Steps are back!!!

Been playing a little lately... Got rivered by a 2-outer deep in the 24k on Full Tilt yesterday, so that hurt a little bit. Won a seat to the Sunday Million by investing $21 in a turbo rebuy MTT satty on stars, just cashed out the credits though. Played some reg $33 sngs last week, probably 60 to 70 of them, and lost about $200, which I got back yesterday in the 2 mtts I just mentioned. Check out this call I got from a guy in one of the $33s the other day... He took a while to call and wasn't multi-tabling, so I rule out a misclick....



PokerStars Game #15977607514: Tournament #80888088, $30+$3 Hold'em No Limit - Level IV (50/100) - 2008/03/14 - 17:27:58 (ET)
Table '80888088 1' 9-max Seat #6 is the button
Seat 1: BrandonAU (2345 in chips)
Seat 2: sandongcpa (1960 in chips)
Seat 5: titipolo (4020 in chips)
Seat 6: AbuseU11 (1640 in chips)
Seat 9: thephilomath (3535 in chips)
thephilomath: posts small blind 50
BrandonAU: posts big blind 100
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to BrandonAU [9c Ah]
sandongcpa: folds
titipolo: folds
AbuseU11: folds
thephilomath: calls 50
BrandonAU: checks
*** FLOP *** [5h Qc As]
thephilomath: bets 100
BrandonAU: calls 100
*** TURN *** [5h Qc As] [4h]
thephilomath: bets 100
BrandonAU: calls 100
*** RIVER *** [5h Qc As 4h] [6d]
thephilomath: checks
BrandonAU: bets 200
thephilomath: calls 200
*** SHOW DOWN ***
BrandonAU: shows [9c Ah] (a pair of Aces)
thephilomath: mucks hand
BrandonAU collected 1000 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 1000 | Rake 0
Board [5h Qc As 4h 6d]
Seat 1: BrandonAU (big blind) showed [9c Ah] and won (1000) with a pair of Aces
Seat 2: sandongcpa folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: titipolo folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: AbuseU11 (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: thephilomath (small blind) mucked [8h 3d]


Don't really know what to make out of that... but I do still love the $33s. I'll probably mix in some turbo 6-max with them this week too. Also, the WSOP Steps are running now on stars, and I've made a litte run in them so far. I've invested less than $100 in them and made it to Step 5 tonight, which is pretty good. I have dumped about $150 in other WSOP sattys though, but I'm hoping I'll get lucky and win a seat soon. If so, I'll be taking the money instead of the seat, since they allow that now. If I somehow win more than 1, then I'd consider playing, but I'll worry about that if/when the time comes. Well I'm going to bed now... Peeeeeeeeeace!!!!!

- Brandon

Online update...

I'm still on a downswing in 6-max turbo online, and my roll is suffering. I'm moving back to $33 9-handed non-turbo sngs for a while. These have been my bread and butter in the past. I'm also going to try to qualify for the WSOP this year. Wish me luck!

- Brandon

Biloxi trip report...

Thursday

Me and Shaun got down to Biloxi at around 10:30pm, ready to pull an allnighter. We went in and went straight to the blackjack table. I quickly lost $100 and headed to the poker room. I sat in 4/8 holdem and had a small -23 session then moved to my 2/5 NL table where I was on the waiting list. This game was playing well above a normal 2/5 level, with the avg stack at the table being probably at least 2k. One guy must have had 10k at the table. I think its really stupid to have no max buyin like they do there, but oh well. I bought in for $477 and played pretty tight. First notable hand I get JJdh in MP and raise to $20. I get 3 callers. Flop is 9 high all diamonds. I make a normal sized cont. bet and get 1 caller. xd turn. check check. rag non-diamond on river, I bet about $150 and he pays me off... So I'm quickly up around $750 or $800 and feeling good. Then I made a stuuuupid mistake that costed me alot of money. Active guy raises in MP and I call for I think $30 or so with AQ. BB comes along also. Flop is 3 3 A. BB bets out about half pot. call call. Turn is another 3. BB checks, MP checks, I bet $75. call call. River x. BB bets out $300. MP calls. I think for about a minute and call. BB has 43os. Now there are a couple things I did wrong here in my opinion... For one, I bet the turn when there was absolutely no value in doing so... I mean whats going to pay me here besides a chop or quads? Not only that, but if I check the turn, obviously the BB bets out maybe $100 to $200 on the river and I pay him off, but thats alot less than $375 that I paid. Another thing, its obvious that MP also has the ace, which leaves exactly 1 ace and 1 3 left in the deck, so based on the way the BB played this, it was SCREEEEAMING quads. I risked $300 more, when I only had $150 or so originally invested.. So I now look back and think that I made a horrible call, not just a bad call. Yeah he played 4-high in the BB for a 6x raise, but I can only blame myself for donking off my chips like that. Oh well, moving on... A few hands later I get 88 but fold to a raise and a re-raise preflop... Only to see a $1,000 pot build once again with xx88x on the board lol... Tiiiiiilttt... So later I get AJcc in EP and decide to limp. A few more limp in and we see a flop of 9 10 K with 2 clubs. Checks around. Turn Qx. I bet a little less than pot size and get 2 calls. I'm screaming inside for the board not to pair, but K on the river. I bet again and someone raises enough to put me in, I'm priced in so I have to call and see his 1010. Nice... So that session was pretty bad as I lost $877. So I played some other games for a while, then went back to the poker room and sat at 1/2 NL. I played solid again, although I lost about a $200 pot when my KK lost to 1010 when he flopped quads. I fought back and won $140 on that session. Thats pretty much it for Thursday. We checked in to our room around 10:00am after a free breakfast buffet and got some much needed sleep.


