8 down from an unlikely tourney

I've been pretty much stinking it up in grand fashion lately. I did get my 8th 4 figure score for '09 the other night though in the bodog 15k guarantee that starts at 8:30 est. Got 3rd for about $1,700. The very next night I final tabled the same tourney and got 6th for $670. Pretty much everything else has sucked. I have started playing an every other thursday live game with my neighbor Brad and 6 other guys that consists of a $5/$10 limit mixed game dealers choice of holdem, omaho hi/lo, and a variant of seven stud hi/lo they call chuck and roll. This last game is my favorite. Each player is dealt 4 cards face down. Next each player throws away one card, then rolls one of the remaining 3 cards face up. From there it is played out as regular 7 stud hi/lo. Initial buyin of $300 and play is extremely loose. Usually 5 of 8 players still in pot at showdown. It is a refreshing change from straight nl tourney grind. Got deep in one bbt4 blogger tourney (brit blogger game last sunday but AK < A9 aipf for chip lead 6 handed. Wouldn't have gotten a ton of points for the win given the $5 buyin but the seat to the final showdown for the 2 main event packages would have been nice. Note to self...run like Lucko next time:)
ALL for now.
JD

another 4 figure score...7 down 3 to go for 09 goal

Only decent cash last night was the last hundred dollar turbo I played on stars. Took 4ht for $1,900 after pushing ace rag with less than 4bb left in to the@warden's (aka dpottz on tilt and bodog) big blind AA. Oh well, it was a major pushfest crapshoot once we were down to 6 and I open folded too many times as well as folded Ace nine off in my bb to the button shove when 5 handed and I had him barely covered. Have to call there at that stage with so much in already so I got what I deserved. Built a big stack in the Turbo Fiddy again last night 2nd with 96 left and 54 places paying when I cracked AA with AdKd allin preflop. I rivered the flush. Then lost 3 races after that with qq, 10 10, and JJ all losing to AK allin preflop and that was that for the bubble boy. In the Turbo hundo on tilt, I was short stacked for a long time then doubled with aces and doubled again with AK to get back in decent shape. Bustout hand shortly thereafter was when action folds to the tournament chip leader in the sb and I have AA in the bb...He just completes and by then there was 1/3 of my stack in the pot...so I decide to shove preflop with him being pot commited already. He oblingingly calls with Qd9d and I go home with the Q99 flop and no turn or river ace. Oh well. All for now.
JD

Turbo Fiddy win and other stuff

Well I am on target to meet some of my New Year goals, but still feel like I am spinning my wheels. I won the Turbo Fiddy on Full Tilt 2 nights ago for $5,700. That along with the 2 Turbo Hundo wins, an 8th in a $100 poker stars tubo for $1,450, a 3k plo8 win for $1,300, and a daily double b win for $2,000 has put me well on my way towards my goal for 10 4 figure scores in 2009. So 6 down 4 to go to meet goal there. Still 0 for the 5 figure goal though. Only chance was the Pokerstars hundred dollar turbo where I entered the final table 5 of 9. First was 11K but I was unable to close it. Anyway, I feel like I am doing fairly well, but the above results are somewhat misleading in that I have been putting in huge volumes of play. A lot of money won minus a lot of money spent to win = spinning the wheels. Also, my satellite tourney results have been terrible. This does not bode well for my goal to win 3 seats to wsop main event. Will definitely need to do some work there. All for now.
JD

took down the Turbo Hundo on FTP yet again

Well, I somehow won my 3rd Turbo Hundo last night for a little of $6,100. This must be my lucky tourney as I have now won it twice already in 2009 and won it once last year as well. Funny thing is, the night before was when I thought I was going to win as I had twice the chips of the 2nd place person 5 minutes before the first break. Ended up cashing that one but no final table. Last night, I think I only had about 3800 chips at first break...but patiently chipped up after the break to where i was hovering between 1st and 6th in chips once we made it to the money. I played well in the Sunday majors as well (BODOG 100k, FTP 750K, and PS 1mill), only cashed in the FTP 151st place I think. Built my stack way back up in the PS tourney after my flopped set of Kings fell victim to the runner runner straight that was gut shot completed on the river (and no I didn't slow play <4x pre, potted the flop as 2 hearts flopped, potted the turn, then 2/3 potted the river and had to make the crying call of his shove). That hand took me down to 2400 chips and I was able to work it all the way back up to 86k chips. Then I went card dead and went out 10 spots before the money when I shoved my measely 6BB stack from the cutoff with A6 sooted and got called by the BB A6 sooted...he made his flush on the river and robbed what I thought for sure would have been a chop. Oh well, pulled some money off tilt and hope i can parlay what I left to a WSOP satellite win (maybe a sunday final table or ftops score). I also played my every other Friday night live game last week. Turn out is usually only 8-12 people and structure is 100 dollar initial buyin for 3500 chips. As soon as you get below 2k you can rebuy 1500 chips for 40 bucks and if you bust you can get 3000 chips for 80 bucks (anytime before then end of the 3rd level)...levels are 20minutes and go up slow at first but skyrocket late...going 1k/2k to 2k/4k to 4k/8k...which really sucks come heads up time as chipleader usually has <6bb. Addon of 3k chips avail. after 3rd level for $60. Friday sported 9 runners with 1st getting $880 and 2nd getting $440. Despite being extremely card dead, I was able to take it down. In for total of $200 out with $880...sweet. All for now. Ride her until she bucks you.
JD

