Around 18 months ago, I thought I was taking my poker to a new level when I joined up with BankrollSupply, and became a "Sponsored Pro", or semi-pro in my case. To be bankrolled to play poker, and to be able to play with zero risk, was liberating, but came with it's own different pressures - playing with someone else's money took some getting used to.
During that 18 months, I have strived to improve my STT game, have developed a decent understanding of ICM and of the general push/fold strategy and assocated range parameters, but for whatever reason, have never managed to sustain any decent level of profitablity in STTs.
The lack of sustained profits, and therefore lack of payback, meant I was spending hours upon hours upon hours playing a pretty boring format for no return, and justifying that to Katharine became harder and harder. I'm a career person with a good job and a reasonable career future, however with a massive mortgage and other debts, the concept of earning a bit on the side through poker is always attractive as it's the only way we can afford those little extras (like holidays, new car, renovations around the house, etc) - hence I am always prepared to put the effort into my poker game to try and improve the reward. However, despite playing with zero risk on my BRS accounts, I just couldn't seem to make it pay.
Early in November, I measured a run of ~500 STTs where my actul chip return at the point of a hand being All In (pre river) was around 10% of chip EV - this was just about the worst bad run I have ever experienced, and it was painful to say the least. So much so that I decided to take a break for the rest of November and just play my own accounts.
During that time playing on my own dollar, I finished 7th of 5325 in the Pokerstars Sunday $200k for $6000, won two small MTTs on 888 for around $2000, had some fun splashing around the .25/.50 PLO cash tables for a small profit, won satellites for seats at the DTD Grand Prix, and Genting Poker Series, and won the Midland Poker Forum league for a seat at the DTD Deepstack - over £800 worth of tourney seats for total outlay of £7.
Away from the daily STT grind, poker has become fun again. I know it won't always be that hot, and I will have the downturns to offset the good months, and that this will be at my own risk, however I actually feel like I can play my own game under my own steam, without the added pressure of having to achieve certain rake volumes, and can actually enjoy the game for what it is again.
I appreciate the chance Paul Jackson gave me, and for sticking with me for so long given that I wasn't delivering any signficant return other than rake paid. I also value the mentoring received in the last month or so from Dan Morgan - the guy has an incredible mind for the maths of poker.
I would love to be able to play poker full time, but sadly the mortgage and debt profile means my job and career are exclusively vital to me. So, back to the search for the one big Sunday night success... pay off the mortgage in one go, and then re-evaulate.
Off to Manchester for the APAT UK Open on Saturday, and going full of confidence and in decent form.... can't wait.
Thursday, 1 December 2011
Monday, 27 June 2011
Blackpool rocks!
This was a fun weekend! The APAT contingent descended on the G Casino in Blackpool for the UK Pub Poker Championships, and resplendent in our new branded shirts, I joined with members of the (in)famous Black Country Poker Club to represent our sponsor - The New Talbot.
This team tournament was all about 8 members surviving as long as possible to ensure that each individual player could contribute the highest possible number of points to the team's cause. With 128 runners, only the top 50 would score points (1 point to 50th place, 50 points to 1st place, and a sliding scale to all places between. We scored 98 points, which on the face of it sounds ok - however considering that only two people made the points and just happened to finish 1st and 3rd, kinda suggests that the rest of the team were an epic failure.
Massive congratz to Tony Trippier on his tournament win, and to Brian Yates on another APAT final table... both hugely well deserved.
I finished a paltry 98th, but bad as that may sound, I reckon this was probably one of the best games I've played, certainly in terms of where my head was at and some of the reads I made. My game was summed up into 5 key hands:
Hand 1: Blinds 50/100. UTG aggro maniac who had played almost every hand since the tourney started, and who had already been seen to 4-bet preflop with 88 and TT, opened UTG to 300. I raised in mid position to 850 with QQ. He re-raised to 2000. At this point I consider I'm never folding here, but didn't really want to shove knowing he could have AK and I don’t really want to race for my stack this early... I decided to flat call, and play the flop in position, ready to be wary of an A or K on the board. Flop was 743 rainbow. He checked, I bet around half pot, and he insta-shoved. I called, albeit a little reluctantly - I knew his range included a fair amount of hands that QQ beats, but his body language was strong - he did indeed show up with AA...... and I binked a Q on the river.
Hand 2: Blinds 75/150. UTG tight player opened to 350. I re-raised to 900 with QQ. He flat called. Flop was J82 rainbow. He checked, I bet 1000, and he called. Turn was another J. He checked, I bet 2000, and he shoved. I couldn't put AJ into his range - didn't think he would have flat called out of position pre-flop with AJ – but I just knew I was beat. I told him he didn't have a J and that I would fold QQ to his overpair - he showed KK! Really happy with the read and laydown.
Hand 3: Blinds 75/150. New player to the table raised UTG to 450. Changing tack a little, I flat call in mid position with QQ, everyone else folds. Flop is J94 rainbow. She checks, I bet half pot, and she min-raises. This one was easy - I just knew she had AA and folded my QQ face up - she did indeed show AA. Even happier with that read and laydown, although getting a bit pissed about having to fold QQ on J high boards!
