River Round Up

A very busy start to 2008 for RaisetheRiver.
Premier League Season Two is now nearing its end, and BurnleyMik leads the way with three fixtures to go – with Raffel69 and Kenn121 snapping at his heels.
Season three negotiation is now underway, and watch this space for news in the coming weeks.

UKPokerscene now has eleven bloggers on its books and is expanding all the time. EvertonYorkie is the newest recruit, and he will be attempting to build a bankroll from nothing. Should make some fascinating reading.

The Challenge section of RTR is now midway through it’s second big event. The $5 45 player challenge is in full swing now, with many players trying to do a “Pud” and win the first prize. Lou “The Queen of the Challenges” Saban has followed up her second place in last months event with a nice lead in this months.
Also in the challenge section we have the fascinating story of RickyRosa’s 1K sterling challenge. This is a great read – highs as well as lows.
Here
A big thanks to AceFilledDreams for all his hard work on this part of the forum.

The Player of the Year 2008 is now under way.
Full rules, regulations and standings here.

Elsewhere on the forum, BurnleyMik has been accused of being a colluder and a donk (not guilty on the first, very guilty on the second)
Here
We’ve had a “live” report on the Vegas hotel fire. Who needs Sky News when we’ve got Poker4Ever???
Here
A very good discussion on how to play KK under the gun.
Here
And Cogs went and got a little too drunk.
Here

And finally - we’d like to introduce a little fellow who you will be seeing a lot more of in the future -

RTR League game round 7- Report

Round 7 of the RTR league in association with Littlewoods Poker, kicked off with 14 runners.

First to bust out was a regular final table player dremeber. He was followed up by 12inches, who actually showed up this week and from the looks of it was better sitting out!!! ;-). The MTT specialist and regular loonatic, wooooot , was the next to bust in 12^th place. The final table bubble was collected this week by the extremely unlucky Cloudy, who’s AJ was beaten when he made an excellent call from a shove by BurnleyMi who held AT and unfortunately for Cloudy a Ten hit the board and ended his game.

 The Final Table 

There was lots and lots of action on the final table this week. Rickyrosa had a game plan, take out the current league leaders to try and open up the league. This plan meant lots of action with mediocre holdings, but man was it good fun!

First to exit the final table was PFloyd in 10^th place and once again he makes the FT! Out in 9^th was BurnleyMi, who lost a majority of his stack to rickyrosa’s plan, which obviously worked a treat! Out in 8^th position was the man who was busy toasting his marshmallows on the fire opposite his hotel in Las Vegas!!!!! Things just didn’t seem to go to plan for DAROGUE who seemed to be card dead, but as another of the league leaders, this was opening he league table up nicely for the rest to claw back the points.

Out in 7^th position was the guy with the ultimate avatar, Bullmeist. He was unlucky to lose a vital race to double or bust. Another of the league’s front runners, Raffel69 was the next to leave in 6^th spot, this means there was definitely going to be some points closing going on!

The sitting out player, Joeburnly, was next to go in 5^th, which shows you the aggression of the game if you can get to 5^th by sitting out!! Unfortunately poor Joe hadn’t registered on the forum, so unfortunately his points were not recognised when the results were uploaded into the system.

The New”ish” boy, MLynchyo did extremely well to hang in there and pick up a very unlucky 4^th spot finish, just on the bubble. A nice TAG game saw him go deep.

 

 In The Money 

Out in 3^rd position and making the cash on his very first attempt was Davidm17. A very impressive first game and is david one to watch for the future????

 

 Heads Up 

This was a clash of the big-stacks! It was  rickyrosa vs niwhrscom. After a good to and fro battle ricky managed to come out on top with his pocket pair of K’s!!

Here is the final finishing list:

 1: rickyrosa  $35.00 (50%)
 2: niwhrscom  $21.00 (30%)
 3: davidm17  $14.00 (20%)
 4: mlynchyo ,
 5: joeburnly , 
6: Raffel69 , 
7: Bullmeist , 
8: DAROGUE , 
9: BurnleyMi , 
10: Pfloyd , 
11: cloudy ,
 12: wooooooot , 
13: 12inches
,14: dremeber

RTR Premier League Game 6 Report

The league is at the halfway stage now, and going into round six there was still all to play for. A solid finish for one of the frontrunners could see them take the title, or could someone come from nowhere with a late run??

