Aces and Agony - An APAT'ers blog of the highs and lows of poker ( and life!)

[duke3016]

First of all before you play - slowly get off the drugs  

[amcgrath1uk]

First of all before you play - slowly get off the drugs  

Played 6 tonight, lost 70c after 1 2nd place and 2 3rd places. Had some corking river beats as well to deny me a couple more cashes, but meh, whatever.

The real grind will start Sunday night and Monday, as I"m off work on Monday, so it"ll be interesting for myself to see how many I can play without losing the will to live!!

Games played : 6
Running bankroll: $149.30

[bhoywonder70]

Gl asa....ur gonna need it at that lvl.....they say if you can"t beat the lowest of lvls then how can u win higher,the $1 lvl will fry your brain imo.....u not fancy saving a bit n starting at $5 lvl....ur old skool....u can handle that

[suzanne]

Have to agree with Charlie and others....spare yourself the agony of $1 turbos on stars.

Good Luck with this x

Tempted to do something similar as my faith in my poker skillz has taken a beating lately.

[Swinebag]

You certainly don"t need 100 buy ins at this level. You could grind your nuts off for a week. Play 100 of these games (or more), play well and have $170 to your name if you run well enough. Is $20 really worth the effort?

Stick to a 30 buy in rule and start with $5 games. you will double your roll by the end of the month if you play and run well.

[Supernova]

Good luck with the blog and the grind sweetie -xXx-

[amcgrath1uk]

Thanks for all the good luck wishes and comments

There are a few reasons why I"m starting as I am and doing this the way I am:

1) Bankroll - At the moment my bankroll is pretty low. A combination of running bad when deep in mtt"s combined with money shortages away from poker ( ie no pay rise in 3 years now and some pretty big rises in costs etc) means it"s at an all time low. In 2011 I pretty much exclusively only played mtt"s on stars ( all $11"s and under) and had a massive top cash of $90. Looking back at all the results, there"s so many times I"ve gone out between 13th and 40th it"s silly. In 2010, I played mainly on Betfair and withdrew over 4k playing the same type of tournaments, and 2009 was pretty much the same on Blonde. Late 2007 into 2008 I was able to play tons and had a good few $1k+ wins across a few sites.

And the question why I don"t play on these sites at the mo I"ll get to another time.

I don"t have a live roll as such, but 2011 was also a bad year, my 1st live cash actually being in Vegas ( again compared to 2010 where I was probably 3 or 4k in profit playing just the £10-£25 mtt"s at the G in Manchester), it all hinders the roll.

2) To add variety to my game - I have been an mtt player since day 1. Playing cash is not something I find comfortable doing at the moment, and I want to see if I can actually play stt"s and make money.

3) The challenge - I know I can go and play $5 stt"s if I felt like it off $150 roll, but I want to give it a go, where I can 4/6 table for a few hours, play well, enjoy it, and not have to worry about it if I have a bad day. Playing $5stt"s, and I have a bad day or 2, that"s also me not playing poker for the rest of the month.

I won"t be waiting to get to $350 to play the $3.50"s on stars, I"d already decided that, nor am I going to just start playing them if I get bored at the $1.50"s.

[amcgrath1uk]

Working lates and weekends means I won"t get much chance to play, on an early and I can probably put a good 2/3 hours in if the mood takes me.

So tonight, by the time I"d got home after an hour walk ( thanks public transport), showered and eaten etc, it was gone 10.

Didn"t fancy playing so had 90 mins of watching Barca, then just felt like a game or 2, so fired up stars and away I went.

Played a grand total of 4 stt"s, won 3 of them  

Games played: 10
Current bankroll: $164.21 (+$11.15)

I somehow doubt I"ll keep that ROI up  

[ForthThistle]

GL Asa.

Whats you Stars Name.

[samson]

GL with this Asa
If you haven"t played many stts before it will defo help the late stages of mtts/FTs
Sooo many short handed, short stack, big blinds situations that you soon become very good at them.

