DapperDanMan's Blog - 2009-02-09

Date: Mon, Feb 9, 2009 Tournament

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Update

Date: Sat, Feb 7, 2009 Tournament

I just thought I'd write a quick update on my poker shinaigans... I played at the Grovesner Casino last night for the first week of the Newcastle Poker Forum's league. I was a bit apprehensive about playing some decent players for a change as I'm used to playing random members of the public at Aspers. However I went to check it out anyways.

I ended up finishing 63rdish out of about 117. So not a bad result considering the quality of the field. The only thing I would've changed about my play would've been to be more aggressive in a couple of spots, but nerves got the better of me and I played it a bit too safe.

As for my online activities things are not going too good. I decided to put on a balance of 150 pounds instead of 100 to allow me 40 buy-ins at the $5 level sng's. It's now douwn to 90 pounds and I'm forced to consider moving down to $2 sng's. I don't know if I've lost my knack or whether it's just variance but I've been on a poor run either way. Will I ever have the patients again to grind up a bankroll for MTT's? Not sure atm.

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Good Advice

Date: Thu, Feb 5, 2009 Tournament

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AA vs KK vs K10

Date: Tue, Feb 3, 2009 Tournament

Last night I played in my regular pub game in Heaton. It began badly as I pissed away half my chips playing half-arsed poker. I won it back though by calling an all-in with the nut flush draw which hit. From this point on I played a solid game and made some big calls to take a massive chip lead.

Everyone thought it was foregon conclusion that I would win but desppite this 3 hands decimated my stack putting me out in third. The last of these was a tad unlucky to say the least... I picked up K10 on the button (3 handed) and raised all in due to my short stack only to be called by AA and KK, oh dear. Still I'm really pleased to have nearly won a small live game again as these are my worst games atm.

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DapperDanMan's Blog - 2009-02-02

Date: Mon, Feb 2, 2009 Tournament

I've just ordered 2 new poker books:

"Winning Poker Tournaments One Hand at A Time: 1" (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Winning-Poker-Tournaments-Hand-Time/dp/0974150274)

and Gus Hansen's "Every Hand Revealed" (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Every-Hand-Revealed-Gus-Hansen/dp/0818407271)

Both are highly acclaimed. "Winning Poker Tournaments..." is by some of the most successful online tournament players alive such as Rizen and Pearljammer. I can't profess to know much about them but people on the forums are going nuts about this book so I thought it was a must buy!

"Every Hand Revealed" is a description of every hand played at the Aussie Millions when Gus Hansen won. I think that's a great idea for a book and I haven't read a bad review yet so for £8 I couldn't turn it down! Also I think I'm getting to the stage in my game where I need to loosen up a little and consider styles beyond ABC poker, Hansen sort of personifies unconventional play.

I was just excited so I thought I'd post about my new aquisitions lol. I'm just hoping that they will be a bit more readable than Harrington on Holdem or SNG Strategy which both took me a LONG time to read due to their dry nature. I can't imagine Gus Hansen's book being boring though!

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Not Again :(

Date: Sun, Feb 1, 2009 Tournament

Just finished 242nd out of 6000ish in a $5 freezeout on Pokerstars. Pushed with TT UTG as my M was about 6... called by AA and JJ, game over. Another 4 hours to get my entry fee back lol - not sure if I love or hate MTT's atm.

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Running Deep

Date: Sun, Feb 1, 2009 Tournament

I've had a pretty successful weekend despite the fact I've got nothing to show for it. On Friday night I played the 20 pound freezout at Aspers and finished 20th out of 160. Slightly disappointed to go out so close to the final table but to be fair I did let myself get short stacked. This was in part due to making an aggressive move that got called and ruined my image on my table, forcing me to tighten up. Crap hands followed and before i knew it I had 3 BB's. At this point I made a stand with K8o and despite hitting 2 pair on the flop lost to a flush on the river. The suprising thing was I wasn't that disapointed and had a really good night after :)

The second success was a deep run in the Pokerstars $3 rebuy. I finished 342nd out of 6000+ runners :). My last hand was an attempt to steal a pot with 3 limpers and a third of my stack. Unfortuneately one of them had limped with ATo (his 3rd limp in a row) and insta-called my push, his hand held up against my A4o to knock me out. So all in all some good results :)

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Virgin Festival Seat

Date: Fri, Jan 30, 2009 Tournament

Won a seat to the Virgin Poker Festival held at Aspers in April last night! (https://www.virgingames.com/poker/pokerfest.aspx?festival=newcastle2009). The poker gods were looking down on me as I shoved all in with T9s from ealy position on the final table only to see the BB call with AA... Strangely I fancied my chances of a suckout tho and sure enough two pair hit on the flop. Weeeeeeeeeeeee!!! In my defence (I was called a donk for this move) I had an M of 3.5 and the blinds were about to hit me so I thought it was time to move. Also people were tightening up as we neared the bubble, about 8 left at this point, so I reckoned a shove from UTG+1 was unllikely to be called. Very pleased to get a seat as this was my last attempt! :D

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Got a Plan

Date: Tue, Jan 27, 2009 Tournament

Thanx to my m8 Chica who's a pro and has a WSOP cash to his name I have a plan :) :

- deposit £100 on titan
- build this up to $500 playing primarily $5/$10 SNG's
- play the odd $2-5 tourney to keep me sane
- when up to $500 swich to playing $5 MTT's solely
- play live tourney's (primarily Aspers and Grovesner) out of pocket money when can afford

I will keep the blog up to date with my progress!

