New Poker Blogage Discovered

A recent post on ITH lead me to discover some rather cool poker blogs, which many (should probably stop kidding myself about the number of people that actually read this drivel!) of you may well be aware of - but I thought I'd stick in the links in any case:

Guinness and Poker : Known as "The Godfather of Poker Blogging" Iggy's (or Ignatious, to give him his full title) blog contains links to almost every poker blog out (but not yet this one) there are well as regular updates and links.
Linda Green's Blog : Linda Green is a dealer at The Bellagio in Las Vegas. This blog gives a wonderful insite into life at the other side of the card table.
Lion Tales : Richard Brodie is a dot.com billionaire who now plays the pro-poker circuit.
Paul Phillips' Journal : another player on the pro circuit.

I hope that not too far down the line my poker stories are interesting enough for my blog to be in the same bracket as those above, but for now it's head down, time to get a degree and then time to build a roll!

I've done well over the past week or so to stay clear of internet poker. I've been working hard in the lab and seem to be making progress, although time is seriously running out on me. Today is not going so well, however. I'm really lathargic and I can feel last week's new-found motivation slipping away.

Whilst I may have been able to stay away from online poker, I wouldn't have been able to function without getting at least some play in...

We had our regular home game on friday night which is a 5p/10p NL ring game. It was a really good evening. There was pleanty of wild betting and some pretty big hands (for 5p/10p, at least). I doubled up early on with a flopped set against an open ended straight flush draw. Almost immedaitely after that I busted the same guy again when I made a dirty call with a middle pokcket pair and gutshot draw. He had an over pair and I hit my gutshot on the river - ooops! Other notable hands: I flopped a set of jacks against a flopped straight and failed to improve, but as fate would have it the same guy flopped a set of jacks and let me see the river cheaply where I hit my straight!! The most outrageous hand of the evening was when I flopped a king high flush on a queen high board. I bet out an got one caller. Another queen came on the turn and I check riased all in. The other guy calls and flips over trip queens. THe forth queen came on the river!! Overall I finshed abour £20 up which wasn't bad off a £5 buy-in.

The weekend was pretty hectic. We (my finacee and I) we're supposed to be going down to London for her Mum's birthday, but she had a driving lesson in the morning and was going wedding dress shopping in the afternoon. I was supposed to be busking/carol-singing late morning/early afternoon and then neede somehow to cram about 5 hours of lab work in before finally heading off and probably arriving late at the restaurant. At the last minute it turned out that her Bridesmaid hadn't made an appointment at the shop an so cancelled on her at the last minute. This meant we might actually stand a chance of getting down to London at a reasonable hour so I bailed out of the carol singing and headed straight to the lab. Five virtuous hours later we were on our way down to London ready to stuff ourselves full of Cypriot food, and stuff we did!

We stayed the night at the girl's parents who then stuffed us full of Sunday lunch the following day before we rushed back to Oxford so I could fit in a few more hours in the lab. Somhow I manged to condense all that I had to do into only 3 hours which meant that I was able to get to the weekly poker session with the University Poker Society. We usually play a 10p/20p NL game which sometime goes up to 20p/40p as the evening progresses. On this ocasion it was pleanty wild enough at 10p/20p! I made a bad call early on and had to reach into my pocket again. I made a standard sized raise preflop with AQs and got 4 callers behind me. The flop came QTT and I made a pot sized bet. A good player doubled my bet and for some crazy reason I decided to go all-in. He called with JTs. I'm not exactly sure why I made that play it was pretty damn stupid. He'd be unlikely to make that play with and hand like KQ or KJ and although he's quite capable of sticking his money in with nothing I dont think he'd have chosen that moment to do it with two more player left to act behind him. Still, we live and learn!

More to come - just gonna do some science!

Funky New Feature

Since it is my wont to write rather lengthy posts, I've added a funky new feature to my blog which just shows the first paragraph or so of each post and then if you like the sound of where the post is headed then you can...

"...read more!"

