ILX Poker Players Unite

That's part of it (cf. me get AK suited, me get 2p but there's the straight if the caller has a ten, and looky HE GOT TEN, BUT I HAVE BIG SLICK SO ME GO FOR IT) (or me get & raise with QQ, A flops, me bet big and get whacked by jerk playing A4 off). I'm reckless at inopportune times, and play close-to-the-vest when I should open things up.

My favorite moment yesterday = I have TT on the button, raise w/ it, get three callers. Flop & turn reveal 2 flush possibilities but no overcards, but the guys to my left (I'm the button) call my flop bet, and are reraising each other on the turn, so I skedaddle, thinking my TT is beat (because of all the times I've been waxed by a higher PP). They end up AI. One guy was playing Q4 off, the other was playing J7 off, and won w/ a pair of 7s. I got wanged by the flush-chasers soon after.

Which is to say: I'm good enough to get into trouble I should be smart enough to avoid, and when my decentness results in a good read, I get wanged (or, at least, I remember the wangs).

Ken kiss my arp. :)

Tourney situmation. Dealt AK off just before the button. One caller, directly after the BB. I slowplay the sucka. Button calls, SB calls.

Flop comes 5K2 rainbow - happy am I, yes? SB (a large-stacked fellow - 2x what I have right now) bets the minimum. One guy folds. I reraise 4x that. Button folds. SB calls.

Turn reveals a Q; vague flush possibility (think it matched the 2). So, right now, I'm thinking that Slappy McSlappington is playing either Kx or just chasing whatever - I've seen him stick around pots before, which is why his stack's kinda big. He checks to me. I go AI, trying to either scare him off or (hopefully) have him call w/ Kx and is meat. He calls, and turns over 52 off. Dude flopped 2 pair. Of course.

And then a Q comes out on the river, giving me the better 2 pair, and letting me escape w/ my hand covering my ass. I think I lose later on to a pair of Jokers.

As for the feelgood hand, yes, I think you marginally made a mistake going all-in as only a hand that beats you will call. Having said that, had you bet the pot and been raised - what then? At least there were no more decisions to make.

last night i played in the $50+4 us daily. 400 entrants. i ended up finishing 16th, losing on a hand i probably shouldn't have played. i had about 10,000 chips -- average at the time -- and blinds were up to 500/1000. dude to my right had been going all in every hand for a while, and had moved his stack up to 20,000 as a result. i'm on the big blind, he's on the small blind, and no one else calls. he raises pre-flop to $6000, or over half my stack. i had Q-10 of spades, and after deliberating, i decided to re-raise all-in pre-flop. he calls and shows 9-9. i hit nothing on the flop, turn or river, and i'm out, winning $200. i was so close to folding the hand and living to fight another day, but i was convinced he was just trying to steal my blind. argh. i so wanted that $4000 first place!

I might have done the same - certainly my last two attempts at MTTs, including the big one above, ended for me with marginal decisions rather than big suckouts or obvious mistakes.

In other poker news, London's most famous cardroom, the Gutshot club, may be forced to shut down :(

A friend of mine came 4th in the £10K guaranteed at Hills last night - I watched him until I was practically asleep. £750 isn't bad considering he'd won his ticket in a £6 satellite.

Has anyone here played at ultimatebet? A friend of mine is promoting it aggressively, plus there's a good rakeback programme.

I have won my last 2 (two) SNGs and I am playing in a big scary real-life tourney at a Soho members club tonight (I'm not a member but I have contacts, nowotimean). £30 buyin WITH REBUYS omg, but a very generous prize pool and only roughly 40 players. I am, to be fair, bricking myself, more about the social aspect of it (I'll know no-one and feel like a spare arse among all the hyper-confident coked-up TV producers and f-list celebs), but also because I am highly likely to come out of there £100 worse off than I went in.

Ah well, it's all good fun.

