Well I suppose it's been a while since I have written a
completely happy blog post. Well lots of good things have happened in the last
couple of weeks so I thought it was only right that after hearing a lot of my
moans that I share various bits of good news!
New Pro Alert!
Undoubtedly the best recent news was announced at the start
of PKR live. In case you missed it (where have you been?) PKR have announced a
new pro, who is none other than Eleanor 'Elz442' Gudger. I found out a few days
before the announcement and of course I was really pleased for Elz and we had a
celebratory drink (or two!). Since the announcement several people have asked
me if I am jealous or otherwise tried to belittle me due to the fact that my
partner is now a sponsored pro whereas I am not. I found these remarks
laughable, I am not really the jealous type but even if I was I can't think of
anyone who deserves to be a PKR Pro more then Elz, that includes myself. If PKR has
asked me to chose whether I or Elz should be their next pro then I would have
said Elz without a moment's hesitation. Congratulations and the very best of
luck Eleanor!
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| Elz442 - The latest addition to the PKR Pro Team! |
Foxes Achieve Promotion
While I was on holiday in Malta, Leicester City
mathematically confirmed promotion back to the English Premier League after a
10 year absence. It's been fully deserved with a hungry young squad playing
consistently well this year, hopefully we will continue to do so for the next 6
games and wrap up the Championship title (although as I write this we are
losing 2-0 to Brighton!). Hopefully we will make a good fight of life in the
EPL and survive our first season and stay there for years to come, although I
do enjoy life in the Championship as it is such a competitive and unpredictable
league, the EPL is where the top clubs are so naturally I want to see Leicester
play the big clubs week in week out. Congratulations to all at Leicester,
including the manager, players, other staff, the owner and the loyal fans,
looking forward to next season already!
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| Next seasons fixtures are released on 18th June, looking forward to it already! |
PKR Live
The last weekend in March saw another instalment of PKR Live
at Aspers in Stratford. This time it was a $500 buyin mix max event, which
meant it was 9 handed on day 1, 6 handed on day 2 and the last 16 players would
play HU on day 3 until there was a victor. Starting stack was 20,000 chips with
40 minute levels. I was looking forward to this event as I felt my shorthanded
and HU play would give me an edge against the general field if I could get
deep.
Day 1 started well enough, I didn't recognise anyone on my
starting table (one guy was familiar but I couldn't put a name to his face). I
managed to win a number of small / medium pots early on and I increased my stack
to 28k. We reached the 3rd level when an opponent (with about 27k) raised from
mid position to 350 (at 75/150) and the cut-off (about 19k) called. I had 46ss
in the SB and called, everyone else had folded. The flop fanned out Js5d3d to
give me the open ended straight draw with a backdoor flush draw. I checked, the
original raiser bet 450 and the cut-off called, and I followed suit, the turn
was the Ks giving me the flush draw. I checked again and the original raiser
bet 850 and again was met with two calls. The river was the 8s meaning I had
hit my flush, at this point I fell the cut-off was unlikely to call another bet
nor would he bluff if he had a busted diamond draw. I also couldn't be sure that the original
raiser would fire again, I think he would check most of his range except for
sets and maybe KJ given that there were two players calling him down. As such I
decide to lead out for 2,100 as I felt this would get called most of the time
as it would look like a busted flush draw, indeed the original raiser called
and the cut-off folded and I scooped the pot. Although I won the hand I think I
made a mistake as I should have bet 3,000 to 3,500 as this wouldn't have
changed the chance of me being called much and so I lost around 1k of value.
This highlights an important lesson to review all your hands and not just the
ones you lose as often you can win a hand but still have made a mistake
somewhere.
I stayed at that table for a while and steadily chipped up
to 45k but sadly the table broke and this left me at a much tougher table with
a few PKR players who I knew including LockeLamora, zOMGhangover and
Marlinmann. I ended the day with 40,200 which was a bit of a disappointment given
my start but it left me with 25bb to start day 2 and given I hadn't had any big
starting hands after the first 3 levels (nothing better than AJo and 88) I
couldn't complain too much. After all I had never made a day 2 of a PKR Live
before.
