First tourney session

Played my first session of tournaments in May and got off to a fairly meh start.  At one point I had eight tables going on my laptop, which included a few 6m tournaments and I found that quite difficult which is something I will bear in mind in the future.  I'll probably try to only play a maximum of eight full ring tournaments at once on my laptop or ten on my desktop.  The session started off well with my getting some good stacks going in some of the bigger tournaments.  Unfortunately I got knocked out of one of my ftops entries in frustrating bad beat fashion and it all rather unravelled from there. Here are yesterday's results:

• FTP - 18k Grt - $55 1r1a - $155 - BUST

• FTP - 17.5k Grt - $75 - BUST

• Stars - Warmup - $215 - $712.15

• Stars - Big 50k - $109 - BUST

• FTP - 2x KO ftops - $512 (4 KOs = $160) - BUST

• Stars - 5k Turbo - $75 - BUST

• Stars - DNG - $55 - BUST

• FTP - 150k Grt - $163 - BUST

• Stars - Sunday Mill - $215 - BUST

• FTP - 12k Grt - $75 - $95.01

• Stars - $109 Turbo - BUST

So total outlay was $1758, with prizes of $967.16, equals a loss of $790.84.  

Not the greatest start but looking forward to crushing my next session.

May - Tourney Month

I've decided I'm almost certainly going to dedicate May entirely to tournaments as some sort of challenge.  Hopefully it will turn out to be an interesting experiment, though I fear I will end up doing my brains.  I've heard that Pokerstars may change the times of the SCOOP events to make them more friendly to the non-US market (makes sense obv) so that would be great too and make my life a bit easier as I won't have to have a completely ridiculous sleeping schedule (the current schedule includes some events that start at 1am GMT, though I probably wouldn't have played these ones).

Yesterday I played a £300+30 event at the marina casino in Brighton where not a lot happened except me winning small pots and losing big ones.  I probably played too tight considering how nitty my first table was.  The 1/2 cash game was much more interesting where I managed to turn my £300 into about £1k in the first 5 hands.  On hand 3 I raised to £20 after a couple of limpers with a random hand and got a bit of an angry stare down from a guy in the big blind before he and everyone else folded.  Next hand I picked up A8s and after one limper I raised to £10 and then same guy now in SB 3-bet to £25, everyone else folded and I called.  He ended up 3-barreling a 689r24 board, shoving on the river.  I didn't buy it and called and he showed J4o.  He said it was a terrible call.  I disagreed.

This hand was pretty cool because it was almost entirely based on body language reads.  The way the board ran out and his bet sizing was pretty indicative of an overpair, and I'm sure he is capable of playing aces like this.  But based on the previous hand where he wasn't happy with me squeezing, plus his uncomfortable manner as he made his bets made me decide to call.  I think players from an internet background don't study opponents enough in general, and it's something I am going to concentrate more on in the future.  It makes a lot of sense because when playing live against new opponents, you won't play long enough to gain a big enough sample size to judge how they play different types of hands so you need all the extra information you can get.  Also, in big decisions such as all-in river bluffs, the live players range is going to be incredibly polorised and therefore so is their internal emotions.  It's unlikely this massive polorisation isn't going to manifest itself outwardly to some extent.  Most live players also don't actually attempt to keep their body language consistent each time they act.

Anyway, hand 5 I ended up getting in a 3-way all-in with JJ vs 44 vs 6To on J646 (lol!) to get me up to about £1k.  Unfortunately after that I pretty much lost every pot.  The funniest was when a guy raised blind utg and and other guy in mp called and I made it £30 with AQs in the co.  Utg guy called and mp guy folded and we saw flop of Q47tt.  He checks, I bet £40 and he calls.  Turn came To and it went check check.  River came Ko and he snap bet £100, I snap called and he showed K6o.  This guy was splashing around, enjoying himself and making the game fun (and more profitable) so I didn't mind losing to him.

I ended the cash game session with £80 profit, wins a win I suppose.

21st April

Couldn't think of a blog title today so came up with that ^ riveting one.  There's been a lot more interesting things going on in the poker world recently which I'm sure my loyal readers are aware of.  It's really difficult to know what to think as noone really knows what is going to happen in the short and long term.  My thoughts are that the long term future is bright if online poker becomes fully regulated in the US and in the short term all non-US poker players won't be too harmed by losing the US market.  I feel a bit sorry for the american pros, though they really should have made contingencies for such events because the legal situation with online poker has been so tenuous there in recent years.

It definitely makes you think about what you would do if poker came to an ubrupt end like it has in the US.  I certainly don't want it to happen, though it wouldn't worry me too much as I have a degree and money saved up.  I also feel like I've learnt a lot of skills through poker that would be useful in other industries, not that you could put that on a CV of course.

Poker is still going pretty well though I'm not putting in a lot of volume.  I'd quite like to get to 30k hands by the end of the month though this seems unlikely at my current rate.  I'm thinking of doing a whole month in May of MTTs.  I have thought about doing this for a while and May seems like a good month to try as I have two live tournaments lined up and there is the SCOOP on Stars.  Though I expect my hourly to be significantly less that it would be in cash games I think it will be an interesting experiment, and there's always the chance that I could run hot and bink a massive score. 

Check out this multi-talented dude....

