Sunday, February 28, 2010

Another Final Table and Leader Board Update

PokerStars Tournament #245165332, Mixed PLH/PLO
Buy-In: $5.00/$0.50 USD
77 players
Total Prize Pool: $385.00 USD
Tournament started 2010/02/28 9:10:00 ET


Dear AVIGANOLA,

You finished the tournament in 8th place. A USD 13.47 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 53.37 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.

Things are going well for me today, 3 cashes with 2 final tables. Checked TLB and I am now in 14,562 in the world. I have 4246 points in my top 100 cashes. Slow and steady progress wins the race. Happy Donkday. Tony

Final Table Cash

PokerStars Tournament #245174388, Limit Omaha Hi/Lo
Buy-In: $4.00/$0.40 USD
115 players
Total Prize Pool: $460.00 USD
Tournament started 2010/02/28 7:31:00 ET


Dear AVIGANOLA,

You finished the tournament in 9th place. A USD 9.20 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 58.21 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 final table, lol. Beware of the donks today! The MTTs are real minefields today. Happy Donkday. Tony

Saturday, February 27, 2010

MTT Cash

PokerStars Tournament #245174005, 8-Game
Buy-In: $2.00/$0.20 USD
154 players
Total Prize Pool: $308.00 USD
Tournament started 2010/02/25 17:15:00 ET


Dear AVIGANOLA,

You finished the tournament in 16th place. A USD 5.39 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 41.95 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 micro-cash. More importantly is I continue to increase my TLB points. Now have over 3900 points for my top 100 cashes. I am in around 15,000 in the world, need a big point score this weekend to move up. My back and legs are hurting from shoveling snow today. We are supposed to get hit with another storm this week, bring on the spring. Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables. Tony

Friday, February 26, 2010

Snow Day

Damn did we get a lot of snow yesterday to this morning, with more on the way. Not going in to work today so it's a grind MTT day. I picked up 2 more cashes last night, now up to around 3900 TLB points. I am starting to fall behind but with the weekend here should be able to put in a solid volume to catch back up. Don't hurt your back shoveling today. Happy snow day. Tony

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Crushing Rush Poker

Last night’s online play went very well, thank you. I three-tabled Rush Poker, what an experience. It was like watching a tennis match moving my cursor over to the right table to fold. I played super-nitty, only seeing 6% of my hands to the flop. It worked well, won 3 and ½ buyins in around an hour and a half. By the end of it I had seen around 1800 hands and my head was spinning. Don’t know how these young internet wizards 24 table for 10 or more hours a day! Also played a few Double of Nothing Sit-N-Gos on Stars. Wound up breaking even minus the rake in the Sit-N-Gos. Also need to earn some more VPPs to maintain my status so I fired up a HORSE Cash game while 3 tabling the Rush Poker. No wonder my head was spinning. My wife and I watched the final table replay from the 4 million Sunday mil. on Stars last night. It was fun to watch and see all the hole cards. They also have all of last year’s SCOOP MTTs running in final table reply to watch. We had funning watching how badly the final table players were for the RAZZ event. I need to play the RAZZ event this year and teach them all a thing or two, LOL. Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables. Tony

Monday, February 22, 2010

Waffles Sightings

I do believe I played some Rush Poker with the one and only Waffles. Waffles if you read this BLOG please verify you were playing Rush Poker on Sunday. We return to our previous scheduled programming now. Tony

Sunday, February 21, 2010

MTT Win

PokerStars Tournament #242365246, Limit Omaha Hi/Lo
Buy-In: $4.00/$0.40 USD
97 players
Total Prize Pool: $388.00 USD
Tournament started 2010/02/21 7:31:00 ET


Dear AVIGANOLA,

You finished the tournament in 1st place. A USD 83.42 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 160.38 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 an outright win! Beware of the Donks today! Happy Donkday. Tony

Friday, February 19, 2010

RAZZ Score

PokerStars Tournament #242365035, Limit Razz
Buy-In: $10.00/$1.00 USD
21 players
Total Prize Pool: $210.00 USD
Tournament started 2010/02/19 16:45:00 ET


Dear AVIGANOLA,

You finished the tournament in 2nd place. A USD 63.00 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 65.15 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'm just a RAZZ machine, LOL. Tony

Final Table

PokerStars Tournament #242345117, Mixed PLH/PLO
Buy-In: $5.00/$0.50 USD
76 players
Total Prize Pool: $380.00 USD
Tournament started 2010/02/19 9:10:00 ET


Dear AVIGANOLA,

You finished the tournament in 7th place. A USD 16.15 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 56.68 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.

