Live Donkaments

PLO8 SNGs have been getting steadily harder on both Full Tilt and Pokerstars, both harder to win at and harder to find. Seems like the US players really were the biggest source of dead money in this game at least. As a result I have switched game back to PLO with a few HORSE and 8-game thrown in to mix it up a bit. Not quite easy money, but definitely more dead money than in the PLO8s.

After going to Fox Poker club a few months ago and cashing, I decided to go back last Saturday for an afternoon PLO MTT. Plan was to play that then see if I could still register for the deepstack holdem start at 7:00pm. Sat down at 3:00pm, with 2 tables, late registrations took us up to 21 runners in total with 4 places played. I didn't need to get too creative to comfortably make the final table and managed to chip up to about 30k approaching the bubble, which was a medium sized stack. On the bubble itself, I shut down and just waited for unopened position with a good starting hand to steal a few blinds. To be honest though, I didn't get that many good hands.

However, once the bubble burst I decided I was going for the win. KKT4 on the button was enough for me to 3 bet the woman to my right. Once she had re-raised me again I knew she had Aces, but decided it was worth shoving all in for the race and we were all in pre-flop. I hit my K on the flop, sweet. Turn Ace, bah. River K, QUAADDSSS!!!! That put me up to 80k and into the lead. A few hands later I get AA66, get all in against the 2nd place who asked if I had Ks again. Can't remember what he had, but an Ace on the flop was enough and the player left behind instantly suggested a deal which was £30 off the £370 first prize, which I snap called. Nice

Late registered for the Deep stack Holdem and sat down at the table I had just left with 6 new players, which eventually filled up to the full 10 with other late arrivals. Had 3 friends playing in it as well, and all off us almost made it through to midnight, which was when the first one went out in about 33/106. By this time my stack was starting to look like fresh air, down to 20BBs, then down to 10, then as we went to 27 players and 3 tables, I dropped to 5BB and was moved to a new table with big stacks everywhere, straight into the big blind. A9 suited, I shoved over the table CLs raise and owned his A8. 2 hands later I get K9 on the button, it was unopened so I shoved. BB called with AJ, flop KK2. Didn't get back down to 10BBs until the final table.

2nd friend busted in 16th, making a bad shove with A9 into the KK of the player to my right. Despite flopping his Ace, player X managed to river a straight and took him out.

Final table, 2 of us still going. I was back down to 15-20 BBs again, my mate was probably 2nd. Short stack goes all in preflop, 2nd short stack shoves over the top, player X, chip leader, goes all in and my mate calls. Q7s, KQs, KK and AA respectively. Player X scooped the lot with a turned K. One outerments. After that I ended up getting down to 5BBs at 8-16k, but a couple of preflop shoves saw me up to 95k when I get dealt AA in the SB. Folded round to me, I shoved, player X insta-called with TT. He turned a straight to send me to the rail with another £220. To be fair to him, he stood up and came round to shake my hand.

I had used a lot of run good earlier on the table and in winning the PLO earlier, so I am not complaining, just one time and I could have been seriously looking at back to back live wins on the same day. As it is, I think I am straight into the top 10 for their monthly MTT leaderboard.

2 visits, 3 MTTs, 1 win and cashed in 4th and 5th places. Life is good.

N29 on the way home was special. We reach the next to last stop.

Drunk 1: "Get up, we have to get off here"
Drunk 2: "Why?"
Drunk 1: "We missed our stop"
Drunk 2: "What, again?"

They had barely been on the bus more than 5 minutes.

I also forgot my door key, so had to ring my wife to get her to let me in when I eventually got home. She was in a surprisingly good mood considering it was 4:30am and getting light.

America, LOL

Hard to believe that within 2 weeks of near-criminalizing people playing online poker with their own money, the same country sends a swat team to a foreign country on an assassination mission. World is so fucked up.

