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.

MTT Madness

After listing a load of mtts (around $200 give or take each) sat night but not entering ne of them i tried the same technique 2nite and entered 6 of them at almost same time.

Bust 2 fairly early but went deep in other 4.

1st bubble come along in the one i had been 8-12bb whole time in and i bubbled 33rd pays 30. I didnt mind this too much as i won a $5500 pot on hi lo omaha at exactly the same time :)

Still in other 2 as per below update as i go or bust:

10/13 50euro rebuy 216 entrants
13/30 $50 rebuy 434 entrants

//////
arrrgh sick 450euros for finishing 10th in 1st one AA vs KK king on river for 113k pot at 4k bb level although would only have been 7/10 stack.
4/24 in other and trying not to tilt :(( arrrgh AK vs shortie 33 KQ10 flop turn 3 yuk. 12/22
.............

yuk jj vs QQ pot to go 4th , lost it and crippled 19/19
................

and out a6 vs QQ flop Q62 turn ace just to take piss bit more gg. $570


£3,200 up on day so nout to complain about, would been nice to have took 1 of those last 2 down for 7,500 euros or $14,200 but not to be.

Update Time

Since last post i climbed a bit more steadily in profit to around £4,500 over several days but i didnt play some of them. This week i seem to have got back into it a bit although i had a mare on Monday when i dropped £6,000 as quick as possible. I was on a 200/400$ hi lo limit game which the play was awful on but obv i know can hav high variance :(

Think it made me more determined to put the effort in though and got £3,000 each back Tues and Wed. Yesterday and today smaller profits and currently stand at +£6,600 for Nov. Out on the booze shortly and hope not to play drunk later on.

As Expected

In ftops hi lo mtt and pretty bored so thought i would post a quick update here. Hardly played at all this month. One day i played 1-2hrs and the rest of the month probably equated to the same in total. Still running as bad as i did at the end of last month and really havent felt like putting any volume in as a result. Game selection has been pretty dire too with the tables no where near as dead money as the first half of Oct. Only a small loss so far anyway cos ive played a bit lower and so little volume. Decided to stay at home Nov, havent ruled out a mid Dec vegas trip but hav to see how im running b4 that.

Oct Review

Incredibly poor last 7-10days resulting in a final profit for the month of £13,046. Now i can moan about that as i peaked at £38,500 but i would take it before the month started or 3 days in when i was £9,000 down. Im more concerned with how steep the variance and downswings were this month. Didnt particularly like playing the last week either as i know i played too much this month chasing a schrapnel bonus (could been bigger if lucky) after getting committed. Another couple of promising starts in live games resulted in no cashes again too.

Have taken the extreme measure of withdrawing nearly all my money from all sites for now. I dont want to be tempted to play when im not in the mood and im interested to see if i treat the games any different when im depositing in to play them. Gonna check my money situation shortly and see whether i can go for a week abroad mid Nov possibly Vegas. Not getting much out of blog at mo so dont be surprised if i dont update much this month too.

GL