PokerStars… A new Love

Since signing up for VC Poker I have neglected the other online site I play on. I only logging in at PokerStars for the British_Irish freeroll, so after a small bit of thought and a sip of my drink I log into PokerStars to look around what else I can play, and there it was free play Sit & Go’s from small chip stack entries of 300+10 to 50.000+1000 entries. As my PokerStars play money stack has not been touched, I had to play the 300+10 Sit & Go’s. You get to pick 9 / 10 / 18 / 27 / 40 person games as well. I opted to play the 9 / 10 person ones to start with, just to warm up, and to my surprise you don’t get a lot of all-in’ers.

PokerStars Result of Scott BrownPlaying away I realized I liked this and it was a great way to learn tells and reads on people play, and working out the proper bets to put in, home in my skills you could call it, with a few 4th’s – 2nd’s under my belt I was building up my over all chip stacks and making myself feel good at the same time.

A great feature of PokerStars is the Notes section which I have started to use, it can store all your notes on players that you have played against, and as I’m playing the Sit & Go play money games I’m sure to bump into those people again & again, and then with my notes I already know how this person plays and will have a small yet effective upper hand.

Monday Night League

Turning up at my local pub and ordering my coke yep ice but no slice I sit down and wait for other to roll in, I’m sat on a easier table than last week, which is great because of all my bad placements over the last couple of weeks. Second place is only 1 point behind me! Playing my table I know that when I raise a lot of them will fold, but having people who are 19-13 with no way of winning the league with only 2 weeks to go is quite dangerous for me.

I played my hands well, raising on all A-X etc. etc. not letting anyone see a cheap flop. This worked out really well for me. When I hit trips a few hands in, with an Ace out, I decided to raise a small amount, when someone pushed an all in into my face. I called instantly with my set of 9’s, and they held up perfectly against A-K. That’s one person out! The table went down to just 6 players, so another 3 to go out before we could move on. Sitting back for a while with a dry spell on cards and no real need to risk my chip stack to take people out that are bellow me, I left them to fight it out between themselves.

I was only playing my blinds, and A-X’s. This worked out well. We were soon down to 3 and awaiting the final table!

Sitting down to the final table, all people ranked 2-8 are there. A small amount of nerves kick in as I really don’t want to be knocked from top spot, since I have been there for 6 weeks now. It would be a shame for me to get so close, so near, then loose…

So, 1st hand I fold with the blinds at 400 / 800. I was only going to play the best hands, until I get dealt K-J suited of Clubs. I raise up to 1200 and get one caller. The flop comes down: A Clubs, K Diamonds, 10 Clubs… I was thinking in my head, ROYAL FLUSH, please, please, please, or flush, or straight, or… anything. The guy moves in, and a call would cost me about half my chip stack. I thought that if I would made the call, I would not have enough left to carry on, so I re-raise all in with the amount of outs I got I must hit something. The guy called and flips over Q-J (the Q isn’t the Club, so a Royal Flush was still on). So he’s made a straight, the turn comes a blank, and so does the river :(

I can’t believe I had that many outs and not hitting any, when will my good run of cards come back to me? I suppose that’s poker though, win some and lose some. There’s always next week, and I’m going to try get my 1st place finish back. I’m 3rd now, still in the prizes, but wanting that 1st place finish so bad as I’ve worked so hard for it :)