Hey everyone.
It's been ages since I last posted here but I'm planning to start blogging again. However, I've created a new site where I'll be blogging about anything and everything as well as poker so for that reason I'm moving this blog over to the new site: http://davey-g.co.uk
I'll leave this up for about a week and then close it down. All new posts will be up on the new site from now on.
Thursday, 19 November 2009
Saturday, 28 February 2009
Over 8k hands in a week!
Well Ive played more poker in the past week than I think I ever have! I've put in at least 3-4 straight hours in each session this week. I've probably played 10k hands which is great. If I can keep up this kind of play I increase my experience very quickly and will get used to many different situations etc.
However, it has also been without a doubt one of the toughest weeks I've ever had playing poker. I've hit a downswing over the last 10k hands and its been a rather bad one too. At its worst point I was not far off $300 down and wondering what the hell was going wrong. I was running into all sorts of better hands and unlucky situations, which are all part of the game and to be honest if this was just what happened then I wouldn't give it a second thought. What got to me though was recognising that my own play was starting to show signs of not being to the standard it could be. I noticed a few leaks in my game and spots where I was probably making long term loosing plays that could well have been masked by the recent decent run I was on before this week.
I very quickly saught to do everything I could to fix this. Areas that I had to work on were:
continuation betting - my stats indicated I was probably doing this too much, so I made a concious effort to analyse flop textures and opponent ranges before making any continuation bets
Double barrelling - in contrast to my c-betting, I discovered I was probably not betting the flop and following it up with a further bet on the turn often enough when I had missed the board. I reviewed this, thought about the situations where another bet on the turn would probably work and am now trying to work this into my game.
Final pot size - I also needed to start thinking more about what size pot I want at the end of the hand. For example, if I had top pair but the board wasnt too great then I started thinking about pot control a lot more and making sure that I tried my best to keep the pot medium sized since the strength of my hand wouldn't warrent a bigger pot.
Going on from the last point about thinking forward to the end of the hand and how big I want the pot to be, I generally also told myself to think through everything thoroughly before doing it and make sure that I was following a plan for the hand. A few troublesome hands that I played when I was analysising some of my sessions made me realise that I would perhaps get to a point in the hand, face a raise or a bet and not know what to do next. This was probably in part due to not having a plan for the hand. So now I conciously think through what I am achieving with each bet/call/raise etc and for the most part I am integrating this into my game sucessfully. It will take a bit more time to get used to it before it becomes second nature but I'm happy so far.
One final thing I've made more of a concious effort to do, since I was doing it somewhat anyway, is to make sure I think about the type of opponent I'm up against and what his tendencies may be with certain hands in certain spots. Once I know this, I can taylor my play to suit his tendencies and exploit his weaknesses, while loosing as little as possible when he has me beat. One part of this that I need to do more and am starting to do is making a note on my opponents once I've seen how they play certain hands in certain spots. Then I know how to respond a lot better when a similar situation turns up later on agaisnt them.
I feel I've come out of this week a much better player than at the start. I'm thinking a lot more than I used to and I can see how much progress I've made. Even the small changes can make big differences when you're in a hand. Its been a very tough week but yesterday I started to turn things around and had a decent winning session. I also noticed that I was playing so much better too and my thinking was a lot clearer and calculated. I'm looking forward to continuing my improvement and have so much determination that I know I will get to where I want.
Throughout the week I'll aim make some smaller posts with hand histories of trouble hands where my play was questionable along with some hand histories of hands where I feel I've played a lot better and applied better thinking to the situations.
For now though, time to head off and read a bit before sitting down to another session. I feel extremely positive going forward and am looking forward to playing!
However, it has also been without a doubt one of the toughest weeks I've ever had playing poker. I've hit a downswing over the last 10k hands and its been a rather bad one too. At its worst point I was not far off $300 down and wondering what the hell was going wrong. I was running into all sorts of better hands and unlucky situations, which are all part of the game and to be honest if this was just what happened then I wouldn't give it a second thought. What got to me though was recognising that my own play was starting to show signs of not being to the standard it could be. I noticed a few leaks in my game and spots where I was probably making long term loosing plays that could well have been masked by the recent decent run I was on before this week.
I very quickly saught to do everything I could to fix this. Areas that I had to work on were:
continuation betting - my stats indicated I was probably doing this too much, so I made a concious effort to analyse flop textures and opponent ranges before making any continuation bets
Double barrelling - in contrast to my c-betting, I discovered I was probably not betting the flop and following it up with a further bet on the turn often enough when I had missed the board. I reviewed this, thought about the situations where another bet on the turn would probably work and am now trying to work this into my game.
Final pot size - I also needed to start thinking more about what size pot I want at the end of the hand. For example, if I had top pair but the board wasnt too great then I started thinking about pot control a lot more and making sure that I tried my best to keep the pot medium sized since the strength of my hand wouldn't warrent a bigger pot.
