Return to the tables

I returned to the tables on Tuesday night for a quick session on PokerStars. I checked OPR and it had actually been 10 days since I've played last, and before that it was another 7 days ... so I've played twice in the last 17 days ... ouch!

Its not that I haven't wanted to play, I've just been busy with plenty of other stuff going on. I had a quick trip to Darwin for work, my full-time employee has been in hospital, I had a date Friday night and most importantly I've been working on a business proposal for Two Plus Two (tell you more about it if it goes ahead).

While I haven't been playing of late, I have been following the WCOOP quite closely. None of my guys have had any scores of note but the most well-known pro to take one down was Jason Mercier who won a 2 day $1050 buy-in event, taking home just under half a million dollars. Like Shaun Deeb who I mentioned last week, Mercier got the win despite being short-stack with 8 or 9 players on the final table.

So, back to me ... September started very much like August did ... not well. I put in a decent session back on the 2nd, mostly playing the $6.50 45 mans and blanked all but one. I played 22 games that night so the bankroll took a substantial hit. My last 4 sessions have all been profitable, but not enough to dig myself out of the early hole I've found myself in. This is what happened last month so hopefully I get some time on the tables over the next week to try and bring back some respectability.

Shaun F'ing Deeb

Although he retired from grinding tournaments like he did for from 2006 to the end of 2009, Shaun Deeb stills plays poker. He's played a number of live events over the last few months and warmed-up online prior to the WCOOP.

I logged on to PokerStars yesterday afternoon to see him deep in the 2 day event 28. At the time he was struggling as a short-stack, sitting 14th out of the final 15 players. He waited, and waited and his break came when he got it in against 2 others holding queens. One had 6's and another had jacks, the flop brought a 6 but with the flop all hearts, Deeb had the only heart, although he wouldn't need it when a queen came on the turn tripling him up and putting him right back in the tournament.

From there Deeb did as Deeb does ...

WCOOP Day 11: Shaun Deeb Wins His Second WCOOP Bracelet | PokerNews

Another day of the 2010 World Championship of Online Poker at PokerStars, another big name winning a bracelet. The biggest event of the day, the conclusion of the $1,000 No-Limit Hold'em two-day, did not disappoint as several big names navigated through the field to meet at the final table. WCOOP all-star Greg 'DuckU' Hobson was there, along with Shawn 'buck21' Buchanan, but in the end, it was Shaun Deeb who emerged victorious. He earned $243,610 and his second WCOOP bracelet, having previously won his first in 2008. ROMES_HOME and Brryann also took down events on Day 11, both earning their first bracelets.

PokerStars WCOOP 28 - $1,000 No-Limit Hold'em Two Day

Buy-in	Entrants	Prize Pool
$1,000+$50	1,433	$1,433,000

Place	Player	Prize
1	Shaun "shaundeeb" Deeb	$243,610
2	Tjollerboy	$179,125
3	Iulian-Georgian "Ruxandescu" Ruxandescu	$135,991.70
4	Shawn "buck21" Buchanan	$97,444
5	Maximilian “HotKarlMC” Heinzelmann	$70,933.50
6	Vladimir "VLs85s" Vorobiev	$56,603.50
7	Greg "DuckU" Hobson	$42,273.50
8	insanocut	$27,943.50
9	Jin "jhwang21" Hwang	$15,476.40

PokerStars update

I'm in a bit of a funk at the moment, nothing seems to be going my way which I mentioned in a previous post. Nothing happened with the dating situation, work hasn't been that busy lately and I haven't really been making any progress on PokerStars. I've been getting to the gym regularly which is the one positive but probably not eating as well/healthy as I would like or should be.

So for the last week, I've just been focussing on the $3.25 45 man games. I believe I'm playing well and making the right moves, they just don't seem to be paying off at the moment. My bankroll has been floating up and down around the $1000 mark.

I put in some longer sessions on Saturday and Sunday and things to be on the improve ... a little. Saturday was break-even'ish as I couldn't do any better than a 4th place finish. Sunday I played a few MTT's as well as the 45's and got deep in a couple, cashing 3 out of 4. My best finishes were a 39th out of 2132 and 53rd out of 2460 ... good to get deep but nothing spectacular as far as payouts go. I had my best chance in the first one, I got knocked out when I raised with 9's from early position and the big blind shoved over the top. It wasn't worth folding as I needed to double-up, he turned over ace queen and hit an ace on the flop and I didn't improve. If I win that hand I would have had a more playable stack and could make a run at the top 20 and the final table.

The 45's went a little better yesterday too, despite bubbling at least 4 times. I got one win, a third and a fourth. The win came against a competent player who stacked off with middle pair, mid kicker on a low board when I limped kings from the small blind. I was surprised he couldn't fold when I showed strength on the flop by re-raising and it essentially cost him the game.