Sixteen runners for league game six.
The wooden spoon for Cloud - a disastrous season so far after a fourth place finish last season. Early exits also for new boy MarkyMark, Tan Orpheus, Zagga, Poker4Ever (live from Vegas!!), Kenn and Necromancer.
The first to go from the final table was BurnleyJoe, followed by RickyRosa. Amatay finished a creditable seventh, even more creditable due to the fact that he spent the whole event sitting out.
Kronsdat finished sixth when he pushed from the small blind, only to run into BurnleyMiks pair of Aces, and then Mair departed when her 9 10 was beaten by BurnleyMiks 7 8 (something of a theme going on here). Bullmesit bubbled when he pushed his A5 from in the big blind into BurnleyMiks pair of Aces in the Big Blind – the second time this had happened!!!

So we were down to three.
Dremeber (last weeks winner) up against league front runners Raffel 69 and BurnleyMik.
Dremeber finished third when he pushed with 10 4 into BurnleyMiks A 10. So we finally had a bit of an epic heads up match between Raffel and BurnleyMik. Raffel was outchipped four to one, but he saw a huge chance when he pushed with Ace Jack, which ran into BurnleyMiks King Jack. We were down to the river, and only one card could win BurnleyMik the game. The King came and BM was victorious.

BM now leads the league, with Kenn121 in second and Raffel69 in third.

Yorkie Pud’s $4 180 Player Journey

I played my first ever $4.40 180 man game back on the 12th March 2007 when, if I am totally honest, I knew nothing about tournament play whatsoever. I busted in a pretty respectable 44th spot but I was primarily a cash game player and never really dedicated any time to these games although I did play two more games during March which included my first cash, a 16th place finish for $8.64, before going back to the cash tables once more. I stayed at the cash tables until the last few days in June when, after reading the Harrington On Hold’em series, I decided to take a shot at these tournaments once again.

With my new found knowledge I felt I’d be able to tear these games apart, in fact it was quite the opposite and I failed to cash in the next seven games I entered, with a 34th place the closest I’d come to hitting the money again. I analysed my game and searched various forums and found a few leaks in my game which I vowed to changed. Firstly, I was being overly tight, probably from misunderstanding Mr Harrington or maybe misapplying his theories, concepts and suggestions. I also found I was making moves far too early on when my stack had dwindled into the “Yellow” and “Orange” zones and I was picking the wrong spots to c-bet or steal. More work needed to be done and I tried to re-invent myself in a new style of play. I’d always been TAG, or what I thought of as TAG, but it seemed, that much like blondes, LAG’s had more fun! Now I wasn’t comfortable in trying to turn into Gus Hansen overnight but I decided that I needed to add something to my game, be able to change gears and ask questions of my opponents not sit back and answer there’s.

My change in style coincided seemed to have immediate results with me hitting my first cash for 8 games (15th place) and I was hooked. A couple more top 30 finishes passed me by before BOOOOOOOOM, a 2nd place finish for $144, my biggest cash to date! I was hooked but went through another 8 game spell where I failed to cash and my confidence dropped again. I then read a post on BodogAri’s blog and another article, which escapes me right now, about variance in MTT’s and I was shocked to read that BodogAri, one of the great MTT players, often suffered 40 game spells without a single cash or even coming near to cashing which picked me up again as I knew if greats like Ari suffered like this then it was just normal. I guess I just didn’t understand variance and I was probably over-estimated my abities. I went through hand histories, highlighted a few problem areas and it seemed to be coming together with four cashes from my next six games including one final table but it was short-lived and I don’t remember too much about them really because I was drinking heavily and taking pills and other drugs and I went on serious life tilt and my game eventually started to suffer. Really suffer.

It was a dark time for me and my drink consumption was very high and my drug consumption was escalating too. Everything around me seemed to be turning bad and I was in self destruct mode. I hid away in poker almost willing the bad beats and suckouts to happen so I could have something to moan about and over the next 13 games I didn’t cash a single time, my average finish was a lowly 84th, the highest I finished was 38th and my lowest point came when I had my worst finish of 173rd place. I decided to call it a day. Luckily I managed to sort myself out, get my girl, a new flat and all was rosey again! I really cut down on the drink and after a 2 month break from the 4/180 games I revisited them with a fresh mind and plan. I’d read about bubble play, watched some known pro’s online, and read dozens of hand histories from these games. I was ready to make some corn! Unfortunately the Poker Gods (amen) didn’t see it the same way and decided to not let me cash in my next five MTT’s taking my cash-less streak to a whopping 18 games! I was playing much better than my results gave me credit for though so stuck at them and eventually it really all came together, and thankfully in time for the Raise The River Challenge which I decided to enter despite not having enough money to play all the games! I shipped $20 to BurnleyMik, leaving me with 9 buy-ins and got to work. Eight days later I’d finished my ten games finishing 76th / 16th / 2nd / 54th / 38th / 8th / 15th / 109th / 35th / 39th. So in the 10 games in the challenge I hit three cashes, two final tables and another 2nd place which earned me 52 points and more importantly $196 prize money and $136 in playing profit! BOOOOOOM! Although I’ve only played 62 of these, here are some observations which you may find handy.

