Party on...

I brought my "z" game to the Brit Blogger game last night,donking out first after playing as if I'd never sat at a virtual table in my life! Only four showed up which ( on the bright side!) means that despite being four games into the mini-series ,the prizes are still very much up for grabs.Next installment is on Sunday at Full Tilt.

I watched an Sngicons Spacegravy video after my crashout and it made me almost dizzy just watching him playing 25 tables! I fired up 'Stars, but the $16's were full of tough regulars and although that usually wouldn't bother me, I ended up watching more of "Imcastleman" and a couple of other top $16 grinder pro's before opening Party to hit the $22's.

I only played four games and managed a win,2nd,3rd and a crashout for an aprox $115 profit.The crashout was my own fault as I had the chiplead and shoved A7 over a shortstack's shove.He showed 1010 and I cursed my stupidity.Sometimes I can be too aggressive in the wrong spots and that's a leak I'll need to keep an eye on.I was only two tabling and although almost all my sng experience has been at 18 player games,I'm finding I quite enjoy the single table variety too.

The standard at Party $22's is comparable to Stars $6 games.( on average as every game is different) I couldn't believe some of the donk plays I witnessed.Part of the reason I prefer sngs to cash ( did I really write that?!) is because I love to abuse bubble situations by raising almost every hand.If stack sizes and table conditons are correct then it's a very effective way to build a huge chipstack.I'm usually ultra-tight until the blinds reach 200/400 and can get away with a couple of moves to give me the leeway to start pounding the bubble.

Ok,no poker tonight as I'm babysitting.Back soon...

Thanks!

Huge thanks to all who commented on my last post and to everyone on Raisetheriver for their kind comments following my Mtt cash on Saturday night.It seems these things are like Glasgow buses ( you wait ages and they all arrive at the same time) as congrats are due to Rosie for taking first in a weekend Mtt for a nice score,to Mair for winning the live APAT Event for Raisetheriver and to Mr Cloud over at Hairygymnast.com on taking a shot at a higher level sng and scudding the fish to win it. A feelgood weekend if ever there was one!

I've downloaded the whole hand history ( all 7 hours 31 mins ) and will try and pick out a few of the more interesting hands to look at in future posts.( just be grateful I don't plan to make a video of it!)

First of all I should probably thank the poker gods for helping me have the worst run I've ever had at the $16 turbos over the last couple of months! By Saturday night I was still down for the month and decided that I wanted to try something different.I've cashed in $11 Mtt's before but didn't fancy fighting my way past a few thousand donks for a relatively small pay off.

My Mtt interest had been sparked by watching pro-training vids and I honestly believe I'd never have cashed at the weekend without them.In particular the Annette_15 vid ( link posted on RTR),Randallin mtt vids from Cardrunners and Z32Fanatics brilliant sngicons vids were the ones I picked up the most from.Worth every penny!

I justified the $55 buy-in by telling myself I usually have $96 on the tables anyway if I'm six tabling the $16's and as such it wasn't much of a shot to take.I did play a few $6.50 turbs alongside the $50k gtd for most of the early stages and my plan was to make enough from those easy games to pay my mtt fee.Of course those games ended in bubble finishes and no cashes, but thankfully that didn't matter in the end!

I smoked a ton of herb,drank loads of Chinese tea ( Green,white and Ginseng mainly) and did a few stretches in between dashes to the bathroom so everything about the game is still a bit hazy.

Even the last hand was slightly different to how I remembered it and now that I'm looking at it again I don't think I regret making the play.


*********** # 615 **************
PokerStars Game #18949961130: Tournament #95444505, $50+$5 Hold'em No Limit - Level XXVIII (25000/50000) - 2008/07/19 - 22:25:43 (ET)
Table '95444505 66' 9-max Seat #7 is the button
Seat 3: SirSmokey33 (533056 in chips)
Seat 4: Pokerturk (1094922 in chips)
Seat 5: mrvogt (932714 in chips)
Seat 7: zagga (818896 in chips)
Seat 8: The Omaholic (1723412 in chips) >> Not checked since but I was sure I'd seen this screename before and he was one of the better MTT players out there.Certainly the ding-dong battle of steals and resteals we had would back that up.He was one tough cookie to play!

SirSmokey33: posts the ante 5000
Pokerturk: posts the ante 5000
mrvogt: posts the ante 5000
zagga: posts the ante 5000
The Omaholic: posts the ante 5000
The Omaholic: posts small blind 25000
SirSmokey33: posts big blind 50000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to zagga [Kc Ac]
Pokerturk: folds
mrvogt: raises 75750 to 125750
Blom21 [observer] said, "And you draw out on me :)..."

>>> The blinds were huge and I'd already told myself to forget the money and to just play it as if it was the final table of a turbo sng.This looked like a great spot to resteal with a great hand.The training vids had shown me the power of putting the villains to the test for their tourney lives and I would have been happy to take the pot there and then.

zagga: raises 688146 to 813896 and is all-in

The Omaholic: raises 688146 to 1502042 > The moment my heart sunk! A solid player doesn't reraise there without a monster.


SirSmokey33: folds
mrvogt: folds >> I'd probably have folded AK here in his position too after seeing two shoves to his opening bet.

Uncalled bet (688146) returned to The Omaholic

mrvogt said, "ak here" >> Heart sunk further as he had no reason to lie and my outs were just reduced by two.

Maldonne [observer] said, "gaaammmmbleee"
*** FLOP *** [2s Qd 9c]
*** TURN *** [2s Qd 9c] [6c] >> Picked up the nut club flush draw to go with my overcards....

*** RIVER *** [2s Qd 9c 6c] [8h] >> Not to be.
*** SHOW DOWN ***
The Omaholic: shows [Jd Jh] (a pair of Jacks)
zagga: shows [Kc Ac] (high card Ace)
zagga said, "gg"
The Omaholic collected 1828542 from pot
mrvogt said, "im so good"
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 1828542 | Rake 0
Board [2s Qd 9c 6c 8h]
Seat 3: SirSmokey33 (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 4: Pokerturk folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: mrvogt folded before Flop
Seat 7: zagga (button) showed [Kc Ac] and lost with high card Ace
Seat 8: The Omaholic (small blind) showed [Jd Jh] and won (1828542) with a pair of Jacks

Played more poker,watched the excellent "Catch me if you can" with the s-man and took my boy for long walks over the rest of the weekend.The only disapointment was that the Euroblogger didn't get enough runners and the Bloggerment this week consisted of Mr Cloud ( winner),Wee Gem and me.We're going to suspend the Euroblogger for now and the Bloggerment will sadly go the same way if there's no interest in playing in it from bloggers and readers.That would be a shame as it peaked at 39.I expect lower numbers in the summer but it seems a shame the US/Canadian players can organise almost daily blogger games and we struggle to keep one going on this side of the pond.

Anyways thanks for reading.Back soon...

Sliding down the pole...

After pounding the tables at the weekend I slowed down a bit last night and watched a couple of sngicons videos before hitting the tables for a set of four games ( $16,18 player turbos) later on.

It's funny how I can play 61 games over an evening,be on the end of repeated bad beats and still enjoy the session,yet last night it only took four games to make me want to spew and buy a cat to kick!

In the first game I raised 6bb preflop with AQ,the money went in when the flop came 8 J Q .Surely the fish didn't call my raise with 910 off sooot....he surely did!

My KK v AcQc was next up and when the money went in on a flop with 2 clubs ,the turn brought the fatal club which knocked me out.My AQ failed to hit v 66 in my next game and even in my last game of the four, I came 4th after shoving KQ into AK.

I'm getting tired of posting philosophical soliloquies on running badly.Ok,I've been reasonable,accepted it's just variance...Now turn the fuckin' beats off!!! Just for once I want to be Mr JJ who gets it in v AJ and AA and still hits his case Jack, instead of being Mr "Np,gg" after yet another fish says sorry for some nasty beat.

I'm trying to remain optimistic and stay focused on making the right decisions.I'm trying not to push too hard and make things happen.I'm going over hand histories,watching more training vids and regularly read the sng forum sections of 2+2,Cardplayer and Rebels of poker.

