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Tag: Tournaments
Heads Up SNGs
I still haven’t been playing much poker, but wanted to write something, so here you have it.
Once a week or so I get the urge to play for a quick hour or so and my game of choice has been heads up sit ‘n go tournaments on Noble Poker. I like the blind levels and the different buyins they have available. Rarely does it ever take more than a minute or two to get a game started no matter which buyin I choose to play. For the most part I’ve been playing from $20-$50 games and winning more than I lose. Last week I even took a shot playing an Omaha HU SNG and won! I’ll be the first to admit I had no clue what I was doing. Either I made the right moves at the right times or got extremely lucky. If I was a gambler I’d bet on door #2.
The reason I like the HU SNG so much is because they’re fast, yet still provide a nice challenge. You have to constantly monitor your opponents betting patterns and it’s not too tough to figure them out after a few hands. One of the toughest calls I have is calling a big raise on the river with a medium pair even though I think my opponent is simply following through with a bluff. I always like to have the chip lead and end up thinking I could find a better spot to take advantage.
Even though I’m rarely playing (but enjoying everything else about life a LOT more) I learn each time I play these. I try to take the upper hand by being aggressive right from the start, but I find the most challenge when I run into the same type of player. Just typing this makes me want to run home and jump in a game right now. I still enjoy playing poker, but have come to realize I’ll never be a great player in any of the games, so it’s a lot smarter to spend my time doing other things.
The Big Break…A Big Deal?
The Golf Channel‘s Big Break series is now on Big Break V and I can say I’ve never watched a single episode of any of the five series. Is it anything special? Am I missing out on some good golf TV?
I’ve caught a glimpse here are there for a few minutes as I was flipping through channels, but never stayed tuned in. I love playing golf and I love watching pro tournaments on TV. There’s just something about watching wanna-be pros fighting for a spot on one of the tours that turns me off. It would have to be really good TV to get me interested.
So, if you’re a BB fan convince me…
Toms and Son
GolfDigest has a great photo of David Toms and his son taken during the par 3 tournament at the Masters. Golf is a rare game where age doesn’t matter much. It’s all about the love of the game.
Best Golf to Watch
I always enjoy watching the Masters. It’s unlike any other golf tournament and I think a lot of it has to do with the green jackets of Augusta National Golf Club. The TV coverage provided is better than any other sports event the world has to offer. Sometimes they don’t have any commercials at all, but they’ll usually stick to a maximum of 2 minutes of commercial time for every hour of coverage. You can’t beat it.
Is the Masters Tournament over-hyped? Probably. Do I care? No. The pros don’t seem to care either. They all look forward to the Masters because of it’s history and the special honor of wearing a green jacket if they end up with the best score on Sunday afternoon.
What’s your favorite golf tournament to watch and why?
Tiger Wins Over 25% of His PGA Events
With this weekends win at the Doral Ford Championship Tiger Woods now has 48 career PGA Tour victories in what is his 10th year on the tour. Over this time he’s entered a total of 189 tournaments which equates to a win percentage of 25.39%. That’s quite an amazing stat if you ask me. It’s unthinkable to imagine someone beating the best golfers in the world on such a consistent basis in today’s age of golf technology. Tiger is truly a freak of nature and one hell of a golfer.
Super Bowl Weekend
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.
Taking Time Off
I’ve taken way too much time off from posting here at Primary Rough. I seemed to have started the blog and only kept at it for a couple of weeks. I never meant to post daily, but I sure meant to post more than once ever couple of months!
Speaking of time off, it looks like taking some time away from the golf course can really help a player’s game. Tiger Woods went 24 days without swinging a club and then won his first tournament of the year last week at the Buick Invitational. Retief Goosen went 5 weeks without touching a golf club and is tied for the lead in Dubai right now.
As a weekend hacker during the Michigan summers I’ve found that I sometimes play my best game after taking a week off from golf. Golf is such a mental game that I think it really helps to get away now and then to clear our heads. Twenty-four days or 5 weeks are probably too long for us normal folk, but for professionals who play every day it’s probably right on par. I know it takes me a couple of weeks after the winter to find my swing again.
2005 WSOP on ESPN
I finished watching the the broadcasts of the Main Event of the 2005 World Series of Poker a couple of weeks ago. I was only 3 months late, but that’s the beauty of having a DVR. I enjoyed the coverage more than the last two years and I’ll even admit that I enjoyed watching Mike […]
No Time for Poker
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.
Nick Momrik 