I guess I’ve got greedy? The nature of grinding tournaments is that, the majority of the time – the times you are running in line with expectation or below expectation – it’s far easier to notice what you COULD have won or what you NEARLY won... how much you WOULD have earned in a given month if you hadn’t dropped $2k on the last Sunday... etc, etc... than it is to focus on the positive.
Every now and then I ground myself by recalling that I earn more from poker now than I did in my previous life as a software engineer. And, materialism aside, this is a much more satisfying existence – not that my ‘real’ job was bad.
Most of September’s pay packet materialised in the first week:
A few selected achievements from the last few weeks:
$1,080 – 19/923 in Absolute Poker’s $200K GTD ($215 buy-in)
I think I played well in Absolute’s Sunday major. To be fair, most of the key action was pre-flop. Ultimately I lost a flip against a very strong player (Ryan Welch AKA gutshtallin – I’ve actually watched a couple of his training videos online). He only had me covered by a handful of chips, so I was in good shape to all-but-eliminate one of the toughest players at the table and acquire a 62bb stack, with just two tables to go.
Alas his A-Qs made a royal flush on the turn, and my pocket Fours started to look a tad pathetic.
It’s my second deep run in this major – I have a feeling I placed about 17th—19th the other time as well.
$2,360 – 1/92 in PartyPoker’s $8K Gtd ($99 buy-in)
I’ve run exceptionally well in Party’s midnight freezeout since they slashed the buy-in to $90+9, final-tabling it four times out of eleven (!) for a 2.6 x return on my $1,089 investment. Heads-up, I was faced with one of the strongest players at the final table, and I started out as the underdog, my foe holding an 1.8-to-1 chip lead.
Heads-up play lasted 23 minutes. I dropped to a low of 46,772 chips to his 229,228, before staging an awesome comeback. I might post three or four of the key hands later.
So, a very satisfying victory. It came just three days after another $2k score...
$2,276 – 1/102 in PartyPoker’s $5K Gtd Rebuy ($33 buy-in)
This is my fourth outright win in Party’s $30 rebuy. Previously, I’ve also had three 2nd places, four 3rds, and a further eight final table cashes. It remains one of my most profitable tourneys.
Critical Acclaim
There was a teensy little ego boost in store for me the other weekend.
Sky Poker cater mainly for micro-stakes players, but there are two or three games I play each week. My favourite is their Sunday night six-max Primo, which typically has a £15k+ prize pool.
Sky is only a small poker site, but one of their gimmicks is that you can appear on television. Well, not in person, but they feature [semi-] live coverage of their flagship online tournaments on the Sky Poker channel (Sky TV channel 865), and the resident poker gurus discuss key hands a few minutes after they happen.
I had my five minutes of fame last week as they featured me thoroughly owning a guy, with a set versus his unimproved pocket pair.
The presenters gushed about how well I played the hand, how I played every street perfectly, and how I extracted maximum value considering I had my opponent dominated throughout the hand.
Unfortunately I don’t think there’s any facility to replay the show on the internet, so I wish I’d taken a transcript of the discussion. Anyway I’ll post the hand later (it’s fairly standard IMO).
It was a nice buzz when the presenters were enthusing about my play. I was watching the show live via the website, as I don’t have Sky TV. Unfortunately I narrowly missed the final table, so the Primo is still on my hit list of tournaments I have yet to take down.
The Sky presenters discussing how great I am. :)
Officially Kicking ArseSky are not alone in singing my praises.
OfficialPokerRankings.com also had something to say about my recent tournament success (see pic).
Incidentally THEKID is now ranked 10th. Go Kiddo!
Ganktober
Speaking of THEKID, my online partner in crime drew my attention to a wonderfully childish thread on the popular poker forum PocketFives.com. There are two weeks left in October to ‘gank’ your opponents – that is, to try and put them on tilt by slowrolling them!
If you don’t know what slowrolling is (not to be confused with slowplaying) see the hand history below for an example.
THEKID informed me that for the duration of October, any time somebody shoves into me and I have the nuts, I am unequivocally, legally and morally obliged to slowroll them. I replied, do I have to slowroll you too? He said yes.
Hahaha...
***** Hand History for Game 9690858625 *****
NL Texas Hold'em $33 USD Buy-in
Level:16 Blinds-Antes(6,000/12,000 -200)
Saturday, October 02, 21:12:31 BST 2010
Table $5K Gtd Speed
Table #1 (Real Money)
Seat 8 is the button
Total number of players : 8/10
Seat 1: Tiemo68 ( 69,831 )
Seat 3: tishthwe ( 32,120 )
Seat 4: THEKID_88 ( 26,513 )
Seat 5: TillyismyEX ( 71,888 )
Seat 6: fridis1977 ( 122,297 )
Seat 7: lamehandman ( 13,812 )
Seat 8: LiquidEyes ( 70,176 )
Seat 9: nugoresu1955 ( 34,363 )
Trny:55066897 Level:16
Blinds-Antes(6,000/12,000 -200)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to LiquidEyes [ Ah Ad ]
tishthwe folds
THEKID_88 is all-In [26,313]
TillyismyEX folds
fridis1977 folds
lamehandman folds
LiquidEyes will be using his time bank for this hand.
LiquidEyes calls [26,313]
nugoresu1955 folds
Tiemo68 folds
** Dealing Flop ** [ 4h, 8h, Jd ]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 6s ]
** Dealing River ** [ Qh ]
THEKID_88 shows [ Kc, 7d ] high card King.
LiquidEyes shows [ Ah, Ad ] a pair of Aces.
LiquidEyes wins 72,226 chips from the main pot with a pair of Aces.
Player THEKID_88 finished in 8 place and received $185 USD
LiquidEyes: Ganktober
You might think that fate will come back and bite you in the backside if you partake in such mean-spirited silliness. Well, it appears the poker gods have a sense of humour: I was dealt A-A again the very next hand!
I even slowrolled my own father on Saturday, in a three-handed home game along with my girlfriend. He turned a straight with a flush draw, but I rivered the nut flush. Cue several minutes of feigned agony when he pushed all-in. God I’m a dick. :)
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