When I really should have folded...

For a change of scenery, I've opened an account on Party Poker. Iggy should get some commission. Played two single table SNGs, placed second both times. I did get particularly lucky on one hand, and I really upset the guy on the other end of the bad beat, but, when your name is Call Me Please, what do you expect?

I was dealt JKd in late position, blinds were 40/80, Seat 4 is in big blind, UTG folds, seat 7 calls, seat 8 folds, 9 raises to 85, 10 folds, then I raise to 130. Seats 2 & 3 calls, 7 folds, 9 calls.

Flop is Ad 4s 9h. I test the water with a raise of 150, and get two callers. Turn is Qd. It's checked to me. Pause. I need 10d for a royal flush, any diamond for a flush, any 10 for a straight. Do I go on? I raise 200. One folds, then a raise of over 600. I put him on a pair of aces. All I've got is ace high with king kicker. I should fold. What the hell, I've never had a royal flush, so go for it. The river is..... Ts. No royal flush, but an ace high straight isn't too bad at this point. I'm sure I've got the best hand. I go all in. The other guy can't believe I've called his last raise with just a draw, and so probably puts me on a pair. He calls. And shows Q9c, for two pair, I show my straight, and he starts to rant. I double up, he's left with a stack of 40, and goes out two hands later. Not a happy guy.

So, after two SNGs, two second places, and I'm 40% up on my initial deposit. It can't possibly last. And why second? Why didn't I go on to win? Because I'm impatient. I can't be doing with all the fencing involved in heads-up play. In the first match, I ended up all in with a pair of jacks and a flop of 2 3 K, and lost to a pair of kings, second match I really ran out of patience, went all in with A6 and ran into pocket aces. Maybe when I've got more time, I'll hold out for the win.

Bursting the Bubble

I was the bubble boy in a 5 table SNG yesterday. I'd played solid throughout, was 4th in chips on the final table, and was dealt AKs. I went all in, the other guy turned over AQo, and the flop was 2h Ah Qd. Shit! but still a chance of the flush or a King. Everything crossed. Turn is 3c, oh well, there goes the flush; river is Jh, So my pair of aces goes down to Aces and Queens. Out in 8th place. I should have been more patient, and waited for someone else to bust out first, so at least I would get my money back, but couldn't resist Big Slick!

?*&£$ Ace King again!

Played a freeroll Limit Hold'em tournament on Pokerstars. Twice I had KQo, twice I flopped a set of kings, twice I lost to AK.

Croatia see yellow, not red

Looks like English referee Graham Poll will be heading home early. He's obviously a cricket fan, who feels Australia need extra handicaps. It seems his rules are that its two yellow cards for a sending off for Australia, but it takes three yellows for sending off if you're playing against them!

Actually I'm quite pleased to see Australia get through to the next round. I thought they played really well against Brazil, and were definitely the better team in the first half. Brazil, on the other hand, have been disapointing throughout. Whilst they beat Japan by a margin yesterday, they once again played poorly, and really don't deserve to win the World Cup on present form. Mind you, neither do England. Both teams need to buck their ideas up for ther knockout stage.

Ubuntu Dapper Wireless Network

I have recently upgraded my home PC from Ubuntu Breezy to Dapper. To make sure everything went smoothly, I did a completely clean install - reformatted the hard disk and started from scratch. Since then I have had a nightmare with my wireless network card. Its a Linksys 54g usb card. It worked perfectly under Breezy using Ndiswrapper. Dapper is a different story.

First of all, the networking utility told me I had a wireless card on eth1, but nothing was working. Looked in the device manager, and checked the loaded modules, and found it was trying to use a prism54 driver. Quick check on the forums (on a different computer obviously) and found I needed to remove this, and then use ndiswrapper. Ok, rmmodded the appropriate drivers, set up ndiswrapper and ........ nothing. Unplugged usb cable, plugged in again, card detected. Used Network Manager to set up WPA, and working. Until next time I rebooted. Went through whole rigmarole again, working connection again. Used the blacklist file to stop the wrong drivers working. Everything ok until next reboot, no network again, and this time, I cannot get it to install. The network utility says wlan0 is there and active, but network manager says there is no network!

If I don't find a solution soon, I will just go back to Breezy.

World Blogger Championship, Part the Second

Well, its now the morning after, and i can reflect on last nights tournament. Overall, I'm fairly pleased with my performance. I finished ahead of 95% of the field, and the players behind me included Joanne Lutynec, Wil Wheaton and the Blogfather.

