3 out of 5 :)

Won my local pub tournament again last night, making it 3 wins out of 5 :) I'm very pleased with this as my success rate in the past has been pretty poor in these games. I attribute my increased success to loosening up as I pretty much have an image of a total rock. I think this was becoming too predictable amongst a regular crowd of players unlike online SNG's where it's the best way to play early on as you rarely play the same player twice. Anyways £50 profit was another welcome payday for me! :D

56s got da FUNK!

Played at Circus last night for the first time and really enjoyed it! :) I went with my 2 m8s Rob and Taty. We were havin a few pints and decided we fancied a SNG but when we got there all that was on offer was a 64 man tourney, £15 buyin with 1 rebuy or addon which none of us had enuf for (the R/A that is). Any way we sat down on a newly formed table together and proceeded to play some loose 'pissed' poker lol. Then came my favourite move of all time! Enjoy:

All fold to Taty on the button. Blinds are only 50/100 and stacks are 5000 average. He raises to 1000! hmmm... Wonder what he's got. SB folds and BB re-raises to 3000, oh dear me-thinks he has a MONSTER! Taty snap calls. Flop is something like J78 and BB quickly goes all-in for 2000 odd more. Taty calls and flips over 56s giving him an open ender. BB has KK, turn is blank and river a 9 completing his straight. Needless to say the BB is gutted and Taty somewhat embaressed! Taty went on to come 4th and win £180 his biggest cash yet and his first live MTT. He gained a bit of a reputation to say the least. His last hand was fitting as it was against the same guy who called his all-in post flop after asking 56s again???

On a lesser note I had my first ever royal flush! :D Can't remember where I finished but was pleased with my play overall, although I was a little timid as usual in a live game.

Won a 90 man at last!

Last night was a small milesone as I won a 90 man $2.20 tournament. It took me around 20/30 attempts with about 6 final tables but I kept finishing either 5th or 6th! I finally cracked the nut last night ironically whilst only concentrating in part as I was running deep in a 5000 man $5 freeezefout. Unforttuneately I had to settle for 84th in the end but I'm very proud of yet another deep run at the big money! :)

Just for posterity I thought I'd show off some of my best big MTT results on Stars too:

On Full Tilt:

One fine day! :)

Off to a good start!

I kicked off my small MTT campaign last night with two final tables in 90 man tourneys. I played a mix of two $8.80 deep stack 90 man's, a $4.40 180 man and a $2.20 90 man just to keep me busy. By 2am I was on two final tables at once in the $8.80 and $2.20 tourneys :).

Unfortuneatley I could only manage 8th in the $2 and 5th in the $8. I went out of the $2 as I pushed over the top of a short stack all-in with ATs partly because I thought I was ahead and partly because I wanted to concentrate on the $8. The short stack had JJ and virtually knocked me out, AJs next hand saw me all-in and I didn't improve so that was that leaving me to concentrate on the potentially more lucrative game.

In the $8 I picked up A8o in the BB and made a crucial error. The table's most LAGy player (after me) raised my BB from thee button and I re-raised for half of my stack. It was a half-baked move that cost me, as he flat called and I missed the flop. He went all-in on the flop and I was forced to fold. Part of me was thinking that a re-raise of 3x his raise looked stronger than an all-in and the other half thought that I didn't want to put my life on the line with A8o. On reflection this was definately a push-fold situation, but we live and learn.

Two hands later I was in the cut-off with an M of 4 and a very tight player was in the BB who had the same stack as me. I still think this is probably an any 2 push and in my case I picked up 35o, which I reasoned to be live cards so shoved and was called by KQo, no help followed and I made my exit in 5th for $50. Up $35 for the night :)

All in all it was a very encouraging start to my new small MTT campaign and thanks to Rospicko for the suggestion to leave the $2 180 man turbos alone due to variance. I'm increasingly convinced they're the best way to go if I'm to switch from STT's to big MTT's as they are a great training ground for the situations you find yourself in when playing big MTT's.

Won my local pub game :D

I won for only the third time since I started playing at my local pub (a long time ago) last night. Well we split first and second anyways (£40 each) not exactly a major score but not to be scoffed at either! I agreed to a split because after 10 mins of rollercoaster heads up action we were evenly stacked and it was clear neither of us was giving an inch... plus it was late, excuses, excuses... Anyways anyone whos followed my blog will have read that small live games are my worst so any results in those games are particularly pleasing :)

My favourite hand of the night was acctually one I lost, lol. I made a questionable call of a 10BB raise (pretty standard at this stage for this game lol) before the flop from MP with KJs. I reasoned that there was 3 callers and therefore good drawing out value. I was VERY cautious at this point as the flop came king high. I checked as first to act and the initial raiser (my m8 who I've been giving lessons to) proceeded to count the pot (by looking) and then bet 2/3 of it (about half of the starting stacks). Until this happened I was ready to fold to any resistance but this just happened to be exactly the amount I had taught him to continuation bet... Anyways after a bit of thought I put him all-in for not much extra and he called with KQo. The funny part though was that during the break he told me that he made sure I had watched him count out the pot and bet exactly 2/3 of it so I'd think he was c-betting! Well Played Tahti, I felt like a proper muuug!

