Stars Final Table

My buddy Jon Little is dominating at the Poker Stars $530 buy-in Final Table. 209k for first place and 9 people left. I'll update as he progresses, but if he wins I have a feeling that our house in Vegas will be even more awesome.

*Jon worked out a deal for 90k when he was short stacked with 4 people left, they left $30,000 on the table to play for, winner take all and he is heads up right now with a 3:1 chip lead!

Ah, unfortunatly Jon lost and ends with ONLY his $90,000 day. Not a bad way to end April.

Wow

I was just watching Dags play the 100/200 on Full Tilt before I crashed for the night.
This guy is sick.

Full Tilt Poker Game #603535540: Table Castle (heads up) - $100/$200 - Limit Hold'em - 6:27:32 ET - 2006/04/30
Seat 1: John DAgostino ($16,846.50)
Seat 2: THROOP ($1,193.50)
John DAgostino posts the small blind of $50
THROOP posts the big blind of $100
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
John DAgostino raises to $200
THROOP calls $100
*** FLOP *** [Ad 5d 6h]
MIT joe (Observer): K 10
THROOP checks
John DAgostino bets $100
THROOP calls $100
*** TURN *** [Ad 5d 6h] [Td]
THROOP checks
John DAgostino checks
*** RIVER *** [Ad 5d 6h Td] [6c]
THROOP bets $200
John DAgostino has 15 seconds left to act
John DAgostino: this is gonna be goofy
John DAgostino calls $200
THROOP: wow
*** SHOW DOWN ***
THROOP shows [8d 9c] (a pair of Sixes)
John DAgostino shows [Js 7h] (a pair of Sixes)
John DAgostino wins the pot ($999.50) with a pair of Sixes
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $1,000 Rake $0.50
Board: [Ad 5d 6h Td 6c]
Seat 1: John DAgostino (small blind) showed [Js 7h] and won ($999.50) with a pair of Sixes
Seat 2: THROOP (big blind) showed [8d 9c] and lost with a pair of Sixes

THROOP: is this funny to you?

weird weird session

I just played 30/60 on Full Tilt and have to say it is one of the weirdest sessions I have played for a while. I was making really great plays, but people were either calling me down with K high for no apparent reason of hitting their 3-6 outers fairly consistently. I was playing with maybe the 3 worst 30/60 players on Full Tilt so I was really happy to be sitting at such a great table, but I'd lose two pots to one of the donks and then they would immediatly get up and leave! It was so bizarre. I actually broke the table, eveyone left from a full table, while I lost $1,700 in about an hour. People do leave the table that I am playing at quite often, but it's usually because I am killing them and they get fed up, not because they are killing me! I am pretty disappointed that I didn't capitalize on the softest table I have seen in a while, but there wasn't much I could really do about it. Oh well, that's the game.

Not a bad follow up

Tonight I only played for about 2 hours because in my WSOP tourney my AK was defiantly no good against K 10 on a KQ9 flop. 10 on the river sealed my fate. I did however make about $800 playing two 15/30 games for a couple hours, so the night wasn't that bad at all.

I just heard a plan about heading to Barcelona for some euro heads-up poker tournament in mid May. Shannon is planning some sort of a trip and if things keep going as well as they have I may just have to tag along and see some of Spain, since it is one of the few western European countries that I haven't seen. Nothing is for sure yet though, so I'll update on permanent plans in the near future.

WOOOHOOO

GOOD NIGHT TONIGHT! I just played a 9 hour session and it went very well. I was playing one 30/60 table on Full Tilt and ended that up $3,500. I also played a $24 satelite to a $1,500 buy-in WSOP event. The top 3 got the package and I ended up 2nd after I knocked out the 4th place guy with Q6 vs. AK, ship it bay bay!!!!!!!! Man, I am pumped. I'll write some more details tomorrow, right now I am going to hang out with my rommates and celebrate a bit.

