Minor Day 2 & 3 + Ben's out!

Not much play the last 2 days, had stuff to do. About 2 hrs alltogether. -$43 in cash games, +$72 from 2 Titan Rios, and +$70 from InterCasino.

$351 Total
$393 Target
-11% to Target. Not playing hurts.

On a side note, get your hedges in for the Mansion bet. Ben Roethlisberger is going to miss the season opener! Unless you have faith in Charlie Batch. :)

$8k Challenge Day 1

61 Days between Sep 1 and Oct 31, which translates into $131 profit per day to reach $8k.

Cash Games - Poker in Canada 5/10L, Sun 2/4L, 1/2NL
= +$17.
Summary: Pretty boring play, nothing exciting, was really concentrating on it.

SNG - Titan Rio $24
= -$24
Summary: Busted out 4th, committed myself with KQo

MTT - Empire $20k Guar, Stars $20 180, Stars DS $1mil sat
= +$269
Summary: Stars 180 busted out early with TT. Empire finished in 23rd. 2500 players. Could have done better but made some questionable laydowns. Had 88, and laid down to a BB allin protect. Eventually short stacked, went in on the button with A7o. I have to lay off the Arag in short stack situations. Won my Stars Double shootout pretty easily.

Day 1 Total = +$262 200% on target.

BJ Tournaments on UB = Good Times!

Last night, Onion, Sterling, and myself played the new Blackjack Tournies on UB. 7 seat SnG. Good fun, good times. Come join us in the PSO Chat, we'll probably play some more tonight.

Time to look into tournament strategies, haven't played too many.

Aussie Aussie Aussie Oye Oye Oye

Wife wants to take a vacation next year, sometime between Feb and April. A 2wk package through Australia, New Zealand, and Tahiti. Early estimation looks like it will be about $8k. Therefore...

** New Goal - $8k before I book. I'm guessing we book by November the latest if were going in Feb, so I'll set a 2 month time frame starting Sep 1. I'm planning most to make most of it via tourney play, so time to step it up.

btw, I was on tv last night but I missed it. Anybody download it or know a good torrent site to find it? WTF happened to that pokerbay place?

WSOP: ME 1D - ESPN 9pm est Tonight!!

Tonight on ESPN 9pm est - World Series of Poker 2006 Main Event - Day 1D

Remember those Where's Waldo books? Here's your chance to look for me!

If you don't have ESPN, you can watch it free from your computer

Download TVU Player from download.com

Hints to find me
- Good looking Chinese guy
- 3 seats to the left of Robert Williamson III
- wearing Poker Stars hockey jersey
- Shades if i'm in the hand

Happy hunting!

EDIT: F*CK I'm so stupid, i thought it was on at 9pm, was actually 8pm. Day 2 is on at 9. If you downloaded it, please let me know, thanks.

Headsup: Unlucky or just sucky?

Not sure whats wrong with my headsup game. Lately I've been getting a lot of 2nds. Yesterday I got 3.

1) A dinky $380 freeroll with 38 players. Was bored. Was about 2:1 underdog when HU started. Got close to even until dude catches AK 3 times within 10 hands. Lost it all with a k high flop, KJ vs AK. Ended up with $70

2) WCOOP $530 satellite. 20+ players. This one I can take. Was 10:1 underdog! Ended up with $0

3) STT. I had this table absolutely figured out. Only lost $ when I got sucked out. Was 2:1 underdog entering HU. Went up about 3:2, and then all my $ went in PF, AK vs QJ. J on the flop. Fought back to close to 3:2 underdog, then lost it all 88 vs T8. Ended up with $15 (Party monster)

My winning % used to be huge headsup. I normally play pretty aggressive in the SB. The only cards I fold preflop is if I get a 2 or a 3 w/o an A or a K. I dunno if its variance, bad luck. I don't think I'm overly aggressive, I have my spidy senses when I think I'm being slowplayed. Oh well, I guess 2nd is better than "participant", but I think it feels better when you go out early.

On the positive note, +€150 from gamebookers and +$75 from Party Casino.

