Circus £165 trip report

It's 4am, just got in, I finished 12/140 for £160. The tourney had it all, yoyo swings, busting out 3 players in 1 hand, great reads, moments of table domination, and the inevitable brutal dick in ass ending. Walked back from the casino and wrote this report in my head so mayaswell type it up. I like long walks through the city after big tourneys, usually find that by the time I get home I've cleared any bad beats from my head and analysed most of my play.

They got the capped 140 runners, which was pretty amazing, generating a huge £20k ($40k) prizepool, with £7,500 to first place. Really top heavy structure, with 11-20 being paid basically their buy-in back. Tourney structure was really good, 40min blinds the whole way and antes in the later levels, I love antes.

First Table
God damn, I have a good table. Is everyone's table this good? I mean seriously there are like 3 players who I'd class as "good at poker". In the first few levels a few people stack off in ridiculous ways. My favourite was a guy who shoved all-in 6k into a 2.5k pot with A4 on a JJ6 flop, to get called by AQ because she thought she had AJ. lol are you serious? Who's play was worse, I can't decide.

So anyway like fuck all happens in the first few levels, I go to the break with my starting stack. Played really TAG and only been involved in relatively small pots. I'd got a tight image as I literally can't bluff because my table is full of stations, and I've not picked up many hands to value bet.

**BUFFET REPORT**
GG on the buffet Circus. Rake well spent on cold meat sandwiches, salad, and even chilli with rice. Overall buffet rating: delicious/10

Ok some hands. We're 300/600-50a, I've got about 6500 (from my starting 7500) and pick up TT in UTG. Pretty standard insta-ship. MP player reraises, LP shortie calls all-in for 4k, BTN calls all-in for about 5k. Err, shit. I'm hoping they all have AK/AQ ;) They table AK, KK and AQ. T88 flop, and I hold. Puts me up to about 22k. Thankyou poker gods!

Table 2
Tougher table this time, people seem to know how to play here. I get cold decked and barely any good steal situations and fold for an hour and a half solid, getting chipped down to about 14k. I did have one situation where I should have made a resteal, an all-in player got in my way but I still should have done it as I knew the original raiser was weak. Didn't have the balls though and I should have taken down a 10k pot.

Anyways, we're about 600/1200-100, a really strong player (Gerry) has just joined a couple of orbits ago, so he doesn't know how stupidly tight my image is. He makes it 4000 more from the CO, I've got 13k (he has me covered) after paying the blinds and look down at QQ. Now obviously I'm shipping it here, but I want called. I know his steal range from the CO/BTN is wide, so I try my best to look pained by the decision for 2 or 3 mins, including even at one point turning round to analyse the tourney timer/blinds on the plasma lol. I move in, trying to look pretty stressed/frustrated and he snap calls with A9o. I hollywood good. He's getting close to 2/1 but it is for about half of his stack, he said after that he only called because he really didn't think I had a hand. My ladies hold and I'm up to 25k.

Table 3
Now down to 30 players, my stack is a little below average. Here I just continue to keep it pretty tight 'til we're down to 23 players and the blinds have ramped up a lot. Now I'm stealing and restealing trying to pick up as many chips as possible on the bubble. I run up to about 40k, bubble breaks and we're down to the last 2 tables. I'm guaranteed my buy-in back (yawn). I stick pretty tight as people like to gamble after the bubble and more bust out down to 12 players.

I'm up to about 50k now with some well timed steals. Folds round to the SB who's a good solid player, we're 2000/4000-400a. He makes it 12k total and this is a beautiful spot for me to ship it with 98s in the BB. He folds and I'm chipped up to 64k now, just around the average. Life is good.

** WARNING: BUSTOUT HAND... WEHHH **
The very following hand it's folded round to me in the SB and I look down at AQo. BB is a good solid player, I've got a lot of respect for his game, and he's got about 80k in chips. Interesting thing here is that he called out my hand in the previous hand where I picked up the pot with a resteal. He said I had 67s, which made me aware that a) he knows how to resteal, and b) he has noticed that my image is very LAG.

