Hey guys, I've just listed the weekday tournaments I plan on playing when I fancy a tourny grind mid-week. Unfortunately tonight will be the only opportunity I get to grind tournies this week so let's hope I get a good score ;)
Party Poker Tournaments:
7pm: $109/$10k gtd
7:15pm: $22r/$10k gtd
7:30pm: $55/$4.5k SPEED
8:00pm: $162/$30k gtd NIGHTLY
9:00pm: $55/$20k gtd
9:30pm: $9r/$10k gtd
10:30pm: $33r/$10k gtd
11:00pm: $33/$7k gtd
12:00pm: $109/$12k gtd
iPoker Tournaments:
7pm: $33/$6k gtd
8:30pm: $10r/$25k gtd
9:25pm: $109/$12.5k gtd
9:45pm: $33r/$20k gtd
10:25pm: $55/$7.5k gtd
12:00pm: $33/$5k gtd
Boss Tournaments:
9:00pm: €25/€4k gtd
9:30pm: €44/€3k gtd
10:00pm: €10r/€7.5k gtd
11:00pm: €55/€3.5k gtd
12:00pm: €25/€3k gtd
OnGame Tournaments:
7:00pm: $108/$15k gtd
9:00pm: $108/$7.5k gtd
11:00pm: $55/$8k gtd
Time Order:
7:00pm: $108/$15k gtd (Ongame)
7:00pm: $109/$10k gtd (Party)
7pm: $33/$6k gtd (iPoker)
7:15pm: $22r/$10k gtd (Party)
7:30pm: $55/$4.5k SPEED (Party)
8:00pm: $162/$30k gtd NIGHTLY (Party)
8:30pm: $10r/$25k gtd (iPoker)
9:00pm: $55/$20k gtd (Party)
9:00pm: €25/€4k gtd (Boss)
9:00pm: $108/$7.5k gtd (OnGame)
9:25pm: $109/$12.5k gtd (iPoker)
9:30pm: $9r/$10k gtd (Party)
9:30pm: €44/€3k gtd (Boss)
9:45pm: $33r/$20k gtd (iPoker)
10:00pm: €10r/€7.5k gtd (Boss)
10:25pm: $55/$7.5k gtd (iPoker)
10:30pm: $33r/$10k gtd (Party)
11:00pm: $33/$7k gtd (Party)
11:00pm: €55/€3.5k gtd (Boss)
11:00pm: $55/$8k gtd (OnGame)
12:00pm: $109/$12k gtd (Party)
12:00pm: $33/$5k gtd (iPoker)
12:00pm: €25/€3k gtd (Boss)
The tournies in bold are the ones I will almost definitely be playing. Whilst the ones in regular font I'll play depending upon how many tables I have up at the time. I still plan on keeping 4-6 tables up and trying not to go over this amount as my game then becomes sub-optimal as I make rushed decisions.
I have heard that OnGame have changed their tournament structure to include antes now, so I might give them another chance in the future. But I don't think that there are that many good tournaments available whilst there are literally too many good tournaments available on the other European networks. So maybe when either party/boss/iPoker piss me off too much I'll switch and mix in OnGame, but for now I'm very happy with this exclusive mix. Saying this, I will give OnGame a trial run tonight in one tournament to see how pissed off I get with the software, then decide. Just checked the tourny structures and despite small level times is almost a replica of FTP MTT's which is by far the best structure tournies going.
I maintain my plan to visit the US sites on the weekend though.
Hope the grindings going well for you all! I'll update with how tonight's session gets on later!
Tuesday, 30 June 2009
Monday, 29 June 2009
First Majors Session :)
The session started really bad. Like really bad. I was busting everything left, right and center. But kept my focus. The first proper blow was being the bubble boy in the €140/€100,000 on Boss losing AA to AK. It was a bit of a cooler as I was button, he was SB so the money was going in anyway, but with 2 kings on the flop I was drawing very thin!
As the night went on, I was starting to come to terms with the fact that this could be by far my biggest losing session ever. Not to fear, I wasn't planning on folding to a min-cash in anything so I kept the grind on.
Luckily I managed to cash in the Sunday Million on stars coming 356/8055 for $612 which was a start, unfortunately getting slightly unlucky with this hand.
The main cash however, was on Full Tilt Poker. Somehow, I managed to find my self REALLY deep in the $215/$750,000 guaranteed. 8 and a half hours after the start I cash out for $3875 coming 16/3875 players. It was pretty frustrating as with two tables left I lost this pot which would have had me in top 3 chips with a definate final table ahead of me and a good chance of securing that $137,000 first place prize!! But it was not to be. Still, a really nice cash and I look forward to a couple of weeks time when I'll give the majors another run for their money!
Although you do need to run good to get deep in these things, I think a good solid game can really do well as there is certainly a lot of dead money in these tournies. I'm really really happy with how I played today, and despite a couple of beats in the two tournaments, I have to realise that I won some pretty big flips to get that far and if I keep hammering at it, there should be no reason in the forthcoming year that I can't final table one of these biggies!
It's gone 7am now and I'm absolutely nackered, so good night all! Hope everyone elses Sunday was a success!
edit: Just realised, this is my biggest cash I've had in a tournament, just topping the $55 win I took a few days ago! Weeeeeeeeeeeee :D
As the night went on, I was starting to come to terms with the fact that this could be by far my biggest losing session ever. Not to fear, I wasn't planning on folding to a min-cash in anything so I kept the grind on.
Luckily I managed to cash in the Sunday Million on stars coming 356/8055 for $612 which was a start, unfortunately getting slightly unlucky with this hand.
The main cash however, was on Full Tilt Poker. Somehow, I managed to find my self REALLY deep in the $215/$750,000 guaranteed. 8 and a half hours after the start I cash out for $3875 coming 16/3875 players. It was pretty frustrating as with two tables left I lost this pot which would have had me in top 3 chips with a definate final table ahead of me and a good chance of securing that $137,000 first place prize!! But it was not to be. Still, a really nice cash and I look forward to a couple of weeks time when I'll give the majors another run for their money!
Although you do need to run good to get deep in these things, I think a good solid game can really do well as there is certainly a lot of dead money in these tournies. I'm really really happy with how I played today, and despite a couple of beats in the two tournaments, I have to realise that I won some pretty big flips to get that far and if I keep hammering at it, there should be no reason in the forthcoming year that I can't final table one of these biggies!
It's gone 7am now and I'm absolutely nackered, so good night all! Hope everyone elses Sunday was a success!
edit: Just realised, this is my biggest cash I've had in a tournament, just topping the $55 win I took a few days ago! Weeeeeeeeeeeee :D
Sunday, 28 June 2009
Sunday Majors
Hey!
Really excited today, I'll be playing:
7pm: €140/€100k gtd boss
7pm: $240/$300k gtd Full Tilt (Sunday Brawl)
7:30pm: Turbo Takedown/$1 million gtd Stars
7:30pm: $22r/$19500 gtd Full Tilt
8pm: $163/$50,000 gtd Full Tilt
8pm: $55/$200,000 gtd Stars
8:20pm: $30r/$60,000 gtd Full Tilt (MSOP event)
8:30pm: $11/$250,000 gtd Stars (Sunday 1/4 Million)
9:00pm: $11r/$60,000 gtd Stars
9:00pm: $75/$22,500 gtd Full Tilt
9:20pm: $22/$200,000 gtd Full Tilt (Double Deuce)
9:00pm: $33r/$19,500 gtd Full Tilt
9:30pm: $215/$1,500,000 gtd Stars (Sunday Million)
10:00pm: $250 APPT Macau Sat (I won a sat into this) iPoker
10:00pm: $55/$75,000 gtd Stars
11pm: $216/$750,000 gtd Full Tilt
11pm: €55/€3,500 gtd Boss
The tournies in italics are maybe's depending how many tables I have up. Hope today goes well!
Really excited today, I'll be playing:
7pm: €140/€100k gtd boss
7pm: $240/$300k gtd Full Tilt (Sunday Brawl)
7:30pm: Turbo Takedown/$1 million gtd Stars
7:30pm: $22r/$19500 gtd Full Tilt
8pm: $163/$50,000 gtd Full Tilt
8pm: $55/$200,000 gtd Stars
8:20pm: $30r/$60,000 gtd Full Tilt (MSOP event)
8:30pm: $11/$250,000 gtd Stars (Sunday 1/4 Million)
9:00pm: $11r/$60,000 gtd Stars
9:00pm: $75/$22,500 gtd Full Tilt
9:20pm: $22/$200,000 gtd Full Tilt (Double Deuce)
9:00pm: $33r/$19,500 gtd Full Tilt
9:30pm: $215/$1,500,000 gtd Stars (Sunday Million)
10:00pm: $250 APPT Macau Sat (I won a sat into this) iPoker
10:00pm: $55/$75,000 gtd Stars
11pm: $216/$750,000 gtd Full Tilt
11pm: €55/€3,500 gtd Boss
The tournies in italics are maybe's depending how many tables I have up. Hope today goes well!
Friday, 26 June 2009
2 $109 FT's!! :) High stakeeeeees!
Hey!
Although I didn't ship either unfortunately, I did manage to make two $109 Final Tables today :D
Unfortunately, I wasn't fast enough to take a print screen of the party poker lobby as they seem to vanish as soon as the tourny ends.
This is quite reassuring as I was really focusing in on the players and do think that I have a good edge in these tournaments as some of the plays made were pretty bad by a few players. Of course there are some very good players playing these tournaments, but also enough dead money around to make it worth my while playing them!
It was a bit of a shame in the last $109 as I got pretty cold decked with 10 10 vs JJ in blind vs blind for a chip leader pot. I failed to improve and out I went, but I feel assured that it won't be long again before I return and maybe this time I'll be the lucky sod with pocket jacks in the blinds ;)
I also played two satellite today which I won a seat in both. One was a turbo takedown satellite on Sunday which was 6-seater SNG turbo with 2 seats and also a €10rebuy satellite on Boss into their €140/€100,000 guaranteed. I only really played the sat as it started at 7pm when I was only 2-tabling to fill some screen space, but I'm glad I got in on the cheap as I was planning to buy-in direct anyway.
So Sunday is going to be a massive day for me as I plan on playing $215/$300k gtd on party, $215/$1,500,000 gtd on Stars, $215/$750,000 gtd on Full Tilt and €140/€100,000 gtd on Boss. The iPoker Sunday Major is $320 buy-in which is still too much for me, so I may try to satellite in if I can be bothered but it's quite unlikely. I'de much rather just buy-in direct when my roll is a bit bigger.
The roll is around $24,000 at the moment and despite choosing a 200 buy-in rule I've been speaking to a few people including HSMTT'ers and they think I should definitely play the weekly majors as the amount of bad players that satellite in on the cheap create a lot of value. I mean, I wouldn't play one of the $50r's on stars with my roll as the playing field is so much tougher, but I guess the majors are a lot softer. And who knows, maybe if I run super-hot I could have a crazy pay-day.
My only concern though is primarily taking a huge hit to the bankroll, but I think limiting shot-taking to once a week shouldn't be too detrimental as long as I stay fairly rigid with my buy-ins for the rest of the week and be prepared to move up and down stakes as the bankroll permits.
The other concern I have is being outplayed or making robotic decisions without reads. As such, I'll try to limit myself to just playing 6 tables throughout the night. I tried that out tonight and had great success, but there are so many nice looking tournies, especially on a Sunday, that it's really tempting to just load up a ton. I'll experiment with it I think. I mean I'm not quite as pro as some of the grinders like Shaundeeb and stuff so don't think playing $109 freezeouts I would be +ev without paying close attention to the table and getting reads.
I noticed that Mlagoo, a very successful high-stake MTT'er does that. He plays 4 tables and gets good reads on his opponents throughout adding new tables as he busts his existing ones. It works well for him and I just don't think moving up to higher stakes I would have any edge at all if I played robotic poker.
Anyway, enough random dribble! So yeh, today has been really good. I'm withdrawing £468 from my bankroll as today I've just signed up with a new gym so hope to make good use of that! I also cooked spag bol for my the family tonight as it was my step-dad's birthday and thought I owed it to him considering I don't do a lot to help out normally ;)
Hope all is good, ciao!
Although I didn't ship either unfortunately, I did manage to make two $109 Final Tables today :D
Unfortunately, I wasn't fast enough to take a print screen of the party poker lobby as they seem to vanish as soon as the tourny ends.
