Such a little thing...

Really small fry compared to people winning ME seats but this was a fun afternoon after finishing work at 1pm.

Thought I was going to get gayed out of the win despite a huge chip lead 3-handed when the guy I ended HU with sucked out a couple of times and woke up with KK in the BB as a shorty. This guy had no clue how to play short-handed, min-raising A7o from the button and shoving middle pair when checked to. I instacalled with top pair (QJ I think) and he sucked out an ace on the river.

He sucked out runner runner flush on me again when HU after I flopped broadway (QJ was the nuts today) but thankfully, as mentioned, he had no clue HU.

After I open shoved a couple of times with ATC he started just open folding and let me chip up from life support. After that I just kept the pressure on by shoving anything reasonable and came back for the win.

Vienna Part II

So after my initial success I go back the following night and play a bit of Omaha with just one 2 euro blind. Double up early with a loose-ish call on the button with KTTx after a small raise and loads of limpers. Flop is 10 7 2 with two spades and I have the KT of spades.

Checked to me and I bet pot, loony Asian gambler calls, turn is a 7 and he check calls my all-in. Danke.

However, I then lose most of that back with a set of jacks which I have to fold to a lot of action on a straightening board by the river, and the game bizarrely breaks up. Go and play some 1/2 NL and end the evening down about 90 euro overall after a donk calls 15 pre with 64o and puts the rest of his stack in on a Q 7 3 flop and hits his gutter :)

Following evening is even worse and I drop 300 euro at Omaha. Biggest hand comes when I raise 8910Jds and flop is JJ2. Money goes in and guy flips over A227 - LOL

And it gets worse still. Drop another 150 on Friday night running an unsuccessful bluff on the turn and river against a guy who calls with AK unimproved, and then run AQ into QQ on a Q95 flop.

Thankfully last night I get most of it back, and should have ended with a big win, but I had my share of luck so can't complain.

Hands of note: I raise pre with AJ and get all-in with two shortstackers on A56 flop. One guy has 56 but the turn is a J and river a 7. Then I get QQ on the button, and re-raise UTG's raise to 100. UTG is steaming after losing a big pot but of course he has AA and is all-in for 104. Foolishly he says "You'll flop a queen the way my luck is" and boom, Q 10 5 flop. Unlucky m8, but whatever happens that hand he goes broke.

Just when I'm ready to go however, I lose a big pot to end the night on a downer. I'm playing until my blinds and UTG raises to 9, I call from UTG+1 with 66 and a few others call.

Flop is 764r, UTG checks and I lead out. Donkey at the far end calls and I figure him for a straight draw, possibly overpair. Turn is a blank, I bet, he shoves for 54 more and I call. He has 58o obviously. LOL. Nice play sir.

End up 327 euro for the night and a bit pissed off, but overall happy with the session.

PS - Forgot one funny hand from earlier on. Bit hazy on the exact action but I had 98of hearts and the flop was 10 7 2. I bet the flop, get called. Turn gives me flush draw, I bet again I think. River is a blank and it goes check-check but just as I'm about to show my 9-high, opp mucks face down and I take the pot :)

Vienna update

So whoever designed Terminal 5 at Heathrow (Norman Foster?) needs an enormous kick in the balls.

It's one of those stupid fucking airports where all the seats have metal armrests which don't move, so you can't lie down and sleep on them. Bastard. Also, despite having seemingly loads of space to play with, they somehow needed to have some of the gates separated by so far you need a little tube journey to get to them. Retarded.

Anyway, I make it to Vienna half an hour late and then get delayed at the hire car desk because my travel people have given me the wrong voucher. It says Avis so I go to the Avis desk. Nope. I ring travel people. Sorry it should be Europcar. Go to Europcar. No. Ring travel people again. No answer. Work it out myself and go to Hertz desk. Correct reservation number but he won't accept voucher cos it's got Avis written on it. Fucker. Travel people ring back and fax new voucher.

Eventually make it to hotel, sleep for couple of hours, do some work and then head to card club.

Walk in and immediately get seat at 1/2 NL game. Doesn't look good at first with lots ot shortstackers, but immediately see how bad play is. Get QQ, KK and AA in short session and win with all three, but lose pots with A9 v AQ and AK v K9 to end up just 88 euro.

