Quantity vs. Quality

A Labor Day-themed picture for you, courtesy GraphJam. Great time-waster, that site. Save it for tomorrow, though, and get yr laughs while on the clock.

Thanks in part to the holiday today, I had some extra hours over the weekend to play some poker, and I’m sorry to report the results weren’t so hot. At least in terms of the cash games, where I played too long and thus ended an up-and-down month on a sour note. Pretty clear case of favoring quantity over quality, as the results bore out.

Jumped into a couple of tourneys as well, where I fared marginally better, scoring miniscule cashes in a big no-limit hold’em donkament and a low buy-in H.O.R.S.E. event. I played Saturdays with Pauly, too (pot-limit Omaha, $10+$1 buy-in), from which I got bounced near the end of the first hour. A semi-interesting (anti-)climax for me to that one.

After a bit of floundering during the first three-and-a-half levels, I found myself down to just 1,125 a few minutes before the first break. Things were looking up, though, as I was in late position holding a pair of sevens and staring at a 7-8-8 board.

Four of us had limped to see that flop, and when the player in the big blind made a pot-sized bet, I knew this would be a do-or-die hand for me. Very likely he had an eight, but very unlikely he had a seven to go with it. So I’m thinking I probably would have to fade ten outs (at most), which would make me a slight favorite, though not a huge one (like 55-45 or thereabouts). I reraised all in, and was less than pleased when the small blind called as well. There’s the other eight, I thought, and a bunch more outs to dodge. Figured I was probably a considerable dog now.

The big blind then repopped it all in, and the SB called, creating a side pot of 2,500 alongside that main pot of 3,775. When the hands were turned over, my spirits were momentarily lifted -- the SB held 5-9-J-8 and the BB 2-J-8-5. Since my two opponents had some of each other's outs, the extra man in didn’t really affect my odds. I was still the favorite, needing to avoid the three nines, the three deuces, the two fives, and the two jacks.

Alas, of the ten death cards, not one but two mercilessly floated down onto the virtual felt -- a five on the turn, then a jack on the river just to rub it in. I was out, done in by the not-so-wonderful underfull.

Still enjoyed the tourney, and have plans to play some more tournaments over the next few Saturdays as part of this PokerListings Run Good Challenge where I’ll be embarrassing myself royally versus other esteemed poker bloggers. (Prefontaine photo via the Poker Shrink.) Will share more later in the week on that one.

Meanwhile, I’m looking at a busy September, with some side writing gigs destined to take up a lot of hours here over the next three weeks or so. Might, in fact, prove difficult to keep up the at-least-one-post-every-weekday pace I have followed throughout 2008.

I noticed Dr. Pauly saying something last week about actually taking a day off from blogging, breaking a streak of 110 straight days of posting. One hell of a run, that, especially considering the usual length and depth of his posts.

Like I say, we’ll see if I find it necessary to take a similar break, though for now I ain’t planning to do so. Still, if forced to choose, gotta go with quality over quantity.