It also means that you dont have to scroll ten miles down the page to find any old posts. Hurray!

I dont really have much else to say except that I've been a good boy and have been working weell in the lab this week. I've also played virtually no poker (!), although I've been watching a fair bit. My finacee ordered me the whole of the first season of the World Poker Tour on DVD for my Birthday. It finally came this week and we've been glued to the TV since!

Laters, kids.

P.S. It's good to see a few new faces posting comments. So thanks to Dr. Winston, Mike (HeyBert! right?) and Gravy.
P.P.S. A couple of personals:
Pete: was good to see you this weekend, sorry we had to dissappear in a hurry. BTW, you owe Jaye £14 !!
Will: thanks for the email. I hope things are going well in Qutar. I'll email back soon, promise!! --------> Will's Blog

A New Me...

...well, kind of!

After a week of serious slacking and doing absolutely nothing towards my research project, I've now got my head together and gathered up some serious motivation. I have only a few weeks left to finish it off so it's time for poker to take the back burner.

I played a fair bit of poker last week when I wasn't too busy being a slacker and was able to extract myself from the rut that had been forming. I played mostly on Party Poker's $2/4 NL tables and a bit of $5/10 limit on the '6-max' tables. Things went well, which is probably one of the reasons I was finding it hard to get my arse in gear to go into the lab and do some work!

Things came to a peak on friday afternoon when the college football (soccer) team that I play for got its first win of the seaon! Woohoo

Then it kind of hit me that I hadn't done any science all week and that I only had a matter of weeks left before I had to be finished. Oops. I decided that I would use the weekend to get my head together and by Monday I would be ready to nail it.

Friday night I went to play in the little home game that we've started up this term. It a £5 buy-in NL game with 5p/10p blinds. It's good fun and I usually come out with about £10 or so extra. That night was pretty frustating. I finished exactly even, but I'd been in mood ever since this one guy limped and called all the way with QQ because he was too busy rolling a cigarette! I had AJ on the big blind. I raised his limp and then bet out a Jack high flop after he checked it too me. He called and then on the turn I made a similar sized bet which set him all in.... I was pretty disgruntled after that!

Saturday was a poker free day. I played football in the morning (and lost!) and then went into London in the afternoon to see a show and eat pasta in Carluccio's, which is easily the best Italian, EVER!

Sunday was pretty much all poker. The University Poker Society was having it's big termly event. There was a dealer's choice freeroll, which I missed in lieu of an extra long lie in and a lazy breakfast. I rocked up in the early afternoon to play in the £10 double chance tournament which then turned into a pretty enjoyable cash game. I busted out mid way in the tournament and finished about even in the cash game, but it was an enjoyable session.

On Monday morning, I woke up as a new man. I have been busy being a scientist since then.

The "...well, kind of" remark at the top refers to a couple of things (wait for it...!) We had a football match on Monday afternoon - which we lost, by the way - so I ended up with a bit of free time away from the lab. Well, folowing last weeks sucess I figured I should probably play some $15/30. Thankfully it went extreemly well. Well enough, in fact that I was able to draw a metaphorical line under the session, cash out my winnings for the last 10 days and go back to being a scientist the following morning.


And they all lived happily ever after, THE END.

Untitled

Well so much for the instant updates! It should however be fairly obvious that I'd didn't qualify for the Party Poker Million IV, since I would have got my arse in gear much sooner to post had I suceeded!

