blonde poker forum

Been rambling a lot, but I'm going to get it all out in this first monster post.  So I feel sorry for you, but thank you if you can wade through it all.....




I'm John Black, a technician who travels worldwide to install and repair electronics for a living.  I'm also a guy who's played a wide array of sports (football, basketball, tennis and plenty more) computer games, board games and a whole host of other things in my so far short lived time.  I live in Milton Keynes and have my own flat, I've run pretty good in life tbh.

I have an impulsive and somewhat addictive personality.. however I'm pretty certain I couldn't ever 'go off the rails'.  Coming close to any edges scares the bajeezas outa me.  I'm supposedly rocking an IQ just north of 130 but that was tested a long time ago and since I landed my job I've not really done a hellova lot with it tbh (uber lazy).  I wanted to do this a while ago, and after spending a long time on it one day I pressed the 'post' button and received a sexy windows 'youve just wasted your time' error message.  I'm now forcing myself into it because I honestly feel its going to be the best overall way to improve, record, account, shame, learn, share and focus my attentions.

I first played poker about 5-6 years ago at a home game of my tennis buddies, we played a little tournament and it ended up with us basically 'flipping' for the first place in the last hand.  I obviously won the £15 for 1st and was hooked immediately.  We played a bit more and I had a little more success than my equal share, more because they were worse instead of me being better.  Then I found my way to a Milton Keynes pub league where I had similar success, easily ending the league in the top % required to qualify for a 'final' in Gala Casino Northampton.




This was my first experience of any proper casino, poker room, event and I came 33/120 or something.. think I lost a race.  But by this time I was watching everything I could get my hands on, had discovered 2+2, and worked out bigger prize pools and tournaments was definitely for me.  This is one of the only times I have 'gambled':-

I stood behind the craps table and observed, I'd only ever heard of it and seen it in movies but they don't explain the game in them so I had to 'learn' to understand where the house edge is..  After a few mins of watching and working it out I'd roughly calculated that if you bet your money on the bet line when the button was off you had around 86% to draw/ win... that sounded good enough for me.  So I took my £100 I still had in chips from earlier and put the max down on the bet line as soon as the button came off (£25).  We draw with a 4, 5 or something then I took back my £25 and changed my bet to £2 - in retrospect I realise I must've had a rookie dealer as changing the bet is where my 'edge' came from.  So I waited and eventually I lost it and then put the £25 in when the button came off.. My first turn to roll and BOOM we smash a 7 first go >> then an 11 for a second win and now we're up £48..  Good game, no?

After an hour or so of continuing this pattern and letting some other people roll, I'm obviously a rookie gambler and not very quiet about it.. We're up about £275 and after watching me for a few mins a pit boss comes over and asks to talk to me.  He very rudely and coldly explains that I cannot change the bet, however being the smart ass I am I have to explain -

 "that I am afraid the rules are very clear sir, you have them written on the side of the table... and no where does it mention the bet being removed or changed is in violation."

He replies with

"I am allowed to refuse service to anyone in the casino sir and if you do not leave the table now I will be closing it, your choice.."

So I give in and the rookie dealer is now hauled off for allowing me to be there for so long.  Other than this I've played Blackjack once a long time ago in Australia, played 5 boxes, obv won $200 then left and I have never gambled with more than £20 since.. and probably not more than 4/5 times ever.  I see no point in it and don't understand it... even with BlackJack being 'playable'.  I have no 'lucky numbers' or supersticious tendancies.. I resent the slots (even with a local 'slotmatch' £30 for £20 tickets).





So this is me, I then became a Gala regular and met the 'local pros' Sunny Mistri, Aaron Fisher, James Tomlin, Daniel Patton, Mark Dodge, The Mad Dog and a whole bunch of other characters.  I started with the £10 rookie tournaments, sit n go's, and baby cash games (25/50p) with mixed successes..  I remember beating Aaron hu in a Wednesday £15 bounty for my first £450 win.  Felt AMAZING! <<< he doesn't even remember it.  I always struggled with cash because the money was 'a lot' but I started getting better, meeting interesting characters on the way and most of the time being an annoying knowitall twat to boot.  More poker tv shows and at some point I discovered Sky Poker and their channel, now I had a more up to date and more relevant source of information - combined with the legend that is TK and his cronies.

This Gala and then Aspers Northampton (when it opened) trend continued, with me winning as well as losing enough to keep the fish I was coming back for more!  I tried to keep a spreadsheet of all poker related monies, and kept it up for a long time.. only stopping when my desktop graphics card broke (still is) and then for over a year recorded them on my phone to input later (likely story).  This showed that over an 8month period I was up about £350-450 in tournaments but I was down that and a little more in cash games.  My job kept taking me away and in plenty of places I found myself finding casinos or home games - Egypt, Brussels, Beijing, Cameroon.. with again more tournament success than cash games.. I even came back from 5:1 down in Cameroon to win a tournament in the American Marines house at the American Embassy (they weren't impressed but we got pizza and so drunk after, then all was forgiven).  My ambitions grew with my buyins and my hunger for knowledge led to me 'buying' my little brother (8yrs younger) Super System 1 + 2 one year for xmas ( [ ] he has ever had them in his posession since that day..)  My mum knew they were for me but said nothing, the angel she is and he said something once but never again.  Then I got hold of Harrington on Holdem for Cash Games 1 and 2.  I then chewed through all of these, twice.  Now I was now really improving.  Regularly making FT's at Aspers (Gala lost the poker room wars in N'hampton) and cashing and winning consistently more than most.  But cash was my deamon.





This continued for a long time, maybe as much as 18 months - 2 years and despite the 'regs' now not being much better than me (imo) I still was quite a bit of a dick and wasn't great friends with many of em, just social like.  Over this time I played in 100 Euro rebuys in Brussels, coming 5th and 6th, bubbling both times (in for 100 both times), a bunch of random games, and a bent £3/6 game in Uganda - lost a bunch 1st day, then went back and in the end I left over $1k up in the sickest way (55 vs K8o AIPF for $2k+).

Then came the first in a few important milestones for me, I bumped into an old footie mate and recent tennis advisary at dtd - Kourosh Radfar.. who played poker apparently... I remember mentioning that I was 'pretty good' and he said nothing at the time but now he tells me he almost pissed himself (as a BRS sponsored playa, I must've seemed a complete joke).

This coupled with a few other 'poker friends' - Tom Kugelstadt, Peter Howard, Dan Patton, and a couple of others.. and I was taking a few more steps along.  Becoming aware of position was a MASSIVE jump for me, and has as it should irreperably altered my game.  Now I wasn't just a little better than the 'locals'.. I was crushing them.  So I stopped playing the <£50's as it was a 'waste of my time' effectively.  Playing all night for a 1st of £250 now tilted me, [X] ego much. But in the last 12 months I've broken my DTD curse - had never even cashed untill I crushed the Super 50 in October, two weeks on the trot (CL both times, 1st and 6th) and chopped the 150 inbetween.  Won 2x £100 fo's in 7 days, had some £100 into £1k nights at The Vic but Cash was still my deamon.

I have in total I think Won easily over £20k in the last few years.. (its a single pot to some of you I know) but I have definitely not been +ve until this year.  Cash is a hard, sexy, and demanding mistress despite being deceptively simple - Wait for BIG CARDS then put LOTS of money into the pot and wait for the FISH to call with WORSE.

It is just that simple.  Apparently.


Well now I'm pushing and pushing further along, further than I probably ever could have and the thanks is probably in no small part to one person - that Kosh introduced me to.


Christopher Poulton - live fish but confirmed online genius and generally good at the game, that is when he doesn't tilt and open shove every hand online for 30 mins (been there and seen it [X] - apparently Q5s doesn't beat 10's aipf very often)


So CP seemed a little prickly at first but there was a nice guy in there somewhere, definitely.  He gave me a bunch of poker vids - Galfond hu stuff, the thin red line, Samo vs Giggy, Dr Giggy, DogisHead, and a bunch more... I've managed to get through these and keep rewatching.. This coupled with a more realistic and theoretical approach on poker, and Jared Tendler's 'The mental game of poker' have now made me an uncomparably stronger player than ever before.  As some of you may or may not have read my first few posts in PHA if you do, you will see I regularly level myself with overthinking many situations.  But I'm thinking and learning and this is definitely in the right direction.


So now, as reccommended by Chris - I am doing the following to improve and get to where I want to be:

- playing 6max cash on stars at micros: started with 5nl and have moved up to 25nl over the last 6 months.. now back at 10nl and winning at a solid rate over a small sample, but feel this is my 'crushing level' and that I can beat 25nl but I need to reign in my creativity (read spew).

- grinding <£100 comps to build a tournament roll, while satelliting into every big dtd comp I can (played deepstack twice, cashed first when frankie bust my 10's with his 7's - joy, second one when frankie won every pot vs me with less than premium hands AKs vs J2s/ AQ vs A10).

- learning and finding any new information I can that helps me with my strategy, theory and discipline

- signing up to dueces cracked very soon to give me some more modern and recent thinking/ videos

- am going to grind the 6max cash online and experiment with 50hu nl, taking shots at live cash while I build a roll using <£100 tournys.



Aims

[ ] I want to end the year at 50nl 6max minimum, would like to be beating 100nl but that is a big jump and beating 50nl hu 'regs'

[ ] To have been on my first Vegas trip (I have airmiles to spend).

[ ] To be working with my friends in our discussion group to help us all focus on real goals and work togther to get there.

[ ] Have made my first £10k+ score & manditory hendon flag.

[ ] Have submitted and had accepted a 50k+ sample as a result of no1 above and to be negotiating a 'cash sponsorship' deal.




I guess that's it for now.  To anyone that has somehow survived it all, thank you.

Right, out for a drink (just earned it) with some mates.. one just got dumped by his fiance and the other is having a baby with a girl that won't talk to him... bad times.



(haven't spell checked it, a quick proof read - can't be arsed with anything else... havent changed too much yet then)

Good luck with the Diary John. Don't try & copy the Diary style of Greeky, or Red, they have no idea. Alex keeps a cracking diary, sings Carol songs, & plays croquet & pianoforte. He's your role model.

GL with this John we have met before at Luton when I donated my stack to you on one of your b2b wins, I love reading your post's so far and look forward to the diary!!

great first post. will read with interest...

We played very briefly after the 550 and spoke a little at a 1/2 table, Your posts are very eloquent and i definitely would have thought you played higher stakes. I can't see a reason to play micro cash on stars whent he games are renowned for being nitty and a decent sized portion of your winrate at micro stakes is in rakeback, especially as they take so many bb/100. Looking forward to reading this and gl

this should be great!

KEEP

IT

SIMPLE

I feel I'm going to be addicted to the inevitable car crash sort of journey this will be. That's meant in the nicest possible way

Don't really understand how you can be playing in a deep 1/2 game playing 1.3k pots one day, then saying you're grinding 10nl the next?! What's your roll if you don't mind me asking?

2 line response is fine!

Ty Ty Ty Ty Ty all!

I'm going to try and keep it 'me'... I'm not sure how interesting that will be, as I've not got a piano in my living room, high stakes balla mates, a croquet gang, the ups and downs of serious MTT life, but I do have a wide variety of people, places and experiences to share... and I'm not really afraid to say whats going through it.



Lil'Dave.. I would like to vote that you list your 'top ten' simple rules of poker!


rfg - Jed right? Yeah I remember.. pretty sure you bluffed me in a med - big pot.. might be a contributor to the reason that I decided to play QTo vs Stato_1.  Remember the hand?

You CR Tc 8c 4s hu then bomb Qs for like 40-45% of your stack.  I was fairly sure  Ac Th was good.. but early on with no dynamic.. figured it wouldn't be a terrible fold..

Eso Kral - who? I now know vinnie is celtic.. but who are youuu?


I've read prose from a poshboy from the start and for me the best part about it is that its a real journey.  You can feel it from the start, the ups and downs, the +120, the -60 and then as he keeps grinding and slowly going for it...  Obv he binks the monte for monster life run good and now they've changed to +3k or -1.4k... :D  The #team eureka journeys and nights out.. loving it.


Also read TBITB and enjoy that too.. and a bit of the other diaries... I guess one of the biggest challenges will actually be the writing.  I'm not a big writer, in fact I've always written how I would speak, which is supposedly incorrect english (baffles me)... or was when I was at school.  The weird thing is that now I'm in the big business of work, I've been on courses that teach me to write how I speak - its more personable... blah blah..



So tonight was a chilled drink with a few mates discussing babies (recently become a Godfather), a mate of a mate has just become a dad on fri.. another will be soon.. this sh*t is getting real! and obviously the standard men at a bar topics of work, girls, stag do's, nights out past and future and other potentially interesting subjects.  Tbh a massive part of tonight was spent discussing the film 'the other guys'



"   Gator's bitches best be wearin' jimmy's! "

The following quote kept us going for about 45mins..
Terry Hoitz       If I were a lion and you were a tuna, I would swim out into the middle of the ocean and freakin' EAT YOU! And then I'd bang your tuna girlfriend.

Allen Gamble       Okay, First off: A lion? Swimming in the ocean? Lions don't like water! If you placed it near a river, or some sort of fresh water source, that'd make sense. But you find yourself in the ocean? 20 foot waves — I'm assuming it's off the coast of South Africa — coming up against a full grown 800-pound tuna with his 20 or 30 friends? You'll lose that battle. You'll lose that battle 9 time out of 10. And guess what? You've wondered into our school of tuna, and we now have a taste for lion. We've talked to ourselves! We've communicated! And I said "You know what? Lion tastes good! Let's go get some more lion!". We've developed a system to establish a beachhead and aggressively hunt you and your family. And we will corner your pride, your children, your offspring...

Terry Hoitz       And how you gonna do that?

Allen Gamble       We will construct a series of breathing apparatus, with kelp. We'll be able to trap certain amounts of oxygen...it's not going to be days at a time. But an hour? Hour forty-five? No problem! That'll give us enough time to figure out where you live, go back to the sea, get more oxygen, and then stalk you. You just lost at your own game. You're out-gunned and out-manned. Did that go the way you thought it was gonna go? Nope.


"I'm a peacock, you've gotta let me FLY!"

A very underestimated film imo




Off to bed now, going to finish watching the highlights show from 'A league of their own' - loving bish and freddie!

TBH my roll is a poorly managed and taken care of thing.. Which is another reason for this diary.

The 1/2 'shot' I took at the weekend is because I'm confident I'm decently +ev in those games and with careful game selection (I.e. hit you up for 200 then leg it while you get out the ipad) I will be able to 'grind' out a roll.  I had played a small cash session at the empire two weeks ago with £200 and 'spun it up' over those two weeks into the 1200 I bought to dtd last wkend. 

But effectively I will be working out what I can start rebuilding it with over the next wk.  Then I will be grinding the <£100 comps for the first few months of 2012 while I build a 50/1 roll.  Then I aim for having a seperate and well managed tourny and cash roll by the end of the year.

I'll get back to you with actual figures this week.

In before mad quoting skillz.

What does John Black look like ?

http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/9105/johnblack.jpg[/img]](http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/9105/johnblack.jpg) (http://[IMG)

Meet John Joe Black

I'll give you 5

5) Don't expect anyone to do anything until you have at least SOME info on them, if you have no info on someone in a live setting just assign them "default" tendencies and try to takie optimal vacuum lines vs them (e.g. if you have a hunch they might be 4betting light, but don't have anyway to know they are capable, assume they are not capable and fold J9o ,don't call to float and rep AK etc!)

4) When you have a good hand vs >semi competant live opponents, just bet for value don't do anything fancy

3) Don't make spazzy moves without EXTREMELY good reason as often the "long term" benefit of the bluff is null and void because the same people aren't there and generic live people won't think "he's has a tendancy to bluff in 3bet pots when he's checked the turn or whatever" they'll think "he's a bluffer" and your small bluffs in different spots will get little to no respect. You can get an "aggro" repuation in live poker just by raising 1 - 2 times an orbit and c-betting a high frequency no need to run a 500bb multi-street bluff hardly ever

2) Always bet big when you can.

1) Look at the guy your playing, and ask yourself these questions, 1) Why Is Here? 2) What does he want from being here? and 3) What kind of personality does he have? This should lead you to much much better vacuum decisions and then you won't be purely guessing at people's behavioral tendencies which no offence seems to be what you're doing in every PHA post so far :D

GL with the diary, I will be railing

Oh one thing you've mentioned about is how you "come across as a bit of a dick" at the table? Did I read that right? Why is it you think that? If that's the case I'd defo look to work on that as good table manner is one of the most important things to successful live play and it's completely free. 

You need to elaborate here Pops.

2) Always bet big when you can.

Sure thing son.

Spose I have  Ad Kh and the board reads

 Kd Jh 7d 4h 2h

You check and there is £350 in the pot. I bet £275-£300 and get called by Ks Tc I make more money than if i bet £200 :)

The boy is good.

Yes yes, but you said "When you can".

I can bet big even if I have the K 10 hand.

I always can. The trick is knowing when I should.

well, I *think* Dave's theory is that since we're playing a simple game, we're keeping it simple by only betting for value. So when we bet, we should make it big, because we want the max value.

or something like that.

Dave's post is excellent. As usual. It's unfortunate that more members of Cody's entourage don't post frequently, but the fact that just one of them does is so great for the forum. How about you encourage more of his team to post Dave?

The thing about live poker is that you can get a mental image from raising lots of pots and cbetting, then they think when you cold 4b and bet bet shove 72243 that their 88 is bound to be good vs this lunatic!

I think I can honestly say I've never made a bluff more than £500 in my life, and I'm not embarrassed to say that. But I've won at least 10 >2k pots where I've been shoving a grand on the turn or river etc. Seems odd that people keep paying me off doesn't it? Because I open 1/4 of the pots and occassionally declare "9 high" in a £50 pot, I must be insane!

Small bluffs, well timed aggression, good, thin value bets, picking off spazzy bluffs and making disciplined folds. You won't go wrong.

And most importantly, don't be a dick at the table. It's horrendous in so many ways.

Think of a rage of hands you're opponent could have played this way and if most/all of them are worse than yours you can bet big. With KT it's not so easy to value bet so big, since you are beat by KJ and KQ and AK - people like to play those cards. People don't often play hands like K6, K8 which you beat. So I wouldn't be so happy betting huge on the river with KT in that spot. AK trumps all those though so it's easy to make a big bet and be confident you'll get paid by worse frequently.

lkjesjkfldlkjah,hklfha,ejsf,aih,wuDHGJKFH,AUESHG,IEOHJFKAJLWAFGLUISG,FUGUILgjghluhekjfhlkjehglshemfui,esoiehmflhekljhslieh,l,healhkjhsflkjh

grrrrr

its also worth noting that a big river value bet, needs to be called a lot less frequently to show the same profit as a smaller one. In live poker espcially between reasonable bet sizes people are usually asking themselves the question "is he bluffing or not" more than "what hands would he bet this amoutn with" in such situations where you're bet sizing isn't going to affect there calling frequency too much it's ofc much much better to bet big as when he folds you lose nothing and when he calls you win additional monies.

This is what I meant by 'elaborate'.

I've heard the bloggers run good, like win Monte Carlo's and shit so you're in for a treat

Not if they blog about skidmarks they don't.

I played at Aspers and Gala in Northampton a lot last summer and your rollcall of names brought back some memories (some of them good)

Ran well at Gala, not so well at Aspers.

Played a chunk with Mad-Dog - but never really saw anything to suggest how he acquired that name. Can you enlighten us?

I genuinely look forward to reading your future posts ITT

Thanks again for all the continued support, I'll stop saying this at the start of every post from now :)

Mad Dog got his name I think just because he's a bit of a psycho and was a bit of a 'bad-ass' back in the day.  Apparently he used to play pretty decent stakes and do well in them. [ ] Got Mad Dog poker skillz.

LilD - I appreciate the 5 things.. but I didn't mean ITT for me.. I meant in general for everyone, all I can say is sweet - get me the extra views and comments!  And of course Alex is right, the post is very very solid and sound advice.  I'm toying with recording it on my phone somehow and having it there during my sessions to 'remind' myself of another thing I already know.  ;topman;

I'd happily take down a couple more £100's.. or the new dtd £150 (what a perfect tourny for my level, ability, player pool, vfm!) until I tick the aim for the year with a £10k+ hendon flag. - I'm not sure if I'm supposed to already have one, since I've cashed the dtd 300 last year????


 ;iagree;  THIS PLEASE!  ;iagree;


tbh I'm more concerned with playing well and making less mistakes.. Just one less/ session and I'll struggle to not make money this year (or smaller mistakes in general).



So, to tonights grind - 6max 10nl on stars, 6tables while notemaking a little and i need the following
[X] Stars up
[X] logged in
[X] HEM up
[X] Auto-import set
[ ] Tables up
[ ] First BB posted..

I'll be grinding for 2 hours then results and break.. might play again later   ;slavedriver;


;starwars;
Skype friends/ railers welcome!
john.g.c.blacklaptop

(tell me who you are if you add me..)

This is me recently when I had just had a haircut..

I've also been spotted in poker rooms with a 'Jamaica' baseball hat on. (went to Jamaica with work, got a hat because I liked it - apparently this is weird)

NSFW please FFS

Oh and glgl

£10k+ hendon flag. - I'm not sure if I'm supposed to already have one, since I've cashed the dtd 300 last year?


this you ?

http://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/player.php?a=r&n=107714

No, thats not me. i was just railing the larger 1/2 game, we played a little bit on the table Alex was sat on, as well as Matt, the guy with the rather sick moustache.

Currently running like JEEESUZ in the 6max... don't think I've lost more than like 4 showdowns on all 6 tables in the last hour!!!

When we're ahead we're staying ahead.. and behind well we find a way to win:

Behind 1 - Ad Aspades vs  Ks Ts on  Kd  Td  9c..............obv turn  9s
Probably bad.. (read - I know its bad, but I won so makes it ok right?)
I want to fib and make up story that I had a read or something.. or there was dynamic or something... but it would be a lie.
I 3bt pre, I had been pretty active and he snaps.. then I cbet and he quickly shoves for 200bb's.  Apparently I called quickly and then we win...
Not sure I can explain the 'feeling' I had when I saw we were behind and got there.. hated it. HATE getting it in bad when  ;flushy; give you a  ;all-in; moment.


Behind 2 - Kh Ts vs  Jc Qd on a  8s 9c Td Ks ................obv river  Th
I checked oop, he checked back then I donk the turn, expecting to be raised by any K or flopped 2p.  He clicks it, so we re-click to induce... he snap shoves and we call expecting to be ahead A LOT.. not this time >> K or T please >> oh hi dere..   :hello:


Rungood feels so nice!




Although these 'fast' tables on stars are pretty quick.. playing 6 of them gets snappy with decisions, only accidentally folded one real hand though  Kd Ts pre..
Flop was  Th Td 9h.... nvm

Is anyone else playing 6max on stars? what levels?

Writing this was wayyyy too hard when playing so I gave up half way through and now I've finished, our session went pretty sweet.

115.8 mins 1091 hands +$71.01 (7bi's)

But we ran like GOD Ev adjusted $7.52!!! (mainly the two hands above..)

Running the following stats: (any tips/ advice/ comments welcome)
27.2% Vpip - thnk this is fine considering my edge in these games.. I'm looser pre but much better with the fold button post imo.
22.6% PFR - same as above, initiative in the hand often gets me the $$
7.4% 3Bet - mostly for value, some as squeezes as I'm also flatting some big hands pre to either set up a squeeze/ backraise or to trap.
Agg Fac of 1.79 - maybe a little low, but the call-y nature is because I'm trying some of "Samo's" style hand reading/ pot control/ pot stealing when post flop
(I feel there is a LOT of non showdown winnings to gain at this level by exploiting some 'standard' tendancies the players have.)
28.4% WTSD - little high?
42.3 W$SD% - obv low.. but think thats because the big pots I was winning and there were a lot of checked back rivers in small pots with SDV..



Funny thing, I've just checked where we ran good/ bad and we lost every small pot we were a favorite in and won all 3 where we were 'behind'.

Decent session overall, made some disciplined folds.. still not enough..  If anyone knows some good articles or people to talk to about HEM, I think that's going to be a massive learning curve for me (pretty certain I'm not using it well enough to help me get to my potential)




AND ALSO - HELP PLEASE

The £150 is me, but not the other two.. plus I had a few other small results..

What can I do?

I will PM you the email to get the Hendon Mob details changed

Ty sir.

This is brill, so much love for this post.
Can you do some more?

I could, but don't wanna give all my secrets away :D

Need to keep John cold 4bet/peeling Qc 8c when were 800bigs deep and trying to make me fold KK when an Ace flops :D

First thing I thought was - hmmm did I do that recently? (not if.. :D)
You wait lil D.. I'll happily mix some pots up with someone of your skill, you'll definitely be good enough to fold a pair!  ;cheerleader;

So.... We've just waved off Pinchop as he came over to get some poker videos and hang out a big while we play some pokers.. ;technophobe;

Been to the gym today and feeling good.  My lil bro decided today was 'upping' day and so upped many of his weights and I upped some.  He's stronger than me now which seems weird but I guess that's what happens when you spend a year training in an MMA (mixed martial arts) gym with some seriously small and flexible sickos - they train so hard they make each other puke... actually puke!

Then off to Morrissons for some chicken and granary bread!  Feeling healthy, happy, fit and ready for the pokerz - lets win some money!

Then Pinchop arrives as I'm clearing up my rubbish, dishes, clothes and other random sitting room crap.  We get chatting and instantly start discussuing Isildur and his PLO swongs!  Then of course conversation turns to another PLO 'sicko' we've both read about and appears in blonde a fair bit... apparently he's Codys friend or something.. guess he must be ok if Cody hangs with him.  ;ifm;



We finally settle on playing some 50nl hu which is a game i've not played much: 3-4k hands or so.. but I've read and watched quite a bit of hu educational stuff and use that to play post flop where I think I will adjust and hand read well enough to win a little money.
However we disagree on hu strategy right from the first hand! :D  I open fold the first button and he freaks out!
John "but they dont spaz so much pre when you give them a few buttons.."
Pinchop "NO, minimum 100% buttons! then they spaz 3bt instead.. and we can win more moneys!"
John "but then we're going to get into mental pre-flop wars when a lot of people are competent pre, but terribad post.. why not work out and exploit them post flop instead?"
Pinchop "BUT THEN WE'RE NOT PLAYING FOR STACKS!!!  ;grr; I'm not going to say anything.. just watch you..  ;frustrated;"  (looks at me like I'm the worst person he's ever met, like I've lied to him about who I am or something)
John "cmon dude, we can own them post.. they're probably bad anyways.. lets fire up PTR n see what's what."


We play two different opponents, around 100 hands vs Villain1 and 140 vs Villain2 (one table at a time).  Playing pretty solid most of the time, some nice semi bluffs and a couple of 'strong lines' repping the top half of our range where our opponent is clearly capped. 

Soon Pinchop see's that they're not playing back at me well, and they're predictable in lots of spots.  We even make some 'plans' for our first 4bt, our first donk.. how we're going to play xx hand or yy hand... etc..
Then he's leaning over the back of the sofa to see clearer and I can see the $$ in his eyes as we're slowly chopping away at our villains.  :respect:
Pinchop "its working.. we're up like $40 or something right? its slow though, let me play with $50 n we'll get more quicker!"
John "no, we're running @ $70/hour... thats good! SLOW and STEADY!"
Pinchop "sigggghhhhhh.... I suppose you're right though."  ;smackedbottom;




So we keep playing and really crush Villain2.. the only pot we lost to him bigger than $10 was then we peel  9c Jc and see this:
 Kh 8c 4c
Villain2 has 3bt 3% over 100 hands so we just flat..
 Ts
Errrr..... BINK! - Villain has $49 and bets $23 of them.
We decide he's never folding and we can hit about 1,200,000 good cards and we're never getting him to fold.. so there is only one option - flat.
 3h


Boooooooooooooooooo........ sigh... he ships the rest and we wait 15 secs n fold. Nvm.  :tikay:


Anyways, we get it back from him a few hands later when we call pre,  Th 3h 4d  >> cc >>  5s >> cr 4x >>  Qs >> bomb 1.25x pot..
Dude tank folds asking us if we had A2 or 67... lolz.. yup [ ] we had one of those hands.
Say "gg thanks" and he says the same.. more pls!


So we finish a tidy $94.65 up after 79.1mins - not bad for a 'loosing' micros  ;flushy;


Now time for a chat with my lady and then bed!

I miss "Giggy on the mic".

GL with the goals.

Giggy doesn't make vids any more? shame the guys a genius.. and so com!  I like how the Samo vs Giggy vids show the different styles that can still win.. if applied properly.

Thanks monda..

[X] Hendon flags... :D
[X] Crushed 50nl hu for 250 hands

[  ] Continued

He does I believe just I'm not playing cash anymore so not watching any videos, tempting to still watch his as he's so com.

THIN

Tonight, HU4ROLLZ

Be there.

Also...

''lets fire up PTR n see what's what."

50nl Bumhunter ITT

So todays been a really good non playing poker day..

Spent a lot of time today on blonde and some other sites looking up some stuff... some time even on Lil'D's blog.. seems like a serious degen?!

Came home and finished off the cleanin and dishes and house stuff, which actually helps my mental state when everythings all sorted and clean.
(being a guy living on his own, things can sometimes get pretty messy around here)

Then watched a 'poker friend' I know who plays and crushes 400 - 1000nl all day, every day. (nice life huh)  ;tightend;
I've only known him a little while but he said before Xmas that it'd be ok to sweat him sometime and talk about poker in general.  So, he was online and boom - we're only sweating 9 tables of 400 and 600nl due to him currently running -£20k EV this month. ;gobsmacked;
Puts my -$50 in EV seem a little trivial.

Really nice guy, very very good at the game, weird part is it seems like a lot of the things he was doing were 'standard' (even to me) but thats because there's sooo much more going on in his head with the regs and fish he plays with and how he adjusts to their game.  He doesn't bumhunt, like a lot of em.. apparently.


Really nice to watch and talk to him, seems like a proper nice guy in general but we were talking about learning/ coaching/ full time pro and I could hear the pain in this voice from how he's 'given' the last 3 years of his life to the game in order to get where he is. (really earning those £ $ and E)


Then off to tennis for some general club play, I'm a half decent club player and the shame of the last few years is that my friends around my age group have all gotten very good, completely outstripping me! (most of them were already better anyways)  ;marks;
Good part of that is they've won a lot of titles in the last few years!  Just a shame I'm not as big a part of the team as I used to be.. but 10-30weeks away a year makes training and working on fitness and my game very hard.

