Willy C's Poker Blog!

bi-polar poker tendancies, a weekend wasted

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 22:47:00 +0000

This month I have really learnt that....

A: I can grind and profit pretty well
B: I can drink, tilt and lose the profit pretty well.

I'll let the graphs show for themselves my f00ked-up-p0ker-ness.

I started off november by taking a shot at 2 $55 9-man SnGs which didnt end happy which makes the months start look like this:

So 2 games in, and I'm already $110 down. I dunno what I was thinking risking that much bankroll in one go. Actually can't even remember playing them in all honesty.

After that I tried TEN TABLING a load of games. That was a big mistake, due to the fact that I suck at more than 4 tables and secondly, my laptop can't really handle more than 4 tables PLUS holdem manager sucking in all the handhistorys & writing them to the database etc which makes my laptop turn slower than a chav woken up on a sunday morning. So tilted on them which made my graph look like this:

But then, ah hah, I found my rhythm and started playing properly, 4-tabling comfortably and just playing good solid poker, and as many bad beats as I got in this run, I didn't mind. Bad beats are just 'ah well, thats poker!'. Here is what my graph looked like during my good, non tilting, non drinking, yeh baby, i can do this, graph looked like:

Obviously not breaking even yet, but looking good! Yah I lost a couple of games at the end of that day, but variance can explain that (hehe).

BUT... Variance can't explain this piece of shit:

And this my friends, is my problem.

I have this fucking ridiculous problem of not being strict with my bankroll, plus the fact I don't mind the odd glass or 2, or 3, or 4, or 5, or 6, or 7, or 8 of wine, beer, cider, JD, Captain Morgan, cheapo Glens vodka or whatever is going any night of the week.

Lost count of the amount of times this exact thing has happened, griding well, then get a couple of bad beats too many, start playing shitty super turbo satellite tournaments where you start with 300 chips, lose 3 of them on the trot, buy a bottle of wine, get donk'ed by some dumb spaz, then play a stupid $20 SnG and lose to some crack-head who limps in with AA when you have A4 on your BB and flop comes A49.

Those dumb limped AA hands on your BB resulting in you flopping magnum hands, then subsequently getting busted shouldn't get to you, but when you are being a degen-fish, they do!

As much as I would love to be a pro poker player, I dunno if I have the discipline to make it happen, so until then, its 8:30AM - 5PM M-F grinding out the office job. Being a programmer is a respectable profession I think, but it's fucking boring.

I have quite a bit of time off work after wednesday for nearly 2 weeks (had like 14+ days to take off before the end of the year lol).

Gonna REALLY concentrate on poker in that time, no fucking around.

If I don't make my sharkscope graph even by the end of the month, I might actually consider stop playing poker forever.

Mofo.

Lifestyle change

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 07:41:00 +0000

Right, lately, I've just become a complete slob and it's not cool.. So decided on a bit of a lifestyle change starting from now.

-No more smoking

-No drinking (unless in the company of others)

-Eat food that I have prepared, i.e no packaged sandwiches, dominos, mcds etc. (unless in the company of others or "out" somewhere)

-Get my 5 fruit & veg a day

-Drink more than 3 pints of water a day

-Continue with the jogging

What else?

Double or Nothings suck. Time to try 180mans

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:33:00 +0000

Yah, well I got to 200 games on the DoNSnGs. I was doing okay then went on tilt cos I lost like 6 in a row and stupidly played a $50 DoNSnG and lost. LOL

Thing is though, as profitable as those games are... they don't really do much for your poker game... Pretty noobish and I felt like a complete fish playing them.

However, I've recently discovered the joys of 180man SnGs which are FULL of completely ***WOW*** players. You know the kind, where you check raise them all in on the turn with Top2pair AND straight/flush draw and they call you with pocket 2's and hit their one outer 2 on the river that doesnt make your flush.

I'm trying to get better at multitabling MTT's. So I've set myself a challenge of playing 150 of them during November and seeing how well/bad I am doing by then.

150 is NOT a lot to some people, but one of my weakness's is not being able to put enough volume in, so 150 180man SnG's is a LOT for me!

Have withdrawn my money so I had exactly $100 in my stars account.

Starting at the $4.40s and will move up to the $11s if my bankroll gets to $550 as I'm setting a bankroll rule of 2% for this challenge. We'll see how it goes.

If this challenge fails, I'll stick to what I know best and can profit at for a while and that is 9man SnG's LOL. What a fish.

Anyone got any ideas on how to make a poker blog more interesting?

Live Poker Etiquette

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 22:10:00 +0000

So yeah, played the local tourney tonight. Didn't do too well, but I left feeling more *pfffffff* than anything else.

Went like this:
Previous history = The guy had raised in late position a few times on my BB and I had won 2 of the 3 times by re-raising or betting on the flop. I figure this guy is pretty good at poker blah blah.

I got knocked out by: Everyone folds, the guy on button raises to 1800 preflop. SB folds. I look at J 10 sooooooooooted, blinds are 300/600. So I call the extra 1200. Lets see the flop.

(Now before anyone comments on my play, I'm not listening! This post is about his play)

A K x rainbow.

I have an inside straight draw, but that doesnt matter, what matters is he is going to C-bet, and I am gonna shove in the hope he folds.

I check. He C-bets. I shove.

He takes an age to decide what to do. ummmmming n arrrreing. Eventually, like its a 'gamble', he calls. I say "err yeh, Im on a pretty bad draw". He hesitantly flips over pocket aces....

If it was someone who was a decent sportsman and just called instantly, I would have thought "well played, nice hand, you got me". He got me in the spot he wanted according to the previous history, but slow-rolling like that? Makes me think pfffff, thats such a feeble thing to do. Why be a jerk? Are you really that bothered and pissed off that I outplayed you 2 out of 3 times in a little £30 tournament? Wow.

(a Q didnt come on the turn or river unfortunately, if it did, I wouldnt have said anything. If it came up against a non tard, I would have said 'sorry man')

So yeah, what I take from that is: I dont like un-sportsman-like behaviour. Its just ghey.

I named this post Live Poker Etiqutte, not just because of the slowrolling thing, but I have seen this guy play a few times now and I've noticed a lot of annoying things about him. Half the time he has absolutely no idea when it is his turn to act, off in dreamland somewhere thinking about fairies or flowers or something, thats fine, but what annoys me more is:

He is very often commenting on hands in play which he is not a part of. My whole philosophy is, if you aren't in the hand, then shut the fuck up. Don't blurt out to the person next to you "I woulda flopped a flush" cos that takes 2 cards off of the pot odds etc and changes the play, he also says things like "He could quite possibly have a set and I think she is on a draw".

When the hand is over, then yeah, talk to your hearts content about that hand, but till then, STFU.

The lady next to me said to him "why did you take so long to call?" and he didnt say anything, so I said, and made sure everyone could hear "he was slowrolling me".

MOFO. Can only take my chips with pocket aces, see you next week!

Double or Nothings

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:29:00 +0000

Decided to try and make some moolah on the DONSNG's on pokerstars. Currently, my SharkScope Double Or Nothing graph looks like this after 130 games:

Not good at all. I must say though, I haven't actually played a DON for about a year because I got pissed off with them. That whole "these are easy but im getting screwed" attitude. Well, after seeing the following DON graph, I am determined to start grinding these out... will be sticking to a 10% rule for these. Not sure if I am gonna play the normal or turbo's. Turbo's might be better, can pump out more volume which will help beat the rake. We shall soon find out ;)

Awesome huh?

