Bruised but not battered by Vegas.

On paper October has been the worst month of the year for me so far, but seeing as I,ve just been to Vegas paid for by winnings, I,m not losing too much sleep about it!

Vegas was a blast - as ever - results were pretty crap overall. I managed a couple of cashes at the Aria, but nothing too meaty. I chopped one tournament at The Golden Nugget as well to keep losses in check and I impressed myself by managing to have the discipline to avoid playing cash for the full week. I find that with all the free beer and whisky on offer at the Casino's that when the tournament enters the later phases I tend to be a bit less on the ball than I might be and I find that the locals pick off any mistakes pretty ruthlessly.

Its probably my favorite week of the year, but is pretty full on, making the move from playing a couple of times a week to all day every day for a week, I struggle to keep the focus abit.

 

Aberdeen

Another first for me was playing at the G Casino in Aberdeen. The G casino,s must have a bit of money behind them, as they are pretty amazing. The last time I played at one was in Dundee a few years ago and the places are pretty glitzy with light shows going on in the roof and the like. The casino is pretty cool and its got a decent card room with about 10 tables. Only real gripe is the plastic chips! When your used to proper heavy chips, the plastic ones feel so cheap. They,ve spent so much money on the place, it seems like a crazy economy its not like decent chips are that expensive.

I,ve not been in Aberdeen for a few years and could not believe how wealthy this place seems. From the cars people are driving, to the shops and to the houses you can see this is a seriously rich city. As long as the oil keeps flowing from the North Sea, I guess this will be the case.

I was only there for a day so the game that was on was a "free" entry (£3) With 2x £15 add ons. Wasn,t a bad turnout for a mid week tourny with about 50 runners.  It was a bit of a minefield game. Two guys at the table in particular, weren,t interested in grinding out a result and were going all in blind, calling blind, raising blind etc but fortunately we managed to lose them after a while. The game was a bit turbo in structure but I managed to avoid any coolers and somehow ended up in the last 3. At about 3 in the morning with the blinds and antes absolutely huge, I was quite happy to take a 3 way chop for about £350. So the month ends as 3 figure loss rather than 4!!

Fontainebleau - The great blue elephant.

The picture does't really do the size of this place justice. I was interested in seeing this place after seeing a documentary about it a year or so ago. 

This 68 story high hotel casino had 2.9 billion dollars spent on it before the bank pulled the plug and its now derelict.

Its the 2nd highest building in Vegas, and would have had a cool 4000 rooms. Its reckoned another $1.5 billion is needed to finish it. It may well never be finished as alot of the interior finishings bought for it have already been sold off to another casino who was having a refit.

It did strike me as a bit of a gamble building something that size at that end of the strip, as the north end of the strip struggles to get the tourists away from the lure of the south end with the Bellagio fountains, The Mirage, Paris,  Venetian etc. If you walk up the Strip, the Wynn and the Encore are like the sort of cut off of the modern bit and it gets more rundown the further up you go.

I read alot about Vegas being on its arse, but theres not much sign of it at the south end of the strip - Bills Gamblin Hall is being demolished and rebuilt, the Imperial Palace has been replaced by the quad, and the New York and Monte Carlo casino's undergoing upgrades.

Long day

I was playing a home game last night which finished at about 4am, then had to get up at 6 to catch vegas flight. 11hrs later and I,m here. i did think I might wilt a bit after entering the $125 game at 7 at the Aria, but I needn,t have worried about a late night. Of the 77 that entered I went out in 70th..after an hour and a half..

it was all pretty quiet to start with and then it all went wrong. I limped on the button with q8 along with 3 other players. 

Flop came down KJ9. 

It got checked round. Turm card comes a 10. Loose italian guy who is first to act fires 700 at the 1500 pot. 

i reraise him to 2100. He eventually shoves alll, and he,s got me covered. i call and he turns over pocket tens for a set.

River pairs the king, and I,m out.

not so good!

Vegas bound shortly and Sep results

I finally managed to cash again...not a massive one for £130, but at least it puts a stop to the form slide. I made a loss for September, which isn,t too disappointing.., as it breaks my win lose win lose cycle I have been on all year, and as I,ll be in Vegas in one weeks time that means I,m going to win big!!....hmmm. Aria here I come.

