Monthly Summary

Ship it!

May was my biggest winning month by a long long way. I added over £6000 to my bankroll and withdrew a couple of £100 for expenses. After the down-swing at the start of the year this was a huge huge boost for my confidence levels and I'm well on my way to reaching my yearly target of £15,000 bankroll again. The majority of this came from Omaha and I won roughly £1000 net in tournaments.

I think the main thing now that I have to do is keep it cool and stick to good bankroll management. In a way I'm quite glad that I'm not old enough to go to Vegas this summer as I would undoubtably have a shot at the WSOP and some other events that I couldn't afford.

I've 2 exams to go and finish on Thursday. I will be playing the £330 in a weeks time as a treat, but this will be the only exception to my otherwise rigorous BR management. Besides, the entry is only 3% and I can't wait to try another deep stacked live tourney after reading up about the WSOP so much lately!

Other than that I'll be getting my grind on and really start to work on my game and eradicate some of my leaks so that when I do start to take shots at higher limits I don't get too run over.

Hope everyone else had a good month!

Star Trek

Hey,

As you can see from the screen shot of the $7rebuy, the fish (haha) that came 3rd was Dulwich AKA Ant who I've met and speak to quite a lot on MSN. It was funny, with about 50 to go he shot into the top 3 in chips with me lagging behind so we started chatting shit to each other on MSN as I think we were both 1-tabling it down into the money. Funnily enough we both managed to final table and make it short-handed. The dynamic was really interesting on the final table 3betting and 4 betting one another. In what was a very swingy final table (me going from 1million chips to 300k chips in a few hands 3-handed, then back up to 800k chips) I managed to double through Ant twice with AQ>KQ and then AQ>8 10 or something.

After last nights late success I managed to finally get to sleep at around 6am. So as I woke at about 1pm the following day I went down to the library to prepare for my Marketing exam on Monday. I guess life can't always be fun eh ;)

By about 9pm I was bored out of my mind so gave it up for the evening and went to the cinema with a few friends to watch the new Star Trek film.



I've never actually watched Star Trek before and to be honest I'm not even interested in the sci-fi genre. But this film was just beyond good. I mean it was amazing. They mixed in some amazing action scenes, good comedy and an awesome plot. It wasn't even nerdy! I think this has to be in the top 3, if not the number 1 film of the year for me so far (with Into The Wild and Slum Dog Millionaire - I saw them this year).

So yeh, watch it. You'll probably like it!

In other news the WSOP event 2: $40,000 buyin NLHE event is almost reaching the final table. A little disappointing as a lot of the bigger "celeb" players have been knocked out. Saying that there is still some huge names in the tourney. I'm rooting for Brian Townsend to take it down, so good luck to him!

A little closer to home, the final table of the £1k DTD Grandslam main event is underway. I notice that blogger James Atkin came 8th for just over £6k and with 6 players left I'm rooting for fellow Nottingham Uni student James Mitchell! He was a dominating chip leader for a long time, but from the DTD website updates seems to have lost a little now that we are 6 handed! Good payday regardless, but I guess he wouldn't mind shipping the £88k for first place!

Hope all is good, ciao!

$7rebuy shipped

Hey!

I played today despite designating it as a revision day which does kind of suck. Then again it was a really good day.

In the afternoon I headed to DTD and sat down in the freshly starting £1/£2 NLHE cash game. The line up was actually really tough for a change but it was a fun experience as it made me actually start thinking at a higher level than ABC poker. And that in turn paid off ;)

I sat down with £200 originally and the stack fluctuated up to £400ish then I lost a buyin getting it in with 89 on an 893 board to 10j which is mehhh, can't complain. The stack re-fluctuated up to about £400ish when this interesting hand happened.

I raise to £7 in MP with Kc 10c. The small blind and big blind both call. From what I gather the big blind was a bit of a fish and quite short stack and the small blind seemed to be a higher staked pro who was obsessed with having everyone at the table covered, so bought in for 600bbs himself. Fair enough! He was wearing some really nice clothes/designer sunglasses so without seeing him play I assume he's decent.

The flop came As 10s 4d. It checks to me and I check behind looking for a safe turn card.

The turn brings a 5h. It checks to me again and I bet £17 into the ~£24 pot. The SB thinks for a second then check/raises it to £55. The BB folds. At this point, I'm thinking what the hell has he got. With the flush draw on board, he never has an ace here or a set or anything really other than air as by me checking behind on the drawy flop my perceived range is weak so it looks like im bluffing. And if he had a set/2 pair etc. he would bet the turn as it looks like I'll be checking behind on that turn a lot of the time.