[amcgrath1uk]

GL with this Asa
If you haven"t played many stts before it will defo help the late stages of mtts/FTs
Sooo many short handed, short stack, big blinds situations that you soon become very good at them.

That"s partly what I"m hoping. I know I need to loosen up a little bit, and play situationally when it gets down to say under 30 runners in an mtt.

GL Asa.

Whats you Stars Name.

same as on here

[amcgrath1uk]

Played just the 8 last night as working all weekend was pretty tiring.

I definitely found the other side of variance, in 5 of the 8 I lost all in pre"s with pocket pairs ( once 88 and the rest JJ+) vs A rags, including one KK v A2, where the chip leader with approx 7k decided to call my 3.5k shove with 5 left.

Managed to win the last of the 8 to stop it being a total disaster however!

Will be playing a fair few of these this afternoon and evening.

Games played: 18
Bankroll: $158.16 (+$5.20)

[amcgrath1uk]

Fairly decent day results wise, won"t be playing any later now as I"m up at 6

Played 20 in total, won 7 of them and 3rd in another, should really have done better as well, so I know I"m playing decently at this level.

Games played: 38
Bankroll: $172.18 (+$19.22)

Currently experimenting between 4 and 6 tabling on my laptop as I much prefer to tile my tables, 6 seems to be comfortable which is good news.

Very happy with the news regarding Blonde and DtD, especially regarding the Blondebash in early April, and obviously I"m hoping to go to that, as there"s a fair few I"d like to bump into again ( especially if we get the football on Saturday morning going again), and it"s been too long since I"ve managed to get to DtD. I"ve been to 2 Blondebashes at DtD, helping win the HU event 1st time ( twice I won when the pressure was on at 2-2) as well as winning in the final of the HU tournament, and 2nd time even managed to cash the main event. Luton Blondebash was absolutely epic for the Saturday night and the Sunday ( £2 turnover was absolutely amazing), whereas Leeds, even though not as well attended as the others, for me from a social side was epic, cannot remember laughing as much as I did in Leeds, midnight cricket, lampost hiding and a comedy cash game.

[amcgrath1uk]

Well I"m stopping for today as I"m not loving poker tonight.

12 sit and go"s, 5 bubbles, 1 1st, again the last of the 12.The last bubble was pretty fantastic...

PokerStars Hand #75202666001: Tournament #513129096, $1.32+$0.18 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level VIII (150/300) - 2012/02/07 20:57:29 WET [2012/02/07 15:57:29 ET]
Table "513129096 1" 9-max Seat #8 is the button
Seat 1: vrag81 (1980 in chips)
Seat 3: hoferboy (5675 in chips)
Seat 7: SennaNo1 (4005 in chips)
Seat 8: amcgrath1uk (1840 in chips)
vrag81: posts the ante 25
hoferboy: posts the ante 25
SennaNo1: posts the ante 25
amcgrath1uk: posts the ante 25
vrag81: posts small blind 150
hoferboy: posts big blind 300
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to amcgrath1uk [Tc ]
SennaNo1: folds
amcgrath1uk: raises 1515 to 1815 and is all-in
vrag81: folds
hoferboy: calls 1515
*** FLOP *** [Td ]
*** TURN *** [Td ] []
*** RIVER *** [Td ] []
*** SHOW DOWN ***
hoferboy: shows [ ] (a pair of Queens)
amcgrath1uk: shows [Tc ] (a pair of Tens)
hoferboy collected 3880 from pot
amcgrath1uk finished the tournament in 4th place
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 3880 | Rake 0
Board [Td ]
Seat 1: vrag81 (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 3: hoferboy (big blind) showed [ ] and won (3880) with a pair of Queens
Seat 7: SennaNo1 folded before Flop (didn"t bet)
Seat 8: amcgrath1uk (button) showed [Tc ] and lost with a pair of Tens

thoughts on his call? And I wasn"t particularly shoving much either!

Games played: 50
Bankroll: $160.13 (+$7.17)

[MintTrav]

thoughts on his call?

Pretty nifty, he was ahead when the chips all went in - obv had your number.