Milton's Occasional Poker Blog

Has it really been 6 months since my last update?

2012-01-02T22:00:00.002Z

It is 6 months, guess all my readers must be the google search bot.

Despite the live result I posted in June, that was the last time I went out to play live apart from a home game or two. Otherwise it has all been online. 2011 was a bit of a wash, down about $350 over the year and only turning a profit in 4 months out of 12.

On reflection, I played too many games that I was not very good at, especially after the US fishes were blocked by Black Friday and FTP closed it's doors. Towards the end of the year I nearly turned it round by qualifying for the world record tournament on Stars, twice. Seems my Holdem game is well suited to the satellite mindset, but not so great when playing the main events. Also learned that although the hyper turbo satellites on Stars are fun, it's so swingy I can't play them profitably, unlike the PLO hyper SNGs.

Did manage to book a win in a $% PLO/PLH MTT on Stars, but not for much.

Focus for 2012:
- PLO & NLO MTTs
- PLO hyper SNGs
- 50 PLO cash
- NLH satellites

Good start coming 2nd in a $22 NLO MTT on 1/1. Spewed a chunk trying to play some higher buy-in MTTs already, so back to the $22 level or below for now.

Will be interesting to see if the cash games on Stars are improved by the move from dealt to weighted contribution. I have played on a couple of 6 max tables so far and although I have no evidence (other than a profit and knowing I played well), the tables did feel a bit looser/easier than they did the last time I played. Maybe the Stars ban hammer for the sit out nits has made it easier to find the fish, until they let them all back on.

Hope you all have a good 2012.

Live Donkaments

2011-06-13T22:43:00.002+01:00

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

2011-05-02T23:10:00.004+01:00

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

2011-01-29T03:21:00.011Z

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

2011-01-19T22:07:00.001Z

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

2011-01-19T21:53:00.002Z

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

2011-01-01T16:53:00.002Z

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.

NLO8 Hand

2010-10-15T21:15:00.002+01:00

Sample hand from an NLO8 STT with bounties. I shoved pre with AA thinking I was going to see maybe 1 caller, not 2. Great to run good for 2 bounties.

Poker Stars $10.00+$2.50+$1.00 No Limit Omaha Hi/Lo Tournament - t50/t100 Blinds - 6 players - View hand 983118

DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

Hero (CO): t1920 19.20 BBs

BTN: t2167 21.67 BBs

SB: t1905 19.05 BBs

BB: t1838 18.38 BBs

UTG: t1470 14.70 BBs

MP: t4200 42 BBs

Pre Flop: (t150) Hero is CO with A 7 8 A

UTG calls t100, 1 fold, Hero raises to t1920 all in, 1 fold, SB calls t1855 all in, 1 fold, UTG calls t1370 all in

Flop: (t5380) J 6 9 (3 players - 3 are all in)

Turn: (t5380) T (3 players - 3 are all in)

River: (t5380) 3 (3 players - 3 are all in)

Final Pot: t5380

Hero shows As 7c 8d Ad (HI: a straight, Seven to Jack)

SB shows 5h Ah Js 9c (HI: two pair, Jacks and Nines)

UTG shows Qd 6s 3h Qs (HI: two pair, Sixes and Threes)

Hero wins t870

Hero wins t4510

NLO8 and WBCOOP

2010-10-14T20:57:00.008+01:00

So, WBCOOP time is coming round again, first up is the end of October, then should be another in January.

Have also been playing a few of the NLO8 STTs on Stars. Starting at the $6 level with the NLO8, regular speed with knockouts, I have and ROI of about 47%. Have now played 6 of the $13s and have cashed in 5, winning 2 and with an unfeasible ROI of 127%. Not sure why this is, other than running like god, I don't think the other players are that terribad, even at the $6 level.

Profit in September was $183 overall, currently up $455 in October, having managed 5th place in another $109 O8 tourney on Stars. Out after I had AALL busted 3 times on the final table, having been 7/7 and 1/5 at various stages.

[edited out logo, screwed up the layout of the menus]

Thank god for MTTs

2010-09-16T22:28:00.002+01:00

So I eventually managed to arrest the slide in my online bankrolls in August, where I made a total profit of about $73. That brought to an end the 4 month run of red end of month numbers. September was heading for another small down month, until yesterday. I had briefly watched a couple of the daily $109 O8 MTTs on PokerStars and to be honest, did not think the standard was very high. I got home too late to even consider the WCOOP O8, but the 2+2 thread about it inspired me to have a look and see if it was running. I registered with 4 minutes to spare and soon found myself on the chip leaders table with my 20BB. 15 minute blinds are quite different to the turbo STTs I normally play and I was able to wait for a semi decent opportunity with AKKT to limp from the button. A K on the flop with 2 hi cards and I was 3 way, the turn 8 was just about the best card in the pack for me as both my opponents had an 8 each for 2 pair, and I went on to treble up to about 9th spot.

After that I played solid, but aggressively and stayed in the the top 10 until about 20 left, when I slipped back into the pack after raising too much out of position pre and having to fold a missed flop. Not to worry, getting all in preflop with A3xx vs AA2x meant I doubled up with a scoop flush and back into contention. Approaching the bubble I was bouncing around on 10-15BBs for ages in the bottom 3 chip stacks. But, I sneaked through the final table bubble and with a full ring I was able to pick my spots to race carefully. Eventually I managed to get up to 3rd with 6 left and with A235 on a 34JQ board decided to race against the 2nd place stack for the chip lead. The river Q gave him his Q4 full house and I was out pocketing $520 for my 6th place. Against the same opponent I would probably make the call again, since I read him correctly for hi only draw and I still had a 35% chance of taking the hi as well as 50% of getting the lo.

Overall thought that the standard improved towards the FT, but I was more aggressive than anyone else on the final table. I guess that was what did for me in the end, but if I had won that race I would have been CL by a good margin and would have been confident of making it to heads up quite easily.

If I could, I suppose I should play MTTs full time, but they just take too long to fit in around work and family. Anyway, back in a few months for another update.

September results: +$374 so far.

Vegas WSOP Trip 2010

2010-06-28T02:26:00.002+01:00

Brief summary of my trip.

Flew BA from Heathrow where I eventually recognised John Tabatabai in the queue for the extra security checks at the gate, but only when the security guard tried to pronounce his name. Checked in to the Rio and went to bed, but slept quite bad, like I did for the whole week. No fault of the Rio, room was fine, clean, bed was great, just on the wrong timezone.

Got up next day and registered for the $1500 PLO8 along with 850 or so other players. My first table was quitean interesting, mixture of players, all of whom seemed to know at least the basics of the split pot game. I was in seat 2, Brandon Cantu was 2 to my right in seat 10, guy on my immediate right was a $2-4 PLO8 cash grinder who plays on Stars.

Early action saw a lag in seat 6 get felted a couple of times, he tilted quite bad when Stars grinder rivered quad 9s to scoop a pot. This led to my first competitive hand, when I called his ep raise with A26K and got all in on a Q8x flop. He had A29K, which was exactly the kind of hand I was expecting to see. I had better lo draw and a backdoor flush, which duly came in on the river for my first 1k+ pot. Got some more chips from seat 3 on my button when I turned a set of 9s and no lo came in. Eventually worked my stack up to about 4k or so and felt comfortable.

Critical hand for my whole tournament happened about 1/2 hour from end of Level 4, I raised pot pre from cut off with AA56, small blind called with 9TJQ. Flop was 38J rainbow and we got all in with my expectation about .61. Turn 3 improved this to .68 but the river 10 gave him his straight and the scoop. Hit that and I would have been approaching a 10k stack. As it was I was down to 3k having not used any of my rebuy chips at all.

Table dynamic immediately changed, previously I had raised UTG and seen the whole table fold to me. Tried it was A246 later and got called 5 times. This was lucky as I got quartered for the lo and still only saw my stack go from 3.5k to 3k. Took out the Stars grinder just before the table broke with another rivered flush and moved with about 7k stack. This was not enough on 150-300 blinds, especially when you are card dead and moved to 2 tables with player who had mega stacks and raised every hand.

Looking back at the second table, I can't think of a better hand than A48J , but to stay in with it would have meant calling 20% of my stack. Third table I was dealt and raised A234 from the button, but the flop was 2 hi and that was the last hand that would have potentially given me any returns. Of the better players, there were no hands that stood out that I thought I would have played differently to the way they did.

Also played a couple of $200 hold em tournaments, less said about these the better. I have completely forgotten how to play hold em tournaments and might as well have tried some $1-3 or $5-5 cash with the buy-ins I dropped.

Anyway, back in the UK for 24 hours before I fly out to New York on business on Tuesday. Then I will start focusing on building up my bankroll so I can go back next year.

The Devilfish Wears Prada

2010-06-28T02:10:00.003+01:00

Well, actually maybe he doesn't but he did make me laugh when I was railing the $5k PLO8 on my last day in Vegas. Check out the photo to the right, he has removed a curtain from one of the trolleys and wrapped himself up in it like a toga. At the time my initial thoughts were, "wtf, he is wearing curtains, what a c**t". However, it was only me being a bit of a twat and I soon warmed to the funny side of it, especially when he tried to wave it around like a matador's cape as he moved tables. Not long after I took the picture he left early for the break and returned sporting a shiny new hoodie. He was also more than happy to pose for photos with anyone who asked with a smile and some banter.

Have Macbook will travel

2010-06-20T21:20:00.003+01:00

All packed apart from my toothbrush, will be on my way to Vegas tomorrow.

Managed to turn round my form a lot, balance on Full Tilt is now in the $300 region, with my Pokerstars account almost at the same level (from under $100). As ever, the problems started with a move to cash - this time Rush Poker - which unbalanced my tournament game and as a result played bad until I remembered how to play SNGs.

Hopefully will be able to post some updates, either here or on Twitter as electricchair99.

May Wrap Up

2010-06-01T21:45:00.003+01:00

As the regular reader will know, I hate posting during a downswing. As I had second my most losing month ever in May ($450 down), I guess posting the end of month round up means I think it has turned. My worst ever month was May 2009 ($465), which was followed by going on a massive heater in June. I suppose I can hope the same happens in 2010. The thought has occurred to me that it is because the pros who inhabit the O8 games I played might have gone to the WSOP. I expect I will know pretty soon anyway.

Speaking of WSOP, I have everything crossed hoping that the BA strikes don't impact my flights. If I had been flying this week or last I would have been OK and I think the timing means that the union would have to run a new ballot (and get it past the BA lawyers) before they announce any more strikes. All I need now is for the $ to weaken a couple of points in the next week before I buy some.

Unlucky for Some

2010-04-29T23:36:00.002+01:00

It's all gone a bit pear shaped in the last week. I can almost track it to a single hand during the O8 FTOPS, when I tilted a lot after playing well for about 2 1/2 hours, and losing a pot against a short stack for about 4k, out of a 14k stack. Since that time I have not cashed in 13 STTs, as well as dropping $150+ on O8 rush tables. Bit frustrating all round really, including my out hand in the last STT.

In the BB with 1700 chips and A356, button has 475, chip leader is SB with 6k+. Folds round to SB who bets 1k, so I push He turns over KKJ10 and the board gives me no help at all and I am gone. I could have tried foldingd into the money, but that would have meant I had less chance of winning overall.

Ah well, time for bed and will be back again tomorrow.

End of March Round-up

2010-04-01T22:35:00.002+01:00

Not much to report since the last update, apart from a welcome continued upward trend in my gross rake and profit for the month. Overall profit about $380, despite a complete failure yesterday when I dumped $80 in pretty short order. Now in profit on the Rush O8, but it has changed my game so that I can no longer hit a barn door on the STTs. Managed to earn a total of $115 rake back for the month, which is like 4 months of normal payments. This cash game could become addictive.

Hotel booked for my Vegas WSOP trip, decided to stay in the Rio so I can fall out of bed and roll down the stairs to the games.

Alan Green is a Dickhead

2010-03-24T23:03:00.005Z

I know why of course, just not sure why I feel compelled to this as the heading on my blog update. Actually, if anything I think that is a bit light and I could have used any of the extra strong swearwords instead. What triggered it was Radio 5, probably commentary on the Man Utd- Liverpool game on Sunday. Such an apologist for Liverpool, so much so that he makes Lord Haw Haw look like Mary, Mungo and Midge. He's also the most negative commentator, "like ever". Even if the referee is having a bad day, or the game is not the greatest show on earth, there's no need to moan about it so much you forget to describe the action.

Anyway, back on topic, the pokerrrzz.

February turned out to be a complete washout, at one stage I was $500 down for the month, almost exclusively playing SNGs but with some PLO Rush poker losses too. As usual, not sure what was driving it, but if I could have won what felt like a share of my races against pimpdaddydolla and pena82 the position would have been very different, final score $245 loss.

March started with what was supposed to be a week's poker break, with a trip to Boston for work. Flew in on the Saturday as the flight cost was £400 instead of £1200. This meant I had the whole of Sunday evening to myself, and as the devil makes work for idle hands, I was soon installing Full Tilt on my work laptop and taking on the US time zone players. I noticed a difference in quality straight away and over the course of a couple of evenings bumped my balance on Full Tilt up from $850 to $1,100, just playing a few $11/22 hilo turbo STTs.

I continued reasonably well when I got back to the UK and Full Tilt opened up O8 Rush poker. My first few attempts were a bit hit or miss, which I eventually worked out was because I was getting too wrapped up in the "rush" effect. Am down $40 overall, which is one buy-in at the only O8 stakes in play, entirely the result of a tilted bust yesterday. But, I feel comfortable enough to play more than one buy-in at a time and it certainly turbo-charges the rakeback. Currently I am on target to easily have my biggest ever month of rake generated, approaching $200, which means over $50 back already, compared to my normal average of $30. Am also starting to recognize the regular players, just need to work out the best way to deal with the aggressive ones that raise out of position pre-flop and then bet flop turn and river - I know they don't have it every single hand.

Also, slight strategy change, I have decided not to play Rush and STTs concurrently. They each require a different approach, which I am OK with individually, but just tilts me stupid when I try and play them at the same time.

March profit to date $310.
2010 running total $1213.
Sharkscope SNG lifetime Profit $2,499 - looks like a generally consistently upwards slope on the graph too.

Silver Star disappeared yesterday, have not played many PLO STTs this month as was focusing on the lower variance game to get back on track. Here's what it looked like back at the beginning on February.

Against the Grain

2010-02-01T21:40:00.002Z

Quick round up for January.

Given how poor my results were in January 2008 and 2009, I was prepared for a downswing in 2010. I will be honest, I did my best to allow history to repeat itself. Rush Poker on Full Tilt is just that, a faster way to lose at cash. Down about $250 and I won't likely be back again in the near future.

Looking at my Sharkscope stats, I managed to add a total of $19 profit on SNGs in the month, up on the PLO super turbos, down on the HILO games. So much up on the PLO games that I managed to make the $5-15 leaderboard and picked up a star. Might not last long so will have to remember to take a screenshot while it is still there.

Where I did make a lot of profit and was not able to play enough games was in the Sunday night HILO MTTs. One first place (see earlier post) was followed up by a 4th place (which could have been higher but I lost a flip to cripple myself). Total MTT profit for the month about $1300.

Net overall profit $1,150, which makes it my best month since I started keeping records. All I need to do now is keep it up in February and find the time to play a few more of the Sunday night rebuys.

Only remembered to play in two of the WBCOOP tourneys, managed to get 36th place in the 8 Game for a $33 SCOOP ticket. Never played 8 Game before, but I did find that I was much better at most of the players on the Omaha, O8 and Stud Hilo (even though the number of times I have played Stud Hilo I can count on the fingers of one hand). Did struggle a bit with Razz and 2-7 triple draw, but all in all, did not feel I was out of my depth. The other game was NLH. Lot's of sit outs and there were effectively only 4 players active including me at the table I finished on. One of the players was particularly loose, raising, jamming and generally splashing his chips all over. Managed a nice pot when I raised 64 and flopped 2 pr, maybe a value bet on the river would have cleaned him out but the board was 4567K and he had the K. This tilted him a lot and a few hands later I raised pre with Ks9s and checked a KJ9 flop. One re-raise later and he shoved, so I called to see him flip over K10. Turn J, river blank, GG me.

Vegas Baby

2010-01-10T22:07:00.002Z

Finally. Flights now booked for Vegas in June, leaving Heathrow on 21st, coming back from Vegas on 26th. Flying BA because it is only costing me £220 using my airmiles. Aim is to play the $1500 Omaha Hilo Pot Limit and win a fortune. As I have not been so good at hitting my targets recently, I guess just this one time will do. :)

No hotels yet, waiting to see if my mate can come out as well. He will know in 3 weeks when the local planning committee will let him know if he can start rebuilding his house.

WBCOOP

2010-01-08T20:31:00.001Z

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: 103327

A Couple of Firsts!

2010-01-03T01:13:00.003Z

Just won my first MTT of the 2010, $5 O8 rebuy on Full Tilt, 281 runners.
First time I can remember having more than 1m chips during any Omaha game.
First time I have won over $1k for 1st place.
First time someone has asked for more than the chip stacks said we should get when we discussed a deal.
First time I turned down a deal.

I did make it difficult for myself after that by doubling him with KK vs AA, but I rode my luck and took him out with flopped 2 pair Q10 when he had A10 straight draw that missed.

That's a wrap for 2009

2009-12-31T19:33:00.003Z

Tis the season for end of year reflections, first a quick recap of my two goals for the year:

One is to buy a new number plate for my car, cost about £1k.

FAIL. Simple fact was I never quite made enough money to warrant buying the thing.

Second is to try and get out to Vegas for a $1500 PLO or O8 event in the WSOP.

FAIL. This time with a but, for the second year running, I started off badly, even worse than 2008 in fact. However, I have now banked $2k and with BA flying direct to Vegas I have enough air miles to get a flight for the $1500 PLO starting on 10th June. If anyone wants a prop bet for me to play in an Elvis cat suit.... :)

Anyway, summary for the year.

Played bad from January to March, ended up nearly $700 down. Turned it all round in April with my first ever $1k month. As with 2008, the longer the year went on, the better my results looked, apart from December. This is still profitable month, but I played in 3 Mini FTOPs (one of which I forgot I had registered for) and one night I managed to bubble in a $22 sat for the $15k O8 on Full Tilt.

