Full Tilt Player Notes

I've been working on reverse engineering the Full Tilt player note file. If you are interested in know any more about it, you can look at my posts over at Full Tilt Fan.

To anyone that is interested Full Tilt is also running a 100% deposit bonus. It's pretty easy to get it released, so I highly recommend it.

Business Ideas

One of my life's dreams, if I had far too much money, would be to start a chain of stores like Wal-Mart but with one major difference. The entire store would be smoking and there would be bars spread within. We would cater to a select group, but it would be the best shopping experience we would have. Can't deciede between Fruit Loops and Special K? Have a Guiness or a shot of Jack to help your mind grapple with the problem.

Ramblings

Been playing for quite a while today. Took down the biggest pot I ever have on $2/$4, totallying $77 after the rake.

Didn't do so hot in NL with a few other bloggers at the table, but that is life. My NL ring game needs work.

Yesterday sucked at the brewery, I went in to bottle up some beer and everything went wrong. We switched from classic longneck bottles with crimp tops to shorter bottles, called heritage, with a screw off finish. Basically all that means is that the bottle is about an inch shorter, a little fatter, and after it gets crowned you can screw the top off instead of needing a bottle opener.

I adjusted the filler to work fine, however I think it may be a little off still, but it works. The crowner was missing a few times, and once in a while would explode a bottle. While that isn't a huge problem, I had forgot to adjust another arm, and the new bottle would come into position, but jump on top of the broken glass and it would explode. Can you see a pattern here? Past that the labeler was not working correctly. It's a very finicky machine, and the last time we bottled I wasn't there. The owner 'adjusted' it then and it hasn't been the same since. After fighting it for an hour I finally just said to shut down the run.

Much frustration was released by throwing bottles across the room. There is nothing better than just whipping some bottles into concrete. Today was a bit better, I spent a couple hours tweaking everything and I think we will be ready to go for the next run.

Making beer is great fun when things work out, but like anything else it has it's moments of suck time.

Quote of the day: Order dessert first, because you never know when you are going to die.

Drunk and Done

I won playing NL at the bar. Nothing like a deck of cards and two drunk guys. Looking at my BB I had Q8 and the flop came JT9 rainbow. The drunk guy to my left had been in for anything. I checked, he bet $2, next guy folds. I say I'm alll in. The guy to my right looks at me for a minute, I reply "Nevermind, I don't want to bet that much, I'll just bet what you have on the table." He replys "Oh no, you bet XX, and digs into his pocket and matches my cash on the table. River is a K and I state that if he has AQ that I am beat, he looks and me and says that he has kings. K2 was his hand, I win. You have to love the spread of poker to the main stream, specifically when they are idiots.

BTW: I'm drunk, and if you are don't play online.

Poker Stars Bonus

Well it's not a bonus to everyone, but it is for me. Having not played on PS for 4 or 5 months, I decieded to go check it out after hearing that the $2/$4 game there is pretty easy. I was thinking that there was $5 to $10 in my account, but after I logged in I found that I had $130.26. Not bad at all. Taking my 'bonus' money it was time to play a tournament. In the first 4 hands I took out 2 people. Why can that never happen in a MTT? Ended up in second in the end, it was a good game, two other good players when we got three-handed.

Great Story to Read

Boy Genius has a great story on his site, made me laugh and cringe multiple times.

My night has just started but I will post more later tonight, as you may have noticed, most of my posts are late at night.

The Introduction of Mr. Boo

Mr. Boo is a friend of mine, at least I think he is a friend. Mr. Boo has played a lot of poker in his day, he still talks to this day of pushing $3000 more at a $2000 pot in a no limit game 25 years ago or since. Once in a while poker will be on the television and he will talk about playing with this guy or that. One time when Doyle was on he said "You know that guy is one of the nicest guys I have ever played with." I about hit the floor. I went to go see Mr. Boo tonight, since I haven't had a drink in 3 days, I figured it was about time to have a Caucasian. He was back in his office playing $15/$30 online at Party so I chatted a bit with him and watched the play. To anyone who has not played $15/$30 at Party (I have and do not want to think about it anymore) it is one of the most brutal games I have ever seen. All the posts I read about .05/.10 NL and the draw outs that happen doesn't know what pain really is.