Get involved early on - A lot of people advocate not getting involved early doors and to let the donkeys knock themselves out. WRONG! They are easy cash so look to get involved with them. Limp or call small raises with suited connectors and pocket pairs hoping to hit a huge flop and stack the fish with top pair.

Look for the fish who doubled early on - I like to make notes on players with huge stacks at the 10/20 and 15/30 levels. I then look them up in Official Poker Rankings to see if they’re any good. If not then I make a note they’re willing to get their stack in early doors.

Don’t bother with early reads - There is no need. The early stages are so bad don’t waste your time trying to get int their heads. However, if you spot someone you think is solid it is worth making a not and looking them up on OPR.

Be willing to gamble early doors - Get two things into your head right away. Firstly, it cost $4.40 to play these. Second, they start every 15-20 mins so it’s not the end of the world to bust very early. I’ll call a shove with AK in the 10/20 levels almost always.

Keep an eye on the lobby - I always like to stay at least the average stack so I keep a close eye on the lobby. Coming to the first break check for stacks that have hardly played a hand and have been blinded away or have huge stacks. Don’t worry about iny stacks. Try to have at least the average stack when the break hits or you’ll need to get aggressive early.

Change gears after the break - Most players like to waIt for the antes to kick in before they change up a gear. I prefer the level before when people are conserving chips to steal blinds and antes. Attack the guys who are close to original starting stacks as they’re usually tight as a duck’s ass.

Learn to steal and resteal lightly - The vast majority of the fish hate aggression so learn how to resteal. If they come over the top again you can fold because they NEVER resteal a resteal! It’s a great way to pick up some decent free chips! Hands like 86o give you the chance to get away from aggression and make decisions easier. You have to steal a lot in order to survive these things!

Down to 35 players - This is essentially the bubble time and most fish clam up and hope to cash. Avoid really low stacks as they’ll call very wide against you but do attack medium and average stacks at will. Also, if you notice a big stack bullying take a stand and come over the top and your image will be great for the smaller stacks and they’ll avoid you. The key here is “Actually try to bubble, the table simply won’t let you do it!”

Bubble has burst - As 10th-18th are paid the same you’ll often see a flurry of all-ins as people don’t care. Stay tight here IMO but look for stealing oppurtunites. As you approach the final table bubble again try to bubble and they won’t let you. You can’t win the pot if you don’t bet!

Final table - The money is in the top three places so aim to get there by any means. You’ll usually have a huge stack, a big stacks and the rest in push/fold mode. Avoid the extremes and attack the similar stacks to yours. Controlled aggro is the key.

River raises - These are hardly every bluffs, in fact almost never.

C-bet like crazy! - Especially if you’ve restolen. Player A raises 3xBB, you reraise 3x his raise with T9o. Flop comes A48 and he checks, bet every time. Fish have to see a flop if they’ve put chips in the pot!

Bet/Bet/Check/Bet - This line works pretty well, especially up to the first break. Raise preflop, c-bet the flop (even if you hit), check the turn and fire on the river. A lot of the fish will call a flop bet hoping to hit a draw or miracle card on the turn then give up on the turn allowing you to take away on the river.

Don’t panic - Even with a smallish stack you’ll probably never be more than a double up to get you back in contention. Sit back and choose your spots carefully. Only push over limpers preflop with big pairs, AQ and AK as there is a big chance you will be called. Also, if you want to open-push be aware most will call with A5+ so you’ll be better pushing JT, 98s type hands.

Ask questions, don’t answer them - I like to be the one asking questions of my opponents not the one answering them. You have to accept that in poker a lot of the time you will be wrong in your decisions but if you fold TT to every raise you face you will not win a lot of tournaments. Always put pressure on your opponents. If you want to know if he has an overpair bet at him. If you want to know if he has the flush, raise him up. Pay for information and make your opponents squirm.

