tp's table talk

I just installed the new Pokertracker patch and finally got my tournament from last night successfully imported. At the 5+1 limit SNGs at Party and Empire, I’ve got 5 1st place finishes, and 4th+. Helps reaffirm my impression that I am a little smarter than the average bear in the world of low stakes online poker. After the weekend’s pounding, I was beginning to think that perhaps I had just been riding a lucky streak. I also have a 3rd place in a limit 10+1, and 3rd in a PL 5+1. And then 3 non-places in some PL 10+1’s I played to warm up for a home tournament I hosted last Friday (in which I finished third after a painful river suck out followed by an unfortunate set of 7s that slaughtered my all-in pair of kings).

So, in 13 tournaments, I’ve placed in 7 (in 5 of those I finished 1st), for a profit of 57 bucks. Not too bad considering the limits I’m playing at. And if it wasn’t for the practice PL games, it would have been 90.

On a unrelated note, I just finished From a Buick 8 by Stephen King on the subway ride home from a friend’s birthday party. Far from his best book, but it was still oddly satisfying. I managed to exchange my strange copy of Positively Fifth Street at Indigo today, so I’m looking forward to digging into that next. I could not find a copy of Orson Scott Card’s Xenocide however, even after hitting a few different stores. I should really have thought to check the stock online this morning, as I was hoping to get a copy from my friend for her birthday, since she just finished reading the excellent Speaker for the Dead.

Sat down at a 5+1 SNG tonight to try to bring myself up past a 200$ bankroll at Party Poker again. Made some good and some bad plays in the early rounds as I tried to build a bit of a chip lead. Of course, they balanced themselves out and I hovered within a few hundred of the 800 start. As usual, half the table was burning chips as fast as they could, and eventually we ended up down to 4 with myself around 2000 in chips, a couple at 1500 and the chip leader at 3000. I didn’t get too many hands, but it was easy to buy out the blinds with raises pre-flop, so I didn’t move too much up or down until the 4th place player went out. I kept my patience and played my good cards hard to capture the chip lead and to bust out the third place player.

Then it was heads up. I know this is a part of my game that is pretty questionable, as I play a bit too conservatively with the chip lead, not wanting to give away the farm. It went back and forth for a while until I two paired my K9 on the flop (K89) and my opponent called my raise. Two pair looks good so I kept on betting when another low card hit on the turn, my opponent raises and we end up capping. Still, I don’t believe he’s got cards to back it up. River comes an 8 and he goes all-in with the rest of his chips and I call. Of course he turns over 86o for the set. I’m not sure what he was doing betting, but suddenly I have only 1000 of the remaining 8000 chips. A painful, painful suck out. But, I claw my way back to a 2:1 chip advantage, but with a 600BB, things are already becoming a matter of luck more than good play. So, when my K6 pairs the 96A flop, I bet. He pauses for a while and then raises. I don’t think he has the A and I re-raise. He re-raises right back for a partial bet that puts him all in. I decide to call, what the hell. I hit the lucky 6 on the river and take the 25$. I would have felt worse about winning on the massive suck out - though I still would have had enough chips to make a go of it if he’d won the pot - but he’d survived on luck earlier, so it just made us even.

Of course, with my Party account 200+ again, I decided I’d get in some ring .50/1.00 action at Empire to see if I could bring that account up past 500 (after a 300 buy-in) so that I could pull 400 out to put up at either Pokerroom or UB for a juicy bonus. Of course, I was feeling pretty good, so I grabbed a beer and was watching a bit of TV. As usual, that made for some sub-optimal play, putting me down 10$ at one point. But at least I realized it and when I hit a few hands in a row to draw up even again, I bailed for the night. So, +19 on top of the +5.5 and +4 the last two nights has me almost halfway back through the 65$ I dropped on the weekend. I’m hoping a good session on Saturday might put me back to growing my bankroll.

The strangest thing happened tonight. A few weeks back I order a copy of Positively Fifth Street, and it was shipped on Monday and showed up at the office today. It was written by James McManus, about his experiences at the World Series of Poker in 2000. With my recent interest in poker, I was really looking forward to reading it.

I found my seat on the streetcar on my way home and opened it up. I read the forward and something didn’t sound quite right. I checked the dust jacket and then the spine. Yes, it was the right book. I read the acknowledgements and I knew something wasn’t right. Sure enough, I flipped to the first page and discovered that you really can’t judge a book by the cover. Instead of a book about poker, all I had to read was Longing to Tell: Black Women Talk About Sexuality and Intimacy. Not exactly what I was looking for. Must have been some freak printing/binding error, though I can’t really see how it would have happened.

Speaking of poker, I was looking forward to a little chinese food and online play at Party Poker tonight. I enjoyed the chinese, but was up and down all night with fairly ho-hum cards. Ended the night up 4BB. Not a good showing for 4 hours of work. I really think I need to start paying a bit more attention to table selection. The fish weren’t biting quite as much as they had been the past few weeks. But, as a consequence I was able to develop a tight-aggressive table image and then start making some plays to bluff out some pots. Unfortunately, those pots tended to be small, and the risk was large, so it wasn’t a particularly profitable tactic. Still, I was able to register a second steady, if unspectacular, night after the thrashing I took over the weekend. Bad cards and impatience were not a good mix for me.

Just bought a new domain (www.provick.ca, should be propagated over the next couple days) and some web hosting services. An hour later I had server access. 15 minutes after that I had wordpress configured and up and running (thanks to Chris for indirectly recommending it.