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Pub/Home Games

Date: Tue, Jan 27, 2009 Tournament

Without a doubt my least sucessfull arena of play has been small live games. Why? I don't know but I thought I'd elxplore this in today's post. Possible reasons:

- I'm a bad live player (casino results seem to dispute this)
- I'm easy to read once you get to know me
- I'm too predictable once you get to know me
- The play is too slow therefore I get bored and make bad decisions
- It's just my perception
- The sample of games is too small and dates back to when I was just beginning anyways

As you can see from the above reaasons it has been on my mind for some time! So why do I bother going:

- These games appear to represent very good value compared to online games for same price i.e. softer competition
- They're a good night out and pretty cheap too! I especially like the 'commarderie' (spelling :s)
- They keep my live game from getting too rusty

So it's a constant dilema. What's the big deal? you might ask it's only £10 and it's a night out! Well it's £20 after drinks and taxis and I'm a student. Ultimately though it comes down to one thing - ego. I take poker very seriously when compared to the players I play aginst at home/pub which makes it sting all the more when I get beaten. And as we all know ego is a central part of a poker player, every time it get's knocked down it needs to be rebuilt, in my case that's usually weekly!

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Numbers

Date: Mon, Jan 26, 2009 Tournament

I don't know why but I'm having trouble relating "real life" money and the money in my poker balance. Of course this is a big problem! Related to this has been my recent increase in online play. This saw me losing £170 one day and making £300 the next wilst on holiday. As a student this is a lot of money to me and although I was on holiday at the time this is becoming a more common theme.

My biggest difficuly is I get bored very quickly when grinding either cash games or SNG's. This inevitabely sees me chasing MTT's of varying sizes and buy-ins as the potential immeadiate results are far more appealing. This tends to have the effect of decimating my hard earned cash through SNG's or cash tables.

What am I trying to say? Well... It's a New Year and I have just got out of debt thanx to some poker success :D This calls for a new plan and unfortuneately a new bankroll as I needed the last one to pay off the debt. I hven't made this plan yet but I know it's gunna have to be somehow diciplined and at the same time keep things relatively interesting for me. Any suggestion are welcome!!! My roll is £100.

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DapperDanMan's Blog - 2009-01-23

Date: Fri, Jan 23, 2009 Tournament

Last night was my first attempt at qualifying for the Virgin Poker Festival. Unfortuneately 7th was the best I could manage and 5 places out of 47 were awarded a seat, gutted!!!

TBH I was pretty lucky to reach seventh as I hit a cupl of 3 outers on the river to survive. However it wasn't to be as I attempted an ill fated steal of the blinds by shoving on the shortstack, woops! My reasoning behind it was that we were on the bubble and I was second last in chips, therefore I thought that he might fold and that I needed the chips which equated to 1/3 of my stack. Unfortuneately I had been pretty aggressive in that position and so he felt committed with his J-10 offsuit to a call. I had J-6s and no help came leaving me severely crippled.

Why am I writing about this hand in such detail? To help me reflect upon the decision to push... Part of the influence for this was that I had been watching an Annette_15 training video earlier that day (http://promo.betfair.com/gmd/landing/2008/player/). For those that don't know, her style is ultra aggressive and in this spot she would shove any two cards... BUT perhaps not against a desperate short stack when so close to a qualifying position!

Anyways for those of you don't know the prize for this tournament was a seat in the Virgin Poker Festival in April worth £150. I will have two more attempts!

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Background

Date: Thu, Jan 22, 2009 Tournament

Just to get the ball rolling I thought I'd give a bit of history about me and my short poker career. I'm 24 years old and currently studying Electrical/Electronic Engineering at Northumbria university, so basically I'm a soap professional dodger.

I started playing poker a couple of years ago when friends decided to have a few home games for £5 or so. This got me hooked and as a result I later opened an account on Pokerstars. Part of my inspiration to do this was that a friend of mine, who was already a pro at this point, seemed to be making a good living form online poker. Right from the beginning he gave me the most crucial piece of advice a beginner can have: "Start small and don't move up til you've built a bankroll that allows it". Standard advice I know but he really impressed this upon me and until recently I have been religous aabout this.

So I started with $1 and $2 SNG's of varying size and was a losing player for a long time, obviously this didnt matter at thesse limits tho. However, gradually I began to level this out until I became break even and eventually started turning a small profit :) At this point I got more interested in poker and started reading about it online and in books. Unfortuneately to date I've only read 3 books (Harrington Vol 1, SNG strategy and a limit poker book) but I plan to change this.

To cut an already long story short I then moved up to $5 nad $10 SNG's on Full Tilt. At last check on the OPR website my ROI was 20% over 500 games :)

My biggest successes to date though are at Aspers casino where I have played about 10 times and reached 4 final tables. On two these I came first although on one of those we split the money four ways. I am very proud of both of these wins as I never considered myself much of a live player before however I will now play live much more often!

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Why a blog?

Date: Thu, Jan 22, 2009 Tournament

Why start a bog? Rather than boring all my (very patient) friends with my poker stories I thought I'd create a space where I can write about them all and get it off my chest. This way anyone who's acctually interested can come and read about my poker experiences and probably other life ones too!

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