Monday 31 January 2011

In which I ship one....

Gala Monthly £100 Deepstack Report

On the last Saturday of each month, the Gala here plays host to a £100+£10 deepstack event (30 minute levels with ALL the levels, 10k starting stack) which is far and away the best structured game in Gib. I hadn't been able to play this so far so I was really excited when I had a Saturday off, and even nursing a slight hangover, I made my way to the casino for the 4pm start.

Joining me there were 6 or 7 PokerStrategists from 29 runners in total, but luckily for me, my table draw was beyond sweet. On my table, almost everyone was a huge Spanish fish, except for Aurelien, one of our French Community Managers who had position on me, and an English guy called Tony who is well known for being a laggro type, but plays pretty decent. He also has position on me (I'm in seat 1, he's in 2 and Aure is in 3) so I know that I'm going to have to play a little nittier than I normally would in these structures in the early levels.

Table is playing passively and when I open TT after a limp I just pick up the blinds and carry on. Nothing much happens for a bit until I own Aure in a decent size pot by inducing a bluff on the river with 'weak' play on the turn. He was shocked when I Hellmuth called him on TxxAx with JT but I think it was pretty standard.

Early levels are going fine, and even though I flat a raise with 99 from SB to induce squeeze from Tony (laggro) I then find a fold when I pick up a tell that he has a value hand and not a squeezing hand and the original raiser also calls.

Then some blah blah about blah blah and making a nice value bet with the rivered nuts with AKo on a 4 heart board and some more blah blah about stealing a few pots in position and I find myself with about 18k by the first break.

After the first break the Azbo costs me a bit my refusing to suckout on the Kings of Mr Aggro in a 4bet preflop pot (I c/call, c/call, check/check) with my one pair hand on a low board assuming he has 2 broadways. I win it all back an orbit later when I check behind for complete deception with turned top-top and get a pot sized bet AND a pot sized raise on the river (when I improve to top 2!) from the BB with AK > AT on XXXAhh board.

Anyway, at this point, Coen gets moved to my table. He's a PS.com staffer and a solid player and is opening everypot and threebetting my opens and all sorts. I'm somehow stuck around 15k and nothing is happening. There's another guy who is opening every pot too (young English kid) so when he opens I decide 42o is good enough to 3bet the last hand before the break and I show the 2 when he folds. He's pretty furious with me, convincing himself that I'm value 3betting 22 or A2 and calling me a terrible player and such. Tilting people is quite nice.

First hand after the break I 3bet ship AQ over Coen's KQ but he folds and I'm back to about 18k again. Obviously I can't win every flip though and lose 88 < KT shortly thereafter vs a shorty and back to 13k. Fucking hell man.

Interesting Hand One:
Remember the kid from before? The one who called me a terrible player? Folds to him in SB and at 300/600/100 he makes it 2600. I flat with AA in BB and flop comes JTx. He insta pot bets and I jam for the rest (about 14k total or so) and he absolutely Hellmuth's me with J2 for top pair, shit kicker. I wrap it up on the turn with a lovely Ace.

I then take some more from him by simply calling down with K9dd on 9875Jsss and he gives me a 'how could you call' kinda look but I was confident he had utter air.

He then gives me the rest of his chips on the FT bubble (only 4 places paid) when he picks the wrong time to 3bet shove because I wake up with AA behind him.


Anyway, on to the final table, I have about 41k and average is 30k but blinds still like 400/800/100 I guess, so not too bad at all. Couple of shorties though and one guy just basically gifts Coen 90k by stacking off ultralight on KXX when it was clear Coen had AA.

Again, Coen is opening every pot and he opens to 2600. I 3bet AKs to 6800 and a shortstack with 7000 shoves for 200 more. Coen then goes immediately and makes it 21k. I sigh, announce, you're insane sir, this is always Aces and fold face up. Feel sorry for shorty as he has KK and I've just shown him I passed one of his outs. Actually this is normally a snapfold for me as Coen's 4bet range against my stack there isn't balanced at all. What made me ask if he's insane was that *right before* the final table we were talking about how a cold 4 bet that isn't a shove is always so much more polarised to AA than a 4bet isoshove. Admittedly Coen's 4bet here wasn't cold, but he'd been opening so many pots it might as well have been! :D Basically, I thought he could be levelling me with like TT or AQ.

Interesting Hand Two:

With a stack now at 18k, Coen opens again and I threebet TT to about 6k, leaving myself 12k behind. I'm never folding to a shove, but somehow I get two flat calls (and then Coen passes!) and I shove a JTx board and pick it up. 

What's your line here? Are you threebetting small or just jamming? Can you every 3bet fold?

 Let me know in the comments! :)

Anyway, from there on out it's pretty standard, I win a flip 55 > AK vs Coen for a 65k pot and then another couple of pots from the shorties who are folding too often before I raise button, BB shoves, it's 15k more into 30k pot, easy call. He has AQ, oh well, found the top of his range, oh hai, that's a K in the window and we're three handed.

After playing a while, there's a complete fish with 105k, and Coen and I have 85k with blinds at 1000/2000/200. We both have a huge edge on the fish but are more or less neutral EV against each other so I decide I don't want to flip for £400 (difference between 3rd and 2nd) with Coen, and I defo don't want him getting the fish's chips before me, so we split for £800 a piece plus £100 more to fish because 'he had more chips' -- actually a pretty generous deal, I think.

