So much to blog about, so little time...

First things first:



I am poker champ.



With that out of the way...



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Moving day was Monday. Mrs. Big and the lil Biggette are in Jax at my in-laws house, while the eldest Biggette and I are with my parents for two more weeks until she has enough days attendance at school to get credit for completing the first grade. We aren't worried about the actual work, since she's miles ahead of where she's supposed to be.



Ahem. I likes bragging on my kids. ;-)



So, it's been stressful this week. Tried to fit in a few sessions and sucked hind tit most of the time. As soon as things calmed down today, my win rate went back to normal. Funny how that works.



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Also, my doctor prescribed a weight loss medication earlier this week. I wrote about it in a little more detail over at RunFatAssRun.



For all intents and purposes, it seems to be Speed. It remains to be seen how it will affect poker. I felt like I was playing a little fast and loose yesterday and this afternoon while still under the effects of it, but slowed down to my more normal patient style this evening. How much of that is the meds and how much was the stress of "squeezing-in" sessions, I'm not sure. But I'm defintely going to track my performance by hours removed from taking the meds to see if there are any patterns.



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Still not caught up with all my bloglines, but I'm getting there. Managed to get to the middle of the "P's", so if you're before P alphabetically I've probably read you by now.



Nerd posted about this. I liked seeing my own stats for ego reasons (BigSlickNut = 'Stars), but hate that opponents may be able to get enough of an insight to change their game and tighten up when they play into me. I'm debating about whether to request taking my name out of the database (actually, leaning heavily toward taking it out). I like to be as anonymous as possible, something not always possible at the higher buy-ins when you see some of the same players over and over. The ego boost of having good numbers out there publicly doesn't compare to the ego boost of seeing bigger numbers privately. But, I'll probably subscribe to the service. In a test I did in a $114 turbo tonight, two other players rated out as sharks, and all 3 of us made the money. I made mine by staying away from them unless I had great cards or great odds.



Here's a bit of advice for those just starting out: DO NOT use avatars! It makes it that much easier for people to remember you and your play. Unfortunately, 'Stars only lets you chage an avatar just once after it's been uploaded, then you're shit-out-of-luck.



I'm shit-out-of-luck.



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Hopefully, I can get in enough sessions this weekend to get back to even for the week. I think I'm down ~$300, but I won't know for sure until I can get back on a PC with Excel and update my spreadsheets. I did a couple of cashouts for a number of reasons, shifted some money around, and I'm not real clear in my head how I stand right now. Heading up to Jax Saturday, so at least I'll know by then. I think I'm on an 8 or 9 week win streak, so I'm due for a loss or two but I'd sure like to put that bill off as long as possible.

Read The Full Article:
http://bigslicknuts.blogspot.com/2006/04/so-much-to-blog-about-so-little-time.htm
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Poker Rants

So the week ends, hopefully, Friday morning with golf at the Cliffs Valley course. Designed by Ben Wright, the former CBS broadcaster who famously said, "Lesbians in the sport hurt golf." Unfortunately, he soon was out of broadcasting soon after and became an unfortunate figure. Now look, I know a thing or two about lesbians. One of the first dates I had with Sweetie was when she was at Furman, to see the Indigo Girls. This was 1989, and I didn't really know anything about them (except that their music gave me the worst screaming headache as all these girls screamed Closer I am to Fine around me). I have to hold the record for heterosexual males, having seen an Indigo Concert in no fewer than eight states. They have grown on me for sure, and it is always interesting to see the different folks in the audience nowaday's. There are your lesbians (both versions), your college-experimental lesbians (the kind that most college guys dream about coming over with their girlfriend), the old-fart couples (my favorites actually, as the husband starts to understand what he's walked into), the gay guys, and the season ticket holders at whatever venue they are performing at. They alternate between Amy Ray songs and Emily Saliers songs, with Emily the kinder, gentler more artistic, better guitarist writer and Amy the angry, opression-fighting, rocker writer. I've had to sit through more Tracy Chapman, Natalie Merchant, and Enya songs at these coffee shops than you can shake a stick at this week.



