10/23/2007

Guess I'm back.....

Ok so here's the thing, if you can't spot the sucker at your first half hour at the table then you are the sucker.

We have heard this line millions of times the world over but how true is it when you actually think of it. I have been the sucker for the past few months....the guy that everyone at the table is waiting for to make the mistakes, the guy they are instacalling with top pair no kicker after a push AI on the river for that third final shell, the guy that people are probably talking about in forums of how i seem to donk off so much money so quickly at the limits that I play.

No longer ladies and G's.

Thanks for those that have given good advice, Spunky, Kris, Amatay yay yay, the murg et el. I am imo a decent reader of the game and pride myself in my ability to analyze hands and make ridik calls when i 'know' i am infront. For these reasons I cant tear myself away from the game, this has been a big part of my life for so long, gave me so many friends and allowed me to put a deposit down on my first house.

I have managed to get myself into a right state on the credit card through playing ego centric poker and thinking i am on this earth to take down every pot i play in. The cc now stands at £5.5k which i am hoping to pay £2k off this week with my wages from work to take it down to a more manageable £3.5k. I went on tilt big time before and after the last post and donked off yet more money, albeit mainly to bad decisions from others with some sickening beats right when I needed them least.

I have decided to put a 'final' £250 roll on Stars. The reason I have chosen Stars is mainly due to the decent run I had on there before and the fact that they run the best MTT action online end of. I wont be playing many tourns but the ones i do play will be decent ones with good prize structures or nice sats to bigger events.

I have decided to quit 6Max NLHE for the time being and take a leaf out of Amatay's book and multi table the 9/10 handed ringfeasts. I am playing 4 tarbs of 0.50/1NLHE and sometimes 1 tarb of 1/2NL, Yes a massive come down from the 5/10, 10/20 days and a far cry from the standard 2.5/5 game i was beating on Betfair. This is the only way i think i can teach myself the disapline needed to win at this game again, less action, less temptation to force the action and thus less nervousness around my game.

I have started tonight and playing about 500 hands over 4 tarbs and won $300 profit. So a decent nights work, nothing like the swings of before and the big juicy wins, but hopefully on the other hand no juicy losses. I aim to have a stop loss of 3 full buy ins and will buy on to each table always for the full amount (before i was always half stacking and have done this to good effect for many years). I will prolly be looking to invest in pokertracker very soon but dont know if i will go for cardrunners as i think i know alot of the more technical positional moves and the higher level plays that are ++EV.

I am also finally making a big point to invest time in poker literature and am reading John Vorhaus' Killer poker online2 and another book about the mind of a poker player.....the title escapes me atm but will check to see what it is because its a great read for those that struggle with tilt and the psyhocological aspects of the game.

The hag is down soon from the Czech and will be looking to get involved in the decent live scene round the Thames Valley, will keep you posted on our road trips and maybe throw in some bad beat stories to boot.

The house is coming along fine atm with the kitchen almost done now and finally got some internal doors hung and also a nice one for the living room with glass windows in it through to the porch. Plans are afoot for tiling in the bathroom and in the porch, would be nice and definitely add some value to the place imo.

Your thoughts on any of the above will be much appreciated, would be nice to know what peeps think to the new strategy.

10/15/2007

All Over

So as you can see from the title of this blog I have had another disasterous weekend at the online tables. Both bad play and bad beats have been right in my way and I managed to donk off £1.5k on Party poker at 2-4 through to 5-10NLHU. I really do not have any roll anymore and the credit card now has over £3k on it. I am still up for the year but all that money has been withdrawn from sites and put into my house....Am I bluescouse in disguise I ask myself?? No Roll, playing too high, playing shit, playing hyper aggro, playing shit again and getting the beats along the way as well. I literally couldn't sleep last night due to the fact i was worrying about the money that i have been blowing on the tables....sick

I am not going to bore you with hands but one I called an AI bet on a flop of 227 with A2 to be faced with the prospect of AK sooted and then to be hit with running sparklers from the backdoor flush and another $600 swing. In my final hand of the weekend, and one that sticks clearly in my mind I move $500 into $132 on a flop of 3 low hearts with KhQs to be called by Ah6s for the whole lot....sick move but I think a terrible call as well.

I am thinking about giving up the game because work is going well and I should hit my OTE this year which would be a nice chunk so perhaps no need for poker anymore, but then I cant forget how many good friends and great times I have had from poker and the fact that it is one of the reasons why I can own my house now....Please guys give me some advice....I am at an all time low atm.

Didn't even play the bloggerment because I was that pissed off with my game, well done to the rest of you that seem to be running well, especially BM and Amatay (who has built a very substantial roll playing nothing more really than 1-2NL.

A very depressed binner signs out....potentially for the last time.

