Update

Ok lets bring things up to date.  This week has been half term so I been taking great delight in avoiding all the work I had planned to do this week by playing lots of poker (I am 5 tabling as I type this J).  Part of me knows it’s half term so why not?  Part of me knows I’ll stat panicking next week when I realise how much work I haven’t done…

 

Oh-oh table number 6 has just opened….

 

I can kind of justify it to myself in that I need the practise – after all I’ll soon be playing in the biggest event on the poker calendar.  Most of me realises that realistically I stand a cat in hells chance of getting anyway because I’m crap when I play live.  Hey-ho.

 

So what have I don’t this week, well Chris has tried where possible to get me to play some live poker but he has failed miserably.  I did play in our home game last Saturday, and although I thought I played ok, went out 5^th – my AK catching on the flop against Dan’s 66, only to have him catch trips on the river.  Next time Dan, next time.

 

Apart from that I have been playing online, clearing bonuses and getting some tournament practice in, as I don’t do a lot of that when I’m at school because of time commitments.  So how did it go?

 

Well thankfully, as I cleared tiger at the start of the holiday (don’t touch that site with a bargepole!) I had time to clear my other outstanding monthly bonuses.  These are mainly crypto sites and are pretty easy to clear (click here to see the details of these).  They all clear pretty well at $2/$4, slower at $1/$2 (apart from William Hill and Ritz Poker as they are pay to play bonuses - £5 for every hour of table play at $1/$2 or above).  Rattled through those this week no problem – just Inter to finish but they stack anyway so no problems with carrying this one over.

 

I hadn’t played Stars for a while so went on a bit of a mission on there – nothing major but played some of their 180 player $4 SNG’s. For such low stakes they fill up pretty quick, which is good.  I think I have played about 12 or so this week and have cashed in about 5/6.  Best two showings being a 6^th for $36 and a 4^th for $57.50.  Not too bad.  They are enjoyable tournaments, take 2/3 hours if you get to the later stages and obviously are not a huge outlay.  I would strongly recommend them to brush up on your tournament play.

 

I have also played a few on Party, cashed in a $30 on Tuesday for about $95 and last night pushed the boat out to play a $50.  410 people and was storming for a long time until I ran into JJ with 99 – both over pairs.  For some reason I refused to believe I was behind, pushed all in and lost most of my stack, bad move.  Had to cling on for money after that but got very lucky when I pushed all in with A10 of hearts, being called by AK and AK and made the flush.  Sweet.  That took me into money.  Made a few decent moves to maintain, eventually going out 13^th when my 77 didn’t hold up against AQ.  $130 or so for my trouble.

 

OK – real time!  Just gone out my Stars tournament (another $4 180 SNG).  One shorty has gone all in, flat called by another guy so I push all in over the top with qq.  Its about another 800 but he calls instantly.  He has 78, original raiser has AJ Flop A56, turn 9.  And who says Poker Stars doesn’t favour the big stack?? L

 

Had a good week really, definitely profitable though not big wads.  I think my tournament play is improving; online definitely, now I just have to translate that to live!  What else has happened, William Hill have paid me the $3k for accommodation, which is nice, we’ve found a new house with a pool for the summer. A little frivolous for the two of us but hey – its free!  I’ve just starting my Betfred bonus (details here) but haven’t played enough of that yet to form an opinion and have started teaching my self how to use PowerPoint for school – oh what fun J

 

And woohoo! Just had aces hold up in my party tournament against QQ and JJ – it does happen occasionally!