Back with a vengeance!
By BurnleyMik | May 7, 2008
Firstly I would like to thank all who have bought shares in me for the FTOPS event 19. I had 20 shares for sale at $5.40 each and now there are only two left!!!! Its a first come first served basis.
So thanks goes to:
Mair
Kenn
Smooth
Neil
Ace
Cloud
dD
who have all supported me. I just hope I can make you a good return on that investment!
Anyways - –> Oh yeah baby, BurnleyMik is BACKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!
After months of wondering what the hell to play and how the hell to motivate myself, this weekend I found my mojo!
I decided to have a real go at MTT’s again. SO Friday night I played a few as well as the league and man I felt good. I was playing good solid aggressive poker. I ended up winning the league game, which was a big bonus. Will it bring me back into contention…doubt it really, those guys at the top are extremely conisitent, but I aint going down without a fight to defend that title!!
Over the whole weekend I hit hit numerous Final Tables, with mixed success. I have had one win and 1 second as well as a few other FT finishes. I did well sticking to my $5 and $10 buy in limit on Friday and Saturday despite a few decent little cashes and Sunday I made a decent amount again so upped my Buy-In levels to anything upto $25. So here are my Final Table results:
$5 Turbo - Full Tilt - 1st
€600 GTD - Littlewoods - 8th
$1k GTD - Littlewoods - 7th
$10 - Full Tilt - 8th
£5 Head Hunter - Littlewoods - 2nd
$22 Head Hunter- Littlewoods - 2nd
FTOPS Super Sat - Full Tilt - 1st (Took tourney $$$)
Obviously these were not 1000+ player MTT’s, but were usually around the 200 player mark, so I was pretty damned happy to be hitting so many final tables.
My strategy is fairly simple TBH:
1 -Multi Table
2 - Stay tight early unless you can see a cheap flop with good prospective hands.
3- Get aggro later especially using the re-steal mercilessly. Make sure you are the one applying the pressure wherever possible, don’t let yourself get into situations where you have lots of hard decisions. BE THE AGGRESSOR.
4- Try and pick out the obviously loose and the tight oppoenents, this is invaluable later when into re-steal mode and for picking up blinds. Start by trying to pinpoint the guys directly on your left and right first because tyhis is where most of your chips are coming from!
5- PATIENCE. You don’t have to try and make things happen. One of the key things in MTT’s is patience and timing.
6- IF you unsure about a call you are thinking of making…fold. Its that simple in my book, don’t waste chips in marginal situations, wait for better spots.
7. Don’t be scared of busting and trust your instincts.
8. TAKE TIME to think a hand through and put your opponent on a range. Poker is all about logic and so often things are missed or decisions made too quickly when a few seconds longer would help you top see something obvious you missed at first.
These things have all stood me in decent stead for this weekends poker. Hope you can pick something out that is useful to you.
Also I’ll give a summary of what I found about the sites:
Full Tilt - Games upto $10 were mixed bags, you had the few good players mixed in with the hoards of fish. You can usually pick them out quickly, like the ones who can raise and fold!! LOL. So many donkeys, once raised will go to the wire with their AT on here!!. I found the games fine with a good variety.
Littlewoods - Softest game. Early in the games try and get in on cheap pots, they are full of donkeys who will play top/second pair to death, get their chips before someone else does! Not that many games to choose from, but the small fields are much easier to wade through.
BigSlick - fuck me. I cannot hit a final table on here. I managed to get deep a few times, but then get screwed by some total idiot!! The players are probably the worst I have encountered on the net and if you are on a dry run of cards like I was, its absolutely impossible because you CANNOT bluff them. They defend their blinds with any shit at all!!! yep one guy called a raise with Q6o and the flop came Q6Q, i had TT and shoved….LOL, its like that a lot so be careful. There are plenty of games, but the standard is so bad its quite hard to get through.
Stars -This site still fucks me up, down left and right. Not many MTT’s for the low stakes players really, which is a shame. I’d like to play more on here but there are so many tough opponents that I am not sure its good value to do so.
So my BR was significantly increased this weekend and I can”t wait till next weekend for my other go, the only problem is waiting so long could affect my rythm!
Also toying with the idea of travelling to Dublin to play the APAT Irish Open. Not quite sure yet on that, but hopefully I will.
Anyways thanks for reading.
BM
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FTOPS Shares available!
