Hand Statistics

I promised some more poker hand statistics, so here you go.

Here's my updated top ten hands. The number in parenthesis is where that hand ranked the last time I posted my stats - you'll see a few of them have changed)

1. AA +$278.00 - dealt 115 times (previously 2)

2. 88 +272.11 - dealt 110 times (1)

3. QQ + 259.15 - dealt 102 times (3)

4. KK +225.15 - dealt 97 times (4)

5. 99 +216.30 - dealt 117 times (5)

6. JJ +168.15 - dealt 105 times (8)

7. AKo +162.65 - dealt 220 times (7)

8. ATo +144.57 - dealt 241 times (6)

9. AKs +120.60 - dealt 77 times (9)

10. AJo +111.00 - dealt 233 times (-)

Some observations...

• Aces have finally overtaken Eights as my most profitable hand, as they should be.
• My six most profitable hands are strong pocket pairs, but tens are nowhere to be found.
• Of those 6 pocket pairs in the top ten, I've been dealt Aces more than any hand except 9's. That's a good thing.
• I ordered the list by total dollars won by the hand. If I had ordered the list by dollars won per hand dealt, QQ would be my most profitable, with +2.54 every time I'm dealt it. 88 comes in next at 2.47, and AA is third at 2.41.

And here are my worst ten hands.

1. JTo -64.70 - dealt 213 times

2. A8o -57.55 - dealt 240 times

3. 77 -55.72 - dealt 125 times

4. 74o -51.85 - dealt 218 times

5. 64o -51.25 - dealt 200 times

6. 97o -49.00 - dealt 226 times

7. 94o -48.80 - dealt 248 times

8. Q8o -46.50 - dealt 226 times

9. A5o -43.50 - dealt 235 times

10. 33 -41.65 - dealt 109 times

I was shocked when I saw this list. Some stuff is understandable - JTo I can understand, since it's a hand I play often, and times when I flop top pair with it, I'm often outkicked. Same with the small Aces - even if an Ace flops, I'm often still behind. Seven's surprised me being so bad, since Eights are virtually the same hand, and they're my second most profitable. But what really surprised me was the junk hands on the list (74o, 64o, 94o). These are hands I always fold preflop, but yet here they are on the list. The only way I'd ever see a flop with them is for free in the big blind - I must have seen some free flops, caught a piece, and eventually lost. This just shows me that even if I catch a piece of the flop with a crap hand, it's still a crap hand, and I should proceed with caution.

So there you have my poker statistics rundown. Exciting reading, I'm sure!

Home game recap

So Friday night, I hosted a Texas Hold'em tourney. It was your typical $10 entry, no rebuy tournament, and there were 14 people who attended. Hopefully everybody who came over had a good time- thanks to everybody who played! I didn't have very high expectations for myself in this tourney - this is only the second tourney I've played all summer, and in the first one I finished 6th out of 7 - not very good. My strategy was to play super tight and only enter pots where I held huge pre-flop hands. That way, I may not win the whole thing, but I'd last long enough so I wouldn't be one of the first to bust out.

Early on, I didn't get any of those huge pre-flop hands, but I was pretty fortunate on one hand in particular. Blinds were probably 15/30. I was dealt A8 of spades in the small blind. There were about 3 limpers, so I limped in as well, and the big blind checked. Flop came JQK, all spades. I checked and it checked around. The turn was an A. I think I put in 60 or so, and had 2 callers. The river was a blank and I bet 100. The big blind (Brett) came over the top and made it 300 to go. Third person folded to me - I made it 600 and Brett called with the straight. That got me over 2K in chips (starting stack 1500) and I was feeling pretty good.

The other big hand I played was calling Gordo's all in preflop for about 900 with ATo. Gordo doesn't have any problem pushing big stacks with a middle ace, so I called him. Luckily for me, he turned over A8o and my hand held up. However, looking back on the hand, it was a pretty silly call on my part. It worked out for me this time, but ATo isn't the hand I normally want to risk my tournament on. Gordo could have just as easily had AJ, or better. Of all the hands I played Friday night, that's the one where I look back and think that I played it wrong. It happened to get me the chip lead though, so it all worked out.

Once we got down to one table of 9, I had a pretty good chip lead. The very first hand at that table, I was dealt pocket 9s and raised preflop, which got the blinds and a limper (Jason) to fold. After that hand, I wasn't really dealt anything the rest of the night. I was able to play really tight and watch other people bust out, until we were down to four. By that time, Sheets and I were pretty short, and Toby and Zooks were way out in front, about even in chips. Sheets moved in with AJo and Toby called from the BB with 93s, which of course ended up winning. I was only able to last a few hands longer, when my K8 went up against Zooks' K7 - she was able to turn a 7 and I went to the rail in 3rd. Toby and Zooks split first and second - I think Toby had 10,400 and Zooks had 10,800 when it got to heads up, so a split was definitely the way to go. Congrats!!