Going on from the last point about thinking forward to the end of the hand and how big I want the pot to be, I generally also told myself to think through everything thoroughly before doing it and make sure that I was following a plan for the hand. A few troublesome hands that I played when I was analysising some of my sessions made me realise that I would perhaps get to a point in the hand, face a raise or a bet and not know what to do next. This was probably in part due to not having a plan for the hand. So now I conciously think through what I am achieving with each bet/call/raise etc and for the most part I am integrating this into my game sucessfully. It will take a bit more time to get used to it before it becomes second nature but I'm happy so far.
One final thing I've made more of a concious effort to do, since I was doing it somewhat anyway, is to make sure I think about the type of opponent I'm up against and what his tendencies may be with certain hands in certain spots. Once I know this, I can taylor my play to suit his tendencies and exploit his weaknesses, while loosing as little as possible when he has me beat. One part of this that I need to do more and am starting to do is making a note on my opponents once I've seen how they play certain hands in certain spots. Then I know how to respond a lot better when a similar situation turns up later on agaisnt them.
I feel I've come out of this week a much better player than at the start. I'm thinking a lot more than I used to and I can see how much progress I've made. Even the small changes can make big differences when you're in a hand. Its been a very tough week but yesterday I started to turn things around and had a decent winning session. I also noticed that I was playing so much better too and my thinking was a lot clearer and calculated. I'm looking forward to continuing my improvement and have so much determination that I know I will get to where I want.
Throughout the week I'll aim make some smaller posts with hand histories of trouble hands where my play was questionable along with some hand histories of hands where I feel I've played a lot better and applied better thinking to the situations.
For now though, time to head off and read a bit before sitting down to another session. I feel extremely positive going forward and am looking forward to playing!
Monday, 16 February 2009
Tournaments and a break from cash
I had planned, after getting in from work tonight, to play some cash tables alongside a couple of tournaments for most of the night. This didn't end up happening as I decided to enter three online tournaments tonight. The three tournaments I entered were:
* APAT National League match 2 - $10 +$1 buyin
* $6k garunteed prize pool on Blue SQ - $5 +50c
* Sunday $200k garunteed on PokerStars - $10+$1
With these three tournaments I decided I couldn't put in the necessary conentration on all games if I also opened up any cash tables so I decided that if I busted out of two of these early enough then I would add a few cash games alonside the remaining tournament.
In the end though no cash was played as I went deep into the APAT national league tournament and the PokerStars 200k tournament.
Firstly, the PokerStars tournament. This is a fun tourny I play from time to time on a Sunday when I want to break from playing cash all the time. It's a fun game to play and has a pretty decent structure too, starting with 3k chips and a very decent blind structure. I played a pretty standard game in this tournmanet, making plays here and there against players I thought they would work against, while pushing my good hands when I made them.
I ended up in one hand with a stack of about 5k and an early position raiser makes it 105 with blinds at 15/30. I decide to make a reraise from the cutoff to 255 to isolate and try and get the pot heads up. My opponent has about 2600 chips total. He calls my reraise and the flop comes down 5T7 all diamonds, I'm holding a diamond in my hand (QQ). He bets out at this flop around 300 and I decide to call. The turn card is not nice for me, its an 8 creating straight draws and also the possibility of a straight completing. My opponent fires out again at the pot, not much more than last time, probably 350-400. I think about this, and I take into acount his raise preflop from early position. I can't give him credit for a straight here, only a draw. Unless he has say 99 or A9 he hasn't connected strongly with that turn card. I feel like I'm ahead at this point, and if I'm not, chances are a diamond will win me the hand. I decide to take an aggressive stance and put him all in. He calls and shows 55 with a diamond, he needs a 9 for a chop but luckily for me the river 9 is a diamond and I win the pot with the higher flush.
From here I make plays where I can, raise pots in position and generally try and push my edge where I can. I make some standard reraises and put people all in with big pairs and big Aces and mange to last quite a long time in this tournament. Eventually though the blinds get too big and I can no longer keep my stack big enough as I stop making hands and my raises stop working. I bust out managing to cash for $30 and had a good time playing in the tournament.
The APAT tournament was my first national league online game of the new season as I had to miss the first one a couple of weeks back. I was looking forward to this and I plan to play in as many of these league games as I can.
I'm very pleased with the way I played throughout this event. I ended up reaching the final table and up until that point I remember only 1 really big hand that got me a lot of chips. The rest of my chips were made by making very well timed moves and raising in position, taking stabs at pots where I thought I could win etc. I played more of the kind of game I'm going for now and relied much less on my cards than I have in the past. The one big hand that got me the chips to help me to the final table was AK where I was looking for a double up, a player in early position raised and I pushed all in from the button, I don't remember the blinds at this point. The pot ended up 18.5k and my opponent showed me TT. I managed to spike an A on the river and won the good sized pot that would help me on my way to the final table.
