Wednesday, July 8, 2009

PokerStars update

After my 3 day break from poker I jumped back in to the action on Monday night. It started well enough, min-cashing my first 45 man tournament but things got ugly as I then failed to cash 13 tournaments in a row before again min-cashing a 90 man tournament to end the night. I don't think I was playing badly as I made it down to the final 2 tables on 9 of those 13 tournaments but couldn't win hands at the right time to get me on to final tables and in the money.

Tuesday went a lot better. After the disappointment the night before I was focussed and crushed early, cashing 3 of the first 4 tournaments including a win a 3rd and a 5th (all 45 man tournaments). I trailed off a bit but still had another 2nd a 5th (45 mans) and a min cash in a 90 man. So the results from Tuesday (6 cashes from 18 games) made up for the losses of the night before.

Last night I planned to play a little in the afternoon and then watch some DVD's (Seven Pounds and Role Models) later in the night. I forgot that poker is on OneHD on a Wednesday night so the DVD's would have to wait. Unfortunately, the poker turned out to be a replay of the PCA that I had seen a few weeks earlier ... but I of course still watched it.

The night started well with a 5th in a 45 man before a stretch of 6 non-cashes. After some dinner I cranked it up a level tho and cashed 5 of the last 8 tournaments including a win in a 90 man and three 4ths. I was pleased that I had two good finishes in the 90 man tournaments because it had been a week or so since I had a top 3 finish in those so to finish with a win was nice.

The win was a hard-fought one. I was struggling for chips with about 30 to go and would have been close to the bottom of the chip-count. I pushed all-in twice with pocket 3's, once out-running ace queen and another time getting called by a big blind short-stack with 3 8 suited. After getting to a comfortable stack I then started to actually get hands and come final table was well placed.

Final table started a bit rocky when my ace jack couldn't hold up against a short-stack all-in of ace 2 suited and another caller with queen jack off. A 2 hit the flop and it was good enough to win. The same short-stack later pushed all-in from the button 5 handed, the small blind big stack then re-raised strongly and I loved it because I had aces! As I was re-raising my wireless internet connection dropped out so I was frantically trying to reconnect. Thankfully I managed to, button turns over king ten off, small blind has kings and my aces held up to take down a massive pot.

3 handed I raised solidly from the button with pocket queens, I get re-raised all-in by a shorter-stack who has ace 9 off ... 9 on the flop, ace on the turn ... groan. I exacted some revenge shortly after taking him out and getting to heads up with a slight lead. The other person took down a few early pots but the turning point would be when they min-raised from the small blind and I called with king 2 off. Flop comes king 9 9 with two spades which I didn't really think much of. First to act I checked, assuming my king was good, he bets, I re-raise strongly and he calls all-in. He turns over 5 6 of spades so I'm sweating no more spades and thankfully I take it down. He's almost out so I re-raise with ace 3 suited, he turns over ace queen but I flop a flush and its over.

I thought the king ten button, kings small blind, aces big blind seemed cold short-handed on the final table but I just across this from the World Series:

McKusick Gains Heat From a Cold Deck

There's was a ton of commotion over at table 72 in the orange section just a brief moment ago. We turned to the table to see three players all in. One player held {K-Hearts} {K-Spades} and another player held {K-Diamonds} {K-Clubs}. Both were terribly dominated by the third player's {A-Diamonds} {A-Clubs}.

The board ran out {Q-Hearts} {7-Hearts} {2-Clubs} {4-Hearts} {A-Hearts}, to give the player holding the {K-Hearts} the nut flush. That player was Ken McKusick out of Baltimore, Maryland and he now has nearly 120,000 chips.

To make things even more interesting, two players in the hand held jacks and another player held pocket sevens. Cold deck much?

Solid lay-down from the pocket jacks. You'd be pretty unhappy if you were the guy with the aces ... "but I have trips!!"

Bankroll now just under US$400 and I'm already just one win short of my goal of 4 tournament wins for the month.


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