After reading a post on a forum where someone suggested that stars $2.20 180 man turbos were a good way to build up a bankroll I have reconsidered my plan. Since I've been having a bad run on the single table SNG's and frankly I'm getting bored of them anyways I thought I'd try out this idea I read. Hopefully this will also quench my thirst for MTT's and prevent me from blowing my bankroll that way.

I've started with $150 so that's about 69 SNG's. My experience so far is that these things are mental! When it starts everthing is normal but pretty quickly you're all-in every other hand and when your 4-tabling it can be pretty stressful! Think I'll stick to 3 tables for now, good luck me!

Update

I just thought I'd write a quick update on my poker shinaigans... I played at the Grovesner Casino last night for the first week of the Newcastle Poker Forum's league. I was a bit apprehensive about playing some decent players for a change as I'm used to playing random members of the public at Aspers. However I went to check it out anyways.

I ended up finishing 63rdish out of about 117. So not a bad result considering the quality of the field. The only thing I would've changed about my play would've been to be more aggressive in a couple of spots, but nerves got the better of me and I played it a bit too safe.

As for my online activities things are not going too good. I decided to put on a balance of 150 pounds instead of 100 to allow me 40 buy-ins at the $5 level sng's. It's now douwn to 90 pounds and I'm forced to consider moving down to $2 sng's. I don't know if I've lost my knack or whether it's just variance but I've been on a poor run either way. Will I ever have the patients again to grind up a bankroll for MTT's? Not sure atm.

Good Advice

When reading Eric "Rizen" Lynch's bolg (famous online MTT pro) I came accross this handy nugget of advice:

"So, how do we know who has a lot to lose from playing a pot with us if we don't have a big stack? A general guideline that I like to use is that any player who has 15-30 big blinds and less than twice my stack size is a prime target to attack. If players have at least 15 big blinds, they are not so short that they're desperate to double up, and if they have fewer than 30, they typically are shallow enough that they're reluctant to take flops with people without a real hand."

Just to put it into context (http://www.rizenpoker.com/articles/2007/08/target-practice.html), he's talking about the mid stages of an MTT, and who you should apply pressure on pre-flop by blind stealing etc. Attacking the mid-stacks is old news but I thought it was a handy rule of thumb :)

That's all for now, can't wait to get his book "Winning Tounaments One Hand at a Time" in 3 days!

AA vs KK vs K10

Last night I played in my regular pub game in Heaton. It began badly as I pissed away half my chips playing half-arsed poker. I won it back though by calling an all-in with the nut flush draw which hit. From this point on I played a solid game and made some big calls to take a massive chip lead.

Everyone thought it was foregon conclusion that I would win but desppite this 3 hands decimated my stack putting me out in third. The last of these was a tad unlucky to say the least... I picked up K10 on the button (3 handed) and raised all in due to my short stack only to be called by AA and KK, oh dear. Still I'm really pleased to have nearly won a small live game again as these are my worst games atm.

I've just ordered 2 new poker books:

"Winning Poker Tournaments One Hand at A Time: 1" (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Winning-Poker-Tournaments-Hand-Time/dp/0974150274)

and Gus Hansen's "Every Hand Revealed" (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Every-Hand-Revealed-Gus-Hansen/dp/0818407271)

Both are highly acclaimed. "Winning Poker Tournaments..." is by some of the most successful online tournament players alive such as Rizen and Pearljammer. I can't profess to know much about them but people on the forums are going nuts about this book so I thought it was a must buy!

"Every Hand Revealed" is a description of every hand played at the Aussie Millions when Gus Hansen won. I think that's a great idea for a book and I haven't read a bad review yet so for £8 I couldn't turn it down! Also I think I'm getting to the stage in my game where I need to loosen up a little and consider styles beyond ABC poker, Hansen sort of personifies unconventional play.

I was just excited so I thought I'd post about my new aquisitions lol. I'm just hoping that they will be a bit more readable than Harrington on Holdem or SNG Strategy which both took me a LONG time to read due to their dry nature. I can't imagine Gus Hansen's book being boring though!

Not Again :(

Just finished 242nd out of 6000ish in a $5 freezeout on Pokerstars. Pushed with TT UTG as my M was about 6... called by AA and JJ, game over. Another 4 hours to get my entry fee back lol - not sure if I love or hate MTT's atm.

Running Deep

I've had a pretty successful weekend despite the fact I've got nothing to show for it. On Friday night I played the 20 pound freezout at Aspers and finished 20th out of 160. Slightly disappointed to go out so close to the final table but to be fair I did let myself get short stacked. This was in part due to making an aggressive move that got called and ruined my image on my table, forcing me to tighten up. Crap hands followed and before i knew it I had 3 BB's. At this point I made a stand with K8o and despite hitting 2 pair on the flop lost to a flush on the river. The suprising thing was I wasn't that disapointed and had a really good night after :)

The second success was a deep run in the Pokerstars $3 rebuy. I finished 342nd out of 6000+ runners :). My last hand was an attempt to steal a pot with 3 limpers and a third of my stack. Unfortuneately one of them had limped with ATo (his 3rd limp in a row) and insta-called my push, his hand held up against my A4o to knock me out. So all in all some good results :)