Haven't been playing much poker lately. I've been pretty busy on the new tworags design, which should go up today, and some other projects. I did manage to play a few cash games and the 97.1 charity event at the Commerce. That was a really fun event. You can read Edmond's hilarous write-up of it here..

Our friends at the Bike, John and Dave, invited us to the club for this freeroll. It was a really fast structure, but lots of fun. In the first orbit or so Dave came around and threw a $50 itunes card into the middle to the person who won the next pot. Of course I played my 94o for a small raise and saw the flop 6 ways. When the 9 high board hit, I was quickly all-in and everyone folded. Sweet! Got busted soon thereafter, which was pretty much my plan. I was most interested in heading downstairs for some $5/10 NL action. Nothing too special to report. Lots of straightforward hands and 3-4 hours later I was up $1000. Not too bad.

We were at the Bike two weeks ago meeting with their great staff regarding a cool venture between tworags and the Bike. Nothing has been set in stone yet, but we'll be sure to let you know when we have something to report. Edmond and I played some $2/5 NL for a few hours. Had a few so, so hands and a little bad luck. Lost about $350 during the session, no big deal. There was one hand that Ed questioned.

Don't recall the exact details, but basically I had QQ and made a standard raise from the SB. The flop came low and I bet about 1/2 - 2/3rds of the pot with two players left to act. They both called. The turn came so that 98 would have made a straight. Other than that there were no clear hands other than sets that had me beat. I led out close to a pot sized bet. The first guy called and the 2nd guy raised all-in. At that point I probably should have folded, but it was only $100 or so more (am I right about that Ed?) so I was getting over 3-1 to call. It was likely that I was drawing dead, but I felt that the guy could have had top pair and a draw or a JJ/TT and felt that I was on a draw or would fold. Anyway, I didn't hate my call, but it was probably not good. He did make the straight. The other guy had JJ. Ed felt that I should have check-folded. I disagree. What are you going to do?

Looking forward to playing a few of the LA Poker Classic Events next month at the Commerce. Should be a lot of fun. Here's the schedule if you haven't yet seen it.

Let us know what you think of the new site. It should be up by the time you're reading this.

Haven't played much poker lately but hope to change that with the upcoming LA Poker Classic at the end of January and through February. I'm shooting for a 3-4 events and lots of sats. I might even play a few non-hold'em events this time. Wishing all of you a great and profitable 2008 and I'm looking forward to reading about your personal and poker accomplishments and highlights this year.

Have a healthy and prosperous 2008!

- Scot

Had to drop off some tworags/commerce promotional cards at the Commerce this afternoon and even though I didn't have much time to play I couldn't resist at least a little action so I dropped $400 down at the $5/10 NL (400 max) table, ordered some chicken kabobs - food is free at these limits - and began a quick session. Only had about an hour to play, but what the heck.

I observed for a few hands. Many hands went unraised and almost all reasonable raises in the $15-25 range got called by at least one or two players. This was also one of these weird games where every hand seemed to be won by a nut flush or fullhouse.

After about an orbit I'm dealt A9 in the SB and complete with 4 limpers in front of me. Flop comes with two diamonds and I make it $30. Two people call. The turn brings the flush and I make it $75 and one guy calls. The board pairs which worries me just a bit, but I decide to make it $100 (kind of a value bet) and might consider folding to a push. He folds.

Played a few other meaningless hands before this one comes up. I'm in the BB and UTG makes it $20 and 5 people call! I look down at Q5 and call. The flop comes 557. Nice. I probably need to check, but most people don't bet the 5, so I decide to lead out with $50. One guy calls. The turn is the nasty 7 for 5577. The SB makes it $100. Hmmm. I'm having a hard time putting him on a hand I can beat. Now if he was super confident that I had a 5, then his bet is brilliant, but how can he be that confident? My lead on the flop could easily be a 7, an overpair or a bluff. In fact, more often than not it isn't a 5. On the other hand, if he had a 7, then why lead? I decided that he might lead, because if I don't have a 7 he assumes I'll check. I ended up folding. It seemed like the right decision here. Any thoughts?