I busted out of Friday night's qualifyer after only 90 minutes, which at least meant I got some sleep before loosing 7-0 in the following morning's football match! It was, however, a pretty disgusting beat that sent me to bed:

[I'll try and post this in a nicer format eventually, but the hand converter I use is down at the moment]

The blidns were 50-100 and I had an average stack of about 3,500. I was on the big blind with T2 off. One mid-position player limped in, the small blind completed and I checked. The flop came TT5 with two hearts. I bet out 100 into the 300 pot, the limper riased the minimum to 200 the small blind folded; I just called. At this point it looked as though he either had the case ten (obviously with a better kicker) or he might possibly have been on a flush draw. The turn was another 5, so I no longer had to worry about my kicker being no good or about the flush draw (and 55 was so unlikely it could essentially be discounted). I was either going to win or - at worst - split the pot if he had the last ten. So I checked the turn he bet 100 into a pot of 700 (hmm looks like a ten to me) I then raised to 700 and he called (definately a ten - split pot for sure). The river was a queen and with about 2,500 chips left I bet out 1000, he rasied all-in and I called.

He flips over... QT.............AAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG. The queen on the river now means that he's beating my tens over fives (which we both had on the turn) with his tens over queens. There's absolutely no way my chips weren't going in the middle on that hand. Even if I'd checked the river he would have gone all-in knowing that I had a ten and that I was always going to call with it.

That beat hurt, but nothing like as badly as the beat I took in the other qualifyer I played on Sunday night.

Thankfully that qualifier was earlier and kicked off at 9pm GMT. Things were going well and there were several of us from ITH playing and chatting in the mIRC room we use - I should point out here that there is absolutely no colusion going on. We use it as a place to discuss hands immediately after they've happened while the action is still fresh as well as to encourage and give banter, naturally.

Things were going well. I was playing really tight and patient and when the hands came up I was geting paid off nicely. I had KK three times in the space of about 90 mins and I doubled up on each occasion, keeping myself nicely above the average chip count. At the 6 hour mark we were down to about 200 players from the 2000 that started and 33 got a place on the cruise. The average stack was about 20K an I was sitting pretty with about 30K. Ammbo, an excellent NL ring and tournament player, who won a place on the crusie the previous year had been really grinding it out and a couple of recent double ups had put him to about 40K. Things were looking very possible at this stage.

Over the following hour the blinds began to get significant at 750-1,500. There was a lot of stealing and re-stealing going on. One significant hand that cost me a few chips was when I caught QQ in early position. I guy in late position came over the top all-in and he had me slightly covered. He'd hardly been playing at all - I had to lay them down. Shortly after that our table was broken and I got moved to Table 1, which meant that I'd be at this table till the bitter end since they break the higher numbered tables first. Unforuantely I got placed immediately to the right of a huge stack with about 120K and he wasn't sitting back and relaxing with them either! The hand that hurt me the most was when I picked up AJ and riased the 2,000 blind to 6,000 (taking me down to about 20,000) the bigstack flat called and everyone else folded. I can't remember the flop exactly but it was something like A96 (possibly with two suits). This is when the poker god conspired against me. The post was about 14K and I meant to bet 10K , but I must have misclicked because it only stuck 2K of my chips in the middle, which must have looked like a really weak bet. The big stack pounced on this and riased to 10K. Now the poker Gods struck again: In big tournaments like this there is a button that appears when you are running out of your allotted 20 seconds which you can click on to get an extra minute to think. I missed the button and my hand got folded. I think I would probably have had to fold anyway, thanks to my mediocre bet on the flop and not being able to risk my tournament on it. Had I bet 10K and he had then raised, it would have been an easier fold (although who knows if I could have made it with that many chips committed).

That hand took me down to about 15K and with the ever escalating blinds it was always going to be a struggle. My exit came when I got KK in late position (for the fifth time of the tournament - it was bound to get cracked eventually!). The guy immediately before me raised to 5,000 and I went all-in for about 12K more and he called with AdTh (aweful call, but I'm not going to winge - you should want people to call with the worst of it - so long as it doesn't end you tournament!!). I would have coped better if he had hit his Ace to beat me but it was prety gauling when the turn brought the fourth diamond giving him and ace high flush, especially when I had the King of diamonds just to rub it in!

So I went out 120th after 8 hours of intense poker. Another couple of hours of surviving and I would have made the cruise, but hey shit happens - there'll be more opportunities.