Pokerxfactor WSOP qualifier Hand History

Wanted to try out this pokerxfactor hand history playback. If your bored here is my wsop main event qualifier hand history. Please note, my vpip was pretty much non existant, I barely played any hands, so keep the speed at max!

Poker Stars 2006 WSOP qualifier

Please make any comments as well, watching it again I noticed a weird fold I made early.

Edit.. doh, I guess I can't share full mtts publically unless you signup. I think free registration is ok as well.

Poker Misc Pics

My 1st year anniversary present from my wife

















What I saw in Vegas (hint, look in the sky!)
















Proof that I'm a poker degenerate. (Texas Holdem - My new free xbox 360 game, thanks Microsoft)

I'm so jealous

Congrats go out to hit21hit / Timex for taking home $330k, yes thats right, $330k for his Paradise Power Final Table showing. It was a $1million stt rewarded to Power leaderboard winners. Each player was guaranteed $10k, and the $1mil was choppable 3 handed. 3 handed, he had 27% of the chips and in 2nd place, but managed to negotiate $310k for himself. They played it out with the winner taking home the final $20k, which he won. This shows the power of building a bankroll through poker and casino whoring. Even as late as early this year, hit21hit was casino whoring. Built up his bankroll, started training and practicing his mtt play, and now look at him. Probably $400k in tourney winnings this year, P5 Triple Crown winner, and don't be surprised if he makes the top 10 by the end of the year.

In terms of my tourney play, it stinks. Played the FTOPS event#6, NL6handed - Deepstack. Was playing pretty solid, started building up my stack, until the last hand before the break. Sitting at 5700 chips, I find AQ utg, after just transferring to this new table. I should have just laid it down and taken my shit, instead I 4xbb and I get 2 callers. Flop comes Q53, and SB leads out with a almost pot bet. Now I decide to tango with this big stack and double his bet. Other guy folds, and then this guy pauses and reraises. I lay down TPTK, and he tells me he had 53 as they were joking about that hand before. I told him I had JJ.

A few hands later I find myself with AK in lp. Same big stack limper, I raise, BB calls, and limper calls. Flop comes KT9. Check, check, 3/4 bet. BB calls, limper folds. Fock this guy has QJ. But stubborn me bets the turn anyways, BB goes allin, and I call. QJ. Game over. That sucked, my gut was right and I didn't listen to it. Was confident before playing this event too, I love the short handed game.

WPT Niagara Satellites

World Poker Tour North American Poker Championships (WPT Niagara Fallsview) Oct 25 - October 25 - 28
Finals: October 29
Tournament fee: $10,300

WPT Canadian Poker Open Championship
October 22 - 24
Finals: October 30
Tournament fee: $2,700.00

Both Championships will be held at Fallsview Casino Resort.

To register for either WPT Championship: call 1-866-5-POKER-5 or visit our Poker Room.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Dates
October 22 - 30, 2006. Final table taping October 30.

Times
All Tournaments and Satellites begin at Noon. Satellites continue on demand until Midnight (last start).

Location
Fallsview – Main Event, Avalon Ballroom / Satellites, Poker Room.

Maximum
No maximum number of entrants for Main Event.

Age
19 years of age, valid Government issued photo ID required.

Taxes
None.

Gratuities
A maximum 3% of prize pool will be deducted for Dealer gratuities.

Payment
Cash, Chips, Satellites, Credit Cards, Bank Draft, Casino Credit.

Chips
20,000 in starting Tournament chips for the Main Event, varies for each Satellite.

Levels
90 minutes for Main Event, varies for each Satellite.

Blind Structure
All Tournaments and Satellites will use the same blind structure; lengths of blind levels will vary.



Here are the current online and live sites that offer satellites. This post will be continously updated.

Poker in Canada - SnG step qualifiers. Starting at $1.60. 4 stages. Very weak players, fast blind structure.

WPT Online - low limit step qualifiers. Start at £4. WPT Online is also the only site with Canadian Poker Championships qualifiers as well! This is the subevent for the NAPC.

Doyle's Room - rebuy tournies. Start at $3 or so. Golden Palace Poker as well.

