First and Last....... and second too!!

Hi Guys,

Been a while since the last blog but I've been on holiday playing poker at home. It's been a fantastic experience.... much better than the last time when the world cup was on...... I didn't play that well back then and it bit me in the arse.......

Well the first day of the holiday I've been trying to cling on to the money in the account. You may remember that I withdrew £151.71 which evened up the expenditure and meant that the money in the account was "profit" after the expenses of books and the flat screen had been taken off. This left me with just under $300 which I gambled away...... The last few days have been spent at the lower stakes tables trying to turn the corner but it hasn't been going well.

Tonight, the last day of my holiday, I fancied playing a tournie and decided on the $5 2nd chance with $2500 guaranteed. (Top prize $740 ish) I bought in with virtually my last money and saved a re-buy just in case. I got to the last 5mins before the break and gambled on A7 thinking I'll double up or re-buy and start again..... I hit trip 7's, settled down and soon built up a nice stack.

In fact for the best part of an hour I was the chip leader with circa 60k of chips. The money started at 40th place and playing cautiously I sat back a bit too much and started losing ground. In fact as the final table approached my M (ratio of chips to blinds)was 5 and I was using the all-in move 6-8 times to get my chips in and win the blinds.

I crept onto the final table, my M still very low (7-8) and expecting to be knocked out first. Knowing that I hadn't had to showdown any cards I made my hand requirements high and managed to double up a couple of times and become the chip leader again! the final 5 players took ages..... the blinds had to increase to make them desperate.

Once heads up began I felt confident. He was a good player and didn't fall for my limp with AK but I was steadily winning chips until the point where I had him covered by a very small margin. At this point I got AJo....... :-) Unfortunately he got AK. His all-in move was called by myself and I groaned when the cards turned over. I didn't improve and he won the first prize and I took $460 for 2nd place...... A great nights work and thoroughly enjoyable.... In fact I'm so excited that I can't slept hence the late night blogging!!

So after all that check out the figures at the top...... It's attractive viewing. I'm going to use this to build a bankroll and I'm gonna be sooooo protective of this to ensure it doesn't slip away....

Until the night time GL at the tables!!

Sound the Fanfare!! I'm earning from Poker!

Well day 1 of the poker holiday and what an evening.....

I started playing some low stake tournies and came 8th in the first one and got robbed in my second one with my AJ losing to K7 after I'd re-raised him all-in.... not quite sure why he called but there you go.

Anyway I managed to freeroll some of the tournies by playing a cash table on the side but I found it quite hard to switch between types of game and got bored with the tournies.

After about an hours break I went back to it and played 2 tables of the 25c/50c stakes..... before too long I was doing really well..... some good play and some muppet opponents helped. :-)

I'm now off to bed and have just transferred another £151.71 from my ladbrokes account back to my current account.... :-) Take a look at the figures and see what that does... :-)

NIL EXPENDITURE & I'M IN THE BLACK!!

GET IN!!

Another £50 Closer!!

Overall a good weekend of poker with some online wins continuing the good run. In fact I got to $400 in the account and have therefore taken out another £50. Take a look at the figures.... It's getting very close to that break even point! I need to have a think about how I'm going to proceed once I get to break even.... My first thoughts are to keep withdrawing until the expenditure read zero. This will mean I have "free" money in the account and I can then start building a bankroll for bigger games/tournies. Exciting times ahead!

I also played a home game at the weekend which didn't go very well at all..... Being a totally different standard it tends to be "best hand wins" so I don't tend to bluff very often.

In the main event (£5 freezout....winner takes all) I lost half my stack to quad 9's when I had a full house.... I was behind from the flop and thought that Sarah's call on the river would be for a split pot. Was very surprised when she turned over Q9 for quads.

The end for me (and first out from the game) came when I got JTs...... an early raise meant there were good odds and the flop came low. Sophie bet and I called..... the turn came a T and Sophie bet out 500 chips. I thought she had a piece of the flop and didn't put her on still being on a draw so I went all-in for 1585. I thought she would fold and I'd take the pot.

I was very surprised when Sophie turns over JQo which gives her nothing but an open ended straight draw. My Tens were good and I was 70/30 favourite to win and be a contender in the game.

Unfortunately for me an 8 came on the river to complete Sophie's straight and knock me out of the game... :-(. . . . . Looking back I don't think there's anything I cuold have done about this hand. The only other play would have been to fold the hand before the flop...