The only other semi-interesting hand was this. I have AKo in EP, and make it $20. The HJ calls (he only has another $60 or so behind), the CO makes it $100. I have about $320 left so I really have only two options, I'm not deep enough to call and fold on the flop. I decide to do the only reasonable thing here (at least to my warped mind) and push. Of course the HJ calls and the CO calls too. The board brings all low cards, but 3 spades. The short-stack had KsJs and the CO had the same AK as me, so I lost about $80 on the hand. Not sure how good a call it was for the other AK guy -- probably pretty close. Let's see:

He is calling $220 into a $520ish pot, so he's getting more than 2-1, but what can he reasonably put me on? I raised, there was a caller and he RR. It sure looks like my range is QQ, KK, AA, AK. It's probably close. Just did an Evaluator scenario and it looks to be about BE. Take a look here.

Nothing more happens and I lose about half of my buy-in. No big hands, no terrible hands, just lots of small bleeding over the 1.5 hour session.

One crazy hand to note just as I'm stacking my chips. A guy goes all-in for $250 and shows me his TT. Another guy calls. The guy called so fast that the TT guy is worried about an overpair, but then the flop comes 678o and the turn is a 9 so Mr. TT seems golden. The river brings another 8. The opponent turns over 99. Can you believe that? Let's do some calculations on the QuickOdds program:

Preflop he's an 82% favorite
On flop he's a 76% favorite
On turn he's still a 73% favorite

I guess it wasn't as bad as it seemed. The straight draw on the flop and trips on the turn kept it closer than it looked at the end.

I've been playing a little heads-up lately on pokerstars. Nothing major, just a little $1/2 or $2/4 every once in a while. Here's a beauty that you might all enjoy. You can vew in on pokerhand.org. I also reproduced below. Of course I give this hand up if I don't have the nut flush draw to go along with my KK. This is one of those hands where you hit your draw, get pretty happy and then sit in disbelief as the chips don't come to your side of the table as you expect. Always lots of fun!

Pokerstars Game (?) Hold'em No Limit ($1/$2) - 2025/11/26 - 18:00:30 (ET)
Table 'Yunnan II' 2-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: Hero ($122 in chips)
Seat 2: djforever ($225.40 in chips)
djforever: posts small blind $1
Hero : posts big blind $2

Holecards:
Dealt to Hero KK
RAISE djforever, $4 to $6
RAISE Hero , $10 to $16
CALL djforever, $10

Flop: (Pot: $32)
3A6
BET Hero , $22
RAISE djforever, $28 to $50
RAISE Hero , $56 to $106 and is all-in
CALL djforever, $56

Turn: (Pot: $244)
3A6 7

River: (Pot: $244)
3A67 5
>>>djforever said, "gg"

Showdown:
Hero : shows KK (a flush Ace high)
djforever: shows 54 (a straight flush Three to Seven)
djforever collected $243 .50 from pot

SUMMARY:
Total pot $244 | Rake $0.50

We're happy to report that we changed ISP's this past weekend and are now on our own dedicated equipment. Up until now, we have been co-located on a server with other websites. The server was in Canada so we had two issues that were causing speed/response-time problems. First, when other websites experienced high volume our speed was affected. Second, because the server was located in another country, there were basic internet connection issues from time to time.

We believe that the new ISP and the new dedicated equipment should greatly help to solve these issues and result in a faster performing site. Please let us know if you are seeing our pages load quicker. If you are still experiencing any speed issues, do not hesitate to drop me an email or post a comment to this blog entry. I'm at scot@tworags.com.

On another topic, we're in the process of redesigning the site. This should take another month or so to be implemented. The new look will give us a friendlier/less corporate look. It will also better highlight our focus on blogging, trip reports and room listings/reviews. If any of you are interested in seeing some of the new layouts and designs, we would be happy to share them with you and hear your opinions. In the near future, I'll probably post some JPG's of the new interface and ask for comments.

- Scot