Ship the $10k GTD!! :D :D :D

Weeeeeeeeeee!!! Shipped the $10k GTD on Stars last nite for $2.9k :D It was a $33 buy-in tourney with 500 players. I played a lot more conservatively than I have been recently mostly because I was on table with aggressive players for a good chunk of the tourney, but also because I feel my dicipline has been slipping of late.

I made it to heads up as an underdog by about 2:1. But after folding the first 6 hands I raised on the button with J8o. He called and the flop came 853 rainbow, he bet, I raised and he raised me all-in, he had k9o and I held up to take the lead. The very next hand he raises the Button and I ship over the top with A9s, he snap calls with KTs and doesn't improve Weeeeeeee!!!

The most interesting hand I played on the FT was this:

PokerStars Game #44558314612: Tournament #274587212, $30+$3 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level XXXIII (8000/16000) - 2010/05/24 15:19:18 ET
Table '274587212 16' 9-max Seat #6 is the button
Seat 2: Specki76 (151472 in chips)
Seat 3: DapperDan098 (320140 in chips)
Seat 4: LordGamblor7 (753080 in chips)
Seat 6: cwirek1982 (275308 in chips)
Specki76: posts the ante 2000
DapperDan098: posts the ante 2000
LordGamblor7: posts the ante 2000
cwirek1982: posts the ante 2000
Specki76: posts small blind 8000
DapperDan098: posts big blind 16000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to DapperDan098 [Ts Kh]
LordGamblor7: raises 32000 to 48000
cwirek1982: calls 48000
Specki76: folds
DapperDan098: calls 32000
*** FLOP *** [7s 2s 3s]
DapperDan098: checks
LordGamblor7: bets 64000
cwirek1982: folds
DapperDan098: calls 64000
*** TURN *** [7s 2s 3s] [Qs]
DapperDan098: checks
LordGamblor7: bets 80000
DapperDan098: calls 80000
*** RIVER *** [7s 2s 3s Qs] [8s]
DapperDan098: checks
LordGamblor7: checks
*** SHOW DOWN ***
DapperDan098: shows [Ts Kh] (a flush, Queen high)
LordGamblor7: mucks hand
DapperDan098 collected 448000 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 448000 | Rake 0
Board [7s 2s 3s Qs 8s]
Seat 2: Specki76 (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 3: DapperDan098 (big blind) showed [Ts Kh] and won (448000) with a flush, Queen high
Seat 4: LordGamblor7 mucked [5s Ac]
Seat 6: cwirek1982 (button) folded on the Flop

I called on the flop because he had been playing really aggressively short handed and I felt two overs and a 10 high flush draw was good against his range, even OOP. I feel I should have shoved the river though as I'm not folding if he puts me all-in, so I'm just giving him a chance to check back worse hands. Still pleased with it though I think :)

3rd in 20k GTD

This morning at 5:15am, 9 hours after I began playing, I finished 3rd in the 20k GTD on Pokerstars. This result has surpassed all my previous results in terms of the size of the tournmanet (3,473 runners) and the size of the cash $2,855. Needless to say I'm pretty happy with that!!!

G Casino Online Poker Client Launched

G Casino launched an online poker client as part of the Ipoker network the other day. They asked me to review the new site and these are my thoughts.

Firstly I already like the Ipoker network because I think it's the biggest network that doesn't allow American players to have an account. Not that I agree with the American poker ban but it is generally accepted that American players are better overall than European ones. This is probably because Americans have to jump through certain loopholes that we don't to play so casual players are deterred. Also as a Nation they have been playing Poker for longer than anyone else.

Secondly I am fond of the relatively small sized MTT's, when compared with the likes of Stars and Full Tilt, at the $10-$30 level. The fields are much more manageable meaning less variance for a regular MTT player.

My experience of playing on G Casino Itself was overall a positive one. Apart from one thing which I will explain later. I liked the fact that the tables were resizeable, which I don't think is an option on some Ipoker clients. But most of all I enjoyed the fish! After losing my initial £20 deposit with the usual AA losing to QTo etc. I decided to enter a WSOP sattelite.

