EPT BUDAPEST

After the disappointment of London I was off to Budapest in late October. Seeing as everyone I know works or is broke I had real trouble finding someone to share my room with. Thankfully Eddy "There is such a thing as a free lunch" Eyre was available again to abuse the free Breakfasts of another 5star hotel. 

I arrived alone the night before the tournament started, traveling in style via Wizz Air. It had been a while since I'd left England and on my taxi ride from the airport to the Hotel I began to remember how much I enjoyed being abroad in Europe and how exciting it was to travel. I have a real thing for European cities (they make up 97% of the cities i've ever visited so its no wonder) despite their similar characteristics there is something about the Architecture that makes me feel weird inside, like I've gone back in time or am Jason Bourne.....one of the two, i'm not really sure which one it is. It could also have something to do with the amount of alcohol i'd consumed in the airpot/plane (I wont lie, i'm not a big lad, one pint usually does the trick). 

 The Sofitel in Budapest was probably the nicest hotels I've been in, located on the Danube with a spectacular view of the Parliament on the opposite side of the river but more importantly a Casino inside the building so there is no need to go outside and risk getting mugged. I met up with Eddie, who'd already become accustom to the room and Mini-bar, and we went to check out the Blackjack tables. 

We sat and played. I spent more time trying to work out exactly how many froutiers (money) I was betting in £ than I did trying to count the deck and Eddy just chained smoked in the chair next to me until the novelty of smoking in a public place wore off.....it never did.

Next day we got up ate the breakfast which i'd probably rate an 8/10. I think Londons was better quality but I liked the porridge/rice pudding thing they had so I reckon i benefitted more from it. Eddie liked the champagne that you were apparently allowed to take by the bottle and drink around the hotel which he had scummed to by the 3rd day. 

We went and hit the town later and looked for somewhere for lunch. We hit some Japenese trendy restaurant and had Sushi that seem to be a 6/10 but that might be because I had eaten it a lot recently. I paid Eddie 20€ to eat the massive one with Orange eggs, he didn't enjoy it so it was worth the money apart from he felt ill and that knocked the wind out of his sails, so we went back and I played some 10/20 PLO (o the god old days) on FTP and chatted to Annette who was apparently in the same hotel and playing DAy 1B also. Eddie managed to perk up later in the day when he entertained himself for 2 hours watching the street hookers from our hotel window. I think I offered him 50€ to go and do the 'Monkey Dance' in front of them but then decided it would be cruel/weird for all parties involved.

Day 1B. I looked forward to the tourney and felt a lot more relaxed. I guess the rate I was winning EPT packages I had guaranteed a seat at every spot on the tour so this had become more of a routine than a yearly highlight. 

 I was seat 7 on the table on which I had Danny Stern (Ansky) in seat  3 and Luca Pagano in seat 10 as well as a SNG reg on my left whose name SN escapes me momentarily but he's from....some where in Europe. Play was standard for me as I shrunk into my live poker shell and spewed 0% pre but then again won fewer pots then I would have online as a result bluffing 0% and finishing the day on a modest 27k. No dinner break meant we were finished early which I like because eating makes sluggish and I'm used to playing 10 hours of poker+ with no breaks online, usually pissing, shitting, eating and doing whatever else you can think of whilst balancing my laptop in my free hand.

Day 2 was interesting for me as I became more shortstacked and felt comfortable shipping 15-20 BBs as resteals and value 2,3,4 bets etc and was able to soul read a LAG euro donk for a light 3bet from the BB and happily ship AJo for value.

I then probably made my biggest mistake of the tourney even tho I stood by my rationale. A youngish Hungarian opened OTB making it his 3rd consecutive LP open in as many orbits and I decided to cram ATo for around 16BBish over his 3.5x. My reasoning was that although I felt he liked the look of his hand his bet sizing gave away his range. I scrubbed JJ-AA out on a feel basis and that there was no reason for him to make such a large raise against opponents who had shown no tendencies to defend their blinds or splash around generally. I also felt that he would fold AJ alot of the time and that I was value shoving the times he called with AT or worse and with TT unlikely and smaller pairs a flip I felt that this was a +EV shove with AQ+ and some AJ's the only threat. Online this reasoning is factored down to mathematical ranges but in this live setting the feel factor requires an explanation of my thought process. Well he snapped AK so I guess I'm a donk and on an K T x flop my chances were looking very slim indeed. That was until I binked another TEN on the turn, ooops! He was not happy. I told him it was standard. ***stack sizes are a little blurry***

