Monday night victory

I played text book perfect last night.

Entering the game, I decided to cool off my usual all-ins with 1500 starting chips during rebuy – instead, I raised late position with 300.  One time I raised 300 with A3.  I decided to play it after the flop as Shugster called.

 Flop : 8QQ

As it was heads up, it was even money at least that Shugster didn’t have a Q.

So I moved all in, only had 800 chips at this point and needed a rebuy anyways.

Shugster turns over Q8 to give him QQQ88.

We dealt the last two cards and they were A3!!!!  Even if I checked it, and Shugster probably would too as he had the nuts, I would have had all my money in anyway with AA33.

This turned out to be my only rebuy of the night.

Next big hand I had 87 suited.  Shug and D moved all in.  I decided that 87 suited was the ideal multi hand cards, in fact multi handed it’s favourite over AA.  So I moved all in.  I was up against KQ from Shug and QQ from D.  However, the flop hit an 8 and the river hit an 8 too giving me 888.

This was a main turning point, my chips were now 4200 going into the freezeout.  I topped up to 5700 total for another $20.

Now going into freezeout with 100/200 blinds I could tighten up, but still wanted to see a few hands for 200 as would represent value as the blinds went up every 15 minutes.

 Did some aggressive 400-600 bets after checking.  Won 2, lost 1.

Another big hand…was dealt J10 suited.  Flop came AKQ.  I checked over to Bob who bet 600.  I moved all in.

The all in was a bit strong, but in my traditional bluffs I can move all in and had set a relatively loose image during the rebuy period.  The image obviously stayed with Bob as I tried to look nervous and he called my 6000 in chips.  Bob had a K, I feared the aces trippin’ out for a full house but no problem.  A weird call but not for Bob – he’d called Shugsters all in ‘the nuts’ with only 2 outs, and hit one of them at 5% favourite.

After this it was easy to knock out Wilson and Alan.  Myself and James took care of that and went heads up.

I had a few more chips than James…but I knew James was a great heads up player.  So  I had to put the pressure on….with Kx and Qx/below I usually just limped, with it suited I might raise.  With A I’d raise the blind which was 1200.

Aggressive play meant I made sure I called 1 or 2 of James raises so I didn’t look like an insta-folder.  But he re-raised me sometimes all in after the flop which I stayed away from.  A classic hand was 1200 blinds, I had Q7 , flop was 873, James raised 2000.  I thought about it, checked he had 4500 chips left and just called the 2000.  I didn’t want to get in toooo deep as these guys slow play way too much….surprisingly he checked, he obviously had given up or was doing a super-slow play.  So I checked, unsure.  He checked the river, I checked too as I was unsure wether he had hit anything.  My 77 was good and I took the pot.  Now down to 4500 in chips with 1200 blinds, James was in trouble.  He had already escaped my flush which I put him all in but he folded…

Quickly I found a hand A4 spades.  A-blah-suited usually isn’t that strong as it would appear but short handed or heads up it’s a great hand.  so I went all in, James had to call with so few chips and showed Q10.  I hit a 4 on the flop and it was all over.

$60 buy in, $320 prize.  Left $20 for the cakes for next week, spent $80 in petrol (!) so from a profit point of view you could say $160 but I got the $320 handed to me in reality!

Great performance so far, last 3 visits I’ve finished 1st, 2nd, 1st.

Those guys are starting to hate me……

Monday nite game, rebuy galore

Went all in first hand with 53 offsuit. There had been some raising and folding and a potential flush on the board, which I represented.  I sensed Ross could have been pushed out of the pot. 

My all in raise definitely did – Ross folded his AK offsuit.  But Shugster was in the mood to gamble and called – with a pair of kings.  It was a loose call from my loose raise!  I lost of course….

 Next hand all in was with Bingo, the board as 554.  I didn’t give him credit for a 5, and even doubted his 4.  No massive action pre-flop, just a call on my raise (I had A10).  I figured Ace high might have been the best hand here because of the smooth call from bingo.  So I called his all-in, but he had KK.  Again another loose play.

Finally, decided to apply the brakes slightly after my fun and ‘table image was set’.  I caught James with two pair – 10s and 3s beating his 7s and 4s, doubling my chips.  I spiked a 10 on the flop and decided to stick with the hand. 

Then I sucked in with trip 9s.  It cost me money to see the flop, but luckily spiking that 9 and moving all in got callers. 

I took both Ross and D out of the game as well as James in the freezeout.  Ross was unluckly, he slow played his aces and that gave me the chance to spike an up/down open straight.  He went all in, it was a small increase in chips so I called and hit a King giving me the straight.  Bye bye AA….

Down to 3 – me, Shug and Bingo.  Bingo was raising, Shugster called (1500).  I had pocket 8s…..very tempting but I reckoned they would be all in shortly after the flop, so decided to let them take care of each other.

Shugster spiked QQ KK on the flop and won.  The River was an 8 however, if I had been all in I could have taken a huge chip lead.

Shugster was eventually bombed out by Bingo.

So I was in the money again, just me and Bingo.  I won one all in against Bingos monster chip stack, but I was still an under-dog.  We split a pot when the board showed a straight, lucky for me.  After moving all in 3 times and Bingo folding 3 times, I moved all in with 10/8 suited, expecting Bingo to fold.  The blinds were by this point 1600 with only 6000 in chips left for myself.  He called with Q5.  Sadly that was good enough.  Oh well, my buy in was $80 and I took home $60.  2nd place isn’t bad, but I was still disappointed….my cards were just cold towards the end and I had to move all in with rubbish like K6 suited and so on. 

Monday night looming…

I’m going to enjoy tommorrow’s Monday nite game….having only played tight cash games I’m going to have fun during the rebuy period.

For a change…I’m just looking forward to some exciting ‘races’ with other players, rather than all the clever play.

Missed last week’s Monday night game again…

As I was in Sydney, no Monday night poker for me.

Turns out I was missed greatly as there were zero rebuys in the first hour = poor prize fund.

Normally I get things really heated up, as I believe gambling essential to build the big stack which is required to survive the Turbo blinds in freezeout half.

Alan (the host) won the event, so well done.  Shugster game 3rd, back on form.

Looking forward to next week where it’ll be the cat amoung the pigeons for sure!!

Shugster wins Monday night poker

As I’m in Oz, no competing but Shugster done good and took 1st place after being short stacked most of the game.   Bingo was his first victim and he won the $280 first prize, well done Shugster, but watch out, I’ll be back in 2 weeks!