Starting Hands Against X Opponents - December 12, 2005

Lesson/Topic: Starting Hands

I was asked the following question: How does your preflop card selection change based on the number of players at the table?

This is an interesting question and very relevant to a beginning poker player. It is also relevant to a more experienced player, but starting hands always seem to be the first lesson of a beginning poker player's learning curve. When people start playing poker they don't understand the complexity of the game. If people have never played poker they simplify it to 100% luck. They theorize that poker is gambling and is equivalent to playing the lottery. However, as a new player begins to play he/she begins to realize that he/she plays much different starting hands than all of the other players. Or some online idiot curses him out for playing an A6o and beating his AKo which gets the new player to begin to think about his starting hand selection.

(Side note rant: My biggest pet peeve is people yelling at others online. If you haven't played before, it usually starts like this. A player with a superior starting hand loses a big hand to an inferior starting hand. A reoccuring event online is for the losing player to blast the winning player and tell him how bad he is at playing poker. Usually they curse and often times they begin to talk strategy. I always hate this because there is no point for the losing player to gripe or talk strategy. There are a few advantageous reasons for talking online, but I think talking online is an overall negative proposition. Here are some reasons why you shouldn't gripe or talk startegy at a hand. #1 - You lost the hand and are not going to get your money back. #2 - You are probably showing everyone else at the table that you are on tilt. #3 - The griping ends in two scenarios, neither of which are good for the player who lost. Scenario 1 - Either the losing player is a great player and will win in the long run and therefore is only teaching the long run bad players how to play better poker. Scenario 2 - The losing player is wrong that it was a bad play by the winning player and looks like an idiot, thus making it apparent to good players at the table that they do not know what they are talking about. It is possible that the winning player indeed started with a worse starting hand, but was able to outplay the losing player after the cards came on the flop, turn and river. The winning player was getting pot odds or implied pot odds to call. If someone would like me to post on pot odds and implied pot odds, I would be happy to oblige in a later post, but for now I digress)

The poker player's metemorphosis begins with starting hands. They learn that it is better to play tight poker and to play less than 25% of their starting hands. Most poker books assume you are playing at a full table, meaning there are 9-11 players playing hold em including you. In order to appease my biology science friends I will classify this stage as the larva stage of the poker player life cycle. The larva poker player now realizes that poker is not all luck, and theorizes that skill is determined exclusively based on your starting hand selection (Hmmm...If I play better starting hands than other players, I will win more often). Indeed, starting hands is an enormous component of poker and deciding what starting hands to play is integral to your success. A player may begin to realize that they should only play pocket pairs, AK-AT, KQ-KT and QJ. This might even be a little loose, but I will use it as an assumption. Notice anything peculiar about my starting hand selections? I never mentioned the fact that some of these card combinations may be suited and some may not. If you are playing at a full table game, the strength of your hand changes drastically whether the cards are suited or not. I can't overemphasize this point enough. Playing suited cards will increase your expected value considerably at a low limit full table hold em game. Overplaying non-suited cards will cause you to lose money at a low limit full table hold em game.

I was asked to discuss starting hand selection for someone playing at a 10 person table vs someone playing at a 5 person table. As with most poker solutions, the answer is always "it depends". I don't want to simplify this post too much by saying you should always play a certain way. Depending on your opponent's tendencies, you may want to open your game up and play more starting hands or tighten up and play less starting hands. However, in general you need to consider what the final average winning hand will be.

If there are 10 people at a table and you have AA, how often will you win a hand if you raise and one person calls vs. when you raise and all 9 other opponents at the table call? What will the winning hand be? If you are playing against one or two other opponents, your AA will probably win. After the river card has been turned over, the chance that your one or two opponents will catch a better hand (two pair, three of a kind, a straight, a flush, or a full house) is very low. A single pair will likely win the hand. However, if you are playing against ten people, what is the likely winning hand? The chances are low that one individual will hold a straight or flush. However the chances that one of the ten will catch a straight or flush are much better. It you are playing in a loose game that has 8-10 players seeing every flop, it is likely that the winning hand will be two pair or better. What does this mean for your hand selection?

Most low stakes games will involve many loose players. Therefore, if you are at a full table you will need to play more suited cards. If you are playing at a table with only 5 people, then top pair will be a great hand and the value of suited cards decrease. To summarize, the value of suited and connector cards are considerable at a loose full table game and their value decreases as you have less people at your table. On the other hand, high cards are more valuable against 5 opponents and less valuable against 10 opponents.

(This was a long post which caused me to start and stop before posting to my blog. If I was not clear, please post follow up questions below and I will respond and hopefully provide a better explanation)

Steve K's Current Progress/Emotion:

I'm feeling pretty good right now. I went on a bad losing streak during the last week or two of November. I believe the losing streak was based on three factors. (1) I was trying to play away from home and therefore without Poker Tracker. This was more difficult to do and negated my advantage of reading my opponents correctly.
(2) Variance. I wasn't getting great cards as I was earlier in the month.
(3) Poor play. I was loosening up and playing more weak. I was not taking advantage of a value bet that is essential in the lower stakes games.

Since the start of December though, I have been making very good decisions and seem to be back in the zone.

When to Leave the Table - November 23, 2005

Lesson: When to leave the table

Poker Players are infamous for "what if" questions. What if I would have raised. I wish I would have folded. If only the river card hand't been an ace. Another popular question that poker players ask themselves, is when is it the right time to leave the table? For example, a player plays for four hours. After two hours the player is up $50. However, during the last two hours he loses $80 and ends up down $30 for the night. He may be kicking himself saying, I should have left the table after two hours. When someone asks me, "When is the right time to leave a table?", my response is typical of any other poker response, "it depends".

Do you play better when you are ahead or behind? Have you been playing a long time and are starting to get tired and therefore making poor decisions? What is the table's emotion level? Are players on tilt (both positive and negative) or has the well run dry and players are now making good poker decisions? Often times, beginning poker players think they should leave the table when they are ahead. In actuality, they may be right. If they are a poor player, they are up because they have received better cards than the competition. In actuality, they should leave not because they are ahead but because they should have never sat down to play at all.

I have been thinking about this recently as I have been playing limit poker. I only like to play when I'm really excited about playing. Part of the reason I switched to Limit poker is because I had played so many SNG tournament poker that it was starting to get repetitive. Playing a new game, even if it was still Hold Em made me more attentive. Playing poker usually gets my adrenaline flowing so I don't have too much problem with being too tired to play. So being tired is less of an issue for me. I think for me, it comes down to two factors: Table selection and My performance.

First I'll address table selection. Say you are down $40 after playing for an hour. It is important to ask yourself, why am I down $40? Is it because I have been getting a bad run of cards? Is it that players at the table are better than I am? With Poker Tracker I am able to see what type of players are at my table. If I lost $40 because a guy called two bets preflop with J7 and then called to the river and caught an inside straight draw to beat my AA, I shouldn't want to leave the table. Are players reading my bets correctly to the point where I'm not making extra bets or I'm not able to protect my hand and players are correctly drawing out on me? Than maybe I should leave the table. In the long run, if you play at a certain place with the same group of guys and you always lose, than maybe you should consider quitting. Maybe they are cheating, maybe they are better than you, but simply play a different style. However, if it is one or two occasions and you feel you have an edge in the game, then you should definitely continue to play.

Another question you have to ask yourself is "How am I playing today". When you answer, be sure to be as honest as possible. This is not the time to bluff. As you are playing you should be questioning your play after each hand. Did I miss out on a raise somewhere? Should I have clearly folded earlier? If you find yourself answering yes to some of these questions, maybe it is time to quit. Take a break for the day and wait until you are more refreshed to come back to the table. You may have a decent table selection and will make some money by sticking around, however good games come all the time (especially on the internet) so wait until you can get more out of the game the next time around.

Steve K's progress/Current Emotion

I have been losing a bit lately, but I still feel I have put myself in the right situation to win. I am getting killed playing SNGs. I think I am in such a limit mode that I am struggling making correct tournament decisions. I am still playing good limit poker, but have not seen the great results over the last week. I spent a couple days playing away from home and I felt like I was playing blind without Poker Tracker and GameTime +. I was unable to identify the poor players quick enough and since I had to pay more attention I could only play 2 tables at a time. Party came out with a deposit bonus, which I am working on right now. Stars also created a November bonus. I'm not sure if I will try this out or not. I'm going to look into it a bit more. It will probably depend on whether I can figure out how to utilize Poker Tracker while playing on Poker Stars.

Empire Bonus: November 14, 2005

Empire was advertising a deposit bonus. The bonus paid 100% up to $100. I deposited $400 so I could maintain my normal 4 table 2/4 routine. The bonus was released after you played raked hands equaling ten times the bonus amount in ten days or less. My bonus was $100, so I had to play 1000 hands before Nov 20. Since I have been 4 tabling, this would be no problem. My only hesitation revolved around having to play at Empire instead of Party Poker.

If you read my blog below, Party Poker became their own entity recently. Therefore, if I am playing at Empire, I am only playing against other Empire players instead of the party network. Party Poker was the overwhelming leader for number of players before they broke away from the party skins network. Now, they are probably slightly ahead of Poker Stars. So by playing at Empire instead of Party, I was worried about being forced to play against better players instead of the typical party fish.

I finally concluded that the guaranteed $100 bonus would be greater than the difference in winnings I would be giving up by playing against slightly better competition at Empire. End result? I will have to check my poker tracker database, but I believe I made about $120 over 1000 hands playing at Empire. There were not as many open tables at Empire so I ended up playing some 0.50/1.00 tables as well so I could clear my bonus. Let's assume I played 700 hands of 2/4 and 300 hands of 0.50/1.00. I think I made about $100 playing 2/4. So 100 is 25 BB. I played 700 hands so my bb/100 ratio is 3.57. Not bad, but I felt like I had been running a bit better at Party (closer to 4BB/100). All of this is speculation on my part, so I will need to check my poker tracker database to be sure.

The point of this post is to serve as a reminder for future bonus opportunities. I played anywhere from 5-7 hours of poker from Friday night until Sunday evening. I won $120 + the $100 bonus. If I could have made over $220 during that time by continuing to play at Party Poker, I should not have deposited money at Empire.

Current Emotion: Extremely happy and confident. I am slightly in shock to realize that I can play well enough to make some good money by playing poker. I keep waiting for the bubble to burst. Am I getting lucky and this is just short term experience? The more success I have seen playing limit poker is only verifying that I am playing well. I have played nearly 10,000 hands of limit poker and my bb/100 is around 3.8. I am crushing the 2/4 game and at some point before the end of the year, if this streak continues I will need to move up to 3/6.

Live Poker - November 10, 2005

This past Sunday I headed to Canterbury card club to play some 3/6 with a friend who came into town for the weekend. As I was driving to the card club I realized that I had a confidence that was contrary to the hope that I felt when I have visited in the past. I have played at Canterbury a handful of times back when I was in college and during the first year or two after college. Thinking back I'm amazed I had a winning session. I lost nearly every time I went. Granted, I was there for the entertainment so I wasn't bummed about it, but I always thought it was because I was up against these great players or "regulars" who knew the dealers by name and spent a lot of time there.

After playing considerably more poker I felt better equipped when I played once this summer. I ended up breaking even which was probably about right for my experience at the time. When I visited this time I had an entirely new perspective. I was expecting to win. The truth is I probably could have made more money playing at home on Party Poker, but playing live is a lot of fun and slightly more enjoyable. The downfall to playing live?

(1) You can only play one game at a time. I have been regularly playing four 2/4 games at a time on party recently. I can handle the speed. I feel I can make solid decisions and might make one bad decision or so every hour. But for every one bad decision I miss on one table, I make up for it by still being a positive expected player on the other three.

(2) It is slower. The number of hands you can play in an hour is considerably less. On the computer hands are dealt instantly, while at the casino you need to wait for the dealer to actually deal the cards. I know, bizarre. People tend to play slower at the casino as well. Some people don't want to give any tells so they play it like the World Series of Poker. Online, there are buttons that you can click (fold, check, raise) so your turn lasts less than a half second.

(3) You might give tells you never knew you had. Do I look a certain way when I'm strong or glance to my left when I'm bluffing? By playing online the only thing you have to be careful about is the speed of your bet (Some players online will bet quickly when they have a hand and slow down when they don't). The most obvious online tell is when someone is chasing a flush. Often times they will quickly call. If you get a very quick call, your opponent is probably on a flush or straight draw.

(4) Waiting. Sometimes you have to wait for a seat to open up. You might wait 2 hours if it a busy time. Online you can fire up a game within seconds.

(5) Tipping. No need to tip online. At the casino you are expected to give a portion of your winnings to the dealer as thanks for him dealing you great cards. Even if he didn't give you great cards at all but you were savvy enough to play them better than your opponents.

(6) Better players. Theoretically, more experienced players come to the casino. They are not as intimidated. Anyone can put money into an account and play online.

However, it is much more fun to play live. Maybe not more profitable, but definitely more fun. You get personal interaction. You can possibly read your opponents based on the way they act or look. It's fun just holding the cards or saying check or raise.

So back to my Canterbury experience. I was surprised to see what I found. 1 - I can only play one game at a time, Check. 2 - It is slower, Check. Although I was happy to see that they have automatic shufflers so the dealers don't have to reshuffle after each hand. This speeded things up a bit. 3 - I might have given tells. Not sure. I didn't pick anything up on anyone else though. More on this later. 4 - Waiting. We went on Sunday night and caught the tale end of the peak time, so we were able to sit down at a 3/6 table immediately. 5 - Tipping. Check. 6 - Better players. No check here. I was surprised to see how bad these players were.

As I was buying chips I see the 18-21 year old to my left catch an inside straight draw on the river to beat a set of aces. I sit down and he is talking junk. Singing at the table, talking about how good he is. He has a friend with him and someone his age at the opposite end of the table. This kid obviously is annoying everyone else at the table and I was happy to sit down while everyone was on tilt. So I pick up AK in the first round and raise from the CO (cut off, one to the right of the button). I notice as I'm betting that my hand is shaking. Wow. Obviously I don't play live much at a casino. I think there is a bid difference playing at home with your friends and playing at a casino with strangers. It is nerve racking. It was so bad that I even had to say something to the guy next to me. That obvious.

