A Qvicky

Poker Alert! I'm going to recap some recent goings on but without any detailed hand histories.

Poker results have been up and down for me in the past week. I started off my plan of paying cash each day before the evening tourneys with the outcome I was hoping for. First, on Tuesday, I opted for a seat in a 5NL game after waiting a while for a 10NL game and not seeing any movement on the board. It was a fortunate decision because I landed in a game full of loose-passive players and I managed to find some good cards. In my first two hours, I ran my $200 buy-in to $600. Over the remaining hour and a half of play, I worked it up to $730 by stealing.

After cashing out and paying my tournament entry, I ensured myself winner for the day. I played well in the tourney but only managed just inside of the 100 mark out of 671 entrants. But I enjoyed myself along the way.

Then, on Thursday, I returned hoping for a similar situation in a cash game and found it at another 5NL table. It seems that the 10NL is now flooded with wild, loose players who don't care about money. That's not good for me in the long run. So the 5NL may offer the best chance of finding a passive group that I can take advantage of. Again, I ran my stack up to $650 in about 3 hours. Then I grinded it up to $750 in another hour in which I didn't actually have very good cards. In the end, I cashed out for a hair over $700.

Again, I was able to book a profit before the tournament started so I was happy with that. This time, the tourney didn't go as well for me. I had a hyper-aggressive guy on my right who limped and pushed all-in over the top of my late-position raise before the flop. I figured to have the best hand but he knew I couldn't call. He made the same play at someone else with the same result then started chatting with me about how I should have done that in another spot. I stayed away from him as much as possible.

Then who should get moved to my table? None other than Heather. My god. What are the chances? And Amir was at a table nearby in a seat that put her close to him too (he had some of her action and a last-longer). Funny thing, I kept finding hands on her big blind and raised in that position several times. She gave me hell for it.

Also at my table was a kid that I was sure I had played with at Chumash. I remembered how he really liked to pull off a bluff. In talking with him and others, it became apparent that he wasn't just a kid from Chumash. He was Jeff Madsen...the wonder kid from Santa Barbara who won two bracelets at the WSOP this year. I guess his tournament style is far from his cash style because he pretty much played straight forward, looking for good starting hands.

Madsen got short stacked but managed to double through once and drag the blinds a couple more times. Then he stuck it all in again on my big blind. As it was folding around to me, I joked, "I aint afraid of you." Then I looked at my cards and instantly said I call. He had A-9. I had J-J. Mine held up. So the big story of the week is that I knocked Jeff Madsen out of a tourney. Oh...I'm also pretty sure that Kenickie (Jeff Conaway) from Grease was on the bike next to me at the gym on Friday. I'm 99% sure it was him.

Its been quite a "Jeff" week.

SEEYa