Napalm on Tour Part 1

Napalm's YTD: $12,554

(notice my winning tally is that same as It was on my June 7th post.)

It all started out sitting traffic for 3 hours about 2 miles away from Tahoe Harrah’s. Some group of geniuses decided to pave the road on a Friday night in the middle of busy season.

When we got to the hotel, we found out that they didn’t have poker and had to go to an adjacent property, Harvey’s, to get some card action.

I sat down to play some $2 $4 limit and walked away with about $100. $2 $4 is way below my normal limit, but the buddy I was with had a light bankroll and had to make it last 12 days.

What a crazy game. It’s just like Bingo, but not as fun. Still I played it for 2 more days and came away up about $300. This would inevitably set me up for large-scale failure later in the trip in Vegas.

I also played in a $40 rebuy tournament at Harvey’s a couple of days later and finished 12th out of 60. I got super aggressive and built a nice stack early, but it didn’t hold when the cold cards came and I couldn’t win a coin flip. (I lost three, foreshadowing of EVIL things to come)

We flew to Vegas Friday night and went straight to Binion’s to play $2 $4. Needless to say, I lost my royal ass in about 45 min to people that:

1 – Didn’t know what beat what
2 – Didn’t speak English or any form of recognizable human language
3 – Literally retarded
4 – First time playing the Hold ‘em EVER

The cool thing about Binion’s is that they have three tournaments a day and one of them starts at 2 AM. So I am ALL about that. $70 buy in, one rebuy and one ad on for $50 each.

I start off in my normal Rebuy tournament aggressive mode, pick up some nice chips early, get AQ, raise preflop, call an All In for about half my remaining stack,, up against AJ, J on the flop, lose.

Get 88 in the BB, reraise against a short stack, and get called by A 10, 10 on the flop, lose.

Get JJ on the BB, reraise All In against the table chip leader, and get called, against AJ. Someone at the table announces that he folded an Ace. Good, only 2 outs to go, Ace on the flop, I am out.

Two no luck tournaments and one bad session of $2 $4, no big deal, right?

Wrong………

Freerolls Aren't Always Free

liquid's YTD: $1084.08

I encountered three (!) freeroll scenarios yesterday, with mixed results.

#1: Flop is 3c6d4h, and I jam with 9c8s7h5h -- nut straight with improved straight redraws and a backdoor flush draw. Turn and river bring hearts... and foe shows down 8h7c6c6h to beat my flush by a pip. Note that foe didn't even have the straight, although his draw was impressive enough that it would have been a favorite against a bare straight. Frustrating.

#2: Flop is T89, and I jam with KQJ8. Foe shows identical KQJx nut straight with redraw.

#3: Flop is T97, and I jam with KJ87. Turn brings the queen, foe continues to pay off with unimproved jack-high straight, and hero finally cashes in on a decent pot!

So of my three "freerolls," one is delusive, one is dead, and one is legitimate, and it all ends in a wash.

Omaha is a funny game.

Stars Wars: Episode III

liquid's YTD: $1087.83

I've written a nifty script that pulls from my PostgreSQL poker database and generates JpGraph line plots of my YTD winnings. The results graphically illustrate why I hate Poker Stars with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns. Depressingly, I've only worked off 31.4% of my bonus, so I have in the neighborhood of two thousand more hands to go. Surely better days are ahead. In the meantime, I've resorted to dropping down to the $25 PLO games and two-tabling.

The Gods Must Be Crazy

liquid's YTD: $1103.98

Warning: Content-free post follows.

Second hand of the night. I raise 3xBB with AhTh99. Seven (fun table!) see the flop:

9h 5h 7h

Wow.

A very short stack in the big blind leads out for all of a dollar into a $10+ pot. Three fold to me. I call, but the two others fold anyway. C'mon, it's just a dollar! No one can pony up a dollar?

Turn is a blank, BB dumps his remaining $2.50 in, and I call, cursing the poker gods that BB doesn't have a bigger stack.

River is a blank. BB shows:

8h 6h 6c 4h

So let's review! In the past couple of weeks, I have flopped four of a kind, and I have flopped an ace-high flush with top set redraws. Defying all odds I have managed to lose both hands.

Good ol' poker.

More Evil at Work

Napalm's YTD: $12,555.00

$20 multi on Stars. All in with my KK vs 10 10 vs Q Q, rags on the board.

I get knocked out with a 10 in the river.

Something is going on here...... That is the 6th tournament in a row I have been beat when I am a giant favorite.

What else can I do?

EvilStars, the Empire Strikes Back

Napalm's YTD: $12,575.00

$10 multi 1200 people, I have an average stack of about $8500, button goes all in for $5000, I have JJ in the hole, and reraise all in.

everyone else folds.

button turns over 44.

Flop comes 10 4 4

One 4 would have done it guys; you don't have to rub it in.

I end up finishing 80th for a whopping $8 payday. First tourney cash in a week, so I am kind of happy.

