41 3BetPre-Flop 3.63 AF 2.72 AFq 43.62 BB/100 2.69

My Stats: VP$IP 21.00 PFR 14.26 3BetPre-Flop 2.90 AF 2.42 AFq 47.93 BB/100 7.56

Just finished my best session yet . . .

2009-08-14T21:44:00.000-07:00

It's 11:45 on Friday night. I was 6-tabling for about an hour and finished ahead $226, $359 for the day. A nice boost to my winnings and win rate! Total winnings now $1292.10, BB/100 8.24. Of the 14 days I've played I have only had 3 losing days, and am on a 7 day win streak.

-Click on the image to expand it-

Monthly Winnings Over 1k

2009-08-14T16:39:00.000-07:00

45 Sessions

2.61 Tables Concurrently

42.88 Hours

3.06 Ave. Hours/Day

7,386 Hands

23.34 $/hr

1,000.75 $Won

Right now I'm focusing on increasing my re-raise frequency pre-flop with position, adjusting the size of my flop continuation bets based upon the texture of the flop, and taking advantage of opportunities to bluff the river.

I ran some custom reports on Poker Tracker comparing stats of winning vs. losing players. My database has over 400K poker hands, containing info on 16,775 players, 62 of them regulars with over 5000 hands. I broke down those 62 players into winners and losers and compared their stats, things like what % of hands they play, how often they raise, attempt to steal the blinds, fold to re-raises, bet out on the flop when they were the last aggressor, and fold to lead out bets on the flop, etc. There are literally hundreds of stats that can be compared but I have picked out the ones that I think are the most useful. The average of the winning players stats and the losers is surprisingly similar. I think this is because each loser has different "leaks" in their game. One player may not raise pre-flop enough, another may be too aggressive, many fold to continuation bets too often. What was more interesting was how different my stats were than the averages. I'm playing more hands, raising more pre-flop, re-raising a little less (which I am looking to increase), and calling standard continuation bets on the flop a little more. Of the 62 players in my database who I have over 5k hand histories on, only 3 have a higher win rate than I do, and all 3 of them have a smaller total number of hands played than I do.

Dual Monitors Rock

2009-08-12T18:29:00.000-07:00

So Far, So Good

2009-08-12T16:46:00.000-07:00

My ring game poker experiment started August 1st. With the exception of a couple of small buy in tournaments I have played exclusively $100 buy in NL hold'em on Full Tilt Poker. Click on the image above to expand and see a graph of my winnings. Here are a few stats on my play so far:

Amount Won: $835.05
BB/100: 7.11
$/Hour: $22.63
Hours: 36.9
Total Hands: 5,875
Voluntarily Put Money Into the Pot (VPIP): 23.83%
Pre-Flop Raise: 15.29%

I have been steadily adding to the number of tables that I play concurrently, and while my overall average is 2.42 tables at one time, I have recently been starting each session with 6 tables. 5k hands is not enough to draw any strong conclusions from, 10k would be better, and 25k better yet. I feel like I have been running pretty good; I've taken a few beats, made a couple of costly mistakes, and won my share of coin flips. Overall I feel that these stats might be a pretty good indicator of my win rate. Time will tell.

I use a couple of tools to help me succeed. Poker Tracker 3 keeps all the stats and detailed hand histories for each hand I play. The software also displays a heads up display (HUD) which overlays keys stats on my opponents. I also subscribe to Table Tracker, which scans the available online poker tables and compares the players seated at those tables to the info I have on them in my database and then provides me a list of the tables which may be the most profitable to play at. In order to have enough information in my database to make this useful I have also imported 400K hands that are for the exact table limits that I play at.

In comparing my stats to other players in the database I notice that I am playing more hands, and raising pre-flop more often than most of my opponents. While I am loose and aggressive, I think that I may be leaving too much money on the table, especially on the river. In short I think that increasing the frequency of my bluffs on the river might increase my win rate.

Started Playing Ring Games Again

2009-08-02T10:58:00.000-07:00

Just getting my feet wet in the $100 buy-in, 9 handed NL games on Full Tilt. 5 sessions, 5 wins. All while multi-tabling, 2 tables first, then moved up to 3 tables. So far this level plays much softer than the $200, 6 max, NL games I used to play. All short sessions, about 3 hours total but up $200. The multi-tabling keeps the lower limit, 9 handed game more "exciting", and I anticipate that it will also improve my winnings.

2009-08-01T09:16:00.000-07:00

4 tournaments yesterday:

$24+2 Did not cash
$24+2 Finished 30th out of 1,448 for $81.09
$69+6 Did not cash
$69+6 Finished 11th out of 178 for $160.20

I'm Back

2009-07-29T08:45:00.000-07:00

A lot has happened in my life since my last post. Enduring 13 months down time in a federal tax camp, pulling the plug on a very real, and deep relationship with the woman I considered spending my life with, the continued building of my business- I've taken a couple of life's bad beats but feel I am in a place where I am stronger and wiser than before. My interest in poker has waned, but never gone away entirely. I view the game through a different lens. I have seen more of the fraud that poker can be, but still find myself drawn to the game.

After returning from my hiatus it didn't take that long before I started logging on to various poker sites to see if "just by chance" I might have a few dollars in an account somewhere. I checked all of the online poker rooms that I used to frequent and found a dollar or two on Full Tilt, ditto on Pokerstars, and a little over $100 on True Poker, as well as a few bucks on Bodog. I got a 3rd place in a $10 Bodog tourney good for $300 and was back in business! Several bad beats later, and after depositing a few hundred on Full Tilt, I was nearly felted with only the $100 bucks on True Poker left. I played the $25 buy-in no limit games there and built that up to $350, then after jumping through several hoops managed to cash out and move that money over to Full Tilt Poker which is my preferred online site.

At first things seemed to be going well, I had several small cashes and at one point I cashed in 4 out of 5 tourneys. My bankroll was slowly starting to build and hit a highwater mark of just under $500 before I started running bad. Time and time again I would be in position to make a go at the money and would run into a cooler or take a bad beat. This is mostly over the last 2 - 3 weeks. Having pocket Kings cracked at highly inopportune moments seemed to be Full Tilt's favorite trick but she had others too. Idiots calling my raises with hands like 63o, only to flop 2 pair. I could bore you for minutes with my tales of woe but suffice it to say that I was running poorly and it started to affect my play. I began to view poker as a stupid luckfest, and I while not proud of it on a couple of occasions I just gave up in small buy in tournaments and intentionally blew off my chips. I took a day off and before I played again I wrote on paper a little pact with my self, that as long as I had chips I would play my hardest to win and never give up again.

This is starting to read like the build up to some life changing event like winning a world series of poker bracelet, or making my first 6 figure score, unfortunately that is not the case. However yesterday I did have my largest tournament poker cash by outlasting 1,110 other players in $10 buy in tournament on Full Tilt Poker, taking first place and a cool $2110.90 to go along with it. To win a tournament of that size was a complete rush, the best feeling I have had in poker yet, (however it did feel pretty damn good to bust Cyndy Violette out of a WSOP event back in '05). I feel a little vindicated, that I have been playing well, and now I have the knowledge and confidence that I can take down and win a large field tournament. How many people can say that they have won a poker tournament with over 1000 players in it? I also know that I have made some missteps along the way and that I still have a lot to learn. My poker enthusiasm is definitely back, as is my desire to soak up everything I can and continue to learn and progress as a poker player. I feel that now I have a little more of a bankroll that will enable me to play sub $100 buy in events and hammer away until my next "big" score, that this is the first of many and bigger poker achievements to come. But last night, at 1:55 am it sure did feel good! Now it's time to take the lessons and experience from last night and parlay it into more wins.

Time for one poker hand- a quick tutorial on how to play QT off suit.

The set up:

$10 buy-in on Full Tilt
1,111 players, 2 remain
First pays $2110.90, Second place $1299.87
Hero Chip Stack: 1,449,444
Villain Chip STack: 764,556
Blinds: 15,000/30,000 with a 4,000 ante

With a chip stack that is 50 times the size of the big blind and having my opponent out chipped nearly 2 to 1 I am not looking to double up my opponent, but would rather keep the pressure on and chip away at his stack mercilessly. Villain has the button and raises it 75k, I smooth call with QhTd, which is a strong holding heads up, even out of position. The flop: Ks7d3h
The action is on me, I have nothing and want to keep the pot size manageable, I check. He opts not to fire a continuation and checks behind me. The Turn: Qc
I felt that his check on the flop was suspect, and was a little concerned that he could be slow playing a K, however my pair of queens is most likely in the lead and with 158,000 in the pot I lead out with a bet of 100,000 hoping to take down the pot right now. Our villain has other ideas though and shoves all-in for 689,556 putting me in a very difficult spot with my middle pair, so-so kicker. My first thought was that he slow played a hand with a K in it, perhaps KJ, KT, or KXs, and checked the flop so that he could win more after I fired at the pot. Additionally I did not want to double him up! And the pot was laying me 1.6 to 1 to make the call. I tanked, the more I evaluated his bet the stranger it felt to me, if felt like he wanted me to go away. Additionally the temptation to end this thing right here, right now set in and I made the call. He showed ThJc for an open-ended straight draw . . . please Jesus just one time let the best hand hold up! The river was the Kd, giving me 2 pair and the win!

There were other hands I could have written about, one in particular were I felt like I made a misstep when we were 3 handed but this one has a happy ending! I really didn't have too many difficult calls to make in my road to victory, as my style of play favors making lots of small bets and raises to win pots and when I play big pots I usually have a solid hand. Incidentally in some ways I don't like big starting hands, you are married to them and end up playing big pots and hope your hand holds up. People say that you have to get lucky to win a tournament and that is definitely true, but it's also crucial that you NOT get UNLUCKY. As I move up in buy-ins I would anticipate more players, playing back at me more aggressively and forcing me to make more difficult decisions.

And one last note. In support of national poker week, the PPA (Poker player's Alliance, a lobbying group), and HB 2267 to legalize online poker, I phoned Sen. Christopher S. BondSen. , Claire McCaskill, and Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer to voice my support of that bill and ask them what their position on poker was. I spoke with staffers at all three and the assured me that they would pass on my thoughts. Just a few moments ago I received this from Claire:

Dear Mr. Yeager:

Thank you for contacting me regarding gambling on the Internet. I appreciate hearing from you, and I welcome the opportunity to respond.

As you may know, Congress passed a law in 2006 that prohibited banks from handling transactions between online gambling sites and their customers. The Treasury Department issued the final regulations based on this law in November 2008, and they came into force in January 2009, with a final compliance deadline of December 1, 2009.

I was not in Congress at the time this bill was passed. Some in Congress have advocated amending or repealing the law. For instance, one proposal is to allow banks to process online gambling transactions, but only if they first receive a federal license. I will be sure to keep your thoughts in mind if any relevant bills come before the Senate.

Thank you again for contacting me. I hope you will continue to reach out in the future with your thoughts and advice.

All best,
Senator Claire McCaskill

P. S. You may sign up for my email newsletter at www.mccaskill.senate.gov .

Interesting that the day I voiced my support for poker I won my biggest tournament ever, perhaps there really is a poker god!

Making up for lost time . . .

2006-09-10T03:35:00.000-07:00

It's great to be blogging again! It's about 5:30 am, I just got home from work. I had one of the top 5 days in sales @ Vogue in nearly 12 years! In mc/visa alone we did over $6700.00, wow! I am absolutely 100% beat but it was really nice to see it come together like it did tonight.

Poker tip of the day:

Two of the biggest mistakes that players make in NLTH tournaments are:

1) limping when first into the pot. It is almost always correct to raise if you are the first one to voluntarily commit chips into the pot pre-flop. How many tables do you see player call, call, call, amazing! Nuff said.

2) In the middle and late stages of a tournament, when there are antes as well as blinds, I often see the small blind fold when they are getting enourmous pot odds to call. In NLTH if you are getting 3.5 to 1 pot odds it is always correct to call irregardless of your cards; 72o included. For example say at a 10 handed table the blinds are 400/800 and each player is anteing 100, therefore there is 2200 in the pot. Often times these donkeys limp and lets say that 2 players call the 800. The pot is now 3800. You are in the small blind w/ 72o and it cost only 400 to call. The pot odds are nearly 10 to 1, or nearly 3 times what is required to make the call! I see players w/ average sized stacks fold in this situation and it blows my mind. Big mistake. These are prime opportunites to hit the miracle flop w/ a hand that your opponents will never be able to put you on. This situation occurs in other positions as well. Oft times even if the pot is raised the BB will still have proper odds to call.

Enough for today, goodnight!

!kcithcS weN yM

2006-09-09T13:42:00.000-07:00

Well I should still be in the low 50's out of over 2100 players, my last tourney really sucked . . . 13th out of 35 and the worst streak of dead cards ever. So to kill the monotony of the game I decided to enter all my chat !sdrawkcab. One player actually got mad at me and kept telling me to type in English, or Englis as he put it. He actually contacted the online duty manager who stopped by to remind us to use only English at the tables. Once he figured out what I was doing it was all cool. Most of the table seemed to enjoy it and I got Good Game all around after I busted out (except Kogs, the guy who didn't !ti teg)

Monster online tip of the year

(how to induce a bluff/ or get an all in call):

There is a technique that can help you win or place in far more than your share of online tournaments. In order to be successful in these things one needs to get maximum value out of their rare monster hands. It does no good to have to milk the pot on the river for a few extra chips, you need to give yourself the best possibility to double up your stack w/ your monster hands. Here is how you do it:

Set up: Early in the tournament when your stack is sometimes 100 - 200 times the BB you need to be fairly active. Play some educated "bad" poker. Limp a lot. When it is checked to you make small feeler bets, you need people to see you as a loose player who bluffs a lot, and as an idiot. Normally you will actually pick up enough of these pots to remain even or better, plus the pots are so small in relation to your stack that you aren't risking much.

Step one: Limp with all pocket pairs when atleast one of your opponents has a deep stack. It does no good to hit a set and only win a little.

Step two: Hit your set.

Step three: The Flop- Hollywood, if you are first to act do a slight pause and check. You are trying to do the "old" appears like I am done w/ the hand standard check and get it over with thing. If you are facing a bet you have to pause for several seconds pretending to mull it over, then grudgingly call. The speed at which you make your plays is crucial to getting the best chance for a big river bluff or to have them call your all in on the river. You ideally want to slowly build the pot, many players feel "pot committed" when they have bet twice or called 2 bets regardless of the amount of money. If they ever raise or call a raise this is even more true.

Step four: The Turn- This is a little trickier because it depends on the action from the flop. If they are the aggressor and bet into you it's time to re-raise. Your re-raise should be relatively small in comparison to their bet, usually the minimum. if they bet 1k into you raise them 1k. This accomplishes 2 things: First it builds a bigger pot and secondly it reopens their betting giving them a chance to re-raise you which will give you the double up you need.

If they check to you, you need to pause, pretending to think about the hand and then make a smallish bet, a feeler bet, of about 1/2 the size of the pot. If you are first to act and there was action on the flop you should also make this play. If you are first to act and there was no action on the flop you need to take a good look at the texture of the board, you want to feed them a little line, a bet you feel they will call. If they fold, well there wasn't anything you could do about it.

Step five: The River- The river is actually simpler than the turn. If you are first to act and there has been action pause for just a second and then quickly push all-in. You are trying to appear like you are bluffing and made a rash spur of the moment decision. You will be surprised at how often top pair, crappy kicker will call you in this situation! If they are first to act and you set it up well, many players will bluff at you trying to steal the substantial pot.

Just like live tournaments, online tournaments are filled with level 1 thinking players who will fall prey to this time and time again. Even better players sometimes make mistakes because they will be seeing you as the fish based upon your earlier play. AXs is not nearly as good a candidate for this play because a) it doesn't hit as often, and b) when it does the flush cards scare people. Sets are very well disguised as are double gutter straights.

Current Skill League Ranking

2006-09-08T13:30:00.000-07:00

I am currently ranked 51st out of 1980 tournament players @ Bugsy's Club. Click here and then enter jager777 to follow my progress. This is after only 6 tournaments! Of the 275 qualified players who have completed 7 or more tournaments I would be in 48th place. The problem I am going to have is that I don't have enough time to play many tournaments, alot of these players have already played over 25 tournaments so far this month. The current #2 player _boogieman, I destroyed heads up in my first tournament win.

Here are the stats from my last tournament win:

I played 202 hands and won 66 (33%)
I won 17 of 22 hands at showdown (77%) and won 49 pots uncontested! I saw the flop in 17% of hands that were not in the blinds.

It's been a while

2006-09-08T12:50:00.000-07:00

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

2 Hours w/ Doyle Brunson

2006-03-08T18:23:00.000-08:00

Nearly all of the World Poker Tour's season 3 alluded me. Work, the bar league and other activities conflicted with me catching one of my fovorite television shows. So I was delighted to open the brown Amazon.com package today that contained the 8 DVD set the best of WPT's season 3. The extras contain Shana Hiatt Bloopers and more importantly deleted hands. Episode 1 on the DVD is Bicycle Casiono's Legends of Poker, which Doyle Brunson goes on to win.

I haven't got to see alot of Doyle's play, but his results speak for themselves. I heard about this touney win and also of his 10th WSOP bracelet. I also got an opportunity to hear him speak to small group of people in New Orleans about a year ago. He mentioned how this tourney win really built up his confidence, he hadn't done so well in tournaments for a while.

This final table was especially interesting because when Doyle was Heads up with Lee Watkinson the total chips in play were over 200 times the size of the big blind. Lee had the lead when it got down to heads up. Doyle pretty much systematically destroyed Lee, and played what Mike Sexton referred to as "flawless" poker. Doyle does not play by the book poker. Hands that were especially interesting were ones where Doyle flopped a monster, a good example is when he flopped the nut straight (347) w/ 56. Doyle always takes his time to act and is very good at extracting alot of $ from his opponets. I'm not going to break down key hands but suffice it to say that getting inside of Doyle's head was educational. From a purely textbook viewpoint I feel that he risks more chips than he needs to at certain points but I could see how he was setting up Lee.

