Tuesday, December 29, 2009

KK Holds

I was on an annual festive pub crawl that we do each year between Christmas and New Year yesterday and one of the games we played was a blind hand of poker where the winner took all the stakes and had to nominate someone to drink a forfeit drink with the proceeds.

We dealt out 9 hands and I got KK. I was explaining that it was pretty unlikely I hold given that 9 hands would see a showdown. Two other players also had a King and there was only one ace out and some nice looking suited connectors. To my complete surprise I actually hold and take down the hand.

Frustratingly I have been grinding tournies today to try to ensure a top 2,000 TLB score for the Stars Passport promo this month and have been dealt KK 11 times. Guess how many won a pot at showdown?

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Big Swings

I have been running pretty badly through most of 2009, but somehow I feel a bit better after reading about some of the swings at the nosebleeds.

It looks like Brian Townsend lost around $1.6m to Isildur1 (running really bad) in less than 9k hands of HU. That set the scene for what is the biggest winning day in online history, with Brian Hastings winning more than $4m from Isildur1 (who also ran terrible).

Obviously these guys are beyond good and probably more dedicated to learning the game than just about anyone out there. However, the sheer amount of money involved in these swings is crazy. I really hope the action continues at these stakes as Isildur1 has been very interesting to watch.

Friday, December 04, 2009

Learning To Win Flips

Clearly I won a few to get to these positions, but that doesn't make me feel any better.

From the last 2 weeks:

$55 Stars - 16/2100
$11r Stars - 22/2500
$75 FTP - 7/780
$33 Stars 500 Max - 6/450
$16 Stars Turbo - 20/1600

Most of these were for decent stacks too. I haven't won a tournie with > 500 players this year and I'd really like to take one down before Christmas.

I think part of the problem is all the huge fields online these days. My average field size this year is 1900, so the variance I encounter is bound to be huge. I should probably mix in some slightly higher buy-in tournies with smaller fields, but I just can't resist a field of 2k terrible players and the prospect of a five figure payday for 1st.

Volume is an issue too. I haven't had the chance to play anywhere as much as I would have liked this year, and there really isn't that much action at the times I want to play outside of my regular tournies.

Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Funny Vegas Story

You know that strange little exchange when someone asks you for the time:

Them: Excuse me, do you have the time?

You: Sure *checks watch* it's half past

Them: Half past?

At this point it becomes apparent that they don't know what hour it is and you'll let them know.

Today a friend told me what can only be described at the Vegas version of this story.

He's standing in the Bellagio lobby and a well dressed, tired looking man in his 40's walks over and asks for the time. My friend looks down at his watch and informs the gentleman that it's 6 o'clock.

The man responds 'Erm, 6 o'clock in the morning?'

It was 6pm. I'm not sure what's worse, the fact that he didn't know if it was evening or morning, or that he guessed and got it wrong.

I can't wait to go back to Vegas. Unfortunately I have five long months to wait until I'll next be in town.