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Played some more cash on Monday and ended up about £4 or so. Definitely played better though, especially later in the session. Lost about £11 in a pot where I had top 2 (AK) vs a set and given the oppo I don't think it could ever be a fold.
The jump came from the Poker Player leg 2. The first tourni I've played for 2 months (exc freerolls) and worth every penny of the entry even if I hadn't cashed... it's a shame I'm still so poor at tournis as the thrill of a long run is still better than, probably, all cash sessions.
It all started very slowly, but that may be because my only recent tournis on Sky are freerolls or BHs. Everyone at my table was just taking little jabs here and looking at the lobby that appeared to be the case across all tables.
Then I picked up a little run of cards that played themselves, got to about 3 x starting stack, KO'd one of the PP journos and was able to open up a bit more and keep sneaking lots of little pots.
With about 30 left and 21 paid I was near the top in chips, had KO'd a second PP journo and was loving life.
Then came the start of the war of attrition. I got it in AK vs AT against another biggish stack (possibly an ICM error on my part?) and despite flopping my K, running clubs brought in a T-high flush and I was down to about 5BB.
I never got above that stack again until we got to the bubble, flitting between 1.5 - 3.5 BB for about 3 orbits, somehow staying alive thanks to two very tight blinds to my button.
Then bang - two big stacks collided and the bubble was gone with my paltry 2bb still in play. Another few knocked out before I shoved UTG, doubled on a flip, was all-in again from my SB and hit a FH to quadruple up.
And although I never really got above 10BB I nursed that stack to the best I could, somehow meeting all the mini goals (be nice to make the min cash +1, be nice to make final 2 tables, be nice to make the top 10, final table would be a bonus).
Alas, in spite of all of that, 2nd hand of the FT I shoved A5 on the button, got called by 88 and good night me for a bit over £80 and some good PPT points.
And I shut the laptop down feeling disappointed I couldn't go on to get top 3. Miserable bloke I am, ought to be happy at getting anything after being on life support for so long!!
Lesson of the day - book more early starts... I always end up having good (long) sessions when I'm meant to be up early the next day. I was falling asleep at all sorts of bad times after trawling to London at 7am yesterday!
I think this one deserves a bonus prize for being a super-RF... just need the 8 next time to tick off the mega-RF!
Got home to find delivery of Mental Game of Poker and Check Raising the Devil - only read the intro chapter to MGoP but sounds really good and look forward to getting stuck into that when I get a good hour in a daytime.
CRtD is much more bedtime reading so spun through a couple of chapters before I nodded off. Seems like it's going to be an entertaining read and am enjoying Matusow's style of writing so far. It's a while since I've gotten ahead of the game and read the book before the film.
Going back to Monday, I realised how old I'm getting when instead of pouring a large whisky around the FT, I went to Amazon and ordered another book to celebrate winning a few quid. Alligator Blood gets good reviews so another one for the pile... really need to book a holiday to get in some quality reading time as they start to stack up.
And some storage. My house is a mess given I moved in 5 months ago now and still have barely any furniture, just piles of stuff. The plus side is that the stack of poker magazines is tall enough to operate as a makeshift bedside table so it's easy to find my latest reading material.
Also forgot I encountered my first chatbox trolling for some time on Monday. I assume there was multi-accounting involved as well, with some multi-personality handing out the grief, then their 'dad' coming in with more abuse, with the 'uncle' not far behind.
Wasn't directed at me and not really fussed by that stuff anyway but reported it and fair play to Sky, it seemed to shut down almost immediately. A quick death threat appeared on one of my other tables about 30 seconds after Sky intervened and then that account disappeared as well lol.
Not an easy task trying to multi table and use live chat though. I don't think I'll be doing the honourable thing much more frequently!
Well wasn't that a fun weekend!
Friday night rolled straight from work into a beer garden to take advantage of the scorching weather... things just seem... prettier, when the sun is shining. The beer wasn't bad either.
Alas, the downside to being the only single among my close mates is that a) everyone has become a terrible wingman and b) things have a tendency to end quickly when a barrage of angry girlfriend calls and texts arrive.
So before midnight was reached I found myself mildly innebriated and playing 5-6 tables of cash poker. Oddly, my Friday and Saturday night record after a few pints is surprisingly good. Not sure if it's positive variance always hitting at the weekend (and actually I'm winning way less than I would if sober), or whether I genuinely see a bit of improvement after a few pints.
Either way, I was up almost £40 by the time I caved in and hit the sack. Plus the 100+ poker points would turn out to come in handy
Saturday was pretty boss all round. Played a bit more poker early doors and although I ended a bit down I played well and just caught some bad spots (I think). KK into AA, that sort of thing.
Then a trip to the local Chilli-fest... only just resisted the urge to take part in the chilli eating comp (obviously not alpha-male enough), but in retrospect I wish I had... I've eaten way hotter chillis than the one where the final contestent threw up everywhere then collapsed to the floor (fair play to her, she battled fantastically). My cupboards are now full of evil stuff though, most of which I sampled on the day
Of course... I got home from that and found myself barely 15,000 hands or so from the 799m so, in some pain still from ridic chilli sauces, I eventually swapped from NL10 to 13 NL4 tables for the final few thousand hands and BINK. Happy days.
Even more happy days, I log on this lunchtime to see the win has been credited and Sky have very kindly rounded up the prize to £300. Good times
That was enough poker... Dr No and Total Recall were playing back to back on telly. She may be old enough to be my great-grandma, but Ursula Andress is still one of the best Bond girls of all time (IMO)....
and Total Recall (the original, I refuse to watch the sequal) is still among my very favourite movies. I may have mildly annoyed my housemate by shouting out Arnie's quotes on a regular basis during the film in a very bad Austrian accent.
I probably shouldn't still own Arnie based t-shirts at my age.
A small bit of continued rungood on Sunday as I played and won a £3.30 timed tourni for £15 at midday, before the internet was taken away (booo) and I gutted the downstairs of my house.... ready to spend thousands on renovations after my run good got me a last minute booking with the builders.
Kind of hurts looking at measly poker roll vs how much I'm going to have to spend this week on the house. I could give N50 or even NL100 a bash if I put the money into poker instead.
Sigh.
Hopefully can fudge some internet access somehow this evening... I need the PPT points to keep on track for a top 20 leaderboard finish!!
Probably shouldn't have rushed home yesterday for the PPT game. Not sure many had adjusted to the game being full ring and everyone seemed to be playing way too many hands. Didn't stop me busting KK vs 76 that rivered two pair.
I imagine that was an error on my part, having not played much in terms of tournament and over-valuing one pair. Frustrating nevertheless.
Played enough cash to rack up 50pp and make a bit of profit which can't be bad. Think it should have been more but think I maybe missed a trick at an NL20 table and wasted the profit I'd snuck through at that point.
Still a bit of a mental block with regards losing when I play NL20. I think I've overcome it, weirdly, at MC NL10, but feel like I'm playing with scared money at NL20. Maybe it's just not knowing the others, maybe it just needs lots more hands to get more used to losing £20+ on a more regular basis. I don't feel like I'm far off being sensibly rolled for it though.
When I get onto the Jared Tendler book, perhaps I can find a few tricks to overcome this.
Alas at the moment I'm racing through the Matusow book. Aside from the endless bad beats he can reel off from over a decade ago, it is an easy read lol
Fingers crossed I get home in time to play a pointlessly nuts number of NL4 games to try and get back-to-back milestone hands. I think my 8pm-ish prediction will be way off and I'll need to be at home super early from work!
I suppose a win and a runners-up spot in the 800 millionth hand means that I am officially barred from ever making a negative comment about run-bad on Sky again?
I dropped about £16 last night in the short burst I was playing (ending with 14 tables lol) kicking out numerous river suckouts, but was definitely worth it!
Although still a little gutted that I couldn't find the miracle river that would have doubled my bankroll!!
It nearly all went wrong with about 2,000 hands to go, as my poor laptop started to melt and just completely froze up. I only got dealt back into all tables with a couple of hundred hands left to run and let out a big sigh of relief.
So £420 from promos in the space of 4 days... which nearly covers 10% of what I'll be paying workmen for home improvements this week... just another £3,600 to go!
Not sure whether to leave this cash in the account... it skews my learning and looks like I've been way more successful than I have.
Nearly finished the Matusow autobiography... raises (for me) an interesting question about drugs in poker. Obviously he took it too far, but if being on meth, coke, ritalin or similar is able to make you a better poker player than your peers, should there be a clampdown on players using them?
It doesn't seem a huge jump from the likes of Lance Armstrong, to somebody like Matusow pretty much admitting that the super focus he got from the drugs led him to win tournaments where he otherwise may have finished further down the field. Only one of them is now a complete pariah in life and his sport, the other can carry on as if nothing happened, with more than a few sympathisers.
Having squeezed in around 15mins play before I had to leave, it was a bit of a drag as even though my tournament play is sketchy, deep stacked vs the 5 oppo on my table I was easily picking up lots of little pots and building a bit of a buffer.
Then drove at breakneck speed to said friend's house and while shaking hands / hugging etc was simultaneously logging on to Sky via my phone (addict? moi?)
Wish I hadn't now, as I lasted precisely... one hand. Sigh.
I repeat my weak tournament play and need to knuckle down to improve, so please feel free to pull this play apart. Yes random oppo got lucky, but am I ever really going to get three streets / full stack value in this spot? I figure at the minimum, I should check river and then aim to bluff catch?
Absolute spitting image of Simon 'Aces' Trumper... called Simon as well coincidentally... maybe times are tough at DTD and he's seeking a way to earn a bit on the side...
Probably shouldn't have played any poker yesterday. I was knackered, this week has short-circuited my brain I think.
Only had one table running with 861 in tandem.
Did a stack at NL8 running a pointless bluff on a decent player (hi Bossman!)... in all ways possible I butchered that hand and the poker gods fairly left me without even the split pot out(s) I thought I may have had before the river was dealt lol. I'm too embarrassed to even post that up on here
Apart from the hand itself, pointless getting into big pots with the decent player when there are others at the table you can take far easier money from.
Then that table broke and there weren't many open seats so switched to NL20. Won a few smaller pots, then got aces, 3b pre from BB, flopped a set, kept betting, got outdrawn by a gutshot and paid them off. Numpty me.
Actually I think part of that hand was a result of the first orbit I sat for where I raised every hand pre and possibly gave people the impression I was spewing chips. Not true, I just got dealt a PP every hand for my first 6 hands, 5s, 9s, 10s, Js, Qs and Aces. Unfortunately I got nothing but folds pre or the occasional call then fold a 1/2 pot Cbet on the flop.
Maybe should be careful what I wish for when I hope to get decent starting hands more frequently
It looks like you almost have the hand posting down... normally the only issue is that you need to have Internet Explorer or Firefox to post, all other browsers distort Sky hand histories for some reason?
BTW is your screen name an homage to the ex-WWE wrestler?
Well that was just pretty brutal when I played this weekend. I can't seem to have NL20 tables running without dropping a wedge.
I don't think it's particularly bad play on my part, although others at the table may disagree.
The big pots I lost on Saturday were flopped 2nd set vs top set, flopped K-high flush that went down to a rivered A-high flush, AA that lost to a flopped flush (shortish-stack shoved the flop) and a flopped straight that lost to a rivered higher straight.
To be honest, after all those in the space of about 30 mins, I gave up and went back to reading my book.
'Alligator Blood' was finished in super quick time. It's very nerdy but at the same time very interesting to hear about what went on in the build-up to Black Friday. I'm sure there is a large amount of artistic impression by the author, but by all accounts it sounds like Full Tilt/Stars could maybe have gotten away with their misdemeanours, at least for a few more years, were it not for some of the cut-throat behaviour elsewhere in the chain.
Anyway, well recommended book.
No poker on Sunday as I was still shaking a bit after sanding floors. Watched some vids on youtube instead.
One particularly interesting vid was Phil Galfond talking (and coughing) over a two-table NL$2k session:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwWbBx6fkKg
I appreciate I'm unlikely to ever play at these levels, but I think a lot of the concepts prove valid at any level.
Most suprising (refreshing) was the lack of HUD and lack of notes, which I thought would be standard for any pro these days.
Also a good reminder of how little a top player actually bluffs in a standard session against unknowns. I definitely bluff way too much at NL10 and need to work on that if I'm to increase my win rate.
As it happens, Simon used to be, sort of, involved in construction.
He owned & rented out high pressure water jetters which are used, amongst other things, to clear blocked drains & sewage lines. Even more oddly, so did I.
Incidentally, Simon should be on this Thursday's Show, on Ch 861. We could discuss such matters.
Another mare of a day yesterday. Dropped most of it playing NL10 where I was in position against a monster stack (was around £140 when I gave up and went for dinner). Had been using it to bully the table with the route of c/r flop, pot turn, pot river and although they'd got lots of folds, they had showed up a lot of hands with busted draws, bottom end of 4-straight, weak pairs etc.
I thought I was getting clever when I let them just take this route as I was sat in position to them with AA, after spending most of that table getting dealt junk and folding pre.
All flopped draws missed by the river.
He turns over a random two pair and it's bye bye c/250bb stack.
Sigh.
Came back on after dinner, thought I'd multi-table NL4 and try to book a winning session, am starting to forget what they are like and thought it might get me back on track. Plus if it is a downswing, why not reduce the damage of the losses!
Didn't really go to plan, was over £30 down at one point, over 7BI at NL4 ffs lol... I genuinely don't think I was playing at all badly, just kept running into monsters or getting sucked out on.
Thankfully kept my head and by the time I gave up I was about £1 down.
So another negative number on the spreadsheet, but pulling back £30 losses at NL4 made it almost feel like a win lol
May look back into some sort of in-game coaching session as a way to confirm it is run-bad rather than play-bad. Appreciate it's easy to remember the run-bad part of hands, potentially overlooking that it was play-bad earlier in the hand/session that opened the door to the bad luck.
I probably need to find a company like that as well... one of the many, many random jobs it turns out you need to factor in at a new house...
Unfortunately like so many wrestlers of that era, he is 6 feet under. Only 41 when he died 10 years ago.
As Macho Man Randy Savage may have once said 'Oooooo Yeah!'
A profitable day at last... for a whole... wait for it... 89p.
Entirely unimpressive number, yet oddly satisfying to not have to key a negative number to my poker spreadsheet at last.
After having read a bit more of the Mental Game of Poker last night, on a scale of -3 to +3:
Tilt control +3 (way too boring to be anything other than 'in control' the whole session)
Quality of my play 0 (distinctly average while trying to not book another loss)
Variance 0 (cards didn't chuck up anything particularly good or bad)
Focus -1 (somewhat distracted by ch861 running in the corner of my laptop screen)
At some point before the weekend I'll start to list out the (many) simple things I need to revisit in my learning time. A few too many things have maybe entered autopilot mode and lead to many silly mistakes that should be easily corrected.
Also makes me hark back to my very early years, when the highlight of the day was wandering home from school with some coins saved by buying the bare minimum from the canteen at lunchtime, and hanging out in the independent video store to play on their small collection of arcade games... the absolute daddy (until it was superceded by Street Fighter II) being WWF WrestleFest.
Witness the genius of Warrior and Boss Man teaming up to take on Hogan and Slaughter:
The odd things you remember from childhood - at the time (age 13 3/4) this was the greatest event ever, bar none. I forget who was 'Player Zero', I think it was a kid called Dogger, a nickname gained before the events of Stan Collymore led to it having a more seedy meaning.
Anyway, one Saturday lunchtime he'd gone to play a bit of WrestleFest, stuck a quid in that he'd nabbed from his Mum's purse, which somehow got stuck halfway down the coin slot and continued to register an extra 4 credits every minute or so. Infinite credits on the greatest arcade game that existed in the early 90s.
Bare in mind this was an innocent time before the spread of mobile phones, so a network of young kids commenced to cycle round the town to call on mates and share the earth-shattering news. The teenage assistant at the video hire shop was obviously confused but too apathetic to do anything about the near-100 strong army of younger kids cramped into the shop and leaving no room for people actually wanting a video.
Free winner-stays-on tag team matches all day until we finally got kicked out about 10pm. My standard Ultimate Warrior / Earthquake-combo got me a best streak of 4 games before the RSI of constant button bashing saw me tire.
Good times.
But yeah Ultimate Warrior (RIP) was the best.
"DIG YOUR CLAWS INTO MY ORGANS! STRETCH INTO MY TENDONS! BURY YOUR ANCHORS INTO MY BONES FOR THE POWER OF THE WARRIOR WILL ALWAYS PREVAIL!"
Earthquake and Macho Man, another 2 of that era gone.
That arcade game is a bit before my time
£1,428.80
And about time to. Definitely played a lot better, picking some good spots to pick up little bits and pieces. Probably helped highlight that I left lots of room for improvement in games over the last week and a bit.
Tilt control +2 (table may have taken a light punch following one hand... no biggie tho)
Quality of my play +1 (tailed off a bit towards the end and think I missed a few value bets)
Variance -1 (there was definitely some + variance in there as well though - missing a K-high flush draw and winning a pot with 1 pair vs the A-high flush draw, for example)
Focus +1 (first hour was a +3, beast mode, towards end of session was a 0 and falling fast)
Tweaked bet sizing which I think helps a lot with keeping pots sensible. 2.5x button, 4x utg and 3x everywhere else. Probably do need to keep an eye on the table though and pump way bigger against certain players.
Some good, bad and ugly hands to follow.
Had a bash at the cheapskate BH at 8.05. First two hands KK and AA. Then this came along on my 2nd BB
Sigh. I still suck way more at tournament than cash!
This is one area that I always run poorly - a maniac sits at the table, I (probably) play too tight, eventually play a hand with them, lose, then watch them spew their stack to another reg before insta-standing. Probably need to work on what ranges I go to war with against them / how I go to war.
Obv this one is just bad luck, but when maniac is opening 9x, and 2x pot or all in on any flop, perhaps I need a range of 3b shove hands to go with and just let variance take me for a rollercoaster ride?