Live poker is rigged

Yet another disappointing live tournament for me. Today it was the $340 Caesars Megastack.

I had a really pleasant, chatty table to start the tournament today. I really like it when the table is super friendly. Not only does it make the time more enjoyable from a social standpoint but people tend to give up a lot more information when they think you are their friend. People will show their hands a lot more often which does nothing but make it easier for a perceptive player to pigeon hole how they play. I did fine at this table increasing my starting chips from 12,500 to 19k even though I wasn't hitting all that much. I did hit a set against top pair but overplayed the hell out of it and let the guy off the hook pretty easily. I think I fastplay too much in hold'em sometimes. However, when you are running badly and think you are going to get sucked out on during all big hands you tend to try to overbet your hands and make sure you make it real expensive for people to draw to hands.

Our table broke and I moved to a table that had very little chips which should signify that it had been pretty tight for the first 3 hours of the tournament. I pick up JJ and make a standard raise to 1600. Guy to my left who just had his A high flush run into a straight flush calls me and a pretty weak passive woman calls out of the big blind. The flop comes 572 and I lead out 3600, the guy goes all in for about 5k and I call. He has KT with a flopped flush draw. I said, "don't worry sir, you might not turn your hand but you will at least river it" Turn blank 4, River K.....maybe I should start Q's psychic alliance.

I am down to about 10k when I am forced to hit two pair in the bb into a flush. Luckily the guy plays it real slow and the board 4 flushes on the end to freeze us both.

In the span of a couple rotations the only hands I show down are AK, JJ, KK, and the bb two pair. In late position I find 33 and make a raise. European dude calls out of the sb and the flop comes 27T. He checks to me and I like this board for a continuation bet and fire out a decent sized bet and get checkraised and have to fold. I am now down to 5k with blinds at 300/600 so my only move now is all in or fold.

When I am in the sb there is a middle position limper, buttom limper and I decide that if I see anything half assed I am going to push my stack here as I think these guys have absolutely zero strength with their limping positions and that with 5k left I can still get people to fold and pick up 2k uncontested money which is significant to my stack. I look down at J9 and push it all in, the bb wakes up with AQ and calls while the other two folded quickly without interest. Since J9 has taken me out twice already I wondered if it would have any magic on the flip side of the coin. Nope, Flop comes 66T, turn A and I am drawing dead and done.

I came back to the room and fired up some on-line. I had a fantastic session. I made over $1,500 playing 2/4 plo8 running very well and hitting lots of hands. I played some satellites for on-line WSOP Main Event qualifiers tomorrow. Won my way into the $370, 150 seat guarantee on Stars and won my way into some $215 Team Moneymaker tournament that awards at least 15 WSOP seats as well tomorrow. So, tomorrow is going to be an on-line day again. With some luck maybe I can make a run in a tournament and get a WSOP main event package.

Fortunately my on-line play has been running very well. Otherwise the last two weeks would be pretty hard to swallow. It is always odd that when I run badly live I seem to run really well on-line. This was often the case when I used to play at Barca. I don't know that there is anything to this other than coincidence. Over the last month and a half I have really jumped more into playing cash games. For years my primary source of income has been sit and go's, heads up sit and go's, and multi table tournaments. The sng's that I have done very well on are drying up a bit and a lot of the players are catching up a bit playwise and being a bit tougher to handle. This coupled with the fact that there is a lot more money to be made in cash has really forced my to make the move. I am still not nearly as good a cash game player as I am a tournament player but I am getting better. The biggest thing for me in cash games is to control the tilt factor. When I run well in cash I absolutely crush the game, but when I run bad I have a tendency to chase the loss and try to get even and ramp up the action in bad situations which more often than not only exacerbates the problem. With all that said the last month and a half has been very good from a cash standpoint and I think I will certainly be doing more and more of it. Another thing that makes me want to play more cash is that the guys down here I have met play a lot of cash and in general have been making a lot more money than I do on an annual basis. I really don't think these guys are all that smarter or more skilled than I am so it is just a matter of me sucking it up, getting involved, improving my game, and making money.