$500 challenge and the 888 Poker Open

News / John Tabatabai / 09 November 2008 / Leave a Comment

I haven't updated my blog in a while and thought, well, time to put an update up! Ive spent the last month or so after WSOPE working hard on my cash game.

Reevaluating a lot of my strategies, theories and some misconceptions of the game. I think playing a lot of live tournament poker, then online tournaments, cash both live and online, various games can get confusing if you don't keep stay 100 per cent focused and remember the various subtle but key differences.

Anyway, it has been fun going back to basics and I've decided to set myself a challenge. The challenge is to start with $500 on Betfair and with some sort of bankroll management see how high and quickly I can run it up by playing volume. What I mean by volume is playing A LOT. I have already started at 0.5-1 and played a few thousand hands and it's been very interesting. I'd forgotten how funny some of the lower stakes games are, I lost a pretty funny pot when some guy called my 4bet when we were only 100bb deep with J2s and obv cracked my overpair. Lots of funny stuff.

Anyway, I think when you are going through a tough patch it is important to stay motivated and positive in such a difficult game and a great way to do that is to set yourself personal challenges. Perhaps not financial goals, because if you don't reach them it could demoralise you or send you into a spiral of tilt hell. Just a challenge. Like I have set for myself here, $500 bankroll, and see where we go. I did have a great start until I exploded and for some reason thought it would be reasonable to play 25-50 limit, a game which I am terrible at and clearly way too big for my mediocre bankroll at the time. I will probably start posting some interesting hands and my results from my tracking software if anyone is actually interested.

On other news, I played my 888 heat recently and had one of the easiest heats I've personally ever played with only Nik Persuad and Richard Wheatley to worry about. Ray Parlour the ex-footballer and a couple of internet qualifiers were also in the heat. As things go, Annette and Sorel have taken all the luck for Team Betfair and left me with a golden bread (pretty useless when you are hungry) so my exit hand was standard. I'll share it anyway, as I like to reminisce.

Blinds 2-4k, I had 62k left due to donkings. 5 players left, Aqo utg - the nuts. I make it 12k, SB who is one of the internet qualifiers has been eyeing me up all day and itching to play back at me, not sure if it's because of my banter or because he wants to prove a poitn and take down a "pro". Anyway he flat calls with what I consider to be quite a wide range. BB folds. Flop A-5-3 rainbow. He checks, now I decided with approx 44k in the pot and me having 40k behind, if I bet he will think I am committed so I can get extra value by checking and letting him bluff his missed range into me. As it happens the turn was a J he bet20k, I went all-in, he called with A8. Gg. River 8.

Obv.

Portuguese league here we come!! HOLD UP!!

Gl all

Find John at the Betfair cash tables