Left early yesterday morning on what was supposed to be a 3-night stay at Borgata. After grabbing a quick bite I sat down at $5/$10 NL at around 1PM. We began 5-handed (yum yum) and I scooped a bunch of small early pots before the table filled. Our table was a must move and about a half hour later I get moved and take a seat directly to the right of my buddy Jack who happens to be one of my closest friends in the world.

About an hour in at the main game I scoop a sweet $2700 pot with pocket KK. About a half hour later I scoop a $900 pot with AK (tptk) against a player who calls me down with A hi thinking I was bluffing I suppose. All is good in the world except I feel like I’ve been hit by a mack truck. I’d been up since 4AM and am really tired. On top of that my family is all under the weather and I’m mentally wondering if I was fortunate enough to escape it or if it was starting to hit me too? Now picture the poker room full of sniffles and coughs and I’m totally freaking out.

It’s now 4:30PM and I’m ready to crash, not a good sign. I decide I’ll hang in a bit longer since I love the table I’m at. In middle position after a limp and a raise to $35 I look down at two black KK’s. I have no reads on the limper but the raiser who is sitting directly to my right may be the worst $5/$10 player I’ve ever come across, really ever! I repop to $110 because it’s a sure thing he’ll call with any two cards. It folds to the early limper who calls (hmmmmmm) and of course the original raiser completes. The flop is an all red 10 10 5. They both check to me and I bet $200. Early position doesn’t look at his cards and quickly calls (ruh roh Shaggy). Mr. genius to my right thinks for a minute and pushes all in for about $750. The action is on me. Mind you this is the easiest call ever against the genius to my right but there’s the early position player to consider. I ask for a count on early position who is playing about $1400 more. He is calm as one can be, counts out his chips without a worry in the world, no inflection in his voice nor are there any cracks in his demeanor.

This totally sucks. I’m convinced that early position has me beat. I begrudgingly muck my Kings. Early position finally takes a look at his cards all poised to call and a look of sheer horror fills his face. He announces that he’s misread his hand and mucks. He says that he thought he had 10 8 when in fact he had 9 8. Mr. terrible shows me two red 4’s and my tilt factor hits a million trillion. So now I’m exhausted, maybe sick (or incredibly paranoid) and severely on tilt.

I decide to pick up my chips about $1500 to the positive and head to the room for a nap. I sleep for a whole 45 minutes, yippee, and when I wake up at 6PM I feel really crappy (there’s a shocker). The TV’s on the local 6PM news and all they’re talking about is a winter storm heading our way, poised to start at around midnight and a severe flu epidemic crushing the whole country. The last place I want to be sick and trapped is in Atlantic City so I make a spur of the moment decision to pack up and drive back home. I did stop at the poker room to say good-bye to Jack who looked at me like I was a total looney bird.

I drove home with toothpicks holding my eyelids open and easily beat the storm with a couple of hours to spare. Here it is the next morning as I sit here typing this and I feel just fine other than being a little tired. So I’m not sick and now I wish I was back at Borgata but it’s been snowing for the last 10 hours and I’m simply not going anywhere except maybe to an insane asylum. Guess its back to the online grind. Yaaaaaawn.

-Doyle-

Sorry it’s been a couple of weeks since I last updated. Where to begin?

Sports

Well the first part of 2008 made it a good decade for us Giants fans. Hey it has all been talked about to death so I won’t attempt to wax poetic on it but man what a run! You guys saw the weekly struggles us real fans went thru with this team during the regular season which makes the playoff run so gratifying.

I’ve been a Giants fan since before Simms joined the team. A couple of months ago I was talking with a friend who I only get to speak with a couple of times a year and he asked me if I wanted to buy his old Giants games on VHS which he taped himself. After some negotiation I struck a deal for the 1986 and 1990 seasons, almost in their entirety, sans a few regular season games. I’m pretty excited about it and now I want to find a way to transfer them all to DVD. What a blast it’ll be to re-watch those great old teams.

If February wasn’t off to a good enough start my other favorite team, the New York Mets signed the best pitcher in baseball. Welcome Johan Santana, can’t wait to watch you every 5th day!

Online Poker

I’ve been playing an awful lot this month in an attempt to find out what I really want to do in the online poker world. Back in the Fall when I started writing this blog I had been playing 6-max cash for a short time and hadn’t played tournaments in a good many months. So where am I now…… I’ve been playing 6-max cash consistently since the summer and the bottom line is I never did and still don’t enjoy it. It really feels like work to me. Furthermore it doesn’t stimulate my mind so I never think about it when I’m away from the tables. I feel like I’ve been going thru the motions; which is easy to understand based on my whole attitude revolving around cash games.

Probably the biggest deterrent to cash games for me right now is I’ve been really trying to focus on

Tournaments

Something has to give and with my family and work responsibilities I really don’t have the time and physical energy to devote to cash games and tournaments. So while I’m not quitting the cash games, I am going to make a conscious effort to cut back to focus on MTT’s.

I’ve been playing tons of MTT’s lately, kind of pushing myself to see what I can handle both hours wise and table wise. OK, playing a whack of 180 turbos while playing the bigger online events at the same time probably isn’t really smart but it has helped me broaden my old limits. While it hasn’t been stellar for the bottom line I am getting a good sense of what direction to head in. I am now pretty comfortable 8-tabling, unheard of for me not too long ago. I also decided that I needed to jump back in the deep end and give Full Tilt another shot after taking a month off from the site.

Quick February Online Recap

Cash Games: I’m stuck a bit. This may be my 1st losing month since I began playing 6-max in August as I’m not sure how much more I’ll play this month (will have to see how close to platinum I am late in the month).

MTT Highlights: I have a tidy but unspectacular profit banked mid way thru February. I played my first Sunday event since before football season, the Stars Warm Up and cashed albeit in the bottom payout rung last week.

I took 5th (1256 runners) in the Stars 50K earlier this month for @ 3K and wanted to cry as I misplayed my bust out hand really badly, I’ll blame it on fatigue being it was 4AM and I’d been up since 6AM.

Last week I final tabled the $50 Rebuy finishing a heartbreaking 6th place for $2500 when I called a shove with A2 and lost to K2 when a Cowboy fell on the river.

The following day I had the chip lead in the $20 1Rebuy at the final 2 tables and somehow found a way to blow up and finished 12th??? I think fatigue had really set in so I took some time away.

After a couple of days off I came back yesterday and added Full Tilt back into the mix. I cashed in 2 of the 3 events I played over there taking 15th in the $75 6-max despite suffering some horrible setbacks along the way two of which would’ve made me chip leader at the time and instead got me jolted back to mid pack.

For the month I’ve cashed an insanely ridiculous 23 of 88 (26%) in non 180’s and feel I’ve squandered some great opportunities. In 180’s I’m a pedestrian 8 for 61 (13%) IT$. These have been a great waste of time and energy.

The plan going forward is to have Full Tilt take over the bulk of the 180’s in my rotation. I’ll update again when there’s more to report.

-Doyle-