Saturdays With Dr. Pauly

Not sure where this ranks, but it sure was a lot of fun!

PokerStars Tournament #181421287, Pot Limit Omaha
Buy-In: $10.00/$1.00
48 players
Total Prize Pool: $480.00
Tournament started 2009/07/25 16:20:00 ET
Tournament finished 2009/07/25 18:58:35 ET
 2: DrChako (Federal Way), $96.00 (20%)

Wrong Site, Right Result

I am doing this challenge on Full Tilt.

Maybe I should have picked BoDog.

I played in their nightly $500 freeroll tonight, which tonight had 3,876 people registered.

Top 63 paid out. Squeaked in as a short stack.

How about a final table? OK. Again, squeaked in as a short stack.

How about taking it all down? Well, I knocked out four people in a row at the final table, but started getting hit by the suckout train myself and ended up in 2nd for $75.00.

Within five minutes at the final table, I made:

A seven-high straight to take out pocket Kings and pocket eights
KQ knocks out player with A9
JJ knocks out player with AK
82 offsuit (in the BB and player all in on ante) takes out player with Q8
AK knocks out player with QQ

This got us to heads up, and me with a 5:1 chip lead which I promptly blew with hands like A5 losing to QJ, folding to a turned flush, K2 losing to A2, KQ losing to A9, and finally AK losing to Q8.

Considering how much lucksacking I did to get to 2nd, I can't complain too much.

Off to bed, and taking the kids to Stone Mountain tomorrow.

Too bad this wouldn't count towards the challenge or prop bet - 2nd of 3876 would be 0.052% and probably take the lead by a whole lot on the donkey-slayer prop bet. Since my balance was at the magic amount of $0.00 on BoDog, it's better than a sharp stick in the eye.

At least, I'm assuming it doesn't. I've made an ass out of you and me before, so if I'm incorrect in my assumption I'd love to find out.

I guess it came out $15 an hour.

It'll do.

Now, sleep.

Tiltlessness

Been playing a few of the $3+.30 90 deep turbo KO sngs lately. I can't even believe how bad the play is on these things. There is absolutely NO poker going on... everyone is so in love with the KOs that they will shove at the slightest provocation. 

Donkey heaven. I'm in my element. I am King Donkey. I'm the donkey the other donkeys look to for advice. Buy high, sell low. That's not herpes, don't bother seeing a doctor. You do look kind of fat in those pants, darling.

I can take these things. Easy strategy. Don't go for the KO just for the sake of the stupid 50¢, play tight, get them to gift you their chips, go for the win.

The problem with bad play is it's infectious. After 2 hours of mouth breathers shoving with the worst possible hands and winning, you start to think that it's a good idea. That's my excuse anyway. Really, I pretty much just suck. Hard. Awful play. What the hell was I thinking play. Who the f hit my all in button, I'm gonna kill him. And I wish I could say it only happened once.

I'm 3rd in chips with 32k (leader has 36k). We're on the bubble. 10 left, 9 pay. I can sit back and wait for the shorties to bust, then take out the rest on the FT. No problem. It folds to me in the SB, I raise to 7500 with Q8o. I would very much like the BB to go away so I can take his 2700. The douche flats. WTF. He has 14k behind. You know where this idiocy is going... I'm out of position with weakass cards against a station that flats 1/3 of his stack in the BB and isn't folding his very obvious Ax.... I flop my 8 on 68Ar. 

Luckily my finely honed poker sense allows me to shove all of my chips in virtually assuring I will bubble this thing.

I'm now down to 10k. Shortie is down to 2k, less than 1BB. I can fold to the $$, but that's not how I roll. I'm a steamroller. I can roll over bullets, baby! I roll off the barstool into my own pool of sick. I roll bums for fun and profit.

I have J9o on the button. Pure gold! You suckers are in for it now!

Let me take a moment to talk about tilt. I read the Tommy Angelo book. I don't tilt. 

So when I put my fist through the dog, that wasn't tilt. When I pummeled the dog through my wife that wasn't tilt. When I put them both in a blender, that wasn't tilt it was breakfast, shame to waste a good energy drink. When steam came pouring out of my ears making a whistling sound, that wasn't tilt (just good comedy). When I tickled the Guinea pig... ummm... what was I talking about?

