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Binions are trying so hard to position themselves as the home of poker in Downtown Las Vegas, if not in the whole city, but it doesn’t appear to be working too well.
I played the 8pm tournament on 24/12 – way too tired after waking up at 3am on the first day there to be concentrating properly on poker, but I still made the final table and finished just out of the money. It attracted just 36 players. Sure, it’s Christmas Eve – most tourists won’t land for a few days (although you wouldn’t know it from the traffic, which you can be sure I’ll whinge about plenty) and the locals who play there regularly might easily have other commitments. I thought very litle of the poor turnout until I heard someone asking whether this was typical and the dealer replied that they’d normally run with about five tables. When I played the afternoon tournament later in the week, five tables was spot on. Seven spots were paid but the last eight made a deal, giving $400 to me and six others and $1000 to the massive chip leader.
In the summer, these games were regularly getting 100+ runners both afternoon and evening. I love the Binions card room and it’s not good to see it struggle, especially when the casino floor was busier than it’s been for quite a while. This may or may not be aided by the new carpet (yes they did have one before, but the replacement is definitely not before time), and the Binion Dollar Babes, who were as good at dancing around to Shania Twain CDs as anyone I’ve ever seen. These ladies are cunningly positioned right inside the main doors and visible from Fremont Street as you pass. Who needs fountains to get people to stop walking outside your casino?
They’ve already cut the buy-in on the weekend tournaments (used to be $125) so it’s $70, with a $40 rebuy, every day. They’re pushing a $29 poker room rate, a $4/$8 game with 5% rake and also trying to draw in bigger players with the Ultimate Poker Championship events. I did play one of these, buying in directly for $660 after I dumped out of a satellite. I’d already decided to buy into one, so I would play two if the satellite attempt worked.
This could very well be the best regular tournament in town – 10,000 starting chips and 40 minute levels, with the top seven coming back the next day to be filmed. Once again, numbers were down and i was amazed that only 32 took part. Four spots were paid, so three would to get their fifteen minutes on television without taking home a penny!
Those that bothered to show were mostly very tough players, and I was pleased to keep up with the pack until my KK ran into AA, with me getting it all in pre-flop and still wondering whether I could have avoided it. If you don’t want to hear the bad beat story, turn away now.
I raised first to act and, although just ahead of an average stack, did not have enough chips to put in a third raise of anything less than everything when he came over the top. The player has only been at the table about 20 minutes and I don’t have much information, but he’s seen me being my usual tight self. However, I still figure to be ahead more often than not here. QQ or AK are both possible, and although there’s a very good chance I’m only called if beaten, I move all-in for really no other reason than I can’t work out how to play it post-flop if I call out of position leaving myself with just one pot-sized bet. I can’t fold KK pre-flop to a single re-raise and I can’t check-fold any flop.
After the long walk home to the hotel next door, I scribbled some dirty maths and convinced myself the push was still +EV, even if we never expect him to have pocket jacks or worse. Fortunately I binned the notes so you don’t have to endure that right now, but I might have another go sometime.
That $400 chop was on the last night and I didn’t want to push my luck with any more tournaments, so I sat in a $2/$4 game until I could stay awake no longer. Things started rotten, with me flopping top two pair against bottom set in back-to-back hands. I swung down $150 and not winning a single pot for over two hours before finally dragging one down with a QQ that I played much too softly against TT on a low board. With confidence restored, a new beer on the way and having had plenty of time to work out that this table was, in fact, a great one I ran warm enough to claw it all back. In my last hour at the table I was red hot, making quad jacks and then shortly afterwards quad eights. There’s no high hand jackpot at Binions yet (so there’s only $4 taken from each pot, not $5) but you do get a shirt or a cap for hitting four of a kind or better. I had one of each 🙂
I ended the seven hour session with $5 more than I started with. Not the best hourly rate in the world ever, but a respectable recovery.