Actually can't wait to get home and try these again. I don't think it is a particularly skillful form of poker, but if there is easy money to be had, you should go for it, cos that at the end of the day is the whole point isnt it? Money.

I will post my SharkScope DON Graph when I get to 200 games, if I'm not in profit by then, I will give up :p

Oh shit, man, I thought I was 5th!

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:37:00 +0000

Played in the local tournament again sunday night, was a £40 freezeout.

32 players and barely JUST cashed in 6th place. Not proud of limping in to the money, but in all honesty, I couldn't really do anything! When we got to final table, I had plenty of chips, but all of a sudden, the blinds are just insane, by the time I got knocked out, the blinds were at 5000/10,000

Lets do some maths.....

32 players with 7000 starting chips. 32 * 7000 = 224000.

That makes a total of 22.4 BB's in play! That is when there are 7 people left! If the payout structure wasn't so steep, I wouldn't mind. But 1st place for £450 makes me feel like I got shortchanged!

Shouldn't complain though! As you know what? I got so lucky you wouldn't believe it.

7 people left (I thought there was 6 left for some stupid reason).... and they started talking about taking £10 off each of the 5 paying places, to be nice and give 6th £50. So everyone agreed (everyone knew the blinds were getting rediculous).

Guy next to me gets knocked out, so I'm thinking, woop at least £90 now. I get knocked out on next hand (I had 1000 left after posting my for 5000 on my SB, so I call without looking at my cards). The *BIG STACK* with about 6 BB's calls me and ends up rivering quad 5's lol! I looked at my cards and almost made a straight lol.

So yeh, there's me thinking I'm out in 5th, chap comes over to cash me out and write my name on the list thing, so he said "£50 yeh?", n I thought he was joking and just laughed and said "nah man, I'm 5th so I should get £90?". Then he was like 'errrrrrr', so I looked around to count and prove that I was 5th. So counted

1,2,3,4,5 and me = 6.

"Oh shit, man, I thought I was 5th!"

So there's me, thinking "Yeh I will let Mr 6th place have his money back" being all smug n stuff. I didn't realise they were talking about me! LOL really should pay attention to small things like that. If they hadn't have been such lovelies to give me £10 each *before I got knocked out on my loose fifth of SB call*, I woulda had nothing lol.

To be honest though, I think they will have done quite a lot of chopping. So shoulda waited with my 5th of a SB AKA 10th of BB for another orbit to see if a couple of others with less than 1BB stacks get knocked out, or try and get chops. I think I got muddled up on that 5/6/7 people issue because I was concentrating so much on how many times all ins will happen before its my turn!

On another note..... we had a good ol' laugh at these 2 wanabees. It was their first time at the game cos no one knew them, but everyone was talking about how stupid they look as they were wearing sunglasses and it was quite possibily the most rediculous thing I have ever seen. It's like "Do you realise this is a £40 freezeout, not a WSOP $40K tournament?". Neither were that impressive on the actual poker front either which made it even funnier. One of them was on button while I was in BB early on in game. Everyone folded to him, he raised 3xBB. (I wonder if he read that in a book 2 days earlier?). I didn't even look at my cards cos I knew how to win the pot. I called. Flop came blah blah blah, I checked. He bet a so obvious 2 3rds of a pot. So I raised him about 3 X his bet. He insta mucks. What a pleb.

I got moved a couple of orbits later unfortunately as I wanted to take advantage of this guy trying to steal my blinds, didn't mind though, as on my new table. I flopped 2 ace high flushs and 2 nut straights. I was also flopping flush draws all over the place, betting on them and then hitting them on the turn, and if I didnt hit them on turn, people seemed to fold to my bet anyway. One hand I flopped an ace high flush draw, I bet, someone called. Turn is another spade *woooo*. I bet, he raised me all in, I call. He had the king flush. Poker is easy when you get good cards. Then all of a sudden, mr wanabee pro got moved to my next to me on my right. I noticed he had really dirty fingernails which is horrible. I hate dirty fingernails. He was out a few hands later on a bluff. He was in BB, everyone folds to SB who had been playing pretty tight as was getting fairly decent cards. SB raises 3 or 4 X BB, dirty fingernails autoshoved all in (protecting blinds obviously). SB auto calls with pocket 8's. Ol' fingernails has 4 3 suited and doesnt get lucky. FAIL! lol

I could go on forever just how silly these 2 guys were, if they had just come in without sunglasses and without the attitude, they coulda probably done alright as people wouldn't be playing back at them. I know it is good to have people trying to play back at you, like when you have "got lucky" on them a few hands before or something. But you need to know how to play that way skillfully. I don't claim to be an expert in reverse psychology, but I find that if I don't make people think I am a complete pleb with an attitude + sunglasses, they are generally quite nice to me, and they respect/believe my bets/raises quite a lot. LOL

An interesting OESD hand that I played live. I suck at maths!

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 11:04:00 +0000

Went to a tournament at a little local pub, the format was just a small stakes turbo SnG as there were only 9 people with blinds raising every 15 minutes. One hand that played was a weird one, one of those "What the hell am I suppose to do?" kind of hands which I hate.

It goes as follows:

I know it shouldn't change my style of play, but as the buyin was only £5 (I'm use to playing £30+ Live Tournaments), I was up for playing loosey goosey and just seeing what happens. That's my excuse anyway, and I'm sticking with it!

Blinds are 100/200

I am BB, everyone folds to button who limps in, SB calls, I look down at J 9, I Check.

Button had been playing quite a few hands, SB was pretty tight.

Flop = 8 9 10

I have middle pair and an Open Ended Straight Draw (OESD), SB checks.

I checked. There is 500 in the pot. Button minbets 200. SB folds, I call. I am putting button easily on a pair of 10's, not sure of kicker, definetily not an A though, as you just don't limp in late position with A10! I am calling to hit a straight.

Turn = J

This is making me feel like this hand isn't going to end up nice. I have 2 pair now, but the board is giving that open ended straight draw.

I checked. He bets about 300. I end up calling. I am going with my gut instinct, he doesn't have a straight and my 2 pair might just be good now.

River = Q (possibily the worst river card ever)

Q straights the board obviously.

There is about 1500 in the pot. We both have about 3000 in chips.

I checked. He goes all in. Its crunch time for me now, does he have a K? It's possible as he could have K 10. But then again, he could quite easily be making a great steal here. Maybe by going all in, he is making it "look" like a steal, so I believe him and call, for him to show me the K 10? At this moment in time, my mind is 50/50 whether to call or not, I honestly don't know. If I fold, I will be back down to average chips again, if I call (and lose), I will have enough for exactly the SB!

I called, playing the board. He had...... (I may tell you later ;) )

My thoughts: I played the hand like shit. Check calling is never good in these situations and don't know why I played it so passivly. I think I could have won the pot on the turn by check raising all in, Yeh he could have called all in on the OESD obviously, but isn't getting the right odds I think... lets see if I can work this out properly: PLEASE CORRECT ME IF I AM WRONG!

Pot contains 4500. Costs 3000 to potentially win: so 3:2 odds
1 card to come. Four 7s, Four Qs = 8 cards.
52 - 2 - 4 = 46 unseen cards.
(8 / 46) * 100 = 17.39% chance of making his hand.
I am confused now and don't know how to work out if that is good for me.

(Mental note: Automate pot odds/probabilities into your brain!!! Maybe get some lessons on how to work this stuff out quickly. I never was very good at maths!)

I guess its +EV if he calls, whether the pot is split or he wins it (with a Q on river, and K in hand if he does indeed have a K). By not check raising all in on the turn, I put myself in the above awful river situation.