This is quite reassuring as I was really focusing in on the players and do think that I have a good edge in these tournaments as some of the plays made were pretty bad by a few players. Of course there are some very good players playing these tournaments, but also enough dead money around to make it worth my while playing them!
It was a bit of a shame in the last $109 as I got pretty cold decked with 10 10 vs JJ in blind vs blind for a chip leader pot. I failed to improve and out I went, but I feel assured that it won't be long again before I return and maybe this time I'll be the lucky sod with pocket jacks in the blinds ;)
I also played two satellite today which I won a seat in both. One was a turbo takedown satellite on Sunday which was 6-seater SNG turbo with 2 seats and also a €10rebuy satellite on Boss into their €140/€100,000 guaranteed. I only really played the sat as it started at 7pm when I was only 2-tabling to fill some screen space, but I'm glad I got in on the cheap as I was planning to buy-in direct anyway.
So Sunday is going to be a massive day for me as I plan on playing $215/$300k gtd on party, $215/$1,500,000 gtd on Stars, $215/$750,000 gtd on Full Tilt and €140/€100,000 gtd on Boss. The iPoker Sunday Major is $320 buy-in which is still too much for me, so I may try to satellite in if I can be bothered but it's quite unlikely. I'de much rather just buy-in direct when my roll is a bit bigger.
The roll is around $24,000 at the moment and despite choosing a 200 buy-in rule I've been speaking to a few people including HSMTT'ers and they think I should definitely play the weekly majors as the amount of bad players that satellite in on the cheap create a lot of value. I mean, I wouldn't play one of the $50r's on stars with my roll as the playing field is so much tougher, but I guess the majors are a lot softer. And who knows, maybe if I run super-hot I could have a crazy pay-day.
My only concern though is primarily taking a huge hit to the bankroll, but I think limiting shot-taking to once a week shouldn't be too detrimental as long as I stay fairly rigid with my buy-ins for the rest of the week and be prepared to move up and down stakes as the bankroll permits.
The other concern I have is being outplayed or making robotic decisions without reads. As such, I'll try to limit myself to just playing 6 tables throughout the night. I tried that out tonight and had great success, but there are so many nice looking tournies, especially on a Sunday, that it's really tempting to just load up a ton. I'll experiment with it I think. I mean I'm not quite as pro as some of the grinders like Shaundeeb and stuff so don't think playing $109 freezeouts I would be +ev without paying close attention to the table and getting reads.
I noticed that Mlagoo, a very successful high-stake MTT'er does that. He plays 4 tables and gets good reads on his opponents throughout adding new tables as he busts his existing ones. It works well for him and I just don't think moving up to higher stakes I would have any edge at all if I played robotic poker.
Anyway, enough random dribble! So yeh, today has been really good. I'm withdrawing £468 from my bankroll as today I've just signed up with a new gym so hope to make good use of that! I also cooked spag bol for my the family tonight as it was my step-dad's birthday and thought I owed it to him considering I don't do a lot to help out normally ;)
Hope all is good, ciao!
Thursday, 25 June 2009
Down the beach and MTT'ing
Hey!
Today was really hot and thanks to somehow waking up at 8am, I managed to get down to the beach with some friends to soak up the sunlight and bob about in the sea! The sea was really nice today, I was expecting it to be a testicle torturing temperature but it was actually really nice. Plus it's always funny rugby tackling friends who are too scared to just jump right in. Pussies!
I managed to get home in time to register for the 8pm-11pm tournies on Boss/Party/iPoker. Unfortunately today does not exemplify my past couple of months as every flip I lost, every premium pair got busted etc etc. I managed one final table on Boss for the €44/€2000 gtd but busted in 8th for next to nothing. Similarly came 11/383 on party poker $55/$20,000 gtd which sucked slightly as my aces couldn't hold against the dominating q4 offsuit. Weeeeeeeee... Guess it's back to the reality of MTT's eh ;)
Nevertheless, It was a fun grind tonight and I'm pleased Ant had more success than I did shipping a tourny on Boss for just over $1k so grats to him!
Bed time now so hopefully I can hit the beach again tomorrow if the weather stays as good as it is! Ciao!
Today was really hot and thanks to somehow waking up at 8am, I managed to get down to the beach with some friends to soak up the sunlight and bob about in the sea! The sea was really nice today, I was expecting it to be a testicle torturing temperature but it was actually really nice. Plus it's always funny rugby tackling friends who are too scared to just jump right in. Pussies!
I managed to get home in time to register for the 8pm-11pm tournies on Boss/Party/iPoker. Unfortunately today does not exemplify my past couple of months as every flip I lost, every premium pair got busted etc etc. I managed one final table on Boss for the €44/€2000 gtd but busted in 8th for next to nothing. Similarly came 11/383 on party poker $55/$20,000 gtd which sucked slightly as my aces couldn't hold against the dominating q4 offsuit. Weeeeeeeee... Guess it's back to the reality of MTT's eh ;)
Nevertheless, It was a fun grind tonight and I'm pleased Ant had more success than I did shipping a tourny on Boss for just over $1k so grats to him!
Bed time now so hopefully I can hit the beach again tomorrow if the weather stays as good as it is! Ciao!
Tuesday, 23 June 2009
Sleep pattern is so messed up...Degen Tales..
Hey,
After trying to get myself out of a nocturnal habit, it somehow backfired and I found myself wide-awake at 3:30am this morning ready to start the day. With little else to do I sat down and started the grind with little success. I busted out of a lot of tournies quite early but did get deep in a couple: the turbo fifty $55 on full tilt coming in at around 30th and the 7am $33/$10k gtd on stars coming 12/840. Woops... I guess you can't always win those big flips on the FT bubble. However, I already know all about this from February and March of this year!
So stranglely enough, the tournament grind finished at around 11am this morning, and I headed out to town with two mates to do some shopping, chilling and generally be degenerates.
The sun was in full force and it was a great day. After picking up a couple of Ralph Lauren Polo shirt's we headed out for a late lunch at Wagamama's. Can't ever go wrong there, fusion oriental food really can't be beaten. Myself and Marlow were interested to seeing the local Gala Casino's tournament schedule. I saw that they have a £50 with 1 rebuy, 1 addon on Friday night's which I may be interested in. I know that the cash games down there are almost non-existent, so if I'm not going to have DTD nearby this will be my only fix for live poker in the forthcoming couple of months!
Inevitably this led to some spunking of money on the old blackjack tables. I let my friend play with some of my money on the perfect pair side-game (whereby if you get dealt a pair you receive like 5-1 or some other really shit odds) as he couldn't afford to play the games himself. Well cheers Sam but you run worse than my Grandma with a broken leg! I was playing two boxes on blackjack and he was choosing which box to put the perfect pair wager on and got the wrong one for like £60 a time at least 3 times! Haha oh well!
After losing some degening it up, we all felt like we had a little gamble left inside to unleash so we grabbed ice creams in Bournemouth park and headed straight to the crazy golf games with side-bets on each hole to spice things up a little. Despite a poor start I only ended up £1.50 down which was quite a victory.
With that not being enough, we headed to the beach and found ourselves in the kiddy amusement arcade playing weird 10p games and some 50p basketball which after about 10 minutes play I managed to win 5p in tokens! Ship the 1p sweets!
Overall a good day, but it's getting on to 7pm now and rather than just waking up, I'm feeling really tired. Weird, I know!
GL at the tables all!
After trying to get myself out of a nocturnal habit, it somehow backfired and I found myself wide-awake at 3:30am this morning ready to start the day. With little else to do I sat down and started the grind with little success. I busted out of a lot of tournies quite early but did get deep in a couple: the turbo fifty $55 on full tilt coming in at around 30th and the 7am $33/$10k gtd on stars coming 12/840. Woops... I guess you can't always win those big flips on the FT bubble. However, I already know all about this from February and March of this year!
So stranglely enough, the tournament grind finished at around 11am this morning, and I headed out to town with two mates to do some shopping, chilling and generally be degenerates.
The sun was in full force and it was a great day. After picking up a couple of Ralph Lauren Polo shirt's we headed out for a late lunch at Wagamama's. Can't ever go wrong there, fusion oriental food really can't be beaten. Myself and Marlow were interested to seeing the local Gala Casino's tournament schedule. I saw that they have a £50 with 1 rebuy, 1 addon on Friday night's which I may be interested in. I know that the cash games down there are almost non-existent, so if I'm not going to have DTD nearby this will be my only fix for live poker in the forthcoming couple of months!
Inevitably this led to some spunking of money on the old blackjack tables. I let my friend play with some of my money on the perfect pair side-game (whereby if you get dealt a pair you receive like 5-1 or some other really shit odds) as he couldn't afford to play the games himself. Well cheers Sam but you run worse than my Grandma with a broken leg! I was playing two boxes on blackjack and he was choosing which box to put the perfect pair wager on and got the wrong one for like £60 a time at least 3 times! Haha oh well!
After losing some degening it up, we all felt like we had a little gamble left inside to unleash so we grabbed ice creams in Bournemouth park and headed straight to the crazy golf games with side-bets on each hole to spice things up a little. Despite a poor start I only ended up £1.50 down which was quite a victory.
With that not being enough, we headed to the beach and found ourselves in the kiddy amusement arcade playing weird 10p games and some 50p basketball which after about 10 minutes play I managed to win 5p in tokens! Ship the 1p sweets!
Overall a good day, but it's getting on to 7pm now and rather than just waking up, I'm feeling really tired. Weird, I know!
GL at the tables all!
Monday, 22 June 2009
Biggest Tourny Cash Ever!
Hey,
I know this is my second post of the day, but I think this is worth posting about! As I stated in the earlier blog post, I'm staying up over 24 hours to try and get back into a somewhat regular sleep pattern. So I registered for a few tournaments from 8pm-11pm on stars and full tilt to keep me occupied.
Somehow out of all of this, with several coffees and cans of relentless later I manage to ship the $55/$10,000 gtd on Full Tilt for just over $3,000. My biggest cash to date :D.
I was pretty buzzed up and focused due to probably o/d'ing on caffeine and was able to make some quite nice reads, thus some somewhat unorthodix spewy plays which seemed to pay off:
http://weaktight.com/1228854 I was getting quite a nice dynamic going with this guy. I had been opening a ton in late position and he seemed completely determined to call most of these and try to outplay me and win the pots. I got the better of him in this one exploiting his somewhat aggressive tendencies.
http://weaktight.com/1228869 Some call it spew, other's call it having balls. I'm pretty sure it's the first, but from the way this guy was playing from the final two tables it was pretty evident he was playing with scared money and I don't think by the river action he is calling this given my line. It's also pretty obvious he has the best hand here by a longway, but the pot was so big that I was willing to gamble for it as that would clinch me a strong stack that could take me to short-handed play with ease. After I over-shoved he did time-bank it down which did get my heart pumping a little, but that's all part of the fun, right? ;)
So yeh, I'm a luckbox and the bankroll is at the highest it's ever been now, just over £14,000. Woot!
I know this is my second post of the day, but I think this is worth posting about! As I stated in the earlier blog post, I'm staying up over 24 hours to try and get back into a somewhat regular sleep pattern. So I registered for a few tournaments from 8pm-11pm on stars and full tilt to keep me occupied.
Somehow out of all of this, with several coffees and cans of relentless later I manage to ship the $55/$10,000 gtd on Full Tilt for just over $3,000. My biggest cash to date :D.
I was pretty buzzed up and focused due to probably o/d'ing on caffeine and was able to make some quite nice reads, thus some somewhat unorthodix spewy plays which seemed to pay off:
http://weaktight.com/1228854 I was getting quite a nice dynamic going with this guy. I had been opening a ton in late position and he seemed completely determined to call most of these and try to outplay me and win the pots. I got the better of him in this one exploiting his somewhat aggressive tendencies.
http://weaktight.com/1228869 Some call it spew, other's call it having balls. I'm pretty sure it's the first, but from the way this guy was playing from the final two tables it was pretty evident he was playing with scared money and I don't think by the river action he is calling this given my line. It's also pretty obvious he has the best hand here by a longway, but the pot was so big that I was willing to gamble for it as that would clinch me a strong stack that could take me to short-handed play with ease. After I over-shoved he did time-bank it down which did get my heart pumping a little, but that's all part of the fun, right? ;)
So yeh, I'm a luckbox and the bankroll is at the highest it's ever been now, just over £14,000. Woot!
