ISPT

http://www.dusktilldawnpoker.com/ispt/

This tournie is going to be massive and I've love to take part in it.. may even try and take home some goalposts :)

Please click the link above for all the satellite info.. It's overlay city!!

May Review

After a busy weekend at the Genting Poker Series last weekend I've finally gotten round to writing my month review.

It will take the following format and will be a monthly occurence (duh!)

Review of Last Month Goals
Cash
Tournies
Next Months Goals

So without further ado:


Review of Last Months Goals

Play 10k hands a month starting at 50nl 6max 6-tabling move up when i hit 30buyins

I actually played almost 20k and I've started at 25NL for some shrewd bankroll management

Play Genting Poker Series Edinburgh
Done See last blog Post


Re-Subscribe to Deuces cracked and watch 2-3 videos a week




I did subscribe but have struggled to watch videos have been mainly playing

Play 2x Live Cash Sessions
This one I'm going to alter.. I am following a much stricter bankroll management guide and the game plays really deep.. once i have a cash roll of buyins of £150 i will reconsider it.


Spend one sunday grinding satellites to the biggies and play if I win a seat
Played the SCOOP ME sunday.. lasted 3 hands in the Main event KK<AK for 300bbs preflop.. standard?

Keep HEM and Bankroll Spreadsheet 100% up to date

This is one im particularly please at.. kept the whole month completly up to date!!


Cash

Bottom Line: Played 18,355 / bb100 8.35 / +$382.41
Cleared $200 Pokerstars SCOOP Bonus




Tournie

Ran well played approx 20 tournies buyins from $5-£430 5 cashes

2 2nds in $15 180 mans
1 deep run in the Genting Poker Series ME for 21/382

Total Profit: $1004




Next Months Goals

15k hands of 25nl
More Study time
Make a big run at half price Stars Sunday with lots of satellites to reduce my outlay

Genting Poker Series Leg 3 - Edinburgh

This is going to be a two parter to my much neglected blog..

First up is my recap of the Genting Poker Series Edinburgh which came to town 31^st May -3^rd June, and secondly a recap of my month overall.

First up in was Event #3 £109 6max, which then became a £109 full ring tournament due to space L, 82 runners and the tournament was really a grind, there was a young kid on my left that called every single one of my opens.. never 3bet me stationed all day long. I could not get any cards to play back and I ended up giving him a big chunk with 89hh on 57Jhh board with two big barrels on turn and river.

Before long I was down to the 10-13bb mode and just got it in as and when  I could which worked out pretty well my allins ran like this A8>KQ, T9dd>AQo KK>AQ which took us up to two tables left.. 10 paid and 18 remaining, we just got 4 new players in the table break.

blinds 800/1600 200. Utg (50k) opens to 3800 brand new just moved after split. Big fish 60k flats. He is super wide like 22+ I jam TT on the button and 27k (17bbs) it's folded to us and we jam.. only original raiser calls with JJ and holds

Sigh , gg etc

Back home to my own bed which is simply wonderful for a festival, to have it on your own front door and woke up rested for the main event.

Day 1B

I took my seat at table 7, seat 7 and didn’t notice anyone at my table really except for Gareth Walker who won a UKIPT or something who between him and his Geordie mate sat beside him decided to flat almost everyone of my opens.. I wasn’t hitting so I would generally open/cbet / give up.

Lost a chunk 4betting AQcc out of the small blind (UTG Lithuanian fish had opened, Gareth Walker 3bet, his mate flatted, I 4bet, only Geordie mate called) I fired a ¾ pot bet on Kc2s7s which he called and then again when a non spade fell on the turn only to get shoved on. Still don’t know exactly what he had.. probs a set but I sigh folded, thought my line looked strong but w/e .

Couple orbits later I get in my first allin.. Old gentleman opens 26k utg to 1100 (200/400) me with a 13k stack 3bet AKdd to 3050 all get out of the way and he flats.

Flop Kd Th 7h and he checks..

I bet 5500 and he jams… I call and he has KQhh .. fade the turn and river and get up to like 27k yay!

Won another decent pot off the same guy flatting AJdd in the button flop Qc 7d 5d, calling his cbet turning the flush and getting two streets of value.

I bust a shortstacked Gareth Walker AQ>KQ.

Up to about 35-40k now and another old guy replaces the first old guy.. he wasn’t to last long..

Lithunaian fish limps UTG, new old guy in the CO raises him to 2500 (30k) (400/800/50) I cold 4bet Aces from the SB to 10k, fish folds and he flats.. Flop comes down Qc 2h 5s and he insta-ships out of turn full pot bet (20k).. im like wtf just happened its me to go but w/e I call and hold vs AK.. (turn is a T obv for the sweat) and im up to 75k and get moved tables.

