Argh - Foiled By Them Pesky Bonuses

Well, I feel a bit stupid.

UltimateBet won’t let me withdraw until I play 2500 raked hands, and I’ve only played 1400.  I am poor at cash game play, as I revert to tournament play too easily.

As an example, NL10 6 max table, a tilty aggressive player(TAP) raises UTG for $0.80, gets a call, and I re-raise to $2 from the button with AQo.  TAP has previously shown he will go all-in with A9o, and just rebought with $10 so I feel I have a good expectation I have the strongest hand if he shoves (I wouldn’t normally btw, depends on villains MO), except the second player who called from the CO worries me. 

Call. Call.

Pot is now $6.30, and flop comes 4 4 8 rainbow, bad flop for A Q, but as long as neither player has a pair, I may well still be strongest.  TAP checks, the CO checks, so I take a free card before evaluating, in retrospect I should have continuation bet it as it’s a decent flop for a miss.  Turn is another 8 offering a backdoor flush draw to anyone with two clubs.  Not me.

UTG goes all-in for $8.31 or so.  Now let me explain before I expose this horrible play…. As far as I can see, the 8 is a blank.  With such a decent pot.  This is absolutely typical for the TAP villain, does he have a pair? A 8 is a possibility, and I am discounting pairs… why? Because the villains MO is to shove them hard preflop and gamble.  His play does not fit his method of playing pairs.  So I am down to A 8, and maybe a very tilted A 4, or a complete airball semi-bluff on the flush draw.  2 hands vs a pot he will be desperate to win to break even on his original bust .. I really figure it for a bluff.

CO folds and I call with 2 pair and A kicker, and he shows down A6 for a split pot.

My problem is.. I think it was a stupid call.. but for the reasons made above, I made it.. but calling $8.31 into a $14.61 pot, I need to be 55% certain of winning or splitting the pot.. and I confess, it was probably 50%/50%.  He gave me a lot of verbal for the call, but I also felt he shoved OOP wasn’t genius either.

I hate it when I don’t know if I made the right decision, but I have nasty suspicions I'm still a total donkey.

Moving to PartyPoker

Finally, after having my first withdrawal request declined (not enough raked hands to withdraw the $50 I got for free when I registered), I withdrew $110 from UltimateBet to deposit on PartyPoker.

I’m looking forward to playing on a more popular site, with plenty of little fishies!  I played 5 MTT’s this weekend.  I made a decent cash in a standard $3 MTT, and utterly thrashed a $2 500 dollar guarantee with huge 504 entries.  I came in 3^rd for $81, missing out on the top spot when my rivered broadway ran into the big stacks flush.

It wasn’t a bad beat, it was a mistake, plain and simple, I stacked off without holding the nuts, and provided decent enough odds for him to draw to the flush.  Annoyed at first, but I did suck out on the same guy on the river earlier in the tournament which would have ended my run at $8, so really, hats off to Karma, I cashed well, and gave the chip leader a massive run to win.  As it was 1:30am my concentration had dropped off.  I would have called, not re-raised all-in.. mistake born of an over eagerness to take the chip lead.

Nice feeling to withdraw a huge chunk, and then win most of it again.  This win is going into the “poker” cash isa, just in case something horrible happens on PartyPoker and I lose it all.  I think its unlikely, but I found that UB players played differently to Full Tilt players.  I know that shouldn’t be the case, but it really feels like it, so there may be some adjustment needed.

As always I’m going to stick to my very tight bankroll conditions, which.. works out okay if I stick to it.  Although I find it easier to do so when there is less on the account.  Sometimes I get over excited when I get too high.  Each time I hit the $200 mark on UB, I’ve blown up to $140-$150.  I’ve rebuilt to $200 twice now, and this latest win puts me at $240 as a total bankroll.  Hardly tons of money, but as I started with $50, I’m happy with this as it means I am effectively a profitable poker player, which is more than 90% of online poker players can claim.

Checking my stats on SnG’s compared to MTT’s thou, I was shocked to see I am down $18 in total.  A lot of this is to do with my aforementioned blowups, and playing HU SnG, where I KNOW I’ve lost a few more than I’ve won.  Some of it was stupidity, some of it was variance.  

Several times I was unable to close the deal with 2700 chips against 300, for them to double up twice and go on to win.  Obviously something is lacking in my technique against a shortstack.  

Obviously I need to pay more attention to SnG’s, and I think I know what the problem is.  I’m typically quite aggressive around bubble time in a MTT, and I tend to do the same in SnG’s, but I have observed that I am going out on the bubble in SnG’s far too often, so I am going to have to examine these spots too, maybe I should be playing more cautiously than I would in a MTT.  Since its easier to join another SnG, its probable that they aren’t tightening up as much as they do in a MTT.

I am determined to get my SnG profits back in the black as MTT’s and supposedly SnG’s are my speciality, so I was shocked that it was a losing game for me.  I refuse to let THAT stand. 

I will put some time into my cash game as well, but that is taking a back seat until I am consistant at both MTT’s AND SnG’s, so that I am freerolling experience in cash games (eg, win money in tourneys to play and probably lose in cash). 

WooHoo! I'm Pro Now!

Okay, I’m not pro now.

But I won my first HORSE tournament recently.

I had previously won a play money Eight Game mix tournament, but that just doesn’t count, no mooolah.

But a $1 HORSE tourney, and I absolutely rocked it, despite dropping to 4k on the final table, against 17k and 30k.  I was helped along mid tournament by a huge hand where I rivered a full house to beat a straight and a flush.. without that hand I would have been struggling a little in chips.. but hey, you need some luck to win these things, and when you have trips, 9 outs to a full house on the river isn’t appalling.. priced in all the way baby (also the straight and flush were both well hidden with the flush rivered for them).

This was a massive boost to my confidence, as I’ve always aimed to be a well rounded player.  I still have a ton to learn, especially in Stud Hi/Lo, but I know now that I can hold my own at low limits.  

Whilst I’m sure higher limit players will scoff as its only $1, the players in HORSE tourneys are usually very much like me, and tend to be FAR superior to the $1 No Limit Hold’em “donks”.

I’m pleased, because this win represents confirmation that I am improving, not just in hold’em but in all forms of limit games.