Game selection

I keep changing games, as follows:

as a kid: - I played 7 card stud and 5 card draw

2007 - I studied no limit holdem and tournaments

2008 - I got into limit holdem - the small stakes no foldem holdem type

2008 - then I got into Omaha 8 hi/lo

2009 - now Ive been playing and reading about PLO and HU poker (NL and PLO)

So what am I any good at. I know I have reasonable NL skills in tournaments because I have won some local tournaments, won some in England, and won a bunch online.

I seem to be terrible at NL cash games. I win a bit, lose a bit, win a bit, lose a bit. I can play a game for 3-4 hours slowly chipping up and then losing it all with KK or AA in one hand at then end. I would guess I am a net loser at NL cash games.

Thats why I started playing limit. I would probably lose less money!! In fact after playing a bit and reading a few books I seem to win more often than I lose at limit.

Playing limit omaha 8 was a natural extension because when the limit tables were full at Oceans, there was a spot at an o8 table. I had watched this game for a bit and thought why not give it a go. Then i played at the Venetian and had a big win. I read some books and now play occasionally but I find I can win online and lose when I play live.

I started experimenting with numbers of players - playing NL and limit 6 handed instead of 9 or 10 handed and this seemed to be quite successful for me. Then I was watching an online player (atimus aka jovialGent aka bballer88) play and noticed he posted massive profits playing heads up almost exclusively. So I started reading up on and playing heads up poker a fair bit.

Recently there has been lots of action on Full Tilt high stakes mostly PLO. Also to improve my o8 game I was reading a book called Fahra on Omaha but he talks about all forms of Omaha including PLO. I started playing HU PLO and the players seemed quite bad. So then I started playing 6 handed PLO and have won several buyins.

So that brings me to the title of this post. I sat down at my computer today to play poker, and thought to myself. what the heck do I want to play?

NL tournaments - need 6-8 hours

NL mtt sngs - can play 90 mans in 2.5 hrs and 45 mans in 1.5 hrs

NL stt sng - sometimes I enjoy a session of these as they are quick

turbo mtts - I have played a few of these recently and made nice profits

NL cash - 9 handed, 6 handed, HU

Limit

o8 9 handed, 6handed

PLO HU or 6 handed

PLO tournaments - not played many of these but cashed in 33% so far!

The answer is: I dunno!! Guess I will just update the blog instead.

California poker

So I got back to California towards the end of November and felt a bit flat. First of all in England playing poker was quite social - often with one or both of my brothers at the local pub or club. The pub or club was a 10-15 minute walk or drive away. I would often drink some beer or eat some take-away with our poker playing mates. After the pub game we would sometimes go to the local cardroom until 1 or 2 in the morning playing cheap tournaments or just hanging out. Or we would just chat about how we played.

Here is California I do not have a local poker buddy who is committed to the game like I am. It is quite a solitary life, playing poker out here. If I want to play a live game I have to travel 40 minutes down to Oceanside to my small local casino (cheaper tournaments, good food, nice people and dealers) or brave the LA traffic and drive 1 hour north to high-crime areas to play in the Commerce, Bike, Hoolywood Park, Hustler or Hawaiin Gardens card rooms. Alternatively I can drive east inland about 45-55 minutes to an Indian casino to play in their poker room. The traffic in LA is a nightmare - more like a parking lot. And that is when they are not doing roadworks and closing the freeway, redirecting you into gang-infested south-central LA side streets on a detour at 3am in the morning. And travelling alone I cannot use the carpool lanes so I cannot even share this nightmare. There are occassional newspaper reports of people winning large amounts of cash in the casinos in LA and then being followed home and robbed at gunpoint. At rush housr the 1 hour jounrey to LA becomes a 2-3 hour ride home. Likewise the Oceanside travel goes from 45 mins to 1.5 hours and the Indian casino journey similar.

My final gripe is when you do get to a casino for a big event, sometimes the event was sold out the day before and you join a long line of 500-600 people to buy in as an alterate where you sit down as people get knocked out. Last time at Commerce I sat down starting with 10 big blinds about 5 hours after the tourney started. What a nightmare!!!!

