Quick Update

Only had a tiny bit of time for cards tonight. Busted out in 5th and 7th in two $10+1 SNGs, losing in the first with AJd against AQo, pushing pre-flop as a semi-bluff from middle position with the 2nd shortest stack trying to gather the blinds. Busted out in the other when the flop hit EVERYONE involved hard. I was on the button and raised 3x the blinds with ATc, properly executing the Gap Concept. Both blinds called. Flop comes down A-J-T rainbow. Both blinds check and I raise half my stack thinking my two pair is golden and both blinds were just trying to defend with mediocre hands against my frequent steals. However, the small blind calls, the big blind pushes, so now I push, and the small blind calls! Turns out the big blind had AJo and hit a bigger two pair - and the small blind held KQo for the flopped straight. He is up against eight collective outs (i've got three outs, the remaining tens, the bigger two pair has five outs in the remaining jacks and the two remaining aces) or a couple longshot runner runner situations, but neither of the two pairs can improve and he busts us both.

I make up for it dropping in to a Omaha Hi/Lo SNG and taking first prize. I completed several monster hands tonight, winning big pots with the highs (several full houses, several nut flushes, several nut straights) and dropped a couple low straights to pickup the low as well as the high. I'm becoming a big fan of Omaha Hi/Lo. I'm not too sure on the hand selection yet (I generally can recognize a monster hand pre-flop, but not really where the various cutoffs for playable hands are yet) so I tend to see a lot of flops when they're cheap and if I can build up a big chiplead (as I did tonight - I was 3-1 on the table with only three players out and 6-1 on the final player when it went heads up) I will generally be able to apply a lot of pressure. I've started re-reading the Omaha Hi/Lo section of Helmuth's Play Poker Like the Pros, following which I plan to disect Bobby Baldwin's Hi/Lo section of Super System 2 - incidentally two of the many books I overviewed in "Poker Books I Recommend".

This weekend we've got a large group of people coming in to town. We're hosting a cookout and poker tournament on Sunday night - right now we've got fourteen confirmed players, so this could grow to three tables if a high percentage of the "maybes" decide to show. If you're close to Kansas City and not busy Sunday night, drop me an email or a comment and we'll see if we can't get you "a chip and a chair"... Speaking of which, I've also got a new poker table being handcrafted for me by a local friend-of-a-friend who does such things "on the side", which should be completed and delivered by gametime. It will look something like this (a version of the his handiwork built for someone else).