Donking it Up - Pete’s Poker Blog

Can’t be bothered running two blogs, so this ones going to bite the dust. My other one will keep going.

Was fairly good fun, though I was on a rubbish table - I hit a bit of bad luck and eventually my 99 came up against AA during the freezeout and I was out.

Saturday should contain a fun tournament… Apart from that I’m not playing this week.

So on monday I went down to the casino for a beginners night… It turned out to be not much of such, with at least 80% of the people there being regulars.

Anyway, I took along my girlfriend, Sarah, to try the game out. Quickly running through the rules and some (very) basic strategies to her before hand she proceeded to a fantastic 8th place… and £20. It’s literally the first time she’s ever played.

Afterwards she was telling me of the some of the moves she made. I think she may have a natural knack for this… though she did get bored towards the end of her 4 hour involvement.. (on a school night too.)

Me? I came 25th (out of 90) never really got going and starting chucking my chips around to great affect until caught out and outdrawn.

Tuesday rosy and I went down for the £5 rebuy. Our bankrolls are still not large enough to really play it properly (i.e. gamble during the rebuy session), though with a sizable proportion of donks (maybe 90 of the 120 starters) we fancied our chances.

I went into the freezeout on a modest chip stack and kept ahead of the blinds whilst being card cold (one pair all night, JJ, KQ once, AJ my best ace, missing flops) I was able to steal from the generally tight table and with a generally tight image.

But the structure of these things are awful. 20min blinds meant we didn’t even get a full round before they popped up again… Being that you only have position every now and again and with me being card dead, the risks got greater, until, with 9k back and blinds 1\2 UTG I pushed with AT.

Called by AK, and out. I felt it was a mandatory move with 3k about to be ripped off me by the blinds and 6k being scary to few of the remaining players.

If an all in had held up at that point, I’d have had enough chips, against inferior opposition, to make the FT I think, then I’d take my chances (prizes on FT varied between £20 and £1400).

I hate casino structures and will try to avoid them as much as I can (I love live games, and these seem to be the only regular ones ).

Incidently, Andiell’s latest post is on some similar experiences this week, so go and read.

Wednesday student poker was cancelled.

Online I’ve been playing Omaha hi\lo for profit, but still at low stakes. I’m trying new things out, though I’m fairly confident. The structure of the FL game will mean that I’ll be able to multi-table it fairly easily too. Enjoying it, but still chancing my hand at the odd $4\180, though luck has deserted me (the usual ahead PF, Flop, behin by River stuff, I won’t bore you with the details).

£1 rebuy tonight. I’m gonna gamble.

Student Poker

Student Poker is back, Last Wednesday a £5 freezeout resulted in 15th out of 44.

I found myself with an average\low stack, but certainly needing to make some moves… unfortunately the one I made which was entirely position related (I at least had half a hand the other times) I ran in to TT (it was a button raise with 63, against tight non-defending significant blinds so I definitely feel it was the right move). The only mistake I think I made there was that I didn’t try to gague the SB’s reaction to his hand - I’d been reading people pretty accurately up until then, so it was a stupid oversight. Still I played decently. Still need to learn how to build a stack more effectively.

Omaha

I’ve bought myself an Omaha hi\lo book and I’ve started to put it into action. I’m going to try and play Omaha8 cash games for a bit and see how it goes. First session lead to a $5 profit at 0.25/0.50 fixed. I’ll be looking to move up in stakes pretty quickly once I’m confident of my profit making, I should be playing 0.5/1 within a week. Then once comfortable with, say 1/2, I’ll start trying the Pot Limit games. Maybe this will all come apart because of time issues but we’ll see.

More Live Poker

It’s possible, though unlikely, that I’ll be playing Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in live games this week. I’ll report back. (most likely to be playing the tues and weds, but not mon).

My poker confidence is low at the moment. I played well for a $2 loss at HORSE yesterday, but haven’t played much apart from that. Thankfully uni poker starts up next week, which’ll be fun at least.

Question : If I know I can make money regularly at NLHE 6max (which I can) should I bother playing any other form of poker, even though I find them fun? 

Yes, I’ve not played much over the summer, for one reason or another. But I should say that now I have more time to pick up the card playing again - so I will do!

My re-introduction was not too sucessful,  however.

I kicked it off with a 4/180 on stars, playing super tight early whilst making tonnes of notes, only to get trapped against a better ace, which I’d played from the button on the third hand I’d played of the whole tourney. out in 108th.

