A foolish move - 25/05/2006 - 28/05/2006

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 4250797

A few things to cover this time:

SE Double Chance - €50+5 25/05/2006

Not much to say about this tournament: I turned up at 9pm on the dot and this week they made a good effort to start on time...only 10 minutes late. There were about 80 runners, the Thursday night is far and away the SE's most popular tournament. After my previous week's run-in with Chief Brody, it was inevitable that he was on my starting table! I really wanted to get involved in the big pot with him, but was completely card dead and didn't get the opportunity. To make a long story short, I was in trouble from immediately after the break and pushed on the button with 67s, was called by KJs (I think) and off I went.

I went to Galway for my brother's stag last weekend, so didn't get to play any live poker, and only managed a few hours online, hitting the Party low-limit cash tables as part of the challenge I've set myself. An update on that later.

Pokerevents Red Cow Satellite - €50+25 Rebuy 28/05/2006

After getting back to Dublin mid-day on Monday, I took it easy (needed to recharge the batteries and help the liver recover!) and headed over the Red Cow that evening for Pokerevent's weekly game (which I had never played before). It usually was a €50+15, one rebuy / topup at €50+10, satellite for their €500 super-satellite tournaments (such as the Leinster / Ulster / Munster / Connaught Cups), but with the super-satellites finished for the moment and the IPT Final (€3000+300 buy-in) the following weekend, Pokerevents changed to format to a €50+25 game with two rebuys / one rebuy one topup at €50. This was to build a bigger prizepool, as there were 3 tickets guaranteed to the IPT Final. 112 players started, I was on an interesting table with a few recognisable faces, no-one stuck me as amazingly strong, most of us were of equal experience I thought. I didn't get involved in many big pots during the 6 levels before the break, barring the following:

I was on the button with approx 2.7k (starting stack + early bird chips were 4.5k). Blinds were 100/200. It was folded to me and I limped with K3o. The SB completed and the BB raised to 500. I decided to flat call to see if I got lucky on the flop. The flop was KQ6 rainbow. The BB immediately bet 1k, which really seemed like he didn't want me to stick around. I believed I was in front and pushed my remaining 2.2k in. He enquired how much I had left, and I made a mistake - I knew now I was in front and should have stayed quiet or given a false tell to induce his call. Instead I decided to show the rest of the table I knew how to make him fold via speech play and smiled, saying 'oh, its only a little bit more'. The others smiled and the BB eventually folded, showing 99. I felt like a fool while raking in the chips, I should have let him call, I still had my rebuy chips.

I top my 5k topup at the break and had a little over 9k going into the freezeout period. However, it all fell apart during the first level after the break - see this boards thread for a description of how it happened: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054939092. I just shouldn't have gotten involved, but hindsight is 20/20 I guess. I was almost happy to be leaving with enough time to get to bed before midnight - I wasn't up for the tournament enough and probably should have skipped it to get an early night in.

Party Poker Free-to-$500 challenge:

As mentioned last update, I have set myself the challenge of turning the free $50 I got last month from Party Poker (as an inticement to attract me back to their site after a long period of inactivity) in $500 via their low-limit cash tables. I am not a cash game player (never played live, though this will surely change at some point), but am interested in gaining more experience and giving it ago online over the summer. On Party I multi-table the $.10/$.25 6-handed tables ($25 buy-in) or single-table the $.25/$.50 6-handed tables - I know this is terrible bankroll management, but come on, it's only a silly challenge! In any case, after a run of good luck / tight play, I am currently up to approx. $230, and hope to get to $500 before the middle of June. I have found the best way to make money on these tables is to let your opponents bet into you when you have hit top pair or better - you will get occasionally outdrawn as a result but on balance it seems to be a winning strategy. We'll see what I say in a few weeks!