Wednesday, December 29, 2010

A $6,000 Month

December has been a great month pokerwise, it could have been a lot better however the grounding is there to build on for 2011.

This is just a quick update as I'm off to Ireland for a week tomorrow however I'll post up a "2010 Review" and "Goals for 2011" post shortly after my return.

Recent Results.

Since my last post I've had the following results over the past few days...

* 1/41 for £560/$860 (£44 UKIPT Sat on Stars - top 2 got seats)
* 2/197 for $800 ($26 Rush MTT on Tilt)
* 1/248 for $710 ($12 Rush MTT on Tilt)
* 2/238 for $432 ($12 Rush MTT on Tilt)
* 3/180 for $236 ($12 MTT on Stars)

I also had some deep runs with 2 sick beats. The first with 400 left from 5,000 runners in the $11r on Stars. Get it in with AA pre against AJ, flop J river J ... nice. Even more sicker imo with 50 left from 500 in a $75 MTT on Tilt I repop an early position raise with QQ. He calls and the flop comes rags, he ships allin and I call. If I win I'm chip leader with 50 left and $6k up top. He turns over pocket 2s and nothing more. All I have to do is dodge a 2 with 2 cards to come and I'm chip leader....Turn....2 ! GG.

I was pleased to ship my 2nd £560 UKIPT DTD seat this past weekend as that allows me to book some nice accoms during my stay. With my recent results, my Heads Up MTT shippage earlier this month, the $2.1k I got from my mate and other cashes here and there it's been well over a $6k month which is my best of the year. A nice finish to 2010 and things are looking up for 2011.

Here are some screenshots of my results...




Monday, December 20, 2010

MTT Win, Friends, Deep Runs

Friend Running Hot

Well in a few of my previous posts I've mentioned my mate who I've recently got into poker, I've been coaching (Gazika11) him through tourneys and teaching him the basics. Well the past week has been a sick week for him (and me in some respects). He only plays Rush as he doesn't have the patience for normal structure MTT poker.

In the space of 2 days he binked yet another $75 45 Man for $1.1k (from an original $3 step ticket), after this he finished 2nd out of 1,152 runners in the $10r $30k Rush on Tilt for $6,000 and then the day after finished 1st in the $26 $20k Rush Turbo on Tilt for $5,100 haha. I was playing with him in both of these tourneys so took 20% in each for around $2.2k. Sick sick sick run hes on.

He's taking it well in his stride and is under no illusions that this is how things are on a regular basis and appreciates theres still plenty to learn in poker but what a start to his poker career. He's got a nice little bankroll to play with now so onwards and upwards in 2011 I say.

Heads Up MTT

I had some binkage of my own on the weekend. I jumped into the $22 Heads Up MTT on Stars and managed to put together 8 straight Heads Up wins for an outright win for $1,350 which was nice...


Deep Runs

Over the weekend I had 3 deep runs falling short in all :(

I placed 40/2,369 in the Poker Stars DNG on Friday night for $267. Followed this up on Saturday with an 11/247 in the $109 $20k on Stars for $395. Finally I late reged for the new Stars major, the Sunday Kick Off. This got 1,339 runners and I busted 20th for $536.

I was feeling really good deep in the Sunday KO and felt a final table was on the cards. I went card dead for the final hour and a half before reshipping 17 bigs with AT, 66 calls and holds and that was that.

Overall this past week has been very profitable especially with Gazikas results. Plus shipping the $22 HU MTT and running deep in a few majors. Hopefully I'm just laying the foundations for 2011 and I can turn my endless deep runs in 2010 (Warm Up, Party Millions, Endless DNG runs, etc...) into some major ships :D :D

Saturday, December 11, 2010

The Rescue Ship

Last night I decided to put in an MTT grinding session and played about 10 in total. After a few results in recently weeks I was firmly brought to down earth and reminded of the harsh reality of MTT variance. I couldn't even buy a vowel last night and busted all before the money leaving me firmly on "choppy waters" and sinking me to about -$400 on the night. I finally make it back to shore and just feel like hitting the hay.

The Rescue Ship



Whilst I was on shore, licking my wounds and seeing 10 ships sail away I get a call (via skype) from a mate of mine whom I'm currently coaching. Although I just wanted to get my head down he said we should play a couple of $12 Rush tourneys on Tilt so I agree and away we go. The usual of me playing my hands and talking him through his, being on hand whenever hes in a tough spot. Rush is an ideal way for people to quickly pick up the raw skills needed for poker as your always seeing hands asap and being put in tough spots much more than a standard MTT.

