champions

When these Euro championships were starting, at first I wasn't too bothered cos England weren't playing but I got a sudden realisation just before the start that half the Liverpool team would be in the Spanish squad, so why not follow as though they were England.

So I did and had a few quid on them and all of a sudden I had found my enthusiasm for the tournament again.

Add to that the fact that Spain had by far the best squad and, for once, the team I am following wins the things!

Come on you Spain!

.......Fernando Torres,
Liverpool's number nine!!!!!

Lazy lazy lazy

There just aren't enough hours in the day......

either that or I'm just too lazy!

I just never seem to get around to updating this and when I do I can't remember any specific hands as it is a while since I played them.

So I'm toying with the idea of changing the tack of this slightly and paying a little less attention to specific hands.

I don't know, I'll see how it develops.

Since I last updated I've played a couple of times coming 8th for something like £120 and busting out the hand before the rebuys ended and not bothering to rebuy, especially after passing on 2 occasions with suited connector type hands with only 1000 chips and blinds at 100/200 only to see the flop give me a full house if I had played!

However, the biggest event in the last couple of weeks was courtesy of Ladbrokes.

I won a share in their horse last year and because it didn't run due to injury it was carried over to this year too.

Well they had a shareholders event at Windsor a week last Monday and I qualified for that in the freeroll which gave me the night's accommodation in the Copthorne Hotel in Windor and hospitality at the racecourse with free food and drink and a poker game afterwards in the hotel - along with $150 expenses.

I had a really good time, meeting the other 19 players who won their way through.

we ended up having a little STT after the event between 4 of us in one of the players' rooms, the highlight being me calling an all in bet when a flush card hit the turn when it was heads up for the other player to show his flush that he had mis read as the Ace of spades he thought he had was the ace of clubs!

Great read by me then (not) - as he thought he had the flush even though he didn't!

However the best part of the night was one of the horses called Finnegan McCool, an 8-1 shot who romped home in an 8 horse race where I used all my sport betting skills by using the theory that "we're on a Ladbrokes poker event and there is a horse called McCool running. I read his blog every time it's updated so I've got to put some money on it!!!!"

So thanks to Mick for a nice little earner!

Anyway, I'll try to keep this up a bit more regularly.

Pokerplayer Championships

Haven't played live this week because I'm playing today in the Pokerplayer Championships in Bolton. I'll be setting off in a few minutes.
I did play a couple of tournaments on Ladbrokes where I won a very well structured $5 event for $600 odd but the best thing about the tournament was that when we got to heads up there was still a lot of play left. The heads up battlle went on for a good half hour or more with the chip lead swinging quite a bit. But I managed to overcome a 671k to 178k chip disadvantage to win.

However, more exciting was the opportunity I had in the Ladbrokes main event added tournament on Thursday where I was chip leader with about 20 players left. Unfortunately the average blinds in this event was on 7 big blinds at this point and I ended up going out in 12th with 44 against QQ after having got away with quite a few steals.

I could have been a lot luckier though as one hand I had raised about 3 times in a row and then I picked up 77 under the gun. Because I had been raising quite a bit at this point including 4 of the previous 6 hands (with good hands I might add - but they hadn't been shown down) so I felt that if I raised again I would be leaving myself open to a reraise with a much wider range so I folded. It did end up getting raised and called by 88 and AK-unfortunately, had I played I would have made a full house and won. That would have given me 3 times the 2nd place's chips but that's the way it goes and I don't like to say "I would have made xx" when I'm in a hand.

I'll update today's tournament tomorrow hopefully.

Cracks in the foundations

Where do I start, it's been a while since I updated about live poker and whilst I've only been playing once a week, it's sometimes difficult to keep the motivation each time you go out with jacks against J9 all in pre flop.

I suppose part of it is because the tournaments i'm playing become quite fast when it becomes all in or foldin the latter middle stages unless you have a very big stack.

But I won't go on, if someone could let the poker gods know it's about time I cashed that would do!

I'm actually writing this with my wrist strapped up pending getting it put into a cast on Monday. When I played that charity match last week I was tackled and fell onto my wrist.

It's been getting worse over the last 10 days and when I saw the doctor today he sent me for an xray where I was not only told that I had probably fractured my scaphoid bone in my wrist but he also showed me an old break on the other side of my wrist.

So as from Monday I'll have my wrist on a cast for 6 weeks.

As for tonight, well I've touched on my exit hand but the whole night went like that from the moment my AA wasn't good enough for QJ on a J high flop.

I did get one hand of luck when my 22 all in pre flop beat QQ to double me up.

Anyway, I registered for the Pokerplayer event next week in Bolton tonight so I'm looking forward to that next week and I'll take it from there.

It's back to the drawing board, re-read a couple of books and try to get back on track!

Chip and a chair

I haven't updated this for a while and I have 2 unfinished posts (well unstarted actually - but I have some notes)

However, I've just finished 2nd in the midnight Ladbrokes tournament and I'm absolutely over the moon.

It's not something that would normally get me excited as it's a $75 freezeout and the prize money of $642, whilst a welcome boost at the moment, is not one of my biggest wins but the nature of the win is what is most pleasing.
The reason is because 3rd hand of the tournament the following happened:
http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/6639

So this left me with 20 chips in the big blind.

