$1050 CPT Satellite For Only $1+$0.10 At Booya

On Wednesday, Dec. 20th, 6:30 pm PST, Booya Poker will be having another Canadian Poker Tour satellite, with the winner taking home a whopping $1050 buy-in to any CPT event during the next 6 months. There will also be consolation prizes of WSOP Satellite tickets for places 2 - 5, depending on the number of entrants. All this for only a $1+$0.10 buy-in! So if you haven't signed up yet, better do it soon so you can play in this tourney. Imagine having the chance to win a CPT title and grand prize for only a buck!

The CPT event schedule for 2007 can be found here. Currently there aren't any events scheduled to take place in the GVRD within the next 6 months, but if 2006 is any indication, there will likely be a few events taking place at the Cascades Casino in Langley.

I'll be playing in Wednesday's satellite, so I hope to see some new people there! Good luck!

A Welcome To New Readers

I just wanted to take this opportunity to welcome some new readers who may have recently been referred here by Eagle2727, who is responsible for organizing our home poker league. Season 1 of our league wrapped up a couple weeks ago, and I ended up placing 5th overall solely by luckboxing my way to a 1st place finish in one of the events. I played 4 of the 6 events, and only finished ITM once. Congratulations to CoolCtheMosaicist, who placed 1st overall and totally dominated the league! He played 5 of the 6 events, and finished ITM 4 times, with a 1st, a 2nd, a 3rd, and a 4th place finish.

I hope everyone manages to gain some useful poker-related information from this blog, and will check back regularly for updates. If anyone is ever online and wanting to join me in some cash game action, I can currently be found either on Mansion Poker or Party Poker under the alias Curatio, or on Booya Poker under the alias Curatio3, playing my usual NL$100 tables. Or, if you ever want to get a few people together for a sit-n-go, just email me (check out my Profile) and we can work out the time and the poker room. Also, feel free to email me or leave a message here if you ever have any questions or need some advice, whether it's related to poker, dentistry, or anything else.

Now that our home league is over for this season, you may find yourself craving some regular tournament action. If you are able to play regularly Tuesday nights at 6:30 pm PST, then I would highly recommend that you join us for season 2 of Booya Poker's Poker Night In Canada League. Season 1 has just wrapped up, and was a big success. There was $5000 in league prizes up for grabs, with 1st place overall taking home a whopping $2000! For only a $10+$1 buy-in for each event, and with an average of only 15 players per event in season 1 (this was even less than our average home league turnout!), everyone had a good opportunity to earn some amazing cash prizes, as well as have a lot of fun and gain some valuable tourney experience in the process. Season 2 starts up in mid-January, and Booya has plans to make it even better, with an improved scoring system and prizes/bounties for each individual event. The more we can get to play in the league, the more they can offer, so I hope to see many of you in the first event, particularly CoolC, Urk, Mellemel, and all the others whom Eagle2727 have told me are winning online tourney players. Even if you are fairly new to online poker, I would encourage you to join us -- the buy-in for each event is cheap, and you'll definately improve your game by playing against a great bunch of players in the league. And who knows, if you get a little lucky, you may even find yourself on top of the leaderboard!

If you don't have an account at Booya Poker yet, then just click on any of the Booya links or banners here, and when you sign up for a REAL MONEY account, you can get $10 absolutely free -- no deposit required! This is almost enough to cover the buy-in for the first league game! After opening your account, just email your Booya Poker screenname to manager@booyapoker.com, with the subject "Curatio Referral". This offer is only available to the first 10 signups, and once 10 new screennames have been received and verified the $10 bonus will be credited to your account. The only requirement is that you earn 1000 Action Points before you cash out the free money. In addition to the free $10, you can still earn a 100% deposit bonus (max. $300) when you do your first deposit by using the promo code Booya2. Please note that if you already have another account on the Tribeca network (e.g. Doyle's Room, Golden Palace Poker, etc.), then after you set up your real money account on Booya, you will have to chat with the online Manager found in the software to have the Cashier unlocked for you. Also, for any American readers, please note that U.S. players are unfortunately not allowed to play on Booya Poker.

Edit: If you do sign up on Booya, please leave a comment here with your Booya screenname, and I can help make sure you get the special bonus.

Edit2: Some people seemed to have missed this, but you need to open a REAL MONEY account, not a play money account, to receive the $10 free bonus. For those that have accidentally opened a play money account already, Booya Poker will help you correct this, but anyone still planning to sign up, please remember to make sure it's a REAL MONEY account. Thanks!

Booya League Event #8

Tonight I played in the final event of the Booya Poker Night In Canada League, and managed to take down 1st place again, out of a single table of 9 players. The game started off fairly uneventfully. Play was fairly tight and conservative, as there were four players present who were still jockeying for 2nd to 5th place overall. Since I was stuck in 7th place, I had nothing to lose, so I guess I could have played more aggressively to take advantage of this, but instead I just played my usual game. There were two other players present whom I didn't recognize and obviously also had nothing to lose, so I didn't want to run into another aggressive player and have to make some difficult decisions.

My stack started a major downswing when I picked up TT UTG. I raised it up to 3.5xBB, and got re-raised behind me. I called, and had to check-fold to a Q-high flop. Things got worse when I got QTo in the CO. It was folded to me, so I raised it to 3xBB and got called by the button. Flop came up T58 with 2 spades. I bet out 2/3 pot, and got raised to 2.5x my bet. I called, and had to check-fold when another spade came on the turn.

