In which I run really goood...

So I've been offered the job. Working for PokerStrategy.com, although I can't say much more right now.

Just need to work out a transition at work and then I'll be off to Gibraltar to live, work and play. Couldn't be more delighted.

Shipppppp ze looooot!

--huzz

In which I basically retire from live poker in Newcastle....

So last night I play Circus £20 doublechance and take all my chips at the start. Like an orbit in basically one of only 3 competent players at the table opens to 225 after a couple of limps from the CO, and I make it 725 behind with KK in the SB. He tank makes it 2100 leaving himself about 3k behind and I just jam.

I 3bet small because V is a good player, I guess. I don't know his name, but I think he might be Celia's boyfriend, maybe? Or something. Nice guy anyway. The point is he's capable of recognising my shove as being airy too, which only makes sense if I 3bet small. He has AKhh and sigh calls. There's an Ace in the window but somehow I find the one outer on the turn.

Stephen the Teacher is at my table and has been talking non-stop. I put Phil Collins on Spotify and I cans still hear him, so I change to Paramore, and that's a little better ;) For reference, most of the time I don't mind Stephen. He talks a lot, but is basically harmless and a lot of the time he's just such dead money it's ridic, so ofc I don't mind playing with him. For some reason though he's really tilting me. At 25/50 he makes it 700 and I call from my huge stack with 66 on the button. Bear in mind, I know 100% that Stephen has TT/JJ here, but I'm looking for nice boards to bluff or to set mine. On a Q35 board he leads 2k and I jam thinking I had loadsa fold equity. As ever, his overbet is 'I'm scared of something having got there already' but he calls announcing 'I think you have a Q but I can't fold'. I tell him he can fold, ofc, but he doesn't. No miracle 6ball and I'm back to 11k or so. (He had JJ, obv).

A couple of hands later I raise TT to 175 and get called in 4 spots. I cbet a AA9 board, get called by Gladys, check call the turn and a K on the river means I'm check folding. Gladys has like King high there a lot and I got rivered I think. Anyway, another small pot lost.

Some hands later I open early without looking at my cards simply because it's Stephen's big blind and he threebets me to 600. I instacall looking strong. I also think he has a small pair from his demeanour (I mean, it's not hard to read him).

Flop is 356ddd. He overbets the pot again, I look at my cards and decide, meh, this is prolly a set but his batshit bet just gave me equity to jam in this spot with my Jd4s. I jammed 8k or so and he SNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPS with.... 4d4h. Brilliant. Players can't pass a 4high flush draw. Mint. Obviously I brick and I'm out in the first level.

Well played Mulhuzz. Keep forgetting that you never have fold equity against retards.

Well, on the the NPF Champs in November, still no job news :(, and playing the £3r at the G tonight to get drunk. Excellent.

--Huzz

In which I visit Gibraltar...

So, here we are again than. Last time out I talked about how I was off to a job interview in Gibraltar.

Well, first off, what a magic place. Really. Such a cool part of the world -- great weather, great atmosphere, cheap beer -- as you can imagine, whales of times were had. I arrived on the Thursday afternoon after a 2 hour delay to my flight due to the french national pastime, la grève and quickly got checked into a pretty baller hotel after the one or so hours drive from Malaga where I'd landed. The drive down, incidently, took me through some of the coolest mountains I've ever seen, which included driving near this little gem:

Check out videos of 'El Camino del Rey' online to see more of this amazing place and the nutso guy that films along the pathway.

Anyway, after getting myself nice and checked in to the hotel, I grabbed a quick beer and then headed out to meet my pal Hannes for dinner. Well, we didn't get quite as far as dinner as we quickly met some of his colleagues and friends in a bar and then later in the casino. Anyway, knowing I had an interview the next day, but not until 11am, I decided to sit and play a little 100NL. I sat for, I think, £90 or so (all the non-Euro cash I had on me) and within 4 hands I'd slightly more than doubled when I got A6dd in from the BB on an A62 board vs an UTG limper with AJ. Obviously the entire world had also limped, hence the slightly more than doubleage. I checked in the dark, he leads for more than pot, one caller, I 3bet, he 4bet jams and I snap after the original flatter has passed. Mbsfn, right?

Wrong.

A little later I lose a race for about 30 with TT v AK which is pretty standard, but the game is ridic soft so I don't mind that at all. Plenty of fish to take chips from, or so I thought. At one point I also lose my balls when I should have 4bet jammed A7o (btn) over him and he shows me QTo (bb) I told him he should 3bet to £21 if he had a ten in his hand...sigh. I'm so weak lol. Knew he was full of shit too, but didn't want to find A8 or something.

