Sunday, February 26, 2006

So, the dryspell is over it seems......

From the start of December, after getting rear ended to start off my birthday weekend on the way down to Morongo Casino, it seems as if a dryspell had taken over. The whole weekend was not good, resulting in a loss of around $1200. Since then the cards have been laughing at me, spitting on me, kicking me, etc. etc. But after taking a month or so off, I think I'm finally back in the game. I put some money online, won a little bit, and I also took second place twice consecutively at Paul's Saturday night.

Let me start off by saying the $20+2 SnG's on UB are pretty bad, and it seems like min raising is sweeping the nation. In the past week I've seen more min raising than I do at the limit tables!!! It's sick! Last week I played 2 SnG's a day from Thur-Sat, and out of those six I've placed 1st twice, 2nd once, 3rd once, and made a couple bad moves to get knocked out early in the other two. I think I'm done making stupid moves now :)

But seriously, people are getting terrible. I dunno if there are just so many people playing now that have no clue what they're doing, or if stupidity is just contagious and it's affecting all the previously mediocre players. People don't even know how to play poker, let alone proper tournament strategy. Take this hand for example:

lou pinella has 1505
kidcrash has 7440
yurdaddy00 has 6055

lou pinella posts the small blind of 100
kidcrash posts the big blind of 200

yurdaddy6055 is a complete retard, has moved in a couple times in the worst situations and got lucky. Not a real great tournament player, not even a mediocre tournament player.

lou pinella: -- --
kidcrash: Qc As
yurdaddy00: -- --

yurdaddy00 (on the button) raises to 700
lou pinella goes all in for 1505
kidcrash calls
yurdaddy00 calls

The reason I flat call here is if yurdaddy is only making a position raise here and sees me call as the chip leader, he might fold. Not likely, cuz he's a terrible player, but if he pushes I'm prepared to lay down and outplay him heads up. I'd only seen him RERAISE with AK, and KK so far this tourney, so a reraise could definitely mean he's got me even if he's not a good player.

Flop: 3h 6c Ts
kidcrash checks. yurdaddy00 checks.

Turn: 4s (Board: 3h 6c Ts 4s)
kidcrash checks. yurdaddy00 checks.

River: Qs (Board: 3h 6c Ts 4s Qs)
kidcrash bets 2000. yurdaddy goes all-in for 4550.

Time to hit the tank. Like I said, I'd seen him push in the worst situations twice already and he managed to survive by means of the river card. And also, he's not a good tournament player and has no tournament strategy. So here, he might be either 1) pushing a lower Q or 2)pushing a worse pair. It's a possibility that he slowplayed something big, like maybe a straight on the turn or something, but since he raised preflop and called a reraise, I highly doubt his hand could hit the low straight. Also, if he had a spade draw I'm pretty sure he woulda tried to bet me out of it on the turn, not understanding tournament play. Hence the 2 options I was looking at. Either of the 2 options I had beat, so as the clock began to tick I called.

kidcrash calls

lou pinella shows Ac Js
kidcrash shows Qc As
yurdaddy shows Ah Td

lou pinella has Ac Js 6c Ts Qs: ace high.
kidcrash has Qc As 6c Ts Qs: a pair of queens.
yurdaddy00 has Ah Td 6c Ts Qs: a pair of tens.

kidcrash wins the main pot 4515 with a pair of queens.
kidcrash wins the side pot 9100 with a pair of queens.

So with the win of the hand the SnG was over and I took the $100. And although $100 is practically nothing, it's a small victory in a sea of others about to come to start my comeback to the game. As long as I can keep dodging dumb luck, I'll be able to take these donkies all the way to the bank. And after the last 2 months of all the dumb luck, hopefully I used all of it that I could, so a path of good luck should be on its way.

Bankroll: $668

PS - I'm not counting Paul's game in my bankroll, cuz.....well frankly cuz I don't feel like it. But on a side note, I won $405 from the 2 tournaments, minus $120 back to Darsky for putting me in the first one, and minus $50 for the buy-in for the second one, resulting in a $235 profit on the night. Sweet.

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