So I quickly bust one tourney and some how find myself with a 20k stack after one hour in the other. This particular event had 233 runners and we always agree that if we play a Rush MTT together then we'll ship 20% if either finish top 2, so that was my aim to get his bankroll moving in the right direction.

My mate quickly busted both and I found myself ITM as chip leader. I made the final table 3rd in chips and take a hit straight away when I'm in the BB with 22. The button limps and sb makes up. (blinds 600/1200, I have about 80k). I make it 6800 to try and take the pot here however the button and sb call. With that said the flop comes a nice 355 and sb checks. The button has 15k and I lead out for 13k, button shoves, sb folds I call. Button shows KQ lol for K high. Q on the turn and he takes down a nice pot :( sucks.

Anyway I grind my way back up and win a big pot taking out 2 people with QQ. When it's 3 handed I'm chip leader and with 4x the chips as 2nd just pretty much take advantage of the fact that they're both tightening for 2nd place lol.

So finally despite unable to board 10 ships earlier, from nowhere I get an emergency phone call and after 2 hours of waiting the emergency ship comes sailing in :D

After I shipped my mate his 20% I find myself with a small profit on the night which I'm happy with as it could have been a lot worse :D :D

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

UKIPT Galway, UKIPT DTD and 2011

UKIPT Galway

Well first up UKIPT Galway was a big fail for me. My flight out to Dublin was delayed due to Dublin Airport closing because of the snow. It finally opened and we took off eventually landing in Dublin at 9pm. Dublin was covered in snow and it wasn’t letting up with the snow chucking it down as we landed. Our flight was the last flight to land before it closed again due to the weather.

Right, so I’m in Dublin at 9pm, in a blizzard and I need to get 150 miles across country to Galway, with the airport closed and most buses to the centre cancelled my chances don’t look good. I managed to find a GoBus which was going direct to Galway via the motorway and I finally got away at 10pm. The road conditions were awful and I was getting slightly worried when we were sliding all over the road and passing endless broken down cars and AA vans. To be fair the driver did well and although he was going at 10mph I finally got to Galway at 1am lol. Not bad seeing as I left for the airport at 3.30pm the previous day.

So due to the weather conditions my girlfriend couldn’t meet me as she lives 30 minutes outside of Galway in the sticks. I check into a Travelodge and book 3 nights as it was only 90e. I get to the Travelodge around 1.30am and it’s -3, I go into my room and ..... THE WINDOW IS WIDE OPEN AND THE ROOM IS FREEEEEEZING !!! I was fuming. I popped the heating on, pulled out the 2 spare duvets, put on my hoody and all was well :D not a great 12 hours for me that’s for sure.

http://selinux.gave.me.this.remoteshell.org/fail-boat.jpg

Ok so as mentioned in a previous post I was planning on playing the 350e side event on the Friday however when I wake up on Thursday and check Poker Stars there’s an announcement that the UKIPT has been postponed due to the weather. It was postponed a day so I assumed (never assume it makes an ass out of you and me) all the side events would be pushed back a day as well. If they stuck with running the 350e event on the Friday then Stars would miss out on a day’s worth of bust outs in the 1,000e main event. Anyway with this announcement I figured that there was no poker for me that weekend because if the 350e was running from Sat/Sun I couldn’t play as I was flying home Sun.

I made it to Galway after 12 hours in the snow, changed my £s to es for the tourney buyin and was ready for some poker but it wasn’t meant to be. I spent the long weekend with my girlfriend HOWEVER on Sat I read the 350e tourney did start on Friday as planed and it was just the Main Event that got pushed back AHHHHHHHHH !!!! This sent me to Tiltsville, I was soo annoyed at myself for not 100% checking and I could have easily walked to the venue to double check. When I found this out I proceeded to go on Tilt and spewed the 350e buyin on a pointless overly expensive meal and some clothes lol.

Anyway that was a 100% poker related fail of a weekend, the main plus was that I got to spend all my time with my girlfriend which was nice.

UKIPT Nottingham

I played a £44 Seat Only satellite last night to the next UKIPT Main Event and managed to ship a £560 seat. It’s nice to bag a seat to this nice and early and it takes the pressure off the longer it goes without bagging one. Which leads me onto next year...

Live Poker in 2011

January/February is going to be a busy couple of months for me in terms of live poker (by my standards).

