14 Hour Session!!!!! Holdem Omaha 5 card STUD!!!!

Wow!!!! You should be saying when you see that title!! Considering I have lost a lot of interest in poker recently!! And now before you think. ‘Another wannabe must have gone broke!’ That is not the case. Over the Xmas holidays just started to think where will I be in the next year. I came to realise that I would be taking a huge step down in poker when I start working full time. It would not be possible to go to casino’s or gutshot and big slick everyday til 3am and wake up for work at 8am! Especially if you know how much I love my sleep!!! That’s the main reason why I have not been bloging as well. My romance for the game has decreased a lot. This was in the development stages after the midland master and thinking about whether I enjoy playing these long frustrating tournaments that after ten hours of sitting next to certain people it becomes work. Poker is a very mental game and after a while of things not going your well it is difficult to stay motivated. I have felt like this in a number of tournaments and doing that in a WPT for a lot of money in the future does not sound too appealing! Before everyone starts saying its not the cards etc.. I am not talking about getting dealt premium hands, just talking about ten hours of sitting at a table straight and not picking up any pots, no matter what you do. It is hard to explain but sometimes you just feel what is the point!!! I guess this must be surprising for someone writing a blog about poker to say this!!! So I decided to start picking my games more carefully and playing less.

So I get back from uni after handing in my coursework at about 4pm and everyone else is working still so I cannot do anything fun!!! So I decide to play some poker! I have been doing well playing $0.50/$1 on rivercard and decided to step back up to $1/$2, the other night I got a $200 stack up to about $890ish. There was one donkey on the table who was just going crazy. It was great! But he was doing very well at one point, He sat with $40 and got it to $400 then lost it reloaded to $200 and got that to $500 but lost that too! A lot to me!! :) Did not do anything too clever to get my stack up just playing well and choosing my spots carefully. So I decided too keep playing 2 tables at $1/$2 six handed and keep one Omaha $0.5/$1 game open. The game on rivercard for Omaha is not a great skill game, you always see the river card so playing position and taking pots down was not on my agenda, I felt just playing solid hands will do. I ended up about $100 up from the session. In holdem I was one buyin up one table and 2 buyin’s up on the other. Guv was playing next to me and he was doing well at one stage but lost a bit on holdem but made more back on the $1/$2 omaha game. We were playing in his room as the wireless connection in the house collapsed. I decided to play a $27 speed tournament, with 35 left was chip leader and called off most of my stack with 99s vs A4 x x x x A!!! I lose a pot which would have put me double stacked from 2nd chip leader. But I claw my way back in classic Dru Poker style of short stack poker and manage to come 7th for something like $269

At 730pm there was a home game in Leamington organised by Lauren. She created the DOH tournament, a £10 Double Chance (£20 max buyin) of a round of 5 card stud. Omaha and Holdem!!! This is an example of me picking my game! Jambon was meant to come round and pick me and Guv up at 7pm but was a little late, so I decided to play some roulette just one £50 spend on the rivercard software. I hit and double up! Cashed out immediate happy with my winnings, Guv did the same thing but the luck box made like £300!! Jambon arrives and we head off to leamington, on the way talking about how the hell do you play 5 card stud!!!

The game had 8 runners, Dave Lu, Guv, Jambon, Tom, Dhruv (ME!), Lauren, Tommo and Ollie. The structure was awesome and the game was ready once we all confirmed how 5 card stud was played. I will not go into too much detail about the tournament, otherwise this blog entry will be tooo long! But the game was great!!!! 5 card stud was really enjoyable even though it was a limit game. It was all about pressure on the opponent. The game is basically one card up (your own card) and 4 up (again you own but for all to see) So you need to work out one card of your opponent to put them on a hand. Due to the new game Lauren allowed speech play and I was always trying to put people on hands, like if someone raised showing a 6s, you have to assume the rolled up card is another 6 or a As 7s 5s. This was fun!! I tried to make a move on Lauren with Jack high knowing she had a pair of three against my 4 over card but it did not work! She also made an very good call against Guv with AJ high!!! Sweet!!!! Dave Lu managed to call out my hole card correctly but went against his read to allow me to take a pot. Flash as usual didn’t play much of stud he hates anything that is not holdem!!! Omaha was not too good for him as he kept re potting with a flush and wrap draw against top/middle set and could not hit! Tommo was of course the action player early on and was the 1st to go. Guv was surprisingly quiet but went out next. I was next to go and Dave Lu followed in a Huge huge huge pot against Jambon str8 vs top set + gutshot (in Omaha). Jambon dominated the rest of the table with his huge stack. I logged on to Lauren computer downloaded therivercard.com and started back on $1/$2, was playing two table, Guv was on Ollies and Tommo was on Daves laptop! Life of a student eh!! I made $200 on one table and about $30 on the other with in the next hour and a half which was quite nice!!! Ollie was next to go on the bubble and Lauren followed in 3rd, Flash the tournament serial killer ended up 2nd as he slowed played his AA and Jambon took it down with a full house!!!!!

