FTOPS VIII

FTOPS VIII starts next Wednesday. It gets bigger and bigger with every series with no less than 24 event scheduled. Unfortunately living outside the US I can only play the ones that are the Friday's orSaturday's (my Saturday/Sunday oz time)

The Schedule is as follows.

1. Wed May 7th 21:00 $200 + $16 NL Hold 'em 6-max
2. Thu May 8th 14:00 $240 + $16 PLO - Knockout
3. Thu May 8th 21:00 'Mystery Tournament'
4. Fri May 9th 14:00 $200 + $16 Pot Limit Hold 'em
5. Fri May 9th 21:00 $200 + $16 Stud/8
6. Sat May 10th 14:00 $500 + $35 PL Omaha 6-max
7. Sat May 10th 16:30 $100 + $9 Rebuy
8. Sun May 11th 14:00 'Mystery Tournament'
9. Sun May 11th 18:00 $300 + $22 NL Hold 'em
10. Mon May 12th 14:00 $200 + $16 Pot Limit Omaha/8
11. Mon May 12th 21:00 $1000 + $60 NL Hold 'em
12. Tue May 13th 14:00 $200 + $16 NL Hold 'em 1 rebuy and 1 add-on
13. Tue May 13th 21:00 $500 + $35 HORSE
14. Tue May 13th 21:00 $200 + $16 NL Hold 'em Turbo
15. Wed May 14th 14:00 $200 + $16 HA (half PL Hold 'em, half PL Omaha)
16. Wed May 14th 21:00 $300 + $22 NL Hold 'em 6-max rebuy
17. Thu May 15th 14:00 'Mystery Tournament'
18. Thu May 15th 21:00 $300 + $22 Razz
19. Fri May 16th 14:00 $200 + $16 NL Hold 'em
20. Fri May 16th 21:00 $200 + $16 Limit Hold 'em
21. Sat May 17th 14:00 $2500 + $120 NL Holdem 2 day event
22. Sat May 17th 16:30 $100 + $9 PL Omaha Rebuy
23. Sun May 18th 14:00 $240 + $16 NL Hold 'em 6-max Knockout
24. Sun May 18th 18:00 $500 + $35 NL Hold 'em

This is quite restricted for me due to having a job and the timezone. With a lot of donkeys trying to qualify for different events I have found value before in the qualifiers. These can be converted to T$ now so there is an incentive to play these.

With the above games available to me. Im going to try my best to qualify for 7 and 19. I might take a few shots at some super sats for 21 but I would cash that in if I won a seat for sure.

'Mystery Tournaments' I find this a little strange. When do they release what they are ? I cant see any players signing up to a tournament they dont know the structure. If they already know what the tournaments will be then I dont understand why they are keeping them secret ? Heads up ? Knockout ?

Im not playing any Omaha events. I came second in a 45 tournament a while ago, ive read Jerry Hwangs book but I still cant beat the damn low level cash games. Ive tried full stack, short stack, tight aggro, loose passive. PL Omaha cash I break even or lose. I just cannot seem to win. I am aiming to improve my game by the time the next FTOPS comes around. I need to watch some CR videos. At the moment I suck.

Poker De Nom Win

Poker De Nom have changed their structure as of last week. It is now a $200 freezeout. Personally I prefer the $100 rebuy structure but these game were running a lot later so I understand why they changed.

Last night saw 32 runners. I finished in 1st place for $3000. Seriously, this place is a goldmine for a decent player. Im not in any way saying that consider myself a great player but the average tight aggro player will do well here. Its a place where top pair bad kicker gets played to showdown. Where sets get paid off to the full and where gutshot straight draws are common for stacks.

For my readers in Sydney. Please get down to Den om on a Tuesday night.

Back to the virtual felt tonight.

Sharkscope

Just in case anyone was wondering, I survived the shark dive. Damn that was cool. Its amazing being in their natural environment 30m deep. Its also a bit eeire as they glide past you with their mouth slightly open and unblinking eyes staring you down. If you ever get the chance get down to South West Rocks and swim with these animals. Its amazing. Sharks, Turtles, Bull Rays, Snakes, Moray Eels, tons of fish and a pitch black cave to explore. These are actual photos from our dive.

With all that adrenaline fuelled action out of my system I am now in a position to make a proper run at turning this bankroll into a nice sum. I'm falling behind on my estimated hands played and will start to pick this up. This blog is a poker blog and I will get it back to poker content very soon. Poker DeNom tonight live $100 rebuy tournament with cash games after if im not too tired. Im about $1400 up at this place overall. Loose is too tight a word for this venue.

