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 A
A
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 T
9
4
. 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
K
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 7
4
4
. He chacks, I bet 2K, half the pot. He calls. The turn is the 6
. Check check. The river is the 6
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 A
K
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 K
Q
. 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 A
A
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 J
6
6
. I like this flop as I have Aces up. I bet 3K and he calls. Flush draw is my read. Turn is K
. I bet 5K he calls. River is a blank and he puts me all in for another 5500. I call and he shows me K
Q
. 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.