Holiday Update

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

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

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

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