Tuesday 1 April 2008

Satellite near misses

Well, doing the updates more regularly didn’t last very long.

Played Thursday 27th in Manchester Circus in a £30 rebuy with the winner getting a seat in the GSNPC.

Started well and built up a healthy stack without the need for any rebuys.

This kept me going along with a healthy stack until we got near the bubble.

By then I was down to 23000 chips with the blinds at 2000 4000 and I went all in with 9T in the cut off which was called by the big blind with A7.

A 9 on the flop was enough to give me a timely double up.

Got to the final table with about 40000 chips and after a couple of rounds, we're down to 8 players with the blinds at 3000 6000 and I'm in the big blind with 24o.

It is folded to the small blind who looks like he is going to pass but then decides to call.

As he's considering changing his mind about folding I'm thinking, lovely, you'd be silly to call now cos I'm going to raise you.

Anyway, he does call and I raise to 18000.

He calls and the flop comes 335, he checks so I go all in for my last 22000 chips and he called with A8 so were 50:50 - any A, 2, 4, 6 and I still win but nothing and I'm out for £200.

Not too concerned about this, all the money was in the top places with the prize money doubling from 2nd to 1st place which I think is way too big a gap but I suppose they often get chopped near the last few anyway.

Then I played a satellite to the GSNPC for £50.

This was one hell of a crapshoot but everything seemed to go my way and I got good hands at the right time until I was heads up against a young lad (Martyn Robinson) who I now know quite well (we ended up taking 10% of each other in the tournament and he ended up going out one before the bubble - who got a signed chipset).

Anyway, heads up I had a 3-1 chip lead and decided (wrongly) that I had an edge over him and so started to play a lot of pots with him, whenever I had a good hand he had nothing and whenever I bluffed at him he had the nuts.

Granted I didn't play well heads up and he took the seat.

I then played day 1a in the GSNPC and made what I understand now to be a bad read in the pivotal hand of my tournament.

Level 2 (blinds at 50 100) and I limped UTG with KK - something I very rarely do but decided to give it a whirl after I had talked to Jasmes Ackenhead about it when I was on the cruise.

Anyway, that is when the action started as there was a raise in seat 5 to 300 which was called in seat 6 and then reraised by the small blind to 600. I decided to 4 bet 1600 which was called by the small blind.

The flop came 7c6c4d and the small blind checked and I bet a hopefully weak looking 2000 which he flat called.

The turn was 8c and he went all in for his last 6000 odd - marginally covering me.

I stared him down as I do and asked him a couple of questions, telling him that I thought he had queens on the flop but he didn't really give me a great deal of reaction to this.

I ran through the possibilities and didn't think the set was very likely but maybe a possibility, maybe a pair of 5s if he was hoping to hit a set on the flop but flopped an open ended draw but thought that would be a check raise on the flop, maybe a flush draw but again ditto and then maybe queens or Aces.

After all this, and his lack of any nervousness when I virtually tild him I had kings, I felt he had to have aces and folded.

I've posted this hand on AWOP and Blonde and the majority of people have this down as an instant call saying he has 99-QQ although I still think he would have played aces the same way.

Anyway, it turned out that later he told Martyn who was also on our table that he had queens so again I probably made a bad fold, something I'm going to have to stop doing.

Maybe I'm looking for too many monsters under the bed when I get involved and I need to just accept that if he has aces in that spot then I'm losing my chips

Anyway, lesson learned I hope and I ended up going to the G in Manchester to play the £30 single rebuy and again I didn't need the rebuy as I had 22000 chips at the break (starting at 5000).

However, once again, the rising blinds as the tournament became a bit of a crapshoot meant I was out in about 20th.

I also bubbled in Friday's GUKPT satellite after having a pot checked down when I was all in by a "friend" who was a big chip leader with 55000 on the bubble.

I actually won that hand to get back up to average stack but then after a min raise from 3000 to 6000 by the UTG I reraised all in for 33000 on the big blinds with AhKh which was called by UTG with 77.

