Sunday, December 19, 2004

Credit where it is due...

I was so adrenalized over the WPT win that I forgot to give praise to Mean Gene for pointing out the backdating function that was right in front of my face in blogger. Strange, my other blog does not have that. Maybe it is a template issue. I care not, I am going to the Bahamas!!!

Saturday, December 18, 2004

WPT Here I Come! (again)

Over the last few weeks I have been playing sporadically. I made a few good cashes in some tournaments, nothing over $2000 but still good income. My poker playing has been restricted since I took on a consulting gig at ITH. My obsessive personality has been nit-picking this site to death! As a result I have played maybe 10 hours of poker this week.

But what a ten hours it was! I just finished qualifying for the PokerStars WPT event. The tournament started at 5 PM and I finished at 10:50 PM. There were 193 entrants but with 30 minute levels and 2500 starting chips it was still a grind. I missed the first 20-30 minutes because I was out doing laundry (I know, where are my priorities?). I got back and just sat there for a long while. I got involved in a few hands. I flopped a flush with T8s from LP and overbet the pot. I folded to a raise when a 4th club hit the turn and was at 1400 chips. I doubled up a little later with AK vs. AJ and was sitting well.

A few more key hands:

I have ASpade AHeart UTG on a 200 blind. I limp. Rabscuttle, a player I know to be very solid, raises to 1K. Sweet. I just flat called him after some thought. The flop is TDiamond 9Diamond 4Spade. I check and he bets 1000, over 1/3 of my remaining stack. I checkraise all in and his QQ is no good.

I have A Heart K Heart on a 200 BB. I raise to 600 from the CO and the SB reraises to 1200. I pop him back another 800 and he flat calls. Crucial information! The flop was 7Heart 4Heart 4Spade. He chacks, I bet 2K, half the pot. He calls. The turn is the 6Club. Check check. The river is the 6Heart and he bets 2200 into me. Because he was cautious preflop I have him on TT or JJ. I raised him to 4800 and he called. My flush was good, the HH said he had TT.

I have AHeart KHeart and raise from LP to 2400 (I think the blinds were 800 at this point). The player on my left moved all in for less than 1/3 of my stack. I called him and he showed KClub QClub. I make another nut flush and he is gone. I felt good about the call because he had threatened to do that after I stole a few of his blinds.

I have ADiamond A Heart on an 800 blind. There is an UTG raise and I reraise to shut out the loose big stacks, about 5500 in the pot. The flop is JSpade 6Spade 6 Heart. I like this flop as I have Aces up. I bet 3K and he calls. Flush draw is my read. Turn is KDiamond. I bet 5K he calls. River is a blank and he puts me all in for another 5500. I call and he shows me KSpade QSpade. This hand put me in 5th place and I pretty much coasted from there.

The funny thing is that I was not even going to play! I had been playing the $25 rebuy satellites. After winning my first one I just parlayed it into more W$ by unregistering. I lost what I thought was my last $650 satellite last weekend and decided to burn my remaining $33 in W$ in a $3 rebuy. I ended up winning out of 370 people to get one of two more seats. OOPS! So I decided to delay a trip to Chicago and play it out today. Good decision, methinks!

Other than that I have not had a lot of poker going on as I mentioned. Hopefully I will find balance and play more than I have this week.

Friday, December 17, 2004

Content Management??

I really wish Blogger would let you backdate posts. The real content is now a half a mile below all of these journal entries I migrated from ITH. Oh, well... you can plod through my poker progression as you get to the actual site content, sparse as it may be. I have yet to set up my permanent links, so give me some frikkin time. Again, very little poker managed to squeeze in around my new job. I am completely obsessive so it is occupying all of my mindshare.

Thursday, December 16, 2004

Am I still a Pro Poker Player...

... if I get another job? It is pathetic how little poker I have been playing over the last few weeks. This job maintaining ITH is turning into a full time gig! I spent the day going through my bookmarks looking at other poker blogs. I have not visited some of them in a long time so it was kind of cool to catch up on them. It was, of course, work related this time. I want to get some of them to link to ITH or even review the book. We'll see what kind of response I get. I also asked permission to link to their blogs (I prefer to ask if I don't know the person) so hopefully you folks will have something to read until I get all of my trip reports, etc. moved here from ITH. I promise I will play some poker to report on!

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

PokerStars WPT Event

So far it has been a waste of time. I have been playing a lot of $25 rebuy qualifiers. I have done quite well, accumulating W$ to apply to the big Saturday qualifiers. I have so far stunk it up in those. My last one was a disaster. I need to learn to fold overpairs. I lost KK to 77 on a 872 rainbow board. I bet the pot (700) and he moved in for 2100. Tough fold that I could not make. I then busted out with KK to an idiot who played 90% of his hands. He limp/reraised with T8s and flopped two pair. Ugh.
I had $33 W$ left last night and I won't have time to play another $650 saturday qualifier so I decided to burn them off in a $3 rebuy. Oops! Rather than burning off my remaining W$ I won one of the two seats in a field of 166 people and only used 9 W$. I had the big stack by a huge margin with 7 players left and just never let up on them. Great. Now I guess I will try to find time to play another satellite or just save the W$ for the WSOP qualifiers.

Wednesday, December 08, 2004

Welcome to Ammbo.com

I started this site to have a central repository for my poker exploits. You can read about some of my past play at Matthew Hilger's Internet Texas Holdem. I maintain a journal in the forum there. I might add that it is a very good forum and a well run site. ;) I plan on migrating all of the posts on that site here to keep all of this information in one place. I doubt many of you will be too interested in my ramblings but as many blogs tend to be, it is cathartic for me. Who knows, you might learn something and I am sure I can learn a lot from you. Stay tuned!

Sunday, December 05, 2004

Los Angeles Trip Report 12/5/04

I played a $200 tournament at the Bicycle Casino on Saturday. I had the opportunity to meet both Geormiet and niin, both of whom were playing the tournament with me. Both nice guys. I connected with Geo before the tourney and we had a chance to chat for a little while. niin and I were not able to make cell phone contact initially, so I just went and took my seat. The person on my immediate right was vaugely close to niin's description, and sure enough it turned out to be him. Out of 300+ people in the tourney, I was right next to one of the other two ITHers!

The tournament itself was fairly well run. We had 1000 chips to stars and 30 minute levels. The players were bad. I saw a lot of awful play and pegged maybe three people at the table as solid players. The rest were maniacs or weak calling stations. On to the action! Here is a recap of all of the hands I won: ________. That's right. I did not win a single hand. I had a maniac on my left and a calling station on his left. Rotten position. I bet my KQ with top pair and a flush draw into the calling station and she then made a huge bet when an ace turned and I folded. I then raised AQs and the maniac called. I missed and put out a fairly good sized bet and he called. I check/folded the turn. By the time the third level came around, I had 400 chips on a 50 blind. One player who had been quiet suddenly tripled up with AA by moving all in in the dark on two opponents. The next hand I got KK UTG (my first pair) and made it 150 to go. He called. I moved my chips in in the dark and he called on a 589r flop with a set of fives. Bye bye, ammbo.

Overall I had a great time. I met a few friendly ITHers and had a good time with the people at my table. I like to be a chatterbox at the table, but I usually back that up with good play. This time was not to be. I was very disappointed with myself that I made moves on two players I should not be making moves on so early and that my overall performance was so dismal. I have had a bit of a live tournament drought lately and I think I need to examine my live game for holes. I do think I lose a little bit of aggression when I am in a live game vs. online.
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