Today I played for the first time at The International Club in London, which was formed from the ashes of the famous Gutshot when it was closed down a couple of years ago.  The International is bigger, but still has that certain ‘dive’ quality to it   Actually, I like it there – it has a good lounge area, bar and excellent menu, and I will definitely return.  The tournament tonight was a £100 freezeout as part of the London Poker Masters.  There were 167 runners, which is excellent, and the winner would receive just over £5k.  We started with 10k chips, half-hour clocks. It started at 7pm, and apparently no-one expected it to finish before 7am.

Well, this tournament continued the rather long run of card-dead tournaments for me.  I busted out around midnight, with 65 left.  I therefore played for 5 hours.  In that five hours I had AQ once and pocket 10’s once, and had to fold both due to the preceeding action.  Other than that, I had nothing at all, not even high cards.  However, this time I did actually make something of a go of it, and I’m pretty happy to have lasted as long as I did.  I managed this by finding good spots to shove on people and push them out of pots pre-flop, on the flop and on the turn.  This is something I do think I’m alright at, representing big hands and using my image, and it was nice to get back to doing it successfully again, although I do think I only got away with it by the skin of my teeth on several occasions.

Two hours in and I’ve hardly played a hand.  I’m down from 10k to 9k, having taken the occasional small pot pre-flop to keep my stack from dwindling.  I was quite happy at this stage, I don’t mind sitting out the early levels to be honest, and I really want the rush of cards when the blinds get higher anyway.  Sadly, that didn’t happen, and after a further hour or so I found myself down to around 7k, with blinds at 300-600 with a 25 ante, when this happened:

In the BB i found 9-10c.  A player in middle-position raised to 1600.  At this point I hadn’t seen a hand in what felt like years and was looking for reasons to play, and I flat-called.  I felt that if I shoved he would call, and I would be in bad shape.  Nevertheless, it was also clear to me that I was looking for an opportunity to shove on him at some point.  The flop came 2-4-4 – I thought about it for a second or two, and shoved.  He didn’t like that, and went into the tank for a while, describing a few hands he thought I might have.  He clearly had me absolutely smashed with whatever he had, but it was obviously marginal, probably at the high end of his marginal range.  Eventually he folded…

Later that same level I found 34d in the small blind.  The button limped, so I also called, and the big blind checked.  The flop came 5-6-8 with the 6 of diamonds, so I was up & down.  I checked, the BB bet out 1200 and the button called.  I decided to call here, with the straight draw, to see what would develop. Why not just get it in now?  Well, someone definitely has the heart draw and the other might have the 8, or a 7 for a different up and down draw, and both of these could easily call a shove.  I felt that there were a number of cards that could come off on the turn that could make things interesting and allow me to get the stacks in, provided the turn was a dead card to others.  So, the turn was the 5 of diamonds, so now I have an up & down straight flush draw.  I decided to check to see what the others would do – I’m def shoving, but if I can get another bet out of one or both of them then that’s just fine.  The BB bet out another 2100, the button called, and I shoved.  I fancied that it would be an insta-call for the BB, but that if I was going to gamble this was a decent enough spot to do it in, and there was an outside chance he would fold for the extra 5000. There was about 9000 in the pot already, before my shove.  The BB thought about it for an age, and spoke to me a lot.  He was clearly really on a knife-edge with his decision.  He said he had queen-high with both flush and straight draws, but that he didn’t think he had the odds.  Little did he know that at that point, I had 4 high   After about 2 or 3 minutes, he folded, and I was up to 14k or so.  There was some debate about my hand after this, (I didn’t show), but to preserve my tight image I ‘admitted’ to having the 5 for trips, with a straight draw to go with it.  After all, next time I shove, I’m probably hoping they will fold again.

Moving on, and with blinds now 400-800 with a 50 ante, I blinded back down to 12k or so, and again I’m looking to pick some spots as I am still being dealt utter cod, with no chance of parole.  In the SB I pick up J9,  A player in early position makes it 3k, and I shove.  Again he tanks for a while, and it feels like he has something like KQ, AJ or A10 and isn’t sure what to do.  Bear in mind that I hadn’t shown a hand down all night, not one single time, so it was hard for anyone to put me on anything, and I had folded 95% of my hands instantly.  So he folded, and I bought myself a few more rounds.