Oh yeah. Tilt. I don't do it. Got it?

It took every ounce of will to not throw my laptop across the room. I mean, come on. I cost myself at least $2 in profit in that spot. I can keep these things in perspective. It takes at least a $3 loss to smash a $4000 computer. 

I ripped apart my ipod headphones instead. 

*Martha Stewart moment: 

Ipod headphones make a lovely noose or garrote that will fit over just about any Guinea pig neck. Try it at your child's next birthday party and really surprise her!

I immediately logged into a $5 sng. It's always a good idea to get right back on that horse after learning a valuable lesson.

That's when the internet connection went down.

good grief

Just so you all know, I am playing the worst excuse for poker that anyone has ever seen. I swear, I played better when I did not know what I was doing.

So me coming in last is pretty much a dead lock. You can thank me later.

New big score!!!

Highlighted name is the most important.

Betting: One Month Remains

It is technically the halfway point in our summer challenge, although I know we didn't get started right on the 20th of June. I do know that we've only got one month left!

Here are the current bets, and what people have reported. If you see any mistakes, let me know. Also, many of the bets have not been reported, which is fine--this is just a reminder of which bets are on the line.

1) Most gained as a % of bankroll from beginning to end of challenge ($10 into pool, winner take all)

MHG
Dr. Chako
Blaargh!  (-26% as of 7/20/09 cruuuuuuud!)
Aposec72 (-42% as of 7/21/09)
Katitude

Note: unsure if anyone is positive???

2) Largest score ($5 into pool, winner take all)

MHG (15.75 - 7/29/09)
Dr. Chako ($96, damn doctors)
Blaargh! ($1.50)  ($21.50 - 2nd twice in $5.50 sngs - that's pretty pathetic that that's my biggest score this month btw...)

Aposec72 ($7.95) ($13) ** Aposec - is this with the buy-in subtracted?
Katitude

3) Slayer of Donkeys ($5 into pool, smallest fraction: finish place / # of entrants)

MHG (4.03%)
Blaargh! (2.76%)
Dr. Chako (1.11%)
Aposec72 (0.052%, wtf!)

4) Funniest post on this blog (Losers post an entry bowing down to the winner, to be voted on secretly by participants)

MHG (outclassed)
Blaargh! (Mauled by bear picture was good)
Dr. Chako (Winning with only funny-centered post yet, sure to change soon)

5) Katitude / MHG horse bet (Vanity picture on motorcycle)

Katitude has Dr. Chako (shaking in her boots)
MHG has Cindilicious (liking my chances!)

We'll settle all of these bets at after August 20th!

Blaargh edit: Anyone else that wants to update with current results just click the pencil icon below... OK with you MHG?

((making updates 7/29/09--MHG))

My Turn!

DQB!!!

Sick Beat

I'm glad I watched this one from the sidelines. This is the 2nd worst beat I've ever seen.

SHUT OUT!!!

Rearranged my day so I could squeak into the record breaker - just got back from dropping off my kid on a play date, and my wife is gallery hopping. Jump on FT with 10 mins to spare.... and reg is closed with the entire waiting list full. This is day 1D all over again! 

I'm assuming FT can't handle more than 50k, but it's too bad- it looks like they had a lot more interest then they expected.

Guess I'll have to rail MHG, it looks like Kat didn't make it in either.

Good luck!

I will fight on...

I started this challenge with visions of bankroll busting side action. You know, the field was soft and I had the edge. Patience and perseverance.

I forgot to do one thing...line up the bets. D'oh!

Ok, I didn't forget, what I did do was embark on the absolutely busiest summer of my life. It took me 40 years to get to this point but damn. The beginning of summer seems like a lifetime ago.

The highlights of the Summer Bankroll Challenge:

1. The Mrs and one of my best friends had conspired to take me to St. Louis to watch the best baseball team in the world, the Minnesota Twins.

2. Same buddy and I get the families together the next weekend and attempt a tasty pig roast. Pig was tasty and no one was hungry. (Another weekend shot)

3. While all of this was going on, I work on a team of 3 software engineers. One of them, his wife had a baby and he began 2 weeks of paternity leave. The other, went on vacation at the same time. Sigh.