Key Hand 1:

I flat a small (to £4) raise in the BB with A2cc and with 4 callers already I'm getting zillions to one. 922r looks like the perfect flop for me, I lead, get 4 callers, someone shoves, I reshove, but only get the shovers £150 or so in the middle. I'm pretty sure that's how it plays out, but the point is that I lose about a £600 pot with A2 on a 922 board when AT gets there. Running T-balls, eh? Hannes immediately rubs me down by calculating that I was 99.49% to win right there. Sigh.

Key Hand 2:
Sigh. I get it in on the turn with top two on 85AQ, get called by 9T and a J-ball on the river. Sigh. All of a sudden I'm less than breaking even, down to about £55.

Key Hand 3:
Having got the required double up with JJ v TT on a Qxx board (I read people gooooood) I'm on about £130 when this happens. The 200NL game has just broken and people have joined this table. One guy has about £800 in front of him, and posts. He makes it £7 to go and I make it £21 in the SB with JJ again. Some Spanish retard (who gutshotted me twice already tonight, once in a big pot) has about £400 effective I guess (maybe a bit less) and he flats. Poster calls as well and I immediately think...hmmm, I might need a set here but we'll see. Anyway, board is JXXcc and I just jam. With £60+ in the middle, and I have £130 there's nothing else I can do here. I get called in both spots and it gets checked down. Turn 2s, River Qd. Retard flips KQcc for the busted draw, I show JJ and get shown QQ by the poster. Brilliant.

Anyway, that was me busto. Brilliant. Decided to take a taxi back to the hotel and not bother reloading.Must have run about a million quid behind EV, I think. Maybe more like £800-£1000, I guess.

The Next Day:
Anyway, the next day I make it over to the office where I'm being interviewed for about 10:45am and introduce myself. First impressions: Wow. Every Office should be like this. So laid back, well stocked out and cool as fuck. I'm quickly introduced to the HR lady, the current head of Fraud and the Chief Operating Officer. I get myself a water and crack on with answering the questions. About 2 hours later we've talked about everything, and I''m feeling good, before the COO leaves for another meeting and I'm left with the Fraud head and we talk some more about algorithmic approaches to Fraud detection and prevention and some other stuff, before she sets me a task of sifting through 300 lines of data looking for fraud indicators in the registration data. I think I do pretty well here, I don't know what fraud looks like in their system, but I know that irregular looking behaviour is a good place to start so I get a couple of algorithms and such running and bang up a quick snippet of VB code to find some obvious stuff for manual review. There was also some pretty straightforward ID validity test (pick the fakes out from these passports) and then another test of my language skills and customer service chops which I think goes fine too.

After about half the time, I meet Hannes for lunch in the staff canteen and enjoy a pretty nice chicken curry before having a cigarette on top of the building looking out over the marina with Spain to my right and Africa to my left. Pretty. Fucking. Amazing. Anyway, Hannes lets me get back to work and I finish off. A little later, he gives me a tour of the office and I meet the team a little more formally than last night, then go back to the hotel feeling pretty pleased with myself.

That night I head over to the Casino again for beers and poker (losing £130, highlight of the night running AJ into AK on a AAx board against the most aggrofish at the table for stacks...sigh) but continue drinking and talking poker with loads of the guys, before heading to a leaving party for one of the company. On the way, we stop of at Hannes' baller as fuck apartment and have some Vodkas, obv. Anyway, long story short, I meet some more people, generally make a good impression I think, and I should find out on Friday if I got it. My initial impression and read on them is that I did well, and I'm confident, but we'll see. Definitely getting some positive vibes like.

Basically the company spared no expense in showing me what Gibraltar is like and what it's like to work for them. They treated me as a colleague, not an interviewee, for the whole time and I came away flabbergasted at how smart each and everyone of them was. Like not just in poker (even though some of their employees crush anything from 400NL all the way up to 2k/4k fixed limit. No joke. Ha. Sickos!) but in business as well. I was very impressed by them, and should they make me an offer I'd snap it off.

Anyway, this is long now, wish me luck, anyway.

Building a Door...

Milton Berle said:

If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.

I’ve built my door, kitted it out with the best, shiniest knocker you’ve ever seen and now we’ll go see if I can invite opportunity to come a-knockin’.

This Thursday, I’m flying out to Gibraltar to talk to some wonderful people about how I can streamline and improve upon their trust, safety and risk mitigation procedures, enabling them to become less risk averse (the consequence of having a well defined fraud prevention policy is that you can take a few more risks, which seems like it shouldn't be true, but it is!)

