Catch Up

So it's been a long time since I've updated this.

I got into the UKPC £1k main event mentioned in my last update via a rake race promo on Sky which turned out to be a mini disaster after what it took to win the rakerace. The main event wasn't much of a success and I went out near the end of Day 1 in a standard spot of shoving the button with 22 and losing a flip against AK.

Things have been going pretty well recently at the cash tables online and a couple of good months has seen me back to shot taking/making the move back up to £100NL.

Recently one of the regular posters on the Sky forum was having a go at £4NL for a change from DYMs but seemed to be struggling with the transition so I put together this very quick, rough video for him of me playing 6 tables of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksaYY-oDs3c

I always mean to play the Grand Prix events at DTD, but always forget to get round to playing until it's too late and I'm reading updates of Day 2. So this time round I made sure I was definitely gonna play it. I didn't get round to playing any of the satellites so just bought in direct (£125) for one the live Day 1s...

The day started in a really frustrating fashion, I just kept bricking all my draws and no-one ever failed to brick their draws V me when I had a hand. I was up and down for a while, only winning non-showdown pots, and somehow got from the 50k starting stack up to about 60k by 500/1k (I think level 4/5), then I had a really grim hand. The runout was 348dd, To, Ko, so no possible straights or flushes and the money went in over 3 streets with my 33 V villian's 44. That left me with 5xBB and I shipped K9, called by Q6 and bust.

It's a 2hr drive to DTD (and that's pretty much the closest card room/casino to me) so seen as I was already there I thought I'd give it a 2nd shot. So I re-entered with 50 bigs. I was card dead for what felt like an absolute age after re-entering but somehow managed to maintain my 50k starting stack. Blinds got to 1.5k/3k and I minraised 99 UTG, only the BB calls. Flop comes 772dd, I cbet small, villian who has been pretty laggy/spewy raises. I'm pretty sure he'd have 3b pre with most bigger PPs and I didn't think he was raising the flop with 7x or the odd bigger PP he might not have 3b pre TT/JJ, so I stick the rest in, he calls with K2 and I hold for 100k.

Not long after, someone minraises from EP with about 50k, I 3bet AKo, he ships, I snap, and we win a flip against JJ to go to 155k. After that, I was pretty card dead again for ages and slowly blinded down a bit. Long story short, I found myself in the last level of the day (4k/8k) with just over 100k. At this point I wasn't gonna blow it and just gamble but I was hoping some kinda spot would come up for me to try and double or bust before the day ended. It was pretty annoying cos obviously everyone was putting a lot of thought into their decisions, whether it was a case of 'do I wanna bust out now this close to day 2' or 'how much am I willing to gamble it up to make sure I get a stack for tomorrow' but either way there was 20 mins to go and everyone was tanking for so long about every decision when all I wanted to do was get as many hands as possible played so I had the best chance of finding a hand to GII with. With about 5 mins to go, that laggy/spewy villian to my right minraised, I shipped AJs, he called with AJo and we chop it up. The very next hand he just open ships this time, and I call with AJs. He turns over TT, we flop a FD, brick turn, then flush completes on the river and we've got 222k. I put my 1k ante in next hand which is the last hand of the night and we finish with a 221k stack to take into day 2 on Sunday.

361 players came back for Day 2 from the 2013 (entries) that started, 215 were getting paid and average was 270k so I was just a little under that.

The start of the day went great, everyone was either card dead or being vvv nitty and I was getting plenty of playable hands so it was a long time before I lost a pot. I opened 33, then took it down with a cbet, opened 55, took down the blinds, opened AK, and took it down on a Kxx flop, then I 3b sqz AKo, jam QTx flop, villian folds AK and I was up to 360k in about 20 mins.

The first pot of the day that actually made it past a flop, I opened ATo in mid position, and was peeled by 1 of the blinds. Flop is  Ax Kd Qd and I bet/call flop. Turn is a brick, 3c iirc and he checks so I instantly ruled out most/all value hands that beat me unless he's playing it very strange, I check back. River is another brick, 7c I think, and he bets small. Calling and losing would have left me with like 60k but called and was good to take me to nearly 500k.

