News from the trenches

- Breaking even at 25NL for some time but not overly concerned as I’m getting my money in good – these things happen. After grinding back to my high water mark I ran KK into AA twice. The first time I managed to get away, the second time I said to myself this can’t happen again can it? It did. Last night I logged on after a brief outage on Stars after they rebooted their servers and the games were wild. I hit some hands and won a few buyins in short time. Right now I’m less than a buyin under my high water mark.
- Speaking of bonuses, I haven’t really played as much as usual so I’m still working through the last reload bonus. I’ll probably still take up the latest WSOP reload bonus though and once these are finished, there are $50 bonuses for Silverstar players I need to clear. I was dubious about these bonuses at first but I find them relatively easy to clear and now look forward to them.
- At the Double or Nothings I’m winning at better than 80%. I’m running well but not getting smashed by the deck, rather on those occasions where I’m allin for my tournament life with either coin-flips or hands like AQ vs KJ or unders,my hand is holding up. I’ve played enough games now to figure I could maintain a win rate of 3 out of 4. My overall tournament ROI on both Stars and FT is pretty high but I consider the sample size of around 100 tournaments relatively small. I am aware though that my tournament results are better than cash games but I just hate being locked down for an hour or so of my time. I like the freedom to get up and take a whizz or grab a quick bite whenever I like.
- I’ve played very little Omaha. I sat briefly at one table and first hand was dealt AAQJ double suited. I flopped top pair with no redraw and managed to stack off against a tight player that flopped a set. Just horrible play and the main reason I took a break. When I play ultra tight, although I’m giving up a little EV I almost always have winning sessions.
- I played my first pub tournament in some time this week. It went pretty much according to script for how I run in these things. In the first half I played some good aggressive poker and came back from the break with the chip lead at my table. As the blinds started to increase exponentially, I couldn’t win a pot and was out in short time. It was good fun though and I’m there purely for the enjoyment, social aspect and to practice my B&M game which is always sadly lacking after these long breaks.