So I elected to call his check/raise.

The river came the 4h leaving the board as:

As 10s 4d 5h 4h

He overbet shoved £250 into the ~£140 pot. I thought for a couple of seconds, confirmed my logic on the turn that here as all the draws missed he must have air and called. It was a nice feeling watching him muck it after. It may not seem that much, but I felt I was getting it in quite light in a check/raised pot on a paired board for 400bbs with just 2nd pair. Maybe it's standard but I was really happy how I thought through the hand and made the call which I don't think I could say that I would have done a couple of months ago.

I think that's the beauty of upswings: you gain a lot of confidence!

Anyway, I left the game at around 7pm and headed out for a meal with family who were staying in Derby nearby. On my return to Nottingham at about 11pm-ish I figured it was a bit late for DTD so I thought I'de get a couple of hours in at the online felt.

But the MTT's were too much to resist :)

I managed to ship the $7rebuy on iPoker which started at midnight for a healthy ~$1900. I'll get a screen shot up soon!

So it's been a really good day on the poker front and my bankroll is over £9k now. I will however be sticking to my 200buyin rule for online MTTs and keep grinding the same stakes for the meanwhile.

After exams I might start taking shots at the £5/£5 dc but I feel in some games like stud hi/lo I'm pretty weak so I'll probably practice up online before I give it a shot.

Hope all is well! Ciao

$40,000 NLHE WSOP

Hey!

The world series has officially started! It's a shame that I have to wait another year to get any part of the action. But as my bankroll currently stands, maybe it's a good thing as I from what I hear I don't think I could get too far as it stands at the moment!

Nevertheless, the first event is the $40,000 NLHE tourney. And what a line-up, I can't wait to see the final table of this one! For instance, check out one of the starting tables:

1. Scott “mastrblastr” Seiver
2. Scotty Nguyen
3. Phil Ivey
4. Brett “get crunk” Richey
5. David “The Dragon” Pham
6. Alan “The Usher” Sass
7. Phil Hellmuth
8. Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier
9. Steve “MrSmokey1” Billirakis



I think it is fair to say that is one of the toughest line-ups ever. There must be crazy action at the tables!

My life lately has been about as swingy as the poker!

-I'm 4/6 of the way through my exams. I'm pretty sure I've done alright in a couple and epically failed my econometrics module. So I think I'll have to resit that one in the Summer :( FML..

-I hit DTD again but final table bubbled the £56 tourney I was playing.

-Went to the £2/£2 Omaha and managed to blag a profit of £550 for the night, thus pushing my bankroll up higher and reaching my summer target :)

-My car was broken into last night outside the flat, with shattered glass all over the seat some pikey managed to get inside, rummage around trying to find stuff but as there was nothing there just left a lot of glass and mess all over the place. Grr, more hassle to deal with.

So there we go, quite a few highs and lows.

My next session will be on Monday night online where I'll be trying to satellite into the DTD £330 on the 6th and 7th of July. I've had a lot of fun (yet no success) in this tournament before, so can't wait to play it again. If the 20rebuy satellite fails, I'll probably just use some of the profits from last nights session to buy into the tournament.

Until then adios!

Looking to the future

Unfortunately, I won't be blogging (or playing to that matter) too much until the end of the week as I have exams on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Sigh.

But as I'm sat at my desk trying to remember all of these uninteresting academics thoughts and theories on the psychology of consumer spending patterns, my mind can't help but wander onto the Summer. And more importantly how I'm going to spend my time in the 3 month holiday I get.

Poker-wise I'm going to:

-Continue playing live £2/£2 omaha cash as I'm enjoying it so much
-Mix in some more live tournaments
-Satellite's for larger buyin events (like the DTD £330 and selling %'s so that there is less financial pressure on my bankroll).

-Online I'll continue my mission to become a decent PLO player but continuing at PLO 25c/50c until I'm a proven winning player over 10,000 hands and move up the ranks as I go. This will be played on Ongame or full tilt most likely.
-I will also play some online tournaments to satisfy my love of final tabling and huge cash prizes. I will most likely keep this exclusively to iPoker and Full Tilt. Or possibly iPoker and Boss. But this depends. After my massive MTT downswing at the start of this year and talking to other MTT pro's I think I'll switch to having a 200buyin rule for online MTT's due to their sick sick variance and try to stick to it!!

