To Chris who won a double shootout on Stars yesterday to lock up a seat in the WSOP main event. I’m going out to Vegas with him for that leg of the Series, and I’m looking forward to the circus it must be. Oh sweet, sweet side action. I’m already earmarking part of my bankroll for the trip.

I played $25K guaranteed on Party last night and made it into the money courtesy of several very silly people. In one memorable hand, four people limped and I limped with Kd8d. The blinds called and the flop came 9d Td Kx. It was bet, then folded around to me. I called and one of the blinds called. Three players. The turn is the Qd. First guy bets it, I push all-in. I get immediately called by the third player – and then by the other guy as well! At this point I’m thinking, bad timing, I’m beat. They both show a black jack for the straight and I scoop the pot and nearly triple up. I love playing in these small buy-in tournies!

Since Chris said the UB hold ‘em games were so tasty, I decided to find out if the lower limits were as well. I played the $3-6 kill game for about an hour last night, so not much data to go on so far, but man, what an action fest. The only thing I have to be prepared for next time is the bigger swings caused by the kill pots. This was my first experience with a kill game – I will be playing it some more – and also my first time playing hold ‘em on UB. The amount of limping going on even in the non-kill hands was startling. These guys play like Party 1/2 players! I’m hoping it wasn’t a fluke and that another table of bozos will be waiting for me the next time I hop on.

Congratulations again to Chris! Hey, if you win, maybe everyone will start pronouncing your last name correctly.

I played in a small buy-in multi on UB tonight and placed third out of 550. I really like their small guaranteed tournies – the field is weak and generally smaller than Party or Stars, making for nice overlays (like today). I did play well, but I also won more than my share of coin flips and had a few memorable suckouts as well. Hey, you can’t get far in tournies without some luck, right?

One thing I need to be better about when playing tournies is minimizing distractions. During a key hand with AK, the phone rang and I answered it. It was my father, asking me all these questions about his iPod and how to configure it just how he wants it. He’s describing all the details of his iTunes interface to me while I’m getting reraised with AK in my hand. I ended up having a knee-jerk reaction and shoving all my chips in. Luckily the raiser, who had KK and won the hand, had only half as many chips as I did going in, and I got some big hands and built my stack again right away. But I didn’t even look at the stacks before shoving my chips, and all because I was distracted.

On another hand, the dreaded misclick struck. UB’s buttons are too small! I meant to check in the BB with 35 of hearts, but ended up clicking “min raise.” Heads up against the small blind, the flop came 4h 6h 9x. Small blind shoves all – in for about one and a half times the pot and now I’m stuck because of my “internet fingers.” Needless to say neither my flush nor my gutshot came through, and the small blind showed A6 for a set of sixes by the river.

Fortunately, I continued to be slammed by the deck and built my stack up to a formidable size once again. I caught every break!

We got down to three players when I was dealt QQ in the small blind. Button folds, I raise it up. Big blind reraises me. He has me covered by about 100,000 chips with 6K/12K blinds. I move in, he calls with 88. Unfortunately I’ve used up all my luck because an 8 comes on the river and I’m out in 3rd place. With that dude’s chips I would have been almost a lock for first place. Instead I’m out of the action but very satisfied with the way I played. Plus, at least the difference in prize money was only a few hundred, unlike a similar suckout situation a few weeks ago at the WPT event in Aruba, where Layne Flack got rivered by Eric Brenes and lost just a little bit more than that…

Happy with my third place (which should have been first….). I think I’ll start a post with all my “major” tourney wins. Look for that soon. It’s sure to be thrilling!

I played in this Party 5+1 beta rebuy tourney tonight. One thing I have to say for Party is that, for all the complaints I have heard from others and made myself, they really did pay attention to much of what players on the cruise had to say. Rebuy tournies was one thing that people mentioned in the open air sessions hosted by Mike Sexton and many of the Party people.

I guess the one thing that irritated me about their rebuy tourney was that every five dollar rebuy, you have to pay a dollar vig. This was new to me after playing rebuys on Stars and in B&M casinos. Seems pretty hefty to me.

Playing during the rebuy period, the following hand came up.

Seat 1: DirtyByrd0 (1175)
Seat 2: elrod03 (1030)
Seat 3: Macula99 (1655)
Seat 4: deepchip (705)
Seat 5: kraka69 (1860)
Seat 6: radosweden (3220)
Seat 7: Sinistral (3170)
Seat 8: Hero (3330)
Seat 9: ROYAL8FLUSH (1065)
Seat 10: ineedtofold (840)
kraka69 posts small blind (10)
radosweden posts big blind (20)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hero [ Jh, Th ]
Sinistral calls (20)
Hero calls (20)
ROYAL8FLUSH calls (20)
ineedtofold folds.
DirtyByrd0 folds.
elrod03 folds.
Macula99 calls (20)
deepchip folds.
kraka69 calls (10)
radosweden checks.
** Dealing Flop ** : [ Ts, Tc, 2c ]
kraka69 checks.
radosweden bets (20)
Sinistral calls (20)
Hero raises (80) to 80
ROYAL8FLUSH folds.
Macula99 folds.
kraka69 folds.
radosweden raises (120) to 140
Sinistral calls (120)
Hero calls (60)
** Dealing Turn ** : [ 9c ]
radosweden bets (175)
Sinistral raises (3010) to 3010
Sinistral is all-In.
Hero folds.

First, what do people think of my call on the flop? Should I push here to charge flush draws the max? And does anyone call this all-in? Sinistral claimed to have the flush after he folded (he mucked of course) and radosweden claimed he had the case ten. I feel like there are situations in the rebuy period where you can make looser calls, but with the bet and the all-in before me I feel like calling for nearly my entire stack can’t be correct, rebuy or not.

Here’s another thing I’m wondering about rebuys. By the last five minutes of the rebuy period, I had built up my stack to around 6000 chips, far above the average. I was dealt AK in the small blind and raised it up. I got called by the big blind who was making many loose calls. The flop came with two spades, all low cards. I bet out and he called. The turn was my ace, a diamond. I bet big and got called again. The river was a third spade. I checked and my opp put in the rest of his chips. He had me covered by about 500 chips. I ended up calling because he had been aggressive with marginal hands on several hands. He showed KsJs for the flush, and I was down to 500 chips with five minutes left in the rebuy period.

Is this a call I should be making earlier in the rebuy period, but not when I only have five more minutes to go? I had a healthy stack before this hand and would have had an edge after the rebuy period. The all-in shove on a flush board – how often can I give this guy credit for the flush? The more I think about it, the more I think I should have folded my TPTK. Any comments?

Overall I hope Party keeps doing rebuy tournies. Party players seem unfamiliar with the format – in particular, no one seemed to realize you could rebuy right at the beginning. I was the only person at my table who did so, and in the tourney stats I observed that only 90 people out of 735 rebought in the first five minutes. I’m sure they’ll catch on quickly, but for now it’s a nice edge.