You also naturally miss out on the entire social aspect of poker, although, tbh, I'm currently reading Anthony Holden's Big Deal about the year he spent as a poker pro, and the constant travelling, living out of a suitcase, and grinding $10/$20 limit for 18-hour stints sounds pretty depressing to me too.

Essentially, if you are stimulated by the game itself, then online poker can provide a lot of the best bits of playing combined with other positive attributes - it's much quicker, cheaper, with more choice, versatility, opportunities to put it on pause for an hour or two if you like; you can do other things while playing, you can sit in your pants and chuff whenever you like; and you can multi-table, which again speeds it up and also, if you're a winning player, ups your profit.

Also, what Mark said. I played @ a table @ Foxwoods a month or so ago, and after I got over the initial jitters (OMG REAL PEOPLE!), it was great. Maybe I wouldn't be so woo-hoo about it if I didn't win, but whatever. And I think getting slapped down so often online made me much more aware of what could happen if I'm not careful or ever vigilant.

I went out when I drew a straight and got beat by a full house. I basically wagered that Mr. Bluffy McBluff didn't have a pair of fives, but for once, he wasn't bluffing.

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I have, this weekend, switched my poker sites to ones that offer Rakeback (30% at Interpoker, which is a Cryptologic site like William Hill, where I've been playing for the last 6 months, and 35% at RakebackPoker, which is a Prima site). I calculated that this would have saved me about £250 had I done this when I started. Grr.

In other news, I am actually DOWN for November, which sux big donkey balls. 4 days to turn it round...

So, starting early November, I vowed to only play 1 tourney / day, and if I lost, then so be it, that's my limit. I bought into a $10 NL tourney, finished in the top 20, won about $100 or so. Then I figured I'd give ring tables ($.25 NL) another chance. In November, I made up the deficit I was in, am now up $150 overall, and have yet to re-deposit any moolah. Of course, I've been in a holding pattern since my last withdrawal, but whatever.

(good stuff y'all :))

I am currently treading water, which has lasted 3 months. Still £100 away from my Xmas target of a grand clear profit. Very frustrating indeed. I have also dabbled a little bit in limit - am just about up, I think, but it's really just an antidote to the terrifying ups and downs of my first love NL.

Haha Ken - I was having a great SNG run, then didn't finish ITM for 13 of the fuckers. This game is mental.

Also, to those of you that HIT THE WRONG BUTTON when I reraise big and catch your dream flop: eat one rotten cowpie.

ken i also submitted my app for team membership!

Did you lose w/ AA because of the way you played or another player's stubbornness - if you have someone that's calling your big bets chasing a flush or straight that they inevitably catch, you can't do a damn thing except tip your hat and wish them eons of pain.

Yo Yancey! More info on your win, plz! How many folks in the tourney? Did you encounter any fish or donkeys or other forms of wildlife?

In hindsight, I should've seen it coming. I had AA and the flop came up J-8-3. Soon as I raised, Johnny-on-the-spot immediately doubled his bet. He did it so quick. I just looked at him for a second, and called him anyway. He had J-J.

I should've figured that out, just the way he freakin' jumped in there like that. But when you got a pair of aces, you don't feel rightly mortal to those kind of sheniangans.

Yeah, I know that intellectually, but I get too wound up when DoucheBoy hits his dream draw that I wig out and get all Matusowy on the guy. And then I get called "poopshits".

That tourney sounds awesome, BTW!

If anyone is interested (and it's just me talking about poker), I have a poker blog you can fnd here. Let me know what you think!

SNGs are teh suck for me. Been trying them lately - HOSE CITY. I did, however, manage to make it into the money in thee hot-to-trot 50K unlimited rebuy hoohah. Lucky me, I played when "only" 600 folks entered. Ended up finishing 55th or so, only because douchebag big stacked honker decided to call my AQ off AI preflop w/ AT suited, and he caught a flop featuring both a T and two suited cards. Jerk.

Nice bloggo, btw!