Tag: Online Poker

Slowing Down

Nick Momrik6 Comments

Thursday night I went to a sleep clinic to try and figure out my sleeping problems so Friday was going to be a sick day until a storm hit and SVSU closed for the day anyways. After getting home around 6:30am I decided to play some poker for a few hours. Big mistake!

I went to 4 tables of $5/10 limit like I had mentioned in the last post. Towards the end of my 3-4 hour session I missed about my last 20 flush draws. It was unreal. Most of the time I either had the nut draw so I had an ace for 3 more outs or I already had a pair so I could have hit 2 pair or trips to win as well. I didn’t win a damn one. Those draws should have been hitting by the river 33% of the time. Instead I hit none and lost 1/5 of my bankroll.

I’ll be moving back down to $3/6 for awhile until I can get my head on straight again. Or I might try out some tournaments. Maybe I’ll even get into Omaha 8/b like I’ve planned to for nearly 6 months.

Nickels and Dimes

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I’m still playing the $5/10 limit games on Party Poker. I haven’t played more than two tables at a time yet, but might try 3 or 4 soon. I’m feeling more and more comfortable with the stakes of play. The biggest differences from the lower limit games are there are more opportunities to steal and you tend to need better hands to win a large pot.

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Super Bowl Weekend

Nick Momrik2 Comments

I played a little poker over the weekend. I also played a little poker about as bad as I could.

Before the Super Bowl we ran a couple of mini $5 tournaments. In the first tournament I was the first one out of 4 people. It only took two hands. The second time around I was second to go out of 5 people. Never bluff a calling station.

Later after the game… By the way, that had to be one of the worst all-around Super Bowls I can remember. The national anthem sucked, the refs sucked for the millionth time in this year’s playoffs, the half-time show sucked, and the game was rather boring. So later that night I fired up Party Poker and saw the Bad Beat Jackpot was over $250,000. Might as well play for a couple of hours. I donked off somewhere between $100 and $200. The next morning I woke up and the BBJ still hadn’t hit so I said why not and played again. There went another $250 or so.

My poker game isn’t running well at all this year. It might be time to switch it up and learn Omaha 8/b for a change of pace.

Where To?

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The lack of postings here have been a result of a lack of poker play as well as taking a break from blogging. I have played some poker in the last month or so though.

On New Year’s Eve I played in St. Ignace, MI. They run $2/5 no-limit with a maximum buy-in of $100. So much for sitting down with 100 big blinds! I won $160 on the night, but lost a huge $400+ pot to my dad when I outplayed him and he got lucky. I’m still cheesed about the hand over a month later, so let me give a quick recap. Dad likes to raise pre-flop with any pair and some junk cards a lot of the time. I was in the one of the blinds (don’t remember which) with 9T suited and decided to call the $20 to see if I could flop a pair. I had already decided that if I did, I was going after him. The flop came down ten-high and I knew I was ahead. I checked, he bet $20, and I check-raised to $80. He thought for a bit and called. The turn was a harmless 2, so I bet $50 trying to get something out of him. He quickly called and I got a little worried. The river was another 2, so I decided to check. He pushed out $50 and I had no choice but to call with a pot that would be over $400. He turned over a pair of twos and had hit running cards to make quads on me. The table went nuts and I just shook my head. I knew I had him beat, but that’s poker. He called my check-raise with 2 outs and hit both of them. Ouch!

I also played a late-night session at the MGM in Las Vegas on my return from San Francisco a couple of weeks ago. We got to the casino around midnight, played for almost 5 hours and headed back out. I sat at $1/2 no-limit and ended up winning a total of $2. I just couldn’t get any cards or when I did I split the pot. I had a player to my right all-in 3 times and each time we had the same hole cards to make the same hand. With KJ and QJ (2 different hands) we split with 2 pair and with KT we each turned the nut straight. Live poker is rigged!

I’ve played a bit here and there online in the last month or so and I think I’m behind overall. I never got around to reading up on Omaha 8/b like I had planned, but I did get a couple of new poker books for Christmas I’m looking forward to reading.

