You must be wondering why I am in such a good mood all of a sudden, and I shall tell you - staking! Staking is fun for many reasons, primarily the joy of sweating the final table of someone who you have a percentage of. Collect your share of the winnings is also fun! One of the best things about staking though, is that if you are investing/sharing in the right players it slims down that horrible fat thing called variance. Not only can you break even from a bad night of tournaments and cash games through someone else's success, but sometimes, just sometimes, you can actually make a nice tidy profit from it too. And we all know there is nothing quite as sweet as earning money for doing nothing!
So why am I talking about this all of the sudden? Recently a rival site (horrible, terrible, awful software, with even worse customer care, solid shark player database and generally non-comparable poker site up against PKR, the holy grail of sites) has been running an online festival with some big tournaments with good structures (all be it way too long for a European player to cope with the time difference). This means that the cream really do have a substantial shot at rising to the top without having to rely on crapshoot tactics later on in the tournament. Myself and a few friends have been playing the odd one or two of these tournaments, and we usually swap a percentage with each other which slims down variance. Seeing as we are all (big headedly) very competent players, we are doing pretty well for each other so far. Late last week, the $10,000 High Roller event kicked off, and a familiar face on PKR, 1Kevboy sold a percentage of himself. It was a killer tough field, with the first table bringing up 70% of the players as Pro's, with only two fish to be eaten up by the rest.
Anyway that Sunday, I had happened to be running pretty awful, and for the first time in a while, was pretty tilted from the session. I had lost $7K in an earlier session that day at the $5/10 cash game tables, and then with all of my tournament entries for the night (and my tilt purchase of a sizeable percentage of Kevin in the High Rollers event) I was stuck in the hole for $12K. A series of deep runs with huge stacks in various Sunday Majors saw me feeling confident, until I busted all of them bar one for a $1,300 cash.
I was feeling pretty sick. That was one of my worst Sundays in a long time, but I still had my horse running for me, so all was not lost. I stayed up until 10am to watch Kevin cruise to the final table of the High Roller event, while also making Day 2 of a $500 event that I also had a share of him in. Kevin played unbelievably well, and was neither lucky nor unlucky when it got down to near the final table bubble. Getting it in twice with coin flips, he lost both. Had he have won those he would have had double the chip lead to the nearest opponent, but nevertheless he forced his way to a credible 6th place for $137,000, of which I took my nice sizeable $25,000 share! That score more than bought me out of my $12K hole.
My profit for the evening was also boosted by the $20,000 WSOPE package I had won that day (after busting all the other Sunday majors) while railing Kevin. For a $500 entry I found myself playing the same WSOPE satellite that I had previously bubbled, with fellow horse Nik Persaud. In the previous tournament, we both found ourselves dwindling in chips with only a handful of players to bust out before the cash, so we did a $2000 saver (meaning if one of us made the package we give the other player $2000 as consolation). Unfortunately last year, that must have jinxed us as we both bubbled! This year, and the very next time I had tried one of these WSOPE satellites, Nick and I found ourselves nearing the money once more, and so once again we swapped a $2000 saver, which apparently this time was not needed, as we both cruised to the bubble, and took home a tidy WSOPE Main Event seat along with $3,000 in cash. This brought my sessions winnings to just over $40,000 and my day's winnings (including my cash game losses) to just short of $35,000. Not bad for a Sunday in which I am usually down a hole for a few thousand dollars!
So a nice Sunday is usually followed by me spewing it all off again in the following week, but this time I actually made money there too. I made about $8,000 the following week, despite not playing as much as I should have, and then cashed for $6,000 in a $500 HU tournament, in preparation for my $10,000 PKR Heads Up Grand Slam live event in October. I was creaming the opponents, playing my genuine A-game throughout the tournament, when I came across a guy who I'm sure played great nine-handed tournaments after checking his results, which were pretty substantial. God knows he must have been tired, as he called every raise in position and out of position equally. He made some awful plays, and genuinely I figured I had 0% chance of losing. This was until, with a 2-to-1 chip deficit, he decided to put just under 80 BB's all-in pre flop and felted my KK v AJs. Obviously he binked the nut full house by the river, and then proceeded to hit every flop, and win every pot. I started to run extremely dry, and the only way I won pots was by outplaying in non-showdown hands. I then found AA and AK in quick succession, but of the 90% of pots he played, he obviously folded these few.
A few hands later I wake up with TT, and managed to felt it for 45xbb's into a 6xbb pot after a raise and a 3 bet pre. My 4-bet 40 BB jam should have sent the message across to him that I had a decent hand, for my tournament life, but no he still almost snap-called 39 BB with KJ off suit! Of course a K hit the flop, and I was sent crying to the rail. After 16 hours of play, being booted like that was unpleasant to say the least, not to mention missing out on the $170k for winning just four more matches!
Anyway, I had a nice profitable week, which therefore answers the original question as to why I am in a good mood! With the WSOPE, EPT and the PKR Grand Slam all coming up shortly, I am crossing my fingers that my ability to run well recently will continue, and hopefully I'll make a few nice scores, take home the big money and some kudos.
Wish me luck... Ciao
James666