I also hope to travel a bit during the summer. I'de love to do the following:
-Go surfing in Cornwall with the lads
-Possibly go sailing for a bit
-Travel around Europe possibly playing poker as I go with a friend or two.
-Trips up to Nottingham for the £300 weekends
-Maybe visit my friend who is currently in Equador, but this is quite far away and probably costly!
-I'de love to visit some other parts of Asia again such as Macau and check out Indonesia/Japan.

So as you can see I have a lot of ideas. If I manage to do 2/3 from the list I'm sure this summer will be truly amazing. If anyone else has any recommendations that won't cost too much and don't involve Vegas (I'm not 21 yet :( ) that would be really cool and I'll look into it!

Cheers

New Heights

Hey,

I slacked really hard today unfortunately and just could not get myself into the mood to work no matter how hard I tried. I don't know if this is something to do with it being a Sunday as I had the same problem last week but no matter how hard I tried I just couldn't focus. Grrr!

So I headed down to Dusk Til Dawn with the intention of playing for a bit then heading home for an early night so that tomorrow I can get a full days worth of revision.

I arrived at about 7:10pm and was surprised to see a tournament was already well under-way with cash games on the side. Apparently this was some Rileys grand championship or something. Regardless, I put myself right down on a £1/£2 NLHE table. It was juicy to the say least. I didn't recognise anyone at the table, so I assume they came up for the Riley tournament. But the quality of play was awful. It was a shame everyone was sat so short-stacked though. Despite that I managed to clinch a nice £190 profit in the hour I was there. The cash game broke and I decided rather than waiting around all night to see if a PLO table would start I'de just join one of the nightly tournaments.

I signed up the £75 + £10 (grrr at the rake!!) and managed to play a really solid game. Normally I spunk a load out calling with K9o in position in the first level trying to stack someone despite knowing that when I do hit my king I'll often be in a world of pain. But today, I managed to play a very patient and disciplined game especially after my very inpatient and undisciplined game I felt I played last night.

As a result I managed to pick up chips in nice spots with adopting a very tight aggressive style of play. Unfortunately, I didn't make the antes after I was crushed in a 3 way all in pot just before the first break, 2 hours in.

UTG (maniac LAG style) opened at 100/200 for 525, it got 2 callers and I called 40bb effective from the BB with 10d 9d. The flop came Qd Kd 4s. Thus giving me a gutshot straight flush draw. I checked, UTG overbet shoved. CO tank called and I got the rest in. Unfortunately this time I was up against AKo and AdJd. Woops! I had 3 non-clean outs haha. I don't think given the amount of deadmoney in the pot and my pot odds it was terrible, but I was sort of relying on no-one else having the flush draw covered.
Maybe I could have picked my spots better but with a relatively shallow structure and fast clock I wanted to pick chips up quickly early on and felt this opportunity was too good to pass.

But out I went as the turn and river bricked!

Despite that, my bankroll has hit an all-time high on over £7000 now. My once unrealistic summer target of having a £7500 roll is now well within sights. I just really hope the inevitable downswong doesn't come soon!

Johnny Cash

I woke up today and watched "Walk The Line", a film about the life of Johnny Cash. It truly is an amazing movie and I thoroughly recommend it to everyone. I'm not really interested in the country music scene but his life story is so good. I think inspirational is definitely the wrong word, but I came away from it feeling really satisfied which is quite a rare feeling after watching a film. So that was good.

The day was spent on revision whilst the night was spend at Dusk Til Dawn!

I got down to the club a little later than normal tonight at about 11ish and hopped straight onto a £1/£2 NLHE game whilst I was waiting for a seat in the £2/£2 Omaha game. I sat with about £160ish to start and unfortunately played pretty badly. Not sure why, I just wanted to see a lot of flops and played pretty bad. I think the worst was when I opened AQo under the gun to £11, got 2 callers and then the BB reraised to £35. This is such an obvious laydown pre to the guy, but I called and got in trouble when the ace hit the board. Pretty bad play by me and I deserved to loose there. It's definitely not something I usually would do anyway especially given the stack sizes. Doh!

The £2/£2 omaha started up and it was pretty break even for a couple of hours. I was folding quite a lot as I was quite card dead/missing board, but the table banter was decent with the usual regs. That was the problem. There was no obvious fish, so as soon as the £2/£2 dealers choice started at about 1amish I hopped right over with my £200 stack.

