Catching Up

So, it`s been a while since I posted anything here. One reason is that I went through a pretty bad patch at the tables. I didn`t lose a ton of money or anything, I was just card dead. On the rare occasions I picked up a hand I either missed the flop or everyone would fold. Some good did come of it. I looked up one of my aliases on one of these sites that datamines and rates your play. It highlighted a big leak in my game and I realised it was an accurate assessment so I set about improving things.

I went over to Vegas 24/7 and played one of their micro sngs and took 2nd place. The money was irrelevent I just needed something to boost my confidence. It worked too, I went on to cash in my next two games and not simply because I hit decent cards, I played well and deserved those cashes.

Fast forward to this weekend and the OFC events. Saturdays freeroll saw me finish 70th from a field of approximately 1,000. No cash but a good result given how few premium hands I had. Sundays buy-in was by comparison a little disappointing. I got off to a great start limping in with 77 and flopping a set. I picked up a thousand extra chips and knew I could afford to play pretty tight and choose my moments. Luck seemed to be on my side as a guy ran his KK into my AA. My QQ held up against AK and for a considerable length of time I was up in the top 5. It was the middle of the tourney where things started to go wrong. A lack of playable hands saw me dropping down the field and if I`m truthful the middle sector is an area of my game that needs work. With 300+ players this was a big field for me to play against, I much prefer games with less than 100 runners. The end came for me against a play I should have recognised and folded too. A limp in which I raised to 4xbb and he re-raised all-in. I had QQ and should have just laid it down even though it was a third of my stack. Instead I called and he had KK. The sickening thing was I flopped a Q but he flopped a K. I was more annoyed with myself about that than I was about my recent run of bad cards.

Tonight has however proved to be a good night. It being xmas eve I knew there was a good chance the sites would be a little quieter than usual. I checked in on the $10 rebuy sat for the $2500 GTD at Poker.com. Sure enough the field was about half its usual size. Only 23 runners for 4 tickets to the main event. I jumped in and knew I stood a good chance when my KK doubled me up after my opponent pushed all-in on a flush draw. That one hand gave me enough chips to play nice and steady and establish a good table image. At the break I had the choice of adding on 1500 chips for $10 and as I was in 5th place decided to add-on. It proved a good decision as did my rock like table image. Raising with A-8s from mid position with 6 players left a fellow leaguer told me he`d laid down 10-10. With 5 players left I can`t remember the last time I`ve felt so nervous about a game. It seemed no-one wanted to go out and we played five-handed for what felt like an age before finally the bubble burst and I`d won my big ticket.



My plan is to play tomorrow`s game because hopefully it will be a smaller than usual field and hopefully a couple of the big boys will be missing from the lineup. Whatever the result I intend to enjoy the game, if I`m lucky enough to cash it would represent my biggest poker win so here`s hoping for a nice xmas present from ther poker gods.

High Stakes Poker

Like most poker players if I`m not playing or reading about the game I like to watch other people play. High Stakes Poker is one of my favourite shows, I love the action, I love the table banter, it`s a great show. However I have my reservations about the current series. Specifically about the $500,000 buy-in game that`s running at the moment. There`s no arguement that it`s a great way to attract viewers, even someone who has little or no interest in poker might be tempted to tune in at least once to see a game being played with $5 million on the table.

My problem with this series is I`m starting to feel cheated. I know we`ve seen some huge pots but we`re also seeing those pots being run an unprecedented number of times. Take Patrick Antonius vs Sammy Farha in a pot worth just shy of a million dollars, it was run four times for christ`s sake. I know the pro`s do that to cut down on variance, and I know they have to the right to negotiate how the cash game is run, but isn`t four times taking it a bit too far?

I watched episode 15 last night and there`s a huge hand between Guy Laliberte and David Benyamine. I can`t remember exactly how the action went but Benyamine ends up pushing all-in with the nut flush draw. Laliberte calls and flips over his cards to reveal 2 pair. You can pretty much see the colour drain from Benyamine`s face, he looks physically sick. Then the negotiation starts, at first they`re going to run it once, then they`re going to play for just the money in the pot (about 70k I think) and finally Guy takes the pot and no cards are seen. It was interesting TV but it could have been great TV. Even if they`d just dealt the cards after the deal had been made it would have been pretty good.

Don`t get me wrong, I`m not after seeing someone have their life ruined for the sake of entertainment. I think it was a genuinely nice thing that Guy did for David Benyamine, but that hand illustrates why this series isn`t as good as some of the shows with smaller buy-ins. The stake money means too much to almost every player sat at that table. Guy Laliberte is probably the only player at that table that really doesn`t care about his buy-in. He admits he`s just there for fun and whilst I`m sure he doesn`t want to lose 500k he can certainly afford to. How many of the other players could say that?

I know we`ve seen some huge pots but there was more action at the lower buy-in, Patrick Antonius made the same comment in episode 15. Hopefully they will go back to stakes that the players really are willing to gamble for and if someone wants to bring 500k or a million to the table then let them but don`t insist on it.

That Old Razzle Dazzle

This is my favourite week in the Poker.com Forum Team League. Tonights games were Razz and I was down to play two of our three matches. I played very nicely and finished 3rd from 12 in the first match and 2nd from 12 in the second match. A pretty good night all-in-all. A win would have been nice but I`ll take those results and the nice chunk of points for the team.

League Shennanigans

The only game I played yesterday was the Poker.com Forum league PLHE 48 seater. I got off to a cracking start then lost a huge chunk of my chips against a player who chased all the way to the river. Blinds were 25/50 and I`d raised to 150 with AKos from early position. I had just one caller. The flop comes A-Q-x rainbow, a decent flop for me but I`m worried that my opponent might have AQ. Nonetheless I fire off a bet for 200 into the 375 pot. It`s flat called and the turn is a blank so I fire another 200 in and agains it`s flat called. The river is a 10 and the possibility my opponent has hit a straight runs through my head but I fire another 200 into the pot. My bet is minimum raised to 400 and I know I`m beaten but I decided to pay just to see what cards my opponent had. They turn over KJ and for once I can`t resist making a comment so I type in "Nice chase". There`s a brief exchange of comments between us but I leave it alone until a couple of hands later.

The action had folded round to me in the SB, I had something like K-4 but decided I could pick up the BB with a raise. I`d met no resistance earlier in the game from the player I was targeting and again she folded showing 8-2. I mucked my cards but commented "I had that beat". Enter my straight chasing opponent who says something along the lines of "Oh I didn`t realise you were psychic, how do you know you`ve won before seeing the flop?".

Well I wasn`t in the mood to take that so I replied "You`re not qualified to comment on my play, just keep chasing your four outers". I get a torrent of abuse back and just reply "Showing your character now eh?" A couple of other players ask for it to be calmed down and that`s it for the rest of the game.

I ended up finishing 5th, solid points for me. The straight chaser went on to win despite doing her best to lose. It was sickening to watch her A-4 beat AK, A-9 beat A-10, A-9 beat AJ and then of course her AK holds up against AQ. I swear I`ve never seen anyone so lucky.

No complaints about my play though. I was solid and aggressive throughout. Took my chances when I needed to and played a couple of hands beautifully.