The Empire Casino was the venue for the WSOPE and playing there regularly I felt really focused on cashing or taking it down at my 'local'. I ended up playing the 1k side event day 1b with Sofia Lovgren, James ‘james666’ Sudworth and a few other PKR players including Scott ‘PKR_Scott’ Shelley.
Was really up for playing this event and I felt really confident especially after I sat down at my table to see a few regulars and some online guys. Was an empty seat and after 15 minutes none other than Phil Ivey sat down at the table. It was awesome to be playing in my mind the best poker player in the world. So I didn’t feel worried or anything I just went about playing my game and played pretty tight and grind up the stack for the 1st few levels. Ivey on the other hand took the role of the table captain and was crushing a few players and accumulated a big stack early on. I just played a few premium hands until one hand where I picked up 34o and decided to make a play using my table image I 4-bet Ivey on a pretty dry looking board with 4 high and managed to get him and another player to muck. Felt really good making the play and boosted the confidence and soon after picked up quite a few hands and got to about the 17k stack.
After talking with the PKR guys during the last break of the evening I felt I needed to double up to get a stack worth playing with for day 2. First hand back I had QQ on BB and button jammed on me and I snapped he tabled 44 and was eliminated I was on about 25k but really wanted to start accumulating some chips and with quite a good table even though Huck Seed was sat down he had very few chips. Unfortunately though I soon entered cooler-ville and my KK ran into AA and my flopped set of 6s were beaten by a better set of 9s to see me busted about an hour left of day 1. I was a bit annoyed as I was doing well but wasn’t meant to be. It really was a great day though managed to play with Phil Ivey, Huck Seed and a real funny American 24 year old called Chance Kornuth who was a great laugh and we had lots of banter (when I came home and checked pokernews I found out he had won a WSOP bracelet a few months back in Omaha for about 500k+).
PKR Scott ended up winning the event - sicko! Great lad and what a result. First off many to come hopefully!
After the WSOPE I decided to take the rest of the month off and enjoy my 22nd birthday with my girlfriend and all my friends and family.
Even though it consisted mainly of live poker I managed to win about 6.5k online on few MTTs on various sites and qualified for PKR Live V (where I will hopefully keep 100% record in cashing in the main event). I also played quite a bit of mixed games on pokerstars and won about 15 buyins ($2/4) mainly in stud and razz so paid for the live tournies I played in and was just something to keep me focused on building up a bigger roll.
Thursday 14 October 2010
September part 1- The Return of live poker and the craic of the UKIPT Dublin
In September, after the month long MTT online grind I decided it was time for some live poker and thankfully during September, London is the poker central with the WPT, WSOPE and the EPT all being played here. First stop however was to Dublin to play the UKIPT. Was a 500+60 euro buy in and attracted 589 runners so felt it was definitely a good start to the month. After the last month of MTT I felt really good and felt I could try and take it down. 1st day was interesting day of poker I sat at the same table as JP Kelly (Pokerstars Pro & 2 WSOP bracelet holder) so felt it was a great challenge to play of someone of that calibre.
The action was crazy with about 3 or 4 locals getting knocked out all on big bluffs so managed just to sit there playing very hands playing some premiums and just using position to gain some chips and it was going really well. After 1st break was on about 27k so was happy as made a few nice 3 bet and 4 bet bluffs and picked up some chips from just picking up some weaknesses from a few of the weaker players at the table. I made a real good fold at the time with 22 on a J29 board with a lot of action on the flop I could of 5bet jammed but picked up something on one of the players and knew my set wasn’t good but I knew I had the other guy beat I made the lay down anyway and they both flip over one had J2 for 2 pairs and the other tabled 99 for a better set) I was really happy as even though I lost a few chips I was still in it and my reads were working well. Unfortunately, due to some coolers and being card dead I couldn’t improve my stack by much and at the end of the day I ended with about 28k which was below average for the start of day 2.
New table on day 2 and I knew I needed to double up quick as blinds were 1/2k at the time I believe I managed to go all in after the fifth hand with AQss on an AQ10 board only to be called by 1010, turn gave me outs as a spade was turned round but a 3 of hearts on the river sent me packing. Was a fun tournament and was nice to have a few drinks with some of the poker guys playing the event and the craic was good as expected playing in Ireland.
Was great meeting Sofia Lovgren (the new PKR Pro) who was playing the same event. Unfortunately she also busted half way through day 2 but then moved on to play some cash. Great person to chat with and can play some serious poker. Dublin was a whole lot of fun and was the perfect warm up for the WSOPE.
The action was crazy with about 3 or 4 locals getting knocked out all on big bluffs so managed just to sit there playing very hands playing some premiums and just using position to gain some chips and it was going really well. After 1st break was on about 27k so was happy as made a few nice 3 bet and 4 bet bluffs and picked up some chips from just picking up some weaknesses from a few of the weaker players at the table. I made a real good fold at the time with 22 on a J29 board with a lot of action on the flop I could of 5bet jammed but picked up something on one of the players and knew my set wasn’t good but I knew I had the other guy beat I made the lay down anyway and they both flip over one had J2 for 2 pairs and the other tabled 99 for a better set) I was really happy as even though I lost a few chips I was still in it and my reads were working well. Unfortunately, due to some coolers and being card dead I couldn’t improve my stack by much and at the end of the day I ended with about 28k which was below average for the start of day 2.
