Im forever blowing bubbles!

Been a while since my last update due to the site going down and plenty of Christmas drinking! I'll start by saying, its not been a great period for my poker. My sharkscope graph is very up and down so I think its time to review my stats and my play to see how I can turn it round.

Just lately I seem to be going out on the bubble quite a bit and I seem to have hit a run of sick beats as well. Mix in a bit of tilt play and I have managed to half my stack. Omaha Hi/Lo is not going well at all so Im sticking with Holdem for the time being. I have been playing a lot of 5 seaters and unless you win these you can hardly make a profit so I am going to play more of the 10/20 seaters. I won my first 20 seater which was nice and I prefer being able to play more patient poker and when I do have a hand its easier to play it stronger with more opponents at the table.

I keep getting bad beats at crucial stages which is becoming increasingly frustrating. I do question some peoples play! Examples of this are things like pushing all in with AK being called by ace rag and them hitting the rag. I even had pocket Aces called by 9 6 off suit pre flop and they hit the straight of course. 76 suited beating my pocket kings, again this was all in pre flop. And all in pre flop with QQ v AJ and them hitting a flush. This is just a few examples of a whole catalogue recently.

I seem to be losing the 50/50s more often than winning, and when i do make positional moves when the blinds are big I always run in to aces. Im begnning to question my game now, at times I have been loose but most of the time Im playing tight and getting bad luck. Grrrrrr!!

Lets see if 2009 can bring me fresh hope! At the moment Im not in the best of moods so going to call it a day!

Current balance: €21.70

A good weekend!

Its been a good weekend for the challenge and I now have a tidy bank roll behind me. I have been mixing it up between €2 Omaha Hi/Lo and NL Holdem 5 and 10 seaters and played one €1 multi table. The standard of play at these stakes is very poor and especially at the weekend when I guess people are drinking. So Im just playing tight ABC poker and its working.

I have still had my fair share of sick bad beats which is very annoying, including 3 runner runner bad beats. I had a run of 4 bubbles in a row with some really bad luck and in the past I would have gone in to tilt mode and played higher stake games but because Im now writing all my results and this blog I seem to be a lot more disciplined with my play which Im very happy with.

I find you get a lot more bad beats in NL holdem so playing the Omaha has been good. Although I made one massive rookie error with 2 pair on the flop and what i though was the nut lo but turned out not to be. The one multi tournament I played I finished 5th out of 226 entrants which was sweet, and collected €14.69 for that. I played very tight all the way through which seemed to work although I got short stacked on the final table with ever increasing blinds and a string of rubbish cards.

The plan is to continue at these stakes for the moment and Im now almost playing within 5% of my bank roll. The next target is €66 and I can step up to the €3 games. Im going to continue with the strategy of playing tight and continue to grind out profit hopefully. I realise this is not the funnist blog in the world so i apologise! I will try and make it more funny next time with some hand history stuff as well. But Im feeling very hungover to write anything more, so Im going to leave it there for tonight.

Current balance: €41.16

And we're off!

Yesterdays words of wisdom must have inspired me! I sat down to play the first of 3 free rolls (halfway through an episode of spooks on my sky + and dinner already eaten) and I was in the zone. I played a steady game through out. 2 hours later and I was on the final table. My hands held up for a change and I ended up heads up with the chip lead. I lost a few chips in a 50/50 and it was about even. I raised with AK and got re-raised all in. I thought about folding but decided to call with the delightment of seeing him turn over King 4. What was he doing!!?? All that time spent and he pushed with that! My excitement didnt last long, a 4 on the flop and a 4 on the river reminded me how bent this game is at times!! But I still finished 2nd out of 109 and netted a massive €3.90. It may not sound like much, but finally I had got there, enough money to play buy in games!