AFK Again !

Not much poker action this week as Thailand destroyed my inner soul. Well my liver to be honest. I've not felt on top form. Tonight I head out to play with the sharks for a whole weekend. I dont mean the great poker players, but the kind that chew your legs off if you resemble anything like a seal. I will be diving at South West Rocks which has a large group of grey nurse sharks. Facing Phil Ivey will seem like a doddle after looking one of these in the eye. Im taking an underwater digital camera and will put my best pic up on here next week.

Assuming my fingers are still intact the pokergirlfriend threw a challenge at me. She has seen my recent increase in bankroll and has suggested my short term challenge to hit $5000 before we head back to the UK. This date is 15th June. So 2 months to go from $3100 to $5000. I think thats doable. I went from $500 - $3100 in 3 months. I will be putting some considerable amount of time into playing after this weekend. I noticed that I've only been putting my good hands on show so will also start to put some bad, tricky hands up here for review.

As its the last Thursday of the week, here's a fun website to play around with. All you need is a photo of a friend... hours of fun.

Begone evil poker spirits.

Im shattered from a week's partying in Thailand. They celebrate the Buddhist lunar new year called Songkran. This is basically a countrywide 3 day water fight. You cannot leave your hotel without being shot at with a water cannon, having a bucket of water poured over your head or having some thai putting clay powder on your face. Its all in good fun and with the temperature being so hot you welcome being drenched. And its all meant to cleanse away any evil spirits that may lurk within you.


With my body cleansed of demons I sat down at the virtual felt last night. I was quite tired so didnt expect to be playing long. I sat down at two tables of $0.50/$1 for $100 each and left 15 mins later with a $280 profit thanks to these two hands.


http://weaktight.com/166992
http://weaktight.com/166991

I want to expand on the second hand here. I havent got any real reads. The villain who has just lost the AK hand vs my AA is also the villain in this hand. He has reloaded and my PT is showing his stats as 22/15 over 50ish hands. So a semi decent player so far.

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com


Stacks:

UTG		($126.52)
UTG+1		($106.75)
CO		($66.55)
BTN		($198.00)
SB		($103.00)
Hero		($188.50)

Pre-flop: ($1.5, 6 players) Hero is BB

1 fold, UTG+1 calls $1, CO calls $1, BTN raises to $5, 1 fold, Hero calls $4, UTG+1 calls $4, CO folds
(Im not sure whether to raise here. My thought was that villain was maybe a little tilted, I didnt want a strong reraise. Being out of position I wanted to see a flop and play hard if no A or K appeared then reevaluate the play from there)

Flop: ($16.5, 3 players)
Hero bets $23, 1 fold, BTN calls $23
(so a good flop. Im behind KJ only here. Thats in his range here but so is a lot of other hands. I overbet to hide the strength of my hand, I had slowplayed the set of aces in the previous hand against him. I was really trying to act weak here and he took the bait)

Turn: ($62.5, 2 players)
Hero bets $31, BTN calls $31
(The call made me think he had AQ/KK/JJ/TT/99/T9s or AK floating. The A on the turn was not a great card. It only improves AQ and AK. Im not too worried about a flush draw here. I cant think of 2 diamonds he would be holding here to call the flop bet. Even so I hold one of the diamond outs and the 9d gives me a full house. Time to act weak again and bet half the pot. This will then set up a pot sized bet on the river for all the chips. Pray for no J)
River: ($124.5, 2 players)
Hero goes all-in $129.5, BTN calls $129.5
(great card for me. If he has rivered a flush then i have his stack. If he had TT or T9s then he has a lower full house and i get his stack. Im only losing to AA. He cant put me on a flush draw. I bet all in hoping he has one of these hands and he calls.)
Final Pot: $383.50
BTN shows:
Hero shows:

Hero wins $380 ( won +$191.5 )
BTN lost -$188.50
UTG+1 lost -$5.00
CO lost -$1.00

I think villains play is so poor here. My hand can play out itself. I think the call pf worked here as I may have had to fold to a reraise pf out of position. But calling every street for all of your 200bb stack is poor play. Its weak and you never give the chance for your opponent to fold. What are you beating here when you hold KK ?? Is he really putting me on AK only ? You cant be going broke with 2 pair on such a co-ordinated board unless you have a serious read.

Villain should have reraised me on the flop and then shut down folding to any bet or checking to the river. That way he gives me an opportunity to fold and caps his loss around $60-$70.