I reached the final table with about the same stack size and continued to play the good game I had been playing up to this point. I made one good hand at the final table where someone raised from mid to 6000 with blinds at 1k/2k and I pushed all in with QQ. I got called by 55 and the board didn't help him, this gave me a lot of chips. I was up to around 38k after this hand. From here I made a few moves, stole a few blinds and generally tried to keep my stack afloat. I made one bad call in a blind on blind encounter which cost me a lof of chips and put me back into short stack teritory. However, I tried to fight back and it began to work, taking blinds here and there. My final had came when I found 77 in the small blind, there was one limper in front of me and I pushed all in. The big blind called with AQ of hearts, the flop brought two hearts and I needed to dodge a whole bunch of cards to survive. Unfortunately, the river came a heart and that was me out in 5th for $64.
Im very happy on the whole with how I played in both tournaments. I felt my game was right on the spot tonight and I chose my spots well and made the most I could out of my good hands too. I also thoroughly enjoyed the change of scene from cash game poker too. Its good to mix it up occassionally with some tournaments and I plan to play as many of these online APAT events as I can.
For now though, its back to the cash games and time to start implementing my plan for improvement. More to come soon.....
* APAT National League match 2 - $10 +$1 buyin
* $6k garunteed prize pool on Blue SQ - $5 +50c
* Sunday $200k garunteed on PokerStars - $10+$1
With these three tournaments I decided I couldn't put in the necessary conentration on all games if I also opened up any cash tables so I decided that if I busted out of two of these early enough then I would add a few cash games alonside the remaining tournament.
In the end though no cash was played as I went deep into the APAT national league tournament and the PokerStars 200k tournament.
Firstly, the PokerStars tournament. This is a fun tourny I play from time to time on a Sunday when I want to break from playing cash all the time. It's a fun game to play and has a pretty decent structure too, starting with 3k chips and a very decent blind structure. I played a pretty standard game in this tournmanet, making plays here and there against players I thought they would work against, while pushing my good hands when I made them.
I ended up in one hand with a stack of about 5k and an early position raiser makes it 105 with blinds at 15/30. I decide to make a reraise from the cutoff to 255 to isolate and try and get the pot heads up. My opponent has about 2600 chips total. He calls my reraise and the flop comes down 5T7 all diamonds, I'm holding a diamond in my hand (QQ). He bets out at this flop around 300 and I decide to call. The turn card is not nice for me, its an 8 creating straight draws and also the possibility of a straight completing. My opponent fires out again at the pot, not much more than last time, probably 350-400. I think about this, and I take into acount his raise preflop from early position. I can't give him credit for a straight here, only a draw. Unless he has say 99 or A9 he hasn't connected strongly with that turn card. I feel like I'm ahead at this point, and if I'm not, chances are a diamond will win me the hand. I decide to take an aggressive stance and put him all in. He calls and shows 55 with a diamond, he needs a 9 for a chop but luckily for me the river 9 is a diamond and I win the pot with the higher flush.
From here I make plays where I can, raise pots in position and generally try and push my edge where I can. I make some standard reraises and put people all in with big pairs and big Aces and mange to last quite a long time in this tournament. Eventually though the blinds get too big and I can no longer keep my stack big enough as I stop making hands and my raises stop working. I bust out managing to cash for $30 and had a good time playing in the tournament.
The APAT tournament was my first national league online game of the new season as I had to miss the first one a couple of weeks back. I was looking forward to this and I plan to play in as many of these league games as I can.
I'm very pleased with the way I played throughout this event. I ended up reaching the final table and up until that point I remember only 1 really big hand that got me a lot of chips. The rest of my chips were made by making very well timed moves and raising in position, taking stabs at pots where I thought I could win etc. I played more of the kind of game I'm going for now and relied much less on my cards than I have in the past. The one big hand that got me the chips to help me to the final table was AK where I was looking for a double up, a player in early position raised and I pushed all in from the button, I don't remember the blinds at this point. The pot ended up 18.5k and my opponent showed me TT. I managed to spike an A on the river and won the good sized pot that would help me on my way to the final table.
I reached the final table with about the same stack size and continued to play the good game I had been playing up to this point. I made one good hand at the final table where someone raised from mid to 6000 with blinds at 1k/2k and I pushed all in with QQ. I got called by 55 and the board didn't help him, this gave me a lot of chips. I was up to around 38k after this hand. From here I made a few moves, stole a few blinds and generally tried to keep my stack afloat. I made one bad call in a blind on blind encounter which cost me a lof of chips and put me back into short stack teritory. However, I tried to fight back and it began to work, taking blinds here and there. My final had came when I found 77 in the small blind, there was one limper in front of me and I pushed all in. The big blind called with AQ of hearts, the flop brought two hearts and I needed to dodge a whole bunch of cards to survive. Unfortunately, the river came a heart and that was me out in 5th for $64.
