Shitty Week

I have just had an absolutely horrid last few months. I am running terribly and without perfect play you just keep getting nicked to death. I played a couple of times this week both up at the Hideaway in Seattle. Both days pretty much short handed 10/20 which lends itself to more bad beats because people do not put you on strong hands and tend to call you down more with draws. Needless to say I was getting ok hands and ok flops only to get outdrawn either by complete longshots of less than 6 outs or just coinflip hands that I was not getting my share of wins on. I am glad this year is over and we start new year in January. I just about gave back everything I made this year in about three months of play in Seattle. I still managed to eek out a few thousand $$ but nothing like the money I was up in September.

My play has not been perfect the last few months as I have not been playing on a regular basis so my feel is not quite where is should be to play great poker. The rake at the Hideaway is not conducive to beating the game either. When is gets short, which is everyday right now, you have a hard time beating a $3 rake every hand 4 or 5 handed. It used to be smaller but that changed with the new management trying to make a go of the new card room. I don't think the Hideaway will make it past February. I am going to stop going there for a while as I want to play in bigger games down in Auburn and will not make that my regular stop to play 20/40 and bigger on a regular basis. Let's see how we do. I will be gone on vacation until the second week of January so you will not hear from me until then. Have a great holiday season and a profitable new year. By the way the net for the week was a negative $-610, crap. SJ

Update

Aaron got bounced 45 minutes into day two. He had Pocket JJ's, they were playing $400/800 and one player raised from early position to $4000, Aaron made it $40,000 to go moving all in. This dude called with AQ. Aaron lost the coin flip. Wow, how do you call a $36,000 raised with only $4000 invested in the pot. Shit happens and he is out. Too bad, I wanted to go to Vegas this weekend and now I don't have an excuse. I guess I just have to play in Seattle. SJ

The Quick Un-Hit

Went to the Sonics/Laker game on Tuesday night. Great game, the Sonics looked awesome and put a hurt on Kobe and the gang. The Lakers are in bad shape, they only have Kobe and he can not play 1 on 5 all night and expect to win. They just have no other great option. Odom played like shit, he is a huge fast man, but just could not put it together last night. The Lakers also play horrible defense which makes it even tougher to win. My buddy from LA flew up for the game because he wanted to sit in the courtside seats that I own for an LA game. He also plays cards so after the game we took a quick jaunt up to the Hideaway.

The place was dead. Only one 4/8 game with a kill. We got up there late at about 10:00pm and I could only play for 2 hours or so we decided to stay there and play a stupid 4/8 game because I did not want to waste any more time driving around to find a better game. Started off fine, tough to beat a 4/8 rake so you never make much money, so I asked to kick it up to 6/12 with a kill to 12/24. That turned my luck from good to bad. I was up $140 when we did that and never won a pot of any size after that. I took a few stupid beats, which the last two months seem pretty normal right now. e.g. I had AK in a 5 handed game and raised UTG, the BB calls with 2,5 of clubs. Flop A,10,2 rainbow. He checks I bet, he calls. Turn a 5. He checks I bet he raises I call, river a blank, he bets I call. I see the 2/5 and muck. To top it off it was my friend from LA, at least he could have had a straight not that shitty two pair. 5 outs to his hand on the flop, and of course one comes. Nice hand. The last hand of the night I had pocket KK's in the BB. Early position raises and everyone mucks, I just flat call, as I want to trap if I get a good flop. Flop come q,10,8. Good flop, I check, he bets, I check raise. Turn a 2, I bet he calls. River an A, I only have one bet left at this point so I just put it in pretty much knowing that he was calling with an A. Turned out he did not even flop a pair, he just had AK. Crap, another 6 outer get there. O well, I kept it quick and painless. Down -$100 for the night. Had fun with my friend from LA, and hope to play for real next week or maybe this weekend.

My buddy Aaron that I have talked about is playing in the WPT $15,000 event and made it out of Day 1 with just about what they started with, he has $33,400 in chips and they started out with $30,000. I think this is a good sign as he has been chip leader or high up there on the first day of the last two WPT tournaments and busted out on day 2, this way he can build from here. If he makes Friday, day 4, I will go to Vegas to see him and play a little. Go Aaron. SJ

Finally

After about two months of just running like shit, and frankly not playing all that well, I finally played a decent session and ran pretty decent(meaning my good hands actually held up a decent % of the time as the favorite). I started out in the small buy-in($65) limit tournament at Diamond Lil's. I played well and aggressive and made it down to two table from a starting 5 with a little below average chip stack, but enough to make some moves. I then picked up A9 unsuited in the BB and called a middle position raiser with it heads up. The Flop came down Q,J,9 rainbow. The player who had raised is pretty aggressive, and I thought is was about a 50/50 chance that he did not hit a pair and was just making a move. He did not have enough chips to cripple me, so I thought with a check raise that I might get him off the hand. Wrong, he flopped a set of Jacks and took a few more of my chips. That hand put me in a bad spot the rest of the way as I did not have enough chips to drive anyone off a hand so I had to play good hands. Needless to say I made it down to the final table with not many chips and had to get lucky to get back in. I call a button raise from this same aggressive player out of the SB with Q,9, off as I thought he was on a mediocre hand, and I only had enough chips to make it through one more round. Unfortunately the BB called as well. The button had k,7 off, pretty good odds for me. The BB had J,10 spades. Well I hit my Q but the BB flopped a spade draw and went with it. He caught the spade on the river and I was out 9th. This really sucked as the they only paid 8 so bubble finish for me. Crap.

I then went up to the Hideaway to play some 10/20. The game was shorthanded, again, which I love. I managed to play well, stay aggressive and stay away from calling off my chips this time. I finally had a decent day with a $785 day and booked a decent win.

I was gong to go to Vegas this weekend, but work once again will get in the way. So I guess I will just have to play in town again. I am going to go to the Lakers vs. Sonics nest tues with my buddy from LA and then go out and play some cards. Later.. SJ