Female poker geek anonymous

There's no "theme" to this blog this time. Bunch of stuff happened last week, nothing super exciting, but all worth mentioning.

-> I went to the Pokercast meetup at the NAPT at the Bike on Friday. I did try on 2 occasions to qualify via the satellite to the satellite to the NAPT, but didn't make it. But the 3/6 7game mix was fun. I ran over the table in the draw games (Badugi, 2-7TD), broke even on the O8 (no fold pre) and Pineapple. It took me a while to get the new game 2-11, but now that I know how it works, it's my belief that the only way to correctly play it is for nits and you should not be in there without a 3card hand. I still have no idea how to play 2nd best hold'em and it showed. I ran super bad at flips, still gotta perfect the art of sucking out.

The rest of the night was fairly uneventful, I did have some fun gawking at poker celebrities (like I never realied how small Isaac Haxton is), but it's only so much you can do. My hands were itching a bit to play the 20/40 at the bike, but I decided against it, because I don't think I was in the best state of mind. On my way back to the lot I was looking at the other tourneys being offered by the NAPT and debating with myself if I should enter the 300$ Ladies' Event, when Pokercast Adam and Mat Sklansky walked by asking for a ride.

Pokercast guys getting massage at our 7game mix.

It seems weird when I tell you I'm giving 2 drunk poker players a ride through LA, but it was really fun. I got to hear some interesting stories about some inner workings at 2p2 and a phone call that Adam got, where my jaw just dropped that is the epitomy of being in a family with gamblers. I feel blessed when I can still tell you that the 35$ I lost at the flips are not a lot of money, but still it's something. I probably broke even for the way I was tipping, the dinner and the drinks that the Pokercast guys picked up :D. I am still debating if I wanna reach the threshold where I don't care if I loose >1k$ in a day someday, let alone 10k+... sigh.

I didn't play the Ladies' Event in the end. It was such a beautiful day and I rather went swimming with my daughter and spent some meaningful "Mommy and me" time.

-> I played the FTOP Rush LHE event yesterday. Decided on a whim, when Kangster told me it was about to start. I shouldn't really be playing poker tourneys on work time... But man, it seemed worth it. By start time, only about half of the people had signed up to make the guarantee (it barely made it by 6 players, heh) and the list of red pros with 200$ bounties kept growing longer and longer. I saw some regular LHE fishies, so I jumped in sort of at the last second.

Rush tournies are draining. Like you wanna play as quickly as possible without missing anything, so that you can get full equity advantage. Between taking notes, scrolling through the last hands when I was in the BB and quickfolding through the others, I was pretty mentally drained when it was over. I even think I had a brainfart on one of my last hands, which is not good :(

But cash I did! Finished 30/756, so I had a nice 529$ (-216$ entry) payday. Not bad for less than 3 hours of work. I really wanted to hold on just a tad longer, but out I went with a race 33 > A5, even though I had a shitton of outs on a QJTQ board.

-> I'm intrigued by Badugi, like really, really intrigued. Have continued to keep on playing it and I'm beginning to find the turn the most interesting of all decisions. I mean, preflop is standard, almost mechanical, except that you still need to know what somebody opens with and what somebody 3bets with. Flop is easy, bet when card ahead or if even, then in position. River, evaluate your ranges, how many outs he had and how likely opponent is to call with worse, not rocket science. But the turn... ah... not sure when value checking is correct, not sure if I'm valuetowning myself betting good tris into 2-3 opponents. Just not sure.

As always, when I don't have an answer to some poker problem I get really excited, because I have so much to learn. With LHE most of the time I can spot my mistakes most of the time later when I do session reviews. Sure there are some close spots, but I can argue both sides with logic and can back up what I think are the best decisions. With Badugi, I am often just flummoxed and don't really have the "feel" yet, I have to go on and on with the Troutulator to be surprised at the results often.

And I think that's it. Will try to make it to Poker lunch on Thursday, but there's an interesting VISA lunch talk at my University that day and I do wanna stay in the country for a few more months :P We'll see...