Oh the calls that we make

In total, it was a good night of online play for me.  Something triggered me to sign up for a $5 45-player SNG.  While it was coming together, I sat at a micro PLHE table.  I quickly doubled up my stack with good-but-not-great hands against a table full of fair-but-not-good players that didn't know how to fold.  I would've done better here except for an AA<QQ hand later on.  I shut this down at the first break in the SNG up a buy-in - so I'm freerolling in the SNG. 

The SNG played amazingly passive.  I kept stealing early on with all sorts of stuff.  I lost one big pot with something like AQ losing to A9, but quickly recouped that stack and more.  I held the chip lead for a while and made it to the final table in good position - either 1st or 2nd in chips. 

At this point, there were a couple of short stacks but mostly 6-7 equally sized stacks and we were rapidly approaching the 10BB level.  I folded lots, watched a fair amount of people get their chips in questionably, and finally made the bubble (after I called a short stack shove where my AQ actually beat A9). 

Here's where it sucked.  With three players left, I had about 38k of the remaining chips.  One player had about 8k, and the third player had the balance.  I'm dealt A6 in position, and see a 534 flop.  The aforementioned third player shoves his ~20k stack in.  I have two overcards, a OESD, but nothing else.  Yet for some reason I felt compelled to call here.  He turns over 52 which hurts - he has a hand, he too has an OESD, and his 2 takes away one of my outs.  Plus any 6 or A now kills me. 

Needless to say, this was a terrible spot:

http://twodimes.net/h/?z=4824402
pokenum  -h 5h 2s  - ac 6d  -- 5c 3d 4s 
Holdem Hi: 990 enumerated boards containing 4s 5c 3d
 cards  win   %win  lose  %lose  tie  %tie     EV
2s 5h  712  71.92   257  25.96   21  2.12  0.730
Ac 6d  257  25.96   712  71.92   21  2.12  0.270

He rivered the straight, not that he needed to, but that made me a distant second.  In the very next hand, I'm the BB and see 44.  The button folds, the short stacked SB shoves and I call.  He tables Jc6c - as if he had an ounce of fold equity.  The bastard rivers a J and now I'm down to one BB.  I move in with K5 the very next hand and so ends my night. 

Why on earth did I call with that OESD?  Really the only time I got chips in bad all night but I had to do it at the end. 

Patience.  Slow down.  When will I learn?

CHIMPS H/U

And to think I was *thisclose* to blowing this one off.


Of course, a first round bye helps things.

In the second round, after being down to 1220 in chips, I flopped bottom two on a 7s Qs 8d board. I check-called the flop, led out on the turn when an A landed, got called and shoved the rest of my stack in on the river. He had a naked A, and now I had the lead. Six hands later, my 88 held up against his A8 and on we go to the semis.

I took a small chip lead in the first hand and never trailed here. Made a questionable call in the last hand. I button raised 3x with 77. He shoved his 4300 chip stack in, and I made the call with my 7600+ stack. He flipped over A9o and I dodged all the bullets.

After a long wait and what looked like one heck of a back and forth battle in the other semi, we started the finals vs. ReedMoney. He came out firing with both barrels and I was quickly in the hole. Whiffed a flop with A9o but tried to represent something and quickly I was down 15.4 to 8.6k chips. Yeeowch. Four hands later, I have AKs. Reed made a 3x button raise which he did often. I min-raised that and he made a big reraise over that. Well I'm not folding this so I ship the rest of my stack in and he has 10s. I flop an A and now I take the 16.5 to 7.5k lead.

Trying my best to nurse this lead, I piss my stack down to 14.4k when I get frisky from the BB w/ J8s, and c-betting on an A-high flop. Whoops. But PS came to my rescue two hands later and this is how it ended:

PokerStars Game #18210159583: Tournament #92414506, $5.00+$0.50 Hold'em No Limit - Match Round IV, Level II (120/240) - 2008/06/17 - 22:57:13 (ET)
Table '92414506 1' 2-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: ReedMoney (9720 in chips)
Seat 2: djm182 (14280 in chips)
ReedMoney: posts small blind 120
djm182: posts big blind 240
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to djm182 [As Ac]
ReedMoney: calls 120
djm182: raises 480 to 720
ReedMoney: calls 480
*** FLOP *** [Kd 6d 7d]
djm182: bets 720
ReedMoney: raises 1200 to 1920
djm182: raises 11640 to 13560 and is all-in (God bless him if he has the flush already.)
ReedMoney: calls 7080 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (4560) returned to djm182
*** TURN *** [Kd 6d 7d] [Ah]
*** RIVER *** [Kd 6d 7d Ah] [6c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
djm182: shows [As Ac] (a full house, Aces full of Sixes)
ReedMoney: shows [4s Qd] (a pair of Sixes)
ReedMoney said, "gg"
djm182 collected 19440 from pot

About damn time I got me one of them CHIMPS virtual bracelets.

