Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all my blog readers. I am going to continue with last thanksgiving tradition of things I am thankful for.

Of course, Thanks to my wife and children for putting up with me everyday.
Thanks to all that helped make the first year of the CMPPA a success.
Thanks to Dustin and Steve that help me to run my bar poker games.
Thanks to the bars that allow me to run their poker games.
Thanks to the good bar players that help me to become a better player.
Thanks to the donks that, most of the time, give me their chips.
Thanks to you that read my blog. At least I think some people read it!
Thanks to ESPN for their coverage of the WSOP and the boast it gave to poker, even though you gave us Norman Chad!
Thanks to all the parents that bring their kids to bowl the CMJTT tournaments, you never get enough credit.
Thanks to Rob Carper for his help with the CMJTT, even when his children are past the age to bowl it.
Thanks to Royal Ross for his vision to start the SMJTT. I look forward to a long and lasting relationship between the two organizations.
Thanks to Pizza Ranch for giving me a place of employment. You are a great bunch to work with!
Thanks Kara for making me have to get another dog. It makes me the second fiddle in the household. LOL!
Thanks to Lon and Kathy for inviting us on the upcoming cruise and all the fun we will have.
Thanks to whomever created the internet or I would just writing this for myself!

Have a great Thanksgiving and Holiday season! May your turkey be juicy, your wine be plentiful and your holidays be filled with the family you love!

Dave

CMPPA Main Event

As I am writing this we are only a couple of hours away from the grand finish of the St Cloud Series of Poker Main Event winner. They are currently at 7 players after 13 hrs of poker action yesterday. Current chip leader is Luke Haugen @ 257,000 chips with almost 40 percent of the chips in play. It is still any ones game with several quality players left.

My day was not so good, as I busted out about 41/2 hrs in as the second player down. I had what I thought was a solid strategy going in, but it proved me wrong as I always seemed to have the second best hand at the finish. Early I lost a big hand when I called a raise with A-5 suited with a couple of callers. I put the raiser on a small pair and was correct. Flop is A-K-5. Initial raiser makes it 450 after the flop with one caller to me. I hope to take this pot down now and raise to 2450. Bettor folds, but other player calls. I am now concerned, but feel I am ahead. Turn is a blank and I bet out 3000. Player calls. Now I don't know what he has. River is another blank. We both check and he turns over A-K. Wow! Just didn't see that coming. I would have expected a reraise preflop by AK especially by that player. It was a nice play by him as it got over 6000 of my chips. After this hand, I went on about an hour run of good starting hands and raised often. Many times had great flops to make big post flop bets only to get called and run down by flush draws on 3 different hands. Some days are like that, just wish it wouldn't have been during the biggest tournament of the year. Something to look forward to next year!

Thanks to all at my first table, even though you knocked me out, it made for an enjoyable few hours of mostly solid poker play. Something you rarely get in a bar game. Watch out for me next year!

College Bowling Weekend

This will be another blog about bowling. sorry poker people but I spent the weekend in a bowling center watching my son bowl a college tournament. It was a very fun time. My son Kyle bowls for MN State Mankato. It's the same school that I bowled for many years ago. They have been doing very well this season, so I was looking forward to watching. College bowling is different then most bowling tournaments. There are two parts. Day one is usually 6 games of regular bowling and day two is Baker bowling, which is when bowler 1 bowls frames 1 and 6, bowler 2 does 2 and 7. It is a true team experience that most bowlers never get a chance to try. After the 1st 6 games Mankato had a 177 pin lead over the 2nd place team. The top 5 individual scores are named to the all tournament team and My son was 2nd, but only lost to his team mate Jon, so that's ok. It was kyle's 3rd all tournament in a row. On Sunday during the baker the team got off to a slow start and lost most of their lead in the first 4 games. They bowled 28 games of baker, but soon picked it back up again. Then on the 17th game they did something that the school had never done before. They bowled a baker 300 game. It was exciting to watch and a lot of pressure on the last bowler. He started the 10th from with a cross over, but came back strong the last two for the 300 game. They went on to win the tournament by 288 pins, a truly dominate weekend. Congratulations on your win and 300 game. It was fun to be there to be a part of it!

You can find information on college bowling at www.collegebowling.com. MN State is currently ranked 8th in the nation and Kyle is in the top 10 individually. I am sure that after last weekend they will move up even more. Great job guys!

On a side note, after watching bowling all weekend, it was my turn to bowl on Sunday night. They inspired me as I started with a 281 game. It was a first for me. LOL! If you are bowling please laugh along with me. In all my years bowling I had never seen a 281 game before. It is difficult. I had the 1st 10 strikes, then a 5 count and got 1 on the spare. Oh well, maybe next time. Back to poker this weekend with the CMPPA main event on Saturday and Sunday. I am sure there will be something blog worthy from it!

Ladies Night!

