Another fine mess

Basingstoke Game Running Strong

2008-06-16T12:20:00.000-07:00

Well haven't played much poker since the last time I posted. Probably had like 2 sessions, losing about $800 in total so not the greatest, although I did get $16 dollar of rake back on FTP so it wasn't all bad.

The Basingstoke game that myself and the Murg re introduced to the world of crazy live poker is now fully up and running and omg the plays have been shocking! All In's called by Q3 and A4 are standard cash game plays in Basingstoke and the game is quickly developing into a great hunting ground for those that know JTs is a favourite vs 22 AIPF.

Chaps at Raise the River, BM, Pud, Ama, let me know what your thoughts are of hosting a RTR game in the Basingstoke club, put a reply in and let em know of your interest. Would be great to get a blogging live tourney and cash games going like a couple of times a year....like a RTR World Series. We can cater for up to 80 runners with 10,000 starting stacks and long clocks...let me know your thoughts.

On the house front, work has started in earnest on the front driveway, fencing and back garden fencing and patio. Should be finished in 2 weeks all ready to dig the trench for the electric cable for the shed lights, get the new patio dining set out from the garage and get ready for BBQ's and Poker in the summer nights....what more can you ask for!

Work is going well at the moment. I have been in Dublin last week for 3 days and am off to Scotland this week to hopefully sign a couple of deals in Aberdeen. Spent this weekend in Wales with the missus running the race for life for cancer so have done all parts of the Britain in a week! Crazy tired though at the moment and looking forward to coming back and planning for next quarter, there are a couple of promotions floating around at the moment and I want to make sure my name is on them.

One last thing, isn't petrol shit at the moment, what the fuck is £1.20 a lire all about, thieving cunts....

I'm back

2008-06-02T10:15:00.000-07:00

Ok, Firstly sorry for the lack of updates. Things have been so hectic, what with Vegas, new year and territory at work, house stuff and setting up the Basingstoke game again.

So where shall I start....Maybe Vegas would be a good place. So 8 days of madness, started off in the Imperial dump then moved on to the fantastic Venetian a few doors down. I managed to see the Calzaghe/Hopkins weigh in...and managed to start a chant of 'You're supposed to be at home' to Hopkins which was backed by 8,000 Joe fans which was cool. Saw Sly Stallone (one of my hollywood heros) amongst a few famous faces there.

Poker was ok, not as loose as expected. I managed to play prolly 20 odd hours all trip and win about 2.5k there (although I went on to lose about 1.5k on Blackjack and roulette through the holiday) Played mainly at Ceasers but also at Planet Hollywood, Venetian, Imperial ( I think that was it).

Bought loads of cheap clothing, 4 pairs of trainers for like £18 each, Tim Boots for like £26, a wicked Jordan basketball top and some Tiffany for the missus from Ceasers.

Overall had a wicked time, met up with Smart money for some pokes and drinks in Ceasers (big shout out to him, a top guy and my thoughts are with you at this sad time).

Work ended up finishing well with me doing 199% for my years target and earning the most I have ever earnt in one year. I have started off this year well and in 2 months have had before tax earnings of +£15k so hopefully I can go over last years earnings...so I wont have to play much poker :-) I am really excited by the work challenge at the moment and am looking to further my sales skills in a hunt for promotion before this year is out, will keep you posted on that front. I am reading some great books at the moment and they are certainly helping my confidence and keeping my skills finely tuned in the sales world.

So I'm not really playing any poker at present. I had a bad run of about -$7k on FTP a little while ago and have now stopped and am enjoying my break. I must admit there are times when the lure of the online game gets to me and I feel compelled to chase the +EV dream, but a probably haven't played now in a month and that is the way I will continue until I feel comfortable again with a clear battle plan in mind.

Everything is good on the house front. We have a block paving company coming in at the start of next week to do our front and back gardens, aswell as new fencing etc, set us back a cool £6k but im sure it will be worth it, will post some before and after pictures when the work has been completed.

On the blog front i love bluescouse's last entry:

turned the £500 into £6750 last night, and got up to £15k-18k tonight during the peak of my final session today. then i lost it all within the next 45mins.

world class mate....sure he will be back firing soon, look forward to the next installment.

Amatay's ridik challenge looks like a beaut...I definitely wouldn't abck against that fish, when his mind is on the game fully there are few better at grinding it out.

Liking Yorkie Pud's new blog...well done mate, keep up the work.

Bring on the Murg I say...this fish has posted a few comments here and there and is a friend and the guy I run the Friday night game with. Bring on the blogging action big man.

The Hag, now back from another trip to the UK, bring on updatio Mcgratio mate....I know that roll is marching northwards....let us know the lastest dude.

Anonomous' everywhere....grow some real balls and stick your goings on in a blog and let us sit back and wtach your perils at 1p/2p blinds...getting 3 outers for 28p pots and the like. I think I speak for all the decent bloggers out there when I say this.

The basingstoke game is running well at the moment (Picture of last week's cash game at the top of the entry). We are doing a £30 min sit down cash game from 8.00pm every Friday at the moment until we can get the funds together to promote the tournament more heavily in the area. Friday was good. Had a grand on the table by 11pm and the big pots were getting shipped to all corners of the table. Amatay when you looking to grace us with your presense my good man, 24 hour drinking and loose cash games would suit you fine....bring some boys if you fancy. Let me know fishay :-)

Until next time

Vegas....1 week and counting

2008-04-10T01:51:00.000-07:00

Vegas is only a week away now and i'm fcuking mad for it, should be a right crack.

Get there next Thurs evening and staying until the following Friday. Already got our eyes on several tournies to pass the time, although when I get there will probably just want to play cash and drink ridik cocktails blah blah blah.

Am meeting up with several peeps whilst im over there, Have an old mate coming over from Oz on the Monday night, a local girl from me with Dr Singh's finest work on her chest, Smart Money and his crew (see link...cracking blog) amongst others....should be a right crack...well looking forward to it now.

The Basingstoke Poker Game is back up and running this week (will attach a couple of pics from the game last year that we ran). The room has had a complete refurb since last time with full air conditioning and new carpet and fully decorated. Am hoping for 30+ runners first week..... could be plans to hold a bloggers game there in the near future, watch this space on that one....any thoughts guys....might get intouch with Burnley Mik and get a RTR theme going on....would be fun.