Putting pot odds aside though, if he is calling on the OESD, would the fact that he would make a higher straight by hitting the OESD make him more likely to call? As he wouldnt be splitting the pot if he hits the Q on the river? (That is, assuming he has the K)

I think the moral of this story is to just avoid these sticky situations, I find it very hard to think they can be profitable in the long run. A normal OESD situation is fine and I am confident at playing them, but this OESD situation had SO MANY other things to take into consideration that its just not worth it. Any opinions?

Very sorry if this post doesnt make any sense. I suck at maths!

(By the way, he did have the K lol)

Poker is fun

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:35:00 +0000

Was playing a $10 SnG last night and a hand came up. The hand itself is not so interesting, but it was the guys reaction.

Blinds were at 30/60, everyone folds to me in button.

I have Q9 suited. I am going to steal the two tight players blinds. I raise to 180.

SB folds. BB re-raises to 500. I have just over 2K chips, I call. I know it is a bit of a loose call, but I am putting him on AA or KK, if I flop a big hand here, I have no doubt I can get all his chips, also depending on flop texture and what he does on flop will allow me to act accordingly. Hence why it is common knowledge to be in "late position" as much as possible!

Flop comes A X X. Pot = 1030

BB checks.

Alarm bells are ringing. He has KK for sure. Absolutely guaranteed he has KK. If he had AA or even AK, he would be betting that! Well, each to their own, but if I flop a set of Aces, I tend to lead out (most of the time anyway), especially if I had re-raised preflop! But as he checked, that is telling me he is shit scared of that flop (if I am wrong, then great play on his behalf). So I bet 650. he folds, then the conversation went like this...

Donk: "Folding KK because of A-Rag shit player".
Me: "Dont cry".
Donk: "Im not, im just saying you cant win like that"
Me: "Be quiet"

He didnt write anything else after that, and went out in 6th place. He had played 7% of his hands. I should have wrote "You cant win like that", because lets face it, you can't win by playing 7% of hands (unless you double up every single time you play a hand) LOL.

I find it funny how people write stuff like that as though it was a skillful fold. Not really. Folding KK on an Ace board is easy if you are facing preflop/postflop aggression, and you shouldn't batter an eyelid. He played it correctly preflop, but postflop he should have (I would have) bet out with KK. Just put a little tester bet. 350 or so. See what I do. But instead he showed weakness, I won the pot because of it, and then he blames me!

I might sit and rail some of the top online pro's tonight. (Will turn off the observer chat, have you seen those fish writing stuff like "Fold, he has a K" on the nosebleed stakes with players like Tom Dwan, Phil Ivey, Gus Hansen etc? You just feel like writing "Dude, the cards dont matter to these guys! Gus Hansen may indeed put Dwan on a K, but Gus is wondering if there is a chance of taking the pot away from Dwan on the turn or river if flush/trip/straight cards come up!", but then you would end up being another observer fish). Anyway, yeh I might sit and watch some online tournament pro's tonight and play a little game. Basically try and put them on hands, or more importantly, what to do to win the hand. For instance, if I think that raising now would make moorman1 fold, and the guy raises and moorman1 folds, I will be like "woooooooooooooooo" lol. Probably won't happen but we will see.

Poker is fun. And no, I'm not a fan of "Poker is fun". Geeky white boy poker rappers make me want to throw up.

Live cash games & online donkaments and other stuff

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:34:00 +0000

Live cash games

Played in a cash game on wednesday evening at a local pub. The blinds were 10p/20p.

Man o man is there money to be had there! I played for 2.5 hours and left £60 up.

The biggest fish sitting next to me on my right lost over £100 in 2 hours. How the hell can you lose £100 in 2 hours on a 10p/20p LIVE cash game? I will tell you how, raise about 60-70% of hands preflop and call any sized bets/raises preflop. I think he thought he was actually Gus Hansen because he read "Every hand revealed" and saw him on TV once. But what he didn't realise was that you need to have reasoning, logic, image (and so much more other small but extremely significant details) to play that many hands, and if your post flop abilities are a pile of wank, then your screwed!

It would be REDICULOUS to not go there again. haha

Some guy did look like he was going to cry when he got felted by someone else and walked out with that "Oh shit, how am I going to buy dinner?" look on his face. I don't know if it is me being cold heartless bastard, but in my opinion, you shouldn't be playing poker if you can't afford to lose, and I personally am going to try and find those players playing with scared money, and I'm going to try and take advantage of them. It's their own fault! Any opinions on this? I think it's the right attitude to have if you are genuinly serious about playing live cash games.

Online donkaments

Played a $3 (6-max) tournament with 676 players yesterday, came 3rd place for $202. I could have won the whole damn thing had I thought about things like calling ranges & stack sizes a bit more. Those 2 things didnt enter my mind once as I proceeded to lose my 400,000 chips on a bluff. Tut tut William. Was pretty disgusted, I know 3rd place is good, but who wants to come 3rd! Ugh

Talking about donkaments, full tilt are being crappy now. I usually play the 6-max $1 (no fee) tournament at 6pm UK time most days. Now they have started charging 10c! Making the buyin a total of $1.10. How shit is that? I have written an email telling them that is a crap thing to do. There are usually 1000ish people in that tournament, they are going to make $100 which is nothing, but piss off a load of their micro stakes players. I doubt they will give a shit but hey, its good to complain once in a while.

Headsup

My headsup book still hasn't arrived, grrrrrrrrrr! But I am almost at a positive ROI for this month headsup games so far. Just anhiolated some guy 5 times in a row, he declined the 6th match :(

Sports betting

I think sports betting can be quite reliable as long as you don't go on "betting tilt" (which is what the bookies want you to do) like I did the other night. What is the word for betting tilt? I am back on track now thanks to a few dangerous gambles that paid off (thanks Ken Doherty!), never again though. Lesson learnt from this weekend, don't bet more money just because it is your "favourite player/team"!!

I was thinking, how could I make the job title "sports bettor" sound better? You know, like you wouldn't write "Shelf Stacker" in your CV, you would write "Stock Replenishment Assistant". So yeah, "Sports Bettor" would be "Sporting Events Results/Outcome Investor" haha, what could poker player be?

Not that I would ever put "Sports bettor/poker player" in my CV if I ever decided to go back to work, if "being pro" didnt work out if I ever did "go pro".

(English lesson needed as I'm sure there is a better way to write that sentence!!!)

But yeah, I would say I was travelling for that time LOL. If they say "ooh, where did you go?", I could say "To hell and back" as that is what I would probably be thinking if poker didn't work out!

I've been having some weird dreams lately. One of my funked up dreams from last night, I found loads of rocks tangled up in my hair. WTF does that mean? Some other dreams probably not wise to go into as I might get locked away by the men in white coats.

The yearly fair is right outside my office, so I had a jumbo hotdog for lunch! Time to have a ciggie then go back to work!

headsup - turns out im actually pretty bad!

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 06:25:00 +0000

Well, turns out I am very bad at headsup! Subscribed to sharkscope to use the advanced search, selected just heads up games. I am too ashamed to show a graph of just how bad I am doing at heads up! I seriously thought I was break even at headsup, but omfg no way. You know those graphs you laugh at when you check peoples results, well that's me on headsup!

So even though I am going to be playing more live games, I am going to start also concentrating on purely just headsup online from now on. I feel like this is something that I can work on and be able to view and track the results. I hope to have a V shaped graph pretty soon, then hopefully a never ending TICK graph! When I 'break even' on headsup, I'll show my headsup sharkscope graph lol.