So with my stack I kept snug for the first 3 or 4 hours of the day. My UTG KK open got 3Bet by Tristan Clemencon on the CO. We were both about 30BBs deep and he had just outplayed the previous hand so I figured he must have a big hand. I did contemplating flatting to look as if I was steaming but felt a cram here was my best line as he would be making less mistakes than others post flop. Anyway he tank folded to what he said was QQ and I do believe him cos he did look in agony as he did it. I don't think many online regs would fold there, I know i'd have trouble as I felt I was stinking of AK. Having said that in my attempts to polarize my range to one specific hand I ended up stinking of KK+ AK+ and so folding QQ was not that difficult for him. I had planed to exchange 10% with him because I felt he was playing well but fortunately I didn't because he busted before the money.

I later made an error once I had spewed a little in that I raised QT from the sb with the intention of snapping BBs 10ish BBs. Instead I was faced with roughly double that (if i remember correctly) but thankfully still called and won a flip versus 33.

The bubble then burst and I had made my first EPT cash in 3 attempts which was nice.

To Be Continued.....

EPT LONDON

Its been along time since I have written anything so I can't recall hands as well I would like but here goes.

Day 1B. Very good table draw. Only notables were Timex who is a fairly solid online MTT player aswell as November 9 Finalist Ilan Schwartz  as well as an online friend of mine, Adam York who was weirdly sat on my immediate left and probably the only person I had said "See you there" to prior to event. Play for me was pretty straight forward for the first 6 Levels, I picked up enough small pots to ensure my confidence was high which is a very important factor for me in live poker. I was able to snap of a double barrel bluff by Ilan with 4th pair that gave me a strong enough image to ensure i could play with some comfort on this fairly weak table.

Unfortunately it is now January the 4th and I have forgotten many keys hands but I still want to tie up some lose ends. 

Before I moved to my 2nd of 3 tables for Day 1 I was able to flat a 3bet from a new donk with QQ. Unfortunately I was unable to extract anymore (even with 40BBs+ Eff) on a Qh Xh Xh flop and my bet on the turn ended the hand.  Soon after this I was moved table which really sucked because I was very comfortable. 

Having no reads on my new table proved to be costly. 2nd hand I pick up QQ and open UTG+1 with a 22k stack (300/600). A young online player (who turned out to be Fatal Error) with a similar size stack called in the CO and a tall, slap-head Scandy 3-bet (with a stack of about 27k). This was a spot that you always dread in these big live buyin events, especially since your tourney life is so much more value than your standard daily donkements.  What is sicker is that given first impressions and the way this guys chips were stacked (and the mixed denominations) he seemed like he had been very active and that this was just an obvious squeeze. I felt that he was testing my resolve and knew that his FE pre/post flop was increased given that I was new to the table and wouldn't want to go to war readless and OOP for my tourney life. I did consider just folding, predicting that it was always going to be a nasty spot. I also Considered 4Bet/calling or even just shutting my eyes and shipping but came to the conclusion that seeing a flop with a good intention of CR was the best line. I think mostly i wanted to avoid racing pre v AK.

Anyway the flop was As 3s 3 and it went Chk Chk which i was pretty pleased with. The turn was the Ks and now I picked up the Nut flush draw. I did consider betting and on reflection maybe made a mistake not half potting here but felt like he was calling a lot of the time so this was rarely a semi-bluff and never a value bet and so I just opted to check given that I was never going to fire a second barrel if I missed river. So i check and now he bets something close to 5k which is now nearing 1/3 of my stack. I think I can call here but evaluated that I will be check/folding to any non-spade/Queen river so I left myself open to getting bluffed by air, so as I result I just fold with no money committed post.

Other than that I am fairly card dead and play fairly tight once my momentum goes. Phil Ivey joins the table which I predicted would be -EV on my blind stealing. He stayed for an hour built up his shortstack, got a beat and then horribly limp called 55 from the sb v Fatal errors standard K6 push. It was odd from Phil as I couldn't see the value in slow playing a small pocket pair with 10BBsish.

I was allin and chopped with AJ v AJ on A high flop and then later 3bet shoved 88 from SB v bald Scandy and ran into AA in the BB FFS. Luckily I spiked one of my 14 outs on the river and so I was able to join my final table of the day with an around average stack (tending to be between this and lowish for the remainder of the day).

