Royal Flush over quads

My final post of the day will be short. This is a hand I played in last night in a $5 Sng. Unfortunately poker.co.uk do not offer a bad beat bonus. These bonuses can sometimes reward the entire table:

One dollarments

Last night I fired up a $1 MTT. I knew it would be crazy so I decided to sit back and wait for hands. Unfortunately they didn't really come. Over the first two hours I played 4 hands and doubled up on each of them. I did a small amount of blind stealing as well though. 527 players started and when the bubble broke I was around 20/50. This is the hand that sealed my fate. I cannot believe the guy called my all-in bet. What exactly is he beating but a stone cold bluff? I had a good reputation at the table and had not had to show any crap hands. I tried an early position blind steal with the QJ as other players had been getting away with them. I didn't intend to then make a play for the pot with a check raise but the opportunity arose. I know it is only a $1 game, but when you get so deep, the standard has to be fairly reasonable, right?

To top it off, when I went out, he called me a mother f**ker.

***** Hand 884045095 ***** 750.00/1500.00 Texas Hold'em (No Limit )
27 December 2007 23:27:08
Texas Holdem (Real /Tournament )
Seat 1: LUJOLUJ (9065.00)
Seat 2: DonAsCarlo (25807.00)
Seat 3: $PILU'$ (21570.00)
Seat 4: Antonino4 (9680.00)
Seat 5: Woyta1 (8240.00)
Seat 6: Lasybones (20634.00)
Seat 7: Pettee85 (3729.00)
Seat 8: tfeilding (18607.00)
Seat 9: MarktaG (8070.00)
Seat 10: calledk2 (16476.00)
Woyta1 post SB 750.00
Lasybones post BB 1500.00
** Deal ** LUJOLUJ [N/A, N/A]
DonAsCarlo [N/A, N/A]
$PILU'$ [N/A, N/A]
Antonino4 [N/A, N/A]
Woyta1 [N/A, N/A]
Lasybones [N/A, N/A]
Pettee85 [N/A, N/A]
tfeilding [Qc, Jd]
MarktaG [N/A, N/A]
calledk2 [N/A, N/A]
*** Bet Round 1 *** Pettee85 Fold
tfeilding Raise to 4500.00
MarktaG Fold calledk2 Fold
LUJOLUJ Fold
DonAsCarlo Call 4500.00
$PILU'$ Fold
Antonino4 Fold
Woyta1 Fold
Lasybones Fold
*** Flop(Board): *** : [5h, 2h, 5d]
*** Bet Round 2 ***
tfeilding Check
DonAsCarlo Bet 3000.00
tfeilding All-in 14107.00
DonAsCarlo Call 14107.00
*** Turn(Board): *** : [5h, 2h, 5d, 4s]
*** River(Board): *** : [5h, 2h, 5d, 4s, Ks]
*** Showdown *** : Rake: 0.00 Total Pot: 40964.00
LUJOLUJ Fold Win: 0.00
DonAsCarlo [Ad, 8d] Pair of fives , ace kicker Win: 40964.00
$PILU'$ Fold Win: 0.00
Antonino4 Fold Win: 0.00
Woyta1 Fold Win: 0.00
Lasybones Fold Win: 0.00
Pettee85 Fold Win: 0.00
tfeilding [Qc, Jd] Pair of fives Win: 0.00
MarktaG Fold Win: 0.00
calledk2 Fold Win: 0.00

For 2.5 hours play I made $1.10 profit. Fan flipping tastic.

Another recent low profit per hour game I played was a live game at Gala Casino. In a £10 second chance I came 6/48 for a £20 profit. That works out at £4.50 an hour. Not even minimum wage. I was pleased to cash though as I have failed to do so there aside from a satellite I played. I know I am good enough to have better results, they just havent seem to have come.

APAT Polish Open

I am the APAT Polish Open Champion. I never thought I'd be the Polish champion of anything!

APAT orgainse well structured games for low buy-ins. An excellent combination. I qualified for the live National Amateur finals in Walsall a month or two ago and ended up 30/200 which was not too shabby and I only went out when I ran KK into the chip leader's AA. Unfortunate timing.

I have also played one previous online game - the APAT Croatian Open. I don't recall a great deal about it besides the fact I finished somewhere in the top 3rd of the field.

I didn't know about the Polish Open until the last minute when I read about it in the gambling.co.uk forums I had a quiet night at home planned and fancied an MTT so this sounded perfect. We got a 5k stack with 15 minute levels so there was plenty of time for play. On around hand #7 I was dealt AA. Early position did a 4xbb bet so I upped it quite a bit. The chips all went in on a 776 flop for him to turn over KK. Revenge perhaps for Walsall?

From there on in, I was chip leader or nearly chip leader all game. I sat back and waited for the premiums and they certainly came. I had AA twice but I had KK perhaps 7 times. Noone sucked out on me and I won a big race later when my AQ turned over 55. All of a sudden we were through to the final table and I was second in chips. The leader had double my stack though.

