This is the first day where I've actually started to feel good. Still have a pretty wicked headache but it's much better than where I was at before.

This Sunday started out great as the Packers pulled out a close win and the Bears lost a heartbreaker... awwwww. :) But then I started to play poker and it started to go down hill. I started out by losing $500 in cash games as I lost all 3 of my the flips I was in (and I had the 55% end too). I could tell I was frustrated though and that I wasn't playing my best anymore so I called it quits for the day and went back to football.

I then sweated my roommate to a win in the early $109r on Stars and was motivated to play a few tournaments as he's been having some great success lately. (He also won a seat in the $650 satellite to the PCA on Saturday.) So being all motivated to play doesn't help much when it's too late to get in most of the decent tournaments. I remembered that Cake Poker has late registration in their tournaments and I was able to get into their $100k guaranteed tourney which was a $55r. So after getting into that for $250 I quickly busted out right after the rebuy period... why did I want to play tourneys?!?

Just when I was about to say screw poker again and watch the baseball playoffs and the SNF game I figured I jump in the Stars $50 -$50k guaranteed tourney and the $33r to the PCA satellite that started a little later. I got deep in the $50k and with 100 left lost with AQ to J7o for a top 15 stack when the guy 4bet all in with absolutely no fold equity. However, the day finished amazing though as I went on to win the PCA satellite!!! I had a great HU battle to finish the tournament . It lasted 77 hands, which is a lot considering there were about 80BBs in play when we got HU. I started with a 2:1 chip lead and at one point was down 3:2. I fell into a rhythm though and got a really good feel for my opponent and came back to dominate it at the end. I''ll post a few of the HU hands at the end.

I was lucky enough to win a seat last year in the $650 last chance tourney and it was an amazing vacation so I am ridiculously psyched right now to be heading down there again. It's also nice to get the monkey off my back early this year instead of winning a seat last minute. One of my buddy's from Madison won a seat in the $33r on Monday night too so there are already 3 of us heading down there. Not gonna lie that I was a little worried when him and my roommate already had a seat. Puts a lot of pressure on a guy.

A few HU hands:

My low point... calling with Q high is not good!!! (I can here Alex Powers now):
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1589141
She had just taken the chip lead for the first time after winning 7 hands in a row and had me on tilt. I'm not sure why but somehow that hand got me off tilt. I laughed at my call, asked myself "wtf Andy", and took a deep breath.

I wasn't a believer on the flop:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1589143

Yeah, I'm a calling station:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1589149
(ok that's pretty standard but I am a station)

Let's get a nail in the coffin:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1589151
(I may just really like bluffing with KJ)

FINISH HER(?):
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1589156
(sometimes it's good to be lucky)

Wednesday was frustrating again and I'm completely fed up with tournaments for the time being. I'm not going to play the WCOOP ME and probably won't even try to qualify for the $5k in Aruba while I'm down there. Just gonna stick to cash games which have been going really well.

The WCOOP 6max got off to a pretty good start and about 3 hours in I had a nice stack and was playing really well but then went card dead and couldn't find any spots to pick up chips at my table. I also played the 2nd chance WCOOP 6max tournament and had a top 10 stack with about 150 left and ended up busting before 100 left. I lost one really big pot as a huge favorite and then went on to lose 3-4 flips in a row with the other player calling all-in each time. The other players weren't making bad calls but it's frustrating when I give myself two ways to win the pot by getting them to fold or winning the flip and I can't do either 4 times in a row.

The frustration with tourneys lately is probably just because I'm used to playing 10+ tourneys in one session (not at the same time but throughout the night) when I played them before and now that I only play 1-3 in a session the odds of me hitting a good score or making a deep run go down. So I figure it's just the variance messing with me but I just don't feel like dealing with it right now so I will be focusing on cash until at least the end of October.

I put in a few good sessions this week and really only made two mistakes. The first was in a 4 way raised pot where I was over 1.5 buy-ins deep and got it all in with two overs and a flush draw against a set. It wasn't a horrible spot I don't think but considering how deep we were and how small I could narrow his range the call was bad. The second time I 3bet with JJ out of the SB and got shoved on by loose/aggressive UTG raiser (6max) and I knew the call was bad at the time so I don't know what possessed my mouse to click the call button. This player was only shoving QQ+ and AK and some of the time he might even just call AK preflop so my call was really really bad.

Despite those two plays I've been getting my money in ahead almost every time except for a few coolers here and there. While I've had some great results over the past month that any player would be happy with I feel like I've been running really bad. I've lost with an over pair to an under pair quite a few times and even had my AA lose to AK aipf once while I haven't done the same to anyone else. I've been playing well though and the results are showing so it's difficult to complain about not 'feeling' like I'm running good. If I can post the same winrate through October that I've had through September I'll be more than ecstatic.

I gotta go finish packing for Aruba now. If anyone's going to be down there leave me a comment or PM me and let me know.

Haven't played much since the 5CD tourney. Played in the $530 WCOOP last Sunday and then in the $1050 WCOOP this Sunday.