Not long after that someone shoved AT, I reshipped AK and we hold to go up to 650k. By this point average was about 415k, blinds I think were 8k/16k with 238 left so nearing the money

Can't really remember many more hands of note, just a few raise/folds etc but by the time I got ITM I had 500k (just over avg) and blinds were 10/20k. Once we got ITM people started flying out cos the payjumps were really small so everyone was just trying to spin it up or go home. So I open KQo with 500k @ 12k/24k from the CO, expecting to snap off either of the blinds who have <15xBB. The SB shipped, I call, he has 96ss and it runs out 24435 and that leaves me with about 150k. I don't play another pot until the BTN shoves on my next BB, by which point I have about 140k and blinds have gone up to 15k/30k so I snap with A8hh and we hold against QJo. Now I'm back in the region of 300k, and I ship the BTN with KQcc and the 96ss guy from earlier has AK in the blinds and it's gg.

I finished 181st and got £250 so was exactly break even cos I used 2 bullets on it. Meh at least it was a free flag.

Going it Alone

By early April I'd been playing under the staking deal for a little over 2 months so was in a better position to weigh up the pro's and con's of the deal. There were a few important factors that came into my decision (below) but ultimately I just didn't think it was the best way forward for me at this point in time so I decided to go back to playing on my own money on Sky.

1) I was playing $100/$200NL which in terms of £££ (cos I play in £££ on Sky) is only £60/£120NL. Then when you take into account I'm only getting 50%, that means I'm effectively playing £30/£60NL but I'm already comfortably rolled to play £50NL myself on Sky.

2) The games were a lot tougher than on Sky which I think was partly due to 95% of the players being from the US so playing my regular hours meant it was afternoon over there so unlikely to be many recs about, and with having 2 young children I just wasn't prepared to change my whole body clock to start doing my sessions like 1am - 6am so that I can play at what would be peak time for the US.

3) I only received a small amount of coaching throughout the 2 months but I did find it useful and that along with the experience of playing in those games has definitely made me come away a better player. The coaching was one the big positives of the staking deal but I know a couple of very good players that offer coaching at pretty reasonable prices so will just be doing that on my own money which I'm sure will be paid for just by the fact my winrate will be a lot better on Sky.

I emailed the guys at BRS and we separated on good terms (as far as I know...).

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My first month back at Sky grinding 50NL went great. Things were going really well early doors, I was running well and playing well, so I started to take some shots at 100NL which also went well. I had one rough weekend towards the end of the month where I dropped almost £1k but then won most of that back in the last week of the month. 

During April Sky ran various promos to give away over 100 x iPad Airs, one of which was weekly rake races. I got a top 5 finish in one of the weekly rake races so bagged myself one of these...

MTTs on the other were hand were pretty meh, only played 20-30 all month but didn't get a single result better than about doubling my BI. Despite losing a small chunk on MTTs this month, I still finished a little over +£1.5k overall so I'll take that for my first month grinding new higher stakes.

I've got a big month planned for May because Priority are running a promo giving away some prize bundles with each person having an individual target. Sky also recently announced the UKPC 6-max festival at DTD taking place in August so definitely trying to satellite my way into the £1k main event as soon as possible.

The First Ever UKPC

Most of you will know that sometime around November 2013 the next big poker festival was announced as the UK Poker Championship taking place at DTD and sponsored by Sky Poker. The whole week looked like a great schedule with a £1k main event guaranteed at £500,000 with a good mix of £550 side events in PLO, 6max, HU, a Turbo and a £3k high roller.

Naturally I wanted a piece of the action and started trying to qualify for the £1k ME straight away. I got through to the first weekly £240 final on Sky for £5 and thought I was gonna luckbox my seat first go but it wasn't to be. I then won 2 of the £110 tokens from the freerolls for playing the DTD live cash games but couldn't convert either of them into a seat. Took my foot off the gas a bit trying to qualify and didn't really start up again until late January/early Feb where I won my seat into the last £240 final that Sky were running, this time for £11, but again it was not to be and I didn't get my seat. I drove down to DTD on Tuesday, the first day of the festival, to meet up with a few mates and give myself one last shot at the ME by playing the live satellite that evening. The live sat was a £50 rebuy (that played VERY quickly), I was only in for £105 (just the BI + add on) and it got 147 with a prizepool of 22 seats + £900 for 23rd. It started at 8pm and took me until 3am to eventually bust in 25th place and just miss out on a seat again. Someone didn't want me to play the main!

Rather than spend any more money on trying the next night's satellite (because it was pretty crapshooty) I decided I was just gonna BI direct to the £550 6max side event and sell a bit of my action, so I played Day 1a on the Friday.

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6-max Day 1a

It was a swingy day literally from the very start to the very end. I started the day playing 3 handed (because of late arrivals) with Matt Perrins but thankfully that didn't last long! Pretty early doors I dropped from 30k down to about 22k before getting an absolute gift of a double....

Macmonster (a Sky reg) opens UTG, SB peels and I peel the BB with ATss. Flop comes KQJhh (WAL). The SB leads out pretty big, I call and so does Mac. Turn is an offsuit 6 and SB just overbet ships (WAL!!!), I call and Mac folds. SB has KJ (and I later find out Mac folded KJ too) and I hold.

Things were quiet for a while after that, Rupinder Bedi got sat to my direct left and he took the role of table captain, hero'd me down a couple of times pretty light when I'd bricked. Then I had a pretty sick like 5 minute heater where I won 3 decent pots...

1) I open, Macmonster 3bets, I 4bet ship and my AK > his JJ.

2) I open AQ and fire 3 on AJxQx to see opponent showdown AJ

3) I open QQ, shorty in the BB peels then shoves over my cbet w/ 77 on 356r and I hold.

That took me up to 100k which was pretty insane when average was still like 35k.

Quiet period again then a proper massive pot kicked off where I ended up basically flipping for a 300xBB pot...

Villian opens, I 3bet with QQ and he peels. Flop comes 456cc, I cbet and he makes a ridiculously big raise, I think I bet like 5k into 8k and he raised to 25k. This guy had been pretty 'wild' to put it kindly but I was pretty confident by his sizing that he had a pretty strong draw and wanted to just end the hand now if possible. We both started the hand with 80k each which was around 150xBB and I just decide to ship the flop. He turns over Q8cc for a GS and the FD and I manage to hold to go up to about 170k (average at this point was 50k)

Really annoying hand happens where I peel KJ pre, flop TP on J84, c/c flop, Q turn and I'm gonna c/c again but dealer mistakenly thinks he's checked behind and deals the river (offsuit 3). Floor gets called cos he wanted to bet, loads of messing about and the 3 gets put back in the deck and deck is reshuffled. He does bet and I do call, turn is a 9 this time and he's just got there with KT. Was not impressed.

The only other massive pot of the day is just more proof that it was clearly my day to be a complete luckbox. Someone UTG, 3-4 people flat and I come along with 77 in the BB. Dream flop of A72r, SB leads, I flat, and there's 1 more call behind. Turn another 7 (wow), SB leads again, I flat, the guy behind me clicks it back, SB flats and I'm just like 'wow wtf, this is amazing'. 9 river, SB checks, I check too to allow the turn clickbacker to bet, he bets pretty big, SB calls, I ship obv. The guy to my left who clicked back the turn tanked for ages and folded (showed 22 after the hand) and the other guy called off the rest cos he had so little behind with AK. This took me up to about 280k when average was 70k which was just a dream come true for day 1.

 

 

The rest of the day was a bit bleurgh, especially after Simon Deadman joined the table to my left. It was really frustrating to lose a lot of what I had earlier but I still managed to take 165k into day 2 when the average was 150k. 38 runners made it through from 197 entrants

6-max Day 2

I came back to day 2 with 165k @ 2k/4k which was above average and plenty to play with. Ryan Spittles had told me I had a pretty good table draw (as per the table draw on the Sky's forum) then DTD decided to redraw the tables - no idea why - and I end up changing from a good table to one with Simon Deadman, the guy who came 2nd in the high roller and a couple of other good players (from what I could make out). Despite that the day started really well, and I got up to about 330k really quickly, pretty much all of which came from 3-4 small pots against Deadman.

So I got off to a flying start, but then a table move and a combination of things saw my stack start to dwindle away, and I was down to 180k @ 5k/10k. Just through a continued lack of spots and I think losing 1 small pot I ended up with about 90k then the blinds went up to 6k/12k and at this point there were 28 players left. From that points onwards I don't mind saying I think I played the best tournament poker I've ever played. It was a proper grind from there, I stayed super patient and didn't allow myself to think that I HAD to shove ATC in some spots or call off certain spots where it would be 'standard' to do it. I was well below average, like 25-50% of average for a lot of the way, but it played so deep that even 1/4 average was still 10-15xBB most of the way. I never actually made it back to average stack again until I reached the FT.

