redsimonpoker

Strange night at my local cardroom Friday night.

As I am going back to a 9 to 5 job (starting in January), I am trying to get used to a restricted poker diet. Friday nights will probably be my only experience and only then if Forest are away from home on the Saturday.

So I pop down to my local cardroom. 85 runners for a £20 tourney. A few of the regulars are away at a festival in Walsall, plenty of new faces (Friday is generally a beginners/one time a week players night).

Before the competition starts the cardroom manager shows me a proposed schedule for a festival in Spring 2005. This will be over 4-5 days with a mix of No Limit and Pot Limit Hold 'em (and I said NLHE would never be played at the cardroom!). No Omaha unfortunately. The structures look good with early starts (for the UK anyway!), plenty of chips and a good "clock" and blind structure. It still has to be approved by upper management, but hopefully they will see the benefit of getting 100 plus folks in playing, eating and drinking!

Anyway to the tourney. What a disaster. A typical hand. UTG raises 100 3 call, I have AA and reraise pot. Two others go allin. I am up against 99 and 42o! Flop A38 5 on turn (and a guy said he passed 55!?) and blank river and I get another £20 out. A round later I get AA and raise two foes again, one with 88 the other AK. 8 on flop and I have another buy in. I end up having 9 rebuys and a top up and only have 2000 chips at the end of rebuys. Somehow I hit a rush up to 15000 (why can't I do this during the rebuys!). Then with 19 left I blow off my stack bluffing into a guy with Top Pair top Kicker!

I trundle off to the £50 cash game, lose my buy in quickly, rebuy £50 and thankfully win a £300 pot in Padooki, and end up ahead £170, plus a guy I lent £40 to in March cashes in the tourney and pays me back! (I'd written the £40 off as it had been so long since i gave it him!).

Hopefully my tourney form will improve in Slovenia! (Theres always the cash games I guess!).

Forest finally broke their losing run with a scrappy (or is that crappy?) 1-0 win over Reading. Rumours abound after Mick Harford was appointed first team coach just over two weeks ago. The latest is that Kinnear (our hapless manager) will stay on until the Summer then Harford will take over. This is frightening stuff as we are still in the bottom 3, seem incapable of attracting new players on loan or permanently and have just had to renegotiate a 4.3million quid loan as we couldn't even pay the quarterly interest bill. If the inertia continues then relegation is a distinct possibility.

Harford is a strange geezer too. Must use a lot of grecian 2000 or boot polish judging by his unnaturally black barnet.

Just took some $ out of ultimatebet.com to partake of partypoker.com bonus. Though I have to do 700 raked hands by next Saturday. I think I will be busy!

Got a festival of poker coming up. Winging it to Nova Gorica in Slovenia from December 1st to December 6th.

The full schedule is (in euros):
1/12/04 NLHE 100 plus rebuys
2/12/04 PLO 200 plus rebuys
3/12/04 NLHE 1000 freezeout
4/12/04 LHE 750 freezeout
5/12/04 5 Card Stud strip deck! 200 plus rebuys
6/12/04 PLO/PLHE 100 plus rebuys.

With my job situation this is likely to my last live poker at a meaningful buy in level until Summer 2005 when I hope to make my third visit to the WSOP.

Another plus for Slovenia is the events all start at reasonable times, usually 5pm. Nothing worse than a 9.30 pm start and plugging away until 4 am for a chip count. The blinds/starting chips and clock are all set for giving you plenty of play.

I am in preparation mode! Packed most of my "stuff" and have been playing some Limit Hold em and PLO on line to get into the groove. My last oversea trip was to Seefeld in Austria for their July festival. No cashes (JJ ran into AK, did I mention I hate JJ?!). But I enjoyed both the scenary and the company.

Next stage to preparing is a review of some poker books. I am rereading Sklansky's Tournament Poker book and Cloutier/McEvoy's NL and PL HE book.

I understand internet connections are excellent in Slovenia so I will hopefully update my trip as it unfolds.

Why i hate Pocket J's...

Bellagio May 2003, last day of WSOP and my last day in Vegas. I buy in to the $500 NLHE tourney. I get to final table. If there were 125 entrants 18 get paid. we had 124 entries so only top 9 get money. I get JJ on button. Raise 4 x bb. BB calls. Flop 974 rainbow. I move allin. BB calls after all of 10 seconds thought and turns over AK. I feel good until K hits on turn and I bubble. (10th paid NIL 9th $1000+ and 1st $20K).

Whizz forward to Nottingham January 2004. I have second biggest stack in PLHE £30 Trny.6 left in. I get JJ and raise pot. BB is chip leader and calls. Flop T28 I move all in and BB has AA...aargh.

Fast forward to Cheeseypoker's World Series of Cheese. I get JJ in bb Button is short and lumps it in. I call. "Good call" as they turn over K7o. K7 on flop and I double them through!

Last hand I go allin with AK JJ calls me. AK8 on flop, "oh goody" I think. Jack on turn!

JJ seems to the one hand that troubles me most, though I have a bit of an issue with AQ too! :)

Not posted an update for 10 days. Letting things slip I guess.

Partly due to job hunting. Had 2 interviews, another one on monday 15th, already had 1 provisional offer. The downside is I will be restricted to 1 night a week live poker. Plus if Forest are at home on the Saturday then no live poker that week!

Oh well, theres still the internet. Been on a downswing this last week, though I just came 2nd in a $22 PLO event on PokerStars. That's bumped my online bank back up ahead for November.

Forest's decline seems neverending. We got ahead vs Fulham in the Carling Cup last night, but ended up losing 4-2. Pity, because our next round opponents would have been league leaders, Chelsea. Would have guaranteed a full house at the City Ground.

Anyway, I'm off to Slovenia at the end of November, should be a good time to get "live" poker out of my system for a while.

Back to the 9 to 5 grind.

We had a special tournament at our local cardroom last night. £50 buy in Pot Limit Hold 'em. 90+ runners and plenty of action built up a £16000 pool.

I didn't feature after "living by the river and dying by the river". After the buy ins ended I got 89 in the blind. Flop 852. I bet one caller. Turn 5 I bet allin. He thinks and calls. He has A8. Luckily 9 comes on the river and I'm up to 8000. We move tables and I get AT on the button. I raise and blind calls. Flop A76. He bets I raise he goes allin. He has A5. Turn K river...5.

Oh well, there's always the cash game. As it was a bigger buy in tournament the cash game was double the normal buy in £200 instead of £100, with £5 blinds. Within the first hour I had burned through £800 after flopping "the nuts" and getting outdrawn. Such is Omaha!

I bought in for £200 more got it up to £600 over the next hour then lost £200 with trip Kings vs a guy who didnt notice he had a straight. I had checked river when a flush hit. He tabled his cards face up and took the £500ish pot down.

Next hand I have QQ64 in Omaha. Q and 6 suited. A preflop raise and I call along with 4 others. Flop 643 two of my suit. I have two pair and a flush draw. Button bets pot 1 call on my right I call. This was definitely a "tilt" call in the cold light of day. Turn is Q(!). The perfect card to keep me in. I have £200 left. It goes in. £1200+ in pot. River is 6! I have QQQ66 and because of 6 in my hand cannot lose to quads. The other two guys in pot had the straight and my right hand foe had Ace flush draw so I was definitely "gambling". Now a lot of players would crow about winning a £1200 pot. I gathered the chips up and admitted I was lucky. As one guy said, "tilt pays off?".

That got me out of trouble, thankfully!