I am so tired of banging my head against the wall at PokerStars. I am taking a break from Stars and heading back over to Bodog, where I was beating $100NL @ ~8BB/100. I am a winner over at 'Stars, but its nothing to write home about, ~1BB/100 over 35K hands. I am keeping some money on Stars for some tourneys and WSOP Steps, but I will be concentrating on trying to clear the 100% Reload Bonus on Bodog. I cant wait for the light stackage that is sure to happen. I need to pad my bankroll so I can make the WSOPC in New Orleans.

Tomorrow my son is going under the knife!!!!! He is getting tubes put in his ears. Hopefully the ear infection he has had for 3 months will finally clear up. They say that getting tubes will do wonders. Lets hope so. 2:30 wake up calls are not very fun when you have an 8-5 job.

Good Luck Guys!!!!

Meh day @ the Shoe.

Last Saturday fellow tworagger Landlord79 and I headed over to our home casino to play some live poker. Our regular live game for now is $1-$3NL. We headed out around 9am and arrived at Horseshoe-Bossier City poker room and we were immediately sat at different NL tables. I joined my table which consisted of a mixture of weak tight old men and calling stations. The first hand at my table three people limped and I sweated AKo and I bumped it to $25 straight and an old man to my left cold called and every one else folded. I CBET $40 on a K high flop and took it down. You can’t win them all unless you win the first one right? So I am up about $50 when the following hand comes up. The old man on my direct right who was pretty much fit or fold bumped it to $23 with a couple of limpers and I squeezed AK this time and I 3bet to $60 straight and when it got back to him he announced raise and I quickly mucked my hand face-up before the guy could even get an amount out of his mouth. I got some weird looks from a lot of the players who thought that AKs is the nutz. The old man showed AA. One more for the good guys!!!

I am about even when I sweat AKo once again from LP and I punished the 3 limpers and make it $25 straight. The guy on my left, who had me covered, kept playing every time I would raise and I knew this was going to be a problem unless I made hands vs him. We miss flops to right? Ok, so the guy cold calls me preflop once again. I make a CBET to $40 on the K-4-Qflop, but this time he calls. The turn was 9 and that made a straight possible for people can’t fold JT preflop. I cant give this guy a free card if he is drawing, so I cut out 12 redbirds and was going to see what he was going to do. He called my turn bet pretty quick and now I am getting pretty committed by SPR standards. The river was an offsuit ace and I made a $100 bet and got looked up by A8. I can’t believe that guy looked me, but I will take it. I rake in a nice pot and as I am putting the details into my voice recorder I get a few questions about why I am recording my hands. I reveal that I am taking notes on hands that I play during live poker sessions, so that I can do trip reports for a website I represent, tworags.com obviously. I even passed out a couple of business cards. Edmond don’t worry, I am pimping the site, even though it keeps me from getting action. From then on I was referred to newcomers to the table as a pro, but I kept telling them that I just play poker as a hobby.

I chip up to up about $300 and follow limpers from MP with 88. The flop is 4-A-A rainbow and the 4 players check it around. The 3hits the turn and I make a bad play when a old man leads and I try and take it from him with a nice stiff raise, but when he announced a reraise I was toast and quickly mucked my hand. I was so mad at myself for this spewtarded play. I just dumped close to $80 on a bluff. Everyone knows you don’t bluff live donks. I shrug it off and get back to my A game.

Landlord has made it over to my table and he is unsuccessfully trying to recover some of his losses and we are shooting the bull. Live poker is so much more fun when you can sweat flops and turns with your buddies isn’t it? A few hands after the 88 debacle a couple of loose guys limp from MP position and I look down at AQo in the SB and I make it $26 total and the first limper calls and the second preflop limper shoves the rest of his stack $94 into the pot and when it gets back to me I reraise to $200 to isolate the All-In player. The original limper folds and I can’t a win coin flip vs 99. That hand pretty much made my day. It wasn’t too much longer that Landlord and I had enough for one day and we decided to call it a night.

Even though I only cashed out a small win ($70), I enjoyed my time at one of my favorite poker rooms in the South. My wife and I are making another trip over to the Shoe on Good Friday, but I don’t know how much poker I will be able to get in, with all the shopping she will want to do. I am not sure when Landlord and I will make another trip, but I can’t wait.

Everytime I look at my son I realize that there are more important things than running good at poker. Make someones day and tell them you care about them and you appreciate the things they do for you.

I have primarily been playing uNL cash games on the internet for the last year or so and I have faired pretty well. I usually don’t have the 5-6 hours on average that it takes to play a tourney. I only have a couple of hours a night that I am able to dedicate to poker. Between being a full time accountant and a full time dad to a newborn, I just don’t have the time. I decided last week that if I ever wanted to get out of the 5x5 cubicle that I spend 40hrs a week in, I was going to have to play in some bigger cash games or make a few nice scores in a couple tourneys. Since I have been running pretty bad at uNL cash games this month I decided that taking a couple of shots at some bigger NL games was probably a bad idea, so this weekend I made a conceded effort to play a couple of tourneys on Stars.

On Friday night I played 2 tourneys. I played the $10r and a $15 freeze out on ‘Stars and I ended up making the final table of the freeze out. Beginners luck???? I had 17K in chips after the add-on at the first break in the rebuy and I actually ran that up to ~$30K until I ran QQ into KK in a $60K pot in the second hour and just like that I was gone. So much for that. I am now focused 100% on the freeze out where I have an above average stack. I pretty much play ABC poker until we bust the money bubble and then I start catching cards left and right. I made it to the final table and I can’t catch a card that is higher than a 5. I am bleeding chips left and right. I end up making a bad preflop decision and try and steal some blinds with Q-7 and when the SB shoves over the top of me I have to make a decision. I know I am beat, but I look at the #s and I am getting close to 4-1, so I make the “right” play and ship some more chips into the pot, but unfortunately I can’t sweat A3c. BAH. I end up having to shove 9-10o on the CO and when someone else re-shoved I knew I was toast. The guys KK dominated my 9-10, but the flop revealed both a 9 and a 10 I got a little giddy. Man it feels good to suck out once in awhile!!!! To bad a K spiked on the turn. GG Mr_Taterhead. Regardless of the variance that tourneys entail I think I am in love again.

Wish me luck.

Pretty meh month.

Lost $530 at the Horseshoe-Bossier City on Landlord79's Birthday :(
Won $315 on Stars MTabling uNL
Won $165 on Bodog playing HU SNG's and uNL
Cleared $50 bonus on Stars.

My Jan 08 Goals were:

Play 10K hands online and achieve SilverStar/GoldStar VIP.
"Check-SilverStar VIP"
Blog here more.
"Bout the same"
And of course come back from Tunica a winner.
"Didn't end up going, but lost at the 'Shoe


Feb 08 Goals are:

1.Become GoldStar VIP at PokerStars.
2.Play 17.5K hands.
3.Win >4ptbb/100 @ $50NL
4.Take some shots at MTabling $.50/$1 on Stars.
5.Make a trip to the 'Shoe