Poker by Numbers

[mporter123]

Betfair London Live.... what a great event.

The main mistake I made at the weekend was trying to do too much. I combined poker with meeting up with my uncle who works in the city and provided a nice alternative to a night in a hotel. A few pints later on the Friday night and all seemed great; Saturday morning was not exactly the same.
I arrived at the Fox bleary eyed, I must have looked about 15 years old and everything seemed to ache. Still I was impressed by the club, everything looked great and there was a real buzz before it all kicked off.  Unfortunately I didn't meet too many APATers. I think I spotted a few but was not entirely sure who was who. Next time I will be more forward and go and introduce myself to random people wearing APAT tops.

On the poker front, I think I am now getting used to tournament poker; this was definitely the most at home I have ever felt at the table. My first table couldn't have gone much better. I was up to 15K 10 minutes in after a big pot where I made a full house. From then on I thought I played OK, opening up my range and trying to take advantage of a really tight table with lots of post flop play. The table dynamics were really fun as well; I had my Ipad at the table playing the Geoff Stelling role of updating the table on the latest goals and scorers.

After about 3 or 4 hours I was up to 36K. The most satisfying thing is that this came from lots of small pots and good aggressive play. I can't lie; I did run really great as well. I had Aces against Queens in the blinds and made flushes and straights a couple of times. I felt stronger as the afternoon went on and thought I had a good chance with my stack to go deep. When our table broke after several breaks and we moved into the evening, it wasn't quite such a smooth ride.
I went card dead and moved to a table where there were a lot of 3 and 4 betting and very few flops. I then was moved tables another couple of times before realising it was 10pm and I was into the last 50, still with a healthy stack of 35K. In the end I went out in 38th spot. I picked up AQ suited in early position with about 20 big blinds and decided to ship it in. Unfortunately the guy who eventually finished 3rd found KK and that was that. I was completely gutted actually walking back to the tube. I thought I could have easily just played absolute premiums till the money but I genuinely felt I could have gone really deep so to leave with nothing was pretty crushing.

I guess it doesn't matter how good you run early on, you need that bit of luck where it counts. Should I be shoving AQ with 20 big blinds...? I don't think I should be raise folding that hand with that stack really? Still a great weekend and some top quality poker all thanks to Leigh's freeroll success. I can't complain really.

[pables]

Mark,

It"s a shame because we were all asking round if anyone knew Mark Porter, it would have been nice to rail you

Ian

[Quasar]

I can"t believe you sat next to me and didn"t say hello  

As Ian says we were all asking and thought you hadn"t turned up. I know how scarey it is when you first go to these events. Please come and find someone next time.  

[mporter123]

See, I thought it might have been you especially when you insta called an all in bet and showed aces!!

Will definitely catch up with more people next time :-) congrats on the cash.

[mporter123]

[Marty719]

[Swinebag]

3) Develop An Annoying Affectation. A great example of this is trying to store up all the 25 chips on the table. For example when the ante is 25, put in 100 and take the 3 x 25 chips as change. A guy was doing this at the Betfair Live event and it wound me up so much that I had to go out for some fresh air.

I"m sort of guilty of this but not as bad as the guy described above. If the blinds are say 600/1200/100 then I will try and hoover up the 25s and make myself a nice chip house. It does slow the game down when players start putting in 25 chips when they are not needed.

good post btw

[Quasar]

haha this really made me  , even though if I was sitting next to you it might make me  

[mporter123]

Thanks,This post was the result of a long afternoon at work!

I was sitting to the right of the guy hoovering up the 25 chips. It got to a point where he had somehow got to about 90% of the 25"s on the table and had created a huge tower. He was really annoyed when he couldn"t get the change and had to put in one of his precious 25"s. I dont know why but it got on my nerves so much!

[jbworldwide]

3) Develop An Annoying Affectation. A great example of this is trying to store up all the 25 chips on the table. For example when the ante is 25, put in 100 and take the 3 x 25 chips as change. A guy was doing this at the Betfair Live event and it wound me up so much that I had to go out for some fresh air.

