grinding it out. I’m still at it after 2 hrs, and right now I’m up over $20. One decent pot (+$8), and the rest have been small. I’m playing very tight, low risk stuff. Not much slow-playing to build pots, since I’m not feeling like taking risks – when I have the best hand possible at that moment, I make the other guy make bad calls with aggressive slot88. And when I actually draw into something, I’ve been blessed with calling stations around me.
Earlier, I was thinking about how it’s counter-intuitive that being aggressive is actually a more conservative strategy. I didn’t feel like having big showdowns tonight. I wanted to win money, and never give it back. And it’s worked so far. Get a couple people in the pot, then prey on their fear to shut them out.
Even got to “use” the Hammer (as opposed to “dropping” the Hammer, which I think of as raising PF – I was BB and checked it in). Flop was A73, so I led out with a pot-size bet and took it down right there.
Oddly, though, I had very few premium hole cards. My QQWIN99 best hole cards all night were JJ, (which I lost to trip Q’s in my biggest loss all night) followed by KJs. That’s it.
So, there was enough grinding going on that if it had been a lap-dance, well… let’s just say I’d have had trouble walking afterward – you know, lots of foreplay, but ultimately, no big climax.
[My mistake – there was a climax! I just picked up 77 in the BB, smooth called a decent PF raise to make it three to the flop. Flop comes 79Q, 2 diamonds. I check, raiser goes for the same amount, next guy goes all-in for about $5.90. I have him covered easily, so I re-raise to try to push out the original raiser. He goes all-in for over $20. I am DAMNED worried about trip Qs, but it felt like he was trying to push me off – so I called nearly all my chips. He turns over AA, next guy turns over QJ and picks up a J on the turn, but my trips hold on for the $66 win! My biggest win ever! Woo-hoo!]
Without a doubt, some of the finest Poker reporting I’ve seen
If you aren’t already aware of it , Otis has been reporting on the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure tournament from the Bahamas this week. I believe he might be working a freelance assignment directly for PokerStars, but I could be wrong. Regardless, this is some of the most professional unique casino reporting I’ve ever seen – makes those Cardplayer folks look like hacks (no offense to to you guys, but Otis’ stuff is just a step above, ya know?). Not only do we get the nuts and bolts of chip counts and bust-outs, but he does a fantastic job of finding and delivering on the human interest side of the tourney. Anyway, if you haven’t checked it out yet, do so at the link in the title of this post.
Truly a tour de force.
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As we all know, Otis has won an entry for himself into the Party Poker Million Tournament. It is presumptuous of me to say so since I’ve never played with the man nor know him in any way, but let’s just assume he makes the final table. WPT interviews each of the players to get their thoughts and feelings to play as filler between those heavily edited hands. With that in mind, I thought I would take it upon myself to write up some suggestions for not-so-air-able comments:
- Doyle Brunson is a legend, and there is no one I want to see finish second more than Doyle.
- Negreanu is engaged? To a woman? How is Lindgren taking it?
- I talked to the boys in the pen and they said Matusow really DOES have big testicles.
- That Juanda guy never blinks – must be all the snakes they eat in the jungle over there.
- Lederer told me I could call him Bub… Bub… Bub… it makes my mouth feel funny saying it… Bub…
- Boy, I hope Phil Hellmuth wears a shirt to the table.
- Hey, Shana, nice boobs!
- Well, Vince, they call me Otis… nope, just Otis… no, not Big Bad Otis… no, not Otis-Potis… No, just OTIS…
- Lemme give a shout-out to my peeps, Iggy and Al and Maudie and especially my runnin’ buddies – G-Rob and CJ… whaaaaassssuuuupp!!!
- Well, let’s face it, with a name like “Chip”, did he really have any other choice for a profession?