G Casino runs sattelites to bothe the Main Event and the side events, something I've been looking for... So anyway I entered a $20 R/A event with about 12 players. This qualifies you for a $215 Super Sattelite that has a prize package worth $5,500. The package includes the buy-in for 2 NL side events + travel & expenses etc.

The structure is unusual though in that your rebuy is worth 2,250 chips (starting stack = 1,500) and the add-on is worth a further 3,000 chips. So it seemed to me that to get the best value I should rebuy at least once and definately add-on. So I rebuy immeadiatley and get busted by a fish with Q4o vs. my JJ. The players on my table must of thought they had clicked on Facebook Poker because the standard was abysmal!! This prompted me to rebuy and I manged to reach the final 4 with first garunteed a seat (to super sat) and 2nd gtd. $185. Then came the add-on period and the bad news for me... I had already made 3 deposits that day (my first on the site) at which point they instantly lock your account!?!?! So I couldn't add-on. To cut a long story short I went all-in pre with AJ as I only had 9 BB's and was called by T4o... straight on the river omg etc. I'll be back to fish in that pond!! :D

Security informed me that this was a measure taken to protect players agaminst fraud and apologised so I guess it's OK just such bad timing! They will reopen my account tomorrow.

The site will also run a special gcasino.com £50,000 Multiplier Tournament on June 20^th. The more players that enter the tournament the more added value gcasino.com will contribute – up to £50,000! In addition the overall winner will gain a seat in the Grosvenor UK Poker Tour (GUKPT) £150,000 Champion of Champions tournament. Promos like this mean G Casino is definitely worth a look! http://www.gcasino.com/poker

Nice weeeee Score :)

I played a lot of $3.30 rebuy 180 man turbo SNG's in the past couple of days. This was the best of 3 final tables (2nd if you cant see the image). The other two were 4th and 8th. I was pretty chuffed to finish 2nd in this one, although £200 is not a massive score I feel I've been playing really well in these soft fields, exploiting the rebuy fish to the max :D

I feel that small buy-in rebuy tourneys up to $10 are some of the softest games out there. I really like getting the oppurtunity to regulary build a massive stack within the 1st hour of a tourney which gives you the chance to exploit weak players from there on in. Obviously gambling early has it's downisdes e.g. I played in the same tourney 2 nights ago and was in for around $40 I think (in a $3 rebuy). Becuase I had a crazy guy on my left who went all-in pre every hand! Everyone else had folded and I kept getting hands like KJ and A6, so I went in ahead almost every time and lost... c'est la vie! The 3 final tables though show that it's worth it to take some marginally +EV gambles early though imo.

EDIT: Just won 2 tourney seats aswell :D Sunday Million and daily $90k worth $270 in total. Weeeeeeeeee!!!!

Experimenting with Aggression 2

Following on from my last post I've had a few more thoughts about aggression. Whilst Playing in the Newcastle Poker Forum 2nd Birthday tournament I made an unconcious decision to play more aggressively than I usually do live. When I play live I usually play pretty tight and the times I've tried to get a little more creative haven't worked out for me overall. So I've been thinking why?

The answer is a pretty basic one really, but I've never been good at common sense lol. It's the old addage that you should play solid ABC poker against poor players and that you must get more creative against better ones, as they will spot this straight away. We all know this but I think many people, me especially, forget these basic rules from time to time and try and get creative at a fishy table or tighten up when they enter a tougher field than usual.

Going back to the NPF Birthday game, in the few events I've played with the NPF in the past I've been quite nervous and as a result my play has tightened up a lot. This time I knew I had to play differently given the table I was sat at, where basically people were just playing their cards. As a result I opened my preflop raising and calling ranges a bit and made a few steals that I normally wouldn't have. As a by-product I found that I was enjoying the game more! In a way that I rarely do when playing live. Because I was acctually getting to think about each hand in some depth rather than just playing ABC Poker.