Stars Wars: Episode II

liquid's YTD: $1079.33

A week and a half ago, I made $500 deposits on both PokerRoom and Poker Stars. Time for some stats! Compare and contrast:

PokerRoom
508 hands + 6 STTs
Beginning balance: $500.00
Current balance: $848.55

Poker Stars
602 hands
Beginning balance: $500.00
Current balance: $320.20

Scientific conclusion: PokerRoom is a fair, well-managed gaming site stocked full of intelligent but less-skilled-than-me players who wisely bow to my PLO prowess. Conversely, Poker Stars is a cheating farce of a site overrun by suck-out monkeys.

Bipolar Sit-N-Go

liquid's YTD: $1073.93

I played another sit-and-go yesterday. I didn't get a hand to play until level II, when I [over-]raised 5xBB with QQ74ss on the button... and got three callers. The flop had a bare ace on a ragged board and was checked to me, so I threw in a sizeable bet... and got one caller. We both checked it down from there, and foe showed down an ace and lousy side-cards to scoop with a single pair of aces. Hmm.

So I was the short stack among the nine remaining players. Two others got knocked out while I sat on the sidelines and got whittled down to $500, with most everyone else over $2000. Not good. But I finally found a playable hand (AJJ7ss), pushed, and won $1400 when my lone pair of jacks held up.

Eventually I was one of two very short stacks vs. two very large stacks. With the blinds at 200/400, me in the big blind with $740 and a crappy 2569ss, and the other short stack all-in, I squeaked into the money with a flopped straight. Hot diggity. A much better outcome than I ever expected earlier in the tourney.

And then things got interesting.

Shortly thereafter, foe #1 -- the chip leader almost from the outset -- had $10k. Foe #2 and I each had $2.5k. Together, foe #2 and I proceeded to take turns hammering foe #1. The high point:

Seat 4: Foe #1 ($6,195 in chips)
Seat 5: Foe #2 ($4,505 in chips)
Seat 7: Hero [JC,KS,AD,QC] ($4,300 in chips)

ANTES/BLINDS
Hero posts blind ($400), Foe #1 posts blind ($800).

PRE-FLOP
Foe #2 folds, Hero calls $400.

This was the first time in forever I had not come in for a raise. The mood of the table was such that I could fully expect Foe #1 to raise, and he did not disappoint.

Foe #1 bets $1,600, Hero bets $3,500 and is all-in, Foe #1 calls $1,900.

Foe #1 showed down KQJ4ss, a dream matchup for me, and suddenly I was the chip leader. Two hands later foe #2 finished foe #1 off to pull nearly even with me going into heads-up.

Three hands later, having built a $9k to $6k lead and in the middle of a key hand, my connection failed. Deja vu. By the time I was reconnected, I had missed eight hands. EIGHT hands! The new chip count: $14.6k for foe, $0.4k for hero. Another comeback was not to be.

I am cursed with an interesting life.

When Good Plays Go Bad

Napalm's YTD: $12,848.48

I guess this is "just poker" as they say. But sometimes those words just aren't enough. You know that time when you make the perfect read then the perfect play on some unsuspecting bonehead? Then to your horror, they hit the only card(s) they need to crush your dreams? Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. It happens to all of us. Well last night, it happened to me twice in 1 hour.

I am playing in a $20 multi NLHE on Stars with about $4000 in chips. There are about 300 people left. I am on the button with Ah7h, the action is passed to me and I raise three times the BB. SB folds, and BB reraises another unit, a typical play for this loose aggressive. I call due to my position and the possibility I have the best hand.

The flop is 2 7 Q no hearts. I LOVE this flop because I am almost sure I have BB beat at this point. If he reraised with a lower pair, the board scares him. If he reraised with AK and wants to make a play with it, he is in big trouble. If he is trapping me, so be it, the size of his check raise will probably let me know. BB checks and I bet about half the pot to make it look like a standard continuation bet, hoping to get reraised for more information. Of course, the BB bet half of his stack, about double the pot.

Now I have my information. The size of the bet was a tell that the flop must have missed his hand. Such a big check raise from loose aggressive player usually means he missed his flop. It is the small check raise that I worry about. So I put BB on AK or something to that effect. If he has AQ, he would not have bet his stack, he must be on a bluff.

So, I reraise all in. And to my horror, he calls. For that 2 seconds before I saw his cards I was sure I was beat, but to my delight, he flipped over AK. Yahoo! PERFECT read and perfect play. He effectively has 3 outs and I am on the road to double up city.

Turn is an Ace. Not a real problem. Gives him 3 more outs for a total of 6. Three kings and three queens.

Then of course, the Q hits on the river making the board 2 7 Q A Q, counterfeiting my two pair and letting his K kicker beat me. Bad play rewarded, oh well.

That is poker......

and poker can kiss my round ass.

As a side note, the second bad beat was a fish I sucked into going all in with 10 10 against my AA when the flop was 6 3 2. Of course, a 10 hit on the river. This was a $1 multi I played out of spite for the first bad beat in the $20.