Sick Upswong to End Weekend
Hey,
After having a really long sleep, I woke at 6:30pm yesterday and was feeling pumped for a long session on the felt. I ate through a couple of bowls of Kellogg's Crunchy Nut (which for what it's worth is definitely +ev) and packed my bags with the intention of leaving Nottingham at the end of the night.
The tournament of the day was either a £25+£6 or a £75+£11. Neither of which I'm too happy about the large rake, but regardless, I just couldn't stomach sitting down in the NLHE cash games again, so opted in for the £75+£11 tournament. It wasn't too long in when I found myself with 99 on a 9d5d6s board facing a large check raise to my cbet. I was at 50/100 and I was about 35bb's deep effective, so couldn't get away with it but was quite dismayed when my opponent flipped the 78 for the made straight. I failed to fill up and out I busted.
Out of the initial £1200 I had brought for this weekend (Original £800+ top-up £400), I was down to my last £450 with food/tournament buy-ins taken out of the roll. Not too impressive by anyone's measure. Feeling in the gambly mood I put myself on the list again for the £5/£5 dealers choice, the £2/£2 PLO and the £2/£2 dealers choice with the intention on primarily playing the first table to open and then to judge which table to play at for the duration of the night with who was playing.
The first table to be formed about 5-10 minutes after I busted the tournament was the £5/£5 dealers choice with a really good line-up, so I was quite happy to sit down straight away and see what I could make of my £200. I'll cut the crap so no-one skips the rest of the article, but in the end I cashed out for £1600 from the original £200 investment. Let's just say that tonight the cards were more in my favour than the previous night.
For instance in 4 card PLO hi, I straddled to £10 and was dealt AsAc4s6c for a really really sick starting hand. The whole table called and I repotted to £70. UTG+1 called, UTG+2 reshoved his short stack of £135 (meaning I could reraise again). One person called this £135 and as I came back to me, I repotted for £600 putting the rest of the players in the hand all in. There was another called and so we were 3 way. Somehow, on a QQ743 board with 3 hearts, my hand held. Although I got it in as an equity favourite, you do need a lot of luck to hold especially in a game such as Omaha where with a random AAxx hand you can almost be flipping with 3456 double suited where as in NLHE AA vs 56suited is much more in the AA's favour.
There were a few times that I really found that I didn't know what the fuck to do and made in retrospect pretty bad moves. I have a long way to go to be a competent 7-card stud player and my Omaha hi-lo game has a lot of work to be done on it too.
An interesting hand came up when we were 3 way and really deep. All of us had about £1200-£1500 stacks playing 6-card PLO hi-lo. I held A34K9 on a 2d5d8s board without any diamonds. Therefore I had the nut-low with low redraw. I did however have the bare ace of diamonds. With my perceived image at the table I think that if the flush did come on the turn I could lead out with strength and often take it down, or get called by another hi-hand and in most cases split the pot anyway.
As the action went, UTG (Very strong LAG) led out £75, I called and so did the guy behind. The reason I didn't raise with the wheel wrap and nut-low is for the hope of a diamond on the turn and also in hi-lo games it seems to be much more profitable to keep more opponents in the pot as splitting the pot is a very common occurrence.
The turn came the King of spades. I now had the lo hand for sure and was still drawing to the wheel draw. UTG led out £150, I called still with the intention of bluffing diamond river and hoping to get to a relatively cheap showdown. Now interestingly, the guy left to act behind me, min-raised to £300. He's an Iranian business man who loves to gamble and can definitely show-up with crap draws a lot of the time. Then UTG min-raised again to £600. Eww..
So I've invested the best part of £250 in this pot where I will definitely win some money back in terms of the nut-low. Given stack sizes, I no longer have enough fold equity if the diamond does come on the river to represent and it's very likely that one if not both of the other players has the same lo-hand but with a stronger high than my bare top pair and bottom wrap. Bad bad spot. I ended up folding to find that my lo- was good but, after much thought I think this was the best choice and it would be too results orientated to play a similar situation differently in the future. I could have raised the turn but given how deep we are and my relatively weak hand this is pretty spew. Who knows eh.
At 4:30am, the club was closing and I happily cashed out and immediately started my journey back down south to Dorset. The sun was rising and the radio was playing awesome tunes, so the 3 1/2 hour journey was a doddle. I'm now going to try and stay up all day and sleep after dinner tonight so as to resume a "normal" non-nocturnal sleep pattern as it must be nice to see the sun on occasion ;)
I'll fill the day in with unpacking, cleaning my car, sorting finances, watching some tennis, play some early morning donkaments, and perhaps bask in the Sun!
After having a really long sleep, I woke at 6:30pm yesterday and was feeling pumped for a long session on the felt. I ate through a couple of bowls of Kellogg's Crunchy Nut (which for what it's worth is definitely +ev) and packed my bags with the intention of leaving Nottingham at the end of the night.
The tournament of the day was either a £25+£6 or a £75+£11. Neither of which I'm too happy about the large rake, but regardless, I just couldn't stomach sitting down in the NLHE cash games again, so opted in for the £75+£11 tournament. It wasn't too long in when I found myself with 99 on a 9d5d6s board facing a large check raise to my cbet. I was at 50/100 and I was about 35bb's deep effective, so couldn't get away with it but was quite dismayed when my opponent flipped the 78 for the made straight. I failed to fill up and out I busted.
Out of the initial £1200 I had brought for this weekend (Original £800+ top-up £400), I was down to my last £450 with food/tournament buy-ins taken out of the roll. Not too impressive by anyone's measure. Feeling in the gambly mood I put myself on the list again for the £5/£5 dealers choice, the £2/£2 PLO and the £2/£2 dealers choice with the intention on primarily playing the first table to open and then to judge which table to play at for the duration of the night with who was playing.
The first table to be formed about 5-10 minutes after I busted the tournament was the £5/£5 dealers choice with a really good line-up, so I was quite happy to sit down straight away and see what I could make of my £200. I'll cut the crap so no-one skips the rest of the article, but in the end I cashed out for £1600 from the original £200 investment. Let's just say that tonight the cards were more in my favour than the previous night.
For instance in 4 card PLO hi, I straddled to £10 and was dealt AsAc4s6c for a really really sick starting hand. The whole table called and I repotted to £70. UTG+1 called, UTG+2 reshoved his short stack of £135 (meaning I could reraise again). One person called this £135 and as I came back to me, I repotted for £600 putting the rest of the players in the hand all in. There was another called and so we were 3 way. Somehow, on a QQ743 board with 3 hearts, my hand held. Although I got it in as an equity favourite, you do need a lot of luck to hold especially in a game such as Omaha where with a random AAxx hand you can almost be flipping with 3456 double suited where as in NLHE AA vs 56suited is much more in the AA's favour.
There were a few times that I really found that I didn't know what the fuck to do and made in retrospect pretty bad moves. I have a long way to go to be a competent 7-card stud player and my Omaha hi-lo game has a lot of work to be done on it too.
An interesting hand came up when we were 3 way and really deep. All of us had about £1200-£1500 stacks playing 6-card PLO hi-lo. I held A34K9 on a 2d5d8s board without any diamonds. Therefore I had the nut-low with low redraw. I did however have the bare ace of diamonds. With my perceived image at the table I think that if the flush did come on the turn I could lead out with strength and often take it down, or get called by another hi-hand and in most cases split the pot anyway.
As the action went, UTG (Very strong LAG) led out £75, I called and so did the guy behind. The reason I didn't raise with the wheel wrap and nut-low is for the hope of a diamond on the turn and also in hi-lo games it seems to be much more profitable to keep more opponents in the pot as splitting the pot is a very common occurrence.
The turn came the King of spades. I now had the lo hand for sure and was still drawing to the wheel draw. UTG led out £150, I called still with the intention of bluffing diamond river and hoping to get to a relatively cheap showdown. Now interestingly, the guy left to act behind me, min-raised to £300. He's an Iranian business man who loves to gamble and can definitely show-up with crap draws a lot of the time. Then UTG min-raised again to £600. Eww..
So I've invested the best part of £250 in this pot where I will definitely win some money back in terms of the nut-low. Given stack sizes, I no longer have enough fold equity if the diamond does come on the river to represent and it's very likely that one if not both of the other players has the same lo-hand but with a stronger high than my bare top pair and bottom wrap. Bad bad spot. I ended up folding to find that my lo- was good but, after much thought I think this was the best choice and it would be too results orientated to play a similar situation differently in the future. I could have raised the turn but given how deep we are and my relatively weak hand this is pretty spew. Who knows eh.
At 4:30am, the club was closing and I happily cashed out and immediately started my journey back down south to Dorset. The sun was rising and the radio was playing awesome tunes, so the 3 1/2 hour journey was a doddle. I'm now going to try and stay up all day and sleep after dinner tonight so as to resume a "normal" non-nocturnal sleep pattern as it must be nice to see the sun on occasion ;)
I'll fill the day in with unpacking, cleaning my car, sorting finances, watching some tennis, play some early morning donkaments, and perhaps bask in the Sun!
Sunday, 21 June 2009
Wooops
Hey,
Quite a lot has happened since my last blog post a couple of days ago. And it's not all been too good!
Over the past two days at Dusk Til Dawn I've managed to lose quite a lot of money, something around the £1,000 mark which isn't too good really. I went on both Friday and Saturday night with the majority of the losses coming in on the Friday. No excuses here but, unaware as I was I was on pretty bad life tilt.
Unfortunately my girlfriend and I broke up on Thursday which pretty much put me off my game on Friday as my mind was on other things. I didn't feel like I was tilting, like I wasn't steaming but I was playing a really unfocused, impatient game. It was sort of a downward spiral as I'de be calling £15 raises with 73 suited from the blinds and the such with no implied odds and getting frustrated as I was inevitably losing money. By about 2am, I thought enough is enough, went out for a breath of fresh air, then thought fuck it I'm not playing well tonight, I'll head back, peel some bananas with my flatmate and just write the rest of the night off.
Today on the other hand is a different story. I returned to the club at about 8pm to start the tournament. Got pretty deep but then lost KK to A10 which wasn't too bad but still it would have given me a good stack to reach the FT with. I then proceded to just get bitch slapped in the face by the deck all night. It started on hold'em when I lost a £600 pot to a drunk when I had raised to £30 with AQo with a 3 callers (blinds were £1/£2/£4 with a few limpers). The flop comes A48 rainbow. I check to the drunk. He overshoves the ~£100 pot for about £250 with KJ. I snapcall him. The turn brings me two-pair (A48Q) and the river brings him the 10 for a straight. Nice hand sir.
With a few other smaller beats I had just about enough with NLHE cash for the day so hit up the £2/£2 Dealers Choice which allowed my inner gambler to be unleashed. Unfortunately this didn't go well either getting the money in ahead 3/3 times and loosing/my hand being counterfeited. The original £800 I withdrew on Wednesday night had now gone. I didn't feel tilted and was actually really impressed with how I was maintaining to play a patient analytical game so I decided to withdraw another £400 from the cash point.
I sat back down with the £200 and ran it to £250 before the table collapsed. Being the true degen I am, as there was either £1/£2 NLHE or the £5/£5 DC game going on, it didn't take much to persuade me to sit down with my remaining £250 to try and spin my way out of the red for the day. Without too much to say I did manage to double up in the half an hour left and leave the table with about £400ish hence cutting my losses slightly but not too much. I was really tight, especially OOP in the drawing games which seemed to pay off as I wasn't bleeding as many chips as I have in previous DC attempts.
Tomorrow, I'm going to wake up really late, get my stuff together and head to DTD for the £85 tournament. If any non-hold'em games start I'll play them until I get bored then drive back down south for the week. Let's see if I can have a sick heater tomorrow to pull this week back into the black!
Quite a lot has happened since my last blog post a couple of days ago. And it's not all been too good!
Over the past two days at Dusk Til Dawn I've managed to lose quite a lot of money, something around the £1,000 mark which isn't too good really. I went on both Friday and Saturday night with the majority of the losses coming in on the Friday. No excuses here but, unaware as I was I was on pretty bad life tilt.
Unfortunately my girlfriend and I broke up on Thursday which pretty much put me off my game on Friday as my mind was on other things. I didn't feel like I was tilting, like I wasn't steaming but I was playing a really unfocused, impatient game. It was sort of a downward spiral as I'de be calling £15 raises with 73 suited from the blinds and the such with no implied odds and getting frustrated as I was inevitably losing money. By about 2am, I thought enough is enough, went out for a breath of fresh air, then thought fuck it I'm not playing well tonight, I'll head back, peel some bananas with my flatmate and just write the rest of the night off.