So next time you are going through a downpatch do as the Thais do. Grab a cup of water and tip it over your head. Try not to get any on the keyboard though. Happy Songkran......


So that leaves my bankroll at a very healthy high of $3239.

Differences at the next level

Not Many Benny!

I may be speaking too soon but when you see hands like this

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com


Stacks:

Hero		($113.00)
UTG+1		($62.00)
CO		($138.85)
BTN		($86.50)
SB		($100.95)
BB		($55.50)

[UTG+1 posted $1]
Pre-flop: ($2.5, 6 players) Hero is UTG

Hero raises to $5, 2 folds, BTN calls $5, 1 fold, BB calls $4

Flop: ($17.5, 3 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $8, BTN raises to $28, BB goes all-in $50.5, Hero calls $42.5, BTN calls $22.5

Turn: ($169, 3 players)
Hero bets $31, BTN goes all-in $31

River: ($231, 3 players)
BTN shows:
BB shows:
Hero shows:

Hero wins $227 ( won +$140.5 )
BTN lost -$86.50
BB lost -$55.50

35clubs ??????????????????????? wtf is he doing reraising all in with no fold equity against 2 people showing strength. Is he 100% sure we both have AK ?

It all makes me very happy. I never assumed it was going to be harder and to be fair ive not played many hands on this bankroll at this level. But its a great feeling when you move up and you bump into donkeys straight away.

I am away all of next week so I may miss the momentous occasion when the hits on my site reach 1000. I leave the blog for 1 week with the contentness of this..

Bankroll : $2828

Hands Played : 21k

graph for April

Overall Graph

Some PT Stats

I was fiddling with some filters in PT and I selected PocketPairs to date. +

Pocket Pairs

Some interesting numbers there. I will analyse when i get back.

Good luck all at the tables and leave a comment if you are the 1000th reader.

My New Home $0.50/$1

Bankroll now $2640, just short of its all time high

I am now comfortably rolled for the $0.50/$1 tables and will be for the next 10k hands unless my bankroll falls to $2000. I played two tables last night and the PT numbers were showing some very loose players. One table had every player on a $vpip between 40 - 70. Ill be having me some of that. I only played for 20 mins but made $120 profit with the help from this hand. Pretty standard.

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com


Stacks:

UTG		($44.85)
Hero		($149.30)
CO		($138.51)
BTN		($65.10)
SB		($183.20)
BB		($79.00)

Pre-flop: ($1.5, 6 players) Hero is UTG+1

1 fold, Hero raises to $4, CO calls $4, BTN calls $4, 1 fold, BB calls $3
(Standard x4 BB bet. BTN is a really bad player he could have any two cards. BB is an all in monkey. He has been pushing on flop and taking them down)

Flop: ($16.5, 4 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $12, 1 fold, BTN calls $12, BB goes all-in $75, Hero goes all-in $145.3, BTN folds
(BB's all in means the pot is $115 and I have to call $63 so almost 2:1 with top pair 2nd kicker. I felt if he had AK he would have played this slower or bet pf. I was happy to go up against him as ive seen him push a lot on flops recently, if he has hit a 2 pair hand so be it. Im not sure whether I should have just called and given BTN a chance to join the party but I elected to push and get this heads up against Fishy McDonk.)

Turn: ($260.8, 2 players)

River: ($260.8, 2 players)

Final Pot: $178.50
BB shows: ???????????????
Hero shows:

Hero wins $245.3 ( won +$84 )
BTN lost -$16.00
BB lost -$79.00
CO lost -$4.00

I dont like BB's play. He needed to be deeper to do this. I was getting 2:1 here and he didnt have too much fold equity. I had been playing tight and was repping a decent hand. If there was another Heart on the board then maybe but this play was just bad.

Hopefully I can find a lot more of players like this over the next few months. I really like them..

**looking back at that hand BTN's call on the flop would normally scream a strong hand. A decent player would only call here with 44 or 66 for a set on a non drawy board and he had a stack as big as mine. If it was a decent player I would have not pushed but I had notes on him that he was so bad so his range was a lot bigger than this and could easily be doing this with a connector type hand like 67s/45s etc or another middling pocket pair**

20k hands

Start BR $500
Current BR $2420
Hands 20k






After writing the post on Cbetting OOP I feel I have got my game back on track. Even though I am 3-4 tabling I am a lot more aware of when not to cbet. I knew this before but sometimes, as you play, some of the rules you must stick to are lost or go a little slack.