Paradise Poker - Rebuy tournies. $5 - $50. They have the odd rare freezeout qualifier. Direct qualifier is either a $200 or a $500 freezeout mtt.

Full Tilt Poker - Winner's Choice Tournaments. $24, $69 sats.

Ultimate Bet - $300 super satellites or $100 satellite for land based event

Poker Room - Conquer Canada Win a seat for both events!!! $100 sng sat, or $50 mtt to get into weekely $650 mtt.


Titan Poker - WPT Choice satellites. Various SnGs and MTTs. 3 steps.


For live satellites here are the options:

Satellites at Fallsview Casino

2 step satellites

Step 1 - $90 STT: 1st place = $640 sat. 2nd place = replay step 1
- 800 starting chips, 10 min blinds. start at 25/25 = TURBO!!!
-Sunday, Monday, Tuesday

Step 2 - $640 2TT: 1st = Seat ($10.3k) 2nd = $1200 sat 3rd = replay step 2 2000 starting, 20 min blinds. Fridays only.

or

$160 stt - 1st = $1200 sat 2nd replay step 1. $1000 starting 15min blind
- Sunday, Wednesday, Thursday

$1200 stt - 1st = seat, 2nd = replay 2500 starting 30 min blinds.
- saturday only

There are also Canadian Poker Championship (subevent) satellites at Fallsview.

WPT Niagara Satellite Blind Structures

or

Labatt Blue Chip Tournament
- visit your local bar to obtain labatt blue poker chips. Winners of each local event will play in the regional events. Info on the site is pretty vague, better just to visit a participating bar, down a blue, get a chip or 2, and show up that date.

Up and Down Weekend

Up: - Qualified for Party Monster Monthly $1 million
- Qualified for another Party Monster Weekly
- Finished InterCasino monthly at $350
- Qualified for Full Tilt Online Poker Series Event $6 ($250k guar SH event)
- Finally got a nice payment from Gammon Empire

Down: - NL Cash games. Down about $100 overall. Worst beat was KK vs TT, when all $ went in after the turn. Rivered his 2outer T to take $200+ off of me.
- $55 Poker.com $10k guaranteed. 89 entries. Finished 40ish when QQ lost to KJ. $ went in preflop, flop KKx. Took a big hit when dude would not lay down his pocket 7s after heavy betting on all streets.
- $50 Titan $250k NFL qualifier. Rivered flush knocked me out. AQ vs A8s
- Failed on 3 Party monster qualifiers. $11 buyins
- Titan Rio, lost big against a T6s with my AK. It was sooooted so ok to call my big preflop raise.

Even: - 3/6 cash games. Bad results on Paradise, good results on UB and Poker Share.

Finally Caught my Monster

After 15 tries, finally qualifed for the Party Poker Weekly $100k Monster. I can't remember the last time I've done so poorly (result wise). I think I'm playing fine, its just I'm playing too many of these speed $5+1 were it can be luckfests. I actually won 2 times, but realized afterwards when trying to register for the monster that I had just won a regular sng. Might go back to $20 ones for this promo, as the low levels can get frustrating.

and congratulations to Jamie Gold for winning the 2006 World Series of Poker. $12 million, unlimited sponsorship, and a sick bracelet.

Monster Hunter

Not much poker play lately. Went to Ottawa over the long weekend for a wedding. The only poker play I've done has been chasing the Party Poker Monster. Man I can't win a SNG. I think I'm 0fer7, with 2 headsup losses. I don't think I'm playing bad either, favourite (most of the time heavy) going in, loser coming out. Its been a while since I've gone 7 SNGs without a win. Mostly speed ones, I might go back to normal ones. I joined a holdem one by mistake, should have won that but I laid down a top pair + 4 high flush draw. Would have been good by the river, oh well.

On the Casino front, still doing the InterCasino reload. So far so good, can't believe the millionaires jackpot hasn't hit yet. 3.8 million. Dash Casino was in and out, i don't know how Omenic keeps winning those slots. Haven't hit a good scatter in a long time.

Doyle's room has also opened up qualifiers for the WPT Niagara.

