Tuesday

My Bodog account has been dormant for over 2 years, but at the suggestion of wwonka, I have finally reloaded and will probably be playing in these things on a regular basis now.



Last week was the first of the skillz series that I played in, and because of my stellar performance in O8, I will most likely play it again this week.


Kudos to my friend ScottyDawg who came in 5th place in the 10am tournament at Foxwoods this past Sunday. I went out early, but not as quickly as this donkey, who earned the gigli on the very first hand. I don't really mind getting knocked out before the first break. I was paid the same as some of my friends who played for 5 hours and missed the money. That is 4 more hours at the cash game for me!!

DQB vs Hoy and the HPT

I honestly feel bad for Hoyazo who has a penchant for getting coolered in this particular blogger game. With the blinds at 50-100, I opened with an easy button raise to 350. Hoyazo and WillWonka called and the three of us see the flop. At this point I know that I am beat and need a miracle. I am pretty sure that Hoyazo is slow playing an over pair, and I have no idea what WillWonka is holding, but I put him on a medium pair. The flop comes 868 with 2 flush cards, perfect for me. These are the flops you dream about. I like to lead out when I hit flops like this out of position, I generally bet my sets and boats if they are disguised, so I c-bet half the pot expecting action. Hoyazo pushes with his over pair, WillWonka thinks for a while and I am hoping he has 66 or a flush draw but he folds what he later says to be pocket 77s. I of course call Hoy and he is crippled. Note that I am not beating my chest or anything with how I played the nuts. Hoy knows that if he re-raised pre flop I would have folded. The only value for him would be in effect a re-steal. I would have been happy to take down the blinds and move on to the next hand, but Full Tilt had other plans with this setup. He played his pocket Kings fine, he wants all the money going in on the flop without an Ace.

Moving on to the first ever HPT online tournament, which I hope becomes a weekly or at least monthly event. The HPT is a group of Boston area players hosted by a very good friend of mine Ittolm. He and his lovely wife host a monthly home game featuring a 3 table deep stack freeze out and is attended by several Boston area bloggers. We are actually having a field trip this coming Sunday, and will be playing in the 10am $100 tournament at Foxwoods. 15 players signed up tonight, more than I had hoped for and it was a lot of fun! There was a $5 last longer side bet between myself, wwonka, ittolm and hilltopper. I also put up a $5 bounty on wwonka, trying to juice things up a bit on the other table. There were some players with 80% VPIP, though they went home rather quickly. I final table bubbled when my TT ran into Ittolm's AK and he flopped the nuts. He had been picking on my blind, and I had layed down some big hands to him when he was first in so I decided to go with my pocket 10s against his pre flop jam. Oh well, I hit the rail and immediately put up a $10 bounty on Ittolm, seeking vengeance. Mr. R knocked out wwonka and earned the bounty, nice job Al! The heads up battle was between Bdidde and Ittolm, a re-match of last months live game. They battled back and forth with huge stacks for nearly an hour then decided to chop. I certainly hope we can make this online home game a regular event!

Full Tilt Year End Bonus

Full Tilt was kind enough to grant me this nice $550 bonus for my semi dedicated play this past year. Half a year actually, since I was in Iraq for the first half, and did not open my FTP account until June 2007. The icing is that this bonus does not affect my rake back deal with PSO, so I am in effect double dipping. I am not going to do the exact math, but it worked out to about $400 in rake back while clearing the bonus, adding up to $950 in free money. If you don't have rake back, you are definitely missing out.

Oh yeah, don't forget the Mookie tonight!!