My new table had Isabelle Mercier, Andre Akkari and Johannes Strassmann (who was impressive). I 3bet-shoved a bit in standard spots to try and gain a good stack for day 2. In the end i was like half average when the lowest nittiest player in tourney raised UTG and by mistake I caught a glimpse of one of his whole cards which i thought was an Ace. Now i'm not a cheat and am the first to tell some when they are flashing cards but given the fact that I had extra info on Villain I decided to call ATC and assume that he has raised AJ+ with the intention of taking the pot away from his. Anyway the flop came Q 8 x and I had A8 so I just decided to CR his half stack Cbet for value rather than a bluff given that AQ was s small enough part of his range. Anyway he tanks and starts cursing and now I'm very comfortable predicting he will fold leaving 3-5BBs lol. So I ask him what he has and he says TENS!! and so now i'm shitting it with only 6 BBs more than him. Anyway to my relief he makes the worst fold ever explaining that I have to have a Queen and I avoid this weird beat even though I deserve to get felted for my sneakiness and unethicalnessness.

I Finish the day 40/150? stack....something like that.

Day 2 was simple. i play nitty i make it to final 90 top 55 paid. I shove 25 BBs pre with KK over Vanessa Roussos open after 3 levels of play. She snaps AKhh and spike Ace on turn after a no heart 7 high flop and i miss the chance to take a stack that would have taken me into the money and maybe beyond.

O well, Michael Martin won it eventually and he is a FIFA fan so I guess thats OK. Now that he has a Million £ I need to play some HU FIFA games against him and not lose. I did offer to play him and Ansky in Budapest Versus me and Eddie (=dreamteam) but it was FIFA 08 on the PS3 which was probs -EV and I was still in the ME.

SNG finishes for last 4 weeks

Some graphs from the 315$ and 525$ SNGs I have been playing recently on Stars

I'd like to increase my sample size for November but want to post this now so that I can hopefully show similar results on the 23rd-10-08 and will post them every month on this date.

Hopefully by next month I will have a better grip on ICM, i'm not sure what edge i'm losing by not fully understanding it. I feel like my idea on ranges is getting me through but I don't naturally know how to use them perfectly i.e when knowing when I have a calling/shoving hand but no evidence of whether it is mathematically correct to use it because of stack size/money (ICM). So at the moment I am just using my poker logic and stuff I have learnt from others but I'm way off where I want to be where by I can do all this stuff as naturally as I can call an Allin with Aces.

315$

 

525$

And also some from Full Tilt

Total excluding Heads Up matches

Total

A summary of the last few weeks Part 1.

I can honestly say that I have been so busy the last few weeks I have not had anytime to write on my blog so I just want to take this opportunity to apologies to all my fans worldwide and reassure you all that this will not be happening again.

The fact is I was visiting the casino a lot during the WSOPE and the EPT London and did not have enough time.

As a result I am going to recap on my 4 live tournaments:

WSOPE Event 1, EPT £200 Rebuy and Main Event and the satellite I played to the WSOPE Main Event.

1. WSOPE Event 1

This was scheduled to be my first of 2 WSOPE events but unfortunately I did not make it into the PLO which was upsetting due to a combination of reasons:  £5k, No Sats and Blackjack tables but all come to the same reason: not enough money. I kind of got over it after my poor poor performances in the WCOOP PLO events.

Anyway the £1500 had a very large field and was a whose who of poker which for me was nice because I didn't get to go to the WSOP in Vegas this year and for the record still haven't been. 

The clock was an hour and starting stacks were 6k.

For some reason I was ultra confident in this event, not that I shouldn't be but it had been a while since I have played live. Anyway with protection from my Raybans I proceeded to chip up at a good rate through the first few levels. 

Too my right was Ian Frazer, Ian Woodley and some other local who I think is quite well known but to me they were all unknown at this point. One thing is for sure they all pretty much sucked yet all have better cashes in their lifetime than me...even tho mine is only 2 1/2 years but still!

