Excitement At $400nl

Ok, so I decided to mess with the big boys tonight and tried my hand, for the first time this year, at a little bit of $2/$4 online. I really didn't play many hands at the $400nl game tonight but got my stack all-in twice. They were automatic, no-brainer all-ins really and there was nothing particularly remarkable about them but it was nice to get involved with the rhyming hippopotamus (Hand #2)...

Hand #1:

Hunky-dory, tickety-boo...

Ok, despite my unorthodox flat call on the flop allowing the possible flush draw to hit, it was all pretty much standard stuff. What about this next one?

Hand #2

Once again, flat calling may be the questionable play here but surely oneplaner's small, mid-position, raise was also a little suspect? Here's how it went post-flop:

I think this is fairly standard myself and after the turn there's no other move than to chuck 'em all-in. Oneplaner did mention my lead-out in the chatbox for some reason but I think he must have been just muckin' about. I just post these really cos this was my first shot at $400nl this year and the hands were kinda interesting as I put relatively big stacks on the line. All part of the fun though innit?

Hand Count This Month

As I finished my evening session tonight, I thought I'd do a hand count using PokerOfficer. Due to my reluctance to dive wholeheartedly into the fray this month, it's perhaps not surprising that I've only actually played just over 600 cash game hands so far this February. Although this lack of many hands may be, in part, due to my entry into a quite few MTTs, this is not many at all; much less than what a typical pro player puts in, in one day.

Still, things are not going too badly at all at the moment and I'm happy to report that my bankroll is still on the up (but I don't want to state how much, just yet, in case I trigger the doomswitch as I did last month). Tomorrow, I have yet more work commitments which will force me to stay at work till late and probably prevent me from playing much online poker tomorrow as well. I feel totally knackered at the end of a "normal" working day and so any extra nonsense tagged on at the end pretty much kills me off. It's typical of work getting in the bleedin' way.

Finally, as I have 3 out of 3 winning live game sessions thus far this year, I'm going to hit the town this weekend once again for some live poker shenanigens. The Fox has some sort of Betfair linked tournament going on so I will probably give them a miss. I still haven't been to The Vic yet this year so that place is calling me pretty loudly at the moment; maybe I'll get on down there this weekend for some cash game tussles.

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Keep on truckin' and a chuggin' along baby!!

A Sharkscope Update

As I'm mainly a cash game player, I've only played 8 MTTs this year so my sharkscope chart doesn't really tell much of a story. On a positive, though, as it does show me as a brilliant, winning player and, being the huge egomaniac that I am, I thought I'd post it up here:

 

I know, pride comes before a fall. Methinks I will pay most dearly for this.

Buying Tickets With Points

As you play online poker, most sites, if not all, give you points; the more you play on the site the more points they reward you with. The points can be used to buy products or, more usefully, tickets to their tournaments. As the points themselves do not really cost any money, and are essentially glorified rakeback, I'm not counting the purchase of these tickets against my balance and instead will view these as "freebies." The great thing with this system is that if I do cash something nice, it gets added onto the balance which makes this a win/win situation! (The value of any tickets in my account will NOT be added to my total - I need to actually WIN cold, hard cash for it to be counted!)

Thus far, all my PKR points have gone on tickets to either standard MTTs, satellites or "phase" tournies. This year will be no exception and I will mainly be using my points to buy tickets for the Masters Stage 2 satellites as I think these offer good value. (My only previous cash in The Masters was through the satellites after I purchased a ticket.) As I type this I'm doing rather well in one right now. Here's a screenshot I took of the lobby during the break:

If only I could end up in this postion at the end of the main event huh? Waddya reckon here? Fold to the seat?

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P.S. Ok, folding to a seat was not an option but I still managed to book my seat to Stage 3 with some ducking and diving:

 

HURRAH!

With enough points to get five more Masters Stage 2 satellite tickets, and encouraged by this little success, I think entering these is definitely the way to go. Masters Final Table - here I come!

Better - A Good Week

Thanks, in part, to a welcome rakeback boost of $170, it's been a good week overall with my online game finally gathering some sort of momentum. Even though I've suffered the usual setback of terrible villains hitting their draws, despite making it wrong for them to chase, I've generally managed to get rewarded with the big hands and have been playing quite well.

The real change in fortune came today where I secured around a $200 profit at the nl100 and nl200 online cash games along with another cash finish in the $5K ADDED MTT for Gold+ members for a $100 profit. All of which means that things seem to be getting back on track. But let's not get carried away eh? Here is my exit hand in that MTT where my lovely AA got cracked by 33. (I'll just put in the second part of the Hand History as the first just takes up space):

 

It's got a familiar ring to it don't you think? I can't remember the last time I actually won with AA! Still, it's nice to know that the villain in this hand, the plunderer of treasures, made good use of the chips as you can see:

Remember, with the fluctuating exchange rate being as it is, bear in mind that the following figures are approximate:

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ONLINE: WEEK 5: +$450 (~£270)  / FEBRUARY  +$450 (~£270)  / YEAR: -$410 (~£260)

LIVE: WEEK 5: +£10 (~$15)  / FEBRUARY +£10 (~$15)  / YEAR: +£970 (~$1495)

TOTAL: WEEK 5: +£280 (~$465)  / FEBRUARY +£280 (~$465)  / YEAR +$1085 (~£700)
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Of course, we all know that it's long-term and a long way to go and that anything can happen but it's nice to see my poker earnings touch the $1K mark for the year. I just need to work on the online game now to get that figure out of the red and into the green.Who knows what the next week will bring?