But played some good tennis tonight, even with it raining and snowing!  :dontask:

Then home to more dishes and washing, and finally updating this so you can all find out how boring my life really is! feeling much better, happier even when I act like a grown up, take my responsibilities seriously and then make time to 'play'!!!!


So now time for some Australian Open Semi Final that I've recorded on my Sky HD (costs the earth, literally! but its sooo pretty!) and then bed.  So I'm rested enough to either put in a monster grind tommorrow night online... Or go to Luton G to try and take me some moneys from the £100 FO.. and maybe cash games..




 hmmm..... ;goodvevil;

Half decent first session today..

Stars

10NL
6 'fast' tables
1056 hands > 124 mins > won -$0.99 > $EV -12.21 (which is bullshit as all the aipf -EV hands were me getting it in with AA... lolz - how does that work?)


But effectively I 'bluffed' off about $25 so without those.. (but obv the ones that did work won me some NSD$$)
Think two of them were suicidal in retrospect... however 2/1000 is good imo! :D  I'm not Galfond yet.



Going to start second session 2hr now and then hit DTD tomorrow and WIN the Super50. easy moneyz.  ;angel;

LIES!

I remember something about betting on who can throw a coin at a tin can... and you getting 6/5 at one point... being down £400.
Definitely stand up, non gambler! [ ] /  Lil'd won often in his side bets according to his blog [ ]


2nd Session today was better..

Stars

10NL
8 then 6 'fast' tables
1049 hands > 100 mins > won $15.91 > $EV 5.86

Tried to play some more tables since 6 is becoming 'easy' and less effort.  It also allows me to be a little tighter pre - now running  between 27/23 and 21/18 which is going to make it easier to take pots down postflop vs the regs.

I managed to run 8 tables for a while.. but I am using a 10.3 inch netbook to process but viewing on a 19" monitor.  But the 'fast' tables are pretty tough when that quick.. mainly its the game flow and the decisions that allows me to make since I'm think I might make more in NSD pots than most at this level.

Had some run good and bad
The run good

PokerStars Hand #74598253706:  Hold'em No Limit ($0.05/$0.10 USD) - 2012/01/28 1:57:48 WET [2012/01/27 20:57:48 ET]
Table 'Istria IV' 6-max Seat #4 is the button
Seat 1: MicrolabPro3 ($4 in chips)
Seat 3: koosword ($10.15 in chips)
Seat 4: TheJedi_1988 ($13.33 in chips)
Seat 5: binkmepls ($12.09 in chips)
Seat 6: zlatananana ($10.49 in chips)
binkmepls: posts small blind $0.05
zlatananana: posts big blind $0.10
chacomps: sits out
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to binkmepls [3s  Aspades]
MicrolabPro3: folds
koosword: folds
TheJedi_1988: raises $0.10 to $0.20
binkmepls: raises $0.55 to $0.75
zlatananana: calls $0.65
TheJedi_1988: calls $0.55
*** FLOP *** [3c 5s 7h]
binkmepls: bets $1.45
zlatananana: calls $1.45
TheJedi_1988: raises $4.28 to $5.73
binkmepls: raises $5.61 to $11.34 and is all-in
zlatananana: calls $8.29 and is all-in
TheJedi_1988: calls $5.61
*** TURN *** [3c 5s 7h] [6d]
*** RIVER *** [3c 5s 7h 6d] [3d]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
binkmepls: shows [3s  Aspades] (three of a kind, Threes)
TheJedi_1988: mucks hand
binkmepls collected $3.04 from side pot
zlatananana: mucks hand
binkmepls collected $29.91 from main pot



Wiiiiiiiiiii - ship it pls! tyty


Then the runbad

Hand 1
PokerStars Hand #74600713775:  Hold'em No Limit ($0.05/$0.10 USD) - 2012/01/28 3:17:50 WET [2012/01/27 22:17:50 ET]
Table 'Tabora II' 6-max Seat #5 is the button
Seat 1: binkmepls ($11.41 in chips)
Seat 2: jrkim74 ($8.10 in chips)
Seat 3: sawadabr ($11.32 in chips)
Seat 4: danialcolea ($34.61 in chips)
Seat 5: choccy474 ($13.49 in chips)
Seat 6: murraataajs ($7.78 in chips)
murraataajs: posts small blind $0.05
binkmepls: posts big blind $0.10
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to binkmepls [8s  Ahrt]
jrkim74: raises $0.30 to $0.40
sawadabr: folds
danialcolea has timed out
danialcolea: folds
choccy474: folds
murraataajs: calls $0.35
binkmepls: raises $1.50 to $1.90
jrkim74: calls $1.50
murraataajs: calls $1.50
*** FLOP *** [4d Ad 8d]
murraataajs: checks
binkmepls: bets $2.10
jrkim74: raises $4.10 to $6.20 and is all-in
murraataajs: calls $5.88 and is all-in
binkmepls: calls $4.10
*** TURN *** [4d Ad 8d] [5s]
*** RIVER *** [4d Ad 8d 5s] [Th]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
binkmepls: shows [8s  Ahrt] (two pair, Aces and Eights)
jrkim74: shows [ Aspades Tc] (two pair, Aces and Tens)
jrkim74 collected $0.61 from side pot
murraataajs: mucks hand (HE HAD  Ac Qd)
jrkim74 collected $22.19 from main pot


Hand 2
PokerStars Hand #74598814828:  Hold'em No Limit ($0.05/$0.10 USD) - 2012/01/28 2:14:25 WET [2012/01/27 21:14:25 ET]
Table 'Ukko VI' 6-max Seat #4 is the button
Seat 1: Teelo Brown ($10 in chips)
Seat 2: kkapokapone ($12.79 in chips)
Seat 4: binkmepls ($11.20 in chips)
Seat 6: Pairani ($11.20 in chips)
Pairani: posts small blind $0.05
Teelo Brown: posts big blind $0.10
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to binkmepls [Ks 5s]
kkapokapone: raises $0.20 to $0.30
binkmepls: raises $0.70 to $1
Pairani: folds
Teelo Brown: folds
kkapokapone: calls $0.70
*** FLOP *** [Kh Kc 9d]
kkapokapone: checks
binkmepls: bets $1.50
kkapokapone: calls $1.50
*** TURN *** [Kh Kc 9d] [7c]
kkapokapone: checks
binkmepls: bets $2.90
kkapokapone: raises $7.39 to $10.29 and is all-in
binkmepls: calls $5.80 and is all-in
Uncalled bet ($1.59) returned to kkapokapone
*** RIVER *** [Kh Kc 9d 7c] [Jh]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
kkapokapone: shows [Qd Kd] (three of a kind, Kings)
binkmepls: mucks hand
kkapokapone collected $21.55 from pot


Hand 3

I actually SIGHHHHHHHH called here... don't know if that sounds too 'nitty'.  Just shouldn't be a fistpump, imo people dont bluff enough in these spots.
(not because he has a house.. ever [ ] but because I feared EXACTLY  Qc9d/ similar)

PokerStars Hand #74600446354:  Hold'em No Limit ($0.05/$0.10 USD) - 2012/01/28 3:08:31 WET [2012/01/27 22:08:31 ET]
Table 'Sampo III' 6-max Seat #5 is the button
Seat 1: binkmepls ($22.09 in chips)
Seat 2: DayWalker969 ($10.15 in chips)
Seat 3: MicrolabPro3 ($19 in chips)
Seat 4: jerry2332 ($10.15 in chips)
Seat 5: Dosnl ($23.65 in chips)
Seat 6: TheJedi_1988 ($6.78 in chips)
TheJedi_1988: posts small blind $0.05
binkmepls: posts big blind $0.10
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to binkmepls [Js  Ad]
DayWalker969: folds
MicrolabPro3: folds
jerry2332: folds
Dosnl: raises $0.15 to $0.25
TheJedi_1988: folds
binkmepls: calls $0.15
*** FLOP *** [8d Jd Tc]
binkmepls: checks
Dosnl: bets $0.36
binkmepls: calls $0.36
*** TURN *** [8d Jd Tc]

binkmepls: checks Dosnl: bets $0.82 binkmepls: calls $0.82 *** RIVER *** [8d Jd Tc Td] [Qd] binkmepls: checks Dosnl: bets $2 binkmepls: raises $4.30 to $6.30 Dosnl: raises $15.92 to $22.22 and is all-in binkmepls: calls $14.36 and is all-in Uncalled bet ($1.56) returned to Dosnl *** SHOW DOWN *** Dosnl: shows [Qh 9d] (a straight flush, Eight to Queen) binkmepls: mucks hand Dosnl collected $42.23 from pot AND THIS I FLAT OUT HAVE NO IDEA WHAT HE IS THINKING????? I think I perfectly rep an overpair with heart... anyone? PokerStars Hand #74599376800:  Hold'em No Limit ($0.05/$0.10 USD) - 2012/01/28 2:31:27 WET [2012/01/27 21:31:27 ET] Table 'Tabora II' 6-max Seat #6 is the button Seat 1: binkmepls ($14.60 in chips) Seat 2: jrkim74 ($9.30 in chips) Seat 3: chacomps ($23.93 in chips) Seat 4: lmatsuda ($10.13 in chips) Seat 5: dyeisonXXX ($10 in chips) Seat 6: yyychwz ($10.94 in chips) binkmepls: posts small blind $0.05 jrkim74: posts big blind $0.10 *** HOLE CARDS *** Dealt to binkmepls [Kd Td] chacomps: folds lmatsuda: folds dyeisonXXX: folds yyychwz: folds binkmepls: raises $0.20 to $0.30 jrkim74: calls $0.20 *** FLOP *** [5c 5h 8h] binkmepls: bets $0.40 jrkim74: raises $0.40 to $0.80 binkmepls: raises $1 to $1.80 jrkim74: calls $1 *** TURN *** [5c 5h 8h] [3h] binkmepls: bets $2.80 jrkim74: calls $2.80 *** RIVER *** [5c 5h 8h 3h] [4h] binkmepls: bets $9.70 and is all-in jrkim74: calls $4.40 and is all-in Uncalled bet ($5.30) returned to binkmepls *** SHOW DOWN *** binkmepls: shows [Kd Td] (a pair of Fives) jrkim74: shows [9h 8s] (a flush, Nine high) jrkim74 collected $17.70 from pot

that was vs Franky, who has successfully ironed me out at everything we've ever player, most tilting was the time I lost $2k to him playing dominoes over skype

Yer, I read about that too.. how you basically ran uber bad and he had the perfect dominoes or something...


TRIP REPORT
I'll do a more 'interesting details' report tomorrow as I'm pretty tired now.

Main Cliffs:
Super 50
- Played like a genius, owned everyone for a long time!!!
- AQ into KK with 15k of dead money out there to get to 73k @ 300/600 avg - 23k.
- 'Mini blowup' after being bluffed in a ridiculously stupid spot. wp sir.. dont know if 'tilt' is the right word but meh.. watevs
- Then got a little too aggro and ran into top of peoples range for next hour! = down to 25k.
- Checked myself before I recked myself..
- [X] Became a nit

- Table chage @ abso-perfect time.
- [X] New table full of suckas
- Won lots of pots to get me slowly up to like 38-45k
- Find  Ks Kh, 3bt.. then Ts Tc spazz call inbetween us... tyty
- Rebuild and retake over table.. slowly working my 80k up to 130k (avg 60-80 during this time)
- Nice raise then cc, crain on K10x10 vs spazzy villain with AQo... villain has 56fd and folds. +40k
- Really solid, unexploitable poker
- [ ] Made mistakes from last 60 till final

Final table
- Final tabled 3rd in chips, played solid, sneaking a few preflop pots my way.
- Refuse any deal till at least 3 handed... they're bad @ poker and we are 3rd in chips.
- No spew or spazzing, just observant - picking up info and reads for later..
- Lost JJ vs A10 aipf for 1/3 stack. SIGH
- Continued being cautious - 2 on my right were CL's after some insane pots (and BIG fishees)
- With bb being a nit and having 4M I shoved  Qd 8h btn into  Aspades Kd who 'sigh calls', we lose - down to 2M
- rebuild and back up to 4.5M shove next btn Kh 7d into bb Kd Ts.

- 6th £402
- They all insta-chop for £1380 each.. wp sirs. you 'deserve' it.



Played pretty good today, shame about the mini blowup but for the most part didn't make many mistakes.


Night all
x

details of blowup pls

Effectively the blowup was after being bluffed by in a three way pot with me and the other decent player at the table, we both had monster stacks and the hand plays out like this.

Chinese guy (seems ok, 120k) opens to 1800 @ 300/600
'Dude' calls from 18.5k
I call with Kd 7d from 76k

flop
Kh 8s 4c (Or similar)

Check from Chinese, bet 1800 from 'dude', I call, Chinese calls.

turn
 Jd
I check, Chinese checks, dude bets 2800..... I call, Chinese folds.

river
 Aspades

I check, villain shoves. I tank and spend a long time looking at him... He looks pretty chilled, no 'obvious' live tells.. I sigh fold.

And he snap shows 45o for a strange but 'well timed' bluff.... ALL my recent bluff catchig attempts in spots like this have been shown KJ or better..


Blowup............
So not really a traditional style 'crazy' blowup, more of a 'lets play 3x as many hands and win anyways because they're bad @poker'.
(I know the reason I've owned them up until this point is they dont fold and that's how I've got a big stack.)

So I play like 60/55 for the next 3orbts and then get into following hand vs same 'dude'.

He limps utg and we open 4.5x with A10o... We've opened bigger because he doesnt have a limp fold range + we want to get plenty of chippies when he check folds flop 90%. Folds round and he calls.

Flop
2c 4h 5s

Check, I check.
He doesn't fold pairs, might even jam random overs n at this point we have like 3:1 stack: pot ratio.

Turn
 Jd he leads smallish.. Definitely 'weak'.. So I take 30seconds and shove....
He sighs and sighs and sighs and says 'well its my own fault' and calls with J10... Fmfl!
He was betting on ANY over except A 100% time imo. So to 3outer the turn after Limp calling utg with J10o just really annoyed me.

[ ] took it with class
[X] apologised after a few mins..
[X] became a nit and schooled it from here until FT


Currently in 'the red lion' pub in Westminster meeting a friend I made at work in Sao Paulo last year.. Then maybe a quick 1/1 or 1/2 with last nights 400 before home for work at 9am.

I will almost definitely follow this diary however the use of the word 'uber' must be kept to a minimum in my opinion. 

I am by all accounts a nobody on this forum with a tiny number of posts to my name but I will make a suggestion that you keep the belittling of opponents and all-round negativity towards your enemy to a minimum.  Things will definitely read/flow a whole lot better without you expressing your disgust at every opponents line in hands. 

By all means be evaluative and constructively critical but demeaning, degrading descriptions will get prospective readers backs up and could result in them venturing over to some less negative diaries for their fix of reality-living.

Good luck and I really hope you win the world.

Fair point, appreciated.

I'll try to be more objective.. Does anyone have tips on how to explain how I judge a players skill level to be without being insulting??

The game was good.

He was a recreational player.

The field was soft.

I fancied my chances at a deep run.

Ricardov is absolutely spot on btw.

+1. I think as well tbh it's a leak you're going to realise you have pretty quickly, have a bit more respect for your opposition imo

I am aware of it more nowadays which makes a big difference.

Still learning I am. Nice guy I am becoming. :D

Trip report later - The Victoria, London
Cliffs-
Played really solid, removed my bluffing pants and put on the value town speedos.
Made a set on and A high board and got paid.
Ran pretty good for live... (Had AA, 99 and AK a lot - sometimes got paid)
Kept going from 400 up to 600 then back to 400, then back to 600... Eventually resting around for 800 for 1/2 session
Lost a little at the end vs a guy who he apparently run up 200 into 800 in one hour
After 'guy' left, the table became populated with 1/3 regs and i left.

[X] booked a 485 win
[X] had a 30 min head and shoulder massage, love the Vic
[X] ate salmon and other brain foods while making friends at the table.. Bought new friend a sandwhich and cup of tea. (First time)
[X] ran good, played good, took it all with class and realised that poker is easy when you listen to lil'D

Jb

100% this. I have a whopping 3 readers because nothing good ever happens to me. Be more like Alex and go skiing out of the blue = 450 pages.

So we played pretty much every dtd sat tonight and pretty much bricked them all.. Couple of 2nds for some euros..

But we lost a LOT of 70/30's or crucial flips late on..
AJ vs A3.. - 329 10 10 (Had a flush redraw)
AQ vs QJ.. - J87 9 10
A2 goes all in for 3bb's, 7bb's reshoves with AKo, we reshove for 25bb's AKs and 88 decides to come along for 10bb's... (Joker!!!)
78 vs 67... xx6 x x.

The list goes on. Obv our shoving and calling ranges were good, just need a little bit of nice variance. Nvm.

Going to keep grinding them this wk to get my seat for Saturday. The dtd deepstacks are a bit part of my live plans for this year, any satellite tips welcome...

Getting an 'early' night tonight with my lady, night grinders.. Get a W. :P

Dont call a 5 bet pre with j3o cos the guy has a sn which suggests he's tight but you know this is a facade and actually realise he's loose so you double float flop and turn oop and then 4 bet jam river after he min raises you with what you can only conclude is air when in fact he has quads

i have been reading ur post and found out ur stoties r far to long!!!

BTW r u the guy that snap call alin with A 10 on a 7 8 9 rainbow board for ur tourney life?

if that is u , u r pretty bad.

if not i will carry on reading.

 ;welcome; :goodpost: ( remember if that was u, i wouldnt read this post again )

G2L - love the post.. clearly a fan of my ways! I gota admit i hope i can run like you when i do make such plays..

Brighton UKIPT
G2L has  2d  3h
Super nit has  Ac Qh

Flop
 Aspades Qc 2h

I believe G2L check raised all in.. (but this might be incorrect) Either way all goes in with the Supernit calling it off and seeing he's in great shape to double up to a 60bb+ stack (might be as much as 100bb)

Turn
 8s

River
 2c
Think this counts as a boom.. and boosts his stack to a monster, might have even been top 3 in chips after this.
(Must be nice sir.... I was watching as you GIveryQ.  Hehe...  :D)



And Chippyman... No I wasn't the A10... I would have check raised all in, not bet - called.  :D
I was the one who went out 6th and then they all chopped it for £1380... as i collected my £402.. lol

Still playing EVERY sat on dtd's site and constantly bricking it all... had a few 'standard' spots where we've gotten lucky.. (calling all in with  Ac 9c when we have 3bb's) but keep getting down to the end and getting screwed so close..

Gota get the volume in so these 60-80%'s start to iron out...


breathe...

count to 10... then back...


then sigh @ poker.

Love this hand. It's in my diary somewhere with some sort of reasoning behind it ;)

Move up to where they respect your raises imo.

Lol, or I could just buy in direct to the nightly £100 rebuy satellite for the dtd500 seat and bink 1st.... :D

So we have a seat.. it might have cost us like £350 - shoulda just bought in direct instead of hitting the £4's and £20's...


So once we bink the dtd500 I'll update the bankroll, might talk to zerofive as i want to post graphs like he does, looks cool.

as far as im aware optimal satelite strategy is hevily focused on chip preservation and ICM.

basically dont spew ever, anywhere at any point in any satelite, don't float a flop ever, dont bluff even in spots you think it will work a lot and e really +EV, dont put yourself in spots to make thin calls, dont make thin calls when you're there and remember the objective is NOT to win all the chips.

Wouldn't presume to disagree, but I find that running really really good in the mid-stages helps. Win flips from whichever side you start. Get lots of pairs, flop sets and quads and flushes.

Then don't spew them off.

I gather from your post elsewhere that you binked a seat last night?

love this post so many people play sats like a comp

Just read this diary and enjoyed it

Good luck

Thanks Carla,
I'm sure you're one of the people able to mention whether you think there is a difference in my table presence from when you first met me?? Positives, criticisms and anything else?

I looked up satellites a while ago and found an article on the Poker Farm's website that basically explained you're supposed to never call, just push and rely on fold exquity and poor calling ranges.  Its working for me so far.. although I find I'm able to abuse the bubble period better than most, but I think a lot of this is due to me very rarely having less than 10bb's as I start shoving pretty wide at 7bb's so I'm never there grinding a 2bb stack unless I've just gotten unlucky.


As part of my 2012 development goals..
[X] Joined a tournament specific educational site - tournament poker edge
[ ] Joined a cash game specifc educational site - deuces cracked (doing now)
[X] Playing satellites to get into £300+ events.. inc dtd, ukipt, genting, gukpt, and maybe EPT/ WSOP events.. (ongoing)

We're playing the dtd500 sats tonight again because they're soft and worth E678, definitely worth a punt! :D
currently:
0/3 on £20's - came 3rd to a flip
0/2 on £4's -
still playing my grand prix sat, think im 3/18 or something

gl me.



Quick random life question as my new audience -
(Mainly for those of you in relationships who don't live together)

When you want to talk to your partner in life (gf, bf, other) do you pick specific times to talk?
i.e. I'll speak to you later.... yeah sure, what time?
or I'll call you later.... yeah sure..

[X] Got my first Grand Prix seat
[X] Run bad in dtd500 feeder to satellite - friend accidentally called all in to 'protect me' not realising that he covered me and i didnt need the protection.... and won the hand.
[X] Run good in dtd 500 feeder satellite - had  Jc Jh twice aipf both times vs AA and QQ... made at least one  Js both times...
[ ] Actually got my seat into the evenings feeder yet.. - more rungood please!

[ ] Second seat to dtd500 that will be immediately cashed out for 678 Euros
cmon, lets freeroll the week and weekend.

Are you tennisnut on dtd? If so well done on ya GP seat...  :)up

might be.... ;whistle;

The rungoods are with us in a row finally!
dtd500 mega sat (into the actual sat)

we shove utg with  Ad Td      (7/8bb's... bad???)

bb wakes up with  Kh Ks  - errrrrr we've got 30% i think?!  ;topman;                       (where is an interrobang when you need one)

flop
 Ahrt 6h Aspades         :hello: oh hello dere..

turn
 Qh

river
 4s       - aaaahhhhhhh.... thats better!



So we're in tonights 9pm ubersat... and with just a little bit of rungood, we should be able to get another seat. 

So we just bust the dtd500 satellite, made a stupid mistake.... thought this kind of thing was gone from my game. - siggghhhh

DTD500 sat
Stack around 9.5k @ 75/150
utg limps 150, btn calls, sb calls and we are in the bb and check  3c 4c

flop
 2c 8s 6c - obv we're not folding this flop, but i dont want to play this draw aggssively, this time.

sb checks, we check, utg bets 600, btn folds, sb folds, we call.

pot (1800)
turn
 9c

we check, utg checks

pot (1800)
river
 Kh

we check, he bets 800 and we decide to go for a really small raise to 1950, maybe even to induce a bluff shove from  Ac.

I'm like 90% sure we should bet fold this river.. but for some reason when he shoves, we press the call button and get shown  Ac Jc.
I really dont know why I called.. obv we should be behind.. but I called.  Really disappointed in myself.

still in the dtd150 sat with 2 seats up top and £135 for 3rd.. and we just got a double up when we bet/3b shove river with the nuts and get called by tpnk on a  Ks Qs 9h 5d Th board.... WTF! this is what they do, no joke - called by  Kc 4c. (we even raised pre bbvsb)

one more seat tonight please! :D

ARRRRGGH! ;booboo;

One mistake and one thats I'm not sure about........


First one is a mistake:- (im pretty sure it is)
4 handed on direct bubble in DTD150 sat
I have 90k @ 2000/4000

UTG opens for 15k from 75k, fold, we find  3d 3h in sb and reshove...
This is wrong because:
- we're never getting a fold! which means our equity in the hand is ALWAYS 52-54%
- a BIG part of reshoving/ shoving with low pocket pairs is the fold equity combined with the pair vs overcards equity and the 20% vs overpairs..
- we're risking our stack vs an unknown range with a player behind and poor equity when we don't need to and its the direct bubble..
- we're fairly sure our shoving/ calling ranges will be much closer to GTO than our competitors from their play so far

we get sigh called by  8s  8h and find a

 6h 7h  6d board to practically flop us dead with no 'get theres' except the  3s 3c...

we don't get there and are now left with 6bb's FML!


Then we shove well and get some nice  Qd x and  Kc x hands to get back to 36k and then get  Aspades 6h in vs  Td Tc.
We get there with a flopped  Ad - tyvm.
So, we're back in it and no more mistakes!!!!!!!!


Make some nice raises now its 4000/8000 and we have like 12bb's.

Then the previous villain from the hand above makes a massive mistake by raising 3.5x and calling off vs the first 3bt shove from another player..

Villain 1 Aspades 7d vs Villain 2  Ahrt Js..  - what was he thinking when he calls 4/5 his stack off here!?
Villain 2 holds and we're down to one tiny 3.5bb stack utg.



Mistake???
In the sb we find  Ks 5d and decide that we have to shove for the 14k in the middle and the fact we have a high card and theres a 3.5b stack going into bb next hand. i.e. the bb should NEVER be calling here.. even with the top of his range.. correct?

He snaps off with  Ac Qc and we flop a gutty to go with our live cards....
we brick and gg 4th!

bubble was like £125... and we gave it to Villain 1.
should we just raise/ fold vs bb? (wouldnt think he would 3bt light here ever! - seems better in hind sight but this is like the 5th direct bubble in the last 3 days... think im too aggy....)

So.... we got another dtd500 seat tonight. - this means we're freerolling the dtd500 which is always nice. tyty



Properly bossed it from the mid-stages onwards.

Were sitting pretty avg for a long long long long long.... long time.
Raise BTN  1825 @ 400/800 Td 2s (playing 10k ish)
SB call, bb folds

pot (4050 +antes)
flop
8s 3h 8d

he checks, we bet 2200.... he raises to 5200.... we take 5 seconds and shove... its like 3600 more to him, into a 17k pot..... LOL
I'm literally 100% sure this guy is at it.. and that he won't call it off like ever... still a sick shove though, really.


From this point onwards we then play snug and proper and have some really nice BB hands... where people shove A8 and we have AQ or AK... all hold. runnnngooooods!

Then from 20 down we knock out 7/10 to get to the 10 seats... obv accumulating chips and raising like 60% hands and just getting way too many through. :D :D :D

well done again.. Was railin you and Eso for a bit, i saw that you was massive chear leader and with 20 odd left basically had a seat locked up providing no spewage.. ;)
 Gl for today at dtd..

So..... We just bust the dtd500...

Been really steady and careful all day.  Not done anything too silly, got KK in vs 88 pre for a double up to 27k then an orbit later double up when 2c 3c decides to take off on Q high board, A river. When we had QQ.

Just bust in level 10 with QQ vs 77 on 954...

He check raises all in cos he thinks I have AK.. I snap and he's like 'oh shit'.. So im thinking ... Brick, brick if you please Ben the dealer-man.


Turn 8... Omfg dont u dare....



River 7.

Seeya later 95k.. Gg WP, NH.

Sigggggghhhhhhh.... Better luck next month.

Just a quickie..

Firstly I'd like to say thanks to everyone I spoke to @ DTD at the weekend, I think everyone said positive things about this diary.. With more people than I'd realised saying they were enjoying all the posts and that it was 'very me'.  Guess that's the point.  I'm accurately oozing through the keyboard into your screens!

Secondly.. I'd like as many comments, tips, advice, suggestions, likes, dislikes and ideas on the hands I post as this forum is definitely one of my 'key places' I'm using for improvement.. even if much of it is 'shaming me into improving' (whatever works folks!)

Finally - full report to follow tonight from the dtd500 and I'm now going to commit to posting bankrolls and long term plans/ goals and br targets.  (kinda afraid as im then 'measurable' for failure).



Good luck all, well done on the DTD deal to Blonde.

peace

jb

So, this is my full deepstack report, including the satellites before hand.  Just for a change I made it pretty long..........
PART 1/2


We won a satellite to get a seat into the DTD500 on the Wednesday before the tournament.  However we'd spent around £250-350 in order to win it.. and therefore it got to the point where we might as well have been playing cash on stars in order to win the money for a seat.  So we decided to keep playing the £100 freezeouts for another seat in order to 'pay' for the time and make it worth our while.

I then played the Thursday and Friday night sats.. I made a mistake in the Thursday night one.. its a few posts up but basically I played a weak flush really badly and called off my stack when I'd check-raised the river and the dude 'shoved' - the nut flush obv.

On Friday I played pretty solid and managed to get a decent stack and run pretty sweet in some nice spots - we had 3 or 4 BB hands where we had  Ad Ks or  Jc Jh and people shoved rag Aces into us.  Once we got to the last 25 (10 seats) I completely opened up and ran the game from here on.  I even took out 7 of the last 10 players from 20 left - which obviously gave me enough chips to really survive through the tight and arduous bubble stage.  Lucky for me, people value their chips more than I do, which allows me to chip up and I only lose any when I either run into a hand and I have one too.. Or I commit myself to a shortie and have enough equity to make the call.




DTD500 - Saturday 4 Feb 2012, Day 1b
We arrive a little late, having dropped Charlene (gf) off into town so she can keep herself busy while we get settled and ready to make day 2.  Tom Kugelstadt a friend of mine calls to let me know that he is on my table and to ask when we're turning up, this is not the best news as I think Tom is a pretty good NLHE player and having him on our left could cause trouble, and having him on our right is going to be hard to get value.

We get to the table and sigh... We have probably one of the toughest overall first table draws in the entire competition. 

37    1    Dean Morris -
Seen him before, understand he's a solid 'regular' player but might not be playing optimal poker.
37    2    Anonymous -
I know this guy, played with him before... weak passive, solid starting hands, doesn't like the fold button but can be persuaded.
37    3    Tom Kugelstadt -
Solid, good, capable player... can make moves but will likely use the fold btn + combat the weaker players instead of mess with us
37    4    Anonymous -
Never seen this guy before, but within a few hands I can see he's on the weaker side with obvious bet sizing tells, weak/ bad-tight
37    5    John Black -
I'm going to try and exploit seats 2 and 4 the most from this seat, and abuse my button should 6 or 7 try to play more pots with us than they should when we do
37    6    Gavin Kan -
Decent luton regular, will likely be cautious for a while but able to make moves and could be a pain.
37    7    Xenophon Constantiou -
No idea, on first impressions only... He's an over 40 foreign gentleman, seems emotional as he got upset with Lintons opening frequencies in a few orbits.  Probably not playing optimal poker, hoping he likes to defend his BB a lot.
37    8    Peter Linton -
I've never played with PLinton but I know who he is, I know he plays decent stakes and he's considered an aggressive and competent opponent.  I've seen things saying he has a spewy side, so if I see evidence of this I'll try to let him hang himself - glme.

Out of these players, Seats 2, 3 and 6 know who I am.  I'm pretty sure 2 and 6 will know the 'old' me... an egotistically stunted wannabe 'hero' bluffer.  However I know TomK knows I've been working on my game and trying to improve it, only played with him once or twice in the last few months... Unsure how his opinion of me has changed.


We have missed around 30 mins of the first level and understand that PL has been opening a lot of pots, taking most of them down.  Nothing of note has happened and so we settle into play.. our intention is to play really steady, solid and tight poker for the first few levels, my understanding of the DTD table breaking order means we're likely to be together for a large part of the day.  We don't need to be doing anything silly when we have a 40min clock and 30,000 chips.  We don't play a hand for close to 4 orbits and watch PLinton tear it up a little, he gets bluffed by Seat 7 in a silly spot where 7 calls from BB and check calls a Kh Qh 9c then leads a 4h.  He shows PL the  6c 7s and says "you're taking the piss boy...".
Pete is less than impressed and it seems his tilt button has been pressed and he looks like he's slowly rolling downhill.  I give it an hour or two until these two play a big pot...

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Hand 1
Eventually we peel  Tc 7c in Co after Seat 2 has raised and 3 called.  Seat 6 has been very very tight, not playing a hand so we're assuming we'll get the button in this hand.. with the only threat being PL if he decides to try and squeeze out of the blinds.

flop
 7d 5h 4c
Relatively happy with our hand, often having the best hand now but if not its going to be relatively easy to squeeze TomK out if he has marginally better and close to impossible for the OR to continue to the river on this board.

OR bets 1/2 pot, Tom calls and we decide to call - we would be doing this with our entire range A6s - 77/ 86s.

turn
  6c
Not the best turn, but it will almost always make the hand impossible for OR to continue and Tom is hardly going to mess around here when my range contains all the nutty hands, his less likely so.

OR checks, Tom bets 1/3 pot, I call, OR calls (this is really strange! should be easy to fold AA here but I don't think he always would).  When Tom leads this turn I'm now 100% he has a good hand of some sort - 2p minimum, probably a 3 or 8.. he might make it a little bigger with 89 however I don't expect him to be peeling flop with a bare gutshot, so the only straights he should have 48, 58 or 78.  However I dont expect him to be betting his 2p/ set hands all the time so straights are definitely a bigger part of his range.

River
 4s
Pretty interesting river... at this point they both have no clue with my hand and the pot is close to 12k with 20-25k behind each.  My plan is to take the river action and evaluate my options.  If they both check, which I expect them to (as Tom shouldn't have a house very often after betting the turn) then I will consider betting close to pot in order to get any one/ two pair hands to fold from Seat 2 and Tom will fold a straight if I bet here - its just too strong a line to be bluffing in my first pot - esp when my range pre is soo much more likely to be pocket pairs.  The only reason I consider this line is because I know that Tom is a competent hand reader and Seat 2 will be squeezed up against Tom as he lead the turn.  By having a 7 in my hand and the 4 pairing on the river there is only one cominbation of 77's full (excluding 74) and there are three combos of 55.  Either way, Seat 2 will be unable to do anything but fold 99% of his range and Tom isn't willing to take any risks here when my line looks exactly like the nuts.

This is all taken apart however when the OR leads the river for 1/3 pot. WTF!  He should not be bluffing here! unless this is a blocker with AA he should only ever have full houses here and as we've just said, thats really really hard.
Tom calls, so he does have an 8. Hmmm.....

Now we take some time and weigh our situation up, if we shove here.. we would be shoving 25K ish to win around 18/19k and we expect it to work over 90%+ of the time for the reasons above.
However...
There is something wrong about this, the river lead.  We think back to hands played with this villain in the past, and suddenly something clicks and we realise he will be the type to make bad calls but in retro-spect...... in this exact spot...... I'm close to certain he wouldn't lead AA's.  Which means he can only have a house.  People don't like folding houses and so I decide that I'll save my stack, protect my image and get back to playing like a nit.


Seat 2  shows  7h 7s and our instinct was correct, he wasn't folding.  Tom sigh folds his 8 and we save all sorts of image, looking like we folded an 8 too.
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Hand 2
We played pretty snug after hand 1 and eventually find  Kc Tc in the BB after PLinton opened MP1.  We don't see any need to 3bt, and he knows we've been playing tight, folding our SB and BB often so he's clever enough to realise we have a 'good hand' (im aware K10 might be the bottom of this 'range').

Flop
 9c 5h 3c

We check, thinking about check-raising but are unsure how PL will react and expect him to rep the high cards as well as have them so some caution will be best here - obv his EP range should be strong but that's not 100% the case.

He bets 1/2 pot (his std cbet), we call..

Turn
 Qh

Not a bad card, he will often hit this but it does give us a gutshot as well as our fd and over.. we're probably going to check-raise, repping a strong range with a lot of outs and it will likely elicit a fold - all depends on his sizing.

River
 2c

We believe that after his check-back on the turn his hand is A high/ 2nd pair at best, almost certainly not top pair/ better and he is probably going to expect us to lead the river with top pair or better.. unlikely to try to take us off our hand so our only hope for any more chips/ guarantee we get to showdown is to check and give him one more chance at it.  At this point we haven't represented any strength and could easily just have a pocket pair that didnt fold the flop.  I don't think its unreasonable to think he will give this one more punt.

He checks back A high as we win.. getting berrated by the whole table... PLinton even telling us we 'played the hand great...' sigh.
Anyone think I could have done anything different here, except for lead 1/2 pot I guess....?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Our next hand is losing one to PL when we cc flop and turn the nut straight and he rivers a house... we lead the river and sigh call his small raise - this might be a mistake..

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Hand 3
We open Th 8h in CO and Gavin Kan has woken up a little, this is the 2nd time he's flatted our open from btn... I don't think its optimistic to think he's decided to use his 'nitty' image from today to try and take more than his fair share of pots away from us.  This will be harder than he imagines.

Flop
 8s 6h 4c
We cbet 1/2 pot, he hasn't seen our cbet size and so isn't going to be getting anything from this.  We've recently made our bets smaller in general as the stack:pot ratio needs to be as high as possible for us to have manouverability in a hand.  Gavin calls, this doesn't mean anything really, he would be 3bt-ing us for sure with his big value hands pre so we will re-evaluate on the turn action.

Turn
 7h
Probably the nut card imo..  It gives us lots of equity in the hand vs any range! It makes it hard for him to go crazy with most of his hands but definitely adds to his likely-hood of now having a pair + draw kind of hand.  He will often continue to call with any pair, he may give us credit for betting  Ahrt Kh and such like hands.. but I also suspect he thinks we might just barrell overs anyway.

We decide to make this larger, confirming his opinion its less likely to be for value.. and with the idea of setting up a small river 'bluff' that will be getting called close to 100% by all his 1pair hands - we will be betting pretty much any river, the worst being 7's, 6's and 4's.

We bet 3/4 pot and he takes some time, looks to be considering raising but now realising that raising will now be hard because my sizing is too large (thought of) and he calls.

River
 2c
One of the best rivers.... nothing has improved and if he raises here we will have a decision but effectively he's good enough to know that he just needs to call here with ALL his hands as I don't think he's bad enough to float both flop and turn.

We take our time and finally (after acting it up a bit) bet 1/3 pot and stare at the flop like we try to do in all pots with both value and bluffs.
He takes quite a while, I think a little shocked at how small the bet is.. and is now worried its for value, this is PERFECT! as he would've snapped with and 8 or better, so we were right and he has a weak one pair hand.......  He takes around 30 seconds and realises it won't hurt his stack too much, and calls.

We say "I do have an 8 Gav" and he disgustedly throws his hand in the muck.  BOOM! wp john.  I know many will think the river is a little thin... but I can't see many hands better than ours he doesn't raise the turn with except a better 8... and that will suck.

The phrase tl;dr was invented for that post.

Part 2/2 - sigh @ writing so long.... not even done my grind for today.. thats off now, im knackered!
(I've just seen Cambridgealex's response and I appreciate your pains... I had to write it and check it godknows how many times.)



Hand 4
Again this is a spot vs Gavin, again we're in late position.

Seat 1 limps.... (hmmm) and we open Td Th and get Gavin flatting us behing on btn, with SB coming along.


Flop
 Ks 9d 4c    (or similar Kxxr)

SB checks, Seat 1 checks, We check, Gavin Checks...  We will now expect both SB and Seat 1 to lead a K on the turn, and Gav is probably betting a K when behind me (this is significant later).


Turn
 Ad

SB checks, Seat 1 checks, I decide to turn my hand into a bluff here as I will often be behind to a K but Gav shouldn't have one and both SB and Seat 1 will call turn but fold river imo close to 100% vs me here (remember I haven't been caught out in any spots and always had a premium at showdown.. so they should see me as a nit).

I bet just over 1/2 pot and Gavin calls but the other two fold.  I should have thought about his range here more..  but I guess I assumed it would Ahrt heavy and should have realised it would include flush draws sometimes.


River 
 Kc

I decide to give up here, figuring that after the  Th 8h hand Gavin will call more often than he should and check back his  Ahrt hands or other one pair hands often.  Then he bets 1/3 to 1/2 pot... by this point this is around 40% of my remaining stack.

I try to work this out here... to see if I can ever try to rep a monster and check shove.. obv I would be repping AK only.. but also doing so pretty solidly imo.  I don't think he will ever call with a bare A and would be folding Kx a decent chunk of the time.

What flits through my mind, but not really for long is that it seems strange for him to bet here....  I might be being results orientated here but I should really have reminded myself that he would probably have bet the flop with a K.

I sigh fold and wisper to him, it'd be a nice bluff spot.  He oblidges and shows me the  8d 6d for a turned FD.


ARGHHHHHH!!!! he was still pissed about being owned before and couldnt resist, but after the hand I thought about it and realised its a ridiculous bet from him and that I should've fistpump snap called as he isn't betting worse pairs than an A and the he should never have a K.  This pot would have been great for me and given me a nice 34k stack just over average.  Instead I was down to 14k and now going to be on 'life support' -ish with 35bb's.



This is where the most important part of my last years work on my game came into play.  This is where I would have made one of the biggest mistakes I see players make and would have certainly wasted both my time and the money involved.
I would have 'blown up' trying to get a stack... even though I had 35bb's!
Instead, I used my more sensible, calm self to re-set and remind myself that I have 35bb's and that basically it removes all plays/ moves from my arsenal and that we will just be playing for value from now on.

We re-nit it up and avoid a few trouble spots where we wanted to open  Ac Td or  Kh Jh utg vs a competent table.
We carry on with watching, learning, paying attention and picking up some very reliable bet sizing tells on a couple of the players - once I see something confirmed 3 times I take it as 'fact' until I see otherwise.  Then we end up going to the break with about 12k and 20bb's.


Come back from the break a minute or so early.. to actually get our mind right and chillout. NO SPEW NO SPEW NO SPEW!  We did go out of the last DTD500 with a TPTK + NFD combo but it was in a spot where we shouldn't have got our stack in, we should have called the turn and shoved if we hit.. turns out we ran into a gutshotted bottom straight who snapped, saying "you've got a bigger straight right?" OMG wp kid.... and we didnt hit.

By now the table has changed, Seat 2 has been moved, Seat 3 has gone bust - replaced by a big stacked Adam McGuiness (know him well), Seat 4 has his starting stack, Seat 6 has our 35k! :D, Seat 7 has bust into PLinton - replaced by an aggressive older gent who PL seems to know.. and Seat 8 has left our table.  So the table is much better for us imo and with Adam having a lot of chips and we have a history where he will call me down lighter than I think he should I look forward to finding a hand.  Deekon is now dealing and we have chatted to him a lot in the past, really nice guy... ask him for a few hands please, it would really help. :D


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

First hand back from break - 
Ahrt Ks
Both SB and BB aren't there and we open UTG+1 ...            (hoping to get action here because of absence of blinds)
We min +25 to 1625 and the table folds right around - ok so not that unusual, we're opening a 15bb stack utg.. we should be strong.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Second hand back from break
Now the BTN is back but the SB (Adam) isn't and we find  Ks Kh... hmm this couldn't be better timing.. looks like we're stealing again and praying someone wakes up here... shame Adam isn't here as he won't be folding to me too much pre-flop.
Everyone folds again and we sigh as we look at Deekon and he realises we had it both times.. his face saying 'sorry dude I gave you something obviously...'

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Adam comes back and makes a chatty "hey, how are you" kinda comment, its nice to see him but there is certainly a look of 'dont even think about it John' in his eyes.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

An orbit or so later
There is an EP raise and Adam makes a small 3bt, we're back to our 16-20bb stack and find  Kc Kh..... ****!!!!
How the hell can we get a call here from him when we cold 4bt shove over his 3bt when we're still 2 off the BTN?!?
ITS GOING TO LOOK LIKE WE HAVE  Ahrt Ac OR  Kh Kc..... (no John.. that's what 'we' might think.. they dont!)

- Then we think about our history, can we afford to flat here? Maybe, but with his stack he is more likely to call it off pre
- Will he stack off post flop as easy or easier than pre? No
- Does he 3bt light often enough for this to be a 'move' in MP? NO!
- How big is his stack really... Will the 16k dent his table CL significantly? No, he has around 70k

So we reason the only play, despite the fact it should scream 'MONSTER' is that we have to shove.  I think he will put us on AK/ AQ too much and snap with any pair.. but almost certainly call with those hands himself.. = we should be getting called.

We shove, and he takes a minute or two.... then realises there's no way he's passing 'this hand' to John Black when it won't hurt his stack and its probably the best hand right now.  He calls with  8s 8d and we hold!

BOOM! back to a playable stack and we're off to the races ladies and gentlemen!

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So........ Like a nit... we nit it up and decide our stack and table is now perfect for extracting value and dodging any kind of tough spots.. then this hand happens.

We find  Qd Qs and open min+25 UTG playing 30k-ish and then get really small 3bt from the 'older aggy gentleman' that PL knew, he's seemed a little too lose pre but has certainly not done anything aggressively out of line preflop.  He has shown he will call too much pre, but it was always in position (peeled  8c 4c to my HJ open and bet flop n turn when checked to on  8s 6d 2c).

I really really really hate this min3bt here.... its just so evident of hands I've played in the last 12 months when people have 'telegraphed' their hand strength to me and I've not listened.  Online, small 3bts have always been AA's...
So I decide to play this rather carefully as he covered me I thought.

I call his 3bt and we see
Flop
 Qh Th 6d

I check, and he puts out a healthy bet... I wanted to raise/ get it in here to make sure he believes I have a FD but my instinct told me that he would be barrelling the turn 100% of the time so wait till then (he will be commited with any one pair hand).

Turn
 8c  (or other similar brick)

We check and he snap checks behind.... Hmmmm, not sure what to do on a river.. its a big'ish pot and we should always have the best hand.. but maybe he's cautious too.  If he has the dreaded AA, KK he will always vbet the river!

River
 Ahrt
I check and he looks genuinely happy to see the A... My stomach lurches.. literally climbing up to strangle my Oesophagus and make sure my tongue doesn't say anything my cards can't match!
And I sigh.... then take 30 seconds... put the 'call' (turns out I have him covered but it is 80% my stack) to one side and think about this.
I announce to the table "sorry if this seems like a slow-roll, I can't see myself folding but I need to think.."
He doesn't look worried, no problem at all... I'm still sat there trying to convince myself he doesn't have AA:-


When something doesn't sit right >>> Why would he shove when it completes a flush and it probably looks like I'm drawing.. >>> It looks like I have a flush, he wouldnt try to get me off this...  >>> Then I feel like durrrrrr and realise there is no spoon >>> and despite realising that I should always be ahead... I call saying 'please show me the  Aspades Ac sir.....'.

He stands up, laughs and shows me the  2c 3c.... and I now have a massive stack... 58k and its definitely time to ROLLLLLLLL!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


From here the story is relatively short we play pretty snug on the table from there on in.. using our stack quite well and staying away from danger..Then we move tables and we're now going to have to start all over again.  We now have 50kish..

An orbit or so in and we find  Qh Jd and open our HJ, Finalist Paul Romain peels his BTN and one of the blinds comes along.

Flop
 Ks Tc 3h

Pretty good flop considering our hand/ image (new to table) and we decide a cbet is manditory.. We stick to our 1/2 pot sizing and Paul takes some time then calls (he's playing 80k or so, has us covered).  We don't think he will have a monster here very often, my 'stereo-typing' of him (which is rarely wrong in a big way) is that he seems like an experienced player (- he seems very comfortable at the table), who probably doesn't play GTO poker, and may have a tighter range pre/ as a result may not find the fold button often.

I don't think he will hero me with a K through 3 streets, but will likely fold to a 2nd barell with worse than tp and obv we have lots of outsies!

Turn
 9c   Oh hello dere!!! :hello:

Pretty good to make the nuts first hand vs a guy we "now hope" doesn't fold too often....
We take some time and work out stack sizes, raise sizes.. and stack:pot ratios if we do X, Y or Z... We remind ourself that players of this 'stero-type' will rarely do the betting for us, so we have to bet!
We decide a larger size is definitely the way, maybe even overbetting the pot.. but resign to a 4/5 pot bet.. making a river shove a perfect just over pot size. (lovely for bluffs and value imo).

We bet 4/5 pot and he takes very little time in 3.5x-ing our raise... OMFG! he has  Kh Kd and he slowplayed the flop... - boomtown!
We're always shoving now, with it being just over a min-raise back to him... but we decide that its possible he might only have one pair here... and if he does we need to make sure we get called.  So we take the longest we've ever taken to shove the nuts in any hand of poker we've played ever.... close to 3 minutes.. with mumbling and talking to ourselves.. Imagining what it's going to be like to have 110K when the average is 37K and then wait some more..... finally we say "I'm all in"

Paul checks - "did he say all in??? I call."

F***MyFMFMFLFDJDOFJDSOFM life... he only snaps with QJ... and he rolls over  Qc Jc for a chop pot.... SIGGGH!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nothing much else happens and we only seen one more pot of significance involving Paul (who at this point has about 120k)

Where he raises CO and BB flats...

Flop
 9s  7c 7s

BB checks, Paul bets 1/2 pot, BB Craises to 3.5x and Paul takes a few seconds then declares All in, BB sighs and calls...

Paul -  9h Th
BB -  Ks 2s
And we're off to the races in a ridiculous spot worth about 140k when the average is only 38/40k.

Turn
 Qs - BB takes the lead

River
 7d - Pauls retakes the pot with a full house! mbn sir..


The BB storms off in disgust but there is a lot of commotion as the dealer realises that the BB has Paul covered and that he has around 14k left..

Next hand he shoves his SB over Pauls raise and I cold call  Kh Th knowing that Paul is never going to get out of line here..
He calls and we see

Flop
Ks 8s Qc
I check, he checks..

Turn
 Qd
I check, he checks.. going to value bet any river now..

River
 Qh
I bet 11k, and he folds... the BB shows down  Kd 3d for a now chopped pot.. FFS! That was 27K that would've boosted my stack by like 40%.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


We don't do much else for quite a while, some small pots here and there... we realise that the table is actually quite good and that there quite a few chips up for grabs if we can make a hand! (I'm starting to realise deep down that live poker shouldn't involve a lot of bluffing - yay = learning!)

We find  Qd Qh again and open (some nice starting hands yes, but we've been very patient tbh!)
We get 3 callers, Paul in CO and the two blinds..

Flop
 9s 5h 4s

SB Checks, BB Checks and we bet around 4/5 pot with the intention of setting up a turn pot sized shove even if we only get one caller, Paul folds, SB folds and BB hesitantly shoves - covering us.

We snap his hesitant shove, knowing he hasn't got a set 'this time'... and he turns over  7c 7s! He exclaims "****!" and I'm loving life! we're about to get back into a good stack again with 2.5x avg and a great table... CMON SON! 91% here we are!

Turn
 8h - In my head I'm like "Don't you ****ing dare mate..... don't even think about it...."

River
 7h - GG, WP, NH, mbsf-jkldjflkdfkjdsgfhdskjghdsfldsjhf-nice

He explains his shove by saying "I thought you had  Aspades Kh so I shoved..." - ty ty ty sir.

And this gentlemen then goes on to finish the day in the top 5 chipstacks and not even cash I believe... This is the bit that makes me most upset... I'm completely happy with the way I played, but I know.. for certain that winning that pot on that table would really set me up well for a solid run.  Nevermind, next time then please.



Well that was my DTD500 report...
I hope you survived it, that you enjoyed it, and would appreciate all comments......... Next month if I'm around I'll be there! £70K 1st please!!!!

I finished the day playing a little bit of 50/1 cash and lost a bowl (of rice = not a lot).. but played well and only missed one spot where I folded  7c 6h pre and it came  7d 6c 6d and a deepstacked player who has massive tells and can't release a pair, had the  Aspades Ac and I would have received a full £300 double up.. sigh @ £5 disciplined SB folds...........


Now onto BRoll commitments...

I appreciate that mate... sorry but this is me.

Soooo Bankrolls.


Live - I have £585 in cash as a small tourny roll/ small punts in 50/1 or 1/1 games. 
- Insanely small I understand, however the tournys will likely be £50 fo's..
- Might speculate in the Luton friday £100... I have a sick record in that comp.. played 6/7 won 2 (£1800/£2200), 6th in another (hero calling 1/2 CL stack with 5s 6s on  Js 8h 6h 2s when nit shoved for 1.5x pot - AA obv)
- I will also be putting £1k of my recent overtime into this 'pool'... It's definitely a 'short' roll by most live MTT standards.. but tbh in the super 50's/ sub £100 comps.. my edge is significant. 
- The super 50 is a big target of mine, having finaled it 3 times in the last 3 months.. 2x with CL, winning one and 6th the other two times. (one was an aggy blowup/ other JJ vs A10 + Btn into BB 2orbits in a row). I find if i run 0ev then its just flexible enough for me to crush though... and when in last 60 I absolutely destroy that tournament.

Online - I play sats on DTD and 10NL on Stars
DTD - £483.27
- This is for satellites into the GP, 6max, DTD150 and DTD500...
- This will involved 1 or 2 £100 re-entry 10 seat shots.. so far 2/3 then hitting the £4's and £20's to get into it.
- I have played some 25 + 50 NL on DTD and crushed it so I may even look at some 25NL to build up for the end of month 'sats'

Stars - $395.13 for 10NL
- Have a couple of $10 rewards to claim
- I realise this is kinda the bottom of a sensible bankroll my plan is 40bi's at each level... by the time I get to $1000 for 25NL I am sure I will be able to move up very quickly... the big jumps will be 50NL/ 50NL HU and 100NL.
- Had a bit of spew when I started (played at a mates house and exploded $300) but now steadily winning over last 8 sessions, up $285 over 6150 hands.. with about -$45EV.  Works out at a good rate if i can keep it up.
- I'm playing 6-8 'fast' tables at a time, and find I only ever seem to 'lose' a stack when I'm either super cold decked, getting 10-20%'d or running into the abso-top of peoples ranges... I'm winning so much at NSD, taking pots of regs and fish alike.
- I make a lot of notes and try to use that to experiment pre and post flop..
- I'm much better with the ol 'fold' button now, which is massive for a 'live' player! You have to realise how many river calls I can make live that just are never ever calls online.
- I don't want to go to more than 10 tables at the moment... I want to still be making notes and adjusting to the reg's... my understanding of winning at cash poker is that you use 'standard' lines/ hand combos to play the fish or softer players and you need to be 'thinking' when approaching the regs - I have a few things already that I do which they despise and have no defense to = FUN!!!



Should there be any BRoll problems I have a spare bedroom in my house, and I will rent it out Mon-Fri to a local professional, in Milton Keynes this isn't too hard.. for approx £400/450 per month bankroll only money.

Also, we have a Super 50 seat for free from the DTD cash promotions... (so sick if I can bink another for £3k to give me a 'proper' start!)


And failing all of the above I will discuss any live/ online staking deals that I am offerred (if) and go from there.

I am now a member of TPE (tournament poker edge) and am loving all their vids.. and with my job taking me abroad often, I will be spending a regular 5-10 hours/ week studying and working on my MTT and Cash games maybe more as I need to watch a series a couple of times to really absorb the info/ ideas.  DC member ship yet to be sorted.... on the way - honest.


And then I guess its just to the 2012 winning. yes please.




Right, I've done it... time for sleep.  Been here since 7pm when I got home - 6 hours of typing. FML!

Tonight grind..

Went to the gym first, so was feeling a little pumped and healthy but I think the pumped meant a few random spazzy bluffs, nothing major.. I gave up on 3 pots I remember that I was right to... which in the past I might not have and would've lost a lot on the last bullet.

101.3 minutes
870 hands
Results               -$26.70
Ev adjusted         -$20.61
VPIP                   27.7
PFR                    21.3
3bt%                    9.0
Agg Fact            1.74
WTSD%             31.8
W$SD%             48.2


Nothing special really... didnt play my best.. maybe 7.5/10.  Need to properly focus, I had the tv on a programe rather than the music channels.  I had to stop early as a mate came over who's having trouble with his ex and the soon to be mother of his child, so we sat and had a grown up discussion about what we know about women - hmmmmm....

Think I officially made friends with Pleno today, I'm looking forward to picking his brains about some HU stuff.. but mainly making friends with people that are good and active in poker is good networking and as he is into discussion and study groups I hope I can help him too.

night all.

x

Got half-way through and felt I had to continue as i'd already read a small book.

Certainly seems like you are making some improvements on your game from some of the early PHA posts. Although still notice quite a few thoughts being aired about spots you want to turn hands into bluffs etc, which are just so rarely required live I would probably look to cut this out of your game almost completely. I would challenge you to find me more than 1 live player at Dusk who thinks they have made profit lifetime from bluffing live players.

In particular the thoughts of bluffing on that 76554 board vs TomK and the other guy are nasty... i know you didnt, but dont even think about it in that spot.

Very much dislike leading the turn with your TT in a 4-way pot on an AK high board.

From what I can remember the rest was all standard/fine/good so good job.

p.s. having read the bankroll breakdown, I hope I don't see any more 1/2 PHA posts... seems kinda suicidal to be playing in those games, which player more like 2/5.... with the roll you have. I would advise to collate your BR and play 50/1 more live or remove most/all of this 'live roll' and move up to 25NL minimum... really want to be playing 100NL for something like meaningful money (and to test your game out a bit against some semi-competant regs).... i would do that and maybe keep some on the DTD site for satellites to live events etc.

GL

p.p.s please don't write 5000 words next time, compact HHs with concise thought-process breakdowns are fine for these kinds of spots/posts. By all means be yourself and word it how you want, but no-one (few) will read these kind of posts if they become regular

Lol tom high. Played any 5knl recently?!

The problem is, you are obviously a good player, but if you're playing NL10 there must be something wrong with your game that you haven't found out yet. If you can't currently beat NL10 or you can't afford a bigger bankroll then you should not be even thinking about playing NL100+ or Tournaments live at all. Pool all the money into one bankroll and use it for online. Study,play,play, study, post pha, study, play,move up, study, post on pha, play, play, study.

Aim to play 40k hands per month and spend 1 hour a day learning, yes you have a job and its hard but if you really want to do well in poker then that's what you have to do. If you don't want to sacrifice alot of time and effort and just want to play the odd tournament here and there and play a few side cash games in the tournament then do that and don't waste your time on NL10. You're definitely +ev in live games and you most likely will be for a long time, so if you just want to have fun and splash about then that's cool.

Good morning.

We get to the table and sigh... We have probably one of the toughest overall first table draws in the entire competition. 

37    1    Dean Morris -
Seen him before, understand he's a solid 'regular' player but might not be playing optimal poker.

Mixed read, that. He's not "solid", so you got that wrong, but you were right about him "not playing optimal poker".

1-1.

Fine Diary, keep it up.   

LOL

of course i'm solid..u seen the size of my shoulders ?

lol at less than optimal..i suppose that means trying early to twice bluff off 1 pair hands on paired and flushing boards

I suppose telling the bloke his got AK who then  still calls , laying QQ on a J high dry board and then getting some knob limp with 6 4 and call off a 10bb shove is playing less than optimal then i'm pretty guilty :)

Dean, fyp.

I mean no offence fella, I've seen you at DTD before - playing in cash games other than he 50/1 and told you were 'ok'.. but I go with stereotyped assumptions until shown otherwise.. as they're often close.  And yeah, bluffing live players off 1 pair - doesn't work too often, no matter the board! (I'm still learning this).

WotR - Thanks for reading..

and thanks to everyone who has read this diary! Its a marathon I know! I think I'll only do longer posts like this for the bigger comps I play this year.  I'll try and condense it down next time.



Tonights first session, yes there will be two!
It's a bit misleading as I ran pretty goldhuis like in some 3bt pots with suited connectors! :D :D :D

84.9 minutes
513 hands - played a few dtd sats at same time, bust 1 early and lost one hu to Sunny Mistri and bubbled the 3rd! (all races - sigggh)
Won -                   $60.02
Ev adjusted -         $69.94
VPIP                     27.9%
PFR                      23.3%
3bt                       9.9%
Agg Fct                2.09
WTSD%               36.7% (this is showing that I ran pretty good with runouts)
W$SD%               51.5%

We broke through another $10 bonus and also hit some VPP target, but still need a few more to retain Silver status for this month.. would like to get to Gold.. but we'll see.

Played pretty nice and managed most of our money in pots where our suited connectors made good hands vs gd one pair hands.. flopped a bunch of sets but couldnt get too much money in.. Funny really, it starts to hit home how good the odds need to be to setmine, since it really is hard to get paid off online.  They need tp or better!

Made one insane move.. when someone had the nut flush and bet, bet, checked... we tried to rep his hand... sigh!
gg to that $12..   STOP THIS!

please please please quit with the essays I just cant do it.

I just can't

What does everyone think the best size post is?
(fwiw Lil'd.. I've read your whole blog in the last wk)


Right, second session.... not so great.
We played a couple more dtd sat's - direct ones this time, not "mini's".

We bust all 3 outside of the money in spectacular style...
DTD150 sat -
Didnt play any hands until push/ fold stage then played 2 hands: QQ and AA.. doubled up both times and then get played back at when we are at it.. and 3bt MP1... hero then crain on 1088 flop - ridiculous.  He should've 4bt aipf or folded.. defo not peeled A10!

