Wednesday, 7 December 2011
LockeLamora PKR TV: April Masters 2009
Fond memories of this one, still my biggest PKR tournament cash by some way.
Tuesday, 6 December 2011
November Review
Everyone loves payday, I mean why would you not? It is the day that rewards all that time you spend doing something that, however much you love it, you would probably like to spend at least a little less time doing. Poker is not like a job in some ways and exactly like one in others. Unless you are one of a handful of uber geniuses then you will be putting in as many hours as a full time job, maybe more. Sometimes you can earn very consistently, other times you will have big rushes or long droughts. I say all this because my November threatened to be rubbish, turned back to being okay, then threatened to fall apart again, and was salvaged by a decent tournament win in the last week.
My cash game play was dominated for the third month in a row by running extremely badly at all in situations. I only played two sessions at $2/4 and both times I lost a massive pot with the best of it. I did though also play my single worst hand of the month here. I only step up to this level when I spot extremely soft tables. One afternoon the stars had aligned and I was playing two $2/4 tables and two $1/2 tables without a cash reg in sight. I made $600 in an hour and was thinking about leaving as the regs started piling in. Of course I stayed ten minutes too long and stacked off $400 of my profit to Wongaman playing Jacks extremely badly. I really should have got away with just a $100 hit but bet too big on the flop and made my decision on a low board ten times more difficult.
It might surprise you to see that I put in volume as low as $0.10/0.25. There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly after a prolonged period of run bad it is nice to put in a number of sessions where you see the green line on your graph moving in the right direction. Secondly the standard is so soft you can hit a pretty huge win rate compared to higher levels. Thirdly I have centred all my cash game play back onto PKR for the moment and often during the times I play there are no games running higher than $0.5/1 and these tend to be nitty reg-fests. Of late I have got much better at table selecting and swallowing my pride and feel that my cash play is benefiting because of it. So taking cake into account it wasn't a terrible month with a $1,000 profit but it would be lovely to just crush cash for a month to prove that I actually can and that the Poker Gods do not hate me.
Tournaments started terribly, I couldn't hit a barn door and nothing was going right. The one moment that threatened to get interesting was a deep run in the Sunday Million on Pokerstars. My radar was on song and I had a well above average stack going through the money bubble. Sadly I lost a massive 70/30 for 150,000 chips when the average stack was 75,000 after beautifully trapping an aggressive player who had position on me. I bounced back but then found myself on the wrong end of another 70/30 for 150,000 chips with the average stack at 150,000. I was extremely short after this and lost a flip several hands later exiting 449th out of 6,967 players.
Things turned around in amusing fashion when I beat an 800+ field to win the $5 Friday night Mini-Primetime Deep Stack on PKR. On many levels I don't know why I play it as you have to finish top three to make it worthwhile but the structure is good and the players are bad. This is the second time in a few months I have won it and for an investment of about $25 have seen a return of just under $2,000. Sadly as the winning hand was completed the game crashed so I missed out on the money falling from from the sky and it has not been recorded either on my Sharkscope, probably about $5k lifetime PKR profit not showing on there now, or on my all time PKR tournament earnings.
Having taken down the Mini-Primetime on the 25th I then had a Monday the 28th that threatened to get epic. You can never tell when a good poker day is coming, generally you grind along and small cash loads of tourrnaments and don't kick on. On this day I found myself heads up for a $5,000 WPT Ireland package and won the Monday night Primetime for $2,052.
The WPT satellite was extremely frustrating. This was only either my first or second attempt at qualifying and with a one in twenty people qualifying structure this could well end up being my only shot at the package. I was playing really well up until the tickets bubble but then made one large error. I kept calm though and bounced back and kept picking on the right people. Once Barkieboy was eliminated I really fancied my chances of winning. I got into the heads up with a player who had been running hot and he had a two to one chip lead on me. I quickly got on top of him and ground out a two to one chip lead. We got all in on a flip where he decided to call my 3 bet jam with Jack ten suited and sadly my pocket sixes failed to hold. I was back to being a two to one underdog. The match then lasted for about another forty minutes, a huge length of time for a PKR tournament. I kept grinding back to level but then dropping back as he hit flop after flop. I wasn't catching much and he wasn't folding second pair to great lines. I only really needed one hand to value town him and it just never came up. He didn't fold his small blind much but managed to twice when I held pocket Kings! It just was not my night, I am proud of the way I stuck at it and as usual it will make the next package win taste all that sweeter.
Below is my Sharkscope for November, though less the $1,000 for the Mini-Primetime.
