Monday, August 13, 2007

More random things

Since my last update there hasn't been a lot of action of note. I was in Vegas the last time I updated so I might as well update the rest of that.

As far as poker went, I played a $500+40 game at the Wynn on the Friday before I left, and it was a very good structure at the start, but once they decided to skip a couple of levels in the mid portion, it became quite crapshooty and despite a triple up at one stage, circumstances conspired to leave me trying to create a stack aggressively rather than being able to play a more patient game. Obviously this didn't work a treat and I finished 21st from 69 runners. I played a few more cash sessions before I left as well in Bally's and finished with a few winning sessions. The last one there was truly remarkable for the presence of one Romanian guy who dropped about $2500 in about 90 mins, and this in a capped game where he bought in for either $200 or $300 each time. I managed to get his stack one of those times, but I wasn't really prepared for his maniacal style so probably didn't get as much value as I should have out of him.

I went shopping as well the last day before I came home and it was really cheap. I am not one for shopping as those of you that know me might have guessed, but I managed to get loads of good stuff for feck all, including a new bag to carry the overflow in.

Back on the wet sod again and hopes were raised with a €1k profit in my first cash session back in the Fitz. Happy days. Overall since then things have been going better, although there were the few inevitable setbacks in there. The last few days though have provided the first time this year I have had 4 winning sessions in a row, and one of them from a hole so that was more satisfying almost. I was even playing the Holdem cash game in the Fitz last night as there was no €50 Omaha game. I know that I knew the standard was horrific in there, but last night was a real eye opener for me. An example of a hand like this is where someone limps for 2 and then calls a second raise to €55 preflop of an all in, and shoves all in for 120 or so on a flop of KJ5 (2 clubs). Turn and river were both Q's including the Q clubs. The all in preflop guy turns over AQ, and the other guy who went all in on the flop? 42c naturally to take it down, down to Chinatown. I admit I caught a few decent hands, but I did get dogged as well as few times. I made €500 profit for about 4 hours play, and this was playing pretty much rock like. I don't know if there is enough there to convince me to play more HE cash games, but you never know. One of the main things stopping me from doing this is the presence of a few particularly annoying people at the tables.

One option to get around this might be to play more in the new casino about to open in the premises of the former Merrion Casino. This is to be called 'Cool Hand Lukes' and the poker side is to be run by Luke Ivory, formerly of the Fitz. It is opening this Friday and looks to have a good tournie schedule, but with a couple of issues that I won't go into here. I will head along on Friday to the opening anyhow, and there should be a big crowd there with plenty of familiar faces from among the staff and customers with at least 9 of the dealers from the Fitz leaving to work in there, and that's only the ones that I know of. I will definitely still frequent the Fitz as well though, and I suppose the balance of custom will ultimately decide where I play the majority of my cash games. The Fitz have a cash league running now since the start of August until the end of September. If you get more than 30 hours accumulated you qualify for the tourney in October sometime with a guaranteed prizepool of €25k. I think I have about 26 hours accumulated already, so at this rate I will have a good starting stack, but sure we'll see.

On another note I have recently been watching Heroes a few episodes at a time and I am at episode 16 now I think, so I'll be finished in a few days. It is a good, compulsive viewing type series. It is obviosuly a bit fantastical, but there are a few good subtle humour moments in it as well, such as the time Goerge Takei (Sulu from the original Star Trek) appears in one episode and drives off in a car with a licence plate of NCC 1701. Yes, I am a nerd, so what. You wanna fight?

I am also trying to decide when I will take a few sickies from work. It will have to be well timed I reckon, as I have no days off to play with before the end of the year. My current thinking is 10-12 Sep, but the last time I planned to take a sickie I got sick, so maybe justice was served. Also, I am a notorious bottler when it comes to taking sickies, and just get up defeated by life and grumble my way through work.

Aaaanyways, back to poker. There are a few things coming up in the next few months, but I am not sure how many of them I will play. I am a bit hacked off by tournament poker lately. There is a mini festival coming up in the SE in a few weeks time, and the main event is a €500 game. I would like to play in this, but I am not forking out €500 quid for it the way I am playing in tournies at the minute. I will play some sats for it though, and might even start tomorrow night when there is a €50 with 1 rebuy game on for it. We'll see. Also in the pipeline is Big Slicks Winter festival. The main event in this is a €500 game with a tasty structure, but again it is one I am unlikely to play in, although of the events slated for the rest of the year in that price bracket, it seems to have the best structure.

The Fitz have also released details on their website of their 17 day festival in November. The timings and some of the events in total don't make sense to me. For example, the main event in this is a €1500 event. However, some genius decided this should take place on a Monday-Wednesday with start times of 6pm, 6pm and 4pm. This is not exactly conducive to local players who want to take part in this. Also, there is a seniors event, a ladies event, and a media event. WTF? I don't know who did up this schedule, but it is a tad ambitious I think, as well as poorly planned, and not just because of the main event issue above. Hopefully there will be change before then. As part of this as well, the World Faceup Holdem Championship takes place. It is an interesting concept I think, but will probably result in lots of coinflips and allins preflop. It will be a bit of fun but at €100 with 1 rebuy it is not something to have no regard for.

Good luck for now.

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