Back in business & WBCOOP

My adsl 1 connection is now up and running, although I haven't actually received formal notification from my ISP so it may not stay up.

Haven't had time to play much on the new connection, however, WBCOOP event #6 was my first real session with a solid connection. And it was a pretty decent test, as I had worked myself up to chip leader for the first four breaks.

It was just me and one other active table for the first bit of the tourney, so there was basically just a lot of blind taking and not much else, however, I then got moved to a table with the one of the current chip leaders who had about 26K in chips to my 7K. He was moving all in every hand and I doubled up when I called him with JJ versus his 62o. Next hand I received KK and obviously called his all in again and he flipped over 65o. Flop was A65r and i'm like ffs .... till the turn brought another A to counterfeit his two pair with two pair of my own, and he's out and i'm the new chip leader.

From then on it was simply a case of playing reasonably tight, stealing blinds from position and occasionally playing my big pairs reasonably hard. All seemed to be working well, and allowed me to maintain the chip lead ... around 40k at the 1st hour 50k at the second 120k third, and around 200k at the 4th break.

We then had friends come over, so I more or less quit the table when 2nd in chips to join everyone in the pool and sat out for about 40 minutes when the blinds were around 2k/4k. By the time I returned I was in 17th of 17 with about 70k chips left.

I played a couple hands to gain about 40k in chips, but we still had visitors so I needed to either quickly get back into contention or bomb out. Flopping a nut flush draw with one overcard gave me that chance and I shoved all in, only to whiff the turn and river, and that's me done versus top pair in about 15th overall.

Guess i'll never know what might have been, but I suppose that shows me where poker sits in my priorities, and i'm thinking its not a bad place to be.

For the main event, I knew I had to go to work after the first hour and a half so it was a case of either build a huge stack early, or bust out fast. I think I busted out somewhere around 2,000th out of 2,050 people when I ran into another guy who was pushing all in every hand, and I unfortunately called with ATs but this time he had AQs. I probably would normally have waited for a slightly better hand if I wasn't going to work, but oh well.

the connection battle continues

Well, i'm now in the new house.

Instead of having my phone line activated saturday, it took until Wednesday, and then i'm looking at another week before I get my ADSL minimum ....

So in the meantime, I've tried using the wireless modem from a mate, however, it looks like the new house is perfectly between mobile towers, and the signal I get here is awful at best. I can get 4k/sec downloads though .....

Option 2 was to 'borrow' some internet from the local free internet hotspot, which i'm also right at the edge of range of. That results in an extremely flaky connection.

So today i've tried dial up, which connects at 28.8 modem speed - which is what about 3k/second, but at least its a solid connection. I'm going to have to learn patience.

Of course with connection issues I haven't been able to play cash games, but I guess that has given me more time to set up the house, and jump in the pool, and watch the tennis.

How has wbcoop gone so far?

#1 it took me 15 minutes to get into as my wireless connection wasn't working. After that it was a struggle in many hands to get my action to go through. Still .. I managed to double up when I finally was able to get on before my first trouble hand. I had KK in early position and raised 3xBB. One caller. Bet 3/4 pot on the blank flop and blank turn and then an A hit on the river where I bet a tiny 200 chips into a 1600 chip pot. He calls and flips over AQ ... so he was calling with no pair and no draw the whole way. F me, and i'm back to 2k chips. I work it back up through mainly blind steals to 4k, before a 3k stack goes all in from late position with 88. I'm looking at JJ so I push over the top all in. Blank flop, turn 8, and i'm crippled and go out a few hands later when I push my TT and run into QQ.

#2 I have to leave half an hour after the start and won't be back for an hour, so I know I need to at least double up early to give me any chance of having chips when I get back. I raise pot with KcJcTd4d and get one reraiser and one caller. The flop has 2 clubs and a jack so i've got top pair and the K high flush draw. I check raise the one raiser all in as the pot has gotten pretty big. He calls and flips over AAxx. Is that the right move? I would have thought calling all in for your entire stack with only one pair wouldn't be good in omaha .. but meh, what do I know. No help on the turn or river and i'm out.

