Neil's Home Game

Had a great time playing in my cousin Neil’s home game last night. I haven’t played in one in over 6 months so last night was a treat. It was loud and crazy at times. The suck outs came like water flowing from a stream after a big storm! The shit that goes on in this game makes Online Poker seem much saner. All in A-10 of hearts vs. K-J of hearts on a 2 heart board, Jack of clubs on the river for the sick beat. Of course the normal all in pre A-Q vs. A-K, queen on the river for the suck out/bounty, etc. Hands like this happen all too often in this game but as they say, “That’s Poker”. So the first game was a horror show for me, getting knocked out first out of 11 players. The normal set up hands, running Jacks into Queens for half my stack on a non-scary board. Than flopping top pair and a flush draw vs. Kings to get knocked out, normal stuff. In the second SNG I was on the winning side of 3 key coolers to get heads up with my cousin Ant. He had a huge stack by playing chip bully from when we were 5 handed until heads up. We made a deal and played it out for the 2 bounties left in the pool. He had a 7-1 chip lead so I needed a double up badly, didn’t happen so he took down the bounties. Well played Ant., we will meet again heads up! Shout out to Neil for hosting another fun night of Poker. Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables. Tony

Running Good Finally

Last night I kicked some ass at Rush Poker! Also did very well playing Hi/Lo Stud On Poker Stars and Absolute Poker. Wow can't remember the last time I was writing about running good in cash games. Of course now I have angered the Poker Gods and the doom switch will be thrown on me, LOL. Playing in my cousins Home game tonight so hopefully tommorrow will have good things to post about. Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables. Tony

RAZZ Final Table

PokerStars Tournament #263990627, Limit Razz
Buy-In: $3.00/$0.30 USD
76 players
Total Prize Pool: $228.00 USD
Tournament started 2010/04/25 10:45:00 ET


Dear AVIGANOLA,

You finished the tournament in 7th place. A USD 9.12 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 49.82 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

Another day another RAZZ final table. I just cashed in 4 of my last 5 RAZZ mtts! Getting ready for the RAZZ WSOP event. Happy rainy day. Tony

RAZZ Saved Me

PokerStars Tournament #307010905, Limit Razz
Buy-In: $10.00/$1.00 USD
88 players
Total Prize Pool: $880.00 USD
Tournament started 2010/04/23 19:45:00 ET


Dear AVIGANOLA,

You finished the tournament in 9th place. A USD 19.36 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 62.87 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.

Razz saved me from a complete losing night of MTTs. Every bad beat/setup happened to me in No Limit last night. Shoved into Aces or Kings like 10 times. Thankfully my best game of RAZZ came to thhe reasue. Almost final tabled but took a sick one to get knocked out of it also. Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables. Tony

Cash Games

This week I have been all about the cash games. Have taken a hiatus from MTTs and Sit-N-Gos since Sunday. I feel energized and ready to face the donks once again starting tonight. Been going great in full ring micro No Limit games on Stars but not as well in Rush Poker on FullTilt. Rush Poker has a huge variance for me. It seems I win or lose between 5 buy ins every session I play it. Guess it makes sense being I am seeing like 600 or more hands a session. Probably will play a huge volume of MTTs again this weekend. Don’t plan on going out much so grinding MTTs here I come. Everyone have a great weekend. Tony

Online Poker Rigged?

Some days I lose faith in the legitimacy of Online Poker, Sunday was one of those days. Warning this post contains bad beat stories, so if you don’t want to read them leave now. With that disclaimer out of the way I can continue on with this post. On Sunday I wrote about pocket Queens getting me knocked out of 3 straight MTTs all in pre-flop against Ace rag. During this time I got bad beat out of a number of Sit-N-Gos, the normal Standard Online BS. I shove with Queens from the button, on the bubble, and get snap called by K-Q off for 75% of his chips. WTF, why do these people call so light and get rewarded? So I got sick of MTTs/SNGs and decide to fire up the cash games. This hand pushed me over the edge into Titltdom so had to shut it down when this one was over. Got bad beat twice in one hand on the turn and river! Under the Gun +1 raises 3x and the button flat calls. I have KK in the bid blind with around 22BBs in my stack. So I do the manly thing and shove it all in. The under the gun player, who I have covered snap calls. The button who has me slightly covered goes into the tank and eventually calls me. What do these geniuses have you think? Under the gun K-10 off and button A-9 off, WTF? You know what is coming, should I even bother writing it up. Flop comes 10-2-4 rainbow so I am looking good for the main pot and the side pot. Turn is a 10 so the main pot is toast but the side pot is bigger anyway so I will do ok in this hand. Of course Ace on the river and I got screwed out of both pots! This hand couldn’t have been scripted better for a movie. When you start seeing this chit over and over again start to get really disgusted at Online Poker. I may start wearing a tin foil hat and join the Online Poker is so rigged camp, NOT. I have seen the same BS in live home games and live games in AC. I guess Poker like life isn’t fair. If you lasted this long, listening to my rant, power to you. Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables. Tony

Donkday Update

The play today is so bad! This is not a bad beat post but check this out, got knocked out of 3 Mtts all in pre-flop with pocket Queens! In all 3 cases I reraised shoved for 20 or more BBs. In all 3 cases I got called by Ace rag who flopped an ace. In 2 of the 3 it was a 6 max mtt! Do I need to explain furthur? Beware today of the donks! Happy Donkday. Tony

Final Table

PokerStars Tournament #261248345, Limit Razz
Buy-In: $15.00/$1.50 USD
21 players
Total Prize Pool: $315.00 USD
Tournament started 2010/04/17 13:45:00 ET


Dear AVIGANOLA,

You finished the tournament in 3rd place. A USD 63.00 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 57.76 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.

