Thursday, October 21, 2010

I know without being told directly to my face that my poker chops are pretty pedestrian, and my telling of exploits surrounding that activity are best left to color. Furthermore, relating a game at Poker Academy draws less interest than my triglyceride count. Still, when one's life is generally punctuated by starting a fire and maintaining it in the wood stove, I'll take any little spark.

I'd say we've seen the last of the kids for a while. Daughter-in-law and grandson headed off to the Big Island today while my son returned south to continue harvesting small plantings with a big yield. I don't expect him to return and will instead join his family when the jobs are done. I can tell you, I was farming the wrong crop in the wrong state, except for the constant state of alarm.

After the airport, a nap and a last good-bye, I set to re-establishing my routine, part of which, lately, has been to make a mid-day stop at PAO to check on the health of the site. As expected, there was barely enough players to keep two cash tables, a couple 6-handed SnGs and a Boot Camp going. However, on room caught my eye.

Lately, one would feel like a high roller should there be a .50/1.00 table available. Usually, a .10/.20 is the most one can play. Today, there was a $2/$4 table going. Problem was: only two players. The rake would be horrendous, as well as the blinds, but it was a 200 BB buy-in, so I sat. I love me some deep stack. And frankly, with my "bastin" nick, I can afford a little variance while waiting for the implied or trap.

I've played both opponents before, one more than the other. The one I had more history with had a stack of about $780; the other fellow, about $650. I knew the first's ranges: min-raise preflop meant a naked Ace or something like KJoff; three times the pot meant huge pair. He also has a tendency to chase and over value his hands post. The other fellow I knew to be a patient TAG. meaning only big hands, AK and up. Short-handed, one has to figure that both players are going to open up a bit.

Ah, screw it. I had both of their stacks with 27 hands. All-in, caught a straight on the turn against the tighty (yes, I sucked out with $100+ in the flop pot before his jam with Kings) and had a flush redraw on a turned Broadway split. Crubs, baby.

You see, while the kids were here, and with little time to play, I had slipped in the ratings from third to second place. And now, I can get back to what needs to get done.

15 comments:

Memphis MOJO said...

Crubs always get there -- don't they teach the basics at the PA?

lightning36 said...

Fun story!

Crash said...

I moneyed tonite at PAO in a freeroll. I sense that the freerolls are now peppered with bigstack players with new nicks. Fun.
Your rank is affected by players who haven't been in a game for 30 days, but you are still the hero to many players, such as me.

Crash said...

I mean big BR

bastinptc said...

Gotta luv crubs, and the originator of the phrase.

Crash, bless your heart. And good on ya!

You are correct, with Lorenzo MIA, I am actually still in 3rd, behind he and Stan.

Crash said...

Since most people probably don't know about Poker Academy Online, when we say bastin is rated second or third, that is out of, just guessing, 5,000 or 10,000 players worldwide, even though not all are currently active. No small thing to be rated so high.

Memphis MOJO said...

Regarding Crash's comment: I knew he was a legend there, and some good players have come through the system. Had no idea we were talking about 10K people, however.

Crash said...

MOJO, that was just a wild guess, and they come and go. And, Of Course, bastin made most of his points before I showed up there! Lest more steam come from behind bastin's head, my coming to PAO made not a bit of difference in his success.

Crash said...

Beating this into the ground:
At PAO, you earn your way into the real games by earning $ in freerolls. bastin has won $179 in freerolls, a very small amount to then go on to top success in the real games. For comparison, the leader in freeroll $ has won $22,000 in freeroll, constantly losing in the real games.
Yours truly has won an embarrassing amount of $ in freerolls, only to be blasted back by the good players.

Last note: bastin has at least 2 other nicks at PAO, also successful.

Second last note: bastin, under more than one nick, took me under his wing and tried to advise me on how to improve my play. Few big players will do this, they just want your $. This was the beginning of the "hero worship," and I was delighted to meet him in person in Vegas this March.

The end. Now returning to my smartass mode.

Anonymous said...

I was surprised to find out that poker academy had been bought by fulltilt in 2008.

Explains so much of the neglect.

aki


PS
nice hand

Crash said...

Akileos- I see that Fulltilt does have something called Poker Academy, but I can't find info that it is the same thing. If true, one would think they would put a few bucks into R&D to bring in more players.

Crash said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Crash said...

MOJO-Akileos is another PAO hero. Had a bunch of $, but lost most of it to the PAO limit bots, who have beaten world-class pros in duplicate hold'em.

Anonymous said...

Polaris is worth more than 200 dollars just to play against it for two months. I went a little bonkers trying to learn from it, but I learned an important component to poker decision making that I had not learned in the bone till that point. I'll tell you, poker is a game of probability involving not just the odds of hitting a card but also the odds of your opponent folding or calling as well as your pot equity. :)

I don't think it was ever announced but check this

I quote from the resume of the former ceo of biotools (developers of poker academy)

"President & CEO, later Chair of Board
BioTools Inc

(Biotechnology industry)

1995 — 2008 (13 years )

Built a top bioinformatics firm with an international customer base and the world's most prestigious scientific institutes, universities and pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies as customers. After a fundamental shift in business direction and product development, BioTools Inc. was acquired in 2008 by Full Tilt Poker."










http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:966WxmrCzfkJ:ca.linkedin.com/pub/gordon-r-stranks/b/b70/7b2+biotools+fulltilt&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Crash said...

That's enough proof for me. Akilios, you are worthy of respect at the level of bastin. He was just more willing to share the wisdom