Another disapointing night of mtt's. I only played three though and they were all cheap, in fact one was sort of a freeroll with rake (0+$2.50 sat to GUKPT) In the Party one, totally card dead all the way through and eventually with the blinds at 100/200 I pick up pocket 3's - I kid you not, it was the best pocket paid I'd had all game. Anyway, folds to me so I push for 1600, one caller on the button but the BB pushes for his last 6k. Button folds and I lose out to ATo! Talk about no respect for my tight game thus far. Anyway, not bothered as it was very boring and even doubling up there would have left me miles behind. The most annoying was the GUKPT sat qualifier. $10 rebuy and I managed to finish 5th with 3 seats to the next level and $85 for 4th! Pushed with KQ from the SB and the BB had QQ. It's just a shame that everyone folded to me the one time I had aces in the big blind, but I was gutted to bubble after two and a half hours, just so annoying. Even 4th is only $20 shy of the seat in the next level anyway, I'd have bought in if I'd made the money.

It's not another doom and gloom thread, this morning I sort of decided that I'll try cash again. I left my pc on mining FT last night and looked at some stuff quickly this morning. Some guy had lost about $90 in about 22 hands, one of which he called a $9 raise preflop (at only 0.25/0.50) with 76o and lost about $40 to someone with pocket jacks! The biggest losers of the night were just crazy hands playing muck and the big winners went to decent hands where they were played well. Arrived at work and thought I'd fire up Stars to try and catch the last of the US evening traffic. 5 hands in to the session and I receive AK on the button. Someone raised so I just flat called, Ace on the flop, bet, bet etc, king on the river and I reraise him all in and smash his AJ (who hit two pair too) and double up. Few more hands later and I pick up another small pot after losing a couple of small ones and I finish up a whole buy in of $50.

$50 profit in about 20 mins. OK I got lucky, I appreciate it's not always going to be like this, but hell, it's a damn site better than I've been running.

Back to cash it is. Hopefully this time I can stick with it for a while - I'm such a sucker for changing games quickly.

Cash games for earning the bankroll, mtt's for satellites to live events
Cash games for earning the bankroll, mtt's for satellites to live events
Cash games for earning the bankroll, mtt's for satellites to live events
Cash games for earning the bankroll, mtt's for satellites to live events................

Back to usual miserable nights playing mtt's for me. I just put myself through the pain of being outdrawn for the hell of it I think. Tonights beats include KK being smashed by 33 who flopped, turned and rivered a straight, AK beaten by a CL's AT, obviously had too many chips that he can't lay down a hand despite me not playing a hand for an hour or so, and J3s hitting a flush against my pocket 10's. I've gone out of one tourney in the last 48 hours where I can hold my hands up and say fair enough and that was my AKs against JJ in the Party $55 $18k yesterday. I managed to finish painfully close to the money in that which was annoying too.

One stroke of fortune for me was that I managed 2nd in a crappy $6 tourney last night. I signed up without realising it was limit cos Party doesn't say it's limit, just that it's Hold em. Anyway, the least interesting game I was involved with I came 2nd and actually I think I'm probably at least evens over the weekend, it's just morale that's down.

SNG's are going ok. I'm up overall and showing a half decent ROI %, but I've realised that it's going to be a hard old grind playing the $6.50's to get to a decent level. I'm considering moving to Party and going with the $10's for a while.

I didn't quite manage to make it two from two last night, but I was pleased enough to make the final table and ended up in 7th which wasn't too bad. Not sure I could have done much better to be honest, the cards just weren't coming for long periods and the time I did try to steal, it cost me half my chips when a fairly short guy decided to push AI after my raise for another 1500. Considering I'd raised 4k preflop, I had to call with my AT but his 6's held. Quite surprised that he pushed with 6's though considering I'd been playing tight and every showdown hand I'd had was credible, but then you never know how some people play I guess. Had a nice double up earlier when a new guy came to the table. He was straight in in the big blind and had a healthy stack at the time. It's folded to me on the button and I took a peak at my cards and had the aces. Raised 3xBB (900) I think and he's instantly pushed all in. Obviously I called, but thankfully his K7s didn't beat me on this occasion. Next hand he was all in again and exited the comp with Q3o! Crazy play. Some people comment that they "Can't be bothered, it's only a £20 comp" well, why are they playing in the first place?

The staking plan on Neverbeg is going so so. So far I've staked $190 and I've had $181 returned with one stake still outstanding, but I'm not sure I'll get that back. It's a funny old scheme, but people seem to be very genuine in their play with other people's money. I had one guy that I wanted to turn $5 into $30, he managed to do great and build it up to $25, then decided to play NL25 and lost it all on a pair of 8's on a board with 2 over cards and an opponent showing strength both preflop and on the flop - this was the most disappointing stake I've done because of his bad play at the end but until then, he'd done great It hasn't put me off though and I'll do some more soon I think.