I have a return flight to Vegas booked for April during the WSOP Circuit at Ceasars. There will be endless ring events with buyins ranging from $300-$500 during my stay. At the moment I’m 50/50 about going as I don’t have anyone 100% definitely coming with me due to the £700 return flight. I may head over regardless however all depends on how the poker side of my life is treating me around that time.

Online

Nothing major to report here as I’ve been away however I did bag the £560 UKIPT seat and have had two MTT cashes since my ship, 11/360 for $115 and 7/500 for $220.

That’s all for now :D

Cheers

Monday, November 29, 2010

...the ship has arrived !

Well last week I made a post about being so close but no quite "getting there". I put in a session over the weekend and on Saturday I again had numerous deep runs. I had 5 cashes on Saturday making one final table. My results were 124/2780 for $22, 21/876 for $93, 15/360 for $108, 44/500 for $50 and 7/360 for $252.

With all of these deep runs I was beginning to think it just wasn't going to happen and then on Sunday I bust a $33 500 man tourney in 57th with 56 paid after getting involved with another big stack with JJ pre, he woke up with AA.

Anyway in the background during the $33 MTT was the $27.50 4-Max. I really enjoy these 4-Max events and have done well in the $44 4-Max on Stars. With 320 runners in the $27.50 I was chip leader with 8 left. I lost a huge pot after flopping trip 5s when my opponent rivered a flush, managed to regain a stack without showdown and again lost a big pot with trips after another rivered flush (lol), I was beginning to think it wasn't my day.

However I again managed to regain my stack and really did dominate without showdown, I was really pleased as I was bossing the game when there were 6 left and I'll make a post with some key hands. Two in particular involved calling a river bet with A high (on a double paired board) and also calling a strong river bet with pocket 7s on a board containing a K and a J.

The Deal

Once we were 3 handed we decided to call in a mod to discuss a deal. 3rd took $688 and 1st was $2,080. Two of us had 400k in chips and the other guy had 90k, ideally I wanted to wait until headsup however was willing to look at the numbers. In the deal 3rd was offered $800 however he said he wouldn't deal for less than $1,100 haha "yeah ok mate good one".

We played on and eventually got rid of the short stack. I had a minor chip lead in headsup however we called in the mod as I was willing to deal if we split based on chip stacks, he agreed and the deal was done. It looked like once the deal was done he couldn't be assed to play on a shoved allin on a 3KKK board, I snapped with 88 and won the pot and the tourney. However I'm 100% sure he wouldn't have made this play had the deal not been done.

As mentioned I'll be sure to save out some key hands and post them up when I get the chance...


Coaching


Over the past 2 weeks I've been providing coaching to a mate of mine. He has a good grasp of poker already and the coaching isn't too intensive. He put some money of Tilt and during my sessions I just have a Skype call open with him so he can ask questions whenever he wants and I can give him tips. Its been great so far and I've even learned a lot from our sessions, what's more it's good to see him learning and understanding what I'm explaining.

He managed to grind the $3 step on Tilt into a $75 ticket. I told him to use it for a "real money" tourney and we opted for the $75 45-man. Once I'd shipped the $27.50 I focused on his table talking him through things and aiding decisions. Anyway to cut a long story short he shipped it for just under $1,200 weeeeeeeeeeeeee. He was amazed and chuffed. I told him to cash out a chunk and for the meantime just continue what he's doing which he did...


UKIPT Galway

Well the final satellites are over and I've failed in my attempted to bag a main event seat. I'm heading over Wednesday night so instead of playing Day 1 on Thursday I'll just chillout and relax. I'll then head to the venue Friday as the 350 side event kicks off in the evening. They have a 50 5 seat gtd f/o satty before hand so I'm going to play that to get into the "live" groove. If I win a seat then great but if not I'll buy into the event anyway. I imagine most of the day 1 main event bust outs will be playing so the field should be fairly large. Looking forward to playing live again :D

That's all for now folks :D :D


Monday, November 22, 2010

Can I see a ship sailing in...?

...I'd like to say yes. I had an uber grind session on the weekend playing 20-25 MTTs, making it deep numerous times however just falling short at the crucial time. Over recent weeks I've had a number of deep runs which have left me very frustrated. Below is a list of my deep results over the past couple of weeks...

