Biggest cash of 2014.

I managed a decent cash in the £110 - 2 day September event at the Genting.

About 50 players turned up for day 1B making 138 in total. I played some good poker, and I had a reasonable sized stack quite early on, but twice I was all-in against short stacks with AK and missed twice, and then not long before the end of day one, I got it all-in again pre flop, with pocket Q's v AK and this time the Ace hit - to decimate my stack.

Day 2

Of the 40 players returning I was 37th in chips with about 8bb's, not great but I was about to triple up with my first suck out of the tournament: Guy in early position raises, I shove over the top with pocket 7's, button also shoves all in and early raiser calls.

I,m up against AK, and pocket queens. Queens hold till the river when a 7 drops and I,m back in the game, with a decent stack.

I,m getting some decent cards now as well but I,m also playing pretty well, I call an overbet on the river with Ace high, he shows KQ and my AK wins a huge pot.

The wheels start come off the bus a bit though as I get involved in a few pots flipping with short stack all-ins and coming in 2nd.

Then the next key hand which pushed me through to the final table. There were 3 of us involved and a guy who I know has been doing alot of bluffing.

i flop an openender with a flush draw - J10 hearts on a pretty looking QKx board.

The bluffer leads out, I shove over the top expecting the fold and guy calls with AK! Whoops, I,m near enough busted when the 9 drops on the river and I,m alive again with a decent stack.

There was alot of mental hands, but ultimately at the final table the antes and blinds were massive and it was going to come down to key hand.

i went to final table as slight chip leader with just over a million chips, then lost a quarter of it early when I got jacks v villains kings, then stack dwindled to next to nothing, before building it up again with a couple of big re-raises with small pairs. Ultimately with less than 10bb, I shoved the button with AJ, got called by 8's and missed. That was that, £1150 for 5th place.

Happy enough with that.

Optimistic

The last few months have been a bit odd and I feel like I lost some of my enthusiasm for the game, so as a result I have been playing a lot less. I have been getting back into it more lately though and I am starting to place pretty close to the money again in some biggish fields, so hopefully will get things back on track shortly.
Vegas pencilled in for November.
Hell yeah!

Signs of recovery and odd game in Vienna

"Golden Times" 

Its not been a red hot month but a few cashes have dragged results back into the black.
7 MTTs played - 4 cashes.
Best result - £530 cash for a 3 way chop at Edinburgh's Genting.

Vienna - Two Casinos in one night

The strangest game was the one  in Vienna's Concorde Casino at Lugner City.

Due to other commitments I couldn't make the game I fancied which was a 2 day Easter special at the Montesino, so instead I went for the 30 euro game at the Concorde.
There were 50+ players and I had some pretty decent cards and played well enough, so that we got down to the final table of 9 players reasonably quickly. I,d forgotten that the Concorde give you a glass of champagne when you make the FT which is a nice touch. The FT went pretty quick as well as a few car crash hands were dealt pretty early on, so that when we got down to the last 6 players, the game stopped and we were told we were all in the money - but we wouldn't know how much yet, as we then had to make our way to the other Concorde casino in Simmering, on the other side of Vienna to meet up with the qualifiers from theirTw tournament. The game would then be played to a conclusion up there.
I played at the Simmering casino before and its a pretty memorable place, mostly because of the huge pictures of the girls on the wall next door outside the neighbouring "Golden Times" strip bar.

Concorde Casino Vienna

There didn't appear to be any transport arranged either but one of the other guys who had his car gave a couple of us a lift up so that was fine. When we got there though, their game had 180 players and they were playing down to the last 18..but there were still 35 left in.
The six of us had to wait for about another 2 or 3 hours until they were down to 18, they then had a break and the game restarted after we'd been given seats.
Now though due to the time elapsed, the blinds were absolutely huge in relation to the previously confortably chip stacks sizes we had brought along, as 5 or 6 levels had passed. To make matters worse for me I was given a seat at a table full of absolute monster stacks.

There was about 5000 euro in prize money, but the payouts were pretty top heavy with the first payouts just getting 60 euro and the next jump was to 78 euro for 18th.

I had about 8 BB left, but I figured with the stacks at my table, unless I got very lucky my time here was going to be short..a quick glance around established that there were quite a few in a similar or worse position so some shorties were going to bust pretty quick anyway - my target was to hit min 18th place as doubling my buy in seemed pretty lame rewards for the effort put in.

I hung on by shipping a couple of times and getting no callers and just managed to scrape to the 18th place taeget before the antes swallowed me and I eventually got picked off by a big Ace.

Your always happy to hit the money, but when the payout it that low after 7 or 8 hours of cards its a bit negative as well. Still a profit is a profit!

Lean pickings for Feb and March

Feb and and March results have been poor.

I dont think I,ve been playing particularly badly and its quite often just come down to not being able to win key flips or getting coolered at the critical phase, but it is still very frustrating...time will tell. 

Funnily enough I have managed a reasonable profit out of a couple of sessions of cash , which has always been my worst game.

Decent Start to 2014

January Summary:
7 tournaments played - 2 cashes.
One 2nd place from 68 for £532,
One 5th place from 30 for £62.
Decent start to the year.

Results - December and 2013

December was a patchy month. I felt like I played some decent solid poker all month but, couldn't nail much.
Busted 4 tournaments at the Genting, pretty much on flips.

Busted the mint casino in London with 9,s on a JJ2 flop.

Busted the Concorde in Vienna on the bubble. (4th place finish from 33) with a pair v 10,8

Busted the montesino in Vienna in 16th from 233 with Aj v a7 all in preflop for a €100 cash.

All things considered, I,m happy enough with a modest profit from the year and achieved my Target of a free holiday in Vegas. Same target for 2014!

Dreadful call - bizzare hand.

I got involved in a fascinating hand the other night which left me with a bit of steam coming out of the ears.
There were 75 players in the tournament, a £50 entry fee ( £10 + 2 x £20 for 22000 chips).

The Villain
Early on in the tournament I was sat next to a Canadian guy who had amassed a huge stack of chips early on. He called about 90% of the raises, with literally any two napkins, and was hitting the flop big time. When he wasn,t catching the flop he was taking down some big pots by pushing his stack in the middle pretty regularly.
He,d already taken out a pre flop raised pair of pocket aces with a 6-2 off suit.
Fast forward a few hours and we,re down to the last 25 - 3 tables and I,m sitting on about 45k, round about average.
The villain has got alot more, around about the 80-90k mark. Blinds are 1600/800/200.
The Villain limps and its folded round to me.

I pick up jacks on the button and do a 10k raise (I know he is calling), everyone folds apart from him.

Flop comes down 3,7,K. rainbow.

He leads out for 5k, I reraise to 20k leaving about 15k behind.

The villain says "I call" and throws his cards onto the table face up! Ace, six off.

No connection, no draw. The turn comes a 6, giving him a pair. So I push the last 15k of my chips in. he calls.

River is a nice big black ace...and busto!