Top 3 places get bronze/silver/gold medals and it was one of these I was playing for so I played a solid game until that bubble burst and then opened up. I took the chip lead when I hit a gutshot on the turn and got paid handsomely. Then it was a case of just picking off the other two players as I had 400k to their 50k each.

Saturday brought the Western qualifying heats for the APAT Welsh Open tournament. It was a deepish stack, long structured £20 f/o. There were 80 runners with 8 getting seats and cash. I came 24th. The interesting this was I never once paired the board. I played for 4.5 hours, so probably played around 100 hands and yet I had nada.

One interesting hand was when I picked up 55 in the SB and limped. BB tripled the price to see the flop and I called hoping to get luck with the set. The flop came 234 and I checked. He bet the pot, so there was now around 10 BB in there and so well worth taking down. I thought for a minute and then pushed all-in. I think it was the correct play. He might have AK, AQ, KQ, which he would have to lay down and if he had an over paid then I had a quarter the deck to improve with so one time in two I would double up if he called. He pondered and then called with 1010. The turn gave me a set but the river was an A, so chop chop. I guess that was a fair result.

One other interesting hand was when I had AKs on the button and I went 4.5xbb. BB called and the flop came Q99. There was around 1.5k in the middle and he had 1.6k behind. He bet 1k and I tanked. I ran through all the hands he might have and concluded that the worst case scenario was he had an underpair in which case I had 11 outs. I did think though that he called to take it away from me if a dull flop came out so I pushed all in knowing he would call. It turned out he was on the blag with 78, but a 7 came on the turn. He did crow a little about the hand saying I made a crazy call - but I think it was the correct call to make. I was left very short stacked but two hands later I found AQ in mid position and UTG went all-in on a short stack. I'm thinking he is pushing with a big range, so I went all in to use my meagre stack as an isolating bet. No 4 came and I was back to where I started.

I went out with 55 in an early position. I shoved all-in for about 12xbb hoping to steal, but got called by AQ, an A came on the flop and I was out the door.

On Sunday I played my regular league game in my local pub. There were 18 players and I won. I was short stacked on the final table after I tried to pick off a short stack and ended up giving her a big stack and me a little. Doh. That takes me to 22 league wins from 175 games, so just under 1 win in 8 with an average turnout of perhaps 20 players. We then played two cash games after hours. The first I lost in cos I played like an idiot. I had had a few beers and decide it would be clever to announce I was stealing before going all in with J8. I won the second game though and staggered home at around 3am after nearly 14 hours in the same pub.

I was in bed and couldnt sleep so thought I'd play a short-handed SnG. I usually play €3 or €5 but thought I'd have a crack at a higher level and sat down at a €20 game. I didn't catch a single premium hand, yet I took the tourney down for €70 by playing ABC poker. I found myself short stacked on the bubble when I called an all-in with KQ (there was an all-in every other hand so ranges were vast) and his K2 hit runner-runner wheel. A few hands later his KQ was no match for my KJ. Justice.

My roll was only €100 earlier, now it is €150. I won't stray from my usual level for a while, but it's been a fun visit to the higher ranks.

Now it is bed time.

One Friday evening, three poker venues.

This evening didn't quite go to plan. I played in the £20 f/o at the casino and things started well. I took the first pot down with AQ onKJx flop which checked around and produced an A on the turn. From then on I was above average. Then in the second level I was dealt QQ in early position. I raised 3.5xBB only for a TAG player to raise me substantially. I insta-all-ined knowing he had to call and he turned KK. I wish I'd taken more time on the hand cos I think I could have escaped it. I was playing a good game so far and so why risk everything in one go? Countering this though, the tournament is a bit of a crap shoot and so it is difficult to pass premium hands. Anyhow, for my £20 I learnt a lesson - take my time and don't necessarily get involved unless I'm sure I'm ahead when folding will barely dent my stack.

I headed to a regular cash game only to turn a £5 buy-in in to £3.60. Woohoo. Mind you, I nearly always cash out for a profit, so that loss isn't going to cause me uch harm. The game finished early and I headed home, only to get a call at midnight to say some games were going on in a nearby pub and was I interested? Oh yes baby.

