It's ON.

My reimmersion into poker was in the Hendon Mob Triple Bounty tournament tonight on Genting.  Did it really have to be Omaha pot limit hi/low?  (I've had a draft blog post pending for quite a while entitled 'F/O = Fucking Omahahaha'.)

It was good fun playing with the Mob bunch as always.  The field was small and with only three paid I was out eighth.  As is normal for me in F/O, I had to look at the hand history to figure out what happened.

At the same time as playing the tournament I was playing Mob cash, also PLO h/l.  I sat with £10 and ended up with about £1.50 profit* after a couple of hours.  This makes me hate Omaha games about 1% less. (yeah, yeah, I know, we hate what we don't understand. ... F/O)

The part that got my blood racing was when CaptainGee (GQRxxx) asked me 'Are you competitive?'  ...

The Cap'n is a mobmate of mine.  He's a talented player (I have notes on him from pre-friendly chat days)  He's very amiable - not even close to being a TILTminer.  But what he doesn't know, of course, is that this is a spin question for me.  From earliest childhood I would cry when I won any game because it meant the game was over.  I've had a quite a battle training myself to love winning at least as much as the game in poker.  And then there's all the stuff with my older sister.

My sister is the sweetest, most loving, generous and honorable sister in the world.  Unless you're beating her at backgammon, cards, pool, checkers, golf... you get the picture.  Competition between us turned me unhappy and fast.  So I found a happy balance early on in weighing my greater love for continued gaming and her greater love of winning.  I found I could enjoy losing to my happy winning sister.  I am grateful every day that she directed her energies away from poker. 

Over the years, my sis has focused her seismic competitiveness into challenging herself. The small sample is: She climbed and summited Mount Hood last month and only recently stopped running full marathons in favour of 10k runs and under.  This from a woman who's had a steel pin holding her femur (thigh bone) together since shattering it in a car accident as a teen.  I walk to work every day.  Takes about 4 minutes if I stop in Sheehy's for a take-away coffee.  I also walk Beanie-the-dog every evening.  Usually while reading my post.

So, in answer to CaptainGee's 'Are you competitive?'  I answered 'Only really in poker... ?'

He told me to check out a website called http://playerscope.com/ .  I was still in the tournament at this point so it took me a while to chat and play at both tables and search the site.  I searched myself first obviously.  I was pleased that my 2012 is looking better than my 2011.  He then said '459 vs. 469'.  Ok, so then I searched his name.  Yep, with playing half the number of games I have played in 2012, he was rated exactly 10 players higher than I in tournament buy-ins of $5 to $10 (both our normal ranges).  He proposed a £10 bet: Who would be the leader by the end of June?  I said, 'Done.'

You can check out my rating in the above link.  We're using the rating under the second block- Buy-In 2012.  As of this minute, I am rated 469 of 179,621 players.  (pause for internal applause)  The Cap'n however finished higher in the tournament tonight than I did I think so I will now see if his better rating of 459 as changed...

Tick tock.  Well that took a few minutes of site freeze time.  He's still 459 but the records do not include the Hendon Mob Bounty tournament results yet so this could change. 

Please note that 1) I am not shilling for this site and 2) It says it's an Alpha site so be patient and 3) I'm now going to post relevant SharkScope.com results as a baseline comparison, even though it won't affect my bet with the Cap'n.

As of now, our sharkscopes look like this on iPoker (Genting's network).

Username Games Played Av. Profit Av. Stake Av. ROI Total Profit Form Ability /100 Network Filter DearOccupant 509 $5   $9   1134% $2,548   Tilt 76 iPoker x GQR11190982 188 $9   $13   92% $1,686   - 78 iPoker x

I'll post more graphs/stats in the days to come.  I was going to try to include a few more this evening.  But the formatting here has gone a bit skewy from my cutting and pasting. LOL!

 Okay yeah NOW I'm tilt status LOL.


