Cap Anson's Poker Blog: Snow, snow, go away...

Holy shit did it snow here this week! 40 mile per hour winds, 18 inches of snow....what a mess. I took some pics. It is nothing groundbreaking but it shows just how much snow we got. Keep in mind that on Wednesday morning we had NO snow on the ground whatsoever...

This is my back yard. the main drift is about 4 feet deep. You should see my dogs trudge through it. Pure comedy.

This is my itty bitty 2 bedroome abode. It is hard to see but the snow is over 4 feet deep in my front yard. No stalking me now!

This is a 2005 Mustang that belongs to a guy several blocks over. His shitty house brings down an otherwise nice 'hood.

This Chevy aint going anywhere soon.

This van is on an emergency snow route, it probably got towed shortly after I took this.

This is on the outside edge of town. Keep in mind I live in a town of 25k in the plains of South Dakota. Snow blows in from everywhere.

This is a city street. The pic refuses to do the scene justice. Most streets had well over a foot of snow making it literally impossible for non 4 wheel drives to pass.

There is a car under there somewhere, really...

Pretty crazy stuff for sure.

On to poker related news.

I played a bit last night and won about $250. I played very well and took pretty good advantage of the Saturday night drunks.

Now lemme tell you about my Friday night.

I wanna preface this by saying that I am not a big tourney player. I love playing in them but I don't very often. As a result I understand tourney strategy but am not always the best or most patient at executing it. The best I have ever done in a tourney was second in a $10+1 on FTP with 1200 entrants. It paid $1600.

I entered the $30+3 $8k guarantee on UB at 9:00pm. Things started slow as I was playing tight. Right before the first break I caught this hand:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?875986

Right after the break I caught another gem:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?875995

At this point I was top third or so. I planned to continue to play tight into the second break but then this happened:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?876000

After that I def played tight as I was top 5 in chips. Antes soon kicked in and nothing eventful happened for a bit. I did take down a few pots with some pp's and over cards (KQ on a K high flop most notably) but mostly lost several smaller pots and won a few bigger ones here and there. I did get a bit lucky in a hand that my opponent played a bit weakly on the flop. I called the min raise from the bb hoping to hit big as he was deep stacked (at this point I was still top 5 in chips):

http://www.pokerhand.org/?876016 Nothing spectacular, I just found it to be an interesting hand!

At this point my cards left me, big time. I went from top 5 to bottom half mostly by way of blinds, antes, and others just plain passing me by. By the time this hand happened I was def in need of some chips if I wanted to go super deep:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?876145

The VERY NEXT HAND:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?876148

So now I am top 3...WOOO HOOOOO!!!! We were down to the final 3 tables and I was playing well when this happened. It coulda been sweet...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?876155

Once again I ran dead for a bit and lost about half my stack in the process.

Up until this point I had not sucked out or gotten my money in bad once. So it was about time!

http://www.pokerhand.org/?876417

My intention was to take it down on the flop. I figured that even if he called I would have the redraw to the flush...oops! Thank god for 2 outers!

What was that about two outers?

http://www.pokerhand.org/?876423

So now I am chip leader and we are down to the final two tables!

After awhile I made the final table despite another run of bad cards. Even with the bad run I managed to build up a very nice stack by taking advantage of the guys that did not wanna go out in 11-20th. The pay jump was large and guys were playing tight.

The final tables stack sizes looked like this:

RR28 22770
BubBanks 60715
Shadymdub 52230
jupitert 23565
Poker_Man3 87665
script12 81935
CapAnson 94955
Giant Frog 40150
TheSpartan 41585
GoodKharma 20930

Payouts were about (I forget what they all were for sure):
10th: $130
9th: $220
8th: $335
7th: $440
6th: $550
5th: $670
4th: $800
3rd: $950
2nd: $1580
1st: $2630

I had AK and QQ early on and three bet with both. Both times I took down 55K+ pots preflop. I also won a nice pot with 66 on the flop when it came 522. 35 hands into the final table we had lost 4 players and the stacks were as follows:

BubBanks 33790
Shadymdub 45960
jupitert 86015
Poker_Man3 78435
script12 130545
CapAnson 151755

I was essentially running over everybody as the play was VERY tight. I bought a lot of pots and took down a bunch of hands preflop. One player even bitched about my button raises.

When this next hand happened I had a very aggro image at the table. The guy I got involved with was also somewhat aggro. It bears noting that I 3 bet him twice preflop (the afore mentioned AK and QQ hands) and raised him up on a flop once (the aforementioned 66 hand) at the table already. In hindsight I played the hand weakly and got lucky. I guess you can't play perfect the WHOLE tourney...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?876485

That win gave me 190k with second place having just over 105k.

I ran dead for a few hands....and then lost my first big pot. Luckily I could afford it.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?876506

I think I made a solid play and just did not hit.

Gimmie my chips back!!!

http://www.pokerhand.org/?876513

Oh shit...I just found out I do not have the rest of the HH's. Not sure where the went, dammit... I will have to request them from UB.

Ok, here is the cliff notes version:

I took out the 3rd and 4th place guys back to back hands with AK and 88 I think. I got to heads up with a tight ass player and had him dominated in chips (415k to 110k).

I proceeded to run his ass over for a bit. He was down to 70k and we got all in preflop. I had AQ he had K9...the flop came 99x. A bit later I had AT and the flop came TT2. We got all in on the turn. He had QT but the river came 2.

Once again I had him down to 70kish. I raised, he shoved and I called with KTo...he had AT!

Flop:QJx
Turn:x
River:9!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

$2632.58 richer baby!!! It was 2:15 in the morning and I was jumping up and down like a prepubescent girl!!! Fucking SHIP IT!!!!!!!!!

I played very well for the whole tourney, especially the last 3 hours. I was super happy with myself and for the first time in weeks felt super confident in my play. It is such a good feeling to win. It is better than the best drug. The money is only half of it...the winning and the confidence are soooooo important to me right now.

If anybody cares I can post the rest of the hands later if I can get my hands on them. I will rely on feedback to decide if I do that or not.

Well, I should get back to my Gran Turismo 4 endurance race I am running with a friend of mine...but first check these sweet pics of the driving seat setup I made with my force feedback steering wheel (who said you have to be all grown up at 27?):

Modeling the seat is my friend Jamie. He's a redneck. The seat is from a 1984 Ford Tempo that I used to drive in high school. I used the seat track so it is fully adjustable fore and aft. Here is an over the shoulder pic that also shows my pitiful 27" TV that rests on a plastic container so it is high enough to be seen. At least the surround sound is nice...