So I pick up my first pot and get talking a bit. Talking to the other players always makes me feel more comfortable. I start to settle down a bit and didn't have a problem with shaking for the rest of the night. I was just surprised that I was shaking at all. I was confident that I was a better poker player than 7 of the other 8 guys at my table. One solid player I would consider myself as good as. So back to my list. 3 - tells. Well, I was shaking so I gave a tell. Not sure if I gave any tells to anyone else. For one I think tells are overrated. For example, I pick up 77 in the bb and there are 6 players in the pot. This seems a lot for the 9 person table but it was actually common at this table.

Flop comes 732 rainbow. I would have checked it but I knew that no one at this table is folding so I bet instead. I figured that a check raise would slow people down more than a bet. Crazy young guy to my left raises and 3 players call. We end up capping the flop. Two bets get in on the turn and finally one on the river. I took down a big pot. Now, did I pick up a tell that everyone was going to come along. Did they show strength. No. 90% of reading a player is just paying attention to his style of play. Does he play a lot of hands preflop? Is he aggressive preflop? How about postflop? Will he call the river all the time? Is he a tricky player raising on the river to see if you will fold?

After about ten minutes I saw the crazy kid to my left win two pots. One with 23o and the other with J7o. Must be crazy right? Everyone else thought so. They refused to fold and would even raise on the turn and river. This kid just played a different style. He played nearly every hand and then he was aggressive post flop. However, if he was beat, he wouldn't put extra bets in on the turn and river when the cost was $6 instead of $3. But when he did pick up a pot he definitely got paid. I saw someone cap the river with him with A high. The kid had three of a kind with K8s.

Now to number 6 - skill level of live players. I was shocked at how many hands people played. I was also shocked at how little raising there was to protect a hand. The only guys raising were me, the crazy kid next to me and the tricky guy to the left of him. I would bet or raise when I had something or was making a continuation bet (bet preflop and then make a continuation bet postflop even if you didn't pick up a pair). The kid would bet constantly in the first two rounds or when he had something in the later rounds or could buy a pot. The tricky guy would only raise preflop and postflop. I found this out after I bet to the river with my AK without catching anything. Crazy kid called, tricky guy raised, I folded and crazy kid called. Tricky guy flips over Ace high with Q kicker. Crazy kid takes the pot down with a pair of threes. I made the correct fold because I knew someone had me beat, but I remembered that play for later. One more hand to talk about.

I pick up AJ on the button. I raise and tricky bb reraises. I reraise when it gets back to me and there is one player who comes along with us. Flop is J83 with two diamonds. I have the J of diamonds so I have top pair with top kicker. Tricky BB player bets and the MP player folds. I raise and he reraises. I reraise and as he is stacking chips the dealer is leaning over so I can't see the BB player who is sitting in seat 1. I ask, "Are you capping it" and I learned lesson one. There is no cap in heads up play at Canterbury. If you are only with one other player they will let you raise and reraise eachother until someone has all there money in the pot. Why? Because at any point someone can just call to stop the betting. So he reraises and I just call. I wanted to prevent my opponent for picking up a free card if he had a Queen or King but I didn't want to risk too much considering he could be sitting with QQ, KK, AA or a flopped set.

The turn card was a non diamond 3 and he checks. I look at him and said, "well you might be slow playing me here, but I'm going to bet anyway". Why wouldn't he bet there if he had me beat? I've already showed I am willing to cap it. He just called and I knew I had the best hand. The turn was an Ace of diamonds. Okay, I just picked up two pair in a big pot, but do I really like this river card? He could have a flush now and I could be in trouble. He checks and I decide to bet. Why? Because this guy had been loose and I think he could have been calling with an AK or AQ. I wanted to make a value bet. He thought about it and raised.

Now if this was a solid player that didn't like to be tricky I would have simply called and paid the flush or set off. But this guy had seen me fold AK when he raised with his AQ before. Better yet, he didn't know I had AK so he probably assumed I was willing to fold a good hand. So instead of just calling, I wanted to value bet again. I don't think he would have capped the betting on a draw because he hadn't been that aggressive chasing earlier, so I couldn't put him on a flush. I still had him on an Ace with a high kicker or a pocket pair. Maybe QQ or maybe TT or 99. QQ because it makes sense from a betting standpoint. I capped the J high flop and 3 bet the preflop so he might think I have AA or KK. Or he might think I have AK so he wants to see if his TT or 99 is good. When the A came I think it was the perfect card for me. It scared me and the tricky player knew it. So he decided to check raise to see if I would fold my big hand to a potential flush. He also could have put me on a KK or QQ and thought I might fold when the A came on the river.

I raised and he called. I had to show my hand and I flipped over AJ and won the pot. I didn't get to see his hand because he mucked them after seeing mine. The great thing about online play is that you can utilize the hand history. Not only can you analyze your play, but if there are two players or more who call a river bet you can see what both of them held as their pocket cards. Therefore, you can see what style of player your opponent is. I will never know what my opponent had, but I was able to make three big bets on him or $18 more dollars because I had paid attention and knew what type of player he was.

All in all it was a fun time.

Dealing with Success - Nov 1, 2005

Just wanted to give a quick status report and talk a little about positive tilt. I had a very good October. If you read below you will see that I have had success playing multis. After my big multi win I have decided to play a couple others.

Last Friday I finished 15th out of about 700 in a $30 Multi. Unfortunately, this only nets out at around $100. I have played a couple others where I have been bounced out without cards or got in a coinflip early because I wanted to accumulate chips. My strategy for multis is to try to play a lot of suited connectors and pocket pairs from late position against a lot of players or against aggressive players early in the tournament. The idea is to double up and accumulate chips. Two things happen. Either you never hit your flop and you slowly lose chips or you hit your flop and double up and become the chip leader.

If you become the chip leader, then it is time to find out who is scared of getting knocked out of the tournament. Pick on them and put them to the test. You can buy a lot of pots off these guys. Also, you can buy a lot of small pots because no one wants to mess with you. However, if you are not lucky and end up being mid stacked, it is time to slow down. At this point, I try to wait for a good hand to get all in against one person. I am okay with a coinflip at this point because it is so valuable to accumulate chips before the blinds increase. Basically I wait for a pocket pair or AK, AQ and I reraise all in and isolate against one player. If you win your coinflip, then you are back to able to play more prospective hands and are looking to double up again. If not, you are out of the tourney.

My biggest dissapointment was a multi I was playing this weekend. There were 1100 players that started the tournament and 300 remained. Top 120 made money and I was sitting on 5000 chips. Average stack was 3500 and there was a lot of money at my table which is ideal. The blinds were 75/150 and there were a few guy at the table with around 1000 chips. I pick up KK in EP (early position) and limp in. I am hoping for either an all in raise from someone or a big enough raise that I can move them all in. I don't 6-7 players playing this hand, but I want the opportunity to double up or take someone's stack. Unfortunately, I didn't get a raise from a 1000-2000 chip stack. Everyone folds to the big blind who raises to 300. Only 150 more to call, but I think I can raise the stakes against this guy.

I raise it to 1200 and the bb calls. He had me covered barely so this is an opportunity to double up with only 300 to go and take the tourney chip lead. Flop comes KQ4 with two hearts. As I'm thinking about how I can get more chips out of this guy he moves all in. Wow! I call instantly because not only do I have top set, but I also have the K of hearts. He turns over AA and I'm sitting pretty. Turn is a heart and River is another heart giving me a King high flush and giving my opponent an Ace high flush. Devastating because I would have been able to run over my table for a while and build my stack before the bubble. Oh well, I put myself in a great position so I can't complain. I just understand why my opponent didn't reraise all in before the flop. The result would have been the same however.

The month of October was great to me. I had my big multi win which always helps the bankroll. But even if you take that big win away, my monthly profit was over double any other month's results this year. I should be excited, but I'm a bit worried. I am glad I'm having these feelings because I don't want to experience positive tilt. We all have heard of tilt which is an expression in poker when someone goes off the deep end and starts making very bad decisions. The idea behind the word is that they tilt over and money comes pouring out of them. Usually people suffer a bad beat and they get really really frustrated. They just lost a big hand as a favorite, so instead of congratulating themselves on playing the hand well, they look at the short term results of losing the big hand and panic. They get ultra aggressive and start raising with hands they shouldn't and calling with hands they shouldn't. All of a sudden their $50 loss turns into $400 and they don't know what hit them.

I am thankful that I feel I can control my emotions. I seem to bear down when things are bad and battle back up. I also don't like losing money so if I feel I'm not keeping my composure, I usually quit. The game isn't as fun for me if I'm not winning so I usually play a lot less and thus avoid the negative tilt. However, I have the opposite problem. When I win, I sometimes go on positive tilt. Not during the course of an evening or a week, but if I have had great success over a course of a couple weeks or months, I usually struggle soon thereafter. Last year, I had two months where I felt unstoppable and couldn't lose playing $30 and $50 SNGs. I was in a zone. Lucky for me, when I go on these runs I usually cash some of my winnings out. This is great advice for someone starting out at poker. I get arrogant during my streak and start daydreaming and calculating what I would need to win per day to make it as a poker professional. After my zone ends, I wonder why I'm not winning every game I play, then I start questioning my decisions and changing my game.

This past weekend I noticed that I was playing way too many hands in Limit Hold Em. Maybe it was because I was still in Multi strategy mode and hadn't changed to Limit mode. However, as I was entering my losses into my spreadsheet that tracks all my results, I thought about last year. I had a huge run last year and slowly thereafter lost a lot of my winnings back. I probably had two or three straight losing months after the winning month. I think this was a case of positive tilt, playing differently because I had won money and just getting off my rhythm. Luckily for me it didn't turn into negative tilt where I would be susceptable to a huge losing day. I lost a little over a long period of time and still came out ahead, but it is something I need to realize as it is happening and make my adjustment.

My advice for someone with similar issues? 1) take money out after a big win. It will make you think before you deposit more money. 2) Keep detailed records so you realize how you are playing in the short run. I keep statistics by month, type of game (limit, SNGs, Multis) and where I play (Party Poker, Poker Stars, Pacific Poker, House Games, etc.). 3) Keep short term records. I think I am going to add a results over the past week function to my spreadsheet. Then I can realize if I am on positive tilt after a big score in the middle of the month.

Thankfully I noticed that I was playing looser. I made some adjustments and had some very good Halloween Limit success to end the month. Hopefully, by writing this down and following the three rules above, I will remember this post the next time I feel positive tilt coming.

Multi Success - Oct 25, 2005

If you look down to an earlier post you will notice a freeroll tournament from PokerStars. Well, I was knocked out in the first 20 minutes as I wrote in the comment field under that post. I wasn't prepared to play and it was free so I didn't take it seriously. So last night, I got home and had some time before my wife returned home. I decided to fire up a couple 2/4 games and then I noticed that there was also a $30 Multi set to start in 4 minutes. I didn't have any plans for the evening so I sat down to play.

The first hour I looked for a chance to double up but was selective about my hands. I only played great hands or big opportunity (flush/straights) from late position. My first big hand came about 20 minutes into the tournament. A real aggressive player raised to 100 (5x the BB) and got 3 callers. I had KK on the button with 900 chips left. I reraised all in to isolate. I got one caller and my KK held up against 44.

About 4 hands later I get all in with QQ preflop against a loose player with 88, but lose the hand when an 8 hits the flop. After that I won an occasional pot here and there and was at about 1400 when I was dealt AJo in MP (middle position). I decided in big Multi's to take the Doyle approach and limp with AJ and AQo. The more I think about this I think it is the appropriate way to play these hands. You are not going to get much action by raising. You may pick up the blinds or since you are not in LP (late position), you may get raised and be isolated against AQ or AK. This is a second best hand, one of those hands that you are going to win a lot of small pots, but lose a lot of big pots. UNLESS, you limp. So I limp and the flop is J76 rainbow against 5 players. I bet a little over 1/2 of the pot and get one caller. Next card is a 2. I was a bit worried about the set but wanted to chase away any straight draws or flush draws. The guy I was up against wasn't the best player and I really think he would have raised the flop with any pair (he had previously done that more than a couple times). I bet the pot, which was about 3/4 of his stack. He raised all in with JT and I called and won a big pot.

This was a huge pot for me. I was double the average in the tourney and now I was the chip leader at my table. For those of you who have played with me before, you know what happens next. I became a big table bully. I started reraising with good hands to put other players all in. I also tried to keep the pots small and betting at nearly every flop or picking up the blinds. I was very active, but not enough for people to really adjust their play. I wasn't a complete maniac.

By the time it got down to about 200 people, I had shut down the 2/4 limit tables I had been playing (up around 15BB/100 on average) and was done cooking dinner (my day of the week to cook). It was time to start concentrating a bit more. My wife had returned home by now and she was watching me play. Some people are very distracted when people are watching them. I can be distracted at times but it really depends on the person. I tend to actually play better if the person watching me is still learning poker or doesn't know anything about it. I tend to question myself a bit if there is an experienced player watching me. I had a really good time playing with my wife watching last night. Once we got close to the bubble I looked at her and said, "We are not playing this tourney just to win $20. We are playing to get to the final table where the real money is won. Time to be aggressive."

By playing aggressive on the bubble I found out who was there to win and who was there to cash. I had probably the second or third highest chip count at my table. So as soon as the big stacks folded I raised the blinds. If someone called, I bet the flop. I was very aggressive because I had nothing to lose. This helped build my stack. In fact, right before the bubble hit, the big stack raised in EP. I was in late position and called with 22. Flop 7A2. This was a monster flop. He bet the flop and I called. Turn was a blank and he bet half my stack. I was playing against a guy that refused to fold in a big hand. He had built his stack by sucking out on a couple guys. I was confident I had the best hand and at this point, but I was a bit worried about a higher set hitting on the river. I didn't think he had me beat at this point because I think his betting patterns would have been different. I put him on an Ace. I decided to reraise all in. Unfortunately, he didn't call, but I took over the chip lead in the whole tournament.