Over the various sites:
- Betfair - down $150, stopped playing there completely since June as have no reason to play there and dislike their customer relationship model
- Blue Square - down $210, hardly played anything since August
- Sun - down $250, really dislike the skin and even with 30% rakeback I can't bring myself to learn to deposit on a site I don't get on with very well
- PokerStars - up $7, deposited and have been playing a few of the $16 18-man O8 SNGs, with mixed results
- Everest - up $32, again almost not played there since August
- Full Tilt - up $3,180 - including about $350 rakeback

Highlights from Full Tilt:
- 25% ROI on 278 9 seat 300 chip super turbo PLO SNGs
- 20% ROI on 123 $22 O8 SNGs
- 33% ROI on 133 rebuy MTTs, incuding 3 wins

Lows:
- Cash, again, though this year I have stayed away from it pretty much and latterly, playing low stakes I have finished some sessions in profit

Interestingly, last year I thought I was OK pre-flop and better post-flop. Having thought about it, especially in light of the results from the 300 chip SNGs, I wonder if it really is the reverse. I am much better than average at assessing hands pre, but not that great post. Maybe in 2010 I will find some time to watch some training videos, or maybe not since I still cleared $2.5k from a hobby.

Might post some goals early in January, but really the main one is to stay in profit... good luck at the tables.

Lastly, here's my lifetime Sharkscope results for Full Tilt, which I think is quite respectable.

You don't see a Royal flush for ages...

2009-12-11T20:30:00.002Z

...then two come along in the space of about 10 minutes.

First this, I flopped the flush and turned the Royal, but managed to keep my oppo in calling down for his lo draw that did not come in.

Full Tilt Poker Game #16695306682: $11 + $1 Sit & Go (Turbo) (124090100), Table 1 - 25/50 - Pot Limit Omaha H/L - 17:47:20 ET - 2009/12/10
Seat 1: TJ Ungar (911)
Seat 2: citybrewedmind (1,315)
Seat 3: RNI66 (2,280)
Seat 4: fifty_pesos (389)
Seat 5: First Count 3 (1,135)
Seat 6: XHEAD HUNTERX (1,460)
Seat 7: misshaj (1,110)
Seat 8: Tribuconi (1,500)
Seat 9: electric chair (3,400)
XHEAD HUNTERX posts the small blind of 25
misshaj posts the big blind of 50
The button is in seat #5
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to electric chair [9h Kc Jc 8c]
Tribuconi folds
electric chair calls 50
TJ Ungar calls 50
citybrewedmind folds
RNI66 folds
fifty_pesos calls 50
First Count 3 folds
XHEAD HUNTERX folds
misshaj checks
*** FLOP *** [2c Ac Tc]
misshaj checks
electric chair has 15 seconds left to act
electric chair bets 112
TJ Ungar folds
fifty_pesos calls 112
misshaj folds
*** TURN *** [2c Ac Tc] [Qc]
electric chair bets 224
fifty_pesos calls 224
*** RIVER *** [2c Ac Tc Qc] [9s]
electric chair bets 50
fifty_pesos calls 3, and is all in
Uncalled bet of 47 returned to electric chair
*** SHOW DOWN ***
electric chair shows [9h Kc Jc 8c] a Royal Flush, for high
fifty_pesos mucks
electric chair wins the pot (903) with a Royal Flush
No low hand qualified
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 903 | Rake 0
Board: [2c Ac Tc Qc 9s]
Seat 4: fifty_pesos mucked [3h 4d 7h Ad] - HI: a pair of Aces

And then this, where I walked into it and I know I could have got away from it on the turn, but had been slightly tilted by $15 plo super turbo when I went out first hand to 2236 all in preflop.

Full Tilt Poker Game #16695563352: Table Rio Canyon (6 max, ante, deep) - $0.10/$0.25 Ante $0.05 - Pot Limit Omaha Hi - 17:58:05 ET - 2009/12/10
Seat 1: mgg888 ($28.65)
Seat 2: semper_fi76 ($20.36)
Seat 3: iceball12 ($40.10)
Seat 5: jwc529 ($51.71)
Seat 6: electric chair ($42.95)
iceball12 antes $0.05
electric chair antes $0.05
semper_fi76 antes $0.05
jwc529 antes $0.05
mgg888 antes $0.05
iceball12 posts the small blind of $0.10
jwc529 posts the big blind of $0.25
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to electric chair [Jh 7d Kc Kh]
electric chair has 15 seconds left to act
electric chair raises to $1.10
mgg888 folds
semper_fi76 raises to $3.90
iceball12 folds
jwc529 folds
electric chair calls $2.80
*** FLOP *** [Jd Qd Kd]
electric chair has 15 seconds left to act
electric chair bets $4.20
semper_fi76 has 15 seconds left to act
semper_fi76 calls $4.20
*** TURN *** [Jd Qd Kd] [4s]
lowskipper sits down
electric chair bets $16.80
semper_fi76 calls $12.21, and is all in
electric chair shows [Jh 7d Kc Kh]
semper_fi76 shows [Td 8s 9s Ad]
lowskipper adds $50
Uncalled bet of $4.59 returned to electric chair
*** RIVER *** [Jd Qd Kd 4s] [Qh]
electric chair shows a full house, Kings full of Queens
semper_fi76 shows a Royal Flush
semper_fi76 wins the pot ($39.16) with a Royal Flush
semper_fi76: lol
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $41.22 | Rake $2.06
Board: [Jd Qd Kd 4s Qh]
Seat 1: mgg888 folded before the Flop
Seat 2: semper_fi76 (button) showed [Td 8s 9s Ad] and won ($39.16) with a Royal Flush

End of November was an absolute heater, total up for the month over $850, first third of December has been very up and down, with a $30 loss to show for it so far.

Oops, I did it again

2009-11-29T16:32:00.002Z

Another $5 plo rebuy last night, another donking out for me. This hand meant I min cashed instead of making the final table. Little bit of patience required at the right time, whereas last night I convinced myself we had the same two pair on the flop. Almost criminal to blow 60BBs here really.

Full Tilt Poker Game #16380424391: $5 + $0.50 Rebuy (120835685), Table 8 - 1000/2000 - Pot Limit Omaha Hi - 19:10:43 ET - 2009/11/28
Seat 2: Markt37 (80,777)
Seat 4: Deset (16,786)
Seat 5: electric chair (60,208)
Seat 6: Shamanilixir (79,602)
Seat 7: Ilu1 (60,216)
Seat 8: baxterb123 (3,190), is sitting out
Seat 9: 00Bert00 (27,824), is sitting out
Markt37 posts the small blind of 1,000
Deset posts the big blind of 2,000
The button is in seat #9
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to electric chair [Jd As 9d 7d]
hipsych sits down
hipsych adds 42,613
Jesse_Arellano sits down
Jesse_Arellano adds 52,358
electric chair has 15 seconds left to act
electric chair calls 2,000
Shamanilixir folds
Ilu1 folds
baxterb123 folds
00Bert00 folds
Markt37 raises to 8,000
Deset folds
electric chair calls 6,000
*** FLOP *** [Jh 6s Ad]
Markt37 checks
electric chair bets 9,000
Markt37 raises to 20,000
electric chair calls 11,000
*** TURN *** [Jh 6s Ad] [Qs]
Markt37 bets 52,777, and is all in
electric chair calls 32,208, and is all in
Markt37 shows [Th Ah Ac Jc]
electric chair shows [Jd As 9d 7d]
Uncalled bet of 20,569 returned to Markt37
*** RIVER *** [Jh 6s Ad Qs] [Ks]
Markt37 shows a straight, Ace high
electric chair shows two pair, Aces and Jacks

Still, I was very lucky to be there, having hit a 1 outer earlier after getting all in with a flopped set 10s, vs a flopped set As. I had to wait until the river to get my quads, but the result was never in doubt as far as I was concerned :)

Results looking good for November overall, up $725 so far and cashed in 4 of last 8 MTTs and 6 or last 8 STTs I have played.

Second Time Around

2009-11-23T01:23:00.006Z

So, I played the $5 PLO rebuy on Full Tilt again tonight. This time, there was no blow up on the final table, this was the hand that gave me the stack I needed to take control of the table, after which memoly proceeded to explain to me how it had been a "donky" play on my part.

Full Tilt Poker Game #16229448401: $5 + $0.50 Rebuy (119370163), Table 13 - 2500/5000 - Pot Limit Omaha Hi - 20:02:26 ET - 2009/11/22
Seat 2: electric chair (174,658)
Seat 3: superruik (282,134)
Seat 4: memoly (108,774)
Seat 5: muelling87 (97,094)
Seat 8: comeon69 (73,340)
muelling87 posts the small blind of 2,500
comeon69 posts the big blind of 5,000
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to electric chair [7s 6s 7d 8s]
electric chair raises to 10,000
superruik calls 10,000
memoly calls 10,000
muelling87 calls 7,500
comeon69 folds
*** FLOP *** [Qh 6d 9s]
muelling87 checks
comeon69: allin -lol
electric chair bets 45,000
superruik folds
memoly has 15 seconds left to act
memoly has requested TIME
memoly calls 45,000
muelling87 has 15 seconds left to act
muelling87 has requested TIME
comeon69: do it
muelling87 folds
*** TURN *** [Qh 6d 9s] [3d]
electric chair has 15 seconds left to act
electric chair bets 55,000
memoly has been disconnected
memoly has 15 seconds left to act
memoly has 90 seconds to reconnect
superruik: :S
comeon69: its a fold
memoly has reconnected
memoly has 15 seconds left to act
memoly calls 53,774, and is all in
electric chair shows [7s 6s 7d 8s]
memoly shows [Qs 8c Kc Td]
Uncalled bet of 1,226 returned to electric chair
*** RIVER *** [Qh 6d 9s 3d] [Th]
electric chair shows a straight, Ten high
memoly shows two pair, Queens and Tens
electric chair wins the pot (242,548) with a straight, Ten high

Chopped when we were 3 handed and I had 420k chips, so the numbers changed a little from what is shown here. This makes it twice in 3 weeks I have won this now.

[25-Nov - edit, posted the wrong screenshot last time, this is the right one]

Check out the Call of the Wildcat blog link well, he has won it a couple of times recently too.

You Plonker

2009-11-22T14:20:00.002Z

Plonker: Person of Little Or No Knowledge and Electrical Retarded

I cashed in 2 MTTs last night, one was a min cash in the $5 hilo on Full Tilt, the other was the $5 PLO rebuy on the same site. I played well in both, but in the PLO I played really well until my out hand. History is below, but I had been playing with curtis for about 2 hours and knew he would race with anything. Maybe that's why I thought it was worth getting it all in, because I knew he would be light. But, in the cold light of day, we were well clear first and second and I really should have stayed away from him until we got HU.

Full Tilt Poker Game #16202570822: $5 + $0.50 Rebuy (119123226), Table 2 - 3000/6000 - Pot Limit Omaha Hi - 20:04:42 ET - 2009/11/21
Seat 1: robenson (105,996)
Seat 2: Curtis4marsh (285,532)
Seat 4: electric chair (148,793)
Seat 8: UBsucks (81,853)
Seat 9: Mirakelman (39,826)
electric chair posts the small blind of 3,000
UBsucks posts the big blind of 6,000
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to electric chair [Ac Qh 7h 9c]
Mirakelman folds
robenson folds
Curtis4marsh has 15 seconds left to act
Curtis4marsh raises to 21,000
electric chair raises to 69,000 ==> I guess I was expecting him to fold to this raise
UBsucks folds
Curtis4marsh has 15 seconds left to act
Curtis4marsh raises to 213,000
electric chair calls 79,793, and is all in
Curtis4marsh shows [3d Jd Jh 8c]
electric chair shows [Ac Qh 7h 9c]
Uncalled bet of 64,207 returned to Curtis4marsh
*** FLOP *** [Tc 2h Ks]
*** TURN *** [Tc 2h Ks] [5h]
*** RIVER *** [Tc 2h Ks 5h] [8d]
Curtis4marsh shows a pair of Jacks
electric chair shows Ace King high
Curtis4marsh wins the pot (303,586) with a pair of Jacks

On the plus side, I am now back in the black for the month of November, albeit a couple of hundred dollars less than it should be.

Playing Bad

2009-11-18T22:51:00.002Z

Hmm, since the last updateI have been on a one way trip downwards. 8 losing sessions in 8 and losing is causing me to make bad decisions. Ordinarily I would not be leading from UTG with A78J in a hilo game, but it seems I have been recording multiple exits with this astonishingly bad move. The only silver lining is I know I am playing badly, so yesterday I managed to stop after just 1 game. Month to date -$125, which is about $350 the wrong way from where I peaked a week ago. Still, I am playing a bit better tonight and have even reached the money in a couple of SNGs, so hopefully the recovery starts here.

MacBook Update

2009-11-10T23:39:00.003Z

So, about 1 week in I am more convinced than ever that I made the right choice. Not only does Full Tilt work on it, but so does PokerStars. Don't see me going back to Windows in the next couple of years, except to install it as a guest OS under MacOS. Also managed to break my duck on the SNG front, so far in November over $200 profit and up nearly $1k in the last 30 days. Sharkscope lifetime says I just went past $1500 for SNGs on Full Tilt tonight as well. Bizarrely, I still do better in the $22 games than I do in the $11 ones.

Anyway, back to the Mac before anyone starts to think this is still a poker blog... Mouse pad is just so god dammed sexy, swipe all 4 fingers down to show all open windows so you can choose one, all 4 fingers up to clear the screen, 2 fingers in any direction to scroll, plus all the iPhone touch screen controls to zoom and rotate. Startup and shutdown time is much better than any Windows machine I have seen, I think I am online within 30 seconds of pushing the power button, and the battery can last 7 hours. If you need a new laptop and can afford to pay the Apple premium, it will become a guilty pleasure.

OpenOffice is available too, same controls and file formats as Windows, my results spreadsheet works just the same on the Mac as it did on the PC. And it's still free :)

October Round-up

2009-11-05T21:44:00.002Z

October ended up finishing quite nicely for me as I won the early evening $5 PLO rebuy on Full Tilt again, which returned $440 for a total of $10.50 in buy-in and add-on. Total profit for the month was just over $750, all of which and more has been spent on a Macbook Pro which I am using to make this entry. It's a great little toy and unlike the Windows laptops, just seems to work. I even connected my wireless headphones via bluetooth without breaking into a sweat.

I have also download and installed Full Tilt poker for the Mac. So far I have played 6 STTs and 1 MTT on it with no cashes and not even a bubble. Not all of this is bad play, but it is a bit tilting to be missing by so far. First game should have given me the clue, in a PLO8 STT, I flop a set of Js from the BB on 47J board, fill up on the turn and get all in 3-way, only to see a 3rd 7 give someone else quads and a 3-way scoop.

Elsewhere have played a few more games on PokerStars. Now I am used to the interface I think I have worked out that the PLO8 SNGs are generally populated by clueless idiots, especially the 18 runner $16 games. I know I have not played that many games, but it is so easy to double up on the first table and the only time the going gets any kind of tricky is on the bubble with 5 left.

Anyway, going to see if switching back to the Windows laptop makes any difference to my results, GL in your games.

An Apple a Day

2009-10-07T21:58:00.002+01:00

So, going to start with some off-topic musing. Last year I read a book called The Tipping Point. It was about how trends started and what caused them to happen. Ultimately, it comes down to a group of people who are recognized as leaders by their peers triggering a behaviour. It happened in Greenwich Village in the 1980s with Hush Puppies, some skate board kids wearing a particular brand of trainer or one boy in a Polynesian culture taking his own life. Each of them triggered a cult like rise to fame for their actions.

Personally, I work in the IT industry, am a bit of a geek, good with numbers and particularly patterns. Last week I was at a meeting with, er, lots of other geeks, all working at big IT companies like Dell, Oracle, IBM, CA, HP and Symantec. The one thing that stood out was how many of them had an Apple Mac, or were planning to buy one in the near future. In fact, it was probably 80% of the people I spoke to, with the guy from Dell winning the prize for owning the most with 3. Two years ago at the same meeting, the same group of people were just getting into the Nintendo Wii and wondering if they needed an XBox or a PS2 to go with it.

The point of all this? I think Apple might just be about to break out of the zealot user base they have owned for years and into the mainstream. In my world, I started with an iPod, graduated to an iPhone and will be getting a Macbook - as soon as Apple announce whatever it is that will be their Windows 7 release spoiler. But I'm not the only one. I'm not sure Linux is for me, certainly it won't have many poker options, but there are some available for Mac. I am also fed up with Windows just breaking - having worked with it for nearly 20 years it's turned into a right dog and as Vista has proved, you really cannot polish a turd. So, get some shares in Apple now if you have some spare cash, with the exclusive iPhone distribution agreements coming to an end, the next wave of new owners will be wondering how they ever managed to do anything with a Windows interface - and looking at the other kit they sell. [BTW, didn't bump into anyone from Apple or Microsoft at the meeting]

Back to the intended topic for this blog.

Eventually got back to winning ways in September. Ended the month $420 up with no outstanding highlights, just solid returns on SNGs and even some positive returns from capped 6-max PLO cash tables. Also played a few games on Pokerstars and finding that the $5 O8 STTs are slow, but easy to beat. Trouble is they take too long and even on there take a while to fill. All this meant that at the end of the month my Full Tilt balance was bouncing around the $1k mark again. With $1k tucked away in a savings account, it is starting to look like I will be able to afford a trip to the WSOP in 2010 (only 1 year late) with the aim of playing a $1500 PLO or O8 event.

Highlight so far this month was last night, deciding on a whim to play the $4k gtd $24 PLO knockout on Full Tilt. Started at 9:15pm, ended about 2:00am when I finished 4th for about $500 profit including bounties. Interestingly I only had 1 bounty when we reached the money (27) and 4 by the time I went out. Actually think I played awesome apart from 2 hands, one where I rivered to win a pot that put me into the top 10, the other where I blew more than half my stack min-betting into a calling station with 4 left. Thought that perhaps trying consecutive min raises on flop, turn and river might be interpreted as strength - but not by a useless Italian fish...

