Dancing a Jig

I said if I ever hit $1000 from my $80 bucks I left on my account I would be dancin a jig. Well it took like a year to get nowhere and then came RUSH POKER!!!!! I remember when I switched to HU SnGs and had my last $20 in a tournament. I ran that up to $750 and back down. Up slow and down fast. Titling into the higher stakes. Well a week ago I was down to like $150ish when I started RUSH. I cant tell you how many hands I have played this week but I didnt spend a ridiculous amount of time on it. But its so damn fun that I probably had my heaviest online playing week in a year and a half. Anyway Im stoked. I dont even know why really. I guess because I started with $1000 from my friend who wanted half my wins and took all the loss. I ran his money down to $300 and then up to over 3K. It took forever and I woulda done better working in an indian sweat shop but since I like to play it was gravy. I made him $1150 when he bought out and then I lost my $1150 down to $880. I couldnt bear to let him win and me go broke so i took $800 out. Now Im back up to my original bankroll again. Sure I may lose it all. that Rush poker is highly volitale and if you go on tilt you can dump 10 buyins quick. Anyway yeeehaa.

Rush Poker is the New Crack

Holy Donkey Balls. I just had the greatest suck out of my career. I was playing .25/.50 NL on the new Rush Poker game on Full Tilt. I raise two limpers from the button with AQ and the small blind calls and the other two call. So the pot is like 11 bucks and the flop is QJ3 with two hearts. The small blind leads out for $5 and the guy in the cut off just calls. I hope the small is on the flush draw looking to see the next card cheap and i hope the smooth caller has a draw or KQ. So Raise it to 30ish leaving me about 30ish. The both push. I snap call because I got so much already in. Im against a set of Queens and a set of 3s. The turn is a heart and I have the Ace of hearts. You know the rest of the story. Cha ching. Nice little $185 dollar pot. I have been running very crappy on this Rush poker. Im still up. Mostly on being aggressive as hell and picking good spots to bluff. Im slightly above even with aces over 2400 hands and Im down with Kings. Im appropriately up with QQ and JJ. I DO HOWEVER LOVE RUSH POKER!!!!!! Getting to turbo fold and move to another table for another hand instantly is so sweet. I have been playing 2 tables and it probably the equivalent of multi tabling 8 tables. There are a lot of grinders. Its actually turning the loose passive people into tight players because they can just fold and move to the next hand. Its not the blind stealing contest you would think though. Seems like a lot of willing callers. I have done very well floating the first bet in position and bluffing the turn. I have basically played loose aggressive and have swung all over the place but have steadily moved up until that last suck out that launched me up to $580 bankroll. I was at like $140 when I started playing Rush. I also find that when I get a bad beat and get angry I actually play tighter which is the opposite in my normal tilt mode. I just get mad and fold until i pick up a really good starting hand. Not sitting there giving my self an excuse to do something stupid while Im waiting to fold is a big help when Im tilting. Plus my rake back is rolling in like never before. I havent had a $50 rake back payment in probably a year and Im sure I will have that this next payment. Im not playing that much more time wise but Im playing so many more hands.

On the live front I got clobbered the other night by the son of a bitch James (who is really the nicest guy you'll ever meet). Coolered to hell. Mostly in two hands. He raised preflop and flopped a flush when I flopped two pair. The last hand He and another guy in the pot I raise with a flush draw and they both raise behind me. So I finally decide to gamble my last $110. The first all in guy showed us a card so I knew he had a set and I knew James didnt put in the 2nd raise with a flush draw. So after its all exposed Im the only flush draw and i hit it on the turn. James had Js and 9s and the other guy had a set of 6s. Fucking J on the river. James wins a huge pot and the set flopper is none to freaking happy and Im plenty pissed to. How the fuck is the board gonna pair. They had all the damn cards in the hole. I decided to leave cause I was gonna lose the next $200 in about 12 minutes as annoyed as I was.

