Strangeness Abounds

So today I only played a bit o' poker, spending most of the day painting the bathroom and doing other assorted chores. But the bit o' poker I did play was pretty wacky.

Backing up a little, I did pretty well in a $10 NL multi-player tournament last night on Paradise. I like their tournament offerings, and the players seem pretty weak, but I'm still a little new to the re-buy and add-on options, having only played at Party and Empire before. I know it sucks in lots of fishy money, which is good, but it somehow fundamentally pains me, as I feel like I should rebuy and add-on as much as possible, but I resist doing so, usually relying on my play itself to build a stack. I usually don't rebuy and only add-on if I'm short stacked at the first break.

But yeah, I did well last night, finishing 20th or so, in the money. I likely should have done better but I got cautious once I built a big stack, thinking I'd coast into the money and then get aggressive. Which I did, but the card gods abandoned me and I caught utter junk the rest of the way. There were two different hands where I didn't call all-ins with A Q and A J, both of which I would have taken down. It was the "smart" play, but it doomed me to a middle of the pack finish in the money. If I want to win these things I have to push harder when the opportunities arise.

Finished 3rd in a $20 SnG this morning, and was lucky to manage that. Two different bad beats almost put me out, but I recovered a bit, and then sucked out to win with JJ against AA, then took down KK with AJ the next hand. I was short stacked when it got down to 3 handed, tried to steal and got busted out.

Next up was the WPT final qualifier. Something like 2300 players and the top prize gets a free trip to a WPT tournament in California. I lasted all of 15 minutes I think. Flopped a set of 10s, pushed all-in, was called by a guy on an open ended straight flush draw, which he made on the river.

I'd started a $10 limit multi-player tournament to keep me amused during the WPT qualifier, and was sort of limping along in it. Raked in a nice pot on a full house, then blew it (plus some) on AA two different times that didn't hold up. I pretty much resigned myself to an early exit and even started painting the bathroom between hands.

I kept managing to catch enough cards to double up, though, when I got short-stacked. It was weird, because it was all or nothing, complete junk or strong hands. But the strong hands came about every 20 minutes. So I was perpetually on the bubble for forever, hanging around.

And hanging around. And hanging around. Somehow I limped into the money, and kept hanging around. I forget the exact hands, but I managed to defend when the ante put me all-in with QQ and 22 (which isn't that crazy), but also 10 7, 5 2, and similar junk.

I ended up 5th, banking $110, which is nuts. For about an hour and a half I never had more than 1-2 BB. All hail King Limp.

Then I just jumped on for a little $1/2 action. Played 5 handed and caught ridiculous cards from the get-go. Twice I flopped a straight, had JJ and KK, flopped a nut flush once. And I got action on almost all of them. I played for about ten minutes and finished +$65. Then I ran away giggling.

So yeah. Good weekend, poker-wise. I repaired the damage to the bankroll plus some. Paradise account is sitting at $320 now. Rock and roll.