I managed to double through in a sort of speculative spot. I chose the game as 6 card Omaha Hi-Lo and was dealt a 7s,8,9,10,j,Ks hand. Obviously not the best as I have no low draw but it was limped round to me so I merely checked to see a flop. (In the Dealers choice game the button pays the blind for some reason - club rule).

The flop was a rather eventful Kc 8s 4s giving me top two pair and the second nut flush draw. However, the 4 and 8 were quite worrying due to the fact that 1 card is needed to give the low.

It was checked to the CO who bet pot (around £20). I flat call on the button as do 2 others.

The turn brings the 9d giving the board Kc 8s 4s 9d. I now have top 3 pair, gutshot to the nuts and the second nut flush draw with no low draw out there yet.

Again, it checks to the CO who bets pot again. At this point I feel that I scoop the high a lot here as he likely has an A23 draw with some sort of high draw too knowing the player. At which point I reshove to isolate as I feel that I'm ahead of his hi hand and want to charge the player to reach his low.

As it happened I got 2 callers, one with the bare A23 (gambooool for a split?!) and 44A23x hand. I managed to bink the Q on the river giving me the nut straight with no low draw.

It's nice to run hot in multiway pots :). In retrospect I'm not too happy with my shove on the turn. I don't think I played too well overall tonight. I have exams next week so that will be the break required to regain my focus and patience required for live cash success. Despite that finished the night +£180.

To leave on a positive note, here is one of Johnny Cash's songs. Pretty relaxing after a long day on the felt anyway despite how old it is!

Fish on a sick sick heater

Hey,

Just back from DTD tonight where I was playing the regular £2/£2 omaha game. Tonight though there was a compulsory straddle to £4 making the game play as a £2/£2/£4 PLO match. However, over half the times it was re-re-re-straddled to £2/£2/£4/£8/£16/£32. So as you can imagine the game was pretty wild. Luckily enough there was also a huge whale at our table. After going through his first £200 getting it in drawing dead with middle pair no draw, he then went on the sickest heater of the night, turning £100 into somewhere just over £3.4k.

It was brilliant, he was sat to my right so I had position the whole time. But I just could not pick up a hand against him. He was literally raising pot on every street or calling down with absolutely nothing. I don't think he folded a single hand the whole night preflop and must have taken about 70%ish to showdown. It was that good! It was a shame I had Pete Linton to my left who was also sat with around £2-£3k who kept trying to raise-isolate the fish to get heads up so often times it was at least £50-£100 to even see a flop. As a result, I tighten up..alot.

It was a shame I couldn't connect with the flop too hard, but I managed to get it in with the nut-flush vs the second nut-flush and my £200 stack elevated up to around £450ish.

The only really interesting hand of the night was when I was dealt KsKc7s8d on the button. The action went £2/£2/£4 (straddle) with 2 callers and I repotted pre. The flop came a pretty amazing Kd 2s 10s to give me top set and second nut flush draw. It checked to me and I bet roughly 4/5 pot and got 2 callers, the small blind and utg.

The turn was the 6s giving me the second nut flush. It checked to me again. I checked with the thought being that the two callers were check/calling the flop with a wrap style hand. I think I get c/r on this board with a lower set and I doubt (although it is possible that they are calling with bottom 2 pair out of position on this drawy board, possibly with a weaker redraw). So I checked behind thinking it's unlikely I'm going to get much value from much worse and also to disguise my hand.

The River was a complete brick, something like 4d. SB checked, and UTG led out £180 into £190ish pot. Pretty awkward spot, as I've got to think he is check/calling with a flush draw on the flop a lot. However, I reasoned that he must realise on the turn I'm going to be checking back a lot of my range for potting the flop and so I figured he didn't have the nut-flush on the river. I called and he showed the bluff, so that was kind of nice. Funnily enough the whale almost had a heart-attack after I spent 30 seconds on my decision when he kept reminding me that I had a flush so wasn't ever going to fold, ever. I didn't want to explain my reasoning and allowed him to keep his basic thought process going so hopefully I could flush over flush him later for a 1000 BB pot or something. But it never happened.

Regardless, it was a really good night, ended up +£766.

Doyle Brunson's Top 50 Hands

Hey!

I recently bought Doyle's book about his 50 most memorable hands. It is such a good read. I'de really recommend it to everyone interested in the game. There's no strategy in the book, just the 'Big Papa's' recollection of the best moments in his 50 year poker career. And wow, have some things changed.

