Ornate Push

 
 

 

 

Friday, May 25, 2007

TFI Friday

Quick stop this, since its 4.45 and amber nectar is calling despite the fact I have 1001 jobs to do at home and 1001 satellites i should be playing in to try and get in the Sunday Million this week. I'll try them after I've been in the pub for a while loosening up my gears. Big tourney action this weekend, make sure you sign up for good karma in the Oceans 13 Darfur tourney on Stars.

There's also the

Blogger Donkament
Full Tilt, 9:00 PM EST
Password: donkarama
$1 + $1, rebuy + addon, NLHE

Which I'll be in if I'm still awake at that time, and finally you can play & watch me get lucky in the 10th Britbloggerment on Sunday !



Have a crackin' weekend all !

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Spring Cleaned

My links have been updated on the right, I removed a lot of blogs that haven't been updated for ages and added loads of the new one's that I've had the pleasure to read and play against their owners. The little flags idea has been blatantly stolen from Amatay's blog, so I hope he doesn't mind. As mentioned recently by Cloud, I even feel a bit of pride looking at all the Union Jacks in that list and knowing it's a decent community we're fostering with our hobby.

This morning I arrived at work to find my manager's manager sitting at my desk, he looked at me surprised that I was in before 09.15 and said
"I've got a question for you"
"Yeah ?"
"What's your bandwidth like at the moment?"
Slightly confused why he was asking I responded "Er, it's fine I've got a 2gig line at home"
(ensue laughter from my colleagues)
"You're such an idiot sometimes"
"Huh? Oh right ! Sorry didn't realise you were using corporate-speak"
"I take it you've got a job for me then"
"Yeah, if you've got time next week"
"Sure, no problem"

I'm the idiot sometimes ?!

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Win Ratio 33.3% :-P

I hear there's gonna be a on my head next week in the bloggerment ! Which will no doubt make life more difficult for me :o)

Here's my shameless ego-boosting summary of the bloggerment this weekend :

Early doors and I start off with my usual policy of raising any hand with potential that I feel like playing, I win a few small pots early without too much resistance. Then I'm fortunate enough to get dealt KK in the big blind which as you can see got Rosie to fold a decent hand (though we don't know how decent) and allowed me to knock out pokermuk3y who was first to go, no shame in that though, I would have played the hand exactly the same as he did.

The next person I saw go out from our table was Al Eleven, who hadn't been up for long after drinking late the previous night, his Hooks were taken down by coutryk's Hilton Sisters

I tangled with Cloud next and lost some chips when I maybe didn't need to, you can see the hand here I raise preflop from middle position and Cloud, who I know is a tight player calls my raise on the button. The flop has straight and flush draws and with no piece of it I put out a weak bet of half the pot. This, I think, is going to have the following effect, if Cloud has draw I expect a flat call, if he has a hand already I expect a reraise to stop me drawing and if he has nothing I think he'll fold. He just calls, so I think ok he's drawing to the flush, straight or possibly both. The turn is a blank, so I bet half of Clouds stack, thinking he's still on the draw, but he quickly pushes the rest in. Now, I have to stop and think here. Over the last 8 tournaments we've played I have seen Cloud play quite a few hands and he is not the type to say "what the hell" and push a lost cause hoping to get lucky, so I have to ditch the theory that he's on a draw. Any hands like overpairs/two pair I think he'd have pushed on the flop. So I'm left with a flopped straight + having the flush draw or trips. Either way I have to fold, since i am dead in the hand even though it's only 545 chips into a 1975 pot, which if my read on the flop had been correct would be a mandatory call.

I know I had no hand here, but that's not the point. You might be thinking I'm a donkey who can't put AQ down, but the point is that I didn't think I needed a hand to win the pot, until I got information telling me otherwise, and then I had to change the whole approach to this hand that's why I enjoyed the exchange.