4. The Mrs and I went on the "Weekend of Rock" tour and partied like it was 1999. Man was that a blast! But one of the secrets to good bankroll management is to not take the bankroll out for a stroll while partying like it's 1999. Son of Julius Goat! There goes another damn weekend.

5. This weekend. Turned 40. Plans galore. I miss my bankroll and the virtual felt.

So, anyone still want a piece of me? I may actually play some poker here in the next few weeks. No guarantees, but it could happen. Near as I can tell, I'm up about 3% since the beginning and all I've been doing is grinding out low stakes hold 'em and razz cash games when I have a few minutes to do it.

Sigh...this summer thing is a lot of work!

Going deep but not much upside

I opened Full Tilt for the first time in two days to do two itty-bitty buyin tourneys for deep runs.

Exhibit A: the 5 FPP donkaments that are running through tomorrow.

Full Tilt Poker Tournament #99604464 $5,000 Guarantee NL Hold'em
Buy-In: $0.00
12423 players
Total Prize Pool: $5000.00
Start Date: July 19 12:05 AM ET

You finished the tournament in 1454th place.
There has been $0.50 added to your account.

Not as deep as I'd like.

Exhibit B: a $3.00 + $0.30 MTT KO, I started at the same time. Halfway through, I vaulted near the top with quad kings on the river (DQB!) so this was an OK run through 815 people - my best "donkey-slayer" finish so far but requiring a finish of at least making the final table to take the lead in this prop bet.

Sadly, no: 2.67%.

Full Tilt Poker Tournament #99561091 $3 + $0.30 Knockout NL Hold'em
Buy-In: $3.00 + $0.30
815 players
Total Prize Pool: $2445.00
Start Date: July 18 11:20 PM ET

You finished the tournament in 22nd place.
There has been $7.95 added to your account.

At least I got a few knockouts along the way as well.

Are You Serious (the Razz Edition)?!

I actually won this hand in Razz:


J-10-9-8-6, in a 3-way, baby. Beat that!

Getting close Doc!

Saw that this thing was registering in the chat box, entered on a whim. Not a good idea to enter a 13,000 person tourney at 11:00 at night, when you've been drinking wine. Table I was at was surprisingly tight (not necessarily good, but I'm used to tables full of auto shovers on freeroll donkaments). A couple hours into it I fell asleep. Woke up with a start, was at a completely different table with about 15k chips (average). About 2 hands later I get AA (wake up in the BB with AA, literally) and triple up. Ride my 50k stack for a while, but I couldn't keep my eyes open (it was somehere in the 3-4am range). Folds to my 77 in MP, I shove my whole stack in hoping to get the heck out of this thing so I can get some sleep, and my wish is granted when SB calls with JJ. I probably should have just shut down and let the 50k ride, but I thought that might be a little unfair to the challenge...

So how do I figure out what the percentage is for 364/13,206?

My hand of the night.... unfortunately the dude was short stacked - he aid off with a Q.

As for the Record Breaker... I'm not sure if I'll be able to make it, but if I can, I'm definitely in for the prop. Especially the drink/hr part :)

The Record Breaker

$5 tourney with a $500,000 guaranteed pool on Full Tilt Sunday. I found Kat in a turbo SNG and we're thinking about adding a last-longer side bet, with the rule stipulation that you also have to drink one alcoholic beverage per hour (minimum).

$5, winner take all side-bet pool???

Something I was forcibly reminded of last night

I do not do well in MTT's.

I signed up for a 3k LHE guarantee last night. That's right; limit hold 'em. I was in the top 20 for the first hour. And then...I got bored. I dropped a huge pot when pocket 9's failed against an obvious flush (duh), and then proceeded to raise at every single opportunity until I was out 3 hands later.

Then I played 3 of the $3 super turbo 300 chip crack games and made money in each of them.

Gee....d'ya think I have a short attention span or something?

Now is this impressive, or what?

This screen shot* shows an impressive total, considering that my last screen shot showed a balance of fifty-two cents.

