Hella Hold'em

Lucky readers: today I share with you my "duh!" moment of the day.

Game: limit hold'em
Venue: online
Scenario: you are in the small blind and action has folded around to you

Tip: RAISE!

OK... so I've always kept in mind the strategy of raising when you're the BIG blind in this situation (as you'll have position on the small blind throughout the hand), but here's the thing with playing online... when multi-tabling, often people check their starting cards in the big blind and hit the check/fold button, thinking, "I'll see a flop if the pot is unraised, but it's not good enough of a hand to call a raise." I never thought much past that when I'm in the big blind. But today, I realized that since so many people click that check/fold button and shift their attention to their other table, a raise from the small blind triggers that insta-fold. If the big blind player isn't watching the table and uses thost auto-action checkboxes, you win.

I know. It's so obvious. I've now stopped using that auto-act check/fold button on hands that I might like to play heads-up. I still use it for hands I won't play no matter what, but otherwise I'll wait to act in turn - just in case action folds around to the small blind.

I had a fantastic 40 minutes at 3/6 today, nearly tripling my money. I'm wearing some lucky 4-leaf clover earrings that my mom got me from Ireland, and they've been granting me crazy luck! First my win Friday night, then a decent profit online last night, and today a SWEET win! I'm heading over to the Diamond game in a little bit... let's hope my luck continues! Mama needs a new couch! :)

As you might have noticed, it's been a cricket haven around here since the WPBT Summer Classic. August 2006 has been a pretty crazy month for me. It's going to go out like a lion, too - but that's OK.

When I got home from Vegas, I put the finishing touches on a deep-clean of my house, did a little staging and put my house on the market. You see - I'm currently in an adjustable rate mortgage, and I'm only locked in for another couple years. I want to lock in while the rates are still reasonable, and lock in for 30 years. Problem is, I've outgrown my house. When I investigated what kind of sales price I might get for this place (where I've lived for about 4 1/2 years now), I was floored. Cashing in on my equity to pay off some debt, invest a bit, and buy a bigger place was a no-brainer, and in the end, my monthly expenses will be less than they are now. Win-win.

I got 2 contracts on my house the first day it was on the market. I picked one and put up the sold sign. I'd already looked at some new places and had my heart set on a townhouse on a golf course, with a creek and the course as my back yard. My realtor said it's a great course (I don't golf), so it's not likely to get bulldozed and replaced with a WalMart. Sold. The rest of August was spent shmoozing with appraisers and home inspectors, and haggling with my buyers over miscellaneous crap. They ended up being the buyers from hell, but in light of the fact that this process is almost over, I'm going to try and stay upbeat in hopes that it will carry into some good karma and a smooth closing.

I close on my sale and my purchase at the end of this month. I'm moving the same day. It's gonna be a crazy day. I hired movers, though, because I'm too old to deal with that crap. I've learned the value of service in my old age.

I also went back to work mid-August. I've just finished my first week of classes. It's been a bit chaotic on that end, too, but since this is the weekend, I don't feel like rehashing anything that might bring me down. I'll leave work at work, for once.

ForPeyton.com has been a fantastic experience as well, and is the spearhead of a handful of web site projects I've been doing this month in my side-business. Nothing like being so busy your head might explode!

In terms of poker, I haven't made it out to the casinos this month. Actually, I took a cash advance from my bankroll to fix up my house to sell it. I plan to replenish from the proceeds of my house sale next week. I've been limited to online poker, of course at Full Tilt. I was doing quite well sticking to the "no cash games" rule in online poker. At the donkey limits (I play between 2/4 and 3/6 online), I just can't seem to outrun the luck of the fishes, despite the fact that my Poker Tracker stats are precisely where I want them to be. I haven't hit the 10,000 hand mark since my hard drive crashed last spring, though, so I need a bigger sample size to know if I'm really just getting unlucky. I crave limit hold'em, though, so despite the fact that the place I'm profitable online is in sit-n-go's, I can't help but sit down at the limit tables every so often.

Last night, I took down first place (out of 10) at my cousin's weekly drunken home game. I've been playing nearly every week there the entire summer, and this was my first win. The game is frequented by players who will routinely find themselves all in at the river, but have not yet looked at their cards. It's hard to outrun the lucky ones. The ironic thing last night was that I showed up without any cash on me, so I announced at the outset that I was going to win because that's the only way I wouldn't owe anybody money. I should show up penniless more often. It came down to me and my cousin Tracy. Luckily for me, she was quite drunk and I was getting quite lucky, so things went down pretty quickly.

Despite the fact that I still have a ridiculous amount of packing to do, I'm going to head over to the Diamond Game for a little poker action tomorrow afternoon. If today goes as planned, I'll be almost done packing. Then I can finish up Sunday morning, and hopefully spend Monday doing one last deep clean on the house. Tuesday and Wednesday I have to work, and the buyers will likely do a final walkthrough on Wednesday sometime, so I need to have the place ready to go by then. Thursday is The Big Day.

Here's hoping for a heavenly experience with the buyers from hell! I'll be back on the felt after Labor Day weekend - I promise!

Hmmm... OK don't read that subject line literally...

Poker bloggers extraordinaire, Bobby Bracelet and Donkey Puncher, have put together a HUGE package for your eBay bidding pleasure. It's so HUGE that I can't even tell you what's included.

Check it out and BID NOW on eBay!

The Bobby Bracelet/DP HUGE Package

You know the drill... fight cancer, help an adorable little girl, get some cool poker swag... BID NOW on eBay!

Even if you can't bid, you should at least go check out the listing for the autographed photo of Carlos Mortensen. Trust me.

This time up, Bobby Bracelet has procured a plethora of autographed CardPlayer Magazine covers from various poker pro's and hotties - hotties for the ladies, this time (and I ain't talkin' 'bout TJ!). These are framed and make great collector's pieces.

Antonio "The Magician" Esfandiari

Michael Gracz

Erick "E-Dog" Lindgren

TJ Cloutier

Carlos Mortensen

Daniel Negreanu

David Williams

We also have two featured auctions:

First - an autographed cowboy hat from Kenna James!! No kidding, folks. This one is sweet!

Next - an autographed Full Tilt Poker jersey from Layne Flack. This auction also includes an autographed and framed cover feature photo from CardPlayer Magazine.

Last but not least... we have two more CardPlayer DVD packages to auction off: one with CardPlayer T-shirts and the other with Hellmuth's DVD and the Poker for Dummies DVD. Great gifts for new poker players!

The poker world has been very kind to donate such great items for this cause. Please be so kind as to BID HIGH and help us fight cancer and help secure little Peyton's future. Thanks!