Secrets of the Amateurs

A couple of good results this week ; on Wednesday I shipped the $150 freezeout on Full Tilt for $15K. Which was nice. Key pot, I think this might have been around the cash bubble, but anyway I thought some guy was trying to push me around so I insta-4-jammed it in his eye with KTs. He even more insta-called with AK but I binked a Ten. I played pretty well 4- and 3- handed to amass a big chip lead and shipped it.

Yesterday I played my EPO V Heat and shipped that as well. I'd like to think that this was mainly due to my tenacity and selective aggression in the first 3 levels which kept my stack around 100K even though I had nothing to work with in terms of hands. In truth, it was partly due to that, but a bit more to going 3/3 on allins from that point.

As an observation, this event is clearly tougher than last year, by a distance. I was pretty lucky with my draw, I had two good players to deal with but many of the other heats have 4 or 5 tough spots. I stuck around to watch the heat after and that was a good example. There was some really good play, especially from Dave "Dubai" Shallow who absolutely played the spots off the cards and was unlucky. A lot of people are catching on to how much value these tournaments are which means, of course, that they aren't going to be so much value in future. It's evolution baby.

The semi-final is on Thursday. Last time I was so wired after the semi I could hardly sleep at all and really wasn't at my best in the final, so I have booked an apartment in Liverpool Street for two nights. I estimate the EV of two more hours to at least doze as being way more than the cost of the apartment ... in the event of making the final of course. That's why I've booked two nights though, it's so it's like a mini-holiday whatever happens. So it's not a bok. It's not ! Alright, it is. The biggest bok ever. What can I do.

Finally, I know there isn't a lot for beginners in this blog, at least not since the very early posts, so if you're quite new to poker or tournament poker then I must pimp my videos on Pokerswat. I've just finished a 5-part beginner series on the site, I'm very pleased with how they've come out and the feedback I've had so far is very good. These are all available on the Silver membership, which is $19 sign-up fee and $11/month. Ok I'm biased but that's tremendous value IMO.