2011 Poker Challenge. Making it as a rounder!

Seeing how it's almost April, this challenge will fully start on April 1st, however I have started today, just to get back into the grind mode, as I think I have been a little lax lately during my time away from poker.

A good friend of mine suggested a unique type of challenge for me and I accepted as he has given me 2 to 1 odds, on a $5000 bet.  The challenge is as follows:

1) All games must be played live so no online poker at all, I must go to either Boulevard Casino, Edgewater Casino, Starlight Casino, or Cascades Casino. 

2) I can not under any circumstance use my own money from my other accounts for the purpose of this challenge.  I will attempt to turn 750 dollars, into 36500 in a year playing nothing but 1/2 No Limit and the occasional live Tournament.

So, I have my work cut out for me, ultimately this means that due to this challenge, I will have to drop down to 1/2 NL from my bread and butter game of 3/6 NL which means my play style will have to change as well to maximize profits.

Through this blog, I will be documenting every day my results and plays, as well as memoriable hands for the reader to follow, I will also be keeping a running talley and see where I end up March 19th 2012.

Without further ado, here we go!

March 19th 2011

Started my session at 7:10am at Boulevard Casino sat down with 100 dollars at a 1/2 NL game

I take a quick look around the table and see if I spot any of the usual players that I know, the sharks if you will, and I don't, I do however notice a few fishes and donkeys at the table from previous experience and think to myself, I'll be in and out in under an hour with my quota for the day. Which is 150 dollars profit.


2nd hand in I am in middle position and look down at AcKs, decent starting hand, it gets folded around to 2 seats to my right, and he pumps the pot to 25 dollars, guy to my right folds and action is on me.  Now, there's still 4 people to act after me, so I decide to get cute and flat call 25% of my stack with an off-suit AK.  Guy to my left calls, the rest fold.

81 dollars in the pot, flop comes 4h 9s Kd.  The original raiser fires a continuation bet of 25 dollars.  and now there's 106 dollars in the pot, 25 for me to call and I'm convinced he doesn't have pocket Aces as he wouldn't play Ace's like that.  I take all of two seconds and instead of pushing all in, just smooth call his bet as I want the guy to my left to call as well, however he folds and it's now heads up.

Turn comes 6s and he again fires 25 dollars.  At this point, Ive already invested 50% of my stack and there's still 1 card to come, either way my stack is in jeopardy, either at the turn or the river, so I just decide to ship the rest of the chips and surprisingly he snap calls.  My  immediate thought is he either has AK same as me, or he has some sort of underpair to my Kings and just doesn't believe me because I do bullshit a lot.

River is my saviour card as it's the Kc.  I now have trip kings and flip them over to take down a huge pot.  He flips over pocket Queens which is what I put him on as soon as I knew he didn't have Aces.  at 7:21am I'm up 125 dollars and it looks like I'll have a super early day and can enjoy my Saturday with some Dragon Age II!

over the next 30 minutes I was card dead and went from 225 dollars in front of my down to 170ish due to blinds and just calling 6 dollar raises preflops with mediocre hands trying to hit flops, then comes the last hand of my day.

I am in the small blind with Ac5d and it's folded to me.  I ask big blind if he wants to chop it (basically we take our blinds back and dealer deals a new hand) he's wearing shades and thinking he's big time and coldly tells me no.  I was like.. alright bro, let's dance.  And immediately pump it 25 dollars just to steal his 2 bucks and to my shock/horror/amusement/surprise he calls.  So Im thinking alright, time to out play your stupid donkey ass.

I immediately check blind, and let him decide how he wants to play this pot as I surrender first option to him.  Flop comes 5c 5s 6d.  I'm secrely laughing and almost burst out laughing when he puts in 12 dollars into the pot.  Immediately I'm thinking he has a 6 and even if he has a 5, I have him outkicked with my Ace.  I smooth call and check blind again.

Turn card is the nut card for me, the 5 of hearts.  I now have quads and can not lose this pot whatsoever.  Because I checked blind, he has the option again and fires off 24 dollars.  I sit and play hollywood with this guy for a bit.  I start talking out loud trying to make it look like I'm drawing to a straight, or have a 6 as well and I should have gotten an oscar for my performance before smooth calling his 24 dollars.  I check blind again hoping he would fire a 3rd bullet and hang himself completely to my check raise on the river. 

River is a Jh.  He thinks for a long time and finally checks it down and I'm disgusted.  I lost value on an unbeatable hand because I tried to get cute, but no  matter, he turns over 6s Jd.  I'm very surprised he didn't repop the river with 5's over Jacks.  But he must have sensed I was strong, I turn over my Quads, take the pot, and leave the table up 187 dollars for the day.  This occured at 8:30am. 

Boulevard casino was having an event today as well as Richard Broduer <Goalie of the Vancouver Canucks from the 80's> was having breakfast with the casino quests so I popped over, got an autograph and ate some free food before coming home.  Not a bad day's work.  187 bucks tax free in a little over an hour. 

Goal thus far 187/36500