If the interview goes well, I hope to be in Gibraltar full time by the end of the year, maybe even sooner.

I'm really really excited by this opportunity, coming as it has at the perfect time with all the stuff that's going on at work at the moment. Working in the gaming and betting industry has obvious appeal to me, and the nature of the work fits both with my academic and working background, so there are obvious encouraging signs there and a whole load of transferable skills, too.

Anyway, I'm going to spend a few days out there, catch up with an old friend who's lived out there for a while now and enjoy a little bit of distraction from the situation here.  It should be pretty nice trip either way, and I hope that next time I'm blogging I can tell you all some good news.

Can I use your one time? Thanks, I might need it.

In which I remember why I love the G....

£15 Turbo FO, G, Monday 13th Sept

So I played the G 'super steep, super deep' tournament on Monday night because I was bored after work. Nemesis had dropped me a text and, as usual, if he's playing, I'm playing. I get there pretty early and have some great banter with Emma Fullerton, a pal of hers who's name I always forget, Azbo, Nemesis and a couple of others.

When the seats are drawn, well, wp me, I'm in the one seat and one my table are Nemesis and Emma, as well as, and FML, Barry Smith. Brilliant. I definitely needed to be OOP to Emma (superlagggggggg, seat 3) and Ian (seat 5).

Within the first level my bluff frequency is huge, I'm playing mostly ATC. There's only a 15 minute clock, and stacking someone is always nice. Barry Smith limps UTG+1 (seat 7) and I follow (we're 7 handed) with 95cc. Folds to Nemesis OTB and he pumps it to 250 or so and we both call. I think one of the Blinds calls too.

Flop 56Thhc. Checks to Nemesis who bets 600 and is called by Barry Smith. I make it 2200 pretty quick (repping a set) and get called in both spots. Shit. I'm pretty sure Ian has a hand like 78/79/T9/etc and possibley with hearts too. I'm not that delighted by Barry's call caus he almost always has a ten. Iain bets 3200 from an 8000 stack when checked to on a 2c turn (so now I have one pair and a 9 high flush draw lol). On the flop, I checked to Iain mainly for pot control with my weak one pair hand (because he'd have raised with draws as well as real hands if I bet, and also to set up an elaborate three street bluff, which starts with checkraising repping a set on the flop. On the turn, I was planning to lead, until Barry called. Now I have to careful that he's silly enough to call off really light (like I say, the way he played the hand and his demeanour meant that he almost always has a Ten..and a Ten is pretty light given the range I'm repping..) so I check the turn and calculate that I can jam on Ian if he bets the right amount. The nice thing about Barry being in the hand is I can now use him to induce a bluffing range from Ian by checking behind.

Ian bets 3200 on the turn like I say and this is just never a value bet I don't think. With the board now extradrawy he would probably jam his value hands (8k into about 7k..), especially since Barry is in the hand and might stack off light. He knows *for sure* that I'm capable of stacking off really light to Ian too, so there's only one thing to do with his value hands here. 3200 looks like a draw. It could be a well disguised value hand, but, erm, my read was that it wasn't, shall we say. Barry sigh passes and I do the maths and jam 8k effective leaving myself about 7k behind if called. If Ian has a pair and a draw he probably has a decision here, and if he has a bare draw he just has to pass, I think. He tank passes and I show the 'bluff'.

Anyway, I now have about 24k from a 15k starting stack and I'm coasting.  Then this happens on the last hand of 25/50. Player (unknown) opens early and I threebet with KK in the cutoff to 800. I get two cold calls from moron (button) and Emma (SB) before the BB makes it 3000 to play. Original raiser passes and I just jam. Other two quickly pass before BB tanks (with about 16k behind) and talks about how he always loses with this hand, and I put him on AK obv, and then after about 5 minutes (seriously) he calls and flips QQ.

Q on the river. Just the 40k+ (1600BB+) pot lost there then. Sigh. This is not why I love the G lol.

The next hand I raise 10% of my remaining stack, someone makes it 5k (lol) and Emma jams. Thanks for the treble up opportunity with my pretty cards. I jam for 5650 and the guy who made it 5k sigh folds (lol - he passes AJ, but knowing he has three outs he now has the correct price to call off the extra because of his batshit raise....). I beat Emma's AQ with a 6 in the window for my 69s and I'm back to average.

I go on to crush and at one point 6 handed I have 90k, then I have to fold on supercoord flops that miss me and I'm on 45k (average 50k) and 4 handed when I 3bet jam over the eventual winner with K9s and he slowrolls with AQ. He had a healthy chiplead and had opened the last million pots. I miss, obv.

