72suited.com

That’s right, my poker blog is going to start featuring poker again, as I have resumed my journey.  I’ve been playing every day at some point for about the last 5 or 6 days.  I was playing every Thursday in the Twitter Poker Tour, but that was it.  I have the desire to play again.  It’s been a long break, probably close to a couple months, but I see a lot more poker in the future.  Last night, the very first hand I played I was dealt pocket Aces.  The turn saved my ass after the villain flopped three of a kind:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $0.05 BB (5 handed) - Poker-Stars Hand Converter from HandHistoryConverter.com

SB ($14.56) Hero (BB) ($10) UTG ($7.22) MP ($13.93) Button ($6.85)

Preflop: Hero is BB with Ah, As 2 folds, Button bets $0.10, SB calls $0.08, Hero raises to $0.35, Button calls $0.25, SB calls $0.25

Flop: ($1.05) 8d, 10d, 8s (3 players) SB bets $0.60, Hero raises to $2, 1 fold, SB raises to $14.21 (All-In), Hero calls $7.65 (All-In)

Turn: ($20.35) Ad (2 players, 2 all-in)

River: ($20.35) 7s (2 players, 2 all-in) Total pot: $20.35 | Rake: $1

June 30th, 2009 | Tags: holdem | Category: poker | Leave a comment

It’s been a while since I posted, which means I have a lot to talk about.  First, Poker.  I’m still only playing on Thursdays in the Twitter Poker Tour, where I was in first place for a week but had a terrible showing last week on Full Tilt resulting in me dropping to 2nd place overall.  My brother asked me last night, “are you done with poker except for Thursdays?”.  No- my interest has just waned a bit, but I expect I’ll be back to my addictive ways eventually.  Which brings me to video games.  I’m still addicted to Call of Duty: World at War on Xbox 360, but I’m starting to get burnt out on it, in fact last night I looked at my other games and almost played another one.  Now for golf.  I hate golf!  When is our next tee time?!  I have the classic love / hate relationship with golf right now.  In just over a week I leave for our annual golf trip - 12 guys golfing until we drop for 5 straight days.  It’s a blast but I have again developed the snap fades (screw it, I’ll say it, the SHANKS!).  I’m a decent golfer, hover around a 10 handicap, but the shanks have been turning my brain to mush for the better part of the last 3-4 years.  I can be playing the best golf of my life, then I hit one SHANK, and can’t shake them for weeks or months.  I really don’t need this just before we leave for what SHOULD be some of the best golf of the year.  And my Red Wings.  They’re up 2-1 against the Penguins who avoided a sweep with a win last night.  Shh…don’t tell the media though, they think that win last night was for the Stanley Cup!  I admit, the Penguins played great last night, but the referees certainly didn’t hurt their cause.  At one point, the Penguins had too many men on the ice for 20+ seconds.  Come on refs / NHL, you have to be a little more covert than that.

Alright, I’m off to the golf range.

June 3rd, 2009 | Tags: Call of Duty World at War, detroit sports, golf, holdem, tpt, Xbox 360 | Category: gaming, poker, sports | Leave a comment

For giving this Detroit sports fan something to look forward to still. The Pistons have fell off their success pedestal recently, the Lions have never had a success pedestal, and the Tigers are making their 2006 trip to World Series look like a fluke. Thanks to Red Wings big win last night against the Ducks in game 7, it isn’t all doom and gloom.  Now we have an original six match-up against the Chicago Blackhawks who have been waiting and resting for a couple games now.  Should be a great series!

Also thanks to the Red Wings for making my debacle in the Twitter Poker Tour last night easier to handle.  I was probably playing as well as I ever have on Full Tilt when an A-7-x flop hit my A-10.  I misread my opponents hand since I watched him playing a lot of hands and a lot of weak Aces.  I was right he was playing another weak Ace (A-7, flopped two pair).  I feel so stupid, because I always think through my actions, but this time I just snapped it off assuming he was sold on his Aces but my kicker would get him.  10 seconds of thought and I could have assumed the flop lined right up with his range.  Oh well, live and learn.  Three or four hour plus online tournaments can be grueling (three hours assuming you played well, so mine only lasted about an hour) because all it takes is one lapse in focus and you’re done.