Hand 4: Blinds 100/200. I open on the button for 400 with QJ, the SB folds, and the BB calls. Flop is ATT and the BB checks. I figure this isn't the best flop to c-bet as although I can reasonably represent the Ace, he can check-raise and represent the 10 - it could get pretty messy at this point if I then re-raise with air, so I take the pot control safe option and just check behind. The turn is a 2, and he checks again - I now figure that after two checks, my Q might actually be good, and take a stab at closing the hand here with a 400 bet into the 900 pot - he flat calls. The river is a K and of course this is my gin card giving me the broadway straight. But here it all gets weird - having taken the passive line all the way, the BB comes out with a 1000 bet into the 1700 pot. I figure that I have the best hand here almost all the time and have to raise for value, hoping to get a call from any random A or K hand - I raise to 2600..... the BB shoves for 13k! Shit! I need to call around 10k to win 16k, and have 15k behind. This one takes a while, and I actually end up calling a clock on myself - I eventually fold knowing that he isn't shoving with anything that I can beat - at best I'm calling to split the pot. We both agree to show, and he had AT for a flopped house!! Now I'm cooking, and the table image is pretty immense after some decent laydowns. What's more, after three potential coolers, I still have 15k, whilst the tournament average is just over 12k.
Hand 5: Blinds 100/200/25. For nearly two hours, I've been trying to summon a valet so I could order food - frankly, I was starving! 13 tournament tables, and only 1 valet - service was slow. A hand evolved where two early position players limped, and I looked down hoping to see a nice squeezing type hand - AJo was good enough to squeeze. At that exact moment a hand tapped my shoulder and the valet asked what I wanted to order - I politely asked him to wait a second whilst I played out this hand, but he said he would come back later.... NO don't do that, I've waited too long already - back at the table, I'll fold, no I'll raise, oh too flustered now, I'll limp as well. Sigh what a bad move. Club sandwich and chips ordered in a hurry, and the flop is dealt in a 4-way pot. Qc 9c 6c, and I have the Ac - happy days thinks I! The player in the SB donk-leads 600 into the 1250 pot, the BB calls, as does one of the limpers - actions gets to me with a pot of 3050, and I have 13k behind. I hate flat calling here, as if I hit another club, I probably don't get paid off with 4 clubs on the board. I want to make a standard raise, but two of the players in the hand are unlikely to fold top pair, and at this moment I only have Ace high. I take the aggro stance and semi-bluff shove (although I know it effectively turns my hand face up to some degree) hoping to fold out all one or two pair hands - the guy in the SB tanks and eventually calls for most of his stack with 3c 5c. OK he had a made flush, but not a great one, and with two players to act behind him, and with the obvious tight image that I had shown throughout this tourney, I think his call was probably not the best. I missed my draw, and was out. C’est la vie – I wouldn’t do anything different in that spot next time.
So – disappointed to be out, but not disappointed with my play.
With cash tables and evening tourney to console myself, I headed for a spot of BlackJack and made enough to pay for dinner and drinks.
With two of our team players still in the tourney, a stay for day two was obligatory. A morning in the sun on Blackpool prom with some really nice people and great friends, drinking Magners over ice – how much better can it get than that?
Sunday afternoon was spent on just about the craziest cash table I’ve ever played, along with Steve Bayliff, Craig MacInnes and Andy Overton. Playing a round of each – one round of No Limit Holdem, followed by a round of 4, 5, or 6 card Omaha, was just about enough to confuse the locals into giving us all their money. I spent four hours turning £140 into £540, then 10 minutes turning it back into £140. Ho hum
APAT weekends are usually great fun, and there are so many great people that I just love spending time with at these events….. when we end up in a casino as good as the G in Blackpool, it just makes for a perfect poker weekend away.
Special mention to Aneurin Venables for spending hours and vast amounts of money playing Arabian Derby on Blackpool pier to win an array of soft toys, that he then assigned as bounties on the heads of a number of BCPC players - cheers mate... good for a laugh!
Back to work today, and to the STT grind tonight. Reality beckons.
This team tournament was all about 8 members surviving as long as possible to ensure that each individual player could contribute the highest possible number of points to the team's cause. With 128 runners, only the top 50 would score points (1 point to 50th place, 50 points to 1st place, and a sliding scale to all places between. We scored 98 points, which on the face of it sounds ok - however considering that only two people made the points and just happened to finish 1st and 3rd, kinda suggests that the rest of the team were an epic failure.
Massive congratz to Tony Trippier on his tournament win, and to Brian Yates on another APAT final table... both hugely well deserved.
I finished a paltry 98th, but bad as that may sound, I reckon this was probably one of the best games I've played, certainly in terms of where my head was at and some of the reads I made. My game was summed up into 5 key hands:
Hand 1: Blinds 50/100. UTG aggro maniac who had played almost every hand since the tourney started, and who had already been seen to 4-bet preflop with 88 and TT, opened UTG to 300. I raised in mid position to 850 with QQ. He re-raised to 2000. At this point I consider I'm never folding here, but didn't really want to shove knowing he could have AK and I don’t really want to race for my stack this early... I decided to flat call, and play the flop in position, ready to be wary of an A or K on the board. Flop was 743 rainbow. He checked, I bet around half pot, and he insta-shoved. I called, albeit a little reluctantly - I knew his range included a fair amount of hands that QQ beats, but his body language was strong - he did indeed show up with AA...... and I binked a Q on the river.
Hand 2: Blinds 75/150. UTG tight player opened to 350. I re-raised to 900 with QQ. He flat called. Flop was J82 rainbow. He checked, I bet 1000, and he called. Turn was another J. He checked, I bet 2000, and he shoved. I couldn't put AJ into his range - didn't think he would have flat called out of position pre-flop with AJ – but I just knew I was beat. I told him he didn't have a J and that I would fold QQ to his overpair - he showed KK! Really happy with the read and laydown.