Anyway, couple of my better hands - this was a total soul read:

Full Tilt Poker Game #15167418576: $4,000 KO Guarantee (111043850), Table 5 - 800/1600 - Pot Limit Omaha Hi - 19:32:30 ET - 2009/10/06
Seat 1: trubbzz (18,178)
Seat 3: the77pig (57,660)
Seat 4: electric chair (62,060)
Seat 5: il_pata (71,861)
Seat 6: boildoc (4,433)
Seat 8: pempe2 (70,555)
Seat 9: jerome555 (17,388)
pempe2 posts the small blind of 800
jerome555 posts the big blind of 1,600
The button is in seat #6
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to electric chair [Th Qd Js 8c]
trubbzz calls 1,600
the77pig folds
electric chair calls 1,600
il_pata calls 1,600
boildoc folds
pempe2 calls 800
jerome555 checks
*** FLOP *** [6c 7s Qs]
pempe2 checks
jerome555 checks
trubbzz checks
electric chair has 15 seconds left to act
electric chair bets 4,000
il_pata has 15 seconds left to act
il_pata folds
pempe2 folds
jerome555 calls 4,000
trubbzz folds
*** TURN *** [6c 7s Qs] [3c]
jerome555 checks
electric chair bets 16,000
jerome555 calls 11,788, and is all in
electric chair shows [Th Qd Js 8c]
jerome555 shows [As 9s 4c Jc]
Uncalled bet of 4,212 returned to electric chair
*** RIVER *** [6c 7s Qs 3c] [3h]
electric chair shows two pair, Queens and Threes
jerome555 shows a pair of Threes
electric chair wins the pot (39,576) with two pair, Queens and Threes

And this was a golden hand that took out an overly aggressive player:

Full Tilt Poker Game #15167599179: $4,000 KO Guarantee (111043850), Table 5 - 1000/2000 - Pot Limit Omaha Hi - 19:41:47 ET - 2009/10/06
Seat 2: wolverine6 (50,288)
Seat 3: the77pig (18,260)
Seat 4: electric chair (87,949)
Seat 5: il_pata (73,761)
Seat 6: boildoc (46,515)
Seat 8: pempe2 (73,768)
Seat 9: dinamo15 (55,808)
the77pig posts the small blind of 1,000
electric chair posts the big blind of 2,000
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to electric chair [3d Qd 8h 3c]
il_pata folds
boildoc calls 2,000
pempe2 calls 2,000
dinamo15 folds
wolverine6 calls 2,000
the77pig calls 1,000
electric chair checks
*** FLOP *** [Ah 3s 9h]
the77pig checks
electric chair bets 10,000
boildoc folds
pempe2 raises to 40,000
wolverine6 folds
the77pig folds
electric chair raises to 85,949, and is all in
pempe2 calls 31,768, and is all in
electric chair shows [3d Qd 8h 3c]
pempe2 shows [Kh Ac 9d 8s]
Uncalled bet of 14,181 returned to electric chair
*** TURN *** [Ah 3s 9h] [3h]
*** RIVER *** [Ah 3s 9h 3h] [6d]
electric chair shows four of a kind, Threes
pempe2 shows two pair, Aces and Nines
electric chair wins the pot (153,536) with four of a kind, Threes

Checking through the rest of the hand histories I can't actually find that many hands where we went to showdown, this was pretty typical, just taking the pot with a continuation bet on the flop from OOP:

Seat 1: LUu-9 (73,924)
Seat 2: wolverine6 (41,258)
Seat 4: electric chair (147,592)
Seat 5: il_pata (122,329)
Seat 9: dinamo15 (81,208)
electric chair posts the small blind of 2,000
il_pata posts the big blind of 4,000
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to electric chair [Jc Qs 9s Qh]
dinamo15 has 15 seconds left to act
dinamo15 folds
LUu-9 folds
wolverine6 has 15 seconds left to act
wolverine6 raises to 10,000
electric chair calls 8,000
il_pata folds
*** FLOP *** [2c Ts 3d]
electric chair bets 24,000
wolverine6 folds

Anyway, net impact is that Full Tilt balance is now in excess of $1500. Just realized that BA now fly direct to Vegas and I have enough BA exec club miles to fly there 1 1/2 times :)

Super Turbo Update

2009-09-10T23:40:00.002+01:00

Hello Reader

Sorry about the lack of updates, went on holiday to Spain and never got round to putting some words together. Strange, 2 weeks off and it was not quite like I had never played before, but it was pretty close. Ended up down $100 for August overall, but got my mojo back and am already up almost $250 for September.

Still messing around on Full Tilt with the 300 chip PLO super turbo's. Have played 188 of the $7.50 buy-in ones so far, most frequent finishing position is 1st at 37, bubbled 26 times and 3rd 24 times. Overall profit $379 for about 27% ROI.

Also deposited some money onto Pokerstars for the first time, did this so could play in a 180-man $11 SNG with the Betfair flashmob, managed to get my stack up to a decent level, before donking out in 37th with AK vs AJ on a JJx flop. I still managed to work out that continuation betting the flop was a very easy way to build a stack. Still, not that fussed about Holdem so have started looking at the Omaha hilo STTs. Standard early in these is absolutely woeful as a rule, just need to get used to the interface and work out how to click a button just the once instead of multiple times to make it work. Played 8, cashed in 4, but bubbled twice as well.

Anyway, without doubt the most frustrating hand I have played since the last update is this one. Villain was overplaying bad O8 hands, so when the flop came I thought I had hit the jackpot. On checking the hands on cardplayer I found I had an overall expectation of 0.79, which was a little more than I thought. But to lose to a pair of 3s...

Full Tilt Poker Game #14351273137: $10 + $1 Tournament (105429995), Table 1 - 1200/2400 - Pot Limit Omaha H/L - 18:48:35 ET - 2009/08/29
Seat 1: electric chair (40,598)
Seat 2: Rdevil14 (42,871)
Seat 3: Mrs ACE 84 (44,004)
Seat 6: c3events (87,388)
c3events posts the small blind of 1,200
electric chair posts the big blind of 2,400
The button is in seat #3
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to electric chair [Ad 5h 4h 2d]
Rdevil14 folds
Mrs ACE 84 folds
c3events raises to 7,200
electric chair raises to 21,600
c3events calls 14,400
*** FLOP *** [2h Kc 3h]
c3events bets 43,200
electric chair calls 18,998, and is all in
c3events shows [3s Js 6d Ac]
electric chair shows [Ad 5h 4h 2d]
Uncalled bet of 24,202 returned to c3events
*** TURN *** [2h Kc 3h] [9d]
*** RIVER *** [2h Kc 3h 9d] [Ts]
c3events shows a pair of Threes, for high
electric chair shows a pair of Twos, for high
c3events wins the pot (81,196) with a pair of Threes

"M"

First Half Summary

2009-07-03T22:30:00.003+01:00

After another abysmal start to the year, I rescued the whole lot in April with a my first $1k month and followed up by dumping nearly half of it back in May. I have still not worked out how I managed it, cash mostly. Up in all the various formats of STTs I played, up overall in MTTs, but only made a profit in the rebuys.

Following the mid-month posting, I managed to spin the profit up to $609 for the month, and $450 for the whole year. Might have to rethink the targets for the year now I have missed the WSOP and will need to run really well to buy into any of the WSOPE tourneys.

Still doing well on the 300 chip super turbos as well, maintaining ROI in excess of 20%. Have also done a little bit of research on Sharkscope. Odd how I think the largest winners are some of the biggest donks I play, especially at the $22 and $33 level. Anyway, will end with a small brag post, my Full Tilt account has just squeaked past the $1k profit mark on Sharkscope - see my roller-coaster graph below :)

The Butterfly Effect

2009-06-18T22:40:00.004+01:00

Oops, it's half way through June and no summary for May yet. $465 down sums it all up really, mostly on Sun, mostly related to not playing well on cash tables. June has perked up though, with a nice multi-table win in a PLO rebuy for $550. Played it very well, if a little tight, got to the rebuy break with about 4000 chips, added on to take me up to 6k, noticed the leader was on 60k (or 40 buy-ins!). He was still there on the final table and doubled me up to first when I slow played a flopped top set Qs.

Anyway, reason for the title of this post is my further adventures into the 300 chip PLO super turbos. Have played nearly 100 of the 9-seat $7.50 buy-ins and my ROI is getting on for 25%. With chip stacks so short, a single mistake can be magnified and cost you the chance of cashing, or winning. Becoming chip leader is also very important, as it gives you the ability to push all the other stacks around. I played 1 game last night, here is how it went (warning, you will not run this good, ever!)

Hand 1:
Dealt to electric chair [Js 7s Ks Kh] - ooo, nice starting hand, will reraise pre
NeedLuck2day folds
free-dic-u-lust raises to 60 - I will always reraise this with any kind of start hand
lost pension calls 60 - calling just builds the pot for me to raise with
CedarValley calls 60 - see above
Simsas folds
snipes2k1 folds
pokerdegree folds
electric chair raises to 300, and is all in - sometimes this will give you an uncontested pot as weak raisers and limpers will often fold here

free-dic-u-lust calls 240, and is all in
lost pension calls 240, and is all in
CedarValley calls 240, and is all in

- hmmm, not really expecting 3 callers, let's see if we have two AAs out there:

electric chair shows [Js 7s Ks Kh]
free-dic-u-lust shows [5c 8d 8s 5s]
lost pension shows [9c 6c 6h 2h]
CedarValley shows [Ac 4h Qh Qd]

lol, wtf, I am ahead, main worry being the A or Q outs

*** FLOP *** [Jd Th Jh] - yay, top set
*** TURN *** [Jd Th Jh] [8c] - hmm, behind to the str8
*** RIVER *** [Jd Th Jh 8c] [7d] - RIVER!!!!!

electric chair wins the pot (1,230) :) :) :)

This really is the nuts position to be in, 1 hand gone, 3 out, I have quadrupled.

Hands 2-5, folded all, hand 6 was my BB and I got a walk. Hand 7, my SB:

Dealt to electric chair [5s Ac Qh Th] - folded round to me so I obviously raise:
electric chair raises to 120
yves34 raises to 300, and is all in - BB raises all in, just what I wanted
electric chair calls 180
yves34 shows [9s Kc 7d 8h]
electric chair shows [5s Ac Qh Th] - I like my hand, my straight potential is higher and my A my be good if it pairs

*** FLOP *** [5c As Qd]
*** TURN *** [5c As Qd] [Qs]
*** RIVER *** [5c As Qd Qs] [Ad]
yves34 shows a pair of Aces
electric chair shows a full house, Aces full of Queens

Two hands played, two full houses, 5x starting stack.

Hand 8, raise AQQ4 preflop from button and pick up the blinds.
Hand 9 fold
Hand 10 raise AA97 preflop and pick up the blinds
Hand 11 fold
Hand 12 all fold to my BB for another walk

Hand 13
Dealt to electric chair [Jh 6s Jd 4c]
- I got outs
electric chair raises to 120

NeedLuck2day raises to 255, and is all in
electric chair calls 135
NeedLuck2day shows [4h 3d 5c 4d] - LOL, I am so far ahead
electric chair shows [Jh 6s Jd 4c]

*** FLOP *** [Ac Js 4s]
*** TURN *** [Ac Js 4s] [7c]
*** RIVER *** [Ac Js 4s 7c] [As]
NeedLuck2day shows a full house, Fours full of Aces
electric chair shows a full house, Jacks full of Aces
electric chair wins the pot (510)

Oooh, that's gotta hurt, my 3rd boat of the game in only 13 hands

Hand 14, fold
Hand 15
Dealt to electric chair [2s Jc Th Ah]

- I have an Ace and the button, so...
electric chair raises to 175

snipes2k1 raises to 205, and is all in
electric chair calls 30
snipes2k1 shows [Ac Ts As 7c]
electric chair shows [2s Jc Th Ah] - ah, I am in trouble

*** FLOP *** [3h 2d 9h] - I have some outs
*** TURN *** [3h 2d 9h] [4c] - I have more outs
*** RIVER *** [3h 2d 9h 4c] [8h] - Jackpot!

Hand 16 and through the bubble, I lose an all in preflop race:
pokerdegree shows [6s Ad Td As]
electric chair shows [Qh Kc Qs 5s]
*** FLOP *** [Jc 7d Ac]
*** TURN *** [Jc 7d Ac] [9c]
*** RIVER *** [Jc 7d Ac 9c] [Qc]
pokerdegree shows three of a kind, Aces
electric chair shows three of a kind, Queens
pokerdegree wins the pot (630)

Hand 17, I have to fold my probe bet on the flop to a reraise
Dealt to electric chair [Kc Ah 8c 4h]
Simsas folds
pokerdegree calls 25
electric chair raises to 150
pokerdegree calls 100
*** FLOP *** [Qd 6c Qs]
pokerdegree checks
electric chair bets 150
pokerdegree raises to 480, and is all in

Hand 18
Dealt to electric chair [Jc 7d Js Tc]
pokerdegree calls 50
electric chair calls 25 - let's see what happens on the flop and disguise my hand
Simsas checks

*** FLOP *** [6h 2h Jd]
- nice, 1/2 pot bet to see if we have anyone chasing a flush
electric chair bets 75
Simsas folds
pokerdegree calls 75 - we do :)

*** TURN *** [6h 2h Jd] [6s] - time to slow play
electric chair checks
pokerdegree checks
*** RIVER *** [6h 2h Jd 6s] [Jh] - too nice, only option is to value bet and hope for a call
electric chair bets 150
pokerdegree calls 150

Hand 19, fold
Hand 20, walk
Hand 21,22, fold
Hand 23, my BB
Dealt to electric chair [9c Ah Tc 7s]
- I have an Ace, with connected cards in the rest of the hand
Simsas folds
pokerdegree raises to 180
electric chair raises to 300
pokerdegree calls 110, and is all in
electric chair shows [9c Ah Tc 7s]
pokerdegree shows [Qs Th Kd Jc] - I think it is about 50:50 here

*** FLOP *** [5c 4c Qc] - floptastic
*** TURN *** [5c 4c Qc] [Ts] - he has outs
*** RIVER *** [5c 4c Qc Ts] [6h] - held...
electric chair shows a flush, Queen high

6 hands later...
Dealt to electric chair [Kc Kh 7h Ts]
Simsas calls 40
electric chair raises to 240
Simsas raises to 400, and is all in
electric chair calls 160
Simsas shows [4h 7d Tc 5c]
electric chair shows [Kc Kh 7h Ts]
*** FLOP *** [As 6c Jd]
*** TURN *** [As 6c Jd] [8d]
*** RIVER *** [As 6c Jd 8d] [6s]
Simsas shows a pair of Sixes
electric chair shows two pair, Kings and Sixes
electric chair wins the pot (800)

Not every game goes this way, but when you hit a few cards it can be very satisfying. A few tips: get more than starting stack quickly, that way you can put pressure on everyone with a shorter stack than you. Do this by raising preflop. Bet in position when it comes round unopened, almost never call (except when you know that you are hitting the deck and quads are coming). Fold most hands that have been raised before it is your turn to act, (re)raise AAxx, KKxx and QQxx with the intent to get all the chips in.

Looking back at the MTT win, I know that my pre-flop play was improved by playing these short stack games. This meant I was able to get away with some outrageous bluffs at important times, with a short stack. For that reason alone it would be worth playing these if you are at all unsure where you are with your preflop game.

Lastly, have played 3 STTs tonight, cashed in 2, total in for June $465.46, total out in May $465.15 = down-swing reversed.

Going to Duffs Full House tomorrow in Waterlooville for the opening night. New poker club being opened by a couple of posters on the Betfair forum. Hope it works out for them and that they can organize some events when I am not on holiday, see you there if you are going.

BOOOOOOMMMMM

2009-04-30T23:44:00.002+01:00

End of the month and finally, for the first time since I started keeping records, I have gone past $1k profit from poker for the month, $1,005.53 to be exact. I was up to $1050 a few days ago, but managed to get back down to $900 before recovering in the last 3 days of the month. This means I am also in profit for the whole of 2009, to the tune of $300. Not much in the big scheme of things, but poker is always more satisfying when you are winning.

I continued to run golden (or play well) on SNGs, in the money in 60/114 (53%) of the ones I played in April with an overall ROI of 48%. What helped here was moving up to the $22 tables. I have a pretty good strike rate at this level and have noticed that the players I think are the biggest fish tend to be the ones at the top of the sharkscope leaderboards. The Brazilians in particular seem to be running good, which suits me because I know I am a favourite every time the chips go in against them.

Lastly, have dabbled in the super turbo PLO SNGs on full tilt. You start with 300 chips and blinds at 15-30. Instantaneous action that definitely seems to suit my game, or maybe it's because the $7.50 buy-in encourages the fish to participate when they don't have a clue about starting hands. Generally, only 1 other player seems to be competent, which is why you can be HU at 30-60 blinds and still going at 100-200.

Here's hoping next month is as fruitful, might even dig out some hand histories for the next update.

Swongs

2009-04-10T00:31:00.003+01:00

So as usual, no updates means I have been losing. Not sure exactly how, so can probably chalk it up to variance. Luckily, I have just hit a purple patch*, which means 12 straight days of profitable poker (+$750), 80%+ ROI on Full Tilt SNGs so far in April for $500 profit, and looking at OPR I reckon I have cashed in 23/39 9-seaters. Long may it continue, I have now made a net $3.81 profit on poker in 2009, including rake back. I have played nearly 300 SNGs and MTTs, cashing in 35% of them. Oddly, in February I was in the money 37% of the time, but still ended up with a -11% ROI, WTF? All this was offset by my cash endeavours, where I managed to lose about $350 on PLO, with another $50 on O8 for good measure.

I have not consciously changed my style, but in the last couple of days I have increased the buy-in level a bit and have now played a few $22 and $33 SNGs. The game is a bit less tight than the $11 and $6 versions, which obviously suits me quite nicely. This is as a result of winning $500 on the Grand National, being handed the 2nd placed horse. First thing I did when the money came back to my Tilt account was to try and send it back, which Tilt immediately barred, saying something like they were not a bank. Still, with a new deeper balance (hesitate to use the word roll because I can always deposit if the balance empties out) I have probably been more confident about moving up to higher stakes.

In my records I made a note saying I played a perfect game. Don't actually remember thinking that before about a whole SNG, but this was the final hand and it sure helps when the deck hits you in the face.

Full Tilt Poker Game #11524930979: $22 + $2 Sit & Go (Turbo) (86531154), Table 1 - 400/800 - Pot Limit Omaha H/L - 16:28:34 ET - 2009/04/05
Seat 7: makoman11 (5,356)
Seat 8: electric chair (8,144)
electric chair posts the small blind of 400
makoman11 posts the big blind of 800
The button is in seat #8
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to electric chair [8s 6s 9h Td]
electric chair calls 400
makoman11 raises to 2,400
electric chair calls 1,600
*** FLOP *** [Th Jh 8h]
makoman11 bets 2,956, and is all in
electric chair calls 2,956
makoman11 shows [Jc Kc 5d Kh]
electric chair shows [8s 6s 9h Td]
*** TURN *** [Th Jh 8h] [7s]
*** RIVER *** [Th Jh 8h 7s] [6h]
makoman11 shows a pair of Kings, for high
electric chair shows a straight, Jack high, for high
electric chair wins the pot (10,712) with a straight, Jack high
makoman11 stands up
electric chair stands up
No low hand qualified
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 10,712 | Rake 0
Board: [Th Jh 8h 7s 6h]
Seat 7: makoman11 (big blind) showed [Jc Kc 5d Kh] and lost with HI: a pair of Kings
Seat 8: electric chair (small blind) showed [8s 6s 9h Td] and won (10,712) with HI: a straight, Jack high

* I think this might possibly be the biggest ever understatement looking at those numbers above. Sharkscope graph below shows just how sick I have run - all the recent upswing has been in the last 2 weeks.

Slight Poker Derailment

2009-02-18T22:40:00.003Z

Hello reader.

Well, no updates for a while usually means I have been running bad. True to form, I was down $250 in January and a further $190 so far this month. This is a slight recovery from where I was, but it's still been a bitch of a bad spell. Generally, I got sucked into playing cash (see previous post), where I always start well then fade away. Probably means my game is too predictable or I am prone to tilt, or both.

Have switched back to SNGs and am in profit on Full Tilt for this month at least. Tried playing a few rebuys, but have been hitting some bad hands at the wrong time. This weekend was typical, in a $5 PLO8 rebuy, I call from early position with A356, chip leader SB makes up and flop is 455 and I have a flush draw. Check to induce the bet from the SB and we end up all in on the flop. He has KK510, so is drawing to 2 cards for the hi and no cards for the lo. Turn comes K, river is also high and instead of moving into the top 10, I am out in 52nd. On reflection, I played that hand well enough, just needed to win my 1:4 shot, so at least in that case I did not go out because I was playing bad.

Tried the DYM games on Sun, which to start with were piss easy to win. Now though, they have turned into rock-up SNGs, where it just comes down to the cards. Went out 9/10 in a $5 one earlier, on 300-600 blinds, just after my KKxx was cracked by AQ99 with a single preflop bet getting both of us all in. Time to give up on those and go back to the PLO and PLO8 MTTs on there I think.

Thankfully, have other things to keep me busy, work going well and am now producing reports that keep getting circulated to our exec leadership team, with good feedback. Home wise have just taken on a second Viszla dog, same breed as the first, but this time a 9 month old dog. He looks stunning and is very well behaved, and is still an entire, so might see if I can pimp him out as a stud dog for some extra bankroll. Going to rename him when my wife accepts that he is staying, Rupert is not a good name for a dog, current favourite options are rufus or rocky.

Plans to fund the number plate out of poker might be put on hold, since I reckon I can pay for it outright anyway. I also now have enough American miles for a business class trip to Vegas. Anyone fancy going out late May or June in time for the cheaper Omaha events at the WSOP?

A Feeling of Deja Vu?

2009-01-13T23:22:00.004Z

So, started this year off playing on a relatively new site (for me) more often (iPoker through Blue Square and Sun), which is a bit like I did late 2007, when I signed up for Full Tilt in December. Hmm, results last year were good in December, then I had an awful January playing beyond my capability and hitting the cash tables too much. Net result was $325 down for the month, with 21 losing days.

Fast forward to 2009. I have had 7 losing days so far this month out of 12 completed, with a $150 down day. Yet I am still up, a princely $6.67, but that puts me about $150 ahead of where I was in 2008. Main reason for this is my cash game results have improved. I know I am far more aggressive now and it has really started to show. The big down day was just a car crash, I was 5-buy-ins deep in a O8 rebuy and got runner-runnered for a straight when I flopped a set of Ks, whilst playing cash at the same time. Both of the buy-ins on the cash tables went as well, I stayed on beyond when I knew I should get up and leave (like when I went out of the MTT).

Anyway, back later in the month hopefully with some improved results. Currently 7/17 in a PLO rebuy on Full Tilt, so hopefully will have an emergency late update FTW later.

[2.5 hours later - 3rd for $250 :)]

Save the buy-ins, save the stack, or something like that anyway.

2008 Round-up

2009-01-03T19:51:00.003Z

Well that's a wrap then, I definitely hit a rich vein of form in the second half of the year, with six months consecutive profit and an overall $3,080 in profit for the year, making up for the nearly $600 down in the first 6 months. Looking back on Official Poker Rankings (Full Tilt) reinforces what I felt at the time, that I was on a massive heater for the HILO STTs. I actually cashed in 46% of them in the month, playing 9 seat tables. This was the foundation for the rest of the year and helped me develop my game to the extent that I am now playing O8 and PLO cash games without fear of emptying my poker accounts.

In addition to that I also had some nice MTT results for a small stake player, the best of which came just in time to pay for some Christmas extras (see the last post). I am quite pleased that I managed to win MTTs on 3 different sites, results in both regular, rebuy and knockout tourneys.

At the end of the year I received an email from Sun poker announcing a migration to iPoker, where I would retain the rakeback privileges I had picked up when I first created the account. I stopped playing because I never really adjusted to the Cryptologic structures and games. Not sure why, maybe with another year of learning behind me I would have coped. However, I am quite comfortable with iPoker and proved it to myself by final tabling my first O8 rebuy on New Years Day with a shiny new Sun account. I am also now registered in 9 freerolls over the coming weeks, which means I am going to have to remember how to play Hold Em again. New account name is uncontrolled, say hello if you see me on the tables.

I will split my play mostly on Full Tilt and iPoker, with some small games on Betfair, where I will also try and play the weekly $3k gtd PLO by qualifying through the satellite. At least, while it lasts, I was in a game 2 weeks ago with 5 seats gtd and only 8 runners - and it still started!

Lastly, I have a couple of small aims for 2009, which represent a small improvement on the overall results from 2008. One is to buy a new number plate for my car, cost about £1k. Second is to try and get out to Vegas for a $1500 PLO or O8 event in the WSOP. I have enough air miles to fly there, so reckon could do the whole trip for about $2500 including some spends while I am there. There are a couple of hurdles to overcome here that are not just financial related, like can I persuade my wife that it is a good idea and can I book the flights. But other than that I am planning on making a profit, which is probably more than I was this time last year, when I would have been happy to make anything.

Spend, Spend, Spend!

2008-12-22T23:55:00.002Z

Bloody hell, I thought there was a credit crunch on. Savacentre was absolutely mobbed, it took me 5 minutes to get out of the petrol station because there were so many cars going into the main shop, and that was 7:00pm at night. Luckily, once we had pushed the booze into the trolley, we were walking past a till as it was opened up so only had 5 minutes to queue. For a change, everyone was being nice, reasonable and pleasant, none of the usual tension you get when the place is heaving.

Personally, I am doing my best to help spend our way out of recession, or rather, my wife is. Fortunately this month I have been able to withdraw £900 from my various poker accounts, with the £ so weak it would be a little bit stupid not to average out a bit at a very nice rate. What was £320 back in September is now coming out at £402 :)

Latest result was my biggest single payout since I started keeping records, with a 1st place in a $2.5k GTD O8 gtd on Blue Square. This was a $10 rebuy, but I only bought in once and did not add-on because I was 5th at the break. Ended up HU about 3:1 down, but the player I was up against had no clue about post-flop play, as the 3rd place finisher kept reminding him while we were playing out. Eventually, this hand gave me the win for $980, an 88/1 result for the $11 buy-in. Once I had more chips than he did the result was never in doubt.

GAME #1935680483: Omaha Hi-Lo PL Tournament 2008-12-21 00:27:53
Table 239203165 (Tournament: $2,500 GP Omaha PL Hi/Lo Buy-In: $10+$1)
Seat 4: brevity ($463888 in chips) DEALER
Seat 10: paskl ($108611 in chips)
brevity: Post SB $8,000
paskl: Post BB $16,000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to brevity [4 As 5h Ac]
Dealt to paskl [4h 9h 10d Jh]
brevity: Raise (NF) $32,000
paskl: Call $16,000
*** FLOP *** [3h 9c 8d]
paskl: Check
brevity: Bet $32,000
paskl: Call $32,000
*** TURN *** [2c]
paskl: Check
brevity: Bet $64,000
paskl: Allin $44,611
*** RIVER *** [2h]
*** SUMMARY ***
brevity: wins $236,611

I cashed in the same tourney the night after in 13th, but only for the minimum, while at the same time finishing 14th in a $5 PLO rebuy on the same site. This is handy, because my results on Full Tilt have gone absolutely toilet. I think maybe 3-tabling the MTTs is reducing my feel for the players, so I am not making the moves I should be at the right time. Case in point in the 2nd BSq rebuy, I dithered about making a call UTG with a semi-decent starting hand, against a short stack BB. I would have upped my stack by 50% with that call, which would have meant a 2nd final table running, and it was a call I knew I should have made.

Alternative theory is that since the beginning of November, the games on FT have become much harder. Maybe the casual US players are starting to hold off playing because of the combined effect of the UIGEA and credit crunch hitting at the same time?

On Betfair I have not played that much, managed to qualify for the $3k GTD via the 5-seat gtd satellite (8 runners!) again. My out hand in the tournament itself is as follows.

***** Betfair Poker Hand History for Game 458788694 *****
PL Omaha $100 Buy-in + $5 Entry Fee, Level:4 Blinds(75/150-(no ante)) - Sunday, December 21, 22:40:18 GMT 2008
Sunday Special PL Omaha $3,000 GTD #188108
Table 2 9-max (Real Money)
Seat 3 is the button
Total number of active players : 6
Seat 1: harayir ( 3,699 )
Seat 2: il freddo ( 3,875 )
Seat 3: lesleybeard ( 5,775 )
Seat 4: bmcg_2005 ( 4,837.50 )
Seat 8: danko02538 ( 6,655 )
Seat 9: bazza90 ( 2,005 )
Tourney Level:4 Blinds(75/150-(no ante))
bmcg_2005 posts small blind [75]
danko02538 posts big blind [150]
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to harayir [ Ah, Ts, 3h, Ad ]
bazza90 folds
harayir raises to [525]
il freddo folds
lesleybeard folds
bmcg_2005 folds
danko02538 calls [375]
** Dealing Flop ** [ Th, Kd, 3c ]
danko02538 bets [1,125]
harayir goes all-in
harayir raises to [3,174]
danko02538 calls [2,049]
** Showdown **
harayir shows [ Ah, Ts, 3h, Ad ]
danko02538 shows [ 9h, Jd, Qs, 3s ]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 5c ]
** Dealing River ** [ 9d ]
** Hand Conclusion **
danko02538 wins 7,473 from main pot with a straight, King to Nine
************ Game 458788694 ends ************

I did think I was ahead on the flop at the time, which is why I re-raised him. Turns out I was 65% to win, which reinforces my read. Even on the turn I was still 58%. Anyone have comments on how I played this?

Will do an end of year round up and 2009 aims some time, but unless I take all my outstanding balances to the tables at the same time, I am not likely to be on a losing month in December, which makes 6 straight months of profit, from $100 up to $900, and a total of $2.9k for the year as whole.

End of the Month Update

2008-11-30T21:32:00.005Z

Since the last update I have managed some really strong results. I have crept back onto the cash tables and managed $100 profit on small stakes Omaha, without really being in much danger of losing. Have also run into some extremely good form in some multis: 4th on Blue Square in a $10 hilo rebuy for $210 profit (hand that did me in was the first hi only hand I had raised with throughout the whole tournament QQJ10 not good enough for 78910). Last weekend managed to satellite into the $3k GTD PLO on Betfair, $27.50 for the satellite for a $105 buyin, with an overlay on both the satellite and the game itself. Played some really good poker, with my out hand in 3rd (for $600) the only time I made a mistake.

Then Friday I played the 22:15 $5 PLO on Betfair and was utterly dominant. Started with 49 runners, by the time we were down to 21 I had 25% of the chips and stayed like that until we were 3 way, when I doubled someone and we were all about even (40k stacks). Not to worry, I got it all back 2 hands later courtesy of my somewhat loose image and then a 2:1 chip lead meant that all I had to do was wait for a flopped straight and just slow play it. I wonder if playing a slightly higher level of game is making the smaller stake buy-ins that much more easy?

As I type I am in the $3k GTD again, having won a seat in a 5 seat GTD with only 12 entrants. Did have to luckbox a 4-way all in to take out positions 9-7 when I was shortish, but once I had some chips I was never in danger. Going to have to make the most of this as the number of runners in the event itself is 22, which is 2 down from last weeks 24 and there is no way any site will continue this much support for a tournament that is not pulling in the players.

Anyway, total profit for the month so far is $866, which is an improvement on this time last year (~$600) and will only look better if I manage to cash in the PLO tonight as well. TY for reading :)

An Almost Perfect Game

2008-11-20T21:44:00.002Z

Soz about the long time between updates, been busy :)

Hardly played in October after BFWCOP, had a week away in Devon with my family. Overall, ended $100 up for the month. Must have got tilted on holiday as came back and could not win a pot for the first 2 weeks of November. I dare not look at the number of hilo STTs I played as I am sure I must have blanked in about 10 consecutive games. Same went on Betfair where the new buy-in prices seemed to destabilize the rhythm I was used to on the PLO STTs as well. What didn't help was having a cold for a week which really dulled my thinking.

So, eventually decided I was going to play the $10 plo rebuy on BF again. I used to do well in this, but last few times I had played it I was nowhere near the money. Indeed this time I was on my way out, with the 2nd rebuy being a complete accident when I meant to click Cancel and hit OK instead. With only 14 runners, the add-on break arrived and I was one of only 5 left, so the addon was a no-brainer and I had bought in for $41. Top 3 paid and 3rd place was $44 - which to be honest was what I was playing for at that stage. Ended up getting 2nd after some confidence boosting railing from gummybaggie for $66.

Also started to get in the money in a few STTs as well, then Tuesday I decided that it would be a good idea to play the 20:45 $5 plo rebuy on Full Tilt. In many respects it was, because I had a clear head, no alcohol and I did not feel too tired (to start with anyway). I played pretty much perfect throughout the whole game, even though I had 2 double buy-ins and an add-on at the break. Critical hand for me came with about 15 left:

Full Tilt Poker Game #9044577128: $5 + $0.50 Rebuy (69072648), Table 4 - 120/240 - Pot Limit Omaha Hi - 17:30:31 ET - 2008/11/18
Seat 1: meliina (7,152)
Seat 2: geodsdb (13,463)
Seat 3: jnt99 (11,022)
Seat 5: bambii (18,310)
Seat 6: iwilllie (11,768)
Seat 7: Wolfbagger (5,360)
Seat 8: electric chair (15,450)
Seat 9: Greengoz (15,899)
Greengoz posts the small blind of 120
meliina posts the big blind of 240
The button is in seat #8
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to electric chair [Th Ks Ts 9s] ===> decent starting hand
geodsdb raises to 840
jnt99 folds
bambii folds
iwilllie calls 840
Wolfbagger folds
electric chair calls 840
Greengoz folds
meliina folds
*** FLOP *** [4h Td 9h] ===> jackpot flop
geodsdb has 15 seconds left to act
geodsdb bets 2,880
iwilllie calls 2,880 ===> even better, probably 2 playing for a flush here so blockers in play
electric chair raises to 14,400
geodsdb has 15 seconds left to act
geodsdb folds ===> good, going to be up against only 1 with nearly 2:1 chance
iwilllie calls 8,048, and is all in
electric chair shows [Th Ks Ts 9s]
iwilllie shows [6h 7c Kd Ah]
Uncalled bet of 3,472 returned to electric chair
*** TURN *** [4h Td 9h] [Jd]
*** RIVER *** [4h Td 9h Jd] [5d] ===> phew, held
electric chair shows three of a kind, Tens
iwilllie shows Ace King high
electric chair wins the pot (27,616) with three of a kind, Tens

Was in fact only 61:38 on the flop to win, but that's not allowing for the potential for the other player to have any hearts, which would have made my hand bigger.

After this I was just about untouchable, once the bubble burst and we reached the final table I was doubled when I had nut straight and bet 10% of the pot on the river, only to be reraised all in by 2 pair and straight to chip lead. The one mistake I made was HU, wtf was I doing staying in with this hand on a paired flop?

FullTiltPoker Game #9046798785: $5 + $0.50 Rebuy (69072648), Table 7 - 2500/5000 - Pot Limit Omaha Hi - 19:50:46 ET - 2008/11/18
Seat 6: sky78 (90,950)
Seat 9: electric chair (299,550)
electric chair posts the small blind of 2,500
sky78 posts the big blind of 5,000
The button is in seat #9
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to electric chair [6d 5h 3c 4c]
electric chair raises to 10,000
sky78 raises to 30,000
electric chair calls 20,000
*** FLOP *** [As 2c 2s]
sky78 bets 60,000
electric chair calls 60,000
*** TURN *** [As 2c 2s] [Jc]
sky78 bets 950, and is all in
electric chair calls 950
sky78 shows [Ac Ah 6s Tc]
electric chair shows [6d 5h 3c 4c]
*** RIVER *** [As 2c 2s Jc] [6c]
sky78 shows a full house, Aces full of Twos
electric chair shows a flush, Jack high
sky78 wins the pot (181,900) with a full house, Aces full of Twos
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 181,900 | Rake 0
Board: [As 2c 2s Jc 6c]
Seat 6: sky78 (big blind) showed [Ac Ah 6s Tc] and won (181,900) with a full house, Aces full of Twos
Seat 9: electric chair (small blind) showed [6d 5h 3c 4c] and lost with a flush, Jack high

Still, after 55 hands heads up I get dealt QQ with a 5:3 chip lead, get all in on the flop and hit my set on the turn to post a $400 win. OPR still has me running around 8,000th out of 500k runners on FT too, which is nice.

Ty for reading - and the comment from gatsby to prove that someone else is looking at this page apart from me :)

BFWCOP IV Report

2008-10-21T21:29:00.002+01:00

Aren't poker players fantastic? You don't see them for 1 or 2 years, but as soon as you meet up with them they are remembering the hands you played together and pushing a beer in your direction.

Arrived late on Thursday evening after managing to book a flight to Bilbao from Birmingham, dumped my bags in the hotel and set off to the Sports Cafe - all of about 100 yds walk from the front door. Perfect organization from Boro. Met up with Sunday8pm, SoC, Zelda, Boro, Chilin, Tank, Mavis, Dealem, Waheyyyy and probably a few more. Couple of games of pool and several pints later it was time to congregate on the pavement outside the bar, buy a few pink cowboy hats and make some charitable donations to the local tramps (before you ask, no Shaa did not turn up). Not to be outdone, the tramp donated his lighter to Boro, though I think we might have paid for a night of bed and breakfast so he had himself a good deal.

It was 3:30am by the time we had paid a visit to the kebab shop, so I went back to the room to crash, only to be woken up at 6:15 when Boro and Sunday came back having been to the casino and had ordered breakfast to be delivered to the room. Spent most of an hour laughing at deejays drunken forum rant having been thrown out of the Ramsgate tournament. Sadly the thread was removed by the time I woke up to go play golf, but I have never seen a typo in every word in a thread before. Managed to go round in about my usual standard, 56 for 9 holes and managed a par 4 on the final hole to make me feel better :)

Team event took place on the Friday night, signing into the casino was taking too long, so they gave us some yellow string bracelets and pushed us all in for 8:00pm, nice to see someone using common sense for once. I was on the same table as my team joker (dests) and was also up against a random BPPC sub for the Northern Monkeys, Twaddles from Betfair, coops, dealem, honeybear and boro. Both double teams ended up sitting next to each other, which limited our ability to coordinate play. The game itself was pretty tough, took ages for first person to go, which was dests unfortunately just after the break. Not sure that getting hammered pre-event had the desired effect of loosening up her game.

Played some good poker, made some good folds and got quite outplayed at times by dealem. He always seemed to make the right move at the right time, squeezing my pre-flop and post-flop raises all in when I had trash. Eventually, got a reasonable hand and doubled on honeybear (I think) and entered the final 3 in 3rd place. At this stage, I was up against dealem and coops. Took ages for the action to get going, so long in fact that we were the last table running by a long way - very different to last year when I won my table before some tables had lost 1 player. Both coops and dealem were down to about 2k at one time or another, before we all ended up on roughly even stacks with blinds at 600-1200ish. I was dealt KQc on the BB and coops raised to 8k from the button. I had just over 20k chips in my stack, so after dealem folded decided (correctly) that this was an overbet from a weak hand and pushed, with the intention that coops would fold. He didn't, called and flipped over A4o, don't think either of us improved and since he had me covered I was out in 3rd. Not sure if he would have folded even if I had a dominating stack as his team was out of the running for the prize money. Not beating dealem meant that the Flashmob team came second overall, and in a surprise move by Carl, we picked up some prize money for it too.

Another night on the lash was followed by a full English in the local cafe and a short walk up to the casino for the Main Event. With 62 runners it was a lot smaller than last year, but with casino blind structures it meant that some of the later action was going to be a bit of a crap shoot. Early doors I was being dealt trash, and with strak two to my right, my blinds were vapourizing frequently. Really only had 3 hands of note: Reasonably early on I was dealt QQ on the BB. Rich from Betfair raised from UTG+1 for 500 chips, with a chipset on his head strak made it 3k which would have put Rich all in. Since I was playing for the chips, I pushed all in and put myself up towards average stack when they both folded.

Next hand was against gummybaggie, blinds were either 200-400 or 300-600 and I was dealt KQc in mid-position. Pot was folded round to me, so I made it 1800 which was folded to wonky in the SB, who called, then gummy pushed all in from the BB for about 5k. I had about 11k behind and decided that I would be racing, so pushed all in aiming to get heads up, wonky folded a Q and gummy flipped over 1010. I spiked a pair and he was gone. Worked out later I was 46:53 in that hand, so was definitely right to take it for the pot odds.

My nearly final hand was the 1st one after the break. I was BB and was dealt QQ with blinds at 400-800. Dests opened the betting and raised to 2200 from the button, so with about 16k I raised it up to 5600 and dests pushed all in. Decided I was probably ahead, so called and she turned over 99 Flop gave her a 9 and the river made it quads. This left me with about 4k, so I was pretty much crippled and I eventually went out in 38th with KCc to AKd all in preflop with the over short stack on the table.

The whole weekend was a real blast, if you go to Birmingham, the City Inn is a really nice hotel with Apple iMacs in the rooms, with free internet and very centrally located for a Broad Street night out. The Broadway Casino was very accomodating, even allowing tank to wander round pissed for a couple of hours before asking him to leave. Zelda organized the whole event really well and the team game was very competitive with a nice twist from Mandylou, doubling up the jokers and captains. Hope to go next year if we can find someone to organize it, though Boro did say he was seriously considering doing it, though he was quite pissed at the time. Might have to put in some Holdem practice next time though, worked out I have only really played about 3 Holdem games online in the last 2 months - all of which were freerolls.

Played the £30 9:00pm freezeout in the casino, which was a kind of rebuy, where you could hold off adding on extra free chips for the 1st hour. Bizarre, but played it too tight and seriously underestimated the power of top pair in a "rebuy" flop situation. Had I called, I would have trebled and would have had enough of a stack to avoid being bullied later on when the blinds started to bite, out in about 45th of 120.

Hopefully not dissed too many folks in this update, but if you do feel offended, tough! Leave me a comment and let me know, only spam gets deleted. :)

Late September Summary

2008-10-09T23:35:00.003+01:00

September was a cracking month, right up until the last day, where I managed to turn a $1k up month into a $900 up month on 2 easy tables. Still, that's the biggest month I have had since I started keeping detailed records. Managed to qualify for 2 freerolls coming up this weekend, a $2k one for earning at least 1 FTP point every day in the month, with the other a $20k TITN for earning 500 FTP points in the month. Am going down with a cold at the moment, so hope to be fit for the weekend to make the most of them.

The Betfair account has gone a bit the wrong way recently, must be the STT challenge making the games a bit crazy, so is down to about £160. Full Tilt now $988, but that include my first staking of $75 for a hilo tournament. I had the table up and was watching when the jockey made a decent push on a 99x flop, only to be called by KKxx - wtf? Still, made me think that if I was going to pay for someone to make a play that I would have considered doing myself (maybe not on Level 1) I might as well play it myself.

PokerTracker stuff is quite useful, but am not sure it does me any good to have a tourney time window up while I am playing STTs. Usually I can smell the bad players without having to check their stats and it almost seems to distract me from making the decisions I would normally make. Cash and MTTs are a bit different and if I can work it out I think it would be more useful. Running around 35% VPIP, which seems to be at the high end of the scale for players who are winning at hilo, but maybe still reflects the fact I make the end-game quite regularly. Did seem to lose the knack of finishing games off for a bit, but put that right tonight winning 3 STTs on the bounce, before going out in 7th in the 4th and final hilo of the night.

OPR website now has me ranked 8,759 of 463,111 in the last 120 days, which puts me in the top 2% of players in their database for FT. Not sure how it is worked out, but it certainly ranks alongside some of the numbers that have been posted onto the Betfair forum in the staking thread. On profit I am about 11000th of 102k players, which suggests somewhat less than 25% of players make a profit. Remind myself, why do I need to pay anyone else to play?

Going to bfwcop in Birmingham next week, via Bilbao on a business trip. As "luck" would have it, just about the only flights from the UK to Bilbao are from Birmingham via Munich. Guess it means I will be fresh and ready for anything on Friday morning anyway, hopefully get a round of golf in and see if I can crack the 110 barrier again :)

A Half Century

2008-09-20T22:40:00.005+01:00

This is apparently my 50th post, hard to believe when you look back at my first post and the reasons for creating the blog. It has also been running for over 2 years as well. Hope you have enjoyed reading it, tried not to make it too much of a bad beat listing. So, for a bit of a change, here is a hand history.

Here's a playing to win mistake I made last night. On reflection, my 35% for the hand on the flop when the money went in, would have paid 2:1 in chips but only have doubled my payout (assuming that I can play a big stack effectively). Maxemus must have thought it was his lucky day, though based on his play throughout this table, pooh could have had anything. 3rd paid about $600, 1st about $1200. Live and learn.

Game #8143681553: $2,500 KO Guarantee (61186768), Table 23 - 4000/8000 - Pot Limit Omaha Hi - 20:48:05 ET - 2008/09/19
Seat 2: MAXEMUS126 (192,314)
Seat 6: whoflungpooh (359,338)
Seat 8: electric chair (189,348)
electric chair posts the small blind of 4,000
MAXEMUS126 posts the big blind of 8,000
The button is in seat #6
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to electric chair [Qh Ks As 6s]
whoflungpooh calls 8,000
electric chair raises to 20,000
MAXEMUS126 folds
whoflungpooh calls 12,000
*** FLOP *** [3s 2s Ah]
electric chair has 15 seconds left to act
electric chair bets 36,000
whoflungpooh has 15 seconds left to act
whoflungpooh raises to 156,000
electric chair raises to 169,348, and is all in
whoflungpooh calls 13,348
electric chair shows [Qh Ks As 6s]
whoflungpooh shows [Th 5s 4h 6h]
*** TURN *** [3s 2s Ah] [Jc]
*** RIVER *** [3s 2s Ah Jc] [9c]
electric chair shows a pair of Aces
whoflungpooh shows a straight, Five high
whoflungpooh wins the pot (386,696) with a straight, Five high
electric chair stands up
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 386,696 | Rake 0
Board: [3s 2s Ah Jc 9c]
Seat 2: MAXEMUS126 (big blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 6: whoflungpooh (button) showed [Th 5s 4h 6h] and won (386,696) with a straight, Five high
Seat 8: electric chair (small blind) showed [Qh Ks As 6s] and lost with a pair of Aces

This was actually on the final table of a $24 knockout plo tournament on Full Tilt. With 247 runners I was paid out just over $650 including 8 bounties. I only entered it because late registration was open when I logged in.

On other fronts, my Full Tilt account is looking nice and healthy. Earlier this week I went past the $1k mark and after last night, I was up to $1.6k. Have withdrawn $600 today, which obviously means I played like a donk tonight and went 0/4. Mostly playing hilo STTs at the moment. Having built my bank up with a selection of $6 and $11 STTs I decided to try out a few $22 games as well. Initial results have been very good, though I have had too many 2nd places from a lead to be happy.

On Betfair, the balance is now up to £180, a result entirely driven by Omaha, including one profitable cash session when I was earning points for the merchandise mountain promotion. Managed 3 back to back $10 STT wins yesterday, followed by a 2nd, making it my best overall profit day since I won a trip to NY 2 years ago.

My Sharkscope graphs are still looking good, on both the Betfair and Full Tilt accounts, the upward tendency is still there, but August ROI took a bit of a battering due to low volume. I was quite pleased with myself until I checked markwales on Stars. He has been killing the 180 runner SNGs recently and his profit line has turned vertical, just so sick. Not played much on Blue Square or Everest lately, not really worth learning another couple of sites when I can make money at 20-40% ROI on the ones I focus on already.

Lastly, have invested in Poker Tracker Omaha version. I can't say I fully understand it, nor that it works 100% accurately, but it has verified a couple of things I guessed about my game before. Typically, I see 38% of the flops in Omaha in tournaments. Somewhat surprisingly, I VPIP 60%+ from the small blind, with only a very small negative ROI. I guess this is related to the number of tables I get HU at the end, often running 20-30 hands before a conclusion is reached.

My last game of the day is running now, a $33 18-man hilo SNG on Full Tilt. Currently 3rd of 7 left and the action is about to start getting interesting, so I must go and focus on that.

A Posting for Ray

2008-09-03T20:29:00.005+01:00

A few days ago I said I would send Ray an email about getting rakeback on poker sites other than Betfair, instead of posting on the Betfair forum. It occurs to me that as this is my blog, I can promote other sites on here if I want, so here it is.

Firstly, even if you don't turn over a huge amount of rake, you can get reasonable deals from a number of rake aggregation sites. They don't really care how much you bring in, they just add it all up at the end of the month and send a bill to the networks. I signed up in Dec-07 with http://www.thisisthenuts.com after a conversation with Smart Money - this was the site he used. It gives you access to about 15 poker rooms including Betfair, with rakeback ranging from 27% (Full Tilt) through to 37% (Betfair, volume dependent). Most sites seem to be offering 30%, and although the Full Tilt is the lowest %, I did some research and it seems to be their standard rate.

They also have bonuses on offer, if you play Full Tilt and earn 500 FT points in a month, you get entry to a $20k freeroll. I have managed to qualify for this once and from 600 runners I got a top 50 finish and $60. Rake more than $500 in a month and you get a 1 month subscription to the Stoxpoker training site.

Until this week, my rake was paid back to TITN from Full Tilt, with cash out options back to Full Tilt, Absolute, Ultimate or Cake poker networks. As of Monday, the Full Tilt rake will be paid weekly direct into my Full Tilt account. Rake from other sites can still go back to TITN and then be cashed out to one of the sites.

If you do sign up through here, putting in my referral code (miltonb) will get me a bonus and a guaranteed couple of beers for you if we meet up at any time. A lot of the sites offer sign up bonuses, including FT, which will pay out up to $600 incrementally on a 1:1 basis depending on rake earned. When you do earn this sign up bonus, your rake back will be reduced by 27% as they would otherwise be paying you twice.

I like Full Tilt, it is generally easy to find a game whenever I want one. The tables are easy to move around and resize, plus whatever poker tool is your favourite, it will work with it. I mostly play low stakes HiLo STTs from $6 to $22 and if you want to find me, look up "electric chair" in the players list. I have found that for me, the $5 rebuys are profitable, having cashed (and won a couple) at Holdem, PLO and HiLo. Whatever your game though, there are so many more options than Betfair. However, because it is not linked to a betting site or Exchange, the players are probably a slightly better standard. It did take me a month or two to get used to the feel of the games and the players (see the Sharkscope graph for evidence of this), but have now found my feet and can play games without fear of being the worst on the table.

August Half-Month Progress

2008-09-02T23:07:00.002+01:00

First half of the month was a no poker zone, decided it was cheaper to stay married than get a 3G dongle to play poker on holiday, at least this year anyway (no, she does not read my blog!).

Once I got back I had the APAT WCOAP Omaha to look forward to at the end of the month, so started playing a few PLO games on BF again. Having played 31 games, I managed to cash in 19 of them and won 8, 29 of these were 9 seaters, only played 2 6-paks and did not cash in either of them. End of month balance moved up over £100 and I easily met the Stax improve goal for an additional $25.

On Full Tilt, I had a bit of a topsy turvey month, managed to win a couple of $22 Hilo STTs, but ran sick bad towards the end of the month and think I went 6 without a cash. Also managed a 2nd in a Hilo $5 rebuy for nearly $300 profit in one go. Overall, managed to end the month with a balance of about $900, having been one STT result from going over the $1k barrier a couple of time, I have slipped back to $800 since. I don't think I am actually playing too bad, but will probably be investing in some kind of tracker this month to work out if this is really the case or if I was just running uber-lucky before. Poker Tracker Omaha looking favourite, though Omaha Indicator looks interesting, will probably see if I can make it work on the play money games and see if it is any good.

End of July Update

2008-08-01T23:02:00.002+01:00

Quick summary for July before I set off for Cornwall and probably no poker for a couple of weeks.

After what I thought was a good start I carried on and had an absolute steamer up until about the 20th of the month. At that stage I was still showing an ROI of 80% on STTs on Sharkscope after 35 games or so. Inevitably, the run came to an end, but it happened when I stepped up to a $24 STT, made the final 4 easily and then my laptop froze. First time it had happened that I can remember. Managed to get back in about 1 hand after I had been blinded out and then dumped another $24 and $12 STT in quick succession when I was obviously on tilt.

End of the month numbers for Full Tilt shows 55 STTs, with an ROI of about 50% for $250+. Add to that another $150 on MTTs and cash, with just under another $100 from Betfair, Everest and Blue Square and I very nearly broke the $500 barrier for the month, +$492 in the end. That finally also makes 2008 a profitable year on poker too, for about $25... plus about $40 in rakeback from TITN to come as well.

In other news, I played a satellite for the APAT WCOAP Omaha on Blue Square for $15 and played a near perfect game. Made the final table about 6th, but by the time we reached the bubble I was 2nd and nobody was calling my bets. This will be my frst live Omaha MTT and I am really looking forward to it.

Lastly, bought a 3G iPhone on Sunday, it is the coolest gadget I have ever owned and as a mobile device I have not seen anything better. It is perfect apart from the fact that you can't use the network connection for your laptop. Still, suppose I could get a 3 pay as you go 3G modem as well - depends on whether I think it would be worth the moaning taking it on holiday and using it to play poker.

Feelin' Hot Hot Hot

2008-07-08T23:13:00.003+01:00

Summary for June: down on Full Tilt and Betfair, up on Blue Square and Everest, net -$40.

Summary for July so far: up $150 net, $200 on Full Tilt.

Most of this has been the Omaha HiLo Turbo STTs on FT, but did get a 4th in a PLO rebuy. That was a bit annoying, since I really should have won it hands down after moving into 1st place 3 hands before I went out.

On the STT front, having completed 12 games of hilo, I have cashed in 6, winning 5 of them. Also played and won against the best player I have seen on these tables at this level, LakePlacid Kid - loads of chat in the box and even offered to buy the win off me for $10 when he was 40:60 down in chips. He seemed to give up when I lol'd that request off and lasted only 2 more hands after I slow played a nut flush and lo.

Graph on the right comes from Sharkscope and shows the progress I have made on STTs since I started playing on Full Tilt - nice to see it going upwards on all fronts.

The 40th Best Amateur Poker Player in Ireland

2008-06-17T22:02:00.005+01:00

Always like Dublin and reckon this could become an annual trip, though maybe next time not worry about being in the poker tournament.

Arrived with my mates on Friday night, checked into the hostel and worked out that we were sharing the room with a random. Never mind, went out and got trashed, eventually getting back about 4:30am. Breakfast round the corner about 11:30 and we headed off to the Fitzwilliam to register. This plan worked at BFWCOP II, but unfortunately this time I was about 5-6 pints ahead of the game and only just kept down the half breakfast I had managed to eat.

The club was nice enough, albeit in the middle of replacing the carpets. A couple of coffees later and I was ready for the off. Kept it quiet to start and never really got in trouble early. Found the calling station at the table who managed to stay in with K9s from the big blind and missed his flush but rivered a 9 to make a higher pair than I was playing. First big hand of note for me was QQ on UTG+1. Rock like image meant my 3BB raise to 200 was passed back to the UTG who called. Flop was 10-8-4 with 3 suits, so I raised another 1200 when UTG checked which he then called. Turn was a 10, so I thought about it for a bit and bet another 1800. This time, UTG took an age to call, which looked a bit like he was hamming it up, so I checked his river check and he showed JJ and my stack was 15k.

It took almost 6 hours to lose the first player on our table, with some great banter and a horrible hand where the table LAG stated he would bet 5k (out of 9k behind) on the flop - table talkbox who was pretty good checked from the BB and on a 10JQ flop said "you won't dare to bet 5k" and checked. This would have set my alarm bells off, but LAG bet his 50% and was immediately re-raised all in. He called and the talkbox showed K9 for a flopped straight - which I thought was probably AK, but the effect was the same. A river Q gave LAG the full house and the talkbox was crippled and out a few hands later.

This was about the time when the blinds were 400-800 and we started to get a few new faces on the table. I had noticed that the next jump was to 600-1200 and and knew that this was when the blinds were going to be significant. Try as I might though, I could not raise pre-flop with anything because I had 4 to my right who did not let an unraised pot pass. This combined with the lack of sleep and alcohol abuse kicking in led to two mistakes when I should have pushed all-in on the raiser but just folded. With 1-2k blinds and 7k raises I would have probably been out, or up to 40k instead of struggling on 20k when the table finally folded. I was moved to a new table and with the blinds about to go to 1.5-3k I pushed K9 from the SB into the BBs A4 and a flopped set 4s took me out.

The organization was excellent and I am pretty sure we started promptly, with everyone I talked to being very friendly and up for a bit of banter. All of the dealers were excellent, especially Lilly who dealt me all my best hands. Overall it was a bit like the BFWCOP games apart from the on-time start really. Might go for one of the London events in August, but maybe pick the Omaha game as that is just a one-dayer and I won't be tempted to go out on the piss the night before.

Still, finishing at 11:30pm as I did meant that I got another night out on the craic in Dublin and we woke the random up at 4:30am again. This time I think he was a bit upset because of all the banging on the wall to the Essex girls in the room next door, but sadly I missed his hissy fit because I was out like a light.

End of May Update

2008-06-07T00:48:00.002+01:00

Had a bit of an up and down month, finished down about $200 in the end, but that includes a $109 buyin on another FTOPs PLO. This time it was a rebuy and as soon as it started I knew I was out of my depth buy-in wise. Struggled through to just before the break and decided to push with a paired hand and got busted by a big stack.

Added Blue Square and Everest accounts to my stable this month as well. Everest is a reasonable interface, but the players are truly awful. Long may it continue, up $75 on there in May and another $62 so far in June. Blue Square is on the same network as VC which has always been my worst account. Signed up so I could play in the APAT Ireland satellites and failed to qualify from both that I entered. Allowing for that, the balance is about $10 down from where I started and me and 4 mates have all bought in direct.

Full Tilt was down about $100 and I have focused on playing the 9 seater HILO turbos. This has started to come through in my results now and sharkscope reckons my sit n go results have been picking up month over month (June so far is a bit sick at about +40% mostly playing $11s). Balance now back up to about $360.

Biggest disappointment was on Betfair, down about $110 - almost all as a result of playing in the $350 gtd PLO rebuy a few times. Just before Christmas I picked up a couple of nice results in this tourney, now I can't buy a hand.

GL in your games and if you are in Dublin next week I will be in Temple Bar on Friday and Saturday night, or the Fitzwilliam casino during the day. If I make the final table I will miss my flight back, but if I do I will worry about it after I have sobered up.

Egit

2008-05-08T22:46:00.003+01:00

Not much else to say when you win a ticket to a $240 buy-in MTT, then work out the start time wrong and log in 90 minutes late. Managed to get 276th in the end out of more than 1k runners, although I did beat half the field sitting out. Was like rockville, far too many players scared to use their cards and who knows where I could have finished if I had started on time. Out hand was AAK2 all in on turn of 892 and two callers who both rivered a straight after an A on the turn gave me a brief hope of a treble up.

Decided to take out my frustration on an 18 runner MTT that paid top 6, 5x$75 tokens plus $57 cash. Made a dubious call with AK, when oppo had AJh with 2h already showing and hit a K on the turn and held up. After that it was easy to watch the short stacks give their stacks to the chip leader. After bubble went I ran AK into KK and lasted a few more circuits with 4BBs until I finally broke. Still, never turn down a profit and I might have another go at one of these and go for another FTOPs satellite.

Knockout Duck Broken at Last!

2008-04-17T00:12:00.005+01:00

April has been pretty good so far. Having knocked my Full Tilt account down to $100 or so earlier in the year, it is now up to over $500 and I am well on the way to recovering all the losses from January (without a reload before you ask).

Highlights so far this month have been a 4th place in a Betfair holdem rebuy, a win on a PLO rebuy on Full Tilt, followed by a near miss the next night in the same tourney, and yesterday I won my first knockout tournament. This was a $11 PLO satellite to FTOPS #2 event in May, a buy-in worth $250, for a $200k gtd tourney where everyone has $40 on their heads too. Including the 6 heads I took out in the process, I am now $1 up and am totally free rolling into the $200k tourney.

Some of the comments from the regulars at this level on FT make about my play are interesting to say the least. Have been accused of being spiteful and a fish in the same breath. Best was when I read a guy stone cold on the final table and took him out in 4th. I knew I was ahead on the flop, so I called his all in push (he started with 45-50% of my stack) and he had a pair of 6s and a J flush draw! This proved not good enough to beat my A flush draw and no pair on the flop, which was resolved by the A on the turn - Omaha calculator after the fact said I was 58% to win compared to his 38%. Deeply satisfying to see that I was instinctively right and it gave me the stack to take down the tourney quickly thereafter.

Playing on Full Tilt means I can use some of the poker ranking sites now. Sharkscope is showing me $36 down in total, after a couple of mistimed STT exits tonight. More pleasing is officialpokerrankings.com, which says I am 9,822 of 265,533 on Full Tilt for MTTs. In the money 8 times in the last 120 days, I have converted 4 of them into wins and made the final 10% of the runners 15% of the time. ROI something like 77%, which would have been much better if I had cracked the style needed for knockout MTTs earlier.

Have also played a few Omaha double your money tourneys on Ladbrokes. These are so dull it is not funny, but you can keep them running in the background while you play another game until about level 7 or 8 when the bubble is usually approaching.

Have done a bit of spring cleaning on the blog links for those that have been removed or not updated in ages.

End of Month Update

2008-03-30T18:15:00.002+01:00

Nearly the end of the month, so time for another update.

Things have picked up recently, though in between this and the last update I managed to go on a 28 game losing streak, for a buy-in total of $333. This was both MTTs and STTs, but mostly STTs. I only managed to drop a few $ playing cash, so pleased that I managed to keep this really to a minimum.

Turned it round in the middle of the month when I came 2nd in a Betfair Feed the Beast $0.10 rebuy. I won $19 and a buy-in to a $25k GTD rebuy on Easter Sunday. This is the only reason I am actually down this month, since I was running reasonably well at the end of the buy-in period and had to add-on. As a result, I am down $64 for the month, when I would otherwise have been up $36, which considering the start is a right turn-around.

Highlights include a 1st place on Full Tilt $2 rebuy for $154, 2nd place on a Betfair Battle of the Forums $2 rebuy for $105 and a 5th place on Full Tilt $20 PLO 6 seater for $116. Also managed to bubble myself in a PLO turbo on Betfair. First time I have made it anywhere near the money in this format game and I only have myself to blame. I pushed JQQK into the chip leader calling station, who hit an 8 to make up a set. I was on the button and the average stack was about 3 big blinds - FOOL!

Back soon.

About time too

2008-02-24T18:44:00.004Z

Playing mostly on BF again, with the odd venture onto Full Tilt, though that site has had a few problems recently, looks like they are being hit by some kind of denial of service attack.

Looking back at January I can't believe what a disaster it was. Can't remember having a month that bad ever, which totalled out at -$325. I leaked most of the cash away on "killer" tournaments, don't seem to be able to get my head around them. Also blew a couple of buyins on cash tables when I was playing a bit beyond my bankroll against calling stations where I could not afford to stay in.

February has been better, especially since I am currently in profit ($50 as I type). So far though, have not managed to cash in the PLO rebuys on BF like I was doing with ease pre-Christmas. I have cashed in the 20:35 PLO freezeout a couple of times and came second in a $1 rebuy on BF when I was off for the boys half term. And I am in profit on Turbo PLO STTs (6 & 9). Must remember to focus on the right games in March.

Ty for reading.

Late update, just won the 20:35 PLO on Betfair. That makes 3 cashes out of 7 entries in February, and 10 out of 20 since I started keeping records in November. Need to remember this stat more often, why do I not play this MTT every day?

As Andy Gray would say

2008-01-20T23:11:00.000Z

It just gets better and better.

Worked out I have played 18 days so far in January and only won on 3 of them. I have decided to slow down on FT for a bit and try my hand on BF again. Didn't work out great tonight as got battered in the PLO rebuy and came 6th on the 20:35 PLO freezeout. But, as a rule the players on BF are a step or 3 down from the players on FT. If I play there a bit more the results will come back. You can't lose every race and I will remember who I should fold a set to and who I should not pretty soon.

If you want rakeback on Betfair you can sign up through www.raketherake.com, referral code RTR23350. They also do a huge number of other sites, so once you blow your deposit bonus on one you can always move onto the next :)

GL at the tables.

January Downdate

2008-01-08T23:29:00.000Z

Can't do an update because have been playing terrible, so here is the in-rnning downdate.

Moving to a new site has set me back miles in terms of how I am playing, so much so that I will be lucky not to record a big loss in January after only 1 week in. Couple of things that are driving this:
- playing cash again, doh, when will I learn that both playing cash and calling with QQ preflop in PLO is -ev
- the MTTs are too big for the time I have available, generally get close to the money and have cashed once, but the variance when idiots call off their stack with a gutshot straight draw is huge (although I do want them to do this) and by the time it gets to the business end I have been up for 18 hours and done a full days work
- not played enough STTs to get used to the player styles and blind structures
- playing tired (see above)

I think maybe the last one is the critical point here. I was actually up to nearly $600 just after New Years day, back down to $373 as I type now. Still, tonight will see me get a decent night's kip as I am not going to be up till 1:00am and I have a lie in planned for tomorrow to get a tyre replaced on my car before work.

Going to try and put a link into a new blog for SG from the BF forum (at least he was until he got banned). lol, who hasn't had an account banned?

GL ALL

Another Friday, Another Win

2007-12-22T01:03:00.000Z

Signed up to Full Tilt through ThisIsTheNuts because:
- one and only contact with BF customer service proved what everyone else said about how bad they were
- could get Smart Money some referral $$$s by signing up (as a thanks for the Flashmob t-shirts)
- could get 27% rake back

Have played only 2 STTs (1 2nd) and 3 MTTs, but won my first MTT tonight, 49 runner $5 PLO rebuy, for $243.

Chuffed.

ROI on rebuy tournaments is now in excess of 200%, will have to give up all other forms of poker if it stays like this.

Just gone past 1,000 hits on the web counter at the bottom, will tell my mum she can stop opening it every day now as it is now almost respectable, even though it is still 100 times less popular than gatsby's blog.

If you want a rakeback deal through TITN, sign up with me as referrer (miltonb) typlz

Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnn!

2007-12-14T02:09:00.000Z

This is a screenshot of a rebuy win from tonight, though this time it was Hold Em not the usual PLO and took 4 hours to finish. Thankfully not working tomorrow.

New Tactics

2007-12-11T22:49:00.000Z

Ahem. As gatsby so nicely pointed out, I have had a couple of wins since the last update. In fact, on the MTT front I have won 2 PLO rebuys, 3 PLO freezeouts and cashed in quite a few more. Anyone interested in what has changed?

Mid-November I downloaded openoffice and installed on my laptop. Never had the inclination to give Micro$oft more money than I needed to and Office is pricey for the use I would make of it at home. First thing I used it for was to create a poker results tracking spreadsheet. Only built it to cover STTs and MTTs (reminded myself again in November with a $50 whipping that cash is currently not my A-game).

Overall proft since beginning of November $893 with an ROI of 61%. Would be higher but I had a go in the $55 PLO rebuy last week and gave up after my 1st rebuy vapourized. ROI for MTTs is currently 250% (partly courtesy of a 2nd place in a $1k GTD $1 buy-in tournament), rebuy MTTs 66%, STTs 24.5%.

It was blindingly obvious from the 1st 2 weeks of results entered that my highest ROI was on MTTs. So I have reduced the number of STTs I am playing and increased the MTTs. Managed to cash 6 times straight in the 20:35 PLO on Betfair (when I entered, not 6 days running), though that streak came to an end Sunday when I was first out.

Hello to barbielou who I keep playing in the PLO rebuys and 20:35 freezeouts on BF and mentioned that she had read the blog. She also cashes as often as I do in these, though don't think we have been HU at the end of any yet. It is always nice to have someone on the table who talks a bit, without crass comments about everyone else's ability.

Profit so far for December: $296.
Betfair Balance: £280 (have withdrawn £300 cash this month for Christmas pressies).
Pokerchamps - account closed as BF are closing their bastard child site.

Can do nothing but recommend openoffice, great tools that you can use to replace most of the functionality you get from Office for free. http://www.openoffice.org for details.

Lucky Fish

2007-11-05T23:09:00.000Z

Obviously posting because I had a win, but can honestly say I had a dreadful October. After the last post I decided I needed to change games again and went back to the cash tables. This culminated in dropping about $150 in 2 days towards the end of the month and basically decimating my Betfair balance, it went under £100 for the first time in ages. Pokerchamps account was also sub-$100 as well.

So, went back to basics again and started back on the $2.5/$5 STT trail again. Managed to spin back up to about £150 again before last weekend. Played the 20:35 PLO $10 on BF Friday and came 3rd for $38. Only about 20 runners, but I seem to do well in this tourney.

Then on Sunday I was online "early" and decided to go for the $350 gtd PLO rebuy. $10 buyin was enough to see me through to the first break, with about 4x starting stack and in the top 5. The addon at this point is 3000 chips, which made the decision a bit of a no-brainer as most other folks seemed to be adding on too. 19 runners managed to produce a total of 45 buy-ins for a $450 pot, with top 3 paid only.

Into the 2nd hour, most players seemed happy to bet their big stacks against everyone else, which meant quite a few started to drop. Down to 8 it slowed down and I managed two big double-ups betting a flopped set that held against a straight draw and 2 pair. Down to final 3 and I start in 3rd, get to roughly evens, down a bit, then double on the 2nd with another set and took him out with a river when he was short a few hands later.

Heads up, playing against eggo, managed to get ahead, although fell back a bit a little. Final hand was where I made my biggest mistake of the whole tournament and got totally lucky, by rights I should have ended up 2nd with $135, instead of first with $225. But, I only played the hand the way I did based on eggo's previous hands, where he came from behind to beat 3 or 4 players for big pots. Here are the cards and some percentages:

***** Betfair Poker Hand History for Game 271441629 *****
PL Omaha $10 Buy-in + $1 Entry Fee, Level:11 Blinds(600/1,200-75 ante) - Sunday, November 04, 22:25:38 GMT 2007
$350 GTD $11+Rebuy PLO #109339
Table 1 9-max (Real Money)
Seat 1 is the button
Total number of active players : 2

Seat 1: harayir ( 44,390 )
Seat 6: eggo ( 35,110 )

Tourney Level:11 Blinds(600/1,200-75 ante)
harayir posts ante [75]
eggo posts ante [75]
harayir posts small blind [600]
eggo posts big blind [1,200]

** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to harayir [ 4s, 3d, 8s, Td ] woohoo - double suited - 51.5% to win here
harayir calls [600]
eggo checks

** Dealing Flop ** [ 4d, Qc, 3c ] I hit the flop so pot raise - 6.5% to win now
eggo checks
harayir bets [2,550]
eggo raises to [10,200] not unusual, could have anything based on previous play
harayir calls [7,650]

** Dealing Turn ** [ 9d ] ooh, flush, gutshot straight and FH draws - 27.5% to win - doh!
eggo bets [22,950]
harayir goes all-in
harayir raises to [32,915]
eggo calls [685]
eggo goes all-in
Returning uncalled bet [9,280] to harayir

** Showdown **
harayir shows [ 4s, 3d, 8s, Td ]
eggo shows [ 4h, 7h, 4c, 9s ]
** Dealing River ** [ 6d ]

** Hand Conclusion **
harayir wins 70,220 from main pot with a Flush
************ Game 271441629 ends ************

At no point did I put him on a set once the flop came down. Still, would have been a reasonable result to come 2nd for a total $20 buyin and it was kind of karma that he was beat when he went in a head for once.

Betfair balance now back up to £280, with the harayir account scoring positive points on 3 leaderboards out of 3. Not sure about Pokerchamps as have only cashed in 1 of 3 STTs tonight, so it might be back down to $2.5 grinding on that account for a while. Partpoker dollas all gone again, so will wait until they send me another freebie before I play there again.

Deposited on Ladbrokes again to test out their double your money tables. Seduced by the thought that I could easily manage to finish in top 3 of 6 or 5 of 10. In fact it's not so difficult, but the games are soooo boring as everyone rocks up straight away. The one time I decided to loosen up, I was runner, runnered by the table fish and knocked out. What I have found is the hilo games where top 3 of 6 get paid, but it is not even payout, might be the way forwards on there.

Also managed to find the maddest STT in the world: 6-seater no limit hi lo. 4th of 6 I will only go back to that format when my bankroll is bigger than $45.

Good luck at the tables

Donkaments

2007-10-12T21:53:00.000+01:00

I like this word, it has a nice ring to it and rolls off the tongue like a barrel of brandy. It also encapsulates the way I have been playing recently. Following the last update I decided to focus on Omaha STTs. This went quite well and I nudged my Betfair account over £200 (from about £125) for the first time in ages. Even had a go at 6-paks and turbos, still cashing in about 50% and winning 25%. Until this week.

Last night I was 0 for 4, went to bed thinking I had been rivered out in all 4 games I played - OK the $10 PLO turbo mtt I was - but used the new betfair hand browser and can honestly say the other 3 exits were all shite play on my part. Can't believe I got all in with 88xx preflop, what a useless fish.

Anyway, having realised I lost because I played bad last night, I'm going to go and play again now and will be pwning all-comers.

PS. Party Poker gave me $30 to play with for free, found that I do reasonably well in the $6 Omaha HiLo games, although the 20% fee is a bit high, and to be honest, the balance is now below $20 (having been up to $60). Still don't like the interface, but the standard of play is generally dire at this level and I ought to be doing better. Maybe not tilting away my stack would be a good start.

BFWCOP III Update

2007-09-09T22:49:00.000+01:00

Posted this to the Betfair forum, but here is a bit more of a permanent record.

Friday started well, 8:30am call cancelling my first ever golf lesson after my dog had woken me up at 4:00am. Decided that I would share bug phil's buggy, which I really needed, both because he's a good talker and because we had a lot of running about to do chasing my ball. Ended up going round in 140 and winning the most golf prize (which covered most of the cost of my round).

Team event went really well for me, found myself on a table of rocks and lucked up a bit vs Reraise after a couple of hours. He raised my BB for the 4th or 5th time and I had AJ, so assuming it was a steal I pushed all in. He called with AQ, but a J spiked the flop and I had a big stack.

After that the game went really quick. I kept raising 10-10ks BB because he kept letting me have it, until he decided to call when I actually had a hand (AK) with an A hi flop. Took Ariston out and heads up against nibbles I was about 90:10 in chips and although he held on bravely, the odds were always in my favour. Turns out that table 1 was the first to finish. Doob came 6th on his table and he was knocked out after I had won.

Day two and the main event saw me sitting to mandylou's left. First time have played against him, so a few hands in when he raised pre I folded a big pair (never again...), but after about an hour of him playing 70% of the pots everyone on the table knew he ws playing loose. We had a spectator (philbet's wife), which was a bit unnerving to start with, but I did get used to it after a while.

Played very rock like and didn't get many good starting hands until AA utg. Raised 3x BB and SB reraised me. So, checked his stack and decided 8k was enough to put him all in so that was my raise. SB start to move chips forwards and dealer says "on their backs" and I flipped my cards. SB had not moved his chips over the line and stopped. Aaarrghhh. TD was called and ruled that SB could fold if he wanted (I had won a few K from his reraise), which after a lot of thought he did (?). ML then quietly told me that my hand could have been considered mucked - so I got away with a mistake, albeit one driven by the dealer. Won't do that again in a hurry.

After 2nd break I don't remember going to a showdown until we went past the bubble after the 3rd break. We actually burst it quite quickly in the end and putmeonpal managed to put us all in the money (sitting to my left he went for a pot with a big ace and missed). I had about 24k stack and found QQ, raised and was put all in by table big stack with his AJ and doubled up nicely. Very quickly, maybe next hand, I had A10 in the big blind and kp raised to 7k from unopened SB. Decided that I needed to go for a big stack, so pushed all in and he called with AA. Left me short, but final position of 15th meant that both me and my roomy doob(chronic) had cashed for the second year running and it was time to get lashed.

