Sleep With the Fishes, Dine on the Whales

A bridge to nowhere.  After my day two ended I went out on the deck the boat to see this.  Had I taken the picture just a little sooner it would better as the fog was covering both sides of the bridge.  Just the top of a bridge in the sky, clouds above, and fog all around it.   Pretty symbolic as day two began with the promise of a bridge in the sky heading somewhere to something.  Just the fog of bad hands was too thick to find an on ramp.    As I got closer, and closer to the bridge or to "In the Money" and the final table it seemed even further away.  I just could not chip up. The day began and nothing much of note happened.  Then I chopped a pot with my nemesis.  Why my nemesis? At the end of day 1 when we were bagging up one of the Mid-States pros, a guy I had sat next to and had a pleasant idle table conversation with, got very angry with me.  With two tables left we drew a set amount of hands to play out the night. ...

It’s brick city. Hmm. A joy in Texas Hold em poker is knowing where you are in the hand. I figure his ace to be weak, at best, and wonder if he is on a better flush draw. Not a straight out there. Maybe he has a decent K or was just floating me. A set is possible so too a weird two pair, but I feel genuine weakness. He checks and I fire out another bet. A check here from me, is reasonable, but then I’m only playing the hand one way and that’s hoping to hit a card. I rationalize a bet here would be warranted by an ace to protect against the flush so why not. I fire and he stews. Then he gets his dander up and asks to see my paltry stack size. I love this tell in poker tournaments once, you know the player it’s either 100% strength or 100% weakness. This guy it was weakness. He puts exactly half of it in. Oh. Well. I consider just shoving it in and hoping to hit. The bet size wasn’t quite giving me the odds to call, but if I hit, he had to call my shove so I decided to call. If I misse...

So recently two GCPers Monkey and Kai Landry and two other male players (who backed out on the day of) were going to play in the ladies Texas Hold'em poker event at IP World Series of Poker Circuit Satellite. They struck up a deal before hand with the tournament director and thought of a way to play and to make a charitable contribution at the same time. All their winnings would go to breast cancer research and they agreed to dress as women. All parties thought that it would be a fun, memorable and essentially altruistic endeavor. As the story goes, Monkey and Kai showed up just after the start of things in the first or second level and they were barred from playing because at the Tournament Director’s discretion registration had closed before late registration was overall. Considering the TD had never used that discretion in any other event in the IPs poker tournament history in the past five years something was rotten in Steinmart. Several women that arrived after them were als...

Ironically, as he was talking about it I was opening up my hand range and trying to hit big hands against big stacks. Yes, I was playing just the way we were condemning in our conversation. Of course, I bled off chips as people wouldn’t really protect their hands and I never hit my draws. The Texas Hold'em poker tournament that day went pretty well for me from a cards perspective though bad as a player. I found myself in a lot of odd spots which I guess is always true if you play poker tournaments often. The previous week I had stolen a lot of pots with big raises from position with middle pairs when five or six people limped and they’d all fold. I tried the same this week with nothing or little pairs (nothing) and everybody would call. One time I hit my pocket fives and boated on the River against Clint Schafer who stuck around to the end with top pair top kicker (AQ) and I doubled through him. Another time I had pocket fives against a steady regular tight player. This is the h...

Headed up to the saturday tournament at the IP. Big Smoove and I planned out a day of tournament action but his littlest one got sick so I went solo. The plan was threefold play some small buy-ins at the IP, the Isle of Capris or Hard Rock, and then check out the Island View at six. I got about 1/3rd through the plan and bailed--ie I played one and went home. Not much to say. I started out on a table of alternates and basically blinded away 1/5th of my stack. Lots of novices splashing around with weak hands. I figured out who I could steal from but was never first into the pot. It's charming to see inexperienced players trying to play correctly but not quite doing it. Yes, they get that aggression is important but applying it is often a problem. They'd make min raises on draw heavy boards, or flop the stone cold nuts like AJ and hit AAJ and go all-in. Their opponent folds and they show their hand proudly. Yes, you essentially had all the outs you can't get paid th...