In the course of 20 minutes Mr. Boo takes three $200 beats that can make you cry, each one is a gut shot made on the river by the same guy. Beating Mr. Boo's two pair, flopped set, and lower straight respectively. So he burns through $1000 to $1200 by estimates. He is not happy, and being a Jew (no offense meant, I have no problems with Jews) he starts yelping about how he thinks someone at Party has thrown the switch that makes him lose and other people win, etc, etc. It goes on and on. I agree with him, but defend the online poker places saying "Why would they through away such a good thing by cheating?" He agrees, but hates getting killed like that, and that I understand, so I let him vent.

He plays so much more aggressively than I do, but I'm not sure if I can ever do it. In all fairness though his swings are much larger than I have ever had. I cannot bring myself to reraise with 44 or Q3s into the field. He makes some hands, but I think he is too use to playing a field of rocks from 20 to 30 years ago, and that style just doesn't work at a table where most of the players are looser than you are.

Earlier I played in a $5 MTT on UB with Daddy, but alas, before the first break my KK lost to AA. Someday I am going to lay that hand down. It was a bet of 160 to me, I reraised to 1000, and decided that if I got put all in I would fold. I got put all in, but at some point I forgot to fold. Should I lay it down for such a massive overbet and reraise at that pot? I'm not sure. It is so hard to tell anything that early in a tournament so I can't worry about it too much. I know most people will go bust with that same hand, but I don't want to be most people. Isn't the goal to be better than most people?

On a whole different side note, is the origin of 'better' from bet and to be better means that the odds are in your favor since you are the 'bettor' or now over years something is better than another? Interesting food for though for all the gamblers/writers/english majors/bored.

Poker and Adult Swim

When playing poker late at night it is necessity to watch Adult Swim at the same time. It's just absurd enough to be distracting so that you don't play too many hands, and just bad enough that you still pay attention to the table. Aqua Teen Hunger Force is very useful to power poker playing.

Played online for quite a while today. I made my way back to UB last night, Daddy highly recommends them, and I haven't played there in ages. Won about $20 playing $1/$2 and about $20 from yesterday. Then I saw Daddy at a $50 NL table so I sat to his right (just where I like it). My blind of A3o brought 3X3 on the board and pulled down ~$12 pot. Next hand was QQ in the SB, it gets raised to $2 before me and I make it 9 to go with one caller. The flop came 9 high, I pushed and lost most of my stack to KK. There goes two days of work in one hand. Back to $1/$2 I went and cashed up about $10 more.

Going for a change of pace I went back to Party and played in my STEP 2 freeroll. Almost getting blinded out I finished 5th, so I'm still at STEP 2. I'm feeling a bit tired at this point so I jump back to UB and more $1/$2 action where I win about $20 more, and see Daddy is at a $25 NL table. Jumping in there I decide to only buy for $10, not wanting to burn my profit again.

Daddy and I start chatting at the table with some crazy dialog. There isn't anyway I can remember it all, but the guy to my left thought I was serious when I was telling Daddy how playing AKo is better than AKs because you have more ways to make a flush. Then chatter about unsuited 2 off connectors and my left was saying he was going to reraise me with A anything. I built my stack to just over $24 and felt pretty good. Daddy asked if I wanted to play a $20 6 person SnG and I agreed after I played my button. I was currently in the SB with A2s, field folds and I limp. SB who has been annoyed with me for the last 20 to 30 minutes minimum raises, I call. Flop is 2X2 and I check, BB bets a dollar and I raise the pot. BB calls and says "Hit your 2s huh", turn makes 3 to a flush, I bet pot (~$9) and BB calls, river is a K, I bet $5, and BB says "Let me teach you a lesson" and proceeds to raise all in. After pondering for a bit, I figure that if he has KK I will pay him off, if he really was tilted like I suspected I would win with trips. I call and double through. Bidding the table farewell after I play to my BB it's off to the SnG.

It's a bit hazy, I know for sure I had AA four times with no action, and had the table folding to my raises most of the time. Daddy got short stacked but was still alive. Four handed I have QQ on the button, minimum raise and get called by the BB. The board comes 9 high, BB bets min. I raise min. He raises 2x min and I bet pot. He thinks for a second and mucks TT face up. I could not believe he let it go, one of the best laydowns I have seen in $20 to $40 SnGs. Daddy makes a monster comeback and it ends up with us heads up. I'm happy we both finish in the money.

My other friend is playing Stud tourneys on PP which I am watching at the same time. He is in the same room (physical) and we comment on each other's play. I decide to give one of them a go since he can't place above 3rd place. Hopping back on Party I sign up only to realize about 5 hands in it was Stud Hi/Lo. Oh well I am a mediocre Stud Hi/Lo player and assume there won't be too much competition anyways. At the end I end up in 3rd place, and decide that I have no idea how to play Stud Hi/Lo correctly when it is short handed. I might have to buy a book on it, but either way it's pretty much dead money in the Party tournaments anyways. The main problem from what I can tell is that the blinds go up so fast that you can't do much but pick a hand to go with at the end, which isn't poker in my opinion. Because Stud is somewhat slow I played $1/$2 on UB at the same time and made another $38 there.