Some of the stories were pretty insane going back to the "Texas Circuit" and stories of his 5-day cash game marathons when big fish were in town. In a way it was kind of a motivational read, as it really made me want to get on the road and explore some of the other games in the country. Not quite the same as touring Texas illegal high-stakes games but still!

After reading the whole book today, I went out with some family to this new Indian restaurant. Worst food ever lol! It really will not last long, the food was overpriced, stodgy and flavourless. I ordered a naan bread with some exotic flavourless chicken curry. The curry was terrible, naan bread burnt and the chicken was chewy. Ewww, won't be going back there again any time soon!

From the failings of dinner, I headed out to Dusk Til Dawn to see what cash games were going on. I found myself in a £2/£2 PLO cash game to which I almost immediately doubled up my £200 stack.

I was in the big blind with 10s Jd Qh Ks. UTG raised and the whole table called the £8. I quickly worked out that if I was to repot I would inevitably get about 6 callers and considering the maximum I could put in was around £64, I didn't want to inflate the flop OOP knowing I was going to be getting several callers and most of the time missing the flop quite hard.

So i just called from the BB. The flop came quite a nice 4 10 Q rainbow. The SB check, I checked and MP bet out 3/4 pot. Folds round to the small blind who calls and I repot. MP (who was about £70 deep) ships it in behind me and the SB repots so I'm effectively all in. I was up against 44xx and QQxx. Luckily I turned the nut straight and it held on the river. Pretty close call as I honestly thought I was dominating on that flop pretty hard with top 2 and an open ender with backdoor flush.

After a couple of hours the game died as a couple of the donators ran out of money and I switched over to the £2/£2 Dealers Choice with my £250 stack (I took £100 into my pocket so I was in for £100). I'm still not too confident with some of the games so didn't want to be super-deep.

As the night went on I got repeatedly card dead with not much happening. I lost a monster pot in 6 card omaha hi-lo when I flopped the nutflush draw, bottom 2 pair and 4 nut-low redraws (mouthful but bare with me!). I led out and got 2 callers. Then turn blacked and I check/called £85 so it was 3 way to the river. The river bricked again which wasn't so cool so I managed to miss my gazilion nut outs. You gotta miss sometimes I guess ;).

From then on my stack fluctuated pretty mildly staying about £100-£200 up throughout the night until the last hand of the night as the table was breaking. I chose Paduki (Gambooooooooooool!!) and as the dealer button chooses the game I had position. Which is very important in this game as there is no cards and so bluffing/representing becomes a big aspect of the game.

I squeezed my cards as they came: As 2c 3h 5c. Gahh so close! Regardless it limps to me and I raise pot before the first draw. In this game there were 3 draws so I was very happy to raise for value in this position. I inevitably got the whole table calling lol.

Most people drew in front of me and one of the higher stake regs bet out into me about £60 with a caller. I shipped it in repping as if I had made my paduki as I had a quite tight image in his eyes. Unfortunately this was a semi-bluff as I bricked my first draw. Regardless I got 2 other callers. After everyone drew one of the 2nd draw, the original raiser stood pat (didn't draw any). I squeezed my last card to find a diamond! Bah, it was the ace of diamonds giving me a flush and loosing to the original raisers J high paduki.

I'm finding the games to be really fun at DTD lately and the table banter is always good. There are some youngish pro's who grind the same level as I do so it's nice chatting to them. I hope to improve my mixed games a lot more in the future in terms of winning without showdown as anyone can wait for the nuts. When I start to play more competent players obviously I will get run-over with this tactic so I should be making use of the softer fields now to get some good experience in.

Hope everyone is running good! Ciao!

£2/£2 dealers choice

Hey,

Today was so so so much fail on the revision front it wasn't even funny. I went out the night before clubbing with some friends from home and so arrived home on the saturday night (sunday morning) at about 6am quite pissed. I set my alarm for 11am to make sure I don't waste the day sleeping and get some good work. Come 11am I still feel quite drunk, make myself a fry-up with a cup of tea and head down to the library to study.

Good start? Well I ran bad in real life lol. As I arrived in the library, I realised I left all my textbooks in the flat and would have to go back and get them. Fuck. I sat down at a desk in the very busy library and realised I'de also left most of my lecture notes at home. Double fuck. So I went up to the computer room to see if I could download them there but all the computers were taken. Gah, this was not to be my day! So I figured, meh, I'll just work through what I've got and go on from there.

