I’m back!

I’m back !

Well I’m back from my business trip in England – In fact since my last post, I’ve been over there twice and just got back from the second trip. I went to Luton Casino and played in the £75 freezeout and it was pretty cool. The casino is pretty nice and the poker room is well kitted out and very well organised – Since it was quite a high buy-in, there were croupiers dealing and they were all very experienced. The casino is pretty popular amongst UK poker players and there were a couple of pros in the tournament that I recognised from TV…. lol

The structure was good. You started with 5000 chips and the blinds started at 25/50, so you basically had 100xBB, and the blinds went up every 30 minutes, so plenty of time to play deepstack poker.

67 people took part, and the top ten got paid. I finished ….. 16th damn.

A couple of hands worth a mention:

- I had KQo UTG – This is a hand I either fold or raise preflop, never limp. I had played very tight up to this point so decided to open raise to 3x BB. A lot of the more observant players at the players (including one pro !) insta-folded, putting me on a monster I think, but I got 2 flat callers, one from mp, the other from my right in the BB. The flop came J93 rainbow or something like that. The BB checked. I paused as if I was really strong and then slowly checked to make it look like I was trapping. It worked and the other opponent checked behind and I got a free card. The turn came a 7 I think, and everyone checked again. A ten came on the river and I hit my nut straight. BB bet 200 and I raised to 600. Other villain folded, and the action came back to the BB who tanked for ages before making a crying call and I took down the pot.

I now had an image as a rock at the table and decided to use that to my advantage.

About 20 minutes later. I got dealt 23s in ep and I just limped in. I got a min-raise from mp and a the same villain on my right called, which gave me an excellent price to call. The flop came a beautiful 334 rainbow and villain to my right bet 1000. I thought about it for ages (lol) before flat calling and the preflop raiser in mp flat called too. The turn came the case 3 to give me quads, and again guy to my right bet out 1000 chips. I flat called again and the preflop raiser raised all-in at which point I was trying hard to keep a straight face The villain to my right called (thank-you God !) and I came back over the top, which would have put guy to my right all-in if he called. He only had a couple of thousand chips behind, and was getting grreat odds to call, but he now realised he was crushed (and decided to fold, lol). The preflop raiser flipped JJ and I flipped my 23s and took down a big pot with my quad 3’s and quite a bit of respect from the table I think

My final hand I was shortstacked and got dealt AJo in mp. There was a raise from ep, and I was hoping he had a small pair for a a coinflip, so I came back over the top all-in. He called and flipped AQo and his hand held up, and I was eliminated in 16th position.

Online poker

Since I’ve been back, I carried on playing at $50NL. In fact I played a lot of hands at a lot of tables and I rapidly earned a load of VPP’s at Pokerstars and made it to Silverstar status which means I am now earning FPP’s 50% quicker and have access to a load of VIP tournaments plus a few other perks. The downside to playing so much was that I wasn’t playing as well and had a bit of a downswing. It started off by me playing fine, but just being on the wrong side of variance (my sets were running into higher sets, my 2 pair was running into straights, and my KK’s were running into Aces. etc) This caused me to tilt a bit and I infact lost about 6 buy-ins at $50NL ($300 – ouch!) Luckily I was disciplined enough not to try and chase these losses, and I have now moved to $25NL while I rebuild my bankroll and also my confidence a bit too.

Things are turning around, and I have won back about 4-buy-ins at $25NL (about $100) and I intend to stay at $25NL until my bankroll gets back over the $1000 mark again (very very soon hopefully !) I am obviously disappointed about having to drop down again to $25NL, but I’ve discussed this with some other online players and it’s very common to have to take several shots at a higher level before moving up permanently, so at least it’s not just me.

There are too many hands to post since last time, so I won’t bother here, but starting from my next post, I’ll be posting hands again (good or bad), which will hopefully force me into thinking more about my game !!

GL at the tables.

Bankroll: $908