Last Games Of The Year

I played two tournaments at The Montesino card room in Vienna to finish off the year.
The Xmas special was a 30 euro entry fee with a guaranteed 50k prize pool. 4 casinos took part in it and I entered day 1d with 320 runners. I lost 2/3rds of my stack in the first two levels and then ground it back up until we got down to the last 50 but got busted out when I shoved my 10bb stack with A6 off to grab the blinds and the chip leader looked me up with KJ. Jack on the flop...

Last night there were a couple of hundred runners and I got busted pretty early when i got all the money in with a straight v 2 pairs on the turn. The 2 pairs improved on the river and It was the high road for me.

Its Not been a brilliant year all in, online poker and tournaments have been profitable, though a lot less so than last year. Cash poker and sport betting showing a loss. All in all, a modest profit for the year.
Anyway a Happy new year to you all and good fortune for 2013.3

Losing a million pounds in a day is pretty disgusting

BBC documentary with Luke Schwartz + Andrew Feldman where you get a fine bit of understatement with the comment "Losing a million pounds in a day is pretty disgusting"

When poker is beautiful - Flopping a boat

Results have been ok last few weeks, a few cashes here and there and I've been pretty happy with my game.
I played a  tournament last week where I got involved in a big pot with four other players.
To summarise the essentials:

Preflop raise to 4X from UTG

Me -  Seat 5 Pocket 3,s  I call

Seat 6 calls

Seat 8 calls.

Flop comes a sweet 6, 6, 3 with 2 hearts.

UTG checks,
 I check
 Seat 6 bets 800,
 Seat 8 calls,
 utg calls
 and I flat it.

Theres now about 7k in the pot.

Turn comes a jack of hearts. This is getting better and better. The flush just got there, but sadly its check, check, check, check.

Cooler

River comes Ace of spades.

This is about as good as it gets.
 The full house isn,t exactly the nuts, but with potential flushes and ace somethings getting there, its probably the perfect river for me and...

UTG bets 1200
I raise  to 2600, seat 6 folds, and seat 8 reraises to 7500.

After much deliberation, the initial raiser (UTG) folds.

 I reraise all in for about 15k.
Seat 8 snaps me off and tables pocket jacks.

Bollocks.

A Winner - Finally!

Results haven't exactly been red hot of late so it was good to get a decent result again.
There were 98 players for the £50 game - an entry of £10 + £20 + £20 add on. I never took the add on as I got enough chips early on to not see the point.

I played unspectacular ABC solid poker, nothing particularly aggressive or too bluffy but things just ran well from start to finish.

The key factors were.

A - Not getting any nut-flush-open-ender-top-pair type of hands where you dust alot of chips when you miss. In fact I never really had any massively hard decisions to make all night.

B - Big hands holding up in All-in situations

C - Not getting sucked-out on.

D - Folding big hands if I thought I was beat - like Queens on an ace high board.

E - Getting a lot of playable cards and hitting flops

I never got my money in bad from start to finish - (apart from one hand at the final table where the short stack had 2bb and I called the All-in bet blind and my 2, 3 off suit beat his 9, 2 off suit!!).
However - I had quite a few sweet spots where I picked up some massive pots.

Kings on the button - UTG opens with over bet, I reraise and she Jams with A - 9 (!)

I called UTG raise with pocket 10,s, flop 10 - 9  - 9 guy with AK jams and I snap him off.

I again called UTG raiser on button with pocket 3,s Flop comes 10s - Js  - 3h. I call the C bet and turn comes Ah, I bet and he goes all in. I eventually call and he tables 2 pair with AJ, rivers a blank. 
Guy accuses me of a slow roll! -a set of 3,s on 10, J, Ace board is hardly the nuts...

I call raise with K - 10 and flop comes J - Q - A. I slow play and get three streets of value.....



On the final table I did my fair share of robbing as my chipstack size mean,t I was pretty comfortable for most of the time and the short stacks got wiped out fairly quickly. In the end, it was five in the morning and I was getting up for work at 7, so although I was substantial chip leader, I agreed to a 3 way chop to get it ended and cashed up for just under a grand. Best result of year so far and drags the pokerings back into a healthy profit. 

I only dropped below 10bb once all night and got doubled up shortly after with set v 2 pair.


It would be nice to summarise by saying that I played out of my skin and out played the rest of the field with some incredible poker, but I didn't really. I just got a decent run of cards and played pretty solid.
Easy game when fortune smiles :-)

Losing money but winning - sort of.

Cock Up 1

At the same session at Planet Hollywood I saw two expensive cock - ups, one I was involved in and one I was not.
In the first, there was a fair bit of money in the middle after the flop had run out 4 - 4 - 5. The betting had reduced the field to two players and the turn brought another 5 and there was another raise reraise until there was around $250 dollars in the middle.
The river was a 7.
Now the guy who was first to act bets $40 dollars, and the other guy raises him to $80. The guy that was first to go asks him how many chips he has left and the guy pushes his chips out in front of him showing a stack of round about $150. The first guy pushes all his chips into the middle and says "I,m all in and I've got quads" and tables pocket 4's.
The 2nd guy to act says "I never called" and shows his 7, 5 for a full house!

Floorman is called and he agrees the guy just put his chips out in front of him to show him his stack, no call and the guy mucks.$150 dollars saved from what would have been an instacall.

Cock Up 2

I'd only sat down with some chips left over from the previous session and got involved in a couple of unsuccessful hands so my stack was sitting at around about $80, so I thought I would add $200 dollars to my stack after the next hand to bring it up to more like the rest of the table and put the money on the table. I looked down at my hand and it was pocket Aces! The dealer looks at me and says, is this that money in play? I don't know what sort of lunacy took hold of me, or if I was just to excited to see the big ones but, inexplicably I say"no its in play for the next hand" - mentally that was what I'd decided and if I'd changed my mind after looking at the cards, it would be a bit kind of obvious.
Anyway I raise, other guy reraises I ship it, he instacalls and tables pocket kings. I'm now looking to double up to about $160 instead of the $560 I would have had had the money been in play....

....however, the 2nd card out is a king and I,m busted. $200 saved - I go on to have a profitable session using the $200 - the whole thing was a kind of strange offering from the poker gods.

Donkey Or Not?

My Annual Vegas Trip wasn,t exactly a massive success this year. I only cashed 3 times in the tournaments and turned a small loss on the cash tables. The cost of the buy-ins is well over my winnings which is not good.
On the plus side I was basically freerolling anyway as the trip was paid for by winnings from this year.
However the line between success and failure in poker can be pretty thin, and I,m not too down about the whole trip, as looking through my results in many of the tournament exits I had I was either ahead or flipping and in later stages of the tournaments, if you,ve not built up a big enough stack and the antes are kicking in you often don,t have much choice but to ship decent hands and hope they hold up.
The one hand though that put me on massive tilt for the last couple of days was at the cash game at Planet Hollywood. I'm still not sure if I should have got away from it.
I mentioned it in the previous blog as well, but here in a bit more detail -


I sat down with $200 and pretty soon identified the two local sharks at each end of the table, feasting off the tourists, who would continuously buy in for $100 and one drunk French guy in particular who kept reloading relentlessly for $50 dollars and playing every single hand.
I got involved a bit and got my fair share off this particular guy as well and I managed to pull a few timely bluffs to build my stack up to $400 dollars pretty quickly.
No-one at the table had a massive stack apart from the two sharks, the one guy at the far end - the villain - had about $800 and the guy to my left who was on a slightly larger stack to me around $500 .
 The standard raise at the $1/2 was either $7 or $12, so when I got AK in utg + 4 I raised to $20 to clear the way abit, the 2 limpers left and I got 2 callers, the villain who was on the button and the guy to my left.
The flop came down Ace, 6, 2 rainbow. I c-betted to $33 the guy to my left folded and the Villain called (Alarm bells starting to ring in my head!).
The Villain had been playing solid poker, he no doubt did his share of stealing but wat able to lay down hands and he was obviously a dangerous player. 
The turn brought a pretty harmless looking 7 but, I chose to check, two reasons, pot control, and to maybe make it look like I had missed or had a hand like kings or queens..
The Villain puts in a hefty $75 bet - I ran through all the hands in my head which I could put him on. I knew he was pretty solid and had something but - a set? Possible, with the flop being rainbow, but I don,t think he would be trying to chase me away with a big bet if he had one. Ace rag - again seems unlikely as I,m repping the big Ace and the rags would have to be pretty low, Ace 6, Ace 7 Ace 3 or Ace 2. Pocket Aces? Ruled out for obvious reasons. There were no real draws there so I concluded he either had the same hand as me, or possibly AQ, AJ, A10 something like that, he doesn't want me in the hand either hence the big bet. So I decide to min raise him and see if it slows him down.
No such luck, he looks a little bit uncomfortable with the move but after a couple of minutes of deliberation and scrutinising me he announces "all in" - at this stage every alarm bell in my head is ringing full blast and I take an age running through the same calculations as previously, I can still fold and have $200 dollars odd left, but I just cannot see whats beating me. Every voice in my head is now screaming FOLD FOLD FOLD! but I just can't find the fold and find myself saying I call.
Theres now over $800 dollars in the middle of the table. The dealer turns over the river, and its nothing significant, in fact I can't even remember what it was, neither of us wants to turn the cards. He eventually announces "Two Pair" I say "Two pairs good" and he tables Ace 7 off .
I say "nice hand" and muck face down. Jacket on and I,m off out of the casino - I don't want to be there any longer, I am so steaming - and I feel like I've been trussed up like a turkey.
I've now ran through that hand so often in my head, and I still can,t make my mind up if it was simply bad play or unavoidable.

Bad Run

The last couple of days have been quite painful. Exited the $125 at the Aria with pocket jacks v pocket tens, the money was all in then runner runner flush. As I was meeting up with my cousin yesterday Night I played cash instead, just incase I had a deep run.
I lost first buy in at planet hollywood cash with pocket aces v pocket kings, that was all in pre as well, then yesterday I doubled my 2nd buy in before giving the lot to the chip leader with my ace king v the villains ace 7 on a harmless looking A, 2 6 board, when a 7 hit the turn I just couldn,t put him on it after calling my big c bet after the flop.

After that one, I headed back to hotel to cool off and at least I hit a straight flush on the video poker though when I got back to excalibur! $100 dollar compensation.

Aria $125 again today, so last chance to draft the trip into a profit..