Hand 3: Blinds 75/150. New player to the table raised UTG to 450. Changing tack a little, I flat call in mid position with QQ, everyone else folds. Flop is J94 rainbow. She checks, I bet half pot, and she min-raises. This one was easy - I just knew she had AA and folded my QQ face up - she did indeed show AA. Even happier with that read and laydown, although getting a bit pissed about having to fold QQ on J high boards!
Hand 4: Blinds 100/200. I open on the button for 400 with QJ, the SB folds, and the BB calls. Flop is ATT and the BB checks. I figure this isn't the best flop to c-bet as although I can reasonably represent the Ace, he can check-raise and represent the 10 - it could get pretty messy at this point if I then re-raise with air, so I take the pot control safe option and just check behind. The turn is a 2, and he checks again - I now figure that after two checks, my Q might actually be good, and take a stab at closing the hand here with a 400 bet into the 900 pot - he flat calls. The river is a K and of course this is my gin card giving me the broadway straight. But here it all gets weird - having taken the passive line all the way, the BB comes out with a 1000 bet into the 1700 pot. I figure that I have the best hand here almost all the time and have to raise for value, hoping to get a call from any random A or K hand - I raise to 2600..... the BB shoves for 13k! Shit! I need to call around 10k to win 16k, and have 15k behind. This one takes a while, and I actually end up calling a clock on myself - I eventually fold knowing that he isn't shoving with anything that I can beat - at best I'm calling to split the pot. We both agree to show, and he had AT for a flopped house!! Now I'm cooking, and the table image is pretty immense after some decent laydowns. What's more, after three potential coolers, I still have 15k, whilst the tournament average is just over 12k.
Hand 5: Blinds 100/200/25. For nearly two hours, I've been trying to summon a valet so I could order food - frankly, I was starving! 13 tournament tables, and only 1 valet - service was slow. A hand evolved where two early position players limped, and I looked down hoping to see a nice squeezing type hand - AJo was good enough to squeeze. At that exact moment a hand tapped my shoulder and the valet asked what I wanted to order - I politely asked him to wait a second whilst I played out this hand, but he said he would come back later.... NO don't do that, I've waited too long already - back at the table, I'll fold, no I'll raise, oh too flustered now, I'll limp as well. Sigh what a bad move. Club sandwich and chips ordered in a hurry, and the flop is dealt in a 4-way pot. Qc 9c 6c, and I have the Ac - happy days thinks I! The player in the SB donk-leads 600 into the 1250 pot, the BB calls, as does one of the limpers - actions gets to me with a pot of 3050, and I have 13k behind. I hate flat calling here, as if I hit another club, I probably don't get paid off with 4 clubs on the board. I want to make a standard raise, but two of the players in the hand are unlikely to fold top pair, and at this moment I only have Ace high. I take the aggro stance and semi-bluff shove (although I know it effectively turns my hand face up to some degree) hoping to fold out all one or two pair hands - the guy in the SB tanks and eventually calls for most of his stack with 3c 5c. OK he had a made flush, but not a great one, and with two players to act behind him, and with the obvious tight image that I had shown throughout this tourney, I think his call was probably not the best. I missed my draw, and was out. C’est la vie – I wouldn’t do anything different in that spot next time.
So – disappointed to be out, but not disappointed with my play.
With cash tables and evening tourney to console myself, I headed for a spot of BlackJack and made enough to pay for dinner and drinks.
With two of our team players still in the tourney, a stay for day two was obligatory. A morning in the sun on Blackpool prom with some really nice people and great friends, drinking Magners over ice – how much better can it get than that?
Sunday afternoon was spent on just about the craziest cash table I’ve ever played, along with Steve Bayliff, Craig MacInnes and Andy Overton. Playing a round of each – one round of No Limit Holdem, followed by a round of 4, 5, or 6 card Omaha, was just about enough to confuse the locals into giving us all their money. I spent four hours turning £140 into £540, then 10 minutes turning it back into £140. Ho hum
APAT weekends are usually great fun, and there are so many great people that I just love spending time with at these events….. when we end up in a casino as good as the G in Blackpool, it just makes for a perfect poker weekend away.
Special mention to Aneurin Venables for spending hours and vast amounts of money playing Arabian Derby on Blackpool pier to win an array of soft toys, that he then assigned as bounties on the heads of a number of BCPC players - cheers mate... good for a laugh!
Back to work today, and to the STT grind tonight. Reality beckons.
Monday, 28 February 2011
UKIPT Nottingham 2011
When I started writing this blog, it had been my intention to post an update after every significant poker event or achievement I experienced - whilst the intention is still good, finding the time between work, family, and poker is not so easy. That said, here is the next load of tripe.
Whilst playing a monthly league game with the Black Country Poker club is primarily about friendship, competition, and having a laugh, there is a serious undertone. For winning the league in Season 4, I was granted a £560 seat at UKIPT Nottingham which I would play on behalf of BCPC, and if I should make the money, I would keep the value of the buy in, plus 50% of the remainder - the rest going to the club to be split equally amongst all members.
I played UKIPT Notts last year, stumping up the buy in myself from recent tournament winnings, and having managed to get into a good position, proceeded to donk off most of my stack with a huge mistake. This time round I was desperate to do better, particularly as I had the BCPC club rooting me, and knowing that I would have to explain any silly donk failures - that added pressure helped me tremendously with focus.
My starting table was a bit weird - playing 10 handed, we were already tight for space, so having David Vamplew at the next table, surrounded by TV crew, it made for a real squash. My starting table would be the same table I would play at for the next 8 hours. I've tried to recall some hands of note - let's start with the very first hand of the day. With starting stacks of 15k, and blinds of 25/50, I'm in the big blind. There is an early position raise to 150, and three callers - I look down to find AA. Memories of last year are immediately flooding back!! I re-raise to 650 and get two callers. A rather attractive A82 rainbow flop, and I decide to make the donk lead of around 800 to try and induce some action - which comes with a raise to 1800 .... now, guessing that my loss with AA is now affecting my thinking, I 3-bet to 4000 when a flat call was quite obviously the better move - the other guy tank/folded claiming he had 88! I didn't show, but was feeling pretty good with a 20k stack after one hand!
