Pokerpops ponders poker

[pokerpops]

I"ve settled down now. It"s a lot easier when you spend the day after being coolered for a top 3 stack just short of the money in a big tourney taking a ferry across the Caribbean to Nevis and then having a tour round seeing some fabulous scenery

Tonight I"m back on the Pony in the $300 tourney. I am aiming for a second St Kitts flag!!!

[pokerpops]

I"ve settled down now. It"s a lot easier when you spend the day after being coolered for a top 3 stack just short of the money in a big tourney taking a ferry across the Caribbean to Nevis and then having a tour round seeing some fabulous scenery

Tonight I"m back on the Pony in the $300 tourney. I am aiming for a second St Kitts flag!!!

6th in the $300 turbo. 30k stack, 15 minute blinds. Fun stuff. Played the same structure as the ME and. We overtook their blinds sometime around midnight with less than half the chips in play

Two flags

[PHIL_TC]

Well done Dave! Did Lucy have a dabble? Sounds like its been a really fun trip, look forward to the stories when you get back, safe trip home tomorrow x

[pokerpops]

Caribbean Sea to the left, Atlantic Ocean in the distance.

[Fatcatstu]

Daughter Amos won 545 quid off 100 quid when staked into a cash table by Ger last night. Highlight hand was definately myself going all in pre for £43 against Ger and Lucy.

Lucy had JJ. Ger didn"t show. The turn was a 3, the river was a 3. I had 23cc. General disbelief from the locals with very few teeth in their head.

[pokerpops]

Daughter Amos won 545 quid off 100 quid when staked into a cash table by Ger last night. Highlight hand was definately myself going all in pre for £43 against Ger and Lucy.

Lucy had JJ. Ger didn"t show. The turn was a 3, the river was a 3. I had 23cc. General disbelief from the locals with very few teeth in their head.

Tell Daughter Amos well done and to put aside enough to cover a new windsccreen :-)

[pokerpops]

Sat and watched Lucy on the live stream from Stoke last evening and loved it. Her game has been a well kept secret for years with her "never show" policy strictly enforced.
She has, as they say, some game.
I slept at around half midnight and woke to a text confirming her win
Well played that girl.

Watch out world, Team Pony are coming to get you.

I understand she"s playing the ME today and will be avoiding running JJ into AA this time.
She"ll be in my three to Final Table

[pokerpops]

After a week of living the dream it was back to earth with a bump last night at G
I"d chipped up very nicely by level 3 with 43000 chips at 100/200 when one of the more errrm  creative players decided to blind raise utg to 1300 in an attempt to either bust and re-enter or chip up from his 3500 stack.
I have JJ utg+1 and in an attempt to isolate I grab a stack of yellow 1k chips and raise (to 21k as it happens)
utg+2 puts his 5k in, it folds to my nemesis, the delightful Betty, everyone"s favourite Granny who flat calls from a stack similar to mine.
For reasons I can"t explain the cards get turned over despite the fact that both Betty and I have chips behind and she has QQ - she just always has it vs me. The flop brings a J, and then a Queen...
I don"t know if the big raise is good or bad generally, but sertainly had the hand played out normally I would have done a lot bigger piece of my stack than I did since putting Betty on QQ would have been beyond most players. In all the months that I"ve played with her I can count the number of times she"s raised pre on one hand and the number of times she"s 3bet pre would be a definite zero...
Fast forward a little and after attempting to represent A10 on an A10 10 xx board vs someone who has A 10 I"m down to 10 BB when I ship with A10 over a min raise. he tank calls with 77 and to continue tonight"s theme of cheers and boos we see an x 10 7 flop and I"m gone.

On the positive side I dug myself out of a sizable hole on the cash table with one highlight being an A 10 x A x board and this time actually having the A 10 myself vs someone with AK.

Also positive was Brian getting a 4way chop.

Three weeks to Christmas and no presents brought yet - today is CyberShop Monday apparently, maybe I"ll find that perfect gift online.

[pokerpops]

The Home Game last night was more fun than should be allowed at a poker table.

Phil describes it better than I could ever do.

I bust with 77<22 and handled the loss with dignity and composure (I"ve suffered worse recently...) and decided to pull up a chair at the .50/£1 table. I made it 6handed and picked up a decent pot first hand when I turned a pair, rivered a flush vs a young chinese lad who seemed to just keep reloading..

Snugged it up a bit since we had two of the local "regs" at the table.

One of them 3bets to £13 over my £3.50 button raise and with the cut off having limp-called the £13 I find a fold.
Flop is   and cut off sits up, chuckles a little chuckle and attempts to bet £5 out of turn.
PF 3better says "it"s on me" and makes it £20, which seemed a bit of a strange move given the monster tell from cut off and I begin to doubt my interpretation.
Until he raises to £40
One the original raiser has folded cutoff shows his KJ and my faith in the read was restored.

I pick up a couple of small pots and then open   from the MP to £3.50 and one of the reggiest of the regs flats.
Flop is   and I lead out for £5 which reggiest reg calls.
Turn   and I bet £8 and call a raise to £23 - this opponent can be tricky and I"m suspecting he has the same hand as I do, or maybe 10 8
River is a rather pleasing   to give me the nut straight and I lead for £25 - I think it looks weak and very like a decent pair decent kicker sort of hand and it gives him plenty of room to play back at me with a mix of bluffs, and good second-best hands.
He raises to £88 and I move all in for a total of £140 and announce queen ten.
His set of deuces well beaten then :-)

This guy has troubled me on the cash tables in the past and to be fair, I got a touch fortunate probably on the river, but for once, having made the nand vs him I got properly paid.

Tomorrow should be the G £100 deepstack game, but apparently it"s the Gala league final freeroll and a lot of the value for the tournament will be absent. I may give it a miss.