Recap

Thoughts since I've last blogged...

* We shot 62 in a scramble at Hiland last Thursday.  Went -10 over the last 13 holes.  I hit the driver pretty well, but never struck a solid iron or a good chip shot all day.  Heck of a finish though and I can't wait to return the 15 yellow pro staffs I won in a raffle.  Sigh.

* Had the home game on Saturday night.  This one should be called the barn game - it was actually played in a barn.  The Cliffs' Notes version is that I wasn't dealt much - 44 was my biggest pocket pair in 3+ hours, and I had AKs once, AQs once and AQo once.  Did the best I could - until I got down to heads up and even-stacked with an aggressive player.  When dealing, I dealt K6 to myself and threw in a K6 raise.  He went all-in.  Earlier on he had run me off of hands that I had come in on with marginal holdings.  Thought that just maybe he was trying to do it again so I called.  He had ATs and flopped a T to close me out.  Bad move on my part - not just that particular hand but not figuring out a strategy for the situation.  The right way to play would be to see every reasonable flop and trap him.  I firmly believe I could outplay him heads up but I took myself out of that chance right out of the gate. 

* Tiger.  Wow.  People still don't realize how great he truly is.  He did this with just a week or two of practice after a long layoff and a surgery, and he did it with quite a bit of pain.  Hats off to Rocco, who I was pulling for for sentimental reasons - not the least of which is that he's 45 and likely will never have this shot again.  All that said, I'd sure like to see Tiger with his A-game again.  I don't think we've seen the A in some time now, but his B or C game is still better than everyone else's A. 

The playoff was amazing, only to end in very anticlimactic and depressing fashion. 

The Hybrid Myth

Here's a great article debunking the myth of Hybrid vehicles.  In short, your payback period to recover the higher purchase cost of a hybrid is at least six years - meaning that if you buy a hybrid, be prepared to look at it in the garage for a LONG time. 

Mediocrity

Ladies and Gentlemen, the New York Mets, as described by ESPN.com's Rob Neyer:

Speaking of consistency, over their last 162 games the Mets are 82-80. Yes, it's cherry-picking. While 162 is not an arbitrary numbers, it's little more indicative than 142 (72-70) or 182 (90-92). But you know, 182 games is a fair number of games. The Mets are two games under .500 in their last 182 games. That means something, doesn't it?

Bad luck? Maybe. But over those same 182 games the Mets have scored 868 runs and they've allowed 869 runs. Exactly the profile of a .500 team. Over 182 games. That means something doesn't it.

And yet the organization just rolls merrily along with the same manager and the same general manager. If I were a Mets fan I would be leading a revolt in the streets. (Actually, I would be hoping that someone else would lead a revolt that I could follow, at a safe distance.)

As described by yours truly, this is a team that's good at jumping out to early leads, then watching its offense go dormant while a decent to even slightly above average bullpen tries to hold on for dear life.  Sometimes they do, other times they don't. 

I have no hopes of this team winning the East or anything else this year.  The Phillies are too good and you can't call yourself a credible threat when Tatis, Chavez, and Easley are getting as many ABs as they are getting.  It's a punchless offense when Reyes, Wright or Beltran don't have big games. 

Katrina on the blocks

Here we go again.  Don't you DARE ever say anything bad about Detroit - even if it might be true. 

While I didn't watch enough of the Cup to say whose fans are better than whose, I do know that there were good seats available for at least some early round playoff games at the Joe.  Heck, when I lived there, you couldn't get seats for any game.  And Pittsburgh fans have always been good vocal fans - despite having to root for a moribund Pirates franchise and the perpetually threatening-to-leave Penguins. 

A local sports reporter who stands behind her opinion - good for her. 

PLHE Struggles

I multi-tabled (i.e. 2-tabled, which is a lot for my ADD mind to handle) micro PLHE 6-max tables last night.  The results were, um, positive, I guess.  In hindsight, I felt like I was limping a lot more than would be optimal.  On the other hand, I was largely dealt crap and when you're battling with a lot of limpers and calling stations, it's best to wait for something to hammer them with. 

