Saturday 28 July 2007

Im lazy, newcastle update.

Well im posting this 1 week late! I do apologise but its better late then never eh?

I arriveth in newcastle very excited because its been a while since my last poker festival.

The first tourney is just a 300 quid double chance.

The blinds went up 45 mins and increased quite a lot each step, so a lot of skill is sucked out of the game this way, also only a 7k starting stack.

Anyhow, i won one pot the entire tourney and the pot was about 500 :(. Nothing i can do, i just could not get in any favourable situations! Oh well, let me talk about the main event.

In the first two levels i manage to increase my stack from 10k to 17k without ever putting many chips in danger, i have been playing a lot of hands preflop in late position. As soon as i get back i destroy 8k in chips with a terrible play.

I raise in the CO with JQs. Big blind calls (quite a tight player).

The flop: As 10h 6s

He checks so i obviously bet with my flush and straight draw. I think i bet 600 and he calls.

Turn: Jd And he fires 2k in chips at me. Now he only had 4.5k in chips left, and i should have called since there isnt much fold equity. Yup i raise him all-in and he calls with AJ and i dont improve.


Well over the next 8 hours or so nothing amazing happens, i build up to about 35k in 5 hours but ending up coming to day 2 with 23k. My key hand of day 1 hand to be when mid position raised 3x, guy to my right calls so i also call with 109o using position to my advantage.


Flop: 10d 9s 6d. First player bets, second player bets half his stack, i give it about 30 seconds to see whats going on (i also dont like betting allin straight away here, looks very amateurish hehe). So i eventually go allin, first chap folds and as the second guy calls i say "you can ONLY have two overcards and a flush draw"
Well i was right, and it was the only hand that fit because of his playing style (he was tight and was too unlikely to have 1010 or 99, and wouldnt have called the raise with 66). He didnt improve and that is what kept me alive.

Day 2 is my sob story. I have 2/3 of the chips of average so nothing desperate but i will need to open up early, which i did. The very first hand i open for 3000 with K9o on the button since everyone folded. Both the blinds call me which is not what i wanted!

Flop: K98. Lovely jubbly.

BB fires out 4k at me, making the pot 13k (9k + 4k). I decide the best play here is to go allin, with two spades on board it is too dangerous to call or raise small. So i raise for 16k more allin. The sb folds and BB says "I have to call"

He turns over KQ which is great news i guess, the turn is a 10 and river is a jack making him a runner runner straight, sick!! Infact what makes it worse is im left with 500 chips, not enough to make up the SB!!!!

Well time to throw the 500 chips and go home, infact i do. I go allin with 85 to be raised by 77. First card out was a 7 but i fluke a straight on the turn, yeehaw! Well let's not get too excited since i have 2300 chips now. The very next hand (only the third of day 2) i pick up JQ of hearts "All-in". Call, call, call and call. 5 way action, at least it will be worth winning.

Board: K 10 3 2 and...





Yes the Ace, give me those chips!!! Up to 12k now, i cannot believe this lucky comeback, still, since it costs 2700 a cycle i am nSave Noweeding to throw my chips in again. After folding for one round i bung it in with 93 of diamonds from the CO. BB says "your ahead but i call" and he turns over K8 of hearts (but they were soooooooooooted!). We both make full houses but his is stronger and im out of the tournement.

Never mind, for such high expectations i don't cash, but i do make £3500 in the side games which is always nice.

Next stop, Luton!

Tuesday 10 July 2007

WCOOP schedule out!

Well first things first, ive been looking forward to the WCOOP for a while now.

Here is the schedule, ive highlighted tourneys i am playing. I wont be playing anything other than PL/NL holdem and im also away at the end of september for the EPT london.

1 Sep.14 Friday 15:00 NL Hold'em [6-max] $215
2 Sep.14 Friday 16:30 PL 5-Card Draw $215
3 Sep.15 Saturday 15:00 PL Omaha [6-max] $215
4 Sep.15 Saturday 16:30 2-7 Triple Draw $215
5 Sep.16 Sunday 16:30 NL Hold'em $530
6 Sep.17 Monday 15:00 PL Omaha w/Rebuys $320
7 Sep.18 Tuesday 15:00 Limit Hold'em $215
8 Sep.19 Wednesday 15:00 Limit Omaha H/L $530
9 Sep.20 Thursday 15:00 NL Hold'em w/Rebuys $215
10 Sep.21 Friday 15:00 NL Hold'em Match Play $320
11 Sep.21 Friday 16:30 Razz $215
12 Sep.22 Saturday 15:00 HORSE $215
13 Sep.22 Saturday 16:30 PL Hold'em $530
14 Sep.23 Sunday 16:30 NL Hold'em $1,050
15 Sep.24 Monday 15:00 7 Card Stud $320
16 Sep.25 Tuesday 15:00 PL Omaha H/L $320
17 Sep.26 Wednesday 15:00 NL Hold'em [6-max] $320
18 Sep.27 Thursday 15:00 7 Card Stud H/L $530
19 Sep.28 Friday 15:00 PL Omaha $530
20 Sep.28 Friday 16:30 NL Hold'em Triple Shootout $530
21 Sep.29 Saturday 15:00 HORSE $5,200
22 Sep.29 Saturday 16:30 Limit Hold'em $1,050
23 Sep.30 Sunday 16:30 NL Hold'em Main Event $2,600


My poker life has been a bit of a bore lately, i went to Walsall last night to play a £15 rebuy just to get back into the live sync. 15th/95 is ok i guess, i wansnt interested in the money, just getting back into live since i havnt played for a while.

Online poker is absoloutly shocking for me, ive withdrawn all my money online for the time being and will just give the odd tourney a shot, im fed up of not making any money online.

Sunday 1 July 2007

Sunday night tourney

Decided just to play the $300 tourney on betfair tonight, its small field of 150 made it appealing to me.

I have never had a lot of chips, ive just been looking on ways to survive may way through.

Nothing special until the bubble comes. 18 get paid 23 left.

***** Betfair Poker Hand History for Game 224979683 *****
NL Texas Hold'em $300 Buy-in + $20 Entry Fee, Level:12 Blinds(800/1,600-75 ante) - Sunday, July 01, 20:39:58 GMT 2007
Weekly $50k GTD #80885
Table 3 9-max (Real Money)
Seat 6 is the button
Total number of active players : 7
Seat 2: Lambohov ( 30,532 )
Seat 3: hankipanki ( 24,380 )
Seat 5: james5tom ( 29,259 )
Seat 6: swansen ( 50,409 )
Seat 7: DollarDice ( 20,104.50 )
Seat 8: merly ( 31,740 )
Seat 9: pot is back ( 19,615 )
Tourney Level:12 Blinds(800/1,600-75 ante)
hankipanki posts ante [75]
james5tom posts ante [75]
swansen posts ante [75]
pot is back posts ante [75]
DollarDice posts ante [75]
merly posts ante [75]
Lambohov posts ante [75]
DollarDice posts small blind [800]
merly posts big blind [1,600]
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to DollarDice [ 8h, 9h ]
pot is back folds
Lambohov folds
hankipanki folds
james5tom folds
swansen calls [1,600]
DollarDice calls [800]
merly checks
** Dealing Flop ** [ 7h, 9d, 5c ]
DollarDice bets [5,325]
merly folds
swansen raises to [10,650]
DollarDice folds
Returning uncalled bet [5,325] to swansen
** Hand Conclusion **
swansen wins 15,975 from main pot

Well im sure a lot of you are thinking, wow what is he thinking folding this. Well, i am probably up against an overpair which makes me a 2-1 dog, i have the odds to call his raise on the flop...but whats the point, i have

Here is what i think about the hand. Swansen is a solid player who has shown down very strong hands so far. It really looks like he has limped on the button with an absoloute monster. If he has an overpair, i am a 2-1 dog, i have the odds to call but to call an extra 5k i will only have 8k in chips. That is pretty devastating if the turn isn't a 6, 8 or 9.

So i thought i would wait for a better spot.

Soon 21 left and i am pretty short stacked with 16,000 chips (I'm in 19th). I plan on pushing a lot here since a lot of people want to protect their chips and increase their chances of making the money (Of course this is -EV though, the top 3 prizes is where its at)

Well, with my strategy i fall at the last hurdle. I pushed with A9 on the button when i was short, the SB had QQ and i didnt improve. GG

***** Betfair Poker Hand History for Game 224989376 *****
NL Texas Hold'em $300 Buy-in + $20 Entry Fee, Level:13 Blinds(1,000/2,000-100 ante) - Sunday, July 01, 20:58:58 GMT 2007
Weekly $50k GTD #80885
Table 3 9-max (Real Money)
Seat 7 is the button
Total number of active players : 6
Seat 2: Lambohov ( 47,172 )
Seat 3: hankipanki ( 23,080 )
Seat 5: james5tom ( 30,084 )
Seat 6: swansen ( 62,059 )
Seat 7: DollarDice ( 20,704.50 )
Seat 8: merly ( 22,940 )
Tourney Level:13 Blinds(1,000/2,000-100 ante)
Lambohov posts ante [100]
hankipanki posts ante [100]
james5tom posts ante [100]
swansen posts ante [100]
DollarDice posts ante [100]
merly posts ante [100]
merly posts small blind [1,000]
Lambohov posts big blind [2,000]
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to DollarDice [ 9c, Ad ]
hankipanki folds
james5tom folds
swansen folds
DollarDice goes all-in
DollarDice raises to [20,604.50]
merly goes all-in
merly raises to [22,840]
Lambohov folds
Returning uncalled bet [2,235.50] to merly
** Showdown **
DollarDice shows [ 9c, Ad ]
merly shows [ Qs, Qh ]
** Dealing Flop ** [ Td, 6s, 2c ]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 5h ]
** Dealing River ** [ Qd ]
** Hand Conclusion **
merly wins 43,809 from main pot with three of a kind, Queens

-Dan

Wednesday 27 June 2007

Variance! ARGHGHGHGH


Ok here pictured isnt my real poker grapher, but probably isnt too far off right now.










After my week break from poker i was desperate to get home to play some HU, which i did.

I played for 6 hours straight earning myself a tasty $5000 playing 500 and 1000 Hu's. I then see the donk at the 2000 game that i had been crushing earlier, well i dunno but i got beat twice. I think i decided to play really poorly all of a sudden. Im pretty fuming right now and i am trying to decide wether to play another when i get a call from my mate asking me if i want to go down the pub WOOHOO! 3 hours later we stagger home and i go against the 10th poker commandment.

Thou shall not drink excessively and play online poker.

Ok well my mate was watching me and i decided to play 2x $500 matches, which i won both SOMEHOW. Anyhow i brag to my friend saying how easy this game is and that i just won an easy $1000 when he points out to me that i played 2x$2000 games. Well i guess im not going to turn on the pc if im this drunk because i couldnt even play the right bloody game. LOL Mis-clickaments!

So thats all good, im up $5000 on 1 night but it unfortunatly goes downhill the next day. I bloody suck right now and cannot beat what i like to call the "deceptive player". You get a lot of them at mid-high stake HU games and i saw a lot of them at barcelona. If you do not treat these players correctly they will sting you. If they have nothing they bet, and often mix up their bet sizes, if they have a big hand they check. Of course if you are not playing well this can get very frustrating as it seems they are getting a lot of good cards.

Well after 3 days of stupid poker i am level, which isnt the end of the world after winning a lot but i might add that i decided to play 5/10nl too.

I built to a stack of 2k when someone didnt believe me when i flopped top set with QQ.

Ok so then i raise with J10 on the button and get a caller from the BB with a big stack.

The flop is a 69Q so i continuate with a $40 bet into $60 which gets raised from $40 to $110. I then call. The turn is a king which brings two spades and two hearts. He checks and i bet $200 when he raises allin for about $1600. Pretty MASSIVE raise but i was loving it.

The river paired the king and he turned 66 which was when i turned my stomache. FACK!

Ok, not much going on in my poker life for the next 10 days or so, but will keep updated on anything interesting (or not so) in my poker life.

Thanks,

Dan

Wednesday 13 June 2007

Online suckage

As soon as i got back from barcelona i played a lot of HU online. I played a lot better than before and this is probably down to confidence.


Infact from June 1st-6th i won abut $20k playing HU (Just $500 and $1000 sng's). I spent the last 3 days giving $6k of this back, so its time for a break from HU online.

Sometimes when i am running well for a month or so i get really bored, since everything is so repetetive! When im bored i play really bad poker, so, for now im going to play lower stakes until i can care about poker.

Im currently sitting at a $4/$8 limit table (full!) to hopefully minimise any losses. Hope all goes well...

Dan

Sunday 10 June 2007

£1000 main event- i got sicked.

Ok so this £1000 main event is a 15000 chip double chance, lovely this is very deep.

At first i looked at my table and thought it would be tough- was i wrong, with blinds of 25/50 the standard preflop raise was 600-950, crazy eh?

Anyway the only hand i picked up was JJ and i managed to flop the nuts, but the chap wasnt interested. I bluffed off 10k of chips towards the end of the second level and was left woth 5k chips.

On one hand i limped with 99 UTG for 200, after another limper a new player to the table makes it 700, about 4 people call including me.

The flop was 368 with two hearts and everyone checked. The turn brought a 6 which was a second club, i bet 1500 which got raised to 4500 by the original raiser. I must have thought for 5 minutes because i couldnt figure out what was going on; well i figured i was pretty short and had to make a stand which i did, i only had 1600 more than the 4500 raise so i went allin, the original raiser then froze and i smiled. So basically i know he has nothing, infact, the crazy thing is- he folded! WOW how stupid lol.

So i pretty much doulbe up there when i raise in middle position with aces, it comes back to the chap who limped UTG and he re-raised me. This young player is a very good player and i thought he had AK or KK, in which case i just call.

The flop comes 1087 with two diamonds and he announces allin. I INSTANTLY call. He turns over J10 of diamonds, yikes! He is a 60% favourite but i somehow managed to miss all those bullets and doubled up again, this time i have over the average of 21k, i have about 24k.

Anyhow i look over my shoulder and i see a player who is kind of well known with an absoloute monsterous stack, this player is pretty terrible too, but still he had 175k in chips when the average is about 25k. I said to the table that it would be a dream to be moved to the right of him, about 10 seconds later the card room manager announces that the big blind at the table is to be moved, thats me, and its also to the right of this player. UNBELIEVABLE!

So the break soon commences and i have 30300 in chips which is about average, but still this is quite deep since we will be coming back to 400/800 blinds, my plan is to play lots of hands for cheap after this donkey.

FIRST hand back he raises to 2400 and i call with 67 of diamonds, not the strongest of hands but i can certainly crack a hand with this, everyone else folds.

The flop 3d 5d 6c. HOLY S***!

He bets out 5k and i go allin for my 28k, he pretty much instantly calls and flips over AcQh.

Well, i mean, if i want to get my chips in good this is the time, im infact a 89% favourite, also this goes to show what a complete and utter donkey this guy is.

The turn- Qc

The river- As.

Absoloute killer right there, i am absoloutly sickened and leave the casino in disgust. There was only an hour left of play for day 1, that was a good chance to get to a final table for my ranking points. A good finish would get me into the top 10 in europe, but for now i am going to have to settle with my 14th in europe and try again at my next live tourney- in the newcastle GPUKT.

Thanks for reading,

Dan

Thursday 7 June 2007

Midland masters. Day 1 & 2

Well back to my regular casino, walsall.

First tourney is a £200 freezeout and i am going to see if my new TAG approach is going to work.

To be honest i dont have much to say about the tourney, i picked up a set early on and picked up a lot of small pots to stay just above average for a long time, when the blinds started hitting the 600/1200 stage i was getting slightly short.

After 2 limpers from early position i shoved with 33 since i only had 11 big blinds, everyone passes.

I know have about 19k with 800/1600 blinds when a crazy hand occured.

UTG raises 3x to 4800, im next to act and i shove with AhQh.

The player to my immediate left who has about 30k chips says "call". Well i about crapped myself because this usually means aces lol.

Comes back to the chap UTG who passes quickly, so i turn to my right and say "have you got a pair mate?" He says "yep".

He then confidently flips 44. LOL! What the hell is he thinking, oh well race time.

I smile when the flop comes 89A.

Turn J.












River 4.

It was 20 minutes before the day was over, how painful, i finish 21st and storm out of the casino. Not happy!

Well day 2 is next, the £300 double chance freezeout, again i play pretty tight and after 2 hours i still have my starting stack which is fine. After some cool maneouvering i climb to about 20k in chips when i get AA UTG. Yep for once i decided to limp and the guy 3 seats after me says "All-in" Fine, but the blinds are 400/800 and he has 16000 chips. All pass to me and he flips AK. Im pretty sure he said Merry Christmas. My AA held up and i had quite a large stack.

Its getting late into the tourney and i have been with the same few people as when i started, including two tight players that give away what they have depending on their bet sizes preflop.

On one hand the chap to my right raised about 2.5BB so i just assumed he was weak, i was on the button so put in about 1/4 of my stack with 56. I was absoloutly confident he would fold right here, the blinds were high...any move meant all of your stack but he then announced a minimum raise. Oh god, its great relying on your reads isnt it. I spend a lot of time and announce to the table im laying down Queens (hehe).

Well the other player who i said makes his raises compared to his strength raises just 3xBB in early position (this player im even more sure) So i look down at 55 in the SB and push about 5x his bet, the blinds were super high and this was really worth it, also there is only about 30 minutes until the day is over so it would be really nice to take this down. He passes immediatly whilst flipping 99. Lovely :)

Well the first day of the double chance is over and with only 23 left, i have 60,900 chips and the average is about 31k so im doing good.

Final table here i come!