#3 I'm out really early. I've got two other active players on the table, and actually run into one guy who calls me down to the river after i've cbet the flop and turn with A high. He flips over 54o for a rivered pair of 4s .... wtf???? A few hands later he has gone all in about 4 hands in a row and I am looking at 77 and decide to call. He has TT ... bad move ... and i'm out again.

Hopefully i'll sort out my connection through dial up properly tomorrow, so I won't be tilted by the timeouts, reconnects and delays.

Moving day

Losing my internet connection here any hour now, although my mate came through with a wireless connection which will tide me over for emergency poker .... and the WBCOOP.

Maybe i'll find a neighbour who's also willing to share in the short term while I wait for my new connection ....

Hopefully i'll be back blogging during the week with any luck.

Sounding like a broken record

... as I hit -400BBs for the month.

I started last night on a $2/4 table where I won a total of 2 hands out of 93.

I then played a bit of purple lounge and ran similarly badly, before making back about 25BBs on a Pacific $3/6 table, to avoid another completely disasterous session.

Here's a couple hands from the session -

Hand 1:

$3/$6 Limit Holdem
5 Players

Stacks:
UTG $33
CO $126
Hero (BTN) $156.50
SB $299
BB $40.50

Pre-Flop: (1.5 SB, 5 players) Hero is BTN Kd Ks (maybe this will hold up ...)
2 folds, Hero raises, 1 fold, BB calls

Flop: 7c Qd Qc (4.5 SB, 2 players) (not a bad flop)
BB checks, Hero bets, BB raises, Hero calls (don't like the reraise, but he could have any pocket or a club draw)

Turn: 4c (4.2 BB, 2 players)
BB bets, Hero calls (i've gone into WA/WB mode - i'm not sure if that is correct. The draw hitting sux)

River: Ac (6.2 BB, 2 players) (unreal .. another club. typical)
BB checks, Hero checks (hmm he checks? do I value bet here assuming he doesnt have a club? he could still have a set of Qs)

Final Pot: 6.2 BB
Hero shows Kd Ks
BB shows two pair, Aces and Queens As 6d (FFS)

Hand 2:

€1/€2 Limit Holdem
5 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by http://weaktight.com/

Stacks:
UTG $593.17
CO $343.36
BTN $50.01
Hero (SB) $49
BB $85.70

Pre-Flop: (1.5 SB, 5 players) Hero is SB Jd 7d
1 fold, CO calls, BTN calls, Hero calls, BB bets, CO calls, BTN raises, Hero calls, BB calls, CO calls (i suspect my call here the second time round might be a touch loose. Bear in mind BTN is retarded though).

Flop: 4d 5d Ah (13.0 SB, 4 players) (flopped my draw - perfect. obviously now I have to hit it)
Hero checks, BB checks, CO checks, BTN bets, Hero calls, BB folds, CO calls

Turn: 6c (8.0 BB, 3 players) (adds an OESD to my flush draw .. nice)
Hero checks, CO checks, BTN bets, Hero raises, CO calls, BTN 3-bets, Hero 4-bets, CO calls, BTN calls (i think i have brain fade here. I dont think I have the equity to be raising etc with my 15 outs ... although I guess its probably close)

River: 5s (20.0 BB, 3 players) (FFS ... obviously i've missed everything all night)
Hero checks, CO checks, BTN bets, Hero folds, CO calls

Final Pot: 22.0 BB
CO shows 4h 3h (umm)
BTN shows 5c 2d (he 3 bet the flop, and the also 3 bet the turn with an A on the board whilst holding a pair of 5s .... ummm .... and my river effectively had my J outs as well. wtf)

BTN wins 20.4 BB (net +13.4 BB)


Current bankroll: $23,200
January time played: 35.5h
January hands played: 8,866
January profit / (loss): ($850)

A new record ....

... for the length of a downswing for me - i've now hit 350BBs down for the month after last night's effort.

I sat down with superfish on my right (95/5 - seeing virtually every flop). By the end of my session he was up, as well as his two 60/0 mates .... ARGH.

Every river seems to be a personal attack and my W$SD is still hovering near the 40% mark. I won a few BBs again at the end of the session, but it still wasn't pretty.

