Magical Mystery Poker Tour

Aria $125

2011-10-28T19:24:00.000-07:00

I played the Aria tournie today with Mike today, which attracted 50 runners, and I suffered more KK woe just short of a payday.

I ran my 10k stack to 25k pretty fast with my usual approach of representing whatever was the nuts in position and didn't get looked up, and also made a hero call against a young guy with top pair for an 8k pot.

I then received 2 gifts in a row. After I raised to 1800 with JQ someone decides to limp jam on me for only 1100 more with QT and I hold.

Someone then gets it in against my 3 bet when he has no fold equity and my JJ holds against 88.

Then I even manage to even eliminate Mike, who had been playing his usual steady game.

I had been raising the button when Mike was on the BB with mixed results and the next orbit I noted he had a resteal stack so decided to only raise when I was happy to call off. AQ seemed good against his perceived range of mine and I was lucky he picked up AJ to reshove on me and I held.

By the time we had 10 runners left, I had about 50k and probably in the lower half of the field so was looking for a double up.

At 1k/2k I made my standard raise to 5k with KK, and young guy shoved button just covering me. There was a delay as an older guy wanted a count as making the final table was important to him (final table 9 handed) but eventually he passed and I of course called against AQ and the river was an Ace to bust me.

Oh well - I felt I played tournies really well this trip - running up a big stack in most of them early on, but a couple of near misses meant I only broke about even.

And so the Vegas trip ends......

Caesars $350

2011-10-27T10:33:00.000-07:00

I have a monster hangover after yesterday's dinner at social house followed by roulette and gin and tonic session, so this will be a shortish report.

I busted about 80th from 180 runners, with 20 spots paying.

We started with 25k starting stack, and I quickly moved to 35k by playing hands on the button and cutoff and check-raising with draws in position to get players to fold made pair hands.

However, the other end of the table was very tough, with an internet guy, a Hispanic guy, a New York banker, a Dutchman and an Israeli all of whom were aggressive. This was by far the hardest table I've played on with hardly an opening limp in sight.

I get up to 50k, after getting it all in against the Israeli with my KK holding against his AK and am off to a good start.

Then I implode against internet guy. We've played quite a few hands together so have a lively dynamic going.

At 400-800 he makes it 1800 which is his standard open UTG. I make it 4800 on the button with KsQs and he repops to 11k. I decide he is playing back at my button raise to shove for 40k effective and he calls quickly with AK and holds. And just like that I burn 40k off and am left with a 10k stack.

I put on my reliable coin flipping boots to get back to 50k pretty quickly.

I shove over a bunch of limpers at 500-1k with AT and hold against 77 to get to 20k, win a decent pot from the button with KQ in a single raised pot with multiple callers to get to 28k and then double through again at the 1k/2k level with JQ against 88 to get to 50k after flopping a flush. Our table breaks again after this.

Exit hand:

1k/3k level
UTG limps, mid position limps, SB completes and I make it 12k with KK from the BB with 38k behind, planning to shove any flop.
Mid position limper calls having me slightly covered.
Flop is Ace, Ten, 3
Pot is 33k so I shove my 38k in and our intrepid limper has A7. Splendid.
Perhaps I should have made it more than 12k, but I wasn't folding anyway so was happy to take my chances against one caller.

Meeting Mike for dinner tonight at Sinatra's, and then we'll probably play a final tournament together on Friday.

Binnions $100

2011-10-25T19:48:00.000-07:00

This tournament offered 20k starting stack and a good structure with 30 runners. I love Binnions - it's so much of old school Vegas and the players are really friendly.

Shazbo played also and went bust 2 tables out having Ace of hearts on a 4 heart board but losing to a house.

I started seriously, and soon spun my stack to 40k, but unfortunately got on so well with my table mate Joe, that we ended up in a Jolly Rancher drink off (Vodka + watermelon) and by the time we both made the final table we were all over the place after 9 shots.

Dinner at Sage beckoned at 9:30, so since it was 7:30pm it seemed I'd have to wrap it up quick or go home. I was soon done in 6th spot, reshoving A5 from the button and losing to AQ. There was loads of play at the end though, so if it wasn't for the time constraint it is an excellent tournament, especially bearing in mind it is only $100 buy in.

I only had a 30k stack by then at 1k/2k anyway, and given three players had 150k stacks I was a long shot anyway.

Caesars tomorrow.

Another Planet Hollywood Win

2011-10-25T10:50:00.000-07:00

I was waiting for Shazbo to get some jewellery made and noticed the PH $70 2pm was starting so decided to jump in knowing what a turbo it was. 20 runners and we did a chop 4 ways for $250 each within 90 mins, the play mostly being categorised by players playing too cautiously with astronomical blinds. I was never in danger after my initial outrageous risk taking which span my stack up from 6k to 20k mostly without showdown and just coasted the final table doing nothing of note, except shoving when the opportunity arose.

Later in the day I played in the most boring cash game ever at the Excalibur. It was Monday night football, and the casino was running a promotion where they did a draw for every touch down, field goal, half time etc etc for $25/$50 or so.

As a result the table was full of nits who just limped AK and the like as they watched developments in the football, and only continued when they flopped top pair or a good draw. A couple of times I was called on the river confident of scooping only to be crushed by the second/third nuts.

Predictably it was easy to grind up a small win from scooping the blinds and I left about $50 up after 2 hours. hmmmmm.

Binnions today, Caesars tomorrow.

Caesar's Classic - $560

2011-10-24T09:51:00.000-07:00

Sigh - busted 12th in this from the 115 runner field. 9 spots played, so ten hours play for nothing. There were so many hands I can't remember them all, but I've put below the interesting/key/amusing ones.

The tournament has a 30 minute clock and a ludicrous 30k starting stack.

Hand1
4 limpers for 100, so I make up the small blind without looking as it doesn't really matter with so many chips and the BB makes in 800. All fold so I have a look and have AK. This is an awkward spot as me raising now makes no sense and we are 300 BBs deep in any case and I am out of position. I check call him all the way on an Ace flop and pick up about 6k in chips against AJ.

I play tons of hands in the first 2 hours and by the end of the 200-400 level my stack has moved between a high of 40k to a low of 18k and it finishes on 29k at the break.

New level 300-600.

Hand2
2 limpers, I make is 2800 with 4h6h in the cutoff. 1 caller.
Flop is AK3
Limper bets 5k, I make is 14k and he grumbles and passes.
This gets me to about 40kish.

Hand3
UTG limper playing 8k stack, I make is 2100 with 99. Loose guy calls out of BB. UTG limper now shoves, so I assume that can only be AA/KK then.
I use this read to reshove to isolate and flop a 9 to win against AA.

This got me to 50k, but I was soon down to 27k after flopping 2 pair with AT and losing quite a few chips to a set. Should have folded river on that one.

Blinds 400-800

Hand4
Loose guy makes it 2500 and gets 3 callers. I squeeze shove from button for 27k with 7d8c and get snap called by both KK and QQ. However, my powerful hand flops a straight and I get to 70kish with my patented Royal Mult-i Crack.

Blinds 600-1200 with a 100 ante

Hand5
I raise cutoff with KQ to 3100. Button, SB, BB and a limper all call. Marvellous.
Flop is Ks7d4s
I bet 9k, small stack SB shoves for 12k and just as I am preparing to race against his flush draw, the BB decides to check raise shove for 45k. FFS. I can't see how I am good here so I fold.
SB has flush draw and BB has KJ. :( :( :( KJ holds.

Hand6
I raise mid position with AhJh to 3100. Button calls (very loose player but plays really well post flop).
Flop is 35K with no hearts.
I bet 5k and he calls.
Turn is 2. Check Check.
River is Ace. I bet 9k. He thinks and makes it 18k. We have quite a bit of history from previous hands and have a bit of a Jimbo/Nemo/Baron dynamic going on so I go ahead and call and he has 46 so the river stuffed me a bit there as he had turned straight.

Hand7
A couple of limpers and I make it 3900 with 7d8d from cutoff. 2 limpers including guy from hand 6 call. Flop is 89J with one diamond. I bet 8k and both call.
Turn is Td so I have low straight plus diamond draw.
Checked around
River is a black deuce.
The check to me, so I assume my straight is good and bet 12k. Guy from hand 6 min-raises me again and other guy calls! I must be losing so fold and they both had Queens and were trapping me. Again.

Down to 18k now.

Blinds 800-1600 with a 200 ante

Hand8
I raise AT to 4k and a short stack shove for 9k :( :( :(
I have to call and he has AQ and I am down to 9k.

Blinds 1k-2k with a 300 ante.

Hand9
My BB and I have 7k remaining and 2k of that is posted in blind.
Folded round to SB. I inform him that I will be calling blind if he puts me in.
He nods to himself inwardly and shoves. I call blind and my Q3 holds against his T8 (?)

I get a run of AQ/AK type hands and soon get back to 40k by shoving over raisers and getting no callers.

Hand10
Loose raiser to 5k and I call 33 out of BB.
Flop is 6h7c2h
I check, he bets 5k again and I call.
Turn is Jh, I check and he checks unhappily.
River is 7s
I rep flush by betting 10k and he quickly folds.
Up to 60k now and move tables as we have 50 runners left.

Blinds 1500-3000 with a 300 ante.

Hand11
Raiser to 9k, and button calls.
I shove SB with Jh9h for 60k - probably reckless as I have no player reads.
Raiser folds quick, but button moans for ages and then folds AT.
Up to 80k

I now have some raises shoved on to drop to 60k again.

Hand12
Small stack shoves 10k, I reshove with AsKs and hold against J3.
Back to 70k

Nothing much happens, blinds now 2k-4k with a 400 ante. I have 60k.

Hand13
All decorum is lost in this hand.
Folded round to me on button and I have 55. Pot is 10k so I go ahead and shove.
BB asks for a count - this takes dealer a couple of minutes as I have loads of ante chips in my stack.
BB thinks for about 2 mins as I watch the baseball.
BB calmly calls with............POCKET ACES!!???????
At this point I lose it completely as do a couple of the other players.
As the flop is being dealt I am shouting profanities, waving my arms around like a Cairo traffic policeman and randomly jabbing my figure at seat 1.
I then notice that flop is 4,7,8, T
River is..........6.
I shout "COME ON!", veins bulging out of my forehead like a deranged Leyton Hewitt and am warned to calm down by tournament director.
Up to 120k now.
Never seen a slowroll like that before.
In the words of Lt Jonathan Kendrick : "Private Santiago is dead, and that is a tragedy. But he is dead because he had no code. He is dead because he had no honor, and God was watching."
Or something like that anyway.

Blinds 4k, 8k with a 500 ante

Hand14
Button raises to 22k. I call BB with JhTh with no real plan of how to proceed.
Flop is A,5,5
I check, button checks
Turn is 8
I bet 30k and button folds.
Up to 150k after this hand.

Pretty much the next hour of play is raising and getting antes, shoving on raisers with strong hands and me raising and getting shoved on myself. It's a really boring hour but by the end I have 160k.

There are 12 runners left, and 9 pay as we go on a break.

Blinds now 8k-16k with a 2k ante. I have 160k left and there is 36k in each pot preflop as we are 6 handed.

This happens in 3 consecutive hands.

Hand15
My buddy from Hand6 is back on the table, so I welcome him by shoving AdQd over his 40k open and he folds. Up to 200k. Still one of the short stacks though.

Hand16
I open A7 to 35k UTG+1 and have to pass when BB moves in covering me. I shouldn't be raising hands I am not going to go all the way with at this stage I think, although picking up a pot preflop is massive now.

Hand17
I shove 165k UTG with A3 and the SB reshoves with AK.
There are 3 hearts on the flop to go with my Ace but I can't find a final suck out which would have given me a 300k+ stack.

Game over. 10 hours for zip :(

Bellagio $540 report

2011-10-21T16:57:00.000-07:00

I brought my new strategy of increased aggression to the tournament, and it predictably resulted in a chip stack roller coaster before I busted in level 4 on a coin flip to gain a decent stack. Only 18 runners, which was disappointing. The regular tournaments don't seem to be attracting big fields in Vegas anymore, but at least the upcoming Caesars events have guaranteed prize pools so I imagine 100 field runners are assured.

Anyway - here is how it went down. 10k stack with 40 minute clock starting at 50-100

We start 9 handed single table as we await late entrants.

Hand1
I raise 5d6c from cutoff and BB calls. I continuation bet Ace flop and he folds.

Hand2
I raise from SB with A7 and BB calls.
Flop is Kd, 7h, 4h
I bet 400 and he calls so I assume he has KJ or some such.
Turn is blank. I check. He bets 700. I call as I think I can get a fair few chips off him if I get the 2 pair and can also win the hand if a heart falls.
River is a blank. I check, he checks back and wins with KT.

Hand3
I raise 57off to 250 from UTG+2 and BB defends.
Flop is KKx
Check, check.
Turn is T.
Check, I bet 400 and he calls.
River is a Q and I give up when he bets.

Hand3
I raise KK in the cutoff to 250. Old guy in SB min raises and BB calls. I kind of want to fold as old guys min raising OOP scares me, but I go ahead and make it 3k and both fold after long dwells.

Hand4
Old guy from Arkansas raises cutoff to 300 and I call from button with Q9.
Flop is 9AK
Check, check.
Turn is 7.
He bets 400 and I call.
River is T and he bets 500.
I raise to 1600 and he makes this weird exhalation sound (henceforth known as the straight sound).
I ask him if he is okay, and he says his day has just got a load worse before calling after a minute of pondering with the second nuts.

Hand5
Texan middle aged guy raises button to 300 and I make it 950 out of the BB with 47off. He makes it 3k straight and I fold.

Hand6
Arkansas raises to 300 in the cutoff and I call with JdTd on button.
Flop is TQ3
Arkansas checks, I bet 500 and he calls.
Turn is 9 to give me pair + open ended straight draw. However, Arkansas makes the straight sound and bets 1k. I should probably fold but call.
River is a blank and Arkansas bets 2k. I fold.
After this latest debacle I am down to 2.5k and in serious danger of having to explain to stakers how I busted in the first level from a 10k stack event without a cooler in sight.

Blinds up to 100-200

Hand7
4 limpers and I shove my 2.5k with A7 and all fold to get me to 3.5k

Hand8
1 raiser UTG and I shove AA from SB and he folds :( Up to 4k.

Hand9
1 raiser to 600 and 2 callers and I make it 2.2k from the cutoff with 8cTc. Obviously if someone shoves I have to call and look like a right windowlicker, but fortunately they pass. Up to 6k.

Hand10
Arkansas raises cutoff to 525 and I make it 1300 with 77 on the button and he folds.

Hand11
I raise AQ to 500 UTG and BB defends. Flop is A55. I bet 800 and he calls.
Turn is A and it goes check/check.
River is a T and I bet 1300 and he passes. Up to 8k.

New level 100/200 with 25 ante

Hand12
I raise JJ UTG to 500. BB defends again.
Flop is KT7.
I bet 800 and he calls.
Turn is A and he check calls 1300.
River is J. He checks, I bet 2k and he folds K5. Back above starting stack now.

Hand13
Arkasas makes it 550 in the cuttoff and I make it 1600 with 88 on button. Arkansas calls.
Flop is KQ9
Check/check.
Turn is a ringer dinger ding dong 8.
Arkansas bets 2k, and I shove for 9k and have him just covered.
He dwells a fair while and then folds.
Up to about 15k after this hand.

Hand13
Multi limpers and I make it 900 from cutoff with 7h8h and get one customer, but win it with continuation bet in position and a raggy flop. My stack hits my high point of 16k.

For 30 mins then before the break it goes wrong, as I start getting 3 bet myself and have to fold garbage hands. I also take a few flops in position and miss, and I also have to abort a checkraise when someone shoves and I have nothing.

The break arrives and I have 9k. There are 13 of the 20 runners left and top 3 spots pay and I'm below average although at 150-300 a25 my stack still has decent play in it.

I put dinner back 3 hours as I figure this might take a while.

I am eliminated within 4 hands of the restart.

I pass the first 2 hands and then:

Hand14
4 limpers and I check my option with Jh8h from BB.
Flop is pretty massive for me QdTh7h to give me inside straight flush draw.
I decide to lead for 700 and UTG makes is 1600 with 6k behind. Pot is 3kish and I am facing raise of 1k. I think my stack is pretty much perfect to bang it in so I shove and he calls with AcQs and holds. Meh. I ran the hand and I was 47% so I think this is okay with the fold equity, although AQ man didn't think very long about is so maybe my table image wasn't great for this. I would have had a good 18k stack if I win the hand and could then have had a decent shot at it.

Hand15
I shove my 1k in with 96 when it is folded round to me in the SB and AQ guy calls from BB with JQ. I hit a 9 but he rivers a Queen and I am eliminated just before final table.

Overall, I was probably too aggressive so my plan for the Caesars tournament will be to tone it down a little bit. I also imagine the Caesars field might be younger, so I'll probably play snug for a while to see the lie of the land.

The Bellagio tournament is well structured and the standard I would say was competent.

Vegas - Planet Hollywood win

2011-10-20T17:58:00.000-07:00

I won the 2pm at Planet Hollywood in bizarre circumstances today.

You get 6k stack but it's a turbo with blinds starting at 100-200 and then doubling every 20 mins.

I blew over half my stack in the very first hand after 4 betting the button to 1.5k with 88 and then continuation betting a JQx flop for 2k against one player who then shoved on me.

I got most of it back getting it all in with 55 against 22, and then eliminated the player from the first hand all in on the flop with JT on a Txx board and holding against T7.

On the final table I went on an absolute tear, eliminating most of the players by either chiseling them down by 3 betting pre-flop and getting folds when the blinds were astronomical or cold decking them.

Cold deck 1 was a big stack getting QQ on the button and me having KK in the BB.

Cold deck 2 was flopping a set against a pair and a flush draw and he missed.

After all that there were 3 players left with stacks as follows:

Me: 70k
Player1: 10k
Player2: 10k

With blinds at 1k/2k they still were in with a shout if they got a quick double up, but at that stage the dealer suggested that they split 2nd and 3rd prize and award me first place. I said that perhaps this wasn't equitable but to my astonishment the other players agreed and said they had to be somewhere anyway.

So I secured 1st prize by doing a deal 3 handed. Can't imagine that will happen in tomorrow's tournament(!)

One bizarre incident whilst I was walking to PH - a homeless guy with a beard came up to me and shouted pretty much in my face:

"It's not what you know, it's who you know. AND YOU KNOW ME!"

WTF?

Vegas - Wynn $125 Tournament

2011-10-20T08:10:00.000-07:00

Finally some tournament form as I chopped this one 3 ways for $825 after tip. There were only 21 runners, but the event was well structured and lasted about 6 hours, and there was a lot of play left when we did our deal when evenly matched in chips.

We started off 5 handed and I played most pots early on quickly moving my 7.5k starting stack up to 10k, mostly with poor hands played from the cutoff and button against a good Russian player who I would play a large pot later on.

Key hands after that when we are now 9 handed:

Hand 1:
I raise a bunch of limpers in level 2 with AJ from the button to $700 get 4 callers.

Flop is 8, T, 4

I bet $1100 and everyone calls :(

Turn is a Jack :)

I bet $1600 and old guy calls from BB (more on him later - a legend)

River is a 9 which seems a pretty bad card and old guy leads for 2k. I know I am toast and should obviously fold but I call and he has 67 for rivered gutshot.

Hand 2:
Russian guy raises to 350 and gets 3 callers before I make it 1400 from the BB with AA.

All fold except my old man nemesis.

Flop is T, 9, 8. Marvellous.

He leads 2k so I am clearly toast again but I know I can re-enter to put my 5k stack in and he wins with a set of tens. Rebuy.

The old guy is a classic. I think he was a stud player as he didn't know how the blinds worked, and was constantly asking the dealer what was going on.

At one point he limped UTG and then when the BB checked he asked the dealer "is it over?" :)

At another juncture he limps after a raise and then says "what's going on?" genuinely confused when the dealer says he can't do that. He also folds his BB twice in limped pots without seeing the flop and asks me mid hand if he should "go all in with AK" before doing so. Really nice guy though - I played with him the full 6 hours.

My rebuy stack is down to 4k two hours later when I get a streak of luck.

Hand 3: I shove my stack after a limper with Q5 and get called behind by AK and river a 5 to get to 8k.

Hand 4: I squeeze shove a late position raiser and button caller with 45 and all fold to get to 12k.

Hand 5: Blinds now 400-800 with a 100 ante and I shove from the SB with 55 and russian guy thinks for ages and then says he feels like gambling and calls with JQ and I win the race to bust him and get to 18k

We are now at final table and the blinds are soon a spicy 600-1200 with a 200 ante. It becomes a real crapshoot for a while now but I get to 30k quickly by shoving when the opportunity arises.

Hand6: I call out of BB for 3.5k with KQ from a 30k stack when there are 3 players in the pot and win a sizable pot on a King high board getting an 8k bet in on the turn but having to shut down on the river when the flush comes.

5 players remain.

Hand 7: Old guy shoves from button and I reshove with A9 and beat his 55.

Hand 8: I raise button with AK and call BB shove with QQ and win the race.

We are now 3 handed and in the money, but stacks are about 50k for me, 80k for young guy who was best player in tournament and 110k for older guy who was very solid. There is now a lot of play again and we play 3 handed for about 40 minutes.

Hand 9: I raise AK and call BB shove with AT. Flop is JQT for my straight. Turn is T. Alarm bells! River is K for a chop.

Blinds now 1.5k-3k with a 500 ante

Hand 10: I raise to 9k with JJ and BB calls.

Flop is J82 with 2 diamonds

Check/Check

Turn is a diamond.

Check, young guy bets and I shove and he calls with Kdx for the flush draw

Everyone is focused on there not being a diamond and I groan as the diamond rolls off, but then we realise that the 2 has paired the board and I win with the full house.

We are about level in chips, so we decide to chop it up and all get paid more than second place.

I'm going to play a couple of turbos today and perhaps some cash at planet hollywood, before a trip to The Cut tonight at the Palazzo.

Bellagio $540 is tomorrow.

Treasure Island - 11am $50 tournie

2011-10-18T16:16:00.000-07:00

After leaving Caesars I gave this one a go, and got nothing going. I managed to finish 5th after playing like a rock but only 2 spots paid.

One amusing hand to report:

Can't remember any of the action till the river, but it's a big pot and board is:

K, x, x, x, x with no straight or flushes.

Italian guy bets 600 on river, and American older guy raises to 2800 with 3k behind.

Italian guy sighs, and pushes all his chips over the line and says "all in". However he only has 2100 behind so has called all in.

Dealer waits. Players wait. I look at dealer, down at chips and back at dealer waiting for him to initiate showdown.

Nothing happens.

American guy scratches his chin and says "I can't beat a set of kings. I have a decent hand but can't call a shove" and promptly mucks!

So Italian (who to be fair didn't realise what had happened) rakes a monster pot uncontested.

I love these tournies. Still never win them though :)

Vegas - Caesars $70 9am tournie

2011-10-18T16:07:00.001-07:00

I played this turbo with Shazbo this morning after playing on the table games since 2am when we woke up. I kicked off by jamming a straight flush in texas holdem bonus for a $1k pick up, but then lost $300 trying to learn craps which I still don't understand.

I spent the first level of the tournament being rivered, and was down to 1.5k stack from 3k after playing a bunch of pots. There was an absolute madman on the table who would play anything irrespective of preflop action. He had already cracked AA with 82off to bust someone and was spraying chips left and right when this happened.

I check my option in the BB with 33 in multiway pot and flop arrives:

2, 3, J

I check, madman fires in and I flat call.

Turn is a 3 which seems a reasonable card and I check again.

Madman bets again and I call.

River is a blank and I check ready to shove over madman's river bet.

Somehow, after spewing chips for the last 30 mins madman finds a check with 22, for 2s full of 3s. I don't understand poker :(

My tournament ends when I shove 2k at 200-400 with 33 UTG and madman snap calls UTG+1 (!) with 5h6h and nails his 5 in the door.

Observed while I waited for Shazbo to bubble:

Manager shouts to punter waiting for a game "Excuse me sir, are you Steve?"

"Yes, yes I am indeed"

Pause.

"Hold on. No I'm not. I'm Seth".

:)

Just testing...........

2011-10-09T04:18:00.000-07:00

.............Vegas trip ahead :)

End of Year

2010-12-23T06:52:00.001-08:00

Well, a disappointing year on the poker front comes to a close, my first losing year so far. It would have been worse had it not been for a good visit to Vegas, but basically there were far too many alcohol fueled late night cash sessions, which damaged the bankroll.

One positive was that I registered a second place in the latest edition of our WSOP league, so at least I am now housed in midtable and can have a decent crack at it in the final six events next year.

Happy Christmas to all and have a prosperous New Year.

Jimbo

P&L GBP 2010
Live Tournaments (710)
Live Cash (3,367)
Online Tournaments 834
Online Cash 92
Poker Festivals 0
Rake (1,917)

Total (5,068)

A smidgen of points

2010-12-10T03:31:00.000-08:00

Registered some minor improvement at the League this week night placing 5th, not good enough for any cash, but at least securing 30 points as opposed to my usual 10. I'm still lurking in lower mid table though and need to try and score heavily in the six double points games in the new year.

A few hands I remember:

Hand 1
Playing 8c9c the board reads 67TK on the turn and I bet 200 into 300 and all pass :(

Hand 2
Blinds 150-300 Jody makes it 900 UTG, I make it 2700 with KK. Jody calls and we see an all low board. I shove my last 3k and Jody calls with 99 and I double up to 11k or so.

Hand3
I raise 7c9c at 200-400 to 1100 in cutoff and Alistair calls in BB.

Flop is Axx, nothing for me.

I bet 1600, and Alistair calls.

Turn is 6. Still no draw.

Check, Check

River is another non helpful card, Alistair checks, I bet 2200 and Alistair calls for the win with 2 pair. Not a good hand for me, losing nearly half my stack.

Hand4
Blinds are 300-600 and my 7k stack is starting to feel short. I find A9 second to act and shove. Mike snap shoves and Jalfont calls in the BB after some deliberation.

I'm in dire straits against QQ and AQ, and my tournament is over.

The cash game ended with a small win for a couple of hundred, but this was a decent result seeing as I was in a losing position for nearly the entirety of the evening.

Monkey Drums

2010-11-18T02:44:00.000-08:00

I was on tilt before I'd even played a hand at the Punch the other night. Somehow I'd managed to remove the wooden separators from inside our chip box and the chips had gone everywhere. It took me about 15 minutes to get it back it, during which time I suffered three splinters and two cuts from loose nails. Naturally I was getting more and more irate, and Nemo commented that it was like when a scientist gives a chimp a puzzle to do and he ends up whacking himself on the head with it :(

Anyway - the game went well, which was welcome considering I lost nearly a grand last time out, and I came away with a £600 win before going for dinner at Lutyens with Shazbo.

I gather the Baron and Jody hit the Empire afterwards, and when both of them registered big wins it meant that all five of us were well up for the evening - a first surely?

Also I'm told in one hand at the Empire the Baron moved all in with 9 high, was called, and WON(!) Somebody called him also with 9 high but with a worse kicker. Good grief :)

Poor Night at the League

2010-11-06T04:19:00.001-07:00

I was eliminated from the League tournament in short order as is the standard. I played the hand badly - I decided to limp AQ UTG and then when it was raised and called in a few spots opted to flat call again. I think I should have just shoved here as it looks so much like AA/KK.

Anyway, flop was Q, T, X and I shoved over a chunky lead from one of the flat callers (Slider) and he had a set of tens to leave me drawing very thin indeed.

I also drank far too much, and promptly spewed off £960 in the cash game, to leave me back to square one in so far as cash games go since I returned from Vegas.

Maybe I'll learn one day :(

Suited Gappers

2010-10-29T08:55:00.000-07:00

I played at the pub again last night and continued my upswing with another £600 win. I realised when I dealt myself pocket Jacks, that it was the first premium pair I had seen since my second last Luxor session in Vegas - that's quite a barren run! However, in this pot limit deep cash game, big pairs are almost a liability, and I'd much rather play something like 68 or some such. You normally know where you are in the hand, and don't have to make those tough decisions that happen when you hold Aces in a deep cash game. Check raised by Nemo on a flushing board when you still have 400BBs behind :)

Anyhow, I lost the JJ hand, but made up for it by hitting an unlikely sequence of trips and getting paid off. Nemo and the Baron seemed to feel the game was too small and actually cross booked themselves. I've never seen this outside of a tournament, but the rules were whatever Tom won or lost by a cut off time, would be settled in cash ON TOP of the actual cash wins or losses.

I'm fairly buoyant after my good run, so now I turn my attention to breaking another hoodoo - the WSOP league, where I have performed poorly so far (although getting AA cracked all in preflop twice hasn't helped). I'm languishing down in 15th spot, so really need to pick up some points.

Big pairs certainly help in that game, so hopefully an avalanche of Kings and Aces are heading my way. I'm due :)

The Moderator

2010-10-27T06:08:00.001-07:00

The pub game was fun last night. A nice gentle £1/£1 game with a max buy in of £100. It being a pub, of course, the game results were registered solely on paper and no money exchanges hands on the night itself. Nemo and the Baron were the usual opponents, alhough Jody and Ioannis also arrived later.

I enforced the buyin/blind rules strictly, but I could see the players straining at their seat belts. Twice I came back from a cigarette to see a lightening £2/£5 hand in progress in my absence.

For the record, I registered a £600 win to continue my good form. Things didn't start promisingly, as I was 3 buyins down within a couple of hours, the Baron calling my re-raise when I held pocket nines blind, and held the 3 when the board was 533 or some such. Obviously :)

However things started to pick up in the final few hours, and I had my big hands hold up when favourite and all in, scooping even when running it twice.

I also got a big bluff through with 5 high against Nemo. I bet pre-flop and on every street, and when the flush card arrived on the river, I closed my eyes and shoved and Nemo thankfully found a fold. In these short handed games you need to take these risks once in a while, otherwise you are simply relying on flopping well.

I'm staying out in Northwood this week, so my pre-booked cab arrived at 11pm and took me home. After my calming absence had been removed from the game, all hell broke loose. The game turned into an unlimited buy in four handed game, with compulsory blinds of £5/£10/£20/£40, with Nemo ending up winning over £4,000.

So much for a friendly Tuesday night.

As Nemo said this morning "When Jimbo is the voice of reason, it's time to worry"

:)

Back to The Pub Game

2010-10-26T07:46:00.001-07:00

So, from the glitz of Vegas to four handed mayhem. Wonder if my favourable run will continue on this side of the Atlantic? Seeing as one of my opponents tonight is the Baron of Rungood it would seem doubtful.........

Vegas - two final shorties

2010-10-23T20:49:00.000-07:00

1)

Had just finished dinner in the over-rated Jasmine at the Bellagio and left the table for the toilet. Opened the door stretching, with my eyes shut, before turning round to lock the door. Then realised it was a single seater and there was a gentleman sitting on the toilet who had forgotten to lock the door. He looked genuinely alarmed (presumably because I had walked in purposefully and locked the door).

Hello handsome. You ain't going nowhere.

2)

Shaun has just cashed out of Caesars and has three $100 bills and three $10 bills in his pocket (you can probably guess where this is going). Taxi back to Luxor, fare is $24. Shaun gives him the three $10s and tells him to keep the change.

Cabbie: "Sir you are a gentleman! You have a nice day (jabs finger) YOU HAVE A NICE DAY!"

Taxi rockets off into distance.

Neil "He seemed like a jolly chap"

Shaun "He did didn't he?......Hold on" (Checks wallet)

"Bollox"

Vegas - Time to leave

2010-10-21T08:40:00.000-07:00

The last day of Vegas had little to write about from a poker perspective. I couldn't get motivated to play another cash game so just played the Hollywood 2pm tournie, and busted in 7th after losing AJ v 77 and then QQ v AK. In a tournie structured this fast you obviously can't afford to lose these races.

One amusing hand early on in this tournament, blinds are 400-800 and I have a stack of 4800. I open shove cutoff with 6s9c.

Big blind dwells for a good while and then folds, flipping up pocket Jacks. (!)

Dinner at Aquaknox was excellent again, making up for the rapid deterioration shown in the service at previous favourite haunt Koi.

Off to airport in a couple of hours.

Jimbo out.

Vegas - more Luxor fun

2010-10-20T10:03:00.000-07:00

I put in a 3 hour session in the Luxor cash game yesterday with more fun and games.

I normally try to establish a stupid image cheaply, but I took it a bit far this time. I 4 bet some guy to $150 with 2h4h when we were playing effective stacks of $220 (wasn't paying attention) and he shoved on me. Meh. I call and beat his AT.

Another highlight was raising with 8d6d, betting out on flop AKJ. I get flat called by KKK (trappy trappy). Check, check on turn and fortunately the runner runner diamonds get there and he calls an over-sized bet on the end.

Two gentlemen are dressed completely inappropriately for a shallow stacked $1/$2 game. They are not saying a word, wearing MASSIVE sunglasses and headphones. Lol. When they leave on says to the other - "Man - I can't believe we didn't win in that game" :)

This was actually a losing session of $325 for me, after I lost a jumbo pot near the end. I'm fine with how it played out though.

Game is quite deep at this point.

Lady raises $10 playing $100
Shazbo calls playing $325
I call Ac6c on button playing $470
Shaun calls SB playing $900
Tight BB guy makes it $30 more (he has stack of $450)
Lady calls, Shazbo folds, I call, Shaun calls so pot is about $170

Flop is 2c4c8h

Shaun leads $30, BB guy makes it $105 and I shove for $440. All other pass, and the BB guy tanks for 5 mins and then calls with JJ and it holds. I guess I have 12 outs plus a couple of runner runner options so its almost a coin flip. Given the amount of time he took I guess I had some decent fold equity as well, although I think my hand looks pretty much like the nut flush draw and then over to him to decide if he wants to risk his stack.

Last day today - not sure what the plan is. Feel pretty pokered out and ready to head home.

Vegas - Spa

2010-10-19T15:59:00.000-07:00

Jimbo talking to prim and proper spa American lady:

"Well it would only take 5 seconds if you waxed my chest"

Shazbo:

"Not if they did your arse it wouldn't"

FFS Shazbo :(

Vegas - a good day

2010-10-19T09:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday went very well with only 4 hours of poker action.

Chopped the Treasure Island $50 tournament for $200 when we were 4 handed and everyone had about 3 big blinds. Not much to write home about though as I had to buy into the tournament 3 times before getting anything going!

Myself, Shazbo, Shaun and Niel sat down in the Luxor for 2 hours before we went to Aquaknox for dinner. I followed my usual plan of playing like a lunatic for the first hour, losing a buy in. However, with an image of the table dunce, when I did start hiting some hands, I ran my stack up from $200 to $1300 in the last hour of play, because nobody would fold any longer to any of my bets at this stage, and I started betting two or three times the pot when I had the nuts :) Shazbo won a couple of hundred as well, although our massive bill in Aquaknox soon swallowed up the profit.

I even won $200 at roulette which is unheard of. With only two days to go, it would take a massive misstep to leave Vegas with a loss, although I'm sure I'll give it a good go ;)

Vegas - Quad Run

2010-10-18T08:17:00.000-07:00

No poker yesterday, as Shazbo arrived in town and I was pretty drained after the Luxor game the other day. However, we did play "3 card poker" on the tables and had some good fortune.

First Shazbo was dealt JJJ and then the dealer completed the 6 card bonus with his hand with another J. That was good for $900 or so with all the various bonus combinations.

Soon after I folded my rubbish hand of 953 and placed it at the top. However, you still get to play your 6 card bonus, and the dealers hand was 555 for quads again :) Only $500 for me because my other boxes were non live, but still nice on a hand I was almost certain to lose. I'm still down for table games though even after this.

We also tried out the Chinese restaurant Jasmine at the Bellagio for dinner and I thought it was very ordinary. Nothing particularly wrong with it, but for a tasting menu the dishes were uncomfortably big portions and a couple of them were either bland or too sweet. I'd avoid personally - it came to $350 for two I think with a glass of wine with each course.

Playing the Venetian midday tournament today before dinner at Aquaknox.

Vegas - roulette slowroll

2010-10-17T10:50:00.000-07:00

Myself, Shaun and Neil were playing $100 each on roulette whilst waiting for our seat at the Steakhouse in Luxor.

Myself and Shaun had both busted, but Neil had about $150. It was time to go, so instead of betting his usual spread of $20, he put the entire $150 down, about $30 on number 6.

I was close to the wheel and watched the ball slowly drop.

I exclaim "IT'S A SIX!"

Neil is out of his chair jumping, shouting and high fiving every one, totally pumped at his $1k win.

Jimbo needs to learn the difference between a "6" and a "9".

Vegas - Luxor cash game fun

2010-10-17T10:15:00.000-07:00

I put in a 6 hour shift at the Luxor yesterday, with Shaun and Neil, and we all came away with big wins (I finished on a $1100 stack from a $200 buy in).

The best way to approach this game seems to be play very loose, make some crazy re-raises from time to time (and show), and then bet the nuts hard when the tight opponents won't let go of top pair.

Most other players were sitting down with $100/$200 and then leaving when they went bust, so were playing very cautiously hoping to make their money last. Over the period, the only winners were the three of us, plus a crazy Scandie called Pharnam. Every one else (I think) lost their stacks and then left. We also tipped about $400 between us as well over the course of the day.

Hands of note:

A)3 limpers, I make it $15 with AK. Pharnam makes it $45 and I put Pharnam all in for $175. Pharnam calls with 43off and hits a 3 on the turn. High fives all round :)

B)Serious American guy calls a raise and I come along with Qc5c on button.

Flop has 2 clubs and inadvertently someone exposes the King of clubs when folding.

Turn is a club giving me flush. River is Ace of clubs so I now know I have the nuts.

I bet $30, serious guys makes it $90 so I put him all in for his last $200. He thinks for a while before exposing 7 clubs and I say "oh okay - good fold" and pretend to muck, and he goes "wait, wait, I'm not mucking" before cunningly flipping the 10c to make his call and looking crestfallen when I show him the nuts.

C) Folded round to the blinds.

Pharnam to american guy "Want to chop"

American guy "No - I'm playing this one"

Pharnam "No worries dude - I'm all in blind"

American folds :)

Shazbo arrived in town last night, and I waited for her to arrive outside Planet Hollywood. It was Saturday night in Vegas, and some of the totty on display was incredible with the shortest tightest dresses I have seen.

Unfortunately I've been suffering from flatulence after drinking 15 bottles of Corona a day, and whilst waiting outside felt the need to release a quiet one. Unfortunately it came out sounding like the full time horn in a rugby league match.

I heard a comment from a bunch of nearby micro-skirted slappers:

Totty 1: "OH MY GAWD - did you hear that?"
Totty 2: "Animal"

:(

Vegas - Binnions

2010-10-15T20:43:00.001-07:00

I first met Shaun in Planet Hollywood as he was coming to the end of a 36 hour cash session. We got on like a house on fire and spent today with his mate Neil playing cash in Binnions.

They are from Carlisle and traditional Northern buggers.

Binnions cash game is very nitty, full of old grinders. But then there were us three in a row. Neil plays like Dev, and Shaun plays like a Tom/Nemo hybrid. The old guys didn't like this combo + Jimbo, although we made many friends.

Most pots featured $10 of limped dead money in the pot as our three combatants went to war with 8T off and the like.

One old guy claimed Shaun sounded like John Lennon. Lol - Hass sounds more like John Lennon and he is Cypriot.

Anyway, mooody old guy makes it $10, I make it $35 with K9. Shaun calls (standard) and old guy folds.

Flop is AA7.

Check, Check.

Turn is J

I bet $60 and Shaun calls.

River is K.

I bet $60 again, Shaun makes it $140 and I call and win against 73off.

Old grinder puts his head in his hands and looks as if he is about to actually pull his hair out.

To give you a flavour about how tight this guy was, he actually flat calls river with quad tens when there is a 2 card straight flush possible. I doubt anyone will believe me but this actually happened and he was playing a hundred fifty behind. Good grief! At least he won $86 for his quads high hand. (he'd have won this if opponent had folded)

I finish on a $1k stack from a total $700 buy in and then do red/black flop for Shaun's remaining $200 stack which I win.

Shaun has gone to sleep but wants to play an all nighter at midnight in Planet Hollywood. Shazbo is in town tomorrow night, so I guess it would be rude not to have one last blow out.........

A good day :)

Vegas - funny hannds

2010-10-15T00:34:00.000-07:00

Hand 1 - Caesars Final Table

Blinds 400-800

I make it 1800 UTG with K(x)?

Rock calls in SB. Uber rock BB folds but keeps his cards.

Flop is A77.

I can't remembe whether my "x" is a 7 or an 8 but decide to bet 1800 again and check later. SB folds KK. BB proudly shows he folded AK (wft!!??). I have K8 and show. Nice.

SB says "Have you lost your mind?"
Later in tournie every time I raise (which isn't that fequently) old guy mutters "This guy will play anything".

Unfortunately I bubble running TT into AA so the rocks had their revenge.

Hand 2 - Caesars cash game.

New chinese dealer arrives. Regular player informs me he is known as "Killer" because he always smashes big hands. Sounds good.

I have not played a hand in 15 mins since arriving.

UTG makes it $10, called by UTG+1.

I make it $30 with 36off banking on my image, or otherwise "Killer".

UTG calls.

Flop is 45K

I bet $30. UTG tries to check raise me to $150 but messes it up string betting and Killer makes him make it a min-raise to $60 which I call.

Turn is a blank.

UTG bets $55.

We are both playing $400 so I call (bad call probably)

Killer delivers the 7 on the river. BOOM. Full double up.

Hand 3 - Ballys tournament.

As discussed in a previous post, the structure here is a joke.

6 limpers for 200 - I find KQ in the BB and shove for 4k.

All fold round to old Russian in SB.

He suddenly jumps out of his seat!

"This man is a thief!"

"You, you, you had better hands than him! and you let him get away with it!"

"But what can I do? I have 6 high?"

:)

Vegas - Ballys

2010-10-15T00:30:00.001-07:00

So - $70 for 5k starting stack sounds okay right?

When we didn't receive any "25" chips in our starting stack I realised I'd been sold a lemon. That's right - blind structure was (20 min levels):

100-200
200-400
400-800

Great - after 2o mins everyone had 10BBs!

It being a complete luckfest obviously I won :) but what a joke.

$400 banked for first spot, and the highlight being a man who looked exactly like Conway but 50% fatter. He even sounding like Conway. Uncanny.

Vegas - Treasure Island

2010-10-15T00:12:00.000-07:00

There is a 40 year old lady on the table dressed at a 20 year old. Her breasts are fighting to join the chips on the table. Oh boy. Proper "Old Gold"

She loves my accent. As far as she is concerned I sound like Roger Moore circa Octopussy.

The tournament is bizarre. I lose 70% of my stack with AA early on and then with 1600 remaining, there are limpers for 100 and I make is 600 planning to shove any flop with K7. BB calls as does one other.

Flop is Kxx, and I shove.

BB snaps me off with JJ, before berating me big time. Might have been better to shove pre-flop mate? He bust shortly after.

There is also a Patrick Rafter look-a-like at the table except he ALWAYS looks miserable even after winning a pot. Ever time I look at him I envisage a caption saying "double break point Sampras" underneath.

Anyhow - I get to final table and with 8 left find KK in mid position - there is a limp for 400 and I make it 1400 and Old Gold puts in 2000. Dealer tells her she must now minimum raise.

Old Gold "Oh - I don't want to do that" (tits bulging away).

Dealer tells her she must. 2800 it is.

I say to her "Ok - I have a really big hand if you made a mistake - I'm all in for 5000" (I'm happy for her to pass if she has Arag or some such)

She says "It's okay sweet - I call".

She has AA.

ANGLE SHOOTING BI-ATCH!!!

She wins and tells me "I guess I knew what I was doing"

Old gold not to be trusted from this experience. This sort of rubbish never happened to Roger Moore.

Vegas - Luxor/Excalibur/MGM

2010-10-14T23:47:00.000-07:00

Didn't feel like playing tournies on day 3 so after seeing off Shazbo post 2 bottles of premimum saki, decided to go and play cash at the top of the strip.

The cash game at Luxor was MENTAL. 70% of table were wasted including me. $400 pre-flop shoves were commonplace in the dark (I did not partake). I had a $750 stack when disaster struck. Skinhead makes it $40 in the dark (playing $900) and I've been targeting him for a while. Pleasant but generally passive american guy calls. I have JJ but am too deep to shove so call. Two other callers (told you it was a good table!)

Flop: 6, 4, 2.

check, check, check, skinhead shoves (as he has done 9 times in last 30 mins)

I snap him off but this time he has 64off and my $750 stack heads his way.

After this hand, table decends inot a fight.

Skinhead to floppy haired american: "You see how the Brit lost more than you did and didn't resort to slagging me off?"

Floppy "Stop being an asshole"

At this point they started attempting to kick it off so I thought it was time to leave (I was on tilt anyway).

After the floppy american + friends invited me to go on a drugs binge (declined) I decided to go and play cash in Excalibur.

It's not the nicest card room, but the games are fairly lively. I bought in for $300 (max) and built that up to $500 when good hand arrives.

Some dude has been "running" the table. When I arrive he is explaining to another punter that he will raise any button and straddle because the table is so weak. Ok mate. Prize "A" bellend imo.

I find 77 in big blind and table captain is in straddle and I flat call.

Flop is A75.

Promising

I bet $15, he makes it $40, I shove for $500 and he calls all in with A5. Unlucky I guess, but after boasting away, he doesn't reload and leaves. That recovers my day to down $200 - could have been a lot worse.

Vegas - First Impressions

2010-10-14T23:37:00.000-07:00

Wow

Vegas is in recession - that is for certain.

I've spoken to a couple of the card room managers and all have confirmed that unemployment is running at the 20% mark. All tournies have faster structures than 12 months ago, and the difference in punter volume is noticable compared to my trip a year ago. The casinos are trying to save money. Even small things are in evidence such as worse quality hand towels in the toilets.

I wandered around five casinos at 7am on the first day and not a single all night cash game running.

The tournies are down around 50% in numbers. The flagship Aria 7pm event had 22 runners. (I busted with spade draw + overs against a pair)

Early in the morning it feels like a ghost town now, but admittedly picks up in the late afternoon.

24 hour city no longer?

Money Never Sleeps

2010-10-07T03:39:00.000-07:00

"So.........what's in it for moi?"

Ah - Wall Street 2 is finally here, 23 years after the first film. I'm sure the sequel won't be a patch on the original, but I should be able to see it either on the plane to Vegas or in the hotel, and I can't help looking forward to it. No James Spader this time though, whose character Roger Barnes uttered the great quote above.

Anyway - it was the WSOP league night last night and I turned in my usual abject/unlucky performance. This edition's demise featured Andreas shoving for 6k at the 300-600 level on the button with A6. I snapped him off with TT in the small blind and an Ace barrelled onto the flop to leave me 3 BBs and I departed soon after. I just never run good in these damn tournaments - the curse of the organiser I suppose.

The next blog will be from Vegas - I leave on Tuesday and will be there for 9 days or so. Hopefully the change in time zones and scene will bring a change in fortune.

The cash game was another disaster - I don't want to turn this into a bad beat list but I ran like an absolute dog.

As Gekko would say "If Jimbo owned a funeral parlour, nobody would die".

A Day at the Fox

2010-10-04T03:23:00.001-07:00

Last week I visited the new Fox Poker Club on Shaftsbury Avenue for their £25 afternoon tournament and a some cash afterwards.

The venue is really nice - it is upstairs so, unlike nearly every other cardroom I have played in, has windows where you can see the London life passing by as you play. I think this makes a big difference and makes the venue really light, especially during the day.

The clientele also seemed pleasant compared to many UK poker rooms, with most players friendly and talkative. Not many iPods or sunglasses in view thankfully.

The tournament itself was decently structured - it had 38 runners and, by the time I was eliminated for a min-cash on the final table, had run for a good 4 hours. We got 4,000 in chips with 20 minute blinds, which sounds fast but there was a 75/150 level and a 150/300, so plenty of play. The tournament also felt like a low buy in Vegas tournament in that, due to the limited amount of chips in play, by the end you had more fold equity than is normal with a 4BB stack. This is because a big stack calling and losing would halve their stack even though it is only 4BB to call.

I doubled up early when holding 66 on a 4456K board with 4 spades on it. My opponent oddly shoved with Js9s in the hole first to act on the river and I hoovered up with my house. He's only getting called when losing there I feel.

I suffered a bad beat at a key time holding QQ on a QK5 all club board - my opponent shoving with a single club and no other draws, but rivering the 4th puppy foot.

I then built back up, picking my spots well and winning a couple of 40% shots to get back into contention. With 7 runners left we arranged a saver so 7th got his money back. This would turn out to be me, when I shoved with AT, was called in the big blind by the only stack that covered, and lost to KK. Oh well - my shove was for 8BB so I think the hand plays itself - I can't raise/fold.

We had a private cash table afterwards, with Al dealing for us who I haven't seen for a year or so, and I fortunately hit a lot of hands early on to get off to a fast start. Over the next 5 hours I didn't improve and ended up booking a win of a little over £100.

This was counterbalanced by losing £150 to Jason playing flop roulette. Our rules were £5 for a predominantly red flop, £10 for a mono-red flop, £25 for reds up to the turn and £50 for all five cards being red (and vice versa for my blacks of course). Predictably the only time we doubled the stakes after a misdeal, Jason scored an all rouge flop, turn and river to leave me coughing up £100. Marvellous.

Overall the poker room is highly recommended - the evening tournaments look fairly well structured with deeper stacks I should add. My only reservation would be the price of the drinks. Beers were free for opening week (which was gratefully enjoyed!) but given that the cokes were £2.50+ how much is a beer going to be when they do start charging? There is no draft beers available, so £5 a bottle seems a little steep, especially if you are there for a long session.

WSOP league for me this week.

Change of scenery

2010-09-28T02:26:00.000-07:00

I'm going to play at the new Fox club tomorrow afternoon, ahead of our WSOP league game in a week's time. I've been happy to not play the last week or so and it's really helped. However, there is only one place to go to get the poker love back............Vegas.

Urghhh

2010-09-23T10:08:00.001-07:00

Cash games have been an absolute disaster the last 2/3 weeks. A combination of being coolered and then promptly going on monkey tilt to burn an extra couple of buy ins have left the bankroll bruised and battered. Consequently will have to switch to tournament mode for the next few months as my bankroll will be eroded to zero if I play cash with the current mindset. Hoping to have some promising news on the horizon however.

The latest instalment of the league was another poor showing as well. Was going along nicely after winning a decent early pot but then my 1500 3 bet preflop with JJ out of the big blind was flatted and I had to release on a AKx board (opponent shows AT). By the time I saw any further hands I was in the 10 BB region, and after getting one shove through I moved in with QT in mid position and was looked up by A3.

A flop of 789 made me briefly favourite I believe, before the turn and river blanked off to seal my demise. Busted out 8th I think, short of points and miles short of the cash placings.

I hope October goes better, after probably my worst month in poker.

Decepticon Politics

2010-09-18T00:40:00.000-07:00

Whilst watching Transformers cartoons with my son, my mind tends to wander. Last week it occurred to me that the entire New Labour political movement was perhaps based upon the evil segment of this robot population, otherwise known as the Decepticons.

Please note, we are talking Generation One Transformers here, not the shiny new rubbish that populate the recent Hollywood film offerings starring the strangely endearing Shia Leboef along with that conventionally attractive, yet strangely asexual, Fox woman.

I’d propose for the third instalment of these films, they revert to the true original Decepticon characters, together with my suggested cast below:

MEGATRON

Played by: Tony Blair

Disguise: Hand Gun

Resume: Leader of the Decepticons. A megalomaniac, with deep religious devotion to his home planet of Cybertron. Constantly struggling with internal Decepticon rivalries to maintain his position of authority. Willing to invade earth for his own cybertronic beliefs, irrespective of damage to human life. A warmonger.

SOUNDWAVE

Played by: Gordon Brown

Disguise: Cassette Player

Resume: Officially second in command of the Decepticons. Highly analytical, but totally bereft of communication skills. Mistrusted by most other Decepticons except the casseticons sub species (see Rumble and Ravage). A key player, but a divisive force within the Decepticon ranks. Would readily crush Reflector and Starscream if he could get away with it.

REFLECTOR

Played by: Peter Mandelson

Disguise: Camera

Resume: The all-seeing eye. Trusted advisor to Megatron, and grudgingly respected by Soundwave. Can sniff out Autobot weakness and turn it to Decepticon advantage. Rarely plays a leading role but always lurking in the background. Quick to cover over potentially disastrous cracks in the Decepticon leadership hierarchy.

STARSCREAM

Played by: David Milliband

Disguise: Jet Fighter

Resume: The most senior of the Seekers, and most vocal. Privately despises Soundwave and his methods, and would like nothing better than to jettison him from the group. Has designs on the Decepticon leadership but is ultimately a coward, and will test the way the wind is blowing before committing to anything.

SKYWARP

Played by: Ed Milliband

Disguise: Jet Fighter

Resume: The quieter sibling Seeker, but more principled than Starscream. More respected by the other Decepticons, particularly Soundwave. Generally seen as a background player, but his ability to teleport means that he is still an important part of the Decepticon machine. An under-rated robot.

RUMBLE

Played by: Ed Balls

Disguise: Cassette tape

Resume: Works exclusively for his cassette player sponsor Soundwave, although adhering to the wider Decepticon cause. Distrustful of Megatron, and resentful of Starscream’s place in the pecking order. Tends to achieve goals via brute force. Possesses limited intelligence.

RAVAGE

Played by: Damien McBride

Disguise: Cassette tape

Resume: Like Rumble is extremely loyal to Soundwave. An information gatherer, a smearer and a spy. In short, a bully and a nasty piece work. Constantly seeking to undermine the likes of Starscream and Skywarp. Desperate to elevate Soundwave’s station within the Decepticon ranks.

I’m sure I had a point to all this, before I got carried away. Ah yes – when I played online tournaments on Thursday, it was only the second or third time this year I have taken to the virtual tournament felt.

I’d forgotten how different it was to live games – the fields are huge, there are some pretty bad players early on, and generally some pretty good players later on. For much of the pre-bubble/post-bubble sections of the tournament, most players seem to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of pre-flop hand ranges and play the hands accordingly, content to bust out as long as the correct play was made.

It’s pretty tough and will take some getting used to again. I think the only solution to this high variance world is to play enough tournaments to see if I can get a decent score on the board (this really should have happened yesterday in the $100 and I’m fairly disappointed I made such a mess of it).

In other news Sir Mike is playing in the £1000 WSOPE event at the moment – no idea if he is still in as they only get a 3k starting stack, but good luck to him!

Poker Month - Day 1

2010-09-16T10:54:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be in and out of the office for the next few weeks, so thought I'd use today's day off to play a solid session online.

The online Omaha started pretty disastrously, but I managed to claw back to level after controlling tilt for a change.

I also signed up for a raft of tournaments in the afternoon, and played fairly well cashing twice. Unfortunately I imploded with 12 runners left in the biggest event (the PS $109) to go from 4th spot to out within 3 hands.

The table dynamic was kind of weird - I was the biggest stack with one other active player, and the other 4 runners were basically trying to ladder up the money with shorter stacks. With the active player to act before me, he was correctly raising frequently to steal the blinds of the ladderers, but it hemmed me in totally. I re-stole a few times and then this happened.

Active raiser makes it 5k from button, I make it 15k with K9 from the SB and get flat called. Flop is AK7 and somehow I elect to put him all in and he snaps me off with A9. This sends my stack from 90k to 30k and was a really stupid move.

I then lost calling a short stack's all in with J9 whilst on tilt, shoved A5 into A9 blind on blind to leave me with 5k and then lost A4 v 56 when the blind had to call my stack with anything. A quite splendid implosion, to leave me with a $400 prize as opposed to challenging for the $5k for 1st.

In the other FT tournament I was running 15th out of 45 (in the money) when I got my stack in against another big stack with a set of tens against an up and down but I failed to hold, thus leaving me with $53 as consolation.

Oh well - played fairly well apart from the blow-up, accumulating decent stacks in all but two of the eight events I played. Hopefully the bigger scores will come, although I do find tournaments frustrating.

Have some business to attend to tomorrow, and am busy at the weekend, so doubt I'll be putting in many more hours till Monday. On the live front the WSOP league is on Tuesday, and I'm going to try and make it to the Vic on Thursday for their £100 event.

The following Saturday sees the International host their monthly £330 event which I shall hopefully play if I can summon the motivation to play a tournament with a 20k starting stack and a 50 minute clock!

Poker Month (GBP)
Online cash 37
Online daily tournament 129
Online Sundays 0
Live cash 0
Live tournaments 0
Rake (estimated) -45

Total 121

The Neverending Weekend

2010-09-16T01:27:00.000-07:00

I’ve been cobbling together a plan for the next month or so on the poker front. Originally I was planning to play a lot of live events, but having seen how miserable playing all weekend made me I’ve sharply aborted that plan. Instead I plan to play what I want, when I want, but definitely with an angle on online play. I also hope to play the £330 monthly event at the International and the £330 new monthly tournament at the Vic.

I’ve realised that too much live poker makes me tired and irritable, and will also run up to many expenses in taxis, booze etc. A predominantly online environment should allow me to play in 2 hour bursts and keep the costs down.

I’ve updated the spreadsheet after an eventful weekend – I won well at the International and online cash, but this was more than cancelled out by a big loss in an all night heads up session with Nemo.

After a wretched first few hours, I had battled back before holding A5 on a board of x575. The game had been very aggressive so I was happy to get all in only to find Nemo holding 57 to put me back in a big hole again. I clawed back several hundred but never got close to level again.

I’ll be keeping a separate P&L for the next few months to keep track of my experiment, but updated 2010 P&L is below.

P&L GBP 2010
Live Tournaments (450)
Live Cash (2,647)
Online Tournaments 705
Online Cash 552
Poker Festivals 0
Rake (1,140)

Total (2,980)

WSOP League - Week 5

2010-09-08T02:53:00.000-07:00

More misery for me at the WSOP League.

Hand 1

I raise to 300 with QQ UTG. Get 4 customers.

Flop is J3J rainbow.

Checked around

Turn is a 5, bringing 2 diamonds on the board.

I bet 500, called by Racist, and then Martin makes it 1500.

I call, Racist passes.

River is a 3 (no diamond).

I check, Martin bets 2500. Urgh - looks like a Jack most of the time, but given Martin like the odd bluff, plus the fact I have called the turn, I decide to call and win a big pot.

Hand 2

I win a medium sized pot against the Racist, bluffing with 63 clubs. Can't remember details but I played it well.

I then bleed down from 11k all the way to 5k being too aggressive - Martin takes most of my chips in this period.

Hand 3

Martin limps for 600, I find AA in the BB and shove for 4800. Martin calls with 57off and I lose to a 4 flush :(

The cash game went better though - I am waiting for confirmation, but think I was up between £500 and £800.

A poker month

2010-09-05T03:51:00.000-07:00

It looks like I will have a little bit of spare time on my hands over the coming months. As a result I’m going to try and set aside 5/6 weeks for hitting the poker circuit in London to see how I do over a bigger sample of live tournaments as opposed to the rare ones I normally play. A budget of £3k should do the trick, and I imagine I’ll be playing primarily at the International because they have the best tournament spread, but also at the new Fox if they ever get it open.

Cash game wise, I’ll only be playing to fill time between afternoon and evening tournaments, so I should end up with a decent sleep pattern, plus I’m going to finally take some exercise! However it goes, it should be a lot of fun, and will mean a whole heap of blog postings, so anyone who still reads this infrequently updated blog will notice a big uptick in volume. The experiment will start in October I imagine.

I’ve updated my yearlies below (pretty grim reading), but I’ll track the experiment above separately.

P&L GBP 2010
Live Tournaments (330)
Live Cash (2,277)
Online Tournaments 725
Online Cash 202
Poker Festivals 0
Rake (1,032)

Total (2,712)

WSOP League - Week 4

2010-09-03T00:03:00.000-07:00

Long time in posting this, but thought I’d keep up to date on the WSOP league from a few weeks ago. I should be posting far more regularly on the blog soon, as potentially I will have some time off between work and plan to play a raft of tournaments around London.

Anyhow, I came into the 4th WSOP league fixture with a plan of playing tight, and not blowing myself out of the tournament with squeeze plays, and to a certain extent performance was much improved.

I built my stack up to 13k from a 6k start with little risk, always having a plan behind my bets and a course of action if anyone came over the top.

Then I was dealt 67off on the button on the final table with 7 remaining. There were 3 limpers so decided to take a flop.

Flop was 345 with 2 spades to give me the nuts. Pot was 3600. Martin overshoved about 9k I think, and I called with the nuts. He had Js7s though for the big draw, and a spade arrives immediately to leave me drawing dead.

I sat tight for a few hands and pots were opened in front of me, before finding an unopened pot to shove with 6c9s and getting called by A9 by the Racist and busting. Another non-cash for me. Still 14 events to go though, so the mid season charge needs to happen!

WSOP League Week 3

2010-08-01T04:12:00.000-07:00

Still can't get much going in our league, and sit in lower mid table after 3 fixtures. In truth I don't feel like writing much, but want to keep the blog going to I can dive back in when inspired again without it dying completely. I'm almost certainly heading to Vegas for WSOP 2011, irrespective of whether I win the packages offered by the league, so at least there will be some interesting tournament reports on the distant horizon. I'm also going to try out the new Fox Club in Shaftsbury Avenue, as it looks as if they have some nicely structured mid stakes tournaments there.

My tournament for the record:

- Had AA and JJ early on and span my 6k stack upto 9k before the break with those and some other decent hands.
- Then called a SB shove for 3000 with 77 when I had raised to 1100 from button and lost to AK to lose momentum
- Was soon short stacked on final table. No callers to a 99 shove and then doubled up with KJ verses 45 all in preflop. This left me with 8k, but the blinds soon eroded me back down to 6k.
- With blinds at 300-600, button raised to 1600 and SB called. Seemed a decent spot to shove with QT for 6k. Button folds but SB calls with AJ and I don't get there (Button also has AJ so I was in decent shape). I bust in 7th, just on the points bubble.

I think maybe I need to re-evaluate strategy, as that is twice now I have gone out with squeeze plays. Whilst this strategy is good for playing to win, it is costing me a fair few points, so I might tighten up around the points bubble in future and then kick up the aggression from there.

One more fixture next week, before the August break.
-

WSOP League Week 2

2010-07-18T03:19:00.000-07:00

Nothing happening for me so far in this, but early days I guess.

Played tight first 3 levels and chipped down to 4.5k from my 6k start without seeing a hand. Ramped up the aggression after the break to get to 8k before imploding after there was limp for 600 and two callers, so I moved in with K5 from late position and ran into a limped AK from Slider :(

That left me with 2k I think, so I was happy to get it in from my next time in the BB when I found JJ in a raised pot. Unfortunately I ran into a number of callers - Slider who had AA, and if that wasn't bad enough, Simon who had the other JJ to leave me drawing about as thin as can be (!). Game over.

Two more games coming up before the August break, so hopefully I can pick up a few more points, although due to the attendence points and my 5th place last time, I am still hovering in mid table, although some money cashes wouldn't go amiss. Deven won the event, and is now tied with Ioannis for first place.

Can I get the ball back?

2010-07-09T04:45:00.001-07:00

I spent a lot of time playing Madden 2001 on the PS2 some eight years ago. Well I think it was Madden 2001 anyway, although it could easily be anything from Madden98 to Madden 2004 given that the games were seemingly identical, and simply repackaged by EA Sports for a little sales boost.

Anyhow, I remember if you went to your “go-to guy” with a throw and it was intercepted, the commentator would say something rather unhelpful like “as soon as he threw it, he wanted the ball back”.

Since I was pretty garbage at the game, the commentator said this to me a lot. On Tuesday night, I definitely “wanted the ball back” in one hand, where I managed to unnecessarily burn £200 on the river in a cash hand. Despite this, I played pretty well in the cash game for a £350 profit, mixing up my aggression, picking off some bluffs as well as getting a few of my own through as well. I also chopped the £50 SNG we played with Deven, so all in all a positive night.

Anyhow – the hand I butchered.

Can’t remember the betting up to the river, but the board was K99A4 of some such and I hold A7. Jody leads for £40 into £60 or so, at which point I should instantly just call and be done with it. For some reason, I decided I could value bet my 2 pair + king kicker and make it £80 more to play. Jody re-raises again making it another £120 at which point “I’d thrown the ball but immediately wanted it back”. I then compounded the error by thinking I was now chopping with another Ace due to the presence of the 2nd pair and the King. Clearly I should fold, but I go ahead and call and get shown K9 for the flopped full house.

An absolute mess of a hand from my perspective, but at least it was a positive night overall.

Midweek Flurry

2010-07-01T10:23:00.000-07:00

After keeping my head low for the first half of the year, this week saw a veritable flurry of activity on the poker front, as I managed to play Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

Monday was an online HA cash session at 0.5/1 and I gave Baron and the Nits a trouncing in a virtual home game, leaving with a stack of $700. To be fair I ran extremely good, and hit flops left and right and its hard not to win when that is happening.

Tuesday I had dinner booked at Gaucho, but with two hours to kill I sat down in the Empire 1/2 cash game with the plan of sitting with £150 and playing tight. However, it soon became apparent that the table was fairly passive pre-flop, so seeing cheap flops was the order of the day when possible, and betting out when flopping a big hand. I walked away £200 in profit, which paid for great steak at Gaucho, wine and taxi home.

Wednesday I attended a SNG night organised by Ioannis. There were only 6 of us playing, but the turbo structure made it a fun event. I won the first game, with a fair bit of luck in a key hand.

With 3 of us left, UTG raised to 300 and SB made it 1050. The SB had been doing this a lot, so I decided this was a good spot to shove for 4200 with my 2h4h. Unfortunately for me, the initial raiser had AK and obviously called, but I managed to pull a flush out of the bag to eliminate him. I then went on to grind out the win heads up.

The second game saw me eliminated in the 3rd level, when I ran 99 into JJ. Maybe a bit wreckless, but with only 3k starting stack I don’t think you can get away from much once you have 3 bet.

The cash game was short handed, due to the non arrival of some players and I lost a little over £100 so no damage done. I hadn’t seen a premium hand all night when this happened:

£1/£1 blinds so I straddled to £5. Ioannis super straddled to £10. Luke, Hass and Dev all called. I STUPIDLY called dark even though I am last to act as the Ioannis straddle is not live.

Flop is TT4

Checked around

Dev bets £15 on the blank turn. I check my cards and find KK. I call.
Everyone else folds and then Dev bets tiny again on the river. It looks much like a Ten being milked but I call more out of frustration than anything else and luckily my hand is good.

The WSOP league kicks off again in 10 days – looking forward to it.

WSOP league - Week 1

2010-06-26T00:04:00.000-07:00

Our WSOP league for 2011 kicked off on Thursday, with 12 runners making it, out of the 28 strong player pool. Given that the summer fixtures are likely to be hit by players away for their summer holidays I think this was a decent turn out and should grow over time.

The league pays daily on the night, but also keeps aside 33% of the buy in towards a Vegas fund which we will play for at the end, for which your final chip stack will be determined by your league points.

Due to the small number of runners, we were left with two tables of 6, which meant for some fun aggressive short handed play. Special mention to Dev and the Baron who obtained full double ups during this period but still managed to miss out on the final table (!) I placed 5th, which was the money bubble, but at least I picked up 30 points for the final which equates to 450 chips in the Grand Final. Ioannis was the overall winner to get his campaign off to good start.

A couple of hands of note:

Hand 1
Aggressive player limps for 100 in the cutoff, so I call in on the button with 9dTd. Tight player in SB makes it 400 and aggressive player calls so I take a flop.

Flop is T, 4, 3

Not too convinced with my top pair against tight player but it is checked around.

Turn is a pleasing 9.

SB bets 500, cutoff calls and I make is 2k from the button and take the pot down.

Hand2
Can't remember position in this hand, but I get to see a cheapish flop with 67. Flop is Q48 I think. Checked around. Turn arrives 5 to give me the nuts, so I lead for 800 or so and Dev shoves with AQ and I win a big pot.

