Blogger Skills - PLO

When I first became a part of the blogsphere and started reading poker blogs in particular I heard about all the Blogger poker events. Private tournaments with leaderboards sounded really intriguing.

Unfortunately for me, two of the most popular events, the Math and the Mookie, were on my bowling nights. I have a limited amount of time to play poker - like most recreational players - so I spent my time playing other private tournaments (Pokerslut Tour!) and generally goofing off.

When I found out that Vegaspalooza coincided with the Blogger's Summer event I was so excited. I had a conflict for the time of their tournament but I knew I wanted to play mixed games at MGM. I had a great, if not profitable, time playing with those characters that made it out for those games and some even played in the private HORSE tournament I had set up at the IP. I'll never forget Dealer's Choice at the IP!

So there I was reading my google reader last night when I stumble on a post about the Blogger Skills Tournament that starts in, oh say, 4 minutes! Hmm, I got nothing going on. I should register. D'oh. WTF was I thinking?

Admittedly many of these players had very limited Omaha experience, but that doesn't excuse some of the play I saw. Aggression has become the catch phrase for poker these days. Some of the more aggressive players last night found themselves on the rail after amassing a huge stack of chips getting lucky.

I got lucky a time or two myself but you didn't see me playing 70% of pots and raising 25% of those. I guess I have to learn that just because somebody is playing a Blogger event doesn't immediately make them a good player especially in the case of the Skills events because those are specifically non-holdem games.

I actually had quite a good time playing the PLO event. I don't consider myself a great player by any stretch but I do think that I am above average. Those of us that tend to play with the same group of players become much too used to playing a field with a certain skill set. I think it is much better practice to play with a mix that more resembles the real world.

I played a patient game. I was lucky enough to hit some flops pretty hard and have some hands stand up for me. I chipped up rather slowly compared to some other more active players but I was happy with my position for most of the event. I was rather surprised at how chip heavy the top players were. At one point I was 16/32 players but had under the average chip stack. Most of the time I found myself at tables with 5, 6 or 7 of the top players - thank you Full Tilt for your truly bizarre table breaking algorithm.

Once the money bubble burst I felt much better. I had only collected two bounties even though I had made it this far. I guess that means that most of my chips came from people that already had a lot of chips. Hmmm.

Oddly, I noticed that my raises - few that they were - didn't get much respect. I once limped in early position with KK just because of this. At the final table I raised UTG with KsKx2sXx only to get called in 3 places. Flop came AsXsX. I check called knowing my KK was probably no good and hoping my nut flush might come in but alas, no. IGHN. 5th wasn't so bad but I could have folded there and still had a few chips left to play.

I suppose I'll have to try to make it to more of these events. I really do need to get more experience playing with a variety of people as well as get in some practice at the other games - one benefit of the Pokerslut Tour since we play a series of all the games instead of just hold'em NTTAWWT.