My fooking fone is now bruk with the poxy screen cracking and now i cant see any piece of the screen....fooking rubbish, have looked at the Iphone so might invest in one of those this weekend.

Oh yeah, I have bought 2 brand new 22" widescreens for my Poker setup now for £100 each...Samsung ones aswell, got a decent price as they are usually £200 each so happy days imo, will get them set up asap after Vegas when I can sort out a bigger desk for my spare room.....

Haven't played much poker recently because of getting the game sorted out and been well busy at work with year end and everything. Things at work went well and I did 300% of quarter target which was nice and will furnish me with beer tokens for Vegas. Last game I played i won a quick 800 doll on PP at 1-2NL and am waiting for rakeback conf from FTP.

Anyway keep up the blogging chaps, GL

More Action

2008-03-24T05:28:00.000-07:00

As we near the end of the Bank Holiday 4 days off extravaganza I am actually looking forward to going back to work to finish off our financial year in style. I am at appoz 150% of target for this quarter and am the leading sales person in the team, have got a couple of deals that I am working on closing with could take me over 200%....nice with under 4 weeks to go till Vegas.

I have played different sites over the past 4 days, Stars, Party and Tilt and have had resonable results on each....I'll have to update Pokertracker to see how much I am up on each. I think I am about $1500 up for the weekend mainly due to a half decent run on Stars (which I only played because I couldn't get money on the other sites!) The mini roll stands just over $2k at the moment from $600 which is ok I guess. Below are some of the more interesting hands from this morning's session:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2320057

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2320062

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2320065 Sick flop here, neither player is going anywhere

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2320069 Interesting play here with 44 :

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2320071 I cant see what I am beating here, I obv think im ahead when I amke the bet, but when he insta calls???!!!

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2320072 Good job I didnt get fruity here....ah the old one outer....joy

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2320074 Interesting hand with the boots, how does he make the call here?? Would you??

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2320077 Perfect river for him, how can I put him on this? Why doesnt he raise??

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2320081 How to lose the max with AAA

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2320084 I cant beat anything here apart from JJ or TT

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2320085 Is this the same hand?? Surely not another Poker Stars setup?

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2320091 Was actually shouting "NO QUEEN!!!"

Would like some opinions maybe on some of the last 2 sets of hand historys that I have posted, I know most of the hands play themselves but any feedback is good.

I had a day off poker yesterday as we drove to Wales to visit the parents, was v v relaxing, ate curry and roast dinner the next day, some shopping, Starbucks etc etc....V nice.

Right off to play the Murg again now at pool and hoping for a better show than the last two visits to the more frustrating green felt.

Might be time to give up the game...

2008-03-21T11:49:00.000-07:00

Pool that is.

Lost like 20-3 to a rampaging Murg on Thurs night, played pretty bad and the Murg ran hot for an hour to absolutely destroy me. We play at the snooker club where I used to run my Poker Game in Basingstoke and all the old crew were there again last night, Orlando - the owner, fit rock chick behind the bar, thick colin et al....proper little reunion.

Been well bored today staying in the house watching shit TV and playing a little online. I lost $800 on Party 5-10NL on Thursday night including an 800 doll pot with JJ ai pre vs AQ with the obv Ace on the river to drown me. Later I won $1000 back 8 tabling Party and Full Tilt finishing in the middle of the night Thurs.

Today I cant get anything onto Party because their gay cashier is fooked so I stuck $600 on Stars and that now sits on just a tad over $1000, 2-4 tabling NL200 there trying to get my Stars points up to 10k to get something decent from the shop.

Not really much planned for this BH weekend tbh, Super Sunday is in the diary, will be difficult at Old Trafford but i'm backing Torres to do damage ftw. I have picked Newcastle this week in the last man standing competition that i run at work (I chopped the first comp for £160 each) This time there are 40 runners for a nice £400 pot to shoot at.

Some of the bigger and more interesting hands of my last session are here:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2306249

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2306578

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2306557

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2306682

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2306696

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2306671

The 88 was a bit of a sick push in hindsight but I had such a loose image on the table i thought he was making a flop play against what he thought was Abig or something, Im hoping that if he does have 99, TT or maybe even JJ or QQ i can get him to fold out anticipating a better hand from me....what are your thoughts here?

Anyway off now to do some cooking for the missus, think lasagne and chips are on the menu at chez binner tonight.

On the blog front nice work Yorkie Pud for landing his Betfair blogging page, will enjoy reading about him making his $17 dollar scores etc..... Come on and tell us all whats going on in life Pud mate...we eagerly wait.

GL all

OK

2008-03-17T09:46:00.001-07:00

Had a half decent weekend.

Went to play pool on Friday night with the Murg and had my worse game ever, shitty loud music booming out and a table lean to boot helped me to a 6-2 loss to the gloating murg.

Decided to find a local game and rang round the usual suspects to find there was a 1-2PL holdem game running in Harrow way, Stanmore, so drove out there and sat in with £100. Average stack on the table was prolly £200 but there were a couple of guys with like £500-£800 in front of them so I pulled up another £300 after an hour or so to have over £500 infront of me just incase a pick up a monster against these boys (also to make them less happy about 3 betting me on the bluff). I hit a few hands and end up about £220, the Murg wins aswell for a £150 score and we drive home content with the night.

Online I had another 2 good sessions where I win $1000 then do $600 in a Sun night session (I Fcuking hate Sundays!!) I have top and bottom pair on the turn called by a bare flush draw that obv hit the river and several 2nd best hands aswell as a couple of Bluffy the Vampire Slayers caught for approx $300 total. So i end up cashing out a $400 profit online for the weekend and my rakeback for the month sits on about $200 at present on FTP.

I am playing a much better game online at present and have won approx $2.5k this month after 6k hands. My target on the month is to complete 10k hands min and make a $3k profit total...nice for part time work imo.

I also had the pleasure of watching Mattasow and Urindanger run Omaha flips for $2k each on FTP on Sunday, Mattasow is such a lucky fish, hit virtually everything and finished up nicely at $20k profit....Ben Grundy obv fancied himself in this game but as he sat down was very politely told to fcuk off by the guys and so he did with his tail firmly between his legs..... lolololol

Work is good at the moment, looking to do 150% of target this quarter for our year end so that means a decent pay packet at the end of April. We are doing up the whole outside of our house with that money and the money saved recently. We have about $10k to do the driveway, fencing, gates and patio so should be really nice soon....will prolly post some before and after pics to show the difference.

