Back in Melbourne ... back to the grind!

I'm back from the Sydney trip. Good to be home & sleeping in my own bed!

The Sydney trip was good for the most part. The Deuces Cracked meetup was great. It was good to catch up with my chess firends that I hadn't seen for a while. The poker, particularly at the casino, could have been better. I like the deeper stacks (you can now buy in to a $1/2 table up to $200), although deep stacks mean little when you continue to run bad ... such as an all-in pre-flop with KK v JJ for roughly $160 where my opponent did the usual & flopped a J & I couldn't catch up.

It was also good to catch up with the family ... my brother seems to be going OK with his studies & my parents are still doing fine.

Now that I'm back in Melbourne, its back to the grind. I'm hoping to do some casual teaching to give me something of a regular income ... and of course hoping to turn the current poker run bad around! The next step for me as far as online poker goes is to not only continue to build my bankroll (I've gone off the idea of the self-challenge from a few posts back) playing limit & no limit holdem & mixed games, with the occasional tourney ... but also to build up my Full Till points so that I can have a watch (as seen on the left) shipped to my home.

Will see how it goes ...

Sydney Deuces Cracked Meet

I ventured up to Sydney for a week (where I'm typing this post from) for, amongst other things, a Sydney meetup of Deuces Cracked members. There were a total of 6 of us who were on the felt at the Jade Tavern for an evening of 25/50c NLHE (which moved to Star City later on). Big thanks to Aus_dragon (Nathan) for organising it & good to meet Shuttle, Stanmore, Pink_dragon & PokerGnome Alicia (a semi-private joke for those that are wondering). The DC game ended in a small profit for myself, though the 'highlight' hand was one near the end of the night between Shuttle & PokerGnome. PokerGnome raised to $1.50 (or thereabouts - my memory is not precise with the following figures) UTG, Shuttle made it $4.25 on the button & PokerGnome shoved for his remaining $25. While Shuttle was thinking about what to do, PokerGnome offered to show one card & showed a queen ... which lead Shuttle to instanly say 'I call' & turn over K7o! Of course the king arrived on the flop, with a 7 on the river for the final kick in the nuts for PokerGnome.
Personally I found the game to be good, however I was more comfortable in it knowing that there were no spastic maniacs at the table, as seems to be so common elsewhere (although there were times when Shuttle & PokerGnome came close to such descriptions) ... and as a result I felt I played reasonably well for the most part.
Of course when I went to Star City, the crazy fish (and my poor timing) left me with a small loss for the evening. A sample of my poor timing included 4-betting a short stack with AK, picking up a caller with 88 & checking it down post-flop to see the short stack with JJ to triple up; a mate of mine who was short & open-shoved his last 10bbs where I had 99 & decided to call (yes, bad decision which only occured to me AFTER I had put the chips in the middle) where he had JJ & held ... and just a general lack of premium hands and spots to get chips easily (live players dislike folding, which makes bluffing somewhat difficult to do).

Another tourney, another story to tell ...

Played the Deepstack event at the ANZPT Melbourne & it was my usual tale of woe. Got off to a decent start at a very passive table, chipping up early by making use of position & the passivity of the other players. If folded or limped to me in late position, it was almost an invitation to raise, with almost no 3-bets pre-flop. Of course post-flop, it was invariably checked to the pre-flop raiser, so I simply put in the c-bet & took down the pot a vast majority of the time. If I was called on the flop, I either had to make a hand, or simply give up on the pot, but this happened rarely. Of course this lack of 3-betting was the beginning of the end for me ... I made my standard opening raise of 550 (levels 100/200/25), only to be re-raised to 1650 by the player two to my left. This was then called by the button before it got back to me! I re-raised to 5000 (I started the hand with about 13k) & noticed that the lady who re-raised me had around 6k total. She decided to shove after some thought & the other player got out of the way ... and my AA was up against AKs. Of course there was a king on the flop & a king on the river ... so a decent chunk of my stack went elsewhere.
I managed to lose a few more chips (some raises that met resistance, as well as an ill-timed flop check-raise) before finally getting my last 3500 in with 88 against KJo & lost the slightly more even coinflip ... and the walk of shame.
This put my live tournament streak at something like 0/18 for tournaments after my cash in the Thursday tournament around two months ago ... and as usual I got my money in good the vast majority of the time! Tournaments are so much fun!
When, oh when, will I run good???