DTD 6max Sat -
Can't remember exactly...  think our  Qc Qh got bust by  7h 3h or something equally insane on a  Js 3s 3d board.

DTD500 Sat -
Same as 150, played uber solid.. only ever having best hand till later ofc when we up the aggy a bit!  Then we get check-call hero'd by the CL 4 handed with  Qd Jc on

 Ks  Jh 6c  7h Ahrt                 -  WTF???

It was going to cost him 26k from his 80k to call and would lose him his massive CL if he's wrong.  I'd not bluffed in 1 pot vs him and always had it.  Then he justified the call by saying "I can't see what you triple on that board..."

I know what he means but I can easily just 'have it' when I'm risking my stack as well and the other two are short...  Aspades Jc/  Kc Kd etc....
Surely on the river its an ICM fold from him no matter what? - we would both have 85K and the other two guys 30k.



Cash Session

72.9 minutes
405 hands - played a few dtd sats at same time, more bubbles!
Lost -                   -$35.02
Ev adjusted -        -$32.87
VPIP                     26.0%
PFR                      20.3%
3bt                       7.7%
Agg Fct                1.74
WTSD%               40.0% (this is insanely high.. could not seem to get to showdown with the best hand.. ever!)
W$SD%               32.1%



Oh and we played a $28 UKIPT Galway super sat into the nightly $109.. we got to last 4 (2 seats and 1 $$ prize..) then we lost AKs vs 94o aipf..... Siggghhhhhh.

tilt the bold is enough, do not ever ever bold and underline again!

Wow you're indepth. Can't help thinking the time you spend writing all this stuff out would be better spent studying/watching training videos etc.

This is studying.. I go back over my posts every few days to look at my thought processes, my shame.. and my victories..

This is as much for me to go over, and remember as it is putting myself 'out there' for judgement/ advice/ criticism.


I agree with your comments Pleno about the bankroll assimilation, however I think at the moment.. for me I still need to grind 20-30k hands minimum just to keep 'imprinting' and reinforcing the simple disciplines that others seem to find so easy!  I'm pretty sure that I could beat 25NL and faily sure I could be a small winner at 50NL already.. but I'm certain I will be able to beat them once I 'grind my way' up there.  (its also the only way to get any kind of staking deal... people need XX,000's hands.)

Discipline and grinding my way up is a skill, and I haven't yet learned it.  I'm definitely +ev live.. and the more disciplined I get and the more controlled and properly applied my aggression is the more prepared I'll be for the 200, 400, 600 and 1KNL live games when I am rolled for them.

Online Cash Session

128.4 minutes
1100 hands - made sure I had music on so I could focus.
Won -                   $38.22
Ev adjusted -        -$1.10 (only bad one was AA vs 64 on 866ss when he'd 3bt SB preflop...  obv turn an A tyty)
I don't understand this properly yet - AK vs 99 aipf (hit A), QQ vs 55 aipf, 910ss vs 77 on K37sss and 45ss vs A9 on A2Ass..
Any help you guys can give to help me understand this would be appreciated.
VPIP                     28.6%
PFR                      24.0%
3bt                       7.6%
Agg Fct                3.48    (much higher than normal, a lot of check-raising flops n rivers..)
WTSD%               27.8% (this is much better, well done John!!!!!)
W$SD%               52.7%

Still making a couple of mistakes, one of the bigger one's being not reacting properly to prefop tendancies at my level!  Biggest ones being small 3/4bt's with uber premiums.. I try to not peel inpos too much when people have a low 3bt (not the correct way to exploit them) but its sooo tempting.. esp when I have  4s 5s or  6c 8c etc...


Live Pokerz
I've decided to not play the Luton £100fo and instead operate slightly better BRM and play the Northampton Aspers £50fo w/£1/1 cash game after.  I'm easily one of the best players in both and just need to keep my discipline going, and exploit the tendancies of both the live low level tournament players and the cash game players (reg and fish alike).
Mini report to follow before I go to bed tonight.



Life
Can't wait for tomorrow, I'm going to the Christening rehersal of my newly born Goddaughter! (sunday is the real thing) This is really big for me, being involved and responsible for another human is a scary thing.  I'm not religious in the slightest and don't want to voice my views online as they're probably going to offend but needless to say this weekend will likely be one I won't forget any time soon.

Did u really write 5 paragraphs (including a series of bullet points) about your thought process when you've got 16bigs with Kings and it's gone raise 3-bet in front of you?!

Also, lol at the Tom High BRM Masterclass

Guess it sounds silly when you put it like that.. but I wrote about the 'big' hands in my tournament.. and that was an annoying spot where I'm monstrously unbalanced and the villain should be able to get away from 90% of his hands..
Thanks for reading though Andy, any other comments more than welcome???

This isn't too long a post, mainly just one hand which is probably just stupid spew...
Live Pokerz
SIGH @ Live Pokerz!!!

We played a little silly at the start, got out hands burnt and then reminded ourself we don't need to do anything but value-bet well and make sensible folds.

1. We lose a decent sized pot when our 7h 5h gets outhoused by  5c 4s on  5d 5s 6h............. we bet fold a  4c river after a speech from him.

2. We lose when our  Ac Aspades runs into  Ks Th on  Kc Jc 6d  7d Kd... only called river £15 into £120 because I'm a fish who wanted to see, should have folded.

3. We transfer tables and play uber nitty, taking a better seat (pos on weak players) when it comes up then play like a nit until we get  Kd Kc and flat a 3bt pre flop, comes  Ks high and we a double up vs  Aspades Ahrt. :D

4. Our next  Kd Kc gets outdrawn by  6s 8s of Suni Mistri.




Then we're playing pretty solid and snug until this happens.
£1/1
limp, limp, in CO we make it £10 with  Ks Qs, BTN calls, Suni M SB calls, call, call.

Pot (£51) £420 effective
Flop
 Ts 6s 4d

Checks to us, we bet £32, fold, Suni calls, fold, fold, fold.

Suni can have anything here.. he doesn't like folding pairs, but he's going to give our Cbet a lot of credit and I'd expect him to reraise with a set/ combo draw here and expect us to have an overpair often.  Its just going to be too easy for us to checkback a turn card.

Pot (£111)
Turn
 5d

No reason to slow down yet, he's going to struggle with his one pair hands when we barrell this and as above he shouldn't have many monsters without turning them.

Suni checks, we bet £55, Suni raises to £160..... Hmmmm... strange!

I don't like this as I don't think he will be bluffing in this spot very often, however its not impossible (that turn card gives him soooo many pair + fddraw +straight draw hands).  I really like his sizing, he has me covered and I now only have like £260 left-ish.  I guess I could/ should fold here and that calling is pretty shoddy however I thought if I do, because he's obviously setting up a river shove.... IF I'm flatting, knowing he is setting it up then my range becomes a lot stronger than if i 3bt this turn & 3bting it is pretty shocking.

I think in retro-spect that I should have just folded the turn but at the time I was thinking that because there are two flush draws and he doesn't know which, if either are safe to bomb on.. that it might stop him shoving a  2s or  2d river with air.

Pot (£431)
River
 9h

Pretty perfect river brick obviously... Suni picks up his chips like a special boy and somehow they fall all over the place as they go across the line.
£25's go backwards, and the £5's go in but everywhere... IMO only £40 drops in the first instance and I'm not certain but he doesn't seem chuffed about it.  After the whole table tell me "he tried to put them all in" and I remind them, "yes, he tried but thats not what actually happened".  Eventually the cardroom manager comes back after a camera check and tells me in his opinion the "All in" stands... SIGH!

I now run the hand back in my head... its such a 'nutty' line.. and I know he doesn't have a fold button pre so he can have ANYTHING!!  that includes all the  Jd 7d type hands that turned oesd + fd combo!  In which case vs all these diamond or spade combo draws my K high is good.
(I appreciate this seems crazy to most, but Suni and I have played a lot of pots together and I really dont think he always has to have it here)

After all this, I remind myself that in actual fact I haven't seen him turn up in £500+ pots for a long time without 'it'.  And fold.

Maybe everyone just thinks this is ridiculous spew, especially when the table clearly didn't notice how tight I was pre and kept paying me off despite only ever showing premiums.  I'm not sure this hand 'tilted' me but a few hands later I make a move from the SB on a  9d 6s 4s 9h board where I check shove the turn with  Ahrt Ks because the OR in the hand is a weak overly aggressive chinese player without a fold button and that AK high can actually be a head vs him a lot....  He sigh calls with  Ad Ac - FML!
GG £400.

I then still decide to reload for my last £100 for a 'spin up' and gg that when all my premiums either miss or run out on sick boards.. and end up straddle-shoving  Ks 2s to only get snapped off by  Aspades 3s. GG John, wp.





Either way, GG to £500 and are effectively not playing live again until we earn it!!!  I'm going to use the DTD online money to 'win' satellites and after we win our entry any after that can be 'cashed'... so here we come £550/ time!

If you say that Sunny knows that your range for cbetting into a number of players has to be pretty strong and he'd expect you to show up with an overpaid here often then he's probably not gonna go bananas and try making you fold such a strong range that often. It's a fold imo because f that fact the you've said Sunny can have any two and the fact it just "looks" like you have an over pair. He was probably annoyed at the fact his all in bet on the river may have only stood as £40 when he wants you to pay him the lot! Deffo can't really justify calling the river with K high that often without soul reads so seems a pretty trivial fold. No need to get the cape out and hero people off on ridiculaous spots!

Disregard that. Be a hero.

Don't listen to Sean, he isn't that clever. I saw him hero Tom High earlier for £600 effective with 5 high. Wasn't good of course, he flopped the nuts...

This kind of thinking is what wins bracelets! :D


So we played a little online session to still prove we can win at poker.

[ ] We won.

Online Cash Session

103.5 minutes
932 hands -
Lost -                   -$0.48
Ev adjusted -       +$3.92
VPIP                     28.0%
PFR                      22.1%
3bt                       9.5%
Agg Fct                1.51
WTSD%               36.2% (bit high)
W$SD%               46.9%

Made a few spazzy bluffs and one annoying one where someone is only repping a set, and face up.. but we decide to shove and properly rep the set.
[ ] We had a set
[X] He had a set
[ ] We had outs
[ ] We won
[ ] Felt big and clever afterwards
[X] Still a spazzz


I think I need to spend the next few hours 'playing' by actually going through my weeks hand histories, trying to see what and where I'm playing well and what's not working and what I need to curb.
Is it particular board textures?
Particular positions?
etc etc..



Also, I decided to unlock 3x $10 rewards for FPP achievements.. so actually +$30! :D

Stars roll @ $428.31

Live Pokeys is all about realising who thinks. The majority of people do not.

If Sunny doesn't like folding pairs then its a pretty bad turn to barrel cos if he had some sort of gutshot or open ender hes now got one, and if he had a weakish pair hand hes now got a gutshot/straight draw as insurance.

Triple barrelling here is ok i suppose, but once raised u gotta fold. You're massively overthinking the spot. When your saying "it looks like hes setting up a river shove, so if i flat then it looks strong", you should just be thinking: "It looks like hes setting up a river shove, which means he's going to probably shove the river, and I'm going to have King High most of the time"

incred post.

so much this

So the Christening rehersal and the actual thing went well today....

Did my duties, kept track of the church service and hymn's well (not that I am a believer).  Then a party back the parents house to get a few photos and some nibbles.  I didn't feel very comfortable with saying all the things I was asked to say "I will take jesus every day and let him guide my way.." etc..  But i discussed it with the parents and grandparents before and turns out they're not really religious which made it easier to say these things with them.
Anyone had this kind or moral dilemma? / what would you do?

Then came home and realised that this Sunday DTD do have on the mega sats and 10 seat DTD500 sat (didn't last week, with no explanation as to why not from the DTD help team...)



Online DTD Satellite session

Played the following:
1. 3x 6 Euros for £150 deepstack mega sat seat - 1Rup (disconnected), 1 win and 1 bubble...
2. 3x 20 Euros for £500 deepstack mega sat seat - 1 direct bubble, 1 win, 1 close to bubble b2b 70/30's to lose stack..
3. 2x Grand Prix sats - CL in both for most of tournament, lost a few 70/30's or 60/40's.. in one I got to 5bb's and called off with KJo - bad? (lost vs AQo)

Now in the big ones (the mega sats for actual seats) we're doing well-ish...
£150 deepstack sat - 19/20 bit card dead last two levels.
£500 deepstack sat - 6/22 good stack and good looking table.

Cmon! :D

oh man, you make me wanna right essays on so much stuff you say.

I just don't have time tho....

I hope that's a good thing... maybe you can skype me in the evenings and tell me.. make it easier.. then I'll write it on here! :D



DTD Sats
£150 deepstack - built a nice stack wth a few 3bt shoves and then won a flip in a pretty big spot with AK vs 44.
Got a seat! ;topofclass;
£550 deepstack - really slowly built a stack with a 11/8 VPIP/ PFR until last 20.. then opened up a little and made some nice 3bts.. - owned Sunny Mistri in a few spots which was nice. :D :D :D (on my direct left with a CL for a while)
Got a seat!  ;snoopy'sguns;


So to roundup today - we spent around £78 to win £150 worth of Mega Sat entries.. then crushed the sats for 880 Euros = Goood day!  :)up ;cheerleader; :)up


Would like to ship a decent chunk of the newly GTD £50k prize pool!   :cheers:


GL to all and laters....

Re the Sunni hand.....don't try and be a hero against a player like him when there are so many easier spots at the table...especially when ur not really rolled for the games. Save the levelling wars until after u ship 30k plus in a donkament :)

Couldn't win today....


Online Cash Session

93.7 minutes
609 hands -
Lost -                   -$48.26
Ev adjusted -       -$37.55
VPIP                     25.7%
PFR                      20.4%
3bt                       5.7%
Agg Fct                1.40
WTSD%               39.4% (very high.. this was due to the amount of TINY river bets i faced where I had strong hands n called to see rivered 2p's etc..)
W$SD%               43.2% (made a couple of nice A high calls)


Currently 15/20 in the DTD150 mega sat.. trying to get another seat for the ££'s since these sats are so soft.. like free monies unless i get coolered.



The Tournament Poker Edge videos are helping a lot with my own satellite structure play and MTT theory.  I'm thinking I might try the Stars step satellite program to get into some of the weekly majors and look into trying to get some bigger entry live tournies.. - UKIPTS etc...

Still not signed up to Deuces Cracked yet, but that's still on the list.  The cash videos there will be a key asset to my cash progression.. but I think a couple of hours a week reviewings hands will be a big part of spotting my own leaks/ problems.


Right, back to the sat.. 9 more places to go for another DTD150 seat.

hey mate, vefore u play another hand of poker catch me on skype.

Currently 15/20 in the DTD150 mega sat.. trying to get another seat for the ££'s since these sats are so soft.. like free monies unless i get coolered.



keep rasing my bb and you will lol

wp m8

will do pleno.. tonight I think im going to give Charlene some time... but tomorrow?


Dude, with my stack its what I gota do... you guys can't afford to mess - standard sat strat.  The A3o call was horrendous really.. should just shove into me.  So glad I binked the 9.




DTD150 Mega Satellite
I won another DTD150 seat just now... played really standard solid Satellite tournament strategy... only having one 'troublespot' where I got AIPF bbvsb where the dude min raises  Ad 3h and I shove for 15bb's with  Kh 9h and he snaps.

Board runs out
 8c Qh 2s 8d............ 9s          :hello: Oh hello dere..

As usual, from the last 15 to final 10 I stepped up the aggression and played really well.  As has been common in my short Sat histroy, I have slowly but surely built a big stack and been able to sail through from 13 left to the final 10!.

That's us free rolling into both the DTD150 and DTD500 now.  Hoping to have a +£1k/ month on DTD while playing these if they continue as they are.


Time to make the misses feel appreciated.......... glme!

hey u about?

I am, but spending tonight with the missus im afraid. Around tomorrow?

this is compulsive reading, i was expecting a car-crash but tbf to you you're doing pretty good.

keep it up

this! go john!

Own diary, brag posts definitely going to be commonplace.



Not sure if I should be offended or not.. but thanks and feel free to unload those essay like responses you really want to write - when you have time away from crushing the world of online or live PLO.

I must admit Lil'D that your blog has given me a sweet insight into the life of a 'pro' and its sickly at times.  Just reading about some of the pots you've played, both won and lost.. I've even checked the odd's on some of them as I'm basic PLO literate but not particularly talented with hand ranges/ strengths yet.. and some of them made me puke in my own mouth a little.
Big props to you sir - #takingitlikeonlyadegencan


As far as everything else goes... I'm going to be trying to get hold of Pleno tonight if he's about and i'll probably be playing the DTD150 sat again to try for a 3rd seat of 3 attempts.  With these and the DTD500 'week' at the end of each month, I'm really hoping to build up a sizable roll online while I grind on stars to instill the discipline i need for both my own good and for anyone else to ever have the faith to back me long term.

I know I am good enough, clever enough and work hard enough to be a decent winner in NLHE cash games, but that a few key tweaks here and there are what I need before I start climbing the 'serious' ladder needed for improvement up and through 100NL and beyond.
I will beat 6max cash games, and I will beat NLHE hu.


And live poker is easy, I am beating it! (<£1k events and game selection up to £1KNL)

Thanks dude, really appreciate it.

I'd like to be rolled to use my copious amounts of annual leave to travel a little and get to some of the 'closer' events and tours... in similar fashion to the Eureka team.
Got a few friends that are working the UK tour, and with travel expense sharing and satellites..

[X] In for pennies to bink 5 or 6 figs.  ;kev; ;slavedriver; ;karabiner;

A very interesting and potentially very important thing in my poker life happened just now... can't say much just yet.  But watch this space!

In b4 u reveal pleno is staking you?!

It's a strange thing that happens and it clicks in your head one day, you realise that nothing can happen in poker that ever really matters, you kind of reach a point where you've played so much that the results aren't that important to you, you don't feel the need to make master plays every hand and need to win the hand in order to validate it, basically it's just when poker starts to mean a little less to you than it did at the beginning. However at the start of any career you're always going to be really enthusiastic and take the initial variance a little harder than you should because it will, and it should, mean more to you because it's a point of such intense focus. So certainly not a criticism at all, the opposite in fact, you can't really get any further without going through that period (could last 2 months, 2 years whatever)

My earlier post about expecting a car-crash wasn't worded particularly well, although Alex snap knew what I meant, most people start out on these kind of journey's like the one you've set about and it just explodes because they require a set of disciplines that the person doesn't have. When you said in answer to Pleno that the skill of grinding your way up and studying your game isn't one you have yet then that was very impressive, most people would know that they didn;t have that and just hope that they'd run good enough not to need it. What I meant was you're sticking to your guns and going about things properly which is very much to your credit.

I am privy (I think) to the interesting and important thing you are talking about and I discussed it with the other person involved (who may or may not be Pleno) at reasonable length today and think it will be a great great move for you. If you go about it in the right way (as you have been doing) and really focus and try get everything you can out of the oppurtunity then I think it will be a fantasic thing, he doesn't have a lot of time but you could learn a lot from the person who may or not be Pleno, he's a very good teacher of the game, has great result at low-midstakes online NLHE and live and a really great network of very good players.


steer clear of this type of thoughts though, yes Live poker can be easier than online, but the differences in style and opponents needs to be respected as much as any other type of poker.

Keep up the good work mate, best of luck.

and no more essays from me btw!

Given your recent run of satellite wins I wondered what your thoughts were on re-entry in the GP when the blinds were virtually at the end of the 200/400 level.
5,000 chips is a shove or fold stack and whilst I'm sure you know the ranges wouldn't the buyin be better spent on a fresh stack at the start of one of the many more opportunities to secure a Golden Chip?

Is the good news pleno s staking u n lildave is coaching u on team viewer ?

Wow, well to some of you GTFO on the pre-emting! :D But yes I am considering an offer of sorts from someone who may or may not be called Pleno.


I hope this is not the case David! I am looking forward to picking your brains in person someday, but in the meantime on here is all I've got!


I appreciate your point David, and I saw your comment at the time - but as you say I feel my 'shove/fold' game will be closer to optimal than many of the other people playing these.. as such, its obviously ideal to get a 10-15k stack by the 200/400 level.  However.. something that's been said in the short stack videos I've been watching is that 'grinding' the short stack is a skill in its own.. and once i've invested X amount of time in a GP sat, its definitely not -ev to rebuy once or twice if i have a good table.
I can't remember how i bust that particular satellite but I think I've bust all the GP sats with a monster vs dominated hand or overcard.  So I don't mind.

I also think the GP sats seem to be timed rather awkwardly.. being at 8 or 10 when the main tournaments im playing are at 7 and 9pm!  I think that is the first 'rebuy' but it's a pretty close decision imo.

Hadn't considered the time investment, and I'm sure that  people with a good shove/fold game are rare in these games. I wouldn't do it beyond the middle of the 100/200 and only then if there weren't many opportunities left. But then I'm not big on reentering tournaments generally

10pm fits pretty well with the 9pm satellite if you're planning on being in the satellite for a while...

Sure, the time takes away time in between.  I'm trying to play the 5/6pm mini sat to get into the 9pm cheap.  Then have a coupla hours with the missus and dinner before I 'grind' the rest of the evening away.. so the 8pm is right in the middle.



DTD150 Sat
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm........
Just bust it in pretty spectacular style.

Only lost two hands of note today, both to the same guy - Villain 1.

First one is my  Ac Th vs  Ahrt Qs when the guy flat calls my MP raise from BB and cr then 3xpot shoves turn on  Aspades 7c 4d  8h.
I don't like calling the turn but I've seen spazzy bluffs in these from some dtd 'regs'.  I only called here because I can be ahead a fair chunk and that I satellited in for £6 earlier, so if i lose - rebuying here is just like buying in anyways... which I had already done before I won the seat.

Second one is this...
We've played really solid the entire time and built a nice stack, having super strong hands at showdown and never getting caught or called when we've made some nice semi-bluffs.

DTD150 Satellite - blinds 400/800
Villain 1 limps the button (29k), SB completes (9.5k) and We check our option with  8c 5h or something (24k)..

Pot $3200ish (includes antes)
Flop
 Qs Td 7h

SB checks, we decide to lead for 1875, BTN calls, SB folds.
imo - The BTN isn't likely folding this flop but he cant ever have better than one pair and the SB would lead ALL pairs so we're going to give him all 3 barrells here as he will never be able to call all 3.

Pot $6950
Turn
 7s

We continue our plan on this card and bet 4200, BTN calls.

Pretty amazing card, we can easily have lead any pair on the flop and as he can't have many 7's he will likely call here but fold 100% of rivers when we size it so we have a shove sized bet left.


Pot $15350 - we have $17925 effective
River
 4s

Loving this card, there's so few hands that he can have except exactly  Ts  9s or  Ts 8s that can get to this river like this and call.

With our line we can even have a house here, but obviously he's not folding a flush.  I'm 100% sure he's folding here with anything less than a flush and as we said at the start of the hand, he's going to be getting all 3 barrells when we think he's good and he limps the BTN here - his range is so capped its ridiculous.

We shove and get snapped!

that'll be the  Ts 8s exactly then.

Sigggggh!



Yet again, needless random spew sends us out of a tournament.  Yes, I know this is a great play long term and the guy will never be able to call here often enough to make it a problem.  Nevermind.


bleugh @ playing so solid and sick then running a sick hand for the reasons above and the guy rivers his miracle out! The only rivers I don't shove on are  Q's and 10's.

Your thinking in that hand is ok, but basically the 85 hand is not a great play long term and it is just massive spew. You have a good stack in a satellite at a pretty important stage, and ur now deciding to triple barrel a guy who limps the button off top pair. People really dont like folding top pair regardless of what you do (especially people who like to limp the button), and also you really arent repping many value hands yourself even if he is thinking. Why would you lead a 7? Why do you think the small blind would lead all pairs? How do you know this guy will fold a queen? Why can the button not have a 7?

Maybe the river bluff is profitable but half the money you are making from it is money you've put in yourself anyway on non-profitable flop and turn bets. This is probably the nut worst board to donk bet against a button limper as its really hard for him to have absolutely nothing, so you're always getting called, and then having to fire barrels which basically just compounds your problem.

You really do just need to keep it dead simple in a DTD satellite. 85offsuit in a 3 way pot on a QT7, check fold. It's that simple.

Something else to consider is that if the board does run out badly for you to barrel, your flop bet in a vacuum is basically just burning money, and at this point those chips are really worth a lot to you, you can use them in far better ways to accumulate small pots, whereas if u get down to 20bigs you have far less room to manoeuvre.

Wish u all the best with the potential staking deal if that's what it is

Maybe its the prospective backer who will need wishing luck ;)

Completely agree with all of the above Andy

I didn't realise you were a reader. Hope you enjoy my ramblings... and tbh you are very much part of the reason I posted that first hand history and by proxy responsible for my being more active on here, starting the diary I wanted to but hadn't and anything that comes from it.  For this, I thank you.
Remind me to get you a beer next time I'm trying to float with backdoor hands...   :cheers:

Just had a gym session with my bro, we've stepped it up to 2x a week now (mon and wed normally) and today I decided to push myself a little and 'up' my weights.  My arms are now recovering and despite having that 'just worked out, looking like hercules' feeling.... It is difficult to lift them. ;surrender;

So obv now I'm going to tennis for club training! :D

And then out to hang out with my newly single ex-wingman Ollie, who is a legend in his own lunchtime!


I am very excited by life, poker, tennis and my lovely lady Charlene at the moment... ;mexicanwave;
(After a couple of rough weeks in all of the above its feeling sweet!)

Today was a day for testing our resolve...

It was a day where we lose all the time and can't find a hand despite having perfect table draws and seats.

- if we have KK they have AQ and win.  ;)
- if we have Top pair and a flush draw they've already got a flush  8)
- if we have A10 vs a maniac... he has AK  :)up
- if we 4bt K9 blind vs blind they have AA and comes K high  ;djinn;
- when we do flop a monster 55 on A53A they fold their dead flush draw.. yup, that'll do it.  ;hattip;


SIGHHHHH!  :redcard:

Still love poker and still want to grind.. which is definitely good.  Being able to lose as many hands as I have today and still love it all is very important imo.  ;indestructable;

Ready for the sunday grinding DTD sats and i might even try a few pokerstars sunday majors sats since all I've been watching from TPE is sunday major 'sweats'.  Many of the hands i've been watching seem 'super standard' and the pro's been running good too im sure.

Good luck to everyone in DTD150 day 2 tomorrow! ;goodluck;

Current heros are:-
David L'honore - general poker hero, up in Leeds tonight getting wasted cos he wins tournaments too easily if he's sober.
Tom Langley - will 'own' everyones soul until there's only one left... then he will own himself at the tuck shop
Sunny Mistri - will standardly get himself down to 5bb's in the first 6 hands then grind till he cashes with 7bb's 4 hours later!

Good luck to all the Blondites!

Big News..
So as some people have guessed already, I was in discussion with Pleno after he approached me offering a staking deal.   ;cupcake;  :birthday:

 ;mexicanwave;

And we have agreed on a sponsorship of 6max cash beginning at 25NL and moving up as soon as we're comfy.
Plan is to grind 4 tables on Party poker 25NL 6max. 
Grinding 20bi's with a daily stop loss, and putting in 20k hands minimum per month.

He will be my personal coach, with us doing teamviewer, hand history review and one to one discussions and strategy.
The people, resources and insight that Pleno can provide will far outweigh his % im sure.. and imo this is by far the strongest way for me to improve quickly.

I can't thank him enough and will be beginning the deal on 1st March, so I've got a little while to spin up my $$ on stars then that'll be kept for satelliting into bigger live comps and some mtt/ hu cash on the side.


Todays grind
Decided to try some micro MTT's today.. and played a bunch of $1, $2, $3 big field MTT's.  We've been watching MTT videos for the last two weeks and felt super comfortable, only making two small mistakes.

We went deep and cashed in a $1 and $3.. pretty brutal exits in both. ($1 aiotf with AQ vs KQ on 1062r .... 9 J then.... sigh!)

And bust all the rest in 70/30 fashion, the only mistake we made was in the sunday storm when we cr A5 on an AxxA board and when he 3bt it we knew we were screw but called it off just in case - shown Aj obv.  (Think we might have had a straight draw as well as our 5 as an out)

We also played the DTD500 mini satellites and bust one.. then won the second - hu vs James Tomlin.  We started the DTD500 Main sat at 9pm and have just finished.. getting our 2nd seat this month already, out of 2 chances!  :hello:

We haven't even gotten to the last week when they have one on every night!!! Lets ship some more ££'s please!


I don't know what else to say except thanks to all that read, and that hopefully this diary will take on quite a boost with the sponsorship and DTD satellite grinding going well.  In 6 months it would be really nice to have hit most if not all of my yearly goals and to be working on setting up a decent live and online calendar on a regular basis. ;letsparty;




In a small side note.. I've obviously been working on my game a lot recently... and I've been trying to help and advise some 'poker mates' about some leaks in their game.. but all I get from them is 'but i already win a lot' blah blah and saying 'am I bringing a book out soon?'

Do you guys bother with people that are nice, fun people but have big leaks and don't seem to listen or care???   

So I don't think I put this in black and white properly from the weekend...

We won two DTD150 seats the week previous, used one to enter and cashed the other in for some satellite ££'s!

Got to DTD on saturday and couldnt win, so used the first entry and decided to re-enter... couldnt win there and busto.  So, instead of play the soft cash games at DTD when not really rolled for them, and being too far away from Harrow, London to see Charlene we decided to go home.  On the way, thought why not play the Aspers northampton £25 tourny... can probably win a hand in that one.. and if we binked it, it would almost certainly pay for the weekends hassle.
Played well and didn't bluff, managed to get lots of chippies and see some crazy stuff (Standard live pokerz).


Aspers £25 tourny Sat night
Craziest thing we saw was this..
7 handed blinds @ 150/300 I think.. we have 7.8k or something..
Super Nit (Leo MClean) opens for 675 (playing 5.2k), I call with  Jc 9c (knowing how he plays and that we don't need to hit a flop to win vs him), Chinese villain calls from bb (8k-ish).

Pot (2175)
Flop
 Kd 5d 8s
Villain Checks, Leo cbets 725, I fold, Villain craises to 1550, Leo takes some time and calls (playing 3k left).

Pot (5275)
Turn
 4d

Villain bets 1500, Leo takes some time and shoves for 3175..... Villain takes 10 seconds and with a stack of 5k left says "I guess I'm pot committed".... and calls
We see Leo has the respectable  Kh Js...
And Villain has.... the old  Th 7d - Errr excuse me WTF???
At this Leo says "what are you doing?" - "don't even dare dealer...."

