Live Bloggin

Add me to the list of people taking a day off from work and playing poker instead. It's a gift to myself on the tail end of a whirlwind birthday celebration. What started as a 2-night stay to the wine country of Washington (courtesy of the girlfriend) transformed into a BBQ then pub crawl Saturday night. Fully recovered, I'm intending to use most of today to play poker. I'm still just working up the bankroll, but I was able to score a token for the $17.5k guarantee that starts in just over an hour.

So while you're at work defending your clients, crunching some numbers, or whatever the hell it is that you do, I'll be here at home, in my boxers, fighting off donkeys left & right.

10:12am - Twice already i've ran KK into AA twice. Both times the AA reraises less than the minimum. Both times I've told myself "I know this is how a donk reraises AA". Both times I've pushed back anyways. But at the same time, it's hard to fold KK preflop as a big stack at these levels. They could just as easily have KJo.

11:27am - Half-hour into the $17.5k, and I've played 2 of 23 hands. Even though it's a DS game, I'm haven't gotten any cards to play. I'd kill for 98s at this point. If I get T4o or Q2o one more time, I may start considering sacrificing one of our cats to appease the poker gods. Luckily, I've got a table full of donks (including myself) so if I can get anything going, I should be able to do OK. Start placing bets to see how long it takes for that last statement to backfire on me.

11:33am - Reraised a half-stack from button with AKo. He pushes for 1700, I call. He shows A8. AK holds up. This is fun.

12:07pm - Head into the first break 331 out of 549. Only notable hands are AK, 99 and 55. Moved to a new table just before the break. Gonna have to start looking at making some steals & resteals.

12:14pm - Finally. MP min-raises, I'm the 2nd caller in the BB with KJo. Flop comes JJ4 two clubs. I call to the river then push like I'm bluffing a missed draw. He calls with AA. Yay me.

12:45pm - I get lucky. Big stack has been raising most flops from MP on, so I repop with AQo. Push a 7 high board and he calls with pocket 5s. Nail a Q on the river to double up. We talk a little trash. Hopefully I can get into another big pot with him.

1:17pm - Just after the 2nd break, AK is good against AJ. 57\206.

1:45pm - Out in 125th. AK no good when AQ flops a Q. Out the very next hand with KQ when top pair is no good against a set of 3s. Discouraging way to go out, but such is the life of MTTs. Had an aggressive bigstack to my right who was opening a lot of pots. Restole a couple of times, but just didn't have anything pushable. Went almost 3 hours with my only pairs being JJ, 99, 66, and 55. AK three times and AQ twice. Couldn't really steal as most pots were opened before me. Time to concentrate on SNGs again.

2:09pm - So I took today off to grind out some poker with the hopes that I'd continue to accelerate the bankroll challenge, but it's turned out to be quite the opposite. So I'm putting an end to this misery and halting the live blog. Thanks for reading perhaps the most boring blog post I've written. If it gets more exciting later, perhaps I'll revisit. I'm going to go focus on losing with AK to KT some more. Peace.