Mission WSOP

So, on a whim, instead of playing in the $10+$1 Razz tournament tonight, I decided to give The Ferguson a shot.  The Ferguson (named for Full Tilt pro Chris "Jesus" Ferguson and started due to Chris’ challenge to turn nothing into $10,000) is a $1 tournament in various formats nightly.  Tonight was the $1 HORSE tournament and featured Lee Watkinson, Michael Craig, myself and 540 other players.

A long night ended disappointingly after I lost a big hand in Razz when my 97 low failed to improve or hold up and my opponent caught 95 to take down the hand.  Then, I was finished off in Stud as the chipleader hit a straight on 6th and I was practically all-in and failed to hit my flush draw… I finished 3rd out of 540 or so players.

For the win, I received $55 and I’m up to $1238 and still doing well when it comes to my quest to hit $2000.  I’d like to accomplish it before the end of the year being as ahead of the pace as I am.  We’ll see.

Adding to the fun was the group of railbirds from Surfers Poker.  Lord Jenkins, TomPerez and Michaelandros stopped by to root me on and hung out most of the way.  At the point of hitting the money, I was at 16th out of 56 and then won a huge hand when I scooped in Omaha Hi/Lo with the nut straight and the near nut low that skyrocketed me to 1st place.  Unfortunately, my night ended in 3rd but I was SOOO close.

Now, I have 2 days to post a few more strong finishes to take down the Sharkfin award on Surfers.  I’m at 18 points (I think) and need to pass DrJustice who is currently at 20 points.  With two days to go, I’m going to have my work cut out for me.  We’ll see.

The Phillies are on the verge of sweeping the Mets and getting back into serious contention for the playoffs.  It’s been an amazing three nights of games that ends in a day game today.  I wish I could blow off work and go but I, unfortunately, can’t. 

I got my new laptop… I appreciate the guy at Circuit City who only tried to sell me what I need… greatly appreciate that!

I’m spent… time for bed!

It’s very late and I just had another marathon session of poker.  While the figure only moved slightly, the end of the night brought a decent sized cash in a 45-Player No Limit Hold’em Sit & Go on Full Tilt.  I only played in it to play with Michael Craig again.  This time, I took down the tournament and for my $10+$1 entry, I won $172.  During the tournament, I threw out the suggestion that the player who finished 7th should get $5 and the winner should transfer… no one agreed.  But to keep my karmic rhythms in check, I transferred $5 to the 7th place finisher.

In addition, earlier in the night, I cashed in a 73-player Razz tournament in 9th place, netting just $1.80 (a $7.30 cash in a $5.50 tournament).  Without a doubt, I am on a serious roll when it comes to playing Razz.

The WSOP bankroll is over $1160 at this point and I can’t wait to get back to playing more.

Well… the bankroll for next year’s WSOP is WAY ahead of schedule as I busted the four figure mark tonight in a big way with a $312 cash and a win of a 104-player $10+$1 Razz tournament.  That is 5 Razz cashes in a week (in 7 attempts) including a 1st, 2nd, 3rd & 4th.  The bankroll sits at $1083 and I am now a definate for the WCOOP Razz event on Poker Stars in September.

I played Online poker for 18 hours today.  My eyes hurt, my body feels cramped, my back is stiff.  I can’t wait to get my new laptop.  I still am having a hard time grasping my run in Razz.  Is it a fluke?  All I know is my confidence level playing Razz is like no other game I’ve ever played.

I joined a new forum today: Surfers Poker.  If you check it out and join, use BJ316 as your referral.  I played in their $1 tournament today and finished 3rd for a $7 cash.  I am about as hot as I can get right now with a number of MTT cashes today and 5 consecutive Sit & Go PL Omaha cashes today. 

Michael Craig, the author of my favorite poker book, was also in the Razz tournament and finished 12th.  I finally ended up at the same table as him… I’ve been playing in a lot of the same tournaments as him recently and today was the first day we played together.  I got to say a few words to him before I won a huge pot and he lost his stack to someone else. 