Then I played 45 mins of Horse $0.50/1.

In general I was very happy with how I played, but I ended up $2 down.

I literally only lost 2 hands. Both were expensive.

1) Last hand of limit hold ‘em. I pick up AKs (not clubs) mid position. Raise. 1 caller.

Flop Ace high, 2 clubs.  A63. Bet Call.
Turn Kd Bet Call.
River 7h and the betting is capped.

He was playing 45.

2) Razz. Where as I consider myself unlucky in the last hand in this one I was just stupid. I had 4 to a good 7 with my first 4 (2347) then watched in horror as the final three streets came down 727. I bluffed on the river, he’d been weak before, and I thought there was a chance - but in hindsight it was a silly move and he, of course, called.

These two hands cost me around $18 in total. 

Thanks to Rosy, Adrian, Mahinda and myself, my computer is finally back in action.

My bankroll is healthy enough, so let’s get playing some poker! 

So, there am I, all set to start my HU experiment when … my computer gives up!

Yup, I’m currently sans automatique and I can’t actually play at all.

I’m hoping to get one tourney in tonight (on rosy’s computer), but really hamstrung at the moment. 

I’m going to try and address a weakness by concentrating solely on playing cheap HU matches for (as long a period until I get bored) I’ll report back my sucess\failure here.

Not actually sure anyone reads this, but this’ll be my sole poker outlet now I’m not logging on to hattrick anymore. 

one MTT this week, came in midfield, but I’m not unhappy with it as I missed out due to bad luck rather than bad play (QQ < 66 when I was starting to exert a big influence at the table, then QQ < 22 to end my tournament).

Anyway, I thought I’d have a go at listed my percieved weaknesses and strengths at the poker table.

Strengths:

Pre-Flop, Straightforward Playing, River Play

Weaknesses:

Flop and Turn play, Picking Spots (for making moves)

Let’s see how I can address that over the coming weeks. 

I’ve been faaaaaaaaaaar too busy over the past week or so to play any poker - to be honest I’m a bit fed up of playing online and want to get back to playing live more often - that’s where the fun is for me.

Anyway, yesterday I played two free-rolls whilst doing other things and went deep in one, playing really well against a surprisingly high standard (I’m used to pure donkfests in freerolls, and yeah there was some - but there were also some genuinely good players) but pushed when I shouldn’t have (there you go with the not paying attention) and found myself up against AA with 99. Came 60th out of 2000 - top 30 paid. I wasn’t interested in anything but first - and it was the right time to try and start doubling up (I was an average\low stack at the time) if I wanted to go deep ITM.

I’m horrendously busy this week too, so I don’t think I’ll actually play for proper money til sometime next week - when I plan to get myself back in with a $4\180 or something.

Tarra! 

I’ve not played any poker since monday when I played 4 freerolls simultaneously (1 horse, 1 omaha split, 2 hold ‘em).

I’m away this weekend too! 

Saturday saw the second installment of the hattrick boozer poker tour.

We all met around Andi’s house for some pokerin’ action, which all kicked off with a quick super-loose cash game.

Anyway, the tourney started at around 9pm with 8 runners (in position from Jon on the starting button) Jon, Rosy, Joel, Steve, Toby, Andi, Me, Richie.

Play progressed slowly throughout the first two levels (10/10 and 10/25) a few people had to rebuy - notably Andi with Queens against my Aces - and Steve went out altogether but we allowed him a further rebuy at the add-in stage.

Everyone either rebought or added-on, so the pot was £210.

Players started to get eliminated. Andi suffered a 2 pair v Set blow to leave first, but Joel wasn’t far after - chasing a flush.

We were 6-handed for a while, but went from 6 to 3 quite quickly. Jon was 6th, Rosy 5th, Richie bubbled, so we were down to the last three, Me, Steve & Toby.

there was some sparring, a few blinds stolen and few flops and we’re were all roughly even on chips when this happened:

I picked up 89s from the small blind. Toby folds from the button. I think I can take this on the flop so I call the BB, only for Steve to min raise me.

I’m not fully sure what the min-raise meant but I’m thinking it’s either a PP, Ax, or two face cards that I’m up against. Still reckoning there are plenty of flops I can take this with I call the raise (3 to 1 makes it mandatory anyway).

Flop 992, and I lead out. Steve raises me and I reckon its 2 overs, PP or the dreaded A9. I’m favourite against most of that so I push all in thinking Steve’s got plenty into the pot and may be willing to follow it with some more. He does.

He flips over TT. I’m happy, I’m a 12 to 1 favourite (or thereabouts) and he only has 2 outs… the turns a T.

Gutted! I finished in third place, having thought that I’d have been in a very good position with over half the chips in play… Toby went on to win it around 20 minutes later with some good play.

Overall I think I played well - I was very solid and played exactly how I wanted to. I never got all my chips in with the worst of it, either.

Good Game, now I’m really looking forward to the next one. Cheers to Andi for hosting it! 

OK, so there’s a big new swish casino in town - the G-Casino on Bury New Road - which has replaced the seedy spit & sawdust Empire Street Effort (where I went once - a true throwback) so Rosy and I decided to check it out via a cheapo £2 rebuy they have going each Thursday night.

We got there, and immediately found the impressive poker room - I’d say it’s the biggest in Manchester - and it already had two cash games running, but I stuck to my limit of £10 and signed up for the rebuy.

The tourney itself was nothing special. the first 90 mins are rebuy madness… not helped by the irish lad to my right, who narrowly avoids a punch up and is thrown out before the freezeout - who’s raising all in on each hand and hitting…. T2o = 2 pair, K7o = Straight, A4o = flush… even when he has a reasonable hand (77) he hits a full house on the flop and then turns quads!

I played tight and looked for opportunities to quadruple up… AT, KK, AK (a big loser on the night) all lead to rebuys… but it duly came (AQ) and I sat tight for the rest of the rebuy deciding to only play KK or AA (which never arrive) in fact the closest I come - in what is a generally (from AQ onwards) a card dead day for me - is KQo from UTG with 3 hands to go… by this point 4 or 5 people are pushing per round so my hands not even likely to be live. I pass.

Rosy, who almost decides not to rebuy with the last of his budget for the night, gets lucky and 9x his starting stack with 2 great hands in the last 5, after looking like he’d be limping to the freezeout with less than 1000 (blinds 100\200) he’s suddenly in good shape.

I’m just over average (3600) - though I am the short stack at my table - I’ve spent £8, but blinds are suddenly 100/200 and raising very very quickly. our table is LAGgy, so I lower my starting requirements and look for opportunities to stack the main LAGger, two (later three) seats to my left.

This is where I really go card dead. the next 20 hands I pick up K7o as my best, from the button. Knowing that to play it I have to push it all across I decide I’ve still time to pick a better spot.

Better spots never arrive, (I even pick up 72o on my next big blind) and now I’m short stacked with just under 3000 and the blinds 300/600. Irish, who was kicked out, is now getting ante’d away at a rate of 1000 per hand, so when I look down and see A9 in MP to an unopened pot with 1900 chips in the middle. I push.

One caller… Mr. LAG, who’s now on the Small Blind. KQo. I’m only a 60/40 favourite here (slightly worse than that in fact) and sure enough the Queen flops and holds.

I’m irritated because I didn’t get to play any poker but more because I felt that had I doubled through there then I could start to control the table and I’d make the final table with a minimum of fuss (I had a few targets already noted, and had built up a tight reputation, I also didn’t rate any other player at the table except for Rosy - but then I’d decided I’d stay out of big pots there since I could get the chips elsewhere) ah well.

My thoughts about the standard of play were backed up by rosy running over the table from here on, and coming second… to Mr. LAG… ! Congrats Rosy… I can’t comment much on it because I was in the sports bar section reading "Swimming with the Devilfish" … fortunately my wait was worthwhile since Rosy and I have 10% of each other for tourney’s we’re both playing in. £145 for Rosy = £14.50 for me. We got home at 3am.

A decent night out, but I wish I’d got to play some poker! 

In my first 4/180 for ages at PS I managed to get myself a healthy chip lead… being one of the biggest three stacks in the tourney from the last 100 to about the last 30.

Then, inexplicably, I call an all in with TT 3 from the bubble, and find myself up against AA.

Why?! oh Why?!!

21st, and out of the money, when I really should’ve been final table at least . I’ll post up some hands after I’ve been through them in the Poker Fed. 

Apart from that I’ve won money at NL ring and lost money at omaha hi\lo ring (testing the water). Overall I’m down a couple of dollars for the week.