Unfortuneately though this brings us back to the catch 22 that many poker players are faced with: playing fish is boring yet profitable and the reverse is true against skillful players. Causing us to question why we play this game? Is it for profit or for entertainment? Or both... As recreational players do we need a bankroll or can we just chuck on the odd deposit here and there? Do we have to play our way thru the mind numbing micro and low stakes to get to play at an interesting level or can we just view Poker as an intellectual persuit that we're prepared to pay for?

Anyways went off on a bit of a tangent there. This was just supposed to be a post to remind myself to play ABC against fish and more creative against better players... Thanx 4 reading.

Experimenting with Aggression

I've had this idea floating around in my head for awhile which boils down to this in NLHE how much do your hole cards really matter? I don't mean the old 'any two cards can win' argument either that croupiers love to tell you about 'Aces are useless, I know I see them get beat all the time!'. I mean this: how often do you actually see a showdown? Not very often in my experience, especially in tourneys where if u see a river it usually means someone's tourney life is in the balance.

Anyways, it's just an idea that's based on what I know about poker being a very situational game of incomplete information. Even when you read the HOH intro Harrington lists 10 factors that should be considered in a tourney hand before your hole cards! And he's not exactly considered the most flamboyant of players!

I think you get the idea that I have been wondering for a while about which is can you disregard your hole cards in many NLHE situations? I was a bit nervous about writing this and one of the reasons is I've never read a great deal into this argument so I'm not very sure of it's validaty or the issues surrounding it (COMMENTS APPRECIATED).

The problem is I'm at a stage in my playing career where I'm beginnning (belatedly) to experiment with a LAGGY style in MTT's and whilst this idea underpins the LAGGY style, it is not HOW it works (usually). I mean, good LAG's seem to be mindful of this idea but also mindful of the fact that you cannot 'soul read' or see your opponents cards basically. So because of this fold equity alone is not sufficient to base your game around. Instead a safety net of equity should be maintained in most situations unless you feel the situation is too good to pass up on.

This may all sound pretty obvious but it feels worthwhile to put it into words. Especially as I have a recurring leak which is this: I am a black and white thinker in many ways. I tend not to be half hearted. So when it comes to me experimenting with new moves in a tourney I often find myself taking this idea to it's limit i.e. ignoring my cards completely and focusing only on the stacks, images, board texture, relative positions etc.

In summary I think I need to use showdown value as a safety net i.e. not bluff with air because I feel the situation is 'right' too much. Therefore as I'm only really beginning to experiment with a LAG style, I should should pick spots that are less risky but still challenge myself and experiment in new situations.



Some comments from a friend:

-i think the key is that there'll be some spots where a bet is profitable purely from fold equity
and then you can do it with any cards
-but there are a lot of marginal spots where fold equity isn't quite enough to make a bet + ev by itself and then you need some hand value to back it up, but not neccesarily very much

The night I ran like god, almost...

Last night I managed the following results out of 5/6 games on Stars:


I played two $55 tournies:

16th in 40k GTD (1,000+ runners)

40th in 5k GTD 500 cap ($15k pot)


And two smaller ones before that:

6th in $12 180 man

10th in $22 180 man

Obviously the big one was the $40k GTD. During the late stages my stack was like a yo-yo! As usual I'm going to do an analysis of what went wrong:

In this case it was a simple error on my part, I got people I didn't know to rail me from Newcastle Poker Forum. Although I'm very grateful for their support at 2am on a Thursday! It was a mistake of mine to ask them to. Basically I kind of knew it could affect my game but not how, so picking a crucial time in a big tournie to test this out was plain daft!

The effect it had on my game was simple, I tightened up and not even in a good way. I started to play only hands with solid showdown value and disregard many factors of the situations I played them in. Why? Because I was worried if I tried re-steals etc. with questionable cards I'd look like an idiot if/when it went wrong. So this meant I wasn't even able to steal blinds as effectively anymore meaning when I saw a hand like TT or AT I was read to get in no matter what, because I knew I needed to pick up chips.

Anyways enough ranting, I want to stress this was MY mistake, not the people from NPF who kindly railed me. Other than this I'm very pleased with the way I played last night :) My total profit for the night was around $250.