Marathon

Everyone likes to win, especially me. I've been doing well in tournaments but 1st place has eluded my grasp for the past month. Yesterday that all changed. I grabbed 1st place, hog tied it, and made it my bitch. I won five straight sit n gos in a row. This is quite a feat considering I was playing three of them at the same time and played the other two right after that. I then proceeded to play in a $10+$1 buy-in knockout tourney. There were 726 entrants and they paid the top 72. It wasn't going to be easy. The upside was that everytime you knocked someone out of the tourney you got $2. I played well and was chipleader for a while but alas I fell in 211th place after I got all my chips in with A Q offsuit to be outflopped by 10 9 suited. At least I took out six people before that and made a $2 profit. It was the hardest $2 I ever made. I hope I can keep playing this well. I think I want to start a video blog series called"Play a tournament with me" where I video myslef playing a tourney and provide commentary while I do it. Give me some feedback and let me know what you think. Until then hit the felt hard!

Tournament Recap

Jerry, Cade, and I headed to biloxi to play in the superstack tourney at the Beau Rivage. Everyone started with 10,000 in chips and the blinds increased every 15 mins. It was a great tournament but everyone seemed to just try to fold their way to the money. I made a few big hands at the beginning including one where I raised the blind to 250 with pocket 8s out of 3 position. I got two callers and then the flop came out 8 5 5. What a flop! Not only that but the guy in front bets 600 into the pot so me be the savvy player I am just smoothcall. The turn was a K. I was hoping the guy in front of me was just betting at a low flop and happend to hit his king on the turn. He checked and I set the trap and checked behind him. The river was a total blank and he checked once more. Now the question became how much can I bet to induce a call. The answer was 1200 which he immediately called. I didn't see what he exactly had but he told me he had the other 8 which means when he called he thought I was completly bluffing....Nice play by me. Later on in the tournament I picked up A J of hearts and hit a flop of J X X with two clubs. A guy in front of me bet 2000 into the pot and the guy beside me called so I pushed all in for 10,000 more. The original better put his tournament life on the line with a club draw of K 7, which Im suprised he had considering I raised it to 1200 preflop but he was a loose player anyways. Well the turn brought an end to my hand with the Q of clubs and crippled me to only 3500 chips. It was not looking good. I got patient and playing my position and picked up some blinds with an all in move with nothing but 6 4 off. Then I got the bullets in 1st position. Most people being as shortstacked as I was and with great cards like that would have easily pushed all in, but probably would have just picked up the blinds. I on the other knew I had two ultra aggressive players behind me that would raise so I just limped in. Sure enough a guy raised to 1500 and then there was 3 callers behind him. I immediately pushed for 4000 more and the big blind thought I was making a move and called with 9 6 of hearts. The flop didn't help him at all and I was back in the tournament with 12550 in chips. Talk about a come back and so quick but alas it was not meant to be. I went card dead after that and I tried to be patient but the blinds and antes were slowly dwindling my stack. I finally got A 10 and pushed only to be called by A Q. There was no help for me and I busted in 22 place. Not to bad. I was proud of my performance I played well and didn't make any mistakes. The blinds and antes caught up with me and the way the structure was you had to have cards. Cade later busted in 20th place and Jerry soon followed in 19th. We made a good showing and people were impressed with our play I even got a compliment or two on my short stack play. Next time we will go the distance. Keep reading and HIt the felt hard!!!!!

Redhollywood.net team goes to biloxi

Tomorrow morning the redhollywood.net poker team will be heading to the Beau Rivage casino in Biloxi to play in the $120 superstack tournament. We will be leaving Mobile around 9:15 in the morning and making our way down there. I will post our results and hopefully some interesting stories to go along with it. Until then hit the felt hard.

Suck outs!

