CardRunners

What's Your Edge

Home for awhile: GroovyT's Poker Babble

GroovyT's Poker Babble

October 24, 2008

Hey guys.

Well, Niagara sucked. I mean, the games were always between decent to great, but I just couldn't get anything rolling. I lost pretty much one or two gigantic pots a night to a complete cooler or suckout. I won't even bother detailing them, who cares. I will be going through a few of the hands to stir up some debate about them on the PCH message board in my forum:

I finished up a bowl of soup in cash games and dropped $3600 in satellites (not coming even close to a WPT seat in 3 attempts). So, overall, I finished slightly down and you can add $2-3k in expenses on top of that.

This marks my first losing live trip in at least 3 years. I don't know how I really feel about that, I guess I knew it was coming at some point. I wish I had of been playing the $25/50 out there the whole time. I didn't realize until the last few days of the trip how soft it was at times. I even got ton of hours in playing some total fish 3-4 handed which was awesome. However, between running completely card/flop dead for hours on end and the coolers I mentioned before, I found it hard to run any stacks up too big and maintain them. Despite that, I felt I played pretty solid throughout the trip and took the beats reasonably well. I guess it's pretty solid that I probably lost 8 of the 10 biggest pots I played (none of which I terribly regret) yet still turned a small cash game profit.

It was funny how it came down to my very last hand on my last night to determine whether or not I made a small profit on the trip or not. I managed to get in a 3-way all-in with AKs vs ATo vs AJo for a $8k pot (which happened to be the only hand I backraised pre-flop the whole trip). The AJo was only a shortstack for about $1600 of the total. Unfortunately, in standard fashion ATo took the whole pot with a rivered straight. It was this Greek regular who I battled with for at least 30 hours in the past few days of the trip and just absolutely had my number in the big pots. I was so frustrating because I was working this guy and he kept hitting ridiculous shit on me (and it didn't help I drained money cuz he would get dealt AA every single time I got TT/JJ/QQ), however in true donkey fashion he would backraise preflop almost all the time and tip his hat completely. One other thing he did was almost always muck his cards as soon as I'd touch my chips or start playing with them after he checked to me in a pot I raised preflop (which is almost all of them playing short-handed). So, basically, I knew exactly when I should continue bet and when I should not, and when I should fastplay and when I should not. It was honestly hilarious that he never picked up on it. So often I'd grab my chips, shuffle them awhile, notice he wasn't making any sort of motion to muck, so I'd just check. Anyway, despite all this I still couldn't beat this guy and still had to endure him bitching to the dealer every single hand he lost. God, I tell ya, old traditional Greek guys can tip the scales on the entertaining side of things at times, and REALLY topple the scales on the annoying side at other times.

MY BC trip out to Comox and Tofino was excellent. What a beautiful area. My brother-in-law's wedding was on the beach, and though it was pretty chilly, it was my first beach wedding and it was very cool. I'm definitely happy to be home for a little while though. Niagara was a real wear on me, and though BC was fun, was quite hectic. Enjoying just vegging on the computer and spending time with my family and friends again. Gonna get into some serious online in the weeks to come.

You're hearing more and more talk around about the difficulty of the online games. I try to not let that get to me, though I know it's so true in the back of my mind. However, you can complain and complain, or you can learn how to beat good players and practice top-notch game selection and find any fish that are out there (cuz they'll always be somewhere).

Next up is a Regina and BC (River Rock) trip in mid-November. My family will be joining me for at least a week in BC, and we'll probably extend the trip a bit after the poker and go to some new places. We have lingering thoughts of a possible move to BC in the future (maybe near, maybe far, I dunno), so maybe we'll check out some areas and properties.

So, despite the crap run in Niagara I'm still up an okay amount in October due to some reasonable online sessions. I made almost $1000/hour in September. LOL, why the hell can't I do that every month?!? THAT I could get used to.

I want to win a major tournament. Something. Like, I know EVERYONE wants to win tournaments, of course. But.....I just REALLY want to win a somewhat major tournament. Something $50k+, preferably $200k+. I've begun really studying my tournament game and I'm planning on dedicating much more time to them online. I will also continue playing any live events I can afford or qualify for, and concentrate on being more focused on them. I feel like I try hard, but I get to wrapped up in cash game I sort of veg out in tournaments. I'm not the same kind of player at all, I never talk. I don't know why that is, but I'm going to try mixing things up a bit more. I play so loose in cash games no matter how I play tournaments I just feel like such a rock. I really need to have music during tournaments that allow it. Why I haven't gotten on top of that is beyond me and has probably cost me money...

Anyway, that's enough. I always have great stuff I want to write about, but by the time I'm done with updates I've had enough writing or it's long enough. I'll really try to get on here more often.

Oh, I'm going to be at the Marlborough on Saturday for their deep stack charity tourney organized by the guys in the NSPT forum on the PCH board. Come say hi if you see me.

Peace!

Entry Tags: