Another Game of Cards With Friends and A Missed Opportunity

Another Game of Cards With Friends

Thursday 25th May saw a field of 50 internet qualifiers descend on Canary Wharf in London to play for a seat at the main event of the WSoP, and about a third of these were members of PuntersLounge.

It was good to see the new faces in the flesh, as well as seeing the now more familiar ones. Fortunately, our decision to err on the side of caution for arriving was proved to be a good one, as when we arrived we were told that things were being brought forward by an hour.

The Golf Bunker was the comapct, but sufficient venue, and the bar looked well stocked. After grabbing a couple of beers then back outside for a smoke I felt no nerves, but almost wished I did, as maybe that had a part to play in my own downfall.

Pocket Lady's bad luck continued in these events and she was out first, although I wasn't far behind her, due to bad luck coupled with bad play.

The very first hand I was dealt pocket 10's, and really I should have folded them, but I made a small raise, expecting all to fold due to over caution. They did, except the big blind. The flop brought two 5's, and no overcards, so I was pretty confident I was ahead, and played accordingly. Turn and river and there were no straight or flush possibilities AND no overcards, so apart from the outside possibility of the BB holding a 5 I was ahead with 10's and 5's, 9 kicker. I lost half my stack when he turned over K5os. The second and last hand was on my BB when I got Q9 diamonds. The flop gave me top pair with a good kicker, but i checked it (another bad play?), as did the table to my nemesis, who put a raise of 10xBB. This to me looked like a position steal, so I came over the top and went all in, which he called and turned over K9os. No improvement for either and I was out.

So I spent the rest of the evening getting to know people, eating the fabulous food, drinking, and supporting my fellow PLers.

The final table was populated by 6 out of the 10 from PL, and there supporters provided an almost WPT final table atmosphere, with plenty of cheering whenever 'we' one a hand or pot. Although we didn't see one of our own winning the 1st prize, we took 4 out of the 6 on offer, with Penelopeys coming 3rd and BigAndy coming 2nd (after claiming his first MTT win the night before - well done mate).

A bit more drinking and joking went on into the early hours. All in all a profitable and enjoyable evening.

A Missed Opportunity

Sunday saw me on Mansion playing the PokerDome qualifiers, where the first and only prize was a seat at a live televised tournament in Vegas (worth $7,000!). I had a great tournament, and all the way through I was at or very near the top and was playing as well as I had done in ages. The fact that I made 2 mistakes that eventually cost me the tournament doesn't bother me too much, as eventually I lost when my AQos lost to AJ on the river.

Considering the time, the support I received from PL members was truly astounding, and if any read this, thank you so much.

A Game of Cards with Friends

PuntersLounge had a get together this past weekend, with a day at the races (York) and an evening of poker. Was really looking forward to it until Thursday afternoon (just as we were about to leave), when something occurred to me. PL legend and forum head had let me know that I was organising the poker tournament!!!

Okay. No problem. I've played live maybe a handful of times, but always with dealers provided, but I've played many many MTT's so a 3 table 30 seater tourney should be a doddle, until you realise that you have to be on top of everything, including string bets, mis-deals, blind structure, pay out, how to deal a flop properly, multiple side pots, chip distribution and management, organising who is placed where at the start and then being aware of the people going out in order to keep the tables balanced. Oh, and play well enough to survive myself.

When you consider the 'whole' it is understandably daunting, but my approach was to take each task as it came. For example I was still deciding on my blind structure whilst playing the tournament.

It was played in the right spirit, whilst at the same time maintaining the competitive element of any PL poker tourney. All in all it was the most enjoyable tourney I've ever played in, purely because of the people who made the effort to turn up and play.

Thank you all!

The top 5 were;
1st - Aliando (£100)* 1st/2nd prize split
2nd - Morlspin (£100)
3rd - Ronay (£50)
4th - Gripper (£30)
5th - Me (£20)

The tournament, however was just the start of things, with us playing sit n goes through the night, right up to when the resteraunt opened for breakfast.

Read about the whole weekend (including a Slovakian turning up thinking he had a job in the U.K.) here

Cheats??

Sunday in the V-points freeroll I was playing well. I don't remember dishing out bad beats or sucking out on the river or anything like that, but I lost most of my chips to Cadzow (laidbackbloke) when I walked into his AA on the big blind, which left me with less than a BB. Dealt 89os* UTG, I decided to jump. All folded to the SB (JulioArca) who called, and that was when it started.

The BB (akw144) before checking it and the flop hitting said, "Check it down?", to which JA replied okay. So they checked it down, and the BB hit a straight on the river, beating my two pair. What annoyed me was that up until the river the BB was way behind to the SB's Ace-rag, and my two pair. IF the SB had played there was a possibility that he could have got the BB off the pot, which I could have then won.

