Fish and Chips

A poker themed blog, charting the demise of my degree and the rise of my poker career.


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Monday, April 30, 2007

Oooops, I did it again!

Today I handed in my notice of resignation at work. I'm going to play for a living (again). I have a month's notice period to work and then it'll be back to grinding it out full time.

I'll post more in due course about why I've taken the plunge and what my plans are.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Manchester Recap

Gosh! So much to write about. Where to start? Should I commence with last weekend shenanigans, hands from the tournament, carry on with the 'poker and my life' series, or write about how I'm thinking of quitting my job.

What? Did someone say quitting and job? Urm... well, maybe. Kind of temporarily, sort of...urm. Watch this space

Moving on...

So last weekend and the GUKPT event in Manchester.

As I posted, I busted towards the end of day 1a with a pretty poor play. I guess I was a bit tired and conscious of the need to double up before day 2. It was level 7 and blinds were 150/300/25. I had about 15k in chips. So maybe I was less desperate than I thought. Anyhow. An early position player limps and I make it 1200 in late position with 99. The small blind flat calls and the limper calls. On a flop of T22 with two spades the small blind bets 2500. The limper passes. I have a brain fart and push all-in. The small blind insta-calls with kings. His flat call should really have sent alarm bells off, but clearly it didn't. A small defence was that he had been on my first table of the day and had been flat calling a lot of preflop raises and then playing aggressively after the flop, but equally he was always doing that when he has position.

So how about some other hands:

The first two levels were pretty good to me, aside from the very first hand which could have landed me in a lot of trouble:

Julian Gardner in middle position made it 150 to go (blinds were 25/50). I call in the big blind with AJ (I know, a monster holding out of position against a good player!). Flop of AQQ and I check-call his bet of 250. A blank on the turn and he fires out 400 which I raise to 1400. He thinks briefly and flat calls. I wish to god that I'd just folded preflop until the river brings another Ace. Whoohoo! I bet 2000. He raises to 4000 and we split the pot when he table A9. There's nothing like taking things easy in the opening levels!

The next big hand I was involved in saw a player limp in immediately on my right and I raised to 450 (blinds 50/100) with pockets kings. The big blind and the limper called. They both checked a 933 flop and I bet 900 which only the limper called. We both checked an Ace on the turn. He checked to me again on the river when a second Ace fell. At this point I was certain I was ahead and thought for a while before betting 1500. He thought for ages during which time I tried staring hard at him in an attempt to convince him that I was bluffing. Eventually after two or three minutes of thinking he raise another 2000. That really confused me. I was so certain that when I made the bet I was in front and yet he just made what looked like a value raise. Eventually I called and he had to show his 66. Ship it.

A few hands later I managed to see a cheap multiway flop from the small blind with 33. The flop came a beautiful 443 and I decided to lead out in the hope of catching someone with a four and building a monster pot. Only the big blind called my bet of 350 and I fired out 1100 on the turn. He called. Thoughts of monster under the bed caught up with me briefly, but I got the better of them and bet 2500 on the river. He kindly called with 22 stating that he put me on over cards - well duh, clearly!

This took me up close to 20,000 and one of the early chip leaders. Unfortunately I decided to splash around a bit and ended up spewing a few chips chasing draws and getting my continuation bets raised.

I ended up back where I started with 10,000 going into the dinner break. I'd just been moved to a new table and it looked as pretty tough. After dinner the deck hit me in the face, but I either didn't get paid very much or had to lay down good hands in the face of too much pressure. I put down AK after I raised was flat called and then someone else reraised. I put down JJ after raising to 900 and the big blind going all-in for 9000. In hindsight a call might have been in order there as he did it a couple of times more, that kind of over bet looks a lot like AK and at a tough table I should probably he happy taking a 50-50 shot. I then got AK and QQ and hit a set of tens but made only a couple of thousand on each hand to find myself at about 16,000. I then got moved to a better tables with lots of big stacks who were throwing chips about. I could surely double up here if I hit anything good. Unfortunately I was there for about 10 hands before moving again and then came the 99 v KK hand.

I was pretty disappointed to bust especially since I had been in the top five in chips after the first couple of levels.