ANZPT 8 Game

In short, I simply didn't make hands!
I think during the whole tournament I managed to win one showdown (a 2-7 hand where I was all-in against 2 others) & split one pot (heads-up in Stud 8 where my opponent was all-in on 6th & the hand was already a chop).
I managed to stay afloat by picking up blinds & antes from time to time, however these hands rarely made it to the big bet rounds, so there was a limit to my gains.
While this was happening, I also managed to get involved in hands (marginal at best, but I simply did not have any big hands other than the Stud 8 hand that was chopped) where I simply missed draws & occasionally managed to make second best hands.
Of course in all of this, I still managed to outlast three others on the table (one cooler hand, one guy who was very active and seemingly looking to give his chips away who ran into a PLO beat & one other player who appeared to have a run similar to mine and just didn't make hands and kept missing draws) & finished around 30th out of the 40 starters.
The event itself turned into a triumph for the 'old guard', with the event being won by Leo Boxell ahead of David Gorr & Graeme Putt.

Mini Challenge ... slow start

First decent session ... and I've already broken some of the rules. At some stages I had as many as 6 tables running at a time & with a $10 buy-in on each table it meant that I had gone over the theoretical $40 bankroll I had for this challenge ... but its more about the principle than anything.
Of course it didn't help that I ran horribly! End of session total ... -$22! Eeek!
Some highlights (excuse the sarcasm & the multiple hand history descriptions):

Raising AA UTG+1 & getting called by the cutoff & BB.
Flop 248 I bet & cutoff calls.
Turn 5 (3 spades - I have the As) I bet & cutoff calls.
River 6 (3 spades, 2 diamonds) I bet, cutoff raises & I call.
Cutoff shows A3o for turned wheel.

New player Posts in cutoff & I raise QJs in the hijack. Cutoff 3-bets & I call.
Flop Q32 rainbow. I check-call.
Turn 4, river 8. I check-call both streets.
Cutoff shows AA.

I raise UTG+1 with AKo & called by both blinds.
Flop K94 all spades. BB bets, I raise & both call.
Turn 2s & it is checked through.
River is Kd. BB bets. Both I & SB call.
BB has AsQd SB has 7s7c & my AcKh is coming last. Any other river card (with the possible exception of a river A) & I simply fold the river ... but no, the card that makes me call & lose is right there!

I raise KJo from hijack & BB 3-bets. I call.
Board runs out J5436 & I call every street.
BB shows JJ for top set!

I raise KQo in MP & get calls from cutoff, button & BB.
Flop Q87. I bet, button calls, BB calls.
Turn 9. I bet, button calls, BB raises, I call, button calls.
River K. BB bets, I raise, BB 3-bets, I call.
BB shows QQ for flopped top set! No raise pre-flop or on the flop (flush draw on flop) & not only does his hand hold up, but he finds a river that gets me to raise!

I raise A7s in the cutoff & called by BB.
Flop 732. BB bets, I raise, BB 3-bets & I call.
Turn 8. BB bets, I call.
River 3. BB checks, I check.
BB shows 33 for quads! Somehow BB was hoping for a check-raise on the river, but I'm almost definitely going to call a bet on the river as it changes very little about the hand. If my 7 was good on the turn, then its most likely still good on the river (and vice-versa obviously).

UTG+1 & UTG+2 limp, SB calls & I check A4o in BB.
Flop A84. I bet. UTG+2 & SB call.
Turn 5. I bet UTG+2 calls.
River 8. I bet. UTG+2 calls.
UTG+2 has 67o for a turned straight!

I raise UTG+2 & BB calls.
Flop 469. BB bets, I raise, BB calls.
Turn 7. BB bets. I call.
River A. BB bets, I call.
BB shows AQo for rivered top pair!

Cutoff raises. I call on button with KQo & BB calls.
Flop KJT. Cutoff bets. I raise. Cutoff 3-bets & I call.
Turn 9. Cutoff bets, I raise, Cutoff 3-bets & I call.
River 6. Cutoff bets, I call.
Cutoff shows AQo for flopped broadway!

I raise AQo UTG. Called by button & BB.
Flop QTT. I bet, button calls.
Turn 6. I bet, button calls.
River 9. I bet, button raises & I call.
Button shows 99 for rivered full house!