The table turned out to be extremely tough for all those at my end of the table - the other end was where the action was developing, and chips were moving in one direction - away from our end! With Nick Slade at the table and prepared to play any two cards in or out of position, and seemingly careless about his stack, I was finding it really tough to get in a good spot to play back at him. During the early evening session of play, with blinds around 100/200, and my stack sat around 12k, I found a perfect spot - or so I thought. A loose aggro player raised to 450, and two people called - in the big blind I found 66 and chose to just call the extra 250. On a flop of a KKA, all four players checked - I was ready to insta-fold to any action at this point. The turn was a 6, giving me a full house. I checked again, and the original LAG raiser bet around half pot - the others in the hand folded, and it was back to me with my full house - I decided to raise, and given the relative weakness of my hand on that board, and knowing that he would never fold a K, I decided to make the raise a fairly large one in an effort to get stacks in the middle here and now, with him hopefully overplaying AQ/AJ, or any K - obviously if he has AK I'm on the way home - my raise was half of my stack, which left me a little surprised when after some thought the other guy flat called. A nightmare on the river as another K came, completely counterfieting any strength I may have had in the hand - now I'm losing to any A, the case K, and any pocket pair bigger than 66.... luckily for me the other guy lead out with a shove and I was able to get away, showing my 66 - he showed KQ :(
Now down to less than 15 big blinds, it was time for short stack ninja - and with many shoves and one double up I survived to the last level of the day. Now, for me to get home and then back to Nottingham, I would need to drive around 180 miles round trip, and would get little sleep - so going into the last level, I decided that if I was to come back it would be with a decent stack, and not with dregs - I lost count of the number of times I was all in during that final level. I started the level with 9k, and ended it with 36k - but remarkably, I was never at risk, and never took a hand to showdown. The comedy moment of my day came once the TD announced last three hands of play - I openly declared that I would be all in during these three hands, possibly as many as three times! I fold the first hand, but in the second I'm UTG and find AQs - shove and take the blinds and antes..... in the last hand I'm in the big blind, and ask politely for a walk - the whole table snap folds round to the small blind who starts to think about his action and counts out chips for a raise.... I moved my stack to the line and announced that I would not be folding. He duly raised to 3.5x, and I shoved blind - he sighed and folded AQs face up - I just flipped one card for good measure, it was a 3 :)
So with chips bagged up, I made a sharp exit at 1:40am, planning to race home, hit the sack, and then be back on the road for 10am ready for am 11:30am seat draw. I didn't count on the A453 out of Nottingham being closed for roadworks, meaning I had to go back through Nottingham, back past the door of DTD, and up the A52 toward Derby to get on the M1 at J25 - it's now 2am..... 90 miles in 50 minutes (!!!!) and I was in bed before 3am. Lying in the dark, seeing streetlights flash past in my mind's eye, I started recalling all those espressos and Red Bulls I'd drunk through the course of the evening. By around 5am, it became apparent that sleep was not going to come, and it was almost a relief when the alarm sounded at 8am.
Play started at noon, and with blinds at 1k/2k, my stack of 36k was short enough to only allow one move, but not so short that I couldn't wait for a hand. The table draw for day two was not too bad - no massive stacks, and no aggressive maniacs - a couple of 3-bet shove re-steals and I was beyond the 50k mark without any real danger. People dropping like flies at this stage, and tables breaking all over the place, including mine. This move was to be my last. Taking my seat at my next table, I wasn't overly chuffed to see a 300k+ stack on my immediate left, followed by two 100k+ stacks beyond that, and with 50k, I was easily the smallest stack at the table.
What happened next was a complete shock. When I started this tourney, my first goal had been to survive to the dinner break, and after that to make day two. In making day two, I had not really considered the next goal, and had just played hands as they arrived without really considering the context of the tournament in any way.... so when the TD announced we had reached the bubble and were now playing hand for hand, I was more than a little surprised to find myself on the brink of cashing. OK - time to play uber-tight and think about the money for the club, especially with the big stacked crazy Italian on my left.... first hand and it folds to me on the button and I find AQs..... so much for folding to the money - all in! Italian gives me a nervous moment when he asked for a count and stares me down, before folding. Next hand and there's a min-raise on the way round to me where I find AKs in the cut off - again, so much for folding to the money - all in! He folds, and I find myself being the one to pick up chips around the bubble.
Once the bubble burst, the usual deluge of exits occured and we were down to around 90 left. I find AA and get a huge double up to over 130k - happy days.
Then what turned out to be my last hand of the tournament unfolded. I found QsTs in early position, and having only played one hand for around three orbits (the AA hand), I decided to open to 2.5x. Everyone folded to the big blind who flat called. Now I had him pegged as a very weak player who would fold easily when pressurised, and I was more than happy to play a pot with him. A flop of 3h6s7s was exactly what I was looking for - he lead out for a full pot bet which given the way the table had been playing, was a little odd. I figured he might make that bet to protect any top pair hand, or indeed a low overpair - so with my overcards and my flush draw, I fancied I was in good shape for a big shove..... of course he snap called with 67 for top two pair, I missed my flush, and that was all she wrote.
