Coffee|Code : Dan Scott, Caffeinated Librarian Geek - Poker

Walking: away from online poker, towards the fambly

dan@coffeecode.net (Dan Scott) — Sun, 18 Jun 2006 18:00:31 -0400

I'm sure it has nothing to do with Amber, but my brain has faded into pure fuzziness the past couple of weeks. I'm missing appointments (both work and personal) and frequently wander from one room to the other wondering why I left the other room in the first place. Hell, I often sit down at the computer and wonder what it was I planned to look up / blog about / game I wanted to play.

Warning: some sappy content ahead...

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Live-blogging WWdN: godard invitational

dan@coffeecode.net (Dan Scott) — Tue, 23 May 2006 20:58:28 -0400

Had a baby 2.1777 weeks ago, have a cold, had visitors tonight, joined 20 minutes late with my stack blinded down to T1410, jumped into the action, bounced up to T2100 pretty quickly, hung out and watched Wil's JJ fall to CJ's KK, followed shortly by NHL 200X's failed attempt to steal on the turn against a set of sixes.

The WWdN is now pretty much the only poker action that I'm going to see for the foreseeable future; Amber is gasp much more important than poker. But enough people seem to like reading this live blog, and the WWdN is just so much fun, that I'm going to to try to hang in there for one night a week.

Which means that, now that I've cashed out most of my bankroll, if I actually want to play for any amount of time in the future, I'm going to have to make money at the WWdN. Good luck, I know! And if I want to last deep into the tourney, I'm going to have to stop making loose calls like defending my AQo big blind against an 8x BB bet from AlCantHang... maybe if AAQ hit on the flop I would have stuck around for the turn, but 664 meant that I was checking and then folding once Al made his inevitable bet on the flop. Ah well... back to my starting wages, it seems.

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Live-blogging WWdN IlliniFan Invitational

dan@coffeecode.net (Dan Scott) — Tue, 02 May 2006 20:27:58 -0400

As Gibby Haynes of the Butthole Surfers liked to sing:

I'm all hopped up on cough syrup now

It seems it's pollen season, and up here in Sudbury the birch trees have these massively well-hung pollen dispensers:

Well-hung pollen unit

And yours truly has a backyard that's filled with birch trees:

Dan's backyard is full of pollen-dispensing units.

And even though most of my allergies disappeared along with puberty, there is definitely enough pollen to set my sinuses spinning and get my eyes watering. So tonight's WWdN is brought to you by a special, medicated Mr. Scott... good thing that Wil hasn't introduced any anti-doping measures yet.

With that, the live-blog commences...

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I shall have my revenge!

dan@coffeecode.net (Dan Scott) — Mon, 01 May 2006 23:54:55 -0400

Hmm... perhaps I played this one (45-player SNG) just a bit too tight:

 During current Hold'em session you were dealt 58 hands and saw flop:
 - 2 out of 7 times while in big blind (28%)
 - 1 out of 9 times while in small blind (11%)
 - 4 out of 42 times in other positions (9%)
 - a total of 7 out of 58 (12%)
 Pots won at showdown - 2 of 4 (50%)
 Pots won without showdown - 4

I ended up busting out in tenth place, just out of the money. My patience is improving, but I probably could have made it into the money had I not over-played Kournikova in EP to try to steal the blinds against a big stack -- who cold-called, then pushed when an ace turned up on the flop. Damn. That cut my stack in half, but at least I've learned enough to get away from that particular danger signal.

The particularly galling bit was that of the final two tables, I had been seated at the little stack table; 7 of the players had M < 2, and I was one of the big stacks just salivating for some cards so I could feed off the weak. Then the evil teleporter sent me to the table of big stacks, and I became an average stack (until that little Kournikova play, which made me a wee wee stack).

Ah well. Poker, I shall have my revenge.

Live-blogging WWdN Change100 Invitational

dan@coffeecode.net (Dan Scott) — Tue, 18 Apr 2006 20:33:36 -0400

No tourney next week, so I guess I've gotta do good this time around. Except doing good means actually making a decision on all hands, and since I started late tonight that's not how things went... I sat out the first four hands, including when I was big blind, and entered the game in the small blind with JJ. Oh yeah! I reraised hacker59 to scare him off the blinds, a bit overeager perhaps but a nice start.