I"m sort of guilty of this but not as bad as the guy described above. If the blinds are say 600/1200/100 then I will try and hoover up the 25s and make myself a nice chip house. It does slow the game down when players start putting in 25 chips when they are not needed.

good post btw

If that was the one in London, then I know exactly who you are talking about. He says he likes to collect the lowest chips in play for "good luck". Shame he got taken to town by someone and lost them all

[mporter123]

Although the previous post was a bit of a joke, I do have 3 things that I do want to change in my live game:-

1) If you are sat in the big blind, don't look at your hand until there is action behind you. If there is no action and you get a walk, just muck your cards, NO LOOKING! There is no point tilting yourself by looking down at 2 aces. If you feel you cannot help but look, NEVER show a big hand in this situation. Your already annoyed you didn't get any action, why give the other players at the table ammunition.

2) You are sat in the small blind, the action is passed round to you and you look down at junk. Just fold. As discussed in another thread, I think that a lot of players have small blind leaks. I don't personally think that 4 betting with any two is going to be profitable in this spot especially in live tournaments where play is generally recognised as being tighter. The WORST thing you can do is fold face up with a glum face, this is just weak.

3) Only show your cards when forced at showdown or after a huge bluff. I have seen so many players raising from late position and flashing an Ace it is unreal. Or making a big re-raise and showing their pocket kings after everyone folds. The better tournament players will not be getting plastered at the tables, they will be figuring out a profile in their head of each player at the table. Never give away any free information.

[Marty719]

Although the previous post was a bit of a joke, I do have 3 things that I do want to change in my live game:-

1) If you are sat in the big blind, don't look at your hand until there is action behind you. If there is no action and you get a walk, just muck your cards, NO LOOKING! There is no point tilting yourself by looking down at 2 aces. If you feel you cannot help but look, NEVER show a big hand in this situation. Your already annoyed you didn't get any action, why give the other players at the table ammunition.

2) You are sat in the small blind, the action is passed round to you and you look down at junk. Just fold. As discussed in another thread, I think that a lot of players have small blind leaks. I don't personally think that 4 betting with any two is going to be profitable in this spot especially in live tournaments where play is generally recognised as being tighter. The WORST thing you can do is fold face up with a glum face, this is just weak.

3) Only show your cards when forced at showdown or after a huge bluff.The better tournament players will not be getting plastered at the tab I have seen so many players raising from late position and flashing an Ace it is unreal. Or making a big re-raise and showing their pocket kings after everyone folds. les, they will be figuring out a profile in their head of each player at the table. Never give away any free information.

Few disagreements:
1 - Fair enough.  Pretty dependant on levels of tilt control.  I like excuses to complain, so I always hope to peak at aces...

2 - Confused by the 4 betting comment if action is passed to us.  Also u state that folding is better and then mention that live poker is recognised as being tighter.  If there is a nit in the bb we can open almost 100% of the time in the sb.  We can open small and fold to a 3b comfortably against many and still make a smooth profit.  I know a lot of people who min every sb and half pot c/bet every flop and swear by it.  Once spr becomes lower, picking up the blinds and antes is really important.  I think better advice is to pay attention to player types around the table and figure out ways to exploit each of the player types.

3 - "Only show your cards when forced at showdown or after a huge bluff."  Its probably better to just never show ur cards.  We dnt want to give people any information, and showing bluffs just makes it harder for us to get the next one thru.  This is just as much giving away free info as, " I have seen so many players raising from late position and flashing an Ace it is unreal. Or making a big re-raise and showing their pocket kings after everyone folds."

[mporter123]

On Saturday I managed to improve my best ever cash by a massive $1. Finished 2nd in a $2 MTT on Betfair for a $176.24 payday which felt nice. Still bit gutted I didn"t take it down, yet to win a MTT.

Played the GSOP Mini last night, was hoping to play most of the mini"s but the structures don"t really suit going to work the next day. I got knocked out after 4 hours in about 700th place. Will probably give most of these a miss now and step up my cash games.

Need to book some time off work.... awaiting a certain schedule..... :-)

[Chipaccrual]

Nice cash Mark.

Agree on the GSOP structure.  Makes it difficult to run deep with work the next day, and when you know that, I think your mindset is slightly different when playing the tourney.

[pokerpops]

3) Only show your cards when forced at showdown or after a huge bluff. I have seen so many players raising from late position and flashing an Ace it is unreal. Or making a big re-raise and showing their pocket kings after everyone folds. The better tournament players will not be getting plastered at the tables, they will be figuring out a profile in their head of each player at the table. Never give away any free information.

Someone far better than I at poker said "never show bluffs, if you aren"t being forced to by being caught occasionally then you aren"t bluffing often enough"