Not the greatest play by him but he won the seat and I got $0.

Thanks to Teambooth who I immediately deleted from all my contacts and buddy lists.

I know Mark from Leo's and I was not impressed at all.

Anyway, rant over…

Update, just played my first WSOP satellite on Pokerstars ($33 rebuy - 1 seat) and I ended up finishing 4th when my 110000 button all in with Q8 when the blinds were 10000 20000 was called by the big stack (400000 chips) with - wait for it ... 7c4c! - I had a really tight image too. 74! Oh well I'm going to have to play that tournament again, hardly had to do a thing to get people to donate chips to me - even accounting for the runner runner straight taking my first 4000 chips after I had doubled up early!

20 comments:

  1. Hey

    Your on for 1%.

    I am bad with faces so if u see me and do recognise just say your from the blog 4kinghell I will know who u are imm.

    I was reading your stuff re physical tells. I dont think they are as big a part of poker as most non players think - however there are some real good ones and its a part of poker I am trying to master so was interested in your thoughts.

    anyway back to sleep

    Cheers Graham

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  2. As I said in the post, there are some really clear tells that give away how confident someone is but you still have to put it together with the action etc because sometimes they don't want a call but they are stronger than you.

    Read em and reap is a very good book by Phil helmuth and a CIA specialist that i would definitely recommend.

    I remember one hand where I was on the button with a pair of tens, it had been folded to me and this is a normal raising situation but I saw the big blind sitting back with his hands behind his head.

    This is often a tell that someone has a very good hand, so I asked him if he had looked at his cards yet and he said yes. Concerned that he had a big hand but reluctant to fold tens on the button I just limped to see what happened safe in the knowledge that I had position.

    Anyway, the small blind limped, as did the big blind checked now I'm thinking damn!

    The flop came down 962, small blind bet the pot, big blind reraised and I folded. Small blind had 92 and the big blind had 96.

    Afterwards I asked him about the hand (I know the guy quite well)
    and he said that he had already decided that he was going to reraise all in if I raised and I do know that 96 is his favourite hand.

    So whilst the tell was not completely right it did show his intention of raising and ended up keeping me in the tournament.

    Having read other books on body language and seen a lot of Derren Browns stuff I am sure that I am only scraping the surface.

    By the way it also works outside of poker, my wife and daughter have pretty reliable tells when they are lying.

    They don't do the tell every time they lie but when they do the tell they are definitely lying! They also know that i have this tell on them so they rarely lie to me anymore!

    Hopefully one of us will spot the other next time we're in the same tournament and we can talk about it more then.

    Good luck in the EPT anyway.

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  3. Michael - have added you on my blog, can you return?

    Cheers

    http://suffolkpunchpoker.blogspot.com

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  4. Mike,
    What's all that about?
    You bubbled because of me on the gukpt sat?
    Not that it is any of my business but in my opinion you bubbled in the gukpt sat because of your constant flat calling of raises by other people! That was compounded by your putting your entire stack at risk with A high pre-flop after a raise from the tightest player on the final!I checked down one hand with AQ because i was only going to get called by a better hand!! My AQ lost to your 10-J giving you 36,000 chips and plenty of chips to get your seat until you put them all in with your Ace! I find it amusing that you refer to me as chip leader for not protecting your bet but fail to mention that when you had the big chip lead and you back-raised me you dont show ur cards but instead just state what your cards were in the chatbox? There were 3 seats available but you went all in as if you wanted first place? The final table of a satalite requires more thought than a normal final as you dont need to win it! As for you deleting your "friend" from your contacts perhaps you need to learn how to seperate poker from personal life, it's an interesting thought yes? one i will take with me....to Manchester!

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  5. Mike. You won the hand with a straight. If the chip leader had bet with his queen, the other guy woulod have folded and you still would have won with a straight. The AQ guy would have got his own chips back and nothing else. How did any of this affect you and make you bubble in a subsequent hand? seriously, think about what you have said here. No one with half a brain bets a dry side pot with just the bubble to go! Yu bubbled, no one else caused that mate - I'm not having a go at you, just pointing out you have made a nasty few comments that just don't make sense, and lost a few mates by the sounds of things. I really can't understand why you want to make a fool of yourself blaming someone else who was simply playing poker, the same as you were. particularly when you won the hand!