Anway, the best bit about this bet with the Cap'n is that unlike my wonderful sister and her personal best challenges, in poker at least, I play best when in clear competition with other players.  I played far better during the January MTT challenge on the Hendon Mob forum than I have been recently.  It's as if there's a poker engine regulator that kicks in for me and I am much more attuned to plugging my leaks.  Okay, I know this is only £10.  But I want to WIN more than I want to just keep on playing.  And that's the key for me to do my best.  It's on.

* This does not include the added ev I get from this being a Hendon Mob cash table where the rake I pay counts towards me possibly owning a % of all three Mobsters in the big Grand Final Genting tournament in December.  (My maths calculations aren't great, but I have finally worked out that 'earning' rake and still leaving the table with a profit is the way to go here really.)

Back to poker with a smile... Walking on Cars wins redbull festival tour...

side tracked by walking on cars

So I'm meant to be playing tournaments, but the soundtrack of my life keeps interrupting.

This local band of twenty-somethings... who I've known in one form or another since they were reckless teens - the members of Walking on Cars.

www.redbullbedroomjam.ie/band/walking-on-cars/

Just the fact that they've made something beautiful out of their existence here in a small town in Ireland would have me hooked.  Most of our teenagers seem to emigrate or dissolve.  But really, if I just found their music accidentally, I would download it and play it.

So, those two things being combined, I've become obsessed with backing them because they're in this redbull contest and it could change their lives.  The contest ends in a couple of days so I'm sure I'll be able to focus again by the next Hendon Mob Bounty Tournament.  But in the mean time, I've just got their myspace playlist on play and I created a new twitter account to up them (so I don't annoy my poker mates).

In tribe terms, for Walking On Cars, I'm all-in.

Nettled

I went out in level 16 (240/700 100 ante) ending up 113th of 234.  I feel good about the way I played barring two back to back hands early on.  (AK wtf?!? ... Ugh.  Go to the Hendon Mob Forum thread here if you want to see the details of this . http://www.thehendonmob.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=43529)

When I busted, shoving pocket 6's from under the gun with 13BB and failing to suck out on the big blind's pocket 10's, seeing the standard peppy needle of the old pop-up box 'You have finished in xxx place.  Would you like to play again?' wouldn't even be a paper cut if it was a $5 rebuy - just standard MTT variance.  But because of my lack of attention to important detail - too focused on getting into a game, any game, as opposed to the right game - I admit I'm feeling the sting of losing 6 rebuy T's in a row (the equivalent of my investment in this one).  I'm reminded of the time I plucked a sprig of mint from a healthy hillside patch on a glorious spring day and held it to my nose to breathe deeply the lovely scent only to discover it was a baby nettle.

In fairness, the nettle incident was MUCH more painful.  But this event was twingey enough for me to learn this lesson: Read the entire fecking tournament description!  But also, I actually feel pretty good.  I really love the fact that tilt played no part in the tournament for me.  I'm quite good at salting my own wounds and so making things that much more difficult for myself.  But that critical masochist voice didn't even mumble "donk" once and I found myself really able to enjoy this tournament and focus on playing my best.  The only voice that chirped once in a while throughout play was the eternal optimist: 'If I can go really deep this would be a GREAT story!'.  Well, maybe next time.

FOCUS?

So tonight, I decided to take a chance on myself as I feel like I've been playing really well the last few days and been very focused.  After browsing the available tournaments I regged for the $30 15k guaranteed on Genting.  I have a good record in the $5 rebuy and always invest $15 in this, so I figured I'd like to try this much smaller field (under 200 when I regged) for only double the price.

A couple of minutes in, after scanning the players at my table to see if I'd any notes on them, I noticed the bright red rebuy rectangle on the chip tray. 

So.... there's focus and then there's FOCUS. >__>

As it stands now, we're on level 9, just over an hour and a half in and I have an average stack.  I decided I had to play this as I would my normal Rebuy T's or else I was throwing my first buy in away so I've played it like the fiver's and bought in, topped up and added on for a total investment of $93.  But I'm looking at is as my normal 3.  We'll see how it goes.