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| Off to a great start |
Day was 6 handed and there were 73 players left with 24
paid, my table was relatively passive for 6 max and I got a number of walks which suited
me as I was really card dead but I kept chipping away but still in need of a big
pot to get above average. PKR Pro Scott Shelley moved to my table and I soon
found a spot to 3 bet jam over his button open to which he folded. I lost a
couple of smaller pots after this while trying to steal but soon after I got
involved in my first all-in of the tournament, I 3 bet shoved AJo over Scott's
open and this time he called with KJ, I flopped the Ace to look safe but the
turn brought a King which left me needed to fade another King on the turn,
which I managed to do to double up. I tried to keep active but was really
struggling due to getting a large amount of junk. I got a table move with about
31 players left and expected the pace to slow down however the bust-outs kept
on coming and we soon got into the money where I had a healthy but not great
stack. Eleanor
moved to my table and after a while I 3 bet shoved 99 over her open, she called
with KJ and I somehow won a flip against her to double up. Soon after we had
the last bust-out of the day which meant there was 16 of us left so I won a 30k pot on the last hand to bag up
136,00 for the final day, again I was largely pleased with my play throughout
given I had been involved in only 2 all in showdowns throughout the tournament
and the biggest pair I had seen on day 2 was JJ.
Day 3 saw me play a heads up match against Jake, who I had
played with towards the end of day 1. He had played aggressive and had floated
out of position with 63o on a 999 flop and hit his 3 on the river to beat 22.
This meant I had to be prepared to get it in light if I thought he was going to
take the same aggressive lines heads up but I always thought he might be more
cautious as he knew I had seen his play and we were quite shallow. As I only had 22.5bb and he had 27.5bb
there wasn't much room for play although the blinds were not increasing during
each HU round. I actually started well enough, and had a slight chip lead until
Jake hit a straight on the river of a QJxx8 board with T9 and he shoved the
river which meant I had to fold my top pair and that gave him a 2-1 chip
advantage. I shoved a number of hands to try and get back in it but the first
genuine hand I found in the match was KQs which lost to Jake's A8o. I was a
little disappointed not to make it through but shallow HU matches which are
even in ability are always going to be decided by luck. Jake had played well so
I had no grudges at him getting through. Whichever of us got through would have
to play Danshreddies HU starting with a 2-1 deficit so even if I made it
through to the last 8 it would have been very difficult to get past Dan as
he is a very good player who eventually finished 2nd and was unlucky not to win
the whole thing. I finished equal ninth for $1,602 which I was happy enough
with.
I jumped into the £35 triple shootout, I love shootout
tournaments and I made it to the final round and ITM in fairly straight forward
fashion. The standard was terrible as most players didn't understand correct
shootout play and I was stealing at every opportunity. The blinds were going up
fast and with 7 left on the final table I shoved AQ with 12bb stack from the
button. The small blind asks the dealer for a count and eventually called with
his 12bb stack and tabled AK, his hand held and I was very annoyed at his slow roll. I
was left with exactly 1 ante but as is the way of tournament poker I somehow
spun that up to be chip-leader with 4 left (due to a lot of luck and getting a
lot of incorrect folds from my opponents). 4 handed I lost 77 to 77 when my
opponent hit a 4 flush to leave me back down to 3bb which I promptly shoved
with 24o in the SB, the BB called with A5o but I hit a 2 to double up. Soon
after we were all even in stacks and agreed to do a 4 way chop. I agreed to do
a chop as the stacks were shallow, the blinds fast and my image by this point
meant I was going to struggle to keep stealing blinds so my edge was small. I
wanted to keep it friendly and everyone got £415 which would cover a chunk of
their expenses for the weekend.
I went and railed Dan who was HU with Jeff Kimber for the
title, which turned out to be a marathon match but sadly Dan lost a couple of
flips but did the PKR fans proud. Well played to Jeff also who kept his cool
and played a very good game despite most the rail cheering for Dan. I think the
PKR Mixed Max was a good format that needed a couple of tweaks to stop the HU
games being a lottery early on and then marathons in the later rounds. Staring the blinds a bit lower at the begining of each round but having them go up every 30 minutes would have been ideal IMO. The next
PKR Live is in Cannes sometime in October, I don't know if I will make this due
to work commitments in early October but I will be there if I can.
This weekend I will be playing at the local Grosvenor Casino
in Leicester, where there is a 25/25 event which has a £220 buyin and £25k GTD
prize-pool. Hopefully I can keep up the recent form and get a good cash on home
soil :)
P.S. Leicester lost 4-1, but at least they confirmed promotion before getting slaughtered!