Im very happy on the whole with how I played in both tournaments. I felt my game was right on the spot tonight and I chose my spots well and made the most I could out of my good hands too. I also thoroughly enjoyed the change of scene from cash game poker too. Its good to mix it up occassionally with some tournaments and I plan to play as many of these online APAT events as I can.
For now though, its back to the cash games and time to start implementing my plan for improvement. More to come soon.....
The swings of cash game poker
Last night I played a good 4 hours or so of 6max cash game poker online as I usually do. The day started off pretty well with my first few hands ending up winning and the first few pots I have a go at I also end up winning. I then end up hitting a couple of nice hands and find myself about a buyin or so up.
However, the rest of the night ended up a struggle, though thankfully also, a realisation about my game. This post won't go into specifics of hands, but more generally what went on and what I thought about the session and my play.
I've been noticing something recently about my game which doesnt sit well with me, in fact it concerns me a little. I can take stabs at pots, fire continuation bets etc, and win my fair share of hands where I haven't hit that much of a hand myself, but I'm noticing something else happening alongside this which I need to take a look at and fix.
I seem to be able to win the big pots, thats not a problem, but when I hit that stale time in the session, where perhaps everything is slowing down, I'm not hitting hands etc, I often find myself in trouble with my post flop play. I'm generally fine firing continuation bets, but when they don't work, and I dont pick up the pot on the flop, I'm so often finding myself not sure of what to do that I feel a lot of times I'm bleeding chips post flop when I shouldn't be. Put simply, if I come into some sort of resistence, I either freeze up, or I don't have the experience necessary to work out what to do, whether to bet again on the turn, or how to take down the pot etc.
As I say, I feel I'm leaking chips post flop and its a concern. Post flop play is such a vital skill to a poker player that I will dedicate whatever time I need to sort this out, but I'm not quite sure where to start and which parts of my post flop play need looking at. When things like this happen and I'm not quite sure what to do, I think the best course of action is to create some sort of plan for improvement. My rough plan of what I need to do will consist of the following:
* note down key hands where I've had trouble post flop when the hand hasn't gone to showdown
* sit down and regularly watch and re-watch some videos on stoxpoker.com to re-learn and to learn some new things
* go through my stats in Holdem Manager and check for major leaks in my post flop play
* discuss hands with other players and see if this process finds leaks in my play
I think this is a good list of things to do. Its positive, and its proactive. It's what needs to be done in order to improve this area of my game and ultimately take me to the next level of play.
I went over my stats in Holdem Manager the other day and it's pleasing to see that, over 20k hands, I am a winning player at 6max. However, I just need to work more at it. Theres areas to improve on (on top of this post flop play I've been talking about) and I could be winning more than I am and having more success. However, it was a good emotional boost to realise that I am doing some things right and managing to win at these games.
I'll post more about this as I figure out what might be going wrong with my game, I'll post up hands that I find have caused me trouble and I'll talk about the areas of my game that are lacking and need work. It should be interesting to read through this as I discover what needs work and improvement.
Taking a positive attitude and a proactive course of action towards a problem is so beneficial. If anyone reading this has problems in their own game I seriously suggest that you stop for a second and ask yourself how you can get over the problems you're having. Do you need to put in the effort to go over hands and spot whatever it is thats causing you problems, do you need to read up on things, discuss with other players etc? Whatever it is you do to try and improve your game it will help and of course it will be much better than not really putting in that extra effort to try and improve.
Going back to my session last night, I ended up struggling a lot post flop in hands where I didn't connect well with the flop. This threw me a lot and I ended up leaking a lof of chips. Then towards the end of the session I ended up taking some unlucky hits which left me with a loosing session. What I'm pleased with those is the positive attitude I had and the through process I went to in order to work out a plan to get me through this and take my game to the next level.
I'm looking forward to working throug these issues and increasing my skills and ultimately my win rate at these games. I'll post more from these cash game sessions too with some actual hands and my thoughts on the plays I made.
More to come soon.
However, the rest of the night ended up a struggle, though thankfully also, a realisation about my game. This post won't go into specifics of hands, but more generally what went on and what I thought about the session and my play.
I've been noticing something recently about my game which doesnt sit well with me, in fact it concerns me a little. I can take stabs at pots, fire continuation bets etc, and win my fair share of hands where I haven't hit that much of a hand myself, but I'm noticing something else happening alongside this which I need to take a look at and fix.
I seem to be able to win the big pots, thats not a problem, but when I hit that stale time in the session, where perhaps everything is slowing down, I'm not hitting hands etc, I often find myself in trouble with my post flop play. I'm generally fine firing continuation bets, but when they don't work, and I dont pick up the pot on the flop, I'm so often finding myself not sure of what to do that I feel a lot of times I'm bleeding chips post flop when I shouldn't be. Put simply, if I come into some sort of resistence, I either freeze up, or I don't have the experience necessary to work out what to do, whether to bet again on the turn, or how to take down the pot etc.
