Just this afternoon, I plunked down my credit card and joined the Poker Player Alliance. I hope anyone who reads this will consider doing the same. It is theoretical that if the bill that passed the House passes in the Senate ISPs will be required to block access to online poker sites that are located *outside* of the US. If it gets treated like the Washington state law then even linking to this blog, or Mookie’s, or Dr. Pauly’s, or the Blogfather himself would have to be blocked. And that is just flat-out scary.

I golfed Tuesday morning. 7:07 tee-time. Ouch. Yeah, especially since we were having a going away party for my good friend Jenny and I was pretty drunk at 1:30. And yes, I did walk all 18. And next week’s tee-time is 6:37. Yeah.

Time Warner came by with a couple of guys on Tuesday and fixed the cable running across the street. I still have internet and it does not even look like I am stealing it. Nice.

A bit of variance in my SnGs over the last two weeks. But I have 5 cashes in a row now in the so-called 6 Packs (6 x $12+1). My bankroll is getting close enough to begin the move up to the $20 games. This will make three jumps to that level. The first two didn’t go so well. Third time is the charm, right?

I am going on a trip in August (I can’t exactly call it a vacation since it is with family- and I have to bring my work laptop “just in case”). I am looking for reading recomendations. I am familiar with most of the poker books published, so I am more interested in other genres. Fiction or non-fiction does not matter to me.

I swear that is not why the cable is run across the street in front of my house.

I don’t even want to talk about my poker game… I am hoping to turn around a really bad run this weekend.

My cable modem was not working last night (or this morning for that matter) so I missed donating in the DADI event. My only contact with poker was finishing Matt Matros’s book _The Making Of A Poker Player: How An Ivy League Math Geek Learned To Play Championship Poker_ which is a hell of a long title, but it was not a hugely long book. Here is my review:

Matt is, by most measures, a successful person. His poker winnings are substantial so he has a lot to say. The book really doesn’t know what target audience it is supposed to have. Early in the book, it is very entry level- like every book dealing with poker now it seems to take too long to explain the rules of the game. I say “too long” because later, he goes into game theory, expected value, pot odds, cash strategy vs. tournament strategy, and several other fairly advanced topics.

What I liked: It was a pleasant read, the words flowed easy, and Matt does not put himself on a pedestal. He lets you know what worked for him, and why he thinks it worked, but never claims it is the best way.

What I didn’t like: Repeating what I said above, there does not seem to be a consistent target audience. Either make it a story of a kid who does really well, or a story of how a player takes playing quarter poker into crushing a 10/20 limit game. Parts of this book seemed to wind around a lot. It flowed, just in a meander sort of way. There is a prolog explaining his 3rd place cash in a WPT event which does not have that problem- so his writing is improving just as his poker is.

Overall: I give it a solid 7 of 10.

Mookie always puts on a good event- tonight should prove to be no exception with 57 players. I believe that is anew record. Things went well for me in the beginning when I flopped top two against xkm1245. A short time I flopped a straight with TJ against mowenumdown and took the outright chiplead. Then three hands of infammy. AA against J3s. jjok hit is flush on the turn. Next hand (no really, the next one dealt): TT against smokkee with a scary QQ2 board. I folded to his all-in. KK in the next hand dealt against rons2112’s 77. 7 on the river. I am down to 1K in chips in exactly 3 hands dealt. Meanwhile in a 6-pack SnG I get KK and get it all in against TT. Ten on the flop and I am out 5th. The suckouts are fierce and dangerous tonight.

Well, I made it past the first break, barely.  My night ended when my QTs ran up against AJs.  I flopped the 4 flush, but it never got there and I am out 31st.  Bummer ending for being chip leader not 20 minutes earlier.

Another bust out in 5th from a SnG and poker is done for the night.

I made a decent run in the WWdN event tonight. I ended up 15th when my TT ran into AA, picked up a straight draw on the turn, but my 6 outer didn’t hit. I struggled from the back of the pack the entire way and felt like I got timely cards a few times and just played solid poker to survive as long as I did. I’ll be back. These are really tough events with very solid players and I enjoy the competition for a mere $11. Tough spot of the night: I had a player sitting out the entire event to my left. Normally perfect for picking up free blinds, but the average player in WWdN never let me. Hard to call a 3X raise with 25o in the small blind.

I played a very cool 6-top SnG on Monday. I stayed out of the way and kept starting stack size until the blinds got to 50/100. Play tighted up huge. Then I pushed, and pushed, and pushed. The players got tight and I got paid. When we got to the bubble the two very similar small stacks got it in and an ace high won. I had a 5-4 chip lead, but two hands later, a raise with 99, a nine on the flop, and a timely check-raise takes the whole thing down. I think I played my absolute best SnG and got rewarded for it. Nice feeling after the trash run I had a few weeks back.

