Learning new games...

After getting my ass handed to me during the Omaha and Stud sections of the WPBT H.O.R.S.E. tourney, I wanted to get a better understanding of how the game works, mostly with Omaha. Stud, I understand how to play, I just like to chase… a lot. Omaha, I’ve never really played before, but I knew that you must play two of your four hole cards. What I didn’t know is that striaghts, flushes and full houses where a lot more likely to win. Two pair is almost like Hold’em’s Ace high. It will win sometimes, but not likely. I also played a Razz ring game. I did rather well in the Razz sections of the H.O.R.S.E tourney since I learned how to play it.

When I was in school, I always waited until the last minute to work on a project, report, paper, whatever. I’m not sure if I was able to work better under pressure, or if I was just plain lazy. Now, when I look back, I think I did a little bit better under pressure that if I had started working on something right away. I think that’s why I wanted to play Razz while I was learning how to play Omaha. I only made one real bad rookie mistake, when there were four card to a flush on the board and I had the Ace. Yes, I had a flush.. but I didn’t as I only had one of the suit in my hand so I really had, Ace High. I laughed at myself after I had lost the pot and thought, “Wait! I had a Flu.. oh.. I needed to play TWO cards.. rookie! Heh.”

I made a lot of good laydowns, admittedly a little too late at times, but I never fully paid the players off, so thats a good thing in my book. After playing a while at both tables, my battery on the lap top was at 50% power, so I swtiched games. I moved up a level in Razz to the $0.50/$1 tables and played a level up of Hold’em at $0.25/$0.50. Razz.. man.. did I hit a cold deck at the table. I remember 3 hands where I sarted off with A24, A23 and A34, where every card that I got afterwards was over 8 and most of the other players starting cards that I could see were 5 or higher. That’s what you get sometimes. I did what I could, but never got over my buyin, but I did leave with some of my buyin, something I rarely do when I’m down at a table. That’s a little bit of progress there. The Hold’em table was nothing special, but I did make a small profit.

At the end, I left with 3x my Omaha Hi/Lo buyin, made 4x my buyin from Razz, made 50% of my buy in for Hold’em at a level up from where I usually play, and lost 60% of my buyin stepping up a level in Razz. Not too bad of a haul.

Donkey Challenge Update.
It has been a while since I have updated my DC stats, so here goes. I was down to my last $0.94 and registered in two tournaments, but after my AnteUp win, I made a nice second wind at the Full Tilt bankroll. After tripling my buyin with Razz a few nights ago and last nights good times, my FTP bankroll is now up to $107.84, still a bit shy of the $450 goal, but it’s better than nothing.