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Live-blogging WWdN, presdlee invitational

dan@coffeecode.net (Dan Scott) — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 20:31:01 -0400

I was there last ~~night~~week when Wil got all of his chips in with jacks against presdlee's aces... I met my own demise when I raised to 5X the BB with QJo at M9 and ArtOfSuckout decided to call when he was holding the mighty 58s -- and caught two fives on the flop to send me home in twelfth place. Sigh.

With that pitiful recap, here's tonight's tourney, live!

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Semi-live-blogging WWdN #21, jg-2323 invitational

dan@coffeecode.net (Dan Scott) — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 18:23:18 -0500

Last time around, I ended up taking third place in this damn tourney (incurring the wrath of SirFWALGman when I dared to call his all-in, representing 40% of my chips, from my position in the big blind with A8o and ended up sucking out against his ATs. Ah well... we both made it to the final table of the Wil Freakin' Wheaton tourney, and walked away with money, so hopefully blogger bygones can be blogger bygones.

I call it semi-live this time around because there's a horrendous possibility that I might not be able to make it in time for the start of this event, due to some real-life not-in-front-of-the-computer-screen interactions going down at our local Timmy Ho's. So, I apologize in advance if I'm at your table sitting out and screwing up the flow of the game; rest assured that I will be back in time to check my hand history and discover that a long string of AA, KK, QQ have passed me by Feel free to make this a collaborative effort by posting comments with updates to the live action in my absence!

And just a quick shout-out to Rookette22, Slimeface, and drewspop -- hope I get to see you folks at the table tonight!

Update

I arrived around a half an hour late, but still had about T1200 in my stack. Seated at the table was drewspop, L Fudpill, albHammer, SoxLover, kaellinn18, farmboy03, and mowenumdown -- quite the crew! On my first hand back, kaellinn18's flopped set of jacks gave way to SoxLover's set of kings, knocking Matt out of the tourney.

A few hands later, with K6s in the small blind, I raised it up against farmboy03. He called, I caught a king on the flop, and after extracting a bit more cash from him after the flop farmboy03 folded at the turn. But he took my number with that fold, as you'll see.

About two hands later, I wound up with pocket aces in late position. Sweet. farmboy03, with a crippled stack of T475, moved all-in in EP. The table folded around to me, and I gladly called. He flipped over a pair of fives, and I was happy. Until his five dropped on the flop, and no aces turned up for me. Sigh. That left me with T855 in chips, still plenty to work with, and I quickly popped back up over a thousand.

Plenty, that is, until I went card-dead for the next fifteen minutes and began slowly getting blinded down. I was at T705 when GarthMeister, with T455, pushed all-in. I had pocket fours and thought, well, I'm not sure what I thought. I think the problem with this hand was that I had already determined that I had to take my shot with the low pocket pair, hadn't anticipated somebody else making a move, and fell back on pushing my chips in anyways. We were isolated, and I guess I was expecting a race against something like AKo or AQo... instead, Garth had pocket kings and he handily took my chips (despite the suckout straight that almost materialized).

There was no miracle comeback from T250 for me that night. On the next hand I pushed in from EP with TJo and lost out to hoyazo's paired-up ace. It was a good night; I was happy that I got the chance to play with only a slightly weakened stack after having to miss the start of the tourney, I got a couple of good starting hands (even if they ended up as bad beats) and I did get to see some familiar, friendly ~~faces~~icons out there. Until next time, folks!

Live-blogging WWdN #-something, pink floyd in the house

dan@coffeecode.net (Dan Scott) — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 20:33:05 -0500

Ugh, I'm twin-tabling (thanks to deciding to play a warm-up sit'n'go) and trying to live blog, this should be ugly!

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Stop me if you've heard this one before

dan@coffeecode.net (Dan Scott) — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 20:19:03 -0500

Yup, tonight I'm live blogging WWdN #18: Fishy McDonk Invitational Part Deux, which is just like last week's live blog, only this time it's personal. Or something like that.

Last week, for the second week in a row, I bowed out of the tournament due to a short-stacked hammer. To plug that hole in my game-dike, this week I pledge to acquire a large, threatening stack prior to wielding the hammer in a confused, shuffling-down-the-street-mumbling-to-myself manner.

I'll also accept any spare change you might have. It's been a b-a-d month

Live blogging will commence below!

