A final table! =] but nowhere near the win =[

Well, I did it, got to the most important table in a poker tournament, the final table. Was 3rd in chips for most of the last two tables after getting it in with Tens preflop v Eights for a huge pot at the time, but then two beats just before the final table meant I wasn't in the greatest shape.

Oh, I should also mention this was the $5.5k Guaranteed $11 rebuy on Ongame. Well on the final table I think I folded the first three orbits solid after a ridiculous run of cards and finding no spots at all. There was still ten players in at this point as noone wanted to go out at all despite there being a flurry of all ins at one point, but the shortstacks prevailed everytime, meh. Then, with AcTc in the SB and ~5BBs iirc I shoved it all in over the top of a limper who called with 99. The turn was an Ace and I doubled up to an OK position. A few people donked out after this, then with the blinds at 3500/7000 ante ~800 it folded round to me in the SB with Q9 and 10BBs, and an M or around 4.5 so I shipped it into the middle. However the big blind woke up with A9 and I couldn't bink the Queen or any straight so I ended up finishing 7th for $228. Not a bad return I guess but i'm going for the win everytime and feel a bit dissapointed when I don't. This was the only MTT I played on Betsafe today and loaded up three SNGs. Bubbled two and finished second in the other which isn't too bad as I covered my losses for these and have made a profit of $190 for the day.

Also played in the Pokerisk $3k freeroll and donked out in 69th place with JJ when raised 3x preflop and a call in the BB. 7s5s3c flop and I got check raised to which I shipped all in. He called with the 8sTs which was good when the 2 of spades fell on the river and sent me out, ahh well. Just glad i'm continuing to get it in good.

Elsewhere I decided to put $40 on Pokerstars last night just to play about when there is no traffic on Betsafe and when I tilt abit because of the slow games. Played some $3 18 & 45 mans and am upto ~$80 atm. Won't be playing this too much, just thinking of it as an alternative to mess about on and see how well I do.

Played the earlier MiniFTOPs event where I donked out AQ v TT v KJ not too far in. I'm currently in the MiniFTOPs Main Event and it's the first break & not doing too badly. Been playing alot of small pots in hope to stack someone but not hitting anytime at all, ahh well. A long way to go yet, and a very teasing first prize of $110,000.

Started watching Dexter last night and got through the first two episodes. It seemed slow at first but definately getting into it now and depending on my success in this MiniFTOPs will probably watch some later.

Right, i'm off to take down the Main Event.

Thanks for reading & glglgl,

Jonny.

Not the most productive day...

Played thirteen games and ended up a whole $13. Had two semi deep runs, but after not being able to win a race and a horrible reship by me I ended up finishing 28th out of 135 in the $33 3k and 37th out of 292 in the $10 rebuy. I also just bubbled the $5 rebuy finishing 105th out of 779 but my lack of ability to win a race meant I was sent to the rail before the money. With the structure in the $33 I definately think I should have at least reached the final table in the field but my vulnerability to the minreraise meant I pulled off a stupid reshove all in with bottom pair and sent me out when the other guy had flopped trips, bleh.

Hand of the day going to this one in the $5 rebuy, not too sure what he was thinking but I welcomed the chips... Pokerhand doesn't fully recognise the HH format and classes it as a cash game, but you should be able to make it out.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4993527

In the SNGs I didn't do too badly and was up about $50 if I calculated correctly. I actually sucked out on someone too, wiiiiiiiiii my six BBs and A7 beat AJ AIPF.

Ended up watching all The Mentalist episodes upto the current, Season 2 Episode 10. Such a quality show and looking forward to the next episode =]. Think I might start watching Dexter tonight. =]

As for poker terms today, I woke up pretty late due to my addiction to The Mentalist and went to sleep at 6am. Definately will be playing, just unsure what yet, may post later on how i'm getting on.

Thanks for reading & glglgl,

JTingate

More frustration

Just finished 28th out of 1560 in the $5 rebuy game. Was decent game and I did enjoy it. Built a stack not long after the rebuy period with Queens against Tens and maintained my stack from there. Won a vital flip in the last few hundred, A9 v 88 with a 9 binking the turn and doubled with Kings not long after meant I had a decent stack. However a big pot where I reshoved with Nines for a guy to find a call with King Two of spades, then the board coming down 2-Q-J-Q-J and I couldn't recover after this. My fate was sealed when I had four big blinds and shoved with King Queen to be called by Ace Ten. The first card out being a King looked good but the next one was an Ace and just about sealed it, bleh. Just sickening as three deep runs in three days and not too much to show for it. Did cushion my losses for the day with the $100 prize money but I still lost $100 and not too pleased about it.

