Oliver Gill

How about a weekly update and i’ll start doing the daily ones when I have something to write about?

Hachem Deepstack Series NLHE 6Max (230 buyin)

This event went badly. I lost two races and I was out early.

Hachem Deepstack Series $340 Bounty Event

I come to the table with a beer in hand and immediately start acting as if im completely smashed while in reality its actually my first beer. I open the first eight pots or so (winning some and losing some) while we’re 300BB deep to portray the maniac image, then I find queens. Effective stacks 15k at 25/50. Random guy opens to 150, I repop to 700, he calls. He thinks im a drunken tiltmuppet, so this could be profitable. Villain instacalls and the flop is AQ3. Bink! I check and villain bets 900. I’m pretty sure that means he’s strong since he has to think im unlikely to give up here in a 3bet pot if I really am drunk. I figure that means hes strong, so I raise to 2500 and he calls. Cool, he has an ace and he isnt folding. The turn is a king and I bet 5000, he insta-shoves and I beat him into the pot. He had AK and the river bricks. Good start

I start massacring the table and I have 70k pretty quickly, stacking a few short stacks on flips and doubling a few others up.

I finally find myself involved in an interesting hand at 500/1000 when we’re nearing the bubble. I have three bounties which means i’ve made $300 so far.

Villain has 50k and I cover easily.

Terrible female player limps, I find AcQh and raise to 4000 on the cutoff, folds around, she calls.

Flop: Qc Tc 4c

Well that’s a helpful flop, how do I even flop top pair AND a nut flush draw that’s just ridiculous

She donks out 15k which is almost double the pot.

What?

…wait, WHAT?

I think for a couple seconds, realise my hand is the super nuts and move all-in. She snapcalls and tables 9c8c. Fuck I hate live poker. CLUB PLEASE

The turn and river brick and i’m back down to 25k. I pull off some nice bluffs to climb back to 50k, then stack a shorty when I raise/call A9 against a 20bb stack and he has K6 and I hold to take my 4th bounty. I’m back to 80k when i get involved again with a bad/tricky live player.

At 800/1600, I make it 3500 with KTs (my standard raise) in early position, loose/bad reg named Andrew who had previously flatted J6o on the button against my openraise flats and the BB (tricky/bad live player calls)

Flop: 642 rainbow

TBL checks, I bet 8000, Andrew folds, TBL minraises to 16000. No sir you do not have a hand. I quickly raise all-in and villain tanks for a moment then calls and reveals… 72 for bottom pair. Okay, I read his hand correctly, I just misread the fact that… he didn’t fold bottom pair. I brick out and i’m short again. The blinds go up and I suddenly have 11bb again. A guy shoves 9bb, I reshove, a short stack behind calls all-in for 3bb and another guy goes ‘oh I guess theres value’ and calls as well for about 8bb. My sixes brick out (an additional three bounties would have been nice) and i’m crippled to 1bb. I bust shortly after.

1100 PLO Event

I massacre my starting table and chip up to 90k from the start bank of 30k with no major showdowns. I get it in with 77xx vs AKQJ on a KK27 board on the turn and fade the river to chip up to 160k.

I head to the final table with one of the big stacks but it’s only six paid. With nine left I get it in with KK, a flush draw and a backdoor draw against AA and no redraws and brick all of my outs to drop back to the average stack in a pot that would have given me over a third of the chips in play. With eight left, I check-raise all in with AQTx vs AAKx on a QTx flop and villain tank-calls off his stack for slightly under a third of the chips in play. The turn is a jack. Thanks for playing and I bubble again.

$550 HU Tournament

Round 1 – 30k stacks

My opponent is tight-passive. I have a 32-28k lead when the following hand takes place.

I open the button to 1k at 200/400 with Ts9s and villain calls. The flop is Ad 8s 7h

He checks, I make it 1500, he checkraises to 5k. Um, okay? I consider folding (it means he has an ace or better) but decide to peel since he’s putting the rest in if I hit. The turn is 6h and villain open shoves. I snap and he has A7 and I hold. That was easy.