I've tried talking about running badly in the past tense and treating every hand as a new independent event.Logically there's no way any hands I play tonight can be in any way linked to any previous "bad run" and yet despite telling myself this, every night seems to see the same old crap as big hands get scudded,races are never won and fish pull miracle river cards out their backsides like it's going out of fashion.

As I've learned from the forums,sng downswings and bad runs can last for hundreds and sometimes thousands of games.I've only played 2.5k games on Stars and this is all still part of learning the game for me.The best way to cope is through volume,continued revision of my game and plenty of huffy tantrums and foot stamping whilst shouting about how it's all so unfair.Perhaps not the last part, but I've tried the first few options to no avail!

I'll be back at the tables tonight for more as usual.Tomorrow night I'm looking forward to taking care of Step A and enjoying more "Family Guy" and crap makeover programmes.( her choice!)

Back soon...

Sng icons success

I mentioned previously that sngicons hadn't replied to my email re gift vouchers.Well fair play to them because I left a comment on the icons blog of BigJoe and he not only replied very quickly ,he also agreed to pay for the second months subscription because we're( my sister and I) buying it as a birthday present for my Mum.My Mum plays mainly $6 turbos and while she does ok for a womans in her 60's ,I hope the training videos at sngicons can greatly improve her game.She was certainly delighted when I called her and told her to check her email for a birthday surprise!

I picked up a Burger King last night on the way home and remembered why I didn't own a salt cellar in my previous days as a singleton.Yes I filled my pocket with those wee sachets!

The single life also prompts other deep meaningless questions.They say if a butterfly flaps it's wings in the rainforest,the ripple effect can cause a tornado thousands of miles away.If I wash my cereal bowl and leave it to dry on the the draining board does it make any difference if I actually put it away in the cupboard or not before re-using it the next day?


When I arrived home I spent more time messing about with my new laptop, before playing a set of four $16 ,18 player turbos on Stars.I managed a 2nd,a 4th and two crashouts before moving to Bet365 and winning $15 at a very fishy $100 nl 8 seat table.

This evening I plan on visiting the s-man before picking Nacho up.The s-man and I are talking about trying to fit in a game of badminton or squash every week and I'm well up for that.I remember the first time I played squash as I didn't find it half as tough as I'd heard it was.It was only when I found out later that the ball is only allowed to bounce once ( not the two bounce rule we were playing!) that I realised it was perhaps a little harder than I had first thought!

Ok, I'm off to Ibrox to watch the Gers play Inverness Thistle.Here's a wee clip of me kicking a ball of paper around the office last week...

Bounty hunters

On Sunday evening I came 8th in the Forum game after running 99 into 1010 and 3rd in the Bloggerment after not being able to lay down 33 to Cogs reraise.I was fairly sure he had me beaten but as it was 3-handed I convinced myself it would probably be a race and of course I ran straight into AA.

Congrats to HullJimi for taking it down and to Kenn for beating the Raisetheriver players and two pro’s including Simon “Aces” Trumper to take down the forum game.Fair play to Simon and the other pro Paul “action” Jackson for turning out and doubling the bounties on themselves after last weeks no-show.

Yesterday though, was simply a dreadful day.It began when I arrived at work to find my boss has moved to the seat next to mine. I managed to move my pc screen round a bit, but jeez it’s a pain.We have a lad up from Norwich to help with the new IT system and he said he supports celtc aswell as Arsenal.He wore his celtc top yesterday and I joked with him that he’d was too early to be dressing as a tramp ( vagrant) for Halloween.He laughed ( we’ve been firing banter back and forth for weeks) but my boss interrupted to say how that could be seen as being offensive.How about you mind your own feckin' business in future!

Between a new system I can’t work and the new seating arrangement,I’m feeling my stress levels rise and a trip to the Docs may be in order soon.( another manager had just been signed off for two weeks due to stress)

I picked up a tv stand and new vacuum cleaner on the way home before nearly crashing the car.I then picked up Nacho and fell out with him after he refused to give his ball back at the end of his walk! ( we made up soon afterwards!)

