A few hands..

No joy for Murray the other night against the sublime Federer.At least the result ensured I was in my bed at a decent hour.I only played one $22 at Party and came second for $60.That result may be decent, but the truth is that I had a large chip lead and blew it with a couple of silly calls.

Last night was the Brit Blogger challenge game,I didn't play that well and donked out early.The last game in this series of ten games will be played on Saturday at 9pm on Full Tilt.It's only $5.50 to enter and open to all bloggers and readers.If you're at a loose end this weekend please come and join the donkfest!

To be honest I've not really felt like playing much this week.I did fire up three $16's ( 18 player) after watching a sngicons video and managed a 3rd and a 4th place for a $33 profit.I should have cashed in all three but made a donk shove with JJ over someones KK in the one I crashed out of.

Usually I am happy to go with JJ at the $16's preflop as the ranges people are willing to stack off with are so wide.In this case though there was a raise and then a reraise made by Mr KK.It was such an obvious "I have a monster" bet that I should have folded.( It was raised to 300,he reraised to 900 and I shoved)

I'm also unsure about my exit hand in the game I came 3rd in.The two others were both excellent regulars ( as opposed to random donks!).The big stack had around 13k and myself and the other villain had around 7k.The bigstack shoved and I felt I had to make the call with AJ.I lost a flip to 33.If I'd won I'd have been the bigstack and I reckon I could have gone on to take it down.The secret in these games is usually to always be the person raising,not calling but I felt his shoving range was so wide I had to call.Hmmmm.

Oh before I forget,the answer to the guess the villains hand competition I posted about the other week was J10! Ahhh the donkery!

I've finally worked out ( I'm so techy eh) how to use the notepad thing to copy/paste any of the more interesting hands I play so here are a few from last night...

PokerStars Game #20280290755: Tournament #107252454, $15+$1 Hold'em No Limit - Level I (10/20) - 2008/09/09 18:43:08 ET
Table '107252454 2' 9-max Seat #5 is the button
Seat 1: frizbeeboy (1420 in chips)
Seat 2: tkavv (2060 in chips)
Seat 3: oli1970s (1140 in chips)
Seat 4: dasman13 (1470 in chips)
Seat 5: Benno300 (1320 in chips)
Seat 6: zagga (1480 in chips)
Seat 7: mac7156 (1620 in chips)
Seat 8: Puckbomb (1590 in chips)
Seat 9: MarkeyMark79 (1400 in chips)
zagga: posts small blind 10
mac7156: posts big blind 20
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to zagga [Kc As]
Puckbomb: calls 20
MarkeyMark79: calls 20
frizbeeboy: folds
tkavv has timed out
tkavv: folds
tkavv is sitting out
oli1970s: folds
tkavv has returned
dasman13: folds
Benno300: folds
zagga: raises 100 to 120 >> My usual 4bb + 1bb for each limper
mac7156: folds
Puckbomb: calls 100
MarkeyMark79: calls 100
*** FLOP *** [4d 4h Kd] > Perfect flop,although I don't think I'm going to get paid .What kind of hand would call a c-bet on that board? QK and 22-QQ maybe.

zagga: bets 160>> I'll try and make my c-bet look like I've missed.Something I've learned from training videos is not to always fear a flush draw if the flop comes with two of one sooot.The chances of either villain holding two diamonds is actually quite slim.

Puckbomb: raises 160 to 320>> If he has the 4 or has limped Aces then good luck to him.I aint folding here.I now have him on QK or a bluff.

MarkeyMark79: folds

zagga: raises 180 to 500>> Building the pot.

Puckbomb: calls 180
*** TURN *** [4d 4h Kd] [4s] >> Damn,if he has KQ we're now splitting it.

zagga: checks >> Look weak and hope villain takes bait...

Puckbomb: bets 970 and is all-in>>He does have a King.....

zagga: calls 860 and is all-in>> snap call

Uncalled bet (110) returned to Puckbomb

*** RIVER *** [4d 4h Kd 4s] [Jd]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
zagga: shows [Kc As] (a full house, Fours full of Kings)
Puckbomb: shows [Ah 9c] (three of a kind, Fours) >> I was wrong.He's been reading the RTR forum and overplayed his monsta A9!

zagga collected 3100 from pot

Here's one I was happy to get away from...

