7-Card Stud - Poker Stars - 9PM March 18th

Hi Poker Fans!

On Tuesday we're playing Heads-Up NL Holdem Tournament on Poker Stars. Here are the details:

Date: Mar 18
Time: 9pm
Place: Poker Stars
Buy-in: $5 + $0.50
Game: 7-Card Stud
Password: goblue

To find the game, click on the "Tourneys" tab in Poker Stars main lobby. Then click on "Private". Scroll down to 21:00 and look for the $5 buy-in and UMichiganPoker Tue in the title.

Double-click and register! Hope to see you there!

Don't have Poker Stars Account? Sign Up Here!

Bubble-Girl in Brooklyn No More!!

For quite a while now, I've been going to the Brooklyn American Legion tournaments.

I really like this tournament, the structure, how it's run, the players, etc. Jim and his crew run the tournament like a well-oiled machine. Eight players per table until the finaly table. It starts on time, blind increases are announced loud and clear, 20 minute breaks allow enough time to enjoy the great buffet and chip up. The buffet has the tastiest brownies and sloppy joes ever! Rules are clear and enforced consistantly.

The biggest problem I've had with the Brooklyn Legion tournaments is this: I'm always finishing at the 2nd to last table - just out of the money and on the bubble. Frustrating as all get-out! At the last tournament in February, I donated two UMichiganPoker t-shirts for the Legion to give out to players. Jim decided to give the first shirt to the first person to bust out of the tournament. The 2nd shirt would go to the person on the bubble (in this case, 11th place). I finished in 12th place and almost won my own t-shirt. Talk about frustrating....

This Saturday, I decided it was going to be different. I needed to change up my play and make sure I had a decent chip stack towards the end of the tournament - either that or go out in an amazing blaze of glory!! Back to the basics was my strategy. Choose good starting hands - if the hand wasn't good enough to raise, fold it. Bet aggressively when you're in a hand - don't let anyone catch a free card to beat me.

One hundred players showed up to the tournament. Ten places to be paid with $1000 going to the overall winner. I sat down at Table 11 to start. It was strange, no one said anything during a hand. All calls, raises, folds and checks were made with hand signals or just by sliding chips into the pot. Very quiet and kind of unsettling. The quads were hitting like crazy all over the room - every table but ours it seemed.

Players got knocked out, tables broken down and players re-arranged. After the first break, our table was taken down and I was put at Table 6 with one very large-stacked player, two shorter stacks than mine, and the rest about even. About two hands after the break, I was the player before the dealer. Two positions ahead of me, the player went all in for about 5K chips. I looked at my cards to see pocket 10's. With about 8K chips in front of me, I was torn. Pocket 10's is a decent hand for calling an all-in. I hadn't seen this person play any hands - we had both folded the previous hand - so I had no idea what type of cards this guy thought was all-in worthy. I counted out the chips to call him, took a deep breath and pushed my chips in.

Mr All-In flipps over A-Q unsuited.

The flop came J-10-4(I think). With Trip 10's - I'm feeling like this was a good call!

The turn 8

The river 9

Mr All-In doubles up through me with a river straight. OK - it's true - I dropped the f-bomb after that hand. Steaming - I folded the next four or five hands.

After cooling off a bit and getting my head back on straight, I got back to the game. Other players were making moves, knocking eachother out. I claimed a couple pots - rebuilding my depleated stack. Before I knew it, the 2nd break was upon us and it was time to chip up again.

Four tables went down to three, then two. Blinds were starting to take bigger and bigger chunks of our stacks at 500/1000. Everyone's talking about the bubble. Fourteen players left... Thirteen....Twelve.... The big stack straight across from me had a huge stack of purple (5K) chips - I have one purple. Suddenly I'm feeling doomed. We're all waiting for the bubble to go out. This is usually where I'm so short stacked the blinds will eat me alive and I have to make a move. It's feeling strangely familiar - an eerie deja-vu, but this time it's different. My stack isn't huge, but it's pretty healthy. I don't have to make a desperate all-in move to survive. Just sitting back and folding is a perfectly viable option! A player from the other table goes out and guess where I find myself??!?!?

At the final table - really!!

I folded a lot of hands, had some hands fold-around to me to collect the antes and blinds, and made a couple moves with good cards to scoop the pot a couple times. Suddenly we were down to four players. The short stacked under the gun player went all in. I had junk cards and folded. The small blind went all in too. Mr Big-Stack thought about it for a while, but with his big blind already in the pot - it was an easy call no matter what cards he held. I don't remember what cards any of the three players had - the end result was that Mr Big-Stack knocked out the other two players. Hand shakes and "Good Games" all around.

