Booya League Event #5

I had my very first online tournament win tonight when I placed 1st out of 16 in event #5 of the Booya League. My only other win in any STT or MTT prior to this was a live, two-table tourney in my friend's home poker league. It's kinda lame it took me this long to book a first place finish online, but the truth is I hardly ever play any SNG's (played maybe 5-10 in all), and only recently have I started playing MTT's (besides freerolls, I've only been playing in the last PSO league, and now this league). So I'm pretty happy with this milestone, even though I'm kinda late to the party.

I didn't get very many good hands in this tournament, but what I did get held up really well. My best hands were JJ, which won a medium-sized pot; TT, which won a big pot vs. a guy chasing a flush; AJo, which also won a big pot vs. a flush-chaser; and AKs, my final hand, which knocked out second and third place at once, when they pushed with KQo and A6o. I only got sucked out on once when I called a short-stack's ATo with K9s, and I flopped two-pair, but my opponent caught runner-runner straight. I sucked out on someone once when I pushed with ATs, got called by AKo, and managed to river a flush. It was a bit disappointing when second and third place got knocked out at once, since I really wanted to get some heads-up experience, but that feeling didn't last too long :)

Anyway, with this win I'll move up to 7th overall in the league with 191.2 points, but will still need to make up about 34 points to catch up to 5th place, where the league money starts. With only 3 more events to go, this is starting to look pretty bleak. With Booya's linear points formula, in each game the points difference between consecutive finish positions is only about 3 points, so unless someone in the six spots ahead of me either fails to play or gets knocked out very early in an event, it'll be practically impossible for me to catch up, especially if the top six continue to play as well as they have been. And with others below me also realizing their slim chances, the number of players in the remaining events will likely decline, meaning even fewer points will be given out. Man, I really hope Booya changes the formula for the next league, or at the very least make it something like your best 6 out of 8 finishes count towards your total points. That way no one is handicapped for having missed a couple events.

Booya League Event #4

I played in the Booya League tonight and finished 7th out of 21. Not great, but not too bad either. It was a fun tourney, with the majority of the final table being PSO regulars. The turning point for me was just before the final table. I was all-in preflop with QQ vs AKo, and a win there would have given me the overall chip lead. Unfortunately, the flop paired my opponent's ace, and that left me near the bottom in chips. After that, I managed to survive a bit longer and moved up a few precious spots. Several of the league leaders finished poorly tonight, so after this tourney I think I'll probably move up to around 9th overall. Still a ways to go to catch up to the top 5, but at least the gap is narrowing.

I wanted to withdraw another $1000 from my bankroll, so lately I've been doing some more cover play at Party. Tonight was a good night, after making almost $300 at the NL$200 and NL$100 tables. Unfortunately, the night before I was down almost $200, so overall I'm only up about one buyin.

Party has been a lot quieter lately, ever since they blocked off US players, and the fish have definately been less plentiful. Tonight, however, I managed to reel in a nice big one:

Party Poker
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $0.50/$1
9 players

Pre-flop: (9 players) Curatio is MP2 with Js Jc
UTG folds, UTG+1 raises to $2, MP1 folds, Curatio raises to $6, 3 folds, SB calls, BB folds, UTG+1 calls.

Flop: 6d 9c 2h ($19, 3 players)
SB checks, UTG+1 bets $8.08, Curatio raises to $20, SB folds, UTG+1 calls.

Turn: 6h ($59, 2 players)
UTG+1 bets $9.71, Curatio raises to $30, UTG+1 calls.

River: 4h ($119, 2 players)
UTG+1 raises all-in $62.47, Curatio calls.

Results: Final pot: $243.94
UTG+1 shows Th 9d
Curatio shows Js Jc

I was kind of surprised how badly he played that for NL$100. I don't think it could have been any more obvious that I was holding an overpair, and with the board pairing he only had two outs. Kinda makes me wonder how much money players like this must be losing in the long run.

Bankroll Updates and Booya League Event #3

I had to withdraw some money from my bankroll, so I did some cover play on Party. Last time I played about 300 hands, and they still denied my withdrawal to my bank account, so this time I played about 1000 hands just to be sure. I deposited $1000, made $48 at the NL$100 tables, and withdrew the whole amount.

I played a bit at Booya Poker as well, making $29 at the NL$100 tables, and clearing a $25 bonus. Last night I tried out Poker.com again, after reading that a lot of the fishy American players hang out there now. The play is definately looser there, and I ended up making $197 at the NL$200 and NL$100 tables, and cleared a $10 bonus. I think I'll probably play there a bit more often, when I don't have a decent bonus or promo to clear.

Last Tuesday, I played in event #3 of 8 in the Booya Poker Night In Canada league. This was my first league game, so because I missed the first two events, I'm pretty severely handicapped in the overall standings. I managed to finish the tourney in 2nd place, which will help a bit, but the formula for the points calculation will make it difficult for me to catch up. The formula is linear, and awards points for a top 20 finish. However, since the games have been averaging around 15 players, everyone is getting some decent points even for an average finish, and without a top-heavy formula, a top 3 finish isn't going to award me enough points to help me catch up. Combined with the fact that the blinds structure in the games is pretty fast, I'm going to need a lot of luck to finish in the top 5 overall for the league prizes.

Earnings-to-date: $11,994

More Blackjack, Less Poker

Lately it seems like I've been playing more blackjack than poker. With the ban on US players at many of the poker sites, I've been having a bit of trouble finding some decent tables to play at during the late evenings when I'm online. I guess I could try Stars or Full Tilt, but usually I prefer to play while clearing a nice bonus; unforturnately, on Stars I don't have any bonus money, and on Full Tilt I find the bonus clears too slowly at NL$100. So instead of poker I've been working on casino bonuses lately.

I signed up at Ladbrokes Casino for the $50 match bonus (I already had a Ladbrokes Poker account in US dollars, but if you don't have an account you should do the bonus in Pounds instead to get almost twice as much bonus money). Played single-deck Blackjack and finished with $130 in profit. I also signed up for the Intercasino $100 match bonus, but ended up losing $41.

I had $100 in bonus money to clear at Paradise Poker, so I played for a while a couple nights ago, and made $89 at the tables and cleared $10 in bonus money. Paradise is one of the sites that has banned US players, so I was only able to find two full NL$100 tables that night. I wanted to play again last night, but for the next month Paradise has a really sucky promotion going on. They added $10,000 in bonus money to my account, but changed the bonus terms so that only pots raked at least $1, instead of $0.25, will earn a point, and now it takes 100 points to clear $5 in bonus money, instead of $10. Needless to say, I ended up withdrawing my money, and will return in a month when the bonus terms are supposed to go back to normal.

Earnings-to-date: $11,685

PSO League Tourney #8 and Golden Palace Casino

I placed 34th out of 80 in the last event of the PSO league, and finished 14th overall. I played 7 of the 8 events, and finished in the money twice with a 2nd and 9th place, ending up with a net profit of $74. This last tourney, I was doing quite well at first and was the chip leader about 45 minutes in. Then I lost a bunch of chips chasing a flush draw, and then another whole bunch of chips tangling with another big stack when we both tried to take down DCampers' bounty. That was a big mistake, as I should have stayed focussed on doing well in the tournament overall, instead of trying to chase a $20 bounty. Lesson learned, next time I won't try to steal a bounty unless I have a solid hand.

I did the Golden Palace Casino signup bonus, depositing $100, and getting a $300 bonus with an $8000 wagering requirement. I played Blackjack Switch, doing 2x$10 per hand, and finished with a nice $710 in profit.

Earnings-to-date: $11,497