Well the title says it all. For the last few years my golf game has inexplicably deserted me in the fall. For whatever reason, once the calendar hits ~Sept 15 I am just not very good. Whether it is year end burnout, other stuff on my mind, new responsibilities with kids back in school or whatever but it just seems my game suffers and I can't regain any sort of form.
So with that in mind I walked into my first round match in our club championship on Friday. This was a match that if we played 10 times I would expect to win 7 or 8 of them. Unfortunately, Friday was one of the 2 or 3 times it went the other day. Neither of us played well at all but I should have won rather handily. The ending is perfectly fitting of the train wreck. I have been behind all day with a combination of a few good breaks for my opponent and poor play by ours truly. However, I made a nice par on 15 to square the match with the three to play. On 16 (455 par 4) I hit a decent drive that just trickled in the left rough. He was way right making bogey at best. I managed to get a 7 iron pin high left about 20 feet from the hole but pretty quick. As expected he made his bogey and I proceeded to knock it 8 feet past and miss the comebacker. Needless to say I am hot. On 17 I stuff it pretty close (170 par 3) and actually make the birdie to go 1 up for the first time since the 2nd hole. Now I have 18 which is a pretty str8forward par 4 of about 390 yds uphill. Just need a good drive and usually a 9 iron or so and force him to make birdie or we are done. Well I hit a big high rope-a-dope hook that damn near goes OB. Frankly I didn't even know the OB was over on the left. That is how fucking far left this piece of shit was. I punch back into the fairway then hit L wedge from 80 yards to about 10 feet. Burn the edge for abt the 20th time that day and off we go to 1 for a playoff. Nearly make a 30 footer for birdie on 1 then make a complete shit storm on 2 and essentially hand it to him. I don't mind losing if someone just ouplays me (see MD Mid-Am in August) but I hate losing when I just basically beat myself. I will play once or twice before the Mid Atlantic Am and try and get some work in but unless I find some spark to get me going it may be a 2 round MC for this guy.
The weekend in poker was much better. Not sure I had posted before but about 10 days ago I won a smallish tournament with ~200 players. It was just a $10 buy-in but paid a bit over $500 so that was good. Then this past Friday night I was still steaming from my bullshit golf play earlier in the day and just decided to veg out on the computer. I played about 10 tournaments and had three cashes. One was a min-cash. ANother was in the $5k guarantee PLO on Full Tilt. We were down to 10 so playing 5 handed on 2 tables. Chip leader (CL) was hideously bad and luckboxing his way through this event. I have about 35k at 1500-3000 and this went down (sorry couldn't find the HH).
CL (120k stack) raises to 9k
Me (button 35k) repot to ~32k with AAKx single suited
CL CALLS...ellll-ohhhhh-fucking-elllll (I have 3k behind sir!!)
Flop 42T rainbow. Dry as it gets.
He checks. I push my last 3k into a pot of ~65k or so. He calls to show 445J. Unreal. Maybe I should start playing total garbage hands some.
But the real good result came in the nightly Big Double ($75 buy-in). Got down to the final table with a top three stack and played pretty solid picking my spots. Finally we were down to 5 left when this comes up.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4713013
Pretty standard really but yet another bad beat for yours truly. Win that and I am 2nd in chips with 30 BB left and a chance to win. As is I am out in 5th for about $900 (coulda sworn I busted 4th but once reviewed the HH disovered was really 4th...late night). I also won a seat into the FTP $1M guarantee ($500 in T$) on Friday night.
On Saturday night our kids were at my partents house. My wife and I went out to eat and were going to just watch a movie since it had been a crazy week. But when we got how a bit before 10 she was exhausted and just went to bed. So I decided to fire up some of the 10 pm tournaments and see how it went. Nothing exciting was happening in any really until I had the following in the FTP $10 rebuy. Started with about 650 players and we are inside money with abt 40 left.
Me 30k stack UTG raise TT to 1600 (blinds 300-600/50a)
Button is very loose player and has me covered calls
BB then shoves 24k. This overshove is one of 2 hands almost always (JJ or AK).
