Play the game Martini!

To silence the angry mob, I have written this blog post. I do apologise for this post being essentially a week late, however, (and I do realise some people will struggle to read the following sentence without laughing,) I have been extremely busy.

I'll start with a review of the second week of the miniftops tournaments that I was playing. On the Monday night (15th March) I played in two events, the $22 FLO8 tourn and the $109 NLHE. I went out of the Limit HiLo close to the bubble, after missing a big draw left me short stacked and I couldn't recover. The Holdem tourn was clearly one of the best ftops events, and I was annoyed when I didn't go deep in it. I was largely card dead for the first few levels, and went out on a semi-bluff that did not hit.

Tuesday was a more successful day although again it was ultimately disappointing. The first event was a $33 6-max triple shootout, and I lost heads up on my first table. I was chip leader and was all-in with ATss vs AKo. The flop came KsJs9h before the obvious brick brick, which left him chip leader and his 77 held against my A6dd when I was short and shoved. Two late events were the $55 HORSE and the $22 NLHE. I managed to cash in both but just couldn't win crucial races in the money for big pots. I cashed for $88 in the HORSE losing a huge pot with A246 vs A227 after 4 cards in Razz and catching 3 bricks after raising every street. And the final hand having A2256 after 5 cards in stud hilo vs 899TJ and catching two picture cards. Annoyingly he also didn't improve and scooped the pot with a pair of nines. In the holdem I cashed again but not for much getting $44, again not being able to win a showdown once the bubble had burst. I lost a huge race with AK vs 77 to leave me short. I then shoved the cutoff with Gateway (KT) and the BB had AA, mbn.

On wednesday I played the $33R 6max and had a double rebuy and an addon. I started the freezeout period with above average stack, and played fairly tight for a while. I went out with JJ after a few levels when I called all-in preflop against KK. I took thursday off as the tourns were a $22 Cashout and a $22 Stud, and neither were very good tourneys for me to play. Also, I was a bit fed up of playing long hours online and not being able to run good enough to get a decent draw, and I hoped that a day off would help me play better. On friday I went fairly deep in the $22 6max but once again just couldn't get the cards to do well and finished before the cash.

So the weekend came around, and brought with it the best ftops events. Saturday was the $266 6-max 2-day event, the $11R PLO and the $53 super turbo. I had been looking forward to the 2-day event for a long time as it was a brilliant tournament, being very deep stacked and very slow. I reraised someone in level 3 or 4 with the suited Back and Forth (T7) and got called. The flop had come Q77. I managed to take someone's entire stack over three streets of betting when they coudln't fold JJ. So I had an early double up. However instead of playing tight, given that my table had seen my reraise preflop with the Back and Forth, I continued to play aggressively and got no respect. I made a series of unsuccessful bluffs and stubborn attempts to win pots that I should have given up on, and gradually lost my chips. When I went out I was more mad at myself than I had been for a long time after exiting a poker tourney. I felt that I could have played better. In the PLO my table was extremely loose in the rebuy period, which I suppose is a good thing but I was very unlucky, twice getting rivered for 10k pots. So at the break I found myself with 6k having had numerous rebuys and an addon. Early after the break I went out when I missed a heart flush draw in a 3-way 20k pot against two others, neither of whom had a single heart in their hand. In the 300 chip super turbo I doubled up early with KK and had a red pro on my table. I annoyingly lost a race to the pro for a $50 bounty and a decent stack, and went out soon after.

Sunday brought about the Main Event, as well as a $26 6-max knockout and a $22 PLO HU Shootout. In the knockout I started well and managed to get above 10k. As the blinds increased I stayed fairly level and got to the mid stages with average stack. I ended up going out on a bluff raising all-in on a T67 flop only to be snapped by the BB who had called my preflop raise with 89. My KJ somehow missed despite the Q on the turn. In the Heads-up Omaha shootout I beat my first two players quite comfortably, both of them being easy to outplay and too passive postflop. In the bubble round I got a better player, but soon got a 3-1 chiplead with the deck in my favour. Then I had him all-in with AQJhh on a KT8hh flop and somehow caught brick brick to double him up to even stacked. The deck continued in his favour and he eventually beat me with a flopped set against my two pair. A very frustrating tournament indeed.

In the $55 Main Event I really wanted to do well to end the series on a high. I got my initial stack of 7,500 up to 12k after getting paid with a flush and winning some smaller pots. It was about an hour and a half into the tournament when someone raised to 650 and I called on the button with ATdd as did the SB. The flop was 67Tr and the SB instanty bet pot for 2250 which the raiser flat called. There was 7k in the pot and I figured given the action that there was a good chance I had the best hand, so I shoved for my 12k. The SB reshoved for his 14k and the raiser passed. He had 78 for second pair and a gutshot. The turn 7 left me dead to two outs which didn't come in and I was very annoyed to go out in a nearly 30k pot to a 9 outer.

In general, the second week of the series did not go well. It was a very frustrating week and it seemed that every time I tried to bluff I would walk into the nuts, and every time I had a good hand I would get outdrawn or lose a flip. In total I played in 24 events with buyins of $1350 and cashed in 5 of them for a total of $625. Obviously my best chances to do well were in event 3 and the event 3 overflow, when I couldn't dodge outdraws in crucial pots.

Outside of the ftops I have been running much better, and it is a shame that I couldn't get the luck during the ftops when some big money was up for grabs. I played the Big Doubles on monday night (15th March) simply because I was railing a friend of mine at the time in ftops #12, and wanted to play something in the background. I came 3rd in one of them for $1,500 when three handed I lost AKs all-in preflop vs JJ to be chip leader heads up. However I was lucky earlier in the tournament so I was very happy with the result. On Sunday I also had a serious nipup when a friend of mine who I had 5% of made the final table of the 2-day miniftops event. He tragically lost a huge pot to put him second in chips five handed when all-in preflop his KK couldnt hold against A9o. The villain stayed in and doubled up and my friend finished 6th for $20k after losing all-in pre with AJ vs Bristol. At least that hand doesn't ruin my life that much!!!!

Since the ftops finished I started playing more live cash at Norwich Poker Club, and more online cash on VC. Throughout the week I won on VC playing 6 tables of 50c/$1 PLO 6max cash, I've had 8 winning days in a row online now for a profit of around $1.6k. Also I played 50p/£1 cash at Norwich Poker Club on Tuesday, Friday and Saturday and won on each of those visits for a total profit of £2,100. On Sunday I played in about $600 worth of tournaments, including the Sunday Million and the FullTilt $750k, but didn't cash in either of those. I did cash in the Daily $80k for $150, went deep in the $11 1/4 Million for $100 and went very deep in the $5R $40k gtd, but finished 40th out of 5000 for $150 also. So I finished slightly down on the night.

As well as the poker, I am still playing in the local table tennis league and playing badminton three times a week. I'm probably not going to play too much poker this week as it is Easter which is an important time for myself and my family, and because next week I am going to Birmingham with some good friends for the student poker championships. Also, come the weekend I am going to stay in the area and play the three-day £550 UKIPT Coventry. I expect it will attract around 500 runners and a first prize of around £60k. I'm not going through the hassle and bother of selling action again I'm perfectly happy to have it all. However, if any of my friends reading this would like any share at face value then that is fine, just text me.

Although I realise that for many of you the lack of a blog post last week meant great levels of depression and anger, I do hope you can accept my apology for such a grave wrongdoing and I will endeavour to ensure that this never happens again.

Peace,

Rich x