The bubble burst and I continued to pick on the guys that were not playing to win but playing to move up a couple levels and win another $10 or $20 bucks. It was very amusing to watch my wife as she became very nervous as I was raising with Q7 or 83o. I was sitting with A4s on the BB when another key hand came up. A weak post flop player raised his standard raise of 2x the BB. I called and the flop was 6JT. I checked and he bet a small amount. I decided to call because I had a runner runner opportunity and I think I can buy the pot on the turn. The turn card was an A giving me top pair. Here is where I made my mistake. I have top pair, but I was worried that he had a higher kicker (maybe a reason to fold the bb preflop, but it is hard to do as big stack when you have an advantage post flop). I bet about half of his stack and he called. This was interesting to me. Now I think he is scared and I have the hand. I think he would have reraised all in with a hand that beat my A4. Either that or he had a monster. I actually put him on a mid size pair 77-99. The turn was a K. I put him all in and he called with QJ and the nut straight.

This hurt a lot. I am not upset at myself for playing the hand. In fact I think I played that hand well preflop and on the flop. However, I really think I could have bought the pot on the turn. I was no longer the chip leader at my table and was near the average. I could not longer play bully. At this point we were down to about 40 people. I didn't get a hand I could play for a while and I started to lose ground as the blinds increased. I had to keep reminding myself out loud that I am playing to make the final table as the new bully starting buying people's blinds. I picked up KJs in the CO and moved all in to buy the blinds or look to double up. Unfortunately, neither of these happened. The big blind with half of my stack typed in "what the hell, I'm tired" and called with KJs. I had hearts and he had clubs and three clubs hit the board and he doubled up. Now the blinds are up to 500/1000 and I'm sitting at 8000 needing two double ups to get to the table average. At this point there are 28 people left in the tourney. The payouts for are the same if you finish 11-20 or 21-30. I could have played passive and tried to finish in the top 20 but I wasn't playing for another $50, I wanted to make the final table.

I picked up 78o in the CO after everyone folded. I still had FE (fold equity) so I moved all in and was called (my wife screamed). Luckily I had two live cards as the BB showed AQ. Flop QJ5, Turn T, River 9. I picked up the low end straight and doubled up. 8 hands later, I picked up KTs on the button. The chip leader raised 2.5 x the BB just to the right of the CO. He had been raising consistently (as he should) and I decided to play for the final table and take a stand. I reraised him all in and he folded immediately. This was a huge pickup for me and I was near the table average. I started playing a bit more aggressively and picking up blinds against the weak players. I picked up some good hands and knocked a couple short stacks out of the tournament. My TT held up against A3. My JJ knocked off 55. All of a sudden I was over the average and we were down to 15 players. No key hands for a while as I picked up some blinds but didn't play any big hands. About 20-30 minutes later I had made the final table.

When I got to the final table my goal was to get in the top five (when the prize was over $1000). This quickly changed as I knocked a couple guys out. One big hand came when I called from the CO (cut off, right of the button) with 33 against a 2.5x BB MP raise. The button also called and the flop came AK7 all hearts. The MP bet a very small amount and I called with 33 (one of which was a heart). Why did I call? Well, I thought I had a better hand than the MP and he had also been playing scared so I thought I could push him off a better hand on the turn. But I was worried about the button. The turn was the 8 of clubs and MP fired out about a 1/4 pot bet. I sensed weakness and I decided to play like I had been playing, aggressively. At this point I had got in the zone and wasn't even thinking about the money. I wanted to win the tournament, not for the cash, but because I am very competitive and want to win at nearly everything I do. I reraised all in deciding that he didn't have a heart and probably had a pair higher than 33 or an A or K. I decided that I think I can make him fold his hand and if not, I think I have some outs with my 3 of hearts. I moved AI and he folded. I was elated and jumped around the room.

I was 3rd in chips now and I continued to play aggressively. I picked up 83s in the small blind and raised to 2x BB (normally I would raise more from the small blind, because it is an easy EV call for the BB, but this was enough to get this guy to fold in the past). The big blind called (we were the only players). Flop was 459. I bet out 1/3 of the pot and got a call. I was a bit worried and considered just check folding the rest of the way. But the BB was playing scared all night. Next card was a 7. I had no opportunity to win the hand unless he folded. If I moved in and lost, I would still be alive in the tourney with a decent size stack. I decided to push. He folded and I was off and running. I then proceeded to knock two players out.

The first hand I was very very fortunate. I called a 2x raise from the BB with T7s against a timid player. It was his standard raise so I wasn't worried about a slowplay AA or KK. Flop was K75. I decided to check to get a read on his bet. He bet 1/4 of the pot and I moved him all in. He took a long time and then called and flipped over KQ. Ouch. Great play by him. He sensed my aggressiveness and I played right into his hands. Unfortunately for him another 7 came on the river and he was knocked out. The second hand I picked up 44 and made my standard raise from MP to 10,000. I was the chip leader now and starting buying pots again. However, the button reraised all in for about 70,000. Against a tight player I probably would have folded, but this was a guy who was playing table bully an hour ago at a table of mine. He knows how to play the bully which means he knows to play aggressive against the bully. He read a steal on my part and moved in. I decided to call him down and look for the coin flip. I got it when he flipped over AK. My 44 held up and I we were down to 6 players.

It was time to settle down a bit as people started to play back at me and I had to fold some steal attempts. I gained some credibility and mixed up my play. The rest of the tourney is a blur and I need to go through the hand history to critique my play both before the final three and after. When it came down to the final three I had about 400k chips. Second place to my left was the guy who couldn't get away from a big pot who I had won a lot of hands from earlier. He had about $250k and the third place was the guy who had QJ earlier when I should have raised all in on the turn with my A4. He was very timid and it became clear right away that he was playing for 2nd.

First prize was over 5K, second was $3000 and third was $1900. I can tell you this right now, but at the time it never even creeped in my mind. I was there to win the tournament. This is both good and bad. If I finish 3rd I lose the chance to win 1100 dollars (difference between 3rd and 2nd). However, I got to this point by playing aggressive, not by playing weak poker. If you start to play scared, you lose your edge and it could negatively impact your game.

We had a lot of chips now relative to the blinds as everyone was over 10x the BB. The passive player to my right was very nice and seem to fold from the sb every hand. He would raise from the button occasionally, but was very tight and weak post flop. I took this into account when I was the BB with J9s. The button called and the sb completed the blind. I checked and the flop came J33. Great flop for me, however there was not a raise so it is hard to put players on a hand. SB checked and I bet 2/3 of the pot. I had picked up a lot of pots this way. I just wanted to keep winning the small pots and staying away from any big confrontations without big hands. The button folded and the SB moved all in. He had not done this to me all day. He was basically a mouse and when mouses take a stand you have to respect it. I have a great hand three handed but I folded to the SB having to give him credit for a better hand.

This is one of three hands I remember from the final three. The next two involve me playing against the loose aggressive player who was second in chip count and now was nearly even with me. I picked up KQ suited and I made a standard 2.5 x raise. BB calls and the flop comes AJ5 with two spades. I bet 1/3 of the pot and he called. Turn was another J. I threw out a big bet (1/2 pot) and he called. River was a 7 (not a spade) and I checked. He bet 50,000. What could he have? If he had a good ace, I think he would have reraised me preflop. If he had a weak ace I think he would have raised me on the turn to see where he stood against a possible J. If he had a J I think he would have raised on the flop because he either needs to see where he stands against an A or he is giving a free card to a flush draw, K or Q. If he has a 5 or 7 he should check because theoretically he is only going to get called by a better hand. Finally, he could have a monster set or two pair that he was slow playing. This was my thought process. After all that I only had KQ but this was the best non paired hand on the board. I finally concluded that he didn't have a monster and he has a busted flush draw. It is common against loose aggressive players that they will chase a straight or flush draw and then make a maniac bet on the river to try to pick up the pot if they don't hit their hand. I thought I had him outkicked so I called. He turned over J3o. This hurt. All of a sudden I was down to 10x the bb. The tight weak player to my right was about the same until he picked up a big pot against the chip leader.

The next hand I'm on the BB and needing to double up. Blinds are at 5,000/10,000 and I have 80,000. Button limps, sb completes and I move all in with QTo. Big stack calls and tight/weak player folds. I figure that I am behind and need a draw. In actuality, I was ahead as the button flips over J9 of hearts. Turn gave me a Q and a commanding lead but the Q was a heart as was another card. Turn was another heart and I was gone.

The tournament ended less than five minutes later as tight/weak got knocked out with QQ vs AA. This was a great experience and it was very fun to have my wife sitting next to me watching me play. It puts things in perspective and also allowed me to explain the game to her as I played. By talking it through with her it made me think more clearly and actually helped throughout the tourney. A very fun time that I can think about now. I was in a daze and it took over an hour for the adrenaline to return to normal levels. The crazy thing was sitting there and thinking how I wanted to win first and just speechless. After 20 minutes, it sunk in that if I had even finished second I would have won $1100 more dollars. That is a lot of money.

I think I'm the most proud of myself for continuing to play my game despite the difference in the payouts. I could have folded that hand with KQ and started playing for second place, but in a very high pressure situation I thought through all of the possibilities and made a tough decision on my past experience against my opponent. It was a logical decision that ended up being the wrong one. But I could have easily folded because I didn't have a hand instead of trying to decide if I had a better non hand than my opponent.

Maybe I will think differently about my play after I look through the hand history, but either way it was a very fun experience.

Weekly Update and Ace on the River - October 24, 2005

This has been a pretty good month for me. I thought there would be a huge transition to switch from NL to Limit poker. However, I am a bit surprised that I have continued a positive swing in my bankroll. I have been fortunate lately with good cards coming my way. However, I think I have been playing good poker as well. Up to $2/4 now and enjoying Poker Tracker and GameTime+. I ended the weekend with a very good one hour session. I three tabled $2/4 before dinner time and ended the one hour session with an average per table 20 BB table win.

In this blog, I may be using BB to abbreviate for two different ideas. If I am talking about preflop play, BB will often represent Big Blind. Usually in NL we use BB to refer to the severity of your raise before the flop. However, when you are playing Limit poker you cannot change the severity of your raise since it is a set amount. In a 2/4 game the small blind will be $1 and the big blind will be $2. If you read Small Stakes Hold Em by Ed Miller (which you should if you want to be successful at Limit Poker) they talk about bets in terms of Small bets and big bets (BB). The first two rounds of betting you are only allowed to bet in increments of $2 in a 2/4 game. On the turn and river you are only allowed to bet in increments of $4. Therefore, if you are calculating pot odds and deciding what hands to play you need to count the number of bets in the first two rounds. Divide the pot by two once the turn comes and then count the number of BBs that are added.

If you are discussing how well you are playing in Limit poker, you may be playing a $0.50/$1.00 game or you may be playing a $15/$30 game. You also may play for an hour or you may play all day. Therefore, players will often talk about their results in a a BB/100 hands context. A good limit poker player will try to win at the rate of 2 or 3 BB per every 100 hands. As you can see, to win at a 20 BB/100 clip for a session you have to have two things going for you. (1) You have to get great cards and (2) you have to be playing against some very bad players. I was fortunate enough to have both work my way yesterday.

On another note, I am in the middle of a great poker book right now. Barry Greenstein (a.k.a. the Robin Hood of poker since he gives all of his tournament winnings to charity) came out with a book called Ace on the River. Very entertaining book about managing your bankroll. Doyle Brunson wrote the foreward and said that if you want to learn how to play poker to read Super System 1 and 2, but if you wanted to learn how to win money to read Ace on the River. The book is full of color photos which are entertaining by itself. There are plenty of philosophical and humorous quotes in each chapter. Best of all it describes the makeup of winning and losing players. Very interesting to think through the little things that are necessary to be a professional poker player besides technically playing the cards correctly. Whether the book is describing the ideal personality of a great player or the most profitable way to tip the staff it is very thought provoking. There is even a chapter on "poker and sexuality" which had me laughing out loud. I had to read the chapter to my wife (only two pages) because I thought the unintenional comedy was too good not to pass on. Apparentely, Barry concludes the players who are able to find a partner when on the road are at a competitive advantage over the other "frustrated" players, because they will be better rested for the competition the next day.

OESD and Bubble Burst Definition - October 18, 2005

Update: I'm beginning to really like limit hold em cash games. I have fared pretty well. I have began playing a lot and seem to do pretty well. Amazing that if you look at a database of hands and classify people based on three categories, there is one distinct feature that separates the profitable from unprofitable. If you look at the following three categories, what do you think is the most important?

1) starting hands that people play (Tight, Loose or Semi-Loose classification)
2) the aggressiveness that people play before the flop (aggressive, nuetral, passive)
3) the aggressiveness that people play after the flop (aggressive, neutral, passive)

I have found that being aggressive after the flop makes the most profitable limit hold em player. You can refine 1 and 2 to increase your profitability but if you want to be profitable you have to be aggressive in category number 3.

**************

Follow up to earlier post: I had a couple questions on what an OESD and Bubble Burst meant. Listed below are some definitions.


OESD = Open Ended Straight Draw. When you have four cards in a row and are hoping to fill your striaght with your eight outs. Example: 5678 and hoping for one of the four 4s or one of the four 9s left in the deck.

Often confused with the OESD is the double belly buster. You still have eight outs but they are not in a row. For example You have 678 and the board has a 4 and a T. If a 5 or a 9 come you fill your straight.

Bubble Bursting = When you are playing in a tournament the cutoff point for who makes the money and who doesn't is called the bubble. If I am playing in a single table tournament (often referred to as a SNG) they will pay the top 3 out of 10. When there are ten people at the table you are likely to play your normal game. But once you get down to 4 or 5 people you may make different decisions based on the size of your opponents chips because you are on the bubble.

