100K Rush Hands

So here is my first 100k hands at rush full ring:



It would have been looked better if I hadn't been in a particulary generous mood this morning. Pretty spewy session so you're welcome 100nl rush regs, have a merry xmas on me!

Overall I am quite pleased with the way I have started with rush. It's a totally different game from mid stakes 6max, and there have been tons of mistakes made along the way, but if I continue working hard and improving then good things could happen for Mr Fickle in 2011.

I am off to find some festive beers, have a great xmas everyone :)

Full Cup Coffee

by King Fish on 2+2:

On Tuesday, I purchased a cup of coffee for $2.00. I am a valuable customer Full Cup Coffee, so the manager gave me 25% off, like he always does. It's a win/win, as I drink a lot of coffee and he still makes a nice margin. $1.50/cup.

On Wednesday, the Manager said that to show his appreciation, from now on I will get 50% off all my cups of coffee. I was stoked. $1 cup FTW!

On Thursday, the manager let me know that because of his generosity, he needs to re-evaluate the price of coffee. I will still get 50%, and every other day 75%, but the price of coffee has gone up to $4. I have no idea how much the coffee costs any more. My accountant is on it.

Yesterday, the manager let me know that the price of coffee has gone up to $10 a cup because of all the frequent customer discounts he was giving. I will now get 80% off on every cup because I am such a good customer, however the 27% coffee tax recently implemented by Harry Reid will go against the $10 wholesale price of the coffee and not the $2/cup I would have spent.

He has assured me that this is what I want, as a valuable customer he is looking out for me. He then kicked me in the shins and walked off. He does that sometimes.

There is a really great coffee house next door to this guy, (PokerStarbucks) and of the 100 varieties of coffee, theirs are better than Full Tilt Coffee. Their staff is also a lot friendlier and much more knowledgeable about the beans, roasting methods, etc. They are also really, really funny. The coffee is also cheaper, at 90 cents per cup for all (frequent visitors I have heard get theirs for as little as 40 cents per cup!). My problem is that my current guy has one type of coffee I really like (Rush Coffee). It has 5 times the caffeine as standard coffee and gives me my caffeine boost much quicker.

So, I will continue to go to Full Tilt Coffee for now, because it is a bit closer and easier for me. Once Pokerstarbucks gets a coffee that is just 1/2 good as my current brand, I will switch.

I spend probably close to $50k/year on coffee, so I assume they will appreciate my business.

There may be a very loosely related allegory here somewhere, but it is purely coincidental.

Silence is deafening

Stars have announced their 2011 VIP club changes, which are very minor changes and not worth going into, but they remain deadly silent on what they are (or aren't) going to do about the 20-50bb tables for next year. Seriously wtf stars? If you aren't going to do anything just say so, and if you are going to do something at least tell people some changes are in the pipeline!

I'm not that bothered now tbh as I have made my plans for 2011. More than anything I am just sad that things weren't dealt with better/quicker so I could have at least considered stars when making my plans.

Having said that I am really happy with how things are going elsewhere and will post a rush update when I hit 100k hands, which will be soon :)

Deep Valuetown

Read: Station
Action: Value bet to death

Full Tilt Poker $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

BTN: $100.70
SB: $294.50
Hero (BB): $263.05
UTG: $112.60
UTG+1: $98.00
UTG+2: $108.50
MP1: $42.25
MP2: $87.60
CO: $239.35

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is BB with Q Q
5 folds, CO raises to $3.50, 2 folds, Hero raises to $12, CO calls $8.50

Flop: ($24.50) 5 Q J (2 players)
Hero bets $18, CO calls $18

Turn: ($60.50) 9 (2 players)
Hero bets $60, CO calls $60

River: ($180.50) 2 (2 players)
Hero bets $173.05 all in, CO calls $149.35 all in

Final Pot: $479.20

Hero shows Q Q (three of a kind, Queens)
CO mucks T J

Hero wins $476.20
(Rake: $3.00)

Ruuuuuussssssshhhhhh

Have been playing some rush poker whilst I consider my options for 2011. It's been fun so far ;)

So long stars, enjoy the ratholers

It is with mixed feelings that I will no longer be playing on pokerstars.

This is a direct result of their decision to split the games between 20-50bb and 40-100bb. They claim this is to give people choice, but they took away my choice which is to play with a mixture of full and short stackers.

I do have another choice though which is to play elsewhere and that is what I am going to do. I have given them way way more time than I should have to rectify the situation but now feel enough is enough.

The shallow tables now outweigh the normal tables significantly at mid stakes and the waitlists are ridiculously long. People don't want to start 40-100bb tables for whatever reason. The final straw was sitting down with a reg who was apparantly trying to start tables, he sat out after 1 hand (in which he won $40) and then just sat there for the next 20mins. Unsuprisingly nobody wants to sit down at a table with me plus a reg who is sitting out, and plenty of shallow tables filled up in the meantime because the one thing rats are good at is starting tables.

It is very similar to what happend with PT3 and HEM. I really didn't want to give up on PT3 but eventually it got to a point where I couldn't wait anymore and had to go with a product that was clearly better and was giving my opponents an edge on me. Once I eventually made the switch I didn't look back.

Really is a shame because stars still has a lot going for it (ie traffic, VIP program, customer support) but the simple fact is the games I like to play simply don't exist anymore.

I am not going to let misguided loyalty stop me from maximising my winrate anymore.

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