The weeks they just go on like a friend of mine Texas
Monday 19th. Online 7 Card Stud.
Too busy to play poker on the weekend, so squeezed a session in on Monday evening. Went in with no particular plan. Tried identifying the most successful players by monitoring their stack sizes, but there were too many variables to keep track. Played for three hours, had a small loss.
Tuesday 20th. Online SitNGo session.
Had a sudden rush of enthusiasm to play some more poker.
*Game 1. Mid-game I hit the nut straight on the flop. Player 4 bets, I re-raise and he goes all-in with pocket 7s and a straight draw. I double up. I have a big stack for most of the game but gradually it dwindles until I have the smallest of the four remaining stacks. To my surprise, the three others all go all-in and I'm left in the top two. The remaining player has a massive chip stack and I can't beat him. Second place.*Game 2. In this one I had a player to my left who kept quoting statistics about the odds of various hands improving. Not many good hands at first. I'm the short stack by the time I make the top four but careful, conservative play gets me across the bubble. After a long heads-up battle I make first place.
*Game 3. A very loose, passive table, with many players limping in pre-flop. I hit trips twice in a row, both times with hands that I would have folded to a pre-flop raise, and end up doubling up. In the end I cruise into the money and take out first place.
A very good session; possibly the best SitNGo session I've ever had.
Wednesday 21st. Online SitNGo session.
Only two games in this session.
The first is quite an active game. I don't get much traction and then lose a lot of chips trying to bluff the table (poker rule #7: you can't bluff the table). The second game starts well but then I lose a lot when my hand keeps improving - from top pair to two pair to a flush - and I re-raise a player who has a better flush (poker rule # 12: don't raise a player if you're only going to get called by a better hand). But I claw my way back into the running with a couple of good all-ins. Eventually I make the top two with the biggest stack but it's a real arm-wrestle. Finally I lose an all-in with my A8 vs Q7. This second place finish gives me a small profit overall. Two winning SitNGo sessions in a row! Things are looking up.
Friday 23rd. Live Tournament.
I go into this tournament with a strategy to deal with all the loose calls. I've decided that I'm willing to raise up to 5% of my stack to protect my good hands pre-flop. Things start out pretty well and I drag in some decent pots. Then I lose about half my stack when I raise with AK and get called by K8 and my opponent (a notorious calling station) hits two pair on the flop. I reach the late stages with less than ten big blinds but there are a number of players with even shorter stacks. So I play conservatively and manage to hang on and reach the final table. In the top eight with an average stack I raise with QQ and the big stack re-raises all-in. Having committed about one quarter of my stack, I call and he turns over AT. There's an Ace on the flop and that's the end of my game. Not only does the player who knocked me out go on to win, but he overtakes me on the Ten Week Challenge leader board. Damn.
Saturday 24th. Online 7 Card Stud.
Just for a change, I manage to find some spare time on the weekend for a poker session, so I play some 7 Stud in the afternoon. Once again I have no idea what sort of strategy might work, so I decide to play it by ear. Things start out poorly but after a while I win some good pots and after 4 hours of play I've more than doubled my buy-in. For now I'm just putting it down to dumb luck because I really can't see that I'm playing any differently than before.
Unusually for Pokerstars, there is quite a lot of chat during this game, with a fair bit of joking around between me and two others. Then one of them suffers a bad beat when he loses a big pot to another player who hits quads on 7th street. So the loser goes ballistic and starts abusing the other player and ranting on for ages. Eventually he calms down a bit but that pretty much kills the friendly vibe of the table. I wonder how some of these people would behave in a live game?
Hands where I saw 4th street: 46%
Hands that went to showdown: 11% (22 times)
Hands won at showdown: 68%
Hands won without showing: 11
Wednesday 28th. Online SitNGo session.
This Wednesday night session turns out to be a real struggle. Can't seem to hit anything in the first two games and when I do, someone else has something better. Trying to bluff a draw chaser out of the pot in game 1 doesn't help (poker rule #1: you can't bluff a donkey). I end up all-in against AJ in both games, the first time with KQ and the second time with a desperate K8 push. I lose on both occasions, finishing 6th and 7th.
Game 3 features lots of early knockouts. By the time we reach the fourth blind level (50/100) there are only three players left. I start as one of three small stacks against one huge stack but manage to work my way back up. I go into heads up play on roughly even terms and end up coming second after pushing all-in with 77 vs AK. In game 4 I double up early on then play fairly tight in the mid stages. But I lose a lot of chips when I decide that my pocket sevens are good with 3 Kings on the board, only to discover that my opponent has paired his Ten for a better full house. Oops. But I still manage to limp into the money, coming third, and coming out of the session with a very small profit.
Friday 30th. Live Tournament.
There are 29 players at the tourney this week and the organisers have made it a Turbo; a stack to blind ratio of 3000/400 gives me less than 80 Big Blinds to start with and the levels increase every 12 minutes. I know I have to get into a lot of pots in the early stages but I'm coming up with nothing and by the time we hit the first break I'm down to about 15 BBs. Then a player raises the minimum pre-flop and I push all-in with AKs. He calls with his 99 and I hit an Ace and double up. Things improve from there and I manage to stay around the level of the average stack. The rapid increase in the blinds means that by the time we are down to the last 15 players the BBs are 10k and the average stack is 70k! So there are a lot of short stacks in the game. By the time I reach the final table some of the remaining players are nursing stacks that amount to just 3 or 4 BBs. I cruise into the money then play my way into the top two.
Heads up, I'm up against R, the same guy I got into the top two with last time. But it's only 11pm and there's no splitting the prize pool this time. We each have about 6 Big Blinds so we know the game's not going to go on too long. After swapping chip stacks back and forth for a few hands R lets me check my Big Blind with 84 and we see a flop. I hit middle pair with my 8 and push all-in. R calls with a straight draw and 2 overcards. He pairs his Queen on the turn and the river is no help. I take second prize again and regain my lead on the Ten Week Challenge ladder. Maybe I should change my opinion on turbo tournaments.
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