Elonian Nomad - 3rd Strike

Before I retire for the night (morning?), I just want to mention that today was a Jack day. I lost a lot at Triplejack.com today due to a lot of weak plays. I lost a lot, and I lost bad. After (or while) doing some website related research, I basically worked on getting it all back, and it was very difficult.

Just as night was ending for me, I was getting some of my groove back, and I noticed that the Jacks were the hands that were helping me. I still had a ways to go to break even when I chanced upon pocket Jacks, and people started with their all-in frenzies. I was the stack leader, so I decided “what the hell”, and joined the bandwagon.

It turned out to be the most profitable Triplejack.com hand so far! Monster pot given the buy-in and blinds! As usual, I was too excited to get a screen shot, but the record is in my stats.

There, I let it out already. Now I can sleep.

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I couldn’t sleep well this morning ‘coz of some ideas swimmin’ in my head, so I decided to surf a bit to wear myself down. I ran into this while surfing. Apparently Pacific Poker Palace Philippines (ACF Poker?) is hosting some Hold’em games (limit and no-limit) at Casino Filipino’s Airport Casino. Since I don’t even play cash games, I don’t have much of a shot in tournaments, unless the buy-in is really really low that I’m willing to part with the money for the experience.

Well, it just so happened that that was gonna be a FREE No-Limit Hold’em Tournament today! Given that I had nothin’ to lose (it said it was free), I went there to check it out.

There were some schedule changes, but the free No-Limit Hold’em Tournament pushed through at 14:00 today. Yes, it really was free, but only the top winner would get something (P20k). I registered and had my first real-live poker games.

I was doing pretty well in the first table I was placed it, I ended-up being the chip-leader until we were distributed to other tables. The blinds increased every 15 minutes, so my early chip lead became just average in the second table, and I became short stack in the third table. It was bad enough that I was short-stacked and the blinds were gonna eat me up, but the quality of players went up too (and them having huge stacks gave them a lot of advantage).

I could probably have stayed around longer, but I was already getting outclassed, and the stacks of the chip-leaders in the third table just ate me up. The deciding hand was my losing a two-pair to a straight. I normally wouldn’t try fighting such an obvious straight with a two pair but I was getting desperate to improve my stack due to the blinds that I decided to charge ahead. I lost, and that effectively ended the tourney for me (I lost everything on the next hand’s big-blind).

Before I left the building, I checked how far I got. Out of 12 tables, only around 4 were left, so I guess I got in above 50% of all players. I wasn’t really expecting to win, so I’m pretty happy that I wasn’t one of the bottom 10%.

Tomorrow (Thursday, 2006.12/14, 14:00) and on 2006.12/13 (Saturday, 18:00) will be 2 other Free No-Limit Hold’em games. On on 2006.12/22 (Friday, 18:00) will be a Free Limit Hold’em game. Registration is 2 hours before the tournament starts. I dunno if I can make it to any of the No-Limit games, but we’ll see.

Free tourneys where you can actually win money don’t come often, you know. Check it out!

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I’ve suffered my biggest bad beat so far, I lost around 75% of my Full Tilt bankroll yesterday and today, most of it today. I was playing a badly this morning, and a headache due to the weather didn’t help. I started deviating from my game-plan left and right, seeing opportunities when odds were against me. I guess I wanted to learn to play aggressively I forced myself into bad situations.

I went on tilt, and started playing even worse. I was thinking my open mindedness would show me big opportunities, it instead made me blind on the reality of my odds.

Earlier tonight, I got myself into a table where I decided to try and backtrack my play. I started winning big pots again, and I mentioned to a player who congratulated me that I was still trying to recover from my tilt. She said maybe she’d be my lucky charm, and so far she was, but I still had around 50% of my bankroll to recover.

Then she mentioned something that shoved me back in reality, she said she lost 3 million in just two hands before. Compared to that, my losses were a pittance.

I started playing better, and I actually got a some of my best and most challenging wins during that session. Another player mentioned that we had a good table right there, and I had to agree. The competition was tough, but everyone was supportive regardless if they won or lost. We just had a lot of serious poker fun.

My luck ran out eventually, and my last hand culminated in my losing what I gained from my good run as well as my buy-in (placing me where I am now, at around 75% of my bankroll when the weekend started). Even so, I don’t feel bad. I played with great players, I played great hands, and when you think about it, all I lost is play-money.