So arguments could be made for shipping it here due to the antes and being OOP with AQ, but I think I've still got room and raise to 13,500 total. He thinks for about 30 secs while playing with his chips then announces all-in. At this point I know I can't lay AQ down, but take a few minutes to think the hand over. With my loose image he could put me on a wide range, too much of his range consists of resteal hands. I call all-in for 50k more, making a 120k total pot. He raps the table and flips ATo.

Dealer draws in the monster pot and deals the flop. My eyes immediately catch a Q in the window then she rolls out a J and K behind it making him a flopped straight. Utter brutality. An A on the turn gives me a few outs, but river is a blanko. Congrats/condolences from the table and railers for making the call, but I'm really too gutted to care. I've got so much adrenaline that I somehow manage to get paid out and leave the casino without remembering to steal a copy of Bluff magazine lol.

Walking out I'm obv just feeling like smashing things. That pot would have put me 3rd in chips with 12 players left, the final table paying £7.5k, £4.5k, £3k, etc. It's just not easy to take a beat like that, but after the walk home I feel great about the tourney now. I had a lot of fun, got lucky and had my hands hold in situations... and ultimately lost a 75/25 in the late stages. Such is the nature of the tournament poker beast.

I think I made 2 mistakes the whole tourney (6-7 hours) other than that I played awesome poker, made great decisions, and had a lot of fun. I'm really happy with the way I played. I didn't go in expecting a whole lot, I was really just taking a shot and having some fun, to break even is fine with me, what's most important is that I played my AAAAAA game. (ta for the reminder Neil) ;)

When I left another OP player, Adam, was still left playing hand for hand on the final table bubble. Apologies for not wishing GL on exit, I pretty much forgot in the heat of the bustout. Hope you're taking it down right now sir!


Pretty late now, 5am-ish. Gonna head to bed, will try to put in the last 500 cash hands tomorrow before I head out for Hogmonay. Ta to the Circus staff for putting on such an ace tourney.

Have a great new year all!

Happy Holidays to all!

I've had a great Christmas, been super chilled out and doing absolutely nothing productive over the last few days... which has been great. Super relaxed, loads of nice food, beer, family and friends. Christmas rules. Looking forward to new year too. I don't go back to work 'til the 7th... ahhhhh. :) Have a great new year.


Business
With 2.5k hands to go to make the 10k target for the end of the year I decided to remove myself from Mario Galaxy and put a monster session in. I 4-8 tabled $100NL for 3 hours, then another 2 hours later. Got a record 1891 hands in for the day. This leaves me with about 600 hands left to complete today/tomorrow.

Would probably have went the whole way if it wasn't for getting BRUTALLY river 4-outered in a $240 pot prompting me to insta-quit all tables. Despite most of my session profit going that donk who though bottom 2pr (23o) was good for 120BBs on a 3flush board I'm pretty happy with the session.

Looking forward to doing the 10k writeup. $100NL has went ok. Preflop i'm playing 21/17 now which is great. But postflop I've still got a lot to work on. Looking forward to posting a lot more hands, and figuring out a study plan for the new year to get my postflop play up to scratch.

Took shots at fishy $200NL tables this month, this has went ridiculously well lol. Check this out, selecting tables with ACTUAL RETARDS playing = $$$cash money.


I'll do a big update and 10k review over the next few days after I've completed the $100NL hands. Bankroll is looking good. On track to be rolled to move up to $200NL after another 10k $100NL hands. It's allllll good.

Circus £165 tonight

Playing the £150+15 Christmas tourney at the Circus tonight. It's a freezeout with 40min blind levels, dealer dealt, expecting 100+ runners for a £15,000 prizepool. Should be around $10k to the winner. 40 seats are already gone to sat winners so there should be loads of value.


The buy-in represents less than 10% of my bankroll so i'm classing it as "taking a shot". AAAAA game time. I've saved used up all of my running bad at the Circus so I can run good in this one. Come on!!

Sammy's endless money

Apparently there's a $2k/$4k PLO game on in Bobby's Room just now. Which sparked an awesome thread on 2+2 about where Sammy gets his money from... amazing cartoon strips!

