SwingSwingSwing's Poker Journey

Now that January is out of the way, I've got a bit more time on my hands. I haven't been playing that much but instead trying to increase my knowledge by watching various videos and reading some books.

Five Card Draw has been my game of choice so far but it hasn't been going that well as I've been taking a bit of hammering at the 50c/$1 limit which is not so good. But my win rate is still about $2 an hour and that's single tabling.

On the tournament front, again pretty quiet. The odd small stakes SNG here and there. And of course, the BritBloggerment on Sunday evenings.

I managed to win last night's BritBloggerment bringing my total number of wins to 2. Performance wise, I thought it was the best I had played for a long time. I was focused and patient throughout. They say it takes a bit of luck to win a tournament and I did need some early on. I was getting a bit low on chips, around 10BB left. I'm in the blinds and see a raise from Kat in late position. I've got K6s. I thought about for a bit and decided to resteal-push. Kat calls with AJo so I'm not that far behind. The turn bring my King and I double up.

I can't really remember many big hands from then until the bubble and even the bubble is hazy. (Will definitely need to go over the hand history). Kronsdat was the unlucky player to miss out on the money which left Mauzj, myself and, chipleader by a huge margin, Hammerheid. Mauzj took a huge chunk out of Hammerheid's stack when his pair of nines flopped a set against Hammerheid's Aces. There were some more big hands but again my memory is a bit hazy. I had Hammerheid allin with my Aces against his Queens and won. And I lost a pot large where Hammerheid extracted a whole lot of value with his flopped full house.

Anyway, Mauzj was to go out in third and it was me and The Hammerheid heads up.

I started to turn up the pressure and was able to gradually increase my lead until my sevens held up all-in against Hammerheid's 98o and $47.50 ended up in my PokerStars account. :-)

It's been a week or so since the last post. I've played some but not too much.

Last Friday saw the start of the RaiseTheRiver.com League - Season 2. I didn't think I would bother with this as it can be hard to commit to a regular event especially when the "prize" is dependent on regular attendance but I had Friday night to myself and so decided to give it a go especially as there was a special first prize of 500 euros.

It was a remarkably quick tournament and I finished in the money (just) in third place, when my AK push was called by 55 and I didn't hit. Match Day2 should be this Friday.

In the Bloggerment on Sunday, I bubbled again. But this time I've got the graphic and proudly post it. I think my play has improved recently what with coming 4th, 3rd and 4th in the last 3 Bloggerments and the 3rd place in the RTR League Round 1. I hope that continues.

In other poker news, I'm still donking around the micro SNGs on Stars. 17% ROI. I've no idea if that's good or not but my feeling is that it should be higher. It would be too, if I could just win a hand that I dominate my opponent. I've mentioned this in a previous but I'm getting hammered when holding a dominating hand. Last night, on the bubble, it was KJs vs JTo. Donk hits his T on the flop. Luckily this didn't put me out and I finished second to said donk. His VPIP was something like 68% by the way. This SNG saw some amazing suckouts. One player, on two occasions, called an all in preflop holding an underpair and, on both occasions, hit his two outer. Why can't I get that sort of luck!

I other non-poker news, I was out dancing on Sunday at the ESDS Christms Swing On A Sunday Afteroon and my knee hardly hurt at all! That combined that the fact that I played some cracking tunes in my DJ slot meant it was a very pleasurable Sunday indeed.

With the upcoming festive period, the poker has been taken a bit of back seat as various tasks taking priority.

I bubbled in last week's Bloggerment but didn't put up the obligatory graphic. Last night, I went one better and finished third, after lucksack Teaulc's Kxs beat my Axs by making a flush on the river.

The river has not been my friend in the other games too. In one SNG, I was unfortunate to be hit by rivered gutshots twice in ten hands by shortstacked opponents. I bubbled in that one.

Oh well.

Away from the table, my SNG learning continues and I've been watching a few of Rizen's videos on PXF. I can feel my game getting better already!

Bloody Hell, it's not even December yet and I'm getting into my Scrooge persona already, well at least as far as poker is concerned.

After analysing my SNG results I decided that I was going to move up to $5 level. Although my stats seemed OK at $1 the rake is absolutely horrendous and it's not like I don't have the bankroll for the $5s. So up I go.

What a mess. Total train wreck. The scores on the doors so far are:- played 11 with NO cashes. Absolutely none. Not a sausage. I bubbled once though. In some ways I've been unlucky. Like when I push with less than 10BB with 77 and get called by A3. Trey on the flop, Ace on the river. Of course, some of my play has been shocking. Drarr has offered to take a look at my hand histories so hopefully I'll get some pointers.