Elizabeth reminded me of something that I had dropped into an earlier post that bears some renewed emphasis: the Least Weird Person. My wife and I went through an exercise last summer where we tried to identify the least weird person we knew (no kids to be included). I had my wife, although she is extremely weird to be honest. She won't poop pretty much anywhere except her bathroom, she has her shrine to Tom Cruise hidden in the laundry room cabinets, she turns beet red at the drop of a hat, she never buys any clothers for herself, her cooking has improved but used to be just horrible (and still can be; one of her more famous experiments was weenies and kraut, where you cut up hot dog franks and mix it with saurkraut from a can--she washed the sourkraut thoroughtly, basically turning it into wet newspaper). I don't know if she ever came up with anyone, and I couldn't come up with anyone even a close second to her. I mean, almost everyone is extremely weird when you really come down to it, I mean extremely weird. Your neighbors? Who knows what abominations they're up to, but the little I know about mine makes me afraid to even leave Sweetie's cat in their charge--and that's the cat who daily pees on our $3,000 new carpet in the basement.



Pauly looks like he's taking a break, which is really good for him. One indicator of his traffic: I had 3x the number of referrals when he pimped the Relationships series vs. any other site. I admit I start the day with his blog, so I'll just have to bounce around elsewhere. I really appreciate everyone who spends the time to write regularly, as well as all the comments. Great post this week from kurokitty, although I'll have to circle back to read and re-read it.



BadBlood, who is hosting the home game tonight, seems pretty scary from his blog, what with skulls and all that. We'll either have one or two tables, NLHE $100 max $0.50/1.00 blinds, so it could be a long night for yours truly. If I ever get up, I normally will double a couple folks through when they flop sets or I'll overplay AKs. Or I'll get AT beaten early by AQ, re-buy, then tread water forever. We'll see how it goes. I'll try to get the post-mortem up before our trip back home, but you may not see it until Monday, we'll see.



Read The Full Article:
http://ccexplore.blogspot.com/2006/04/poker-rants.html

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Jordan Goes Townhouse

Last night was slightly brutal for me online, resulting in about $70-80 in losses. Oddly, I was never quite concerned about the loss, and hopefully I never will be. The key will be to get back to solid poker and turn those numbers around. I lost a Rio, placed 3rd in one (for $1 profit), lost a 45 person SNG, lost a 18p shorthanded SNG, and donked off a lot in shorthanded 2/4 limit. I won a few bucks in a full table 2/4 limit game, and I think I learned a lesson.



For now, that lesson is 2/4 limit shorthanded = bad, 2/4 limit full table = good. It's 2 parts variance and 1 part adjusting to the right amount of aggression that makes full tables the better bet for me. With the shorthanded games, I'm either too loose or too tight (back and forth, seemingly), and variance is increased, making $40-60 losses (aka 10BB to 15BB losses) a good possibility. In the full table limit game, I'm able to play relatively tight, and take opportunities where I see them (which is generally rare).



My SNG play was a bit erratic too. I hated one particular play which set up my 45 SNG loss. I had been folding folding and folding, until I had JJ. I raise it up and get one caller. The flop is AK5, and I bet about half of my stack (pot sized bet), only to be re-raised all-in. I was in the blinds and out of position, and I should've checked the flop and accepted the loss, but instead I bet out and still had to accept the loss with a crippled stack to boot. That, my friends, is not good poker. My Rio loss was due to a four-outter, so I'm not going to complain there. Sometimes luck just isn't with you.



I do have some good and exciting news. This Friday, I will be making my return to Lady Falcon's Townhouse game! The night will start with a $60 tournament, followed by a 4/8 limit game with a half-kill. I never understood what a half-kill was until Lady was nice enough to explain it in her email to the Friday Townhouse croud. I've asked other people to explain what a kill is before, but I never could grasp what they were saying (it was never in person, where I imagine it would be easier to demonstrate). As the lovely Lady put it: If a player wins two hands in a row and the second hand is worth $40 or more, the next hand moves to 6-12 (half-kill) betting structure until the player who triggered the kill loses. Then the betting structure returns to 4-8. Thanks Lady!



From what I've seen, Karol and (I think) Dawn, from I Had Outs will also be there. I look forward to actually playing with them again, the first time being in Atlantic City entirely by accident. If you want to read about it HERE.



If you don't know, I've been to the Townhouse once before as a fresh-faced blogger, after Dr. Pauly got me an invite before he left for LA for, what I believe was, the first time. Because of that, the Townhouse always held a warm place in my blogger heart as the location of my first meeting with another blogger face to face (several to be exact). If you want to read the write-up, click HERE.



I've also updated my You Decide Index and Trip Report Index, so check those out if you haven't had an opportunity.



