Monday, March 31, 2008
March Round-Up
I should take more weeks off. In fact I could take every week off and just play Sundays. You could do worse. Shipped 3rd in the Stars $100 rebuy last night (the giant Sunday version) for $21K, which is pretty much my profit for the month. Not bad after being knocked down to 7K at 2500-5K/500, and allin with KK v AA before rivering the case King. The short break certainly helped me negotiate an 8-hour session, a stomach-ache due to eating too many bananas [1] and the attentions of the arch-bok Titmus in the latter stages. Official figures for the month are $23.4K in, $44.7K out, $21.3K profit. Only 102 tournaments this month, which may be more the level in future. Sunday + 2 weekdays per week should be a good balance.
What I Learned This Month
I think, to just make the obvious play a bit more often. I had maybe gone too far towards calling, whether to trap pre-flop, to mix up my play or to control the size of the pot, when there are situations where you should throw all that in the bin and just raise because you have the best hand. I've also been playing around with some PLO and PLO8 during my "week off" and playing a different game always helps you to see certain things in a different way, vague as that sounds.
Elsewhere the field looks more or less complete for the World Poker Open IV (lol), Party have put some odds up here (click on Poker). My 40-1 looks reasonable, but whoever made this book has perhaps over-reacted to Neil's Irish Open win. Obv Neil is a top man and a great player but not even God himself, with Patrik Antonius telling him what to do, should be 16-1 in this format :-).
Finally a little fun fact, did you know that last night's $1K Million on Stars had basically the same prize pool ($1.87 million) as the recent WPT Reno main event !
[1] Real bananas, not 2+2 bananas
Update : 100 rebuy hand playback. Hands of moderate interest are 166, 180, 316-321, 398, 430 and the bustout hand 503 (by far the worst hand I played). As you can see though, mostly it's just playing solid and winning allins. It's funny how you play solid at the low levels, trickier in the middle, but then IMO back to solid again in the highest games because a) people are making a lot more moves and b) people assume that you are too.
What I Learned This Month
I think, to just make the obvious play a bit more often. I had maybe gone too far towards calling, whether to trap pre-flop, to mix up my play or to control the size of the pot, when there are situations where you should throw all that in the bin and just raise because you have the best hand. I've also been playing around with some PLO and PLO8 during my "week off" and playing a different game always helps you to see certain things in a different way, vague as that sounds.
Elsewhere the field looks more or less complete for the World Poker Open IV (lol), Party have put some odds up here (click on Poker). My 40-1 looks reasonable, but whoever made this book has perhaps over-reacted to Neil's Irish Open win. Obv Neil is a top man and a great player but not even God himself, with Patrik Antonius telling him what to do, should be 16-1 in this format :-).
Finally a little fun fact, did you know that last night's $1K Million on Stars had basically the same prize pool ($1.87 million) as the recent WPT Reno main event !
[1] Real bananas, not 2+2 bananas
Update : 100 rebuy hand playback. Hands of moderate interest are 166, 180, 316-321, 398, 430 and the bustout hand 503 (by far the worst hand I played). As you can see though, mostly it's just playing solid and winning allins. It's funny how you play solid at the low levels, trickier in the middle, but then IMO back to solid again in the highest games because a) people are making a lot more moves and b) people assume that you are too.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Time For A Break
This is a bit like one of those football reports that they sometimes have to re-write because of a late goal. Say for example if a game finished 4-4 between two "top teams" who defend like pub sides. But that would never happen in the best league in the world (TM). What I mean is that I'm still playing in a couple of Sunday specials, but it's pretty unlikely that anything spectacular will happen later on.
Anyway I think I need a break. I feel run down physically and I haven't really had a week out for six months so I'm due one. I've put my $20K in this month, for a profit of $250 if I don't cash tonight, and we're down to one table now. Live updates ! So that's good enough. I'm not playing especially well, seeing Indians behind every tree. Actually that's not true. Every tree except the ones that do in fact have Indians behind them.
However, as I like to entertain all the same, some news : I will be playing in the presitigious Party Poker World Open IV. As you can see, it's hotly anticipated. Enjoy exposing my hypocrisy below. Hint : try the Poker Bastard comments.
Anyway I think I need a break. I feel run down physically and I haven't really had a week out for six months so I'm due one. I've put my $20K in this month, for a profit of $250 if I don't cash tonight, and we're down to one table now. Live updates ! So that's good enough. I'm not playing especially well, seeing Indians behind every tree. Actually that's not true. Every tree except the ones that do in fact have Indians behind them.