Today on the other hand is a different story. I returned to the club at about 8pm to start the tournament. Got pretty deep but then lost KK to A10 which wasn't too bad but still it would have given me a good stack to reach the FT with. I then proceded to just get bitch slapped in the face by the deck all night. It started on hold'em when I lost a £600 pot to a drunk when I had raised to £30 with AQo with a 3 callers (blinds were £1/£2/£4 with a few limpers). The flop comes A48 rainbow. I check to the drunk. He overshoves the ~£100 pot for about £250 with KJ. I snapcall him. The turn brings me two-pair (A48Q) and the river brings him the 10 for a straight. Nice hand sir.
With a few other smaller beats I had just about enough with NLHE cash for the day so hit up the £2/£2 Dealers Choice which allowed my inner gambler to be unleashed. Unfortunately this didn't go well either getting the money in ahead 3/3 times and loosing/my hand being counterfeited. The original £800 I withdrew on Wednesday night had now gone. I didn't feel tilted and was actually really impressed with how I was maintaining to play a patient analytical game so I decided to withdraw another £400 from the cash point.
I sat back down with the £200 and ran it to £250 before the table collapsed. Being the true degen I am, as there was either £1/£2 NLHE or the £5/£5 DC game going on, it didn't take much to persuade me to sit down with my remaining £250 to try and spin my way out of the red for the day. Without too much to say I did manage to double up in the half an hour left and leave the table with about £400ish hence cutting my losses slightly but not too much. I was really tight, especially OOP in the drawing games which seemed to pay off as I wasn't bleeding as many chips as I have in previous DC attempts.
Tomorrow, I'm going to wake up really late, get my stuff together and head to DTD for the £85 tournament. If any non-hold'em games start I'll play them until I get bored then drive back down south for the week. Let's see if I can have a sick heater tomorrow to pull this week back into the black!
Thursday, 18 June 2009
DTD cash session
Hey!
I arrived at DTD today at about 10pm ish and sat straight down in a rather nitty cash game. Most of the regs were sitting, but as one of the higher buyin tournaments had only started an hour before, most of the fishier players weren't at the cash tables yet. So it was a slow start. Couple that with me being card dead and not much happened for the first hour.
An interesting hand did come up however, when at £1/£2 NLHE I got 4 6 of hearts in the small blind. The game had started to liven up a little now and an EP raiser pumped it up to £12 which got 5 callers. I called in the small blind as did the big blind.
The flop came Jh 5c 7s. Thus giving me an open ended straight draw. I checked, there was a bet of £30 and 1 call. Pretty good odds for me to hit so I called too.
The turn gave the 5h giving me an open ender and a flush draw. However, the board was now paired meaning I was drawing dead to anyone who had a set/full house.
The flop better then shoved in for his last £110 into the £200ish pot. The other caller who is a very competent player, then tanked for about 5 minutes before making the call. Here is the interesting part.
The original better I was sure was on complete air here. He was well on the way to being drunk and physically slumped in his chair when the caller eventually tank called. I was really sure he was weak here. If I was wrong though, this would be an expensive lesson.
Now the caller is a very competent professional who seems to beat these games for a decent profit. There is no way he would tank with a boat here and he certainly wouldn't be calling this with a similar straight draw to me. Therefore his range was almost exclusively top pair hands like AJ/KJ.
If my reads were correct then, I wasn't drawing dead and any heart/3/8 would win me the pot. With about £500-£650 in the pot with my remaining £140 I made the call and spiked the 8 hearts on the river. Luckily this time my read's were right as the original better showed a4off for complete air and the caller mucked stating he had a jack. That was really a nice feeling knowing I made the correct read.
I did however reshove in my last £30-£40 on the turn which was probably a mistake though, as if the river was a brick I could have folded saving me that and I was pretty sure that the competent player would have called with his entire range on the river if I had made my hand. Ahh well.
The £2/£2 PLO game started shortly after in which I preceded to loose a 60/40 and then a 40/60 for £300ish. After the game started to tighten up we changed the game to 4/5/6 omaha (meaning the button chooses how many cards we play with on his go).
I was a bit stuck on the table so felt more inclined to choose 6 at this point. We were also quite short handed and so the straddles got going :).
The main hand of interest was when I was on the button. The blinds went £2/£2/£4/£8 and I straddled the button to £16. This was a pretty obvious move as it's definately +ev to be making larger pots in position. I got dealt AsKcQcQsQdJd for a pretty sick starting hand in 6 card omaha. There were two callers of my straddle and repopped it to £70 when we were all about £250 deep effective.
I got two callers for a ~£220 pot. The flop came 3s5s6s giving me the nut flush. The action went check, shove for £180 and I reshoved my stack. He had 66xxxx and I managed to hold and the turn and river didn't pair. Happy days indeed :)
Overall it was a really good night with me profiting just over £300. Pretty swingy as usual, but what do you expect! I'll be returning on Friday/Sat/Sunday night before heading back down to Poole again on Monday morning.
I arrived at DTD today at about 10pm ish and sat straight down in a rather nitty cash game. Most of the regs were sitting, but as one of the higher buyin tournaments had only started an hour before, most of the fishier players weren't at the cash tables yet. So it was a slow start. Couple that with me being card dead and not much happened for the first hour.
An interesting hand did come up however, when at £1/£2 NLHE I got 4 6 of hearts in the small blind. The game had started to liven up a little now and an EP raiser pumped it up to £12 which got 5 callers. I called in the small blind as did the big blind.
The flop came Jh 5c 7s. Thus giving me an open ended straight draw. I checked, there was a bet of £30 and 1 call. Pretty good odds for me to hit so I called too.
The turn gave the 5h giving me an open ender and a flush draw. However, the board was now paired meaning I was drawing dead to anyone who had a set/full house.
The flop better then shoved in for his last £110 into the £200ish pot. The other caller who is a very competent player, then tanked for about 5 minutes before making the call. Here is the interesting part.
The original better I was sure was on complete air here. He was well on the way to being drunk and physically slumped in his chair when the caller eventually tank called. I was really sure he was weak here. If I was wrong though, this would be an expensive lesson.
Now the caller is a very competent professional who seems to beat these games for a decent profit. There is no way he would tank with a boat here and he certainly wouldn't be calling this with a similar straight draw to me. Therefore his range was almost exclusively top pair hands like AJ/KJ.
If my reads were correct then, I wasn't drawing dead and any heart/3/8 would win me the pot. With about £500-£650 in the pot with my remaining £140 I made the call and spiked the 8 hearts on the river. Luckily this time my read's were right as the original better showed a4off for complete air and the caller mucked stating he had a jack. That was really a nice feeling knowing I made the correct read.
I did however reshove in my last £30-£40 on the turn which was probably a mistake though, as if the river was a brick I could have folded saving me that and I was pretty sure that the competent player would have called with his entire range on the river if I had made my hand. Ahh well.
The £2/£2 PLO game started shortly after in which I preceded to loose a 60/40 and then a 40/60 for £300ish. After the game started to tighten up we changed the game to 4/5/6 omaha (meaning the button chooses how many cards we play with on his go).
I was a bit stuck on the table so felt more inclined to choose 6 at this point. We were also quite short handed and so the straddles got going :).
The main hand of interest was when I was on the button. The blinds went £2/£2/£4/£8 and I straddled the button to £16. This was a pretty obvious move as it's definately +ev to be making larger pots in position. I got dealt AsKcQcQsQdJd for a pretty sick starting hand in 6 card omaha. There were two callers of my straddle and repopped it to £70 when we were all about £250 deep effective.
I got two callers for a ~£220 pot. The flop came 3s5s6s giving me the nut flush. The action went check, shove for £180 and I reshoved my stack. He had 66xxxx and I managed to hold and the turn and river didn't pair. Happy days indeed :)
Overall it was a really good night with me profiting just over £300. Pretty swingy as usual, but what do you expect! I'll be returning on Friday/Sat/Sunday night before heading back down to Poole again on Monday morning.
Wednesday, 17 June 2009
Back in Nottingham, Playing PLO
Hey!
After my blog post last night at about 4am, I thought fuck it, I'm not tired due to waking up so late. So I packed my bags and drove up to Nottingham leaving the house at 4:30am. The journey up was really really good. I'll have to do it again. There were like no cars on the road and it was such an amazing sun rise, with mist in the fields. Probably my fastest drive to Nottingham ever so that was nice. I got in at around 7:30am and managed to get some good sleep.
The evening was spent chilling with friends and smoking shisha. I also loaded up a few PLO tables. I tried to play on Ongame but the new software is sort of tilting and obviously not working correctly yet. After a few attempts I couldn't get my PTO and hud working so I thought screw it and played on stars.
For the first time in a while I managed to pull up a 3 buy-in profit of $150 over the 320 hands I played 2-tabling the game. I really tried to focus and get reads and look at all of the big pots whilst trying to put players on ranges when I wasn't in the hands. I'm quite happy with my preflop hand selection now, but my post-flop still needs a load of work.
One of my larger leaks is spewing more in medium sized pots, like double barrelling too much and stuff which just doesn't seem to be working at these stakes/plo. I think a lot of people if they have a strong draw will try to see it through so I saved a lot of $ in non-showdown pots.
Other than that I had one big pot I lost which was a bit of a cold-deck: http://weaktight.com/1208909. You hear about some people folding the second nuts and stuff like this, but I don't think I'm good enough yet and I don't think at 25c/50c that would be too profitable as people get it in with a much wider range than this. I wonder about betting the turn, but I figured this vs particular opponent a large part of his range would be broadway wraps and althought I wouldn't hate getting check-raised all in on the turn, I certainly wouldn't be fist-pumping. Meh, I'll talk to a few people see what they think about the turn play.
So yeah, really happy with the session today. Maybe I can beat these games after-all!
After my blog post last night at about 4am, I thought fuck it, I'm not tired due to waking up so late. So I packed my bags and drove up to Nottingham leaving the house at 4:30am. The journey up was really really good. I'll have to do it again. There were like no cars on the road and it was such an amazing sun rise, with mist in the fields. Probably my fastest drive to Nottingham ever so that was nice. I got in at around 7:30am and managed to get some good sleep.
The evening was spent chilling with friends and smoking shisha. I also loaded up a few PLO tables. I tried to play on Ongame but the new software is sort of tilting and obviously not working correctly yet. After a few attempts I couldn't get my PTO and hud working so I thought screw it and played on stars.
For the first time in a while I managed to pull up a 3 buy-in profit of $150 over the 320 hands I played 2-tabling the game. I really tried to focus and get reads and look at all of the big pots whilst trying to put players on ranges when I wasn't in the hands. I'm quite happy with my preflop hand selection now, but my post-flop still needs a load of work.
One of my larger leaks is spewing more in medium sized pots, like double barrelling too much and stuff which just doesn't seem to be working at these stakes/plo. I think a lot of people if they have a strong draw will try to see it through so I saved a lot of $ in non-showdown pots.
Other than that I had one big pot I lost which was a bit of a cold-deck: http://weaktight.com/1208909. You hear about some people folding the second nuts and stuff like this, but I don't think I'm good enough yet and I don't think at 25c/50c that would be too profitable as people get it in with a much wider range than this. I wonder about betting the turn, but I figured this vs particular opponent a large part of his range would be broadway wraps and althought I wouldn't hate getting check-raised all in on the turn, I certainly wouldn't be fist-pumping. Meh, I'll talk to a few people see what they think about the turn play.
So yeah, really happy with the session today. Maybe I can beat these games after-all!
Tuesday, 16 June 2009
Final table $109 and Real China
Hey!
Today was kind of weird. After my mamoth session yesterday finishing at 8am, I found myself waking to my phone ringing at 5pm the following day. Woops, day well spent I see...
A few mates wondered if I wanted to check out this all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet in Poole which was doing a half price offer for a measly £5.99. So I showered, got out of bed and drove to my mates and a few of us tried out the restaurant.
For £5.99 you don't expect much, granted. But come on. The Real China? How ironic do you want to be. I went to China last summer on holiday and tried the local cuisine and this shit didn't even compare. I mean in China they don't even have prawn crackers or sweet and sour chicken, but this place was mainly serving chips, onion rings, waffles (?), rice and a few sauces. For dessert the very authentic chocolate cake with tinned fruit was available.
Then again, what did I honestly expect for a fiver in England?