Pot (11625)
River
 Td

For a miracle rivered flush... Leo does not take it with class and goes abso-f**king mental!  Jesting - "I ought to glass him, what a ****ing joke!"
As I do my best to calm him down and try to tell him to take it with class, just laugh it up... etc... This does not work.

I can't help but laugh at the whole situation as the Villlain tries to justify it with some ridiculous comments.. And I tell him "well they're definitely easier to get off of you."

Anyways, we end up going busto in this tournament a level or two later when we snap call our  Ks Kh aipf vs same Villain who has open shoved 30bb's with the old  Ad Qh and we joke about how this might run out.  The rest of the table don't look too happy that I'm about to get a sexy old double up...
Until the board runs out:-
 Qd Th 2s Aspades 8d

c'est la vie, nvm.


Aspers £1/1 game Sat night
Then we get on the cash table and decide to fire up a little £125 bullet and give some live a go... Cliffs
- First hand have our flopped two pair counterfeit so that A high wins the first £60 pot

- Second hand have our Tptk hand counterfeit when 2nd pair, trips up on river and we check fold

- Make a creative check shove with  6h 6s after opening utg and seeing a 5 way flop of 852 we are up to £95.

- get slow rolled when aipf with  9s 9c vs a tilted maniac who shoves over our £10 open for £60 - he shows  Aspades and I say "you'll need to hit unless you have two of those..." he says nothing until the river and tables  Aspades Ad.... wpwpwp sir, nh, don't trip over the stairs and break your jaw on the way out much.

- then he calls our creative 4 way 2 street float and river bluff when the flush and straight both come in.... >>>>>  with bottom pair.... nice call sir!

[X] Still couldn't win in a super fishy live £1/1 game.
[X] Will win one day...

don't bother trying to help people who don't wanna be helped ldo. discussing hands with your peers and improving together is immensely important so if they're not interested in that then that's their choice.

still trying the old multiway pot/double float/river bluffs eh? a very underused tactic at £1/1 it's a wonder more people don't try this sort of stuff...

No, I rarely do this kind of thing any more.. but when somone who's heavily tilting donks £5 into 22 from sb on an 884 flop... call me crazy for thinking they have a 4 almost always!  This dude would have crain with an 8 im 100%... I was right, and when he cc the straightening turn I had all the intention of giving up if the river bricked.. but the perfect river fell and I was sure he had bottom pair.  So with my good line, image and hand reading I went with the bluff!

He sigh called and the whole table sigh'd at my obvious double up... for me to say K high and he chuckled like a boy and turned over the 4.
Then I announce, two cards to win... and he then gets the 10 over. WP sir..... very WP!  Next time this slow rolling **** ******** * ** * * * ****** is in a pot with me im just going to announce the 'nuts' every hand until he gets fed up mucking his better hands.  First time i've felt like this in poker but the SR was so gross.

Not since that  8c 5h hand a few days ago. I don't know anyone who profitably makes these regular floats and/or 'creative' bluff lines. Just stop them all together for a period of time imo... see how it effects your results.

You have to realise that this is two occurrences in the space of 4days and about 1200 hands. This is a tiny % compared to in the past.

Further reduction is happenning.

 ;tightend;

Ty Leatherman.... he's not repping much and can't take the risk @ that stage of the tournament..


Todays Grind
We played a bunch of satellites today..

DTD 'minis'
nothing... no feeder seats.

DTD mains -
DTD150
- got 1 of the 2 seats on offer..

DTD250
- misclicked while going to the toilet.
- misclick raised 1/3 stack off with  9d Td then folded on  8d 8s 2h when sb open shoved.
- misclicked next hand folding QQ.
- then went out couple of levels later.. shoving  Ad 4d 13bb's into bb's KK.

DTD500
- got 1 of the 2 seats on offer..
- played really good the whole way through, picking spots very well and not getting too out of line
- made awesome read and move 3 handed to take CL then bossed it, got A8 vs Q8 aipf n he binks a Q... then bossed some more till i won! :P



big day really.. nother £550 in the bank! + dtd150 seat. :P

So, a quick update..

Thursday 23rd Feb
We played all three DTD satellites and managed to 'do' the following

DTD150
CL the whole way and ran AJ into AQ 4 handed... sigh  - only 2 seats on offer... [ ] We hit a J.

DTD250
We played really well, CL or close most of the way.. then made a bad call 8 handed with  Ahrt Kh vs Sunny Mistri's UTG shove with  8c 8s and Caroline Cougars reshove in SB with  9d 9c. Down to half our stack and then shortstack shoved A5s into 99, despite flopping a 5 and turning a flush draw we bricked the river!

DTD500
Made a mistake vs Ceri Rees where he made a shove over my turn cbet with  6d 6s on  Ahrt Ts 6h 8h, we called with  Ac Jh. gg us.


Friday 24th Feb
DTD250 - decided I will only play the 'mega sats' unless i satellite into it.. when there is only 2 seats its hard to ride the variance when 4/5handed.
But as it was a mega sat, we managed to get a seat! CL or 2nd most of the way and managed to wangle our way through to a seat with a massive CL then we called aipf with AKo vs btn shove of 20bb's and he has AQo.... we hold and tyvm.


Charlene (gf) is up so we're going to be chilling tomorrow and I'll bank the seat.

GL all blondes in the DTD250 tomorrow, today.... !

you know, you don't have to win EVERY pot you play :D

props for trying though

When I saw the potripper videos I literally went off on one for about 3 weeks trying to win EVERY pot because you 'can' if you know how..... :D

Doing well on the sat's front though Dave, hope PLO is being kind.  I'll be heading over to your diary tomorrow! :P

Hey everybody, just chilling at the moment.. awaiting the 1st and looking forward to beginning to work with Pleno.

Going to get some roast dinner at a pub lunch thingy - nom nom nom! then come back for a 'regular' sunday DTD mega sat grind!!! Get us another dtd150 + 500 seat pls!

Back in a bit..
Anyone that knows a little about computers or is a grinder and has anything specific in their grinding PC setup, please head over to here and give me your advice, tips, ideas that work for you - http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=56866.0

Todays DTD satellite grind
One big SIGH!!!...

We registered for all the evening mega sats as usual to make sure that we don't forget to.

Then play a couple of mini sat's around 4-ish while Charlene isn't feeling too good.  Get a seat into the Devilfish 9pm thingy.. DTD are valuing each seat @ £1200 in order to freeroll the Devilfish, Rob Yong and Simon Trumper into a SNG where 8 players play a turbo and have a 5,2 and £1k prizes up for grabs.  So it could be fun and obv well worth £25 to get into it for a shot at the £5k prize.

Think we got a seat into the DTD150 Mega sat that has 10 seats gtd and was looking forward to that tournament as I've been performing well in it, but with very few runners it 'magically' had technical problems around 1hr before it was due to start and then changed to a normal 1seat gtd DTD150 satellite.  A little bit annoyed by this as I can't see how this can be a technical issue from what I understand of servers, software and client programming.  However obviously I could be completely wrong and apologise if this was truely the case, seemed a little co-incidental to me.


DTD Bust the Devilfish
Got an instant double up a few hands in where some guy goes mental wanting to get his whole stack in on  Kd 7d 9h  4c with  Ks Jh vs my  Kh 7c.  GG him and we start with a double stack. tyty.

Few levels later we're still top 3 as we have been all the way when we reluctantly get it in on a Th 9d 8h board with  8s 8d vs obv  Jd Qh.  That takes us back into the
pack and we carry on playing solid until we bust in a pretty standard fashion we ran  Ac 8c into  Ad Kh and couldnt find some help.


DTD500 Mega Sat
Now this has been our bread and butter over the last few weeks and we will be grinding these every night this wk as our record in them is pretty awesome (something like 6 seats from 8 tries).
We play really solid poker until it gets short and then play pretty good short stack poker, reshoving in good spots, inducing bluffs and shoves from certain people and generally playing pretty tight.
Same same today, although we're pretty card dead the entire time and make one mistake where we peel a min 3bt with  2s 2h, call a cbet on a good board and it runs out really well for our hand to be good, we call his small cbet and small river bet and are shown the  Ac Ahrt, wp sir.
Get back on the horse and play really well for the rest, getting back into the pack and after reshoving twice over his opens we get into a pretty interesting flip where 'Elderdan' decides to raise, call-off  Ahrt 7h CO vs BTN.. we have  6s 6d and hold for a nicely timed double up! ty sir

This battle is to be our downfall....
We are 7/14 and by no means have a seat locked up when Elderdan decides to shove CO for around 12bb's... we find  Ahrt Ts and instantly know we're ahead.  But looking at the stack sizes and how our 22bb stack is not locked for a seat we decide this is too good an opportunity to get another double up and almsot certainly lock up a seat.

We call and we're up against the mighty  6d 9d.. so we just have to HOLD!
Flop 
Jh 7c 8h    (thats a ridiculous flop for him and he's still at like 36% now)
Turn
6h   (booom... there goes my seat. - oh well we've got a few free hands to shove)
River
Meh... don't even remember! dont care, it wasn't a 9 or A. :P

We shove  Ad x next hand and it gets through and then a few hands later the BTN limps into our BB and he completes the SB (this is so bad on so many levels!) and we find the old  Jc 2s.  This isn't the best spot but I think that Elderdan is weak enough that he's completing any SC, probably any suited hand and raising all 'short stack premiums' so despite knowing that he can't be calling enough I think maybe he might call here more than he should (even though it would be for 60% of his stack).

We ship and the BTN predictably folds and Elderdan snaps with the mighty  Ac 6c.  I know this is a possibility but even if he has a hand like this he shouldn't be 'trapping' with it, imo this is a terrible play that puts him maybe 60/40 but he is just risking too much.

No pairs for us and we go out 13th with 10 getting a seat.

I don't love the  Ahrt Ts call but i think when i haven't got a seat locked up and I have 10bb's if i lose and the CO next hand its too good a spot to 'lock a seat'.  But the  Jc 2s isn't a great spot either, probably better to just check, find a pair and then ship it in.  Shame we couldnt get another £550 tonight but we will be back every night this week and today we were card dead the entire time and still came 13th, so I'm really confident I can win 3 or 4 more seats this week!

[X] Win 3 more seats and I'm buying the Super Grind PC this wk!

 Jc  2s move is incredible. When will that badboy do a win?!

gotta be due a win surely?

Think poker must be rigged if i didn't win here..

clearly though  Jc 2s vs  Ac 6c/ Ad Qh is definitely going to win its next all in! (its 30% and we lost the last two... so now has to win, maths says so)


I guess its probably a mistake but when you have an M of 4 and shove over two limpers it can't ever be a big mistake.  Back on my crazy satelite run tonight!  Just having Bacon and Egg sandwhich cooked by my lovely Charlene. :D
nom nom nommmmmm!

is Elder Dan, Dan Elder?

No idea mate..

Life News
Went to the Gym with my bro alex and we worked ourselves pretty hard! The abdominal exercises were killer and at one point I'm pretty sure my stomach muscles gave up and I was flailing around the floor like a beached whale!

Alex and I weighed ourselves for the first time in our few months of going to the gym -
Alex Is preparing for some mixed martial arts (MMA) 'grappling' fights in a few months time he needs to be a certain weight, while getting fitter and stronger.
John I am just trying to regain my previous levels of fitness and tone up a bit on the way.. well - I've put on 5kg's and I'm now a few sugar cubes away from the 100kg mark.  This is pretty annoying news but it is in reflection of our workout which is rather freeweight and upper body heavy.  I know the extra muscle will burn the fat I have quicker as muscle requires more calories to maintain itself, but its still annoying to go up in weight when I'm working so hard to get 'fit' (silly mind games I know).

Felt so good after the gym though, and coming home to a Mexican flavored Chicken breast with rice stuffed peppers was amazing! Well played Charlene!


Todays Sat Grind

DTD500 mini satellite
We bust this while still 9 handed but a good few levels in when we jammed 12bb's with  Kh 9s into the BB's  Ac 7c.

DTD500 Mega satellite
We played really solid throughout, unfortunately failing to get paid on our only two good starting hands of AA and QQ which mean we awaited the 15-20bb stage and did our usual reshove/ shove/ fold game.  Unfortunately we got all the way to the final 16 as usual but then ran 3h 3s and 17k @ 1/2k into the  Qd Qc of another player and GG that's us in 15th... sigh! We really don't need a lot of rungood in these, just to get paid on one of the hands we wait so patiently for and then watch everyone bust themselves until we're in the money.

Nevermind.  4 more left this week! Lets get a couple!

Bust the Devilfish satellite
This one was fun and again we played very solid, only 3 hands until the blinds were at 400/800 or something.
Although this is decieving you into thinking I didn't do anything 'creative'... the first hand I played was the old  Kh Qh and bb vs utg we craised a  8s 9c 4h flop and then when he 'clicked it back' we shoved our two overs and bkdrfd knowing that he has to fold all of his air and it makes no sense for him to have AA/ KK here and 'click' our CR.. so imo he always has  9s Ad/ Th Td/ similar weak 1pair holding.  Name was JGxxx and I'm wondering if this was Mr Jonathan Gill of DTD fame...???

Either way he decides to snap with 10's when we shove for 10k over his 3.1k 3bt.  I'm not sure what JG thinks we have here.. but I don't think its the best call tbh.  Its a rainbow board with only 67 or J10 as draws, the latter with one over and oesd.  All other hands I do this will will be 88/99/44/ 98 or JJ+ and vs a UTG raise I could even have the big pairs as people fold to often to 3bts in these early stages. Doesn't matter as we river a Q and gg sir whoever you are.
(btw this is still in the 're-entry' part of the tournament and this is the only reason for our slightly adventurous play)

Then we play really solid and tight for the rest as we have a top2 stack and the moneys all up top.  We play pretty good throughout the rest, getting Chinese Frankie to bluff off half his stack when we cbet then cc, cc 2nd pair no kicker... tyvm Frankie.

And finally we get down to the last 14 or something and we overshove 33bb's Ad Kh over a UTG raise in order to look weak and we get what we want when   Aspades Qd snaps us off for 90% his stack and then flops a Q and rivers the nut flush.  GG, wp, nh, sigh sirrr.......

This would have given us a top2 stack and a monstrous chip lead with a really good shot at running for a seat into this Devilfish-y thing. But next time I guess.



Two days till the cash deal starts with Pleno, would be nice to start it freerolling my grind PC from this weeks DTD500 satellites.  Two more seats please!

GL for rest of week with the DTD seats, very good read this thread!

Thanks fella.

Come in after work today to find Charlene listening to Classic FM and after yesterday when she cleaned up around the flat and did a whole bunch of little nice 'in the flat' things she even volunteered to go and get tonights dinner!  All was going well until she suggested we keep the Classic FM on as I might become more like Lex Gouldhuis and win for once - the absolute cheek!


Today's Satellite grind
So today was an example of why poker is a great game, and why 'they' play it.

We could not win today, no matter what we did.  Didn't even make any mistakes after all the losing, just lost some more instead. Morale was high the entire time and all my readings of peoples blogs (Alex, Lil'D, Mondatoo, etc etc) just help me through every silly hand.

The only thing that gets to me is when a player does something really strange with little or no reasoning or logic and just happens upon the best hand - like he found it while walking through the forest and it glinted at him from under a bear trap... but somehow the hunter was busy having a piss for those 10 seconds and so our 'hero' manages to pick it up and walk off despite the ignorance of his actions and the preparation of the hunter.

 #definitelylovethegame

DTD Mini Sat's

DTD500 £20
We played 3 of these today and lost in a varying but similar fashion
-  Qs Jc vs  9d 6h aipf.
-  Aspades 8c vs  5d 5h (bvb) aipf, then next hand Kc Jh vs 8d 4c aipf.
-  Kh Qc vs  Ad Tc aipf, then next hand  Ahrt Jh vs  Aspades 9d aipf.

DTD GP Sat
- 66 (shoved) vs AK (raise, call) vs Q10 (call, call- vwp!)
- A10 vs 7c 8c aipf (limp called 14bb's) - 96x 8 x

DTD Devilfish Sat
- This recreational player who I have reads on as 'erratic' is sat to my left and this happens.

I raise and he decides to 3bt my UTG+1 raise, I'm pretty sure he's full of it, so I 4bt small in order to snap him off with  7d 7s.
He flats the 4bt with about 2:1 pot to stack ratio.

Pot (8500)
Flop
Qs 9d Qc
I decide to check call as I expect him to bet his bluffs.  He check's back which is weird but I'm not going to give up if the turn bricks

Turn
 8h
This is a brick and I decide to just take the pot here, so I set him in for 7k, he snaps with the mighty Qh 9c. Vnh sir, vwp, please come again soon!

River
Meh, who cares. 

We decide to reload as there are a limited number of Devilfish Sat's and the £25 is well worth it.  We play really solid for another few levels and then get a gift of a double up, I can't even remember what it was as it was absolutely horrendous.  All is going good right up until we get to the final two tables where we've managed to nurse our 18bb's along for a while.  We shove HJ with the stupendous  Kc Jc and run head straight into 8bb's with   Aspades Qh, flop is K high and then the river brings his A (can't even win when behind!).

Grind our 10bb's out for another few orbits then get in  9d 9c vs the old Ahrt Ks
[X] We made a set of 9's
[  ] We won the hand
[X] He made a straight




Today -
[X] Won a hand
[X] Lost a couple of hands
[X] Can't wait for tomorrows grind
[  ] Morale low
[X] Early night with the lady - boom boom boom let me hear ya say 'waaayyyy ooooh'.
[X] Like checkboxes
[-] Grind PC by months end...... jury is out.

Life Things
Gym went well today, been working on the old freeweights as its good for the body and I'm looking forward to the muscle>fat issue resolving itself as the muscle should require more calories and therefore eat the fat.

We added some more abbs exercises and that hurts a tonne!

Tonights DTD grind
DTD500 £20 mini sat
Busted early, nothing special.

DTD500 Mega Sat
JUST BUSTED ON THE DIRECT BUBBLE WITH 56k, avg is 58k with 3x <26k stacks..... ouch.     ;frustrated; ;grr; :redcard: ;nemesis; ;marks; ;madasahatstand; ;booboo;

"misssafe" is clearly a beginner player and has been opening a lot, 'he' opened a level or so ago and we 3bt shoved 22bb's with AJo... he tanked all the way down with A10o apparently. 

Misssafe opens and we find AKo, decide to 3bt shove..... I really don't know why when we have a seat locked up, such a ridiculous rookie mistake.
He snaps with 10's and holds to nock us out.

"oh john.... oh dear john.......... - sighhhhhhh"

So this week thats:
- 13th for direct bubble £40.... wp sir
- 13th for 3 off
- and 16th for 6 off.... nevermind.

DTD Devilfish Sat
Can't remember but think I played pretty good apart from one mistake where I bet, called a river with top two pair after playing  Ac Kc trappy preflop on a
Ad 3s Qh 3c Ks board - mistake i think.  Guy had K3, GG to 1/2 our stack.

Then we get like 9bb's in with  7d 8d and get called by  Aspades Jc and can't get there...




Cliffs
So all in all, morale was very high after the gym, couldn't win for a while and busted the Feeder and the Devilfish sat.  Then make a super deep run and direct bubble with AK vs 10's when there were 3x <26k stacks left @ 1500/3000 when we make an insane ICM shove.

So disappointed in myself right now, a £560 mistake for no reason whatsoever... then get rubz from the guy with 10's "I TOLD HIM...." - whatever mate.

wow. his call is pretty bad. your shove is silly tho, just fold

be good to meet you, CP is a mutual freind, although i think he plays online poker like a grandma.

Woop @ Alex Martin ITT....

The awkward moment when Alex realises we've already met... Over a beer at GUKPT Cov when we went to check out his and AR's pitchside room and I went down onto the Coventry pitch for a wander about.

:D

Alex is normally smashed when he is in a casino, he can barely remember his own name, let alone someone else's.

[ ] Alex was sober the entire time..

Now we just need the other heavy hitting blonde's ITT then I'll have 'made it'.

on skype till 7 mate

GL with your new venture with BITB starting today mate!!!
<3 BITB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We've officially started the staking by booking a +$ session! - winnnnar!

Today we downloaded the WPT software, sorted our Poker strategy account (for the bonuses) and then sent the money across!
Load up the tables and get going, I'm not sure about table selection at 25nl.. I expect to be able to beat all the regs fairly quickly so I'm not sure I should bother too much with table selection?? wwud?

We're playing 4 tables at a time and once we took 30mins to sort out all the settings we dont like - the bings, bongs, bleeps and 'congratulations you won a hand' rubbish we then could actually play a hand.

First hand we've accidentally posted utg and we're dealt the mighty  7d 2s.... well we're not losing our first staked hand! so lets put a raise in then... flop is 566 and we cr for the win! :P                                                                            ;starwars;                                                                     (any excuse)
(pleno asked me 5 mins later how it was going and i think he both loved and loathed this hand!)



WPT Cash Grind
Hands - 1096
Net won - $20.08
VPIP - 27.3                 (bit loose but not too bad)
PFR - 22.0                  (about right for that VPIP)
3bt - 6.5%                 (probably want it a little higher, a lot of people fold or call too much so having a wider range for both is good)
WTSD% - 33.7           (little high..)
W$SD% - 44.8           (not too bad, little higher would be nice... however I do vbet pretty thin compared to other regs, and I bluff moooar!)
Agg - 1.3


We should have won around $90-110 I think.  There were a couple of genuine 'coolers' - top 2p twice on flushing boards vs flush obv. sigh.
But the majority of our 'not won enough' was actually due to a couple of hero calls and two badly timed and run out bluffs.  Not entirely sure why this happened, I think the hero calls were because people are more aggy on this site than 10nl on stars and I attributed that to them being 'better'..... turns out not the case.  ;frustrated;
[X] 1x K high calldown on  8h 4h 4d Jd 3c - b, b, shove...  ;tracet;
[X] 1x AQ high calldown on   Kc 6h 6c 8s 3c - b, b, shove... :redcard:
[X] 1x AK win vs 10's on J high board....  -  9c 9d 9h 9s Jc - Wiiiiiiiiiiiii!   ;nana;

DTD Satellites
DTD500 mini sat
We played two of these
- 3rd with two prizes when we shoved K9 into A5 CL who called it off instead of blind off the shortie... sigh! we flop a 9 and he rivers his A. boooo!
- Won it when we genuinely ran really well in the mid-late stages and just had lots of hands... shoving all of them and people were calling off dominated a lot. :D
 
DTD500 Sat
- played uber solid and as usual people don't notice.
- played 4 hands -  Ad Aspades,  Aspades Ahrt,  Aspades Js,  Ad Jd
- no action on the AA's
- Aspades Js lost to smashedagain's  Qc Jh....  Qs high flop.
- Ad Jd lost to 8c 8h aipf, needed a flip... nvm (turns out that despite having a VPIP of 5% - people can't limp fold a pair vs me! lolz...


Really looking forward to my next session, felt like I played quite comfortable for my first time staked.  Didn't feel different, but I must admit the idea of posting on here and explaining to Pleno why we called with K high for stacks was a little embarassin...

 ;oopsy; ;angel; ;gobsmacked;




Figured his little jordie brain might actually kablamooo!    ;grr; ;smackedbottom; ;izimbra;




Really want to take tomorrow 'off' work and just sleep until its time to grind!  And definitely getting a new PC! soooooon!

Good work on the blog Jhon but pls stop using the thrid party when your talking about your self it's tilting me m8

Anyway keep up the good work

Ady

Lol fml. The games up.

So In my first attempt to make this more than just poker, and potentially bring in the more 'mature' crowd... here are a couple of interesting pictures from my previous travels around the world....

Name these places/ attractions if you please?!

I'm guessing the 4th one is in a long tunel somewere

Do you mean the 5th?
Im not sure that counts as a guess..... :P

There are prizes!

Good start mate, love how enthusiastic you are and you a bundle of new energy, sorry if at the moment it seems like I cba, I'm just genuinely ridicuously busy. Parents leave on 10th and will be free from then on will have more spare time.

Regarding the AQ/K high calls, they are obviously atrocious, you just don't need to be getting into these kind of situations mate. You are obviously a very good player fundamentally but have a little bit of an ego problem, I have exactly the same problem though mate so hopefully can help you out from past experience.

What you need to work on is value betting, betting thinly, when to take different bet sizings and when to take different lines, i.e when to bet, bet, check, when to bet, check, bet and when to, check check bet. I will hopefully be able to help you out with this but playing strictly 4 tables initially will help you out ALOT because you will be focusing on the tables and constantly asking yourself WHY am I betting, WHY am I betting this much, WHAT will I do on X, Y and Z turn etc.

Anyway enjoy DTD bro.

Will be back playings for BITB too as of next week, so im sure we'll get alot more aquainted in the.stable! Will start reading this alot more for sure

I'm trying to think if i've ever actually seen Alex Martin sober...

Nobody wants to guess at any of the pictuers????? not even guess?

Afghanistan
Zambia or Gambia
Port Elizabeth SA
Peru
Inside Picture 4

Table selection a definite yes IMO - lot of tables have 5/6 regs on and are beatable, but tighter.

I would start with trying to get on highest % players to flop.

But the whole point is i'm going to be playing the regs on multiple tables a lot, so I don't mind beating up on them.  And taking unconventional lines and showing up with bluffs/ strangely played hands I should be able to get some $$ off them by getting some action! (hopefully)

Would anyone else really table select at this level?  What kind of things would you look for?

One of these is correct.

I won't say which till we have a few good guesses.

I expect you all to be able to guess 3 of them, two will be pretty hard.  One is even very near to a 'blonde'!

WPT 6max Cash Grind
So, we played our second session today, winning again.. however we were a little up n down.. I need to have a look at it as we only won the same as yesteday $20.  But we did attempt a couple of big bluffs in 'nice' spots I think and ran into the nuts - [ ] went well.

Even had a little hand heater which was fun but frustrating when you're getting QQ or AA every other hand and getting no action... 2 4bt's in 2 consecutive hands and no one plays back at us, or a few hands later when we 3bt AA's!!!!!!!!!!  ARGH!

One of the biggest things I've noticed is that pairs are so hard to get paid on oop!  Really, really hard! unless you just super cooler someone - all that BS about 'implied odds' is so villain dependant!

WPT Cash Grind
Hands - 1632
Net won - $19.01
VPIP - 26.6                 
PFR - 21.3                 
3bt - 7.8%                 (actively tried to get it higher today..)
WTSD% -    27.7        (purrrrfect)
W$SD% - 58.0           (coupled with my NSD winnings and bluff potential this is banging! Just need those $50 from the bluffs back pls..???)
Agg - 1.77



DTD500 Satellite Grind

DTD500 mini sat
played two..
- can't remember, pretty standard i think.. got 4bb's in with K9 or something
- similar.. think I went out dominated when I had <10bb's.

DTD500 Mega Sat
Ran pretty dead for a LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG time.. but as usual the blinds and antes are so small it doesnt matter!

- As usual we play like 3 hands for 4 hours then shove expecting someone to fold... As usual they can't despite not realising their hand is pretty shocking.
- Shoved J10o on the button over a MP 2.5x raise for something like 13bb's.
- Got called by AJo pretty quickly, wp sir! fkin ridiculous.... whatever.....  6d 2s Th    OH HELLO DERE!  :hello:  .....brick ......brick
- then play snug again making a few standard shoves with AQ or AK or 66 etc...
- then shove  9d 7c on btn with 15bb's into two shortstacks with like 18 left..... - do they know they should be folding like 95%+ here...?
- snaps with  Ad 5s..... wp sir.... nh.... ur a geeeeeniass!     4c 8s 9h   JUSTICE!!!!! Take ur sob story elsewhere please sir.   .... brick    ...... brick

[X] Now properly in it and basically a seat is mine to lose
[X] 2x AKs 1x 66 and 1x AQo in one orbit! - Super heater announced!  (open shove every one and 'they' fold every time - how do they know??)


We get right down to the 11th bubble and im determined to not bubble this one.. literally telling Charlene I'm going to the toilet and to 'fold' me every hand..

Come back and we have 3x 1bb stacks on the two tables... WTF are they doing?


And see the best thing I've ever seen in a satellite competition unfold, see if you can follow this?? -   (might not be exact speach but dammed close)
There is somehow the shortstack on our table (Donsirelli) to a flop with Robhino123 despite Don having 4867 left and the pot having 10k+ (limp, check pre i think)

Flop
 Jh 6d 6h
Rob says 'haha' and 'I've got Q9, I'll show you.... then bets 4k
Don says 'serious?' ..... takes ages and calls. (leaving 867 beind into a 20k pot)

Turn
 Ahrt
Don checks
Rob says something... and then checks

River
 8s or similar... either way Q9 is still Q high....


Don checks...
Rob takes his whole clock and some timebank - then bts 4k.
Don takes his whole timebank and eventually calls.


With the mighty mighty  Kd Qc.

Rob shows down  Qd 9s and Don gets a super double up from 1bb to like 6bb's and now BOTH tables go mental with 'collusion' and 'cheating' allogations all over the shop.

I'm busy choking on my own laughter as the other two shorties on the other table double.... Eventually we lose one and we're home. 




No one seemed happy.


Right, So I'm off out to try and find a place open to go for a drink at this time in MK before getting to bed for tomorrows comp!  See you all at DTD! Blonde's do a W!


peace out x



PS. disappointed in Tkay, RD and the other 'uber blondes' with the lack of cultured discussion today!  Post moarrrrr pls..

Might have just whored myself on both Tk's and RD's blogs... well i went 'out' at 0130am... and necked a few drinks quickly, even going past the garage on the way home for some more Bulmers! nvm!

Good luck to all blonde's in todays £500... hopefully i get some chips from all at my tables and finish with a decent stack for day2 - yes please! :P

The "tunnel" photo  - is it in - literally - The Rock of Gibralter?

New Guess
4th One is Lubaantun and the Crystal Skull?

I like the guess... very interesting.  I just spent 10 mins going through wiki to find out what Lubaantun is.  Learning ITT.



Clues.....

1.  Current zone of conflict
2. This photo is taken right next to a famous water source
3. A blonde who posts regularly (5000+) lives here..
4. The tomb of someone very unexpected, but you all know of this ruler!
5. This tunnel is around 1m high and 40-60cm wide...

Gilbrator Airport is 3rd Not PE

Is the 5th one, one of the holes I have dug myself in and out of over time?

Correct, this is taken from the rock of Gib looking at one of the shortest runways in the world, I understand you actually have to take a special pilots course to be allowed to land on Gib - think LaPaz is the other super short one.