The final hand Doyle had Q9, and Lee Q3. They both flopped top pair and there was a possible flush draw on board (QJ7, 2 spades). Doyle checked, Lee bet 150k and Doyle went in the tank and went all in, Lee called. Doyle's hand held up. There are 2 factors that made the all in work here: first he was representing a flush draw, as this is how many players would play there, and secondly Lee was frustrated and made a rash call due to the fact that Doyle had gone all in several times recently and he had folded. The set up was perfect.

That Doyle is a sneaky, sneaky ultra aggressive player who is keenly aware of what hands he thinks you will have him on and see's these opportunities to trap.

I found Doyle's style fascinating and plan on watching this episode again soon, and break it down more thoroughly. Also I found a tell on stone faced Doyle that will come in handy the "next" time we play.

Another win

2006-03-02T16:18:00.000-08:00

in Wednesday nights bar league.

I got off to a good start, but then lost most of my stack when my kings got busted by AJ. I've got about 10k in chips left, and the blinds are 1k/2k when this interesting hand comes up. 3 limpers and I look down and find 99 in the small blind. With only the big blind left to act behind me I have 4 opponets in this pot. I considered limping myself and trying to flop a set but quickly decided to push all in. Being relatively shortstacked I was concerned that some of the looser players would call. 99 is also a tricky hand to play in a multiway pot. Knowing that hitting a set is unlikely (8.5 to 1), and on top of that I' ve probably got the best hand, the prospect of narrowing the field to heads up, and going after those chips that I so desperately needed made the all in a very compelling move. Everything went according to plan. Only one player called, w/ A6s and my glorious nines held up nearly tripling me up. I wish poker was always this easy!

With about 18 players remaining I was in the top third in chips but still short stacked in relation to the blinds. I made it to the final table with an average stack and stole blinds when I could while picking my spots carefully and managed to make it to the final 3. Millard, a rock, took a bad beat and I was now heads up w/ a slight chip lead. Fortunately for me my opponet was a tell box, but after I chipped away at her she switched to all in mode. That made things more difficult and I layed down several hands untill this hand came up. Blinds are 16k/32k and I am a 2 to 1 chip leader. She is on the button and limps in. Remember she had been pushing alot, but I had a good read on her and sensed that she held a monster. The flop came JT4 rainbow pairing my T8. Normally this is a good hand heads up but I had her on QQ, possibly AA, KK, AK, AQ. I checked and she bet. I folded and called her hand which she showed! I love it when I do this, it really impresses the onlookers! I chipped away at her stack for a bit and then called her all in w/ JQs which held up for the win! I can honestly say that I played perfect poker from the nines on, stealing what I could and making excellent reads with no misteps!

A couple of friends and I played a few games at my house later, I won the first, got 2nd in the second tourney, and later won a heads up match. Not a bad poker day.

2 more cool things happened, One of the bar league players who plays a solid game asked to change seats at the final table saying he wanted to be on my left because I "terrify" him. Later at my house Aaron a winning online player who also plays in our league told me that he thought I was the best poker player he knew. Thanks for the compliments guys!

A nice run the other night

2006-02-24T19:28:00.000-08:00

6 and 0 in heads up matches.

3 2 1 6 1 . . . 70.05 . . . 300

2006-02-01T13:27:00.000-08:00

There are different perspectives one can tell a story from, and for this entry I decided to use the perspective of the bar tab. It tells a story too:

1 Chicken Wrap 6.25

Food Sub-Total 6.25

1 Captain Morgan Short 2.50
1 Captain Morgan Dbl 4.00
2 Bud Light Pint 5.00
2 Absolut Shot 6.00
3 Captain Morgan Dbl 15.00
1 Bud Light Btl 2.50
8 Lemon Drops 24.00

Beverage Sub Total 59.00

Total 70.05

I have rediscovered the world of beer; did you know that you can add a shot of vodka to your favorite lager to spice it up a little? I'm not sure my life will ever be the same since this discovery!

I started off w/ a captain to get warmed up in the 7:00 game, and quickly followed that w/ a double. Then slowed down a bit and switched gears to beer (w/ a shot), and paced my self well for the 10:00 money game. A few drinks into it and and things aren't going so well. Not because I'm drunk but because Suzzane keeps calling me w/ hands like T50 and catching! Before long my big stack is a little stack and things don't look so good. A couple of beats later and I'm down to 3 lowly black chips and w/ 3 full tables left I'm on life support. I will say this I never even thought about giving up and picked my spots well and w/ a couple of well deserved breaks managed to walk through raindrops and slowly build my stack back to a respectable level.

Final table time and we all have comprable stacks. Notice the entry on my tab for 8 lemon drops! That was my victory toast! Steve played a good game and had me way outchipped head to head, but I took it down in a very decisive manner! First place $300! If you haven't figured it out the 3 2 1 6 1 correspond w/ my finishes in our bar league in the last session.

Dutch and I had a conversation not to long ago about the "perfect path" or "the line" I believe was the term that D used. What he was talking about was picking the perfect spots, and following the line from where you are in a tournament to the winners circle. I certainly found that perfect path when I got shortstacked and never wavered from it. Anyway that's my random thought for today, cheerio.

Not much poker but

2006-01-28T19:14:00.000-08:00

I did play in the bar league last week. Wed. night at Tropical liquors I got 3rd place in the first game, and 2nd place in the second game. Then on Thursday I played in the 7:00 game and got 1st! 3 games, 3 2 1 baby! The cash game is this tuesday and I'm now in first place for points and there is only 1 game betweeen now and the cash game for someone to overtake me.

Dutch and Joey both made final tables in Tunica this month, Dutch 3 final tables, Joey 2 but 1 was a big score for second place! Congrats guys. Also thanks Dutch for the link on your blog!

That Daniel Negraneu kid won another tourney, wow. I guess liberals can play cards too. lol

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Right now I'm sitting at Vogue, which by the way is now a wifi hotspot, in otherwords you can now fly around on the web anywhere in the building! Perhaps I will post more blog entries now, time will tell.

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I always thought highly of my Uncle Greg. He was a real go getter, who enjoyed high adrenaline sports like hang gliding, and scuba diving. Last week he went on a dive and never came back, lost at sea, how bizzare; Chris, her sisters, and Greg's family my thoughts and prayers are with you.

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One poker hand, this one is from a $500 tournament in Tunica. I arrived in T and played a $65 satellite and won! So I was set for the next days $500 tourney. I took it pretty easy that first night, and went back to bed around 12:30 because the tourney started at noon. Instead of waking up refreshed, eating a light breakfast of fuit or perhaps shrimp I slept through 2 wake up calls and was nearly 2 hours late showing up to the tourney. Each player started w/ 1500 in chips and I figured on the way to the tourney that I should still have close to 1200 to play w/ so all is definately not lost, however, my focus, and state of mind where not where they should have been! I felt rushed and out of touch. After folding for the most part, and donkeying off a pot, after about 20 minutes this hand came up:

Me approx. 900 in chips in the cutoff (1 before the button). Under the gun player (first to act) makes a big raise about 5 times the big blind, fold, fold, fold, then a player 2 to my right tries to limp. He was unaware that the UTG player had made a big raise. The floor was called over and the ruling was that he could fold his hand, but the limp stayed in the pot or he could call. He decided to call but it was obvious to me (and probably everyone else at the table) that he was weak. 2 thoughts, first when a not so great player over raises pre-flop you should automatically consider that jacks are a likely holding and in this case that thought certainly crossed my mind. secondly wow there is alot of dead money out there! What to do . . . . . . well I squeeze apart an A3o, hmmmmm now what. Well here's exactly what you should do fold, fold fold. But my donkey ass pushed all in knowing the guy that was asleep at the switch would fold. I was right but the other dude didn't, he did have JJ and they did hold up. Ouch, one mistake is all it takes in NL Texas hold'em to find yourself at the rail! Even I wouldn't normally "donk" off my chips like that, but for some reason I just felt rushed, showing up late, and all. Don't make the same mistake I did.

db

Finally a real post

2006-01-02T14:39:00.000-08:00

S just got back in town from Boston last night and brought 8 live lobsters w/ her. S, another couple we are friends w/, and I feasted and played a little poker, It was the nuts.

You may know I have been building my club back up for the last 3 1/2 months. Things are on track and doing well. Now I finally get a chance to step back a little and play more poker! The timing couldn't be better because this month there are 2 major tournaments, a WSOP circuit event and a WPT event both in Tunica, MS. It is a little interesting that Jack Binion is no longer hosting the WPT's World Poker Open but instead is hosting the WSOP circuit event. It will also be interesting to see which 10K event gets the most interest. The WPT event is a f 5 day event from 1/19 - 1/23 and the WSOP event is a 4 day event from 1/24 - 1/27. My guess is the WPT 10k event will eclipse the WSOP Circuit 10k event, but I wouldn't be suprised if the WSOP preliminary events are the nuts. I plan to attend at many events as possible, starting with a slew of $500 NL Hold'em events the first of which is Jan. 5. If any of you are planning on attending either of the tourneys send me an e-mail! I will update trip reports from Tunica.

I promised myself . . .

2005-12-06T11:51:00.000-08:00

that I wouldn't let my blog go over 1 month without being updated. This post will probably only technically keep my promise true. Work continues to go well, and poker continues to be pushed to the back burner. I have been hanging out w/ this really cool girl, S, and she hosted a poker game at her house Sunday that was alot of fun. Dutch Boyd is still in Columbia, and we have formed a few games "around" him if you will. As an aside, Dutch is a hell of a nice guy, and a hell of a poker player.

I've gotta run errends for work now, but will try to do a more thorough update soon!

Next Weeks game is at . . .

2005-11-08T14:34:00.000-08:00

The club's freeroll tourney now starts at 8:00 pm every Monday. Last nights game was excellent! Hope to see you there.

New Monday Tournament at Vogue

2005-11-06T21:24:00.000-08:00

Every Monday night at 7pm I am hosting a free roll tournament at Club Vogue. It is free for poker players to enter the club, free to enter the tournament and we are giving away cash prizes: $50 for 1st place, $20 for second and $5 for 3rd. Additionally the winner gets a cool trophy and there are other cool prizes like hats, shirts, and V.I.P. passes. Rounds are 40 minutes long and each player starts w/ 2500 in chips. Since the blinds start at 25/50 this format allows for more play and has created a very competitive final table each of the last 3 weeks. And the sweetest part of all is that on Mondays private dances are only $10!!! In 3 short weeks this has become hands down the best free bar tournament in Columbia, don't miss out on the fun.

All work and no play makes Jay a . . .

2005-10-07T14:35:00.000-07:00

Last Wednesday I held an amateur night competition at the club and it was a smashing success! & hot amateurs, 1 comedy relief act (fat girl) and a full house. Everything is still heading in the right direction. I wish I had more time to make updates, and especially play poker! Maybe this Sunday I can do both. Chow for now.

So far so good

2005-10-03T15:26:00.000-07:00

Staying incredibly busy! Work is definatively headed in the right direction! Wish I had time to update more, will as soon as possible.

Bar League Point Standings Through 9/27

2005-09-29T12:25:00.000-07:00

Click on link in right side bar.

I'm Tired

2005-09-28T01:15:00.000-07:00

The joys of assoiciated with hard work and the feeling of achievement are over rated!!! However things are going great at the club, it's just that it's kinda like now I wish I ddin't have to be there all the time, but (run on sentance I know) I guess that kinda comes with territory, hell I don't know. I'm suffering from sleep deprivation, but I do have some exciting post to make soonk, including the story behind Annie Leigh Schwartz Schulte II. I'm babbling now, so I'll get back to you later. Ciao

Word of the day "Unenployable"

2005-09-25T12:20:00.000-07:00

My calves are soar, my lower back is killing me and I feel pretty much like I've been ran over by a small truck. All because I worked a couple of days.

Friday night the GM of my club and I had a falling out. There were alot of things slipping at the club and now I get the opportunity to jump in and fix it! So last night I wasn't sure what to expect, with the club. One of my biggest concerns was who was going to show up. As it turns out, we lost 1 waitress, and 1 floor host and that's it.

So I stumble in to work at 5:30pm and started setting up the club. This is when I realized just how unemployable I am. If you too would like to ruin any future chance of gainful employment just follow my simple 2 step plan. 1- Buy a strip club and become an absentee owner for 5 years or more. 2- Play Poker! You should have seen me trying to windex down glass table tops, and clean ashtrays. I honestly don't think I even have the skills to be a busboy!

I just heard a cool quote on TV. "The man who thinks he can, and the man who thinks he can't are both right. Which one are you?" I'll choose the later. I've gone from not knowing if I could buckle down and fix the club to seeing some awesome changes. Sometimes just a little effort can go a long, long ways. I feel great about everything at work now, we have had 3 smashing nights, and the troops are all doing a fantastic job. Ced and the crew have really stepped up to the challenge of turning Club Vogue back into the best gentlemen's club in the Mid-west!

I've got 2 birthday parties to stop by tonight, and then I'll crash early and get some hard earned ZZZZ's in and then it will be off to work early Monday to clean up from the hard weekend. I'm kinda jonesing to play poker but it looks like my next opportunity won't be untill monday night's games at the club.

Ben and Paul, sorry about yesterday, I had to take care of some business, but I lookforward to playing soon! Thanks Starr for your expert "advise" yesterday and Greg, man, without your help things would have been a clusterf@#K, Thank You.

A few minutes to kill

2005-09-23T15:24:00.000-07:00

Wednesday night I played in 2 bar league tourneys, got 1 first and on the second made the final table.

Getting ready for work right now, I'll be at the Club from 6pm-7pm and then again from 10:30pm untill close (around 4am). If you are out tonight stop by and say hi.

Tomorrow a few of us are going to play a tournament in the afternoon, hopefully the buy in will be $50 or $100 bucks. Should be a good time.

I haven't shaved in a couple of weeks, so today I got out the rusty razor and hacked through all the scruff, but I decided to do something different. I carved a gotee! Not sure I like it yet, but I'll give it a day or two. Gotta go.

Out in first, errrr First Out I mean!

2005-09-21T15:54:00.000-07:00

I played in the 10pm Shilo game last night, well kinda sorta, I played 1 hand. I'm in early position of our 8 handed table and find AQs. Remember the blinds are 250/500 and we only start w/ 8500 in chips giving us an M of 11 (M = Your Stack Size divided by [BB + SB + any antes] and tells you how many rounds you can last at the current level. What this means is you have to mix it up. In a large tourney w/ a starting stack size of say 10,000 and blinds of say 25/50 you can have an M of well over 100. So as much as I don't like AQs in early position throwing the hand away is a terrible play, as is limping. The hand figures to be the best and the only question is how much to raise. I settled upon a strong standard raise to 2500 straight for a couple of reasons. From early position I could raise less, but out of position I didn't want to play anymore than 1 opponet. If I was reraised I could still get away from the AQs If I sensed strength. Well I got 1 middle positon caller and 1 late position caller. Interesting, I still likely have the best hand. The flop came K,rag,rag 2 clubs, no apparent str8 draw. but did give me the nut flush draw w/ 4 clubs. I've got 6000 in chips left and the pot has over 8K in it. I want those chips! I'm first to act, hmmm what to do. What kind of hands would have called and not reraised preflop? A strong ace, or KQ are possibilities as are small and medium pocket pairs. KJs? some players might. I could check with the intention of raising all in on a semi bluff, lead out at the pot representing a pair of k's or push all in. With the pot so large in relation to our stack sizes any bet less than all in would be make a very tempting call for any top pair, flush draw, or hand like TT. The way to get those chips is to push all in, even that is a less than pot sized bet, but that move gives me 2 ways to win, my 2 opponets fold or I catch the flush. Middle position went in the tank for about 1 minute and called w/ AK, the club never came and poof I was out. It was definately an agressive play on my part, but I'm convinced the all in was the correct play. If I had raised less preflop and got the 2 callers I would have had more options on the flop but who's to say I wouldn't have been reraised by the AK?

Gonna try and get some points at tonights game.

Here's a pretty cool hand type frequency chart I found.

New Point Standings Now Up

2005-09-20T17:53:00.000-07:00

Click below or on link in right sidebar.
http://donkeybait.blogspot.com/2005/09/bar-league-point-standings.html

Shana is gone, say hello to the new WPT hostess . . .

2005-09-19T12:39:00.000-07:00

Courtney Friel. Here are a couple of links to get you started:
Her official page http://www.courtneyfriel.com
More pics http://www.courtneyfriel.net/gallery/
Who says change isn't good!

The Constant Gardner

2005-09-19T09:04:00.000-07:00

I finally went and saw the only movie I have been looking forward to in quite some time. Ofttimes when our expectations are high, a letdown is common and that was partially true with this movie. The Constant Gardner is the tale of a british diplomat and his fanatical tree hugging wife. She accompanies him to Africa and gets caught up in this liberal anti pharma business stuff, and has to be silenced by the evil pharmaceutical companies before she brings to light their unethical drug testing programs.

I won't spoil the movie here, but the movie had strong political overtones that overshadowed an otherwise good story. Less time should have been spent on trying to make people hate big biz, and more time on producing a good movie! Why can't movies just be good movies without some liberal trying to further influence the gullible with underhanded techniques or yellow journalism? The cinematography was done in a shaky, rough manner that almost felt like a home movie at times. The overall effect made it seem more "real". My friend Star asked me if it was a true story, and I'm sure many others would have the same impression. I can picture a Barbara Streisand or (that idiot actor who married Madonna and runs, not only off to Africa to fight aids, but his mouth off all the time) Sean Penn citing this movie like it was fact, using it to support their anti conservative rhetoric.

