Playing to ease Katrina
Last night I played in the $5 tournament on Pokerstars to benefit Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. It was set up by up-and-coming poker star/author/actor Wil Wheaton (who live blogged it over at Card Squad), and many thanks go out to him - over $20k was raised (my quick estimate - math is hard, and I don't want to get sued. If that number is off, mea culpa)!! There's another one tomorrow night for $20 entry - and only 500 some players signed up. Here's your chance to rub elbows with some good players, do a good thing, and have some fun.
Speaking of rubbing elbows with some good players, I got an education last night from some folks. I could tell that I am still in serious need of basic knowledge - time to hit the books.
The first table I was at, there were only two other live players. The rest were sitting out and posting/folding blinds. Seat 4 took out seat 6 when he went all in with J7o, and then it was just me and him. It wasn't terribly exciting, honestly - I didn't want to take too many risks early on and he was much the better player - so he kindly left me to rake blinds. (Pokermensa, I think his moniker was - thanks and better luck in the WCOOP events!)
So, in a boring half-hour, I called every hand and collected the blinds. Finally one of the dead players busted and I got moved to another table. I was just happy to see another live player! I had $14k or so at this point, and the blinds had moved to $100/200. Things started picking up as more of the dead money got weeded out. I was a little tentative (tight-weak, I think) and soon dropped below par - then made some poor calls. With a little over $5k left, I went all in with a straight - even though there were 3 diamonds on the board - and got busted by the flush.
I've been telling people I just wanted to go to bed (which was true, it was about 3 hours past my bedtime at that point, and I'm the living dead today on 4 hours of sleep), but it's probably equally true that I tilted and tried to push out a solid player with way more chips who had a pat hand. Not the best strategic move, eh?
I've decided that I am joining the ranks of those who hate AQ and middle pocket pairs. Yet another reason to read up is learning how to best play those - although I'm sure it all depends on the table/game/position situation too. Any generic advice is welcome. I raised both AQo and 99 up by 4xBB in middle position last night - and got called/raised out on the flop both times.
I finished 129 out of 2212, which isn't that bad at first blush, but after you factor in all the dead buy-ins and the people from WWDN who haven't played poker before, I should have done a little better probably.
I listened to Lou Reed's "Magic and Loss" album during the tournament - In hindsight, those nice cheery lyrics probably didn't help.
Last night I played in the $5 tournament on Pokerstars to benefit Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. It was set up by up-and-coming poker star/author/actor Wil Wheaton (who live blogged it over at Card Squad), and many thanks go out to him - over $20k was raised (my quick estimate - math is hard, and I don't want to get sued. If that number is off, mea culpa)!! There's another one tomorrow night for $20 entry - and only 500 some players signed up. Here's your chance to rub elbows with some good players, do a good thing, and have some fun.
Speaking of rubbing elbows with some good players, I got an education last night from some folks. I could tell that I am still in serious need of basic knowledge - time to hit the books.
The first table I was at, there were only two other live players. The rest were sitting out and posting/folding blinds. Seat 4 took out seat 6 when he went all in with J7o, and then it was just me and him. It wasn't terribly exciting, honestly - I didn't want to take too many risks early on and he was much the better player - so he kindly left me to rake blinds. (Pokermensa, I think his moniker was - thanks and better luck in the WCOOP events!)
So, in a boring half-hour, I called every hand and collected the blinds. Finally one of the dead players busted and I got moved to another table. I was just happy to see another live player! I had $14k or so at this point, and the blinds had moved to $100/200. Things started picking up as more of the dead money got weeded out. I was a little tentative (tight-weak, I think) and soon dropped below par - then made some poor calls. With a little over $5k left, I went all in with a straight - even though there were 3 diamonds on the board - and got busted by the flush.
I've been telling people I just wanted to go to bed (which was true, it was about 3 hours past my bedtime at that point, and I'm the living dead today on 4 hours of sleep), but it's probably equally true that I tilted and tried to push out a solid player with way more chips who had a pat hand. Not the best strategic move, eh?
I've decided that I am joining the ranks of those who hate AQ and middle pocket pairs. Yet another reason to read up is learning how to best play those - although I'm sure it all depends on the table/game/position situation too. Any generic advice is welcome. I raised both AQo and 99 up by 4xBB in middle position last night - and got called/raised out on the flop both times.
I finished 129 out of 2212, which isn't that bad at first blush, but after you factor in all the dead buy-ins and the people from WWDN who haven't played poker before, I should have done a little better probably.
I listened to Lou Reed's "Magic and Loss" album during the tournament - In hindsight, those nice cheery lyrics probably didn't help.
posted by Sparky | 5:29 AM
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