...the ship has arrived !

Well last week I made a post about being so close but no quite "getting there". I put in a session over the weekend and on Saturday I again had numerous deep runs. I had 5 cashes on Saturday making one final table. My results were 124/2780 for $22, 21/876 for $93, 15/360 for $108, 44/500 for $50 and 7/360 for $252.

With all of these deep runs I was beginning to think it just wasn't going to happen and then on Sunday I bust a $33 500 man tourney in 57th with 56 paid after getting involved with another big stack with JJ pre, he woke up with AA.

Anyway in the background during the $33 MTT was the $27.50 4-Max. I really enjoy these 4-Max events and have done well in the $44 4-Max on Stars. With 320 runners in the $27.50 I was chip leader with 8 left. I lost a huge pot after flopping trip 5s when my opponent rivered a flush, managed to regain a stack without showdown and again lost a big pot with trips after another rivered flush (lol), I was beginning to think it wasn't my day.

However I again managed to regain my stack and really did dominate without showdown, I was really pleased as I was bossing the game when there were 6 left and I'll make a post with some key hands. Two in particular involved calling a river bet with A high (on a double paired board) and also calling a strong river bet with pocket 7s on a board containing a K and a J.

The Deal

Once we were 3 handed we decided to call in a mod to discuss a deal. 3rd took $688 and 1st was $2,080. Two of us had 400k in chips and the other guy had 90k, ideally I wanted to wait until headsup however was willing to look at the numbers. In the deal 3rd was offered $800 however he said he wouldn't deal for less than $1,100 haha "yeah ok mate good one".

We played on and eventually got rid of the short stack. I had a minor chip lead in headsup however we called in the mod as I was willing to deal if we split based on chip stacks, he agreed and the deal was done. It looked like once the deal was done he couldn't be assed to play on a shoved allin on a 3KKK board, I snapped with 88 and won the pot and the tourney. However I'm 100% sure he wouldn't have made this play had the deal not been done.

As mentioned I'll be sure to save out some key hands and post them up when I get the chance...


Coaching

Over the past 2 weeks I've been providing coaching to a mate of mine. He has a good grasp of poker already and the coaching isn't too intensive. He put some money of Tilt and during my sessions I just have a Skype call open with him so he can ask questions whenever he wants and I can give him tips. Its been great so far and I've even learned a lot from our sessions, what's more it's good to see him learning and understanding what I'm explaining.

He managed to grind the $3 step on Tilt into a $75 ticket. I told him to use it for a "real money" tourney and we opted for the $75 45-man. Once I'd shipped the $27.50 I focused on his table talking him through things and aiding decisions. Anyway to cut a long story short he shipped it for just under $1,200 weeeeeeeeeeeeee. He was amazed and chuffed. I told him to cash out a chunk and for the meantime just continue what he's doing which he did...


UKIPT Galway

Well the final satellites are over and I've failed in my attempted to bag a main event seat. I'm heading over Wednesday night so instead of playing Day 1 on Thursday I'll just chillout and relax. I'll then head to the venue Friday as the €350 side event kicks off in the evening. They have a €50 5 seat gtd f/o satty before hand so I'm going to play that to get into the "live" groove. If I win a seat then great but if not I'll buy into the event anyway. I imagine most of the day 1 main event bust outs will be playing so the field should be fairly large. Looking forward to playing live again :D

That's all for now folks :D :D

Can I see a ship sailing in...?

...I'd like to say yes. I had an uber grind session on the weekend playing 20-25 MTTs, making it deep numerous times however just falling short at the crucial time. Over recent weeks I've had a number of deep runs which have left me very frustrated. Below is a list of my deep results over the past couple of weeks...

