Lol Duskaments

Well, the first part of this week was very uneventful, given that I got truly wrapped up in the winter olympics, so spent most of my time watching the coverage. I honestly cannot wait until London 2012, it's going to be simply incredible. So I didn't play any poker until the weekend, and when I did it wasn't exactly profitable. Friday night I went to the Poker Club and lost £150 on the texas cash game, the one big pot I was involved in was Gateway (KT) on a T high two heart flop all-in against 89hh but he hit a heart on the turn for a £300 pot.

Saturday I woke up at 10am after 2 hours sleep and got picked up by Dave and joined Lewy and Jason as we headed to Nottingham. We made a quick stop in Notts for some cigarettes, petrol and some football bets, then all played the £50 freezeout £10k gtd along with 288 others. My first table was ideal, with everyone able to read the game on a moderate level, which made it easy for me to make them believe what I wanted them to. I had 23k at the break and hadn't lost a pot and had a perfect table image because noone wanted to play a pot against me. I got up to around 30k when I unfortunately got moved. It was not an enjoyable second table. After 5 minutes I texted my friend Keysie "I'm in hell." It was shocking. I would guess that 3 players on my table had not played live poker more than 3 times before, and 7 players hadn't been playing poker for more than 3 months.

A hand happened at 300/600 when someone open shoved for 15k and it was folded to the big blind who had almost the same stack. he thought for a long time, measured out the call, then passed. He shock his head while passing and said, "I should have called that, I had good cards. I had a queen and a ten of the same suit." Incredible. Another guy on the table looked like a nervous wreck every time he made a bet, taking at least 3 minutes to measure out a call every time he was involved, collecting chips one at a time and carefully stacking them, before putting them into the pot. I was seriously considering going for a drink at the bar and blinding out. Still at 300/600 I heard one of the greatest lines of reasoning I'd ever heard while at the poker table. It was limped to the big blind who raised 2,800 more. It was folded to the small blind who asked how much the BB had left and was told 9,725. The SB then said exactly the following out loud:

"Ok so it's 2,800 plus 9,725 to me which is 13,435 in total. I've put 600 in, I have 22k left, average stack is 19k, I'm 60/40 but I need 3-1. If I miss the flop I'll be 70/30 then be pot committed. Hmmm, 13,435 is a lot. If I had less chips it'd be easier but I guess I'm not getting 2-1 so I have to fold in case there is no value. Good bet."

By far the greatest line of reasoning I've heard in a long time. If anyone has a clue what he was on about, please let me know. I'm lucky no-one I knew was on the table as I'm sure I would have burst out laughing. I tightened up and waited for a hand. After a few hours I was on about 60k then lost a flip with 88 vs AK for a 40k pot which left me on about 40k. Blinds by now were 1k/2k/300 and there were about 80 left and average stack was 35k. I had 48k in the BB and the button made it 4.5k. I called with Q9ss and it came K23sss. I checked he bet 6k I made it 15k and he put me all-in. I called and he had As4h. It was a 100k pot and sadly the Ts came straight in on the turn and I was out. Rather annoying really as 1st prize was £4.5k and if I win that pot I probably win the tournament ;)

I lost two buyins on the 5-5 Dealers table, both on annoying hands. One was unavoidable in five card omaha I had 7TAdd on a 5689ddcc turn vs 99TJccc all-in for a £600 pot. Both our hands are obviously huge and the money has to go in. I think I'm about a 60/40 favourite with one card to come, but the river paired 6s. The other hand was six card omaha, with a blind raise to £30. I called and someone re-raised to £90 then the blind raiser went all-in blind and I had to either call for £200 or fold. I had AAK935 double suited and called. I could have easily folded here because you can't really be ahead preflop in 6 card omaha and it would have been gambling with a tiny edge. Since I wasn't going to rebuy again and I had a bigger edge at other games, and seeing flops, I should have folded and waited for a better spot. The board came out 26TK8 and the blind re-raiser found TT and won. Lol good old Bristol ruining my life again. So finished £400 down on cash, then tilted away a bottle at Roulette to end a rather annoying trip to Dusk.

On the way home I was checking some of my football bets, and my £25 acca was looking good, with the first 3 out of 4 having won. The last one was Bristol Rovers at home. "I think they drew," said Jason. Standard I thought, Bristol ruining my life again. But no Boom! They won 3-2 at home to earn me £400 so I finished only about £300 down on the night. It was a quality trip though, I went mainly for the banter, which was well worth it. And at least I had a shot for a nice draw in the tourney.

I slept from 4am till 11pm on sunday catching up on some sleep from the last few nights, and missed all the sunday action, the £100 freezeout at NPC, plus all the online tourneys, so didn't really do much on sunday. Monday I played some PLO cash on VC, I figured given my VIP deal and the fact that I don't want to grind sngs all day, I'd have a look at the cash tables. I played 6 tables of 50/1 PLO 6-max for about 2 hours and won $600. I ran fairly good obviously, but now I will play a much larger sample size and see if it profitable in the long run as I enjoy it and it will result in a large VIP bonus at the end of the month if I can make it work. Also the MiniFTOPS starts in a week, and luckily I have been staked in every event for about $1300. So I'm looking forward to that starting, and am very grateful to my backer. I hope I can win some money and try to defend my title in event 2. That's all the news for now I think. Peace,

Rich x