Fish and Chips

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


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Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Small Slide Before the Big Score...

I'm on a slight down slope these last couple of weeks. A touch of bad play crept into my Hold’em cash game play, although I've ironed this out now, but the biggest culprit is the PL Omaha I'm playing.

I've tackled PLO a few times and after each attempt I'm come to the conclusion I'm break even at best. This time I'm going to try really hard to learn it, because I KNOW there is a lot of money to be made in this game at the moment. I'm watching the Card Runners PLO videos and I'm working my way through Jeff Hwang's Omaha book, which is excellent by the way.

At this stage I can't decide it it's my poor play or the insane PLO variance which is to be blamed for the loosing streak - probably a bit of both.

I've been playing a mixture of $100 and $200 tables and although I've got over 60 buyins for the $200, I'm not convinced that's a big enough roll for PLO, especially as my ability is questionable, so I'm going to try my hardest to stick to the $100 levels until I can improve and achieve a decent win rate - I guess I'd be happy with 5 PTBB/hr.

As for the big score - well - there's still some work to do on that front...

I've decided to play in the DTD anniversary cup. It was a no-brain decision really, since I'm effectively freerolling into it. DTD have changed their reward system and as a result I've got over £1300 worth of points to use by the end of April, so this comp is ideal. It's a £1060 tourney with a £100K guaranteed prize pool. It's 20k in starting chips with a two hour clock - the same structure as the WSOP main event. So there'll be lots of play, but on the other hand it'll be a massively tough field. Still, it's a freeroll for me and first place should be near the £40k mark.

The only thing which had been stopping me from playing was that I didn't think I'd be able to get the time off work, but that's all sorted now so it's time to take it down.

DTD have got some added value satellites online and at the club over the coming week so check it out if you're interested.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

I Run Well

I must be on one hell of a heater at the moment, becasue I'm still winning despite some fairly sub-standard play.

I've felt as thought a bad run was due. I've been playing slightly over my bankroll; I've noticed a few titly moments; and I know that my luck's been running above expectation.

So yesterday after a bad morning session where I donked off about £700, I decided I needed a break from the cash games. Or at least a break from $500 NL, which is a bit too big for my roll.

I dedcided to reload my PokerStars account. I put $600 in and took a peek at the tournaments that were scheduled. I love their rebuy tourneys. There's so much value in them and people rebuy so many times that when the freezout starts the average stack compared to the blinds is really high and there's still penty of play before it becomes a preflop shove-fest.

I registered for a variety of their imminent tourneys: I picked an$8 rebuy sub-sub-satalite for the Prague leg of the EPT; I picked an $8 NL Hold'em tourney; and finally I picked a $10 rebuy PL Omaha one.

The EPT satlite was for a $115 seat in the next round of salites and I was doing nicely when a couple of pretty standard tournament cooler-type hands saw me bust out not far away from the bubble.

While the other two tournaments were running I couldn't help but fire up a couple of cash game tables into the mix. I managed to limit myself to two 100 Euro tables on Crypto where I had position on a deep-stacked mega-fish. I also - for shits and giggles, and becasue the Omaha tournament had wet my whisle - loaded up a $100 PL Omaha table on Stars.

I ran like a god on the Omaha table and took my $100 stack up to a little under $600. Meanwhile I more than doubled up on both my Euro tables. All of a sudden I was even for the day.

While things were bubbling along nicely, a friend called to arrange to come over for a little heads-up action (we're thankfully still talking abour poker here ;-). I still had the tournaments going so the laptop sat nearby while we got on with a little 5p-10p heads-up game. Before we knew it there was over £200 on the table in our small-"let's just start with £20 each"-game.

I ran like a demon heads-up and was up about £80 at highest point. Meanwhile I became shortstacked and busted from the $8 NL tourney, but had doubled up with KKxx v AAxx in the Omaha tourney (yes I'm a luck-box, but if my oppenent insists on slowplaying his aces and allowing me to flop a flushdraw and a gutshot then that's his problem ;-)

The short conclusion to this rather drawn out disection of yesterday evening, is that I took down the Omaha tournament for a shade over $1200. That's the second time I've won that very same tournament. In fact it's back to back wins as I haven't played it since this time.

$1200 is hardly going to allow Mrs. Pink to retire, but every little helps and it felt great to win it. With about 15 players left, I really felt that if I didn't get unlucky I had a great shot at 1st place. I was shocked at how bad the standard was. I don't think there's a single Holdem tournament left where you could feel so totally dominant over all your opponents. It really shows how much better everyone has got at holdem over the last few years (even the fish) and how terrible the majority of Omaha players are.

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Winter - crap weather; lots of fish

October was the best month of the year so far. I managed to notch up about £2600 after rakeback. I had a couple of big loosing days but for the most part I both played and ran well.

I think my game has taken a couple of turns for the better. I've opened up a fair bit here and there and I'm happier with my reads. I haven't plugged any leaks or even taken enough steps to find out exactly what they might be. I should really sort them out as I'm sure they're costing me more than I'm gaining from making improvements elsewhere.

It's time to knuckle down for what I'm hoping will be a really profitable few months. The winter is traditionally more fishy as everyone spends less time outside and more in front of the computer.

The bankroll is at about £7000. By the end of February I'm aiming to have it past £15000. I'll have to play and run well, but I think it's doable.