AA hand was funny. I'm in SB, couple of limpers and button makes it 11. I make it 30 and get 3 callers. Hmmm. Flop is K J 3 with two spades, I shove for 91 (hadn't had chance to reload after A9 hand), 2 folds and donkey tanks.

Some info on this guy: Worst player ever. He chased a gutshot with J8 on a Q954 board and spiked it on the river to beat a set of 9s. He limp calls anything, minraises when he hits something, etc etc.

Eventually he calls and flips up K 2o, no spades. LOL. Thanks. I left shortly afterwards but not before seeing A10o jam over the top of an UTG raise (he had 10s).

Looking forward to going back tonight.

This means nothing to me (oh Vienna)

Just a quick update before I'm away for work for two weeks. Off to Vienna in a few hours, doing my usual trick of staying up all night, driving to Heathrow while the roads are empty and then hopefully sleeping on the plane. That's for a golf tournament and then I fly straight back to London on Monday for the Stella Artois tennis at Queen's Club.

Good news is that the world famous Concord Card Casino is just 20 minutes away from my hotel and I had a great couple of nights playing there last year. All the dealers spoke more than enough English to help me at the tables and they even let me charge my mp3 player while I played!

http://www.pokerpages.com/directory/houses/display.php?PokerHouseID=119

Austrian/German players are pretty horrible and I ran well to scoop a decent score. Hopefully this time I then won't oversleep at the airport gate and miss my return flight on Monday morning!!

Been running well since redepositing at FT on Friday, running my $380 up to $1900 thanks to some HU PLO, 8/16 limit hi/lo and PLO tournaments.

Finished 4/195 last night in the $2.5K guarantee for $390 and was chip leader in the same tournament tonight until running into some bad luck at the end and busting out 10th.

I ran really well earlier on, picking up AAxx when relative shorties found KKxx and were forced to get it all-in pre, and for a while used my big stack carefully to pick up a few orphan pots.

But then it all went a bit Pete Tong. 3 of us called a really short-stacks all-in, I flopped the nut str8 but the board paired on the turn so I didn't fire again and the other big stack made a flush on the river. Best one though was when a terrible player raised on the button, I rr from the BB with AAxx and he calls all-in for his tournament life with K742.

Obviously there was only going to be one winner there :)

As I said though, I ran well earlier so not complaining and was also going well in the HA tournament I think Ryan won recently. Seemed like it was full of weak players so look forward to playing in that again.

Thanks to those who railed last night/tonight and fingers crossed my baggage survives the worst efforts of British Airways at Terminal 5...

What difference does it make?

Well if we're talking about rakeback, hopefully it makes a big difference.

I've had rakeback on FT, UB and AP for ages but never really made the most of it, suffering from playing on too many sites instead of concentrating on one and also remaining loyal to Party because I love the interface.

Obviously it's kind of retarded to play most of the time at Party without rakeback, although they do have a points system which works in the same manner - albeit at a much lesser rate.

Therefore, I've finally redeposited on FT on Friday and intend to multi-table religiously when I get the chance. This should also hopefully help with my temper tantrums which are usually brought on by getting bored/frustrated at the pace of play.

Speaking of which, while complaining about the amazingly slow pace of play in an Omaha MTT on Friday, one of the other players suggested playing Omaha HU and I did on Saturday with some pleasing success.

Busted one guy with the nut str8 on the turn when he had top set and a flush draw and I dodged a lot of cards for a change, and also managed not to go bust with the A-high flush against another guy.

There was little action until the river - I think the flush came runner, runner - and I have A6xx with the "nut" flush in clubs. So I bet the river, get raised and am about to re-raise when it dawns on me. He can only have KJ or J9 of clubs for the str8 flush. Obviously I'm not good enough to fold but I just call the raise and sure enough, he flips over KJxx.

I type "lol" in the chatbox and he types back "how good are you?" before leaving the table. LOL.

Favourite part of the day however, was playing a complete weak/tight donk who I just ran over completely. He hardly ever raised, would just call most of my pre-flop raises, and was incredibly passive on the flop and turn. I was hitting the occasional good hand but often betting with nothing on the turn to take it down. If he checked twice he was folding, he never check-raised.

In terms of money I didn't make a fortune because most pots were small, but I'd love to play this guy every day - guaranteed money and rakeback too :)