The £1375 won, of which I kept a a little over £900, was very welcome..... but if I had won that final hand, I would have had a stack of over 250k, been up in the top 10, and fancying a tilt at the £109,000 first prize. C'est la vie - totally happy with my play all weekend, and wouldn't have done anything different at any stage. Definitely going to find the funds to play this one again next year.
Now one week to wait until my next live adventure - the live final of the Vegas Team Challenge at Star city in Birmingham......
Whilst playing a monthly league game with the Black Country Poker club is primarily about friendship, competition, and having a laugh, there is a serious undertone. For winning the league in Season 4, I was granted a £560 seat at UKIPT Nottingham which I would play on behalf of BCPC, and if I should make the money, I would keep the value of the buy in, plus 50% of the remainder - the rest going to the club to be split equally amongst all members.
I played UKIPT Notts last year, stumping up the buy in myself from recent tournament winnings, and having managed to get into a good position, proceeded to donk off most of my stack with a huge mistake. This time round I was desperate to do better, particularly as I had the BCPC club rooting me, and knowing that I would have to explain any silly donk failures - that added pressure helped me tremendously with focus.
My starting table was a bit weird - playing 10 handed, we were already tight for space, so having David Vamplew at the next table, surrounded by TV crew, it made for a real squash. My starting table would be the same table I would play at for the next 8 hours. I've tried to recall some hands of note - let's start with the very first hand of the day. With starting stacks of 15k, and blinds of 25/50, I'm in the big blind. There is an early position raise to 150, and three callers - I look down to find AA. Memories of last year are immediately flooding back!! I re-raise to 650 and get two callers. A rather attractive A82 rainbow flop, and I decide to make the donk lead of around 800 to try and induce some action - which comes with a raise to 1800 .... now, guessing that my loss with AA is now affecting my thinking, I 3-bet to 4000 when a flat call was quite obviously the better move - the other guy tank/folded claiming he had 88! I didn't show, but was feeling pretty good with a 20k stack after one hand!
The table turned out to be extremely tough for all those at my end of the table - the other end was where the action was developing, and chips were moving in one direction - away from our end! With Nick Slade at the table and prepared to play any two cards in or out of position, and seemingly careless about his stack, I was finding it really tough to get in a good spot to play back at him. During the early evening session of play, with blinds around 100/200, and my stack sat around 12k, I found a perfect spot - or so I thought. A loose aggro player raised to 450, and two people called - in the big blind I found 66 and chose to just call the extra 250. On a flop of a KKA, all four players checked - I was ready to insta-fold to any action at this point. The turn was a 6, giving me a full house. I checked again, and the original LAG raiser bet around half pot - the others in the hand folded, and it was back to me with my full house - I decided to raise, and given the relative weakness of my hand on that board, and knowing that he would never fold a K, I decided to make the raise a fairly large one in an effort to get stacks in the middle here and now, with him hopefully overplaying AQ/AJ, or any K - obviously if he has AK I'm on the way home - my raise was half of my stack, which left me a little surprised when after some thought the other guy flat called. A nightmare on the river as another K came, completely counterfieting any strength I may have had in the hand - now I'm losing to any A, the case K, and any pocket pair bigger than 66.... luckily for me the other guy lead out with a shove and I was able to get away, showing my 66 - he showed KQ :(
Now down to less than 15 big blinds, it was time for short stack ninja - and with many shoves and one double up I survived to the last level of the day. Now, for me to get home and then back to Nottingham, I would need to drive around 180 miles round trip, and would get little sleep - so going into the last level, I decided that if I was to come back it would be with a decent stack, and not with dregs - I lost count of the number of times I was all in during that final level. I started the level with 9k, and ended it with 36k - but remarkably, I was never at risk, and never took a hand to showdown. The comedy moment of my day came once the TD announced last three hands of play - I openly declared that I would be all in during these three hands, possibly as many as three times! I fold the first hand, but in the second I'm UTG and find AQs - shove and take the blinds and antes..... in the last hand I'm in the big blind, and ask politely for a walk - the whole table snap folds round to the small blind who starts to think about his action and counts out chips for a raise.... I moved my stack to the line and announced that I would not be folding. He duly raised to 3.5x, and I shoved blind - he sighed and folded AQs face up - I just flipped one card for good measure, it was a 3 :)
So with chips bagged up, I made a sharp exit at 1:40am, planning to race home, hit the sack, and then be back on the road for 10am ready for am 11:30am seat draw. I didn't count on the A453 out of Nottingham being closed for roadworks, meaning I had to go back through Nottingham, back past the door of DTD, and up the A52 toward Derby to get on the M1 at J25 - it's now 2am..... 90 miles in 50 minutes (!!!!) and I was in bed before 3am. Lying in the dark, seeing streetlights flash past in my mind's eye, I started recalling all those espressos and Red Bulls I'd drunk through the course of the evening. By around 5am, it became apparent that sleep was not going to come, and it was almost a relief when the alarm sounded at 8am.
Play started at noon, and with blinds at 1k/2k, my stack of 36k was short enough to only allow one move, but not so short that I couldn't wait for a hand. The table draw for day two was not too bad - no massive stacks, and no aggressive maniacs - a couple of 3-bet shove re-steals and I was beyond the 50k mark without any real danger. People dropping like flies at this stage, and tables breaking all over the place, including mine. This move was to be my last. Taking my seat at my next table, I wasn't overly chuffed to see a 300k+ stack on my immediate left, followed by two 100k+ stacks beyond that, and with 50k, I was easily the smallest stack at the table.