Next round (I had a bye so this is the bubble match) I grind villain down slowly, lose with KK to 34 when he flops a straight, grind him down slowly again, open shove QJ into A8 with villain easily covered and fail to get there, sending us back to even stacks, grind him down again, then go completely card dead as he starts getting aggro, get back to even, then get it bad (30/70 I think) since there are now only about 30bb in play. I brick out again and my opponent wins. Sigh.

I decided to unregister the 1100 6max because the field looks strong and I need to sleep in.

$340 Accumulator – I get it in preflop with AA vs AQ first level vs a tilting donk, then at the 100/200 level I play a monster pot where I flop a straight flush draw against a set and fail to get there in a 450bb pot (I had 42k, villain covers) which would have given me a huge chiplead.

Oh and I also bought 40% of a friend and he shipped the Accumulator for 12k, so I made 4.7k. Then I swapped 10% with him and he chopped the 6max so I made $500. Then I swapped with him again in the Terminator and he finished 7th so I made another $70

In conclusion I need to stop playing poker and start backing people instead

Sorry for lack of updates etc but i’m really busy at the moment, my posts will be back to their normal quality/quantity for Thailand and Vegas.

I still have the $550 Main and $1650 Shorthanded Shootout events left so i’m definitely going to ship something this series though

I make my way over to Burswood and find that the tournament is starting at 12:30 rather than 12. A guy who was at my table at Aussie Millions is in the poker room so we chat for a while and I find out he finished 48th. Eventually, the tournament gets underway and i’m informed that I can’t use the hood from my hoodie at the table because it’s against Burswood dress regulations. What?

I find myself involved in some minor pots early and lose most of them after missing flops and either giving up or cbetting and being played back at.

I finally find a spot to get involved in some postflop action against Sean, a solid reg from Melbourne. Sean and high stakes regular Matt Kirk are the only good players at my table, naturally they’re sitting one and two to my left.

At 25/50, I open to 150 with Ad 6d and Sean calls. Sean has played back at me a lot postflop and i’ve given up or he’s had the best hand every time so far.

The flop is QQ9 rainbow and I lead 300. Sean calls. I figure he raises a lot of Qx hands so he’s probably floating with some sort of low-mid PP most of the time. The turn is 7h, putting a second heart on the board. I check and Sean bets 700. I raise to 2125 and sean thinks for a moment then makes it 6000. He doesn’t even do that with AQ, he has to have a full house here. I muck and he shows me 99. He’s surprised to hear that I didnt have a queen and he doesn’t really believe me. Awesome, I just tried to bluff against a flopped full house.

After that i’m down to about 15k and I continue to whiff flops. I pick up KK and raise, get two callers and an AJ3 flop. I check second to act and Sean bets, the other player calls and Sean ends up showing down AJ. Must be nice sir.

I go card dead for a bit and leak down to about 12k, then I find K5 in a 3 way limped pot, i’m SB, sean is BB, other limper is a random fish at 75/150.

Flop 775

I check, Sean bets 200, limper folds, I call

Turn: 3

I check, Sean checks

River: 2

I bet 350 for some thin value, Sean calls and turns over… 79o? What? Jesus, this is not going well for me. I’m down to 10.5k after that pot and it’s all one way traffic in the wrong direction.

So far i’ve been the preflop raiser about 15 times and i’ve won 1 pot with a cbet out of about 8 and connected with 0 flops. This is starting to remind me of ANZPT Sydney

Sean raises to 400 UTG and I call with 88 from the SB.

Flop: 964

I check, Sean bets 600, I call

Turn: A

I check, Sean checks behind

River: 6

I check, Sean bets 1300. I’m not really beating anything other than a stone cold bluff, but something feels odd here about his line, Sean is the type that would bet an ace on the turn and I don’t think he’s trying for thin value with TT-KK… so I guess I call?

Sean shows me 32o for a stone cold bluff and I scoop in my first decent pot, climbing back to around 14k.

