Better Late Than Never....

August 19th - Home Game

I picked this title for three reasons:

1) We had 4 late adds that really livened up the place: Stacey and I were glad some regulars from the Big-O gave us a call and joined in: Bubba, Lee Anne, rocky, and Mellissa

2) I was a dog early, but came on strong pretty late in the tourney.

3) This blog is so overdue...

The list of 16 players were as follows Cristine, Joe, Brad, Ed <--- newbie to the invite list, Godfrey, Cindy, Stacey, Clara (Mr. Mookie didn't show - but the house considered it a trade up ), Henry, Lee Anne, Todd, Bubba, Rocky, Mellissa, Joel, and I.

Stacks to start were 15,000, with rebuys for the first hour (for stacks <= 5,000) and either a 5,000 or 10,000 add-on after the first hour. There were five $10 rebuys (yours truly had two of these - again). There was some serious cracking. AA, KK, AA, KK, QQ - crack crack crack. There were tons of rebuys (11). Ed, Rocky, Todd, and I, all rebought at least once, and 14 people went for the big add-on at the break. The pot was up to $410.

I took a nice hand off Ed early when I was on the BB with Q9 and hit a 99 on the flop. I slow played my trips and the turn brought flush possibilities for Ed. The Q on the river gave him either the flush or trips because he called my $3K bet and never showed.

Godfrey ran into Joe, got his KK cracked and rebought, then ran into Brad and didn't make it to the break. This happens sometimes to good players - Carol bowed out early a few weeks earlier.

Play was fast and loose until the break, then after the break things tightened up. But not tight enough for Mr. Rocky - he was out early and took to the computer for some on-line action.

It took a while to get to the final table. Once we did, here were the chip stacks.

Player	Count
Brad	128.5K
Mellissa	121K
Stacey	51.5K
Bubba	50K
Joel	46.5K
Lee Anne	46K
Joe	35K
Jim	21.5K
Clara	20.5K
Cindy	12.5K

I didn't do a very good job keeping track of elimination hands, but I will next time. The only hand I recorded was when Cindy's 99 ran into Brad's Mookie (T8 of Hearts). The short stack was eliminated.

We played for some time and we got down to Clara, Lee Anne, Mellissa, Brad and I. My AA and KK held up every time and I was more fortunate than those around me when they had the monsters. Everyone else's monsters were cracked like crazy. Mrs. Mookie turned out to be the bubble girl. The Lee Anne busted out in 4th and Mellissa was out in third. Brad had many many chips.

I got head-up with Brad - I was hugely short stacked with about 50K to Brads ~485K. The blinds were 5/10K.

We played for a while and I managed to double up twice and won a few other hands. Brad was very tired and offered an even chop when the chips were at Me = 245, Brad = 290. We split the $60 $20 for me and $40 for Brad. I was happy with that as I should have been out ages ago coming to the table so short.

All in all a great night of Poker. Added Ed to the list for future games.

Thanks for all those that brought a snack.

Bad Karma and Mookie Pulls a Swearengen on me

This week I didn't play much Poker. Stacey and I did make it out to Mookie's game. Mookie keeps nice statistics for the Big O and is currently the points and Money Leader. I am second. I was First for a while. So... as a typical wise ass I threw down the following in an email to Mookie.

---

From: Jim W
Sent: Tuesday, August 08, 2006 2:27 PM
To: Armando O
Subject: Re: Big O Poker Room Tournament Schedule / Links / Results / Leaders

Stacey and I are in.

I am hunting the points and money leader like a dog. I am lurking. Be afraid.

Jim

---

And the Poker Gods rained on me... and kicked my Junk worse than Deadwood's Swearengen kicked Hearst's messenger. By the way, I counted 6 kicks to the junk while he lay writhing, gasping and begging on the floor.

From the link that follows, click on watch the video. Be patient for a minute and see the worst junk kicking ever. Here is the link.

That's half of what the Mookie did to me.

The first one was a boat over boat. I rebought. The second one, the second hand was when I min-raised with KsKd and he called with QJo. We got all in on a Jack high flop of all hearts. He had the Queen of Hearts (Mrs. Mookie) and the river was the King of hearts. I rebought. I can't remember the third. (I don't think the guy getting kicked remembers all the kicks, adrenalin takes the pain away and you forget. Kinda like why women are willing to have multiple kids and stuff like that.)

The final blow didn't come from the Mookie though. It came from a Bloke named Copie.