It is almost more tempting for drive to las Vegas (4-5 hours) and stay in a cheap casino to play out there and avoid the hell that is LA traffic.

The final option is playing online. Of course - this is my preference. I realised in England I did not play online so much because it was just as convenient to go to the local pub or cardroom to play. Over here the plain fact is if you live in Orange County (possibly the best place to live in California) then it is not convenient to go to the poker room.

I can play online from the comfort of my house. No travelling involved. Arguably its a little harder to make money than playing live. I still like to play live occasionally. Hence after my flat period I have resumed my once per week travel to Oceans 11 in Oceanside. And I will still play a couple of tournies at Commerce or the Bike when I see something I fancy. But for the most part, my focus will be online poker. Just because I live in California.....

Now the positive stuff - the pros. Arguably unless you live in Las Vegas I have more card rooms available within an hour of me than anywhere in the USA. And the daily tournaments are much bigger than in the UK (100 or so at Oceans, 200+ at the Bike). Also the "special" or large tournaments are far mroe regular with The Bike, Commerve, Oceans 11 and other casinos regularly running tournament series with buyins from 100-500 and big cash prizes. So compared to a lot of people in the USA I am in a great location for poker.

I just hate driving in LA..................

The UK poker revolutuion

My trip home was great because I got to hang out with friends and family while also playing plenty of poker. The poker scene in England has evolved roughly as follows:

2000 - Portsmouth has 4-5 casinos, 1 casino has a once weekly poker game, Thats it!!!

2006 - Now 1 casino has 3-4 times a week poker game, and the local snooker club has started throwing a game.

2007 - Some pub leagues have started up in a few pubs in the area

2008 - 3 or 4 snooker clubs are running occasional games, the pub games are getting popular, the casinos are starting to run tournaments regularly - our local poker casino now runs small tournaments each night.

2009 - 2 dedicated poker clubs have opened locally running small nightly tournaments, the snooker clubs now run a league with regular mid-sized cash mtts, the pub leagues are very popular with a choice of games each night, all local casinos are running poker tournaments and some cash games.

It is an interesting revolution. Poker winnings are NOT taxed in England so you can now make a good living just playing poker. The card rooms are still new and nowhere near as professional (or busy) as in California but I am sure they will grow over the coming years. The owner of Duffs is a nice guy and looks like he is committed to making it work but its tough work. He has to get players in the door to play but they wont come unless there are already players or big guarantees. if you offer big guarantees players will start to come but you will lose money over the first 6-12mths until you have enough regulars. I am convinced long-term the clubs will be amazingly busy and successful.

The skill level is lower locally but nationally I am sure it is on a par with America and may eventually overtake them. Poker is just so available - a lot of young players are going to play over there. In America its still somewhat exclusive to those who live near a casino or card-room. I think first-time players are somewhat intimidated in America when they enter a poker room but not so much in England. Especially if they play pub poker.

Pub poker is interesting. Initially it seems boring as you cannot win any money, but then you realise you can have a night out for a fairly low cost, playing a game you love and enjoying a social night with friends who also love the game. The competitive element is still there (both driven by the pub "league" and you ego on any individual night as you want to be known as the best or at least a good poker player). Often the league game is followed by a small (cheap) single table cash game which if you win it means you have had a night out for no cost. What could be better!!

I did not play any larger events out there but hope to next time. I am lucky my brothers both enjoy playing poker with me so there is plenty of opportunity. They have APAT events costing $100-$200 and GUKPT events costing $300-$1000 and the the EPT and WSOP Europe events costing several thousand pounds. So the opportunity is there to play at many price points not to mention travelling through Europe.

In fact when I got back to California I felt quite flat. For a good week or so I played very little poker as I will explain in my next post.

UK totals - live tournaments

So the UK trip ended, and when all was tallied I made a small profit on the live tournaments I played. Nothing to write home about - but any profit is better than the alternative. The details are shown below.