So, I’ve decided to enter a contest and use it to slide into a commentary on some past news I promised I’d get back to.  Let me start by entering the contest.  Here’s a link to a site where Richard Osborn, an Internet Entrepenuer attempting to Make Money Blogging is using Barry Bonds to try and drive traffic.  Apparently, those links give me a shot at an ‘83 Donruss Bonds card.  Speaking of Bonds, congratulations to the man who took down Hank Aaron’s record.  I’m not going to comment on it either way b/c either you like him or you don’t and the facts are really pointless at this point.

I do want to comment on the circus surrounding the event and the Hank Aaron video clip "controversy".  Here is a perfect example of people seeing what the want to see.  See for yourself by clicking to see the clip.  The Bonds haters will tell you that Aaron looked like he was forced at gunpoint to make the statement and that he is embarassed or upset or something that Bonds broke the record because of steroids.  Watch the video and take personal feelings out of it toward Bonds.  Aaron looks like any other athlete when forced to do anything not spontaneous: stiff, overprepared and lacking emotion.  Watch any press conference after a football or baseball game where the players are interviewed.  It has absolutely nothing to do with Aaron’s feelings towards Bonds… and everything to do with the fact that Aaron is a retired athlete, not a retired broadcaster.

That’s about it for today.  I think I’ll take Sunday off from Online poker as I have to get some work done and get a new laptop.  I added a picture of the standings of the Razz final table from Full Tilt to brag further.

 (You have to click it to see it)

It’s funny how I took some time off from writing the blog because I was just grasping at straws to find something halfway interesting to write about.  Then, I start to write again and I get so busy that I keep missing a number of topics that I’ve wanted to comment on:  Barry Bonds, Michael Vick, the Eagles axing Jeremiah Trotter, a new candidate for dumbest person in the world (maybe tomorrow I can comment on the rattlesnake guys), Fred Thompson, a few ideas for Top 10 lists, how much commuting to work can drive you insane, the upcoming NFL season, the Madden 08 sham and I’m sure there is more but I have time for none of that today.  At least now I have a point of reference to go back to to remind me.

Last night I made the final table of a 91-player $10 buy-in MTT Razz tournament and netted $66 for a 4th place finish.  It was amazing how well the players played in the final 17 competitors.  When we got down to 17 players, 11 of the 17 players were all-in at least once and had to survive to cash.  Some were all-in a few times.  It took 25 hands to get us down to 16 and it was pretty impressive to observe.  Full Tilt has a great feature now where I can tile multiple tables and I was able to watch all three remaining tables at the same time.  Full Tilt really is the pinnacle of online poker and I am happy to be back on there. 

I am still debating the WCOOP Razz event on PokerStars.  After my success in this Razz event, I’m more and more likely to give it a shot.  It would be a gigantic bankroll setback and I’m trying to do my best with not overplaying my bankroll.  Also, I have been absolutely killing the PL Omaha Hi and PL Omaha Hi/Lo low level Sit & Gos.  As I’m playing here, I’m close to the money but on the fence of a second consecutive cash tonight.  It would be my fourth consecutive Omaha Sit & Go cash. 

I can’t get Bon Jovi’s "Livin’ On A Prayer" out of my head.  Driving me insane!

Unfortunately, I am without my trusty laptop at the moment.  I have decided that instead of continuing to try and find a way to make it work, after 4 1/2 years it’s time for an upgrade.  Now, the hard part… the purchase.  Normally, it would not be an issue but purchasing a computer has become so complicated these days.  First, they are not loaded with the software packages that they used to be loaded with.  Second, there are all these offers, upgrades, optimizations, safety considerations to deal with on top of the actual purchase of the laptop.  I’m staring at the options that Best Buy offers on top of the actual laptop itself and you could actually double the cost of your purchase through all of their upgrades and additions.  I can’t even grapple with what I need and what is unnecessary.

The one thing I know I don’t want is the Service Plan.  Best Buy’s Service Plans are so enticing due to their "replace if anything happens" sales pitch.  Analyzing the cost though, half the stuff I bought from Best Buy would have to break in order for me to get my money’s worth.  The laptop I was eyeing tonight cost $600 and the Service Plan was $250 for 3 years.  The selling point from James, the salesperson I was dealing with… I could run it over!  YAY!  I’ve always wanted that added protection of knowing I could be so careless with my $600 laptop (which with upgrades and optimizations he recommended, would cost $950 plus $250 for the PSP) that I could actually run it over with my car.  In the last year I have run over a piece of tire from a blow out on I-95, 3 paper cups and 2 cans.  I almost ran over a rabbit but he dodged the car.  To date, I have NEVER run over a laptop.  Actually, to date, I don’t even know someone who has run over a laptop.  If you know someone who has run over a laptop, have them e-mail me at bjoseph22@comcast.net.