My evening got worse........ after sitting there watching the whole of the first game I then went out first from the second game!!!!!

I made a loose call with 78o but after a late raise and 3 calls I then had good odds to call and see the flop. The flop gave me a gutshot straight draw and I called a low bet to see my 5 come on the river to give me a straight...... Unfortunately it also gave Tim Kirk a Full House and much to everyone's amusement I was out again!!

What makes these nights even worse is that I sat there and watched people calling to the river with ace-rag... not hitting anything and then taking down big pots with nothing..... whereas I had a full house and a straight and still got muffed....... It's a cruel game sometimes.

Another Peak.....

Hi All,

More poker yesterday as Claire was out on a freebie trip going horseriding.. :-)

After the loses of the day before I decided to take the evening a bit slower. I had dinner and watched the final part of the days cricket at Lords... then I headed into the other room and started the poker. The emphasis was going to be on playing good poker. Good notes, good reads and playing the table as well as the cards. I only played two tables because of this and it proved to be very successful.

I left table 1 with $185 and broke even on table 2. I broke even purely because of one hand where I flopped a straight and got my money in and the other guy drew runner runner to get a royal flush on the river!! It didn't wipe me out but I did manage to claw my way back to evens.

Anyway the figures should be updated.

Should have a live game of poker on sunday with friends and then a visit to the Casino on Thursday night if possible.

How Frustrating Is Poker

Being a golfer I know about frustration..... Trying to hit a ball that, is very small, exactly where you want it is hugely difficult. I'm lucky enough to be good at Golf and not to feel the frustration that some people do but even so my frustration will still be there over smaller details.....

However poker is something completely different..... you reach a level that you feel happy with and you start to believe that you can make money at and just when you reach that point to get hit back down by a bad run...... I've won money recently and am now taking a hit.

Recently I've been looking at how my state of mind and other personal factors affect my game and being tired makes a massive difference. You want to get on and start winning and end up being aggressive to the point of stupidity, which then sets you on tilt and a losing streak.....

One such hand happened to me yesterday. I'd just joined the table after being at work all day. I'd gone to bed about 4am the night before as I was playing poker and listening to the WSOP final table at the same time.

I started off well and got some great hands in succession. Pairs of 9's and 6's etc and then I get AKo. It's a good hand and one that I want to be aggressive with before the flop (as so often afterward it's worth f*ck all!). Obviously I have no player notes at this stage and just the stack sizes to go by.

I bet $2.50.... another guy raises again to $5.25 and the guy immediately to my right raises to $10..... at this stage I've only put in $2.50 and I can duck out now and wait for the next hand. The GAP concept says that you need a stronger hand to call a raise then you would to lead out with a bet. So in this case UTG (me) has lead out with a big raise, which should indicate great strength..... mid position has then re-raised..... maybe with AK or AQ or a high pocket pair. Once that's happen the guy in late position has come over the top and put in a 2x raise to make it a huge pre-flop pot.

So what could he possibly have?

I would have to assume that this guy knows what he's doing.... I haven't had enough information to prove the opposite so for now he's labelled as a good player. Therefore the only conclusion is that he has a premium pocket pair. AA, KK or QQ. So my decision now and I'm looking at his stack and he only has $13.50 more but the other guy has $40 ish. Even so I only have AK which is totally dominated by kings or aces and is only 55/45 against a pair of queens.

So what did I do..... unbelievably I raised the raiser all-in. The middle guy dropped out and we go heads up and his AA holds up to win the pot and there I am now with $30 and feeling like an idiot..........

In my head I knew I needed a break and should go watch the TV for a bit but I carried on playing and ended up losing $140 in the session.

NOT GOOD..... I've updated the figures.

WSOP night

So last night was the final table of the WSOP 2007. In fact they're still going even now, down to the last 2 players out of the 6500 that entered.

I played a long session of poker last night and played in a couple of tournaments but didn't do so well...... I made the break after the first hour in good shape but a little fragile..... I then made a call with a mediocre hand but with very good pot odds and missed it completely... this left me with just over 2500 chips. I then limped from the blind with K8 and hit top pari only to run into kings up from another caller. My hand improved to kings up but it still wasn't good enough to win and out I went.

I also played cash games whilst this was happening and managed to make some good money there.

In total I finished about $40 up and I have ammended the figures on the site.....