What Where Cost Result

10/10-$10rb WvilleSnkr $40 8th - win $0 -BR(-40)

10/16-$10rb BigSlick $40 1st - win $500 -BR(460)

10/19-$5rb Duffs $20 6th - win $0 -BR(400)

10/21-$10rb Duffs $40 4th - win $0 -BR(360)

10/22-$35fo Grovesner $41 6th - win $0 -BR(319)

10/30-Johns Home Game $30 1st/2nd - win $120 -BR(409)

10/31-$250fo Duffs $250 13th - win $0 -BR(159)

10/31-$20fo Duffs $22 3rd - win $61 -BR(190)

11/06-$10rb BigSlick $70 10th - win $0 -BR(128)

11/07-$20fo Duffs $22 14th - win $0 -BR(106)

11/08-$10rb Duffs $20 4th - win $20 -BR(106)

11/08-$30fo Duffs $30 4th - win $30 -BR(106)

11/13-$10fo Bigslick $40 1st - win $350 -BR(456)

11/14-$5rb Duffs $50 10th - win $0 -BR(406)

11/14-$20fo Duffs $20 10th - win $0 -BR(386)

11/16-$5rb Duffs $30 10th - win $0 -BR(356)

Row▲

Date

What

Where

Cost

PaySchedule

Result

Winnings

$ result

Cumalative

Column J

(All)(Blank)——————Fri Nov 13thFri Nov 6thFri Oct 16thFri Oct 30thMon Nov 16thMon Oct 19thSat Nov 14thSat Nov 7thSat Oct 10thSat Oct 31stSun Nov 8thThu Oct 22ndWed Oct 21st

(All)(Blank)——————10pound rebuy20pound freeze20pound freezeout250pound freeze30pound freeze35pound freezeout5pound rebuyhome game

(All)(Blank)——————BigSlickBigslickDuffsGrovesnerJohns houseWville Snooker

(All)(Blank)——————$20$22$250$30$40$41$50$70

(All)(Blank)——————2 gamestop 3top 3 paidtop 4 paidtop 5 paidtop 9 paidtop3top3 plus bubble

(All)(Blank)——————10th12th14th1st1st/2nd3rd4th6th8th

(All)(Blank)——————0120203035050061

(All)(Blank)——————--50-20-22-250-30-40-41-7003503946090

(All)(Blank)——————-40106128159198319356360386400406409420456

(All)(Blank)——————2 bubbles on same day....sigh4 way chopout with AA v K9s - he got flushRan 2nd nut straight into nut straightran AQ on BB into buttons AASqueeze play KQ ran into AA utg limper

Some interesting facts:

UK Trip - week 5

This is my last full week in England and I played a fair amount of poker, as follows:

Sat - I played the LPPL league game at Duffs card room for fun and came 2nd - this really is a fun game of poker and I got a little unlucky heads up pushing all-in with A9h on 10h-9c-2h board and being called by KJo. I had the made hand and better draw (9 to flush, 3 to A, 6 to 2 pair) while my opponent had 6 outs. The turn was blank and the river was a non-heart Jack to lose me the game. I also played a £20 freeze out in the evening but went out early after pushing all in on the flop with the nut straight and getting outdrawn by my opponent.

Sun - I played a £10 rebuy tournament that paid 3 spots - I came 4th after losing a big race with AKs v 22 - the board was all low and I was crippled. It was a shame as I ran good the whole tournament and was chip leader for quite a while. The short stack had previously agreed a bubble compensation payment so at least I did not lose any money.

I also played a £20+£10 bounty/freeze out where 4 people were paid. I won 2 bounties on my way to another bubble bustout. Again I was extremely unlucky after a long bubble period I was dealt K-9s in my big blind and the UTG player limped. I was very wary thinking this was quite an active aggressive player so a limp would suggest a strong hand - possibly AA, KK or AK or maybe even QQ. I was going to be careful and only bet if I hit the flop hard - the flop came out K-9-2 unsuited. Now I thought for a while and decided if my read was right and he had a big hand I could get maximum value right now by shoving. So I did. I pushed all in and he called turning over AK giving him one pair against my two pairs and only 3 outs with 2 cards to come. The turn was a brick and the river was .......an ace!! What a disaster for me. I was about a 94% favorite after the turn card and still managed to lose the hand. He had me covered so I was busto. The bubble boy...again - two bubbles in one day!! Fortunately for me once again the short stack had negotiated a payout for the bubble boy so I did not lose any money and even made a small profit from the bounties.