The lowdown, it's worth the price of a matinee ticket or a small popcorn but not both.

Lots of links

2005-09-17T14:16:00.000-07:00

Earlier I added 2 links. Then I added another and re-edited the post, then another, ditto, ditto.

Today I added many new links. They are all excellent links and I profit in no way from any of these links (note 2 exceptions: 1- David Williams site kinda sucks 2- I get an affiliate bonus from the Paradise Poker banners). I have waded through all the online poker garbage for you.

Poker Tracker is the hugely popular and excellent online poker tracking software. The demo allows you to import 1000 hands. A must for any serious online player. The tournament director software is an excellent tournament management tool and poker clock. It is donation ware, if you use it and like it you can donate (not to me!). Pro player David Williams's site has a blog (not a very good one), but pro Andy Bloch's World Poker Tour (unofficial) fan site is pretty good. Also a couple of poker magazine home pages, a link to everything you ever wanted to know about chip tricks, the official WPT site, pokerupdates.com and pokertells.com round out the additions. Poker Updates has cool video interviews w/ players, and covers live tourneys and www.pokertells.com has a couple of worthwhile strategy articles. Playwinningpoker is done by pro Steve Brecher and is a good resourse for online strategy. Pokerlizard.com has interviews w/ top pro's and the poker odds resourse is good to read to brush up on your odds, and hand match ups. Enjoy.

A little poker

2005-09-17T10:13:00.000-07:00

I'm still waiting for Jeremy to e-mail me the current point standings.

Unfortunately I only added 10K to my point total this week, that is 1 8th place finish. In a way I was both lucky and unlucky to get the 10k.

The hand I misread or I pulled a T.J. Cloutier:

Fairly early I played 78o. The flop came 7,6,2 and Ben, a solid agressive player, check raised me all in on the flop. I sensed he was weak and called with my top pair, but oops, I didn't have 78o, it was 89o!!! "I remember Ben saying, who's overs are better" and I responed "Over's, I've got a pair". Luckily he had JQ and I turned an 8! My 88 held up and I made a not so smooth double up.

I'm happiest when I've got a stack, and now I could open up my game. Before long I had the tourney chip lead by a mile. Down to about 12 players and this hand comes up. Me small blind w/ KK. Aaron in late position makes a standard raise and I sense that he will call so I quickly push all in. He calls w/ AQ and rivers the A, doubles up and now my big stack is only a "normal" big stack. I make the final table w/ an average stack, but get knocked out in 8th, when my A8 gets called by the big blind who had KT. The big blind got lucky and to the rail I go. I certainly got plenty of action on key hands where I was a good favorite, but in the end an unfortunate turn of beats was to much to overcome.

On a positive note I have been crushing our cash tourneys. The last 5 times we have gotten together I have won atleast one of the tournaments outright, and in 2 instances won 2. One trend I have noticed is that I have won the first tourney we play 4 times now, and I think I relax, not to mention, drink more after the first win.

You make the play #4

2005-09-14T13:33:00.000-07:00

Here's the set up. NL tournament, starting chips 8500, about 16 players remain. Our under the gun hero has 7000 left at a 5 handed table and finds KJo, the best hand he has seen all tourney. There is 1 active, agressive player w/ a monster stack, 1 average stack, 2 short stacks. Blinds are now 500/1000 what should our hero do, fold, limp, or raise?

Our hero infact decides to limp, he doesn't want to be pot committed w/ such a weak holding. A short stack goes all in for 3k over, the monster stack calls, and there is now 10.5K in the pot and it is 3k (1/2 of your remaining chips) to call what should our hero do now?

A few factors to consider: pot odds of 3.5 to 1 are hard to get away from, however jeopardizing 50% of your remaining chips, out of position, with an easily dominated holding isn't a recipe for tournament success! On the other hand the blinds are gonna burn away 25% of your chip stack in the next 2 hands. Think about possible hands the short stack and active, monster stack players might have.

Let me know how you would play the hand and I'll post the actual results and a detailed analysis soon.

I posted professional poker player Aaron Bartley's response in the comment section.

Great read gone bad!

2005-09-13T10:02:00.000-07:00

In the 10pm bar tourney last night, held at Vogue, I played an interesting hand that sent me to the curb. Blinds were 500/1000 and remember each player starts w/ 8500. My stack was around 10.5k. An early position player raised to 3K straight, It was folded to me in late position and I just called. Here is my thinking here. He seemed strong, had me outchipped and I thought it was possible that he had a monster like AA or KK, but I had position on him and trusted my ability to read him on the flop, if I hit. In these fast tourneys w/ limited chips I certainly didn't want to raise and be pot commited w/ kqo. The flop came K,Q,J, rainbow (rainbow means different suits, no flush draw out there), however there certainly were many straight draws, and if he had a hand like KK, unlikely, because I had the other K, or QQ, same deal, I was in bad shape. If however he had AA, as I thought likely, I'm in great shape. I didn't feel like he could have had JJ because most players, especially intermediate level players, lead out stronger w/ JJ because they are afraid of overcards and his pre-flop bet felt to me like it was saying "please call or raise" not "please fold". (learning to play JJ like any other premium hand is essential to your poker development), anyway, AA, AK, or AQ, were the 3 most likely hands that I felt he had. I believe he checked the flop and I raised it 5k leaving only a couple left over. I could have shoved all in but I thought I was in the lead here and wanted to make sure and get all of his chips in the pot. He re-raised me all in and I called. So far so good. He showed AA and I commented "I knew it" which isn't totally true. Reality is that I thought it was likely, but wouldn't have been suprised to see AK, and AT didn't feel right. I was nearly a 2 to 1 favorite but unfortunately the turn was another J, which counterfited my 2 pair and gave him aces up. Oh well. Great read gone bad.

As is often the case after I lose or win a key hand I'll think about it and ask myself if there was anyother way to play the hand that would have resulted in losing less or winning more. In this case the only other option I had would have been to play a small pot here. By not betting into it he would have (maybe) led out small on the turn and I could have called it down, but this would have been a bad play for a couple of reasons. First, the flop was scary, I couldn't afford to let any str8draws take free cards, also there is no guarantee that he wouldn't put me all in anyway. Sometimes you just have to throw down w/ the best of it to protect your hand and hope it holds up.

Some drinks are more expensive than others

2005-09-11T14:41:00.000-07:00

As far as transportation goes I've always liked my daily driver, a 1995 Lexus LS400. The car has always been real reliable, gets pretty darn good gas milage, Is the easiest to drive car I have ever owned and has a V8 w/ good horsepower to boot. But my favorite feature of the car is it's stock Nakamichi Sound System.

Now there are certainly louder thugged out systems, but that bass thing has never been my deal. What I like about the Naki, is that it has the best sound quality, or most accurate sound of any car stereo I have ever heard bar none, plus a subwoofer, & 6 disk in dash changer. It has never let me down, so how do I repay it for being so good to me? I KILL it, drown it to be exact.

Matt and I got a drink to go from Hoots and then headed out to Harpo's. I left my drink in the car, in the center cup holder. Later on the way back to the club I hit the breaks and my Vodka Cranberry sailed out of the cupholder straight twards the radio, and right down the throat of the cassette deck. Perfect shoot, nothing but air. Suprisingly little of the estimated 14 ozs of coctail, managed to find it's way anywhere but deep, deep inside the stereo unit. Poof, the sound died instantly. The buttons stopped working, ie. stuck on one radio station, or activiate the CD player. Matt jokingly said I hope you like 96.7, looks like you'll be listening to it for a while. I only wish. Unfortunately I don't think I'll be listening to anything for a while, atleast not while I'm driving.

My last hope and desire was that this morning, actually midafternoon, when I got up I would find that everything inside had dried out and it would work fine again, but no such luck.

One more thing, those people at Hardees are assholes. Is it just me or do people become stupider and stupiderer year after year at an alarming rate, nearly exponential. 3:30 am, I'm hungry so Matt and I swing into the Hardees drive thru for some breakfast grub, we order 2 breakfast croisants w/ ham total about $3.27. After about 5 minutes of waiting I note the time. 28 minutes later we've moved from 4th place to on deck w/ no sign of improvement in the near future. I decide I have to get a better look, so I get out of my car and walk around the SUV infront of me to peer in the drive thru window. Some fat, nasty, stupid, african american is waddling around doing absolutely nothing. I tap on the window and she just scowls. Unbelievable. I return to my vehicle and decide the breakfast isn't so important, but I am trapped between the building and a concrete curb w/ shrubs on the right, and 2 vehicles, to the front and rear. Now the way I see it this is my time and my apitite isn't what is was 35 minutes ago and I wanted to leave. I also wanted to carefully back up about 2 feet, cut the wheel hard to the right, gingerly crawl over the curb and mow down those shrubs! (you can decide for yourself whether I did what I wanted to do or not.)

I played 2 cash tournaments last night. Caleb, his friend, Peeps, Wes, Matt, and I all anted up (actually Wes passed out so it was just 5 of us. I won the first tourney, and once again busted out first in the second tourney when my 55 failed to thwart off peeps KQ. So much for presto.

Bar League Point Standings

2005-09-10T00:12:00.000-07:00

Let the games begin! Click the link to your right (in the sidebar) "Bar League Point Standings" to find out where you're at.

Come Join Us! All tournaments are free to play. Two tournaments nightly, at 7:00pm and 10:00pm. Monday Club Vogue, Tuesday Shilo Bar and Grill, Wednesday Tropical Liquers South, Thursday Thirsty Turtle, Fri,Sat, & Sun are all open.

Updated Through 9/27/05

1 Aaron Atkins 960000
2 Benedict Nagy 830000
3 T Lockhart 820000
4 Peeps 770000
5 Chase Lucas 470000
6 Ryan Lynch 460000
7 Jay Yeager 420000
8 Jerod Mickelson 400000
9 Clayton Ridenour 350000
10 Greg Adams 350000
11 Mike Heady 350000
12 Millard Thomas 350000
13 Suzanne Stuebben 300000
14 Kaleb Leeper 270000
15 Daniel Jacob 260000
16 Greg Meyer 250000
17 Kevin O'Neal 250000
18 Buddy Thomas 240000
19 Joe Grass 240000
20 Rhonda McMillian 240000
21 Levi Blanchette 240000
22 Kate Tomlinson 230000
23 Michelle Wilhoit 230000
24 Jesse Langille 220000
25 Vaughn Asi 220000
26 Ashley Vittetoe 210000
27 Ken Jacob 210000
28 Matt Knutson 210000
29 Steve Brackman 210000
30 Annalise Hombs 200000
31 Chris Brown 200000
32 Kay Jackson 200000
33 Kevin 200000
34 Deon Baskett 200000
35 Todd McLoughlin 200000
36 Bob Harris 200000
37 Brandon McElwan 190000
38 Brett Hecker 190000
39 Jon Trunk 170000
40 Nathan Crowe 170000
Bill Weaver 160000
Josh Klingenberg 160000
Krisina Dyer 160000
Andrew Avis 160000
Gretchen Erb 130000
Greg Koebel 120000
Zeb Ore 120000
Casey Lucero 110000
Jed Lewis 100000
Sean McClusky 100000
Ashleigh 100000
Paul McCoubrey 90000
Richard Dody 90000
David Sandoval 80000
Brad Dyer 60000
Brendan Murphy 60000
Carina Mendez 60000
Gerry Blaise 60000
Kris Mitchell 60000
Linda 60000
Mike Jennings 60000
Shawn Bonich 60000
Kelly Gunderson 50000
Paul Arenson 50000
Rick Matheny 50000
Ross Reinhart 50000
Sabine Khoury 50000
Shaun Gamblin 50000
Carrie Gordon 40000
Jason Kimble 40000
Jack Lapping 30000
Jason Vipond 30000
Andrew Saeger 20000
Janet Dyer 20000
Ty Seidel 20000
Adam Masten 10000
Tony Beakton 10000
Anthony Laggart 10000
Charles Wilson 10000
Toolbox 10000

Donkey Bait Book Review Links Now Up

2005-09-09T16:45:00.000-07:00

I added links to my bookreviews, they are on the sidebar to your right.

Speaking of reviews, I got my first copy of All In magazine the other day. It's a slick glossy mag chocked full of good poker stuff. Not all poker journalists are as good of poker players as they are poker lovers. They examined several key hands from NBC's heads up challenge that Hellmuth won, and the hand analysis ( is the plural of analysis, analysi or possibly analysiss?) , imho, were horrible. I would be willing to bet that their analysis seldomly coincided with what the pro's were actually thinking. The dude more than once mistook a set for trips, they are very different ( a set is three of a kind using both of your hole cards, trips is three of a kind using only 1 or possibly none of your hole cards), but more importantly he had poor, incorrect, and elementary understanding of poker strategems.

On the posive side they had an excellent article by Antonio Esfandiari, that was designed to plug his poker camp, but it had lots of really, really good stuff in it, as well as an insight to how he plays. There were tips from other pros as well. All in all, All In mag, is required material for any poker junkie and gets a solid thumbs up!

Happy Birthday Slenker! Some disjointed poker, and Matt's bad beat

2005-09-09T14:29:00.000-07:00

Well I set sail with the captain, morgan that is and arrived at Hoot-n-annys for their 9pm game. My very first hand was QJ, and I was under the gun so I limped in. Now these donkeys at hoot-n-annys always call and almost always limp in and It was no suprise when 7 of us saw the flop of J,rag,rag. I led out 150 into a pot of 140 and got 1 caller. Turn a rag, I bet 300 donkey calls, and looks real weak. River another rag, I check, he checks and I win a nice pot, he had JT! What possible hand he thought he could beat I'll never know!

I had a bit of a conundrum because Matt and I had to be at the Thirsty Turtle at 10 pm for the league game, so we both decided to play a little fast. With 20 mins to go or so I peered down and found 77 in the small blind, there were 3 limpers so I made it 250 all day long, and with the blinds at 10-20 that represents a raise of about 12.5 times the big blind! Of course they all call!!! What donkeys! The flop comes A,7,4 rainbow (rainbow means no possible flush draws), about as good a flop as you can expect! I could slow play my monster set but I'm hoping these donkeys that called that huge raise might have an A, maybe AK was trying to be sneaky (bad play by the way) so I lead out a small bet of 200 into the huge pot of 1020. Against good players that would be a weak play. Unfortunately 2 donkeys fold, but Harry goes all in over the top! Of course I call in a heartbeat. Now I figure Harry has a hand like AJ, or AT, (both donkey hands) but he turns over A2!!! What a donkey! My set holds up and I drag a huge pot, while Harry acts all indignant and storms out, wow!

It's almost time to go so I slide about a third of my monster stack over to Matt (under the table) and we start playing real fast. Unfortunately one of us wins another monster pot! After a couple of all ins, a friend of ours Wes finally wins most of our chips but I've still got em covered by quite a bit so I say "to the victor belong the spoils", slide the rest of my chips to Wes and head out to the Thirsty Turtle. By the way, Wes ended up placing in 3rd, so my chips weren't wasted after all!

Matt's Bad Beat:

It was Slenkers birthday, so there was no chance of slowing down. A couple of drinks into the tourney and I find A8 in the big blind. Matt makes a standard raise from late position and I call saying "don't mess with my blinds". I put Matt on a quality hand, probably 2 bid cards. If the flop comes rags I'll lead steal at him, If not probably give up the pot, and if there is an A, I'll lead out at the pot for info and just have to trust my read. Well the flop comes rags so I lead out. Matt raises, now I know that Matt knows that I don't have to have a hand to bet at that pot, so he doesn't necessarily have to have a hand to raise me, however I still sense some strength, but throwing caution to the wind I reraise him leaving just enough chips in my stack to get way from the hand If I really want to. If he does have the big pair he's representing he'll probably shove all in, and I'm not in the mood to walk away from this large pot. Well thats exactly what happened, we got it all in and he shows QQ. The turn was an A!!! Sorry Matt, you had the best hand, but man it sure was nice for once to give out a bad beat instead of just receive them all the time!

About 1 drink later I wake up with KK, manage to screw the hand up real good, but did knock out 2 players and drag a monster pot.

Final Table Time

I grab a seat next to Kate and compare stacks, we're the chip leaders. With Millard to my left, Kate on my right, the conversation was great and with Caleb, Peeps and Chase lurking in the background along with Slenker steadily pounding Jack Daniels this was a recipe for a fun final table. A new player, Lisa or Laura was calling virtually every hand and making some miracle catches, she dealt out beat after beat. I believe that Kate and I got 4th and 5th place respectively, however it could have been 5th and 6th place. A good time was had by all.

After a little fooseball, Chase is the man here, I catch a ride to Calebs place and we proceed to . . . play more poker! 2 cash tourneys, I won the first, and busted out first in the second. I wake up around noon at Calebs in a lazy boy chair, cab it home, pick up my car, and it's about time to put together another game!

Slenker asked if I would mind posting league points on donkeybait and I gladly obliged so every Friday I'll post a link w/ our point standings, hopefully starting tonight. Chow for now.

Calling Stations are my Nemisis

2005-09-08T12:27:00.000-07:00

It took me longer than most, but I HAVE learned that you can't bluff a calling station (a usually loose, passive player that calls with terrible holdings and chases draws, they can't be bluffed easily because they are to stupid to fold), but nonetheless they still seem to mess me up. In last nights bar tourney, I busted out fairly early w/ AK. AK is the hand that sends more people to the rail in NL tourneys than any other hand! Out of position callingstation donkey calls my preflop raise w/ 45o. Flop 873, giving donkey a gutshot str8 draw. Donkey checked and I knew donkey was weak, as donkey is very easy to read and I pushed all in. Donkey calls! and catches a 4! Oh well. Always have atleast a pair when betting into callingstation donkeys?!

Next a bunch of us, 8 to be exact played a cash tournament and . . . I won! Was heads up against Peeps for about 30 minutes and came back from behind to pull it off. I was on the button and limped w/ AQ, he pushed all in w/ A7 I called in a snap and it held up! Was a good match all in all.

