ThePokerhaus.com

this blog brings news of both fantastic success and utter failure (imo)… i’ll start with the good: last night i eclipsed my goal of 100k profits on the year. i went deep in the full tilt $163 last night and ended up cashing for 7.8k. the bad news is that i got heads up with a 2:1 chip lead and, after a long, intense heads up match ended up losing to a very solid player, NL_brewZ (or something like that) and leaving the 12k first prize on the table.
i played a full schedule of mtts last night, 11 in all and only had one cash. nothing really to mention in the 10 tourneys i didn’t cash in… standard bad beats, standard lost coinflips, standard restealing/bluffing and running into big hands, and obviously i made some bad plays along the way too.

played the $22r and $11r on stars… i haven’t played many rebuys up to this point in my career but am just starting to get into them. it’s becoming more and more clear to me that open-pushing everything until i build a stack in the lower-buyin rebuys is the only way to go… it’s so nice to be able to play real poker for the first four hours of a mtt rather than being shortstacked after the first break. i played like a nit in the $22r basically because i had no idea what to do (first time playing, it didn’t occur to me that it would only be twice as much than the $11r to go crazy and build a stack) and started the second break with 7k or something retarded (10k+ is average at first break). i managed to build my stack in the following hours playing very solid but eventually got bad beat with AQ < A9 all in preflop. meh, that's how it goes. i played the $11r (i've played this tourney like 10 times now and am starting to understand what is necessary in the rebuy period) and got in for 6 double rebuys + the addon for $141 total... but i had a 17k stack at first break and went pretty deep before busting in 250th - i don't really remember how as i was deep in the tilt $163 by that point and did not take the time to note the hand in my excel spreadsheet. if any rebuy experts are reading... i'd love any advice you can offer.

the tilt $163 was a very interesting tourney. i don't remember any hands from the first few hours of the tournament... the earliest hand i remember is that i had a pretty nice looking stack with 50 or so left (36 paid) and it folded to me in the sb with Q2o... the bb was playing tight and i absolutely hate to let tight players keep their blinds, so i raised it 3x and he called. flop came q 8 5, i bet, he raised, i shoved, and he instacalled with q8... good game nice stack i spent so long building. so down to 7k or so (average is 35k or so i believe), but luckily i saw a nice string of cards and just kept shoving, picking up the very sizeable preflop pots more often than not. restole once with ak and won a race against tranquilo with 99 > his AQo and i was right back where i started with the q2 hand, at 40k or so.

soon after that i got moved tables twice and the second time found actionjeff two to my left with a very sizeable stack… oh boy, he had no clue what i had in store for him.  i had had jeff at my table earlier in the tournament and he had been playing pretty aggressively, opening a lot of pots from all positions, so i was looking for him to steal my blinds and an opportunity to resteal. (imo resteals are more important on full tilt than any other site, due to the big antes and size of the preflop pots in comparison to the stacks when you get down to three and two tables.) soon enough, it folded to jeff in the cutoff, and here is the carnage that ensued:

Full Tilt Poker Game #1111703725: $22,000 Guarantee (7243171), Table 17 - 2000/4000 Ante 500 - No Limit Hold’em - 0:37:49 ET - 2006/10/17
Seat 1: BKiCe (64,776)
Seat 2: FlipYA4Reel (43,616)
Seat 3: Ynenk03 (139,044)
Seat 4: spybot26 (41,836)
Seat 5: Ferrari11 (50,932)
Seat 6: NLBrewZ (99,488)
Seat 7: jrgarza (107,512)
Seat 9: z32fanatic (35,020)
BKiCe antes 500
FlipYA4Reel antes 500
Ynenk03 antes 500
spybot26 antes 500
Ferrari11 antes 500
NLBrewZ antes 500
jrgarza antes 500
z32fanatic antes 500
BKiCe posts the small blind of 2,000
FlipYA4Reel posts the big blind of 4,000
The button is in seat #9
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to BKiCe [Kc Qh]
Ynenk03 folds
spybot26 folds
Ferrari11 folds
NLBrewZ folds
jrgarza raises to 10,000
z32fanatic folds
BKiCe raises to 64,276, and is all in
FlipYA4Reel folds
jrgarza calls 54,276
BKiCe shows [Kc Qh]
jrgarza shows [As Ad]
*** FLOP *** [4h 3d 7h]
BKiCe: loool
*** TURN *** [4h 3d 7h] [2h]
BKiCe: nh
*** RIVER *** [4h 3d 7h 2h] [Ah]
BKiCe shows a flush, Ace high
jrgarza shows three of a kind, Aces
BKiCe wins the pot (136,552) with a flush, Ace high
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 136,552 | Rake 0
Board: [4h 3d 7h 2h Ah]
Seat 1: BKiCe (small blind) showed [Kc Qh] and won (136,552) with a flush, Ace high
Seat 2: FlipYA4Reel (big blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 3: Ynenk03 folded before the Flop
Seat 4: spybot26 folded before the Flop
Seat 5: Ferrari11 folded before the Flop
Seat 6: NLBrewZ folded before the Flop
Seat 7: jrgarza showed [As Ad] and lost with three of a kind, Aces
Seat 9: z32fanatic (button) folded before the Flop

