Poker DeNom and a switch to Absolute

I played last night at the superb Poker DeNom in Darlinghurst. http://www.pokerdenom.com/ This is the exclusive drinking venue above Ruby Rabbit. This place oozes style and attracts the famous and the wannabees. The owner, Paul, has started a regular poker tournament every Tuesday. The tables are immaculate and the dealers very professional. Due to the Aussie Millions happening in Melbourne right now the list of players in Sydney with large enough bankrolls for the $1000 buy in is a little on the slim side so they started up a $100 (1 rebuy) two table event.


I will say that my table was the most fishiest I have ever sat down at. Apart from the guy to my right I did not notice anyone that had any real skill. Any raise 2x, 3x, 10x blinds were being called by 3-4 players, otherwise it was a 10 person limped family pot. We started with 8000 chips and blinds at 25/50 increasing every 20 mins which gave enough room to wait for some good starting cards. I doubled through with 33 vs JQ (he called my all in overbet preflop) and around an hour later I doubled up with 1 hand to go before the rebuy period finished with my AA vs QQ all in preflop.

I folded my way to final table while card dead. My evening came to a halt when the blinds were 2000-4000 and I had a stack of 19k left. With an M of just over 3 it was folded round to me on the button and I pushed with A7s. SB shortstacked folded and BB bigstack called with KTs. 10 on the flop and im out in 7th. The money spots started at 4th. Was this the right move ?

I wanted to think about this situation as it comes up a lot. I had found no previous spots where it was folded around to me with every pot being raise/reraised. I had been ready to push for the past 2 orbits if a good situation occured. I know chances are high that tight shorty to my left will fold and that I have only small fold equity against loose bigstack. I feel I will be called 80% of the time.



Against 2 random cards I am 61% according to pokerstove.

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 60.984% 59.39% 01.60% 1245678450 33504233.00 { As7s }
Hand 1: 39.016% 37.42% 01.60% 784885484 33504233.00 { random }



It actually turned out to be 58.5%

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 58.834% 58.56% 00.28% 1002708 4711.50 { As7s }
Hand 1: 41.166% 40.89% 00.28% 700173 4711.50 { KsTs }



This would probably be my last chance other than waiting another 5 hands when then blinds would chew up 4k of my 19k stack. I wasnt going just for the money placement, I was going for first and I believe this was a correct move to make under the circumstances. Any thoughts ??



Switch to AP (Absolute Poker)


I have been playing at Full Tilt for a long long time without RakeBack. I checked my stats on pokertracker and have paid almost $3000 in rake since August. While that might not be a huge amount for the pro's, I as an evening/weekend player consider that a nice lump of cash. If i had my rakeback set up i would have 27% of this back in my pocket. That is $810 of money I have given away for free. If you are playing regular cash at a site without rakeback you are giving money away by not having rakeback. I should have done this earlier but with my Pokertracker/PAHud setup and familiarity of FullTilt I was too comfortable. There's nothing like a slap in the face with $800 of your own money to wake you up and do something.


I have many accounts at various sites over the past few years as I have chased bonuses and not one with a rakeback deal. One of the only sites I hadnt got an account was AP. For the time being this will be my home. I will clear their $500 bonus and start to see my first ever rakeback hit my account.


I sat down and played a few tables while setting up the Pokertracker/PAHud for AP and had a nice result. Click the image below as I am still a dummy with pictures in Blogger at the moment.




Not a bad start. Lady Ryverrat is away soon so will be topping this up with hopefully 500+ hands an evening for a good solid 2 weeks. I will try to post some interesting hand histories good and bad. Ftops VII is also back in February so will be playing some satellites to get some of those cheaply. I had a good run at Ftops V last year so will want to try that again.



For anyone in Sydney reading this please check out http://www.dailyaddict.com.au/ for some cool things happening in town.



Ryverrat