Weekly Poker Night.

Greetings there Yale poker fans. Tonight was yet another exciting night of poker at my house. Overall, I went down about 300 chips tonight. But that's nothing too crazy with a 500 chip buy-in. My worst streak ever was re-buying twice to 1500 chips and then going bust in like 10 seconds. Some highlights:

1. I really need to keep a notebook by the table when we play. I never seem to remember all of the awesome hands exactly.

2. My first big loss (No Limit Hold 'Em):
I'm holding pocket 9s on big blind. It's mostly calls to me so I raise to 30 chips. People call. Flop comes down Q - 9 - 2. Happy with my trips I bet something like 50 - 100 chips. This knocks us down to two players. The turn comes down a 4 and I believe we both check. The river is a 4 bringing the board to: Q - 9 - 2 - 4 - 4. I'm sitting pretty with my boat. I bet 150 chips and my opponent calls and turns over pocket Qs. That was one sucker punch. Brilliant slow-playing.

3. 3-5-7:
In the three card round, I decide to "go in" with pocket A-A-9. Luckily, I got called with a 3-5-7.... fantastic. Wait? Ended up paying 105 chips on that one... barf. 3-5-7 was actually dealt twice!

Despite these losses, I did catch a bit of luck playing a little heads up with my friend D-saster (get it?) at the end of the night after the rest of the gang passed out from heat exhaustion. The final hand was an all-in with a K / 5 off-suit against my As / Qs. It was something like 80 chips to call and I was holding like 320... I definitely sensed a bit of wetness around my "crotchal region" around the turn: 9 - 2 - 3 - A. The ace helped me out, but a 4 on the river would've "pooped me in my dudies" as it were. He didn't make an ace on the river... sweet.

Anyways, I'm off home to NY for the weekend to hang out with some friends at Long Beach Island and then Atlantic City for some more $4 - $8 Limit. Hopefully I can catch some discipline again and fold like 90 hands in a row... or not have to. Either way, you'll get an eyeful of text on Sunday... maybe.

Poker Extravaganza Night 4: Destination Foxwoods.

We went to Foxwoods last night around 7pm and stayed until about 5am. It ended up being a worthwhile session. J-Z (formerly "J") gave me some tips about how to play 4 /8 Limit Hold 'Em that really paid off. By the end of the night, I was up about $280 given a $140 buy-in. Mr. T (formerly "T") came out up $300. J-Z basically tore the room up and left up $800. Like they say in the movie Rounders, you never remember the hands you win, but you can't forget the hands where you lost big. At one point, I was down to $44 and had to fold something like 30+ hands in a row (which was a shock to me) before I finally caught some cards and built my way back up. Here were some of the highlights:

Probably my two biggest legitimate losses during the night were when I had pocket queens. I basically got beaten by undercard trips or pocket Aces. The other losses just involved me playing poorly. I had about one crappy win where I got lucky and I got two queens on the flop holding A / Q off-suit against pocket Aces. That guy was pissed.

Poker Extravaganza Night 3.

Tonight was poker extravaganza night 3 at my place. I ended up doing pretty well. I made out with about1100 chips after starting with 500. Won about 200 in a 100 chip buy-in tournament and then another 800 playing "cash games". Nothing too amazing went down or was worth recording. Just made a bunch of good hands and folded a ton of crap. I do tend to go a bit overboard when I hit overcards or when I hit two pair. It's easy for me to get a bit off course if I do well on the flop but then fight draws on the turn and the river. I'm sure I'll get a hold of myself tomorrow when I hit up Foxwoods for a little 4 / 8. In any case, we'll see.

Poker Night 2 / Gus

Tonight was pretty magical for me. I doubled up (going from 500 chips to just under a 1000). The night started out kind of amusing / standard. We hit a bunch of huge hands (only some of which I kind of remember at this point). We played a bunch of stud variants like Chicago and well, 7-card stud along with our usual fare of . I guess that's not really a bunch! (Yeah.) Anyways, here's the rub:

Hand #1 (big pot):
20 / 40 Limit Omaha Hi. I ended up taking down a big pot after consistently betting to the river after hitting a nut flush on the flop. Magical. That's what we like to call "aggressive Gus". Yes, turns out I can bet all over the place when I have the nuts. Shocking.

Hand #2 (funny):
"T" goes up against his good buddy "J" with a flop of 10 / 10 / K. "T" did a little pre-flop raise, which "J" called. The turn is a deuce. You'd've seriously thought it a blank. So "T"-bones pushed it. "J" calls. The River is a king. "T" goes all in and "J" calls. What do you think "T" has and what do you think "J" has? Well, turns out little mister "T" had a pair of deuces with a seven kicker and was therefore full of dudies. But, we were laughing our asses off. I guess the oxygen was getting a bit low in my living room.

Hand #3:
Crap. To be honest, I don't remember any more hands. All I remember is laughing till I peed myself over the whole "different identities of Gus" thing. I don't know if you've seen the commercials, but we do enjoy poking fun at them. "T" often slow plays so he's like "trapping Gus" who "check raises all of your chips away". Usually when we're screwing around it's just like, "I'm gonna bet a lot so I'm aggressive Gus". But then things get friggin stupid and we're start making crap up. "I'm not feeling particularly religious and so... I'm 'secular Gus'". We've also come up with like "hit in the face Gus" and the ever popular "dudy pants Gus". No offense to Gus, we love the guy. We all felt bad when he got smoked by Brad Booth when he had pocket nines (Bradders had the bullets).

