Market Mosley

My flatmate and general all-round hunk has just started his own blog, Market Mosley. It's predominately aimed at the single woman aged 18-30, but I'll let you check it out regardless of your demographic. It's quite ammusing.

It features our cat, and I've heard rumours circulating around the house that even she may be starting her own blog. I'll keep you posted.

Whilst we're on the subject of things domestic pointed me in the direction of this blog. I'm sure we can all relate to a number of that person's complaints; I thought when initially skimming through it, that Phil had caught the blogging bug with avengence and had already started his second one!

Right, enough time wasted this morning, back to the books.

Honeymoon Booked

Even if my project write-up is yet to materialise I have achieved one thing this week. Our Honeymoon is offically booked. Barbados here we come. Can't freeking wait.

I should really take this opportunity to heartily thank all the fish on Party Poker. Without you guys, none of this would have been possible!


Other things achieved this week:

[longlist]
[/longlist]

Little Pink (my brother) is coming down to Oxford this weekend with his girl in tow. It's his 21st soon. He's having a Party at his local Rugby Club on the 5th, so this weekend will mostly consist of celebrating the fact that he isn't quite yet 21 and therefore getting incredibly drunk.

I need some ideas for a present for him. I thought about buying him Internet Texas Holdem, opening him an account at Party (using bonus code FISHNOW) and sticking in a few hundred $, but then I figure that he might value his degree to at least some extent.

On the poker front:

I've rediscovered my love for limit holdem, especially shorthanded and heads up. I'm about half way throught clearing my bonus on Full Tilt and, although I'm not totally happy with my play, I've made a bit on the side too.

I've been playing $3/6 and $5/10 ranging from heads-up to full ring depending on the number of people online. I've also been dipping my toes in at the NL tables (anything from $50 - $200 buy-ins) and although the NL sessions have been the most profitable it's much easier to clear the bonus playing limit.

You may have noticed that my "link of the week" is Ship It Poker. This new blog is being pimped left right and centre and rightly so. It's written by three clearly very talented players. A 7th place finish at the WSOP and NL cash players up to $25/50 (that a $5000 buy-in needed a bankroll somewhere in the region of $75,000, *gulp*) If you haven't alreasy done so, check it out for some top-notch advice.

Right I'm actually going to do some work now.

Folding Pocket Kings Pre-Flop

Last night I went along to weekly session with the University Poker Society. I was pretty happy with my play. Apart from doubling up when some doofus went all-in pre-flop after I had re-re-raised him with AQo against my AA, there was one other particularly interesting hand where I nearly layed down KK preflop...


The guy I was involved in the hand with is not someone I'd played with before, but from what I'd seen he was a good player and was playing a pretty tight, solid game. He was under the gun and had just stood up to go outside for a cigarette. His cards had already been deal, however, so he stole a quick look at them, sat back down and raised the 20p big blind to 80p. It was folded around to me in the small blind. I found KK and made it £3 in total. He thought for a short while then raised another £6. I was almost certain he had AA at this point. He was a good player and he knew I was a good player. I just dont see him making that move with anything less than KK. He could just about have made it with QQ, I guess. He had about £25 more behind him and the pot was giving me about 2-1. That didn't give me good enough implied odds to hit my set but I just couldn't lay it down. I flat called the £6 and we saw the flop of T96 (two hearts). The pot had about £18 in it. HE had £25 left and I had him well covered. I fugured the only way I could find out for sure if he had Aces was to lead into him. I led out £10. He went over the top imediately and I folded immediately. I guess I could have led out a little less - say £7 - but I think that was the only mitake I made on the hand. I dont see that I've got quite enough information to be able to fold preflop in that situation.

Incidentally, he did show his Aces.

I guess I've got to look at it as if I saved £15 rather than lost £20. Everyone one else there said they would have been all-in in a flash. Against almost anyone else there I would also have been all-in, but this guy had been playing very solidly and I knew he respected my play.

Right, I need to give Full Tilt my attention now. I getting beat up at the $3/6 tables.

Catch you later.

Hole Schmole

I really should have written a more upbeat post sooner following that rather siucidely toned post from early last week.

Thanks for all the support from those who left comments or emailed. It's much appriciated.

