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Busted in 1500 Shootout

Date: Tue, Jun 10, 2008 Tournament Internet Professional

Michael "the grinder" Mizrachi once again proves that live pros love to donk around basically we started with 3k chips, big blind 50. So not too much room to work with. With big blind 100 I raised from the high jack with 67 spades to 275, and I had 2500 chips total, and Mizrachi called out of the small blind and the big blind called. The flop was J24 with two spades. It checked around. The turn was a red 6, they checked to me and I bet 525, Mizrachi shoved and I called and Mizrachi had J2.....Obviously I don't hit a 6 or a spade and I lose. Don't ask me to defend his play, calling a raise with J2 out of the small blind when the person raising has just raised over a tenth his stack is absolutely horrible. It is just awful poker anyway you look at it. But I wasn't very suprised, these guys are almost all backed (playing with other peoples money) and therefor just play horribly. Tomorrow is the 1500 Pot Limit Omaha tournament, it should be fun.

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ITM in Event 17, $1500 Shootout

Date: Tue, Jun 10, 2008 Tournament Internet Professional

really easy first table, structure of 2nd table sucked I was looking forward to today's event because it's basically just an SNG, which I've played a few of. My first table was pretty soft, with only one internet player and Annie Duke. Luckily this horrible guy was on my immediate right, and I doubled through him with KK v A7s for 8000 chips (3000 starting chips). Because it's a winner take all tourney, people seem to adjust horribly. By the time we got down to 5 handed, I raised KQs to 800 with bb300 a25. The button shoved 2200 total chips with K9s, which is just awful with no folding equity considering I was getting about 3-1 on the call. Eventually I got up to 9k chips and won a flip with AT vs 22 against Annie Duke for ~6000 chips, giving me 15k total (1/2 the chips in play). Somehow the horrible player busted the 3rd player and we got it heads up with him having a 2-1 chip lead. This player was literally one of the worst live players I've ever played against. He was so bad that with bb200 I would raise or limp top 30% of hands UTG just so I could get in a pot with him. He also seemed to never play a pot against Annie Duke, or ever raise her blinds for some reason. Considering he was playing about 50% of hands in the first two levels, this was pretty weird. Anyways, when we got it heads up, he would just massively overbet every pot. The standard situation would go something like this: I complete from the SB bb300 with 25 ante and 12k chips total, he shoves. He probably did this 35% of the time. When he would check his option, he would then open shove the flop ~35% of the time, so he was getting it all in for 10x pot about half the time. The other amazing thing was that he would then OPEN FOLD FROM THE SMALL BLIND OVER 50% of the time. It was the weirdest thing I've ever witnessed heads up. At the beginning, I had 10k chips to his 20k. I opened 77 to 800 preflop and the guy shoved, so I quickly called because he was crazy. He ended up having A8, which is fine of course, but really unlucky to get it in as a flip against a horrible guy. I got lucky and won the flip, giving me a 2-1 chip lead. After this he grinded himself down to ~6k chips to my 24k. He kept just open shoving the flop but I never flopped anything so I had to just keep folding for about 45 minutes. Luckily with him folding his SB most of the time, he could never get up over 8k chips. The final hand went like this, I complete Q8o bb400, he checks with 8k chips. The flop came QT3. He checked and I checked. The turn was a 5 of diamonds, bringing two diamonds on the board. He checked and I bet 400, hoping he would just shove or something dumb. He called and the river was a black Ten. He shoved the river for 7k or so into a pot of 1600. I thought for a minute but realized he would've probably shoved the flop or turn with a Ten, so I called and he showed J4s of diamonds for a missed flush draw. It was pretty satisfying to just wait patiently and inevitably stack him, instead of making a thin call with mid pair or something like that. After this there was a 3 hour break before the 2nd round. When the 2nd round started, we got 30k chips with bb600 and a 100 ante. This makes the effective blinds 600/1200, giving us 28 big blinds, which is extremely short for the first level of a tournament. I got up to 48k pretty early with QQ then got reraised a few times down to 36k or so. With the blinds so high, you have to play very aggressively, as the pot preflop was 1900, and the standard opening raise is usually 1800 at that level. This means you can raise to 1900 and only have to take it down 1/2 the time to be extremely profitable. This also means that you have to call raises out of the blinds a ton, because you're getting 3-1 or so preflop. With everyone raising really wide, it would open up the flop/turn/river calling ranges because people's hands would be generally much weaker than when raising ranges are tight. For example people make much stronger hands postflop at a full ring table than a heads up table because they are raising 5% of hands instead of 50%. With bb800 and 100 ante, I opened the button to 2200 with Q9o. The big blind called and the flop came Q87 with 2 diamonds. He checked and I bet 4500. He check raised to 11000, which I thought he could be doing with a diamond draw, open ended straight draw, or just a hand like 98. Considering I had a fairly aggressive image, and had already continuation bet a flop and folded to a reraise, I basically had to shove over him. He thought for a few minutes and even did the "fake putting in chips to gauge my reaction" move, which is classy. Luckily I didn't give off any tells to that bush league move. Eventually he called and had KQ, busting me. I'm not really that upset as I played pretty well I thought. It sucked to get it in that far behind, but there's really nothing you can do with 20bb effective in a winner take all structure except get it in when you flop top pair and hope you're good. Although I liked the fact that there were large antes in the 2nd round, because people generally don't raise wide enough with antes, it sucked that you only got <30bb to start, whereas we got 60bb to start the first table. Oh well. Tomorrow I have the $1500 PLO event which should be really soft. Starting with 60bb I'll probably have to just pick one hand and go with it because PLO is such an action game and people just get it in all the time.

