Haven’t played that much but cashing quite a few times….

Full Tilt Poker Tournament #111900008 $50 + $5 Sit & Go NL Hold’em

Buy-In: $50.00 + $5.00
9 players
Total Prize Pool: $450.00
Start Date: October 11  2:09 AM ET

Dear mauigame,

You finished the tournament in 1st place.
There has been $225.00 added to your account

________________
Full Tilt Poker Tournament #112381241 $50 + $5 Sit & Go NL Hold’em
Buy-In: $50.00 + $5.00
9 players
Total Prize Pool: $450.00
Start Date: October 14  1:10 AM ET

Dear mauigame,

You finished the tournament in 1st place.
There has been $225.00 added to your account.

__________
Full Tilt Poker Tournament #112508578 $50 + $5 Sit & Go NL Hold’em
Buy-In: $50.00 + $5.00
6 players
Total Prize Pool: $300.00
Start Date: October 14  9:17 PM ET

Dear mauigame,

You finished the tournament in 2nd place.
There has been $105.00 added to your account.

_______________
Full Tilt Poker Tournament #112857866 $20 + $2 Sit & Go NL Hold’em
Buy-In: $20.00 + $2.00
9 players
Total Prize Pool: $180.00
Start Date: October 17  2:44 AM ET

Dear mauigame,

You finished the tournament in 2nd place.
There has been $54.00 added to your account

_____________
PokerStars Tournament #204961131, No Limit Hold’em
Buy-In: $30.00/$3.00 USD
9 players
Total Prize Pool: $270.00 USD
Tournament started 2009/10/18 23:07:28 PT [2009/10/19 2:07:28 ET]

Dear mauigame,

You finished the tournament in 1st place. A USD 135.00 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

_______________
Full Tilt Poker Tournament #113306060 $30 + $3 Sit & Go NL Hold’em
Buy-In: $30.00 + $3.00
9 players
Total Prize Pool: $270.00
Start Date: October 19  10:19 PM ET

Dear mauigame,

You finished the tournament in 2nd place.
There has been $81.00 added to your account.

_____________
PokerStars Tournament #205445904, No Limit Hold’em
Buy-In: $20.00/$2.00 USD
9 players
Total Prize Pool: $180.00 USD
Tournament started 2009/10/20 16:55:34 PT [2009/10/20 19:55:34 ET]

Dear mauigame,

You finished the tournament in 3rd place. A USD 36.00 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

_________
Full Tilt Poker Tournament #113972699 $50 + $5 Sit & Go NL Hold’em
Buy-In: $50.00 + $5.00
9 players
Total Prize Pool: $450.00
Start Date: October 24  3:07 AM ET

Dear mauigame,

You finished the tournament in 1st place.
There has been $225.00 added to your account.

Wow it’s been a long time since I posted anything.  Instead of posting my wins each time in the regular forum, I think I will post a weekly summary here instead.

8-17 to 8-23-09

I did not get to play quite as much this week.  I think that is just as well as I was getting a little burned out on it.  Online poker with no social interaction can get a little boring after a while.  Then you get more easily frustrated and there is nothing that makes my game go in the toilet faster than frustration.  I could tell I was starting to push the action a little too much.  I did have 3 cashes over the course of the week. That makes me break even for the week.  I tried to play a cash game for the first time in a while and lost $100.  I really do not like playing cash online.  It is just too much of a grind.  At least tournaments have some juice running through them.

Full Tilt Poker Tournament #104178395 $20 + $2 Sit & Go NL Hold’em
Buy-In: $20.00 + $2.00   6 players
Dear mauigame,
You finished the tournament in 1st place.
There has been $78.00 added to your account.

__________

Full Tilt Poker Tournament #104178047 $20 + $2 Sit & Go NL Hold’em
Buy-In: $20.00 + $2.00  9 players
Dear mauigame,
You finished the tournament in 2nd place.
There has been $54.00 added to your account.

__________

Full Tilt Poker Tournament #104693772 Tier Two $24+$2 Sit & Go NL Hold’em
Buy-In: $24.00 + $2.00
9 players
Dear mauigame,
You finished the tournament in 1st place.
You have received the following prize:
$75 Satellite Token

________

I was only able to play SNG’s this week.  I’d like to take a crack at a bigger field this week if I get the chance to.    My biggest dissapoinment was Sunday.  I played a 3 game League with the Poker Chix ladies for the buy-in to O-11.  After the first 2 games I had a solid 2nd place, Tanya had 1st place by 1 point.  The final game was right after I got home from the funeral.  There was only 1 person who could overtake me for 2nd.  I knew that it was imperative that I not bust out lower than 4th place.  My strategy was to play very slow and carefully.  The second hand of the game I have KK in the SB. The cutoff raises to 90, button folds.  I re-raise to 275.  She calls.  As soon as she called that big raise I should have just stopped with the hand.  The only hands that call there are AA KK QQ AK(maybe).  The flop comes xxQ, and for some stupid reason, without even thinking, like I couldn’t even stop myself I shove all in.  Seriously one of the most absolutely stupid rookie mistakes I have made in years. I have no idea why I did it.  I knew I shouldn’t.  Of course she had AA, and I am out in last place, giving myself 3 points.  Now the 3rd place gal goes on a heater to win the tournament and knock me out of second overall.  I did EXACTLY what I planned and strategized that I should not do.  If this wasn’t a pre-scheduled game, I certainly would not have been playing poker, having just gotten home from a funeral, having a houseful of kids banging on Guitar Hero drums, and stressing out about getting to the family dinner at grandmas because my husbands sister and nephew just flew in and we had to pick them up from the airport.  Even so, there is just no excuse for making such an incredibly stupid move.  When you play stupidly you deserve to lose, no matter what the circumstances.

 

After 40 hours of almost non-stop poker at the Commerce, I was fortunate to have a poker playing friend, Hillary, drive me down to San Diego for the next leg of my trip.  We had a fun day stopping along the way for shopping and eating.  It was good to get out into the fresh air again.  Once I walked into the Commerce I didn’t step out the front door for three days, and it you can get a bit myopic.  It certainly was nice to walk out the front door with more money than I walked in with, even after paying my bill.  We arrived at Ocean’s Eleven just in time to catch a shuttle bus out to Ivey Ranch – a ranch for disabled children that was the beneficiary of the weekend Ladies tournament being hosted by O-11.  We spent about three hours pulling weeds, digging holes, planting trees and painting fences in the hot sun.  I was fervently hoping the Poker Gods were watching and would bless my good deeds with good cards over the weekend.