Unfortunately one of the easier ones.... Let's get the rest!

Struggling with the Cone Shaped Tomb

It's a really tough one tbh.. Not an everyday place or site, but it is a world famous leader.

Think i played pretty good today, definitely a little passive but vs fish thats not a horrible plan....


Had lost of big hands n even had KK vs AA but lost 12bb's! = live reads ftw!


trip report to follow.

Sweepstake?

The DTD500 Mega Sat (10 Seats GTD) isn't on again... ON A SUNDAY???????

What is going on please???
http://www.dusktilldawnpoker.com/satellites/500-deepstack

Am I reading this incorrectly or does it say Sundays and Monday- Fri before event?

Sunday Roast
Whatever... Went to my parents today for a sunday roast and it was delicious.  Don't think I spend enough time with my parents really, bit of a shame but its something that despite seeming so easy (they live 1 mile away) somehow becomes so difficult when our 'schedules' are so different.  
Had a great post dinner conversation that started with me listening to my mum explain about her writing course she's taking at the moment for a bit of fun.  She told us all (dad, brother, Charlene and I) that she had to write some fiction.  So she handed me the laptop to read her work and the first word that I saw in the middle of the page was
"pulsating"...

Mum's porn
This was scary and obviously not something I expected to read... within two lines I realised this 'fiction piece' was slightly adult.  Now starting to feel a little strange about the whole thing but intrigued as to what I was about to read I decided to go into the kitchen away from everyone else to try and read it objectively.

The story was to be based on a song and she chose the Dirty Dancing "I've had the time of my life" song.  Which translated to a story about a meeting in a bar and the subsequent dance the couple have on the dance floor.......In Newcastle! ........................... hmmmmmmmm......

I don't really know how to say this but if I didn't know that my mum had written it then i think it would have had the 'desired' effect on me, however that block was in place and instead I returned to the sitting room and told Charlene to go in and read it herself.  She 'squealed' at a couple of the phrases and then returned with us both commending my mum on her skills as the story was very well written, paced, worded and thought out, 590 words well spent, one son truely scarred.

Poker Diary
Then I spent some time explaining about the poker deal with Pleno and why I think I have it, and what I hope to achieve from it.  Including this diary and then some time helping her understand the terms and forum phrases we all so commonly use - tbh, imo, aipf, fml, fmfmfmfl, etc.... :D

It took a long time and poor her she listened and asked questions about all of it.  She was clearly confused, bored and upset at some of my confessions:
- playing a bent £3/6 game in Uganda
- losing £000's in the first few years when my ego blinded my ambition and progress
- playing E100 rebuy's in Brussels and 'bubbling' both.... she seemed so confused I couldn't "wait one more place" - lolz mum, just that simple innit.
- etc... there's some more unfortunately

However I hope she realises that this kind of thing being here and open and IF I use this diary correctly and efficiently that this can be the most powerful tool in my poker development by a long long long lon..........g way.

Fitness discussion and Ab rollers!
If you don't know what an Ab roller is, watch the video below.... I tried to do a knee one and managed to get close but not back up again! :)
Do a couple of wide grip chinups on his bar in the conservatory and then we swiftly move on to below - which lasts about 4 hours...!


Zionist societies and Communism and Capitalism and my lovely little brother!
So this is one of the best family conversations we've ever had!  I can't remember how it got started but it involved in lots of circles the discussion of British national Immigration/ Benefit and Support policies; Zionistic societies; Communism vs Capitalism and Jeremy Clarkson (why is he always in these kinda things>?)

So we were trying to work out why some very high % of sport relief went abroad when the UK today needs so much help at home (bear with me).  My idealistic little brother is a trainee accountant doing his Grade 4 and working and at 17 he obviously "knows how to solve the major problems in the UK and world, but no one listens to us kids"  - AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!

We then go round about a bit with him pointing out that it is possible but that we would need a 'pure' society with no greed, gluttony or basically any sins... and I point out that eventually someone would come up with the idea for them, and when that happens the game is over!

A bit of banter back and forth.. but it was a really good conversation with us eventually nominating a 'speaking object' you had to have in order to promote better listening to each other, this worked well (despite being sad that its needed) and we all really enjoyed the different viewpoints of myself (mid 20's fairly open minded) my dad (late 40's technical engineer/ supervisor and scottish groaner) and my younger brother (17 and training to be an accountant, very optimistic and naive imo but so full of hope... wp sir).

BEST GROWNUP immediate FAMILY SUNDAY EVER!


Now that I'm finished... woah that was another long one... I do pity my readers sometimes but well played for making it this far!

We're now off to sweat our 5% of Tom Langley in the DTD500 deepstack - with 16 left we're CL with 30bb's! (Tom changed our % from 10 to 5 pre tournament - fmfmfmfmfl! musta known innit = live pokerz rigged!)

Rob has new plans for the deepstack sats. Cant get on the site atm but biggest change was now 50 buy in not 100

Just a quick one to say im chilling on the sofa with Charlene before I go away with work for a couple of weeks.

Im not allowed to say where until after I come back, but its not one of the top holiday destinations that's for sure.

Sigh @ only one person guessing my photos.. Thought they might help the blog get some legs of its own.
Answers.. See if you can put them to the right photo
Kabul
Vietnam
Algeria
Gibraltar
Malawi

Had a small losing session online last night.. Still have a few leaks but plugging them slowly.

Tomb of Cleopatra
Cu Chi Tunnels
Wicked Dance by Lake Nyasa

Sounds like you should sent some photos from where you are going over the next 2 weeks

Lack of epic HHs for the fans?

I don't think there will be any for 2 weeks, may get hands cut off?

;applause; ;applause; rotflmfao rotflmfao

Are you in the S.A.S? Don't worry about people not having a go at the photo's coz we don't  wanna look stupid. Great read.

Close with the guesses.. Its lake Malawi.. one of the biggest lakes in the world I believe.

 :D Google???

The epic HH's are on the way.. Sent pleno some to review today and he was like - wtf u doing? In all of them.

One of them we peel a min 4bt with 9d Td and then cc ccain on 97xx vs A7, and he says im bad?!
We won innit. :D



So in Heathrow now and we're going to be at least 1hr delayed already, nvm more Wagamama's pleaseeeee!

Are you going to Brazil?


I think we met at DTD this weekend. I was donking about in a red had with IS IT on. This the right blog?

yeh theres lots of mistakes atm and understand that you havnt played much online poker but super important to change your whole approach on poker from  my hand beats some hands in his range pre and position doesnt matter because your getting great odds to thinking about future lines in the hand and how exploitable were going to play vs a dominated range.

Another thing you have to think about is 100 hands is NOT a sample, especially when talking about post flop tendancies. You justified a call earlier with a7o vs a guy because he played straight up post flop and called on turn when you were drawing dead when you had less than 100 hands on him.

Theres alot lot more but #ibelieve, enjoy nigeria mate and catch up soon.

oh ffs

I ruled out Nigeria because it was so random, grrrrrrrrrrrr

how do I run so bad in fking flips ffs.

Enjoy Nigeria?
Worked with a guy who worked over there, tells me he eat human flesh from a stall over there, sort of belive him
Avoid Poker over there if I was you
Like your Diary
Relate more to Alex's diary - My Cat calling an allin with J8 off (Little One, he's not so little - Vet)
Gl in Nigeria

Sorry he ATE not Eat
Still Disgusting

Wp pleno on putting something in public that was fyi only... sigh! (nvm mate, just not in future pls)

SO... yer I'm in Nigeria... not the best place in the world but not the worst so far - Not in Lagos which is propa bad!
Customs official tried to banter it up with me and screw me over by only giving me 2 weeks on my visa instead of the 3 i asked for - nh him, I have a diplomatic visa so GL them trying to stop me leaving when I feel like.
Few other funny things but nothing major, caused a big hurrah today when i got there because there's not enough Asbestos checks been done so that might be gg to part of the trip. Meh.. 

Titty - yer we did mate, thought you played pretty decent, UL with the QQ hand.. obv A10 binks ott. Any chance you remember what you had when you 3bt my utg open? (I had JJ, not sure its going to be easy enough to play that vs you oop when im only like 24-28bb deep).


Well the flesh bit sounds interesting but steak and veg for me!

Step 1) Take Palm,
Step 2) Hold up to face
Step 3) Insert face squarely in palm
Step 4) leave for 90 seconds
Step 5) Remove.

Do you think Poker in Nigeria may be rigged?

Please explain what was wrong with this hand?  I was 3bt him on two tables.. one AKs, the other was this.. he min4bt this one and folded other.  I call due to it being min4bt and i have the motha-f***n  Td 9d biatch!

flop is 9 high and he cbets standard 1/2 pot..dont hate or love it... we'll see a turn pls.
then he snap shoves aiott... timing tell - snapped him off! :D tyty

I'm face palming myself enough at the moment, this is a mini moment of glory - this time 'they' didnt have the AA's!

:D

WPT Cash Grind
Managed to get internet out here and got online... played a little, but struggling to get paid off in lots of spots and feel like the majority of $$ are coming from non-SD bluffs/ semi bluffs atm - sigh!

Lost 2.5bi's today - $60
Lost a little the last two sessions previous so now we're down to $450 from our $500... But tomorrow is another day and we will be fresher and more awake than today (worked yesterday 9-5 then flew to Nigeria at 8, arrived 6am, into work till 4pm then played some 6max cash baby! - felt fine at time tbh but probably wasn't 100% - obv)


Back to it people!

I was on holiday last year and met some nice Folks one of whom worked in Nigeria in the oil industry he said it was the most  dangerous / unsafe place he had ever been to so be careful mate

Is this HU?

I was joking about you being in the SAS obv but Hostage murdered as royal marines and SBS mount rescue operation.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/2012/03/09/british-hostage-executed-by-al-qaeda-as-botched-nigeria-rescue-ends-in-double-tragedy-86908-23780739/

Yeah, pretty horrible... things are going 10000000 miles an hour after this broke like this.  So unfortunate they weren't able to be saved.
[X] We are the lucky ones.

Sooo..... spent most of the day doing feck all looking around for kit/ tools that shouldve been here weeks ago.
[ ] Found it...

So we went 'shopping' this afternoon down some 'local' Nigerian market (shopping means armored car to and from with 2 minutes outside of it, and local means 45 min drive to get there..)  We managed to find some bits n bobs and got some work done this afternoon, might have a few pics to load up at some point.  Then finished and came home, went to the gym and just destroyed myself then come up to the room and order room service... It takes 10 mins to explain I'd like a salad with Chicken with more than just lettuce, then it gets here and its the two tiniest pieces of Chicken you have EVER seen and I send him packing to get some more!

Now chowing down - nom nom nom.. going to start part 1 of Tommy Angelos 'the eightfold path to poker enlightenment' then play a cash session... wide awake, ready and refocussed to push the 'edge' over larger samples!


No, 6max but we happened to be playing hu on both tables in this particiular hand.. think I was oop on one table (this one) and ip on the other (AKs - he folded)

Sigh cant believe I went for Brazil not Nigeria :(

And yes I know what I hads :-p  I had loosened up my 3bet range by one pip, just dem  Kh Kd

Really? Hmm.. makes sense.  What did you think of me at that point? (obv you didn't know I'm only a 25nl spewtard wannabe)

I took so long to fold despite it being the 'snap' decision, I just hate open/ folding utg to someone who I know 'can' 3bt light.. even when I don't think he is.
(didn't make sense for you to be light there... like ever. imo)

I really wanted you to fold dem QQ's on the TxxTx board, I'm not sure he ever fires the 3rd barrell there with <JJ - what do you think in retrospect?

oh ya it's easy fold on turn, but not when i've lost every pot and would rather go home :p

I think you play terribly because you didn't stack off with JJ to ma overpair obv :p

This is a long one.. but well worth it if you can work your way through it!

Trip update..

So the work is going ok, doing my stuff... but managed to have a bunch of Deuces Cracked videos while working which has been pretty awesome. 

I have watched:

- The eightfold path to Poker enlightenment (quite old I think - 2008 or something)
Fantastic series by Tommy Angelo, which takes the eightfold path to enlightenment from Budda.  This is really a great watch/ listen for ANY poker player who plays at any stakes as it deals with life and self and improvement.  I am geniunely going to be investigating the path myself as the idea's i've heard so far intrigue and interest me.
I am employing some of the techniques mentioned and will be when i play live from now on... so thanks Tommy.

- Search and Destroy (recent and appropriate)
This is a leakbusting series which I think is essential watching for all <200NL players and anyone who wants to understand how to use HEM2 better to improve themselves, at any stakes!  I will be rewatching this after 50k hands with Pads and probably again at 100/150k etc.. in order to self improve and analyse effectively.

- Creative Grinders (recent)
This is a new series which will have a group of grinders who work with Krantz to analyse and improve their game with the analysis of each other and K.  Looks pretty good but the 100-400NL stuff isn't relevant to me yet.

- G Man Talking Theory (recent)
VERY good HU discussion about certain ideas with regards to betting and adapting to players tendancies and things to consider.
Not finished it yet,

- Finished watching DOGISHEADSUP
This is also a fantastic HU series, from a while ago - with Gman and DOGISHEAD.  They have one theory episode and then one playing... at 3 different levels... and then a bonus one where they play each other and explain every hand of interest.
Helped me start 50NL HU with a slight 'advantage' over the bad regs or poor players, but im not yet good enough to crush the good regs!!!! YET!


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So that's the videos, and after watching the S&D series which had 2 people with similar leaks and styles to myself I played last night with one slight 'tweak' to my game in play.  I was going to use a 'structured' opening range, which would only be adjusted if there was a necessity to do so.  (For those of you who do not understand what I mean, I was going to only play hands that appeared on a 'pre-chosen list' of starting hands).

Now I realise this is a simple and almost robotic idea which doesn't allow for game flow and table dynamic range changes.. but tbh I need the fundamentals of something like this first as my post flop play is clearly creative and aggressive enough already.

I then proceeded to play the best session of online poker of my life so far...
We made only one error, when we 5bt shoved utg+1 56cc vs utg KK... woops.  I managed to win $60 in one hour and hit a $50 first deposit bonus.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Then Nigerian live poker in the hilton!

We then went downstairs with a renewed and instatiable want for live poker which we knew could be provided if the guys I'd met the other night (while a little drunk) were there...

I went down and two guys were playing HU ... I found out they were playing 1000/2000 and without reminding myself what the stakes were in ££ i decided to get out 100k and sit down.  They had 100k (player A) and 80k (player B) respectively and were both shockingly bad at the pokers.

I knew this wasn't going to be 'if' I could get the money from them, merely how long it would take could I beat the rake?

We then had a roulette player sit with 30k (minimum) and proceed to do his first buyin in first hand with a full house....  But he went back to the roulette table until he won again when he returned to play some more.
In the meantime I played a few hands but mainly decided that 3 handed I ought to be very tight pre as these two would not fold pre at all...
- My AK was beaten by Q7 on Q7xxx when I checked flop and he checked back, I took one stab ott and he called so I gave up, he then checked back Q7 and I knew I was in for some interesting spots.

A few hands later I found  Ahrt 8c and opened to 6k (playing 80k).. I was called by player B (playing 80k) and then the roulette fish (playing 30k) who'd come back, player A then squeezed to 36k and I was in a tough spot.  I'd already seen him play one strong pre flop hand by raising small pre and therefore read this as a weak raise and that my A high was good.  I didnt like reshoving here but I was 100% that I had the best hand right now and the two players behind would have to fold when I did reshove.  I take a couple of minutes and reshove... player B folds and the roulette fish snap calls, with player A snap calling also (oh shit) and exposing those magical #gotemwhenuneedem

 Ac Aspades

Fuck my life!

#goingtoneedsomethingherethenwishihadntshovednowilooklikearighttitaments



FLOP
 Qh 8d 8h

OMFG... the guy takes it really well but laughs it up as I expose my  8c instantly.

We hold and I get a decent double..


I play really solid from this point on, with my new read of 'he literally bets the strength of his hand' in play and knowing he always calls with any pair I owned him for a good few rounds.

I then decided its 1230 and I have work today I'll go home and lock up a 60k win (turns out this is close to £300....) I felt like a king and a real poker player, properly - for the first time I think.

I then managed to lose a decent sized pot with  Kc Qs on  Qh 5c 4c vs his  5d 5h with the roulette player all in.  I protected my stack and relunctantly called his river bet, but after review today I don't think he'd made a bet that big at any point and I should have stuck to my read that he could beat top pair in this spot.

I then played really well, dodging 4 situations where I would normally stack off 3 handed  without any thought, based entirely on live reads and hand reading -
[X] They were all sickly good folds and he showed every time.
[X] Literally playing my A game.
[ ] winning pots


I then lost 2x 30k pots where I was 70-80% favourite and took it as well as possible, especially after my  Ahrt 8c hand.

And eventually got all in with a K10 shove over his AJ open, he made the nuts of course and that was gg to 100k Nigerian - or £400 sterling. - woops.

As much as I know I can take the money off him in the long term... esp with his tells, I am not rolled for that game and that one 'shot' is all im taking this trip.  The overtime of the trip will pay for the shot and I am proud of myself for not going back.


I'm now going to tuck into my Salmon, rice and broccoli for the 3rd night in a row.... - its magic, honest!

And then play a session.. maybe playing the 9pm DTD150 mega sat also.


GL us. and let the long term, real grind through 25NL commence!


All you need to do is be tight pre and semi- thinking postflop and people literally give you $$$!

 :hello: ;karabiner;

So we're getting some grinding time in the evenings which is being used to experiment a little...

We've tried a couple of different styles and yes the tighter, more solid game does allow for easy moneys.  But it does also require hands on both parts and relys on our ability to hand read better than our opponents.

After watching the "Coaching Kristy" and "Coaching Kristy 2" in which Andrew 'Baluga Whale' Seidman coaches Kristy Arnett through micros and small stakes online, while she grinds some $1/2 and $2/5 Las Vegas live games. (picture below)
These are particularly good educational series with regarding pre-flop play and discussing 3/4 and 5bt dynamics, why we do it, how and vs who.... which has definitely helped my 'splashy' pre-flop game a lot!  (managed to get someone to 3/5bt shove 55's @ 25NL - doesn't ever happen ime).

As a direct result of the series, I've been experimenting with a much looser pre-flop game, with the intention of praying on the weak tight players and theyre folding tendancies and to cause the Reg's heads to explode!


WPT 6max Grind
After the second week of being staked we'd won a bunch and then decided to try and win every big pot and apparently lost a fair bunch.. (who'd guess that the nits have a hand every time)  I went down to $280 from the original $500 stake (sry pads) and then gave ourselves a little slap around the head, binked a $50 first deposit bonus and then started playing properly.. winning 5 of last 6 sessions - despite still having at least 1x $25 mistake in each session.  I'm not perfect yet, who knew?

But I've been aggressive in much better and more profitable spots in the last few sessions, finding that I can cause the regs to do out of the ordinary things.. but when it comes down to it this will be much more effective at the higher levels and I have to remember this is the case.

Well after the tighter sessions and a couple of looser aggressive sessions - running between 29/24/14 - 43/38/20 makes it fun that I'm playing so many hands but my NSD line is now often +VE... so its just a case of making sure im tight enough post flop to counteract my participation in more than my fair share of pots.

Now we're back up to $470 and getting close to our 2nd $50 first deposit bonus... I'm getting into some massive pots with this style and tbh the majority of the big pots I lost were a mistake in one way shape or form.

[X] Had AK vs AA 2x tonight.... vs Regs.... SIGHH!!!!!
[X] Won 1 of them! -  Ahrt Kh vs  Ad Aspades on  Qh 5h 4c Js 6h  - pretty good board imo!
[X] Check shoved  Ad Qc vs  Kh Ks on  7c Tc 7s - probably not the best idea.
[X] 4bt called  5h 5d preflop.... he had KK ofc.

But I'm really enjoying grinding and experimenting...esp when I have a player pool small enough to see the same guys again and again... so looking forward to doing some funky stuff vs the Regs and just owning the fish left right and centre.
Really happy with me getting a Reg to spazz out with 3b/5bt 55's pre vs me!  Sounds silly as this is standard at higher levels with certain aggressive preflop dynamics but I've literally never seen it at 25NL over my short time.

Other than this just looking forward to playing live next as well... want to try my improved pre-flop game out in the different live settings I play in. 

#lovingthegame - cant play enough!



Online is tiring work though..

No comments for Kirsty? really?  I'm suprised at you lot!!

WPT Grind
Going good, up another buyin in todays hour session, first time I've only had big pots being +$ and lots of bet fold small ones.... (they raise when they got summat innit!)

Back up to $497 (started with $500), about to bust the 2nd stage of FDB and enjoying it immensely!  Lets not play like a tool this time.


I've been very interested by the 'dont like internet poker' thread on blonde, as its a real topic of debate for live originating players like myself.  However as a logical fella I see the +ve side of online:
- more games
- lower expenses
- no travel time
- anytime you like
- rubbing my balls while getting the $$!
- talking to 5 diff people on strat/ ideas while playing
- watching Blom rip up some dude at 20KNL (that was mega tonight)


Well this was a 'quickie'... hope you all enjoyed it as much as i did!?

jb

sometimes you just don't see it...



rotflmfao rotflmfao rotflmfao

These lines made me chuckle.

Not sure how 4-bet calling with 55 and being massively proud of getting someone to 'spazz out' getting it in with 55 vs you can be mentioned in the same post..... but I like it.

Fair... but they dont do that kind of stuff 'most' of the time.

So I did it thinking the guys range was polarised... i.e. QQ+, AQ+ and obv 55's arent a massive dog when there is enough in the middle to offset my 41% equity.

Difference is -
I'm doing it with a structured 3/4/5bt range, however I believe this guy just spazzed with a pair because I was pounding on him so much.
I may be wrong and that he was doing the same as I but the frequency with which he reraised me leads me to believe not.

Does that make sense or am i just throwing terms around?

OI!...

Just played my first ever darts n pool tournament.

I washed out first round in the Darts... but im getting there with almost being able to hit what i want.

And pool - well thats my game innit!

Came 2nd to 'Graham'... lovely guy but he doesn't ever f*cking miss.... I tried my best and even played well but he just didnt lose!  I lost 2-1! sigh!




nvm...

 up to like $530 in the staking so lets keep that going, back from Nigeria soon... nice people but i don't wana come back here anytime soon for a holiday!





miss dtd and he sweet DD sized GTD's!!!! :D

2 of my friends have won £20k+ in a weekend in the last 6 weeks! time to get some rungood together!!!! :D

But you do, so it's better when you get to do it every now and again? :) Just kidding, but i'd be more proud of getting other people to spew in sessions where you can say you've played solid the whole way through... stringing those sessions together is the key.


Just because you have a 'structured 3/4/5bt range' does not mean calling it off with 55 is good/ok/not spew. By all means 3-bet to 5-bet shove with 55 in a good spot, but don't 4-bet call. The whole reason this is fine is because when you are 3bet 5betting your opp folds out a good chunk of his range, making it profitable, provided you do it with hands with some equity when called/some blocker(s) to make it more likely to get through. 4-bet calling because you have OK equity vs hiis range just doesnt hold up over time.

Pretty sure these are tiny edges you are looking for in these games where much bigger ones can be found much easier by playing solid/having a decent post-flop game.

+1 TH, if you're 3b/5b 55 at 25nl there is something hugely wrong.

I appreciate the comments lads.. trying to obviously give myself some room to grow as I move up the stakes.  Obv don't need to be too clever in certain spots until level XNL but in my defence, the 3/5bt spots were most often vs the one or two regs over my 4 tables that seemed to be adjusting to my super loose preflop game.

I think in these sessions I played a minimum of like 35/30/18... so even the least observant players started to notice, but the good thing is most of them don't really know how to do anything about it.

I agree the 4bt call is gross... I really didn't love it and 4b/call or 4b/fold ranges is one im going to be asking Pleno as soon as I can tie him down in an evening!  I think I 4bt to like $11.50 and had $18 behind.. I used most of my timebank if i remember correctly and at the end of it realised there should be enough AQ/AK in this spot vs his JJ+ that I have to call even if this player may only ever have pp's or AK..



Definitely improving my game now and Pleno is right about sticking to 4 tables as I do think about all the spots on all the tables that little bit more, which I'm sure will help accelerate my journey as much as possible.

Also sticking to 60-90 min blocks is working well for me with concentration and level of overall play which is something that I think a lot of players under-estimate affecting their winrates.... obv after X amount of hands your tired 'autopilot' should be able to win you Xbb/100 and when compared with the downtime of an hour break or something I know that some people justify super-long sessions.  But obviously for most people tilt, tiredness, concentration and thinking all have a time limit of some kind.

Only thing now is how F*CKING MEGA TILTING live play can be! :D
- players
- comments of said players (about poker, life, odds, etc etc)
- duration of things
- amount of hands
- shoddy service by semi-fit 'wannabe' hostesses
- random mistakes/ misdeals/ clock calling


Its funny really since I don't think I really ever tilt any more (thanks JT), I definitely struggle to play my A game for hours on end if i dont take regular breaks and have pleny of brain food and water!  But with Tommy Angelo helping me out with stop-losses, objectivising a session to be something other than winning ££'s, focussing on being mindful and thinking about all the silly -ve £ things I've done in the past and many live players/ regs continue to do!


Zen JB here we come!

night all, peace!

(been to the gym today and might even post a pic on here soon as I'm starting to really get some guns going on and slowly getting rid of the flab...)

[ ] Fit, healthy, happy, winning poker player!
[X] working on above, achieve by Dec 2012?                 YOU DECIDE!  ;starwars;      (literally any excuse)

yoyoyo ewmail me youre full schedule (daily if poss) for April please bud. Get some fun stuff planned

How exactly have you 4-bet to $11.50 @ 25NL???

Surely the betting pattern should go roughly:

0.10/0.25/0.75/2.25/4.75... at most a 4-bet could go to $5.25, therefore never having to commit yourself with hands like 55.

Even if you open to $1.00, villain makes it $3.25/$3.50, you would make it about $7.50.



General sizings for 4-bets should be just over 2x the 3-bet, to allow for 4-bet folding / enducing 5-bet shoves... an opponent can almost never be 5-bet bluffing if you 4-bet to $11.50 playing $29.50.

Generally open 2x/2.5x OTB, 3x from everywhere else, 3-bet to 8bb IP, 10bb OP, 4-bet should basically always be just over 2x the 3-bet, to open our + opp ranges. Obviously if deeper these nubers can increase (these should be saved for good spots vs appropriate villains.

yer obv as soon as I have an idea... IF I'm still in the UK I'd like to qualify for/ offer staking for UKIPT nottingham.. and get some $$ there! (you get first refusal as we agreed ofc)


Think my sizing in these things can do with some tweaking...

I think I've been using this as standard atm

Open raise - 3X
Steal (btn, sb) - 2X
3bet OOP - 3.5x their raise
3bet IP - 2.75-3x their raise
4bt - 2.5-3.5x their raise
5bt - often a 100bb shove, have made it 40-50bb's when over 200bb deep.

Single raised pot - Flop 60-75%/ Turn 70-90%/ River - situational, all sorts of amounts.. min/ 20%/ 70%/140%
3bp - 50/50/pot or shove..

Thoughts?

sizing is part of plenos classes for next month innit

Gd lad...
Does it involve lots of KK 300bb bluffs like the big C-dog... or is he the only one licensed to do that kind of thing?

:P

Back from Nigeria... not a very nice place.. won't be going back for a holiday anytime soon!  Lovely people though, so friendly.

Back at 3pm, pickup Charlene at the airport and get home by 5, in gym by 6 with my bro and then in Jamie's restaurant in city centre of MK by 815!!!

GET ME A STEAK AND VEG ASAP!
medium rare of course, no debates there.  This isn't PoaPb, no steakgate please!

Had a great meal, even if C did make me wait for my main course by holding onto her starter for an extra 5-10 mins without eating it, thus delaying my steak!!!





Now at home chilling, catching up on some 'homeland' to find my trusty SKYHD box hasnt recorded the last two episodes... omfgdfjlkdjfsfjlkjfhgfdhgish!

http://www.tv-links.eu/tv-shows/Homeland_27151/

thank you sir,
not meaning any rubs, but when will you start saving? wana sweat ur counter!!!! :D

Haha, It will be getting a decent boost within two weeks :)

Some photo's of my last few weeks...

1. $1 FO on stars.. came 109/10000 or something... won a tidy $4.50... sweet! :D
2. Night out with some mates... they dressed up as 'old people' - great idea!
3. These boxes have taken 3 days of my life... just connecting a few cables.......
4. My first darts win, hit a 2 dart finish and was SUPER happy about it!
5. Driving on the wrong side of a dual carriadgeway into oncoming traffice - TIN - this is Nigeria! :P

Looks an odd two darter. Looks like you've hit treble 13 double 1 for a 41 check out. 
9 double 16 far better route :)

Single 13 for a double 1..

the previous game i took like 21 darts to slowly get down from a 40 finsh to a 2 finish, so this time figured id go straight for it!

:D


Even hit 1x 140.... was sooo chuffed!

Do you play for a team at Darts/Pool or are ya just having a friendly chuck/knock.. ?

No, I don't play for anyone.. this was in the BHC club in Nigeria vs a colleague.  The competition was a 'club' bi-weekly thing.. coming second in the pool was a shame, but I played great.

Siggghhhhhhh-aments!

Just bust both the DTD150 and the DTDUKIPT satellites..

DTD150 Sat
Played super solid all the way through, was CL from the first level until we were down to like 20 people...  Just had a few hands in and played them alright.
Then made one mistake.. where I had AKo otb and flatted vs EP raise from a big stack, BB comes along with A5o and a short stack... (well played sir)

Flop
5x5, OR cbets small - I call, BB calls.
Turn
xo and checked around and I decide that I can take this down here... so I shove for 1.3x pot and BB snaps... - well this probably isnt good, we might be able to hit an A or K though.  Nope they're not good.
River
K.... thanks, just what I needed.

So thats a decent chunk of our stack gone, bah humbug!


DTDUKIPT Sat
Played fine all the way through, pretty snug as usual, struggled to find a hand really tbh (had them in the dtd150).
Get down to like 18bb's and get into SS shove mode, but again struggle to find anything to shove. Then decide to shove my next btn if folded to me - works, then shove Js 9s next hand - works, and then find  Aspades  Ks and shove again... this time about 3 of the guys tank fold... with me praying for the call! :D

Then some genius called BTHEROCK decides to 'trap' limp Kh Th otb with a shortstack.... WTF... LOLZ....

