Keeping Warm in Winter

[AAroddersAA]

Won a few few quid on the GP today backing Vettel for the win and Alonso to finish in the points. Would have done even better if Rosberg had not got a puncture as I had him each way but had a nice little result. Might start posting bets on here to see how I do (won"t automatically mean I have put money on myself).

Anyway not done that great or that badly at online poker this month but have not had time to play cash games really as I like to put in decent sessions on those so have mainly been playing MTT"s. They are definitely ore fun than cash games online but I am not as good at them, down about $100 this month I think. Playing a little session on Pokerstars and FTP tonight including the Micro Millions Main Event.

See how we go :-)

[AAroddersAA]

I don"t want to spend too much time on here talking about the actual strategy of poker but I was playing this morning and played two hands at the same time on two tables that sum up two typical spots where a bit of money can still be made in poker. The first one is a 3-bet pot and I have looked at the hand below as this relatively simple spot is the cause of a lot of mistakes in poker. So here is a hand of the day from me:-

I am playing this hand about 125BB deep against a semi reg who I would rate as competent but not good as such. His stats over about 150 hands are 21/12 with a fold to 3-bet after raise of 75% (but only 4 examples). Anyway he has made a standard raise UTG and I have 3-bet my KK, he calls. All very standard so far. I flop perfect with the nuts on a fairly wet board. He checks to me as you would expect and I now have to bet. I bet $3 into $4.63 and he calls (this should probably be $3.50 btw). When he calls I know he has something in this pot and it would be hard to get him to fold. At this point in this pot bluffing would be very unprofitable but it is the perfect spot to try and get lot"s of money in the middle as it will work so often and I expect him to call a bit lighter than normal on the turn (this is true of the population in this kind of game). The turn is a great card for me as I still have the nut"s the board did not get any scarier to convince him to fold. Here I can value bet pretty damn big and get paid a lot. I know there is a decent chance he folds the river when I shove but I get paid on the turn a lot. I therefore push my sizing up to near full pot. The river card makes me quads (which is nice). I shove and he calls quickly with JJ. If the river does not pair the king I probably don"t get paid on the river, so got lucky there but all too often in these spots you see people trying to bluff people off in bad spots. 3-bet pots play out quite honestly. A c-bet on the flop is fine but if that gets called the correct thing to do a lot of the time is to let it go but people don"t seem to like doing that.

http://www.boomplayer.com/en/poker-hands/Boom/15363227_B46222E133

[TheSnapper]

Been a while but here goes....

Firstly, 21/12 over 150 hands is a passive player and anything but competent imo.

It"s unlikely villains perception of your 3bet range is a factor here, it should absolutely be the major consideration for villain.

What possible hand can we have that villain can beat?

[AAroddersAA]

Good response Brendan mate, had not seen it before today, agree with your statements. I am pretty confident the way I played the hand is the most profitable way against the population of this game (and most other low limit games) though.  You are right my 3-bet range should be his primary concern, it almost never is though.

Anyway the football season begins today. I have entered a prediction league against some of my colleagues in work that I will hopefully be winning. You have to correctly predict results and score in the EPL. Chelsea to win the prem from Arsenal I think with Man City in 3rd and Liverpool in 4th. I would have said Man Utd in 4th but they look certain to lose their keeper now which I think will be a major loss and will allow Liverpool to nick the last champions league spot. Actually the English teams do need a good season in Europe otherwise 4th won"t be the last spot for much longer.

I fear for Newport County today away to Cambridge with a new team against possibly the best team in League 2 imo a draw would be a really good result. Won"t be too concerned if we lose heavily today.

Final thought - Cricket is a very weird game !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[AAroddersAA]

OK most certainly time to update this thread. I am not sure where the time goes sometimes lol

Since the last update I have played two live a pats and been lucky enough to run very good and get a 4th place and a 10th this past weekend. I also final tabled the Welsh online event, more about that later.

This past weekend was great even though it was missing some of the regs including Tom and Curly, this was off set by the return of Ger and Stu. Friday night had a bit of a feeling of old apats back in the day meeting up in the pub on Friday with Ger, Paulie, Asa, Scottish Tom, James, Adam , Dave , Stu, Lucy and Warren was awesome as you would expect. We went to the casino Ger and Stu wanted to play 3 card poker (which I am bad at) so I ended up wandering back to the hotel getting a kebab and playing online.

Saturday saw a surprise appearance from the genuine APAT legend that is Paul McGuniess, very possibly the most respected man on the tour and certainly one of the best players. I had a really tough starting table with Matt Carter to my left and Craig Dawson to my right, Shirley was also on the table so it was live steamed which was not a surprise. I started fairly slowly and was down to 10k by the first break following some questionable plays.

Not long after Simon Brooke joined the table so it certainly wasn"t getting any easier. I managed to get up to about 25k by just playing pots and winning a race with AQ against 88. I went up to 50k and back down to 25k by playing some pots well and some not so well. As the day came to a close I needed to try and make something happened so basically ended up shoving with 84 BvB and getting called, he somehow has 33 and I win the race.... How lucky was that !!!

I then had over 50k again which seemed playable for day two. The final hand comes and I get Kings, this is good. I end up winning 75k in that pot to be up to 125k and right in the mix for day two. I leave the poker and go to the bar with Stu, who will provide his own update I am sure but sounds like he played very good poker this weekend.

Day two came down to a few hands. I start off well getting KK again and stacking Steve from the LPPL. Next hand I get AK, Bill Sheppard correctly shoves from LP and I call but lose a flip still on about 209k at that point though so not really concerned. I get moved about a bit and blinded down slightly. I know I lost a race with AQ against 88. We end up on the final table bubble and I am short stacked but still have fold equity on a reshove. I find a good spot to do just that but basically run into aces and finish 10th which is a good follow up to last months 4th and takes me to the top on the rankings I think.

Decided to miss the PLO and go and have a beer with Tom and James and discuss betting and football. Generally spend the rest of the night in the bar with stu, Asa, Adam and Julie. Good night, great weekend, great job by Des and Lucy.

Something I have thought for a while but never really thought worth mentioning is how strange poker players are, having run deep in the last two live events as well as the last online event (and getting my fair share of luck along the way to let this happen) quite a few people have said that I must have been gutted or that I have run bad. Well firstly neither are true, I have run well in the last 3 APAT games and cashed them all, you don"t do that when you are getting unlucky. This game is all about the long term, in season 8 I had a bit of a bad run which was really down to not playing so well. This happens sometimes however it is important to recognise it. After you bust out losing with AK to TT you can"t just put that down to bad luck thee was a whole tournament not just one hand. When you go out of a tournament and somebody asked what happened I always try to be honest, I it was as I didn"t play well enough I tend to just say that. I do always want to laugh when people are sat deep in a deep stacked event complaining of how badly they have run, it is almost impossible they have really run that badly. If at the start of the season you had offered me my results up to now I would have taken it as should anybody else offered the same set of results. in my opinion don"t take the tournaments too seriously play them to enjoy them and treat the weekends as a mini holiday if you happen to do well great, if you don"t well that"s great too as you will have a good weekend.

Will try to update a bit more too, until the next time may all your cards be live and all your flops be monsters.

[Scousebill]

Thanks for the hand mention, and unfortunately it didn"t kick start my recovery and a repeat of last Eurpoean was not to happen. I think being down to 2 blinds twice in the same tourney recovering for a third time is a bit too much to ask for.

Great weekend and well played yourself...

[Zozzy]

Good to read your blog Rodders. It is a refreshing  change to hear a player say that he could have played a particular hand better, or he had a slice of luck.
But I think you are being modest because you are one of the best and most consistent players on the Apat circuit.
With eighteen players left, l for one was pleased when you got moved to the other table.
Nice meeting up with you again.
Best of luck in your future games especially in your quest to be leading points scorer on the Apat Tour this season.