10/10/2007

Standard big loss after a win

Well as per usual I have had a bad session after a very good one. A total loss of $1400 last night trying out the 2-4, 3-6 and 5-10 6max tables on Party. I am going to be trying different sites at different times of day to try to find out which ones have the easiest cash games to beat at these levels.

I have decided is is time to invest in some poker tracking software. Seems that everyone has this these days and I am the fool atm that is missing out on this vital information.

Things that I want to know when at the table are the following:

Player profit/loss for that particular session – from this I will be able to determine their mood and thus whether they are more or less likely to be calling more frequently or on tilt. From this I will be be able to adapt my game to suit the conditions of the table more easily.

I want all the information to be ‘Live’ and updated after every hand, I don’t want to wait for the end of a session to upload hand histories etc because I think this is a very reactive way of tracking info and not proactive….also I will not see the true results at the table at the time of playing so may miss vital info.

I want to know how the program views each player and what it classifies them as, ie loose aggro, tight passive etc.

Historical data of course is important, how much the guy won last time round where he raised from and how much etc. I think this is very important to building up a picture on each of your online foes. Mine would say Hyper aggressive lunatic!!!

Can any of you readers out there please suggest something that will help me out here, it would be much appreciated….

I think I have an old copy of Poker office so will try to load that up tonight and see what that actually does, had it years now though and never used so may be out of license or something.

10/08/2007

Surely not a weekend win?

I can't remember how it felt to actually have a winning weekend on the tables until this weekend, sure I did it the hard way but it was worth it in the end.

Finished up just under $4k in the end after being down to my last $300 on stars and all in on a stone cold bluff. Had lots of the usual swings though on the way, high point was $4.9k total then it went down to $1.7k so it all went on 3 tables, 2 of 5-10 and 1 of 3-6NLHU. Took the $300 on the 3-6 game to just over $2k and the other 5-10 games to $1k on each so that was a decent result. It got to a point where i was absolutely giddy after having AA and QQ beaten AI pre by 77 and 66, one time a four flush was painted on the board for a 7 high flush to scoop and another time the 2 out 6 came to my opponents rescue. I had to say to myself I am going to continue playing no matter what and i am not, i repeat NOT going to go on tilt! I began to concentrate and just like Friday night I played almost perfect aggressive poker forcing my oponents into corners where they didnt want to be and having the major hands hold up as they should.

I havent got any hand history back yet from Stars but i will try to post some of the more interesting hands asap.

Been in the city today for a meeting with work which was well gash amd have got training all this week so wont be writing much or playing much this week cause i'll be fooked went i come from after listening to a pumped up American all day.

Good to see the Hag back running well, Amatay spreading his seed and Burnley Mik hitting some form on the MTTs, gg fellas. Have been reading Punterz blog (link on the right) great guy and good read....love his Vegas roulette story....sick! Check it out!

10/05/2007

Flawed Genius

Ok so the weekend is upon me again and so my pulse races with anticipation and nervous energy like it does before any game of poker. This is not fear of opponents or of the cards falling in configurations that I cant get away from, it it the fear of me, me and my right hand and that little deviant the clicking finger spoken about in many blogs worldwide. It seems sometimes to have it's own brain (maybe a little one below the nail) that does things that you all powerful human brain wouldn't even contemplate. Like moving in over a re raised pot with Q3 pre flop, or trying to bluff a missed flush draw on the river where a man with no arms, legs or head?!? could smell a rat and call the bluff with top pair shit kicker. This is what scares me....**thinking now of severing off the offending finger and playing left handed or even doing any betting with my thumb** Maybe my human brain still controls the thumb....only time will tell.

I will be playing tonight as Michelle is out on the town so I can have peace until yes rings me mid morning for the standard taxi service that I provide to her and some chosen friends. Some of them aren't 'good' enough to grace the green submarine and their names receive a snarl from me when mentioned as requiring said lift in the early hours.

I plan to roll the hag aswell until he gets here in a few weeks, hopefully he will have good fortune on the tarbs and turn the small amount into the cake by not missing a flush draw for a week (this has been done before in our circle of poker friends) The Flawed Genius has infact taken Player Points up to £100k+ on 6 separate occasions including getting put in to last years WSOP and being lent $100 for online activities. He came back 3 months later and when we asked how much we had won the Genius just muttered quietly "Quarter of a mill...." Nothing else...simple but show stopping. Typical of the man he didn't get over excited and also didn't plan to invest the money in any other way than climbing the online limits and playing nose bleed stakes against the best in the world, this is all he craves for after all. 30 days later he was skint again and trying to borrow £40 to enter a Luton rebuy tournament. Just another month in the life of the flawed genius.