HAHAHAHA nice hand sir. i don’t really see much fault with my play, as when it folded to me there was 20k in the pot and i had 63k in my stack and i thought jeff was opening there with a very wide range, due to his stack size and possible “name recognition/ranked player” respect. sucks that he had such a big hand and that i sucked out so gigantically on him… he open pushed the next hand with 56o and busted, and immediately headed over to pocketfives to post this bad beat and bitch about how bad everyone is and how bad he runs. he has a tremendous poker mind, but imo has a long way to go before becoming a tremendous poker player, if you catch the distinction.

anyways, back to the action… that hand put me at 2/13 and from there i cruised to the final table, although i started the ft 6/9. there were three shortstacks and then 1-6 were relatively close to each other, and my m was around 10 at the final table, so i felt very comfortable. basically played pretty tight and bet my hands early on in the final table… then when we got down to 7 people i started making some resteals and trying to accumulate chips. another huge suckout for me came when UTG raised 6 handed (i believe) and i reshoved on him with As10s from the big blind. he instacalled with ak and the board came something hilarious like 8 4 3 5 10.

the rail went absolutely crazy with that hand (i had many railers from both thepokerhaus and the FCP forums, thank you to all who railed) and i’m pretty sure that hand gave me a solid chip lead on the field. anyways, when we got three handed i eliminated the third place finisher and started heads up with a 700k to 300k lead. my opponent played very passively preflop so my plan was to keep the pots small and to play pots in position and outplay him on the flop… unfortunately i never really found myself in any favorable positions.. either i had a hand and he folded preflop or i would just not hit anything on the flop. obviously there were exceptions, but in general, it seemed to me that not much was going right for me.

the hand that turned the match went like this: i raised on the button with AhJh, NLbrewZ called, flop came KhQh9x, he checked i bet 70k into the 95k pot, and he smooth called. at this point the pot was about 240k, he had 230k, and i had 290k. the turn blanked and he instashoved into me, and i didn’t have odds so i had to lay it down and reliquish the chip lead. unfortunately my opponent never really gave any chips away and i started playing too passively later in the match, and eventually after much going back and forth we got it all in on an ace high flop with my A8o vs his AJo… for once i didn’t suck out and that was that, second place for 7.8k.

i want to thank everyone that railed and supported me during that match… it was really nice to have so much support in the observer chat and on the forums, and i appreciate all the kind comments and chat-box spamming that results in me hitting three outers on the river in huge pots. thank you to all.

lastly, a few little tidbits… i’m hopefully going to be writing my biography/poker history and posting it in the next few days. not sure when, but should definitely be up by thursday. also, i disabled the requirement that you be registered to comment, so all you have to do is put your name and email address now, so i’d really appreciate it if anyone who reads this blog drop me a line saying hi and giving me any feedback on how i could improve my blog. finally, i have a test tomorrow night so i’m not going to be playing tonight or probably tomorrow night either (it’s my birthday tomorrow), so it looks like i missed the triple crown for the second time after winning the first two legs in 2 days. hopefully i’ll be able to get there one of these days. thanks for reading, and gl at the tables.

