Anyone for Keno? The Lotto? Old Country Buffet?

I am now officially on a luckbox tear. What's weird is I'm not winning the pots with the premium hands. In my 2 hr session at Stars tonight I had my premium hands lose more to runner-runner flush than you'd expect, and my preflop raises with AA/AK weren't called. I then decide to mix it up with KK and end up forcing myself to make some tough decisions and reads on a 2443A board. I did feel like I had a decent handle on my reads at the table though. When variance rears it's head it will be ugly but for now I'm enjoying the ride.

These next two examples were hands of the night. To set this up, the opponent is a very aggressive player who will bet top pair VERY hard. HE was 1.5-2.0x overbetting the pot with top pair. Not the worst strategy at the $200max 6 hand NL table, but didn't have brakes. I do a google on him while playing and I find some hand histories with him at $30/60 limit games. He had told someone that heckled him (when he lost a pot with 4th pair) that he doesn't care about losing and he had won $1600+ today. I believe him. He'll be a tough NL player when he learns to slow down in the right spots.

Anyway, on the hand between Mr_Limit and myself. He'd run his $200 up to over $300 by playing very aggressive poker to this point.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $2 BB (5 handed) converter

BB ($78)
TheCheddah ($268.70)
MP ($183.10)
Button (Small_Stack)/ ($5.70)
SB (Mr_Limit)/ ($306.75)

Preflop: TheCheddah is UTG with 4s, 4d.
TheCheddah calls $2, MP calls $2, Button (Small_Stack)/ calls $2, SB (Mr_Limit)/ completes, BB checks.

Flop: ($10) Js, 4c, 6s (5 players)
Mr_Limit bets $10, BB folds, TheCheddah calls $10, MP folds, Small_Stack calls $3.70 (All-In).

Turn: ($33.70) Jh (3 players, 1 all-in)
Mr_Limit bets $30, TheCheddah raises to $75, Mr_Limit raises to $180, TheCheddah raises to $256.7 and is all in, Mr_Limit calls $76.70.

River: ($547.10) Td (3 players, 2 all-in)

Final Pot: $547.10

Results
Mr_Limit has Jd Kh (three of a kind, jacks).
TheCheddah has 4s 4d (full house, fours full of jacks).
Small_Stack has 8h 4h (two pair, jacks and fours).
Outcome: TheCheddah wins $547.10.

Sometimes the brakepads are more important than the engine. Anyway, I pulled this gem out of my ass on the last hand, which I played only because I was leaving the table next hand (stupid, yes, but so be it):

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $2 BB (6 handed) converter

BB ($173.35)
TheCheddah ($453.60)
MP (KickedInTheJunk)/ ($78)
CO ($186)
Button ($52.45)
SB ($64.45)

Preflop: TheCheddah is UTG with 5d, Qd.
MP (KickedInTheJunk)/ raises to $6, 4 folds, TheCheddah calls $4,

Flop: ($15) Qs 2c 3d
TheCheddah checks, MP (KickedInTheJunk)/ bets $10, TheCheddah calls $10.

Turn: ($35) 5c (2 players)
TheCheddah bets $17.5, MP (KickedInTheJunk)/ calls $17.50.

River: ($66) Kh (2 players)
TheCheddah bets $35, MP (KickedInTheJunk)/ calls $35.

Final Pot: $136

Results :
TheCheddah showed [5d Qd] and won ($137) with two pair, Queens and Fives
KickedInTheJunk mucks [Qc As]

At least I left him with $10. I'm not a complete bastard.

Today's fun links: This is a COPS I wish I could see.
I know he's 16, but...I hope he was blind.

At least I didn't get mesothelioma - and football picks

This week was a rough one. I never caught back up on sleep from the Florida trip, and then my day job decided it was the week for all hell to break loose. I felt (metaphorically) like a coal miner with black lung disease, or a worker at a auto brake pad manufacturer just waiting to get wacked with asbestos -- but all in very speedy time. I'm sure attorneys have much worse weeks than this.

I know that didn't make sense to anyone.

Ok, now that crap is out of the way. It was a long week though I'm not sure why. Work was rough but that's part of the job description. I'm like a defensive back, except instead of being in incredible shape and paid to hit people I am fat and sit in a crappy chair all day. But both professions require that you forget about the bad plays/blowups and take each situation independently. Still sucks when you're wrong though.

And for those of you that care: my guy likes the away teams this week. I'll have all the fun prop bets ready for the Superbowl. And as I speak I'm playing in the blogger $10 HORSE tournament at Full Tilt. Somehow it's 50 mins in and I'm not out yet; in fact, I'm in 10th of 52 remaining.

My Travel This Weekend (or Fear The Alamo)

Act One: Scene One:

Setting: Alamo Car Rental parking lot. Requirement to work at this lot in Palm Beach: 1) Born below the line. 2) Ability to go to bathroom 50% of the time without peeing on self.

Bus Driver: "Ok, SUV stop. You take whatever one you want. [Launches luggage to the curb]. The keys are in the car, we're really busy right now."

Hero: "Those car seats are mine too. Yes, that's right, I have 4 bags, a stroller, 2 car seats and 2 kids on a 3 day trip. I also decided it would be a good idea to stay up until midnight the night before having to get up at 4am to start this jaunt to Florida. Come to think of it, can I have an application?"

Bus Driver: "Huh?" [Shotputs Dora the Explorer backpack into parking lot]

Hero: "Never mind. That's all my luggage right? Thanks"

[Bus Driver closes door, pulls a tranny drop in parking lot]

[Cue children whine/rabblerousing]

[Hero begins to lug luggage like the donkey/pack animal he is. Doesn't have enough arms to get the biggest piece of luggage.]