New table scarily has a stack that can bust me.. 90kish tall irish guy with Sunglasses and headphones think his name was David Caffery, everyone looks a little scared of him and he is opening every pot  the rest are on the 15-30ish stacks so I hope to pick up some chips here, Richard Sinclair is on my right and I make a mental note of how busting two UKIPT champs would be nice..

I first tangle with him opening JTdd 2.5x ing it from UTG, this is one of the hands the tournament blogger caught so I will copy and paste it here:

 (no idea who Jon Milne is.. but it was me that played this hand honestly)

Jon Milne raises UTG plus one to 2200.

David Caffrey flats him in the cut off.

Flop is 6d 5h Qc

Milne bets 3500' Caffrey flat calls. Turn is the Ad, and Jon makes. It another 7k to see the river, which Caffrey calls.

The river is the Kd, to which Jon checks quite quickly.

Caffrey thinks for some time and makes a bet eventually of 8700.

John Milne instantly reraises, throwing five black 5k chips straight across the line.

Caffrey sits upright and whips his headphones off. He asks Milne how much he has behind, and The dealer counts them out. She tells him he has another 37k.

Caffrey sits and thinks for some time, during which John's Reflective shades get too hot so he removes them and keeps looking at Caffrey and his chips, in between shuffling in his chair. He's either got a big hand or he is suffering from St Vitus dance, but eventually Caffrey makes the call, although seemingly reluctantly.

John happily flips over Jd 10d for the second nut flush draw. Caffrey mucks.

I was torn between a shove and a value bet.. if it was a non diamond king maybe I shove.. he mucked so not sure of the strength he had but w/e he had something and now im on 130k woo!

Few hands later make it 2100 to go with QQ (500/1k/100) get a caller and then the BB ships for 23k total.. I overshove and caller gets out of the way.. AJ for the BB and I only have to dodge 3 ou.. oh look theres the Ace meh nevermind.

They call last 4 hands of the night and I get TT, AK, KQ and win all of them.. finish the night with 107k going back to 800/1600 for my first day 2 since the Caesars deepstack almost 2 years to the day. In between I’ve not made day 2’s in 3 UKIPT’s and a Venetian deepstack so it’s nice to finally make one.

Day 2

I get to the casino with like 3 mins to spare as Corstorphine decided to have their gala day and block off the roads and congest them with traffic so I sit down and don’t recognize anyone which is always good. I yo-yo a bit playing some small pots and eventually win a decent one BvB with AK > Ax on a ATT26 board.. didn’t like the T there probably could have gotten paid off a lot more but I wimped out.. I had been quite aggro so a T was definitely in his range.. that took me up to 140k and unfortunately a table break.

My new table was leaning heavily to one side with 3x 500k+ stacks all to my left.. I got 0 cards and any time I opened from LP with legitimate hands KQ/A8 etc I was 3bet and 4bet before it even got round to me. .Definitely frustrating. But I rode it out albeit with a depleted stack to take 56k to the dinner break and a new table to return to when I was back with only 46 remaining and 42 getting paid.

I’ve always bemoaned my luck, whenever I seem to get deep in live tourneys that mean something to me I’ve got a habit of getting it in good and losing huge pots 64 v AA on a 456 board in WPT Bahamas in 05, TT < KQ in the inaugural APAT in 08 which was in essence a $16,000 coin flip but I would finally get a taste of what it was like to be on the other end of this.. a return on some of my Sklansky bucks if you will.

Picture the scene we are on the stone cold bubble and we are desperate , 48k with blinds of 2k/4k and find AJ in the small blind, folds to the button who raises to 10k for the 30^th time in a row (slight exaggeration) and we jam all good so far right? The BB doesn’t fold.. he’s thinking, pained but thinking. So now I have to get through what looks like two players to cash this tourney… he reshoves 100k and the Button tank folds claiming 88. He has AQss and my head and heart just sink to the floor, I stand up and cheekily as for a Jack and get it there right on the flop with two sixes on an all red flop, the turn is an 8 (lol button ul!) and I fade the river 3 outer which is the 9c.. more than doubled up and right behind me everyone rushes to another table where Genting Pro Davia Barauskaite  busts JJ<KK to burst the bubble.

You can never have enough Saltires on your Hendon Mob and mine just went from 2 to 3 (one is next to my name lol).

Get down to 36 and our table is broken, I draw table 1 seat 2 which is the TV table.. or online streaming table if you will. I have the chip leader on my right so realise I’m not going to get a chance to open much.. I’ve got like 150k at this point with 4k/8k/400 blinds. Fold patiently for an orbit then get AK in the SB.. folds to me and having played with the BB a bit I know he is really aggro so think there is a decent chance I’m getting it in here.. I make it 24k, he asks for a count of my stack.. I tell him and he shoves. I snap it off and he has 99 Ace on the flop and I’ve doubled again to over 300k in chips.