What a weekend - bubble on Friday night, a bad beat to not get first place on Saturday, and 2 bubbles on Sunday including another bad beat.

Mon - played LPPL pub game at Hampshire Rose pub - came 6th.

Tues - played LPPL pub game at The Heroes pub - lost most of my stack with KK v A-rag and came 9th. I started really feeling sick Tuesday evening courtesy of the cold, rainy windy English weather. Nevertheless I went to Duffs and played some low limit cash games.

Weds - no poker - felt awful - stayed home sick all day

Thurs - no poker - stayed home sick all day.

Fri - felt quite a bit better, so decided to try the Big Slick card club for the third time to play the £10 rebuy. Part of the reason was the £10 credit they were giving me towards a tournament buy-in that I had forgot to use last week. I was feeling much better in the evening and keen to get over my terrible weekend of bubbles. I started playing very tight until I had doubled up and won a few pots, then I loosened up towards the bubble and picked some good spots to gamble. This week I got lucky and chipped up enough to reach the final table as an average stack. An early double up on the final table with aces allowed me to cruise and steal my way to the last 4 where an even chop was agreed. Finally I could notch up another win, and £350 of prize money to help cover the cost of buy-ins.

I leave England on Thursday to fly back to the sunny climate of southern California. I will post a final update on my trip after I return and also my impressions on the card clubs, pubs, casinos and snooker clubs where I played and how they compare to the card rooms in America.

UK Trip - week 4

Poker updates:

Sat - played the £10k and came 10th going out when my AQ went heads up with another players AA. Only 4 players were paid so I lost out on this one. I did play a £20 freeze out later in the evening and came 3rd winning £61,

Sun - no poker

Mon - LPPL pub game - drunk plenty of beer but did not do any good playing poker.

Tues - LPPL pub game - same as above.

Weds - no poker

Thurs - no poker

Fri - tbd - hopefully I will find a tournament somewhere. [UPDATE: I played the £10 rebuy at the Big Slick poker room - the second time I have played here. Last time I won the event but this time I bubbled going out 10th with 9 being paid. I had about 12 big blinds and could haveeasily folded into the final table and into the money, but a situation came up 5 handed to add some chips and I could not pass. The table had been quite active but tightened up as we came to the bubble. I was the big blind and was dealt KQ. UTG limped, as did all other players round to me. I could have checked to see the flop for free but decided this was good squeeze play semi-bluff where I could shove and increase my stack by almost a third if everyone folded. Even if I was called, as long as UTG folded I felt I would have good equity in a race (assuming other limpers had small pairs OR A-rag OR suited connectors). Unfortunately UTG called with AA and I did not get the cards I needed to crack them. So game over, but in hindsight I think my play was OK and I got a little unlucky. Of course lots of people thought it was terrible play :-) ]

Certainly not the most exciting poker week!! It is fireworks/bonfire night in England so I have spent some time enjoying that and visiting friends.

UK trip - week 3

Here's what I can remember of this week (week 3):

Weekend - I spent most of the weekend hanging out with my nephews playing Monopoly, playing pitch and putt golf, taking them to the funfair etc so no poker.

Monday - played an LPPL game at the Hampshire Rose - did not do too well. But I enjoyed the beer so all was not lost.

Tuesday - spent the evening with my 2 brothers - watched Pompey play football at Fratton park so no poker.

Wednesday - my younger brother invited my to play footy with his work team/mates so I did that instead of playing poker. But I staked my older brother in a £10 re buy at Duffs - unfortunately he did not win this time.

Thursday - I visited some friends so no poker.

Friday - played a great little home game at Johns house. He had invited some friends over who regularly played poker in the LPPL in his area and we end up playing 2 bounty cash tournaments. I did OK winning one of the tournaments and coming second in the other.

