I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This PokerStars tournament is a No Limit Texas Hold’em event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 917432

So this week I caught a post on the beginner limit boards of Deuces Cracked from Entity where he is basically offering a spot for your limit hold’em game to be reviewed on the latest episode of the ‘Real Life Micro Limit Grinder, season 3′ by PygmyHero and Entity himself over Skype as they go through your video.

Well I’m new to both limit and the DC community, but thought to myself that it would not hurt to knock out a video and see where it goes, as the potential upside of free coaching from 2 excellent limit players make it worthwhile to try and at the very least I should get some feedback on the video when I post it on DC and EMS, even if it does seem like there are only 3 of us poo flinging it on a regular basis over at EMS

Unfortunately, and sorry chaps but there’s no commentary on the vid, as per the requirements of DC - as they obv have to record voice audio over the top of the video so sorry to disapoint on that front but hopefully the video will still be something worthwhile if your interested in limit, or even if your not as it’s always good to keep your hand in different games.

So here’s my bash at this, did the video in my first attempt using camtasia in one take, so it’s warts and all ;

Download $1/$2 Limit Hold’em Poker Video

Video is exactly 1hr long, 2 tables of $1/$2 on Stars.  File size 41mb so not that large.

I did consider starting the recording over when I paid off a flush at the start lollimitdonakments, but thought, hey I wanted them to see my real play, and a perfectly played video wouldn’t be all that interesting for them to critic anyway !

I think I played some spots really well and a handful of others not so well, calling down in a couple of spots when I actually called their hands out loud in my head to myself like the 66 hand when he had a set (called it on the turn) and the A4 hand with the wheel, but still went to showdown regardless like the donk I am…

I’ll prolly do another one with commentary soon, anyhows, enough rambling, not enough downloading … gogogo!

Enjoy!

Back in early August I started a $0 to infinity challenge as due to real life finance problems I had to withdraw my entire roll to pay off debts. So this is an update of sorts on my status.

My roll at the moment stands at aprox $1,400, which is ahead of my scheduled BR of $850 for this date which is great news and I feel I’ve improved alot as well over the last 4 months.

I’m now decently rolled for 25NL and $1/2 LHE - the plan is to get the bankroll up to about $1.75k and then have a crack/shot at 50NL & $2/$4 - although I will probably move up to 50NL first and then $2/$4 limit the month after - if all goes well and I dont hit a big downswing.

So my goals for this month are to play roughly 10-15K hands of 25NL and about 10K hands of $1/$2 LHE. I might warm up with some 5NL or 10NL hands to begin with as I’ve not played No Limit cash for over a month so I dont want to jump in cold and drop a bucket-load.

I may also continue to work on playing a little Badugi & 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball when I’m not grinding for kicks.

In other news, last night I won my first EMS game for a while when I took down Week 20 of the EMS Freezeout and cemented my top 10 place in the league, it looks like I might get 2nd or 3rd place in the overall league which is pleasing as I’ve worked hard to bring my A game to these games this season. Much props goes out to Stanters who wins the title again, which makes it 3 championships for him out of the 5 seasons which is amazing consistency. Well done Stants.

This has been a bit of a strange month for me really. I deviated from my usual unlimited hold’em games, which is something I said I would try not to do as I really wanted to concentrate on my no limit cash game play.

However, there was bonus money to be made and I’m still grinding my roll up, so meh I decided to spend the month bonus whoring of sorts.

I started off using a short stack strategy system on Stars to try and achieve Gold Star status and get the $100 bonus for the level-up. While this proved variance-tastic yet successful at 25-100NL Full Ring, it was just boring me to pieces playing like Johnny Five so I changed over to limited hold’ems starting off at the $0.50/$1 level.

The reasons for the switch was 1) you earn rake faster at limit and I wanted to clear the bonus on Stars and I wouldnt make it at NL 2) I also started doing Kickbacks on the iPoker network clearing the ChilliPoker one and the Vulcan Poker one and limit gets you the points you need so much quicker and 3) I’m such a sicko that I actually like limit poker - I enjoy the mathematical methodical play which isnt as tedious as short stacking.

BUT there was one hold-up, I’m pretty lousy at limit poker. Although I was beating .50/1 LHE, I knew I was just spewing money in various spots. I was still playing limit, to some degree, as if it was no limit and I needed to improve if I wanted to spend the rest of the month play the limited’s… cue Sir RatAttack from EMS.