For example, say you are down to four people. You have 1500 chips and are in 3rd place. The other three players have 4000, 2400 and 100. Blinds are at 1000/200. You are dealt AJ in the BB. The small stack is first to act (UTG) and folds. The button big stack at the table raises to 1200. the SB folds and it is your decision. Well, you probably have the best hand since it is only four handed. But if you raise all in the button is likely to call since he has to only put 300 more chips in the pot. If you were down to three players and had already been guaranteed the third place money you would likely raise all in. However, since the low stack is going to be committed to paying the blind and being "All in" on the next hand, you should probably fold. Even though you have a better hand than the Button, he has pot odds to call and you have a chance of being knocked out. You are better off waiting two hands for the small blind to likely get knocked out and then playing aggressively with the top two chip stacks to get back into contention.

Okay so you fold, and the next hand the small stack gets knocked out by the big stack. The Bubble has burst" because you are in the money, so now the decisions at the table should change.

So Much for Rakeback - October 12, 2005

This past weekend caused quite a stir in the poker world. I explained rakeback in a previous post. I was anticipating collecting between $200-$400 a year in rakeback simply by playing the same games I was playing before only on Empire Poker. For those of you who don't know Party Poker was a main site that was interconnected with a few other sites. Empire Poker is one. So if I was playing at Empire Poker I was connected to the Party network and playing against players from Party. That all changed this weekend.

Party Poker decided to go solo and dropped the other affiliates from their network. So now you have Party Poker and then the "Empire Network". I can still receive rakeback but I have to be playing at Empire. The problem is that Party Poker accounted for nearly 90% of the players in the party network. Usually new signups and people who are oblivous to rakeback and not as good of players will sign up with Party Poker. The people at the affiliates are those that are aware of rakeback and most likely better players. So now my decision...Do I play at Empire against better players but with less rake or do I pay the higher rake and play at Party Poker against the worse players?

The only benefit of this is that with the huge change nearly every poker site (Empire, Party, Poker Stars, and I'm sure UltimateBet, etc) are offering lucrative deposit bonuses. So I put some money into PartyPoker last night so I could get a $100 free after playing a certain amount of hands. At party the amount of raked hands that you need to play is equal to seven times the amount of your bonus. I will collect a free $100 if I play 700 raked hands in the next seven days. Not an easy task, but not that difficult either. You don't have to play high stakes. So I sat down at the 0.50/1.00 Limit Hold Em table and played four tables at once. I had PokerTracker and Gametime + going so I did notice that after 50 hands from everyone there were at least a couple people at the table that played over 50% of their hands. It seemed a bit higher than at Empire. My session ended after about an hour and I was pretty tired. Tough to manage 4 tables at once. Although I don't think my play decreased much if at all. I ended up losing $15 in the session but I played well. Didn't feel like I won any huge pots and had some bad beats go against me.

Been playing pretty well lately. Not great, but I'm trying to get accustomed to playing limit poker. I have gathered about 2000 hands so I can begin to look at my tendencies in poker tracker. I am going to start reading up on the best way to analyze the data so I can critically look at my play and what I need to change. However, I think the best aspect of Poker Tracker is the ability to keep data on your opponents. As I build my database I will be able to see that the player on my left plays x% of the hands, raises preflop y% of the time, has an aggression factor after the flop of z and for the number of times they see a flop, they will go to the river k times. Plus, based on these stats I can setup characters for these players. For example, if someone is a calling station, gametime + will show a telephone by their name, so I will know to make a value bet on the river even if my hand isn't the nuts. Now, I just need to know how to play against the other styles.

I have registered to play in the
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Empire Poker - September 27

I have always heard about rakeback but never really understood it. Well, I investigated further and found that it is a very very good move. I just signed up yesterday. I had to open a new account at Empire Poker, but Empire is a party skin so you are playing on the exact same tables against the same players with virtually the same software as if you were on party.

I played one table of .50/1.00 for 50 minutes just to test it out and I won $0.75!!!. Great right, almost an entire dollar!! But I checked my rakeback and I will get an additional $0.41 at the end of the month! The great thing about rakeback for party skins is that the rake is included for SNG and Multis too.

For an easy example, if I play a $20 SNG, I pay $2 in rake. My deal with my affiliate is that I get 25% of my total rake back. So I will get $0.50 back at the end of the month for every $20 SNG I play. It doesn't sound like a whole lot of money, but it is absolutely free and no different than what I have been doing before. The only difference is I'll get an extra check in the mail. If anyone is interested let me know. Granted, I'm new to rakeback, but was very happy with the signup process and have been told through some poker posting websites that I'm with a reputable affiliate. If I refer someone I'll get $50. I would be happy to split that 50/50. However, if you are planning on signing up don't do it for the free $25. Sign up if you plan on playing more than once a year so you can take advantage of the cheaper rake.

Also, if anyone wants any more details just let me know.

Pacific Poker - September 19, 2005

I had a pretty successful weekend. Won a couple tourneys and moved up to the $30 SNGs. I took advantage of a sign up bonus for Pacific Poker on Saturday. I know an affiliate to the site who will give you $75 for signing up and playing one raked hand. So I decided to test my SSH Lee Jones experience on the .50/1.00 limit tables. Result = I lost 10-15 bucks when a guy hit his three outer on the river (AK vs A2). I felt pretty good about the way I played though, so I might have to play some more limit in the future. After that I played a couple $30 SNGs there so I could wager enough at the site to clear an additional deposit bonus. Wow. I was amazed at how bad the players were. Granted, I have limited experience at the site, but I thought the players were even worse than at Party Poker. However, I don't think the players are bad enough to make up for the awful software.

I wasn't that impressed. You can only play one table at a time. You can't see hand histories automatically. The site won't connect with PokerTracker. When you bet, it doesn't show you the $ amount that you wagered, just the chips, so it is difficult to see how much another person bet. Finally, when you reach a show down, it doesn't flip up the other players cards and it doesn't slowly show the turn or river card. In a flip second it just shows the cards and pushes the chips one way.

Overall, I'm glad I signed up though. I deposited $100 and played one raked hand which gave me $75 from the affiliate. Plus I got a 25% deposit bonus on the $100 from the site, so I will get an additional $25. I just need to wager $500 (20 x the bonus amount) to clear the $25. That seems like a lot, but if I play 5-6 $30 tourneys there a week, I can have it cleared in 3 weeks.

Multi Fun - September 12, 2005

I've been playing SNGs and studying limit ring game play, but yesterday I decided to play a $33 Multi for a change of pace. 1100 people entered the tourney and I made it past the first breaks. In the third break I started to daydream about the first prize of $6,500 or a top six finish with prizes all in the $1000s when this hand came up...

I'm sitting on 20,000 (average around 17,000) and we are down to 120 people, blinds at 500/1000. The bubble has burst so I feel the need to make my move, but I don't want to be a maniac either. I pick up As Js in the bb and the table leader (I had 3 of top 4 at my table) raises 3x to 3000 from MP. He has been fairly loose and aggressive, playing the bully pretty well. Small stack (no read) raises AI behind him to 8000. Button (fairly loose, calling station) calls and it is my decision.Easy fold right? I figured I have to be dominated, I can't force anyone out on a reraise and I don't want to call 1/3 of my stack with AJ even if it is suited.

Result? I fold and MP calls. Flop is all spades. MP bets a small amount, Button reraises AI (total of about 15,000 more) with a OESD and MP calls with his top pair (he had QTo) and it holds up against the OESD and the short stacks 77. I made the right decision but you can't help but wonder, what if?. It would have been very, very nice to get into the top ten in chip count.

I finished 42/1100 when I move all in from the button for 6x BB with my A4s and ran into pocket 9s. Didn't want to move in with Ax but only two players to fold and I needed to make a move. By far the most fun I've had playing in a while.

Work Home Game and SSH - September 9, 2005

I Played my second monthly work poker tourney last night. Finished 2/10. Three big hands from last night's action.

1) Down to 8 guys. Playing against a total LAP. I raised from late position with KK to isolate him. He called and flop was 984. I bet pot he called. Q on turn. I could sense it helped him and I had him on two big cards from the preflop so I put him on a pair of Q. He bet about a 1/5 of the pot and I reraise him all in (basically doubling his bet). He had JT. Which put me back to about my starting chip count or so.

2) I have Q3 and big stack after I doubled through against LAP. We are down to 4 players. and blinds at 100/200. I raise UTG to 500 with Q3o, looking to pick up blinds. Very tight button has a hand but doesn't want to call because we are on bubble (top 3 paid) and LAP is down to about 650. Button reluctantly calls. SB/LAP moves all in and we both call. (I couldn't raise to isolate since it wasn't a full bet raise). Flop comes 838. I blind check before the cards are dealt, trying to induce a check through. He checks. Turn is 2. At this point, since button checked, I put him on two overs. This is a sizable pot and I think there is a decent chance I have the best hand and am facing 6 outs against SB if I can get button to fold. However, good chance I'm up against 12 outs if I let him play, plus I will have to fold if he throws a bet out and I don't catch anything. I push him all in and he goes into the tank. He finally decides that if I win the hand and he loses he will still get 3rd place money since he started out the hand with more chips than the SB/LAP. He calls and turns over JJ, SB/LAP turns over TT...BUT the river spikes a 3 and the house erupts! Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good.

3) I am heads up now with about 6500-7000 chips to my opponents 1500-2000. We both fold a couple hands and I keep waiting for a K or A to push him in so I can buy his blinds (300/600 at this point) and give me pot odds to call on subsequent hands for the tourney. I pick up Q8 and move in. What? How reckless. Bad move by me. I am a better player than this guy and I should be playing more pots post flop rather than making all moves preflop. He calls with K7 and his hand holds up. So I am at 4500 and he has 4000. He buys some blinds on me and he has a slight chip lead on the button when this hand comes.

He raises the minimum to 1200. Actually he tried to raise to 900 which should have been a clear indication that he has a big hand since he really wanted me to play. I look down at AQ and need to move all in. Right? You can't lay this down heads up can you? I thought there was a decent chance that he had Ax and I was dominating him. He calls and flips over KK. No ace for me and I finish 2nd. I still don't think a lay down is correct, but can should I possibly call and then lay it down if I don't hit my AQ? My reasoning for moving all in is that I knew that this guy thought he had a great hand. But what is a good hand to him? My guess, any pair any ace, Kx suited and any two high cards. I decided I couldn't allow him to pick up a free draw.

In other poker related news, I finished reading SSH (Small Stakes Hold Em by Ed Miller). This is a great book and a must read for limit hold em players. I think this book suits players who understand the game but still are not winning or are just making a little bit of money but not crushing the low stakes games. Perhaps you have played for 2 years or even 10 years and you understand the good starting hands. You know Ax is bad, etc. This is a great book to take you to the next level. I still need to do the quizzes in the last chapter and to read the book a couple more times, but I'm anxious to play limit cash games and to build my bank roll. I have a lot of confidence now. I'm a bit worried about the swings and staying patient even though I'm playing .50/1.00 games on Party or something, but I can see myself getting into the 5/10 game in the next year or two and reading this book over and over again during the process.

Until next time...

Been a While...August 30, 2005

I need to make myself more accountable for updating this blog once a week. Not sure if I will but I'll continue to try. The problem is that I like to update my blog at work. Usually during lunch or when there is nothing else going on. Problem is that recently I have been extremely busy. I could consider posting while at home and I sometimes do, but when I have free time after work I usually like to play poker and if not poker, then I'm running errands, miles or hanging out with my wife. My point: I'll try to do better, but I can't make any guarantees.

So how have I been doing lately? My winning streak came to an abrupt halt. I worked my way up from the $10 SNGs to the $20 SNGs. I could have gone up to the 30 SNGs but I was killing the $20 SNGs and I wanted to get in the positive on the year at the 20s, so I stayed there for a while and then when I got up to the $30 SNGs I felt like it was a totally different ballgame. Is the game a bit different level wise? Possibly, but more likely I think I got out of my rhythm and started overthinking when I should be making the obvious play and underthinking when my opponent would give me a clue to his hand. So instead of just losing money until I was playing the 10s again. I took money out of my account and delegated myself to the 20s and gave myself a couple chances to go 10s or 30s. Of course I lost.

So I played a bit at the 10s and have worked my way up to the 20s. Yesterday I played my first 20 game in a week or so and on the very first hand I had QJs. I limped in looking for a monster. Flop comes J95 with two clubs. Small blind bets the minimum 15 and he gets two more callers. I raise to 100 to see where I stand. I could be outkicked, I could be way behind against a set, I could be a slight underdog against AQc or AKc (unlikely because more often these hands would raise preflop, but possible since it is first hand). So I bet 100 and the small blind calls, all others fold. I thought this was promising because he called quickly indicating a draw and I likely was not outkicked. Next card is a T of hearts and my opponent moves all in.

I have two options. Fold or Call. The board shows JT94 with two clubs and I have QJ. I thought about folding but I felt like I made a good enough raise on the flop to force out an inside straight draw (KQ, 87 or Q8). Plus, if he really hit his inside straight would he really move all in in this spot? Wouldn't he check, make me bet (since I showed strength on the flop) and then come over the top? I thought so and discounted the straight. There are no flush possibilities on the board which is important. If he is ahead of me at this point, I still have outs with my Q. If I catch a K or 8 I will have a straight that will beat any two pair or set. So does he have a set? If he has two pair did he catch it on the turn? Which would give him JT, T9 or T5. Does he have a set of tens? Possible again, but unlikely. Did he have a set or two pair on the flop? Well, I think the dangerous board would have caused him to raise me preflop. Plus I think he would have taken a bit more time in calling my flop raise. I had this guy on a flush draw, so I decided to stick with my initial instincts. I called for all these reasons, PLUS because it was the first hand. During the first hand real bad players play awful aggressive poker and take chances trying to push people around.

He turned over Q9. So he raised all in with top pair and an open ended straight draw. Which means he has only two cards (one of the remaining nines) that can win him the pot and eight cards that can chop the pot (any K or 8 would give us both a king high straight). An 8 came on the river and we split the pot.