Check it out, cartoons start at post #280. :) http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthread.php?t=76524



Session tonight
Played 1000 hands of $100NL yesterday/today so I'm now on track to finish the 10k hands for the end of the year. It's going alright I guess. Preflop I feel set now, really like my preflop game, but postflop I just suck ass lol... gonna try to play better postflop for the last 2,500 hands.

Burning money #1
One of the big leaks in my game I noticed a lot tonight is calling all-ins despite my opponents lines being really strong. The SB is 40/7. His line is just so strong. Check call preflop on a pretty dry board, flop misses the FD, he check-raises me... what can he have here? His line just screams set, or at least 2pr+. Called on a dry flop, then check-minraised, I guess I figured he could have been doing this with JQ/KQ, but it's not that likely. I think I can call on the flop... but when he shoves the river I just have to fold. These calls are hammering my BB/100 because they're worth so many BB by the river in a big pot!

Burning money #2
Played this one badly too... villain is another 40/7'er. On the flop I can flat call his minraise, or reraise/fold. I decided for the latter option and raised for information, he shoves, and I start thinking, "but he'd play 88-TT this way" and "there can't be too many hands he calls with pre that contain a 7?". If I raise to see where I'm at I need to be able to fold after getting told I'm behind.

Shipping monster $200nl pots
Been taking some shots at weak $200NL games too, which has been going well. Typically playing 3-4 $100NL games and 1 $200NL table. Took down a pretty sick $483 pot tonight after flopping a set of aces against 2 pair.


Played OP today
Played pretty good, sucked out KQ > AK when we got to the final 2 tables, then chipped up a lot short-handed pre final table. Then. the hand that killed me... It's been ages since I've been so angry busting from a tourney. I played this hand so fucking bad I just felt like smashing things for half an hour. Fucking donkaments.

11 players remain, top 6 paid. Blinds are 800/1600 with a 150 ante (3300 in pot pre), we're 6 handed. Standard player minraises 3200 preflop from the CO, from what I've seen his game is standard, plays his cards. We both have 23k behind and are 2 of the bigger stacks at the table.

Now... I don't remember any instances where's he's minraised pre, but he may have Not seen him minraise before, but I've only see him play 10-12 hands. I look down at 88. Thought for a while, decided I wanted to raise and a raise would commit me, so shoved. He snap calls with KK. Goodnight.

Such a donk shove. I thought he only had 14-15k in his stack, but even then I just can't overplay 88 here. I think a random's minraise range here is like 22+/QJ+/KT+/Ax, but weighted towards the strong hands. I'm like 4th in chips in the tourney I can't just jizz my chips off here. Despite my hand *maybe* being ahead of his range I can't raise. I don't want to get committed with a marginal hand in this spot, instead I should want to play a small pot against someone that can damage me. Should have called, lead most flops and shut down if called I think.

I'm was wanting to play the £150 freezeout that's on at Circus next week, but I'm not sure I should. The last few tourneys I've played I have made critical mistakes to bust out or cripple myself. Problem is I'm just not taking in all of the information and considering things quickly and calmly enough at the time... I can be prone to missing things (blind going up, etc).

Circus is a joke I just can't win any money there! I've literally done £500 of buy-ins there without cashing now... maybe not surprising if I donk all my chips off with mid pairs though. Eeeughhh.

DTD trip

Dusk Till Dawn poker club finally opened in Nottingham a couple of weeks ago, and looks fantastic. I'm fancying taking a trip down there just after new year to check it out. Looking to head down around Thurs or Fri (4th/5th) of January, either stay a night down there and play for a couple of days or head down for opening at 6pm and play tourneys/cash 'til close at 6am and head back. :)

Give me a shout if anyone's up for meeting up there, or fancies heading down from Edinburgh/Glasgow and we could maybe share travel costs.


They've got £50/£100/£500 MTTs, lots of STTs and cash games from £0.50/£1. I'm planning on playing in a £100 MTT, maybe the £50 too, and some £1/£2 cash. More details at the DTD site.