I kept hitting bottom or middle pair on weak flops and having to lay down hands to strong turn/river bets.  I called a few of these and did pick up a bluff or two, but probably bled more chips than I gained from that strategy.  Once with a decent pocket pair (99) on a board with all undercards, I kept getting called on each street by a guy with a ridiculous VPIP.  The river peels off an ace and he leads out into me.  I type "Ace-rag wins again" and fold.  Of course, I'm then called a whiner, an idiot, and clever and all that.  That's fine.  Say what you want, just stay at my table please.  I'm also thoroughly convinced that I was right. 

I never hit a straight or a flush all night.  Flopped one set that turned into quads but only got marginal action.  Had KK later on and saw a K44 flop, and I led out from EP with a probing bet that I thought someone might play back on.  Nope. 

There was a lot of "hit and run" at these tables.  Guys would show up, try to chip up quickly, and if they won a big pot they'd bail.  Some idiot shows up, flops sets twice in four total hands played, then takes the money to a table with 5x the stakes.  Jerk. 

Long story short, after being stuck for around a buy-in, I finally clawed back to a marginal profit. 

Me thinks this is almost as bad as it can get at these tables. 

Bet she regrets all those personal loans now

Hillary: in it for the cash. 

Posnanski: Why I Cannot Stand Aquaman

This one kills me. 

Why I Cannot Stand Aquaman

via Joe Posnanski by Joe Posnanski on 6/2/08

And then, there was Segment 3. This could feature any number of guest star Superheroes … it could be the Green Lantern, Hawkman, the Flash (my favorite … I loved the concept that a guy could be a Superhero just by being really fast — Miguel Dilone, if he had applied himself, could have been a super hero), the Atom, etc. I can remember sitting there in front of the television during those aluminum siding commercials (Garfield 1, 23-23, Garfield 1, 23-23), and I would be nervous because I could not wait to see which superhero it would be. Would it be Hawkman? The Flash? Maybe Flash Kid …

Uh, no. The commercial would end and nine out of 10 times, the "special guest hero" would be: Aquaman.

Man, I hated Aquaman. Still do. That guy was no superhero. Please. Oh, he could swim fast. Great. So could Mark Spitz. He could also talk to fish. Great. So can my father in law. I mean, seriously, you could not have a weaker collection of powers than that.

Plus there was this simple issue: THE GUY WAS UNDERWATER. I mean, seriously, is underwater crime that big a problem in society today? Is there a lot of deep sea bank robbery going on? Saltwater extortion? Marine money laundering? It used to drive me absolutely crazy watching the Superfriends because they always felt like they had to give Aquaman equal time, even though he wasn't contributing a thing. Superman, you go fly up to the moon and see if you can destroy the anti gravity machine. Wonder Woman you hop into your invisible plane, slip past the hypnotized and undead Mongolian Army and capture the Evil Hypnotist. Aquaman, um, you go gather a school of hammer fish and, uh, go hammer something.

And that's another thing … as I understand it, Aquaman could only TALK to fish. He had no POWER over the fish. So apparently we are supposed to believe that whenever Aquaman needs help, these fish will drop whatever they're doing and rush over just because they like him. Sure. My kids like me. I can't get them to put on their shoes when we're leaving the house for something THEY WANT TO DO, but this guy can send out a few soundwaves and get swordfish, sharks, blowfish and octopi to swim over from the other side of the ocean and risk their fishy lives. Oh yeah.

So, no, I don't like Aquaman. That's why he's not in the poll.

SNG Struggles

I played two of 'em last night.  The first was Turbo PLO8, and I'll be damned if I didn't pick up a viable starting hand.  I charged after one hand with AK3x ss and took it down on a ragged flop.  In the second, I started w/ A45J all clubs, raised from the cutoff and got called from the button.  I picked up a gutshot (36x was the flop) w/ a backdoor and a shot at the nut low if I could get a deuce to fall.  I shoved my short stack in, bricked out and that was that.  Why do I keep subjecting my tight style of play to a format where you MUST land a quality hand in a short period of time? 

So on to a regular old NLHE SNG.  At one stretch, I was dealt AQo, QQ and AKs in back-to-back-to-back hands.  I won the first two, lost the second when AKs < A5s.  Later on after I had tripled up to get back to a playable level of chips, I got it all in against a short stack w/ AJo vs AJs.  He rivers the flush.  Finally I get in push-or-fold mode again, lose with KJs to 77 when he flops a 7, then with 2/3 of my stack in as the BB, I call a SB raise with J5o.  He has 66...flops a set and rivers quads. 

I'm curious to see what it's like to have a horseshoe jammed up my ass.  Lately it's only been someone else's foot.