Reload....!!!!

What a nightmare....... had to re-load the account with another £50.

No soon had the money clearde in my account and here I am again putting half of it back.... not quite sure what going wrong but will keep plugging away.

The Dan Harrington book I'm reading is very, very good and it's going to improve my game no end. Just a small thing to improve is the size of my continuation bets. According to the book I should be varying this between 40%-75% whereas I've been putting in nearer to 100%. This means that I'm putting in too much and making it a losing play in the long run. Putting in less will have the same effect but save me more when I get called.

I'll have finsihed this volume soon and then move on to v2 the endgame.

Rises and Falls; Swings and Roundabouts

However you want to say it nowhere do these phrases make more sense than in the poker world. No sooner are you coming down from your latest win to find that you go into a decline and start losing......

Why is that? I wish I knew. Maybe people play looser and so therefore make more calls than they were before. Maybe it really is just luck. Apart from a couple of decisions I don't feel that I've been playing very differently but I've managed to dwindle the account down to $20 ish and am in danger of losing all the good work I've done by having to re-load the account.

I think a lot has to do with my chosen times of playing. Since the weekend I've only been able to catch 5-10 mins here and there and haven't been able to dedicate the time to be able to analyse the table.......

All this means I'm learning all the time..... maybe I need to allocate specific poker playing times?

Oh well.... that's the update.

Not very good I admit but if it was easy then it wouldn't be a roller-coaster would it?

3's a Crowd!!

Well what a good poker weekend for me it was! I managed to get 4-5 hours to try out the new, more aggressive style. I also practised multitabling with 3 screens open all the time.

So putting $50 in each of those tables was a bit of a gamble as previously I have found that I play too loose and call too many bets when I'm rushed. This time however it was different and I had time to make my decisions and also make my notes on other players. It wasn't too long before each table has over $100 on it!

I'm finding that my note taking has improved considerably and this has had an effect on my game to mean that I'm winning more and punishing the bad players.

After the first 2 hours I had lost $20 in total, due to me handing money across to Raybox111. It was an incredible run of cards...... my AJ against his KK, twice within about 15 hands.

The first time we both raised and I called eventually and the flop came out T, K, A.... I fired in a bet which he raised and then I made the mistake of raising all-in...... He thought about it for ages and then called to take the pot with trip Kings.... ahhhhhh.... gutted....

A few hands later, with the same pocket cards. I bet 4x BB, he raises 3x and I call..... The flop give me a Jack to give me top pair with top kicker. At this point I should have bet the pot.... waited to see if he raised.... then folded when he did. Unfortunately I threw all my chips in the middle........ He calls and wins the pot again!!!.... aaaaarrrrrggggghhhh.... I punched the seat in anger......

It wasn't all bad though. I took a break and came back to it, after labelling Raybox111 as red and "avoid at all costs". When I came back I bossed the table and starting winning regularly. When I'd finished I'd even won some of the money back from Raybox111 and had $180 on one table and $160 on the other!

After closing the tables I visited the cashier to see over $400 in the account!!.... wooo hoooo.....

Another "sensible moment" then took hold of me and I remembered my promise to myself to keep the account under $300 for now. So I took out £100 to leave me with $202.02 in the account. Check out the figures they make good reading. So overall I'm only $50 down at present and surging towards the break even point. Once I get there I have to re-evaluate the goals. I think I want a laptop.... to play from Claire's house and also a bigger screen for my PC so that I can fit more tables on it..... for now though I'm just really pleased and want to make sure that I don't get carried away with this success.

GL at the tables!

Live Poker At The Casino....

Yesterday I played Poker at the Stanley Casino in Reading. It's the first time I've been back since my birthday when I manage to reach the final table and win £50. Although slightly soured by twisting my ankle on the way back and I'm still having treatment for it.

Thursdays nights is labelled as a beginners night and is a $10 rebuy tournament with 90 mins allowed plus an add-on at the break. We all started with 1000 chips and within the first 3 hands I had won about 800. From that point on I either played nervously with hands that I should have raised with or didn't get many hands. On the few hands I got I either missed the flop or put in a post flop raise to see everyone drop out.

I got to the last 3 hands before the break with about 1400 and thought I may as well take the opportunity to double up whilst I can still rebuy. I got AT in late and raised the so far unraised pot. A bald guy in seat 2 then made another minimum raise and I put him on a mid pair so I came over the top all-in. He thought about it for a bit which gave me some confidence and then called.......

