Final Table Friday, Super Saturday and Swingy Sunday

Hello folks, thanks for stopping by, do you want the good news or the bad news first ? Coinflip ? Ok good news first, on Friday night I managed a 3rd place finish in one of the $20 180's on pokerstars. That was pleasant and resulted in a $400-something score, I yet again managed to duff up the final table play, it was really hard to get to see a flop and I was underestimating the hands that players were willing to push with. Still it is more good experience and I played fairly good, only having to get really lucky once when my AJ beat AK.

Saturday was another fun day, we all went round to Hooks' flat to watch Tottenham v Man Utd, and after that played a game of poker for the first time in weeks. It was £10 buyin, one rebuy allowed with a £30 sidepot for anyone who was interested, winner take all. With 5 of us playing and 2 rebuys used the main pot was £70 and the side pot was £150. Everyone starts with 3000 chips to give us some play and the blind structure is as follows -

Level 1 - 25/50
Level 2 - 50/100
Level 3 - 75/150
Level 4 - 100/200
Level 5 - 150/300
Level 6 - 200/400
Level 7 - 300/600
Level 8 - 400/800
Level 9 - 500/1000

Sometimes we play the first two or three levels for 45 minutes, but usually it's 30 minutes a level which gives us about 2 orbits. We rarely make it level 9, in fact it's often heads up by level 6.

I got a very lucky hand early on against Twister. I had pocket fives on the button and made a standard raise (150) Twister just called in the BB for 100. The flop came something along the lines of 5c 10c 7d, bingo bango I've hit my set. Twister bet out first though, and it was a decent bet, around 250-300 into the 350 pot. This presented me with a few problems. "Always bet your set" is the mantra and while that would definitely be the safe thing to do here, it might not be optimal. If I reraise then I figure one of two things will happen - T will fold and I'll win a small pot, or T will call and we'll be allin on the turn as long as the card is anything over a ten or any club. I really don’t want that as it's going to be a difficult bet to call and I want a better definition of T's hand. So I just call his bet. The turn brings the 9c and T thinks for a minute and then bets 700. Now I know I'm in the poo-poo. It’s highly unlikely T's bluffing here, if his flop bet was to stop me hitting clubs it didn't work and he would have slowed down, I now realise he was betting his draw and he's hit. I should have reraised on the flop ! Ok, I made a mistake, what are my options now ? I can't push since I know T won't fold his flush, I could fold here and cut my losses, but he's playing it strong and for once I have a good read on him, if I call now and manage to fill up on the river I could win a huge pot. So I call 700 and we see the river, it's the beautiful case 5 of diamonds. It's hard for anyone to see how that card would have helped me, and T announces allin. I call straight away and he smiles and says "ah, have you got the ace?" to which I reply "No mate, I got super lucky" and show my quads, to which everyone at the table cries "fiiiiiiish"

That saw me onto a good run until I totally kinda donked away my stack after reraising 6x from the BB with JJ against Hooks and he fecking called me with A3 off, the loose guppy. The flop was A77, and we he pushed allin and got all talkative about how strong his hand I knew he was weak and I couldn't believe he had an A, of course his talk was trying to make a 3 kicker feel stronger cause he though it might be weak. So my pyschology was right, but the read was wrong and I doubled him up.

Shortly after that I managed to get allin against A4 with 68 sooted and bust, so I rebought into the main pot and the side pot and got my money in with KJo against AK, I rivered a glorious Jack, doubled up and never looked back. I was heads up against Twister who had also rebought and got way back into the game, he had a 3-1 lead when we started HU action. Somehow thanks to some dodgy calling station stuff by me I took a small lead and shortly after that I had a paired Queen on the flop hold up against T's A3. It was nice to win one of the live ones for a change, it's been over 6 months !

Ok. Deep breath. Bad(ish) news coming. Feel free to skip the next two para's.
For some reason any Sunday where I will be working the following Monday are -EV for me. I don't know if its the thought of work, the pressure of knowing it's my last 6 hour session for a week, or the fact that I've played 10 hours of poker already on the weekend before I start. But something about them just doesn't work with me. Maybe Jesus doesn't like me gambling on Sundays ?
Anyway I played a few games, 3x$50s and 1x100. In an hour and half I made $5 at the 100NL game and lost $35 in the 50s. OK I thought take a break this isn't working. I got out in the sun for a bit, it was a beautiful day that shouldn't be wasted. If Hurricane had been around we'd have taken the boat out for a spin, but he's in France camping with his girl at the moment. I got home about 5-30pm and fired things back up. A gentle start this time I had one $4 180 open and a $50 cash game. I played two hands at the $50 table AA and AA, both lost, but at least I didn't get stacked with them. Down $40. My final bit of poker of the day was going to be the $1m GTD, I checked in PokerTracker and I was playing fine just the odds weren't doing what they should.

I had an incredible run of cards in the $1m in the first 2 hours I got dealt KK no less than 6 times and AA once. Know how many times I got a caller ? ONCE ! This is cause I was raising 3x the BB preflop. Which was too high for anyone at my min-raise table. I should have twigged much earlier and taken the risk of slow playing to get a half decent stack. In a tourney where it's difficult to get paid off at the best times it's often a risk worth taking. So despite some lovely cards I got no action until I pushed 88 UTG with 6 BB's left, the big blind called me with A6 suited and flopped an ace. Busted.

It wasn't so bad I guess, I didn't lose a load, I just got unlucky a few times. I could have played really bad and that would feel worse. I'm back on the horse now and will enjoy playing tonight. I still love poker, it's a beautiful game.