Then, with blinds at 500-100 with a 100 ante, it folded round to me on the button and I shoved for 10k with pocket deuces.  I did this because with only 2 players to act behind me there’s a fair chance I can take this down pre-flop and add 2500 or so to my stack.  Sadly the SB woke up with pocket 10’s and that was that.

So, a better performance from me, particularly considering I once again had no decent hand all night.  That’s 4 or 5 tournaments in a row now since I found a decent hand I could play.  Given the big intervals in between my tournaments, that spans about 6 months, and I’m thinking that it really would be nice to see pocket kings, or even AK, just once next time.  Perhaps I’ll have a chance to build a stack, rather than have to duck & weave in order to survive…

However, I enjoyed it, and felt I was much more ‘on my game’ than I had been for recent tournaments, and I’m looking forward to playing again.  The International Club is a very tough room, with plenty of grinders and regulars – much tougher than Vegas, and Brighton – and playing there should get me in good shape. Vegas is coming in 2 weeks as well, and I’m hoping to get one or two games in there during my stay.

I hardly ever play online.  I get no real pleasure from it.  When I do, I generally play Triple Draw on Pokerstars, on the grounds that it’s a game I like and you don’t get to play it much.  I felt a need to play a bit tonight, but there were no spots in Triple Draw, so I played a $10 SNG at NLH, just for fun.

In the space of 5 hands:

• I had AK beaten by AQ (who was all-in) with a Q on the river
• AA beaten by A9 – 9 on the flop, and 9 on the river (all-in on the turn)
• T9 beaten by TJ – flop TT9, J on the river (all-in on the turn)

I’m not fussed about bad beats, they happen.  Bad beats are also not the reason I dislike playing online, I just thought this was amusing.

Haven’t said much about TDL for a while, but I was reminded recently of a discussion I had with Mike, about the seeming horror of being dealt a 1 card draw to the nuts in Triple Draw.

Sounds odd huh?  Where’s the horror in being dealt a TDL monster?

Well, here’s the thing.  When playing TDL tournaments, it’s the 1 card nut draws that end up busting me.  When you are dealt a 1 card nut draw, (henceforth ‘1CND’), you are absolutely committed to that hand to the death.  That means raising, betting, re-raising etc, all the way.  That’s 4, 5, 6 or more big bets, and if you miss your draws, you’re a gonna.  I played the $2500 TDL event in the 2008 WSOP and I busted when dealt 3 successive 1CND’s and missed every one, for somewhere around 16 big bets.
With a 1CND, there is a 17% chance of hitting on the first draw (by ‘hitting’, I mean hitting the nuts, as opposed to an 8 or other lowish hand, which could also win).  So the odds are pretty much against you making your hand.  At the same time, you don’t, in my experience, get very well paid off when you hit the hand early.  Staying pat tends to wreck your action, so you only really seem to get paid off when you hit with the 3rd draw, thus not getting you great returns for your 1CND’s.

Conversely, when you have some kind of 2-card draw, that improves to a 1-card draw, then a low hand at showdown which wins, the tendency is to win a much larger pot.

So the question is, is even playing a 1CND even a +EV play?  Should you fold them?  Of course not, you love those hands, you must play them, they are monsters.

And that’s the seeming paradox.
Mike and I did have some discussions about it, I’ll post some of our emails later.

The other week I attended the Black Belt Poker Academy, 6 hours of seminars and live hand analysis, followed by entry into a £50 freezeout.  This was put together and run by Black Belt Poker, which is run by Neil Channing and Nik Persaud, and hosted by The Grosvenor Victoria Casino in London. At the back of the large poker room is a small, secluded room with 3 tables. The guys had set up a projector for the lectures, and overall it was a good space for the 17 of us and the 4 guys from Black Belt Poker – Alex Rousso and Hugh Kirton joining Neil & Nik.