blah so yesterday fell waaaaay short of expectations… here’s a tourney by tourney summary:

bodog 100k: busted third hand with straight flush to a higher straight flush

stars 1m: busted in 2nd hour three betting with ak from the button and running into aa on an ace high flop

ub 200k: busted in 2nd hour all in preflop with aces against kings… king on flop, weeeee.

fcp 60k: busted in 1st hour with aq all in preflop vs aj… jack on flop.

tilt 15k: busted in 1st hour… lost most of my stack with ak vs aq all in preflop (turn came a queen) and then was finished off with 77 being outrun by aq.

ub 20k: never really got anything going in this tourney… i was short pretty much the whole time, played a good shortstack for a while but eventually got it in with aj was tt and didn’t win the race

tilt 22k: busted in 1st hour with qq all in preflop vs ak sooted for a really big pot as i remember.

and then there were my two cashes…

tilt 500k: i doubled up very early with kk vs aj on a Q J 10 flop… and from there never really looked back. at the end of the first hour i was solidly above average. second hour didn’t treat me so well and i saw my stack shrink to about average… was sitting 250/533 at second break. third hour was the important hour for me as i built a very nice stack winning several decent pots and ended the third hour at 33/244. at the end of the fourth hour i was 61/118 (108 paid) with 25k and average 28k… however, i was able to pick up a couple pots and double through once, eventually building my stack to about 75k. then with 36 people left i three bet all in with AKo and the original raiser called with JJ and i got no help, out in 36th for $1.8k or so. if i win that pot i am top 5 in chips with a biiiiiig stack and a serious shot at the 120k first place… oh well, one of these sundays it will all come together for me, just gotta keep it up i guess.

stars second chance: i tripled up very early with 88 against kj and kq on a K 8 5 flop, so i pretty much had a gigantic stack right from the start. that pot put me at 7/950, and for the next two hours i accumulated well and stayed in the top 20 from 900 down to 400 people. when we got to down to 300 i was in 30th in chips, and things were looking good. i won a few races, hit an oesd against aces, and before i knew it i found myself in the money (i completely missed the bubble… i look at the tourney info and suddenly we’re 15 people into the money, wtf?!) with a healthy stack. when we got down to 38 (150 paid) i was right around average and raised 66 from the cutoff. the bb reraised me all in and i felt it was a race i had to take if i was trying to win the tournament. i had 50k before the hand with 1.5k/3k blinds and average was about 70 i think, so a double up would put me in very very solid position with 105k or so. bb showed AQs and turned a flush, and that was that. cashed for $600.
it’s really really disappointing to go relatively deep in two big sunday tournaments and have barely over 2k to show for it… unfortunately these huge field mtts have tons of varaince, not much to do about it except keep playing good poker. if i keep putting myself in position to go deep in these majors it’s only a matter of time until i make a final table, i think. or at least i hope.

———–

in other news, this morning i went to an accounting firm to meet with a tax lawyer about paying taxes on my poker winnings… and JAJSKAHLFGSDHASSKH. i’m probably looking at federal taxes taking 20-25% of my net profits on the year and state taxes taking 3% of my net winnings on the year, which is looking like it will be 25 or 30 grand, at least. i’m pretty unhappy with this country of ours at the moment.

anyways, that’s all i got for now, hope everyone has a good week. gl at the tables.

sup guys…. sunday is shortly underway, easily the biggest mtt day of the week online. my tenative schedule for the day is the bodog 100k, stars million, ub 200k, ftp 500k, stars second chance, and the pokerroom 60k. might add a couple tournies later in the night, we’ll see. i already busted the bodog 100k (they moved it to 4pm est this week) with a 5 high straight flush (pocket aces with the Ad on a 2d3d4d5d board) to 6d7d… lol, good game. right now i’m only playing the stars million with the ub tourney starting in about 15 minutes.

