Satellite Play Insights

Was using the girlie chat to commiserate with Smokkee about the horrendous decisions I see late in the token Frenzy and that he sees on the bubble late in SNG.

With 15 people needing to go out before the token bubble last night and blinds at 200/400 antes 50 UTG + 2 raised to 1600. It was folded around to me in BB and I had 66 and ~4500 in chips. Raiser had ~7000 behind so I figured if I shoved he would fold anything but a premium hand as with 7000 chips he had a reasonable shot at token. Much to my surprise he called with A T off and my 66 held up. He remarked in chat that he “blew my chance at token with that move”. I thought I was set up for one of my scrapes to the token but everyone else at my table folded quickly so two orbits later in SB I was sitting 23rd with 27 left (23 tokens) when it was folded around to me in the SB with A5 (sooooted). I pushed and the BB called off 2/3 of his stack with AJ off. I put a bad beat on him when a 5 hit the flop and he was moaning about his bad luck in the chat box. He later won the lowest booby prize ($9) last night while failing to recognize his biggest issue was making a call he did not have to make.

Smokkee’s complaint was at the bubble of Single table SNG there were 3 stacks of 3500-6000 and an 860 chip stack with blinds at 200/400. Smokkee being Smokkee pushed from SB with A5 and BB called with TT. UTG was the short stack. The detail I don’t remember from the hand was how many more chips the BB had more than Smokkee. Since bubble to 3rd pays same as 2nd to 1st I might have made same call against Smokkee especially if it would have left me with more chips than shorty.

Thought that occurred to me is that I want to specifically color code my notes for players that don’t seem to adjust their play for the bubble. Have been fortunate to win 8 tokens in last two weeks and I know I have missed some of the Token Frenzies as well but think I can improve my win rate if I identify enough players that are ignorant about endgame play so I don’t make a move against them.

Played like a Donkey in Math last night when it got locked in my head that Gary had JJ or QQ and failed to lay down my AA post flop. I was sure Gary being as tight as he is had not cold called a raise with A9.

If you've gotten to my blog you've already seen this but per Pauly's request

From Pauly’s blog:

PokerStars is teaming up with the cast of Ocean’s Thirteen to help stop the suffering in the war-torn region of Darfur in the Sudan. If you have not been paying attention, over 400,000 people have already been killed. They launched Not On Our Watch. Their mission is to…“focus global attention and resources to stop and prevent mass atrocities. Drawing on the powerful voice of citizen artists, activists, and cultural leaders, our mission is to generate lifesaving humanitarian assistance and protection for the vulnerable, marginalized, and displaced.”
PokerStars is donating $1 million and you can help out by playing in two diffeent charity events. You have a shot to win a ticket to the Ocean’s Thirteen premiere in Los Angeles. See below for specific details.
Overview of the Ocean’s Thirteen Darfur Charity Tournament:
These tournaments are special re-buy tournaments - the entire prize pool will be matched by PokerStars and donated to the Darfur relief efforts. At the conclusion of the event the prize pool, which will be temporarily awarded to the 1st place finisher, will be removed from the 1st place finisher’s account. The amount will then be matched by PokerStars and sent forward to the Darfur charity. Thank you for participating — go re-buy crazy! — it’s for a good cause. Good luck!
Date: May 27th 2007, 15:30 ETBuy-in: $10 plus rebuys.Prizes: Top 4 receive tickets to June 5th premiere in Los Angeles plus 2 nights hotel and $2k for travel/spending. Top 18 receive autographed copy of “Oceans 13″ DVD. Total prize pool will go to charity. PokerStars will match the donation. The tournament is open to all players. Good luck!