Vegas is fast approaching, countdown at the moment is approx 4 weeks, Imperial Palace then the Venician for a Thurs till the following Friday stint.....gonna wind the yanks right up on the tables....bet riase bet re raise, 'you call that a bet' etc etc etc.....hopefully amke some spends whilst over there and might buy another watch from the Uboat outlet in our hotel.

Edit*

2008-03-03T15:43:00.001-08:00

***EDIT ***Just finished a couple of hour session in 2 halves. Took my roll down to $300 at one point then decided to lump it all on a NL1000 HU match and took that $300 up to $2.4k.

This hand got me on my way nicely

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2206705

Thanks also goes out to this river of love...is this my best river ever I ask myself??

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2206715

This one then compounded his misery very next hand

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2206719

Now I am marching....this happens for the hat trick, I am now nearly $1300 profit in 3 hands

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2206726

I then proceed to donk off about $800 at 1/2NL until I cash out $1400 and leave myself $300 to take to a NL1000 HU game before bed.

In 44 hands I win another $741 profit from one very passive player, every time he trys a button steal I am 3 betting him and I am raising every button and really putting the pressure on.
So now the roll has just over $900 on it (with the $1400 safely cashed out to mcbank to ease the strain of the creditcard somewhat :-)

I am be trying to play alot of NL100 again for the rest of this week, trying to build on this roll and take it up to the $2k mark hopefully by this time next week.

I checked my PT info today and I have already played over 3k hands in March....my aim is to play over 10k hands in the month to build those FTP points and rakeback up.

GL to you guys. Binner

Big cash game and online nightmare

2008-03-03T06:14:00.000-08:00

I have just come off the back of another poker filled weekend and managed to break even on the cyber felt after being up $800 at one point. Went back to 3 tables of NL200 6MAX and got run all over. Overpair vs Overpair, flush and straight draw vs Top pair, Top pair vs Overpair, Trips vs Trips....and good old mother Tilt for about 2 stacks. Marv. Roll down to where I started for the weekend. Managed to play my target of 1k hands (think i did about 2.5k) so the rakeback should be ok. Want to put in at least 10k hands this month at NL100 and NL200 FR and 6Max.

Everything has been booked for Vegas now. Imperial Palace for the first 4 nights then the Venitian for the second half of the trip, looking forward to catching up with a mate from OZ and playing alot of poker and winding the grinding yanks up at the tarbs....it's gonna be a cowboy hat and tequila sunrises for me all the way!

I played in a massive private cash game on Saturday night after being out drinking in town. They even sent a car 20 miles to pick us up and bring us to the game. Got there and there were the usual faces. The Wong, golf pro Jamie, Chinese Toni, the professor, Nikki the cnut, Big Chris etc and with all these regular faces came the regular chip stacks benith them. Prolly £13k on the table for a Dealers choice 3-3PL game with a £10 live blind from anywhere. Made for a massive game in which Iended up £100 down in the end. £60-£100 was a regular pre flop bet and pots were usually over £200...sick action all round, a great way to spead a Sun morning imo.

Work is going well and looking to do 150% this quarter which means more buckaroos towards the driveway and back garden, which I will spend about £2k on in May time, patio, lawn, shed, dining table etc....should be cool. Will post pictures as and when.

I feel a bit down atm about my poker after getting rinsed after a lot of hard work, will put some hours in this week and hopefully win a few buy ins back.

Up a bit

2008-02-29T05:16:00.001-08:00

So I have played a bit since my last post and have implemented my plan to play 4-8 games of FR at NL100 and NL200.

I am up a megre 4 buy ins so far after about 4 hours work in total over 2 nights.

I have mixed up my games a little bit and have been playing a couple of 6MAX games as well so I can get a bit more fruity with my foes.

I am looking forward to the weekends action and am in high hopes of a decent result, really aiming to put in 1k hands this weekend to build my PT database and push that 30% FTP rakeback up along the way :-) This weekend is crucial imo for my bankroll, if i can book a decent win then I will press up to NL200 for 6-8 tables rather than the majority being NL100 tables.

I look forward to an Amatay challenge when the fish is back from his hols, will be good to put in some HU action to mix things up a bit.

I bought a new watch the other day, UBOAT, Italian design, will be the next big thing in big faced watchs imo. Got it at a decent price £700 from a mate who is the watch manager for a big jewellers, gg sir.

Will post some hands tonight from the last few nights sessions.

Weekend update and new approach

2008-02-27T04:58:00.001-08:00

So the weekend came and went and so did another $600.

I basically had some unfortunate situations for full stacks on 1-2NL on Party. my K9 vs T9 on a Kt29 board, AI on turn with a miracle T hitting the river.
Then T8 vs KT on a 9J4 flop with a queen on the turn, Villian has bet pre and on the flop so it is hard to put him on KT here, all the money goes in and a $500 pot ships to him.
AJ vs AQ AI pre on a 5-10 6max game me obv with the AJ, not a good call here but the villian was loose aggro and i'd made the 3 bet with it then got shoved on for the last $250 so had to make the call just incase he had a small pait or a worse starting hand.

I was $1200 in at this point when I put on another $371 into a 5-10NL game and got dealt KT first up. Villian makes it $40 pre, i insta/tilt call see a flop on 9J5 he bets $60 i call. turn the golden Queen and proceed to mini bet into it and get raised all in for the rest, i duely call with the nuts and he is drawing dead with the boots. Took that $371 up to $900+ for a small loss for the weekend.

Anyway. I have been reading other grinders blogs, Amatay, Smart money et al and have seen them put in some great profitable performances playing like 6+ tables. I aim to do the same this weekend. I have got my PC set up with 2 LCD's so I will be ready to 6/8 table 50NL or 100NL. Might deposit on $1k and sit on 6 NL100 tarbs tbh. Will aim to get my VPIP down to around 30/35 from the 50 it is over the past 5k hands. I need to play alot more selectively and will play full ring rather than 6MAX, just to trial the system, I am a more skilled 6MAX player imo but want to improve my game and control my aggression on full ring, I think this will help.

Found a few tourns that I will play whilst in Vegas. Will prolly play the $125 freeze at the Mirage on Sun 17.00 and the $125 re buy at the Venetian at 20.00 in the week. Want to hit the Bellagio cardroom and Binions as well and also heard that the new Ceasers Palace CR is world class so will take a look in there aswell.