Only a couple more days until I lose my phone line and internet until its set up in the new house in a week or two - although a mate has stepped in and offered his spare wireless which I appreciate and should be able to use for the WBCOOP tourneys. I think they start at 5am my time though which is going to be a bit of a struggle ....

Current bankroll: $23,250
January time played: 35.5h
January hands played: 8,419
January profit / (loss): ($800)

Mixed results

Still running cold as ice - played enough hands to pick up 100 fulltilt points last night, and on the $2/4 and $3/6 tables I won 5 hands out of 85 .... two of which were folded to me in the bb. Ugly.

Fortunately this time the $5/10 tables paid me about 20BBs so I still ended in front for the session, even though I was down in BB terms.

I also cashed out some of my Pokersource credits for Bodog cash, before finding out when they processed it that the credits counted against MGR for my rakeback deal which is complete BS. Its only about $30 that i've lost by that, but if i'd realised I would have cashed out my credits somewhere else and kept that $30. I'm onto them about it so hopefully they'll refund it somehow.

Current bankroll: $23,400
January time played: 33.5h
January hands played: 7,925
January profit / (loss): ($650)

Still downswinging

The peak of this downswing has now hit 340BBs in the space of 3,400 hands, although the last 60 hands I played recovered 60BBs. Hopefully it will continue that way.

I found my -$20k in 6 months mate and he quickly sucked out three huge pots on me in the space of three orbits, and it was again looking very nasty. After that i've run into another muppet on another table playing at 75/5 .. showing down 60% and winning 80% of those. Obviously that means virtually everyone else at the table is losing, and in particular me, as i'm sitting on his left.

I had to work early on Sunday which made me miss my Cake freeroll, just to add insult to injury.

I've reviewed my hands recently and checked my stats, and still can't find any obvious massive leaks. AK is a losing hand for me for the month, and it appears I've lost quite a lot when reverse dominated ... eg AK v A2 and the flop is A2x. I also lost a $300 pot with AK versus KQ on a flop of KK6 when he hit a runner runner backdoor flush. It doesn't take many of those pots to make a huge difference to your results.

Current bankroll: $23,300
January time played: 33h
January hands played: 7,788
January profit / (loss): ($750)

Awful timing

I'm moving house at the end of next week, and it takes over a week here to get my adsl internet activated at the new house.

Basically that puts me out of poker for the week, so my hours will drop significantly towards the end of this month.

Add the fact that WBCOOP is exactly that week, and my timing just can't get any worse. In order for me to play i'm going to have to use dial up ... assuming I even have a phone line connected, otherwise i'm totally screwed and will miss it this year.

Played another small session last night and again ran fairly poorly. Although nothing like the dropping 250BBs in the space of 2,000 hands from my previous sessions. I cleared my Fulltilt ironman bonus so received that credit which made for a profitable session overall, even though the tables were at a loss.

Current bankroll: $23,600
January time played: 27.5h
January hands played: 6,679
January profit / (loss): ($450)

Biggest loss to date

Had to happen sooner or later, but what was looking like a pretty good month is now going to be a reasonable battle just to finish in the black.

I'm now back to 300BBs down since xmas - after recovering to only about 100 down. This time there were losses at $5/10, $4/8 and a stack at $2/4 to drop me $1,200 from my peak bankroll.

What happened? Well i've put in a huge stack of hands and hours, but just not won enough showdowns. I dropped 26BBs at $5/10 (at worst 60BBs), 33BBs at $4/8, 120BBs at $2/4, a few at $3/6, and 50BBs at $1/2. For the last 1500 or so hands i've been running at 35% wtsd and only winning 35% instead of 50%, so could easily be down even further. Nasty.

I had found some juicy tables, but it was the fishes turn to slaugher me. One 68/4 guy was up $400 on me on a $5/10 table, and another guy was up a few hundred on a $4/8 table. When I checked out the first guy he had lost $20,000 over the past six months with a biggest winning session ever of $500. I just seemed to run into an extremely poor set of cards, and of course every suck out possible hit.

What to do now?

Well nothing different is my strategy. I'll just keep looking for the fish and playing on my juicy tables. It will turn around. Some decent rakeback should help too, but i've still got some work to do to get the year back on track.

Current bankroll: $23,500
January time played: 26h
January hands played: 6,468
January profit / (loss): ($550)

Back went out again ....