So back to the desk, and somebody had taken my seat and desk space. So with a slight hangover I thought enough is enough and headed back to the flat. As soon I step outside the library it starts pissing it down with rain so I get pretty soaked lol.

So that in itself was pretty fail. I came back, did a bit of work and then fell asleep watching the first episode of South Pacific on the BBC iPlayer.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00jq11g

Such an amazing first episode, some absolutely incredible photography.

I woke at about midnight and really could not be bothered to work again, so headed down to Dusk Til Dawn to see what cash games were going on.

As soon as I entered the club I sat down straight away with £200 at the £2/£2 dealers choice game. The games in rotation were super stud, 4-5-6 Omaha, 4-5-6 Omaha Hi-Lo, Stud, Stud Hi-Lo, Irish 3-4 and Paduki. Quite a nice line up.

I'm really starting to enjoy playing these mixed games as they keep you interested and some people really do lack the basics in a lot of them. I'm far from confident against a series of good players, but tonight I was lucky enough to find a relatively soft line-up with one of the regular players tilting quite hard.

After about 3 hours I managed to bag a nice £550 profit but it was swingy to say the least. Funnily enough the biggest pot that I won was in Paduki when I was dealt A249 paduki under the gun.

The blinds were £2-£2 and I limped UTG with the hand. The table was quite aggressive and I think I would have been unlucky if it wasn't repotted pre due to the dynamics at the time. Anyway, there was a couple of limpers then someone made it £10. Called on the button and then the SB repotted to I think it was £65. I shipped it in covering both stacks and got 2 callers in a £550 pot. To my amusement on the first draw, one of the callers drew 3 cards (?!?!) and the other guy drew 1. The first guy managed to get a K low paduki (like that would ever be good..) and the second guy bricked all 3 draws for a healthy pot coming my way.

The biggest pot I lost of the night was in 6 card omaha-hi. I was dealt 5877a9 with nut diamond draw on the flop.

The flop came 458 with 2 diamonds and we managed to get a 3 way all in. It was a pretty nice flop for my hand with gutshot, blockers, nutflush draw and top 2 pair. The turn came the king of diamonds (holllllllllllld?!) but the river binked a 5. I flipped over 58 for the full house and was shown 88 and 44 respectively (I suspect the guy with 44 also had the nut straight on the flop as he isn't a terrible player). That pot was like £850ish.

The toughest decision of the night came in super-stud. For those that don't know, this is basically stud-hi lo but you have 5 cards and muck 2 before the first draw and choose which card you want to have face-up. Don't worry after a while you do get used to it! lol.

Anyway, I was dealt AsKsAd5d2h. What the hell do I play with here lol!? At the time my logic was that alot of people seem to play exclusively low wrap style hands and it seems often times that the low is split multiway with the high scooping exactly 50%. After some thought I chose to keep AsAd5d so I had a pair, nut flush draw and possible running lows. Really not sure what the optimal is here as a number of combinations could be good. Such as Ad2h5d going for the low with a flush draw (probably best option in retrospect). Another could be AsKsAd going for a hi only hand (it is always nice to scoop both pots in one though so this is probably less of a good option here as the low always comes 8 handed).

I think i should have ditched AA5 and played A25dd but anyway the first draw bricked by AA5 pretty hard and there was heavy action so I ditched it.

It's definitely fun playing £2/£2 DC and when my bankroll reaches £10,000 I hope to start taking some shots at the £5/£5 DC game that regularly runs at DTD. From what I gather there are some strong pros who play the game but alot of very rich fish as well. Something to look forward to anyway.

Hope everyone is running good!

Live Winnings and Online Failings!

Hey!

Well party still isn't giving me much love as I've dropped a few buy-ins on the site whilst trying to grind out a $150 bonus. Which is sort of fail, but brings my win-rate down to a more reasonable figure.

I took a trip to Dusk Til Dawn again tonight arriving at 7pm with £600 (3x £200 buy-ins) to play with. I started the night out with £1/£2 NLHE which soon broke when the tournaments at 8pm started. Unfortunately, I lost about £100 in this time so I wasn't off to a good start!

Tonight the tournies were a £25+£5 and a £75+£10. I'm not really rolled for the £75 but the £25+£5 is just a crap shoot due to less chips and the fact that it takes until about 2am to reach the final table. Then I'de probably min-cash. I think it's much better to spend my time on the cash tables as I think I probably have a greater edge there.

