A Sit-n-Go with 2004 WSOP Champ Greg Raymer

Today was just disgusting. I was down about $500 in cash games overall. The spots that I got my money in were good and then i would lose to a higher set on the river or a flush etc etc. Here is an example

Poker Stars
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $1/$2
9 players
Converter
Stack sizes:
UTG: $143.80
UTG+1: $153.70
MP1: $84.25
MP2: $148.20
MP3: $207.30
Hero: $270.75
Button: $177.65
SB: $134.15
BB: $230.60

Pre-flop: (9 players)
Hero is CO with 4♥ 4♠
UTG folds, UTG+1 calls, MP1 calls, MP2 folds, MP3 calls, Hero calls, Button folds, SB calls, BB checks.

Flop: 4♣ 2♠ 8♥ ($12, 6 players)
SB checks, BB checks, UTG+1 checks, MP1 bets $10, MP3 folds, Hero calls, 3 folds.

Turn: K♣ ($32, 2 players)
MP1 bets $10, Hero raises to $24, MP1 calls.

River: T♦ ($80, 2 players)
MP1 checks, Hero is all-in $234.75, MP1 calls all-in $48.25.Uncalled bets: $186.5 returned to Hero.

Results:Final pot: $176.5
Hero showed 4h 4s
MP1 showed Th Ts

Hands like those have just been piling up all day. I dont even want to comment on his play.

So since becoming a Goldstar VIP on Stars(almost Platinum, probably wont get there this month), I decided to take advantage of the FPP store. For 15k FPP's I chose to play in a SnG with Greg Raymer. My choices were Joe Hachem, Chris Moneymaker, Tom McEvoy and Greg. I chose Raymer because in his previous sng's that hes played it looked like he went out 8 9 or 10th everytime. I wasn't selfish and took the money. The other Team Pokerstars members cashed a considerable amount.

The payouts for this sng are awesome. 1st is 1k, 2nd is 500, 3rd is 300, and 2nd is 200. Plus there is a $250 Bounty on Raymer. Blinds are 15 mins compared to 5 mins for a turbo sng or 10 mins for a regular one. I'm guessing other players in this arent going to know normal SNG strategy so i'm going to look to take advantage of that. Don't get me wrong, its nice to play with Greg, but its the money im after. The sng is December 10th, come rail if youd like and im sure you'll hear about a report the next day

A fun day

I hit kind of a snag in cash games the last day and a half or so. I was getting counterfitted by 4 board flushes and straights. So considering i didnt want to keep spewing money all over the place, i played hte $3 Rebuy yesterday. I just wanted to have fun and keep going all in most of the time, trying to accumulate a big stack. My plan was to just leave the tournament if i didnt have atleast 20k at the first break. I could a guy on rebuy tilt and it was hilarious. He was making it 1500 to go every hand from when i got switched to his table. He was atleast $113 dollars deep.



I was also playing in the $100k freeroll for the VIP's on Stars while this was going on and i had a nice stack while in the money. But i lost 2 huge races with AK vs 44 and 88 vs 66. I wound up cashing but not anything worth mentioning. I'll take free money though.

There was some ridiculous plays that i made on people that made them look goofy. I wound up getting 31st out of 2479 people. Not bad, but if you ever get that deep you want to make it to the final table and get a nice cash.

Next i think im gonna talk about some mistakes i see people make in cash games.

Just tons of hands.

I really haven't had much to post about at all. I think I've only played 3-4 MTT this month. It's been cash games to the max. 4-6 tabling 1-2 NL is where its at. I'm really surprised at how well im doing. Believe it or not, through 10k 1-2 hands im at 20.92 BB/hr. Which makes that even more remarkable is through 15k hands at .50/1 im at 6 bb/hr. That is pretty standard for that many hands, the 1-2 stats are just ridiculous.

The VIP club on stars is pretty cool. I usually was Silver Star when i made it, but I got to Gold Star in the first 2 weeks of the month. I was sick for a good week also and didnt play at all. I'm pretty confident i can get Platinum Star each month and eventually get to supernova next year sometime.

There hasn't been any cool or difficult hands that have come up lately. People play like such robots sometimes its easy to put them on a hand. Getting them off that hand is a different story.

In December the Circuit is coming to Harrah's Atlantic City. I'm thinking about going down for 4-5 Pre-Lim events, then trying to satellite into the Main Event. If anyone is going down let me know.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and with that comes the greatest high school rivalry in the Nation. I played in it, my brother played in it, my cousin played in it. And even some years later my good buddies play for Easton when i played. I can't express how much this game means to the players, community, alumni, fans, just everyone. This is the only game that matters on the schedule every year. If you go 0-11, and win this game, you had an alright season because you beat Easton.

In 2001 during my senior year when we won the State Championship at Rutgers, the feeling was unreal. I'll tell you what though, it was nothing compared to running out in front of 20-25000 fans at Lafayette on T-Day. It was the closest probably 95% of our team would get to play in a big time college football game.