Couple of hands later and I win most of the chips I lost on that hand back by taking a slightly risky approach with AQ and coming over the top of Juice's raise with 99.

Rosie was next to bust out from our table when her AQ couldn't improve against CadMonkey's hooks. Memorable action and subsequent abuse followed that 7 hands later when I got involved with newcomer 23rd Paradox, who I think just joined because he found the password and thought it would be an easy cheap tourney. I'm dealt Jh9h UTG, (this is usually a fold by the way) however the Jh is my lucky card so I raise 3xBB. 23rdP pushes allin - now this bit is important - on the previous 5 hands 23rdP has pushed allin, getting his AT beaten by KQ in the process and chatting about what a terrible call it was. So I made the call anyway, doubting his hand is particularly good, his pocket 8's were better than I expected him to have but anyway I hit the 9 on the flop and busted him, to which he said

23rd Paradox [observer] "i love the terrible play/players in the privates though... its nice"

Well mate I dunno if you'll come again but try recognising why players made the moves they have against you before you start accusing them of poor play. Realising that you were in a 50/50 race would be a good start too.

Final Table -

BurnleyMik was first to feel the pressure when his 99 couldn't improve on counryk's QQ. I then had a major suckout when my AQ held up against Kennl's 27, I hadn't read Kennl's blog at this point so didn't realise how many tourneys he was winning recently ! Kat was next to fall from our company when my TT flopped trips to beat her forced A3 push.

I bluffed at a pot with Kennl mostly cause I thought he thought I was bluffing so I figured a reraise would tell him I wasn't bluffing. I guess he really did have JT since there was no reason for him to lie in the chat, so I was lucky he layed it down.

Zagga doubled up the very next hand when his Hilton Sisters held up against Juice's A9.

Cloud finished next in 7th place, his A8 couldn't hold up when Juice found some help on the flop for his KQ. Then countryk doubled up with Aces vs Kennl's KT.

Juice stole the blinds with the Hammer, as did Zagga on the very next hand , Kennl and I both went to war with AJ on a rag flop and split the pot and I managed to bluff Juice out of this hand where I think he had A high and I played it like I'd made something more.

Juice got them chips back though when I couldnt get my AJ to suckout on his TT. A few hands later I won a similar race when my A9 did suckout against Zagga's 55, sending him home in 6th place.

Kennl doubled up when his AJ held against my KQ. Then coutryk was out 5th when his pocket 7's were unlucky to run into my pocket tens.

Bubble Boy Cadmunkey was out next when his A7 didn't improve vs my pocket 7's. Juice finished 3rd when his A9 ran into my KK and I picked up a $5 for knocking him out.

After a few hands of give and take heads up it came to this, Kennl allin with TT vs my QJ, well I had the Jack of hearts so felt pretty good about my chances ! Jacks on the flop and the turn sealed the deal and an extra $10 for good measure !

192 hands played and saw flop:
- 5 times out of 32 while in small blind (15%)
- 17 times out of 32 while in big blind (53%)
- 24 times out of 128 in other positions (18%)
- a total of 46 times out of 192 (23%)

Pots won at showdown - 10 out of 15 (66%)
Pots won without showdown - 39

Ok, essay over, how vain am I ? (don't answer that!). Good game everyone, another fun evening regardless of the outcome !

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Monday, May 21, 2007

Good things come to those who...

…have a little moan on their blog, apparently :o) Thanks for the kind comments after my post last week. My attitude was back up in the high 90's by Thursday, thanks to your boosting words and a couple of early nights. So I was playing again by Thursday, won a couple of sit n go's, placed in a couple and busted to bad beats in others but enjoyed them all the same. I won an O8 SNG too which was fun and finished ITM on the Stars $3 rebuy, though not for much profit because of the 20% payout schedule.

Yeah, I played a lot on Thursday night ! I had 4 tables open most of the time, 2 of which were cash and turned a small profit at Stars.