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Update!

Date: Mon, Jun 9, 2008 Tournament Internet Professional

In Vegas So I'm in Vegas at the house with the icons, bustoing WSOP events. I'm 0/3 so far, despite getting to top 20 % of field each time, but losing a big race/cooler to bust just before the money. In my last event, the Saturday $2500, I made it to day 2, but finished like 133/1500, which is kinda irritating cuz it was top 10 % of the field, but the tourney only paid 99 spots. I really want to cash in my first live tournament. (Yes, stalker, I am 0 for life.) Since I last blogged I've had some decent scores, most notably 5th in the 1k million for 61k. I lost a giant flip for about 140k in equity which sucked. I'm been playing lots of cash, some tournies, and bought a house in Saint Paul, which is really nice. It's nice to be back blogging on my favorite instructional poker website: sngicons.com Good luck to z32 who is playing the 2nd table of the 1500 shootout as I write this. Hopefully he can win his 2nd table and final table this. Mcshove

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Grinding, Vegas, My Two Cents and the Gravy Icon

Date: Mon, Jun 9, 2008 Tournament Internet Professional

I need to stay focused. I get bored too easily. My roommates laugh at me because I come up with a new scheme every day. One day I'll decide to play 45 mans. The next I'll try to figure out how much I could make at 9 mans. Then I'll try to play cash. Right now I'm trying to focus on playing 45s and 180s hard for the rest of the month. That's seems to be my best game. If I make decent money this month, I'm going to go to Vegas for a week next month with Basquiatcase and drive Bones's car back. It will mostly be a working vacation. I want to see Vegas a little and meet new people while getting more experience playing live. I've been through Vegas several times, but I've only stopped at the truck stops, so it's like I've never really been to Vegas. Last night I blew the last $22 in my FT account. I was annoyed that poker sites always keep $0.02 in your account and don't let you use it so I sent them an email. I want access to the remaining $0.02 in my account. Either send me a check or let me use it in a game. Wickss Hello Chad, Thank you for contacting Full Tilt Poker Support. Unfortunately, we will be unable to issue a check for the remaining balance in your account. At this time, I suggest creating a payment processor account to withdraw your funds. However, this option in the long run will cost more and simply not worth it for 2 cents. If there's anything else we can help you with, please feel free to ask. Best of luck at the tables! Regards, Andrew T Full Tilt Poker Support Last night, I was in a 1/2 mixed game with Bones, Basquiatcase, and MadScientist. Bones was wearing a sngicons hat. One guy asked him, "what is sngicons?" Bones said, "It's a friends website." "Do they have icons there?" "Yeah" "Like icons you can download to your computer?" "Yeah" Basquiatcase goes, "I need to download the Gravy icon to my computer." That's my new scheme. I need to get the Gravy icon.