I was feeling a lot better the folowing day and had formulated a bonus chasing plan. Full Tilt are offering a 100% bonus deal up to a whopping $600! I scraped together the necessary and duly installed their software.


I like it a lot, although I'm sure $600 free has got something to do with it. The traffic is not huge but there's just about enough. They spread Razz tables, which has been a lot of fun and I've bumped into a number of people from ITH who're also working off their $600. I particularly like the ability to turn the table round so you can position yourself anywhere you like on the screen - very handy for multi-tabling.

They've got a number of pros backing them (Howard Lederer, John Juanda, Jenifer Harman, John Lindgren, Phil Gordon). I guess they're contracted to play on the sight for a number of hours per week cos I suddenly wake up and realise that John Juanda has just sat down on my right, on a $2/4 limit table!

I guess it would be pretty easy to have any employee sit down and pretend to be a pro. It's certainly been alleged that Phil Helmuth has been spotted in person at the exact same time that he has been logged in and playing on Ultimate Bet. Still I'm gonna buy into it and claim that John Juanda sat down next to me and stole my blinds like a maniac!

As far as clearing the bonus and rebiulding the role go. I'm doing ok. I started off by dropping almost $200. I'm not back even with about $120 of cleared bonus. I've been playing a mixture of limit ($2/4 and $3/6) and NL ($0.25/0.50 and $0.50/1). Although I feel more profitable at NL these days, limit clears the bonus faster and that is, after all, why I'm here.

I've now got less than 4 weeks to get my research project finished (ahmm and stated for that matter) it should be doable, but it pretty much precludes doing anything else during the day. I'm gonna have to leave the majority of this bonus till after easter. Does anyone know if I can cash out from Full Tilt in the middle of a bonus and still come back later to finish it off?

I played a fiar bit of live poker over the weekend and was pretty happy with mky performance. I took advantage of a very passive table at our home game on Friday night to win a £5 tounrey adn then some more later in a cash game. We played agina the following night with fewer people. I made a bad call in the tourney but covered myself in the cash game.

All-in all. Not a bad wekend. I covered my expenses, at least.

Back in My Hole

More often than not, if someone goes all-in then it means that you're beat.

I've just lost $600 in the space of about 4 hands. AA lost twice to flopped sets. Both times I ended up all-in and then my flopped set lost to a flush on the river. Again, I was all-in.

I take back everything I said in my last post about feeling happy with my game, about making good reads, intuative call-downs, well times bluff and sensible folds.

Bullshit.


After winning that massive pot last Thursday my bankroll on Party stood at around $3000. Now, only 5 days later, I'm back down at $800.

I dont know what's happened to me; I used to be a good poker player.

I'm not entirely sure where to start, now. There's only so many times that a bankroll can be rebuilt and aside from that I've got a mountain of work to do if I want to turn my degree around, re-establish some self-respect and actually achieve something with my life.

If I actually had enough in my account right now to cover the rest of what I need for our honeymoon then I'd cash it out in a shot. Then I'd be able to get on with some work and keep the adiction at bay by playing the odd home game.

But as things stand, I have nothing like enough to do that and I'm supposed to be going to Atlantic City in a month anyway. My flight's confirmed now so there's not much I can do about that and I can't imagine there's much worse than being in AC with no bankroll. I'm just going to have to stick to the low limits and hope I can cover my expenses.

Then once I've got some of this work out of the way I can think about sorting my poker out and paying for the rest of the honeymoon.

Appologies for this crappy post. I just needed to vent a little steam.

I've almost been playing for a year now. When I've sorted my head out a bit, I'll be posting about my reflections on the past year how I think poker's affected me and what I expect the future to hold. I think it's time to face some uncomfortable truths.

Under the Weather. Over the Moon

Despite waking up this morning with a horrid sore throat and having it gradually morph into the lastest cold that's doing the round, today has been the best poker day I've had for quite a while; since before Christams probably...


Since Christmas I'd been playing like a proper mong, which probably goes all the way to explaining why I've been slowing flushing my roll down the electronic toilet.

I had that 3rd place finish in the two-table Steps Tournaments on Party for a tasty $3600 way back in december. I then took my winnings to the $15/30 tables and proceeded to drop $1000 in just under a week. I decided to buck my ideas up and dropped back down to the $5/10 tables.