Going to go chill out with some food and watch The Mentalist.

Thanks for reading,

JTingate.

Frustration galore

Well, finished fifth in the first five SNGs i've played today and fourth in the sixth. Just getting ridiculous and can't win an all in for the life of me. Scraped a few results so I don't lost my full daily bankroll.

Last two SNGs, AQ v KQ AIPF for a King of The Hill step 3 ticket and obv he binks the King. Then on the bubble of a $20 10man, shove King Jack blind on blind and he calls with King Ten and obv the Ten high flop sends me out when I would have won a pot to put me chiplead and in a sick spot to abuse the bubble.

I hate ranting on lol, but it just seems I keep getting it in good everwhere and just getting ridiculously outdrawn everytime, seems I need to get it in 100% to win the pot. ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, such a horredous sigh...



Just after the second break in the MiniFTOPs and have 6,220 from the 5,000 starting stack. Nothing special happened, won a few pots early and was upto 9,000 then ground down, had to fold Jacks preflop and i'm now 1955/2710. Blinds go upto 175/350 in 5 mins so i'll be looking to chip up soonish.

In a $5 rebuy but that's it, just donked out of the $10 rebuy in the first hour with Tens v 77 AIPF and he rivers a flush. sigh.

Just loaded up another SNG with only one player I recognise in it.

Getting closer...

Yesterday I felt good, very good infact, and have been sticking to a normal persons sleeping pattern for...three days now =] must be a record for me.

Came second in the first SNG of the day and was getting it in good throughout, however my Aces beat by Ten Six AIPF was a bit of a sickener so I decided to play an MTT. One that was coming up soon was the $22 Deepstack Six Max, which is exactly the same tournament as the one I came fourteenth in yesterday except the buyin was double and the field was halved with 291 runners compared to the 567 in yesterdays tournament. Started off well and managed to double up in no time, then a big pot happened when I check raised all in with 7s7h on a 3s4s6s flop for the guy to find a call with AcQs. However I managed to fade and my stack grew pretty healthy for the stage in the tournament. Continuing on I used my tight image to build my stack with timed steals & resteals. Then late on had Kings and managed to get it in preflop against Jacks for a very big pot with ~50 left, picked some spots which were far and few between as, for some reason I manage to build a decent stack in most MTTs and when it comes down to the endgame I become completely card dead and can't find any suitable spots to resteal etc so I folded like 543985993 in a row and got down to the final two tables sitting in 8/12. Two shortstacks went out pretty quickly and we were left with 10. I made a few steals with Q9s and A7s but then for the next 20 or so hands a Jack 7 was about as good as it got and with the blinds at 1250/2500 with an ante of 500 I found Ace 9 UTG and decided to ship my 10 big blinds in as we were playing five handed and my image was ridic at this point. Anyway the small blind snapped the 25k call out of his ~100k stack and so did the big blind who had similiar chips. The put was ~75k upto now and I wasn't feeling great about the situation at all. However, when a T-9-4 flop came down and both players checked I thought there may be a slight possibility I was ahead. The turn came down a 7 and the small blind bet minimum, I didn't have a clue what this meant and the big blind called which could be anything with such a small bet into this large pot. The river came down a 6. The small blind bet minimum again and again the big blind called. The small blind turned over his hand and showed a set of sevens and the big blind had AKs meaning I was dominated preflop and managed to luckout on the flop, but the turn killed me and meant I was out in 10th place and short of the final again. =[

I did take $93 and meant I was in profit of around $120 for the day. I've been thinking about the last hand and still think I have to get it in there. Maybe not an open shove but a raise and call of a reraise as I can't raise fold in that spot. Pretty pleased with the result but want to be start hitting the top three places in the tournament. I think it's just a matter of time and volume.

After this tournament I loaded up three SNGs, went out of the first one in ninth place after getting it in with Queens on a T-8-3 flop against Jack Ten for the turn and river to come running Jacks. Then shoved AK into a guy who found a call with KQ and the flop to come KQQ, you just can't make it up. Then in the final one managed a second and recovered the losses from the other two. Really happy with how i'm playing in these and the spots im getting in, just need to be playing alot more.

The final game of the day was the Pokerisk weekly tournament with 30 runners. Big unlucky to Mike who lost with Jack Eight against pocket Jacks in the second hand haha. The next hand lost Q7 AIPF v J8 I think, for the river to come a Jack, huggee beat =P. It got down to 21 players and I have KsJs and raise it up for the button to call. The flop came down TsTc7s and I check raised all in for the button to call with pocket threes. A Queen non spade hit the turn giving me more outs but the four of clubs on the river sealed the deal and I hit the rail. =[

For the day I ended up ~$120 for the second day running and feeling good about my game which is important.