I have complained to the support at Virgin, in other words Boss Media - who are truly awful. I have been told that the matter has been dealt with, but not been told the outcome.

I am going to ring them now to see where I stand.

I Am Rubbish!

I think that unless I turn things around soon and start being Mr. Consistent (like I felt I used to be) I am going to have to accept that I am doing my game more harm than good. I think the problem is that I want to learn to be more aggressive, and less predictable, but my timing is absolutely lousy.

I think that I have to forget all about Gaf?'s thoughts and the championing of Harrington, and concentrate on my natural style. Too often recently I have played like a complete doofus.

In the PL league game on Monday I sucked out on Avongirl's trip Q's (slow-played? or cautious?) by chasing a 4 spade flush to the river, and then literally gave my chips away when I re-raised Runadrum (UTG min. raise) 50% of my stack with JJ (hoping he'd fold), but in truth I knew he had A10 or better, so WHY throw your chips in when there's an A on the flop???? Honestly I think it was for two reasons... (1)Frustration at being hurt by the flop yet again, and (2) Annoyance that Runadrum didn't fold (why should he?). I threw my chips away like a baby does with its rattle, and got what I deserved.

Then last night I did the same thing in 2 situations. 1 - Chased a straight to the river and sulked when my straight missed and filled Aodn (McGin). I tried to tighten up and got nothing, started to get nervous/frustrated, so I tried a Harrington some time later (2) Dealt 77 in 3rd/4th position, I had 2 choices, fold em and wait (possibly getting whittled down to nothing) which Gaf says is bad although it has served me well in the past, OR push (a la Harrington?) whilst I had folding equity, and try and pick up the blinds. Well, I pushed, Aodn called with AQs and won the race, and I'm out.

I really want to be sporting and wish people luck, but I am so annoyed with my own game right now.

I USED To Play Football

Its something I'm going to have to get used to saying, and now I'll sound just like every other duffer who played a bit. I should have played my last game last Tuesday, which was also my birthday, but work sent me to Scotland, so I couldn't be back in time. I'm kind of glad I missed it, as I was not looking forward to hearing that whistle and thinking "never again".

Anyway this week's poker has by and large been a case of, 'close, but no cigar'.

Monday saw PuntersLounge descend en masse onto Poker.co.uk, to try and win the 2nd in a series of forum challenges. We did have the biggest prescence (about 50% of the total field, but even so the quality of our players is a match for any 'amateurs' I feel. Gambling.co.uk's forum are good, and a good bunch, and as a thank you to MattD (their forum owner) I've joined as a member. There was some animosity towards the Laddies forum, who in the first game accised us of taking it easy against each other, which quite frankly was laughable, if not so insulting. In this game they were quite open about 'soft-playing' against team-mates. Something no PLer (or any other forum involved, as far as I could tell) would ever do. I ended up bubbling when my JJ (big pre-flop raise) was called by the BB holding 87 - he hit an 8 on the flop (no higher cards) and put me all in, then hit a 7 on the turn...

Tuesday See above - my birthday etc.. Ended the day in the A+E Unit with youngest with a suspected broken finger. On the tables it was a quieter day.

Wednesday Was the Sp.odds/PL MTT league game, which was completely spoiled for me by a player called Dirty Mom, who registered by accident, then spent almost every hand going all in as a massive underdog, and then outdrawing far better hands. I could have coped I think, if I'd had some break from it, but it (dirty mom) was on my table almost all evening.

Thursday Was the day of Virgins Bloggers freeroll, and with only 72 runners with the winner going to Vegas to play in the WSoP it represented all entrants best chance of getting there. I went out when I suffered a bad beat when my KK got cracked by QQ, which hit a four card flush on the board. Truly sickening, although the guy that 'did' that to me, MoFace ended up winning, so PuntersLounge is guaranteed TWO players at the WSoP!!!

Well done Mo. You can read about his views on cheese and floobs by clicking on the link on the right, which if not there now will appear shortly.

I'm not a massive fan of playing STT's at the weekend, but I'm doing so at the moment partly out of boredom.

This week I hope to play on Virgin Poker and have one of my 2 chances of a seat at the WSoP. The first opportunity is through a Bloggers Freeroll, which would make for a fantastic birthday present.

The next opportunity is a lot harder, as thats playing a series of tournaments provided by Virgin exclusively for members of The PuntersLounge where there is a lot of fine poker players, and even though I was going through my own purple patch, I'm in a bit of an MTT slump at the moment, despite my very good performance in the Betfair Grand Prix that never was.....

In all apart from these 2 opportunities I have one or two other chances.

Hiya - Welcome To My Ramblings

This week I finally qualified for my first live final which has left me less excited as I thought I would be, and certainly less excited than when my wife Pocket Lady qualified for hers.

My final is with Betfair as well, so hopefully it'll be held in The Western Poker Club which is a great place to play, although the location leaves something to be desired.