Through to Day 2

I made it through to day 2, absoulety horrible stuff for the last 7 hours of play. I had the softest starting table ever and left it with 62k. I then get moved to a new table and I have Elky 2 places to my left (for those who don't know him he's this guy) and to be honest I was scared ****less of him the whole day, he just didnt seem to make a mistake the whole time at the table and chipped his way up to 120k by opening every other pot and not getting involved in any big hands. Pretty class act, and of course my dumb self tried to bluff him with 3 barrells. Hand went like this:

I'm at the table about 45mins or so and havn't had to show down a hand yet, I've got about 60k and Elky covers, so loose enough player who is starting to get a bit drunk limps in in MP, I isolate him with A7o OTB to 1100 with the blinds at 150/300, elky calls from the BB, which he has been defending quite a lot too, MP also calls. So flop comes KK9 rainbow and both players check, I bet 1700 and elky calls and MP folds. Turn is a 6c which puts 2 clubs on board. Elky checks again. I bet 3.5k and he calls again. River is a blank and I fire the third barrell for 7.5k I think. He thinks for 1-2mins and calls with AcQc. So after this hand I am in bits and quite annoyed, don't play a hand for ages because I am so card dead and also a bit tilty.

My stack dwindles down to about 33k or so and I get it back up to 52k again before the last break. After we come back, I make a bad call in a 15k pot and lose more momtemum, I play maybe 3 more hands after this were I cbet and am raised or I call and don't hit the flop and give up. Table was very very aggressive with there always been a raise and plenty of 3betting also with a few shortstacks who were shoving over raises and stuff. So after the blinds go through me a few times and just missing flops I finish the day on 22,175 chips. Was just glad to make the 2nd day tbh and get a new table draw. That table was easily the toughest tournament table I ever had to play on and was just delighted to get away from it with some chips. Easily the most frustrating day I've had in poker for a while. Also its pretty true that when you can't spot the fish at the table then you are the fish!!

Will be great to have today off now and I can relax and hopefully the jetlag will have left me by the time tomorrow comes around. Going to take it really easy today and definetly not playing any poker, was pretty sick of it after 10 hours of playing yesterday. Going to go to the Vegas Shopping Mall, then hit the pool/man made beach. Will probably go for some nice food then and afterwards catch a show somewhere.

Landed

Landed in Vegas yesterday, feeling a bit worse for wear at the momemt. Trying to get used to the time difference so stayed up until 5am Vegas time and got 6 hours sleep last night. Going to go shopping today now with Annette just to relax and try not think about poker or that too much.

Went down to the main even yesterday just for a look. Place looks amazing with all the lights and 1k players playing. The sound of people playing with chips is unreal, seen a few of the pros playing. Met up with a few Irish lads last night and went to one of the nightclubs in the Bellagio. Put $50 on black in the Rio before we went and of course we all hit. Had $25 on 27 as well as thats my birthday but 29 came up!! So we went to the Bellagio after this and I went to the ATM as I had no money yet. Went to bring out $2k and the ATM is charging me $55 so fuck that. The other lads are at the roulette table and of course I miss it because the ATM is trying to screw me and what do you know but 27 comes up twice in a row just as I am missing, just my luck!!

Went to "the bank" night club, Annette says its some famous place that people from the Hills go to but wasn't that great to be honest. Place is just a rip off. Cost $40 to get in and the was $15 per drink, pretty expensive for a night out!

Of out for the day now so will update tomorrow

June and Vegas

June is just over and it was probably my best month ever in poker. I won 2 satellites for tournaments in Vegas with one being the World Series of Poker. I have everything sorted for that now. I am registered for the main event, I just need to turn up on the day and show them ID and I get my seat number and I am ready to go. I got an email from the WSOP saying that I was registered and they also said that I could unregister if I wanted and pick up $10k instead!!

This was incredibly tempting for me and I was seriously considering taking it but ever since I started playing poker or watching it on TV all I wanted to do was play in that tournament. So now that I had the chance to play in it then I couldn't really turn it down. It's like the World Cup of poker with all the top poker players from all over the world meeting up in Vegas for the biggest poker tournament of the year. I guess it was the appeal of this that attracted me so much. It's not like there is many other sports in the world were you can actually play with superstars in their field. It would be like turning down the chance to play against Man Utd or Barcelona in the Champions League final.

I am heading off in the morning on a 6:40 flight to London and then a direct flight to Vegas, pity I hate flying but what can you do!! 4 flights in a week will probably scare the bejesus out of me but hopefully it will be worth it in the end. I will arrive in Vegas at 2:10pm (Vegas time) on Saturday and will probably just try and relax that evening and not do much, the following day I have off and will probably use it to go shopping or something not to stressfull. I don't intend to play any poker anyway!! The Monday is the day I am registered to start the event (Day 1D), there are 4 starting days for this as there will be 6-8k players in this tournament. Everyone seems to say that day 1D is the toughest due to more pros playing that day, but I think if I played the Sunday I would be to wrecked from travelling all day the previous day and the 8 hour time difference will have me in bits.

