SwingSwingSwing's Poker Journey

I had one of those weekends - good then bad then worse then back to good again.

Saturday started off well. I was playing on Classic Poker to get some points to qualify for an affiliate tournament. I found a juicy £0.50/£1 6 max limit table and managed to accumulate about £30. It was a similar story on a $1/$2 table a bit later on.

On Sunday, I was back on Classic to pick up the remainder of the points required and I had a disaster. It was the $1/$2 table with one uber-fish and one LAG who couldn't miss a flop if he tried. I had aces cracked by the uber-fish's 53o. I had top pair beaten by runner runner trips. I had pocket pair beaten by higher pocket pair. I never seemed to hit a set. Flush draws were not coming in. But because of the precense of the uber-fish I kept topping up. When I finally gave up I was down $80. An absolute disaster. The uber-LAG was up at least $50. Bastard.

To escape, I moved to PokerStars to play some 5 Card Draw. The $0.50/$1 tables were good as there was a new fish who did not seem to know what he was doing. I was up $15 before moving up to a $1/$2 table. This was where it all started to go wrong. The worst hand was when I dealt a Jack high flush UTG and raised it up. Only the BB called. He drew 3 and I stood pat. I bet, he raised, I reraised etc etc. He turned over quad aces. I was gutted. What are the odds of that? I calculated that the probability of having quads Aces after the draw when holding two Aces is .002775 i.e. 0.2775% approximately 1:359. So every 360 times you have a pair of aces and you draw 3, you will hit quads once. Bloody Hell. I also lost full house over full house a couple of times too. Not good.

The Bloggerment is getting bigger and bigger! There were 21 entrants last week and it was a cracking tournie. Details of this weeks are in the image on the right.

It was the start of a new month and time to tot up the figures and get a handle on the profit/loss situation. I made a slight loss on the month, only about £12 so nothing to worry about. My bankroll has been fairly static recently while reviewing I realised that I'd been lax in my bonus chasing. Most of my chasing was on the Cryto network but my game of choice, $1/$2 Limit 6 Max, had got noticeable tighter after UIGEA came into force so I changed over to Party Poker via PokerStrategy.org.uk) and PokerStars. But with the new month I ventured back to see what the state of play was.

My impression is that things aren't as bad as they used to be. My favourite overaggressive donator , Madman006, still plays the £1/£2 games and there were plenty of games at $1/$2 with over 40% seeing the flop. Good times indeed so I jumped in. I've played four hours at Will Hill and am up about £10 plus £20 of the monthly bonus. Not bad. I might even go back on InterPoker this month too.

Not much else happening. I finished ITM in a 5 Card Draw tournie last night but $2.08 is hardly going to set the world on fire, is it?

Last night at nine o'clock found me registering for three private tournies, the monthly Motley Fool, the weekly Brit Bloggerment and a PokerStars $1 British/Irish only.

Playing three tournies simultaneously was a bit of stretch especially when trying to watch Medium on the SciFi channel but it worked out well.

I doubled up early in the Bloggerment when a pair of 7s called my all in with Jacks. Nice. From then on I was card dead and any steals I tried were being met with resistance. Cloud took a large piece of out my stack with a couple fo turn and river allins. One of them he showed, having hit trip 4s on the flop which I managed to get away from. It wasn't too long before I was in short stack mode again and went out when my allin from UTG with 99 was called by Cloud with ATo (a pretty poor call IMHO). Natch, Cloud his his Ace on the flop.

The Fool tournie went well. I had a very slow start and was down in the bottom two for a good chunk of the tournament. I can't remember the hand now, but I doubled up and was in the top two for the second hour. When the final table formed, I was sitting in 6th but managed to increase my stack and make it through the bubble. Unfortunately, nothing went for me and I was out on a coinflip but with $34 to my name.

The last tournie, was the $1 British/Irish only donkfest....and I really mean donkfest. The standard of play is atrocious. I wasn't really focusing on this tournie as the Fool was worth more but I managed to make the money, out in 17th.

So all in all a good evening, just a pity the coinflips went against me.

Had a busy week so not played that much.

I can across a post on someone's blog (for the life of me I can't remember who!) about going from $1 to $1,000,000 in one day. From what I remember it involved starting out at the lowest possible stakes and moving up whenever you have a buyin for the next highest level. The blogger in question was going to apply this to headsup games rather than general ring games.

I gave this some thought....and thought I try out some HU SnGs. Now I'm not an experienced HU player, in fact I think I've played two, won one and lost one, so I was a bit nervous even though I was starting at a $2 level.

First game - pretty easy in the end. My opponent didn't have much in his toolbox, with the all-in being his favourite move, especially with mid-pairs which he was kind enough to show me. I just chipped up gradually and wore him down. Final hand was in the second level. He pushed with A7 and I called with AJ and it held up. So $4 to me. Woo hoo!

Second game - I saw there was a player sitting at a $5 limit HU SnG table. Now I think I'm a better limit player than NL and so I joined him. Again, fairly easy. My opponent hardly ever raised from the SB, letting me see far too many flops for free. Seeing a free flop with 86 and catching an open ended straight draw is fantastic. I got lucky on the final hand, catching a full house on the river but I think I had the better of him. $10 to me. Woo hoo!

I'd love to say that I continued up the levels winning each one but I didn't. I stopped there for the evening a thought more about the strategy. I started it again last night but stopped after I won the first match as I was feeling a bit queezy.

Maybe at the weekend.

Don't forget this week's Bloggerment tournie. Pokerstars, 9pm. Private Tournie tab. $5. Full details in the image to the left.

I played several MTTs over the weekend, doing quite well I thought.

On Thursday evening, MrsSwingSwingSwing has went to bed earlier and I was going to watch Alien on FilmFour+1 at 10pm. I fired up PokerStars to see if there was anything interesting and decided to enter a $2.75 MTT. There were around 2000 entrants, par for the course.

Now despite my Aien-watching multitasking, I was playing well. Getting Aces a couple of times certainly helped but I was chipping up nicely. In fact very nicely. By the third hour I was in the top 20 and felt good. My reads were good, I was picking my spots to steal very well, my c-bets were bringing down the pots most of the time and I was good at avoiding trouble. That was until 1.30am when I donked off half my stack against the chip leader at the time. I still haven't went back to analyse it but I played it terribly. From that point I was struggling and bombed out in 50th. Still a respectable deep finish, bringing in $11 or so.

I went deep in another MTT on Saturday, finishing 33rd out of 1612 players in a $1 tournie.

I didn't do well in the Bloggerment though. Again, one bad hand against mikesaban left me short and I went out in 17th. But while I was playing the Bloggerment I was also in a British-Irish $1 MTT. This had 104 entries and I made the final table but busted out 9th. Once again, one stupid hand cost me a good chunk of my stack. I'm going to have go back and review these hands and maybe get some external assessment.

So, all in all, a very good weekend for tournies. I feel that my tournie game has improved in leaps and bounds over the previous few weeks. Just a pity that my cash games, which have all been in 5 Card Draw, has went to ratshit!