ILX Poker Players Unite

I played stud, draw and baseball last week and have a question- when playing with wild cards does five of a kind beat a straight flush? Or is five of a kind even allowed?

BTW - if you're on PokerStars, and some asshat calling himself BuzzBuzzBuzz starts mouthing off about whatever, come to this thread & tell me to shut the fuck up.

And if some dickwad called efil4elbmow harasses you, or asks you to eat his balls, come to this thread and tell me to go fuck myself.

OK, seriously - getting my AA busted by KK on the river right on the bubble of a rebuy = suck Michael Vick's cock, PS.

Oof that does hurt. Dave, you really are preternaturally unlucky. I have another poker buddy called Dave, and so's he. Try a name change :)

Honestly, I'm surprised I ended up doing so well in '05 & the start of '06. It's gotten to the point where, if I have the top hand and someone's all-in fishing for a flush w/ 93 suited, I'm rooting for the flush to hit. Overall, I think I'm still up about 3K, but I was up 6K at one point. And, yes, that is dollars.

According to thepokerdb @ Bluff Magazine, I've either had or am on a 20 tourney non-money streak (not counting SNG MTT tourneys, which have been fucking me as well), in addition to a handful of 10+ winless streaks. And I don't think I've finished in the top ten in a large tourney in a loooooooong time. Call me a cab already.

My month of SNGs is coming to a very unsatisfactory end. I only actually started recording my progress on Wednesday, but bad luck is smacking me on the arse in the most deflating way right now. 2 money finishes in 12 SNGs and I've lost exactly twice as much as I've won. Stupid game.

Anyway, it seems that most of the people who've contributed to this thread aren't able to read it these days, so I'll start emailing people re an ILX invitational tourney over the weekend.

I was hooked on play-money games for about 2 days. But the no-stakes thing just doesn't hold my interest. Still have a real game on Sunday, though -- can't wait.

ZOMG I WON MONEY (finished 11th in a 360-person tourney) - it felt really weird, but then I got hosed by a slow-playing AK soon after that, so now everything's back to normal.

Wanko, srsly, you can afford say $20, right? it's really worth playing the lowest-stakes cash games or sngs - it'll make a huge difference to your development as a player.

Make sure you give us updates on tomorrow night!

So, how did it go?

I played 5 MTTs tonight and bust early in the first four before final tabling the 5th (only a Stars $4.40 180-man jobby, but they all count). Came third in the end after a long time as 1st or 2nd in chips - in fact I managed to have a 2-1 lead 3-handed but fucked it up with an incomprehensible pre-flop push which just happened to be called by AA. Idiot Mark. Still, it was kinda satisfying, though in the endgame I was getting NO hands at all - A7s was my double up hand - sucked out on AQ - and I pushed with JJ over a pre-flop raise and got a fold. Other than that, nothing - my bluff raises were all re-raised. Meh.

Still, my highest finish, if not my best result (which remains 4th of 455). I guess I'm pleased. Sorta.

I'm trying to get hold of the group -- if I make it tonight I'll update around midnight my time/4:00am GMT! (I usually just tag along with my sis but she's sitting out tonight)

Hope it didn't fall through! Did you win?

Called off in lieu of tubing, bah.

"in lieu of tubing"? Is that a sex thing?

Dude, email me, I have a proposition for you :)

Tubing = floating down the river on a big blowup thing that looks like a tire. I emailed you.

just took down a 45 player 20+2 sit n go at full tilt. i like those tourneys. multi table but not too big. only took 2 hours. hadnt played in a while before last week. started of way rusty loosing $200 in a couple days - then i got my groove back. made 4 final tables (and the money - only top 6 pay in the 45) on either the 45 or 90 handed sit n goes. unfortunately this has been my first substantial haul.

i had like 5x chips of final dude and he basically folded away all of them. v strange.

my one big suckout was against the chip leader w/3 players left when i raised w/ jacks and slow played a set on the flop. we ended up going all in on the turn when he hit a flush then i hit my boat on the river leaving him wounded.

ps its called toobin'

ok so now its 4am - after i won that last one i played a 69+5 multi. was in the top ten from most of the 1st two hour then dropped down to like 20th out of 8 remaining (360 entered). i raised preflop... fuck it i wont even explain just look at the screen shot and know i didnt go all in preflop.

http://i17.tinypic.com/67raoar.jpg

ps i am beach wolfz

corrections: 69+6, 80 remaining. i need bed.

ps also my table had 3 or 4 (including me) of the top ten for over an hour. if those fuckers werent there to knock me out wtf.

Heh - nice work dude. All I managed last night was to get my SNG tally (since I started charting it on 24th July) back into the black. I play a mixture of $11-$16 short-handed, 9/10-handed, turbos and regs at Stars and Party. The $13 6max turbo tourneys at Stars seem to suit me best, but obv the payout isn't huge.

I really don't know if I should return to ring games in August. I'm not at all confident about winning at $100NL any more but if I eased myself back in at $50, maybe that'd work? I dunno, maybe I should just keep playing tourneys till I get bored of them - problem is whatever happens, they're going to make me next to no profit and at least in cash games there's always the chance of doubling up in a single hand.

i'm playing poker with mark c IRL this friday.

i don't think dunc4n b4nn47yn3 will be there again this time though.

Which one was that?