Sliding downhill rapidly.

I on a pretty wretched run just now. I,ve not been playing that much as work has been pretty full on, but results from tournaments I have entered are poor.

Last night at the £40 tournament I had I built my stack steadily for 2 or 3 hours and lost the lot in one v the table nutter. 

I,d raised with AJ flop came down j 7 3. I c bet, he raised me and with out too much ado I shoved my stack in. He,d been pulling the reraise move all night and did a similar move on me earlier (with pocket 4,s).

He instacalled and showed his pocket 7,s. No miracle arrived and I,m toast.

Then I dipped into the cash game for a few hours and managed to lose a £100 buy in after blowing most of it with AK on a king high board v a guy who turned a straight.

Not great preparation for Vegas next month but  the month ain,t over yet I guess..

August results - a month to forget

August has been the worst month of the year for me so far with a cool £444 loss for the month.

8 tournaments played, zero cashes.

I,m not panicking at this stage as half of this is due to the one larger buy in tournament I entered at £240. I was on the wrong end of a cooler in this one and sometimes you,ve just got to take it on the chin in cards. I,ve been reasonably happy with how I,ve been playing. and I have had a few deep runs in the month.

The year continues with the profit loss profit loss cycle, which worryingly means that if the year continues like this, my next losing month will be october when I,m in Vegas..

Still, on the plus side, I did best a field of ten at a very drunken homegame last night to put the brakes  on my form slide.

Birmingham Roadtrip

I was looking forward to this roadtrip for a while. I had to go to London on the Sunday night so the Broadway casino in Birmingham seemed like a good staging point for the Fri and Sat night.

The Broadway has been my lucky casino and a bit like a bank machine for me over the last few years, so I was hoping to boost this months figures a bit and have a decent drinking session with some buddies at the same time!

Birmingham Broadway Cardroom

Cash Or Tournament?

If a picture can tell a thousand words:

The red line shows my tournament results for the last year or so and the blue line is the cash game  results. Just to really hammer it home I played cash last night for the first time since March and dusted my buy in within about 30 mins.
I,ve been pretty disciplined in giving the cash tables a swerve, I,ll just put last night down as a minor wobble.

Incidentally the screenshot above is from the profit tracker software I use on the ipad. I mentioned it in a previous post but I,ve had to take it down as it seems to attract spam bots and I,ve been getting inundated with spam comments on the post.

Running good with the ladies.

When you go deep in a tournament you,ll have used your get out of jail card at some point along the way. Last nights great escape was..exactly that.

I entered the £30 bountyhunter tournament and I went on a heater right from the kick off. I flopped quads v a set for an early double up and never really looking back.

The Great Escape

• Its late in the tournament, blinds are 6000/3000.
• Table is 7 handed.
• I,m on the button.
• No one has put money in the pot yet until it gets to the Villain who min raises to 12k.
• My hand is pocket queens.
• I reraise to 25k.
• Everyone else bails out except for the Villain who calls.

 Flop comes J,8,7.

• Villain checks.
•  I bet again
• Villain calls.

Turn card comes another 8. 

• I bet again 
• The villain shoves all in for not alot more. 

• I snap call the bet and he flips over 8 9 offsuit. Bollocks!
• ...but alas for the Villain, I now have the pokergods looking over me.
• A bit of divine intervention and the river card is another queen.
• My full house sends him packing.

I go on to take the bounty hunter tournament down and bag another 10 bounties on the way for a £100 bonus on top. Oh its nice to be running good...

Poker Gods Follow Me

I managed a couple of cashes in June, but not enough to turn a profit, so the win / lose / win / lose cycle continues. However, I did pick up an extra special follower to the twitter account so maybe a change of fortunes is on the cards!

The Poker Gods

@ThePokerGods_

We are the force behind your poker profits & losses. We dealt you those aces. We cracked them. We runner-runnered you. But we also gave you that huge stack.

above every poker table

Polo Towers Vegas

All done and booked now. I got a good deal staying at Polo Towers on the strip, so that will be HQ for my October Vegas jaunt. Right across from the Aria so should be perfect for stumbling across the road in the early hours after another tournament bust out. Looks like a nice pool, but somehow I doubt I,ll be in it.

Turbo tournament exit.