Amatay hasn't come back to me on the Heads Up challenge I set him, hopefully he will comment here and we can arrange something, would be interesting to see how good he is HU rather than waiting for the the Aces at FR :-)

On a bit of a fitness drive at the moment, been to the gym Mon and Tues this week and planning to go tonight, doing loads of boxing atm which should help the fitness greatly. Work is good, just closed a 50K deal which is my biggest of the year, looking forward to a decent chunk come the end of April.

GL all

Vegas...Majorca....Basingstoke

2008-02-21T00:22:00.000-08:00

So am just trying to finalise my flights and hotels for the trip to Vegas in April.

At the moment we are flying in at 9pm on Thurs 17th via Denver and leaving on 25th via San Fran. So i am obv looking for the best poker tourneys and cash games to play in, gonna need some help here....can anyone recommend a decent tourney with a decent amount of runners for the week?? All thoughts and recommendations would be much appreciated as this is my first time in Vegas.

Havent played any poker since my last post, I am still aiming to play just on Friday's and the weekends but I did stir things up on Amatays blog alittle with challenges going out to the pro himself and some of the the good folk I have had banter with before, stateofmind comes to mind! Come on guys.....The challenge is here in black and white. 21 games of HU NL Holdem STTs whatever the buy in. $5, $10, $20 prolly up to $50 as I am not hugely experienced in any tourns let alone HU ones. Winner is the first to 11 and we can even have a sidebet if you fancy on the overall outcome. Any takers.....?

Congrats to the hag for spinning up his freebie on PP to a decent amount, Party seems to be the sofest site in terms of low-mid limit cash games....it is also the place I have done the most money! Guess this is saying something.

Also booked an all inclusive holiday to Sa Coma in Majorca for the summer, a week away. Loads of sports and stuff going on in this resort so that should be cool.

Anyway just a quick update, will be a better post with HH's etc after this weekends action.

GL all

Back...

2008-02-17T03:02:00.000-08:00

Ok so I am back after a blogging sabatical. Happy belated new year to all and apologies for my lack of bloggage maintenance over the past few months. I really needed the break and was doing money left right and centre on the tarbs of cyberfelt. As all us aspiring world champions know though when that clock hits midnight on 31st December everything that has gone before, all the bad beats and poor bluffs, all those coin flips that have gone against you during the year justgoneth are forgotten and expelled to the very back of the memory banks. The new year brings a new slate, new promises, new opportunity in life and across the minefield that is the green felt.

So as far as poker goes I have done my pieces playing in the biggest games possible for my roll, anywhere up to 25/50NL with just over 2k. Here i got into a slightly favourable situation with QQ vs AK after it had gone blind, blind, call, raise then me to act with the bitches. In went the 2.3k, i had good fold equity here vs any hand that wasn't KK or AA. The raiser obv snap calls with AK but the EV of my play is positive because I am a slight favourite in the race plus I have the fold equity as there is $300 or so in the pot when I decide to jam. Anyway the flop comes AKJ and i dont improve. GG

So know I have decided to go back to grass roots poker playing 3/4 tarbs of 1/2NL, the odd game of 2/4NL and some more MTT's when I have the time. I have purchased the gold package of Cardrunners - what a site!! the best $100 i have ever spent imo. CTS' videos are genuine World class, I have definitely paid for the subscription by putting some of the plays into practise. I have also forked out the 50 doll for pokertracker, mainly to keep an eye on my ststs and records rather than to 'spy' on my opponents. I will prolly use it to build a database of my regular opponents soon but I find it quite a hard tool to use, lots of features etc....what do you guys use it for most? Any neat features that you recommend on there? Would be pleased to pick up some PT advice from anyone that is running it.....

I havent been pulling up any trees at 1-2 recently but have prolly won just over $1000 in a month of play, bearing in mind i am prolly playing about 8 hours a week just at weekends....so not too bad but i reallyt want to ramp this up by playing at least one day in the week aswell as the weekends.

I went to the full house in Reigate last saturday night for my first live game in about 3 months. Played in their £40 semi freeze and managed a final table before running a massive pre flop bluff and being called behind with AQ.....my 62o failed to improve and off to the cash table i headed. The owner of the club has seen me before around the home counties cash poker scene and warned the table before I sat down, cheers for the free publicity imo. Very first hand I re raise pre flop with q9 suited, get 2 callers and 3/4 bet the pot on a flop of J47, get two folds and show the play for even more publicity. Anyway from then on I am chased in every pot im in by all and sundry with people justed dying to iron me out. The murg busts his stack with KK all in on the flop which contains 2 clubs and no ace to AcQs when i comes running clubs, the murg has infact got the King of clubs aswell which makes this hand more sickening. I leave half an hour later with about £130 profit from the table and we make a tired trip back to Basingstoke.

I'm off to Vegas in April for the Calzaghe fight, should be a crack and will be my first time out there....any recommendations fellas?? Staying at the Venitian but will hopefully check out most of the card rooms during the stay.

On a bloggage note, great to see Amatay doing so well as a live fish, knew a player of his concentration and ability would do well. Good to see a friend of a friend Jonny Rutherford enter the scene...who used to come to the game I held in Basingstoke (and infact won a £1000+ first prize there) Link me up Jono and will have to arrange a trip back to the fullhouse for some felt sparring! Congrats to Yorkie and Burnley for prooving that they are men......

Good to be back, will post some recent hands soon aswell btw.

Binner

My Poker....

2007-11-27T05:54:00.000-08:00

Decided to write an update about my poker plans for the next few months as per Amatay's comment on my last post.

Basically, as most of you know who have been regular readers of this blog I have basically done my pieces online over the past few months on anything from NL100 up to NL1000. There are several reasons for this as mentioned before, like monkey tilt (being the main one) Bad beats (which precedes said monkey tilt) Over playing, winning too much (wtf!!?!?!) etc I am imo I decent poker player and should be a consistent winner at whatever level or game that I sit in. Indeed my tight aggressive live game seems to do me well in most situations and any type of personal bankroll situation, I am not afraid to bluff with my last £ and never afraid to sit in ANY game. This reminds my of the Brighton Festival this year, in the side games to the £1000 Main event I sat in a £100PLHE game where the average stack was £2.5k :-) I sit in with £100 and end up even for the night after 4 tough hours in this massive game, most players would choose not to sit down here, so I feel I have all the attributes of a successful poker player. I need to start really proving this online and will run a bankroll section on the blog for the next few months, starting with something like $500 or so and seeing where I can get it to by the end of December. Then I will set some solid new years resolutions for my poker and march on from there. Vegas in April so I want to be suitably rolled for mid stakes action over there, $5-5NL -$5-10NL.

