War of the Worlds plus a Good Night at Poker Stars

Kelly and I went to see "War of the Worlds" tonight. I really must conclude that I don't like Tom Cruise. I also did not like this movie. I wouldn't even rank it as "rentable" material. I don't regret seeing it, however. I really didn't want to watch any of my other choices.

When we got home, I fired up the laptop and I played at Poker Stars. I have been losing steadily there for the last several days and I have been trying to figure out why. First, I think the skill level at $0.50/$1.00 limit hold'em is pretty good. It's certainly better than anywhere else that I've played. Second, I've just played poorly.

Anyway, I decided to play two tables of $0.50/$1.00 plus a tournament. For whatever reason, the idea of a one-table sit-n-go did not thrill me, so I bought into a 3-table sit-n-go ($5+0.50). In the second orbit, I was dealt AKs and the LAG to my left raised and another guy re-raised all-in... so I folded. One of them had AA, so it was a good fold. The very next hand, I was dealt KK. I made a big re-raise, but the orginal better called with T9s. I pushed all-in with I got a flop of 7 8 J. Oops. So, I placed 27th out of 27.

I immediately bought into a 2-table sit-n-go ($10+1). The people at this table were very grumpy and yelling at each other almost continuously. Anyway, I played very tight for a long time, in part because the guy to my immediate right was VERY aggressive and he was pushing hard with virtually any pocket pair. He was seriously catching cards early and had a HUGE chip lead. My game plan was to patiently wait for good hands until the blinds got big enough to be meaningful. Eventually, the overly-aggressive player to my right busted out fifth when he pushed hard with two consecutive hands and lost. That put me in the money. After that, I picked my spots to steal blinds and pressure the smaller stacks.

When it came down to 3-handed, I had about the same stack as one guy but the leader had 3 times as much as either of us. I eventually got about twice his chip stack when the final hand happened. The small stack pushed all-in from the button. I woke up with two tens in the small blind, so I pushed all-in. The big blind (chip leader) made a big mistake (in my opinion) and called with KQo. The small stack flipped over QT and he was drawing pretty thin. Unfortunately for me, a king spiked on the turn and it was over. I took down second place though, which was good for $54 (minus the $16.50 that I spent in entry fees, this was still a nice win).

While playing these tourneys, I grinded away happily at limit hold em. I played maybe 150 hands and I won $10 or so. Not great, but better than 3 big bets per 100 hands.

So after all of that, I decided to play a 4-way heads up tournament. That was a big mistake. I think that I am a good heads up player, but the structure was way too slow for what little patience I had left. I essentially donated my entry fee.

Perhaps because I was brain dead, or simply I was feeling confident about my game, I then decided to buy into a 6-max $1/$2 limit hold em game. I won a nice pot in my hand when I flopped top pair and I got called to the river by ace high. It was a great table that had four very weak players at it. I also caught some cards and eventually won $25 or so. For the night, I won $70 or so, which is fantastic considering the stakes that I was playing and the $5.25 donation that I made to that heads up tournament. My Poker Stars bankroll is now just above $215 and I am about half-way to my $120 bonus.