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Doh!! early exit tonight

Well I sat there for 50 mins and I hadn’t really played a hand and then I get QQ in late position so I raise it to 500 which is about a third of my stack. I didn’t take the hint of the re-raise and I reraised all in hoping that the re raiser who had plenty of chips would show AK or AQ but it was much worse than that as he had AA. Sadly, therefore, I finished 628 from 870 runners.

In the $70k again

As is the way, I suppose, as soone as I say that I’m doing OK on Pacific it all goes to pot and I can’t pick up a cash in half a dozen SNG’s. I played a $3 satellite yesterday to get into the $15 sat for the $70k tourney and I managed to get through that OK and then today I again managed to get through but it was touch and go as I was on the bubble of getting in with just 70 players left and I had 78 with just 2 more rounds of poker left so I decided to call and all in from a shorter stack and fortunately the flop was 88x which managed to chip me up enough to get through. The main one is on in just over an hour so hopefully I can do as good as last week.

Going OK on Pacific Poker

I’m doing pretty well for myself on Pacific at the moment. It didn’t start to well on Monday evening when I came in following my cash in the weekly main event the night before when I was dealt JJ in the 2nd hand of a $20+$2 SNG. I raised the pot and managed to get 2 callers. The flop came 3JQ to give me trips and I reraised the pot and ultimately we ended up all in. Now I usually hate to get involved early but trip Jacks was hard to get away from and when the cards went on their packs I was shown the pocket Queens of my opponent so I was out real quick. Naturally I was disappointed so I signed up for another SNG at the same level straight away and I am happy to say I took that down for the $100 first prize.

On Tuesday night I was banished to the computer room as the missus had arranged a Body Shop party so I started off with another $20+$2 SNG and strangely I got heads up with the same guy that I beat heads up the day before. Happily for me the same result came about and I won the tourney. Now whilst I was playing I had one of those irritating pop ups about a $10 gtd tourney and I signed up for it. There were over 600 players with the top 70 making the money. Fortunately we were down to the last 24 and I was sitting nicely in 13th place when I look at the screen and I have Aces! Oh joy of joys! Anyway I raise it 3k I think and I manage to keep two players in the hand and the flop coms KQ10 which is not nice as there may a straight out there but with two of the Aces in my hand and with 30k left I raise 5k and get one caller. Now I’ve convinced myself that this guy has a pair or a draw so I push all in and he calls and shows me his Queens that go with the one on the board to beat my Aces. With hindsight I wish I’d just pushed from the start but I’m sure the Queens would have called me so I don’t think that there was ever going to be a different result to this hand and I was destined to go out in 24th place with a payout of $65 to give me a $50 profit.

I have a handy tip here too - don’t play whilst writing your blog because tomorrows may have to start with another quick defeat!! (down to 300 early!)

Tonights $70k tourney at Pacific Poker

I got lucky early on when I was all in with 88 against KQ with a Q on the flop but I managed to suck out on the river to get to the total I was looking for at the end of the first hour c3,500 chips.

From then on I basically played tight with a few steals here and there just to keep my chips up and after 3 and a half hours the bubble burst and players started going out quite quickly. I picked up 77 and in an unraised pot I raised all in. I was in 30th place at the time but the blinds were 4,500 and I only had 5 M’s so I didn’t think it was an unreasonable move but I ran into Queens and went out in 66 place for $225. This is my second cash in this event in 4 attempts with my best one coming back in Feb when I came 5th for $3,750. I can’t wait to give it another go next week!

Artificial Time Banking!

Aaargh I’ve just played a $14+$1 satellite on Pacific Poker to qualify for their main Sunday $70 buy in event which takes place in a couple of hours. There were over 250 left and 52 went through but with less than a hundred out a lot of players started time banking. That is they took the full 20 seconds that they have allocated for every hand to make a decision which was usually fold. It is pointless and selfish to do this because what you actually do is ensure that you play fewer hands than other tables and therefore you are a disadvantage. The levels are 10 minutes long and it would not be unreasonable to play 9 or 10 hands a level but with time banking you might only play 5 which means that blinds have probably gone up twice since you last went through them  The problem is the player doing the stalling is not only damaging himself but all the other players at the table and the Poker sites need to do something about this. Apparently PokerStars do outlaw this play and will issue a warning to players who do this but we need other sites to follow the same example.

 Happily I made it through so I look forward to the main game later.

Result from The Online Poker League game 12 and key hands video

This is a video of the key hands from The Online Poker League game 12 which took place yesterday.

The new league table looks like this:

Saturday Morning Poker

First an update on the game on 32Red..well I played very tight the first half an hour and managed to double up with AK v AQ and then manage to lose most of it with AQ a few hands later. AA gave me a chance to get back up again which I did and then I got AK as we were getting to the first break. There was a $1k raise in front and I pushed all in for him to call with AQ os. Unfortunately he hit is 1 in 5 chance to win the pot with the Q on the flop and I was out of the tournament.

Anyway moving on I have a game on PokerStars on Saturday morning at 11.00 UK time which everyone is invited to. The game is $5.50 NLHE can be found in the private tab in the lobby. Full details of the game are below:

Table name: TOPL #12 - $5.50 NLHE
Table number: 53589589
When: Saturday 14 July @ 06:00 ET (11:00 BST)
Game: NL Holdem
Blinds: 15 minutes
Starting chips: 1,500
Places paid - Normal PokerStars payout rules (top 3 up to 27 players etc)
Break: 5 mins after each hour
Buy in: $5.00 + $0.50
Password: topl07

Great tourney tonight..

This tournament below has been brought to my attention today and really I think that everyone needs to take a look at it. Basically it is a $13,000 guaranteed tournament with a buy in of $13. If you do not make the money then you will get your buy in back so in essence it is a freeroll!

What is better is that the tournament is only on 32Red or Betdirect so the number of players is not likely to be as large as a normal Prima freeroll. In addition the set up is better than most Prima games with 2,500 chips and 15 minute blinds so there is opportunity for plenty of play.

Here is what BetDirect say about the tournament:

“Friday the 13th July is a lucky day at betdirect poker: we are giving away a huge $13,000. The buy-in for our Cash Back tournament is $13, BUT if you don’t get in the money, we’ll give you your $13 back – you can’t lose! It’s limited to 1000 players, so get your players to register now!” - there are 408 players currently registered so it is worthwhile downloading the software and getting in even if it is just for this tourney!

World Series of Poker top prize at $8.25 million

LAS VEGAS - Top prize at the 2007 World Series of Poker will be $8.25 million based on the 6,358 players who have entered the no-limit Texas Hold ’em main event over the tournament’s four starting days.

Organizers revised the payoff up from the previously announced $8.23 million and said Monday about $59.8 million will be paid out of the tournament’s pot to players who finish in the money.The totals are short of last year’s record 8,773 participants and $12 million top prize. But it comes nine months after President Bush signed a law cracking down on Internet gambling, which is blamed for shrinking the number of entrants who would have qualified in online tournaments.

Source: Associated Press

Tournament update

I played both the UKFF and the Freeroll Army games this evening and as usual I made no headway in the UK Football Fans game and I went out in 23 place from 49 runners. The Freeroll Army game was a new one for me and with just 18 players the game (for me) lasted just over 2 and a quarter hours when I went out in 3rd place. Fortunately I had not required a rebuy so my $5.50 entry came back as $36.60.