This isn't a bad beat story or anything. I just wanted to share a hand with you that I actually thought about and tell you my imperfect analysis. So I had him on a flush draw but he had a smaller pair. So if someone calls quickly they are often chasing. Not necessarily a flush draw but possibly a second pair. With some players I may not have raised enough to chase away an opponent that was looking for a straight draw with KQ. They have ten outs against me (all four tens, and three K and Qs). But that is the beauty of poker. You have imperfect information and you have to make you best guess based on the information available. The best part is that I wrote notes on this players so I know that he is very aggressive and a guy you wouldn't mind facing with top pair in the future.

Anyone interested in how the tournament ended? Well, amazing enough the same guy got heads up with me, but he had a decisive 1000 to 7000 chip advantage. I got the lead 3 more times! and I got all my chips in against him 5 more times and he beat ended up beating me. Three times I had my chips in with the lead and the game would have ended. Oh well. That's poker.

Next up for me. I have been playing a lot of SNGs and I think it is hard to stay fresh. I could quit playing for a while, but I really do enjoy it. Poker has always been about the enjoyment for me rather than the money, but it is nice to have both. :) I bought Harrington on Hold Em 1 and Small Stakes Hold Em but Ed Miller, David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth. I have heard they are excellent books and I can confirm HOH. I am not finished with HOH 1 or 2, but I thought to keep myself fresh I would learn how to play small stakes limit games. I think with my math skills, I could calculate pot odds and be a decent player. Right now I'm good enough to break even at the casino and make a small amount of money on the internet. But I need to learn how to calculate pot odds quickly and to control the size of the pots so I can get the odds in my favor. Hopefully my game will improve and I can really start making the money. Basically most people will admit that it is much easier to make a lot of money playing limit cash games than it is to win consistenly at SNGs.

Interesting Hand and HOH2 - August 12, 2005

My consecutive winnings streak came to an end this week. Although the week was still a success. My week starting off with a live game, continued with some more live action at a friends cabin, and concluded with some up and down Party Poker results.

There were twelve people playing at a live game I played through work. The plan was to start with six at each table and combine the table once we got down to eight. We started with about 900 chips and blinds started at 5/10. Very first hand at my table there is raising and reraising between two guys until one finally calls after both have committed 400 chips each to the pot preflop. The flop comes J74 all spades. Small blind checks. Initial preflop raiser bets 100. Small blind raises 100 and initial raiser moves all in. Keep in mind that this is the FIRST HAND! The small blind thinks for about 5-10 minutes and then calls. Small blind turns over QQ with a spade. I look at the original raiser and say "show me your aces or kings". He turns over AK...no spades! Just shows that you never know what to expect in a live game.

Blinds went up every half hour so there was plenty of times at a short table to play good poker. I made some good reads and caught some fortunate cards and was able to win the tournament. It was fun to play and there were some experienced poker players at this tournament. My only frustration is not knowing the total payout rules to begin with. Rules were laminated on a card next to me so it is my own fault, but I could have probably made another ten bucks. Total winnings were split between the top three except for $10 which served as a bounty on the last month's winner. I think I could have won that ten bucks earlier in the game. I crippled the prior winner with a value bet on the river when I could have forced her all in and probably picked up the ten bucks.

I went up to a buddy's cabin for the weekend. Normally the weekends are spent playing cards, going out on the boat, playing various games like croquet and bocce ball, but this year we actually played a lot of poker. There were 11 guys and we played various tournaments throughout the weekend. Small stakes, but it was still a lot of fun. The players had various experience so it was very interesting trying to play against players who have lots of experience, players who have a little experience and players who have no experience at all. Amazing how the players who have the least amount of experience can control the tempo of the game. They dictate what the opening bet is and what the breaking point is to fold your blind (if there is a breaking point at all).

Once I got back I played a bit on-line earlier this week and had one night when I was 0-3 in SNGs. The first two games I made good reads on the players hands but ended up getting knocked out of the tournament and the last tournament I finished fourth. The first game, I picked up AT on the button and everyone folded to me. I made it 150 to go with blinds at 25/50. I started the hand out with 1500 chips and the small blind had 725. He calls and the flop comes 279 rainbow. He checks and I decided I was either ahead or way behind. I think he has to have an inbetween hand. One that is not good enough to reraise all in preflop but a hand that he is hoping to catch something. Instead of messing around, I make a bet of 600 into a 350 pot and put him all in. He calls and I think I'm in trouble until he turns over A9. What? Of course a 9 comes on the river which brings me down to 750. I asked him after the hand what he though I had that A9 could beat, but he did not respond. I finally moved all in with 66 and went down when an AQ called and caught a pair.

The second game I was playing against a LAP in the small blind and I called his 2x preflop raise with K7s from the big blind. The flop came rags, 936 rainbow. He put out a small bet and I put him to the test by moving all in. I didn't have enough money to make a small bet without leaving myself pot committed. However, I felt I had enough chips to create folding equity (FE). I pegged him for two overs and as the blind I could have been calling with anything to a 2x bet. He calls with AK and wins the hand.

You could say I played these hands great and I should have won, but I don't think that is entirely accurate. I pegged the hands, but I didn't peg the player. I should have learned a valuable lesson from my weekend at the cabin and known that you have to understand the player before you can beat the player. I should have picked up somewhere in the game or from more time with the player that they were calling stations. For the first guy, I wrote notes on him that he thinks an over pot sized bet all in indicates a bluff and will call with very little. Hopefully I will meet him again. The second guy was a LAP calling station as so many are on party poker.

I've had a friend suggest I move up in limits so that I eliminate the bad players. The theory is that I could play better against better players. I used to think the same thing and it is possible that my style of play is better against players who are capable of folding a hand and realizing how to read the board, but I think it is incorrect to say that I should move up. Players at the lower stakes games are going to make more mistakes. If players make more mistakes, over the long run you should have a greater chance of winning.

I just need to become a better player myself so I can identify the type of player I'm playing against so I can take advantage of those mistakes. The only legitimate reasoning I have heard for moving up in levels to improve your winnings is for the situation where you have worse overall results at the higher limit tables, but the stakes are higher or the rake is less leaving yourself with a chance to make more money. A similar example is a player that plays multiple games a time. They may not win as much playing two games at once instead of only one. But if there results only decline slightly, they may make more money per hour playing two at a time.

Lastly, I wanted to discuss HOH2 (Harrington on Hold Em, Volume 2). Dan Harrington, one of the great tournament poker players wrote an excellent book on tournament poker strategy. There is a big buzz around the poker community because the book is so insightful. I have only read 100 pages of the book and it has already lived up to expectations. Lucky for me, my friend received an extra copy and gave it to me this weekend at the cabin. The 100 pages that I did read (which I need to read another 10 times to fully understand) allowed me to win a tournament two nights ago. After finishing a chapter, I decided to play a tourney when I came up with another AT hand. I had a very aggressive player who was in the CO (one right of the button) with 2200 chips. He was raising the blinds nearly every hand. The blinds were up to 50/100 and I was in second place with 2000 chips. There were only 5/6 players left. I had a legitimate hand and one that I was fairly confident was leading going into the hand.

He raised it to 300 and I wanted to take the hand down right there. My AT is probably the best hand, but it is susceptible to a draw and I would be playing out of position the rest of the way. I raised him to 800 chips. He called. Now this had me worried since I was playing out of position, but I also knew that this LAP was playing most of his hands preflop and I was probably a better player than him. The flop came K72. I could have decided to try to win the hand right there, btu with the money already in the pot, I would most likely had to move in. I wasn't willing to risk my tourney life on AT. He very well could have a K and I wanted to see how my opponent would play the hand so I checked. He checked behind me and the turn was a 7. His check confused me since he is an aggressive player. I checked again. He checks behind me and a king comes on the river. I check and he bets 400 chips.

My first thought was, is this a value bet? Was he slow playing me this whole time? Does he want to suck more money out of me because he has a monster hand? What could he have had that he would play the hand this way? With two sevens and two kings on the board, it was unlikely that he had a set on the flop, unless they were 2s so I discounted a set. Could he have a pair higher than 7? Possible, but my read on this player was that he would have reraised me all in preflop with any pair. Could he have a seven or a king? It is possible, but if he gets any part of that flop, it makes sense for him to take the pot down there. He has to know I have a decent hand to raise back at him and the pot was big enough that he should want to take it down and not let me draw to an Ace or a higher pair. I concluded that he didn't bet on the flop or turn because he was scared and he didn't know how to play his aggressive style post flop. He made a bet on the river to try to pick up the pot. I called and he flipped over Q8 suited and I won a big pot.

I'm not saying I played the hand great because I could have folded the best hand if my opponent had been a bit more aggressive post flop. Although I do think it is a good example of me playing better poker recently. I am thinking more clearly and it has shown in my results. These type of hands make poker so much fun. It's like you are playing a puzzle and you just need to find the right pieces to be successful. Hopefully I can keep it up for a while so I can move up in levels and get some more experience with players that make less mistakes.

Hot Streak: August 3, 2005

First off, thank you for all of your feedback. I think it has helped me fine tune my game a bit. I have already learned too important lessons from this blog. One: I am limping from Early Position with suited connectors or mediocre hands way too much. Two: Calling from the BB when the SB raises 2x can be a very profitable play with whatever two cards you are holding as long as you are not short stacked.

I have not posted for a while. I have realized that I can't keep up with my initial hope that I would post once or twice a day. Juggling a job, marriage and other interests makes that difficult. However, I am going to try to post at least once a week and maybe twice from here on out. Even if it is just checking in with a quick update on how I am doing, I will post at least once a week. Haven't figured out what day it should be yet.

So as you see from the topic of this post, I have been playing pretty well lately. It is amazing how when you are in your groove you can look back and see how bad you actually were. I felt like I was playing legitimate poker during the first half of the year, but looking back I wasn't thinking at all. I was going through the motions, playing my hands as I should, making a guess every once in a while on whether the guy was bluffing or not, but not really making logical great decisions. I feel like I'm playing well right now. It isn't just that I'm winning (6 straight positive sessions), but even when I'm losing I made a bet for a reason and usually ended up getting a bad beat. For example...

Last night, I played in a $20 SNG and I was raised by a LAP from the SB when I was the BB. Blinds were 25/50. I had about 800 chips and he min raised to 100. I called with 6c 7d knowing that I could outplay this guy after the flop and I had pot odds to call. I didn't feel I was short stacked enough where I was pot committed to going all in or fold. Flop comes 4d 6d Td. Small blind raises 125 and I move in for my remaining stack. Why did I move in? I wanted to win the hand right now. If I have a better hand, it isn't by much. He could have a Ten or a pocket pair greater than six. If he had a hand, I think he would have bet the pot a bit more or check raised like most bad players do. So I thought that I had the best hand, but even if I didn't there was a chance that I had a flush draw with my 7 of diamonds. So I move all in and he calls. What does he have? As Ks. What? Turn is a King, river is a rag and no diamonds come to save me. Was I upset? Not really, because I got my money in as a huge favorite (about 84%) against a bad player. I'll take that bet every time and make money in the long run.

So what got me thinking about the hands a bit more and making good decisions? I give credit to someone who a lot of people don't like or are annoyed by. He is a 19 year old 2+2 forum poster and he plays under the avator zeejustin. Go to his website www.zeejustin.com and check him out. Plenty of bragging, but his recent article about one of his multi tournament game was fantastic. I thought it was good stuff.

Another great hand from the last week? I played in a live tournament at my friend Todd's house. Todd had just finished a softball tournament and was about 20-30 beers down. His roommate Joe was a little drunk as well. We all started with 50 chips and blinds were 1/2 to start. There were seven players and everyone calls the blind before it gets to Joe on the button. Joe raises to 8 and I fold my 83o. Everyone folds except my friend Beyer. Flop comes Q98 rainbow. Beyer checks and Joe bets 10. Beyer Calls. Turn is a J. There are no flushes possible as every suit is represented on the board. What does Beyer do? He bets 10. Now, Joe thinks for about 2.5 seconds and announces all in. Beyer ponders for a while and considers his options. Fold or Call. He says "What the heck" and calls. What does he have? AJ. He called with a pair of jacks when any queen, ten, two pair or a set would beat him. So what does Joe have? AK. No joke. Very first hand and he is knocked out with A high. Everyone was laughing except for Joe who was upset that Beyer called with a pair of jacks. I couldn't believe either of their plays, but that is what is so much fun about low stakes live tournaments with friends. You never know what to expect. Todd - Thanks for hosting. It was a fun time and we will have to do it again sometime.

An Unfortunate Game: July 17, 2005

I played in a game on Sunday afternoon that really bothered me. I felt I played fairly well, but the poker gods were not with me on this one. I am going to post all of the meaningful hands here. Beware this could be long. I'm hoping to go through it myself in the next couple days to see if there was something else that could be done. Poker is a game of luck and skill. It is a game of long funs and if you look at yourself in the long run, the skill will overcome the luck. Above all though, poker is a test of patience. I sensed I was slightly on tilt after this one, so I stopped playing for the afternoon. If you feel like looking through and offering comments, feel free. However, I posted this here to ensure I would examine it critically to see if I truly played well or if I made some questionable decisions.

I made one questionable call from the small blind with KQ of an UTG short stack all in raise. I decided that I would still be able to play and would be left with 5-6 x bb if I lost. There was a chance that I could be dominating on a QJ, KJ type hand. More than likely I wasn't dominated. Only to AA, KK (would have slow played), or AQ, AK, QQ. So three chances that I would be dominated and a lot of chances that I would be a slight dog, and a might be ahead. I decided to take a chance since my pot odds allowed me to call and I could take the lead and control of the table with a win.

Here it is...