However, as I like to entertain all the same, some news : I will be playing in the presitigious Party Poker World Open IV. As you can see, it's hotly anticipated. Enjoy exposing my hypocrisy below. Hint : try the Poker Bastard comments.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Pokerstars Drop The Ball
It looks like the Euro-friendly WSOP Double Shootouts on Stars are not going to take off this year. On Monday, the shootout was cancelled because it was one player short of the minimum required, 62 instead of 63. I emailed Stars about this and you can see the results in this thread :
C'mon Stars
To be honest my biggest disappointment is how poor the responses are. The first one makes no attempt at all to understand what I'm saying, and the second one tries but misses by a mile. I did have an off the record exchange with someone at Stars who is a bit more clued up, he basically said that software limitations make it very difficult for them to be flexible with this kind of thing on the spot, so there you go. It's not as big a deal as it would have been last year because there are more games I can play with a decent expectation, even though nothing could top the hourly on the DSs.
Apart from that I made a couple of final tables last night, one of them turned into the worst final table ever a very annoying 10th in the Ongame $100, which they have changed to 1 rebuy. I quite like this, obv I take the rebuy, lots of other people don't and it's still coming in $25K short of guarantee. Tomorrow I'm playing the £1000 at the Vic, against my better judgement really but we'll give it a spin. I might as well stick in online mode for this one, it's going to be easier than trying to change it up to a "live" style just for one tournament. This probably means rocking up early on and hopefully having a playable stack when the antes kick in. With 20BB or less I'm sure I'm better than 95% of the field, and as good as the other 5, so I'll just give it a spin and see what happens. Hopefully I won't have to go on a killing spree because of all the crap everyone talks.
Update : Busto at the Vic. Up to 14K when I called a UTG raiser with AK (in the big blind) at 75-150. Then I check-called every street on a board of AQ55x. He had a set of Queens, gg. I should probably fold the river but there are worse ways to go out. In fact no one said anything annoying, which is probably a good sign that there wasn't a lot of value. If anyone at the table's reading this, I had two pair when I 3-bet the Scandi all-in, though I could just as easily have had a big combo draw. Made it home in time to smash out of it online, which I would have done if I hadn't lost another FT flip. Ended up breaking even for the night online. The difference being, I'll be at another final table in days online compared to months live. If not years :-)
Further Update : The 1405 EST WSOP Double Shootouts are now off the schedule. Well, I tried.
C'mon Stars
To be honest my biggest disappointment is how poor the responses are. The first one makes no attempt at all to understand what I'm saying, and the second one tries but misses by a mile. I did have an off the record exchange with someone at Stars who is a bit more clued up, he basically said that software limitations make it very difficult for them to be flexible with this kind of thing on the spot, so there you go. It's not as big a deal as it would have been last year because there are more games I can play with a decent expectation, even though nothing could top the hourly on the DSs.
Apart from that I made a couple of final tables last night, one of them turned into the worst final table ever a very annoying 10th in the Ongame $100, which they have changed to 1 rebuy. I quite like this, obv I take the rebuy, lots of other people don't and it's still coming in $25K short of guarantee. Tomorrow I'm playing the £1000 at the Vic, against my better judgement really but we'll give it a spin. I might as well stick in online mode for this one, it's going to be easier than trying to change it up to a "live" style just for one tournament. This probably means rocking up early on and hopefully having a playable stack when the antes kick in. With 20BB or less I'm sure I'm better than 95% of the field, and as good as the other 5, so I'll just give it a spin and see what happens. Hopefully I won't have to go on a killing spree because of all the crap everyone talks.
Update : Busto at the Vic. Up to 14K when I called a UTG raiser with AK (in the big blind) at 75-150. Then I check-called every street on a board of AQ55x. He had a set of Queens, gg. I should probably fold the river but there are worse ways to go out. In fact no one said anything annoying, which is probably a good sign that there wasn't a lot of value. If anyone at the table's reading this, I had two pair when I 3-bet the Scandi all-in, though I could just as easily have had a big combo draw. Made it home in time to smash out of it online, which I would have done if I hadn't lost another FT flip. Ended up breaking even for the night online. The difference being, I'll be at another final table in days online compared to months live. If not years :-)
Further Update : The 1405 EST WSOP Double Shootouts are now off the schedule. Well, I tried.