May 15th, 2009 | Tags: detroit sports, holdem, sports, tpt | Category: poker, sports | Comments (1)

The journey has slowed significantly, but at least the journey continues.  As an added bonus the bankroll continues to grow.  Honestly I’ve been playing once a week, every Thursday in the Twitter Poker Tour.  Since the TPT alternates between Pokerstars and Full Tilt each week, I only play on Pokerstars once every two weeks.  Pokerstars is where this journey started and is by far my favorite of the two online poker rooms.  Last week I took second in the TPT which is what catapulted me to $424.  Tonight the TPT is on Full Tilt which has been a completely different story so far.  I have yet to place in the money at Full Tilt in a TPT event.  Full Tilt does seem a little faster, which maybe works against a patient player like myself, but I don’t really believe that- I think it’s just in my head now.

The Twitter Poker Tour itself continues to grow.  Tonights event has a lot of great prizes on top of the normal cash prize pool.  Check out the event details for all the prizes available.

May 14th, 2009 | Tags: holdem, tpt | Category: poker | Leave a comment

I’m sitting at a computer waiting for a large file to download while I test this simple wordpress plugin called Wphone that makes it easy to blog from my blackberry. This could prove to be very useful for remote blogging. Writing this much on a little keyboard isn’t ideal by any means, but in about 6 weeks I go on an annual golf trip and my phone might be perfect for blogging while gone. I’m going to save this as a draft and check it from my computer.

Edit: Checked it from my computer and all looked good. Now I’m editing this and posting while on the crapper. Cool huh!?

May 6th, 2009 | Tags: blackberry | Category: blogging | Comments (2)

The Twitter Poker Tour event tonight is on Full Tilt where I have yet to place in the cash.  I’ve cashed a few times at the Pokerstars events (it alternates from week to week) so I’m getting a bit anxious to prove I can even do it at Full Tilt.  Of course I know I can do it, confidence isn’t the issue, it’s only a matter of time and I wouldn’t mind that time be tonight.  So if you’ve been thinking of playing in the Twitter Poker Tour, I think now is the time to finally take the plunge, and donate your chips to me early.  OK in all seriousness, it’s a great group of guys and gals that play in the TPT so it’s always a good time, and I don’t care when you donate your chips to me, late would be fine too.  Thanks and good luck!

April 30th, 2009 | Tags: holdem, tpt | Category: poker | Comments (2)

Watch the entire video to fully appreciate this burnout.

April 21st, 2009 | Tags: burnout | Category: cars, video | Comments (1)

Today marks the start of another double XP weekend for Call of Duty: World at War across all platforms.  It’s been 6 days since I have even turned on my Xbox 360, but with a chance to rack up some double XP and possibly even enter the 5th level of Prestige, I see a lot of Call of Duty in my near future.  I’m guessing 6 days is the longest I’ve gone without playing Call of Duty since I got it in January this year.  Sad I know, which is partly why I made an effort to take a break from it.  I had plenty of chances to play, I even had the game in my hand once and was going to put it in, but put it back to prove I could do it.  OK, that sounds worse than it really was, it wasn’t as difficult a struggle as I make it sound.  This nice weather helps, being cooped up in the house all winter makes it easy to just sit there and bug out in front of the TV.

photo by Joshua Morane.

April 17th, 2009 | Tags: Call of Duty World at War, Xbox 360, Xbox Live | Category: gaming | Leave a comment

Last week Thursday marked the end of Season 2 of the Twitter Poker Tour.  Yours truly (@72suited) finished 2nd in the event and 5th overall for the entire season, netting me a free hat from Bad Beat Clothing.  I am proud of my 5th place finish in Season 2, mainly because I never won a tournament but I did play consistent and patient every week.  Out of the 4 players that finished ahead of me, two of them won twice and one of them won once.  @coolwhipflea of Pablosplace.com was the only other player in the top 5 not to win an event, and he took 2nd overall, so hats off to him.  Of course congrats to the winner of season 2, @treystill and the rest of the top 5 @SteveBrogan (3rd) and @rhoegg (4th).  Oh, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention @Street3’s 16th place finish in Season 2, good job bud!

Enough about season 2 though, lets talk about the start of Season 3 tonight.  By far the biggest news so far is that DeucesCracked has joined the tour as a sponsor!  What does this mean to you, a prestigious player on the Twitter Poker Tour?  It means that the winner each week will get a one month subscription to the poker training site, with the Season 3 winner getting a 6 month subscription.  That’s some cool shit!  Many thanks to @cprpoker and @pokerplasm for their efforts in running the TPT.  See you all on the tour.

April 16th, 2009 | Tags: holdem, tpt | Category: poker | Comments (4)