The Poker Bookie

Don't play on Bodog

2008-12-26T21:32:00.001-05:00

Just a quick post to let everyone know that I am no longer affiliated with Bodog. I would not recommend that anyone play on that site anymore. Just a lot of horror stories with cashout. What's the point of winning if you can get your money out.

Huge Overlay on Bodog!

2007-02-27T18:39:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since I have posted on this blog but I know that I am still getting some visitors according to my blog traffic report.

The reason for this entry is to tell you about Bodog Poker. They are one of the few remaining sites that will cater to US customers after the fallout from the UIGEA bill and the Neteller debacle.

Here's why you should be playing at Bodog. I requested a payout last week through Western Union and I had my control # within 24 hours. I went to the nearest Kroger and took the cash....so much for the end of poker!!

Secondly, Bodog is running some tournaments with huge guarantees that are having overlays every night. I want you all to check out their Tuesday and Wednesday 50K guaranteed tournament at 8:30 PM. It is a $50+$5 buy-in and I guarantee that there will be a juicy overlay.

Click on my link on the left if you don't already have a Bodog account. Otherwise, see you at the table....

This thing still work???

2006-04-18T12:50:00.000-04:00

I got an email today with a summary of traffic to this little blog of mine. I normally just delete those things but I was curious to see whether I had anyone still visiting and I was surprised to see that there is still a trickle of traffic visiting.

The reason that I haven't been updating is that poker has been depressing lately. You would think that I would be winning more after finishing both volumes of Harrington on Hold'em but that has not been the case. Fortunately, it hasn't been a bloodbath either. I am just treading water but that is no fun when you are used to cashing for big money consistently. It's gotten so bad lately that I have even considered signing up for a poker training site. I haven't done it yet because I am not sure what kind of training I can get to cure people hitting miracle one outers and runner runners on me.

On a personal note, big changes are happening. I got a promotion at my job.....great news! But we have to relocate to Illinois.....not so great news anymore. We have been busy lately with getting our house ready to put on the market and house hunting for a new home in Illinois. I feel like I am stuck on one of those reality shows on the A&E network.

Breakthrough

2006-02-13T17:52:00.000-05:00

It took awhile but it finally happened yesterday. I won a big multi for a $3200 payday. This win was long overdue and it definitely helped restore my confidence. The most amazing thing is that I lost a coinflip with AK vs JJ in this tourney for almost all of my money in the middle stage of this tourney. I barely had enough to post the blinds, but I caught a few hands and cruised to the final table.

Earlier in the day, my wife made her first final table playing as Pokerescape on FullTilt. It was so fun to watch her work her way up the prize ladder. I was so proud of the way she played and it made me feel good that all those hours of watching me play was finally paying off. She didn't win the tourney, but she got 3rd place. The $450 prize will go toward some nice shoes I am sure.

Maybe I should start a poker coaching service. Earlier in the month, my brother in law also won a multi table tournament. Although it was only a $5 tourney, it was also a pretty nice payday. He was fearless at the final table and there was no way he was going to fall short. Now if I can just coach him to become less tilt-prone, he will be a great player.

Nothing too exciting to report from a travel perspective. Our trip to Albany is going to push back to March. With the severe snowstorms up north, we really didn't want to find ourselves stranded at some airport.

Time to get back to the tables!

A January to Forget

2006-01-30T11:52:00.000-05:00

Poker has been depressing lately. That's always the case when you are running bad. You almost feel like the poker gods are out to test you. I have lost every possible way the last 3 weeks. It's been sickening at times because I can actually call out the flop or the river before it gets dealt. Thank goodness for the $2000 that I won in the first couple days of January or this month would be even uglier.

Nonetheless, January is going to be a losing month and ending my streak of continuous winning months. When it's all said and done, I will be down about 2K for the month. It's been so painful I have avoided looking at my running total on the Excel spreadsheet that I keep. Taking into account the great start to the month, it's been a $4000 downswing since then. I hope the tide turns soon. The only positive that I can take from this is that I am still getting my money in when I have the best hand. Once the money goes in the middle, it's all up to the poker gods and to probabilities. Here's to hoping that probabilities prevail!

January has been disappointing in other ways. The World Series of Poker Circuit and the World Poker Tour were both in full swing in Tunica, Mississippi this month. I was hoping to go and play at least a couple of the preliminary events, but that didn't happen. Tunica is the closest place to Atlanta for some live poker for me. It doesn't bode well for my goals of playing more live tournaments this year if I can't even make it to Tunica.

Outside of poker, we only took one vacation this month. My brother rented a cabin in the North Georgia mountains....actually he rented a mansion log home. The place was incredibly nice. We got to spend one weekend there and recharge. My only complaint was that I was not able to get an internet connection.

My goals for February is to get back on the winning track. I am starting on Harrington on Holdem Volume II. You will find me on FullTilt playing the lower limit SNGs for the next couple of weeks until I can rebuild my bankroll.

Vacation plans for February: visit the in-laws in Albany, NY.

2005 Reflection and 2006 Poker Goals

2006-01-06T09:19:00.000-05:00

Looking back at 2005, I think I did alright for myself as a poker player, but I think there was definitely some room for improvement. I started the year playing mostly $20 sit and go with a few MTTs in the $10-50 range. By the end of the year, I was regularly playing $50 sit and go with a few shots at the higher limits. I also had a lot of success in the last 3 months of the year on the MTTs on Full Tilt Poker. I must have had over 15 cashes for more than $1000 each in the last quarter of the year. This is a drastic improvement from the beginning of the year when I would struggle to just make the bubble in the MTTs.

I can definitely say that my game has improved over the course of the year. Much of this has come with experience and playing 2-3 hours per night. However, I also spent a lot of time studying the game. I read a lot of the poker books, magazines, and poker forums .....basically anything that I could get my hands on that was poker related. In that regard, I achieve my goals for the year.

One thing that I wanted to do this past year was to satellite my way into a major tournament. On that aspect, I failed. I just didn't take many shots at those satellites. For the first half of the year, I was cashing out most of my winnings to pay for various things associated with buying a new house. I also stayed away from the highest level MTTs in order to protect my bankroll. However, as well as I was playing, I should have definitely taken more shots. It was hard to read the forums on Monday morning and see the same group of players do so well in the Sunday big tourneys.

My poker goals for 2006:

* Continue to improve my game and learn new advanced concepts.
* Continue to have fun playing the game
* Make more money this year than I did last year - as a matter of fact, I want to make more money playing poker this year than I make at my current job. I have a pretty good paying job so this will be a challenging goal to meet but it will keep me motivated. Although I currently enjoy what I am doing, I would be lying if I said I would rather work than play poker professionally. At this point, I am no where near good enough to go pro, but I want to build a little nest egg and see where this poker thing goes in the next couple of years. Is the poker bubble going to bust? I doubt it, but I won't leave my secure job for something that may not be here a couple of years down the road. It would be nice to make a score in one of the Sunday tournament so that I can buy some investments that will generate some residual income to subsidize my poker earnings.
* Play a WSOP or WPT event. Although I would like to play one of the 10K event, that will be unlikely unless I win a satellite. I promise myself that I will try harder this year, but I will not jeopardize my bankroll by buying in directly.
* Graduate to the $100 level for sit and go. I have experimented at this level and have had some success. I haven't been able to justify the variance, but I am planning on keeping a bankroll large enough to be playing at this level sometimes this year.
* Cash in a MTT for more than $10,000. To date, my biggest cash is a little less than $5000.

So far 2006 is off to a good start, I won my first MTT of the year last night. It was a $50 MTT on Full Tilt. There was only 80 players so I cashed for $1280. Hopefully this is the first of many MTT wins this year.

Good luck at the tables!

We are Back!

2006-01-04T21:16:00.000-05:00

My body is back in Georgia and back to the office grind, but my mind and spirit is still in Vegas!

We had a great time there ringing in the New Year. Although I am a little lighter in the wallet, I would definitely do it all over again. I am going to try to give a brief trip report focusing on poker. Although this is not a bad beat blog and I hate to recount bad beats, you will notice a trend if you continue reading. OK that's the warning...read on at your own peril.

Our flight on Delta was packed like a box of sardines. Other than having to endure a pack of giggling school girls sitting right behind us and a crying baby in front of us, the flight was pretty uneventful. After 4 hours, we got into Vegas at 9:30 local time. I decided to take a cab instead of fighting the lines for the shuttle bus. It cost $25 to get from the airport to the Riviera.

We checked in to the Riviera and were not very impressed with our "deluxe" room. Although it was already 1:00 AM eastern time for us, we couldn't just go to bed. This is Vegas after all so we decided to check out the casino. I passed by the poker room and it was very small. They only had 3 tables going and no tournaments. We proceeded to play some blackjack. We both won about $150 in less than 30 minutes. My wife was smart enough to keep her winning, but I decided to give mine back to the craps table. Now that I got that out of the way, we are finally ready for bed. Not so fast....on our walk back to the room, my wife puts a couple of dollars into the slot machine and hits for another $200. I think I found my lucky charm!

We get up bright and early on New Year's Eve. The plan is to walk to all the casinos up the strip and play a little blackjack at each stop. It was a cool day and perfect weather to do some people watching. The same trend continues for me....I lose while the wife continues to win. When we got to the Mirage, I found that they were running continuous sit and go. This was my first chance to play some live poker this trip so I sat down in a $60+10 table that paid 80% for 1st and 20% for 2nd.

The play was pretty weak and I quickly took control of the table. After about an hour and a half, we were heads-up and I had a 2 to 1 chip lead. My AQ ran into AK and now we were about even in chips. I still felt pretty confident as the other player was not challenging my raises. Everything was going my way until they switched dealers. We see a flop with me holding A4. The flop comes Q42. My opponent checks at the pot and I move all in on her pretty certain that she didn't have the Q and would have to fold. Actually I said "all-in". Without waiting for the player to respond to my all-in bet, the dealer deals a 7 for the turn card. She said that she didn't hear me.....are you kidding me??? Now I am stuck in a hard place, there are 2 overcards to my pair of 4's but I have to continue with my all-in bluff to have any chance at winning the pot. My opponent happily calls with the hammer "7-2". To make it enough worse, she confesses that she would have folded to my all-in bet on the flop. So instead of winning $420 for 1st, I have to settle for $180 for the second place finish. I really like this poker room and there was quite a bit of action. It didn't take very long for the sit and go to fill. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get back to this room prior to leaving.

After ringing in the New Year on the strip, we wake up on New Year Day and pack up to move to the Monte Carlo Hotel and Casino for the remaining two days. The room here was much nicer but that was to be expected. Our next stop after checking in was the Aladdin since I had heard that they run sit and go all day on Sunday. I was not disappointed as the room was very nice and the staff was friendly. I sat down at one table $55 sit and go. Lot of pocket aces were being dealt, but I didn't get any of them. I think I busted out in 6th when I tried to semi-bluff with middle pair and ran into top pair. Although I would have liked to play more than one, we had to leave for dinner reservation at the Monte Carlo. There would be no more poker on this day.

On Monday, my last full day in Vegas, I told my wife that I wanted to enter some of the multi table tourneys. My first one was at the Monte Carlo at 9:00 AM. This was a $40 buy-in and it only drew about 30 people with top 3 making the money. We each started with 1000 chips and the blinds went up pretty quickly. After an hour, we were down to the final 9 players. The blinds drove the action and we were quickly down to 5 players. I was the short stack when I pick up pocket jacks on the big blind. I was more than happy to call when the small blind moved in on me. I wasn't so happy when he turned over KQ because I knew we would be racing. He managed to hit both his K and his Q to send me packing in 5th place. I had a real shot at 1st if my jacks could have held up.

