WWdN and 45 SNG Challenge Night

After picking up my son at his weekly indoor baseball clinic last night, I ended up getting home around 8:20. Since it was Tuesday (one of my rationed poker nights), and my wife was watching Idol, I decided to jump into the WWdN. Although this tourney is always –ev for me, as I have said before, I enjoy it.

I had just logged in and onto yahoo IM and KJ from mowenumdown shot me a hello. He said he was in a 45 SNG and did I want to join him. I asked him about the WWdN, and with about 4 minutes to spare, we both jumped in. He thanked me for telling him and then proceeded to kick some ass. He ended up finishing second in the WWdN while I…umm…didn’t. Nothing at all memorable to report. Just out somewhere just after the break.

Not to worry though, with Jordan on now also, we all decided to jump into a SNG. I still had 13 to play for the challenge and with my 2 night a week ration, I decided to take in a few last night. I also was pretty happy with my 2nd place the night before and was looking forward to playing with some of the other bloggers in the challenge. We decided to play in a $10 one first. Although this was really more than I usually play, I was hoping to catch a hot streak like the one that Klopzi has been on.

With Jordan, KJ and I in that one, others started logging in also. With Gracie, Bigslicknut, Tripjax, GCox25, and Matt logged in at various times, I knew there was going to be a bunch of 45s being played.

While KJ was on his roll in the WWdN, he also was rolling along in the SNG. It was his night. He ended up cashing in this one too while I…umm…didn’t. Again, nothing memorable in that one either. I threw away a bunch of my stack on big slick that didn’t materialize and by the turn, I was beat and had to lay it down. This was in the 3rd or 4th level so the blinds were getting up at that point. I just donked it up a bit and never saw any nice cards.

With that beating behind me, I jumped into a $6 turbo with Jordan and we ended up getting seated at the same table. Again, I was card dead. We both sat back patiently as people fell. I don’t remember what got me short stacked. I think I was playing middle pairs aggressively only to be played back and having to fold like a wussbag. In any event, I ended up pushing with 5’s and ended up with 3 callers. I knew I would have callers because my stack wasn’t scary, but 3? When the cards were shown, I was actually at least a coin flip since I was up against 3 hands of 2 big cards each. I thought it was pretty funny because these guys had gone over the top on each other to get into the hand, even though I was all in already.

Anyway, everyone missed the flop and the turn. I was all ready to do the happy dance and bunker down when an Ace came on the river and wiped 3 of us out. Now I didn’t actually expect to win the hand but was hoping. Until the river, I was looking good to hold up. The thing that pissed me off was the biatch who rivered everyone decided to add insult to injury by typing in a simple “bye” in the chat, unprovoked.

Now wtf is up with that? I decided to drop my F bombs in the blogger yahoo chat, rather than in the table chat. I just calmly typed back “classy” and stewed to myself. Luckily, Jordan ended up storming to the final table after I left and had a couple donkeys knock themselves out for him so that he could place 5th. Well played, sir.

It was about 11:15 or so at that point and I decided to jump into one last one. I thought about doing another $1 tourney, since that was the level that I cashed in the night before. The only thing was, I was behind a nice amount for the night with the WWdN, the first 2 SNGs, and my $10 that I transfer, like you are going to do too, for the NCAA pool. With my second place in the $1, that netted me a whopping $10. I decided to do another $6 turbo. Since I really haven’t seen any difference in the players at all, I figured if I was going to cash, I might as well make some moolah.

I ended up playing uber tight yet still getting short stacked. Again, not a lot of details remembered but I ended up finishing in 4th for a $30 hit that basically got me back to even for poker related activities for the night. I tripled up on a hand when I was short stacked but the blinds were high enough to get 2 callers to my push. The next hand after my triple up, I doubled up again and when I got to the final table, I was second in chips. I do remember one hand though, that I was pissed at myself about.

Did I play this one wrong in this situation? We had just gotten to the final table I think and I had about 10K in chips. I was in MP with AKo and it was folded to me. The Blinds were at 1K/2K. I raised it to 5K to go but the big stack, who was in the SB with about 17K in chips called and the BB folded.

I missed the flop and didn’t want to put anymore of my chips in and risk being in the dead zone. I waited a minute and checked, hoping he would think I was trapping so I would get a free card. He bet out 5K and I had to fold. I have no idea what he had but in hindsight, I guess I could have just called. At least if I got a raise…actually, I don’t know what I would have done. I was on the bubble with 9 left so I didn’t want to go out with big slick (looks good never wins).

Was I too aggressive or too wimpy?

In any event, I was happy to get some more points in the 45 SNG Challenge and I had a bunch of fun chatting with and railing the other bloggers.

No poker tonight or tomorrow but the wifey is out with the girls on Friday night so I will be at it again.

Good luck all.