As I say, I feel I'm leaking chips post flop and its a concern. Post flop play is such a vital skill to a poker player that I will dedicate whatever time I need to sort this out, but I'm not quite sure where to start and which parts of my post flop play need looking at. When things like this happen and I'm not quite sure what to do, I think the best course of action is to create some sort of plan for improvement. My rough plan of what I need to do will consist of the following:
* note down key hands where I've had trouble post flop when the hand hasn't gone to showdown
* sit down and regularly watch and re-watch some videos on stoxpoker.com to re-learn and to learn some new things
* go through my stats in Holdem Manager and check for major leaks in my post flop play
* discuss hands with other players and see if this process finds leaks in my play
I think this is a good list of things to do. Its positive, and its proactive. It's what needs to be done in order to improve this area of my game and ultimately take me to the next level of play.
I went over my stats in Holdem Manager the other day and it's pleasing to see that, over 20k hands, I am a winning player at 6max. However, I just need to work more at it. Theres areas to improve on (on top of this post flop play I've been talking about) and I could be winning more than I am and having more success. However, it was a good emotional boost to realise that I am doing some things right and managing to win at these games.
I'll post more about this as I figure out what might be going wrong with my game, I'll post up hands that I find have caused me trouble and I'll talk about the areas of my game that are lacking and need work. It should be interesting to read through this as I discover what needs work and improvement.
Taking a positive attitude and a proactive course of action towards a problem is so beneficial. If anyone reading this has problems in their own game I seriously suggest that you stop for a second and ask yourself how you can get over the problems you're having. Do you need to put in the effort to go over hands and spot whatever it is thats causing you problems, do you need to read up on things, discuss with other players etc? Whatever it is you do to try and improve your game it will help and of course it will be much better than not really putting in that extra effort to try and improve.
Going back to my session last night, I ended up struggling a lot post flop in hands where I didn't connect well with the flop. This threw me a lot and I ended up leaking a lof of chips. Then towards the end of the session I ended up taking some unlucky hits which left me with a loosing session. What I'm pleased with those is the positive attitude I had and the through process I went to in order to work out a plan to get me through this and take my game to the next level.
I'm looking forward to working throug these issues and increasing my skills and ultimately my win rate at these games. I'll post more from these cash game sessions too with some actual hands and my thoughts on the plays I made.
More to come soon.
Friday, 13 February 2009
APAT UK Open - Report
Well that APAT UK Championships have come and gone and unfortunately my run in this tournament wasn't as good as I had hoped for. Before I go into details though on the whole I am happy, I played the game I wanted to play and put to the test the new skills I've been working on and although as expected there are teething problems and things I need to work on, initially I'm happy with what I was doing.
My goal was to play more pots in position, stay pretty solid out of position and basically try and play the players much more than I have in the past. As I say, some things need working on but on the whole I managed to do what I set out to do.
I started the tournament on 10k chips and after the first 4 levels or so I was down to 6k after my new style wasn't getting me very far, I wasn't winning enough pots and as I say, this needs to be ironed out and worked on before the next event.
I kept at it though, making plays where I could and trying to take down the pots I thought I could win. Eventually though the blinds started to make my 6k stack look more desperate and I was soon one of the many players comming towards the push/fold stage of the tournament.
In one particular hand, blinds around 200/400 with 25 ante, an early/mid position player with about 9k raised to 1500, he had been raising a couple of pots earlier and I look down at 55 from the button, I figure this is a nice time to attempt to double up so I push. It gets back round to the original raiser and he folds, nice for me.
For the next ordbit I sit tight, waiting for a good spot, then I find myself in the big blind with AK and the same opponent as before raises it up. The action gets to me and expectedly, I move all in for my 7500 or so. The action is to the original raiser who this time, after a little thought, calls with QQ. Oh well, its time to get lucky to stay alive and I needed a spot like this to try and get soem chips. The flop brings me a K and the hand holds up taking me to 16000 or so in chips.
The new found chips give me a little more room for manouver and I can now take stabs at pots again and try and pick off the shorter stacks as they get desperate and shove.
This was to happen later on against the very same opponent as the previous two hands. I had been trying to take blinds here and there and try to build my stack but unfortunately by this hand after some unsuccessful raising I was down to about 12k. The blinds are about 400/800 wiht a 50 ante, I'm in the small blind with AQ and this guy in mid position raises all in for around 9k. The action gets to me and I have a decision. He has been making a couple of moves like this recently, he is in short stack mode trying to get more chips and I feel for this reason he is likely to have a wider range of hands here. Still, I take time on this and eventually decide that I can call with AQ here, happy to again race to try and take me up to 22k in chips, since I'm getting towards the danger teritory myself.
I make the call and am relieved to see my opponent flip over AT. I'm not however at all pleased to see the dealer flip over a T on the flop with no more help for my hand. I'm down to around 3k with blinds of 400/800.