Next came Christmas and overall I dropped about £400 at the Gutshot (-£600 in the cash games and +£200 in a tourney).

I cut my losses and cashed out most of my roll from Party - after all it has to pay for the honeymoon and I can't let crapness and tilt get in the way of that or it might just be the shortest marriage ever. Well, maybe not as short as Britney Spears'.

That left me with about $2000 as on online bankroll. Not TOO bad and just about enough to carry on playing $5/10. No bankroll, however, is big enough when you've totally forgotten how to play and you figure that betting out middle pair into a field of 6 is a good move.

Truth is I wasn't really thinking about what a good or a bad move was and the concept of expected value might as well have been a nice little idea thought up to fill another few chapters of each and every 2+2 book.

I flitted around playing a mixture of $5/10 holdem, $10/20 Omaha Hi/Lo and $200 NL taking the odd step forward but mostly back.

My bankroll hit as low as $700 before I decided that it was high time I pulled my socks up and started playing the way I knew I could - patiently and intelligently.

I started 2-tabling at the $50 NL tables on Party. I gave it my entire attention and with the help of a re-deposit bonus I was soon back over $1000. I moved up to the $100 tables and my bankroll hit the $2000 mark yesterday. Since then I've been back on the $200 NL tables and things have contiuned to go very smoothly. I've cut out virtually all of the silly mistakes and I feel like I'm getting a pretty good read on people, making well-timed bluffs, intuitive call-downs and sensible folds.

The hard work paid off and I picked up my biggest pot so far:

[hand format courtesy of bisonbison]

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $4 BB (10 handed)

CO ($383.1)
Button ($392.1)
SB ($180)
BB ($202.35)
The Mighty Pinkster ($549.6)
UTG+1 ($257.3)
UTG+2 ($617.7)
MP1 ($108.4)
MP2 ($601)
MP3 ($905.25)

Preflop: The Mighty Pinkster is UTG with Ad, As.
The Mighty Pinkster raises to $14, 2 folds, MP1 calls $14, 1 fold, MP3 calls $14, CO calls $14, Button calls $14, 2 folds.

eek - no respect at this table - gonna need to hit my set to feel comfortable

Flop: ($76) Qc, 8d, Ac (5 players)
The Mighty Pinkster bets $50, MP1 folds, MP3 calls $50, CO folds, Button folds.

bingo!

Turn: ($176) 4h (2 players)
The Mighty Pinkster bets $150, MP3 raises to $841.25 (All-In), The Mighty Pinkster calls $335.60 (All-In).

does it get any better? "please dont suck out, please dont suck out"!

River: ($1147.20) Jc (2 players, 2 all-in)

no dirty flush buiness, please...

Final Pot: $1147.20

Results below:
The Mighty Pinkster has Ad As (three of a kind, aces).
MP3 has Ks Ah (one pair, aces).
Outcome: The Mighty Pinkster wins $1147.20.

$1147.20 - OMFG

Bring on the $10/20 NL tables!

I had to take a slight break after that, but I was soon back at the tables and signing up for a $30 MTT. 200 people registered and the top 30 places got paid. $45 to 30th all the way up to $1600 for 1st place.

Things went pretty well and I spent almost the whole tourney with average chips. Around the bubble the cards started to go a little dry and by the time we were down to the last two tables I was pretty short stacked. Somehow I managed to survive untill the final table with the odd theft of some blinds. I made the final table as a seriously small stack. The blinds were 400/800. Average chip count was 20,000 and I had a measly 4000. Somehow I managed to survive two more levels despit not being doubled up once. I squeezed into in 6th place before finally busting out thanks to some of the big stacks who decided to tangle with each other.

I took around $350 for my troubles. Certainly not to be sniffed at.

All-in-all it's been a pretty good day. The honeymoon fund is looking healthy and there's a reasonable chance that I'll be able to take a decent roll to Atlantic CIty with me. I'm looking forward to that almost as much as I am to spending two weeks in Barbados with MissPink (although she'll be MrsPink then!).

You may have noticed that I haven't written anything recently about how the write up of my research project is going. Hmm, I wonder why that is...