CAFFEINE JUNKIE

I've played very few of my regular tournaments in the last six weeks.  All the Hendon Mob events of course, but almost none of my 'bread and butter' $5 mtts.  Instead I've been spending my time and bankroll playing Mob cash on Genting.  I've always enjoyed the Wednesday night Mob cash games, but they've a new promo that adds an extra jolt of cards caffeine with the chance of owning 30% of all three mobsters, Joe Beevers, Barny Boatman and Ross Boatman in the December Genting Poker Series Championship.  (There was talk of a new series of picture books titled 'Where's Ram?' but he refused to wear the stripey shirt for the photos.)

These mobster cash tables are great fun with lots of banter and definitely lots of action.  But this is stupid fun for me because I have virtually no experience at Omaha or cash and I've yet to figure out how to have a good laugh and learn at the same time.  It worked all right when it was once a week because the rest of the time I played my mtt schedule and was quite happy setting aside a slice of my weekly winnings for my evening of hanging out with the boys.  Now, I haven't had a totally dry six weeks - a couple of weeks ago I had a decent cash in the Women's Sunday on Stars along with a couple of lesser hits, so my bankroll's not down.  But after this week's cash play it just hit me: I've gone off on a side road full of potholes and I've just spotted a battered 'DEAD END' sign. What am I thinking?!

I realized I've been in serious withdrawal really.  I had such a brilliant time in London beyond the GPS Fox tournament:

Playing cash with Monty (Pizzicatto).

Dim Sum with the Hoodie Hero Dave (DCSW7) and Evie and Darren(sprengers).

Railing Phil (DrOptheHammer), Nick (Ripple11/22) and especially Monty to the bittersweet end of his cash in the GPS main.

Playing a GPS side event with Dave and Monty and getting (yee-haw!) a Hendon Mob site flag.

Talking poker all the time.  Being with my tribe.  Each individual so very different of course, but it's definitely a tribe.

So here I am back in the Wesht of Ireland and the only contact I have with my tribe is online.  But my focus is wrong.  The online experience is like a cup of instant coffee.  No comparison to the espresso of being there.

So, I booked my hotel for the IPO.  And I've started playing the good old $5 mtt's again.  I've got my focus back and I'm doing what got me to London in the first place.  I'd love if I get a good run going and get to an event or two before the IPO, but that's the reward I'm granting myself for now.

I'll still play in the Mob cash games of course.  But I've reversed off that side road and I'm back on the one that has signposts to better possibilities.  Like another flag or two even.

http://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/player.php?a=r&n=232628

END OF THE HENDON MOB FORUM SERIES 8

I have some more to write about my poker trip to London but all I can think of at the moment (and for the last few days) is the culmination of the Hendon Mob Forum League series 8.

I didn't make it into the top points earners to qualify for the playoff that ran last night.  AKhater took it down.  I'm very happy for him and I know he's a worthy winner of the WSOP package the Mob offered up.  The heads up between PigeonJingle and AKhater was fingerprints-in-the-dashboard time.

Tonight was the loyalty event - with the self-esteem boosting name of The Ironman tournament.  Forum players who had played at least 29 of the 30 league games were qualified to compete for this $2000 package to the Palm Beach Big Game.  I was one of the 29 players who lost to the excellent play of DroptheHammer.  The heads up between Grumbledook and DTH  tonight was mighty. It lasted quite a long time and seemed like it could go on until next year's league start time.

Watching both tournaments was gut-wrenching to be honest.  Not because I wasn't in the running.  But because I never realized how difficult my mob tournament railing life would become once I got to know and meet other forum players.  I'm grateful for their pmsl banter and honour.  And I count myself lucky that it seems I can always find a reason to be happy for the winner.  Losing to this field is always a consolation.

All that sincere gushiness aside, however, my goal was to crush them all and dance on their graves.  Better luck/play next time to me.