I feel an area of my game in tournaments that is very good though is short stack play and although my situation looks worse than dead, I stay calm and tell myself I'm picking my spots to go all in and not just making a desperate shove. I manage to take the blinds on my next hand on the button and then double up the very next hand when my QT beats the 76 of the BB. I manage to survive another orbit and have my stack up to around 10k again by the time I get through the next blinds.
Then I'm dealt 56 on the button and its folded to me. To be honest, I dunno whether I'd have pushed anything on the button here since I was first in against two random blind hands but I shove, and end up getting called by 77, ouch, thats the end of my tournament and I'm out questioning whether after a good comeback from next to no chips, I should have waited some more hands for a better hand to make my next move with. Maybe I didn't have to make this move on the button, I could have waited for another hand between then and the next big blind. This is something I may be more concious of next time I play in one of this, as I did feel pretty gutted at having put my money in with the worst hand.
However, I'm positive about how I played on the whole and I know the things I need to work on for next time. By having a positive attitude and a desire to improve and be a better player I know that I will get to where I want to be. Hard work and determination are all you need, comvined of course with as much play as you can get. I know for sure that I'm going to run good in one of these tournaments soon, until then though its about putting in the practice and the hours needed to improve my skills.
See you all at the next event!
My goal was to play more pots in position, stay pretty solid out of position and basically try and play the players much more than I have in the past. As I say, some things need working on but on the whole I managed to do what I set out to do.
I started the tournament on 10k chips and after the first 4 levels or so I was down to 6k after my new style wasn't getting me very far, I wasn't winning enough pots and as I say, this needs to be ironed out and worked on before the next event.
I kept at it though, making plays where I could and trying to take down the pots I thought I could win. Eventually though the blinds started to make my 6k stack look more desperate and I was soon one of the many players comming towards the push/fold stage of the tournament.
In one particular hand, blinds around 200/400 with 25 ante, an early/mid position player with about 9k raised to 1500, he had been raising a couple of pots earlier and I look down at 55 from the button, I figure this is a nice time to attempt to double up so I push. It gets back round to the original raiser and he folds, nice for me.
For the next ordbit I sit tight, waiting for a good spot, then I find myself in the big blind with AK and the same opponent as before raises it up. The action gets to me and expectedly, I move all in for my 7500 or so. The action is to the original raiser who this time, after a little thought, calls with QQ. Oh well, its time to get lucky to stay alive and I needed a spot like this to try and get soem chips. The flop brings me a K and the hand holds up taking me to 16000 or so in chips.
The new found chips give me a little more room for manouver and I can now take stabs at pots again and try and pick off the shorter stacks as they get desperate and shove.
This was to happen later on against the very same opponent as the previous two hands. I had been trying to take blinds here and there and try to build my stack but unfortunately by this hand after some unsuccessful raising I was down to about 12k. The blinds are about 400/800 wiht a 50 ante, I'm in the small blind with AQ and this guy in mid position raises all in for around 9k. The action gets to me and I have a decision. He has been making a couple of moves like this recently, he is in short stack mode trying to get more chips and I feel for this reason he is likely to have a wider range of hands here. Still, I take time on this and eventually decide that I can call with AQ here, happy to again race to try and take me up to 22k in chips, since I'm getting towards the danger teritory myself.
I make the call and am relieved to see my opponent flip over AT. I'm not however at all pleased to see the dealer flip over a T on the flop with no more help for my hand. I'm down to around 3k with blinds of 400/800.
I feel an area of my game in tournaments that is very good though is short stack play and although my situation looks worse than dead, I stay calm and tell myself I'm picking my spots to go all in and not just making a desperate shove. I manage to take the blinds on my next hand on the button and then double up the very next hand when my QT beats the 76 of the BB. I manage to survive another orbit and have my stack up to around 10k again by the time I get through the next blinds.
Then I'm dealt 56 on the button and its folded to me. To be honest, I dunno whether I'd have pushed anything on the button here since I was first in against two random blind hands but I shove, and end up getting called by 77, ouch, thats the end of my tournament and I'm out questioning whether after a good comeback from next to no chips, I should have waited some more hands for a better hand to make my next move with. Maybe I didn't have to make this move on the button, I could have waited for another hand between then and the next big blind. This is something I may be more concious of next time I play in one of this, as I did feel pretty gutted at having put my money in with the worst hand.
However, I'm positive about how I played on the whole and I know the things I need to work on for next time. By having a positive attitude and a desire to improve and be a better player I know that I will get to where I want to be. Hard work and determination are all you need, comvined of course with as much play as you can get. I know for sure that I'm going to run good in one of these tournaments soon, until then though its about putting in the practice and the hours needed to improve my skills.
See you all at the next event!