Bent down to pick up the cat the other day and my back locked up completely. So now i'm an invalid again until it heals up. Can't sit up much at all at the moment, and once again i'm reminded of how important physical health is. Looks like i'll have to be more vigilant on the exercising when I am better.

I can't even play much poker, although i have brought the screen down to couch level.

Played another Fulltilt freeroll as well, and once again bombed out AK < T9s on a flop of 642r and then 77 < JJ.

However, at the same time the cash tables were reasonably generous and my Fulltilt bankroll is almost back up to before my recent downswing and it was enough to put my BB/100 for the month back to into the black.

Current bankroll: $24,700
January time played: 17h
January hands played: 4,151
January profit / (loss): $650

WBCOOP is back

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! The WBCOOP is a free online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers, so register on WBCOOP to play.

Registration code: 662527

What Fulltilt taketh away, Fulltilt giveth back

.... well a chunk of it anyways.

After the last few crucifying session on Fulltilt, in the space of 40 hands on a $3/6 table I made 40BBs, mainly due to a single hand which is my biggest pot ever on Fulltilt ($195) - whilst holding the mighty 85s.

$3/$6 Limit Holdem
5 Players

Stacks:
UTG $79
CO $172
BTN $123
SB $197.50
Hero (BB) $141

Pre-Flop: (1.5 SB, 5 players) Hero is BB 8s 5s
UTG raises, CO calls, BTN calls, SB calls, Hero calls (calling with any 2 suited here)

Flop: 7s 6h Ad (10.0 SB, 5 players) (well that gives me a 2nd nut straight draw)
SB checks, Hero checks, UTG checks, CO bets, BTN raises, SB calls, Hero calls, UTG 3-bets, CO 4-bets, BTN calls, SB calls, Hero calls, UTG calls (i figure it was worth calling the two back to me, although wasn't really expecting the cap)

Turn: 3s (15.0 BB, 5 players) (okay now I have the flush draw to go with my open ender, although not all outs are probably clean)
SB checks, Hero checks, UTG checks, CO bets, BTN calls, SB calls, Hero calls, UTG raises, CO calls, BTN calls, SB calls, Hero calls (initial check for utg to raise but he didn't. Not sure why I didnt check raise in the first chance with the button's bet but was glad UTG did. I didn't even raise when closing the action. I'm sure it is EV+ with that many opponents and maybe 13 outs ... although it could have been as low as 6 outs).

River: 4h (25.0 BB, 5 players) (hehe the stone cold nuts in a huge pot. that makes things much easier)
SB bets, Hero raises, 3 folds, SB 3-bets, Hero 4-bets, SB calls (a bit surprised by the 3 folds in the middle - surely someone at least had a set and would make a crying call in a pot this huge? Special thanks though to the SB who obliged by 3 betting with his second nuts)

Final Pot: 33.0 BB
SB shows 5c 3h (and that is why he is sitting on my right)
Hero shows a straight, Eight high 8s 5s

Hero wins 32.5 BB (net +23.5 BB)

Current bankroll: $24,400
January time played: 14.6h
January hands played: 3,658
January profit / (loss): $350

Escaped again for now

Ran like turd again last night on Fulltilt dropping another 40BBs within half an hour. My 78/0 mate on my right just could not lose a hand. I think i've dropped about $600 on Fulltilt in two days now - its looking ugly. That took me to almost 220BBs down for the current downswing.

On the flip side, Cake, Bodog and Purple lounge all made up about 70BBs within about an hour. A slightly slow start followed by me hitting a number of hands in a row, including a couple of gutshots in huge pots which gave me the odds to chase my draw. I guess that is the difference between a winning and losing session - it only takes a few hands to go your way.

It could have been even better had some muppet not hit a runner, runner with 86 on a board of AKTr versus my AK turn 9 river obviously 7. Or my third last hand where it was capped three ways preflop - my AK versus QQ versus K6s on a AK9r flop. Q turn was very disappointing, and what was worse was the K6 guy kept raising each street.

Still, it looks like my swings are continuing which is fairly unusual for me. Hopefully it settles down shortly into a more steady upward curve ...