Update: Oh yeah, the other thing about this tourney that's kind of different from last week is that there's no Wil and no Fishy McDonk tonight. That should make for rampant speculation about WWdN #19 -- if nobody eliminates Wil, can a tourney have a name?

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Live blogging WWdN #17: Fishy McDonk Invitational

dan@coffeecode.net (Dan Scott) — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 20:18:08 -0500

Hmm, so last week my filthy goal of finishing in the money came up a bit short (about 30 places short) when my short-stacked pocket eights met pocket jacks and came out the worse for wear. I've noticed a little pattern in the last two weeks of my play: when the pressure starts to ramp up, I have a wee bit of trouble letting go of a good starting hand even if the flop and turn don't give me any love. So, hot tip here, if you're up against me after the break and I'm going all in, it's probably because I have a crappy hand and I'm just trying to scare you off.

Of course, I also might have flopped a set. You'll get no warranties or guarantees from me, my friends. ANd I'll make no guarantees of live-blogging all the way to the finish, despite SirFWALGman's admonitions in the last couple of weeks for bailing out early. I figure two hours is a good enough investment over here in the Eastern Standard Time zone, especially last week when I was starting a brand new job the next morning...

Let's see how things go tonight.

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Live blogging WWdN #16: Robbie Robb Invitational

dan@coffeecode.net (Dan Scott) — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 19:48:26 -0500

Last week at the WWdN#15 I exceeded my original goals, but failed to make it to the cash after a couple of my hammer bluffs were called (to ruinous effect) by ~~evil~~wise, astute players.

This week, I have a new goal: I want a piece of that money, baby, that sweet sweet WWdN cash. Dare to dream. I'm going to rub it all over my chest, slide it around between my thighs, and lick it from end to end. Oh yeah... Mmm, that got me going, so I've kind of made a mess of this week's entry fee. You don't mind, do you? Oh? Hmm. Sorry. The reason for my new focus on cash is that I had a bit of a nasty weekend, you see, where I dropped about $150 in a continuous string of bad beats in SNGs. Overall, I'm still up about $350 since starting this whole sordid affair in October... but $500 is such a nice, round number, I would like to get back to it.

I learned last week that Tactix is brother to Joane1111, and also that elcee (not bluegillchow, what was I thinking) is Joanne1111's father. In the interest of full disclosure and honesty, I have to reveal that dsheep is my brother and NHL 200X is my cousin. Interestingly, both of them have been, are now, and will once again be my lovers. So, for all of you people wandering through my blog for the first time shaking your head at my little poker addiction--it's nothing compared to good clean incestuous fun. Whooo!

The live-blogging didn't seem to hurt my game too much last week, so I'll give it a shot again this time around. While you might not get live blogs, you can probably get a much better post-game account from the far more interesting blogs of SirFWALGman and slimeface.

A final note for you slack-jawed cretins who fail to enter the tournament until mere moments before the tourney starts: you can register a few hours ahead of time, turn off your Pokerstars client, and join the game at any time. This leaves you free to have a relaxing dinner with your spouse, teach your nephew some new and obscure profanity, and get half-way through a house repair job before you have to join the game. If you don't register in advance, and you're late, then you miss out on all the fun, period.

So, in your Pokerstars client, go to Tourney -> Private -> WWdN #16 and enter the password monkey. It's a shot at fame, glory, and sweet sweet cash (albeit cash smeared against my body). And it's the best damn fun on the whole dang Intuhnaht!

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Live blogging WWdN#15: KentAllard Invitational

dan@coffeecode.net (Dan Scott) — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 17:57:44 -0500

Last time I tried this live-blogging thing, I reached my goal of placing in the top 100. Of course, there were only 99 registered players, and I placed 99th, so that was the wrong kind of outstanding finish.

This time, I'm aiming a bit higher:

Not be the first person knocked out of the tournament (hee-haw!)
Make it to the break.

I had a great Sunday of poker, ringing up $150 net, so this means that the poker gods will probably send in a golden shower for me. Ah well, stay tuned for the exciting story of the WWdN#15: KentAllard Invitational...

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Bankroll is replenished

dan@coffeecode.net (Dan Scott) — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 23:18:27 -0500

I sent the following email to my beloved cousin Jason, and thought that it might be interesting fare for anyone checking out my poker action. By way of explanation, I've cashed out from Pokerstars a couple of times now; once after I cleared my last deposit bonus, and once recently after, in a fit of madness, I entered an $11/45-player sit-and-go (SNG) and (to my disbelief) ended up taking second place (worth $104).