We went back to Chris' and decided to grind out some more poker. I loaded tournies up on iPoker, Boss and Party. The session went pretty badily on the whole after I was the exact bubble bubble in three tournaments. But due to my play style on the bubble this is somewhat expected! Ahh well :)
I did however get deep in the $10 rebuy on iPoker coming 22/1400 for $280 and came 9/113 on party poker in the $109/$12k gtd for $336 resulting in quite a break even day.
The party poker tournaments play VERY differently than a lot of the other tournaments. As for one the antes are ridiculously small. I basically played a strategy very similar to my friends which grind the 45 man sng's on full tilt (which don't have antes). This is a much tighter style where it's not as criminal folding down much lower than 10bb's and there is much less emphasis on stealing blinds.
In the end I ran my 9bb stack with pocket 7's into the big blinds Queens so that was pretty standard but I look forward to making more deep runs in this tourny and similar ones on party poker in the future.
I'll be having a break from online MTT grind for about a week as I'm heading up to Nottingham tomorrow to spend some time chilling with friends and sort uni stuff out for next year. I expect there will also be a few trips to Dusk Til Dawn to delve into the PLO game too, so let's hope I run good and can win a few buy-ins while I'm there! To be fair though, the hours I've put in this past week would probably challenge a lot of city workers too. Or it feels that way anyway!
So for next week as I've got a load to fit in, I plan to:
1) Fix my car in Nottingham as I've slacked since I've been home
2) Sort out/finalise accommodation for next year
3) Write 3 articles for a poker website (I know basically what I'm writing already)
4) Go shopping for a couple of polo shirts, flip flops, trainers and a watch in Nottingham with some of my poker money.
5) Chill out/see friends/get to the gym/have fun!
That will do for now :). Bankroll is now around £12,000 and I'm in a great mood! Hope everyone is doing well! Cheers
Today was kind of weird. After my mamoth session yesterday finishing at 8am, I found myself waking to my phone ringing at 5pm the following day. Woops, day well spent I see...
A few mates wondered if I wanted to check out this all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet in Poole which was doing a half price offer for a measly £5.99. So I showered, got out of bed and drove to my mates and a few of us tried out the restaurant.
For £5.99 you don't expect much, granted. But come on. The Real China? How ironic do you want to be. I went to China last summer on holiday and tried the local cuisine and this shit didn't even compare. I mean in China they don't even have prawn crackers or sweet and sour chicken, but this place was mainly serving chips, onion rings, waffles (?), rice and a few sauces. For dessert the very authentic chocolate cake with tinned fruit was available.
Then again, what did I honestly expect for a fiver in England?
We went back to Chris' and decided to grind out some more poker. I loaded tournies up on iPoker, Boss and Party. The session went pretty badily on the whole after I was the exact bubble bubble in three tournaments. But due to my play style on the bubble this is somewhat expected! Ahh well :)
I did however get deep in the $10 rebuy on iPoker coming 22/1400 for $280 and came 9/113 on party poker in the $109/$12k gtd for $336 resulting in quite a break even day.
The party poker tournaments play VERY differently than a lot of the other tournaments. As for one the antes are ridiculously small. I basically played a strategy very similar to my friends which grind the 45 man sng's on full tilt (which don't have antes). This is a much tighter style where it's not as criminal folding down much lower than 10bb's and there is much less emphasis on stealing blinds.
In the end I ran my 9bb stack with pocket 7's into the big blinds Queens so that was pretty standard but I look forward to making more deep runs in this tourny and similar ones on party poker in the future.
I'll be having a break from online MTT grind for about a week as I'm heading up to Nottingham tomorrow to spend some time chilling with friends and sort uni stuff out for next year. I expect there will also be a few trips to Dusk Til Dawn to delve into the PLO game too, so let's hope I run good and can win a few buy-ins while I'm there! To be fair though, the hours I've put in this past week would probably challenge a lot of city workers too. Or it feels that way anyway!
So for next week as I've got a load to fit in, I plan to:
1) Fix my car in Nottingham as I've slacked since I've been home
2) Sort out/finalise accommodation for next year
3) Write 3 articles for a poker website (I know basically what I'm writing already)
4) Go shopping for a couple of polo shirts, flip flops, trainers and a watch in Nottingham with some of my poker money.
5) Chill out/see friends/get to the gym/have fun!
That will do for now :). Bankroll is now around £12,000 and I'm in a great mood! Hope everyone is doing well! Cheers
Monday, 15 June 2009
12 hour session on stars/full tilt
Bink Bink Bink.
Woops, down about £500 today as I really got nothing going at all. I registered for every tournament from 7pm to 3am from $11-$109 and $3r to $22r so I had a lot going on! Alas, the card God's thought I had enough success this week so would give everyone else a chance instead.
It was a pretty repeat occurrence today that I would have 6-12 tournaments up, be getting relatively deep at like the 300/600 stage and then either lose a flip or get a beat and go out. Thus leaving me 5-11 tabling a load of games in the 50/100 blind stage. Yawnn...
I was however quite impressed that I managed to maintain my concentration throughout the period as it is a long time to be staring at cards. I did feel at a point when every singe cbet was being check/raised and every raise 3bet that I could do with a 15 minute chill-out. But that's just not an option if you want to be an MTT grinder!
In the end I cashed in 3 tournaments out of the 30-40ish I played. I mincashed a $75/$22000 gtd on full tilt and cashed in a $3rebuy for $45. The other tournament I did manage to final table was the $22rebuy/$15,000 gtd:
I've got mixed emotions about this tournament really. On the one hand, the structure was really nice and it was great to be in the money with 50bb's deep. That was really good. But, the standard of play was by far the best that I've been in.
I OPR'd all of the remaining players once we got down to the final 2 tables and all of them were winning high stakes grinders. It was literally ridiculous. About 70% of pots were 3bet and there was constant 4betting going on in about 30% of the hands. It was at the point where it would fold to me on the button and I'de have JQss and just want to fold it as I knew that somebody would reshove from the blinds.
This was really quite different from what I've been used to and as such I adapted differently. Primarily by actually tightening my late position raises and raising more from early position (which was getting 3bet less). And secondly by 4betting at a much greater frequency. There were some quite nerve wracking moments when with 20 to go I 4bet shoved with 10 8 suited to the guy on my left which had literally 3bet every hand I had opened.
Despite that, I managed to whittle my way down to the final table coming in as 9/9 with about 20 big blinds, just below half the average. I made a few early plays which bounced my stack to 30 big blinds and being 7/9.
After a while I found myself with AQo in the SB with 19bb's and a late position open and a flat (vs. almost anyone other than this one guy I would be concerned but he was flatting a ton with all kinds of junk). I reshipped it and after the original raiser started his timebank I thought I was good as AK insta re-ships. Bleh, he slowrolled pocket kings and I didn't improve, thus cashing for just over $300.
Although I do enjoy playing on stars and full tilt I think I will probably keep that for either a Friday or Saturday night if I'm in grinding MTT's. I think on Sunday coupled with the huge fields a lot of cash games players come to and try their luck in tournaments. It's just one theory, but tonight I don't think I've ever been 3bet so much in my life. As I got deeper I have to say that the fields, even in the $5rebuys were tough. I believe this as if you ever play midstakes cash online you will see the amount of 3betting that goes on, it's quite mind boggling and I think a lot of cash players automatically implement this in their MTT game. Which makes playing against a lot more challenging.
I think then until I am rolled for the majors ($215 buyin tournies), I'll stick to the euro sites on the Sundays for softer and smaller fields.
Hope everyone else had a good Sunday anyway! Mine was fun, despite not being too profitable! Cheers.
Woops, down about £500 today as I really got nothing going at all. I registered for every tournament from 7pm to 3am from $11-$109 and $3r to $22r so I had a lot going on! Alas, the card God's thought I had enough success this week so would give everyone else a chance instead.
It was a pretty repeat occurrence today that I would have 6-12 tournaments up, be getting relatively deep at like the 300/600 stage and then either lose a flip or get a beat and go out. Thus leaving me 5-11 tabling a load of games in the 50/100 blind stage. Yawnn...
I was however quite impressed that I managed to maintain my concentration throughout the period as it is a long time to be staring at cards. I did feel at a point when every singe cbet was being check/raised and every raise 3bet that I could do with a 15 minute chill-out. But that's just not an option if you want to be an MTT grinder!
In the end I cashed in 3 tournaments out of the 30-40ish I played. I mincashed a $75/$22000 gtd on full tilt and cashed in a $3rebuy for $45. The other tournament I did manage to final table was the $22rebuy/$15,000 gtd:
I've got mixed emotions about this tournament really. On the one hand, the structure was really nice and it was great to be in the money with 50bb's deep. That was really good. But, the standard of play was by far the best that I've been in.
I OPR'd all of the remaining players once we got down to the final 2 tables and all of them were winning high stakes grinders. It was literally ridiculous. About 70% of pots were 3bet and there was constant 4betting going on in about 30% of the hands. It was at the point where it would fold to me on the button and I'de have JQss and just want to fold it as I knew that somebody would reshove from the blinds.
This was really quite different from what I've been used to and as such I adapted differently. Primarily by actually tightening my late position raises and raising more from early position (which was getting 3bet less). And secondly by 4betting at a much greater frequency. There were some quite nerve wracking moments when with 20 to go I 4bet shoved with 10 8 suited to the guy on my left which had literally 3bet every hand I had opened.
Despite that, I managed to whittle my way down to the final table coming in as 9/9 with about 20 big blinds, just below half the average. I made a few early plays which bounced my stack to 30 big blinds and being 7/9.
After a while I found myself with AQo in the SB with 19bb's and a late position open and a flat (vs. almost anyone other than this one guy I would be concerned but he was flatting a ton with all kinds of junk). I reshipped it and after the original raiser started his timebank I thought I was good as AK insta re-ships. Bleh, he slowrolled pocket kings and I didn't improve, thus cashing for just over $300.
Although I do enjoy playing on stars and full tilt I think I will probably keep that for either a Friday or Saturday night if I'm in grinding MTT's. I think on Sunday coupled with the huge fields a lot of cash games players come to and try their luck in tournaments. It's just one theory, but tonight I don't think I've ever been 3bet so much in my life. As I got deeper I have to say that the fields, even in the $5rebuys were tough. I believe this as if you ever play midstakes cash online you will see the amount of 3betting that goes on, it's quite mind boggling and I think a lot of cash players automatically implement this in their MTT game. Which makes playing against a lot more challenging.
I think then until I am rolled for the majors ($215 buyin tournies), I'll stick to the euro sites on the Sundays for softer and smaller fields.
Hope everyone else had a good Sunday anyway! Mine was fun, despite not being too profitable! Cheers.
Sunday, 14 June 2009
Two Final Tables - Two Wins!
Hey!
Tonight I decided to go back to my roots and load up a selection of tournaments on the Boss/Party and iPoker networks.
I managed to luckily get some really deep runs in a few tournaments including the €27/€4000gtd on Boss and the $22/$5000 gtd on iPoker. I had my usual set up of 15inch laptop connected to my 20inch external monitor. But wow was it messy tonight. At one point I was 13 tabling which on some sites like full tilt/stars is no hassle whatsoever. But on iPoker/Boss/Party, they don't like to make it too easy for ya! It was pretty manic most of the night trying not to time out on too many tables lol. I should either invest in another monitor or load less tournies next time as it was quite stressful to say the least!
Despite all this I did manage to get to those beloved final tables. The €27/€4000 on Boss (DTD Poker) is a really interesting tournament as there are 161 entrants but only 10 players get paid. This results in a really long bubble, which as you can see from the screen-shot I abused quite happily. That and winning a massive pot vs the other chip leader of-course! Hey, I never said you didn't need to run good to win these things!
So as I was the chip leader by quite a way, I kept the pressure on and managed to secure the win! Ship it!
Other than that, I had 2 other tournaments left. The $55 on iPoker which I ft bubbled and the $22/$5000!
After a very swingy final table, I was left three way with a nit and a maniac bluffer. I figured that all I had to do was catch the bluffer doing what he does best and then slowly blind down the nit and put pressure on him. I managed to flop top two pair after about 5-10 minutes of backward and forward chip lending which then resulted in my opponent 3betting me all in with ace high. Must be nice indeed..Yes, yes it is.
I'm loving tournaments so much right now and I just hope this heater lasts all summer!
Tomorrow I'll be playing on stars/full tilt exclusively to see if I can rack up a decent score in one of their huge tournaments. I'll update as it goes! Cheers
Saturday, 13 June 2009
The Full Tilt Big Doubles
Hey!
