Back in BC

Haven’t updated for a while so I guess I’ll make a quick one to get myself back up to speed.

Banff was amazing, by far the best part of the trip. We went canoeing in Lake Louise and I was SOOO scared the entire time because I can’t swim (which makes me afraid of small boats). After 30 min when I was finally able to stop gripping the sides of the boat, I was able to get some cool photos.

This glacier is pretty much one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. I was absolutely awestruck at how beautiful it was:

The next day we went on a Gondola up Sulphur mountain, and the views up there were incredible too:

My amateur photos could never depict how beautiful it actually was… It’s definitely something you have to see for yourself.

We went to the Calgary Zoo on Friday after Banff and that was really awesome too. Apparently it’s the 2nd largest zoo in Canada. We got to see a Tiger do its thing from close up, which was really cool. It did everything: walk, swim, and even pee for us 😀

In total I saw 3 animals pee that day: tiger, ostrich, and gorilla 😉

They have random peacocks wandering around their zoo too… I found that really weird. Here’s me following one around in the concession area:

Saturday we both played the $550 and we were both busto less than 4 hours later. I pushed into another monster in LP, this time Q8s into AK. I love it when I walk away from the table and everyone is like, “WTF why would she push Q8?!?!” Dave got 2-outered by his nemesis from River Rock. Woohoo!

Since we busted on the first day and we’d seen pretty much all we wanted to see in Calgary (which isn’t much, btw… Calgary is pretty boring), we went home a day early. The next two weeks should be pretty busy with MiniFTOPS. Hopefully I get some decent volume in. I played 15 donkaments the other day which is more than usual for registering for 3 hours, but that’s because I kept busting everything. The only tournament I could cash was one of the $10.20 HU hypers 😛 (but yay that was my first time cashing that ever!)

Gonna play today after I stop wasting time. It’s noon and I haven’t had breakfast yet 🙁

September 3, 2010 by

Off to Banff

Quick exit today in the $330. The first hand I decided to push after getting short I ran into KK in the BB, so no push/fold fun for me today.

One hand I was annoyed at myself with was when I raised 88 in MP. In this hand I cbet a K flop and double barreled an A turn. I did a poor job planning my bets, though. I left myself a bit too much behind to shove on the river, whereas I think it could have been a great shove if I had bet more on the flop and more on the turn. I haven’t had the chance to experiment with triple barreling much in live tournaments, but I’m pretty sure it’s a great way to make chips. The guy in this particular hand ended up winning the pot after calling both streets with JJ.

Dave is still in the tournament. We’re going to Banff for a couple days tomorrow morning which should be awesome.

August 24, 2010 by

Disappointed

I was gonna write this post yesterday, but I was on too much tilt. Yesterday I ended up finishing 7th for $1207.50, which was just in the money. Women are overly nice and so we decided to give $100 each to the woman finishing in 8th (I tried to get it down to $50 each but the rest of them wouldn’t have it).

At the final table with 8 of us left, it was folded to me on the BU and I got dealt KK. I had 70k at 1k/2k blinds with 150 antes, which was around 20k over the average stack.

I raised to ~5k and the lady in the SB 3bet to 20k! I was totally surprised by this. First off, women rarely 3bet without their perceived nuts. Secondly, her 3bet was huge and over 40% of her remaining stack. Damn. Obviously I pushed, but her range is JJ+ AK at best, probably more likely QQ+.

She had AA and I dropped down to less than 10BB. At this point I was happy there was $800 for 8th place 😛 The thing is, push/folding in a ladies donkament is unbelievably powerful. I made a number of pushes and didn’t get called.

So yeah, push/folding the crap out of these people is how you win, which is why I’m so mad at myself. At 1500/3000 I had 35k (or 38k, hmm can’t remember now). A player that I’d barely seen play raised 3x UTG with about 40k and I looked down at 77. I should have folded but unfortunately I pushed. Sigh. As soon as I pushed, I regretted it. When she called, I knew I was crushed. I didn’t hit my 2-outer, I was barely covered, and I was out.

I was on such tilt for the rest of the night. I’m so mad that I busted that way. It’s so bad. I could have easily push/folded my way to a healthy stack again, but instead I handed my chips to the table nit. I was pretty inconsolable last night.

I’m over it today 🙂 We’re having a lazy day so far. So far we’ve changed motel rooms, eaten a wrap, played Chinese Poker, and watched CSI. We’re leaving now to pick up Mike (mcatdog if you play online) from the airport.

$330 tomorrow at the ghetto Cash Casino. Vamo!

August 23, 2010 by

Ladies event update

I’m on dinner break of the ladies event. We only got 53 players which is disappointing, but I guess I should welcome less variance. I’ve had a decent stack until now; I’ll have 20bb after the break. I haven’t had any of my pots go to showdown yet, which is weird but I can’t complain.

