Thursday, November 6, 2008

I run bad, I run good


On Tuesday I played the Westbury in Malahide's monthly game. 20 or so starters, got up from 15K starting stack to about 30K before the cards and the situations dried up on the FT so I ended up bubbling in 6th. Some truly awful players: one guy, as Rob pointed out to me at the break, had discovered at least three new ways to play AK badly.


However, for the absolute pinnacle of bad play, you still can't beat some of the onliners. Here's a hand I witnessed recently in a satellite. 4 limpers, I limp A9s on the cutoff, button min raises, both blinds complete and the limpers all call. Flop comes KQx, checked round to limper just before me who shoves 2xpot, I fold, and the min raiser on the button instacalls with A2o (of course he hits his ace on the river to win).


Later same sat, blinds still low (30/60), utg opens for 850 (over 14 big blinds), utg+1 (the A2o villainfrom the previous hand) calls for half his stack, guy in mid position min raises, button shoves, everybody calls. Flop comes Qxx with two clubs, utg min bets 60 (into a pot of 12K!), the min reraiser shoves, and is called. Some big hands out here, I'm thinking. Utg has KJs for a flush draw, utg+1 has K4o, min reraiser has AJo (ie, nothing but an overcard), button all in is the only one with a legit hand, JJ.


It got even funnier on the FT where there were 6 tickets and one cash prize. With 9 left, there were 2 massive stacks, 2 tiny stacks, and the rest of us were all around the same. The second biggest stack started going all in every hand. The 6th time he did it, he was snap called by the other big stack who now only barely covered him. Hands were 22 and KQo. KQo hit to take the other guy out. Then 2 medium stacks went to war on a QJx board with Q10 and AJ respectively, so the two micro stacks squeaked into the prizes.


Anyway, online update. Finished my first batch of 100 $100 DUs on Bruce with 52/48, which is pretty miserable. I was running at 60% all the way until 77, then had an awful weekend and start of week, to barely breakeven after rake. There's speculation on 2+2 from some of the online pros that the turbo $100 DUs are not beatable by a big enough margin on Ongame to make them worthwhile, so I may either try the 50s there, or stick to Ipoker where they seem softer. I finished another batch of 100 on Ipoker last night and despite also running very bad between Saturday and Tuesday ended with a more satisfactory 59% hit rate. However, this is the first time I've dipped below 60% on Ipoker and I wonder if it's that the fish are cottoning on to more optimal strategy. A lot of the online STT pros reckon it's easier for them to figure it out than a regular STT. For now, I'm sticking with them as my online staple, as they're a low variance reliable way to make money.


Also finished a batch of 100 $5 HU super turbo STTs, partly to see if it was possible to have an edge that beats the rake, partly to practise and improve my HU play. I finished with a record of 54/46 despite a truly appalling start so now I'm trying 100 $10 ones to see if my "system" works at that level. Since they're typically over in 3-5 mins, it could be possible to grind a high hourly rate if you were beating them at a decent level by 3-5%.


On the subject of satellites, I won a package (ticket plus 250 in expenses) to the Fitz Winter festival main event last night on Irish Eyes. Only 1 prize so it was a tense enough headsup battle/bubble, particularly as I was outchipped 5:1 at one point, but the recent HU practise really stood to me and I never felt I was going to lose it unless I got really unlucky.


Also satted into the IO Sunday supersat at first attempt this week. I came through a $2 sat in the afternoon (from whence the above examples) into the $20 evening sat and from there squeaked through to Sunday's game. I hope I can get IO qualification out of the way soon as I've pretty much decided I need to be more sensible and stop buying into big events. The alternative is a lot of sat grinding so the sooner I can get the IO out of the way the sooner I can think about other tournaments I'd like to qualify for.


Finally, today's pic from Korea shows me and Eddie carrying the flag on the last lap.

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