Exhaustion FTW!

Have you been sleeping well lately? I haven't. I'm not really sure why, could be middle age, or the fact that the temps outside are more like Texas then Minnesota, but what ever it is, I miss my quality pillow time. Last night didn't help.

The Mrs and I swapped the kids last night after swimming lessons so I could make an increasingly rare appearance at poker league. The last 8 week league, I made 3 nights. No points the first night, 2nd and 3rd the other two nights.

I went into last night with two top 3 finishes in a row. The last tweak to my game had seemed to help. I switched to playing league like a do the 45 person sngs on Full Tilt. Freakishly tight to start, let my M fall and not hit panic until it reaches ~6. Playing only big hands and stealing pots that go unclaimed.

I took this approach again last night. To be perfectly honest, I played a lot like I do online. I twittered a lot, mostly just to keep me awake. CK was playing well at the WSOP so my rambling tweets probably just annoyed the hell out of people. Not like I should really care all that much. It's friggin' twitter.

My stack stayed pretty low for most of the night. If memory serves, I voluntarily put money in the pot once in the first hour and half. I played AA out of position for a raise and got callers. What the hell did they think I had? J3o? Gawd I love people.

The fun thing about poker league is if you sit there long enough, you can watch as player after player takes a gun and shoots themselves in the head. By the time I started moving chips around, we were down to 16 people from a starting field of 36.

Two times last night I had to make tournament decisions, surprisingly, they were about the same concept: Pot size control. I don't remember the details of the second one, cause I'm sleepy, but the one I do remember went like this: I was in the SB with K9c. CK always says crubs are da best, I believe her. The under the gun player shoves, but for a little over 2 bets. 3 call this barely-a-raise and I figure if I hit, nice pot. The BB calls two. My major problem was I only had about 10 bets left myself, if I miss, I'll be sad.

The flop comes JcTd7c. That's probably as close to gin as I'm gonna get. I most definitely don't have a made hand here, but I'm drawing every which way. Flushes and straights. Since no one was really showing strength, I had to guess that no one had a big hand, but I'll be perfectly honest, I'm actually happy with the amount of money in the pot right now. I shove. A couple of players really think about it, one guy give me props and says that he's laying down because he respects my play and figures I'm not drawing dead. It folds around and the all-in guys turns over AJ, no clubs. I'm still quite alive, but didn't improve.

I was actually very happy with that play. I guess it was in a way a defensive shove. I really didn't want a caller, but I wanted to draw to the river for free. 2 bets with a pot that size is a nice return for the money.

We collapsed to the final table, at this stage, the blinds are stupid. Brook - you listening? The biggest stacks at the table have about 12 BBs. Everyone else...yeah. ShoveFest. I stayed alive by sticking to the blackjack rule. If I'd play it in blackjack, I'll shove it here. Got into a lot of coin flips and won a few and lost a few. More people took aim at the heads and hit their targets.

We played 4 handed for quite awhile. By now, the dead wood is gone and the remaining players are all fairly solid. In two hands in a row, BOOM, were are down to two. And look! with blinds of 2000/4000, I have 6000 chips. I started in the BB and called his first raise without looking at my cards. Do they matter? 10 8o hits and I double up. Next hand double up, and the next hand once more. We are about even now. Yikes.

This is the same guy I played a few weeks ago when I finished second. So I took what I learned the last time and applied it to tonight. Get him covered was a good thing. I kept the pressure on slowly dwindled his chips to my stack. In the last hand, he limps to me in the BB. I have 23o. The only way I see a flop with this is if it's free.

The flop comes 723 rainbow. I declare gin. I checked it to him because he will open for a raise on a junk flop about 80% of the time. I min raise, he shoves, I call and AT doesn't find any friends.

For at least the next week, I'm the league point leader.

Geebus I can ramble when I'm exhausted. Whiskey club is Friday night...anyone want to go? Only rules is ya got to be a dude, no chicks, and you HAVE to drink the first one neat. You don't know what neat means? You should probably stay home...I'm out of here...it's nap time somewhere.