   

Later that evening after checking into the condo and having a meet and greet I finally got to sit down and play some cash games.  I played the $1 $2 tables, which have a more standard 100X BB buy in.  It was after 10pm by the time I sat down and only got to play for a couple of hours, from what I can recall I left $80 up.  You really need several hours at a table usually if you want a chance to make a solid profit.  

The next morning was the first tournament, a ladies only $180 buy-in.  We had about 170 starters, including 6 or 7 men.  The following day we also had 6 or 7 guys enter the California State Ladies Championship.  Why any man would want to win that title, or endure the wrath of 200 pissed off women is way beyond me.  Those that claim discrimination are full of crapola.  Discrimination laws were created to protect the oppressed.  The last time I looked average white guys were NOT being oppressed in casinos.  I have found that most older guys tend to do it because they truly like being surrounded by women, even angry ones, and believe themselves to be helping in some way (they usually pledge to donate any winnings to a cause such as Ivey Ranch, or in a case I heard about there, a pregnant woman who was playing in the tournament).  The others do it (especially the younger guys), because they think the field will be weak.  This year the Ladies fields I played against both days were WAY better than last year.  Really, really tough players.  None of the men made it anywhere near the final tables, and each and every one received a standing, yelling, jeering ovation to accompany their walk of shame to the rail.  I made it to about 48 the first day.  I had an unremarkable tournament.  Made some good bluffs along the way, but never had anything break my way.

Started playing cash around 4pm at the $1 $2 tables.  After a few hours, and a single re-buy, I chipped up to $800 and decided to try my hand at the $5 $5 table.  The difference between the $1$2 and the $5$5 was HUGE.  The $1$2 tables are filled with mostly younger players (21-35), and women.  At those tables I was really in control, reading the players, being the bully, pushing hands correctly, pulling off some great bluffs, being the chip leader and playing a loose and very aggressive style.  Switch to the $5$5 and these guys were mostly a bit older (30-60) had racks of chips in front of them (avg stack $1000 – $2000) and knew how to use them.  The average pots were huge – $500 – $1200 at least once or twice an orbit.  They were very good players, and in all likelihood knew they were better than me.  So why did the little fishy stay?  Those of you who have been reading my posts for a while know that 1) I am stubborn and 2) I like to challenge my self and learn, even if it is the hard way.  Since I had chipped up to that $800 I figured if I lost it all it would really only clip my roll $300 (I know Mike Caro would beg to differ on that).  I also felt that I could, at the very least, hold my own there.  I knew the kind of hand I was looking for to win a big pot at that kind of table, and felt I could get paid off if it ever came.  I did participate in the table.  I won a few pots including a nice $500 pot.  But to participate in a table like that is very expensive.  The difference in average bet size there was about 5x – 10x what it is at the $1$2 tables.  The pots just grow exponentially.  There was a LOT of money moving around at this table.  One of the best players at the table was directly on my left.  As usual I like to chat with my table mates, and make temporary buddies.  As the night wore on the very good player started to “work” with me.  By the end of the night he was showing me his hold cards on some huge hands as they progressed (so I could learn from him I guess, or just to show off).  I would laughingly berate myself from time to time for “playing like a girl” or like a “sissy”.  After one hand he whispered to me that I was playing like a girl again (which I was).  I can’t tell you how great it is to be the only friendly little blonde at the table.  I have received more free on-the-job training with nothing more than a nice attitude and a smile.  Not only is it beneficial, it is a whole lotta fun.  Alas, the right kind of hand I was hoping for (a straight, trips, a flush, even top two on the right board) never materialized, but my ride home did, and I cashed out for about $600… more than I started with at the beginning of the night, but a loss at that table.  Still I was disappointed that I didn’t get to win one ginormous pot at that table.  Looking back now it is interesting how completely different my style of play was at that table compared to the others.  It was like I was a completely different person.  At the lower buy-in I am a loose aggressive steam roller, really comfortable risking my $200 buy-in, but I am not at all comfortable risking the $500 and play much tighter, and less aggressive.  Almost all the guys at the $5 table were loose aggressive steamrollers.  I guess I should consider myself lucky I didn’t end up as pavement there.

Saturday was the Ladies Championship.  Started with around 210 players.  I went out around 45th again.  I played pretty well.  There is just one hand I really regretted afterwards.  We were down to 5 tables, the blinds and antes were huge.  I had a medium stack, but the levels were getting so big that it was definitely “go” time.  I was in middle position with KJ suited.  There were 2 limpers already including the huge and very aggressive stack at the table.  My first mistake was that I should have gone all in right there.  But I limped, the SB completed the BB checked.  So the starting pot was very big.  I can’t remember all the details (I gotta write this stuff down at the time) but the flop was 10 J 3 or something like that giving me top pair.   Don’t remember if it was here or on the turn, but the BB goes all in and I know that she is on a huge draw (I saw her later and she had a straight flush draw).  I knew that she probably owned half the deck, but my pair of Jacks was currently ahead.  The thing is it would have taken most of my stack to call her all in.  If I lost I would have been decimated, but if I won I would have had a huge stack.  Given the amount of money in the pot, and the place we were at in the tournament, I really think I should have called.  I think this was one of those race situations towards the end of the tournament where you are just going to have to coin flip for a chance to win.  I need to get over my distaste for races in tournaments, accept that they are a necessary evil, and that the only good news is that we can wait and choose the one that will give us maximum equity if we win it.  This was one of those cases, which is why I should have taken it.  Instead I folded (sissy) lost a race a few orbits later and was out anyway.

After a brief break I jumped onto a newly formed $1$2 table.  It is always nice when everyone starts out even at a cash table.  After six days of serious poker playing I needed a beer too.  Now drinking on an empty stomach when you weigh 125 pounds is never a good idea LOL.  I get silly pretty quick that way.  But the good news is that after six days of serious poker playing I was seriously in the zone.  So while I appeared to be a bit loopy my poker brain was firing away at top speed.  I had the young guys at this table tied up in knots, and re-buying while they scratched their heads.  About two hours later the party in the tent outside was starting so I left the table with a full rack ($500) or so.  I told the guys that if they were still here when I came back I would join them again.  