I find Kc 6c and shove over his and the SB limp, he snaps and flops the straight..... - guess you gota know when you're going to flop tha nutz!


So thats our tourny grind for the night...


WPT Cash Grind
Played 3 hours in two sessions and finished -$10, been playing a little bit looser pre flop to try and pick up the dead preflop money there is at 25NL.. it also allows some of the players to 'spazz' a little vs me - (It's hard to get action on your big hands preflop when you're playing 18/16...)

Feel like my game and hand reading is going really well... still making a few mistakes, but losing a stack with Ac 6h when I 3bt, 1/2pot, 1/2pot, shove on 10xxxx.... is fine when the guy calls me down with Tc 6c - note made and I will now be shoving vs him SUPER LIGHT! (but paired obv)



Off to sleep, night all.

(http://i1085.photobucket.com/albums/j427/cpopictures/Facepalm-Moving.gif)

What's the facepalm for? Awesome GIF btw.

a6 is literally the nut worst hand to 3bet in any spot.

Appreciated.. it was a perfect squeeze spot, my BB to a btn raise n SB call with the perfect two players in the pot.  Wasn't playing my hand.

Disagree with that, it has a blocker and can flop top pair. It's better than LOADS of hands like T2 73o etc. Obv prefer suited too.

Not saying it's a hand I'd consider 3betting ever lol, just saying it's gotta be better than 94o!

nut worst realistic hand*

yeh i dunno why i didn't assume u meant that!

true.

Hows the EPT winning going?  I managed to come 5th in a UKIPT live sat with 2 seats tonight... sigh-aments..

Made a 'technical' mistake i think... I raise/4bt shoved 44 vs a particular villain with 25k @ 800/1600 - chatting to DL +TL (online tourny players) they reckon it should be a raise fold with that stack.  My short stack play is much better, but not perfect by any means yet.

Nvm, more dtd satellite opportunities im sure. :D

Haven't even 'registered' the bustout/ loss as i feel i played optimally at all stages.  Can't ask for more imo.


Right, getting a stroppy 'come to bed' vibe from C so I'm off to rescue her night!  :P



I've mentioned to a few mates about selling some pieces of me in Gentings live series for this Friday's Day 1C @ 1.1 - £47.50 a slice, can't offer on here yet as I don't have enough posts, but thats fine.  You're chance to throw away money on me will come in time.  Would be nice to play it, pretty sure I'll have a pretty significant edge vs a lot of the field with a 25k stack and 1 hr clock.  That's like a super deep £0.50/1 or£1/1 game for 3 days! yes PLEASE!!!!!!

What a rub! Surely you just do a click on alex's diary and find out results?

Big News!
We have decided to enter into the world of our generation and join the 'im on finance for something' club.

Today I have cemented my online poker entrance for a while by purchasing the following!



Case                                    COOLERMASTER SILEO 500 QUIET MID TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU)                    Intel® Core™i7-2600 Quad Core (3.40GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard                         ASUS® P8Z68-V LX: USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs, ATI®CrossFireX
Memory (RAM)                    8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB)
Graphics Card                       1GB AMD RADEON™ HD6870 - 2 DVI,HDMI,2 mDP - DX® 11, Eyefinity 4 Capable
Memory                                 1st Hard Disk   2TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD2002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive        24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader           INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply                        600W Quiet 80 PLUS Quad Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£59)
Processor Cooling                   SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE INTEL CPU COOLER (£19)
Sound Card                           ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities                   10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options                           6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System                   Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software                   Microsoft® Office Home & Student 2010 (Incl Disc & 1 License for 3 devices) (£89)
Anti-Virus                             BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL - (I have Mcaffee yearly subscription)
Monitor                             IIYAMA E2273HDS 22" LED WIDESCREEN, HDMI/DVI-D 1920x1080 (£129)
2nd Monitor                           IIYAMA E2273HDS 22" LED WIDESCREEN, HDMI/DVI-D 1920x1080 (£129)
3rd Monitor                           IIYAMA E2273HDS 22" LED WIDESCREEN, HDMI/DVI-D 1920x1080 (£129)
Warranty                         3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery                             PCS EXTRA-CARE DIAMOND DELIVERY - MON-FRI, PRE-10AM (£16)
Build Time                           FAST TRACK 3 WORKING DAY DISPATCH (£59)


Price (ex VAT)   £1,241.85
Price    (inc VAT) £1,490.22
Order Quantity   1


http://www.amazon.co.uk/Microsoft-Natural-Ergonomic-Desktop-7000/dp/B000UTQSM0/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1333043164&sr=1-1
For £35ish

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ergotech-Triple-Horizontal-Monitor-100-D16-B03/dp/B001NPEC5A/ref=sr_1_1?s=officeproduct&ie=UTF8&qid=1333043131&sr=1-1
For £219ish



So we need to get a few bi's in order to pay for this!

On top of this we have sold 30% of action in the Genting £430, and with 10% for Pads that means we're playing 60% tomorrow assuming we can buy-in with no problems.


A little bit Scary tbh.

Best of luck at the Fox. Get the puter paid for by Sunday obv

Thanks, that's the plan obv.. just need Rob to bring back the DTD500 sats and its a cert.

Bad res for the monitors.

Talk to me...

this isn't very helpful alone...

???

Full trip report to follow -

Cliffs
We played Genting Poker Series London Friday and Saturday with 60% of ourselves (20% Pleno/ 20% D'L)

We made day 2 with 145k (2x avg), shoulda had 250k but lost KK vs AK last orbit of day 1c
We played super solid in day 2 with some terrible starting hands and tough seat draws
made a few small mistakes but some big improvements in previous error spots
Cashed for £860
Somehow lost  Td 7d vs Tim Cheung  Ahrt Qh aipf - POKER IS RIGGED!


:D

peace

Mouse n keyboard have arrived!
Monitor stand has arrived also and its so sexy! but it is pretty big... this could be a struggle to fit it in. - woops

Managed to win a dtd150 and ukipt seat for tonights sats already, lets turn them into real seats pls!

Text received to confirm tomorrows deliver of uber grind PC - cant wait.... tomorrow will be torturous at work knowing its here ready to be opened and setup :(



I'm enjoying the cash games online and managing to play much better overall than I ever have before.  But I'm not winning at the rate I think I should be yet, I'm still making some mistakes for stacks that I really shouldn't be so going to be working with Patrick and a friend of his 'Ben' who is crushing small stakes and will help me get rid of those leaks that's causing me problems at the minute.  Not a massive issue as I'm certain its a couple of small things I'm just not sticking to that will mean big changes in my winrate.
The harsh reality of how hard it is to 'win @ poker' - its the hardest way to make an easy living.....    (#unlessurcalledgoulder)

Grats on a nice run :)

Thanks dude, not enough for me im afraid! I want one of these tournies for my own! (the £50k might be nice but I know I can win one!)

Turned out to be a long one.... Bear with me please.  I've colored it an everything to make it look pretty and entertaining.


Genting Poker Series Leg 2 - London
These tournaments are fantastically structured.. with 25k and 1 hour clock, all the levels and super soft field full of satelliters and 'wannabes' like me who think they're ready to step up.  There are of course some fantastic live and online tournament players to either avoid or to defeat on the way.

Day 1c - Palm Beach
I received a text from the Palm in the morning to inform me that my leg would be conducted there as there were too many players wanting to play the final day.  I turned up in time to sit down after missing a couple of hands and begin paying as much attention to my table as possible.  I double checked all the rules, making sure I knew if they were being strict on anything (they were - actions out of turn, instant 2 hand penalty, no warning!).  And then spent some time finding the names of all my table mates and hendon mobbing them for 'obvious regs'.  I knew the most prominent one - Richard Horton and have played with him before at dtd in the £300 deepstack last year.  He seems solid aggressive but I only played with him on day2 when we both had decent stacks.  So this would be different when its early days, again I was also sure he didn't remember me (bonus ofc).

We played really solid and tight, just making observations as we went along.  Turns out we had probably the 'nut' seat of the table, the two 'reggish' players to our right, and two face up fish on our left, with our direct left being unoccupied - giving us two buttons/ orbit :D :D :D.
As silly as it seems we really didn't do much about that until we managed to get some chips to play with.. I appreciate that 25K @ any of the first few levels is still 00's of bb's but I didn't want to get down to 15K and be having to put my tournament on the line anytime i played a decent sized pot.  Instead I patiently waited and made a few hands, lost a few and did something very unusual..

- I flatted  Kh Kd IP preflop because I was in HJ and wanted the fishy BTN and SB to come along since the CO and BB weren't there at all.  No one had 3bet at this point and I felt like it would get way too much credit, so instead decided to try and play my hand as a 5-7k pot type hand and get 30-50bb's with it.  That all ended with an  Aspades 4d Th flop and a cbet, my call and a call behind.  I folded turn and they ended up both shown down an Ace - I ended up losing less than what my 3bet would have been.

- We plod along for a few more orbits and eventually find  Ks Qs in CO, make a standard open and get 3 callers.  We flop the disinteresting  4s 6s 8s and get check raised by the SB..  Hmmm.... We flat and decide to let him barrell off worse, probably only calling down if he gives us 3 streets.. (on a raggy board his Ax ss becomes more likely imo)
He bets a turn brick big but checks the river brick.... hmmm maybe he's just got a set or two pair...  We take a while and eventually settle with a big almost pot sized bet as I expect to NEVER get check raised here!  He takes a while himself but sigh puts it in and we take a lead on the table.. up to 42K and looking good.

- Just an orbit or so later we open to 525 utg with 8h 8d and have an interesting spot when we get 3 callers and then the btn who I think is a 'wananbe genius' who has seen a video or two reraises to 3600 from 14k.  I take my time and look at the spot, realising that I'm sure his range isn't nutted enough that I can't put some pressure back on him.  I don't expect him to be 3betting 10's down as that would be pretty horrible in his spot when he could just flat - if I come over the top for example, what will he do with 10's vs my range utg into 4 people? (I'd puke if it were me).
Armed with this thinking and that there just arent enough calling hands (JJ+/ AQo+) then I work out I'll easily have the 35-ish % required to set him in here (turns out its 39.3%)
So I make it 11k which doesn't commit me to anyone but him and they all snap fold, he takes a few seconds and flicks the last 11.5K in and I snap call - to which he looks suprised (its 3k extra into 30k ofc im snapping).

And then he shows his  Th Ts..... FFS... idiot has played his hand badly and then faced with a utg 4bt from a tight young guy who's only showed 3 hands (all were the nuts) and he just sighs his tournament away with the old TT. 
Guess we better get there then since this will put us back to 30k and only a small CL on the rest of the table.
Obviously we bink an  8c on the turn and seeya pal! Now we're up to 60k and going strong!


We don't play too much from here on, messing around a little bit... in one spot we b, c, b air on QJx9x and take a while before overbetting 5100 into 3850 on the river.  I actually expect the guy to have a hard time calling AQ here from the way we've been playing so far.. but then he raises to 9.5K more leaving 6K behind... this really puzzled me, I really wanted to set him in, figuring he can't really have anything here that will love a river 3bt.  After a few seconds I decide to reign it in and stop myself busting my 'lead' in a speculative spot when the guy could just be pretty bad and overplaying QJ or something.

In the next hour or so we see both Sinem Melin and Paul Jackson come to the table and do their stacks into the same guy within an orbit each.  Sin had KK vs AK and PJ decided to raise, cc, cc, ccain with AA on Q9xxx - guy had 99 obv.  This one was a particularly interesting hand to me as I like Paul's play but something that made it really a big mistake to me was the 'live' aspect of the hand.  The guy 'sigh' set Paul in on the river after betting relatively small all the way through.. To me this coupled with some standard live reads lead me to believe the guy had exactly 99 as he is going to be 3betting QQ pre.  I've found out since that Paul was tilted from his other table and couldn't see clearly at the time = that'll explain it then.

We finally get moved tables to table 1 and find BBP pro 'Wayne' someone and Julian Thew on our table, along with the TD of G Southampton - Henry.  This table looks pretty fishy other than Wayne and Thewy but they're taken care of within an orbit or so as Thew stacked Wayne with KK vs A10 on 3K310 with some fun 'banter' along the way.  And then Thewy decides to play 9c 9h strange in a 3bet pot OOP by cc 8xx hh and cshoving xh.  The OR has AQhh and Thew gets 90% stack in dead which takes care of him for me.  Now I'm thinking I'm well on the way to day2, just have to keep grinding away!

I play really snug while getting some reads on the table (had been on my other one for like 8 hours) and decide to play AK pretty passive when I open utg and get 3bet by the old man to my left who stacked Thewy.  I just called pre and cf a Qxx board feeling that it would be hard to 4/5bet shove vs an older gentleman and have AK in good shape a lot.. (Fair I think TK - :D)

Having said that I then find a really nice spot a couple of orbits later, where the following happens.
- UTG opens for 2200, I call  Ac Kd UTG+1 and the older guy on our direct left makes it 8k (from 130K)
- Folds to UTG and he now makes it 21K (playing 70K) and I get a live read on him that he is 'weak'/ fedup/ frustrated
- I decide to snap shove my 56K over his 4bt, effectively I cold 5bt backraise 56K over 21K vs UTG and UTG+2.

Which I realise seems crazy but with the old blockers to AA/ KK and imo plenty of fold equity since UTG is weak and the old man is going to crap himself with <QQ I think its an easy spot to pickup 30K and increase my stack by over 50%. I haven't done anything strange or out of the ordinary, hardly been playing any pots and no one has any reason to think I'm at it here.

The older guy really starts to think about it and I'm trying to work out if he's sighing me off with QQ or worse.. obv I don't hate it as a double up will set me in great state for day2!  After counting his stack and taking a couple of minutes - he sigh's me off with  Ks Kh and the UTG hollywood folds - declaring AK, then our hands are tabled and I less than believe him (live reads FTW!)
Obviously getting the guy to fold KK wasn't part of the plan but we've got 30% I guess = so lets get there!

We make a rivered backdoor gutshot and the old  2h has never been more welcome! :D :D :D  So we get a full double +25K dead money and we're up to like 130K, probably CL in the whole tournament and going to be going for overall CL at 200K with the table we have!



Nikhil Persaud
The day carries on pretty standard, and eventually we get Nikhil Persaud moved to our table, he's a 5/10 reg @ The Vic and a partner in Black Belt Poker I believe.  I had the pleasure of railing his cash game for a few hours a year or two ago after I bust my own roll earlier that night and after we chatted about a few hands he asked if I'd take £200 of his money and go 50/50 on profits.  This was my introduction to backing but I couldn't stand it after I lost the money and went and got £200 of my own to pay him back with (lolz I know).

However I am literally 10x the player I was then and decided that with my table CL I wasn't going to let him come to my table and 'own' it with his 3bt's to commit the weaker players, to play off his image as a 'nit' and get people to hand him a lift up the chip list (I know this is something he does in these positions - e.g. late in the day with a middle-ing stack).  I watch the table react to him and eventually make a move, I 3bet his 3rd open in a row to 3800 - now UTG+1 from the CO with  2d 4d  to 10.7k leaving him an awkward stack size of 48K ish and I cover him twice over.  He takes an agonisingly long time while I just stare and the felt, occassionally looking up to see him squirm.  After complimenting me on my betsize (thanks) and giving me the 'eye' he sigh folds  4c 4h apparently and Henry the G S'hmpton TD tells him I'd have shown a  2d if I had one (as I had done that a couple of times by now).

The temptation to show was so strong but I had to resist as I felt that he wouldn't believe me afterwards and I knew I'd need to tangle with him again.


Other than this we play really solid for the rest of the day, using our stack (140K+, avg was 50K) to our benefit and slowly climb toward 200K. 
In the last orbit before the end of the day we've 3bet two hands on the trot, then open three hands in a row, and finally find  Kh Kc, we open UTG and get flatted by John (old guy) and then shoved on by UTG+2 'nit' and are super happy to flat once they all fold getting ourselves HU in a 110K pot vs his  Aspades Ks.  I'm already thinking it would be fair and just if he wins this one after my earlier hand.  But if we win it we will finish the day as overall Tournament Chip Leader and day2 will be ours to lose.  This was a fantastic feeling - I want this again!

We see a board of
 Ts 5c 6h 8s Qs and start picking up the chips as his hand is mucked.

"but he has a flush....." says someone.  I can't quite see his hand and didn't realise he had Aspades Ks - I thought it was offsuit.

I look up to the TD who is already looking to me to say "The hand was tabled John, it stands." as I'd been talking to Ralph throughout the day, he was a great guy - wp sir!

So I happily ship over the chips and recount.. 155K, hmmm its ok I guess.

We see two more hands and on the last one we call a shortstacks 3bt shove for 10k with  8c 9c, we end up HU as the OR folds afraid of me leaving us 9K of dead money and we're being 'paid' to take a hand vs AKo.
We flop an 8 but he rivers an A to stay alive and come back to day2 with 14bb's.

Meh - We bag up 144K and we're double average, playing some aggressive solid tournament poker and with a little rungood expect to make a deep run at Day2 with £50k up top.


Day 2
I'll make this short for those of you who have gotten this far...

Day 2 consisted of me repeatedly raise folding <77's in late position to shoves and winning chips off of the 'special lad' to my left, but losing them to Mr Huxley on my right as he 3x opened and insta-shoved over my 3bet's.. despite my playing tight.  I think he was a little too quick to do this tbh, but luckily for him I didn't find a real hand to do it with.  I end up moving table after having a strange hand mean I didnt play Ac 9c vs  Kh 9h for a full double up.  Luckily I get  Ks Kh next hand and while still discussing the ruling with the TD Colin (also a legend)  I knock out a shortie to get back to just under average.

I then move tables next to current CL Tim Chung and someone else who I 'understood' to be a decent winning player but I don't know his name.. both had me covered and I knew I had to be careful.  Tim respects my game I think.. so I didn't expect him to mess a lot, figured he wouldn't want me with more chips than I had to have.  We play our table pretty well for a few hours, ride out the bubble and I manage to play my 20bb's pretty well i feel.

Eventually we are getting close to breaking and I figure I'll try to get a few chips before I leave, use my fostered 'tighter' image to nick a few blinds and try to get in good shape knowing that any table would be trouble.

A guy who ends up on the final table 'Robin something' is blowing up as the whole table has owned him once or twice.. he coolered Tim a few orbits before with KK vs 99 for 180K aipf.. but he's down to like 210K now and steam is coming out of his ears.  I 3bt shove SB 7d Td knowing he's folding vs me 90%+ and ofc Tim finally wakes up with a hand, the old  Ahrt Qh.

We flop a gutshot and turn a flush draw but can't get there one more time!  We cash 43rd for £860 and unfortunately just couldn't find enough hands on day2 to get paid with.. its a shame but I feel I played some of my best tournament poker and with only a few value hands would have gone very deep in this tournament!

Next one is Edinburgh and without a satellited seat I doubt I'll be going that far.  But I'll play as many of them as I can.




The reason this has been so long is because I was grinding a DTD150 sat while doing it and have just gotten another seat (had one already) so tonight hasn't been a complete loss.  Still need a UKIPT seat though and may resort to playing live and online sats at the same time later in the week if necessary (I assume we're allowed?)



Well writing is more nackering than I could have ever imagined before I started this blog, but I am so glad I did and it is helping me so much. 

For any aspiring poker players who come across this I really feel that embedding yourself into a community like Blonde is an essential part of the development needed for overall greatness in ones field.

And I pledge now that 5% of all £10K+ scores this year will be fed back into the blonde community in some way or other - freerolls in DTD or into the DTD League or something!
So lets get some rungood together and bink something worth talking about!

lol good read :D

The 88 seems really bad, but sounds like you had alot of fun and glad you got another flag :)

Well done on the cash an flag fella.. Are you playing this weekends Deepstack?

Do you understand where I'm coming from with the 88's?  Its like I turn my hand into a range looking like JJ+/ AK and so his calling range should be JJ+ AQo+ against which Im in great shape.  Even though I have 88 here, I expect to be against 99/ 1010 so rarely that it's not a factor.

Maybe I'm over estimating the possibilities.....

Marks for effort and showing workings out?


Thanks, but tbh I won't be satisfied till I've FT'd one of these £300's+ this year and made my mark on it!


5% to blonde members!

Mini report

Thursday 05 April
DTD150 sat
Played well and ran like god. Had 4-6x average the entire way through the tournament... then when 20 left and 11 seats i decide to put some pressure on the other two bigstacks at my table.  I 3bt SB K9o covering both, UTG folds and BTN decides to be a hero and peel.
Flop
KQ10
not bad, not amazing but we cbet 1/2pot as std, he calls.

Turn
Xo
Complete brick I think, figure the majority of his range will be 1pair here as i would expect him to raise that flop with strong hands to get it in.  I decide I can make him fold all of his hands except QQ, 1010 or AJ by check shoving turn.  And I've been seen to always have the nuts at showdown today.

He snaps. This is bad.

AJ... wp sir. nh, gg, etc etc.................

River
Who cares>??

We lose a 150k pot when average is 25k... wp john.  Just given up my 'locked' seat. Woulda been 3rd seat in 3 days.



[ ] learned to not bluff ever in these comps.


WPT Cash Grind
Did a session over teamviewer watching a guy from my study group (fitzy) and played a really solid session afterwards, began to climb back out of a few sessions in a row losing streak.

Mixing up my styles, trying some looser, some tighter, some more aggressive and some allowing people to hang themselves.  It's tough to work out the best style vs each OP but that's the point i guess.


Friday 06042012
Another session with fitzy but this time analysing a session where he hit his stop loss and had to quit.  After 2.5hours of going through it we realised that almost 50% of his losses were spew/ mistakes when you look at the right stats/ reads/ std tendancies at our levels.
These sessions are definitely the way to improve and work out what to be looking at stats wise, what to be doing as adjustments pre and post-flop... we even spent some time discussing note taking systems to suppliment our 'notecaddy' which we both have with our HEM2.

[X] Notecaddy is the mother****************bollux!
[X] Notecaddy is easy to use

Discussed with Pleno and we're going to do a 3way discussion sweating either fitzy or myself and im really looking forward to it, with P's direction I reckon he can steer us to get 'there' so much quicker than if we were alone!
100NL here I come!



-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Interesting?!
Then watched an interesting video today on 5betting and how without a seriously aggressive history you actually don't want to 5bt  Kh Ks and ever get called! weird huh?

Turns out when you run the math that actually 5bt-ing and getting a fold is more +EV than getting called by any reasonable range, even if it includes QQ/JJ etc....

I'll give a rough and quick rundown of the math if i remember it correctly (please correct me)

open to 3x
3bt to 9x
4bt to 24x
5bt shove 100x

When you fold to the 4bt you're left with 91x
When you 5bt shove and he folds you win 124x  (his 24, your 100)
When you 5bt shove and he calls with QQ+ AQ+ he is 36.89% and therefore he 'owns' 37% of the 200x pot (his 100, our 100)
So he owns 75x and you own the other 125x of the pot.  So you win the same as if he folded.

As soon as you take AQo out of his range and make it AQs+, AKo+, QQ+ he now owns 41% and your losing to get KK's in pre.

Obviously if you have a dynamic where someone isnt folding AJ+, 10+ or wider then your looking at 31% or less for him.
But clearly this won't be common at micro or maybe even small stakes very often??

Definitely worth a ponder..... Seen some Nikachu stuff today and he's refreshingly light and honest about how being a 'pussy' tight nit is just so profitable when you use it to exploit your opponents acceptance of 'coolers'.


#discuss....







DTD150 today after I've picked up my new monitors from City link and I'll have a pic posted on here if I can,

- I7 processor,
- 8GB RAM
- 2TB WD Black HDD
- Radeon 6870 eyefinity GFX
- 3x HP LP2475w 24" monitors (sick! check em out here http://www.amazon.co.uk/HP-LP2475w-display-widescreen-DisplayPort/dp/B001EI8TH8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1333761488&sr=8-1)
- Microsoft 7000 ergonomic desktop
- Triple monitor stand (http://www.amazon.com/Ergotech-Triple-Horizontal-Monitor-100-D16-B03/dp/B001NPEC5A/ref=sr_1_1?s=office-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1333761604&sr=1-1)
- And a new cactus called Bob.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Euphorbia_Pentagona_1.jpg

nice mini report :P

(http://i895.photobucket.com/albums/ac159/GIFsforhire/Facepalm/facepalm.gif)

+1

So I went to get the monitors this morning from city-link as I'd paid for next day delivery so i could set up 'the beast' asap and then get grinding propa-loike innit bruv?!

I've attached some photos to show you the final setup, its beautiful, with just so much screen-age I can't even express it.

Took a while to sort out though as the computer was being a smart ass and arranging the monitors 3 1 2 which meant that the middle was the 'main' and it went smoothly to the right but to get to the left screen you had to go to the right hand side of the right monitor and then it would appear on the far left.
[X] a little bit tilting..

Now its sorted and to 'test' the resolution for poker I decided to open up as many tables on WPT as I could, at a current bankroll of $360ish that equates to 360/25 = 14 tables. This took one monitor and just went over to the second.  This proves when/ if I ever want to mass multi-table that it will be comfortable and easy to do so on one or two monitors and have a third for internet/ skype/ porn/ etc.... :D
Now to sit back, admire and say ahhhhhhhhwwwwwwwwwwwwww isn't IT amazing?
No longer than 30mins after getting IT ready I had to leave for the dtd150 £100k GTD and use one of my 2 available bullets to build a stack and get through to day 2!







DTD150
Due to the above setup and issues relating closely to parent like child abandonment issues I eventually arrived at DTD 15mins late-ish and bought in the 'magic goulder' as I owed him a few ££'s.  I then misheard my seat number and went to 43 seat 8, when in fact I should be in 43 seat 3.  I quickly change seats before I play a hand and look down at  Kc Kh otb.  Oh hello dere!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
First Hand
We raise when a could of people limp in front, and get 3 callers. 
Pot $1125
FLOP
8c 5s 4d  (or similar)

SB checks, MP checks, CO checks, we bet 225...
This was deliberately small, in order to squeeze value from all hands worse than ours, protect against raises on this board from any random pair thinking we have AK and to allow for some cheap hand reading when cold, first hand in.

SB raises to 850 and the other two fold.  Well I'm not folding, so I call.

Pot $2825
TURN
6h
SB checks and I'm thinking he has 8x or 99-QQ a lot here! So I bet 1600 to set up a 4-6k river bet hoping to get some curiosity first hand in. He calls.

Pot $6025
RIVER
Qd
SB snap leads for 1300 and we SNAP call.  He takes a few seconds and tentatively announces 'set' and shows  Qh Qs for a horrendously played set of Q's and looks like a right tool when he 'nervously' shows his top set.  Wp sir, gg.

[ ] Nice start...

- lets get back to our 10k stack and 25/50 blinds please.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cliffs
- We play pretty solid and notice we have a pretty call happy table, we learn this as we try to get one guy to fold a 7 on a  Kh 7d 4h 6s 3c when our  Jh 9h misses OOP.  He calls the pot bet and we say nice call sir.

- We also lose with an overpair w/spade vs  UTG 4s 5s on a  9s 6s 2s  8h 6d.  Must be nice to raise first hand he plays UTG then flop a flush and get paid?!

- Lose a bunch more small pots and we're down to 7k pretty quickly.  Kept going over hands, realizing I played them as well as possible and I still have X amount of bb's.

- Eventually we find a value hand in the old  Ad Ahrt and raise UTG, we get the hero from earlier (QQ 'pot controller') in UTG+2 and a few others, its looking scary until the  Aspades Qd 3c flop when we decide to cbet/ give up in order to get value, but our 'hero' comes along so quickly on the flop we're fairly sure he has that final A! (yelp of yay!)
We decide to take his 'pot controlling' skills to school and bet pot on turn and he realizes this will create a 1/3 pot river bet so just sets us in! We snap with the nuts and he's drawing dead to give us a double up to 16K, tyvm sir, wp again.

- Carry on playing pretty solid but struggling to play or win many hands.  Instead chatting a lot to Jonny Chapman a very nice young man who used to work at DTD as a dealer but is now the hospitality manager for the Pokerstars Supernova/ Supernova Elite players.... MBN sir, sweet job.

- Eventually we've folded our way through a few levels and we're rocking a 30bb stack... we're ready for <30bb poker and have been working on that part of my game a lot recently, especially how long a short stack can last when played properly.  So I'm ready for this and have a great table for it as they won't call correctly and I'll get some silly folds and insane double up's vs different villains.

- We make a few shoves n keep ourselves around the 22-28bb mark but are struggling to find value hands....

WHEN

- We find the QQ's in CO and have had the table 'captain' who has won every pot and has around 50K (avg like 17K) limping into every pot.  We decide to 4.5x it here (1650) and he obv limp calls.

$4300ish
FLOP
256r
He checks, we bet 1425 and he calls... we do this to set up a turn shove of almost pot... figuring he'll think we're bluffing when we bet this big on a turn card, and we pray for no A no K please.

$7150
TURN
4o
He checks again and we take 20 seconds then shove our remaining 5400 and he calls quickly.

Our QQ are up against the mighty, strong, massive, common limp calling- check calling             8 2o!
(well this is pretty sweet, just need no 2, 3, or 8 please dealer)

$17950
RIVER
3o
CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP it up and give that nice young man his soldiers back please dealer man, we've signed a peace treaty on this hand and would like to share it evenly.
I didn't say a word, no tilt, just swallowed the unfortunate reality of tournament poker and tried to quickly refocus and get it in again as good soon!



[ ] We got it in good
[X] We got it in soon-ish..
[X] I genuinely didn't tilt as a result of this hand, I just got back 'to the grind' - need another 'value' hand please Mr Dealer - man.




A level or so later after a few standard shoves with 15-22bb's we find ourselves distracted by some off table chat, peel the  Jc 8c in the bb and see Jonny has min raised in early-ish position.  Now we haven't been messing with him mainly because he's played pretty tight and therefore will have a strong range very often.  For whatever reason I thought he would be folding plenty here and decided to shove my 14bb's into the middle, he snaps and we're in an all in for almost 30K with very little equity vs KK.

Woops... in retrospect this was a 'blowup' of somekind.  I actually think I could have won the hand if I played it like this.....

Flop
Ts  7c 6s

Turn
Qc

River
4s

If I min3bt pre, checked the flop (think this woulda freaked him out) then bet small on turn + shove river... or to shove turn.
This is because if i min 3bt and he just calls (probably good idea since my min3bt will be KK+) then when I check that board I don't think he think's I'm ever giving up, ever! So by turn I can only really have QQ (now a set), KK (same hand) or AA that I would be playing such a 'small' pot vs his tight range.