I played four games. The first one was a £5 buy-in with the option of a rebuy in the first orbit for £10. Only 6 played but we ended up with £50 in the pot after a couple of buy-ins. I sat tight for the first orbit - rebuying was a stupid waste of money. I ended up heads-up and we chopped so we could start a new game. I'm sure I would have won, as although I only had a third of the chips, the other guy had only played once before and called everything. We then played three further games four-handed at £5 each and I won all three. One interesting hand was as follows: P is a solid player. Neither loose nor tight, he just reads the game well. It folded to him in SB and he min-raised. I held A8 and insta-called. We check-checked a KQ4 flop only for him to bet twice the pot when a K arrived on the turn. If he had a K, why over bet? If he had the J he must have thought he was good, and if he wasnt sure a feeler bet would do the job. He didn’t have the 4 cos of the pre-flop raise. I was a little worried about a pocket pair but I called with my Ace-high thinking that only one time in 3 he will have a pair rather than any type of KQ, KJ, J10 etc combination. he made the same bet on the river. This shows weakness to me, cos it is a much smaller percentage of the pot, so either he is value betting or he is weak - the only hand possible to value bet was AA and with one A in my hand I didn’t think he had it. I called the river bet and showed my ace high which was good and he was shocked I'd called him down, but it seemed like the sensible play once the hand had been thought through. It was fun having a burst - I just wish it had happened a little earlier when the prize money meant something.

I planned to have a quiet night at home on wednesday but instead a friend rang me up to see if I wanted a lift to a game across town. In my league you have to hit the top 16 to get points and it was points I was after, therefore coming 13th from 22 was not a total failure.

Starting stack was 5k, blinds were at 200/400 and I had around 8k in front of me. There was an UTG min-raise to 800 and I had A9s. I thought I could squeeze the table and take the pot down so I shoved. The original raiser tanked and then called with 77. I failed to hit and it was good bye to me.

I dont think I played the hand badly. I'm not calling with crap like A9, I'm pushing or folding. After the hand the caller said he called cos I was staring at the centre of the table and not looking at him. Annoyingly this is what Ive been doing for months now so as to standardise my body language but I hadn't played against him before.

The standard at the venue was poor - there was a handful of good players though. I saw one guy who I thought was good, flat call a bet and a raise with AJ for instance. He then lais it down to the original betters all-in move. He then announced to the table how much pof a solid player he was by not losing more chips. He shouldnt have lost any there - AJ is auto-fold territory in that situation.

I was to his right and laid down 66 before the action got to him. Annoyingly I would have hit my set on the flop and turned the quads. It was still the correct move though.

Last night I played the APAT Croatian Open on Bluesq. I doubled up with JJ Vs AQ all-in pre-flop only to then lose my stack when I found AQ in the BB but couldnt get SB off his raggy hand which ended up hitting bottom pair.

This evening I'll be playing a £20 freezout at the casino, perhaps followed by a cheap ring game somewhere. Tomorrow is a £20 f/o qualifier to the Welsh Open and Sunday is the second of three rounds to win a seat to the WSOP Main Event.

I thought I'd best kick off with some interesting hands I have played recently. I must mention the hand that did me in last night's league game. I lost a chunk of my chips with a J9s blind steal from the button (blinds 600/1200, avg 13k, I had around 18k) only to find SB holding AQs. I flopped top 2 but a K on the turn and a 10 on the river took the juicy pot away from me. She went on to win the game after that hand.

I was down to around 6k and the blinds were 800/1600 so I had to make a move. I increased my stack by 50% with an uncalled all-in whilst holding 89s and the very next hand had 99. I shoved hoping people might think I'm blagging and call with a raggy ace or low pair. My nemesis was sat to my left and called with A10s only to river a royal flush against me. At times like that, I hate poker.

I wandered home and the very first hand I was dealt online was A8. The flop? 888. Sahweet. The turn was an A and two players decided their nut full houses were the best hand. At times like that, I love poker.

Here is a collection of screenshots:

The very first game I played on Stars was this MTT which I took down

I have seen two community straight flushes before,
but in this instance I had a better straight flush. Don't
other poker sites offer bad beat jackpots for this type of thing?

I played the same tournie two days running.
I came 8th on day#1 and 3rd on day #2

In the beginning...

Welcome to the very first post of my new blog. I have kept a blog else where on the interweb for over five years and in that time I've posted 2500 times and received nearly 60,000 comments. However I did such a good job of boring the readers with tales of poker woe and sometimes delight, I thought I'd best kick off a second blog here - afterall, I think we all know the world needs yet another poker blog.

Is there such a thing as a micro stakes specialist? Or are we simply labeled as players with no bankroll? Either way, I play about as low as you can go online. I can typically be found on the €3 and €5 5-seater tables, tearing the place up. I've been doing well on these and am slowly clawing my ROI back up to zero. I mainly used my account when i started out and the stats for it were horrendous. That's my story anyhow, and I'm sticking to it.

I also play in a pub poker league. Monthly finals are held for the top players from each of the participating cities. I have played in nine of these finals and from around 80 starters I have made the top 16 on seven occasions and one of these resulted in a win and another in a second.

I play tournaments in casinos as well although I am on a dry spell at the moment as far as cashing goes. I'm due a big win soon. I tend not to do so well in crap shoot games. My record in games with decent blind structures is pretty reasonable though.

I'll post to this blog some hand histories from online games and will discuss some live hands I've played. I'm not expecting anybody to read this, but who knows - I read enough dull blogs so there must be an audience for this somewhere.