The casino hosts a fabulous party all weekend for us Ladies.  They set up a huge tent in the parking lot, feed us breakfast and great buffet dinners. There is a Talent Show among other entertainment.  A group of ladies who call themselves the Oklahoma Hotties are an absolute hoot.  There are 30 or more of them, and they show up in matching bedazzled jackets and hats.  Average age is over 60 and they are having a grand time.  Many of them are kickass players also.  Last year they sang a song from the 30′s about a cat who gets left out in the rain (it was a wet pussy) that got very raunchy and was absolutely laugh till you cry hilarious.  I arrived in the tent just in time to see this years song.   In groove with the Beach Boys theme they sang Good Vibrations.  You haven’t lived till you have seen a troupe of ole poker gals in blinking feather boas prancing around stage with, ummm, certain devices which have good vibrations.  Maybe that was what set me off for the evening….  so a few glasses of wine later the Beach Boys cover band starts.  They had a hula hoop contest which is of course right up my alley. In an effort to keep the joviality humming along, I took my hula hoop and did that trick where you flick it a certain way and it goes away from you then changes direction and comes zooming back to you.  The dance floor was emptying out, and encouraged by the reaction to my first trick, I suddenly had a brilliant idea.  Wouldn’t it would be funny if I did that trick, but then jumped head first through the hoop, much like a Toy Poodle?  In my over zealous first attempt I added too much English to the flick and the Hula Hoop caroomed into the crowd assaulting an old woman.  Undaunted, I retrieved the wayward prop and noticing that most of the packed tent was now focusing on my antics I redoubled my fuzzy focus on the now completely empty stage for my next attempt.  The Hula Hoop whizzed fiercely away, then dutifully whizzed back and as it approached I coiled, and sprang forward, diving head first through it, twisting around at the key moment so I landed on my bum with arms raised in a flourishing “ta-da” finish.  The crowd goes wild (well sort of).  I then spent the next hour or so dancing my bruised bum off.  I love to dance, or maybe I just really needed some aerobic exercise after sitting for six days at a poker table.  When I was done the band thanked me, as there were very few people left at that point, and I headed back into the casino.  I must have been quite a sight, sweating and flushed, my hair frizzed up and sticking out in every direction.  A woman I didn’t even know looked at me and said “Honey you look like you’ve been rode hard and put away wet.”  

It was in this state that I arrived back at the table I had left two hours ago, and there were my main victims just waiting for me.  They were very happy to see me.  I must admit I was a bit high, I’d had a few, but had danced most of it off.  I was just feeling all around good. I announced I was thirsty and the boys were very helpful in getting the cocktail waitress as quickly as possible to our table.  I could see their eager anticipation written all over their faces, thoughts of revenge dancing through their heads that would put sugar plum fairies to shame.  They thought I was quite drunk, and were happy about it.  Who was I too disillusion young dreams?  So I put on quite an act that night (well admittedly it was half an act as I was half looped and thoroughly hula-hooped).  That table went from a tight grind to a happy loose action party in no time. I bought back in for the max $200, and grabbed a plastic chip rack as soon as I chipped up to $500.  The beauty of using that chip rack is that you can grab what looks to be like a totally random number of chips and toss out a bet that looks sloppy and uncalculated.  But of course they are not.  These guys just never caught on that I was pricing them off draws, leveraging their stacks, and using SPR’s to push or trap them.  There was one guy who kept shaking his head when I would win yet another big pot from him.  Then he would win a small pot from me.  My favorite line of the night  - “When you win a pot it has $14 dollars in it, when I win it has $140.”  And he still couldn’t stop himself from trying.  I had a really good time at that table.  There was a young guy on my left for a while who was actually keeping track of every hand at the table in a notebook.  It was like he was doing a manual PokerTracker stat compilation.  Boy, there’s some dedication. I stayed away from him and he stayed away from me.  Clever lad.  When my room mates dragged me off around 2am I happily cashed out my two racks of chips and I am sure I left some of those guys still wondering how that drunk lady kept on winning.

I spent most of Sunday in the condo, packing and nursing a bruised knee.  If any of you ever see me with a glass of wine in one hand and a Hula Hoop in the other please put a restraining hand on my arm and remind me that I am getting too old to participate in such undignified pursuits.  Back at the casino, waiting for our shuttle to take us to the airport, I think I tried another unsuccessful run at the $5$5 table, where I walked away with an $80 loss or something, it’s a but fuzzy now. Bidding adieu to friends, I was pleasantly surprised to find our shuttle was actually the Ocean’s Eleven owners limo.  This baby is long and black and totally tricked out.  There are lights in the ceiling and all along the 4 foot long bar that change colors….  I could get used to being driven around like that. 

The flight to Vegas was uneventful… and brings us to the next and final chapter of the trip………

12 Day vacation, 10 days of poker, 3 locations, playing 12-14 hours per day.  I guess it wasn’t a vacation, it was a marathon.  It has taken me almost 10 days to recover.  In the future I promise myself to take Airborne and Emergen-C packets every day on these trips, as a woman that sneezed at the table about half way through the trip gave me a vicious head cold, so by the time I arrived home I was in pretty bad shape.  Of course that didn’t cut down on my time at the tables, but as you will see, it should have.

 

The trip started out well enough.  My first ever trip to the Commerce Casino went very well.  As reported in more detail in other trip reports, on my first day there I sattelited into the evening tournament.  I played that structure too fast and was out in about 4 hours. That evening I was introduced to the Commerce’s weird cash games buy-ins and a collection of some of the fishiest players ever assembled in one spot.  It was just too juicy and after sitting down with my $100 $1$2 buy-in at 10pm, I dragged myself to bed at 6am with a $1000 cash out.  I’ve never liked taking the red-eye out of Maui, but maybe it is a great way to start flipping your sleep schedule to poker players hours… play all night, sleep all day.  Booking a suite on the Executive level at the Commerce is great.  For 30 extra dollars per day you get access to the club room right down the hall, which serves a nice Continental breakfast, perfect if you can drag your self out of bed by 10am and save yourself the humiliation of wandering through the casino in search of coffee in hat, sunglasses, and jammies.  The Executive rooms also have Jacuzzi tubs which are very restorative.  I will add a caution for anyone who has never used them.  Be sure the jacuzzi nozzles are completely submerged in water before you turn them on or you will turn your bath into a nasal bidet. The other benefit is the light pupu’s they serve nightly, along with a selection of beer, wines and spirits.  It saved me from dining out most nights and I was even able to bring my friend Hillary along with me. 