What happened next was a complete shock. When I started this tourney, my first goal had been to survive to the dinner break, and after that to make day two. In making day two, I had not really considered the next goal, and had just played hands as they arrived without really considering the context of the tournament in any way.... so when the TD announced we had reached the bubble and were now playing hand for hand, I was more than a little surprised to find myself on the brink of cashing. OK - time to play uber-tight and think about the money for the club, especially with the big stacked crazy Italian on my left.... first hand and it folds to me on the button and I find AQs..... so much for folding to the money - all in! Italian gives me a nervous moment when he asked for a count and stares me down, before folding. Next hand and there's a min-raise on the way round to me where I find AKs in the cut off - again, so much for folding to the money - all in! He folds, and I find myself being the one to pick up chips around the bubble.
Once the bubble burst, the usual deluge of exits occured and we were down to around 90 left. I find AA and get a huge double up to over 130k - happy days.
Then what turned out to be my last hand of the tournament unfolded. I found QsTs in early position, and having only played one hand for around three orbits (the AA hand), I decided to open to 2.5x. Everyone folded to the big blind who flat called. Now I had him pegged as a very weak player who would fold easily when pressurised, and I was more than happy to play a pot with him. A flop of 3h6s7s was exactly what I was looking for - he lead out for a full pot bet which given the way the table had been playing, was a little odd. I figured he might make that bet to protect any top pair hand, or indeed a low overpair - so with my overcards and my flush draw, I fancied I was in good shape for a big shove..... of course he snap called with 67 for top two pair, I missed my flush, and that was all she wrote.
The £1375 won, of which I kept a a little over £900, was very welcome..... but if I had won that final hand, I would have had a stack of over 250k, been up in the top 10, and fancying a tilt at the £109,000 first prize. C'est la vie - totally happy with my play all weekend, and wouldn't have done anything different at any stage. Definitely going to find the funds to play this one again next year.
Now one week to wait until my next live adventure - the live final of the Vegas Team Challenge at Star city in Birmingham......
Monday, 31 January 2011
Teaming up at APAT
The final leg of APAT's fourth season saw the UK Team Championships held in Bolton's G Casino. I entered this tournament as a reigning champion, having been part of the successful TeamAPAT in last year's competition, however this year I was teaming up with peers from the Black Country Poker Club.
The tournament contained 25 teams of 8 players, and played as a standard multi table tournament with 10k chips on a 45 minute clock over two days. The last 50 players would earn points for their teams, with 1 point for 50th, 2 points for 49th, and 50 points for 1st, etc.
Sadly, from a team perspective, we were never in the running having lost several players early on when just about every race went against us. Will Young and I were the only players to survive to day two, but with some teams still having 3 or 4 players in the last 30, we had no realistic chance of team glory.
From a personal perspective, the weekend was excellent! The atmosphere around the card room was fantastic, as it always is for an APAT event. The banter at my day one table was worth the buy in on it's own - Rob Swindells, Craig MacInnes, and myself, ruled that table, and had a good laugh in the process. That said, there were three players from that table who were to survive to the final table!
In season 3 - 2009 - I had the pleasure of making several day two's and final tables, but season 4 has been a washout - every single APAT tournament has seen me leave early, with me running KK into AA on three occasions to lose my stack. When my KK was run into AA for the fourth time on day one in Bolton, I feared the worst.... however this was to be time that KK would bink, and I just knew then that tables were turning back in my favour.
A couple of times I needed to rebuild having got unlucky, but other than that, was never in any real danger, and cruised to the end of day one, albeit with rather a short stack in the end.
Hand of note from day one: Button open shoved into my BB, and found JsJc and made a simple call for almost all of my stack - was left with less than 5 big blinds if I lost. Button had Ad2d. Flop Qc9c2c. So villain has flopped bottom pair, but I have all the clubs covered. The turn was a brick, but the rivered 2h was a killer.
After play finished around 01:30, I figured an "early night" was in order - however hunger got the better of me. Was walking through Bolton at around 2:30 en route to the hotel, when the quote of the weekend was made by Will Young - "this place is dead. It's Saturday night, yet there's nobody around the city centre." Turns out we were one street away from the nightspots - turned the next corner and a wall of sound, people, and bass deep enough to tremble the pavements hit us. 20 minutes of stepping over and around drunken girls showing more flesh than one would expect to see on a Mediterranean beach in mid summer, despite it being around -2C, coupled with wading thrugh the odd lake of vomit, and we were lost. Google navigator in hand, and half an hour later, we were back on track for what was supposed to be a 5 minute walk to the hotel! Pizza and doner kebab at 3am on the steps of the Holiday Inn, (bet they were chuffed with that image!), and then bed at 3:30. zzzzz.... until room mate Tony Trippier came to bed at 5:30.... then it was more volcanic snoring than zzzzzz. Still, after a 20 hour day, with 10+ pints, who needed more than two hours sleep anyway :)
At least I kept my clothes on when out and about in the hotel, unlike Jack Prime, who in a drunken state, mis-stook the room door for the bathroom door, and ended up in the hotel corridor in the wee hours stark bollock naked.
So day two - the first for a year... in fact, the last time I made day two was the equivalent team event last year in Jan-2010! Returning with a stack of 38k, and blinds at 2k/4k, I had committed to myself to be all in before the blinds reached me - luckily I was on the button first hand, so on an 8 handed table, had 6 hands to find something shoveable. In the third hand I found 88, shoved, and was called by AK.... 88 held, and I was up to around 20 big blinds.