So I'll catch you later then.

Trans-Pond Pink

The Pinkmeister is heading States-ward.

The a capella gourp that I sing with, The Oxford Gargoyles, is touring the East Coast of The States. I've been organising it for the past couple of months and I finally confirmed our flights yesterday.

We're flying into Boston on 21s March and out of New York on the 31st. Well, most people are...

I happened to have changed my flight back to the 4th of April so I can hit up Atlatnic City. I'll be in NYC around the 29th/29th and then in AC till the 4th. So, if there are any of you out there who fancy a hooking up, just let me know.

[nothing more to read!]

Another Sleepless Night

It's gone 10am and I've just rocked in from an all'night home game down in London. I managed to get an hour's sleep at about 7am after I busted out and was waiting for the others, but that's another story.

The game's hosted by the guy who set up the Poker Society here at Oxford University. I'd played with him a bit last year while he was still around in Oxford doing his teacher training. He's a tough player. He's now down in London teaching part time and playing online poker for the rest. I'd heard about the game through other Poker Soc poeple who I p[lay with on Sunday nights. It's only a 10p/20p NL game but by as the night progresses it gets pretty wild and there's commonly in the region of £500 on the table by the end of the night.


This was the first time I'd played there and it lived up to all expectations. I'd been filled in about the quality of play - only a couple of fishes a majortiy of reasonably solid players and a couple of god ones - definately the possibility of a big score.

Although the initial buy-in was only £20 I went along with £100 just in case. For the most part of the night I just folded crappy cards and watched as 10x the big bet raises preflop were common place and usualy called in at least two places. I got involved in a few hands with the hammer, some speculative pairs and suited connectors, never really connecting and loosing a lot of small pots. Consequently my stack gradually diminished and I topped it up a few times as others' grew and grew till I was in for about £50.

Then came a big hand which, although I havent' really had time to think about much, I think was played fairly badly on my part. I saw AsJd on the button and called in a multi-way straddled pot. The flop came QT9 all spades giving me the nut-flush draw and an open ended straight draw. The guy hosting the game bet £1 (about 1/3rd) of the pot in early position. Don, a good player from Oxford, raised it to £6 and the guy (slightly loose, but not too fishy) immediately on my right raised it to £12. Despite the huge number of outs that I could have had, I had to figure that a lot of them were gone (made flush, other Jacks and especially the J of spades). But instead of getting away with only 40p invested, I called the £12 and went all-in for my last £20 more!

The host folded easily. Don gave his move a lot of thought. We'd both been involved in a big pot last year where I moved in with top pair on the turn after a three-suited flop and almost got him to lay down the K-high flush (??!!). This time he must have believe me becasue he folded what he later showed to be an 8-high flush. Unfortunately the guy on my right called with JsTc. He had a pair of tens and a lot of my outs were not good or already spoken for. I got no help and found my self reaching for the last £50 in my pocket.

Again, this gradually got frittered away, I borrowed another £20 and was sat with about £30.

Finally things started to improve I won a few medium sized pot then doubled up with a set of 9s against a flush draw. Eventually I found myself back up to even.

At about 6am I finally got my first big hand of the night. The best I had seen so far was an AK which failed to hit and my pair of 9s. I looked down, and - oh joy of joys - saw two gleaming black Aces.

The guy to my right had just won a £400 pot calling with TT against what surely had to be an over pair but turned out to be King high!!. He raised to £2 and I made it £7 in total. Every one else got out of the way and he called. The flop came K8x with two clubs. He lead out £15 and I made it £50. He immediately went all-in over the top. With £120 in the pot by this point and only having £40 left myself, I had to call.

He turns over QcJc for the flush draw.... I dont really need to fill you in on the rest, do I?

I was surprisingly calm at this point and wasn't too worried about tilting, but the combination of tiredness and the need to borrow money prevently me from continuing, instead I grabbed some much needed kip before driving Don adn Eric back to Oxford.

I figured a coffee might be in order before we left London. I'm not a big fan of instant coffee at the best of times, but when the combination of the sugar and the granules comes one third of the way up the mug it's makes it pretty muich undrinkable.

