Adventures From the NH Seacoast to the Jersey Shore

Wow!  I woke up today and the world was still here.  Congress’  best efforts to end the world by sending all of our computers into a tailspin by moving daylight savings three weeks early only resulted in millions of cranky kids cheated out of an extra hour of sleep..three weeks early.  I for one am glad the world is still here so I can tell you about this hand of poker last night.

We are three-handed and I am down to my last 700 in chips and the blinds are 400/800.  I am the big blind and forced all in.  The guy under the gun calls to put the final bullet in me (sit-n-go pays the top 2).  We don’t look at our cards and ask the dealer to peel the board out.  The board is 5h, 5c, Qh, Ad, 9s.  The opponent flips over the 1st card a 5s giving him trip fives.  I flip my 1st card over for a Qd.  His next flipped is a 2s and as you can probably imagine right now..my next card was a Qc…that’s right pocket queens for trip queens!   Those 1400 chips did not do much for me after that but what a fun hand.

That hand was almost more eventful than the 7th place finish (out of 160) I completed just a couple hrs earlier.  Good tournament, made a couple mistakes early but recovered nicely.  Lesson of the day from that tournament that I will share is to always leave yourself an out.  Early in the tournament I was on the button (blinds 200/400) and I raised to 2600 leaving myself 1000 in chips.  It was a semi-bluff as I made the move with A10 to steal 1200 in limped chips out there.  The big blind came right over the top of me putting me all in if I called.  It was an easy lay down for me.  Once I did the guy across from me accosted me for not calling as I had already put more than 60% of my stack in.  I replied with, “why”?  He obv has AA or KK and I’d rather play the next few hands with my 1K in chips than go home.  I made a move and I got his message.  Sure enough the big blind woke up with pocket AA that hand.  My strategy worked as 3 hands later I pushed my chips all-in with pocket JJ, got five callers, and quintupled up.  If I played like my accoster suggested I would have been headed home 3 hands earlier….instead I hung in there, did not slip into desparation mode and came back to take 7th place for $330…a decent payout for a $70 buy in.  I should have gone up a few spots; but I made a move for 70% of my stack of 70K chips and got nailed…that is discussion for a future post.

In the end, yesterday proved to be profitable with my 7th place finish and a 1st place $400 finish in a $150 sit-n-go.   Let’s see how today goes.

Yesterday’s tournament was a big disappointment.  Sometimes everything goes wrong.  You play disciplined poker for hours, folding every hand waiting for 2 decent cards to play a pot with.  You got a guy at the table playing every hand, calling every raise and winning with top, middle, bottom pair.  You finally make a move with what is your best hand and end up laying it down after committing 50% of your chip stack. Desperation sets in as the antes start to get large and you now switch gears to playing low to mid level cards aggressively; but just do not hit any flops.  Enough whining.

Everyone over the Poker Room at Seabrook Greyhound Park should be applauded for kicking off and running an excellent 370 person tournament.  Once the cards were in the air the room silenced to a hush with the sounds of clinging chips and the ominous “seat open” heard. 

Getting ready to hit the FL coast with the family for what is some much needed downtime.  I’ll end up working part of the time; but we have a great trip planned with visits at Universal, Kennedy Space Center and some good ol-fashioned treasure hunting…

Batteries in need of serious recharge.

Final note…always interested in happenings on the Jersey Shore I have been following the happenings with the girl,  Antonella Barba, from the neighboring town of Pt. Pleasant.  Unfortunately for her and her family the news is not good news and she is another American Idol contestant with the crosshairs of the media/internet locked right on her.  Not much to say..other than you kids out there better be careful when picking your friends esp. if they own a digital camera.  My college room mate used to always make judgement calls on any future action by determining if he wanted to review them with a group of U.S. senators during a congressional confirmation hearing.  I guess instead he should have lowered the bar and been concerned about a reality TV show disapproving; but that was the late 80s the internet was just being hatched by Al Gore and reality TV was called the evening news.

Managed to find my way into a $70 tournament yesterday.   Tournament ended up with ~160 players after the alternates filtered in.  I played solid poker…no mistakes…no suckouts.  The blinds eventually reached 10-20K and just before the blinds jumped to 20-40k, 6th place got knocked out and a 5-way chop was suggested.  I do not like chopping, I play to win. The blinds however were approaching a level where all of our stacks were subject to coin-flip situations.  I 5-way chop gave everyone $ just shy of 2nd place.  I agreed to chop on the condition that 10% of the prize pool be left for the dealer tip pool.  All agreed…and we all left the table with $1,050. 