[AAroddersAA]

So finally renamed the thread as it needs a name really. I think everybody in APAT knows I spend rather a lot of time playing online cash poker which has been pretty profitable to the tune of about $1000 this year if I go by poker tracker. I am losing in tournaments but still up overall so am pretty happy with that.

I also do a bit of online betting on the exchanges (usually lay betting trying to get matches at profitable prices) but have never taken that really seriously but been about break even which I was happy with. The sports I focus on were mainly Formula 1, Darts with a small amount of football thrown in. Recently I started trying to take advantage of the sign up offers that are currently all over the place and various other offers, I have done this for a while in a non serious way and was surprised to find out it has a name called matched betting. So this month I put together a spreadsheet and went and checked out some online bookies offers, I was surprised to win a really easy £200 without really trying. Problem is strictly speaking it is not allowed but there are ways around most things. I am going to try and make £500 matched betting in November and am probably going to be logging it here. I think it should be OK to do that as I doubt the bookies are reading this *lol*.

Might play some poker as well it seems to be the done thing. Hope to see people in Ireland at the end of next week.

[AAroddersAA]

Welcome to Dublin.

The Regency hotel is full of poker players with the IPO in full swing. I only got here yesterday so didn"t play it. I flew in at around midday and met Rich Baker at the airport. We had a couple of pints but had to tell a bar maid off for spilling our Guniness, she took it well.....

We get to the hotel eventually. I find Karen in the bar (surprise) I think Dave Pilkington joined us as well. Debbie definitely turned up at some point, we headed off to town and have a couple of beers. The rest are going for food but I was feeling knackered to decide to let them head off for good and go back to the hotel. I head into the bar and find Dave however don"t feel like a pint and have an early night (I am so bad at travelling lol).

I wake up at about 8am and head off for breakfast. Had a quick chat with all the LPPL guys and go for a walk to wake up. The IPO day two has just kicked off and I am sat in reception in what is quite a nice hotel. More updates to follow, I should rally buy into the APAT.

Glen is arriving at 13:30 as well.

[AAroddersAA]

OK we are seate and ready to go. APAT contingent might be slightly the worse for wear already though. Let"s see how it goes.

[AAroddersAA]

According to irritating bloke, Karen, Deb and Lucy
I am out. My demise has been grossly exaggerated although it will likely be accurate in an hour

[AAroddersAA]

So I got knocked out by Glen last night, he had QJ and raised in late position. It folds to me and I shove Glen works out in about half a second that he is ahead of my range and calls which is correct by about, hmm, 100%

[AAroddersAA]

Right back home from Ireland and have to say that it was another great weekend even with the lack of regs in attendance. Playing APAT as a side event to a big game like the IPO is a great idea. Next year I must plan it a bit better and get to Dublin in time to play the IPO. Overall really good weekend rounded off yesterday by a day in the bar. I did play cash for a couple of hours and managed to stack myself first hand when I bet my flush draw on the flop and turn then turn it into a bluff on the river and get called down, oh dear. I pull back up and spin it back up and leave about 250 euros up so that was ok in the end. Was in the bar with Curly, Glen, Deb and Karen for a while. We were also joined by Brian Yates and some of the BCPC. Eventually people drifted away and I had an early flight so went to say goodbye to Tom and Lucy before leaving. I meeting the entire LPPL people and say introduce myself, but of banter about LPPL and APAT follows and I end up staying for a couple more pints. I did then have to leave or would have been to tired this morning. Woke up fine at 7am and head to the airport.

Poker question for the week. It is the first level of an APAT event. Stacks are all around 15k. The table is made up of regs and locals, a local player who seems fairly solid makes an EP raise to 150 (blinds are 25/50) it folds to Stu Ward who is in the cut off and he 3-bets to 425. You are on the button and look at AK what is your play here and why?

Best answer wins a pint from me at a future APAT event.

[Fatcatstu]

Fold, he always has Aces.

[pokerpops]

Raise obviously, although AK is at the top of my range for raising in this spot. Two cards of the same colour at the bottom end.

What happens next?