Happy Holidays

Me and my girls are packing and heading west for the holidays. So poker will be at a minumum for the next few weeks, although I suspect I'll sneak a few games here and there as I am packing the netbook. If all goes as plan, I should be making at least 1 trip to Commerce with my brother in law, and that will be a blast as usual.

Until I get back, here's hoping you all have a great holiday season, and good luck as always on the virtual felt!

2BA

16K FT

2BA

Yuk

I've made several final 2 table runs in the last couple of days, but the tides have turned somewhat, as Ive been cracked pretty hard both times. There is such a fine line......

2BA

Why not?

I took a look at the lobby, and I have about 70% of all the currently signed up players color coded. It's not pretty. I know I've been running good, but probably will pull the 1K, as I would be a huge dog in this field.

2BA

Closer

I satellited into the 750K yesterday, and managed a nice 4 figure cash:

I got a little over anxious with AT going over the top of a late position raiser. I figured him for a steal, and unfortunately he showed me AJ.

In a little better news, I also just finished getting 3rd in this event:

I got funky with JJ, and slow played myself into 3rd place:

Oh well, I wanted action and I got it.

2BA

This one stung

I will go over the last 3 tables hand history, and review some of my hand decision, which I'm sure I most certainly did make some wrong decisions. But I just can't believe my luck when it matters as I've blogged in the past.

With 3 tables remaining I get AA (red ones no less), and I'm sitting on about 1.8M. A 800K stack shoves, I shove and he shows me A7 off. The board goes runner's on the Turn & River to fill the gutter formed on the Turn. I counted my chickens before they hatched and got burned, as I looked real quick where that 'win' would put me (2nd).

I didn't once glance however at the payouts. I didn't want that to influence any of my decisions. When we finally hit the Final Table bubble, I had a little over 3M but was the short stack. But my real misfortune came when the software moved me when we got to 10, to balance tables, and placed me to the immediate right of the two largest stack, one had 13M the other 9M.

That really sucked, since for about the next few orbits, I didn't get a hand better than 7 high. That is no joke. In fact, I was dealt 62 4 hands straight at one point. That forced me to bluff raise all in to just stay afloat at least once every few orbits.

In the end, I got what was the best hand I had recieved since being moved to that last table, K9. I shoved, and the SB woke up with 99 and that was it as I couldn't hit.

I was into this tournament for a whopping 20 bucks. I had signed in late, and only noticed late registration on a whim, as I happen to see the announcement in the chat as I was playing a heads up sit n go.

Still stinging a bit this morning, but I'll get over it.

2BA

HOTD

Brought to you by DQB!

2BA

AJ out...Kara in!

I missed this nugget about AJ Benza getting the boot off high stakes poker. I think this season just got better..... poker wise of course!

Feb 14 will be this season's kickoff date.

2BA

Satellite win with a chip and a chair

Achieving this was a pretty cool streak of luck and skill obviously, since I was down to the felt after this hand:

Not bad...I had already won an entry, so this got turned to T$. Now lets see if I can run good in the big one.

2BA

MTT's

I get alot more emails to the gmail account I have posted on my blog than I do in the comments for some reason. But be that as it may, I've had a bunch of you asking me a bunch of things, lately many about my latest streak of FT's in MTT's. Although I haven't won, it certainly has been a very nice streak to make it deep in as many MTT"s as I have lately. But here goes a few responses to your questions in no particular order.

I keep the blog as a journal for myself primarily, and of course for anyone out there who cares to follow along with my poker playing. I shy away from actual poker content and strategies not because I hold some valuable insider secrets, but mostly because what works for me, is what I've learned works for me through playing countless amounts of tournaments, and may not work for you. Nothing takes the place of experience, although discussion of poker hands, strategies, etc is also a good thing, and perhaps at some point, maybe I'll start posting some.

Playing MTT's is really fun for me, and yes, I do mean that, despite the fact the reality is that to be a truly profitable MTT player, is a very difficult thing to do. The real money is in the cash games, if that's what your goal is. I see MTT's more like a chess game. The decision's that one has to make through the course of any MTT are numerous. The best you can try, is to make the right choices, but as we all know, even when you do, things can go very wrong. But that is where the fun really comes from for me, despite the frustrations, which almost makes it sadistic in a way, but it's just the nature of this game.

The navigation through the field is what I enjoy the most, and I don't take the same route each time I play. That's the beauty of the game. It's like asking a golfer, how far he can hit a 7 iron. That has no simple answer, and neither does poker. What's the best approach to play an MTT has numerous answers, and many will be just fine to do. I think that if you play the tight early, and loosen up in the middle style, it has no plus/minus advantage over the guy who does just the opposite, or has some other style. The bottom line is that any style will work, as long as you are a good decision maker. In order to become a good decision maker, that takes alot of time to learn and master. And with that mastery, comes the understanding of the subtleties of the game, that helps you get to the next level. I don't profess to understand them all, I'm continuing to learn and develop myself.

I pretty much stay at the $26 MTT"s because it allows me the freedom of pulling whichever road map style I feel, and giving it a go. I have a more limited road map as the buy-ins go higher, but I don't usually play those unless I satellite in. The Sunday $200 is about as high as I'll go online, and I use to play that one alot more than I do so today.

As for this latest run of FT's that I've had, well that's just probably more of being on the right side of variance than anything else. Although I'm still waiting for the real aspect of variance to kick in, and hopefully that will happen sooner, rather than later.

Thanks for the questions, and sorry I don't respond as timely as I should.

Good luck as always on the virtual felt!

2BA

Same old story......

I need for Joe Cada to put out an instructional video on how to suck out. That seems to be my biggest leak right now. My opponents all have a huge edge on me, and I can't seem to overcome when it counts.

Case in point...down to 2 tables, I need to come from behind....but fall short:

Obviously, winning that flip would have put me in great shape going into the FT.

Then at the final table, I get it in real good against this dufus, but he had 'the skill' obv:

(Big gigantic SIGH!!!)

2BA

Durrrr knows how to lay em down!!! Enjoy!

2BA

Chopped it

Heads up he had me about 4:1, but I managed to get back to even and then even took the lead. At that point we did a straight chips chop. The blinds were way up there, and would have been a crap shoot anyway.

2BA

Serenity Now!!!!!

Serenity Now!!!!!!

2BA

Isildur1 Revealed

I made this post on Isildur1 a week ago, and now his ID has been revealed. Here you go...source is here:

Viktor Blom is a 20 year old poker pro from Sweden. Viktor started playing poker under the screen name of blom90 on the Ipoker network. Viktor Blom is alleged to have deposited $2000.00 and ran it up to $1.5 million in 2 weeks with his hyper aggressive style. He was 18 when he first did this and is now around 20 years old. Viktor Blom was nominated in the Scandinavian Poker Awards for rookie of the year in 2008.

2BA