I am excited about this newfound knowledge that I suck at headsup. It gives me something to REALLY work on now which will improve results all over the place (i.e when you get headsup in a big tournament where difference between 1st and 2nd is a rather large amount)

So how to dramatically improve my headsup game, and quickly?

I have bought Heads-Up No-Limit Hold 'em: Expert Advice for Winning Heads-Up Poker Matches by Collin Moshman, which should arrive any day now, I will read that in a few evenings. I read his SnG Strategy book and that was a very good read. If I can get one useful bit of info out of it, then it will be worth it.

The only other way to improve my game is to just practice relentlessly.

One thing I am going to try is lots of different styles of headsup play. I'm usually pretty LAG (Loose aggressive), but I will try out all different styles. What I mean is, I will decide to play a style before I sit down and see how it goes. From my experience, some of the different styles I have seen are:

Calling station
Min betting/min raising (these players ANNOY me for some reason)
Weak mouse - Supertight/passive
Copycats
Maniac psycho
All in preflop with any Ace or King

The reason I want to try all these styles is to figure out what on earth my opponents are thinking when they play like this (when I am playing "my game"). Also to try and see how my opponents at the time of my testing, adapt (if at all) to my chosen style, if that makes sense?

For example, if my opponent picks up that I'm playing as a weak mouse by checking/folding pretty much everything unless I get a top 10 hand where I suddenly bet/raise, will he start betting/raising more? He certainly should do! Then it will be interesting to see how he reacts to the occasional check raise on the turn when a scare card for him comes out. Will he fold almost all the time, probably. What if he raises me back? Shall I go all in and watch him fold? Doesnt matter what cards I have, I want to see what he would do.

I think I have a good understanding of headsup, but not applying it as well as I should be. Its a case of "I can talk the talk, but cant walk the walk".

Headsup (like poker overall, but headsup, this is even more important) is a game of manipulating your opponents, telling them a story, which could be a complete lie or the absolute truth, but whether bluffing or trying to extract the most value, they do what you want them to do (hopefully).

Beware of me on the headsup SnGs from now on, I'm on a mission.

Where to go from here?

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 14:34:00 +0000

I'm gonna start playing Live poker much more from now on. I don't mind the travelling and am happy to use the odd holiday day to take off Fridays/Mondays so I can spend long poker weekends in places a bit out of the way of Oxford such as Nottingham, Brighton, Kent, Newcastle amongst others.

Will still be playing online obviously, but it is just getting a bit boring and also very reclusive! I'm not too great at multitabling, and after sitting staring at a screen all day at work doing programming, I really need to rest from computers rather than playing for 3+ hours every evening and 15+ hours over the weekend!

Plus, there is something strangely satisfying busting people live, especially when they are loud mouth *****s.

Good game Sir. (HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAA!)

I am going to try and play 2 £100 side events of the GUKPT in Thanet, Kent in October as long as I have enough in my bankroll. LOL

As for a live schedule, basically, I am sorted pretty much every day of the week for various local games, ranging from MICRO stakes like 5p/10p cash games & £5 freezeouts to LOW-MEDIUM stakes tournaments like £40 freezeouts and £1/£1 cash games.

Will start going to London most weekend as it is tournaments galore there, much more than Oxford when it comes to Saturday daytime tournaments!

The Oxford Poker forum that I started is kicking off slowly but surely. There are a few regular posters on there now and the possibility of a number of new home games starting, which should be pretty cool.

So yeah, live games it is for now! Tomorrow (saturday) I'm gonna pop up to London and Sunday night I'm gonna play a £5 freezeout at a new game that has just started in Oxford City Centre. Found out about it from one of the guys on my forum. I would play in my local game, but its gonna be a crazy ass £10 rebuy which I really have no interest in as it is literally "All in" every hand!

Brighton

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 06:10:00 +0000

Went down to Rendevouz Casino at Brighton Marina at the weekend. Woke up at 6am to get to Brighton for 11ish, sign up at 12 and play in a BLAPO UKLSPT £25 tournament that starts at 2pm. Got knocked out at about 4.30pm, waited around for mate (who lives in Brighton AND hadn't played poker for over a year) who busted out in the money in 8th place. LOL. I was drunk by the time he got knocked out on £2 a pint, lost £20 on the roulette in 4 spins and then started the long journey back to Oxford and into bed to get home just after midnight! Would have gone drinking in London with mate & his GF who were going to a wedding next day, but I didn't fancy being number 3 in a group of 2. I hate that.

I was playing pretty well, then one of those 'crucial' hands came up, the BB was pretty much all in already. UTG raises preflop, I 'suspect' to make everyone fold so it can be just him and BB in pot.

Then UTG+1 raises him. I 'suspect' he is raising to get UTG out of the pot. Take the side pot and hope just to win the small main pot with BB.

Then I look down at JJ.... I have enough chips to cover all 3 of these guy's. If I lose, I'll be just below average... But also took into consideration, this tournament is pretty much a turbo tournament, can't sit around waiting for perfect spots and I 'think' you have to take shots like this.

I raise enough to push them all ALL IN. The BB calls obviously, UTG thinks for a while and calls. Then UTG+1 thinks for a while and also calls.

BB = Q3
UTG = AK
UTG+1 = AQ
ME = JJ

A queen arrived on flop giving UTG+1 a large amount of chips. Do you want to know what annoyed me though? How the hell could I not make a note of what SUITS everyones cards were?!! Take a pic or something. Each way I try the probability calculator, I am always the favourite, but depending on whether one of my Jacks is the same suit as someone elses possibily suited cards makes the odds vary wildly (not just the usual 2% for suited cards if you get what I mean). Good to know that I was always the favourite though. Would have just been nice to know the EXACT percentages everyone had (not that it matters...)

Could I have played that hand differently? In hindsight, yeah I could. I could have folded JJ obviously. But I could have also just called the UTG+1 raise... UTG couldnt have raised any more because UTG+1 had raised him all in, so there was no risk of anyone starting any more preflop raising wars (unless SB, Dealer, Cutoff fancied a go!). If I had called, and UTG+1 bet on the flop with any Q,K,A on the flop, I could have got away from the hand.

I think in this rather turbo'ey tournament structure though, I made the right play. If we were deep stacked with low blinds, then I wouldnt consider putting in over half my chips on what is essentially like a 50/50 at that stage of the tournament if you catch my drift?

Just had another thought.... I wrote that I was thinking these guys are raising to isolate the BB to themselves, not that they would actually have decent cards AK/AQ respectively. I'm not saying £25 is too low for my skill level because that would be naive! But maybe I should have taken into consideration that perhaps these players (well, UTG+1) might not actually be thinking on that 'isolating' level and might have just been playing his cards, therefor pretty much telling me it is 50/50 coin flip time which I might have been able to possibly consider maybe perhaps slightly getting away from and folding because I had more than average chips so didn't need to get into trouble..... hmmmm I don't know what level thinking that is!

Plus, the UTG+1 raiser looked like a bit of a stoner/beachbum, it is Brighton afterall. Who knows though, am most likely never going to see him again! But will be something else to take into consideration when risking half my chips!

I have now made my mind up and think that calling preflop was actually the best move (not raising like I did) as could have got away from hand if any betting occured post flop if scare cards came down saving myself over 1K in chips....

Hmmmmm wasn't planning on this being such a long post. I will stop now!

MiniFTOP'ing, Pot Limit Omaha, Staking and Sports Betting!

