Author Topic: If Carlsberg did dull poker blogs, they'd do this one  (Read 225195 times)

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monkeyman

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Re: If Chris Ferguson can do it, so can I
« Reply #615 on: January 09, 2010, 09:37:04 AM »
This time a slightly longer entry than normal, but I"ve been thinking. Before any smart alec says anything, yes, it did hurt.
Mikeyboy9361 (or whatever the actual number is) recently started a thread elsewhere on this site asking what motivated people to play poker and what they got out of it. I"ve been mulling this over quite a bit and it has had a small influence for my plans for the coming weeks.
  Firstly, what do I get from poker? Its partly something to occupy my free time, I"ve got a competitive streak a mile wide so I love winning tournaments, a small amount of recognition is fine, a collection of APAT medals is great, but what it really boils down to is money. If I go into Norwich City Centre on a friday night, have a few beers, head off to a club, stagger out to a taxi rank in the early hours then find my way home, I will have enjoyed myself, but I"m not going to see the money I"ve spent again. If I sit myself in front of my computer screen to play poker, not only will I have a steady supply of refreshments to hand , I won"t have to worry about "friends" putting pictures of me dancing on Facebook, I may well never see the money again but there is a chance I may make a profit.
  With this in mind, I"ve started to think a bit more about game selection, or more specifically, site selection. If you were to ask me what I thought the best poker site was, I would probably say Full Tilt marginally ahead of Pokerstars. This does not however mean they are my favourite sites. For that I would have to look at where my profits generally come from. My returns on Partypoker have always been good and my Sharkscope graph on that site looks extremely healthy, so although I tend to stick to a very simple playing style when playing there, it has to be a favourite. My main area of disappointment with the Ipoker network is the lack of deepstack events. However, I"ve got a very good rate of return across the network as a whole (playing under different names on different sites) so, controversial this may be, but I love Ipoker simply because I make money there and that"s the bottom line.
 My lack of live poker experience has been well recorded throughout this blog. I"ve been to Vegas a couple of times, played six APAT nationals and apart from a handful of local pub games, that"s pretty much it. My attitude has come about because of focussing too intensely on the money aspect of playing. Why should I leave my house, pay a tournament entry fee and have the expense of a night out, when I could just switch on my PC and have a choice of games? There is an enormous flaw in that particular line of thinking and that is that I"ve come to the conclusion that there is a much bigger difference between internet and live play than I originally believed. Therefore, if I"m half the player I sometimes like to kid myself that I am, I absolutely have to get off my fat backside, get out the door and play live more. Until Bolton, I used to exist in some kind of fantasy world where I could turn up at an APAT national and because I"d done well in the equivalent online events, it was only a matter of time before I"d catch a few decent cards and breeze into the money. Bull****. A record of six nationals and no day twos tells its own story. Yes there have been bad luck stories ( aces cracked, QQ rivered by AQ), but the truth is that my play simply hasn"t been up to scratch. Far from improving, I think my performances have actually got worse and my play in Bolton absolutely stunk the place out. Maybe, just maybe, what I need to do is view a night out playing live poker as an pleasant night out, rather than solely as a money-making exercise. That way, I might actually enjoy myself and iron out a lot of my flaws at the same time. I think I could be onto something here........            
« Last Edit: January 09, 2010, 09:46:15 AM by monkeyman »
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Mikeyboy9361

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Re: If Chris Ferguson can do it, so can I
« Reply #616 on: January 09, 2010, 09:45:44 AM »
From a personal point of view, I know my game suffers when I worry about the Buy In, or how much I have invested. This is someting I am trying to work on, and play the cards or the opposition as I would in a $10 freezeout. In a recent national I was bluffed off a pot ( Guy did play it well) but in a $10 tourney I know I would have snap called, but the thought of busting out or being crippled early doors did affect my thought process. As I say I have worked on this, and now consider the buy in as lost money and as such it makes for clearer thinking. ( And you got the number right! ;))
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monkeyman

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Re: If Chris Ferguson can do it, so can I
« Reply #617 on: January 09, 2010, 09:56:22 AM »