After lunch, we went back to the Aladdin so that I could play the 1:00 PM $60 with one $40 rebuy. We each started with 2000 chips and I immediately took the rebuy for an additional 2000 chips. Some donk promptly gave me all of chips when he tried to move me off my pocket 10's with his A4 offsuit. I won a couple of smaller pots and was quickly chip leader at my table with over 7000. Then this hand happened. I find pocket KK and make it 500 with the blinds at 100-200. I get re-raised to 1000. I got the feeling that the guy was just tired of me picking up pots and wanted to catch me stealing or wanted to slow me down. I decided to push all in. I thought that he may read me for a steal and maybe call. Well I was right, he did call with the only hand that I didn't want him to....pocket aces. Now I am doing to under 2000 and I can't take another rebuy since you are limited to only one.

A few hands later, I am on the button with AQ suited. There are 3 limpers to me and about 900 in the pot. I decided to push all -in. I am called by the same guy who had aces against me earlier. This time, he has my KK and I get no help on the board. Game over. That was all the poker that I played on this trip. I didn't do as well as I would have liked but I had a lot of fun and it was nice to hold some real cards for a change.

Now that I am home, I will soon make some 2006 poker goals and get serious again. I have some big plans this year. Check back soon for that entry.

It has arrived!

2005-12-30T10:07:00.000-05:00

My long awaited trip to Vegas to ring in the New Year is finally here. Actually, my flight from Atlanta doesn't leave until 8:00 PM tonight, so I am still sitting here at work counting down the hours. We'll get in to Vegas at around 9:30 local time. We'll be staying at the Riviera for the first two nights and then moving over to the Monte Carlo for the last two nights.

We originally booked the whole stay at the Riviera. My wife was browsing their web site when she noticed that they are now offering the room at a much lower rate. When she called them to see if they would honor it, they refused. I didn't particularly care for that response so we cancel the last two nights. We would have cancelled all four nights if there wasn't a penalty for doing so. As luck would have it, I recently received a promo offer in the mail from the Monte Carlo for 3 free nights. Thus, everything worked out beautifully.

I haven't had much time to update this blog so let me bring you up to date on how I have been doing. I had a very good stretch on FullTilt with many final tables and cashes for close to $1000 each. I also finished 3rd in a Party Poker tournament for about $4500. At one point, I truly felt invincible, then reality set in these past couple of weeks. I am losing every possible ways imaginable. I guess that's what they call variance, but boy does it suck!!

Hopefully, my luck will turn in Vegas. I am hoping to play a couple of tourneys out there and get away from the online grind. I'll be sure to come back with some good stories and updates. It's also time to think about my poker goals for 2006. More to come when I return...

Until then, have a safe New Year and remember that a cab ride is much cheaper than a DUI.

Happy Turkey Day

2005-11-23T16:29:00.000-05:00

This is my favorite time of the year. Family, football, and feast. Fortunately we will not have to do any travelling this year and it will be a nice relaxing 4 days vacation from work. On Thursday, we will drive to my parents for Thanksgiving dinner and catch the NFL games there. On Saturday, we'll have a few people over at our house watching the Georgia/Georgia Tech annual Civil War.

Poker has been great. I took down another of the nightly guaranteed tournament on FullTilt. This time it was for a little over $1900. I absolutely love the tournament structure on FullTilt. I now spend 90% of my time on that site.

I won a six team teaser in the NFL last week so I am feeling a little frisky. I am going to recommend that you play Georgia minus the 3 points this weekend. I think Tech is just not ready to play Georgia after their huge win over Miami. Be warned that I have been horrible this year whenever I post any of my plays on this blog. Hopefully, I didn't just jinxed my beloved Dawgs.

Hope everyone has a safe holiday season. Make it profitable, but most importantly take the time to spend with your family. It will be more rewarding and enjoyable than anything that money can buy.

Beatbookie

Quick Update

2005-11-14T19:45:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the lack of updates lately if any of my readers are still out there. It's tough to update when things aren't going well at the table.

October was a rough month. It was a break-even month for me but I was so accustomed to winning that it really felt like a losing month. I lost my fair share of races and I would spend 2-3 hours in a tourney and bubble a few spots from the money when someone would hit their perfect card on the river. I guess that's poker and that's what they call variance, but it is still tough to stomach when you are going through it.

November has been much better. I won $2500 on Friday night by taking down 1st place in the nightly guaranteed tourney on Full Tilt.

Outside of poker, I had to disable the comments on my blog as it was being hijacked by spammers. If any of you want to contact me, you can find me most nights playing on Full Tilt under the name "beatbookie".

My Dawgs have been disappointing of late. We have dropped two straight with losses to Florida and Auburn. There goes any hope of a National title. Fortunately, we can still end up in the SEC Championship game with a win over Kentucky next week. They have traditionally been our whipping boys so hopefully we can continue that trend.

I am going to be out In Phoenix for business the first week in December. Anyone know of any poker rooms out there?

Vegas, Here I Come!

2005-10-19T15:39:00.000-04:00

We booked our flight for New Year's Eve in Vegas this past weekend. My wife and I will be flying out there on Friday December 30th and spend the New Year in Vegas. Man, this is going to be a great trip. I am trying to talk my siblings and their spouses into joining us out there. We made reservation at the Riviera Hotel, but if I can take down a couple of MTT before the trip, I'll probably try to get a room at one of the newer hotel that still has vacancy. That may be a stretch. The important thing is that I will be able to count down 2005 and welcome in 2006 on the Vegas Strip instead of on my living room couch.

Maybe it will be a sign of things to come for 2006 since I am going to try really hard to qualify online for the WSOP 2006. I am having a pretty good year so far, but I am going to fall short of my poker goals this year. I am up well over 5 digits for the year, but I have not played in a major live buy-in tournament like I wanted to do. I have been doing a lot of grinding online and used most of my winnings to buy things for the new house and to pay off existing debt.

It's a little early to start making 2006 resolutions and plans, but I know that I am going to be setting aside a percentage of all my winnings in 2006 so that I can start taking some shots at the next level. Nothing ventured, nothing gained!

How 'bout them Dawgs?? This could be the year baby!

A gift for myself

2005-10-09T11:36:00.000-04:00

It's on its way! I am talking about my Sony 55 inch Grand WEGA big screen TV that is being delivered today. I just got a call from the delivery team and they should be here before the first set of NFL games kick off today.

I scored a nice $1350 payday Friday night in the FullTilt's 10K guaranteed tournament. I really thought I would take down the first place of >$3000, but I went card dead when we got three handed and I had to go in with a less than premium hand to capture 3rd place. My disappointment didn't last as long as usual because the finish meant that I would be able to finally get that TV that I had my eyes on. The best part is that it was paid for in full in less than a month by fellow poker players.

On a another note, I am going to focus more of my energy on poker than other activities. I have not had a very good football betting season, hence the lack of free picks. It's one thing for me to lose, but totally another thing when I give out losing picks to others. I would not want any readers to lose their money because of my faulty advice. Unless I find a game that I feel very strongly about, I will no longer be posting plays here.

I have also spent a lot of time and energy promoting Full Tilt Poker and Bodog Poker/Sportsbook. Recently, I made an offer on Recpoker.com to give $25 a month for 3 months to anyone that will open up an account using my link. Between all the flames and someone reporting me to Full Tilt that I was flaming the board, it's just not worth it. I have made less than $50 from my affiliate deal. My time and effort is better used playing poker.

Not sure how many of the Sunday tourneys I will get to play today, but I will definitely try to play the 50K guaranteed on Full Tilt.

Good luck and enjoy your Sunday!

I Busted a Pro

2005-10-04T13:16:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the lack of updates. It seems as if I have constantly been on the road this past month. When I am not traveling, I am too busy cashing in the multi table tournaments on Full Tilt Poker (bonus code:Pokerbook or click link below)to be posting. I don't foresee any travel for the next couple of weeks so I thought I would post an update now that things have calmed down some.

I have had a couple of nice cashes since my last update. I think most of them have been for about $1000, but it's nice when they come in bunches. I am about $500 away from this 55 inch Sony big screen TV that I have had my eyes on. Hopefully with a little luck, I'll be able to make that purchase this weekend.

This past sunday, I played in the 50K guaranteed on FullTilt and I was fortunate to bust Steve Brecher. I had an above average stack when he was moved to my table with a small stack. Although I normally don't like to call all-ins with AK, I just couldn't resist when he pushed in front of me. I call and he flips over Presto (5-5) so I needed a little luck on the flop. I did spike the Ace and knock him out thus getting a bounty of $200 and essentially turning that tournament into a freeroll for me. I busted out in 19th place for an additional $320. I guess I should be happy, but I keep focusing on the fact that I was only 18 people away from the $18K. I am really playing well right now and I seem to win my fair share of coin flips so I am hoping that I can take down a nice payday soon!

My wife and I are in the process of making our New Year's Eve plans. We have decided on Las Vegas this year. My goal over the next couple of months is to win enough money to pay for the trip. I'll keep you all updated on my progress.

Good luck at the tables!

Saturday College Teaser # 2

2005-10-01T10:56:00.000-04:00

4 Team Teaser Bet Details (reference #20231281)

Michigan State Pick
Football - College Lines Game can be seen on ABC - Pointspread
Sat@12:00p
(Teased 6.0 points)

Texas -9½
Football - College Lines Game can be seen on ABC - Pointspread
Sat@12:00p
(Teased 6.0 points)

Florida +2½
Football - College Lines Game can be seen on CBS - Pointspread
Sat@3:30p
(Teased 6.0 points)

USC vs. Arizona State Over 66
Football - College Lines Game can be seen on ABC - Total
Sat@3:30p
(Teased 6.0 points)

Mid Week Update

2005-09-15T15:02:00.000-04:00

Stepping down in limits is just what the doctor ordered. I know the stats below are not sustainable, but they sure are nice. I have been playing the $30+3 Sit and Go on Fulltilt.

So far this week, I have played a total of 10 with:
5 wins
2 second places
1 third place
1 fourth place
1 seventh place

80% in the money. Throw in a 3rd place finish in a $50 MTT and I am up close to a grand this week. I am telling....if you are not playing at Fulltilt, you are a fool! Sign up now using the link below. 100% signup bonus to boot.

In other news, Bodog has announced an end to their bottomless 20% bonus effective 09/22/05. If you have been thinking about posting up at this site, now is the time to do it. After 09/22/05, you will only get a 10% bonus. Hurry!

This may be my last update this week. I am flying out to Moline, Illinois on Saturday for a wedding of a friend of mine. I won't be returning until Sunday afternoon, so I'll probably miss all the big tournaments on Sunday. If I have some time, I may log in for a quick update with some football plays.

Good luck at the table and remember to sign up at Full Tilt if you play tournaments!

Time to rebuild

2005-09-12T18:46:00.000-04:00

There comes a time when you must step back in order to move forward. After my huge week that I had several weeks ago, I have been trying to take my game to the next level. I have played a lot of the $100 and $200 MTT on Fulltilt along with $50 SNG's. I have been running really cold and my bankroll has taken a hit. It's time for me to go back to a lower level and concentrate more on SnG's to build up the bankroll again.

The only good thing about the past week is that I continue to play good poker and get my money into the middle with the best of it. The bad beats have been brutal but I am sure you don't want to hear about them because bad beat stories are a dime a dozen.

I am off to a shaky start in football. I lost my fantasy football game this week, but more troubling is that I lost my #1 wide receiver Javon Walker to season-ending knee surgery. Can I get a break?

Let's turn all this misfortune around tonight with the over 42 in the Atlanta/Philadelphia Monday Night Football game.

Forgettable Saturday

2005-09-11T11:42:00.000-04:00

It was definitely a Saturday to forget. I spent half the morning going furniture shopping with the wife and missed most of the Notre Dame and Michigan game. We had lunch at Barnacle's which is a little sports bar type restaurant so I was able to catch a little of it. That game pretty much killed the teaser.