ship the Turbo Hundo on FTP again

Won the Turbo Hundo on FTP again the other night for $5,300. There is 1 of my 10 needed 4 figure scores for my new year goals. Hope this is indicative how the year will go. Take care.
JD

My New Year goals

Here are my poker goals for 2009 in no particular order:

1) Win 3 satellite entries to the WSOP main event for less than the cost of 1 main event buyin
2) Win at least 1 live event with a buyin over $100 and with at least 140 entrants
3) Work on my reads harder than all of the last 3 years put together
4) Develop a workable cash game to effectively freeroll tourney buyins
5) Have at least 10 4 figure scores and at least 2 5 figure scores
6) Play less poker while attempting all of this so I can spend more time with my family and keep my wife from killing me (or worse divorcing me).
7) Respect every person I come accross playing poker. I am getting sick of the elite top lambasting others horrid play when they lose a pot. That is bad enough, but then they go on to worship their cronies plays when they do the exact same thing. You will see, "sick read" or "pwned" or similar verbage. I respect a lot of their games, but if some were as good as they thought they were..they would never lose despite having runs of bad luck. Maybe this is why I always wish Loretta8 and twoblackaces such luck in their felt endeavors. They win with class and they lose with class. They actually seem thankful when they have a good run instead of arrogant. Twoblackaces seems to get past 95% of the field over 40% of the time he enters. Seems like he doesn't get 1st 2nd or 3rd often enough for how many times he is able to get to the final 2 or 3 tables. I would definnitely like to incorporate more of both of these bloggers games in to my own game. I hope twoblackaces has a PXF subscription and watches a lot of the final table segments from past recordings (especially Pearljammer and Apestyles) as I think their play is similar. Best of luck.
Take care.
JD

Finally

Finally something happened blogworthy. Played a few superturbos, a few mtts, and a $69 qualifier to the 750k yesterday. Only had 1 second place in the supers and 0 other cashes there. In the 750K qualifier, I doubled up the 2nd hand cracking utg's AA with a flopped set of nines (which turned in to quads on the turn). That left me 1st with 16 left (6 get a seat and 7th=$160). I typed in chat "uh oh..card rack early usually means bubble boy late." Guess I am prophetic as I bust 8th for $0. CMitch played and successfully milked a shortstack throughout all the way to a successful $215 entry. He seems to own these qualifiers. I played the 10am $26 buyin guarantee and made it fairly deep before succombing short of a payday. Now the good news...I won a $26 90man knockout tourney for approx $550 incuding bounties. I also played the $10 1 rebuy 1 addon 6.5K guarantee. I worked my way up to a top ten stack about 1/4 of the way in to the tourney and was able to stay top 10 pretty much the rest of the way. Chatted back and forth frequently with fellow blogger Jestocost who was coasting to the final table as well. He ended up busting 8th when his AK got allin to villian's 10 10. Jestocost flopped and ace but villian rivered a 10 for the win. This pot was fairly large and would have put him in 3rd I think. Anyway, he played great and will take it next time. I was hoping we'd finish 1st and 2nd (respectively lol). Anyway, after what seemed like a 2hr final table...I was able to lucksack my way to the win for about $2,100. I am going to upload the tourney to PXF as I am interested in seeing what my puff (i.e. PXF stats for how lucky you get with great/good/moderate/borderline/crap hands). I suspect it will be around 90 (which is very high). This usually means you were lucky enough to get a lot of premium hands and less garbage hands. I have found this to be somewhat misleading though as you are more likely to be able to easily get away from garbage hands when you get a lot of them and are more likely to get cracked for large pot losses when you catch a lot of monsters. Oddly enough, I had a ton of monsters in this tourney preflop but rarely got anything more than the blinds. I used this info (noone defending or playing back) to rape and pillage. One guy played back at me quite a bit so I waited for a good trap opportunity...and it paid off. See you at the tables!!!
JD