I’m still undecided about wordpress

I guess I’ll need to spend a couple weeks with it to make sure I know which route I’m going to go in.  I have to say I like the look and feel of it, and the templates.   I’m not sure how I feel about the community yet.  It seems more vocal.  I’ve had a few random comments already, and some are warning me to abide by the terms of service because it’s easy to be shut down, who knows.  I’m just trying to get a feel for it.

One More Live Writer Test

I’m not sure I like it, it’s kind of slow.  Anyway, trying some plugins with it.  One thing I wanted to try was the ‘Now Playing’ plugin so you could see what I’m rocking out to.  I can’t seem to get it to work though. 

Oh well.

Live Writer #2

Ok, so one thing I noticed is that the timestamp isn’t right.  Whatever, I guess it doesn’t matter.

Testing out Windows Live Writer

Microsoft wrote a blogging tool that is compatible with several blogging sites.  This is a test blog entry from it. You can get Live Writer here.

I was using ScribeFire in Firefox, and it was handy, but it wasn’t super-useful, hopefully this is handy enough to use on a regular basis.

 

Some of the handy features that may or may not work are templates for maps, videos, and tables. 

 

PS, I’m up about half a buyin on UB after a short couple rounds – I stacked a guy when I had AQs on the button, he had ATo, on a board of A77.

Strong Tourney Showing

Played in the Stars .50 MTT tonight at 8PM. I played a great tourney, doubled up early with JJ vs. Ax and Qx (?!), and rode it from there. At one point I got low when I shoved AKs against a preflop all in and got called by AA. I shoved a couple hands in a row and got back, only to shove with AKs against a preflop raiser, this time getting called by KK, except I caught my A and tripled up. Thing was, I was right about my shoves, I was even money against a small pair, just ran into bad hands behind me.

I spent a large portion of the tourney in the top 30. When it got down to 3 tables, I had a great streak of cards with KK 2x, QQ 1x, AK, and was shoving with them, hoping to be called because I was playing a lot of hands, and never had to show. Well, I got in a hands with JJ. UTG has M<4, raises all in, big stack calls. I sit for a while and Shove. Big stack sits for a while, finally calls. both have ATo. I’m in great shape – like 85% to win because they’re using each other’s outs. Flop comes with a T, turn has an A (?!) and I’m gone by the big stack. I shoved because I wanted it heads up and hoped the big stack would not call, but I guess all that aggressiveness ensured my doom. With my M of 7ish, I wasn’t letting it go.

Oh well, I came in 20th out of 2500 people, although I only got about 2 bucks and my entry for my 5 hours of work… I really was happy with the way I played, just couldn’t close. Made a buyin on UB, too.

It’s Been A While

I’ve been playing. More ups and downs. Some one tabling, 2 tabling, 4 tabling. I’m not sticking to any of my promises, but my BR has been making a comeback. I went back and looked at some hands, and basically I’ve had a couple of major problems, some mine, some not mine. My big problems – not maximizing my earn on my big hands, paying off too much, and overplaying overpairs. Running a lot of KK into AA, a lot of AA into sets. While sometimes it’s unavoidable, in most of my cases, I should have been able to lay down. It’s ugly, but I should have been able to do it. I’ve been doing a better job of it. Some of the problems that are not mine? Suckouts. A lot of 4-1 favorites not going in my favor when it went in. I don’t have exact stats, but I did seem to be running pretty badly – good starters running into better hands. When I did make my hands, no one else did, and I wasn’t getting paid off, although I attribute a lot of that to myself. I blew my 12k in UPoints to suckouts. Whatever.

So, I threw caution to the wind tonight and played some .10/.25 for $15. Yeah, that’s above my BR. Shame on me. How did it turn out? First hand I have QQ in the BB. Tons of callers, I raise and everyone folds, I pick up a few bucks. A couple hands later I miss with 33. A couple hands later, I raise UTG with JJ, 2 callers. Large bet and large raise in front of me. It’s a scary board because it’s QJT, but hell with it, I have a set, I have to see this through. I don’t think I’ve run into AK, and hopefully not QQ. Turn = T. That’s good if I’ve run into a straight or straight draw, but bad if someone had TT. Whatever, I’m in it for the long haul. Another big bet and call in front of me – pot’s big enough for me to be committed, I shove, both call. One has QT, other I don’t see. Triple up. Yay!

Less than two orbits later, I have QQ. 4 callers in front of me, I raise to $1.50, 2 callers. Fop comes Q65. Yay, top set. I bet half the pot kind of weakly, both call. Both have about $15. Turn is another 4, I have top boat, praying I’m not against 44 slowplaying. I bet half the pot, figuring they’re both pot committed, both shove, I call. One has 66, the other 55, we all flopped sets! River is a blank, and my stack went from $15 to $75. I folded AK after a raise, and 66 for a call, and left the table with 71+ in my stack.

