Tuesday, October 31, 2006

WOOT!! First MTT Win and $1k Milestone!

Wohoo how happy am I! Looks like my moaning did some good, the poker gods answered my prayers. On my last $20 at stars I decided to have a bash at the $10 Sng 180 man. And I went and won the bloody thing!! I know its not a huge cash but for me bankroll its a major boost.
Throughout most of the tournament I had no hands and at one point my M slipped down to 6, but I think I played my short stack quite well, pushing at the right spots. With about an hour to go I started catching cards, and winning lots of coinflips.



I know the pictures crap but you can kind of jsut about see my name at the top, 1st place for $540 :)
I also had my first royal flush! Looking back at my previous post only a few hours before I entered this tournament this is a drastic turnaround, just what I needed.
The guys on IRC chat at ITH railed me on the final table, so thanks to them for supporting me.

Im in work at the moment so dont have exact figures but I know roughly my bankroll now stands at around $1200. Ive only got about 120 fpps so still a long way from the $50 bonus at stars..

Sunday, October 29, 2006

Need an upstreak!

Ok im not running great at the moment, im not doing badly but im not doing well either!

My bankroll at the moment stands at just over $700 but it still looks a long way from the big 3k :(
The problem is I just cant seem to win at the moment, ive got plenty of 3rds. A sprinkling of 2nds but hardly any 1sts. I could really do with just one win to pick up my bankroll a bit.
I think I need to reread the harrington books as there are certain aspects of my game which need some work on. Im finding the opposition at the $10 level a lot more challenging than the $5 sngs - everyone says the $10 levels should be easy, so what does that say, does this mean im crap!?

I also need to make a decision on which site to play at as im currently switching between party, stars bodog and ladbrokes. My bankroll is split between them all
Im sure stars has me on a downstreak at the moment as im getting bugger all hands compared to the other sites so im having a break from stars at the moment....

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Crazy Hand!

Ive been running badly at pokerstars lately, wont go into the details. So I decided to try a SNG at party to see what the competition was like, this happened in the first 10 minutes!:


Party Poker
No Limit Holdem Tournament
Blinds: t20/t40
10 players
Converter

Stack sizes:

UTG: t1875
UTG+1: t1825
UTG+2: t2318
Hero: t2120
MP2: t1255
MP3: t1920
CO: t2140
Button: t1815
SB: t1675
BB: t3057

Pre-flop: (10 players) Hero is MP1 with J♥ J♠
2 folds, UTG+2 raises to t80, Hero calls t80 (pot was t140), 5 folds, BB calls t40 (pot was t220).

Flop: T♦ K♥ K♣ (t260, 3 players)
BB checks, UTG+2 bets t249, Hero calls t249 (pot was t509), BB folds.

Turn: K♦ (t758, 2 players)
UTG+2 bets t658, Hero calls t658 (pot was t1416).

River: 3♥ (t2074, 2 players)
UTG+2 is all-in t1331, Hero calls all-in t1133.

Uncalled bets: t198 returned to UTG+2.

Results:
Final pot: t4340
UTG+2 balance 198 bet 2318 collected 198 lost -2120 Qh 6c Hero balance 4340 bet

UTG+2 balance 198 bet 2318 collected 198 lost -2120 Qh 6c

Hero balance 4340 bet 2120 collected 4340 net 2220 Jh Js

HAHA I had to laugh, what was he thinking! Well its nice to know there are still some fish left at party :)

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

ITH members got together last week and staked a load of players in the Sunday million - I saw this as a golden opportunity to get my money in where its best as there are some awesome tourney players on ITH. Therefore this kinda persuaded me to finally deposit at pokerstars.
Ive been meaning to deposit for awhile but just aint got round to it, I deposited $100 to get the $50 bonus. I sent a $50 stake to krazyxtan for the tourney - As it turned out there werent any major winners, only one person ITM meaning a return of $8 :( Oh well, maybe next time!

My bankroll then is spread between pokerstars party poker, ladbrokes and bodog. Im kinda undecided at the moment which side to play at. The majority of my cash is at party due to the reload bonus but im tempted to take most of that out due to the new US legislation meaning the traffic at party is bound to suffer....

I played a few $10 SNGs at pokerstars. OMG the first two I received terrible bad beats, on the first hand of both tournaments out straight away. The first with AA, raised all in preflop against KK. Another K shows up on the flop. So straight onto the next SNG, qq first hand. V nice!Now theres one limper UTG, im on the button so I raise to about $80(blinds $10/$20). UTG minreraises me to $160. Uh oh, have to call though. Flop comes AKQ - hmmm tricky flop. I have the set but J10 beats me plus AAA.
I figure I cant get away from this hand, I know I was minreraised preflop but that could mean anything at this point - in fact I put him on AK(wishful thinking maybe).

Anyway to cut a long story short, all the chips ended up in the middle and villain shows J10!!!!!! A minreraise preflop with J10? Well fair play to him he got all my chips. Out straight away. NOT A GOOD START!!

PS I anyone happens to be reading this im trying to figure out a way to get my hand historys into my blog with illustrated cards and not boring old text. Anyone know how to do this?

Monday, October 02, 2006

At last :)

Wohoo I finally cleared it. Bodog bonus over and done with :) I had a few problems withdrawing, at first they declined me saying I hadnt made the requirements(even though I was actualy 50 points over the required amount!). Got onto customer services though and managed to sort it - cashed out $300 and left $80 in my account - my poker points are around 370 at the moment so i may aswell get them up to 400 so I can enter some of the T builder tournaments. Turned out to be a good investment that one!!

Ive had quite a successful week in all. As soon as I got my funds from bodog I deposited at WilliamHill to take advantage of the september bonus paying £10 an hour up to £50! Probably one of the best bonuses ive seen actually, loaded up two tables of $1-$2 fixed limit and just played uber tight, managed to steal a few blinds quite easily, every table was a rock garden.
It seemed to good to be true, after 1 hour of play on two tables, two payments of $18 instantly in my account!! Long story short I deposited $150 and cashed out $250 just a few days later. This bonus chasing can be quite lucrative!!

So now my bankroll stands at $750. I decided to take advantage of the party poker reload this month, 20% sign up bonus up to $75. Ive deposited the max $375 and hope to clear 750 raked hands multitabling 0.50/1 limit plus a bit of NL. Im gonna have to get a book on Limit cash games as im sure im making mistakes being a NL player. Im never quite sure whether I should be cold calling raises with something like aq or reraising preflop?

Ps about the 10th hand in playing two tables at party, the most amazing thing happened. I had AA at exactly the same time on both tables!! Then the flop on both tables both contained another ace, so I got AAA on both tables at the same time, what are the odds on that happening???!!!!!!!!!! Didnt get many callers though so only made about $12. Cant complain though!!