From a personal point of view, I know my game suffers when I worry about the Buy In, or how much I have invested. This is someting I am trying to work on, and play the cards or the opposition as I would in a $10 freezeout. In a recent national I was bluffed off a pot ( Guy did play it well) but in a $10 tourney I know I would have snap called, but the thought of busting out or being crippled early doors did affect my thought process. As I say I have worked on this, and now consider the buy in as lost money and as such it makes for clearer thinking. ( And you got the number right! ;))


There"s a lot of truth in that. In my online game I"m at the point where if I think I"m ahead in the first level of a tournament, I"ve got absolutely no problems sticking all the chips in regardless of buy in. I don"t often make mistakes when I do that. My play in live nationals has been a mix of not playing key hands with anywhere near the same conviction I would online and limping into pots I wouldn"t touch with with a long stick normally. In a word, weak. I"m hoping that just by playing a few live games of some description I can bring my live game up to where my online game is.
« Last Edit: January 11, 2010, 00:10:58 AM by monkeyman »
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monkeyman

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Re: If Chris Ferguson can do it, so can I
« Reply #618 on: January 10, 2010, 21:16:30 PM »
Earlier, I had another second place in a Sky deepstack event to make it 3 consecutive cashes from the last 3 tournaments played. Admittedly we"re still talking about very small money, but even if I ignore last week"s Pokerplayer Grand Prix,  I"m comfortably over $100 in profit for the month from tournaments between $2 and $6. I intend staying at that level for at least a few more weeks and there are a couple of events later in the month I am keeping an eye on. Firstly, there is the final event in the Poker Player Grand Prix series and secondly there"s a $50 stud event in the GSOP series on Eurobet. Hopefully my profit will still be sufficient to cover the buy in for one of them several times over  
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monkeyman

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Re: If Chris Ferguson can do it, so can I
« Reply #619 on: January 12, 2010, 22:59:45 PM »
Things have slowed down a bit over the last couple of days with no return from the last two tournaments played. Last night was a 79 player stud tournament on Partypoker with 8 places paid. It was one of those games where I just had to sit and suffer c**p hand after c**p hand but somehow managed to survive until 5 places outside the money.
  Tonight was a deepstack on Sky which for once was played with 10 player tables rather than the usual six. Five places were paid. Again patience was a virtue and I managed to work my way onto the final table without doing much. At that point, the dealers decided to have a bit of fun. As the low stack and with the blinds about to swallow a large chunk of my puny pile, I shoved with K 10, was called by pocket sevens and hit a king. On the next orbit I shoved with A K, got called by K 10, but the Ace high straight on the board meant a split pot. shortly after, I again shoved with K 10, this time got called by queens and hit a king. So far, I had been involved in 3 all ins where K 10 had not been beaten. Clearly K 10 was the nuts. Can you guess how this story ends? I"m sure you probably can. Shortly after, I shoved again with K 10, got called by some numpty with K 2 and laughed heartily as my marginally bigger-stacked opponent hit a 2 on the flop. F***. Obviously I can"t complain too much as 2 hands went my way and 2 against me, so it evened itself out. But being involved in 4 all-ins with the best hand not winning once? Jeeze, Louise. WTF    
« Last Edit: January 13, 2010, 10:20:07 AM by monkeyman »
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monkeyman

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Re: If Chris Ferguson can do it, so can I
« Reply #620 on: January 13, 2010, 22:21:53 PM »
There"s seems to be a couple of patterns emerging in my games at the moment. Firstly, I"m finishing just outside the prize money; tonight, prize money went to 8th place and I finished 11th. Secondly, all my contested all-ins are falling to the weaker hand. My first piece of luck was shoving with 99, getting called by KK and rivering trips. Then, against the same opponent A 10 hit an ace on the flop when called by QQ. My departure hand, against the same player yet again, was 55 called by KQ with a K and Q on the board. That makes it seven consecutive contested shoves where the inferior pre-flop hand has won. Looks like I need to start playing 7 2 more.          
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Marty719

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Re: If Chris Ferguson can do it, so can I
« Reply #621 on: January 14, 2010, 07:08:10 AM »

There"s seems to be a couple of patterns emerging in my games at the moment. Firstly, I"m finishing just outside the prize money; tonight, prize money went to 8th place and I finished 11th. Secondly, all my contested all-ins are falling to the weaker hand. My first piece of luck was shoving with 99, getting called by KK and rivering trips. Then, against the same opponent A 10 hit an ace on the flop when called by QQ. My departure hand, against the same player yet again, was 55 called by KQ with a K and Q on the board. That makes it seven consecutive contested shoves where the inferior pre-flop hand has won. Looks like I need to start playing 7 2 more.          


