October is best described by the title really. Online was not much of a success at all. I started the month with a $6k bankroll and by the end I had $8.9k but $2k of this I had deposited from winnings in a 1/2 and 2/5 cash games in Las Vegas. I had brought money out of my roll to play over there so felt it was only right that I put it back online again. I didn't put my Killarney win back into my poker account, basically funded some of my holiday with that and lived it up a bit more than I would have had I not have won.
Online I won about $30 playing about 13k hands or so which is the lowest amount I have gotten in this year yet. Results wise I done ok at 200nl and not so well at 400nl. I think I played well enough at both I think, I made some high variance plays at 400nl that I probably should have avoided considering I was taking a shot at it. Making some plays like 5b shoving 89s and TJo against light 4 betters didn't work out to well when I got called by AT and AQ even though I had a nitty image.
I've been playing more HU last month again. Some of the results aren't in the graph as I played some on my brothers laptop and FTP didn't save the hand historys for some reason but the results are good which is the main thing. I really like playing it, especially if I can get 2 tables going against the same person. It makes for some interesting spots depending on what hand is going on on 1 table and what's happening on the other and create some good dynamics. In general 100nl HU is very soft on any site I played it on. I will try and take a few shots at 200nl when the bankroll gets bigger. 60+ buyins would be what I would like for 200nl HU as the variance is so much higher. The annoying thing about it is that its quite hard to get games if there are no fish around. The so called "regs" don't want to play you if you are any way good at all. So many times I've sat down to play, the "reg" is basically hoping I'm some fish but after 20 hands or so types in "gg" and leaves.
So October is over and we are in November already, things have started of well this month and hopefully they will continue like that. My goal when I started this blog was to have a $20k roll at the start of 2009, that is never going to happen now, as I type this it stands at 10.5k, I have taken out more money that I would have liked so if I had not of withdrawn I would have about 16k which would probably have seen me with the 20k roll but hey you got to treat yourself every now and again as well. I'm getting closer to clearing my IO ticket, I'm about 73% of the way there now. Another 12k hands at 200nl should see my clear it so hopefully I will have that done by the end of the month. I guess the new goal for January would be to have 400nl as my regular 6max game and 200nl as my regular HU game.
Graph for October attached below, ran a little bad to be fair, low green line shows what I should have won if there was no "luck" in poker but hey thats poker :)
Killarney Trip Report I'll start at Killarney, I went down to play the Ladbrokes €550 game there a couple of weeks ago. I had bought in myself after trying 1 online satellite with no success. It was the biggest tournament that I have ever bought into before. My father bought 10% in me for the fun and I usually do well in any games that he has a small stake in me so it was a good luck omen as well which did work.
So I got down there on the Friday after driving down from Dublin, I was feeling a bit wrecked when I got down there so by the end of the night I was really just waiting for the clock to finish on Day 1. I was never used to playing for such a long time in a poker game and it was pretty tiring both mentally and physically. I was lucky enough on my first table down there, it was a soft enough table and not 1 person was really playing back at me at all. I was liberally raising every pot I entered and throwing in a few 3b with air as well which were quite successful, especially one with 8d4d which made a straight on a 8765 board where I won a decent sized pot.
My second day was a hell of a lot tougher where I encountered several good players over the course of the day including last year’s winner and also this year’s winner. I came into the day with 3 times the average chip stack and finished the day just below average. I had quite a few interesting hands over the course of the day but I had tightened up considerably since the day before as my antics from the previous day just would not fly on these tables. I probably was too tight around the bubble but I actually really wanted to go home with at least €1k considering I had bought in myself.
My third day was a real non starter, I think 39 players or so made it back and I ended up coming in 29th, the very first hand I made a push with Q4o in the CO after it was folded to me and I got the button to fold AQ which was a good result, 2 hands later I pushed again with KQo and got through which was brought me up to just over the average stack. After that I really saw no cards at all, I seen ATo when I was UTG but I folded it as I only had 11bb so it was basically push or fold for me. My main demise was when I pushed the button with Q6s to run into a smaller stacks TT, first card out was a Q but 2 more Ts really crushed me!. Very next hand I had 3.5bb left and I had A6o and I pushed only to run into TT again which only made a set this time!
