Yesterday was my first day of classes. Suck. I had a good summer poker wise. Hopefully I'll still be able to play poker during the semester. I have a pretty busy semester but I'm sure I will find time to play poker. I'll probably play more the first few months since things tend to get very busy late in the semester.

I ran across some funny pictures the last few days. Enjoy.

Let's see here... 4 hours of play at the $1/$2 blind table, profit $333, that's $83.25 an hour, I can live with that.

This was my second experience playing poker at a casino, first time playing no limit (my first time was $4/$8 limit). I had an awesome time. Granted, making some money was nice, but even if I had lost I still had a good time. The table chatter was fun. There were several older gentlemen at my table and they talked up a storm.

A new dealer (female dealer), sat down at our table. This crazy cowboy on my left started chatting with her. She was a fiesty dealer, coming back at him with comebacks to everything he said. Couple rounds pass, crazy cowboy is the small blind, but he doesn't see that. The dealer looks at the guy and says, "you're small." The cowboy immediately says, "now how did you know that, you peeking at me in the shower?" I laughed for several straight hands, as well as the whole table. About thirty minutes later I started laughing out of nowhere and I blamed it on the shower joke.

Good times. Oh, now back to the big hands I played in.

I was MP (middle position) with AA. Some guy UTG (first to bet after the blinds) makes it $10 to go (normal raise for this table.) I reraise (of course) with my AA to $30. Folds around to him who reraises me $50 more. I pause, and ask him how much he has behind him. He says $100 more, I pause another moment, like five seconds or so, and I declare ALL-IN. I had him covered and he called immediately. WTF? Does he have aces too? Nope, just AK off suit. Flop came all rags. Turn was a King giving him a chance to hit a king on the river to beat me with trip kings. No king on the river for him and I rake in a monster $400 pot (minus $5 for dealer tip of course.)

The only other large hand I played was an interesting one. I am on the button. UTG makes it $7 to go. There are three callers before me so I call with 65s (spades). Small blind calls and we see the flop six handed (this was very typical, lol). Flop comes AsKc4c. Checks around to me on the button, and I gladly check. Turn comes a 7s. Small blind checks, UTG bets out $15 into about $35. Folds around to me. Now, I have an openended plus flush draw. I'm fairly confident all my outs would give me the best hand. I call the bet and the small blinds fold. Pot is now about $65. Next card comes Qs. Final board is AsKc4c7sQs. I have a flush, although only 6 high. He bets out $45 into $65. Obviously I have to call here, but I am debating whether I should raise with my holdings or not. I thought it was very possible for him to have the nut flush here, since he could have had AXs and bet on the turn with the same flush draw that I had. Anyway, I just call the $45. He shows T8 for ten high. I was a little confused at first, thought maybe he was looking at a different board than me. Then it just hit me that he was just that bad. So I rake in the $155 pot and am all smiles the rest of the day.

All in all, a great trip out to the casino. I wish I had done it more often during the summer. Oh well. I still have PartyPoker.com.

In my last blog I talked about a few bad hands that I came across. It did not get any better that night. I played for about four hours and ended the night down 4.5 buyins, or $450. That is my greatest loss in a NL session. I was destroyed. Was I really playing that badly? I looked over my hands and I wasn't making horrible decisions. I got outdrawn on a few big pots, and the rest were just bad situations.

Luckily, the next night I was determined to play well and I was really focused. I decided to play the $200 buyin (blinds $1/$2). I did pretty well, profitted $440 in just under two hours. Pretty much made up for my horrible night the night before. I was extremely happy.

I just played last night at the $100 buyin and made a couple hundred. I'm steadily growing my bankroll. Plans as of now are to play the $200 buyin starting in September.

I am going to a casino today to play some live poker. Wish me luck. I have not played live poker in over two months!

This was probably one of the worst spots I've ever been in in a cash game. There is some background on the guy that I am playing with. Early in the session he minraised from early position preflop. I reraised to 7 with AA. He minraised me back, so I minreaised him back making it 17 to go. He pushes for another $50 more and naturally I call with AA. He has KK and he spikes a King and I lose $75. Granted I could have played it differently, but, he would not have laid the hand down, I guarantee it. Ok, so now onto the hand:

***** Hand History for Game 4970405439 *****
0/0 Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL) - Thu Aug 17 22:17:52 EDT 2006
Table Monster 1291301 (No DP) (Real Money) -- Seat 10 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: raingriff ( $249.68)
Seat 2: phuo12345 ( $45.50)
Seat 3: Tank1114 ( $188.12)
Seat 4: tliebsch ( $89.50)
Seat 5: lwrestler105 ( $101.70)
Seat 6: McKim ( $156.65)
Seat 7: Bugsie44 ( $96.50)
Seat 8: TheElephant ( $99.75)
Seat 9: PanamaGixxer ( $80.40)
Seat 10: kdizzler2 ( $14.50)
raingriff posts small blind (0.50)
phuo12345 is sitting out.
tliebsch posts big blind (1)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to McKim [ 9s, 9c ]
McKim raises (4) to 4
Bugsie44 folds.
TheElephant folds.
PanamaGixxer folds.
kdizzler2 folds.
raingriff calls (3.50)
tliebsch folds.
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 6c, 8c, 2h ]
raingriff checks.
McKim bets (7)
raingriff calls (7)
** Dealing Turn ** : [ 9h ]
raingriff checks.
McKim bets (18)
raingriff raises (36) to 36
McKim raises (127.65) to 145.65
McKim is all-In.
raingriff calls (109.65)
** Dealing River ** : [ Jd ]
Creating Main Pot with $310.80 with McKim
** Summary **
Main Pot: $310.80 | | Rake: $3 | Jackpot Contribution: $0.50
Board: [ 6c 8c 2h 9h Jd ]

raingriff balance $403.83, bet $156.65, collected $310.80, net +$154.15 [ 5d 7d ] [ a straight, five to nine -- 9h,8c,7d,6c,5d ]
McKim balance $0, lost $156.65 [ 9s 9c ] [ three of a kind, nines -- Jd,9s,9c,9h,8c ]

I don't know how anyone could put him on 57. Maybe if it was a limped pot, but flat calling a raise with 57s? Oh well. Just a very bad turn card for me. I guess I could have just called his raise. I thought for sure he had a lower set than me, which is why I pushed all in. He would call with any set there putting me on an overpair.

That's poker.

Until last night I had not played poker for almost a week. After all the WSOP Main Event hooplah I was ready to play.

BTW, I have not talked with Paul Wasicka since he got 2nd place. Naturally he's extremely busy right now with everything so I do not want to bother him. When I do talk with him I will ask him a few questions, sort of like a mini interview, and I will post his thoughts right here on Texas Poker Project.

As for my poker session last night, I played for 2 hours and profitted $280. I was involved in a $400 pot in the $100 buyin. Both me and this other guy were big stacks ($200 each). I raised EP with TT. Folded to the BB who reraised to $15. Naturally I just called, hoping to hit my Ten as he probably had me beat at this point. The flop comes T45 two clubs. He bets out $45 into $30 (YAY!). I reraise all in for an additional $138 and he insta calls with AA. Turn and river bring him no help and I take in a monster $400 pot in the $100 buyin. Wootsauce.

I still have yet to talk about the Monster tables on PartyPoker.com. I will do that in my next blog, hopefully.

My brother and I decided to purchase the PPV final table for the WSOP Main Event. Paul Wasicka (read post below) was still playing! It took from 4pm CST to 7:45am CST (I think 7:45, I actually fell asleep at 3:30am, but that's besides the point) to crown the champion. Paul got 2nd place! Final hand was Paul had TT vs Jamie's Q9. Queen spiked on the flop and Paul could not catch a ten. Paul earned $6 million for his efforts, not a bad pay day, eh?

Congrats Paul!

Paul Wasicka is a family friend of mine and he is still in the WSOP main event! As of now he is 4th in chips with 12 players left. He is guaranteed $1.14 million for his efforts. Wow.

Wish Paul best of luck. Check out a bio on Paul if you are interested.

A friend of mine told me this story:

At the 400 buyin game (5-10 blinds), with two large stacks with 1500 each in front of them. On the river the board was A 10 2 K 8 and there was about 900 in the pot. The first guy to act who was completely running over the table with bluffs and insane aggression and was raising it up to 70 preflop with any two, bets 700, and then the other guy went into the tank for at least 5 minutes. Finally he throws in two racks ($500 each) and says I call. The guy who bet is supposed to show his hand first, but he just sat there not saying a word (meaning he probably just got called on a huge bluff). But the other guy insisted on him showing his hand, so he eventually flips it over and shows pocket 33! I started laughing but that isn't even the best part. We are all waiting for the other guy to flip over the winner, but instead he smiles and flips over a deuce, and MUCKS HIS HAND!!!! It was the funniest hand I've ever seen and I had to leave the table so I didn't look like an asshole laughing at this guy. Everyone at the table was completely stunned, and obviously nobody objected when the guy pulled out his wallet to rebuy.

That's great. I need to play more live poker. Then again, I am about an hour and a half drive to a casino, whereas about a two second click away from Partypoker.com :)

Sorry I haven't posted for awhile. I've been busy at work and haven't really played much poker in the last week and a half. My hard drive crashed a few days ago and I used some recovery software to get my important files from the disk. The recovery process took nearly 24 hours to complete! Long time, but well worth it.

I am playing a session on PartyPoker.com right now. I'm not going to say how I am doing because I am very superstitious when it comes to these kinds of things. In any case, wish me luck!

In my next blog I'll talk about PartyPoker.com's new MONSTER playing tables.