By BurnleyMik | May 1, 2008
Hey guys. I am really fancying a go at this FTOPS series on Full Tilt. I am not rolled to play it really and so to offset the cost I am thinking of trying to sell a few shares in myself. I think I have a decently solid game in MTT’s, (although I haven’t really played any for ages) and if you want to check on pokerrankings.com then feel free to check me out. My Stars username is BurnleyMik and my Full Tilt Username is BigMiky. Make sure you do full tracking though because i have hardly played recently!
Not sure how I will fare in a higher buy-in game, but I wont know unless I try!
The game I am aiming to play is Event #19, the $200+$16 buy-in NLHoldem on Friday 19th May. I am thinking at this moment that I am gonna keep 50% for myself, so I’ll put up $108 of my own dough and sell the other $108 worth of my action. So I was thinking of selling the shares at $5.40 each. Meaning there are 20 shares up for grabs if anyone is interested.
If you are interested please leave a comment. If not no worries and once again thanks for reading!
BM
Topics: Uncategorized | 5 Comments »
I just cant decide!!!
By BurnleyMik | April 30, 2008
Firstly thankyou all for the kind comments regarding my post yesterday. I am feeling a little better today.
Now back to what this blog is mainly for..POKER!
I recently wrote that I was going to try and build the roll by playing SnG’s on Big Slick, but after a piss poor effort at it, i found I just can’t get into it!! So now I am having a Pud-style-like re think about exactly what I am going to do.
After reading quite a numbr of poker magazines I really fancy getting back into the MTT scene. Kenn is an inspiration for starters, but I think i have a fairly solid MTT game anyway. I just need to work on my later game more, especially when to change up and down gears and to become a little more tricky without turning into a donk!
Ideally I would like to have a good enough roll to allow me to play the odd big live game, but my only problem is the only times I can play is at the weekends due to time restrictions and so because of that I am seriously considering changing my shift back to days for a month or two so I can play most week nights. Obviously this means taking a drop in pay, but I really fancy a go at this right now (who knows what i will think next week..LOL).
Anyways I have decided if I do go for the MTT’s then I am going to split my roll onto 3 or 4 different sites and play with a 5% BR management tactic. I think i need to focus on certain sites that will be advantageous to me and for what I need which are:
- Good games around the $5-$10 buy-in area, until the time comes my roll allows for more.
- They have mini view tables because I have to multi table MTT’s for fear of boredom!
- They run a good selection of satellites for bigger and live games.
So I have so far decided on three which fulfill the criteria:
- BigSlick (iPoker)
- Full Tilt
- Littlewoods Poker (Cryptologic)
So i have been moving my funds around to suit, with a general idea of having about $250-$300 on each site to begin and take it from there. I did think about Pokerstars, but in all honesty the fields are just so bloody huge that you need a massive amount of luck to be taking one of those bad boys down! I am still considering the 4th site right now and I am not quite sure just yet.
Anyways, so today I posted my thoughts about this at the forum and kenn mentioned having a go at the $8 SnG’s for $24 tourney tokens on FTP. So I thought I would give it a shot. I managed to win a token in each game..SWEET! So thats two for the weekend already! LOL. I also had a mess around in a $3 90 player and busted when i called a shove with AKs only to run into AQo and bust and then approaching the final table of a $10 90 player game I shove TT, a guy with similar chips calls and he has 99. I flop a ten and he then makes the four-to-a-flush on the bastard river! Ahhh.. sweet poker..hahahaha. I also played a $6 game in which I totally cocked up when I figured a huge stack to be trying to bully me on a 2 5 8 board and I held AQ so i shoved over the top of his flop bet. I mis-read it badly and he had 99.. actually his play was pretty good as i completely had no idea he had played a mid pair!
So thats todays poker and my thoughts of the day! haha.
I might have another token game tomorrow if I get chance see if I can get one for each of the weekend nights.
Once again thanks for reading.
BM
PS, just a big thankyou to everyone who leaves comments as I can’t leave them on Blogspot blogs anymore and I appreciate you taking the time to respond to what I have written. I do however, continue to read them all through google reader!
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For you Della.
By BurnleyMik | April 29, 2008
Had an absolutely cracking long weekend up in Scotland, but fak me, the speed camera’s were out in force!! if I got through that without picking up any points on my licence I will be amazed! Our accomodation was stunning and in a cracking location. Had a trip into Perth city centre to do a bit of shopping for some maternity wear for the mrs and a visit to the fish ladder at Pitlochry. Its so picturesque up tehre its unbelievable!