Update
Been ill for the last couple of days, had got a shitty cold bug thing so I've stayed away from the tables. Played an interesting session a few days back though where I opened my game up a bit and played 26/22/3.5. Considerably more aggressive than usual. Playing this aggressively gave me a lot of action from players and put me in a lot of tough spots postflop with marginal hands. In short it was great fun, so many tough decisions postflop, which is really where I need to work. It's definately my aim to play a more 26/22 game when I get to $200NL, so no harm in experimenting in it now.

Andy's Christmas home game tomorrow night, which I'm looking forward to. Booked Friday off of work in anticipation of a mixed cash game running through to the morning. Should be interesting as I can basically only play NLHE...

Actually ship it. Tomorrow's my last day at work 'til the 8th of January. Sweeeet. Looking forward to spending time with the family at Christmas... and getting Super Mario Galaxy. :>

Reviewed Willie's first video for my SSNL group tonight, which was really well put together. Took an age to get through it as there were so many interesting hands to comment on. One of the tables had a guy playing 50/48 which was pretty sick.

As for getting my 10k hands in by the end of the month... it's gonna be tight. I've done 6500 so far, not far away, but I've got a lot of plans over Christmas so hopefully I can fit them in somewhere.

Checkin' in

Been chilling out for the past few days. Played some home game poker, but none online, not really felt like it... which is cool, not going to force play when I'm not in the mood.

Pokerroad
Enjoying the pokerroad radio podcasts. All 3 (pokerroad radio, 2 jacks in the hole, big poker sundays) are really good and feature different presenters. They're all really funny and have some great content. Get them added in iTunes, or you can stream them straight from the pokerroad site.

High Stakes Poker
Been following High Stakes Poker too. Last couple of episodes have been slightly less eventful. Guy Laliberte has kind of got annoying, his constant charity to others at the tables just isn't poker. Don't get me wrong the show is still fantastic, but it seems that every big pot so far has kind of been a cop out due to either Guy's charity or running it 2/3/4 times. Still a couple of eps left this season on what is without a doubt the best poker show ever broadcast.

Some reading
Been studying a bit, almost finished a re-read of Zen and the Art of Poker, which is considerably less useful the 2nd time round. I'll need pick up Hilger/Pie's poker Psychology book at some point. Also nearly finished Sklansky/Miller's NLHE book, which is fantastic. Finding a lot of concepts that I can apply.

Training Day
This is definately one of the most underrated action films of recent time. If you've not seen it, waatch it! I'm pretty lucky as I have the amazing ability of not being able to recall anything that happens in films like a week after I've watched them, I seem to just forget everything. So I was able to watch it again without being able to remember most of the plot. The last 30 mins just build and build in tension, it's amazing. I won't give any of the story away, just watch it!

3-Betting spots
Focussing on hands where I've 3-bet, got called, then not been sure whether I should follow up on the flop. As usual, cross-posted on CR forums.

Hand 1: Mid-sized flop, AJo
Is following up here profitable against a LAG player? It just feels like I'm going to get played back at or floated a lot here.

Hand 2: Lead mid-sized flop, AKs
Similar situation, this time villain is TAG. Is it profitable leading here?

Hand 3: QQ, 2 overs on flop, checked to
This one's a little different, that flop is about as bad as it gets for QQ. Villain is a standard 20/13 player, follow up here to rep a big ace? Check and bet the turn if he checks again? Try to check it down?

Workin' away to 10k

Playing more tables means that I'm getting more hands in, gone from playing 400-500 in an evening session to 600-800 per session. Over halfway through the new 10k hands, I'll easily get done for the end of the year.

Tempted to post an update, but I'll save it for when I hit my 10k target. Gives me more drive to put more hands in and get there. :)

Put 650 hands in last night, then reviewed my last 1500 hands. Extracted 18(!!!) hands to weaktight for further analysis. It's going to take me a while to get through posting them on CR and analysing them... don't want to post more than 3 at a time on here as it makes it easier for people to comment on them... and 3 at a time on CR too so it doesn't look like i'm whoring the boards. :> Going back over hands is bringing up so many tough situations I'm unsure about, analysing these is improving my game so much.

