55k score!

What a trip! As im sure most of you know, I ended up coming 2nd @ ANZPT Queenstown, after 4 days worth of pokering. This was good for 55k NZD, although a fair chunk of that had to be paid out to my investors/guys I swapped action with. Still by far and away my biggest score and really put an exclamation mark on what had already been an amazing trip away! Hopefully I can do a full recap of the tournament in a later post.
It feels good to be home however, I plan to really knuckle down and get my grind on online, as these live trips have prevented me from really putting in the volume id like. Would be nice to get back into the black on my challenge too – i’ve played a couple of sessions for no result lately as well.

RESULTS:
OVERALL: -7,188.84

Progress, shipped 55 6max (again)

Queenstown continues to be amazing! On Tuesday I headed up to Cardrona again with Pat, Chloe, Hugh, Toby and Tollgate. Got up there super pumped because it had snowed overnight, however the weather was awful on arrival. We spent the first three quarters of the day on and off the slopes, the visibility was shocking – pretty much guessing where you are headed, following poles down the runs and not seeing the various bumps and drops as you went over them. On top of this, my shin splints were destroying my soul; my calves were completely locked up. Luckily, mid afternoon I managed to give them a rub down with some anti-inflammatory cream and had a stretch and was good to go again.

Walk outside and the weather had magically cleared, the sun came out, and there was fresh snow everywhere! I spent the rest of the afternoon shredding the mountain with Tom “Tollgate” Grigg and getting a ton of “freshies”. It was amazing riding the chairlift looking over at the fresh tracks we had just made and getting excited all over again trying to work out where we were going to hit next. Funniest moment of the afternoon was Tom dropping off into a fresh slope and losing his ski in his first turn cause the snow was seriously waist deep. He had to crawl back up the hill a bit and dig through the snow to find it. By the end of it though, my calves had definitely had enough – so totally worth it. On a related note, Tom and I have made a 1k weightloss bet as we were both too heavy to skydive here in QT... We still have to finalise the actual amounts we are aiming for but I will be going to somewhere <100>110 atm).

Wednesday I spent with Casey grinding in the same Internet cafe that had been the scene of so much excitement on Monday. Had a pretty good day, FT’d the 11 cubed and the 55 6max on stars. The 11 cubed was a real crapshoot, 7 handed the CL had like 35bbs and everyone else was 15-20. Unfortunately I busted in a pretty standard spot, I reshoved 77 for 18bbs over a MP raise vs a guy who had already raise/folded to a smaller jam by me in a similar spot. Unfortunately he woke up with pocket rockets and I didn’t get there – 7^th for just under 1k. While all this was going on, I was grinding the 55 6max FT too. I love the structure in these, I was 4/4 yet I was perfectly comfortable on my 40bb stack. I managed to keep my stack afloat with a combination of 3betting and opening a ton of pots and managed to small ball my way to a HU match vs another decent reg. It was fairly deep (>50bbs effective) and was actually quite fun to play another good player heads up. He definitely got the better of me early was 3betting me a ton etc. However, my reads on him were pretty good as the following 3bet pot demonstrates:

***** Hand History for Game 47056348564 ***** (Poker Stars)

Tourney Hand NL Texas Hold'em - Wednesday, July 21, 05:39:06 ET 2010

Table 322011122 9 (Real Money)

Seat 1 is the button

Seat 1: golden_nug ( $443022.00 USD )

Seat 3: ragenut ( $267978.00 USD )

golden_nug posts ante of [$600.00 USD].

ragenut posts ante of [$600.00 USD].

golden_nug posts small blind [$3000.00 USD].

ragenut posts big blind [$6000.00 USD].

** Dealing down cards **

Dealt to ragenut [ As 9s ]

golden_nug raises [$9000.00 USD]

ragenut raises [$25555.00 USD]

golden_nug calls [$19555.00 USD]

** Dealing Flop ** [ Ks, 7c, 7h ]

ragenut bets [$27855.00 USD]

golden_nug raises [$62000.00 USD]

ragenut raises [$207968.00 USD]

golden_nug folds

ragenut wins $173823.00 USD

ragenut wins $188310.00 USD from main pot

Then I managed to ship the win for 2.6k after this hand, some people might regard this as a “cooler” heads up (top pair v top pair) however I definitely think he overplayed his hand and could take a better line, though I am grateful he stacked off and I held!