Regardless of wether I get through Day 1D or not I will have the Tuedsay off with more play then on Wednesday if I get through. Then on the Thursday is another break in the tournament were I am set to play in another small tournament that will have only 27 players with 6 WSOP packages for 2010 on offer and also $20k for the winner. I hope to do well in this, seems a bit more achievable.

Cash games in June went poor enough, hardly got to play at all and any time I did play I was probably too tired to be playing and thus ended up losing about $1k this month. I guess thats what happens when you work 99hours of overtime in 1 month!! Plus I said last month that I hadn't had a losing month in 7 months so I was due one at this stage I guess.

Thats it for now, I might bring my laptop with me to Vegas if I can get the screen to work again and keep this updated with how Vegas is going for me.

Run good continues

Had a really good week online and barely played at all!!! I qualified for another tournament in Vegas, it's a 21 person tournament were there will also be 6 pros/celebs, each of them has a bounty on their head worth a package to next years WSOP and $20k for the winner. Not many other details on it yet but should be fun. I booked my flights to Vegas, pretty dear at €809 and they are getting more and more expensive by the hour it seems.

I also just won the boards.ie Serie BA HU league were I won 10 from 13 and took the title with a nice bonus of $2014. Also played about 3k hands online and done well there too winning about $1k so a decent week and right in time for Vegas as well which suits nicely. Will boost my bankroll a bit if I want to play some cash games over there or buy into any tournaments.

Not much else to report on, still unreal busy at work, put in a 6am - 12.30 greuling day last Thursday were I was so wrecked I had to book an hotel for the night as I was too tired to drive home which was an excellent decision.

Also, many thanks to all the comments left, really appreciated. Nice to know people read it now and again. :)

Going to Vegas

Just won my $13k all expenses paid package to Vegas for the World Series of Poker

WSOP satellite night

I am registered for 3 WSOP satellites tonight. One on Everest, Ipoker and PokerStars. The really annoying thing is that they are all on at different times. Would suit me much better if they were on at the same time but they start at 6pm, 8pm and 9.30m respectively. I satellited into the $535 ipoker one, spun up $83 on my Everest account for the $503 buying and I bought directly into the $370 buyin for the PokerStars one. Satellites are by no means something I am good at but like every fish I may as well give it a try and hope to get lucky.

I have been trying some PLO at 50nl but it seems I am just as terrible at it. Played 200 hands today and just never won a hand and of course anytime I flop the nuts I get outdrawn in the sickest ways possible. But I am still going to keep trying at it. I have $1k set aside to get better at it with an account that has rakeback and a %600 sign up bonus so will just try keep trying to improve.

Thats it for now, bit of work to do shortly but then I will be back on this evening trying to luckbox a WSOP ticket, laters.....

Back at it

So after my last post I took a break for around 10 days which was refreshing. By the end of it I was looking forward to playing again. Breaks from poker are good as it can become quite consuming at times and after the last session I had it was definetly time to take a break from it. The month ended up respectable at the end of it but still not anywhere near were I want to be to cover my withdrawels each month. By the middle of May I was well on track to my best month ever but I had 2-3 very tilting session were I had 3 days of between $1.2k and $1.7k loses which were mostly from tilt and playing terribly.

I used to have this problem quite bad last year also but I managed to overcome it by quiting early on, for some reason I havn't being able to do that this month and will have to work on it. Someone said to me that you should just quit when you have made an amount that you are happy with but this amount is hard to define and also not a good idea to quit if you are playing well and the games are good. Quiting when playing bad and when the games are bad is a must though. There is no point in being down $1k and lets say your hourly rate is $50/hr and trying to grind back your $1k, in reality this should take you 20 hours to get back so whats the point in playing that extra one hour. I think at HU games this doesn't apply as much as you can be playing some guy who just ran really hot and is sitting there with your money. It's impossible and unwise to leave quit this guy if you are can let the loses unaffect you as you know that this guy is just in for a gamble and is going to donate all your money to some regular who you never have a hope of getting it back again.

So the results for the month are fair, I'm on a good streak of winning months at the moment with 7 winning months in a row now with an avergae hourly of $35 plus all the bonuses and rakeback which would probably bring it closer to $50. Graph and stats for the month are below, I had taken some shots at higher stakes when the games were good and my bankroll was about double what it currently is now due to withdrawing.




Also one last thing I am now top of the Boylesports HU league with 2 games to go, I think 3rd spot is guaranteed for me now, but really want to go on an win it. Hopefully I don't jinx myself now as its just over $2k for the win. One time!!!