Sunday, SUNSHINE!, yep you heard me correctly.. we got Sunshine! So off upto Loch Ness we went. Looked everywhere, but Nessie wasn’t out to play! Took in the sites and visited a few of the visitor centres, very nice it was! On the way back I took the scenic route to get a good view of Ben Nevis and it was still covered in snow! Got some great photos and overall an absolutely cracking weekend!
* I was not going to write the below, but I have changed this title and I have to do. I need to say it.*
Then today we got home and it all went down hill quickly. Our dog, Della, a faithful and absolutely beautiful dog had taken a turn for the worse whilst we were away. She could no longer stand on her back legs. She was 18 years old and had been in the family since a pup and we had always said if her legs gave up or she stopped eating before she passed away then we would take her to be euthanazed.
let me tell you that was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do in my life. We loved that dog so damned much, she was part of the family and just got so used to her being there with us. I couldn’t let the wife come with me as it would upset her way too much and being pregnant thats the last thing I wanted, so I did it alone and again I can;t tell you how difficult it was. I am a big guy and don’t fear much, but this was horrible. Making the appointment, carrying her to take her to die, I can never ever explain to you just how hard that was. I carried her from the car into the waiting room, a seperate room and sat with her for the last 25 mins of her life. My heart is broken, it really is. I just hope she is no longer in pain and she understands why we did what we did. I couldn’t actually watch them give her the lethal injection, I just couldn’t. I wanted to remember her how she was and then had to leave her there with strangers to die….I still can’t help feeling I should have stayed with her. Am i a selfish bastard? i don’t know, i can;t get it out of my head. Della, you were the best tempered, most beautiful faithful dog a man could wish for R.I.P.
Ok really sorry about that guys and girls. i just had to say it somewhere. I couldn’t put the wife through all the details and I know she does not read this.
All I want now is a break. Please. Give us some peace. This has been a tough tough year so far and we just need some good luck for a change. Fingers crossed.
Ok, Poker…
Well, I have been reading some mags whilst I was away and …….. ok forget it, i am sorry. i just can’t type anymore right now. I need to leave it there for now.
I am really really sorry to depress you.
Just give me a big smile now!
ok thanks, i feel better already!
BM
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Off to Scotland!
By BurnleyMik | April 23, 2008
Planned a long weekend away for myself and Mrs BurnleyMik this weekend. Friday to Monday stay in a Log cabin up in Perthshire in Scotland! Looks lovely and should allow for some relaxation and chilling out!
Its a bit of a drive up there, but at least I”ll get chance to test out how economical the new motor is!! Also means no poker whatsoever.. 
. I guess I can manage one weekend without my fix!! LOL. Also planning to do a little sightseeing and visit Loch Ness and see if we can spot that Nessie character! If I do I be challenging it to a game of HU NLHE!! 
We have had a fair bit of stress recently with losing the first of the twins and now its a really nerve wracking time for us both, especially the wife, just waiting with our fingers crossed and praying everything is ok with the other baby. I think its time we got away and took our minds of things and just relaxed. Went out and bought that Mario Kart after reading a few reviews on the forum and had a quick go this evening..LOL it is a good laugh and even the mrs can do it!!
Poker - There hasn’t been any. hahaha. Time is something I just don’t seem to have at all right now. I am trying to take as much pressure off the mrs as possible, which includes all the shit household chores!! argghh!! That said i would much rather that so she can just slow down until we have the 20 wk scan and see how it is getting on.
Anyways thanks for reading and I will update about the picturesque Highlands when I return!
BM
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Took a break.
By BurnleyMik | April 22, 2008
Well after Friday night and Saturday I already needed a break from the challenge!! HAHAHAHAHA. You might have been able to gather that much from my last post!!
Friday night I was the first out in the RTR Game. Firstly my JJ was busted by 44 (I think it was 44.. can’t quite remember, but I know I was ahead on the flop with the over pair) and that cost me about 800 of the 2k starting chips and then I flopped two pair with AJ vs Mairs made Broadway straight. I guess when she check-raised me I should have known, but I think I had already fired 300, leaving me about 800 chips if I folded, so i just moved in and Mair had the nuts! GG me!
