The Adventures of Poker Burro

Return of the Burro

nospam@example.com (PokerBurro.com) — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 23:16:23 -0400

It's been ages since my last poker blog post. It's not that I haven't been playing, I just have been busy and with the death of online poker for US players...I lost some motivation. But, I have been playing live at my local Moose club and did make a successful cash game venture at good ol' Potowatomi Bingo & Casino in Milwaukee. What's next?

This Saturday I'll be making the drive down to Gary, IN and play in the Majestic Star Casino's Summer Daze Deep Stack Event #5: No Limit Hold'em $120 Buy-In Bounty Tournament. $25 on each player's head. The starting chip stack is 10,000 and the tournament uses 30 minute levels, hopefully the structure is a little better than the HPT Qualifier events which become crapshoots after a couple of hours.

If I manage to win at least $500 then I'll play in the next day's event #7, the $330 No Limit Hold'em Championship Event for the Summer Daze Deep Stack Poker Challenge....ooooh, ah! Players will start that tournament with 15,000 in chips and features 40 minute blind levels. All events are limited to 210 players plus 40 alternates. I'm putting the line for the field at 120 players.

Aside from that, I am happy to report that I qualified for a single table sit-n-go to win a seat in the Moose Lodge annual tournament being held this January at the Golden Nugget, Las Vegas. I qualified by having finished second in a multi-table tournament held earlier this year at the McHenry Moose Lodge. The final table of nine was almost just eight as one player "won" two spots and I almost took a second spot recently but didn't quite make it (finished 5th, needed to be top two). The sit-n-go is probably going to be held in November and I'm looking forward to battling with the local rounders, including a former HPT Player of the Year, Mary Jo Belcore-Zogman.

Micro Degenerate

nospam@example.com (PokerBurro.com) — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 23:54:31 -0500

I feel so freaking good right now! Lol, I enjoy playing a lot of non-hold'em games and tonight I fired up Full Tilt and hopped into a 25/50 cent Stud game. At 6:55 PM CST I figured the session would go like the last few and I'd make a few dollars in an hour or so. Boy was I wrong.

$@*! as my wife said, I was sounding like a drunk sailor. I kept coming up with second best hands and some atrocious draws were getting there for everyone else except me :-) My first $10 buy-in went down the toilet at roughly 7:38 PM CST but I refused to quit and re-bought for $10 again. At 8:13 PM I'm dealt into a hand at my new low-point, I'm down to $3.70! Holy crap, beat after beat after beat...but damnit I'm determined!

Slowly I start to crawl out of that deep hole and get back to $10. I contemplate quitting while I'm now down only my original buy-in but some a-hole at my table has pssed me off earlier and I decide to stick around :-) Some cards finally start to come my way AND the plethora of luck-boxes at the table start missing! Finally, at 10:36 PM I'm dealt into my last hand where I proceed to make a flush and win a pot of $4.80 - putting me up 60 whole cents after 3 hours and 40 minutes of play!

LOL, 60 freaking cents and I couldn't be happier! How sick is that?

Windy City Poker Championship 2010

nospam@example.com (PokerBurro.com) — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 22:35:13 -0500

It was day 2 of the Windy City Poker Championship and I found myself at the feature table with about 10,000 fewer chips than I had started the day with. I didn't play as many pots as Kirk Fallah but then again, nobody played in as many pots as he did at the featured table. The atmosphere was tense yet fun and I picked a few spots to battle and get myself back into the plus column for the day. The TV production crew was moving people fairly frequently to and from the featured table so I didn't have to much time there but it was fun to be under the lights and showing my cards to the hole-cam! There was one key hand near the end of my featured table stay that I regret not having pulled the trigger and pushed all in to get a hyper-aggro small blind out of the hand but I had no pair, all low cards, and only a gutshot to a straight. This happened in a family-type pot where just about everybody had limped in and in retrospect I should have A. Folded or B. Raised right off the bat. Oh well, I took a hit to my stack but still had about 100,000 and probably was still in the top 12 of the 40 or so remaining players.

Over the next few rounds I managed to build my stack up to about 150,000 when this hand came up:

With blinds at 1500 - 3000 and 400 antes, playing 8-handed, I picked up pocket aces on the button. It was lmped around to the cutoff where Leroy, last year's champion, limped in. Now, prior to this, Leroy pretty much always came in with a raise and had been showing a lot of solid starting hands. This was definitely a change of pace so I wasn't quite sure what to put him on. Regardless, I had the aces so I wanted to either take it down right now with a decent bet or build up a pot. I raised to 11200 and the blinds folded. He thought briefly and made the call.

The flop came 2d 6d Qs. He checked and I'm thinking that maybe he hit the queen, has a middle pair, or maybe has a couple of high diamonds. I bet out 25,000 - 30,000 (not sure how much exactly) and he calls. Ok, so now there is roughly 85,000 in the pot and I've got about 110,000 behind and he has maybe 120 - 125,000. I stil think that I'm ahead on this hand and am hoping he's got AQ or maybe Jacks. But, I really think that he's on a flush draw. The turn comes a 3 of hearts. I believe he checks here and I figure that I want him out of this pot - I really don't want to give him an inviting price to chase the flush so I go all in. He starts to count on his fingers, two-three-four...he's making sure he has the straight. Aw crap. He calls and shows the 4d and 5d for the six high straight. Just for kicks, he hits a 3d on the river to make a straight flush and I'm busted in about 27th place. From being in the top 10 for sure to out the door in one hand - that's No Limit Poker!