Just a small MTT score for me. I now have 3400 Tournament Leader Board Points on Poker Stars. This puts me in the 17,000 place for the whole world on Stars. All is going according to plan. Hope to put in a huge volume of them this weekend. Expect an update on Sunday. Good luck at the tables. Tony

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Small MTT Score

PokerStars Tournament #285010693, No Limit Hold'em
Buy-In: $2.50/$0.25 USD
6757 players
Total Prize Pool: $16892.50 USD
Tournament started 2010/02/17 17:00:00 ET


Dear AVIGANOLA,

You finished the tournament in 658th place. A USD 4.89 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 46.12 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 should play the 5:00pm 7.5K everyday on Poker Stars. I have cashed in it 6 straight times. Problem is I don't always get home in time for it. Yesterday I signed on at the end of late registration. TLB points are a good thing to earn. Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables. Tony

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Cash Game Grinding

Last night I didn’t have enough time to play in any MTTs. I decided to play Double or Nothing Sit-N-Gos and cash games. The Sit-N-Gos didn’t go anywhere, broke even minus the rake. The cash games went great. I decided to play 2 Rush Poker tables at once. After an hour of playing my head was spinning. Was able to earn enough points for Ironman within an hour. Did well earning almost 3 buyins in that time too. Also played some cash game HORSE on Poker Stars. Wanted to have a chance at their promotion running right now. Every million hands a random chosen table wins a bonus based on the stakes they are playing and the number of points each player earned in the last 40 hands. Did well on Stars earning 30 BBs in around an hour and a half. Maybe I should go back to cash game grinding more often. May play in the RAZZ FTOPS on Friday on Full Tilt, will see what the roll is at then. Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables. Tony

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Sunday 1/4 Million Cash

PokerStars Tournament #284010003, No Limit Hold'em
Buy-In: $10.00/$1.00 USD
31897 players
Total Prize Pool: $318970.00 USD
Tournament started 2010/02/14 15:30:00 ET


Dear AVIGANOLA,

You finished the tournament in 2069th place. A USD 31.89 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 78.95 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.

Looks like I finally broke thru MTT Hell. BTW - New episode of High Stakes tonight. Happy DonkDay.

MTT Hell

I have decided that Saturday night is MTT hell night. I got all in in every MTT I played and lost. All in with Kings vs Ace Jackass. Flop comes K-5-6 but he catches runner runner to make a straight. Ace Queen is the nuts on MTT Hellday. I shove with Ace King and get snap called. I tell my wife he had Ace Queen and I am toast. Oh course flop comes Q-Q-3 and IGH close to the money in the $3 Rebuy on Stars. First prize was so sweet, over 8K. As for today it's Donkday so be real careful. Happy Donkday. Tony

Saturday, February 13, 2010

A Final Table

PokerStars Tournament #240347950, Limit Omaha Hi/Lo
Buy-In: $10.00/$1.00 USD
62 players
Total Prize Pool: $620.00 USD
Tournament started 2010/02/12 20:30:00 ET


Dear AVIGANOLA,

You finished the tournament in 5th place. A USD 46.50 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 70.80 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 participation

After getting brutalized all night in No Limit MTTs I decided to change things up by playing in an Omaha Hi/Lo MTT. As you can see it worked and I finally made a final table. Let me tell you the play in the 20K and 25K on Stars is terrible, to say the least. It's not only bad at the beginning but just as bad close to the money. People call shoves for 8 BBs with 7-9 off?? Eventhough I hadn't played a hand in 30 minutes! There is a lot of dead money in these for sure! Happy Donkday junior. Tony

Friday, February 12, 2010

Rush Poker

Rush Poker reminds me of a line from, “New Jack City”, when a drug addict says, “It be calling me.” He was referring to Crack but Rush Poker is the crack of Internet Poker. I put in around 1000 hands yesterday, in less than 3 hours. I won almost 3 buy ins. Earned a ton of points and I am sure my rake back will be large this month. I have decided to just be a total nit while playing it. Also try to auto fold as fast as possible to get in the maximum number of hands an hour that I can. Yesterday I played during Rush Happy Hour, so I earned the FTPs even faster. You have got to try it but warning you it is highly addictive. Tonight and this weekend I will put in a high volume of MTTs. I will try to move up the Tournament Leader Board a few places this weekend on Poker Stars. Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables. Tony
P.S. – If you don’t have a FillTilt Poker account please use my link above and Promo Code “AVIGANOLA”.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Snow Day TLB Update

MTTs went well today, to say the least. Played in 5 and cashed in them all. I now have 100 cashes for the year and 3000 points. Must now improve on my cashes to move up the leader board. I currently sit in 16,000 worldwide, which is a nice improvement from last week. The leader still has 23,000 so I am making progress. Don't shovel too much snow tonight. Tony

Snow Day!

