poker marathon

Its coming up to 2pm on tuesday afternoon and i'm sat in the gutshot reflecting on an extremely long weekend of poker. The fun started on thursday night and ended on monday at 7pm, apart from that annoying thing called sleeping i was basically playing non stop. I'm gonna run through the varios sessions/tournaments in order but gonna start with some much needed good news on the online side of things. On tuesday i played my first online tournement in the new flat; a $22 rebuy on party with 250 runners. With a bit of skill and a nice run of cards i managed to take the tournement down for a healthy $3.9K. The final table was without question the weakest i have ever played either live or online, at times it was as if my opponents were just insta folding pre flop without even looking at their cards; i got away with murder and thanks to the constant stealing i could even afford to run KK into AA and JJ into KK for 2 of the biggest pots in the whole tourney and still managed to win.

Now onto the fun part; the poker marathon!! This started on thursday with event #2 of the GSOP the £100 FE, the event reached a capacity 100 and featured a number of the warwick poker greats and Ant even donated to the prizepool as well. Busted out quite early when ran 88 into QQ with only 11 big blinds in the 5th level. Wasn't to happy that the guy took so long to call with the queens especially as he was the initial raiser and was clearly never folding but technichally its not a slow roll so can't be to upset. Was good to hear that Dave Lu and Tommo split it so well done to them. Mike and Cash point arrived at the gutshot about an hour after the tourney had started so when Ant went busto soon after i did the opportunity to go back to the flat and play a cheeky cash game was to much to turn down. The game was 5p/10p and in true Reading Uni £400 was on the table. I bought in for £100 and bluffed it all off against Ant when i played the 5 3 off like a hero on a A 9 6 4 board and ran into A6, i still had outs though. Then i lost the second £100 to cash point when i had middle pair and he had a flush draw, what a cold deck, tie in this loss with a 3-2 defeat on proevo to Ant for another £50 and the 'weekend' was of to a bad start with a nice £350 invested back into the gambling community.
Ant had to work on friday so Mike, cashy and i thought we would have a productive afternoon by going to the pub. 7 pints and 15 games of killer on the local pool table later and i was down another £50. Mike is a much much better pool player than i am and for some reason i still play the bandit for money, this has to stop!! At about 8pm Ben 'big cheese' Warwick turned up for the 2nd late night cash game and the action lasted until 5am. Ended up winning £150 back thanks mainly to a full house when Ant and Mike both had a flush and the fact that big tone has no idea what he is doing when we play omaha. On a very good note the local chinese takeaway was bloody excellent and i'm sure that Jd and Lu will be happy to hear that Mr lodger will be a regular customer.
After about 6 hours of trying to sleep whilst cash point was kicking me and snoring at the same time we headed off to Luton for the APAT; £75 buy in with 300 runners over two day 1's. The drive took us 3 hours and we arrived just before the start. It was my first trip to Luton and the cardroom was excellent, shame about my cards. Despite the excellent structure and 10K starting stack i had a horrible day and will be the first to admit that i played like a retard. My reads were all wrong and i seemed to run into so many hands it was just sick. Although the standard of play was quite poor i had quite a strong table and at times i felt like the entire table could see my hole cards. Finally went bust with A9 V 55 having lost most of my stack 3 hands before with AQ V 88 all in pre with blinds at 400/800 for a 20K pot, was left with 8k. Cashy had gone busto 10 mins earlier and the cash games had just started so we jumped into the £1/£2 game to try and improve our luck. The game was a lot of fun, great banter and a lot of action. Bought in for £150 and got £120 of that all in pre with AK pre v QQ, hit an ace on the river and was off and running. Was a bit of a card rack for the most part and managed to get 2 guys who both had £100ish all in pre holding AA v KQ and Q 10!! Caspoint had a really tough decision when he raised it t0 £25 after a limp when the strddle was on, the sb called then the guy who put the straddle on (a mainiac) raised £111 more, leaving himself £100ish back. After a while of thinking cashy stuck it all in with AK and the sb called with QJ sooooted!! The maiac had 55 and obviously the QJ made a flush to scoop the main pot. Cashy got £200 back in the side but was still a big hit. Looking back at the hand i'm still unsure if i fold or push. On the push side the raiser was a semi-maniac and the AK was always gonna be at worst 50/50, you also cant expect the sb to call off his last £120 with Qj even though the guy was quite drunk and had clearly come from the blackjack table. Despite this is still feel like the right play was to fold, its such a big amount to risk with AK and even if he has 2 unders your not better than 2/1, you could have the guy dominated but with a player behind there have to be better spots, an hour or so later the same player called an all in on the turn for £120 holding 33 on a J 10 9 6 board saying that he put his opponent on AK (he had QJ). I ended up £400 mainly thanks to some big hands pre that managed to hold up, also managed to fold aces on the river when a guy re-raised me on a K K Q 8 6 board, he had KK and had decided to slow play them pre flop, thank god he did or i go busto.
We got back to the flat at 2am and decided to go straight to bed (hope that sounds as gay as it was). Ant and Mike both went to Luton for day 1B (with no luck) and Cashy and i headed off to the gutshot to sit in the £1/£2 game, When i took my seat at 8pm i did not expect to still be there at 7pm the following day but i really enjoyed the 23 hour session like the sick son of a bitch i am. Bought in for £400 and was as low as £80 and as high as £920, ended on £670 for a nice £270 profit, not sure what that is an hour but was very happy with the result as i seemed to spend most of the time getting myself out the hole. Trying hard to remeber the big hands but is a bit of a struggle if i'm honest.
So i ended the weekend up a little bit and had a lot of fun, gonna be playing a lot more online over the next weekend and hope to blog in a couple of weekends.
Bankroll:£3,000 (LET THE WAR BEGIN)!!!!!!