So that's what I did! At about 8:30 the PLO started. Throughout the course of the night I managed to turn my £100 into about £800. I kept playing and lost some of it back finishing the night with a new +£350. Which of course I was happy with! It was interesting, the hand I won the largest amount with I had my opponent drawing dead with about 3/4 of the money went in which is super-rare for omaha so that was also nice. It's also fun playing deepstack PLO as you can have a lot more interesting post-flop plays. For instance, bluffing becomes a much larger part of the game.

Anyway, It's late now and I'm going to hit the sack. I've got about 10% of my party bonus to go which would be nice to clear tonight before I go to bed. I've got my uni exams all next week for about 3 weeks so I think it's time to give the online game a rest for a while so I can really get my head down and study.

By the looks of things I've got along way to go to become a solid winning player at 25c/50c plo. After the exams I'll study up a lot on the theory and %'s of the game. From a brief look at my stats I'm playing about 30/21 which is quite Loose Aggressive and hence I'm probably getting myself into too many marginal post flop decisions. So I think I'll tighten up more especially out of position and 3-bet a much tighter range from the blinds. But that can all wait until after the exams!

Anyway, hope everyone is running good!

Peace.

WSOP 2009 TV Schedule

Hey!

Since I've started playing poker I've been really into watching the WSOP every year. To me it really does feel like an event to look forward to and does seem to have a magical feel about it. Last years was amazing with a huge range of events on show and it was particularly cool watching the $50k HORSE and the PLO event I thought.

The new schedule for this year has just been announced:

July 28 8:00 PM ET Special 40th Annual $40,000 No Limit Hold’em 1
July 28 9:00 PM ET Special 40th Annual $40,000 No Limit Hold’em 2
August 4 8:00 PM ET WSOP Champions Invitational 3
August 4 9:00 PM ET WSOP Champions Invitational 4
August 11 8:00 PM ET Ante Up For Africa Celebrity-Charity Event 5
August 11 9:00 PM ET Ante Up For Africa Celebrity-Charity Event 6
August 18 8:00 PM ET Main Event Day 1A 7
August 18 9:00 PM ET Main Event Day 1A 8
August 25 8:00 PM ET Main Event Day 1B 9
August 25 9:00 PM ET Main Event Day 1B 10
September 1 8:00 PM ET Main Event Day 1C 11
September 1 9:00 PM ET Main Event Day 1C 12
September 8 8:00 PM ET Main Event Day 1D 13
September 8 9:00 PM ET Main Event Day 1D 14
September 15 8:00 PM ET Main Event Day 2A 15
September 15 9:00 PM ET Main Event Day 2A 16
September 22 8:00 PM ET Main Event Day 2B 17
September 22 9:00 PM ET Main Event Day 2B 18
September 29 8:00 PM ET Main Event Day 3 19
September 29 9:00 PM ET Main Event Day 3 20
October 6 8:00 PM ET Main Event Day 4 21
October 6 9:00 PM ET Main Event Day 4 22
October 13 9:00 PM ET Main Event Day 5 23
October 13 10:00 PM ET Main Event Day 5 24
October 20 9:00 PM ET Main Event Day 6 25
October 20 10:00 PM ET Main Event Day 6 26
October 27 9:00 PM ET Main Event Day 7 27
October 27 10:00 PM ET Main Event Day 7 28
November 3 9:00 PM ET Main Event Day 8 29
November 3 10:00 PM ET Main Event Day 8 30
November 10 8:00PM ET Final Table Preview Show
November 10 9-11:00 PM ET Main Event Final Table 31

Only NLHE events this year unfortunately. To be honest I'm not too surprised, I can't see the general public really understanding or finding HORSE that interesting especially due to its limit structure. It is a shame that other events like the PLO aren't being shown as I feel a lot of the latest bracelet winners will go largely unrecognised in the media and poker communities.

Still, I like the idea of the $40k NLHE and WSOP champions invitational as that will increase the air-time of the top celebrity pro's. I think in the past due to some final tables just being a selection of unknowns many people just weren't too bothered to watch.

I do like what they are doing with the main event too airing it over several days. This allows for more post flop poker pots rather than just the big coin-flip all-ins and as a TV watcher you can really start to root for certain players.

