Poker: Live tournament–Reading 18th Nov 2010

Here’s a 10 minute video report on the Poker Tournament I played in last Thursday

Hope you enjoy the experience

General: first test of publishing a video

Decided to try out creating and publishing a video.  This is my first test, so decided to test out the embedded link as well  

OK Cool – it works !

I created the original video in CamStudio 2.0 then edited it in Windows Live Movie Maker 2011 (as I’m using Windows 7)  I also used Audacity 1.3 Beta  although in the final edit I just added some music and deleted the original video, so just left with a picture and a couple of bits added by Live Music Maker

All in all, it didn’t cost me a penny and have now got the tools sorted out to do some proper video, etc now (hopefully I’ll get some ideas and some time!)

Poker : Home tourney–November 2010

I was happy to be playing live tournament again, it certainly has a different feel to playing online and is a nice change !

With Andy and Sean on my table they were seeing a lot of flops, which seemed to encourage Lee and Steve W to limp as well.  I tended to pick my spots a little more but often was worth seeing a flop with two connected cards.   My luck came when I managed to persuade Andy I had best hand with K-9 on a A-9-x flop.  I was certain he didn’t have the A and seemed to be in his normal mood to chase draws, but my all-in on the river saw him manage to find a fold !   a few hands later and Steve raised it up before me, so I re-raised my A-A and was delighted to see Steve call.  The flop was inconsequential so I launched all-in and Steve called with his 7-7   No help came so I was a good chip leader on our table.  

Sadly for me, this meant I was a little over average chips, as the other table included Bill who seemed to be making up for the previously missed games and was “stoking the pot” more than normal !

I played pretty solidly after that, making a few stabs at the pot here and there.  On the break I was again just over average and about even in chips with Steve on my table

It was inevitable that Bill was first to fall and just as predictable that Andy and Sean got each other all-in, with Andy being the victor this time, talking out Sean.   It seemed to come round quick but we were soon on the final table

Derek had amassed a huge chip lead on the other table, with Jon and Jock both very short stacked against the increasing blinds

A few hands in and Jock was all-in against Steve, but couldn’t hold on and got taken out.   Jon soon followed when my A-Qo hit an A-x-x flop.   Karen had seen the flop with her K-K but found the fold to my Check/raise

Steve’s form and aggression  has picked up in the last few games (must be coz of the practise he’s getting on BBP ) and was able to stand up to Andy’s all-in.  Andy had limped K-K but Steve hit the flop well and took him out !

Soon after, Lee made a brave attempt to bluff Derek off a huge pot on the river, but sadly Derek had the hand to withstand the attempt and Lee went out in 5th

With only 4 players my A-J on the SB looked in good shape when two players folded, so raised it up against Derek in the BB.   He called and we saw a Q-6-3 flop.   I did wonder if he’d hit the Q but felt it more probably he’d missed the flop or had a medium pair, so shoved all-in which was about a pot sized bet.   Of course Derek had A-Q so took me out on the money bubble.

The final three played a tight, tense game.   Karen let herself get too low on chips and got blinded out in 3rd.  Steve made a good attempt to make up the huge chip deficit but had too little time to have a realistic chance of success, so Derek deservedly took the win (first time this year!) and Steve took (another) 2nd place

Great game and still all to play for.     Andy has a Jenson Button type chance to snatch the League Title away from me  and there are three people in serious contention for 2nd place

See you for the exciting finale to the season !

Poker: Lets forget about October, shall we ?

Uggghhhhh, what can I say about my Poker results for October that won’t make me depressed

The ugly number is the $1350 loss  (£860) which is the worse month I have ever had.

The root cause was my ambition to undertake the Black Belt Poker Grading again. My first Grading attempt in January wasn’t great for me financially either, but in the end felt I got a good return on my investment as I got various training days and sponsorship into various tournaments (plus all the experience and on-going mentoring).    This time however, I blew up on the Pre-Grading, I don’t even get the benefit of any of that

Breaking down my figures a little, it is easy to see where it all went wrong…

• Cash : NL Holdem = £857.38 loss
• Cash : PL Omaha HL (Dont ask!)  = £12.51 loss
• Tournaments : NL Holdem  = £9.20 profit (hoorah )

For the tournaments I only managed to get time for 9 tournaments (winning two) so was pretty content with that

On the cash, I played 187 table hours of cash in 21 sessions, of which only 4 were winning ones.    The worse session was dropping £240 in a 5 table hour session (just over 1 hour elapsed time!)  Obviously not sustainable results and poor by any standard.

On the positive side, I still have some money in my “Poker fund” so have not had to re-mortgage the house or anything (the old adage of “if you can’t afford to loose it, then don’t risk it” firmly applies for me all the time in my gambling of course) and have a plan to recover my confidence and improve my cash game, whilst also trying to recover my bankroll to a reasonable level.  More on that in a future post.

For now, I have firmly closed the door on October and have just had a nice boost with my BBP League win, so normal service is resumed

Poker: BBP League

I managed to win heat 2 of the BBP League  last night !   Sadly I had missed last weeks kick off heat, so despite the win am only 41st place in the rankings !!

It's certainly nice to win anything, but there are a lot of pro or semi-pro players in the league and is a tough game (especially considering the $5 buyin), which makes it all the more sweet to win :-)

Hopefully my form will continue to the Thursday night Camberley Boyz league game as well