I played in the 200K guaranteed on Fulltilt. Actually I should say I donated because I was in the tourney for less than 10 minutes. Nothing like burning money! Georgia looked very unimpressive in their win over South Carolina, but after the way that we played, I am quite happy with the win.

The evening finished on a little of a positive note when I hit my play on Texas over Ohio State.
I am hoping for better results today in both poker and the football. Here are my plays for today:

Denver Broncos vs. Miami Dolphins Over 37½
Football - NFL Lines Game can be seen on CBS - Total
Sun@1:00p

Washington Redskins -6
Football - NFL Lines Game can be seen on FOX - Pointspread
Sun@1:00p

St. Louis Rams vs. San Francisco 49ers Over 46
Football - NFL Lines Game can be seen on FOX - Total
Sun@4:15p

Green Bay Packers +3
Football - NFL Lines Game can be seen on FOX - Pointspread
Sun@4:15p

Green Bay Packers vs. Detroit Lions Over 46
Football - NFL Lines Game can be seen on FOX - Total

Saturday College Teaser # 1

2005-09-10T10:33:00.000-04:00

5 team 6 point teaser -- Good Luck

5 Team Teaser Bet Details (reference #18694881)

Michigan -1
Football - College Lines Game can be seen on ABC - Pointspread
Sat@12:00p
(Teased 6.0 points)

Oklahoma -25
Football - College Lines Game can be seen on FOX-Sports Net - Pointspread
Sat@12:30p
(Teased 6.0 points)

California vs. Washington Over 39
Football - College Lines Game can be seen on ABC - Total
Sat@3:30p
(Teased 6.0 points)

Georgia -12
Football - College Lines Game can be seen on ESPN - Pointspread
Sat@5:30p
(Teased 6.0 points)

Texas +7½
Football - College Lines Game can be seen on ABC - Pointspread
Sat@8:00p
(Teased 6.0 points)

Not a good start

2005-09-09T16:02:00.000-04:00

I lost my first official play of the NFL season on Oakland. They had a shot but couldn't close the deal against the defending champs. I liked the spot because the public usually overvalues the champs and we were getting good value with the hook. Anyways, you can't win them all....I'll try to dig out of it.

Go check out www.acesfullpoker.blogspot.com. Steve is also posting his picks for me....maybe he can make us a little money. I'll be back throughout the weekend with more of my plays (hopefully, they'll cash).

One play for now. I am on TEXAS (BIG) over Ohio State. The line is at +1 right now.

I am also looking forward to the big 200K guaranteed tournament on FullTilt this weekend. The last time they ran this, they had a huge overlay. It doesn't appear this way right now with already over 700 people signed up, but the play on that site is horrible so it is a good spot to make a decent score. My screen name there is Beatbookie....come say hello.

For those of you who don't currently play there, give it a try using my link below. We are currently offering a 100 % match bonus.

Good luck this weekend.

Plug for Bodog

2005-09-07T18:50:00.000-04:00

With the start of the NFL season tomorrow, I need to make a plug for why you should be playing on Bodog Sports.

Bodog allows you to wager on you on your favorite team using the same account that you use to play poker. They offer a variety of bets including parlay, teasers, and haftime lines. On top of all this, they offer a bottomless 20% bonus. This means that there is no time limit or how much of a bonus that you can earn. The cool part is that the bonus is immediately added to your account for wagering as soon as you make the deposit.

Currently, Bodog is also running a promotion in their poker room that will send you and a friend to the Pro Bowl in Hawaii. Click on the link below for all the details.

First free play of the season.....take Oakland plus the 7.5 points.

Labor Day

2005-09-07T14:19:00.000-04:00

I spent the Labor Day weekend in Destin, Florida. Great weather and a good time but now I am sunburnt and paying the price.

Not much news on the poker front. I haven't been able to play any of the featured weekend tournaments in a while. I was able to find a faint wireless signal at the condo on the beach and played a couple of SNG's. Damn! I sound like an addict.

My bulldogs got off to a nice start with a whopping of Boise State. Bring on Spurrier and the Gamecocks!

I will be back with a meatier post once things settle down a bit.

Phil Ivey Plays on FullTILT

2005-08-23T16:33:00.000-04:00

Not a bad day yesterday -

Fulltilt $50+5 MTT - 4th place - $478.50
Ultimate Bet $40 +4 MTT - 4th place - $601.80
Fulltilt $100 +9 MTT with Phil Ivey - busted out before the money.

Play Online Poker

Back Home

2005-08-22T16:10:00.000-04:00

I can't believe the week long vacation is now over.

On Saturday, we left Albany and went to Foxwoods Casino to meet up with my wife's roommate from college and her husband. Foxwoods is like 3 casinos in one. It is absolutely amazing. You could spend a week there and not see/do everything. There poker room is also huge. Unfortunately, there were not running any tournaments on the weekend...just some ACT I and ACT II satellites for coupons into ACT III and a WPT event. I asked around to see if I could play the satellites and sell my coupons if I win since I had no intentions of coming back for ACT III. The general consensus was that it would be more trouble than it was worth so off to the blackjack tables we went.

Net profit from blackjack: Me - $0 Wife - $300 HOORAY!!

We had dinner at the Han Garden. Not my thing, but I lived (can you tell I am not a fan of Chinese food?).

The drive back from Connecticut was a little over 14 hours. Today I am just relaxing and playing a couple of tournaments on Full Tilt Poker. It's back to work tomorrow. Fun stuff!

Next trip: Destin, Florida on Labor Day weekend.

Saratoga Horse

2005-08-19T12:33:00.000-04:00

Quick update before I head off to the track:

Came in fifth last night in FullTilt's $109 MTT for a payday of $544.

Couple of horses for you today at Saratoga:

7th race - Exchange Bay
8th - My Typhoon

Turning Stone Trip Report

2005-08-16T15:10:00.000-04:00

We made the drive over to Turning Stone casino on Sunday afternoon. It was a little less than 2 hours from Albany. I had previously made reservations through the poker room and was able to secure the room at the special rate of $75. As we were standing in line to check in, I could overhear the receptionist quoting the room rate as $168 to the people in front of us. I felt like a winner already.

We got one of the suite in their newly built Tower Hotel. I must say that I was very impressed. The room was very clean and everything about it was top notch. After settling in, we decided to go downstairs for dinner. As we were walking past the Craps table, I decided to give it a roll to see if I could win the money for dinner. What a great decision that was. I had a nice little run for a $250 profit. Dinner paid for!

We ate at the Forest Grille and both had the filet mignon. The food was excellent and well worth the $120 bill. The only complaint/drawback was that we didn't realize that we were on a dry Indian reservation which meant that we were not able to enjoy some drinks with our meals.

After dinner, I went to try to pre-register for Monday's tournament but they had stopped pre-registering and I would have to do it the next day prior to the start of the tournament. They did tell me that 200 people have already registered and that they would take an additional 100 on Monday. So we decided to spend the rest of the night playing blackjack. I gave back some of my winnings from the craps table earlier but still ended up a winner for the night.

Monday morning, I got up at 7:00 to be one of the first in line when the tournament registration starts at 8:00. I had no trouble registering and paid my $230 entry fee. The tournament was not scheduled to start into 10:00 that morning so I had time to go back up to the room and wake up the wife to go have breakfast.

Of course the tournament didn't start on time. Finally about 10:30, we got started. The structure was not bad. We each started with $2500 chips and blinds were 25-50 with 30 minutes round. A total of 294 people entered with top 25 getting paid. First place money was a little over $16k. I was in the SB on the very first hand and got dealt 45 offsuit. It was a community pot and I just completed the bet. I flopped 2 pairs and won a nice little pot.

I didn't play any big pots and managed to get my chip count up to about $4000 at one point but lost about half of it before the break. After 3 levels, we got a 30 minutes break. There must have been about 200 people left at this point. After we got back from the break, the blinds were at 75-150 and i had exactly $2000 left. I got dealt AQ unsuited and made it $500 to go. It folds around to the button who has me slightly covered and he announces that he is all-in. I think about it for 30 seconds and just felt like he had AK. I think I would have probably called even if I knew that he had a small pocket pair and gambled. However, he would have me dominated with his AK and I would have been in bad shape. I grudgingly fold and wait for a better spot, but now I am in a world of trouble with only $1500 left. Two hands later, I look down and see cowboys. Bells start to go off in my head and I am so proud of folding my AQ earlier.

This time, I make it $400 to go and I get one caller. He is one of the chip leader at the table. The flop comes down rag-rag-J. I check my hand and the other guy bets out $400. I instantly reraise all-in. I turn over my Kings, but I am devastated when he turns over his Jacks for the flopped set. The turn and river was no help and I am out of the tourney.

I entered a $59 single table shootout tournament to win $500 in tournament lammers. After an hour and a half of play, we got heads up but I was a 2-1 chip underdog. The guy offers me a deal to take $200 in cash. I figure that it was a pretty good deal since I wouldn't have to deal with trying to resell the tournament lammers even if I won. I took the deal.

My wife could tell that I was upset from busting out of the tournament and she asked me if I wanted to extend our stay for one day so I can play more single table shootouts. I am not sure how I got so lucky when I married her.

Surreal moment of the trip: Monday night, we were watching the $30-6o game while I was waiting for my name to be called. There was a lot of jawing going on and you could just feel the intensity. The pots were huge. On one particular hand, this guy raised every street with his AJ on a rags board. After the final card is dealt, the other guy slow rolls him with the straight. Initial raiser turns beet red and starts blurting out F bombs. The next thing you know he comes flying across the table and cold decks the other guy. It takes 4 or 5 security/casino personnel to seperate them. My wife looks at me and asks me if we are on the set of TILT. I have never witnessed anything like that. Poker is definitely a contact sport.

FullTilt Has Been Good to Me

2005-08-14T10:37:00.000-04:00

I am currently blogging from Saratoga. New York. I went to the Spa yesterday and had a break even day at the track. Tonight I am heading over to Turning Stone to play in the Empire State Hold'em Championship tomorrow.

Play Online Poker

Not a bad start to the week

2005-08-09T16:22:00.000-04:00

Monday - The streak continues. Cashed out for a little under 2K in the 8:00 PM $109 MTT. I wish I could play these every nights but they end too late for me and my sleep has been suffering so I'll take it easy the next couple of days.

Thanks to all the railbirds and well-wishers!

Super Sunday and Week in Recap

2005-08-08T16:00:00.000-04:00

Boy was Sunday a long day! I just wish it had been a little longer. :)

After waking up and eating breakfast, I logged into Pokerstars around 11:00 AM. I told myself that i was going to play in the $500,000 guaranteed tourney but I didn't want to buy in directly. I had 3 shots to win a seat in their $11 rebuys turbo (12:30, 1:30, and 2:30). I got warmed up by playing a couple of sit and goes on Bodog.

In my 12:30 satellite, I busted shortly after the add-on break. However, in the next satellite, I finally won my seat to the big tourney at 4:30. So I invested a total of $62 for my $215 seat. I always take an immediate rebuy and an add-on in these things.

I couldn't believe how many people signed up for the 500K. There were over 3400 players and the top 324 was going to get paid with first place taking about 138K, i think. I got some chips early in the tourney and tried to stay out of trouble. At one point, Mike "the Grinder" Mizrachi was moved to my immediate left. Luckily, he was shortstacked and didn't create a lot of problems for me. It's amazing how fast the blinds go up in these things. At one point, I was in 20th place but I went card dead and busted in 218th place. That was good for a $476 payday.

Now on to the good stuff. I have been torrid in the Full Tilt MTT this past week so I decided to buy into the $216 35K guaranteed tournament. It was kind of a last minute impulse decision because I was doing so well in the Pokerstars tournament. I am sure glad I did.
I played at the same table as Jennicide and she was very pleasant....not what I would have expected from the posts about her in the various poker forums. I finished the tournament in 5th place and a score of $3750. This is my biggest cash to date in a MTT.

