Monday, March 14, 2005

 

Some Value I Can Eat

"And somewhere in the darkness the gambler, he broke even.
But in his final words I found some value I can eat"

That would have been better I reckon. Call Kenny Rogers, get it changed. I finally found some value I can eat in the Will Hill £10K added yesterday. In the interests of getting it quietly I will keep this as brief as possible :-). I think there were three factors that helped.

1) I was lucky. Of course. It should go without saying that you need some luck to win a 300 runner tournament, but I'm putting it here to remind me when I'm on a bad run. The only outrageous outdraw I laid down was T9s making a house on the turn against KK, although that was for only 30% of my stack, he was all in. I won four or five hands with the best of it (QQ v A9), as coin tosses (AQ v 88) and from behind (KJs v A6), and even though most of them were for less than half my chips, I did win them all. I had to put down to a reraise a couple of times, but I never ran into a big hand when I was committed The key hand was probably when I raised with QQ on the button and the BB tried to make me put it down with 55. That sent me into the final as clear chip leader.

2) I played well. Humility being the greatest form of conceit, I do think I played well. I adapted to the structure better than anyone else I came up against. Once the antes kick in on Cryptologic, they're on the high side (usually 1/4 of the small blind). High antes severely hurt the tight players, and they absolutely kill the guys who are trying to fold their way into the money. Hooray ! Many was the time I saw someone pass when they should have been calling with 23 off. I gambled (with the KJs against the A6) before I became too short-stacked. I made the first raise as often as I could and no one stood up to me. I called short stack all ins when I had to for the size of the pot, and won quite a few of those as well with my 29 and 47 type hands. For a moment heads up I thought "shit ! I'm playing for £1500 heads up online" but all the heads up practice in S+Gs paid off. I had worked it up to 2-1 chip lead when I raised on the button with KK and he called. Flop 875, he checked, I put him all in (100K in the pot, he had about 200K left), he called with 98 and my hand held up one more time ! Unfortunately I was doing my Mattias Anderssen for long enough for the window to disappear before I could say well played to my opponent, so Matt20026, I'm sorry and well played, you were the toughest opponent by a distance.

3) I was concentrating. I wasn't playing any other games. I recorded the football to watch it later. I'm not sure how much this helped, but it didn't hurt ! I may have made one good call and one pass which I thought was good at the time (though we'll never know) as a result.

So what's next for me ? $500 Sit and Goes ? Play every event at the Vic in two weeks ? No. This isn't a bonus - it's a wage. It's money hard earned over all the on-line hours in the last year or so. While I'm now in a position to take the odd shot, I'm going to be selective with it. We shall see what happens.

Comments:
Well done.

Hopefully you will take some of it to Vegas on the 7th and spin it up?
 
Thank you. There might be a little bit of spinnage, if only to qualify for the poker rate at the Bellagio :-)

Andy.
 
From Peter B

Yes, those antes on Cryptologic are great, aren't they? I'm sure my sterling performance in the lower stakes Betfair tourney (four hundred quid up since November in £3 tournies? Are you sure?) are partly due to my more aggressive style of play once the bigger blinds kick in. (I made a call for a third of my stack to an all-in player. I turned over 87 off and he said that he just couldn't understand why i did it. I pointed out that he had a pair of fives, so I had overcards. This did not make him see it any clearer, even though his 55 held up!)

300 entries for the NL WSOP tour NL games in the Rio this week, and only 120 for the limit hold 'em. I think I should try some of the NL games when I arrive there. From what I saw, the boredom in winning the money will be more than compensated for by the amount of money won.

Possibly the $200 buy-in in at Ballys rather than the $300 in the Flamingo. Or should I go straight into a $1500 tourney at the Rio?

I'd still rather be winning in the 15-30 though :-)
 
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