Monday, 5 October 2009

A little MTT session

After dinner yesterday, on realising I had the last free evening for about a month, I decided to make the most of it... by having an MTT session. The last tournament I had played in a week earlier had been a great success. As I boasted in my previous post (or posted in my previous boast) I came 4th for $981 in a $5 turbo.

This week's tournaments were rather less eventful.

Tourney I
$7.50 NL Hold'em [turbo]
Time 18:30
Entrants 976
Position 318th (19:27)
Prize $0.00

Not too exciting - believe I got knocked out after isolation shoving the big blind with 98o after there were several limpers. I was expecting to get one caller, but the dead money was so lucrative I figured it was worth a shot. As it happened, I got called by QTs, who beat me.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4756867

Tourney II
Daily Thirty Grand [$11 NLHE - $30k guaranteed]
Time 19:00
Entrants 7994
Position 431st
Prize $31.98

For the hour and a half this tourney was rather lame. I had not exceeded 3,000 (the starting stack). Suddenly I doubled up a few times in succession. The last of these hands was magnificent.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4756865

My elimination hand brings up issues of when and with which hands I should be shoving with.
I understand the theory, i.e. "shove to survive", "shove with hands less likely to be dominated", but it's the practice I am weak on.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4756871

Tourney III
$3.30+R NL Hold'em [$50,000 guaranteed]
Time 19:15
Entrants 9472
Position 2335
Prize $0.00

Nothing too interesting about this one. Not sure if I'm too keen on 12 minute blinds either.

Tourney IV
$12 NL Hold'em [turbo - 45 players]
Time 19:30
Entrants 45 (Sit & Go)
Position 9th
Prize $0.00

Well, lost a flip on the final table. Weird! I never normally lose those! 7 paid, but gotta play for first.

Tourney V
$5.50 NL Hold'em [turbo - $12,000 guaranteed]
Time 20:00
Entrants 3600 (Capped)
Position 1671
Prize $0.00

Well, it was always going to be difficult to repeat my 4th place finish made last Saturday. Ended up making another of those 'survival shoves'. I did not survive.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4756883

Tourney VI
$11 NL Hold'em [$15,000 guaranteed]
Time 20:15
Entrants 3322
Position 1841
Prize $0.00
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4756888
Not much I could do there. 3 way all-ins always were risky!

Tourney VII
Sunday Quarter Million [$250k guaranteed]
Time 20:30
Entrants 27535
Position 13299
Prize $0.00

I think this hand speaks for itself.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4756890
Miraculously, I've yet to cash in the Sunday Quarter Million


A fun little session, except for a period of about half an hour where Stars just stopped working. There was much anger, and huge outrage was expressed on the 2+2 forums. I felt like the television producer who had just happened to be making a documentary about the New York fire service in the run up to 11th September 2001, and who captured the first airplane.

Not that I would call Pokerstars crashing "history in the making", but it was so unexpected, rare and abysmal to be, for me, one of those "where were you when it happened" moments. Well, I was sat happily in my bedroom, as I suspect most Sunday night Stars players are. (That is to say, their own respective bedrooms, not all in my bedroom, I don't think my router can support 200,000 simultaneous log ins. Seemingly, nor could Stars...).

In other news, am stocked up for Peru. Took out some CASH which I shall change for Dollars tomorrow and have bought some new leather shoes. The Brighton streets were not too busy today, particularly the seafront. I suppose that's what RAIN does to people. Yes, RAIN. Probably the first we've had in a month. Arrived at the Brighton Grosvenor at about quarter to noon to see the results of the recent Deepstack I had missed. As it turns out, I had missed nothing. The tournament result printouts betrayed the fact that they had had their regular tournaments on Saturday and Sunday nights, but that no deepstack had been played. This is disappointing. I might have to wait all the way until GUKPT side events to get a good game, and that hasn't even been scheduled yet!

On the topic of schedules and disappointment, I'm gonna quickly read Jules Verne's "Around the World in Eighty Days" before my own voyages. It was in my father's science-fiction section, which includes works by Clarke, Asimov and Lem (whose "Star Diaries" is one of my favourites).
As it turns out, the copy of Verne did not belong to my father but, rather, "Brighton College Junior School Library". It is laminated, has a library stampcard inside and the book is part of a series called "Children's Classics", these words straddling the book's title garishly and almost mockingly. I do so detest the fact that some books have been designated as 'suitable for children', implicitly demeaning the book and any adult who chooses to read them. There is some truth in the fact that children won't really be able to appreciate certain 'adult' aspects of some books, such as lust, ageing, and personal alienation. Whether we like it or not, it is hard to understand something we have not had direct experience of. However, the things which are common in a lot of "books for children", such as unidimensional characters and a pervading sense of 'adventure', can be as entertaining and thought-provoking for adults as they are for children.

To cut a long story short (excuse the pun), a book does not have to be 1,100 pages long and littered obscure existential references and populated with cynical, complex, passive-aggressive characters to be appreciated by a thinking adult.

And nor does this blog.

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