I’ve been sitting with Lacey Jones to my left the entire time so far. She’s been all-in twice for her stack behind and been saved by the river. She’s been nice to play with, though…she’s quite friendly.

Dinner break almost over, gl me.

August 22, 2010 by

Plush Syphilis

I busted the first $550 donkament around the same time as Dave yesterday. Starting stack was 7.5k chips and I never got past 7.6k. I was very card dead, so it was pretty boring! The only interesting hand I had was when I min raised blind vs blind and then proceeded to forget my hole cards. The flop came 98x and I thought to myself… well I might have a 9… and cbet. Unfortunately the villain called. I double barreled an 8 turn and after thinking a bit the BB folded. I checked before mucking and had QT, lol. At least I had a gutshot 😛

I think I made a bad river call in one of the other few hands where I saw a flop. Early in the tournament I raised in LP with AT over a limp and got called by the limper (a guy that limped a lot). I bet a bit over 1/2 pot on AQJ two-toned board and he called. The turn was low and left the board two-toned, and I bet again. He called. The river brought runner runner clubs and my opponent donk bet half the pot. Bleh. I thought about it for a minute and I guess I was hoping he had something like KQ or KJ, so I called. He showed Q5 clubs for the flush.

In hindsight, I’m pretty sure most players wouldn’t bluff half pot OOP on the river. It was a clear value bet but I couldn’t muster enough discipline to fold. I like the call more if he had bet full pot… (but then I still think I should fold :P)

Nothing else to discuss regarding the tournament. I busted after losing a flip with 10BB.

Seeing as neither of us made Day 2, Dave and I had a day off. We went to Kensington something-or-other to walk around, eat food, and visit shops. We went to a toy store that had a bunch of awesome stuff, and I saw the strangest thing ever. Stuffed germs. I took a picture of Syphilis:

Yes, seriously… furry, cuddly Syphilis!! If you’d rather have the flu or some human cell, you can get that too. LOL that’s so awesome.

Women’s donkament tomorrow. Women play so terribly, I’m pretty excited 🙂 I hope it gets a decent field.

August 21, 2010 by

Chaos at the COPC

Right now I’m sitting in the Cash Casino parking lot eating a Tim Hortons wrap and waiting for my 1 pm tournament start. I have to say that I am absolutely shocked by the disorganization of the series so far. Yesterday I went to register and pay for my seats for 3 of the events I’m playing, and it was chaos. They didn’t have tickets or proof of payment for two of the events, so to prepay I had to give them money and hope they keep track that it’s mine. Not optimal, but I really don’t want to go 2 hours prior to the tournament to register as an alternative, so I stupidly gave them my money.

A big problem is that the fields are split into groups of 200 max and sent to different casinos. So if you register in one casino and then go play at a different one, it seems to confuse them. Hopefull it’s onl really disorganized at the start of the series and they figure out wtf they’re doing soon.

August 20, 2010 by

On the Road to Calgary

I’ve been really busy the last few days. Regarding online poker, apparently the only tournament I can final table is the $23.45 hyper turbo. I late registered for it on a whim the other night and ended up taking 6th for $700-ish. Not great but at least it cut my monthly losses by about 30%. I final tabled it last month, too, and took 4th. Yay hypers…

Leaving tomorrow morning for Calgary. Here are the tournaments I am going to play:

Friday – August 20 & Saturday – August 21
Event #01 – No Limit Hold’em
$500 + $50

Sunday – August 22
Event #04 – Canadian Ladies Championship No Limit Hold’em
$500 + $50

Tuesday – August 24
Event #07 – No Limit Hold’em
$300 + $30

Saturday – August 28 & Sunday – August 29
Event #10 – No Limit Hold’em
$500 + $50

I was going to try to satellite into an $1100 or $2200, but I decided that I’m buying in for enough over 4 tournaments considering my little downswing. Also, Dave is playing on the same bankroll right now and he’s down quite a bit too, so the bankroll isn’t very happy this month when you combine the two of us. It would also be nice to have a few extra days to hang out and see stuff other than poker chips.

I plan to write updates while in Calgary. I’m not sure what kind of Internet connection we’ll have, though, so they might be crappy iPhone updates 🙂

This entry probably made no sense because I’m so amazingly tired right now.

August 18, 2010 by

RIP happy mushroom

Our happy mushroom looked like it was getting kinda moldy, so Dave wrapped it up in clear plastic wrap and tried to convince me that we could keep it forever that way. As much as I love the happy mushroom, I absolutely despise mold, so I rejected the plastic wrap. I hope he threw it away…

I decided to give the Women’s Poker League a shot. I’ll probably regret it but we’ll see how it goes 😛 I’m gonna play the Euro tournaments because playing too early is marginally better than playing too late.

I registered from 10:40 to 2:40 today and ended up playing 13 tournaments (including one HU hyper that I busted in the first hand… I never make it past round 2 in those things but for some reason I love them). I went deep in the 22 1R1A and busted in 22nd after losing a flip for a CL stack. I was at a really tough, aggro table so I’m not sure how I would have done with a deeper stack. Up until my bust I had mostly been all-in 3-betting to keep my stack between 10 and 30bb.