Playing beyond your bankroll completely rocks when you get lucky. 🙂
I knew the PokerDome satellite was too expensive for me to justify buying into direct. Even with its awesome added value – a $215 seat was worth $343 tonight – I’m just not serious enough or good enough to play three-figure buy in tournaments on a regular basis. I was well aware that I couldn’t continue playing this tournament every week, as I desparately wanted to, without running a little bit hot at first.
Last Saturday, I used some of the money remaining from the very nice Mansion NFL bet bonus I took advantage of earlier in the year to buy into the $100+$9 rebuy and the $200+$15 freezeout. It was pretty uneventful – I didn’t survive the first hour in either of them and couldn’t remember anything vaguely interesting to write about, so I didn’t even mention it.
Today I went only for the freezeout, figuring my balance could support two more cracks at it and I wasn’t really likely to play anything else at Mansion. They have a few money-added tournaments during the day, but they’re now making a big deal about a Christmas tournament series with $250,000 added. Very attractive (and a $50+$5 buy in is much more realistic for me) but they all start at 3am. So despite the Mansion server clock being GMT, they pretty much don’t give a hoot about their European players and have put this quarter of a million up for grabs only to attract the Americans that are still looking for a place to play. You can see why they’d do that, but just a couple that start during the day for US players – a token effort – would be nice.
Oh, did I forget to say the result before I went off on one?
First place baby! $7000 PokerDome package and $3430 cash.
What follows now will probably be waffle. I’m completely wired but also in need of sleep (I have to catch a train at 07:24). In this case especially, the size of the prize is much more interesting than how I actually won it, so I definitely won’t be offended if you don’t read any further.
Everything started great and I was chip leader within 15 minutes after eliminating two players with big pairs that held up. Had to make a terrifying all-in call with QQ on TT2 flop. The other player had called my third raise pre-flop and moved all-in immediately after the flop. There’s a chance he’s playing AA or KK in a donkish way there, but I found it hard to believe he wouldn’t try to check-raise me on that board if he had anything that beats my queens. In fact, a check-raise there may well have got me to fold the QQ (I’d be putting him on JJ-AA), but instead he donated his stack when AK did not improve.
Players fell fast down to three tables remaining. Two tables were getting paid, with $350 for places 10-18. On the bubble there were three mega short stacks, with about 1000 chips each and blinds at 300/600. I had a heart attack when I saw KK on the big blind with players who mostly had me covered, and was never more pleased to get a walk with a big hand. It wasn’t just me who wanted to lock in $350 then – that’s almost two more goes at this in my weak mind!
There were some crippled stacks on the final table so it dropped to 6 remining pretty quickly. That had guaranteed me a four-figure payday. I was keeping up with the pack pretty well, but I know I could have played stronger to take advantage of the bubble effect – when two players had very short stacks but the next jump in money was $600, I fancied the $600. I was helped by someone playing AK much too passively. He smooth-called a minimum raise from a habitual min-raiser, forcing me to pay one bet to see a flop with K8s from the big blind. I didn’t hesitate when the flop came KQ8 and got the payoff.
The jump between 4th and 3rd was $1500 and I was extremely glad that it happened on a pretty easy decision. I had AJs on the big blind and the small stack button pushed. He flipped over J8o and stood up.
Then I dithered a bit too much. The problem (if you can call four grand in the bank a problem) was that 3rd paid a nice chunk of cash ($4116) whereas 2nd was "only" $235 in addition to the PokerDome package. $4116, or indeed the $3430 extra for first place, would nicely take care our house rental next summer. Claire did just this with the extra cash she won alongside her WSOP seat last year, so I wanted to do the same. So my strategy at that point should have been to go for broke: get myself a massive chip lead or bomb out and guarantee the biggest cash prize on offer. Finishing 2nd, chances are I’m going to Vegas by myself, unless by some freak of timing the event I’ve qualified for is either the weekend we’re already going to be there or lands in a school holiday. Plus, I’d heard other players talking about previous satellites, saying that the 3rd place finisher is also taken to Vegas as a reserve.
By the time I’d realised that I needed to make this adjustment, it was too late. The other two were going at it, and we were heads up. The other guy had about a 2:1 chip lead on me. Playing, basically, a freeroll for $3000 in a satellite is a very strange experience. It’s the biggest leap in prize money on offer, even though both the players remaining have pretty much already achieved what they came for. We were both on our way to Vegas. But the tournament just kept on playing, there was no time to take that in, no time to start leaping around and not even time to go and wake Claire and get a sleepy hi-5. I’d been running excitedly back and forth with updates all the way down to 5 players left, as she’s much more conscientious at the whole having-to-get-up-at-6.30 thing than me. That’s like 5 hours away… and still no way I can sleep!
The heads up slaughter lasted about 45 minutes. I suck at heads up. I’m way too weak, and this guy was a big bully. He bashed me down to about 15k vs his 120k and I got lucky to survive. From then on I somehow slogged my way back even, eventually picked up a big hand and got paid off and once I’d fought my way to a 3:1 chip lead his TT held up against my AQ and we were back to level footing. Same old story – he bashes away at me and I have to get lucky again. Although by now I’m wondering if the Kill Phil heads up strategy of "go all in every hand" wasn’t such a bad idea. I was definitely outclassed, but on the bright side I now have some great experience of playing heads up for a big prize.
We already know that it’s bad karma to turn down a deal. Here we were, almost at the stage where it was time to race random cards for $3000 and I offer a deal. Don’t even know if it’s possible to do that on Mansion, but he wasn’t interested anyway. Can’t blame him really. He knew he was better, and I’d have been overjoyed to take any kind of deal to have it over with.
But when it’s with you it’s with you. I got ahead again, calling a small bet with middle pair and making 2 pair on the river. I never saw what he had, but I must have been behind most of the way. So with nearly a 4:1 chip lead I decided to have a crack with K9 to try and end it. It was good enough:
  
Now, you never know, going on TV might be enough to push me just that little bit harder to lose some weight…
I’ve never bought or traded a percentage in another player before, but now I have ten percent of David Buckle in next year’s WSOP Main Event. Not a big name player, I grant you, but it’s got to be better to walk away from a tournament with a lottery ticket than a big fat zero. So that’s what I did.
Last night was the £150 WSOP super satellite at Gutshot that I won entry into last week. With 33 players and a handful of rebuys, the prize pool just topped the £6500 mark – just enough to award one Main Event seat with flights and accomodation.
The complete prize structure looked like this:
1st: £6500 package
2nd: £115
Somewhat top heavy. With one buy in less in the prize pool, we’d have been playing for three packages with a $1000 super-satellite at the Rio and some spare change for 4th place. Despite almost everyone in the tournament preferring to play for three places, the prize structure stood and we weren’t able to chop the package. The final add-on was actually taken by someone who wanted to play all-or-nothing for the big one, knowing that paying the extra £150 would be enough to create the seat. And that was that.
So with twenty-something players remaining and just one prize greater than the price of a buy-in to play for, I wasn’t going to hang around. Looking down at AK and having a below average stack, I figure I have to take a shot, even facing a raise and a reraise that already covers my chips. I’m hoping to run against two smaller pairs, or one smaller pair and a worse ace. In either of those spots, I’m about one-in-three to triple up and that’s plenty good enough. In fact, I end up drawing a bit thinner, against QQ and KK. When the KK is slowrolled after seeing both the other hands, karma kicks in and sticks a queen on the flop right up his arse. There’s a jack too, so I’m calling for a ten to make a winning straight, and the turn card dutifully obliges.
I should have tripled up here, but somehow I got stiffed on the pot. I moved in for 3200, but ended up with 7300. It should have been virtually 10k, but thanks to the excitement of actually still being in the tournament, I didn’t notice until half way through the next hand. All I can think is that my side pot was only awarded the first player’s original raise; whatever happened it was too late to do anything and I had to try to convince myself that it wasn’t going to matter that much.