I considered heading back to the hotel room as I was worried about tilting in the cash games, but in the end I felt that I'd managed to get my shit together enough. It was certainly worthwhile both financially and for entertainment value.

The game was pot limit with 10/10 blinds. A bit big for my bankroll but if the game was good enough I would just sit tight and wait to be paid off. I sat down with about £1000 just in time to see Mad Marty Wilson drop about £4k. No sooner did he get up Dave Dubai took his seat armed with a full bottle of red wine. It only took him a few orbits to run his £1k up to about six and he was totally dominating and tilting the table. It was quite a sight to behold. On a flop of 996 with two diamonds he managed to get all-in and called for about £3k by a chap with KQ and no diamonds. Dubai had 57 of diamonds and hit his flush on the river.

By this stage, having tried to limp into a few pots and having been ground down to about £800 in the process I realised that this was not going to be the way to play in this game where most pots were straddled at least twice and two raises before the flop were common. I was going to have to pick a hand and go with it. Dubai's crazy drunk Scouse mate had sat down and was playing just as crazily. They announced the last three hands for the night so Duabi paid for everyone who was to tight to put in their own straddles. So it was straddled to £80, the crazy Scouse raised, Dubai reraised and I found ATo in the £40 straddle. I managed to grown some balls and stuck in my £800. Everyone got out of the way and they both called. In fact they both went over the top for another couple of grand each. As it turned out my AT was in excellent shape against 9T and K2. I was very happy to see a flop of 48T, less happy to see a jack on the turn and ecstatic to see a blank on the river.

Quite a night!

Over the three days I played I actually ended up down in the cash games and I was obviously disappointed with not getting further in the tournament, but overall I had a great time, met some very nice people and had a whole heap of fun.

A big thanks to DTD Poker for sponsoring me and Congrats to Dave Colclough and Richard Ashby, fellow DTDers who won it and final tabled respectively and to Simon Nowab who final tabled in the £300 event on Sunday.

After a the weekend losses and expenses and after a nasty few days in the world of online cash games, I have a bit of bankroll rebuilding to do, but hopefully it wont be to long before I can take another shot at one of these GUKPT events.

Friday, April 20, 2007

Out

I busted in level 7. Made a bad move. 99 < KK.

I played in the cash games ofter. I have never seen anything so crazy. Mad Marty Wilson quickly dropped a few thousand before his seat was taken by Dave Dubai who was putting everybody's straddles in for them up to £80 blind preflop. Sick sick game.

I'll write more later. I need a shower and some breakfast.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

How Not to Prepare for a Tournament

Don't do you bollocks in the cash game the night before and stay up till 6am trying to get unstuck!

....a slight exaggeration, but I could do with being a little less tired right now.

The Manchester GUKPT kicks off in a few hours and I'm sat in my hotel room wondering what state I'm going to be in in 16 hours time. Ha, maybe I'll be tucked up in bed. Lets hope I'm struggling to fit all my chips into a sealed bag because there are SOOOOOOO many of them!

(I'm just thinking about that last sentence - being the anal bastard that I am - and I assume that it would be quite hard to fit even a small number of chips into a sealed bag. Possibly what I meant was a sealable bag ;-)

Oh dear, is it obvious that I've only had 4 hours sleep?

If your interested in my progress (or the progress of someone more notable) there should be updates available here and here.

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Manchester on the Horizon

Big up Dusk Till Dawn who have kindly agreed to sponsor me in the GUKPT Manchester event next week, despite my having not played on the tournament circuit. It probably helps that they make a healthy £400 a week in rake from me!

I'm playing day 1a (Thursday) so I'm heading up on Wednesday afternoon to give myself a chance to get settled. There's a £200 freezout on that evening which I may or may not play depending on how I feel and how the cash games are looking. I've got a friend coming up on Thursday to watch and Mrs. Pink is joining the party after work on Friday. Her sister lives in Manchester so she'll have stuff to keep her occupied when I'm playing on Saturday and then she can come and watch me at the final table on Sunday!

I tell you what. £100k would be a nice little score!

