Played a $10+$1 satellite for an entry into a $600 + $40 million dollar Guaranteed tourny tonight.
Weirdest hand I saw:
Two guys in, flop is 3d-4d-5s. Raising war, eventually one guy goes all in and gets called. The guy with less has 9-9, the guy with more has 5-5 and trips. Forth street is another 9, giving the guy with less trip 9s, then the river is another 5, giving the guy with more quad 5s. If they cards dind't come out so darn quick, it would have been really dramatic.
I finished 30th out of 410. Not in the money, but not a bad showing overall.
I've been a partypoker.com member for a few years, and much of the time I'd deposit $50, play for a few days or weeks (or hours), then I'd be out of money and have to buy in again, usually giving myself a few weeks off so I'm not spending the rent money. A couple times I'd cash out $75 or $100 and play with the remainder, and while this made up for some of the losses, I was still in the red overall.
Recently, however, I've been improving considerably, and in the long term over hundreds of hands played. I have a couple of explanations for this:
Tighter, more aggressive play - I don't play nearly as many hands as I used to, and when I do play a hand, I tend to come out swinging. Combine this with a little change-up, "Gus Hansen" style of play, and I've been winning more hands.
Regular tables - When I first started, I played almost exclusively at tournament tables, drawn in by the promises of big payoffs or advancing to even bigger tables. While I did moderately well, I've found I've done much better on low-limit games outside of the large tournament style. One or two-table tournaments also held better luck than 50 table monsters.
Omaha - With everyone playing Texas Hold 'Em, I'm finding that I do better playing Omaha. It's a very different game in terms of strategy although gameplay is similar. I'm not sure if the people I'm playing against just aren't very good, or if the only people playing are those with some good knowledge of the game. Either way, I'm doing well.
I bought in $50 about 5 months ago, cashed out $100 of that, and played with the rest for another 3 months, going up and down. I bought in again for $100 last week, and I'm up almost $70 since then, playing $.50/$1 games. I've noticed my "ups" correspond with gameplay as described above, and my "downs" happen when I go back to tournaments. It'll be interesting to see where it goes from here.
Welcome, readers, to the new poker-specific section of Insignifica, where I'll be highlighting my poker playing, tournament play, online reviews, etc. In an effort to provide full disclosure, I'll also be looking for new readers to join Partypoker.com, which gets you a bonus when you sign up, and gets me one too. For the most part, though, it'll be a site about my play.
Because it's in the same vein, I'll probably have other gaming-related stories here, detailing my Blackjack, Let It Ride and other card game play. Stories will be linked to from the main Insignifica.org page, in order to get the most readers here.
As I'm writing this, the site is using a default Movable Type template, which will surely change as I have time to work on the site. Enjoy, and leave comments!