brief update of last few days: as you probably know i won mtts on both wednesday and thursday night, giving me 2/3 legs of the triple crown. i won those two mtts on full tilt and pokerstars, so my next win needs to be on bodog, ultimate bet, or pokerroom (since partypoker and dise are gone to us customers, more about that later). both friday and saturday were completely uneventful… i played a full schedule and had one cash between the two days, a final table bubble on ub in the 11pm $109. other than that, absolutely nothing to report… some bad setups, some bad beats, undoubtedly some bad play on my part.

sundays are the beginning of my week pokerwise, so i just finished updating all my excel spreadsheets… i ended up having my second best week ever, which is obv great. hopefully some good things are in store for me today; with a good day i will reach my goal of 100k profit on the year - i’m at about 94.5k currently. i got a good night of rest, got my necessary shower right before the tournaments started, and i am feeling good and ready for a long day of mtts and final tables. hopefully variance will be on my side…

as far as all this poker legislation…. BLAH. my favorite site (partypoker) is gone, as are their frequent, large, donk-filled mtts that i so loved… paradise poker is gone, pokerroom has announced they are leaving us customers sometime in the near (indefinite) future… it doesn’t look very promising, although there are several sites that have announced they will stay open to us customers. also, i’m not convinced that the fishes, the people who don’t take this silly game of ours so seriously and the ones who i derive most of my profit from, will be willing to play online in the face of this new legislation.

finally, i’m interested to know who, if anyone, reads this blog… i would appreciate it if you could leave a comment with your name and any suggestions you might have for how this blog could be improved. the ub 200k just started so i’m gonna go focus on these tournaments but thanks for reading and gl at the tables.

just finished up my night pretty early… 12:15am and i’m out of all the 11 mtts i played today. the good news is i took down the 7pm $75 13k guaranteed on full tilt (the prizepool is usually around 20k, today it was like 19.5 i think) for $5k. i cashed in both the stars and party $162s too but couldn’t get very deep in either, busting in 25th on stars and 73rd on party. ended up about 4.5k on the day.
in the full tilt one, i started out real solid, building a huge stack early (honestly don’t remember how) and i was chip leader with 116 left. from there i went up and down and ended up declining to 26/28 when we were on the bubble and then 20/27 when we hit the money. don’t really remember many hands when were itm either, but i made it to the final table with a decent stack (5/9, slightly below average) and then picked up kk and knocked out 99 to build a 2nd place stack with 8 left. at the fourth break i was sitting 2/6 with decent position on the chip leader. i eventually got heads up against him with a 300k to 500k deficit… i eventually took the chip lead when i turned a boat with motown, j5 and he paid me off with something not so good. from there we battled for a while and he somehow took back the lead… i was playing small pots mostly in position, i guess just natural variance hit me and so the match turned slightly in his favor. however, i was able to stay close to him until picking up k5 on the button… i raised, he called, we saw a flop of 7 7 5, he checked i continuation bet he shoved and after thinking for a while i decided he was either on a draw or had a 5 with a lower kicker and called. he showed a2o and i held, doubling through and taking a 3.5 to 1 chip lead. from there it was just a matter of time until i grinded him down.
in the stars $162, i ended up busting when i pushed k4 sooted on the button with an m of 4… i had been playing pretty tight and thought i would get a lot of respect with my shove, but the sb woke up with 99 and that was that. dunno, i probably could have folded and waited, but with an m of 4 i’m really trying to steal those blinds or maybe double up. meh, marginal decision, still not quite sure whether folding would have been better. in the party $162 i was shortstacked and picked up 22 in mp after a shortsack shoved for 9k right in front of me… i repushed for 13k and held against his kq sooted and then two hands later picked up ak utg and raised… big chip lead reraised me, i shoved, he showed jj and i didn’t hit. oh well, i was happy to see ak in that spot, just unlucky someone had jj.

guess i’m gonna be playing a lot in the next five days trying to win the triple crown… i need one more win in a mtt with a prizepool of 10k or more in the next 5 nights, hopefully i can get it done this time - i was in this same spot about a month ago and failed to win the third one. been gettin a lot of love on the fcp forums, definitely appreciate that, thank you to anyone reading for the support and rails. anyways i’m pretty tired, i’ll catch you guys later. gl at the tables.