So as usual, any comments welcome, I'll start out with an easy one.


Hand 1: Raise QJo from the BB?
I’d happily isolate this in position, but do we want to isolate OOP against a poor/loose player?

Hand 2: Value bet a weak straight on 3-flush board?
It doesn't look much like either of these fish made the flush... can I value raise here?

Hand 3: Not sure how to play this royal flush draw.
Preflop, I’m OOP and unlikely to make them fold, they’re cold-calling a lot. I decide to take a flop instead of 3-betting. I flop FD/SD and overs. What’s my line against 2 LAG players? Am I looking to try to get it in on the flop? If I bet out and get raised do I shove? Or should I check-raise here and try to take it down? Do I want action?


... and finally, showing off some moves...

Hand 4: A well timed check-raise
Villain is 30/9/5 over 100 hands. I've been beating on him and he's just started playing back to my cbets. He pushed me off of a previous hand on the turn after I cbet the flop. Instead of tightening up I’m looking to mix up the ways I push him around, to keep him confused. CTS talks about this a bit in his 2nd video.

Preflop and flop are standard, despite my loose image, I think betting both of them is definitely still the most +EV move. I’d often go for a delayed cbet to mix it up here, but I think he’s gagging to take pots away from me so I don’t want to check/fold.

Turn card pairs the board, aggro $100NL players just love to bluff here… and if they’ve made trips they’ll usually check. I check and as expected he puts out a strong bet to try to take it down. When I check-raise him here I rep trip 9s extremely strongly, there’s just no way he can call without a really big hand which it’s really unlikely he has. He’s gonna have to muck here a huge amount of the time.

I’m not sure about my bet size on the end. I decided to go small as that best reps the trip 9s, but it does give him odds to call with flush or straight draws. It’s possible that a bigger raise could be better.

Cheers

A non-strategy post!?

Too much strategy recently. ;) Took the weekend off a bit and played a couple of live donkaments. Still can't cash at the Circus... grr! Anyways, check out the new GTA trailer...

Baz Video #1

My first $100NL video
I really enjoy watching and commenting on other bloggers poker videos, and my study group have been are doing a lot of these at the moment. My first video is 4-tabling $100NL at iPoker. I'd love to hear comments on any hands or situations, or anything. Drop me a mail to bazclef at g mail dot com, I'd really welcome any feedback, the more the better.

I've hosted the video publicly at megaupload, just click here to access it. Enter the letters to the right of the Megaupload logo in to box and click Download, then wait until the timer runs down below the free option to download the video.

EDIT: If you have problems viewing the video install this codec.


Update
Current 10k hands are going really well so far, I'm about 4k through already. My positional stats in particular are going really well, I'm openingFeel comfortable playing 6-tables of $100NL now, which is really helping me plough through hands. I've just got a lot of drive to play and analyse at the moment, which rocks.

Not doing a "November Update" as I don't really care what my bankroll status, etc is. Trying to be as least results/money oriented as possible these days. I'm just continuing to work hard on my current goal of getting to the 20k hands mark.


Some $100NL hands
3-street opponent range analysis
I’d been finding a lot that people like to shove the river in at $100NL when a scare card hits. Obviously if we look at our hand and his bet on the river on that board we’re too weak to call, can we work through the hand to find that his line doesn’t make sense and find a hero call? FWIW he insta-shoved the river. It feels like he has a set to me. I guess other possible hands could include 46, TPGK (inc 98 for the straight), flush draw (but less likely).


Overpair, river double pairs the board
He limp-calls UTG, then donkleads 1/2 pot. Kind of a confusing line, not too sure what to make of it. Board isn’t too draw-heavy, and I definitely want to see where I’m at, so I just pop it up to $30. He calls. Turn pairs the 4s, It’s pretty unlikely this helped him, I feel if he had a JJ+ here he’d probably bet it out. My hands probably good, I guess he’s got like 56/33-99/A9. I could shove right here? I decide to just try to check it down, in heinsight I probably prefer shoving though.