Work is going ok, struggling to hit target this quarter (ends at the end of Dec) have booked $22k for the company so far against a $145k target so things not looking that great for me here atm, although I have $30k ready to be placed in the next week which takes me above $50 and another $30k pending before the second week in December which takes me circa $80k.

I will inform you all in the next post where I will be playing in the next few months and exacts around bankroll and BRM moving forward and what limits you will find me at. I have really improved my PLO live game and may give that a shot online at low stakes and see how I get on, maybe even a roll for PLO and a roll for NLH. I could do with some advice from players/readers that have re built their poker careers before or had to drop down to the lower limits after playing a long time at the mid/higher stakes....

Good to see the Murg doing well on mansion and CD poker, taken $150 up to over $600 in a matter of days....hopefully we will see those rolls march on in the next few months. Also the Hag (http://jacobhag.blogspot.com) trying to get back to his optimum roll, I know he had a big hit last night of like 6 BI's or so....keep an eye on him though, very good read and definitely a player that has the ability to do very well in this game, wouldn't be surprised with a hag big tourney win in 2008 or qualifying for a main event somewhere for a small outlay.

Jamie Gold....what a d'ck.....end of

The Art of the Speech Play :-)

2007-11-23T06:58:00.001-08:00

Firstly before I start I want to hear some comments on the linked hand below. You may have already seen it (if you have would still like your opinion on it) Sammy Farha vs Jamie Gold in High Stakes Poker Season 4. I really dont know whether Sammy was 'saving Jamie money' here or just thinking that he may be beat with either a house of trips.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hULMh1dZks First part,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_3RgF5Op3w&feature=related Rest of the hand

I personally think that Farha thinks that there is enough in the pot already not to run the risk of falling into a Jamie Gold 'speech play' with a FH or trips. But then on the other hand i believe that Farha has read Gold for KK and KK only or maybe even AA....prolly not even QQ, just KK or AA. So why would you not bet 185K on the riv when you 'know' what your opponent has and the pot is already $400k, it's not even a 1/2 pot bet here and has to be made, especially when you look at the ridiculous pre flop action. I think Jamie litterally talked his way out of a $185k further loss like he virtually talked his way to the WSOP crown last year. I think he really confused Sammy by constantly jibbering and saying 'I know you have AA' etc that finally Sammy gave up on the final bet......what do you guys think......I think this is a hand that could cause much debate.

Well the house is coming along nicely atm, mum and dad have been down for the past couple of days doing the painting in our front room and out in the porchway, looks alot cleaner and better imo. We havent got alot to do now in the house, only the driveway, garden and tiling in the bathroom and porchway then we are finito!

Will probably grab a couple of hours on the tables this Sun after mum and dad have gone home, will play a little with the £17.50 i found on Sky Poker and might have a little flutter on Full tilt as well if im feeling up to that.

Anyway, Vindaloo tonight in the Hook Tandoori so fcuking ship that! Good to see Bluescouse back with a post - all the best to him on his recovery battle....personally think he should sell the house, pay back his debts (£12k) have about £60k+ left for a £20k deposit on a flat, £10k for stuff on the house and a £30k roll for 2.5/5NL and $5/10NL and move up from there.....we wait in anticipation :-)

Update

2007-11-19T05:14:00.001-08:00

Havent really been playing much recently, hence the lack of bloggage updateio.

Did manage a couple of hours online on Saturday night tho at the Western Club in London, Arrived there at about 11.00pm to find only one cash game going at 2-4PL but with the average stack over £1k so decided that my £500 total stake for the night was best served keeping the wallet company and being used in a exchange deals with the bar for liquid refreshment. They had about 20 internet terminals at the club though so I decided to redeposit on tilt and fire up 4 tarbs of 1-2NL full ring. I played very steadily and made the odd move now and again but ended up $200 down after my KK got cracked ai on a 769 flop after a $40 re raise pre by none other than the imperious JT...what a call pre and on that flop when I shoved....cant see how he can make this call at either stage of betting....oh well never mind.

Me and the Murg decided about 1-2am to travel back to the Reading area in search of a new game that we could beat on our way home from the Western. We made a few phone calls and found that there was a game running in a house in Finchampstead, 3-3PL Dealers Choice so decided to pull up there and see how things went.

I sat in the game first with lonely looking £100 when the average stack was probably £300 and managed to find AhQhAs3 first hand UTG. I limp (looking obv for the re raise opportunity), no one obliges....as is often the way when you limp in early with monsters. We see a 6 way flop of Ac8h2h. Nice. I check again. Someone puts a £10 bet into the small pot, gets a caller, then I re raise to leave myself £40 left. 2 callers. Turn is a Queen. Loose player leads for £30, again a caller and im all in for my £40. River pairs the 8 and I announce, to a few surprised glances 'Aces Full' and take a nice treble up first hand in.

The next hand of note comes when I have KQ in holdem call a raise 4 way to see a flop of 8Q5. Guy bets £25, gets a caller and I call at the back. turn is a Ten. Guy leads for £55, other player folds. I think for a few moments and decide I have called on the flop thinking I am good so I MUST go with this hand now (I actually place him firmly on QJ) I re reaise another £90 on top and he wells up and calls, saying he thinks he is behind. I now know I am infact behind after this speech and he tables T8 for the mid 2 pair. River comes and duly pairs the 5 for my bigger hand and the villain leaves the game.

I end up not really seeing any other hands all night and manage to cash out a £260 winner. There were 2 big winners on the night, one chap won £700 and the other £500, so my £260 profit was prolly 3rd best overall, closely followed by the Murg who made a house on the river going in with top set in Omaha and being sucked out by the mini wrap on the turn for the river to again duly bring the paired board for the win.

Didn't play online after and wont really be playing much for the near future because I have my mum and dad down this week and have bought a tile cutter and some tiles for our porch which I am going to clean up and make it look decent ready for selling in a year and a half.

Disappointing to see the demise of Burnley Mik, was one of my daily reads. Glad to see Amatay back on the wagon and also good to hear about Yorkie pud's life coming together nicely. Overall the vibe is good in the blogging world and the fish are still out there keeping you guys in rent and mortgage.

