Poker Grump: names

Showing posts with label names. Show all posts

Sunday, January 26, 2014

More actual poker

I again woke up feeling like playing some poker, so once again I traipsed to Harrah's Cherokee. I lost $200 quickly though a combination of sub-par play on my part, better-than-average opponents, and bad luck. But then the better players left, and I started the long slog to rebuild my stack. It took another four hours, but I left ahead by $252. Because of the weird psychology of poker sessions, this actually felt like a $450 win.

Sadly, again this week there were no hands that struck me as sufficiently interesting to recount in detail.

I did very much like the screen name for the Poker Pro tables chosen by the player next to me, though you'll probably have to have seen the movie "Rounders" to get the joke:

I think I might have to do this "poker" thing more often. It's fun AND profitable! Who knew?

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

I blame Josie, obviously

After all, she's the one that got me on this little online MTT kick the last few days.

I gave it another shot today. First two tourneys were pretty fast busts. But in the third, I caught fire early and was consistently in the top 20% of stacks through almost the whole thing, peaking at 3rd place fairly deep in the game:

I had grand visions of nearly criminal levels of abusing the poor short stacks on the bubble. But a couple of hands went bad and I ended up with a somewhat below average stack when the bubble came, so I had to just play tight through it.

When it had passed, the player to my right tried stealing the blinds twice in a row, and I shoved on him both times with mediocre hands, and he folded. This was a big boost to my chip position.

Then, to reuse a metaphor from the other day, that big ol' iceberg floated down south into the shipping lanes again.

I have KK and two players move all-in ahead of me! Wheeeeeee! Even better, when the cards are revealed, I have them both crushed:

Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose!

Except that you can, in fact, lose:

They BOTH make full houses against me. (For the record, I was 68% to win when the money went in.)

Two hands later, I'm blessed (so to speak) with KK again. This time I'm up against AQ. Once again, all-in pre-flop and I'm a huge favorite. Until fourth street:

I feel the need to cite that Geico commercial where the guy tries to save money on a weight-loss program by just having three teenage girls follow him around, shaming him with comments on what he eats: "Ew." "Seriously?" "So gross."

I was left with only about 4 big blinds, which soon went in and lost. And with that, hopes for an $1100 score went crashing to the bottom of the ocean:

$60 cash, minus $22 entry fee is $38 profit. I think both of the earlier ones were $11, so net $16 for about 5 hours.

Ew. Seriously? So gross.

The only bit of amusement I got from it was seeing this very nice screen name/avatar combo:

"You should be playing MTTs," Josie said. "You'll make tons of money," Josie said. "You're so good at them," Josie said. "You'll have fun," Josie said.

Friggin' Josie.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

What's in a screen name? #39

The hardest part of online poker tournaments for him is making it to the five-minute break every hour.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Bodog goings-on

1. Here's another way that Deuce-Four wins: It bails you out of a jam. I was the short stack and called a small raise in the big blind. When he bet at the flop, I thought it was more likely that he missed it than hit, so my lowly paired deuce might be good. I shoved. He called instantly. Oops.

But not to worry, I have the Deuce-Four on my side!

2. Here's another of those rare quads-on-the-board-on-fourth-street hands that talked about extensively in two recent posts, here and here. (If you didn't read the comments on those posts, you might find them interesting. Not many comments threads in this blog have gone that long.) I calculated last month that this would happen only once in about 21,000 hands. I have definitely not played 21,000 hands on Bodog since then, so the poker gods sent this one a little early.

3. As faithful readers know, crubs always get there. However, it turns out that there are times when that is not a good thing.

4. Ever wonder what other players think of you? Well, with this guy, you don't have to wonder!

5. The Bodog quads just keep on comin' my way, for reasons that I am utterly at a loss to explain. This time it was in the form of a super-full-house (quads plus a pair).

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

What's in a screen name? #38

Here's two more than caught my fancy. The first one is the winner in the self-referential category.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

What's in a screen name? #37

Just an assortment of various screen names I've seen and liked recently. The first is especially good if you're a regular reader of The Onion.

Wednesday, October 05, 2011

Hodgepodge

First up, in the "What's in a screen name" category, we have this excellent example:

Second, it keeps on raining quads for me at Bodog. These two happened in the same game today:

Finally, no post would be complete without at least one example of the Mighty Deuce-Four at work. Here the flop was checked around. I bet the turn, on the strength of my sure-to-get-there draws, got one caller. He called again on the river. He had A-J with no spade. He thought that was enough to take down the Deuce-Four. I pity the fool!