2nd = 1st of the losers

YES! I WON SOMETHING!
Thoughts on prizes...?

Simon?

Loving langleys contributions here, really want some popcorn now On a hand related note, I've got a pretty weird take on button raises. If I was playing the AK in that spot, it would look like such an obvious spot to come over the top with such a massive range of hands, and I would feel like the btn is going to 4bet a whole bunch of hands and flat call pretty much his entire range, especially since in this game (I assume from above comments) this devious oxfordfelix chap was opening his c/o pretty wide, and the opportunity for you to take the opening betting lead from the btn rarer still, further enhancing the btns range to my mind. Hence, I would feel like I would be playing a bloated pot out of position against a reg with a hand that I am only going to hit the board with a third of the time, but I would feel (on board textures such as this one) a fairly expensive hero call coming along, still with no real idea of where I am. On the other hand, if I just flat the button raise, the button will find it hard to put me on a hand as strong as AK, especially if I make a K (not so much an A), and should I miss the board, said potential hero call will be considerably cheaper by the end.

If I sound like a tit here, please don't hurt me...

I've only met him once, and i'm already in love :p He got me a wonderful masseuse

I met a latvian dealer in Aspers yesterday who apparently used to deal at dtd and knows you and goulder/al/alex/whatever the hell we'll calling him now, names Edgar? Lovely guy, didn't half give me some bad hands tho

AJos

You do work 9-5, just starting at 9pm

Hello there

Take it down boi!

Blog time!

So, Uni is out for Easter, and this meant coming home properly for the first time since my leap into the world of serious live grinding. I managed to drop by the pubs which gave me the enthusiasm for the game that I still retain. I know that I owe them a lot, and I hope I’ll never lose sight of where it all started. I came in for some pretty serious ribbing during their poker league, I can tell you. Lots of “Who’s the pro now!” and all that (getting it in with 10bbs QQ < AA was a particular highlight. “I thought you were meant to be good, how can you call there?”) Generally, the banter was wonderful and it was massively refreshing to be home for a while. Family time is precious time, which I hope I can have lots more of. I also took a trip down to the local (ish) genting club, lost a few flips, had a sick spin up in blackjack, and cursed at some macdonalds run bad when their 24 hour place was shut for one night only for some sort of maintenance/painting/holiday. Had to go home and settle for doritos and salsa instead, and to be honest, that’s not a bad trade off.

Whilst I was home, a nasty rumour was brought to my attention that I may have been missed while I was away. Naturally, this meant coming back almost immediately to verify/quell such nonsense. I was intending to drive back to Notts anyway, since a myself and a friend were planning on playing the student championships in Coventry, so we made the journey a little early, and after dropping him off at his place in Loughborough and my temporary accommodation, I jumped back in the car and was back home in DTD within minutes. What a line up those games had that night. Bunch of fantastic characters on every table going, and had I not been so tired from the day, I would have definitely stayed for a very long time. The round of each that we got going was a fantastic game, and with any luck there’ll be lots of games like that in the future. “Heroic” is a pretty good way of describing it!

So yeah, student champs. Coventry G Casino is a beautiful place, really fantastic. Absolutely loved going down there to play. The £110 high roller (I know…) was a bit of a ride for me. I was chip leader on my table for pretty much the entire day and for a little while in the tournament after two lovely little hands, which I think I’ll put up. In the first, I have 55 in the Hijack with a very aggro btn and bb. Early ish position opens for a just over min raise to 225, I call, folds to the bb who then makes it 650. Early position calls, I call, effective stacks are 180bbs. Flop comes A J 10 rainbow. Now, it is worth pointing out here that I had an interesting read going on the BB. He’d shown a bluff twice after tank raising, and had this weird habit of shifting his cards back and forth with his hands, a habit he had kept up after showing the bluff, but had not at other times when no hand had been shown. So, he c-bets to 650, early position folds. I make it 1600. BB shuffles his cards, stares at the board, tanks for a good 3/4  minutes, and makes it 4200. Now, at this point, I’m fairly confident that this is a raise so he can fold. After a little less than a minute, during which time he remains very rigid and refuses to make eye contact, I make it 9000, and he insta mucks. I smile, declare “I’m a genius!” and muck.

A little while later, we get hand no. 2. Blinds are still 50/100, and this happens. Utg, who has yet to play a hand and doesn’t really seem very confident in this 3 bet/4 bet/5 bet sort of young internet kid game, checks his cards, visibly shakes, and makes it 350. I’m sitting right next to him. I look down at KK, and raise to 900, and while I’m busy wondering whether I should fold to a UTG reraise, call to set mine, or set the guy in, I get a tank cold call from the hijack, at which point I feel his range to be limited to maybe 9/9, 10/10, J/J, possibly A/Q or A/K. Folds to UTG, who calls, which makes things an awful lot easier for me. Flop comes 8/Q/K with two hearts. Utg donks for 1500, and I pretty much wet myself and make it 4200. Cold caller folds, utg puts his head in his hands, shakes like a 5 year old with an etch-a-sketch, and shoves. I snap him off, he particularly triumphantly instantly flips over QQ, I table my KK, and sympathetically say “unlucky buddy, that’s a bad one”. He disappears for a while, comes back about a level later, and we have a nice conversation about how he’s going to rebuy, and how I’ll see him on the final table. Incidenatlly, I do see him on the final table. More on that in the next instalment of “from drinking to binking”!

ROUND OF EACH

Real sorry to hear about your bad run at the moment matey, hope you get out of it soon! May well be around this evening if you fancy a chat? Considering braving the roads from Essex back to notts :p

First up, I wanna say I'm definitely not a genius, but do have a few points here. First is that I agree with not value betting A8 in the first hand, because you aren't getting called by much worse, especially on a nitty table, ditto with the AK, I'm happier check calling after the Cbet, although in fairness I think I'm being a little results orientated there, two streets of value with TPTK is obviously normally a reasonable shout. The big thing I wanted to mention though is this thing with over-limping. I've heard a lot of people talk about this being a bad thing, but really, I fail to see why. With hands that play well multi-way, like small/medium pairs, suited connectors, some suited Ax hands (I have a friend who advocates playing suited Ax like small pocket pairs, and I am just in love with that analysis) then surely we want more people in the pot? With a suited Ax hand, I'm confident I can fold top pair and not suffer too much for any reverse implied shizzle with top pair weak kicker, and I'm looking for spots where i flop trips with my kicker, and big draws which can get paid off by weird limps who make two pair or worse flushes that would fold out to this "isolation" raise. Ditto for small/medium pairs, I want to flop a set in a multi way pot to get some action off it. With hands like a suited J10, whats the problem with over-limping? I'm not, by any means, saying that raising to isolate is bad, and making moves with these sorts of hands is bad, because mixing up my game in situations like this has been massively profitable for me. What I'm saying is that both are pretty viable options given the number of limpers, their tendencies, our position etc. Whats the harm in seeing a cheap flop every now and then? In tournament play I'm more of a fan of isolating and often overlimping in that situation can be terrible, but in a cash game, I don't have a problem with this at all.

*prepares to get berated for being a fish *

 Haha I've become more chilled of late but I've been called arrogant/cocky/loud mouthed which I guess if you don't know me that's how I might come across. I'm a lot quieter these days espec with people I don't know on the table.

Really? Wow... Who are these people and have they met you? Or have they mistaken you for me, that would make more sense :p