Friday, January 25, 2008

And another month goes by...

It's difficult finding the enthusiasm to update a poker blog when you're not playing much poker. I am still not playing online very much, just picking out a few tournaments here and there... mostly the $10 APAT tournaments, managing to pick up another bronze medal in one of them, but otherwise making early exits.

There is another Virgin Poker Festival coming up in April, this time at proper casino that sells Guiness - the excellent Aspers, in Newcastle. Again entry to this £105, two day event, can only be obtained by winning an online satellite... I played my first one last night, a €5 re-buy and won a festival seat at the first attempt, with only €10 invested. I need to find to hotel closer than the airport this time though... £20 cab rides back put unecessary strain on the finances!!

For some unknown reason I entered a $100 (total prize pool) freeroll on dtdpoker earlier in the week... 2755 runners and 100 paid, after about 3 hours I busted out 117th just short of the cash and a 30c payday!! Strangely I seemed to play much better in this than I have been inthe APAT tournaments??

As for live poker, 'The Mob' had a group outing to Dusk Til Dawn just after Christmas, for a £50 freezeout, unfortunately Rich didn't bother pre-registering online and the tourney was sold out by the time we got there, I think he was about 50th on the 'Alternates List'. Neither myself nor Paul came close to troubling the cashier... I also went on to lose a buy-in in a £1/£2 cash game, so not a very successful trip really.

Next was the APAT Welsh Championships, at the Grosvenor Casino in Cardiff, myself and Rich representing 'The Mob'... I lasted almost to the end of the second level!!! I'm not one for 'bad beat stories' but I did lose most of my chips when my 'nut' flush got rivered by a straight flush... I then went on to have a flopped full boat beaten by quads!

Two trips to The Fox, at Barrington, saw me stand up before the break in a £10 re-buy... with £50 invested, I could just tell it wasn't going to be night! The second visit, for last Monday's £50 D/C freezeout, saw me taking 4th place money. I had been going quite nicely all night, the wheels finally falling off just short of the finish line when my AK didn't improve against QQ... no way out of that really when you're 4 handed.