All in all it ended up being about a $160 day, which isn't bad, and I still have another STEP 2 to play.

New Year's Poker

A friend and I, Daddy from SnailTrax, brought in the new year in style. I attended a wedding in southern Indiana on New Years Eve, and the next day I woke up and drove 20 minutes north to a bar in a small town. Daddy had played in a tournament there last year on New Year's Day and told me to meet him there this year to play. It was a $100 buyin NLHE tourney, one rebuy, with 36 people playing if I remember right.

Last year Daddy drank over a fifth of Crown Royal and ended up placing in third. He figured 80% would be dead money.

When I got there I was about an hour and a half early, head was pounding and the last thing I wanted to do was be in a loud bar. Sitting in my car and listening to Sirius radio sounded like the ticket for an hour. I went in after about and hour and 15 minutes, but Daddy wasn't there yet. There was a ring game in the corner and mostly locals sitting at the bar. Daddy showed up about 10 minutes later, we talked some, then walked up to the owner to sign up. Apparently they thought I was the police, and it took a little convincing to assure them that I wasn't.

We played for a while. I never really got any hands for the first 2 hours and had about the same stack I started with. We moved to a new table and I suffered a horrible beat to get taken out, no need to go into details, but it's about as bad as it gets. Daddy got knocked out about 30 minutes later.

Afterwards we headed to middle-southern Indiana to another bar and played a 6 person "tournament" there. It was perhaps the worst game of NLHE I have ever seen. They play you start with 50 chips and it's 1 chip ante which doubles every time someone is knocked out. Before we started they realized they didn't have any cards so some guy went to his car to get some. We ended up playing with the cheesy plastic chips and cards that had pictures of Colt's cheerleaders on them. One game is all we could handle, and Daddy knew of another game about 10 miles farther north.

We arrive to find the house is packed. There is 12 people playing at the nicest homemade table I have ever played on. It put casino tables to shame. Since we showed up we ended up splitting into two tables and a few hours later when some people left went back to one table. If I remember correctly we played from 6 PM until 5 AM. Everything is very hazy except that Daddy had some very hard beats, I didn't play a single hand for at minimum 2 hours, and there was some crazy play. It was .25/.50 NL and pretty loose. The best thing I heard all night is when one guy at the table just rebought, got raised pre-flop and complained "I just bought these and now you want me to put them in the pot." Lots of beers, which I didn't drink much of, a little smoking, and lots of cards.

I finally made it back home at 7:30 in the morning and crashed.

PP Step Tournaments

Does anyone else play in these? I'm convinced that they are a good return on your money, but take some time. In large field MTT I have trouble getting enough chips to maintain through bubble play, so the STEP tournaments offer $1000+ places for $12 entry. I also like how they are set up, you aren't just out for the middle steps, if you play solid cards I think they are long term profitable. This doesn't come with any first hand knowledge though.

I played in a STEP 1 today and moved on to STEP 2 to finish in 5th, but that means I just have to play a STEP 2 again, not a bad gig. At step 5, first place pays $9000. The players in them seem to be much better, although there is still a lot of dead money, it's not as absurd as what you normally see.

In the STEP 1 tournament when we combined one of the players had over 7000 TC. I had 1200 or so, and was about middle of the field. We whittled it down to 7 players (4 move on) and proceeded to bust the chip leader. He could have mucked every hand from the table combination and still had a large lead on everyone else. Since there is not a difference between first and fourth, he made a major mistake in my mind.

STEP 2 had a rough beginning, I got short stacked early on when my boat lost to a straight flush. I didn't quite understand what was happening for a second when the chips were sliding to the other guy, then I finally saw it. Luckily he was short stacked at the time, otherwise I would have busted out in 18th or so.

Hello all

First a bit about me. I currently live in Indiana, originally from central Wisconsin, then moved to Minnesota, and have been in Indiana for about 5 years. Since Jan. of 2003 I have been unemployed. It's a long story as to how I got this way that will have to wait for a different post. Currently I play a lot of cards and I'm always trying to improve my game, some posts may be poker related. At the same time I work for a brewery but on trade, my room and board is paid as part of doing work for them, but that schedule changes every week and leaves me time to do what I want.