$55....$90,000 Gtd.....[21/2,521]....Cashed for $390.75....top 0.8% of field
$109...$10,000 Gtd.....[9/148]....Cashed for $384....top 6% of field
€135….€75,000 Gtd.....[29/472]....Cashed for €300....top 6% of field
$44....$6,000 Gtd.....[8/200]....Cashed for $240....top 4% of field
$27.50….$5,000 Gtd.....[15/500]....Cashed for $137.50....top 3% of field
$44....$6,000 Gtd.....[15/205]....Cashed for $123....top 7% of field
$33....$10,000 Gtd.....[41/500]....Cashed for $82.50....top 8% of field
$22….$4,000 Gtd.....[24/360]....Cashed for $61.20....top 6% of field
$26....$16,000 Gtd.....[39/1,068]....Cashed for $53.40....top 3% of field
$26....$16,500 Gtd.....[51/802]....Cashed for $51.97....top 6% of field

I've decided to take a few days off from the MTT grind. Maybe even the whole week, I'll reduce my volume this week and maybe focus on STTs and Steps on Stars. MTTs take up a whole evening and if your playing two sessions a day sometimes a whole day so I'm going to take some time off to refocus. I'm very pleased with my string of results and it makes me even more determind to ship a tourney. My last outright win was back at the beginning of October in the $44 4-Max for $2.4k.

I'm still in the hunt for a UKIPT Galway package/seat so will probably play a couple of hours a few evenings this week to try and work towards that goal. This will give me time to refocus on my MTTs and I'll probably be looking to put in a 12 hour session on Sunday.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

The Grind Station

The True Art of Multi-Tabling

Well over recent weeks I've been enforcing the true are of multi-tabling. Most people usually multi-table 8-12 tables over 2 screens (even more for the pioneers of the art). However, recently I've been multi-tabling across three screens, two laptops, two mouses and two keyboards.

"Why?" I hear you ask. Well my primary laptop is a Mac and I've recently been playing on Poker.co.uk which doesn't have an Instant Play version. I currently can't be assed to setup a windows partition on my Mac and being the law abiding citizen I am, I don't want to download a copy of Vista. If anyone is aware of other ways to get a .exe working on a Mac then feel free to comment.

Here is a picture of my current setup. I've the 13.3" Macbook Pro (probably my best investment ever), this is hooked up to a 23" Phillips HD monitor and to the right is just an old 15" Acer which is used for non-mac software. I hate the Boss media Instant Play so Dusk Till Dawn is played on here as well as Blue Square and Poker.co.uk. Also notice the new age iPhone in the bottom right of the picture, I like to keep this handy to use various poker related apps :D :D...


Friday, November 19, 2010

The Donked becomes the Donker

Well I rarely receive abuse in the chat however I absorbed it by the bucket load in one tourney this evening, in concecutive hands and it was fully justified.

Hand 1.

Tilting from donking numerous MTTs at the beginning of my session. Not really paying attention at all as I'm busy on Skype and watching the Rugby. I call a button raise from the big blind with 46s, I check the flop without looking and my opponant moves allin for his remainding 800. I glance at the flop, see a 4 and call. He tables QQ, turn blank river 4 lol. Someone insta types "y o u l u c k y b a s t a r d". Excellent...

***** Hand 2405451630 *****
100.00/200.00 Texas Hold'em (No Limit ) - 19 November 2010 23:09:51
€5,000 GTD REBUY (Real /Tournament )
Seat 5: turi11 (1250.00)
Seat 7: FezioJr (6935.00)
mouur post SB 100.00
FezioJr post BB 200.00
** Deal **
FezioJr [4h, 6h]
*** Bet Round 1 ***
Drobek21 Fold
VemComigo Fold
adriancris Fold
blueskyjul Fold
chistorra Fold
jbouuu Fold
-RAMSES- Fold
turi11 Raise to 450.00
mouur Fold
FezioJr Call 450.00
*** Flop(Board): *** : [4c, Js, Kc]
*** Bet Round 2 ***
FezioJr Check
turi11 All-in 800.00
FezioJr Call 800.00
*** Turn(Board): *** : [4c, Js, Kc, 2d]
*** River(Board): *** : [4c, Js, Kc, 2d, 4d]
*** Showdown *** : Rake: 0.00 Total Pot: 2600.00
turi11 [Qd, Qs] Two pair queens and fours Win: 0.00
FezioJr [4h, 6h] Three of a kind, fours Win: 2600.00

However the fun doesn't stop there...

Hand 2.