Dave and I are driving to Calgary on the 18th to play in the Canadian Open Poker Championships. We’ll be mostly playing $550 tournaments, although I’m going to play some satellites while I’m there to try to get into an $1100. Unless I win something online before we go, I sure have the potential to be down a lot this month if I manage to not cash anything in Calgary 😛 I’m already down 50 of my average buy-ins this month, which proves that a 100 buy-in bankroll is definitely NOT enough for playing large field tournaments.

I’m really excited to go to Calgary! I haven’t been there for around 15 years and the only thing I remember about it is that the traffic lights are horizontal (rather than vertical like normal cities). I also LOVE live tournament poker, it’s by far my favorite type of poker. I’m probably gonna play 7 out of the 10 days we’re there which is exciting!

August 10, 2010 by

University didn’t teach me to use car washes

My friend kindly bought me a gas station car wash, so I went to go get it today. The slip of paper I had said it was paid for and everything but I had no idea what to do, so I went inside to talk to the guy at the counter.

I asked the Asian guy there, “Can I use this for a car wash?” He looked at the paper and said, “Ummm I don’t understand your question. Yes you can?” He seemed irritated that I was asking such a thing. After a little more dialogue where we both continued to be confused, I asked him, “Why are you being such a jerk about it?”

“I am sorry if you think I am jerky” (yes he said jerky) “I am telling you that you can use it. What else do you want me to say?”

“What do I do?!” I asked in frustration. “I have no idea what to do!”

“Haven’t you ever used an automated car wash before?” I shook my head no and he said “Oh no wonder. Take this code and punch it in once you get to the number pad. Then follow instructions.”

So I went to my car and drove in and waited for the car in front of me to be done. While I was waiting there, the guy came out. I guess he felt bad that I called him a jerky. When the car was done, he said he’d punch the code in for me. He did and I thanked him and then drove in.

I guess you’re supposed to close your car windows when you get in?! Damn. I totally got soaked, and so did everything else in my car. Dave was in the passenger seat so he didn’t get too wet, and he just sat there laughing. As I was rolling my window up I could see the Asian guy watching me get soaked. I’m sure I made his day.

In other news, I went to Mr. Lube to get an oil change. It was one month after my “suggested” next date, but I hadn’t driven much because we spent an hour in PA. I drive in, the guy looks at my oil, and then he says, “Umm your oil is perfect. You probably shouldn’t change it yet.” I looked at him in disbelief. I couldn’t believe he was telling me to NOT change my oil.

I told him that Dave and I are driving to Calgary soon and I’ll be putting another 2500 km on it, so could he please check everything else to make sure it’s okay? He looked and told me I should change my engine air filter. He topped off a couple fluids and went to get the filter. But they didn’t have it. So he apologized, told me to go buy it somewhere else, and I left.

I went to Mr. Lube and they actually told me not to change my oil yet. I can’t believe I went there, got an inspection, and they didn’t take a penny from me. Impressive. I went to Canadian Tire to buy the filter… I guess I’ll try to install it later this week? Should be interesting…

August 9, 2010 by

happy mushroom

I’ve decided that I’m going to play donkaments instead of a cash for a while. As much as I want to beat cash games, I also want to enjoy poker. I really don’t enjoy playing cash. I don’t know if it’s because I never make money at it or because I don’t like it, all I know is that time goes by SOOOO slowly when I’m playing it. Even when I’m up money I find myself wishing the time would go by faster (I usually play in 4 hour blocks).

I was making breakfast in the morning and couldn’t bear to eat such a cute little mushroom, so I gave it to Dave as a good luck charm. Seeing as he’s busted like everything he’s played so far, I guess it didn’t really help.

I played 13 tourneys on this fine Sunday donkamenting day and pretty much bricked everything. It was one of those days where it was rare to be in a tournament for longer than the first hour (except for rebuys, sigh).

I’m terrible at multitabling more than 5 tables and need to get better. I timed out with 99 and AA preflop today, but I blame Full Tilt software for that 🙂

PokerStars has this women’s league promo and I can’t decide whether or not to try it. Basically there are tournaments every day at the same time, and the better you finish in them, the more points you receive. You receive points just for playing them, too. The woman with the most points every month gets a cash prize.The woman with the most points at the end of the year gets a tournament package.

Two problems with the league: the money is inconsequential to me (the tournaments are $5.50 and 1st place every month gets $300) and the tournaments are at horrible times. I can’t decide if it’s worth it for this league tournament to take up one of my windows every morning (esp since I can’t multitable well, lol). I do think I have a huge edge in the league, though (women are terrible at poker) and I also think that the person that wins the yearly package will have a great opportunity with PokerStars. So I dunno what to do.

August 8, 2010 by