*This screen shot also represents my $50/month from Full Tilt, and a recent sale of ad space on the blog for $360. But sshhh...let me bask in the total a while.

110th out of 9898

Am I the only one competing in this category?! I think this one will be tough to beat:


And just in case there was any doubt, this wasn't play money:


That's 1.11%, for those keeping score at home.

Flopped a set!

Money went in on turn, can't blame him, but grrarrwerff!

UGH.

I'm having a tough time with 25 NL. I'm getting my $$ in good for the most part, getting sucked out on a ton, but I obviously have some glaring leaks I need to find and fix. I'm doing well in the 18 man sngs, so maybe I'll stick with those and a few MTTs for a bit, until I can figure out wtf is going on with my cash game.

I'm def getting hammered in this challenge.

My account is now at 605.84, down 25%. Like I said in the title... UGH!

DQB

I love this screen cap because:

1. It shows my quads
2. It's got a great chat by morons lamenting the days of Party Poker

Bout Time

I've been getting kicked in the junk with great hands so much lately that I've started playing with an ice bag between my legs. So it's nice when something like this comes along to remind me that variance breaks both ways.

Live Blogging the Daily Dollar

Perhaps a submission in the humor category?

5:00pm Well, I finally got home early enough to sign up. Registered and ready. Now it's time to get some snacks, a cool beverage and get comfortable. The kids aren't home yet, so it's nice and peaceful. I begin with my normal ritual of quiet meditation while surfing porn looking at pictures of butterflies.

5:15pm The tournament begins without me, which is fine. I'm sort of a PokerBrat that way. Without the high-rent models and Caesar costume, of course. I still have the ego, though.

5:16pm Check the hand history to see what I missed. AA on the second hand, dammit. Probably would have lost anyway. Shit, it would have been Aces full on the turn. Dammit dammit dammit.

5:18pm Ok, back to my happy place. Think of the butterflies.

5:31pm I've folded every hand for two rounds. Why wasn't I here for those Aces?!

5:45pm I have a hand! As-5s. I raise 3x and get 5 callers. FIVE friggin' callers, dammit! Flop is 6d-7d-8c. I'm good enough to fold the idiot end of the straight when there is a flush draw out there.

5:46pm Wrong. I called a smallish bet only to get raised by the button and re-raised all-in by the BB. Why did I flush away 200 chips on this damn hand?

5:47pm Winner? K-7 off-suit. Butterflies...

6:00pm "We're home, Daddy!" It's the kids.

Dr. Chako: Give me quick hugs. Daddy's... working.

Son #1: No you're not. You're playing poker online again.

Son #2: Yeah, Dad. That's not work.

Dr. Chako: Hush! I have to do this to win a bet.

Son #1: Did you just call a bet with a 7 and a 9? That's not a very good hand, you know...

Dr. Chako: Go watch Sponge Bob!

Son #2: This is for play money, right Daddy?

Dr. Chako: . . . yes.

Son #2: You sure get excited about play money.

Dr. Chako: Did I not tell you to go watch TV?

Son #1: This is better.

6:15pm It's after the 1st break and I'm a little above average. The kids have grown bored of watching Daddy fold a lot and have drifted away. I pick up AK twice and win both times when I bet the pot on the flop. Both times with air. What are these morons calling with?

6:35pm 10-10 in late position. 4 limpers in front and I raise pot. Every damn one of these lemurs calls. Flop? A K Q. Buh-by 10s.

6:45pm I call a LAG raise with AQ. Flop is Q-J-x. I start to drool.

Son #2: Daddy, can I have a juice bag?

Dr. Chako (not looking away from monitor): Sure kid. Whatever.

Son #1: Dad, can my buddy sleep over tonight.

Dr. Chako: Sure, whatev... Wait. What? Sleepover?

At this point, I turn away from the monitor to look at son #1.

Dr. Chako: It's probably okay, but you kids...

BING! It's my turn to act

He checked. I check behind without thinking much about it

Dr. Chako (turning back to son #1): you kids better not be banging around all night and keeping me up. I have to ...

BING!!

Dr. Chako: He pushed? Pushed?! What? Um... I think... Wait, who bet the flop?

Son #1: Thanks Dad!