So that was a brief report on Killarney, it was a great tournament, really well run with a good blind structure, even though it did turn into a bit of a crapshoot for me at the end but that’s the way these things go I guess. It was my biggest tournament cash to date which I was happy with, would have loved to have got near the real money but it wasn't to be. I did get a Hendon Mob profile though so I can now consider myself a true poker great!! :)
Las Vegas Trip Report I was on holidays last week in the US, I flew out to San Fran last Saturday for 3 days before I my stay in Las Vegas. This was my second time in Las Vegas, was there on a J1 a couple of years ago when I was pure broke. This time I had some money with me so it was going to a different story. I had booked into the MGM Signature which is a complex of to the side of the MGM hotel and casino. It was just a stunning hotel which really was above my expectations. I booked a suite which had a fully fitted kitchen (which I never used!) and a living room with HD LCD and then the bedroom with another LCD and even one in the bathroom as well which was the size of my bedroom at home.
I had booked a helicopter trip to the Canyon before we went out, my girlfriend, my friend John and his girlfriend Ciara all went out in what was just an amazing experience. I had never been in a helicopter before so that was an experience in itself, but it was so cool to fly over the Hoover damn, Lake Mead and then finally fly through the middle of the Canyon and land at the bottom of it and have a champagne picnic at the bottom. We flew back into the Sunset on our way back to Las Vegas for another night out on the beer.
The next day we had booked tickets to see Cirque du Soleil in the Bellagio. We went to see "O" which really is an amazing show for anyone to go and see. It is basically several gymnasts doing acrobatics over a swimming pool which will leave you in awe the entire show. We had great seats up near the front of the theatre, there was so much going on, at times it was hard to know what to focus on.
I played a few hours of poker while I was over there. I had put some of my online roll onto my credit card so I could play some while out there but in the end only played 2 days while there for about 4-5 hours in total which is very little for live poker. I ran pretty well while over there, the first day I played some 1/2NL in the MGM while the standard was just shocking and I got paid off pretty easy by bottom pair and the like. The second day I played a bit in the $2/$5NL game in the MGM. The standard was a small bit better but more comparable to 25c/50cNL online. I ran really well in this game getting paid of for pots over 1.2k with both AK and AA, I finished up this session with $1.9k on the table from a starting stack of $500 which would go down in my top 5 best poker sesisons ever which was sweet.
I played a little blackjack over there as well in which I done ok in, I don't know much about this game so I was definitely a fish as far as the Bellagio and the Venetian were concerned. I won about $100 or so playing this and another $250 playing roulette. I only played roulette when drunk. Me and John both decided to put down $50 each on black for one spin while we were on the way to a club. We won and it bought a few drinks. Next night I took one $50 spin on black again and won, following night me and John gave it another go while enroute to Ghostbar in the Palms, out luck was lasting and again we won.
On my final night I went for a meal in Craftsteak with my girlfriend. I had decided before I went over that I wanted to have a Kobi steak while I was in Vegas. This restaurant specialized in steaks so it seemed to be the place to get it. Before I went out I had said I was going to spend no more than $200 on a piece of meat but I seen the "8 oz Japanese wagyu beef grade 12 A5 filet mignon all the way from Kagoshima in Japan" I had to try it out, $240 of the finest steak I have ever had. It really was just a melt in your mouth steak, so tender and juicy and delicious flavors helped by the sauce that it was sitting on. I would recommend anyone to try on of these once.
On the last day I missed my flight from Vegas to San Fran and was in great danger of missing my flight from San Fran to Dublin which would have been a real disaster. I slept in to 9:30am when my flight had departed at 9:28am!! We rushed to the airport hoping to catch another flight ASAP but the next one was not until 12:10pm while out flight back to Ireland was at 2:35pm. In fairness to US airways they done every single thing the could have to make sure we made our connection back home. They put our luggage through from one plane to the other which was a huge help, gave us seats at the front of the plane and asked the other passengers to wait for us while we departed the plane first at San Fran and didn't even charge us for the flight!! We rushed through the terminals at San Fran, running to the Aer Lingus checkout desk to print of out boarding passes so we could get through security and make our flight home. We eventually did, I was really thinking that my poker winnings were going to have to go on a flight back to Ireland as I am pretty sure Aer Lingus would not waive the costs of the flight these days.
Online Poker Update
Poker has been going really well this month, I had a short session at 2/4 last night which was good to get back into it. I have spread my bankroll over a 4 sites while I try to look for the best games going. My Irish Open ticket is about 59.6% done at the moment so hopefully I can get it close to 75% by the end of the month. I have only played about 6k hands online this month so far but have been doing pretty well, about $3k in winnings which is nice and total winnings of the month from live and online are about $7k, so hopefully I am on course for my best month ever.
That’s it for now, hopefully I will get another update of how online is going at the end of the month with a better recap on online poker.
Today was the biggest losing day I've ever had in poker. I lost $2.3k at 200nl which is pretty tough going. To be fair I can't go and say I got unlucky in ever hand and got it in as a favourite all the time. I was only down about $700 in EV so there is about $1600 that I have to take into account. I did have a lot of 3b and 4b pots where I stacked off with houses, sets, top pair only to lose to quads, flushes and a lot of sets.
I probably forced myself into playing as I wanted to get this bonus cleared asap so I can move off ipoker once again. I was 12 tabling today and ended up getting in 5k hands which is the only good thing that I can take out of today. I now have 35% of an Irish Open ticket so just need to keep grinding away and hopefully do it without losing. I am still up about $1k for the month so its not to bad.
I've been trying to organise things for my trip to San Fran and Vegas. Got my hotel in San Fran booked, its in Union Sq. which is in the centre of the city so its in a great location. I plan to book the helicopter trip to the Canyon this week and also book a show. Looking like "O" is the one that we will go see.
I also bought into the Killarney game which is on in 2 weeks time. Cost me $775 to do so, After today this stands at around 10% of my roll which is probably not a great idea but its a one of thing so I will let it slide this time. I guees to be fair when I bought it my roll was over the $10k mark but today its considerably less.
Couldn't be bothered putting up any graphs or stats as they are just tilting to look at, as glorious and all that they are. So thats it, just a quick update really of whats happened in the last week. Until next time.
I changed jobs there about a week ago. I'm still with the same company as I was before hand but now I am working in an office out in Dundrum and travelling from Blanchardstown everyday which is proving to be a real pain in the ass. I used to work as a field engineer for a mobile phone network before this and things were a bit handier to say the least which allowed me a lot more time for playing poker and reading about it etc.
Now I have to leave the house everyday at 7:30am and try get to work for 8:30am, not easy some days with the traffic going into Dundrum off the M50 does be really bad some mornings. I have been trying a few different routes from going in through the city centre and exiting the M50 at Tallaght but all my efforts have been been in vain, with the time always being around the 60mins. Luckily in the evening its not quite as bad, usually around 45mins with the new barrier M50 helping a lot. So this means I don't get home now until around 6pm which really messes up my evenings poker meaning a lot of evenings I don't have time or am less bothered in playing because I am tired or whatever.
Before hand I used to be able to play in the afternoons if things were quiet at work and I could get my session done nice and early or perhaps read 2+2 or watch a few Cardrunners videos. Basically a long story short my time for poker is a lot lot shorter now and will continue like that for the forseeable future.
So far this month I've gotten about 9k hands of 100nl and 1.5k hands of 200nl. 100nl has been really frustrating for me to play on Ipoker. I'm finding it tough to adjust to all the passive NITs, I'm break even over those hands at 100nl and I think I'm playing pretty well but running pretty poor to be honest. I've has set over sets a couple of times and the usual AK and KK into better hands all in pre flop. But what I wanted to take out of this was a confidence boost. A lot of sessions I played I went into the red at the very start so often and often found myself down 4-6BI after 10 minutes. The only good thing about this is that I put in longer sessions when this happens which is good as I need to accumulate as many points as I can so I can win my Irish Open seat.
Right now my bankroll is about $8.2k so from now on I am going to play 200nl as I really can't be bothered with 100nl anymore. Last Sunday Betdaq had a €100k freeroll were I got a free ticket for it. I wasn't able to play it so I ended up getting blinded out but took about $410 from it so was pretty happy with that. My poker coach is off on some trip at the minute so he won't be able to coach me now for a while. I may look into getting another coach but hav't thought to much about this yet.