This was a bit of a quick tournament.
 I picked up alot of tasty hands in a short period, but it didn't exactly work out as planned..
Got to casino just in time before re-entries finished. Started with a very decent 22,000 chips. Got pocket kings about 3rd hand, lost about third of my stack to KJ when he turned straight.
Folded AQdd to a 20bb shove.
Hit a run of open enders, flush draws etc to corode my stack further.
Raised AKss 2.5x and whole table folds. Finally at about 10bb I get pocket kings again, so I reraise initial raiser for all my chips and she snap calls with pocket aces, no suck out...onto the next!

I,ve just posted last months profits, the year is following a win - lose - win - lose cycle every month, so the target is to scrape some sort of a profit for June. Vegas is booked for October so as long as I avoid the cash tables, I should have a respectable roll to donate.

Final table appearance.

BB defender (me) calls a min raise with 10, 5 off.  (Bit loose, but there was a bit of history..)

Flop comes 6 high - 2,3, 6 in fact. 

The Raiser puts in a smallish c-bet. I float call...

turn comes another 6. this is a good bluff card me thinks, I bet out with a decent sized bet into the raiser. Unfortunately for me he calls. 

The river comes a sweet little 4. My hand is so disguised he can,t put me on it. I shove all in - not much more maybe 10 bigs. He eventually calls, he folds face down when he sees my cards and hits the roof. "How can you call with that.....etc".

The moral of this is....nothing, variance in poker is mad. This hand kept me in the tournament when I should have been blown out. The Villain probably had somewhere between aces and jacks. I went on to nail 8th place from about 160. That was a decent run for me and a decent cash. I should have done better as well, but got crippled with queens v AK, and never really recovered any momentum.
Still, a pretty sweet result after 2 days of full on poker.

Back To winning ways

I got back to winning ways with a 3rd place finish from about 50 players. Enroute tI had to survive a large number of coin flips.
I think most players think they are unluckier than most and you can,t help but remember the bad beats, but really every time your low pocket pair doubles up against two overs you are essentially flipping as the percentages are so marginal.
Some key hands on the way..
Had a decent start:

1. Pocket Queens doubling v AK
2. Then pocket Kings lost to q8 - turn and river are eights
3. Flopped a set of eights v pocket aces but the aces improved into nut flush.
4. Then got a triple up when I flopped open ended straight flush draw and shipped it, got called by 2 pair and I turned a straight.

Eventually with 5 players left and just over £2150 in pot, we did chop for £400 each and played out for the last £150 and 2 seats for £110 game.
I was down to about 5bb when I shipped from SB.  Q5ss got looked up by ace rag and I,m toast.

Pocket Queens and pocket queens.

It was good to reach another final table last night, after a pretty long session, as results haven't been great lately.

 The field was about 80 players. £3000 in the pot.

I,d been playing pretty solid for a few  hours and I was gradually increasing my stack till I hit the key hand:

There was an early position raise to 2200 from a pretty loose guy - blinds were 800/400 - the button calls and I look down at pocket queens on the big blind.
I,m out of position, so no point mucking about, I raise it to 7200, the LAG mucks pretty quick and the button whose a pretty weak player eventually calls - he's basically all in with a couple of hundred behind..
He turns over Ace Four - I show my queens - Ace Ball on the flop and I,ve dusted about half of my chips.

I then built it up gradually again to about 20BB over the next hour or two - then bluffed off half of it on a flop with 2 aces on it. I lost my balls on the river and folded my 7 high.

With 11 players left, the chip leader was in the BB with a mountain of chips and I was SB with 4BB - about 15,000 chips at 4k/2k/200. It got folded round to us and we both agreed to play the hand blind - I went all in and he called.
We ran out the cards and he turns over 7-2 off and I,ve got A 2 - sweet - Ace high is good and I double up.

82%  - "One Time"

I ducked and dived, for a few hours just managing to stay around the 6-12 bb level, and when the final table bubble burst we were down to 9 with 7 places paid.

FINAL TABLE

I was one of the 3 short stacks with about 35k with 6000/3000/500.
1st hand and a fellow shortstack busts out, he jams with suited J , 9 guy calls with A Q and we,re one place from the money.

Next hand I,m dealt junk and fold.

Next hand, I,m UTG +1 and I look down at pocket queens - not bad - after a bit of tough soul searching  I push the remainder of my modest stack into the middle...
 CALL!
I,m snapped off by an Italian player, he flips over pocket jacks.

Perfect - 82% favourite - finally some chips to play with - in the money etc...

Ah, you know the rest, jack on the flop and the money bubble boy is toast. Bah.

New Month New Beginning

Poker does ultimately come down to your results. My results for April make pretty grim reading:

6 Tournaments played. £295 entry fees. Winnings £0

Really not good.

3 hand implosion - Hero to Zero

I could probably elaborate a little more, but I think Tonights tournament bust out can be summarised fairly succinctly:
Played solid for 4hrs, steadily built my stack.
Ran AK into kings and didn,t improve. Crippled.
next hand I did a nice preflop raise - c bet - fold move with pocket 3,s.
Next hand I repopped a raiser for my last 12bb with pocket 6,s, he flips over AK and a king hits the flop.

Thats pretty much it. Onto the next..

Sent to the rail by 5 3 offsuit.

40 players made it through to Day 2 in total. I was about 36th in chips so it was always going to be a bit of a struggle, it started off brightly enough, I got a few chips early on to give me a bit of time, but the blinds and ante,s starting catching up, I was at under 10BB when I shipped a low pocket pair on the button and got it through to get up to about 20k.
Next hand I picked up A 10h, I raised to 8,000 with blinds at 2000,1000,200, only the big blind calls. Flop comes down J 6 3. BB checks, I shove, he calls and shows 5 3 off for bottom pair 5 kicker, no redemption on turn or river and I,m ash. Hmmm.
27th place from 120 odd. Not quite how I,d planned it.

Simon Appleby took down about £10k for first place.

Scraped through to Day 2

The two casinos seems to have shot themselves in the foot by running the competing events. Numbers were down drastically at the Genting on previous tournaments with only 51 players entering the Day 1A event and they,ll probably  get a similar number for Day 1b today.
There will still be in the region of £15,000 up for grabs, but there was basically no point have two day 1,s!

Edinburgh hosts competing main events.

Big weekend for poker players in Edinburgh. The 2 main casinos in Edinburgh, the Maybury and the Genting at Fountain Park are both having competing tournaments for the Easter weekend.The Maybury Scottish Poker Tour started yesterday and had a 117 turnout for day 1A with a £250 buy in.

I,m playing the £110 + £50 add on, 2 day event at the Genting Casino I,m free rolling as won a couple of seats but I made a mistake selling my 2nd seat - should have used it as insurance, if I get busted out today.
 I could have entered day 1B tomo. We,ll see how it goes..

Another decent cash and a boot in the nuts.

I should really be delighted after getting my 3rd cash in the last 3 tournaments:

I finished a respectable fourth from about 75 runners for a decent payout of £350.
I,ve already made nearly all the money I need for this years Vegas trip.
I also won another seat for a promotional £110 game in April.

Not bad right?... but no poker journey is ever complete without the bad beat story, poker does get under your skin a bit, and I left a bit steamed after getting launched out of the tourney at 5am after a weird turn of events .

Good run continues.

I managed another decent result in last nights tournament. I got 3rd place out of about 70 players.

I got a real help about half way through the tournament with 1 big hand where I raised with pocket 4's.
The board came down jj8, I c-bet the flop and got 2 callers. turn card was a 4 so I bet again, one of the guys calls again and the other guy reraises.

 I flat his raise to keep the other guy in and then the last guy shoves all in, as does player 2 and I call as well. one guy turns over AJ and the other KJ!! River bricks and I,ve got a decent stack.

I got to the final table, as one of the short stacks-as usual, and basically ground my way through until we got down to the last 3. The chip leader who I had been picking off quite nicely for most of the night, limped in the SB to me and I picked up AQ. I put a decent raise in up to about 60k blinds were 12000/6000/500 and had about 140k so I was pretty much commiting myself anyway. He calls, the flop comes down 9, 10, j. He checks, I c-bet, he shoves all in and I call the bet.
He turns over 10, 8 of hearts so we,ve both got the same straight draw buts he,s already hit. Turn and river bricks and I,m busto in 3rd.
Its been a good week - I,ve got another £430 towards the Vegas battle fund! Thats about £1400 this week, This is accumulating quicker than I had envisaged! I also picked up another free seat for a promotional £100 game in April so I,ll get to sell one of them as well.

