Mark's Poker Blog

New Car

Well, poker has been going pretty well, so I thought I would indulge myself and buy a new car. Here is a picture of what I will be driving on Monday. Its a BMW M6. V10, 500 HP.

Not enough good games now

I don't know about you other players, but I like to get into routines, including when I play poker. I have been playing mostly live. I have dabbled with online, but nothing serious. I had sort of gotten into a routine, but had a falling out with one of the local game managers, so I have sworn off that game, which limits my opportunties to play live.

There were a couple of good bigger games running, but they have shut down. If you want to play bigger games 2 or 3 nights a week, it is pretty tough. I could probably play more if I was interested in limit and/or driving all around town.

As of now, I will play in my own game and another game that runs about twice a month. I would like to find another good game (5/10 or 10/20 NL holdem, ideally with some omaha).

Maybe I will play some online...

Tournament Results

Friday night, I played in a $150 buy in freeze out tournament. I talked my wife into playing as well. She did pretty well - enough to where she will go to another one...

12 of us entered a $100 last longer bet. We got down to 4 and I was still in it and we chopped it, so I got $300.

I made the final table, but I had about half the average chip count. I was UTG with the blinds at $150/$300 with about 2K in chips. I had 44 and decided to push. Unfortunately, two players called, with 66 and AA. An ace on the turn ended any chance. Oh well. Maybe next time.

Another blog

I met a new player, Jeff Gray. He is a winning online tournament player. He played in our 10/20 NL holdem game. He has a blog. I added it to my typelists. Here it is if you want to check it out:

www.blackdeuces.blogspot.com

Status of Online Poker

I guess most everyone knows that the congress has passed a law making it more difficult to transfer funds to and from online poker sites. I have heard all sorts of opinions about what this law really means. I playing cards with a guy last night and he said that several of the major sites are taking this seriously and dumping US players. This includes major sites like PartyPoker.

He said that Pokerstars is going to continue to support US players. I guess that is good for me, since when I do play, I generally play on Pokerstars. Although this may not be possible in the future and I may elect not to play.

Side bets

I like to offer up side bets when I play. I often will play red-or-black for $100 a flop. This is obviously a 50/50 bet.

A buddy of mine (Asian Jason) introduced me to another side bet. The bet is whether or not one of 3 ranks appears on the flop. For example, I pick J/6/2. If any appears on any of the flop cards, I won - if not, my opponent wins. I offered this up at $100 a flop and ended up about $1200 after two hours or so.

My opponent was initially pretty excited, but after getting stomped, felt like he was taken advantage of (duh - thats what a proposition bet is for). Jason tells me it is about a 50/50 bet, depending on what cards you select. It SEEMs like a sucker bet, 12 outs x 3 = 72%. I have watched it at several games and it seems to be 50/50. I understand that if you pick low cards, you get an edge, because it is more likely that people seeing the flop are holding bigger cards and consuming some of your outs.

Anyway, I was wondering if any of my co-degenerate gamblers know the actual odds. Let me know.

Poker Raid

I heard another rumor that a local game was raided. I don't know if this is true or not. The game manager mentioned might have advertised the game, perhaps via a web site, so perhaps that is why. If anyone has any info, let me know.

Charity Tournament

I played in a charity tournament, put on to help the Jimmy Wilborn with his precinct 2 campaign. The buyin was $150, with $25 rebuys. I think they had about 150 people. The first prize was a trip to Cancun. I don't think there were any other prizes.

The tournament was very well-run. I think they used "Casino Knights" or someone like that. They provide tables, chips, cards, dealers, etc.

Unfortunately, they provided a free bar, which was my undoing...

We started with 10K in chips. By the end of the hour long rebuy period, I managed to get up to 40K in chips. I did an add on as well. I was in pretty good shape. This was especially true considering quite a few of the players were pretty inexperienced.

Unfortunately, I threw away all my chips on the second hand after the rebuy period. It was an unraised pot (yeah I know). I flopped top pair and inexplicably went all in after two people checked. The guy to my left called - he had me covered and his nut straight crushed me. Oh well.

I don't know who won - I left and checked out a cash game.