Sunday

I got an IM from Shannon on Saturday saying that we were all gonna play in the Sunday satellite for the St. Petersburg Open and try to qualify for Russia. That sounded really last minute since the tournament is in 2 weeks and I would have to leave the day after I graduate. But hey, I'm a last minute kind of a guy. So Shannon, Jon, myself and another one of Shannon's friends all agreed that we would play in the tournament and if one of us qualified we would all share the Hotel room and split the spending money to use for airfare to Russia. I think it worked out to $375 each for a plane ticket, which wouldn't cover half of it, but hey, it's Russia. So we all enter the satellite and since there are 4 of us playing in it and 1 out of 32 qualify we realistically have a 1:8 chance of going, all skill levels being even. HOWEVER, given our mad poker skillz (notice the "Z") and innate ability to read our opponents physical tells on-line, I think the final line set us as a 5.2:1 favorite to qualify at least twice. So we all hop into the tournament and I run to the take out Chinese place and grab some food for me and Alex. When I get back the tournament has already started and as soon as I sit down I flop a set with 55 and double up through some donkey who thinks his top pair would EVER be good against me. This games easy! It doesn't go so well for Shannon and Jon and they never get a chip stack going, but me and the other guy (I can't remember his name so I'll just refer to him as Jervon) start to make some moves and build up to about 12,000 chips by the second break. Jervon seems like a pretty good player and is building a stack while not even catching much, as am I, and it's looking like with 50 people left and 7 spots for Russia we should be able to get one of us in. But it turns out that I make a really, really, awful play with 33 in the BB and pay off a guy who flops trip Jacks which cripples me and leaves me almost out of the tourney. I catch a rush and build back up to 14,000 when we are down to about 25 people left and sometime in this stretch Jervon gets knocked out on a hand I didn't see, but I'm sure the dude had to go perfect perfect to catch a straight flush and bust Jervon's quads, or something similar. So it is down to me and the pressure is building, but then I make another donkey play, get crippled, build back up, and then get broke in 18th place when some guy's AK outdraws my A9 all in pre-flop. RIGGED.

So no Russia, but I did play in the big tourney on party and stars. I busted on Party and played immaculately on Stars until we were down to the last 200 and my AK got all in against QQ preflop. Flop: 6 10 K BOOOYAAAA! Turn Q........ games not so easy. Still good for almost 1,000 though. I did have 50% of my friend Mats Iremark in the 50k on Pac that he final tabled... But got 10th and won a whole $500. So many close calls, so little to show for it

Running goooood

Playd a bit last night on pacific, one 30/60 game that was really bad and made about 2,500 in 2 hours. Then hopped on to poker fantasy when I woke up today and made about 900 in an hour. Caugh a mega rush with AA twice and AK twice in 7 hands, won three and got paid off on all three. I gotta get my lawn mowed today, it's getting really long and I think my neighbors are getting worried about it.



The reality TV star "Hoopz" from the greatest reality TV show ever: "Flava of Love" is coming to one of the bars in Lincoln tonight so my roomates are all fired up to go see her and hit the bars. I've only got a few weeks left with these guys so I had better take advantage of it before we all go our seperate ways.

Great Run

I just found out Tony got knocked out a little while after hitting the money. Great run bud, here's the summary from the Ultimate Bet Blog:

ShipIt Takes his VitaminsApril 21, 2006 11:35 PM

ShipItThisWay just knocked out VitaminABC, which seems a little like Snack Time on the Donner Trail to me. Critically short stacked, Tony Z raised all-in, and ShipIt called. K-Q for Vitamin, A-Q for ShipIt. An ace and a king both hit the board, and VitaminABC was done for the day. Congratulations to him for parlaying exactly zero dollars -- he qualified through the 150k UB points freeroll -- into almost 50 large. BRB -jv

Tony cruising

I just talked to Donny and Tony now has over 400k in chips after being down to about 30k earlier today. He caught a heater and is catching some cards. There are 112 people left and he is sitting on an above average stack so things are looking pretty good. Donny just caught a flight out there to see him and cheer him on a bit.

Short session

Tony and Evelyn Ng

I just finished about a 2 hour session, 3 tabling 10/20. Ended up about $700 so it went pretty decent. I just heard that Tony is still sitting on around 50k in chips so he is fairly short and needs to make a couple moves soon. If he can even just make the money that's a $40,000 payday, so it would probably be smart for him to hang on and make the cash. I don't know what I would do, 40k would be nice, but $3,000,000 for first place is what I'd be looking at.

Results for last night.... I probably can eat 4 hot dogs and buns in 1:20 but I didn't last night. I came up about 1/8th of a bun short, very close. It's a lot harder than you think, I was 90% sure that I'd be able to do it with ease. No worries though, I've lost bigger prop bets.

WPT Championship

My buddy Tony Z is playing in the WPT championship at the Bellagio and is doing well after day one. He started today with 110,000 chips and is second big stack at his table to John D'Agostino, a very, very strong young pro. He's updating on his blog at the end of each day so if you want to follow the action, check it out at http://vegasbaebae.blogspot.com/

I played a couple 10/20 tables for a couple hours this afternoon but really wasn't feeling and ran very bad, lost about $500. I don't think I want to play anymore today. I do have a full day going though. I made a bet with a few of my friends that I could eat 4 hot dogs and buns in 1 minute 20 seconds, so we set that up for 7:00 and at 9:00 I have an intramural Softball game. Probably not a great idea to enter a food eating contest right before an athletic event, but we'll see how it goes. While we are on the topic, I had a very interesting discussion with my roommates the other day about another kind of eating contest. One of my roommates told me that he would eat nothing but dry dog food and water for 1 week for $5,000. I said I don't think he could do it, maybe for a couple days, but not a whole week. It would be an interesting bet, but I'm not interested in giving him a free-roll at 5k for eating dog food. I donate enough money to him on the golf course. I thought it was a humorous and interesting proposition....