Biggest Win Of Year - Vegas sorted!

I managed my biggest win of the year to date and my 1st outright win. I,ve played 12 live tourneys and cashed in 4 of them.

Structure was:

4k start stack

5k first add on

6k 2nd add on.

There were 70 odd players.

I thought I wouldn,t make it to the 1st break at one stage. I blew my initial stack after running Jacks in to Kings. Got my add on, and dusted that hitting King high flush v Ace high flush. I then raised pre with pocket kings, got 2 callers, I c bet the q high flop and called the all in re-raise bet on the queen high flop - guy had AQ, and no ace came...

From then on in I ground my way along with no real stack until making the final table.

Final table chipcounts were: me on about 55k, one guy had about 35k and the other 7 players had between 150-200k each.

The table was a great laugh, and shortstack 2 was playing pretty unorthodox poker. He would jam all in with K-10, K - J, or K-Q and proudly show them, but muck his rag aces. The guy to my right raised my blind every single time - if someone else hadn,t - and I could be too patient as blinds were 6k/3k. I survived the 1st after jamming with A7 off to his raise - J 10 showed and missed. Jammed again with pocket tens a while later and survived v AJ

With 7 places paid yours truly and shortstack 2 were hoping for a couple of early bust outs to make the cash - and we got them. The two of us then carried on shipped all in as required for about another 2 or 3 hours before the next guy went out - it was a total war of attrition, and the big stacks just could not put us out.

When the next guy finally went we were down to 6 and it went quick after that. I hit a nice patch of cards and I think I knocked pretty much all of them out. I,d  button raised with a suited 8, 5 and turned a flush v 2 pr, 1st one knocked out, called an All in with 10,s v 9,s - they held. Called another jam with AK and it held, Can,t remember the last one, but we ended up heads up with me massive chip leader. We done a bit of a deal with the prize money and I walked with £950. And that was that. Sweet as a nut. Only downer was the 5am finish, as I was up at 7am for work!

Vegas travel fund sorted - might even get a bit of a bank roll together for it.

Poker Home Game

I used to be playing at homegames every month or two, but they,ve dropped in frequency alot over the last couple of years - what with folk having kids and generally life catching up with them I guess.
I hosted a game at my place for the 1st time in maybe 3 years. We got 8 players together and a load of beer and whisky - the way poker was when you first started - spillages galore, disputes about the music, about the rules, etc - great night.
I,m going to try and keep the momentum going and see if it can become a bit more regular.

I got dusted in 4th place after I hit middle pair, he got an open ended flush draw, money went in and turn completed the flush...

LAS VEGAS 2013

One of the guys from last nights game was talking about heading over with me for this years Vegas trip, I also just got a message from my cousin who,s heading back over in September so theres a few options open.

Bad Fold - Sunday Millions

I got a free $11 seat to play on Full Tilt's Sunday Million game.
Its the first time I played on the full tilt site, and its the first time I,ve had to wait half an hour to be seated at an online tournament!! WTF!

Anyway, I busted just short of the money after missing out on this treble up opportunity along the way:

Blinds were  600/300/50.
I raised UTG +2 to 2100, guy on my left jams all in for 14k,  2nd players jams all in as well for about 17k, so I muck my pocket 8,s.
Board runs out as above.

I bust out of tourney not long after.

Health warning for online grinders!

"The bad news is that what poker puts the human brain through is unsustainable. I was told that if I choose to play online poker as a full time career, I will likely die of a stroke before the age of 50. They said that the human brain simply does not have the capacity to put itself through 8+ hour days of mass multi-table online poker. They said that playing online poker to that degree was quite literally one of the very worst things you can do to your brain and body. They said it wasn’t quite as bad as being an NFL player or someone who works full time around organic solvents, but it wasn’t far off. It was on the doctor’s urging that I retire from full time online poker"

-Excerpts from blog posts by Dusty "leatherass"  Schmidt.

This is my brain on poker

This is my brain on poker part 2

Dream flop and the parting of the proverbial cheeks

About 10 years ago I was watching the WPT coverage with Vince Patten and Mike Sexton. I didn,t have a clue what was going on, but got completely hooked by the coverage of the poker.