"Black Friday" has made an extremely obvious change to my poker, in that the PLO8 SNGs are not very busy. So much so that I managed to switch back to playing PLO MTTs again. Reality is I forgot how profitable these were for me. Again used my last FPPs on Full Tilt to buy a $26 ticket, turned that into $49 followed by a win in a 109 runner $17 super turbo. This kind of rescued April as far as poker goes for me, after March showed a $14 loss overall. But I did manage to donk some of it off playing Rush poker again. Even without the Americans I can't beat it. Switched to Pokerstars for a couple of early evening MTTs and OMG how bad are some of the players at sub-$10 level. Finished April off with a real nice touch, 1st of 421 in the $3 PLO rebuy for $823 on the last day of the month, sweet.

Back to America, while people have the ability to express themselves like this, there is still hope. Have seen this posted a number of times already, but it cannot be said often enough.

"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy."
Martin Luther King, Jr

WBCOOP - Blogging in Running

Finally managed to get home in time for a qualifier, which was the 8 game tonight. Interesting just how much advantage I have in the Omaha games and the Stud hilo, but most of all I am rubbish at 2-7 triple draw. I crippled myself multiple times before the bubble and we only played 2 rounds of it. As I type yet another 2k chips have gone west with a 23458 beating my 23468... now 15/92, was very short until the last round of PLO when I went from 6-21k courtesy of 2 flush draws coming in against the same opponent.

Anyway, qualified for the final, now aiming for a final table to get a decent scoop ticket. Just thankful only have to play 2-7 once per cycle.

Updates:
7 hours in: 16/44, having been as low as 55/60 after a -20k stud round, recovered on stud hilo and omaha. Just realized I have been awake for 24 hrs as I woke up at this time yesterday (5:00am)

8 hours in: 16/29, which is hiding the fact that I was down to 16k chips and up in 3rd place with 60k at one stage, 25 hours awake

9 hours in: 6/14, good last 20 minutes in PLO again, 26 hours awake

10 hours in: 7/10, poor last 10 minutes, gone from 120k to 70k unnecessarily

11 hours: 3/4, bit tired

3rd in the end, $215 SCOOP ticket for my troubles

Bloggaments

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! The WBCOOP is a free online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers, so register on WBCOOP to play.

Registration code: XXXXXX 942676

January is as tough as ever

Never had a strong January, even last year when I binked a tourney in the first week I didn't really add to it from then on. This year is looking pretty much back to the same, with my online balances currently down about $140 for the month. Still not pushed my FT balance on yet, currently $76 and just bouncing around. Bubbling too often at the moment, and all too frequently it is the river that gets me.

Bah. Roll on the daylight and warmer weather.

Short Review of 2010

Turns out 2010 was a very up and down year for me. Net online profit for the year $435. This after I was $1,100 up at the end of January. As is a familiar theme to long term readers of this blog, I blew all of it playing cash, but not any old cash, Rush O8 on Full Tilt. Looking at my results, I went negative from April-July, all the while paying huge amounts in rake. In fact, the total I paid in rake equalled the amount that went out from my Full Tilt account in the same period. So, I can't beat the rake at O8 cash.

As a consequence, I started to play badly during the summer, which eventually led to me completely emptying my Full Tilt account, apart from about 26k in FPPs. Not wanting to redeposit, I switched to Pokerstars late in the year and started to build my balance on there playing STTs mostly. After running it up to $500 I had a couple of goes at the nightly PLO8 $109, eventually cashing twice in 4 attempts. Having been chip leader on one final table I think I have a few more in me if I can get going early.

Although I do OK on PokerStars, I really prefer playing on Full Tilt. In December I used my FPPs to buy into 3x$26 PLO and the $33 Rush PLO8 Mini FTOPs. The Rush PLO8 was the last and only one I cashed in, but it gave me $90 to start with again and as I write I have doubled this to $180. In a couple of weeks I might even start getting rake back, once I have cleared what I "spent" through buying the tickets.

Vegas was a good experience, I enjoyed playing the $1500 PLO8 tournament, even though I never really got going. Does not look like I will make it this year, but I suppose anything could happen between now and June to enable me to fund the trip. Don't think I will be going on my own next time either.

Anyway, simple goals for 2011:
- Profit (any at all).
- Get a full house on Sharkscope with 8/8 cashes. Have come close to this a few times, but the spectre of 0/8 is ever present...

Good luck in your games for 2011.