BLOODY SUNDAY

As summer approaches, I imagine I will be playing much less poker than so far this year. I will be swimming or travelling with the kids through August. There may be weeks where I don't get to play at all. I will try to squeeze in some cash games when appropriate and I will do my best to make Sundays my poker days. Today, I played the majors at PokerRoom, PokerStars, and Full Tilt. No luck at any of them cost me over $700.

$300 Big Deal at PokerRoom, I caught a set of fours early on against queens and doubled up to nearly $5k, but it was all downhill from there. I kept getting hands I couldn't fold which never lasted thru the river. My stack went down as the blinds went up, until I got all in with tens versus aces to end the agony.

$200 Million Dollar Guarantee at Stars was going very well for awhile. I was climbing, climbing, then forced a small stack all-in when I held JJ only to find he held kings. The stack suffered, but it wasn't too bad of a knock. I stayed patient and played good hands, but couldn't catch a flop and I started feeling the heat. The way I went out was pretty crappy - I had AJ on the big blind and there was a middle position min-raise followed by a call. I decided to err on the side of aggression, so I went all-in, knowing that I would only be happy if both opponents folded. I was figuring both for underpairs, so best case was a possible double-up. The original raiser had me outstacked and decided to go with his AK. I knew I was dead, but then I hit a jack on the turn and things looked brighter for a brief moment until the king on the river sealed my fate.

$200 Full Tilt was slow going out of the gate, but I just waited and waited and the cards arrived when I needed them. I built a nice five-digit stack before the carpet was pulled from beneath my feet. I did have one glorious moment when I was moved to a new table for one hand. I got sat under the gun and given pocket rockets. I had no idea how to play them at a virgin table, so I min-raised and hoped for action. The next two players both called the raise, then the button and big blind called as well. The flop was king-high with two clubs. I figured one of these jokers had a king, so I checked as if giving up on the hand. Third position bet out and the button called, I went all-in and third position called with his nut flush draw, which thankfully missed. That was a huge haul for me and I was moved again as soon as it was over.

I had a huge stack, but still, there would only be two hands left for me. The first one, I sat on the button with AK and it folded around to the cutoff, who raised. I went all in, but the cutoff, who could have had anything, had QQ. Still not too tragic - I found a K on the flop, but a Q on the turn cut me in half. The next time I had a hand, I was again on the button, this time with AQ. I announced to Marci that this might be my last hand. There was $1000 in the pot to begin with and my stack was less than eight times that, so AQ was a hand with which I could make a stand. There was a min-raise from under the gun which had me sweating. I told Marci that it is likely that his hand is not worse than mine since AQ is the minimum raising hand from UTG at this stage in the game if you go by the book. I explained to her that I was just going to call, rather than push, but if I hit either card, then I'm going with the hand. The flop brought AK6. I said, "okay, I'm going with it, so I might as well let him bet to get some more money in the middle." I checked and he bet. I came back all-in and he called...with KT. Wow, didn't expect that. Turn = ten, river = ten, good game, Dude.