Saturday was a good day watching the boring FA cup final, thankfully the company was good and drinks were flowing. I picked Curlin to win the Preakness too so was chuffed with that, what a close finish though !

Britbloggerments continue to be the highlight of my Sunday and this week was no different. In the past 3 weeks I think I've managed to collect every bounty available and have won two of the 3 tourneys. Therefore I'm now proclaiming myself Tan - "The Bounty Hunter" - Orpheus. When I win the WSOP and get all those sponsorship deals you'll know this is where it all started :o)

Last nights win came thanks to a fair amount of luck and a couple of good bluffs, when I get the tourney HH off of stars I'll post about any major highlights, but for now you'll have to surf the other bloggers for a proper write up cause I'm at work. I'm gonna update my blogroll tonight, I don't even read half the blogs on the right here and there are many more which I do read that aren't linked.

GG last night everyone !

P.S. Tonight I'm going to play some 180's on Stars, so if you fancy joining me give me a shout on msn or yahoo ;-)

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Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Bad Medicine

This is not a happy post, I'm not in a good mood, I'll do my best to stop it turning into a vent though. Sunday's warm up was a pretty short lived, dirty affair which saw a few small pots in the first hour get me chipped up slightly above the starting amount. I then had to fold JJ to a reraise and allin which turned out to be a good fold against QQ & AK. Sometime after that I had JJ again and called a medium stacks late position all in, he had 89sooted, and a QT7 flop meant I didn't want to see the Jack which hit the turn and cut my stack by a third. Getting short stacked after an hour and half I pushed 77 into 66 and was busted when the 6's flopped trips. Pretty messy I must say.

In the bloggerment things were slightly different, some people are finally calling my raises because they think I'm a donkey, which I am strangely pleased about. I didn't make the final table though, mostly because my KK ran into AA when I was largely stacked and then I got overexcited with the Hammer 3 times but it couldn't make it hold up. I could have won it if I'd been more sensible, but bloggerments arent exactly about playing perfect poker and as a consolation prize I took the 2 bounties down which gave me more prize money than a second place finish would have :o)

Betfair continues to be touch and go. For such a small community of players there are a large number of big-bet fish, however I'm not sure I have the mental toughness to deal with these players at the moment. I used to be focussed enough to stay balanced during fish exchanges but lately I can feel the emotional stuff build up inside me while I'm watching them play. Not good. Not +EV at all. I'm sure the Zen will return when I stop looking so hard for it, I just need to be a little bit more patient and let the game return to me.

It must be the new moon and lack of sleep last night that's put me on this emotional downswing. Hopefully a good nights sleep tonight will put everything back in balance.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

The Price of Success

I think I've become a target, that's the price of winning two bloggerments, multiple successful hammer blows, and blind aggression at the table. "Lucky Tan", "Hyper Aggresive Tan" and "No-Foldem Tan" have all been called out as new nicks for me in recent days ! Yes, on Sunday I was back to my lucky best and managed to take down another Brit Bloggerment. Sure I got lucky, pulled some bluffs and probably raised more than most in the game, but it worked and I managed to beat Acornman heads up after reliquishing a 2-1 lead and then fighting back.

I may be distracted for the next one though because yesterday I entered a couple of 10+1 satellites to the Sunday Warm-Up, the first game I played was a double shootout with 2 places paid and I finished 3rd ! Still a small profit but no seat. The second game was an MTT with 56 players, again with 2 places paid. This time despite only have 3 BB's at one point with 5 remaining I had a huge comeback and managed to claim one of the seats :o)

If you play confident then you will get lucky and winning poker is all about getting lucky !

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Ornate - adj. 1. Elaborately, heavily, and often excessively ornamented. 2. Flashy, showy, or florid in style or manner;

Push - 1. To exert outward pressure or force against something. 2. To advance despite difficulty or opposition; press forward. 3. To expend great or vigorous effort.

Ornate Push - The messy ramblings of a troubled poker player and tilted mind.

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