Sunday, April 08, 2007

Gutshot £300

I went to the Gutshot tonight to play in the monthly £300 freezeout in preparation for Manchester in a couple of weeks. With 8,000 in chips and a 25 minute clock, it had a reasonable structure and I felt good about my game. Not good enough, however, to fold KK against AA in the second level. That left me with 1,300. I won one race (KT v 55) to double up but couldn't win a second (AK v 77) and busted within the first hour: so much for getting a decent ammount of practice in!

Friday, April 06, 2007

Tournaments v Cash Games

I thought I'd have a quick break from the "Am I Better Because of Poker" series to write a little about recent and future poker exploits.

2007 has been going extreemly well. January and February were big winning months. In March I didn't play so much but the hourly rate was just as good.

I'm playing almost exclusively cash games on Dusk Till Dawn. I've been playing the occasional Sunday tournament and WSOP qualifier on PokerStars and the occasional GUKPT qualifier on BlueSquare, but so far they've all been money down the drain.

The balance between tournament and cash game play is something I've been needing to address.

I don't keep records of my tournament play, but if I had to estimate then I'd put myself at slightly better than break even, but it's hard to tell - recently I've been running and playing badly in tournaments. I think part of my problem recently has been lack of concentration in them. When I know that I could be making close to $100/hour playing cash games, I tend to treat my $200 tournament buyin somewhat reclessly. But if I could take it seriously then maybe I'd be in with a shot (all be it a long one) at some of the five and six figure final table payouts that these $200-500 events have.

I must have done about $3500 in WSOP and GUKTP satalites this year with nothing to show. That's not necessarily surprising as there's a lot of varience in tournaments, but one mistake on the bubble of a GUKPT sat cost me an almost certain seat and I made one horrible play early on in a $650 WSOP qualifier to get knocked out.

I'm waffling here somewhat. I'd already come to a conclusion before writing this so maybe I should give you that and then explain it. Essentially, what I've decided to do it not to play any online tournaments for the time being. Even if I concentrate and play well my hourly rate wouldn't be as good as from cash games.

As far live tournaments are concerned I'm going to buy directly into those that I want to play. I can't imagine, come June, taking $10,000 out of the kitty to buy directly into the WSOP. But then if I'm not prepared to buyin directly then I shouldn't really be prepared to spend time and money playing satalites either.

My plan for this year is to play a few medium buyin live tournaments and see how they go. I figure taking the occasional shot at a tournament with a buyin of 5-10% of my bankroll is an acceptable thing to do. Maybe next year I'll be at the stage where I can think about playing in the EPT or WSOP.

I'm going to take a shot at the upcoming leg of the GUKPT in Manchester. It's a £1050 buyin, which is about 10% of my current roll. Maybe, one might say, if I'm concerned about my online tournament abilities then investing 10% of my bankroll in a single live tournament is a little unwise. I'd like to think that I'm at least even money in this event and actually I think I play tournaments better live than online - they get 100% of my attention.

So, anyway, I'm done waffling for now. I'll be back soon with more on what I think the impacts of poker are on my life. In the meantime I'll be grinding away at the online cash tables and trying to play a couple of live tournaments to get in the mood for Manchester.

Spring Clean

I've given this blog a bit of a dust. I've removed some redundant links, added some new ones and stuck in the flags. If I've made any mistakes with the flags or if you live in the UK and would rather have a country specific flag then just let me know. Here are some of the blogs I've recently discovered:

  • 88% Concentration
  • - This guy gives rollercoaster a new meaning.
  • Animal Poker
  • - UK player playing mostly tournaments
  • A Pair and a Draw
  • - Plays similar stakes to me but live in Las Vegas
  • Azimut Poker
  • - UK player with some interesting tales about the tournament circuit
  • F-Badger
  • - Another UK player breaking onto the tournament scene.
  • JPK Farrer
  • - Another UK Pro. He final tabled in Goa last month.
  • Kieran Walsh
  • - Irish Pro with some interesting posts.
  • Shaniac
  • Reasonably well known US player.
  • Suffolk Punch Poker
  • - One of the PokerStars Blog team.
  • Yoyo Poker
  • - Julian Thew - well know UK player.