The two of them would be sitting on 80,s style bar stools at the back with the poker table lit up in the middle of an arena somewhere exotic, 1000,s of dollars stacked up, sun glasses, gold bracelets, spotlights, hand percentages on display for folk like me.

Mike would whisper something like

"Hansens digging the hole"

Vince would chip in

 "he's laying the trap."

"he's covering it in branches"

"Will he fall in?"

"I think he's got him"

"he,s got him!"

"he has just nailed him to the floor!!"

Don,t diss the 6, 3 off suit

I found myself getting involved in a massive 5 way pot last night holding no less than the mighty 6 -  3 offsuit.
 I headed down to the Mint Casino in London for the £65 freeze out. Late entries and rebuys mean't that were 53 entries in total and a £3180 prize pool with just over a grand for first.
It,s a good structure with 25,000 chips starting stack and a 20 min blind clock with no antes. Very sedate.

By the first break I,d ground up another 7 or 8 k mainly thanks to one guy at the table who bluffed off his entire stack (and his rebuy stack) with a series of pretty poorly timed re-raises.
Unfortunately a couple of guys at my table were the main beneficiaries of him and few other guys who got moved to the table who seemed determined to donate their entire chip stacks away. After a few hours I was starting to fall well behind the chip leaders, and spots were becoming increasingly difficult to find when the big hand came up.

Its worth noting, that there had been a fair bit of limping going on.....so utg starts off this particular  limpfest, then utg +3, the button also limps, I,m in SB with 6 3 offsuit and I opt to make up the blind, the BB checks behind, so we are 5 way to the flop.

I think Blinds are around 5000/2500 and my stack and two of the limpers are around 90k, and the two big chipstacks are around 350k.

Flop comes down Jh 6c3c. Not bad for the old 6,3 off!
I check, the BB bets out 10,000 and the whole table calls the 10,000 bet till it comes round to me. I repop it up to 50k, the BB shoves all in for about 90k, utg also shoves all in for about 90k and the 2 big stacks fold.

This isn,t exactly what I,d planned I was pretty sure I was ahead, but now I,m not so sure, but I can,t really fold now anyway so I go all in as well.

I,m happy to see noone has a set, but I,ve got alot of cards to fade.

The BB tables King Jack for top pair decent kicker
UTG tables Ace rag of clubs for the nut flush draw.

The dealer sorts the chips out and deals out the cards.

Turn card comes a King - BB bangs the table with delight Y-E-E-S!

I,m getting the jacket on, the BB now looks a bit less happy as he has just realised he's actually got quite quite a few river cards to fade now.

Dealer puts out a 6 of clubs.

The dealer announces house! 6,3 wins. A quick chip count confirms I,ve got both of them covered - just. 
Its a massive pot and puts me up in touching distance of the chipleaders.

- to be continued

Just a tease.

1st game in December and I managed another final table, with a 9th place finish from about 70 players. Satisfying but ultimately pointless as that added £0 to my bank roll...I got to the final table as the short stack with 33k and blinds at 4k/2k/400. First hand the button and the SB clash. Raise from the button, the small blind who is chip leader shoves all in, bb folds and the button instacalls with Aces. SB turns over 9, 3 off suit(!)

"I thought he was at it".

 For once the deck doesn't reward the 9 3 move and the aces hold.

Royal flush, £2k won and lost and 2 free beers

After taking a bit of a whipping the previous night I was looking forward to a change in fortunes.
I had a maniac table. You got a 5k starting stack with another 5k for your double chance. With blinds at 25/50 the had already been 3 all ins in the opening 10 minutes or so.
i managed to build up my stack to about 30k before the 1st break courtesy of 2 hands. one was pocker Aces, and the other was a 5,3 of hearts when I did an outrageous suckout on a guy who had 10,5 on a A,5,5 board. Treble up for me.
Last hand before the break and I,m not involved in a hand but 3 guys are all in. Last guy to turn his cards says "I,ve got nothing" and flips over his qj of hearts, the board is A, 10, hearts and a blank. The turn comes King of hearts and he just hit the Royal flush.
Thats a £1100 payout plus a nice treble up on the last hand for him. He offers to buy the table a round of drinks for the table after the break "Just don,t take the piss" are his parting words.

