Weekend Away

Last Saturday saw a break from the drudgery and grind of the online world and a venture into the bright lights of live poker and what a weekend it was.

I quite often visit the laddies forum, which is a home for all the reprobates that started most of their poker life on Ladbrokes. Laddies used to have their own forum, which was very active, but sadly for whatever reason they shut it down. Fortunately, thelodger, one of the forums more active members decided to setup a new forum in homage to the old. So www.laddiesforum.com was born. The commnity spirit on this forum is second to none, it really is like one big happy disfunctional family. Lots of love, lots of rows, a real typical family atmosphere and once your are part of it, it is difficult to not keep popping back to see what is going on.

So, back to the weekend. The forum, decided to organise a live tourney for all to play in. The venue chosen was Dusk Till Dawn (DTD) poker club in Nottingham, a truly magnificent venue for live poker. There were 72 entrants, all members of the forum, with lots of online buddies all raring to have a quiet drink with each other.

I decided, rather wisely, as it happens, to arrive on the Saturday. Others, inlcluding a wild bunch from the Emerald Isle all turned up on the Friday and starting drinking on the lunchtime. As you can imagine a wild time was had by all, including a starter bout in preparation for the Ricky Hatton fight the following night.....They were not a pretty sight on the saturday.

I managed to get a few beers in when booking into the hotel and met a few of my online buddies before heading off to DTD. The club was very impressive and laddies had done a great job sponsoring the event. A few more beers were had, then the tourney started. As I sat down on my table, my immediate thought was, "oh fck, I might as well go home now" My table consisted of - thelodger, spread, RiverMaid, PaulScot1, banksoir, calita-reese (MrsLizard) richlizard and Ken007. At least I could get to the stts early and get some beer down me......

With 5000 starting chips and 30 minute blinds, there was plenty of room for play. I would like to tell you about all of the wonderful plays I made and how I managed to hide all my fears and dominate the table. But....as you can guess, it just didn't happen. In fact, I was completely card dead all of the tourney, considering we started with 5000 chips, I can't remember getting above 7.5k, but somehow managed to hang on until the last two tables eventually going out 18th, with hammy rivering an 8 with J8, vs my A9 push, he had to call, no choice as I was short stacked.

The only real hand of note, was one I won by a technicality. The hand also proves how good the spirit is amongst the community. I think we were down to the last 3 tables and I, like all tourney was short stacked. I had about 2.4k and the blinds were 300/600, I had to make a move. I saw what I thought was emmerson post his Big Blind and I looked down and saw QJ, so I pushed. It was at this point, I realised, emmerson wasn't on the big blind, but had raised UTG, what a twat I was, I was done for. It all folded round to patyp who was on the big blind, who re-raised. I was def fcked now. Emmerson thought for a while and mucked, then the killer punch. patyp had not noticed I had pushed and mucked his cards thinking he had won the hand. The dealer pointed out that I was all in and the chips for mine. Was not my fault, but was expecting summat to all kick off, but no, patyp just accepted the decision with no qualms whatsoever, the only cursing that went on was him kicking himself he had not noticed. I have to take my hat off to him, I think a lot of other people might have reacted differently, so well played patyp, your a credit to the game.

It was shortly after that I met my final demize and went searching for more Winona and some sit and goes, which I found both and continued endulging till 5am when I was deserted by all and had to catch a cab on my own back to the hotel, annoyingly finding at 5:15am, the bar was shut, ffs, whats wrong with this country.

I met so many wonderful people, it would not be fair to single anybody out, but I suggest if you have not paid a visit to the forum, follow the link on the left of the blog (not an affiliated link) and join in what is the wonder of The Laddies forum.

Can't wait till next year.

Crank ya sound up to the max !!!

Slipknot - Duality

Back to Square One

I'm conscious that I have not posted for a while, so thought I better put summat up.

After the disaster of last month, as you saw in my last post I got off to a poor start, however, I managed to turn the month around and pull the 4.5 buy ins down to almost 4 buyins up. The annoying thing is, I was not really doing anything that different, just my hands were holding up, its amazing what a difference makes when your 80% fave hands hold out for a change.

Everything was going well, even had a nice little MTT win, see below. Then yesterday the dreaded sunday curse hit again and I dropped 4.5 buyins again, to take the cash back in the read for the month, what the fck is it about sundays and me that just don't seem to get on, I think I am gonna have to stop wearing me pentacles and devil worship tops on the sabbath and wear a nice cosy pullover and some cords, see if that makes a diference.



Anyway, enough whinging. The good news however, is that I have had a small winning session tonight, to put me back in the black on the cash tables and with the MTT win and rakeback, look to be posting a positive month. Managed to obtain Green status on NOIQ and I am on target to hit my goal of 20k hands this month.

Had to stop playing tonight, cos I got a girly headache, but still wide awake as I have had too much coffee, hence I am posting this.

Can't think str8 at the moment cos of headache, so can't even decide what song to end with, so heres a random bookmark from my youtube

Gothic Beauty

Worst Month Ever

Thank God October has gone, it ended up being my worst month ever, the hill did not turn into a valley, it just got deeper and deeper. Its strange, I knew months like this last one are always going to happen due to the nature of the game, but I am not sure I was truly mentally prepared for it, I look back over my hands and all the leaks are glaringly obvious, some of the calls I have made in the cold light of day are awful, it is so obvious, I can't believe I did them. I think the main reason for the way I played was a combination of fear and chasing. The bad start made me scared to do all the things I know are right, 3 betting, double barreling in the right spots etc, however, I seemed to replace this with a lot of cold calling and calling bets light in the "hope" that I have my opponent beat, which in most of the cases, I was wrong. I stacked off too many times with TPGK, when I shouldn't really have been in the hand after the turn. I finished the month just under $600 down on the cash tables and $466 down overall, by far my worst month ever. So to rectify this, at 23:55, I left all my tables, reset my filters and spreadsheets, and after midnight I started again with new hope and a fresh outlook on the game. However, after 1/2 hour, I was already two buyins down after the following hands.

Could of got away from this one

Typical Big Blind Stitch Up

The first hand the opponent was taking some strange lines post flop and the Big Blind was 3 betting and squeezing almost every orbit, so I chose to flat call, hoping the big blind would re-pop it back up. The plan completely back fired and looking back his shove should of been an easy fold. The 2nd hand, I had him on an overpair or flush draw, so I was not getting away from that.

I have 18k hands now at 50NL 6max on NOIQ and I am 7 buyins down, running at about -1.8ptbb/100 which is obv not the 3ptbb I wanted to move up. My bankroll has now dropped to 4.8k and I didn't manage to obtain the fpps to move up to level 3 (green) but I will achieve that this month and hopefully even get to level 4 (blue)

Even with nothing going right at the tables, I feel strangely positive. I am going to increase the amount of hands I play, I have set a target of a minimum of 20k hands this month and my goal is to get back level ptbb. I have also decided that I am not going to move up a level until I have 100 buyins for that level (super nitty I know) or I happen to have 50+ buyins and run at 5ptbb/100 over 20k hands, which the way I am playing at the moment, is gonna take some hot run.

So this month, its all about doing something different, a bit like being in a new city for the first time..........

The Jam - Strange Town.