I haven't forgot about the other upcoming posts I mentioned in my last post, I'll get to them eventually.

Where to begin? Lots of poker stuff!

2005-09-07T07:41:00.000-07:00

I think I will start with last night and work back in reverse chronological order, for the most part.

Last night the poker league played at Shilo's bar and grill. I got 2nd place in the 7:00, and 5th place in the 10:00 game. Not bad I guess, but I was disappointed on how they turned out.

When the first game got down to heads up, Ryan had just busted out the other player and had me outchipped about 4 to 1. He went all in on on the first heads up hand, I folded. Then I stole some blinds (4k, 8k). Once again the blinds were so high in relation to the stack size that you don't have much of a choice, you need to catch some cards, but I did make a mistake, here it is. Ryan was on the button (heads up that is the small blind) so he is first to act pre flop then last to act in all following rounds. He just called. Now the pot has 16k, and I've got about 20k left. Obviously I need this pot, and then I need to double up. I was pretty sure he wasn't slowplaying a good hand here, and my 23s is not great but I might as well go all in here right? That would be the play most players would make, and was the play I made. This gives you 2 ways to win, he can fold, or you can make a hand in a situation where you are probably only a 60-40 dog. Like I said, I did push all in and he called and his K7o held up. Certainly not a terrible play on my part but this play would have been better, the stop and go.

A stop in go is when you raise, but not all in, and hold back enough chips to make a move at the pot regardless of what comes on the flop. The idea is that you may win with your original raise, you may catch cards, or you may win when you go all in on the flop. It is more powerful when you are first to act (out of position).

Now, some good tourney players would certainly be looking for the stop and go here but many players would not. In our hand, had I raised 10k more he probably would have called (he did call the all in, and he was unlikely to raise w/ the K7o, remember I had a read on him and knew he didn't have a premium hand. When the flop missed us both I would have lead out all in for my last 10k, and he would have thought about it and finally mucked his cards, and I would have picked up a nice pot, and be only 1 double up away from a dominating chip position!

The moral of the story is the next time you find yourself shortstacked consider the stop and go, especially if you are out of position. It can work w/ position, but you run the risk of an agressive player bluff leading into the pot on the flop, then even if you do go all in he may have to call based upon pot odds. Also if someone checks to you first then your all in doesn't have as much weight, it is more likely you are stealing than when you are first to lead into a pot with players yet to act behind you. And always remember: most flops, miss most hands, . . . most of the time! :)

I'm going to take a break, but I've got a trip report from the boats, and a drunken online $100 sit-n-go to report on later! Lots of good poker stuff and 1 horror story (I haven't decided for sure yet whether or not I'll share the horror story, but I am leaning twards doing just that) coming down the pike!

Also I added a link to www.clubvogue.biz, (my place) lots of new stripper pics there! -- Now over 25K unique visitors!

Not much to report

2005-09-02T19:00:00.000-07:00

Began moving stuff again today at 9:30 am, took care of some business, and now It's time to . . . go out, and hopefully get a poker game on tonight!

Moving Sucks!

2005-09-01T14:47:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I've been working on the condo, trying to make it habitable. Without Greg's help I'm not sure I would have got any of it done. Moving is quite possibly my least favorite thing to do. On a positive note I managed to sell my weight equipment, and don't have to mess with moving that!

Monday night I played poker in our bar league, and Mondays are at my place. I won the 7:00, and along w/ the other points I had for the month found myself in 8th place for our league, not too bad considering I didn't play much this month. Last night was the month end cash tourney, and my 8th place spot got me only 8k in chips. Ben and Chase both had over 1M in points and started with stacks of 18k and 14k respectively. So my strategy, besides drinking, was to play pretty fast. I was active in alot of pots, pulled down a few, lost one and found myself about even when I lookded down and found JJ. Knowing how active I had been I figured to get good action w/ the hand and managed to get myself all in w/ 2 callers. One had 99 and Crazy Bob (Crazy is meant as a compliment here) had QQ. I turned a set of jacks, but Bob had already caught his set of Q's and that was that.

One more poker hand, this one from about 1 1/2 weeks ago. Final table, 8 players left, me middle position with KK, I make my standard raise and Casey a solid, sneaky player just calls in late position. the flop comes 8 high, 2 hearts, and is pretty sizable. I can't remember if I checked or bet (I would normally lead out at that pot and would be very suprised if I had checked it) but either way I remember calling all-in in a flash and proudly turned up my KK's only to see Casey's AA. Yuch!!! He slowplayed preflop and I was trying to act weak on the flop! The bullets held up. The classic "cold deck" situation.

Word of the day "cold deck". Unlike a bad beat where you have the advantage statistically and get outdrawn, being colddecked is when the poker gods conspire to put you in a situation you can't get away from and you lose. Set over set or KK vs AA are classic examples.

Also I have had several people mention to me that they can't follow all of the poker lingo, so I have added a link on the right to a poker glossary. It has most poker lingo, but may not be updated w/ some of the new gen-x terms.

It's been a couple of days!

2005-08-27T14:00:00.000-07:00

I got my brother some mtg (magic the gathering) playable, trading cards yesterday, but doing so rekindled the desire to play mtg myself! So the last 2 days I've been playing online. Just wanted to say hi, and will be posting more later.

DB

Featured Stripper of the Week #2

2005-08-23T10:26:00.000-07:00

But don't tell her that, she's #1 in our book! Click below for profile and pics, don't click if you don't want to see scantilly clad strippers!

On another note I played 2 home NL tourneys last night. Both were $20 buy ins and my friend Paul and I each did a $20 last longer (last longers are side bets, in each tourney whoever lasted longest between Paul and I would win the $40 in this case). He won the first tourney, I won the second!

 . . .


Dance Name:  April
Sign:  Libra
Age:  21 (almost)
Height: 5'4"
Weight: 105 lbs.
Personality:  Party Girl!
Favorite Position:  Behind and hard!
Status:  Currently single and available/looking
Hobbies:  Partying, Cooking
Favorite dish to prepare:  BBQ Ribs, finger lickin' good!
Sexual Orientation:  Strictly Dickly
Home Club:  Club Vogue







I apologize for the photo quality, Donkeybait is on the lookout for a new digital camera! You can help by signing up w/ paradise poker through the affiliate links on the donkeybait home page!

Cool Stuff I have for sale!

2005-08-22T11:33:00.000-07:00

This beautiful house is situated on 10 acres with breathtaking panoramic views! Luxury appointments throughout, swimming pool and jacuzzi. 3100 sq. ft. Appraised value in '03 $430,000 a real bargain at $357,500!

Gorgous 1997 Triple Black SL 500 Sport Convertible, low miles, excellent condition. Arrive in style for only $24,900.

Trying to streamline a little, lol. The benzy is a great car and if you love the country my house is about as beautiful and serene as you will find in the Mid-west. E-mail me if you are interested in either of these.

Also I have a complete commercial grade home gym. Most of the componets are by Body Solid, and all equipment is in same as new condition. It includes:

1 full set of dumbells w/ racks
Olympic sized bars and plates with plate trees
Machine cable pull down rack for back and lats
Hack squatt machine for quads, lower back and legs
flat bench
incline bench
seated bench
preacher curl attatchment
olympic sized curl bar
roman chair
ab roller
excersize mat
and medium weight punching bag
well over $5000.00 new, make offer.

New Links

2005-08-22T11:18:00.000-07:00

I added some new poker links today. 2+2 is the definitive think tank strategy page covering just about every aspect of poker. This is the Sklansky/Malmuth stuff. Pocket Fives is a cool site my friend Matt turned me onto. They rank the top online tournament players, pretty interesting. Pokerwire is done by Full Tilt Poker and covers large events in real time. Poker Portal is a collection of hundreds of online poker links. And finally poker pulse is the Industry site that tracks traffic counts to various online poker sites. Enjoy!

Also I played 4 tournaments at my house yesterday, only 4 players, won 2. One of the players was quite drunk, and was playing like a total maniac! He continued to go all-in, repeatedly both pre flop and on the flop, occasionally on the turn. This really changed my game, usually I am the aggressor, but in this case I limped on any 2 cards I wanted to see the flop w/ except big pocket pairs and let him bet my hands. During the first match I was just looking to flop top pair to call his all in's with, alas, it never happened and I went out first in the tourney. However that strategy worked well in 2 of the 4 and is the best way to handle a crazy all-in opponet!

And the good news is . . . www.donkeybait.com has now had over 20,000 unique visitors!

Bad Break

2005-08-21T15:21:00.000-07:00

Out in 64th. Had a5o in the BB, w/ 13K left. It was folded to the SB, he raised, and had been an active player, bullying the table, who had played more than 50% of the hands I saw dealt to him, I reraised all in (first time all tournament that I was all in), figuring to have the best hand, and that he would fold. Unfortunately he had TT this time and I didn't catch any cards. It was a tough spot, w/ the Ante's and blind sizes, plus the cards really broke against me the last hour.

2nd Break

2005-08-21T15:01:00.000-07:00

I stole one good pot, and a couple of blinds, but it's been a poor hour overall. Stack T16,800, average 24,300. I haven't had anything to work with, and my speculative/drawing hands have been raised out preflop. I got moved to a new table w/ less than 1 min left before this the second break. I don't recognize any of the players at my new table but fortunately the 3 stacks to my left are all smaller than me, then there's a 27k stack, a tiny 300 stack, 16K, 33K, 31K, and on my right 11k. There are 79 players left. Blinds are now 400/800 w/ a 100 ante, so I'll have to pick up my reads quick, and make a move pretty soon.

1st Break Bugsy's 10K Guaranteed Shoot Out

2005-08-21T13:48:00.000-07:00

192 players started, $3000 first place, top 20 get paid, starting chips T10K. 3 key hands in the first hour. KQo, under the gun turns a str8, brings down a 14k pot. KK early position flop 962 rainbow, bet pot pulled down a nice score. KQs, middle position, I reraised a solid player, he calls. Turn King, he bets, I call. River a blank, and he bluffs into it w/ ajo, I call and win another key pot. I sensed he was weak but he also didn't bet enough on his bluff to drive me out. Additionally I had him outchipped and he called my reraise out of position, bad idea, he should have folded or reraised. I remember him from 3 years ago when I first started playing poker. In one of my first tournaments I rivered the nut flush but lost to his Q high str8flush. I've watched his play and at the time thought he was a pretty good player. It's interesting how your perspective changes, as you become a better player and notice other players mistakes.

I lost one medium sized pot right before the break. Anyway, my stack is now T19,400 and average is T13,900. 138 players remain. Will update later.

DB

1st out of 18

2005-08-20T16:05:00.000-07:00

on a multitable satellite into a 10K guaranteed tourney for tomorrow. I still haven't played in the 100k guarantee that I can play any time. Today's satallite cost $11 and now I'm in tomorrows $50+5 Bugsy's Club shoot out. I like their tourney alot, and plan to win tomorrow!

Bar League Results

2005-08-17T23:19:00.000-07:00

I got second place last night out of 5 tables, probably 38 players. When it got down to heads up, they told us we only had 10 minutes left to play, and raised the blinds to 10k/20k. I did briefly catch the lead, but not the cards and finished in second place.

Wish I was back in Tunica

2005-08-17T12:17:00.000-07:00

but unfortunately I have to do some work on my house that I am trying to sell and take care of some other business.

Last week when I went to Tunica I showed up with $400, planning on playing satellites for a shot at getting into the tournaments. I really, really tore the 1 table satellites up. They were spreading $65 1 table satellites, winner gets $550, $120 1 table satellites, winner gets $1100, and occasionally larger ones which I did not play in. I chopped (chopping occurs when the final 2, sometimes 3 players agree to divide the prize money up rather than play out the satellite) my very first satellite. All in all out of 15 satellites I won 2 outright and chopped 4 others. That's a pretty good run.

With my satellite wins I was able to play 2 tournaments as a total freeroll. the $300 NL hold'em tournament with over 850 players and the $500 NL hold'em tournament that had over 550 players. In the first I made it into the top third, well out of the money.

The second Tournament, the $500, was about as ugly a tournament as I have ever had. I never oncy had a pair or better (including pocket pairs) untill my final hand. The only pot I won was on the second hand of the tournament. The blinds were 25-25, and I had AK under the gun. I raised to 50 and everyone folded, not a bad outcome, but certainly hardly even qualifies as a pot. On my final hand, about 3 hours into the tournament, I found myself w/ KT on the button. There was one limnper, I limped, the small blind called and along with the big blind 4 of us saw a flop of QJT rainbow. I was last to act with a pair of tens and an open ended straight draw. The turn came a 9, giving me my K high straight and putting 2 spades on the board. I figured I had the best hand, knowing well that any AK could beat me, but didn't put any players on AK. Me and the original limper got it all in and we each showed KT for the 2nd nut straight. Unfortunately he was on a freeroll (we had tying hands and would chop the pot unless another spade came on the river giving him a flush and the whole pot). Even this chopped pot would have been nice as there had been signifigant action on the flop and I stood to pick up some additional chips. To my dismay the 2 of spades spiked on the river and I lost to runner, runner. Oh well.

All in all I was very happy with my tournament results, I got to play 2 tournaments for free, plus made additional money from the satellites. I wish I could say that the trip was a moneymaker, but I decided to sit down at my first ever live Pot Limit Ohaha game and got creamed. Chalk that up to more poker tuition expenses I guess.

I got a new toy yesterday, it is an Alcohawk personal alcohol breathalyzer. Recent technological advances have brought the price of these things down to less than $100, and they are accurate to .01% at a bac of .1%. You can find them on Amazon.com. The only catch is you are supposed to stop drinking 20 minutes before breathing into the unit or your results will be scewed by actual alcohol in your mouth, not your breath. I have found that waiting 10 minutes offers accurate results, plus who can stop drinking for 20 mins! I was pleasantly suprised to learn that I can have more drinks than I thought, and still be legal to drive! This thing is really cool, works great, is accurate, and educational. A couple of years ago I refused a police breathalyzer test based upon my attorney advice and figuring I would exceed .08 and get a dwi. As a result of refusing the test I lost my license for 1 year. Now I know that I would have been fine and should have blown into their silly machine, oh well.

One mroe poker hand, this one from last nights bar league. down to probably 18 players, 3 tables of 6. I've got an average stack and pick up A5s under the gun + 1. The blinds are huge, 2k/4k and knew that 2 players still to act had poor hands (by the way they responed when looking at their cards) so I pushed all in. The Big Blind, this crazy loose calling station girl, calls with k8o!!! I catch an unecessary 5 on the flop and she somehow manages to make a flush by the river to knock me out. I guess I should have done a stop and go, bet half my stack preflop, then push the rest in regardless of what comes on the flop.

Gonna try to get some things done today. Hope to check in later.

DB

I'm really, really tired

2005-08-15T00:29:00.000-07:00

I just figured out the local dial up number from the Grand in Tunica. I've got to be up at 8am, and on the road by 8:30 for a 2:30 meeting in St. Louis, and I've been playing poker for the better part of the last 72hrs. I'll do my best to get the Tunica/WSOP circuit trip report up as soon as possible.

I tore up the 1 table satellites and won my way into 2 events, plus pocketed some nice cash. I can't wait to get down here again!

Goodnight.

DB

Forget the CPC . . .

2005-08-09T10:01:00.000-07:00

I'm going to Tunica for a WSOP Circuit Event. Tomorrow the satellites start, Thursday a $300 NL hold'em event, Lots of fun events up to the 10k event on the 22. I've got a few things to do in town today, then If all goes well I'll drive down tonight! Finally back to the world of free drinks, and decent room rates! That alone should put me in the black! lol.

Quick update, mid game

2005-08-06T14:55:00.000-07:00

This omaha hi low is the bomb! Yes I'm off to a good start but man, these people are donkeys! I think they are attracted to the game because of the gamble, but man, if you just wait for premium hands, and make mediocre decisions on the flop I don't think you can lose!

This is a new additon to this post (an edit), still mid game. Man, what a deal, just by watching how these omaha hilow players play, if you haven't played yet, check it out!

Killing some time, book reviews

2005-08-06T11:38:00.000-07:00

It's about 2:15 pm, and after an uneventful evening spent reading, I woke up fairly refreshed at 11. I'm now at one of my favorite wifi watering holes drinking a miller lite, and killing time until I meet my family later.

Last night I read "The Professor, The Banker, and The Suicide King. Inside Pokers Richest Game". The book is not a novel, but is supposed to be an accurate retelling of the on again off again, 3 yr., ultra high stakes, heads up poker matches between billionaire Andy Beal and the top cash game players in the world. Doyle Brunson, Chip Reese, Howard Lederer, Jennifer Harmon, Ted Forrest, Phil Ivey, Barry Greenstein, Todd Brunson, Gus Hanson, and several others.

Aside from being an interesting "story", I enjoyed reading more about the top poker players. Ted Forrest in particular makes a very interesting read. The accounts of the big matches, which were heads up limit matches w/ blinds between 20k/40k all the way up to 100k/200k, were supposed to be accurate, either the source was very reliable or multiple people verified the accounts.

Andy, an entrepreneur and banker, was a thrifty one who flew coach not first class but apparently when he set his mind to something he went all the way. Apperently he lost 200M in some speculative outerspace rocket project, but losses like that really didn't effect a guy pulling down 200m+ a year. Andy was initially concerned about be cheated by the pro's so he insisted on playing them heads up. The pros on the other hand were concerned about going broke at those stakes so they teamed up and each put up a share of between 100k and 500k, and formed a pool of cash to take on Andy.

According to all accounts Andy was a relative beginner at first, and his game improved dramatically during the 3 years they played. The pro's all agree that even at the beginning Andy was a good player. Now I wasn't there during all this, but don't be decieved! The pros fleeced this guy for millions and millions of dollars. He stood no chance! He might get lucky, and win a few sessions, and hid did, but he was dead money! I would be willing to bet that some of his wins were strategic, so he would get hooked in for more. If he improved so much during the 3 years, how could he have been dangerous at the beginning?

