Jan 24
Tomorrow morning (well, in nine hours) I am going over to the newly opened South Coast casino to enter a poker tournament. The tournament itself isn’t terribly exciting I suppose; I expect only around 30 players to enter. However, this will be my first live poker game since before Thanksgiving. If you happen to have noticed a lack in updates to my poker log it isn’t for lack of effort, rather for lack of content. I regularly get the urge to go play some $1-$2 NL at Green Valley Ranch, but always let the urge pass. Lately I have been filling that time by playing Guitar Hero instead. Don’t worry, though. Cards and odds have been on my mind regularly, even if my money hasn’t been on the table. I am currently reading through two different poker books while another six sit patiently on my desk.
I’ve been playing a fair amount of poker online as well. When I woke up this afternoon, after a short phone call to check in with my office, I signed onto Full Tilt to kill some time before I grabbed lunch. In my first session I entered four sit-n-go’s and took first place in 3 of them (including one multi-table tournament) and third in the other. Besides earning me a handy profit the wins managed to boost my confidence going into tomorrow. Tonight I decided to press my luck and entered another three tournaments while I finished watching The Great Raid (a pretty solid movie btw). In the first I managed to get my money in with pocket aces against some nub holding 10-3 of spades, and gagged as the flop fell 3-10-Q. In the second tournament I watched as my opponent (through what I believe was a misclick of his mouse) pushed all his chips onto the table with A-Q offsuit, a bet which I quickly called with my pocket kings. An ace on the turn ended that game almost before it began. In the third tournament I suffered a few similar beats but managed to pull down first place despite all the negative energy. Four handed I held nearly 9,000 chips while second place held 3,000. I can only hope that my streak continues into tomorrow’s bout, relatively minor though it may be. I won’t be playing the likes of David Williams, and the chips won’t say World Series of Poker, but I hope to play my best and put up a good fight.
Both of my roommates are entering the tournament as well, so naturally my primary goal is finishing higher than them. It’s been a while since I threw up any kind of poker game recap so I will try and bring back something interesting to write about tomorrow (today).
Wish me luck.