I think and decide let's gamble as this will give me a good chance to go deep. I call, button folds and he flips AK and for once I win a key pot. Actually flop a T for a quick end to the drama.
Well it was a good thing I won a big pot because from then until the final 2 tables I went insanely card dead. Just nothing. I won a few hands with LP raises but I had jack shit for quality hands. Then at final 2 tables I am like 11/15 in chips and do actually win a few hands with the best of it and before long we are at FT. Unfortunately my seat positively blows with all of the 3 big stacks directly to my left. I have abt 150k and they each have over 500k and are just pummeling anyone who opens the pot for a raise. So I have to wait for a chance and be patient. Finally we are down to 6 players at 6/12k/2ka and I have drifted down to ~110k and folds to me in SB. I shove K3 suited just tring to pick up the 30k in the middle and huge stack (700k) snap calls me with K7 and holds. So out in 6th for ~900 and another bit of disappointment. But I keep going deep so that means I am playing well and sooner or later should pop with a couple of big scores.
All in all though I will take a $2500+ weekend every weekend of the year if possible.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Another Year and no USGA
A couple people have emailed me to find out how the USGA Mid Qualifier went on Tuesday. Obviously the title of the post says it all, I didn't get in. Shot 73 on a course that played really easy.
The qualifier was at Argyle CC in Silver Spring. It is a short course with some rather bad holes and just not my favorite place. I actually considered going to another section to try and qualify but ultimately decided to stay in the DC/Balt. section due to the fact that there would be 7 available spots.
Started on 10 in the second group off. Hit it to 15 feet on 10 and 10 feet on 11 and missed both. Finally got one in for birdie on 14 to get to -1. Was feeling pretty good when I got to the 17th tee still at -1. 17 is a downhill par 3 of 190 yards with water short of the green. It played shorter, however, as in the practice round I had hit 6 iron in the middle of the green. Tuesday morning the wind was swirling a good bit and when I got on the tee it was pretty much in our face. I hemmed and hawed and finally decided on a punched 5 iron. Unfortunately, I never really committed to the shot and chunked it in the pond short of the green. Double bogey.
I turned and birdied 1 to get back to even par and back in the thing. However a bad bogey on the par 5 3rd absolutely killed me. I had 95 yards uphill for my third and hit my 95 shot. The uphill made it play more like 100+ and I came up a few yards short of the green. Chipped up to 4 feet and missed it. Another bogey on 5 where I missed a 5 footer for par basically put a fork in me. I added one more bogey when I 3 putted 8 trying to jam a birdie putt in from 25 feet or so and then narrowly missed a birdie putt on 9. All added up to +3 and that ain't getting it done. Turned out that it took 68 to get in. Who knows what happens if I don't chunk that 5 iron on 17.
Pretty disappointed as I worked really hard to get ready for the qualifier and was extremely confident going into Tuesday. But with only 18 holes the qualifier is essentially a sprint and doesn't leave much room for errors. Still have the club championship at BCC this weekend and next weekend, the Middle Atlantic Am the first weekend in October and the Baltimore City Am in the middle of October. After that I will likely hang up my sticks for the year.
Poker has taken a back seat the last month or so. I did, however, play a full load of tournaments on Sunday. In the 750k on Full Tilt I flopped a set of 6's in the second hour on an A67 flop and lost much of my stack to another player who had pocket 7's. That hurt. Little later I shoved AJ into AK and he held. I did make three rather deepish runs on Stars, however. Two in Omaha Hi-Lo events and one in the $5 rebuy NLHE event. All were bust outs in the final 2 tables, however, so no cashes worth getting excited about. One funny hand with about 25 left in a $33 Omaha Hi-Lo. A very bad player is the villain in this hand and he had been playing hideous poker and getting lucky:
Me: 60k on button
Villain: 35k in early position
Blinds 600-1200
BB had AAxx (think he had one low card with it)
Villain has QQ8T....LOL...Pure fucking genious. Once I repot I have to have AA there almost always. SO he is putting all those chips in with no low possible and a shit high hand. Obviously the flop comes KJx and river is a 9 giving the goof a str8 and scooping the pot. So that hurt. I did manage to chip back up but ultimately busted I think 14th.