***** Hand History for Game 47056364243 ***** (Poker Stars)

Tourney Hand NL Texas Hold'em - Wednesday, July 21, 05:40:05 ET 2010

Table 322011122 9 (Real Money)

Seat 3 is the button

Seat 1: golden_nug ( $348867.00 USD )

Seat 3: ragenut ( $362133.00 USD )

golden_nug posts ante of [$600.00 USD].

ragenut posts ante of [$600.00 USD].

ragenut posts small blind [$3000.00 USD].

golden_nug posts big blind [$6000.00 USD].

** Dealing down cards **

Dealt to ragenut [ As Jc ]

ragenut raises [$11555.00 USD]

golden_nug calls [$8555.00 USD]

** Dealing Flop ** [ 5c, Ts, Jh ]

golden_nug checks

ragenut bets [$18557.00 USD]

golden_nug raises [$45500.00 USD]

ragenut raises [$88998.00 USD]

golden_nug raises [$288212.00 USD]

ragenut calls [$226157.00 USD]

** Dealing Turn ** [ 2d ]

** Dealing River ** [ 3c ]

golden_nug shows [Js, 9h ]

ragenut shows [As, Jc ]

ragenut wins $697734.00 USD from main pot

So yeah overall a good day, still unhappy with a couple of things, I bubbled the FT of the 27.50 turbo on stars came like 13^th shoved A9o on the button with 14bbs – SB (3bbs) snaps off with A5o and BB (10bbs) comes along for the ride with A2s. The BB ended up flushing me on the river and I busted the next hand. Also made a very FPS play on the bubble of the 22 rebuy 6 max on FTP, 3bet a reg’s BTN raise he makes a small 4bet and I for some reason decide he is FOS and 5bet ship the ol’ 74 sooooted for about 50ish big blinds. He of course has AK and im sure was very grateful for the donation lol.

In other news I play the main event day 1 in about 2 hours, I have been presented with a rather embarrassing T-shirt which I have to wear today due to having the worst Monday (bit hard when someone binks 4^th in the warm up thanks tom!) GL to me anyway vs the live pros...

RESULTS:

Wednesday: +$2,240.13 (ABI: $57/ITM: 24%/MTTs: 34/FTs: 2/Bubbles: 1)

OVERALL: -$4,171.53

inroads, tollgateaments!

Having a blast in New Zealand at the moment! We have been here for 5 days, spent 3 days on the slopes so far two at Coronet Peak and one beautiful sunny day at Cardrona yesterday. Queenstown really buzzes at night, there is a number of decent restaurants and nightspots. We spent the other night at a sports bar which was quite intimidating - the All Blacks were playing South Africa and the crowd was soooooooooooooooooooooo into it. Been hanging out a fair bit with Pat & Chloe, as well as Hugh and Toby Cohen and Tom "Tollgate" Grigg. ANZPT Queenstown events start tomoro, so the town is obv about to be invaded by a shitload of poker players including the one and only Rennie Shhhhhteeeeel and his GF Sorrell. I personally doubt I will be playing many of the lead up events, but I will be playing the main event which starts on Thurday, hopefully get my run good on!

Anyway, this morning Tom, Hugh and I headed down to the 24hr net cafe to get grind on the mind. Had a pretty uneventful session myself, copped a brutal beat deep in the Cake $100k gtd QQ < AJ to bust 28th... but

Tollgate the sicko ended up shipping 4th in the Sunday Warmup for 46k!!!! This was awesome for me as well cause I swapped 5%, and the 2.3k I got was enough to get me in profit for the day. I am making inroads into my downswing, really keen to put in some serious volume when I get back home. Only one decent cash away from being back to square!

Also a small brag managed to cash in the Million for 500ish but I bought into the mill and the warmup with FPPs; so 27,000 Fpps ----> $2800 = :)

RESULTS:

Today: +$1,583.69
OVERALL: -$6,411.66

Its a winning session!

Played last night and today for another disappointing (overall) result. Got 5th in 109 2x turbo for $2.7k and racked up a 9th in the 11 12k gtd on stars; got stacked overpair < top set for a hugggge pot. Also came an unexciting 24th in the nightly 70k, AQ < AK off a 12bb stack love you pokerstars.

Bricked a couple of ANZPT/APPT satellites last night, so really didnt knock much off my downswing at all. Just really sick that today could have just as easily been +10-20k. Getting very sick of coming 10th-25th in big fields too.

Luckily Ill be able to take out my tilt on the ski slopes of Queenstown tomoro, so far we have done two days boarding and took today off due to various muscular aches and pains plus a need for sleep. ANZPT main event is in about a week, I have sold/swapped off a lot of action but a deep run in that would be obv great.