I really really want to play this tournament in Killarney. I've the Friday booked of work now so I just need to qualify for this or have a good month and possibly buy into it. I was going to play a JP poker satellite on Friday night but went out on the beer instead, which resulted in me being in poor shape on Saturday and played no poker at all on Saturday or on Friday. So I will really try and play the next satellite he has and then one on Ladbrokes if I've no luck in that one.
Above are the stats so far for the month. I was playing pretty loose and aggro at 100nl and calmed down a bit when I started playing 200nl I've been happy with my postflop play, picking out the bad spots to c-bet more often and winning my fair share of pots. As usual my biggest strength in poker is taking down pots that nobody wants and putting lots of pressure on players. This can be seen in the graph below where the red line indicates pots I have been taking down without getting showndown.
I took a week off from poker after not really taking any sort of break for quite a while now. I've moved down levels now probably 9/10 times now since the start of the year and twice I've dropped down 2 levels in a short space of time. Thankfully this doesn't bother me too much, obviously I would rather have move up all the time but using good bankroll management is probably what I have done best this year since playing. I've never played with less than 15 buyins this year and 95% of the time never less than 20BI. At the minute I am well enough rolled for 200nl but I really want to get some confidence back again, so to do that I'm going to play 10k hands or so at 100nl and LAG it up for a while and try to get some confidence back into my game again.
I have started to play on ipoker again and to be honest I really am hating that god damn site. I'm playing on it because I want to clear a bonus that will give me an Irish Open ticket. I need to generate 100k points which I should be able to do in around 50k hands at 200nl which is where I hope to be clearing them but I would imagine it would take around 70k hands at 100nl. I've got 7.5% of it done so far after 3k hands at 100nl and 1.5k hands at 200nl. The Irish Open ticket is worth about €3.5k and is an event I would absoulety love to play in. I went out there last year for a while to watch it and there was a great atmosphere there with some really big name players there.
So far this month I've played nearly all 100nl and I am not enjoying it at all. The software is really bad on ipoker and my tables overlap even on a HD moniter. The 100nl games are as tight preflop as 400nl on Everest are which I thought were pretty tight but at 400nl its normal enough. There are so many 14/12 regulars at ipoker and quite a lot of 25/4 types as well. Then there are all the shortstackers who are the bain of a lot of players lives. I am having trouble adjusting to the non aggressive nature of 100nl. Very few players are 3b/4b light at all which is just something I am going to have to adjust my game too.
Hopefully next week or when I put up a new post I will be getting ready to move back up to 200nl for about the 5th time!!!
August started of great for me at 400nl but ended badly to say the least. I got off to a great start at 400nl, I was running well and just not getting into any bad spots at all. Poker was going so easy, when I had a hand I got paid off and I was also able to lay down hands as well. Then something happened around the 13th August were every single big pot I was in was a pure nightmare, the most common theme was people playing badly against me and me paying them off all the time. Most of these are just coolers and I have to learn to accept them so once again a good learning month poker wise. At the end of the month I finished down $1650 across 200nl and 400nl with me losing around $6.5k in the last 12 days or so. I also had a few tilty sessions and there was several days were I lost over $1k but again this is nothing really to worry about when a buyin is 400nl.
The bankroll once stood at $15.5k during August but due to me cashing out $2k to buy an amazing 46" LCD and losing $6.5k its back down to around $7k. This isn't the end of the world by any means but is a big blow in my aspirations to have a $20k bankroll by the end of the year. In fact only about 2 weeks ago when I was ruling 400nl over a short sample I was thinking I'm going to be playing 1kNL by the years end. Dreams can fade fast sometimes.
The plan now is not to play any more poker until at least September and hopefully I can come back with a new self confidence in my game. When I start back into I think I will play 100nl for 10k hands or so and try to rebuild from there. I'm still rolled ok for 200nl but I think it would be no harm to play some 100nl for a while again. I'm also going to be 24 tomorrow, nothing much planned, will go out for a meal with the girlfriend and will most likely go back home to Donegal for the weekend. My trip to San Fran and Vegas is getting closer with it only being about 6 weeks away now so really really looking forward to that. I still have to book an hotel for San Fran, hopefully I'll sort something out there in the next week or so. I usually don't get all the excited by holidays but I really am looking forward to this one.
As usual I have my monthly graph above, pretty grim reading. Back in September.
