Heads Up Challenge: DaMatrix v Spudnik

Spudnik, winner of the February competition, just won the Heads Up Challenge match held at BugsysClub, beating me fair and square to collect the prize of $20.

I lost a decent pot when I slowplayed AA and gave Spudnik the opportunity to make his gutshot straight - paying off his river bet.

From then on, Spudnik built up his stack with some nice play and finally busted me when he raised pre-flop on the button with K6 and I made a move by re-raising all in with AT:


Spudnik wins the match!

Look out for a new competition in April!

Happy Easter

Call of the Week: bristoldave@Bugsys (20%)

The cool thing about posting these C.O.W.s is that it allows you to cool down after a big bad beat. After a raise, a re-raise and a re-reraise, who would think their Jacks were good?!

Especially since I had been playing fairly tight against the loose oppposition and as a result was the "short stack" on the table with the blinds still at 100/200.

What struck me is that the call was made in about 1 second. If they'd taken one second more they might have realised they were likely to be a 4/1 dog.

Event Started: Saturday March 26th
Game: No Limit Hold 'em
Level VI: 25 Ante 100/200 Blinds (25 Minimum Chip)
Average Stack: 14,000 (10,000 starting chips)
Remaining Players: 5 (7 started)

Seat 2 : Wyattspal starts with 15,000
Seat 3 : Bikerfish starts with 15,350
Seat 5 : bristoldave starts with 13,625
Seat 6 : ladychurch starts with 18,875
Seat 7 : DaMatrix starts with 7,150
Seat 6 : ladychurch has the dealer button

***DEALING HOLE CARDS***
DaMatrix dealt down As Ad

Wyattspal posts the ante 25
Bikerfish posts the ante 25
bristoldave posts the ante 25
ladychurch posts the ante 25
DaMatrix posts the ante 25
DaMatrix posts the small blind 100
Wyattspal posts the big blind 200
Bikerfish folds
bristoldave raises 200 to 400
ladychurch raises 400 to 800
DaMatrix raises 6,325 to 7,125 and is all-in
Wyattspal folds
bristoldave calls 6,725
ladychurch: aq no good?
ladychurch folds

DaMatrix cards were As Ad [80%]
bristoldave cards were Jh Jc [20%]

***DEALING FLOP*** [ Js Tc 6h ]

***DEALING TURN*** [ 4c ]

***DEALING RIVER***[ Kd ]

bristoldave wins 15,375 with three of a kind, jacks
DaMatrix has left the table

Hendon Mob League: Game 2

The Hendon Mob League Game 2 just finished at Stan's Poker and I managed to place in the money (9/70) after a major slice of luck midway through the tournament.

A lot of hype surrounding the event, on both the Hendon Mob Forum and Betfair Forum, as an unknown player (Dubai_Mill) was backed from 66/1 into 33/1 joint favourite with the Hendon Mob professionals. I was drawn on his table.

To the poker. The first pot I contested involved Dubai_Mill. He raised just over 3xBB in mid position. I think about reraising with JJ from the button but instead take it easy and see a flop. BB calls too. Flop is ten high, 2-flush. BB bets the min, Dubai_Mill calls and I go to raise the pot but I make a mistake on the Prima software and it only puts in a single raise - argh! The turn is a King and and have to fold when Dubai_Mill raises big.

I got dealt JJ quite a few times. Doubled up after raising early with JJ, big blind reraises me all in. I call and my Jacks hold up against his TT.

Soon, I get dealt KK in the small blind and before the UTG player has even acted I am worrying about AA being out there. What are the odds of that? About 24/1 (10 handed; 6 handed it is 44/1).

Everybody folds to the button who raises the pot. I contemplate calling to see if an ace flops, but with the big blind likely to call if I call, I decide I'd rather be heads up or win the pot right there - hence I reraised all-in.

Of course, the button calls and turns over AA!

For once though, Damatrix gets lucky and hits a flush. Poor "meds" finished 48th.

My next victim is LaidBackRuby, who was left short stacked after our JJ vs TT encounter. He raises 5xBB all-in in early position with 66. I sense he is desperate and re-reraise with yet another JJ in mid position to drive out the blinds. My Jacks hold up once again.

Battle of the blinds next. I raise with A2s in the small blind and the short-stack in the BB reraises all-in. I forced myself to call even though I was pretty sure I had the worst of it but getting about 3/1, I decided to gamble. An Ace on the flop means I beat Yethmate's 33.

Incredibly, the bookies favourite, Dubai_Mill blew his massive stack (second chip leader) in a couple of hands to finish just 15th.