Cutoff raises, button calls, I 3-bet from SB with KK, BB calls, cutoff calls & button calls.
Flop T32. I bet, BB calls, cutoff calls, button calls.
Turn 4. I bet, cutoff calls, button raises, I 3-bet & button calls.
River 9. I bet, button raises, I call.
Button shows 24s for turned 2 pair.

UTG & UTG+1 limp. I raise KK from SB. BB 3-bets, UTG calls, UTG+1 calls, I cap & everyone calls.
Flop 322. I bet, all call
Turn J. I bet, BB calls.
River A. I bet. BB calls.
BB shows AQo for rivered top pair.

I raise AJs in MP. cutoff, button & BB call.
Flop AQ6. I bet & all call.
Turn 7. I bet & button calls.
River Q. I bet (all-in - yes, it was that bad) & button calls.
Button shows KQo for rivered trips.

I raise UTG+1 with AQo & get called by MP, hijack, SB & BB.
Flop QQ8. I bet, MP calls, hijack raises, BB calls, I 3-bet, MP calls, hijack calls & BB calls.
Turn K (3 spades on board). I bet, MP calls, hijack raises, BB calls, I call, hijack calls.
River K. BB bets. I call, hijack raises, BB calls & I call.
BB shows Q8o for flopped full house.
hijack shows KK for turned full house & rivered quads.
I muck ... behind all the way & drawing dead from the turn! Yes, a good old $12 pot at 25/50c!

Of course I did actually win some hands in the sessions ... but still ... not the start I was looking for in the challenge.
May the weekend grinding while watching the footy grand finals prove to be more fruitful!
Of course I'm going for the Roosters in the NRL & the Saints in the AFL by the way!

Mini Online Challenge

After reading Joe Tall's blog where he talks about how he got started in poker, I've decided to give myself a challenge along somewhat similar lines.
The challenge is as follows:
Site of choice: Full Tilt Poker
Starting challenge 'bankroll': $40 (conveniently my current Cashier balance ends in $40.65)
The plan: Play 2-4 tables of 25/50c LHE until 'bankroll' is over $100
Move to 2-4 tables of 50c/$1 until 'bankroll' is over $200
Move to 2-4 tables of $1/2 until 'bankroll' is over $400
If things go belly-up, I'll have up to three more cracks at it. There's also the drop down if things are going badly (but before they reach 'busto').

Hopefully I'll get there.
I'll be interested to see how long it takes, both in terms of number of hands & actual hours at the tables.
If successful, it should be the 'kick start' I need in order to take online poker more seriously!
Wish me luck!

Another chess post

Yes, I know its primarily a poker blog, but I thought I'd put up some recent chess news.
1. I played another tournament game ... and lost. This was another game in the Victorian teams Championship, against the City of Yarra team.
Thankfully the rest of the team compensated for my loss, with one win & two draws, to finish with a tied match (2-2).
2. The Chess Olympiad is well and truly underway. Australia is just above the middle in both the open & womens sections, which is about where they are expected to be. Hopefully they can have good finishes & move up the standings.
One of the craziest (and most interesting) games of the Olympiad occurred in the round 7 clash between Ukraine & Georgia, with Vassily Ivanchuk winning in spectacular, though somewhat unusual sytle. The game, with analysis, can be seen at Chessbase.
The best Australian game so far has been Zong-Yuan Zhao's win against Moldova's Viktor Bologan, which can be viewed at the official Olympiad site.
The best 'frontline' reading that I have done has come from Australia's board 2 David Smerdon, who has been writing about his chess adventures on his blog. Also worth a look is Shaun Press' blog.
For a more lighthearted look at the Olympiad (and the world of chess generally), take a look at the Closet Grandmaster's blog.
3. I have recently started playing in an online chess tournament, somewhat ironically organised by posters at the 2+2 poker forums. All the games are being played on FICS. So far my best win has been a typical Blackmar-Diemer gambit destruction, which can be seen here (no idea who added the comments, but some of the lines given seem a bit dubious). Of course as someone who is looking to improve their poker game, 2+2 is an excellent place to do this, however the fact that I am spending most of my time of late in the chess forum there is not quite helping the cause as it should be.
Anyway, best of luck to the Aussies in the Olympiad ... and back to the poker for me!