I feel like as child today! Instead of thowing snowballs I am spanking donks on Poker Stars. I'm 6 bagging right now so have to make this short. Look me up on Stars today kincking some ass in an MTT currently. Happy snow day. Tony

Monday, February 08, 2010

Another Nice MTT Score

PokerStars Tournament #284010691, No Limit Hold'em
Buy-In: $2.50/$0.25 USD
7068 players
Total Prize Pool: $17670.00 USD
Tournament started 2010/02/08 17:00:00 ET


Dear AVIGANOLA,

You finished the tournament in 54th place. A USD 30.56 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 164.67 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.

The money isn't a big deal with this cash. More importantly is it's my biggest point score of the year so far. I picked up 2 other small point cashes tonight also. Now I am at 90 cashes for around 2700 points. Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables. Tony

A Small MTT Score

PokerStars Tournament #237874133, Limit Omaha Hi/Lo
Buy-In: $4.00/$0.40 USD
109 players
Total Prize Pool: $436.00 USD
Tournament started 2010/02/07 7:31:00 ET


Dear AVIGANOLA,

You finished the tournament in 5th place. A USD 26.16 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 76.03 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.

Also TLB quest is going really well. Now have 87 cashes good for 2500 points. I have moved up to having a top 20,000 score in the world. Happy Monday. Tony

Sunday, February 07, 2010

Super Bowl Weekend Play

Something about it being Super Bowl weekend brings out the worst players or the worst play out of players. Yesterday was just plain sick bad! I played a ton of MTTs with horrible results. I lost 6 mtts to runner runner flushes! They were all in pre-flop. Not only that but twice I lost with A-K sooted vs A-K of another soot! As for RAZZ,forget-about-it. People would call bets with 7-7-Q showing on fifth, while I had a made 8 already. Of course 2 perfact cards would give them a made 7! Only real bright spot was that I picked up 8 TLB cashes, mostly from freerolls. I am at it again today. Wear your crash helmets and expect a very bumpy ride today. Happy Super Donkday! Tony

Saturday, February 06, 2010

TLB Update

I now have 84 cashes and 2159 Tournament Leader Board points in 2010 on Poker Stars. The leader is starting to pull ahead with 23,000 points. Also I have fallen behind in position being I am now around 26,000 in the world. It's time to step it up and get some big cashes for me. This snowy weekend is a perfect time to do this. I will update Sunday night with my progress. Don't shovel too much snow! Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables. Tony

Friday, February 05, 2010

Owning a Sit-N-Go

This post is about owning a Sit-N-Go. Last night I had one of those Sit-N-Gos where I won every coin flip and every domination hand, all the way through. On top of that I got hit with the deck, got Queens, Jacks, and Kings twice in one Sit-N-Go! Poker would be so nice if it always went like this. Thing is even a monkey could have played my cards and won that Sit-N-Go. When we got heads up I had around 12K to my opponents 1.5K. We got it all in on the first hand, me with pocket fives and him/her with A-J sooted. Unreal my hand held up and the first place money was shipped my way. Not bad I have played in 8 Sit-N-Gos this week with 5 cashes, 3 1st, 1 2nd, and 1 3rd. This means I will have to complete a block of twenty for a chance at a Battle of the Planets cash. Wish me luck! Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables. Tony

Wednesday, February 03, 2010

Tiffany Michelle Interview

I read this transcript of the Tiffany Michelle interview with Neil Cavuto on Bill Rini’s BLOG today.(BTW - Excellent BLOG to check out.) The interview is such a horror that I had to post it for you all to read today.



Neil Cavuto: Well be careful pushing a bad hand just because you push it more doesn’t make it any less bad. Take it from a real gambler so we thought tonight we would get you one and indeed we did. With us now is Tiffany Michelle. Tiffany is a professional black jack and poker player. Is that true Tiffany? So you know what you’re doing when it comes to gambling?

Tiffany Michelle: That’s what they tell me.

Neil Cavuto: Well, alright. Good for you. So Tiffany, I’m going to rely on your expertise as a gambler extraordinaire. Taking a look at what the president is doing. A good gambler is someone who bets a lot, understands or thinks that he or she has a good hand. Am I right?

Tiffany Michelle: Yeah, generally you have a good hand where you know if you have a bad hand how to maneuver with that hand and take advantage of your opponent’s weaknesses. So sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad and you have to work with the best angle to push that bad hand.

Neil Cavuto: Alright, the president is fairly or not ,Tiffany, is viewed to have a bad hand right now because prior cards he’s dealt have turned out to be, you know, threes and fours. They haven’t really worked out. Yet he continues playing the same hand. What is the strategy behind that? I mean, if I were looking at you, and let’s say you had a couple of bad hands and you continue to play, I’m thinking you must be holding some good cards, right?