Actually, it was about as insignificant as you could hope for. From that point on, I only committed all my chips twice; once defending my blind with A2s (my reraise was called after an eternity by 35s, and I still don’t understand why but it made breathing difficult for a while) and then when I was actually eliminated in fourth place, with my AJ losing to K9.
With four players remaining and the cardroom still unwilling to chop up the prize the best we could come up with was for the winner to give 10% of any World Series winings to each of the other three. We hastily scribbled an agreement which the club are keeping in their safe; far from perfect but even a forum post is more than anyone claiming to have a piece of this year’s winner had. Even though the deal really probably isn’t worth much (although, of course, it could be worth 10% of $12m…) it no longer felt like I’d been playing for six hours with still a chance of going home with nothing.
I was pleased with my performance, and definitely got more out of this tournament than I expected. Most importantly, I got a lot of high-pressure final table experience. The stakes were way out of my comfort zone (my seat was worth over £1700 before I busted, and I couldn’t lock in any of that equity) but I didn’t choke. I stayed patient and made good decisions. I’d built a table image that I could take advantage of. I always believed it when I told myself I had as good a chance as any other player to take first place.
I was also very pleased that I managed to walk directly back to my hotel without passing any places that I’d only ever seen on Monopoly squares! This is a first for me, and although it’s nice to see London by foot, it’s not ideal when you’re alone at 3am and are a little unsure of the way. Plus, I was disappointed last week when I discovered, by accident, that The Angel Islington was just another Wetherspoons.
I’ve left it a bit late to write up the tournament I played at Gutshot on Monday, but I did win… so I think I should still make the effort to recount my moments of greatness. 🙂
Clearly I rock. I picked up pocket aces three times in the first hour. Bad players just can’t do that, it’s the reason they suck. This was an unlimited rebuy tournament, so I didn’t even need to find opponents with much of a hand to get action. It’s a satellite into the WSOP qualifier next Monday (a £150 ticket), and actually a freeroll. You start with 500 chips for absolutely nothing. Then every time you need more, £10 gets you an extra 1000 and there’s an add-on after an hour where your tenner gets you 2000 more chips. 148 rebuys and add-ons created 10 seats; in fact the cardroom added £20 to the pot rather than create a cash prize for 10th. ty.
Aces #1: There’s an all-in from early position by a player who has made it quite clear he isn’t going to rebuy. He’s been playing it, well, like a freeroll. His bet is called by the player to my right who had taken one rebuy to start with 1500 (as had I) but now has a little less than that remaining. I move all-in over the top – no point being fancy here, and there’s no real downside to showing strength now. If the guy stuck in the middle likes his hand, he’ll call. If he doesn’t, we have a chunk of dead money and a better chance of winning. I’m not letting anyone else into this pot for cheap. Turns out he did like his hand: 9Ts. The freerolling maniac flips up AJ and I take it down. One player rebuys, the other makes his way downstairs.
I’d been sitting tight for a good 20 minutes. Usually not even worth thinking about, but in this game chips were flying and dudes and dudettes were gambling. Everyone except me, that is. I feared I may have too much respect, so when I looked down and saw the Gutshot Powerhouse, I thought I’d check my table image. I raise, and all fold to the big blind who thinks for an age and eventually passes. I throw the mighty five-high face up, and nobody looks impressed. Yet when someone folds the same hand face up from a blind later in the tournament there is much talk about how they were way ahead, it never loses, how can they fold that, etc. I’m dealing that hand, so I cheekily rabbit hunt and make him a one card, five high flush to beat the raiser’s pocket tens. Ahead the whole time, indeed.
It couldn’t get more perfect when the very next hand …
Aces #2: Kerching. AA. Let’s see how much respect I have now. Hopefully none. Blinds are up to 50/100 so I open with a raise to 300. A newly rebought 1000 chips comes over the top and my hand holds up against another AJ. Rebuy in seat.. well, who knows what number the seat is in these self-dealt games…?
