Tuesday, February 27, 2007

A winning day!

O the joys, a winning day!
It has been too long that I care to remember and it feels good.
Yesterday I had a run of cards but didn't make any money.
Today I doubled up on two of the three tables I was playing.
I realised I was playing scared, which is stupid considering the size of my stack.
If I have the hand I need to bet and not check-call for fear of the ultimate nuts.
I hit two pr on flop and smelt top pr top kicker from a serial bettor and flted him.
I did not fear trips!
Then I did something I should be doing more, I identified a fish, followed him and felted him too.
My stack is now back to over $2,300 and it is going to carry on rising.
I'm using PokerHud now and it helps enormously (thanks Rossi!). I can multi-table and see who is raising pre-flop and who is aggressive w/o haven't to watch every hand all the way through.
But the key was the fish following. I won't name him, but he's there, 2-tabling on the $50 tables most evenings.
Another thing I noticed was a very aggressive player who I thought was killing the tables.
He felted me once and always seemed to have a big stack.
Well he's still multi-tabling but only buying in for $20. He's so much tighter and weaker for it.
Methinks he's actually another losing player.
For some reason this also makes me feel good, having lost $50 to him a week ago.
Let's hope the luck lasts...

Monday, February 26, 2007

Out in 20th

First hand after last post I pick up js, serial raiser makes it $5,000, I push my last $10,000, one short stack calls, blinds and original raiser fold. He has ako and my hand stands up.
Soon get moved to a table with a player who was raises pre-flop one in two hands.
I won a bunch after re-raised his standard 4xbb pre-flop raise with ak0 and he folds after a long pause.
He then raised my blind time and time again, and others.
He had reached $124,000 and in the top five and no-one was playing back at him.
Then all of sudden everyone did.
He lost about $30,000 with a blind v blind battle.
He then raised with position when I sat in the SB with Js.
I pushed he called with 97s and despite a flush draw on turn it held up.
I was up to $55,000 and in the top 18. He lost another battle with the guy to my left and I then knocked him out with k9o (in bb) v his 910o.
I was sitting pretty for a tilt at the final two tables when I got moved to a 6-man table (the other two had 7 players)
I had $65,000, raised 4xbb in early position with a2s, aggressive player re-raises me, I fold.
The blinds are $5,000 now!
I pick up 99s in SB with around $40,000, button (who has been stealing all tournament) raises, I push. Ace on flop and IGHN
O well. I picked up $224. If I had got to the last two tables i would have made double that, and 1st was $1,900 but it wasn't to be.
Happy but a little disappointed.
Its strange to say but I feel I did not get very good cards on the whole, BUT crucially when I did they held up.
Every single one, including the one marginal my js v ako. I was ahead on every hand I pushed on but you need these hands to stand up to make it deep.
$224 is my biggest MTT payout, and although I'll still play more cash, I've decided to give more of these bad boys a go.
OK, Good luck at the tables!

Sunday, February 25, 2007

RTR freeroll

Playing the raketherake.com freeroll and have made the cash!
Sitting slightly precariously in 54th with 62 players left, good for a whopping $76.
There were 1,500+ starters.
I've been playing T I G H T, managed to double thru with As and triple up with Ks...its easy if you know how!
I'm def not stealing enough, the guys with the big stacks are raising pre-flop around 1 in 6 hands they play.
The next level of cash is 45th so will need to pick up some hands very soon. I have 5xbb only.
I'll post again when I'm done.

Friday, February 23, 2007

The cup runs dry

The poor run of results continued last night.
After a four day break from Full Tilt, I had another crack and failed to get win stack moving back in the right direction.
Lost a buy-in after getting qs 2x in three hands, first to flopped 777s when I doubled up a short-stack, and then the rest to As.
Both were all low flops and anyone that is playing properly would have gone broke after those to hands.
Doubled up on a flopped full house, and won bits and bobs elsewhere, but my stack is now around $2,120, almost $500 down on my record high earler this month.
I need to do something, but I'm not sure what. The only thing that is encouraging me is how appalling the standard of play is.
A frenchie, who managed to quadruple his buy-in, felted me with a crazy hand.
He was playing every hand, limping and limping, calling raises and he kept hitting. It was amazing. Flushes, trips with 84o, str8s, a truly amazing set of flops.
His post-flop play was a bit better than his almost 100% pre-flop calls, but he was a total chump.
I had ks, he turned out to have j10s.
Glop 952 rainbow, I bet pot he calls, turn 8 I bet pot, he checkraises me, river q, and I get felted.
A few hands later he calls two people's big flop raises with 5s on a jk2 flop.
Short stack has 222, big stack has jk.
He turns a 5 and gets paid off big-style.
I managed to chip up to $75 when he left having lost an all-in raising war with as v a foe's ks.
He finally got sucked out on! Once he was gone, I buggered off too.
Over at Stars the stack continues to rise and my winning run on the Omaha H/L turbos is continuing. There are some horrible players there and I plan to tuck in some more in the coming days.
I've got the raketherake freeroll on Sunday which has reached the dizzy heights of $19,000 and hope to get past the 13 minute mark this time!
Playing my irregular home game with my bros and three of his mates tonight. I plan to continue my campaign to make it a NL game rather PL.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Break time

I've taken a break from the game after a terrible Saturday.
I was down about almost four buy-ins during the day and was hitting very little. When I did I overplayed the hand and didn't win enough.
Withing ten minutes I lost a buy in with the nut str8 on the flop to a flush on the river, and it just got worse.
I didn't tilt..., erm, yes, I did tilt when I chucked away another $50 to a decent player with top pr top kicker to his overpair. I was just tired of getting pushed around by him and folding to his big re-raises.
Not even sure I'll play on FT tonight, I really need to find my mojo again there.
On the plus side, I've been building my roll up on Stars to around $350 with some solid SNG cashes and a few double ups on NL Holdem.
The way to beat this game, if you play a solid, tight game like me, is pretty simple - make as much as you can when the cards are hitting you, and then grind it out when your getting crap.
I'm going to stick to Stars for a bit as I want to get on the top ten leaderboard on Sharkscope for my limit, between $1 - $5, for Omaha H/L.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Bonus complete

Three things of note happened tonight.
1) I completed my $500 bonus
This means I'm now just playing on rakeback. Hopefully there will be a reload bonus coming up soon.
2) I got back to winning ways
Made about $40 all told. This included getting As cracked again by a four outer on the river, and ks cracked by runner runner hearts, o the joys.
3) I managed to play a few hands with DrPauly, the author of the Tao of Poker blog.
Took a $35 pot off him. I saw him reraise twice on the turn with an open ender, if anyone is taking notes, checked river both times he missed.

Playing Razz now so probably blow all my winnings in about 20 minutes!

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Tilt returns

O dear, very bad session.
Should've trusted my instincts and stopped playing at 9pm.
But carried on and lost alomst $200.
I was up $100 in the first part of the evening, had supper, chatted with flatmates and almost fell asleep on the sofa.
Came back and lost a buy in on two $50 tables and another on $100.
FUCK!
One bad beat, when my aces got cracked by jko (terrible player) who hit runner runner str8.
Then I lost with qs on a 446 flop and some fucker had a 4.
45s. Pot raise pre-flop wasn't enough to lose him.
THAT IS WHY I DON'T LIKE HIGHER LIMITS, there are too many gamblers and the swings are too big for me to feel comfortable.
Don't want to look at the my stack but its back down to low $2,400 after hitting $2600 only 2 hours ago.
For tilt is this tight feeling of panic in my head and my body, rather than calm rational play.
I was prob on tilt even before as I called a reraise on the river in a 3-way pot and DIDN'T EVEN SEE THE FLUSH ON THE BOARD.
Ok rant over, I feel better.

Quickie at work

No play since Monday when I won $35.
Plan to play for two hours tonight max. as I have loads of washing to do!

Monday, February 12, 2007

Update

Back at home again and had originally planned to write a detailed a/c of the tourney run on Sunday.
Too lazy so I wanted to update on how I've run up my roll over the last few days.
I moved back down to the $50 tables on February 6 and since then I've:
Feb 6, +$36.75, 3 tables, 259 hands
Feb 8, +$16.90, 2 tables, 112 hands
Feb 9, +$72.35, 2 tables, 140 hands
Feb 10, +$134.15, 7 tables, 291 hands
Feb 11, -$18.35, 2 tables, 139 hands

I'm not exactly breaking the bank, nor playing hundreds of hands, but I'm really happy with these solid gains.

Running gooot...

The decision to move down seems to have been a good one and I'm back to winning ways.
I've been playing drunk, tired and while surfing - breaking all my rules - but I keep winning.
It's been slow but steady stuff, 3-tabling the $50NL tables, but booking wins every session.
Writing this at work again so cannot recall specific hands, but my roll is on the cusp of $2,500.
It was boosted on Saturday morning with a 2nd place in a 151-man $2 NL tourney on FT.
Key hands were a push on the button after two limpers, with A4o and getting two callers, j10s and k5o!
Ace on flop and it help up.
Hit trip 7s to double up early, also trip 9s to put me top 10 with 30 remaining and then it was plain sailing from there.
The final table went from 9 players down to 4 in amazingly fast fashion, I was actually chip leader for a bit with three to go, but went very card dead and ended up with a 6:1 chip deficit going heads up against the tourney bully.
Lasted two hands when my ajo lost to his k10o all in pre-flop, and he flopped a 10 and spiked a k for good measure.
2nd was good for $55.
Good luck on the tables

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Dropping down

Played no poker last night as I was out at a couple of industry do's/free piss-ups.
But played a couple of hours on Tuesday night.
One of my NY aims was to use Pokertracker more to analyse mine and my foes play.
Well, I uploaded a load of hands over the weekend from FT play since December 2 and it made very interesting reading.
Most striking is my BB/100 rates, at 25c/50c it is something like 17 and at 50c/$1 it is 4, i think. I can't remember exactly because I'm writing this at work.
I win more at showdowns at the lower level, see more flops and am an all-round charlie at the 100NL. I've also made 2x more money there in half as many hands, eek!
I tried three-tabling the 50c tables and made a decent-ish profit on all three to end up $50.
The standard is lower, the post-flop play in particular very weak, but then again maybe I got lucky?
Will prob continue grinding at this for a couple more sessions and then move up again.
Good luck

Monday, February 05, 2007

Full Tilt and Stars

Not much to report today after a steady Sunday.
Racked up another 200 FTPs and won around $80 on Full Tilt and had some more success on the Omaha H/L on Stars.
Looking at my Sharkscope stats makes strange reading.
On Pokerstars I have played 81 SNG and MTTs, with an average profit of $2 on an average stake of $4, my ROI is 72%, and profit level is $191 and I'm running Hot.
On Full Tilt, by contrast, the numbers are 20, -$2, $4, -35% to produce a loss of $32 (eek!), although I'm also running hot after cashing in my last three tries.
Why the difference?
Probably the main reason is that the FT SNGs are slow, 10 minutes blinds as opposed to five minutes.
Early doors I tend to see flops cheaply but only play the nuts.
I just get bored if I have to wait 40 minutes before the blinds hit a level where it is worth stealing and raising pre-flop.
This is where I build my stacks when other players are trying to limp into the money.
AA23 double suited in the first orbit? I call because not matter what you raise with $20 blinds you'll get five callers.
But a pot sized raise on blinds of $200/$100 and one limper means foes are less likely to call.


On another matter I slightly worried about the size of my roll and the blind levels I'm playing.
Is 50x the buy-in the correct level to play? Or 20x?
I feel I'm playing slightly too tightly and sometimes am still scared to put my money on the line. On the other hand when I drop down to the $50 tables I play like its play money, calling raised pots with dodgy hole cards and chasing when I don't have odds.
Something to work on anyway.

Not sure how much I'll play tonight. GL on the tables.

Sunday, February 04, 2007

Long session

Saturday was poker day in the Marky household.
I managed to rack up almost 700 FT points over the day and night, two and three tabling on 100NL.
Pretty mixed really. I had one really good session when I was up $200 on one table and another $80 on another but this was after a horrible run.
I was down to $1,950 at one stage but have brought it back up to $2,100 again.
Still below my best but I still moving in the right direction at least.

The highlight of the night was going deep in a tournament on Stars.
It was one of those $1NL games with 1,830 entries. I entered at 10pm, not realising that it takes more than 6 hours to get the final table.
Crashed out in 7th, after being in the top 10 for most of the last two hours.
I stole lots, tripled up with around 60 remaining, and then knocked out another big stack with my As v his Ks, all in pre-flop.
I was eliminated after an all-in pre-flop with 7s that ran into Ks.

I got $45 which is not a bad return but not worth the time, and if I could have hung on a little longer I could have made some decent cash.
1st was $330 and third was around $100.
It was very late though and I was really struggling to keep up my concentration.

Just won another of those $3 SNG at Stars as I write this so my stack there is up to $269.54 (precisely!). I realised a $50 last week.

GL on the tables

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Hit and Run

After two nights off from poker I had a small hit and run session last night.
After donkeying off $150 on Monday, I spent 10 mins piddling about on the 25c/50c tables before deciding to move back up to 100NL.
1st hand up get dealt aqo, and win $5, a few hands later get aqo again and win another small pot.
Then ks 2x and 9s to book a $65 in about half an hour.
It was late so I logged off far happier than I did two nights ago. Winning is easy if you hit.
Also booked $50 rakeback this month so I'm back up to almost $2,200.

On a separate note, a month ago I set a plan to build my bankroll to $3,500.
Winning $1,200 in January has set me thinking that this might have been a little conservative!
So I'm setting a revised target of $10k. This is around $8,000 in 11 months or $700 a month - very doable at current win levels.
It probably is a little conservative but when I reach $4,000 I will have to move up a level to $1/$2 and this would be relatively uncharted territory for me.