Don’t play many other hands at this table, I miss twice with KQ once flatting on the button and folding an AJ4 flop from an EP raiser and next 3betting a medium stack only to get 4bet shoved on.. where again I fold. Break comes round and they rotate us with another table.

I get to witness first hand BobaFett’s huge double up where the then chip leader 6bet shoves on him with QQ into Paul’s KK which holds to rocket him to like 1.8million an out and out chip lead.

I again don’t get to play many hands at this table but eventually find AKo in MP, 21 players left, I’m playing 240k and raise it up to 25k, (5k/10k/1k) folds to the BB who asks for a count he’s playing about 300k and ships on hearing my reply. I call but don’t even get a sweat an eight comes down on the flop, turn card brings me 4 outs to a chop but I fade and the dream is over with 50% of a £755 score in my pocket.

A win there takes me to half a million and a real chance at this one. Big congrats to Paul Mctaggart (Boba Fett) who I’ve known since the days of playing tourneys at Cincinnati’s about 10 years ago.. he abs crushes online but always seemed doomed when it came to liveaments.. he chopped it HU with Paul Jackson then won the extra 2k and the trophy shortly after. Also big congrats to Barry Burns and Rab Gregory, both local regs who were on my right for a big part of day 2 and patiently grinded those 10BB stacks into a big score.

Had such a great time, below is my interview (I won my seat as a bounty) and a few pics.

Pokerstars buys Full Tilt Poker for $750 million dollars - RUMOUR

So here I was just catching up on the poker world via twitter, forums etc when I noticed a post on 2+2 saying Pokerstars had just agreed a deal with the DOJ for Full Tilt and it was a done deal..

First thought was WTF lol.. but as the afternoon grew on it started becoming more and more real..

I am going to try and live blog this as it happened..

Here is what we know

at 14:33 GMT a new account (presumably an alias for protection) called PS<3FTP posted here saying that

PokerStars has reached an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice to buy FTP. The things I heard:

* All players will be refunded 100%
* Both sites back online
* Both sites have promotions
* Employees remain in both places

What was strange was this post was not insta-deleted, but even stranger a moderator said he couldn't confirm but a press release would be forthcoming another poster who did a lot of early FTP research also said he wouldn't delete it as it may not be a giant lie. The thread is already on its 200th post!

At roughly 4pm Alexandre Dreyfus, Chillipoker ceo tweeted the following:

Pokerstars buys FullTilt for a consideration of $750m, including settlement with DOJ and full balances of players (330m). I'm impressed

1640 GMT - Groupe Bernard Tapie issue statements via eGaming Review and igamingFrance twitters saying Deal with DOJ has fallen through.. Press Release to follow




Twitterers are starting to use #greentuesday and #redtuesday as hashtags.. obviously as a polar opposite to black friday


1745 GMT - GBT issues statement can be found here at igamingpost :

More as it happens....

UKIPT Nottingham seat binked

Just a tiny post really not much content to say I locked up my £770 UKIPT Nottingham seat tonight in a £44 sat, so I will be playing that Day1B April 13th..

Also this weekend I'm playing Sky Poker Tour Leg 4 at the Alea in Glasgow.

See told you it was a tiny post

Friday night at Genting Fountain Park

So just a little update, sticking to my goals of playing live at least once a month I went out and played at Genting last night. The tournie is £20+10+10 but after my last outing the 50p/50p cash game was always going to be the main attraction.

The tournie itself was really freaking frustrating.. 106 runners and I manage to start the 4th level after addons with 43k at 300/600.. not that I went round counting but  I reckon i was top 10 chips, gent to my right was the only one that had me covered with like 50k.. (this is important).

Villian loved the limp call with any Ace, I saw loads of showdowns from him and he'd limp call out of position with A3/A6/AK/A9. I'm not calling him bad he was getting some monster hands but was making sure he got max value from them he just obviously had very little knowledge of position or reverse implied odds.

Anyway big hand of the tournie Level 4 (300/600).. Im MP1 (43k).. villain (48k) limps UTG+1 and I make it 2k with AhKd.. Button with 12k flats and villian calls.

Flop As Kc Tc

Villain leads for 5k

I then start to think.. this is a really wet board but I have top two.. I'm discounting sets as he raises these UTG+1 always so what can he have.. sure he can have QJ here he can also have any Ax combo perhaps with a flush draw. My main concern is how deep I am the rest of the table doesn't exceed 15k and I don't have to get involved here but there is one hand in his whole range im scared of..

So i raise 10k to partly find out where I am and partly for value.

Button folds and he insta shoves.. Am I too deep to call here? I tank go through all his showdown hands where he has limp called.. he's shown Ax 7-8 times.. AT could be the very top of this range and he probably thinks he's good, Ax flush draws and QJ..

