Sport for the Overweight and Underpaid

Played in the 4000+ runner $10k Freeroll on Nordic Bet tonight, everything was going well. I had avoided all the Muppet Calls in the early stages, picked off the desperate Pushes in the middle stages - and got well rewarded when paying $2k extra to contest a big $7k pot with 2 All-Ins, whilst holding JTs. They both turned ATo and I hit the flush on the River.

Then the Shark got bit when I Pushed All-In over an $8k raise - I was holding QhQc and the raiser had $30k vs my $20k. He took a while to think and he turned 8d8c. After I hit my 3rd Queen on the turn I could see a move into the Top 3 beckoning. But unbelievably the board had offered up 4 diamonds by the River - and the 8d in his hand was good enough to give him the flush and see me out in 231st.

The first half of this month is very much like the first half of last Month - not won much, not lost much. I feel a little bit pokered out at the moment, so may just give everything a miss the next few days and hopefully comeback refreshed after the weekend.

I had a Poker Book - for Christmas - Fult Tilt Strategy Guide Tournament Edition -  which seems promising, now I’ve got to Andy Blochs Chapter, after a few poor chapters from Ted Forrest, and Chris Ferguson. I may just spend a few hours reading through that and seeing if there are any gems of information in there, as opposed to playing for the sake of playing

Had a terrible night on the cash tables - losing a buy-in and a bit before calling it a night.

But the month overall has been good with a total of $554-35 profit, made up of

STT +$1-79
Cash -$28-90
MTT +$561-15
Other +$20-31

 ‘Others’ includes Rakeback,and any bonuses earned

Played (and Won ) the Ace of Clubs online game tonight on Pokerstars, to be truthful (and incredibly modest) it was a case of men against boys for a lot of the game

To be honest I saw both sides of Lady Luck on the Final table - and went from Hero to Zero and back again in Two Hands.

Losing when Chip Leader vs Second Placed - after I re-raised PreFlop with QhQd, we saw a flop of 3h6hKh - second place (First to Act) put in a small 400 chip bet into a 2k pot, I was 90% certain they had AK - and almost as certain they didn’t have the Ace of Hearts. So I pushed all-in for another 2100 giving them a very difficult decision and I was sure I also had 11 outs if they called. They seemed to take an age to call, which confirmed my suspicions they didn’t have the Ah, but call they did and I missed my outs to take me down to Short Stack.

Two hands later and as Short Stack I push over the top of an UTG Raiser,( whilst holding JJ) - who is quite a tight player, so I knew he had a strong hand. I then however am worried to see another tight palyer on the Button call my all-in , and even worse the initial raiser calls also !! - I now fear the worst, I was hoping the initial rasier was playing AK,AQ,AJ but am certain hes stronger than that now.

However joy upon joys when the flop comes 4h 5s Js they then get all their chips in for a side pot and reveal KK and QQ - the turn makes things a little more nervous for me throwing out another spade - They both have a Spade in their hands - so going to the River there are 11 cards that can dump me out - i’m around a 75% chance to go through and so it passes when another 4 drops to give me the full house.

One funny moment in the game just at the start I won 2 big pots of the same person - firstly he trys to slow play KK Out of Position, and I limp on the button with Kc 7c and get a board of [Qc 5c 7d] [3c] [7s] - I actually misclick on my river bet and just bet 20 instead of putting him all-in.

Very next hand he’s now short stacked and again limps  in, I raise 5*BB with KdAd  he calls me and now leaves 200 behind (?) . The flop comes [Kh 5s 7h] and he pushes all-in for his last 200 chips. He turns 5s 4h and I go onto to win the pot.

The thing that made me smile were his comments (below) when he left and was observing the table.

ThinLizzy [observer]: crap

lousaban: gg Jack

ThinLizzy [observer]: software upgrade always does me

ThinLizzy [observer]: hate playing when it does that

Played in a couple of $5 Buy-In Tourneys last night, the first one was at 8pm and was the Online Game organised by Lou Saban for our Live Poker Club Members. With late registration allowed there was 11 players, and I didn’t manage the final table !! Although I wasn’t first out, you may find that Bad Beat written about in one of the Blogs on the right. So just as I was leaving that one at 8:15pm I began the other tourney, which was $6k guaranteed on IPoker network, when I registered there where only 500 entrants, so I thought there may be a good overlay - by the time the game started the overlay had disappeared with over 1300+ sitting down to play.

I added 1000 to my 1500 starting stack on the second hand, then never had another winning hand, of significance, for what must have been a good hour. So just after first break, we had lost a big chunk of the field but I was well below the average stack with around 2000 and I thought the time had come to make a stand otherwise even a double up wouldn’t be improving my chipstack much. So one of the stacks shorter than me pushes UTG, I push all-in holding 55 the next player goes over me all-in and the BB is a sitout playing his last 300 chips. The original raiser shows AJ and the re-re-raiser shows QQ . But lady luck gives me a smile and drops a 5 on the flop and I triple up with my set holding up.

From then on I managed to keep my stack around about the average mark , pushing and pinching where I can , and doubling up when needed. 4 hours later I make the final table lying 9th of 10, 5 1/2 hours later I eventually succumb with 4 left, pushing over a raise by the only person left with more chips than me and turning AT into his pocket 9’s - his 9’s hold out, but I’m well pleased with the result and a lovely return of $400 for my original $5 investment,

That’s the first time I’ve ever final tabled in such a huge field, and the first time I have played in a tournament where we have reached the maximum blind level - it stopped increasing when it got to $25k-$50, and we all had around $400k of chips

After a slow start to the New Year, where I was still around the level mark after 20 days - I eventually had a nice little cash tonight in the $1 Annette 15 $1000 Guaranteed on Betfair. With just 330+ Runners the tourney had a nice overlay of $670, and after a patient game (See Here  for the Secret of my Success ) I eventually finished 3rd for $111 - very nice.

This tourneys are occasional specials (Probably once a month)put on by Betfair, they are $1 Buy ins and password protected - The password can be found on Annette 15’s Betfair Blog

When I first began playing online Poker, around May ‘06, I can remember my first nervous click when I sat down for my very first Sit and Go. It was on the William Hill site, and each round lasted 10 Hands, before the blinds went up. There were no timed levels on William Hill Sit and Go(e)s.(and still aren’t as far as I know)  By the first level of 10 hands you could guarantee that at least 3 if not more people had busted out, and by the 4th Level it could very easily be Heads Up. I did Ok on these and made a steady little profit, I think I ran it up over $100 just on the $1 Buy-Ins. I once went around 20 games and was only out of the first 3 twice. Although my heads up game wasn’t so great back then and there was an awful lot of 3rd places in that run

I’ve just started playing more Sit and Go(e)s on Betfair to try and increase my Cash Game depleted Bankroll, and boy these low level Buy-Ins are no longer the walk in the park they used to be. I’ve just had 2 games on the go simultaneously - (My Multi-tabling skills haven’t improved much :lol:) and it took a whole 20 minutes before we lost our first player on either table. I used to be able to raise big with big hands and get idiots to call, but now everything is limp, minraise for the first 4 or so levels - and I’m restricting my hands to premiums with pot raises - and usually just winning the blinds, or position limps with drawing hands, else the only other time I will probably play is when its limped around to my Big Blind. Then when the bubble arrives its fold,fold,fold, All-In, fold,fold and it seems to last forever. I can understand now why these young kids with fast reactions can play so many STT’s at once, because everything is so mechanical - and there is very little room for fancy play.

The standard has even increased since last year, when I went through a phase of playing these around July/August time I did OK with them , and used to try and discipline myself to play ‘By the Clock’ - I only used to play 9 man STT’s last year and they used to last around 50 - 60 minutes on Betfair - maximum. So playing by the clock I would look and say to myself, “We’ve been playing 40 minutes - just hang on another couple of minutes and I’ll be in the money”. But these just lately have been taking 65-70 minutes to complete - even the 6 seater I just won took 56 minutes.

What this shows is that to carry on being a winner at this game you need to be constantly looking at improving your skills - either by Magazine, Website or just by pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and playing bigger Buy-Ins. The latter option is one I’m definitely guilty of not doing, but I will endeavour to make a more concerted effort to do so during this year - I just need to start beating these levels first

I had an EMail today, saying that my letter criticising Daniel Negreanu and his attitude towards the Amateur Poker Player has been chosen as the Star Letter in this months Poker Player Magazine. I have won a WTP Chip Set for my efforts. So this months magazine is even better value than normal - and will no doubt go on to become a collectors edition, probably being identified as the springboard that saw the first seedlings of comedic genius being spouted forth from the next ‘John Sullivan’ …. or maybe just next weeks Chip Paper

God this is hard-work, I’m beginning to realise what the Grand Ol’Duke of York felt like - No not Prince Andrew, and his playboy lifestyle - I wish !! But the one from the nursery rhyme.The one that goes

“When he was up, he was up and when he was down he was down “.

Well after having my bankroll at various levels of upiness and downiness this month, I am now 1/2 way through the month 

“and I’m neither up nor down”.

Still I suppose it could have been worse, I could have Humpty Dumpty, and have had a bloody great fall.

Been playing mainly cash games since the turn of the year and just showing a small profit, after a good first 3 days and a bad last couple of days .

One of my main problems with the cash games I feel is knowing when to call it a day, I seem to either play until I lose a couple of buy-ins, even if I have been doing well at some point during the session. Or I come of when I’m feeling tired and in front.

I think I maybe ought to set a time limit on my next sessions and come of after say 1 hour either profit or loss. That why I should be playing at my most alert.