I did feel sorry for Wil. The bounty on him was a fleece, a shirt and a hat, and everyone (including me) wanted to get their hands on it. This resulted in players really going after him, and it looked like he had to play it very tight as a consequence. He went out placed 342.

I was trying to play fairly tight myself. I've had a habit recently of making some bad calls, and playing hands I should have folded straight away. Overall I saw the flop on 19% of hands, and I won 97% of the showdowns I faced. In the early stages I must have earned some fold credit, because I went though a series of hands where ePublishverytime I raised, everybody folded on me. Stealing the blinds is all very well, but this got a bit frustrating, so I limped in on a few hands for a change, and had some success that way.

I think there were two hands that lead to my downfall. The first I think I played correctly, the second, not so good.

I had over 26000 in chips, and was UTG+1, blinds 1600. I was dealt 9s 9h. UTG raises 9346 and is all in. I call. Everyone else folds. UTG has 2s 2d. Looking good. Flop comes 47Q rainbow. Still in the driving seat. Here comes the turn. 2c! Damn! River is a 3, and I'm down nearly 10000.

On the second occasion I had worked my way back up to 22000, blinds still 1600.and was dealt QTd in late position. It checks round, and I test the water with a raise of 1600. BB (who has 48000) raises 8000, and like a fool I call. Flop is 4c 2d 2h, and BB raises 11200. Too rich for me , and I fold, having again lost nearly 10000.

Back down to 12000, and it was all downhill from then on. Blinds went up, I didn't get any decent hands, and the blinds and antes eroded my stack. Down to 8000, I went all in with a pair of 2s. Got one caller, who showed AQ. There was a queen on the flop, and nothing for me. Out in 112th place.


So, after three and a half hours play, I'm finished, with nothing to show for it. Actually, thats not really true. I had three and a half hours of fun poker, where I was generally happy with the way I played, and finished in the top 5% . If I could have resisted that call with QT, maybe I could have won and Ipod, but who knows, the next hand I could have gone all in with AA, and been busted by trips. I just need to try and carry on in the same vein, and hopefully success will follow.

World Blogger Championship

Its after midnight, and I just finished in 112th place, all in with pocket 2's, caller had AQ, and the flop came 3 8 Q, no sign of a 2, so I was out.

I don't suppose 112th out of over 2000 is too bad, but its frustrating to get within 60 places of the prizes.

Money, its a gas

Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash.

I've switched away from SNG's and am playing cash games, in an effort to gradually rebuild my bankroll. My tournament game has gone to to the dogs recently. I just can't seem to get started. Not good with the Pokerstars Bloggers Championship this Saturday. At least its not costing me anything to enter that.

With the cash games I can just dip in and out, if its not going for me on a particular table, I take my money and move on. If I'm having a bad day with a SNG, well, thats my entry money gone.

Turbo or Not Turbo, that is the question

I usually play in 9 or 18 player turbo sit'n'go, because I don't often have time for a long game. However, in those games a bad break or a bad call early on can leave you with no time to recover. You soon find the blinds wiping out your stack. Tonight I played a standard 45 player SNG. I really enjoyed it - I had time to suss out the other players, had a couple of bad breaks, but recovered to finish 6th, so, I was in pocket on the game - not by a lot, but at the moment I'm grateful for whatever I get!

Diminishing Returns

My Pokerstars bankroll is shrinking. Over the last week I've only managed to make the money in about 20% of the games I've played. And finishing third or fourth isn't good enough at that level of success.

I've been trying to analyse where I'm going wrong, and I think it simply comes to chasing hands too much. I generally have a great record at showdowns, but every so often I let someone suck me in with a series of fairly small raises, which add up to a significant part of my stack, and that straight or flush never materialises. I convince myself that the hand is worth playing cos hey, I've got a pair already. Yeh, a pair of 8's. Not much good when the other guy has pocket kings!

I need to curb this tendency, or my bankroll is going to continue to diminish.

Back

Got back from France this afternoon. It was too short a trip for the driving involved. On the trip there I got two hours sleep over a 36 hour period. Slightly better on the way back, but not much better. I had barely recovered from the trip there when it was time to return home. We're probably going again for a fortnight at the end of July, so that will be more bearable.

I did buy 8 bottles of wine while I was there, paying no more than €3 a bottle!