The Lectures

Each of the 4 guys had a presentation of their own:  Alex Rousso kicked off with a talk about ‘meta-learning’ – how we learn, what sources we use and how we absorb information.  He also strayed into the area of tells, which proved to be very popular and a bit of theme for him thru the rest of the day.  He also suggested a reading list, including Joe Navarro’s book “Read ‘Em and Reap” which I have since bought and would recommend to anyone.
Following Alex was Nik Persaud with a talk about the fundamentals of the game.  By that I don’t mean “poker for novices” – he is referring to David Sklansly’s phrase about the ‘Fundamental Theory of Poker”:

• Every time you play a hand differently from the way you would have played it if you could see all your opponents’ cards, they gain; and every time you play your hand the same way you would have played it if you could see all their cards, they lose. Conversely, every time opponents play their hands differently from the way they would have if they could see all your cards, you gain; and every time they play their hands the same way they would have played if they could see all your cards, you lose.

So Nik was focussed on how to examine what is going on at the table in order to pounce on your opponents mistakes, while minimising your own.  He engaged well with the attendees, asking questions and getting people involved.
The third presentation was by Hugh Kirton and was about different levels of thinking in poker, with Level 1 thinking being “what are my cards?”, Level 2 being “what does my opponent have?”, Level 3 being “what does my opponent think I have?” and so on.  It is interesting how the same hand plays out with these differing levels of analysis, and the key is that you really need to be playing 1 level better than your opponent – if you are 2, 3 or more levels ahead of him then basically you’ll find yourself over-thinking your decisions.
Lastly, Neil Channing wrapped things up with an entertaining talk dissecting major hands he has played on televised events.  These were definitely not standard, but were very revealing about Nick’s thought processes, his analysis of different players in the hands, and how he reaches his decisions.

Live Hand Analysis

In between the presentations we split up into 3 tables of 6 players or so, with each table being dealt by one of the Black Belt guys.  They dealt, we played, and throughout the hands our actions and behaviour were analysed by the dealer, and ourselves.  In the half hour so that we did these there was only really time for 2 or 3 hands, but it was fasscinating and invaluable stuff, one of the highlights in fact.  Being able play a hand and have it dissected by a pro, pointing out what you may have missed, validating your actions or suggesting others, is a rare and valuable way to examine your game and your own thought processes.
My two sessions were dealt by Alex and Neil respectively.  Alex focussed on player behaviour and tells, which was great, and very new knowledge for a lot of us.  Neil focussed more on putting people on hand ranges to match their actions, and again it was very revealing.  I was fortunate to be involved in 2 big hands, one in each session, and in both cases it appeared that I played the hands pretty well.  This kind of validation is confidence building, and something I was hoping for.  At the same time, during Nik’s presentation, I answered a question incorrectly, (or correctly, but for the wrong reason), and thus gave me something to reflect upon.

The £50 Freezeout

The tournament had about 50 players and was self-dealt, which is a shame for such a big casino.  it was also a bit crap-shooty, but nevertheless, the one thing you really want to do after talking about poker for 6 hours is play the game, so the idea fo buying us into this as part of the fee for the day was brilliant.  There was also a prize for whoever lasted longest from the 17 Academy participants – buy-in to London Live, an excellent tournament by Black Belt Poker that will take place in May.  I didn’t get far enough for that, but I will be entering this tournament anyway, it looks great and the chance to play against a few of these guys will be a great sharpener before the WSOP in June.

After I busted from the tournament I hung around in the bar at The Vic and chatted to a few members of Black Belt Poker, people who play on the site and make up the community there, and Neil, who was sitting around and chatting while waiting for a cash game to begin.  I have to say they are all great guys.  Neil and the gang are very genuine in their interest in helping to develop players, and their focus on the live game makes for a very refreshing change to the endless focus on online poker.

The Site

Just to say a couple of things about Black Belt Poker themselves.  As you may know, I’m not one for playing online, but this site offers much more than just another online poker destination.  There are a lot of great, well-written and in-depth articles about everything from news, features about poker thru the years and training.  They have focussed on getting a ‘community’ feel to their site, and I think it’s worked.  I will definitely be signing up, setting up a profile and checking out the forums, even if I don’t actually play.

The Verdict

A hugely enjoyable day.  I was hoping the day would help me examine my game again, give me some new perspective and help me get back some form I felt I had lost a bit.  The Academy has certainly done that, and I feel very much energised to play again, and can’t wait for upcoming tournaments and, of course, the WSOP.  There is also a 2-day bootcamp in May, which will be more advanced and have some 1-1 time, and I may well do that too if I can find the time.

Well done Black Belt Poker.