How does he win? He coolers the fuck out of Boris when Boris has him covered by 20k or so. Boris in SB, thinking of what he should raise to (although he hasn't announced raise yet) and the retard just jams. Boris asks to make sure he said 'all in' and then calls with KK. Retard flips 55. Flops quads. Boris makes a stand of it and gets it back to almost even, but he's unlucky again later.

Fortunately this kid has now won 2 tournaments this week (one at aspers, apparently) and will think he's a great player. He's not. Really. I'm licking my lips at the thought of all that money coming back to the poker economy.

Except, I'm not....

I'm taking a break from poker for a while. I'll defo play the £1k added first Tuesday and the NPF Champs is a cert, but other than that I prolly won't play much in October, I'm almost certainly done for September, with the exception of the until I've sorted out a new job and know what I'm doing. We'll see.

Oh, I should tell you why I love the G.....

I was chatting to Phil about why the G's new schedule, much maligned on the NPF, actually makes good business sense for them (it does...) and his enthusiasm to be better all the time was very impressive.  Good things will happen for the G, and if a couple of their games take off we'll have some big pots there pretty soon.

My Ideal MTT Table....

I've played a couple of tournaments recently, ran awesome and crushed in the one that didn't matter (the Friday £15+£15 at Circus) and ran terribad and got nowhere in the one that did (the £50 Circus Monthly FO).

I don't really want to talk about them too much, I mean there were standard spots in both and it's kinda meh. If you can't win 70%ers then you have no chance.

Additionally I played the £20 triple chance at the G on Friday and ran AK into TT on an AKx flop and then AK into QQ and KK aiprf when blinds wake up with QQ and KK? Live poker is rigged! ;) having played super awesome thus far. Meh.

This weekend saw the CMBPT roll into Teeside and as you'll probably already know, the NPF owned it, with FT finishes for bigstumpy (6th?) Rosco (4th and second FT of the tour this year!) and Mark "The Threat" Trett (who doesn't like anyone else winning a free drinks voucher at Teeside, nevermind a poker tournament) coming second for just over £10k.

A couple of people talked about a Day One table that lots of NPFers played on:

1) Dan “Not Always Light” Trett
2) Unknown
3) Khadir “I Call” Khoshawy
4) Rizgar “Borat” Qadir
5) Lee Danaher
6) Dave Collins
7) Mark “The Threat” Trett
8) Craig “Big Stumpy” Newton
9) Ross “Roscopiko” Johnson

How much of an awesome MTT table is this? Banter: check. Good players: check. Bad players: I-call, erm, I mean, check.

This got me thinking. If I could devise 'the perfect' MTT table containing solely NPFers, who would I have?

Some Criteria:

1. I'm not going to give regards to seating (basically position) and assume that the players would randomly be assigned seats at this table.

2. The table is mainly going to be based strongly on 'players whose game I respect' (of which there are many, so if you're not on the list, don't assume I don't.....) and 'people I'd have a cracking time at the table with (similarly cf above).

3. As a corollary of 2), I won't necessarily be ammmmmazzzzing value on this table. I might even be dead money most days, as it happens. As you read down the list, you'll see why.

4. Most players will be given a nickname. Some of them will be well known nicknames, others will be things I think of them.

5. I'm going to try and get a mix of styles and games. Although they'll all be excellent players, see 2).

1. Marc 'mulhuzz' Mulhern
Well, I have to be on the table, right? What's that Rounders quotation? Something about spotting the fish....

2. Steve 'know your enemy' Brennan. 
Yeah, we'll have some Bulmers please. And Brennan's hand reading skills will make me sick. He'll fold AJs UTG+1 but then raise 89s the next hand because he knows his enemy.


3. Ross 'roscoLAGo' Johnson.  
Always plays to win, not as lag as I think he is, obv, and two CMBPT final tables this year means you know he has game. Also Cpt of the latest NPF team.

4. Dan “Not Always Light” Trett
Mark has made the bigger splash in the last couple of years, but whisper it quietly, I think Dan is the better player. Not by much like. And if we both get knocked out early, there is nobody I'd rather go drink Jaegerbombs with on the rail. :D


5. Mark “The Threat/Lord Mayor of Teeside” Trett
All round gent and brilliant player. Useful to get a linecheck from, even if it is just 'check call all three streets'. Only kidding, Mark. Also calls me Mulldozer. Which I love, obv. So he's in. Oh yeah....he also owns Teeside, so in the interests of fairness, the MTT must be held in Newcastle...