So Jambon Guv and I head back to Coventry! It was about 130ish I think and Guv and I were still awake, I wanted to watch TV but my external hardrive is messed up so POKER! It was again!!! We both wanted to play a tournament, so I opened up Ultimate bet, Poker Stars and the rivercard. There was a $10 omaha rebuy, a $22 rebuy on Stars and a $18 speed on rivercard!!! Well you I was in the $18 rebuy on rivercard in a shot!! The stars tournament had about 555 runners which was not appealing at 2am, the Omaha $10 rebuy on UB sounded gd though! So played those two comps with 20% in Guv and visa versa!

The river card tournament did not go well, go to the middle stage the crucial part and got knocked out 99s vs JJs, although I never really got going. Guv lost a big pot with JJ vs AT and A6!!! I swear that tournament is all about A rag!!!!!!

The UB tournament went well in the rebuy period. There seemed to be a change in the tournament as I notice during the addon period people were taking a double addon. When I was asked for mine I scrolled down and there was a double addon for $20. So the buyin is $10 for 1500, the top up $10 for another 1500, the double addon for $20 get you 6000 more! So you can fold the rebuy period and end up on about $9k for $40, average stack was about $11k though but the structure is soooo good on UB that sense poker in the rebuy period was in order! I played a solid game and tried not to chase too much! I ended the rebuy period on 19k and there was 890,000 in play with 110 runners left, not sure how many started as they have the alternate list on UB.

I was looking really good and I said t my self I do not know how I can go out, I was just playing really well even though this was Omaha! I think because the stacks are soo deep it is so easy to get away from hands, The rebuy tournaments are soooo sweet on UB as you end up really deep although they go on for ages. Guv goes out early and needs me to cash for his 20%. I get to the final 40 at about 5am and Guv falls asleep but before he does he sits on a Black jack table and spins up $40 to $400 or something crazy like that! Its crazy how lucky the boy is! I think he should give up poker and play as a professional casino player!!!! Lol

So I get near the money and I still was playing a solid game on flops but raising more pre flop, came across a few top pros playing surprised they were playing a low level comp but oh well. It was Omaha after all. P0ker H0 was on my table and played very well. It was definitely about taking advantages of the bubble people, one guy even typed in the chat box he really cannot afford to bubble and one guy folded top set and an up and down str8 draw with no chips on the bubble to a raise. The annoying thing on UB is that they pay top 20 with only 150ish runners, they have a friendly payout system so people come back, which is annoying for the top three finishers. Anyway we get pass the bubble and on to the final two tables, I cannot remember too many hands and cannot really analyse them because it was 6am! It was online poker which I have seen too many hands and it was Omaha!!! I was raising with good hands like four way connectors and double suited str8 cards. The tournaments was quite deep for me still as I maintained a top 7 place from 40 players to the final two tables. P0ker H0 was getting a lot of support from the rail and players were laying down a lot of hands to him. His repuatation certainly helped. Jambon was online play the Mansion 100k Overlay comp and I asked him on msn who was P0ker H0, I had heard of him but didn’t really know him, I’m really bad with the online world. So we get to the final table which was annoying because short handed Omaha was going really well for me, I got my self to the top 4 in chips and the top 5 players were miles ahead of the bottom 6- 8 players.

When the final table began I was 4th in chips with about, 120k, Chip leader had about 300k in chips and the bottom four had 40k max. It was a nice situation. I decided to sit back. I wanted to get the game down short handed before I started playing poker. I played a full hands but didn’t like the look of the ten handed table. The short stacks did not play a hand at all, just played their blinds and looked to push. It got to 6/7 handed quite quickly. I got lucky in one hand when I raised with QQJ6 and two people shoved, They were both short and I felt this was a gamble worth taking. I had the 2nd best hand but by the river I had the best taking 2 out. 5 handed was very interesting. There was a lot of raising pre flop. I called a raised from P0ker H0 with JT78 double suited from my BB and flopped the nuts, I checked and he bet pot, I moved in and he called with a higher str8 draw, it came blank blank and I got up to 400k! P0ker H0 was out in the next few hands, and 4 handed went on for ages. The chips were flying about and at one point everyone hand the chip leader. Player A got the chip leader after getting it in with AAxx vs KKxx SB vs BB and we were 3 handed, the other guy got knocked out by player A as well. And we were heads up. He had a big chip leader but I felt confident. Top prize was $1600+ and 2nd was $900+, there was a lot to play for but I was very tired, approaching 7am. I made a call on the turn with the plan to take it away from him on the river but he had the 2nd nuts and when I bet pot he quickly called. I was crippled and I got it in with AAxx 3 hands later and his massive draw hand something like 789J hit big and he took 1st place!!! Was a good result considering I don’t really know how to play Omaha that well!!! Guv gets another paid day off me! Really got to stop doing deals! Just worry when he wins big I’ll miss out!!! But that’s the gamble I guess! At least the money is going to a mate.

So for all of you who missed my blog here is 2500 words for you to read! Sorry about the lack of analysis! Just don’t remember online hands too well and especially Omaha hands!!!!