NL100 and Sports betting

2007-11-11T10:55:00.000-08:00

Yes as the title suggests I have played some NL100 on Party todayand ended up a $100 winner for the daY, I was $300 up but decided to take $200 and try to parlay it into a decent amount at NL400 level where i soon got stacked by QQ vs my 99 on a flop of 258. This 'management' of funds is much better than where i have been before, I actually cashed out the buy in figure and the 100 doll profit before I spun up the remainder at the higher level....a step in the right direction i think!

I have been ill as fcuk all weekend with the flu which i have had since Friday at work so I have been restricted to the sofa for most of the time, apart from watching my rugby team get slaughtered at home by a team we should have had the better of. I bought the Simpsons game for the PS3, seems quality....it is actually like watching the cartoon!

During this sofa time i decided to back my extensive footie knowledge and put my money where my mouth is...well for £5 anyway...actually 5.88 that was my Betfair rakeback from last month lolololol. I had a decent run yesterday and today betting on the english premiership and nailed the following bets:

Sunderland vs Newcastle - Draw
Liverpool vs Fulham - Home win
Aston Villa vs Birmingham - Draw (Last few minutes!!!)
Chelsea vs Everton - Draw
Chelsea vs Everton - Under 2.5 Goals
Bolton vs Middlesbrough - Draw
Man Utd vs Blackburn - Man Utd Clean Sheet
Man Utd vs Blackburn - Under 2.5 goals
Portsmouth vs Man City - 0-0 result coreect score
Portsmouth vs Man City - Draw
Portsmouth vs Man City - Away Win (this was the cover the other 2 bets)

So as you can see those were ALL of my bets for the weekend and from £5.88 I managed to cash off over £85.00 not bad for some knowledge of the game! I have left a small £4 on to try to build another mini betting roll and have it all on Real Madrid to win tonightfor a small £2.50 winner if it comes off. I will not take up sportsbetting in any way other than just to have a bit of fun on the footie and thats about it. I gave the hag another tip aswell on 3 games in an accumulator which would have come in at 4-1....might start posting some footie predictions and tips if i keep getting things right or thereabouts...watch this space. :-)

On the poker front I think i am going to continue playing NL100 or NL200 level full ring on Stars, PP and Full Tilt and spin up the winnings on the higher levels to satisfy my need for bigger action...only tho when i ahve cashed in some sort of profit from the lower tables and the starting roll.

Have bought Poker office which is a great software programme for tracking poker tables, your results, live stats on the table, types of opponents etc. http://www.pokeroffice.com Well worth the investment imo.

Monkeys playing for stacks

2007-11-07T05:22:00.000-08:00

So had a decent week on the live felt last week when the hag was over from the Czech. Ended up £600 up including the game we ran and a £400 loss in the big Friday night game at Wong's.

The online experience has been shocking again. I am playing with more disapline and control atm but am coming up against some massive hands in setup situations that I am not good enough to get away from. 4 set over sets on the flop in an hour were good for - 4 stacks as was q8 on a A8xx8 board when up against the slow played bullets add a flush over flush to boot and I am a big loser for that session. I have busted my full tilt roll of $600 start and bust a $600 Stars roll on Monday night so still have a lot to think about in terms of how I play my online game. My pre flop calling percentage is up at around 50% atm which is way too high and I am running into situations were I am destined to do stacks.

I have downloaded pokeroffice (http://pokeroffice.com) This seems to be a great alternative to pokertracker and has some much better features imo. I have done the 300 eval hands and will now buy the license, I believe it is around $70 which is fine.

I am again looking at investing in cardrunners after hearing some decent feedback about it a few posts ago, I just don't know whether it will actually add any value to my game because my reading of situations and general game play is up there with the best at any table when I am on form.....I'm just let down by times of madness, tilt and when I am replaced by a monkey at the computer for certain sessions....Monkeys are not healthy for poker bankrolls imo.

Also I heard that my Credit Card has been cloned and the fraud detection peeps are sending out a new one soon....no pokes until this has come through I guess....cnuts.

Plans are developing for the April trip to Vegas, prolly gonna grab a couple of nights in San Fran before and drive there in one of those big mustangs from Vegas, should be a wicked week. I f any of you are over there during this time let me know and we can hook up for some bevs and some poker.

Glad to see that Amatay has made the decision to go pro, seems like a great level headed (on the tarbs) player and should do well in his new career, I genuinely expect him to make 6 figures prof per year and really enjoy what is probably the hardest decision he has had to make in life so far.

Back to the drawing boards for me then, I will update again when the credit card has come through and I am back playing.

Adios

TV Murg

2007-11-02T01:19:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5Qb1IE9WNE

One of my poker crew was found on youtube a few days ago. The Murg won a tourney on Mansion for $0.01 about a year ago and was whisked off to Vegas to stay in the Caesers Palace and was entered into the 'PokerDome' tourney where the winner of each 6 handed shootout received $25k and the overall winner of the series a cool $1mill. Anyway the link is baove for the first segment of the programme. The most interesting hands that the Murg was involved in are below. 2 big hands where he makes 2 massive folds, one worldclass and one village class.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCm75B6bx0U Crazy lay down??!! 'what is he thinking?'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-J4bNc3uGU Commentators loved this one!!

What a guy, the Murg is indeed a global force. Holla.

Well the Hag is here and things are going well on the poker scene. I will leave it to him to update his readers with results etc. Some great stories on and off the tarbs this week and plans to visit the fullhouse in Reigate tonight then the big Friday night game at Wong's late/early morning after the tourn in Reigate.

Anyway this was really just a post to lord the murg, the king of the ocean and now a global force. GG

Guess I'm back.....

2007-10-23T13:15:00.000-07:00

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.

All Over

2007-10-15T05:27:00.000-07:00

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.

Standard big loss after a win

2007-10-10T07:25:00.001-07:00

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.

Surely not a weekend win?

2007-10-08T14:14:00.000-07:00

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!

Flawed Genius

2007-10-05T02:49:00.001-07:00

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

Self Harm

2007-10-03T02:41:00.000-07:00

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.

Very Low

2007-10-01T01:50:00.000-07:00

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.

Finally a small win!

