roy

Because I'm such a hopeless romantic, I honestly believe that subjecting myself to the same song three times by three artists will get me one step closer to Jessica Biel.

"I remember mama said
You can't hurry love
No you'll just have to wait
She said love don't come easy
It's a game of give and take
How long must I wait, how much more must I take
Before loneliness, will cause my heart, heart to break?"

I am waiting for you, Jessica Biel... Hey is there anything more ridiculous than reading the "interpretations" to "you can't hurry love" ... I mean ... come on. COME ON!!!!!

Last night, we only had three people show up for poker (Me, Pete, and Terrence). Due to the low turnout, we tried a different tournament system; we played 4 tournaments with $50 for each tournament. One would obtain points for your placement in each tournament (3 for first, 2 for second, and 1 for third), and the person with the most points after four tournaments would win the whopping $15 pot.

The first tournament started horribly for me. I like to play aggressively during the early stages of a tournament, and when my cards are cold, it hurts. Eventually I lost when I flopped a straight and Pete flopped a flush (and couldn't walk away although I should of, stupid me!). First tournament: 1 point (Terrence ended up getting 1st and Pete got 2nd)

Early on during the second tournament, Pete got whacked. Terrence pointed out that finishing first in this tournament would pretty much ensure his victory (oh crap!). I ended up winning the second tournament (Pete: 3 points, Me: 4 points, Terrence: 5 points).

Terrence ended up winning the third tournament, with me coming in second place. The nasty thing here is that Terrence took both Pete and me out with 3-outers. He caught a 9 with his Q9 to knock out Pete, and he caught a J with his JT against my KT. Pretty nasty stuff, but he did play well.

A real quick hand that pretty much ended that tournament for me: I pick up 44 and see a $7 raise (blinds are $2/$4) from Terrence. I quickly call and figure him for overcards (AK, AQ, maybe AJ). The flop comes K-x-x. Terrence bets out a sizable amount ($8 I think). Now I gotta figure this out. The $8 could simply be a bluff play with AQ or AJ. I had to know if he held AK, so I made a reraise of $18 (leaving me with $17). It was a costly bet, but it did turn out he had AK as he reraised all-in (FOLD). Ugh, what a costly information bet.

It didn't help that earlier I had try to slowplay AA on a T987 board (two hearts) and Terrence bluffed me out with Q9.

Terrence: 8 points, me: 6 points, and Pete: 4 points. At this point, Terrence would HAVE to be third place, while I finished first in the last tournament to TIE.

Terrence has not placed third yet in any of the tournaments, and he's one of the best live players I know, so I give myself 5:1 odds that he's gonna finish 3rd (not based on any scientific method). However, I do know that if Terrence DOES finish in 3rd, I'm a lock for first (No disrespect to Pete, but I think I'm a better play than he is, and he seems "out of it" today).

What's interesting in the tournament setting we played was the dynamics of the game. Terrence simply had to survive to 2nd place to lock the tournament, while Pete had no chance of winning. I could NOT knock Pete out, nor could I risk going up against Pete on marginal hands. It totally changed the dynamics of the hand, as I had to push marginal hands against Terrence and just value-bet everything against Pete.

The big first hand came up when I had +$14 in chips more than Terrence and ended up doubling him up with 88 against his TT on a 623 board (he caught a set on the river). It seemed he played a bit tighter than usual, so I took advantage by raising every flop postflop (and occasionally preflop). I made a few steals left and right, and with the aggressively blind structure (raised every ten minutes), I was back in the gunning; I was roughly equal with everybody.

Terrence was slowly getting chipped away, and I was looking forward to catching some nasty hand to bust him up. Interestingly, I stopped playing really mediocre hands to his raises; usually I'm happy to call gapped suited cards against raises because they have huge implied odds, but I didn't want Terrence getting his hand on many chips, so usually I would fold to a preflop raise unless I had pockets or nice overcards.

My first huge chip jump came when I held 67 in the BB and Terrence (A8) and Pete (??) limped in. The flop came A89. Everyone checked it around, and then we saw a turn card of 5. Beautiful for me, but now there were two clubs and two diamonds on board. I decided to value-bet the hand to the river and then extract some money against the draws, so i bet $2.50. Terrence called after agonizing for a second, and then Pete reraised it $8. Lovely. I immediately pushed the rest of my stack in (I have the nuts!) because I didn't want people drawing me out. Terrence, after agonizing for a few minutes folded away his two pair (he knew that I would of only risked my chips in this position with 67), and Pete immediately threw his hand away. YES! Picked up about $15 in chips without having to have people draw out their suits.

