The pain of Sundays

Any serious poker player has to play the online tournaments on Sunday. Especially during FTOPS and WCOOP type tournaments. For example today the WCOOP final has a $10 million prize pool and is being played today.

But as hard as I try I just cannot do it. I've played soccer on Sunday mornings for 30 years and currently manage/play on 1 team and play on a 2nd team most weeks. Then we go to the pub for drinks, then home to sleep off the drinks and hang by the pool.

I just don't have the willpower to change this schedule and come home straight after soccer and sit indoors playing poker. Especially when like today its 100 degrees plus in southern California and I can hang by the pool in the afternoon chilling with friends.

Guess I'm just not serious enough about this game....

Monday night gamble

I sometimes join a group of older guys on a Monday night and play a variety of "funky" poker games including:

- Polish poker

- The flop

- 44, with some redraws

- High/Low seven card stud

- Iron cross

- Omaha

- Hi/Lo NL

- Option

- Nickel, Dime, Quarter

- 5 card stud with 1 card draw before showdown

Most of these are high/low games with a limit-type structure where 6-8 players each put in a number of bets to draw to half the pot. The skill involved is trying to bluff your opponents into folding and getting heads up and then guessing which way the other guy is likely to choose (hi or low). Theres also the option to "pig it", or scoop the entire pot if you think you can win both ways. They used to have a wild card too, but recently that abandoned that as it made the game too biased and players were getting upset.

Always a fun game - some of these guys have been playing together for 10 years or more every week and know each others tendencies. Sometimes it looks like cheating when they conveniently go hi and low in a pot you put a lot of money into and they end up sharing. But there is also a huge luck factor in what cards you get.

Some weeks I lose 3 or 4 buyins but today I made 2 buyins so I cant complain.

mini FTOPS

The mini-FTOPS main event is a $70 tournament boasting a million dollar prize pool. Thats what I call value.

I played the event and did absolutely rubbish. I started with 7500 chips and lost some with AJ (twice) where the flop missed and my continuation bet was called and then I was bet into on the turn, then my pocket 9s hit 2 overpairs, then I struggled for a bit with my last 2500 chips before running my 10-10 into A-A.

Now if I had won I would be $160,000 richer. I was planning to buy a new Corvette for me and treat my wife to the car she wanted. Also I was going to upgrade my computer setup and buysome new furniture for the house. Maybe a small extension on the back too - nothing fancy just about $30k worth of building work.

Yes, if I had of won......

Scary stuff

I went to Hawaiin Gardens a couple of weeks back on a Thursday night and played the tourney and then cash games until about 3am, then did the drive back to my home in Orange County.

About 5am that same morning another chap left the same casino for his drive home to Orange County. He was followed home, robbed and murdered.

Scary stuff!!