Total for the week: + $5500.

Let's hope the streak continues.....

Make it 4

2005-08-07T16:01:00.000-04:00

Made another final table on FullTilt in the $109 MTT. I finished 6th when I had to push with a marginal hand because blinds were just too high for my stack. I think the payout was a little over $400.
I came back last night and entered the $163 MTT. Chris "Jesus" Ferguson and Aaron Bartley was also in this tournament but I was never seated at their tables. I never really got any chips in this tourney but made it down to 13th place. Unfortunately only top 9 paid so it was a good waste of a couple of hours.
Today I am planning on playing the Stars $500,000 guaranteed tournament. I have been running good this week and due to cash in one of these tournaments.

Several people have asked me for the first football play of the season. Tomorrow, I am taking Miami plus the 3 points. Remember that it is still the preseason....keep things in perspective!

I am Beatbookie on Stars if you want to come sweat me.

3 in a week

2005-08-05T20:25:00.000-04:00

Three final tables this week alone on Fulltilt. However the only win came last night in the $4000 guaranteed. When it got heads-up, I was a 3-1 chip underdog but fought my way to a win and a $1824 payday. Not bad for 4.5 hours of work.

What has impressed me more this week is how well the wife has been doing. She is becoming quite the tough SNG player. She is up over $300 this week playing the $16 turbo SNG on Pokerstars. Her screen name is PokerEscape. Stop by and say hello if you see her.....just make sure you don't sit down at the table because she will clean you out quick!

Good luck this weekend.

I am back

2005-08-02T17:10:00.000-04:00

Wow! I can't believe it has been close to 3 months since I have posted in this journal.

I doubt that I have many readers left, but let's get it crank up again just in time for football season. I am going to be putting up some free sports picks for those that like to bet on sports in addition to playing poker.

Since it has been awhile, I am just going to briefly recap the past few months:

Cashed for a little over $1200 in a UltimateBet $40 MTT
Had a nice run playing SNGs on Bodog.
Played in a couple of the Stars big Sunday tourneys but no cash
Went through a two weeks period when I could really relate to the idiots on Recpoker who thinks that online poker is rigged...I was constantly one or two outed on the river.

All in all, life has still been good. I am leaving next Friday for a week vacation in Saratoga, NY. I hope to play in a couple tournaments at Turning Stone Casino. They happen to be running the Empire State Hold'em Championship. It will be nice to take a break from the laptop and hold some real cards. Besides that, you will find me at Saratoga racetrack betting on the ponies.

Who knows I may even log on and post a few winners. Good luck at the table!

Derby Day

2005-05-06T14:50:00.000-04:00

Saturday is the Run for the Roses. Get your bets in early!

Bellamy Road looks impressive in the last two outings, but I can't play him at that price. My pick to win the Derby this year is High Fly. With Jerry Bailey aboard and 8 to 1 odds, I can't pass that up.

Play HIGH FLY for $50 across the board. For your novices, that means $50 to win, $50 to place, and $50 to show. You'll make money as long as he comes in the top 3 places.

Looking for a place to bet? Try Bodog Sports. Click on my link on this page. After you cash your Derby ticket, you can try out their poker room.

Good luck everyone!

Those Damn Ladies!

2005-04-27T20:20:00.000-04:00

I tried to follow up my recent success in Fulltilt's MTT by entering Tuesday's afternoon $50+5. I played good poker for about 2 hours and we got down to 10 people. Top 7 made the money...I was around 4th or 5th place and there were a couple of really low stacks.

Rather than playing it safe, I was playing to win. I ended up tangling with someone more money than me when my AK ran up against QQ. That's two days in a row that those damn ladies have been my downfall. Oh well, live and learn!

The Bodog Poker Room now guarantees at least $1.5 Million will be won in tournaments every month!

Tournament highlights include:

Weekly $100K Guaranteed Tournament
Every Sunday at 2:00pm ET
Buy-in: $100 + $9, or earn your entry via our daily qualifying tournaments

2 Weekly $25K Guaranteed Tournaments
Wednesday at 8:30pm ET, Buy-in: $32 + $3
Saturday at 8:30pm ET, Buy-in: $52 + $5

Multiple Daily $10K Guaranteed Tournaments

World Series of Poker Qualifying Tournaments
Earn your way into the 2005 WSOP, Las Vegas, July 7-15, 2005
Package Value: $12,500
Buy-in for as little as $1

If you are not already playing there, give it a try by clicking on the link on this page.

Good Luck!

The Bridesmaid

2005-04-26T16:11:00.000-04:00

I ended up the bridesmaid in Fulltilt's $50 tournament on Monday afternoon. Only 62 people entered this tournament, but among them was Pro player Steve Brecher. I have never heard of the guy before but he has supposedly won over $350K this year alone. Although it was nice to cash for $651, it wasn't nearly as satisfying as cashing for less when I finished first a couple of days ago. I was actually pretty disappointed with my final table play. I managed to build a nice lead going into the final table, but made some really suspect and bonehead moves.

Luckiest hand of the tourney: Down to 3 handed; I have slightly more than the low stack (teach2121). I hold 9-8 in the SB and limp in. Flop comes down QJ10 and I fall in love with my open ended straight draw. I semi-bluff the pot and get reraised. Rather than throw my hand away like I should have, I reraised my opponent all in. He thought for a second before calling and turning over QQ for the set. The turn brings a 9 and the river saves me with a K for the straight on the board and a split pot. That King on the river was worth $200 to me as that was the difference in prize money between 3rd and 2nd.

Unluckiest hand of the tourney: My Jacks running up against Steve's Queens. We got it all in preflop and no helps come. I lose my chip lead and give chips to the wrong person at the table.

Items of note: Lothian again played well and finish 4th. Watch out for him. Some player named Bobmo that harassed the whole table for about an hour because he was busted on a bad beat.

Sweetest part of tourney: Busting Warking aka "I am Rick James, Biatch"

The Drought Ends

2005-04-23T11:09:00.000-04:00

I finally broke my losing streak in MTT yesterday. After a 3 hour battle, I beat 90 other players to take down the first prize of $582.40 on Fulltilt. It wasn't so much the money as the thrill of making it back to the final table and winning.

I felt like I played good poker for the entire 3 hours. I started the tournament by doubling up early and then just hanging around the average stack size for the longest time. Cards came around just enough for me to stay above the water. When it got down to about 20 people, I opened it up a little and built a nice stack for the final table. Another player (t206naps) remarked that I didn't see a hand that I didn't like. Although that wasn't exactly true, the rest of the table tightened up enough to allow me to run over it.

However, there was this other player (Nizzate) who was pretty decent. He ended up finishing second, but I can't recall how many times I doubled him up. No matter what I had, he either had me beat or drew out on me. When we got heads up, I had a huge lead on him but I wasn't counting him out because of our history. Fortunately for me, my hand held up and it was sweet victory.

Bodog's 100K Guaranteed Tourney

2005-04-02T21:22:00.000-05:00

The first tournament starts on Sunday April 3rd at 2pm EST and will be happening every Sunday at 2pm EST.

There are 3 ways to enter the tournament:

1. There are cheap seat qualifiers; the buy-in is $1 + $0. 1 out of every 109 players will win enough tournament credits to enter in the $100K Tournament
2. There are semi final qualifiers; the buy-in is $10 + $1. 1 out of every 11 players will win enough tournament credits to enter in the $100K Tournament
3. You can buy in at $109 or 109 tournament credits to the $100K Guaranteed Weekly Tournament

For more information please visit:

http://www.bodog.com/welcome/139032/poker/poker-100k-guaranteed.jsp

Looks like there will be a huge overlay. Only 200 signed up so far.

Close but no Cigar

2005-03-29T14:42:00.000-05:00

After a long hiatus, I finally made a final table at Pokerstars yesterday. I got home from work early and decided to enter the $20+2 PL tourney. A total of 270 players started and first place paid a little under $1500.

The tourney started pretty slow for me, but I managed to hang around the average stack size. The one constant about this tourney is that most of my hands held up when we got it all in and I can't remember being sucked out on. When it got down to about 40 players, I was sitting in first place and started to feel good about making the final table.

Then my cards fell dead and blinds and antes started to eat away at my stack. I managed to steal some blinds from folks who were trying to make it to the next payout level. That helped get me to the final table but I was shortstacked. At this point, I decided to switch gears. I am a SNG specialist and thought I may be able to move up the prize structure. Actually managed to make it to 2nd, but then I had a brain fart.

I was in cutoff position and raised 3X the blinds. The BB plays back at me and goes all in. I had A5 of club and should have folded. However, I didn't trust my first instinct and thought that he could have been making that play with a wide variety of hands. He was a rather loose player and had just gone from chip leader to shortest stack. I felt he could have been tilting. Regardless, I called the bet and he turns over AK. The board helps neither of us and he takes down the pot. The very next hand, I get K10 and call the 2X raise. Board comes 10 high and all my money goes in. Unfortunately, I was playing against chip leader and he turns over QQ.

I am out in 6th place for a $243 payday. Time for a beer!

Bodog is still running their 20% bonus for March Madness. Click the link on the left to try it out!

Calling All Whores

2005-03-23T17:12:00.000-05:00

I got some news that I want to pass along to all of you "Bonus Whores" out there. I just got word that in the spirit of March Madness, Bodog Sports and Poker is offering a 20% signup bonus and a 20% redeposit bonus!

To take advantage of this incredible offer, just click on the link on the left side or use this link:

http://www.bodog.com/welcome/139032/poker

Bodog is a great place to bet on your favorite team. They have free fast payouts and world class customer service. You can play poker from the same account without the need to transfer money like you do with Intertops and other sportbook/poker combo. Bodog also has some of the easiest games. Check it out!

Poker has been good to me!

2005-02-28T15:14:00.000-05:00

Poker has been good to me. Yes it has!

After a year of playing this game, I can affirmatively say that I am a winner. Damn that sounds good to hear. I am no longer playing against the house with its built in edge. I am now playing against real human beings that think A7 is worth risking their tournament lives with. Of course, sometimes that A7 will crush my Kings and bust me out on the bubble in a big tournament, but I wouldn't want it any other way.

Life has been pretty hectic so I have not had much time for this blog here. I started a new job in November and can no longer post from work. Once I am home, I would rather be playing poker than writing about it. However, I was checking my site meter report yesterday and noticed that I am still getting some faithful readers checking in every week. It would be rude for me not to post an update.

Other than a new job, my wife and I are also in the process of building a new townhome (YES, poker has been that good!)

On the poker front, I am crushing the single table tournaments on Bodog and Party Poker but it has been a long time since I have seen the final table of a multi tournament. Got close in a $50 Party multi the other night but KK got beat by A7. I feel like I am still playing good poker and it will be only a matter of time before the next big cash. I have to play more satellites if I am going to play in a major live tournament this year. That was one of the goal for 2005 but I haven't worked at it very hard.

If you don't have a Bodog account, do yourself a favor and click on the link on the side. It will amaze you beyond anything that I can tell you here. There is no money tree and no golden goose, but I think Bodog is the closest thing there is.

Here's my offer to you. Click on the link, download the software, deposit $20. Email me at rodeospeed@yahoo.com and let me know your account name. Once I confirm, I will personally coach you through a single table tournament on the site. I guarantee to turn that $20 into $50 for you while showing you the correct play to make.

What say you?

What I am Playing

2005-01-22T08:57:00.000-05:00

I am taking a more humble approach this weekend with the football games. Rather than persuade you to make these plays, I am just posting what I am playing in case you want to fade me. Although, I wouldn't recommend it because I feel pretty strong about these plays.