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 17:26:00 +0000

Played MiniFTOPs Event #11 last night which was a $20 + 2 Half Pot Limit Holdem, Half Pot Limit Omaha (aka "HA").

I had only played PLO a few times and managed to somehow get past over 3000 players to JUST make the money for a whopping payday of $40.30 LOL.

Felt so lame being a scared fold monkey, but I really just wanted to cash in a game which I wasn't too strong at. I was unlucky once in the money, got it AIPF with AQ and someone called me with A7 and yep, you guessed it, a 7 came on the river. Not too fussed though, I did only have 3.5xBB LOL!

I will certainly be playing some more PLO now though. Need to upgrade my HoldemManager to include PLO stats, hopefully won't be too pricey, shall have a look.

One of horses (backed players) finally cashed in a game last night lol. Only made $9 profit as he got KO'd with top 2 pair against a set. But ah well, was watching him play for a bit and will certainly be staking him again. Got quite a few 'stakes' in players over the coming week or so, so hopefully one of them will cash nicely!

As for keeping track of what 'gambling' money is where, it is proving harder than I thought. I'm doing all the money transfers via Fulltilt or Pokerstars now as ChipMeUp charges a fee. So basically, I am now mixing up my Poker money with backing money.

However, ChipMeUp has records of the investments/returns and HoldemManager, Sharkscope, OPR etc has records for my poker, so it's all good.

Betting is going pretty nicely too, hopefully Man.U will beat Besiktas and Chelsea will beat Porto tonight (tuesday) so I'll win those AND the multiples. Got bets on god knows how many baseball, english/american football, basketball games that I need to wait till the weekend for all the bets to settle to see how my £10 is doing. But as it is only £10 though, I'm not really fussed! However, as I've got about £10 total on the ManU and Chelsea games, plus all the other open bets, I figure it is going better than break even ;-)

(Quick Update: ManU & Chelsea both won their games)

Actually cba to play any poker tonight, so going to have a glass of wine or 2 and watch Sopranos.

Sunday Satelliting

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 14:40:00 +0000

Been trying to satellite into the sunday MiniFTOPS games on Fulltilt.

Got a ticket easily into event #8 which is $100,000 guaranteed $24+2 6 handed KO.

Bubbled on the satellite into event #10. I flopped top set and went all in thinking no one would be STUPID enough to call on a draw. Some idiot did call (he had a comfortable amount of chips and same as me) and hit his flush. Do these people not understand the concept of satellites? All you need to do is 'get into the money', its not about coming first!

Played a number of 64 man Headsup satellites to get into event #9 which is the $50 HU.....

Came 2nd.

I did almost have it in the bag at one point, then all of a sudden I completely lost it. I think the excitement/pressure of 'almost being there' got to me and I just lost my cool and my chips along with it.

Poo sticks is all I can say. Ah well. Hopefully I can redeem myself by winning event #8 LOL.

1 week into my little £500 challenge...

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 19:23:00 +0000

So yeah, reached 33rd out of 1176 on the daily $1 6handed tournament for $3.35 on Sunday night. Took 3.5 hours giving me a total hourly win rate of about 67cents an hour woooo!!! (First place is over $200 so will be worth it if I finally win one lol)

I went out on a pretty bad call on the tournament, but I am confident that in general, my multi table tournament knowledge and skills are getting better.

140 get paid. What I have started doing now is not even looking at the prize money. Obviously I want to know when I'm in the money, after that, I want the final table, then first place, nothing less. I'm not fussed about 'average' chip count, I'm fussed about how many BB's I have.

I have spotted a 'leak' in my late tournament game, and that is not believing the big stacks preflop raises when they are in late position. In my head, I am thinking they are raising preflop to bully me and steal my blinds, I see that I have got A9 and think "hey, screw you buddy" and go all in (as thats pretty much my only move if I am short stacked) and they always seem to have AK or AA or KK or something like that which is quite annoying.

Saying that though, I have a feeling that might be the best move. The times when I am right (or I get lucky) then that will shoot me up the pay scale quite nicely and thats the risk you have to take when short stacked in that situation (I might be, and probably am, totally wrong on this and need more experience and practice of these situations!).

The best thing in this case is to just not let myself get short stacked, so then don't have to take those risky all in moves :D

As for the September £500 (Just gonna say $1000 from now on as everything is in dollarinios) challenge, its proving harder than I had hoped. Mainting focus AND a positive ROI under the pressure of reaching a specific target is pretty tough. I'm nowhere near on track but its only a week in! It is literally just a coin flip here or there going in my direction rather than the other way would make a whole world of difference, which is why purely large volume is the only way to do it to make the variance less important (if that makes sense?)

I have discovered a cool site, ChipMeUp which allows you to buy shares in buyins for big tournament pro's (on AND offline). I figure, I have got bankroll money lieing around on various sites. It's not doing anything, not earning interest etc. Why not just buy a $15 share in someones buyin every now and again? Obviously you gotta do some research, as a total donk could win a big tournament and be plastered on the frontpage of ChipMeUp, but if you dont check out his SS/OPR/PocketFives etc your money is likely to be dead money, but if you buy a share in a player who is regularly cashing big, then seems like a worthwhile investment. I am going to include this in my $1000 challenge aswell.

I am also going to include sports betting aswell LOL. I am currently £1 down but hopefully tomorrow (tuesday) will change providing Oxford beats Luton haha. It is going to be a close game, so the payout is nice if Oxford win. Sticking to the 10% rule with the sports betting! I haven't bet on sports for a long time, but I once got £5 up to nearly £70 by 'grinding it out' over a period of weeks (I then withdrew all the money because I was a minimum wage slave and needed lunch money and bus fair!). I think that the shares & betting could provide a reasonable on the side income to poker as long as I don't go spakko and donk it all away!

So what else? Nothing really.

Currently listening to a classical music discography. Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Tchaikovsky and all that good stuff. Bit different to my usual Rock & Metal!

August 2009 was best month EVER!

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 12:12:00 +0000

Well, fantastic end to an already quite decent month.

On sunday. I had got my bankroll up to be playing the $11 SnG's. But when I lost 4 in a row, I went on a bit of a suicidal tilt route and decided to play a $33 SnG.

All was going superb, doubled up pretty early and was waiting for the blinds to get a bit bigger, then could start bullying.

Then BOOOOOOOOm, my Internet connection decided to cock up.

No joke, I was missing about 75% of hands because it kept timing out. I was almost screaming. When I got reconnected, there were 5 people left, then noooooooo timed out again!

I loaded up command prompt and did www.bbc.co.uk -t to basically constantly ping the site so i could see how my conection was doing.

I was getting all sorts of errors:

Request timed out
Destination host unavailable
Destination net unavailable
General error

When the pings were working, they were taking FAR too long.

I was fuming. After about 10 minutes, finally got reconnected, then Full tilt crashed, so had to ctrlaltdelete it all, start it again, loaded it up....

4 players left

Got dealt AA! Bet 3xbb, everyone folded

Then got timed out AGAIN

Man, I was starting to feel ill. (Yet strangely buzzed in a "wow I haven't had this much excitement for a while!")

LOL. Got reconnected, saw one hand, but couldnt bet it as it timed out.

When I finally got back on, there were 3 left. I was like "yeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah baby!".

Normally I would play for 1st place, but I figured I can't play properly cos of my timeout issues. So all in every hand no matter what. More of a chance of getting second place that way, rather than getting timed out and coming 3rd.

Went all in (no idea what I had), he called.

I Won.