I do at least have a new girlfriend ,but I’m not sure it’ll last, as I hadn’t met her before she shouted “there’s ma boyfriend,hello sexy” as I walked past a group of neds/chavs last night on the way to get my sausage supper.As I walked back past them with my dinner I’m sure ( despite the s-mans slanderous slurs) I heard her say “ and he has such a fine head of hair too”….

Still no word back from two emails sent to Sngicons enquiring about gift certificates.They seem like a smaller outfit then pxf and cardrunners and perhaps the email contact is away just now, but the bottom line is that they’ve not replied to a potential customer and despite their site looking good ,I think it’s time to look elsewhere.

Back to the poker and I went 0/4 in $16 turbos on Sunday night.Last night I only played one 18 player turbo as I was in a seriously stonkingly bad mood and probably shouldn’t have been playing at all.I got lucky once and also resucked a King on the river with AK V A10 after a ten had flopped.I went on to take down the $108 first prize...which was nice.

Ok,thanks for reading...

Donkaments

I didn't play much poker on Thursday night.4th place ( paid $27) in a $16 turbo was my only game.In truth I was feeling a bit stir crazy and not really on top form, despite having Nacho around for company.Sometimes I think the hardest part of dealing with a breakup is not in the immediate aftermath, but comes at that point a while later where normal life just doesn't seem normal anymore.( if that makes any sense!)

I did keep myself very busy doing up my flat before I moved in and I have settled into a routine here, which is good, although I can't really seem to begin to get my head around thinking about another relationship yet.Perhaps much of the passion had left my relationship with the ex but we were very comfortable in each others company and usually ( until the last few months) had a good laugh at life.Being a lazy bassa I just don't have the motivation to think about getting to that stage with anyone new.I suppose more primitive urges ( and not just the one for a proper cooked meal!) will kick in and I'll eventually feel like making the effort to meet someone new.It just seems a very daunting thought just now.


To the poker and after Mark at Planet Gongs recommendation ,I emailed sngicons to ask if they have any gift certificate options as I think their site will be the best option for my Mum's birthday.Not heard back yet.I've resent the email and I'll give them a couple of days or so but if I don't hear I'll be sticking to either a cardrunners or pxf subsription for her.I'm really enjoying cardrunners ( training site) but it seems daft to have two subscriptions, when I can let my Mum view some of my downloaded videos with me on my laptop when I visit.

Last night I played the wee Raisetheriver game ( and it was a wee game,we had 4 entrants!) and came 3rd after running A10 into AQ.Good fun though and well done to Mair for winning it.

I decided I need to stop being such a wimp about running into bad beats/better hands in turbo sngs and have a little more faith in myself and my game.According to startracker database I make the money in 18 player turbo's 25% of the time so I fired up four turbo's ( 18 player,$16 on Stars),tiled 'em and told myself to aim to make the money in at least one.I multi-tabled better than I have done previously and managed a 1st,2nd and two crashouts.I didn't find it too hard to keep up with the action and just played until all four games were done ,rather than keep opening new games.

Next I fired up Bet365 and took a shot at a very loose $200nl table,only to run into two nasty coolers.This prompted a semi-tilty bluff with nothing which cost me more $$ and I decided to take a break and chill out.( lost $120 in total)

I played in Kats Friday night donkament on Full Tilt next and enjoyed donking it up before eventually going out when I pushed an open ended straight draw into top pair,top kicker.When I made my initial bet and was reraised, I didn't really think the villain was bluffing but it was a donkament and after 3am, so I gambled on hitting my hand.

Ladbrokes was next up and another $200nl 6 max table was my destination.This one had an average pot of $100.At one point I was up $165 but I left for bed at 4am happy to take a $100 profit.

I hop around so many poker sites I never really earn many player points at any of them.I don't have any rakeback deals and don't bonus chase at all.I may be missing out but I balance this up by always being free to choose whichever site has the juciest table for selection.I did get an invite though to a Party Poker $5k VIP freeroll and will be playing that to start with at 6pm tonight.

I'm just back after picking Nacho up ( I have him until Mon)and taking him for a long run about at the local pitches in the pissing rain.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend and don't forget to register for the Bloggerment.....