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DapperDanMan's Blog    Friends

SCOOP!

Date: Thu, Mar 26, 2009 Tournament

Scored a seat for the SCCOP $109 main event (on pokerstars) last night via a satellite. I only opened the $1 rebuy sat. to keep me entertained whilst grinding. But it soon sucked me in and I finished in the top 13 of 300+ runners :D

The main event is held on the 12th of April and runs for 2 days! There's $1M garunteed but there could be up to 15,000 players which is putting me of a bit. However, I just found out that I can exchange the ticket for such things as a WSOP satellite ticket, hmmmmm...

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(Vince) Argh Poker Clash

Date: Wed, Mar 25, 2009 Tournament

Introducing: Vince Bell

Vince is a good friend of mine who loves this game probably more than I do, although I haven't played with him a lot I respect his play a great deal from the hand examples he sends me and the results I know he's had (see the photo of the £20 freezeout results at the bottom of the page, he's in second - for the record we split the pot so it was on a technicality!)

Writing a blog is a bit hard by youself so I decided to invite a friend to contribute as well. So without further ado here's his first post:

This Thursday the Royal Holloway Series of Poker was taking place and because I have no money I wasn't going to take part. My friend Sam whined at me for 20mins and gave me the money to buy in and I held out until the last minute then thought I'm addicted to poke so why not lol.

The tournament was a £30 freezeout which is continuing this Thursday night there were 27 runners an 12 remain sharing 1.35M chips. Obviously because I didn't want to play in the first place I dominated the first session wiping out player after player with hands like J3hearts against KJo hitting the flop J83 and my favourite hand AJclubs.I'm second last to act and raise 4.5BB with 2 limpers the button and the blinds to get past, I get called by all but the SB. The Flop Ks Qs 4h checked all the way around. The Turn 2d BB bets 1/3pot fold fold hmmm, I call button folds. The player betting is Jake, aggressive at times. The River Js, Board Ks Qs 4h 2d Js, Jake thinks and goes all in for just under pot... My gut instinct is call but my brains going "are you mad?!", I think and call whilst saying "this is either genius or just plain stupid" I wait for him to show he turns over 66, relief and quite a large pot to start my rampage up to 337,500 just under 25% of the chips with only 12 players left =).Now here's the other thing...

I have just been invited to play in the Poker.co.uk Invitational Freeroll Qulifier. 10 players are invited only and the top 2 enter the Invitational Freeroll which is only offered to the top 35 players of February and the Director of the company. It's a 110euro buy in with 2000euro added so the prize will range from 2300 to 5600 euro depending how many play (theres a 200euro bounty on the director too lol), this is also on on Thursday night =S

So I have a big day on Thursday and I have to get up to do a 7hr laboratory session before the games =S

Lets just hope I remember to have my Weetabix!

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DapperDanMan's Blog - 2009-03-24

Date: Tue, Mar 24, 2009 Tournament


It was an eventful weekend for me as far as poker goes. Beginnning with a trip to Aspers on Friday night to play ythe £20 freezeout. Unfortuneatley I only lasted about an hour and a half as I did my best to accumulate chips before the blinds forced me into push fold mode!


Feeling disappointed I decided to take out £50 and sit down at the cash table for the first time. This proved a good investment as I soon found myself with KK in early position, with a limper in front of me. I raised it to 4x BB preying for action, only to find i got 4 callers! A low ragged flop followed and the UTG limper bet into the pot, I moved all-in over the top and got 1 caller with a flush draw, KK held :D and I nearly tripled up. For the next two hours things went well and a coulple of well timed bluffs and all-ins saw my sack increase to 4x my buy-in at which point I decided it was time to call it a night.


In other weekend news I went to the match (Newcastle Vs Arsenal) for the first time in ages and thouroughly enjoyed the first half, I won't go into the second though.


Finally a quick update on my sponsorship progress, I've been playing mostly $10 STT SNG's and I estimate I'm down about $30 but theres plenty of time to turn that around by the 21st of April, when the profit is paid out.

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DapperDanMan's Blog - 2009-03-18

Date: Wed, Mar 18, 2009 Tournament

Today I got my first ever sponsorship deal :D with BankrollSupply.com. This is great news for me as bankroll management has been my most pressing problem of late. Particularly playing MTT's has damaged my income from grinding thus hindering any possible rise in stakes :(. However this is no longer a problem as my daily limit will be increased as I improve.


I'm really looking forward to the next period of my poker career which will involve playing a minimum of 90 table hours per month i.e. if i play 3 tables at once 30 hours per month. To begin with I'll stick to my usual $5/$10 SNG's until I'm comfortable with the system and then move up! I can't really express how pleased I am atm because I've just had a bottle of Champers, which I've been saving, with my friend Tom :)

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3 out of 5 :)

Date: Tue, Feb 24, 2009 Tournament


Won my local pub tournament again last night, making it 3 wins out of 5 :) I'm very pleased with this as my success rate in the past has been pretty poor in these games. I attribute my increased success to loosening up as I pretty much have an image of a total rock. I think this was becoming too predictable amongst a regular crowd of players unlike online SNG's where it's the best way to play early on as you rarely play the same player twice. Anyways £50 profit was another welcome payday for me! :D

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56s got da FUNK!

