Happy Sunday Blonde!
I was going to write this entry yesterday afternoon, but my brain was just mush after a near 12 hour session of live poker at the G. Very enjoyable evening, and met a few readers of the diary, very nice to meet you all and I look forward to some battles with you on the felt soon!
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I met Shane (posts here under the name UGOTNUTS) at the Starbucks in Bedford station and we headed to the G after a mad scramble to get on the train in time. Shane didn't have much of a good time on Friday which can be read on his diary here. Mental table from what I hear with a 5 way all in at 50/100 blinds.
I get a fairly comfortable table draw. Not too soft and full of limpers and not too aggro. Nicely balanced, though I feel the Friday night comp brings a more savvy set of player anyway and it was too be expected.
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Hand one - blinds 25/50.
Hero -
in MP.
Fold around to me, so I open for 125. I get 3bet by the button to 350. Button is a young player who is more than capable of re-raising light from the button and I am confident he is more likely to do this when blinds are low than when they are high. It's a small 3bet but I elect to 4bet to 850 as AJo isn't a hand I want to play out of position to this guy, and by 4betting I keep the betting lead on the flop. Villain calls 850.
Pot of 1775.
FLOP -
Pretty dry flop, but I c-bet 1100 as was the plan and get a insta-fold which I didn't expect very often. May have just decided to set mine with 88-TT here given against my perceived 4bet range all the money would go in if he did bink a set.
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Hand two - blinds 50/100
Hero has
on the button.
UTG + 1 opens for 300.
Hero 3bets to 850 on the button.
BB cold calls.
UTG + 1 folds
Pot of 2100.
FLOP -
Checks to me.
I bet 1300.
BB calls.
Pot of 4700 to the turn.
TURN -
I check.
BB bets 1700.
I checkraise to 4000.
If I am going to checkraise here it has to be on the turn. When BB just cold calls, it's a pair almost every time. He's going to check back all rivers that don't make him a full house so the attempt at value has to come here. I think he's unlikely to have a pair bigger than QQ and worse than 99 given that we have two blockers to AA and KK and villain is obviously betting them and we're only realistically losing to JJ. We have an aggro table image anyway so I figured I could get the value with the checkraise on the turn and then evaluate the river and if I could get another bet in depending on the run out.
BB folds and a few seconds later said he has QQ. And the immortal line - "I put you on AK". Everyone puts me on AK. I do usually have AK though.
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Hand three - blinds 150/300/25 - stack of about 28k from an 8000 starting stack. Still haven't taken the 8k addon either.
Got moved to a new table a couple of hands prior, and this one looked a bit more handy than the last one. Aggro tables make me happy, they're much more fun to play than the passive ones.
Hero has
on the button.
UTG + 1 opens to 800 with three callers.
We call on the button because we have position and the price is pretty good for a suited ace and we can basically play fit or fold with it.
Flop is
.
Checks to me on the button and we bet 2000.
Preflop raiser checkraises ALL IN for the 4000 more.
Everyone else folds.
First thought was he can almost never have an 8 here unless it's pocket
, and if that was the case he is way more likely to just call and let me barrel off on the turn. I feel the same thing with AK/AQ, he's more likley to be going for the shove on the turn/river.
I think that I am either winning and the chap has lost his head, or that we both have equally shit Aces and we are going to be chopping this one up by the river.
I call and he has QQ. We hold and take down the pot.
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Hand four - 600/1200/100. Stack of about 50K.
Hero has
.
I open from MP to 2500.
Cut off calls.
Button calls.
BB calls.
FLOP
We flop a set, but we're not really loving it with the clubs on board.
We elect to check call a bet of 4000 here, and we end up going 3 ways to the turn.
TURN - such a brick that I can't even remember it.
The turn is such an irrelevant card that it changes nothing. To my massive surprise it checks around.
River -
Not the best river as any straight draws just got there but that's literally KT only.
The pot is pretty big at this point, and I feel that I have to have the best hand with the passive action on the turn. I shove it in, and get an almost crying call from Glenn who has
for the rivered set.
After the hand I think my shove there is abysmal, and I never get called by worse. Should have bet 10-15k and the end result would have just been a call anyway.
That ended our tourney run just before second break, and apart from how I played the river on the last hand, I was fairly happy with it.
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I jumped straight into cash, and got put directly onto a new table of 50p/£1 that has just opened.
I forgot how many people buy in to 50p/£1 with £20. Personally I think it's sin to buy into a cash game with less than 100bb myself. Almost everyone who buys in short ends up reloading multiple times anyway, so it seems a bit pointless.
Only recognised Yaz on the table, who looked like he was shattered and I said my "Hello"s and my "How are you getting on tonight?"s, and got just a shake of the head back. Say no more!
I played cash from 11:30pm to about 6am. For the first 3 hours at 50p/£1 I could not lose a pot and span my £100 buy in up to about £600. Made me realise how much I love Friday night cash games at the G.
It felt like I could will the dealer into flopping me sets whenever I had a pocket pair, or river me the 3 outer for a straight on the river. Or for people to bet into me when I had the stone cold nuts.
Biggest pot of the night cash wise below.
Hero - £350
I get
in the big blind.
Whole table limps for £1. I check my option.
Pot of £8.
FLOP -
SB checks
I bet £5.
3 callers.
Pot of £28.
TURN -
In my head I prayed to Hellmuth for the 6ball and I sort of knew it was coming. You ever get that feeling when you see the card before it even hits the turn/river?
I bet £15
One caller.
Pot £58.
River
I bet £30.
Get raised to £70.
Reraise to £200 which puts villain all in.
He calls with
.
Someone says "SIX DEUCE REALLY?!", and then I have to remind them that it limped around to my bb and I just checked it pre.
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Table broke a short while after, and I moved to £1/£2 with £300 after pocketing £200 profit off the last table.
Usually I wouldn't have bothered sitting £1/£2 but Anik has just rolled in tilting his face off after being on the roulette, and Anik in one of his moods will either be very profitable or clean you out. Faint heart never won fair chips or whatever the saying is, so I jumped in. He managed to make short work of his stacks of black chips and I got none of them. Just sort of bled down to about £150 or so and left at 6am.
Ordered a taxi to the train station, and agreed to go halfs on it with someone outside who then proceeded to abuse the taxi driver for some reason. How do you be 40 years old and act like that? I decide to get out and give the driver a few quid extra for putting up with that moron.
Profitable night though, even though my brain was mush the next day.
Thinking about playing the 4pm comp at the G today. Always ran well in it and the structure is pretty deece.
Good luck to all on the Sunday Grind, if you're playing later on let me know!
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