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  6. That last post was from caroline, i had to choose anon as i dont have a google acct

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  7. Mark, where do I start?

    First of all I don't want to get into a slanging match over this - I'll leave those to Flashbadger and Ariston... and your comment has put some perspective onto things so I will apologise.

    Some of my rant is probably misplaced because I couldn't believe Andy got so upset over a mix up in another tournament and I thought (probably wrongly now I think about it in he cold light of day) that this was influencing you with him railing you.

    As for the comment about martinthematron being the tightest player on the table, I've just checked on poker tracker and i've been able to isolate from when there were 7 players left in the tournament.

    The stats for Vol put T$ in pot are

    Chilixx 27.27
    ITALY2006 18.75
    martinthematron 30.51
    Mikelott 13.56
    nilawina 22.22
    teambooth 27.12
    wicky11 10.17

    making martinthematron (the guy with the sevens) the loosest player and me the second tighest

    As for the hand I reraised you on I had exactly what I said and as I said at the time the show fold button didn't come up because the check box had been ticked, which I unchecked the very next hand.

    As for calling raises, in the 246 hands played in the tournament I cold called 6 times, each time with position on the raiser, 4 times with a pair, 2 times with suited connectors for a grand total of 6000. From the 6 hands I lost 3 of the hands and won three for a total profit of $15600.

    BTW your hand was AJ and you hit the jack on the turn when there was 2 flush draws out.

    And my "Ace" was AhKh.

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  8. Caroline I posted that reply before I had read your comment but i'll answer you later.

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  9. Caroline, my comments about the checked down hand were not suggesting that they were the reason I left the tournament. That is because someone called all in with a pair of sevens in a satellite.

    Now whilst most players wouldn't do that I have no complaints about it, he had the best hand I never complain about the way people play their cards.

    My complaint was that Mark called to knock me out with AJ after my all in bet had already been called. Then when the flop came Qs8h5h Js it was checked down so that the other player could hit any potential flush or overcards.

    I'm not saying that would not be standard practice in a satellite in a normal situation if a friend wasn't involved.

    My comments were probably also affected by Andy's comment afterwards that went along the lines of "It's not like you ever do someone a favour"

    I also didn't say anything that was nasty.

    Anyway, it's over now.

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  10. Fair enough Mike, you've always seemed okay to me, and you've had the balls to apologise for upsetting anyone, as well as the level headedness to look at the situation again with a more objective head on after the initial bubbling. Good luck in the next one, I do know how it feels to get so close and you know I've got one hell of a temper at the tables (!!!) but I personally believe you should leave it behind once you walk away from the table. (and fight the twats outside lol) take care x

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  11. mike, dont blame mark for nocking you out blame andy booth.

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  12. Very funny anonymous (I'd put my money on Jimmy), I've deleted your post anyway.

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  13. Mike its andy booth, i was on the phone to mark all the way threw the final table and you may have noticed that mark was going all in on your big blind a lot.
    This is because of what you done to me a few weeks earlier in another tourney. (you no what am talking about)
    You were bang out of order mate.
    SO what goes around comes around.

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  14. All right Jimmy, very funny...

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  15. This is caroline - too many "anons floating about" lol. no way is that andy booth, he can spell. Jimmy can't - but can Jimmy even write? lol... joking..ish...

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  16. Caroline, you should see what Jimmy wrote pretending to be you in the deleted comment!

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  17. oh i like big butts and i cannot lie, you other brothers cannot denie !!

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  18. Hello mike, ime fairly new to poker and only play online,i am thinking of going down to my local casino and try my luck at playing live.
    Can you give me any pointers on playing live as i am quite nervous and dont wish to make a fool of myself.
    Thanks a lot.

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