This probably explaines the fact that, now back in Oxford, instead of grabbing some well needed kip, I'm logged into Party playing the $100 NL tables and sweating The Film Geek, who is now only two spot away from a place on the Party Poker Million IV. [EDIT -he made it. Congrats dude]

Speaking of the PPM, I'm giving myself my final chance to qualify for the cruise on Sunday night in the last semi-fianl that they're running. I've spent quite enough hard earned bankroll trying to qualify, so this will be my last shot.

I'll keep you posted...

Luck v Skill

The poker gods were obviously smiling on me before I went to bed, a mere 3 hours ago...

I logged onto PokerStars just to see how many runners there were going to be for the WPBT event and noticed that it said there was only another 3h 20 minutes till the tounament started.

That can't be right, I thought. I'd given my self at least 5 hours sleep before I had to get up again. But wait. Shit. 9pm EST isnt 4am GMT. It's 2am. Doh.

It remains to be seen weather this run of good fortune will continue and if it will be capable of overcoming my inability to do basic arithmetic.

I'll keep you posted. We kick off in three minutes...


2am
We have lift off. An Otis type hand for hand going to be attempted here.

2:05am
HAMMER!
Spock326 raises to 50 on a BB of 20 preflop and I make it tripple that to go. Flop comes KJ8. He bets out 150 and I min-raise. He checks turn I bet 500 (half of what I have left). He folds, I quickly change my underwear and whip out my 72o. Nice!

2:09am
AlCantHang is out. 150th out of 151. Ouch not even good enough for a WPBT T-shirt, but then I think he has one anyway.

2:14am
I split a largish pot with -EV. I limped in MP with ATsand ended up against only the blinds. Flop of A3x. I bet the pot and -EV flat calls. Turn is J. He bets out the pot (150) and I make the mistake of only flat calling. The river is another 3. He bets another 150. I call and we split when he shows A4. Bleh.

2:30am
Just managed to get away from a hand relatively inexpensively. With a big blind of 50. I made it 270 (see what I did there!) to go from UTG with 99. SirFWALGMan doubled my riase. I let it go and he showed KK. Not the biggest laydown but I could have seen myself seeing a flop there on other occasions.

2:35am
Bad Blood and Iggy are both out.

2:57am
Comedy Two outers being hit on the river. AcKc against KQ. Flop hits neither of them but has two clubs. The queens of spades come on the river. SirFWALGMan's slick gets cracked.
The very next hand SirFWAL in the BB calls an all in from the short-ish stacked SB. SB has Q2 FWAL has 66. flop has a 2 in it. The turn is a queen, but the river is a 6.

Man... PokerStars is rigged!

3:02am
Made it to the break with 1610 chips. A massive 110 more than I started with! Blinds now 75/150.

3:16
WANK
I'm out. 92nd out of 151. Made it 450 to go from MP w TT. One caller behing me. Flop was QJx (two clubs). I bet out 500 (under half of pot). He min raises (he's left with about 300 more and has me slightly covered). I would be left with 660 if I were to fold. So I push. He had AQ. Arse. Since he min raised rather than going all-in I probably should have known I was beat. But it would have been hard to play off 660. Maybe I should have checked the flop. Yuk.

I guess luck and skill both gave way in the end.

Sleep or the WPBT?

Damnations. The first World Poker Blog Tour (WPBT) event of the year is on PokerStars tonight at 9pm. That's 9pm EST and thanks to the rather large pond in our backyard that makes it 4am GMT.

I have a dilemma... sleep or the World Poker Blogger Tour?

It's not really much of a decsion, but I have a feeling that Ms Pink might grumble a little when the alarm goes off at 3:50am.

I really hope I wake up for it because I have no doubt it'll be a hell of a lot of fun. It'll almost certainly cost me my all of my $22 buy-in, but it'll be well worth it to play aginst some really great players with a helping of quality banter on the side.

It's open to all bloggers AND blog readers so if you fancy an early morning tourney then get yourself logged on to PokerStars and sign up. Check out, also, the official website of the WPBT.

Various people are putting up bounties and other such things. Pauly has goodies to offer involving the Hilton Sisters. Maudie has WPBT T-shirts up for grabs for first out, the bubble and anyone cracking AA with J4.

I hope to see your there. Right now I have to dash for a lecture.