I bluff too much, I love to bluff, for me it is one of the most fun things to do in poker. I have a book on bluffing by Johnathan Little which I need to review as not all my bluffs are good….in Berlin they nicknamed me “Bluffalo Bill” when I played in their Friday night cash game.

” You bluff too much” Said “Second Pair”Carmen as she correctly called me down 3 streets with second pair again.

“You call to much” I replied.

First rule of bluffing …you can’t bluff a donkey.

Friday I played the £110 entry  888 £28K GTD at Aspers. I’d been to the gym showered and was ready, it seemed better value to me than the £170 PokerStars event at the Hippodrome…which I later found out had a guarantee of  £40K.

In Aspers Queen Ten is Kings, I bluffed a woman who called me down with second pair without thinking, I bluffed off 18K and lost 10K on a flip within an hour. The woman I had failed to bluff insta called someone else’s all in with a  pair of fives on an 8 high flop. He overshoved the flop for 15K and she was shown Aces in a spot where she was never going to be good. She played regularly and knew the London tournaments yet to me seemed terrible. She made Day 2 or at least I saw her near the end of day 1 and was surprised. Another guy at the table Ashely M’Tanios also did his stack with some high variance plays, he showed me his $21K win from the previous week on PokerStars on his phone. He’d qualified  via a satellite to a $320 buyin game online and come 1st for a decent score hew was on his 4th bullet.

I rebought and vowed to never bluff at Aspers, just value bet the hell out of them and made it comfortably through the day to the last level with a stack of 150K when the average was 80K. I had played well and was in the zone when I woke up with AK under the gun and the blinds at 1000/2000 200 ante. I raised to  6,000. The button shoved on me for the second time in succession and I instantly called his 60K bet to be shown A 10. “How do you think A 10 is good for shoving against my under the gun opening range?”

The flop seemed great but the turn and river killed me and now I had 90K instead of 210K, a night’s work ruined in  one hand. I battled hard and finished the day with 95,600 when the average was 105K, my friend who was one card from the door had 195K and would have a top ten stack for day 2.

Saturday I bought in for £100 to the Super 60 at Aspers  and played really well until the following hand decimated my stack. I raise UTG to 3K and UTG+1 calls and then the whole table decides to call, the BB decides it is a good spot to but his final 7K in with 34o. I re-raise to 30K off a stack of 80K for UTG+1 to decide to go all in for 70K which I call to be shown AK. His ace hits the turn to decimate my stack, “How do you decide not to raise AK and then want to call off your whole stack with it. I’ve put in 30K  and clearly shown I’m never folding” I ranted in my head

I ground my way back into contention with 100K winning an all in 3 way with QQ with the average was 127K. A new player joined to my right just as the hand finished and I stacked my chips, the blinds were 1600/3200/400 when he raised off a stack of 240K to 10K from the CO and finding A10 I decide to shove my awkward stack size of 31BB. If I raise to 25K  there would be 43K in the middle and 15K to call giving odds of 3-1 and if I bet more would be pot committing myself. I decided a shove was best against his CO range either that or a fold. He tanked before calling with AQ and holding to bust me, perhaps I overplayed the hand I don’t like to call too passive, a fold seems too tight but perhaps the shove was too aggressive. A difficult spot. I’ll review on Flopzilla and see how I should have played it. So I busted 30th out of  66 runners somewhat annoyed that I had just got myself back in the game only to throw it away the very next hand with A10 one of the trouble hands.

I made it home by midnight and slept it off, now I was in for £320 for the weekend I needed a good cash tomorrow or it was going to be an expensive weekend. I hate losing money at poker, I play to win money so losing money doesn’t sit well with me.