6. Andy 'KQ4EVA' Blair
Andy has, unknowningly, taught me more about MTT strategy than anyone else on this list whilst I've been at his table in the past. He also knows a fuckload about the mixed games, and is very good at framing the 'mental' side of the game. If this was an STT, he'd win more often than any other player, I suspect.

7. Dave 'Jimmy Chipmunk' Stephenson
Is there anyone better at patiently waiting for a spot, even with a microstack? The total opposite of my approach to shortstack poker. Also, we're drinking red wine, always +EV.

8. Neil 'Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzz' Harvey
Depending on your definition of 'young' (I'm 24, so we'll say under 22), Neil is by some distance the best young player in Newcastle. Someday soon he's gonna win something huge like a GUPKT. Nobody will be surprised. Obviously he's also a great buffet companion.

9. George 'GeoKing Get Therrrrrrrrrre' Lawson
Very solid, very dangerous, much improved over the last year or so. Also, we'd trade a cheeky 10%, giving me more of a shot. We could have signature hand battles (the mighty 75s for George and K8ss for me!)

10. Ian 'Nemes-is in the tank' Bertram
OK, he tanks. Alot. It tilts me and he knows it, but I love playing with Ian, mainly because there's so much meta-game there and plays that to an outsider look ridiculous make perfect sense to Ian and I. Also, there should be at least one other player where I can't decide if a 5bet jam is Aces or 45s. I'll let you make your own judgment on who the other is!

I'd have a combination of Keith 'please blogggggg moaaar!' Ridley and Steve 'CGK' Wills on the mic announcing the action, too. Just because I can.

Did I miss somebody out? Who would you have on your table? Let me know in the comments if you're so inclined.

Peace, Love and Grapes,

--mulhuzz

In which I do ok....

Short update for the week.

Played 5 sessions of NL50 live for a total profit of £280.

Played two tournaments also for a £60 loss.

I should have been up about £400 today but some quality hands like this:

Q7s in a limped pot I complete in SB.

Flop KQ7hh. I checkraise 3 players, one folds, two call.  Turn is an offsuit 2. With £60+ in the middle I jam for my remaining £45ish and get called in two spots. One has a straight draw, the other a flush draw with a blocker to the straight draw, I hold for a huge pot (~£180).

 I raise to £3.50 AA UTG+1

Called in 5 spots and flop is T45dd. SB leads £8 and I check (with 3 players to act behind) planning on 3betting when the aggro MP player raises (which he will). He makes it £20.50 and I'm ready to 3bet jam when I realise that he's put about half his stack in and he prolly commits the rest on the turn anyway when I can see it blank for free. Whilst I'm running over the options, the SB calls with £100+ behind. Now I can't really jam because the SB could be planning on jamming any non-diamond turn with a set/two pair. I call and the turn is a 2. It checks round, which is weird as fuck, was pretty sure now that SB had a hand like AT/KT/all other pairs and was trying to get to showdown as cheap as possible. Since the aggro MP player checks he now defo has a flush draw.

I river a wheel with the 3. I check-call a shove (once SB folds, I wanted to see what he did, just in case he played a set weird) and get shown J6dd for a bigger straight. Sigh. I should just jam on the flop with so much in the middle. Urgh.

I get most of that back later when....

 Well, only what I'd invested in the hand when MP player from before limps early, Scotty raises right behind, one caller and I threebet to £10.50 with AQs from the BB. Scotty asks how much I have behind and the limper jams for £35. Nobody has played KK like this since the mid-nineties. This is always midpairs and I'm always flipping. I make the obvious call and river an Ace. Scotty passed Jacks. MP limper had TT.

I get coolered when...

I call a small raise OTB with 78s, flop is K88. MP limper bets threestreets, I don't raise caus the board never gets drawy and I almost always have the best hand. MP almost always has like KJ from the way he plays and he ended up with A8. Sigh. I didn't even raise the river just in case. Pfffft. Guess I lost the minimum.

Later that evening, I make a straight and get max value when...

I call a small raise in LP with 89s, flop is 467, call a minbet on the flop, turn is the nut T and I make a thin value raise on the river when the board pairs the 6. Donk had flopped the straight and I take him for £40 or so. 

 4 hands later......


I open KK in EMP. Get 5 calls. Board is J62. I raise a donk from BB. He flats. Turn a 4 and we get it in. He has 43 for a pair and a gutshot. He gets there. Sigh. GG £120 pot.

Decent, but should have been so much better. Did have mint craic with Scotty all day though.