Yesterday was pretty wild. It was my friends birthday and so a few mates decided to try out the new indoor paint-balling in Bournemouth. I was a little sceptical at first as I've always enjoyed outdoor paint-balling and thought that this indoor stuff would be more like quasar laser but with more hurt. But no, it was so so goddamn good.
The venue is some massive warehouse which is fully fitted out to replicate an abandoned city with cars/shops/houses in a Resident Evil style. Coupled with the lighting and smoke effects it really looked amazing. We were split into two groups and each assigned specific missions countering the other team. Too fun. I can't wait to go back again. The guns also had the ability to turn into Automatic Machine guns. There goes my 700 bullets haha! Spray and prey baby!
After the afternoon was spent crawling through rubble and trying to drill my mates in the face with paint, we headed to the beach for a BBQ and general mess-around. Surprisingly the weather managed to hold despite forecasts on the radio. Let's be honest, it probably wouldn't have stopped us anyway. The journey home found us making a stop-off at a house party only to find the house pretty trashed and most of the party-goers passed out. Meh, free alcohol, I'm never one to complain ;). It was getting on to about 1:30am ish and without knowing almost anyone at the party, my friends and I decided to head back home.
Being the typical degen I am, I really couldn't be bothered to sleep so early and instead loaded up some tables online on full tilt and pokerstars. Somehow out of all of this I managed to final table two on full tilt! What's even more surprising if that they are both parts of the same tournament with a shared jackpot! Ship it!
For those that don't know this is a $60+$9+$5 tournament. $60 goes directly to the prize pool, $9 goes to the jackpot and $5 is the rake. The jackpot is awarded for double cashes, double final tables and double wins. A double final table is 20% of the jackpot which last night was $19,000. Shame some other fish managed to come 8th and 9th in both hence "only" getting me around $1950 jackpot bonus! Haha who am I to complain?
This is definitely my biggest winning day on record at around a $6000 up-day. I'm really happy with it. The final tables were finishing at about 8am this morning so expectedly I was absolutely knackered. I'm still really happy with my play and have lots of confidence in my MTT play lately.
Tonight, as I've only just woken up at 4pm, I'll chill out for a bit and get some fresh air before starting a mini-session on the Euro sites soon.
Hope all is good!
Yesterday was pretty wild. It was my friends birthday and so a few mates decided to try out the new indoor paint-balling in Bournemouth. I was a little sceptical at first as I've always enjoyed outdoor paint-balling and thought that this indoor stuff would be more like quasar laser but with more hurt. But no, it was so so goddamn good.
The venue is some massive warehouse which is fully fitted out to replicate an abandoned city with cars/shops/houses in a Resident Evil style. Coupled with the lighting and smoke effects it really looked amazing. We were split into two groups and each assigned specific missions countering the other team. Too fun. I can't wait to go back again. The guns also had the ability to turn into Automatic Machine guns. There goes my 700 bullets haha! Spray and prey baby!
After the afternoon was spent crawling through rubble and trying to drill my mates in the face with paint, we headed to the beach for a BBQ and general mess-around. Surprisingly the weather managed to hold despite forecasts on the radio. Let's be honest, it probably wouldn't have stopped us anyway. The journey home found us making a stop-off at a house party only to find the house pretty trashed and most of the party-goers passed out. Meh, free alcohol, I'm never one to complain ;). It was getting on to about 1:30am ish and without knowing almost anyone at the party, my friends and I decided to head back home.
Being the typical degen I am, I really couldn't be bothered to sleep so early and instead loaded up some tables online on full tilt and pokerstars. Somehow out of all of this I managed to final table two on full tilt! What's even more surprising if that they are both parts of the same tournament with a shared jackpot! Ship it!
For those that don't know this is a $60+$9+$5 tournament. $60 goes directly to the prize pool, $9 goes to the jackpot and $5 is the rake. The jackpot is awarded for double cashes, double final tables and double wins. A double final table is 20% of the jackpot which last night was $19,000. Shame some other fish managed to come 8th and 9th in both hence "only" getting me around $1950 jackpot bonus! Haha who am I to complain?
This is definitely my biggest winning day on record at around a $6000 up-day. I'm really happy with it. The final tables were finishing at about 8am this morning so expectedly I was absolutely knackered. I'm still really happy with my play and have lots of confidence in my MTT play lately.
Tonight, as I've only just woken up at 4pm, I'll chill out for a bit and get some fresh air before starting a mini-session on the Euro sites soon.
Hope all is good!
Friday, 12 June 2009
PLO Success / PLO Failure
Hey!
Despite my continued failings at 25c/50c PLO I seem to do better with the tournies!
This afternoon I went around to Marlow's house to pull of quite an epic poker marathon. I started with the intention of getting some really good volume in at the PLO tables, but yet again after 2 tabling and getting good reads on my opponents, really thinking through the various options in the two hands. I'm still yet to pull a profit. In fact today I was down several buy-ins. But I will keep at it. I've been watching a lot of the hands that are going on after I've folded trying to put people on hand ranges etc. and I'm still shocked by the quality of some peoples play, but still I can't seem to beat the game.
I have the intention of investing in a PLO coach starting from the 22nd of this month. I've never had a poker-coach before partly due to having a small bankroll and not being able to afford one but also for the fact that I like figuring things out for myself. Nevertheless, although I am over-rolled for these $0.25/$0.50 games, I still really don't like loosing and often feel mid-hand that I'm pretty lost for what to do. So I'm going to swallow my pride on this one and see if a coach can help me out. Before then though, I'm going to try to play a few hundred hands a day of solid poker and clue myself up with as many PLO videos as I can find.
After the disheartening start to the marathon session. By about 7pm I thought fuck it, I'll load up some tournies. That's something that I feel I know what I'm doing at least.
I only had my 15inch screen laptop with me which made playing on iPoker/Boss/OnGame impossible. I unhappily reloaded my full tilt account and topped up my poker stars account and went mental registering for everything from 7pm - 12pm in the $5rebuy-$30rebuy // $8 freezeout - $75 freezeout range. And I'm not going to lie. It was really good fun to play on decent software again with good structures and guarantees. It really is such a shame that the fields are on the whole jinormous leading to sick variance, and the player pool on the whole is significantly better than the European counter-parts.
My main success as documented is the 2nd place finish in a $24 PLO freezeout and a couple of top 100 finishes in small rebuy tournaments.
So it was about 3am when I was down to my last couple of tables. Me and Marlow were chilling in his living room literally in paranoia of making too much noise clicking the mouse so as to wake his parents up. Regardless of how much we tried and literally didn't even whisper, his Dad angrily stormed into the living room ordering us to leave and in polite terms "shut the fuck up". Woops. Despite keeping really quiet I do feel bad for giving his dad some hassle as he shouldn't really expect to have guests of his son staying until 3am. But then I was stuck in a bit of a situation. I was deep in a couple of tournies. Woops.
The main being a $5rebuy on full tilt with about 65 players left. Oh shit. So I jumped into my car and put the pedal to the metal in a serious way so as to not be too blinded out by the time I got home. The usual 15 minute journey only lasted around 9 minutes, but that still dented my chip stack from around 88,000 to 46,000. Woops. As soon as I sat back in I was dealt AKss in the SB with my remaining 23bb's. It folded around to the CO who opened and I reshoved. He woke up with AA's. GG me!
Look's like I was never destined to final table that tournament!
Tomorrow I'm up quite early going indoor paintballing, and then, weather permitting a BBQ on the beach in the evening. It should be a fun day. Hope all is good! Gl on the felt.
Despite my continued failings at 25c/50c PLO I seem to do better with the tournies!
This afternoon I went around to Marlow's house to pull of quite an epic poker marathon. I started with the intention of getting some really good volume in at the PLO tables, but yet again after 2 tabling and getting good reads on my opponents, really thinking through the various options in the two hands. I'm still yet to pull a profit. In fact today I was down several buy-ins. But I will keep at it. I've been watching a lot of the hands that are going on after I've folded trying to put people on hand ranges etc. and I'm still shocked by the quality of some peoples play, but still I can't seem to beat the game.
I have the intention of investing in a PLO coach starting from the 22nd of this month. I've never had a poker-coach before partly due to having a small bankroll and not being able to afford one but also for the fact that I like figuring things out for myself. Nevertheless, although I am over-rolled for these $0.25/$0.50 games, I still really don't like loosing and often feel mid-hand that I'm pretty lost for what to do. So I'm going to swallow my pride on this one and see if a coach can help me out. Before then though, I'm going to try to play a few hundred hands a day of solid poker and clue myself up with as many PLO videos as I can find.
After the disheartening start to the marathon session. By about 7pm I thought fuck it, I'll load up some tournies. That's something that I feel I know what I'm doing at least.
I only had my 15inch screen laptop with me which made playing on iPoker/Boss/OnGame impossible. I unhappily reloaded my full tilt account and topped up my poker stars account and went mental registering for everything from 7pm - 12pm in the $5rebuy-$30rebuy // $8 freezeout - $75 freezeout range. And I'm not going to lie. It was really good fun to play on decent software again with good structures and guarantees. It really is such a shame that the fields are on the whole jinormous leading to sick variance, and the player pool on the whole is significantly better than the European counter-parts.
My main success as documented is the 2nd place finish in a $24 PLO freezeout and a couple of top 100 finishes in small rebuy tournaments.
So it was about 3am when I was down to my last couple of tables. Me and Marlow were chilling in his living room literally in paranoia of making too much noise clicking the mouse so as to wake his parents up. Regardless of how much we tried and literally didn't even whisper, his Dad angrily stormed into the living room ordering us to leave and in polite terms "shut the fuck up". Woops. Despite keeping really quiet I do feel bad for giving his dad some hassle as he shouldn't really expect to have guests of his son staying until 3am. But then I was stuck in a bit of a situation. I was deep in a couple of tournies. Woops.
The main being a $5rebuy on full tilt with about 65 players left. Oh shit. So I jumped into my car and put the pedal to the metal in a serious way so as to not be too blinded out by the time I got home. The usual 15 minute journey only lasted around 9 minutes, but that still dented my chip stack from around 88,000 to 46,000. Woops. As soon as I sat back in I was dealt AKss in the SB with my remaining 23bb's. It folded around to the CO who opened and I reshoved. He woke up with AA's. GG me!
Look's like I was never destined to final table that tournament!
Tomorrow I'm up quite early going indoor paintballing, and then, weather permitting a BBQ on the beach in the evening. It should be a fun day. Hope all is good! Gl on the felt.
Thursday, 11 June 2009
Always blowwwwwin Bubbles...
Hey,
Tonight was a bit frustrating in the end. I managed to come 13th/13th/17th/19th in four of the bigger tournaments of the night. I was playing my usual aggressive strategy but didn't seem to be able to win the vital flips/all in's required to get to a deep final table. Sigh, but I guess that's just part of the MTT life eh! ;-)
So regardless of quite a loss on the MTT front, I did infact manage to pull through a profit today in PLO winning a couple of buy-ins which was quite nice.
Tonight I was grinding the MTT's out around my friends house who has such a sick sick set-up. He has a 30inch Dell monitor with a 20inch (?) extension on the side and can thus 16 table on full tilt really easily. It's really interesting seeing his side of view to being a winner in the 45 mans on full tilt. Although they initially seem to play very similarly to MTT's they differ quite a lot and I'm sure a lot of the tactics he successfully implements to crush those games just won't apply to MTT's. I think MTT's with antes rely a lot more on aggressive play and bullying rather than preserving chips for big all in showdowns. However, I may be completely off here!
Regardless, it was nice seeing him again and his sick set-up. Definately a name to watch in the future (cjcgrafic on full tilt - sharkscope him!).
Hope all is good,
Peace
Wednesday, 10 June 2009
Back down south
Hey!
I'm back down south now that my exams have finished for a week or so, before heading up North again. I've got a few things to sort out including:
-Fixing my car
-Government Uni grants for next year
-Summer holiday plans
As well as the fun stuff like seeing my mates, heading to the beach and hopefully playing a lot of poker!
I've withdrawn quite a bit from my bankroll this last week to help pay for living expenses and as such I'm down to £8500 again. This is still on course for my yearly targets, and I really hope I can get some good grinding going to build this back up over £10,000 again. Ahh, that number felt so good! Then again I'll also be happy with some of the new clothes and eating out more that I can afford after this bankroll withdrawal!