$55....$90,000 Gtd.....[21/2,521]....Cashed for $390.75....top 0.8% of field
$109...$10,000 Gtd.....[9/148]....Cashed for $384....top 6% of field
€135….€75,000 Gtd.....[29/472]....Cashed for €300....top 6% of field
$44....$6,000 Gtd.....[8/200]....Cashed for $240....top 4% of field
$27.50….$5,000 Gtd.....[15/500]....Cashed for $137.50....top 3% of field
$44....$6,000 Gtd.....[15/205]....Cashed for $123....top 7% of field
$33....$10,000 Gtd.....[41/500]....Cashed for $82.50....top 8% of field
$22….$4,000 Gtd.....[24/360]....Cashed for $61.20....top 6% of field
$26....$16,000 Gtd.....[39/1,068]....Cashed for $53.40....top 3% of field
$26....$16,500 Gtd.....[51/802]....Cashed for $51.97....top 6% of field

I've decided to take a few days off from the MTT grind. Maybe even the whole week, I'll reduce my volume this week and maybe focus on STTs and Steps on Stars. MTTs take up a whole evening and if your playing two sessions a day sometimes a whole day so I'm going to take some time off to refocus. I'm very pleased with my string of results and it makes me even more determind to ship a tourney. My last outright win was back at the beginning of October in the $44 4-Max for $2.4k.

I'm still in the hunt for a UKIPT Galway package/seat so will probably play a couple of hours a few evenings this week to try and work towards that goal. This will give me time to refocus on my MTTs and I'll probably be looking to put in a 12 hour session on Sunday.

The Grind Station

The True Art of Multi-Tabling

Well over recent weeks I've been enforcing the true are of multi-tabling. Most people usually multi-table 8-12 tables over 2 screens (even more for the pioneers of the art). However, recently I've been multi-tabling across three screens, two laptops, two mouses and two keyboards.

"Why?" I hear you ask. Well my primary laptop is a Mac and I've recently been playing on Poker.co.uk which doesn't have an Instant Play version. I currently can't be assed to setup a windows partition on my Mac and being the law abiding citizen I am, I don't want to download a copy of Vista. If anyone is aware of other ways to get a .exe working on a Mac then feel free to comment.

Here is a picture of my current setup. I've the 13.3" Macbook Pro (probably my best investment ever), this is hooked up to a 23" Phillips HD monitor and to the right is just an old 15" Acer which is used for non-mac software. I hate the Boss media Instant Play so Dusk Till Dawn is played on here as well as Blue Square and Poker.co.uk. Also notice the new age iPhone in the bottom right of the picture, I like to keep this handy to use various poker related apps :D :D...

The Donked becomes the Donker

Well I rarely receive abuse in the chat however I absorbed it by the bucket load in one tourney this evening, in concecutive hands and it was fully justified.

Hand 1.

Tilting from donking numerous MTTs at the beginning of my session. Not really paying attention at all as I'm busy on Skype and watching the Rugby. I call a button raise from the big blind with 46s, I check the flop without looking and my opponant moves allin for his remainding 800. I glance at the flop, see a 4 and call. He tables QQ, turn blank river 4 lol. Someone insta types "y o u l u c k y b a s t a r d". Excellent...

***** Hand 2405451630 *****
100.00/200.00 Texas Hold'em (No Limit ) - 19 November 2010 23:09:51
€5,000 GTD REBUY (Real /Tournament )
Seat 5: turi11 (1250.00)
Seat 7: FezioJr (6935.00)
mouur post SB 100.00
FezioJr post BB 200.00
** Deal **
FezioJr [4h, 6h]
*** Bet Round 1 ***
Drobek21 Fold
VemComigo Fold
adriancris Fold
blueskyjul Fold
chistorra Fold
jbouuu Fold
-RAMSES- Fold
turi11 Raise to 450.00
mouur Fold
FezioJr Call 450.00
*** Flop(Board): *** : [4c, Js, Kc]
*** Bet Round 2 ***
FezioJr Check
turi11 All-in 800.00
FezioJr Call 800.00
*** Turn(Board): *** : [4c, Js, Kc, 2d]
*** River(Board): *** : [4c, Js, Kc, 2d, 4d]
*** Showdown *** : Rake: 0.00 Total Pot: 2600.00
turi11 [Qd, Qs] Two pair queens and fours Win: 0.00
FezioJr [4h, 6h] Three of a kind, fours Win: 2600.00

However the fun doesn't stop there...

