Mixed games

Hey!

As the work load has been increasing, my time playing poker has been decreasing quite a bit. I've still managed to put in a few sessions and these have mainly been with other players around where we have discussed hands a lot with different lines. So although, I haven't put in a lot of volume I do feel that my game is improving still somewhat.

The most notable session I put in was yesterday on Sunday where I played pretty much every major on every site making the total buy-in quite high for the day. Despite cashing for over $2k I was still down on the day so that sums it up a little :). The best run I got was in the $109/$40k gtd on stars which I came 13th out of roughly 2000 runners for $1400. Other than that I min-cashed the iPoker $500/$1m gtd for $800 and cashed in a $30r for $160 on stars. I also managed a small cash in B2B in a €100 freezeout for €250ish. Despite not doing particularly well in anything, I enjoyed the session and played pretty well.

After Ireland my thirst for deep-stack live tournaments has only really grown. The new season of GUKPT starts soon with their £1000 buyin tournaments. There are satellite on iPoker on wednesday $100r, Friday $50r and Sunday $150fo. I think I will slap some money on the Blue Square skin and try to base my online sessions around these days when I am free. That will leave plenty of time during the week to get work done/go out partying and also hopefully win me a seat or two some of these GUKPT events whilst my bankroll is still too low to buy-in directly to the tournaments. I could buy-in direct if there was one conveniently near and sell say 50% of my action which is a definite possibility worth bearing in mind too.

For the rest of the year, the following GUKPT tournaments are going on:

Leg 8
Thanet
October 12th - 18th
October 15th - 18th

Leg 9
Blackpool
November 7th - 15th
November 12th - 15th

Grand Final (£3000 main event)
London
November 19th - 29th
November 26th - 29th

Realistically though it does seem that Blackpool might be the only one I would play this year as I just realised now that Thanet is at the end of this week and the Grand Final is a £3k buyin!

Other than that, the DTD will continue with their £300 monthly deepstack which I'll hopefully play every month and as of next weekend they are starting a 20/20 weekend. Whereby on both the Saturday and Sunday afternoons there will be a £100 deepstack 1 day tournament on both days. I may give it a shot on Saturday but Sunday is a going to be a maybe as the buy-in is pretty small and if I got deep I'de miss out on all of the Sunday tournaments online which would have more value in playing than min-cashing a £100 freezeout for £60 profit or whatever. On the other hand I could just go a bit mad on the Sunday tournament playing very loose aggressive trying to either build a big stack at the start or busting allowing me to be back in time to play the Sunday tournies. I'll think about that nearer the time!

On the subject of Dusk Til Dawn, I've been doing pretty well lately on their cash tables. In particular playing the somewhat swingy £5/£5 dealers choice game. I'm doing quite well playing a patient and selectively aggressive game with a lot of limping pre and playing off the other players at the table. Sometimes you get very passive games where its more nut-peddly and everyone limps every pot. Other times you get very aggressive tables where there are multiple raises and re-raises pre which change the dynamic of the game postflop significantly too. What I am unsure about however, is how to improve my game a lot. I guess I should practice online a bit more on some games like Paduki and watch very carefully at how the better players at the table play their holdings. But for games like super-stud which there isnt as much of an online variety I think it will be very difficult to improve and I think it would be all too easy to create leaks in my game and stick with them for a long time. Perhaps the best option would be to really trying mixing up my play.

I like in hold'em when I'm thinking about hands to go through all the possibilities and try to establish reasoning behind them. For instance, I c-bet the flop for value, I check-raise as his range can't handle it or I check/fold as his range is very isolated to strong holdings. I need to get to a similar level in the dealers choice game where I can start putting people on hand ranges and then carefully thinking through the various options available to me on how to win.

Regardless of how I choose to improve on my mixed game action, it will take a long time playing exclusively live due to the hands/hour being so small. I'll keep at it, and might mix in some omaha hi/lo low stakes online to work on that game for a bit too as being quartered sucks!

Hope all is good, gl on the felt!