2007-09-28T04:40:00.000-07:00

This will be just a quick post. Played Betfair last night and managed to win $440, 2 tabling 2.5/5NL. I was in for £500 at one point and managed to have a big hold up when I limped on the cutoff with KK to see a raise of the pot by the button and a call in early. This is why i like the move of limping in virtually all positions with KK and AA because it is so hard for your opponent to put you on the correct holding when you make this play, especially in the late positions like here. I re raised the pot to $120 pre, and the button raiser thought for 2 secs befoe pushing AI for $350 more. Now i have a decision. 4 hands. AK, KK, AA or QQ. Only one of these I am in bad shape against so I call. He tables QQ and I see a flop of JKA then the irrelevant Queen on the river doesnt help him. That would have been a sick one without the King on the flop and would have definitely sent me on monkey tilt!

I have some big leaks that i need to iron out of my game that i am really trying to do. One is the calling raises with cards that will get me into trouble if i hit part of any flop against a big pair or something. Like, for instance, JT. A powerhouse hand in terms of its straightening opportunities but an average hand to hit top pair, decent kicker with. This happened last night against QQ on a dry Ten high flop. I check raise the pot AI and get insta called by the over pair which holds up for $500. These hands really do get me into trouble as I am always going to make the powerplay moves when I hit a flop against a pre flop raiser. My aim is to lead into the raiser in furture and then they have to be good to re raise the pot and i find out where i am (most the time) when they re raise with the big hand. I had JT later on last night and did exactly this and ended up winning that pot uncontested after the pre flop raise.

I am playing tonight with the boys from work in the £20 buy in STT with half price rebuys, will probably get rinsed for a oner or something stupid in that kind of school.

I play to play alot at weekend as usual and want to have a decent weekend for the first time in about a month! We'll see I guess. I will play the bloggerment on Sun and will definitely improve on my last place finish of last week!

Only 4 weeks now until the big home game at mine. Table looks full at the moment with PC, Jules, Hag, Big Adam, Pook, Grant, Glen, and the set all confirmed and others pending. Should be a cracking game and there will definitely be a report on this blog after it in Early Nov.

I am thinking that maybe we as bloggers should all get together soon for a live tournament or home game somewhere and maybe do one very 6 months or something....if you guys could send me your thoughts on this that would be great.

Good to see that Amatay is doing well on his poker pilgrimage and that Burnley Mik has had a decent break and will be firing bullets again soon. I have read Yorkshire Pudding's blog as well and really like this one so I have added it to my favourites on the right hand side. Bluescouse is blogging again more regularly which is always a good read!

Jesus is dead!

2007-09-27T06:09:00.000-07:00

So Jesus is officially dead. I really tried hard to do the Chris Ferguson bankroll 'challenge'. Indeed it was a challenge for me and it lasted the best part of 2 days grinding 0.25/0.50 on Stars before I took the $300 to 2 2-4 games and spun the lot up in anger. Winning pots of $2 are of no interest to me at all. I obvoiusly need some massive BRM advice but this really isnt the way to go for me. I dont have the time to devote to such low limits and am playing bad on them trying to create action for bigger pots and thus losing my money.

I ended up losing about £500 at the weekend. I lost prolly $4k in pots that were beats which would have taken me massively up if they had held up after the money went in.

I have decided to stick with Betfair for the 2.5/5NL games and Stars for the tourneys. My bankroll has been desimated so wont play any laddies cruise tourns as promised and you can forget the Jesus Challenge for now...maybe if i go to the edge of my credit card i might have to re think this strategy. I am still up about $15k for the year, which is nowhere near where I want to be but is still proof that I am a winning player.....I need proof sometimes after dry spells.

Will probably play some more over the weekend with whatever rakeback i get from Betfair, should be +£200 so that will be a start up roll on there. Will need all the luck in the world at this rate.

Big Plans

2007-09-21T05:12:00.001-07:00

Ok plans have been hatched and here is the unveiling.

Firstly some pointers that I have picked up over the past few weeks, but actually probably knew all along.

I obviously need to stay away from 5-10NL because the game is too high for me and I don't play at my best in it. I do not have the bankroll either for this kind of game and I only ever seem to play this and 10-20 when I am giddy and tilted. I think I have probably lost $20000 playing 5-10 this year and don't want to lose anymore.

I am playing far too loosely in the games, constantly calling raises with 58, 8T, J9 and JQ and often re raising with them pre flop (which is a better move I think than calling). I am also calling 3 barrels with mid pair a hell of a lot and becoming a pay off wizard to someone who has a bear top pair. I am always looking for the miracle or hero call rather than assessing the hand properly and finding a fold on the last bet.

I am playing well for only certain periods of play and trying to win too much too quickly. If I don't double my buy in after the first hour I am looking for ways to do so and going for pots that certainly aren't mine, thus losing stacks on many an occasion. I need to settle into longer games with no external pressures on me to hurry up.

So here is the plan:

I will deposit $1000 onto Betfair and play normally with that on the 2.5/5NL game and try to score a result there.

I will deposit $250 onto Ladbrokes - First deposit in years there! I will use this to try to qualify for the poker cruise in Jan - which according to friends that have been on it is brilliant fun, this is a prize that I have always fancied winning but have never actually set a plan around doing so. I will play mainly the Sats for the daily comp and then try to qualify for the weekly ticket comp on the Sunday.

I will deposit $500 onto Stars and adopt a very tight bankroll management strategy here a la Chris Jesus Ferguson. I will not buy in to a cash game for more than 5% of this roll and will not enter an MTT that costs more than 3% of that roll. So this means I will be playing probably at 0.25/0.50NL games buying in for $25 at a time and not buying in for more than $15 on an MTT. So the main tourneys of note on Stars will be the big ones with the big prize pools, ie the Sunday $150 Guaranteed etc. I will really try to grind the Stars account up and always use this guideline when playing and see where it gets me. I will need to double it to $1000 to be able to sit in the 0.50/1NL games with a $50 half stack. That will be my goal come the end of the year to be sitting in 0.50/1 and 1/2NL cash games using this BRM method. Just to prove to myself and the doubters out there that I can do it!

I have a lot of work to do this weekend because we are tiling the kitchen walls and still have to put the remaining spotlights in the spare room so that will keep us busy. I aim to make my debut in the bloggerment on Sunday night, congrats to Mik who won last weeks tourney :-)

Also have hired a personal trainer, a cage fighter from Basingstoke named Rocci....how qualify is that! Aim is to lose 10 kg before Christmas with sticking to a decent diet and training 3 times a week, one time will be flat out personal training and the others will be my own work concentrating on rowing, weights and uphill walking to start. Will keep the blog updated with details on the heath side as well as the poker from now on. Might even put a before and after piccy on if it goes well....then you'll all be in trouble....keep your girlfriends and daughters away....oh yeah and your mothers, anything goes at the moment :-)

I will update this on Sun night or Monday with weekend results, hope to see a lot of you on the bloggerment, Sun. Be lucky.

