Thursday, August 21, 2008

Nothing To Read Here, Move On Please

Played on Saturday after making a little money Friday night. I made about $270 on Saturday, again I was 12 tabling 50NL. Pretty standard day as far as hands, any 5 buyin day is a good one.

I played again Monday night, 12 tabling 50NL, and found myself down quite a bit. I was getting some tough hands. One hand that sticks out is raising with KK to $1.50 then the sb re-raises to $7. I flat call. Flop comes 356 rainbow. He bets out $14, I push my remaining $43 or so, and he starts thinking.....then calls. Turn is another 5, river 9. He flips over 45s for trips and the pot. This hand was strange as he re-raised me from the sb, somewhere I never re-raise from with low suited c's as you are out of position for the rest of the hand. If I 4bet pre, he folds. whatever, I noted him. Another hand that was tough was getting JJ all in v AT on T high flop, he hit an A. It happens. As the session went on I was down about $200. I then told myself I would either hit breakeven, or -$250 which is my stop loss of 5 buyins. I grinded back and then came a pretty big suckout by me. I raised from ep with AQs. Flop comes AQ2. Blah blah blah, we get it in, he has 22 and I river a Q. That was a $115 pot. Meh, it happens. If I cant bank top two in that spot, I should quit poker. It happens. In the end I made $80. Nothing much, but a hell of a lot more than a $200 loss.

I also played Tuesday night for a couple hours, I made $300. Woulda been more but a 80/0 player over 100 hands couldnt fold K6 on a K852 board v my AA. River 6, whatever it happens. That was a $114 pot.

All in all, a little over $900 profit at 50NL in 4 sessions. That is not too shabby. 18 buyins is solid in my opinion. I am now on a 2K roll. (weddings eat poker rolls btw), and I am on 81K vpps. 19 more till I hit S'Nova. I am really looking forward to that.

I figure I am going to move up to 100NL around the 4K-5K area. I want to have some more sessions of 50NL to get back into it. I want to be a solid 100NL player, getting ready for a 200NL jump around Christmas or so. I think 200NL is the point where I can start making some money as 50NL is too small.

I went to the Scotland - N Ireland football game last night at Hampden. Had a really good time. A friend of mine of who is traveling the world in September, Patch, and his mates are regular Scotland game goers so they got me a ticket as well. Met up in town at O'Neils off George Square, had a drink while I talked to Shanta and Geo about poker. Geo told me his WSOP ME tale. UTG makes it 6K? at 1-2K blinds, he is UTG+1 with AKs and makes it 20K to go. Folds around, UTG calls. Flop comes AJx. Guy pushes 70K into 43K pot. Geo insta-calls. UTG flips QT for gutshot. Turn brings the 3 outer K. No redraw on river. Geo is down and ends up pushing QQ later called by AK and loses the flip. gg life. Not cool. We then all go to another bar just round the corner for another drink, Patch plays a puggy and manages to screw up badly after he had a winning spin. Something about too many buttons. We then walk to Central Station and get the train to Hampden. Train was funny, I know a grand total of zero songs getting on the train, I now know about 3 although to be fair, 95% of the train is drunk with Glasgow accents. Not a good combo for a Canadian to decipher.

I got a pie and bovril before the game started. My first official bovril, after Patch's dad made me a little last Sunday. Delicious. Basically its OXO cubes and boiling water. The pie was good too. The game was so-so. Few odd chances in the first half, the second half was better. NI had a man sent off and they also had a penalty. Healy missed it after who I thought was Craig Gordon made the save. Turns out it was Gers keeper MacGregor (who I have played live with at the Cincin Club) as he was subbed when I was getting my second pie and bovril (as I said earlier, delicious) with Shanta. Geo was drunk and provided Shanta and Patch with some football facts/quotes which were pretty funny. The best was an up and coming Newcastle player from Scotland named Guthrie who recently broke through to the first team. He felt Guthrie should get a game for Scotland. Too bad for Geo he is English. To be fair to Geo, it is a Scottish name, and he is also on his dream team. lol.

We ended up walking home the wrong way and ended up in Clarkston. They called another friend Stu who was good enough to come pick us up. However, he got a speeding ticket on the way (he thinks as he saw a flash from the camera as he drove by it) and I thought it was funny to hear drunken Geo refuse to pay for said ticket.

all in all, a good night.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Back to the Grind

Back in Glasgow now. Arrived in late Monday night after the flight was delayed from Sunday evening. We had to get a bus to a hotel and Zoom airlines put us up. Frustrating and tiring, but home so all is well.

Back to work yesterday, no kids though, just staff, the kids dont come till Monday. Then the real work begins. But its cool, I like teaching 75% of the time which is more than I can say for a lot of people at their jobs.

Anyways, on to poker.

I just finished up my first session online in over a month. I played for about 2.5 hours and made $250. $100 an hour is not too shabby for 50NL. I was a bit out of touch early on and was second guessing myself, but 10-15 minutes in I was playing pretty sharp. Nothing extraordinary. I made one bad fold against two players on the river w 99 on a 2J9Q3 three spade board. I folded after a bet and call. Figured one had me beat but it was J6 and KQ so not cool. I played it badly when I checked the flop to the preflop raiser hoping to check raise a flush draw, but he checked and the Q turn slowed me down. I bet the turn but everyone called and the spade hit the river so whatever I guess. If thats my biggest mistake first time back I'll take it.

I am now on $1400 with 79K vpp. I think I am going to wait till I hit Supernova and cash in 100K fpp for $1500 rather than $650 for 50K. I am content at 50NL till then, that way I can get some breathing room.