I am playing Pittsburgh +3. I think they will bounce back after last week's terrible performance. They match up well against New England and has already beat them this year. On top of that, they are getting 3 points playing at home.

In the other game, I am going with Philly -6. I don't think the Falcons' ground game is going to be very effective in the snowstorm conditions that are expected. Philly should be able to shut Vick down and that means trouble for the Falcons.

I am also playing a 6 point teaser with Pitts +9 and Philly at a Pick'em.

I hope you are with me this weekend as we recoup last week's loss.

I screwed that one royally

2005-01-16T20:14:00.000-05:00

Well guys - as you can infer from my previous post, this weekend was definitely not one of my more memorable performance. I have to be man enough to admit that my plays stunk and I apologize to anyone who lost money following me. Everything that could go wrong went wrong. Nothing you can do but to dust yourself off and get back on the ride.

I think the football games threw me into tilt as I signed up for the first time in the Pokerstar $350,000 guaranteed tourney. I made it to the fourth level and was actually in 185th place out of 1814 left. A couple of bonehead plays later and I was out before the first break.

I am going to bed!

Been gone too long

2005-01-15T13:09:00.000-05:00

How is everyone out there in blogger land? I have been taking an extended break from blogging but not from playing. It's been a good run to say the least.

Lots of stuff happening out there. The feud between Iggy and Taylor the Stripper and Felicia Lee. Tilt. Party Poker Bad Beat Jackpot. Upcoming Blogger tourney at Pokerstars. How can one person keep up with everything?

I am heading out to a friend's house to watch the Divisional Playoffs but had a couple of good bets that I wanted to pass along.

Take Pittsburgh -9 and Colts +3.

Whatever happened to www.beatvegasodds.com?? Hey Hau, if you are out there reading, drop me a note buddy!

Still alive

2004-11-29T17:31:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone,

I am still alive! Haven't had the chance to update this blog in forever.

Recently got a new job so still trying to readjust my schedule. Also too busy winning money. I am currently playing on Pokerstars to try to win entry into one of the European Poker Tour event as well as on Bodog to win entry into a WPT event.

My goal for 2005 is to play in a live major tourney.

Will continue to post here as time permits.

For football and basketball selections, check out beatvegasodds.com. I am still on fire and it's all free!

What a weekend

2004-11-08T16:57:00.000-05:00

I am on FIRE!! There is no other way to put it and it seems that I can’t do wrong at this time. I am updating this blog at work so I don’t have the exact stats to give you regarding my single table results….but believe me, they are incredible.

Poker – I am up about $650 this past week but most of that came on Saturday and Sunday. Currently, I am feasting on the $20 and $30 Sit and go on Intertops and Bodog Poker. If you are not playing on Bodog Poker, do yourself a favor and click on the link on the left to sign up. Here are some typical comments that you will hear when you get called on the river by someone that only has Ace high:

“I just lost $500 on the football game, I am just blowing some steam!!” or “I just won $500 so this $30 sit and go doesn’t mean anything to me because I am playing with house money!!”

Can you see the pattern here? Most of the people on Bodog are not poker players…they are gamblers. There is some gold to be mined from that site. Get to it now and remember to use my link (small repayment for me to turn you onto the site). J

Football – If anyone is paying someone for picks, please shoot yourself now. I am hitting close to 70% for the year and I do it all for free. This past weekend, I was 4-1 for the college football and 4-0 yesterday in the NFL. All of my plays are documented over at www.beatvegasodds.com. I picked up over $500 on football this week.

Fantasy Football – I won both of my league for this past week thanks to strong performances by Hines Ward and Shaun Alexander.

Summary update

2004-11-01T13:51:00.000-05:00

Poker winning for past week: $175
I am currently playing $10 and $20 sit and go on Intertops and Bodog Poker. Haven't tried Bodog poker?? Give it a shot by clicking on the banner on the left.

College football: 1-1
Lost some juice money. More importantly, Georgia beat Florida for the first time in 7 years. Hopefully, we won't have to wait another 7 years for it to happen again.

NFL: 3-0
Go check out www.beatvegasodds.com for my complete list of play and updated record. I think I am something like 26-16. Much better than the scamdicappers out there and I do it all for free. All I ask is that you support me by signing up for an account at Bodog. One of the most important thing to do when betting on sports is to have multiple place where you can put a play so that you can shop for the best possible lines. You would be surprised at the difference that a half point here and there can make to your bankroll. Tonight I have a play on the Jets to cover the 7 points against the hapless Dolphins.

Quick update

2004-10-29T21:04:00.000-04:00

Playing poker tonight on Intertops....
Got a couple of early plays for Saturday football that I wanted to put up.

Play Ohio St -6.5
Play Georgia/Florida to stay under 49 points.

Good luck!

Back in the Saddle

2004-10-26T13:46:00.000-04:00

That didn't take too long did it? I am back to playing poker and blogging. Did you miss me while I was gone? :)

This past weekend, my wife and I went to New York to attend a cousin's wedding. Although, I had made several trips to New York, this was my first time going to Manhattan. All I can say is "WOW". This city is much more lively and happening than I could imagine. Quite a change of pace to the one I am accustomed to in the laid back South. I think if I would have visited this city prior to my 21st birthday, I would have probably moved out here. Although I am now happily married and wouldn't change that for the world, I think it would be very hard to give up the bachelor lifestyle if living in New York.

Anyways we get back into Atlanta on Sunday afternoon. For whatever reason, I have an urge to play poker again. The problem is that when I decided to quit playing for a while, I withdrew all my balance from my poker accounts so that it could not be easily accessible for impulse play. Since the nice folks over at RGP would not stake me, I am out of luck.

I log into Intertops and see that they have a $2004 freeroll starting to celebrate the 2004 World Series. I have a couple of hours to burn so I quickly jump in and register. About 800 people ended up registering but there was a lot of people who didn't even log in to play and were just being blinded away. Nothing much happens for me until the third level. I look down to find the beautiful pair of red aces. There are several limpers ahead of me so I make a sizable raise to thin the field and to get more money in preflop. Everyone drops out except for one caller. The flop comes King high and he bets the rest of his stack. I happily call and roll over my pair of aces. He shows me his KQ for a pair of Kings. As luck would have it, the river brings the dreaded King and I am now down to less than 150 chips.

I gave some thoughts to just calling it quit since I was so severely short-stacked and it was ONLY a freeroll. However, I hung around a little longer to listen to the table chat. I caught a couple of hands and managed to triple up. It seemed like I remained short-stack for the duration of the tourney but I somehow managed to make it into the money and finished around 50th place. That was good for $10 free bet in the sportbook and $4.50 in the poker account. Woohoo!!

Monday, I log in to find that they had a $5+0 tournament starting at 10:00 PM. I wanted to play but only had $4.50 in my account. I quickly jumped into a ring game and did a quick hit and run to bring my account to $5. Only 61 people ended up playing in the tournament and since it was a $500 guaranteed tourney, the fine folks at Intertops had to kick in the extra $195 into the prize pool. I love those overlays.

To make a long story short, I bring my A game and crush the competition. After about 2 1/2 hours, I finish off the last competitor and take down the first place prize of $150. I am not sure if it was worth the time but it's nice to be able to create $150 from nothing.

For those of you who have not heard of Check and Raise Poker, please take some time to go check it out. They are currently in Beta testing and will go live in November. Preregister now for some nice bonuses and check out the daily freeroll for real money that they are running.

http://www.checknraisepoker.com/?aff=pokerbookie

Thanks to everyone for reading and good luck at the table.

Apology

2004-10-18T18:22:00.000-04:00

I went 7-0 in my football bets this weekend. I apologize for not posting them up here for my readers. If you have read my earlier posts, you would have known to go to beatvegasodds.com to get them. I wish I would have had the balls to parlay them as that would have been a nice little payday.

Still no poker to talk about. I am continuing the hiatus but the urge to return grows stronger each day. I see that Iggy has finally quit his job to do the poker thing full-time. Poker is hot....now is the time to strike if you can!

Taking a Hiatus

2004-10-11T14:46:00.000-04:00

A wise man once said that quitters never win and winners never quit. I truly believe that. In order to succeed, you have to taste defeat along the way. With that being said, I am going to take an extended break from poker. Suffice to say that September and the first part of October has not been kind to me. This weekend really threw me over the edge…..everything that could go wrong did go wrong.

First of all in college football, my Georgia Bulldogs lost to Tennessee and pretty much eliminated ourselves from the National Title picture. I knew we were in trouble when the linemakers made us a two touchdown favorite over the Vols. There was no way that we were going to beat Tennessee by 14 points after coming off that huge win over LSU. We were sky high while Tennessee just got embarrassed at home by Auburn. I knew that we were not going to take them seriously and I would have put down a huge bet on Tennessee this weekend to easily cover that number but my allegiance to the Dawgs are too strong to bet against them. If this game was replayed today, I have no doubt that Georgia would win by double digits……now that the reality has hit us. This is a fine example of the idea that no matter how great you are and how great others tell you that you are, you still have to strap them on and go take care of business each time you hit the field.

In my only bet of the college football weekend, I took Florida minus the 3 points over LSU. Florida led that game 21-7 late and ended up losing 24-21. Arrrghhhh!!!

In the pros, I went 2-2 but that could have easily been 3-1 if Seattle didn’t give the Rams the victory after being up huge.

Are you starting to see a trend here?? I hate bad beat stories but here is one for you. Late stages of a Pokerroom multi table tourney. I have invested about 2.5 hours. We are down to 15 players and top 10 pay. I am about 12 or 13 but still have a decent stack…more than 10 times the big blind. On my right is the chip leader, he has been pretty much running over the table and no one is making a stand as everyone is trying to squeeze into the money. I am in the SB with AK suited and it is folded around to him on the button. He throws out a bet for 3 or 4 times the big blind. I come over the top and go all-in. At this point, he has to know that I have a real hand as I would not risk bubbling out of the tourney with a reraise steal. However he had such a huge chip lead that he calls. I really don’t like it but he turns over A5 unsuited and I have him dominated. Do I catch a king? NO. Does he catch a 5? NO. He makes a 6 high straight. My tourney is over.

The reason I recounted the bad beat above is to illustrate how the cards have been falling for me over the past month and a half. I am not much of a superstitious person and I am not convinced that online poker is rigged. However, there has to be an explanation for what I have seen recently. I actually had to reload my Party account for the first time in a very long time this past weekend. That’s not exactly a good feeling when all you have done is cashout.

So I am going to take a hiatus. Mark my word, I’ll be back with a vengeance. I plan on playing in at least one major tournament next year. At this point, I am not sure how long I am going to take off. It may only be a couple of days or a few weeks or it could even be until the end of the year.

I plan on doing lots of reading and catching up on all the new blogs out there. I also am going to take action on several business ideas that I have been putting on the back burner because poker was going so well and I wanted to spend all my time playing.

I will not be updating this blog as often until I come back to poker full-time. I will however continue to come on here with any big sports play that I have. You could also visit beatvegasodds.com daily for any plays that I may have.

Thanks to everyone who has come by to read this blog and especially to those who have left comments with suggestions to help my game. Much appreciated!

Not good results to report

2004-10-04T14:39:00.000-04:00

Another miserable week in poker. I played mostly sngs and lost $260 for the week. Although Party is the biggest fish tank in the world right now...I am thinking of spending time elsewhere for awhile. There's only so much suckout that I can stand. It's tough play flawless poker for 45 minutes and bust out on the bubble because some idiot suck outs on the river.

In football, I should have just stuck to betting on sides rather than totals. I was 3-0 on sides and 0-4 in totals. I am taking a pass in the Monday night matchup. Although I have a feeling that the game might go under, there are several factors that are causing me to pass. First of all, the under is too obvious. Secondly, Kansas City has really been struggling offensively and will break out at some point....could this be the night? Finally, I have Trent Green on my fantasy football league and I really need him to throw two TD pass tonight for me to win this week.