I did find 209 search results on Yahoo for "I ran over my laptop" including this one.  Then there is this guy who seems to be fascinated by the prospect of expensive electronics being run over by a car.  Then, there’s this guy who actually ran over his laptop and it is actually fine… proving that I don’t even need "laptop run-over protection". 

Needless to say, I believe in being careful with the stuff I own rather than buying idiot protection.  The idea of buying insurance on anything to me is always beyond my comprehension.  maybe it’s the part where I start to hope something happens so I get my money’s worth OR the part where I worry if the insurance will cover whatever happens.  Recently, my cell phone keypad chipped and it seems that that does not fall under my insurance coverage with Cingul…eerr… AT&T.

Anyway, hopefully this stressful laptop purchase is over soon as I’m sick of using my girlfriend’s desktop (mainly because my work laptop is right next to it and it causes me to constantly think about/do work).

As for the quest to $2,000… it looks like the night will end around $675. 

With nothing to do on Sunday of importance, I was immersed in online poker.  Playing mostly at Full Tilt, I had an up-and-down-and-up day of poker.  Here is what I played:

CASH: $0.25/$0.50 - H.O.S.E. -> +$10.80
CASH: $0.25/$0.50 - H.O.R.S.E. -> +$9.45
CASH: $0.25/$0.50 - H.O.S.E. -> -$10.00
SIT & GO: $10 9 Player PL Omaha Hi -> +$7.00
SIT & GO: $10 9 Player PL Omaha Hi -> +$7.00
MTT: $1 Rebuy -> -$6.00
CASH: $0.50/$1 - Stud Hi -> -$20.00
CASH: $0.25/$0.50 - Stud Hi -> +$4.50
SIT & GO: $2 9 Player PL Omaha Hi -> +$1.35
MTT: $10 Midnight Madness -> -$11.00
SIT & GO: $10 8 Player Stud Hi -> +$6.00
SIT & GO: $20 8 Player Stud Hi/Lo -> -$22.00
MTT: $10 NL Hold’em -> 3rd Place out of 291 -> +$355

The bankroll is now over $500, at roughly $590.  I played extremely well in the $10 MTT with some oppotunistic situations along the way.  The most opportunistic was having Pocket Kings against Pocket Aces with the Aces being a very small stack and barely doing any damage to my stack.

Too tired to write anything meaningful but I am all of a sudden well on my way.

It’s been a while since I blogged but not much has happened.  I have had a nice spurt with my bankroll but it has been frequently fluctuating.  I’ve been as high as $380 and right now sit around $270 as I have been playing in more tournaments.  I was going to risk half the bankroll in the FTOPS Stud tourney on Thursday but I was late arriving home.  Instead, I played in some MTTs to try and make a big hit but it didn’t happen.

I am really enjoying the $1 Rebuy tournaments on Full Tilt.  I have cashed in two already and am actually on break in today’s $1 Rebuy in 61st place with 122 remaining.  The last two I went completely card dead at the end and limped out.  My best finish was 29th and only netted me $6 but the first hour of the Rebuy tournament is a lot of fun.  The first one cost me just $3 which is basically the minimum.  That was where I finished 29th and won $9 for a net of $6.  The second one cost me $5 and I won $5.84. 

It looks like I’m headed for another minimum cash and will actually have a net loss due to Rebuys and Add-Ons costing me $7 total.  I’m one of the smallest stacks left and I look destined to win $5.38 which would be a net loss of $1.62.

So, I will be blogging more often in the coming days and am headed to my home game tournament which I am technically not participating in because I didn’t qualify.  See y’all at the tables!