Trip From Hell

I played in the $550 tournament on Saturday at the Beau Rivage. My first hand I played I had J10 and limped in last position. No one bet the flop or turn with a jack high board. I bet the turn and got called. Then a raggedy 4 hits the river and the caller bets into me. I call. He had J4. Why not. I played JJ pretty strong and had to fold to a guy who claimed later he flopped a wheel. I thought it was a set. I played about 7 more pots and won none of them. I flopped two pair once and got counterfeited on the river to have to split the pot. I went down from $8000 to $1700. Then I hit a set and went up to like $4000. I made it back to $6000ish when I had to switch tables. Then my soon to be ex wife calls me. She wanted to know if I was going to be somewhere that night so we wouldnt run into each other and I said no and then she said she needed to talk to me in the next coupla days. Not to fill you in on the details but any contact with her is traumatic and her needing to talk to me about something but not telling me what is cause for concern. So I sit at my new table and all I can think about is wtf could it be. Maybe she's pregnant. Maybe she is moving to Nevada to be a hooker. Maybe she has cancer. Whatever. This is going through my head. Somewhere in there I raised a coupla pots and won them preflop. Then I caught 55 UTG. I shoulda mucked. Someone raises to $800 and I call. The flop is J87 with 2 clubs. I check. He checks behind. Turn is nothing. I check. He bets $1500. Without very much good thought I decide he is on AK and trying to buy it now. I never even looked at him. I raise most of my chips and he puts the rest of me in. He had AA. I woulda thought with an over pair he woulda bet the flop. I guess he put me on a middle pair and didnt want to be up against a set so he checked and when I didnt bet the turn he knew. Oh well. Never answer your soon to be ex-wifes call during a tournament. The rest of the weekend was more losing. I lost most of my cash game money by flopping top pair top kicker and my opponent catching a set on the turn again. That accounts for most of my loses in the last 2 months. Also there was a fire alarm and they evacuated the hotel at 3am but didnt alert the casino people. So all our wives and girlfriends and kids and whatever were shipped outside in the cold while we played casino games. We started getting texts about it and no one got up from the table to go see what the deal was. I paid for that little fau paus later but I wont talk about it. Lets just say when Im gambling expect me to err on the side of being self centered. Its not personal. Its just being a degenerate who is stuck $300. Then the next morning I dumped like $300 into the slots on the way outta town. Genius. My girl friend was up $400 in the first hour on slots but was down $200 with 4 hours. We really tore that casino up good. Never up on any table or machine at anytime. I realize that Im a better tournament player than cash player. I play tight aggressive in tournaments but I play mostly loose passive at the cash table these days. I gotta change that. At least I need to play loose aggressive. I need to start experimenting with taking big stabs at pots when the time is right. I guess it just seems like everytime I stick my neck out on a bluff I get my head chopped off. Gun shy lately. So anyway Im looking forward to playing again soon. I may play Sunday at Harrahs.

Friendly Poker in the South and Biloxi on the Horizon

Well 2010 has been like the food at Hooters. Ok tasting and fun. I've yo yo'd online but nothing new there. I played Monday night in the 29 person Loveshack tournament. I really just basically blinded down (with a few small lost pots) to 3 big blinds and then won two pots and was up to 9 big blinds which at that point was almost double the starting chips. Then I picked up AJ on the button with no limpers and went hidee-ho allin and Loveshack Dave called me with pocket 5's. You think I can beat Dave in a coin flip??? Hell no. I have to be very much behind to beat Dave in an allin. So at least I was the cash game bubble. Dave would go on to take it down. Bought in for a meager $120. With Cowboy Billy in the game I wanted to just pick a spot to play and not have him take me off my hand. But I never found that spot to play. I saw some flops and dropped down to about $70. I was on the button with QJ and I decided to make a raise. I didnt notice the UTG limper only had $19 and was looking to play for it all. I made it $14 and the luck box calling station old crazy ass Bob called and UTG puts in his $17 more. The flop is K,10,rag and Bob bets out $10 into the $57 pot. I dont wanna just call here. I figure Bob can fold his pair for $41 more so I shove. Bob sitting there with 10,9 makes a crying call. He thought he had sucked out when the 9 hit the river. Yatzee. A while later Bob raises a limped pot from one of the blinds to $12 and everyone calls including me with 3's. Flop is 9,8,3 with two clubs. Bob leads out for $30 into like a $90 pot. All fold up to me and I pull out my $30 and sorta look like Im thinking about just calling or raising and I just shove. I think I had maybe $95 more. Bob calls. He claimed two pair but I never saw his cards. My set held up and now Im sitting with around $350ish. I dont think I played another significant pot the rest of the night. I never had a raising hand again. Actually I never had a raising hand period. I may have drug a little pot or two but I dont recall. The most memorable hand of the night was when Cowboy Billy goaded Bob into playing for like $300 against Billy's KK and Bob's 99. Bob got up and told Billy that he was a little man with a sad life and that he was happy for him because he needs the money and was a thousandaire who could piss on $300 and he would take on all comers. All the while Billy is laughing his ass off. Some english guy (like he was from England) remarked that he thought it was a friendly game. I said friendly means no firearms at the table but maybe a few in the trucks. When I left I was up $200 in the cash game. Doesnt cover my last loss but Im starting the new year fresh. Im 1-0 in 2010 and I split the college bowl pickem I was in. Im going to Biloxi this weekend and playing in the Saturday 12pm No Limit tournament. Hopefully I will not get to play the nightly for $200 because Im still live in the nooner. I hope the roads arent to f'd up Saturday morning. Look out Mississippi, the Sofa King has some funds to dump in your establishment. I love Biloxi. I could say something to jinx myself here but I wont.