Wednesday, 4 February 2009
APAT UK Open
This weekend I'm travelling down to Walsall to play in the first live event of the Season 3 schedule of the Amateur Professional Association Tour (APAT). The tournament is a two day event with around 200 runners. The buyin for this event is £75 and players start with 10k chips and enjoy a brilliantly ran tournament with long 45 minute levels.
I first heard of APAT through PokerPlayer magazine a good two years ago now. My first APAT tournament was in fact the very first APAT even back in season 1 at the Broadway casino, Birmingham. I thoroughly enjoyed this event, I enjoyed the way the tournaments were ran and the structure of the events. From then on I decided to become a part of APAT and play as many events as I could. In total, I've played 7 of these events already and looking forward to this season as I feel I've come so much further as a player since the last event I played.
For more information on APAT visit their website: www.apat.com
Unofrunately my form in these tournaments has been very poor. I've never managed to reach the second day of these events and I never seem to be able to gather any momentum and go particularly deep either. Last year in Cardiff I managed to gather some chips before the dinner break but after that nothing happened for me and I ended up eliminated a few hours before the end of play.
My most sucessful event was in Newcastle at Aspers in season 1 where I gathered a good amount of chips and ended up all in with AA v JJ in a pot that would have taken me to a way more than comfortable position chip wise but unfortunately the turn decided I wasn't going far in this tournament either and I didn't last too much longer after being crippled in that pot.
As I say though I've come a long way since then, I've gained more experience and I'm playing better now than I was in the past. Since moving to 6max cash games online I've learnt a lot more and developed more areas of my game that I feel will benefit me greatly ahead of this weekends tournament.
I'm feeling very positive and my first goal is to reach the second day of the event. At the moment I'm playing very well online, being able to spot my weaknesses and mistakes when they come up and improving areas of my game that in the past have been substandard. I hope to take this from the online games into the live event on Saturday and put in a good run.
If anyone reading this blog is playing the event this weekend then I look forward to seeing you in Walsall.
From now til then though the plan is to put some more hours into some online sessions and do some final preperation for the tournament.
I'll write up a blog on my Walsall sucess/failure after the weekend. Watch this space.....
I first heard of APAT through PokerPlayer magazine a good two years ago now. My first APAT tournament was in fact the very first APAT even back in season 1 at the Broadway casino, Birmingham. I thoroughly enjoyed this event, I enjoyed the way the tournaments were ran and the structure of the events. From then on I decided to become a part of APAT and play as many events as I could. In total, I've played 7 of these events already and looking forward to this season as I feel I've come so much further as a player since the last event I played.
For more information on APAT visit their website: www.apat.com
Unofrunately my form in these tournaments has been very poor. I've never managed to reach the second day of these events and I never seem to be able to gather any momentum and go particularly deep either. Last year in Cardiff I managed to gather some chips before the dinner break but after that nothing happened for me and I ended up eliminated a few hours before the end of play.
My most sucessful event was in Newcastle at Aspers in season 1 where I gathered a good amount of chips and ended up all in with AA v JJ in a pot that would have taken me to a way more than comfortable position chip wise but unfortunately the turn decided I wasn't going far in this tournament either and I didn't last too much longer after being crippled in that pot.
As I say though I've come a long way since then, I've gained more experience and I'm playing better now than I was in the past. Since moving to 6max cash games online I've learnt a lot more and developed more areas of my game that I feel will benefit me greatly ahead of this weekends tournament.
I'm feeling very positive and my first goal is to reach the second day of the event. At the moment I'm playing very well online, being able to spot my weaknesses and mistakes when they come up and improving areas of my game that in the past have been substandard. I hope to take this from the online games into the live event on Saturday and put in a good run.
If anyone reading this blog is playing the event this weekend then I look forward to seeing you in Walsall.
From now til then though the plan is to put some more hours into some online sessions and do some final preperation for the tournament.
I'll write up a blog on my Walsall sucess/failure after the weekend. Watch this space.....
Friday, 30 January 2009
2009 and a fresh start
Well so much for my comitment last year to make a regular go of this blog. That fizzed out pretty quickly! In the end I got quite busy and a load of other stuff got in the way and I left the blog behind. Poker still continued but the blog didn't. Its an excuse though and I'm not really happy at myself for it.
However, it's a new year and a perfect reason to start fresh and commit to this blog alongside the poker. So far this year the poker has gone pretty well. I won't go into specifics until my next post but so far I'm pleased with my game. I've been thinking more on things I need to work on and I feel I have a better preflop aggression thing going on now which should serve me well from now on. I'm doing a lot more from late position and concentrating on giving myself that positional advantage over people which obviously, works so well since its a cornerstone of good poker play.
The other night I played a session and did pretty well, finishing up a buyin and I was pleased with the start I had made to a more aggressive approach (this is all still continueing at 6max, I can't see myself going to full ring again for a while).
