Bounty Hunted

Got my chance to go on the Bounty Hunter tonight and blew it! Maybe it's my fault - I suggested they come to me first, but what that meant was they (Michelle Orpe and Tom Sambrook) were interviewing me while I played my first few hands. Turns out that the hand they showed, I played pretty well, but within a couple of minutes I'd lost 80% of my chips. I tightened right up, hoping to survive, but finally went all-in in the small blind against my nemesis, AnneJo, in the big blind and I was gone.

Went out even quicker in Velocity - reraised all-in post-flop with three tens - the other guy had a straight...

My plan now is to take a short break (my play's been too inconsistent lately) and read a couple of books, including Super System.

Primo luck

I've been playing a lot more Scrabble than poker lately, but I've only ever won £20 playing Scrabble so I've been trying to keep my hand in on the Sky Poker tables. I've made a few quid on the cash tables lately, so I had enough to have a punt on tonight's £50-buyin Primo tourney. And, thanks to a couple of enormous slices of luck (and some reasonable play most of the time), I survived into the money, coming 42nd.

Luck #1... After half-an-hour all in for 1900 with AQs, discover I'm up against AA and KK. Flop KJ3, turn 8, river T. Crazy.
Luck #2... Just before the break I'm all in for 3000 with A8, called by A9. Hit an 8 on the river...

The only hand of mine that got shown on the live TV show was the one that virtually sent me out of the tourney... Cameroony min-raised and then:

(Un)lucky 13

Played moderately well in the £30 triple-chance freezeout at the Grosvenor last night. There were a couple of big hands I missed out on through being too shy to put my chips in, but after being down to 2,000 chips soon after the break, I got up to 30,000 plus and a strong position. Only 7 places paid, and I finally went out around 2.15 a.m. when my QQ was mashed by AK. (I'd carefully avoided going up against the other big stacks, but QQ was irresistible.) Oh well, 13th place.

Then, having caught the roulette bug, I put £10 down and went home with £50, mainly through betting on Odd and the ball landing on 13.

Time out

After a run of losses I've taken a break except for the odd dabble. Sky Poker has been revamped and they've cut back on the expenses: no studio guests on quiet nights, and no broadcast on AtTheRaces cable channel. Tonight my pocket tens just held up and I've gone into the break in the top ten. :-)

I've been down to the Grosvenor a few times, just for fun, and got nowhere. A couple of times I was doing okay until I got rivered. Waiting around the other night, I played roulette for the first time, sprinkling my £10-worth of chips around the table. Beginners' luck: ten minutes later I had £40.

Aces up

Aces have been holding up well for me tonight. I've caught an ace four times out of five.

Early on, re-reraised all-in with AQ after the shortstack had gone all in, there were two callers, and I was happy to see that I was the only one of the four of us with an ace. Sure enough, I hit my pair and tripled up.

But I made a stupid raise against a guy (Lucky 13 13) who obviously had an overpair, and guess what, he had an overpair. That time no ace came to my rescue.

There's a new poker analyst tonight, James Browning, who has a definite north-east twang.

Primo

Paul, Jason, Trevor and Richard line up ahead of tonight's tourney.

I started well but I've been betting too often, whittling my stack down to 1,000 chips. Still in though! And when I get bored I can follow the live updates on the big tournament at the Vic in London.

9.47 pm update: out, A7 beating my AJ. :-(

It's been dormant for a while, but Sky have started posting to their poker blog again, and it's a good place to keep up-to-date.

AAgh

First hand shown on the Open show tonight was Pheebs' AA being cracked by Jim-the-Tim's AK. There was a king on the flop, but one king had been mucked, so Jim was drawing to a one-outer, and hit his set on the river.

I was reminded of that hand when I went out exactly on the hour mark. I'd been bumbling along short-stacked until I trebled up with AT, but soon afterwards came the killer: the cutoff raised (with QTs), I reraised on the button all-in with AA, she called. I watched the screen from behind my hand, and sure enough, she made her flush on the river.