Hand3
5 of us left - I raise UTG with JhTh to 1500 with blinds at 300/600. Ioannis calls on the SB.

Flop is Tc 5h 3c

I bet 3k and Ioannis calls.

Turn is Ah giving me a flush draw as well as the pair, so I go ahead and shove with my last 7k and Ioannis calls with Ac4c and I don't get a heart on the river. Ioannis had flush draw plus gutshot on the flop, so a big flop for him.

After departing the tournament, I won £150 in the cash game before we called it a night. Next fixture is in a few weeks.

Christ Embassy

2010-06-06T04:31:00.000-07:00

I was accosted last weekend outside McDonalds by some happy religious people with balloons, who thrust some literature into my hands before I could escape.

Since I had no newspaper I decided to read it over my Big Mac, and Pastor Chris' words were deeply inspiring, although seemed about as feasible as Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck drilling a hole in that meteor in Armageddon.

Pastor Chris takes up the action:

"I was in Geneva last summer, and was a little slow noticing that the green man had lit up at the traffic crossing. As a wandered across the road, the man turned red, and all of a sudden I had a row of cars bearing down on me at breakneck speed. I was terrified, as were the dozens of onlookers. I yelled "Stop" not in my position as a terrified pedestrian, but in my position as an Agent of Christ.
The cars screeched to a halt, one of the bumpers stopping millimetres from my legs. I breathed a huge sigh of relief, safe in the knowledge that my beliefs can stop car engines."

Friday saw a visit to The Racist for a home game - I missed out cashing in both tournaments in pretty standard spots, shoving a flush draw with a perfect stack size, and losing AK v 77 all in preflop when I had a bit of fold equity. I broke pretty much level in the cash game afterwards.

I dipped my toe into the online tournament waters for the first time in a while last night. I immediately suffered a succession of coolers so things didn't look promising:

1) Lost first hand of one event with set under set
2) Flopped JT flush, but board paired and lost to full house
3) Check raised all in on AT76 board with AT and lost to 777
4) Flopped 678 holding 45 and ran into 9T

Things began to turn around later in the night though. I had a small cash in the PS 10pm event for $83 and then had a very strong run in the Full Tilt $30 rebuy. I won a series of races, and also won a K2 v QQ all in preflop when I shoved in the SB when short on chips, to get into a strong position for the final table.

We had 7 runners left - $1k prize for 7th and a juicy $8k prize for first. Everyone had 8-25 BBs by the end, and a small stack shoved his 10BB in and I found 88 in the BB. I made the call for what was the chip lead and was up against 77.

Flop was 6,5,J. I yelled "Stop", not in my position as a 90% favourite but in my position as an Agent of Christ. The turn was a 7 and that was that, and I busted out soon afterwards.

The Christ Embassy - can stop car engines but not 2 outers it seems :(

P&L GBP 2010
Live Tournaments 100
Live Cash (3,072)
Online Tournaments 725
Online Cash 220
Poker Festivals 0
Rake (650)

Total (2,577)

Tumbleweed

2010-05-23T04:49:00.000-07:00

Still nothing to report on the poker front, although hopefully this will change shortly. I'm organising a WSOP league to send some of us to Vegas in 2011 as well as trying to put together a 2k tournament bankroll to hit the local london events at buy ins up to £300. This should be achievable and would be welcome as the bankroll currently sits at zero.

I've missed blogging as well, so hopefully an influx of tournaments and the WSOP league should reinvigorate the creative juices as opposed to my recent dull reports of "played cash/drank beers with the lads/won/lost £500".

Don't expect much for a month or so, but then hopefully I'll be back :)

Enjoy the sunshine..........

Tournie Bug

2010-04-06T10:25:00.000-07:00

I played the Irish Open main event in both 2007 and 2008, but haven't played for the last 2 years, as I have found myself drifting onto the cash game circuit and spending a huge amount of time on there (with limited success). This Easter, as with last year, I started to get tournament cravings after reading the updates from the tournament. A big well done incidentally to James Mitchell, the Main Event winner, who I have played with a few times in London, although not for a good year or so.

I'm starting to feel I'm missing out by not playing the lower buy in tournaments around London as this is where I began, but I'm simply too lazy right now. Additionally, I have a non existent bankroll, and only play when I get the time and a bit of spare cash. Saving for a house will be worth it in the end :)

I visited the LC on Good Friday, and 7 of us congregated for some old fashioned £50 SNG action - myself, Shazbo, Sir Mike, Fluke, Devski, Nit and Andreas all took to the felt. I ran pretty good in chopping the first couple for half the prize pool, the highlight being an outdraw of Fluke's AcKc with AsKd when more spades than you can throw a stick at appeared on the board.

We only started with 3k stacks with 15 minute blinds so it was crash bang wallop, and a lot of fun. This structure was primarily the reason I disguised my KK first hand in the final SNG, to be busted immediately. In all likelihood I'd have been out irrespective of how I played it.

I flat called Dev's UTG raise to 150, then flat called Nit's repump to 500 from the BB (if Dev had called this I would have shoved). The flop arrived low and disconnected and I re-raised Nit's continuation bet all in, only to be find out he had AA which send me to the rail. Fortunately I was able to recoup my buy in with side bets on the SNG, mostly at the expense of Fluke :)

In the cash games, I suffered a £1,000 loss about a month ago, and apart from that have had a win of £100 and a few £30-£50 wins, so nothing exciting.

I've also stopped smoking as well with apparent success, it now being day 15. I have to pay £150 to Gordon Brown's re-election fund if I fail at the request of Fluke, so that is keeping me on the straight and narrow. To be fair I'd probably bite my own arm to off to avoid having to make that donation.

I definitely want to play more tournaments again now - need to get the motivation together though. Anyhow - that's enough rambling - I just thought the blog deserved an update after a month of neglect.

Keep well folks

Jimbo

P&L GBP 2010
Live Tournaments 200
Live Cash (2,072)
Online Tournaments 425
Online Cash 70
Poker Festivals 0
Rake (280)

Total (1,657)

Prime

2010-02-25T10:53:00.000-08:00

Primes are good.

I have 77 in my hand. Two, a pair, a duo of primes. Two is prime. Two primes together. A 7 on the flop gives me a set, and three primes. The prime 5 on the flop pairs on the river and I have a house. My heart beats in a slow rhythm as all is right in the world – I measure out a bet. £29 should do the trick into the pot of £31. It will cost Nemo a prime number to call and he does so. A nice pot of £89 is taken down.

I was late for the game. It took me fifteen minutes to leave the house beforehand. Taps off. Check. Plugs out of the wall and in the middle of the room. Check. Back door triple locked. Check. Commit double lock of front door to memory via visualisation. Check. Pull/Push front door three times. Check.

My chips are set neatly in front of me. 5 neat stacks. A single £100, three £25s and thirteen £5s. The singles are more problematic. I have exactly one hundred of them. A terrible number, divisible by more numbers than I could care to think of. A promiscuous aberration penetrated numerous times, and at numerous angles. I have solved this conundrum by stacking into two piles of 47 and 53.

All is right with the game, I am calm. The world has order. I notice a rogue piece of fluff next to my stacks, and it starts to bother me. The felt hasn’t been vacuumed properly and the irregular outline of the offending item is offending my orderly stacks. I decisively bat the piece of fluff away onto the Baron’s stack. He doesn’t seem to notice. No attention to detail if you ask me.

Another hand has come up. I try to let the Jacks, Queens and Kings not offend me. The fact there are four of each could be a problem, but they are justified in my head as a family of three. This board is an issue though. 4, 6, T with two spades. A horror with no redeeming features. Despite holding the fine 79 for a gutshot I fold quickly. My breathing returns to normal. I have to slightly adjust my single stacks to account for expenditure on the hand. If I can’t make primes, I simply make superfluous stacks of 3 units. The sense of order is worth the effort.

“Change please” says the dealer, chucking a £25 chip onto the felt in front of me.

No! What’s he doing? He reaches over to my stacks as I break out into a cold sweat. Five singles are taken as well as four £5s. I’m left with four £25s, Nine £5s and an even number of singles. Disaster. My hand shakes as my mind does backflips trying to figure out how to re-prime my inventory. I now have cards as well – Kings. With a sense of foreboding, I have to play them. A minor consolation, is that the resulting devastation to my stack leaves me with a much easier to order set of chips. Calm again. Phew! That was close.

I have to leave now. I want to re-stack the DVDs before I go to bed. It was only done the previous night, but order is important. I may have made an error. Or Shazbo might have moved one. I’m sure I’ll find as always, they are perfectly in sequenced, but I want to re-affirm. Need to re-affirm. Not a moment of sleep for me otherwise.

P&L GBP 2010
Live Tournaments 0
Live Cash (1,422)
Online Tournaments 425
Online Cash 0
Poker Festivals 0
Rake (200)

Total (1,197)

Finally a live win

2010-02-20T02:52:00.000-08:00

Well I finally generated a positive result for the year in a live cash game, winning £610 in the last encounter. One noticeable aspect of the game though, were that people have had a general perception change, in terms of what they are willing to stake in the game. I felt a significant proportion of the players will stake £1k every time they sit down and a couple of guys a lot more than that, thus making it very big for a £1/£2 game. For a person who is only willing to risk £500 at any given game it potentially puts me at a disadvantage unless I either run strongly early on, or am willing to risk being on the train home one hour after we start.

Fortunately I started well this time out - Nemo was winning ALOT early on, being up 3 figures very quickly, but I was able to pick him off a couple times when he was whacking the big stack around and made a few good calls with top pair, under pressure, to get up £400 or so.

I then consolidated for several hours, before eventually finding my stack down at £250, after I had to abort after leading £75 on the river in a multi way pot with K9 on a TT9xx board, and Deven shoved on me. I had to pass, although in the event Dev had a busted flush draw after reading me for weakness. I kind of suspected Dev either had the nuts or a missed draw, but I partially passed on the basis that I didn't have too many rebuys in the pocket. Maybe I should just nut peddle if this is going to effect my thinking, not sure.

I built my stack back up in the final few hours, after hitting a lucky trio of nut draw gutshots. Each time I didn't have the odds to call the turn, but was paid off on the river, so perhaps the calls were justified on implied odds grounds.

Anyhow, a fun night, and great to finally come away with profit. Still down over a thousand for the year though.

P&L GBP 2010
Live Tournaments 0
Live Cash (1,388)
Online Tournaments 425
Online Cash 0
Poker Festivals 0
Rake (200)

Total (1,163)

Where's Wally?

2010-02-18T06:05:00.000-08:00

After my drunken street fracas before Christmas I have understandably been attempting to keep a low profile in the neighbourhood. The Baron however, made a wry observation that this might prove difficult given that I am essentially a red man with white hair in a predominantly black London community. Whilst the Baron cheekily alludes to my prematurely grey hair and “Irish” complexion when I have a hangover, he has a fair point.

I remember enjoying the “Where’s Wally” books as a kid, where you had to identify Wally in a crowded scene, with his distinctive red and white striped top. I’m sure I would have had a far greater chance of blending in to one of the scenes in the book, where there were plenty of red herring items with red and white stripes to confuse the eye. Despite my anti-camoflague, I have managed to avoid running into my fellow brawlees from the night in question, so it seems there will be no Rocky II.

So – what have I been up to? Not a lot on the poker front. I’ve played twice live, registering a £500 and a £400 loss each time. The latter was particularly disappointing, given that I had started like a train in a short handed game with Sonny, the Baron and Nemo. Truth be told, my enthusiasm for live cash poker was at an all time low, so the lack of activity in the last 4/5 weeks has been most welcome. I plan to play a couple of times in the weeks ahead, so we’ll see how much I enjoy it.

I had a planned day off work on Monday, and unexpectedly found myself playing a whole sequence of low stakes online tournaments. After a poor start, I chopped a PS tournament 4 ways for $860 to rescue the day and profit a modest return for the nine hour session. I was also called an “anal tool” in the chatbox, so I’m pleased that my capacity for annoying other players with weird lines hasn’t diminished.

In truth, there really hasn’t been much interesting material, so I have resisted blogging for the sake of it. I’ll make an effort to blog the next cash game.

Where’s Jimbo???? THERE he is!

How to write off a weekend

2010-01-11T02:38:00.000-08:00

Well that weekend wasn't much fun. The cash game on Friday night went on continuously till midday on Saturday, and since I'm an old fogie these days I didn't see much daylight between then and this morning. In fact I'm surprised I made it out of LC at all - I was passed out on the sofa at midday, and Smalls decided to revive me not by smelling salts or water, but by cramming an After Eight mint into my mouth.

I woke up at 6pm on Saturday, and after making it in front of the TV for 3 hours, I retired again for the night in front of the NFL. I then woke at 10am, but couldn't really manage much more than lying like a beached whale for the whole of Sunday before going back to sleep. I'm glad I used my spare time so constructively :(

The cash game didn't go well. My outdraw with 24off from Chrismas against Smalls' aces has somehow found its way on youtube (type "1300 outdraw" if you want to see it) and a fair few of the Friday night tournament crowd were watching it when I arrived at Loose Cannon. Thus my reputation is in tatters (deservedly some might say!) and things didn't improve.

The game was wild indeed, and I was actually thankful to escape with an £800 loss after being in for about 2k at one point. Everyone was playing fairly aggressively, so if you made a hand you invariably got paid off.

Hand1
Can't remember the betting but final board was TT555. I led for £75 or so, Baron made it £225 and I shoved for £600 odd. Baron calls with quads, and unfortunately I was playing the board. Marvellous.

Hand2
I 3 bet on the button to 6s8s and Ioannis and Smalls come along. Pot is about £50.

Flop is a rather encouraging 6, 6, 6 to give me the quads this time.

Ioannis bets £50, I call.

Turn is Ten. Ioannis bets £75, I call. Pot is £250.

River is another low card, and Ioannis checks to me.

My current table image is "village idiot", so I decide to overbet shove for £550 more on the end with my quads. Ioannis tanks for ages and eventually calls with JJ for the flopped house.

Seeing as I was marginally up after these quads encounters, I'm not sure where the rest of the money went. I imagine a significant proportion was filed under the category "river bluff picked off". The session was just so long that I can't really remember many other hands as they have all blended into one.

P&L GBP 2010
Live Tournaments 0
Live Cash (1,198)
Online Tournaments 0
Online Cash 0
Poker Festivals 0
Rake (60)

Total (1,258)

Mindset

2010-01-07T06:07:00.000-08:00

I played abysmally in my first outing of 2009 (edit! 2010), ending with a £458 loss in the cash game and I probably deserved a four figure loss, but a late Omaha rally in the early hours saved my pods.

I unfathomably got it into my head that calling an all in from The Baron with KQ was a good idea, and couldn't deliver a beat to AK in a £500 pot. I also burned a stack with top pair no kicker, and had about three big river bluffs picked off by Nemo. The one time I saw a mighty pair KK in the hole, Snake (Nit 2009) limp shoved UTG and I was actually relieved to see that he had the other Kings instead of the bullets.

My mind simply wasn't on the game last night, as I was constantly distracted, received poor starting hands and consequently tried to force things to happen instead of letting the game come to me.

We are nearing the end of Honest Dave's service at the Loose Cannon. He leaves in a month to start a new life in Brazil with his wife. I'm sure his pasty white beer gut will blend right in next to the assorted bronzed adoni on the white sands of the Copacabana. In all seriousness though, Dave is in my opinion the best dealer in the business and his lightening skills will be sorely missed.

Tomorrow we have a low stakes Dealer's Choice game scheduled at the Loose Cannon in his honour. Seeing as I am gash at Stud, Razz and Omaha HiLo this doesn't seem to be the best way to get into profit for the year.

Still at blinds of 25p/50p things can't go too far wrong..........can they?

P&L GBP 2010
Live Tournaments 0
Live Cash (448)
Online Tournaments 0
Online Cash 0
Poker Festivals 0
Rake (10)

Total (458)

Redknapp Alert

2010-01-04T09:03:00.000-08:00

Following my rant this morning, someone has just alerted me that Thomas Cook have just launched an advert featuring the Redknapps.

Good grief - this is cringe worthy. My favourite part is Jamie extricating himself from a sand hazard clad only in a pair of jeans. Show me a golf club that allows that attire.

Sigh - admittedly it takes little to irritate me but 2010 has got off to a poor start.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z23jLO1Yk0

The New Year

2010-01-04T02:00:00.000-08:00

New Year, for me, inevitably conjures images of a smiling Phil Taylor. I will grudgingly admit the man is a class apart in terms of darts prowess, but I can’t stand the man and it always gets my year off on the wrong foot.

The 2010 edition of the PT show contained all the usual irritants:

- Ludicrous over the top montages from Sky. One even featured an African witch doctor loudly proclaiming from the top of a London building the arrival of the king, at the end of which, Taylor waddles into shot.
- The Sky commentary team spending the duration of any given Taylor match with their noses firmly up PT’s backside, even if the opponent is averaging 83.
- Taylor talking about himself in the third person. “You’re going to see a fully fired up Phil Taylor tonight”
- Taylor fake modesty. “The thing you’ve got to remember is that (insert ageing D list pro/ qualifier) is a top, top player and I had to be on the absolute peak of my game to beat him” This after he has beaten said opponent 4-0 where opponent won one leg.
- Celebrity name dropping. Phil can’t help himself on this one – every post match interview will feature at least one celebrity name that Taylor either wants to inform us that he knows, or otherwise that he would like to meet. It's as if he has a little script in his head: Mention Ronnie O'Sullivan/David Haye. If can't squeeze them in then default to John Lowe (who is always watching from a bar in Tenerife/Lanzarote/Cyprus).

A great, great player, but I wish he’d change his on screen demeanor.

Shazbo works as a producer for Sky, and unfortunately I think she is tiring of the endless list of demands I put to her. On top of toning down the Taylor montages and removal of the darts commentary team I have also recently requested:

- Removal of Jamie Redknapp as football pundit
- Removal of strobe advertising hoardings
- Introduction of clause that football analysts on Soccer Saturday must be able to construct lucid sentences, thus saving me from the babblings of Merson and Parlour (“the keeper could have come for that. He never, and the ball ended in the net”)

I have also requested that I have a back stage pass in the political debate on Sky when the three main party leaders debate ahead of the election, so I can give Brown, Harmon and Milliband a piece of my mind.

Thus far all requests have been rejected :(

On the poker front, obviously it was a roaring finish to the year with a 13k upswing in the final couple of months to end the year in profit for the 4th successive year.

I have to say though, that I have somewhat lost my enthusiasm for poker – it used to drive me through the week as the thing to look forward to at weekends or the evenings, but now I just see it as an occasional pastime. This is no bad thing, but will probably mean I play less in 2010. I want to focus on saving for a house, so the bankroll is a fair bit lighter going into the coming year, so a Vegas trip will very much depend on how things go. The guys have lined up trips in March and November, so hopefully I can build up enough spare cash to make it out there on at least one of those occasions.

P&L GBP 2010
Live Tournaments 0
Live Cash 0
Online Tournaments 0
Online Cash 0
Poker Festivals 0
Rake 0

Total 0

More Run Good

2010-01-01T10:41:00.000-08:00

I don't have time to write much, but I ran extremely well yet again in the final cash game of 2009 in the Loose Cannon on Wednesday night. A win in the region of £1,500 was generated mostly by a couple of lucky hands:

Hand1
Nemo raises to £15 UTG, I make it £50 with 4d2d. Smalls makes it £200 next to act, Nemo calls, I attempt to sandwich them by shoving for circa £700. Smalls has AA though and obviously calls. Nemo passes AK. I hit 2 pair on the board to undeservedly take down £1500 in a car crash of a hand. Felt very bad for Smalls, as he immediately donked off about another £700 in twenty minutes of tilt induced fury, Fluke being the primarly benefactor.

Hand2
Nemo raises to £15, I make it £50 with AhQh. Nemo comes along.

Flop is 8, T, J rainbow.

Nemo bets £100, I call with my double gutter.

Turn pops up a golden 9 as it always seems to do for me at the moment.

Nemo bets £200, I shove, Nemo calls.

Nemo has 79 for the flopped straight so a vicious turn for him, and I claw in a £1200 pot.

Lucky, lucky, lucky.

P&L GBP 2009 Final
Live Tournaments 97
Live Cash 7,661
Online Tournaments 2,239
Online Cash (173)
Poker Festivals (3,113)
Rake (3,478)

Total 3,233

Festive Cheer

2009-12-23T05:54:00.000-08:00

I had another big score last night at the Loose Cannon, winning £1800 in the £1/£2 game in a long session. It could have been a lot different though, I was £400 down after losing a QQ v AK encounter against Nemo. Shortly afterwards I found myself staring nervously at the felt after 5 betting £400 all in with 46off against the same player. Fortunately Nemo found a pass, or otherwise I would have been in the taxi home.

From there I never looked back, building my stack as I played far more aggressively than usual. For the last couple of hours I ran like God flopping nuts after nuts, so perhaps my big win was more to do with run good than anything else. Still, I am very happy to end the year in profit, considering I was 10k down going into the final quarter.

Merry Christmas to all readers - have a good one :)

P&L GBP 2009
Live Tournaments 97
Live Cash 6,181
Online Tournaments 2,239
Online Cash (173)
Poker Festivals (3,113)
Rake (3,378)

Total 1,853

Home Game Hat-trick

2009-12-14T03:59:00.000-08:00

The home game I hosted this weekend was a marathon, lasting from 11am Saturday till 7am Sunday morning. I had a stormer, winning the £40 warm up event, the £50 heads up tournament as well as the £100 main event. We had 12-17 runners for each event, so I guess in terms of achievement this must rank right up there, as the fields were tough.

I drew a blank unfortunately in the Omaha, busting about 7th, as my KK55 was no good on a 645K board to Hass’ flopped nut straight. In fact, this spot is pretty bad considering I have two sets, as I have my own blockers to the house if I am indeed against the straight.

Far too many hands to report in any detail, but admittedly I got my fair share of luck in every tournament – winning all in with 62 against KJ in the warm up, hitting a flush draw against Devski in the final of the heads up when all in to get back in it, and hitting with A7 against the QQ of Racist when trying to squeeze out Uncle Paulie with an all in move, and finding the monster hand behind me. Nonetheless, the super slow structures of the events allowed suited my game as I was able to play patiently early on and then up the aggression once the antes kicked in later on. The net haul from the tournaments was £1,050 of profit.

I also posted a 5 hour cash session after all the tournaments were complete, and grinded out a £988 win in that as well. No major hands to report, just a succession of £75/£100 pots heading my way over the session. I played super solid and never really got into trouble at all I don’t think – probably one of the lowest variance cash sessions I have had as I normally end up taking once big £500 flip at some point but that didn’t materialise.

A great event, but I doubt there will be much poker (if any) now before January, so I’ll probably just post a year end review next week.

