Finally a WIN to blog about

Its been a long time since I touched my blog. I usually liked to write about my live wins but its been forever. Granted I played so much less live now than I ever have since I started playing poker.

Somewhere over the last 6 months playing live lost a lot of the excitement for me. My game had always been about patience and waiting for my spot which is so tough to do live compared to online. I think the one thing that will always make the game more fun is winning. Obviously this is my favourite part of poker.

So the scene is $100 buy-in 10 person SNG in my basement. Standard blinds starting at 25/50 with a 10k starting stack. Early on not much happened. I raised a few times and got re-raised and folded. Its so rare for me to raise in one of these games and not get re-raised. It is so tempting to play weaker hands like AJ to re-raises but I mucked several of these.

Finally sitting around 8500 I raised to 625 with the blinds 100/200 with Kh9h. I was in the cutoff and had raised everytime it was folded to me there. COJO who was down to around 5000 re-raise to 1500 on the button. It folds back to me and I really thought COJO was trying to re-steal with a marginal hand. I didn't even think long about it. I figured even if he called I couldn't be that far behind because if he was huge he would not re-raise as I always fold when re-raised. Um well throw all that logic out the window. COJO beat me into the pot and tabled AA. I have to really hand it to COJO because he actually wanted to make it look exactly what I thought it looked like. Well what can I say....the board runs out 952KK and COJO is out but has a good bad beat story to tell.

I am up around 14k now. I literally waited out the rest of the players busting playing very few hands. I re-raised once from the BB with AA and the button raiser folded.

With the blinds 200/400/50 Marco raised to 1k. We were 6 handed and he was in mp. The button calls and I am SB with AJ. I was sure I had the best hand right there but didn't want to see a flop out of position so I raised 2200 more. Marco thought for a bit and said "I think I can get you to fold". He shoved for 5400 more and I insta-called. He had JT and the board comes J9929 for the dirty river chop.

Early into the 400/800 level, I had grinded up to around 17.5k. In late position, I am dealt JJ, there is a raise to 1800 and I made it 4200 total. The other player had me covered and he flat called. This isn't exactly the scenario I wanted but I had position. The first card on the flop was a K. The flop ended up K88 with 2 spades and my opponent shoved. It was a frustrating auto-muck for me.

Down around 10k now, we are 4 handed there is a raise to 2400 and a call on the button. I didn't look at my cards very long and I was all-in with Jh8h. Both players folded and I picked up a nice 6k pot without seeing a flop.

The next hand I played I was bb with AJ. The SB raised to 4k and I shoved again and he folded, this brought me up around 20k. The next orbit blinds are 500/1000 and I get dealt KK UTG. I raised to 3k leaving myself around 16k. The bb flat called. The flop came J83. He had been overbetting top pair since the blinds had gotten bigger and I was hoping for the big overbet out of position. I was pretty certain he hit the jack the way he was looking at it. I had my chips ready and as soon as he said "I'm all-in" my chips were the middle and my cards were turned over. He had KJ and I held and got my stack over 40k.

Down to 3 handed now and I had not played 3 handed live in quite sometime. Online I have been having issues about closing things out and I really wanted to seal the deal here. As usual playing 3 handed I Iet the other 2 players try to crush each other so I can get to heads up. Most players get much more aggressive 3 handed and I find it to be a great time to tighten up.

I played one big hand 3 handed vs Brad. I raised from the button to 3600. Blinds were 800/1600. I had Kd5d. The flop was beautiful 2d6d7d. Brad checked and I really wanted to bet to build a pot but I couldn't think of what Brad would have that would call. He didn't have the Ad because he would have re-raised pre. If he flopped a set he would get it all-in the turn anyway so I checked. The turn was a 5h. Brad checked again. I bet 2k and Brad called. The river was a 9h and Brad started getting chips ready to bet. I was hoping he made a smaller bet which would mean he had something but he bet very close to pot 9k and I knew that was all I was getting. I shoved and he pretty much automucked.

Brad and Robbie finally got in a big hand together and Robbie busted Brad. When we got to heads up we were pretty close to even in chips. I then went on a terrible run and actually made 2 bad river calls. One I thought we were chopping playing the board on a 89A89 board and Robbie had KK and then I called with K high on a QJ27J board and Robbie had TJ. This brought me all the way down to 20k and I look down at QJ and shove and Robbie calls with 22. I hit and doubled back over 40k (Robbie had around 60k.

After this the blinds went up to 1500/3000 and there was a lot more preflop play. Finally Robbie raised the standard raise to 7500 and I shoved with QJ and he called with AT. The board ran out Q245 but with 3 spades, I had the only spade with the Js so Robbie needed a 3 or A that was not a spade and the river was a 3 but the 3 of spades.

I felt really good after this win and I did not have a great week online however I felt really good about my ability to get deep and I finally took down a 180 on Friday night.