The week that was

I've had a pretty eventful week (for me anyway). Started the weekend w/ a bang by participating in the Cardrunners' 5th anniversary $5 rebuy tournament on Saturday. Several CR pros had bounties on their heads including myself. I gave away a free lesson but the guy that busted me has yet to claim it...wonder if that is saying something...lol. I was fortunate to bust a fellow CR pro ChipaHoya who was giving away a cake...yes a cake. I received it the other day and took a picture of it. Wow it came in a big box and was expecting it to be a big cake but apparently it was wrapped heavily and had ice packs in it to keep it cool so it turned out to be a lot smaller than I thought it would but nonetheless it was good....thanks Chip!



















Anyway I ended up cashing in the tournament and fortunately I busted out when I did (not often you hear that statement) because I needed to attend the Las Vegas Wranglers' game that was starting shortly. They are a minor league ice hockey team here in Las Vegas. I needed to attend because my kid was part of her school choir singing the national anthem and some popular Christmas songs (during intermission). Well after the Wranglers scored their 1st goal people starting throwing teddy bears into the rink. It was quite a site...pic here...



















Apparently it was toys for tots night or something like that. Obviously I thought it was very cool for the team to do that and had I known I would've brought a big teddy bear to toss myself (or maybe a note of me giving away a free poker lesson and my contact info since I have an unused offer).

Sunday was obviously football all day. I was in contention for playoff spots across my 3 leagues and unfortunately 2 of my teams choked and missed the playoffs. At least my 3dime team made the playoffs and is the #1 seed. I did take a pretty sick beat in one fantasy league where I was up 50pts going into Monday Night Football and had AP and Joe Flacco vs other teams' Matt Schaub, AJ, Sidney Rice, and Minn defense. I was probably at least a 10-1 fav and we had a total pts bet for $500 w/ me having the 50 pt lead and lost when Schaub and AJ went bonkers.

Now this league is the 1dime league comprised of mid - high stakes online regs and I think I lost to a certain guy I play vs. on a regular basis in my games. What's significant about this guy? Well this guy played a hand vs me a couple of months ago at nl600 where we got in $600 each w/ AK vs AK preflop and we ran it twice and he won both!! He had AK of spades and flop rolled off w/ 1 spade both times and both times it came runner runner spade. Yeah I guess you could say that guy owns me in everything.

Also on Sunday I played a multitude of tournaments for once (been awhile because of NFL) including the nl hu miniftops. I managed to beat my 1st 2 opponents fairly easily then lost to the biggest donk in my 3rd round matchup. I had him down 5-1 in chips and somehow he came back and won. It was also tilting because that was the bubble round..if you win that round you cash. Anyway I find out later that Kristy Arnett of Pokernews won it. She covers tournaments around the world and I didn't know she played online poker but apparently she's been getting coaching and playing 6max nl cash games online. What's significant of this? Well besides the fact that she's female, attractive and just won a nice tournament for $31k, I got to interview her for our podcast Cashplays (look for that soon). I really came away impressed by her knowledge of poker but unfortunately she would not give me back my buyin for that tournament when I asked. Side note...asian women are awesome at poker and at life...Barry G and Doublefly (his blog link on the right) know what I'm talking about and that's why I married one ;) . Kristy pictured...

















I had to hurry to my kid's school after that interview to watch my kid sing in her choir for her school's annual Christmas play. Obviously as a dad it was awesome watching my kid be in it. I did get her Guitar Hero last year so it's good to see that she put that game to good use (improving her vocals). Now only if she would stop asking me for a real guitar (or maybe I will give in to that this Christmas). I managed to get a few good snapshots of the play including this one...



















As for poker I managed to find time to play a little (but not too much). I made a couple of videos for CR where I played some nl1k 6max and hu. The hu match was interesting in that the guy got up $2700 or so on me but the whole time I felt like it was a matter of time before I beat him, and beat him I did. The videos are available on CR again for those that have a subscription and are interested in checking them out.

Also I played a hu match w/ my CashPlays cohost Jeremiah Smith the other day. We did it because he likes giving away money...I'm kidding...we did it because we thought it would be cool since we're cohosts on a podcast that focuses on cash games and maybe we can make a video or two out of it to share w/ our listeners and CR members. I went in thinking of making it a live session but after we played I think it's better to make it a leakfinder series where I help out Jeremiah and point out some of his mistakes and how to go about fixing them. The match lasted a couple of hours but it will be a 10 part series because of all the numerous screw ups Jeremiah made (zing!)...no it will probably be a 2 part series I'm thinking right now and I really think they will be informative. I won't reveal how the match ended up other than that Jeremiah might as well have played w/ his cards face up ;) .

Anyway since I haven't talked about poker much lately here is an interesting hand I played...

Full Tilt, $5/$10 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 6 Players

Poker Tools by CardRunners - Hand Details

MP: $1,000 (100 bb)

CO: $2,169 (216.9 bb)

BTN: $543 (54.3 bb)

SB: $3,963 (396.3 bb)

BB: $1,000 (100 bb)

Hero (UTG): $1,000 (100 bb)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with 8 8

Hero raises to $30, MP raises to $95, CO folds, BTN calls $95, 2 folds, Hero calls $65

Flop: ($300) 9 8 8 (3 players)

Hero checks, MP checks, BTN checks

Turn: ($300) A (3 players)

Hero checks, MP bets $150, BTN folds, Hero calls $150

River: ($600) 7 (2 players)

Hero checks, MP checks

Results: $600 pot ($3 rake)

Final Board: 9 8 8 A 7

MP showed A K and lost (-$245 net)

Hero showed 8 8 and won $597 ($352 net)

I don't want to get into too much detail here because villain is a fellow CR pro and we have history and definitely some kind of metagame going but wow is his river check back sick. He tanked down to a few seconds and I knew at the time he had a big diamond, possibly AQ w/ the Q of diamond (because the K of diamond would surely bet) and he was thinking whether betting had any value vs. me because he knows I probably won't call w/ much worse (even though sometimes I would) while I could check/shove w/ better. I was pretty shocked to see his hand tbh and I think I get an opponent to bet that hand 99% of the time (so I can check/shove all in).

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everybody!