I felt pretty good about the way I played. I don't remember playing in a tournament when I never got dealt any big hands pre-flop. The biggest pair I was dealt was nines, and they never saw the flop. I had AQ once and KQs once, but that's as good as it got. I played pretty solidly with my marginal pre-flop hands and made the most of each opportunity as it came. I guess, in the end, that's all you can do.

Back in the swing

Life's funny sometimes. Well, at least my life is. Back in January, I was a regular blog poster and a more regular online poker player. I was pretty much blogging every day, and playing poker even more often. In fact, I think I averaged about 4 hours a night on PokerStars during the week and more often than that on the weekends. In other words, I was a poker junkie. I couldn't get enough of it. I must have burned out pretty quick though, because as I write today, I went from the middle of January until the middle of July without even playing one hand of online poker, until...

...the Thursday night before our camping and canoeing trip, I was pretty bored. I got on the computer and noticed the PokerStars icon on my desktop and thought 'I haven't done this in a while, why not?' I played maybe about a half hour that night and won $20 playing .25/.50 limit hold 'em 6 seated. But more importantly, I think the desire to play had returned. For some reason or another, online poker had lost all it's enjoyment to me. I'm sure it couldn't have been the fact that I was playing 40 hours a week and burning myself out in the process... nah!

Anyway, now I'm a little older, and hopefully wiser. I've got the poker bug back, and this time around, I think I'll be going about things a little bit differently. I've been playing online here and there for the past couple of weeks, but never for more than an hour at a time. I'm playing lower limits (now up to $.50/$1.00 limit 6-seated) than I was back in January, and it's still really enjoyable. The results show that too. When I left the game back in January, I had $177 in my account. Today, I have $290 or so (had it up to $323 a couple of days ago, but took a few tough beats). The plan is to pace myself so I don't have any future long absences from the virtual felt.

Blogging again, poker again - it's just like old times!

By the way, I noticed back in January that I posted my best 10 hands, with a promise to post my worse ten. I'll do that sometime soon, with an updated list of my ten best.

Mud Volleyball!

This past weekend, a group of friends and I went up to Lena, IL to particiapate in a mud volleyball tournament. We got up there on Friday and camped out (in the rain), but Saturday was a beautiful sunny day and we did ourselves proud in the tourney. We won our first match 2-0 (each match was best 2 out of 3 games, each game was to 21). Last year, we didn't win any matches in the main draw - we entered a losers tournament and won a match there, but we were shutout in the main tourney. So the fact that we won a match was nice (if not amazing!).

Our second match was a different story. We got smoked 2-0. That team we played just plain whupped up on us. We didn't know if we'd get another match or not, but luckily we got moved to the consolation bracket of the tourney, meaning we still got to play another match. We won our third match 2-0, and lost our 4th match 2-1. So all in all, we got to play 9 games and 4 matches. Not bad at all - kudos to everybody who went and played and also to those who came out and supported us - it was a fun weekend! And thanks to Mary Brown-Gordon for allowing me to use her photos on my blog - I'll give you a percentage of the royalties!

Funny story - our team name was supposed to be Ritter's Bitches. We had T-shirts made and everything. We entered that with the coordinators of the tournament, but they said we couldn't have that as our name, since it was a family event. No worries - we'll just change it to Ritter's B's. Anyway, when we got there, you should have heard the other team names that were allowed... Anal Leakage, Snatch Maggots, Goat Roping Banjo Humpers, The Rusty Trombones, etc. It's a good thing they stopped us from having 'Bitches' in our name - we wouldn't have wanted to offend anybody! ;)

Warm up the barstool, here I come!!

So, most of you already know that I'm the memebrship VP for the Peoria Jaycees. As such, one of my duties is to try and recruit as many people to our organization as I possibly can. I've never been the salesman type, but I've done my best this year to try and sign up as many new members as possible. So far, I think I've had mixed results. Since the beginning of the year, we've got 8 new members, which isn't a big number, but they're 8 quality members who have been active within the organization and who I feel will be a part of it for a long time.

In January, I went to the state General Assembly of Jaycees, and they implemented a new program called 'Power of Ten'. Basically put, if a chapter can have ten more active members in January 2009 than they had in January 2008, they'll be given a suite at the 2009 Winter GA, as well as have a big bash thrown for them, including all we can eat and drink for free. It's been a goal this year to try and attain this, but like I said, we've only recruited 8 members so far this year. That's not bad, but then when you consider that we've dropped 11, that puts us at a -3 for the year, which isn't anywhere near that goal.