Im almost back to the $2500 mark where I can take another stab at $0.50/$1. I know I can play at that level. I used to play at that level and higher but in the rules or Bank Roll Management that I set and the fact that this is a $500 challenge I have to play it safe.

I have played 16.5K hands at NL($0.50) and my numbers are 20.7/12.7/3 As I progress through the levels these numbers need to become closer. I think i will aim to play a 18/15 style at the next level. The 20/12 style at NL($0.50) seems to be working as there is so much implied odds if you hit anything decent. There is a LOT of limping at this level and not enough folding to raises so I find sometimes its best to call and not be raising here. I do love to punish limpers with raises and this happens often but I'm also finding value in calling on occasions.

For some good advice on how to play well take a look at Sub-Zeros recent post. I was going to write a similar one but this has saved me the effort. I agree on everything he has written especially position.


I will write up a little addition to this regarding applying pressure in a post soon.

A Friday Prank

No poker update today. I will be catching up on some hands over the weekend. On a side note I have been having so much fun with a little April fools prank. For any of you that have a HP printer at work within view this is gold. The weblink below is a small exe file which allows you to change the 'READY' message on the printer to whatever you want.

I already have a girl at work freaking out that she honestly saw 'INSERT BACON' on the printer. By the time anyone else looked it said 'READY'.

Some I have used so far
IM READY
INTERNAL FIRE
HELP ME IM STUCK
TONER HIGH

With a bit of creativity you can have a good laugh at people from your desk. Haha how childish of me.

When you run the .exe file enter the IP address of the printer then click the connect icon. once the icon changes to connected click the printer icon on the bottom right and enter the message. If anything goes wrong just turn the printer off and on again.

http://www.phenoelit-us.org/hp/download.html

** NOTE **
I cannot vouch for the website or how secure the .EXE file is It has worked for me with no problems. Use this at your own risk and make sure your IT dept has a sense of humour.

OOP Cbet continued.

The previous post had asked a question of when you should or shouldnt continuation bet. Remember a cbet is a situation where you have bet preflop and been called in or out of position. You then bet on the flop regardless of the cards you are holding. As mentioned before cbetting is profitable if used correctly but can create a leak if overused.

The Question:-

You find AhTh in medium position and put in a 4 bb raise. late position calls. He has been playing a 30/12 style so far, no other reads. You are out of position.

Which board would you NOT cbet ?

1) AcKs5d
2) JsQs4c
3) TsKd9d
4) Jc2h6s
5) 8c8h8d
6) 8h9sTc

This is my view. I would not cbet number 2, 3 or6. I would cbet 1, 4 and maybe 5. The majority of pf calls are low to medium pocket pairs, suited connectors, Ax suited or mixture of broadway cards. There will be times where you are called with AA/KK or complete trash but the majority of the time it will be the above.

1) AcKs5d - I would cbet here. You have already repped a strong hand by betting pf. This includes AA/KK/AK/AQ. There is no flush draw there and QJ will be prb not be calling to chase a T. Any Cbet call here is more than likely a KQ/KJ/Ax hand. you are realistically only behind 55 here. I say cbets work here more often than not.

2) JsQs4c - I would NOT Cbet here. Out of position you cannot call a reraise and with two broadway cards this flop hits them hard a lot of the time. KQ,KJ,QJ and the flush draw is too much danger to cbet. I say a cbet here loses money overall.

3) TsKd9d - I would NOT cbet here. Not a chance in hell. This board hits the villain hard so many times. Two pairs, straights, flush draws. Cbet is a loser here.

4) Jc2h6s - I would Cbet here. There is only one broadway card so the chances the have hit are reduced. With no straight or flush draws this is an easy cbet for me.

5) 8c8h8d - This one confused me. I originally put it on here as a yes to a cbet then thinking about it I changed my mind to a no and even more thinking about it I'm not sure. This would be open to discussion. Chances are you have both missed and you have the higher 'High Card' and the person with the most aggression will probably win but tricky to play here out of position.

6) 8h9sTc - I would NOT Cbet here. Your hand cannot stand a reraise. To show the most strength I would check raise then check/fold to any call/reraise. This should then tell you If villain has hit hard and is willing to go all the way. There are not many cards that can come to help you. If you check raise is called even another T is probably useless so its good to fond out now if you are behind. If villain didnt bet on flop I would be looking to get to showdown as cheap as possible.

I think cbetting OOP should be done with thought and not blindness. Over thousands of hands these wrong cbets will add up. These are just my thoughts and I would like to hear any thoughts you have on any of these. If you are not willing to post on here then my email address is under my profile.

Thanks for listening.