The very next hand I'm sitting in the small blind. I see that the action is on me, I look at 57s and decide to make up the bb as it's only another 100, OR IS IT? once I pressed call I soon realised that the action had gone, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, call 200, raise to 1600 and then I call the 1600 with 57s lol. Everyone else folds and im headsup with this monster hand. Flop comes down 277 weeeeeee! I think to myself I hope he has AA or KK. I obviously check and he shoves 5.5k into the middle, I snap, he shows KK, I fade and ship the pot. Great skill and play by me. At this point the table note taking is going crazy, everyone has identified the fish at the table so I'm sure I'll be hunted down in the near future.

***** Hand 2405452818 *****
100.00/200.00 Texas Hold'em (No Limit ) - 19 November 2010 23:10:52
€5,000 GTD REBUY (Real /Tournament )
Seat 6: mouur (7125.00)
Seat 7: FezioJr (8285.00)
FezioJr post SB 100.00
Drobek21 post BB 200.00
** Deal **
FezioJr [5c, 7c]
*** Bet Round 1 ***
VemComigo Fold
adriancris Fold
blueskyjul Fold
chistorra Fold
jbouuu Fold
-RAMSES- Call 200.00
mouur Raise to 1600.00
FezioJr Call 1600.00
Drobek21 Fold
-RAMSES- Fold
*** Flop(Board): *** : [2d, 7d, 7s]
*** Bet Round 2 ***
FezioJr Check
mouur All-in 5525.00
FezioJr Call 5525.00
*** Turn(Board): *** : [2d, 7d, 7s, 10h]
*** River(Board): *** : [2d, 7d, 7s, 10h, 9d]
*** Showdown *** : Rake: 0.00 Total Pot: 14650.00
mouur [Ks, Kc] Two pair kings and sevens Win: 0.00
FezioJr [5c, 7c] Three of a kind, sevens Win: 14650.00

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

PokerStars.com Daily Ninety Grand Fail + More

Online volume has been minimal of late however I’ve found time to play some MTTs with frustrating results. My first deep run came in the Poker Stars DNG a daily $55 tourney, I’ve played this a number of times before and have managed a few deep runs with my best result being about 30th.

The tourney saw 2,521 players take to the virtual baize generating a first prize of about $19k. I started well and after a few hours of play found myself in the money with a slightly above average stack. With 120 players left I found myself short shoving to a button raise from the sb with AK only for the bb to wake up with QQ and hold. From here I pretty much enforced uber short stack management and did so until there were about 30 players left, never really getting out of the bottom 10 of the field from 120-30 players. I began to gain some momentum by open shove, 3-bet shoving and chipping up mostly preflop. I then proceeded to open with AK only for the button to 3-bet, I set him all in and he snaps with JTo, J on the turn and I’m crippled. Very next hand I shove to a raise with 10 bigs holding A3s, the raiser snaps (committed) with K9 and hits. Really frustrating to run bad at the wrong time, brought back horrible memories of being deep in the Sunday Warmup (AQ less than AJ aipr for 3m pot with 20 left)

I’ve also been playing some MTTs on Poker.co.uk primarily the €10 rebuys, I’ve done well in these over the past few days making 3 final tables. I’ve placed 10/120 for €60 after getting it in for the chip lead with TT vs A9 for the A to bink, 5/130 for €270 and most recently 3/101 for €375.

UKIPT Galway

I’ve yet to qualify for the €1,000 main event which takes place in a few weeks. I’ve played 2 €215 satellites, both having 40 runners producing 4 packages each, the first I busted 14th and the second I busted 8th. I’ll play a few more of these however regardless of winning a package I’ll still be heading to Galway during the event so will most likely be playing one of the side events if I don’t get a package within the next 2 weeks.

DTD Grand Prix 2011

A quick mention for Dusk Till Dawn, they’re hosting their 2nd Grand Prix and having missed the £50 last month I’ll definitely be playing the £100 Grand Prix in January. I’ll be hitting it up with Dann and we’ve already sorted accommodation so we’re good to go lol.

Friday, October 29, 2010

Twitter

I've started using Twitter which I'll use for various poker related updates, follow here... http://twitter.com/FezioJnr

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Winning via Tiltsville

I had a little 3 hour session last night and the evening couldn't have started any worse. Two hands in particular sent me to Tiltsville Arizona. The first was in the daily $27.50 MTT on Stars, after running my 3k starting stack up to 10k I get seated at a table with a complete donk who had a similar chip stack...