A stellar night for doing something my mommy told me not to do. I was due for a big win after some tough times.

My overall BR between PS and UB is back over $300.

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Last Night Was So Awesome…

I had to go to the store to pick up some necessities like milk, juice, and some fruit for my daughter. Well, when I got to the store, a lady was cooking in the demo kitchen and she had made some delmonico steaks with zip sauce. Zip sauce is a metro-Detroit tradition. It’s basically some beef broth, soy sauce, butter, and some spices. I’ve never seen it bottled before, though. Usually they just serve it at some of the finer restaurants. I love steak, and I love zip sauce, so I tried it. It was so good, I caved and decided to buy a steak and some sauce for a late dinner.

After my daughter went to bed, I cranked up the grill and made an awesome steak with some wine (I don’t drink all that often, but we had some sitting around, so…) It was really fantastic.

My wife called to say she’d be late at work, so I had some extra time to play poker. I ended up being up about 3 buyins for the night, so all in all, a fantastic time.

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Steady

I’ve been 1 or 2 tabling. Slow going, and I have to exercise more patience, because playable hands come around less often, but I think it’s probably not a bad thing. I had a hand tonight that I wanted to post:

Ultimate Bet No-Limit Hold’em, $.10 BB (10 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from http://www.flopturnriver.comFlopTurnRiver.com (Format: Plain Text)

MP2 ($5.44)
MP3 ($9.45)
CO ($6.54)
Button ($1.35)
SB ($4.70)
BB ($2.55)
UTG ($9.60)
UTG+1 ($14.90)
Hero ($12.36)
MP1 ($17.66)

Preflop: Hero is UTG+2 with XX
1 fold, UTG+1 calls $0.10, Hero raises to $0.45, 5 folds, SB calls $0.40, 1 fold, UTG+1 calls $0.35.

Flop: ($1.45) Th, Ts, 3s (3 players)
SB checks, UTG+1 checks, Hero bets $0.85, SB folds, UTG+1 calls $0.85.

Turn: ($3.15) 8s (2 players)
UTG+1 checks, Hero checks.

River: ($3.15) 4s (2 players)
UTG+1 bets $1, Hero folds (QQ).

Final Pot: $3.15

Results below:
UTG+1 doesn’t show.
Outcome: UTG+1 wins $3.15.

UTG+1 is very tight, playing about 15% of his hands, and I only have him raising 1 hand ever, where he had KK.

My preflop raise is standard. My turn check after his check was to keep the pot small, but I think I may have given him a chance to represent a hand on the river. River comes and it’s a 4th spade, he bets a 1/3 pot bet, and I think for a long time and fold.

I think I made the right play by laying it down on the river, and really, I want to think he had Axs, but I think my turn check is a mistake that gave him the hand. I don’t see him betting into the river without the best hand with that 4th spade. However, I can’t figure out what he would have check called with on the flop, unless it was Axs.

I only have like 6 hands from him where he played outside of the blinds – he had A6s, KK, KQo, QQ, TT, and 22, so really, he plays my range of hands, except I raise more often. I’m just trying to figure out what he would have called my preflop raise with, and called my flop bet with that ugly board unless he had it. It’s bugging me.

Anyway, I was up about 1.5 buyins for the night after buying in short.

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Going Better

I was up about six $5 buyins for the weekend, a nice showing considering I took quite a few rough beats when I got it in with the best hand. I was disciplined and got up from the table after a reasonable victory. I took several beats at the UPoints tables, but managed to be down only 3 max buyins.

All things considered not doing too bad.

Something Is Different

First off, I have not heard back from AP as to why I can’t make my account a real money account. I sent an email to them, and I’m waiting for them to get back to me.

So I played some cash .05/.10 on UB – I haven’t dropped down to .01/.02 like I was considering. I’m still using my HUD. I’ve been buying in for $5 at the table, which is about 5% of my BR on UB, not my overall BR, but I have not been multi-tabling more than 2 tables at once. Additionally, I have stopped justifying my calls in the SB and BB. Just because you can flop a monster and have some great implied odds, you still have to hit your hand. I think I was bleeding money out of the blinds. I’ve also stopped with some of my loose button calls – I don’t think position buys you that much at this level, because you can’t get someone to feel uncomfortable about top pair on the turn, or so it seems. I seem to be doing a little better, but I think a lot of it is just the fact that I’m hitting some flops. I’ve had to get up a few times from the table because my stack has gotten a little larger than I want.

Anyway, I’ve made a nice little comeback from the past week of crashing, so that makes me feel good. Nothing monstrous, but at least I’m making some positive gains again.

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