After playing a few more pots but not connecting, I became the short-stack by a large margin, and had an M of 8. I managed to steal a decent pot when I picked up KQo on the button with 2 limpers ahead me, I pushed and everyone folded. I got excited when I picked up KK in MP, but dang it!, everyone folded to my 3xBB raise.

Blinds were jumping big time at this point, but I managed to work my stack back up by pushing with 33, AQo, 22, AKo, and AJo. I was now 2nd in chips, with the chip leader directly to my left. The turning point of the game came when I picked up 88 in the SB. Folded to me, I raised to 3xBB and got called by the chip leader in the BB. Flop came out Q53 rainbow, I bet out 4/5 pot, and was min-raised for nearly the rest of my chips. I thought hard, and finally decided to throw in the rest of my chips on the hopes that he may have been floating me with ace-high. He flipped over KQo, and I was ready to say "gg", but the miracle 8 came on the river to double me up and put me in the chip lead.

I continued to build my stack by taking out Note2323 with AQo vs AKo when the flop came out Q-high and he pushed, and by taking out Actyper when he pushed pre-flop with KTs, and I called with 66 and made a set on a K-high flop, and filled up on the river for the overkill.

When it got to heads-up, I was just slightly behind in chips. This turned out to be my first ever major heads-up session, but I felt good going in and was planning to play smarter this time. It went back and forth for a while, with no one catching any monster hands. I got the sense that he was playing a little too tight, as he was folding from the SB as well as not calling my raises a little too often. I tried to take advantage of this by raising slightly more than I normally would, but still mixing in some calls and the rare fold from the SB if my cards were total crap. Because of this, I managed to basically wear down his stack until I had over a 4:1 chip lead. In the final hand, he pushed with bottom pair and an OESD on the turn, I called with second pair, and he wasn't able to complete his draw on the river.

This was a great league for me. I had lots of fun, and gained plenty of good tournament experience. I played 6 of the 8 events, and finished with the best record overall -- four ITM finishes, with 2 firsts and 2 seconds. I made a net profit of $127.80, for an ROI of 194%. All told, I'm very happy with the results, despite finishing 7th overall because of the unfortunate scoring system, but I definately played well enough to take first. Too bad there's no prize for honourable mention :(

I also played in one CPT satellite, and two NHL ticket tourneys on Booya during the past few weeks, but unfortunately didn't finish ITM in any of them. So after everything, I ended up with a net profit of $111 to my bankroll.

Earnings-to-date: $12,096

Booya League Event #6 & 7

I placed a lousy 9th out of 15 in the Booya League Event #6 two weeks ago, but last week in Event #7 I managed to place 2nd again, out of 12. It was a crazy tournament, with a lot of people hitting their draws or sucking out. I myself played three flush draws, all of which completed to take down some huge pots. It was fitting, then, that my last hand lost out to a runner-runner flush draw. It was the very first hand heads-up, and we were about even in chips. My opponent limped in, I checked. Flop gave me bottom pair, and we both checked to the river, which paired my other hole card to give me two-pair. However, it came runner-runner hearts to put three hearts on the board. I bet out, he pushed, I called without thinking too much. I played it very poorly, and I think if I had really taken the time to think it over, I would have folded. But my opponent, who was the big stack for most of the final table, had been bullying and throwing his chips around, and I felt he was doing the same again with just top pair, so that led me to make the bad call.

Anyway, even with that finish, I'm still stuck in 7th place, two places shy of the league prizes. With one more event to go, even if I place 1st, I won't be able to move up unless the two players in 6th and 5th don't show up to play. The top five players are pretty much set, with fellow bloggers and PSO regulars MathP having a lock on first place, and Actyper and Riverrun jostling with two others for second to fifth place. Congratulations, guys!

Bankroll Updates

I played at Party for a bit so that I could withdraw some money from my bankroll. I made $163 at the tables, then withdrew $1163.

I did a PokerSavvy promo at 9Poker, and made $10 at the tables, and earned a bunch of SavvyPoints. I cashed in my points for $88 cash through Neteller, and also bought PokerAceHUD (worth $25).

I did a casino bonus at Lucky Nugget, but busted out of my bonus and $50 deposit.

Then I did a reload bonus at Dream Poker and had my worst downswing ever. I ended up down $543 (over 5 buyins at my usual NL$100 level), while earning a $125 bonus. You know you are having a bad stretch of negative variance when pocket aces is a money-losing hand for you :( It also sucked that over about 1000 hands played, I got AKo only 3 times, AKs only once, and my most frequent hand was KJo at 19 times. KJo is a hand that I usually don't like to play, but when even aces aren't holding up and this hand keeps popping up in the hole, then it gets very tempting to play it, especially when you keep getting rivered by mediocre hands like this, or you see others flopping monsters with it, or you see that you would have flopped a monster if only you hadn't folded it! Anyway, after this I knew I was on a bit of tilt, so I took a break from poker for several days to clear my head.

I just started playing again recently, since Full Tilt offered me a $50 bonus for 500 points. After a couple nights of playing, I cleared that bonus as well as $20 of my initial signup bonus, and made $103 at the tables. I enjoyed playing there, as the table selection is pretty good during the late evenings when I'm usually playing, so I'm going to look into trying to get rakeback there. I've already done the PSO promo there, unfortunately, so I think I'll have to get my wife to sign up with a different Neteller account. Anyone know if this is possible?

Earnings-to-date: $11,985