Please use the link on the right to sign up with Bodog....exciting things happening there with their poker.

Early plays

2004-10-01T15:03:00.001-04:00

First off, let me start out by apologizing for putting my football plays up late. As one reader of this blog commented, at least one person out there is following my picks and would appreciate enough time to place their bets. Last Monday, I was flying back from New York and had a long day at the airport. I didn't have much time but managed to get on here and post my Monday night play prior to kickoff.

Please visit beatvegasodds.com to get all of my picks earlier. This is totally free....neither myself or the site owner is trying to sell you anything. I was just approached to submit my picks so that he can include on his website. It saves me from posting an entry here everytime I have a play.

Anyways for this weekend, I will post my whole card here early. Huge weekend for my Bulldogs as we try to keep the dream alive

College plays:
Miami/Georgia Tech over 41.5
Purdue -3
Georgia -3
Texas Tech/Oklahoma over 66

NFL plays:
Indianapolis/Jacksonville over 43
Pittsburgh -5
St Louis/San Francisco over 44

Early plays

2004-10-01T15:03:00.000-04:00

Rebuilding

2004-09-27T18:56:00.000-04:00

Finally made it home from New York. Hurricane Jeanne had us scared that we would be stuck in an airport all night, but everything worked out nicely. It was a nice relaxing weekend and I didn't play or read about poker. Ready to start fresh. I took some money out of the poker fund for the trip so I will be staying at the $20 tournament level for a while to build it back up. In the next couple of weeks, I would like to spend the majority of my time at the $30 level.

Had a decent week in football betting with Pittsburgh and the under helping to erase losses from the college football. Tonight, I am on the over in the Monday night game. I like them to go over the 36 points. Good luck to all!

The bleeding stops

2004-09-24T13:16:00.000-04:00

This week again got off to a rocky start. Before I knew what hit me, I was already down $150 by Tuesday night. I logged off the computer and got to bed deciding to call it night. As I was laying there replaying some of the hands in my head, it occurred to me that I was starting to play scared. I would say that in 9 out of 10 times when we get it all in and flip over the cards, I am invariably ahead in the hand. Time after time, I get outdrawn. After a while, i got gun shy and would wait for only the best of hands to go all-in so that I don't get outdrawn. That really hampered my game. I was scared to call an all-in even when I was sure without a doubt that I had the best hand.
I made a decision then and there that I needed to snap out of that mode. I wanted to know what it felt like to suck out on someone. I wanted to go all-in even if I was on a draw assuming the price was right. I couldn't wait until the next day to try it. I got out of bed at 11 PM and played until 3 that morning. I am now up $250 for the week and it feels great!
Since I am leaving for New York early Saturday, there will be no poker this week. I might play a little tonight if I get the chance but regardless I will be able to log a win for this week. In football this week, take Purdue to beat Illinois by more than 3 TD. For the rest of my pick, you can visit www.beatvegasodds.com! GL

Stalling

2004-09-20T14:23:00.000-04:00

Nothing is going right for me at the moment. I lost another $170 in poker this past week. Some of the beats have been out of this world. I feel like I am a worse player than I was 2 weeks ago. Is that even possible to regress?

Ironically, Iggy has a new entry posted dealing with this exact issue of reaching a plateau. In my case, it feels less like reaching a plateau and more like falling off a cliff. Switching limits have not helped, changing sites has not worked either, and trying different tournament formats is also useless. I wish I lived near a cardroom so that I can go play some live poker and get away from the computer for a while.

I really don't want to cut back on playing this week, although I would guess that most would give me that advice. The thing is that I will be going out of town this weekend to visit the in-laws in New York. I would like to be able to play out of this slump over the course of this week and head to New York on a winning note.

I am going to spend some time looking at hand histories to see if there are any changes that I can make. However I feel that I have switched up my playing this week to no avail. Maybe, it's just a matter of time before it turns around. A first place finish in a MTT would do a world of good for my self-confidence.

In the football game tonight, take Philly and Minnesota to score UNDER 50 points. For those of you that still don't have a sport wagering account, please consider signing up with Bodog using the link to the left.

Saturday's plays

2004-09-18T11:15:00.000-04:00

4 Team Teaser, #4461272

Football - College Lines Pointspread
Game can be seen on ESPN
Michigan -14½, Sat@12:00p
(Teased 6.0 points)

Football - College Lines Pointspread
Mississippi -1, Sat@12:30p
(Teased 6.0 points)

Football - College Lines Pointspread
Game can be seen on FSN
Iowa State Pick, Sat@12:30p
(Teased 6.0 points)

Football - College Lines Pointspread
Game can be seen on CBS
Auburn +3½, Sat@3:30p
(Teased 6.0 points)

Blood Bath

2004-09-13T13:27:00.000-04:00

That is the only way that I can describe my poker results for this past week. Makes me thankful that I still have a day job! For those of you keeping track of the number.....the finally tally is a $640 loss for the week.

I should have just taken yesterday off and watched the NFL on TV but I decided to play balls to the wall and try to recoup my loss from earlier in the week in the hope of salvaging another winning week. That plan went completely awry as I only made matters worse.

NFL betting was profitable this weekend with a nice 5 team teaser coming in. No real play on tonight's MNF game but I am leaning slightly toward the under.

I can't wait to start a fresh spreadsheet for my poker week and not have to look at that huge negative balance!

Close call

2004-09-12T11:29:00.000-04:00

Well the Georgia Bulldogs nearly gave me a heart attack yesterday, but they managed to pull out a win against the Gamecocks to keep our National Championship hopes alive.

We have a full slate of NFL games going today so I thought I would give out a couple of winners for everyone who has been kind enough to click on the link to the left to sign up with Bodog Sportsbook....and now Poker!

Take Seattle minus the 3 points and Pittsburgh minus the 4 points.

Good luck.

It's here!

2004-09-09T14:19:00.000-04:00

The start of the NFL season is upon us. It's going to be a busy night for the remote control since it's also the season premiere of the Apprentice. Why is it that some night there is absolutely nothing to watch and then other nights, you feel like such a loser for not having TIVO??

It has not been a good week for poker. As it stands right now, I am down about $300 for the week. I have actually tried playing more STT this week and staying away from the MTT as much as I can. I don't think I am doing anything differently than the previous couple of weeks, but all the coin flips have gone the other way. I still have a couple of days to try to end the week in the positive but it will definitely be a tough climb.

No poker tonight. I have a pretty play on the NFL game. If you have a sportsbook, go ahead and play a 2 team 6 point teaser taking Indy +9.5 and over 38.5! You can thank me later. For those of you that don't have a place to bet football this season, please consider clicking on the link on the left to sign up with Bodog Sports. You can bet on football and play poker from the same account and the games are ultra-soft!

Swinging for the Fences

2004-09-06T13:58:00.000-04:00

Swinging for the fences....that's what I did too much of this past week. I didn't do enough of the basics. The crowd always want to see the big homeruns but it's the little base hits that add up over the course of a winning season. Simply put, I played in too many MTT this week and not enough in STT. My bread and butter continues to be the $20 sit and go on Party. With all that being said, I still managed a positive week over all. Albeit, it was only $47 for the good guys....it sure beats losing and it continues the streak of winning weeks.

If you haven't already tried it, please give Bodog Poker a try. The games there are super soft due to the clientele cross-over and they are currently running some nice promotions. Do me a favor and click on the link to the left so that I can get a referral bonus as well.

By the way, the Dawgs won this weekend 48-28. Step 1 in the quest for the National Championship is completed!

Change of Plan

2004-09-03T11:27:00.000-04:00

Well Hurricane Frances has thrown a wrench into the weekend plan. So there will be no sand, surf, and sun this weekend. I guess that is not all bad news since now I will be able to go to Georgia's home opener against Georgia Southern. There's nothing like the first full weekend of college football games. Football is almost a religion here in the South!

This week, Bodog Sports has added multi player poker to their website. Of course, since I love to play poker and bet on sports, I immediately jumped on the wagon. I found that the games there are so juicy right now because of the type of players that cross-over. Some have never played before and are just trying out poker because they have a casino or sports bet account. The kicker here is that you can access all area with the same account and there is no need to transfer money from the sportsbook to/from the poker client. They are also running a great promotion where you get a 20% bonus EACH time that you deposit up until September 9th.

In addition to all the above, they are also giving away a seat to a WPT tournament. The satellite will be limited to only 40 entries so you have a great shot of winning. I played in a supersatellite last night where the winner gets an entry into the satellite. I believe that there was only about 130 entrants. I finished around 30th but I will continue to run this tournament every night to try to get a seat.

This is the first time I signed up anywhere as an affiliate because I really feel that this poker site has great potential. If you are looking for a new site to play, please use the link on the right to sign up. I will try to post some football plays here once and a while so you will have a place to get down on the action if you sign up now.

Thanks.

Not So Good Tuesday

2004-09-01T16:55:00.000-04:00

Pokerroom $22 Guaranteed MTT - didn't even make the first break....lost $22.
Party Poker $33 3 table tournament - finished in 8th place.....lost $33.
Pacific Poker $16.50 Guaranteed MTT - over 700 people entered; top 60 pay...finished 61st. I guess there has to be a bubble boy in each tournament. It just sucks when that has to be you.

Total loss for Tuesday = $71.50

Week in Detail: Monday

2004-08-31T13:51:00.000-04:00

I am bored at work so will try something new. Just a quick recap of the previous night performance.

$22 Party STT - First for a profit of $78
$5.50 Pacific STT - First for a profit of $19.50
$5.50 Headhunter Challenge Tourney on JetSetPoker - out of the money for a loss of $5.50
$22 MTT on JetSet - finished out of money for a loss of $22
$22 Guaranteed MTT on Pokerroom - finished 36th for a profit of $54.50

Profit/Loss for Monday 08/30 is $124.50. Nice start to the week.

Also pushed on the Monday Night Football game as I bet the final score to be under 37 points.....the game landed dead on the number so all bets were refunded.

Torrid

2004-08-30T15:11:00.000-04:00

I had one of my most profitable week with STT. Overall, I ended the week up $660. Came in third in a $10 multi on Pokerroom last night for $315. I didn't do so well in the blogger tournament at Pacific. A total of 77 players entered and I finished in 50th position. The most memorable hand of the tournament was when I was all-in preflop and got my aces cracked by Sloejack's nines. Did I mention in a previous post that nines is the worst hand in Hold'em for me or against me?

Also had one of my fantasy football draft last night. Didn't get anyone I really wanted except for Hines Ward....but the other team owners think I have the strongest team....we'll have to see.

I am taking the wife to Destin Florida for Labor day weekend so a nice win this week will go a long way in paying for the trip. No time for blogging....time to hit the table!

Wading into deeper water

2004-08-28T10:45:00.000-04:00

Boy have I been running hot on Party STT!!! I had been currently playing at the $20+2 level, but I am now mixing in some $30+3. So far this week, I have played 9 at the $20 level and have made the money in 6 of them, but what is even more amazing is that 5 of those were first place!! How crazy is that??!!?? As for the $30 level, I have played 6 and have made the money in exactly 50% of them with a first, a second, and a third. Players are a little tighter at the $30 level but I think I can still make some money here.

What I do know is that I can no longer win at the $10 level. Isn't that funny? Is it possible to outgrow a level? I definitely think so. I have been teaching my wife to play. She started out playing the $5 single....she has since started to consistently make the money at the $10 level. I couldn't help but to crack up laughing the other night when she remarked that she doesn't know how she ever won at the $5 level after taking a bad beat there. The play level there is so bad that it is scary!

I haven't even sniffed a final table in a MTT this week. Hopefully that will change this Sunday in the Monty Memorial Blogger Tourney at Pacific. Hope to see you all there. My screenname there is Mavdawg. Just look for me at the top of the leaderboard.

