Razz

I managed to do some damage to my bank roll playing limit, but extricated myself from that mess by winning a 48 man, $22, Razz tournament on Full Tilt for $346 - that's 3 out of 5 wins at Razz (update, now 3 out of 6) excluding the WCOOP satellite (mentioned in earlier post).

Only other thing of note is that I have downloaded the stud and omaha versions of pokertracker and am currently playing 1/2 Razz and HORSE.

Current aim remains to win a seat to the WCOOP Razz event - there is, however, a small problem with that plan. I have busted my Poker Stars a/c. Any Razz backers out there? Thought not.

Satellites 2


Perhaps the most fundamentally flawed proposition in poker is attempting to satellite into a re-buy tournament. Only bad things can happen.

This thought crossed my mind as I won my seat in the £100 rebuy PLO FTOPS tournament on Saturday at the second attempt. I might have got in for $24 total, but what exactly did I think would happen when I got there?

If you can't afford to buy your way in, you shouldn't play in a rebuy, simple as that. At best you are scared deadmoney money trying to find a big hand which may or may not result in doubling up. If successful, what happens when it comes to adding on?

At worst you will end up rebuying and causing lasting damage to the bankroll. The further you go, the more likely you are to feel obliged to rebuy or add on, with the chances of cashing still miles away.

With this in mind I decided to double up or clear off, no rebuys, no add on. I failed in all respects but did manage to drag myself away after busting for the second time with just one wasted rebuy. So £124 wasted which would have been far more profitably spent elsewhere. Lesson learnt.


Bubble boy


I did manage to get to a final table in an $11nl tourny last night on FTP (7th for £110), which makes me feel a bit happier.

I have been bubbling tournaments (particularly $8 PLO tournys on Pokerstars) regularly for the last 2 weeks, so I tried something different - not looking at the prize money at any stage. I knew what 1-3 were going to get but not anyone else. I think it worked I didn't worry about the money or getting knocked out at all, just getting chips.

Having said that if I had known that the jump between 7 and 6 was $50, I might not have gone all in with 22 UTG when shortstacked with 6.5BB, I might have tried to wait out the other shortstack who had 5BB. But avoiding negative thoughts like that was the point of the exercise. Whether or not the 22 move was bad idea anyway, I'm not sure.

Incidentally the fear of failing to reach the money has not had anything to do with my persistent bubbling in PLO tournys - in fact the opposite is true - I seem to have an uncontrollable urge to play like a mad man in those as the bubble approaches.

Satellites

Nothing more frustrating than coming 8th out of 40 in a Razz satellite to the WCOOP, when there are 6 seats and 7-10 play $39 (aka the buy in) back. Was doing fine but couldn't get 2 hands in a row once we hit 14 to move into the safety zone.

The frustration is compounded by the amount of time wasted - nearly 3 hours for exactly $0.

I do, however, think my Razz tournament game is relatively good. If I could have won one hand at the end I would have had every chance of getting in. Bets were 500/1000 with a 100 anti so even the biggest stacks were in serious trouble (60,000 chip in play - average 7,500).

Learning Limit

Had a bit of a downturn this week. Bubbled a few tournys and then blew several more dollars playing PLO cash games. I was PLOwned as they say on the west bank.

So for a change of scene, I am taking up limit hold em as an experiment. I have set up a separate blog for that www.learninglimit.blogspot.com.

Jennifer Tilly?

1st hand of the PLO tourny on Stars - players going all in everywhere else:

PokerStars Game #11395431906: Tournament #57261833, $10+$1 Omaha Pot Limit - Level I (10/20) - 2007/08/09 - 14:30:00 (ET)Table '57261833 10' 9-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: gvonah (1500 in chips)
Seat 2: mama shmales (1500 in chips)
Seat 3: Moi (1500 in chips)
Seat 4: bluferfinger (1500 in chips)
Seat 5: Poor$Broke (1500 in chips)
Seat 6: chanceyd2007 (1500 in chips)
Seat 8: emefge (1500 in chips) mama shmales: posts small blind 10
Moi: posts big blind 20
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Moi [3s Jh 8s Jd]
bluferfinger: folds
Poor$Broke: calls 20
chanceyd2007: calls 20
emefge: folds
Lindin is connected
gvonah: folds mama shmales: calls 10
Moi: checks
*** FLOP *** [3h 2c Ac]
mama shmales: checks
Moi: checks
Poor$Broke: checks
chanceyd2007: checks
*** TURN *** [3h 2c Ac] [Ad]
mama shmales: checks
Moi: checks
Poor$Broke: checks
chanceyd2007: checks
*** RIVER *** [3h 2c Ac Ad] [4c]
mama shmales: checks
Moi: checks
Poor$Broke: checks
chanceyd2007: checks
*** SHOW DOWN ***
mama shmales: shows [6s 3c As 5c] (a straight flush, Ace to Five)
Moi: mucks hand
Poor$Broke: mucks hand
chanceyd2007: mucks hand
mama shmales collected 80 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***Total pot 80 Rake 0 Board [3h 2c Ac Ad 4c]
Seat 1: gvonah (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: mama shmales (small blind) showed [6s 3c As 5c] and won (80) with a straight flush, Ace to Five
Seat 3: Moi (big blind) mucked [3s Jh 8s Jd]
Seat 4: bluferfinger folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: Poor$Broke mucked [6c Kh 3d Th]
Seat 6: chanceyd2007 mucked [8c 9h Qh 9d]
Seat 8: emefge folded before Flop (didn't bet)

Full house on the turn, straight flush on the river and no bet.

