Poker: SCOOP 2012 preview

At the end of April, a lot of people are getting excited about WSOP, but I’m more interested in Spring Championship Of Online Poker (SCOOP)

Last year I played 4 low stakes games:

• Heads Up NL Hold' em  http://sceaga.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/poker-scoop-07-low-stakes-report.html
• 8 Game  http://sceaga.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/poker-scoop-29-8-game-low-stakes-report.html
•   HORSE  http://sceaga.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/poker-scoop-36-horse-low-stakes-report.html
•   6 Max NL Hold’em  http://sceaga.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/poker-scoop-37-6-max-nl-holdem-low.html

I had some good runs and felt I played well, but only managed a small cash in the 8 game

Looking back, I didn’t play SCOOP in 2010 (probably due to it clashing with my BBP Grading) but did play in 2009 (http://sceaga.blogspot.co.uk/2009/04/poker-scoop-summary.html) in the 8 Game, HORSE and NL Hold’em rebuy tournaments.

This year, perhaps with no surprise I am planning to play the following games:

• Tues 8th May (Event #7)   Heads Up NL Hold'em
• Mon 14th May (Event #22)   Mix NLHE/PLO
• Thu 17th May (Event #31)  8 game
• Sat 19th May (Event #38)  HORSE
• Sun 20th May (Event #40)  NL Hold' em - Main Event

I have already played a satellite and won a ticket to the 8 Game for $9.90 (rather than the normal $27 buy-in), so that's a bargain already.  I've also played one FPP entry satellite for Heads Up NL Hold' em but didn't get anywhere, and am planning at least one more attempt.   I have also won a seat into the Main Event, for $37.50 instead of $109.. so feel like a winner already !

I will doubtless update on progress after each session, and am already looking forward to it

Poker: Home Tourney - April 2012

I seem to remember less and less about the previous nights Poker… sure I didn’t drink much, so must be to do with my age!  So, as far as I can remember here is a brief account of my highlights from last nights game..…

It started out well enough for me, was getting involved in un-raised pots with speculative hands and raising up with decent hands (mostly ) and built up a decent stack.  Then got involved with Andy who uncharacteristically re-raised me, so maybe I should’ve paused to think before shoving on his short stack… him showing Q-Q to my A-T and I’m back down to my starting stack.

After that seemed to just tread water and not really make any headway.   Tried to make thinks happen and had to rebuy, and on the last hand before the break decided to shove Td-7d to either double up or be able to rebuy three times, but ended up chopping the pot with Andy’s 7-5 !     With the one rebuy available to me this left me with only around 2.6k against average of around 5.8k  and blinds 200/100 

After the break I got a couple of decent hands to shove with and picked up the blinds.   Also managed to hit a couple of hands and by the 400 blinds level was up to around 5k, with Alex on around 12k and the others on around 3-4k.   Sadly this was the peak for me and drizzled away some chips before got to point where Alex limping the button seemed a good spot to shove my A-6o in SB.  Lee folded BB but after some thought Alex found the call with A-9o.  I didn’t improve so was out first !!

Small consolation was that in the next few hands another 3 players dropped out in quick succession, giving us the final table already.  Andy’s hand was quite interesting in that he had something  T-T against Alex A-A and hit trips on the Txx flop, but then Alex hit his A on river so taking Andy out.

The final table had Bill and Alex as the big stacks, with the others all fairly even but relatively short, so with the blinds at 1k we started seeing a lot of action.    Darren went first with 5-5 against Bill’s J-J when both made Full House on river, which was after a bit of a mix up where Bill had swapping hands with Alex (before they looked at the cards pre flop)… so Alex should’ve won instead !

A few hands later, Jon didn’t notice Lee going all-in and decided to shove his short stack against the blinds… and was shocked to find out Lee was in the hand.. more shocked when Lee took him out !

Karen then got all-in with K-J against Sean Q-6    The board was kind to Karen…. at least until the river, when Sean hit his 6 and took out Karen, also getting the bounty.

With Alex soon out, also by Sean, then Steve W out by Bill, Lee was a tiny stack against the two big stacks.    There was soon a big battle with Lee all-in and Sean raising, but Bill going all-in.   Sean folded his A-3 which would have prevailed as it turned out, but in the end Lee doubled up.

Soon after another was another big battle between Bill and Lee, and Sean throwing away the winning hand pre-flop again!

Maybe this put Sean on tilt a bit as it wasn’t long after that he got all-in with Bill, but Bill taking down the huge pot… leaving Lee tiny stacked against Bill heads up.

The heads up was quite interesting, with Father and Son seemingly well practised at home… Lee doubled up three times to get even, then Bill slowed down a bit, but still managed to get all-in when behind and Lee won all bar 600 chips.   Despite winning the next 2 or 3 forced all-in’s, Bill’s luck was no match for Lee’s luck and Lee took down a surprising but well earned victory… with us all getting away surprisingly early

It was a great game and one which will hard to beat for fun and excitement, but sure we’ll all try to top it next month

See you then

Poker: Financial results for March 2012

I am  bit annoyed with myself this month..... Why?........ All will be revealed :)

Plan

My monthly targets are:
- Play 600 hands of cash on NLHE $0.50 Full Ring, 700 cash hands on PLO $0.50 6-max, all with target of breaking even
- Play 20 NLHE STT hoping for +10% ROI

Monitor

Overall results for the month:-

Pokerstars      :   +$6.56 (plus +$10 bonus)
Black Belt Poker: -$382.20 (-£247.90)
Live play       :  -£90.00

My Pokerstars results consisted of 1x STT of 8 game. coming 2nd for profit of $6.60.  Also played ten cash sessions of 8 game.  This month I had 8 sessions of my normal $1/$2 limit and had 2 negative sessions with overall profit of $39.  I also had one session at $2/$4 which is the maximum I normally consider playing, with $105 profit.  Sadly got tempted to try out $4/$8 and lost $144   This is one reason I am a bit annoyed with myself as was going above my normal bankroll level, although might have forgiven myself if I'd done well :)    Total cash loss was only -$0.04 in the end, so kind of OK overall.

