Tuesday, October 31, 2006

New Betfair and some other stuff

Betfair poker has now left Cryptologic. So if you want to try out the new poker site which is no longer linked to William Hill, Littlewoods etc then you can download it using this link

If you use that link you will automatically be on 30% rakeback. There is also an exclusive $1000 bonus if you download it using the link above, which you can see details of here. If you could email your username to bengrundy@hotmail.com just so i can confirm your rakeback and bonus.

In the next few months there will be a load of improvements and the STT structure is possibly the best of all the poker sites. Also, you can chase after Bennyboi who everyone enjoys playing :-)

I played bad in Dublin. Not exactly sure why but i will not be donating my chips so early in a big tournament for a while. In fact, if i go out in level 1 of a tournament with a buy in over $5000 before March then i will give £500 to charity each time. Congrats to Mr De Wolfe who won it. He's had a pretty good last 18 months to say the least.

Also, i just got sent a link of me playing in this year's WSOP on you tube. Click here to see it.

a) I am not 30.
b) I was NOT playing tight!

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Dublin

Just got to my hotel.... playing EPT tournament today at 2pm!

I finally managed to get my desktop up and running again so i could import all my hands to poker tracker for the last couple of months... eek!

I realised that night i lost the £40000 pot i actually lost £75000 on the £25/£50 Omaha that night. I can't remember buying in that many times. Yuck. The problem with playing higher stakes is that when i have been playing smaller stakes i have been donating. It must stop, particularly on the $10/$20 PL Omaha which i normally do so well at, i've been donating. So i am not going to play there unless i concentrate properly.

On the plus side i have done much better than i thought in the £40/£80 NL Hold'em game. I'm actually over £100000 up for the last month so that experiment will continue. However, in the £25/£50 NL game i am almost £100000 down. So i wish i had ignored that table.

Tournament wise... my form is good at the moment. Hopefully i can pick up another good result before the end of the year.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Such a siiiiiiiiiiiiiiick game

Well it is!! Had a horrific day yesterday... someone asked for some Omaha hands so here goes... including the biggest pot i have ever won followed by the biggest i have lost.

Omaha PL (£25/£50)
Table "Sweetheart"
Seat 4 is the button.
Seat 2: Criminal1 (£22490.28 in chips)
Seat 4: Bennyboi (£14128.28 in chips)
Seat 6: Duhfin (£32200 in chips)
Duhfin: posts small blind £25
Criminal1: posts big blind £50
----- HOLE CARDS -----
dealt to Bennyboi [8s Tc 6s Ah]
Bennyboi: raises to £175
Duhfin: raises to £575
Criminal1: folds
Bennyboi: calls £400
----- FLOP ----- [5d Qh 7s]
Duhfin: bets £950
Bennyboi: raises to £3200
Duhfin: calls £2250
----- TURN ----- [5d Qh 7s][4h]
Duhfin: checks
Bennyboi: bets £5050
Duhfin: calls £5050
----- RIVER ----- [5d Qh 7s 4h][Kc]
Duhfin: checks
Bennyboi: bets £5303.28 and is all-in
Duhfin: calls £5303.28
----- SHOW DOWN -----
Bennyboi: shows [8s Tc 6s Ah] (A Straight, Eight high)
Duhfin: shows [5h Qc Kh As] (Two Pairs, Kings and Queens, Seven high)
Bennyboi collects £28304.56 from Main pot