Dr. Chako: Thanks? Huh? Wait! Son! Um.. I call. He has Q-2. There's a 2 on the turn. FUCK!

Son #2: Daddy?

Dr. Chako: Go away! Don't repeat that!

Son #2: Repeat what, Daddy?

Dr. Chako: Nevermind. Just... go back and watch TV.

Son #2 (walking away): Did you hear what Daddy said? He sure gets excited about play money.

Yeah, next time I'm just gonna wait until they're asleep.

Rolled Up in Razz 2

I don't play much stud, but I've never seen this when it counted.

The very next hand I make a sick call on the river based on a good read and pot odds.
9 8 goot!

Trying to win #3

Well, let's see if I can contend with all the other good finishes for #3.

Playing a $3 6-max double-stack MTT with 587 people and I've faded a couple hundred so far in about a half hour, so let's see how deep we can go. Looks like I'd need to finish 15th to take over the lead.

Here's hoping for a late night.

UPDATE: No, I don't think 281 of 587 will be good enough.

At least I'm still break-even-ish...for now.

UPDATE #2: No I'm not, after getting junk-kicked twice for a stacking

If You're Gonna Lose...

Might as well be like this. I really hate suckouts, but this one made me smile.


FYI - this is the new screen for "Last Hand" on FT. It's interactive, meaning you can actually watch the whole hand as it unfolds (not in my screencap, but in the actual program). It didn't work at first, but when I shut down and restarted the program it worked fine. Pretty cool, actually. - DrC

Non drunk poker rocks!

a little better tonight.... had a bunch of stations at both of my tables... that always helps :)

4 more BI and I'm back to even! whoohoo!

PATHETIC START

I'm vying with kat for the biggest percentage loss contest. Why aren't we putting bets on that?

This is from the start:

... and below was just last night. 

Spent the night driving from the smokey mountains. I got back to NYC at about noon after no sleep, went to work, went out to see a friend play at a nearby bar, didn't eat, drank myself silly - and decided that it was a PERFECT time to play poker. I don't even remember any of the hands I played (I do recall getting AA cracked by a donkey with QTo), but from the looks of the graph, I wasn't doing too well in the showdown dept.

The camping trip, however was great. I watched this d-bag almost get mauled by a bear when he walked right up to it, put his camera in the bear's face, and started taking flash pictures. WTF are you frigging idiots thinking??? The bear was pretty small, but def coulda done some decent damage, and he was pissed. He took a few swats at the dude, but braniac got away unscathed, unfortunately. Wouldn't want my daughter to see it, but man did the dude deserve a few stitches... or missing arm... or a punch to the spleen... I'm pretty sure that guy plays razz tourneys.

xxxooo - BLAARGH!

15/567 for Dr. Chako

Beat that!

By my calculations, that's 2.646%

Easily Beat

36th of 893 works itself out to 4.03%

The best part had to be chatting along with Dr. Chako while we were both deep in tournies. I got knocked out before him, and he did the math that he needed to finish 12th or better to beat my 4.03%. He finished 13th after a 2-outer to keep a different short-stack alive, and a 4-outer to save another person from elimination.

I think the winner of this challenge #3 will have a percent under 1%.

1st Two Hands

So, I'm playing the 3 + .30 knockout tournament on FT. There are 848 runners. I registered late.

Here are my first two hands.

Hand #1: Hugh raises pot in MP with 9-10 off (moron). I call from the small blind with Ah-Jh and the big blind comes along. Look at this action flop, fer cryin' out loud! I have a good open-ender and check. BB checks the nuts with a draw to the flush. Hugh, the original raiser, flops 2 pair and bets pot. I have no idea where I'm at and should fold, but I call. BB now pushes, Hugh insta-calls, and I'm forced to muck.

Turn improves BB from a straight to a flush. The river? Hugh hits a 4-outer for his full house.


Hand #2: Limped pot, so I see a cheap flop with Ad-5d. I lead out on the flop to see if my Ace is good (they all limped, after all). Solid raise from A-10, re-raise from the suited Negreanu, insta-call from the button with his 2 pair and once again I muck. Straight and flush both get there on the river.