I then played a session a few days later and was pleased again with continueing my positional aggression and I felt more confident as I tweaked what I was doing more and I'm pretty positive now with hammering this into my game. It's just going to take time and practice but it'll get there eventually. The other thing to work on is continueing with the post flop play and getting to grips with all aspects of this. This one will take the most work and the most time but eventually I know I'll get this down and become a more solid player as a result.
This session was positive as far as play went, as I say I'm still tweaking the positional aggression so sometimes I'm probably playing more hands than I need to but that'll even out to an optimal level for me eventually. I ended up getting my money in front in the right situation in this session but unfortunately twice my big pairs were taken down by eventual sets. This happens, it doesn't bother me, what bothers me and causes me to worry is when I put my money in when I'm behind and could have avoided it. That didn't happen this time so no need for concern.
Tonight I played a session and I ran good, played good and got into pots with the right kind of opponents (opponents taking top pair too far for example). I played well, theres areas post flop I need to think more about and start hammering into my game, and I probably need to start reacting more post flop depending on different people's table images. This is something I'm going to conciously work at the next time I play, I'll keep conciously thinking about it until I start to do it automatically as its an important part of post flop play. I can't be automatic which at times I am being, different people have different styles and I need to be exploiting their particular weaknesses on an individual basis. One size doesn't fit all etc. I'll learn this though over time and on the whole tonight I played pretty well I feel.
One big thing for me which I see as positive is that when I'm making mistakes, I'm generally picking up on a lot of them. This is obviously great, it means that I know where I need to be careful and work harder at rather than having no knowledge of where I'm making mistakes and thus the mistakes continue to be a part of my game and don't get looked at.
So tonight I finished up around 3 buyins which I'm pleased with, the individual results for a session aren't too important though. I'll write about them in this blog but as I said earlier, the key for me is to make the best decisions, play correctly and that approach will mean I have more winning sessions than loosing sessions. This is my focus going forward for 2009 and it'll be interesting as I continue to progress and write up my progress through this year. Hopefully in 6 months time I can look back on these early posts and be proud of how far I'll have come and how I'm progressing as a player.
Good luck to everyone with your goals for 2009, both poker related and non poker related.
More to come soon...
However, it's a new year and a perfect reason to start fresh and commit to this blog alongside the poker. So far this year the poker has gone pretty well. I won't go into specifics until my next post but so far I'm pleased with my game. I've been thinking more on things I need to work on and I feel I have a better preflop aggression thing going on now which should serve me well from now on. I'm doing a lot more from late position and concentrating on giving myself that positional advantage over people which obviously, works so well since its a cornerstone of good poker play.
The other night I played a session and did pretty well, finishing up a buyin and I was pleased with the start I had made to a more aggressive approach (this is all still continueing at 6max, I can't see myself going to full ring again for a while).
I then played a session a few days later and was pleased again with continueing my positional aggression and I felt more confident as I tweaked what I was doing more and I'm pretty positive now with hammering this into my game. It's just going to take time and practice but it'll get there eventually. The other thing to work on is continueing with the post flop play and getting to grips with all aspects of this. This one will take the most work and the most time but eventually I know I'll get this down and become a more solid player as a result.
This session was positive as far as play went, as I say I'm still tweaking the positional aggression so sometimes I'm probably playing more hands than I need to but that'll even out to an optimal level for me eventually. I ended up getting my money in front in the right situation in this session but unfortunately twice my big pairs were taken down by eventual sets. This happens, it doesn't bother me, what bothers me and causes me to worry is when I put my money in when I'm behind and could have avoided it. That didn't happen this time so no need for concern.
Tonight I played a session and I ran good, played good and got into pots with the right kind of opponents (opponents taking top pair too far for example). I played well, theres areas post flop I need to think more about and start hammering into my game, and I probably need to start reacting more post flop depending on different people's table images. This is something I'm going to conciously work at the next time I play, I'll keep conciously thinking about it until I start to do it automatically as its an important part of post flop play. I can't be automatic which at times I am being, different people have different styles and I need to be exploiting their particular weaknesses on an individual basis. One size doesn't fit all etc. I'll learn this though over time and on the whole tonight I played pretty well I feel.
One big thing for me which I see as positive is that when I'm making mistakes, I'm generally picking up on a lot of them. This is obviously great, it means that I know where I need to be careful and work harder at rather than having no knowledge of where I'm making mistakes and thus the mistakes continue to be a part of my game and don't get looked at.
So tonight I finished up around 3 buyins which I'm pleased with, the individual results for a session aren't too important though. I'll write about them in this blog but as I said earlier, the key for me is to make the best decisions, play correctly and that approach will mean I have more winning sessions than loosing sessions. This is my focus going forward for 2009 and it'll be interesting as I continue to progress and write up my progress through this year. Hopefully in 6 months time I can look back on these early posts and be proud of how far I'll have come and how I'm progressing as a player.
Good luck to everyone with your goals for 2009, both poker related and non poker related.
More to come soon...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