WSOP: The dream is over

After an anxiety filled morning, I finally got started off with my event. Seated with 5 other internet qualifiers (at least) and a no show. No show turned out to be Robert Williamson III. Great guy, chatted it up with all of us. In fact the whole table was pretty good. Had one loose calling station get knocked out by the first break or so. Never had any hands to take advantage of him though. 3rd hand in the tourney I held KK, only to be halted by a flopped A. Played pretty much even poker up until the 2nd break. Then it was all downhill.

My flops weren't hitting, and just lost confidence in my preflop raising. Started trying to see cheap flops too often instead of taking control. This was a big weakness in my game, making $ when I can't find online dummies to donate. I'm sure I'll get more experienced as I play more quality tournies, but right now my aggression level isn't where I want it to be. I don't think I bluff reraised at all tonight, and after I stopped being the aggressor, by big hand raises were getting folded.

One hand that hurt during this downward spiral was cutoff 3x raise to 600, button (me) call with 88, sb raising to 1500, BB fold, cutoff call, I call. Flop 2d4h6h. SB checks, cutoff pushes. That was going to be my move. Both have me covered. At that point I had 5k left. The only hands I could have hoped he had were 33, 55, or 77, or AKQh. I decided he had be beat so i folded, SB called with TT, and cutoff showed QQ. Not sure why TT was played that way, but oh well. Harmless turn, river was the dreaded 8. Man I didn't want to see that.

Final hand for me was me reraising a weak raise with AQ. Turns out the dude was begging for a call as he flipped over KK. At this point I was down to about 2.5k at 150/300 25 ante. I folded 44 to a preflop raise a hand or two earlier. Maybe that was the better hand to push.

Oh well, learned a lot, experienced a lot, and hopefully I'll be able to use it next year or another tourney soon. Have to look at my whole tournament game over again. I can't rely on poor players to chip me up early so I can play my game. All in all, Vegas and the WSOP was a blast, but going to head home soon. Have to check what flights there are.

Insomnia: T - 6hrs

6 hrs to go before I start, and I can't sleep. Didn't really sleep at all last night, but at least i'm not that tired. Went to the Bluff Magazine party at the Hard Rock last night. Good party, lot of pros showed up. Doyle, Lane Flack, Liz Lieu, John Phan, Devilfish, Gavin Smith, Dutch Boyd, and more.. Emeka Okafur of the Charlotte Bobcats made an appearance, he was at least 2 ft taller than the next tallest in the room! Only stayed till like 11 though.

Last few days I've spent it "touristing Vegas" with the wife. Wow, can't believe the amount of walking we did. Pretty much visited every hotel on the strip, made it as far south as NYNY.

PSO party was cool, finally met some faces to match with members! Tons of gifts, cash, and prizes were given away. Open bar and tons of food. Unfortunately, couldn't stay too long, had dinner plans. Went to Circo after, food was amazing. Oysters were the shiznit!!! Treasure Island buffet was good as well. mmmm Crab legs.

Time to go back to bed, lie down for another 1.5 hrs or so.

Hopefully I'll have live updates on somewhere

PSO Forum
Card Player
Pocket 5s Live
Poker Stars Blog

Vegas Day 2

Got internet in my hotel room now :)

Day 2 started off with Onion and I checking out the RIO. All I can say is WOW. The convention was sweet, free swag everywhere, paradise/betus girls :), a lot more booths than I imagined. We left there with more clothes than I packed. The conference center where the playing takes place is massive. Table after table after table. I'm playing on table# 179, day 4. Right on the edge, where I can be the one of the first one's to rush for the bathrooms!

The rest of the day was spent doing a lot of walking in the 100deg heat. Very tiring.

I played a couple of tournies at Treasure Island later. 1st was a $50 stt. Super Turbo. 1500, 10 min blinds. Not much you can really do, but play fast. Went out 5th. Then I played a $60 freezout w/ alternatives. 30 people, 2000, 20mins. I thought the structure looked a bit nicer, but it really wasn't. After an hr, the blinds were 200/400. I got knocked out the last hand before the first break. BB mucked by mistake, so there was a freeplay on his blinds. utg +1 goes allin, has me covered by like 25 chips, and I call with AK. He had 77, and flops a 7. Game over. Weird thing is they started a whole new table for alternatives during the break. So they buyin full, get 2000 chips, and the blinds are 200/400. Talk about crap shoot.