Small potatoes

2004-08-23T11:40:00.000-04:00

What a waste of a week. I think I logged more hours this week than I have in a long time and I have a $75 profit to show for it. I bet that is probably less than $2 per hour for the week. I guess I shouldn't be complaining since at least I didn't lose. I had a decent week in STT. I also cashed in a few MTT but didn't really have any good final table finish to show. As I explained in my last post, the experiment with the ring games did not go very well. I dropped over $150 there. I guess I should keep my day job until I can post better results there.

Thanks to everyone who gave me feedback on RGP as well as here on ways to improve at the cash games. I know I need a lot more work in that aspect of my games. I read the Poker Chronicles quite a bit and am always amazed at how well the author does with his cash game results. Of course, he also plays at much higher limit than I do. I know that I need to get better there because it will provide for less standard deviation in my results. It's very tough to make a living playing poker if you can only play tournaments.

I am going to try to cut back on the number of hours this week (wife is getting frustated at the number of hours that I am putting in). This will give me a chance to relax and re-energize. I also need to study football a little more since I have a fantasy draft coming up and the college football season is also right around the corner.

Cash games

2004-08-20T16:38:00.000-04:00

Lately, I have been tossing around the idea of quitting my job and playing poker full-time. Let me start out by saying that my current job is an assignment that I took on as temporary work that turned into a long-term position. I am definitely over-qualified and underpaid. It has just been tough for me to find a job comparable to the one that I had prior to relocating to Georgia. I am actually making less than half what I was previously earning.

So anyways, I have been doing fairly well playing STT and MTT, but I wanted to experiment with the ring games to provide for another source of income if I am going to be doing this full time. What I learned is that I am not nearly as good as I think I am. I played the $25 and $50 NL table at Party and it seems like people will call you down with anything. I am not very good at the limit game and my game requires that I play No-limit in order to be the most effective. I haven't quite figured out yet what I am doing wrong in the limit game. I know that I have already lost close to $150 this week in the ring games. Fortunately, yesterday, I was 5 for 5 in cashing on the $22 singles tourney with 2 first place finish so I am still up a little for the week.

If anyone has some tips for NL ring games, please leave me a comment. Thanks.

I am a Headhunter

2004-08-16T16:56:00.000-04:00

Highlights of this past week included winning a $10 multi tournament on Pokerroom. That was a nice $500 plus payday. Overall for the week, it was another winning week netting a little over $550.

I also signed up for a new poker site called Jet Set Poker. Although, I didn't really need another place for my poker action, I was somewhat intrigued by their headhunter tourneys in which you receive bounties for knocking out your opponents based upon how highly they rank on the leaderboard. I came in second in one of their headhunter challenge and had a blast racking up money with each additional players that I knocked out. I highly recommend this site as they also have a 20% bonus for new players right now. I would definitely like to see more of this type of tournaments on other sites.

For those of you who read my last post, I hope you were able to cash in on the first winner of the NFL preseason that I gave out. I have another one for Monday night....take the Packers and Seahawks to go over the 37 points. I think we will see fireworks in this showdown. Good luck!

My blog was held hostage

2004-08-12T12:16:00.000-04:00

I bet all of my readers (all 2 of you) have been wondering whether I have given up this blogging thing since it has been a while since my last post. The truth of it is that Blogger has held my blog hostage. It would not let me log into my account. After numerous email to support, I finally got it straighten out.

Quick recap of last week, I won another $10 multi on Pokerroom for $650 and ended the week up about $550. Did extremely well with Pokerstars $16 turbo single but equally bad with Party $33 multi single. So far this week, I have won another $10 multi on Pokerroom for $550. I was really looking forward to their guaranteed tourney at 10:00 PM last night but their site was down.

Can you believe that football is back? I am so pumped. I will be posting more often throughout football season and will occasionally give out free winners right here so stay tuned. Tonight, the Baltimore Ravens are a 3.5 point favorite over Atlanta. If you wager on football, put a small bet on the Ravens. Atlanta remembers what happens to Mike Vick in this game last year and will not be playing their starters for very long.

Poker Blues

2004-08-02T15:06:00.000-04:00

I am going to make this as short as possible. Another losing week. Lost $370 this week.

Here is the need for keeping good records when you play. I felt like I did alright throughout the week and even placed in a couple of multis including one final table. Although, I knew that this weekend was bad....I didn't really know how bad until running all the numbers. I can see how most poker players who do not keep good records think that they are winners when in reality they are not.

If I didn't know any better, I would join the idiots on RGP who claims that online poker is rigged. That's how bad I was running this weekend. No matter how strong my starting hands were or how much of a monster I flop, the river always did me in. The only thing that I have to look forward to today is that I can start a new fesh spreadsheet for the week and forget about trying to climb uphill. Time to regroup!

It's Friday! It's Friday

2004-07-30T14:10:00.000-04:00

That's my anthem.....I love Friday's.

The plan for this weekend is poker and lots of it. I really want to start taking some bigger shots especially after reading about these 22 and 23 year olds who have been making the big scores on Pokerstars lately (SenorBeef and AustinKearns). Man could I use one of those nice payday! I am just not sure that my bankroll can handle that yet......

I have just continued grinding it out on Party and Pokerroom this week. Not much to be excited about. Last night, I played in the $33 multi on Party and finished 60th out of >1100 people for abotu $115. I also finished 5th out of 265 in a $11 tourney on Pokerroom for a return of $172.

Old habits are hard to kick

2004-07-26T13:51:00.000-04:00

First of all, this past week has been a good week for poker. I ended the week up close to $1200. Of course, most of that came from my third place finish in the PokerRoom tourney. But I also had two first place finish in Party's 3 table sit and go. All in all though, I didn't really play much poker. In fact, I didn't play any poker at all over the weekend. I was so looking forward to hitting the tables this weekend and play in some of the higher buy-in tourneys thanks to my success earlier in the week. Looking back on it, I wish I would have. Just finished reading Iggy's post and it appears that it was a feeding frenzy this past weekend at Party.

Now here comes the depressing news....how I spent my weekend. I was talked into going to Biloxi for a gambling excursion. Since I don't play cash game poker and they didn't have any tourneys running, I reverted back to my old habits of playing blackjack and craps. When it was all said and done, I dropped over $500. Suffice to say that I am not making any such trip again in the near future!!

Near Hit

2004-07-20T11:42:00.000-04:00

I am operating on fumes this morning. I played in Poker Room's guaranteed $10K tournament last night and it didn't end until well after 2:30 in the morning Eastern time. The good news is that if I was still playing at 2:30....it must mean that I did alright. The positive side is that I did finally make a final table....the bad news is that I didn't take first place.

I am certainly not complaining about my 3rd place finish and $972 prize, but I had every opportunity to win that tourney last night. When we got down to 4 players, I experienced a connection problem with my internet with the blinds at 6000/12000. I actually had to reboot my computer in order to get back to the tournament. Fortunately this happened near a break so I didn't get completely blinded off. When I came back, I had lost about 1/3 of my stack and was down to $100,000. However, i got a good run of cards to eliminate another player and was the chip leader with a chip count close to 500K/250K/100K. I told myself that I will try to avoid confrontations but the cards just kept hitting me so I had to play my hands.

I lost the chip lead when my opponent hit a miracle river card....but I couldn't complain since I had my fair share of river miracles in the tourney. I was soon eliminated in third place....couldn't sleep for another hour because I kept replaying those last few hands and what went wrong. It was definitely a bitter sweet finish.

So this week has the making of the exact opposite of last week. Instead of starting in a huge hole, I am now close to the 1K mark for the week. Hopefully the momemtum will carry throughout the week!

Red Week

2004-07-19T15:57:00.000-04:00

Well this week has been all about fighting uphill. I was out sick from work on Monday. Rather than do the logical thing and getting some rest, I decided to fire up Party Poker and spend my day playing 3 table sit and go. Maybe it was the physical state that I was in or just the fact that there are better players on during the day, but I really got slaughtered. I don't think I moneyed in a single tourney. I ended the day losing well over $200.

The rest of the week didn't treat me much better. None of my draws got home and it seemed that I got rivered more than I care to recount. Sometimes, you just have to smile and continue playing your game to get through the slump. I knew there would be days and weeks like these.
I woke up on Sunday and my account was $450 lighter than it was at the start of the week. I gave some serious thoughts to packing it in for the week but that just wasn't my style.

I ended up winning some of my money back and ended in the red $280 for the week. A little better but I can't continue having that type of week if I want to play this game long-term.

What I really need to do is win another multi tournament. I haven't achieved that feat in over 2 months. Haven't even made a final table as a matter of fact....

Reversal of form

2004-07-15T18:02:00.000-04:00

In my last post, I went on and on about how well I have been doing in the Party Poker multi table sit and go. I think I should have just kept my mouth shut. This week, I have yet to money in any of the eight that I have played. Last night, I played 2 and came in 6th place in both of them. How frustrating is that! Both time, I was near the chip lead and just decided to play passive to coast into the money before making any coin-flip decisions. That cost me since I wasn't able to outlast the other 5 players before I got blinded away.

The only saving grace yesterday was that I also played in 4 $22 single table sit and go. I managed to finish 3, 1, 1, and 4 on them. Viva party!

Week ending July 11 in recap

2004-07-12T10:00:00.000-04:00

I keep track of my poker session using an Excel spreadsheet developed by a fellow blogger by the name of Chicago Phil. If you are serious about playing poker, you should definitely keep track of the games, limits, and time that you play with profit and loss. This should allow you to spot trends to let you know which games you are most profitable so you can capitalize on that knowledge. Go to Chicago Phil's blog right now and download one if you haven't done so alrealdy...I really like his format.

I treat my poker playing as a second job so I like to see how I did for the previous week. I treat Sunday as the last day of the week. For the week ending Sunday July 11, I made $163 playing poker. Taking a little closer look at the spreadsheet, I see that I made a $431 profit playing the multi-table sit and go (2 first and a third). I lost $160 on single table sit and go and I lost another $108 on multi tournaments and satellites. Not a great week but it sure beats a losing week. Maybe I'll concentrate more on the multi sit and go this week as that's where I have been posting my best results.

A long night

2004-07-10T13:39:00.000-04:00

After spending more than two weeks on vacation with the wedding, this was a long week at work. Good thing it was a shortened week with the 4th of July holiday on Monday. Anyways, I had spending most of my time this week playing the multi table sit and go on Party. I cashed a first on one of them but failed to money in about 5 other ones so I am still up a little but not much.

When I got home Friday night, the wife had cooked a very nice dinner for us. I decided that I was not going to play any poker tonight. We rented 50 First Dates and it turned out to be a decent movie. After the movie was over, we went to bed, but after about a hour or so, I just couldn't fall asleep. So I did the only logical thing, I logged onto Party to see if there was any good tourneys starting soon. I decided to play in the $10 multi satellite for a seat Saturday's 200K tournament.

300 people signed up and they gave 12 seats and some chump change for place 13-15. At about 5:00 in the morning, I was still at the table, we got down to 13 people left and only needed one more to get eliminated to get seats. I was short-stacked but there were at least 3 other players with smaller stacks than me. I could have folded every hand and probably gotten a seat. When I got dealt KK, I pushed my whole stack in. Not sure why....maybe it was instinct. Either way, the big stack at the table called me with a K9. The flop brings a 9 and the river 9 seals my fate. Bubble boy, once again! I played 3 1/2 hours to get $60 for coming in 13th. Unreal!

I am back!

2004-07-06T20:16:00.000-04:00

Seems like it has been forever since I last posted but I guess it's only been a little over 2 weeks. After 3 1/2 months of wedding planning and 2 receptions in 2 different cities (Atlanta and Albany, NY), we were able to pull it off. Let me tell you that our week of honeymoon in Marco Island, Florida was well deserved and much needed.