sorry for the lack of updates recently… been playing a lot though, and having a lot of success so far this week.

since sunday, i’ve played 50 mtts, cashed in 13, final tabled 6, and had 15.6k in profit. that’s sunday-wednesday, so hopefully i can put up some healthy results for the rest of the week and maybe have my best week ever (currently 25.3k). yesterday was an especially sick day… i started playing at 6 and after about 30 minutes was feeling really confident and clear and ready for a big night… i told a couple of my friends on aim that big things were coming. then i proceeded to make three different final tables (out of 12 mtts) and cash in 1st ($7k), 3rd ($2.2k), and 4th (1.9k) for 9.6k in profit.

the first place was in the 11pm stars $109… had 283 entrants and i sucked out HUGE a couple times deep to win… first, i got it all in with 66 as a shortstack on the final table bubble against 99 and the flop came QsJs3s (i didn’t have a spade and villain did) but the turn was the miraculous one-out 6h and the turn was a club 3… a shortstack busted at the other table on that hand and boom we were at the final table and i had a decent stack. then at the final table i reshoved on an utg raiser 4 handed with jj and he instacalled with aa… obv the flop came j 7 7. so from there i had a monster chip lead 3 handed and after getting heads up just completely ran over the guy… it was strange how easily he just gave me the win. he musta open-folded or insta-folded to my button half his stack away before he finally startedp laying back.. but by then i had a 6:1 advantage and it was only a matter of time, i think the final hand was my 66 holding against his a4. sucks that i had to suck out tremdendously a couple times, but i guess that makes up for all the bad beats i take deep. it all evens out, i suppose.

the third place was in the fcp $108 20k guaranteed… there were 165 entrants which meant $3.5k in overlay which is always good, and then of course theres the donations going on at the table… anyways, i played pretty solid, had a big stack for a while then nursed a shortstack for a while then got decent again as we got towards the money (as i always do on fcp it seems, the play is sooo weak there for the most part), then at the final table once we got down to 5 and 6 handed i kept finding myself raising and having to fold to all in reraises… had that happen a couple times in tough spots and i eventually busted in 3rd with a shortstack against the two other even bigstacks with 55 < 99. really sucks that i lost so much of my stack raising and having to fold with marginal hands (a6o, etc), esp since fcp tourneys are not very deepstacked at all. guess i probably shoulda played a little tighter due to the lack of antes, hopefully i’ll get that patched up before i next get to a fcp final table.

finally, the fourth place was in the ub $109 20k guaranteed. this tournament and ub $109s in general are really deep (2500 starting chips, 5/10 starting blinds, 15 minute levels) so it’s always fun to play this tourney… don’t really remember much, but i found myself at the final table sitting 7/10 or so and stole some pots and treaded water until we got to 6 handed and i had a decent stack… folded to the sb who limped, i potted a10o, he instantly shoved, and i called after thinking 10-15 seconds. he showed j9o, flop 10 9 2, and the turn was the heartbreaking 9 to cripple me… i hung around a while longer but then 4 handed felt i needed to make a move and restole on the button with JsTs… unfortunately the utg raiser had pocket tens and i could not suck out. thought i played well, unfortunate i couldn’t win that 60/40 in that very sizeable pot. oh well.

gonna play a full schedule again tonight (starting at 6pm cst), so hopefully i can add a five figure cash to my week tonight. gl at the tables.

yooooooooo

in case you guys haven’t heard, online poker has hit a snafu. i don’t feel like explaining everything, so i’ll post the links at the end of the post (thanks to kevin). anyway, i just cashed out my entire BR on Party… i just didn’t feel safe having all my $ on it. call me paranoid, but whatever. i plan on buying back into another site as soon as the $ hits my bank account. im thinking about full tilt… we’ll see. but since i haven’t been able to play online lately, i’ve had a lot more time. gotta find a new way to earn an income i guess. anyway my cashout should hit my bank account soon and i should be back on the online felt in no time. will update later. peace kids.

-b

http://www.pocketfives.com/680917F0-E058-47A5-BB2A-5026F7E263EB.aspx

http://www.gamblingandthelaw.com/columns/2006_act.htm