Date: Sat, Feb 21, 2009 Tournament




Played at Circus last night for the first time and really enjoyed it! :) I went with my 2 m8s Rob and Taty. We were havin a few pints and decided we fancied a SNG but when we got there all that was on offer was a 64 man tourney, £15 buyin with 1 rebuy or addon which none of us had enuf for (the R/A that is). Any way we sat down on a newly formed table together and proceeded to play some loose 'pissed' poker lol. Then came my favourite move of all time! Enjoy:

All fold to Taty on the button. Blinds are only 50/100 and stacks are 5000 average. He raises to 1000! hmmm... Wonder what he's got. SB folds and BB re-raises to 3000, oh dear me-thinks he has a MONSTER! Taty snap calls. Flop is something like J78 and BB quickly goes all-in for 2000 odd more. Taty calls and flips over 56s giving him an open ender. BB has KK, turn is blank and river a 9 completing his straight. Needless to say the BB is gutted and Taty somewhat embaressed! Taty went on to come 4th and win £180 his biggest cash yet and his first live MTT. He gained a bit of a reputation to say the least. His last hand was fitting as it was against the same guy who called his all-in post flop after asking 56s again???

On a lesser note I had my first ever royal flush! :D Can't remember where I finished but was pleased with my play overall, although I was a little timid as usual in a live game.

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Won a 90 man at last!

Date: Fri, Feb 20, 2009 Tournament

Last night was a small milesone as I won a 90 man $2.20 tournament. It took me around 20/30 attempts with about 6 final tables but I kept finishing either 5th or 6th! I finally cracked the nut last night ironically whilst only concentrating in part as I was running deep in a 5000 man $5 freeezefout. Unforttuneately I had to settle for 84th in the end but I'm very proud of yet another deep run at the big money! :)

Just for posterity I thought I'd show off some of my best big MTT results on Stars too:





On Full Tilt:



One fine day! :)

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Off to a good start!

Date: Wed, Feb 11, 2009 Tournament




I kicked off my small MTT campaign last night with two final tables in 90 man tourneys. I played a mix of two $8.80 deep stack 90 man's, a $4.40 180 man and a $2.20 90 man just to keep me busy. By 2am I was on two final tables at once in the $8.80 and $2.20 tourneys :).


Unfortuneatley I could only manage 8th in the $2 and 5th in the $8. I went out of the $2 as I pushed over the top of a short stack all-in with ATs partly because I thought I was ahead and partly because I wanted to concentrate on the $8. The short stack had JJ and virtually knocked me out, AJs next hand saw me all-in and I didn't improve so that was that leaving me to concentrate on the potentially more lucrative game.


In the $8 I picked up A8o in the BB and made a crucial error. The table's most LAGy player (after me) raised my BB from thee button and I re-raised for half of my stack. It was a half-baked move that cost me, as he flat called and I missed the flop. He went all-in on the flop and I was forced to fold. Part of me was thinking that a re-raise of 3x his raise looked stronger than an all-in and the other half thought that I didn't want to put my life on the line with A8o. On reflection this was definately a push-fold situation, but we live and learn.


Two hands later I was in the cut-off with an M of 4 and a very tight player was in the BB who had the same stack as me. I still think this is probably an any 2 push and in my case I picked up 35o, which I reasoned to be live cards so shoved and was called by KQo, no help followed and I made my exit in 5th for $50. Up $35 for the night :)


All in all it was a very encouraging start to my new small MTT campaign and thanks to Rospicko for the suggestion to leave the $2 180 man turbos alone due to variance. I'm increasingly convinced they're the best way to go if I'm to switch from STT's to big MTT's as they are a great training ground for the situations you find yourself in when playing big MTT's.

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Won my local pub game :D

Date: Tue, Feb 10, 2009 Tournament

I won for only the third time since I started playing at my local pub (a long time ago) last night. Well we split first and second anyways (£40 each) not exactly a major score but not to be scoffed at either! I agreed to a split because after 10 mins of rollercoaster heads up action we were evenly stacked and it was clear neither of us was giving an inch... plus it was late, excuses, excuses... Anyways anyone whos followed my blog will have read that small live games are my worst so any results in those games are particularly pleasing :)

My favourite hand of the night was acctually one I lost, lol. I made a questionable call of a 10BB raise (pretty standard at this stage for this game lol) before the flop from MP with KJs. I reasoned that there was 3 callers and therefore good drawing out value. I was VERY cautious at this point as the flop came king high. I checked as first to act and the initial raiser (my m8 who I've been giving lessons to) proceeded to count the pot (by looking) and then bet 2/3 of it (about half of the starting stacks). Until this happened I was ready to fold to any resistance but this just happened to be exactly the amount I had taught him to continuation bet... Anyways after a bit of thought I put him all-in for not much extra and he called with KQo. The funny part though was that during the break he told me that he made sure I had watched him count out the pot and bet exactly 2/3 of it so I'd think he was c-betting! Well Played Tahti, I felt like a proper muuug!

