Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Live poker is rigged

Busted the EPT Deauville towards the end of day 1. It was a 30K starting stack and my stack was between 20k-40k for most of the day. Was on 21k when I picked up KK in the sb. about level 7, so its folded round to the button who raises I reraise he ships I call he has AA. Im like omfg surely I cant go out of another tourney with KK v AA? Nope! KABOOM! K on the turn and Im up to 43k. Biggest stack Ive had so far so Im on a real high and feeling confident especially after just getting so lucky.

So Im playing away and pick up a few more small pots and get my stack up to just under 50k. In the mean time I text Derek telling him I just ran KK into AA again but sucked out. Bearing in mind Ive been knocked out of 2 of the 3 tourneys Ive played this year with KK v AA. If I had gone out with KK v AA again I would have cracked I said to him. So blinds are now 400-800 and Freddy Deeb raises from utg to 2500 its folded rounded to me in the sb. I look down at KhKc and make it 7500. He thinks about it for a bit before making the call. Hes playing about 100k at the start of the hand. Flop comes Qs 10s 4h. I check and he bets out around 12k I ship the rest of my stack. And he asks for a count and thinks about it for some time. At which point Im 99% sure Im ahead. As any hand that is ahead of me is surely a snap call. AA,QQ,10,10. 44 is unlikely but well possible so I think he has something like AQ or maybe AK,AJ with a flush draw. Anyway he calls and turns over AA!!! I was in shock. No miracle K on turn or river and Im busted. Av. was less than 50k so I was absolutely gutted. So a quick recap on my live play so far this year. Ive played 4 tourneys (excluding ept sat) all of which I exited by running into AA. 3 of which I had KK. And ran KK into AA 4 times in total. Pretty nasty start to the year but hopefully it will change.

Also I couldnt stop thinking about 1 hand in paticualar in which he doubled up. Now freddy Deeb needs no introduction and has been playing poker before I was born, has almost $7 million in hendon mob cashes and would be regarded as 1 of the biggest cash game players in the world. Anyway heres the hand.

Im utg playing 25k and dealt 22 blinds 300-600 50 ante. I raise to 1650, Freddy is 2 to my left and calls playing around 19k, guy to his left calls as does the button so theres 4 of us going to a flop. Flop comes Jh 3s 6h and I press the check/fold button. Checked round to the button who bets 3.5k. I fold, Freddy calls, other guy folds so 2 of them go to the turn. Turn is a 7d and they get it all in. Not sure exactly how the betting went. Anyway button turns up JQos and Freddy has 45os! for the turned straight. Now Im not 1 to go slating other peoples play on my blog especially a household name. So I wont comment on the hand but found it very interesting. Calling an utg raise from utg+2 for 9% of ur stack with 45os is intersting to say the least imo.

Anyway was in no humour of playing after my exit and just hung around waiting for Jude to finish up who was going very well. Myself and Derek played a bit online the next day as there was no side events on till 9pm. I didnt really know what to play cos I dont like playing a high volume on the laptop. Then I remember I had 3 step 6 tickets which I had built up from playing a load of step 3s in December. So I jumped into a step 6 for the NAPT in the Venetian and took it down wuhoo! Took my mind off my main event exit anyway. Decided not to bother with the €2k side event cos I was due to fly home the next day so we just went on the piss instead.

Jude busted just outside the money which was pretty sick seen as he basically bubbled in Prague too. Pity about the lack of Irish playing these international tournaments as they are by no means tough fields. There was a total of 4 Irish players afaik in the main event, none of which cashed unfortunately.

Got home on Saturday night and just chilled. Put in a couple of hours grinding on Sunday and played another step 6 cos if I won another package I would get tournament dollars. Managed to get lucky again and shipped $7k. Used up my last step 6 ticket tonight but unfortunately bubbled a ticket by coming 3rd. But 3rd and 4th get $2k so wasnt all bad. Besides 2 out of 3 aint bad. Won another UKIPT Manchester seat the other night so a healthy $10k few days online.