Omaha PL (£25/£50)
(GMT)Table "Sweetheart"
Seat 5 is the button.
Seat 2: Criminal1 (£19826.28 in chips)
Seat 4: Bennyboi (£30212.56 in chips)
Seat 5: ashdogs (£4795 in chips)
Seat 6: Duhfin (£18836.72 in chips)
Seat 7: TSTS (£5095 in chips)
Duhfin: posts small blind £25
TSTS: posts big blind £50
----- HOLE CARDS -----
dealt to Bennyboi [2h 5c 4h Qs]
Criminal1: raises to £175
Bennyboi: calls £175
ashdogs: folds
Duhfin: raises to £750
TSTS: folds
Criminal1: calls £575
Bennyboi: calls £575
----- FLOP ----- [3d 6s Qh]
Duhfin: checks
Criminal1: checks
Bennyboi: bets £2300
Duhfin: calls £2300
Criminal1: folds
----- TURN ----- [3d 6s Qh][5d]
Duhfin: checks
Bennyboi: bets £6900
Duhfin: raises to £15786.72 and is all-in
Bennyboi: calls £8886.72
----- RIVER ----- [3d 6s Qh 5d][3c]
----- SHOW DOWN -----
Duhfin: shows [Kc 5h Qd Ac] (Two Pairs, Queens and Fives, Six high)
Bennyboi: shows [2h 5c 4h Qs] (A Straight, Six high)
Bennyboi collects £38468.44 from Main pot

Omaha PL (£25/£50)
Table "Sweetheart"
Seat 7 is the button.
Seat 1: Mafews (£4400 in chips)
Seat 4: Bennyboi (£20358 in chips)
Seat 6: Duhfin (£67322.06 in chips)
Seat 7: R KESTON (£8570.88 in chips)
Seat 10: ashdogs (£5345 in chips)
ashdogs: posts small blind £25
Mafews: posts big blind £50
----- HOLE CARDS -----
dealt to Bennyboi [Js 7h As 7d]
Bennyboi: raises to £175
Duhfin: raises to £600
R KESTON: folds
ashdogs: folds
Mafews: folds
Bennyboi: calls £425
----- FLOP ----- [6s Qs 7c]
Bennyboi: checks
Duhfin: bets £1275
Bennyboi: raises to £3800
Duhfin: raises to £12675
Bennyboi: raises to £19758 and is all-in
Duhfin: calls £7083
----- TURN ----- [6s Qs 7c][8h]
----- RIVER ----- [6s Qs 7c 8h][Kd]
----- SHOW DOWN -----
Bennyboi: shows [Js 7h As 7d] (Three of a kind, Sevens, King high)
Duhfin: shows [4h 4s Kh Ks] (Three of a kind, Kings, Queen high)
Duhfin collects £40786 from Main pot

kjbdkbdbwedlbedwlbwlbedwlbfwjefewljbfewlkbflkbewffewlknbfewn is what i think i typed after that hand!

Two outered in the biggest pot i have ever played... so brutal.

Luckily today i recovered everything i lost yesterday.

Playing the William Hill Grand Prix on Thursday. My heat looks like this:

HEAT D Thur 19th
1 Antonio Esfandiari USA
2 Ram Vaswani GB
3 Keith Hawkins GB
4 JP Kelly GB
5 Sean Murphy IRE
6 Ben Grundy GB
7 Shelley Mullett GB Qual
8 Sami Yusuf GB Qual

Looks like it could be a fun heat with serial bluffers Ram, JP, Camel and Antonio in the heat.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Strange Week

Since i made the final of the WCOOP i have had a very strange poker week!

I had a few days off then started playing the £40/£80 NL Hold'em on Betfair. Hmmmm horrendous luck, and probably some tilt play led to a £30000 loss. Yuck... how i hate losing that much. Next day not much better another £15000 loss. Amongst those fun two days came the biggest pot i have ever lost in a cash game....

- Heads Up. I am playing £15500. My opponent over double that. I get TT. He makes it £240. I make it £800. He calls. Flop T42. I lead out for £900. He calls. Turn K. no flush draws. I bet £1500. He makes it £3600. I call. River a 3. I bet £2000 and he pushes all in. I call. He has the old KK of course. That was a cold deck.

Flew to Baden on Friday. Decided i just couldn't bare to leave that much money behind online and as i wasn't playing till Sunday. I played from 10pm till 7pm the following day with only a few minutes break. I was treading water for most of it but the last hour was quite a rush, and i ended up winning £32000 for the session. Think thats the longest i have ever played without a proper break.

There was on absolute lunatic playing and he was all in at least once every round. One hand against him shows just how crazy he was for me to call all the way.

