Good morning Blonde!
I am currently on shift, and just over halfway through a 12 hour stint. On the plus side, I fell asleep from 1am until 6am and nobody called in so today is off to a slightly winning start. Which is handy as I haven't been winning much of anything lately. Taking all losses in a positive light though - they're temporary losses in my mind. With more effort and wiser play, fortunes should change. Which is probably the first line of the gambling addict's charter.
I do have a tendency to just slack off and autopilot during comps. Cash games, not so much. I keep saying I'm going to cut down on the local casino comps, but having said that I headed down to the G on Friday with Shane/UGOTNUTS to play the £5k GTD.
I always preach about bankroll management, and despite being a huge bankroll nit myself I went down with my case £150. Not busto, just awaiting my new bank card to replace the one that expired at the start of March. Enough for 2x buyin and 2x addon should I need the second bullet, and the taxi home.
It looked to be a quiet Friday, with 11 entries on the board 20 minutes before it was due to kick off. Table draw was interesting, 7 handed and I had never played with any of these people before. One was a Luton Reg (chap that wears the LUTON WINNER jacket), but we had never managed to cross paths in the 2/3 years I have been playing there.
---
Hand One - Blinds 50/100
We have As
.
We open to 250 on the Button.
Called by the BB. Has an iPad out, but isn't using it so we can assume he's paying attention for the most part.
FLOP -
We c-bet 450 and get quickly called. It's a board that hits his range better than ours in theory, but I feel at this stage he is going to defend his blinds reasonably wide. Lots of draw combos he can potentially have, so I don't plan on slowing down on the turn unless it's like the
or something.
TURN -
Couldn't have been a bigger brick really, but we get led into for ~1500. If he had a 9 here, he's so massive that donk leading this turn just folds out all my potential double barrels. I don't feel he is representing anything credible so I call.
River -
Everything bricks out. We get led into again for 3600. This is almost 60% of our remaining stack. I have to spend a minute playing "What's More Likely?". Is he more likely to bet the turn with a missed draw and try and take it down seeing as I'm cbetting that board like 99% of the time? Or is he more likely to check and hope I check back so he can try and make his draw with a free card? Is he more likely to bet the river again when everything bricks out, or is he more likely to check and give up?
I decide that the line he has taken is just not representing anything as strong as he is suggesting, and I doubt this player is capable of Range Merging
or something.
I call. He says "Ten High", I say "Ace High". He mucks, I soak up rapturous applause, and both massage girls start rubbing me down at the same time. Jeff Kimber comes in and says "Mate, you take my spot as a Grovesnor pro because I'm not worthy after that sickness", and Paul Newey immediately puts me into a full schedule of EPT Super High Rollers*.
*May or may not have happened
---
Hand two -
Blinds 50/100.
We have
UTG.
We open to 400 with 2 callers.
Flop -
Pretty great flop for us, we cbet for 1100. Get one caller.
Turn is the
We bet 1600, and get snap minraised to 3200. In my experience, a turn minraise is the stone cold nuts. But we have the nuts at this point, so I was both rubbing my greedy little hands at the prospect of adding 8k to my stack and slightly confused about what he could have. Bottom set? Can't have top pair, top kicker with the flush draw as we block the
.
I go ahead and stick him in for his last 3800 or so, and he folds reasonably quickly. Probably just an attempt at a fast one. A gentleman says I should have probably just called with top set, but then I have to check the river to him and hope he bets all brick rivers. If he was folding to a turn shove, he was folding the majority of rivers also. Given he had over half his stack in the pot on the turn, I was about 90% sure he had committed himself.
---
Hand three -
75/150 Blinds.
We are on the button with
.
Open from MP to 500. It's Yaz - I already know he's raise/folding about 90% of the time here.
CO makes it 2500 - has about 3k behind and can't really fold to a 4bet.
We make it 5500 - I think flatting is going to be the worst move here. It just entices Yaz to call, and even in position, I'm not going to be too comfortable on the majority of flops. CO can just shove into us if Yaz checks. I want to isolate and run the board out all in. We might be behind, but we make no mistakes post flop if we just get it in pre.
Yaz does the pained fold dance, as I expected and we get called by
.
Board is
-
39.29%
As
60.71% - It's always interesting to be ahead but not a favorite.
Turn is the
, but the river is the
. Never mind. I feel that we barely got away with flipping it, and 4betting
was a bit of a mistake.
---
Hand four -
Blinds 100/200/25
We have
in the HJ.
Shane had just been moved to our table and is UTG, and is on his second bullet after a reportedly awful first attempt.
Shane opens UTG all in for about 4500 or so.
I know that Shane is likely to rip it in wide when down to 10-15bb. I feel I am ahead of this range more often than not with A5hh. Even UTG, I think that all broadway combos are possible here, as well as things like
.
I attempt to isolate and 3bet to 9500. I have 4k behind. It's the Moorman move. We're effectively all in, without being all in. It looks like we might be trying to induce someone else to shove over us with a monster also.
Doesn't work, as we get 4bet shoved on by the small blind, so we have to call anyway.
vs
vs Shane's
.
We flop a flush draw, but miss it and bust out in hilarious fashion.
Slight miscalculation, and apparently someone thought I was chip dumping to Shane and made a fuss over it. They must not have played with me before, and encountered my weird preflop logic that if it was visualized on the big screen, it would look like I was living in the matrix. If I ever was going to chip dump to someone, I would probably make sure that I didn't have to expose my hand to the whole table.
--------------INTERMISSION--------------
I was going to Rebuy, but after spending money to get to the casino and getting a couple of drinks, I had about £40 on me. It was go home time. Or.....BLACKJACK SPIN UP!
I am not a huge 'gambler' in any sense. I don't really enjoy pit games other than shouty aggressive Asian style baccarat, and I haven't played any non poker games since September. I'm not one to press my luck or believe in 'hot streaks', but this was the only way of getting back in the comp other than borrowing money which is something I've never done at poker and would like to keep it that way.
Stick £20 on. Make 20 vs a Dealers 17.
+£20 for a total of £50.
Decide I am freerolling the next bet, and go for one more £20 spin.
Make 19 vs a dealer bust, and we're back in the game.
Cash a £10 credit out from my G reward card, and use it as a partial buy in.
Felt amazingly degenerate going through all this fuss to buy back in, but it's nice when a plan comes together.
---
Blinds 300/600/50
in the big blind. We have about 9k behind after losing a smallish pot with two pair to a turned set of Jacks, and raise folding a couple of times.
Opener from the cut off makes it 1200.
I decide that I am shoving over the top of it if it folds around, which it does. We stick it in the mixer, and get called quickly by
.
Nothing for us on the flop/turn or river and we quietly make our exit.
---
It's a weird feeling being in a cardroom and not having any cash on you to play. I felt as if the bouncers were going to ask to see my wallet, and when they saw I didn't have enough to buy in for cash games that they would assume I was a vagrant taking advantage of the free tea and coffee or something and sling me out.
I'm probably about -£2000 for the year so far. Which is fairly small beans, not because I'm a high roller, but it's a couple of good sessions and we're back in the green. Funny how my non poker friends hear about this, and want to chastise me and tell me about the great holiday I could have gone on or the cool things I could have bought with that money. Funny how being down two bags for the year makes me some sort of problem gambler, but having two solid winning years on the bounce means I should "quit when I am ahead".
I can't win. Which seems to echo my recent tourney runs/cash game endeavours, strangely fitting.
We will just have to get it next time!
GL GL!