Then he went all in with like half a BB, BB called him and won.

So at least 2nd place now.

All in, he called, I didnt improve.

But mannn I didnt care LOLLLL

Normally, I am grinding out SnGs like mad, so they all kind of 'blur' into one long game, but this was different because it was 3 x my usual buyin. I was perfectly comfortable UNTIL my internet decided to be a 100% class A prick.

So as you can tell, I was pretty buzzed and obviously feeling goooood! I was planning on playing in a local tournament for a £5 buyin, but I decided to play in my usual sunday night game. This week it was a £45 tournament. (£35 prize, £7 super bounty, £3 fee) with 31 people.

The super bounty money was to be added up, then split by 4, each time you knock someone out, you pick out of a deck of 31 cards (each time you pick a card, it is removed from the deck). If you picked an Ace, you would get £50 (The £17 left was added to the league prizepool which goes into a freeroll for the top leaderboard people or something at the end of the year).

So yeah, £45 investment, 30 players and 5 hours later. I walked out with £450 after coming 1st AND getting lucky on one of the bounties.

That felt so sweet. I have cashed plenty in live tournaments but never taken one down.

The other guy heads up was being railed by about 8 people, and I was on my lonesome, he obviously wasnt protecting his hand well enough because the railbirds were looking at his cards which was giving me more reads than I could get from him which was nice!

I was almost down and out at one point. The key hand was as follows:

I had about 7xBB, so in shove or fold mode, this guy LIMPS IN UTG, now here is the thing, he only had about 9xBB, not enough to play crafty poker. You gotta shove, no messing about in that situation.

Everyone folds to me in SB. I look down at A3, so I think, screw it, here goes. I'm all in. He insta calls and shows KK.

Fine, I'm a severe underdog and you could say he played it well.

I hit an Ace on the flop. And he is now crippled.

If he had shoved, I would have insta-folded and he'd have added an extra 3000 to his stack.

Its better to win a little than lose a lot in my opinion.

Next hand he is practically all in on his BB, everyone folds to me on the button. I look down at a very sexy KK. I bet 3xbb, everyone folds, he calls with something not very good. I show my KK, everyone goes 'oooooooooooh'. Kings hold up and I took a shot at the bounty, but missed.

Another key hand, I was in BB with K7, not fussed about it obviously, there is a woman who limped in and everyone else folded. I check and am literally ready to throw my hand to the tiniest bet unless I get anything GOOD on flop.

Flop comes K74. I thought, fookin sweet as I have 'history' with this woman, she called me a TWAT earlier because I stole her BB at a bounty attempt on a guy who was all in on SB earlier on.*

(* +EV move I reckon. I figure as I was getting short on chips myself, so if I'm all in with my 2 random cards against this guy who also has 2 random cards, if I knock him out, I could win the bounty and be even for the night without making it into the money...)

Anyway, I checked the flop. She bets a few thousand. I called.

Turn is a 3. (This happened to be the KEY card). I checked, and she checked also.

River comes some rag card. No flush, possible straight out there if you were holding 5 8 or 5 2, which is unlikely for her to be holding as she limped in in early position and not enough BB's to be playing hands like that. Ive got this hand in the bag unless she is holding a set which I am pretty sure she isn't. So how to extract as much money as I can from her? I know, go all in and make it look like a blatent bluff because of our 'history'.

She called and showed A 3 instantly, like she thought her hero call with the low pair was good. I turn over my cards and say '2 pair'. She is now practically crippled and was knocked out a few hands later. However, I am now cruising to a pretty certain cash.

I have noticed that women are more offensive to people, or just to me anyway... Strange really. I was saying to my friend, if I spot ANY opportunity to steal blinds, exploit weakness, "make a move" etc, I'm taking it, doesnt matter if it's a man or a woman. I think women just seem to take it more personally. Hence being called quite offensive names by them. Ah well, I don't mind, I have the chips and I prefer to let the chips do the talking. I'm not a 'table talker' as you can probably guess.

When we got to the final table, although I had plenty of chips, I saw no reason to be the 'bully'. These guys were gonna knock each other out quick enough and I didn't need the bounty any more as i was 99% sure I was going to at least make the money.

Soon enough, we were down to 6 players left and 5 get paid. I knocked out the 7th guy, picked a card out of the deck and woohoo I got an ACE, so a nice £50 straight into my pocket. Now everything in the money is pure profit.

When we got to heads up, it didn't last too long. I was all in with A9 against his JJ (i think) preflop. The blinds were so big that it was just all in or nothing. I hit an Ace yet again, and doubled up. Next hand he went all in straight away without even looking at his cards (I woulda done same thing with 3-5 BBs lol). I look down at K9 and call. He had 10 8.

Flop came 10 J 2. I need a K or a Q.

Turn was a blank.

River was the most beautiful Queen I have ever seen.

Ahhhhhh yeah baby!

Anyway. Enough gloating. A post or so ago I wrote that I am going to try and make £500 in September. (My £450 doesnt count as September lol).

I have written down where my bankrolls are at on Fulltilt and Pokerstars and I will upload some hopefully nice graphs & stats at the end of September. For all you yankeedoodles out there, £500 is about $807, but that will change obviously by the end of the month.

I am going to stay WELL away from cash games. Only going to play tournaments. Online sticking to 10% rule, live isn't so strict! Currently sitting on pokerstars playing some qualifiers. Am $1 down as some retard called my AA all in with K4 (SUITED) and flopped a flush. Mad Skillz!

Collusion

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 22:16:00 +0000

Short post!

Random thought from tonight's $50K madness freeroll on FullTilt.

If there is only you and one other person at a table in the tournament and the rest of the table is sitting out. Is it collusion to say to the other guy "you bet, then I bet", therefor sharing the blinds between you and the other guy.

I figure not because, at the end of the day, you aren't colluding against anyone, as they aren't in the game.

Any opinions on this?

September Goals & MiniFTOPS

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 17:09:00 +0000

My main goal for September is to try and profit enough in poker to be able to pay my rent + various bills. So going to set a target of £500.

So basically, going to see if I can sustain a decent enough ROI for the whole month. By the end of September, will see what state my bankroll is in. If it is up £500 profit, then cool, will try and get £600 profit in October and so on. If I am 'nearly' at £500, then just means I have a few leaks to plug here and there. If it is nowhere near £500, then I know I have some serious work to do!

I know that monetary targets are frowned upon in the pokiverse, but I am intrigued to see if I could rely on poker earnings to pay my rent. Only way to do that is to "pretend" that I do indeed HAVE to rely on my profits.

My main bread and butter for this task will be to grind out the 9man Sit n Go's, but obviously going to be 'taking shots' by having Multi Table Tournaments running at the same time.

Am obviously going to be including any live games in this challenge (with travel costs/food&drink expenses etc). Basically, make everything as realistic as possible and track everything to the penny.

Coming up in September is also the MiniFTOPS on FullTilt. Basically, it is a copy of the original FTOPS series, but at 1/10th of the buyin! LOTS of guaranteed prizepools with buyins ranging from $10 - $50ish. So even though I can afford to buyin directly, I am going to try and satellite into them. So next to my SnGs and MTTs, I'll have satellites running at the same time to have a chance take some shots at some big money! At a tenth of the tenth of the original cost! (sort of...)

Annoyingly, the games are obviously all catered for the yanks with not much consideration given to us Brits. So will end up having some very late nights in September (but hey, staying up till 6am playing in a tournament and walking away with a nice amount of cash wouldnt be so bad!)

