Yoyo'd out

Tonight it was this month's big Bounty Hunter tournament and after a stressful roller-coaster ride I went out in 83rd (out of 500). Near the money but not near enough. :-)

Early on I played too many hands and was down to a third of my starting stack, but my game and my cards improved, and I was pleased with my judgment until...

Lowish-stacked in the big blind, I went all-in post-flop with 97 on a 9-high board. Bad luck to find the under-the-gun limper had A9...

Hellmuth and I

Phil Hellmuth has had so many bad results on TV, sometimes it's hard to understand how he could've won so many WSOP bracelets. His poker image is whining, not winning. So it was nice to see him playing really well for a change: it was last week's installment of Channel 4's Premier League. Phil played great, especially heads-up against JC Tran, and he really was unlucky not to win the round.

Meanwhile, I went deep in a Sky tournament for the first time for a while, coming about 15th out of a few hundred in one of the Bounty Hunters. £50 wasn't much of a return for a couple of hours' work, but I was happy to play so well.

£30K Bounty Hunter Live Blog

Not blogged on here for a while so I thought I'd get back into it with a live blog of tonight's big Sky event.

2000 starting chips, 6-handed. 610 starters. I'm on Table 16.

First hand raised in second position, BB called (seat 2). I bet the flop, he called, I bet the turn, he called, I bet the river, he folded. 7th for a few seconds!

Just got lucky. K2 suited. Flop the flush draw, turn a king, river another king. Nice pot. Up to 3200 chips. 20th.

Won another pot against the same guy (seat 1): I guess he raised preflop with an ace. No ace on flop or turn so eventually he folded.

Lost a few chips to the seat-2 guy. I raised with A9 in early position. He called. By the river the board was 56789 with three spades. he went all-in, I folded.

25 mins. Bit card-dead at the mo. Just slipped out of the top 100.

Another lucky break. I raise in SB with AJ, BB calls. Nice flop 9 10 Q. bet, call. Less-nice turn 9. Bet, call. River is a 10, which I realise could be good news. Check, check, 1200 chips for me. :-) 40th.

Still no bounties taken at our table. #2 guy (not a bad player, imo) had a bit of a car crash but he's hanging on. He's just gone all-in twice and both times some kind person (not me) has doubled him up...

35 minutes. Been moved to table 18, seat 1. Looks like there's been more action here - one guy's up to 7000 chips. First hand I limp and the flop is 777. I'm in position and take the small pot.

The chipped-up guy in seat 4 took a nice pot with a pair of twos against me and a short-stacked all-in guy. I showed weakness on the flop. Another hand soon after I showed strength and he folded. Easy game, this poker, eh.

21:45 hrs. 74th 5000 chips.

A quiet passage of play. Just min-raised UTG, called by seat 4. Flop is 2 3 4. I check, he bets 2500! A good play. Coming up to the break, I'm doing okay, 120th with 4500 chips Though that's a below average stack). No bounties though!

The break hasn't done me any good - I had to log out and had trouble logging back on! - I've slipped under 4000 chips and under 150th place. So now I need to grind a bit...

Or not... Out in 184th. Pushed from the button with a king, BB had an ace...

Good luck to the rest of you in the tourney!

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.

What's worse in poker

... than being beaten by a dominated hand? Tonight in the Bounty Hunter, for example, I'm all-in with KJ against K8 and... I'm all out. Technically that's known as variance, but I prefer the term F*******K OFF! (Nothing personal.)

I'm been suffering from a bad bout of variance the last couple of days, but to be philosophical about it, it's better to be beaten playing well than playing badly.

At least I'm still in the freeroll. My luck was better there. Fourway all-in with 44, the flop is all paint, but then... Broadway on the board! That top prize of £81 could still be mine...

Suggestion for Sky Poker: can we have higher-value freerolls? The highest freeroll buy-in is 200 player points, with a £1000 pot. How about a 500-point buy-in tourney? At the mo I've got over 3000 points burning a hole in me leotard.

(Spoke too soon: out in 14th (£2.55 and no t-shirt!) in the freeroll. I'm all-in with QQ, DangerMog has 99, which transmogrifies into 9999. Bleh.)

Update 2: Congratulations to John Ryan for winning tonight's £1750 gtd Velocity tournament. Thus he joins the elite club of studio guests who've won one of the live tournaments.

That's Entertainment

An amazing hour in The Open tonight. I was going all-in far too much, my chip stack was going up and down like a yoyo, and I had pocket aces three times in twenty minutes!

Then I blew up. AJ under the gun. I had 7000 chips and it would've cost me 2000 chips to raise, so I just went all-in. Two callers! Bad news: AQ and AK. Flop 46T. Turn J! River K!!

That's TV poker.

Up

Just gone out of the Bounty Hunter. :-( Sky have increased the number of entries, up from 650 to 800, with 90 places paid and a first prize of £1584.

Happy coz I made a profit of £160 in one hour on a £1 cash table last night. This was after - as usual - losing half my stack to begin with. (I flopped a set of 2s - Geomax flopped a set of 5s.) Luckily a loose guy called p*****1972 quadrupled me up by going all-in against my pair of kings and my set of 10s, and when he left, a kid called s******ter took his seat and made a bad attempt at representing an overpair to my 88 on a 46T9J board and I took a £136 pot. Making such a good read sent me to bed a happy chappy. :-)