Secrets of the Amateurs

Bollocks. I typed in all my results so far with incisive commentary and the Internet connection reset itself and cleared it all out. Oh go on then, here it is again. I'll Save as Draft as I go this time I think.

$2-4 Limit, Flamingo, 1.25 hours, -$30. Just getting settled in. Too small really, there's no reason why I shouldn't play $4-8 or $6-12 if I want to play limit.

$1-2 No Limit, Nugget, 0.5 hours, -$4. Zzzzz. There may be good NL cash games around but this wasn't one of them.

$200 MTT, Nugget, 1.25 hours, -$230. Only 18 runners and a bit of a rockfest. Lost with 99 v AK and made an excellent decision to not rebuy and instead decamp to ...

$125 MTT, Binions (1 rebuy), 5 hours, +$1515. 2nd/40. Good tournament with a decent structure and a very weak field. In this tournament and the next I faced one half-decent player in 9 hours. I was talking to Paul Alterman about this and he said "Well most of them probably aren't as experienced as you". After carefully scanning for sarcasm (a must with Paul), he's right. I have been playing for 7 years after all, so I should have an edge over the TV generation. That was the case here. Once I knocked 88 (caller) off with my K5 (raiser) I was set. I even squeezed $200 out of the winner when I had only 2 big blinds left after losing the all-in coup for the rest (QJ v K5, he cracked and reraised with the K5, I read him for the crackup and called correctly for the pot odds, missed it though).

$40 MTT, Harrahs (1 rebuy), 4 hours, +$450. 3rd/70. I was a bit annoyed with myself after this one as I really ought to have won it, but apart from one 10K mistake the rest was either just the breaks or other peoples' problems (eg slowrolling me with AA). On collecting my 3rd prize the organizer said "stop looking so morose". So you don't want a tip then :-). Morose is a good one mind you, I've never heard Roy or Jeff say that ...

$180 Single Table for $1500, Bellagio, 0.75 hours, -$180. 6th/10. Disappointing lack of fish. What they do here now is, the winner gets frogmarched over to the cage and signed up for the next tournament, end of story. Thus ends the reign of the professional satellite scum. Damn. OK so you've stopped that and squeezed an extra rake out of all the winners, but I think at the expense of also stopping people from wandering in off the street or the casino floor and playing. If they're going to do that at the WSOP that particular party will be over, or at least chucking out before the police arrive.

$1500 MTT, Bellagio, 3 hours, -$1570. About 220/480. Much as I expected. No one was giving it away but no one was bothering me particularly. I worked 3K up to 3800 and then lost half of it with AcKc on a flop with two clubs. No regrets there. After a bit more nip and tuck I flat called from the Big Blind with AJ because I had a tell that the raiser was weak, but I didn't have enough chips to make him pass pre-flop. Flop came Ten high, I bet the rest he called T7s. Marvellous. I may have had an unlucky draw as the overall rate of player dropouts was noticeably higher than what was happening on our table. The only A-list player I spotted was Juanda. Out of my A-list anyway :-). No major surprise, after all $1500 isn't even a big blind in those ridiculous cash games they play.

All in all that's $50 down so far. I note that in 15 hours I have yet to be dealt AA or KK. I'm just saying is all :-). I may have the odd shot at another satellite but I am aware that this is basically gambling with zero EV and huge variance. Apart from that I intend to press up in the smaller tournaments elsewhere, and maybe try some NL cash if I can find a good game.