So not too much activity this week. There is a decent sized tournament at Duffs on Saturday (£10k guarantee) and also in the evening a £50 freezeout at Big Slick so I may go to one of these tournaments. Other than that I will just see what happens.....

UK trip - week 2

I entered 3 tournaments this week in between visiting friends, playing football and board games with my nephews and niece and sorting out some business.

The first on Monday was a £5 re buy at Duffs with about 18 players and I think 5 being paid. I went out in 6th or 7th place after losing 2 races. First I took on a short stack with 7-7 v AK and he hit. Then a couple of hands later I pushed all-in with my aces and managed to get a caller with K9diamonds. The first card out was the ace of diamonds giving me top set but the next 2 were also diamonds giving my opponent a flush. The board did not pair and that was that.

I went to Duffs again on Wednesday to play a freeze out but it was cancelled due to the final of a league they run so instead I entered a single table £10 re buy with 9 players and 3 getting paid. I finished 4th - the second bubble of the week.

Then on the Thursday I went to the local casino - the Grosverner in Gunwharf Quays - they had a £35 freeze out and when I signed up they told me they expected 35 players. So it was a real disappointment when only 21 signed up. Still played down to the final table where I went a little card-dead. Eventually I found a couple of hands to chip up on but lost on a blind v blind match up where I hit middle pair on the flop and my opponent hit top pair. Again I finished on the bubble - I think I was 6th or 7th and 5 were being paid.

So 3 tournaments and 3 bubbles. I figure this is not too bad as luck figures quite a bit in the later stages of a tournament as I open up and gamble a little bit. If you go card dead at the wrong time you are completely dependant on playing the other players and occasionally, that weak folding machine you target with your blind-stealing raise wakes up with a monster hand.

UK trip - first win

It seems my luck gets better when I stay off the beer. I entered the £10 rebuy at a card club called "Big Slick" in Portsmouth and ended up chopping the event 3 ways.

I bought in for the maximum allowed (£20 for 2k) and did not need to put any more money in until the add-on period where I again took the maximum £20 add-on. So my total cost was £40 and the prize amount I won in the chop was £500 so this gives me a little spending money for the next week.

My brothers friend Andy also cashed in this event for £190 so well done Andy. He had entered late and I had to lend him some money to do the rebuy/addon but it was well worth it and he paid me back with his winnings. He was a lot better player that I thought and I was very impressed with his endgame even if I did end up knocking him out - sorry mate :-)

So that was a nice climax to week 1 in the UK. Hopefully I will enter a few more events next week and see what happens.

UK week 1

I arrived on Saturday and have played as follows:

Sat evening - £10 rebuy at local snooker club - 5 paid - I went out 8th with 99 v KK so missed the money. This was a fun tourney with mostly social players so quite easy to chip up but I lost half my stack on one hand with a made straight v 2 pair (all in on turn) where the other person rivered the full house and then the 99 v KK to finish me off.

Sunday - played LPPL league game at Portsmouth Labour club - fun social league with 16 players for this event. I finished 3rd after pushing all-in 4-4 v QQ 3 handed and being punished by the lovely Claire who had her ladies hold up. I still had a few chips which went in with K high a few hands later and lost to Ace high.

Monday - played another LPPL league game at the Hampshire Rose pub where I lost 2/3 of my stack on about the 5th hand on a 7-2-2 board with a big pair v 3-2. And yes, I did raise preflop and he did call! Oops!! Still it was another fun night.

Tuesday - yet another LPPL league game at the Heroes pub where I finished 5th out of 15 runners after pushing my short stack with K-10 suited and not getting lucky against A-8.

Wednesday - no poker, instead I went to Wembley to watch England play footy (soccer) - a great day out.

Thursday - I should have been playing in Thanet in the GUKPT but for one reason and another this did not happen. I was quite disappointed to say the least and sulked at home most of the night. I did manage to play a little online poker.

Friday (today) - also supposed to be in Thanet but am not. It looks like I will try one of the local card rooms £10 rebuy events. I need to win something soon to pay for my trip!!