Over the past few months we have had a rash of people pulling their cards out of the muck after the hand is over to show their cards. I have been making announcements about this at most of my tournaments that if you do this you will receive a one round penalty. As of yet, I hadn't ever actually given anyone a penalty until last night. We are almost to first break last night when a big hand happens and one of the ladies pulls here cards back out of muck to show the person next to her. I just look at here and say You didn't just do that did you!. She says what and I say you pulled your cards out of the muck. So, I give her a warning and tell her next time it will be a one round penalty. Then out of the blue she says that she wants me to give her a penalty. Ok, you have to sit out a round. Then I get up and make an announcement to the rest of the tables and tell them that they have been warned. There is only one more hand and then we are on break. I am chipping up at a table as they are finishing their last hand and right in front of me another lady pulls her cards out of the muck and now I have to penalize her because I did the other. Then later when we are one player from final table a different lady pulls her cards out of the muck right in front of me and I am forced to give another penalty. Last night we had 4 women play in the tournament and 3 of 4 got a penalty all for the same reason. I know that this is kind of a petty thing, but I have always believed in trying to run tournaments properly,maybe it's a gender thing! I never expected to ever give 3 penalties in one night! Got to love bar poker!

Ethical Issue

As a tournament director you run into many issues that you are supposed to act on in the best interest of the game. Some are technical and some are ethical. I ran into an issue this weekend that I should have acted on but chose to say nothing and in the end it cost me a lot of chips.I was running very hot early on my Saturday night game and had a nice chip stack. As a tournament director you end up giving names to players or styles of players. Most times I keep them to myself. One such player was dealing, I call him douche bag, LOL! I noticed that when he dealt from the position that I was sitting I was able to see all the cards being dealt. Now, I should have said something right away and called a miss deal, but decided to play the hand out and speak to him about it later. The cards are dealt and I have A-10 suited. I make a small raise. It is raised again by pocket 8's and then rerasied again by pocket 9's. It is folded to me and normally I would fold my cards to a raise and a reraise, but I know what their cards are. I have a big stack and figure it to be a check down because one of the players is all in. It is a lot of chips but I can afford to make the call and I know that I have two overs to both their pairs. So I call, because of the information I received because of douche bag. You know that you get what you deserve because the whole board was a blank and the 9's end up winning a big pot and go from almost out to a big stack that took them all the way to 4th. Another player asked me why I had called there and I told them that they had to read this blog to find out why I had called. It is an ethical issue to me as a tournament director because you are supposed to do things that are for the best of the game and I chose to ignore it at that time and use the information to my advantage, which did me nothing but loss a bunch of chips. I would love to hear opinions on this subject. Should I have stopped that hand as it was dealt or is that just information like a tell that is available to anyone that pays attention?

Disciplined Poker

I have been trying to play better disciplined poker at my bar games in the last few weeks. I had gotten a little bored and was playing way too many hands just trying to out play people and what you find out fast in bar poker is that it is difficult to out play people until the blinds get high because some one is going to call. Tuesday is the only game that I currently run and play every week, so I have been trying to make a run at the top spot to get a direct seat to a tournament at Milacs. It has not been going very well. I played solid poker all night. Raising at the right times, folding at the right times. I was not a big stack, but had enough to make the points. We were about 3 places from final table, when I looked down at KK. Everyone folded to me so I push all in to hope to take down the blinds and if some one calls I am ok with that also. It is folded to big blind and he is thinking hard. He must have an ace. He has been running hot, so I am expecting a call. He finally calls and turn over A-10. Now, I am concerned, because I have had bad luck with pairs against an over ace. First card comes off and it's a king. Yes, I am feeling much better. Then you know what happens, Jack and then Queen. LOL! I flop a set, he flops a straight. Board doesn't pair so I'm out. So much for playing better it still got me to the same position. Oh well, there is always next week!

Online Tournaments

I so rarely get to play an online poker tournament and it had been a while so I played a couple on Full Tilt. I tried the rush poker and found it very fun and fast paced. I am sure that there is a strategy, but it will take a few more tries. I played the weekly Twitter Poker Tour, www.twitterpokertour.com, event last Thursday and made final table and ended 5th for a nice $25 payout. Today I played a satellite for s FTSOP event and was taken out when my turned full house was beaten by quads. I was also playing the $1 entry $10,000 guaranteed event and made a nice run until my turned full house was beaten by quads. Is it really possible for that to happen twice in a span of 1 hour! It makes one wonder. As many live tournaments as I play if I see a full house beaten by quads more then once per month it would surprise. I guess I will just have to take a few more months off and then play again!

If you have never played a TPT event, you should give it a try. $5 plus 1 every Thursday night at 8pm central on Full Tilt. The password is tptpoker. The play is very good and they have a great podcast with knowledgeable guests each week. A very good prize with several different sponsors. Hope to see you at the tables!