I was just picking my spots really well and holding well. My first double was AK > K5, then I 3bet shipped KQs as I was still short, got tank called by KJ and held again to get to around 300k. Stayed around that mark for a while grinding away, keeping my head above water and then the first (and only) time of the tourney where I handed out a bad beat... I open shove 99 and another guy snap reshoves AA.... the runout is 8T276 and I'm on about 600k. The guy who lost with AA was left short and shoved the next hand with QJo and walked into AA himself but couldn't do a lambo escape and we were down to like 14-15 players.

It was all pretty straight forward from there, didn't do anything major just a lot of blind stealing and nicking small pots until we went to the 7handed FT and what a sick FT it was. There was me, Ian Simpson, Ben Dobson, Thewy (nuff said) and a few other players I'd met along the way that I knew were good.

A few people on the FT went pretty nuts early doors and we saw 77 v AJ aipf for a pot of about 100xBB. The Irish Open winner (Ian Simpson) made his set of 7s to take a big CL having like 4-5 million of the 12million in play still with 7 left. Can't remember all the details but there were like 3-4 big flips in the first maybe 30-45 mins of the FT so I just sat back a bit knowing I was likely to get paid off by one of them when I had a hand. I won a very decent sized pot off the CL with AK on KQxQx that took me to just over 2mil and then just chilled out until we got down to 4handed. When we got 4handed there was 1 guy on <1mil @ 30k/60k and all the rest of us had at least 2.5mil each so obv we're all trying to take him out and get an extra £6k before going to war with each other too much. He bust and then stacks were all within reach of each other and the aggression picked up again. I lost a couple of small pots to drop to 2mil and then my exit hand happened

 

 

Blinds at 40k/80k with a 10k ante, I've got just over 2mil, 2nd in chips has maybe 4mil and CL has the other like 6mil.

CL is very loose aggro and he opens the button, I just peel the SB with KQo because I don't really wanna 3bet/fold or 3bet and have to call it off this deep (and he's mostly gonna be 4b or folding)

K72r - He bets about 175k, I call
2s turn which brings in a FD - He bets 350k, I call
As river to compete flush - He sticks me all in, I call

I think it's a really good spot for me tbh and thought I was almost certainly getting the double before I called river, he's more than capable of having air here and river is a really good card to bluff imo. This time he had A8o though.

So my 2nd hendon mob flag, my first ever live FT, at the first ever UKPC and a pretty nice £18,000 to boot, not bad considering I've only played about 10 live MTTs ever. Needless to say I enjoyed this festival :) 

 

 

Test Fast, Fail Fast, Adjust Fast

As I find myself coming towards the end of a pretty good first month of 2014 poker wise, a new and exciting opportunity has recently arisen for me which could hopefully be the start of bigger things to come.

So I'll go back to the start... A couple of weeks ago I was chatting to Paul 'Action' Jackson on Facebook and he asked if I'd ever considered/would like to be staked to play higher cash games through Bankroll Supply. A conversation ensued where I got all the details involved with the staking deal.

Now normally they'd look through past results/stats from HEM/PT4 to check your ability but because I play on Sky Poker which doesn't support any tracking software, a slot was arranged for one of their coaches to watch me play a session on Sky while explaining my thought processes etc. This session obviously went well because I was then asked to send over details of what daily roll I would require to play $100/200NL. 

I'm going to be finishing out the month on Sky so I can get the max RB and ensure a top 50 finish in the rake race. Then I'll be kicking off from 1st Feb, although I'll still have my own roll on Sky where I can add some MTTs to my sessions. Sky aint getting rid of me yet ;)

Pros

1) I can start using HEM which I know if I use it well will make me a much better player

2) I get to play higher stakes and see potentially higher profits than I'm currently rolled for (higher rakeback too)

3) I get coaching/mentoring from successful players who can beat the levels I'm gonna be playing

4) I also get some other little perks like freerolls, the opportunity to win seats into live events for free etc.

Cons

1) I give up 50% of my profit (moving to 45% and then 40% hopefully within 2 months)

2) I'm playing in games that 'should', I assume, be tougher to beat

3) I'm playing on a brand new site, brand new (unknown) player pool, and learning how to use HEM from scratch as I go.

It's obviously a bit scary going out of my comfort zone for the first time in ages, not being on a site where I know literally every single reg at my levels etc but it's also exciting and a great opportunity to take a big step forward in terms of my game.

Wish me luck!