Grinding

I've been playing alot of poker in 08 so far. No big scores yet, but I'm fairly satisfied with the way I'm playing. As planned, I'm playing more live poker, even though I dislike playing 1 table, sitting around waiting for the cards to be shuffled and having to deal with the people that "live" in casinos. The comforts of home and multitabling is definately my ideal poker setting.

I have managed to final table a couple of smallish live events. The first one was a 1k "Turbo" in Australia. The turbo part didn't refer to the structure (which was actually quite non-turbo in that the blinds did not go up that quickly, there were no antes the entire tournament, and tables were 10-handed) rather each person had 20 seconds max to act on each decision. This is a great rule, and I hope to see it implemented in other tournaments. The amount of hollywooding that goes on live is ridiculous.

I came into the final table second in chips, but unfortunately I ended up 7th. My bustout hand was non-standard. It folded to the cutoff (sitting with 26-ish BB's) who minraised, and sitting on the button (and having him covered by a very small amount) I re-minraised with a10. (The cutoff had doubled up earlier in the final table after flopping a flush over flush after raising q6 of diamonds UTG+1.) Both blinds folded, and the cutoff flat-called the tiny amount that he needed to. The flop came 986 (2 spades of which i had none), and my opponent check called my half pot c-bet. The turn came a blank 7, and he led out for 25-40% of the pot. I didnt believe he'd be able to fold any 2 pair hand so I put in a raise to which he immediately put the rest of his chips in. I called only to be shown j10.

The other final table I made was a PLO rebuy at the Venetian. It was a $500 entry with $300 rebuys, and got a real small turnout. The first hand I got qj99 double suited and got a decent amount of action when i flopped top set and a flush draw. I never had to rebuy, but found myself on the ft/money bubble getting real short. I was lucky enough to pick up aaxx(X's prob were not complete garbage if I rem right) and got it in preflop and held. When we got down to 10 handed I decided to start playing maniacally and was able to get to the final table with a nice stack after sucking out on the bubble boy. (I repotted him preflop for the 2nd time in an orbit after he had laid down the first time. There were a couple of shorter stacks than him, so they were very thankful to me for getting them into the money:) PLO tourneys never have antes, so when we went back to a full table, I went back to nitting it up. Next thing I know we were 3 handed and I was the short stack. We worked out a deal leaving a little money on the table to play for along with the title. I picked up top set against a wrap straight and flush draw 3 handed and after an obvious board pairing on the turn I went into heads up about even. We played about 20-30 minutes and got all in a bunch of times. It seemed like the hand with less equity won each showdown. I got crippled finally when i my gutshot and flush draw didnt get there against naked aces.