One problem I have had is that I have drunk several pints of beer every day since I have been here and particularly at night during the poker tournaments. I need to resist the urge to drink alcohol if I am going to win any poker tournaments. For the most part the first week has been more fun than business but I really need to get into "work mode" soon.

Next week, another update....

Back in the UK

Ive gone back to UK to visit family and play some poker. There are some new cardrooms that I want to check out and I will also revisit with the LPPL folks who enjoy a social game of poker.

It looks like poker in the UK has gone through a real growth spurt and is more popular than ever. The local snooker club runs a league with regular cash games. So do the casinos. So do the new card rooms. And there seems to be several social leagues running in the pubs. I even noticed a whole bunch of poker magazines I had never seen before that focussed on UK and Europe events.

One of the UK events is the GUKPT and is on while I am in the UK. I hope to play one or two of the side tournaments in the GKUPT to see how this compares to the WSOP and EPT. Should be an interesting experience. Most UK casinos and poker rooms are much smaller that what is in USA so I am expecting a much more intimate tournament experience. I will writeup a report after I have played.

Other than that I will watch some soccer games, drink some beer in the pubs, visit with family and old friends and hopefully have a fun month.

Studying players

Ive spent a fair bit of the WCOOP watching 2 players play - Elky and Jovial Gent. Interestingly they both had phenominal results and I had the benefits of watching them from very early in the tournaments that they went on to win. Some notes:

1 Who are they - first Elky - hes a French guy who is always on TV as the chip leader in lots of events. He final tables often and has won millions. I am most interested in how he gets such an early chip lead and how he maintains it. Now Jovial Gent - real name Yevgeniy Timoshenko and also known as atimus in the forums - this is a phenomenal young player who I have watched since he knocked me out of the Aussie millions a couple of years back. I played with him for several hours in that event and won plenty of chips off him before he knocked me out in 33rd place. Later I found out he was an online whizz and since has won millions of dollars in APPT and WPT events. So I like to watch him play events I cannot afford to enter and try to learn what makes him so good.

2. So Elky - how does he get the early chip lead. It seems he plays incredibly tight early in the tournament but when he gets a decent pair of AK he gets full value out of them by betting his whole stack. Most training sites suggest small-ball poker and smallish bets - Elky seems to turn this on its head by pushing his whole stack in if he has an edge, and often doubling up. It is only 2 or 3 double ups and he is chips leader. Also once he has chips he plays very aggressively aganst the shorter stacks and will call a short-stack push with marginal hands nr 50/50 races. Often he wins and this again gives him the big stack in the tournaments.

3. Mid tourney play - both Elky and Jovial appear to be aggressive in stealing  blinds 2 or more times per orbit. Interestingly they steal off all players and do not repeat-steal from one player very often. JovialGent seems to often steal 2 in a row then go quiet for a bit, whereas Elky seems to focus more on stealing from the shorter stacks. 

4. Late play - both payers are extremely aggressive with 2.2x min raises several times per orbit. If people play back they sometimes fold and sometimes call/cbet. At the final table JovialGent was obv. aware of the difference in prize money between 9th and 4th/5th so he was not afraid to cbet small, turnbet small and then put a midsized stack all in via a river bet. The mid-size stack always folded as several small stacks were on the table. 

Interestingly Elky would build his stack to top 5 with up to 20 players remaining and then go very quiet until the final table, not wanting to get involved in the pushfest/gamble to get to the last 9. He was happy to get to the final table in 6th or 7th place in chips.  This was completely different from Jovial Gent who kept stealing/increasing his chip stack right up to the final table. 

On the final table Jovial Gent continued to be aggressive right from the start whereas Elky picked his spots. 

Hopefully watching these players do so well will help me do better - time will tell!

Live cash at Oceans 11

I came 4th in todays Oceans 11 tournament. Cost $60, win $360, about 95 runners. If I could have convinced the other guys to chop 4 handed I would have got $600 or so... Truth be told we all had similar stacks and I got undone when I pushed my small blind K-5 against the big blinds A-9. Oh well.

