14 Hour session

Yesterday I went to a all day live poker game with some work colleagues. It started at 13:00 and we finished at 03:00 the next morning, it was a long but enjoyable day.

We got through 7 regular games plus 1 'big' game at the end. The big game at the end consisted of a larger buyin, plus small addons that was accrued throughout the 7 previous games, which resulted in a whopping 18xbuyin winner takes all pot.

My results were very good indeed, much better than any other nights for the past few months.

We only play winner takes all, so second place is no good. We also allow just a single rebuy so the final pot varies.

I won the second game which resulted in me winning 6x my buyin.
On the 6th game there were only 3 of us, and I went all in and both the other players called and I knocked them out (can't remember what I had). Just as I was picking up my money they stated they both had a rebuy left. Ours rules say that you can have your rebuy whenever you want, even if your are heads up and get knocked out, if you havn't used your rebuy you can still at this point.
Just so happens that both the players had a rebuy left, so it was back to 3 of us. Obviously I had a very big chip lead over them so I just went all in blind. They both called and I yet again knocked them out.
I won 7x my buyin on this game.

On the big game, I did really really well and got very very very lucky on way more than my fair share. There's 8 of us playing and I busted at least 5 players.

A pivotal hand for me was when I was dealt AT hearts, I was going to make a raise but a guy to my right raises instead so I called him. Someone after me called too and there were three of us in the hand.
Flop comes 5h 5d 9h, guy on my right pauses and my read was that he missed the flop but was holding a pocket pair. He decides to go all in, which was a good 90% of my stack.
So I'm just sitting there knowing that I am behind if I call, on the other hand if I could hit a heart I would bust him out and get a major chip lead to everyone else.
I decided to gamble and I called him, and then the guy after me was in the same situation as I was, and after a lengthy pause he folds.

I flipped over my AT hearts and he flips pocket 8's.

Turn is a black 9 (guy on my left slaps his head, because he folded K9), river is a 4.... of hearts.

I won my self a huge pot.

The rest of the game kinda followed suit, all my big pots I won because I hit the river

The finally when I was heads up  to a LAG player, I offered him 5x the buyin and call it quits and he declines.
Next hand I had pockets 5's and he goes all in before me, and I insta-called. He shows KT and hits a T on the turn, right before I hit another 5 on the river.

All day'er coming

A few months back me and my regular live buddies got together and played an all night of poker, from 6PM to 6AM. It was a fun and challenging night, as much as I like live poker - playing it for 12 hours straight can become very boring, especially when you get knocked out early in a match.

Well we are attempting it again but on the other side of the day, either from 9 AM to 9 PM or 1 PM to 1 AM, it will be 12 hours regardless.

Cheap fun.... maybe not

For a test of something I joined a very low buyin SNG, and $1+0.20 SNG to be precise.

It turned out the opposite to what I expected!

We were 40 mins into the match and there were still 9 players remaining, it was the tightest table I ever been at, which I completely didn't expect for a $1 game. We were only playing for $4 top prize!

I went down to a whole 350 chips and clawed my way back with a lucky all in with QJ, and eventually making 3rd place winning a massive $0.60 profit! wooo

It was the most boring game I have played for a long time.

$3.30+R

Its not very often I play rebuy tournaments because I don't like the first hour, but last night I played my first online game for several weeks, and because I was off work I decided to join a rebuy tournament as I had the time to invest in it.

It was a pretty good macth for the first hour. I decided to play it tight and very agressive, i.e only all in or fold.

I had some monster starting hands like pocket aces but unfortunately I only had 1 caller and that was for half my stack, still an improvement though.

I had a couple buyins after some beats and at the end of the hour I ended up with 6k in chips after the addon. Not as much as I wanted but I decided to play in a standard TAG style.

40 minutes later I was around 12k in chips and doing very well until a player made a 5xBB raise when I had AJ. I called him and we were heads up. The flop came out 3s Js Kd and the villain bets 2k in chips, I called him and 4th street turned a Qs.
I messed up here because the villain checked and I checked behind him (I had him down for AQ, QQ). The river came as a 9c and villain bets 2k in chips again, I called and lost when villain flipped over T6.

He said to me in the chat box I should of went all in on the turn and he would have folded, but to be honest I sure didn't expect him to pre-flop raise with T6.

A few hands later I was all in with AJ vs AA, and I hit a runner runner straight, and the hand later I raised with pocket kings and then was all in on a Qd 4s Jd flop and was called when villain flipped over pocket 4's for a set which knocked me out of the tournament.

Overall I think I did pretty well, the AJ vs T6 hand knocked me for six but I believe I was all in at the right points and it was just down to the cards if I was going to be staying in or not.

57s FTW

It was early in a poker game last Friday when I was dealt 57 diamonds on the button. Now for some reason I like 5,7, and I like them even more when they are suited. For a bit of fun I decided to have a play around with them.

57s is not a hand to be raising with but I decided to raise them 8xBB (which was around a third of my stack!) and try out some post flop skills. Unfortunately for me I had four callers, including the tightest player on the table, who normally only plays premium hands. I was only aiming for 1 caller.

I preyed for a low flop.

The poker gods listened to me and I hit a straight draw, but with 4 other people in there I was sure someone had at least a pocket pair.

It was checked all the way to me, I debated to go all in and take the pot there and then, but I bottled it and checked too.

The turn was a high card, but yet again it was checked to me, and yet again I made a mistake in checking. I really should have had ago at taking the pot but I didn't.

The river dropped a 9, which gave me my straight but again it was checked all the way to me. As I was the last person to act I didn't really know what to do. I decided to make a small raise, in an attempt to show that I was playing a scared bluff and hopefully get a couple callers and take as much chips as I could.

It turned out better than that, the small blind re-raised me all in and everyone folded and I insta-called and flipped over my straight. No one could understand why I played 57s like the way I did, as I have a TAG image, but this time it worked out for me.

First Post

So this is the start of my poker blog.

A little bit of history to get things going.

I have been an online player for a couple years. Within a couple of months playing online I managed to win my first 180 man MTT. This was a big deal for me and it clouded my judgment in poker, to a degree that I lost all my winnings over a 2 year period.

Now I didn't play high stakes or anything, far far from it but I was playing with just a small bankroll mainly for fun. And as time went by I slowly realized I wasn't as good as I thought I was. I got a lucky win and that skewed my ego.

After I lost my bankroll to what I originally started with 2 years ago I dropped out of online poker altogether, happy with myself that I had a blast for 2 years with no actual loss in profits.

And it all came down to when I started playing live.

Live and online are two complete opposite type of poker. After playing for a few weeks at live games, I started to detest sitting on a online poker table.. I just cant be bothered to sit for 2 or 3 hours clicking a couple little buttons.

When I play live however, its a complete different game. Its the social aspect that really improves the quality of a single poker session.

I even have a drink when I play live, because even though we are playing for money, its all in a completely friendly environment that its not the money that matters, but the pure fun.

This blog will hopefully be updated with some stories from my weekly live games.