TOTALS:
Last night: -$760.80
Today: +$1,679.17

OVERALL: -$7,995.35

standard mondaze

yup book another losing session... very tilt worthy considering the deep runs I had going. Managed to FT possibly the very smallest MTT on my schedule (non guarantee $33 turbo on FTP) and got 2nd for 550 but that was it.

As for the could have beens:

*23rd/6000ish in the early stars 3r
*30th in 26 33k gtd
*17th $55/500 cap
*24th 20r on FTP

and... to finish this gem to get 11th in Big Double A:

Full Tilt Poker Game #22252581937: Big Double - A (171740865), Table 15 - 1200/2400 Ante 300 - No Limit Hold'em - 2:34:22 ET - 2010/07/12
Seat 1: Higher_Wattage (37,018)
Seat 2: 1stlogeeek (52,603)
Seat 3: Smiggie Balls (58,382)
Seat 4: F3NN3K (41,470)
Seat 6: aswtos (45,056)
Seat 8: lockitup2487 (66,509)
Higher_Wattage antes 300
1stlogeeek antes 300
Smiggie Balls antes 300
F3NN3K antes 300
aswtos antes 300
lockitup2487 antes 300
lockitup2487 posts the small blind of 1,200
Higher_Wattage posts the big blind of 2,400
The button is in seat #6
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Higher_Wattage [Kc Kd]
1stlogeeek has 15 seconds left to act
1stlogeeek folds
Smiggie Balls folds
F3NN3K folds
aswtos folds
lockitup2487 raises to 4,800
Higher_Wattage has 15 seconds left to act
Higher_Wattage raises to 12,555
lockitup2487 raises to 66,209, and is all in
Higher_Wattage calls 24,163, and is all in
lockitup2487 shows [Jh Js]
Higher_Wattage shows [Kc Kd]
Uncalled bet of 29,491 returned to lockitup2487
*** FLOP *** [4d 5c 8h]
*** TURN *** [4d 5c 8h] [3c]
*** RIVER *** [4d 5c 8h 3c] [Jc]
lockitup2487 shows three of a kind, Jacks
Higher_Wattage shows a pair of Kings
lockitup2487 wins the pot (75,236) with three of a kind, Jacks
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 75,236 | Rake 0
Board: [4d 5c 8h 3c Jc]
Seat 1: Higher_Wattage (big blind) showed [Kc Kd] and lost with a pair of Kings
Seat 2: 1stlogeeek folded before the Flop
Seat 3: Smiggie Balls folded before the Flop
Seat 4: F3NN3K folded before the Flop
Seat 6: aswtos (button) folded before the Flop
Seat 8: lockitup2487 (small blind) showed [Jh Js] and won (75,236) with three of a kind, Jacks

RESULTS:

Today: -$828.79
OVERALL: $-8,913.72

downscwhing

Yeah so I'm pretty sure the title says it all - been in a major rut lately when in comes to the real business of actually winning $$$. I feel like I have been playing well still, however I mostly attribute this to my (failed) attempt to increase my average buy in; a sort of "shot-taking" I guess. Had some deep runs in some really big stuff lately, I have racked up a 10th, a 21st, and a 34th in $162s - obviously a result in any of these would have kept me in enough $$$ to keep my ABI where it is.

However, as I alluded to in my previous entry ill be dropping a lot of my bigger stuff and trying to run somewhere around a $40 ABI for the time being, at least until I get a result or two. It amazes me that so many poker players out there are completely irrational when it comes to bankroll management, especially considering the inherent variance that exists in the game (especially in regards to MTTs). It is my opinion that you should make some attempt to "smooth" out the fluctuations that your bankroll goes through; somewhat similar to what the government attempts to do for the economic cycle using monetary/fiscal policy. To put it simply, take shots when your upswinging, and drop back when your downswinging. I've taken my shot, im ready to admit short-term failure, and now going to grind it back.

Also went 0/4 MTTs in Perth, Ill probably write a post about that later. Off to Queenstown on Tuesday too, should be epic!

RESULTS:
Tuesday: -$1,444.84
Friday: -$1,638.53

TOTAL: -$8,084.93

perth monday

FML another losing session. Came 24th in the $75 24k this week, after coming 30th in it last week. Gonna have to drop down in buyins noticeably and try and get some results to get me back on track.

Session: -$1,925.76

OVERALL: -$5,001.56