Hero: "I'll come back and get the biggest piece of luggage. Man, that piece has sentimental value. We bought it for our first trip together married. I hope nothing happens to it."

[Cue foreshadowing music]

END SCENE ONE

SCENE TWO: On a different Alamo Bus. This one is named The Punisher.

Bus Driver: "Is that a bag or a small child in the road? Fuck it, I'm running it over either way."

[Bus Driver steps on gas]

[Crunching noise followed by blood-curdling scream from the luggage pinned below. It goes away shortly]

Bus Driver: "Heh, heh,heh."

END SCENE TWO

SCENE THREE: Alamo parking lot. Hero is wandering aimlessly, calling out for his luggage.

Hero: "Black bag with Orange-electric tape on handle? Black bag with Orange-electric tape on handle, where are you?"

[Another traveler enters stage left]

[Car Renter] "Dude, you missing a bag?"

[Hero] "Why yes I am"

[Car Renter] "I think it's in front, left under a bench to die. It don't look pretty."

[Dark music blares]

[Hero] "Noooooooooo!"

END SCENE THREE

SCENE FOUR (last one): In front of Alamo office. Manager and Hero present.

Hero: "What the hell happened to my bag? I left it for 30 seconds?"

Manager: "Ahhh, you left it in the road."

Hero: "It's a fricking parking lot. The whole 4 acres is 'a road'"

Manager: "Umm, you left it in the road."

Hero: "Technically, yes. Question for you: if my son sets foot in the parking lot, does that mean he's fair game too?"

Manager: "Sorry, got to go freebase."

Hero: "Thanks."

FINI
--------------------------------------------------------
These are the pictures from the above Lifetime movie, taken on the Treo 600 crap-camera (as Dave Berry calls it). They can't do justice but they'll have to do. The zipper was intact but the entire piece was split sideways. The whole thing was covered in a mixture of oil and melted cheap rubber/plastic. Amazingly enough nothing inside was hurt, though everything was pretty dirty. We had some personal electronics items inside (Garmin running GPS thing, MP3 player) that came through without a scratch.

Donkeying Up In HORSE

My tourney life has been running cold lately so I decided to mix it up a little bit. I'm likely heading out to play in some cash games during the LA Poke Classic, and decided I'd enter one of the $1500 events if I could get my tournament game on track. When I get in a rut I like to change it up a bit, and there's nothing like HORSE to force a change.

I'm a decent limit hold em player, but my skills go downhill quickly from there. I tend not to have the patience to wait for the right hands in Razz or O8, and slowly bleed away chips. Therefore, I'm forced to think more about each of the games because I've haven't played enough Razz or O8 H/L to be able to "put it on autopilot" like I could with a HE game. Since I struggle to keep focus in tournaments, the change does me good.

I'm not sure if today was good for me or not. Man, in limit tourneys I always feel like I'm drawing to some donkey hand because I let myself get down to the felt and the blinds tend to move up quickly. I was 53 of 55 at one point in today's $20+2 HORSE tournament at Full Tilt. It's a different feeling from NL, where you at least have the ability to force some pressure points before getting down in the Red Zone. So on one hand, I feel like I waited too long to take a stand and was forced to luck out with some low-percentage draws.

On the other hand....



To anyone I caused to reload on their blood pressure medication, I apologize. It won't happen again.

What would you do (and the passivity pendulum)

Played (if you can call it that) in a FTP $26/2 MTT last night. I watched a player get involved in 12 hands vol in 2 trips around the table. I then get TT 2 off the button, raise it up 3.5x the blinds, and get called only by Mr. Playsalot.

Flop comes K-rag-rag rainbow...long story short, I am betting the whole way. From having watched his play I'm thinking he'd reraise me if he hit his K, so I'm most likely up against some Ax hand.

He calls me the whole way down with his KK. No reraise, not even on the river. Was a little confused by that one but it allowed me to flop around for another 30 mins or so. Not my best performance by any means. Lately I've been playing less "controlled passive" and falling back into the "crappy passive" mode. It's been my experience that you've got more people overplaying hands at FTP in this lower dollar MTT's, so letting them lead when you've got a solid hand works well. Unfortunately, I can take that too far if I'm not careful. I'm going to try to turn that around tonight.

Before I go, here's a hand history from a friend that has cleaned house at BoDog in 2005. This one came after he had built up a nice tight table image. I'm going to do more of these in a segment I call WWCD (What Would Cheddah Do)

$100NL...3 off button, first in raises to $2.25 with 35c. Only the blinds call. The flop - a dream 2c35 rainbow. The blinds check, he bets half the pot. All of sudden, small blind raises to $10 (leaving $7.55 in his stacks). The big blind calls (he's got $36 left).

What do you do here? I'll post the outcome either in the comments or in a future post.

I know I'm crazy. Not selling-crayons-on-the-train crazy, but sometimes I get a little too excited about things. Today was one of those days.

I had a package coming by UPS. When I checked the tracking site, it said it had been put on the truck at 6:23am. I didn't want to miss it (for a variety of reasons) so I even skipped out of work for two hours while my wife worked out so some one would be here to sign for it.

1pm came...2pm came..3pm came and my wife told me I couldn't call home anymore. She'd call me when it finally showed up. Jeesh, you call someone every 30 mins for a few hours, and you find out their true colors. Finally, at 6:25pm it showed up.



It's the Cheddah's gift to himself, and a way to make sure I don't piss away all the poker winnings of the past year. I can now 4 table in style (when I'm on a meth binge). It should make 2-tabling much more enjoyable all the time.