Convention was great. I played in the Hold 'em Tournament at convention. It was a $20 buy in with top six or so getting good prizes ranging from two roundtrip plane tickets to autographed sports memorabilia.

The organizers had three hours to conduct a 140 person tournament. Blinds raised every ten minutes for the first four blind levels. This sucked, but I can understand from their perspective because there just wasn't enough time. We started with like 6,000 chips and blinds at 25/50.

I had about 9,000 chips with blinds 50/100. I'm mid position with QQ. I raised to 400. Three callers. Flop comes 2 6 9. Check, check. I bet 1500. Guy calls guy folds. Next card 10. Guy checks I bet 3000 he calls. Next card K. Guy checks and I check. He shows AA. He could have had a lot more money, but I'm lucky he played that poorly, in my opinion.

That was a big blow to my stack, but I was still hanging on, until...

Blinds are 500/1000. My stack is about 12000. I get JJ. I'm fourth to act. First to act raises to 8,000. He had been playing a lot of hands the night, so I couldn't really put him on too much. I reraise all in, thinking that it's going to be 50/50, I needed to take a stab at the pot because time was running out and I was gonna need to get a big win to stay alive. All folded, guy calls and shows 88. YES! Flop are all blanks, turn comes an 8. River a blank. My tournament is over, out of 140 players I finish 38th. I guess it could have been much worse, but I hate getting drawn out on, I would rather lose on my stupidity and not getting drawn out on like that, but oh well, that' poker.

I will be out of town for the next five days at the Desert Ridge Resort and Spa in Phoenix, AZ. My fraternity is having a national convention and I was selected to attend. They are having a Texas Hold 'em Tournament there with top prize two tickets to anywhere in the US... hopefully I can win :) pe@ce

I played a friendly game with my cousin, who I never see, and my brother and a bunch of their friends. We had nine players with payout $25 for first, $15 for second, and $5 for third. Very funny game indeed. Always eight players in before the flop. They probably thought you "had to" call the big blind. Anyway, I just folded away my crappy cards and waited till I actually had a respectable hand. I did fairly well, inching up to the chip leader ever so slowly. These kids were dropping like flies. Before I knew it it was down to three other guys, my brother, and myself.

I get A6o on the button. I just call the big blind of 50 (we started with blinds 1-2 and basically doubled from there, 1-2, then 5-10,10-20,25-50, with starting chip value of 500.) ...

Flop comes rainbow 5 7 8. Four players are in the hand. Guy A checks, guy B checks, guy C checks, I bet the pot hoping to just take it down there. Three callers. OOOOOK. Turn is a J. Checked around to me. I again bet the bot. Three callers (forcing two of them to go all in.) Well I'm beat hardcore at this moment until that river came, a 9. Guy A checks and it's to me. I bet about half the pot at this time, and he says, "there's just so much in there I have to call with my PAIR OF EIGHTS." I nearly burst out laughing with that. I showed the straight and the other guys had like low pair and mid pair. Yay, this put me in great position to win.

Two people were now out and it's my brother, Guy A, and myself still in. My brother goes out with top pair K kicker when Guy A runner runners a straight. Tough luck. I am now heads up. This really does suck because I was going to split the pot with my brother if it went to me and him headsup. Oh well.

Very first hand headups I am big blind with 2s 5c. He calls I check. Flop is 2d 4s 5s. I act first, I bet the pot. He raises the minimum raise. I think now, even if he has an overpocket pair and he was just slowplaying it I have a good chance of winning it. I thought about the flush draw for a second, but I figure he wasn't going to raise with just a draw, but I was wrong. I went all in, and he called on the Q8 flush draw. Of course the turn came the 6s. However, if you take a look at the board: 2d 4s 5s 6s and my hole cards (2s 5c)... you'll see that I am on the straight flush draw. Of course it doesn't come but how cool would that have been? So I busted out on that ended up 2nd place profit of $10. So 2 1/2 hours for just $10, not worth it money wise but I had fun laughing at these kids and how they played. Post comments.

So the buyin was $20, blinds are at $.50 and $1.00. I've been playing about an hour and a half, my stack is at $18. I'm holding my own, not getting into too many hands, when I did I usually ended up winning it. Until I got dealt A9 suited diamonds on big blind. One guy, guy A, raises to $2. Guy B calls. I call as well. Guy A is a fairly loose player. He will call on gut shot draws, he also plays any Ax like it is AA. I put him on KQ,KJ,K10,Q10. Something like that. Guy B is an extremely loose player. He will play any two cards that are in front of him. Flop comes Ac Qs 4c. I check. Guy A checks. Guy B bets $7. I go all in for another $9. At this point I know for a fact that I have Guy B beat. He would have been much more aggressive if he had an A with good kicker preflop. Guy A calls my all in. Guy B folds and shows nothing. Good, I wsa right. Guy B had nothing, and Guy A had KQ... suited clubs. He had flush draw and had paired the board. I believe after that flop it was even money. Turn was a blank. River brought a club giving Guy A a flush. Oops. Live and learn. How would you have played this hand? Please post comments!

Welcome to my blog. First off, a little bit about myself. I am a sophomore at the University of Texas at Austin majoring in Business (MIS). I play poker (NL and limit Texas Hold 'em) about two or three times a week. I have a casual game I play with with a few of my fraternity brothers. I also play in a fun game with some of my friends from my freshman year dorm. I plan on starting a $1/$2 limit game this coming year that will be held weekly. If you attend UT give me a holla and maybe we can meet up to play some poker. Until my next entry...