Andy always wanted to play for higher stakes, and felt that that would put the pro's out of their comfort zone. The pro's always resisted, as they should. IMHO, here is the real deal. Variation in heads up play against an agressive player (and Andy was ultra agressive) can have huge, wild fluctuations. The pro's would much rather chip, chip, chip away at this donkey, than risk any huge fluctuation, that at any time could threaten some of their bank rolls.

Some of his big losses came to Jennifer Harmon and Todd Brunson, now this is a stretch, and is based on no facts, but is it possible that guys like Doyle, and Chip let him win a mil once and a while, only so the sweet Jennifer Harmon, and not as prestegious Todd Brunson could fleece him? I don't know, but these guys are no dummies. He might chalk up his losses to the sweet pretty girl and Doyle's kid as bad luck, while comforting himself in the fact the he whipped up on Doyle and Chip.

Picture this: Andy Beal, in a black hat, dark black sunglasses, button down shirt, with a random number vibrator in his shoe, and some silly stop watch he had modified by cutting off the minute and hour hands (leaving only the second hand to refer to, so he could randomize his play), and 5 racks of chips on the table that he used a some sort of a visual abbacus to figure pot odds. This is all true! What a dork! I'm sure there were many, many chuckles at his expense, even though the pro's were all very polite to Andy, the same Andy that they complemented on his expert play! These are the same pros that highly compliment the play of actor Ben Affleck (who apperently is decent), actor James Woods (who I personally watched on TV play Johnny Chan heads up and he is not very good, though he did get lucky at the beginning), and any other donkey with a large bankroll.

One of the tactics the pros used to get Andy back in the game was to send one of his top employees, who also liked poker, an autographed copy of Doyle's new book "Super System 2". Andy had lost a ton on his previous visit to Vegas, and had sworn off poker and asked the pro's to never contact him again! The book trick worked. Thus was born the new and improved Andy, with all the ridiculous accoutrements.

Finally the New York Times (I think it was) did a story on the matches that portrayed Andy as a sucker. He was insensed and defended himself through an open letter in Card Player magazine challenging the pros to a rematch, Doyle responded in another open letter and the match has yet to take place. My prediction, this time the pros are going to relentlessly slaughter this guy. Also, don't be suprised if the royalties from some hyped up tv deal make everyone involved a winner!

I would like to add that I don't want you the reader to think I am overly glorifying the pros, this isn't really coming out right, but I think you'll get the jist of what I'm trying to say. Many people compare poker to other sports and say things like what are your chances of beating Michael Jordan in 1 on 1, or taking down Tiger Woods in match play, but anyone with a chip and a chair can sit down and play poker with the best and have a shot of winning. This is true, kinda sorta. Let me explain, in a full ring game you may come out a winner one time in 10, in a tournament you make catch a rush and make the final table, but in heads up play, with equal deep stacks, against Phil Ivey you had better just push all in on any decent 2 card holding, otherwise you will be beat (this is called big ball poker and pros hate it, they prefer small ball poker). Note: Phil still has the advantage.

I started reading Mike Cappalletti's book on Omaha hi low. Suprisingly it seems to contain excellent strategy. I'm going to start the next phaze of my poker education and delve into omaha hi low. I believe this will also have the added benifit of improving my overall poker skills, plus many claim a decent omaha hi low player can earn more bets/hour than at hold'em. My main focus will remain NL Texas Hold'em tournaments, and my quest for a big, telivised final table. Time to hit the online tables!

DB

Chicago Trip Report Part 2

2005-08-05T09:07:00.000-07:00

Good morning. Did I mention that the macadamia nut crusted sea bass at TJ's restaurant (located inside Resorts East Chicago) was delicious, I highly recommend it.

After satellite number 2 I had a couple of hours to kill so I got on the list for the 20-40 w/ a 1/2 kill, the 5-10 NL, and the 10-20 w/ 1/2 kill list. They were quite long, and when I finally got called to the 20-40 game I only had a few minutes untill my satellite started. The table was very beatable though, and I had been watching them, so I sat down, bought in for $800, and played 1 rotation. I posted 20 for the big blind, 10 for the small, and never once saw a flop in the 10 hands I was there for a loss of $30. I had to give up my seat for the satellite and it was time to start sat. #3.

Sat. # 3 was nearly identical to sat #2. I steadily built my chip stack, was very happy with my play overall and found myself on the heels of the chip leader when it got down to 3 handed. Now these things escalate fast, and you are forced to mix it up. This time my AKs went down in flames to A8o. We got it all in and he hit a flush, actually the board flushed in one of his suits! You no what they say, on offsuit hand is better than a suited one, it can make one of 2 flushes! lol. Oh well, I still love poker.

Fast Forward to Tournament Time, Wednesday 11:45 am. 15 minutes to showtime. Time to have that last cigarette. I have 2 choices here, outside on the ships deck where it is hot, humid, smelly, and packed with smelly poker players or adjacent to the poker room in the High Limit Black Jack + other negative expectation gambling games room. My favorite cocktail waitress, Heidi, is there and the room is much more luxurious than the rest of the casino, plus they have Patron tequilla at that bar. I choose the latter. Heidi and co, wish me luck as I go through my pregame ritual.

Here's how this game is set up; each player starts with T3000, rounds are 30 minutes long, blinds start at 25/50 and escalate to 50/100, 100/200, 100/200 w/ a $25 ante, 20 min break, 200/400 $50 ante/ double from here on out!. The structure starts off ok but soon, about round 6, the blinds come on pretty hard. There were 62 players, the top 8 got paid and first was 12.k.

I lost the first pot I was involved in, but it was relatively small, then I steadily built my stack up and maintained an above average chip stack throught the first 5 rounds. One interesting hand late in round 4. It's folded the the Button who makes a standard raise. The SB goes all in for a total of about 3k. I peek down at KK, hmmm, this could be interesting. I know the Button is a solid player, that also has me slightly outchipped, but he could very easily have been trying to steal the blinds. His most likely holding, imho, is either a pair or any ace, kq, kj, qj, kt. I can play this one of 2 ways, push all in or smooth the 3k hoping to trap the button for additional chips after the flop. I think and very subtley make it look like the call was a stretch, the button also calls! I got what I wanted, but be careful what you ask for right! The flop comes Q,8,3 all hearts! (I've got Kd/Kc). Since the SB is all in it's up to me and I've got about 6k left. There's a little over 9k in the middle, now alot of people say you should never bluff into a dry side pot, but in reality you need to evaluate every situation and do what needs to be done to give you the most equity in the hand. The hearts were scary but I wasn't going to let the button draw to 1 heart or an A so I pushed all in. The button folded, whew, and showed AJ. We flipped our cards over and the SB had 2 garbage clubs. The turn blanked and the river was an A! I pull down a nice pot!

It's about 20 minutes to break time and my friend Greg, who bought $100 worth of my action, came up with a hamburger and sweated my play for a bit. I find 22 in the small blind and limp in, 4 of us see a flop of 2,6, 9, rainbow (no flush draw possible). The flop was about as safe as could be and I decide to slowplay and check, it's checked around. Turn Q, I check, hoping the Q hit someone and really expecting to check raise, but it's checked around again. River a K, I bet out a measly T200 and it's folded to me. I then show Greg my hand, a flopped set of dueces, and a player across the table says "I want to see those cards". If you show your cards to anyone the rule is show one show all, and I gladly oblige, and say "flopped a set of dueces!" This is one of those times when it is a good idea to show your cards, let people know that your checks don't mean weakness.

On the very last hand before break I am dealt AKo, and raise the big blind calls. Flop is a bunch of rags and BB checks, I also check. Turn a third heart, no help. BB checks, I had already decided I was not going to lose a big pot w/ ak, plus something felt fishy. I check. River a rag, BB checks, and I check 1/2 thinking I might when the showdown. BB turns over J5 hearts for a turned flush. I asked him "did you know you had a flush? He truly was afraid to bet it because he as he said, had just seen me waiting in the bushes with my set!!! How cool is that. Man I'm in the zone, and didn't make the amateur mistake of losing alot w/ ak.

Alas all does not end well. We get down to about 24 players and I still have an above average chipsstack, but that is a little misleading because the blinds are now 400/800 and soon to be 800/1600. So in reality almost everyone is in or close to the "Red Zone"! (see Harrington on Hold'em vol 2 for an excellent explanation of chip stacks in relationship to the blinds, and how to play accordingly). I find myself on the button w/ T9o and under the gun limps, it's then folded to me. The small and big blinds are both older guys, and play like typical older guys, squeaky tight. Also the UTG player is a horrible player. He has me outchipped but is by far the biggest donkey in the tournament. I know his limp is unlikely to be a premium hand slowplayed, could be any 2 cards, and that he is very unlikely to reraise me. Now I nead to make a move at a pot soon, and since my table image was very solid I raise. I would normally raise about 4 times the BB here, but since the SB and BB are so tight why risk that much, they'll fold for less or if they wake up w/ a monster I'll lose less, so I make it 2K to go. They both fold and out of position donkey UTG just calls. Flop K,7,4 2 spades, 1 club. UTG checks, I know he doesn't have a king. Turn a T of clubs. I now know I have the best hand. He bets 1.5k I put him and his probably flush draw all in, he calls without thinking! Dealer says to flip our cards over which I do, showing 2nd pair. Donkey doesn't, and waits until the river, the 3rd club hits, then goes crazy. His hand was Q8s. The slowrolling, stupid calling donkey hit his runner runner flush to knock me out. I was a 70%+ favorite when the money went in and his call (and the way he played his hand) was the worst play I witnessed any player make in the entire tournament. I would have been chip leader, but oh well that's poker, and I still love it!

I've noticed that I almost always have the best of it when the money is in. I'm not talking about coinflips that occur, but I will be destined to experience the brunt of bad beats, while servicing my fellow competitors with relatively few in return. This is a good thing, if you have a good feel for where you are in a hand and find yourself with the best of it thats just the way it is.

I've also noticed that I need a degree of poker maturity. When Phil Ivey was knocked out of the 2003 WSOP main event I believe he was in the top 27 and took a horrible beat. He apparently shirked it off without as much as a frown, or look of dismay. Now that is one cool customer who truly see's that a bad beat is mearly a mathmatical possibility, regardless of any consequences it has on you personally. Why clutter your mind with garbage?

It was during the WSOP 1K tourney that my game really gelled, my poker quickening occured, and I feel very confident about my play, realizing that I have a long, long road ahead of me, with alot to learn and experience, but at the same time the knowledge that I can hang with anyone. I am also at a point where my learning curve as it relates to reading hands is improving startlingly fast, I don't feel like I have reached a plateau. One thing I've noticed is that I tend to give unknown players too much respect. They may at first appear to be a good player, but really are just scared, weak, tight players who disguise it well for a bit. I think this is an ok thing though. Stay inline until you get atleast an educated guess about a players style.

I seem to project a very confident table image. A few hours after the $500 tourney was over, I ventured back to the poker room to see who won the tourney and a player approached me and said "did you chop?". I was like, huh?, he goes on "you won the tournament right?", sadly I informed him that I did not. He played at my first table, and I guess he felt that I was a big favorite to win! How about that guy that checked his turned flush down to me!

You need to be respected to have a good chance of winning these things, and here are a couple of pointers on how to achieve this. First, the game moves at your pace! I am not saying that you should unecessarily delay the game, or take forever to fold 7-2 preflop, but take your time with any decision, and put any player "foolish" enough to re-raise you on ice. In one of my favorite movies of all time, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Clint Eastwood plays a renegade southerner, post civil war, with a large bounty on his head. He is confronted several times by people looking to cash in on the large bounty, dead or alive. Often he is suprised, but remains cool, handles all threats on his own time. When 4 union soldiers unexpectedly bump into him he stops, slowly turns his head and spits and then cooly says "are you gonna pull those guns or whistle dixie. The 4 soldiers freeze while Josey surveys them. Josey knew the guy on the left, the one with crazy eyes was likely to make the first move, the guy 2nd to left had scarred eyes, and 3rd from the left had a flapped holster. What about the guy on the far right? well somtimes you need a little help or gotta get lucky. Josey was faster, and picked them off 1 by 1. He was able to do this because he made excellent reads, and took psychological controll of the situation.

Secondly, make a strong slow play and make it known, even if you have to show the hand. Other players need to see that you are capable of checking a strong holding. Even If you check you could hold the stone cold nuts.

Thirdly, nearly always (95%+) raise the pot when you are first to enter preflop. So many good things happen. You may win the pot right there, you apply great pressure to those behind you, people are easier to read when under pressure, you disguise your holding, and lastly may ferret out any premium hand. I love it at a table when 3 or more players often limp, 1st in, preflop. If they respect you they are less likely to slowplay AA against you.*

And lastly I prefer to dress well. This is debatable, but for me it works. If you take poker serious, you should treat it serious, look serious, and dress serious. No tie required, but comfortable slacks, and a button down shirt do the trick. Black is also a good color. I have always felt more comfortable overdressed than underdressed but find what works for you. Whatever works for you do shower, wear clean clothes, and not appear like a shit bum. In 2002 poker nearly became extint in casino's partly because from management's perspective poker attracted, poorly dressed, smelly, players who wanted everything for free.*

Lastly, I will continue to plug, plug away. One of these days the planets will line up and I'll win one of these deals. I felt real good about my chances in this last tourney . . . and even better about my chances in the next one. gotta go now.

DB

I need to give credit where credit is due, I think it was Chris Ferguson who recently wrote about always raising first in, ofcourse I am aware of that and practice it, but reading it recently pobably made it stick out in my mind when I wrote this. Also I added a couple of benifits from raising he didn't mention: people are easier to read under pressure, and ferreting out premium hands. Also It was in The Prof, The Banker, and The Suicide King that I learned about management's view of cheap smelly poker players, but that example fit my point perfectly.

Decisions, Decisions

2005-08-04T23:01:00.000-07:00

What to do, or rather which to do first. I went by my house, checked my mail, and opened my Amazon.com order. I now have to choose between the new issue of Cardplayer magazine, How to Win at Omaha High-Low Poker by Mike Cappelletti, or The Professor, The Banker, and the Suicide King, a novel about the highest stake poker game of all time between the top vegas pros and Andy Beal, a businessman billionaire. I think I'll start with the latter tonight, some soft reading will do me good. Trip report #2 will be up tomorrow, God willing.

Chicago Trip Report Part 1

2005-08-04T19:53:00.000-07:00

I just got back from Chicago about an hour ago. While there I played 2 (short) sessions of 5-10 limit, 1 short session of 20-40 limit, 3 $65 single table satellites, and 1 $500 buy in multi table tourney. These tournaments are part of the Chicago Poker Championship that culminates in a two day, $2700 event this Aug. 13-14. The CPC is being held at the luxurious "Resorts East Chicago" hotel and casino situated in the beautiful city of East Chicago (think Gary, Indiana!) and nestled between a filthy marina, a heavy industrial zone, one of The Donald's less prestigous casino boats, and a couple of trashy strip joints. In all fariness Resorts is a good hotel, excellent rooms, good food, and nice amenities (except there is no high speed internet, for love or money, no business center either), just don't open the window the air quality outside isn't that great.

We, my friend Greg and I, arrived Tuesday morning around 5:30 am but couldn't check into our room untill about 10:45 (more about this later) so to kill time I checked out the poker room which runs 24/7. They spread 5-10 limit, 10-20 limit, 20-40 limit with a 1/2 kill, 5-10 NL, and 1-5 stud, however the only games available at that time were 5-10 limit and 20-40 limit. I decided to take the easy 5-10 game and bought in for $200. The game was fairly typical and straight forward poker was the way to beat these guys. One player to my right was way to agressive and I looked forward to checkraising him, but the opportunity never presented itself. Another player was dozing off between hands and he proved to be a good target. After quickly losing $60 I waited patiently for my spots and left about an hour later up $93. Enough to pay for my first satellite!

It was about 8am now and I really wanted to get some sleep and be refreshed for the noon satellite. After checking with the front desk which informed me I wouldn't be able to check in untill 2pm, I sought out a casiono host, she said she could get me in by noon, then it was back to the front desk to speak to a front desk manager, and explain I had been driving all night and needed to be ready to go for the poker tourney. She was really understanding, and w/ one call on her radio had it all set up.

Ring, ring, ring, wake up call time. I shower and head back to the poker room. The first satellite didn't go very well, in fact I was the donkey! I wasn't really in the groove and after losing some key hands early on found myself short stacked. I usually pride myself in my shortstack play but for some dumbass reason I decided to push my last chips in w/ 97 suited from late position. I did think the big blind would fold but it was still a stupid play, I could have waited for a better spot. This time I was the donkey but I vowed to not be a donkey again.

The next satellite was at 4pm so I cought a couple more hours of sleep, had my ritual 1 shot of tequilla (chilled patron, the best!) and was ready. I played really, really well. My reads were excellent and there was no doubt that I was in charge of the table. The satellite structure was as follows: T1000 to start, rounds 15 mins long, starting w/ 25/50. In round 2 I got American Airlines, raised it up from middle position, got 2 callers. Flop A,T, rag. Early guy bets out, I call, late position folds. Turn rag, early guy bets out, I know he's weak, Hope he has an A, I decide to push all in and then manipulate him into calling. So I hollywood for a bit, and then quickly shove all my chips in . . ., he thinks, and thinks and the whole time I'm thinking, call me, call me, I'm really on a flush draw, I swallow hard, stop breathing and he Calls!, with only an A! He's drawing dead and I'm sitting pretty :) We get down to 3 handed and I'm a slight chip leader when this awful hand happens.