I plan to play mainly 2.5/5 on Betfair tonight but will also finally load up DTD as I had a good conversation with Simon Nowab there who runs the high roller section online. Sounds absolutely brilliant if you can rake enough for them each month. He thinks you need to rake about £800 per month to qualify and then you can claim up to 50% NET Rake back, also the main thing is if you choose to leave some percentage of rb in a DTD bank you can save up to play in a main event anywhere in the world. DTD pay 20% of the buy in for you and thus take 20% of your action so they have someone to cheer on. You where their t-shirt and if you make the final table they will pay for you to enter a tourney of the same buy in value anywhere in the world again....for gratis. Brilliant. But the best thing about this is they pay for your flights and hotel anywhere in the world which is really where the value is at. Simon tells me that most of his players are those that play at 1-2 level and multitable....finally that level of player is being recognised by a site and not just the high stakes players that sites love to have. If you are interested in this let me know and I will explain further, sounds good though.

As you can see from my right hand side I have registered for the PokerStars World Championship Bloggerment, looks like a great event and will probably be some great poker played there. Also some great prizes and it is free to enter! Ship! I don't usually play low limit tourneys or especially Freerolls, but this looks great value and it will be good for all us bloggers to compete against each other in a World Championship event. GL all that enter.

Anyway should get on with some work now...it is nearly 11.00am and I haven't even started for the day yet. GG

10/03/2007

Self Harm

Couldn't bring myself to play last night, chose instead to cut my finger open trying to 'assemble' a nest of tables for the living room. I like the way that they use the word assemble in these crappy instructions that you get in flat-packed items...makes it all sound soooo simple. "Just assemble this" or "Instructions how to easily assemble" What a fucking joke that is! You end of busting your arse trying to put together your item of choice, it takes 4 times longer than you think, you end up regularly self harming and the end result never looks the same is the stuff in the catalogue. What do I expect though for the price of a re raise pre flop! I would prefer an option in the Argos catalogue where I could buy an 'already assembled' item and pay double for it....this would definitely be my option of choice, just have to nick a few more blinds!

I'm not looking forward to playing much at the moment, I really need to put some performances in and book some decent wins before the hag http://jacobhag.blogspot.com comes down at the end of October. Plans for the week so far include a home game at my place on the Tuesday, Stanley Casino on Wednesday for the £20 re buy Donk, Friday night will be Full House night for the massive £10 re buy feast http://www.thefullhouse.co.uk They usually get over 80 runners so the first prize is often £1300+ and the cash games are wild at say the least. Saturday night is drinking night in town with some of the old crew from school, should be a right crack with messers Telbut, Benjits Grey, Appiah, Higmanen, Perfect Page all hitting Wokingham Town for a night of festivities! Bring on the Beer, the curry and the laaadddiesss! Ship!

Work is good atm, thank God! Actually earning more at work than from the tarbs....sick I know! The house is coming on strong, kitchen is almost ready with tiles, paint, shelving etc all being finish this week. Will post some piccys soon as it's my fav room in the house! Michelle is still waiting to hear about her promotion at work, alot of shizzle going down there because her boss doesn't want to lose her from his team, maybe some blockage going on from him....hopefully will sort itself out soon.

Should hit the tables hard again tonight and try to book a win of some sorts, plan to do alot of reading this weekend as I need to rethink my game strategy imo. Good luck to all the other bloggers, see most of you guys are running good atm...keep it going.

10/01/2007

Very Low

Another weekend of pain for me. I am at one of my lowest points ever in the poker world, just cant seem to book a decent win!

Managed to win $400 over 2 2.5/5NL tables then decided against my plans to spin it up on 5/10NL against some of the regulars on Betfair, these guys are sitting down with no fear because there rolls are at least 50K, an assumption based on how often I see them on the bigger tables and how many tables they play at one time. I, on the other hand am sitting half stacked with about 20% of my BR on each table....this really is sick but all the blood goes to my right index clicking finger and I cant help myself opening up a game that is way to big for me.

I ended up $1600 down for the weekend and think I played terribly on 5-10 and ok on the 2.5/5 game. I really need to take stock at the moment and may even decide to fire up another site and start afresh, players know me all to well on Betfair now and know I am capable of some insane moves at any point in any hand so generally like to look me up, especially on the 5/10 and 10/20 games where I am half stacking and continuing my aggro style.

Last post I talked about holding a blogger live game somewhere for a chance to all meet up and have a fair few beers and have a great evening of cash/tourney poker. I really think we should pursue this and I would like you guys to drop some suggestions in the comments below. Maybe a twice a year get together in different parts of the country to really keep the 'bloggers union'....bit gay actually that! but to keep it all going. I would love to sit opposite Ed Hollis and check raise Burnley Mik with nothing....think this could be a real winner......appreciate you thoughts guys.

On another note I have joined Raise the River, looks like a great idea and has a great forum by first inspection, I hope to meet alot more bloggers there as this site was created and designed by bloggers....a great idea chaps.....happy to support.