Ammbo went out an hour later in 60th. He'd definately had a tougher time that I had - getting KK fives times in a single tournament is gonna make life a litle easier for you!

A brief run down of everything else:

On the saturday in between the two qualifiers I wne tdown to London to play some live poker at the Gutshot and ended up £300 worse off - oops. My biggest problems was my bankroll disiplin I played in a £1/2 Pot limit game. Although my bankroll on the internet is bigenough to cope with these stakes, my student loan isn't and now I'm gonna have to take a chunk from my online roll to pay off my credit card - lesson learnt!

My research project is going very slowly. I'm suffering from a serous lack of motivation (for a change). I really just wish I could have graduated after three years and now be down in London actually doing something, although I dont really know what. I've been looking into the police force over the last couple of days although there aren't any vacancies in London for the next year or so.

Online poker is continuing to be quite slow. I seem to be treading water at the moment. I'm pretty much at the same stage I was at two weeks ago. I've been playing a fair bit of NL ring games on Party and William Hill. By playing on the latter I'm trying to build up a bit of a bankrol in easily accesible pounds becuase living is a bit tight at the moment and I may need to free up some cash.

As far as limit poker goes I'm managing to stick to $5/10. I did open a table of $15/30 yesterday, but despite its looking very juicy I manged to restrain myself! I'm having a little forray into the world of short handed play (6 person tables rather than 10). My strategy is taking a little while to adjust - it seems to be all about controlled aggression - but I think I may be getting there. After about 1,000 hands I'm on an earn rate of 1.8 big bets per 100 hands and it would be great if I could sustain that.

I'm also in the process of booking The Oxford Gargoyles (jazz a capella) Spring tour to the East Caost of The States, which should be cool. I'm working out the logisitics of a possible trip to Atlantic City, but not sure if I can afford to stay on at the moment.

Right must go, really need to pee!

A Long Night Ahead

[I've got to stop using these macs, I've just deleted another post I was writing, but luckily it was only one paragraph]

Tonight, I'm playing in one of the four qualifiers for the Party Poker Million IV. There are two limit and two no-limits ones going on this weekend. I've got very little limit experience so I'm jut playing in the NL ones. It starts at 9pm this evening, but that's 9pm on the East Coast of The States! That's 2am over here. If that wasn't bad enough, when I logged on this morning to see how last night's limit qualifer had gone, to my astonishment, it was still going on - this was at 10am!!

Tonight is going to be a nightmare! Of course if I bust out early, it wont be too bad or if I qualify for the cruise (obviously), but it's most likely that I'll doo reasonably well, but fall short of qualifying by an hour or two having got no sleep and no cruise!!

In addition to this, I have to play football tomorrow at 10:30am! I also need to go into the lab for a couple of hours and then I had plan to go down to the Gutshot Cardroom in London to play in a couple of small rebuy tournaments that are going on - it ain't all gonna happen!

Still, I'm gonna try and make as much of it happen as possible: I dont have much choice about fotball - unless the tourney overuns, in which case that's too bad - they'll have to play without me (so what if I'm the captain!). If I qualify then I dont really mind about anything else and I'll probably just go to bed for the day and then get up and party in the evening! It's also not too bad if I get knocked out early - then I can get some slepp and fit everything in the next day and I've still got another chance at qualifying on Sunday.

But if it gets to, like 7am, and then I get knocked out, boy am I going to be a grumpy Pink!

Anyway, I plan on posting a few updates and hand examples along the way - so stay tuned (not that anyone actually reads this drivel!!).

In the mean time. I've got to go culture some bacteria then I figure I might try and go to bed for a bit! I was going to go and see LTJ Bukem and MC Conrad tonight (a fantastic Drum and Bass partnership), but I'll never make it through the tourney if I do (and I think they're probably sold out now). It's a damm shame cos I'd love to see them. Maybe I'll drop by and see if they've still got tickets and play in tomorrow's limit tourney instead hmm... (please excuse this god-aweful train of thought writing)

I'll et you know what I decide to do...