I'm in the BB with AQs, button folds, SB calls I make a standard raise, SB calls. Flop A,4,4. SB bets I put her all in and she calls showing 33. Turn 4, river 4. Split pot, we both have quad 4's with an A kicker (the board)! Oh well thats poker. Shortly after that I find AKo in the SB. Button calls (the lucky girl), I make a standard raise, BB puts me all in, button folds, and I quickly call. I didn't want to play a huge pot here, but 3 handed you just can't lay down AKo, especially when I didn't read him for having a premium hand. He shows KQo, and when he sees my hand he said, "I thought you were bluffing", well all is good untill he catches a K high str8 on the river, now I'm out in third. I still love poker! Stay tuned, gonna take a break and update the rest later, and it gets better!

Packin'

2005-08-01T19:24:00.000-07:00

my bags for Chicago, plan to play some $65 1 table satellite tourneys tomorrow and a $500 tourney wed. Will update from Chicago.

Lots of good stuff coming

2005-07-31T12:20:00.000-07:00

Hi, Last night was interesting to say the least; alcohol, poker, stalkers, cocktails, matchbooks, poker, rasberries and beer. I'm pretty tired but later today I'll post last nights poker results, some interesting stories from last night, and the 2nd Featured Stripper of the Week! Stay tuned . . . :)
DB

Not much poker to report

2005-07-30T10:48:00.000-07:00

I stayed in last night, watched TV and pretty much just took it easy. I woke up this morning at 9:00 feeling refreshed, and then headed out to my house to do some long overdue work. I just recently put my house on the market and I'm afraid selling it may take some time. It is a unique property, very contemporary design, on 10 acres, with breathtaking views. The problem is the house only has 1 bedroom, a 1100 sq ft master. Not many people shop for contemporary homes in my market, plus the ones that do may have families. The perfect buyer for my place would be a bachelor, like myself, or an empty nest couple.

My interests sometimes border on the bizarre and to make the place more sellable I wanted to remove items that may "offend" the faint of heart. These include things like authentic voodoo masks, budda statuary, my collection of dead animals (a russian boar I killed, several geese, a lesser kudo, bear rug etc., misc. weapons like samari swords and porn. I also collect Todd McFarlane's Spawn Toy's and these look rather demonic and had to be stowed away. I opened one of the upstairs closets and a life sized inflate-a-mate, came tumbling out. (It was a gag gift/ party prop).

My friend Greg came out and helped me and together we finished the job in less than 2 hrs. Thanks also to Stacey for doing a quick, good, clean yesterday!

I really, really dislike any and all manual labor . . . I'm just not cut out for it. I've been trying to find excuses, and suceeded in putting this job off for over a week now! I know that this is a small part of the reason that poker appeals to me so much, however I am a little concerned about getting callouses from the felt, (especially along the posterior tip of your thumb where it rubs the felt when you glance at your cards)!

On a happy note, I am really looking forward to my road trip to Chicago to play in the Chicago Poker Championship.

A couple of nights ago my father and I had dinner together at this restaurant, Jacks Gourmet. I haven't been there in a while because it is a totally non-smoking establishment. So after we placed our order, we walked outside and I had a cigarette. They have a couple ashtray/urns outfront and we didn't seem to be bothering anyone. This well dressed geriatric couple ambled twards the entry and my Dad reached over and held the door for them. The old man didn't say thank you, but instead commented, in a snotty fashion "you can't do that within 20 ft of the entryway." (he was referring to a city ordinanace that bans smoking within 20 ft. of a buildings entry). I replied "what, hold a door for someone?" What a shithead! Why do people think they can but into your personal business? Anyway it was probably a good 3 minutes before my blood pressure returned to normal and I realize how little trivial things, like some asshole not minding his own god damn business, can put you on tilt. I really need to work on this, (actually I have come a long, long way), but letting people get to you is a bad thing at the poker table.

I plan to play a couple of online tourneys today, maybe go out for a drink or 2 later. Will update later if I feel like it.

DB

Best Hand, Best Draw, and a Cab

2005-07-29T10:37:00.000-07:00

The 7:00 bar game started off kinda shaky. I was down to about 7k of my original 8.5 when blinds jumped to 1k/2k. Caleb had been playing real active and he limped in, I felt he was weak and went all in w/ 25o from the small blind and picked it up. The very next hand I dealt myself 88, Paul limped this time, I went all in, they folded and now I had a nice little chip stack.

1 rotation later I find myself in the big blind w/ A6s. Paul limped from middle position, the button called, and I rapped the table. (I thought about raising, but decided to see the flop, I wish I had raised now). Flop comes J,8,4, w/ 2 spades. I've now got the nut flush draw with an over card. I felt like this was a good flop for my hand, how should I play it, hmmmmm. I've got about 16k in chips and the pot is 7k, hmmmm, the button has about 10k and paul has about the same number of chips as I do. I decide to fire out 4k, figuring I may just bring it down right here. Paul goes all in over the top, the button folds, and I go into the tank. I decided that Paul was on a draw, probably a lesser flush draw than me. I call, he shows 9,To for an open ended str8 draw. Excellent, I'm over 70% to win the hand . . . turn off suit 7! Ouch, now I'm a big dog, the river blanked and I counted down my stack hoping to have a chip or 2 left but as it turned out our stacks were identical and I was out. I really, really liked the read, and made a great call but hey thats poker!

In the 10:00 game, the $1200 cash game, My friend Matt and I swapped out 30% of whatever we won, and Peeps and I bet a $10 last longer. Last longers are just a side bet where who ever last longest out of the participants wins the side pot.

First hand, I'm in the big blind, blinds are 250/500, 8 handed and early position guy raises to 2500 straight, the button calls, and I look down to find A3s. I've played with the button before and he's hard to read, but plays solid. I decide it's time to take control of the table, plus there is alot in the center, and I didn't sense any real strength out there. I'm all in! Early position limper thinks and calls, the button calls instantly, oooops. Early position guy shows TT, wow bad call, the button has KK, but there is a beautiful A on the flop. All is well untill a king gets turned and I'm out. Damn, I was in the zone too. Atleast the best hand held up! I've thought about that play a little, and feel comfortable with it. I think the TT should have folded, and ofcourse the KK was right to call, funny slowplay call though. If he had raised I would have been out of there, but with the speed of these things, there was just so much to gain by taking control of the table right then and there, Only a premium hand was likely to call my all in.

Next a bunch of us headed out for drinks and then It was back to the club, where I smartly decided to call a cab.
DB

Stuey Ungar: One of a Kind

2005-07-28T09:10:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone, it's been a while. I had to go out of town for a cople of days. Not alot of poker to talk about but I did finish reading "One of a kind the rise and fall of Stuey "the kid" Ungar, the world's greatest poker player, by Nolan Dalla and Peter Alson.

You won't learn about how to play poker in this book, but If you ever wanted to learn more about Stuey, you'll learn all you wanted here. When I read a book, I usually devour it, cover to cover, in 1 or 2 days. While, I found this book to be interesting, it didn't captivate me, and I have been fooling around with it for 2 weeks now.

Stuey was the son of a illiterate, jewish, barowner/bookie from NY who was a pretty horrible father. Stuey, who never graduated high school, was a prodigy, gifted with an excellent memory, and perhaps the best card sense of anyone, ever. He won millions, they estimate over 30 million, but was continually broke and borrowing money from friends/ backers. He would wager all his money on sports and other wreckless gambles, while his drug habits grew worse and worse. Ultimately his love for his daughter couldn't motivate him enought to conquer his demons. His downward spiral of obsessive drug use led to his premature death.

I wish I had been around poker 15 or so years ago to see first hand how the game "developed", It would have been kinda cool to have played a session with the kid.

I never understand how a persons need for "action" can overide their their common sense. A smart gambler always has an edge, stuey rarely did.

I think tonight is my bar league's cash tournament. The to 40 monthly point leaders compete for $1200, split over the top 3 places. I've got alot to do today, bit I will try to update later, tomorrow at the latest.

DB

Chicago Poker Championship

2005-07-25T12:45:00.000-07:00

The Chicago Poker Championship is being held August 1st - the 14th at the Resorts East Chicago Hotel and Casino. Check out this link for details. The main event starts on the 13th, has a buyin of $2700, and is limited to the first 140 entries. Other tournaments have buy ins around $200 -$300. Sounds like fun, e-mail me if you plan on going.

DB

Big 100k next Sunday, Todays Result

2005-07-24T16:14:00.000-07:00

Went to register in the 100K event and the server denied my registration! I guess I waited to long or something, anyways, I still have the entry to a 100K event for next week!

Played the 10k shootout at Bugsy's Club, 192 players everyone starts w/ T10,000. Quickly built my stack up to T14,000, when this dreadful hand occured.

100/200 blinds and it's folded to me on the button w/QTs, I raise to 600, idiot donkey in the BB calls. Flop 6,T,8. He bets out the pot, I call w/ top pair and the 3rd nut flush draw. Turn, Q. He bets out the pot, I call with top 2 pair, 3rd nut flush draw. I really didn't want to play a big pot here because he had alot of chips and it was early on in the tournament (sometime soon I'll post about strategy behind controlling pot size in tournaments). I felt like he had either AT, or an overpair. He had played top pair this way several hands ago. What do you do? definately not going to fold my top 2 and flush draw to this donkey who plays top pair bad kicker like the nuts. River was an offsuit rag, he bets 5k (less than the pot), I deliberate and call. Donkey shows 79o for the flopped straight. What an donkey! called my raise out of position with trash, oh well, it's unfortunate that he got my chips, because he'll never make the money. I've still got 3k left, not long after this I get JJ and make the standard raise, AKo reraises, I call, he hits on the flop. When these things happen in tournaments there isn't much you can do.

DB

Any Ideas?

2005-07-24T10:14:00.000-07:00

Trying to figure out how to play poker while driving! The internet connection shouldn't be a problem, I can use my sprint phone w/ a data link, but how to see the screen on my laptop? Projecting it on the windshield would be nice, but I don't know how to do that. What about those TV eyeglasses, could you see out of them enough to drive? I don't really want to prop my laptop up on some makeshift car desk, but I can't come up w/ anything else.

$2 rebuy madness, many mullets, and a well ran horse!

2005-07-24T08:40:00.000-07:00

I've always said that I didn't like rebuy tournaments. But I've gotta tellya the $2 frenzy on paradise was actually kinda fun. I managed to get $20 into the tournament and after the rebuy period was over, at one point was in 3rd place.

Let me back up for a moment. Last night I went to visit my parents, they live about 45 minutes from me. I thought I could get a good nights sleep, and wake up refreshed, have a hearty breakfast, and then kick ass in todays tournaments. Instead, my father and I walked over to this internet cafe where I had 2 glasses of reisling. Next I walked over to a bar called The Post Office, and listened to some of the worst kareokee I've ever come across, and managed to consume 3 captains's with just a splash of sprite. I couldn't handle the country music covers, so I walked across the street to the billiards parlor, that was good for 2 more cocktails. (see picture of poorly tatooed, mohawk touting, mullet wearing, teeth missing freaks) I enquired as to what other bars were in the vacinity and was informed that there was a place next to the police station called Whisky Wild, and they had a live band!

This is where I lose count, but I know I had 2 shots, 1 jaggerbomb, 1 hypnotic, and probably 6 to 8 more coctails*. The band, Tango somethin or other, played hard rock 80's covers (my favorite) and was really, really good! I actually made a couple of new friends and had a really good time. -Maggie, drop me a line when you make it by:).

Well I stumbled out of Whisky's at about 1:30 and headed for the house, powered up the ole laptop and played poker. The rebuy tournament was alot of fun, I am going to officially change my opinion on rebuy tournaments from don't like to a fun change of pace.

I will post today's tournament results later, oh and by the way, I busted out around 15th out of 45 or so in the $2 rebuy.

*coctails, unless individually specified indicates a libation made with Captain Morgan's spiced rum and just a "splash" of sprite. No need to spare the horses!

DB

On a more somber note, a friend of mine called late last night, and her brother died in a motorcycle accident. I had met him on several occasions and he had a good heart. Brett, sorry we never got a chance to go shooting together. My heart goes out to V and her family.

You must not be afraid to die, in order to live! . . .

2005-07-22T19:51:00.000-07:00

. . .Not sure who first said that, but I have heard pro player Amir Vahedi say it several times.

I now have a scheduling conflict. I just won a multi-table online satellit into Bodog's $100,000 gauranteed tournament this Sunday at 1:00pm. I also won entry into Bugsy's Club's $10,000 gauranteed shoot out, this Sunday at 3:00pm. I would like to mention that I won entry into these cash tournaments through satellites, and won each on my first try!

Todays multi-table satellite rewarded only the top 4 players out of 45 total with an entry to Bodog's $100k event. I was about average stacked throught most of the tourney. We played 6 handed, remember the top 4 all win the same prize, for almost an hour!

When it got down to 2 tables (about 18 players, I started playing more aggressive and came to final table 2nd in chips. However there were several players close behind me, and the chip leader was about 3x my stack. I managed to hold the #2 spot untill we got down to 6 handed, by now the blinds had started to pick up and I took a big hit. All the sudden there are 6 of us and I'm in last place w/ T1800, blinds at 300/600 and chip leader sitting on about T20,000. Action stops as the tournament takes a break, and I'm the bullseye. The chip leader played way to passively and even though he was 2 to my left I was able to steal blinds! Thank God! I picked my spots well and scrapped, and battled my way into second place. Everyone wanted to be in the top 4 and we played 5 handed forever. The chip leader bled and bled his chips away, untill finally I was in second place and he was in second to last place. Unfortunately the other big stacks were to weak to call short stack all ins and the tourney ground on and on. I did call one all in w/ KTo, I believe it was, lost and was critical for a moment, but hung in there and regained 2nd place. Then I got AKs on the button, and made my standard blind steal raise, in this case 2.5 times the blind had been working nicely. Mr. former bigstack/touney leader in the big blind pushed all in, I had him covered and called. He had K4o! Just desserts for him, he was so scared to take a hit earlier that he was widdled down, and had to make his stand like that. My hand held up and he got knocked out!

Don't ever be afraid to die! There were several instances that my tourney life was on the line, but when I was critical it was better to make that move when a double up still mattered! He never learned that lesson, and got what he deserved.

I'm going to take the rest of the night off, and go have a drink! Cheerio!
DB

Won an online satellite

2005-07-22T01:44:00.000-07:00

Into Sundays 10K guaranteed event at Bugsy's Club, there were 15 players and I got first, but it was a real grind at the end. 3 handed the blinds were still relatively small, and nobody wanted to bust out, it drug on and on w/ me stealing right and left. Took one hit, then scrapped and stole my way back into the lead and finally knocked out #3, ensuring the top 2 an entry. I won shortly there after in the all in mode, since at this point victory was moot we both got the same prize. Good Night!
DB

You make the play #3

2005-07-21T21:37:00.000-07:00

Ok here's the set up. online tourney $7500 guaranteed! 597 players, about 275 left. You've been playing a solid, tight game, and you are slightly above average w/ T2700. Blind are at 75/150 and you have QQ in the SB (small blind). UTG (under the gun, first to act) raises to 280, hmmm, could be a monster, or not) he has been playing solid poker too and has us barely outchipped, it's folded to the cutoff (1 before the button) who raises all in for about T2200. The cutoff has been an active player and I wouldn't be suprised at all if his raise was an attempt to steal. What is your play. Please leave a comment or 2 and I'll update the hand resolution after I have a couple of comments!

About Me

2005-07-21T21:26:00.000-07:00

When I was 16 I wanted to be a rock-n-roll star, so 3 days after graduating high school I found myself on a plane headed for Los Angeles, promptly enrolled in Musicians Institue (a heavy metal music school) and soon learned that I didn't have a musical bone in my body! After 1 yr of hanging out in LA I returned to my spawning grounds to go to college. 6 months after graduating college I bought a strip club on credit. I've always gotten by on the skin of my teeth, your classic underachiever, applying as little as possible to get by, but somehow things have always worked out. Then I found poker in 2002, right before the poker explosion. I think some deep fundemental part of my being felt the early tremors of the oncoming poker explosion, and liked what it felt. Perhaps for the first time in my life something felt right, something that might possibly fit. School sure didn't, even though I did graduate with my BS in 1994, Business didn't, however my strip club has made me alot of money and been alot of fun at times, personal relationships haven't, I usually burn through a good girl in 1 1/2 to 2 years but for some reason poker just feels right. To be continued, blog style . . .

Our first poker god stopped by.

2005-07-21T13:49:00.000-07:00

This is a reply I received from Barry Greenstein.

Thanks for the nice write-up on your blog. I think logical thinking is more
important in the long run, but since Mimi had a good teacher (me), having a
good memory made the job easy for me. However, it was sometimes difficult
to get her to extrapolate correctly to situations that were similar to the
ones she had memorized.

Barry

********* writes:

> Barry,
>
> I noticed in your book that you mentioned how Mimi was very intelligent, you gleaned this from the fact that she could remember every hand of a session. My question for you is this:
>
> In your opinion (which I value more than any other poker player out there based upon my general impression of you and your book) how important is "memory" in NL texas holdem ring games and tourneys? If a player had very superior logical decision making abilities, say in the top .5% would that compensate for having only a slightly above average memory?
>
> I've heard Doyle mention somehting along the lines of recall of certain situations being important, but I would be very interested in your opinion.
>
> Thank you for sharing your thoughts and wisdom in Ace.
>
> Also, if you care to you can check out my new pokerblog: www.donkeybait.com.
>
> Thank you for your time.
>
>*********

Paint sounds ok to me

2005-07-21T12:02:00.000-07:00

A friend e-mailed me this the other day and I thought it would be nice to post so others may comment on it. Paint is referring to a quate from Barry Greensteins book, Ace on the River. "for me limit poker is like watching paint dry. Daniel, thanks for your thoughts, I'll add a comment below. DB

I had an interesting conversation with my father regarding limit vs. no-limit hold’em. The conversation crossed my mind after I read your favorite quote from Barry’s book. I too once thought playing limit poker was like watching paint dry. Hold’em is the defiantly Cadillac of poker. But now after playing poker for two years consistently, both my father and I believe we were better off having never owned a Cadillac because we would have lost it in a bad beat of no-limit poker.

