As you might have read in my previous post on this subject, I've been trying the PS steps to get my seat this year. I made it to Step 6 and flamed out really quicky finishing last.

I took a two week break after the disappointment of my flameout and tried again. I began at Step 3 and won it so I immediately played in a Step 4 and Step 3 at the same time. I won the Step 3 again and was cruising along in the Step 4 when with about 5 people left to go my KK ran into AK and met a nice little A on the flop so I was out.

I had some time so played the second Step 4 and won that one pretty routinely and then had an interesting ride in the Step 5. I kept on going up and down and somehow managed to hang on until 3 handed. With 3 to go, you are basically freerolling since, at worst, you can still play the Step 5 again which is pretty nice since it's a $700 tournament. I played standard push-bot poker and never got into the lead, but always managed to stay close to 3rd and then was lucky when the leader took out the 3rd player so it was a very fast ride to my second Step 6.

Step 6

I was feeling good and saw no need to wait 2 weeks with my ticket like I did last time so I immediately registered and it only took a few minutes to seat all 9 players. Barry Greenstein didn't join me this time but the lineup looked pretty solid.

One of the players had a connection problem and it was agony for the rest of us. PS has a very lenient policy at these high buy-in games (the seat to the game cost $2.2k). They give the player 240 seconds to act when disconnected before sitting them out. That's fine, but the guy kept on reconnecting for a few seconds and then disconnecting, so almost every hand we had to wait 4 minutes for him to time-out. This went on for about 30-40 minutes and then he finally fixed his connection.

So I had 3 hands that did me in:

- 88: called MP raise from LP. One overcard, guy bets, I call. I give it up on turn.

- JJ: raised from button, SB calls. Flop comes with a K. SB bets, I call. SB checks the turn, I check too. SB bets the river, I call and he shows KJ. Great!

I won a few minor hands of note, but nothing much so with one player out and blinds at 75/150 and me down to around 1800:

- AK: Two limpers I push, get called by BB who turns over QQ. Flop comes TJx so now I have 2 more outs but it's not to be.

What fun!

- S

As many of you know, we joined forces with Pokernetcast.net (the old Live at the Bike team) to put together a single table tournament for the ages. The tournament was filled for later broadcast both here on on the pokernetcast site complete with hole card cameras and commentary from most of participants. We had a great table including:

Todd Brunson
Layne Flack
Jose Conseco
Shaundeeb
Adanthar
Nath
SirWatts
Thayer
Shaniac
Vivek

Edmond and I started the live commentary and were soon joined by each participant once they were knocked out. The broadcast is being edited as I create this blog, and we should have some great clips to post in the next few weeks. The entire broadcast will be made available on the Pokernetcast.com site soon thereafter. We'll be sure to post more details in the coming weeks. Below are some pictures from the event. Stay tuned!


Poker players are happy people, obv


Thayer invites Jose to ValueTown


What makes you think Vivek likes his hand?


SirWatts wonders WTF Edmond is talking about


Ok, that blue screen is a problem.


Edmond sizes up Nath's head


Shaun reflects on the 15 MTTs he missed tonight

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

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) - 2007/11/26 - 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