Alternatively I could have just folded pre and carried on shoving my ever shortening stack in good spots vs villains that will fold and call incorrectly and more than likely get myself into a good spot to double up and then play my way through the rest of the day.

[X] My tournament discipline is getting so much better every single time I play atm.
[X] Made one mistake today
[X] It cost me my tournament
[ ] Tournaments are an easy game



So we continue to battle onto our first 'major' DTD final table.  Next time pls.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DTD UKIPT SAT
I decided to try my play at a live sat for the £1Million GTD UKIPT at DTD next week in a £56 Re-Entry tournament, I won the first two hands in my first buyin and no more....
And only played one hand of the second @ 400/800 with 10K I get all in pre flop with  Kh Qd vs  Kc Jd and  Jc Js... for a 3 way 35K aipf.
[ ] I won the 'flip'.



After that I decided enough was enough and despite often being one of the best players on any of the 50/1 cash tables and often a strongly ++EV player on the 1/2 or 1/3 tables I am not rolled for them atm and as such refuse to play, yet!

When I am rolled for them you better watch out because I will be crushing them at every opportunity! AGoulder an all!




So here I am at home on 'the beast' and enjoying her simple pleasures, I'm going to crack out the Warcraft: Frozen Throne mini games online for a bit and have fun building some towers or levelling up a hero or two....

Night all, hope you run good and GL to Jonny Chapman and our 5% swap..... 211K going into tomorrow and I believe we're a top10 chipstack.

Objectives refresh....

It came to my attention today that these are my objectives for this 'year':

[ ] I want to end the year at 50nl 6max minimum, would like to be beating 100nl but that is a big jump and beating 50nl hu 'regs'
[ ] To have been on my first Vegas trip (I have airmiles to spend).
[ ] To be working with my friends in our discussion group to help us all focus on real goals and work togther to get there.
[ ] Have made my first £10k+ score & manditory hendon flag.
[ ] Have submitted and had accepted a 50k+ sample as a result of no1 above and to be negotiating a 'cash sponsorship' deal.

Well so far this year...
[X] Pleno (Patrick Leonard) has approached me to sponsor me through the 6max cash levels, starting at 25nl and working up to 100/200nl by the years end.
[X] Sorted out my hendon mob and realised I actually had a few accounts already, have brought them together, and submitted a photo.
[X] Got a new Grind PC to really cement my long term commitment to online poker.
[X] Back in the gym and losing weight, while toning and getting healthy!
[X] Got an amazing girlfriend who treats me amazingly and is well worth the effort! Thanks Charlene.

Just had my first 'rough' online session where we lost 5.5bi's and hit our 5b STOP LOSS... which was a shame.

Actually I went all the way down to -4.5bi's then all the way back up to -1bi and then back down again so bit of a roller coaster.

I've scanned through the hands and I think about 70% was 'fine'.. we officially ran 4bi's under EV..
Feel like I played great and definitely wasn't affected by being in the red the whole session, it made a difference as I 'felt' it the whole time but i defiinitely didnt make bad decisions because of it.  Might post some in PHA but I've already spoken to my discussion group who seem to think i made some great folds.

I will have another look at this tomorrow and work out some revises aims.

Guess I should have 'pay off PC with winnings' in there somewhere!

Shame Charlene isn't here, feel like we could finish the night off well....


Better load up some Counterstrike : Source or WC3 Frozen Throne I guess.


:D

Just had a session with Pads n Fitzy (50nl reg) with me playing 25NL and then going over yesterdays session.

Today there was a bunch of small things that will add up that pads mentioned.  They should be easy to introduce and adopt.. most of them are just to do with 'tightening' bolts in my game.  But despite being battered by them MORALE IS HIGH!

I really feel like these small tweaks will make massive differences - having much stronger ranges in certain spots more often will also make them easier to play.


Didn't get a UKIPT seat tonight... so going to have to speak to people and arrange to sell pieces tomorrow.

For anyone interested, I will be putting up about 1/2 myself...  hopefully those that know me on here can vouch. :)

book me 10!

I know Fitzy from when I used to post on pokertube (3 years back) and from his run in UKIPT notts last year - met him on the cash tables a few weeks back - nice lad, good player. Get him to start posting on here!

done, tyty


Yeah, we have suprisingly similar attitudes and opinions... there are a few key differences but we're helping each other.

The session yesterday I think plugged some really 'easy' leaks as long as I can keep it up and make the additions work for me.

What day are you planning to play?
Looking forward to your reports and think you are going to do well, just make sure you don't overthink spots too much!?

hes in stable pleno and weirdly we spoke about you yesterday and he had no clue who you were. Guy is a really nice kid and improving alot as a player.

Who is WPIL?

I'm playing today - Day 1A, so gl me! love the structure, played in Newcastle last year but made a bit of a mess of it.  Had a tough 2nd table i think, but definitely made it hard for myself.

I've done a lot of work recently on my short stack game and good reshove/ open shove ranges.  So figure I should be able to nurse a short stack well vs field if i can keep focus.

I'm easily 10x the player i was then and think so much better down streets, with plans and working on player types.

Literally in the best poker shape of my life... Just a shame I've hit my cash stop loss again today.. .
So thats 2 days in a row, first time yesterday, copied today. hmph!


Going to go over it with fitzy to look for mistakes, think about half were mistakes or 'thin' shoves... like
Raise, bet, bet, raise 9d 7d on

 9c  6d 5d    Ahrt   9h

???


However I'm currently getting close to a 'lock' for a seat in tonights DTD UKIPT satellite, finally!
glme

Well that sucks....

for the 4th time in the last week, JimiJimi77 has got all in pre flop vs me with 30% and got there EVERY TIME!

We get in AK vs AQ with 14 left and he insta flops a Q.
Then he proceeds to tell me 'Ul, I've won E1400 this week'..................... uhhh.... well........ that is very nice for you sir.

I realise that Colin is a very nice guy and a pleasure to chat to, but i am a little annoyed at his rungood vs specifically me recently is a little frustrating.

So we don't get a seat and we've effectively paid more in satellites than it costs to play... and now only have 60%.  Hmmm.....

Still love the game, but this is a fair frustration i think.  This is the reason i play these but nvm.



We then get in 3.5bb's with K6o vs A2o and bink a 6.  Up to 8bb's and find A10ss utg and shove, running straight into AA's of course.
We flop a flush draw, turn a straight draw to chop and river not enough to qualify to beat a 1 pair hand.
Nevermind, next time im sure.

Gl JimiJimi77 in your UKIPT... I hope you do something with my entries.

Pmsl. As Colin would say "unlucky son"

 ;D <3 Colin

30% is huge for Him, you don't go winning two deepstacks without knowing how to get there..  ;)

Good Luck today fella..  ;kneelsucker;

When Colin clicked Allin I wonder if he rubs his tummy like he does live and say "never let me down yet"???

TBF John he is blessed in the "get there dept"

Currently in a service station after playing the best day of tournament poker in my life.  I made a mistake getting in AQ vs K10 aipf.. When the tilting dude limp jams 2x avg stack.

Obv I crush his range, but I dont need to risk my stack in this spot in future.. Obv deserved the win but when has that ever mattered. I literally crushed all my tables today and feel super good about my game going forward.. Few is tweaks here and there and I think I'll be crushing properly.... Tune of 5figs+ please.....


Trip report tomorrow obv.

Currently waiting for kosh, Gary and Reynolds to finish doing their bollux on the fruities...
[ ] I understand fruit machine gaming....

Fmfl.


JB

Play the one that some guy stuck £4 grand in tonight. Wtf is wrong with some peeps.

Just made some notes so that I can do a report and my mind hasn't turned into mush by lunch.

Still really happy with the way I played, think tbh I should look to get backed for live stuff.  Might need some more work first, not sure.  

Either way, a couple of people from my tables came up to me after the AQ hand, said UL and they thought I crushed the game super hard today (with them in it) and that was nice.  Marc Goodwin seems great, added on FB.

Busted the biggest comp I've ever played after running great and playing awesome and somehow I don't have any chips or a seat into day2.... ? errrr what now?



Meh... I'm not even caring, just want to get back to grinding 25NL and get winning there.... then look to satellite into the next 'decent' live tournament.  

#seriouslylovingthegame!




Pictures attached for genuine degeneracy.... This is Adam Reynolds, Gary Banks, and Kourosh Radfar.... who decided to divert after we stopped at the service station at 2am.... Thanks lads... appreciate it with my 9am wakeup.
(I just don't understand slotties, they all did their bollux and loved it...?)

Then Adam's satnav didn't work and he's just come to my house and literally taken mine, saying he'll buy me a new one... sending me money online instead of driving it back. Lolz....
#ballinsoharditsridic

[ ] they noticed me taking the photos....

long time stalker of this diary, just thought I'd let you know that it's a great read, keep the in-depth trip reports coming and go and crush some more 25NL :)

finally met you yesterday, was cool - you look exactly as much of a spewbox as I thought you would lol

Thanks.... In all seriousness, can each stalker please just post 1 comment... IT makes a MASSIVE difference to me when writing it to know people actually read it.

I am doing this for myself, so i have my own in depth thought processes when i look back, but it is a massive ++++ to me to know people read it. (not super confident in the ol' writing skills)


Yes mate and you look exactly how i thought you would.... a super genius who's dressed by his mom and probably has a 3fig IQ with a 2 at the start, but I question you're ability to make beans on toast! pics or it didn't happen!
(would love to pic your brains sometime about basic beginnings in the O-game as i'd like to enter at the lowest stakes... but obv need to learn to play Holdem properly first.)

Interesting diary John.   Shame our 1st table broke early yesterday  ;)

Great read so far, absolutely love it!!

Hopefully won't be too long now before I'm up in the big leagues with you.

[ ] had time to crush the 4NL tables this week...


Keep up the diary, I'll be tuning in for updates!!

Good to say hi on Wednesday John. Will do my best to avoid you at the tables and to say hi and chat away from them in future.

The AQ hand, a mistake?

Helllo - really enjoy reading this diary so keep it up!

Err take that back about bandit players. Turns out it was most likely Paul Newey who has apperently has bought into the £million buy in game.  Lol hold my plums hit my nudge button

UKIPT Trip Report

This is a strange one, this will be a report of the best played day of tournament poker in my life so far.  We ran good having lots of premiums - AAx 3, KKx 2, QQx 2, JJx 2, a bunch of AK/ AQ and AJ hands.... and we had two really good tables.  We did have good players on our tables, Kevin Iacofano being the best.  But we managed to crush him in most pots and generally took over to crush both tables.


However, I have 0 chips going into day 2.


So, how did this all happen, how did we get up to double average in level 4/5? how did we have 62% of the Day 1A chip lead? how did we bust........


(im going to try and condense this as much as possible, but you know that probably still means a 1000word report)

Day 1A - Wednesday 11 April 2012
We start on table 48, seat 3, arriving 30minutes late with fellow degenerates Kourosh Radfar, Adam Reynolds and Gary Banks.  We were late because apparently Adam can't follow a satnav and get to Kosh's house in MK in time.

Thanks to both Alex and Nicola from DTD for sorting out my entry, I used some online DTD seats and grouped them together along with cash to buy in.  Sounds like a sweet idea and I'll be doing that for the bigger comps if i can't satellite directly.

We get to the table and quickly find our table draw on blonde, then hendon mob the few we think might need it from first impressions.  Turns out we're correct and we have Kevin Iacofano two to our left, with Alan McBride on our direct left.  This is pretty sigh since Kevin looks like a solid winning MTT player, both live and online.. which could spell trouble for us down the line.  I know Alan reads this but I will be honest and say that I'm not that fussed with him having position on me as I know he won't mess with me enough to make it a problem.  He knows I can turn up with a hand, sometimes.. but he just won't abuse me enough imho.  Other than this we have two players to our right I'm not really sure about, one seems weak-passive-bad and the other tight-aggressive but weak postflop (I don't think he knows when to stop betting).

We're pretty happy with this and the rest of the table and start off the day thinking I will be playing premium hands only while paying a LOT of attention to the players themselves.  After watching a lot of WSOP ME 2011 I noticed how much attention Ben Lamb payed to his opponents and how he stared them down to see the tiny things they do.  I decide I will try this to spot everything I can, really taking my time when I need to - I know some people laugh it off "are you trying to read me superstar?" but they're still not comfortable with it.

We get off and find a few chips have changed hands already but not much. 


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1st hand
Td Ts - we call the open from the guy on our right.. Alan comes along too and we 3 see

Flop
9h 4h 2h

The OR now checks and I don't hate this board, Alan will never have my pair beat on its own here.. (i.e. JJ+) but obviously it is a scary board.
I bet and Alan 2.5x's me... this I don't like at all as I put his range on sets/  Ahrt 9s type hands or made flushes (but think he would flat those when OR checks - he should).

I take a little while and decide to call the flop bet but give up if Alan starts piling money in.

Turn
5c

I check and Alan quickly checks behind... (hmmm...  Ahrt perhaps? I'm not sure if he raises the flop tho... hmmmm...)

River
6h (or similar)

I check knowing that if I bet here I only get him to fold his flopped sets... and that's a small range, so we'll just give up here.. Alan checks back and shows me  4c 4d for the old set-a-rooo...... (what a suprise)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2nd hand
By this time I've played a few small pots and lost all 4, this was actually starting to get on my nerves... (its like 1 hour John, grow the F**k up!) and I decided the next good spot vs the guys on my right who seemed to be opening their buttons a lot, I would 3bt a 'suitable hand'.

We find  Aspades 9d and the CO opens when its our SB, we 3bt, Alan folds and the OR calls.

Flop
 Ac  6d 2s  (or similar)

We cbet and he 'annoyedly' folds... (just had the best hand - people don't fold enough to 3bts pre its ridiculous).


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3rd hand
This is an interesting one... we notice that the guy two to our right, who has finalled or won something of note, can't remember what.  But he's terrible.. and he's to our right... so we're going to get something going with him and give him a pounding! (he's the guy in hand2)

He's lost a bunch more pots than me and only has like 7-9k and opens, we 3bt and everyone folds.. he sigh folds.

NEXT HAND
He opens UTG again to 400 and we 3bt again to 1100..  Kc Js... To me, this looks sickly strong and the rest of the table agree, it snap folds round to the SB who was an empty seat until recently and this dude now decides to make it 2500, the UTG angry folds and I take some time.... A LOT of time...  I give him the 'ben lamb stare' for a good 3-4minutes while I work out stack sizes on flop, turn, river and how the hand might play out a few times.. in my head.  I want to call as its close to min and we have position and close to 4-2-1 SPR on flop...

After the four minutes of watching and staring him down, he doesn't like it but he's relaxed and doing the kinds of chip tricks he couldn't be doing if at all uneasy about this situation... I take the low variance route and fold, but make a note to be wary of him and pay more attention to him when he's in pots in future.  We'll call him aggro-fish from now on as he comes up later.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

4th Hand
We open  Ahrt Kd in CO and Alan flats behind, Kevin comes along and the blinds fold.  This is a strange one, but knowing what Alan is like I actually favour my position and plan to check call about 99% of flops vs Kev but re-evaluate vs Alan as I'll have Kev's info by then.

Flop
 Kc Qd 3s

I check, Alan checks and Kev decides to bet 1/2pot ish...  I'm obviously not folding and raising is terrible, inflating this pot oop vs a competent villain who WILL value-cut three streets with worse now we've checked.  Alan folds.

Turn
 9s

I check again and Kev bets slightly larger this time, imho there is very little he can value bet three streets with here that he would flat pre.  So I'm now calling down on any river except a Q automatically, but probably still calling on a Q.

River
 Tc

This is a beautiful card imo as I feel he will now continue with 100% of his turn bluffs and there are so few J's he would bet the flop with... I'm thinking KJ and QJ exactly.

I check, he bets and I snap.  He tentatively turns over the  4c 5c and we have extracted a nice 6k from the best player at the table, started to establish a 'dont mess with me kid' air between us and this really gets me going...

From this point on I play my A game for the rest of the day.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

5th Hand
We don't play much for an orbit or two and then the Aggro-fish from earlier in seat 7 opens in early position.. I find Ahrt Qc and flat, it folds round and we're HU with position.

Flop
 Kc Js Tc

Well that's a pretty good flop, lets hope he has a pair!
He cbet's 400 into 2000 and this weirds me out a little bit... Why is he betting so small? What does he want me to do? How can I get stacks in by the river?

I figure I will find out on the turn whether or not he's going to bet one or three times, so I flat... I can always dictate pot size on the turn.

Turn
 7h

Is there a better card in the deck, seriously?  What a beautiful brick, and he now bets 1000 into 2.8k... so he is going to bet the river...... guess I need another brick please dealer man.

River
 2s

O M G... that is puuuurrrrrfect.

He bets 2k from his 9k and I take some time.... then set him in...  He snaps and proudly shows the K10o.....
WP sir, please leave your chips and don't let the ego hit you on the way out.  Thanks for the donation and the table CL, JOHN BLACK IS HERE TO STAY!


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We get moved tables and have about 30K and we're now in position on Kev I, have Marc Goodwin 3 to our left, opposite.

The table looks pretty soft on first approach and I quickly see how soft.  The guy on our left is a punk kid who has to have satellited and clearly has no idea what game we're playing, the guy on his left is playing super super small ball and not in a good way.  We have some weeded, superhigh spazztard on our right, then Kev and a China-fish next to him with super nits inbetween him and Goodwin.

Happy f*kin days then...

A few hands in and this table is very different.. they are limping all over the shop, mostly calling when raised and I will not be able to isolate fish as easily... have to use my chips to be patient then.

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6th Hand
We find Kd Kc and the China-fish has limped UTG (so far its always been Ax suited or AJ/A10), we decide to make him pay and makeit 5x or something silly, folds to him and he flicks it in.

Flop
 Ac Jd Tc

He checks and we check back...

Turn
 6c

He checks again and we decide that we can get value from a lot of hands, if he raises we may call a small one to flush/ straight him.. but we make it super small - we bet like 1100 into 4500 and he calls.

River
 2d   (or some similar brick)

He donks 1500 into the now 6700 pot and we flick in the call for exact information.. knowing it won't disclose our hand if we're correct.  He tables the Aspades Jh and we fold gracefully.  However, I did say something to him as he took ages to turn his hand over... I think i said something like "can you turn your hand over quicker in future please?".  He laughs it off and we carry on.

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7th Hand
Vs the same China-fish an orbit or so later we find those magical  Ahrt Aspades and he's limped...

We make it 5x again and the super small baller to our left who has donked most of his stack off calls for 1/3 of his stack, back to the CF and this time he raises!
YES!.. I am pretty sure he's not doing this as a complete bluff... and I'm trying to work out the best way to get the moneys in..  The guy inbetween with a tiny stack makes life hard, I know he's not folding but if i flat and he shoves its not enough for me to re-raise...........

I know he won't think I have AA's if I 4bt, he's going to think I just think he's FOS and want it HU vs the shortie....

So I 4bt to 7200 and the shorie flicks his stack in.... then CF a little dumbstruck doesn't want to fold and decides to flick in the 7.2k out of his 27k stack.... (vwp sir...)  I'm hoping for a 10xx or Axx flop, because I think he will often have broadways in his range.. maybe even the final A... but if its 9 high he's definitely going broke with 10's+ vs me... that is a certainty!

Flop
 Ks 3c 2s

Its obviously a good flop for my hand, but bad for stacking him... he takes a long time then checks.  I cbet 7500 and it looks like he puked in his own mouth as he has to fold.

The shortie turns over his hand and he has something ridiculous.. something that needs runner runner like 78o or something... wp sir.

Turn and River irrelevant and we scoop a nice pot to start getting over 30k, average is about 18k or something...

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8th Hand
Another orbit or so and its the last hand before the break.. we've raise and taken a pot or two, and the CF limps again...

We find 99 and 5x again.. everyone folds and its HU again with position.  <3 Live poker!

Flop
6c 4s 3h

He donks for 1/2 pot bet.. we call.

Turn
9h

He checks and we bet big, something like 3/4 pot.... he takes some time and calls.

River
8s

He donks for 1/2pot and I sigh a little... I know I can never get stacks in here now...  It's not that I can't raise for value.. its that he will never call me with the hands that I beat... I'm sure he folds everything except straights.

I flat and he shows me the  6d 7c for a superbly played hand... wp sir. Thanks for the 10k donation.

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(had to copy n paste because this was too long for the message box - over 20000 characters apparently)



9th Hand
We have calmed down after the break and since we now have 40K and a big lead on everyone at the table, only one of the fish next to CF has around 35K but hasn't shifted any in the whole time I've been at the table, so he can keep his chips warm until the blinds get big and I take them that way.

Kevin Iacofano clearly notices I have taken my foot off the pedal and starts opening 2-3times/ orbit for a while...

Eventually I find a hand I want to play vs him and 3bt the btn... I know he won't want to peel here very often.  I've had the better of him so far in our duel (I've had the better starting hands tbh) and as my first 3bt I don't think he will assume I'm messing around here ever...
I have the mighty  3s 5s of course.....

And then the punk to our left cold calls from the small blind - WTF?!  Excuse me.... sir - are you freaking crazy?  Well Kev clearly freaks out a little and folds.

This is all taken away and the worries about AA or KK etc are quickly put away with the following flop.

Flop
3c 3d 3h

Well I guess that's a good flop...  I think he has a big pair... and I errr.... I have.... errr............ quads?????  That's pretty high up on the hand ranking chart that I remember.

The punk donks into us for 3k into 5.5k ish... I don't see much point raising here, he could spazz shove but I'm not sure...

Turn
Kd

He donks into us again... for 6k (from 22k) now I know he's a punk-spazz but he 'could' have a K.... I freaking hope so...  I make it 14K and he snap folds  6h 6s face up, huffing and puffing.... WP sir... you are a poker genius.

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10th Hand
This hand is set-up by some of the previous hands with CF and there's a new guy to our left after the AA's hand.  He looks comfortable at the table, had about 35K in chips when he came, has lost a few though.

Anyways, he's seen me ISO the CF a LOT and decides to do something about it.

CF limps UTG and I open Ac Kd to 5x, then the Scottish 'wannabe' to our left now 3bts pretty standard size wise.  CF folds and I take some time, work out that I think he will 5bt shove some % and we're snapping that.. so we decide to 4bt (he didn't see our previous one being AA's).

He takes a little time and calls oop... again vwp sir.

Flop
Ks 9s 4s

He checks and I decide to let one roll off here, figuring he'll own himself with any Kx on the turn and may bluff/ bet any pair...

Turn
6c

He now comes out betting 10k from his 27K and I have a little think... I want to make this look as bluffy as possible, but effectively want to get the money in now so that his random spades don't get a free river to shove into me.  I shove and he snap folds... fuming and SUPER TILTED he runs away from the table.

It was so funny watching this guy after this hand... I have been in these shoes before, and he clearly is fuming he's given away like 2/5 of his stack with no showdown and I'm now getting up and up to 50K and beyond....

The table are clearly frustrated that noone is getting the better of me, I've folded oop when I've been 3bt as they're not doing it enough to make it a problem.. I'm still opening at least 2 hands/ orbit and just breeding chips in front of them.

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11th Hand
Kev opens the gun and we find  Jc Js, we flat and the punk behind decides to squeeze to 3.2K... he's still tilting from previous hands with me, but I'm loving this raise.  It's going to get everyone else to fold everything except QQ+ and Kev will have to be honest in front of me.. Kev folds and we are HU.
Basically I get the pot HU vs the punk with a good hand... yes please!

Flop
Th 5h 3s

I check, he bets like 6K or something and we decide to call...

Turn
 Jh

Pretty great card imo, obviously it makes it hard for him to have top pair.. but if somehow he has QQ+ with a heart, we're going to get it all! and if he's thinking I have AQ/ AK then he will keep firing as well.

I check, he bets 12K (from 29Kish) and I call..

River
Ts

I figure he's going to bet all his value hands, as imo he either has air... a T or an overpair... he should be betting all of this and he has a perfect 1/2pot shove for like 16K i think.

I check... and he sigh checks back with  Ahrt  Jd.... F*ck... If i shove the turn he would have called the rest for sure...
(think this was a small mistake.. maybe my only value one all day)

Turns out this hand makes the pokerstars blog and apparently I scoop the pot looking so uninterested and nonchalant that they give me an 'award'. :D #chillingwhenwinning

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#crushingthenoobsattheeasygame!

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12th + 13th Hands - the two most important hands I've ever played so far.
These are the biggies... these are the CL Day1A hands...

So, we're in SB and its folded to the button, he's the weeded up, ravemusicblaring, possibly drugged up, spazztard who did come to the table with a lot of chips but hasn't played much since.

The BB 'punk' isn't there and the btn min opens... the few times he has opened he has made it 3-4x and I'm 100% sure he's on the steal. I figure that I can play  9c 7s profitably vs him here as I plan to Craise a lot of flops and turns... and take this away from him 80%+ of the time.

FLOP
Tc 7c 3s

I check, he bets pretty small (imo still indicative of a bluff) and I decide to call... allowing him to barrel once more, I'm going to Craise most turns..

Turn
Ac

He could hit this, but more importantly I think this is the PERFECT card for him to now try turn and river barrels and we're going to cc, cc.  This not only stops us losing a lot the few times he does have an A but more importantly its just going to get so much more value.
Obviously we have flush draw now and that will allow us to call much easier on 1/4 of rivers.

We check, he now bets a little bigger... almost 1/2pot... we 'sigh' call..... :D :D :D

River
Kc

This is a pretty sweet river, we are only beat by two cards and if he has those, nice runout... I think he's going to bluff this river 100% and decide to cc.
I check and he bets almost full pot, for 15K.... I SNAP call and he tentatively shows the  Kh 8d.... I show my 9c and he literally EXPLODES.
His face instantly drips.. he's buzzing in his seat, i can hear his pulse from seat 1 (he's in 9) and I can see his brain melting out of his ears onto his chips.

I FEEL AMAZING! This is what I've learned, this is how it feels.... This is me, John Black, the poker player......
I know this seems ridiculous to read, I know this makes me sound like a tool... but this advert is literally 'it' for this moment in my poker life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVq-DkftWBc
(sorry mods if this is against the rules.. but its needed).


And now the hand... the one that is tearing my poker friends into two groups as to whether I'm a genius or an idiot.


Why I was almost the CL Day 1A of UKIPT Nottingham 2012.... almost.

The very next hand the CF limps and then the spazztard now limps again... We find Ahrt Qc and ISO again to 4x and it folds around... the CF folds (finally learn his lesson?) and the spazztard now shoves.... for 60K or something.

Its 300/600, there's 1200 in limps and I make is 2800, now this guy wants to ship in his remaining 55K - I think it was 52.5K to call (stuck in my mind for some reason).

(OMG - I just had a blue screen of death and my computer shut down.... I literally sat here quietly... trying to work out how to react.)  I thought I'd lost everything above..........

So this is what goes through my head:-
- I know I'm ahead... 100% certain.
- he opens all his pairs and big A's for a raise
- so this dude literally has Ax, Kx, or Qx, all the time... and maybe occasionally a random 45ss....
- vs that range we have to call... we crush his Ax and Qx range...
- we're a 62/38 vs the rest.. and he never has pairs!
- IF we lose, we have 40K (avg is 37K)
- however the chips go to our direct right... so we can get them back
- we're on a table that won't get broken for the rest of the day
- we're crushing the table and no one will even try to bluff us after this
- Do we need to take the risk? do we need to get into this monstrously high variance spot?

- Do we want to win the UKIPT Nottingham, or just mincash?

Win = take the edges + rungood...

but if we win... we're on like 160/170K or something ridiculous..

We will be Day1A CL and have a super soft table to finish the day on, probably finishing the day with 200K+..... We will be Day1A CL in the biggest competition the UK has ever held.


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Took me 30 seconds to slide the call in.... the entire table 'breath in' and he fuming slaps his  Kh Td on the table.

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Its 62/38... 62% of the time we're CL in UKIPT Notts, now I'm a much cooler cucumber at the table these days, the 11th hand above shows this, but I had to stand up to watch this one...

This was the biggest pot in 'potential value' that I've ever been involved in.. and I'm ahead... and I need to hold.












 Ks in the window......


And we do not improve.


I take it really well, morale is high and I'm bouncing off the ceiling.... I go and find Adam Reynolds who is on the cash tables apparently being a fish and giving Mitch some moneyz for fun.

Back to it then... back to the 'grind'.


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I took it super well, no tilt at all and I get straight back on the horse.. raising and taking the next hand....

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Final few, I promise.
- I get back up to 60K pretty quickly, working hard and making a few small plays and some thin-ish value bets.

- We find  Ac Ahrt again on the btn and Kev Iacofano opens in middle position.. he hasn't been opening that much of late and this will be the nth time we've 3bt him from the button.. so we're expecting some action.  But he snap folds.

- We then tighten up a little, trying to grind our way through to Day2.

- After a few orbits we open 44 UTG and get shoved on by an older guy who has just been moved to our table, its 12K to call and i opened for 2200 or something.. there's like 6K dead money so I call... (a mistake i know, the only one all day I think) and we're up against 99.  We lose and we're down to 50K ish... (50K avg now)

- We then open 66 UTG and fold to the 15K shove this time.... but he had 44's.... FFS!

- Kev Iacofano opens the button and we find  7s 2h in the BB, we take a lot of time (as we have with real hands) and 3bt pretty big.  I know he's not going to assume its a bluff, ever... he's going to rationale that I don't want to play the pot oop vs him.. and that this is the first time I've gotten cheeky all day oop.  He folds and I declare "its good for the game boys..." and show.

- Few more hands and we're chipping back up to 55-60K

- Then we get KK in the SB and the punk kid 3bt our open... we shove and he snaps saying "I hope you've got that 72o again..."
and shows us his A7o.  He flops an A and we're on life support of about 28K.

- Our next open gets 3bt by him again and we fold KQo.

- Eventually we find A7o on the button and its folded to us... we shove and the punk finds AQo in the SB....
Is this even normal???
We do not find a 7... and we are out.




I feel like I played the best poker I ever have, I definitely ran good in some sweet spots... might have missed 16K of value in the JJ hand.. but apart from that, I made the biggest call... in the biggest spot - and couldn't hold.


Get me into more please! I don't have the roll to play them myself now, so I'm going to be rebuilding and trying to satellite in.

If anyone wants to be on a list of people to get information if i sell pieces then please pm me.



This has been 3-4hours of my life.  I hope you enjoyed it.


peace.

jb