Online Poker Tournament Rankings

June 2009 - Posts

• Prop Bet Week 1 and Something Remote

  By dtools22 - Jun 30 2009, 07:49 AM

  Well, the first week of my Prop Bet with felipebball came to a close without much excitement.  As of Friday, June 27th, we have a grand total of two cashes between us.  I managed to mincash in the $11 6max while felipebball was able to make a decent run in the $11KO.  So far mixing it up with side action has not been the remedy for my MTT woes, but hopefully it will turn around quickly.  On positive note, there have been plenty of interesting HHs to come out of the last week and I have one that was particularly interesting. This one hand in particular really caught my attention.  It was sent to me by a buddy of mine from a run he made in the nightly $3 Rebuy on FTP.  Hero has around 12K, villain has 14K, blinds at 200/400 50 Ante.  Preflop the villain limps from MP, hero raises 4x from the SB and gets called.  Flop comes off: 7s 5c 7c Hero bets out 2000 into the pot, the villain shoves over the top, hero thinks about it before calling with AhKh.  The villain rolls over Ac8c and wins on the river with a pair of 8s.  My immediate reaction was that this was a terrible play to call off here with A-high unless you had some kind of read on your opponent (which he claims he did not).  His defense was that the villain was likely to turn his entire calling range preflop into a bluff, so 22+, A7s+, A9o+, KQ would all make this shove.  Against that range AKs is in fact a 2-1 favorite, however as I said then I very much doubt the villain is making this move that wide.  I think the villain is far more likely to have a flushdraw here of maybe just is overplaying a weaker 7.  I felt it was also possible 66-TT takes this line as well.  We agreed to disagree, any thoughts here would be welcome.  I would love to know if I'm simply missing something. One non-poker piece of news for you all.  I am actively involved in the making of a webseries call "Something Remote".  We just launched our first episode on Sunday and we will be putting out an episode every Sunday at 6PM EST for the next few months.  Check it out at: www.somethingremote.com I am very excited about this project so I hope you all enjoy the episodes.  That's all from me for now, I'm down in Satin's Anus right now, better known as Orlando, Florida.  I love the city, but good fucking GOD it's too hot for me.  I'm gunna go find the pool for a few days and relax.  See you all on Thursday! No Comments on this post. Click here to post a comment.




• WPT Season 8 Schedule Announced

  By dtools22 - Jun 25 2009, 01:30 PM

  I know the WSOP is still going on but I have accepted the fact that this year will not be my year to take Vegas by storm.  On my horizon sits the WPT season 8 and all its glory.  With the countdown to graduation at t-minus 11 months and counting, it will be a good test to try and build up the BR to play in some of the prelims.  If things go well I might take down a seat or two to the WPT Championship event in each series and from their the sky is the limit.  All I have to do is then win a WPT title and then... Alright I get that some of this is pretty pie in the sky.  That being said I am looking forward to building up the BR a bit and playing in at least a few prelim events on the schedule.  For those of you who haven't seen the WPT Season 8, here's the line up. Bellagio Cup V Bellagio (Las Vegas, NV) July 13th to 19th, 2009 $15,000 + $400 buy-in Legends of Poker The Bicycle Casino (Los Angeles, CA) August 22nd to 26th, 2009 $9,800 + $200 buy-in Borgata Poker Open Borgata Hotel, Casino, and Spa (Atlantic City, NJ) September 19th to 24th, 2009 Buy-in To Be Determined Festa al Lago Bellagio (Las Vegas, NV) October 20th to 26th, 2009 $15,000 + $400 buy-in Foxwoods World Poker Finals Foxwoods Resort Casino (Mashantucket, CT) November 5th to 10th, 2009 $9,700 + $300 buy-in Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic Bellagio (Las Vegas, NV) December 13th to 19th, 2009 $15,000 + $400 buy-in Southern Poker Championship Beau Rivage (Biloxi, MS) January 24th to 27th, 2010 $9,700 + $300 buy-in L.A. Poker Classic Commerce Casino (Los Angeles, CA) February 20th to 25th, 2010 $9,600 + $400 buy-in WPT Invitational Commerce Casino (Los Angeles, CA) February 27th to March 1st, 2010 Invitation Only Bay 101 Shooting Star Bay 101 (San Jose, CA) March 8th to 12th, 2010 $9,600 + $400 buy-in Hollywood Poker Open Hollywood Casino (Lawrenceburg, IN) March 20th to 24th, 2010 $9,600 + $400 buy-in WPT Championship Bellagio (Las Vegas, NV) April 17th to 24th, 2010 $25,000 + $500 buy-in Obviously the one that catches my eye the most would be the Foxwoods World Poker Finals.  The hope is that I can build up an extra $2,000 or so to bring down to the WPF and play in a few prelim events.  Last year I played in the $300 Shootout and I'll be the first to admit I botched a golden oppertunity.  Format was the top three players at the starting table of 10 make it to the main tournament.  In the first hand I got dealt QQ, made a raise, flopped top set, got max value out of it, and within the first few hands I had 2x the starting stack.  Game's easy right?  As the round went on I started playing with scared money.  $300 was a big shot for me to take and it showed by the way I played down the stretch.  By the time I got my nerve back, the damage had been done and I was out in 5th at my table. To be honest I would love to win something, but that's not why I'm going down there.  I want to bury the memory of last year's meltdown.  I just want to leave Foxwoods proud of the way I played and handled myself, win or lose.  The focus now is to get my ass grinding off and get my BR to around $2400 by Mid September so I can play the $100NL games on Stars.  That will give me a few weeks to build up some extra cash and bring it with me to the casino.  I'll definately be making some trips to play live as well and hopefully the WPF 2009 will be something of a coming out party for me.  Until then, one can only dream. 2 Comments on this post. Click here to post a comment.