If you’ll call a river bet, raise the turn instead - Imagine you have JJ on the button and call an early position raise. Flop comes 496r. EP bets and you call. Turn is a King and villain bets half the pot I like a raise here. First if you call the turn and the river brings a ten then you’re likely to call any normal sized bet so by raising you have the chance to take this pot here and now and if he comes over the top then you can be sure your beaten and fold. By raising you get the chance to win the pot for the same price as calling the villain down. Aggression is key.

10 or 11/1 odds required for set mining - It’s often worth calling raises with pocket pairs hoping to hit a set as we all know sets are powerful hands and everyone knows it’s about 7.5/1 of hitting a set on the flop so people set mine with 7.5/1 implied odds which is wrong. This assumes that villain will stack off with his holding everytime you hit your set. This may be true if he has KK and you 99 on a 396 board but what if he has AQ on a 396 board? Having 10 or 11/1 implied odds make it much more realistic.

Forget short-term results - You need about 1800 of these to even start to know where you stand in them so a run of 10 straight defeats is nothing. Keep focused and remember the fish here are plentiful and they love to donate their chips to you!

Those are the main pointers I use when playing, thoughts?

Pudding over and out!

The Cloud’s RTR Challenge

I decided to use a slightly different tactic than the other players had used - and the plan was to play one table at a time, and put all my focus onto the one table.
So I started out with a $2.75 Single table tournament on Betfair (I had heard that the Betfair tables were relatively soft, so I thought I’d try the challenge there). It started well until I got to the bubble. I was in the small blind, and raised the BB after seeing I had A9 off - but the BB flat called. The flop came 8 10 J - so I had an open ended straight draw, so bet it again, and was once again flat called. The turn was an Ace, which gave me a top pair and an OESD, so I pushed what stack I had left - unfortunately I ran into KQ, who made his straight with the Ace. So I bubbled.
I loaded up another one - and this was much better - did get a little low, but hit a set after holding a pair of sixes, and trebled up, and managed to take it down in first place.
Whilst heads up in that STT I noticed a $5 MTT registering and about to start - so I jumped in.
It got off to a slow start, had lost a few chips early - and then a massive hand happened. I has Ace-King - there were a couple of limpers, so I raised it up (7xBB), and got 6 callers!! The flop came A Q x, a small stack pushed, the big stack also pushed (I already had him down as very loose), I called with all of my stack, and there was another caller behind me. The hands I was in with were all terrible, but I could easily have got sucked out on - but it held, and I went from 1800 to 7000 and the chip lead in one foul swoop.
I fell back to around 5th with 15 left (37 starters), and then stayed there with 8 left.
I then turned a full house, let my opponent see the river on a flushy board - and I doubled up when my opponent hit an Ace flush on the river, and that was the springboard I needed. I eased into the money (top 5) and there was then a very long battle with three left. I hit two pairs (Aces and 9’s) and my opponent inexplicably called his whole stack with 77, and then I was chip leader - and won it quite easily, as my heads up opponent was quite passive, and called eventually with J4 - which was no match for my Ace high.
The first prize was $74 which made the challenge a very profitable one!!

Latest Standings

1st. The Cloud = +$74.25/3 hrs 30 mins
2nd. Acornman = +$15.35/3hrs 30 mins
3rd. HullJimi= +$8.98/3hrs 30 Mins
4th Mair= -$0.95/ 3hrs 30 mins
5th. MattyH = -$4.30/ 3hrs 30 mins
6th.Hammerheid= -$9.05/ 3hrs30mins
7th.BurnleyMik= -$10/ 2hr 19mins

The $4 180 player Challenge

Here’s the final table of the $4 180 player challenge that recently took place on RaisetheRiver.
Each competitor had to compete in ten of these events, and were ranked based upon a points scoring system.
The challenge started with a solid effort from “Team Saban”, who took an early lead in the challenge. BurnleyMik was the next to take up the mantel, as he started off very well, but then latecomer Yorkshire Pudding took the event by storm, reeling off successive strong finishes, and scoring an enormously impressive 52 points. It was now looking like a race for second place. The Cloud got himself into contention with a final table in his last game, and finished the challenge level with early challenger BurnleyMik and latecomer Tan Orpheus, who at one time looked like he could put a dent in Yorkshire Pudding’s lead. 2Much2Drink was the only player left in with a chance of a win with three games left, but eventually finished level with MikeSaban in joint fifth.
Lou Saban needed a solid finish in her last game to claim second, and she gained that finish, to end up in clear in second place.
A very enjoyable tournament for all involved - and well done to Yorkshire Pudding and Lou Saban for claiming the prizes.
(Coming soon - Yorkshire Pudding talks us through a $4 180 game)

RTR Premier League Game 5 Report

Sixteen players lined up for the fixture that marked the halfway stage of league season two, including a debut for Tan Orpheus.
Would Kenn retain the lead??
Would Poker4ever ever make the cash??
Would Dremeber have a stellar game?? Or even a Stella one??