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Busto in 2.5k nlhe event 1.5k shootout tomorrow

Date: Mon, Jun 9, 2008 Tournament Internet Professional

cmon now So I got knocked out of the 2.5k event yesterday after building a pretty nice stack then getting crippled when I lost AJ all in pf too J10. I then built my stack back up when a fish from the CO raises with 20bbs I shove Ak from the sb with 20bbs and he tanks and calls with j9o llloool then hits a jack on the turn. It's funny because when someone sucks out on me online I could care less, just x out of the window... but live it's different. You have the walk of shame through the poker room then have to get a 20 dollar cab ride home. Along the way the cab drivers for some reason allllways tell me their "strategy" and I'm way too nice to say that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard so I sit there and nod my head for 20 minuites in pain. Other then rigged live tourneys so far, life has been good. Costa Rica was probably the most amazing place I've been too and I'm thinking about getting a condo there and renting it out. Vegas has been really fun and meeting alot of great players. I've also been teaching my lil bro how to play poker and here are his stats so far. Don't want to give out his name because I don't want everyone calling his shoves crazy loose just yet. Games played: 1,172 Avg stake: $10 Roi:25% Total profit: $3,297 Also, bonus pic of me unknowingly I am about to get pwned by j9o guy. Blurry across the middle but it'll do.

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lots of life stuff

Date: Sun, Jun 8, 2008 Tournament Internet Professional

good We have been getting ready to pack up and move a few of our things from Vegas to Florida when I realized I had a few things to buy. I had been looking at getting a tempur-pedic bed for a long time and finally decided now was the time. I found a nice big king size matress at brookstone for 15% off so I took the plunge. Katy and I also went to bed bath and beyond and basically registered for a wedding and scanned $3000 worth of random stuff. After I caught my dogs cold Katy caught the cold from me and has finally recovered, which is good because she takes care of me. WSOP has been going pretty poor, I have yet to make it out of the super shallow stacked early levels, with a few exceptions. There really isnt much to say except I havent been winning any hands. Hopefully it will change soon. I'm also considering making a new site for myself. Sngicons is more of a group effort training site, where is I would like my site to be more personal. The site will probably start with blogs, photos and news, then maybe expand to eBooks, videos and whatever else I can think of. EDIT: I am not engaged yet.

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In Vegas

Date: Sun, Jun 8, 2008 Tournament Internet Professional

Live poker ftw After the pacific coast of Costa Rica me and Gravytrain continued our adventure flying directly into Vegas. We spent the first two nights at the palms which was a great time. So far I've played the Bellagio 1k and Venetian 540 deepstack. Both were super soft but my AA is 0 for 3 live so gg's me. Monday is the $1500 shootout and will be my first wsop event. I'm looking forward to it and hopefully can make at least one live cash while I'm here. Also I got 2nd in a random 100+9 on stars for $5700 which was nice. I've been slacking with the online play but am defiantly trying to get in a good amount of live while in Vegas.

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Busto, busto, and busto again