PS moi is not my stage name.

Razz

For some reason I have never particularly felt comfortable playing on PokerStars. I have dabbled a few times, but not managed to win a cent. I think I might have cashed in 1 tourny and 1 sit and go, but otherwise have just mown through a couple of hundred dollars in total in my brief visits.

With the WCOOP coming up, I decided to deposit £50 ($102) over the weekend with the aim of building that up sufficiently to allow me to play a couple of satellites to the WCOOP events. Ideally I would like to get a chance to play in at least one of the Razz, Horse and PLO.

It looks like the events start at 3pm US time - so 8pm here, which is far more Euro friendly than the FTOPS events which generally start at 2am in the morning.

Anyway, I finally broke my duck yesterday on PokerStars winning a Razz tournament ($11 buy in, 80 players) for $240. It may not be a lot of money, but I don't care and I felt like I played really well.

I broke out of the pack with about 50 remaining and just accumulated chips. I entered the final table with about 25% of the chips and quickly moved that up to 50% with controlled aggression. In the end it was relatively straightforward. Heads up Razz is tricky but having more chips makes it easier.

This is a much better effort than my first Razz tourny win last month on Full Tilt.

I am pretty much convinced now that if I am to be a profitable on line player its only going to happen if I stick to tournaments and stay away from No Limit Holdem as much as possible and cash games altogether.

The players at low level Razz, HORSE in particular and PLO (to a lesser degree) tournys are generally very bad. And I feel like I am better than most.

I have about $300 on PokerStars now so hopefully I grind that up to something worthwhile.

Update on the next door neighbour episode:

• My next door neighbour is a trainee solicitor with a magic circle law firm.
• Has he brought my tenner back?

Has he fuck.

Edit - Neighbour appeared one week later with tenner - I take it all back - he's a gentleman and a scholar etc.

Played like a tit tonight.

Because its Friday and my main poker night of the week I ran (which means walked very fast) home from Southwick (where I get off the tube every night -because no one else does) to my flat in Kennington.

As I opened the front door to the block of flats where I live, I discovered my next door neighbour (or at last I assume it was my next door neighbour because he told me he was, but because this is London I've never met or spoken to anyone in my block) loitering sheepishly in the communal hallway.

It turned out (or at least this is what he told me) that he walked 2 yards out of his flat to put the rubbish out (in the hallway - nice) only to find that the door closed behind him. He had no wallet, phone or key.

He asked me if I had a ladder so that he could climb through his open first floor window. (??!!)
Strangely enough, not being a burglar, I don't have a ladder. But I thought it best to invite him in for a cup of tea (burglar's welcome at mine).

Apparently he had a friend staying who was out on the lash who has the spare key, but because this is the modern age and no one knows each others phone numbers he couldn't ring him to tell him to get his arse back home.

Anyway - he ended up on my computer for about 30 minutes trying to look up and send loads of messages to his mates on facebook asking them to get in contact with his friend that had the spare key.

By the time he buggered off to wander the streets for 3 hours (with a tenner of mine - sound investment) it was about 8.30pm and i had to cook the wife dinner.

When I finally logged on something was wrong with the computer (and my mind started turning to the possibility that this was just a big scam to hack into my computer - what did you do ya bastard). By the time I fixed that and finally started it was really too late to play much. And I played like a tit as well.

I shall be interested to see whether I will get the tenner back. But it seems he was legit (his mate popped round looking for him when he got back from the pub and found the note under the door).

Note to self: do good deed, lose cash at poker - life is so unfair.

Not much to report over the last week. I have played a few tournaments and bubbled or crept into the money, but no big finishes and a particularly bad performance in a $5PLO rebuy (cost me $50).

I found a new blog to read (by Andy Ward):

http://getitquietly.blogspot.com

I like reading old posts from 2003 about how things were before the poker boom when £100 and £200 tournaments meant something.

Now in the pro's blogs all you read about is either how they busted out to some random donkey in $10k buy in tournys here, there and everywhere, and how they are suffering $500k swings in the online cash games. £200 tournaments somehow seem more real.

I am starting to think that the top tier of poker is incredibly artificial with half of the so called names being just that - sponsored names with no substance and few recent (or in some cases historical) cashes - whilst the second tier represents the real sole of poker - the grinding pros and rounders.

I'm not talking about the true greats like Chip Reece and Barry Greenstein here or the true ambassadors like Joe Hachem or Greg Raymer, but the plastic Mancs, attractive birds and one hit wonder pros, who happened to win a tournament when poker took off and will be shown in ESPN clips until 2067.

The lucky sponsored few are, however, living the life, which is what we all dream of. I would gladly be Chis Moneymaker (but I'd rather be Sammy Farha).