My cash game play was dominated for the third month in a row by running extremely badly at all in situations. I only played two sessions at $2/4 and both times I lost a massive pot with the best of it. I did though also play my single worst hand of the month here. I only step up to this level when I spot extremely soft tables. One afternoon the stars had aligned and I was playing two $2/4 tables and two $1/2 tables without a cash reg in sight. I made $600 in an hour and was thinking about leaving as the regs started piling in. Of course I stayed ten minutes too long and stacked off $400 of my profit to Wongaman playing Jacks extremely badly. I really should have got away with just a $100 hit but bet too big on the flop and made my decision on a low board ten times more difficult.
It might surprise you to see that I put in volume as low as $0.10/0.25. There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly after a prolonged period of run bad it is nice to put in a number of sessions where you see the green line on your graph moving in the right direction. Secondly the standard is so soft you can hit a pretty huge win rate compared to higher levels. Thirdly I have centred all my cash game play back onto PKR for the moment and often during the times I play there are no games running higher than $0.5/1 and these tend to be nitty reg-fests. Of late I have got much better at table selecting and swallowing my pride and feel that my cash play is benefiting because of it. So taking cake into account it wasn't a terrible month with a $1,000 profit but it would be lovely to just crush cash for a month to prove that I actually can and that the Poker Gods do not hate me.
Tournaments started terribly, I couldn't hit a barn door and nothing was going right. The one moment that threatened to get interesting was a deep run in the Sunday Million on Pokerstars. My radar was on song and I had a well above average stack going through the money bubble. Sadly I lost a massive 70/30 for 150,000 chips when the average stack was 75,000 after beautifully trapping an aggressive player who had position on me. I bounced back but then found myself on the wrong end of another 70/30 for 150,000 chips with the average stack at 150,000. I was extremely short after this and lost a flip several hands later exiting 449th out of 6,967 players.
Things turned around in amusing fashion when I beat an 800+ field to win the $5 Friday night Mini-Primetime Deep Stack on PKR. On many levels I don't know why I play it as you have to finish top three to make it worthwhile but the structure is good and the players are bad. This is the second time in a few months I have won it and for an investment of about $25 have seen a return of just under $2,000. Sadly as the winning hand was completed the game crashed so I missed out on the money falling from from the sky and it has not been recorded either on my Sharkscope, probably about $5k lifetime PKR profit not showing on there now, or on my all time PKR tournament earnings.
Having taken down the Mini-Primetime on the 25th I then had a Monday the 28th that threatened to get epic. You can never tell when a good poker day is coming, generally you grind along and small cash loads of tourrnaments and don't kick on. On this day I found myself heads up for a $5,000 WPT Ireland package and won the Monday night Primetime for $2,052.
The WPT satellite was extremely frustrating. This was only either my first or second attempt at qualifying and with a one in twenty people qualifying structure this could well end up being my only shot at the package. I was playing really well up until the tickets bubble but then made one large error. I kept calm though and bounced back and kept picking on the right people. Once Barkieboy was eliminated I really fancied my chances of winning. I got into the heads up with a player who had been running hot and he had a two to one chip lead on me. I quickly got on top of him and ground out a two to one chip lead. We got all in on a flip where he decided to call my 3 bet jam with Jack ten suited and sadly my pocket sixes failed to hold. I was back to being a two to one underdog. The match then lasted for about another forty minutes, a huge length of time for a PKR tournament. I kept grinding back to level but then dropping back as he hit flop after flop. I wasn't catching much and he wasn't folding second pair to great lines. I only really needed one hand to value town him and it just never came up. He didn't fold his small blind much but managed to twice when I held pocket Kings! It just was not my night, I am proud of the way I stuck at it and as usual it will make the next package win taste all that sweeter.
Below is my Sharkscope for November, though less the $1,000 for the Mini-Primetime.
Friday, 2 December 2011
Jake Cody Welcome Party
There is a line in Rounders that goes 'If you can't spot the sucker in the first half hour at the table, then you ARE the sucker.' I'm grateful that the table I am sat on is for dinner and not poker as myself and Jamie 'JJBird22' Birdsey would be flipping a coin to find out who the sucker is. The rest of the long table in Wahaca, Covent Garden, is occupied by seven players who could collectively inspire dread into any reg on PKR. Brothermuzone, WongaMan, Rhymenoceros, James666, Kickoff, MrStarch and dappadan. Wahaca is a bright and friendly place serving Mexican food. You can either pick lots of smaller dishes or one large one. Clearly there are lots of taco and burritto options etc. There is also tequila, luckily there is only one round of these consumed with people aware that there is a free bar to be abused later on. I enjoy a very nice grilled mullet, that is a fish and not the hairstyle for the Mcdonald's eaters reading this .
I am freerolling on dinner having dived into the Fox Club for an hour before hand. I made a quick £44 that would have been even better if my flopped straight had not been cracked by an overpair runner runnering a flush. Other than a Genting Poker sign on the TV screen behind the main desk there are no real visible changes yet.
