Another Good Week...

I had another decent week playing online. I finished 2nd in Full Tilt's $75 Big Daily Double Wednesday night for just shy of $2k. Friday night I finished 3rd in Cake Poker's $55 $10k gtd. tournament for ~$1,200.

Next couple of weeks are big with the FTOPS which Full Tilt's seasonal tournament series with big buy-ins and big prize pools.

Sean has a nice Sunday...

Sunday night is typically a big poker night for me online. I will play about 6-15 tournaments. The fields and prize pools are usually larger on Sundays. Last night, I played 14 tournaments and cashed in 3 of them. I had a couple where I was 3 outed for big stacks that could've been interesting if I'd won the hands.

My big winner was 3rd place in Full Tilt's nightly $26 $28k gtd. it had ~1,200 people in it. I went into the final table 8/9 in chips and ended up finishing 3rd for $2,835.00. 1st place was about $6k and I had one the guys all-in with my A5 vs. his 95 and the board ended up giving us both a 5 high straight. If I had not chopped that pot then I would have had a great chance of winning the tournament. I also finished 13th in a Stars tournament. Overall winnings were just over $3k for last night.

Keep the heater going please...

RPL Event #1 (2009) Results

Our first event of the had 11 players buy-in for a chance at taking home the cash. Play early was slow and fairly tight.

Results:
Vern made an untimely bluff that Derrick picked off with 2nd nut flush to send Vern home in 11th place.

Sean was pretty card dead most of the night and finally made a move in the hijack position w/ A6o and Shorty instacalled with AK. No three outer there and Sean finished 10th.

Moments later, hands folded around to Adam in the SB and he threw a raise in w/ AK. Derrick thought he was being bullied and shoved A10 to protect his BB and never improved to bust in 9th place.

Mike K. grind a medium to short stack for a while. I could not remember his bust hand, but he finished in 8th place.

New player Daniel also grinded for a while after losing a big pot early on. He played a good short stack game only to be outdrawn multiple times. He finished 7th.

Mitch, who's stack went up and down all night, finished 6th after failing to get back to even.

New player Jason J. nursed a less than 1 BB stack back to a playable stack, but ended up finishing 5th two shy from the money.

On the money bubble, Jeff raked in several pots throughout the night busted the bubble to finish 4th.

With money bubble busted, Adam, Trinity and Shorty all swapped chip around for a bit. Shorty held a nice chip lead. Adam moved in severals times and finally got bit to finish 3rd.

Trinity was behind in chips to Shorty when HU play started. Trinity played aggressive HU and got lead. However, Shorty got some hands and proceeded to get the lead back. The final hand, Shorty came over the top of Trinity's raise and pushed allin w/ Q10, Trinity insta-called with JJ. A Q came on the river and Shorty won the 1st event of 2009.

Sean may be getting his online groove back...

After a few weeks of final table bubbles and disappointing results, I made 5 final tables this week and had winnings of ~$2,600 things may be looking up. In December, I had chip leads very deep in the FTP $65k and lost 3 hands where I was ahead pre-flop with 12 people left (1st place: $26k), FTP 50-50 same scenario (1st place: $10k) and FTP $32k (1st place: $7.5k). It was brutal and really will make you comtemplate your abilities and play.

Variance is very tough to handle while playing online MTT's at the volume I play per month (~200 MTT's/month) which low compared to the online pros. I am learning to deal with it and just trying to get my game better. I started using Poker Tracker 3 software and I am a member of www.PokerPwnage.com which is owned by an aquaintenace of mine. I also discuss strategies with some great online players on a regular basis.

I hope 2009 will bring many final tables and wins for myself and all RPL members.

Reed Poker January 2009 Event this week

Don't forget that the January Event will be held this week at Sean's place. If you have not let us know you are coming please do so. While I'm sure we will have plenty of room, the Reed Poker League is growing and we can currently only hold 20 players. It also helps us plan for snacks and drinks. And as always its BYOB. We look forward to another great year as we start our third year of the RPL. Good luck and I'll see you at the tables.

Photos from the Main Event

Instead of posting all the photos here, I decided just to link to the photo album from the Main Event. (unfortunately we did not break out the camera until we got to the money)

Main Event Photos

New Year New Winners Same RPL

Now that the holidays are over, it is time to get the 2009 Reed Poker League started back. With the new year everyone starts from zero. It could be anyone's game this year. Will it be a repeat year or will it be a year of new champions? I cannot wait to find out. I want to thank everyone for making 2008 a great year for the RPL and I hope to see it continue in 2009. Good luck and I hope to see you at the tables.

I want to leave you with an image that you should keep burned into your cornea for the new year.

Adam and Trinity pose with their winnings after Trinity bust Adam in the 2008 Main Event.