I’m then moved to another table, and having lost one small pot and a couple of rounds of blinds I am sitting behind a stack on 3300 when the last three hands for rebuys is announced. Two hands pass uneventfully. Last hand before the break, and wouldn’t you know it…
Aces #3: Woohoo. There are two limpers ahead of me, and I make it 300 to go from the button. I haven’t needed to rebuy yet and I’m feeling a bit frisky, hence the small raise. I’d like some action please Bob. It’s not very often you’ll see me trying to build a pot with one pair, but right now I can still pay £20 if it all goes wrong and be back to 3000 chips, roughtly where I started. The blinds quickly fold and the two limpers call. These two limpers had history. The guy in early position had been frustrated by the girl in between us twice since I’d been here, with her moving all in over the top after he bet. Both times he folded a medium strong hand face up (whereas she showed nothing and just grinned), and though he was probably correct both times he was clearly getting rattled. So with me last to act behind these two, I have to hold my breath when there’s a bet of 500 and an immediate all-in on a Q-high, fairly raggy board. Had she not seen me here? I don’t think the other guy had, as he announced "call" before I had chance to do anything. Two nits at the table convinced him that the call stood because I had ever so slightly less chips than the raiser. Which I think is correct, but instead of calling for a ruling he just threw in his remaining 500 with bottom pair (45s) and started berating the nits for getting involved once his hand did not improve (compulsory call for him though anyway in that spot). QJ also did not improve, and I’m up to about 10,000 at the break after I take the add-on.
The girl does not return, so there’s 125 chips with no owner at the table when we come back from break. The table gets broken quickly and I have no idea where those chips end up. Surely they won’t have reseated her with a dead stack for three or four hands? Wasn’t at my table anyway…
The streak continues at my new table. I get one customer when I raise with AQ, the flop comes Q-high and he check-calls all in on the flop with 66. Not exactly pot-committed (the bet was about the size of the pot) but he must not have believed me. Doesn’t he know how powerfbloody lucky I am tonight?
From then on it did get harder. Can you believe I didn’t see aces again all night? Sometimes that really makes you question how good you are… I was glad to have the big chip advantage because the blinds got silly pretty quick. I’m still not convinced by the 250/500 and 350/700 levels. They are uncomfortable numbers, and really just serve to skip three levels for the price of two. About half the players were pot committed on every hand they played, so I mostly just stayed out of trouble. No need to win this one, top ten will do fine. I manage to maintain and creep my stack up a bit to 16k before we are down to two tables.
Playing some great push/fold, crapshooty, throw-it-all-away-on-one-hand poker, I see AJ and have to move in from the cut-off. The small blind likes his hand. He thinks for a while and says "I have a pair". Bad small blind – if he calls and shows a pair, he can’t win this pot. They only recently allowed any speech play at all at Gutshot, but you still can’t talk about your hand whilst there are other players to act. Heads up it seems you can do what the hell you like… So do I actually want him to call, then yell for the floor and let them decide whether I just get his blind or the whole pot? Or do I say something now, and make him pass whilst also letting the other player still in the hand know that I’m not particularly keen on getting action here? I decide to keep quiet and fortunately he folds what he says is a pair of sixes.
From then on the remaining players dropped like flies. I still had to take a 50/50 with my 55 against AT to ensure safety, but I stayed lucky and didn’t finish 13th. Two simultaneous bustos, one on each table, took ten of us into the next round. One winner even got all the way without paying a penny. Living the dream baby!
The £150 satellite is next Monday. It’s costing me £88 on the train (they just got expensive for Christmas) and £34 for a hotel (and yes, you get what you pay for) to be there. With my £20 investment, I guess I’m about £8 up…
I keep finding three chips in my pocket that I came away with from The Vic last week. A reminder to actually write down what happened on my first visit there, I suppose.
