Pretty good weekend

As the title suggests this was a pretty good weekend. But it didn't start out that way.

Thursday evening in my bi-weekly league, I needed a deep run coupled with another in the final week of December to get into our January freeroll tournament for $2k. Unfortunately, in 2 cases I held a Q on a QQxxx board (once with KQ and the other with QJs) and the same person held AQ. Those two hands relieved me of nearly 2/3 of my stack only to get polished off again holding KQdd on a Q74 board (though in this case I had checked the BB trying to play a big pot as I was down to 11BB). SB naturally had Q7 and I lose. Bitches no good for the big fella!!

But I destroyed the cash games for one of my biggest nights ever in this game. It was pretty sick as I made big hand after big hand and guys paid me off over and over. I even decided to pay off 2 bets where I had no doubt I was beat just to keep all happy. Is it a good sign when players are fighting to sit to your left and are sitting out if they have to be on my right??

Then Friday was my office Xmas party. I decided to do something different this year and took my staff to an upscale bowling alley. Well that was all well and good until then end of the second game when my lower back kept getting more and more painful. Still sore this morning. Then I went home and discovered that my PokerStars account was frozen. As I mentioned in a previous post, the sites are having a harder time processing deposits and withdrawals. After I had those two good sized scores on Full Tilt in November I had withdrawn a good percentage of it but moved $1,500 over to Stars to take a few shots in some higher buy-in tournaments (Sunday Million, USCOOP events, $50-rebuy, etc.) That didn't go particularly well and I plowed through most of it. Well 2 weeks later Stars informed me that my bank had rejected the transfer and they were zapping my account. No problem except I only had $1,400ish in my account. Because of the uncertainty surrounding all of this regulation I am keeping less and less $$ on-line. So since the account had a negative balance the locked my account. We have since resolved it but for about 24 hours I wasn't sure what to do.

Finally, Friday was the 6th meeting of my WSOP league. I was putzing along with 8500 at 200/400/50a when I opened 88 to 1025. As soon as I released the chips I realized that I had actually raised to 6000 as I threw in a 5k chip rather than a 25 chip. When it goes all-in for 2800 and all in for 4800 behind me I know I am beat and see JJ and, obviously, AA. I'm a fucking moron (though she is dumber).

That left me short with 10ish BB and I was out a bit later. I am now in 4th (3 get seats) though we are all relatively close together.

So in the course of one day I have:

• Royally fucked up my back
• Been informed that my Stars account is frozen with no way of knowing if it can be remedied
• Busted myself in 1 of the 12 league heats for a seat in WSOP

Some day...

But then my luck changed. I got home from the league night about 10:30 and logged onto Full Tilt. So far so good. Signed up for a handful of tournaments including the nightly $5k guarantee PLO8 at 11:15est. I may have played this 2 or 3 times in the past at the most. Well 5 hours later I am at the FT. When we get 5 handed there are 3 losing players and me and another profitable player. The only other profitable player was really shortstacked. The other 3 were basically begging for a deal. I said I will do the deal if I get $1k (first was $1.4k and second was $925ish). I was chip leader and the ICM said I should only get $850. They went apeshit when I demanded that so I said play on. Then they stopped again and offered me $950 but I held my ground. I mean it isn't the $50 but I am giving up the opportunity to win first as well and I feel I am the best player with the biggest stack. Finally the shorties started busting and I got heads up with a pretty bad player. Unfortunately all of the bustouts occurred at his hands so he had me 5-1 in chips at this point. I doubled through once and then we got it in and he scooped. Oh well good finish. As you can see from the picture below this thing ran past 5:30 a.m.

Saturday night I also played a bunch of MTTs including the $5k PLO guarantee at 9:15 p.m. Fast forward a bit and I am at another FT. This one was a bit tougher with several winning, aggressive players in the mix. Finally, 4 handed I got it in with a flopped baby flush against a bigger flush. Not sure I can do much about that this deep in the tournament. But another decent cash and deep run.

With these decent runs I decided to play a bunch yesterday. Included in this mix was the Mini-FTOPS Main Event a $75 event with $1M guarantee (meaning there would be over 14k players). Well I was stumbling along and had built my stack to over 9k when i lost with a set of 7s to a flopped set of 10's. This chopped me down to around 6k when a real beauty comes up.

Full Tilt Poker MiniFTOPS Main Event No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t60/t120 Blinds - 9 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter By DeucesCracked Poker Videos

UTG: t2555 21.29 BBs
UTG+1: t6675 55.62 BBs
UTG+2: t22105 184.21 BBs
MP1: t6970 58.08 BBs
MP2: t11270 93.92 BBs
Hero (CO): t6352 52.93 BBs
BTN: t14850 123.75 BBs
SB: t10170 84.75 BBs
BB: t12130 101.08 BBs

Pre Flop: (t180) Hero is CO with T T
3 folds, MP1 raises to t300, 1 fold, Hero calls t300, 3 folds

Flop: (t780) 6 8 T (2 players)
MP1 bets t480, Hero calls t480

Turn: (t1740) 8 (2 players)
MP1 bets t1440, Hero calls t1440

River: (t4620) 9 (2 players)
MP1 bets t4750 all in, Hero calls t4132 all in

Final Pot: t12884
MP1 shows 8 8 (four of a kind, Eights)
Hero mucks T T
MP1 wins t12884

When he shoves the river I expect to see Ax with A of clubs or maybe the unfortunate 7 of clubs. But no I see the only other hand that can beat me....sigh.