Hotter Than The Sun

Unless something catastrophic happens in the next three days May is going to be my best month of all-time online. Here’s a screenshot of my graph for this month;

This might be a bit small, but I'm still getting used to this....

When you add in some PLO winnings it’s the first time I’ve ever won $10k in a month playing cash games. Add in the £3,500 from PKR Live, $4k winnings from Vegas and about $500 more from online MTTs and life is good right now. Obviously I’ve been running well over EV but hopefully that’s not the only reason why this month has turned out so well.

I feel like I’m playing better than ever. Before I went to Vegas I’d been stuck in a real rut, with one breakeven month and one pretty big losing month before that, leaving me to eke out a miserable living as a rakeback warrior. As with any other job, it becomes easy to play poker (or go to work) on auto-pilot, never really thinking about what you are doing at the table or why. For example, you begin to play certain types of hands the exact same way every time and forget about the important aspects of poker such as putting pressure on people or looking for unique spots to bluff and find value. Anyway, playing live for a week really allowed me to experiment, get my confidence back and I think I’ve been a lot more creative since I returned which, for now, is showing itself in results. I've also joined a new gym around the corner from my flat and have been training much more, which probably helps with focus and all that technical mind stuff.

It also helps that the games online have seemingly been a lot better recently. $1/$2 is always beatable but a ton of new fish and bad players taking shots have started playing $2/$4 and making huge mistakes in big pots. Here’s a cool example of that;

Seat 1: itscalledsoccer ($881,54)
Seat 2: GolgeJ ($477,00)

Seat 3: Vic66 ($388,50) (BTN)

Seat 4: chillinFLUSH ($733,63) (SB)

Seat 5: MrStarch ($552,30) (BB)
Seat 6: MJ1215 ($186,28)

Dealt to MrStarch

Preflop: (Pot: $6)

FOLD MJ1215
FOLD itscalledsoccer
FOLD GolgeJ
RAISE Vic66, to $10,00
RAISE chillinFLUSH, to $42,00
CALL MrStarch, $40,00
CALL Vic66, $34,00

Flop: (Pot: $128,00)

CHECK chillinFLUSH
CHECK MrStarch
BET Vic66, $76,00
RAISE chillinFLUSH, to $172,00
RAISE MrStarch, to $508,30
CALL Vic66, $268,50
CALL chillinFLUSH, $336,30

Turn: (Pot: $1 413,10)

River: (Pot: $1 413,10)

Showdown:

SHOWS Vic66

SHOWS chillinFLUSH

SHOWS MrStarch

MrStarch wins the pot of $1,490,10

Obviously they should have both folded the flop. Massive fish calling off with middle and bottom set. Mwahahahahahaha! Set over set over set madness. So I lied about revealing some major tactical changes but generally I just feel more alert at the tables, and long may it continue. 

In non-poker playing stuff, some cool stuff coming up. It’s my wonderful girlfriend Hattie and I’s three-year anniversary this weekend so we have a table booked at the epic-looking steak house Hawksmoor in Covent Garden - http://www.thehawksmoor.co.uk/ for 730pm on Saturday night. It took me about a week to realise that I’d made the stupendous error of booking a table at the same time that the Champions League final kicks off. Not good. And too late to change it. Oh well, eating a 32oz rib-eye with beef dripping chips will be far more satisfying that watching Messi massacre Man Utd anyway.

Pretty uninspiring UFC this weekend too but there is some potential for exciting fights. I’ve got small bets on Struve, Mir, Johnson and Stann to win.

Finally, sad news about the death of Macho Man Randy Savage this week at the age of 58. As many will know I used to be a huge wrestling fan (geek) and still follow it a bit. Macho Man was one of the greatest ever and I have some awesome memories of him from my childhood, especially his Wrestlemania VII match with the Ultimate Warrior. RIP Mach. 

Enjoy the Bank Holiday Weekend. It deserves capitals it’s that good.

Las Vegas Redux Part II

Let's keep this shameless cut and pasting going for just one more blog. After that, I promise it'll all be original Starchness. Here's part II of my Vegas trip report where I got involved in some crazy pots with a drunken fool that looked like this:


 Mr. Marcellus Wallace from the Venetian, 2011.

You really do see some interesting characters when you play poker in Vegas. I played a 14 hour session one day that was probably the funniest day of poker I have ever had.

I had planned to leave at around 8pm to go and get some food but the table was so incredible that it would have been a disaster to leave. The entire game was revolving around this one surly French-Canadian who had managed to go from being +$3k in profit to -$9k over the course of a few hours.

He didn't fold preflop at all. 100% VPIP. And then would check/call every flop and check/fold every turn apart from the few times he actually hit something. Obviously I had engineered position on him and he absolutely despised me because I 3-bet him quite a lot and won a few medium pots from him (he'd raise to $25, I'd make it about $160 with AA and he'd call every single time...).

Anyway I'd ground my stack up to about $2500 mainly thanks to him when this local scumbag who looks quite like Ving Rhames as Marcellus Wallce (but not as scary) showed up at about 11pm. Ving was a mess. He absolutely stank of whiskey, could barely walk and sort of fell into my entire chipstack when he lumbered down next to me. He also hated me with a vengeance thanks to a few bluffs I had pulled on him the day before.

One of them was awesome....flop was four-ways and read something like Q-9-6 with a flush draw. It checked to him, he bet and I was ready to fold with 5-7 when he turned over one of his cards, a queen. Just to show off I guess. Anyway I now called, planning to bluff him on a load of good turns and rivers. Turn was a T and it went check/check. River was a club and I now lead into him for $250 into a $160 or so pot - he thought for a while and obviously had to fold before swearing and promising to 'git you boy' when I showed the bluff.

So then the next day he sits down, is constantly telling me he's going to stack me, that if I try and bluff him one more time he is going to mess me up and all this crap. I just found it quite amusing because while he was a massive guy he actually seemed pretty pathetic. A few other people at the table were calling the floor though and asking for him to be removed - he was also doing all the usual stuff like showing his cards as he folded and trying to collude with other people while in a hand. A first class twat.

He played every single hand I was in by just calling down every street or raising when he made two pair or better. Which was a bit awkward seeing as I couldn't make a pair. Anyway, eventually I picked up Ah Ac (as you do!) when we were about $2k deep. French guy raised to $30, I made it $140 on button, Ving overcalls from SB and French calls.

Ving donks out $200 on a Js 6s 4h flop, French folds and I just call. Ving then donks out $400 on a 6h turn (the perfect card for me as it misses the flush and reduces chances of him having flopped a set...), I make it $1400, he moves in for a bit more and I call. He has As Ks and obviously we all know what the river is....

So yeah, he got my money. The worst part though was him slurring, 'I didn't mean what I was saying man, I actually think you're a good player and a nice guy' before going in for the hug. By this time Wills and Kate were just about to make their vows on TV so I decided to act like a good Brit, shake his hand and walk to the cage to cash in my paltry $140 remaining chips before starting a very long, angry diatribe to myself on the 20-minute walk back to my room (via a comforting McDonald's of course).

Poker - the beautiful game. 



De-tilting?