My father and I were discussing how no-limit hold’em has left us with more COSTLY bad beats than we wish to talk about. Yesterday at a popular online poker site (which I no longer trust, lets talk about that someday) my full boat, jack’s over 8’s, was beat by a straight flush made on the river. I lost my entire bank which was doubled from what I began with. At the same time I was taking my beat my father experienced his own. He began with Ace Jack and flopped top pair (Jack, 9, 3). He raised $100 in to the $75 pot. After a long pause the loan man across the table called his bet. A Queen hits on Fourth St. Cautious my father bets $50 and receives a call from the man. The river hits an ace giving my father two pair. He pushes all-in and is called immediately with Ace Queen. $300 + lost on one hand of poker.

When bad beats happen in No-limit poker you lose everything. These beats happen to us enough times that over the long haul we have not made much money. My father claims he is down overall. In a limit games neither my father nor I have ever lost our ENTIRE bank. When we win limit poker we have always made just as much as we have in winning no-limit. I believe if you want to risk less and win more play limit.

Go to any online poker site and look at the pot averages for no-limit and limit games. Which would you think has the larger average? If you guessed limit your right. As I write this paper there are two $100/$200 limit games going on at the internet site I play on. The average pots for the tables are $707 and $1057. There are 13 $2000 no-limit buy in games. The highest and lowest averages in these games are $384 and $181. Since I like winning bigger pots I think I am switching primarily to limit games.

My father and I agreed at the end of our conversation to begin playing more limit poker than no-limit poker. Sure we still love no-limit and the huge amount of excitement the game brings. But we are more interested in huge pots. To avoid going cold turkey I will take some of my winnings from limit games and play in a no-limit game hoping that one day my bad beat is high enough to win the bad beat pot.

Donkey Bait's Reply:

Poker can be an unforgiving mistress. 3 recent beats at the boat in the 2-5 NL game account for slightly more than I was ahead there. All 3 beats occured when I was holding AA. First bad beat I limp, late position raises to 25 small blind calls I reraise to 90, late fold, small blind donkey calls. Flop is QT6 rainbow. Small blind bets out about 50, I push all in he calls, showing AT. Donkey says he thought I had KK's and that he could catch an A. What he caught was runner, runner KJ for a straight! I lose $500.

Hand #2 I'm in middle position and raise to 20 w/ AA and get 1 early position caller. Flop comes 5,rag,rag, 2 suited and early position guy bets out, I raise, he reraises, oh shit now what, I think and put him on an overpair and push all in, and run squarely into his set of fives (thank god he didn't yell "Presto"). When the money went in he had the best of it, but was still an ugly hand. I lose $425

Beat #3 Actually occurs about 15 minutes after hand #2. I rebuy for $300 and find American Airlines in late middle position. Yippe Kiyay right, Poker gods trying to make things right from that last ugly debacle. Unfortunately is was not meant to be. Under the gun +1 raises to 20, its folded to me, I would normally raise in this spot, but noticed that 2 players to my left were telegraphing that they were going to fold so I just call and it is folded around. 2 of us see a 6 high flop. Early position guy bets out about 40, I raise to 100, he thinks and calls. I put him on an overpair. Turn a 6. Surely he wouldn't have raised preflop w/any hand that has a 6 in it! He checks I push in he thinks and relatively quickly calls showing 67 suited. Oh well. I lost $300 and decide that is enough for a while!

Beats are brutal in poker and more so in No LImit. You can read on and on about how it's good that all of these donkey's are out there making these mistakes, you should win more in the long run, they say. Well it sure sux in the short run! It's kind of a 1 sided deal and here is why, If you play good solid poker, you are less likely to put your money in the pot when you don't have the best of it. Drawing, chasing Donkeys are more likely to put a beat on us than the other way around, because we would usually have folded If the situation wasn't in our favor.

If you prefer NL poker to Limit poker but want to cut down on the severity of the beats, have you considered playing in Sit-n-go tourneys. These are 1 table tournaments and you can control your risk based upon how much you want to pay for a sit-n-go. Say you buy into a $50 sit-n-go the most you can lose is that $50. Just a thought.

For me, I find it very frustrating in limit poker when I can't protect my hand w/ a pot sized bet. There are many situations in limit where you may have the best hand, bet it out, and the caller still has the correct odds to call and draw to his hand.

Only risking %15 of your poker bank roll in one session of NL is supposed to protect the winning NL player from most bad runs. We all adhere to that right! lol. If only it was that simple.

Earlier this year I decided to goat to the boats in St. Louis w/ a $300 bankroll and try and build it up from there. I built it up to about $600 only to lost it all in a $1500 pot. Once again I had AA, my opponet had KK and it went in preflop. He flopped his set, I turned the nut flush draw and his set held up! Ouch. Then I decided to play limit poker, so I started w/ another $300 bankroll and started at the bottom planning to work my way up in limits. It took about 10 sessions, moving from 3/6 quickly to 5/10 and I built my bankroll up to over $1200 and decided to take a stab at the 20/40 limit game. I scored a $950 win in my first session. It was shortly after this that the Booneville boat opened and I started frequenting them because they are so much closer.

My brick and mortar results so far this year certainly support your argument, but I am still drawn to NL. If I could just figure out how to play those aces! Lately, I feel that my game has improved a great deal, and I am going to continue to play NL, I feel that my overlay is greater there, and I can't lose on aces everytime! Thanks, Daniel, for taking the time to share your thoughts, I'll talk to you soon.
DB

1st Place good for $15 tab

2005-07-20T12:41:00.000-07:00

I played in our local bar league, last night. When we got down to the final table someone mentioned that the winner got a $15 bar tab, I responded, rather cockily, dam, I knew I should have started a tab tonight (as opposed to paying for my drinks as I went). The poker gods chose not to punish me for this display of arrogance though and I went on to win. Heads up w/ Dave, a player I had never met before and who, imho, played very well. We went heads up for about 40 mins, at the beginning he had about 160K and I had about 35K or so. I did find one tell on Dave that helped me pick off a couple of key bluffs, but other than that he was a difficult unpredictable player. We swapped the lead back and forth several times before I finally won w/ AKo, I checked it pre. flop came rags, I checked he went all in, since it was an unraised pot he could easily have a pair. Me 2 overs and a backdoor flush draw. I finally felt that he was making a move, and he showed 56 for an open ended str8 draw, my overs held up and I won!

Next I went down to trumans bar and gril. a local wifi hotspot, and entered into an online tourney at BoDog. No luck there and it was off the the boats. Closed down the poker room at about 4:00 am this morning. The game was 2-5 NL and the buyin was $300. I left w/ only $282 of my orignal 300, after tipping etc. Best 2 card hand of the night AQo, never once had a pocket pair. I did win a nice pot w/ my AQ, heres how it went down.

7 handed play, I'm in the big blind and it's folded to Kenny on the Button. Kenny is an older guy who doesn't bluff alot, but does mix up how he plays his starting hands. He was also stuck for the day and had been playing more aggressive pre-flop than I had ever see him play before. I was getting tired of mucking my trash to his re-raises and decided the AQ was the hand to make a stand on. He made it 40 to go, hmmmmm, I felt like he really didn't want a call here, perhaps jj,tt,99. Since I was out of position I really wanted to take it down here, before the flop and felt that another 40 would do the trick w/ him. He really didn't want a call, much less a re-raise. Well, he said " I really kinda wanted to play these cards" and he thought about it for a good min. He calls. Now I know he doesn't Have AA,KK,QQ, or AK, he would have called much sooner. Flop AJJ, uuutt oh, I'm first to act. The problem here is that If he doesn't have AA, KK, QQ, or AK (Donkey Baits group 1 hands include ako, sklansky is wrong on this one)* what hand does he have that doesn't contain a J? I fired out 100 going with my earlier read, he's probably got TT but could have AQ like me. He quickly mucked his TT. Gotta go, I'll check back later.

*Especially in NL, AK can be a great hand because it is alot easier to dump than AA, or KK. if the flop missed you, you have nothing, if the flop hits you, you have top pair, top kicker, and likely your opponet has less outs than if you held AA or KK, because you are using part of the flop! . AA, KK are only 1 pair and often marry you to a big pot and a big loss. I'm not sure why Sklansky overvalues AKs as compared to AK, but either way he's wrong! AKo is a quality group 1 hand in my book.

DB

Ace on the River by Barry Greenstein

2005-07-19T09:20:00.000-07:00

Wow, this Barry "The Robinhood of Poker" Greenstein guy is a little strange, but they say he is the winningest ring game player in the last decade. Personally, I believe he and Phil Ivey both belong in the top 3 of current best cash game specialist. Barry's book, Ace on the River, (paperback, 316 pages) is printed with quality glossy paper with excellent photos throughout, he did not skimp in any way w/ the publishers. Ace is definately not your typical poker strategy book. It applies to all forms of poker, infact many of the examples are from stud, low ball, and omaha. Ace is more of a guide to the pro poker players lifestyle, a roadmap with pointers, for how to make a living playing cards/gambling, pointing out pitfalls to avoid and expert insights into managing that volatile lifestyle. At times the text takes the perspective of the psychologist, analyzing personality flaws to watch out for and be aware of in your fellow degenerate gamblers.

The book is broken down into 4 parts:

1) The Poker World
2) Philosophy
3) Advanced Play
4) Addenda

Barry doesn't hold any punches, and in part one he paints a pretty bleak picture of the poker world. Part 2 tells you some key pointers you'll need to know if you are actually "foolish" enough to consider this as a full time occupation. Personally I wish he would have talked more about advanced play, but I'm sure he was correct to emphasize the other aspects that are in many ways more important to success than advice on how to play a certain hand. Even if a book could teach you to play as well as say Stuey Ungar, it would be difficult to consider him a success story! Some of the nuggets he drops in the Advanced Play section, I have never heard mentioned anywhere else before. There is definately some good stuff there.

You get the sense that playing poker for so long has really changed, and jaded Barry, that he is plagued by demons of guilt for not being a better father and to compensate for that he has tried to give back through his charitable donations, and by haveing a high degree of ethics at the poker table.

All in all I Highly recommend this book to anyone who aspires to become a professional poker player, but the book has little value for beginning/recreational players other than a glimpse into the professional poker players world. Thank you Barry for sharing your insight with us.

My favorite quote from the book, "playing limit poker for me, is like watching paint dry!"

DB

Gallery of Champions

2005-07-17T11:57:00.000-07:00

Taken from Binion's Horseshoe, downtown Las Vegas. There is a photo of every WSOP main event champion! From Moss to now Hachem!

Donkeybait's First Featured Stripper!

2005-07-17T11:17:00.000-07:00

This young vixen felt it was a great honor to be selected as our very first featured stripper and even made the comparison to Marilyn Monroe being selected as Playboy's first playmate bunny! To Learn more about her and see her pics just click the link below! I believe my Mother stops by from time to time and I do want everyone to feel at home here, so don't click if you don't want to see scantilly clad strippers!

 . . .




Dance Name:  Reeva
Sign:  Scorpio
Age:  23
Height: 5'6"
Weight: (including silicone): 122 lbs.
Personality:  Outgoing and adventuresome.  She has a winning personality and a smile that is irresistable!
Favorite Position:  Reeva says she likes it from behind, starting slow and building to a fury.
Turn Ons: Threesomes w/ other couples
Turn Offs:  She says she is sure she has some but can't think of any right now!






I apologize for the photo quality, Donkeybait is on the lookout for a new digital camera!

Refining my poker goals

2005-07-16T17:16:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been vascilating online between tournament play, and ring games, but haven't put alot of emphasis on satelites to brick and mortar events. I so enjoyed the WSOP that I am going to make a concentrated effort to . . .win satellites to major poker events. I simply can't afford the 10k buy ins so I'll just have to win my way in!

Today I played a sit-n-go satellite, winner gets entry to tonights $200 online tourney, and in turn, 1 in every 56 or so win a 10k tournament entry. The sit-n-gos are filled w/ pretty weak players so there is a good overlay in those. My table was no exception, I love it when first in the pot is a limper 75% of the time! The player to my left was pretty active and early on called my raise w/ position and took away a pot on the turn leaving me w/ about T900 of my original T1500. Before long I pulled down a good pot and built my chips back to T1350. Only 1 player had busted when this hand came along. Me in MP (middle position) w/ AA, It goes limp, limp, me limp (I know slow playing aces from middle position is a bad idea, except I felt there was an above average chance the active player to my left would raise and I decided to make the slowplay), unfortunately the active donkey folded but to my delight the small blind raised! It got called, folded and I reraised getting heads up w/ the SB in position w/ AA (doesn't get any better than that). Flop kT5 rainbow. SB donkey bets out 400, I've only got 800 left but I gladly go all in knowing he'll call. I'm thinking you stoopid donkey AK no good! He does call but w/ AQ! What a donkey! Of course he rivers his Gut Shot and thats, that.

Also, last night I went to a friends b-day party that was being held in a cool private bar/lounge downtown. I ran into this gal I recognized from bar poker nights, but hadn't seen in several months. You know how poeple sometimes misconstrue the wierdest things, well as I'm walking away from the bar she walks past and says "nice hat", It came off kinda snobby, because I was wearing a black visor w/ a sports coat, and it did probably look pretty ridiculous, so in my mind I'm thinking something along the lines of what a bitch, right. Well as it turns out I bumped into her a while later and she started chatting me up about poker. She made a big lay down the other day (folded a fullhouse) and hasn't been able to get it out of her head since! I can relate to that. Well Carrie w/ a C if you make it here to donkeybait, with your looks, brains, and passion for poker you are going to be one scary player! I hope we get a chance to mix it up on the felt some time.

I thought about going to the local casino, about a 1/2 hr drive, and might later tonight, but I think I'll go to Hoot-n-Annys for a minute to see if any of my poker friends are going to be there. Remember I lost all my phone numbers when my cell phone drown, that really sux.
Well thats all for now, may stop in later.

I almost forgot, Donkeybaits' first feature stripper of the week will debut in less than 24 hrs!

You make the Play #2

2005-07-16T15:08:00.000-07:00

You are playing in a 1K, 1 day WSOP event. 758 players started, Approx. 150 remain and the top 72 are in the money. You've just been moved to this 10 handed table about 15 minutes ago and have only seen trash which you've quickly mucked preflop. To your immediate left is the biggest stack you've seen yet w/ approx T25k, however he seems to be playing pretty tight as does the table. Your stack is at T2900 the others stacks are all between 5k (average) and 10k. The blinds are 150/300 w/ a 25 ante. There are about 10 minutes left in this round, There's already T700 in the pot and you are in the cutoff (late position, 1 off the button), It's folded around to you, and you squeeze out an A9s. What's your play? . . . Aahhhhhem, Actions on you seat #5 . . .

Pick your play

Current results

Just what is Padugi anyway?

2005-07-16T12:39:00.000-07:00

Padugi is a 4 card, triple draw, low ball poker game that was introduced to America by . . . Paul "Eskimo" ClarkI watched Cindy and Paul play padugi and then bumped into Paul the next day and asked him how the game works. Eskimo seems pretty proud of the fact that he introduced padugi, but has also invented some games of his own! Oh boy I just can't wait! lol. Apparently the game originated in Hawaii. A raw padugi is a 4 card hand of all different suits. And a raw padugi beats all other hands except for a lower raw padugi. The best hand you can have would be A234 rainbow (rainbow means no 2 cards are the same suit). If you do not have a raw padugi you may have a 3 card padugi, say your hand is 7cJcQsKd, you would have a 3 card padug because you have 2 clubs, in this case you would have a KQ7 for low and would beat all double suited hands but not very many 3 card padugi hands! They bet after the cards are dealt and between each of the 3 betting rounds. Enjoy!

I got my copy of Ace on the River by Barry Greenstein, will read tonight and post my thoughts on it tomorrow.
DB

More pics,

2005-07-15T15:42:00.000-07:00

The Me and Cindy pic! The price tag corresponds w/ the cheaply manufactured red and black WSOP shirt. I'll tell you guys what Padugi is tomorrow, for now just know it is a new to America, poker game unlike any other. To see more pics click on link below . . .

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Back home, a few random WSOP Impressions or I've seen all the fuss and it's no big deal.

2005-07-15T15:12:00.000-07:00

Sorry it took so long to post, I got back last night and was pretty wiped out! . . . Where to begin; what I meant in the Title bar is that I played with the best and held my own, and also that Harrahs just sux, can't really say that enough let me reiterate, Harrahs pretty much sux. They bought the Horseshoe last year and along w/ that came the rights to the WSOP. Along with the crazy high cash bar, Players who bought into the events were given a voucher for $10 off of the buffet! How cheap is that! What they don't tell you is that your voucher expires at midnight the day your event ends. Unbelieveable. If you were at the Superbowl, and say the ball is tipped in the air and lands in your lap would you be suprised if it wasn't a regulation (wilson I believe) leather football? What if it was a cheap plastic nurf ball? What would you think? Well the WSOP had the largest payout of any world championship sporting event in the history of the universe and the cards they used were the cheapest, flimsiest, paper cards I have ever seen in my life. Even the print on the faces of the cards is weak. like the printer was almost out of ink! I actually stole the Ace of spades from a box of used up cards to bring home and show my friends. When they finish with these decks they don't need to cut them or drill them they are so flimsy they just fold the cards in half, it easily leaves a permanent crease. The same WSOP 05 hat that cost 22.00 in New Orleans cost $29 here! And to top it all off, they cut the rounds from 1 hr, to 40 mins in my event just so they could "speed it along". That more or less really made the event more of a crapshoot, I totally believe that I had a great shot of making the money, If I could have had around 15 more hands a level, maybe I would have cought some cards. How lame. Basically at Harrah's owned properties everything cost a little more and you get a little less.