After that the cards dried up, had a chance to put Ross Boatman all-in and try and get his $100 bounty. After limping in with 88 in early position, Ross raises to about 5xBB. Back to me and it's either re-raise all in or fold. Best case scenario and I am probably a slight favourite but I have a feeling he has a bigger pair and so I fold since I was trying to win the tourney.

Next time I might call, since the buy in for the tourney is $25+$2.5, the bounty $100 plus 5 extra league points - it's probably worth calling if you are reasonably uncertain he has a bigger pair.

Ross Boatman was knocked out a few hands later in 12th position beating fellow mobsters Ram Vaswani (34) and Joe Beevers (54).

With no playable hands, I was pretty pleased to make the final table (even though as the short stack - hey, I am used to that!) and rob and extra place to finish 9th. Just wished I was dealt Aces at least once in the tourney.

Well done to Belly-Buster and Commieboy, first and second respectively.


Hendon Mob League Game 2 Results.

This Week's Update

It's been over a week since my last post and so I thought I'd cover it all by posting an update.

Overall it's been a great week profit wise, making more than half of January's and February's profits combined. The reason for this is very much down to the fact that I have limited (no pun intended) my Limit Hold'em cash games and instead concentrated on Pot Limit Omaha Hi-Low. I have also limited No Limit Hold'em to tournaments even though I have played more NL than in the past two months.

The results have been fantastic and I will be carrying on this blend of games til the end of the month.

Tournament wise my results have been improving as in an effort to shake off my label of "Master of the short-stack" (I could teach Willie Tann a few tricks), I have tried to play a little looser - sometimes even against my instincts. I still have some way to go as currently I believe I am playing at about 60-70% potential.

Nevertheless, Saturday for example, I finished in the top 5% in 3 concurrent NL tournaments and Sunday I won and finished 3rd in two tournaments with 100+ fields.

Still, my achievements this week are surpassed by Ben Grundy's 7th place finish (80K Euros) in the EPT's Monte Carlo Grand Final. Many congrats!!

You can read all about that here:

Milkybarkid's Poker Blog

The European Poker Tour

Call of the Week: keycon@Bugsys (15%)

Event Name: European Getaway All Round Points Final
Event Started: Saturday March 12th 2:00:07 PM CST 2005
Event Buy-In: Getaway Final Qualification
Game: No Limit Hold 'emLevel VI: 100/200 Blinds (25 Minimum Chip)
Average Stack: 14,764.70 (10,000 starting chips)
Remaining Players: 170 (251 started)

Seat 1 : fraallan starts with 8,550
Seat 2 : KNIESH starts with 8,875
Seat 3 : DeafParrot starts with 2,450
Seat 4 : McSTAGGER starts with 8,425
Seat 5 : DaMatrix starts with 4,000
Seat 6 : emc2cronic starts with 22,350
Seat 7 : keycon starts with 26,400
Seat 8 : Sailor Moe starts with 32,200
Seat 9 : sunshinemike starts with 7,800
Seat 10 : puppyfoot starts with 8,775
Seat 8 : Sailor Moe has the dealer button

***DEALING HOLE CARDS***
DaMatrix dealt down Ad 8d

sunshinemike posts the small blind 100
puppyfoot posts the big blind 200
fraallan folds
KNIESH folds
DeafParrot folds
McSTAGGER folds
DaMatrix calls 200
emc2cronic folds
keycon calls 200
Sailor Moe folds
sunshinemike folds
puppyfoot checks

***DEALING FLOP*** [ 3s 2d 8s ]

puppyfoot checks
DaMatrix checks
keycon bets 700
puppyfoot folds
DaMatrix raises 3,100 to 3,800 and is all-in
keycon calls 3,100

DaMatrix cards were 8d Ad (85%)
keycon cards were 6s 6d (15%)

***DEALING TURN*** [ 5d ]

***DEALING RIVER*** [ 4c ]

keycon wins 8,300 with a six high straight.

Another happy ending.

Beat the Mob VI

A decent turn out for Beat the Mob VI on the Prima Poker network, with the bounty on each mobster increased to $250, a total of 370 players started the tourney.

First out was "fancyfingers" - nothing fancy about that. I never had a situation to move out of neutral and only managed to finish 125th.

BarnyBoatman was soon out in 106th position, followed by RossBoatman in 92nd. JoeBeevers was the only mobster to finish in the money at 18th (knocked out by "Nuttsover").

The final 3 were Nuttsover (100k), Rodovre (100k) and thanks76 (300k). Rodovre soon knocked out Nuttsover with QQ v AT to go heads up with thanks76 with about the same stack. The final hand occured after thanks76 had built a 4:1 chip lead and won with AKs v J5.


BTM VI Results.

