Feb 2011 wasn’t too great. No real MTT highlights online, think the best result was 4th in the 16k for $1500.

We did have a trip to London for the Betfair live game. Played okish until I took a beat and then got too busy blind on blind. Was a decent social do though and enjoyed a funny night out with Bifta (a decent regular Ongame MTT player) and the Klup (a regular Ongame MTT fish :D .)

It was slightly embarrassing in the ME in London as everyone had name tags with their online names. I was sat next to some who’s online name was A.P.Mcoy. I can’t remember the exact details but I remember giving him a ton of stick online a few months ago for betting with air into a dry side pot on the bubble of a satellite.

He was clearly clueless and didn’t do anything to change my mind when we played live. He probably pays as much attention to peoples names online as he does to the game so don’t think he clocked who I was.


The one good thing about Feb was the preparations for the Ongame online GSOP festival running the first couple of weeks in March. At the time of writing the festival is almost over but I managed to pick up about $2.5k worth of tickets for a few hundred $.


Was showing a loss of about £800 for Feb but had all those tickets in the bank so not the end of the world.

I’ve got one more GSOP to play now. Next Sundays $500k mini final. To say I need a result is something of an understatement. I’ve played a lot of games in the past two weeks and took a serious hit on the bank roll having only minor cashed so far. Time after time I’ve got myself into a decent position to run deep only for it to fall apart with some ‘orrid beat on the bubble or just into the money. The worst of these was a bubble in one of the main events with KK vs QQ allin preflop for the chip lead.

It’s just variance in the bigger fields I know, but it still stings a little. Best result in the GSOP so far has been 12th in a 800+ runner field for just over $1k. I must be a couple of £k down in March. Just got to keep pluggin away and get that result. Bank roll is a touch on the low side now, but having said that it’s still twice what it was for most of last year.

Here’s the current sharkscope graph…. Yuk!

The ups and downs of January and some verbal diarrhea

Promised to update against my 2011 goals as I go along so here we are. January was pretty good. The highlight was a 2nd in the 40k for $6k. Also had a 2nd and 3rd in the 10k plus two 7th in the 40k. On the down side I took a shot at a few bigger buy in games and missed, including a live trip to DTD for the Monthly £300 deepstack and a couple of attempts at the weekly $500 high roller on Ongame.

At the DTD game I went on a massive heater early on but managed to squander a 40k stack by the end of day 1 in some bizarre hands. At one point I was sat next to a reasonably well known professional poker player/coach/commentator. I'm not going to name names but I have never heard so much crap talked in all my life.. There were also some really dubious plays from him, backed up by more bollox analysis for all the table to digest I've played once before with the name in question back in 2006 at the CPC in St Kitts and I remember thinking similar things then.

I'm not one to criticise the way people play, but when they insist on vocally dissecting every hand badly for the benefit of the whole table and then charge people for coaching then it's fair game i think.


I did break one of my rules already and play a little cash. It went very well until i spunked it all up the wall, so slap on the hand for that one. OPR has me at $7600+ for the month but after cash game and live buyins (plus i tend to go a little wild on the rebuy front sometimes and OPR just works on a rebuy average) it was prob more like $6k up for the month. Last week in Jan I decided to sack it and go skiing.... much more fun than poker.



Almost forgot... picked up a ticket to the London Betfair live game this coming weekend as well.... not sure why BF keep putting on live games where the buyin is about 50% of any expense you will have to shell out but we'll head down to the big smoke tomorrow and sink a few beers and see what happens.

2010 round up and 2011 wish list...

Wow it’s been soo long since my last update. Surprised if anyone reads this anymore.

Seems like a good time to run through 2010 and look ahead to 2011. For the last 4 or 5 months of 2010 I really seemed to get my act together and do pretty well on MTTs.

On the live front trips away have been few and far between but I did win the live betfair forum game in a state of complete drunkenness way back in august… despite the original venue closing on the day of the comp.

I also managed to win a ticket to Betfair Live Prauge in October. Only managed about 90mins in the main event though... getting it all in 3 ways preflop for a 300BB pot… me with AA other big stack with KK and short stack with AJ. K on the turn saw me heading for the bar and spent the rest of the weekend in the local cash game having much fun with some really bad old guys from Prauge plus a few of the other Betfair regulars.

Online has been pretty good in terms of $. I’ve managed to settle into a regular pattern on BF playing 4 or 5 MTTs a night. I don’t really feel like I’ve been on a heater and I’ve had some bad luck 7 or 8 deep in some of the bigger comps but I’ve got to be happy with the profit and my OPR rating which hit 9 stars just before Crimbo.

Must say that since Betfair moved to Ongame I’ve become a bit of an OPR junkie. It certainly keeps the mind focused and gives another incentive to win knowing that anyone can look up your results and rating.

Link to my OPR listing is here…

And now that Sharkscope covers Betfair MTTs my graph is looking ok...



Apart from the occasional stuffing at $100 HU poker in 2010 has been pretty good.


2011

New Years Poker targets and resolutions….

1: Keep the blog going.
2: Stick to MTTs or the occasional low stakes cash game.
3: Target to make minimum $30k profit from MTTs online in 2011 (stretch target of $50k)
4: Play more live… 2010 live trips were almost non-existent.
5: Pick up a $10k + win online.
6: Finish in top 100 Ongame MTT players for 2011 on OPR.
7: Improve my top 3 finish % (8 top 3 finishes from 28 final tables since July is not that great)… want this up to at least 35-40%.
8: Play more Sats into the bigger $500+ online games.
9: If I’m playing crap take a few days off.

That will do for now. Think I’ll post regular updates against these targets that can be specifically measured.

Have fun.

Jim

Adios Betfair as we know it...

My poker playing volume in 2010 has been woeful. I've had months off here and there, never really got going and suffered from severe bouts of poker lethargy.

I finally got my act together in July with a concerted effort to try and win something and was promptly rewarded with two 2nds in the Betfair 10k within a week for $4k total (just to prove i can still do it when i put my mind to it) plus a few other minor cashes here and there to keep things ticking over.

My regular comps now seem to be a few on Betfair and a few on DTD most nights but this is all set to change today when Betfair merges with the Ongame network. I'm a bit sad really. I quite liked the dinky little betfair nightly comps... well I liked the overlays and a few of the fish to be honest. Not sure what Ongame has to offer but if it's anything like when Hills moved to IPoker it will mean stopping up way past the current requirement of 12-1am for a 1st place finish and I'm getting too old for that shit.

I do like to keep an eye on various promotions that are being offered across the various poker rooms. Every now and then you spot a fantastic opportunity to make a few quid. There have been a few of these in the past. Getting 15 friends to join BF was all that eventually was required to win an entry to a WSOPE side event two years ago. I did very well out of a Hills points race promo last year that no one else seemed to notice as well. I've got my eye on another one at the moment and may well have a stab at it... seems too good to be true on face of it. Don't want to promote it here as it may spoil the opportunity but watch this space.

Finally I feel I must post some form of comment as to the nature of my last post that has prompted a few comments and e-mails. Bingo is the future... plus they paid me shed loads :)

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The £150 at DTD on the Sunday was a bit of a waste of time. Had a high stakes cash player at the table on tilt who insisted on calling down every preflop bet and hitting some real obscure hands.

I missed a few flops and lost a race and finally exited with a big blind shove into a button raise...i had KsQs vs 73 all in preflop for about 18BB ...... like i said he hit some obscure hands. It did allow me to make it home in time for a betfair freeroll which i managed to win for $800 that managed to pay for the weekend anyway.

I've been playing some small beer heads up to keep things moving for the past month or so. To be honest I've no idea if I'm any good at heads up or not. I seem to go on a run of 150 games where it's a constant up on the P&L graph only for it all to come crashing around my ears in about 50 games. No idea if this is me tilting, variance, me being crap at HU, crap game selection or what. Here's my roller coaster of a sharkscope graph. If anyone can make more sense of it than I can please feel free to comment.



Also think I may have upset some chap in the dim and distant past. Everytime he sees me playing HU he comes in and calls me all sorts of names. Most amusing and breaks the days up... Hi if you are reading :)

It's only in the past few years that I've played much heads up poker. It really is something any serious MTT player should do. I used to be really really bad HU. I had no clue with regards to starting hands, strategy ... nothing. When you consider the leap in money from 1st to 2nd in most MTTs a small/medium stakes decent MTT player can find himself playing in what is essentially a 2k or 3k heads up game at the end of a final table. The number of people who have no clue heads up amazes me. Even at a high level. With that sort of money involved it's worth investing a few hours and $ playing some HU STTs and just getting a feel for for it.

Just be careful not to let it impact your normal MTT game though... there's been a few nights recently when I've found myself making very dubious loose calls in the BF 12k purely because I've been making marginal calls all evening in HU games.

After the last DTD trip itching for another decent trip out live. Can't play the June or July DTD Deepstacks but I'm toying with the idea of playing a GUKP £300 side event in Coventry next week.

Have fun!

Jim

80k DTD deepstack... different river card please

The wife and kids headed up north for a Christening first thing Saturday morning. I got the whole weekend to myself.

I'm pretty sure half of you degenerates have no ties and live foot-loose, fly-by night, devil may care lifestyles? Let me tell you, YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW LUCKY YOU ARE!

I've got to book a weekend to play poker 6months in advance and even then it clashes with something critical nearer the time.

While a I love my family and would not change a thing. A whole 2 days to myself to do nothing but play poker is a rare and chesrished thing indeed.

So up the M1 to Nottingham it was with £500 in my back pocket for buy-ins. I have to say I was feeling pretty good and very confident as we sat down.

Think the best hand I saw in the 1st 3 levels was QQ but buy the time I'd picked the ladies up i'd managed to push onto about 16k from my starting 10k stack. Of course the ladies walked into KK and saw me back to 8k but not to worry. Half the table had me pegged as weak passive and tag teamed trying to push me off pots firing 3 large barrels with air into my maringal holdings. What they failed to take into account was I can't lay a hand down for shit so I happily check called my way to a 35k ish stack by level 6.

Then we had the 1st set back. I managed to find my self holding AcKs on a Tc Js 2c Qh board. Matey boy is betting for England and I close the door on the turn... he snap calls for his stack holding QcJc urggg .... 9c rivers and a 45k pot heads in the wrong direction.

Not to worry I'm still feeling really confident and nip a few decent pots in good spots to get up from 6k to 12k. Then a double up to 24k with AK vs AJ on a Ace high flop.

3rd set back of the day (and the fatal one) came Vs Peter Charalambous . He makes a modest raise from mid position and I flat call on the BB with KsQc. Qc Ts 4s flop sees all our money go in. I must admit he flipped i was happy to see AsJs.... but alas it was a case of replay the river as 9s drops to see me packing.

Very dissapointed to be honest. Felt really good at the table and was still doing ok despite a cooleer and a beat... but you need to win those to get anywhere. Just looking at day 2 chip counts and Peter Charalambous sat well with 100k+, wish him well as he seemed like a really nice fella.

DTD £150 Sunday game kicks off in 25mins so I'm off for a beer to get warmed up :) Wish me luck :)