Not much poker content to talk about since my last post. Actually, I did end up playing in a live tourney in Atlantic City. In between the reception, we drove to NY and stopped at the Taj Mahal. They had a $65 freeze-out tourney on Monday night. After ponying up the money, the tourney started about 30 minutes after the scheduled start time. There were 177 entrants and first place paid closeto $3400. 17 other places paid.

We each started with 5000 in tournament chips. Less than 10 hands into the tourney, I was dealt AQ suited in late position. I called a standard 3X raise and I was heads up against the raiser. Flop came Q-5-7. He bets into me for 500. I decided to smooth call the bet. Turn came up a blank and this time he bets 1000. I think I should have either raised him here to see where I was or fold. Instead, I mindlessly call again. The river brings the 5. This time, he feigns weakness and checks. I fall right into the trap and bet 1500. He can't get his money into the pot fast enough and turns over QQ for the full house over my two pairs. The only thing that I can't figure out is why he didn't reraise me for the rest of my chips because he had the absolute nut unless I was holding 55 for quads.

Anyway that hand crippled me badly and I was under 2000 chips less than 15 minutes into the tourney. It was now survival mode for me. Our table was the first to break and I got moved into a fairly aggresive table. Sometimes into the third level, I pick up AA and manage to get my stack back to about T3000. Blinds slowly ate at my stack until I get to about T1800 and I find pocket fives in the big blind. Blinds were at 150-300 and there were a couple of limpers already in the pot. I decide to push in. One guy thinks really hard and decides to call. He flips over pocket fours. My hand hold up and I double through. I am not quite sure how but I made it to the first break and there less than 100 of us left. When we came back from break, the blinds were at 300-600 with an ante. I knew that with my short-stack, I had to make a move soon. When I found A6 suited in the big blind, I go for it. Only one other person in the pot calls with pocket twos. Flop comes with a 6 but also has a deuce and my tourney is over.

I had fun but wish I didn't get cripple so early so that I could have played more hands. Oh well, it was a learning experience and I was just grateful that my new bride went along with our little detour to Atlantic City amidst the hustle and bustle of the wedding receptions.

Now that I am back home and getting adjusted to married life, I plan on getting into a more regular routine with posting and online play. See you at the tables!

The stretch

2004-06-15T12:16:00.000-04:00

My last week as a bachelor....I doubt I will have any time for poker this week. Tonight after work, I have to go pick up the tux. The in-laws are flying into town from NY on Thursday. We are having a reception here in Atlanta on Saturday and another reception in New York the following weekend.
It will be a while before I can get back to regular poker night online. However, next Monday, my new wife and I will be driving from Atlanta to New York for the wedding reception there. We are planning to make a stop-over in Atlantic City. I have never been there but have been doing some research on the nightly poker tournaments that they are running. I would like to stay at the Borgata but their tourneys are usually of the rebuy variety. I am not too crazy about those so I may have to check out the freeze-out tourney that they are running at the Taj Mahal.
I'll be sure to post a complete trip report as soon as I can. In the meantime, wish me luck and good luck at the tables.

Bubbled

2004-06-11T13:06:00.000-04:00

I tried out the new 3 table multi at Party last night. I really like the format. The blinds do not go up as fast as the regular sit and go's and you have a better chance of winning if you are a good player. Unfortunately for me, I caught a run of cold cards when the blinds reached 200/400 and I went out in 6th place. One spot from the money.

I'll probably spend a good portion of this weekend playing these on Party. Come say hi if you see me. My name on Party is HIS_Airness.

Got my money back!

2004-06-09T12:48:00.000-04:00

My persistence with the Pacific issue did some good. They refunded me my buy-in. It was harder than it had to be, but at least someone there was able to use some common sense.

I played in two sit and go at party last night. In the first one, during the first orbit, I got dealt QQ. Someone in front of me goes all-in. Since people on Party are usually pretty loose in the early stage and will go all-in with less than premium hands. I decided to take a shot and call and maybe double up. Well, he wasn't bluffing because he had KK. However the flop does come down with a Q and I am ahead until the K drops on the river. Oh well...can't feel too bad. He did have me beat pre-flop. Can't complain about a bad beat there.

I did end up getting first place in the second sit and go so that made up for my quick exit in the first. I was outchipped 4 to 1 when it got down to heads-up but my opponent was a pretty weak heads-up player and I was able to quickly finish him off.

Pacific Problem

2004-06-08T14:17:00.000-04:00

I am so frustrated with dealing with customer service. Why does it seem like you always get a standard cookie cutter response instead of a real response from a live person?

So I was playing in the 10:00 multi tourney on Pacific last night. I know their software sucks, but there is often such a good overlay in their $10,000 guaranteed tournament that it is hard to resist. About 40 minutes into the tourney, there is less than 270 people left from an original 600. My stack is about average. Suddenly, I can no longer see one of my hole card. My name tag and stack size display is obstructing one of my hole card. After waiting for a couple of hands, the problem persisted. I had no choice but to leave the table so that I can try to restart the software to see if that might fix my problem. Well unlike other sites, where if you leave the table in the middle of a tourney, your blinds continue to be posted until you return, Pacific Poker automatically eliminates you from the tourney if you leave the table. How moronic is that!

Upon logging back on the site...I was expecting the software to take me back to my table. It didn't. I went to the tournament lobby and try to choose "seat me". I get a message that tells me I can't join the tourney. When I look at the player standings, I find that I finished somewhere around 270th place!!!!

Well it's only $16.50, but I decided to send an email to Pacific support to get a response and maybe a refund of my buy-in. Of course, I get some garbage back about checking my internet connection and that "due to popularity of the site", there could be a delay in connecting. Give a me break!!!

What would have happened if I had made it to the final table and that error occurred? Scary just thinking about it!

A new game

2004-06-07T14:34:00.000-04:00

After reading an article posted on RGP about how soft the one on one tournaments are online, I decided to give them a try this weekend. I played the $30 + $1.50 buy-in and won 7 in a row before losing my last two. Very nice!! I think I just got too cocky with those last two that I lost. It was unbelievable how easy it was. The players basically fell into two groups....either there were too aggressive and bluffed too much or they were too tight and let me run over them.

I think I will definitely start including more of these in my daily grind. I am trying to make a big score with a multi tourney win, but it would be nice to use these one on one to fund my entry fee into the multis. I love Multis...they are fun and gives me the possibility for a big win but the volatility on your bankroll is pretty huge. Hopefully, these heads-up matches will help even out some of the ups and down.

I have also come to the conclusion that 9-9 is my evil hand....I just can't seem to win with that hand or against it. I have experienced more bad beat with that hand that I care to remember. I am going to have to throw away that hand when I get late into a tourney.

I just read Iggy's blog and I saw that he pimped this blog. Thank you very much sir. Go check out his blog as he has enough poker related content to make your head spin and use bonus code IGGY at Party Poker.

Smarty?

2004-06-04T11:59:00.000-04:00

Anyone out there caught up in this Smarty Jones Triple Crown Fever? The horse sure looks tough but I can't pull myself to bet him at such a huge price. If you were looking strictly at the odds, you would think that the race is done and over with and the winner has been determined. Come on people!!!! They still have to go out there and race......No way am I risking so much to win so little.

So if I throw Smarty Jones out, who should I go with? My pick is Eddington. With the great Jerry Bailey aboard....anything can happen. Maybe a little exacta box action!

I am so glad it's Friday. Looking forward to a beautiful weekend here in the Atlanta area. Only 2 more weeks until the big wedding day. Whoa..I just can't believe that I am typing this. If you would have told me a year ago today that I would be married in 2 weeks, I would have layed whatever odds against that proposition. Funny how things change when you meet your soulmate!

Probably won't get to play in any big tourney this weekend, but hopefully I can sneak in one or two smaller tourney. I have been running pretty cold since my small win on Tuesday. Playing the $50 tourney on Ultimate Bet with no luck...can't even make it to the first break before busting out. I think I am going to start focusing on Pokerstars a little more...especially since they have the 25% deposit promo going. With the recent result of the WSOP, I expect more new players to come to Pokerstars and hopefully that will translate into a softer game there. I may also take a couple of shots at the WCOOP qualifiers tourneys that they are running.

Have a great weekend...thanks for reading!

The NBA Finals

2004-06-02T15:56:00.000-04:00

Can anyone see the Pistons beat the Lakers in a best of 7 series?
A few months ago, the Lakers looked a lot like the Fakers, but now when things count the most....they seem almost unbeatable. My prediction is that Lakers win in 5 games.

Although I am not really a Lakers fan, it's nice to finally see Karl Malone and Gary Payton (the old school guys) get their rings. Enjoy it because I think the Lake Show will not be the same next year with the shipping of Kobe to the highest bidder.

On a poker note, I played in a couple of multi's last night. Best finish was fourth place in a 30+3 on Ultimate for about $350. Nice profit on the night but disappointing nonetheless since I was chip leader for about the last hour of the tourney before it got down to 4 handed. Blinds were 1K and 2K and I was the short stack but still around 25K. On the button, I pick up a pair of 7's and make it 5K to go. Big blind comes over the top and goes all-in. I am forced to lay it down since at best, I would be facing a 50-50 decision and I felt I could do better. Several hands later, I pick up A-10 suited and make a 10K stab at the blinds and antes....again, one of the blinds shove all in. Since I am basically pot-committed at this point and feel like I am being bullied around, I make the call. He turns over QQ and my tournament is over until the flop comes down with a A and a 10. As you probably guess, the Q comes on the river and now I am truly done. Left a bad taste in my mouth, but $350 is better than a kick in the balls.

Any thoughts on how you would have played those 2 hands?

Welcome to my blog!

2004-05-28T17:36:00.000-04:00

Thank you for taking time out to check out my blog. After many months of lurking on RGP and other forums as well as reading the other blogs, I feel that the time has come for me to contribute by posting my thoughts and experience with online poker. Like the majority of new poker players, I caught the poker bug after watching Chris Moneymaker win the WSOP 2003 on ESPN. I started playing online around December of 2003 and in only a few short months, I have started to show some nice profits. I am exclusively a tournament no limit player and I have won 7 multi-table tourneys in addition to many other money finishes.

Who am I? Well I am a 29 years old male living in Duluth, GA. I graduated from the University of Georgia (go DAWGS!!!) It was at this fine institution that I first started to bet on sports. At first, it was just parlay cards and small bets with friends….but that gradually gave way to much larger bets placed over the Internet to offshore sportbooks. The games are just so much more exciting to watch when you have some money riding on the outcome. However, it can be a very expensive hobby as I quickly found out. As soon as I turned 21, I started to experiment with casino games. Living in Atlanta, the closest casinos were 6 hours away in Biloxi, MS so those trips were few and far between. My game of choice was blackjack….then I fell in love with craps. The one constant here is that no matter what my new gambling poison turned out to be, I continued to lose.

All that ended when I found poker. Although, some of you who have been playing this game for much longer than I have will undoubtedly attribute my recent success to beginner’s luck, I feel that this is much more than just a short-term anomaly. I am a fairly intelligent guy who has a good grasp on math concept and able to quickly compute odds and probabilities. I also have a strong memory so I feel that I have an “edge” over the majority of the people that I play against online. I also have a bit of a compulsive personality as my fiancée would say. I tend to absorb myself fully into whatever it is that I am doing. For example, when I was rolling dice, I would spend hours each day scouring the Internet for articles about dice setting (the art of controlling the spin of the dice so that they land on a specific number).

And so it has been with poker, I have logged many hours online playing, reading hand histories, reading blogs, and reading some of the recommended poker books. I am now taking the next step to share with you my experience. What I am looking for is some critique of my play so that I can continue to improve and maybe one day be able to sit at the final table of the WSOP. Lofty dream, I know but don’t count me out!