Friday 31 October 2008

First week back

I started playing again on Saturday and it didn’t really go to plan. I didn’t play a full schedule as any high stakes tournament starting after 9pm on a Saturday usually has a poor turnout and it’s not really worthwhile playing. Anyway my first day back playing had me tearing my hair out straight away as a frustrating session saw me ending with zero cashes, lol.

On to Sunday, the day started pretty well when I had decent size bet on arsenal to beat west ham, and although they made me sweat a little, always looked like scoring. On to the night’s tournaments, I played a gruelling full schedule, getting deep in several tournaments but only one developed into meaningful cash. I made the final on the $150r on full tilt but it was hard work because the final 27 players were all very tough opponents. I came into the final relatively short on a super aggressive table, so I had no other choice than to sit back really. I got into no big confrontations until my exit hand in 6th place. I had AJ on the button and the aggressive chip leader had AQ in the sb, standard cooler given the dynamics of the table, $11.5k for my troubles.

Monday wasn’t too great either, I dominated my tables in the $100r 6 max on FTP having the chip lead from about 75 people out until we reached the final table bubble at 7 people. I then lost my composure and made a pretty terrible 4 bet straight into QQ and my K9s didn’t get there for a pretty big pot. On the final I then 3 bet folded in another stupid spot which just crushed the flexibility of my stack. AQ into KK a few hands later and I was the first to exit on the final for $1900, I’m such a mug. Nothing else materialised and a slight loss on the evening.

Tuesday however would turn out to be a totally different matter as it would become one of the days that makes it worthwhile when you are grinding tournaments day in day out. I made 4 final tables in total and managed to keep my head and not blow up in any of them, lol. I came 4th in the early 109 on stars for $4100 (raced badly at crucial times), 2nd in early $30r FTP for $4200 (muffed it HU really), 4th in the late $30r on FTP for $3100 (raced badly on the final) and to top it all off, I won the $100r on ipoker (bam bam) for $13.5k, :-). I got a huge stack about 4 tables out in the 100r and started dominating the table. With 2 tables out though I got a little reckless, spewed off some chips and went back into the pack when we made the final. The key hand on the final table came when the button shoved for 70k @ 4k/8k, the SB isolated for 120k, and I call from the BB with AK playing 125k. The button had A3 and the SB had JJ but I hit a K to scoop the big pot and knock two players out. After this It was pretty plain sailing tbh, I sat back until I was heads up playing fairly even stacks and then the guy just played really bad heads up poker to gift me the win. He never 3 bet me, he folded to all my 3 bets, and limp/folded the button loads. With him playing so weak/passive it was just a matter of time before I ground him down and took the win, ship!

Went out to watch the football on Wednesday evening, WP arsenal, lol. I decided to play the late tournaments on Wednesday and regretted after only just 30 mins of the session. I was too tired and had a splitting headache which resulted in me playing like a twat for the most part and drawing blanks across the board, lol. Had Thursday off, went to see Ghost town the new Ricky Gervais film. Gervais was funny but the film generally was poor imo. Overall a pretty good first week back playing, even if tournaments proved as frustraitng as ever at times. Probably not playing tonight as on Fridays drinking > poker, back for a gruelling weekend schedule though..............




Wednesday 22 October 2008

EPT & Holiday




So where to start, the lack of recent posts is only partially down to my laziness. Went to London and railed moorman to a bubble in the WSOPE which was pretty brutal as he ran KK into AA vs Johnny lodden who is a notoriously aggressive player. We then all played the EPT which for me personally couldn’t have gone worse, never got going really, had a set busted early, made some bad bluffs and eventually making a dodgy hero call on the river to bust. One to write off and forget about ASAP.

Got back home and played online on the Sunday and it was the usual story to be honest, had several chances at a big score but nothing materialised. The closest I came was an 8th place finish in the pokerroom 350k gtd for $8800 when it was $110k ftw, :-(. I lost 2 pretty big races just before the final table that put a real dent in my chances and didn’t catch a break early on the final and that was that.

So after another frustrating Sunday, me, moorman and allinstevie all decided to go on holiday somewhere, no poker, no laptops etc.... This for me has been overdue for a long time. We looked around to see where the weather was good and eventually decided on ayia napa. Just got back yesterday, had a great time and really enjoyed the time off poker, not played in 2 weeks!!!! Had some really messy nights usually ended up with us trying to figure out what happened the next day by merging our recollections. Double JD n cokes + sambucas were the main culprits and also led to some stupid bets. During one heavy session me n Stevie had a $5k bet regarding berbatov. I have under 20 goals, Stevie has over 20 and 20 is no bet lol. Obviously the very next game berbatov scores 2 vs Celtic, gg $5k

There was a mini golf course near the hotel and we played 5 times, each time the loser having to pay for dinner that night. I won all 5 so got 5 free dinners, 2 from Stevie and 3 from moorman. Had some cracking steaks etc... and stuck some 150 euro bills in moorman/Stevie’s eye, happy times. Weather was good apart from a bit of rain on the first day and even managed to crawl out of the room occasionally before the sun went in to grab a bit of a tan.

That’s about all for now; just before I went away I was ranked on pocketfives however 2 weeks of not playing has seen me slip off the radar again today. Will start playing again soon but got shit loads of TV shows to catch up on; Heroes, Prison break, Entourage, US office, Family Guy, American dad & Simpsons :-) Some1 recommended a site to me for streaming stuff online called ninja video and I have been impressed so far, check it out.