I usually play the 1 rebuy tournament at Gutshot if I’m in London on a Wednesday but the last week in each month is now the Team Gutshot satellite. I didn’t qualify for any bonus chips (awarded for playing regularly or finishing on a final table) so essentially I’d be starting with a crippled stack
So last Wednesday I went to the Vic and played their £30+£3 freezeout. I handed over two twenty pound notes and got a £5 and two £1 chips as change. Naturally, I never cashed these in before I left.
Although I did actually forget I had them after I busted out, I may well have bottled it anyway for the sake of £7, hoping that I’d go again soon, get more change in chips and eventually have something resembling an amount worth cashing in. Not that I’d feel quite right about even bothering to cash in £7 of chips there. It’s a very swanky joint, considering it basically occupies the attic above Woolworths on a street of tower blocks. Too much for me – I ran straight back outside after registering and found a nice cosy McDonalds.
With their scratchcard promo I won a McChicken Sandwich for next time. You have to scratch off two panels from four to win (a 1 in 6 chance of winning, assuming there are only two symbols the same). The card I won with had the matching symbols behind boxes 3 and 4, as did another I lost on. I’ve since seen another three scratchcards which all had their winning symbols behind doors 3 and 4, but have just decided to try to lose a stone before Vegas (let’s see how long it lasts this time) so probably won’t get chance to see whether this is always the case. I make it 1295-1 to find five out of five with the winning symbols all in the same position. I’m sure Claire will correct my maths if I’m wrong…
Back to The Vic. Back through the revolving door, and God forbid you push the door round yourself – they have someone to do that for you (this place is wasted on me – all I could think is how much they would save by investing in a door motor). Back upstairs to try and find the other half of the cardroom. The one I’d found, and registered at, had tables with numbers nowhere close to the one I was meant to be sitting at. It turns out there’s more tables on the second floor, where I’d accidentally stumbled earlier to be greeted with stares of "you don’t really know where you’re going, do you?" from someone in some kind of uniform at the top of the stairs. Ha! Turns out I was meant to be there after all.
Regular tournaments are limited to 72 players. That’s 8 tables of 9. The worst way I can think of to describe the shape of the tables is like a 50p coin, but with two more sides. The correct word, I always thought, was nonagon, although I’ve since discovered that enneagon is also acceptable. I’d never heard that word before, and I’ve also never seen a poker table like these. Not only were they an unusual polygon, they also had chip racks embedded in which everyone was using. Stacking and riffling chips was possible, but I didn’t want to be the only one doing it.
The tournament kicked off very slowly, with 1500 chips each and 25/25 blinds, moving to 25/50 and 50/100 after 20 minutes. Then it went mental, taking nearly ten minutes to remove all the 25 chips (I nearly said "green chips" instinctively, but of course they were some other colour that I can’t remember, but probably different to anywhere else) without stopping the clock and jumping straight to 100/200 for the remaining half a level then on to 200/400.
Double, double, double them blinds. And so the crap shoot began, and I stayed lucky long enough to make it down to the last two tables, along the way apparently forcing 99 to fold on a very low board when I moved in with my pocket 8s. KQo called me with his overcards though. Can’t ask for much more.
Then with blinds at 600/1200, rising to 800/1600 within a couple of hands, and a stack that had dwindled to 4900 after a couple of rounds with no opportunities, I felt I needed to push with any two cards when it was folded around to my small blind. For Harrington fans, my M is less than 3, and with 14 players remaining, the average stack of 7,700 was still in the red zone. I ended up in very bad shape with my Q2 racing against QT and not finding the miracle it needed. The poker in this tournament was long gone, and I didn’t quite get lucky enough.
And they’re still looking after another seven quid of mine.