Current bankroll: $24,150
January time played: 14h
January hands played: 3,545
January profit / (loss): $100

And 2 steps back

Had a horrible little session on Fulltilt last night. Dealt a ton of premium hands and seemingly they all whiffed. Ended up with stats reading less than 30% going to showdown and winning only 30% of those. Ugly.

The damage was 45BBs at $2/4 and 30BBs at $3/6 or around $350. I'd made my points for the day and the tables had tightened slightly so I had to quit.

I then fired up Cake and Bodog and found a few semi fishy tables, including a $5/10 on Cake, however I found myself with a fairly good tag on my right rather than one of the two big fish so decided to quit that table after a few orbits and was all of $2 down. Would have made more in rakeback than I lost as tons of pots were huge - just I wasn't part of them.

I then was taken for another 30BBs on the $2/4 and $3/6 tables combined where I continued to miss every flop. 100BBs down in under a couple hours ... great. Down for the month after a reasonably promising start .... great. Down 200BBs since xmas (see graph) .... great.

The tables remained fishy though so I stayed for a bit and ended back in the black on Cake and made up a few of my Fulltilt losses.

The thing is, with a bit of a downswing, I tend to view it as a challenge - it means I need to play well and concentrate to get myself back up and I use it as a motivator of sorts.

This month's stats now read as me running at -3BB/100 which just isn't pretty at all.

Of course, thanks to rakeback, being 170BBs down has only resulted in a loss of $150 all up in that time, so it hasn't really crippled the bankroll much at all.

Current bankroll: $24,050
January time played: 12h
January hands played: 2,976
January profit / (loss): $0

Left a goldmine

Found a $3/6 table last night with 5 players with a VPIP over 60%. And I had to leave after two orbits down exactly $1. Every player at the table was literally trying to hand over their cash - so its extremely disappointing I had to shut down and leave to go out.

There's always more fish in the sea though ....

On my other tables I also ran fairly well and am now showing a positive return on the tables (albeit whilst still running at -1bb/100). At the moment all i'm really concentrating on is clearing my ironman bonus on fulltilt whilst qualifying for iron man for January. 100 points per day is enough and only takes half an hour, and even less if I open a $5/10 table or two.

Current bankroll: $24,350
January time played: 10.4h
January hands played: 2,493
January profit / (loss): $300

End of holidays

Holidays are now over for me and its back to work. I put in a fair few hours on the tables for me over the break for very little result. Although after running so cold early it's not as bad as it could have been.

The weekend again started with a dip in the bankroll where I dropped another 50BBs on a $1/2 table where it seemed I was again destined to be runner-runnered out of the game. The main fish was opposite me, but I never had the opportunity to move to his right. He proceeded to smash the entire table, so i'm not sure it would have made much difference.

On the tables i'm still running at a loss for January, however, after a few rakeback and bonus credits my bankroll is actually up (and will be up even further with a couple more credits in the next few days). Pokertracker even has me at losing at a very cold rate of 2.5BB/100 on the tables, although in total only down $55 over 2,200 hands. I guess i've been losing more at the smaller limites than the bigger ones.

I also just missed out on playing in the gold card cake tournament yesterday - you needed a 2 of clubs to enter it, and I hadn't received one ... well not until about an hour after the tournament started. Oh well. At least i've qualified for the freeroll this month.

2009 review is now up: 2009 Review

Current bankroll: $24,100
January time played: 8.3h
January hands played: 2,205
January profit / (loss): $50

Disaster averted

... well at least for now.

Had a horror start to the new year on the tables at Cake, dropping a good 60BBs on a $1/2 table and at the same time a good 70BBs on a few $3/6 tables. Just couldn't win a showdown at all, and was running at a 30% W$SD rate which resulted in me getting slaughtered.

It eventually started to turn around though after being down by over $500 and I finally started winning some showdowns when I hit several nut flush draws and filling up a boat or two, and by the end of the session I was winning 47% of showdowns and was down by less than $100. Fulltilt helped with that as I put in 100 points worth of play hoping that it will count towards clearing my bonus this month.

Still have to go back to post my goals for the year and last year's summary. I started them but didn't get very far but will be up sometime in the next few days.

Current bankroll: $24,000
January time played: 2h30m
January profit / (loss): ($50)