Played 15 MTTs yesterday with 7 cashes, 1 final table. I like my ITM percentage for sure! Things started out real bad but I cashed in my last 4 straight. Today is starting out real bad again! Beware of the donks calling all ins with Q-K off! Happy Donkday. Tony

Tournament Leader Board Update

My Online Play lately had consisted in chasing Tournament Leader Board/Promotions at different Sites. My Monthly and Yearly chase at Poker Stars is going well. I intend to put in a very high volume this weekend to increase my ranking. I am one final table away from breaking into the top 1000 for the month on Stars. Still to cash have to break into the top 200 I believe. Tonight I will have to check their rules to see how many cash each month. As for the yearly chase I am in the hunt but have a long way to go. I need a bunch of 100+ point cashes to push me into contention. Maybe this weekend I can final table a 5000+ player MTT? The other big TLB chase I am doing is on Absolute Poker. They have 10 special $11 MTTs everyday in April. Your top 10 point finishes count toward this promotion. The person with the highest score wins 20K, not too shabby! Historically I have done very well in MTTs on the Cereus Network(Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker). This is because they have a combination of bad players and a great structure. This fits in perfect for my super TAG style in MTTs. I plan on playing at least 10 of these this weekend. Will post my progress during the weekend, if you are interested. Cereus’ MTTs TLB points are calculated much differently than the other sites. Everyone earns points, just the further you get and the high prize pool the more points you get. Stars only awards points to the top 15% of finishers. So on Stars, to me there are 2 bubbles, the point one and then the money one. It affects the way I play for sure. TGIF. Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables. Tony

Deep Run Again

PokerStars Tournament #306010693, No Limit Hold'em
Buy-In: $2.50/$0.25 USD
6283 players
Total Prize Pool: $15707.50 USD
Tournament started 2010/04/14 17:00:00 ET


Dear AVIGANOLA,

You finished the tournament in 167th place. A USD 9.26 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 88.28 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.

Another night another deep run in an MTT. Keep knocking on the door for a Final table run in a large MTT. It's coming, maybe this weekend, I can feel it. Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables. Tony

Tournament Leader Board Update

This post is a Tournament Leader Board update for me on Poker Stars. I now have 6000points and am in around 18,000 for the yearly leader board. Really I am not making much progress, just hanging on to my position. Am doing really well for the month of April, have 1100 points and am in around 9000th place. Just need a nice point score this weekend to move way up in the monthly standings. As for Poker last night finally had a winning night at Rush Poker. Have noticed that I get killed on the weekends and recover it during the week. Probably should avoid Rush Poker with the weekend Donks. Case in point the button does the 3X steal raise after it is folded to him so I shove from the Big Blind for 30 Big Blinds. He snap calls me with 9-10 off and of course flops a ten to felt me. That kind of BS happened to me all weekend playing Rush. Last night I won back 3 buy ins but am still way down since Friday. I will be multi-tabling Double of Nothing Sit-N-Gos tonight, expect an update tomorrow. It seems many of my readers are interested in Double or Nothings, many people find my BLOG searching for anything about them. They really are a low variance way to build up your roll. Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables. Tony

Final Table!

PokerStars Tournament #259422226, Limit 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo
Buy-In: $3.00/$0.30 USD
156 players
Total Prize Pool: $468.00 USD
Tournament started 2010/04/11 9:45:00 ET


Dear AVIGANOLA,

You finished the tournament in 5th place. A USD 28.08 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 84.45 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.

After bubbling the final table of a Hi/Lo Omaha table this morning I finally broke through. I am on pace for a cash in the monthly TLB for April on Stars. Will keep you all updating during the week. Tony

Finally a Cash

PokerStars Tournament #259401764, No Limit Hold'em
Buy-In: $3.00/$0.30 USD
3241 players
Total Prize Pool: $9723.00 USD
Tournament started 2010/04/09 14:00:00 ET


Dear AVIGANOLA,

You finished the tournament in 56th place. A USD 17.50 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 115.02 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.

Finally got a deep run last night in an MTT. This was my 4th best point score for the whole year. I am on track for a shot at a monthly MTT Tournament Leader Board on Stars for April. Will try to put in the volume neccessary to do it. I will keep you all posted of my progress. Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables. Tony

Running Bad

Last night I ran sick bad! Went 0 for 8 cashes in MTTs. Got my ass handed to me in Rush Poker, losing 4 buy ins in 2 hours. Won't even tell you how many times I shoved into Aces or had my overpairs cracked by underpairs. My run good time has got to be around the corner. We will see what happens today. Happy Friday. TGIF. Tony

Double or Nothing Sit-N-Gos

Nothing much to BLOG about this week. Just been crushing the Double or Nothings on Stars all week. Did you all catch High Stakes this week! Ivey is the man! This week's episode was one of the best I have ever seen. Can't week for next week. Making another Foxwoods trip this weekend, maybe this will give me something good to BLOG about. Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables. Tony

Razz Cash

PokerStars Tournament #304010905, Limit Razz
Buy-In: $10.00/$1.00 USD
97 players
Total Prize Pool: $970.00 USD
Tournament started 2010/04/02 19:45:00 ET


Dear AVIGANOLA,

You finished the tournament in 8th place. A USD 33.46 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 70.02 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.

I kicked some ass last night in MTTs. I cashed in 6 out of 9 played! This one was very frustrating. I made the final table 4th in chips but couldn't bring it home. Everytime a short stack was all in he got there. Eventually I got chipped down and sucked out on to take 8th. Also got deep in the 7:00pm 25K on Stars, finished in 179th. The Leader Board Quest is alive and kicking. Thanks for reading and have a happy Easter. Tony