Summer of Jordan
Monday, June 30, 2008
It's the Summer of Jordan, as long-laid plans finally pay off, and everything if falling in my direction. This weekend saw me exploiting my T$ and binging on poker.
I wish I could remember it all, but a mind-numbing weekend is nothing new for yours truly. If you've been following along of late, you'll surely remember my love affair with the satellites running nightly on FT. I played a handful of satellites, won seats into a variety of events and unregistered each time. I don't think there is an easier win than a carefully chosen satellite event. On one hand, you have players who consider it almost a freeroll and play accordingly, donking off chips and busting out in no time. On the other hand, all you have to do is raise pot each time you have a good hand, bet pot if your hand hits, and otherwise keep out of the way. It is the epitome of ABC poker, but it is also profitable as hell. After all, for some of these events, you only need to be in the top 1/3 to cash. Sometimes it's even better!
The only problem is that I was left with copious amounts of T$, "money" that could only be used on tournament unless I wanted to convert them from FT for a 5% commission. Well, Jordan don't pay no commission, so instead, I looked into higher buy-in SNGs to keep me busy.
Truth be told, kind friends, if I were a better man, I wouldn't have been playing any poker this weekend. Wifey Kim was on lockdown after having her hair Japanese straightened, a process that requires that she keep her hair bone-dry for 48 hours minimum. Since it was a muggy and rainy weekend, that meant that we were huddled indoors together. After a while on Saturday, though, the cabin fever set in, and I went about burying it with my other neurosis, obsessive gambling.
Lest one of my family members are reading this or I have a few new readers, let me remind everyone that my version of obsessive gambling is more about quantity and not stakes. My addictive nature is nicely balanced by my anal retentiveness, so even when I am playing too much, I am never paying too much.
I looked into some tournaments first, but not surprisingly, the fields were fairly large on the weekends and I did not want to be tied to the computer for too long. I played some cash for a while, using my accumulated real dollars, focusing on some random games, including LO8, one of my favorite online cash games. I was up about $50 at a 2/4 table when I decided to peruse the HU games available. I went to the $30 level, intent on not blowing too large of a chunk of my T$ on one game, but still aiming a tad higher than my usual $20 HU SNG maximum.
I followed my usual plan when choosing a table. Simply look for the ones with players already seated. I cannot stand to wait, like a bear-trap ready to go off, for my competitor to join me at a table. I find the anticipation to be intolerable and if I am forced to wait for a significant period of time, it will affect my play. To avoid this altogether, I just choose an HU SNG ready to go. And sure enogh, there it was, a single $30 HU SNG just waiting for me...and it was LO8.
I'll save you the boring details except to say that I trounced the competition, netting $60, which to me felt like all profit, since I entered the tournament with T$. On a role, I looked for another game and saw a PLO8 ready to go. Slightly different game, but same result. I whooped some serious ash and took another $60.
Being on a roll left me wanting more, but this time I switched it up, finding a HU NLHE game ready to start. In the first hand, I was dealt AKc and faced a 3x raise to 90 from my opponent. I thought about my options before pushing all in. The way I saw it, he could be raising with any two cards, which is not uncommon for these games. The all-in push was my effort to look weak. It also was intended to make me appear like a straight-up gambler, as though I merely wanted to double my $30 or walk in one hand. I guess it worked because my opponent called with QTo, missed the board and I took another $60.
After that, I figured I was clearly a NLHE pro, so I started my fourth $30 HU SNG, another NLHE game. I won that one too, barely breaking a sweat.
Those four HU matches were the centerpiece of my poker weekend, accented both before and after by various cash games, including a four-table session of full ring NLHE. I had found from Fuel via Lucko a website called Table Ratings that, through the miracles of science and math, rates tables at various online poker sites based on the quality of player. Using the site, I found the weakest NLHE tables and tried my damnedest to get in on the action. Overall, I lost a few pesos, approximately $20-25, mostly because I refused to leave one table where a particular player was getting under my skin with consistent re-raises which, incidentally, were not bullshit as I had hoped repeatedly. However, it was nice to try some NLHE cash online again, and I plan on returning to Table Ratings in the future.
Just in case it needs to be said, that was NOT a paid review. It IS, however, a sincere recommendation from your humble yet awesome blogger.