[pokerpops]

G Monthly £100

Should have missed it

Regged in Level 4 100/200 and found myself at a table of "can"t folds"
Did chip up pretty well when I 3bet the lad to my right with KK and he decided to 4bet and then 6 bet shove his QQ

Played a hand absolutely awful vs one of the better players at the table. In essence I made a bad call pre, caught a poor straight on turn on a paired board and he check shoved on me.
I tanked and talked myself into giving him the one hand I could beat rather than the three that were beating me. Obviously he had the house

Then I 3bet   to 1950 over an older Gala type players open to 700 at 100/200/25 with AQ
Flop is Kxx ccc, he checks I bet he calls very reluctantly and I decide that I"m shipping any non-club turn
falls, he checks, I shove, he snaps with   obviously.

I re-entered and made it to the last two tables but the structure+the players meant that avg stack was pretty close to 15BBs by then and I was below average. Folds to my SB and I ship into a decent players BB knowing he needs something decent to call with. He has something   and holds vs my  

I didn"t play well at all. I was distracted and irritated by lots of stuff that shouldn"t bother me. The slowwww dealer we had for one level (8 and a bit hands in 30 minutes - I deal a lot faster than that); the irritating tanks from one of the locals where you know he"s folding but he has to sit and stare a lot; I got irritated by my bad play being rewarded by loss of chips and others bad play being rewarded by winning chips which I thought was an attitude I had put behind me.

I carried this whole "not loving the game" feeling into the APAT online Championship and bust out pretty early with 77<99. I"d played pretty snug tbh, had a decent run of cards preflop but couldn"t hit a board to save my life and I was too vulnerable to the sense I had been outdrawn. It"s a valuable lesson though - I really was undecided about playing and the late decision left me unprepared for it. I should have swerved.

I"ll be back on the horse soon though and hopefully back to winning ways. I"m on the trail of a satellite seat for DTD"s January Deepstack and also looking at satellites for other events like UKIPT Edinburgh. Now would be a good time for APAT to run their satellite games again imo

[AAroddersAA]

2012 went OK for me.

Sufered the biggest equity beat of my life in November, but had a ball getting to be in position to lose it and was in a great place to get over it.

2013 goals in formulation but one has to be a Herbieflag at a venue that isn"t DTD.

you cashed  twice in st kitts does that not count or do you consider that as still  dtd ?

I did didn"t I?  

Still says DTD on the Hendon Mob Page though. Good to have a niche flag, but the fact remains that all of my results have been with DTD chips and on tables with DTD on them.

put your name down for apat  blonde forum team you could have that one ticked off in january

Luton? That"s miles away!

You would like Luton.

Get your name on the list sir.

Why is your name still not on the list?

Do hurry up.

[pokerpops]

2012 went OK for me.

Sufered the biggest equity beat of my life in November, but had a ball getting to be in position to lose it and was in a great place to get over it.

2013 goals in formulation but one has to be a Herbieflag at a venue that isn"t DTD.

you cashed  twice in st kitts does that not count or do you consider that as still  dtd ?

I did didn"t I?  

Still says DTD on the Hendon Mob Page though. Good to have a niche flag, but the fact remains that all of my results have been with DTD chips and on tables with DTD on them.

put your name down for apat  blonde forum team you could have that one ticked off in january

Luton? That"s miles away!

You would like Luton.

Get your name on the list sir.

Why is your name still not on the list?

Do hurry up.

what list?

[pokerpops]

G £15+£15 got 39 runners last night and made £1140 which I think is best yet.

I played, though I say it myself, really well. Had a little verbal spat with Cliff the cabbie one of the irregulars who is one of the more irritating players I"ve encountered, and had constant levelling wars with his mate who is also irritating but in a more bearable way. They both open a lot and I opted to not go to war until I had weapons worthy of the battle.
Eventually I find AK in the big blind behind matey"s raise and Cliff"s shove. I feared giving either of them a 50k stack at 150/300 but found a call. Matey folded ( claimed QQ) and I hit a K on the turn and A on river to beat JJ. Cliff was out of his seat and out of the room before I"d gathered in the chips.

I have 85k at the break around 3x average.

Brian has mentioned the first hand after the break. Folds to him in SB he makes up and I peel back AA.
I"m raising here most of the time vs anyone, vs Brian it"s probably 95%. He knows this and I expect him to 3bet often.
So I min-raise and he 3bets. All nicely to plan so far.
Take that sir, I 4bet small and snap call his all in.
We"ve trapped each other perfectly with him holding KK v my AA.

K on the turn

I chipped back up and made the final table in good shape but kind of blew up with 22 when I misread the situation badly.
Survived the bubble with the help of Q6>22 aipf and bust when A6<88 for £90.
It"s rarely just one hand, generally it"s a sequence of decisions that costs you, but the odd poor decision early on is recoverable, one bad decision last night cost me my shot at winning outright. Other than that, I was really happy with my play all night.

Not much live poker now till January I suspect. With Christmas fast approaching and an invasion of children and grandchildren upcoming I"ll try to win a satellite for the DTD £300 and have a run at the Fandango Freeroll and maybe a few other online games but that"s about it.

[pokerpops]

Just a word or two about Brian "The Fossil" Harland.

Brian lives in a world few of us could manage - his devotion to Susan is inspirational and I am proud to count him amongst my friends.

I love having him at the table - the dynamic between us in game is great and there"s nobody I"d rather have played that AAvKK hand with given the result.

His unprompted offer to return my buyin if he cashed was typical of the man and I am donating half of it to the Fandango Freeroll on his behalf. The other half will be going to an MS charity.

He"s still a fish and a luckbox, but he is a top top man.

[pokerpops]