All grown up but Mom doesn't like that I play poker

nospam@example.com (PokerBurro.com) — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 08:21:23 -0500

I'm 37 and my mother doesn't like that I play cards. Lol, my wife and other family members kind of tongue-n-cheek try to hide it from my mom while I like to NOT avoid the subject. Well, hopefully I get put up a good showing this weekend and make it to the televised final table of the Windy City Poker Championship. I'm currently in 6th place with 81 entrants to date and a possible 90 more entrants this Friday as the "day 1 flights" conclude. See the updated chip counts and photos of players here:

http://www.maineventcharitygames.com/WCPCSeason2ChipStacks.php

I now have some internet face time but Mom has never been on the internet and probably never will be. My day 1 video recap:

http://maineventcharitygames.com/videos/Flight1F.wmv

If you are in the area and have time, there are two other cool tournaments this weekend being held at the same venue. This includes a Poker After Dark style single table tournament, winner take all, and a heads-up tournament. Some of the players include notable players like 2007 WSOP Main Event Champion Jerry Jang and WPT Player of the Year Faraz Jaka.

good luck at the tables!

Hit the Wall

nospam@example.com (PokerBurro.com) — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 15:35:10 -0400

Day 1 of the WSOP Hammond Omaha-8 Event was a fun rollercoaster ride yesterday. I came out hammering and by the first break I built up from 10K to 13,375 in chips. I was scooping and chopping so many pots that I almost put one guy on tilt. Sadly, things then went in the other direction and the stacks of my black and green chips disappeared. I had to dig into my purple and yellow chips to mount a comeback.

I decided that I was playing too fast and aggressive and tightened up. With a more steady approach I rebuilt my stacks which went down to about 6000 back up to 16000 by the second break. At this point, my brain was fried. I had been sending texts of updates to my wife and poker buddy and I literally had to count and re-count my chips about eight times before I was able to walk away and remember the number to put in the update! OMG, my crazy schedule/logistics of the last couple of days was getting to me. I felt alert but in a kind of out-of-body type of way, if that makes any sense to anybody! Nearing the second break I was having to REALLY focus on the board to make sure I was reading everything right and weighing the right odds and scenarios in my head.

After the second break I continued to grind my way higher in the chip count to 24200 by the next break. By then there were now 112 players out of the original 176 remaining. I was still a little dazed but playing well. We were having a generally good time at the table as we all got some comical breaks, compliments of the casino staff. This player from Cincinnatti had been ordering Bud LIght and Jaegar Bombs (spelling correct?) all night. Somehow, the casino area that we were in ran out of Bud Light so the waitresses would have to go to a lower casino area (where the price was different than the upstairs portion...yeah, ok). Half the waitresses also gave him this real puzzled look when he ordered Jaegar Bombs because they had no idea what that was and a couple of times they came back basically saying, "HUH?" And to top it all off - he was charged different prices on about 7 different occasions! We were all cracking up at the absurdity of the situation.

On the non-jovial side, we had Mr. Yankee Hat Wearing Prick of Poker. This guy didn't realize how much of an a-hole his behavior was (which I'm not going to get into but I'd say the table consensus was...Level 8 A-Hole). He was an aggressive player that came in raising about 85% of his pots and came in a lot...and kept getting hit witth the deck. Both Cincinnati and I kept challenging this guy and I did pretty well but Cincinnati kept getting owned. So Yankee Boy was a good player AND was getting hit with the deck so that naturally meant that he was chip leader at our table and ultimately when it came down to fewer than 60 players remaining, only he and I were left from our original table.

Towards the end of the day I was stuck between 22K - 32K in chips. I then managed to win some sick hands where I scooped by making nut lows and nut straights with hands such as Ah 4h 7s 9s and another where I held 10s 7s Qx 9x and flopped 10h 8x 5x top pair with a gutshot straight draw. I figured that my opponent held something like A A x x and I could hit a second pair to beat him as well. So he bet and I raised and he called. The turn came a 7 of spades, giving me two pair plus a Queen high flush draw. I figured that I was ahead and got some more money in. The river was a small spade so there was a possible low but I had now improved to a flush. I was pretty sure he didn't have the flush, he bet and I raised. He then really went into the tank for a while. The pot was huge and he had to call one more bet. Pot odds pretty much dictate that you have to make tha call (so says the book, right?) but, for this situation, he made the lay down of what he later said were Kings.

So up to 65,000 plus chips with a round and a half to go and I'm feeling great! I think I'm in contention again. But, I start to bleed chips when a new player is moved to our table and the table dynamics change where pots start to get capped on multiple betting rounds. I was on the wrong end of some of those pots and found myself with about 22,000 chips and 7 minutes left before the end of Day 1. Now, I didn't want to go through my logistical travel ordeal to come in and get busted out early on Day 2 so I was looking for any decent spot to get my chips in and double up or more. With about 51 players left, in late position I get Qs Qc Js Kc. Pretty nice hand so myself, the new guy, and Yankee Boy are in the pot. YB raises and I 3-bet it to 9000, the blinds are 1500 - 3000 with the betting in the later rounds at 3000 - 6000. My raise is called by the New Guy and YB so the pot is over 27,000...this is going to be the type of sized pot that I need! The flop comes 2 2 2! Yikes, immediately you have to consider that someone came in with A 2 X X or A A X X or K K X X. Those are the only hands that I'm worried about as with my Q Q X X, I have the 4th possible nuts. It gets checked around on the flop and the turn comes a 7. YB bets and I decide to go ahead and get the money in, RAISE. Call! Call! River 5. Bet, RAISE, call, RAISE, All-In or something to that effect...LOL it was almost 3 AM and I was beat - in more ways than one cause YB pretty much slow rolled me as I flipped my queens over and he then shows the last freaking 2 in the deck!