He was kind enough to go over some hands that I sent him from my database and go over this for nearly an hour over MSN. His advice really made some things click for me. Basically I wasn’t 3betting enough, I was only 3betting around 6% when the accepted decent range for this was 10%. RatAttack being more confident post flop was 3betting 18% of the time which blew my mind. I haven’t since been able to LAG it up quite to those standards but I have pushed the 3bet% up to 11% and definately seen results improve as you take the iniative in the hand.

Another major area to work on was my blind defence. Man, I was such a nit. Folding my BB around 62% was far too much. I’m much more comfortable now playing marginal hands to a BTN raise from the BB and am able to defend with hands like K4o, 97o, T8o and am more able to take the pot down on the flop or turn with say a check-raise a J62 board when holding A2 etc

Thanks to Rat I’ve gotten alot better and even moved up to $1/$2 where I’ve been winning too at a good win-rate. Might just be running hot, but we’ll see…

I’m really intent on improving my limit game though. I bought 3 books from Amazon this month, Gus Hansen’s every hand revealed (very easy enjoyable read), Tommy Angelo’s Elements of Poker (not read yet, but a must read!) & Stoxpoker’s limit book on tough hold’em games which I’m working my way through. Most peeps have said it is a very good book which has improved their games so I’m going to finish up the book over the next week.

Next month I’m going to split my action, playing both limit and 25NL in equal’ish measures. I feel being decent at a couple of games can only be good if your feeling tilted in one game or need a change to enable you to carry on grinding and getting the hands and fpp’s in.

That said, I’m not sure which will be my main site next month. I’ll definately be doing a couple of kickbacks but my main site is up for debate. As I acheieved Goldstar I’ll be working off the $100 bonus which clears at x7 so that shouldnt take me too long - but I’ve also obtained a rakeback account at Full Tilt so I’m unsure of where to play.

There was an interesting video posted on DeucesCracked which was basically teaching you to use an Excel spreadsheet to work out the various fpp’s and bonuses you can cash in on Stars to give you an eqivilant rakeback level. TBH it seems pretty even for my level of play, I do like Stars but how many £50 Amazon gift certificates do I need?? I say that as that seems to be the most worthwhile item you can purchase in the VIP store on my level in terms of fpp $/£ worth.

I suppose I could use the gift certificates for xmas shopping and then ‘pay myself’ the equiliant back to put into my bankroll, but then what about the rest of the time? Rakeback at Full Tilt seems like the most tangible deal but then again the games are apparently harder there.

Hmmm some things to ponder. Other than that this weekend it’s my mates 30th birthday, so we’re all off out for a curry and then a night out round Manchester, good times!!

Welcome avid, loyal readers [ thats about 2 of you ] I have starved you long enough!

Since my last entry I dropped back down the levels to 5nl and then 10nl on Stars to rebuild my roll after I had dropped a good chunk at 25nl due to a pretty bad set of coolers, and a little bad play towards the end… but live and learn, and rebuild, onwards and upwards and all that keep thinking on the bright side of life and all that palarva! :) 

So after going some way to rebuilding I made ‘Silverstar’ status on Stars and was given a bonus of $100 if I could achieve ‘Goldstar’ the following month. Now thats alot of hands for me at 25nl (prolly estimate about 80K hands) so I had to change tactics if I wanted to the chase the bonus.

My first answer to this canumdrum was to ‘turn to the dark side’ and short stack 50NL full ring.  I did have an attempt at SS’ing 50NL & 100NL 6max - this involves us not playing as nitty and opening up our range to BTN and C/O steals and so forth. So I had a good read of the available short stack strategy online and messed about with Pokerstove and although I set off like a stallion on heat in mating season the extra variance soon hit and after about 3k hands I was a small 1.5/PTBB winner.

The basic idea behind Ss’ing, is you can use the blunt tool of the all-in preflop and the power of your short stack to basically make it a 2 street game and take away any implied odds for the villians. Suddenly, the shortie is the aggressor and forces the original raiser to know the maths of hand v ranges, which most of them dont.

In fullring games you often gain the benefit of additional dead money with limpers in between you and the light raiser. Overall I have found short stacking 6max to be profitable but the swongs are redic. - full ring is far more safer, but I suspect that more money is to be made SS’ing 6max - if you can handle the swongs that is.

If you learn to SS, you’ll learn to become a warrior at the 25BB and under poker game, which correlates to alot of tournies….and as tournies are where the real donk money and the occassional big score are at. It’s gotta be +ev to become better at playing short stacked as that is a bit of a flaw in my MTT game. I have no problem becoming chipped up and have lost count of the amount of times I have been chipleader at the first break in the EMS league, but once the stacks become shallow I seem to lose my edge - so hopefully my end game in MTT’s will improve.

