2 For 2 On Saturday

I played in the VIP NLHE freeroll and the $11 2K Guaranteed PL Omaha on Saturday on Pokerstars at 1430 and managed to squeeze out a cash in both of 'em. At one point early in the freeroll I managed to win 5 pots in a row without having to show my hand once (I did show the 4th of 5 because it was the second hand in a row I had reraised a limper preflop and I wanted to show off my red Aces) and that run doubled my starting stack. I then treaded water until I got KK and managed to triple up vs Ace-2 suited and 66. As the bubble got close I didn't have enough chips to maneuver with so I just folded my way into the money (except when I shoved AK once and AA once), ending up about 1050th/6900+ for a min cash of $6.
The PL Omaha tourney had close to 300 runners and paid 45 spots. Although I rarely play Omaha, I did manage to Final Table the same type of tourney a while back so I felt pretty confident going into this one. Early on, my tablemates wanted to see a lot of flops, and then not bet them, so I was able to steal some pots in position and also get paid a lil bit when I hit a few big hands. I also ran really g00t, getting it in with KK76 vs AAK3 and making 7's and 6's vs his AA, and sticking it in with KK-10-x vs 10-7-x-x on a 10-7-6 flop and turning a King. The roller coaster hand of the day occurred about an hour in. Several players limped for 50, I potted it to 650 with A-Ah-10-6h, and got one caller. The flop came 9-8-7 with two hearts, he bet 2K, and I obviously shoved my 4000+ with the nut flush draw and the 2nd nut straight. He insta-called and showed me 8-8-7-6 and after a blank turn we CHOPPED when a non-heart Ten came on the river. Could have been worse...
Once we got close to the money there were two kinds of stacks left in the tourney - monsters and survivors - and I unfortunately was in the latter category after suffering a bad beat with about 60 players left. Since the blinds were still low I basically shut it down and waited for either a monster hand or for a bunch of limpers to give me a chance to see a flop. With about 50 left I somehow managed to find AA45 in the small blind, chose to just complete after a bunch of limpers, and potted for 3200 on an Ace-3-7 flop only to see eveyone fold behind me. At the time that was exactly what I wanted (gimme the pot now, I have the nuts but I don't want to get sucked out on and not cash), but in retrospect, since my hand and redraws were SO strong and there were 4 or 5 other players in the pot I should have given one of them the chance to stab at it and in the process enrich me further. That being said, if an opponent had had a set, two pairs, or something like Ace-4-5-6 they probably would have called off anyways so maybe I didn't lose much in the way of equity. In addition, although the tourney paid 45 spots, the pay bump for getting to 36th and then 27th was only about $1.40 (it was like 17.20/18.60/20) so it was more in my interest to just survive the bubble. After that hand I had enough chips to easily make the money so I continued my folding ways, finally shoving about 2.5BB's in early position with Ad4d3d4x and losing to AKJ6 on the obv A-J-6 flop. I did manange to make the first pay jump as I finished 35th.
This weekend I will probably play both of these tourneys again. CU at the tables !!

Made it to Silvah Stah

Just made my 1200th FPP for the month so I am now a Silver Star on Pokerstars. Been playing 90% Hi-Lo Stud to get there and am down about a c-note, mostly thanks to one session where I could not hit a single hand and lost about 80-90 bucks. Half of that loss however was the $50 deposit bonus I earned a couple of weeks ago. I will definitely be playing in the VIP weekly on Saturday at 1430 eastern, and if I get up early enough I might try to qualify for the monthly.

The More Things Change...

...the more they remain the same. Except for this blog's layout LOL. Still waiting for that big breakthrough. At one point I was considering the $300 shootout coming up next Monday at the Foxwoods Poker Classic because they had also offered me a free slot tourney entry (so there was added value in going) but obv the seats for the slot tourney filled up quick so I missed out. The last time I played at the Woods I continued my streak of cashing in every sit-n-go I've ever played there by luckboxing a 3rd in a $100 one-tabler.
I went on a trip to Disney World during February school vaction with my wife, her parents, her sister, and my niece and nephew. I hadn't been there in 30+ years and we all had a fantastic time. On Wednesday of that week the wife and I, along with her dad, headed down to the Hard Rock in Tampa to play in a $100 daily tourney that runs at 12:30. Sadly we all whiffed, as my wife was out EARLY with AK < QQ AIPF, while I maintained an average stack for several levels until finally losing with AQ < Jd9d after he limped UTG, I shoved, and he robo-donk-called for like 1/2 his stack and was rewarded for his donkishness with a Jack-high flop. I lost about 3 60/40's like that, but it was nothing compared to what happened to my father-in-law. He had about 7500 chips and just shoved 'em in preflop with AA after a raise to 400 and a couple of callers. So with maybe 1700 in the pot and a raise of 7000 more a guy calls off half his stack with - get this - 7d3d ! The board came Ad-x-Qd-x-5d and flopped trips got rivered. The worst part (per usual) is that the guy was a truly terrible player and just bled chips - in one hand he called a pot-sized flop bet with a pair of deuces in the hole and no help on the board ! It doesn't matter where you are, live poker is FULL of terrible players just gettin their gamble on.
Since PokerStars lowered their Silver Star requirement to 1200 FPP's this month I've been playing a lot of hi-lo stud trying to get there. I'd been running pretty badly up until today, when in not even a half an hour I managed to win over 60 bucks at $1/$2. On one table I sat down with $40 and left with $88 !! I'm gonna try to grind a lot of hands later this week since I'm only about halfway there.
And one more thing - Twitter. It's way too much fun. I just joined in the past week. You can check out my page at twitter.com/DJELove .