Drizz is a Stud

Playing online all night is MUCH different then playing poker in Vegas all night. I am beat down this morning thanks to a Stud tourney that wouldn’t die last night (I finished 25th out of ~680). To stay awake for the tourney I decided to play 3/5th of H.O.R.S.E. and do some laundry at the same time.

I Finished 4th in a Razz SnG playing with Alan, when I couldn’t convince the chip leader to drop his rough 8 in favor of my slightly worse 8. I managed to snag a few bucks playing PLO8 at Stars and BET365 (bonus this month once again, 50 raked hands gets you $10 up to $100 plus entry into their $30,000 freeroll on the first Sunday of the following month if you play at least 300 hands raked more then $.25). The players are Party caliber but the cashouts from the site are a little funky which is why I’ve left my earnings there. Instead of a direct cashout, you need to call them for instructions to do a vendor to peer transfer if you use Neteller. A player who is skittish about funky withdrawls/depositing may want to avoid this site, but it is ripe with easy pickings from the casino/sportsbook section. Plus if you get bored, some of the highest limits on the net are played here, watch the Swedish phenoms butt heads in the $100/$200 NLHE game for pots that would buy enough double meat Subway sandwiches to satisfy Daddy for at least a week.

When did Party’s software start to suck so badly that people won’t play there despite the free money the players are handing out? I try to close a window and have to resort to alt-tabbing to get it unstuck, and repeat till the table finally closes out. Betting buttons are not responsive some of the time which tends to be annoying to a multi-tabler like myself. And who in Dikshit’s name came up with the idea to start hand for hand nine people out of the money IN A LIMIT TOURNAMENT?

I realize that patience is one of the reasons I am not a good tournament player. But, you’re a nut-sitter Drizz, your game is all about patience. Cash game, I can wait out an idiot to bluff at the wrong pot for hours. Tournaments are about making moves yet remaining patient to play when the odds favor you, acquiring enough chips to gamble a bit (a.k.a. dishing out a suckout), and absorb a suckout or two if necessary. In the Stud tournament last night I was only a little below par when I decided to run off the rest of my chips into a passively holed AA without at least two pair. Had it not been 1:00am when I needed to get up in three hours for work, and nearly an hour of breaks and hand for hand delays, I may have had a different approach.

Is this whining? It sounds like whining.

Maybe it’s a plea for Party to shape up, because Stars and Full Tilt are kicking your ass when it comes to retaining the player’s interest. The variety of games/tournament structures, meeting the pros, playing with a few geeks, and most importantly to me… customer service. If have you been living under a rock, Full Tilt is currently running their 10K a day promotion. For each pot you win and/or Full Tilt point earned you earn entries into a daily drawing for cash prizes up to $2,000!!! Granted the last time I won a drawing I was in fourth grade still trying to figure out why a girl would want to talk to a 85 pound waif with glasses like me. Maybe she dug the $20 in half dollars I just won in the school raffle and thought I’d take her to Chuck E. Cheese for a pitcher of beer, some skee-ball, and the cool animatron shows that run every 15 minutes. Also for those who haven’t played at Full Tilt in a while they are offering a 50% redeposit bonus at this time. I’ll end the shilling now before I turn into a garden gnome like a certain Don Swayze look-a-like.

Here’s a recent wrinkle I’ve run into since testing out Danny N’s new site. Despite being a Pokerroom skin it’s getting my props and a little bit of my play. They have a live IM customer box which has answered my questions in under two minutes each time, with the politeness of a bible-beater asking for donations to their latest built-a-church scheme (without interjecting the Catholic guilt of course). There’s a reload bonus of 10% each time you redeposit thru Neteller and if you’re a Danny N fanboi, chances to take on the Canuck at random times, this skin might have the legs to stick around. Yes, Pokerroom’s software is crap and to those who can’t stay away from –EV games the same casino is attached to the poker room, but the expedient and friendly customer service cannot be overlooked by players who value it. I’m still testing the waters as to the degree of difficulty in the games but I have seen the usual fishy play at the PLO8 lower limits. I’ll adventure into a little hold em’ later this week to see how those games are for the players who are still just playing “poker”.

Thanks for dropping by, now go read Felicia’s latest post concerning the future of big bet poker err Hold Em’.