Long Time No Update

It's been ages since I updated this blog, so just wanted to post something to let people know that I haven't walked off a cliff....

Been horrendously busy with work to the point where I have had fewer chances to play serious poker tournaments. That doesn't mean I haven't been playing them when work allows - but certainly not with the focus I did before.

It doesn't help that I have been on a cold run of results either, especially online.

I have won a few smallish (30-50) size freezeouts live, but they are smallfry prize-wise

As 2015 proceeds, I am hoping to update a bit more, promise!

DTD Grand Prix VII Supersized

It does seem that I only ever post about the DTD GP series on this blog lately - this is a side-effect of having too much work on, so opportunities to play live have been limited. Also in recent weeks I have satellited into the Pokerstars Sunday Million, so have saved all my energy for that on weekends.

Anyway, this GP is a little different from previously. There are still a bunch of Day 1's (seven), and they still have the golden chip promotion however whereas the last GP was a £50 buy-in and €100k guaranteed prize pool, this one is £100 with a €200k prize pool. Basically, everything was doubled which sounds a great idea in theory however with a single re-entry allowed on any of the Day 1's, it does make it a little expensive for the general recreational player as they would really need to budget £200 plus the schools had just broken up and the weather was starting to improve. This all culminated in a slightly smaller field - not that you would notice on the first Day 1 (Saturday), but if there are significantly less people in the weekday games then the club could be facing a fairly steep overlay. Still, all that means good value for players....

I entered Day 1a, and as always strategised that I was going to play tight to start with and as always, it went out of the window. Best laid plans and all that.

I was sat at a table with some fairly aggressive young players. This is normally a time to tighten up the range, however after watching a number of hands I felt the patterns emerging could be exploitable if I picked my spot right. That spot came in a pot against a good young player from Manchester. I bet out on two streets with Ace high and then when the river card arrived and not only paired the board but put a flush out there, I check shoved. He tanked but then made a crying call which of course was good. That didn't work out too well, but I felt strangely calm as I now had a very short stack and with the prospect of firing the second £100 bullet, I had no real pressure.

I started playing all sorts of speculative hands in position and c-betting or check raising to take pots down. Eventually I was back up to 10k in chips (we started with 15k) and my loosey-goosey image helped when I doubled up against the player to my left when hit top pair on a Queen high board. So amazingly I maged to reach the break just ahead of the average.

A pivotal hand happened in the first hand back at the table. I picked up AA in the big blind, and was delighted to see a big pre-flop raise from early position and a call from mid-position. I 3bet and had two callers. The flop brought two Kings. I bet, the first raiser got out of the way and the mid-position guy called. The inconsequential turn looked harmless, and unless I was facing a king I was way ahead, so checked expecting a bet which I then planned to go all-in over the top, I did and was very surprised to see him turn over QQ. The end result though was I had more than doubled through again.

The guy next to me proclaimed to the table that it was clear I had a monster because I only EVER call pre-flop and I re-raised. He was right to a point, but that was more to do with my cards and ensuring I played position (we were also in the early levels still), however I made sure that the gem of info he gave people at my end of the table was put into good use, as in the next few hands I 3bet pre-flop twice and took the pot down both times. If only it was always this simple!

The break arrived and I moved table, where I stayed for the remainder. I don't recall too many big hands but I chipped away and managed to keep myself some distance ahead of the average stack through fairly standard play and ensuring I used my larger stack to good advantage. I did open-fold AK against a shove and a re-shove, which drew some surprise at the table but it ended up saving half my stack (I would have called against one opponent), and I made a couple of big calls against a player (Darren Burden) to my right who would end up being just a couple of thousand off the chip-leader at the end of the night.

The first was fairly standard and I was happy with my read. It was blind vs blind, and he had limped in and after he checked the Ace-high flop I bet and he called. I fired again on the turn and he put a bet out on the river, which I was fairly happy I was ahead of with second pair as I could not see him playing an Ace in his position. I called the river and he insta-mucked.

The second was much more marginal, and could have placed me in quite a bit of trouble. Darren raised from early position and I called with 5c5h. I missed the flop, which contained two hearts but bet when he checked. He called and the turn brought another heart. I called his bet with a specific rationale in my mind - I felt he was unlikely to have the flush as he would have tried to play for more value on the turn and whilst I felt he had the better hand, I didn't feel he was crushing me due to the betting pattern. With the flush on board and my cold call, I reckoned that if the river blanked then I may have an opportunity to represent the flush and take the pot. There was also an outside chance of a third 5 dropping. The river however was another heart. This, of course, made my flush however it is a weak one and any heart holding from him higher than a 5 had me beat. He pushed out around 18,000 chips into the middle and I really tanked - not only replaying the hand, but also counting out my chips to ensure that even if I called and lost I would still have above average. I really felt it was a 50/50 call but I made it, and he immediately said 'You got the flush?', I showed the 5 of hearts and he mucked angrily. Turned out he had two-pair and hated the four-flush board.

I think he felt I was fishing for a flush when the truth is, I wasn't. I was calling to hopefully get a card I could apply some pressure with and the heart wasn't something I wanted to see really. Whilst my play was a bit borderline to say the least, I also think he made an error with the river bet, as it was only ever going to be called by someone ahead. But hey, to coin a cliche - thats poker.

The final break ahead of the last level of the day came and went, and I had around 230k in chips. Given it is the last level, some of the shorties are pushing all-in to either bust or come back on Day 2 with more chips, and I therefore misjudged a few raises where I had to fold to short-stack shoves. Allied to this, my adversary above was on a mini heater (picked up JJ twice in a row, bust two shorties with each hand), so I pretty much decided to shut down. Last hand of the night, the button - who was the young lad from Manchester who was on my first table and had played with me all day - shoved all-in, citing a desire to not come back next week with a tiny stack. I had AT and was considering a call however Darren to my right, tank-called and I felt it better to fold and bag up my chips. Darren won the hand (77 vs AK) and that was it.

So another Day 2 at a Grand Prix event. My third in a row now. Out of 327 entrants, 39 made it through to the second day and I finished 7th in chips overall with 197,000. The average chip-stack is about 120k, so I'm in fairly good shape. Naturally, anything can happen next week but at least I have a chance at making it 2 cashes from 3 GPs. Fingers crossed.

But back to the potential overlay. As I type, both Sunday and Mondays entrants were down on expected, and the club need to reach something like 300 entrants each night Tues-Fri in order to reach the guarantee. Really can't see that happening, although I suspect there will be a rush on Friday night.

Perhaps what they should do in future is run the GP over three weekends instead of two. Fri/Sat/Sun/Fri/Sat/Sun could cover Day 1a-f, with Day 2/3 being the following weekend. I think weekend fields will always be higher, and this may be a solution. I suspect the next GP will be back to £50 though...

Will update on how I get on after Day 2, next Saturday

DTD Grand Prix VI - Day Two

Well that was a pretty crappy day poker-wise

First seven hands of the day, there were seven all-ins making me wish they really had rolled the blinds back a level or two and stuck with a 30 min clock. After receiving complete junk for the remainder of the level, I had won only one hand (my SB shove to pick up the BB). After a while I was down at around 10bb's and about to hit the blinds again. What little fold equity I had would need to be exercised ahead of the blinds, so I open shoved J8s from early position, hoping no-one woke up with a decent hand. Folded around to the SB who called with QQ, and hit a Q on the flop to send me out. Yawn. Finished 264th out of 2325 runners.

On reflection, I think I picked the wrong spot to shove for a variety of reasons. Firstly, I was way too focused on the '10bb' thing and especially hitting the upcoming blinds as that would reduce my stack by getting on towards another 10k. In reality, continuing to fold could have allowed me to shove from mid-late position and stand a better chance of getting through which would have boosted me back up to 10bb's anyway - I would naturally also receive a bunch more cards which could have been better than the ones I chose to push with (or not, probably). Given the structure, I actually think on reflection that I could have folded down to 5bb's as my fold equity was pretty shot anyway and a flip with someone at that point may end up trebling my stack - still leaving me short but giving me some more time. Additionally - and this is a real kicker, with them paying 234 players, I could well have cashed just by blinding out.

Of course, if I had hit a straight or a flush and doubled up, this could be a very different blog post so its easy to look at things differently based on outcomes. In real terms I don't think open-shoving J8s was a bad play, but I think it was a bad spot to do it and given the payout positions nearing, I should have waited a bit longer.

Still - one day I will actually run good at a critical point in a live tournament....

Topped that off by losing around £100 on cash games, much of that from hitting a set against a guy who hit a straight on the river, and two-pair against another guy who rivered a straight. Sometimes, the game frustrates so much. Toyed with the idea of entering the evening tournament but how much punishment do I want? Going home to watch The Voice seemed a better approach in the end.

DTD Grand Prix VI - Day One

After managing to cash in the DTD Grand Prix in January, I wanted to take another shot at this months event however as I couldn't make Day 1A last Sunday or any of the other Day 1s as they fall during the week and I have too much on at work to make it - I had resigned myself to sitting this one out.

But as luck would have it, a meeting I had to attend at 5pm on Thursday was cancelled, so I was able to head around the corner (literally) to the club and sign up for Day 1E. Amazingly, I still had some money in my online DTD account to buy-in with so didn't have to fork out any extra and felt a bit like I was free-rolling!

The play itself didn't have too many massive moments that stick in the memory. A bit swingy, very up and down, and I didn't have too many monster hands and the few I did have resulted in minimal or no action. With one exception, when I doubled up with AA v KK, which pretty much kept me alive for most of the day.

As I swung from lower-than-average to higher-than-average and back again, I did consider some wild play in order to utilise the single extra 'bullet' buy-in you could buy through re-entering although it turns out I never quite needed it.

Stayed at one table most of the night which was fine although one guy in particular was running up a monster stack through running extremely good. To start with he ended up in a three-way all-in pot where someone had a set, someone had the nut flush draw and he had flopped a straight, then he called an all-in after some questionable play where he re-raised a big button raise from the blinds and then called the subsequent all-in - he had AQ, the button had AK and of course he hit the Q to double-up again. He also claimed to have received KK seven times at the table, and I can believe it - he was running like god. To be fair though, once he had a big stack he was running over the table and using it really well and this killed a lot of action and meant most people were tightening up a lot or gambling (and usually busting).

On moving tables, I was a bit of an unknown and used that to my advantage 3betting a big stack with 3rd pair and forcing a fold where he showed top pair-top kicker, stealing a few pots and making a huge laydown with JJ against a shove where I wasn't too worried about the guy shoving but more about the bloke behind who eventually showed he had flopped a flush. But nothing dramatic to report on really.

Last couple of levels I was hoping for a shoveable hand so I could try and double-up before day 1 finished but all I received were trash cards so pretty much folded the day out with my stack of 60,800 which is some way below the days average of 102,000 but still gives me 20 big blinds to try and do something with on Day 2.

In terms of strategy its always hard to say as aside from the cards you receive, you have no control over table draw and the subsequent dynamics that will come into play. Suffice to say I will aim to play tight-aggressive for the first level and if I end up whittling down to around 10bb's I will look for any sensible spot to shove in. I guess that will be the strategy of most people with less than about 70k in chips though so should be interesting!

Will update following Day 2

DTD £500 Deepstack £250k

Played the big deepstack tournament at DTD for the first time. It was a re-entry tournament, meaning you could pay the fee again to get back in although as I don't have thousands of pounds kicking around in shoeboxes, one 'bullet' would have to suffice this time!

In terms of the event itself, not a huge amount of poker action to report. Starting off with 30,000 stacks, I lost the opening few hands by letting my opponents draw too cheaply and hit their wonder card on the river. This took me down to around 25k where I sat for ages whilst picking up next to no playable cards, and when I did get something marginal (say 33), I would be facing a raise and 3bet, so I couldn't play them. After whittling down to the 15k mark, I picked up Aces. Whilst I would normally advocate raising to isolate, I went down a riskier route to either double up or bust out. UTG raised, and I felt that in UTG+2 position a 3bet would telegraph my hand, especially as I had played very few. So I called and of course there were several more callers. Luckily, when the money eventually went in it was against a guy with top pair and I doubled up, but it was a dangerous play which could equally have seen me head for the door.

So back at the starting stack, I wanted to kick on. There was one guy at the table in particular I felt had a very exploitable game however I needed to find spots to 3bet him pre-flop to make any use of my theory. In the spots where it was possible I had absolute trash so had to back down from that approach.

We were in level 9 (I think there were planned for 12 levels on Day 1), and I played a very spewy hand chasing a flush which with the impending blind increases would see me down in the red zone with about 10 big blinds. Made up my mind I was just going to wait for a vaguely suitable spot to shove, and picked up A5s UTG - shoved, and a guy in mid-position shoved his big stack over the top. He had AKo. Despite the dealer showing one card at a time and seeing a 4 land on the flop, the next card was a K and I didn't improve so that was it.

On reflection, I definitely didn't bring my A-game to this event. I went in with a strategy but threw it out of the window in the opening 30 minutes, which saw my stack hurt and more importantly made me impatient to get back into things, which eventually I did - more by luck than judgement. Then the impatience arose again as I wanted to 'play my own game' which I couldn't do with a below-average stack. A badly played flush draw saw me short stacked and then it was all down the card-gods in the end. I routinely play more a more focused, patient, tight-aggressive game these days and yet it all went out of the window. I would blame my recent lack of poker (barely played a hand for a few weeks), but thats nonsense. I just didn't stay 'in the zone' and I have to learn from it.

It wasn't all bad though. Given the buy-in, there were a smattering of poker 'celebs' playing such as Dave 'Devilfish' Ulliot, Roberto Romanello, Rupinder Bedi, Jake Cody and Sam Trickett. Also, whilst I was on the same table for the duration of the event, I had two very interesting players sat next to me. On my left was a older guy called Tim Blake, who seemed to be very popular within the club and won a huge amount at the Irish Open the other year. On my right was a vegas cash-game pro who hailed from Doncaster called Gareth Teatum. Both players provided great conversation - mainly about Vegas - in the early hours, and Gareth - who seemed like a really nice guy - kept tabs on the championship football scores, as he supports Doncaster Rovers (although has bet against them staying up this season). It does make all the difference when you spend a number of hours sat with interesting, friendly, chatty people rather than silent players or - thankfully not very often - egotistical arsehole players!

Anyway, the event is still going on a day later and they will be at the final table soon. Naturally, I've been keeping tabs on the two players I chatted to on Day 1, and whilst Gareth was sadly knocked out earlier, Tim Blake is still going strong and stands a great chance of making the final table. Devilfish is also in, although he was knocked out around the same time as me yesterday (thats what a second bullet does for you!). Looking on the updates on Blonde Poker earlier, it seems Mr Blake is a big favourite with the forum, although it seems like he has sold many pieces of him so that my explain part of it :)

Good experience though, and whilst the standard of play was obviously higher than lower buy-in tournaments, I don't think it was *that* different and I could spot various opportunities to exploit weaknesses. Hopefully next time I will take my A-game and stay in longer.

Urgh. Sunday Million Misery

Well not quite knocked out within the first few minutes but nearly. AK as the first hand, hit a K high flop but my opponent hung around long enough for his 22 to hit a third on the turn to complete his set and wipe half my stack out.

Then followed a long card-dead period, and any marginal hands were re-shoved on and I could not call. Eventually managed to get it in with A8 and, of course, was immediately called by AK which held and knocked me out.

Bah

Hope I have a better online February!

After a pretty good December, where I final-tabled the PKR Main Event and cashed for $1200, I have had a torrid start to 2012 in terms of online poker. Probably not helped by my job which has been a bit all-consuming and probably means I have rarely been in the right frame of mind but aside from the cash in the live tournament at DTD, I have failed to register a significant cash from any tournament online and have seen my PKR winnings fade-to-grey pretty swiftly.

Frustratingly, I have generally been playing well but seem to have that cold spell all poker players understand where hours of good play and chip accumulation comes undone just before the serious money when your monster hand runs into an ever-so-slightly bigger monster hand. They call them 'cooler' hands, and I understand that they happen - but right now it feels as though they are mirroring the sub-freezing temperatures outside my window and they have happened time and time and time again.

The thing to do is just keep on going. Keep making the right decisions and when my hands do hold up against weaker holdings, or I spike the miracle 2-outer that my opponents seem to, then it will be ultimately profitable. It just feels like a long haul at times like this.

Anyway, have decided to enter the $200 buy-in Pokerstars Sunday Million tonight. I don't usually play however last night satellited in and after some consideration about taking the money and funding a bunch of lower-buy-in events with it, I have decided to play. Mainly because my work situation means I don't play often during the week so its more fun to take a big punt from time to time as obviously the prize-money on offer is more significant. Clearly, my chance of winning any is low, partly due to the large field size and partly due to the quality of many of the players entering, but it gets my juices-flowing a bit more than entering another faceless $20 tournament would do tonight.

Annoyingly though, I entered another Sunday Million satellite this afternoon whilst the rugby was on (Wales won! Yay!) and finished just a few places off qualifying for another seat out of 170 entries, but once again when I had called a re-shove with AQs and the opponent flipped over A4o, the board ran out to give him a straight-to-the-six and that was effectively over.

Lets hope this evening is better, and I'm not just posting up 'Knocked out within 10 minutes' later on :)