Want to play Monday at the C3ntury as well, Ken, or is that overkill?

the scottish dude who was sitting next to me in the final table?

is it the same drill again as last month? i'll be up for it yeah as i just got loads of backpay from work and so why not blow some of it on poker!!

i cant belive no one is OMGWTFing at that screen shot ;_;

just made the money in that same tourney and got my kk busted

omgwtf.

why is the 7777T a winner when there was a straight flush? (oh he won some kind of sidepot?)

yeah sided pot

short stack went all in on flop w/less than half my chips so i called w/my over pair and big stack called behind me w/his quads

Sorry fella, I only noticed the quads - that is quite the hand, my god.

are you ready for friday mark? (and monday)

i've decided that if i make any decent amount of money out of any of these two outings i'll use the money to book a flight to vegas.

(but i fear my luck won't stretch again this time)

Ken, I am ready! Just waiting for confirmation about Monday but I've never had a problem before.

You're in the enviable position where even if everything goes as bad as possible for you YOU'LL STILL BE UP £750. Which must be nice.

Ken - what games are you playing online these days? How often do you get to play?

Online I only ever play catty $5+1 10ppl SNGs. and not very very often - it's hard to concentrate at home with the telly and other internet stuff going on (e.g. scrabulous) that i drift off a lot and don't pay attention to how people play and that.

i also have a habit of playing way too loose when there's 4 people left when i should try and hang on a bit more to be in the money.

perhaps i need to raise the stakes a bit so i'll actually pay more attention.. it feels like a play money game when you spend an hour on a game that makes you a tenner at best..

If you're paying a dollar in rake you might as well play the $10+$1 games - they're pretty soft, and you'll probably pay more attention.

I also like the turbos on Stars - the pace is right for me, they're between $6.50 and $16, so even less rake, and the software's decent.

oh it's probably $5+0.5 actually - this is how little attention i pay!!!

i still need to do some fun things involving rakeback i think.

i only ever play on PKR.com these days too.. haha that's actually probably why i never pay attention (too busy making chicken noises at people)

just won a ticket to fulltilt's ftops $200 + $16 pl holdem tourney. and then realized i will be camping on 8/10. i think i can use it on any $200 tourney tho.

ken you should go up to at least $10. 5s are really just too chaotic to be enjoyable or learn anything from or really to make any sense at all. i mean some might say the same for 10s but they are like 1mx better than 5s. and if that still doesnt hold yr attention, play 2 at once.

Yeah, you should be able to sell it or reassign it, I think, though I don't play on FT since my initial attempt there at $100NL went completely tits up.

I think playing the $5s is okay if a) you want cheapness, b) you're okay with the most bizarre fishy play sucking out on you and c) you can face being a disciplined nit. At the $10s it's just that bit easier to play solid poker with a bit of flair - the players aren't so bad but they're seldom much good either, so you can run over them a lot, especially since you know you're not going to have 7 limpers in every pot.

I tend to play 3-4 tables at once, and the $16s are probably about my limit where I can expect to win long term - at the $22s I'd probably break even, maybe eke out a few bucks but I'd be that much more anxious and nitty and it's less fun then.

Ken, will I see you there tonight?

yeah man. shall we meet up somehwere beforehand or just turn up there?

I think we'd better meet there tbh as I have a 6pm meeting and am not exactly sure when it'll end, and whether I'll have to rush straight to the do. Though if I am out early I might give you a call, see where you are!

ok doood i'll prolly go there and drink whiskey and look hard or something.

Does this mean anything?

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y148/Juror8/Todaywe.jpg

I mean, if I can manage a win like that, does that mean that I'm any good and should play more poker? Or can you fluke something like that?

you just have to keep playing and see

William Hill said the same thing about betting on horses to me around 1999.

It means that you have the discipline to play a whole MTT without losing focus. It doesn't mean a lot else, as luck plays too big a part in individual games to be able to assign undeniable talent, but it does mean that you're obviously good enough to make the right moves against the poor players who make up a $5.50 tournament.

So you can't fluke something like this; but it's certainly possible that the key hands you played were decided more by luck than judgement. However, it's a truism that anyone winning an MTT HAS to have luck in spades on their side because there are simply too many occasions on which they'll be in tight spots and sometimes, the cards just have to fall your way.

The other thing is that even at $5.50, the final table players are usually competent and aggressive, which means you need good cards or good luck to win - skill isn't as big a factor because stacks are so small compared to blinds. The tourney where I cam third, I managed to get A7 and JJ during the last 50 or 60 hands and nothing else even half decent, and I just couldn't make enough successful bluffs to do anything against players who were taking every chance to play hard.

I'd be pretty fucking pleased, though. I've got a 3rd a 4th and a 5th in 100+ field tournaments, but despite being the chip leader at the FT twice, the win has never seemed close.

Put it this way Mark: say I want to settle down, stretch myself beyond Sklansky and a brief flick through "SuperSystem 2", and actually test myself playing online tournament poker: what type of tournaments should I be entering, how often, etc.

oh fine ask mark who has never won a multi *huff*

He was first to respond!

Put it this way Markjhoshea: say I want to settle down, stretch myself beyond Sklansky and a brief flick through "SuperSystem 2", and actually test myself playing online tournament poker: what type of tournaments should I be entering, how often, etc.