AK less than K3

PokerStars Game #51052811283: Tournament #318977735, $25.00+$2.50 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level XI (100/200) - 2010/10/13 22:14:20 WET [2010/10/13 17:14:20 ET]
Table '318977735 7' 9-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: GeorgeGunner (9597 in chips)
Seat 2: justyxas (12273 in chips)
Seat 4: FezioJnr (9301 in chips)
Seat 5: Mintal703 (6360 in chips)
Seat 6: Pig's Eye 1 (9546 in chips)
Seat 7: moverdave (11890 in chips)
Seat 8: TrapoLeproso (6263 in chips)
Seat 9: Hepburn1 (3887 in chips)
justyxas: posts small blind 100
FezioJnr: posts big blind 200
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to FezioJnr [Kc Ah]
Mintal703: folds
Pig's Eye 1: folds
moverdave: folds
TrapoLeproso: raises 299 to 499
Hepburn1: folds
GeorgeGunner: folds
justyxas: calls 399
FezioJnr: raises 1301 to 1800
TrapoLeproso: folds
justyxas: calls 1301
*** FLOP *** [7s 6c Ks]
justyxas: bets 10433 and is all-in
FezioJnr: calls 7461 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (2972) returned to justyxas
*** TURN *** [7s 6c Ks] [3h]
*** RIVER *** [7s 6c Ks 3h] [9d]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
justyxas: shows [3s Kh] (two pair, Kings and Threes)
FezioJnr: shows [Kc Ah] (a pair of Kings)
justyxas collected 19341 from pot
FezioJnr finished the tournament in 137th place
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 19341 | Rake 0
Board [7s 6c Ks 3h 9d]
Seat 2: justyxas (small blind) showed [3s Kh] and won (19341) with two pair, Kings and Threes
Seat 4: FezioJnr (big blind) showed [Kc Ah] and lost with a pair of Kings


AA less than KK greater than KQ aipf

I found myself allin preflop holding AA in the dream position, up against KK and KQ, only one out could cripple me...


PokerStars Game #51058532508: Tournament #318996170, €25+€2 EUR Hold'em No Limit - Level X (400/800) - 2010/10/14 0:14:40 WET [2010/10/13 19:14:40 ET]
Table '318996170 1' 9-max Seat #8 is the button
Seat 2: isidrink666 (23126 in chips)
Seat 3: patinho77 (3045 in chips)
Seat 4: NegPL (16858 in chips)
Seat 6: pennyyy (21392 in chips)
Seat 7: FezioJnr (30204 in chips)
Seat 8: Mihai Nutt (23506 in chips)
Seat 9: Tonys111 (8369 in chips)
Tonys111: posts small blind 400
isidrink666: posts big blind 800
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to FezioJnr [Ah Ac]
patinho77: raises 2170 to 2970 and is all-in
FezioJnr: calls 2970
Tonys111: raises 5324 to 8294 and is all-in
FezioJnr: calls 5324
*** FLOP *** [6s 3d Kc]
*** TURN *** [6s 3d Kc] [4d]
*** RIVER *** [6s 3d Kc 4d] [8c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Tonys111: shows [Kh Ks] (three of a kind, Kings)
FezioJnr: shows [Ah Ac] (a pair of Aces)
Tonys111 collected 10648 from side pot
patinho77: shows [Qd Kd] (a pair of Kings)
Tonys111 collected 10235 from main pot
patinho77 finished the tournament in 7th place
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 20883 Main pot 10235. Side pot 10648. | Rake 0
Board [6s 3d Kc 4d 8c]
Seat 3: patinho77 showed [Qd Kd] and lost with a pair of Kings
Seat 7: FezioJnr showed [Ah Ac] and lost with a pair of Aces
Seat 9: Tonys111 (small blind) showed [Kh Ks] and won (20883) with three of a kind, Kings


I managed to bounce back from this hit and ship the €25r to take down a €500 seat...



Thursday, October 7, 2010

1/211 for $2,447 (Daily $44 4-Max)

Shipped the Daily $44 4-Max Event on Poker Stars

Well after my post just two days ago in which I spouted

Online has been mediocre to say the least over the past few months. I haven't made a final in a while and when you grind MTTs that does hurt.”

I proceeded to take down my first online tournament since the $1.2k I picked up in July for winning the $22 Big Antes.