The game means so much that Easton is playing 3 games in 8 days for the 2nd time in 3 years. This isn't basketball or baseball where you can play day after day. These are the 3 toughest games on their schedule each year. They dont put off the T-day game, because its tradition. Even though i went to Phillipsburg, I give Easton all the credit in the world for doing that.

This year marks the 100th Anniversary of the storied rivalry. To commemorate that, ESPN2 will be covering the game NATION WIDE. Festivities are running rampant all over the place. There is tons of news about this. Just pop in Phillipsburg vs Easton in google. Here is 1 story

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/recruiting/columns/story?columnist=gola_henry&id=2670517

I wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving, and I'll depart with just 2 words.....

BEAT EASTON!

Royal Flush

I just thought this was cool to show. This was my first Royal Flush on Stars and 2nd ever. Ya gotta love when people are betting into you also haha.

More Cash Hands

As you all know, I'm a huge advocate of knowing where your money is going to come from. Although this primarily comes into play more in tournaments, there are certain people at full ring cash games that you know will pay you off once you hit a hand. In conjunction with that theory, I tend to want to get in more pots with those people and play some speculative hands in speculative spots. Knowing that if i hit, they are going to pay me off. I was playing this morning when i found one of these players. Keep in mind this is one of the huge reasons i only like to play a max of 4 tables at once in cash games. Any more than that and i cant pick up on player tendencies. When i see people playing 8-12 tables in cash games, its so funny how robotic their play is. So lets take a look at 2 hands.

Seat 4: trixter23 ($134.55 in chips)
Seat 7: Villain ($58.65 in chips)

Dealt to trixter23 [Qc Ac]
trixter23: calls $1

I'm utg here and i do NOT like playing hands OOP in cash games. Id rather limp, and call a raise.

Villain: raises $2 to $3
Villain 2: calls $2.50
trixter23: calls $2

*** FLOP *** [6c Ad 9s]
advanced: checks
trixter23: checks
leebaby8: bets $3
advanced: folds
trixter23: raises $6 to $9
leebaby8: calls $6

Lets take a look at what i did here. I chose to show maximum strength on this hand, because i want to find out where I'm at in the hand very quickly. This could get very unprofitable, very quickly. Given his flat call, I pretty much assumed he had an Ace here. I was kind of worried about an A6 or A9, but he didn't seem like the type of player who would raise in EP with that type of hand.

That leaves us with AT-AK. I cant see him having AK, cuz he would have repopped me after i check raised. AJ or AT seem more realistic at this point, but I can still see A2-A9.

*** TURN *** [6c Ad 9s] [5h]
trixter23: bets $8
leebaby8: calls $8

There is $27 dollars in the pot and I want to get to a showdown. I bet a very little amount, less than a 1/3rd of the pot to see if he would raise. When he didn't I was pretty sure I had the best hand.

*** RIVER *** [6c Ad 9s 5h] [4d]
trixter23: bets $8
Villain: calls $8

trixter23: shows [Qc Ac] (a pair of Aces)
Villain: mucks hand
trixter23 collected $57.15 from pot
Seat 7: Villain mucked [As Th]

I make the same bet on the river and he calls. He shows AT and I take down a nice little $57 dollar pot. We found our player, time to exploit him.

Our boy has reloaded to $70 now and is ready for a 2nd go.

Seat 4: trixter23 ($177.20 in chips)
Seat 7: Villain ($65.95 in chips)

trixter23: posts small blind $0.50
Big Blind: posts big blind $1

Dealt to trixter23 [9c 7c]
Villain: raises $2 to $3
trixter23: calls $2.50

Ok, so our mark makes another EP raise and I elect to play a pot with him. Cards didn't really matter, I knew if i hit with anything he was going to pay me off.

*** FLOP *** [9h Jd 7h] - Thank you lee!

trixter23: checks
Villain: bets $4
trixter23: raises $8 to $12
Villain: raises $50.95 to $62.95 and is all-in
trixter23: calls $50.95

I wasn't surprised by this push at all by him. I check raised again and he just pushes his last 62 all in. Now all we need is the bored to brick. I thought he maybe had QQ here. Other than that a Jack with a big kicker.

*** TURN *** [9h Jd 7h] [6d]
*** RIVER *** [9h Jd 7h 6d] [8h]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
trixter23: shows [9c 7c] (two pair, Nines and Sevens)
Villain: mucks hand
trixter23 collected $129.90 from pot

Seat 7: Villain mucked [Jc As]


And that my fellow players, is how you exploit the weak.

Cash Games

Nothing really new to report. I've been playing TONS of hands in cash games the last week or so. It has been very profitable so far, and i hope it continues to be. I purchased PokerTracker and PokerAce Hud mainly for cash games. I like the way they put the stats under the player way better than PokerOffice. I'll post some HH's in a day or so and check back with everything.