I think it’s certainly true that if you stop at shortstacking, you are stunting your growth as a player (and boy, it can get boring and mechanical!), but if you take it seriously and follow the maths, I believe it can lead you to conclusions about poker in general which will give you a better all around game.

I also found this nitfy piece of software which can help you on deciding ranges to push etc

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/45/software/short-stacking-strategy-sss-calculator-121624/index6.html

Anyhows, I have more to write but this is getting a tad long and I dont want to go off on a tangent so I’ll have the rest for another post.

The past several days, I’ve found I’m playing less and studying more. I’ve just not been in the mood to play and have been getting my moneys worth from Deuces Cracked vids, having taken in the No Limit Grinder, From The Ground Up, Unconventional Wisdom, Baby Steps and just started the Maths in Poker series.

TBH I’m finding it hard to maintain a balance of playing enough hands, watching enough vids, reading all the many poker mags I get that are still un-opened in their plastic on the coffee table despite my mum’s pleas to shift the buggers LOL and finishing all the books that are still left un-read, or more likely half-un-read.

I read quite a bit of strat too on EMS and DC and together with work and trying to maintain a normal social life and some kind of exercise routine it can get a bit too much with so many things that I want to do, but so little time to do it in.

I really need to sit down and work out a proper poker and life timetable and would be interested to hear how others make best use of their time.

In other non rambling news, I’ve taken a few shots at 10NL, I was up about 4 buy-ins at that level with some inspired play on saturday and peaked the $350 BR but then promptly dropped just over 5 BI’s with some proper just pure donkey bad plays on the sunday so I’m down to just under $300 . I will be dropping back down to 5NL for a spell until I build up a few BI’s for another shot.

I really think I should just not play at weekends, I mean during the week I play and run just fine, but when it’s weekend the fish come out to play! Now, really that should be good, but down here at 5NL thats a receipe for muffings galore. Firstly Rovers get tonked 4-0 by the Arsenal, then the fish start to bite me! Final straw tonight was when  I got all in with KK on a 63T-rainbow flop and my opponent flipped 62o and rivered two pair. I also had KK < QQ on the river and everyone was hitting sets and flopped straights on me left, right and centre.

I managed to only keep the losses down to just over 4.5 buy-ins and decided enough was enough for the night and to shut down the tables before I began to tilt and vent my frustrations on here instead.

Overall though apart from at weekends, I’m playing very well and doing quite well at 5NL. I’m hoping that by next month I can step up to 10NL, or I might look into getting staked for 25nl over at stakeashark, although cash baps have not gone well on there for others and I’m not sure what the interest would be.

Anyhows, I’ve signed up to Deuces Cracked and have just finished the No Limit Grinder series, which was quite good. Theres a 2nd series of this one starting out so I might head over and download the first episode of that one now.

Well August is over with, the last couple weeks of the month I started a $0 to $??? challenge on Pokerstars as detailed below in my other posts. I’m now up to $78 and have played just over 10K hands of 2NL during this time. Despite running quite bad at times in critical big pots, I’ve managed to turn a steady profit and have been beating the level for 13.5 PTBB’s/10.

Over the next month I will start off at 2nl again and add in some 5nl when I hit $100 BR. Below are my stats, if you can see anything which I could improve please feel free to coment but remember I’m playing a slightly more passive game pre-flop and so my cold-call is a little higher than normal.

Quick update for you while I’m in the mood! I’ve been playing a fair bit of poker again this past week. As some of you may have noticed the odd one or two 2nl hand posted in the EMS ring game section.

I’m not embarrassed to be playing 2nl, I know I can comofortably beat 25nl, as proved in my 20k hand challenge earlier in the year and I also beat 50nl when I played that on Full Tilt. However, real-life money shortages caused me to withdraw most of my ‘roll, which means I’m now out of debt which is great news … but I’m seriously limited at the pokers tables with the no roll. I also believe that learning cash again from scratch can only be of benefit to me as although I was winning I did have leaks.

So I’ve been working from the ground up. I could have deposited this month and gone to 10 or 25nl, but I’ve decided to do a lil’ personal bankroll challenge thingy on Stars.

I started with a zero balance, and used about 400 FPP’s to enter some sats for the 100K. managed to qualify in one of these and un-reg’d for the T$. I then used the T$11 to enter some $1.20 SNG’s, and turned that into $20.

