got that out of the way

Loyal readers of my blog will remember the difficulty I had qualifying for the Poker Room Grand the last time it was held. This time around I had much less difficulty, as I made it on my 2nd attempt. I saw a qualifier on Poker Room going off where they guaranteed a seat, and only had 5 entrants with a minute to go, so I hopped in. Seven players went off, for a 2 player overlay. The play was even worse than I thought it would be, really genuinely terrible. It was the sort of "you need a hand" terrible, although I was able to read when the others were weak. Trouble is... the player being weak <> the player folding. It did allow me to make some thin value bets, however.

Down to 3 handed, one player had a 7500/1500/1500 advantage. That player finished 3rd. Heads up started with one player at a 8000/2000 advantage (numbers rounded, nobody took chips off the table). That player finished 2nd.

I actually got quite lucky, as he picked up QQ 2nd hand heads up. He played it about as badly as he could, though, minreraising preflop (I had 97), then making his "I don't have top pair" bet on the KJ7 flop. I called, and when he checked the 8 turn I tried to take it from him. He called, and I was going to give up until I spiked the 7 on the river. He couldn't fold on that street, either. We traded chips for a bit, then he minreraised my JTs raise (I was minraising from the button a lot - I wanted to build a reasonable pot to outplay him in, but not too big a pot. Plus, he was folding to the minraises often enough that it was enough of a raise to work). The flop was J98, a dream flop. He bet a big bet, his "I am trying to get you to fold because I'm saying I have a hand" bet, but I had none of it and moved in. He instacalled with AT, and no ace or chopcard came, and I had a big lead. I won with K3 against K9 on the K63 flop.

In other news today, I lasted under an hour in the $125gtd+$25k on UB tonight. No hands for that time, but I was able to work my stack up just a bit, then ran into AA with KK and busted. Standard.

I also played the 19k on full tilt, and that was the typical minefield. I ultimately went out of that one in a race, but both benefitted and was crushed by awful play during the course of the tournament.

I am now 3/4 in $50 heads up matches, unfortunately I went 1/2 in a 4 player heads up tournament, so I didn't win any money from it. I'll should probably play those an awful lot, since my edge against the random player is HUGE in them. I'd argue my edge against the random player is HUGE up to maybe the $200 level, but that might be giving myself too much credit.

Debbie and I attended the Blue Jackets game this evening. They faced off against the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim. I've said before, and I'll say again: Nationwide Arena is the best arena (defined as a venue with a roof overhead that is not a dome) I have ever been in. There are no bad seats in the house. We got seats on the red line in the 2nd to back row and had a wonderful view of the whole game. The Blue Jackets dominated the first period, taking a 2-1 lead and firing off 16 shots on goal. The rest of the game they mustered 12, and looked horrible, ultimately losing 4-3. Sergei Federov was out with back issues, and missing him was surely the difference in the game. The really frustrating thing about this team is you can see the amazing talent, it's there, they're just not putting it together.

As I was at the CBJ match, I had to listen to the Buckeyes on the radio. I did watch the final 2 minutes of the game on the in-Arena TV during the 2nd intermission. It sounded like they played poorly while Georgetown sounded to play really well. That's not a good combination in the NCAA tournament. It was a nice run, but this team sure could have used Greg Oden a year early.