Night time wasn't to nice either. Was overjoyed earlier when I saw the PHO restauraunt right in my hotel! Too bad it tasted more like POO in water. No not that bad, but it would easily be the worst in Toronto.

Played at the Wynn again later that night. Was mostly up, then went down, when boards were flushable, and then lost a $400 pot when dude fills his gutshot on the river. But not after he says the magic words after calling my turn bet: "I think I'm just donating here, I'm tired, ok I'll call" In other words he's saying "I'm a donkey, but because I said I'm tired, I'm not a donkey" Decided to call it a night after that, didn't want to go on tilt. Though I decided to dump $40 into a Wheel of Fortune slot on my way out. Got 4 spins, 25, 25, 30, 50. Not cool.

Vegas Day 1

Quick post, only bought a few minutes!

Plane a little delayed, settled into Imperial Palace at about 1am. Went to the Wynn to meet up with DOnion to play some cash games. 1/3 NL, no max buyin. 1hr in, guess who shows up to play.

Shannon Elizabeth (Pie Girl!) and Boston Rob (Rob & Amber - Survivor)

Holy shit, its pretty cool in Vegas!

Ray Emery goalie for the Ottawa Senators was on my plane as well, I think.

Down a couple bucks for the night, didn't play the deep stack rich kids game. Theres one hand where I should of though. Shannon raised to 9, Rob put it to 45, another rich kid calls, and I'm sitting there with QQ. I folded. Its a fold I dunno if I would have made if alert, but this was on my 24th hr. :)

Should have wireless access at Treasure Island starting tonight!

Will be at the Rio at around 11am, and then I dunno what else is planned.

WPT Niagara Sats now up & WSOP plans

There are now WPT Niagara satellites up on Paradise Poker. $200 direct entry freezeouts as well as $5 r&a satellites to get into the direct entry. Next one is on Thurs at 10pm est.

WSOP plans are all booked. Will be in Vegas Wed 26 night around 11pm. Staying at Imperial Palace for a night. My hotel isn't paid for until Thurs and it was cheaper than booking a thursday flight.

Email or leave me a message if your going to be in vegas!

WSOP I am in!!!!!

Will write about it later, too excited. Was tense. Pushing with JJ gave me a heart attack. Was as high as 20th place. Doubled up late with AA. That was huge. Didn't play the rest of the tourney.

Last day I was planning on playing wsop qualifiers too!

Qualifying is a big waste of time

Failed on all my qualifiers tonight. Waste of money, waste of time. To top it off, on my last qualifier I lost to a 1 outer.

Table "WSOP MAD THUNDER 10 3046168 - 3" Seat 7 is the button.
Seat 1: magking1 (1560 in chips)
Seat 2: _Junior_ (2535 in chips)
Seat 4: Crocko (1015 in chips)
Seat 5: actyper (2955 in chips)
Seat 6: Luckymat (3215 in chips)
Seat 7: Manta_Ray (2645 in chips)
Seat 8: Avasgrand (1865 in chips)
Seat 9: BrianB0ru (650 in chips)
Avasgrand: posts small blind 50
BrianB0ru: posts big blind 100
----- HOLE CARDS -----
dealt to actyper [Ks Kh]
magking1: raises to 300
_Junior_: folds
Crocko: calls 300
actyper: raises to 2955 and is all-in
Luckymat: folds
Manta_Ray: folds
Avasgrand: folds
BrianB0ru: folds
magking1: is all-in 1260
Crocko: folds
Returned uncalled bets 1,395 to actyper
----- FLOP ----- [As 2s Th]
----- TURN ----- [As 2s Th][6s]
----- RIVER ----- [As 2s Th 6s][Qh]
----- SHOW DOWN -----
actyper: shows [Ks Kh] (A Pair of Kings, Ace high)
magking1: shows [Qd Qc] (Three of a kind, Queens, Ace high)
magking1 collects 3570 from Main pot