I won that hand with 75 on 5 10 8 7 4 board winning 90 chips.

Then I'm dealt A5 faced with a raise and call but decide to gamble all or nothing, the 5678 10 board now gives me 360 and I have some play (starting stacks are 2000) 36 players, top 5 paid.

a few hands later and I'm dealt 44 in the cut off after a limp from the cut off (A2) and I raise all in and get reraised by the button (QQ) who is also called by the cut off. A 4 on the flop gives me the pot and I'm back in business with 980 chips and half the starting stack.

2 hours later and I've come second.

So as they say, all you need is a chip and a chair.... and a little bit of luck.

On a non poker front I'm playing in a charity match for the Football aid charity on Tuesday against the HollyOaks Team - something my neice and daughter are really looking forward to.

You can see the details of the charity here: http://www.footballaid.com/

I have to raise £600 in sponsorship for this so if anyone is feeling charitable, all donations are gladly accepted through pokerstars or paypal.

I've had a lot of problems with injuries recently so I'm just hoping to survive the match intact!!!

More bubbles in Manchester

Bolton
£50 rebuy satellite to GUKPT Manchester
42 runners 6 seats
4000 starting chips

I decided on taking another shot at the Manchester GUKPT event last night despite my diminishing bankroll.

Afterall, Bolton is still my favourite card room and the chances are I'm going to be playing in Birkenhead tonight as well since I can't play 5 a-side at the moment.

My first table was very interesting as Nick Slade was there doing his best to make sure there were a lot of chips on our table by having 9 rebuys.

It was really good fun though although it didn't start off too well.

Third hand in and I have kd9d on the button after about 6 limpers as there usually is in this sort of rebuy event so I called the 100 and the big blind raised to 500 which was called by two others before it got back to me.

So I called along with the small blind meaning there were 5 to the flop which was K96 rainbow.

The bid blind lead out for 2000 leaving him 1500 behind and it was folded to me with the small blind to act.

I felt that in this spot a flat call was the best option as it lets the small blind call with a wider range of hands and the big blind was probably committed to the pot if I raise now anyway and is likely to still call on the turn.

Unfortunately the small blind folded and then the turn was an ace giving AK a better 2 pair.

Big blind bets and I call expecting to be behind a lot of the time but resigned to the fact that this would have happened regardless of how I played it.

He did have 2 pair and no miracle on the river meant I was rebuying hand no 3.

Anyway, things got a lot better from there on as I started to get a few hands and with Nick on the table there was always going to be action.

He had a bluff at me when I was holding top 2 pair on one board after betting flop and turn and checking the river and I also managed to get him to raise what I made look like a blocker bet on the river when a 3rd club arrived but I actually had the nut flush.

It was good fun though and I decided to have a bit of a laugh with Nick who was calling most raises in the hope of building up a big stack.

Since he was trying to size his bets so that would be left with 2000 chips post flop and then be able to rebuy (For the non players who read this - you can only rebuy when you have less that half the 4000 starting stack)

I decided that next time I raised it would be to 1900 - leaving him 2100 chips and so not able to rebuy.

Anyway I got AJ on his big blind and, as expected he did, call cursing me, but then he bet 200 on the flop so that he had only 1900 left and could rebuy and let me raise to take the pot down.

I had 22000 chips at one point and was down to 14000 at the end of the rebuy period.

So I topped up and then the serious poker started.

After that things went along well with me staying at or above average chips for a long while until we got to the last 2 tables.

There was then a big hand involving KK v AA where the player to my right doubled up to 40,000.

The very next hand and he raised again to 5000 (blinds were 600/1200) and I looked down at KK so I reraised all in to 22000 which was folded back to the raiser.

He dwelled up and asked me a couple of questions which I ignored and eventually said to me that he was going to pass these for the first time before folding.

I showed him KK and he retreived his QQ and was very happy with himself.

Thinking back on it maybe I shouldn't have showed him as he was very relieved that he made the right decision but my plan was to use this later on whenever it came to sb v bb as I know that he passed AK earlier to a solitary raise so I knew that if he limped against me I would be able to raise with any two cards safe in the knowledge that he would almost certainly pass.

Unfortunately I got moved tables almost immediately.

I did get some nice cards on the next table including KK twice in 3 hands as well as AA and TT in a short space of time but the only time I got any action was when I raised with AK and had one caller who said that he was calling because I had raised his blind every time (with the good cards I might add) and when the flop came 9T4 he went all in meaning I had to pass, only for him to tell me he had KQ - if you believe him!

By now we were down to 11 players with 6 seats available and I raised from 4,000 to 10,000 with AQ on the enormous chip leaders big blind - he had 120,000 of the 460,000 chips in play.

After an age he decided to raise it again to 30,000 setting me all in.

Given his chip lead and that even though he had been betting almost all of the flops that he saw, he hadn't been raising much and there was no need for him to get involved withough a good hand so I folded my AQ face up and he showed his AK meaning I would have been dominated and almost certainly out - good decision.

Anyway I survised as the small stack until there were 9 left and after stealing a couple of blinds I was eventually all in for 13,000 on the button with the blinds at 3000 - 6000 with K9 which was better than average and the big blind called the extra 7000 without looking and turned over 5d4d which inevitably spiked a 5 on the turn to put me out just short again.

So, off to Birkenhead, I've got to cash soon.....