Blogger championships update

Up until last night my best finish has been the 3am tournament that I registered for but didn't play. 138th is not bad considering I was asleep but it is sad that I can't finish higher by playing!
Anyway, thought I was going to qualify last night when I sucked out on someone early with 77 against 99.
Then got KQ on the button and so limped as I thought the big bilnd might play back at me if I raised.

Anyway he did raise and so I called.
Flop came J55 and he lead out. I didn't figure him as being strong and so flat called with 2 overs and possibly even the lead.

Turn was a K and when he bets again I opresume he does have the J, I reraised he went all in for a handful more chips and I call to see his aces. Even the Q turn doesn't help and I finish 123rd.

To be honest, if I raise pre flop and he reraises I am still expecting to have the best hand given the table dynamic at the time.

Could probably have folded into the final maybe but the added money (that's right I did notice the extra payouts, unlike some!) made me want to win.

Anyway, looking forward to having a dabble at the mixed games tonight.

Good luck to everyone playing.

Wow, 2 posts in one day!

... well almost, since it's now Saturday.

Decided to play live tonight since Andrew's football is off in the morning.

Busted out of the tournament relatively early when my AK on A 9 6 flop was behind to A6.

Was pursuaded to stay for the cash game by Ted and ended up having a very interesting few duels with a good player called Karl.

I doubled up my £70 starting stack with AK against Karl's AT (and he knew he shouldn't have been involved with that hand but got caught up in it by circumstance.

Then trebled up with 5h7h on an all heart flop against 3 players where the betting on the flop was pot (£68) call and I had to make the decision of going with the 7 high flush facing that action. I did consider the fold but in the end decided that the pot sized initial bet had more non flush possibilities then flushes and the call was more likely a big heart so I went with it partly because I felt that if I get involved with suited connectors I can't really fold when the flush comes on the flop.

In the end my 7 high flopped flush was better than the 3h4h held by the first guy and the AhAd from the caller didn't improve.

Then I got involved in some hands with Karl.

Firstly when I called his was on the button with AdDd and the flop came ten high. He bet the pot (almost all in) and, after asking him if the ten was good got a read that it was, called and unfortunately his 88 rivered a set.

Then, 2 handed before I had to leave I call his raise with KQ and see a king high flop with 2 spades. he check calls my continuation bet and when the Qs comes on the turn he check raises me from 20 to 60. Now I take him to be good enough to represent the flush and consider before calling hoping to fill up or get a check on the river. He goes all in for £168 into the pot of near £200 and after questioning him felt I had to fold and was more than likely behind.

Especially since I had called his bluff earlier and also he was different this time.

He wouldn't tell me later whether he had it but I'm pretty confident he did.

Anyway, bed for me.

Mixed emotions

Well, good and bad news.
Played 30-40 tournaments last night and didn't suffer the losses of last week but I also didn't win either. I ended up losing about $50 on the night which will be offest by $60 odd rakeback so a miniscule win for the night.

I am wondering whether the fact that I had a bad start on Big Slick is affecting the way others see me and consequently how they are playing against me.

When I was playing on PaddyPower I had played about 5000 tournaments with a ROI of 6%-9% ($4000-$5000 profit) and at one stage I had a little shark swimming next to my name just before I moved to Bog Slick.

On Big slick, I have played 300 odd games with a ROI of -6% (-$3500 profit).

I don't know whether that is affecting the way others play against me and so affecting my results or was 500 games not a big enough sample, or have I changed the way I am playong because of the big downswing I suffered. I need to go back and have a look at some of the hands I played on Paddy and compare that with what I am doing now just to make sure.

Another thing I have been looking at is how I am doing at different times of the day and I am in profit even on Bigslick between the hours of 8 and 12 but losing after 12 on Bigslick. I haven't yet done the same analysis for Paddy which I will do over the weekend. Obviously there are more regulars playing after 12 and more of the casual players before so I will have to take that into account and maybe I do need an even bigger sample before I draw final conclusion.

Anyway, let's see how we do tonight.

I registered for the blogger World Championships on Pokerstars last night so will finish that registration off this weekend and look forward to running into a couple of players when that happens.


Let's see what happens tonight on party night

Back on the grind

Well, I have to admit that when I returned to the tables last night it was with a mixture of both excitement and trepidation.

I think the rest did me some good, cleared my head and got rid of the fear of the runner runner, 85-15 outdraws.

I played two sessions last night, the first hour I played 5 tournaments at 1 $100 and 4 $50 winning the $100 and 2 of the $50 for a profit of £50.

This had me bouncing with excitement, not so much because of the amount won but more that it was a winning session.