Phil Ivey imho is . . . playing better poker than any other human being. He is absolutely incredible! He won his 5th WSOP bracelet a few weeks ago, and was kicking ass in the final 27, out of 5616 players at the main event. I was disappointed that he wore his hat crooked one day, just a smidgen on the gangsta side, but oh well I'll forgive him this one time!

Likewise Greg Raymers accomplishments are, well, extraordinary! He's no Chris Moneymaker!

I never have been one to seek out autographs and such, but I did approach Cindy Violet after I busted out of my event. She was playing $400/$800 limit mixed game, 1/2 2-7 triple draw, 1/2 Padugi! Thats right Padugi, I'll explain in a minute, but first I sat down at an empty table about 7 ft. away from her and waited until she was out of a hand, and asked to get my photo w/ her. She was totally cool, all smiles, even grabbed a railbird and ask them to take the photo, and we chatted for a sec. It was kinda wierd, because at first I felt like, wow she's a really down to earth, cool person, and she definately seems to be, but It didn't seem like she remember me busting her about an 1 hr before so I said, you do remember right? Cindy said, Oh yeah, the fours. I think in the past I have always harbored some silly fake arrogance thing where I would never consider pumping someones ego up by, say, asking for a photo or autograph and I realize now that it's ok. Perhaps it ads a touch of humility, but I think it was important for me to realize that . . . anyways . . .

Poker players as a group conduct themselves very well, you'd think that thousands cardsharks would be hustling every
angle they could! This years WSOP resembled a business convention more than a poker tourney!

To play poker in that event was incredible beyond belief, tournaments are so competitive and the the focus required is, well it's alot of things but exillerating, addictive and exuasting are a few words that come to mind, I loved it. My first table was pretty much dead money, when that table busted I got moved to a table w/ 4 real, situational thinking players, and for the first time something in my game really clicked. In cash games, ring games (non tournaments) you only find that kind of thinking player at the high stakes. I now know that I can hang w/ really, really good players, however my game is only just beginning, I've got a long, long ways to go!

Tournament poker: a high variance, gotta not get unlucky, addicting rush, incredible, and a shot at becoming a poker superstar . . . Cash Games, a much more sure fire job, can be a source of "reliable" income, more predictable, no high octane adrenaline rush, and can be a real grind.

I'm gonna leave you guys with some more photos, some from the Rio's Voodoo Lounge, and my pic. w/ Cindy. Chow for now,

DB

Will check in either later tonight or tomorrow I hope. Now above 3500 unique visitors and climbing! Thanks to everyone who drops me a line!

A few more pics, including the bluff magazine girls

2005-07-13T18:40:00.000-07:00

The Bluff Magazine Girls and a few photos of the new Wynn Casion/hotel. Who says Poker isn't an aerobic sport? I've probably walked 10 miles in the last 24 hrs! Pretty tired, but I'm gonna go get a quick 15min back massage, check out the main event, and go play cards somewhere tonight, and finally go to the Vodoo lounge for an early nightcap! (Vodoo lounge is a bar w/ live music on the 51 and 52 floors of the Rio, and has an awesome view of the strip) I'll update later tonight or tomorrow.

DB

I busted Cindy Violette!

2005-07-13T16:49:00.000-07:00

Wow, my event took back stage in a big way to the mainevent, they shortened the rounds from 1 hr to 40 mins so they could jam us through in 1 day! But there were 758 entrants, each ponied up a dime to play. Round 1 saw my stack go from T1k to less than 500, then at the end of the round I caught some hands and got it back up to 1k. Shortly there after my table broke and I got moved to the same table as Cindy Violette. If you haven't heard of Cindy Violette click on her name it is a link to her bio. She is a real big time pro, one of the best male or female! Also she isn't just a tourney player but an ultra high stakes cash game player. After I busted her, she bought into a High limit triple draw game for 40K! Cindy has also made 2 tables at this years WSOP, the $5000 pot limit, and the $2000 NL. This table was quite a bit more intimidating than my first one and I decided to check them out and play tight for a bit. About 2o mins into it I played at and pulled down a decent pot on the flop, then the next hand I took down the blinds, by this time I had a much better read on the table, plus some new found confidence. One interesting hand, it's folded to the cutoff, (thats 1 seat before the button) and cindy violette limps. small blind folds I'm in the BB and rap the table. Flop came rags, she bet I folded. Pretty boring huh, except that preflop I thought her limp was strange, and I studied her and felt like she had a monster. After I folded she showed AA. She was a little disgusted, cause she had them 3 times already and didn't win any big pots. Anyways I'm at about T1400 and limp in middle position w/ 44. Flop comes j83 2 clubs. 3 players saw the flop and it goes check, I check Cindy checks. Turn a beautiful 4! check, I check, Cindy Violetette goes all in, early limper calls, and I go all in for about 2oo more! Cindy shows a pair of 8's and early donkey had top pair all along and I tripled up! Guys I knocked out Cindy Violette, one of the top 3 female players in the wolrd out of a WSOP event! All in all I played great, my cards really sucked, was up and down, got moved to a table where to my left a guy had a monster stack, the blinds kept comming at me, the deck kept dodging me and I made my stand on the button w/ a9s. It was folded to me, I raised it up, BB put me all in, I called, bb had aq and held up. Finished right about 150th out of 758 players, about 75 out of the money. Sorry I can't leave more now but will check in later.

Phil Ivey is leading the Main Event!

DB

Registered

2005-07-13T11:18:00.001-07:00

Table #62, Seat #8! I got one of my favorite seats, right on the end . . . where I can see all my opponets real well. Should be about 1000 contestants, 1 hr rounds and T1000 to start. Total chips in play approx. 1M. I feel real good about my tempo, it's something I've been working on, and basically I've slowed down my NL game, and have been absorbing the right info better while, giving less info to my adversaries. I will resist the temptation to make any rash moves, but plan to play an agressive game. I just finished a light breakfast of eggs benidict (my favorite), hold the hashbrowns, and a bowl of mixed melons and pineapple. I will have my tradional 1 shot of chilled tequilla right before showtime. I feel like my edge is as sharp as it is going to be and now I just have to stay focused!

I did play one satellite this morning and Charlie "Scotty Warbucks" Shoten was at my table, He is a top tournament pro and just wrote a new book "No-limit Life". He seemed like a genuinely content, good hearted person and I enjoyed our conversation, got a signed copy of his book, and won a big pot against him on the turn w/ a check raise; my read on his hand was perfect! I know now that I can play w/ one of 2003's Cardplayer Magazine top 10 players of the year, make the right read and bring down a good pot with only a pair of 8's! 30 min's till showtime, gonna go down and get settled in.

DB

Top of the morning to ya!

2005-07-13T09:15:00.000-07:00

I slept well! Gonna try to squeeze in that third satellite. . . will be updating throughout the day.
DB

Going to bed, updates

2005-07-13T02:16:00.000-07:00

WSOP Main Event:
58 players remain, they play down to 27 tomorrow, then they finish the last 2 days downtown at the Horseshoe.
100th place paid 77k and change, 27th place will pay over 300k, 1st 7.5 M
Notables: Phil Ivey is currently in 2nd chip place w/ 2.7M, Mike Matusow 1.5M, Greg "fossilman" Raymer 1.3M, John Juanda 950k (therer are a total of 56+M chips in play!), Ivey has approx. 5% of all chips in play!

Now over 15oo unique visitors to www.donkeybait.com!!!

I went to the Wynn tonight . . .after my second satelllite. Of course the Wynn is beautiful , but when you hear all the buzz it's kind of hard to live up to all the Hype. I can say that I still find the Mirage more capativating the the new Wynn. I'll upload some pics of the Wynn tomorrow. Daniel Negreanu is the "poker ambassador" for the Wynn's poker room, he wasn't their tonight though. They say he stops by about twice a week, ( does that mean 1 time a week?). All 27 tables were full and the list was long, so I took a few quick pics and headed twards the Palms. The Palms is not all that! Their Ghost Bar has been built up to be all that but it just looks like a cheesy, b-film sci-fi movie set. And their reknown skin bar is a tacky nightclub held outside by the pool, complete w/ concrete chairs in the pool. The Poker room on the other hand had it's ups. Their poker room is actually 2 rooms seperated by about 15 ft, w/ 6 tables per "side". One side is all low limit, the other side beneath a sign reading "High Limit Poker" consisted of only 2-5 NL hold'em. The game was juicy!!!, big pots, lots of donkeys, I think I'll go back.

Ok now for my updates . . .

Satellite #2 started off good. During the first round I had ATo 3 times in 4 hands, played it once and built my stake up through a few prudent steals and 1 good sized pot scoop to T1550 (T just means tourney chips). This interesting hand came up late in round 3, blinds are 100/200, I'm in the big blind looking at AJo (the best starting hand I had the entire satellite!), there are 6 players left and it's folded to the button who calls, the small blind completes his bet, and I raise to 400 str8 leaving me w/ T1000. The button folded and the small blind put me all in. This guy had some game, was agressive, and the deck had been running through him. after putting me all in he still had about T1700left. I went in the Tank, and really analyzed the situation and ultimately decided to fold and pick a better spot. I think I had the best hand but at the same time was at best only a 60-40 favorite. I felt I could outplay these guys and with any cards at all set a trap with less risk. I folded, he said he had AQ, but I didn't believe him for 1 second! Unfortunately my cards went dead, the blinds doubled and before long I was down to T500. I ended up all in on the BB w/ k6o, which happened to be the best hand I had seen since the aj! On hindsite I wish I would have called w/ the aj.

At the Palms I in a 2-5 NL ring game for 3 hrs, boutght in for $500 and left with $472. I misplayed one hand that cost me $70, and scooped one big $335 pot w/ TT when I flopped a set. I was gonna gloss over these 2 hands and go to bed but here's how that hand went down. Me button TT, I limper, I raise to 20 , sb folds, bb calls, limper calls.. Flop t83 2 clubs. check, check, and I check. Turn 8c, bb bets 40, limper folds , I raise to 135 total. BB says "you got a flush too" now I know he doesn't have a flush, and fell a lot better. I had to raise to 135 because I thought his most likely holding was a flush draw and had to take away his odds, If he called he was making a mistake. Anyways he did call and the river blanked, he checked as did I and my set of T's beat his trip 8's. Outside of that hand the cards really didn't like me and even theough the table was about a good as it gets, with the exception of the 1 hand I feel that I really messed up, all in all I played reallly, really good solid poker, made good reads and was happy with my play. Goodnight all, gotta get a good nights sleep, I'm gonna be on tomorrow!
DB

2005-07-12T22:30:00.000-07:00

This is a pic of Phil Ivey sittin pretty with . . . about 1.7 million in chips maybe 85 players left. He's in the back center with the light blue hat on crooked. Layne "back to back" Flack and David Williams were both hanging out sweating him. I overheard a conversation from some donkey who busted out today, that was at Greg Raymers table. He said the "fossilman" had pocket rockets (AA) 7x today, and won on all 7 occasions! Greg's stack is approx. 2 mil! Eric Seidel is at the final table of the $1500 NL tourney that started yesterday. It was supposed to be a 1 day event but due to the size of the field they held the final table today.

For the duration of my stay in Vegas I am going to color code my posts, white will be my ramblings and green will be designated for my personal poker updates, and red for WSOP main event updates.

I'm going to play exactly 3 satellites tonight. Each satellite starts with 10 players, cost $125 and the winner takes all 1k, however often times the last 2 or 3 players will "chop" the purse, they can make any deal that all remaining players agree to. The rounds are 15 mins long and the blinds start at 25 /25, then 25/50/ then pretty much double every 15 mins. Each player starts w/ 1000 in chips, so for round one the gives you a "q" of 20 ("q" = your stack size divided by the total of the small blind + the big blind + any antes). A q of 2o means you could last 20 rounds at the current blind structure and a q of 20 is the minimum that allows you to make most plays (like re-raising preflop) in NL hold'em without being pot committed. (For more great info on q tourney strategy read Dan Harrington on Hold'Em Vol.1 & 2, by for the best texts ever on NL hold'em tourneys). In Satellites the rounds are so short, and the blinds escalate so fast that you really have to push your good hands, basically if you play to tight you'll wind up 45 mins into the thing short stacked and in bad shape.

My First Satellite didn't last to long. Early in the first round I limped in late position w/ 57o and folded to a big raise from the small blind. The next hand that I voluntarily entered the pot on occured during the very last hand of the 1st round, 2 players had already busted. Here's what happened. I was in late middle position w/ QQ, there were 2 limpers in front of me and I decided to make it 125 straight. I figured that I would probably pick up the pot right there, but the guy to my immediate left, who had played relatively loose, reraised me 375 more. He had me slightly covered. I felt like he had a hand and thought that AK was most likely but he might also play AA, KK, or even possibly a hand like JJ or TT that way. I debate going all in, and that move has merit especially because he has position on me but finally decide to just call knowing he'll be pot committed and call my allin plus this might create a good opportunity for a stop and go. If the guy has big slick and the flop comes rags then I'll push all in and scoop a nice pot, the nice thing about this move is your opponet doesn't get 5 chances to pair his A or K, only the 3 on the flop. Incidentally that is why it is sometimes a good idea to go all in w/ AK, it insures you the best chance of getting a pair and not being bet off the pot on the flop, a good move with a very short stack (q<10).>

WSOP Main Event Update The remaining 102 players are spread out over 20 tables. They just got back from dinner break, the blinds are 5k/10k w/ 1k antes, make that 100 players.

I feel good, and am thinking clearly, my focus seems good. One of the neat things about having backers and posting here to the world is that it really helps me analyze my play, and stay focused. If I go on tilt I have to answer to you guys, plus I want to play my best game for those that backed me. Time to go play satellite #2. More to come later
DB

WSOP Pictures

2005-07-12T17:24:00.000-07:00

ESPN's featured Table w/ Mike "the mouth" Matsow

The WSOP is being held in the Rio's conference center, a room about the size of . . .3 football fields, filled wall to wall w/ poker tables. Basically the room is broken down into 5 areas, the main event, final table of yesterdays event, todays event, satellites to tomorrows event, and cash games. I set up my office in an area of empty tables, and with the help of ESPNs wireless network am able to make posts directly from the WSOP! I spotted Greg Raymer and Phil Ivey, both still running good, and Mike the mouth Matasow is at the ESPN featured table, unfortunately I have been unable to get close enough to them to get their pics. The satellites have been delayed until 5:30, and I'm getting ready to go head that direction. Usually if I am stone cold sober I like to have exactly 1 shot of tequilla before I play a satellite or touney, so I headed over to the wsop cash bar. Wow, 1 shot of rotgut tequilla will set you back $6, a budlight bottle $5, and a captain and 7 $7. Kinda uncool, the only other option is to hoof it back to the casino, and it's a pretty good hike. At the WSOP Circuit event in New Orleans they had 2 free bars set up for the players, I'm really suprised some online site didn't sponser a bar here. Full Tilt Poker does have a free hospitality suite, and were kind enough to give me a free hat and t-shirt. I'm downloading the pics now, will post them and then go play my first satellite. www.donkeybait.com just cracked 1000 unique visitors! Later

DB

Live WSOP updates coming soon!

2005-07-12T14:30:00.000-07:00

Including my satellite results

I made it,

2005-07-12T14:12:00.000-07:00

to the Rio that is. What a morning, I overslept, nearly missed my flight. . . but all is good. I showed up at the Rio about 1 hour ago, and went str8 to the convention center where the WSOP is being held, Mike Matasow is on the ESPN featured table but it's pretty hard to get close enough for a good look. As of 15 minutes ago they were down to 163 players in the main event. Next I went over to the New Player Registration booth and got signed up. They will be running single table satellites at 4pm (sats are mini 1 table tourneys, the winner wins entry into a bigger tourney, so for me I'll play against 9 other players, $100 each, and the winner will win a $1000 chip.). A special thanks to all of my backers:

Emily 10%
Greg 5%
Sondra 5%
Rob 2%
Bill 1%
Matt 1%

I promise I'll play my heart out!

Apparently I spilt a cocktail on my phone last night and I cant get it to take a charge or turn on which really sux because my cell was also my camera! I've been meaning to get a new phone anyway, so maybe I'll buy a new one tonight so I can upload more pictures of the event!

This blue tooth wireless thing is really cool. W/ my laptop I had 2 choices for connecting to the internet, the rooms ethernet cable for $9.95 a day or some random highsppeed wirless network that my computer located. So far it's working great!

There are only a couple of things that I want to do while I am here:

Play Poker
Check out the New Winn casino's poker room
Check out the Palms Hotel and Casino

I'm gonna go grab a bite to eat, and then head over to the convention center for the satellites, hopefully I can find another wireless network down there so I can send more updates. Chow for now . . .

DB

Packin' my bags

2005-07-11T13:55:00.000-07:00

I've spent most of today running errends and getting every thing in order for tomorrows trip to Vegas. This will probably be my 15th trip to Vegas but my first ever entry into a WSOP event . . ., Wednesdays, 1 day $1000 buy-in, last chance for a bracelet in 05 tourney. I managed to sell 2% of myself to my buddy Greg (that works out to $20), I plan on re-reading Harrington on Hold'em Vol. 1 & 2 tonight, and on the flight (paying special attention to vol. 2's section on picking spots) , and prepare myself mentally for the biggest event of my poker career! My goal, regardless of my results, is to play a solid focused game, If I feel I played my heart out, played my A game 100% of the time, then I'll be satisified, cash or no cash! I will be posting pix and more from Vegas so stay tuned.

Also, in the first 48 hrs, thanks to 3 one line post on RGP, donkeybait now has nearly 700 unique visitors! Lots of positive e-mails too. Thanks to everyone for the support and feedback.

DB