The party in honour of Jake Cody joining Team PKR Pro is at Albannach in Trafalger Square. It is a nice spot. Upstairs is a restaurant and downstairs an exclusive lounge with lots of nice seating areas. Loads of PKR Diamond members are present, plenty of PKR staff and all the Team Pro members playing the GUKPT Final. Also a lot of poker players and friends of Jake Cody. I recognised Matt Perrins, David Vamplew and Nik Persaud amongst others.
Music for the evening is provided by 'DJ Pimpsoul' and there is an amusing interlude provided in the form of some spectacular break dancing by a group called 'The Scarecrows'. The Albannach specialises in whiskey and has an incredible selection of single malts from around the world. As a whiskey fan this a great choice of venue, more PKR events here please.
Beyne was delayed in arriving after lighting up a cigarette on a train platform. I am concerned that Brighton is not equipped to handle his level of degeneracy and expect to hear he has bankrupted the local casinos at some point during 2012. I have to apologise to zomgchipriffle for failing to recognise him initially. I have a bad memory for faces at the best of times. Having met him properly twice now I think I should be able to remember him next time. I'm sure donating some more cash his way on the $1/2 tables will likely reinforce it...
It sounds like there are some exciting software upgrades due during 2012 that will likely revolutionise the PKR poker experience and confirm the site as the market leader in innovation. A much richer social networking experience is one of the main planks of this. As has already been mentioned on the site, most excitingly of all, is detachable PKR table windows and a separate menu system. This should be a significant improvement that will pretty much kill any anti-PKR sentiment from those who currently do not get along with the software or who were disappointed by Version 2.0. It should improve play for both casual players and serious grinders. The suggestion is we will see this sooner rather than later in 2012, although clearly any more country specific site builds might slow things up.
I have to leave a little early to catch the last tube, not fancying an expensive taxi to Paddington on my own. Typically I end up just missing the train I wanted and have to sit at the station for an hour. The highlight of the journey back was particularly hideous. Right before Reading a gentleman decided that walking to a carriage with a toilet was too much effort and began liberally vomiting in the train doorway. This set off some sort of smell induced drunken chain reaction with another two passengers following suit. Lovely.
My next post will be a review of my November play.
I am freerolling on dinner having dived into the Fox Club for an hour before hand. I made a quick £44 that would have been even better if my flopped straight had not been cracked by an overpair runner runnering a flush. Other than a Genting Poker sign on the TV screen behind the main desk there are no real visible changes yet.
The party in honour of Jake Cody joining Team PKR Pro is at Albannach in Trafalger Square. It is a nice spot. Upstairs is a restaurant and downstairs an exclusive lounge with lots of nice seating areas. Loads of PKR Diamond members are present, plenty of PKR staff and all the Team Pro members playing the GUKPT Final. Also a lot of poker players and friends of Jake Cody. I recognised Matt Perrins, David Vamplew and Nik Persaud amongst others.
Music for the evening is provided by 'DJ Pimpsoul' and there is an amusing interlude provided in the form of some spectacular break dancing by a group called 'The Scarecrows'. The Albannach specialises in whiskey and has an incredible selection of single malts from around the world. As a whiskey fan this a great choice of venue, more PKR events here please.
Beyne was delayed in arriving after lighting up a cigarette on a train platform. I am concerned that Brighton is not equipped to handle his level of degeneracy and expect to hear he has bankrupted the local casinos at some point during 2012. I have to apologise to zomgchipriffle for failing to recognise him initially. I have a bad memory for faces at the best of times. Having met him properly twice now I think I should be able to remember him next time. I'm sure donating some more cash his way on the $1/2 tables will likely reinforce it...
It sounds like there are some exciting software upgrades due during 2012 that will likely revolutionise the PKR poker experience and confirm the site as the market leader in innovation. A much richer social networking experience is one of the main planks of this. As has already been mentioned on the site, most excitingly of all, is detachable PKR table windows and a separate menu system. This should be a significant improvement that will pretty much kill any anti-PKR sentiment from those who currently do not get along with the software or who were disappointed by Version 2.0. It should improve play for both casual players and serious grinders. The suggestion is we will see this sooner rather than later in 2012, although clearly any more country specific site builds might slow things up.
I have to leave a little early to catch the last tube, not fancying an expensive taxi to Paddington on my own. Typically I end up just missing the train I wanted and have to sit at the station for an hour. The highlight of the journey back was particularly hideous. Right before Reading a gentleman decided that walking to a carriage with a toilet was too much effort and began liberally vomiting in the train doorway. This set off some sort of smell induced drunken chain reaction with another two passengers following suit. Lovely.
My next post will be a review of my November play.
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