One new year resolution I made was to try and get myself onto the Ladbrokes Poker Cruise (see http://poker.ladbrokes.com/pokercruise/en/ for details) this year (or onto TV event again)
To this end, I loaded my Ladbroke account with £30 and entered the $5 daily final satellites. With 3 minute blinds and rebuys for 30 mins, you couldn't hang about and the action was fast and furious. It was certainly a lottery rather than a game of poker after the first couple of levels, but I did OK until it got to the point where you were going all in or folding. I ended up 12th from 25 (top 4 went through to daily final) I had another go, but got fed up with the randomness of the poker playing, especially when I lost my all in bet, so didn't bother to rebuy and ended up 22nd from 24 this time.
It seemed to me that earning enough money to enter the Daily Final directly would be a better way forward, although at $66 plus one $25 rebuy and one $25 rebuy, it is not cheap ! I decided to go for the $22 five seat STT to earn enough money and started off very frustratingly with 3 second places, before crashing out early in the next game. With the Daily Final almost upon me, I had to go for the 10 seater hoping to win enough cash, but ended up 5th and only $8 in the account.
This time round I wasn't lucky enough to get in, but will have another go at getting into the Daily Final. My strategy is to play two daily finals and hope to get into the Weekly Final where 1 in 10 players will win a cruise ticket. I think that will be enough to show that I am not lucky enough to get in this year and move onto something else instead.
Will update progress after my next attempt.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Poker: Home Tourney : Jan 07 Flying start to the season
What a great start to the new season, it started out with a "new term" feel with everyone pleased to be back at the tables :-) but soon settled down to a familiar pattern of wild and wacky play with plenty of rebuys ;-)
For me, the game started great with the first hand seeing me all in with two other players and taking down the pot with the best hand. Little later on I got another goo flop on good starting hand and managed to get up to around 5000 chips fairly early on and was able to maintain this level of chips past the cut off break. As players dropped out, I ended up having to move tables and my chips started to dwindle. Couple of good starting hands turned to dust on the flop and wasn't taking huge risks against the White brothers still left in ! In the end, my AJ was looking in trouble when two players called my all in push, and although picked up a nut flush draw on the turn, the river was blank to see me out in fifth place. Because of my early win, I had the luxury of being able to play my normal solid style throughout the game but in the end it was not enough to get into the money, although obviously picked up decent number of points towards the season tally. Only spent couple of quid as well :-)
Other players I noticed in particular was Rogers good play. He didn't seem to get many good hands, until his AQ flopped a full house ! Andy was pot committed and Bill had hit trips, so Roger tripled up and that set him up to get well into the final table. Steve also seemed to be having a mare of a night and was looking for the record number of rebuys, until his fortune changed by winning a large pot unexpectedly just before I moved tables. This run of good cards and good poker skills (backed up by his new found lucky mascot !!) took him to a deserved maiden victory. Ant was playing very aggressively and kept trying to persuade everyone he didn't know what he was doing and making people fold hands by telling them he was going to fold (which was a binding statement :-) ) Whatever he was doing was working as it took him to a good 2nd place.
Please feel free to update this blog entry with your own views and comments about the game
For me, the game started great with the first hand seeing me all in with two other players and taking down the pot with the best hand. Little later on I got another goo flop on good starting hand and managed to get up to around 5000 chips fairly early on and was able to maintain this level of chips past the cut off break. As players dropped out, I ended up having to move tables and my chips started to dwindle. Couple of good starting hands turned to dust on the flop and wasn't taking huge risks against the White brothers still left in ! In the end, my AJ was looking in trouble when two players called my all in push, and although picked up a nut flush draw on the turn, the river was blank to see me out in fifth place. Because of my early win, I had the luxury of being able to play my normal solid style throughout the game but in the end it was not enough to get into the money, although obviously picked up decent number of points towards the season tally. Only spent couple of quid as well :-)
Other players I noticed in particular was Rogers good play. He didn't seem to get many good hands, until his AQ flopped a full house ! Andy was pot committed and Bill had hit trips, so Roger tripled up and that set him up to get well into the final table. Steve also seemed to be having a mare of a night and was looking for the record number of rebuys, until his fortune changed by winning a large pot unexpectedly just before I moved tables. This run of good cards and good poker skills (backed up by his new found lucky mascot !!) took him to a deserved maiden victory. Ant was playing very aggressively and kept trying to persuade everyone he didn't know what he was doing and making people fold hands by telling them he was going to fold (which was a binding statement :-) ) Whatever he was doing was working as it took him to a good 2nd place.
Please feel free to update this blog entry with your own views and comments about the game
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