P&L GBP 2009
Live Tournaments 97
Live Cash 4,299
Online Tournaments 2,239
Online Cash (173)
Poker Festivals (3,278)
Rake (3,378)

Total (194)

Vegas - Final Day

2009-11-28T20:24:00.000-08:00

Another pretty unproductive day today on the poker front. Wandered downstairs a little after 10:30 and bought into the $60 tournament late, which impressively lasted one hand.

I call a raise to 600 with 88 on the button. Flop arrives 578 rainbow. He bets 1300, I shove for 3900 total and he calls with 99. River is a 6 to fill his gutshot. A fine start to the day.

After hitting the saki at lunchtime I posted a 3 hour cash session. The table was very tight and I had no holdings. There was good company at the table though which made up for it and I came away up $100 for the session. All of this was won by two sizeable check raise squeeze bluffs on the turn though, which got through.

So another trip comes to an end - I'm pretty much flat for the trip which is okay I guess after a tough first night. I had to say Planet Hollywood is a great place to stay at - a really good atmosphere everywhere, and a great poker room. I'd recommend it over the Venetian/MGM any time. Next time I come over I'll definitely stay here again.

We are off to Koi for dinner and more saki now, probably followed by burning some cash at Pai Gow.

One advert which tickled me in the poker room was for a new laxative called "MaxiFlow". I'm toying with getting some and sticking it in the eggnogg at the Christmas home game. I'll have to purchase some "Missed Big Blind" buttons though :)

Vegas P&L (USD)
Main Event 0
Deepstack tournaments (80)
Crapshoots (420)
Cash 470

Vegas - Big Blind Special

2009-11-27T16:14:00.000-08:00

Wandered down to the poker room at 8am this morning but there was no cash game going so had to enter the $60 tournament. I was down to 250 chips at the 200-400 level at one point, but managed to spin back up to 5k before knocking myself stealing the rock's BB from the SB with 84off and running into AJ.

As a result of that I only was able to play one hour at the cash table before the Spa, but a very productive hour it was, with a $520 profit.

Key Hand:
I am up to $400 from $300 start and the button is playing about $300ish. 6 limpers so I check my BB with 36off.

Flop is 3c6hKc

I bet $10 and button calls.

Turn is a 6d to give me the house.

I bet $20 and button calls.

River is the golden money card - 5 clubs bringing home the flush. I'm fairly sure this is what he has been drawing at, so I bet $55.

He raises to $140, which I ponder for effect, before shoving for my $400. He calls with the Jack flush to rake me a big pot.

Can't enter the TI tournament tonight as it will clash with 10pm dinner at Aquaknox, so I'm going to play cash at the Mirage across the road I think, as Nit says it's a nice place to play.

Aiming to play the Caesars $225 tomorrow though, as you get 15k starting stack, although with their usual fast blinds.

Vegas P&L (USD)
Main Event 0
Deepstack tournaments (80)
Crapshoots (360)
Cash 370

Vegas - Quote of the Week

2009-11-27T08:32:00.000-08:00

Didn't play much poker at all yesterday - just the 7pm Planet Hollywood tournament. It transpired I wasted 5 hours playing Pai Gow with Shazbo, a game which seems to tilt me quite badly, before sitting at the Texas Holdem Bonus game. Shazbo won $1k+ at that as usual :)

I'm going to try and put some hours in today, starting with a morning cash session and finishing with the Treasure Island deeper stacked bounty event tonight. Investors in the deep stack events will have noticed that I have been woeful at putting any hours in, so there will be appropriate rebates when I get back.

Anyhow - on to quote of the week. Planet Hollywood event, 40ish runners with 5 getting paid. I bluff off half my stack in the first level with 7 high running into top set, having to pass on the turn. After nursing my micro stack for half an hour before getting doubled up when holding JJ, I arrive at the break with about 5k.

The blinds jumps every 20 mins after that are astronomical:

200-400
300-600
500-1000
1000-2000
2000-4000

Anyhow, I go into my shove mode after the break and manage to get my stack up about 14k without showdown, by the time we are at the 1000-2000 level with 11 runners left. Then the following two hands happen when we are playing 6 handed:

Hand1
Brummie guy shoves his 7k stack in, and guy to my right calls off half his stack with 7hTh. Brummie guy has QT and holds.

Hand2
UTG, I find AJ, my best holding for four levels. I make it 5k. Obviously I can't fold with 5k of my stack in the middle, but figured this would look stronger than the 14k shove so might get some small pairs to fold.

Guy from last hand is down to 6.5k after but CALLS the 5k from the BB.

Flop is T42

He shoves his last 1.5k which obviously I call.

He has 7hTh AGAIN and I lose.

Brummie guy: "Do you like that hand or something?"
BB guy: "Not really, but I figured statistically it couldn't lose twice in a row"

Amen to that.

Vegas P&L (USD)
Main Event 0
Deepstack tournaments (80)
Crapshoots (300)
Cash (150)

Vegas - Running Hot on Moonshine

2009-11-26T07:02:00.000-08:00

Found myself plonked next to a couple of guys from Oklahoma last night. I was being educated in the production of moonshine, and how adding apple pie mix to it took the edge off and made it a fine afternoon beverage. Unfortunately, just as I was doing a good impression of a willing student my malibu and pineapple arrived.

"Hey! What you got there my English brother?"

"Umm - malibu"

"Oh. Ma wife drinks that" :(

Ran super hot last night in two cash sessions, for a total of $750 profit. The tables contained some stronger player so I was able to go back to at least raising the hands I normally play, and playing pots heads up, as opposed to against five opponents.

The first big hand was from raising QJ and seeing a rather good flop of 89T rainbow. I got my whole stack in by the river and got paid of by KT.

The fun really started in the second session after dinner (the location for that being a very nice japanese restaurant in Planet Hollywood by the name of Koi).

Hand1
Raise in early position to $11 from lady. Both myself and the lady are playing deep stacks so I call with As5s in SB. Chinese fella in the BB makes it $30. Lady calls. Chinese guy only has $120 behind, but since lady is deep I call the extra $20. This may be dubious I guess, but I know I'm folding unless I get a fistful of spades.

I look out of the corner of my eye and see all cards are red. That is the hand over with. Chinese guy moves in with his KK, at which point I notice there are a couple of red 5s on the board. Lady unfortunately passes but I stack Chinese guy. Chinese guy not happy.

Hand2
Funny hand. 4 limpers, so I make up the SB with KcTc. Chinese guy is having a nightmare and shoves his last $23 in from the BB. Two callers, so I call.

Flop is KT9

I begin side pot building by betting $20.

One weak player calls.

Chinese guy says "looks like it is the end of the game for me"

Turn is a blank.

I put other player in sidepot all in for his last $70. He calls.

Chinese guy triumphantly flips QJ for the flopped straight, so I guess I will have to content myself with sidepot.

River: TEN

Chinese guy declares it is time for him to get some fresh air :)

I think it's Thanksgiving today, so I guess the poker tables may be fairly quiet - we shall see.

Vegas P&L (USD)
Main Event 0
Deepstack tournaments (80)
Crapshoots (220)
Cash (150)

Vegas - Cash Bounce

2009-11-25T14:45:00.000-08:00

Played a 4 hour cash session waiting for Shazbo's flight to arrive and had a mini recovery. After a pep talk from the guys I went down with the idea of value betting and not doing anything adventurous.

I promptly lost $200 in the first 5 minutes representing the flush when the other guy had.....errr....a flush. I then switched to power raising in position which lost me a fair bit more. For example 5 limpers, I make it $25 on the button with 55 and get 4 callers :( The first to act then bets $150 into £100 pot on a 229 board so I fold.

The next strategy adjustment was to just limp anything remotely speculative in any position as you get to see a flop about 80% of the time without seeing a raise. This worked fairly well, as I was able to hit a couple of flushes and get paid off by top pair for at least $100 a pop.

I also raised any premiums hard and value bet them all the way. In four hours I only saw KK once and AQ twice in terms of strong hands which was pretty disappointing, but on two occasions they were paid off handsomely. With the KK I managed to get $300 in on a low board by potting all the way and opponent mucked. I also held AQ on a Queen high board and stacked somebody again just firing all the way.

The session finished up $300 from a low point of $350 in the hole, so a welcome mini recovery. I guess this is the way to play the 1/2 in Vegas, but I'm not sure it is much fun, particularly if you are not hitting much.

An example hand to show the huge strategy adjustment: 6 limpers and I call Ks5s in the cutoff.

BB makes it $6 which I call along with about 4 others and have position as the button is out.

Flop is 3s4s5c giving me top pair + strong flush draw. Now against Baron or Devski for example, I'd look to play a big pot here most of the time trying to ensure I get a large bet in with fold equity for a decent pot (and then flip if I have to). Here though it is not worth it. In this hand it was checked around to me, so I bet $10 to fluff the pot a little bit and the BB (original raiser) min raises me to $20. This is likely a big hand, so I just take my card for $10. She then bets $20 into $70 so I just call the turn to see if I can crack the big hand. River blanks and it goes check/check and I'm against pocket Aces and lose. The beauty is though if I hit the flush, trips or two pair I can normally get a $150 bet called on the end.

Vegas P&L (USD)
Main Event 0
Deepstack tournaments (80)
Crapshoots (220)
Cash (900)

Vegas - Nit-rolled

2009-11-24T21:40:00.000-08:00

Just got nit-rolled so badly. It was so ridiculous it was amusing rather than annoying. I resisted the urge to go to sleep early and entered the 7pm Planet Hollywood tournament. $80 buy in gets you 4.5k in chips, and a decent clock for an hour and a half before it goes nuts. There were only 20 runners though, so top four paid I think and I busted 6th.

The start was plain sailing as I took my stack up to 8k with little risk and made the final table, a little below average.

Blinds were at this stage 300-600 and, although I was card dead, I was able to pick some nice spots to shove and get my stack upto around the 10k with 7 players remaining.

My stack stayed static up to the end of the 500-1000 levels, and with blinds about to jump to 1000-2000 leaving me 5 big blinds I was looking for a double up.

The amusing hand was as follows:

UTG has somehow allowed himself to get blinded down to 1.8k without playing a hand (i.e. less than 2 big blinds) and shoves. I figure he is pretty desperate as he will be in the big blind next, and when I find QsJs I figure a shove here might be a good spot to accumulate 5k in chips with little risk as long as nobody else calls. In they go.

Small blind is the second chip leader sitting on about 18k and he now looks perplexed.

He puts his hands on his face and shakes his head. Hmmm - a medium Ace perhaps? 88?

He counts out the bet and puts it separate to the main stack. He returns chips to main stack and shakes his head again. He counts out the bet again, before nodding to himself in self affirmation.

He takes a deep breath and pushes the 10k over the line. He shrugs and flips over..........pocket Kings! WTF?

UTG guy has K8, and the arrival of the case King on the flop brings much clapping and fist pumping from the nit-roller.

Lol - good game me.

Zero from four for tournaments today, despite three deepish runs..........hmmmmm. Shazbo arrives tomorrow which is great news as it is starting to feel lonely over here. An added bonus is I won't have to sit in a steak house like noddy-no-mates again like for dinner today :)

Vegas P&L (USD)
Main Event 0
Deepstack tournaments (80)
Crapshoots (220)
Cash (1,200)

Vegas - 3pm $70 tournament

2009-11-24T18:08:00.000-08:00

After busting from the midday event I jumped straight into this one. Same structure as the 9am affair, plus I joined in level 2 so had been blinded down to 2800. Probably not a good idea to enter. Timeline below:

3:38
Enter tournament.

3:41
Blinds are 75/150. I raise to 400 UTG with AJ. BB shoves. I fold. Down to 2400.

3:44
UTG raises to 375. I shove for 2400 with AK. UTG calls off 70% of his stack with AJ.

3:45
Leave tournament

Vegas P&L (USD)
Main Event 0
Deepstack tournaments (80)
Crapshoots (140)
Cash (1,200)

Vegas - Caesars midday $80 tournament

2009-11-24T17:31:00.000-08:00

This tournament plays a lot deeper than its 9am brother. It is exactly the same 20 minute levels which still sky rocket, but you get 7.5k in chips, thus there are more chips in play to deal with the antes. There are 110 runners and it pays top 9.

Hand1
I find KK and raise some limpers to 300. Lady next to me calls. She would later show herself to be not the strongest player, but more importantly jabbers INCESSANTLY about the action. She features in quite a few hands so will be known as "Jabber".

Flop is QJ2 with a couple of diamonds. I have no diamonds.

I bet 700 and Jabber calls.

Turn is a brick.

I bet 1300 and Jabber goes in to a long speech about flush draws. She passes.

Hand2
I make up SB with Ah9h. Jabber checks.

Flop is 2h7hQs

Jabber randomly bets 300 into 100. I fold my nut draw. I guess I should have called given the depth of our stacks. Jabber shows.......2c6s.

Hand3
UTG raises to 150 and UTG+2 calls. I make it 700 with KK. I get cold called round the back as well as by UTG+2.

Flop is 3c7cTc. I have no club.

I bet 1700 and UTG+3 calls.

Turn is Kc giving me the set but putting 4 clubs out. UTG+3 checks - that'll be the Ace of clubs then and I check behind.

Turn pairs the board :)

UTG+3 checks again, presumably in nut flush trap mode. I bet 2100, and he min raises to 4200. Banana dance time! I shove he snaps and shows nut flush. I double up to 15k.

I now lose a bunch of small pots to drift down to 13k.

Hand4
Jabber raises UTG to 1k (blinds now 100-200 a25) and I call in BB with As9s

Flop is JQT rainbow.

I check and Jabber bets 2k.

I should probably fold my up and down here or indeed folded preflop. However, I am sure I will stack Jabber if I hit, particularly if it is the 8 which arrives. I call.

Turn is a 7.

Jabber shoves, I fold, Jabber shows 777.

At the 200-400 a50 level I start to raise a lot of pots, but I am having problems. Either I lead and get called by the blinds who lead out on flops I miss, or I get shoved on. By the time I move tables I have had a miserable time of it and am back down to 8k.

Hand5
Blinds are now 300-600 a75 and UTG shoves for 5k. I re-shove with 99 and beat AK. Back to 12k.

I now have a new comedy character to my left, from Holland. He is now called "Flying Dutchman". He definitely has the right idea in shoving regularly, but he takes it to new levels. On one occasion he declares he is bored and shoves 15k blind. On another he calls two all-ins before him from the BB with 93off(!). His stack can be found anywhere between 6k and 30k, and changes approximately 10k per hand. Having him to my left tightens up my shoving range.

Hand6
I raise button to 2k with Kc2c. Flying Dutchman calls (he rarely overshoves on me) and so does veteran in BB.

Flop is K72 with two diamonds :)

Check, check, I shove and pick up the 7k or so in the middle to move to 19k.

Hand7
UTG shoves for 8k and I call in BB with QQ. He has KT and spikes a King - back down to 11k. Key hand this one I feel.

Hand8
Early position shoves 6k with AQ and I reshove with AK and hold to win and get to 17k.

Our BB is knocked out, and is replaced by...........Jabber.

32 runners remain.

Hand9
Young guy UTG limps 1200 from a 8k stack. He has been shoving regularly so I am highly suspicious of this. I decide to flat call with 55. Flying Dutchman shoves for the 4th time this orbit and is called by both BB and the UTG. I fold.

They in fact all have high cards and the board contains a 5. Flying Dutchman berates me for folding a pair. I guess I had the odds, but surely one of the others should have had a higher pair there. I dunno.

By now the blinds are 1k/2k with a 300 running ante. I fold for an orbit as someone is always shoving before me and I have trash. Flying Dutchman calls obviously and wins some and loses some. Sitting out the orbit costs me a massive 6k in chips, and by now I am down to 8k.

25 runners remain.

Exit Hand
Folded to me in SB and I don't think I have any option but to shove. Unfortunately I only have 3c6c, but I guess Flying Dutchman will call anything, so if I have live cards I have a chance to get back to 19k. He calls with J8 and it holds.

Good tournament this one - fun to play. You need to be active for sure after level 5, but at least the extra chips mean you don't hit shove or fold for a couple of hours.

Vegas - Caesars $70 9am tournament

2009-11-24T17:17:00.000-08:00

After waking at 5:30am I decided to give this event a bash. You only get a 3k starting stack, but the opening 20 minute levels are fine at 25-50, 50-100, 75-150. After that though the jumps are big - 100-200 a25, 200-400 a50 (huge jump), 300-600 a75 and so on. A healthy 40 runners took to the felt.

Hand1
One raiser to 150, button calls, I call BB with AhQd

Flop is 6h, 7h, Jd

Checked to button who bets 100 into 500 pot. He has confessed this is his first ever live tournament and it has shown on previous hands as he is down to 2k already. I make a dubious call.

Turn is Qd

I check, button now bets 500 into 700. I now have no idea what is going on so I check raise all in and run into the new guys set of 6s. Great start. Down to 1k.

Hand2
I find AA UTG which for which my stack is not ideal. I limp and SB raises to 300 so I set him in and he calls and loses with AQ. Back to 2k.

I hover at 2k for quite a while and once the 100-200 a25 level starts I go into shovebot mode. The problem with this is he guys at my table don't understand how you should be playing a 10BB stack. As a result, I become victim to "donkey pressure" and get lots of comments like:

"This guy's got a lunch date he doesn't want to miss"
"This guy's only got one move"
"Eurodonk"

At one point I shove with 3d5d and get called by the BB with Ad9d. A five on the flop later and I have doubled up. BB seething. This caused much braying from the stables.

Despite this lucky hand, it is the only time I get called in fifteen shoves, and thus my stack catapults upwards due to the ever increasing antes. Several times people raise 25% of their stack and then fold to a reshove which is disastrous for them.

I pushbot my way to the final table, but still arrive as a short stack. I have 12k, but the blinds are 600-1200 with a 100 ante and about to go to 800-1600 with a 200 ante (!). The tournament only pays down to 5th spot, and when I shove again with 4s5s my luck finally runs out after someone calls with AK and it holds up.

Vegas - Let's Get Busy

2009-11-24T06:00:00.000-08:00

Just woke up at 5:30am, but feel fit and ready to go after ten hours sleep. I finally feel prepared to play some poker after 36 hours of unproductiveness. I'm going to hit Caesars for a poker marathon - they have a 3k stack event at 9am, a 7.5k stack tournie at midday and a 10k deepstack at 7pm. I'm going to play the lot, and will squeeze in some cash in between if I get any early bustouts.

At least I should finally have something interesting to blog on the poker front tomorrow. Apologies for today's rather dull post.

Vegas P&L (USD)
Main Event 0
Deepstack tournaments 0
Crapshoots 0
Cash (1,200)

Vegas - Jetlagged

2009-11-23T17:47:00.000-08:00

Decided not to play the Venetian today - I felt really tired and don't think I could have given such a deep stack event its due attention. Obviously I will refund stakers appropriately.

I also dropped four buy ins in the Harrah's cash game last night on a fun drunken table, before calling it a night :( The was fairly unlucky on the first couple, before tilting off the last $600. I held KK four times in the last couple of hours, and saw an Ace on the flop on every occasion. Each time opponent held Ace rag, and I paid them off. Bad bad play, as they always have it in these games, and never fold preflop irrespective of the action. It should have been an easy game to play, but I made a right mess of it.

Definitely going to get stuck into the tournaments tomorrow, and might play one tonight as I think Caesars do a decent nightly event.

I still haven't eaten since I got off the plane, and I still don't feel hungry :( Better eat something I guess.

Vegas P&L (USD)
Main Event 0
Deepstack tournaments 0
Crapshoots 0
Cash (1,200)

Vegas - Judge Dredd

2009-11-22T15:47:00.000-08:00

Arrived in Vegas, after a long 11 hour flight due to the headwinds this time of year. I’m staying in Planet Hollywood this time for a change, as the bustle of the Venetian is too much for me sometimes, so it’s nice to go somewhere a little quieter.

Sir Mike stayed here in the summer and got the Val Kilmer suite – I have been blessed with the Judge Dredd suite, so have lots of related items around the room as well as a life size picture of Sylvester Stallone overlooking the bath.

Shazbo arrives in a few days – she has suggested I may crack in her absence and she will arrive to find that I have smashed the coffee table, removed the heavily padded Judge Dredd gloves and am indulging in some self abuse. That would be a subtle variation on the old pins and needles trick I guess. :)

I don’t have much planned for today – the Venetian Main Event is tomorrow so I will go and register for that, popping in at Treasure Island on the way to play the 7pm crapshoot. I’m sure I’ll have a few cash buy ins ready there as well as I remember it being quite a good game, so hopefully I can continue the heater.

I grabbed 3 hours sleep on the flight, so should be good to stay awake till 10pm Vegas time.

Quick shower, and then off for a splash around on the tables.

Laters……

Vegas P&L (USD)
Main Event 0
Deepstack tournaments 0
Crapshoots 0
Cash 0

Bankroll Booster

2009-11-19T08:48:00.001-08:00

I put in a very strong performance at the LC during my last outing, both in the tournament and the cash game.

The tournament saw a total of 8 players with a £100 entry, and we added running antes at level 4 to spice things up a bit. Fluke made all of the early running, but two hands effectively decided the tournament in rapid succession.

Hand1
There are four players remaining, and we are at 300-600 with a running ante of 50. Luke raises to 1600 UTG and I shove for my 6k stack with KT from the SB. Jalfont folds, and Fluke almost nitrolls me by taking his time to call with AJ ;) Anyhow, I get lucky and have a straight by the river to beat Fluke's two pair.

Hand2
Next orbit, Fluke again raises to 1800 UTG and I shove from the SB this time with KJ. Fluke thinks for a while before calling with K3. I think this is a really marginal call, as I need to have a lot of suited connectors in my range to make this profitable. Perhaps there are enough QJ/JT type hands to make it profitable, but it must be close. I hold up to eliminate Fluke and take a commanding chip lead. Ioannis, the short stack is soon knocked out, and myself and Jalfont do an equity deal to get the cash game going, so I take £390.

The cash game starts badly, as I river a straight against Fluke. It is only third nuts, but I deem it suitable to shove over Luke's £20 river bet. He calls in flash however with the 2nd nut straight and I am stacked for £200 early on.

From then on, it's a roller coaster. I am up and down like a yo-yo throughout the evening, and in fact £600 in the hole at one point. The game is £1/£2 but is playing much bigger by the end, and after getting a succession of big bluffs through and finally hitting some cards I end up £1,500 in profit.

The two key hands at the end of the night were as follows:

Hand A
Player1 has been bullying me off a lot of pots with marginal holdings, and I end up taking a stand against him with A7 on an ace high board. I normally hate going all the way with Arag when you pair the Ace (and normally don't play these hands), but this time it felt right. Mind you, I had to call bets of £75, £150 and £260 on the various streets once I had hit the Ace. No draws hit as the cards developed, which emboldened me with my calls, and my pair of Aces was thankfully good.