Ian Woodley raised an early hand and checked a J high board down with this very shaky, nervous nit where the river paired Jacks, the nit bet and Ian folded AA face up. I thought this was a ridiculous fold by Ian with no reads on the nit and can't ever imagine there is any positives to gain out of showing the AA even if you think you are beat. Its surely only going to encourage people to try and pick spots against you not just because you were bluffed off a 2bet pot by a single river barrel but also because you played the hand shit and should never be folding AA there. Fair enough if Villain bets turn and then river there is a case for folding but I imagine Villain was value betting some kind of 2 pair, we know he didn't have a jack because we overheard Villain talking to a friend about it.

Anyway Ian continued to play bad including calling in preflop with AK and then checking a 4 way pot then calling my big bet on turn of xxTsQs and I failed to fire a river once it had bricked for me convinced that he would snap/tank call with some sort of KQish type hand. 

He then proceeded to limp-call for 1/3 of his stack against me and for 1/2 his stack against BarryG and fold the flop both times when his probable QJ suited missed.

Before BarryG and the Scandy whose name escapes me joined our table, Fraiser, Woodley and the Mel Juddah lookalike had played pretty fast in the first 2 levels. Once the other half of the table which was myself, an average online player and some well known finnish youngster had got going and BarryG had joined they didn't really have much game.

I had AA v average online kids QQ and chipped up to 10k with average at around 8k and I was feeling really good. My biggest regret and perhaps only mistake was that I didn't 4 bet shove JJ UTG once the Finnish L.A.G-Star had 3bet me to 2k. He later told me he had A9dd here. At the time my instincts was to shove but I kind of felt I would have to make a big laydown at some point so it may as well have been now. Really tho I shuda shipped it to kingdom come and sat back and admired my 12k stack going into the 2nd break. As it turned out I lost a race when i 3 bet AKcc v Woodleys 99 and then he managed to deny me of a triple up later with his QTss intercepting my AQ with a Ten on the river.

Though I left feeling a little bit anti-climaxed I was happy with the way I played and knew that I would have to get lucky more than once to win a bracelet in that event. 

Ian Woodley used my chips wel it would appear as he finished 8th in the event so well done to him. He can add that to the £200k he has cashed in his life and to the £1mil he won on TFI Friday that made him the first TV millionaire which I found a very interesting fact.

I beat myself up by playing the 500r and 1k PLO that night in the NEW gutshot which by the way is a bit of a dive. The internet connection was blank in some areas which disgusted me and it feels more like Teddy KGBs place than the old place in Farringdon.

I think I dusted off about £1k at BJ that night but this would not be first time. I was playing lonesome on the £100 Min. table so this was not a unlikely result. I withdrew £3kish from my PS to compensate but this was to be instance which was to be repeated and but alot of strain on my roll.

2. £200 EPT Rebuy Event.

The £200 rebuy followed the WCOOP Main Event for me at the VIC on Tuesday night. I took £1k for rebuys but found myself only needing an Addon. I managed to go in with 15k total to the freezeout. I was a little annoyed that the last hand had been my QQ v a young Scandy who had called for half his chips which I perceived as odd but later realized that this was because he probs wanted a rebuy and then an Addon. Anyway I checked a Q Tc 3c 6 board to him twice and then stacked on a 4c river only for him to show the fucking 25os! Had it been online i wud of typed LOL!

Anyway, after being smashed by the deck in the rebuy period things soon dried up. I was gutted that in a hand I was c-betting a flop I started to blush quite alot. I had no Sunglasses on and was quite tired but once I felt like i was going red it probs got alot worse but the fop was like 6 8 9dd so it was a horrific spot to Cbet and probably my bodies way of telling me to sort my shit out. Nevertheless I felt pretty gutted and it was  a huge bruise to my Ego and current confidence.

Things got worse when I moved to my 3rd table where the 25os Scandy kid raised up utg+1 and I 20kish and AJdd or at least thats what I thought. I decided to flat as our stack were pretty awkward as shove was rash with AJ and a fold a little nitty.....and 3betting was folding to a 4bet so this seemed a little spewy.

Anyway the pot turned out to be 4 handed and I proceeded to bet the x 8d Qd and then snap a minish raise shove from a shorter guy behind. I proudly turned over what I believed to be AJdd but was in fact AhJd!! What was even funnier was that the guy tabled A4dd just before me so I was actually flipping with the guys 11 outs. Dam Raybans!

I did reply instantly with AQ v AJcc B v B with 25os Scandy Kid. And then made a squeeze against GUKPT Final winner whose name I forget and Aspers Hamid with AQcc but unfortunately Hamid snapped me with 55 and it held...I wonder how well he did with all those chips.