Before I then played my main session I had a couple fo calls from a mate who has played pretty regularly in the GUKPT and GCBPT tours.

I could tell that the call was all about how he was getting fed up with the outdraws and I could see that his enthusiasm was waning.

Hopefully I gave him some encouragement and even suggested he have a couple of days break just to get his enthusiasm back.

Anyway, back to my second session and everything was going swimmingly. I started off the night with a balance of £531 on Big Slick and I had run that up to £486 plus the 3 $100 and 1 $50 tournaments that I was in, so winning just one of them would cement seal a profit for the night and any more was a bonus with the possibility of £300 profit for the night.

Anyway, I was ahead in all four at this point and I would confidently expect to win at least 2 usually.

The first one I got knocked out on was unfortunate but I was victim to the rising blinds when someone went all on on my big blind of 600 for 210 more when I had a big ace but he out flopped me, next hand was a similar story and I was out. Relatively standard stuff and just part of the normal variance.

The second one ended up with me running into Kings on my button push so that was 2 down 2 to go.

The third one (the $50) I think I made a mistake in hindsight.

I generally try to avoid calling all in in these tournaments if I have above average chips and I got AK when someone went all in with slightly more chips than me when we were on the bubble. I had 1900 chips after the blind was posted of 400. Two others had less chips than me so I folded. I know I was miles ahead of his range but he could easily have had a pair or any 2 live cards and I find it is better to let the two short stacks go against each other then I can't lose.

Anyway, I ended up losing that one once the blinds went round a couple more times without me having an opportunity to push and so I was out regretting not calling ther AK hand. I'm not totally convinced what the best action is in the situation. I can happily fold with say 2500 - 3000 in that spot and its an obvious call with more.

Anyway I was still in the last $100 and the good thing here was when we were 5 handed there were 2 short stacks, one with only 600 chips and the other sitting out on the big blind to my small blind. I was sitting pretty with 2500 chips.

Anyway, to cut a long story short the short stack went out leaving us with the sit out to be blinded away.... at least that was the plan. Unfortunately every time he was all in he won, and won and won and won.

I ended up with 930 chips when he was all in for 150 odd in the bb on my sb (blinds at 300/600). I make up the small blind with KQ or something and we check it down 3 or 4 handed and he wins giving him 615 chips and leaving me only 330 and having to go through the blinds before him!

I'm now down to having to win a confrontation so I go all in with my A6 and get the other 2 calling and someone hits one of their rag cards and I'm beaten by someone who wasn't even there!!!!!!

Oh well, that's life.

Let's hope tonight goes better because I usually play 4 or 5 hours on a Thursday night as Julie works till 2am.

Please let me beat the sit outs tonight!!!!!!!!

Variance

Been having a couple of days off since a terrible run on Thursday and Friday that saw my bankroll shrink by 50%.

I've been playing the $100 and $200 tournaments almost exclusively and I played something like 35 tournaments on Thursday with a pitiful return of less than 30% (ie losing $70 for every $100 entry. Not had anywhere near as bad a run as that and I have to admit that it was very demoralising.

I have now played over 700 tournaments in this format and overall my return is 104% (ie 4% profit) but it is currently standing at 98% for $200 and 5% for $100 tournaments so I've decided to do 2 things about it.

1. Have a lay off for a few days - I last played on Friday and I'm not playing again until tomorrow night.

2. Stay away from the $200 tournaments.

In terms of the $200 tournaments, because of the great loyalty deal I have with Bigslick (contact me if you are interested in a similar deal) I am still making a profit when I add the rakeback into my calculations but it will be more profitable for me to play the $100 tournaments in terms of hourly rate.

Looking at the stats of some of the regulars I am encountering it seems that some of these guys may be in a similar situation as a few of them have negative profit on Sharkscope but are there many hours a day which suggests that they are playing for a living and so cannot be losing overall.

So I decided to play the Semi freezeout in Circus on Sunday. That was interesting.
To cut a short story even shorter I lost my first 4000 chips with AA after raising to 300, being reraised to 800, I reraised to 2300 and he put me all in with a monster 77. The A 6 10 on the flop made it even more difficult for him to win, all I needed was to avoid running 7s or 9 then 8.........

So after rebuying and losing 1000 on a couple of raises that were out flopped I decided to check raise a 500 bet that had already been called to 2400 all in when in the big blind on a limped flop of Ad 9h 4d flop with Kd6d. Anyway A5 couldn't fold and my flush draw missed to send me home.
So, spending a couple of days catching up on a few poker million shows and I'll be back refreshed tomorrow night!