• Side Action: Day 1

  By dtools22 - Jun 22 2009, 09:23 PM

  Now I can't promise that this will be anywhere near as interesting as Ivey's side action during the WSOP, but in the spirit of trying to get out of a funk I think this is a good way to add some incentive to the daily MTT grind.  After one of my downswing blogs I got a message from felipebball about some side action.  A few weeks and planning out later we've agree to some additional action on a few of my regular MTTs on FTP. Hopefully some added juice will change the momentum a bit. The bets are not baller level (or ballah for the cooler-than-me audience) but I'm liking the way things are structured.  I could just be donking off the money since I'm burning money on FTP at present and felipe prob knows this and has outsmarted me into taking the worst of it here...but fuck it I'm up for a change. The two MTTs we agreed upon were the nightly $11KO @ 10:45 and the nightly $11 6max @ 11:30 on FTP.  Here are the terms: 1) The first to FT the $11KO wins $25. 2) The first to FT the $11 6max wins $25. 3) The first to FT BOTH MTTs wins another $25. I'm excited to get this going.  This is my first long standing side action bet with another player.  I've done my fair share of LLs but this is new to me.  Hopefully the added challenge will bring me some good luck.  If not...well at least it's only money. I'll be sure to keep you all apprised as to how well we're doing. 2 Comments on this post. Click here to post a comment.




• Mixing Things Up

  By dtools22 - Jun 19 2009, 09:20 PM

  Over the past few days I've been taking a little bit of a breather from poker.  Now I promise this isn't going to turn into another bad beat/variance sob story.  I really was just looking to goof around for a few days and power down.  That means various different things depending on who your talking to.  For me personally, it means playing a ridiculous amount of video games, watching tons of movies, and going to dinner with my girlfriend.  The important part however is simply that I just get away from the game for a few days. Even when things are going well I like to just get away from the game for a little while.  One thing that doesn't get talked about a lot on this site is how mentally exhausting this game can be.  Not just the bad beats, but understanding the math, making calculated decisions inside of a 15-30 second window, trying to fit together the story your opponent's betting is telling you, all these things take a toll on you as a player and it's good to just kick back and relax every now and then.  Since I've taken a few days to recharge I figured I would fill in the blanks about me a little bit as opposed to just whining about another bad beat. I know I'm not the only avid video game player here so I'm sure many people will back me up on this but aside from sex, this has got to be the best stress release out there (working out is up there too, but not everyone else enjoys that as much).  I do have to admit I have fallen a bit out of touch with the video game industry over the past 5 years or so.  However getting an Xbox360 last Christmas brought me right back into the groove.  I did miss the whole "Time to make every game either a 1st or 3rd person shooter" memo during my hiatus though and therefore those games tilt me worse than 2-outers.  I remember playing one of my roommates HU in a Halo 1 fight, I lost 25 to -5 (killed myself 5 times for anyone who hasn't played Halo before).  Needless to say I do not care for those games. There are two games that I cannot wait to come out this year.  Assassin's Creed 2, if it is anything like the original game, is going to be absolutely astounding.  I have not been this excited about a new release since I was about 11.  Also, Mass Effect 2 comes out this holiday season.  Even though initially I was God awful at the first one (3rd person shooter) the plot is amazing and it's well worth the initial frustration for me.  Anyone who is looking for a good stress-release game, I would highly recommend both Assassin's Creed and Mass Effect. That being said, it's back to the grind on Saturday for me and a big week of grinding before I head to Florida for vacation.  Gotta grind out that rent money. No Comments on this post. Click here to post a comment.