At the final table with eight players left. my tournament life was extended after getting a serious dose of respect from another player.  Player to my right made it 25k to go and I pushed all in for my last 32k with AKo.  The button tought about pushing all his chips in but reluctantly folded figuring if i was in the hand I had something.  Flop is 9-9-10.  The hand ended up with a split pot as my opponent played AKo as well.  The player that folded his hand folded 9-10.  After going bezerk on his opportunity to knock out 2 players; he convinced himself that the laydown was the right thing to do esp. with me in the hand.  Good, solid table image and not playing like a donkey will go a long way and help you in the long run.  He later confided in me that if I was not in the hand he was pushing his chips into the pot.

That was a great run in preparation for the big $250/buyin today…I think they are expecting 250-400 players.    Recap in tomorrow’s post.

It is 9:15am and there is not a sound coming from anywhere within the house.  Quite amazing for a Saturday morning, but the rush of mayhem getting kids dressed, dogs fed and breakfast made prior to venturing out into the New Hampshire tundra (it feels like it today) all happened just as I got up and my wife is piloting the dog sled today.   Not quite sure how I got out of the majority of take-the-kids-to-birthday-party-duty (there are three today) but I am not going to ask questions.   I have been tasked to drop my son off at 1pm…and as long as I do not screw that up I’m good.

Big poker tournament tomorrow afternoon.  Last weekend was a very good weekend for me.  Agreed to 3-way chop (I hate chopping and I’ll surely write about this in the near future) a tournament on Friday night for $950 and I also managed to take down 4 out of 4 $150/shorthanded sit-n-gos for $4-500 a piece.  I say 4 out of 4 because I really have not been playing the sit-n-gos for a long time as I have focused on my tournament play.  I enjoy the challenge of the 50-120 runner tournaments and I believe it is the best practice for cashing in the larger tournaments that I have been playing in.  One of the managers at the Poker Room @ Seabrook Greyhound Park had been on me to play the sit-n-gos.  I finally listened…thanks Les!

In preparation for tomorrow I will surely be playing in a number of sit-n-gos today.  During this time I will also have to make sure that my i-pod is loaded with the Gregorian chant of my ” poker rules” so they are firmly implanted in my brain.  Rules are important, they keep you out of trouble.  Sure, most rules were made to be broken; but I will argue those rules were made to only control or regulate the behavior of those below those making the rules.  Let’s call these rules of man.  The rules I’m talking about is the kinda of stuff that holds atoms together.

Ok let’s start with our first “atomic rules”

1. Never ask a woman if she is pregnant
2. Never go into a woman’s purse

If I have to explain rule number one you should just go and suck on the business end of a shotgun..because you are destined for the same result in the future.  Rule number two has no explanation…just don’t do it!  Don’t ask why!  Just sleep at night knowing that if you obey rule #2 you will save your self from certain physical or mental anguish that you are not equipped to handle.

Ok…now the atomic poker rules.  If you are in a 20+ runner tournament these rules will not necessairly get you to the final table…but they will most certainly ensure your exit from the tournament is later than your donkey DNA predisposed you to when you registered.

1. When sitting with a large number of chips, do not get into a hand with a chip stack equal in size as your own
2. If you are in a blind and left in the hand with the other blind pre-flop, there is no shame in checking or laying the hand down

Rule #1 should be simple.  Unless you are holding the stone cold nuts, only bad things are going to happen when you get mixed up in a hand with someone as many chips as you.  There are many more hands to play.  Make an initial stab at the pot but leave yourself outs to go away.  Losing this type of hand will only cripple you and ensure that you do not have to worry about rule #1 for a very long time.  Rule #2 is not so simple or many individuals.  Some poker players will “protect” their blinds at any cost.  When you are in a hand with the other blind pre-flop why risk chips.  Even if you are holding AA,KK the flop can crucify you.  Wait until after the flop to commit chips and even then you may want to think about doing so.  Remember…you are a poker player, Murphy’s law is against you and the guy to your right is in his 1st tournament…you are destined to lose. 

Last month I ignored poker rules #1 and #2 at the same time.   On a board of all rags (2 of which were paired) I made a big laydown after the river card hit; but I was crippled beyond recognition.  The true mother of all laydowns would have been to lay my small blind QQ down after the flop to my big blind opponent’s KK.