Stephen Groom Music Producer? Poker Pro? Sports Bettor? Tune in next post to find out

GG November

Well.. November was an aaaaaaaaaaaaaaawful month for live poker for me, especially in cash games.  I'm not going to be too specific in terms of £££ figures but it was a huge losing month, even without me taking a shot at DTD early in the month.

Cash Games:

Excluding DTD I played only 5 live cash sessions.  I didn't finish in the black in a single session and finished well down.  At £0.25/50 my hourly rate over the month has been -£28.25 which is a real achievement.  It will take a good few hours of grinding to bring that back to a positive figure.  I do look foward to trying however.

I have a few notes from my session logs and will post them here, to detail how I managed to lose at such a hurrendous rate:

AIOTF w/ vs vs on  a board for a £150 pot.  Obviously find running bricks with the for the worst hand to scoop.  F8cking nemo!

Ak vs JJ
Top and bottom vs Top two
KK vs T7
Sick game

AIPF w/ vs of scotty hocking.  on turn.  GG!

So yeah.  An awful couple of hours of cash games and these probably go some way to explaining why I lost the motivation to play and only played ~10 hours

Tournaments

I did reasonably well in tournaments this month, and excluding DTD finished -1BI after 10 games.

There was an interesting game some way through the month though.

As a promotion from the G casino Newcastle, I played in a £2.5k live freeroll with about 30 entrants.  Of the 30, only around 18 actually turned up, and the game was basically an 18 man winner takes all SnG with 18 of the worst players you could find at a holdem table.

Before the tournament, a number of players had discuss a 10 way chop for £250 each which I was opposed to.  Basically, as I felt I had an edge on the field and felt I am a better bet than all but one or two of the field, I was not prepared to chop with 9 others.  As the final table approached, I had around 3x chip average.  The organisers of this chop were happily folding their way to 2-3BBs hoping that the final table would bow to pressure and agree to chop.  There was only me and one other who didn't agree to chop out of 11 players and by the time we were down to the final 10, the other party had bowed to pressure and agreed to chop.

A very awkward situation ensued whereby I involved the Tournament Director and discussed the issues of collusion, softplaying and basically cheating which I believed would arise on the final table.  He assured me that he would "ensure that the game is conducted fairly" and to his credit, I believe he did the best he can.  I lost a lot of respect for a lot of people throughout that final table though as people were openly discussing the strategy for ensuring that I wasn't going to win that game.  One player in particular using words like "If he's in a pot, everybody limp along and try to stack him".  The Tournament Director was informed of these comments etc but nothing was done, and nobody was spoken to, given a penalty, disqualified or otherwise.

To cut a long story short,  I finished the tournament in 5th place when my dwindling stack was forced to get AIPF w/ vs and The board ran out 5 low cards to give him the pot.  The 10 final tablists then went on to split the 1st place prize money 9 ways distributing as if I had exited in 10th and they had chopped.  This was very insulting and again, a lot of respect was lost for a number of people involved in this deal.

I believe that something should have been done by the tournament director about this deal but it hasn't, and I will move on happy that I was the only player playing FTW, at one stage of the final table getting a 9:1 price on a 4:1 £250 free bet worth £2.5k  (5 players, £250 outlay, £2.5k to win).  As any gambler knows, it is exploting favourable bets like this over the long term that will make us money.

In the end it is up to the 1st place finisher what he does with his prize money, but I am very unhappy that he was manipulated by 2-3 people with 2BBs who ensured that they were paid £250 when they had <1% chance at winning the tournament.  Again, back to getting favourable odds.. Good on them really

Moving on...

2 back-to-back cashes at Circus Newcastle were very rewarding but having gone on to the final table with 3x chip average both times, I really should have won.  I need to learn to win flips and also how to not get commited with 8 high when the villain obviously has aces.  Had I have laddered 1 or 2 spots in one of these games, I'd have broke even for tournaments (Excluding DTD) for the month.

December

My plans for December are very limited, mostly because of the fact that I'm life-busto, with only enough money for meals, fuel and parking.  It is very likely that my play will be on hiatus until January.

Keep checking/Subscribe though as it's very likely I will be posting a long-term bankroll management strategy for online play in the new year.

Cheers
Stephen

My trip to Dusk Till Dawn, Nottingham

This weekend I travelled down to Nottingham for my first visit to Dusk till Dawn, Nottingham.  Voted #1 British cardroom by the British Poker Awards.

The game was a £300 deep-stack freezeout with £100,000 gtd.  I just made my entry into the field of 460 runners and was ready to start at 3pm on saturday.

I arrived at the club early at 2pm and went to find a cash game to pass the time and get "warmed up".  As the smallest game available was £1/£2 NLHE, I decided to sit short-stacked and sat with a 50bb stack of £100.  I sat down and posted into the cutoff position and in my first hand was dealt   I made an opening raise to £7, cbet on a 9-high flop against one player and won my first pot.  Good start .

The game continued without me playing a single hand until I posted the Small Blind of £1 and looked down at .  UTG posted a live straddle of £4, and the player's limped around in about 7 spots (possibly exaggerated), including the button.  I completed the small blind as I felt that I wouldn't have thinned the field any by raising and I would have been investing approx 20% of my stack to hope to hit a Jack-high flop or find a heart flush draw.  The BB completed the £4 bet but then the UTG straddler raised to £20.  2 players found a fold but that left 2 people (mid-position and the button) to call for £20.  The pot is currently £72.  From the small-blind, I felt that this was a good spot to put all of my chips into the pot and re-raised all in for £102,

I made the raise because I believed that it would look like a squeeze play from a weak hand, and if anyone besides the initial raiser called, I was guarenteed to be ahead, or at the worst, racing against a low pair.  The worst case scenario was that the initial raiser would call but I thought that my hand was likely to be better than his as with a genuine hand I believe he would have made it more than £20.  The hand folded round to the button, who instantly called from his £80 stack, showing down .  Obviously he finds a flop and his two pair wins the pot.