AHHHHHHH

I am SOOOOO pissed right now. I hopped onto Full Tilt after class today and saw an open seat at what looked like a good 30/60 game, so I hopped on. The table sucked, real weak/tight and I ran pretty well and got up about $1,500 in an hour. I put a couple kinda bad beats on a guy when I'd bet the flop with a gutty, miss, check the turn, hit and raise him on the river when he bet into me. Not really bad beats for him, just kinda unlucky that I got there, ya know? So this guy "Magic Flute" or something starts saying how bad I am and that he wants to play me at higher stakes. He's the WORST player at the table, totally unprofitable, really weak, hardly ever raises his button heads-up, just terrible alright? So I tell him I'll play up to 300/600 and he suggests 100/200. So we go to the 100/200 heads-up table on FullTilt and start playing. AND I OWN HIM, he is so bad, we each bought in for 4k and I had him down to $500 in 20 minutes without even making but one hand. Then he goes on a stupid rush after going all in with 44 and flopping a set and he works it back up to like 3k. I wear him down again, hit a couple hands and in another 20 minutes he is down to $600 again. He then proceeds to get all-in, win, knocked back down, all-in win, back down.... for 5 times I have him all in and he wins every one. He then goes on another rush and gets back up to about 2.5k. I wear him down to 1k and he then goes on a stupid 3 outer and 2 outer rush on me and gets up for the first time in the match. I'm stuck $2,200 after about 90 minutes and then he says his wife is calling for dinner and he has to go! UNREAL

It is literally 1:10 that this guy beats he heads up, he is just sooooo bad. I never critized him though and ended the match by saying "gg, you played well, we should do it again sometime" I really really hope that we do get another crack at it. If this guy is a rich fish then I may pay off my entire college debt in a couple weeks. ah, I'm pissed but happy at the same time.

back to work

I just played about a 3 hour session, two tabling 15/30 on Full Tilt. The session was pretty uneventful, I ran decent and pretty much got max value for my good hands while losing minimum on the 2nd best hands. That equation usually leads to success and I ended up around $1,600. One of Donny's good friends is playing in the WPT championship and will be blogging his updates at http://vegasbaebae.blogspot.com/ He starts tomorrow.

Presentation

So I just got done giving my presentation on Gambling in GS 401 (Ministry in a changing world). I think it went pretty well and the class seemed to come to a consensus that gambling wasn't inherently wrong, but, like many other things, it becomes wrong if it moves from a recreational activity to an obsession. I don't see poker as "gambling" so the issue of being a professional poker player doesn't fall into the obsession category in my book. I haven't played at all since last tuesday so I think I need to get back into it a bit this week.

School, School, School

I haven't played much this week, I did play a few tourneys on tuesday night but didn't do really well in any of them. I have been pretty busy, my on-line finance class ended this week and I had to finish up some work in it. The good news is that I took my final yesterday afternoon and I am pretty sure that I passed, so it looks like I will graduate :) Now that graduation is so close I am really glad that my mom talked me into finishing up this semester. Having my degree is something that I'll be able to be proud of and might even be able to use someday. I am heading to Colorado with my mom for Easter later today. I'm looking forward to seeing my grandparents again and spending some quality time with the family. Happy Easter!

So close

I played all the major tournaments today, and came really close to making some real money. In the PartyPoker 500k, I played really well, but got knocked out in 41st place. Then in the FullTilt 200k guarantee I played exceptionally except for my last two hands. I ended up busting in 10th place, which is sooooo close to the big money, and yet so far away. First place in that one was $45k, and 10th paid a measley $1,800. The only bright spot is that I should get mentioned on Pocketfives.com for my 10th place finish, which is something I haven't done before. I'll post a link when it gets up on their site.

**Update** I thought pocketfives.com listed the top 10 finishers in all the tournaments, but only list the top 9 on Full Tilt since only the top 9 make the final table.