I am staying well away from cash games for my September £500 challenge. I am actually a serious cash game noob. If you see me at the cash games, whether online or live, then I am just a cash machine for everyone else.

Over n out

Long time, no post

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 11:40:00 +0000

Hey,

Long post, sorry!

It's been a while, am getting the urge to start blogging more regularly again though as I have been thinking a lot about poker and how I can really try and take my game to the next level.

Over the past week, for some reason, my game has kind of jumped. I have been folding things like AQ Top-Pair Top-Kicker a few times based on reads, and my opponent has foolishly shown me my correct move by revealing his KK etc (Love it!)

I have been grinding out SnG's like mad and getting a fairly decent ROI, but also been playing in a lot of MTT's. Recently discovered Poker Tournaments Online which tells you the next guaranteed prize pool tournaments coming up on all the poker rooms, so I can increase the volume of good value MTT's rather than sticking to just FullTilt or PokerStars etc.

So for that reason, I have decided to get myself a brand spanking new current account with a totally different bank to be able to keep my bankroll separate from my every day cash as I will be withdrawing/depositing on a much more regular basis on all these different sites. Plus the fact that I am playing more live games, it just makes sense to keep it separate really!

Plus I don't want my current bank to think I'm a degenerate gambler just in case I ever need an emergency cash injection! They actually phoned me up the other day, it went something like this:

HSBC: "We have noticed you have been going close to your overdraft lately, is everything alright?"

ME: "Yes, have you noticed I have cut my overdraft by about half AND am saving about £400 a month lately?"

HSBC: "Yes, we knew that, but you have been going close to your overdraft lately, is everything alright?"

ME: "Yes, obviously it is as I have cut my overdraft AND am saving"

HSBC: "But is everything alright, as you have been going close to your overdraft?"

ME: "Yes"

HSBC: "Could we offer you a credit card or loan?"

ME: "No"

HSBC: "Are you sure? It could work out cheaper than an overdraft..."

I mean, what the hell? The banks got us into this whole recession mess in the first place by giving money left right and centre to anyone who asked for it, even if you didn't have a job. It is now even easier to get "cash".

I needed to get a credit card a few months ago so I could use Google Adwords / Facebook ads (for some ridiculous reason, you can't use a debit card) for marketing a few of my other sites. It took me 15 minutes to get a credit card with a £2500 limit. That's fucking sick. I only needed it for about £20 worth of advertising. I have since cancelled the card lol. When I was reading the info that came with the card, it said that I could increase the limit to at least £3500, probably more as long as I had made 'minimum payments' on time 2 months in a row.

These bankers are wankers and should just die tbh.

Anyway, back to the poker, well sort of...

I read a very short post by David Sklansky the other day My Interpretation of Nutrition Advice which he lists in order what he thinks is best for healthy living. (If you don't know who David Sklansky is, read The Theory of Poker
, it's pretty intense reading!). It's an interesting post... As for how I am doing with the things on the list:

My no smoking has gone completely tits up. Am actually the most weak willed person in the world, am honestly considering Hypnosis at this point as nothing is working!

Apart from that, I am already doing pretty well on some of the things on the list anyway. My love of tea has popped up again (black, earl grey, green, white, oooooooooolong mmmmm) since my alcohol consumption has gone from far too much to pretty much nothing. My colleague who is soon coming back from Hong Kong is going to bring me back a selection of loose teas. He is also hopefully going to bring back some Ginseng as well (proper root style, not tesco value 'pills') depending on price. I imagine it will taste absolutely vile, but am interested in seeing if it gives me super human strength/mental abilities. Actually, he said the Ginseng may cost in the region of £80! I think I will stick to the loose green tea!

Anyway, back to the poker (again).

I am going to watch the first episode of 2Months $2Million tonight. It's this new online poker reality tv show, following 4 top online poker pro's as they try to make $2 Million profit in 2 months (funnily enough). I think a lot of people had a feeling it was going to be a bit crap, but everyone seems to have been surprised and it has received pretty good reviews, so am looking forward to seeing it!

I have erased my latest live poker game from memory. For some stupid reason I got quite drunk on a never ending need for more bottles of Bud and just played **NoobDonkeyPoker** in the tournament, and then proceeded to donate more money into the poker economy by playing in a cash game after. Not cool at all, no reason for me to do that which confused me a lot after. As I wrote earlier, that is why I have stopped drinking on such a mad basis. Flavoured water or a good cup of tea is my new best friend, even on a Friday night on my lonesome watching some shiz like Mastermind, BBC News, Gardner's World etc. (I'm only 24, need to do more socialising as that's really not "cool" at all).

Anyway, as this post is nearly 1000 words long, I am going to stop now and get something to eat before I have to go back to work!

Next post is going to include my plans/goals for September. I would write it now, but by now, you probably aren't reading? LOL

You don’t have anything, so I’ll raise you back punk

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 12:42:00 +0000

Just thought I would write a short post about last nights (Sunday 26th July) live poker game. It was a £40 Knockout (£10 for each player you knockout / £30 into prize pool). In total there were 33 players.

It was the first game I had played live in about 3 months or so. Plenty of players who I recognised, plus a fresh batch of new ones.

If I may say so myself, I think I played pretty good. Adapted quickly to the playing style of the table. My blind stealing attempts usually failed, but I found I was able to protect my blinds nice and profitably so was all good. It was that “You don’t have anything, so I’ll raise you back punk” feeling 80% of the time they tried it on.

One thing that did annoy me was one hand I folded, and the lady next to me looked at her cards, but really not protecting them at all. She folded, so I said to her that I could see her cards (being honest!) and she said “SO? You weren’t in the hand so it doesn’t matter!” I figured I won’t try and explain that I could get extra information about how she plays hands etc.

One time I noticed (and so did everyone else) my hands were shaking like mad, which just screams out “I have a very strong hand, if it gets cracked though, I will cry, that’s why my hands are shaking”. My hands are usually pretty steady, so that is a major tell. I also spotted a lot more tells on myself that I really need to work on as they are so basic. Just the usual stuff like how far / close I put my chips when betting on a real hand/bluff, where my hands are when I’m bluffing and all that stuff. I can feel myself doing it, so need to get into a forced robotic state when pokering.

Another thing I need to change is. When I’m raising, I usually say “I raise to 800”. However, for some reason, last night, people kept asking “You raising to 800 or 2800 more?” So I said “Raising to 800” etc etc etc. So now, just going to say “Raise. 800 Total”. English speaking countries are fine I think, but if you went to a country where English isn’t the first language then things like that could possibly cause problems. So better to be absolutely clear. Plus it ties in with the “robotic” thing quite nicely I think.

Unfortunately, I ended up losing a large % of my chips on one failed bluff lol tut tut. The guy looked like someone I was in college with which was a bit weird. I think he had AK or he would have raised me all in preflop but when flop came Kragrag and he auto went all in, there ent much you can do with crappy J 3 lol.

After that, I just played survival poker to get 5th place. So after £20 in Knockouts and £60 prize money for 5th, I made a measily £25 profit after taking drinks into consideration in my first live game for 3 months. Shoulda come out with a better place but sometimes those bluffs just don’t work, especially when your oponant has AK.

To do this week:
Get a hair cut
Continue not smoking
Break the $200 target on online bankroll

Multi Table Tournaments!

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 07:41:00 +0000

Have been playing the $1 shorthanded tournament on FT at 6pm (UK time) most days. Usually 1000+ players. Also been playing the $2.25 180man SnG's as well.

