Finally Running Good

So after about 3 months of results that looked like this:

The last few weeks have looked more like this:

But while I was running good recently, we all had (and are still having) a little sweat with the Harry Reid bill, which made me feel sort of like this:

especially since I'm not all that informed on the bill and really don't know which side I'm rooting for.  I think it's a good thing if it's done correctly, but I just never trust the government to not screw things up (although they could easily screw things up whether this bill passes or not).  It just seems like such a tenuous situation, especially since if we get it regulated, the first time someone under 21 gets caught playing online, we will get the always powerful and logic-filled political argument of

In other news, PokerStars signed Isildur1 to their team recently.  My sources say he looks something like this:

He is famous for seemingly coming out of nowhere last year to win millions against some of the best competition in the world in a matter of weeks, and then losing millions to them in a matter of days, and then disappearing for a while.  I have to admit I'm not much of a "fanboy" of watching poker players play online, but his whole story is pretty interesting in my opinion and I've found myself on multiple occasions looking him up on PokerStars and watching some of his games.

Movin' On Up

So after about 4 long months of house hunting and consulting builders, we finally agreed to terms on a house yesterday.  It was hard because my wife and I are both pretty picky about what we want in the house and it was really hard to find one that even came close, but finally we found one that has pretty much everything we want.  As long as everything goes according to plan, we will be moving in at the beginning of the new year.  It's quite a relief for this to (hopefully) be done before the kid is born, just because it will be way less of a hassle that way.  So if you don't see me playing as much in January, that's probably why.  Well that and I'll be in Bahamas for the PCA for 10 days.

I'm currently at 2,136,073 VPPs and am going to try to end the year at 2.25 million so I can get the extra $10k bonus.  Most Tuesdays I can earn like 15-20k VPPs if the games are going good, and I can usually earn 10k VPPs or slightly more on Sundays, and since I need about 114k more I should be able to come relatively close to 2.25 mil on the 'Only Tuesdays and Sundays' plan.  I'm hoping to start to see some of the Supernova Elite chasers who are behind pace coming into my games in the last couple weeks so hopefully that will make the games go more, plus it might make them better since a lot of these guys don't know the hyperturbo strategy very well due to not playing them very often.  If the Tuesday and Sunday plan falls short obviously I can play other days too, but it's way harder to get motivated on those days because I earn VPPs at like half the rate per hour (or less) because the games don't go as often.

USACOOP was decent, I did pretty well in the satellites and cashed in a couple of the events, but nothing big.  I had a decent stack in the main event about 50 spots from the money, but then lost half my stack on a hand where I played every street badly except preflop.  I lasted for a few more hours and cashed in something like 150th place, but it's frustrating to make one dumb play to wipe out half my stack in a tourney I felt like I was playing really well in.  But that's how it goes in tourneys.

New Article

Quick post, Arizona Poker News magazine chose me as their feature player of the month and has a nice long article about me and Supernova Elite stuff, link is here:

http://www.azpokernews.net/

click on the 'Back Issues' tab and download the November 2010 issue if you're interested.

NAPT LA Day 4

Well, came into the day 13th in chips with 19 left, with 538k which was about half of average.  Had all shortish stacks at my first table and was able to steal the blinds quite a bit.  People were busting quickly and within a half hour or so I got it in against a guy with about 300k chips with a9 vs his 78 and won that hand to bust him and move up to about 900k chips, and that put us at 16 people left, so we broke down to two 8-handed tables.  My new table was much more aggressive and I wasn't getting much for hands so I just had to fold for a while while a few people busted and I moved up the pay scale.  Finally at blinds 15k-30k, I have about 650k left in the big blind, it's folded to the small blind who makes it like 70k to go and I look down at A5s and shove and he snap calls, never a good sign obviously.  He flips over AK and I miss and bust in 12th place for $37k, just missing the televised final table.

About a half hour after I bust, the guy running the 5k bounty shootout calls me and tells me I'm now first alternate in case someone doesn't show up, and since some people weren't prepaid that I had a decent shot of getting a seat in it.  So at that point I was already headed to the Crystal Casino where the bounty shootout was being held because I had to get a refund of my buyin.  At this point it's like 4:30 and he tells me they should know by 6 whether I have a seat or not.  Long story short, my wife and I waited til after 7 before everyone finally showed up, so I got shut out.  Would have been a nice one to get in because it's pretty much guaranteed TV time.  The guy was really nice about it though and promised me that I could have a spot in the PCA bounty shootout in January, and also gave me a comped limo ride back to my hotel.

NAPT LA Day 3

Interesting day to say the least.  Started the day with about 400k in chips and held steady for the first couple levels, but then lost a couple hands to bring me down to 140k at 5k/10k blinds.  Shoved a few hands then finally got called on one of them when I had AK and my opponent had JJ, and I hit an ace on the flop to double up.  About one orbit later I pick up A9 in the cutoff and raise to 22k, the button makes it about 60k, the small blind was sitting out because he had a one round penalty and I had stolen the last hand when it was the sitout guy's big blind.  So anyway the current big blind folds and I decide to ship for about 370k thinking that the button could be 3-betting me kind of light here since the small blind is sitting out.  Unfortunately he wasn't and he called with TT.  Flop came all low cards and so did the turn, but an ace on the river and I double up to about 725k.