Jordan, out!

Read The Full Article:
http://highonpoker.blogspot.com/2006/04/jordan-goes-townhouse.html

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The Condensed Version

Blogger eat post. Blogger bad.



Lost good, but better not be all in someone's head. Island and people better be real. Otherwise Lost bad, too.



Poker infrequent but good.



Work bad.

Read The Full Article:
http://suckout.blogspot.com/2006/04/condensed-version.html

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Donkeys Punched Me

I've been running quite well in the $20 SnG's on Full Tilt the past couple weeks - so much so that I thought maybe I should stick to those online, since the low limit cash games seem to kill me. Then, for some reason, I got the itch to play some ring games. What I really had an itch for was to go to Empress, since Wednesday nights are my 2nd most profitable nights there, but I got home a little too late, and some Chinese food made me thankful that the bathroom is nearby the computer at home. Not so at Empress.



So I pulled up Full Tilt Poker and went against my urges; I started a $20 SnG. I was reminded quickly why I hate playing the first hand. I limped into a 4-way pot with pocket 9's and flopped 2nd set. I bet the pot on the flop, and got called. There was a K onboard as well, so I put the guy on a pair of kings. (There was no raise preflop). Long story short, turns out he limped with KK and flopped top set. Sets are gold, right? Jebus Priced. Out in 9th place on the first hand.



My rule is, bust out early in 2 SnG's in a row, and I'm done with SnG's for the day. So, I tried another. Was it an omen that the first person to bust out in that tourney was again, set over set on the first hand? In the second hand, I had AA in position on my lone opponent. The board was Q-J-4-2, and he called my bets all the way. I had notes on him that he liked to chase, and his stats in Poker Tracker were those of a loose/passive calling station. I put him all in on the turn. He called with his gutshot straight draw, and hit. We had the same amount of chips (being only the second hand of the game), and I was out in 8th place.



I hate hate hate playing big hands early. They're just soooo not worth it compared to the value of the blinds. However, doubling up early almost guarantees that I make the money (in my experience), so I don't avoid playing if I've got a monster. Play to win, right?



I should have logged off for the night, but was really in the mood to play, so I pulled up a 3/6 limit holdem table. There I found DonkeyPuncher and a cool cat named Oven. I chatted with the boys and caught up on my blog reading while single-tabling the 3/6 game. This proved only as more evidence as to why I have much more success when I multi-table and focus strictly on the games I'm playing, as opposed to single table while reading or responding to email or other non-poker-related tasks. I got myself stuck pretty quickly, falling in love with top pair too often and calling too much. (In my defense, I was running into wacky 2-pairs left and right, but still... I was calling too much. Calling down with QJ on a J-high flop is not the smartest thing in the world. KJ beats me, AJ beats me, sets beat me, and the variety of 2-pair combinations all beat me, and still I called called called).



I realized I was bleeding profusely, and closed down Bloglines and opened up a 2nd 3/6 table. This helped my focus, and I was doing alright on both tables for a while. DP then bid me farewell, taking a nice profit off of the table, and I hunkered down to make back my losses. Then came just plain ol' bad luck. At one point, I told Randy, "If one more dumbass calls down my bets with a gutshot and catches, I'm going to scream." (Of course they were calling without odds to chase the river - and of course, that's where the miracle card always came). Such is life in poker, though, and I eventually gave up, $150 in the hole and quite dejected.



I have an hour and a half before I need to leave for work today, and I think I'm going to hit up FTP and get some of my money back.



Tags: online poker, Full Tilt Poker, HellaHoldem, poker, texas hold'emFiled Under:

• Online
• FullTilt

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Rake Free Poker

© COPYRIGHT 2006 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED



Yesterday's $2/4 LHE play consisted of playing at three sites:



Poker Syndicate: +$16 (233 hands)

Paradise: +$50 (85 hands)

World Poker Exchange: -$22 (77 hands)



Overall, a good day...



Rake Free Poker

On a few forums this week I have heard about a site that has started offering 100% rakeback this week, called the World Poker Exchange and decided to check it out. WPE is part of the World Sports Exchange online sportsbook and is a small poker room. There were about 1,300 players when I logged in yesterday and deposited some funds. There is no deposit bonus, due to the 100% rakeback.