River is a 9 which double-pairs the board. He shoves, this makes any flopped set a more unlikely holding (33/44 he’d probably check, and 99 for quads isn’t statistically likely). The only hand I’m really worried about is A9, which is definitely possible, but he probably wouldn’t over-shove it, he’d make it just over my stack size, or 1/2-2/3 of the pot for value. His shove on the end just feels like it doesn’t want me to call, and my turn check looked weak which could definitely have induced a bluff. So in the end this is a super-easy call.

Checking the turn like that is a really common line for me at the moment, and though the more obvious play might have been to shove the turn I think checking there gets a lot of players to stack off with a big river bluff.


TT on an all undercard board
His flop bet looks like a big ace or 88-QQ to me. I checked because I really don’t like getting check-raised in this spot, I’d probably have to pass. I have position too, so I’d like to see what he does on the turn, the disadvantage of this is that he gets to see the turn card. Turn pairs the 7, he checks either his OP (worried I’ve made trips), 2 overs (giving up), or a 7 (check-raising). He flat calls and the river is an 8, what should I do on the river? Effective $70 stacks.


3 limpers, raise 99 in the BB?
UTG (56/10) started a limp-a-thon. All players are pretty loose. With up to 88 I’d probably check, but 99+ raise? I don’t think I mind taking a lead and building a bit of a pot here either.


Double barrelling on a turned 3-flush board
Villain is new, no reads. In general is this turn card a standard double barrel? I seem to remember CTS saying that he likes following up in these spots in one of his videos. If the turn was an offsuit 9 I’d definitely double-barrel hard, but the suited 9?

Trying some 8-tabling

Wanted to try the new monitor out, can fit 9 tables with no overlap, which is perfect. :) Got 700 hands in tonight playing between 3 and 10 tables over a 2 hour period. Playing 8 tables was interesting, I didn't feel as overwhelmed as I expected. However I certainly had to rely on PAHud for reads, didn't find I had much time for notetaking, and found it difficult to keep track of my image on individual tables (I need to set up PAHud to show my table stats).

Here are some hands from the session. I feel that my pre-flop/flop play is pretty strong now, my turn/river play is where I'm lacking. Comments from anyone and everyone are welcome, will probably crosspost these on cardrunners too. Reads are shown above the stacksizes.

KK 3-way - Get stacked here? But what am I beating?

Flopped 2pr on 3-flush board against donk-leading super-loose player - Err, the description says it all really. This fish is 75/5. A few hands before this one he fired small on every street with bottom pair. What's my turn line?

Flopped gutshot and OP against a preflop 3-bettor - Villain is a good 19/15/3 player. Flop line? Check/fold? Lead/fold to raise?

Played Circus tonight, I just can't run good there. Hopefully all this negative live variance is mounting up to a big score at the £150 freeze at the end of the month. Dealt for the first hour and a half, and other than dealing myself utter trash I thought I did a good job, got a lot of practise from dealing home games. Anyway, thought I'd post an A-high call I made which I liked my thought process on at the time. Some people might think this is a pretty easy 1st level thinking call anyway, but here it is...

100/200 blinds, I've got around 2.5k. I'm BB with ATo, UTG/CO/BTN limp, SB completes, I check. Flop is 226 rainbow, checked around. Turn is 8, checked around quickly again. River is another 2, SB and I check, UTG bets 500 into a 1000 pot, folded around to me so I'm closing the action.

UTG is a LAG regular, but not a fish. The rest of the table looked weak, so there's no reason he could be taking a stab at it with anything. It's extremely unlikely he has a 2, as he wouldn't limp UTG with A2 or any other hand containing a 2. If he made a pair of 6s or 8s, or had a PP I think he would have bet it on the flop/turn to get value and protect. It's really unlikely he'd have a bigger ace than me, as he'd have raised it preflop.

So aside from a slowplayed FH there's virtually nothing that's beating me, and I'm getting a huge 3-1. Easiest A-high call ever, but I was really happy with the thought process I went through at the time to define a huge portion of his range to a bluff. He had QTo. Ship it.