I then played some live no limit poker low-stakes for fun and managed to lose $80 in a pot where I held 7-6 and the flop came 5-4-3 rainbow. My "friend" held 8-6 and his open-ender turned to gold when the turn was a blank but the river was a 7 giving him the 8 high straight and me to 7 high straight.

Now I'm online playing some Omaha 8 hi/lo and neither winning or losing. Just waiting until I can scoop a couple of pots.

Lack of poker in August

So it was my wedding anniversary and my wife took 4 weeks off from work so we could have some time together travelling and having fun.

Of course this has somewhat eaten into my poker time so I have not played any large tournaments online and only 1 tournament live (one of the Legends of Poker events at The Bike). Needless to say the live tournament did not go too well.

I am trying to fit in some 45 player sitngos and read a few poker books during the downtime. I have been picking up old books from the library and browsing through them looking for any gems of knowledge that I may have missed from the recently published books in my own collection. Its interesting reading advice and stories from Amirillo Slim, TJ Cloutier etc. even if some of it is not so relevant nowadays.

Hopefully I will get back into the swing of things next week and play a few decent tournaments.

Brothers visit was a poker success

So my brother left after 4 weeks of poker playing which can only be considered a success. While he was here we had several results:

Week 1 - 3 days in Vegas
- he won an Planet Hollywood chopping 2 ways (approx $600)
- I won the Sahara the next day chopping 4 ways (approx $1100)

Week 2 - California
- I won the Bike tournament chopping 5 ways

Week 3 - 5 days in Vegas
- he won the Venetian tournament chopping 5 ways (approx $1300)

Week 4 - California
- I won an Oceans 11 tournament chopping 2 ways for $1200

The week 4 result just before he left to fly back to England was a lot of fun because while I was winning the tournament my brother was doing a number on the cash tables taking 300-400 profit from a $100 buying playing $4/$8. When we left a couple of the guys accused us of being a professional hustling team - it was quite flattering and very funny.

Overall we played 16 tournaments each and cashed in 5 total with each cash being a final chop of the prize pool - this is right in line with my target of cashing in 20% of all tournaments played but above the target because I assume we will cash in 5 out of 25 and will win 1 of those. In this case all of our cashes were wins which was pretty amazing.

The cash games were interesting because we won consistently in Las Vegas but were very inconsistent in the California card rooms posting both some losses and some wins.

Won the Bike tourney on 3rd attempt

So my brother and I went on another visit to The Bicycle casino in LA today - this was my third attempt to win the noon tournament.  I hate dealing with the traffic driving to and from the casino but I really like the tourney itself with a decent starting stack (4000) and structure (start at 25/25 and 20 min levels and slow increments) and although the rake is high ($30+$10) they get anywhere from 150 to 200 entries so there is plenty of play. In fact its probably the best value tournament in LA.

My first attempt to win this tourney (several weeks back) ended when I ran my set of queens into pocket aces and an ace hit on the river. The second attempt earlier this week ended when I went card-dead and anted down to about 8 big blinds and then lost a survival race. Today went much better. I chipped up early hitting a few decent cards and winning a big pot with quad 2s. Then I just stole blinds and slowly chipped up during the tournament without ever really putting myself in danger of being knocked out. With about 30 people left I was getting short but they paid 27 places so a little rally right around the bubble got me back to 15BB and then I got into a big pot with AA and it held up so I was one of the chip leaders with 27 left.

As ever it was quite quick for the short stacks to explode after the bubble and I eliminated a couple of players in straightforward races (A-9s v 8-8, AQ v KQ etc) to get to the final table. The only excitement was when there were 10 players left and we were all trying to get on a 9-person final table. One guy on the other table had one 1K chip left and I knew this. I had about 45k in chips on my table and got dealt A-7. We were 5 handed and I pushed all in. Fortunately the 4 other guys on my table all folded and I survived. There was a nice bump in money heading to the 9 spots on the final table.

So I started the final table with about 65,000 chips. This was about 5th place in chips. Nothing too special happened as I waited for people to eliminate each other and stole a couple of blinds. I did not get too many cards so I just sat out until 5 people were left and we then agreed a chop.

A nice end to the work week.