The BritBloggerment didn't go that well either. I made the final table but went out 9th when my Tens lost to YorkshirePud's AK. He raised from early, I pushed. He called. Again, I'm very tight so me reraising means I have a premium hand. So the best Pud can hope for is to be up against AQ or AK otherwise it's a coin flip or he's well behind. Ach well. He went on to win as well.

vnh indeed.

Following a good review by Grinder, I splashed out $40 for Tourney Manager, a piece of software that tracks your tournament results and winnings. And it's excellent. I asked Stars to send my last 200 tournaments to my gmail address, configured Tourney Manager to retrieve histories from there and boom - my last 200 tournie results are imported.

After setting up a couple of filters, I can now reveal my stats.

$1+20c SNGs on Stars: ROI 30.2% ITM 54.2%

$5+50c MTTs on Stars (i.e. The BritBloggerment): ROI (6.9%) ITM 16%

$10+$1 MTTs on Stars (i.e. The TMF Monthly): ROI 15.2% ITM 29.4%

For the time being, I'm going to stick to the $1 SNGs while I learn more. If it goes well, I may start multitabling these, eventually moving up to the $5's.

This made me laugh out loud. From fark.com

[Amusing] 80-year-old leader of Atlanta megachurch embroiled in sex scandal with his brother's wife. If only there were some religious book to let him know that this kind of thing is frowned upon.

Brilliant.

The consolidation of my poker accounts continues. I've emptied a couple of Crypto skins and banked the cash. I've also been playing a bit on BetFred to try and clear a long standing deposit bonus, $250 for playing 2500 raked hands. I'm up $40 on my initial deposit, which is 40 Big Bets at the level I'm playing and I've played around 2300 raked hands so hopefully I can get that one out the way this week.

I've not done much else apart from that, the odd SNG go here, the odd 5 Card Draw session there. My SNG play is getting better, finishing ITM a fair percentage of the time. First places are being elusive though. Take, for example, a SNG I played yesterday.

It's down to the final two. My opponent has been pushing all in preflop a fair amount of the time when he was first to act. And I've been folding. The stacks at this point are in my favour, something like 8000-5000. I've got a pair of 7s. I raise. He calls. Flop is all low cards. I push. He calls with 73s. He has a pair of threes on the flop and maybe an unlikely straight draw. Needless to say, he hits another three on the turn. Basically a two outer.

So the stacks are something like 10000-3000 in my opponent's favour. I get my stack up to around 6000 over the next 10 hands and then I get a pair of nines in the hole. I raise. He re-raises, I push and he calls and shows pocket 6s. Now I don't believe in precognition but I had a feeling I wasn't going to win the hand. And PokerStars obliged by putting up a 6 on the river. So I lost that tourney thanks to my opponent hitting two 2-outers in 10 hands. Absolutely marvellous. Isn't poker a fantastically frustrating game!

Moving on, I entered an InterPoker freeroll organised by RakeTheRake. I had a poor start and was in the bottom 10% for most of the first hour. I recovered from this to get into the top thirty. Unfortunately, I had a top 5 player to my left. So, it's all folded to me in the small blind with AQs. I raise. Top5er calls. There's a queen on the flop. I bet the pot. He pushes and I make the call. Top5er has QTo so he's dominated. "Woo Hoo", you might think but as I remarked in a previous post domination is overrated and he hit his ten on the turn and I was out. At least he apologised though.

Moving on to the Bloggerment. In contrast to the InterPoker freeroll, I had a great start, hitting a set against Al Eleven, the San Jose Salmon himself, early doors. I didn't extract as much as I could have though but I was in first place. My stack took a hit thanks to Mair. She raised from early. I reraised not an insignificant amount with my Kings. Mair called and we saw the flop. Of course, an Ace fell on the flop. I had to c-bet. Mair called. I felt she had an Ace. I probably should have checked the turn and taken a free card to my two outs but I put out a small bet which Mair called, basically guaranteeing that she had the Ace. At showdown, my kings lost to AJs. I was a bit miffed as I didn't think Mair's call of my reraise was a good move. I'm a tight player, generally playing less than 10% of hands. What did she put me on? What hands does a tight reraiser has that she is ahead of?

I was having a few connection problems during the Bloggerment. By the time I'd sorted that out, I was down to about 6BB. With a few judicious all-ins I got this back up to 10BB for a bit but then was eliminated when my SB open-push with the Hammer was called by the eventual winner's AQo.

I finished off the evening playing some $0.50/$1 NLHE 6max and won about $5, almost recouping my Bloggerment entry fee.

And that, as they say, was that.