It Never Rains, but it Pours

Since last week I've been on a bit of a roller-coaster, except I have yet to reach the top yet...

Last week I entered a test backing period with Howard Smith the kind gent to donate the funds. As i'm having to use a decent percentage of the winnings i'd made to support myself my poker bank roll wasn't growing at the rate i'd like. Howard suggested backing me over a few nights online up to a certain value of MTT's, my performances have been good for sometime now, after winning several comps on Gutshot during November and December i was pretty confident i could get a good return on Howards investment. I guess you never really know though. It's quite possible to go three days without cashing in a single event, although i can't remember this happening for sometime now.

Night one i played 5-6 MTT's on Full Tilt, which i only started playing on 3 weeks ago and have so far one final table a week. I crashed out of 3 MTT's pretty early, but when deepish in one and in the $20 rebuy i ended up reaching the final table. It was a bit of a yoyo affair, but when we reached 3 left we did a deal and i took away 2nd and over $5k. This made for a pretty good start, and also meant i reached the target i set a few weeks ago!

Friday night my daughter stayed over and we had our usual takeaway and film night, so this means poker stops for the day. Aside from the fact i love having my little girl over, i also quite like having days off without any poker. It's too easy to get sucked into playing 24/7. Normally during the week i also try and keep one day aside for learning, whether it be PokerVT or Cardrunners there's sooo much information out there on how to improve your game. I really can't stress this enough, but the more you put in the more you get out of the game.

Saturday i woke feeling pretty rotten with my Crohns again and ended up sleeping most of the day. I got up in time to go to the International to play the £100 Freezeout. I didn't play any hands at all for the first 90 minutes and then moved table where i got some pretty good hands straight away and moved on from there really. One hand on that table raised a few eyebrows, and i'm pretty sure no one believed what i folded at the table, but too me it seemed like a standard fold. I might be wrong, but i lost the minimum.

The hand played out roughly like this. There's a limp in early position which causes two further limpers before me. I look down and see 22 and chuck in a call. The player behind dwells for a second and i think he's maybe going to raise, but he eventually calls. The player in the BB then raises as what looks like an obvious squeeze. Everyone calls. In this situation when everyone calls a raise i automatically often have some of them on pairs. People know when they hit the flop and make a set they're often in very good shape against other hands. The flop comes down J72 with 2 spades. Bottom set. Sexy. There's a bet in early position which i put a small raise in. The guy to my left who i though maybe was going to raise preflop then raises me by a decent chunk. It folds around to the guy in early position who then pushes all in. and comes back to me. Now it's unlikely anyone has an over pair considering the preflop play, so i narrow the range of hands these guys have got to something like KJ/J10, a bigger set or a flush draw. The guy on my left is counting his chips which is generally not a sign he's going to fold. Do i really want to be all in against the other two players, i feel i'd rather find a better spot and muck my hand. The guy to my left flips over 77 for a bigger set, and the other guy has a flush draw. No one believed i had 22, but i was more concerned whether it's right to fold there? At the time i thought it was easy, but how often does either of them have a bigger set?

I finished on the final table again of the comp and eventually crashed out in 6th losing another coin flip for £400 quid profit. I also won the last longer bet for another £280 so it was a pretty good evening all in all.

I didn't sleep very well again and felt pretty ropey on Sunday so relaxed most of the day to prepare for my second evening of being staked into MTT's. I played the comps below and had an excellent, if exhausting night.

Pokerstars
Sunday Warmup $215
Sunday Million $215
$60k Gtee $109
$80k Gtee $55
Full Tilt
$150k Gtee $163

By midnight i'd crashed out of the Warm-up and $150k on Full Tilt, but was moving along slowly in the rest. I eventually cashed in two of the comps for around $300 and was just left in the Sunday Million. This particular Sunday Million actually had a guaranteed prize pool of $4 million in line with the promotion they were running for the 40 billionth hand being dealt on their site that week. There's normally a large field in the MTT as it always has a first prize in excess of $240k, but this week with a minimum of $1 million for 1st place the field was huge!! Over 36,000 people entered making it one of the biggest online MTT's of all time. After nearly getting blinding away by midnight i started to hoover up chips and for a brief time i actually was in the top 10. Eventually i crashed out physically, mentally and finished in 99th for a cash of just over $4k. I guess you should feel happy after beating 36,000 people, but i was very disappointed. I got great support throughout the night from many of the night owls at the International, which really kept me going and helped me focus. Even so it felt like i'd missed out.

So far so good for the staking anyway. Two nights and over 4k profit each. I've got quite a lot of things to add at the moment so the blog will be updated again tomorrow...

laters xx