Game #2588165463: Hold'em NL (£40/£80) - 2006/10/07 - 14:24:38 (GMT)
Table "Swedeslove"
Seat 2 is the button.
Seat 1: Bennyboi (£9599 in chips)
Seat 2: DEBIDAX (£7760 in chips)
Seat 3: PokaHunta (£6584 in chips)
Seat 6: FOE (£10335 in chips)
Seat 7: TheSlayer (£9189 in chips)
Seat 8: dazzer1 (£13902 in chips)
PokaHunta: posts small blind £40
FOE: posts big blind £80
----- HOLE CARDS ----
dealt to Bennyboi [Kc Qs]
TheSlayer: folds
dazzer1: calls £80
Bennyboi: calls £80
DEBIDAX: folds
PokaHunta: calls £40
FOE: raises to £450
dazzer1: folds
Bennyboi: calls £370
PokaHunta: folds
----- FLOP ----- [Qd 4h 8h]
FOE: bets £888
Bennyboi: calls £888
----- TURN ----- [Qd 4h 8h][9c]
FOE: bets £2444
Bennyboi: calls £2444
----- RIVER ----- [Qd 4h 8h 9c][6d]
FOE: bets £6553 and is all-in
Bennyboi: is all-in £5817
Returned uncalled bets £736 to FOE
----- SHOW DOWN -----
FOE: shows [Td 8d] (A Pair of Eights, Queen high)
Bennyboi: shows [Kc Qs] (A Pair of Queens, King high)
Bennyboi collects £19353 from Main pot

So on to the EPT event in Baden! Well I busted in level one. Hmmm only really played two hands of note.

- AA in the BB. Everyone folds to SB who calls. I make it 100 more. Flop 247. He checks. I bet 150. He calls. Turn a Q. He checks. I bet 450. He calls. River a 2. He checks. I bet 1000. He makes it 2000. I call. He has 23!

- Down to 6500. I raise to 200 with JJ. Late position makes it 500. I call. Flop 27T. I check. He bets 900. I call. Turn 8. I check. He bets 1200. I call. River 2. I check. He bets 1200 again. I call. To be fair i knew i was beat and should have folded on the turn or maybe even the flop.

Then i donated my last 2000. Not really happy with that performance. I rarely bust early in big events. Its a long way to travel to play for an hour.

Got back online later in the day and was down £20000 again. Then played another all nighter and was winning £30000. I actually had £60000 on 3 No Limit tables at one point. Then i lost a big pot to a bad beat so decided to stop winning just short of £20000.

Not sure how long i will carry on playing these stakes. Its easy to lose £100000 playing well and just getting unlucky in less than a week.

On another note. My Omaha table image is now so bad that i get called down by two pair on boards with a flush and a straight. Ok so its good against me sometimes but come on. I managed a to go 3 hours 6 handed and raise every hand preflop. I will be continuing with that strategy for a while to see how my results are after a few weeks.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

WCOOP

I should have kept some hand histories as i can only remember about 7/8 hands from the whole tournament. I won a big coin flip with a flush draw v two pair after a few hours to put me in the top 100 in chips. From about level 6/7 i was in the top 30 in chips for the rest of the tournament. I won a massive pot to make me chip leader in this hand.

- Blinds were 5000/10000. Mid position made it 35000. I reraised with 55 to 100000. I had about 800000 and him 600000. We were both in the top 20 in chips. It flop J95. He checked, i bet 100000 into a pot of 220000 and he pushed in for his stack. I called of course and he had KK. That put me on $1.4 million in chips and the next highest was $1.1 million at the time and there were about 60 left.

I stayed in the top 3/4 all the way until we were down to two tables. I won another big pot with 99 v AQ when i called a reraise all in for about 900,000 chips. Then i lost about the same amount when the button pushed for 20bb an i called in the bb with 99 and he had TT.

Someone on my last entry asked me to comment about this hand here.