A little while later, and I got engaged with my most notable hand of day two: It folds to me in the cutoff, and I raise to 16k (blinds 3k/6k) with 22, planning to fold to any shoves. The button and SB folded, but BB shoved. After a count, it turned out that I needed to call 23k to win 63k in the pot, but 22 still felt too dominated by his range which obviously contained all the overpairs. I asked a question and the BB responded, giving me a really strong read that he had an Ace rather than an overpair, therefore I was in a 50/50 situation, with the pot paying 3:1, and knowing that if I lost I still had 13 big blinds behind - I called, he showed AQ, and a board of xQ2A6 gave him hope along the way, but my 22 held. I think that in an online game, I probably fold there most of the time - but the value of a live read gave me an edge, and that's the hand I will remember most from the weekend.
A few hands later, and my tourney life was on a shoestring - having shoved 33 from UTG 6 handed, I was called by AA. *BINK* - a 3 first card out. That gave me a decent stack that I could carry to the final table.
6th in chips at the final, and knowing that team dynamics might make a difference to play, I was never going to sit back and watch the play go by - I wanted the monster stack, and was prepared to gamble for the win. A move with ThJc was called by AdKs - not too bad a spot for me, particularly when the flop was dealt Qh3h9h giving my the open ender, a flush draw, and live cards as well.... total 21 outs, and 66% favourite to win the hand....... yet I somehow managed to avoid the lot and was gone in 10th.
Congratulations to the London Poker Meetup team on their victory - was nice to catchup with Matt Carter again after so long.... deserving member of the winning team (hey Matt, were you printing those AKs?).
Thanks to APAT for another brilliant weekend.
Invigorated and rejuvenated, it's now back to the online slog to try and find a way out of a pretty deep hole. Still, with renewed confidence in hand, February could be an interesting month with the live final of the Vegas Team Challenge at Star City, as well as entry to the £560 UKIPT main even at DuskTillDawn.
The tournament contained 25 teams of 8 players, and played as a standard multi table tournament with 10k chips on a 45 minute clock over two days. The last 50 players would earn points for their teams, with 1 point for 50th, 2 points for 49th, and 50 points for 1st, etc.
Sadly, from a team perspective, we were never in the running having lost several players early on when just about every race went against us. Will Young and I were the only players to survive to day two, but with some teams still having 3 or 4 players in the last 30, we had no realistic chance of team glory.
From a personal perspective, the weekend was excellent! The atmosphere around the card room was fantastic, as it always is for an APAT event. The banter at my day one table was worth the buy in on it's own - Rob Swindells, Craig MacInnes, and myself, ruled that table, and had a good laugh in the process. That said, there were three players from that table who were to survive to the final table!
In season 3 - 2009 - I had the pleasure of making several day two's and final tables, but season 4 has been a washout - every single APAT tournament has seen me leave early, with me running KK into AA on three occasions to lose my stack. When my KK was run into AA for the fourth time on day one in Bolton, I feared the worst.... however this was to be time that KK would bink, and I just knew then that tables were turning back in my favour.
A couple of times I needed to rebuild having got unlucky, but other than that, was never in any real danger, and cruised to the end of day one, albeit with rather a short stack in the end.
Hand of note from day one: Button open shoved into my BB, and found JsJc and made a simple call for almost all of my stack - was left with less than 5 big blinds if I lost. Button had Ad2d. Flop Qc9c2c. So villain has flopped bottom pair, but I have all the clubs covered. The turn was a brick, but the rivered 2h was a killer.
After play finished around 01:30, I figured an "early night" was in order - however hunger got the better of me. Was walking through Bolton at around 2:30 en route to the hotel, when the quote of the weekend was made by Will Young - "this place is dead. It's Saturday night, yet there's nobody around the city centre." Turns out we were one street away from the nightspots - turned the next corner and a wall of sound, people, and bass deep enough to tremble the pavements hit us. 20 minutes of stepping over and around drunken girls showing more flesh than one would expect to see on a Mediterranean beach in mid summer, despite it being around -2C, coupled with wading thrugh the odd lake of vomit, and we were lost. Google navigator in hand, and half an hour later, we were back on track for what was supposed to be a 5 minute walk to the hotel! Pizza and doner kebab at 3am on the steps of the Holiday Inn, (bet they were chuffed with that image!), and then bed at 3:30. zzzzz.... until room mate Tony Trippier came to bed at 5:30.... then it was more volcanic snoring than zzzzzz. Still, after a 20 hour day, with 10+ pints, who needed more than two hours sleep anyway :)
At least I kept my clothes on when out and about in the hotel, unlike Jack Prime, who in a drunken state, mis-stook the room door for the bathroom door, and ended up in the hotel corridor in the wee hours stark bollock naked.
So day two - the first for a year... in fact, the last time I made day two was the equivalent team event last year in Jan-2010! Returning with a stack of 38k, and blinds at 2k/4k, I had committed to myself to be all in before the blinds reached me - luckily I was on the button first hand, so on an 8 handed table, had 6 hands to find something shoveable. In the third hand I found 88, shoved, and was called by AK.... 88 held, and I was up to around 20 big blinds.
A little while later, and I got engaged with my most notable hand of day two: It folds to me in the cutoff, and I raise to 16k (blinds 3k/6k) with 22, planning to fold to any shoves. The button and SB folded, but BB shoved. After a count, it turned out that I needed to call 23k to win 63k in the pot, but 22 still felt too dominated by his range which obviously contained all the overpairs. I asked a question and the BB responded, giving me a really strong read that he had an Ace rather than an overpair, therefore I was in a 50/50 situation, with the pot paying 3:1, and knowing that if I lost I still had 13 big blinds behind - I called, he showed AQ, and a board of xQ2A6 gave him hope along the way, but my 22 held. I think that in an online game, I probably fold there most of the time - but the value of a live read gave me an edge, and that's the hand I will remember most from the weekend.
