Saturday, February 27, 2010

Non Poker Ramblings (ok there is still some poker)

I am pretty bored with my writing about poker. I have other interesting things that go on in my life too:) I think I may start rambling on about other fun and interesting topics. Let's see how many poker references follow.

The bowls pennant season has started and I am skipping a rink. We had a convincing round one win against Northmead. We have pretty cool new pennant shirts as well (great material and styling).
We were all very happy with our 6-0 victory. I feel like I have been waiting so long for this opportunity and it has finally arrived. It is great to be a part of this team. I put down approxiamately 500 bowls in preparation this week. They were delivered in 4 quality sessions with team mates. We practiced and drilled hard and had one person setting up game scenarios and calling shots. It really gave me the confidence to call tough shots in the game that I had seen my third nail dozens of times in training and vice versa.

It was like all our birthday's had come at once!

It seems like all my mates birthday's are happening at once. This means many big nights out. One particular night we went out to Manly on Valentine's weekend. Our accomodation was less than stellar, as the demand for accomodation that weekend was high, but we all managed and didn't really spend too much time in our room anyway. The birthday boy was so sick he had to be driven home immediately after a game of bowls in the morning and I had to get the ferry and train home!

We meet some pretty cool people on our night out. There were the horse trainers and the CSU CSI people. I mostly just chilled whilst everyone got right on it! We had some good food and the drinks kept flowing! It is my birthday soon, and everyone seems to be doing pretty well so I am expecting some pretty awesome presents from all!

One of our teammates has booked next weekend for Manly again and I might as well book it for the following weekend as well! Manly or Darling Harbour...I think we might go out in the city for my birthday instead of Manly for a change. It will be easier for poker friends to join in on the celebrations. I don't want those guys
to miss out. We have all worked really hard together to improve our games and any gains I make are in no small part due to our collaboration through discussions, calculations and hand history revisions. I don't think you can discount the generally aura awesomeness transfer either! It seems like when someone goes well it spurs everyone on.

Europa

I didn't manage to get over this Summer. I still really want to go to Europe. Etihad have some great return tickets to Germany. The airfare is less than 2k return, I have plans to travel there in May. Ship me my club incentive payments please. I'd like to
not have to take out any money from my poker bankroll as it is building steadily.

Monday, February 8, 2010

Melbourne Aussie Millions Trip

It is great to play cash games during any big buy in tournament series. The Aussie Millions at Crown was no different, thousands of people from around the World came down under to be a part of the action. We only decided to go down to Melbourne a few days prior.

The Monday before our trip Ryan McKay 'iChipd' on Pokerstars came 8th out of 8885 entrants in the Sunday Millions for around 20k USD. This is certainly a great effort and a big start to the year. He is one of the members of our newly formed 'Team MTG' which is mostly made up of former Magic the Gathering players who have morphed into highly profitable Multi Table Grinders online. For more information see www.ashtoncartwright.com.

After Ryan's win I suggested we go down and play cash games and tournaments. He was definitely keen and I had one bowls trip to go enter before leaving. I travelled to Raymond Terrace in Newcastle to play in an NSWIS team for the weekend. We managed to finish in 1st place for 1k each. That afternoon we got back to Sydney and I didn't waste any time flying out that night with Ryan to Melbourne.

We have great group of friends in Melbourne. They are mostly poker players but a few are into various sports. We had some great nights out and I was a bit more balanced in my approach this time around and only played poker every second day. Last trip I made fantastic money. This trip I was up modestly live and breakeven online except for a step 6 ticket which I won which is worth a live tournament buy in of 2100USD. I will probably offer people percentages of this and play the ANZPT in Sydney again.

There were 2 big pots that went against me, one I played badly and won the minimum (actually there were a few) and some where I feel I adjusted badly to live play. Playing live is mostly more passive, I feel I needed to play more aggresively with my high potential hands; I like the way I played this one despite losing the pot in a 3 way all in on the flop.

... (
... (
Villian 1 ($515) AcAs
Hero (MP) ($965) Kh9h
Villian 2 ($550) Jc10s
CO ($1461)
Button ($650)
SB (
BB (

It was full ring 2-5NL but I can't remember all of the exact stack amounts, I just remember thinking these guys are playing terribly post flop I need to play any two cards (haha)

Preflop: Hero is MP2 with Kh 9h

1 fold, 1 limp, 1 limp, Hero calls, 1 call, Button calls $5, SB calls, BB checks,

Flop: ($50) Jh, 9c, 5h (2 players, 1 all-in)

Villian 1 bets $50, Hero makes it $150, Villian 2 raises to $550 (All-in)

Villian 1 tanks and says he is worried about me and calls $515 (All-in)

Hero calls $550

Turn: ($1635) 6c (3 players all-in)

River: ($1635) 2s (3 players all-in)

Villian 1 had limped in with black Aces and wins the pot.

and Villian 2 had J10 off suit

So aces held and I had great equity in the pot. If I was up against a set and the nut flush draw then it would have been horrible but I had basically ruled out the nut flush draw. I really thought the guy behind me was stronger than J10, it seems to me to be really a terrible move. The call by aces well, if you are going to limp pre flop hoping to re-raise but everyone calls and then there is significant flop action...I would suggest folding.

The guy with aces was a top guy and did actually think for a bit before calling his stack off. I have a have a hand for the next entry that I play poorly where he is sitting in the same position and he makes the same bet in the flop where I have a set.

Against 2 hands (J-10 and K-9) his hand is a dog, most likely 30% as he was here but more than likely less than 20%. It is like dry aces in Omaha.

My hand was just under 50% to win and slightly less if someone had a re-draw to a full house with a set. 50% to triple up, all day.