New table on day 2 and I knew I needed to double up quick as blinds were 1/2k at the time I believe I managed to go all in after the fifth hand with AQss on an AQ10 board only to be called by 1010, turn gave me outs as a spade was turned round but a 3 of hearts on the river sent me packing. Was a fun tournament and was nice to have a few drinks with some of the poker guys playing the event and the craic was good as expected playing in Ireland.
Was great meeting Sofia Lovgren (the new PKR Pro) who was playing the same event. Unfortunately she also busted half way through day 2 but then moved on to play some cash. Great person to chat with and can play some serious poker. Dublin was a whole lot of fun and was the perfect warm up for the WSOPE.
August - Back to the online grind and a near miss in the 100k Masters
In August, even though the challenges were a whole lot of fun and the side action was worth it. I really wanted to get back to the proper online MTT grind and build up more of a roll online and also create a bigger live roll for the upcoming months. I was playing on a few sites and did fairly well across most of them. But my best overall results came from PKR where I managed to take down about $11.3k. It was fun grinding again every day; I felt I was back in the zone; playing well; making some good plays and getting decent results across the sites.
On PKR, I managed to come 4th in the monthly 100k gtd Masters event for $8336. I was of course happy with the cash but really disappointed at the same time as always with a MTT the prize pool is so top heavy that the real money is in the top 3 and after playing for about 8/9 hours and getting through 500+ players I felt I could of really giving it a good chance to take it down. Unfortunately, I became quite card dead and players were dropping fast so I made a move with Q10o only to get call by the SB with AQo. Was a really fun table especially due to the presence of Kingand77 (a quality cash reg on PKR who I had the pleasure of meeting at PKR Live events). There was about 90-100 railing at about 2am so the chat box was full of good banter.
Real shame Kingand77 couldn’t take down the event as he had Infraschall (German MTT player) all in twice for his tourney life with just the river left to come (and both times the guy hit) was proper sick and no doubt Andy deserved the win – but hopefully it’s not long til he binks it. It summed up a good month of online poker for me and took down about 17.9k over all the sites.
On PKR, I managed to come 4th in the monthly 100k gtd Masters event for $8336. I was of course happy with the cash but really disappointed at the same time as always with a MTT the prize pool is so top heavy that the real money is in the top 3 and after playing for about 8/9 hours and getting through 500+ players I felt I could of really giving it a good chance to take it down. Unfortunately, I became quite card dead and players were dropping fast so I made a move with Q10o only to get call by the SB with AQo. Was a really fun table especially due to the presence of Kingand77 (a quality cash reg on PKR who I had the pleasure of meeting at PKR Live events). There was about 90-100 railing at about 2am so the chat box was full of good banter.
Real shame Kingand77 couldn’t take down the event as he had Infraschall (German MTT player) all in twice for his tourney life with just the river left to come (and both times the guy hit) was proper sick and no doubt Andy deserved the win – but hopefully it’s not long til he binks it. It summed up a good month of online poker for me and took down about 17.9k over all the sites.
July - A month of side bets and BR challenges with the lads
I've basically decided to keep my blog updated as much as possible these days so have decided to try and go through the last few months of whats been an intresting 3 months of poker for me. Hope you enjoy the read!:
In July, I was trying a few MTT Challenges and BR Challenges such as rolling up $1 to $1000 on a few sites. Out of the four sites I did the BR challenges I only managed to complete 3 out of the 4 but was quite pleased to do so as had quite a few side bets with a few of my poker mates so won a lot more due to the side action. Six of the lads tried the challenges with me and only 3 of us could manage to turn the $1 into $1000.
Of course, we all tried different approaches but I was lucky in a few of the free rolls to begin with, to give myself a chance to build up the roll by sticking to my strengths and playing MTT’s I managed to build the 1k roll on one sire within 12 days thanks mainly to winning a daily 3k gtd tourney that was running. It was real tough playing in the free rolls and the micro-stakes to build up the rolls but the competitive side due to the action with the friends really gave me the incentive to get it done and hold some bragging rights with the guys. Since then we’ve had quite a few challenges being planned to help with the day-to-day grind to make it more interesting and try and help us improve our games. If there's any challenges you think are cool would love to hear them.
Thanks for reading!
In July, I was trying a few MTT Challenges and BR Challenges such as rolling up $1 to $1000 on a few sites. Out of the four sites I did the BR challenges I only managed to complete 3 out of the 4 but was quite pleased to do so as had quite a few side bets with a few of my poker mates so won a lot more due to the side action. Six of the lads tried the challenges with me and only 3 of us could manage to turn the $1 into $1000.
Of course, we all tried different approaches but I was lucky in a few of the free rolls to begin with, to give myself a chance to build up the roll by sticking to my strengths and playing MTT’s I managed to build the 1k roll on one sire within 12 days thanks mainly to winning a daily 3k gtd tourney that was running. It was real tough playing in the free rolls and the micro-stakes to build up the rolls but the competitive side due to the action with the friends really gave me the incentive to get it done and hold some bragging rights with the guys. Since then we’ve had quite a few challenges being planned to help with the day-to-day grind to make it more interesting and try and help us improve our games. If there's any challenges you think are cool would love to hear them.
Thanks for reading!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)