A few hands later, and my tourney life was on a shoestring - having shoved 33 from UTG 6 handed, I was called by AA. *BINK* - a 3 first card out. That gave me a decent stack that I could carry to the final table.
6th in chips at the final, and knowing that team dynamics might make a difference to play, I was never going to sit back and watch the play go by - I wanted the monster stack, and was prepared to gamble for the win. A move with ThJc was called by AdKs - not too bad a spot for me, particularly when the flop was dealt Qh3h9h giving my the open ender, a flush draw, and live cards as well.... total 21 outs, and 66% favourite to win the hand....... yet I somehow managed to avoid the lot and was gone in 10th.
Congratulations to the London Poker Meetup team on their victory - was nice to catchup with Matt Carter again after so long.... deserving member of the winning team (hey Matt, were you printing those AKs?).
Thanks to APAT for another brilliant weekend.
Invigorated and rejuvenated, it's now back to the online slog to try and find a way out of a pretty deep hole. Still, with renewed confidence in hand, February could be an interesting month with the live final of the Vegas Team Challenge at Star City, as well as entry to the £560 UKIPT main even at DuskTillDawn.
Friday, 14 January 2011
Time for an honest appraisal
It's been a while since I posted on here - I was actually beginning to wonder if I would post again, or if I'd lost the will to keep it up. Thing is, at the moment, if I'm not working I'm at the swimming club, and if not swimming, then I'm playing poker.... and that doesn't leave a great deal of time for the important stuff, ie wife and kids (and blog). Neglecting the blog is one thing, but neglecting the wife and kids is unacceptable, and something that I must fix in order to return to an appropriate balance.
At 41, with a decent career, an awesome family, and everything going for me, I really shouldn't be losing sleep about things that don't matter. But I do, constantly.
In terms of my poker performances of late, I am a loser - how's that for honest!? However, this time last year, I was winning poker for fun, was already a couple of thousand ahead for the year, and had just bought in to a £560 UKIPT tournament with online winnings. In May 2010, for some unknown reason, the winning tailed off. In July I contracted with Bankroll Supply for a sponsorship deal, and with a slow but reasonably safe start, things were looking ok.
However, from October onward, it went bad - and when it goes bad, boy it hurts. Three big losing months on my BRS accounts, coupled with losses on my personal accounts, and I was in a hole that looked like I would need a ladder to get out. During the christmas holiday period, after some soul searching, I re-evaluated my poker approach, and figured that at the time, my approach was to spend 99.5% of my available poker time playing poker. Perhaps not a bad idea on the face of it, however it meant that I was spending only minimal time learning and analyising my game. My New Year resolution was to force this split to something nearer 90/10 - ie spend 10% of my available time learning and analysing..... that said though, if I achieve 5% I'll be happy. I spend around 30 hours a week playing - so I am committing to myself to use 3 hours a week for analysis.
After spending some time looking at previous STT hands, it didn't take long to identify a whole ruck of leaks - mostly -EV shoves in the late stages. It seems that I rarely call in -EV situations, but that my shove range is too wide. Personally, I would prefer to die from over-aggression as opposed to excessive passivity, so I don't feel that my major leak is one that will be the end of me - I just need to learn to better harness the aggression, and be more targetted.
Ironically, in MTTs my problem is the other way - I tighten up too much in the mid stages, when I should be opening my range and turning up the aggression.
For STTs, I've spent time with SNGWiz (an ICM tool that advises on correct shove/fold decisions in situations that the user defines) and with Pokerstove, and am trying to better define the ranges from which I shove or fold during the end game stage. If anyone's really interested, there are some great videos on this hosted by deucescracked, presented by Vandweller. I feel like I learned a great deal from those, and early results in January showed some evidence of improvement.
So, armed with newfound thought processes, redefined ranges, and a little confidence, I set about a recovery in early January with an aim to clear $2k profit and get my BRS accounts back in the black so I could actually get paid for my efforts for a change (I only get paid when my overall account is in profit - a percentage of a negative value equates to zero).... and it started pretty well with around $400 of recovery in the first week.
Poker is an amazing game - if you imagine going on the Pepsi Max Big One at Blackpool where you can go from 200 feet in the air to ground level at 80mph with your guts feeling like they are departing via your ears, that's what poker has felt like for me over the past week. I was in profit for the month and feeling good - 2 days later, and I'm at the lowest earnings point I've been at since I started, with all January profits wiped out and further losses induced in a handful of games. BUT, I'm content in the knowledge that I could not have done anything differently. I only played 27 games yesterday, and traversed PokerTracker data last night to review all of my exits - and every single one was played correctly according to SNGWiz, but I managed to finish 15 buy ins down for a $300 loss.
Tilt could play a major factor now - perhaps it's good that I'm off to Belguim on Sunday for the start of a mini-tour with work... Droitwich to Belgium on Sunday, Belgium to Newcastle on Tuesday, Newcastle to Dublin on Thursday, and back home on Friday. Busy times with the client = No Poker!! Hopefully will be refreshed and raring to play again by next weekend.
BCPC tonight - need to get some points on the board, but not much chancee of defending last season's title after a blank score in round 2, and will miss round 4 in February when I play the Nottingham leg of the UKIPT on behalf of BCPC.
Bolton later in the month where I will have the proud honour of captaining the BCPC team at the APAT UK Team Championships.... and although I will be representing a different team this year, I have the privilege of being defending champion from last year's event when I played and won with the APAT team.
So, an honest appraisal? Is my game dead? No. Does it need some work and effort? Certainly. Running bad and playing bad is not a good coincidental mix.
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