So I call he shows QJ and I head to the cash games after missing my 4 outs. Am I too deep to make this call? Perhaps in a bigger tournie i can find my fold but meh

Cash Games

So I get on the list for the 50p/50p game (£25min/£150max) and it's not started yet so its a little wait and we start up.

This is my second time playing this game on a Fri night, last time I played i bought in for £150 and left with £640.. mainly thanks to a very very drunken donator, donations aside I actually think I have a solid live cash game, especially 9 handed it seems to curb my agression and without offending anyone very few players playing this level have the ability to play 300bbs deep. I feel I have a sound understanding of position and playing deep and in my small sample size I felt I was the best player in the game.

This session wasn't to be as easy as my first.. played from 11 through til 5am and finished up with £610 from my £150 buyin. The players in the game were a lot more aggressive I also managed to miss two huge combo draws against the same guy which chipped away at my stack early on.

Hand that made the session was as follows.. ~ This is standard right?

5-6 hours into the session I'm playing £230 and have the button.. CO has £125 and BB has £300.. Folds to the CO who calls 50p I have KcKs and make it £3.50.. BB tanks for a bit and makes it £11, CO calls and I wait abit before making it £34.. they both call..

Flop 9c5c2c

BB comes out firing £67, CO folds and I think this is a pretty standard shove.. BB calls after saying I can't have the made flush and I probably have AcAx. He has red nines and I river the 3c. For a big pot.

So in two sessions i've won £950 in this game.. 1900 big blinds or 19 buyins for a standard £50nl game.. not bad for 16 hours work.. anyway i've only had 3 hours sleep after getting in at 5:30am so I am off to bed. Will definitely be playing this game again this month.

Re-Starting with some focus

First off I really regret deleting my old blog.. I had 5+ years of posts and decided I don't want to pay for the hosting anymore- Do you want to backup? Nah.. *Poof* and it's all gone five years of my poker rambling travels to Vegas,Bahamas,Blackpool all no more.

So I'm back blogging again, and back playing Poker again it seems.. just a kid (grown up now) with a dream of a WSOP bracelet and no mortgage because it's all been paid for from winnings of a card game.

For those that don't know me I've been playing for ~10 years mainly online with the occasional dip into live poker and I am patiently waiting for my one time. I go by the alias Suited_Jock online and was an active participant on the ITH and Blonde Poker Forums. I've played a few live tournaments WPT Bahamas, APAT Season 1, Gala Poker Tour, 2x UKIPT's, Venetian Deepstacks, Caesars Megastacks and have 3 flags on my Hendon Mob database (lol).

Up until last year I took a bit of a poker hiatus.. for a few reasons.. I was spending alot of time on my other hobby Ice Hockey and was really trying to improve my I.T career development (which has worked as I am now a 3rd line Advanced Technical Specialist  and know Microsoft SCCM inside out being the administrator for that here). That and the birth of my son which has turned life upside down in the best way possible

Back when poker was easy I made a lot of money, neglected bankroll management frequently but used all my winnings very well paying for my wedding, putting down a deposit on my house and quite a few trips to Vegas.

Year to Date

So far I am in profit for the year, which I am happy with (duh!), UKIPT Galway paid for itself with a small bit of profit leftover. I'm not gonna lie I found the standard of play quite good at UKIPT.. I know I held my own and everything apart from my bustout hand I was happy with (lol). 

Highlights of 2012 so far have included winning a Sky Poker £22 headhunter, I've played one live cash session 50p/50p blinds and scooped over 1000BB's in a 7 hour session, a couple of deep finishes in 180 man sngs on stars and all along the way i've been treading water in GPS and UKIPT satellites.. not won one yet but have enough deep finishes and subsats to actually not have lost any money playing them.

Goals

First off I want to improve, the game has changed alot and whilst I have had some success with a standard ABC TAG game i've made a fool out of myself deep in tournies running bluffs that will never work.

I'm going to stick away from profit driven goals.. this has something that I've done in the past and it's silly and I can't control that no matter how well I play as getting in the volume is going to be alot harder these days with the 16 month old mini me running around the house destroying stuff, also time with the other half is at a premium these days.

That in mind my goals for 2012 are

Play 10k hands a month starting at 50nl 6max 6-tabling move up when i hit 30buyins (the launch of Zoom Poker will defo help with this.. I really miss Rush)
Play Genting Poker Series Edinburgh
Re-Subscribe to Deuces cracked and watch 2-3 videos a week
Play 2x Live Cash Sessions
Spend one sunday grinding satellites to the biggies and play if I win a seat
Keep HEM and Bankroll Spreadsheet 100% up to date
Blog as much as I can

I'll be posting at the end of each month saying how badly I stuck to these goals lol

See ya at the tables