I win and lose some small pots and the blinds go up to 100/200, I stay mostly uninvolved throughout the level since i’m pretty card dead and I eventually get involved again with a 13k stack and pocket 3s just after the start of the 100/200/25 level (there are two 100/200 levels, the second one is where antes come in)

A young online LAG player has been moved to my right and he seems competent. He’s opening a lot of pots. He opens to 500 from UTG+1, I call with 33 next to act, Matt Kirk calls.

Flop: 9d8d3c

Well hello there, first time i’ve flopped top pair or better all day and it’s a beautiful wonderful set against the two laggiest players at the table

Young internet lag bets 875, I call, Matt tank-folds.

Turn: As

Internet lag thinks for a moment and bets 1650. Interesting spot for me here, the board is draw heavy and a raise commits my stack, problem is he knows that and if I raise he’s not going to pay me with less than aces up here. I call again, figuring I get a third street out of Ax this way since he’ll checkcall, or if he bets I can just call if the river is a dangerous card or shove if its safe over his third barrel since this guy will bluff all his missed draws and his bluff will be for about half my stack, plus if he’s got aces up or 2p he’s going to be committed to pay my shove since it’ll basically be a minraise over his river value bet.

River: 5c

Pretty decent card, 67 is the only straight draw that got there, none of the flush draws got there, villain immediately fires 3950. I have an additional 6k or so behind that so I think for a moment about whether to shove for value. He can have AA and 67 with his line, but his range is mostly missed draws and aces up so I decide to shove for value. He instacalls and tables 67o. GG sir

I suppose raising the turn is standard, but he normally misses and fires 4k with this exact hand whereas he folds on the turn to the raise; so I don’t hate my line here really its just high risk and I do think aces up is a larger part of his range than 67 and sets so I dont think my shove is too bad.

Its day 4 currently im lagging behind on updates but the last couple days have been pretty uneventful, saw some movies (Shutter Island gets 8.2/10, Green Zone gets 6.8/10) and explored Perth a bit, i’m going to either go reef fishing tomorrow or snorkelling wth dolphins, havent decided yet. Online im down maybe 600 or so, made onen t100 FT but lost 3 races to finish 8th and ive mostly just been losing key flips over the past couple days

Day one of the live poker adventure started with a less than thrilling ride to the train station, followed by a train ride to the airport, then a flight to Sydney and another flight to Perth. Upon arrival, I decided to check out the Burswood Casino complex and found my way to the poker room. I quickly learned that Burswood actually has two poker rooms. I asked to register for Day 1a and the floor manager directed me to the player party where Danny McDonagh, the TD, was hanging out with the players. Free beer and food beckoning, I made my way over to the player party and caught up with several of the young aussie online poker pros who had satellited into the Main Event. I found danny and after looking over the field, decided that Day 1a was definitely the weaker of the two with most online qualifiers choosing to play Day 1b. Surprisingly, the field was not particularly star studded with most of Australia’s elite poker players missing from the field, probably because Perth is so far away from everything. After catching up with online pros ‘Rickwaa’ and ‘Jackovich’ and having a few beers with them, I decided to head back to the hostel for a good night’s sleep. In a good sign of things to come, I drew room 14 (14 is my lucky number). If I get pocket deuces on the first hand tomorrow, this tournament is as good as over. I have a really good feeling about this trip.

After some delicious kebabs, I decided to get an early night’s sleep. The ANZPT Main Event starts tomorrow at midday Perth time and I need to get some rest.

Tomorrow is where it’s going to get interesting. A well-structured $2700 event full of live satellite qualifers and APL players? Count me in

Been a while, hasn’t it? If you’re new to my blog, scroll down and catch up on my adventures last year in Vegas for the WSOP.

It’s that time of the year though, so my blog is back and this year it’s going to be huge.

Having grinded online for most of the past four months close to seven days a week, i’ve learned that volume is everything. I’ve learned that 13-tabling is okay; but 14-tabling I time out aces. I’ve learned that running hotter than the sun is helpful and while downswings can be brutal, they don’t really happen as much when you’re playing 20+ MTTs a day. I’ve learned that writing a book is very time consuming, but ultimately rewarding.