Exhausted! Took advantage of daylight savings time and got up at 7am to start playing as many multi-table tournaments on Empire Poker as I possibly could before I dropped dead. Discovered the hard way that Empire doesn’t allow more than six tables to be open at a time (I’m sure it used to be 10..). In the end, I played 29, cashed in 7 and walked away with a profit of $131.
More importantly, though, I racked up 77 regular VIP points and 841 bonus points (29 squared!). If I’d really tried I think I could have squeezed in maybe three more tournaments, but it’s not a bad effort.
Seven or eight more days like that and I’m in the Royal Flush Club!
I really don’t want to say this. I’m still not completely sure I believe it. But the figures look good – there is a very real chance that I can actually beat the $2/$4 game on PokerRoom now, and for a decent rate too. There have been two monster bonuses the last couple of months – $250 and $500 to mark the launch of their Silver Room and Gold Room programs respectively. This has given me a much bigger sample to look at than any of the Party Poker bonuses I’ve played, and then posted up the mindnumbing stats.
Here are the equally mindnumbing stats from my last two months grinding PokerRoom. I’ve really had to guess at how long I spent playing in total, sometimes I only played two tables, but usually, and particularly the past few weeks, I played four at a time.
Hands played: 9140 (for 7500 FPPs)
Hours played: 132.6 (approx 40 man hours)
Rake paid: $796.00 (they make $46.00 from my action)
Amount won: $827.60 (2.26 BB per 100 hands)
Win rate: $20.69/hr
Bonus awarded: $750.00
Rate w/bonus: $39.44/hr
Now, if you don’t mind me saying so, this is bloody good! I’ve made more than two big bets per 100 hands in a sample size of over 9000 hands. Not a massive sample by any means, but big enough to suggest to me that, even if I did run pretty hot towards the end, I could turn a steady profit here. Before this, I have 13,000 hands logged from PokerRoom $2/$4 and ran at a a loss of $168 (0.33BB per 100 hands). The deposit bonuses more than made up for this, but it didn’t leave me with a great hourly rate. I don’t know how significant this really is, but I’m staring at a losing record before the summer and a winning record since I got back from four weeks in Vegas…
Here’s the vitals.
Vol. Put $ In Pot: 15.97%
Pre-flop Raise: 9.77%
Post-flop Aggression: 3.35
Won $ When Saw Flop: 38.62%
Went to Showdown: 30.72%
Won $ At Showdown: 57.41%
Folded SB to Steal: 87.76%
Folded BB to Steal: 55.92%
Attempt to Steal Blinds: 36.30%
I won more with KK than with AA, even though I had it fewer times, and my worst losing hand was AQo ($76 lost in 84 hands). I was profitable with KQo to the tune of 50 cents. Still room for improvement then…
Only problem is PokerRoom have already stopped American players depositing, and in less than two weeks they’ll be blocked from playing completely. Even if the games are still suited to my style with whatever players remain (I still don’t feel confident enough to call the games "soft" with any certainty), four-tabling there is not going to be possible very often. I think it might be time to try PokerStars again and see how badly I get my arse kicked on there now.
Here’s the thing with tournaments.
Played 10, cashed once. Net profit $386.
A terrible record, but a nice result. I ran sooooo cold to start and wasn’t getting anywhere. I’d already given up – for the second time today. The first time saw me heading down to McDonalds to be comforted by a Big Tasty and a BLT Deli Sandwich. The diet resumes tomorrow in theory, so I’m allowed a little something with my burger…. 🙂
I’d decided that the $10 rebuy would be the last I’d play, even though I’d planned on doing a whole lot more (because of the way bonus VIP points are given on Empire, they increase exponentially the more tournaments you play in a single day). I’d also been playing a few $6.50 turbos on PokerStars, backed into 4th place (4 get paid) once and came nowhere near on the rest of them. Nothing had gone my way.
I was in this rebuy for $40 – two goes at the rebuy bug to top up my stack without going broke and an add on after the first hour. That gave me a little bit less than an average stack at the break, but it was plenty to play with. The top 20 from 190 were getting at least $70 back, but I was over $300 in the hole and really needed 7th place to get even on the day. It’s a funny old game – I ended up outlasting 187 non-Americans before busting out 3rd.
