Dublin Poker

I had a few weeks of 'normal' poker but it looks like its back to crap again...

Played the Sunday €30 freezeout in the Fitz. Absolutely amazed at how bad the standard was. Oscar runs a good tournament, and there was nothing wrong from that end, but jesus christ... this was probably the worst standard of players I have ever played against! I started half an hour late, but turned my starting stack of 3000 into 9000 within 15 minutes without showing a hand. The players were actually that bad...

I then got a beaten on the river by this donkey with a two outer and this knocked me down to about 2K, but I soon built my stack up again. I moved table and soon enough we were down to 3 tables. I had built my stack up to about 14K and was probably tourney chip leader. 3 more bad beats and I'm out. I went into every hand ahead and didn't make a single mistake all night, so I'm happy from that end, but I won't be playing this tourney again. Its not worth the effort of having to get by so many idiots for just a few hundred quid. The thing that annoyed me the most was that there was a few players there that I actually thought were good players, but they made some absolutely terrible plays which I just couldn't make sense of.

I like to think I've improved a fair bit from my freeroll days, but I never thought I'd see the day when I'd sit down at a tournament and know I was a easily the best player there. I absolutely walked all over them yesterday, the only thing stopping me from taking it was the usual bucket load of bad beats. Its so annoying when you play the best you can and get your chips in ahead 100% of the time, and still get outdrawn by some donkey... ah well, I just have to learn that luck plays such a huge part in poker sometimes. The unfortunate thing in poker is that the best player will not always win a tournament. In fact, as tournaments get bigger, the chances of the best player winning gets smaller and smaller. What are the chances of a pro winning the WSOP this year? I wouldnt bet on it. Hopefully it will be a decent player, and not some luckbox (wouldnt be the first time...).

Its probably my own fault for playing such low limits. From now on I don't think I'll bother with tournaments under €50. I'm also going to start playing more €100-€200 games. Anyway, with this in mind I went home and jumped into a cash game. I've moved up to 50c/$1 and have yet to find any decent players. It is so easy to make money playing abc poker... Dont limp in with anything. Raise with big hands. Go all in with the nuts. There are so many donkeys online that the only thing that will stop you making money doing this is bad beats... as I found out. I wont bore you with the details but suffice is to say I have lost three huge pots in the last two days, all on the river, all to one or two outers.

I am embarrassed to say that I have never won a pot over $100 in a cash game online. To my recollection I have been involved in about 9 or 10 pots over $100 (three in the last two days), and I have lost them all either on bad beats, or marginal hands such as the one below, where I get it all in with KK and run into AA.
The money went all in here on the flop, and maybe I'm just not good enough yet to fold KK on this flop, but the fact that the A6 went all in first says it all... I really worry about the intelligence of some of the people I play against. I dont know whether its just a side effect of pokers growing popularity, or whether pub players are starting to venture into casinos and online, but it seems that the general standard of players has gone down immensely. Has everyone moved up and left me behind?

What am I meant to do? Move up to $1/$2? $2/$4? I am dying to play against a decent standard of player. I know everyone loves to play against fish, but it just does my head in... I win pots, build up a big stack, but it always ends the same way. I run into a donkey that has somehow built up a large stack, I manage to get all the chips in when I'm a mile ahead, and lose to a bad beat. I don't mind this, but I can count on one finger the amount of tournaments I have been knocked out of where I have gone out with the worse hand...

Its times like this when I wonder why I play online. I still get zero enjoyment out of it, but for some reason I think its worth the miserable few euros that I make from it. It just really annoys me that luck has to play such a big part in poker. Id estimate that Ive lost about 90% of the profit that I should have made because of bad players getting lucky against me. The whole luck thing does my head in. What is it people say.. Aces lose to Kings one in 4.5 times... bollix, it should be more like one in 20... I know its ridiculous to moan about odds but why does luck play such a big part in poker? You cant fluke a 147 in snooker, you cant fluke a 9 dart finish in darts, you wont see Saudi Arabia fluke the World Cup... yet the biggest donkey in the world can walk into a casino and fluke his way into 1st place... what a game.

By the way it embarrasses me to say I can actually relate to Phil here...