Mavs lost. Again. 4 in a row. Dwane Wade is a stud. That is all.

I switched to watching Madagascar on HBO, much better entertainment.I was going to spend a bunch of time and words bitching out Washington State for their short-sighted, ill-advised move to block online poker and, as it turns out, writting about online poker, but it seems everyone else is. I used to live outside Seattle and it always seemed to be a rational, if a bit liberal place. Oregon and California were always the states doing invasive legislation, not Washington. I know that this bill is going to protect the children, but it is some of the dumbest crap I have heard come out of a politicial since I heard the word “nuke-yoo-ler”. Legalize-Tax-Profit. How hard is that?

Off to bed now. I want to run in the morning before it gets too hot.

This is my new blog home, so far so good.

I was able to import all of my old blogger posts and comments (very nice) and I have a lot more customization options here- plus I have direct FTP access to the server.  What I really want though is uptime.

Played two 6x12s yesterday.  Bluffed 22 into a AAK flop and a calling station.  Called with K9 (of course).  Then actually made it to the money on the 2nd one.  Scary.  I forgot what making money feels like.

Also played in the WWdN:Not.  Bumped mid-field when Waffles called two all-ins with 86s.  I had 77 and it would have heald until he hit his 8 on the river.  To be fair, I was only an 80% to win or so because he had 4 flush on the flop.  Still sucks.

I have been running bad the last week. Not just bad. But *really* bad. I bombed out of two SnGs on Thursday so I dropped to the 6x12s which have treated me pretty well. Not so fast, my friend.

These are the last three bust outs. A combination of bad timing and bad luck:
Bubble time. AKo against Ah7h. Flop is two hearts, Ace on the turn. Money goes in. Heart on the river. Busted.

5 left. Short stack. All of my money in against two people with AQo. Both of them have A-10. Looking good to tripple up here. 10 on the river to bust me.

Bubble time. 9-10 on the SB, limped. Flop is 9-Q-10. Money goes in. Two pair pretty solid against Q-8. J on the river.

I’ll have to look at PokerTracker, but I think this is 12 SnGs with no cashes. I have lost well over 20% of my bankroll on Stars during that time. Everytime I think I am having a good event (getting people to push their flush into my full house for example), I end up getting blanked late.

It may be time to step back for awhile, do some reading, maybe some meditation, kick the neighbors dog, anything but play cards…

I think I played with 3 of the slowest players on PokerStars last night. It was a standard $20 SnG. As an aside: these take a *lot* longer to fill than the $10 or $15 ones, that is going to suck as I try and move up buy-in levels. Every. Single. Time. These. Players. Waited. Until. 15 Seconds. To. Act. Basically it sucked. I tried searching to see if they were multi-table masters and this table was getting divided attention- but nope, just the one SnG. PS blinds already climb pretty quickly, and adding near a minute to each hand just gets it to crap shoot levels. I ended up bubbling after losing a race and getting severely short-stacked- but when it is four handed and the blinds are already $200/$400, it does not matter much. Oh well.

I am actually doing quite well in my personal SnG series. I won a $20 on Sunday, and moved much closer to the next level.

As I mentioned above, I might need to move to another site with more players at the 20-30-50 levels because Stars just does not have the saturation of players at that level. That probably means Party, but I have not really done any research into that.

Non Poker: I played golf with a few people yesterday, we played 2 man teams, best ball skins. We had an 8 skin lead after 9, so we upped the ante to one skin for 10,11,12, two skins for 13,14,15, and three skins for 16,17,18. We were still up 8 after 12, but then we pushed 16. Luckily I made a big put on 17 to get the hole and the halved skin from 16. That put us up 14 with 3 to go. But damn, was it hot yesterday. I got fully baked. That is what you get when you tee off at 12:20.

I ran before work, had my enchelada fix, took a brisk walk (3+ miles) after dinner. Now I am ready for the Mookie.

42 players tonight. Very nice turnout. Things ran pretty well for me, I caught on fire near the end of the first break and took the chip lead. And I sat there or nearby as we dropped to two tables. As we approched final table, the junk kept getting kicked- nothing pretty about the way we do it in the Mookie, that is for sure. Made the final table, but out in 9th when my Mook runs into AJ on a 48J flop.

For those keeping track at home: The over under on locals making the final table was 4. I was the lone one, so the under wins. Also, 6:5 for a World player to win- well, that pays even though I don’t know the winner yet.

During the event TripJax and I setup our time to play heads up. This historic event will take place this upcoming Saturday, May 27th at 3PM eastern (2PM for me). It is on PokerStars. Come railbird for Trip as the favorite as this underdog takes his shot at the man, the myth, the legend. (heh). Look for the “TripJax vs Gilain DADI 5 Bounty Heads-Up Match” under the private tourneys.