Excuses

I had a lot of excuses for failing to put in my typical Friday volume. The first was that I needed to install a new motherboard into my girlfriend's computer, which had its old board blow up on Wednesday. Additionally, it was NHL draft day (the first round, anyway) and I was excited to see who the Flames would take at 14. More on this later in the post. Finally, when I finally did get down to business the games were utterly terrible for a Friday. They picked up immensely for about a two hour window, when all of a sudden a bunch of juicy 200NL, 400NL, and 600NL tables started up almost simultaneously. Unfortunately, after that burst of action the games returned to "I can't believe the games are this bad on a weekend" status.

The good news is, I made the most of the two hours of amazing midstakes games. It's been some time since I've had a day like today where 600NL profits carry the show.

The biggest pot at 600NL is below. The donkey in the hand was running 45/20 or so but in general just didn't like folding at all, though even given all that I was fairly surprised at his holding. He ended up leaving the table with a 3.2k stack, and put some really brutal beats on other regs.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $6.00 BB (9 handed)
MP2 ($814.11)
Hero (MP3) ($606.86)
CO ($1252.09)
Button ($256.65)
SB ($2701.07)
BB ($240)
UTG ($859.98)
UTG+1 ($213)
MP1 ($465)

Preflop: Hero is MP3 with K♦, A♦
UTG bets $15, UTG+1 calls $15, 2 folds, Hero raises to $72, 2 folds, SB calls $69, 3 folds

Flop: ($180) 9♦, 2♠, 7♦ (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $120, SB calls $120

Turn: ($420) Q♦ (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $138, SB calls $138

River: ($696) J♥ (2 players)
SB bets $240, Hero raises to $276.86 (All-In), SB calls $36.86

Total pot: $1249.72 | Rake: $2.80

Results:
SB had 10♣, 7♥ (one pair, sevens).
Hero had K♦, A♦ (flush, Ace high).
Outcome: Hero won $1246.92

I did win another pot of ~$1k with KK against a fish with JJ. In all, six hours well spent for a little over $2k profit but not nearly as many VPPs as I had hoped for today.

As for the NHL draft, it took almost two hours of TV time to reach the Flames at the 14th pick - which they then traded to the Sabres for the 21st pick and their second rounder in this year's draft. That meant another half hour of staying in front of the TV, but when the moment came Feaster and company did not disappoint from an entertaining standpoint, shocking everyone by going completely "off the board" and selecting Mark Jankowski. While the kid definitely has a lot of offensive upside, he's yet to play legit major-junior hockey. It may end up being a home run move, but at best it's an exceptionally high risk proposition. I guess we'll see how things have panned out in three to four years.