***** Hand History for Game 2380019493 *****
15/30 Tourney Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL) (Tournament 14022505) - Sun Jul 17 17:52:13 EDT 2005
Table Table 11207 (Real Money) -- Seat 2 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: DukeMa (800)
Seat 2: shark150 (800)
Seat 3: AMalik (800)
Seat 4: suvratp (800)
Seat 5: lilstjean (800)
Seat 6: SLICK65XX (800)
Seat 7: badandy78 (800)
Seat 8: acehigh131 (800)
Seat 9: KnightsPG (800)
Seat 10: andersonrl (800)
AMalik posts small blind (10)
suvratp posts big blind (15)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to KnightsPG [ 9s, Jc ]
lilstjean folds.
SLICK65XX folds.
badandy78 folds.
acehigh131 calls (15)
KnightsPG calls (15)
andersonrl folds.
DukeMa folds.
shark150 folds.
AMalik calls (5)
suvratp checks.
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 7h, 8h, As ]
AMalik checks.
suvratp checks.
acehigh131 checks.
KnightsPG bets (40)
AMalik calls (40)
suvratp folds.
acehigh131 calls (40)
** Dealing Turn ** : [ 7c ]
AMalik checks.
acehigh131 checks.
KnightsPG bets (120)
AMalik folds.
acehigh131 folds.
** Summary **
Main Pot: 300
Board: [ 7h 8h As 7c ]
DukeMa balance 800, didn't bet (folded)
shark150 balance 800, didn't bet (folded)
AMalik balance 745, lost 55 (folded)
suvratp balance 785, lost 15 (folded)
lilstjean balance 800, didn't bet (folded)
SLICK65XX balance 800, didn't bet (folded)
badandy78 balance 800, didn't bet (folded)
acehigh131 balance 745, lost 55 (folded)
KnightsPG balance 925, bet 175, collected 300, net +125
andersonrl balance 800, didn't bet (folded)

***** Hand History for Game 2380035060 *****
15/30 Tourney Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL) (Tournament 14022505) - Sun Jul 17 17:55:06 EDT 2005
Table Table 11207 (Real Money) -- Seat 4 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: DukeMa (800)
Seat 2: shark150 (800)
Seat 3: AMalik (745)
Seat 4: suvratp (770)
Seat 5: lilstjean (785)
Seat 6: SLICK65XX (715)
Seat 7: badandy78 (915)
Seat 8: acehigh131 (745)
Seat 9: KnightsPG (925)
Seat 10: andersonrl (800)
lilstjean posts small blind (10)
SLICK65XX posts big blind (15)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to KnightsPG [ Ah, Ks ]
badandy78 calls (15)
acehigh131 calls (15)
KnightsPG raises (100) to 100
andersonrl folds.
DukeMa folds.
shark150 calls (100)
AMalik folds.
suvratp folds.
lilstjean calls (90)
SLICK65XX folds.
badandy78 folds.
acehigh131 raises (730) to 745
acehigh131 is all-In.
KnightsPG raises (825) to 925
KnightsPG is all-In.
shark150 folds.
lilstjean folds.
Creating Main Pot with $1720 with acehigh131
Creating Side Pot 1 with $180 with KnightsPG
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 9d, Kh, Kc ]
** Dealing Turn ** : [ 6c ]
** Dealing River ** : [ 6h ]
** Summary **
Main Pot: 1720 Side Pot 1: 180
Board: [ 9d Kh Kc 6c 6h ]
DukeMa balance 800, didn't bet (folded)
shark150 balance 700, lost 100 (folded)
AMalik balance 745, didn't bet (folded)
suvratp balance 770, didn't bet (folded)
lilstjean balance 685, lost 100 (folded)
SLICK65XX balance 700, lost 15 (folded)
badandy78 balance 900, lost 15 (folded)
acehigh131 balance 860, bet 745, collected 860, net +115 [ Qc Kd ] [ a full house, Kings full of sixes -- Kd,Kh,Kc,6c,6h ]
KnightsPG balance 1040, bet 925, collected 1040, net +115 [ Ah Ks ] [ a full house, Kings full of sixes -- Ks,Kh,Kc,6c,6h ]
andersonrl balance 800, didn't bet (folded)


***** Hand History for Game 2380074300 *****
15/30 Tourney Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL) (Tournament 14022505) - Sun Jul 17 18:02:01 EDT 2005
Table Table 11207 (Real Money) -- Seat 9 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: DukeMa (625)
Seat 2: shark150 (685)
Seat 3: AMalik (715)
Seat 4: suvratp (770)
Seat 5: lilstjean (1090)
Seat 6: SLICK65XX (630)
Seat 7: badandy78 (710)
Seat 8: acehigh131 (1075)
Seat 9: KnightsPG (1000)
Seat 10: andersonrl (700)
andersonrl posts small blind (10)
DukeMa posts big blind (15)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to KnightsPG [ Ks, Jc ]
shark150 folds.
AMalik folds.
suvratp raises (90) to 90
lilstjean folds.
SLICK65XX folds.
badandy78 folds.
acehigh131 folds.
KnightsPG calls (90)
andersonrl folds.
DukeMa folds.
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 3c, 9s, 2s ]
suvratp checks.
KnightsPG checks.
** Dealing Turn ** : [ 7d ]
suvratp checks.
KnightsPG bets (100)
suvratp folds.
** Summary **
Main Pot: 305
Board: [ 3c 9s 2s 7d ]
DukeMa balance 610, lost 15 (folded)
shark150 balance 685, didn't bet (folded)
AMalik balance 715, didn't bet (folded)
suvratp balance 680, lost 90 (folded)
lilstjean balance 1090, didn't bet (folded)
SLICK65XX balance 630, didn't bet (folded)
badandy78 balance 710, didn't bet (folded)
acehigh131 balance 1075, didn't bet (folded)
KnightsPG balance 1115, bet 190, collected 305, net +115
andersonrl balance 690, lost 10 (folded)

***** Hand History for Game 2380092778 *****
lilstjean: lol
15/30 Tourney Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL) (Tournament 14022505) - Sun Jul 17 18:05:17 EDT 2005
Table Table 11207 (Real Money) -- Seat 1 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: DukeMa (330)
Seat 2: shark150 (670)
Seat 3: AMalik (715)
Seat 4: suvratp (1255)
Seat 5: lilstjean (1090)
Seat 6: SLICK65XX (350)
Seat 7: badandy78 (710)
Seat 8: acehigh131 (1075)
Seat 9: KnightsPG (1115)
Seat 10: andersonrl (690)
shark150 posts small blind (10)
AMalik posts big blind (15)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to KnightsPG [ Jh, Ad ]
suvratp folds.
lilstjean calls (15)
lilstjean: sad
SLICK65XX folds.
badandy78 calls (15)
acehigh131 folds.
KnightsPG raises (90) to 90
andersonrl folds.
DukeMa raises (330) to 330
DukeMa is all-In.
shark150 folds.
AMalik folds.
lilstjean folds.
badandy78 folds.
KnightsPG calls (240)
Creating Main Pot with $715 with DukeMa
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 4h, Ks, Jc ]
** Dealing Turn ** : [ 4d ]
** Dealing River ** : [ 9d ]
** Summary **
Main Pot: 715
Board: [ 4h Ks Jc 4d 9d ]
DukeMa balance 715, bet 330, collected 715, net +385 [ Kh Jd ] [ two pairs, kings and jacks -- Kh,Ks,Jd,Jc,9d ]
shark150 balance 660, lost 10 (folded)
AMalik balance 700, lost 15 (folded)
suvratp balance 1255, didn't bet (folded)
lilstjean balance 1075, lost 15 (folded)
SLICK65XX balance 350, didn't bet (folded)
badandy78 balance 695, lost 15 (folded)
acehigh131 balance 1075, didn't bet (folded)
KnightsPG balance 785, lost 330 [ Jh Ad ] [ two pairs, jacks and fours -- Ad,Jh,Jc,4h,4d ]
andersonrl balance 690, didn't bet (folded)

***** Hand History for Game 2380103922 *****
30/60 Tourney Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL) (Tournament 14022505) - Sun Jul 17 18:07:16 EDT 2005
Table Table 11207 (Real Money) -- Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: DukeMa (715)
Seat 2: shark150 (660)
Seat 3: AMalik (670)
Seat 4: suvratp (1225)
Seat 5: lilstjean (1075)
Seat 6: SLICK65XX (135)
Seat 7: badandy78 (970)
Seat 8: acehigh131 (1075)
Seat 9: KnightsPG (785)
Seat 10: andersonrl (690)
suvratp posts small blind (15)
lilstjean posts big blind (30)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to KnightsPG [ 2c, 2s ]
badandy78: lol pocket 4's
SLICK65XX raises (60) to 60
badandy78 folds.
acehigh131 folds.
KnightsPG calls (60)
andersonrl folds.
DukeMa folds.
shark150 folds.
AMalik folds.
suvratp calls (45)
lilstjean calls (30)
** Dealing Flop ** : [ Ah, Kh, 5c ]
suvratp checks.
lilstjean checks.
SLICK65XX bets (30)
KnightsPG folds.
suvratp calls (30)
lilstjean calls (30)
** Dealing Turn ** : [ 8d ]
suvratp checks.
lilstjean checks.
SLICK65XX bets (30)
suvratp: god damn it
suvratp: slick you're obviously milking me like the cow i am
suvratp calls (30)
lilstjean calls (30)
** Dealing River ** : [ 9c ]
suvratp checks.
lilstjean checks.
SLICK65XX checks.
suvratp: haha
** Summary **
Main Pot: 420
Board: [ Ah Kh 5c 8d 9c ]
DukeMa balance 715, didn't bet (folded)
shark150 balance 660, didn't bet (folded)
AMalik balance 670, didn't bet (folded)
suvratp balance 1105, lost 120 [ Kd 3d ] [ a pair of kings -- Ah,Kd,Kh,9c,8d ]
lilstjean balance 955, lost 120 [ 9h Qh ] [ a pair of nines -- Ah,Kh,Qh,9h,9c ]
SLICK65XX balance 435, bet 120, collected 420, net +300 [ Kc Th ] [ a pair of kings with ten kicker -- Ah,Kc,Kh,Th,9cTh(kicker card) ]
badandy78 balance 970, didn't bet (folded)
acehigh131 balance 1075, didn't bet (folded)
KnightsPG balance 725, lost 60 (folded)
andersonrl balance 690, didn't bet (folded)

***** Hand History for Game 2380120828 *****
30/60 Tourney Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL) (Tournament 14022505) - Sun Jul 17 18:10:16 EDT 2005
Table Table 11207 (Real Money) -- Seat 5 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: DukeMa (525)
Seat 2: shark150 (660)
Seat 3: AMalik (610)
Seat 4: suvratp (1105)
Seat 5: lilstjean (1455)
Seat 6: SLICK65XX (245)
Seat 7: badandy78 (910)
Seat 8: acehigh131 (1075)
Seat 9: KnightsPG (725)
Seat 10: andersonrl (690)
SLICK65XX posts small blind (15)
badandy78 posts big blind (30)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to KnightsPG [ 9h, Th ]
acehigh131 calls (30)
KnightsPG calls (30)
andersonrl folds.
DukeMa calls (30)
shark150 calls (30)
AMalik folds.
suvratp folds.
lilstjean calls (30)
SLICK65XX calls (15)
badandy78 checks.
** Dealing Flop ** : [ Qh, Ah, Ts ]
SLICK65XX checks.
badandy78 checks.
acehigh131 checks.
KnightsPG checks.
DukeMa checks.
shark150 checks.
lilstjean bets (55)
SLICK65XX folds.
badandy78 folds.
acehigh131 folds.
KnightsPG calls (55)
DukeMa calls (55)
shark150 folds.
** Dealing Turn ** : [ 7h ]
KnightsPG checks.
DukeMa checks.
lilstjean checks.
** Dealing River ** : [ 5s ]
KnightsPG bets (200)
DukeMa folds.
lilstjean: flush??
lilstjean folds.
** Summary **
Main Pot: 575
Board: [ Qh Ah Ts 7h 5s ]
DukeMa balance 440, lost 85 (folded)
shark150 balance 630, lost 30 (folded)
AMalik balance 610, didn't bet (folded)
suvratp balance 1105, didn't bet (folded)
lilstjean balance 1370, lost 85 (folded)
SLICK65XX balance 215, lost 30 (folded)
badandy78 balance 880, lost 30 (folded)
acehigh131 balance 1045, lost 30 (folded)
KnightsPG balance 1015, bet 285, collected 575, net +290
andersonrl balance 690, didn't bet (folded)


***** Hand History for Game 2380133939 *****
30/60 Tourney Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL) (Tournament 14022505) - Sun Jul 17 18:12:36 EDT 2005
Table Table 11207 (Real Money) -- Seat 7 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: DukeMa (515)
Seat 2: shark150 (630)
Seat 3: AMalik (610)
Seat 4: suvratp (1105)
Seat 5: lilstjean (1370)
Seat 6: SLICK65XX (215)
Seat 7: badandy78 (865)
Seat 8: acehigh131 (1015)
Seat 9: KnightsPG (985)
Seat 10: andersonrl (690)
acehigh131 posts small blind (15)
KnightsPG posts big blind (30)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to KnightsPG [ Td, As ]
andersonrl raises (60) to 60
DukeMa folds.
shark150 folds.
AMalik folds.
suvratp folds.
lilstjean folds.
SLICK65XX folds.
badandy78 folds.
acehigh131 folds.
KnightsPG calls (30)
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 2c, Ts, 6s ]
KnightsPG checks.
andersonrl bets (125)
KnightsPG calls (125)
** Dealing Turn ** : [ 4h ]
KnightsPG checks.
andersonrl bets (125)
KnightsPG raises (800) to 800
KnightsPG is all-In.
andersonrl calls (380)
andersonrl is all-In.
** Dealing River ** : [ Jh ]
Creating Main Pot with $1395 with andersonrl
Creating Side Pot 1 with $295 with KnightsPG
** Summary **
Main Pot: 1395 Side Pot 1: 295
Board: [ 2c Ts 6s 4h Jh ]
DukeMa balance 515, didn't bet (folded)
shark150 balance 630, didn't bet (folded)
AMalik balance 610, didn't bet (folded)
suvratp balance 1105, didn't bet (folded)
lilstjean balance 1370, didn't bet (folded)
SLICK65XX balance 215, didn't bet (folded)
badandy78 balance 865, didn't bet (folded)
acehigh131 balance 1000, lost 15 (folded)
KnightsPG balance 295, bet 985, collected 295, lost -690 [ Td As ] [ a pair of tens -- As,Jh,Td,Ts,6s ]
andersonrl balance 1395, bet 690, collected 1395, net +705 [ Qs Qd ] [ a pair of queens -- Qs,Qd,Jh,Ts,6s ]

