A horrendous but profitable Sunday

I haven’t posted in the blog for a while. First, I’ve been sick. Second, I haven’t played a lot of poker. I almost didn’t play yesterday as I wasn’t feeling great, but decided to do so anyhow for better or worst.

I was sitted at Raymer’s table in the PS Million $500 tourney. One interesting hand early in the tourney. Raymer raises early, a middle player calls and I am next to act with KK. I am thinking about what to raise, if I should, how much to raise, and then boom – I folded my hand because of a timeout. I am so used to PS kicking in the timer that I forgot it doesn’t do that before the flop unless you have money invested in the pot. Ouch – not a good start.

I then made a boneheaded play in the UB $200 event and decided this wasn’t going to be my day. I decided to cut my losses and I unregistered all of the events I had planned to play and would just enjoy the night with my family until I doubled up in the $50 buyin tourney. It was approaching 6:00 and it looked like I would be in the $50 for a while so I went ahead and registered for the 750K at FTP. I got knocked out of the $50 and the PS tourney and was left with just the FTP.

With about 100 players left until the money, the most boneheaded thing happened at my table. One of the short stacks typed in PLAY SLOW. A conversation started up and 8 of the 10 players at the table allowed their time to tick down to the very last second on EVERY hand. It was torture. I normally don’t tell players how to play but I told everyone they were just doing themselves more harm than good. Fortunately, I did manage to increase my stack by 20% or so, but probably not nearly as much as I would have if my table had played like normal. They were all amatuers, but they did all cash – woohoo for them! The tourney paid about 660 players and all of them were knocked out except for 2 with 200 players remaining. It was absolute torture playing at that table. First place pays $160K and they were trying to win $250. Even after the bubble burst, one of the players played slow until he was knocked out with about 150 players remaining.

I basically played terrible in all 4 of my tourneys, but once we got close to the bubble I did kick in and start to concentrate. I consistently kept my stack at about half the average all the way from 600 players down to about 70 when I finally got knocked out. It was pretty boring poker though. My stack wasn’t large enough to reraise with folding equity and I didn’t have enough to make a normal raise before the flop without being pot-committed, so it was all-in every time I played a hand.

The good news is that I did end up posting a profit for the day even though I felt like I was completely off my game.

Congrats to Tall Paul from the ITH forums for finishing in the top 60 in the Sunday Millions and Pearljammer who finished 20th in the FTP 750K.

My "poopie" just burbed

At the end of their lives a lot of people will have some regrets:
- I wish I would have traveled to X
- I wish I would have gotten married or...I wish I had never married :)
- I wish I would have tried harder at X
- I wish I could have found a job that I was passionate for
- I wish I would have spent more time with my spouse
- I wish I would have spent more time with my children

The list goes on and on, but there is one thing that people never, ever regret in their lives, and that is having children. People might regret how they got pregnant, or who they got pregnant with, or when they got pregnant, but no one ever regrets the child that results. In a world with so much uncertainty and conflict and lives where we often don’t know the correct path, there is one thing in this world where billions upon billions of people agree – there is nothing better in life than experiencing the love of a child. No one ever regrets having a child but I’m sure many regret later in their lives for not doing so.

Enough of the philosophy, here are some funny little things my son Josh (4 years old) has said to me lately:

Daddy, am I going to kiss girls when I grow up?

Daddy, you need to work more so you can buy me more toys.

A couple of weeks later…Daddy, you work too much.

What do you want to do when you grow up? I want to work on the computer and talk on the phone like Daddy.

Daddy, my “poopie” just burped.

Final Table PS $1K and Sharkapalooza II

I finished 8th in the PS $1K. This was my first time playing this tournament. Wow, the last 30 players or so were some really, really great players. I basically ran really good this tourney. I can't count how many AA and KK hands I had. So although I finished really good, I basically didn't do anything to screw it up, but fell way short of the really big money.

8th paid $9k and 1st paid almost 80K so disappointing. I was in great shape with 15 players left when the following hand came. A player raised, I called, and a short stack went allin behind me. I call with KK. His AK hit an A on the turn and I was now 13th in chips instead of 3rd in chips. After that, I basically played shortstack the entire time and I don't believe I got one premium hand after that. It took a LONG time to get from 15 to 8 players left. I was hanging in there with an M between 5 and 10 for a long time but slowly got blinded down. I went out with 54 vs AQ, after being probably too patient.

I signed up early tonight and then went to unregister, but UB already had me sitted in their tourney so I had to play :). I'm 9K richer so glad I did!

I haven't posted in a while. I was in Williamsburg on Friday with the boys and the grandparents. On Saturday I went to Sharkapalooza II. Nsidestrate, from the ITH forums, made his 20,000th post (I only have 5,000 posts to give you an idea) and he decided to make the post at his annual shindig. I played 3 tourneys and busted as I usually do in home games. Nside is a class act and he always makes sure to have guests which aren't - thanks Nut, Taz, Torch, Bull, Dust, and all of the others for a great time. There were about 20 people from the Forum and it was a blast. Everytime I go to these things I'm amazed at how well everyone gets along and how well you actually know people from simply posting on the Forum. Everyone actually seemed quite normal, although I'm not sure about Tara and Michelle, simply for the fact that they must have very strange taste in men. Great fun!