Alas and woe! The blessed government gives and the blessed government takes!
Welcome to my blog guys. My poker career has been one of many ups and downs, just like the rest of you. However, call me a free radical, call me an opportunist, but I was an average dude who used to follow the one buy-in rule with diligence. ...Yeah, pretty donkish. But, but...there's nothing quite like spinning it up!
Nowadays, I'm just your typical grinder, studying the meta aspects of the game, and mastering discipline and tilt control.
I'm not going to lie, I consider myself a pretty strong player (All Heads-up challenges are welcome!), but it's only recently that through a newfound friend and backer, that I was truly inspired to take my game to the next level. And let's face it, not many people are going to be Isulder1's, so yeah, grinding is the way forward.
I'm climbing the ladder, and I'm actually fairly interested in getting a staking deal. You see, finance troubles hit me in real life. It sucks, but I feel that with a good staking deal I can get that ample starting roll and continue playing the stakes I should be playing. 50nl, 25nl, I dunno, but that's what I'd like to be staked to play and that's what's up in my poker life as of late.
My best (worst?) moment on Pokerstars was failing to qualify for the TCOOP main event.
*sigh* Here's the story of the hand that busted me in my supremo satellite:
Hand 1 - 215$ Deadline satellite (The big'un)
I was feeling confident. With my stack at double average, and with my other tournaments also doing well, I almost had nothing to lose at this point. I'm in middle position, and I pick up an Ace-King of clubs. Under the gun tanks... He goes all in!
It will cost half my stack. My decision is easy. If I go all-in here, I am not only isolating the person who shoved, but I it is +EV. At ten big-blinds my opponents range is, any pair 4-4 and higher. Not 3-3 or 2-2, because he is still more likely to pick up a better shoving hand and spot in the next two rotations. And with 8 other players to act, it is logical to fold as mathematics would tell us that on average people will have a better hand and call him in this spot. Of course, you must also observe the stack sizes, especially on the blinds (as they get better odds), but in this case they were relatively average. If they were small it would affect his decision by about 17% equity. I know he knows this because this is high-stakes, he is therefore (appeal to majority) not a fish. If he has knowledge, experience, or talent, he should intuitively know what is the most profitable move in pre-flop situations. Although talent by itself must require, to some extent, experience and knowledge; it is co-dependent.
Anyway, his range also excludes (due to the afore-mentioned reasons): 10-9 suited and below, J-7 suited and below, Q-8 suited and below and K-8 suited and below, at best. He is shoving any suited ace, and A-10 off-suit upwards, also, at best. Not to mention Q-J offsuit, and K-J and K-Q offsuit.
So I've pinned his range... I didn't even need to think about it. I had been multi-tabling so I couldn't observe his individual habits and reads. It is not that important, at any rate.
I move all-in. Everybody to the big-blind folds. The BB has a matching stack to mine. He tanks, and calls... Aces. I was devastated. Clinging onto hope, I prayed, for those clubs. They did not appear. That was the end of my over-one millionth hand, at poker: a hand that crushed my dreams, of main event glory.
Hope you enjoyed my first blog post!
Stay tuned, and until next time...
Peace. Love. Abercrombie.
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