Over the cards went and he has pocket tens........ not the worst thing that could happen for me as he only has 1 out and if I catch an ace I'll win. I think the odds are about 70/30 in the tens favour and no ace came out so I lost and had to rebuy.

Meanwhile on table 7 Claire was going well with about 1800 chips and she then got pocket tens and hit a set on the flop. With a multiway pot she made a raise which covered the stacks of a couple of people. Unfortunately one of those hit a straight on the river and took the pot which left Claire with 1000 going into the break.

I added on but Claire didn't.

When play resumed Claire lost her chips, mainly because she needed to get back to collect Bethany from the babysitter and she then waited for me to finish. I'd managed to steal some blinds but had under 2000.

I wasn't getting anywhere fast so, with JT spades, when the guy on my left agonises over his bet I then went all-in and got 2 callers. When they flipped the cards I was behind to pocket aces and A9. Still in with a 20% chance though, which is better than Mr A9....... unfortunately the board was all clubs and Mr A9 scooped the pot and left me to get my coat.

Was a fun evening though and I'll have to go again soon. I've got the bug for it and need to get the nervousness out of my live game. I also need to work on my mental arithmetic as I couldn't figure out the numbers at all!!.... Might have to get a DS light and that Brain training game....

His and Hers Profits!!

So the rakeback for June came through and boosted my account by $74 which is just as well because it was looking pretty sorry and might have needed another top up. I've been reading up with Dan Harrington and v1:strategic play and been using the help of John from Laddies who has been a real star helping me to improve. He's answered so many questions and given me hand examples which have given me more on an insight into what top level poker players are thinking.

Last night proved to be a profitable session of poker once I'd settled down onto the 25c/50c 6-seater cash table.

I did some good work identifying the types of players that were playing, which is my latest focus and one which I wanted some improvement on. I managed to double up without taking any risks and attacking the agressive players at the right times. Then this had came along:

Begin Hand Number 783917792 at 09:46:10 on table Pipeline

Table Type: Normal (Non-Tournament)

Game Name: Texas Hold'em

Stakes: 0.50 / 1.00 Real Money

Active Players: 6

Total Pot: $133.77

Rake: $3.00

Win Amount: $130.77

moody2blue has the dealer button

Hobbo2006 posts small blind ($0.25)

Lisa_the_pro posts big blind ($0.50)

vitargo calls for $0.50

chancher raises for $1.00 (with 96o??)

Inexplicable folds

moody2blue raises for $2.23 with AA

Hobbo2006 raises for $3.21 with QQ

Lisa_the_pro folds

vitargo folds

chancher calls for $2.46

moody2blue raises for $7.38

(at this point I put him on a better hand than me AA, KK, QQ (unlikely), JJ or AK as when I'd re-raised him before he either folded or called.)

Hobbo2006 calls for $6.15........ (I called thinking about folding if I didn't get a set.)

chancher calls for $6.15

Dealing Flop Qc,Kc,6s......( bargain....... little bit worried about that K)

Hobbo2006 bets $7.45....... (quarter of the pot to encourage a raise)

chancher went all-in for $11.30....... (not sure about this move but not worried about him at all.)

moody2blue calls for $11.30..........( i'm sure here that if he'd had pocket Kings he'd have moved all in here and I was thinking that him only calling is him backing off the hand or looking to get his set with AA)

Hobbo2006 calls for $3.85

Dealing Turn Td

Hobbo2006 bets $63.73......( i'm thinking that I must be ahead and moody definately has a hand and it's unlikely to beat mine..... he certainly doesn't have AJ in his hand.)

moody2blue went all-in for $35.02

Hobbo2006 receives returned betting money ($28.71)

Dealing River 9d

moody2blue shows cards pair of Aces

Hobbo2006 shows cards 3 of a kind queens

chancher shows cards two pair 9's and 6's...?????????? lol

Hobbo2006 shows Three of a Kind, winning $130.77

Hand Ended at 09:48:17 - Elapsed Time: 127 seconds

So all happy there.... ended up with just over $200 on the table. Claire played a 10c/20c table whilst I was playing and after a shaky start managed to leave with $80. So overall profit for the night was $190 or £95......

I've been sensible and taken out £50 from the account to bring down the expenditure so check out the updated figures!!