The latest venture is back into the world of turbo sit and go's. I'm currently on Stars but may move to Full Tilt or one of the European networks, I'm still undecided as yet. Maybe FT as I get rakeback there and even though it's not a lot I'm playing for, it's better than nothing.

Anyway, I somehow squeezed 20 in today (don't tell the boss, oh hang on!) I'm starting at the $6.50's. Downloaded SNGWiz for a bit of an introduction to ICM and I was away. Had a bit of a blip during the middle of the last session when I realised I was playing far too much before the money. I did run KK in to AA early on which hurt the stats but other than that, I played a few bad games and a few good ones. The main joy for the day is that I ended up up. It was looking bleak for a moment, but a first victory for the day in the 2nd last helped, then I took third in the last. The last was a bit annoying. The CL was disconnected or sat out or something, anyway, basically it was two handed with a nice bonus, i.e. CL chips, for winning the pot, so it was a bit more mental than usual at this point. Sadly I ran my 9 6 into his AK and missed out.

Stats for the day

Played 20
1st's - 1
2nd's - 3
3rd's - 6
Bubble - 1

ITM - 50%
ROI - 8%
P/L - +$10.40

The next few days aren't going to be as busy. I may go out to defend my Thursday night title tomorrow and I'm off out Friday. Obv I can't play during the days either so that could be it for a few days.

Loving it though. I thought fold and push would be boring, but it's quite exciting from time to time!

Thursday night is double chance night at The Western and I was a bit undecided as to go or just stay in and play some online games last night. It's been a tiring week and I haven't' slept much plus I've had some bad nights sleep with our daughter waking us up at some unknown hour, but I managed to knock of work early and got an hour and a half sleep in in the afternoon so by 7pm I was almost ready to go and have a game. With APAT Cardiff at the weekend, I also wanted to play live after playing on the net all week to get back in the feel for it.

One thing on my mind was my exit hand from last Fridays game. We were down to the last 12 and I was fair short and it folded to me and I had pocket 7's. I pushed and ran into queens in the big blind, no complaints, but I was wondering if I should have taken the time to consider my stack size in relation to the big blinds. He had me well covered, probably by about 3 times as much so he was likely to call with pretty much anything resembling a holding. I wasn't the shortest stack and could have easily folded to the final table so was it wrong to push here? Making the final is important to me, but I decided that I had to get there with more chips than I had. Anyway, right or wrong, it was on my mind for last night and I decided that I wasn't going to argue with big chip leaders with average holdings at critical times if it meant missing out on a final table seat.

First real pot I was involved with was AJ on an Ace high board. I limped preflop OOP and it was raised by someone that had been raising a lot and making a lot of risky moves very early on. She called my bet on a gutshot and duly hit which miffed me a bit, but thankfully she was looking for the check raise, but I checked behind and mucked my TPTK. Anyway, said person raised, 3 other callers and as I was last to act, I called too. Flop came ace high so I bet 1k in to it. All fold to the guy to my right who moved all in with A4 and I obviously called and thankfully doubled up.


Not much exciting happened to me until I made the final table really. Well, nothing that exciting happened there. I made it there in my usual shorty stack but patience eventually paid off and I found a hand or two to go all in with. I was once in as a massive underdog with A2 against AT, but the blinds were 2k/4k now and I only had 10k and was in the BB next so I lumped it in and thankfully hit the two on the river and doubled up.

Made it to heads up somehow but was in very very bad shape. 159,000 chips in play and I only had about 20k of them. First hand heads up and with blinds now 3k/6k I was in the big blind first, looked down at 72o and for some reason thought I was in the small blind and just mucked them! Not a great start for my short stack. I suddenly twigged that I was at least 2nd but if I didn't do anything I wasn't going to win. With nothing to lose, I went on a bit of a rampage and took down quite a few 'small' pots here and there, doubeled up, and all of a sudden had a slight lead.

It was mentioned that we could chop it if we wanted and whilst I thought I was in pretty good shape here, I had to agree and we split the money 50/50 taking £250 each. Chopping was for the best, mainly as the blinds were now 4k/8k and we only had around 80k each. I'd been lucky up to now and it would only take one wrong move and that would be it. I had a slight lead by about 10k, but it's not even a round of blnds, but I'll still claim first spot - not only for the chips but my name went top of the prize sheet!

And that, was my first live win!