Robustooooo

So I felt at the end of March I was playing quite badly as I was suffering from some winners tilt and I had a feeling I was due some run bad after running above expectation in February and March.  This duly arrived at the start of April where I had some bad nl and plo sessions.  I'm not sure of my expectation in the plo games but I ran quite a lot below all in ev so that sucked.  No limit wasn't going that bad until a day where I managed to lose 13 buyins at $2/4 and a decent chuck at $5/10 which obviously ended in a pretty crappy day.  I wasn't too bothered by this loss because the big hands were mostly standard (losing waaay too many all ins and coolers) except for a couple of bad decisions I made towards the end of the session where wasn't playing my best, which I can excuse myself for.  Here was my exit hand for the session was is quite interesting...

Hand info:

Date:	Thursday, April 07, 10:10:22 ET 2011
Type:	Cash Games
Game:	Hold'em NL
Table:	Paris
Blinds:	$5,00/10,00

Table info:

Seat 1: UTG ($1 311,80)
Seat 2: UTG+1 ($1 000,00)
Seat 3: CO ($937,00)

Dealer

Seat 4: Button ($1 037,66)

Posts small blind $5,00

Seat 5: SB ($2 012,00)

Posts big blind $10,00

Seat 6: BB ($1 938,66)

Dealt to Button

Check odds

Preflop: (Pot: $15)

FOLD UTG
RAISE CO, to $30,00
CALL Button, $30,00
FOLD SB
FOLD BB

Check odds

Flop: (Pot: $75,00)

CHECK CO
BET Button, $50,00
CALL CO, $50,00

Check odds

Turn: (Pot: $175,00)

CHECK CO
BET Button, $140,00
CALL CO, $140,00

River: (Pot: $455,00)

CHECK CO
BET Button, $817,66
CALL CO, $717,00

Showdown:

SHOWS CO

SHOWS Button

Button wins the pot of $100,66
CO wins the pot of $1 886,00

I decided to flat the button with aces because it's something I generally mix in with 3-betting anyway, but also because the pf raiser was unlikely to call a 3-bet oop light and iirc, the blinds were quite squeeze happy at this point.  The CO villain could 4-bet light, though obviously he would fold all his bluffs to my 5-bet shove and I was feeling greedy and wanted to win more than that.  Anyway, the flop came somewhere in between wet and dry and he checked.  This was odd because the flop is one where he can bet his air and get a lot of folds, as well as hit a lot of good bluff cards on the turn or river that can get me to fold my marginal holdings.  By checking, he's giving me the initiative if he does have some sort of weak hand with some showdown value (what on earth could that be?)  and is possibly going to have to call three barrels on a board that's only going to get more scary.  It's possible that he could slowplay something big like 5x or 44 but that's an odd line that I didn't expect him to take.

I think I could check here, as I really didn't understand what he could c/c with that I have beat (and could get future streets of value from) but I was already a bit confused and just decided to bet, to not let the hand get any more weird.  He calls.  By this time I was more confused so really won't try to attempt to think of ranges of hands he could take this line with.  I just decided my hand was good a very large % of the time and I'm not repping a lot so the villain may decide to call down light.

I decided to overbet the river as I had done it quite recently vs the same villain and he folded so he might get curious this time, as well as the fact that the I'm repping very little and the hand has being played strangely, which will add to his curiosity level.  He ends up calling with the 62s ftw.  Not going to attempt to analyse his play except to say I think he played the river extremely well.  Pf, flop and turn are up for debate though.

Luckily the downswing didn't last that long as I played a pkr reg the next day on three tables of $5/10 and managed to win 11 buyins and put me back in profit for the month.  Obviously I ran very well to win so much in what was a two hour match, but I think this reg made a few mistakes which helped me a lot.  He understandably wasn't too happy after the match and decided to berate me in any way he could in the chat box which was a shame.  When I met this person (albeit briefly) in real life he seemed like a nice enough fella, so it's a testament to the potential of internet poker to infuriate people that it can turn someone like him into an angry, swear-heavy insult machine . I guess it will be awkward if we meet again.

I ran hot again today so here's my robusto graph for April.....

I managed to ship my PKR Live seat last week too in a satellite so will definitely be playing that.  The last one was a lot of fun so looking forward to it.

In terms of non-poker stuff a few things have been going on.  Had my birthday recently which was okay I guess,  spurs losing 4-0 certainly didn't add to the fun factor of the evening!  Oh well, just have to win 5-0 at White Hart Lane.

I also decided to invest some of the money I had in a crappy savings account into something that will hopefully give me better returns.  I have to trust the financial adviser I consulted with to a certain extent, because they are supposed to be experts but I'm happy with the decisions I made because they allow me to access my money with relative ease and without heavy penalties if I need it in the near future.  This is useful in case I want to invest in property or something.

The Brighton marathon was on this Sunday.  No, I did not run but my Mum and some other people I know entered.  Mum managed to run it in 3 hours 51 minutes which is really good, especially considering it was a hot day.  I never got the running bug. I didn't enjoy it at school so had no desire to pursue it after.  I understand the health benefits of it, as well as the great feeling you must get of completing something like a marathon, but I just don't see how the punishment and boredom of the seemingly endless training is worth it.  It's easy for people like my mum because she actually enjoys the training.  I think this is the case anyway, or maybe she hates the feeling of not training....?

End o' March

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

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!

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.