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DapperDanMan's Blog - 2009-02-09

Date: Mon, Feb 9, 2009 Tournament


After reading a post on a forum where someone suggested that stars $2.20 180 man turbos were a good way to build up a bankroll I have reconsidered my plan. Since I've been having a bad run on the single table SNG's and frankly I'm getting bored of them anyways I thought I'd try out this idea I read. Hopefully this will also quench my thirst for MTT's and prevent me from blowing my bankroll that way.
I've started with $150 so that's about 69 SNG's. My experience so far is that these things are mental! When it starts everthing is normal but pretty quickly you're all-in every other hand and when your 4-tabling it can be pretty stressful! Think I'll stick to 3 tables for now, good luck me!

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Update

Date: Sat, Feb 7, 2009 Tournament

I just thought I'd write a quick update on my poker shinaigans... I played at the Grovesner Casino last night for the first week of the Newcastle Poker Forum's league. I was a bit apprehensive about playing some decent players for a change as I'm used to playing random members of the public at Aspers. However I went to check it out anyways.

I ended up finishing 63rdish out of about 117. So not a bad result considering the quality of the field. The only thing I would've changed about my play would've been to be more aggressive in a couple of spots, but nerves got the better of me and I played it a bit too safe.

As for my online activities things are not going too good. I decided to put on a balance of 150 pounds instead of 100 to allow me 40 buy-ins at the $5 level sng's. It's now douwn to 90 pounds and I'm forced to consider moving down to $2 sng's. I don't know if I've lost my knack or whether it's just variance but I've been on a poor run either way. Will I ever have the patients again to grind up a bankroll for MTT's? Not sure atm.

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Good Advice

Date: Thu, Feb 5, 2009 Tournament

When reading Eric "Rizen" Lynch's bolg (famous online MTT pro) I came accross this handy nugget of advice:


"So, how do we know who has a lot to lose from playing a pot with us if we don't have a big stack? A general guideline that I like to use is that any player who has 15-30 big blinds and less than twice my stack size is a prime target to attack. If players have at least 15 big blinds, they are not so short that they're desperate to double up, and if they have fewer than 30, they typically are shallow enough that they're reluctant to take flops with people without a real hand."


Just to put it into context (http://www.rizenpoker.com/articles/2007/08/target-practice.html), he's talking about the mid stages of an MTT, and who you should apply pressure on pre-flop by blind stealing etc. Attacking the mid-stacks is old news but I thought it was a handy rule of thumb :)


That's all for now, can't wait to get his book "Winning Tounaments One Hand at a Time" in 3 days!

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AA vs KK vs K10

Date: Tue, Feb 3, 2009 Tournament

Last night I played in my regular pub game in Heaton. It began badly as I pissed away half my chips playing half-arsed poker. I won it back though by calling an all-in with the nut flush draw which hit. From this point on I played a solid game and made some big calls to take a massive chip lead.

Everyone thought it was foregon conclusion that I would win but desppite this 3 hands decimated my stack putting me out in third. The last of these was a tad unlucky to say the least... I picked up K10 on the button (3 handed) and raised all in due to my short stack only to be called by AA and KK, oh dear. Still I'm really pleased to have nearly won a small live game again as these are my worst games atm.

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DapperDanMan's Blog - 2009-02-02

Date: Mon, Feb 2, 2009 Tournament





















I've just ordered 2 new poker books:


"Winning Poker Tournaments One Hand at A Time: 1" (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Winning-Poker-Tournaments-Hand-Time/dp/0974150274)




Both are highly acclaimed. "Winning Poker Tournaments..." is by some of the most successful online tournament players alive such as Rizen and Pearljammer. I can't profess to know much about them but people on the forums are going nuts about this book so I thought it was a must buy!


"Every Hand Revealed" is a description of every hand played at the Aussie Millions when Gus Hansen won. I think that's a great idea for a book and I haven't read a bad review yet so for £8 I couldn't turn it down! Also I think I'm getting to the stage in my game where I need to loosen up a little and consider styles beyond ABC poker, Hansen sort of personifies unconventional play.


I was just excited so I thought I'd post about my new aquisitions lol. I'm just hoping that they will be a bit more readable than Harrington on Holdem or SNG Strategy which both took me a LONG time to read due to their dry nature. I can't imagine Gus Hansen's book being boring though!

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