I haven't been grinding SNGs as much of late although I will be doing so again soon. Easy money. After a month and half of grinding those it gets a bit monotonous so I have been taking a break for a couple of weeks and just playing cash games. Once I get through the September 15 deadline at work I will get back into SNG again to pick up the steady extra $$.
The qualifier was at Argyle CC in Silver Spring. It is a short course with some rather bad holes and just not my favorite place. I actually considered going to another section to try and qualify but ultimately decided to stay in the DC/Balt. section due to the fact that there would be 7 available spots.
Started on 10 in the second group off. Hit it to 15 feet on 10 and 10 feet on 11 and missed both. Finally got one in for birdie on 14 to get to -1. Was feeling pretty good when I got to the 17th tee still at -1. 17 is a downhill par 3 of 190 yards with water short of the green. It played shorter, however, as in the practice round I had hit 6 iron in the middle of the green. Tuesday morning the wind was swirling a good bit and when I got on the tee it was pretty much in our face. I hemmed and hawed and finally decided on a punched 5 iron. Unfortunately, I never really committed to the shot and chunked it in the pond short of the green. Double bogey.
I turned and birdied 1 to get back to even par and back in the thing. However a bad bogey on the par 5 3rd absolutely killed me. I had 95 yards uphill for my third and hit my 95 shot. The uphill made it play more like 100+ and I came up a few yards short of the green. Chipped up to 4 feet and missed it. Another bogey on 5 where I missed a 5 footer for par basically put a fork in me. I added one more bogey when I 3 putted 8 trying to jam a birdie putt in from 25 feet or so and then narrowly missed a birdie putt on 9. All added up to +3 and that ain't getting it done. Turned out that it took 68 to get in. Who knows what happens if I don't chunk that 5 iron on 17.
Pretty disappointed as I worked really hard to get ready for the qualifier and was extremely confident going into Tuesday. But with only 18 holes the qualifier is essentially a sprint and doesn't leave much room for errors. Still have the club championship at BCC this weekend and next weekend, the Middle Atlantic Am the first weekend in October and the Baltimore City Am in the middle of October. After that I will likely hang up my sticks for the year.
Poker has taken a back seat the last month or so. I did, however, play a full load of tournaments on Sunday. In the 750k on Full Tilt I flopped a set of 6's in the second hour on an A67 flop and lost much of my stack to another player who had pocket 7's. That hurt. Little later I shoved AJ into AK and he held. I did make three rather deepish runs on Stars, however. Two in Omaha Hi-Lo events and one in the $5 rebuy NLHE event. All were bust outs in the final 2 tables, however, so no cashes worth getting excited about. One funny hand with about 25 left in a $33 Omaha Hi-Lo. A very bad player is the villain in this hand and he had been playing hideous poker and getting lucky:
Me: 60k on button
Villain: 35k in early position
Blinds 600-1200
- Villain pots to 4200
- MP player calls
- I repot to 18,400 with AAK3 double suited
- BB goes all-in for abt 25k
- Villain repots all-in for ~35k
- I call obviously
BB had AAxx (think he had one low card with it)
Villain has QQ8T....LOL...Pure fucking genious. Once I repot I have to have AA there almost always. SO he is putting all those chips in with no low possible and a shit high hand. Obviously the flop comes KJx and river is a 9 giving the goof a str8 and scooping the pot. So that hurt. I did manage to chip back up but ultimately busted I think 14th.
I haven't been grinding SNGs as much of late although I will be doing so again soon. Easy money. After a month and half of grinding those it gets a bit monotonous so I have been taking a break for a couple of weeks and just playing cash games. Once I get through the September 15 deadline at work I will get back into SNG again to pick up the steady extra $$.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)