So now that I had some cash to play with I started up playing some 2nl 6-max games, 8-10 tabling this past week buying in for 300 big blinds (max of 500 bb’s) and played a tad over 7K hands for a win-rate of 8ptbb/100. I know I could easily beat this win-rate but I started off running quite badly, and then had spots of tilting as I got used to playing the 2nl donks and learning their tendancies. I settled down and cut out the tilt-calls and have been improving in an upwards direction to now have a balance of about $42.

The plan is to grind up to $100 at 2nl, to give me 20 buy-ins at the next level which is 5nl. It’s an aggressive approach as about 30 buy-ins is the norm. But once I hit 5nl, I won’t be moving up to 10nl until I have 30 BI’s for the next level.

Hopefully I will move up to 5nl, in about 3 weeks. Unless I move some of my roll from Virgin over to speed up the process.

Anyhows, bye for now.

As promised… belated APAT Forum Team Challenge write up, yea I hear you all say - just what we want to read about, old newz!! lolz

Okay so last month I represented Team Eat My Stack in said event, alongside fellow EMSers Dean, Bas, Lee Ming, Ramchip, Tony C, Chelsea2005, Niggy, Tallguy and of course our spiritual leader JeffChef! Now for some reason APAT events and structures seem to suit me, with < brag >3 final tables under my belt previously < / brag > but I was looking to go one better this time and actually convert a final table into a win!

Typically, on both days I had Bas ringing me to make sure I was turning up, as I did my standard Phil Hellmuth impression of late entrances and on the first day I arrived in the casino sweating after running or power walking more like lol 15 minutes from where I’d had to park my car and ran straight into the card room just as the players where sitting, talk about timing!

Early on I was card dead, a theme that would haunt me later in the tournament, but I moved up from my 10K starting stack to 12K with a couple of bluffs (standard!), I raised 89s UTG and double-barrelled to take down the pot, and then another with KQs when an Ace came on the river, I thought it was a good scare card as I’d raised pre and he folded and showed TT face up, I said good fold of course

Then after alot of nothing and plenty of patience showed, yes I can play patiently when I want to! I had a hand which put me up to 16K, when I won a 4K pot at 50/100 blinds when I managed to make quad Queens with AQ, the guy paid me off on the river with what I think was a full house made with JJ-99 although I never saw his cards as he threw them in the muck when I showed.

Then just before the dinner break I had a fairly big decision come up. Blinds where 200/400. There was a MP raiser who made it 1200 to go and I looked down at pocket Jacks on the button and raised it up to 3500, the small blind folded, and the big blind thought for just a second and then almost insta-pushed all-in for 11.5K more. The MP guy quickly folded and it was on me as JeffCheff watched on behind me. It was roughly a 11.5K call for me with the pot about 20.5k giving me around 1.78/1 to call. If I called and he had AK, AQ or TT and I held up and won I would be shipping it on about 32K if I folded I was down to around 11K with the blinds due to go up to 300/600 very soon . However, studying him I did put him on a strong hand, possibly a very strong hand. His range in this situation on a tight range would prolly be AA-JJ,AK - a looser one AA-99, AQ+. Personally I put him on either QQ, KK, AA or AK and my hand didnt stack up well against that and JJ actually only has 49.8% aquity against the widest range option.

With my equity being 49.8% of 20.5k = around 10.2k and with it being 11.5k to me call, this was borderline whether to call or not for me with pot odds of 1.8/1 almost and the advantages of a big double through in the tourney brings. The tight range had me at 24% equity, which made my pot equity around 5K. Thus I had to decide whether at best to flip for a big double up, or at worst take the worst of it so I thought for a while, but eventaully went with my read and not wanting to flip at this stage with still some play and folded.

But then it went from bad to worse, I got it in pre-flop with TT v a shortie with A9 , who proceeded to hit two pair on me and put me down to a measley 4 BB’s. I was almost out. However I didnt panic, and got it in pre flop in UTG+1 with 99 and was looked up by AJ and finally a hand held and I got a much needed double up.

I was still struggling, but somehow, with some re-steals all-in and timely moves, I managed to add to my stack and move up to an about just below average stack of 16K. Then there was a key hand, the button a guy I knew and respected from past APAT events raised from the button, I peep down at Ace-Ten off and push all-in on a re-steal. Now the button starts rambling on about bad beats on another table and about keep being raised off hands, he said sorry he knew he should not be calling and ‘no offence against me, he’d had enough’ lol. He called my all-in with KJs which was a bad call imo as if he lost he would be really seriously crippled, it was basically a call for his tourney life. If I knew he was tilty I might not have re-stealed but he suddenly re-ignited his tilt from a previous table and called! I was ahead but just barely at around a 55/45 favourite. I was worried this was the time I was going to get muffed, however an bullet hit the flop and my fears eased as the board ran out and I doubled up to 32K.