Rolling 3 month total for 8 game cash is +$53.63

Live play was -£65 MTT and £-25 cash at the Farnborough club

My BBP results break down as follows:

Cash results (-£245.91 loss overall)
 
NL Hold' em ($0.50)  1092 hands   +£  53.74
PL Omaha    ($0.50)  1584 hands   +£ 130.67
PL Omaha HU ($0.50)   757 hands   -£ 362.92
PL Omaha HU ($0.20)    56 hands   -£  67.40

For the last three months, my cash results are:
NLHE 50    -£0.004 per hand
PLO 50     -£0.030 per hand
PLO HU 50  -£0.479 per hand  ** 1 month
PLO HU 20  -£1.204 per hand  ** 1 month

Tournament Results (-£1.99 loss overall)

4x MTT          -£ 10.45
4x 2 seat STT   +£ 11.40 (+43% ROI)
1x 9 seat STT   -£ 17.34  ** BBP Live Sat
5x 10 seat STT  +£ 14.40 (+30% ROI)

Reflect

The first reason I was unhappy with myself was for being impatient and playing above my bankroll in PokerStars 8 game.   I kind of held my own but dropped 0.75 buy-in, but the buy-in being $200 makes a significant dent in my results.

The second and main reason for being annoyed with myself was taking on the Purple Belt challenge without really understanding the volume of hands I needed to put in.  It was kind of like a self imposed grading processes (which I swore I would avoid :) ) and ended up playing PLO HU for the first time, in order to generate the volume of playing points needed.   This of course resulted in huge losses and I didn't even get close to Purple belt either !    My normal cash results were actually pretty good, with my 6-max PLO recovering particularly well.  The good thing about my playing PLO HU is that it has probably helped my 6-max game quite a bit.  Just a bit disappointing how much it cost me to get that education.

My other adventure in March was to try and earn a satellite seat for BBP EEL.   I tried twice and bubbled a seat both times.  Whilst it is very frustrating (particularly as I was big chip leader on the bubble both times) I feel my tournament game is overall pretty good and will try once more before giving up and accepting I'll have to pay full price for my seat.   I've played a total of 4 Sats... twice buying in with tokens (and my final attempt will also be a token), so it isn't costing me too much to try.

Adjust

OK so I keep telling myself off for going "off-piste" so for the rest of this year am going to stick to my Poker Plan and aim at my year targets more closely.   I have updated my Poker Plan to allow myself a little slack, but need to be sure any new games are micro stakes levels to ensure learning new stuff doesn't impact my results overall.

Looking at April, I need to change my focus away from cash a bit, as am playing BBP EEL  this month and want to fine tune my MTT performance.   I also want to have a crack at the WSOP Executive Jackpot SNGS tournaments as am comfortable in this format already and feel I can have a good run.

Performance against 2012 targets

* Keep to my revised Poker Plan
Achieved hand targets for cash and STT numbers

* Play BBP London Live and UKIPT Brighton tournaments
I've decided to abandon UKIPT this year and instead change the money into my Vegas 2013 fund :)    It's my 50th Birthday next year (in May) so am planning a once in a lifetime trip, so will need some playing funds for sure.   It's a bit sad as was really looking forward to another UKIPT Brighton, but going to Vegas instead is something nice to look forward to :)

I am going to BBP Live in April, and am also planning to go to DTD and possibly the Vic events later in the year

* Aim for break even month on month on all cash tables
NLHE yes, PLO almost, PLO8 definitely no !

* Use learning tools and resources to learn and improve my NLHE, Omaha and PLO8 cash and tournament play
Am putting in the effort to do some learning, PLO8 is the main worry at the moment but also need to improve PLO as well.

* Avoid entering any BBP grading process !
Hmmm, kind of

* Win a BBP league :-)
Not doing great in League XIV after three legs... 48th at the moment and 117 points off the lead

References
January 2012 results http://sceaga.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/poker-financial-results-for-january.html
February 2012 results http://sceaga.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/poker-financial-results-for-february.html

Poker: My revised 2012 Poker Plan

 

Here is my current schedule of Poker activities

MONTHLY POKER PLAN for 2012

 

	Week 1	Week 1	Week 2	Week 2
	6:30pm-8:15pm	8:15pm-9:45pm	6:30pm-8:15pm	8:15pm-9:45pm
Sat	-	-	-	-
Sun	-	-	-	-
Mon	Cash	Cash	Cash	Cash
Tues	Tournament	Tournament	Tournament	Tournament
Wed	Study	Tournament	Tournament	Tournament
Thu	Live**	Live**	Study	New Games
Fri	Cash	-	Cash	-

** I normally play one live MTT per month at Casino/Club and also one Poker League game once a month

Study activities - Review hands - Read Poker Books - Forum Threads - Watch training videos - Ace space simulations

MONTHLY TARGETS Tournament NLHE STT: up to $20 NLHE MTT: up to $10 8 game STT/MTT: up to $10 Cash (Rotated) NLHE: $0.50  600 hands  (2 table/Full ring) PLO: $0.50   700 hands (2 table/6-max) New Games PLO8: $0.20   100 hands (1 table/6-max) PLO: $0.20     120 hands (1 table/heads up)

SESSION RATING (How did I play) A = Perfect B C D E = Rubbish/Give Up 2000 pts @ Orange = 2500 @ Purple 4000 pts @ Orange = 6000 @ Green