Battle of the Planets

Another week has passed and I almost cashed in the low orbit of Poker Stars Battle of the Planets Promotion. I case you don't know the low orbit is for your best score in a block of 20 Sit-N-Gos. You get points for cashing in any Sit-N-Go up to 27 playes, heads up not included. There are different divisions based on the level of Sit-N-Go you are playing in. The higher the level the more money you can win. There is also a high orbit, which is for blocks of 100 Sit-N-Gos. This week I juat missed cashing in the low orbit in 2 diffferent divisions. I am at it today and off to a good start. I love the challenge of it, plus free money is ok with me. Beware of the Donks today. Happy Donkday. Tony

More Thanksgiving Night Play

The Sit-N-Go play was really soft last night. I had a 50% ROI for the entire day. Guess everyone was drunk or tired from too much turkey. Grinding away this morning, so far so good. Have 3 cashes in 5 Sit-N-Gos so far. Ring low limit No limit isn't going well. Playing with a lot of lagtards from Europe. Variance today is expected to be really high. Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables. Tony

Holiday Play

So far the play today is not like a normal holiday or Donkday(Sunday). Usually play on these days is really ugly bad! Today seems to be a normal day. Meaning there aren'y many really soft players right now. It is only 8pm eastern so maybe things will change later on. Hopefully players in a turkey induced trace will play badly today. Happy Thanksgiving to all. Tony

Daniel Negreanu's Mom Died

Daniel Negreanu's mother passed away yesterday. What a sad story that someone so caring and giving gets stuck in the hospital just hanging on for life. My thoughts and condolences go out to him and his family. I am sure it will take a lot of time for him to get past this, they seemed really close. RIP. Tony

Sunday RAZZ MTT

Razz Mtts can be so brutal; the variance in them is way higher than in No Limit Mtts. My wife played in the Sunday big $215 Razz Mtt on PokerStars yesterday. 74 players turned out for it with $4400 for first. She was in the top 4 the whole way through. Actually was in first for awhile when down to 24 players. We talked about her sitting out until the cash, which she could have done but we don’t roll like that. I told her just play tight and you will make the final table.(It was paying the final table only.) Instead she got brutally sucked out on in 2 big hands that crippled her. One was really brutal starting with A-4-5 and catching a 2 on forth. She proceeded to pair up and then makes a good 10. The villain had an 8 draw and made a bad nine on 7th street! That hand cost her over ½ of her chips, Razz can be so brutal. She finished up around 16th in the MTT. A good showing but even cashing in 8th would have been great. She played the tournament by buying her ticket with FPPs she had saved up. Oh well there is always next time. Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables. Tony

One Sick Hand

Warning the following post contains a bad beat hand, read ahead at your own risk! This hand is one of those hands you see in the movies, the drama is real sick in it. It's one of those hands that you have to see to believe, actually it isn't that uncommon. I have seen the same in a live game 2 other times. Anyway I have pocket Aces and bring it in for 3x the big blind. The button raises me and I shove. He snap calls with pocktet Tens. So far it's yor standard first level horrible Sit-N-Go play on a Friday night at Joker Stars.(Love calling off whole stack in the beginning of a regular Sit-N-Go.) Flop comes 7-7-10 so I am pissed. Turn brings the joker for me an Ace! Guess what the river brings...hmm I wonder. Of course the re-re-suck card the case ten. So let's review on every street we take turns being ahead but the one outer wins the pot! Poker is so rigged. Thanks for reading and good night. Tony

FullTilt Bonus

Oh how I love free money! Fulltilt decided to give all of its players between $100 and $500 bonus; they are calling it a Holiday Bonus. I was given $100, which is fine with me being have to clear it 10% at a time within a month of accepting the offer. Everyone that has a full account already needs to accept the offer by December 6th, I believe. Looks like I will be grinding at the soft low limit No limit tables on Fulltilt once again. If you don’t already have a Fulltilt account, sign up with bonus code “AVIGANOLA” and I will ship you an extra bonus once you make your first real money deposit.(There is a banner at the bottom of this BLOG to take you right to their site.) You will also receive a 100% bonus up to $600 when you join, not a bad deal. Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables. Tony



P.S. – Tomorrow I will resume with regular posts that don’t seem like infomercials, lol!

The Sit-N-Go Grind

I am mindly positive this week in Sit-N-Gos. Trying to put in extra volume so I won't feel pressure to complete a block of 100 on Saturday. This week Poker Stars is paying double in their Sit-N-Go promotion, Battle of the Planets. Whenever I have time to play 100 I have almost always cashed, so this week is even better any other. Tonight I feel I played great but I lost all the important races when it counted most. Won a little by feel I left a lot on the table taking 2 seconds and 3 thirds. Feel I should have won at least 2 of these. Oh well tomorrow is another day of grinding for me. Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables. Tony

MTT Brutality

Last night I got what Dr. Pauly calls, "Kicked in the Junk!". I was deep in 3 MTTs at once and almost counting up the money I was about to win. Instead I got it in ahead in all three and within 10 minutes I got knocked out of them! I was within 6 places of a cash in a HORSE MTT with a nice stack when I run 3 Jacks into Queens full. Since catching the MTT bug again I have had good reults but the variance in them is huge compared to Sit-N-Gos! Today I will be at it again, wich me luck. Beware of Donks calling shoves light today, it is continuing from last night! Tony