Anyway I went downstairs and left the night up after a little session on electronic shuffled BJ table.....I later realised there was a High Stakes Area with dealer dealt!

Funny Cash Hand

After shot taking went wrong and I was left to grind the rest of the day a cheeky little pot took place at one table. God knows how we both managed to get 2400$ in by the flop. Don't try this at home.


  

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WCOOP Discontent continues

Despite winning my first EVER MTT on a US site (i think) - Tuesday came and went without any WCOOP cashes.

A friend had started playing a 270 man 20$ PLO8 mtt which I proceeded to bust myself out of. In the process I ended up with 30k when average was 4k and 2nd in chips had 12k. Still I proceeded to crush the field and take down a well earned 970$. It was nice to play in an MTT where people where making so many more mistakes than I was used to in 100r and it raised the thought that perhaps I should be playing lower stake MTTs if I am going to Final table a much higher percentage of them Maybe I should at least play the 50$ 80k at 8pm when I do play full time.

Realizing that I had never won an US MTT made me really focus on FT and made the money irrelevant so I was essentially playing for pride.

It was too be a good day for me as I also won an MTT sat to the 2-7 NL event to practice (or learn) my play and made the money in 1000+ plus field in the 100r where I decided to take what i read to be a cointoss with AQ v 99. I was gutted when I didn't hit and failed to make the top ten stacks but I guess I took the +EV option with the dead money and an above average stack to give me a good shot for FT.

A 3 day break before Tuesdays 500-500-500$ and the 500$ 2-7 WCOOPS did hep me regain focus and get some rest from the laptop.....even tho it new sleek Macbook pro!

I spent a lot of Tuesday studying 2-7 and playing Matt HU on stars.

The 500$ 1R+1A meant you effectively started with 16k in chips and looked to be a 1pm finish and it was pretty uneventful for me for the first 3 hours, giving me enough time to bust out the single draw.

I felt in the 2-7 that 5k starting stacks were quite short. The game is pretty active and I can't imagine this one went on for long. There were some strong players at my table who chipped up very quickly. I felt I was pretty card dead like I had been all day in the game and in the end I got pretty coolered.

My first sickner is when I limp called from early pos with a 8632 draw in an attempt to disguise my hand. I drew a 7 which I was prepared to broke with for my remaining 2k. I decided to lead out for half of it and got snapped by a fucking 86! The guy seemed to be a very strong player and I couldn't understand why he had decided not to put me in. Maybe he assumed that because I limp-called and then lead I had either a BLUFF or an 86+

Anyway more BS was to come after my first 8 of the day as I got it allin predraw holding a 2347

I drew a 9 he made an 86532 and seeing as he was worse than me he it seems very possible that he was drawing to a 86 or worse an 2356 which given straight blockers as well as the one in my hand makes that kind of a bad beat. Mind you I only had to draw bad and he will win there alot anyway.

The fact is that I love this game and I was gutted to bust out plus there was a 50k overlay meaning 1 in 6 cashed and I still couldn't convert.

The 500 1R+1A had a similar structure to the 10k event. I picked up AA 5 times and still managed to finish 200 out the money, with a lovely 260k for 1st place.

Despite having both Aakarii and Lee Nelson at my table (both who got owned by my AA) I missed to spots to become double average as i was surprised with how weak my table had been all night and became more convinced by the importance of paying attention to these players.

The first was when I called a midpos raier with ATdd. Maybe a 3bet here would have been better but I felt like I could outplay these guys post flop to the point whereby if I hit I would stack them. 

A flop of T 8 2 seemed like it could have trapped me as I reraised his C-Bet and then snapped his shove. I felt like he has been pushing his draws hard and sure enough he had 97ss.

unfortunately for me it came 7 then 9 and I was crippled down to 6bbs. We had discovered that Villain was a low stake losing sng donk but had recently cashed in a WCOOPS event for 42k so that shits on my record.

I did manage to double up 3 times, thanks to Aakarii giving my AA a spin with his 33.

It was AA for the 5th time which was to be my downfall which I guess is mathematically probable.

I played it cute, calling UTG+1s raise (with few reads on Villain) knowing that one of the table donks had just been crippled down to 5k and would be most probably shoving anything and hopefully induce an isolation shove from the UTG+1.

It worked perfectly, I snapped, he had KQos and made 3 Queens. Bed time