Date: Sat, Jun 7, 2008 Tournament Internet Professional

busted out of 3 events since last update Ok so I busted in the 10k mixed in the second level of day 2. Ironically I busted in Stud hi/low round, probably my best game. I was drawing to a low in a huge 4 way pot and missed, made two pair but it was no good. I think Tom Dwon final tabled it, so good luck to him. Also Shannon Shorr final tabled one of the smaller NLH events, hopefully he'll win that as he was been running bad recently. Also Andrew (Good2cu) got 3rd in the 5k mixed, so congrats to him. I played the 5pm Omaha/Stud Hi/Low split tournament after i busted in the 10k Mixed. I completely ran over my table during the first hour, winning probably over 50% of hands, and getting my stack from 5k to 10k, which is just ridiculous in a limit event. I pretty much just folded alot during the Omaha hi/low round as its not my strongest game, and just wrecked people in the Stud 8 round. Unfortunately, I split 2 key pots when the blinds were at 200-400 (meaning you can bet 400 on the first two streets, and 800 on the last two) instead of scooping them. One where I started with A2455 versus 744K3, adn another hand which I was way ahead on, which really kind of stopped my momentum. Then I didn't get any cards for awhile and just went out uneventfully. Then today was the 5k shootout. My table featured Good2cu, Erik Lindgren (who just won the 5k mixed bracelet), Mattster24 (a sng player on party poker), some european pokerstars pro I didn't know. So it wasn't the easiest table. Good2cu played very aggressively, but luckily I was on his left so it didn't effect me too much. We started with 10k chips, and I got up to 18k right away after flopping a set on a guy. Then things just went awfully for a few hours and I got all the way down to 5k chips after losing every hand I played, even though I think I lost the minimum each time. Then I doubled up with JJ versus AT, and then won a big pot when I had A6 versus 89 on a A89 flop, so I got lucky there. Then I knocked out a guy when my A4 beat his KJ. So finally it was 4 handed, with myself, Good2cu, Mattster, and this older gentlemen who played pretty well but was too tight to win against this tough of competition without getting very lucky. The key hand was when Mattster raised to 1600, big blind 600, Good2cu shoved for around 6k or so, and I reshoved with 88 (I had about 26k at the time), Mattster thought for awhile and called all in for about 20k and flipped over AKo. Good2cu showed KQo so I was about a 45% favorite to scoop the whole pot and about a 60% favorite to win the massive sidepot against Mattster. Sadly an Ace flopped, and I was left with only ten big blinds. I then lost with KJ versus AT and that was that. Mattster and the older guy were playing heads up when I left, and I hope Mattster wins as he seemed like a nice enough guy. Anyway, there is a 2500 NLH tournament tomorrow which I guess I need to play. One good thing is that during the breaks in teh touranmetns I've been running over to the 50-100 Stud 8 game at the Rio and winning like 1k an hour, so tahts good.

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Busto in 4th in the 5k shootout

Date: Fri, Jun 6, 2008 Tournament Internet Professional

Sighhhh! Although with my edge I can only expect to win my first 5k shoot table about 16% of the time I feel really let down. My table draw was pretty difficult, it came down to Eric Seidel who's one of the best live tourney players in the world, Phil Galfond who's one of the best cash game players in the world, some Scandinavian guy who was really good and me who's one of the best sng players in the world. Redic. hard for a live table. Phil opened utg who was big stack and was opening very wide and at this point my table image was really tight so I restole with a4s in the sb with about 14 bb's and he called with 88 gg me. I had never played a live shootout before and it was pretty nerve wracking constantly shoving with bad hands into really good players. I talked to Phil later who said my a4s resteal was standard against his range so sometimes that's just the way it goes.

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$5,000 shootout tomorrow

Date: Fri, Jun 6, 2008 Tournament Internet Professional

onnne time! So tomorrow I will be taking the most +ev investment of my life and playin the 5k shootout against a bunch of players who have prob never played a sng before so my edge in this will be retarded. I havn't been playing too much online lately but on off days during the wsop I'm going to try to start grinding again and hoping to at least make 400k vpps this month. I had a pretty funny conversation with someone the other day who asked if i moved back to the $16's how much money I could make in a month and I said 20k. Everyone said I was crazy but it wouldn't be worth my time unless there was at least 50k in sidebets. I also would take a bet on making 40k at the 60's in a month or 70k playing any games. Last night I went to sweat good2cu who made the 5k mixed holdem final table which will be on espn. It was a crew of about 15 of us in his friends family section and basically everyone was wasted chanting his name and will prob look like idiots on espn but was an awsome time. He ended up coming in 3rd for around 165k and congrats to Robby Lipkin (playaplz) for coming in 4th in the 1500 pl holdem event for 67k. Good to see online friends already crushing fields and making final tables. Now time to make a final table for myself.