Quiet Lion

I hopped on Full Tilt yesterday and loaded up two 10/20 games and also two 15/30 games on pacific. I then proceeded to get murdered for about $1,500 in the first 10 minutes I was playing. I don't really know how long this cold streak will last but it is getting pretty unbelievable. It was like if there was a way to lose the pot, it would happen. I kept fighting but eventually gave up on it and quit the games about a $900 loser after 2 hours or so. I was going to just quit playing and go do something else, but then I saw that Quiet Lion was playing 50/100 three handed and so I decided to watch and see if the game was any good. After watching for about 15 minutes I decided that it looked pretty profitable, the two other players were very weak and Quiet Lion was playing a TON of hands from out of position. Quiet Lion is a Full Tilt sponsored pro who's real name is Richard Brodie. He used to be one of Bill Gates top assistants at Microsoft, but is retired now and is a limit hold'em specialist, specifically short handed. So I sat down directly to Lions left, so I would have position on him for the entire game, and bought in for 2k. Things started off pretty well, I made a bad play and got lucky to catch a flush when I was drawing real short, but won a nice pot and was up about 1k after the first 20 minutes or so. There were not a ton of notable hands, but I went on a mini rush, got EXTREEMLY lucky to outdraw a guy twice when he flopped two sets and I was up $5,000 after about 2 hours. Then I went dead again. Not as dead as the times before because I still was making some big hands, but they were losing. The real notable pot was when I had 22 on the button and Lion raised right in from of me. I three-bet him to isolate and unfortunatly the BB called also. The flop comes 832 rainbow... beautiful. Both players check, I bet, the BB calls, Brodie raises, and I just flat call along with the BB. The turn comes the K of clubs putting a club draw out there. They both check, I bet, BB folds, Lion raises, I three bet, he caps. At this point I should probably slow down, but I think there is a real possibilty that he could do this with K8 or AA, and he probably would have played those hands this way. The river comes a blank and he leads, I raise, he three bets and I cap it. Looking back I should have just called the 3 bet and maybe even just the lead bet on the river, but it's very hard to think that I am behind here. Anyways, he flips over pocket 8's and takes down a pot that was almost $3,000. Ouch.... I play for a little while longer but am still a bit cold and leave the table a 2.5k winner.

I played some more 15/30 today but didn't run very well and ended up down a few hundred. Oh well. I have to do some finance homework and then study for my final exam, which i am taking this week. This is my on-line class from Berkley and it is just killing me. I've never had to study this much for any class and still am not sure if I will pass. I have to pass the final exam in order to pass the class so wish me luck.

Speechless

It is 8:38 a.m. I haven't slept and I have class in 90 minutes, but I feel like I need to write this so I have something to do and don't go and hurt myself or anything. I just got done playing one of the most brutal sessions of my life..... Wow, I am actually sitting here physically stunned. It is a bizarre feeling.

Well, last night I was going to hop on and play some poker around midnight, so I logged onto Pacific and found a good 10/20 table. A few minutes after I sat down I looked in the lobby and saw my friend Nate playing two 75/150 tables and a 50/100 table. I looked at his 50/100 table and he was killing it so I decided I would join him and give it a shot and joined the table with $3,000. Well it didn't take long and he had broke the rest of the table and I was playing him heads up. Nate is a very good aggressive player but I feel like I can play with him and probably have a slight edge over him heads-up. The trouble with playing another very good player is that it can sometimes just come down to cards, and it did. He cracked 3 over pairs and a couple other made hands and eventually busted me when his pocket 2's made a 4 card flush on the river against my nut straight. So I wasn't very happy about it and called him right after he broke me to tell him how much I hated him. After I got off the phone with him I watched one of his 75/150 tables and couldn't believe how terrible the players were. I have seen much better 3/6 limit games, it was absolutely phenomenal. Seeing this great opportunity I defiantly wanted to get in there and mix it up a little, but I only had 1k left in my Pac account. Screw it, that wasn't going to stop me and I sat down with 1k. I Played really well but kept getting really tough beats, but was still able to build my chips. These players were so bad that even through the terrible beats it was really profitable. After about 4 hours I had a little rush and the bad beats subsided for a while, all of the sudden I was up $10,000 at the table and still running hot..... Then it all turned. After taking a bathroom break I came back upstairs and the first had I play, get a 2 outer spiked on me on the river... No worries, that'll happen and that's why I love playing with these guys. For the next 2 hours I go COLD, really cold. I maybe see 6-8 playable hands during this whole period. To make it worse, EVERYTIME I raised those 6 hands I ran into either JJ QQ or KK. It was absolutely brutal. The kicker was when I was down to about 3k and had J 10 soooted in the BB and capped out a flop of J 10 4 three ways, only to eventually lose a $2,500 pot to pocket 4's. That's not a bad beat I know, but it is still hard to take. If I worked it all out I probably took around $20,000 - $25,000 in bad beats (4 outers or less) during that 8 hour stretch. I am not trying to get anyone to feel sorry for me, that's not why I am writing this. I'm actually writing this to occupy my time so I don't do something drastic to my personal belongings. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I left the table with $1.5k so I ended up still making $600 on probably the single most brutal limit table I have ever played. It gives me some hope and I'll probably give it another shot pretty soon, but right now I have a sour taste in my mouth and need a break.