50K added

Took part in the $50k added $25+$2.5 MTT at Betfair Poker (and other WagerLogic skins). With entry limited to just 2000 people - there was going to be some good value. Only 1688 players registered in the end with a total prize pool of $92.2K, $18.44K for first.

Starting chips were only 1,500, with about 1,400 people left I won a QQ v AJ showdown to keep an average stack. Maintained this with less than 700 players left when I won a battle of the blinds from the BB with Q8 v 65. With less than 600, I was still on an average stack picking up some blinds with JJ in late position.

At about 500 players remaining, a player (FSUkozak) in early position with just less chips than me makes a single raise, I reraise all in with AK and everybody folds to the original raiser. After using up nearly all of his time, FSUkozak calls in the last second and turns over AJ. No surprise when two Jacks hit the board as I have been busting out of tournaments with big slick when ahead at frustrating frequency.

I didn't really recover after that and finished 332/1688. Richie76 picked up first prize ($18,440) and MalcomX finished second ($11,064).


Final Results.

Call of the Week: Fittsy@Bugsys (37%)

The tournament begins and Fittsy wishes everyone good luck. No replies. So after the two hands, feeling kind of sorry for them, I reply saying "gl fit", saving Fittsy some embarrassment and thinking that later in the tournament they would remember my gesture and maybe lay a hand down in a marginal situation or something. I wish lol. This is what happened:

Event Started: Saturday March 5th 7:30:01 AM CST 2005
Game: No Limit Hold 'em
Level X: 100 Ante 300/600 Blinds (100 Minimum Chip)
Average Stack: 17,027.02 (10,000 starting chips)
Remaining Players: 37 (63 started)

Seat 1 : OliverReed starts with 27,200
Seat 2 : skygal716 starts with 18,600
Seat 3 : grizzly66 starts with 16,000
Seat 4 : DaMatrix starts with 5,200
Seat 5 : funster starts with 10,100
Seat 6 : DonLefty starts with 9,300
Seat 7 : lilly2kool starts with 13,000
Seat 8 : JMason starts with 23,200
Seat 9 : Fittsy starts with 12,200
Seat 10 : padfoot starts with 66,100
Seat 1 : OliverReed has the dealer button

***DEALING HOLE CARDS***
DaMatrix dealt down Ad Kc

OliverReed posts the ante 100
skygal716 posts the ante 100
grizzly66 posts the ante 100
DaMatrix posts the ante 100
funster posts the ante 100
DonLefty posts the ante 100
lilly2kool posts the ante 100
JMason posts the ante 100
Fittsy posts the ante 100
padfoot posts the ante 100
skygal716 posts the small blind 300
grizzly66 posts the big blind 600
DaMatrix raises 4,500 to 5,100 and is all-in
funster folds
DonLefty folds
lilly2kool folds
JMason folds
Fittsy calls 5,100
padfoot folds
OliverReed folds
skygal716 folds
grizzly66 folds

DaMatrix cards were Ad Kc (63%)
Fittsy cards were Js Tc (37%)

Fittsy: i always make this dumb play

***DEALING FLOP*** [ 3d 2s 2c ]

***DEALING TURN*** [ Jh ]

funster: lol
DaMatrix: gg

***DEALING RIVER*** [ 8d ]

Fittsy wins 12,100 with two pair, jacks and deuces
DaMatrix has left the table
DaMatrix finishes in 37th place

Fittsy: wow!
Fittsy: sorry man
funster: what's so dumb about that?

***SUMMARY***
Total Pot: 12,100
Board: [ 3d 2s 2c Jh 8d ]

Seat 1 : OliverReed (button) lost 100, folded pre-flop
Seat 2 : skygal716 (small blind) lost 400, folded pre-flop
Seat 3 : grizzly66 (big blind) lost 700, folded pre-flop
Seat 4 : DaMatrix lost 5,200, showed hand [ Ad Kc ]
Seat 5 : funster lost 100, folded pre-flop
Seat 6 : DonLefty lost 100, folded pre-flop
Seat 7 : lilly2kool lost 100, folded pre-flop
Seat 8 : JMason lost 100, folded pre-flop
Seat 9 : Fittsy bet 5,200, won 12,100, net +6,900, showed hand [ Js Tc ]
Seat 10 : padfoot lost 100, folded pre-flop

March Poker Babe

March Poker Babe.

As you have probably gathered by now, each month's Poker Babe has nothing to do with poker whatsoever. More of an excuse to liven up a boring blog and to remind us that there are better things to do than just play poker ;)

This month's Poker "Babe", Pammy, comes from DesktopModel.com and is sure to send temperatures soaring in what has been a chilly UK lately.