After an awesome three months of poker both online and live including two final tables at Aussie Millions, my bankroll is in better shape than ever… so you know what that means. It’s time for SwoopAE’s next live poker adventure. All I need is my carry on bag of clothing, my laptop and my 50k bankroll, which will hopefully still be intact in 126 days time. Let’s do this.

This year, it’s Around the World in… wait, let me check my calendar… 126 days. That somehow doesn’t have the same ring to it as Bond18′s Around the World in 90 days, which you can read about here (www.spewingwithbond18.com) but the general idea is the same.

Here’s my schedule

16 March – Leave Brisbane for ANZPT Perth. It’ll be my first time in Western Australia and at Burswood Casino. I’ll be playing the $2700 ANZPT Perth Main Event which I was lucky enough to satellite into on my first attempt the other day, along with any prelim events that happen to be on if I bust early.

21 March – Leave Perth for the Hachem Deepstack Series in Melbourne. The $1100 8-game, $1100 6-max NLHE and $1100 PLO events in particular look awesome, along with the $550 Main Event. I’ll also be playing some of the smaller stuff and I might take a shot at 10/20 PLO for the first time if I can find a soft enough table. Plus, Melbourne is so awesome that I can’t stay away for more than a few months or I will die.

6 April – Back to the Sunshine Coast for a few weeks to grind online and possibly try and pick up a WSOP ME seat which I might actually use this year. For those of you who followed my blog last year, I won a seat, went to Vegas, then didn’t play the Main Event because i’m a bankroll nit/was on lifetilt after getting owned by the deck all summer.

2 May – Leave Brisbane for Bangkok, Thailand, then on to Koh Samui to meet up with the Redback Challenge boys (Yann, Alex and Robb, along with a few other people I know who will be in Thailand at the time as a featured guest for the Redback Challenge). The plan is to grind online and in an underground cardroom that apparently has the softest games in the world all day, party all night, try to pick up Thai girls (and hopefully not any ladyboys), generally engage in degenerate activities. A solid prelude to get me into the right frame of mind for the WSOP. Redback Challenge website is here http://redbackchallenge.com/

Approx 27 May – Leave Koh Samui for LAX, most likely with a one day stopover in Seoul, South Korea. Korea to Starcraft is like Mecca to Islam. We all have to make the pilgrimage once in our lifetime. Also, I figure it will be more fun than a stopover in Singapore, which was the other option.

May 28 – Las Vegas, baby! I will be taking up residence in ‘La Grand Casa’, better known as  ’The Yellow House’ for seven weeks along with seven to ten other professional poker players including one of my housemates from last year, some friends from last year’s WSOP and some of the Melbourne poker crew. (http://www.vacationrentals.com/vacation-rentals/54700.html#rates-header)

I’ll be playing basically everything at the Venetian Deepstack Series this year along with a couple of the smaller $1500 WSOP events (probably Razz, Omaha/8, HORSE or 8-Game to maximise chances of winning a bracelet). Also, UFC 114 and 116 are on, tickets are a must this year. Plus, strippers, awesome clubs and lots of alcohol consumption will be in order. Round 2 in Las Vegas. Also, the PTips homegame starring SwoopAE, Seb, CMBurns, Ozone, HHCMotu and Bubbleboy will be epic. Equally epic will be ‘Ozone introduces Team PTips to the Spearmint Rhino’. Vegas is going to be awesome.

Approx July 20 – Leave Las Vegas for Australia. Potentially continue the trip either visiting ANZPT Queenstown in New Zealand or heading back to Koh Samui or Phuket. Who knows?

So that’s the plan. It’s going to be an insane journey and hopefully this year the deck is on my side as I attempt to take on the live poker scene.

I’m leaving for the airport in a couple of hours. Perth awaits me. What better way to start the trip than shipping an ANZPT event for six figures?

See you on the other side (of Australia that is)

SwoopAE