 

The second day at Commerce was also successful.  I roused myself in time to buy in to the 6pm tournament.  It had 207 players, and I cashed in 17th.  I made the results page on CardPlayer Magazine website. I guess they couldn’t fit my whole legal name Cheryl Jennings-Logsdon. Not much of a cash but it was kind of cool to even be listed.  Here is the link:

 

http://www.cardplayer.com/tournaments/results/15633

 

This tournament had some very good players in it.  I had one huge hand about half way through where I knocked out two players at once.  I had something like 4 6 off in the BB, early position player limped, one caller, folds around to me I check.  Flop gave me an open-ended straight draw, I check, guy bets, guy calls, I call.  I don’t remember all the details, all I know is that the other two guys in the hand played it very badly by slow-playing and pricing me in on my draw, so I got there by the river.  The turn/river filled my straight while giving the guys a set of queens, and AQ.  The set of queens goes all in, I go all-in, the AQ (2 pair) insta-calls all-in (which was very stupid on his part).  I had both of them barely covered, so I tripled up to become the chip leader at my table, and one of the over-all chip leaders in the tournament.  This is one of the few times on the trip where I am very disappointed with myself.  Having never been in this position before, with good fortune smiling down on me, and a huge stack at my disposal, I honestly did not know what to do.  We were down to about 82 players at this point, far from the end.  It seemed to be too early to open up my game too much… do you use that big stack to take some risks?  We were at the point where people were getting short stacked and going all in.  I had a healthy stack, but not so big that I could start calling down short-stacks with risky hands, or I would lose my edge.  My cards went very cold.  I had nothing to challenge the all-ins with.  I had very few opportunities to try to bully or steal.  I kept getting moved to new tables where I didn’t know how anyone was playing.  I didn’t know what to do so I didn’t do much of anything.  The field was dwindling, we were approaching the money bubble.  The other players stacks had caught up to mine at this point.  I was at a table where this one guy was on an absolute heater.  He had AA KK AK AQ so many times we lost count.  He sucked all the air out of the table.  Now here I know I tightened up too much, and I am more upset with myself about that than not knowing what to do earlier.  It is one thing to lack the knowledge about how to play a certain portion, it is another to have it and not use it.  It wasn’t a glaring lack of action, just enough to ensure that I did not have a chance of winning the tournament.  So I cashed, but I should have been able to achieve more there.  If anyone has advice about what to do when you actually have chips to work with in the situation I was in, please let me know.

 

The tournament took about 6 hours.  After a short break I hit the $1 $2 cash tables again.  Now these were Monday and Tuesday nights, and the tables were a revolving door of a poor players. I can’t imagine what the weekends are like. I sat in my seat for 6 – 8 hours and the table would change over several times.  With the low buy-in maximum of $100, I would be patient the first hour or so, waiting to chip up to $300, then I would absolutely brutalize the table.  The combination of a big stack, aggressive fearless (smart) play, and the willingness of these players to drop their $100 quickly is very profitable.  I bullied, I stole, I bluffed, and got paid off over and over again.  If poker could be like that all the time, I would move to LA tommorow and take up residence at the Commerce.   There was one guy who came to the table who sticks in my mind.  He was an Army guy, about to go back to Iraq for his third and final tour.  He didn’t seem especially thrilled about it, and he was getting fairly hammered.  He was an ok player who had a nice run of cards and chipped up to about $500.  He was smart enough to change gears at that point and he held onto that money untill he left a few hours later.  His buddies would come over once in a while and borrow money from him.  He probably would of left sooner, but I think he was enjoying watching me play.  He called me “neighbor”.  He would tell new guys “watch out for neighbor over here, she is brutal.”  At this point I had over $600 or $700 in front of me.  At the Commerce they let you keep the plastic chip racks, which I love.  It just feels good to rack and stack em.  Once you’ve filled that bottom row and you’re working on filling the second level it just kicks off some testosterone in me or something LOL.  It’s like having the biggest gun at the table and it feels great.  I guess it’s my own little Napoleon complex come to life.  So I would judge my opponent and his holding, grab a stack of chips and WHUMP em down on the table.  I wouldn’t say how much, and if the opp would ask I’d say something like “oh, about half your stack” or “most of your chips” or just a simple “lots” would do.  Then my buddy would start saying “There goes neighbor”  ”Neighbor is brutal”.  I’d scoop another pot and he’d rap my knuckles. It was an odd feeling knowing that in a few weeks I’d be going back to Maui to make wedding cakes and he’d be going back to Iraq and hoping he makes it home alive.  I hope he does too.  After he left the table continued to turn over with poor players, and one intelligent college trust fund kid who came in hopped on coke and talking a mile a minute.  At least he was entertaining.  He had a running commentary going on every hand, the flop, the turn, the odds, the bet amounts.  He talked to just about everyone but me, I think my presence made him feel guilty or something.  I probably reminded him of his mother or something.  Whoever says poker is boring has never played a $1 $2 table at 3 o’clock in the morning. The daylight was approaching much too quickly and I was trying to top off at $1000 again, but couldn’t quite make it.  I promised myself to quit at 5am and cashed out at $960.

 

After another sleep most of the day drag yourself around your room kind of day, I had dinner and went to play in cash games again.  Since their tournaments were all two day events I couldn’t play another one that day.  I stopped to check on the progress of the Final Table from my tournament the night before (and kick myself in the butt again for not being there) and had a nice talk with Sherri Dokken (sp?).  She is the Tournament Director at Commerce and a real nice lady.  She took me up to her office when she found out I was an artist as she paints also.  We had a nice chat.  I can’t remember everything from that night, but I played the $100 buy in for a while then chipped up and went to the $200 buy in which is a $3 $5 table or something like that.  The players at this table really weren’t that much better than the $1 $2 players, but when the price of poker goes up, everything gets more expensive.  It was an interesting night though.  There was a pro who I had sat next to at the tournament the night before.  I was moved to his table at one point, and sat right next to him.  We had some interesting friendly exchanges while I played at his table, and then he was at one of the final 2 tables when I got knocked out.  So he was wandering around the cash tables the next night when I spotted him and I went over to him and invited him to join our table as we were having trouble keeping it filled and the seat next to me was vacant.  He obliged.  He sat there for a few hours and it turns out that he is a fairly high level pro, he actually had been living at the Commerce for about 8 months at that point.  Basically he was slumming at our $5 table because he thought it would be amusing or enjoyable (or both) to hang out with me for a while.  As you can probably imagine I find it pretty easy to talk to people. I found out a lot about him.  The lousy run he has been on lately, his kid, his job as a poker teacher ect.  He was really on a down turn and was feeling really low and I am hoping that I convinced him that he really needed to take a week (at least) poker-less vacation and re-set his sights.  I am hoping that he his currently lounging somewhere tropical, sipping a rum drink and toasting my sage advice.  Call me Dr. Phil of the poker table.  He was the perfect example of how a bad run can lead to bad vibes can lead to bad cards and bad decisions which fuel the vicious cycle.  My night at the table was fairly uneventful.  Went up to $600 or so, then lost a huge pot, up and down.  Kind of a whatever night.  Didn’t stay too late as I needed to get up and pack the next day.