Anyway, I plan on studying up more and more on PLO to beat the 25c/50c level. I've played 4000 hands so far and I'm down $520 which isn't the best of starts lol! I'm trying to really focus on improving my game optimistically rather than defend my plays as I think this is the best way to improve.
Tonight I'll be going to chris' house where myself, Marlow and Chris will get the MTT grind on. I'll play on party/boss/ipoker and OnGame up to $75 tournies and I expect those two will be grinding out the $11/45 man tournies on Full Tilt. Best of luck to us all!
I'll update later with how I get on!
I'm back down south now that my exams have finished for a week or so, before heading up North again. I've got a few things to sort out including:
-Fixing my car
-Government Uni grants for next year
-Summer holiday plans
As well as the fun stuff like seeing my mates, heading to the beach and hopefully playing a lot of poker!
I've withdrawn quite a bit from my bankroll this last week to help pay for living expenses and as such I'm down to £8500 again. This is still on course for my yearly targets, and I really hope I can get some good grinding going to build this back up over £10,000 again. Ahh, that number felt so good! Then again I'll also be happy with some of the new clothes and eating out more that I can afford after this bankroll withdrawal!
Anyway, I plan on studying up more and more on PLO to beat the 25c/50c level. I've played 4000 hands so far and I'm down $520 which isn't the best of starts lol! I'm trying to really focus on improving my game optimistically rather than defend my plays as I think this is the best way to improve.
Tonight I'll be going to chris' house where myself, Marlow and Chris will get the MTT grind on. I'll play on party/boss/ipoker and OnGame up to $75 tournies and I expect those two will be grinding out the $11/45 man tournies on Full Tilt. Best of luck to us all!
I'll update later with how I get on!
Monday, 8 June 2009
One long long session on the felt
Hey guys,
Today was a bit mad. I arrived at Dusk Til Dawn at about 1:45pm for the 2 O'clock £150 tournament and I left the club at 4am. So that was in fact a pretty heavy 14 hour-session. Any my word was it swingy.
In the end I managed to have my first big loosing day at DTD down about £650 (including the tournament buy-in). Although this is only 3 buy-ins I had numerous 5 buy-in swings today. Yes, the games were mental.
The funny thing about today is that I really think I played well and kept a focused, patient game throughout. Especially in the £150 tournament where I was slightly unfortunate to find myself in a large pot holding AK on an AK9 board against pocket 9's. But hey, that's variance folks! At least the guy who had the 9's went on to win it so I guess the chips went into good use ;)
Other than that, I had a lot of success on the NLHE games but managed to lose every 60/40 and 70/30 that I got myself into at PLO. Nearly all to the same player, Pete Linton grr... Over the past two months he has ran like God against me. I just can't win a pot that we go all in vs the bloke!
Anyway, it got to around 1am and I was around even despite the PLO swings. The table had lost most of the donators, and a new game of £2/£2 Dealers Choice opened up with quite a nice line-up of players. So I grabbed myself a seat and got into the thick of the action.
In the end I lost 3 x £200 buy-ins during various games which was a little frustrating. Originally I had planned to start taking some shots at the £5/£5 dealers choice game as it is true a lot of rich donators do play them but I think there is just too much gamble in the games and too little skill-edge. Here are the pro's and con's
Reasons to play the DC:
1) Rich gamblers
2) Fun mixture of games which stops the repetition
3) There is usually really good table banter which makes it enjoyable to play at
Reasons not to play:
1) Games like 6 card Omaha/Paduki/Super-Stud are all that really run. These games just don't seem to have much skill at all. I really think you would have a tough time gaining a considerable edge in the long run.
2) Sick sick swings due to the nature of the games
3) Because a lot of the games like super-stud and 6 card Omaha hi-lo take so long, I think you get about 7-20 hands in an hour. Which is pretty bad.
4) A lot of the older guys really are a lot better than me at the stud games. I don't enjoy them that much and probably see myself being out-matched here.
Therefore I think I will in the future try to stick to the £2/£2 PLO game as I still believe there is a lot of dead-money to be had and it is more enjoyable to play the NLHE live. I will also start to give the £5/£5 PLO games a shot when my bankroll increases to £15,000 but that depends on the line-up too.
I'm going to withdraw about £300ish from my bankroll to buy some summer clothes before I leave Nottingham. Then I'll be off home on Tuesday afternoon for a week. Should be nice but not sure how much poker will be fit in during the next few days!
GL at the felt all.
Today was a bit mad. I arrived at Dusk Til Dawn at about 1:45pm for the 2 O'clock £150 tournament and I left the club at 4am. So that was in fact a pretty heavy 14 hour-session. Any my word was it swingy.
In the end I managed to have my first big loosing day at DTD down about £650 (including the tournament buy-in). Although this is only 3 buy-ins I had numerous 5 buy-in swings today. Yes, the games were mental.
The funny thing about today is that I really think I played well and kept a focused, patient game throughout. Especially in the £150 tournament where I was slightly unfortunate to find myself in a large pot holding AK on an AK9 board against pocket 9's. But hey, that's variance folks! At least the guy who had the 9's went on to win it so I guess the chips went into good use ;)
Other than that, I had a lot of success on the NLHE games but managed to lose every 60/40 and 70/30 that I got myself into at PLO. Nearly all to the same player, Pete Linton grr... Over the past two months he has ran like God against me. I just can't win a pot that we go all in vs the bloke!
Anyway, it got to around 1am and I was around even despite the PLO swings. The table had lost most of the donators, and a new game of £2/£2 Dealers Choice opened up with quite a nice line-up of players. So I grabbed myself a seat and got into the thick of the action.
In the end I lost 3 x £200 buy-ins during various games which was a little frustrating. Originally I had planned to start taking some shots at the £5/£5 dealers choice game as it is true a lot of rich donators do play them but I think there is just too much gamble in the games and too little skill-edge. Here are the pro's and con's
Reasons to play the DC:
1) Rich gamblers
2) Fun mixture of games which stops the repetition
3) There is usually really good table banter which makes it enjoyable to play at
Reasons not to play:
1) Games like 6 card Omaha/Paduki/Super-Stud are all that really run. These games just don't seem to have much skill at all. I really think you would have a tough time gaining a considerable edge in the long run.
2) Sick sick swings due to the nature of the games
3) Because a lot of the games like super-stud and 6 card Omaha hi-lo take so long, I think you get about 7-20 hands in an hour. Which is pretty bad.
4) A lot of the older guys really are a lot better than me at the stud games. I don't enjoy them that much and probably see myself being out-matched here.
Therefore I think I will in the future try to stick to the £2/£2 PLO game as I still believe there is a lot of dead-money to be had and it is more enjoyable to play the NLHE live. I will also start to give the £5/£5 PLO games a shot when my bankroll increases to £15,000 but that depends on the line-up too.
I'm going to withdraw about £300ish from my bankroll to buy some summer clothes before I leave Nottingham. Then I'll be off home on Tuesday afternoon for a week. Should be nice but not sure how much poker will be fit in during the next few days!
GL at the felt all.
Sunday, 7 June 2009
DTD £300, Just Missed Day 2
Hey,
The tournament got off to a really good start. There was one major donater on our table and I was lucky enough to become one of the chip leaders by the first break getting my stack up to 25,000 with the average at around 12,000. There were really no big hands, I seemed to be catching cards and people were just paying me off.
The most interesting hand has to be at 50/100 when I had about 12,000 chips. The donator playing every hand limped UTG and I isolated on the cut-off with KJo and we got heads up.
The flop came the somewhat uneventful 2c4c6d rainbow. He checked to me and I cbet and he called. I think at this point he could have a really wide range with any pair on the flop or maybe some spazzy overs.
The turn gave the Js giving the board a 246J with two clubs. He checked to me again and I bet out. This time he quickly check/raised my 1500 bet to 6500 leaving himself about 6000 left. Now I just couldn't figure out what hand he could have to do this. I figured he would never have AJ here as he was raising a fair bit pre and as such wouldn't have any over pair. Given he was quite aggressive he would have check/raised my flop bet with a set. I therefore figured him to have complete air here or a weaker jack in his range. I just hoped he didn't have something like J4, but felt that this was really quite unlikely.
So I jammed, he called and flipped over KJ as we split the pot.
I guess the hand isn't that interesting but that sort of sums up the tournament. It was really quite funny seeing everyone's reaction at the table though as this was by far the biggest pot and neither of us really had anything decent. From the first break onwards I went completely card dead. In a way I lost a little focus and found myself trying to save my dwindled stack but loosing more by cbetting dry boards but my opponent always seeming to hit.
Guess it was just one of those days! So in the end I busted on the final level of the day about 120/325.
For what its worth it was nice seeing Ant at the tournament today. He busted quite early getting it in as a firm favourite but to no hope and then hit the £1/£2 cash tables quite hard. I identified the donator from the tournament and he seems to have profited quite hard from the bloke. I left with him having an £800ish stack, so good going there!
Also big-up to Jon who despite seeming to run terribly at the 50p/£1 games seems to be slowly turning this around with healthy profits today and yesterday. Keep it up mate!
Tomorrow is the £150 tournament with £20k guaranteed prize pool. Hopefully I have a bit more success there!
GL all
The tournament got off to a really good start. There was one major donater on our table and I was lucky enough to become one of the chip leaders by the first break getting my stack up to 25,000 with the average at around 12,000. There were really no big hands, I seemed to be catching cards and people were just paying me off.
The most interesting hand has to be at 50/100 when I had about 12,000 chips. The donator playing every hand limped UTG and I isolated on the cut-off with KJo and we got heads up.
The flop came the somewhat uneventful 2c4c6d rainbow. He checked to me and I cbet and he called. I think at this point he could have a really wide range with any pair on the flop or maybe some spazzy overs.
The turn gave the Js giving the board a 246J with two clubs. He checked to me again and I bet out. This time he quickly check/raised my 1500 bet to 6500 leaving himself about 6000 left. Now I just couldn't figure out what hand he could have to do this. I figured he would never have AJ here as he was raising a fair bit pre and as such wouldn't have any over pair. Given he was quite aggressive he would have check/raised my flop bet with a set. I therefore figured him to have complete air here or a weaker jack in his range. I just hoped he didn't have something like J4, but felt that this was really quite unlikely.
So I jammed, he called and flipped over KJ as we split the pot.
I guess the hand isn't that interesting but that sort of sums up the tournament. It was really quite funny seeing everyone's reaction at the table though as this was by far the biggest pot and neither of us really had anything decent. From the first break onwards I went completely card dead. In a way I lost a little focus and found myself trying to save my dwindled stack but loosing more by cbetting dry boards but my opponent always seeming to hit.
Guess it was just one of those days! So in the end I busted on the final level of the day about 120/325.
For what its worth it was nice seeing Ant at the tournament today. He busted quite early getting it in as a firm favourite but to no hope and then hit the £1/£2 cash tables quite hard. I identified the donator from the tournament and he seems to have profited quite hard from the bloke. I left with him having an £800ish stack, so good going there!
Also big-up to Jon who despite seeming to run terribly at the 50p/£1 games seems to be slowly turning this around with healthy profits today and yesterday. Keep it up mate!
Tomorrow is the £150 tournament with £20k guaranteed prize pool. Hopefully I have a bit more success there!
GL all
Saturday, 6 June 2009
DTD Deepstack £330 and Online PLO
Hey!
Online PLO has been going a little slow lately. Seem to have hit a bit of a rough patch, but at the same time I'm sure my game is just covered in leaks. As a result, I've watched 2 videos on cardrunners and have been frequenting the 2p2 PLO forum and posting some of the hands that I was a little confused over.
However, as any poker player knows, beats happen and we just have to toss them aside and keep focused. I've been looking through my hands and here are a couple of the pots I messed up:
http://weaktight.com/1179110
In retrospect, I still can't believe I bet that turn. Although the 2h gave me some more nut outs, his range for check/calling the flop is so weighted to 46xx hands. He wasn't outrageously bad so probably wouldn't call here with 35xx and would raise the made straight. I think sets don't take this passive line but would instead bet out on the flop. And I rarely think he check calls with a A and 3 overs that much.
So I really should have checked back. When he jammed there was enough money to make the call, but I should never have got into that situation in the first place. Doh!
http://weaktight.com/1179113 This is the second hand.
I really think bet/folding the flop is a much better option as I have the Ace clubs as the flush blocker. My logic at the time was that a lot of the range people call 3bets pre with is J987 rundowns or qk109 etc. So I figured that I will get check/raise all in a ton here. Which would obviously suck.