Compared to Saturday, Sunday night poker was just craptastic. I won a couple of tokens but failed in my attempt to turn a $26 token into a $75. I also lost the Sunday HU game which only involved me and pureprophet. I had actually totally forgotten about the game until about 9:04, at which point, prophet had blinded me down to about 1150. I fought back, getting near-even, but eventually lost, ending my 2-person blogger tournament winning streak. I was so dejected, I withdrew from the Razz blogger tournament scheduled for 45 minutes later (notably, I was the only person signed up at the time, so technically, I didn't miss much). I also bubbled from a $26 90-person KO SNG, after knocking out only two players ($8). I felt I was playing well, but it all fell apart late. That same theme carried through to the PokerSluts LO8 event, where I was 1st in chips from the jump until right before the final table, where I crumbled, busting out in 9th. I was super aggressive the entire time, whooping some arse, but when you play like that, you will eventually get called down a lot more, and in a game like LO8, the suckouts can happen rather often.
Still, it was a fine weekend of poker, accentuated by my win in my prop bet against Joe (Unimpressed). Joe and I each chose three players apiece in a $20 last longer prop bet for the $50K HORSE Event at the WSOP. The result saw two of our picks making the final table, Joe's Barry Greenstein and my Erick Lindgren. The eventual winner was Scotty Nguyen, but in third place was Erick Lindgren, earning me a cool $20. Ka ching!
Another fine occurence this weekend. I'm booked, beeches. Vegas, December 12-14. Be there, of be somewhere else!
As for my series-wide WSOP Prop Bets, here is an update:
Fuel55- Most Cash Won (Fuel's Sorel Mizzi, Phil Hellmuth and Jonathan Little vs. my Allen Cunningham, Phil Ivey and Johnny Chan)
Ivey's cash in the $50K HORSE increases my lead, but Hellmuth also made a small cash. It's currently $579,767 to Fuel's $117,597.
Phil Hellmuth, $100,292, 8th, Event #28, $5k PLO Rebuy, and
$2,895, 33rd, Event #47, $1.5 Stud8.
Sorel Mizzi, $8,103, 68th, Event #5, the $1000 rebuy, and
$6,307, 29th, Event #24, $2.5k PLHE/PLO
Phil Ivey, $37,130 9th, Event #14, the $10k Stud World Championship, and
$7,998, 23rd, Event #22, $4k HORSE, and
$159,840, 12th, Event #35, $50k HORSE
Allen Cunningham, $6,247, 22nd, Event #10, $2,500 OE, and
$76,205, 4th, Event #24, $2.5k PLHE/PLO, and
$18,401, 13th, Event #33, $5k Stud Hi/Lo World Championship
Johnny Chan, $27,072, 13th, Event #8, the $10k Mixed Game Championship, and
$246,874, 4th, Event #28, $5k PLO Rebuy
Ingoal- Most Cash Won (Ingoal's Daniel Negreanu and Jesus Ferguson vs. my Bill Chen and TJ Cloutier)
Ingoal continues to shame me with Negreanu's cash in the $50k HORSE event and another cash from Jesus. Ingoal leads with $795484 to my pathetic $20,868. Fucking Cloutier!
Daniel Negreanu, $16,496, 22nd, Event #5, $1000 rebuy, and
$33,417, 11th, Event #14, the $10k Stud World Championship) and
$204,874, 1st, Event #20, $2k LHE, and
$123,437, 7th, Event #28, $5k PLO Rebuy, and
$142,080, 13th, Event #35, $50k HORSE
Jesus Ferguson, $14,438, 51st, Event #25, the $10k HU Championship, and
$69,433, 10th, Event #28, the $5k PLO Rebuy and
$202,406, 2nd, Event #33, the $5k Stud Hi/Lo World Championship, and
$3,341, 50th, Event #43, $1.5k PLO8.
Bill Chen, $15,594, 19th, Event #31, $3k NLHE Shorthanded
$5,274, 24th, Event #40, $2.5 2-7 Triple Draw.
UWannaBet- Most FinalTable/Bracelets (UWanna's Michael Binger, Brandon Cantu and Erik Seidel vs. my Cunningham, Johnny Chan and Joe Hachem)
UWanna leads with four final tables to my two, for $6.
Michael Binger, Event #5, $1000 rebuy
Brandon Cantu's, 9th, Event #10, OE
Erik Seidel, Event # I don't remember, NLWhoGivesACrap
Erik Seidel, Event #43, $1.5k PLO8
Cunningham, 4th, Event #24, $2.5k PLHE/PLO
Chan, 4th, Event #28, $5k PLO Rebuy
posted by Jordan @ 9:58 AM,