 

Overall my 3 days at the Commerce were successful.  The tournament series while I was there had a very good structure.  The players in that tournament were much better than the players I ran into at the cash tables.  I would love to go back there on a weekend and work those $1 $2 tables some more.  They were great.  I would like to get back to the Commerce again…

It has been quite a while since I last blogged.  I have been quite busy preparing for my trip.  I leave on Saturday night, and am in the usual pre-trip panic mode.  When you own your own business it should be easy to jet off when you want to. Unfortunately for me that is not the case.  When I booked this trip a few months ago I looked through all of our wedding cake bookings and September seemed to be ok, steady but  not crazy.  I guess that one ramification of the airline hikes is people waiting until the last minute to make their plans.  So while I am away my husband has to take care of the kids and make about 80 wedding cakes by himself.  He can do it, but it isn’t easy.  There are several that require trickier hand made decorations, and as the resident artist I handle those.  He can do it, but it means that I will be stressed out the whole time I am away.  It also means that in addition to all of my regular office work – booking all the orders and setting up all the work tickets for the 2 weeks I am away and the week after I get back, ordering all the fresh flowers and specialty items, purchasing accessories, answering emails and phone calls, book keeping and setting up a system to handle those things while I am not there – I also have to get all the hand made decorations done and labeled before I leave.  Basically I have to do 3 weeks of work in 1 week.  I usually leave feeling exhausted, stressed out and guilty to boot.  The day we sell this business will be one of the happiest days of my life.

   Enough complaining.  My real preparations for the trip are poker related.  Overall the cake business has been slower this year so I was able to start painting again.  I have had my latest painting “The Joker” made into a Giclee print and I will be bringing several of them with me on the trip.  I am donating the full size one to O-11 to help raise funds for Ivey Ranch, and will have a few smaller sized ones available for sale.  That reminds me, I need to make myself some business cards to bring too. I will hopefully make some contacts at the various locations I am visiting.  One great aspect of this is that all of my poker trips will now be a tax deduction.

On the playing side I have been working very hard on my cash game for the last 3 months.  I have read “Professional NL Hold’em” several times, and both “Harrington on Cash” books.  I installed Windows on my MAC and the PokerTracker program.  I have been playing $1 $2 NL and recently some $2 $4 NL on PokerStars.  I have recorded over 6,000 cash hands on PT in the last 6 weeks and analyzed them every which way.  The program is amazing.  If any of you want to seriously improve your cash game, this is an $80 investment that will really pay off.  And lastly I have become a regular poster on the PSO Graduates Discussion forum where you can post cash hands for analysis.  They have some very smart and knowledgable players who regularly chime in with valuable opinions.  Anyone who takes the Cash Game course which is about to start again on PSO can become a regular on the Graduates forum.

I firmly believe that playing Tournaments does not make you a better cash game player (in fact quite the opposite) but playing cash will make you a better Tournament player.  Tournaments start out with deep stack play in the beginning levels, and many with deep enough structures or chips can end up back at fairly deep stack play at the end, which mirrors cash games.  If you play well, and the luck you are required to have as the blinds escalate holds out, you can sometimes win money in tournaments.  If you play well at cash, you can win money almost all the time.

My goals for this trip are to play more cash than tournaments.  I am hoping that it will also cure my “Bustophobia” that has sometimes held me back in the past in Tournaments.  My new attitude will be to take some appropriate risks and make moves in the Tournaments to try to win, and if I bust out, mo bettah – get me to the cash games where I can make some money for sure.  Another goal is take make lots of contacts with my paintings.  I can tend to get shy when it comes to marketing myself (hard to believe I know), but it is time to bite the bullet and go for it.  Lastly I need to shake off some of the stress and lingering guilt about leaving everyone at home while I go do what I want.  The best way to do that would be to win lots of money. LOL.

I better get going, I have a gazillion things to do!!

The Ups and Downs of the last few days have driven home an important point once again.  First the Ups:

Friday afternoon playing on PS $2 $4 NL cash games.  Played 2 tables at once, was down about $150, then 2 hours later on a roll, left with almost $900 profit.  I have been reading the new Harrington on Cash Games book.  It is EXCELLENT.  I highly recommend it for anyone who plays cash.  His writing is very accessible.

The Downs:

Saturday afternoon back to the PS $2 $4 tables, and tore threw $700 of that profit.  I have learned a lot about how to win at cash, now I am working on how not to lose at it.  That is actually more important if you want to show a profit.  I am pretty good at that live, but need to work on that online.

The Ups:

Poker Stars Tournament #93900862, No Limit Hold’em
Buy-In: $50.00/$5.00
9 players
Total Prize Pool: $450.00 
Tournament started – 2008/06/29 – 23:19:49 (ET)

Dear mauigame,

You finished the tournament in 1st place.
A $225.00 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

The Downs:

Felt I was playing a great game so I went into a $100 NL tournament.  Around 342 players to start.  In these higher buy-in (by online standards) tournaments the play is very tough right from the start.  A lot of raising and re-raising.  It paid 45 and I went out around 65.  I played very well for the first 6 levels or so.  Then I felt like I had split in two.  On one shoulder was the devil and the other an angel.  The devil for me is the aggressive move maker who is willing to take appropriate risks.  I could hear her whispering in my ear “Now, this hand – pop it FOR GOD SAKES STEAL THIS POT!!  In the other ear was the passive angel cooing “no, this hand isn’t good enough, too risky, a better hand is right around the corner.”  It’s not like I rolled over and played dead or anything, after all I did better then 180 very good players, but I know I did not do what I needed to do to win either.  What I need to do is switch those two little shoulder buddies…. make the devil into the passive player who lets it slip away, and make the poker angel the aggressive move maker – kind of like the avenging sword carrying angels of yore.  It probably didn’t help that I had a 2 hour therapy massage yesterday and felt like a limp fish.  Not the best physical or mental  condition for swashbuckling, but that is no excuse.  

The Ups:

Even though I did not carry through with what I needed to do, I could FEEL what I needed to do.  I knew when I should do it, I just couldn’t bring myself to.  I think that next time I get to that crucial point in a tournament where it becomes imperative to stay ahead of the tournament curve, I will get out my sticky notes and cover up my cards – but only when in the last 3 seats.  Then I will make my decision about what the right move is based upon the proceeding action, and then before I make that move I will look at my cards to see if I have a hand that I want to play differently…  not to say that if I decide to pop it with A2C and then see that gorgeous 63 off I will chicken out, just that if I have a regular playable hand I might need to make a different type of bet.  