After committing to the restart on Thursday, I took Friday and Saturday off to spend some quality time with my girlfriend and clear my head.  As I restart, when I get a few days ahead I am going to start taking a little time off here and there to keep the game fresh and prevent the boredom that can occur which makes me do stupid things.

In my first day back, I added $18 and bumped my total to $152.54.  A little behind where I should be but I’m happy with how I played in my first online foray.  I also played at the lowest level on the site and was able to earn 36x the big bet in about an hour.  If this were a 5/10 game, I would be +360 instead of +18 (although that is a much tougher game).  But, I have realized I can’t push it if I want to do this right and need to grind it out.

Secondly, my poker calendar may slowly fill up as there will be some opportunities to test my poker skills in some fairly big events.  Two of them are online and two are live.

The first online series has already begun and I’m looking at the August 16th Seven Card Stud event on the Full Tilt Online Poker Series as a possible event for me to play in.  The event takes place at 9 pm and top prize is $25,000.  I haven’t decided yet if I was going to play and with my work schedule, it looks like an unlikely event for me.

The other online series is the WCOOP on Poker Stars.  I played in an event last year and just missed the money by 4 places after leading the tournament for about 75% of the first 4 hours before taking two rough beats and getting decimated in chips only to finish close to the bubble.  I’m hoping to play in either the 7-Card Stud event or the Razz event in September. 

Live events upcoming are the Borgata Poker Open in September which is disappointingly Hold’em only.  I doubt this is a tournament I’ll play in but if I go on a hot streak then I’ll be there.  I’m very disappointed in the Borgata’s total abandonment of non-Hold’em games.

The most likely event for me to play in is the Seven Card Stud event at the Taj on September 17th.  I have talked about playing in this event every year for the past 5 years and I never participate (including one year where I actually went to AC and stayed over with the intention on playing ONLY to oversleep after a late night session and not participate).  I think this is the event that I’ll be targeting to play in and hope I stick to my guns and actually participate. 

If I play in any of the events, I will be updating my blog during the events.

Moving away from my life, Michael Vick should be suspended by the end of the week.  I’m surprised it has taken this long.

Pacman Jones is a wrestler… sort of.  Apparently, he can’t be touched or harmed in any way.  TNA has its’ work cut out for them to make this work.

Finally, I haven’t done a Top 10 in a while so after catching a movie with one of my favorite characters of all-time in it, I came up with a list.

Top 10 Favorite Movie Characters Of All-Time

10. Drexl Spivey (True Romance)
Sure, Gary Oldman’s character has a very small part in my favorite movie ever but it is just one of the best performances in one of the most underrated movies of all-time.  It was tough to decide between Oldman’s character and Christopher Walken’s character but Oldman edges Walken out.

9. Teddy KGB (Rounders)
John Malkovich’s underground Russian villain of the greatest poker movie of all-time is absolutely a performance to see for any poker fan.  You play poker with anyone that has seen this movie and they are bound to mimic Malkovich’s Russian accent and one of the many memorable lines that KGB says during the movie.

8. Rick Blaine (Casablanca)
Humphrey Bogart is one bad m-f-er in the only love story a guy can get away with saying he likes without being called a wuss. 

7. Mr. Blonde (Reservoir Dogs)
"Are you gonna bark… little doggy… or are you gonna bite?"  Michael Madsen is the highlight of the pre-Pulp Fiction Tarantino film era. 

6. John McClaine (Die Hard)
Hard to believe I still haven’t seen Die Hard 4.  Bruce Willis as McClaine is easily my favorite action sequel-fest character.

5. Gunnery Sgt. Hartman (Full Metal Jacket)
The main reason to watch the first half of Full Metal Jacket is R. Lee Ermey’s turn as a ball-breaking drill sergeant who pushes Private Pyle… well, if you haven’t seen it, I am not going to ruin it.

4. Jules Winnfield (Pulp Fiction)
The baddest of the bad m-f-ers in movie history.  He has a wallet to prove it.  Screw John Travolta, it’s Samuel L. Jackson that makes this movie one of the best dialogue-driven movies of all-time.

3. Roy Hobbs (The Natural)
This movie gets me every time.  I can’t stand when this movie pops on my TV because I can’t turn away.  You have to make me turn it off.  I defy any true baseball fan to not get caught up in this movie and end up rooting for Hobbs to win it all for the New York Knights.  Hell, he made me root for a New York team.