As the day wore on I got moved to a table full of huge stacks with around 40 left of the 200 or so starters. I raised 99 up after an EP limper and the chip leader pushed all-in, I folded and he showed Aces, lol at live player over-pushes with the nuts.

My next big hand was kind of funny actually. I picked up Ace-King, yep Big Slick, the feared one … a guy who looked like Sam Farha pretend ciggie thing in mouth and all raised in EP … I 3bet him  … and he tanked … and tanked … started asking me questions and giving it some chit chat. I was thinking he must have QQ-TT or something, then he folded and tried to muck his hand but his cards flipped over and he showed A7o, the table including the dealer laughed. He was seriously thinking of calling or pushing with A7o (after limping in EP!) and even defended himself saying he put me on 66 exactly! …

Anyway, next was a cruicial hand, and one that I’m quite proud of the way I played it. I’d just raised up two hands in a row (including the AK hand previously mentioned) and then looked down at KK in middle position. I did a standard 2.5x BB raise again. A lady (who went on to win the tourney actually), called on the button. Flop came Jd6d8x. I thought for a few seconds trying to look like I hadn’t hit, then checked warily. In came the expected 35K bet from the lady, I pretended to think, gathered enough chips for a call knowing I was going all-in, but then stacked all my chips and pushed hopefully making it look like I’d changed my mind about what I was planning and was on a draw … she called my CRAI with 99 and the board ran out and I held up to put me up to 175K, and I ended the day on 178K about 3rd or 4th in chips with 24 remaining.

Day 2 came … though the cards did not, although I did get a bit of early luck with KJ outdrawing AJ and K3 hitting a 3 on KT in a BvB all-in battle. These two pots and some steady play brought me to the final table as the chip leader on 330K with 2 others on around 300K.

In the first orbit of the FT, I picked up KJs in the small blind. Rich Offless, who I noticed liked to limp on the button because I think he likes to try and outplay others post flop limped on the button. I call in the SB and the BB checks. Flop came two of my suit, spades. I check-call Rich’s bet. Turn is the Ace of spades and I hit my nut flush. Turn goes check-check. On the river I put out a value bet, which Rich then small 3bets. I pause a while and then 4bet him, barely more than a min-raise like 1.25 times his bet and he quickly folds - obviously making a move. I was up to 450K establishing a proper chip lead.

The cards though still would not come, I was getting dealt trash like j3o, 74o, T2o, Q3o etc etc and was getting 3bet off hands.

Then I picked up 88 and raised and was 3bet all-in again by a short-ish stack, I called and he had AQ for a 280K flip and he hit a Queen to take the pot and put me back down to 310K. If I win that pot, it would have moved me up to about 600K and I could have been more dominent. Momentum was not going my way. As it was I had to scrap and 3bet all in with 88 which I picked up again over an MP raise. He said he folded AQ, but I expect he had more like AJ or ATs. I hit a nice 2 pair with Q2 in a SB v BB battle but other than that I was so card dead it was unreal. In the end the blinds got very high quickly, I was no longer chip leader as the lady from the KK CRAI hand the night before had gone on a massive heater getting AK, KK, AA, AK & AA in the space of 6-7 hands, it was unreal.

Down to 4 players and on the medal bubble, not that I was really putting that as a considerion - I wanted to win! We swapped blinds about then the UTG folded, BTN raised to 100K, SB folded and I 3bet him all in with KQ of spades. It was a call for his life as he had me barely covered. He tanked. Then called with AQ and I didnt improve and that was that. It was a difficult spot really. Maybe I could have passed, I prolly prefer to do this with 67s, but with the raise coming from the button and the prize structure so top heavy and KQs being like the best hand I’d seen on the FT apart from two 88’s I went for it. Heres is the forum link for the exit hand anaylsis

Overall I was very pleased with how I’d played. I played some of the best tournament poker I’ve ever done. I got lucky in a couple of spots pre-FT but you need that, but in the end I didnt get the right cards or spots on the FT where it mattered, a familar story!

APAT official Tournament Report

Video’s from the APAT Team Championships, Blackpool (July 19-20 2008)

Pre-Final Table interview

Final Table Introduction

Losing a flip when chip leader, 88 v AQ

Interview after exit in 4th