I also realized that I played the MTT more like a SNG.  There is a really big difference between the two, and just how big that difference is and the strategy involved settled a bit deeper in my mind after playing the two back to back last night.

Important Point:

The Devil is the passive player who is full of hope that great cards are rolling in a shiny white horse to save the day.  There is no horse, there is only a donkey full of hope.

Taking on a new skill set and making adjustments to your poker game is difficult.  As we learn and grow and reach new levels, we become comfortable with our game at each level.  We become used to winning a certain amount and losing a certain amount, give or take a few bad beats.  Then as we proceed to the next step, and try to absorb a new approach, our game goes screwy.  That’s where I find myself at the moment, on a loose aggressive rampage.

    No one is more surprised than me at this.  Once I gained a certain amount of poker knowledge and passed the donkey stage, I was tight as a button.  Frankly I believe that most women tend toward being tight players naturally and have to work hard at loosening up their games.  Most men, especially younger ones, tend to come at the game from the other end and have to work hard at being patient and tight.  It’s just another way that men and women are so completely different from each other.

    When I finished the three month Tournament course at PSO, my tournament results improved dramatically.  My game was tight and a lot more aggressive.  I learned more about where and when to make moves when the cards are not cooperating.  These moves require a certain kind of looseness, after all, when else would you shove all in 83 offsuit?  And they definitely require aggressiveness, such as coming over the top of a lead bet with air just because you feel they are weak.

    It is my current cash game course though that has set me on my rampage.  I did not used to play cash online, loved to play cash live, but found it boring online.  Since I have been in the course I have been playing cash online a lot.  Now don’t get me wrong, it is not the course material that has pushed me in the wrong direction.  The course itself is excellent.  Rather it is the deeper understanding of table dynamics and feeling of empowerment that it brings that have set me off.  HA!  Think you can raise me bub?  I know exactly what you are doing, BANG, re-raise, now watchoo gonna do??  When first applied thoughtfully and respectfully these skills brought about the desired result – winning lots of money.  But then, drunk with success, you apply a little bit less thoughtfully and a whole lot less patiently.  I said re-raise, how dare you call me??  Now the results are frustration and anger – oops!

    I started a 345 person tournament, doubled up quickly, and thought here we go….  Then this crazy loose aggressive person took over my body and my chip stack went up down up down, down to 600, the people at my table I am sure have all made notes for me reading “loose crazy donkey”.  I finally pushed all in with 83 off on the button when all folded to me because the blinds were at 100/200, and doubled up. Now the people at my table think I am really nuts.  Then I triple up with a legitmate hand, which was called because everyone thinks I am crazy, and I am right back in the hunt.  I go on to cash in that one, because when I was lucky enough to triple up I got a hold of myself and completely changed gears.  I switched tables a short time later which helped also.  I tightened way up, probably a little too tight actually, but didn’t trust myself to loose control again. LOL.

    The end results of this will be a lasting improvement in my game.  Everybody goes out and gets drunk a few times when they turn 21, until they learn better.  You need to push the boundries sometimes in order to see where they are.  You can’t add loose aggressiveness to your game with out going overboard a bit and stretching your wings.  You do need to be LAG at times , as the table dynamics dictate, in order to take advantage of every opportunity at the table.  So I dare you to drop into a tournament and go on your own loose aggressive rampage (within reason) and see what you can learn from it.  The results may surprise you, and at the very least you can feel the thrill of letting it all go for once…..

Last post I told of my results in Vegas, and promised to write about what I learned after it had some time to sink in. Let’s start with what I learned from my mistakes in tournaments.  In the Sunday night Deep stack at the Venetian, after busting out of the WPTL, I had the pleasure to sit next to Blondie (sorry I forget your real name).  It was great to have a fellow LPS to chat with.  We had been playing a few hours and I made a classic mistake.  It is such an easy mistake to avoid.  I had 88 in late position and all fold to me.  The blinds were at 100/200 I believe and I intended to raise it to 500.  I threw out a single 500 chip and didn’t say raise.  The BB who was a very annoying loose player who had been getting lucky checks.  The flop is low card rainbow 632 and I go all in and he calls because he has 63 and hit 2 pair.  It is the classic don’t let the blinds in to get lucky situation, and it was completely my fault for not saying raise.  When playing live I will try to never make any action without saying it first (except fold).  Stupid actions make for poor results.

My other big mistake – and this was a HUGE STUPID mistake – was on my last day.  I played the noon at Ceasar’s.  I am at the Final Table we are one or two from the payouts and I have one of the biggest stacks at the table.  Guy in late middle min raises, the button calls, I look down and see 77.  Now my mistake was actually several mistakes rolled into one.  #1 The guy who min-raised had been playing very aggressively and just doubled up to have a stack just slightly bigger than mine.  When he entered a pot it was 3x or 4x BB.  You already know where this is going.  #2 The button calling means he has a legitimate , most likely overcard hand, and had shown a willingness to gamble.  I don’t know what made me think that by shoving all-in I could get them both to fold.  DUMB DUMB DUMB.  I was tired, burned out and DID NOT think it through.  Of course Mr. MIn-raise has pocket aces and poof, I am gone.  From chip leader to chump in one hand.  There was absolutely NO good reasons to play those 7′s, not for a call, not for a raise. I deserved to get busted out because I was stupid.  Stupid mistakes make for poor results.

For the most part I played really well in other tournaments.  However I am not thrilled with my play in the WPTL event.  I should have played tighter.  There were some poor players at our table that I knew I could outplay, and I was itching to do so, and it made me loosen up just enough to leak away some chips.  It was exactly the opposite of how I had planned on playing.  It’s true that I was very unlucky with my all-in when the novice called two all-ins with pocket 10′s and hit a flush on the river, but it was my own fault for having so few chips that I was forced to be in an all-in situation after only 2 1/2 hours of play.  Beginning level play requires patience, no matter how poorly those around you are playing.  The frustration you feel that you are not picking up hands while all that fishy money is out there for the taking does not warrant playing incorrectly.  Stupid strategy makes for poor results.

