Sunday, May 04, 2008

Plus Two, Minus One

"The only thing worse than a loser is someone who won't admit he played badly." - Mickey Rosa, 21

Been quiet lately around here. Not a heck of a lot to report.. Not playing an incredible amount of poker lately. Lost of stuff going on at work, so I've been busy with that, and I'm getting ready for Vegas, which involves trying to get my other games that I've been neglecting back in order. No doubt I plan on playing a lot of poker while I'm there, but not everyone I'm going with plays poker, so I have to do some time at the Blackjack tables and throw some Craps. Two games I do enjoy, but which have -EV. Except 21, under some circumstances, but I'm not much of a counter. I might give it a shot at the low limit tables, see how I do. I'll let you know if I get thrown out on my ass for it.

Pokerstars has a weekly freeroll to get into another tourney which gets you into their WSOP giveaway thing. It's an ultra long shot, but hey, you can't beat free, right? Anyway, I decide to give it a shot. It's no limit, and turbo format, so blinds go up every 5 minutes. You start with 1500 chips, but with the blind schedule it quickly turns into a free for all, but again, free.

Anyway, after a few rounds of jab and miss, I'm down to 1075 chips and I'm handed QQ in the small blind. Early positions raises the 30 BB to 300. Folded to me, I call it , confident that it's just gonna be me and him. To my shock, the BB shoves all 2900 of his chips out. Raiser responds by shoving the remaining 2700 of HIS chips out. I'm sitting with 775 in chips left, and I clearly HAVE to call this with the ludicrous pot odds I have, not to mention, I do have a premo hand, though against 2 it's a bit rougher. I shove, and then I suddenly realize I forgot the cardinal fucking rule of online poker.

"If you have a pocket pair, someone else does too".

Think I'm kidding, try looking at all the hands where you got a pocket pair and are able to see other hands that were mucked or beat you. Five gets you ten the majority of those hands had at least another pocket pair in them.

Anyway, I roll over my QQ. BB, the instigator of all of this, flips over a pair of 9's. Lead Off Raiser flips over AA, which surprises me not at all.

Of course, you KNOW who won the hand, and I make what might be the quickest exit I have ever made in tournament play.

Ring play wasn't much better. I did manage to fill up a boat against someone's flush, and that alone kept the day from being a financial bust, but a couple of 2 out rivers coming home to my opponents made for a basically break even day at the tables. I walked away with about $.20 more then I started with. Hey, it's not a loss!