The bankroll is currently at $1063 which is a little higher than it has been for the last 2 weeks. Hopefully I can get back over $1100 soon and keep heading upwards from there.

As work hasn't been that busy I've also been railing some of my favourite online players in PokerStars SCOOP. My boys Assassinato and Bond18 have been doing ok without breaking through for a major result but the comeback-kid Shaun Deeb took down a PLO event last night for $63K.

Bond18 runs good

There are a few online players that I rail/follow on PokerStars when I'm not actually playing. Most of them are because I read their blogs or they're well known on the Two Plus Two poker forums. The main ones are Alex Fitzgerald (Assassinato), Tony Dunst (Bond 18), Nick Rainey (MI_turtle) and Shaun Deeb (shaundeeb).

Its been a relatively quiet last few weeks as Alex has been back visiting his family in Seattle and Shaun Deeb is on hiatus from poker for a while.

Most of the focus has been on Nick as he has been grinding like a madman over the last few months in his quest for TLB points and the chance to be the first player ever to win consecutive monthly leaderboards on PokerStars. He's currently sitting in second place behind Simonator who came out of nowhere after coming 3rd in the Turbo Takedown.

Today tho was all about Tony Dunst. He hasn't had the best year on PokerStars being down around 15% according to OPR. Since I'm not on any other sites I don't bother tracking how players do on anything else but Stars. Bond18 has a reputation for running good, whether it be with the ladies, in life itself or at the tables. Today, he ran particularly well taking down one big field MTT and coming second in another.

I was following both Nick and Tony's progress as I watched the NFL and the cricket on TV. Tony tho was on fire final-tabling the 2 MTT's and cashing a few others. The two top results was a 2nd (out of 1250 players) in an $11 rebuy which earned him over $3.5K and then he outlasted 500 players in a $22 rebuy tournament to win almost $6K. The win was no doubt more sweet for him as at one stage during the heads-up battle he faced a 5:1 chip deficit but managed to fight back and take it down.

A spectacular return on the buy-ins paid and even better when you consider I think he played just 9 tournaments on PokerStars and cashed 6 of them. Congrats Bond on a MASSIVE day!

2009 WCOOP: Sick! ElkY scores 2nd bracelet in Event #43, $215 NLHE - PokerStars Poker Blog

I've been taking an interest in the WCOOP this year as I get more and more involved in the poker world. With work not being overly busy all the time, I log on to PokerStars during the day just to rail some of the big name players. I tend to watch the big name pros such as Daniel Negreanu, Joe Hachem, Chris Moneymaker plus some of the bigger name online players such as Shaun Deeb, Tony Dunst and Alex Fitzgerald.

As the work day was winding down, I ended up watching Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier take down his 2nd bracelet of the series. As we speak, he's down to the final 12 of a second chance event where the first prize is over $130,000. Run better ...

Here's the story of how he got his 2nd bracelet, click on the title to read the full story.

2009 WCOOP: Sick! ElkY scores 2nd bracelet in Event #43, $215 NLHE - PokerStars Poker Blog

Event #43, the last of the $215 buy-in no-limit hold'em events in this year's WCOOP series, drew a whopping 9,220 entrants, making for a $1,844,000 prize pool. That was well beyond the $1 million guarantee, and the eighth time during the series we've seen a prize pool of greater than $1.5 million. (There'd be one more WCOOP event with at least a $1.5 million prize pool, of course -- the Main Event, with more than $10 million up for grabs!) The top 1,350 finishers would be cashing in this one, with first place scheduled to earn a nifty $263,323.20.

After nine-and-a-half hours of play, the field had been whittled down to 250 players, with Team PokerStars pros Bertrand 'ElkY' Grospellier in 12th, Victor Ramdin in 22nd, and Barry 'barryg1' Greenstein in 90th. At that point, 0926ricsi held the chip lead with 683,105, followed closely by LakersGTD, kezug, ångvälten, and HN Kakaroto.

At the 11-and-a-half hour mark, they were down to 100 players. Greenstein had departed in 203rd, followed by Team PokerStars Holland Pro Lex 'RaSZi' Veldhuis in 152nd. But Ramdin was still there in 42nd, and Grospellier had chipped all of the way up to second place, just behind LakersGTD who was nearing the 200,000 mark.

ElkY would soon overtake LakersGTD and claim the chip lead. With five cashes already this WCOOP and a bracelet in Event #38 (NLHE $530 + 1R1A), the London-based French pro appeared to be gearing up for yet another deep run in an WCOOP event. (Click here to read ElkY's reflection on his WCOOP win for the PokerStars blog.)