Procrastination

I'm sitting here in the computer lab at my college where I came to work on my Finance homework but decided to procrastinate instead. I surfed the web for about 30 minutes (it's truly amazing how much stuff you can look at on-line in 1/2 hour) and now decided to write a post since I hadn't wrote for a few days. I played some 20/40 today between class on SunPoker, but was at a really tough table. I don't know why I realize that my table is tough when I am sitting there, but can't convince myself to pick up my chips and find a different one. I played my first two hands like a total donk and was stuck $400 in the first 3 minutes of the session. I ended up making a couple hands and then pretty much just running over the table for about an hour. It is always so much more rewarding to own a table full of good players rather than weak players. I ended up making about 1k in a little over an hour when I probably shouldn't have even played at that table, poker is funny sometimes.

Last night I played a $160 double-shootout on PokerStars for a WSOP seat. A double-shootout, for those who don't know, is a 81 person tournament which starts with 9 players each at 9 different tables. You play your table like a single table tourney and everyone who wins their table gets to move on to the final 9 person table where they play down to 1. The winner gets a WSOP seat. I had never played one before so I thought I would try it out. Funny thing happened about 30 minutes into the tournament, one of my good friends (Donny), who is coming to Vegas with us this summer, sends me a instant message asking me if I am playing in a double-shootout on Stars. I kind of wonder how he knew this, but it turns out he was in the same tournament also. That may seem like just some mild coincidence, but if you look at our past history it is only one of many bizarre encounters.

2004- On my first trip to Canterbury Card Club in Minnesota I play 4-8 limit with Donny for about 6 hours, we talk for a while but I don't even think I catch his name.

2004- 4 months later on my second trip to Canterbury Card Club I see a face I remember and go up and say hello, for the first time being introduced to Donny. It turns out that this was the last time he had been there since our first meeting as well. We again by coincidence end up playing 6-12 together for several hours and exchange e-mail addresses so we can keep in touch.

2005- I qualify for The PPM and write an e-mail to Donny telling him the good news. A few weeks later he tells me that he is also going on the cruise with several of his friends.

2005- We are waiting for our luggage at the baggage claim in the San Diego Airport when Donny and his friends run into us and we mention how weird these coincidences are becoming. Later that night after we check into our hotel, Alex and I have to go and meet our other friend near downtown San Diego to pick him and his luggage up. As we are walking in downtown San Diego at 10 p.m. we again run into Donny and his friends by absolute chance.

To me that it is almost a scary amount of coincidences that have happened so last night I told him that it was a sign he was never probably going to get rid of me.

The tournament didn't go real great, my first table was very weak and I got heads-up with a 2-1 chip lead, unfortunately I was playing against a very good player and he caught some cards and I didn't so I ended up losing. Alright, I better start my homework...

Blah

Today I played the big events on Stars, Party, and Full Tilt. Party didn't go well and I only lasted a couple hours, Full Tilt was a slow death, but Stars went pretty well. I played really well, tight aggressive, never putting alot of my chips in risk and slowly building my stack. I was all-in twice the whole tournament, once with Aces and the other when I got knocked out. We had wittled the starting field of 5,500 down to about 350 and I had a above average stack of 50,000. My table is really aggressive, TONS of action preflop, lots of re-steals and two guys who push a lot because they know it puts alot of pressure on the other players at the table. I am under the gun and get 99 with that blinds at 750/1,500. I don't really like the situation and will sometimes fold this hand, but I hadn't raised in a while and figured that a UTG raise would look really strong. I make it 4,500 and the guy right next to me smooth calls and it folds around to the button who is one of those hyper-aggressive guys who keeps re-stealing. He had been caught re-stealing twice, once when he lost with 97 against KK and the other when he won with K6 against JJ, so he was capable of making moves. The action folds to him and he pushes with 78k. Looking back at it I really should have waited for a better spot, but I talk my self into calling because I think there's a real possibility that he could do this with 88 or less. Anyways I am not worried about the guy behind me because I think he would have re-raised me to begin with if he really had a monster, so I decide this is a good spot to double up and move into the top 10 in chips. I call and he flips over JJ and it's game over for me. SIGH.........

One day I will final table a big tournament again.