Hand Baloney:
The poopies really hit the fan when we started going on about the Jennifer Harman commercial though.

(Before the Flop)
"T": C'MON ACES! C'MON ACES! C'MONNNNNN ACES!!!!!
(Flop hits showing an ace)
"T": YEAH YEAH YEAH ACES YEAHAHAHAHAHAAHHHAHHAAAAAAAA YEA!!!!!!!!!!!
Me: C'mon bud, gimme a sign. Just a little something.
("T" picks his nose and rubs it all over the ace. Afterwards he proceeds to wear a cowboy hat and fire off his guns multiple times)
"T": YEEEEEE-HAAAAA I PAIRED MY ACE! I PAIRED IT!!!! ALL-IN! ALL-IN!
("T" frantically pushes all of his chips in)
Me: C'mon man, just a little something.
"T": YOU CAN'T BEAT ME YOU HAVE A 7 / 2 C'MON MAN C'MON!
Me: Well, when you're beat you're beat.

We were totally peeing all over the room everywhere it was like a friggin wet t-shirt contest. More to come tomorrow probably. :)

Yale Poker Scene / Poker Night

To be honest, I haven't found much going on at Yale in terms of regularly-scheduled poker games. This is one of the main reasons why I like collegepokerassociation.com since I can always get a game for free when I want to. It's also cool because I can play in tournaments for free with the chance of winning some money. In terms of Yale games, there was one tournament sponspored by CPA and Habitat called "Casino Royale". That was a pretty cool tournament with decent players. The dealers were a bit iffy at times (they accidentally folded a couple of people's hands). But, overall, I had a good time.

To get around the lack of poker games on campus, I started one up that I run every week. We usually play dealer's choice with lots of No Limit and Limit Hold 'Em. We also play some wacky stud variants like Follow the Queen and Anaconda along with some more standard ones like Chicago. Despite my Italian heritage, I have not yet engaged in a game of baseball.

This week we had some extra fun (played poker) as a good friend of a friend is back in town. I tend to be a somewhat decent player except when I go on tilt (see the name of the blog above). We had some pretty classy (and / or stupid) showdowns tonight which I think are worth mentioning: (Disclaimer: my memory is fuzzy so if I know you and some of these are off let me know).

Crazy Queens (basically follow the Queen except if the Queen o' Spades pops up everyone turns in their cards and new hands are dealt out to all of the players still in with the pot remaining the same):
-My friend, whom I shall refer to as "T" made some ridiculous bet (like half the pot with maybe 300 chips in the pot given that we all start with 500 chips) with something like two blanks and a 7c / 5c showing. Another friend, whom I shall refer to as "E" debated calling. She had a full house. In essence, since no queens had come up during the round and thus no other cards except for queens were wild, we were all sort of guessing that "T" was holding something like three of a kind or a full house. Turns out "E" called and wouldn't you know it, "T" had three queens underneath. Straight flush... barf.
-In another round of Crazy Queens, Aces were wild and I was showing 10d / Jd / Kd / Ah after we went down and dirty with young master "R" sitting to my right and "E" sitting to my left. There were 150 chips in the pot and I made a hesitant bet of 50 after "R" checked. I was playing the royal flush, but, in reality, I had an ace-high flush. "E" had something like a full house or four of a kind, while "R" had both of us covered with a straight flush. I can't remember if "E" called or not but "R" certainly did and, well, yeah. Fun bluff though. :)

Those were, to me, the most interesting hands of the night. Otherwise, it was just me being stupid trying to push people around with top two-pair and getting burned by trips and / or nut straights. Sigh... I seriously need to start doing yoga meditation or something and rock it hard with Dhalsim to just take a second and think before I go tilt my money away. More to come tomorrow night.

Endnote: I forgot one of the best of hands where I tried to be "aggressive Gus" and I went all-in on a J / 7 off-suit after "T" raised 10 chips in a 5 / 10 no-limit game. At first, I thought it might be amusing to come over the top, but then I just said screw it. By that point, my tilt was so bad it was just like whatever. Turns out that, uh, young "T" actually had pocket queens and was just slow-playing as usual. The flop was like 2 / 8 / J and I got excited because my outs increased. Otherwise, the turn and the river were just blanks and I basically screwed up. I lost about 200 chips there but I managed to make them back on the next hand after my good friend "P" lent me 200 chips. I hit trip 3s from a big blind 6h / 3d. Flop was 3 / 3 / 5. "R" made a bet of like 50 chips or something and I went all-in... again. He ended up only having one 5. Lucky for me. :)

Welcome to My Poker Blog

Greetings folks. This is where I'll be posting neat stuff that happened to me whilst playing poker. Most of the time, you're going to hear wonderful stories about how I thought a 7 / 2 off suit was the best thing that ever happened to me at a ten person 2 / 4 limit hold 'em table. I hope, though, that I can share some insights I've had (or perhaps need to have) about my poker play and about the playing I do on www.collegepokerassociation.com.

I'm currently at grad student at Yale going for my Ph.D. in the department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry. You'd think I'd be better at calculating odds given the circumstances. Anyways, we'll see how often I post here. Probably not that often, but you never know.