Hand 2.

The very next hand I'm sitting in the small blind. I see that the action is on me, I look at 57s and decide to make up the bb as it's only another 100, OR IS IT? once I pressed call I soon realised that the action had gone, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, call 200, raise to 1600 and then I call the 1600 with 57s lol. Everyone else folds and im headsup with this monster hand. Flop comes down 277 weeeeeee! I think to myself I hope he has AA or KK. I obviously check and he shoves 5.5k into the middle, I snap, he shows KK, I fade and ship the pot. Great skill and play by me. At this point the table note taking is going crazy, everyone has identified the fish at the table so I'm sure I'll be hunted down in the near future.

***** Hand 2405452818 *****
100.00/200.00 Texas Hold'em (No Limit ) - 19 November 2010 23:10:52
€5,000 GTD REBUY (Real /Tournament )
Seat 6: mouur (7125.00)
Seat 7: FezioJr (8285.00)
FezioJr post SB 100.00
Drobek21 post BB 200.00
** Deal **
FezioJr [5c, 7c]
*** Bet Round 1 ***
VemComigo Fold
adriancris Fold
blueskyjul Fold
chistorra Fold
jbouuu Fold
-RAMSES- Call 200.00
mouur Raise to 1600.00
FezioJr Call 1600.00
Drobek21 Fold
-RAMSES- Fold
*** Flop(Board): *** : [2d, 7d, 7s]
*** Bet Round 2 ***
FezioJr Check
mouur All-in 5525.00
FezioJr Call 5525.00
*** Turn(Board): *** : [2d, 7d, 7s, 10h]
*** River(Board): *** : [2d, 7d, 7s, 10h, 9d]
*** Showdown *** : Rake: 0.00 Total Pot: 14650.00
mouur [Ks, Kc] Two pair kings and sevens Win: 0.00
FezioJr [5c, 7c] Three of a kind, sevens Win: 14650.00

PokerStars.com Daily Ninety Grand Fail + More

Online volume has been minimal of late however I’ve found time to play some MTTs with frustrating results. My first deep run came in the Poker Stars DNG a daily $55 tourney, I’ve played this a number of times before and have managed a few deep runs with my best result being about 30^th.

The tourney saw 2,521 players take to the virtual baize generating a first prize of about $19k. I started well and after a few hours of play found myself in the money with a slightly above average stack. With 120 players left I found myself short shoving to a button raise from the sb with AK only for the bb to wake up with QQ and hold. From here I pretty much enforced uber short stack management and did so until there were about 30 players left, never really getting out of the bottom 10 of the field from 120-30 players. I began to gain some momentum by open shove, 3-bet shoving and chipping up mostly preflop. I then proceeded to open with AK only for the button to 3-bet, I set him all in and he snaps with JTo, J on the turn and I’m crippled. Very next hand I shove to a raise with 10 bigs holding A3s, the raiser snaps (committed) with K9 and hits. Really frustrating to run bad at the wrong time, brought back horrible memories of being deep in the Sunday Warmup (AQ less than AJ aipr for 3m pot with 20 left)

I’ve also been playing some MTTs on Poker.co.uk primarily the €10 rebuys, I’ve done well in these over the past few days making 3 final tables. I’ve placed 10/120 for €60 after getting it in for the chip lead with TT vs A9 for the A to bink, 5/130 for €270 and most recently 3/101 for €375.

UKIPT Galway

I’ve yet to qualify for the €1,000 main event which takes place in a few weeks. I’ve played 2 €215 satellites, both having 40 runners producing 4 packages each, the first I busted 14^th and the second I busted 8^th. I’ll play a few more of these however regardless of winning a package I’ll still be heading to Galway during the event so will most likely be playing one of the side events if I don’t get a package within the next 2 weeks.

DTD Grand Prix 2011

A quick mention for Dusk Till Dawn, they’re hosting their 2^nd Grand Prix and having missed the £50 last month I’ll definitely be playing the £100 Grand Prix in January. I’ll be hitting it up with Dann and we’ve already sorted accommodation so we’re good to go lol.