Friday

I only got about 3 or 4 hours of sleep Friday morning because everybody else started getting down there and coming in and out of the room, so I figured I'd just get on up and get back to it. I didn't play much poker until that night when I sat back down at 1/2 NL. I had this total donk on my left... it was sad really. He raised to $10 UTG and said he had 99. SB on my direct right calls and I call with Q10 in the BB. Flop was 10 high. I wanted to see if this guy really had 99, so I pretty much check/called him down. I couldn't raise because the SB was calling down too. My Q10 was good against the SBs J10 and the donk's 99. He raised blind alot, and was throwing away his money cause he couldn't lay down things like 3rd pair and such. So I get KK UTG and right when I'm about to raise donk says "I'm gonna raise to $25 without looking". So I promptly just call the $2 and donk splashes in $25 blind... lol. Another guy calls. Gets around to me and I raise it to $100. Donk and other guy fold. Free money. Then later hes UTG and looks down and says "I gotta raise this". Folds around to me and I get AA in the BB and re-raise pretty big. He calls, I cont. bet flop he folds. So I win $229 that short session thanks to him pretty much. Later I play some more roulette (17 just didn't want to hit obv.) and lose a little. Nothing else really happened Friday, besides a couple of my friends losing like 90% of what they brought the first day lol.


Saturday

After the usual 4 or 5 hours of sleep, I get up around 11:00 and grab a brunch buffet and head to the poker room in time for the $350 20k guarantee tourney. Since I was down overall about $1300 or so (thanks to house games obv.) and Mikey offered, I decided to let him split the buy-in 175/175 for stakeback and %25. The tourney got 80 entrants, paying top 9, with 7k+ going to 1st. I hovered around even for the first couple hours then caught a couple of flops and built up to around 10k from the 6k starting stack. I got 22 in MP and limped. There were about 5 players to an A K 2 flop. I bet out close to the size of the pot. 1 caller. Turn 2. He checks, I check obv. River x. He bets like 1/3 pot size and I raise it about 3x or so his raise, he calls and mucks. Then a couple hands later I pick up AQ and call a normal sized raise and another guy calls. 3-way flop of A 6 7. Pf raiser checks, I bet, other guy calls, pf raiser folds. Turn 6. I bet and get min-raised by other guy. Uh oh... I thought forever and put him allin (I Had him covered by about 8 or 9k, so I still would've been fine had I lost). He calls and flips up AJ and I hold. All the sudden I'm chip leader with about 35k or so with like 50 people left. I obv go card dead when we approach the bubble and I can't really steal much because my table is too active and they call everything. I eventually get kind of short with about 25k at 1.5k/3k and raise to 9k with JJ. BB calls and flop is 10high. He check/calls my push with 33 lol. I hold for once. With 10 left we move to the final table. Everyone agrees to put $40 each to the side to give 10th their buy-in back. Now 9th is almost $1k, and I was like 2nd shortest stack at the FT so I didn't mind this at all. I start out card dead, waiting for a good spot. I pick up 1010 and push, no calls. Then later I'm in the sb and only stack shorter than me is in bb. I got around 20k and hes got around 12k. Blinds are 3k/6k. Everyone folds to me and I put him in with K7hh and hold against his 67os. I played shortstacked the rest of the time and finished 6th for $1640. I'm happy with how I played, and that was my 3rd final table in a row in Biloxi. I just run good in tourneys down there I guess. So I gave Mikey his cut and was barely down at all on the trip after that. I did drop another couple hundred or so at other games later that night. So the rest of Saturday was average I guess and we got some sleep then got up Sunday and came back home. I lost about $700 overall on the trip, but was still a slight winner in poker. We'll probably plan another trip this fall.

- Brandon