Biggest win so far!
Last night I played only about my second or third tournament on the Ladbrokes site. I've been looking for a tournament that starts at 10.00, and has a buy-in somewhere between the two on Crypto of £2 and £25. By fortune Ladbrokes has a $25 tourny at this time, so I signed up.
Sadly, this will be a weekend-only activity, for the structure is exceedingly generous. The blinds only go up every 15 minutes, and when they do not by much. One raise saw them go from 400/800 to 500/1000. Which is fine if you've got ages to outplay your opponents, and definitely gives the better players more of an edge, but I wanted to get to bed at a reasonably time. Anyway, 4 and a half hours later, I beat 190 people to first place, for $1425.01. That extra cent will make all the difference!
This is my largest win at poker so far (first over $1k), which has been a target of mine for a while. I guess my next would be to win over £1k. Either I'll have to enter more large entry tournaments, or the dollar will have to rise. I thought briefly about using some of the winnings to enter the Sunday warm-up on Stars, but I would have been too tired to do myself justice.
The tournament last night was actually won by good cards and good play, with not too much luck involved. I had the good fortune to be dealt Kings four or five times, and they only lost once, but I don't recall any outrageous suck-outs on my part.
That said the competition was weak. There was one fellow who decided it was his job to bully the table and so he raised about 60% of hands. Astoundingly everyone let him, and kept folding! He'd raise quite a bit (3-5x) and pick the hands up pre-flop, or otherwise with a continuation bet. It was immensely irritating to me that he was sat on my left - meaning he had position on me or I'd have had his chips earlier. I did though pick up aces on a small-big battle against him. I completed, he raised (as I knew he would) and then he pushed onto a junk flop. He was holding 22, which missed.
Some more bluffs against him later (by which time we'd both moved to another table - again with him on my left!) and I had a couple of times more chips than him.
Later on, I made one of my most obvious mistakes when I defended my blinds with A5. when down to about 6 players against someone with a stack size making them vunerably to a resteal. I shouldn't have done it with A5 though - as I'm way behind any hand that calls. 89s is much better here. He thought for ages and called with A10, which held up.
4 handed, there were two largish stacks, and two smaller ones, which meant that the two biggies were quite dominant and it went heads-up quite quickly. There was still plenty of play left. We had around 180,000 chips each, with blinds only 3,000/6,000 (level 17).
As usual heads up I tended to win lots of small pots, but lose the occasional big one. I had a small chip lead when the final hand occured.
I raised to 15k from the button with AQ and he re-raised to 24k which I called. Flop A36. He bet 48k and I pushed. This was the first time either of us was all-in heads up. I didn't expect him to call to be honest, and he thought for long enough for me to realise I was ahead before calling and turning over KK.
A nice evening, and a nice win, but a tournament that seemed to last just too long. Despite the good result I'm not sure whether to carry on playing at Ladbrokes. Maybe if they keep dealing me Kings I will, and the other players were very weak. We'll see.
Anyway, I'll cash-out about $1100 so I can add the enourmous swings and slide set that my son's recently acquired to the Things-My-Poker-Has-Paid-For list, which still leaves me a bankroll suitable for the limits I play at. Long may this good run I'm on continue.
Sadly, this will be a weekend-only activity, for the structure is exceedingly generous. The blinds only go up every 15 minutes, and when they do not by much. One raise saw them go from 400/800 to 500/1000. Which is fine if you've got ages to outplay your opponents, and definitely gives the better players more of an edge, but I wanted to get to bed at a reasonably time. Anyway, 4 and a half hours later, I beat 190 people to first place, for $1425.01. That extra cent will make all the difference!
This is my largest win at poker so far (first over $1k), which has been a target of mine for a while. I guess my next would be to win over £1k. Either I'll have to enter more large entry tournaments, or the dollar will have to rise. I thought briefly about using some of the winnings to enter the Sunday warm-up on Stars, but I would have been too tired to do myself justice.
The tournament last night was actually won by good cards and good play, with not too much luck involved. I had the good fortune to be dealt Kings four or five times, and they only lost once, but I don't recall any outrageous suck-outs on my part.
That said the competition was weak. There was one fellow who decided it was his job to bully the table and so he raised about 60% of hands. Astoundingly everyone let him, and kept folding! He'd raise quite a bit (3-5x) and pick the hands up pre-flop, or otherwise with a continuation bet. It was immensely irritating to me that he was sat on my left - meaning he had position on me or I'd have had his chips earlier. I did though pick up aces on a small-big battle against him. I completed, he raised (as I knew he would) and then he pushed onto a junk flop. He was holding 22, which missed.
Some more bluffs against him later (by which time we'd both moved to another table - again with him on my left!) and I had a couple of times more chips than him.
Later on, I made one of my most obvious mistakes when I defended my blinds with A5. when down to about 6 players against someone with a stack size making them vunerably to a resteal. I shouldn't have done it with A5 though - as I'm way behind any hand that calls. 89s is much better here. He thought for ages and called with A10, which held up.
4 handed, there were two largish stacks, and two smaller ones, which meant that the two biggies were quite dominant and it went heads-up quite quickly. There was still plenty of play left. We had around 180,000 chips each, with blinds only 3,000/6,000 (level 17).
As usual heads up I tended to win lots of small pots, but lose the occasional big one. I had a small chip lead when the final hand occured.
I raised to 15k from the button with AQ and he re-raised to 24k which I called. Flop A36. He bet 48k and I pushed. This was the first time either of us was all-in heads up. I didn't expect him to call to be honest, and he thought for long enough for me to realise I was ahead before calling and turning over KK.
A nice evening, and a nice win, but a tournament that seemed to last just too long. Despite the good result I'm not sure whether to carry on playing at Ladbrokes. Maybe if they keep dealing me Kings I will, and the other players were very weak. We'll see.
Anyway, I'll cash-out about $1100 so I can add the enourmous swings and slide set that my son's recently acquired to the Things-My-Poker-Has-Paid-For list, which still leaves me a bankroll suitable for the limits I play at. Long may this good run I'm on continue.
posted by PP at 11:31 PM
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