Hand B
Player2 has been playing very snugly, so when he 3bet my £15 open to £50 I considered giving up my JhTh. Mind you, we are only 5 handed, I have position and it's a hand that can flop very big.

Flop arrive K, Q, 9 :)

Ding, ding. The added bonus of course, is that snug player may well have KK, QQ, AK in this spot.

I bet £75 and get a call.

Turn is another King. Hmmm. KK and QQ now ahead.

I bet £125 and get a call.

River is a blank, and when opponent checks the river, I suspect he has AA or AK now. A value bet is in order so I bet £250. Opponent calls with AK and I scoop a big pot.

I'm almost level for the year now, after a disastrous first 9 months. I really feel I'm playing well again now, so the trip to Vegas couldn't come at a better time. I fly out on Sunday for a week, so the next update will be from there.

P&L GBP 2009
Live Tournaments (660)
Live Cash 3,501
Online Tournaments 2,239
Online Cash 170
Poker Festivals (3,113)
Rake (3,062)

Total (925)

Ossie's Lightbulb

2009-11-13T03:24:00.000-08:00

In the summer of 1994 Ossie Ardiles sat glumly after Spurs disappointing 15th place finish in the Premier League, and wondered what he could do to improve his beloved "Tott-ing-ham".

I know! I'll buy Klinsmann and Dumitrescu.

But you've already got Sheringham, Anderton and Barmby, Ossie? Surely you'll have too many forwards?

Don't worry we'll play a 2-3-5 formation. That will accommodate everyone.

And so wise Ossie was proved right. Well, in the first game in any case, as Sheffield Wednesday banged in three goals at Hillsborough but Spurs were rampant up the other end, with Dumitrescu the only player of the front five not to get on the scoresheet. However, things soon started to go very wrong, as the team didn't keep a single clean sheet in the first 13 matches before Ossie got the bullet. Consecutive losses against Southampton, Leicester and Forest meant the writing was on the wall and Ossie was dismissed after a defeat at Blackburn. The forward laden team promptly conceded four goals at home to Villa in Gerry Francis' first game, so it was clear it would take a while to get back any kind of defensive mentality.

Poker sees the rare occurrence of a team mentality next week, as six of us are playing in the Sporting Index Invitational team event at Loose Cannon on Wednesday. Originally I wasn't going to play, as I was put off by the ropey structure (£100 rebuys for 2k chips a pop), but I put myself down in the end. Whilst I will be on a random team due to my late enty, The Racist has formed his own Tottenham 1994 team. Himself, The Baron, Nemo, Chan and The Nit. This looks to me completely unbalanced, although perhaps with it being a rebuy it doesn't matter. Presumably Nit will be left in the role of lone defender while the other four go bezerk in the rebuy period. I think they should hire Ossie as a coach for one night to give advice from the sidelines. I do hope my random team contains some tournament plodders, although seeing as they will be Sporting Index customers it seems doubtful.

In other news, on Wednesday night I played at the Baron's 6 max home cash game and lost £700 :( The other runners were Baron, Fluke, Nemo, Nit and Andreas, and I believe I was the biggest loser. I played pretty badly, mostly due to fatigue following the 5am Tuesday finish, and made some poor decisions. I did get very unlucky in a £900ish pot at the end of the night, but overall deserved my loss.

I should also add that we were playing "speed" poker, whereby you have ten seconds to act plus a timebank of 60 seconds similar to online games.

Here are the two key hands for my night:

Hand1
Nemo raises to £15 pre-flop after a couple of limps. Nemo has only folded about five times all night pre-flop (!) so this could mean anything. I come along with Qh7c, playing about a £250 stack.

Flop arrives 8c6hJc

Nemo powers away for £45. I decide to float with nothing.

Turn is a 4c. Ah-ha. Now I have two terrible draws. A 7 high club draw with a flush already out. Also a gutterball draw to the 5 for a low straight.

Nemo shoves to put me all in. I don't have the odds and have bad draws to boot. I can visualise my bed however, and a peaceful end to the evening after the minimal sleep of the previous day seems appealing. I call.

The river is 2d so a total blank. I sigh, about to throw my hand away but what's this? Nemo is ruefully shacking his head. He displays his 9T for a busted up and down ten high. My Queen high takes the big pot. Nemo declares that I am a donk of the highest order, and he is of course correct :)

Hand2
Down to three handed now, myself, Baron and Fluke. Baron raises on the button/UTG and Fluke calls. I call with Q8.

Flop is Q84 rainbow and it all kicks off.

Fluke bets £25, I raise to £75 with my two pair. Baron folds. Fluke dips into his time bank and then finds a raise to £175. The board is really dry so I don't think he has a set as he wouldn't play it so fast. Either a slow paired overpair, or a big Queen. When I shove for £200ish more and he sighs, I realise it must be AA or KK. He's pretty much priced in now anyway so calls with the KK. Turn is a Jack, but the river cruelly pairs the 4 to counterfeit me and I lose the £900 pot :(

Damn - some nights hinge on one key pot and this was it. Would have been nice to have got out with a win despite being below par.

I tilt off a final £200 to the Baron with flopped top pair + flush draw against a flopped two pair and decide to call it a night.

Next poker will the Sporting Index game, when I can amuse myself watching Ossie's 5 in action :)

P&L GBP 2009
Live Tournaments (950)
Live Cash 1,901
Online Tournaments 2,239
Online Cash 170
Poker Festivals (3,113)
Rake (2,958)

Total (2,711)

Good Intentions

2009-11-11T05:51:00.001-08:00

5:45pm
I am going to go out and enjoy an evening with Nemo and The Baron, totally devoid of poker. I know we can do it.

8pm
The drinks are flowing and everyone is enjoying themselves. A ladies hockey team are in the bar as well - they aren't very attractive but have little skirts and long socks on. I speculate that this is how Harriet Harman looked in the 70s, when the champagne socialist was at St Paul's school for girls.

9pm
More Asahis. The hockey women are starting to look more attractive.

9:30pm
The Baron mentions poker. Nemo's fingers start twitching.

11pm
Myself, Baron and Nemo are upstairs in the Loose Cannon. We are playing a £2/£5/£10 three handed game with about three grand on the table.

2am
I somehow get myself all in with 82off preflop against the Baron's QQ in a £600 pot. Devski is going to have a field day about "8 high" when he sees this. Fortunately the board arrives with more 2s and 8s than you can throw a stick at and I scoop with my house. Baron seething.

4am
Nemo and Baron have since left and I am now playing headsup £2/£5 against Honest Dave. The game finally ends when Dave overshoves a 2345x board with his Ace and I take the lot with my Q6.

I ran and played well last night, despite losing JJ v 99 and 88 v 33 all in preflop. The final totals saw me book a 1.2k win. Looks like Shazbo will indeed get to go to Roka one more time before Vegas :)

P&L GBP 2009
Live Tournaments (950)
Live Cash 2,601
Online Tournaments 2,239
Online Cash 170
Poker Festivals (3,113)
Rake (2,958)

Total (2,011)

Vegas Looms

2009-11-06T06:24:00.001-08:00

An impromptu visit to Vegas now looks fairly likely to happen later in the month. My trip will take in the Venetian deep stack main event, plus the first event of the Bellagio 5 Diamond Classic. None of the usual poker crew can make it due to the short notice, except Shazbo, who couldn't resist flying in for a couple of nights. That means we can sample the delights of AquaKnox and Social House once again.

My schedule is below - I just need to finalise a couple of details and then we are good to go :)

Sun 22 Fly to Vegas
Mon 23 Ventian Main Event ($2500)
Tue 24 Caesars daily tournament ($150)
Wed 25 Shazbo arrives
Thu 26 Caesars daily tournament ($150)
Fri 27 Bellagio 5 Diamond Event 1 ($540)
Sat 28 Fly Home

Splash

2009-11-05T07:00:00.000-08:00

I played a couple of hours of last night's cash game at Loose Cannon in my underpants. At about 11 o'clock, I unfortunately spazzed out while taking a sip of my beer and spilt an entire pint in my lap, thus giving me a dilemma of whether to go home or play pantless. My table mates were delighted that I selected option 2.

I played fairly solid last night, ending with a little under £300 of profit. This was a fairly pleasing result, as the line up was tough last night, although the Baron put in a sub par performance, seemingly resting on his laurels after his majestic series of thumping wins across town at the Empire.

I'm also fairly sure I'm going to pop over to Vegas for a few days in a couple of weeks. I seem to be playing quite well at the moment, so have decided to play The Venetian Deep Stack Main Event. This $2500 tournament offers a 20k starting stack with 90 minute blinds...........great structure (although I don't know what the blind jumps are like). Hopefully I will put up a better show than when I played the same event in 2008, and spent the whole of level 2 vomiting in the gents, after a night out on the wines with the Volcano.

Anyhow - a few hands from last night - I start with £150 and blinds are £1/£2:

Hand 1
Action preflop, but I play my button with QT. Flop arrives 2 3 T and I check raise the Baron all in. He talks himself into calling with 66 and I hold.

Hand2
I hold KJ9 in Irish and the flop brings KK6. Fluke pots, and I call. I discard my 9. Turn is a Queen. Check, Check. River is 8. Fluke shoves all in for about £80 which is the size of the pot. I'm getting 2-1 but I can't think of many Fluke Irish starting hands that I can beat. KTT perhaps. Anyhow I call and get shown KQ.

Hand3
I 3 bet QQ preflop to £20 - Nemo and the Baron call. Flop is Q, 6, 3 and I manage to get my whole stack in against Baron and hold for a nice pot.

Hand4
Omaha - I hold 2457cc on a flop of 3 4 6 double club board, giving me the nuts + club redraw. I pot and Fluke calls. Turn is Jack of hearts changing nothing. I pot again and Fluke makes an excellent laydown of 66xx for flopped top set. Fluke played very strongly last night and took away over a grand I believe.

Hand5
Shazbo has short stack and I put her all in with 4s5s on a low board with two spades. She snaps with a set of ducks, but I runner, runner straight for the win.

Hand6
I call 3 barrels of Dev action with KT on a A T X X X board with three diamonds. 2nd pair is good to stack him - I just had a feeling I was good there. Dev not happy with the call on the river by our underpanted hero.

P&L GBP 2009
Live Tournaments (950)
Live Cash 1,451
Online Tournaments 2,239
Online Cash 170
Poker Festivals (3,113)
Rake (2,938)

Total (3,141)

Goal Nets

2009-11-03T06:42:00.001-08:00

My first memories of football were bizarrely the goal nets at the different grounds, and the fact that in the 80s you could tell instantaneously which ground a game on TV was taking place, simply from a glimpse of the goal structure behind the muddy overweight keeper.

This may seem a bizarre recollection, but I think this feature gave such character to the English and Italian games. I'm sure other countries has a similar phenomenon, but the English and Italian leagues were the only competitions I watched. Not the Germans though, who had standardised goal nets much like those in the Football League today - mid depth, with the nets supported by separate posts at the back.

Whilst the German league had all colour taken out of it by the regimented netting, the English league flourished with diversity.

We had the teams that favoured coloured nets to complement their teams - red at Anfield, blue at Goodison Park, yellow at Carrow Road and red at The City Ground.

We had the striped brigade which used the coloured netting and white netting - purple for The Hawthorns, red for Roker Park, black for Burnden Park and blue for Ewood Park.

We had goal structures with elaborate woodwork support behind the goal itself - think White Hart Lane, Elm Park, Ayresome Park, The Dell and The Manor Ground.

Chelsea and Fulham had goal frame set ups which looked like those little cages you take the cat to the vet in.

We had the super shallow nets at Loftus Road and Filbert Street, contrasting with the super deep nets at the Azteca and Guadalajara during Mexico 86.

And then we had the completely unique nets. You could almost fully furnish the back of John Lukic's goal at Highbury, so extensive was the room behind the goal-line. I'm also fairly certain that Millwall used to have vomit coloured netting at The Old Den.

Finally of course there was Wembley. So many memories are associated with those quarter segment beams and wide netting, and I'm certain they will live longer in the memory than anything the new Wembley throws up.

Euro 96 changed everything in England, as the stadiums were expanded, and the nettings rationalised. Suddenly Anfield looked like a standard Bundeslinga stadium, and the red netting of The City Ground was gone. Everything looked like Germany '74 and was to never change again, as the trend filtered down to the lower league clubs. I've never fathomed out why everyone decided to go this way - perhaps with the support posts at the back you get less net damage, thus saving clubs money. I still cling to the hope that one day I'll show up for a new season at Watford, and they will have abandoned the "Germany 74 Directive" and will have decked out Vicarage Road with bright yellow nets and an elaborate beam support network behind the posts.

I doubt it will ever happen - and there are no prizes for recalling which country won Euro 96...........

Leaving The Barracks

2009-10-29T04:36:00.000-07:00

It was a nice gentle Sit and Go night last night down at LC, and I fared well placing 3rd and 2nd to win about £100 total. The most interesting hand took place in the 2nd game:

There is a limp in early position and I check my option in the BB with 7c8c

Flop arrives 8d2c4c which looks promising

I check, opponent bets and I suspect he might be on a big pair with the UTG limp. I call.

Turn is a 7 giving me top two pair + flush draw.

A raising war ensues and we get it all in.

I flip my cards to noice............whoops...........6c7c, for only one pair, flush draw and gutshot. Hmmm - would have played this hand a bit different if I knew what my hole cards were! River banks to cripple me against TT.

I then win about 4 coin flips in a row to get back in contention, and eventually get heads up with Shazbo. I am outchipped about 4-1 but one double up makes it interesting. However, at that point Shazbo declares herself the winner and pockets the first place prize money! Playing heads up with the Misses sucks :(

Anyhow, since this entry has been brief I will finish with a story from the past:

When I was first starting out my career I joined Arthur Andersen, the giant American accounting firm. Andersens was a great place to work - exorbitant salaries, tons of young people, a huge drinking culture and massive entertainment budgets. Inter departmental drunken sex was almost actively encouraged. Every other Friday was spent either drinking to team build or drinking with clients and, if you managed to curry favour with the right partners, your career settled into a fairly serene upward curve of pay-rises and promotions.

Of course it wasn't all great. Any exam failure resulted in instant dismissal - failure was not tolerated. If you should upset any of the old guard partners, you would be marginalised and effectively cut out of the "Andersen family", becoming some kind of invisible person around the office until you bit the bullet and left. I saw both of these fates happen to colleagues. And, of course, Andersen was involved in a succession of high profile accountancy scandals. When I joined, the firm was just settling the DeLorean debacle with a huge out of court payment. When I jumped ship, Enron had just gone belly up, and their web of hidden liabilities and dubious profits were rapidly coming to light.

Anyway, back to the start of my adventure, I was packed off to a week long training camp in Holland which involved, well, mostly all night drinking, with a bit of corporate tax theory thrown in. At the end of the week, the new joiners were encouraged to spend the weekend sampling the delights of Amsterdam together, to continue the team building process which leads us to the Saturday night.

Myself and Wally were rooming together, as we were in the same team back at base, and were lying on our respective beds in our boxers catching a couple of winks before hitting the town. At this point, five of our female colleagues burst in, two of them the extremely fit 18 year old summer placement totty (Andersen recruitment policy seemed to be to hire women who were not only smart, but highly attractive). They all bundled onto Wally's bed and woke him up by effectively winding him. I thought this was too good a photo opportunity to miss and would go down well back at the office, so I grabbed the camera and jumped out of the bed landing firmly in a photo-taking stance.

I found this clearly hilarious, but.................something was wrong. My colleagues on the bed weren't laughing and were just staring back. I put the camera down and stared back at them.

Wally broke the silence, and said in a very matter of fact way:

"Jimbo.............your cock's hanging out"

:(

Toyundai HQ

2009-10-27T07:53:00.000-07:00

Mr Sugiyama stared distantly out of his window in Tokyo, stoked his chin and pondered.

Thirty five years I’ve spent dedicating myself to the Toyundai cause, and the frustration grows and grows. I delegate, because I am told to, but I’d be better off doing it myself. How could that imbecile Hokkaido not see what was happening? The pull production system is a key to our corporate philosophy and should deliver stock at exactly the point it is needed. That guy has stuck around, and been promoted way above his level – how could he have got his forecasts so wrong?

Sugiyama could almost visualise how tomorrow’s meeting with Chairman Fukashima was going to develop:

“Sugiyama – Am I correct in assuming you are aware we use just-in-time production here at Toyundai?”

“Yes sir”

“Glad to hear it after your length of service. However one thing is troubling me.”

“Sir”

“Can you explain why after all of this month’s orders have been fulfilled we still have an entire parking lot of Colons left?

“Sir – the team made some miscalculations……..”

“I don’t want to hear it!”

“Does is say fucking General Autos on the wall behind me? No – it says Toyundai! We are going to be a laughing stock like those halfwits in Detroit.. Nobody likes the shitty Colon anyway! And half of that lot are lime green! What were you thinking? The guys at Mitsibota are going to have a field day. ”

The phone rang, jolting Sugiyama back to the present. He fielded the call absentmindedly, musing that he might be out on his backside tomorrow, with nothing to show for his 35 years service except, perhaps, a complimentary Colon.

As I alluded in my last post, it’s been a pretty poor year on the poker front, but last night, FINALLY, I made a semi decent score.. I finished 8th in the Gutshot 8pm tournament, but more importantly claimed 3rd spot in the Full Tilt 60k guaranteed, winning $9k in total for the night.

The Baron, Devski and The Nit were all railing me at various points, and I supplied them with e-mail updates through the night to give them something to read this morning. The reason I did this was partly for good luck, as the last time I did that I won 25k Euro on Poker Trillion in 2007.

Anyhow – here are the notes. We pick up the action with me sitting in 3rd place with 22 remaining of 400/450 runners on a stack of 110k.

Flat called raise with 99 out of BB and gave up on an AKx board

Check raised initial raiser on low flop with air to get to 139k.. Now chip leader.

Loose 100k pot. I raise to 6.6k with AA in early position, button calls, BB squeezes all in and I shove, button folds. He has QJ. He flops 2 pair. Down to 88k.

Misread my hand for 2 pair and bet pot on river. Realise I have NO PAIR (how did I do that?) . Guy folds to my ten high and I move to 95k

I take on a big race. I raise 99 out of SB and BB shoves for 50k. I call and hold against KJ. Up to 165k

Bad beat for some punter aipf with KK v A4. Guy hits runner runner runner straight to the four. 14 left, we are in 8th spot.

Boom Time. I raise to 13k with J8, BB flats AT. Flop is AQT. I bet 25k he flat calls. Turn is a 9 filling my double gutter. He shoves, we call, he crys. Up to 267k and 1st in chips.

Lose a chunk with TT v KQ. He plays it badly though, flat calling multiple shells – he could have got a bit more from me there. Down to 200k.

I overcook a hand – UTG raises to 18k, I make it 60k with QQ. Flop is Q78 with 2 spades. There is so much in the middle so I shoved and he passed. Could have got more out of that one. Now at 267k

WTF? I raise UTG with QQ to 15k. Button moves all in for 150k. I think AK so decide to call to try and win the thing, but he has J9. Up to 400k now, but in 2nd spot with 5 remaining. The guy who cracked my Aces earlier is on fire, and now on 600k.

Down to 4 runners, I am on 280k after having a lot of raises shoved on. There are 2 others with similar stacks and one player on 600k

I fold A9 on a 9 high board. Felt I was facing overpair.

Win big pot making good call with 2nd pair.

Fold 66 to a shove from another stack.

At this point things go wrong, I find myself with 150k and about 12 big blinds after having to lay down a succession of initial raises with debatable holdings.

I shove 74 from the SB and get called by BB with KJ. Flop arrives…………..4……………..7…………..4. I am a genius.

KJ bloke tilts out next hand to leave us with three remaining.

I dribble down to 10 BB again and shove JT out of SB. BB has AQ and calls to knock me out in 3rd spot.

So there we are. Finally a good result, and just in time for the bankroll. Mr Sugiyama and Chairman Fukashima would be delighted at my efficient response to the changing demands of the business :)

P&L GBP 2009
Live Tournaments (1150)
Live Cash 1,136
Online Tournaments 2,239
Online Cash 321
Poker Festivals (3,113)
Rake (2,888)

Total (3,455)

Stop the Roundabout!

2009-10-26T09:15:00.000-07:00

Quick blog post on the cash game from Thursday night as promised. I have had a creeping suspicion for some time that my regular cash game was playing a bit too big for me, and this was confirmed last week.

Whilst I had felt a little under-rolled for a while, I always felt capable of at least playing on equal terms, but the events while I was away in Newcastle last week confirmed that I am getting a bit out of my league bankroll wise. In an 8am finish a couple of weeks ago, one player was in the hole for £3k, whilst another won £2.5k. I gather every stack was £500+ on the table after a couple of hours, and bear in mind this is a £1/£2 game! The multi straddles made the game huge.

After the tournament last week, I decided (unwisely) to play this new beast. Blinds had now risen to £2/£5 with buyins ranging from £200 to £500 or half the biggest stack. To be fair, the rise in blinds actually helped the game, as players were less keen to straddle, so in that respect I enjoyed it.

I whistled through three £500 buy ins in short order. First one down, was running AA into 9dTd on an all diamond flop - pot was £250 preflop, villain led for £200 and I shoved for £600 total. I then ran KK into AA all in pre-flop. It wasn't all bad news though, as I cracked Ioannis' AA with 88 all in pre-flop as well (this was a £600 pot I think). After reaching for my last re-buy, I only started making money after it switched to Omaha and I hit some good flops when we were short handed, and Devski was the unusual significant donor. I ended the session about £750 down I think.

Anyhow, it was clear to me I can't afford to play this cash game in its current guise. I have enough in the tank to budget significantly for the trip to Harlow to play Kev Q's cash game, and my home game in December. At least I'll be playing them on even terms I suppose. Apart from that, I guess I'll be limited to tournaments for the time being.

Onwards and upwards........

P&L GBP 2009
Live Tournaments (1150)
Live Cash 1,136
Online Tournaments (3344)
Online Cash 321
Poker Festivals (3,113)
Rake (2,822)

Total (8,972)

Memento

2009-10-23T02:09:00.000-07:00

I have this.............condition. I can't make new memories...........memories can change the shape of a room, it can change the suit of a card. Memories can be distorted. They are just an interpretation.

Hand1
Blinds are now 800/1600 and I have 9k remaining. I find Q7 UTG and three handed I move in. Jason snaps me with A4 and he holds to send me spinning out of the tournament, getting £110 for third place.

I felt I played well, and it was nice to cash in my first live tournament in ages.

I don't want the truth. I'll make up my own truth. I lie to myself to be happy. Nothing wrong with that. We all do it.

Hand2
Four players remain, folded round to me in the SB. I find KK and decide to just make up the SB to 600, but Jason unfortunately checks in the BB.

Flop is A, Q, 4

I bet 1200, and Jason makes it 3500. I call.

Turn is a J.

