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
  • 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 $$.

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