Suck outs!!!!! That is what I have been experiencing as of late and not in a good way. I guess it comes from playing online a lot. Since I see twice as many hands as live play it seems like I get sucked out on twice as much. I played in the FTOPS $200 + 25 NL shorthanded tourney and didn't do very well. I contribute it to the fact that I worked the night before and didn't go to sleep at all when I got home. Lesson....Don't expect to be able to focus when you are running on only 6 hours of sleep in the last 48 hours. As much as I wanted to win and or just finish in the money I was actually glad to get knocked out so quick. I could then go to bed and get some much needed rest. The past couple of days my bankroll online has fluctuated due to people hitting 2 and 3 outers on me. It got as low as $14 at one point only to see me sit in a .25 .50 NL cash game and work that $14 into $103 and then turn around and turn it into $203 in a .25 .50 PL omaha high game, all withing the matter of a hour. Maybe I should just play short stacked constantly because when I am I play like a genius. My main focus right now is to be more patient when it comes to my bankroll and not play in games that are too large for it. This is a major problem and keeps most people from going pro. Now if I can just convince myself that the reason I get sucked out on some much is because I keep getting all my money with the best hand. It's the truth it's just hard to accept. Until later Hit that felt hard!

Very Good Day

Last night I put some more money on Full Tilt. $63 to be exact. I proceeded to play in several small tourneys only to bust out on the bubble(last person to not earn money). Then I played an Omaha hi 4 person heads up shoot out and won. It was a small win of $20 but none the less satisfying. While I was finishing that tourney I was playing a .25 .50 cent NL table. I proceeded to double my buy-in of $30 up to around $60. All in all I made a quick $50 which is a good start for my bankroll online. At the end of the night my full account set at $102 and some change. I then proceeded to work all night and then came home and signed on for some more poker action. I won a $6 6 person sit n go to make $23 and I bought into a .25 .50 cent pot limit Omaha game for $50. I then proceeded to turn that $50 into $85 and my bankroll was growing. I then noticed a 6 person sit n go satellite for $75. Whoever won this SnG got entry into tonights FTOPS(full tilt online poker series) Event #1, which is a $750,000 guaranteed prize pool NL shorthanded holdem event. Well I won and I am going to be playing for the $150,000 first prize so wish me luck. Until then Hit that felt hard!

New Member

We would like to say Welcome to Jerry Mosely. He will be the new teammate at redhollywood.net. He will be joining Cade and I on Nov. 16 for the super stack tournament at the Beau. He also hit a royal flush the other night so congratulations to him. Keep checking back for more holdem action.

Card dead freezout

On thursday I went to my favorite card place, card sharks to play a $60 freezeout. I have two words for you. CARD DEAD!!!! They should have thrown me in a shoe box and buried me out back. Seriously I would have done better, but as they say,"Thats poker!" I really wanted to win this one because Rob,the owner of cardsharks, started a Player of the Month contest. Now a POM contest consist of earning points over playing different tourneys. If there are 10 players then whatever position you bust out in is how many points you get i.e. bust out in 10th you get 1 point, win it and you get 10 points. Now at the end of the month whoever has the most points gets $500. Not to shabby. So I started off getting 2 points. Not a great start, but what are you going to do when all the hands you get are around the 8 2 offsuit area. When I did get a better starting hand in the paint area I would raise only to see rags on the flop with someone holding a raggedy ass hand. Add all this up and you get a 9th place finish. The only thing to do is wait for the deck to warm up and start hitting me. It is bound to happen soon. The longest Ive gone being cold decked is a month. Please God not again. In other news Cardsharks is shutting down for a bit, which sucks. Someone supposedly filed a complaint and Rob wants to investigate so he is stopping the game for a while to protect the players. Go Rob! Kudos to you for not making it about the money but making it about the players. Now if we could only get some casinos to see it this way. Hopefully next time you will get to read about a cash or a victory or at least some good hands, until then hope you do better than me.

The Team

The redhollywood.net poker team is now officailly being organized. Right now the team consist of me, jt, and my good friend cade. We have a couple of other prospects that we are looking at but we want to test the waters first and see how we do. Unfortunaly I am not going to be able to play in the Ip poker classic due to scheduling difficulties at work. You will find the redhollywood.net poker team however on the 18th at the Beau Rivage playing in the $15,000 guarenteed tournament. It will be our first event as a team and we will be decked out in redhollywood.net poker clothing. You really should check out our store it has some really great products that I think you will like even if you are not a serious poker player.