Poker Blog

I haven't made a post in a while, I know, I apologize. I'll make a post detailing my euro trip and the hands I played in the tournaments there, but for now I want to take a break from writing about poker, and talk about the greatest television show in the history of the universe.

I played day 1a and it went extraordinarily boring and mundane. I pretty much never had any hands, and hardly even had any opportunities to make some plays or try to pick up chips. My peak was 14k, and I lost a 20k pot w/ KJ to AA on a j4447 board in a spot where I actually could have folded, but didn't.

I am starting day 2 with 11,600 at 400/800, so hopefully I can double early. I have done a little brushing up on my shortstack game, I think I should play it pretty well. I used to know shortstack strategy better when I was a donkament player, but at least I know poker better now

I am sitting in the airport terminal, waiting to board my flight to London, with plenty of time to kill. Seems like the perfect time then to write a long, self indulgent piece of writing. People often ask me my "poker story," and how I came to get into this game, so I figure now is as good a time as any to tell my story.

A lot has happened since I last made a blog post. I went on big heater and started playing really high stakes for a while. I lost huge, then won huge, then lost huge, then won huge, and so on. It has been very stressful and I decided to take some time off from big stakes games, and I'm going to get back to grinding 25/50. Playing durrrr hu at 200/400 is just about as stressful an activity as I could choose, save maybe walking on hot coals.

In my last post I semi complained that I had not won 100k pot, nor had a 100k day ever, and that my puppy was shitting on my carpets. All of those things are no longer true

1) I won a 100k pot yesterday at 200/400, sick hold:

***** Hand History for Game 8284927055 *****
$40000.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Tuesday, September 30, 01:06:30 ET 2008
Table Vasari (heads up) (Real Money)
Seat 1 is the button
Seat 1: Ansky451 ( $50798.25 USD )
Seat 2: durrrr ( $68396.25 USD )
Ansky451 posts small blind [$200.00 USD].
durrrr posts big blind [$400.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **

So I gave Rail Heaven (the 500-1000 NL table on FullTilt) another shot today. Don't worry I didn't have even close to all my own action.

Full Tilt Poker Game #8188449183: Table RailHeaven (6 max) - $500/$1000 - No Limit Hold'em - 0:58:54 ET - 2008/09/23
Seat 4: Ziigmund ($342,506.50)
Seat 6: Ansky451 ($130,499)
Ansky451 posts the small blind of $500
Ziigmund posts the big blind of $1,000
The button is in seat #6
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Ansky451 raises to $3,000
Ziigmund raises to $9,000
Ansky451 calls $6,000
*** FLOP *** [2h 9h 2c]
STRAATE982 sits down
STRAATE982 stands up

Today was a very big day for me in poker.

The 25k HU WCOOP event started it off at 2:30. I played aejones, one of my best friends in the poker world first round , so needless to say I was again upset with my table draw. Given that every pokerstars pro, and about 10-20 complete no name and tourney donk was in the mix, drawing another 25/50 HU reg really sucks. Nevertheless I had to focus and just try my best. Despite losin two flips to keep jones in the game when he got short, eventually I won when the stacks were kind of shallow with 66>a5o.

Lately poker has been goin absolutely great. It's nice after a long breakeven stretch to go on a big upswing to end the summer. I dropped down to 10/20 like 3-4 weeks ago to rebuild some, but I have been winning so much that I am back up to 25/50 and even higher at times if the games are good. I was having a great night tonight until I ran a monster bluff that failed miserably. Here it is:

PokerStars Game #20157486150: Hold'em No Limit ($25/$50) - 2008/09/05 1:13:24 ET
Table 'Thalia' 6-max Seat #4 is the button
Seat 4: supernova9 ($16625 in chips)
Seat 5: ADZ124 ($6292 in chips)

About a week ago, I considered making a play which I was pretty sure was bad in a FTOPS tournament, and I made it anyway. I mentally justified it by telling myself that "oh well, its just a stupid tournament, I want to double up or quit." This is just not acceptable. I take this attitude far too often in online tournaments, mainly because of a lack of patience or mental discipline. I need to state it publicly and openly in order to force myself to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Today I had a very good day, in pretty much all elements of my life. 1) I got approved for the apartment I was looking to rent. 2) I won lots of monies.