Am I reading this right??  U won a 4/1 shot, won a 2/1 shot, then lost a flip and ur complaining :)

But in fairness, keep grinding and Im sure ul get back up there.
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monkeyman

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Re: If Chris Ferguson can do it, so can I
« Reply #622 on: January 14, 2010, 21:57:47 PM »
No, not complaining. Merely stating the slightly surprising fact that I"d seen a sequence of seven consecutive all-ins where the superior hand had failed to win. Of the seven hands, four went my way so I have no problem whatsoever with accepting variance :)
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monkeyman

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Re: If Chris Ferguson can do it, so can I
« Reply #623 on: January 14, 2010, 23:43:26 PM »
Tonight"s action was a Sky deepstack with prize money to 5th and it goes without saying that I finished 6th. Grrrrrrrrrrrr. Its quite possible I won"t play online in two of the next three days, as tomorrow night I"m playing snooker and sunday I will probably play some get-out-of-the-flat-and-meet-other-people-poker.
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monkeyman

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Re: If Chris Ferguson can do it, so can I
« Reply #624 on: January 16, 2010, 11:33:13 AM »
Variance is a bitch. My last two exit hands have been AA called by two players with 78 off who proceeded to hit a runner-runner straight, then AK called by QJ with a Queen on the flop. I think it must be time for a stud tournament to preserve my sanity.  
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monkeyman

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Re: If Chris Ferguson can do it, so can I
« Reply #625 on: January 17, 2010, 00:28:55 AM »
Even if the rest of the week was tough, at least its finished with a result of sorts. No I don"t mean Norwich City"s demolition of Colchester United, who in the eyes of most Norwich fans have taken on the mantle of the new Ipswich, I am still talking about poker. I played a $3 tournament on Pokerstars and from 5205 runners and after around five hours play, I finished in 67th place for a return of $23.42. So far this year, I"ve played in 3 tournies on Pokerstars with more than 4500 players and finished in the top 100 in two of them. I"ll definitely have to build these into my schedule on a more regular basis, as tonight"s event was worth $2500 to the winner and that"s well within my reach. Take one of these down and instantly I"d move a step or two up the buy-in ladder which would give a greater selection of deepstacks to choose from. Its a matter of time!  
 As mentioned a couple of days ago, tomorrow I will be dipping my toes in the water of the live game with a visit to my local Rileys. I paid a visit to the club on friday for a game of snooker to acclimatise and cant wait to see how I get on.
« Last Edit: January 17, 2010, 00:30:42 AM by monkeyman »
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antthecat

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Re: If Chris Ferguson can do it, so can I
« Reply #626 on: January 17, 2010, 12:11:32 PM »
are u up rileys tonight then as i might pop over and bluff my chips to you.
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monkeyman

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Re: If Chris Ferguson can do it, so can I
« Reply #627 on: January 17, 2010, 13:37:14 PM »

are u up rileys tonight then as i might pop over and bluff my chips to you.


I"ll definitely be there. Now that I know there"s added value I can"t refuse!
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monkeyman

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Re: If Chris Ferguson can do it, so can I
« Reply #628 on: January 18, 2010, 00:16:30 AM »


are u up rileys tonight then as i might pop over and bluff my chips to you.


I"ll definitely be there. Now that I know there"s added value I can"t refuse!


Successful that wasn"t. 10 runners and I was out in 8th. How is it possible to play for 2 hours without hitting a single flop or getting dealt a single pocket pair? Ho hum, I probably can"t make next week,but I will be back soon.  
« Last Edit: January 18, 2010, 08:29:17 AM by monkeyman »
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Mikeyboy9361

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Re: If Chris Ferguson can do it, so can I
« Reply #629 on: January 18, 2010, 10:15:13 AM »
I Played a live tournamnet last week, and for the first 2 blind levels (30mins) I didn"t see a single ace or any pair!! Still with patince and a few steals, made it to the FT, only to have aces cracked by Queens.  :"(
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