With the trip to California and moving to a new townhouse this past week things have been a bit hectic, but that should all change in the next week. I hope to be getting back to the online tables on a more consistent basis. See you there…

Warming Up Slowly

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I’ve actually played some poker since the last post. It was last weekend and felt good to be back at the online tables. I played for about 3 hours on Saturday and 3 hours on Sunday, both after waking up.

Recently Party Poker has sent me a message about my Party Points expiring. If I didn’t play by Sunday, I’d lose 17,000 points. Ouch! So I fired up the client and was happy to see they were running a deposit bonus. Another great surprise was that the Bad Beat Jackpot was over $250,000. Whenever it’s up over $200,000 I like playing the BBJ tables because there are so many people playing above their bankroll.

At first I fired up 4 tables of $2/4 but decided to try out a couple more, taking advantage of my dual monitor setup. I ran 6 tables almost the entire time and it was great. On Sunday I joined 6 games right away.

My game felt solid and it was a nice feeling to knock the dust off. I won about $160 on Saturday, $100 on Sunday, and also cleared the $100 bonus. Now if I can just stay away from the Xbox 360 more often I can keep making money. I still haven’t cracked the 2nd Harrington book or jumped into the Omaha book I bought. Those might be projects for the holiday vacation (11 days off…one of the perks of working at a University).

No Time for Poker

Nick Momrik3 Comments

I still haven’t been playing any poker lately. In fact, I haven’t played at all since my Xbox 360 arrived. Yes, it’s that great of a video game console! I’m hoping this nice little break will renew my focus and I can get back to beating the limit games. I’ve had some recent success with the two big tournament finishes, but I think in the end I’m a better limit player. I just don’t have the balls to play a great game of no-limit. Hopefully I’ll be back to the tables this weekend.

Edit: I should have titled the post “Not Making Time for Poker” because it’s my choice.

Live Again

Nick Momrik2 Comments

I didn’t play much poker in the last week. Only one session on Party Poker for a few hours and a $1.50 loss.

Yesterday I headed over to the Soaring Eagle Casino in Mt. Pleasant for some live action. I walked into the poker room at about 11:15 and was seated at a $3/6 table in less than 15. I sat in the same seat for ten and a half hours and saw the table makeup change quite a bit. At first the table was extremely loose passive. When someone raised preflop everyone else kind of game them the look. After a few hours the table tightened up quite a bit as players came and went. As the night went on the table got a little looser, but overall it wasn’t a good table to be play at.

I ended up losing $124 on the night. There were some bets I should have saved, but I’ll account that to not playing in a live game in months. I’ll definitely never be a live tournament player. I must have tells up the ass that any real players would catch onto in a heartbeat. I just don’t understand how I can be down to the final table in an online tournament with thousands on the line and my heart doesn’t skip a beat. In a live cash game when I check-raise with the nuts get the shakes. What is wrong with me?

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Another Runner Up

Nick Momrik7 Comments

Party Poker 2nd PlaceAnother 2nd place finish in a $50+$5 on Party Poker. Those are my new favorite tournaments. The buyin attracts a little better crowd of poker players and the size seems to work well for my game. This one had 530 people and paid $3975 for 2nd place! (Click the photo for a larger view)

I didn’t get much to play throughout the tournament, so I was careful to pick my spots. AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AK, and AQ were a combined 22 for 23 which always helps! I was under the average chip stack during the entire tournament and even survived a big storm that rolled through the area. Lights were flickering, but my power stayed on. The player I wanted to get heads up against came through. He had me out chipped about 3-1, but I was confident I could pick a few spots and take him. I had him with 33 against K9, but a 9 on the flop ended it. All you can do is go in with the best hand in a situation like that. Once of these days I’ll win one of these tournaments, but I’m not going to complain about taking the 2nd place prize money. This surpasses the 2nd place a couple of weeks ago for my biggest cash to date.