Ughhh!

The good news is that Tavern Tourneys now has Milwaukee tournaments Monday through Wednesday. I haven't been to the site in a while so I'm not sure when they started, to my regret. It is the live games I really need experience in. And more good news was that last month I found that rather than owing taxes we were in line to get both a State and Federal refund. Along with that news, a refund check on our mortgage came in the mail.

And on that second, ...or third, bit of good news I took a small part of the mortgage refund and invested a Saturday afternoon to sit at a Omaha Hi/lo table at the casino. A game I have been studying on, and have had play money  success with on the Internet. And it was the kind of game everyone hopes for. 4-6 players in on each hand. A pleasant surprise was that in a 3-6 game the small blind was only $1.

Again coming in with a small stack was a disadvantage. A guy at the end of the table would keep raising me every time I came in. I'm not sure why, since it was obvious I was playing only good hands, doing a lot of pre-flop folding.

There were also several older gentleman who clearly knew the game. They were happy with the table and yelling to the floor manager every time a seat would open. Someone has to pay the dealer. In fact, to this point I could rationalize that I have broken even at the tables to date. My losses easily covered by the rake the house takes and tips I gave to the dealers. But no more.

The best starting hands will roughly pay off about a third of the time, and they weren't at first. Then I got a 2, 6, 7, 8 and felt really good about it. This is something I've been trying to hone with some success. Going with a hand just on a good initial feeling when I see it. I have had success with this on the Internet. I felt so good about the hand I looked a second time with a smile, but confident that I could win playing tight, though some play for the mid-range straight, I folded. The flop came 8, 8, 7. A 4-8 straight took the high.

My stack became quite small when I started winning a few hands. This limited my profits. Otherwise I would have gotten back to my starting stack, if not more. This lack of funds and a continuous push by the guy at the end of the table (he went bust and had to buy back in) I went bust myself hoping to make an open ended straight after the flop. So overall my ledger is in the red for nearly$100.

Then came the really bad news. Our dog was sick. Trying to save it, finally realizing it was poisoned, cost us big bucks we didn't have. Just when we were getting a handle on our debt. I have a good idea who did it. We buried her next to our last dog in the North Woods.

But I have a plan to put into practice to fund my pursuit of poker glory. No more going in with minor stacks. I'm sure I would have done fine if I had a larger stack and could have taken full advantage of the hands I did win. The plan I will write about next month, since without a lot of live play I don't have much of interest to write about. I have to keep a standard of one post a month though.

I may decide to hit the Tavern Tourneys the next three days spending $15, the $5 initial bonus chip buy in each night. I recently bought some bicycle lights on sale for street riding that I can put to good use, saving the cost of gas, which wouldn't be much. All three are very close and in fairly nice areas with large schools of college fish.