Played the monthly £100 freeze at The Rendezvous in Brighton tonight. Again, looking for discipline early and then build from level 3 onwards. Managed once more to get caught up early and lose chips. Here’s a particular hand where I was caught in 2 minds.

There are a few limpers, I have As2s late on and I call. The blinds call. The flop is AhJc9c. The BB bets out. Now I decided fairly quickly that she didn’t have an ace – I did think about it, but something told me that wasn’t what she had, I couldn’t tell you what that something was tho. I also didn’t put her on the flush draw, I had a feeling she had either the Jack or the 9. Anyway, I called, with the intention of betting if the turn was not a club. It wasn’t, it was the 6h. Surprisingly to me she bet out again. I still didn’t give the ace, and she wouldn’t be betting the flush draw now, so in my opinion it was still the Jack or the 9 and she was probably putting me on the flush draw.   I didn’t fancy a raise tho, which is at odds with my analysis. I called.  The river was the 2s, so no change. She bet big. Now is where I’m stuck, coz I still have her on the Jack or the 9, but I don’t figure her to be strong enough to be betting out for the 3rd time without being ahead of me. I decide to call, and she does indeed have the 9, but she also has an offsuit 6 which hit the turn, for 2-pair, and I’m beat. Quite why I’m getting involved in a big pot with a tiny ace is beyond me, it’s what I’ve been trying to avoid doing.

How’s this for a weird one, which didn’t involve me…
There are 3 limpers at 100/200 blinds. The BB raises 300. Yes, 300. Clearly no-one is going to fold to that, and everyone calls it. I now have the BB pegged for aces, coz it’s such a small raise. It’s a terrible raise tho, coz no-one can fold and surely you don;t want to play aces against 3 players. The raise pretty much screams aces tho. So anyway, the flop is 3-4-x, no suits. The BB checks, one of the limpers bets 500 and only the BB calls. The turn is a Queen. The limper goes all-in for about 6000. At this point I believe he must know full well the BB has aces, and so he must have a set. I put him on a set of 4’s. The BB calls. They turn over their cards. The BB does indeed have aces (no surprise there), but the limper shows AQ! Good grief, you couldn’t make it up. He clearly didn’t even think what her pre-flop raise meant.

Down to 6.5k at one point, I made it back to about my starting stack by the 1st break and felt alright, and back in control.

Pocket 10’s
After the break with the blinds at 100-200 I got dealt two black 10’s. The guy UTG shoved all-in blind for 1800. He was pretty frustrated, and with reason – at one point he’s raised 400 (at 50-100 blinds), and got called, and lost on a showdown when his opponent showed J6-offsuit for a flopped full-house! So anyway, I re-raised so no-one else would join in, and he flipped over K3-off. First card – King. One down.

Pocket 10’s Strikes Again
Next hand, the same two black 10’s. This time I raise to 550, and the guy who just beat my last 10’s flat calls. He only has 3000 behind, (having doubled thru me on the previous hand). The flop was A-K-4 with two diamonds and he insta-shoves. Now, it did smell of a stop-&-go to me, but he told me what a great flop it was and I actually thought he was sincere, plus I didn’t like the Ace AND King on the flop. I folded face-up and he showed K8d of 2nd pair and the nut-flush draw. Consecutive losses with 10’s and back down to 6.5k again.

Return of the Son of Pocket 10’s
A new table, and managed to make a couple of thousand back with a set of 3’s. Then, back to 7k again having had to fold a couple of flop’s after being re-raised, and I got dealt 10s, again, this time on the button. Blinds were now 300/600 with 50 ante, it folded round and I raised to 2000, leaving 5000 behind. The BB shoved for 10k and obviously I called. She flipped over AA and I had to force myself to even watch the cards come down.

Pocket 10’s were not my friends tonight.

So, another tournament where I just haven’t been able to build any kind of stack to put myself in any kind of decent position. Next week’s Black Belt Poker Academy might be very well timed, I welcome this opportunity to check my game out. I used to do consistently well in these kind of events, I could almost guarantee that I’m be in there or thereabouts when it down to the business end of it, but in the last 6-month’s I don’t ever seem to managed to get over my initial starting stack size, and it’s a bit of a concern. Let’s see what happens next week, and there’s a £50 freeze at the Vic after the Academy, so we’ll see how that goes too.