PokerStars Game #20280370065: Tournament #107252311, $15+$1 Hold'em No Limit - Level II (15/30) - 2008/09/09 18:46:31 ET
Table '107252311 2' 9-max Seat #4 is the button
Seat 1: daz-malwin (555 in chips)
Seat 2: gmm1987 (1680 in chips)
Seat 4: Angell0250 (1410 in chips)
Seat 5: emilyjoe (3250 in chips)
Seat 6: 999JOE999 (1515 in chips)
Seat 7: zagga (1500 in chips)
Seat 8: KFBG (1580 in chips)
Seat 9: nalla3 (2010 in chips)
emilyjoe: posts small blind 15
999JOE999: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to zagga [Kh Ad]
zagga: raises 90 to 120 >> Standard 4bb raise especially as the table seems loose and fishy.
KFBG: calls 120
nalla3: calls 120
daz-malwin: folds
gmm1987: folds
Angell0250: folds
emilyjoe: folds
999JOE999: calls 90
*** FLOP *** [Qh 3c Jc] >> Horrible flop for me.

999JOE999: checks

zagga: checks >>> I'm not c-betting on this board with so many callers.
KFBG: checks
nalla3: checks

*** TURN *** [Qh 3c Jc] [Ah] >> Hmmm there's my Ace but I still hate the board.

999JOE999: bets 120
zagga: calls 120>>>> Something smells fishy hence no reraise.Hoping to get to a cheap showdown.
KFBG: calls 120
nalla3: folds
*** RIVER *** [Qh 3c Jc Ah] [7h]
999JOE999: bets 330 >>> The river card seems like a blank.I didn't put the villain on a flush draw.It felt like at least two pair though.
zagga: folds
KFBG: calls 330
*** SHOW DOWN ***
999JOE999: shows [Js Jh] (three of a kind, Jacks)
KFBG: mucks hand >> He had AK too!
999JOE999 collected 1515 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 1515 | Rake 0
Board [Qh 3c Jc Ah 7h]
Seat 6: 999JOE999 (big blind) showed [Js Jh] and won (1515) with three of a kind, Jacks
Seat 7: zagga folded on the River
Seat 8: KFBG mucked [Ks Ac]
Seat 9: nalla3 folded on the Turn


>>Maybe my cut/pasting isn't so great.We were 7 handed at this point.

Seat 4: Angell0250 (1360 in chips)
Seat 5: emilyjoe (3085 in chips)
Seat 7: zagga (1335 in chips)
Seat 8: KFBG (1105 in chips)
Seat 9: nalla3 (1715 in chips)
zagga: posts small blind 50
KFBG: posts big blind 100
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to zagga [Th Tc]
nalla3: raises 200 to 300
daz-malwin: folds
gmm1987: calls 300
Angell0250: folds
emilyjoe: folds
zagga: raises 1035 to 1335 and is all-in >> I wasn't exactly delighted with shoving here but with a tight image and the dead money in the pot I felt it was a profitable move.
KFBG: folds
nalla3: folds >> Original raiser folded which is great.

gmm1987: calls 980 and is all-in: Hmmm.What kind of a rangeis the villain on if he flat calls a preflop raise and then calls a shove? Go on,take a guess,run it through Poker Stove and then prepare to chortle!

Uncalled bet (55) returned to zagga
*** FLOP *** [4c 8d 2c]
*** TURN *** [4c 8d 2c] [5h]
*** RIVER *** [4c 8d 2c 5h] [3c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
zagga: shows [Th Tc] (a pair of Tens)
gmm1987: shows [5s 7s] (a pair of Fives) >> Heeeeehaw!
zagga collected 2960 from pot

Tonight I'm looking after Nacho and watching the Scotland game.Back soon...

Blame the Kat!

Renee suggested in a comment that perhaps I needed a break from poker and I've taken that on board....and only played three sng's over the last two nights.I wouldn't have played any if it hadn't been for Katitude posting about the new 300 chip,turbo sngs on Full Tilt!

I was previously hooked on Pokerrooms 50 chip multi table bingo poker games for a while and Ladbrokes single chip,all in or fold games also ate a small portion of my roll.The 300 chip games do allow fora little more skill and I love the fact that they are so fast and the bubble arrives in next to no time.I bubbled the first one and won the two other $3.20 games I played.Great fun!

I've also watched a couple more sngicons videos this week.I was on the verge of cancelling my subscription as new video releases were becoming rare and the ones available were not up to the same production standard as say Cardrunners.Their only saving grace was that between long pauses,tv shows being heard in the background etc,the icons players delivered some real gems of information and those gems alone have been well worth the monthly sub costs.

The latest Z32Fanatic vid focused on replying hands from the later stages of sng's and I thought it was superb.I did realise just how much of a poker nerd I must be after getting very excited at the prospect of his next vid which will focus solely on playing AQ and will show how he played it in about sixty different situations.

Ok,I have part of a post written about gaining reads online and will hopefully GIP ( get it posted!)sometime soon.Dinner time now though....