How I'm still alive is anyone's guess. I hope to go deeper than yesterday where I pulled within a hair of beating MHG for the deepest run.

Edit: Hand #3 and it's all over. I made the hero call on the push from my earlier nemesis Hugh. Brilliant, right? Runner-runner flush and IGHN.


I believe I hear a glass of Warre's Warrior Port calling my name.

Edit #2: So sue me. As I was typing the post I busted out so I didn't edit properly. In hand #1, BB technically flopped the 2nd nuts. And in hand #2, there was no straight. Don't you people have better things to worry about?!

13th of 308

One more place and I would have gotten a higher % than MHG. Oh well, there's still time.

Matrix?

All right, smart guy. In bet #3, how would you score this? Is it 5 separate tournaments? Is it only one? Do I have to use trigonometry to solve this? What is the square root of pi?

Bets

Here are the current bets, as far as I know. If you see any mistakes, or would like to add bets to this list, or your name to these bets, drop a comment. I'll set a date of July 15th to make up your minds on whether you want to be in or out for these bets, and I'll shoot out a few reminders.

1) Most gained as a % of bankroll from beginning to end of challenge ($10 into pool, winner take all)

MHG
Dr. Chako
Blaargh!
Aposec72
Katitude

2) Largest score ($5 into pool, winner take all)

MHG
Dr. Chako
Blaargh!
Aposec72
Katitude

3) Slayer of Donkeys ($5 into pool, smallest fraction: finish place / # of entrants)

MHG
Blaargh!
Dr. Chako

4) Funniest post on this blog (Losers post an entry bowing down to the winner, to be voted on secretly by participants)

MHG
Blaargh!
Dr. Chako

5) Dr. Chako / MHG betting the horses ($5, we'll talk about this bet Dr. C)

MHG
Dr. Chako

6) Katitude / MHG horse bet (Vanity picture on motorcycle)

Katitude has Dr. Chako
MHG has Cindilicious

3rd place

Lost to a 4 outer.

Still, pretty happy with the result.

I'm a Douche!!!

Chat:

Dealer: drchako1 has won a $0.50 knockout bounty for eliminating Ms Pocket P
Dealer: Ms Pocket P finishes in 12th place
Ms Pocket P (Observer): what a douche
Ms Pocket P (Observer): 5 6 of crap is all i saw
Ms Pocket P (Observer): that got lucky

I Don't Know That I'll Win...

but this sure is a welcome change:

OhCaptain - about a week

Here it is. One week. A few days into this rascal, my wife threw me a curve ball...you know, the good kind.

Having spent the weekend enjoying the comforts of the Motel 6 by the airport (actually spending most of our time at or extremely near Busch Stadium), I didn't really play a lot of poker.

I'm not sure about you, but I have zero trust in hotel Internet and thus didn't want to just flush good bankroll challenge moolah down the toilet. Small stakes for me! I spent what little time I had grinding it out on the $.10/.20 LHE tables.

By the looks of it, I should be hitting the razz games...well see.

BTW - Now that I'm no longer roadtripping by surprise, who am I up against? What we playin' for? Is this thing on?

Katitude, week one

You know, it doesn't sound so bad when I say I have lost six dollars and twenty-two cents in the first week of this Summer Bankroll Challenge.

WAY better than saying I'm down about 92%.

In other news, guess who's going to be reloading soon?

Self-Induced Torture

Since it seems everyone else knows, I'll go ahead and say it as well. I'm also using the low-limit Razz tables and low-limit Stud/8 tables to try and do a little bit of building up.

However, one tournament I've been playing regularly has been the 9:45 PM $5 Razz MTT. Yes, we're combining the exquisite fun of Razz to the pleasure ride of a tournament, for wonderful times!

This is another one of those smaller MTT's where the players are so bad that you can just sit back and wait, wait, wait - even in this stud tournament. I played it last night and I don't think I played more than 20% of the hands to even fourth street, but I still managed to finish 10th of 116. I ran terribly the whole way, didn't play many hands, and still managed to cash. Even though it's only for a few dollars, it's still something.

Too bad I couldn't get away with eking into a small cash this weekend at the Venetian when I went out in 408th of 778. Boo.....