Here are the stats...



Ended the night with watching some more of The Mentalist and watched the rest of the first season and the first two episodes of the second. Really enjoying it but there are only seven episodes left upto the current one. =[ However Matt has recommended me Dexter to watch so I will definately start watching it as soon as I have finished these.

Today i'm going to be playing SNGs with maybe an odd MTT or two. Got the MiniFTOPs Event #18 coming up in two hours which should be very interesting. It's a cash out tournament meaning you can take your chips out of the tournament at any time and cash in every 500 chips for $1. The buyin is $20 with $10 going into the prize pool and $10 going into the cash out section as this covers your amount of starting chips, 5000. Not too sure how i'm going to play this yet but will probably be not cashing out and hopefully move up quite a bit from those who do, then take it down haha. :P

Finally, watch this video, the guy who made this is a genius. It's regarding the current race to Christmas number one between Joe McElderry and Rage Against The Machine.



Anyways, im off to play.

Thanks for reading and glglgl,

Jonny.

Not a bad start...

There were definately worse starts than yesterday =]. I ended up not playing too much though which I outlined in the first post of the blog that I want to be playing alot more. However I did manage an OK profit over the twelve games I did play.

I fired up some SNGs early on in the day and for some reason didn't play any more after finishing a few sets. Pretty happy with where I finished, the 7th place was when I got Kings in on a T-8-3 flop against pocket threes.



In the MTTs I played, the day wasn't going too well. I played a few $5 MTTs and donked out of them, and in the $11 rebuy I played early on got it in with Aces preflop to lose to Tens on a Ten high board. The pot would have seen me with a top 5 chipstack too with 48 left and a pretty slow structure. =[

Then later I decided to fire up the $11 deepstack as it was one of the few low staked buyin tournaments where you start with 3000 chips, as the rest are 1500. Managed to get pretty deep in this. Got down to the last 14 with blinds at 2500/5000 ante 500 and it folds round to me in the small blind with Ace Four and a stack of 60,000. I decide this is good enough to shove against the big blind so stuck it in. However he woke up with AK, and despite me flopping a four card flush I was to be gone in 14th =[ . I was pretty dissapointed but managed to recover the $40 I spent in the $11 rebuy earlier and take my days profit upto $130.

Played the $30 6max shootout MiniFTOPs event too where I lost in the first round, raising on the button with Ace King to be reshipped by the big blind with his sixes. I made the call and lost the flip. =[

Decided to chill out for the rest of the day and played COD:MW2 & watched The Mentalist, which i'm loving at the moment. Recommended by my Pokerisk mentor Matt Adams on his blog (http://cursey09.blogspot.com/), got through 21 episodes now in four days.

Right, i'm off to play some poker, got off to an OK start so far with a second in my first game and just bubbled one.

Thanks for reading and glglglgl,

JTingate

Intro...

Well, i'm giving a blog another go after failing time after time. Hopefully this one lasts but i've said these in each of the opening posts in all the others.

If you don't know me then i'm currently 22 and after graduating earlier this year I am currently unemployed. I'm currently being staked to play poker on Betsafe, it's part of the OnGame poker network. This is by Mike and Gav who run Pokerisk (http://www.pokerisk.com/) and it's a great oppurtunity for me which I don't feel i'm taking full advantage of right now.

I've been doing this for about three months and haven't started too great...

The first two months I was losing, however managed to recover about $500 in losses towards the end of last month and slightly profitted. This month hasn't been the greatest and i'm slightly losing.

It has been pretty swingy and for the first one and a half months don't think I played particularly well, however, the past few weeks i've worked on my game and feel like im playing pretty well. However my results don't show that =[, I could go on talking about bad beats, which i'm going to do... nah im joking, calm down. :P The past week has been pretty frustrating as I seem to keep getting sucked out on heads up. I know it's not a bad problem to have seen as though getting there is the hard part, however the jump in terms of buyins is pretty substantial from second to first. Ahh well, it will come in time as long as I keep getting it in good, I guess.

Decided to reset my Sharkscope from now to coincide with this blog and treat it as a fresh start sort of, so when I post stats from now on it will be from this date etc etc.

I definately need to increase my volume as over three months I should have alot more games than 600 when I have nothing else to do. So from today i'm going to try and treat this as a proper grind.

Going to go get some food and load up my first set,

Thanks for reading and glglgl.