In cash games I did fairly well.  The late night $1 $2 games at the Venetian were more alive than salmon farm pond.  The first night I played cash there I hadn’t planned on it.  I had played T all day and was tired.  Had a glass of wine with dinner and thought I’d play a few slots.  I did but slots are really boring by yourself, and after another glass of wine (the good stuff from my room – I cannot drink the stuff they give you for free in the casino), I decided to play.  What I learned from that is that even pretty tipsy it is fairly easy to take money from REALLY BAD players.  These guys were practically transparent.  They rotated in and out of our table.  For some reason they were mostly asian guys of varying ages who would sit down with their $100 or so dollars, lose it once or twice and then be replaced with the next guy willing to lose chips.  There was also the guy who was completely drunk and spewing chips that turned out to not even be his own chips.  He picked them up by mistake from another table and brought them to ours.  He was deep in conversation with management after they hauled him off the table.  I wanted to go to bed, at this point I was fairly toasted, but I hung in there till the game dried up just past 4:30am, and cashed out a $500 profit.  Playing poker drunk for fun and profit.  Not something I really reccommend and I am not sure what I really learned from that session.  

A few nights later the $1 $2 table I was out was full of such bad players that it was annoying.  I guess bad players are more fun when you are drinking LOL. I wasn’t and wanted to play some real poker so I took my first foray into the $2 $5 table.  I was a bit nervous stepping up in limits, these guys were nothing like the $1 $2 guys.  I played fairly tight to get the lay of the land.  I was moved to another table – the main table.  When I sat down there was one guy there that had more chips than God in front of him.  Towers of black and green.  Gulp.  Luckily it was the end of his session and he left soon afterwards.  These were serious aggressive players.  I played on that table for about 4 hours and held my own.  In a cash game you really need to get some actual cards or have some flops that actually connect with your hand to continue, and I wasn’t getting much.  I made one nice bluff to take a $125 pot down.  My biggest hand of the night went like this.  Big muscle guy in mid position raises to $30.  Button calls $30.  I am in BB and look down to see AA – finally!!  I pop it to $100 and much to my surprise they both call.  Flop comes absolutely horrific – 10JQ.  First guy goes all in for $900, and button calls!!!!!  Yikes!  My aces of course go in the muck as there is NO WAY they could be good.  They have QQ and 10 10 for set over set, and those darn 10′s make a flush on the river to take it down.  The guys gave me props for folding my aces, I think they reevaluated me after that.  They also loosened up socially after a while, I can’t sit there for hours without talking, and they took a liking to me.  The most valuable thing I took from that table came from another hand I bluffed at.  I don’t remember the board or the action, but I knew my opp had a pair of 7′s on the flop – 7x in his hand.  I bet it all the way.  It would have worked too but unfortunately he also caught a Q for 2 pair so he called it down.  Anyway a third guy who was in the hand told me he knew that I was bluffing, so I smiled and asked him “why?” and he told me what my tell was that he had picked up….  I figured that was worth the $80 I lost that hand.  I don’t think that a guy would EVER tell another guy what his bluffing tell is…. but that is just one more advantage to be a woman at the table.  I ended up walking away from that very aggressive tough table down just $150, so I was satisfied.  I held my own, and if I ever picked up a hand that was playable, I believe I could have made a profit there.  So I learned I can hold my own with the big boys (well big for me at this point), that I can bluff, what my bluffing tell is, and that I can make some big laydowns.

On my last day I played some cash at Ceasar’s.  What I learned there is that when the table dynamic changes for the worse for you – leave.  I was doing fine and then this loose blabbermouth lady sits next to me.  She stacks off like 3 times because she is a gambler.  And NEVER stops talking.  But those types of players have HUGE swings and will sometimes swipe your chips too with a loose call that gets lucky.  Before I lost all my chips there was one funny moment.  The dealer was a friendly older Russian guy.  Our talk at the table had gotten a little racy and we were making some jokes.  So he asks us ladies “Do you know why older men take Viagra?” “So they don’t fall off the bed” to which I instantly replied “Honey, if they are not falling off the bed, you’re not doing it right.”  I cleared out of there after I lost my stack to blabbermouth – my pocket aces went down to 2 pair… I guess AA was no good for me in cash games…  next time my instincts say leave, I will leave or switch tables.

Lastly I learned that I love to go to Vegas alone so I can play poker night and day, and that I cannot wait to get back there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I arrived home Tuesday night, and now, five days later I am starting to feel human again.  That whole “you don’t need sleep in Vegas” thing is getting harder to recover from at my age.  The whole trip was just super start to finish.

Day 1.  Arrive early at Venentian, go to spa for delicious Aromatherapy massage.  Eat, check into lovely suite.  Shower, and hit the tables.  Venetian Deep stack.  Doing great getting cards and get decimated by really unlucky beat.  Run over to Ceasar’s and jump in late to 7pm Tournament, and take second for $1400.  The Tournament Director was very nice and gave me a Ceasar’s Palace card protector, a really nice one.

Day 2.  Spa in morning, well actually by the time I got my butt out of bed it was afternoon.  Lunch/Breakfast.  The Canyon Ranch Cafe has really good food – and all health conscious, and reasonably priced for someone from Maui.  Their lattes were the best.  I played the Venetian Deep Stack again.  Started with 200 people and we were down to 50.  I had a nice sized stack.  The blinds had just jumped up and the short stacks were at the do or die stage.  In 2 orbits I went against 5 different short stacks as the dominating 65% – 85% favorite – and lost all five!  It really sucked.  The last hand I had AQ against KQ, and he got his King.  All righty then.  I was starving at this point, and found someplace to eat, and bought a bottle of wine for my room.  Played slots for 5 minutes, but it is no fun alone, so went to play $1 $2 NL.  The players were so stinky bad, it was like taking candy from babies.  So I drank and played and drank and played.  I was actually really tired and wanted to go to bad, but it was just too easy so I stayed till the game dried up at 4:45am with a nice $500 profit.

Day 3.  Woke up feeling like hell.  Dragged myself to the spa, hungover. Didn’t get out of my room till like 3:30pm.  Walked to Ceasar’s shops and went to the West of Sante Fe jewelry store where I bought a pair of Royston tourquoise earrings on my first trip to Vegas after I cashed in a Ceasar’s tournament.  Went to just look, and ended up buying a necklace and ring to match the earrings.  Spent WAY more than I intended. OOPS!!  Managed to get in an hour and a half at a Ceasar’s cash game, left with $150 profit, and walked over to Bellagio to get picked up for Linda’s party.

Lupe and her daughter were kind enough to pick myself and one of the Oklahoma ladies up.  Linda’s party was great as written about by others.  But I did want to get a good night’s sleep for the big day.