I was a tad nervous because i knew this stack would only buy me in to 2 of the cheapest sit n go's. I decided to start with some Omaha hi/lo as I find you get less bad beats. I won this quite easily and at last I felt the challenge had started. I then got a couple of bad beats in the next 2 omaha games with people not understanding the percentages hitting flushes on the river. I then played a 10 seater holdem match and finished 2nd, then didnt do to well in the next 2 and finished by winning a 5 seater. I also played the 2 other freerolls, but went out early in both pushing with pocket 8's and Ace 10 suited (which of course got beat by 10 10 - Ironic that looking back at past results). Im still gonna play the freerolls at the moment as if i do cash again it will only add to the bankroll.

So the challenge has started and I have a bankroll. Although I have to play very tight because Im only 5 bad beats away from losing it all. Until Im playing within 5% of my stack I wont feel comfortable. I want to carry on as I feel in the zone, but Im going to take my winnings and get a good night sleep! Lets hope the weekend treats me well and we start to see some good old grinding and that bankroll increase! Oh and I still haven't finished that episode of spooks, I may watch it now with a beer to celebrate the start of the challenge!

Current balance: €11.57

Freeroll frustration

I apologise to the thousands of readers out there for my lack of an update. Its been a very slow start so I haven't felt the need to update this. Due to the extreme length freerolls take I dont have time to play as many as I would like, so the sooner I win a half decent cash and build my bank roll the better.

I have so far played 24 freerolls and tried many different methods. I have played extremely tight but this often leads to still getting bad beats and you can soon get blinded out. I have tried the all in for the first couple hands to try and get a decent starter stack. This does work but obviously not every time. And I have also tried mixing it up. The most frustrating thing is when you play for over 2 hours and then go out to a sick beat or just not hit any cards for ages and going out around the bubble. More often than not I have got tired and not played as well as I can. But I'm staying optimistic, I will achieve this. I have so far only cashed once and that was for a massive 87 cents!!! But its a start, just not enough to play any type of buy in game, so its freerolls for a while longer yet!

I have made notes on every game I have played so I shall share a few of my thoughts on free rolls and the highs and lows I have been through so far:

• It takes between 2 and 3 hours to get to the end of a freeroll and even if you win you dont win much! I should get a part time job at maccy d's! That would pay far more!
• It seems a lot of people sign up but then dont play. Quite often there are only a couple of you at the table playing early on. I even had one time when I was the only person playing so that was easy picking up the blinds every time. I just wish that the auto fold would be a bit quicker than it is.
• Make sure you watch carefully all the time. Once I folded when the only people to act were sitting out. These were blinds I could have picked up for free! Stupid play!!
• Get used to pushing with a stronger hand like AK and getting called by 3 8 and your opponnent hitting a 3 on the river. In fact get used to pushing with Aces pre flop and losing. I was all in pre flop with aces and got called by a king 6, of course he hit a flush!
• DONT ever try to bluff!
• The time of freerolls cuts right in to the evening. As I dont have a laptop, running up and downstairs while cooking dinner is a right pain!
• Dont ever turn your back for a second! I had a suited ace and called pre flop. I was tidying my room at the same time and when I turned round I realised I had been re-raised only 3 times the bet. I ran back over but it folded just as i got there. Of course my flush hits on the flop, 3 people end up all in and I miss out on a quadruple up!
• There is always one knob who calls all ins everytime but gets lucky everytime. So you wait for a premium hand to sting him with and he still manages to sick beat your pocket kongs!
• Pocket 10's always lose to Ace 10
• 'Gay' seems to be my most used word in my notes. I dunno why, I have nothing against gays. But it seems to summarise so many of my games and the bad luck I get. Although I'm not sure how this term can be referenced to these situations? If anything the only gay thing would be pocket Kings or pocket jacks. Pocket queens could be deemed as gay but i prefer lesbians.

.........Anyway, I hope you are feeling and sharing my pain! I will keep going, I will stay strong and I will crack the freerolls and get some money in the bankroll! Wish me luck, and stay tuned for my next update!!

Current balance: €0.87