The SnG’s were pretty horrific to be honest, but then I think that the iPoker Turbo SnG’s are much much much faster than the Stars and thus taking out some of the play. I have been toying with the playing of none turbo games for the challenge now, but I am worried that may have a dramatic effect on the number of games that I can squeeze in. I think the worst thing is I felt I was making the correct moves and decisions at the right time, but still losing simply due to bad luck and after quite a bit of this my head just totally went and so did the confidence. Think I did the right thing stepping back as I feel refreshed now and may have a last go at them today and see how they go. Like I said, i am already behind schedule because I only managed 27 games so far, so that needs to improve.
Thanks for the comments and encourangement I recieved after the rant, but it was for my own benefit TBH, just needed to get it out of the system!
Sunday night I planned on playing the North vs South game and the bloggerment, but that all went to shit because of the Calzaghe fight, beer and working nights!! I was awoken early Sunday morning after only a few hours kip to go out for the day with the wife (I had promised to be fair). When I got home I was absolutely fucked and I mean hardly keeping my eyes open so I just went to bed about 7pm!! Only problem was I woke up about 4am Monday morning bright as a button!
Didn’t play any pokr today as I had a lot of personal stuff that needing sorting and I feel better I finally got round to sorting it!
Right thats it for now.
Plz run goooooooooooooooooooooot and rinse the fiiiiiiish!
BM
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need to vent.
By BurnleyMik | April 19, 2008
feel free to ignore this rant post.Its for my own good.
I have now played my first 27 game of the $10 SnG’s and i need to vent.. I am running like fucking shit and its driving me absolutely fucking crazeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
arrrrrrggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh aaaaaaaaaaargggggggggggjjjjjjjjjjjjjj
I am currently down $87 and absolutely fuckig steaming.
I can’t win a fucking race and everytime I make a move in position, at the right times may I am, the BB is almost always waking up with a fucking monster.. WHAT THE FUCK??????
I am getting shoving hands from late postion, like A9/AT/any pair etc etc, you know what I mean and I have run into AA/KK a fucking unreal amount of times. I have bubbled about 10 of the 27 games because of wankers making ridiculous bubble calls… they are fucking clueless and my head is about to esplode. How can you call off your whole stack on the bubble with K fucking 8 offsuit???????? how the fuck can you do it??????? I am then crippled and shove A8 straight into AA… AGAIN.
I shoved JJ into the BB’s QQ and QQ into the Buttons KK once too. Whatever I do i am running into some ridiculous shit. Shoved with 88 called by 95o… yep no kidding, 95o. Flop has a 9 and I am busted again. WHAT THE FUCK CAN I DO.
FUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKK.
rant over. I just needed to get that out. No more poker for a bit cos I am on serious tilt!
Topics: Uncategorized | 5 Comments »
SnG… still the only viable way forward…
By BurnleyMik | April 18, 2008
Been having a good think about my poker and due to my time constraints through the week my only way forward is the SnG’s. So I am toying with the idea of setting myself some goals. Whether they be based on profit, number of games, ROI.. whatever, not sure yet, this is something I will have to also think about, but setting myself goals will encourage me to play more and also give me something to aim for. I know I can squeeze roughly 7-10 games in per day through the week and depending what I have got on at the weekends, I think I can safely say another 30 games over that time. So I reckon I am looking to hit about 65-80 games per week. I will also use Bankroll management and because I am playing turbo’s it will be a conservative 40 Buy-ins, stepping up levels when I have 45 Buy-ins for the higher level.
So at the moment I have a starting bankroll for this of about $720. With the levels on iPoker (BigSlick) this means I will continue playing the $10 games until I have 45 buy-ins for the next level of the $20 games. Effectively I need to get to $900 to step up. Also and every bit as important, if I drop below 40 buy-ins for my level I will force myself to step down a level and not move back up until I have the 45 buy-ins again. This should allow for variance and stop me going busto! (fingers crossed!! ;-))
Also I will make sure I do not touch this bankroll for anything else at all. If I want to play MTT’s I have funds on Full Tilt, PokerStars, Virgin or Littlewoods I can use. I want to try and get a true reflection of how I am going. I am also going to create another page on this blog to keep accurate records of my progress, this should be another thing that helps the motivation.
Next thing is to create myself an excel spreadsheet to record the details. I have created quite a few in the past and I always find that as long as I keep to the essentials they are not too difficult to keep accurate and up-to-date. I usually go for the following headings:
- Week No.