I have signed up to a poker ‘bootcamp’ Looking forward to it, I have a feeling that it might be a good time for me to examine my game a bit and to have such good mentors on hand to discuss things with will be wicked. They do a much more in-depth 2-day event in May and I might do that too, the timing would be great with Vegas just around the corner in June…

I’ll do a full write-up of course. I haven’t signed up for BlackBeltPoker online because really I just don’t play online, but if anyone out there is learning then it looks like a great place to do it.

Yep, the dates are in for the Hog Roast trip to Vegas for the 2010 WSOP – I’ll be there from June 10-21, so a slightly shorter trip than usual due to arrangements to watch the World Cup. I will be in the States for the England v USA game tho, which should prove to be a most entertaining day

Anyway, the shorter trip does mean no WSOP KCL (NL 2-7 single-draw), which is a bit of a shame. And the England game clashes with a $1000 NLH too, but there is a $1500 NLH during the trip and I’ll be playing that.

Other than that I’ll be looking to play in a few Mega-Stack events at Caesars as usual and the odd Deepstack at The Venetian. I’m hoping that the Golden Nugget have another really good schedule for their Grand Series of Poker events, which last year included a TDL event which was great fun.

I’ll acually be in Vegas in mid-March for work, but I doubt I’ll get to play much then. Well, maybe one or two…

This one is from my friend Bearded Mike, (see Blogroll).  His ’signature hand’ is 74, tho I can’t remember the suits.  Anyway, this is how to make a million bucks by playing it, courtesy of Tom Dwan…

The Rendezvous Casino at Brighton Marina has a very good new weekly schedule of events.  I lost interest in the weekly schedule becuase I really hate self-dealing at tournaments, but the really good news here is that The Rendezvous tournaments will all be dealer-dealt, even the £10-rebuys.  That’s good news indeed, and I’ll be looking to get down then and play my schedule allows, the more play I get, the more zoned-in I will be when Vegas comes around.

Here it is:

Monday: £30-£30-£40 / 2000 stack / 3000 for £30 rebuy, 5000 for £40 add-on
Tuesday: £20-rebuys / 1500 stack / 4000 for £40 add-on
Thursday: £50-single-rebuy / 5000 stack
Friday: £10-rebuys / 1000 stack / 3000 for £20 add-on
Friday: £40-freeze / 10k stack
Sunday: £20-rebuys, £5 bounty / 1500 stack / 4000 for £40 add-on
First Saturday of each month: £100 freeze / 10k stack

My only criticism is the small starting stacks, particularly in the small rebuys.  However, I do like the £100 freezeout and the Thursday event, and I’ll try to play when I can.

Well done to the Rendezvous for getting dealers.

Played the £200 freezeout in the January Sales Festival at The Rendezvous in Brighton on Friday.  I was determined to be disciplined and focussed, and pretty much stick to my usual gameplan.  This deserted me before Xmas, where I got sucked into the low-blind limping mentality, which is not me at all.

Anyway, I was certainly tight and disciplined, but to be honest, anyone would have been with the cards I had – I wasn’t card-dead, I was card-extinct!  No complaints tho, that’s how it goes.

Anyway, the structure had us starting with 6000 chips, with 30 minute blinds and ante’s from level 5.  In level 1 I had KK and JJ and won small pots, reaching a height of 7.5k and those were the only hands I played in the first 3 levels. At the break I had 5.5k, the next level being 150-300, and I was happy that “the play would start now”.  I hadn’t donked off a load of chips, I had a good image, and I was ready to go.

Sadly, I couldn’t play a hand in level 4.  I had a succession of 6-9, Q-2 etc.  The ’standard’ bet to open a pot on this table was 4-5x, which also meant I had no real fold-equity to bluff with, but even then, generally a raise was followed by a re-raise, so basically I had no cards and no position.

In level 5, with 3600 chips and blinds at 150-300-25, I got AQ and KQ and again, took the blinds with no action, and after that the only decision I had to make was when to shove.  Obviously when I did shove, I lost

So, basically a bit of a non-event in as much as all my plays were auto-plays, I had no decisions to make and nothing I could get involved with once the tournament reached the stage where play was very much required.

Still, for what it’s worth, I felt focussed and confident, and am looking forward to getting another opportunity to play.