OK, Screw it... maybe I am "Matter of Fact"

I decided late last night, that this blog will be composed in part, on my current poker ventures. But only because I seem to be maintaining a pretty high win ratio. Also, it will serve my own purpose of documenting my winnings. So, if I start losing, it will be clear and obvious, that I need to change hobbies, or at least change my poker strategy. Not that I doubt my own ability to gauge my success/failure, its just that in a game that certainly has an element of luck to it, streaks of two days, followed by a converse streak of three days, completed by another streaky streak, can well... blur into one another.

Anyways, today I played a tournament online. It was a 24 dollar buy-in with 110 entrants. The prize pool was a gauranteed $3,500. 1st would take something around a thousand, 2nd $600 or so, and scaling back proportionally as one placed lower in the final standings. I took 102nd. So that sucked. Here's the story.
I had A-J off suit, and raised $125 of my begining 1500 chips. Everyone folds except for some blow hard who kept his 7-8, also off suit. The flop rolls a 3-7-10. (suits inconsequential) I fire off 400, figuring no one would call 125 and have any of those cards, except maybe a ten. And, I would of course find out if he re-raised. Now, this is not always the case, some people are sneaky. In fact, its best to be sneaky actually. But I'd like to think I had my "feelers" on.

In any event, he calls my 400. At this point, you may wonder, why would he call such a high bet? Good question... follow along. Next, the turn gives me my ace. I immediately bet another 400. He, just as quickly calls. :(

I'm worried now. The river card makes the board 3-7-10-A-8. No flush, and a remote chance at a straight. But keep in mind, he would have to have called my preflop raise with a J-9. And then call a high bet after the flop with an inside straight draw (meaning the middle card of the straight was missing. And, usually only inexperienced players do this. A much better odds advantage is an outside draw, meaning you have four connectors ((e.g. 2-3-4-5, thus eight cards in the deck could help, versus only four for the inside variety)).

Other possibilities for him, would be if he held a pocket pair and caught trips.
I guess I was willing to gamble on this.

Knowing I hold a pair of aces, with a solid kicker, coupled with the fact that I only have 500 in chips left, I put out what I consider a sucker bet. That being, a low bet, to sucker him in. This is great to pull in an inexperienced player if they dont have a strong hand, and great for scaring away a veteran) He calls. His two pair, of course put my aces to shame.
In all my days of playing, its always the newbie players who really dont know what they are doing, who make the worst bad beats, defying all odds and logic to sweep up huge pots.
Of course, these are the guys you want to play with in the long run. But it still hurts.

I soon thereafter, somehow floundered my remaining chips.

Oh well though, I decided to play some 2-4 limit on a live cash table. It took me about 20 mintes to lose my 40 dollar buy in. But I rebought and in another 20 minuted cashed out for $100 even. Net gain, one Andrew Jackson.

I played the 2-4 only because there was nothing higher with an open seat. So, after a rousing episode of Scooby Doo on the tube, (ya, they caught the ghost impersonating bandits) I found an 8-16 table, with only one dude there. Straight up, heads up.
Hmm, I thought, I guess I could work on my final table skillz. He had $160, I had $160. No more than an hour later, I had his $160.

Net gain on the day, $180. Time, 12:47pm.

I swear to the big guy in the big house, I could live off of $180 a day. And nobody can beat the hours or the commute!!

Ok, well gotta go, Tom and Jerry is on. And you know that dang the Jerry is always up to something.