Quick update

London has so far been a mix of the good and the bad for me. Unfortunatley on the poker front it has been very bad indeed. The internet has still not been sorted yet and my opportunities to play online have been very limited indeed. When i have played online its been squashed into small 2-3 hour long sessions in crowded internet cafe's. My results have sucked and for some reason i've even been aware of what i'm doing wrong and not changing this stratergy (main problem is playing to fast obviously). I decided to cash $3000 out for food/drink/rent/rent boys etc and leave myself $1K to gamble with. Like the genius i am i stuck this on 2 tables of $3/$6, closed my eyes and hoped for the best; result = busto in 1 hour!! Played 2 $1200 pots and they were a lot of fun. First i got all in on a board of A Q 9 with AQ and ran face first into a total idiot with 97, 9 on the river tyvm. Next i'm all in with KK on a board of 2 4 5 10 with 2 clubs. He called my last $250 on the turn with AJ of clubs and made his flush on the river. So that was that. Think i played fine and 2 rather bad beats have left the account on a nice fat 0.
Live has been much more enjoyable, but about as profitable. Been playing the 1/2 game at the gutshot and despite making some good friends i have been running as normal . Few examples of the last session: Bought in for 200 and was up to 450 after 2 hours, had made 3 nice bluffs and managed to bust a guy for 100 with QJ V K 10 on a board of QJ8. Also won 80 with 10 9 v 10 x on a 10 6 7 9 9 board, bet on every street and the facf i had flipped 4 high the pot before after a nice 55 bluff on the end helped me get paid. At this point i was really happy with my game my reads had been right in every pot i played and i was trying to force myself to pay attention when not involved. The sad thing was this didn't last and things soon went tits up. First 5 limps in2 my bb and i check with Q 10. Flop 228 and i fire 8 into the pot of 10. 1 caller and i know he has an 8 so when the turn comes an ace i bet 16. He thinks for 30 secs then calls. The river makes 3 clubs on board but is still a bit of a blank 4. I know he is a bad player but i also know he has an 8 so i bet 40 and he calls quick with 86. My read was spot on but the bet was still a huge mistake cause the guy had been at the table for an hour and i knew he was a calling station who didn't know when to fold. This was only a small dent but it seemed to mark a change in my night. Next up was a huge hand, long story short action all over the place and i had to call 150 to win 520 total with A9 of diamonds on a board of K J 10 with 2 diamonds. Was up against KJ and Q5 of d's and misses obviously. Got the rest in with 56 of clubs on a 774 board with 2 clubs, having raised in early i put my opponent on a big pair; he had 8 10 of clubs arghhhhhh. So went bust again at the gutshot and chose not to rebuy. Intresting fact on the night was i had 11 pairs between 2's and 9's made a set 0 times. Would have made a set with 77 if i had called 45 pre flop but my opponnent had 200 total so would have been a bad call; he made a set of kings on the flop anyway LOL!!!!!!!!
Going home next weekend can't wait!!