What I found was probably a collection of the craziest players I have ever seen, even more than what I see at Paradise. At Paradise, it's usually a passive player, who will cold call two or three bets preflop just to take a flop. At WPE, it was very loose aggressive play. A lot of preflop action getting capped. Quite a few times with limp-reraising and it rarely meant the limp-reraiser had AA or KK.



How crazy was it? Here was about my 20th hand at the table:



Hand ID 30778723

2.00/4.00 Texas Hold'em (Split Limit) - GMT Wed Apr 5 18:47:07 2006

Table 'Twist', 10 seats max



bonedancer: Small Blind ($1.00)

rock_off: Big Blind ($2.00)



** Dealing Down Cards **

Dealt to Michael: [ Ad Ah ]



kcornell: Fold

cost100: Raise ($4.00)

BigBite: Fold

hyperdrive: Raise ($6.00)

dblbogey: Fold

Michael: Raise ($8.00)

ross: Call ($8.00)

bonedancer: Fold

rock_off: Call ($6.00)

cost100: Call ($4.00)

hyperdrive: Call ($2.00)



** Dealing Flop **

Community cards: [ 7h 7d 9s ]



rock_off: Check

cost100: Check

hyperdrive: Check

Michael: Bet ($2.00)

ross: Raise ($4.00)

rock_off: Raise ($6.00)

cost100: Fold

hyperdrive: Fold

Michael: Raise ($6.00)

ross: Call ($4.00)

rock_off: Call ($2.00)



** Dealing Turn **

Community cards: [ Qd ]



rock_off: Check

Michael: Bet ($4.00)

ross: Raise ($8.00)

rock_off: Call ($8.00)

Michael: Call ($4.00)



** Dealing River **

Community cards: [ Kc ]



rock_off: Check

Michael: Check

ross: Bet ($4.00)

rock_off: Fold

Michael: Call ($4.00)



** Showdown **

Main pot $94.00, Rake $3.00



Summary Michael: bet $28.00, won $0.00, net -$28.00. [ Ad Ah ] [two pairs, aces and sevens]



Summary ross: bet $28.00, won $94.00, net +$62.00. [ Jc Ts ] [straight, king to nine], won $94.00 from main pot



Whoa. The winner called 4 bets cold with JTo, flopped a gutshot and jammed it on the flop, then picked up an open-ender and pumped it too. And hit on the river(LOL).



During my reading about WPE, there was a lot of discussion of the use of bots at WPE and there are many that seem to think it is occurring. Some players have seen another player sitting at a single table and in the same seat for more than 20 hours. Could be a bot or could be someone with no life. Who knows?



The above hand did unnerve me a bit after reading about the bots. It did because of the insta-actions that I saw by the players at the table, especially the eventual winner of the hand. I'm talking about split second action. I would bet or raise and the other players instantly raised or folded. It could be latency issues with the software, but I just don't know much about that stuff. I do have a lightning-fast DSL connection, but I have never experienced this with any other site.



I doubt that WPE is using house bots, just too much to risk there. Could players be using them? Sure, but if they were using them, I don't think they were very good ones. The only other explanations could be collusion between players or just simply horrible poker players. The horrible players are the ones that are sports bettors and just gamble it up. I have seen that at sites that are linked to sportsbooks (Paradise, Bodog, etc.). That is the most likely explanation.



I played 77 hands and walked away down $22. That included a $25 bonus for getting my pocket Aces cracked, a promotion that they have every Wednesday. I also earned about $8.75 in rakeback (almost 3 BB/100) and WPE apparently drops that into your account once a week on Mondays.



Interesting concept WPE has going. I'll be keeping an eye on it for a while.











I am registered to play in the

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Win your share of $25,000 and a set

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Registration Code: 65334548

Read The Full Article:
http://countingmyouts.blogspot.com/2006/04/rake-free-poker.html

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Out of the loop

This is moving week for my family, and it's been crazy. No time to read, post, or play. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, though, so hopefully I'll be able to take a few hours to veg out and catch up.

Read The Full Article:
http://bigslicknuts.blogspot.com/2006/04/out-of-loop.html

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The Rake - Taking The Pulse Of Poker For 4/5/2006

If sending Lederer, Raymer and Ferguson to D.C. to protect the interests of poker players doesn't work, maybe Phil can throw a temper tantrum on the steps of the Capitol. · Yes, yes... by now you've heard that a...

Read The Full Article:
http://www.lasvegasvegas.com/pokerblog/archives/002612.php

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