Final WSOP Main Event Coverage

I watched the WSOP coverage last night and all I can say is, “WOW”! From the way they portrayed it this year it makes Poker seem like nothing but a game of luck. They just kept showing sick suck out hands over and over again. As dull as this sounds, to me it looks like Buchman played the best at the final table. He just sat on his hands and let everyone knock each other out. At that point he just needed a little luck to take over the lead and maybe win the whole thing. With his stack I would have played it the same way also. I know it’s hard to tell from an edited Poker show but it seems Cada just got the luckiest cracking over pairs and winning key races. I don’t want to take anything away from his play being you need to get really lucky to win these things anyway. I read the excellent write up over at Dr. Pauly’s BLOG about the Heads up battle between Moon and Cada. Moon actually took a large lead against a heads up Internet specialist so he doesn’t have anything to be ashamed of. Even though he called off his stack with J-Q sooted, it wasn’t that bad being he was in a total race situation against pocket nines. If he wins that 50-50 he most likely would have been the winner. Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables. Tony

More WSOP Main Event Comments

I say, “Let’s go Moon!”, he’s good for Poker. Can you say the second coming of the Moneymaker effect? IMHO him winning will be really good for Poker. Anything that makes the average person think they too can be the next Chris Moneymaker/Darvin Moon is a good thing for Poker. As for Cada winning, do we really need another young college kid with too much money in his pocket? I guess in some ways he will pull more smart college kids into Poker and out of productive professions. This is not a good thing for our country right now, IMHO of course. Either way I am really looking forward to the coverage on ESPN tomorrow night. BTW, forgot to tell you all that I took first in a small No Limit MTT on Absolute on Saturday morning. Just a $5.50 MTT with 99 entries for $117, still it’s nice to rip one down once in awhile. Also big Shout out to my cousin Ant for cashing in the FTOPS last night on Full, 421st in that company is awesome, keep it up and you next big score is around the corner! Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables. Tony

WSOP Main Event Results

Looks like my prediction was half right. Moon made it to Heads up in the Main Event. Knew he could play and that he was really trying to downplay his ability on ESPN. Props out to my cousin Ant, great call on Joe Cada! I thought he played well but never expected him to get heads up with a lead! My Sit-N-Go results today are really good, Mtts not so good. It is Donkday so be very careful. Thanks for reading and happy Donkday. Tony

WSOP Main Event Predictions

For what it’s worth here are my November Nine predictions. IMHO the 9 players will finish in this order:
1. Darvin Moon
2. Eric Buchman
3. Phil Ivey
4. Jeff Schulman
5. Joe Cada
6. Steven Begleiter
7. Kevin Schaffel
8. James Akenhead
9. Antione Saout
Now let’s see how wrong my picks can be. Can’t wait to follow the Main Event’s conclusion this weekend on the Internet. I will be playing a bunch of MTTs this weekend also. Had good success last weekend so now I have caught the MTT bug once again. Overall I am a losing MTT player but they are a lot more fun, while at the same time, frustrating then Sit-N-Gos. Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables. Tony

ESPN Main Event Coverage

Nothing much going on for me on the Online Poker scene. I played a quick hit-n-run session yesterday at Hi/Lo Stud, won 12BBs in a half an hour. Had too many things to do last night to put in any serious play. Did you all catch the WSOP main event coverage on ESPN last night? I personally thought it was very entertaining. What do you all think? Also I think Billy Koop made the biggest donkey play/blowup I have seen since Scotty Nygun I think in 2006? He has a huge chip stack and he puts all of it in with a 3-5 of diamonds, on a paired board? What was he thinking, if at all? The only way Darvin calls there is if he is beat. He could have sat out and made the final table with his chip stack. Damn I have got to play in the main event, one of these years! Looking forward to following the final table this weekend, on the internet. Also can’t wait to watch the coverage next Tuesday, hopefully they do a better job than last year’s 2 hands of heads up! Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables. Tony

Improved MTT Play

My MTT play really clicked this weekend. I cashed in 30% of the ones I played in, plus I chopped first in a Razz one on Saturday. My success this weekend seems to be for a few reasons. For one I went back to my old style of tight aggressive. Also I paid attention to my chip stack more, not gambling close to the money when I would most likely get into the cash. Another thing, which may sound stupid, is that I bought “Focus Factor”, the vitamin supplement that Fox on Pocket Fives recommended last week. Don’t know if it was psychological or if I was really focusing on the task at hand better. Seems odd that I start taking these pills on Friday and have great success all weekend in MTTs. We will see how it works out for me this week. Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables. Tony

Finding My MTT Groove

PokerStars Tournament #208010317, HORSE
Buy-In: $15.00/$1.50 USD
232 players
Total Prize Pool: $3480.00 USD
Tournament started 2009/11/01 9:45:00 ET


Dear AVIGANOLA,

You finished the tournament in 19th place. A USD 34.80 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 76.29 tournament leader points in this tournament. For information about our tournament leader board, see our web site at http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/tournaments/leader-board/


Congratulations!

Thank you for participating.

As you can see Mtts are going fine for me. As for Sit-N-Gos the play today is sick bad. Four times I have lost all in pre-flop with a pair over another pair. Today really is Donkday! Play super cautious and pray your hand holds up. GL. Tony