The glorious hand came when I picked up Q8 in the small blind, while Terrence had 46 in the BB. THe flop comes 532, two diamonds. Normally I bet out on flush draws, but I decided to just take free cards and hope to catch my flush and hopefully bust Terrence. Next card comes a diamond. I quickly check, hoping he picks up something on the river. River comes a queen ... now I'm out of position. I hate this. I bet the minimum, hoping it looks like a steal and hoping Terrence's two-pair will reraise me ... and LOVELY! He pushes all his chips in the middle. I quickly call and show my flush. Terrence has finished in THIRD! YES! Now all I have to do is knock out Pete.

No big deal, about 10-15 minutes later, I have all his chips. Pete played the short-stack very weak-tight [he didn't even call a pot-odds all-in that he should of and gave up his BB of $8 when all he had was $6]. Terrence and I are now tied at 9 points (Pete: 6 points) and we play a heads-up deathmatch.

We've been talking about a heads-up deathmatch for a LONG time, and this is possibly the first time we've gotten it. In most tournaments, either he comes at a huge disadvantage at the final table in chips (just his playing sytle), or I bust out early (hyperaggression doesn't work too well if your cards go cold) so we've never had our heads-up match.

But we got it this time!

Sadly, the heads-up match wasn't too eventful. There weren't truly any great clashes; during the first two rounds of blind structures, it was mostly stealing; I don't think we saw too many rivers. Like two boxers, we spent the early rounds just probing for information and trying to get a read on the other person. I was also just trying to stay afloat in chips for the higher blind structures.

Now, I do have a lot of physical tells I think. It's bad practice, but most people are pretty aware when I'm limping in with something marginal... and I tried to work on that a bit during this tournament.

The first huge hand came when Terrence raised in the small blind. I looked down to see AJ. Now, Terrence had been getting AK like crazy tonight, but I just had this feeling that he didn't have it. I felt he was playing a weak ace (AJ, AT) and I was debating what to do with my AQ. If he was indeed playing a weak ace, then reraising him preflop would be a bad move; it might make him fold the hand. Sure, I pick up the blinds, but in a heads-up tournament you're really just looking to bust people. I don't like to play the attrition game (where you slowly extract chips and eventually lean on the other person). I'm more of a run-and-gun type of guy; I like action. I decide that if my read is correct, then I should make a smooth-call here. I decide the following as well:

• If all low cards flop, I'm going to let him bet into it (Terrence always leads) and push my chips in, unless a J or T flops. If a J or a T flops, I'll smoothcall the flop and hope to pick up a queen on the turn. If that misses, I fold.
• If an ace flops, I'm going to take all his moooonnnneeeyyyy!

Of course, I get a mixed blessing with the flop of A86, all of diamonds. LOOOVVEEEELLYYYY. I don't have a diamond in my hand. Terrence makes a pretty large bet, which indicates to me that he has one of two hands: AJ without a diamond, trying to make an out-of-position protection bet, or KK with the K of diamonds; he knows he's probably not ahead here, but a 4th diamond would clinch him the pot, thus he builds it up.

Either way, I have Terrence beat. But I don't want to risk all my chips with two to come; I want to see a "safe" card on the turn before committing my chips. The turn comes an 8. Solid. Terrence raises something like $8, and then I push the rest in. If my read is wrong, then he's going to call his and I'm screwed [but I deserved it], if my read is right here, he cannot really call with anything but an Ax with a diamond. He luckily folds, and I take down a HUGE pot. The killer thing is that Terrence figured he was drawing to two outs (the Aces), when he really was drawing for any of the jacks or the last ace for a split. Guess what came on the river when we rabbit-holed? An ace... ouch. The last ace...

I suddenly have a huge chip lead ... and I was feeling mighty confident. It also helped that I picked up AK on the next hand and Terrence re-raised my initial bet with A4... and I busted him.

What great playing ... it was pretty fun to play that different tournament setting; the circumstances were certainly affecting our gameplayer .. and I like that. I picked up my 7th yellow chip this semester (I won last week, too) ... Terrence consistenly made the right reads and folded monster hands (ones I think I'd have a tough time laying down). Mad respect for Mr. Terrence, but this time, I PREVAILED. LIKE I SAID, THE YELLOW CHIPS = MANIFEST DESTINY FOR ME!