Thursday, July 14, 2005
Background Part 2
So May 2005, and an invite to a mates house to discuss the further development of our tipping and social site www.waxers.com.au re-introduced me to poker. There were a few others there as well and we decided to play some poker, Texas Hold'em, two of the guys are members of Pokerroom (MrNewbie and wilso4) so we play and I come out with a few dollars. During the evening there are a few hard luck stories that MrNewbie and wilso4 had experienced in Pokerroom, so this once again gets my interest.
So I log back into my old account and see the forgotten $0.95 and throw in $55 and register for a $5.00+$0.50 tournement and come around 126th and immediately back up into another one and get a little further about 80th. I get a call from Wilso4 saying that the next morning (Australian Time) is a DECCA freerole worth $5K, a freerole is were the organising company (Pokerroom) put up the prize money and people can join for free. They often have $500 freeroles, twice a day I think. Anyway, so I go in this free role and get 40th and get about $14 for a good 3 hours effort. Then, the big one the hooks me on again, I get to the final table in a $5.00+$0.50 finishing 6th and collect $74 very exciting getting to the final table. In this tournement I was very patient essentially only playing the top hands - pairs AA to 77 and AK, AQ, AJ, A10.
I read a few more articles around and was looking at a lot of websites, cardplay, ESPN, Pokerwire and went out and bought a deck of cards just to see if some of the river cards that I saw really do come off and it seems they do.
I played in as many tournements as I could, sometimes three to four a day and also on low-limit tables. This is when I started a very worrying trend in my poker play. I would get into a very good position, 40th largest stack with 80 people left out of 300+ entrants. Sitting pretty here you think, Top 60 are to be paid, this situation you'd expect to come out with say $14 or so, profit of $9. I could easily have check folded into the money and then played as normal again. But what has happened easily the last 7-8 times that I have played is that I bust out on very poor poker play. Take this example, classic
36th out of 620 odd. Top 60 paid, 85 entrants left and 2 minutes left to 2nd break.
I'm holding pocket Kings (KK) Blinds are $200-$400.
I'm two behind the button (Dealer) with the stack-leader one behind (i.e next to me) I call and stack leader raises $1200 other that are in fold, I call. Flop is K, Q, J...so looking at this I immediately forget everything that has me at 36th close to the money and bet about $4k (out my $10K stack) and the stack leader calls. Next card 10, so board reads K, Q, J, 10 - I check leader bets $6K without thinking I shoot back ALL-IN...after all I have KKK here, there was a brief thought that he has AA in pocket, but I that thought was bumped out of the way by, "If I win this I'm going all the way to the final table", I am sure that many of you can see something here already. He calls...next card was 7. Show-Down...I show KKK his pocket cards AK, he wins with straigh Ace high.
Out I go.... ¶ Thursday, July 14, 2005
So I log back into my old account and see the forgotten $0.95 and throw in $55 and register for a $5.00+$0.50 tournement and come around 126th and immediately back up into another one and get a little further about 80th. I get a call from Wilso4 saying that the next morning (Australian Time) is a DECCA freerole worth $5K, a freerole is were the organising company (Pokerroom) put up the prize money and people can join for free. They often have $500 freeroles, twice a day I think. Anyway, so I go in this free role and get 40th and get about $14 for a good 3 hours effort. Then, the big one the hooks me on again, I get to the final table in a $5.00+$0.50 finishing 6th and collect $74 very exciting getting to the final table. In this tournement I was very patient essentially only playing the top hands - pairs AA to 77 and AK, AQ, AJ, A10.
I read a few more articles around and was looking at a lot of websites, cardplay, ESPN, Pokerwire and went out and bought a deck of cards just to see if some of the river cards that I saw really do come off and it seems they do.
I played in as many tournements as I could, sometimes three to four a day and also on low-limit tables. This is when I started a very worrying trend in my poker play. I would get into a very good position, 40th largest stack with 80 people left out of 300+ entrants. Sitting pretty here you think, Top 60 are to be paid, this situation you'd expect to come out with say $14 or so, profit of $9. I could easily have check folded into the money and then played as normal again. But what has happened easily the last 7-8 times that I have played is that I bust out on very poor poker play. Take this example, classic
36th out of 620 odd. Top 60 paid, 85 entrants left and 2 minutes left to 2nd break.
I'm holding pocket Kings (KK) Blinds are $200-$400.
I'm two behind the button (Dealer) with the stack-leader one behind (i.e next to me) I call and stack leader raises $1200 other that are in fold, I call. Flop is K, Q, J...so looking at this I immediately forget everything that has me at 36th close to the money and bet about $4k (out my $10K stack) and the stack leader calls. Next card 10, so board reads K, Q, J, 10 - I check leader bets $6K without thinking I shoot back ALL-IN...after all I have KKK here, there was a brief thought that he has AA in pocket, but I that thought was bumped out of the way by, "If I win this I'm going all the way to the final table", I am sure that many of you can see something here already. He calls...next card was 7. Show-Down...I show KKK his pocket cards AK, he wins with straigh Ace high.
Out I go.... ¶ Thursday, July 14, 2005
