Home Truths

Here are some things that I knew before this weekend, but I have had them confirmed to me again - more or less in this order:

Spurs can be class
I am a lightweight
Spurs are the most infuriating team in the world to support
£30 freeze outs are full of poker retards
Drinking 9 pints before food is not a good idea
Brennan is shit at poker when he's drunk - but will tell you he is 'awesome'
I run bad in tournaments (QQ bust by K9 calling my all in shove pre flop)
Ad King runs like god on cash tables
Brigs is a drinking animal.
Mood is a shithole
Briggs is also a dirty dog.
I do not do hangovers very well

Currently dying on the sofa watching the Arsenal scum play Boro (come on Boro!!!). I have a freeroll later but determined not to play any cash poker while this ropey as have lost a lot of money doing that in the past. Arsenal just scored and if they go on to win by a few I won't feel like watching it so might load up a few cheap STT's to keep me entertained....

Rake me up!!

Just finished for the evening here at 1:30 am, having played just over 3 hours worth of poker tonight. First 90 minutes broke even but then came good late on to win £200 for the evening. Just as importantly though I'm building points for the rake race as would love to climb in to the top 300 and make a bit more spondoolees. Last month I finished in the top 90 but now that I'm back at work there was no chance I could get through the same volume. I know there's a tonne of people that have lost jobs in the recssion, so I won't bitch and moan too much - but having to go to work each day is so GAY!!!

Thankfully their start times are flexible so I'm predicting a 9:59 am start time for me tomorrow to get maximum sleepage :-) In fact, I better go now before the zzzzz's get me....

Is it ever right to fold KK pre flop?

Apart from the obvious scenario of being medium to high stacked in the WSOP and playing the bubble, I think there are spots where it’s right to fold. I’ve done it twice, and been slated by my mates for one of them, but I’m standing my ground and can say at the time I thought it was the ‘right’ decision.

1st occasion
About 2 years ago when I first started playing cash tables, I was a nit. A proper 12/9 nit. I only raised with big hands, and I think everyone I played with on the crypto network at the NL25 games knew this. Therefore when an under the gun (UTG) raiser opened, was min raised by mid position and I RAISED from BB, it meant I was strong. When the initial UTG raiser shoved for 80BB and the min raiser insta shoved for 120BB – who I both covered – I thought it was pretty much a given that one or both had aces, so I turbo mucked my kings talking a small loss of 11BB. Sure enough it was KK UTG and AA min raiser, so I felt fully vindicated in my read and actions.

2nd occasion
This is the one that I got all the stick for, and I must admit I was a complete pussy, but I’m kind of pleased I did it. It was a live deep stack tournament (12k chips, BB of 50), first orbit, and I pick up KK in mid position. UTG opens to 300 and I call, looking to slow play. 2 more callers behind and then button repops to 2k. UTG folds and I think for a bit then fold, along with the other limpers leaving the button to take it down uncontested. Naturally he doesn’t show.

In retrospect I did play this hand terribly, but I did have some mitigating factors. The tournament was the Caribbean Poker Classic 18 months ago, a $6k buy in, and as a small stakes grinder (fish) / local casino tournament my previous largest buy in had been the £20 rebuy at Grosvenor and the £25 freeze out Xmas special at Soapy’s house – needless to say I was a bit nervous! I’d won my place in the Caribbean by winning an 80 man weekly freeroll and then won in to the main event by playing a live satellite ($660 tokens provided in to a $220 rebuy game), which finished at 4 am the night before the main event. I then stayed awake through adrenaline until 6, and got up at 10 to register and start at 11 am. The KK hand came at 11:10 ish, so along with everything else, my brain hadn’t quite woken up yet either…

If I were to play the hand again now, I’d obviously reraise the UTG open and play straight up from there. If the button 4bets me on the first orbit, he’s pretty much telling me he has AA, KK (v unlikely) or if he’s ultra loose QQ. Even with QQ though I think he’d slow down against an unknown and just cold call, as he would with AK. I could then call the raise looking to spike a K to break his obvious aces, or cbet any low flop if he flat calls.

As I played it though, I think I have to fold when button reraises me. I could have called and look to hit the king, but if a low flop came and he did have aces then I was likely to lose a much bigger portion of my stack – if not all. Could I get away from this on a 552 flop? Or a T63 board? Very hard. If I bet out, he’ll raise with all of his hands as he figures I’ll be weak to not reraise pre flop – forcing me to a decision for my tournament life on my 5th hand- something I don’t want to do. If the flop comes down QT9, I have overpair and gutshot, but he’ll also be betting strong QQ, AA and TT – all hands he’s likely to squeeze with. I don’t think I like the reraise much either. If I reraise the squeeze I’d need to make it about 5k to even have a chance to get him to fold – which would be telling him I have an absolute monster. If he pushes, do I fold ‘knowing’ he has aces, therefore losing over 1/3rd of my stack without seeing a flop? If he calls – what does that mean? I guess it would more likely be QQ than AA but could I completely rule out slow played AA or even a fishing AK?

As it turned out, I folded, then proceeded not to win a hand in the next 6 hours, never seeing a hand bigger than JJ which I correctly folded after raising and being 3 and 4 bet pre flop. I stole one hand with 56s from SB when I pushed versus BB and he folded, but then lost a coin flip of AK vs 77 to be knocked out in 90th of 180 runners. I think the experience of those 7 hours though, playing with some really good players and hearing their poker and life stories – they travel so much – really made me want to go poker pro. Although I’m a long way off of that, this motivation made me read a tonne of poker articles and watch 100’s of videos so I’m now a million miles better than I was in the Caribbean. Just hoping that one day I’ll get to play a big tournament again and play the hand a bit better…..


