I'll be damned! Poker content....

With a full week of BASH updates to write, there was no room to discuss any poker played through that same timeframe. I did play a little here and there, so I thought I'd put it down here to recap.

Monday as always, were the two TuckFard games. In the TuckFard Open NLHE, we had a pretty solid turnout and a few good laughs as always. Kat stopped by for the fun and as always, the honourary Tucks, muhctim and cem were there as well. Seriously giving the title of honourary Tuck a run, MemphisMojo made it out for what has to have been his fourth week in a row. Not too shabby sir!

It ended up coming down to myself, muhc and Memphis for the final three, and I had a pretty commanding chip lead. As I believe it is right to do, I kept the pressure on and forced them into decisions whenever possible. Memphis finally made one with nothing more than Ace high. It turned out to be a pretty good decision for him, as the river Ace gave him a pretty significant double-up. About 1/2 an hour later, I forced Memphis into making the same decision. This time, it was bad timing on my part. He was ahead! But in all things fair and equal.... (tee-hee) my rivered suckout took the pot down and justice had been served! (or something like that!)

When it came down to just muhc and I heads up, I was suffering from connection issues that were just brutal. I was also getting ever so slightly 'on-tilt' from some plays in the TuckFard HORSE game as well. The combination of the two, was more than enough to take me off my game. I ended up second and all in all, felt like I'd been showing my new and improved game of Hold'Em once again. I'll keep plugging away at it and see where this new style of decision making in the game takes me. So far since I decided on what changes to make, I have two wins and three seconds. I used to be having a lot of difficulty just making it to break before I changed things up!

In the TuckFard HORSE game, (with 18 runners!) I was just incredibly frustrated. It was one of those nights where either a certain player didn't believe me when I had killer door cards showing and was leading out the betting or, I had good solid hands killed by river and 7th. st cards, over and over again. Just not my HORSiE kind of night! I was out fairly early on. Ces't la vie!

Fairly excited about my newfound success in NLHE and with my connection issues seemingly behind me, I joined in a 90 player SnG for $3.30. I thought I'd see what I could do with the 'new' game in a bigger event. Second hand of the game, I was dealt pocket Aces. As is usually the case in these things I find, there was an EP raise, MP re-raise and a call by the button. I'm in SB and I make it a little more than pot to go. It is folded around to the button and his move was to shove all of his chips in. I don't know about you, but I'm not going anywhere here! I call and we flip up my Aces and his J-K off! Believe it or not, I held on for the win! Despite an exciting and heart palpitating flop of 10-K-Q. The turn was a blank and the river brought him a pair to his Jack. My straight took down his two-pair.

I 'cruised and bruised' for about the next hour, letting weaker holdings go easily and hammering my strongest of hands. Halfway through the second hour, I had 30% of the chips in play. Can you say sahweeeet? Everyone say's you need to get lucky in these bigger events and on one hand, I certainly did! While holding Q-Q and action was coming around to me, the player to my right made another pot sized raise. By another I mean, his fifth or sixth in seven hands. He'd shown A-? a couple of times in there and I figured him for something along those lines again. I re-popped it to pot and he was the only taker. Now I feel strongly about my read! A flop of crap comes out and he put out another patented pot sized bet. I figure him for the steal and put the rest of his chips in the pot. He types in something along the lines of, "I dont believe you." and makes the call. His A-K is up against my Hiltons. He turns a K and I just can't believe it! I get extremely lucky to River my third Queen for the set, and then sit back and watch as buddy, (NOT Dank!) types in the world of hurt he'll be inflicting on me, the next time we play. Yeah, I get it! I'm a Donkey because of a suck, re-suck, when I got my chips in good!

Well, will wonders never cease? I won a 90 player SnG! Weeeeeeeee!

Thursday it was off to Riverchasers. There was a small crowd, but it was a good one! I played my game and hung around mid-pack for the first 1/2 hour or so. Then I read HOY for a move at the wrong time, and got very lucky to hit an Ace on the flop, against his K-K. He got his money in good, but this time when I really was being a Donkey with just A-Q, there was only a suck.... no re-suck.

Hands came and went over the next 1/2 hour or so, and I'd managed to stay up in chips around about second or third place. Then I really started to open it up a bit. Constantly applying descision making pressure to the raisers. It seemed to be working too! I never really got any action, but was taking the blinds and initial raises, at a regular pace. It once again came down to just three of us, with IAMSKIIDOO, MadBrooklyn and myself being the combatants. Between SKI and myself, MadBrooklyn never really had a chance. We had the majority of the chips and kept applying pressure from both sides. When Mad had a hand worth fighting with, one of us seemed to always have one just a little bit better. And SKI and I did a pretty good job of avoiding each other at the same time. It was time for heads up!

SKI rolled over me! (should that be slid?) No other way to put it. I was getting nothing special in the way of heads up hands and anything i did play, whiffed the board completely! Well done SKI! Well deserved win Sir!

Not too shabby results for the week in NLHE I say, and I'm really looking forward to developing this 'new' style just a little bit further. I think if I can just tweak it a bit to fill a couple of known gaps, I just might be able to play with you big boy's and girls, a little bit better. That's something I truly look forward to! Finally seeing a little bit of success with this NLHE, is giving me some hope that I just may be starting to catch on to something I've worked pretty hard at. The glass MAY just be a little more than 1/2 full right now.

OH and..... I also scored my single biggest profit from sitting down at on-line STUD on Wednesday night! WoooOOOOooooT me! I came off that table up about 11 buy-ins, even after losing a really tough hand to boat over boat, at the very end. It was a tough 3 1/2 hour session that really had my attention. For the first time that I can remember, there was chat at the table too! Five of us came to an agreement on another game. We'll all be sitting down once again in the coming weeks. I can't tell you how much I look forward to that! It was actually pretty good poker and the play seemed fairly predictable to me. I find that I tend to shine when everything is played by-the-book. Given the chance and a few cards here and there, I may just try and see if I can score myself a slightly larger cash, when we meet again!

My sincerest thanks for dropping by....