Kronsdat was the first to go, followed by newcomer Tan, Cloud and Necromancer. RickyRosa (the Jekyll and Hyde of the Premier League) finished twelth and Amatay went next, followed by Mair, who was the first to go from the final table.
BurnleyJoe, last weeks runner up finished 9th, and was quickly followed by 2Much2Drink. BurnleyMik, the previous weeks winner, and overall second put in a solid 7th place, and Raffel came 6th.
The league leader Kenn came 5th when his 9Q was met by Bullmeist’s 99, and then Poker4ever bubbled for the third week in a row when his A7 failed to improve against Dremebers 99.
So down to three – Bullmeist, Acornman and Dremeber.
Acornman finished third when he ran his Q9 into A2 so we were heads up.
And heads up it is always nice to look down and see a pair of Aces, which is exactly what Dremeber saw – Bullmeist had A5 – hit a 5 on the flop to give him a glimmer of hope, but it wasn’t to be and Dremeber took his first win of the season.

Kenn still leads the way, Poker4Ever is now in second and BurnleyMik is third.

RTR Premier League Game 4 Report

Fifteen runners for week 4.
But where was Raffel69??
Maybe the colour was too much for him..

We started at 9pm, and soon after the start last weeks winner RickyRosa was the first to go – no middle ground for “The Closer” eh?
SwingSwingSwing went next, followed by league high flyer RTRMatt and Bullmesit finished 12th. Then there was a big RTR admin battle – BurnleyMik’s AA despatching The Cloud with his JJ, and then Necromancer was the first to go from the final table of ten.
Dremeber finished ninth (and according to some he had clearly been on the Stella), and then Mair finished 8th. Another league high flyer Amatay came in seventh, and then Acornman crashed out when his AK was beaten by BurnleyMik’s KQ. BurnleyMik then saw off Kenn when his pair of eights held against Kenn’s pair of sixes.
After a very long bubble battle, Poker4ever’s never give up attitude saw him finally go out when his K6 fell to BurnleyJoe’s A 10.
So we were down to three.
BurnleyMik, BurnleyJoe and Kronsdat.
Kronsdat couldn’t spoil the Burnley party (and that is a party you would not want to miss…….) when his A3 fell to Joe’s AJ.
So heads up – BurnleyMik versus BurnleyJoe.
For a few minutes Burnley was the centre of the poker world.
Mik and Joe both pushed.
Mik with A4. Joe with K 10.
The flop 6 4 4. And it was all over.
BurnleyMik was league fixture 4 winner.

Kenn is now the league leader, with BurnleyMik hot on his heels in second, and Poker4ever in third.

Six to go!!!

Acornman - RTR Challenge

Three basic rules :
$10.
Three and a half hours.
Make as much you can.

Acornman was up next. How would he fare??
Would he go busto quick, or would he take over the number one spot from HullJimi??
He started off with four 18 player $1.75 turbo sit and go’s.
A first, a second and a fourth was a tremendous start.
Up to $24.70 already, so he starts another four. He goes out of one early, fires up another one, but finds that he is gone from all but one, and then bubbles the last one when his 99 is called by A2 and hits – Ouch.
$16 left now.
He loads another three $1.75 turbos, and adds a $6.50 game as well.
But it doesn’t go well – and he is only left in one of the turbos, as he busts out of all the others. At this point he loads up a 45 man $3.25 tournie – Acorns last stand!!!
However, the final turbo turns out to be a winning one, and with cash from that he jumps on a cash table. At this point Acorn claims to have seen BurnleyMik chatting to him on a table, but BurnleyMik claims he is at work – the challenge has entered the Twilight Zone.
A good run at the cash tables pushes his total up, but then he busts out of the 45 player event.
So it’s all on the cash table…
How did he do…
Was it enough to take top spot??
Yes!! We have a new leader, after Acornman makes a profit of $15.35.

1. Acornman= +15.35/3 hrs 30 mins
2. HullJimi= +$8.98/3hrs 30 Mins
3 Mair= -$0.95/ 3hrs 30 mins
4. MattyH = -$4.30/ 3hrs 30 mins
5.Hammerheid= -$9.05/ 3hrs30mins
6.BurnleyMik= -$10/ 2hr 19mins