Anyway – why did I choose today to write up about this now? Well last night I think should have been the 3rd time I folded pre flop with KK, however I could not bring myself to do it. I raised UTG and was then 3bet all in for his entire stack of 110BB. I only had 95BB at the time and as I was 6 tabling I thought for a milli second but then just clicked all in out of instinct. When I looked up at his stats though on Holdem Manager, he was a 23/0 with an Aggression Factor of 0 and a 3bet of 0 having played 170 hands. These stats were available for me to see via the Heads Up Display when I made the decision, so I should really have taken the time to look and the decision I came to may have been different. He proceeded to duly flipped over AA and scooped the pot after I failed to improve.

Luckily I ran OK on my other tables and recorded a £220 win for the night, halving Tuesday nights disaster. K is away at an AC/DC concert tonight so I’ll be logging a gazillion hands after 5 a side football, hopefully staying in profit for the month!

April all gone wrong

Just lost £500 tonight on poker, with every spot going wrong. Trying to stay positive but really depressing. Now back to break even for the month but will be playing some more in next week or so to try and get back in profit and help out with the rake race. Balls.

Work is also shit.

Weekend Results

Spurs 1 Hapless Toon 0 :-)

Went to the pub to watch it with the lads - including a few too many Geordies - so was more than relieved to hang on and win, especially when we should have been about 3 up by the time Shearer put on the danger men of Viduka and Smith...... ha ha ha..... I mean Viduka and Martins. Smudger is absolutely hopeless, summed up by his 'shot' from the edge of the area that nearly hit the corner flag. How can a centre forward / centre midfielder play 52 games without scoring and still get £60k a week?!?!? You've got to laugh - and be thankful it's not your club. I still think they'll get raggy and stay up with a win on the last day of the season, but it's fun right now watching them shit themselves.

As for Spurs, we've got some rock hard fixtures (Man Utd, Everton and Liverpool all away) in last 5 games so think we'll just miss out on the Europa league. Not that this would be the end of the world as it'll be a pile of poo anyway, but I suppose you need something to aim for. We've been class since Xmas and with a 3 signings (centre half cover for King, big centre forward, left winger cover for Modric) I think we'll be very strong next season. Champions League will - as for everyone outside big 4 - will be out of the question, but think we'll be scrapping for 5th with Villa, Everton and Man City. All depends who we sign....

No cash poker as Katrina's parents were up for the weekend and spent a lot of time with them - including a night out on the town on Friday night. I've met them a fair few times now and the 'need to impress them' nerves have pretty much gone - which I think contributed to me letting my guard down and accidentally getting hammered. I'm not exactly a heavyweight at the best of times, but as I have only been drunk about 5 times this year due to my Thailand poker exploits, the beer hit me a lot harder than I expected. The Saturday morning hangover and the stories Katrina was telling me of the taxi ride home had me worried how bad I was as we all met up again on Saturday afternoon, but I think I managed to get away with it. They didn't tell me to leave their daughter alone so I think I'm still in their good books :-)

I did play a WSOP freeroll on Sunday evening but the 2 hands I played went against me. First I raised and cbet with QQ from SB on AT3 board, before giving up, checking through against BB to show A8. Fair enough on his part, no complaints, just a shit board. Stole a couple of blinds but got short (1.1k - BB 150) and shoved over a CO raise to 600 all in from the button making his call obligatory. He shos A5 and low and behold the dreaded ace flops. Shame as there were only 74 runners and top prize was all expenses paid trip to vegas for the WSOP (entry included), but my tournament run of bad luck continues. Think I have been bad beated or coin flipped out in all of my last 7 tournaments, without even making a dent in to the prize pools. I grew up as a SNG and MTT regular - cashing a lot - in the (g)olden days of Crypto but right now I hate them with a pasison usually only reserved only Arsene Wenger and his under 15 loves he calls the Arsenal first team. I'm sure I'll play tournaments again in the future, but not for a while.

All this blogging is keeping me from the tables so I'm going to stop writing and get playing. Adios amigos.

Quick Update

Been plodding along at work the last few days, taking a few more tea breaks than I did before my holiday and generally easing my way back in. I've been given a couple of tiny projects and to be honest I have no idea if there is any real work involved in either of them - I'm just going to put my head down, stay out of the way of the big bosses and leave the office at 5 each day to come home and see K / play poker / do a bit of exercise.

Poker itself has gone OK past 2 days, only played a total of 600 hands but won about £300 - can't complain. Don't think I'll get to play much now until Sunday so expecting a fall down the rake race leaderboard, but plan to make it up in the past couple of weeks of April for a good finish there.

Good luck to those playing out there - hope my mates Mark and and Brenos get some better luck soon.

First day back at work.....

.... was as expected a very easy day - with the hardest bit being getting out of bed at 7:15 in the morning. The rest of the day was spent getting myself set up on my laptop and chatting to everyone who would listen (thereby forcing me not to work) about my holiday. I suspect it will only get worse, but as I still have no official job title or real responsibility I'm expecting the rest of this week to be a bit of a breeze as well. We'll see.

Poker was again uneventful. Short stacked for 15 minutes on NL200 but lost 50 euros very quickly and got annoyed so quit to concentrate on normal NL100. Won back 45 of those euros slowly over the next 3 hours, leaving me net 5 euros down for the night. As I always tell Brenos - I have got to be happy when I consider the rake!!

I'm about £200 up for the month so far which is obviously below where I'd hope to be at this stage, but I am on for a half decent size bonus on the rake race leaderboard. I'm currently on for $600 which will be matched by RTR and I'm hoping to climb a bit more to give me £1k overall by the end of the month. My goal for this month is to grind out another £500 in poker profit that will still give me a £1.7k ish return for April- time will tell if I can do that in next couple of weeks.....