I check, and Jason instantly moves all in for another 10k. This will eliminate me in fourth if I get his wrong. Sigh. I imagine Jason would have raised an Ace out of the blind, but he has bet this hand so strongly I fear he has got lucky and flopped 2 pair like Q4 or something. I glace at my photo of Jason and flip it over to consult the scrawl on the back.

"Don't believe his lies"

I don't trust my notes and fold. Jason shows a Queen :(

Hand3
Blinds at 400-800, I make it 2200 on the button with 7s9s (we are still four handed). Jason moves all in for 12k and I fold.

Hand4
Blinds at 400-800, I raise UTG to 2200 with QT, and Jason moves all in for 11k. I fold.

Hand5
Blinds at 300-600. I raise on the button to 1700 with Kh9h. We are four handed. Jason moves all in for 9k and I fold.

Hand6
Blinds at 300-600, I raise on the button to 1700 with Js4s. Shazbo calls out of the BB. Flop arrives J, 7, 7. Check, I bet 2800 and Shazbo folds. My stack now swells to 22k of the 60k in play.

Hand7
Blinds at 150-300. On the very next hand, Wilkinson raises to 900 and I make it 2500 in mid position with AA. Wilkinson passes.

I look at Ioannis sitting forlornly at the side, having been eliminated from the tournament.

"Ioannis - who did this to you?"
"What?"
"Who did this to you?
"You did!"

Hand8
Blinds at 100-200 - my stack is 7k. I find TT in early position and make it 500. I get four callers :(

Flop is JJ8, with two diamonds.

Ioannis checks, I bet 1200, new guy calls next to act, Ioannis shoves for 3000 total. I um and arr, and figure Ioannis has either a Jack or a flush draw, and given I will still have a workable stack if wrong, I take the risk and call. Other guy calls as well!

Turn is a deuce.

I check, other guy now bets 1k into a pot of 11k! I call, fearing the worst.

River is bingo! Ten, giving me the house.

I check, other guy bets 1k again, and I move all in for my last 2.5k. He calls and has 55 (!) and Ioannis disgustedly throws down his Jack. Lucky, lucky, lucky. Massive stack now of nearly 20k.

Hand9
The racist raises in early position, and I call with KhQh on the button. Flop arrives all low, Racist continuation bets and I pass.

I went to the Loose Cannon on Wednesday night. We played a £50 tournament with 12 runners, and a big cash game afterwards. I'll blog the cash game later, but for now here are the tournament key hands.

Now................where was I?

Just ran terribly online

2009-10-12T14:01:00.000-07:00

Just played FT $1/$2 Round of Each and disasterously lost $1k. Nothing went right, and got in some bad spots as well as getting unlucky (which led to bad play).

Highlights include:

1) Got in on the flop with nut flush draw in holdem 3 times (twice with overs) and lost the lot.

2) Got it in once on the turn, once on the flop with nut straight in Omaha - lost both to flushes, although Dev and Baron both had straight draw back up as well.

3) Played AAxx softly in Omaha, hit set, potted turn against Dev. He hits wheel on river and I have to pay him off on river as my hand is disguised.

4) Fast play JJ in holdem, Dev gets to turn in potted calls with 44 (holding gutshot on flop). He hits set on turn and I pay off as have 65% of my stack in the middle already.

5) Final hand I have set of tens on the turn in Omaha on JT45 board with 2 hearts. We get it all in on turn, and opponent has up and down + flush draw. I am 53% according to Nit, but in reality I am only a 10% shot the way I ran.

P&L GBP 2009
Live Tournaments (1,210)
Live Cash 1,851
Online Tournaments (3,344)
Online Cash 521
Poker Festivals (3,113)
Rake (2,784)

Total (8,080)

Darlo Sainsburys

2009-10-12T03:31:00.000-07:00

I'm up just outside Newcastle this week, staying with Shazbo at her parents' house. We ventured into Darlington yesterday to buy some bits and bobs for the week and it's an odd place I can tell you. We were given the guided tour by Shazbo's niece from the safety of the jeep, and I had a sense of foreboding almost immediately when she said:

"That's the high street over there, wouldn't go there. The train station is up there - definitely don't go up there."

I shuffled nervously around the supermarket, observing some cracking haircuts (do you remember the "step" look?), before escaping back to County Durham.

I had a look around for some poker to play this week, focusing on the clubs in Newcastle (definitely NOT playing in Darlo), but all the tournaments were self dealt and £30 max buy in, so that's not really an option. Some of the cash games in Aspers look okay, so might pop in there one night if I am in town for a quick session.

Poker in the last week has been pretty quiet - I played 3 online Omaha sessions, winning a small amount or breaking even each time which was annoying, considering all 3 times I got off to strong starts. I definitely play better at the start of a session, before being over-expansive with the big stack.

I also played one live cash game and finished up about £250, but most of this was by getting all in with QQ against AA and AK, and expertly conjuring a flop of JT983 :)

Our regular game, now has two big events to look forward to to finish off the year. Firstly my home game in early December has an unprecedented number of runners this time, and will be an all dayer including 3 tournaments and doubtless all night cash.

Secondly we've been invited by Kevin Q, to join him at his Harlow club in late November to take part in a marathon cash game. The Low Stakes Poker Open is running at his club on the same day, but he's asked us to come to put up the opposition for his regular cash players. Kev has kindly laid on a minibus, and has also named the last dog race of the night after us and we get to present the trophy (Harlow dog track is below the poker club), which is a nice touch. Hopefully Kev has laid this on due to him enjoying our company, as opposed to thinking we are huge spewtards who are going to line the pockets of his local boys ;) Kev is a top guy - we've played a fair few times down at the Loose Cannon, when our home ground was filling the rafters, and we're all looking forward to the trip. So far myself, the Baron, Nit, Fluke and Devski are all pencilled in.

I'll blog later in the week if I do make it to Aspers - otherwise will be next week.

Laters

P&L GBP 2009
Live Tournaments (1,210)
Live Cash 1,851
Online Tournaments (3,344)
Online Cash 1,096
Poker Festivals (3,113)
Rake (2,754)

Total (7,474)

International ROE tournament

2009-10-02T08:06:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday I made my first visit to the International for some time to play in the £30+£30 round of each tournament.

Hand1
Play Qh9h on the button, pick up pot on a Queen high board on the turn.

Hand2
Raise AQ to 125 UTG and get two callers including the BB.
Flop is Q, 8, 7
I bet 300 and BB calls.
Turn is an Ace
I bet 500 and BB folds.

Hand3
I check my option in the BB with AQ44 or some such nonsence
Flop arrives 4d, Qc, Jc
I bet 200 and get min-raised by the cutoff. He has already misread a hand once, trying to play a three card flush, so I have no idea what this means so I call.
Turn is a 2h
I check call cutoff's bet of 400
River is 6h - an uber blank
Cutoff bets 500 and I can't think of a single draw that came in for him. I make the call and win - our man was trying to play a three card straight this time.

Hand4
Blinds now 150-300.
I raise from cutoff to 800 with the monster 7c3h
BB calls, and then checks the Ace high flop
I bet 1400 and he calls
The board is rainbow, so I can't see what draw he can be on, so I give up on the hand, and he wins it with a bet on the river.

I take my add-on and am left with 7700 for the freezeout section which is below average.

I fold a few orbits to go down to 6500.

Hand5
4 limpers for 400 and I find AQQ9 DS in the small blind.
I pot it for 2k total.
Gabriel calls from the button.
Flop is a disasterous looking 4, 6, 9 with two spades (I have none)
I decide to follow through though and pot it again which puts Gabriel all in.
He makes an easy call with a pair + flush draw + straight draw.
The turn brings the 3 which completes his straight draw.
I am left with 700 chips.

Hand6
I get nothing for the whole orbit, and figure I best move in UTG with the final Omaha hand which is AQ45. I get called in 3 spots and don't win.

A dissapointment, but I very much enjoyed playing a live tournament again.

The following evening I registered a £240 win in the Loose Cannon cash game, so at least I ended up with a small profit for the weeks poker activity, although I'm still a bit gutted about the £700 hit to my stack in the last post!

Have a good weekend all.

P&L GBP 2009
Live Tournaments (1210)
Live Cash 1,561
Online Tournaments (3344)
Online Cash 976
Poker Festivals (3,113)
Rake (2,714)

Total (7,844)

Oooooffff!

2009-10-01T07:45:00.000-07:00

Whilst in Hamleys two years ago at Christmas time, my son, who was 2 at the time, was marvelling at the Scalextric display that was going on. Two youngsters were playing on it, powering their cars round the huge circuit. During the final lap the cars were neck and neck, but unfortunately Jake reached over and picked the Audi TT up off the track as it came by, and stared at it intently in his hand, thus enabling the miniature Renault rally car through to take the chequered flag.

Whoops. I walked over, took the car off him and put it back on the race track. I also lifted the nipper up in the crowded store to move him away from the track, to prevent further audience participation in the race. Of course, this was the end of the world to a 2 year old, and a tantrum ensued. As I held him up, Jake flailed away with his arms and legs, and unfortunately one leg swung up and caught me flush in the nuts.

I realised I had about a two second time window before this was going to be agony so I beckoned my mum over, placed Jake gently down on the floor smiling, before collapsing in a heap the middle of the shop. Security thought I had suffered some kind of heart attack and rushed over telling the other shoppers to "give him space". Fortunately, I was able to communicate my predicament my pointing at my nads and grunting, and after about 20 seconds I was able to crawl behind the Subbutteo counter to suffer in private.

I had a similar rush of pain in the cash game at the International last night. I sat down with £100 after the tournament (which I will blog later) and built my stack up to £700 over about five hours. The highlight of the table was the war between the Baron, and some other guy who were raising and re-raising blind regularly. I generated a fair proportion of my chips simply jamming AJ/AQ and the like after they had put £30 in the pot without looking.

I was just about to leave, when this hand comes up.

UTG makes it £5, I make it £20 next to act with QQ. Crazy man calls blind from the big blind with a stack of £900 and UTG folds.

Flop arrives 5,7,8 rainbow.

Crazy man bets £30 blind. I decide to put an end to this nonsense and hoover up the £70 by moving all in for my £700.

He checks one card..............then the other.

"Oh, I call"

He has 46 for the flopping straight. I feel like I am on the floor again in Hamleys.

Marvellous.

P&L GBP 2009
Live Tournaments (1210)
Live Cash 1,281
Online Tournaments (3344)
Online Cash 976
Poker Festivals (3,113)
Rake (2,664)

Total (8,074)

Chef Pants

2009-09-25T03:23:00.000-07:00

I suffered my second trouser split of the year on Tuesday, as I sat down at work. As a result, I have finally resigned myself to purchasing a bigger pair of strides, rather than pretending that I haven't put on any weight.

Speaking of trousers, Honest Dave (the Loose Cannon cardroom manager) was putting in a stint as chef for the evening last night. He wandered out of the kitchen resplendent in not only a chef's shirt, but also those blue and white chequered pants. Whilst his outfit bordered on ludicrous, the trousers looked incredible spacious and comfy. I am sorely tempted to swipe them, spray them black and use them as my work attire going forward.

On the poker front, I found it hard to focus last night, losing £700. My job is under serious threat of redundancy at the moment and unfortunately that state of mind isn't conducive to playing good cash game poker.

I didn't play well at all, although I started well flopping a set and 2 pair on consecutive hands to build my stack up by an extra £150. However, over the next few hours the wheels fell off, in a succession of poorly played hands.

Firstly I snap called a shove from Jimbo2, when he looked a his blind hand for the first time on the turn. The board read KKT7 and I held QT. My read was good on Jimbo as I was ahead of his T7, but unfortunately Ioannis behind me was waiting with K5 to scoop.

I then folded KK on a board of AJ874 (with 3 hearts) to a bet and a re-raise on the river. The re-raise took the hand down - Nemo folding his Jack to Ioannis' monster King high (!)

The final debacle occurred when I ran a bluff with my last £250, painting a pretty believable picture on a board of 957A with my 45. Unfortunately my turn shove was looked up by Ioannis (again!) with KK and I was done for the night. My mistake here was that I didn't really have enough behind to make my shove painful for Ioannis to call, and added to the fact he was well up at that stage (making the call more likely) it wasn't really a good spot at all.

Anyhow, I don't think I'll play more cash until my job situation is resolved, so I will be trying to knock off a tournament or two a week in the meantime.

P&L GBP 2009
Live Tournaments (1150)
Live Cash 1,371
Online Tournaments (3344)
Online Cash 976
Poker Festivals (3,113)
Rake (2,649)

Total (7,909)

Comedy Online Chat

2009-09-21T02:44:00.000-07:00

I played a 4 hour online cash Omaha session on Sunday, dropping down a level to 0.5/$1 and ground out a $200ish profit. I played pretty solid, and only had my stack at risk once (which I lost), holding top set + middle made straight verses top made straight on the turn.

Not much of interest to report, except one punter who delivered some supreme irony.

Hand1
My stack is $170, opponent stack is $60. I hold AJJ9 on a flop of AJ9. He gets his whole stack in with A956 and hits an Ace for the win. Since I have both the Ace and 9 blockers he has one outered me. No big deal, it's only a $120 pot.

Hand2
About three hands later, the guy above gets his new $120 stack in once again. This time he has a big wrap + flush draw against top 2 so was in ok shape. The turn and the river blank and Mr One Outer is bust from the game.

As he is leaving, he types in the chatbox:

"Sigh......What a joke, I ALWAYS miss."

!!!!!

*edit" - As pointed out by Uncle Paulie in the comments, I can't have had the Ace in the AJJ9 hand, as I would have had a bigger house. I must have had 9JJK (or Q). I have done him a diservice and it's a two outer instead of one outer ignoring his remote running straight possibility.

P&L GBP 2009
Live Tournaments (1150)
Live Cash 2,071
Online Tournaments (3344)
Online Cash 976
Poker Festivals (3,113)
Rake (2,649)

Total (7,209)

Good Value Bet

2009-09-17T08:38:00.001-07:00

This weeks cash game was another success down at the Loose Cannon, as I registered a win pushing £300. I won a whole series of small pots to get my £100 stack up to £700 by one point. In fact, the only pot I played where one of us was all in, was when I held the nut heart flush draw against the Baron's King draw, and I paired my six on the river to win (obv Ace high was good before that anyhow).

Unfortunately I lose a big pot to Hass to halve my stack close to the end of the night, which my opponent played nicely.

I raise UTG with 8cTc to £3 (we are 5 handed and it is a pretty loose deep stacked game by now). Hass makes it £15 next to act, one other caller. I call with my speculative hand.

Flop is Ts6d4s

I lead for £32, and Hass calls.

Turn is 5c. Now Hass is a man who is partial to chasing a draw, so I am worried he's still on the spade draw here. I bet £75 and Hass calls - hmmm.

River is Qh, leaving me with second pair.

I check, and Hass bets £200 into the £260 pot. Hmmm - the spade draw missed, and Hass hasn't shown strength on either the flop or turn. I really felt my ten was good here as people rarely bet their medium strength hands on the river, as the patterns become more polarised.

I make the call and Hass has JJ. Wow - great value bet there indeed, even with the Queen coming down on the river. Well played.

Unfortunately that halves my winnings, but an interesting hand even if I played it poorly. My mistake was playing a hand aiming to flop a disguised monster, but then continuing with it when I only hit top pair. I don't mind playing it pre-flop, but the turn in particular was spew.

Next game is a visit to the Empire on Monday.

P&L GBP 2009
Live Tournaments (1150)
Live Cash 2,071
Online Tournaments (3344)
Online Cash 866
Poker Festivals (3,113)
Rake (2,649)

Total (7,319)

Adventures of the Zoid Pilot (Part 2)

2009-09-14T06:40:00.000-07:00

So back to the Zoid story……………

Back in the final year of university I woke up and immediately knew something was amiss. My comrade in arms, Rolly, was asleep in the armchair beside mine wearing a pair of stained plastic gloves (?), and the TV was on in the background. I could tell from the “England ODI Clock”, that it was approximately 11:45am, as Mark Ramprakash was making his way back to the pavilion.

Something was wrong……….. burning pain………..on my head. Hmmm – sticky. I prodded Rolly, and pointed at my head grunting. I could see it in his eyes that he soon registered that there was a problem, and he rushed me to the kitchen to wash the bleach out of my hair. Phew - problems over..........or so it seemed.

Winding back to pre-memory loss of this incident, it transpires that following a 20 hour drunken wine rampage around Birmingham, I had decided to go blond, and visited the chemists at 8:30am as soon as it opened to purchase some women’s bleach. After application, nothing happened (my hair was very dark at the time). At this point I returned to said chemist, with Rolly nervously waiting outside, to demand a refund. Naturally, I don’t remember any of the conversation, but to get me out of my shop he sold me a tiny bottle of prescription bleach from the back of the shop. I have no idea what prescription bleach is (is it the stuff Whacko used on his skin?), but worrying I was only charged £3.75 for the bottle, and told “not to come back”. Excellent, this should do the trick.

Myself and Rolly returned to the house to perform the operation at about 10ish, and sat down to wait for the bleach to kick in. And then layed back. And then fell asleep :(

Anyhow, once this apparent chemical weapon had been washed from my scalp. The colour began to change as it dried off. It went……….errrr………….gold. Not blond, not yellow, not orange, but metallic gold. FFS. I had longish hair at the time so looked like a right spanner. You know things have not gone to plan, when people go out of the way on the way back from campus, ring on your doorbell, laugh and then walk off. It was at this point that I realised the metallic colour had a bit of an android look about it, and some of the smartarses in the house were trying to get me to walk around campus in a golden romper suit, to complete the zoid pilot effect.

One thing was for sure – it was a dry spell on the women front.

Anyhow – I needed to take action, as the pain was getting worse:

Plan1: I went to Toni and Guys to request a skinhead. They took one look at my chemically burned scalp and said they couldn’t do it for legal reasons. They suggested I seek medical advice.

Plan2: I went to a really rough Brummie barbers to request a skinhead. He said “no chance”, and suggested I seek medical advice.

Plan3: I sought medical advice. Doctor gave me some painkillers, and lectured me on alcohol abuse. He then sent me home and told me to come back “if my hair fell out”.

Sigh. What an episode. The worst was still to come however. For the next month, I’d religiously wash my hair every night before bed with conditioner and mild shampoo (as its texture felt like a brillo pad). Every night I’d go to bed, and during the night my chemical burns would secret puss like there was no tomorrow. On a good day, I’d just wake up with solid hair. On a bad day, my head would be stuck solid to the pillow. This went on for four weeks :(

One saving was that I didn’t have to spend a penny on hair gel. I’d wash it in the morning and then, Bob’s your uncle, by 11am it was nicely styled with yellow puss again.

Anyhow, as proved by this and the last cash game, drinking wine = VERY bad things happen to me. Back to beer this week I feel.

Adventures of the Zoid Pilot (Part 1)

2009-09-14T02:51:00.000-07:00

The last time I got this drunk, things ended very badly, as I woke up with both metallic gold hair and 3rd degree burns, and resembled one of those golden android fellas who piloted the "Zoids" toys in the early eighties (younger readers might want to scan Wikipedia at this juncture). Anyhow more on that later in part 2:

At the last cash game, I made the inspired decision as part of my new healthier living drive to drink wine, instead of beer. Unfortunately, when it comes to wine and poker, I find it very hard to keep track of how drunk I am and tend to overdo it. As a result, I went from merry, to drunk with patchy memory, to paralytic with complete memory loss. The evening ended with my being discovered "au naturel" by the Misses on the landing unconscious, with a big gash across my top lip. Having been assisted into bed, I promptly fell out of it twice in the first ten minutes. I wasn't flavour of the month as you can imagine.

In view of the above, some of the hands I played have some incomplete information, but below is how it panned out:

Bear in mind this is a £1/£1 no-limit game (!)

Hand1
Ioannis raises to £4
2 other callers, I call on button with QT
Flop arrives Q, J, 8 giving me top pair + gutshot
Checked round, I bet £15.
Ioannis calls.
Turn is a blank and we go check/check
River is a 9 filling my straight
Check, I bet £20 and Ioannis check raises me to £50. I suddenly realise that KT for the open ended on the flop is pretty likely, so I grudgingly call and lose to the higher straight.

Hand2
Stradders: £1/£1/£2/£4/£8
Baron makes it £25 blind
I move all in with AJ for £120ish
Baron calls with JT and I win.

A few hours later.......

Hand3
I flop bottom pair on an all heart board. Nemo moves all in on the flop and I put him on the bare ace of hearts and make a crazy call. He does indeed have the single heart, but I hold up to get to £750 (although still in the hole). Not a smart play by me there as he has overs as well.

Hand4
Fluke limps for £1, Nemo makes it £25, pssibly one caller and I make it £200 with QQ. Fluke pushes for £600 and I have to dwell. I find the call and he has 88, and the board runs out XXXXX to give me a monster stack.

Memory going.........but I cover everyone at this point.

Hand5
I raise with JJ, and lost a big pot to Nemo, after we get it all in on an unknown flop and I lose to a straight.

Hand6
I raise with unknown cards, and lost a big pot to The Baron, after we get it all in on an unknown flop. The unknown river means I lose to an unknown holding.

Hand7
I lose a big pot against an unknown opponent, raising unknown cards, and getting it all in on the flop. My unknown holding, beat's unknown's unknown holding.

After doing a wallet audit of both money and IOUs, I appear to have won in the region of £650.

If any of the guys are reading, feel free to put any hands that occurred in the comments.

Zoid story in the next posting.

P&L GBP 2009
Live Tournaments (1150)
Live Cash 1,771
Online Tournaments (3344)
Online Cash 866
Poker Festivals (3,113)
Rake (2,625)

Total (7,595)

Online Weekend 2 - WCOOP - $215 Omaha

2009-09-07T06:34:00.000-07:00

I decided to play this tournament on Friday, as I hadn't had any poker action in the week, and was pleasantly surprised to find a really well structured Omaha tournament. The 5k starting stack, with blinds beginning and 10-20 and gently increasing gave players a ton of play, and I rarely got the feeling that I needed to "double up or die", as I sometimes find in other Omaha events.

I didn't cash - busting about 600th with 420 paying, but enjoyed the event. I made some brief notes while I was playing - bulleted below:

- Get from 5k starting stack to 10k with a bunch of small pots playing solidly, before running a river bluff and sneaking to 13k.

- Grind up to 16k before first set back. I hold TTxx on a board of JJT99 and get check raised on the river, after very passive betting before that. I should fold here, but I decide there is a chance he is being a moron with the nut flush. I tank call, but lose to a straight flush. Back down to 10k.

- Run a check-raise river bluff - down to 6k.

- Run a check-raise river bluff - up to 9k.

- Slowly move back up to 16k after winning a load of small pots, mostly in position.

- Lose 10k pot :( I hold KKxx on a 555xx three heart board. I lose to AAxx.

- After the above hand I am down to 6k, with 950 left and way below average now.

- Call a short stack all in with T987 and win to get to 8k.