Then on the turn when he leads into me when the 9 pairs, I think I'm either ahead or very far behind here. I called as I think a lot of people bluff here knowing that my hand is basically face-up and he thinks he can fold me off of AAxx sort of hands
The river was a pretty bad card for me, as other than 9xxx hands I think he could well play 10J hands in the same way. But in retrospect he would probably check/call with a 10J hand. So when he auto-shoved I was in a very tough spot and tank/folded. Obviously the wrong read in this instance!
Anyway, hope I start to win a few flips (and don't get too out-played) in the £330 starting in an hour! Right, I better get ready, good luck all!
Online PLO has been going a little slow lately. Seem to have hit a bit of a rough patch, but at the same time I'm sure my game is just covered in leaks. As a result, I've watched 2 videos on cardrunners and have been frequenting the 2p2 PLO forum and posting some of the hands that I was a little confused over.
However, as any poker player knows, beats happen and we just have to toss them aside and keep focused. I've been looking through my hands and here are a couple of the pots I messed up:
http://weaktight.com/1179110
In retrospect, I still can't believe I bet that turn. Although the 2h gave me some more nut outs, his range for check/calling the flop is so weighted to 46xx hands. He wasn't outrageously bad so probably wouldn't call here with 35xx and would raise the made straight. I think sets don't take this passive line but would instead bet out on the flop. And I rarely think he check calls with a A and 3 overs that much.
So I really should have checked back. When he jammed there was enough money to make the call, but I should never have got into that situation in the first place. Doh!
http://weaktight.com/1179113 This is the second hand.
I really think bet/folding the flop is a much better option as I have the Ace clubs as the flush blocker. My logic at the time was that a lot of the range people call 3bets pre with is J987 rundowns or qk109 etc. So I figured that I will get check/raise all in a ton here. Which would obviously suck.
Then on the turn when he leads into me when the 9 pairs, I think I'm either ahead or very far behind here. I called as I think a lot of people bluff here knowing that my hand is basically face-up and he thinks he can fold me off of AAxx sort of hands
The river was a pretty bad card for me, as other than 9xxx hands I think he could well play 10J hands in the same way. But in retrospect he would probably check/call with a 10J hand. So when he auto-shoved I was in a very tough spot and tank/folded. Obviously the wrong read in this instance!
Anyway, hope I start to win a few flips (and don't get too out-played) in the £330 starting in an hour! Right, I better get ready, good luck all!
Friday, 5 June 2009
Phil F***ing Ivey, DTD Closure
Hey!
Phil Ivey just took down the $2500 2-7 lowball event at the WSOP for $96,000. 'Ok, ok' you may think, 'that's not too ridiculous for a high stakes baller like Mr Ivey'. Well couple that with the fact he had over a whopping $3 million in side bets of his own money! Although it's not been confirmed I expect that bracelet earnt him going on $10million in side bets. Pretty sick! The figures aren't exact, but I'm sure keeping a close eye on the "life of ivey" on the poker road may reveal something.
This is quite big news. There has been a bit of media attention lately hinting that the Dusk Til Dawn club will be closing it's doors in the near future. Yikes, terrible news. On further research into this, although DTD does seem to be in a lot of financial difficulties due to the new gambling laws which effectively class DTD as a super-casino with 46 roulette tables (and hence tax them the same) it does look like it will remain open in the medium-term at any rate.
Quick press release
I think unless the gambling tax laws get changed, Rob Yong (the owner) has a number of options:
1) Increase the rake a lot
-Unlikely, as this can only harm the play-base and goes against everything the business man stands for
2) Extend DTD into a casino/poker club
-This is unfortunately a possibility. It really would be a shame to add house-games like roulette and blackjack. It's really nice playing poker in a poker-only environment. Sure there is the argument that it may attract more gamblers to try the games. But I think a lot of the fish will blow through their bankrolls a lot faster too. Also, it's a lot more pleasant being in a completely poker-only environment. But if this is the only way that DTD can increase their revenue, so be it.
3) Sell the club
-Well I honestly can't fault the way it's been run yet. Compared to your typical casino, DTD really is a breath of fresh air. Hard to comment on this though as selling the club under new management can change drastically from case-to-case.
4) The players form some sort of coalition/union
-Quite unlikely, but still a possibility.
I do think though that it may not be at the poker players best interest to go protesting to the government. Especially being in the recession, it would be quite easy for the government to snap on to the fact that poker players in England are some of the only players in the world that don't pay tax on their winnings. It would indeed suck quite a lot if we had to pay income tax on our winnings in that respect then like the Americans do.
Ahh, well. I guess we just have to wait and hope!
I played a little PLO yesterday. I started with $233 in my ongame account. Within about half an hour the account was empty and I just had 2 tables up of 25c/50c. Well on both tables I had stacks of $133 and $166 respectively. I was looking on leaving the tables and spreading the money so that I could multi-table again, but there was this super-fish at one of my tables I was just dieing to stack and couldn't bare to leave with such a big stack. He was playing a game of 54/4 and was a calling station for any draw often finding himself drawing dead.
Well that hand just came up for a whopping $269 pot at 25c/50c (5 buy-in pot :)) and I had him drawing dead when the money went in which is nice. I'm really confused with his play here but can't argue. You may question why I checked the turn as I don't want to let him check behind and hit a full house on the river etc. But vs this villain he's going to be betting out almost 100% if I show weakness. I guess that is the benefit of getting good reads on your opponent rather than playing like a 12 tabling robot.
http://weaktight.com/1175650
I'm analysing a few hands from yesterdays session. I think I really spewed hard on this hand. I don't like getting it in here unless I hate 89J with the suited jack and more preferably taking it slower with this many opponents in the pot. Head's up or 3 way I most likely can get it in in a better shape or have some sort of fold equity. But with this many players in the pot I think I should have just check/called and kept the pot small.
http://weaktight.com/1176631
Last night I also went to the cinema with my gf to see "Drag Me To Hell" which I didn't think was that good. It was really sick horror with some good frights. But the genre seems a bit over-used now. I could sort of guess what was going to happen next. Heh oh well
Happy grinding!
Wednesday, 3 June 2009
Nosebleeds Confuse Me
I'm just starting to learn PLO so maybe it isn't a good idea copying some of Durr's moves:
spew spew spew
Either he was on MASSIVE tilt or this is some sick meta-game I will never know. All I will say is that it MUST BE NICE. Runner runner scooping a $100k pot :)
I just saw a post with Durr and David Benefields grinding pad back in the day. Other than the house being pretty impressive with a lot of bragging rights allowed. I think that just living in a poker house could be so so beneficial for anyone. The ability to be in an environment where you can bounce back ideas and hands to one another must really help out anyone's game. No wonder 3 years later these two are still the regulars in the biggest games in the world. (Despite Durrrr's inability to get it in good lol).
On another non-poker related note. I've started to watch The Inbetweeners. Such a funny funny series just because of how I can relate it to my sixth form state-school days so much. I've got a couple of friends who don't find it funny at all who haven't been to a typically state sixth-form school but they really do an amazingly funny job at stereotyping the different groups and adolescent behaviour in a really nice way. So I'de say give it a try, and if it's not your cup of tea don't worry about it!
I'm back to my revision now, last exam tomorrow! Happy grind y'all!
spew spew spew
Either he was on MASSIVE tilt or this is some sick meta-game I will never know. All I will say is that it MUST BE NICE. Runner runner scooping a $100k pot :)
I just saw a post with Durr and David Benefields grinding pad back in the day. Other than the house being pretty impressive with a lot of bragging rights allowed. I think that just living in a poker house could be so so beneficial for anyone. The ability to be in an environment where you can bounce back ideas and hands to one another must really help out anyone's game. No wonder 3 years later these two are still the regulars in the biggest games in the world. (Despite Durrrr's inability to get it in good lol).
On another non-poker related note. I've started to watch The Inbetweeners. Such a funny funny series just because of how I can relate it to my sixth form state-school days so much. I've got a couple of friends who don't find it funny at all who haven't been to a typically state sixth-form school but they really do an amazingly funny job at stereotyping the different groups and adolescent behaviour in a really nice way. So I'de say give it a try, and if it's not your cup of tea don't worry about it!
I'm back to my revision now, last exam tomorrow! Happy grind y'all!
Back-To-Back Flack, Move Aside..
For those who aren't aware, amazingly Thang Luu took down the $1500 WSOP Omaha 8 or better tournament a couple of days ago. What makes this truly incredible though is that he also took it down last year. And that's not including the 2nd place finish he had the year before!?
Pretty impressive by anyone's books especially considering the event has attracted fields of 700-1000 over the three year period. This starts to make me question the level of skill required in Omaha 8 or better. Could this be the most skill full variety of poker? It certainly takes A LOT of post flop skill. Or maybe he's on a sick heater?
Despite, very well done to the guy.
On the subject of back-to-back, although I didn't take either down (bad beat HU in the €4000 gtd one grrr). But I managed to final table two more tournaments tonight, this time on the Boss network.
The second screenshot is of the €22/€3500 gtd which is a deepstack tournament. I've taken this one down before earlier this year, so it was nice to get deep in it again today. It's actually a nice tournament. When we were 3 handed we all had between 30-50bb's which is quite refreshing compared to the shove-fest that iPoker, party poker etc. seem to consist of. I personally think I was a bit unfortunate not to take either of these down tonight, but getting short handed I couldn't seem to win a showdown. Luckily, my opponents didn't seem too comfortable on the final table as I had little resistance picking up the blinds which helped to stabilize my stack.
In my blog-post last night I said how I also managed to qualify for the weekly final of the Borris Becker freeroll where the winner gets VIP wimbledon seats and to play heads up with Mr Becker for £5000 curtsy of Pokerstars. There was about 300 entrants and I even managed to final table it! But to no avail as I busted out in 9th. I still got the small consolation prize of about $35 which wasn't bad for a freeroll I guess :)
So another success night on the MTT donkaments :) The bankroll is up over £10,000 now so I'm really happy with that! I will now be taking a few days off tournies hoping to keep my A-game for this weekends £330. In the meantime, I'll be getting some hands in at PLO and enjoying life whilst the weather stays as good as it is!
Ciao!
ps. one last thing. If you need cheering up for whatever reason. Read this. It literally had me pissing myself laughing.
Tuesday, 2 June 2009
Final Tabled Another Rebuy :)
Hey!
Tonight I loaded up about 12 tournaments on a variety of skins. Luckily enough I managed to come 3rd in a $10 rebuy on iPoker for just under $1000.
So that was a pretty nice result considering I came into the final table 9/10. I managed to go all in consecutively 3 times which effectively doubled my stack as a lot of the players seemed to be playing with scared money and trying to climb the pay-ladder.
I signed onto Pokerstars to sweat a friend who was playing a 45man SNG on the final table too and noticed a promotion to UK players about winning a satellite to see Wimbledon and play heads up with Borris Becker. It was only $1 to enter so I thought screw it. I managed to qualify through to the final which is tomorow night I think.
Other than that I'm just waiting on the DTD satellite. Really fucked this up. I had like 8bbs and it folded to me, I was nervous about reaching the seat so shoved a10 into the sb who had 4 bbs and called with a4 and managed to suck out vs me. Grr...
I'm currently 53/57 with 50 seats going. Really hope I make it. Probably should have just folded that A10 hand. Bahh I hate satellites!!
edit: 1 double up later and I'm in!! Wooohooooo! £330 this weekend here I come!
Tonight I loaded up about 12 tournaments on a variety of skins. Luckily enough I managed to come 3rd in a $10 rebuy on iPoker for just under $1000.
So that was a pretty nice result considering I came into the final table 9/10. I managed to go all in consecutively 3 times which effectively doubled my stack as a lot of the players seemed to be playing with scared money and trying to climb the pay-ladder.
I signed onto Pokerstars to sweat a friend who was playing a 45man SNG on the final table too and noticed a promotion to UK players about winning a satellite to see Wimbledon and play heads up with Borris Becker. It was only $1 to enter so I thought screw it. I managed to qualify through to the final which is tomorow night I think.
Other than that I'm just waiting on the DTD satellite. Really fucked this up. I had like 8bbs and it folded to me, I was nervous about reaching the seat so shoved a10 into the sb who had 4 bbs and called with a4 and managed to suck out vs me. Grr...
I'm currently 53/57 with 50 seats going. Really hope I make it. Probably should have just folded that A10 hand. Bahh I hate satellites!!
edit: 1 double up later and I'm in!! Wooohooooo! £330 this weekend here I come!
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