Saying all this as it won't be aired on UK TV to my knowledge, I'll have to wait for it to be uploaded onto torrents or have a bad quality stream. Meh, it's still worth it ;)


On the PLO front, I played about 1000 hands yesterday settling on about 500 from ongame and 500 from party poker. In ongame I managed to be winning at 44bb/100 (heaaaater!) and on party I managed to loose at 46bb/100 (coolller!). With rakeback I was effectively break even. Interestingly enough, I managed to rake about $68 on Ongame compared to just $32 on party. I take it this is down to winning hand gets raked more? Not sure. But if the rake % is higher on Ongame to the other sites which I will look into finding out then this whole 50% rakeback deal is a bit of a scam and potentially more like 25% in reality (due to paying say 10% rake rather than the industry-standard 5% or whatever).

Hope all is well!

Playing the PLO!

Hey all!

Sorry for the unexpected absence. My laptop, which I bought less than a year ago, completely packed in. Couldn't boot it up or anything. Luckily I had it on warranty so I managed in the end to send it back to Sony. At the time I was pissed off as I need my laptop for uni work purposes and of course to play online poker. Especially as my exams are coming up in a few weeks. In retrospect however, it seems to have been a bit of a blessing in disguise as not only did I manage to visit the uni library to get a good amount of work done but I also managed to get down to Dusk Til Dawn, my local card room a lot more and got stuck in the cash games.

And good god, I start to wonder why I don't go down there more often.

In the two weeks I managed to spin up £100 into £2200 playing the £2/£2 omaha cash game. This has bought my bankroll to the highest point its been once again so that's a big relief! I'm still way of-course from my somewhat optimistic goals for the year, but I'de like to think I can get somewhere near them again. Oh the joy of going on a mini-heater again!

So the plan of action now is to revise for exams and keep up learning and mastering the somewhat crazy game of omaha.

But the problem is that once the exams are over and I go back down to Dorset, there is a severe lack of live poker. As in there is the turbo-shove fest casino donkaments but thats it. Nothing in the way of cash games and even then its a good 35 minute drive rather than the 5 minute hop down the road to DTD. So I need to choose a good poker site to maximise my gains and become a regular hoping to move up the limits.

Unfortunately, I can't show you as my old PT database was wiped with the rest of the data on my hard drive after the laptop broke, but I managed to get in the initial 10,000 hands at 25plo for a win rate of roughly 12bb/100. So it's move-up time now.

The options as I see them are:

-Full Tilt: This would be ideal if I could get $*^£ rakeback but the pricks in charge won't upgrade my account as when I originally signed up I didn't even know what rake meant. GRAHAH. The software is the best out there and although I expect the player base to be better, at 25c/50c it is still likely to be beatable.

-Pokerstars: Tough field, no rakeback. Big no.

-Party Poker: Ok software, could definately grind here but no rakeback. They do seem to offer a few bonuses along the way but nothing special.

-iPoker: I actually find the iPoker tables full of regs and short stackers, plus I really can't stand the software :( It's a no here.

-Betfair and Ladbrokes (on microgaming) are on option where rakeback are quite nice but the software is life-tilty. Not sure how many games are consistently running either.

-Boss: Only tables that seem to fill are the turbo ones with no timebank. So so smooth timing out on every decision. No thank you!

-Ongame: Probably my preferred choice. The software is a bit shoddy but I can live with it. Shame there's no timebank, but beggars can't be choosers and I can theoretically get 50% rakeback here through an affiliate.

So the choice seems simple with ongame right? Yeh, that would be the case but the affiliate I'm with seems to want me swapping sites every other month or so. Oh, and he didn't take the initiative to tell me this first either, but only when I started the conversation with him why I didn't receive any rakeback for a month. Cheers for that one mate. Not only that but half these sites like Whitebet and recently GoalWin: the latest site he's asking me to play on seem really dodgy. I mean we are in tough economic times, am I wanting to risk a good portion of my bankroll on some dodgy new site that could just go bust and scoop all my hardwork and ethic just so i can get that extra 10-20% in rakeback per month? It's a tough choice.

I think ideally I'de like to use a professional established rakeback website like raketherake.com. Funnily enough, just checking the site now they confirm that rakeback on Ongame is a big no-no. No wonder that affiliate bloke is constantly changing sites. Looking at ongame it seems that they are offering about 15% rakeback through the VIP system for my volume of play. Gahh nothing comes easy lol!

If anyone has any other good solutions or sites they can recommend please tell me! Would be so helpful. At the moment I'll play some party poker grinding my current bonus. After that and once my exams are finished I hope to find a good site with a good rakeback deal so that I can grind up the levels again!