I limped on the button with AKo. Very Very Very STUPID.

Copie flopped two pair with A8, we raised, and reraised till I was all in, and I was ALL OUT.

I will say one thing about this stupid play. We almost cancelled the hand after it was started because we were at the final table. We decided to play it and I think that was a factor as to why I would have just called on the button. I'm embarrased to even write this. Another factor might be... a few shots of Crown. And after the junk kicking, a few more.

Anyhow - we played a fun cash game with 5 and 10 cent blinds, no limit. It was a blast and I was yucking it up with Rico and Armando quite a bit. It was loose and fun, pretty cool.

This week Rocco graduates from his 2nd Agility class so I thought I would put a picture of him here.

Hopefully some video coming. Kiss my ass Rocky.…

A Royal Flush and a Win

August 6th - Home Game

The list of 13 players were as follows Cristine, Diane, Joe, Kitty, Brad, Michael, Phil, Godfrey, Cindy, Hoa, Joan (Stacey's Mom), Stacey, and I. Stacks to start were 15,000, with rebuys for the first hour (for stacks <= 5,000) and either a 5,000 or 10,000 add-on after the first hour. There were five $10 rebuys (yours truly had tow of these). There were 18 $5 add ons. One very notable hand was a ROYAL FLUSH - by Godfrey.
He took some chips off Hoa with this hand, but Hoa ended up folding to Godfrey's all-in, so Hoa avoided a rebuy.

We only needed to lose three before the final table. The three were (in order) Diane, Cristine, and Joan. The chipcounts at the final table were:

Player	Count
Stacey	82.2K
Godfrey	52.7K
Brad	49.6K
Cindy	31.6K
Kitty	27.9K
Joe	27.9K
Michael	27.8K
Jim	26.1K
Hoa	25.9K
Phil	15.8K

Play continued and I believe most of the shorts were relieved to see the size of the orbit increase. The big boys were pounding hard and it was difficult to limp to see a flop.

I was the first one knocked out from the final table when my AJ was cracked by Cindy's JT. She hit 2 pair on the flop and I didn't improve.

Next to go was shorty, Phil. Followed by Michael, Kitty and Hoa. Cindy was the bubble girl.

Godfrey, Joe, Stacey, and Brad battled it out and Brad took it down. Stacey was 2nd, Joe, 3rd, and Godfrey 4th.

Brad got KK and AA on the last two hands to take out Joe, then Stacey (she basically surrendered to Brad's 7:1 chip advantage).

It was an all around good night and we appreciated everyone coming out and all those that brought some food.

BTW - I couldn't load the videos this time. It was my first outing with the camera and I couldn't seperate them in the format I created them. Next time...

Congratulations to the money winners, Godfrey for the royal, and Brad for the win!!!

Gotta Love No-Limit Cash Games

Wendesday - 8/2 - I was waiting to take Rocco to the 8PM Agility Class at Triple Crown. Rocco has graduated from Basic Agility Class to Agility II - Sequencing. Next is Courses. After that, who knows?!?

I had signed-up for the Mookie and decided to play some $0.10/0.25, $25 Max No-Limit with 6 player max on PokerStars. I played for about a 1/2 hour total.

I chipped up to about $71 holding AJs rivering a nut flush with 2 players going all in (each with less than $25). I decided to play until I had the button. I am glad I did!

Enter THE DREAM hand... I get AA in late postion - one from the button. I am chip leader at the table, others have between $23 - $35 each. UTG raises to $3.50, UTG+1 calls, I Raise to $7.75, Button Raises to $10. SB folds, BB calls, UTG and UTG + 1 call, I call (after a nice pause).

Flop comes 2, 7, 9 rainbow. BB $5, UTG Raises to $10, UTG+1 calls, I go all in, Button calls, all others call. Me vs. 4 callers. All All-in. I begin to freak out!!! AA's gotta crack against the pressure of 4 callers. (reminds me of Quint in Jaws - "He can't stay down with three barrels, not three.")



Turn 2

River J

Here's what they had: BB = KK, UTG + AK, UTG+1 = QQ, Button = QJ - I took down a $150+ pot!

What's interesting in this hand is everyone's hand took outs from everyone elses hand. I have no idea what the button was thinking with QJ?

Later I made it to 11th in the Mookie. I played fairly solid, but I never got over T3,500 chips. Next week I hope to do better.

Saturday we have poker at our house... can't wait.