I went home for the weekend starting on Thursday night so I didn't get a chance to play the $215r or the $320 HU tourney. I got back to my apartment on Sunday around 1pm (cst) flipped on the Packer game and jumped on Stars quick to see if I could get into the last few sats for the $1k starting at 3:30. I was able to get into two of the $33r and the last chance $375. I love playing the satellites on Sundays since they usually get a big field and most people don't know correct strategy in them. The first $33r I went out in 32nd when top 30 got seats after losing with JJ < AT and then K6 < J7. The K6 hand I was all-in in the BB and it was very little for the SB to call but if I had won that hand I was guaranteed a seat as there were a lot of other shorties that were gonna get eaten by the blinds. About 5 minutes after that hand I lose in my other $33r when AK < AJ all-in preflop to go out in 50th but winning that hand would have given me more than the average to get a seat. Stars does the usual tease with a KQx flop and the beautiful river T for his straight. Luckily I cashed the last chance satellite to at least walk away with one seat saving myself about $500 on the $1k entry.

Not that it mattered since I could get absolutely nothing going during the $1k. It was a really frustrating day as I continually got into very tough spots with mediocre hands. Even despite the great structure and what I felt to be a fairly weak table I couldn't manage to get my stack moving in the right direction. In my bust out hand I had jacks under the gun for the second rotation in a row. I made my usual 3x raise and got called by a player in middle position who I had just seen make a ridiculous play a few hands ago. He floated a 6JT two tone board with 45s, none of his suit, and then bluffed the turn and river against a fairly tight/straight forward player who called him down. I got a Q62 flop with two spades led out at it and got called. The turn was an off suit 8 and I check raised all in and got called by his AQs. I really don't feel like I could get away from the hand after seeing his previous play. Also, I think I was frustrated since the rotation before I raised jacks from utg and got called and had to fold on a Q98Q board to another player.

Went back to the 6max cash games today where things have been much better than in the tournaments. Started the session up two buyins really quick but then lost a flip with 99 to a half stacks AK and ran KK into AA for just over a full buyin to finish the session just over break even.

Not sure how many more WCOOP events I'll play. I've been getting more and more frustrated with tournaments since having a really dry run in Vegas at the WSOP. I'll play the 6max NL event on Wednesday but right now I'm not sure if I really feel like playing the $2600 main event or not. I'm going to be in Aruba with my roommate (basebaldy), who's playing in the UB Challenge and I probably wont' feel like sitting in a hotel lobby playing online poker. We'll see though when I'm down there. If you're headed down there leave a comment here or PM me on 2+2 if I don't have your AIM. Always nice to meet the fellow poker players and I'm down to have a few cocktails.

I was going to write a longer blog today but one of the guys who took 10th in the 5 Card Draw (5CD) tournament that I finished 5th in writes over at flopturnriver and did a quick interview about the tournament with me last night so I'll just link to that so I don't have to repeat most of the stuff. Interview.

My interview is under the WCOOP Event #2 summary and if you scroll down below my interview there is an interview of the guy who interviewed me (if that's not too confusing to follow). This was my first time being interviewed by anyone in about my play or tournament experience so feel free to let me know how you think I came off.

As I said in the interview this was my first time playing 5CD and it was a really good experience to see how well I could do at a game I'd never played by just relying on my tournament poker skills. It's really made me think about my current approach to the game and how my current thought process is while playing. Toward the end of the 5CD tournament I felt like I was 'in control' of any table I was at. Not necessarily that I was the 'table captain' but that I had a great feel for the flow of play at the table. Since I didn't know correct 5CD strategy that well I was relying on everything else I knew about poker to carry me through.

If the table was playing loose I'd sit back and wait for my big hands and get paid off. When they started to play tight I'd open up my raising range and take the blinds. I had a great sense of what others thought of my table image. After scanning through the interview of the guy who took 10th he mentioned only drawing one card when you held a hand like AJJxx, trips, two pair, and a drawing hand since it will disguise what you actually hold and make it harder to put your opponent on a hand. This was something I was doing occasionally during the tournament but many of the other players weren't doing at all. Because of this it was fairly easy to figure out where I was in a hand a lot of the time. Also many of the players 3 betting range were really easy to figure out and exploit through out the tournament. Most players were calling too loose out of position (OOP) and 3betting too tight and many were never 3bet bluffing.

I'm hoping this experience will really move my tournament game to the next level as it's made me see that I need to rely more on my instincts and reads at the table rather than always playing 'according to the book.' This is probably one of the few bad habits I've picked up from the '2+2 style' of play. I worry too much about playing a hand correctly rather than just playing poker. So over my next few tournaments I'm going to get back to just playing my style of poker and quit concentrating on playing 'correctly.' Not that I'm going to be a crazy lagtard but I'm definitely going to play more by feel rather than the 'is this the most +ev play in this spot' mindset.

Badger Out!

P.S. When I say it's going to be a shorter blog at the beginning a lot of the time I get carried away and that isn't the case but I'm usually too lazy to go back and change the beginning. This one didn't get too long but just a warning for the future. Also, I don't worry about grammar or proofread my blogs so there might be a few errors here and there and a few sentences that don't quite go together the best so please accept my apologizes in advance. ;)