5k Guarenteed

OK I really like the 36 freezeout on tribeca at 1am. The 15 minute blinds really give the better players a good edge and despite usually being a 200+ field i have a record of finishing in the money spots of 60%. It's very easy to find excellent spots with this long a structure and the mentality of the tribeca rebuy monkeys makes this such a good tournament. (Example hand to follow.)

I've been on a good run in this recently. 6 out of the last 8 tournaments I've made the money with 5 final table spots. Despite this i am slightly downbeat. WHY???

Well out of all these spots I have only finished as high as 3rd. (4th, 4th 12th 3rd 5th 3rd) I have defintiely been unlucky at times. WIth a better run of cards I would have won one of these but a good player shouldn't be relying only on cards. 2 times where i came 4th i lost a pot for the chip lead with a set which i think is pretty unlucky. One time I lost another big pot to put me clear in 2nd with 3 left TPTK to set with realtively shallow stacks so i was never getting away. Again unlucky.

Well I'm not one to bitch about bad luck. That's the way, the life and the path of the poker player. Suck it up cat, things happen like this. I do wonder sometimes whether i have what it takes though? Should i have more chips at these stages to absorb the bad play??

I'm not sure. I do know that in 2 of the finals i played very good poker, made the tough but correct calls and maintained a good level of aggression. One final i lost a massive pot early on with a big draw (fd and overcards) and managed to slide up some cash places while waiting for a good spot. Two of the finals i went out wiht a set vs a draw. Hopefully it's jsut a matter of time.

I imagine some people would jsut say "shut up you moronic cat, you're showing a healthy profit for all these tournaments" and I would have toconcur with this. ( Well i might take issue at the moronic bit...)

But, many 3-5 places do not equate to winning the comp. All the money is at the top and I can't seem to finish this off. It's annoying because when I get a good stack together shorthanded I nearly always win. I think this is one of my strengths. So far though I have been getting my chips in with a medium stack, always in good shape and just missing out. Hopefully this will change sometime soon.

Anyway time to mock a kipper for a muppet play. I can't really say i played this hand well or badly but it does illustrate how bad some of the players are.

I can't seem to retrieve the hand history but i remember the hand in detail.

Ok, so I'm dealt As Ah in the BB on level one (20 40). I'm already up to 2500 due to a nice bluff with 35c :) Nothing like self promotion eh?

Anyway I'm sat there with my aces, waiting for action from the table of nutters. All fold to the small blind (2600) who completes to 40. I riase to 140. He calls.

(So far so good. Don't want to raise too much here and lose him. Don't want to raise too little or I give him breat implied odds with any two cards. So to the flop.)

(pot 280)
Ac Kh 5s.

(wow deck smacks cat. Stifled miaow sounds are heard from the BB)

Check. Check

( I check here. Although I am obviously opening myself up to being outdrawn, the pot is small enough that I prefer to hide the strength of my hand than protect against any draws. Besides this, it is a very undrawy board so the risk is minimal)

(pot 280)
turn 7h.

Check. I bet 100.

(Ok, gotta start building a pot and a heart flush draw has appeared. Plus you never know he might interpret my weak bet as a cue to make a move. Yeh it would be crazy to make a mvoe with the pot so small but you never know!)

sb check raises to 2460 allin.

(errrrrr wow maybe he's hit 2 pair. Cool. I have no idea what his hand is here to be honest but i would guess it's not brillant as he's trying to kill action. Best hand i could put him on would be bottom 2 pair but draw hand seems the most likely. All this speculation is ireelevant noise however as i have the nuts soooooo I call.)

Cat calls 2260 allin. Cards over.

SB shows the marvellous Q4 offsuit to be drawing dead. Ship the cat that 5k pot. With deep stacks it's ok to make moves but 10x the pot this is hideous overkill. Maybe he read my check on the flop as a big hand such as QQ or JJ that had hit a bad board and thought he could take it down. Don't raise this much ffs though! Give yourself an escape strategy level one in case you are wrong!


Lot's of examples of this muppeptry make the 5k such a good tourney. Let's hope i can close the deal sometimes soon so you don't have to hear any more self indulgent whinges from the cat!

Year to date.......

Closing in on half way through the year and it's time for the cat to take stock.

First off hows the balance?

Well Im 25,523$ up for the year so far. This is roughly $4.3k/month. Happy? Yes i think so. I was under a little financial pressure to produce some results, so overall i will take this. I would have liked to have been more in the 30-35 region but overall this is ok and I will take it.

How did i get there? First off, how are tournaments going?

Well looking back, since january 06,I've won 11 tournaments, 9 holdem and 2 omaha hi lo. To be honest im disappointed at this, i would've expected to have won more than this. What do i put this down to? Partly down to not taking advantage of good situations. I'm still working on changing gears, upping aggression at the right times.

It's funny, when i'm on my game, I instinctively know when to start getting more aggressive, when to run a big bluff, when to steal the blinds, when to slowplay. I have had this a few times this year and it's usually coincided with some good results. When I'm not feeling so confident though i drift into my shell and begin to get blinded away, missing opportunities and only doing well if the deck begins to smack me.

I'm working on trying to improve this and I think i am slowly getting there so let's see how the rest of the year goes....

Cash games.

Well this year i have been mostly playing.....Pot limit omaha. I really have developed a good feel for this and I'm running at roughly 45$/hr which is pretty good considering i mainly play 50c 1$ or 1/2$. Now my party account is back ive started off playing hi lo limit at 3/6 again which i used to be good at. Seems like playign a lot of PL has dulled my edge a little though as recently I've been logging a sluggish win rate.

The two games are very different, a lot of PLom/8 hands are very playable when in limit you're commiting suicide playing them. It's quite hard to play the two games side by side so i'll be workign on trying to improve my play in both.

Played a little omaha cash and a few tournies. Tournies im still very inexperienced though witha bit more luck idve taken a couple down. Cash sessions have been very profitable but too few to be statistically significant. I expect i will log some more cash omaha hours in the 2nd half of the year though.

Finally a recent develpment. I've been playing some heads up NLHE poker. Flushie plays these all the time and has a good record in them. I figured if that mug can win in them then the cat would be leaving a trail of kippers in his wake!

Well ive played 23 so far at 20$ level, and so far I have won 18 and lost 5, including an 11 run unbeaten streak. It's definitely been going well. I find the players very poor at this level. They nearly always make crucial mistakes and you can grind them down by playing the bigger pots in position until they do. It's good fun, although players often get quite personally abusive in these games. I actually like this as i can give as good as i get.

I played a game the other day which was fiercely contested and lasted through to the 100 200 level which is quite rare. We said nothing throughout and i eventually prevailed when he shortstacked pushed his K2 into my A8. As I won the game he said "FU U FKIN PIECE OF SHIT" LOL.

It's a 20$ game kipper chill out!

There's something about heads up games that gets the blood boiling though. ALL GOOD FUN!