What's this all about...
So, I've decided to start a poker blog where the aim is to make me play better poker.
How?
Well, simply put I tend to play better live than I do online. I think part of the reason is that if you make a donkey play online there is a certain anonymity to your actions, whereas live you have to show down that J5 which you called a 7xBB raise with and sucked out on your gutshot straight draw.
So, somewhat confusingly, this will be a live blog when I play online, and an after-the-event blog when I play live. By that I mean I aim to write a blog entry during on-line sessions so I can record the important/interesting hands, as well as the overall P&L results. If I have to 'fess up to going all-in UTG with pocket 3s then at least I may think about it a bit more in the knowledge that it will be out there in the public domain for all to ridicule...
To give you some context...
I normally play around twice per week (I have a real job you see) on the following sites with the following aliases:
Ladbrokes Tall__Mat
PokerStars Tall_Mat
Littlewoods Peixes
Betfair Kirsten
Ultimate Bet Tall_Mat
(To answer the obvious questions: 1m96, Portugese for "Fish", the name of my fiancee.)
I started playing in April 2004, lost around £1,000 in 2004, broke even in 2005 and am around £10,000 up so far this year. The highlight of 2005 was winning a WSOP main-event seat on Ritz Club Poker (a $150 buy-in satellite with 400 runners and 6 seats up for grabs).
These days I mostly play MTT and cash games, Hold 'em and Omaha.
I normally play tournaments on Sunday evenings as that's when the big ones are run, and I'll usually play the Ladbrokes $90k g'tee ($100 re-buy), Betfair £50k g'tee (£110 buy-in) and the PokerStars $1m g'tee when it's $215 buy-in (haven't played it when it's $530 or $1060 buy-in yet!). Converting that to dollars means an average expenditure of $700 on tournaments per week - yikes! I haven't had a decent finish for a month or so now (hence the blog) so where does the money come from...
...ah cash games. Cost me a packet at the beginning of the year (I only really played tournaments before 2006) learning how to play cash games. The trick for me was not to loose big pots (sounds kinda obvious when you put it like that...!). What I mean is I'd rather call an early raise with 88 than make a big pre-flop raise early with AA. Hit a set and you take all their money; hit with aces and the pots over. As Doyle said, you win small pots and lose big ones. Not a good plan. As for blinds I normally play $1/$2 and $2/$4 NL hold 'em or PL Omaha.
How?
Well, simply put I tend to play better live than I do online. I think part of the reason is that if you make a donkey play online there is a certain anonymity to your actions, whereas live you have to show down that J5 which you called a 7xBB raise with and sucked out on your gutshot straight draw.
So, somewhat confusingly, this will be a live blog when I play online, and an after-the-event blog when I play live. By that I mean I aim to write a blog entry during on-line sessions so I can record the important/interesting hands, as well as the overall P&L results. If I have to 'fess up to going all-in UTG with pocket 3s then at least I may think about it a bit more in the knowledge that it will be out there in the public domain for all to ridicule...
To give you some context...
I normally play around twice per week (I have a real job you see) on the following sites with the following aliases:
Ladbrokes Tall__Mat
PokerStars Tall_Mat
Littlewoods Peixes
Betfair Kirsten
Ultimate Bet Tall_Mat
(To answer the obvious questions: 1m96, Portugese for "Fish", the name of my fiancee.)
I started playing in April 2004, lost around £1,000 in 2004, broke even in 2005 and am around £10,000 up so far this year. The highlight of 2005 was winning a WSOP main-event seat on Ritz Club Poker (a $150 buy-in satellite with 400 runners and 6 seats up for grabs).
These days I mostly play MTT and cash games, Hold 'em and Omaha.
I normally play tournaments on Sunday evenings as that's when the big ones are run, and I'll usually play the Ladbrokes $90k g'tee ($100 re-buy), Betfair £50k g'tee (£110 buy-in) and the PokerStars $1m g'tee when it's $215 buy-in (haven't played it when it's $530 or $1060 buy-in yet!). Converting that to dollars means an average expenditure of $700 on tournaments per week - yikes! I haven't had a decent finish for a month or so now (hence the blog) so where does the money come from...
...ah cash games. Cost me a packet at the beginning of the year (I only really played tournaments before 2006) learning how to play cash games. The trick for me was not to loose big pots (sounds kinda obvious when you put it like that...!). What I mean is I'd rather call an early raise with 88 than make a big pre-flop raise early with AA. Hit a set and you take all their money; hit with aces and the pots over. As Doyle said, you win small pots and lose big ones. Not a good plan. As for blinds I normally play $1/$2 and $2/$4 NL hold 'em or PL Omaha.
posted by Tall Mat at 3:57 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home