3rd - Top 5 2009 Personal Poker Highlights

Jan was my best month to date but i was soon to dwarf it in Feb. The majority of the games were 10/20 or 25/50 the whole month and the swings were pretty scarey when i look back. That said i was high in confidence and fearless and found it easier back then to devolve myself from the money and just play poker. I had one of my best days on Feb 15 (see next post) but this post is about the day a week later whilst still riding the highs.

Number 3 on my list is Feb 23 when i had my best ever cash games only day in poker.

The two previous days were class examples of the stakes i was playing and the volatility. Saturday i had quickly dropped £6,000 before recovering and finishing £13,250 up. Sunday was even crazier. An earlier grind saw me lose £2,000 but when i returned i dropped to a low of - £32,000 missing everything before recovering to a loss of "only" £11,350. This almost felt like a win given the day i had endured.

Monday 23rd i actually woke up really late so didnt play until evening time. Games were slow and bad at first i just floated between £1,000 and £2,000 up for a while. When the good games did kick in it was mainly 25/50 but some 10/20 too and i managed to finish £9,500 up on the day. I took a break and assumed that would be end of play for the day but later on i spotted a bad player on 25/50. Ended up playing 2 tables with him for 90 minutes before recording a £13,000 winning session. Total profit on the day for cash games only (remains my best) was £22,550. It scares me a bit talking about these swings and its a tad worrying that as i write this party poker have finally introduced 25/50$ plo tables so temptation will be there a lot more often now.

Nov Review

Very happy in the end. The last days days saw a drunk poker session and a bitty one hopping around the best tables and £2k each profits. Final profit of £14,783. Havent played even half of what i did in October so its a great figure in terms of volume put in.

No plans yet for Dec, i hope to have another solid month to prop up my bankroll and pay for some fixtures and fittings for my house (still no completion date yet, hoping start of Jan ideally).

4th - Top 5 2009 Personal Poker Highlights

The year began so well with 2 amazing months so it was always likely i was going to hit a wall at some point. March and April i spent the majority of the time in profits only to end up -£12,000 at the end of each one. I had truly been taking a shot at higher stakes with nearly all my games being 10/20 and 25/50 , think i even ventured to 50/100 for a few sessions. At the beginning of May i had had enough and with vegas 4 weeks away for a 6 week stay i was determined to turn around any complacency and motivation issues and i felt i was really going to knuckle down. Result of this meant i tried to ban myself from anything higher than 10/20$ plo which i managed with the exception of one $2000 loss on 25/50.

Number 4 on my list is May 6th when i exclusively played 10/20$ and a tiny bit of 5/10$on both plo and plo hi lo cash games.

I started the day £600 down for the month. Six and a half hours in i had run as golden as i can which at that time meant draws hitting, bluffs getting through, and sets holding up. I was £21,000 up at peak but the last half hour i dropped a bit including losing a $6,000 allin preflop (60/40) AAK5 dbl suited vs QJ109 1 suit and shut down quickly after taking that as a good sign to leave.

I finished £17,500 up which remains my best day to date at time of writing when ive only played 10/20$ plo and hi lo max. More importantly it kick started an incredible month in terms of profit and volume played. On May 18th i wrote "Could do with leaving for Vegas now as my attitude, effort and enjoyment factors are all just right but i'll just have to keep it that way for one more week" and i still felt the same when i left 10days later with just under £75k profit (2nd best month to date) under my belt for May.

5th - Top 5 2009 Personal Poker Highlights

It was the week before last Xmas when i finally decided to book a trip to Australia and onto Thailand. On the back of my best year to date and having had such a great time at the Aussie Millions that January it seemed like a no brainer in the end. I had high hopes for 2009 at this time and was definitely riding a successful wave from the omaha cash games online.

Number 5 on my list covers three live tournaments between 8th and 12th January.

I arrived in Australia late in the evening on the 7th Jan and by 4:30pm the next day i was in my first event, an au$ 1,150 satellite to the main event. I know i pretty much just played my cards that tourney. I won hands that just played themselves including flips but never got it in bad. Six hours later and i was over the moon at securing a main event au$ 10,500 seat.

The following day was an au$ 1,050 live event with 2 starting days. I wasnt too tired so entered day 1a. I have never flopped so many sets in a live tournament and at the end of the day i was sitting on a very nice stack. http://www.pokernews.com/news/2009/01/2009-aussie-millions-event-1-day-1a.htm

After day 1b had finished I was 9th in chips but basically joint 5th in reality. 731 players had entered and 110 remained going into day 2 with 72 being paid. Obviously i had high hopes and returned full of confidence. Abuse of the bubble was successful but i did lose a key pot Q6 vs AK to knock me back to my starting stack. I then peaked my stack at 93k before dropping away. Blinds caught me up and completely card dead day 2 as a whole as well. I could have gambled with a 22 when i was reraised but thought i would find more +ev spots at that time. I was still a good stack when i did bust raising allin on a J9x flop with KQ , utg raiser had QJ so i regret not reraising preflop with hindsight. Finished 41st in the end for au$ $3,290 which looking back was a good result but obviously at the time i was very disappointed.

Right i could lie and say it was 3 live tournament cashes in a row but it wasnt. After the bust above i played an au$ 1,050 the same day and got very drunk and obviously bust sharpish. The next day i entered the au$ 1,100 omaha hi lo limit game but bust 4 hours in. I almost went on omaha cash tables but in the end decided to enter the au$ 1,150 satellite at 6:15pm instead. Several hours later the fun really started when a guy i had only met the night before and got completely wasted with moves to my table. After an hour or so we were both stacked and "safe" with something like 12 seats and 15 players left. He totally understood satellite strategy so basically if he raised i was out of the pot and vice versa. I had won 2 flips for my tourney life in the whole and apart from that pretty much cruised into the seat this time. So au$ 10,500 cash in the end and a bizarre set of circumstances saw me make a new poker buddy http://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/player.php?a=r&n=76956 who i ended up sharing a condo with in vegas for the 2nd half of WSOP in June.

These 3 live results helped towards my best ever month at that point and set up a good foundation for me in 2009.

Same

Profit followed familiar trend since last post. Dropped a few thou 1 day, grinded it back up other a few more days. Yesterday though i had a mad day losing few thou again but managed to recover it in the evening to finish £200 up. Today followed the same pattern losing 2 x $2k stacks on 10/20 really quickly before finishing about £500 up so far. Bust an account few days ago (which ive bust many times) and funded another site so trying out diff places a bit to see how i fair. May do some posts covering individual poker highlights of the year soon if i can b bothered.