- Key hand - make a big call on the river with Queen flush (3rd nuts) when he puts me all in. He has KKxx for a total bluff and I get to 19k. I am sitting 250th now with 650 remaining.

- Drift down to 16k and now critical hand. Scandi has been 3 betting very frequently pre-flop, irrespective of position. I raise button with AhJs7h8s to 900. Scandi pots it to 3k or so and I decide to take a stand in position and call. Flop is QT4 with 2 hearts, given me nut flush draw, gutshot + potential overpair. Scandi bets 5k, and I shove for 13k total. He pretty much has the odds to call, but only has KKragrag. Turn and river blank out and I am down to about 1k as I have him slightly covered. Not sure how I feel about this hand. Ruined my whole tournament, but if Scandi is going to 3 bet KKgarbagegarbage you have to make a stand, or he is just going to run over you. My problem was I didn't have much fold equity with my shove. Despite that, I still had 13 outs (if they were all out there), so it was a flip I guess, but maybe that is a situation I should have avoided.

- Get my micro stack in with live cards, but don't manage to hit anything and am busto in 600th.

P&L GBP 2009
Live Tournaments (1150)
Live Cash 1061
Online Tournaments (3344)
Online Cash 866
Poker Festivals (3,113)
Rake (2,565)

Total (8,245)

Online weekend 1 - invasion of the retards

2009-09-04T15:45:00.000-07:00

I plan on playing a lot of online tournaments this weekend. I opted to play super solid and this what happened. Will blog WCOOP Omaha separately (no cash but big run).

Tournament 1
3bet AK to 1200, guy with 3600 calls a third of his stack. Flop is all low with two clubs. I put him in and he snaps getting terrible odds with KcQc. GG me.

Tournament 2
Guy raises to 600 - I shove for 2600 with 66 out of BB. He calls with A2. GG me.

Tournament3
Guy raises to 600 and I shove for 2200 with KK from SB. He calls with AT sooted. GG me.

Tournament 4
This is my favourite. We are well in the money in a FT tournament. 100 left, 162 get paid, with massive weighting to the top places. I have 31k, a fair bit above average. I make it 4k in early position with KK. Chip leader shoves for 108k (!). I call and he has A8 soooted. GG me. You have won $44!

I am livid at the moment. I'm 172 out of 388 remaining in my final tournament in the PS 40k but am on ubertilt.

Where do they find these utter halfwits from?

I'll finish on an interesting hand:

I hold QdJd. Board is AAKTx triple diamond board so I have second nut flush. Checked around on flop AND turn and board came down in that order. He bets, I raise about 30% of my stack and he shoves. Easy pass? I guess so - must have AK, KK right? I dunno. Anyhow, I binned it. Should I be raising there? Betting was so passive before that.

Anyhow - on to tomorrow.

I should sleep on Sundays

2009-09-01T04:10:00.001-07:00

Another bank holiday, another crack at the Sunday majors, another hole in the bankroll :(

I played a few Sunday tournaments on the spur of the moment at the weekend, but it again proved an expensive failure unfortunately. I only entered the tournaments starting from 9pm onwards, so total meltdown was averted, but I only registered one meagre cash for my significant outlay.

Didn't keep any notes, but the tournaments I remember:

Stars Sunday Million
Worked my 10k stack up to 16k at the first break without showdown, making some fairly aggressive moves. Unfortunately I then got somebody all in on the turn holding the King flush, and their set housed up on the river to set me back down to 9k. I never really recovered from this momentum loss, and eventually made a bad read going with 44 on a low board, but opponent had an overpair.

Gutshot 250k Guaranteed
Worked my stack from 10k to 13k when this elimination hand came up:
Raised in mid position to 600 with KsJc and was called by the button + BB.
Flop arrives a promising AQT, with two spades, to give me the nuts. I lead for 1600, and the button min-raises me to 3200. I decide to slowplay after the button passes and, the turn disasterously arrives 9 spades to complete the flush. I check, button makes it 4k and I am not sure what to do. Flush is a decent part of his range, but I don't think I can lay down after showing weakness on the flop, plus I have the nut flush draw, so I move in and he calls with the Jack flush for 2nd nuts to leave me drawing to a spade which I miss :( Given he had a gutshot straight flush draw on the flop I'm not sure he lays down if I re-raise on the flop in any case, so probably same result whatever happens.

UltimateBet 200k Guaranteed
I outdraw a small stack on the river for his tournament life, when I put him on a draw, to give me a promising early stack. However, after a fair few levels, I make a 3 bet pre-flop with TT and the flop arrives JJx. This isn't the worst flop in the world, and given that I only really have a pot sized bet left I stick it in, and unfortunately he has called my re-raise pre-flop with KJ. Game over.

Speaking of the suckout in the UB tournament, the guy went berserk in the chatbox which always find hilarious. I copied it below for your amusement - I've changed the guys username to "angry youth" to protect his identity. I particularly like the bit where he wants to "reach inside the game to punch me in the face". Good old keyboard warriors :)

AngryYouth: gotta be fk n kiddding me
AngryYouth: fk n rediculous
AngryYouth: FK
AngryYouth: 'sdlkfjsd'fjasd
AngryYouth: fjds
AngryYouth: foesf:ef
AngryYouth: eofk;OFJASE
AngryYouth: [OFJKfOKE
AngryYouth: F' WKE[OWEF
AngryYouth: ;EF
AngryYouth: :LASEK F
AngryYouth: [ASEKF
AngryYouth: SE[s:dFKAS
AngryYouth: :LFKASEZsE
AngryYouth: 'F[KSEKAES
HORNET75: u ok mate?
AngryYouth: no
AngryYouth: wish i could reach inside this game and punch you in the fac
HORNET75: ok
HORNET75: nice one
AngryYouth: absolute lousy call all the way down
AngryYouth: how the fk do you call that bs all the way down
HORNET75: have a nice night ;)
AngryYouth: pair of fk n 7
AngryYouth: piss off
AngryYouth: you wont make it past the next hour
HORNET75: yeah - was an interesting hand huh?
AngryYouth: lousy fk n donk

P&L GBP 2009
Live Tournaments (1150)
Live Cash 1061
Online Tournaments (3113)
Online Cash 866
Poker Festivals (3,113)
Rake (2,505)

Total (7,695)

Gone in a Flash

2009-08-26T07:08:00.000-07:00

I played in a £20 rebuy round of each private tournament at the Loose Cannon on Tuesday night, and things were going along nicely until I lost a big Omaha pot preflop, and that was that.

My major gripe with Omaha tournaments is that you invariably have just take a hand and go with it after the first few levels, and you are rarely that far ahead of your opponent, and thus can find yourself on the sidelines in short order.

This is exactly what happened :(

Hand1
Sir Mike raises to 150 in early position, Dev makes it 475 and McDee calls. I find QQ in the BB and move all in for my starting stack of 2,000. Dev and Martin both call - Dev with TT and McDee with AT, so I have a great spot. I hold to get an early triple through to 6k. Mike makes a good fold with JJ in this hand.

I am very quiet for the rest of the hour and my stack moves up to 9k after I take the add-on.

Hand2
I have been very well behaved, so decide to raise to 600 in the cutoff on Mike's BB with 4c5c. Mike calls (oh-oh) and the flop misses me totally (I think there was an ace there). I continuation bet 1000 and Mike check-raises me to 2500. I fold my rags and Mike shows King high! Cheeky.

Hand3
We are now at the 200-400 level, and The Baron is the sole blind, following the elimination of Jalfont. Mike makes it 1200 UTG and I find AsAcJs7d. This is pretty much the perfect spot for AA as I can re-pot and get 4k of my remaining 7k stack in pre-flop, and of course shove on any flop. Mike puts me all in in any case, with the very respectable KKQT. Of course I make the call and am ahead, but not by much, although I do have his spades + the Jack is a key card for his hand straight wise.

Anyhow, a King pops up on the flop and that is me eliminated. £40 spent, and a very fun tournament, but there really does seem to be a lot of luck needed when playing tournament Omaha.

I also make a micro loss on the cash table afterwards. It could have been much worse though, as I got my second stack all in on a flop of A34 in Omaha holding the set of aces, only to see Dev turn up with an unlikely K552 for the wheel. I gave Dev some grief for his starting hand, but to be fair it was only a £10 pot preflop I think, and my grumbles were purely frustration. Fortunately the poker gods fired a lightening bolt at the villain, as the board immediately paired up to leave him drawing dead. That would have left me £300 in the hole if the straight had held up, but that stroke of good fortune allowed me to escape with a £25 loss.

P&L GBP 2009
Live Tournaments (1150)
Live Cash 1061
Online Tournaments (2234)
Online Cash 866
Poker Festivals (3,113)
Rake (2,445)

Total (7,015)

Better Spots?

2009-08-24T08:09:00.000-07:00

I had the luxury of some spare time on Saturday, so fired up a couple of those Full Tilt $75 45 man SNGs to pass the time before the football started. For some reason, I played very well, probably due to the spontaneity of the game leading to me not putting any pressure on myself. As a result, I took down 2nd place in one of the events for a cheeky $770ish return.

Since I rarely play online these days, when I do, I tend to focus on the big Sunday events, and pencil the session in days or even weeks in advance. This is probably a bad idea, as I end up feeling pressure to do well, entering too many tournaments and often playing when I don't even feel like it.

Anyhow, an interesting hand came up heads up which I have discussed with the guys and the consensus is that I made an error.

We had been played heads up for about 15 mins so far and I appear to have the edge, winning 1k here and there and generally chiseling away a lead. The stack sizes are about 42k v 26k when this situation comes up.

Blinds have just gone to 400-800 when opponent suddenly insta-shoves pre-flop from the SB. I have AJ suited in the BB. This is the first time he has shoved pre-flop, although prior to this hand, he was making some odd plays on the flop (eg limp, check, flop comes down and then when I check he shoves for 25k into a pot of 1500).

My plan had been to trap him, but when I saw AJ I pretty much snap called, mostly due to his tomfoolery shoving on previous flops.

I retrospect, I think I should pass in this spot. I doubt he does his overbet shove with a big pair, but most of the time I am going to be crushed or racing. I guess a small part of his range is Arag - AJ, but not enough to risk the call. I suppose I just saw this as a way to end the tournament, and I don't think I've ever passed AJ pre-flop heads up, although admittedly this situation of him shoving 30BBs is a bit bizarre. Any thoughts? Do you pass or call? The Baron/Fluke/Dev and The Nit were 3-1 in favour of passing.

Anyhow, he won the hand and after I fought back to a stack of about 21k, I got it all in on the turn with top pair, but he had turned two pair for the win :(

Still, a decent little run out, and it only took a couple of hours so I'm going to try and play a few more of these.

P&L GBP 2009
Live Tournaments (1110)
Live Cash 1086
Online Tournaments (2234)
Online Cash 866
Poker Festivals (3,113)
Rake (2,435)

Total (6,940)

Carbon Copy

2009-08-21T05:48:00.000-07:00

I went to the Loose Cannon last night for our private £100 tournament followed by cash, and it was an exact replica of last week. I bust out of the tournament in short order, before winning that money back and extra during the cash game.

The cash game was very lively indeed, with The Baron, Nemo and The Racist all getting stuck in frequently, so I played very tight and just mopped up a few pots here and there to finish up about £150.

The tournament had eight runners, and panned out as follows:

Hand1
We are playing 4 handed with 4 dead stacks on the table, which can lead to carnage in the battle to nick the blinds. Tom limps, Nemo makes it 250 and I find AA on the button. I make it 1k and Nemo is the only caller. I make a conscious effort to keep the pot small as nobody else is here yet, so we check it down to the river and then I call a 2.5k river bet to win and get a good early start.

Hand2
Fluke limps UTG for 200 in level 3, Tom calls and I call on the button with Kc8c. The blinds are still dead stacks.

Flop arrives KQ8 rainbow to give me top and bottom.

Check, check, I bet 600. Fluke calls and Baron moves all in for something ludicrous like 15k (he has doubled up off the Nit early on).

Hmmmm - I fancy I am ahead of the Baron who I put on JT, and is just using his extra chips as a battering ram with his decent draw. He could have KQ I guess as he does overbet big hands sometimes but I imagine it is unlikely. Fluke flat called and is a worry. He could have JT as well, or perhaps KQ or a set where I am stuffed. I decide to take the safe route and pass my two pair.

Baron has 44 and Fluke has a set of 8s to take the pot down.

Hand3
I raise QhTh UTG + 2 to 800 at the 150-300 level. Chan is in the big blind and makes it 1800. Looks like a monster, but I have position and a hand that can flop big.

Flop is T, 8, 7 with one club.

Check, check

Turn is a Jack clubs. Check Check.

River is a King clubs

Chan bets 2k and I pass. Chan shows Ace clubs.

Hand4
Folded round and I make up the SB to 400 with Jc6c

Flop arrives J, T, 7 with two diamonds

Fluke leads for 600, I make it 2k with 4k behind and Fluke insta shoves having me well covered. Hmmmmm. I think there is a big difference between bet, raise, shove and just bet, shove and I felt Fluke was very strong here. I can't see me being ahead with my top pair, bad kicker so fold to live to fight another day.

Hand5
Chan opens to 1200 and I move all in for 4k with AK and he calls with QQ. As always, Chan wins the race and I am eliminated in 5th spot and head off to the cash game.

Next week I'm thinking of playing the £200 International event as part of their Paradise Poker festival. Failing that, I'm sure there will be some more Loose Cannon action, before a welcome weekend away in Oxford over the bank holiday with Shazbo.

Have a good weekend folks.

P&L GBP 2009
Live Tournaments (1110)
Live Cash 1086
Online Tournaments (2574)
Online Cash 866
Poker Festivals (3,113)
Rake (2,415)

Total (7,260)

Stoppage time equaliser

2009-08-19T03:20:00.000-07:00

I still remember vividly my first sighting of Jose Mourinho. It wasn't the ludicrously self-indulgent press conference when unveiled as manager of Chelsea, but was during a Champions League match the year before featuring Manchester United and FC Porto. Mourinho was, at the time, manager of the Portuguese champs, but already well on the Chelsea radar by then.

If I remember correctly, Man United were leading 1-0 deep into injury time, and about to go through on away goals. Heartbreakingly for the Red Devils, at that point their keeper made a pigs breakfast of a Benni McCarthy freekick, and Costinha fired home the decisive equaliser on the night.

The Porto players charged off to the corner flag and formed a ten participant man-hug, as to be expected. Alex Ferguson looked like a bulldog chewing a wasp, as the United defence looking questioningly at Tim Howard. But what's this? Suddenly a rather dapper looking chap sprints past the line of sight of old Fergie and charges towards the celebrating Porto players. Mourinho pumps the air with delight, his coat tails flapping in the wind. This does nothing to lift Ferguson's mood, and thus begins a long rivalry between the two managers which still seems to simmer beneath the surface today, despite the fact that they now manage in different countries.

I achieved the poker equivalent of the last minute equaliser last night. The cash game wasn't going well and I was down about £110, but fortunately I won £90 on the very last hand to salvage the evening.

The game was exclusively Omaha, and was a fairly quiet affair featuring myself, Devski, Sonny, George and George's mate (Sean I think?).

Anyhow the final hand saw everybody limp for £1 into my SB and I made it £5 with KhKs8h7s, which is a pretty mediocre holding, but it's last hand and I'm down etc etc.

Everyone comes along except Sean in the BB and Devski.

Flop arrives something along the lines of 2s3h5h to give me the flush draw.

I bet £10 to fluff the pot up in case I do hit and both George and Sonny call. George has been pretty solid so far, so I am pretty worried he might have the nut flush draw here, with Sonny probably on some kind of combo straight/flush draw.

Thus I am pretty delighted to see the Ah come out on the turn to give me the nuts :)

I pop my meagre remaining £42 over the line and get looked up by George who has the Jack flush, and scoop the pot.

I guess it wasn't worth a victory charge down the mezzanine of Loose Cannon, but it left me feeling I had escaped unscathed from a disappointing night of play.

Next live game is Thursday - will probably be a big one :)

P&L GBP 2009
Live Tournaments (1010)
Live Cash 871
Online Tournaments (2574)
Online Cash 866
Poker Festivals (3,113)
Rake (2,352)

Total (7,312)

Sunday Morning Rollercoaster

2009-08-17T02:48:00.000-07:00

I had a couple of hours to kill on Sunday morning, as I waiting for Shazbo's flight to get in from Vancouver, so I decided to fire up a few Omaha cash tables to while away the time.

My thinking was to play solid, and just pick up a couple of pots here and there so I didn't risk much of my diminishing bankroll. Unfortunately, the cards had other ideas, and I ended up in a succession of large pots which saw my stacks swing around dramatically. In the event, I ended the session £100 down, although it could easily have been plus or minus £500.

I also experimented with starting with a $120 stack on each table as opposed to $200, but I'm undecided whether this is a good idea or not. The hands:

Hand1
I raised a limper to $9 with JT98dd and was re-raised to $27, so called to see how the flop developed.

Flop is JT3 with two spades. We get it all in, he has AQ67 nut spades, and hits a spade immediately. He also had a King to take the pot as well I guess, but at least I have house redraw in either scenario.

Hand2
I 3 bet AAKT ds and get one player along for the ride.

Flop is 865 with 2 spades. I pot, he repots, I shove with my nut flush draw and when he snap calls I assume he has the straight.

But no - he has 89TK for one pair + gutshot. He rivers a King to win with 2 pair. FFS.

Hand3
My turn to get lucky. I get it all in three ways with AA45 against a regular with AA79 and the crazy from the last hand who has QT78 or some such. Not looking good for me, but my single flush draw comes home for a $512 pot.

Hand4
I bet a flopped nut flush all the way down and get called down through the streets by the King flush.

Hand5
I call a raise with KK87 in spades, and see a flop of K73 with two spades. I am out of position so check, as my opponent has a tendency to bet whenever checked to (I also have the nuts + second nut redraw). He pots, I call and the turn brings 4.

I check, hoping to pot it when he bets when he checks behind. Oh-oh.

River is a 2.

I bet 3/4 pot and he calls, as I have allowed him to back into a wheel with A5. I played that hand horrendously :( Surprised he didn't come back at me on the river, but he was afraid of the higher straight I guess.

Hand6
I'll tilting after the Hand 5 debacle, so hang around with my AKxx nut flush draw on a board of T76. Fortunately I luckbox into a turn and river of Queen and Jack for the nut straight :)

Hand7
At this point I am up about $150 for the session, but then this happens:

Folded round to SB who calls, and I pot with AdQc6d8c.

He calls.

Flop is K57 with two diamonds, giving me the up and down + nut flush draw.

I pot it and opponent calls.

Turn is the offsuit Ace, giving me a pair in addition.

We quickly get all the money in and he has 57xx for two pair and the lead. However I have (I think) 23 outs but miss, so all the work is undone and I arrive at a loss of £100ish.

On the outs front, someone may correct me in the comments, but off the top of my head:

9 diamonds
3 non diamond fours
3 non diamond nines
2 non diamond Ace
2 non diamond 8s
3 non diamond 6s
2 non diamond Queens
Less 1 out for the diamond that houses him up (5d) (7d already on board)

Not sure what the poker plans are this week yet. Will probably squeeze in a live cash game, but if the others are busy will try to head to the International for a tournament.

P&L GBP 2009
Live Tournaments (1010)
Live Cash 913
Online Tournaments (2574)
Online Cash 866
Poker Festivals (3,113)
Rake (2,341)

Total (7,270)

Pravda

2009-08-14T03:25:00.000-07:00

I stand prepared in the centre of the ring, my yellow hammer and sickle emblazoned on my red shorts giving me a source of extra mental strength, as I await my opponent.

My wife Bridget sits impassively six metres away, next to General Rimsky. Their fitted military regalia lifts them above the crudely dressed Scots on either side. We are proud of our nation.

Music starts! Rod Stewart is signing a cover of the Proclaimers.

Here comes the Baron. He is wearing a kilt and gyrating to the music, waving his tartan gloves.

“But I would walk 500 miles, and I would walk 500 more”

We’re not used to this in Moscow, so I just stare open mouthed at this spectacle. The Baron doesn’t seem to be taking this seriously, as now the bagpipes kick in for the second verse. Rod Stewart is loving the limelight, and the star and the Baron high five each other at the end of the song, as the band leave the stage.

The Baron removes his sporran and we meet in the centre of the ring as the referee goes through the formalities.

I have only one thing to say to my Western opponent.

“You will lose”

Baron still seems jovial, but is taking aback by the iciness in my voice.

Round 1

After a minute of pacing round the ring, General Rimsky gives the signal and I raise with QsJs and the Baron defends. The flop arrives Queen high and after my £12 bet, Baron overshoves for £100. I tank call and my Queen is good. Baron has a bloody nose already as my power is unleashed.

Round 2

Baron raises in early positon and I re-raise with A5. Baron, insta ships for about £70 and I call but lose to 99. Ouch.

Trainer Fluke is in the Baron’s ear at the changeover: “He’s worried! You cut him! You hurt him! You see! You see! He’s not a machine, he’s a man!”

Whatever

Round 3

Baron raises and I defend with Ad3d. Flop is 3, 8, 8 with 2 hearts and no diamond.

Baron bets his standard continuation bet of £20 and I call.
Turn is 7 bringing a second flush draw.

Check, Check.

River is a black King.

Baron insta shoves for about £75. I tank, and figure he didn’t get there on the flushes, so unless he hit the King I am probably good with bottom pair, so I call and my hand wins.

The Baron is finished.

“I can not be defeated. I beat all man. Someday, I will beat a real champion. If he dies, he dies”.

I guess what I am trying to say with the above Rocky IV nonsense, is that my blog is the equivalent of a soviet propaganda machine, as PRAVDA was in the 80’s. It is fairly widely read, and some of the most avid readers are my frequent opponents.

Interestingly, I knew my opponents would feel I would be nut peddling in the cash game after my last post, “Dogs of War”. While I genuinely felt that when I wrote it at the time, I guess it makes sense to play on it if my opponents think I am going to follow it to the letter.

The tournament was a damp squib – I lost 2k with Aces early on and didn’t recover and finally busted squeezing a raise and two callers with 99 and Dev, the original raiser, had QQ. No regrets though.

The cash game brought a solid profit of £250, and I particularly flourished when we went four handed in the early hours.

I wonder how far I can take my Soviet propaganda machine? It's clearly not as simple as just doing the opposite of what I write here - it has to be more subtle than that. I guess changeability is the key.

I think the person who put it best was that great orator Sylvester Stallone:

"During this fight, I've seen a lot of changing, in the way you feel about me, and in the way I feel about you. I guess what I am trying to say, is that:
If I can change........
And.....you can change.......
everybody can change!"

P&L GBP 2009
Live Tournaments (1010)
Live Cash 913
Online Tournaments (2574)
Online Cash 966
Poker Festivals (3,113)
Rake (2,341)

Total (7,159)