Tiffany Michelle: Yeah. LAUGHS Well, not only did Barak Obama in his first year in office decided to tackle one of the toughest issues in US politics. You know, Hillary Clinton tried when she was the first lady. It would be like me approaching Phil Hellmuth on my first day of my poker game and saying “Hey Phil Hellmuth you have eleven bracelets. I want to challenge you heads-up.” So it’s a tough situation to be in. And what tends to happen when you consistently lose hands. I mean, talk about Scott Brown. That was a really bad beat for Barak Obama and the Democrats who really thought they had the chip lead there. They thought they had a lock on this tournament and with that bad beat that tables have turned, the momentum is changing. And what often happens for some players you continue to push the issues. You continue to play the bad hands. You continue to get into sticky situations. And what really needs to happen is you need to step away from the table. You need to clear your head. All the good poker players are going to do that. They’re going to step away after . . .

CAVUTO BEGINS SPEAKING OVER TIFFANY

Neil Cavuto: The only thing I can read into it Tiffany, and you know this part better than I, that’s why I have you here. For your insight. While that maybe he sees something we don’t. Or maybe he senses something that we don’t. Or maybe he’s got other cards up his sleeve or in front of him that we don’t. What do you make of that?

Tiffany Michelle: Maybe that’s a lot of maybes and we all really hope that’s the case but the only situation. If you continue these issues when you are in such a bad situation. When you have lost so much power, you have suffered so many beats is to step away and rethink your plan. I think the problem at this point is there doesn’t appear to be any rethinking. There doesn’t appear to be any reevaluation of the initial strong strategy you had when you came into this tournament shall we say. All you’re doing is continuing to push the issues and essentially losing the respect of your peers around you and the players around you. They’re catching you weak and that’s not looking good on your part. That’s not gonna help you win a tournament. Here we are, let’s say deep in the World Series, close to the bubble, you can taste that final table money and it’s not looking like it’s gonna happen.

Neil Cavuto: Alright but in black jack terms, he’s doubling down, right? I mean, I know there you’re essentially betting against the house. But you’re so convinced that you’ve got a winner that the last card up your sleeve, and I know I’m mixing gambling metaphors here, is bad. And you’re going to run with it, right? So that makes me think or everyone else says kinda what you’re saying, hey, hey, you’ve had a series of bad hands, you’re not looking good, you’re looking kind of ridiculous. Leave the table, you know, go get something to eat or drink, or both, which I normally do, and then maybe come back. And he’s not. So what do you read into that?

Tiffany Michelle: I mean, what do you do? I think it’s really hard in that situation. And even as a good poker player it’s hard in that moment to have the diligence and to have the consistency to sit there and know when it’s time to stop or know when it’s time to let up. I mean, what I think is probably going to end up happening, is like, I said, for a poker term you say doubling down, I say bubbling a tournament, you’re going to get close. Health care reform, this has been going on for close to a year. We’re really deep into this.

Neil Cavuto: Yeah, you’re right.

Tiffany Michelle: But essentially if something is finally passed and if something finally goes through at this point it’s not looking like the American public is going to be happy. And it’s looking like it’s probably going to cost a lot of money. And that’s really not a win-win situation.

Neil Cavuto: You know that is very well expressed. And the difference, I guess, obviously, when you play you play with your own money. This guy is playing with our’s. That’s another difference. Michelle, very interesting. I learned quite a bit. Remind me not to gamble against you. Thank you Tiffany, very much.



Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables. Tony

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

RAZZ Bug

I am getting my sick Razz ways back again. After my wife’s awesome run winning the Sunday Razz major on Stars I am now itching to play me some Razz. So last night I decided to play in 2 $16 Turbo Razz Sit-N-Gos. What do you know I won them both, haven’t lost it after all. I guess Razz is like riding a bike, once you learn you never forget how to do it. Plus railing my wife on Sunday night brought back my memories of my deep run in the Razz event at the WSOP in 2008. Like I have written about before I was in 5th at the end of day one and had a good chance of winning the bracelet toward the end on day 2. It wasn’t meant to be when they moved Barry Greenstein to my table and he just owned everyone that day. He went on the win the bracelet and I had to settle for a 27th place cash. As we went to get my money my wife couldn’t understand why I was so depressed? You only get so many chances to win a WSOP bracelet, not an easy thing to do at all. Maybe I can make another deep run this year. Need to focus and get my concentration going early this year. Every year I start off at the WSOP and make a ton of mistakes before I settle into my table. This year I will play super tight for the first 2 hours until I can figure out what is going on. Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables. Tony

Monday, February 01, 2010

RAZZ Score

PokerStars Tournament #281220008, Limit Razz
Buy-In: $200.00/$15.00 USD
112 players
Total Prize Pool: $22400.00 USD
Tournament started 2010/01/31 13:45:00 ET


Dear XXXXXX,

You finished the tournament in 1st place. A USD 6,720.00 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 349.41 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.

My wife kicked some ass in Razz last night! How about that for a nice score! Details to follow maybe tomorrow. Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables. Tony