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more 2 outer fun

Date: Fri, Jun 6, 2008 Tournament Internet Professional

meh The tournaments get all muddled together, so I will just post what I remember. There was some nlhe event 2 days ago and I lost in like 30 hands. I flopped a set and a guy runner runner straighed against me and he couldnt even manage to get my whole stack. I then got JJ all in against AA for my last 15bbs. Today, I doubled up on the first hand of the $1500 6 max event. I had A4 in the bb, the utg guy limped and I checked. It came A54, I checked, he bet 125 and I made it 475, as he looked intrested in his hand and I thought he might go all the way with it and wanted to get money in. He called and the turn was a T. I bet 1000 and he snap called. The river was a 6 and I allllmost checked but we only had 1500 left and I thought he might call off with any A, which he apparently did. A few hands later I got AK all in against 88 and lost. The guy was saying "please let me win only one coin flip in this tournament." A few levels later, I raised 99, the same guy minraised me, which he had been doing with mid pairs, so I pushed and he snap called with 77 like it is the nuts. It came A7x and I was out. All in all, I am running awful, but that happens. If I run meh, I do well, so I guess I am happy with it all, as I cant really do much more. Hopefully I wont get 2 outered tomorrow.

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WSOP Updates

Date: Thu, Jun 5, 2008 Tournament Internet Professional

I've been playing constantly since my last blog, heres the update Basically I made Day 2 of the 5k Mixed Holdem. Got no cards, got QQ twice took down the blinds, was at a super hard table and busted in 60th. My table looked like this. Super tight donkey in seat one (He checked behind the nuts in Day 1). Andy Block in seat 2, Josh Ariah in seat 3, Andrew Black in seat 4, European online pro in seat 5, Me in Seat 6, Hassin Habib in seat 7, Pearljammer (who went into the day with the chiplead) in seat 8, online pro in seat 9. I entered the 10k Mixed event yesterday. It consists of 8 types of poker. 2-7 Triple Draw, Limit Holdem, Limit Omaha Hi/Lo , Razz, Stud, Stud Hi/Lo, No Limit Holdem, and Pot Limit Omaha. It is a really fun tournament because of you have to just be a sick all around poker player to win. Anyway, we started with 20k chips, and about halfway through the day I had gotten it up to around 55k before losing a 30k flip in No Limit Holdem to Amnon Phillipe. Then during the last level of the day I made a few bad plays, I think because I was just exhausted at that point (it was around 3AM) and finished the day at 30k chips. The average is around 42k, and there are 90 people left. One time lets run good and take this down. If somehow I bust in the first two hours of today I will play the Omaha/Stud Hi/Low event at 5pm today. If I bust afer that and don't final table I will play the 5k Shootout tomorrow. So anyway, I'm pretty happy that I have made day 2 of both of the tournaments I've played so far, and both with very hard fields. Lets hope I run good today.

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WSOP Update

Date: Wed, Jun 4, 2008 Tournament Internet Professional

A few smaller events so far I got into Vegas on Sunday afternoon and played events 3/5/7 so far. None of them went very well, but luckily they were all pretty small ($7.5k total). One thing I have noticed this year is that there are way more internet pros playing the preliminary events this year than last year. While my table was pretty soft today, the previous two days were pretty brutal, especially considering they were just $1500 and $1000 tourneys. Both days had starting tables with at least 5 professional poker players, either online or live. The main problem is that the tourneys are during the week, so every grinder will be playing them. I would probably estimate that there are 300 to 400 pros playing every holdem event. When there are only 900 players in the event, that's not a good ratio. Luckily the weekend events usually have 2000+ people in them, which means there are tons of fish. I'll probably be playing an event every day until the 16th, before leaving for Martha's Vineyard, which should be pretty tiring, but I haven't played any live tourneys since PCA, so I'll make it. I'm also gonna try to grind online and get 150,000 VPPs or so, to help progress towards supernova elite.

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Busto in WSOP 2k buyin event

Date: Wed, Jun 4, 2008 Tournament Internet Professional

meh Busted the first World Series event today. My table draw was pretty good, only players I knew were Johnny Bax and Mark Seif and the rest of the table was really bad. My bust hand a guy open raising about 60% of hands open raises from MP, Mark Seif calls from the CO who was calling with about 25% of hands and I pick up 10js in the SB with about 3100 chips at 1/200 w/ 25 ante so I squeeze and open raiser calls with 77, Seif folds and I lose a coinflip. The blinds were about to go up and Bax was two to my left who knows how I play so he would be calling my shoves loose soon. O well, Mcshove is still in who I have 20% of so hopefully he can do something. Also, Congrats to Robby Lipkin (playaplz) who's the first one of my friends to reach a final table. 8 left in the $1500 pl holdem event so time to start sweating.

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