The last two orbits it had folded around the me in the small blind and each time i made up the SB he put in a big raise and i folded. So K9 was a tricky hand when they folded again. I decided to raise as obviously K9 is probably ahead against one random hand. With his stack being close to 1 million... i also didn't want to raise to 240000 and give him the chance to resteal or reraise me out of the pot with a genuine hand, which his stack size would have been perfect to do. So i opted to raise 5 big blinds to 400000. When he pushed in for another 590000... i obviously didn't like it very much. I had to call 590000 chips to potentially win $2 million.... so i needed to be over 30% for it to be the correct maths call. There was a chance he could have a smaller pair than 99 and it be a coin flip. Even AQ, AJ, AT would have been ok for me to call in this spot. As it happened he did a hand that dominated me with AK and i hit two nines on the flop. That was my luckiest hand in the tournament.... i can't remember another one anywhere near like that.

I made the final being only all in once with the worst hand... the flush draw against two pair that i mentioned earlier...

One guy busted and we were down to eight which is where i finished. The following hands sealed my exit.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?536961

This is how the action went.

PokerStars Game #6496413628: Tournament #40000018 $2500+$100 Hold'em No Limit - Level XXIII (50000/100000) - 2006/10/02 - 04:53:50 (ET)
Table '40000018 24' 9-max Seat #5 is the button
Seat 1: area23JC (4799937 in chips)
Seat 2: GODFATHER 72 (3639424 in chips)
Seat 3: Numie2 (2314416 in chips)
Seat 4: Annette_15 (1746499 in chips)
Seat 5: DEEZZZ_NUTS (1356882 in chips)
Seat 6: hannibalrex (6646227 in chips)
Seat 8: milkybarkid (2188523 in chips)
Seat 9: Lefort (2408092 in chips)
area23JC: posts the ante 10000
GODFATHER 72: posts the ante 10000
Numie2: posts the ante 10000
Annette_15: posts the ante 10000
DEEZZZ_NUTS: posts the ante 10000
hannibalrex: posts the ante 10000
milkybarkid: posts the ante 10000
Lefort: posts the ante 10000
hannibalrex: posts small blind 50000
milkybarkid: posts big blind 100000

Holecards:
FOLD Lefort
FOLD area23JC
FOLD GODFATHER 72
RAISE Numie2, 150000 to 250000
FOLD Annette_15
RAISE DEEZZZ_NUTS, 1096882 to 1346882 and is all-in
FOLD hannibalrex
CALL milkybarkid, 1246882
FOLD Numie2

Basically Numie2 had raised the last two pots so it was likely he could have any hand especially as he is raising in mid/late position. DEEZZZ_NUTS reraise on the button could be a resteal, or he could have a good, but not great hand like a small pair or weaker Ace. I thought his range was far too big for me to pass AK. Ideally i wanted him to turn over a weaker Ace. He had KK unfortunately and i didn't hit the Ace. No regrets over the call though. I wanted to win.

I can't find the link for the hand i busted on. It was one or two hands later. I had about 750,000 and was dealt TT. Facing another raise and reraise, i could have gone back over $2 million if my hand was good. My opponent had QQ though and i missed. Busted!

The guy who won it JC Tran played so well throughout. I was in his table for ages and i couldn't win a pot against him, luckily the rest of the table couldn't win a pot against me.

I am obviously happy to have had such a good cash. It was only my second online multi this year. Its actually just a bit higher than any live tournament cash that i have had. I really felt like i was going to come in the top 3 when we got down to the last 40.... so was gutted when i busted out. I am sure if i keep putting myself in these positions the really big result i want won't be too far away!

Next stop Baden on Friday for the next EPT event. I would settle for accumulating over 3 million chips again in that!

Monday, October 02, 2006

WCOOP Main Event

PokerStars Tournament #40000018, No Limit Hold'emBuy-In: $2500.00/$100.00

2510 playersTotal Prize Pool: $6275000.00
Tournament started - 2006/10/01 - 16:30:00 (ET)

Dear milkybarkid, You finished the tournament in 8th place. A $119,225.00 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

Sooooooo close to winning the thing! Feel gutted again at the moment. Was 3/4th going into the final and walked AK into KK and TT into QQ. I was only all in with the worst hand on the final table. Feel like i want to sleep for a whole week!