2. Patrick Bateman (American Psycho)
Christian Bale carries this movie as a businessman by day/psychotic killer by night addicted to 80s music and serial killings.  I’d quote some of the many memorable lines from the movie but since practically the entire movies is on the Internet Movie Database, you can look for yourself.

1. Leon (The Professional)
Assassin turned father-figure turned protector of Matilda, a 12-year-old played by Natalie Portman who loses her family when they are all murdered.  Jean Reno is amazing as the assassin with a heart.  If it weren’t for the chemistry between Reno and Portman, this movie would be ordinary. 

Honorable mentions: Jason Vorhees, Clark Griswold, Hoke Colburn, Private Trip, Private Pyle, Clarence Worley, Alonzo (Training Day), Jesse & Celine (Before Sunrise/Before Sunset), Worm, Knish, Todd Wodds & Reggie Kane (Duets), Tyler Durden, The Joker, Mike McDermott, Boba Fett… too tired to continue but I think you get that I had a long list to pare down to 10.

Well… I lost my mind over the last week or so trying to accomplish my goal and did the usual, "Let me enter a decent-size buy-in tournament and do this in one shot" move.  And… I didn’t do it in one shot.  So, the figure is down to $134.34. 

I’ve made an executive decision… The Mission Restart #1!  I need to now win $7/day to get over the $2000 mark.  I remember talking to Steve about this over the weekend and he said "Why do you not quit when you hit the $5.77 in a day?"  And I had to say "Because I’m an idiot!" 

Hopefully, this time around I won’t go insane and will be able to do it the right way.

David Beckham finally played… I don’t think anyone cared.  It was soccer.

It was a long weekend with very little online poker played.  Only was able to get to the laptop to play for about 20 minutes but I did improve the bankroll to $183.82.  Overall, that improved the bankroll by $6.80.  I’m about 20 days behind target now and have a lot of catching up to do but if I take it in small chunks, I can get back on track.  I just can’t afford anymore big losses like last week.

As for the home game, we had our "major" event of the season.  We take money from each entry into our tournaments all season long and then add it to the prize pool at the end of the season.  With 12 players entered and a prize pool of over $1710, I managed to finish 2nd bringing me a total of $515.  The only player in the final four that could block me out from winning the points championship was Steve and he was able to do so.  Steve took down the $772 top prize and the $157 points championship in Jamie Gold style, hitting every draw and playing very aggressive.  I lost my mind on the last hand and exited when I called an all-in with just top pair… it was probably the second mistake I made all night.  And it was a costly one.

Not much else on the update front.  I’m working on an article on tournament play based on the last tournament I played in.  I’m hoping to get back on track with blogging seeing that when I don’t blog the traffic on the site goes way down. 

I have to throw out there that Steve, the winner of our home game, had an excellent weekend of poker.  He finished 97th in the $100,000 guarantee on PokerStars out of 19,000+.  I think he won almost $200 there. 

Also, I have to throw out there that I’m finding that my behavior at the table continues to be very unsportsmanlike and I am going to work on becoming more sportsmanlike going forward.  I try to mentally affect the other players and sometimes cross the line with my comments.  Case in point has been my recent behavior in my home game as I’ve been really needling one player in our game, Danny Doops.  I think I really went a little too far this last tournament and even pushed it to past when he was eliminated with a comment or two.  I feel bad afterward but it seems to work when we are actually in the action.  I’ve found that I’ll do or say anything if I think it will put the other player off their game.

A very short entry today as it is getting later by the second.  I finished at $177.02 which was +$1.61.  An uneventful night and overall I played tight but aggressive and probably only made 1 or 2 mistakes.  Maybe this will get me back on track.

Saturday is the main event for my home game.  The LAPT is the name of our home game league and the main event this year will net someone a prize of $700+ due to the additional money we add on to the prize pool.  I hope I can put myself in a position to win as I have come up short 3 times this season with 3 second place finishes.

Finally, you have to check this story out:  Armless man gets 5 years for driving

I couldn’t stop laughing when reading… especially the part where he got arrested for kicking a police officer… and he only has one leg!