I have started cashing in both of them quite regularly now. No big wins as of yet, but this time it is a lot different. I am making the money with more than average chip stacks, rather than JUST getting into the money with 1BB left, which was the case when I use to play MTT's.

As the stakes are so low, I am testing different strategies without the fear of getting knocked out. Have been doing things like really raising the aggression near the bubble and figuring out on average how quickly people adapt to what you are doing and start raising you back in counter aggression. So basically, working out for myself through trial and error what an acceptable pre flop raise amount is without getting caught too much! (And obviously, no 2 situations are the same)

I know there are plenty of books and sites that will give you the numbers, but I use to read so many books which I think clouded my mind and judgement. I'm not reading anything any more, and surprisingly, my game is improving much faster... hmmmm....

Why o why didnt I try this before? Ah well, a first place win will allow me to forgive myself!

Thanks to my maniac image, this following hand happened.

I raised preflop with 5 2, this was after I had raised and stolen the pot about 7 times in a row lol). If I encountered any resistance preflop, then would have folded there and then, but if people are relentlessly folding, why stop betting just because you have 5 2? I ended up getting 3 callers eeeek.

Flop came 522 HAHA. I just threw out a min bet and ended up doubling up (+ all the other preflop called bets). It’s their own fault that I flopped a full house with such a band hand! They should have played back at me preflop as they must have known I was playing any 2 cards, so could quite easily have 5 2! But I don't want them to "wise up" ;-)

I still have a LONG way to go before I reach any respectable standard, but it seems that now, I am spotting and intuitively stopping the leaks/weakness in my game which can only be a good thing.

Can’t wait for this weekend to start (3-ish hours to go). Going to just play poker non stop! Also playing my first live game in AGES! Sunday night is a £40 Knockout tournament. Each person you knock out, you get £10. I love these games, because people take so many risks as they want to knockout people for the £10, but end up getting themselves knocked out lol

Full speed ahead!

Poker in Oxford UK

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 12:23:00 +0000

I am trying to gather a list of regular games in and around Oxford UK. It is amazing how much we suck tbh. Yeah we've got London up the road, but as for Oxford, there are only 1 or 2 regular decent games. The rest are all random poker 'leagues' where you "pay to play", no cash prizes, but if you win the most "points" you can play in a play off to some bigger tournament which I'm not remotely interested in!

There is a group that claim to "run the oxford poker scene" but they are pretty inactive and not very outreaching! Some of their games seem pretty good though, so just need to remember to check their site regularly (hint hint DragonStack fella's, if you are reading this, get an RSS feed sorted!)

So have taken it upon myself to try and get an Oxford Poker forum together. I hope that Oxford Poker Club can get a few active users to make it easier to find games, organise home games etc etc. Definitely not planning on running my own tournaments (as I'd rather just play!) but like I said, I hope that members of the forum can meet other poker players from in and around Oxford and try and get the Oxford Poker Scene a bit more organised!

Anyone got any other tips on how to find local games? I guess it's all just word of mouth, asking around and forums like Oxford Poker Club!

As for other "stuff", I am still writing my post about Poker Podcasts but there are so many that I may just split it into 2 parts.

Have started playing the 180man $2.25 SnG's on Full Tilt, much better than crappy 9man SnG's! And good practice for multi table tournaments (which I need a LOT more practice on!).

Currently listening to: Bonnie Tyler - Holding out for a Hero
Its not by choice that I am listening to this song, but just wanted to note that the percussionist gets a bit "drum machine happy" in this song. Ahwell, it was the 80's!

This blog is a year old! Happy birthday!

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 07:46:00 +0000

A year ago today, this blog was born!

I originally started the blog to write about my thoughts on strategy etc but I soon realised that it was boring writing just about that! Also realised how hard it is to put your "what to do" thoughts into words, because there are so many exeptions to the so called "rule", as in, "it depends on the situation". So I soon just decided to use the blog as a way to just talk about poker!

I currently have 39 people who subscribe via RSS or via email. I know 39 isn't a lot, but thanks to those who do read my occasional updates! I really need to try and get more subscribers though for my own ego, so need to do some more hustling and get my links in more places, anyone want to swap links? Hit me up in the comments if you do wish to share a little link lurve.

Anyway, enough about the blog, what's been going on with teh pokering? As you know, I've got a 5% rule (basically, only risk a max of 5% of my bankroll at any one time) but I believe now that that is too strict when playing for pleasure. So I've moved it up to 10% which allows me to move up (or down) quicker and will keep it interesting.

I deposited $50 a week or so ago and donked down to about $35 pretty quick (and thats on the $2.25 games LOL) but last night got it up to $56. I played a $5.50 game but went out just before bubble, so gotta play a few $2.25 games again to get past the $55 mark to play at the $5.50 level again.

Sharkscope has been proper missing out a shedload of results because of the latest full tilt update, and even though they claim to have fixed it all now, it's still missing out games. I played about 7 turbo heads up games on my lunch break yesterday and it only recorded 3 of them. Hopefully it will get sorted out sooner rather than later as I want a nice accurate graph for my 1000th game on Full Tilt!

Been listening to a LOT of poker podcasts lately, which gives me an idea for another post in the next few days, I'll list all the poker podcasts I'm subscribed to, and if I have missed any, then I'd be greatful if you could enlighten me as I'm a podcast whore and can't get enough!

Anyways, lunch has finished and I have run out of things to say, so I am going to leave you now. However, can I ask you to subscribe via RSS if you haven't already done so? I know that a lot of you will be coming from twitter but you might miss out my amazing posts if you haven't streamlined me into your "important" tweeple lists ;-)

Haha... 7 4?? FU

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 19:39:00 +0000

Look at this:

Click here if you can't see the embedded graphic.

Crazy crazy. This was on the bubble in a SnG, 3 get paid.... Why would he play like that preflop with 7 4? I understand maybe trying to steal the pot from me (but from SB?), but getting raised back, surely calling is pointless? Especially as its not worth getting into trouble with a hand like that... 2nd in chips, facing a re-raise from the chip leader (me)!

Even though after the flop I 'got lucky', you gotta love it when the poker gods play fair though! I did write:

haha
74?
FU

Ship it!

durrrr vs Antonius 50K hands challenge. These guys are so sick

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 12:19:00 +0000

I briefly heard about this challenge ages ago from my colleague, but have just had a look on the site now, and it is crazy.

For those of you who don't know, Tom 'durrrr' Dwan pretty much claims to be the best online poker player in the world and has challenged ANYONE to a bet.

The bet is to multi table 4 games at a time, either No Limit Holdem or Pot Limit Omaha. They are to play heads up and play a total of 50,000 hands over a period of quite a few months. If after the 50,000 hands, the challenger wins, then he/she will get $1.5 MILLION from durrrr (as well as the winnings and the glory of humiliating him). If durrrr wins, then the challenger will have to pay him $500,000 (and also suffer the humiliation of being beaten by durrrr which is worse than losing $500,000).

Patrik Antonius was the first person to challenge him, 4 tabling Pot Limit Omaha. So far, they have played 20,647 hands of the 50,000. Durrrr is currently up by $726,546! Guess how much money has exchanged hands so far.....

Over $150MILLION!

That is just a totally sick amount of money lol.

If you want to keep up to date with the challenge then click on this
durrrr-vs-antonius link, but I will update here with my own commentary over the next few months. I believe the next player in line is Phil Ivey, and then I think David Benyamine.

Can't wait.

By the way, anyone can view these games live on Full Tilt by looking at the Omahi Hi high stakes section, and if the game is on, you'll see it running.