After playing in a couple of the WWdN invitation tourneys ($10+1 entry fees) and flaming out brilliantly, my account was sitting pretty low (at least, lower than my liking: around $70). So I resolved to go back to playing the $1.50+0.25/18-player SNGs that I had used to learn the game of online poker in the first place: players tend to be less capable at that level, and it was good therapy for me to take it slow in the midst of questionable madness all around me. I promptly took second place in the next three tourneys I played, which meant that I was slowly crawling back towards the psychologically important $100 mark.

After diving back into the $6/18-player game with Jason (and losing before the final table: my QQ ran into AA), I played another $6/45-player SNG and got knocked out in 10th place when my top pair ran into a full house created by the original caller's decision to limp in with 2c-6c; urgh!

These unfortunate losses put a dent in my account, of course, but I was quite happy with my play and was confident that sticking to my guns would pay off... well, here's the tale of the tape:

Played two $6/45-player SNGs today.

Came in fifth in the first one, basically holding on for dear life and hoping for fools to go out before I crashed and burned -- that was good for $24.

Then came in first in the second one, playing a tight/aggressive game that was well-complemented by some timely pockets. I became the chip leader relatively early and stayed there until the last three players... That was good for $80. Yeah!

Interesting stat: I had a total of 13 showdowns in the entire tournament. I established respect fairly early on by only playing very solid hands, and busted out a few people. Then I just concentrated on taking the short stacks' money. It seemed to work quite nicely.

Outstanding suckout moment: I'm chip leader with $8700, dealt A9o in late position. BB is at $600, somebody before me with 2600 in chips raises to 1200, I reraise him to 2400, and to my surprise the BB goes all-in with his $2700. The initial raiser calls, I call, and the cards are flipped to reveal that the initial caller has pocket 10s and the BB has Qc-Jc. I'm praying for an ace, but I catch a 9 on the flop, and another 9 on the river to make my set and wipe out both players. That put me in an extremely solid position for the end game.

Best trap (heads-up):

About halfway through our heads-up action, I looked down to see pocket aces. I had been playing quite aggressively, raising all-in to force the big stack to commit to either risking a large chunk of his chips, or to let me nibble on his blinds, and the big stack had been content (or timid) enough to fold pretty consistently. On occasion he reciprocated, and I happily folded, because he was doing it infrequently enough that I was making headway. But with aces, I wanted more than just his blinds, so I tried feigning weakness; I knew that limping in would be so out of character that my opponent would suspect something fishy was going on, so I settled for a raise to 2XBB. If worst came to worst, he would fold and I would pick up the blinds; in the best scenario, he would have a decent hand and immediately raise me all-in preflop. Instead, he called -- which told me that he had a hand with some potential. I checked on the flop (rainbow 8KJ), hoping that he would interpret that as a sign that I had A-something and had failed to hit my hoped-for ace. He bit, raising me all-in... and while I was nervous that he just might be holding onto something like pocket J's (making his set), I figured that he would have reraised me pre-flop if that were the case. I called, he flipped over 98o, and he never improved beyond his pair of 8s.

So now, since Wil convinced me to play online poker in October (no, he didn't sit me down and talk to me one-on-one; I read about his Katrina charity tournament and it sounded like a fun way to contribute to a cause), my return on online poker has been approximately $230. Given that my goal has been simply to bankroll this poker hobby without causing Lynn to frown too deeply, I'm quite happy about the results. Baby needs a new pair of shoes, indeed!

Live blogging the WWdN Sabboth Invitational

dan@coffeecode.net (Dan Scott) — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 17:41:24 -0500

Wil's hosting his usual Tuesday night game tonight at 8:30 PM EST: I got knocked out 53rd out of 118 players last week... this time around I'm hoping to get closer to the bubble. But how the hell am I going to concentrate on my game if I'm live blogging? I dunno, but lots of other respectable players manage to do it, so I'm giving it a shot.

Watch this space, ladies and gentleman, for some hot poker action later tonight. SSSSSsssss....

8:29 PM EST: I'm seated at a table with CawtBluffin, KayoteGuy, penner42, Chaswell, L0K1, LenardCole, and DavidK. I quickly fold my Q6s. Let's hope this isn't setting the tone for the match...

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