Day 4.  I was one of the lucky few who knew about the brunch that came with the entry fee, so I went to that.  I feel like I was really prepared for the Tournament.  Linda Johnson was at my table.  But all the cards were going to one inexperienced lucky lady at the table.  As I wrote elsewhere she called my all in, then when a late arriving almost brand new player (3rd or 4th hand for her) came over the top and went all-in, she still called off half her stack with pocket tens.  Now anyone who has been playing for a while would realize that her all-in over the top on her 5th hand means she has a monster and that your pocket tens are crushed.  And of course they were…  My AKd, her KK, against her 18% pocket tens.  Ugh.  The board gives me my ace on the river, but it is the 4th heart and miss lucky had the 10 of hearts.  It was sick.  I wouldn’t have minded losing to the KK, but that really got me.  Oh well.  Better don’t get so unlucky next time.  I played the Deep Stack again and made a mistake – meant to raise but threw in a single chip and didn’t say raise.  I had pocket eights, and the board was all low, and the BB made 2 pair and took me out.  I think I will make a rule for myself to never use a single chip to raise with, ever.  Sometimes you think raise in your head, but it just doesn’t come out of your mouth.

Day 5.  Monday, my last full day.  I played some cash at Ceasar’s and when I couldn’t even win with pocket aces, I joined my sister in law who lives in Vegas.  We walked back to the Venetian, got dolled up and went to dinner.  We ate at Canaletto in the V shops.  It was very very good.  The only real meal I had in Vegas aside from Linda’s house.  We drank and ate and laughed.  Then we hit the slots.  Amy doesn’t play poker at all, and there is nothing as boring as watching someone else play, so I forgo the tables to hang out with her.  I wanted to play Wheel of Fortune, my personal favorite, and chose a bank of machines.  She played a bit and then I decided to put some in my machine.  It was a 50 cent machine, and after a little while I hit the Red White and Blue 7′s for $800!!!!  I couldn’t believe it!!  I played it down to about $725 and then went and cashed it out.  Amy went back to some other slots so I tried Roulette.  I had never played any other table game before and it always seemed to mysterious and James Bond like.  Well it was easy cheesy once you got the hang of it, in like 2 minutes.  And it was really fun.  And I was really lucky and kept winning.  In no time at all I had a mound of hot pink chips in front of me.  The other players at the table were a hoot.  I kept saying “this is so random”!!  No thinking, no strategy, you are rooting for all the other players to win too.  I had a blast. I played for like 2 hours and cashed out about $125 profit.  Amy was still playing slots.  It was like 3amish.  So I search out a $1 Wheel of Fortune machine, which is what I usually play. Drop in my $200.  It was giving me lots of spins… $40, $25, $60, $80….  When I play I don’t like to go back down below my original investment.  So I am back down to $209, $206, $203.  I say to the machine – this is it, if you don’t give me a spin right now I am cashing out and walking away.  Well, I got my spin… and hit the $1000 !!!!!  I couldn’t believe this either!  There wasn’t a soul around to see it.  I played it down to $1,100 and cashed it out.  It sure helped make up for all the bad beats at the poker table I took the last 2 days.

    Back to the Roulette tables, where some of the same people are still there.  Played for a few more hours.  These guys were really funny.  We were the only table going.  laughing yelling joking around…..  When I got up to my room (up another $25 or so)  and peeked out the curtains I was surprised to see it was broad daylight out.  OOPS!!!  

So it was already day 6 and time to go home.  Cat nap, then up to pack, souvenir shop for kids and head to airport.  I slept most of both flights home so it seemed to go by really quickly.  I just had an absolute blast.  I am still processing it all.  next time I will write about what I learned poker-wise.  For now I wish I was still there!!

When will I learn?  Lest you think, from reading my other blogs, that I am a straight arrow always shooting at my target, I am here to fess up.  Friday night I more resembled a besotted mosquito zig zagging towards my ultimate demise.  It started out innocently enough.  Friday night is usually poker night for me.  However my regular guys have not had a game in three weeks.  I am hoping that it is because some of them were off with their kids on Spring Break, or otherwise engaged, and not due to the fact that at the last game I walked away with pretty much all the money. I have played with this group about a dozen times over the last few months, and except for two nights (one being when I lost it all to quads over quads, but who wouldn’t?), I pretty much walk outta there with a nice chunk of change, and last time with almost all the change (over $1,100).  I think they are starting to get a little frustrated.  I try to be as charming as possible about it.  Sometimes we laugh so hard we have tears streaming down our faces, but maybe they are starting to think a comedy show at $30 a pop would be a cheaper way to get some laughs than playing against me.  There are very few games on Maui, and I hope I haven’t worn out my welcome.

   After calling around and realizing that it would be just me and my laptop and the hordes on PokerStars for another night, I reviewed my list for playing and thought ok you are ready to go.  Dinner came first though, and after a long hard week of work opened a bottle of red wine to have glass with the meal.  It was a rather lovely Cab from Australia that is drinking very nicely about now.  I thought to myself, well one glass with dinner is ok, I can still play.  By the time I prepared dinner and ate and sat down to play I had drank 2 glasses and was feeling sublime.

     So I drop into a cheapie Tournament, a $10 and play really well, but go out on some ridiculous beat.  So fill’er up, I am playing fine, and go into a $55 18 person SNG. Voila, I finish third for $198.  Groovy, I am hot hot hot, so pour another glass and drop into a $100 9 person SNG.  Don’t remember much of anything about it, I think I took a few “what the hell risks” I wouldn’t usually, but I managed to take second for $240.  Four glasses of wine, one bowl of cheese popcorn and two wins later and you would think I am old enough and mature enough to shut it down for the night.  But noooooo, winning is fun fun fun, and what’s the harm of one more glass and one more tournament??  So there I am at one o’clock in the morning, bleary eyed and besotted thinking it is a good idea to sign up for a 42 person $55 game.  Geez, what an idiot I am.  About 6 hands in I realize that I am never gonna make it, and start swigging water and chucking back aspirin.  Don’t recall how long I lasted or how badly I played, but I can tell you I felt like holy hell the next morning.  

   The ironic part is the next day when I was sluggishly working at my desk, I checked my phone messages, and at 7pm the previous night one of the guys from my regular home game had called to tell me there was a Tournament and cash game starting at 8:30.  It is a game I have been trying to get into, it is weekly, on my side of the island. Oh well, next time.  I am lucky that I managed to end up positive for the night.  But I much would have preferred to play live.  I NEVER drink when I play live.  I could have saved myself a heck of a hangover if I had only answered my phone.  

   When will I learn?