For a $40 investment, not bad at all. It only takes one good hit to swing you back into profit in multi-table tournaments, which of course I already knew it’s just nice to see it happen once in a while. And I should be a hundred or so VIP points closer to being able to get some Empire Poker junk too.
Party Poker have cancelled virtually all of their guaranteed prize pool tournaments. That includes the Sunday Million, which tonight was replaced by a $530 tournament with no guaratee. The actual prize pool was $85,000. They had 170 players. The $215 Sunday event on PokerStars, on the other hand, is still going strong. 6157 players turned up, putting over $1.2m in the pot – I think this is a record!
The Party Poker lobby stopped reporting their total number of players connected after they shut down for the big American boot-off on Friday. PokerSiteScout says Stars has about three times as many players right now though.
It’s time for Party Poker’s occasional, but always welcome, $100 deposit bonus. I played this in almost exactly the same way to the last one, so let’s see how it compares, shall we?
Hands played: 1474 (for 1000 raked hands)
Hours played: 20.1 (approx 10 hours, playing 2 tables)
Rake paid: $54.75
Amount won: $35.87 (1.22 BB per 100 hands)
Win rate: $3.59/hr
Bonus awarded: $100
Rate w/ bonus: $13.59/hr
Always good to see Party Poker losing money. They lost $45.25 here.
My win rate is almost half what it was last time, but I had three horrendous beats which I copied the hand histories of, determined to write up into a ranty blog entry. But then I thought better of it, you’ll be glad to hear. Each time I lost with a very strong, but still second best, hand and for such monster vs monster situations to happen three times so close together was unusual. If I look back and think there might be something worth talking about, other than just my rotten luck, I may still post them. The poorer win rate shows just how much bonuses rock though – overall I only dropped from $15.98/hr to $13.59/hr – so not huge bucks but nothing to be sneezed at when I can be doing it at the same time as clearing the crud from my email inbox, or coordinating a server reboot.
Non-geeks may look no further.
Vol. Put $ In Pot: 15.94%
Pre-flop Raise: 9.90%
Post-flop Aggression: 2.93
Won $ When Saw Flop: 37.97%
Went to Showdown: 29.70%
Won $ At Showdown: 50.63%
Folded SB to Steal: 92.31%
Folded BB to Steal: 62.50%
Attempt to Steal Blinds: 35.62%
So compared to last time, I saw slightly more showdowns (29.70% vs 26.35%) but won at showdown quite a lot less (50.63% vs 63.01%). Last time I noted that I may not be paying enough river bets, but my win rate was much better then. Maybe this was just the cards – nothing can be proved from a 1500 hand sample size. I don’t really even know why I post these stats… maybe somebody finds them interesting!
Played at Gutshot on Wednesday this week, back to the £30 + 1 rebuy tournament. Everything went so right in the first 20 minutes that I knew I was doomed to not get very far. With pocket kings twice and hitting at least 2 pair on most of the flops I played I was up from 1500 to over 4000 by the end of level 1. Even when I hadn’t hit the board, I was betting and picking up more pots than I thought would be possible in one round of a super-fast tournament.
I’d never actually counted my chips up to this point, for once taking note of Kenny Roger’s advice, but had to take stock after losing with TT against a desparate all-in AT. The all in was about 1200, and it left me with about 3000 afterwards. But things never recovered after that. I peaked way too early and by the time the crap shoot came into effect my timing had become just dreadful. Seeing KTs in mid position I moved in for my remaining 2500 – blinds coming round were 250/500, and there were still 40 players remaining. "I have to call that" is never a phrase you wanted to hear, especially when it leaves the caller obviously pot-committed. Yet someone puts in a third raise and I’m left calling for clubs with something of a whimper when they flip over KK and AA.
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