I’m glad I ran into that bunch. I know I’ll get that bankroll back, I’ve rebuilt my bankroll from scratch several times already, and each time it’s always better than the last.

I post about this experience now to preserve it, to preserve the bad beat, and to preserve the knowledge that… well… it happens, and that I know that I will bounce back from this eventually.

Those peeps at the table don’t know me, and they’ll probably never be able to read this post. Regardless, they made my poker day.

Thanks guys.

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I got my first quads today at Triplejack. My hand being A3 off-suit, I was pissed at the pre-flop “all-in guys” dominating the board, so I decided to take a shot. It ended up with an Aces over King quad! I was so caught off-guard that I wasn’t able to take a screen-shot, but it’s recorded in my Triplejack stats.

Given the luck, I used the opportunity to practice using a large stack. It’s quite risky, but I managed to take a bunch of people off the board, but I still need to practice using the stack. In the end, I did lose 1k from that particular session’s high, but I still gained 3k profit, which is pretty good for me.

I wonder if the day will come when 3k profits are more the norm than the exception for me…?

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I’ve been reading some stuff about the odds involved in poker, and took interest in the probabilities for straight and flush draws. I’ve since wanted to try out how knowing the odds would work for me. I found it a bit funny that I learned to use those odds with suited connectors and straight/flush/gut-shot draws in my game from Puzzle Pirates.

I got myself a Parlor Badge (so I can play the poker parlor game any time of the week) then I tried it out. I created a table and set the blinds and buy-in tot he cheapest so I could squeeze in a lot of rounds (it’s a bit common). One of the guys who went is was quite good, very aggressive. I had to re-buy like 5 or 6 times, then I just left the table, his stack was too high and he knew how to use it too well I couldn’t take him on. Perhaps if there were more of us, I could do it, but heads-up, no. I’m not ready for heads-up.

I joined another table where there were more pirates, and I managed to get my groove there. I got a feel on how the players played, and when I got comfy and had a stack going, I started trying stuff out. I tried playing actively more draws and connectors, and managed to get a few key pots using that strategy.

It really does add a lot of options in the hands you can play. However, that kind of play takes a bit of courage as often you’ll often have to get to the river to see if you got anything (and you often don’t), and getting to the river can be very expensive. If you know your odds and have a good betting strategy, you’ll be surprised how many monster pots you can steal from over-pairs.

Being a generally tight player, this helped round me up a bit more, giving me options other than the standard pairs and trips game. It also helped me look at the board more closely for possibilities. Perhaps with more practice, I can learn the correct odds given various hands and it may end up boosting my play (I hope so).

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Nothin’ much happened today for me, woke up quite early ‘coz of the headache. Couldn’t get back to sleep. Lost a lot in Full Tilt. Watched GI Joe: Sigma 6 while eating lunch (in the episode I watched, the voice actors changed, for the worse IMHO). Slept almost all of the afternoon. Ate dinner, managed to recover my big loss, and now wind down. I wanted to do a bit more, but I was just a bit beat from the weather. Well, the sleep did me good.

The strange thing was that I dreamt of pastries. I was at a resto with my SO and we ordered pastries. We had this sort of fruity creamy thing with a lot of clear stuff on top, which I particularly liked. People who know me know that I’m not a pastry/sweets guy, so this was kinda weird. Anyway, maybe it’s a sign, so I might go looking for some sweets or dessert tomorrow.

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I lost an all-in this afternoon ‘coz I was so confident with my cards I got blind to the straight that was in front of me. I managed to regain what I lost somewhat, but it made me feel bad to be so blind. I was considering sleeping it over, but an itch made me go for a few rounds. Fate was nice enough to present me with a hand to sort of “even things out” for the day.

By the turn of this particular hand I had a reasonable chance to get an Ace high flush. Any spade would have given me the nuts. A player gave a high bet. From experience I’m not very lucky with straight or flush draws, so I was very nervous to call (in retrospect, perhaps I should have raised, but I really am unlucky with straight and flush draws). After a few tense seconds, I decided to let fate decide. Either I had the nuts or I didn’t, no backup outs in my hand.

Fate decided to give me a 4 spade. I got the Ace high flush, and unless someone had a full house (which I doubted), this hand was mine. I was fortunate enough to have been fighting against both a straight and a flush (King high even!)! Moreover, since they both had great hands (particularly the King high flush), they both pushed all-in!

It’s not a monster pot, but it’s a reasonably sized one for me, and having toughed it out with against such tight competition made my night.

www.darthvid.com

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