***** Hand History for Game 2380153332 *****
30/60 Tourney Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL) (Tournament 14022505) - Sun Jul 17 18:16:04 EDT 2005
Table Table 11207 (Real Money) -- Seat 10 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: DukeMa (535)
Seat 2: shark150 (630)
Seat 3: AMalik (610)
Seat 4: suvratp (1105)
Seat 5: lilstjean (1370)
Seat 6: SLICK65XX (460)
Seat 7: badandy78 (750)
Seat 8: acehigh131 (940)
Seat 9: KnightsPG (280)
Seat 10: andersonrl (1320)
DukeMa posts small blind (15)
shark150 posts big blind (30)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to KnightsPG [ Qd, 9d ]
AMalik folds.
suvratp calls (30)
lilstjean calls (30)
SLICK65XX folds.
badandy78 calls (30)
acehigh131 folds.
KnightsPG raises (280) to 280
KnightsPG is all-In.
andersonrl folds.
DukeMa folds.
shark150 folds.
suvratp folds.
lilstjean folds.
badandy78 folds.
Creating Main Pot with $415 with KnightsPG
** Summary **
Main Pot: 415
DukeMa balance 520, lost 15 (folded)
shark150 balance 600, lost 30 (folded)
AMalik balance 610, didn't bet (folded)
suvratp balance 1075, lost 30 (folded)
lilstjean balance 1340, lost 30 (folded)
SLICK65XX balance 460, didn't bet (folded)
badandy78 balance 720, lost 30 (folded)
acehigh131 balance 940, didn't bet (folded)
KnightsPG balance 415, bet 280, collected 415, net +135
andersonrl balance 1320, didn't bet (folded)


***** Hand History for Game 2380173304 *****
50/100 Tourney Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL) (Tournament 14022505) - Sun Jul 17 18:19:35 EDT 2005
Table Table 11207 (Real Money) -- Seat 2 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: DukeMa (520)
Seat 2: shark150 (570)
Seat 3: AMalik (580)
Seat 4: suvratp (1075)
Seat 5: lilstjean (1310)
Seat 6: SLICK65XX (330)
Seat 7: badandy78 (690)
Seat 8: acehigh131 (1190)
Seat 9: KnightsPG (415)
Seat 10: andersonrl (1320)
AMalik posts small blind (25)
suvratp posts big blind (50)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to KnightsPG [ Qs, Tc ]
lilstjean folds.
SLICK65XX folds.
badandy78 folds.
acehigh131 folds.
KnightsPG raises (175) to 175
andersonrl folds.
DukeMa folds.
shark150 folds.
AMalik folds.
suvratp folds.
** Summary **
Main Pot: 250
DukeMa balance 520, didn't bet (folded)
shark150 balance 570, didn't bet (folded)
AMalik balance 555, lost 25 (folded)
suvratp balance 1025, lost 50 (folded)
lilstjean balance 1310, didn't bet (folded)
SLICK65XX balance 330, didn't bet (folded)
badandy78 balance 690, didn't bet (folded)
acehigh131 balance 1190, didn't bet (folded)
KnightsPG balance 490, bet 175, collected 250, net +75
andersonrl balance 1320, didn't bet (folded)

***** Hand History for Game 2380178823 *****
50/100 Tourney Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL) (Tournament 14022505) - Sun Jul 17 18:20:31 EDT 2005
Table Table 11207 (Real Money) -- Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: DukeMa (520)
Seat 2: shark150 (570)
Seat 3: AMalik (555)
Seat 4: suvratp (1025)
Seat 5: lilstjean (1310)
Seat 6: SLICK65XX (330)
Seat 7: badandy78 (690)
Seat 8: acehigh131 (1190)
Seat 9: KnightsPG (490)
Seat 10: andersonrl (1320)
suvratp posts small blind (25)
lilstjean posts big blind (50)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to KnightsPG [ Th, Qd ]
SLICK65XX folds.
badandy78 folds.
acehigh131 folds.
KnightsPG folds.
andersonrl folds.
DukeMa folds.
shark150 folds.
AMalik folds.
suvratp folds.
** Summary **
Main Pot: 75
DukeMa balance 520, didn't bet (folded)
shark150 balance 570, didn't bet (folded)
AMalik balance 555, didn't bet (folded)
suvratp balance 1000, lost 25 (folded)
lilstjean balance 1335, bet 50, collected 75, net +25
SLICK65XX balance 330, didn't bet (folded)
badandy78 balance 690, didn't bet (folded)
acehigh131 balance 1190, didn't bet (folded)
KnightsPG balance 490, didn't bet (folded)
andersonrl balance 1320, didn't bet (folded)

***** Hand History for Game 2380187412 *****
50/100 Tourney Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL) (Tournament 14022505) - Sun Jul 17 18:22:01 EDT 2005
Table Table 11207 (Real Money) -- Seat 5 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: DukeMa (470)
Seat 2: shark150 (570)
Seat 3: AMalik (555)
Seat 4: suvratp (1000)
Seat 5: lilstjean (1560)
Seat 6: SLICK65XX (205)
Seat 7: badandy78 (690)
Seat 8: acehigh131 (1140)
Seat 9: KnightsPG (490)
Seat 10: andersonrl (1320)
SLICK65XX posts small blind (25)
badandy78 posts big blind (50)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to KnightsPG [ Kh, Qs ]
acehigh131 folds.
KnightsPG folds.
andersonrl folds.
DukeMa raises (175) to 175
shark150 folds.
AMalik raises (555) to 555
AMalik is all-In.
suvratp folds.
lilstjean folds.
SLICK65XX calls (180)
SLICK65XX is all-In.
badandy78 folds.
DukeMa calls (295)
DukeMa is all-In.
Creating Main Pot with $665 with SLICK65XX
Creating Side Pot 1 with $530 with DukeMa
Creating Side Pot 2 with $85 with AMalik
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 8d, 6h, 9s ]
** Dealing Turn ** : [ As ]
** Dealing River ** : [ 4h ]
** Summary **
Main Pot: 665 Side Pot 1: 530 Side Pot 2: 85
Board: [ 8d 6h 9s As 4h ]
DukeMa balance 598, bet 470, collected 598, net +128 [ Ac Qc ] [ a pair of aces -- Ac,As,Qc,9s,8d ]
shark150 balance 570, didn't bet (folded)
AMalik balance 682, bet 555, collected 682, net +127 [ Qd Ah ] [ a pair of aces -- Ah,As,Qd,9s,8d ]
suvratp balance 1000, didn't bet (folded)
lilstjean balance 1560, didn't bet (folded)
SLICK65XX balance 0, lost 205 [ 7c 7s ] [ a pair of sevens -- As,9s,8d,7c,7s ]
badandy78 balance 640, lost 50 (folded)
acehigh131 balance 1140, didn't bet (folded)
KnightsPG balance 490, didn't bet (folded)
andersonrl balance 1320, didn't bet (folded)

***** Hand History for Game 2380197149 *****
50/100 Tourney Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL) (Tournament 14022505) - Sun Jul 17 18:23:43 EDT 2005
Table Table 11207 (Real Money) -- Seat 8 is the button
Total number of players : 9
Seat 1: DukeMa (623)
Seat 2: shark150 (570)
Seat 3: AMalik (682)
Seat 4: suvratp (1000)
Seat 5: lilstjean (1560)
Seat 7: badandy78 (835)
Seat 8: acehigh131 (970)
Seat 9: KnightsPG (440)
Seat 10: andersonrl (1320)
KnightsPG posts small blind (25)
andersonrl posts big blind (50)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to KnightsPG [ 8d, 9d ]
DukeMa calls (50)
shark150 folds.
AMalik folds.
suvratp folds.
lilstjean folds.
badandy78 folds.
acehigh131 folds.
KnightsPG calls (25)
andersonrl raises (50) to 100
DukeMa calls (50)
KnightsPG calls (50)
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 3d, 6s, 3h ]
KnightsPG checks.
andersonrl checks.
DukeMa bets (300)
KnightsPG folds.
andersonrl folds.
** Summary **
Main Pot: 600
Board: [ 3d 6s 3h ]
DukeMa balance 823, bet 400, collected 600, net +200
shark150 balance 570, didn't bet (folded)
AMalik balance 682, didn't bet (folded)
suvratp balance 1000, didn't bet (folded)
lilstjean balance 1560, didn't bet (folded)
badandy78 balance 835, didn't bet (folded)
acehigh131 balance 970, didn't bet (folded)
KnightsPG balance 340, lost 100 (folded)
andersonrl balance 1220, lost 100 (folded)

***** Hand History for Game 2380206978 *****
50/100 Tourney Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL) (Tournament 14022505) - Sun Jul 17 18:25:24 EDT 2005
Table Table 11207 (Real Money) -- Seat 10 is the button
Total number of players : 9
Seat 1: DukeMa (773)
Seat 2: shark150 (520)
Seat 3: AMalik (682)
Seat 4: suvratp (1000)
Seat 5: lilstjean (1510)
Seat 7: badandy78 (835)
Seat 8: acehigh131 (1145)
Seat 9: KnightsPG (340)
Seat 10: andersonrl (1195)
DukeMa posts small blind (25)
shark150 posts big blind (50)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to KnightsPG [ Kd, 8d ]
AMalik folds.
suvratp folds.
lilstjean folds.
badandy78 folds.
acehigh131 folds.
KnightsPG raises (340) to 340
KnightsPG is all-In.
andersonrl folds.
DukeMa folds.
shark150 folds.
Creating Main Pot with $415 with KnightsPG
** Summary **
Main Pot: 415
DukeMa balance 748, lost 25 (folded)
shark150 balance 470, lost 50 (folded)
AMalik balance 682, didn't bet (folded)
suvratp balance 1000, didn't bet (folded)
lilstjean balance 1510, didn't bet (folded)
badandy78 balance 835, didn't bet (folded)
acehigh131 balance 1145, didn't bet (folded)
KnightsPG balance 415, bet 340, collected 415, net +75
andersonrl balance 1195, didn't bet (folded)



***** Hand History for Game 2380226148 *****
100/200 Tourney Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL) (Tournament 14022505) - Sun Jul 17 18:28:41 EDT 2005
Table Table 11207 (Real Money) -- Seat 5 is the button
Total number of players : 7
Seat 2: shark150 (445)
Seat 3: AMalik (964)
Seat 4: suvratp (2321)
Seat 5: lilstjean (995)
Seat 7: badandy78 (735)
Seat 9: KnightsPG (1345)
Seat 10: andersonrl (1195)
badandy78 posts small blind (50)
KnightsPG posts big blind (100)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to KnightsPG [ 2c, 5c ]
andersonrl calls (100)
shark150 folds.
AMalik folds.
suvratp folds.
lilstjean calls (100)
badandy78 folds.
KnightsPG checks.
** Dealing Flop ** : [ Qh, Ks, Jh ]
KnightsPG checks.
andersonrl bets (100)
lilstjean calls (100)
KnightsPG folds.
** Dealing Turn ** : [ 5h ]
andersonrl bets (100)
lilstjean calls (100)
** Dealing River ** : [ 8h ]
andersonrl bets (895)
andersonrl is all-In.
lilstjean folds.
Creating Main Pot with $1645 with andersonrl
** Summary **
Main Pot: 1645
Board: [ Qh Ks Jh 5h 8h ]
shark150 balance 445, didn't bet (folded)
AMalik balance 964, didn't bet (folded)
suvratp balance 2321, didn't bet (folded)
lilstjean balance 695, lost 300 (folded)
badandy78 balance 685, lost 50 (folded)
KnightsPG balance 1245, lost 100 (folded)
andersonrl balance 1645, bet 1195, collected 1645, net +450

***** Hand History for Game 2380230854 *****
100/200 Tourney Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL) (Tournament 14022505) - Sun Jul 17 18:29:30 EDT 2005
Table Table 11207 (Real Money) -- Seat 7 is the button
Total number of players : 7
Seat 2: shark150 (445)
Seat 3: AMalik (964)
Seat 4: suvratp (2321)
Seat 5: lilstjean (695)
Seat 7: badandy78 (685)
Seat 9: KnightsPG (1245)
Seat 10: andersonrl (1645)
KnightsPG posts small blind (50)
andersonrl posts big blind (100)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to KnightsPG [ Ac, 6d ]
shark150 folds.
AMalik calls (100)
suvratp folds.
lilstjean folds.
badandy78 raises (685) to 685
badandy78 is all-In.
KnightsPG folds.
andersonrl folds.
AMalik calls (585)
Creating Main Pot with $1520 with badandy78
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 6c, 3c, 5s ]
** Dealing Turn ** : [ 3d ]
** Dealing River ** : [ 4s ]
** Summary **
Main Pot: 1520
Board: [ 6c 3c 5s 3d 4s ]
shark150 balance 445, didn't bet (folded)
AMalik balance 279, lost 685 [ Qs Ks ] [ a pair of threes -- Ks,Qs,6c,3c,3d ]
suvratp balance 2321, didn't bet (folded)
lilstjean balance 695, didn't bet (folded)
badandy78 balance 1520, bet 685, collected 1520, net +835 [ Ad Tc ] [ a pair of threes with ace kicker -- Ad,Tc,6c,3c,3dAd(kicker card) ]
KnightsPG balance 1195, lost 50 (folded)
andersonrl balance 1545, lost 100 (folded)

***** Hand History for Game 2380233365 *****
100/200 Tourney Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL) (Tournament 14022505) - Sun Jul 17 18:29:56 EDT 2005
Table Table 11207 (Real Money) -- Seat 9 is the button
Total number of players : 7
Seat 2: shark150 (445)
Seat 3: AMalik (279)
Seat 4: suvratp (2321)
Seat 5: lilstjean (695)
Seat 7: badandy78 (1520)
***** Hand History for Game 2380235575 *****
100/200 Tourney Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL) (Tournament 14022505) - Sun Jul 17 18:30:18 EDT 2005
Table Table 11207 (Real Money) -- Seat 10 is the button
Total number of players : 7
Seat 2: shark150 (345)
Seat 3: AMalik (708)
Seat 4: suvratp (2321)
Seat 5: lilstjean (416)
Seat 7: badandy78 (1520)
Seat 9: KnightsPG (1195)
Seat 10: andersonrl (1495)
shark150 posts small blind (50)
AMalik posts big blind (100)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to KnightsPG [ Ah, Qd ]
suvratp folds.
lilstjean folds.
badandy78 folds.
KnightsPG raises (1195) to 1195
KnightsPG is all-In.
andersonrl folds.
shark150 folds.
AMalik folds.
Creating Main Pot with $1345 with KnightsPG
** Summary **
Main Pot: 1345
shark150 balance 295, lost 50 (folded)
AMalik balance 608, lost 100 (folded)
suvratp balance 2321, didn't bet (folded)
lilstjean balance 416, didn't bet (folded)
badandy78 balance 1520, didn't bet (folded)
KnightsPG balance 1345, bet 1195, collected 1345, net +150
andersonrl balance 1495, didn't bet (folded)

***** Hand History for Game 2380245104 *****
150/300 Tourney Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL) (Tournament 14022505) - Sun Jul 17 18:31:59 EDT 2005
Table Table 11207 (Real Money) -- Seat 7 is the button
Total number of players : 5
Seat 3: AMalik (558)
Seat 4: suvratp (2171)
Seat 7: badandy78 (2281)
Seat 9: KnightsPG (1345)
Seat 10: andersonrl (1645)
KnightsPG posts small blind (75)
andersonrl posts big blind (150)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to KnightsPG [ Ks, Qd ]
AMalik raises (558) to 558
AMalik is all-In.
suvratp folds.
badandy78 folds.
KnightsPG calls (483)
andersonrl folds.
Creating Main Pot with $1266 with AMalik
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 3c, 6d, 2s ]
** Dealing Turn ** : [ 5s ]
** Dealing River ** : [ 7h ]
** Summary **
Main Pot: 1266
Board: [ 3c 6d 2s 5s 7h ]
AMalik balance 1266, bet 558, collected 1266, net +708 [ 6h As ] [ a pair of sixes -- As,7h,6h,6d,5s ]
suvratp balance 2171, didn't bet (folded)
badandy78 balance 2281, didn't bet (folded)
KnightsPG balance 787, lost 558 [ Ks Qd ] [ high card king -- Ks,Qd,7h,6d,5s ]
andersonrl balance 1495, lost 150 (folded)


***** Hand History for Game 2380255015 *****
150/300 Tourney Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL) (Tournament 14022505) - Sun Jul 17 18:33:42 EDT 2005
Table Table 11207 (Real Money) -- Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players : 5
Seat 3: AMalik (966)
Seat 4: suvratp (2321)
Seat 7: badandy78 (2281)
Seat 9: KnightsPG (787)
Seat 10: andersonrl (1645)
suvratp posts small blind (75)
badandy78 posts big blind (150)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to KnightsPG [ As, 6h ]
KnightsPG raises (787) to 787
KnightsPG is all-In.
andersonrl folds.
AMalik folds.
suvratp calls (712)
badandy78 folds.
Creating Main Pot with $1724 with KnightsPG
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 9c, 9h, Js ]
** Dealing Turn ** : [ 8h ]
** Dealing River ** : [ 3s ]
** Summary **
Main Pot: 1724
Board: [ 9c 9h Js 8h 3s ]
AMalik balance 966, didn't bet (folded)
suvratp balance 1534, lost 787 [ Kc Qd ] [ a pair of nines -- Kc,Qd,Js,9c,9h ]
badandy78 balance 2131, lost 150 (folded)
KnightsPG balance 1724, bet 787, collected 1724, net +937 [ As 6h ] [ a pair of nines with ace kicker -- As,Js,9c,9h,8hAs(kicker card) ]
andersonrl balance 1645, didn't bet (folded)

***** Hand History for Game 2380260562 *****
150/300 Tourney Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL) (Tournament 14022505) - Sun Jul 17 18:34:42 EDT 2005
Table Table 11207 (Real Money) -- Seat 7 is the button
Total number of players : 5
Seat 3: AMalik (966)
Seat 4: suvratp (1534)
Seat 7: badandy78 (2056)
Seat 9: KnightsPG (1574)
Seat 10: andersonrl (1870)
KnightsPG posts small blind (75)
andersonrl posts big blind (150)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to KnightsPG [ As, 8h ]
AMalik calls (150)
suvratp raises (1534) to 1534
suvratp is all-In.
badandy78 folds.
KnightsPG folds.
andersonrl folds.
suvratp: gg
AMalik folds.
Creating Main Pot with $1909 with suvratp
** Summary **
Main Pot: 1909
AMalik balance 816, lost 150 (folded)
suvratp balance 1909, bet 1534, collected 1909, net +375 [ Ks Qc ] [ high card king -- Ks,Qc ]
badandy78 balance 2056, didn't bet (folded)
KnightsPG balance 1499, lost 75 (folded)
andersonrl balance 1720, lost 150 (folded)

***** Hand History for Game 2380271027 *****
150/300 Tourney Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL) (Tournament 14022505) - Sun Jul 17 18:36:33 EDT 2005
Table Table 11207 (Real Money) -- Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players : 5
Seat 3: AMalik (816)
Seat 4: suvratp (1759)
Seat 7: badandy78 (2056)
Seat 9: KnightsPG (1499)
Seat 10: andersonrl (1870)
suvratp posts small blind (75)
badandy78 posts big blind (150)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to KnightsPG [ Ah, 3s ]
KnightsPG folds.
andersonrl folds.
AMalik raises (816) to 816
AMalik is all-In.
suvratp folds.
badandy78 folds.
Creating Main Pot with $1041 with AMalik
** Summary **
Main Pot: 1041
AMalik balance 1041, bet 816, collected 1041, net +225
suvratp balance 1684, lost 75 (folded)
badandy78 balance 1906, lost 150 (folded)
KnightsPG balance 1499, didn't bet (folded)
andersonrl balance 1870, didn't bet (folded)

***** Hand History for Game 2380280103 *****
200/400 Tourney Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL) (Tournament 14022505) - Sun Jul 17 18:38:10 EDT 2005
Table Table 11207 (Real Money) -- Seat 10 is the button
Total number of players : 5
Seat 3: AMalik (1041)
Seat 4: suvratp (1684)
Seat 7: badandy78 (1831)
Seat 9: KnightsPG (1474)
Seat 10: andersonrl (1970)
AMalik posts small blind (100)
suvratp posts big blind (200)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to KnightsPG [ Js, Ts ]
badandy78 folds.
KnightsPG raises (500) to 500
andersonrl folds.
AMalik folds.
suvratp raises (1484) to 1684
suvratp is all-In.
KnightsPG folds.
Creating Main Pot with $2284 with suvratp
** Summary **
Main Pot: 2284
AMalik balance 941, lost 100 (folded)
suvratp balance 2284, bet 1684, collected 2284, net +600 [ Jh Jc ] [ a pair of jacks -- Jh,Jc ]
badandy78 balance 1831, didn't bet (folded)
KnightsPG balance 974, lost 500 (folded)
andersonrl balance 1970, didn't bet (folded)


***** Hand History for Game 2380294279 *****
200/400 Tourney Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL) (Tournament 14022505) - Sun Jul 17 18:40:44 EDT 2005
Table Table 11207 (Real Money) -- Seat 9 is the button
Total number of players : 5
Seat 3: AMalik (1241)
Seat 4: suvratp (2084)
Seat 7: badandy78 (2231)
Seat 9: KnightsPG (674)
Seat 10: andersonrl (1770)
andersonrl posts small blind (100)
AMalik posts big blind (200)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to KnightsPG [ As, 4s ]
suvratp folds.
badandy78 folds.
KnightsPG raises (674) to 674
KnightsPG is all-In.
andersonrl folds.
AMalik folds.
Creating Main Pot with $974 with KnightsPG
** Summary **
Main Pot: 974
AMalik balance 1041, lost 200 (folded)
suvratp balance 2084, didn't bet (folded)
badandy78 balance 2231, didn't bet (folded)
KnightsPG balance 974, bet 674, collected 974, net +300
andersonrl balance 1670, lost 100 (folded)

***** Hand History for Game 2380303107 *****
300/600 Tourney Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL) (Tournament 14022505) - Sun Jul 17 18:42:17 EDT 2005
Table Table 11207 (Real Money) -- Seat 7 is the button
Total number of players : 5
Seat 3: AMalik (1141)
Seat 4: suvratp (2184)
Seat 7: badandy78 (2231)
Seat 9: KnightsPG (774)
Seat 10: andersonrl (1670)
KnightsPG posts small blind (150)
andersonrl posts big blind (300)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to KnightsPG [ 2c, Kc ]
AMalik folds.
suvratp folds.
badandy78 folds.
KnightsPG raises (624) to 774
KnightsPG is all-In.
andersonrl folds.
Creating Main Pot with $1074 with KnightsPG
** Summary **
Main Pot: 1074
AMalik balance 1141, didn't bet (folded)
suvratp balance 2184, didn't bet (folded)
badandy78 balance 2231, didn't bet (folded)
KnightsPG balance 1074, bet 774, collected 1074, net +300
andersonrl balance 1370, lost 300 (folded)

***** Hand History for Game 2380305010 *****
300/600 Tourney Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL) (Tournament 14022505) - Sun Jul 17 18:42:37 EDT 2005
Table Table 11207 (Real Money) -- Seat 9 is the button
Total number of players : 5
Seat 3: AMalik (1141)
Seat 4: suvratp (2184)
Seat 7: badandy78 (2231)
Seat 9: KnightsPG (1074)
Seat 10: andersonrl (1370)
andersonrl posts small blind (150)
AMalik posts big blind (300)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to KnightsPG [ 6h, Ad ]
suvratp raises (884) to 884
badandy78 folds.
KnightsPG folds.
andersonrl folds.
AMalik folds.
** Summary **
Main Pot: 1334
AMalik balance 841, lost 300 (folded)
suvratp balance 2634, bet 884, collected 1334, net +450 [ Ks Qh ] [ high card king -- Ks,Qh ]
badandy78 balance 2231, didn't bet (folded)
KnightsPG balance 1074, didn't bet (folded)
andersonrl balance 1220, lost 150 (folded)

***** Hand History for Game 2380307873 *****
300/600 Tourney Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL) (Tournament 14022505) - Sun Jul 17 18:43:07 EDT 2005
Table Table 11207 (Real Money) -- Seat 10 is the button
Total number of players : 5
Seat 3: AMalik (841)
Seat 4: suvratp (2634)
Seat 7: badandy78 (2231)
Seat 9: KnightsPG (1074)
Seat 10: andersonrl (1220)
AMalik posts small blind (150)
suvratp posts big blind (300)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to KnightsPG [ Kh, Jh ]
badandy78 folds.
KnightsPG raises (1074) to 1074
KnightsPG is all-In.
andersonrl folds.
AMalik calls (691)
AMalik is all-In.
suvratp calls (774)
Creating Main Pot with $2523 with AMalik
Creating Side Pot 1 with $466 with KnightsPG
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 4s, Jd, 6h ]
** Dealing Turn ** : [ 6s ]
** Dealing River ** : [ 9s ]
** Summary **
Main Pot: 2523 Side Pot 1: 466
Board: [ 4s Jd 6h 6s 9s ]
AMalik balance 2523, bet 841, collected 2523, net +1682 [ 4c 4d ] [ a full house, Fours full of sixes -- 6h,6s,4c,4d,4s ]
suvratp balance 1560, lost 1074 [ Ah 7c ] [ a pair of sixes -- Ah,Jd,9s,6h,6s ]
badandy78 balance 2231, didn't bet (folded)
KnightsPG balance 466, bet 1074, collected 466, lost -608 [ Kh Jh ] [ two pairs, jacks and sixes -- Kh,Jh,Jd,6h,6s ]
andersonrl balance 1220, didn't bet (folded)

***** Hand History for Game 2380315125 *****
300/600 Tourney Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL) (Tournament 14022505) - Sun Jul 17 18:44:23 EDT 2005
Table Table 11207 (Real Money) -- Seat 4 is the button
Total number of players : 5
Seat 3: AMalik (1823)
Seat 4: suvratp (1410)
Seat 7: badandy78 (3081)
Seat 9: KnightsPG (466)
Seat 10: andersonrl (1220)
badandy78 posts small blind (150)
KnightsPG posts big blind (300)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to KnightsPG [ As, Tc ]
andersonrl folds.
AMalik folds.
suvratp raises (600) to 600
badandy78 folds.
KnightsPG calls (166)
KnightsPG is all-In.
Creating Main Pot with $1082 with KnightsPG
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 9c, Kd, Jh ]
** Dealing Turn ** : [ 9h ]
** Dealing River ** : [ 4c ]
** Summary **
Main Pot: 1082 Side Pot 1: 134
Board: [ 9c Kd Jh 9h 4c ]
AMalik balance 1823, didn't bet (folded)
suvratp balance 2026, bet 600, collected 1216, net +616 [ Jd Ks ] [ two pairs, kings and jacks -- Ks,Kd,Jd,Jh,9c ]
badandy78 balance 2931, lost 150 (folded)
KnightsPG balance 0, lost 466 [ As Tc ] [ a pair of nines -- As,Kd,Jh,9c,9h ]
andersonrl balance 1220, didn't bet (folded)