He had to call the £102 raise, and I don't blame him for that but what he was doing calling off 25% of his stack in the first place with 4 high I will never know.  Oh well, GG.  And I finished the session ~£150 down.

On to the tournament

This was the biggest buy-in tournament I have ever played and was DEFINATELY taking a shot way outside of my bankroll.  My intention was obviously to win this game but to no avail and ldo I came home as busto as I started (well more actually) but I had had a great weekend and having decided that DTD is the cardroom for me (despite extortionate rake)

The tournament went pretty well, and I don't have any notable hands to comment on.  I remember thinking to myself "Oh shit" when mirrionaire luckbox Jake Cody was moved to my table in level 2 or 3.  I proceeded to outflop him almost every hand I played against him enough to the point of the player to my left commenting "You must like him" having flopped 2p against his presumably air, and betting him off the pot on the river and flopping the nut flush against his open, barrel, check/check, check/call on a queen high board to win a few thousand chips from him.

So.. I digress.  In the last hand of the 100/200/25 level I have around 15,000 chips which is around the average for the tournament at this stage.  I am playing out of basically a 3 buy-in bankroll but have decided that I can't sit around and wait for chips.  The FT average is 0.5m chips so my measly 15k stack will allow me to fold my way to day 2, but with no chance of making any £££, obviously the objective.  I am in the cutoff with and it is folded around to me (the table had been playing excessively nitty, so this was suprisingly normal.  I assumed, and acted asthough most people were playing with scared money and couldn't quite justify the £336 buy-in to go out in levels 1, 2 or 3).  I open to 700 and the button folds.  The SB also folds and the BB (new to the table) calls for 500 more.

The flop comes a magnificent or something very similar.  I don't have an iedetic memory so this is the best image I can conjure.  The BB bets 1600 into 1725 and I flat him, hoping that by doing so I can get another bet (bluff) from him, knowing that I currently have the best hand and will continue to do so unless some miracle card comes on the turn.  The turn card is the  which looks like a good card to me.  It will have improved some of his range (AT, KT, QT,  JT, TT [although less likely because the average player would re-raise TT pre].  He checks to me and I assume he has given up on the hand.  At this point the villain's range IMO is ATC because I believe he would call a 3x position raise with almost ATC and lead out on a seeming uncoordinated  flop, hoping that I will fold my that I will often be holding in this spot.

I bet out for 2,000 into 4,925 and at this point I believe that I made my only mistake in the hand.  Betting 2,000 into 4,925 gives the villain approx 3.5 to 1 on a call, and the way the hand played out, I go on to give ANY 9, flush draw, or the villain's eventual holding more than the correct implied odds (with 10,000 behind which is going into the pot on any river card) to call with a draw here.

Villain calls and we see the fall on the river.  The villain once again checks and I bet 5,000.  My thought process with this bet is that the villain will call/raise with all of his value range, and after checking he was never going to bluff at this river anyway.  I believed that this bet was ideal as it gave the villain 2:1 on a call, but looked weaker than a pot-sized shove so that he may call off/raise with a weak holding and allow me to double up.

The villain instantly shoves and I instantly call and turn over my hand, assuming that it will be best.  Villain shows and scoops in a rather hefty pot as I slump back in my chair assuming that fate got the better of me in the hand.

After getting home, rather tilted, I ran some mathematic analysis on the hand and judged the villain's range as TT+,88,33,AJs-ATs,A8s,KQs,Q9s,AJo-ATo,A8o,KQo,Q9o which is actually a dog to my hand.  This IMO means that the river bet/call was pretty standard and IMO sick.  This is definately the biggest £££ worth pot I have ever lost but I just walked away and caled it poker.  This IMO shows that I have the correct attitude to someday make a decent go of this "game"

Conclusion

After the fun I had, despite losing 60% of my bankroll, I decided that DTD trips will be a more regular than "once in a lifetime" and I have decided that at my current rate of income, I can afford to play once every 3 months.  This will mean that I will be back at DTD with probably another £1k in January or February with more complaints of how bad I run, or poorly I play

I would love to hear your opinions below on how well/badly I played either of the key hands noted above and whether my descriptions/thought processes were BS or spot-on.

Hope this was a good read for all
Cheers
Stephen (aka Groomi)

Gg PokerJournal…

Today is a sad sad day for me. I managed to lose all of my history for live poker on my iPhone.

As I am planning to have a weekend down at dusk till Dawn in Nottingham at the end of this week, I decided it was a good idea to update my iTunes on my iPhone with some deucescracked videos to watch at the table. In doing thishowever, I managed to delete all of my apps, including poker journal.

When I eventually managed to get pokerjournal reinstalled, I had lost 100+ hours of cash sessionsand about 5 tournaments.

So now, to cut a long story short, I am starting afresh (conveniently from the 1st of the month) with no profits or losses. I am leaving behind my losses of £444.25 and starting over. Taking care to back up and not to erase my iPhone again.

From what I remember of my £444.25 loss, it was done over around 100 hours at just under £-4 per hour. Here's to winning this time around