The Good Doctor


It's an honor to have been bestowed a link on Dr Pauly's poker blog! Now there's an actual chance others may read this drivel.

Playing a lot of NL100 Rush Poker on FTP...after an initial boost, it's been a slow, rollercoaster of a grind. Win $300, lose $250...lose $200, win $175. It wears on the mind, especially when work is sucking the proverbial fat one and all I can think about is "I wish I could play poker for a living, but how will that ever happen if my online bankroll hardly grows?"

I take beats, I play bad, I think about having to go to work the next day, and I get real mad/depressed. Reading the Elements of Performance section of Tommy Angelo's book has been helpful; I feel so calm & relaxed after reading those pages. Breathing is the best cure for tilt, and for avoiding tilt. I must make it part of my routine to read/breathe before every session.

Time to go play some more Rush, then the For Anna benefit tourney on Full Tilt at 10.

Also, if anyone wants to trade blog links, just leave me yours in the comments...thanks!

Oops, I Did It Again



I hadn't played Saturdays with DrPauly in over two months...always something going on Saturday afternoons. Last time I played I was fortunate enough to win; this time around I was just plain lucky.

Don't remember the details, but I played two all-in pots early on...and rivered them both. Felt weird to administer the beats instead of suffer them.

I think I was in the lead when the final table started, but behind almost 2-to-1 to jeciimd when it got to heads up. We got it all in on a two-diamond flop; jeciimd flopped two pair, I was chasing with Kd-Qd-x-x...and runner-runnered a higher two pair. Pretty gross, but no apologies!

Kept picking up decent hands, applied pressure, and ground down jeciimd to about 5,000. We finally got it all-in on J-J-x-x board, I had slowplayed A-J-x-x and jeciimd unfortunately had J-T-x-x. He wasn't able to boat up on the river and I wonned da tournaments...sorry, the post-tourney celebratory margaritas from Pancho Loco are talking!

Thanks again to the Good Doctor for running a fun, laid-back tourney for his friends & faithful readers.

Which reminds me, a solid Eff You goes out to the IT department at my job for blocking Pauly's site! Now I must wait till evenings for my daily fix...

I've Been a Baaad Blogger

...especially since I hung out a bit with Dr Pauly & AlCan'tHang and haven't blogged a word about it.

Jen & I drove down to AC on a Thursday in late-September for a few days of gambooooling. We were supposed to meet up with friends Scott & Jamison from DC, but they weren't able to make it. Made good time driving through New York & Jersey since most schmucks were still at work, and rolled into the near-empty valet area at Borgata as the final table for the World Poker Tour at was running...knowing that Pauly & Al were covering the event, I had to track them down.

I snooped around the ballroom area until I saw some Borgata employees head into the darkened Salon D...there were no posters or signs advertising the WPT final table, but I followed the help inside. Sure enough, there was the WPT set...bleacher seating, monitors, flat-screens, and a poker table complete with a dealer, two players, and a mountain of cash. I didn't recognize either player, but here's the winner of a cool $1.4 million. He had a big chiplead and cracked AQ with AJ on the final hand. Yep, suckouts happen live, too.

I eventually found Al in the makeshift WPT lounge/bar (big shock), and later met up with him and Pauly in the B Bar for a few rounds. Even though there were a bunch of more important WPT/Borgata muckety-mucks in the group, Pauly & Al still were kind enough to chat with me between their schmoozings.

Genuinely friendly dudes.

Tao of Omaha

I played in this:



...which lead to this e-mail:

PokerStars Tournament #107477542, Pot Limit Omaha
Buy-In: $10.00/$1.00
37 players
Total Prize Pool: $370.00
Tournament started - 2008/09/13 - 16:20:00 (ET)

You finished the tournament in 1st place.
A $148.00 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

Congratulations!
Thank you for participating.

I doubled up early when my river shove of a full house was called by someone who I guess thought we were playing Omaha H/L...at least he had the nut low, lol.

When the final table started, I was about 5th in chips and stayed on the lower end of the totem pole until I busted AlCan'tHang. I was dealt an ideal Omaha drawing hand: 9d-8c-7d-6c. Al raised pot, which was about 2/3 of his chips, and I decided to take my stand & shoved my 9 BB stack. Al called with Ad-Kh-Jh-7c, making me a slight underdog...until the flop came 5-5-6 with two diamonds. Al still had tons of outs, but there were a handful of cards that would lock it up for me, and the 4c on the turn did just that. He wasn't too happy about it, hopefully I can make it up to him with a little SoCo if we cross paths in AC later this week.

We were stuck on the money bubble for a while, but it eventually broke...then I took the chip lead three-handed on a flopped boat, and made it to heads-up against 777GMoney with a better than 2-to-1 chiplead. GMoney started to open up his play, raising and taking down a number of hands, and took the lead away from me. I then found Ad-Kd-Kh-2h on the button and decided to lay a trap by limping. Sure enough, GMoney raised, I bumped it up, and we got it all in pre-flop. He showed Qh-Qs-9s-8d, so I was ahead...but that never means much in Omaha with five cards still to come.

The 7h-8s-4h flop gave me a heart flush draw to go with my Kings, and the 6h on the turn locked it up for me. Good thing I hit that flush, since the river brought a third Queen for GMoney. This whole having-others-drawing-dead-on-the-turn thing, I could get used to it...

Holding a 10-to-1 lead, I called GMoney's pre-flop shove with Ks-Ts-8c-7h. He was ahead with Js-6d-6c-2c, but I spiked a King on the river to seal the deal.

Thanks again to Dr Pauly for hosting the tourney...I'll owe him a drink or two at the Borgata as well!

As far as Atlantic City goes, Jen & I planned to drive down Thursday afternoon for a long weekend of poker & slots...but she might have a doctor's appointment at some point over the weekend, and we won't know if/when until Monday.

Keeping fingers crossed...

Saturday Tilt

In chronological order:
- lost power for two hours
- laptop acted up, had to reinstall AOL & other programs
- had chiplead at final table of Saturdays with Dr Pauly, finished fourth
- guys' night out for UFC PPV cancelled due to stupid tropical storm
- on FullTilt NL $100 table, I raised w/KK, get re-raised to $12, I raised to $37, he called...got it all in on Q-x-x flop...you know what he had (QQ)
- on another FT NL $100 table, I raised w/77 & flopped a set in a multi-way pot...I bet & got a caller, turn was an A, I made weak-looking 1/2 pot bet, guy shoved all in for TWO DOLLARS MORE, I mis-clicked & FOLDED.

There, now I feel a little better...go Patriots.

Pimping Pauly

I probably won't be able to play (in DC for the weekend), but here's another great overlay from the Tao of Poker: