Since my last update I have played quite a lot of live poker and not much at all online. I played the £1500 GUKPT event at the Vic where I made day 2 but busted very early from there. I lost two key pots which could have altered my progress significantly in the tournament. The first was on day one when I raised to 1300 with K2cc from the CO at 300/600/75 with 30k and guy with 23k calls in BB. BB villain was middle aged, looked like a live pro with headphones etc and studied me closely before calling. I was pretty new to table so had to go on my basic reads like his appearance to assume how he played and his level. Flop came 57Q with two clubs, he checked and I bet something like 1600, and fairly quickly raised to 4600 I believe. I think this is a super duper standard call here which is what I did. Turn was a K and he very quickly shoved which was about 17k into 13k. I really don't see how I can fold here even though I know that hes sooooo rarely 'bluffing' here for his tournament life based on assumptions I made about him. When I say 'bluffing' I'm putting things like 89cc into this range because I just so rarely see these live players play combo draws like this. Anyway, I make the call and he has the 75o which holds and I'm crippled.
I managed to survive the day with some shortstack all-in run good and end the day with 20bbs or so. Next day, can't remember the blinds but I raised QQ with 22bbs utg+1 and got called by another middle aged gentleman in the bb who had 19bbs. Flop came Jxx, he led I called. Turn T, he bet most of his remaining stack I shove, he sigh calls with J9o and starts walking away from the table shortly before the J hits the river leaving me with 3bbs. Next hand I shove Q9o and get called by 44 and lose. GG. I'd say calling too light out of position in situations like this is one the bigger mistakes the typical live player makes, though I guess in these situations it worked out for them. I think I broke even in cash games in London, though I only played small. Apart from that we just went out eating and drinking in London and stuff which I find more fun than playing live poker.
Gibraltar was a lot of fun too and it was great to catch up with my relatives that live there as well as our PokerStrategy buddies whom we are staking at the moment. Didn't realise how big PokerStrategy was until we went out there and I found out more about it. Talking to these guys you get to realise how big some staking and affiliate businesses in poker can be, as well as just how big the worldwide poker industry is. Someone told me (probably unverifiable) that PokerStars raked $20 billion last year. Pretty sick.
In other news, it's my birthday next week which I am very unexcited about to be honest. I usually try to arrange some sort of decent occasion but have been lazy this year and barely organised anything. My birthday falls on the 5th which is when Spurs played Real in Madrid in the first leg of the Champs League quarters so will likely do something around that. Whatever.
My plan for April is to grind 30k+ hands online and play a bit better than I have in the last week. I'll also try to get a few tourney sessions in there too. Then in May I'm going to do the GUKPT Summer Series in Brighton and PKR Live. Both these events should be fun and would be cool to get back in the black for live pokers for 2011.
Jesus, this blog is boring. Maybe this video will redeem it a tad........
<3 Pilkington
Thursday 31 March 2011
Friday 11 March 2011
Solid week
Following my tourney score I have carried on running pretty hot with some decent sessions at cash. This has inevitably led to some 'winner's tilt' where I'm auto-piloting too much and running on my B-C game because I have got a bit complacent about the fact that I will win whatever I do. At least I am aware of this I suppose.
I've also lacked some motivation to play hands because I have already made a decent chunk of money in March and have got off to great starts to months before, only to crash and burn which has affected my confidence for some time after. My ideal mindset should be just to play the best poker I can, come what may the short-term results. Unfortunately my brain doesn't seem to work this way so I should probably just work with it as best I can.
I'm contemplating taking the NL cash games easy for the next week or so and putting in some decent time into learning PLO more. I've been playing some of this at various stakes with some heads-up and short handed. It's been interesting so far. I am definately spotting my opponents making some mistakes, though they probably see me do more obvious ones. For example, I have been having good success value betting low flushes pretty heavy in spots where villains take very passive, pot-control lines and getting paid off well. I assume that at lower limits, like in NL, people simply arn't value betting thin enough. My mistakes are probably much more fundamental ones, that I hope to fix by watching some videos, looking into some strategy and playing more.
I also should be putting more time into the staking stuff I have going on at the moment, which could be more time-consuming in coming months. The stakees we have at the moment are all doing well (whether by staker influence, being good players anyway, or just running hot, who knows) so that's really pleasing. We currently have a skype group that we all contribute to and it works really well because often people have contrasting ideas on how to play hands and different approaches to the game which causes debate and makes people think deeply about hands. This really is the best way to learn in my opinion. It's much more about teaching yourself to analyse as many variables as you can at a given time, and assessing which ones are most important in making the correct decision rather than trying to build a 'playbook' where you have a default move for every situation.
Also, going to London on the 18th for a £1500 GUKPT event with BrotherMuzone, Mr_Niceness and even Wongaman is making a rare foray into the live poker scene. James666 is also going so it seems PKR players will be heavily represented there. Hopefully I won't lose all my money like in Manchester. Then the weekend after going to Gibraltar to visit some relatives and a couple of the stakees that also happen to work out there. Should be fun.
Well done to Spurs on getting to the Champions League quarter finals. Can't wait to see who we get drawn against next week. Whoever it is, Bale's gonna fuck their shit up!
I've also lacked some motivation to play hands because I have already made a decent chunk of money in March and have got off to great starts to months before, only to crash and burn which has affected my confidence for some time after. My ideal mindset should be just to play the best poker I can, come what may the short-term results. Unfortunately my brain doesn't seem to work this way so I should probably just work with it as best I can.
I'm contemplating taking the NL cash games easy for the next week or so and putting in some decent time into learning PLO more. I've been playing some of this at various stakes with some heads-up and short handed. It's been interesting so far. I am definately spotting my opponents making some mistakes, though they probably see me do more obvious ones. For example, I have been having good success value betting low flushes pretty heavy in spots where villains take very passive, pot-control lines and getting paid off well. I assume that at lower limits, like in NL, people simply arn't value betting thin enough. My mistakes are probably much more fundamental ones, that I hope to fix by watching some videos, looking into some strategy and playing more.
I also should be putting more time into the staking stuff I have going on at the moment, which could be more time-consuming in coming months. The stakees we have at the moment are all doing well (whether by staker influence, being good players anyway, or just running hot, who knows) so that's really pleasing. We currently have a skype group that we all contribute to and it works really well because often people have contrasting ideas on how to play hands and different approaches to the game which causes debate and makes people think deeply about hands. This really is the best way to learn in my opinion. It's much more about teaching yourself to analyse as many variables as you can at a given time, and assessing which ones are most important in making the correct decision rather than trying to build a 'playbook' where you have a default move for every situation.
Also, going to London on the 18th for a £1500 GUKPT event with BrotherMuzone, Mr_Niceness and even Wongaman is making a rare foray into the live poker scene. James666 is also going so it seems PKR players will be heavily represented there. Hopefully I won't lose all my money like in Manchester. Then the weekend after going to Gibraltar to visit some relatives and a couple of the stakees that also happen to work out there. Should be fun.
Well done to Spurs on getting to the Champions League quarter finals. Can't wait to see who we get drawn against next week. Whoever it is, Bale's gonna fuck their shit up!
Sunday 6 March 2011
Liking donkaments now
Got my biggest ever online tournament score last night coming 2nd in the $55 DNG on Stars for $16.6k which I am pretty darn happy with, tinged with a hint of disappointment in not winning. This tournament was shaping up to be a typical min-cash affair as I limped into the money with a below average stack until I hit a hot streak with about 4 or 5 tables left and amassed a load of chips, instead of the usual blinding down until 10bbs and losing a flip to collect some pocket change. I continued to cooler people and win allins when necessary until we got three handed which dragged on for ages and the person who got short kept winning allins to survive and I went from being commanding chip leader, to short stack, to chip leader, back to average stack before the other two players got all in and one got knocked out. I went into hu short and never really recovered.
I definitely made a load of mistakes at various stages of the final table. I know this because I was frequently stumped as to what the best play was with my very limited experience of playing between 20 and 40bbs deep but overall I think I did decent and was happy to be seeing my opponents making obvious mistakes to allow me to reassure myself I had a good edge.
Going to play some more tournaments tonight to ride this hot streak for all it's worth including the big Sunday Million Anniversary tournament where the winner will get over a million bucks.
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