The Crooked Link

Life of a Low Stakes Gambler...

Monday, May 14, 2007

It's been a while...

Well, i realize it's been a while since I've updated. Two weeks to be precise. And im happy to say alot of poker playing has been happening since last time i checked in. The day of my last entry i'd been playing online at work for .05/.10 NL cash games and i was doing ok until i guess i caught a bad run of cards. That sent me on full tilt, and for some crazy reason, I reasoned that i could chase my losses at a higher stakes table so i sat down at a $1/$2 table and its the worst mistake i could have made. First of all, the NL low stakes games i'd been playing before had a $3.00 CAP so i couldnt lose more than three dollars on any given hand but here was no CAP on this game so that'd what killed me. To make a long story short i lost about 20 dollars in about 3 minutes. No Joke. After that i was devastated and felt sick to my stomach. I think after that i tried to regain my money on some 2 dollar Sit n Go's or something but i eventually ended up losing my initial 50 dollar deposit. I was feeling like crap because i could only play with play money until my next deposit. The following Sunday i decided to sign up for a free roll that began around 8 at night. Didn't give it much thought, there were around 400 or so entrants and prized pool paid through like 70th place or sumthing. Anyway i began playing pretty tight think, and was able to build a decent chip stack to where i didnt have to risk to much. As the blinds kept going up though i had to play more cards and there were a couple of times where i went all in and got lucky on the river. Anyway i stayed around average until around the time 50 or 60 places remained and then i began winning pots again. And when finally it was down to 10 players, we were waiting for the last payer to be eliminated so the final table would be set. I ended up taking out this guy who i'd been real chatty with through most of the final stages before the Final Table. He went all in, and i cant remember what the hand was, but i ended up taking all his chips, which mind you, was a very significant amount. So significant in fact, that it gave me the chip lead heading to the Final Table. The final table was a breeze as i had to do minimal work because of my chip position. It wasn't until it got to heads up that things got interesting. I had about a 2 to 1 chip lead over my opponent and we actually flip floped chip positions a couple of times until i was finally able to eliminate him. That's right, first place buddy! I was so syked i i couldnt beleive it. The grand price? 200 dollars. lol not bad at all considering i didnt have to buy in for anything. The tourney ended around 4 in the morning, and it was a sunday night so i had school the next day, but i didnt care how tired i was at school the next day. I cared about my 200 dollars.

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Para Empesar...

Alright, so my first xanga entry. At least on this username. I've had two previous ones that i used alot back in the day, before Myspace was big. Anyway, the main reason I started this one was to talk about poker, one of my favorite things in the whole wide world. Occasionally i might talk about personal stuff but poker will be the main subject. And since that's the case, none of my friends are going to know about this blog. This blog is just for me basically, to be able to look back and read about where my game was at at a specific point and time. So I'm by no means a high stakes poker player. Or even a good one at that (wish i just came to realize today, but more on that later). I can't really say how exactly i got so into poker but it was a few months ago, between watching the best poker movie ever made, Rounders, and all the poker on ESPN. I began to get into the game more and more, and at this point, poker is probably at the top of my list as far as interest go. So like i said earlier, im by no means a good poker player, and i don't play much either actually. One of the main reasons being that im 17 and few of my friends enjoy poker as passionately as I do. I do play poker just about everyday at school during lunch , but i hardly take that into consideration when i talk about playing real poker since the competition is slim to none. I'm not saying i win every time, because i sure as hell don't. But the people I play with have a very poor understanding of the game in general. They know the basic rules and what not, but they don't try to understand the game at a deeper level. I usually play with three other guys during our lunch break/ Steve, Victor Z. and Mike. It's usually a 1 dollar buy in and around 20 chips each with winner taking all. With blinds at 1/2 and my friends overplaying their cards every hand, this assures us getting in around 2 or 3 games a day. I guess ill talk about those games in future blogs if an interesting hand comes up or something. Aside from those lunch break games, i hardly play poker at all except with my best friend Peter. We play heads up every time he comes over, but its never for money. Still, those games get pretty fun at times. Up until a week ago, i had never actually played poker with anyone besides those few guys from lunch. Last Sunday though, i attended a semi tournament someone from my school set up. I guess that tourney as a whole can be the subject for my next blog, and after that i've got a few other topics i'd like to cover, such as online poker, which totally destroyed me today. But again, more on that in future blogs. I'd say this is enough for a first entry. I'll probably write again tomorrow if im not to lazy. Hm...im debating whether or not to proofread this and make it all grammatically correct, or just leave it as is...eh, w.e. No one but me is going to read it so i guess it's all good. Well im out. Peace.