- Site
- Buy-In
- Rake
- Finishing Pos.
- Return
- Profit/Loss
- ROI
I find using excel usually makes all this dead easy. What I usually do because I am playing 5 at once is, once each game finishes, I flick to the spreadsheet and input my finishing position and then fire up the next game. I find this way I can return to the spreadsheet at the end of the session and input the rest of the data. I plan to record the results on here once per week to keep myself honest. Also, I am going to allow myself breaks if I want them, but they must be full weeks otherwise it will affect my overall stats. I play SnG’s regularly and I know that sometimes they can be a total head fuck and every now and then you HAVE to take a break for fear of losing the plot!
Sound like a plan to you? I think so and I also think its fairly realistic, which is another massively important factor. Too many blogs I read where people set themselves targets or goals that are beyond their reach, if they are honest with themselves and it soon becomes apparant to them and they give up. I am going to try my best to make sure this doesn’t happen to me!
I am thinking of starting tomorrow and running my weeks Friday- Thursday. So keep your eyes peeled and wish me luck. i know it won’t be easy, but I am going to try my hardest to find out if I am still a winning player and see what kind of profit (or loss) I can turn within say a two month period!!!!!
Thanks for reading.
ATB
BM
Topics: Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
I just can’t stay away from the SnG’s!
By BurnleyMik | April 16, 2008
As I previously mentioned I was trying to clear the bonus at Big Slick by playing LHE. It was incredibly boring and I did have a good try, but just gave up!! LOL. So At the start of the week I decided to move back to my old faitful… Sit n Go’s!! I quite like the 30 player ones, but haven’t got time so I moved to 5 tabling the $10, 10 player games. Once again I am playing the turbo’s and so I am asking for trouble, but so far its going well. I am up so far about £100 ($200) since the weekend, which I am quite happy with. I am not particularly running well, especially vs a certain player who I keep bumping into and the bastard wins every single bloody race and showdown we go to! All that said, i am winning my fair share of races and my aggression is paying off well against these donkies! One thing I will need to do though now, now that I am back a little nmore seriously is start recording all my results again, so its the old exel spread sheets back out I thinks!!
Looking forward to a heavy schedule of MTT’s this weekend as we are away off up Scotland for a long weekend in a Log Cabin the next weekend, so I gotta squeeze em all in!!
right, not much else to say!
GL
BM
Topics: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
The Motivation finally returns!
By BurnleyMik | April 14, 2008
I am back in the game baby!!!
For about a month now I have hardly had any time or motivation to play. i’d play the odd SnG here and there, but never really put any time in. I spent more time at the forum and railing others. Not really sure why, just never really felt like I could be arsed to sit down and get going. Anyway this weekend I managed to win the RTR league game and played a couple of MTT’s getting very deep in one and enjoyed it.
So I started player the 20 and 30 player SnG’s on iPoker (BigSlick) and to be fair the games seem fairly weak. There a couple of regular players I kept bumping into but in general these guys are totally fkin clueless…and I lav it! I just multi-tabled the turbo and non turbo games, 5 at a time, and overall made a decent profit. At one point though I did make a mistake I have made in the past and promised I wouldn’t make again. I was berating some fish who was pissed at me because I called with 10 6o in the BB when the pot was laying almost 2.6/1. he showed AK and I turned a T to take the pot. As I was berating this fish I missed AA at the other fkin table and there were three all ins!!! QQ, TT and A8 were all in and the board missed everyone… that was a sick pot to miss as it puts me as a big chip leader!! LOL. Once again, all because I can’t keep my friggin trap shut!! LOL
It was nice to enjoy the game again. Sure, I got the bad beats. A’s cracked by T’s etc etc, we all know the shit I am talking about, but it never got to me, i just fired up the next game. Mellow, thats the word to describe my mood when i was playing!! Sweeet!
Last night I played a HU match vs HullJimi for the next podcast and I fucked it up bigtime!! seriously! I won’t say exactly what, but you can hear it on the next RTR podcast.. man I was sick. I’ll never live it down…thats for sure!
Finally managed to pick myself a new motor this weekend and about to pick it up in an hour or so. its a Ford Mondeo Zetec 2litre TDCi. It drives like a dream and I canny wait!!
Right thats enough crap from me. hope you are all well and running good!!
GAME ON!
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