After I made that post I again had a deep run (that evening) in the $22 Big Antes, however I got caught up in a high variance spot and busted 13th out of 360 for $100. The following day I was two tabling between the $27.50 Big Antes and the $44 4-Max both on Stars. I made deep runs in both however busted the $27.50 in 36th place out of 361 runners for $60, this was a disappointing result as I was maintaining a sub average stack the whole tournament. Whenever I’d build a stack I’d lose a standard race JJ less than A K, A K less than TT and QQ less than A K.

Once I busted I was fully focused on one table, which was the $44 4-Max. These tournaments in particular need to played with extra due care and attention due to the speed and amount of hands played. Your constantly involved in pots, 3-betting, 4-betting and even 5-betting a few times an orbit. So it was fortunate I busted the $27.50 tourney so I could concentrate 100%.

I registered 30mins late for this event which is what I have started to do a lot recently. Stars keep late registration open for an hour for every MTT now and usually 5%-10% of the field busts in quick succession so I like avoiding the meaningless 10/20, 15/30 levels and jumping right in at 25/50 with a 3k starting stack.

I immediately jumped into the top 10% of chips and remaining there until the money, keeping really busy and creating a nice aggressive table image. Once the money bubble burst my stack started to grow significantly, I ran very well for about an hour and found myself with 150k in chips. My aggro table image did help, because I was involved in so many pots that when I did hit I got action. For example I’d raise with K8 and the flop would come down 88T, if it was checked to me I’d put in a strong c-bet and if my opponent had any hand I got paid off with 3 streets of value. The beauty of these shorthanded events is you can find value with 2nd and even 3rd pair as people just don’t believe you and sometimes they’ll eve pay you off with A high.

I took the chip lead into the final table and was involved in a number of interesting hands, some of which I played well and some badly. I don’t have the HH’s to hand some pots which I thought were interesting were the following...

Full House.

4 handed final table, seated to the left of a serial raiser which was perfect as my 3 bets were getting though and I was winning a decent number of pots from the sb and bb when he raised from the button. I’m in the sb with 9T and its folded to him on the button, I’m playing about 170k and hes playing 120k blinds are 1500/3000. He makes it 7500 and I call. Flop 992, I thought about betting and it may have been the better option but I decided to check as I knew he would be betting 100%, he did and I called. Turn was a T giving me a boat and again I knew he’d bet so I check called a 25k bet on the turn. Now I’m sitting there with pretty much the nuts, how do I get his last 60k??? I know the chances are he has nothing, so in order to get that last 60k in the middle I can either put out a tiny river bet and hope he shoves or check and again hope he shoves. I decided that betting was a no go the hand went check call, check call, and a bet was obvious so I checked and hoped he’d shove, unfortunately for me he gave up and checked behind with nothing, not really sure how I could have played that hand differently to get more value, I know he had nothing but he was a serial aggressor so I’m sure I could have gotten his chips in the middle somehow.

A-Rag (this hand was before the one above)

2nd hand was from the same position, I’m in the sb with A2o and the same guy on the button raises (I’m playing about 120k and hes playing about 150k) to 6k (blinds 1/2k). I call and the flop comes A high. I check and he bets out 15k into about 15k I min-raise to 30k as I’m 90% sure I have the best hand, to my surprise he then 3-bets to 65k. Now I start to think, do I want to risk my tournament life with A2 and bust out first in the final table. It’s a fold or allin situation. Based on his aggressive style and the fact I’d been raising and 3-bet him a lot, his play started to look like strange. He may well be doing that with a small pocket pair and figured I’d fold without the Ace. I went with my read and decided to shove my A2 allin leaving him another 50k or so to call, he instantly folded and this play gave me plenty of confidence and added to my super aggressive table image. If only you could show one card on Stars, I would have loved to have just shown a deuce.

I took out the aggressive player in 4th after he shoved his 88 into my 99. I then had about 400k of the 600k in play and just shoved any pair, ace and king to try and accumulate as many chips as possible before heads up as both guys tightened up loads due to the $1k pay jump. Once heads up I had a 5-1 chip lead, picked up AQ, shoved he called with KJ and I held. GG.

Play finished in the early hours and didn’t get to bed until 3.30am, up at 7am for work :D I was getting slightly annoyed that it was getting late at the final table and once I did spew chips on a final table just because I thought “fek it, if I bust I can get some sleep”. But this time I focused and was determined to win even if it meant no sleep before work.

Thanks.