Sunday 9 January 2011

In which I take baby steps...

Goal One: Poker

So I've been more relaxed about poker recently and had a winning cash session (some £200 or so) at the cash tables recently and also our new MTT study group (Project: Ship the Majors) made $120 playing a small spread of tournaments today, including the Sunday Warm Up where we cashed for $500 or so. Crucial hand was AKss vs JJ on JXXAss board. Oh well, that's a set up obviously.

I'm actually enjoying poker again so far, but the trick is not to play too regularly, I think.
Goal Two: Lifestyle

I've also made some baby steps with regards to health. I'm drinking far more water and eating more healthily than I did last year and I'm not missing it. I also played Rugby for the first time in a couple of years today which was great fun. Really enjoyed the crack and the banter and I'm going to be training 4 hours a week, in addition to games in the Spanish National League. Obviously this will allow me to get fit and also with....

Goal Six: Travel

Really hungover on Saturday (weekends don't count, right!) I woke up at a friend's house and we headed to Jerez in Spain. It's about an hour and a half away by car and we left the glorious sunshine in Gib to be greeted by horrendous rain. Nice lives us imo. Still, Jerez is famous for Sherry (Jerez in Arabic sounds a lot like Sherry and obviously the moors owned southern Spain at one point...) so we toured the biggest Sherry factory, had some Tapas and tasting before heading home. A very pleasant afternoon indeed and we rounded off the evening back in Gib with some Thai food.

2011 already has 2 roadtrips completed (Malaga and Jerez), so Goal 6 is looking good! 

Goal Four: Languages

I'm speaking German about 60% of my day which is nice and I don't speak English unless I have to. Coupled with a studious approach to (re)learning the finer points of grammar, I feel my German is steadily improving again. I've also signed up for Spanish courses so that I feel comfortable enough to get by in Spain. I've taken some baby steps by ordering food and drink in Spanish and speaking Spanish at the supermarkets and so.

It's too early to comment on my other goals, but I'm in a good place right now. Now if only I could get my bank card back....(machine ate it, sigh).

I'll also be following Farmer Dave and Sensh's weight loss threads over at the NPF with interest.

Let's pay it forward!

Peace,

--Huzz



Sunday 2 January 2011

In which I recap, and set some goals.

Small Recap of 2010

Basically, 2010 was an interesting year from me. On the poker front, I scooped my first big live score and achieved my goal of making £2500 profit from poker over the year.

2010 was also a challenging year from a 'real life' perspective, in which I was forced to take a real hard look at my life and why I had lost some momentum with my career and, well, everything. As a result, I built a door, visited Gibraltar, and finally ended up working here.

As I've bragged about before, it's pretty wonderful out here and I feel really stretched and challenged in my new role, in ways that I haven't been stretched in quite some time. In other words, I'm out of first gear and whilst I'm not in fifth yet (there's so much more I can do, professionally and personally, but I'm really glad to have the opportunity to learn, develop and grow), I feel I'm getting there, step by step. I can't deny there have been times when I've been a little homesick, especially this Christmas which was the first time I've ever been away from my family for the holidays, but fortunately some colleagues were kind enough to invite me for a particularly multi-cultural Christmas dinner and it was so nice to have their support. Admittedly, I'd never spent Christmas with a dutch guy, polish girl and more romanians and germans than you can shake a stick at, but it was actually amazing. I recommend Romanian food too, it's right on the money.

I'm not really one for reminiscing and such, suffice it to say 2010 was awesome, notably in how quickly new friends were added to old friends (who i miss dearly) and how much I grew as a person. I know that 2011 will be better. I am determined, and here's how:

Goals for 2011:

1. Don't give a shit about poker. I work with it all day everyday and it's getting to the point where I'm not enjoying playing. Stop taking it too seriously and just enjoy myself. Don't think about profit and loss, odds and outs and all that kind of thing. Just enjoy it for the rush and the buzz that it is. (Only poker goal)

2. Take better care of myself. That involves eating right and playing more sport, start playing rugby again and just generally not being such a lazy fuck. It also involves not drinking through the week. Fortunately, today isn't a weekday, so I'm off into Spain for tapas and live music.

3. Develop professionally. Continue to learn and grow by taking the advice of those around me. I happen to work in a company of rockstars, and I can make better use of their experience. I have a certain set of professional goals but this blog isn't the appropriate place for them.

4. Languages: speak more German, get back to studying Dutch and get my French back to the level it was when I was 18. There are 28 different nationalities in our company, so I'll always find a practice partner. On top of all that, learn Spanish. And double quick. I don't want to live in Gibraltar forever, and Andalucia is so fucking beautiful it's insane. I have to live there. And that involves speaking Spanish. You all know me. I won't be 'that guy' in Spain that has to talk English all the time. I won't do it.

5. Be more relaxed, socially. Sometimes I'm a bit of a social retard because my brain is working overtime to analyse situations. Fuck that, just chill out, dickhead. Stop sweating the small stuff and just relax.

6. Come back to England at least once, but also take a holiday to somewhere I've never been. Morocco is on the cards. As is Tunisia.
7. Invite as many people as possible to come visit here during the summer. It's gonna be insane, and if you're reading this, you're invited.

I hope you all had awesome holidays and I wish you the best for 2011.

Gl, and not just at the tables,

--Huzz