Gonna focus on the steps for a while and see how it goes. See you at the tables.............

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Ept Deauville

Headed down to Killarney on Friday. Got there just in time for the start of the main event which was 5pm. Bit dissapointed with the turnout though it only got 106 players. I expected about 150. Great tourney anyway and a great weekend but no success unfortunately as I ran KK into AA for the second tourney in a row. Hopefully it doesnt become a habbit this year.

In Deauville atm for the EPT. Played a sat last night and managed to get a ticket so Ill be playing tomorrow which is Day 1b. Oops laptop battery is gonna go and Ive no adapter yet. Better go. Ill update tomorrow see how I get on

Friday, January 15, 2010

Hectic start

Been a busy start to the year with lots of travelling. Headed over to Manchester on the 2nd with a load of friends for the United v Leeds match. Disastrous! Not only the result, and been beaten by a 2nd Division team but the atmosphere in Old Trafford was the worse Ive ever seen. Made the most of it anyway and had a good drinking session.

Headed down to Galway last Friday for the Eglington IPC party. Great craic, as is always expected when you go to Galway. Again, was more of a drinking session than a poker one tbh. Played my 1st outing of the year there and bubbled the ft when I ran my KK into AA. Had a great weekend anyway so cheers to "The Legend" himself Mr. Dave Curtis and co. for putting on a great weekend.

Killarney today with the Lakes of Killarney festival on. Its a €500 3 day event with a great structure and Id expect around 150 players so a decent enough prizefund. Going over to Deauville on Tuesday to try and sat into EPT Deauville main event. If Im unsuccessful Ill just play the side events.

Online hasnt been going too good so far. Got off to a good start and picked up about $5k 1st few days. Lost all that back since then unfortunately. Still havent really found my main game for the year and have been playing lots of differents sngs and mtts. Wont be playing much at all over the next week or so with Killarney and Deauville so hopefully Ill get back to a proper grind after them. Better go catch my train

Thursday, January 7, 2010

09 Review

Well 2009 was my second full year as a full time poker player and all in all it was a success. No life changing results and I didnt make as much online as I might have hoped but all things considered Im pretty happy how it went. The games online got increasingly tougher as I expected especially towards the end of the year, even the $60 9 mans became a regfest.

I decided in December I wont be pursuing Supernova Elite this year. I got it the last two years but decided Im not willing to put in the time and effort it requires for a third year running. It really is a big commitment and becomes very stressfull towards the end of the year. I will of course maintain it until the end of September this year provided I get 50k vpps each month.

So grinding online will certainly still be my bread and butter this year but I plan on playing alot more live poker, especially big buy in tourneys. I didnt play as much live poker in 09 as I had orginally intended but still managed to play a fair bit. Unfortunately I dont keep live records anymore so Im not sure exactly how much I made but considering the amount I played (or lack of) it was a great success. Highlights of the year would have to be my min cash in the WSOP main event where I played at the ESPN feature table and was eliminated by the man himself Mr Ivey. And my 4th place finish in the IPC just a few weeks ago which was my biggest cash to date. €36k.

Online was pretty uneventfull with no big wins probably because I played so few mtts. But was a solid, steady grind none the less until the last two months when I went on a bad downswing finishing getting SNE. 9 man sngs are pretty much solved imo and so this year Ill be trying to move away from these. Plan on playing mostly 18-45 mans and try more mtts.

Stars recently improved there vip system which means everyone will be getting a higher % rakeback which is nice. In December they also announced there online Team pros. Big welldone to acoimbra who I play with regularly and I believe reads this blog. Im sure hes over the moon with that so welldone mate and goodluck with it.

I decided not to go to the PCA for a few reasons and so Ill be going to wsop and Monte Carlo as part of Elite. Hoping to play a couple of EPTs also this year and all of the UKIPTs. And pretty much every major festival in Ireland

Heading down to The Eglington in Galway tomorrow for one of there infamous parties and my first live outing so that should be good craic.