The next couple levels I chipped up pretty good without really playing a big pot and got to just over 1 million chips at one point.  Then I lost a decent sized pot with AK vs QQ and after that for the whole last level I was completely card dead and just had to keep folding.  Anyway, I ended the day at 538k which is about half the average stack, and I'm 13th in chips with 19 people left.  We restart at 1pm Pacific time tomorrow and go until the final table of 8 people is left.

NAPT Day 2

Holy rollercoaster day.  Got down to around 30k chips in the first hour or so at a really tough table, and then our table broke.  At the new table I turned 30k into 280k in a matter of about a half hour, then bluffed off half my stack to get down to around 110k.  Then I ran like god the last couple hours and finished the day with 407k, which puts me at about 1.5x average with about 80 people left.  We restart at 1PM Pacific time.

Not many interesting hands that I can remember, just a lot of standard preflop spots.  The hand where I bluffed half my stack off, was probably a pretty dumb play.  I knew a guy had a big pair on a dry board and tried to get him off of it since we were both pretty deep but then I gave up on the river.  It was most likely a good decision because I later saw him make some pretty loose calldowns in later hands.

Only other interesting hand was on the exact bubble with 105 spots left and 104 being paid.  My stack was about 220k at 2500/5000 blinds, folded to small blind who probably had about 300k to start the hand.  He makes it 12k to go which is a really small raise and I call in the big blind with 98o.  Flop comes QJ3 and he bets about 15k and I call, both trying to hit the gutshot and hoping I can take it away from him on the turn if he checks to me.  Turn comes a ten giving me a straight.  He checks and I bet 30k and he calls pretty quickly.  River is a blank and he checks again, and I fire 80k and he tanks for probably 3 minutes or so before finally calling.  Probably a good thing I hit because I was planning on firing the turn and possibly the river even if I missed.

We play down to 24 players tomorrow.  I'm signed up for the 5k bounty shootout tournament on Tuesday but obviously I'll unregister if I make it through tomorrow.

NAPT Day 1

Sorry I didn't update this last night, I was really tired when I got in and went straight to bed.

So anyway, my table draw sucked all day.  It was mostly young internet kids, and a few older guys who may have been slightly tight but definitely weren't going to be giving away chips.  So I was just patient most of the day, waiting for good spots and hoping to make day 2 with a decent stack.

Only played a couple really big hands all day:

Level 1, 50/100:  I'm in the cutoff with about the 30k starting stack.  Guy 3 to my right opens for 300, guy on my direct right 3bets to maybe 800 or something, I 4bet to 2200 with QQ, everyone folds except the 3 bettor.  flop comes 559 rainbow, he checks, I bet about 3k, he calls.  Turn is another 5, he checks and I check.  I just didn't feel I was getting 3 streets of value very often but it's possible I could have I guess, and if I'm only getting 2 streets of value it's probably better to wait until the river, and I also think there's at least some chance he's playing AA or KK like this, so I'm trying not to go broke if this is the case.  So anyway I forget what river was but it was a low card for sure, he checks, I bet 6500, he thinks for a while and finally calls, and my QQ is good.

Level 8, 400/800/100:  I have about 50k chips at this time  The guy 3 off the button opens for 1600 and he had been super aggro all day and already showed a couple of 3 barrel bluffs and a hand where he 4bet 26hh in mid position after utg opened and utg+1 3bet, so needless to say he wasn't playing scared.  He had probably about 100k chips at this time.  It gets folded to me in the small blind with a9cc and I flat call, big blind folds.  Flop comes 865 with 2 diamonds and a club.  I check, he bets 2200, I call.  I feel like I have the best hand here a lot plus I have a gutshot straight draw and a backdoor flush draw, but also I don't really want to build a big pot against a guy who could be pushing all sorts of draws here, like any 7 or a diamond draw, or even a gutshot that's worse than mine.  Anyway, Turn comes an offsuit 3, I check, he bets 4800.  At this point I'm basically deciding whether I want to call 2 more streets with ace high which isn't a very fun thing to do on this type of board usually, but I figured he had a lot of hands he'd bet 2 more streets with that I'm in great shape against (hands like anything with a 4 7 or 9 in it where the other card isn't paired, also diamond draws).  So after a little hesitation I call.  River comes an offsuit 5 for a final board of 86535.  I check and he bets 9800 and I call pretty quickly because I already was pretty sure I was calling the river and every draw missed on the river.  He turns over T7o and I have to look for a few seconds to make sure he doesn't have anything, then I turn my hand over and take the pot, putting me up to about 70k.

One more hand right before the end of the night, I was still around 70k on the button, blinds 500/1k.  Guy 3 off the button raises to 2300, next guy calls, next guy 3bets to like 7k and has about 140k behind.  I look down to see KK and 4bet it small to something like 15k, hoping to induce something.  It gets folded around to the 3 bettor who thinks for at least 3 minutes before folding.  Would have been nice to get that one all in but oh well.

Other than those hands, most of the hands I played were standard open and cbet the flop, or just normal kind of 3bet or 4bet situations preflop which really aren't all that interesting.

Ended the day with 79,700 which should be a little above average going into day 2, which starts tomorrow.