Recently, Linda (who is our President for those who don't know) decided that she'd do something to give our members more incentive to recruit more members. If we can get to +10 for 2008, she (a diehard Cubs/Bears fan), will don a Packer jersey or a Cardinal jersey to an event of our choice. That sounded like a good idea, so I threw out my own new member incentive. If we can get to +10 for 2008, the non-drinker in me will go away for an evening and I will actually drink a beer or two. There's a bunch of folks who have been trying to get me to drink for a while now, and I thought it would be worth it to do something like that for a good cause. I really wasn't too worried about it, though, because with only 8 new members so far this year and the fact that we're at -3, what are the chances we'll get to +10?

Well, evidently they're increasing by leaps and bounds. Last night was our monthly membership meeting, and we signed up two new members. Not only that, it looks like Victor is about to recruit up to 4 new members himself, and while karaokeing after the meeting last night, I received a text message from J.O. that she has recruited somebody as well. Basically, we've doubled our new members for the year in the course of one evening! Coincidence? Maybe so, but even if it is, it looks like we're well on our way to +10 now.

Has anybody ever got drunk by drinking just one beer? You may have to tune in later to find out!!

A Win-Win-Win Proposition

I love freebies. I always gain some sense of satisfaction when I can get something for nothing. That doesn't necessarily make me a cheapskate; however I'm sure there are some who may see me as one. I remember going to a McDonalds in Chicago a few years ago. After I ordered my Chicken McNuggets, I asked for some a couple BBQ sauces and the girl behind the counter told me that each one would cost me 10 cents. My jaw hit the floor! I told her there's no way in hell I'm paying 10 cents for BBQ sauce - I mean, there's just no way. Every McDonalds in the world gives away BBQ sauce with their McNuggets except this one. Does this mean that I'm cheap because I won't pay 10 cents for something that should be free? I don't think so. It's the principle of the whole thing. If Subway charged a quarter for a lid and straw for your Diet Coke, would you pay? If so, I've got some junk laying around my house that I could probably pawn off on you... really cheap I tell ya!! :)

Anyway, that's why tonight is so great! I'm going to watch the Peoria Chiefs play tonight... for free! Back in the winter, Dubby and Toby and I did Bowling for Kids Sake at Landmark, and I won a raffle for 24 free Chiefs tickets, so one of those tickets will get me through the doors tonight. But the goodness doesn't stop there! Tonight is one of 6 'Free Hot Dogs and Peanuts' nights at the ballpark this season! How can I go wrong - I get to go to the game with a free ticket, and I get all the free hot dogs and peanuts I want! What a country! Last time I went to one of these games, Matt King and I got into a hot dog eating contest. I told him I had eaten 8 hot dogs, so he outdid me and ate 9. Truth be told, I only had 4, but having Matt eat 5 dogs is not as much fun as having him eat 9, now is it? If I recall, the next day wasn't much fun for Matt either. Ah, you just can't beat free fun at the old ballpark!!

If they know what's good for them, they better not charge me for ketchup and mustard.

OMG WTF!! A Post?!?!

I know, I can't believe it either!! :)

This past weekend, we were at Turkey Run getting ready to canoe the next day (well actually getting ready to be rained out), when the topic of conversation shifted to my blog, or lack thereof. I decided to start this thing back up again. I really need to update it more often than once every 6 months. I don't know if I'll be able to post every day like I used to before - my life is pretty boring and I don't know if I have enough interesting things to say every day. But I will do everything I can to update from now on at least once every week (probably more often than that, but no promises!!)

Turkey Run was fun, but due to the rain, we were unable to take part in the canoe ride. The majority of us went to the swimming pool and spent the day either nailing folks upside the head with the pool toys, or being hit by them. Fun as that was, it couldn't replace the canoeing. It was so ironic that Saturday was such a beautiful day, and yet we were unable to canoe due to the weather. There's been some rumblings about another canoe trip later this summer - hopefully that materializes. I didn't even get a chance to tip the canoe over purposely by accident!! ;) If nothing else, I was introduced this weekend to Hillbilly golf. I'd never played this before, and it's really a lot of fun. Then again, anything with 'golf' in the name can't suck. Am I the only person who's never heard of this? There's these two little plastic balls connected by some string and the object is to throw the balls and wrap them around these little mini-ladders that are 30 feet away or so. The higher the rung you can wrap them around, the more points you score. It's great fun, let me tell ya.

Anyway, it's good to be back - talk at you later... I promise!!