Was really great to meet everyone, especially the flashmob and it was nice to sit next to Carl for a couple of hours bitching about the rest of the table. StevieP was a great substitute for the team game, finishing 3rd on his table despite being blind drunk. Well done to Snap, can't believe it took 5 hours to go from 15 to 1, but guess that the 10 minute pauses while snap decided to call an all in with KK probably drove that. Trash talk of the highest order on the final table and the final hand to formally decide the winner was:

snap - 27o
tuvok - 26o

flop - 286
turn - 7
river - who cares?

See you all next year (hopefully)

summer break is over

2007-08-31T22:58:00.000+01:00

My balances took a bit of a hammering in early August, managed to turn over $300 on Pokerchamps into $120. Thankfully I went on holiday and had 2 weeks off. First game on my return was a 20:35 PLO MTT on Betfair, doubled first hand and won it about 30 minutes later (16 runnners...).

Managed to get the BF balance up to about £75 by the start of last week, but seemed to max out and could not make it go up further and needed to register for BFWCOP III. Added £50 last night and registered so can't wimp out of it now. Looking forward to meeting up with everyone - though AJ can't make it this year on account of his extended holiday - follow the link to his blog for more details.

As luck would have it, I have not managed to get home from work in time to play the 20:35 again since the day I came back and the weekend opportunities were missed. Until tonight. Played with my Pokerchamps account and ended up sitting to the left of the LAG chip leader on the FT. Was quite easy to play, he was pot raising every hand and all I had to do was wait for AA to appear in my hands and push. This he did 3 times on the bubble, making us roughly joint chip leaders when we were down to 3 and in the money. Then HU, he had AA and I flopped 2 pr 5-10 that held firm. If you see horsey44, he's quite prepared to enter into some good natured banter and then give you all his chips. What a top bloke.

So, $10 in, $110 back, Pokerchamps account now looking more respectable at $250. :)

Also deposited on Sun Poker again last week and spunked the lot playing like a tosser. Can't believe I change my style so much just because the interface is different.

Anyway, next post will probably be write up of BFWCOP III, hopefully will have something interesting to talk about and hopefully a decent cash again.

belated june update and july in-running

2007-07-09T22:17:00.000+01:00

Final STT results on Pokerchamps for June:
CASHED: 26/49
TOTAL OUT: 310.25 TOTAL IN: 406.50
GAMES: 16 x 2.50, 15 x 5.00, 17 x 10.00

Played a couple of satellite MTTs for no return
Betfair balance about the same as it was

So far this month has been pretty good. When BF was down last week I put £25 onto VC and managed 4th in a $10 PLO mtt, followed this with 11th in the same tourney on Saturday. When 2nd of 11, close 3rd place decided he would take me on from flop with 2nd pair and flush draw - which hit on the river - I lasted 2 more hands.

Yesterday played on Pokerchamps and spotted ajcairns registered for a $25 STT. Have seen him on a few of these and decided that if he could play at this level, so could I. Shortly before the off snap joined and we had a mini-flashmob. Better still was the flush I flopped on hand 1, which doubled me - I had 2 callers with a royal flush draw showing, though I had the J, and the Q was missing, it still didn't stop the holder of the 8 raising into me and a 3rd player calling. After that I held my own and made the final 3 in 2nd, took snap out in 2 hands and was left 10:3 against with the chip leader. This was clearly not enough of an advantage for him and I pulled it back to evens and took his 77 on with AK all in preflop - K duly hit and I had won my first $25 STT 2 hands later. Player I beat HU was the first hand raiser...

Balances now:
Pokerchamps $334
Betfair £62
VC £35

[btw this is not intended to be a slur on aj, I reckon we are very evenly matched and anything he can do in poker, so can I and vice versa]

Bastards!

2007-06-29T22:47:00.001+01:00

I hate Friday night poker players.

2 hands into a satellite I get QQ, get reraised preflop by player behind me, call and raise blank flop for pot - reraised all in I called to see him show AK - which duly hit the K on the river and I was out

Much the in the $5 mtt and the $11 PLO STT and I get a bit tilty, so piss away my stack in the next 2 $11 STTs. Up until 2 hours ago my Pokerchamps account was up to $275, now it's back down to $226.

The Pokerchamps site is all fucked up as well, STT tables appear and don't start for ages, then when you do get knocked out they keep coming back up like the ghost of Christmas Past. Don't think this week's upgrade was very successful.

I reserve the right to post only when I am winning

2007-06-19T23:48:00.000+01:00

I actually sat down and worked through some of my records recently, been meaning to do it for a while... this is all Pokerchamps a/c

STTs:
=====
April: CASHED: 33/65 TOTAL OUT: 397.75 TOTAL IN: 379.5
May: CASHED: 22/54 TOTAL OUT: 419.75 TOTAL IN: 400.00
June so far: CASHED: 18/33 TOTAL OUT: 180.75 TOTAL IN: 250.00

Balance currently standing at $217, meaning it has gone up $10 since the last update.

On Betfair the account is now at £65 following a couple of reasonable weeks on STTs, plus a $50 cash on a Maxim King of Poker freeroll. This also means I am qualified for the final next week - see AJ's blog since he won this last month. He finished 5th in the same qualifier so we are both qualified. 10:30pm was a strange start time but I played my nuts off until the final table. On the way hit a very nice FH after raising preflop with 67o into table calling station, who called every street until I hit the 76 FH on the river for a 100k pot. Final table I made the money and then a very tired mistake by reraising the UTG raiser with AJ and ran into AK. Oh well, it was 2:15am and I was going to work the next day.

Monthly Summary

2007-05-27T11:16:00.000+01:00

Quick check of the last update suggests I have gone nowhere, Pokerchamps account is at $207 and Betfair about £20. This masks the variations I have had over the past 6 weeks or so.

Pokerchamps a/c nearly made $300, but then played on a Friday night and managed 0/7 STTs. Did the same the next week and suddenly the balance was $140.

So, reassessed what I was doing and decided to focus more on the PLO games. Have also played 2 small Omaha MTTs, cashing in both but not quite manaig the win (HU I ran 2 pr into a flopped set 2s...).

Yesterday decided I would go for an STT marathon (wife away for the day) and played 12 - cashing in 11. Also played 1 MTT (3rd) and 2 qualifiers. Nearly qualified in first, but ran my pocket Qs into the chip leader who could not put down his flush draw - the inevitable happened on the river. Should have known really, he was a calling station and only in first place because he had been hitting good cards.

Repeat after me

2007-04-16T23:42:00.000+01:00

I must not play from utg on the bubble against the chip leader when I am in 2nd... done this a few times recently and been knocked out. Usually happens when I am playing after a hard day and concentration drops. Think I have mostly started to notice the signs for this - i.e. numpty exits close or on the bubble - but stopping this happening would really see my results shoot up.

Have played a couple of sessions of cash Omaha, with the usual result. I have worked out that joining a table where more than one of the players has more than 4 times the max buy-in is a good sign that you will probably lose money.

Still managing to place regularly in STTs, mostly in $5 and $10 STTs, though occasionally do go for a $2.50. Bankroll on Pokerchamps has increased again to $205. Still not redeposited on BF yet, but as I seem to have been blocked from posting to the forum think I will leave it for a bit. Don't get any incentives for playing through the blue monster interface and the PK green one has enough to keep me busy for a few months.

Have even managed a couple of STT cashes and wins on VC. Trying to make myself focus on the games I know I can win at there (NLH STTs) and stop playing the Omaha HiLo STTs - I love it but the returns are not the same as I can get from NLH. Balance there about £22 now, from a low of about £3.

Seconditis

2007-04-08T23:47:00.000+01:00

Two posts in one weekend, wow!

Just finishing up for the night, having played 2 each of $2.50, $5.00 and $10 STTs on Pokerchamps (all 9 seaters). Came second in 4 out of the 6 - at least I cashed in both the $10 games - but really must not give away my chips so easily when HU. Still, balance on there is now $175 so am doing something right.

Recent good form is down to ensuring I make the money in STTs, even if it guarantees coming 3rd, because all the other finishing positions are zero return. Guess all the seconds mean that I need to concentrate on hands a bit more after crossing the value line.

Swings, roundabouts and a new name

2007-04-06T21:53:00.000+01:00

Can't remember if I posted how low my pokerchamps account went, but it was under $1 around the turn of the year. Today, without reloading, it is as high as it has ever been at $130 and I am converting 2 in 3 STTs, mostly in the $2.5 - $10 range. Same software as BF, same players, much better results.

Betfair account was running along fairly flat until couple of days ago at around £25, but a bad STT run and a complete donking in a $25 PLO has put it down to £0.70. Decided I would see how difficult a $25 could be, first hand I ended up all-in in a 3-way pot preflop. What a dickhead, I would never do that in a $2.5 game, so why in a $25?

Last STT on BF took a sick beating being called by egit with 2 pair from flop to my nut straight. Pot raise, pot rase, all in and obviously hits FH on river... but last laugh with me on this one I think, since have just seen him go out first in an STT tonight.

VC a/c still has some cash in but not much, am only playing the $5 hilo stts on there at the moment. If I'm not tired I play well and break even, if I am the balance drops slowly.

Finally, decided I would change my BF forum name to something different. Everyone else was doing it and I did feel a little uncomfortable about sharing my name with someone who is getting on a bit. So just before BF stopped the gap I changed my name to "M" - just in case you had not recognized the posting style already.

A Poker Lesson

2007-03-17T16:08:00.000Z

Since christmas have managed to resist the urge to dump large parts of my stack, until last weekend. Decided I wantedto step back up to the $0.5-1.0 which is well beyond the scope of a social bank of£75 - which promptly turned itself into a £15 bank. Decided that would invest most of it in the Betfair Gold Cup since it was $10k added.

Early on not much action, moved up slowly to about 2.5k when decided to take on the short stack (800) on BB with KQ - bad move since he had AA. Few more rounds later and I was down to about 1100 chips and dealt 99 - all-in, insta called by the previous short stack who had AA again. A 9 on the flop saw me double up and from then until the bubble I played some pretty good poker.

3rd break time and I was 34 of 55 with cash starting at 54 with about 16k chip. First hand back I am BB for 2k, get dealt QQ. Table big stack (48k) makes it 6k to go from 2nd position - as usual, he was raising with nothing having had a caller when he pushed in with 85. I thought about what to do. Easy, tell him he needs a big pair to beat me and push... so I did. With little time to think he calls with AJo, I survived the flop, but the turn brought an Ace and I thought I had blown it. Luckily, someone else had managed to go out before me so I picked up the $74 for coming last in the money places.

Next time, wait and use the timebank - will at least give me the option of pushing if someone else goes out in the meantime. Otherwise it will be an easy fold - I would still have had over 10k in chips at a time when most players seems to be fighting over who can go out first.

My Tribeca skin decided to pull out of VC when they moved, so I now own a shiny new VC Account. First £50 deposited during the weekend of tilt saw it whittled down to about £15 playing cash. Decided should really take a look at the STT action and find the standard very soft. If I can win 6 out of 8 six packs in various flavour it can't be strong. Means have recovered bank to about £40 and think I will focus on these games for a bit on this site while I build up.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

2007-02-28T21:45:00.000Z

Quick quiz: the lack of recent updates clearly indicates:
a) a loss of interest in writing
b) a loss of form - who wants to report their losses to the whole world
c) too much work on for much time to play poker never mind write about it
d) all of the above

Answer d) - though still like the idea of keeping this going - this will be my 22nd post and the blog is now 7 months old

Since my last update I have managed to wipe out the Mansion a/c, having decided it was a good idea to enter the $100k one Sunday afternoon when drunk - it was a good idea, just the wrong time to execute it.

Jennings has now moved to a new network, tested it yesterday with £0.54 PLO HU game (starting balance £0.55). Won that, balance now £1.01 - maybe I should start a $1 to $10k and see how long it takes to get wiped out?

Betfair is plodding on around £75 balance, recent ill advised rugby bet on England bet still leaving me smarting because I was too stupid to lay it off.

Sun Poker a/c is currently dormant. Maybe need to rethink my strategy as a good start on the new a/c eventually ran into a bad run - perhaps being poker tracked teaches your opponents too much. More likely it is tilt causing me to stay in when I should not, especially after I make a mistake and try and recover losses.

Since the delays were fixed on BF I have played quite a bit there. Finding form comes and goes quite quickly, but generally I only play to satisfy my competitive streak so I don't embarass my boys by turning into "competitive dad" when watching them play football/rugby at the weekends. Still, last time I deposited was £25 at the beginning of January and I still have more than that in the account now.

I wonder if the new hand histories that are available now will make any difference to the opposition? Probably not at the $10 STT level, but will be interesting to see how I get on over the coming few weeks.

Time for an Update

2007-01-15T23:59:00.000Z

Been a bit topsy turvy lately.

After having a $100 up day on Sun the last time I posted, I managed a $150 down the next day followed by another $75 the day after. Made the bank look a bit slim so have not played much on their recently. I think next Christmas would be the best time to play cash on there again. Came 11th in a £2 mtt going down to the table calling station 3 hands running - should definitely have made the final table and that was one that really got away.

On Betfair I seem to have run into a bit of form. In the HU tourney I beat Chivu in a 100 hand "thriller". Followed this by 2-1 against divaflava: 1st game was won with 1010 vs overcards, lost 2nd with 1010 vs overcards. In the final game I don't remember being in trouble at all and can't remember what the final hand was.

Played against duffs straight after in the semi, two perfect games later, while he had no cards at all, I was in the final. Flopped a spade flush with two low cards, with straight potential. Turn was another spade and we traded small bets, river gave me the straight flush which I slightly overbet to see him fold his Jack. Last hand was a slow played AA where I just let him bet into me for the game. Lovely. Could be a while before the final since pennick is in Australia and he is holding up a quarter final in the other half of the draw.

Managed to play the Flashmob $50 added on BF on Sunday night, only 1 table but it still reached the break. When we were down to 4 or 5 left I was feeling a bit short stacked and chanced my KJ against nibbles all in reraise. This smelled weak to me which is why I called. When he turned over 55 I felt vindicated, but he did give me some abuse (probably deserved) after the hand. Eventually came third to dibble taking me out pushing with 77 when he was 3:1 chip leader.

Betfair statement now showing 5 consecutive HU STT wins, which is nice. History suggests I won't be able to keep this up, but while it lasts I guess I should keep following the same path.

GL to anyone still reading this :)

Holiday Update

2006-12-27T10:52:00.000Z

Not sure if I should admit to playing on Christmas Day even if the rest of the family had gone to bed... alright I didn't. There, feel better now I have denied it.

Entered the Betfair Forum HU tourney and played my first round match against seasider1. While trying to sit down for the tourney I was gatecrashed by sweatpollock. 3 hands in I get AA, so a 3xBB raise goes in, which is reraised. Can't believe my luck and we end up all in pre-flop and he has Q10o. He hit trips on the flop to end the game. Things don't always work out like you think they should.

Eventually managed to sit down with the right player. Only came from behind once when I pushed A4 against a mid-pair and hit the A, apart from that the chips didn't really go in unless I thought I was ahead. The 77th and last hand was the 22 monster, which I had folded earlier in the match, up against A3 - all in pre-flop and a 2 hit the flop to see me through to the 2nd round against the_yarv or chivu.

On the cash tables, I have been plugging away on the PLO and PLO8 tables on Sun, with my balance now up to $206. Not really played any STTs or MTTs recently on there, apart from a £400 gtd this morning, where I came 27th trying to steal a pot as the blinds started to creep up.

1x$5 STT on Mansion for no result. Traffic on that site is quite low at the moment, but it does seem quiet most places at the moment.

The Sun Always Shines on my PC

2006-12-21T23:08:00.000Z

So, have had my account on Sun for nearly 3 weeks now and currently, bank is standing at $141 up from starting roll of $100. Had a nice couple of days on Omaha and HiLo that has turned what was a stationary balance into one that is going up. Tonight I had to wait to get on the .15-.25 table for about 20 minutes, then when I was on I had 3 tables up and accidentally closed it and lost my seat. Instead of wanting to wait for another 25 minutes I moved to the .5-1.0 table and made 50% before deciding it was really too high for my roll and left. That being said, I did not think the standard of play was very good, it was in fact clearly worse than the lower stakes table.

Have not played much on the STT front - 1x £5 yesterday where I identified the A-rag monkey and proceeded to get knocked out by him on the bubble. At least I knew he was the most likely to hit a runner runner and because of that it did not put me off my game when it happened.

On Mansion I have played 1x 9 handed $10 stt since the last update - it took 90 minutes to get heads up then lost to a draw - but a cash is a cash. Oppo was a right classless twat who was clueless about how to play, but brilliant at winding up all the other players on the table. They all ended up tilting their stacks away, he kept quiet when heads up until after the winning card had been dealt, thankfully.

Have not played on Betfair recently, even though they have sorted out the delays between hands. Will go for the Christmas HU forum comp and see how it goes before deciding whether to wait for an improved interface to turn up.

A New Dawn

2006-12-10T16:22:00.000Z

Courtesy of dibble's link I now have a shiny new Sun Poker account. It's nice to be back on Crypto and I managed to copy over the old notes file I had from Betfair I. This tells me that there are still a lot players active on there I have been playing for more than a year. Initial results have been good, though I did let dibble talk me into playing the ntx express first night, which saw me go out to AJ calling my all in with KK as the blinds ratcheted up. Have since managed to move my account back into positive territory playing STTs and a little bit of cash, plus managed a 2nd place in a £2 mtt, though not that many runners and I did tilt a little at the end managing to lose when ahead by playing too loose.

Betfair gave me some free money, so my account there is back up to £16 from £1.80 last week and will now aim to win 5 STTs on the trot to win a BF Santa prize. Played a $2.50 STT earlier, made a poor call with J9 vs AJ and hit the 9 I needed to double up and tilt the eventual 2nd place. Rocked up a bit after that, though the table thought I was playing rubbish cards and under-estimated me right to the end when my 99 was good enough to beat AQ heads-up. Might have to try a more loose aggressive approach again and see what happens.

