London Mini-Sessions

I have put in a few mini-sessions since I've been here as we have been hanging out before dinner and watching episodes of The Wire (which I highly recommend to all).

I have won big at Full Tilt, just over 5k in ~1,000 hands, and lost big at Poker Stars, around 4k in ~500 hands. I do not have Poker Tracker installed yet on my lap top, so I do not have hand histories or exact results (I have detailed records on my desktop at home and will update my results when I get back to DC) to share.

The majority of the win came from one sick hand. I had 77 around back, called an under the gun raise, and then a reraise from the blinds (after the original raiser called). The flop came down A,10,7 rainbow. The reraiser insta-shoved and the original raiser insta-called. I thought through my decision (as the pot was very large), and decided neither were likely to have AA (the original raiser probably repops with AA and why would the reraiser insta-shove with the nuts). The caller certainly could have had 1010, but AK or AQ seemed more likely. I called and both players showed AK. Gotta love getting it all-in against two players on the flop when combined they are drawing to runner-runner. My losses on Stars came from two large hands: one was a standard bad beat as I got it all in pf KK against 99 and my opponent spiked a 9. In the other hand, I needlessly played a big pot with AQ on a Q,4,2 board, and lost to my opponent's 4-4.

I may only play on Full Tilt going forward. I hear players talk about how certain sites are rigged, how they always take sick beats on certain sites, etc., and I always laugh to myself. I certainly don't think Poker Stars is rigged or anything like that and I'm sure I would run equal to expectation there over the long run. That said, I am more comfortable on FT as I have played there longer, like the software better, and know the player pool much much better. As such, I actually think I play slightly better at FT and should probably focus my energies there.

London Update: touch rugby was awesome. Figuring out the flow of the offense was a challenge, as you constantly have to retreat behind the ball and sometimes it is best to just allow yourself to get tagged rather than making a bad pass. I feel like I started to figure it out by the end. Playing d was a lot of fun. It was like constantly trying to guard against an option offense in football. If I lived here, I would definitely start playing regularly.