Painful Session.

Birmingham,s broadway casino has always been my run good casino, so I suppose its inevitable that it couldn,t last forever. I met up with my buddy Mr C for a couple of nights of pokering. On the Friday night game, they pulled it 160 entries for a £6500 grand pot.
The field was gradually thinning down to about 45 guys, I,m a bit below average chip stack at about 150k at 12000/6000/500.
Chip leader raises utg +2 to 25k. I know the guys range is pretty big as been raising way too many pots, it folds round to me in the BB and I look at pocket 8's so I ship it. He calls and turns over pocket 2,s. Flop comes Jack Ace 5, so far so good, turn comes a 3 just one to dodge, river comes a four, phew made it for the double up. "Straight" he says. Bollocks never even saw that, and I,m out..onto the cash tables.
2nd hand in and I pick up pocket aces, I put in a decent raise and get 6 callers (!).
Flop runs out 567. I c bet the flop and get 3 callers, turn comes a 9. First to act bets, 2nd guy flats, 3rd guy jams all in, I fold and two guys show there straights for a split pot.
An hour or so later and I,ve ground my stack back up to about 130 and I get AQ in late position, 2 callers to my raise, the Villain who is chip leader and my very drunk buddy Mr C.
Flop comes down q 10, 5. I c bet the flop and both call. Turn comes an Ace. mr C bets out, I call him and the villain shoves all in, Mr C calls and I call.

The river is a blank and the Villain announces "straight" and shows kj, Mr C shows his set of 5's and I muck. Both of us cleaned out.
I reload for another 100. I,ve got it back up to about 150 I,m utg +2 and the there is one limper before me utg. I raise it big when I pick up pocket queens and get I caller, the original limper.
Flop comes down Jack high with 2 hearts, I c bet utg jams all in I snap call and he flip over A4 of hearts. The river completes his flush and I,m 2 buy ins down.
I,ve got £25 left in my pocket and the min buy in is 50 so I stick my last25 on red on roulette and it comes in...black. I decide to call it a night. Maybe day 2 will be a bit better!

Winning Start To The Year

I,ve only played 3 tournaments so far this year and managed to cash in 2 of them. Sadly l,m well aware that I won,t manage to sustain my 66% success rate!
1st game I managed a respectable 25th place from 75 players.
The 2nd game was on Monday night and Although I officially got 3rd place from about 90 players though it it was really a 4 way chop. Myself and the other shortstack took £500 each and the two chip leaders took £700 each. I was pretty pleased with my game, especially as I had lost about 80% of my initial chips before I started to get a bit serious.
Unspectacular solid play would sum up the most of it, although when we down to 2 tables, my table did get a bit excitable after I called a massive river bet for about 3/4 of my chips with Ace high..and won - most of the regulars know I,m pretty solid and not usually known for flamboyant moves!!
I also sucked out once enroute when I called the shortstacks shove with A 10, he flips over AK - world of pain, but a timely 10 on the flop and that was that.

Then On Friday night it was very similar. The same sort of turn out - 73 players - same finish fourth place, but just cashed £310 as there wasn,t a deal done.
Again I pissed away about 3/4 of my chips before deciding to get involved properly. I started to pick up a bit of momentum, and got a few decent hands at the right time.
Sucked out once enroute when my pocket jacks took out pocket aces.
Went a bit card dead at the final table and when it was folded round to me on the SB I found suited 10 J and thought it would be a good spot for jamming and picking up the substantial antes and blinds, so I say "I,m all in" "I CALL!" announced after about 3 milliseconds. My man flips over pocket jacks. Bollocks.
Still, 2 games played this week, £810 won, can,t complain. Next week I,m off to play at the broadway casino in Birmingham, which has always been my rungood casino, so hopefully that will continue...

I,m going to start putting my football tips on daily as well and keep a running total see if any good.

Todays Bets.

Chelsea v Arsenal Chelsea 3pts to win @ 1.95 , 1pt draw @ 3.75
Tottenham v Man U Manu 6pts to win @ 2.4, 2pts to draw @ 3.5

results
Chelsea win return + 2.85
Man U Draw -1 (last minute equaliser for tottenham!)
Net + 1.85