Mansion account is £15 in credit, cashed in 3 out of 5 last STTs, but the rake on the $5 tourneys is $1, so I need to push up to the next level asap or stop playing on the site. Interface is nice, BF could have bought it instead of Pokerchamps and done us all a favour, still could IMO. Traffic is a little light, which makes game choices a little limited, but the small stake STTs fill eventually and the standard is woeful.

same old same old

2006-12-02T22:47:00.000Z

so, can't say I have been playing well lately. just read highstacks latest blog update and could copy and paste the exact same paragraph here. however, you should read his blog, it's a compelling read and much better written than this one.

have burned through the rest of my balance on betfair, so am going to give that a rest for a week or two. have found myself playing against 2 opponents more than once when I thought there was only one other still in the hand. don't like the interface at all and the 12 plays don't really appeal either.

have played a couple of $12 rebuys on the tribeca network, went close both times. first time went out unnecessarily 10 places from the bubble when deciding I would go all in against big stack with oe str8 draw - with slightly above average stack. second time about the same, but this time just ran out of chips and took a chance that went down. need to remember how to play the later stages of mtts, I can do it, just not right now

elsewhere have only got any money left on mansion, where I am not overly endowed with funds. so, with christmas coming up I think I will probably cut back a little and maybe spend a little more time on the tribeca skin. the 6 seater stts are very soft and my strike rate in them is around 50%, just need to steer clear of the mtts that my bank roll can't afford

Slowly Does It

2006-11-16T23:16:00.000Z

So, Betfair moved onto the Pokerchamps platform and completely fucked everything up - the site has gone to the dogs, the forum is deserted and most of those still posting are pissed off with the site. My form has been frankly terrible, when I have been playing, I have been losing. Simple solution to that problem, don't play.

Easier said than done of course, it's a hobby I enjoy for the most part, but when my bank is done this time I will take a break until the 12 plays of christmas, or BF make their interface look like the old crypto one.

GL at the tables!

Can I Be Bothered to Post?

2006-10-17T22:47:00.000+01:00

Put simply no :)

Have been far too busy lately to devote much time to poker and even less to blogging. Footie and rugby seasons have started, which means I am out all weekend with my boys and learning how to play golf with them too.

When I have played recently I have found my STT and MTT form is absent, I think I need to recover my patience, but have made some progress playing small stakes pot limit Omaha.

I find that particularly with cash, timing the departure from the table right determines how much retained profit you carry over to the next day. It is reasonably easy to double your starting stack and I will do this more often than I will lose it. However, moving on from doubling to treble or more is usually only something that you can manage when the really loose players are out. Therefore, once I hit the double up, it is probably time for me to leave the table. Putting theory into practise is not always my forte - posting to a blog is one way of reminding myself what should be done.

The Opposite of Tilt

2006-10-05T23:06:00.000+01:00

Well, having posted that update two days ago I finally accepted that I was on tilt. I guess I knew I was, but was obviously in denial about it. Bizarre that it all came about after the result at BFWCOP. Subsequent to the eye opening, I have felt much more confident in my game and as a result have played much more like I know I can. That and I had a really good kip last night: flaked out about 10 and overslept until 7am - 9 hours = almost a whole weekend's sleep in one night!

Two games tonight:
- 1x £5 nlh stt on Betfair - 1st: With a little help from my friends AA, QQ and TT
- 1x$10 nlh 6-seater on Mansion - 1st: Timed levels, plenty of opportunity to recover from early setbacks, without the lunacy on the BF 6 packs. Table not good, only 2 out of the 6 players were of any decent standard and we both made the money.

Upgrade Hell

2006-10-03T22:36:00.000+01:00

I upgraded my antivirus and firewall last week, which meant I couldn't post updates to my blog until I had worked out how to enable all the nasty components you obviously need to enter text into an html word processor...

Gave me time to think about why I have been on a bit of a losing streak since the BFWCOP. Managed not to come last in the Flashmob on Sunday by a whisker, falling for some table banter from dbth who had flopped nut str8 when I had top pair with str8 and flush draws that did not come. Did the same on Mansion on Friday too. Maybe the solution is to withdraw 90% of my balance to enforce some discipline in my play - which is where I have been falling down.

Congrats to dibble for winning a trip to the BAPT in Singapore with 5 consecutive STTs on Betfair. This is no mean feat for any level of player.

Friday Night Update

2006-09-22T21:42:00.000+01:00

So, wasn't necessarily planning an update, but reading the latest version of Betfair's The Deal newsletter I find I have made my mark.

Which of the forumites would you most like to play heads-up against?

It would have to be anyone but Milton Bradley, 2 hours, or whatever it was, was quite enough for me! If I had to choose though I’d probably like to play KingHawko, especially if I am lucky enough to keep cracking his J4 off with AA.

Nuff respect to strokeit, would be tough to play him heads up again too, although in retrospect I did enjoy it a lot. Hopefully will get the chance to play him heads up again in the future.

I won the Betfair STT I entered as was updating last time, meaning I am no longer super tilt on sharkscope. Tried a bluff on the Pokerchamps $1k guaranteed that saw me knocked out when I was down to about 15 x BB and haven't played since.

The Curse of Withdrawal

2006-09-19T22:13:00.000+01:00

Took £1800 out of Betfair as a result of BFWCOP. The inevitable has happened, in that I seem to have been unable to play a game of marbles since. Have played a few STTs, the first of which I was blinded out because I had my MTT head on. Also played in the Flashmob on Sunday and fished myself out. Slightly better on the cash tables in that so far have managed to play two Omaha sessions without loss, though am working on fixing that record as I type.

On Pokerchamps have been running much better, 3rd and 1st in the $5 11:00pm MTT, one fail in another $5 MTT and a win and a place in 2 STTs. Balance now up to over $130 on that site. I have been tempted to enter tonights $1k guaranteed as it seems to be excellent value given the relative lack of runners, looks like it's going to be a $375 added.

[Late update, just checked sharkscope and found I am on Super Tilt. It's STT time!]

BFWCOP II Review

2006-09-12T01:03:00.000+01:00

So, played my biggest live tourney last weekend. Put it more simply, it was the second live MTT and only the 4th time I had played poker live. Following is extracted from my posting to the betfair forum with another couple of thoughts at the end.
=====
It was excellent to meet up with all the posters from the Betfair forum and the flashmob certainly managed a good turnout at the bar on Friday.

In the team event, I was playing on a table with JPJ and Hawko. Clearly my idea to have a flashmob last longest by time bet was a bad idea with these 2 loons chucking their chips around. Eventually, from SB I flat called with KQ against JPJ who checked. Flop was K9x, so I checked and JP was all in - an easy call based on his aggression. I was delighted when he showed 9-5, until the 5 came on the turn and I was on my way out. Spent the rest of the evening drinking Guinness with team Flash (almost all early exits) and sat down for an STT with Pennick, playing any two cards he beat my AK with the 8-4 monster. Congrats to boro for winning his table and the flash last longest bet.

Next day decided I was going to stay sober and drive, so me and AJ went out and found a cafe for breakfast about 12:00. Breakfast No.3 with beans and black pudding certainly put some colour back into my cheeks and we even bumped into the dutch representative of paddy poker.

Arrived at the club and seemed to wait for an eternity for the game to start, it eventually got underway around 2:30ish with 109 payers. Started in Seat 6 and looked down for the first had - AA! Called early raise as was first hand and watched an Ace appear on the flop with 2 hearts. Turn made it worse by putting the 3rd heart out but as no raise from the other player, I put in a 1 k raise on the river and he called with AK. Off and running.

Played very tight for ages, then when the blinds started to go up I was moved to a table with estelle, doobs and kp. I think i arrived with about 10-12k of chips when the blinds were 600-1200. By the time the blinds were up to 2-4k I was down to 8K of chips - 88 in the hole and I was all in to double up. Almost next hand A9 suited, push and hope - that was me up to 36k. Then not for the first or last time I was dealt AA. Small blind goes all in with 44 and an easy call sees me up to around the 65k mark.

Down to about 10 or 11 left and am feeling confident, AQ suited on the button and I raised. Doobs was sitting on BB with 88 and we both ended up all in pre-flop. Flop QAQ and the 8 on the river meant that even if had slow played the FH, I was always going to be taking 63 out of his 64k stack. He doubled 2 or 3 times before eventually going out on the SB - but I was sitting on about 120k of chips and heading for the final table.

When the final table was brought together, I was sitting down with a lot of people I had read postings from and about. Regalfish, Strokeit, Martin Green, nibbles, verapera, Sunday8pm, highstack and two others whose names I didn't know (even though I sat next to one of them for about 6 hours...)

Started very tight, watching sunday and martin playing more often than not. As the blinds started to go up, I took out a few of the shorter stacks (not sure if the order is right):

highstacks - I have AA in blinds with 120k, strokeit 35k raise from utg (must have big Ace), highstacks all in with 80k (assume big pair) - ergo I am ahead of both and the only way to keep strokeit out is to go all in - I did and he folded - flop Jxx (OMG I have one out), turn A and there was no help on the river - I moved into 2nd or 3rd after this hand
verapera - AQ vs 88, board 99 10 10 x meant that I took it with the ace high
Martin Green - my QQ vs his KK when he was short stack - I hit a Q on the flop

After we eventually agreed a chop with 5 left (my fault for wanting a slightly better deal than was offered), we started playing for the package only. This loosened the table up for a bit with the bigger stacks bullying the smaller ones.
regalfish - I think AQ vs 55 and I hit a queen
sunday8pm - AK vs JJ, he had just been hit by strokeit and I had him covered and hit my bigger pair

Strokeit took out Nibbles with a bigger straight and it was heads up. Embarassingly at one stage I had about 75% of the chips. I made my one playing mistake of the day and called with KJ all in and he was back ahead about 55-45. He made his mistake then and reminded me more than once how bad I had played that hand - it helped me get my concentration back again and for the next hour or so it was a real grind. We swapped dealers a few times and the cameraman fell asleep in the corner.

As the clock came round to 4:00am strokeit proposed a chop and I accepted, we would go one hand cards face up for the bracelet and bfwcop championship. Strokeit won with a pair of Kings and at last I could do something about getting to bed, nearly 14 hours poker is a pretty tough ask. I think I really only made the one mistake, but you might have noticed above I came from behind 3 times with AQ at critical times. A big thanks to the dealers who gave me 7 AAs on the night: all of them held up, 4 for significant pots and only 2 for the blinds.

Enjoyed the banter on all the tables, especially with nibbles when we were down to 4. I still don't want to tell him what I had for my all in bet when he had 88 on the Big Blind.
=====
Having reflected on this for a couple of days now, I honestly consider myself extremely lucky. I came from behind 6 times in the list above and though I always had a strong hand until the q8 where I conspicuously failed to hit, it was still less than evens every time. Against highstacks I was down to 5% after the flop but still came through. So, will bask in the warm glow for a few more days before I decide whether or not to move onto MTTs or try and play a bit more live.

Given all the bad beats I took last week, I feel very much like karma gave me them all back, in Spades (AQ) in one night,

Made about $25 last night playing Omaha cash, lost 1 £5 STT tonight by playing like a rock until I got blinded out.

Charging Downwards

2006-09-04T23:47:00.000+01:00

Had a bad week, so bad I'm in denial and am not going to post my balances. Have loaded on Ladbrokes this week, taken a shine to giving away my chips playing HiLo MTTs. Not had the best of luck either, hand of the week being quad 9s taken down by a rivered straight flush:

Game #3312792474: Omaha PL (15/30) - 2006/09/02 - 21:51:33 (GMT)
Table "STT 3376967 - 1" Seat 3 is the button.
Seat 1: harayir (1840 in chips)
Seat 2: Bake11012 (2308 in chips)
Seat 3: kloe (828 in chips)
Seat 4: Aldomist (872 in chips)
Seat 5: Scadie (785 in chips)
Seat 6: PETERBORO (805 in chips)
Seat 7: stampman (880 in chips)
Seat 9: Steve180 (1202 in chips)
Seat 10: Trifle1 (480 in chips)
Aldomist: posts small blind 15
Scadie: posts big blind 30
----- HOLE CARDS -----
dealt to harayir [8h Qh 9s 9d]
PETERBORO: calls 30
stampman: calls 30
Steve180: calls 30
Trifle1: calls 30
harayir: calls 30
Bake11012: calls 30
kloe: folds
Aldomist: calls 15
Scadie: checks
----- FLOP ----- [3c 5c 9h]
Aldomist: checks
Scadie: checks
PETERBORO: bets 30
stampman: calls 30
Steve180: folds
Trifle1: calls 30
harayir: raises to 390
Bake11012: folds
Aldomist: folds
Scadie: folds
PETERBORO: calls 360
stampman: folds
Trifle1: calls 360
----- TURN ----- [3c 5c 9h][9c]
PETERBORO: checks
Trifle1: checks
harayir: bets 60
PETERBORO: calls 60
Trifle1: calls 60 and is all-in
----- RIVER ----- [3c 5c 9h 9c][7c]
PETERBORO: checks
harayir: bets 300
PETERBORO: folds
Returned uncalled bets 300 to harayir
----- SHOW DOWN -----
harayir: shows [8h Qh 9s 9d] (Four of a kind, Nines, Seven high)
Trifle1: shows [6c 2c 5h 4c] (Straight Flush, Seven high)
Trifle1 collects 1620 from Main pot
----- SUMMARY -----
Total pot 1620 Main pot 1620 Rake 0
Board [3c 5c 9h 9c 7c]
Seat 1: harayir showed [8h Qh 9s 9d] and lost
Seat 2: Bake11012 folded on the Flop
Seat 3: kloe (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: Aldomist (small blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 5: Scadie (big blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 6: PETERBORO folded on the River
Seat 7: stampman folded on the Flop
Seat 9: Steve180 folded on the Flop
Seat 10: Trifle1 showed [6c 2c 5h 4c] and won (1620) with Straight Flush, Seven high

Roll on the bfwcop...

Hard work for some

2006-08-29T00:08:00.000+01:00

Played for about 7 hours today - started in the afternoon and lost stack playing FH into quads in omaha on ladbrokes, beaten in about 3 STTs, last resort was playing in an Omaha Hi/Lo freeroll+rebuy on Ladbrokes. Started at 8.05 with 2,300+ runners, rebought once for $1, just finished 4 hours later and qualified as a top 20 finisher. Checked what I had qualified for - a $22 buy-in to another satellite tomorrow night. Still, this one is worth $220 buy-in to the winner, so would be a good tourney to qualify from if I can keep myself awake.

Return to the Magic Sign

2006-08-26T10:15:00.000+01:00

Early post because I'm going to my mother in laws soon and will mss the flashmob game tomorrow night :(

Had 2 STT defeats on Betfair so decided to go back onto Ladbrokes again. Bubbled for the 2nd consecutive STT on there with AQ running into BB who could not put down 9-10s to a 4x pre-flop raise on Level 5. Then spotted that they were running special added STTs. Was down to $10 in the account, so added another £24 and entered two Omaha STTs, $5 with $25 added and $10 with $50 added, while playing a £5 Holdem STT on Betfair.

After about 5 minutes I spotted that one of the Omaha games was showing Lo hands as well as high, which surprised me a bit, or actually a lot. This meant I was playing 3 different types of poker concurrently. Went out on the Betfair game first finishing 6th and not playing very well - I can blame it on the Omaha and no playing badly to justify it to myself. On the Ladbrokes games I was actually playing quite well and riding a bit of luck. About an hour later I had won the $5 hi lo table for $37.50 and come second on the pot limit $10 for $45. I really should have won them both, I played the last hand even though I knew it was weak pre-flop when we were within 100 chips of each other heads up.

Betfair balance - £97
Ladbrokes - $121
Pokerchamps - $80
Jennings - $42

New Links Section

2006-08-22T22:53:00.000+01:00

Edited my template so now I have some links to other blogs that I read regularly, I think all of them are probably founder members of the Betfair poker forum flashmob (AJ this is ultimately all your responsibility for kicking it off).

Weekly Results Round-up

2006-08-20T22:40:00.000+01:00

Had a reasonable week with the exception of the flashmob. All the top 6 failed to score more than 1 point. Should see me move up to 5th, but it was a great opportunity to make up ground and I blew it by walking my top pair into Emzo who had flopped a nut flush.

Results:
Betfair - 2 £2MTTs & Flashmob: unplaced. 7 £5 STTs: 2 wins, 1 2nd, 1 3rd - balance up to £99 from £89 end of last week
Jennings - 1 rebuy, unplaced, balance $42 (I think)
Pokerchamps - 1 STT, 2nd, 1 $11 MTT 3rd - balance up to $80 from $48
Ladbrokes - loaded £25 yesterday and blew most of it - 2 STTs and 1 MTT, no places

Sharkscope now showing nice upward curve for Betfair account, meaning I am approaching break-even on the STTs since they started coverage. Equivalent of 2 more wins will see me into the black - looks like it took me 100 games to work out how to play the game reasonably (i.e. stay away from the 6pak thunder lotteries)

Progress Update

2006-08-16T22:38:00.000+01:00

Haven't played much in the last week, slight profit since returning from holiday including a 2nd place (£45) in the Betfair Flashmob league on Sunday. Had a bit of luck on an STT that overlapped the start of the MTT, recoving from 100ish chips heads up to win. Played well on the Flashmob until made the money, then called Smart Money when I knew he had an Ace and I had A2 soooted. Then lasted one hand heads up vs SM calling with K10 when I really did not need to and knew he had an Ace again. Think I destabilized myself and the table with 3 consecutive all-ins when there were 4 players left - only 5 or 6 more hands were played after I did that.

Account balance has gone from £60 to £73 plus a seat on a £5 STT while I am making this update. Most of the downside has come on a couple of ventures onto the Omaha PL cash tables as Sharkscope says I am breakeven on the STTs I have played since I got back.

Have been drawn on table 5 for BFCOP team event, means I get to play a couple of players live for the first time who I have played online. Will be mostly playing STTs between now and the weekend of 8/9 Sep for this reason.

Service interruption

2006-08-08T21:30:00.000+01:00

Went on holiday expecting internet access and arrived to find there wasn't any...

First game back last night, played £5 omaha STT and reached final 3 as chip leader when promptly walked into full house from 2nd and lost 90% of stack and finished 3rd - need to get back into the zone with a bit more practice

The History of Poker

2006-07-20T00:02:00.000+01:00

OK, the history of poker from my perspective...

First played poker about 2 years ago, having seen one of my mates playing on Ladbrokes, so started playing on there and Betfair. Since then have also opened up accounts on PartyPoker, Jennings (VC) and PokerChamps (soon to be Betfair).

Have mostly played around at small cash levels and STTs, but have made final table on 2 big Betfair tourneys including 3rd in the BF Santa for a trip to New York and about £1,800 cash.

Much prefer playing on Betfair graphics and I know I am in profit there since the amount paid in is significantly less than the amount paid out. On the others I am well down on Ladbrokes, but that is where I learnt to play. Wiped out on PartyPoker and never reloaded, never quite managed to win on the low stakes Omaha tables there. Loaded once on Pokerchamps and Jennings and both accounts currently have about what I started with.

Never quite got round to buying a tool like PokerTracker, but do like following myself on sharkscope. Current form is reasonable, with 4 cashes out of last 8 games, but only the one win (tonight) in a £5 Omaha stt. Am showing as having negative profit, the cause of which was largely 6-pak thunders. I steer clear of these now since they are like playing bingo without the craic.

Welcome

2006-07-18T22:12:00.000+01:00

Only created this blog because I wanted to post a comment on someone else's... will see how long it lasts, started without good intentions.