Suddenly I found myself heads-up against an even bigger-stacked Mr Big-Stack. He had me out-chipped about 15 or 20 to 1. Needless to say, this heads-up match didn't last long - the blinds ate up my stack pretty quickly. It was a great game, and I was thrilled to come out in 2nd place!! Congrats to Mr Big Stack. He played a smart, quiet and lethal chip-hoarding game.

Results for Tuesday March 11 Heads-Up Matches!

Nine players showed up for Tuesday's Heads-Up Battle! Here's how things shook out:

wingnut58 went out first - sorry - I didn't see who wingnut was matched against - please let me know!

LittleRedElf was taken out by MI-Rockstar

ThePunk75 was taken out by S_Kinison

umichpoker was taken out by 1crumb

Tripps111 and spchillin battled back and fourth for quite a while with tTripps111 winning a series of small pots, only to have spchillin come back winning a big pot. Tripps111 did wear spchillin down and take all sp's chips.

After the first round of eliminations, here are the match-ups:

1crumb vs Tripps111
MI-Rockstar vs S-Kinison

Paying four places, it's just a matter of sorting out who gets what!

1crumb fell to Tripps111
MI-ROCKSTAR fell to S_Kinison

Tripps111 & S_Kinison matched up to determine the one overall Heads-Up Champ! After a long, back & forth battle S_Kinison took Tripps111 down. The battle wrapped up about 11PM

Great tournament! Hope to see everyone next week for Stud H/L

Feel free to fill in the details of your heads-up tourney in the comments! I try to get a general overview - but I miss a lot of details.

March 11 Tuesday Tournament on Poker Stars

Hi Poker Fans!

On Tuesday we're playing Heads-Up NL Holdem Tournament on Poker Stars. Here are the details:

Date: Mar 11

Time: 9pm

Place: Poker Stars

Buy-in: $5 + $0.50

Game: Heads-Up NL Holdem Tournament

Password: goblue

To find the game, click on the "Tourneys" tab in Poker Stars main lobby. Then click on "Private". Scroll down to 21:00 and look for the $5 buy-in and UMichiganPoker Tue in the title.

Double-click and register! Hope to see you there!

Don't have Poker Stars Account? Sign Up Here!

Results from Tuesday's Omaha h/l on Poker Stars

Four contenders came to play Omaha h/l on Tuesday. With such a small field, everyone was in almost every pot. The starting hands were all over the place, along with the swings in chips - though wildwoode grabbed up a bunch of chips early and kept his stack at around 2300 for quite a long time.

tripps111 busted out first when his trip Queens fell to umichpoker's Queen high straight.

1crum went out two hands when his two pair also fell to wildwood's Queen high straight

umichpoker had ~2000 chips versus wildwood with ~4000 chips when the heads up match started. Chips flew back and fourth between the stacks with big pots getting split on high/low hands. Eventually umichpoker wore wildwood down and took first place.

Thanks to everyone for coming to play!

Invite to another Michigan Online Tourney

Nik of Nik's Poker Palace fame has invited all the UMichiganPoker.com players to their online tourneys. We've also invited all of Nik's players to come over and play a few hands with us!

Here's the link to Nik's blog and online tourneys:

http://www.nikspokerpalace.blogspot.com/

Every Tuesday @ 8:00 PM
2008 league season will be broken into quarters.

The four quarter winners and the top point getters will play in the Final on December 16, 2008. Tourneys will start at 8pm in 2008 to accomodate the increase in players.
Come join the action in 2008!

Write Nik Faldo at npokerp@yahoo.com for the password.

If you play over there - check in and let us know what you think!

First Tuesday Tourney in March: Omaha h/l on Poker Stars!

Hi Poker Fans!

On Tuesday we're playing Omaha H/L on Poker Stars.

Here are the details:

Date: Mar 4
Time: 9pm
Place: Poker Stars
Buy-in: $5 + $0.50
Game: Omaha H/L
Password: goblue

To find the game, click on the "Tourneys" tab in Poker Stars main lobby. Then click on "Private". Scroll down to 21:00 and look for the $5 buy-in and UMichiganPoker Tue in the title.
Double-click and register!

Hope to see you there!

Don't have Poker Stars Account? Sign Up Here!