A Half Century

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 Have withdrawn $600 today, which obviously means I played like a donk tonight and went 0/4.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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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.