Another Bad Loss!

2007-09-19T07:13:00.001-07:00

Another day another K done! Marvellous.

Busted £1.2K last night on 5-10NL on Betfair. I really need to re think my game and my life!

Plans will be up here soon but definitely gonna stop playing 5-10 for a while and start grinding 2.50/5NL on Betfair and pull up a stack on Stars for smaller games and MTT's.

Watch this space for the full plans moving forward.

In then out of trouble. Still down tho.

2007-09-16T07:38:00.000-07:00

Since my last post i have had some massive swings...mainly this weekend. I would post the hands but the big loss of yesterday was at the Murg's, one of the first losses i have had on his aging Dell PC. I ended up doing $3k yesterday on firstly 2.50/5 then 5/10NLHU on Betfair. It seems that whenever I have a good run on Betfair i have set up situations where i cant help but get my money in and lose.

One of the many was QJ, call a riase flop j53 all hearts. I have no hearts and $300 left in a 5-10 game. He bets $100 and i move in for the rest, he calls and tables TT. Immediate Ten on the turn for one of his perfect two outs (as he hasnt even got the ten of hearts). I also make a $400 bluff when an ace hits the river of another pot after showing strength pre and on the flop and get called by 44 on a board that contains AJK!!! Sick. My ultimate tilt hand was a push for $500 after a guy had opened for $35 UTG. Getting calling round the back by no less than the bullets, which hold even though i hit a 4 on the flop giving me a shed of light.

Then today I start off with a £500 deposit rather than my usual £250/300. I go straight to 5/10 again. I am really determined to beat this game like i have been doing with the 2.50/5 game. I seem to have had no luck at this higher level over the past few years when trying to progress up to it. Consistantly picking the wrong spots to get my money in and not holding up in the big pots that matter.

I manage to lose another £1100 after several hours of play holding my own against some of the regulars on Betfair and had a very long HU game with NOLUBE which lasted several hours also and ended up with only really the rake as a winner after he had been +$1.5k at one point and I had been down to my last $400.

Then as NOLUBE's dinner breaks the game i decide to find another challenger at HU on 5/10NLHU. URSOBAD was itting with a full buy in on one so i decided to pull up just under half of my roll for the day of $500. I manage to then take this up to a $4.3k high point and end up quitting on about $3.5k after he takes me off a big pot that he been reraised pre and bet the pot on the flop for $180.

A couple of the bigger hands from the seesion with URSOBAD are below:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1487725 Turn gives me lots of outs. I was actually winning!

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1487720 First big hand

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1487713 Hated the turn here. Auto pay off on the river though.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1487718 I wonder what he had here?

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1487735 If he three barrels here he takes it

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1487742 Cant see how he can call here. Perfect River

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1487744 I know my player by now....

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1487747 The biggest hand. Bit of a sick call??

So i hope you all enjoy the hands. It was definitely a rollercoaster session. I may play the Brit Bloggerment later, I dont know yet though because England are playing in the Twenty-20 World Cup and we are doing out the kitchen this weekend which has cost me £500 ontop of my poker losses. WE are getting under cupboard lights put in and controlled by the main switch....Looks well neat! Tiling the kitchen walls, and putting those funky spotlights in bathroom, kitchen and spare room. I will hopefully be able to post some pictures of the house soon as we have done loads to it in the first three months of being here.

Wardrobe and Bed Sofa will be here soon aswell for when the Hag gets here from the Czech Rep. Plans are still do do a mini poker tour, ending with a game at mine and a big reunion on the Saturday with old school friends courtesy of Facebook. Gold Curry and drinks are on the cards for the sat so that should be a wicked laugh.

Rumours about a trip to Vegas with work are gaining momentum at present and the likely destaination is said to be the Venecian which will be lovely. Alsoa work poker game has been scheduled for 2 weeks rime on Fri 28th to celebrate a good quarter of business. I should hit target this week and will try to push to 150% for the nice pay Oct pay, which will be nice because the Hag will be here. Check out this guys blog under a new link, very well written low stakes adventure. http://jacobhag.blogspot.com I cant be bothered to change the link of the right hand side!

Weekend Woe

2007-09-10T02:17:00.000-07:00

So as you can see by the title of today's blog that my proverbial conkers have been done this weekend. Just as I thought leading up to it. The weekend is always a make or break for me because this is where I play the most poker and the higher limit games.

So I did 250£ on betfair while watching the murg take down an Omaha MTT for just over a bag. Congrats btw to the murg who really has become a good tourney player in the last year or so with plenty of decent results live and online

Then we decided to go to the ever so average Pete's Palace in Camberley which resembles an old school canteen...but this canteen serves duck and sweet and sour and egg fried rice et al instead of the customary beans and chips of the afore mentioned eatery of yesteryear.

After Pete's palace we went to Pete's game in Bracknell which is a big juicy dealers choice game of mainly Irish and Omaha 4 card high. Before the cash was a little STT for £20 re buys. I get knocked out in great shape with AK all in vs. AJ. The murg promptly turned a jack first card out of the trap for my demise there. Shame because first prize was £260 and the game was weak. The only players were myself, Pete and Big Kev who made a televised final table several weeks before. Kev ended up carving the game in bits after my dismissal from the table.

So the cash started in earnest and the murg promptly got burned with AA53 in a 4 way pot for over £500. Flop 665 turn q and riv 5. Big Kev had called round the back for £65 pre with 5Q72 and then called Pete's £90 bet on the flop with that hand against Pete's rockets. So 2 players with the bullets and Arma with KK?? in the middle and Kev hits perfect perfect to take the full pot. A sick start.

I end up doing £500 in the game and leave at 3.30am. I have Q3c3Q and see a flop of 3cc. Big kev fold K5c?? and Gorby, a loose player, calls my AI with Ac7c9c? and manages to pull an unlikely club on the turn and it stays the nut hand on the river which duly brings a rag.

Saturday I don't play because my Nan come down to visit and we take her out to town then to bingo in the evening, some great prizes there. £1000 for some full houses and £100 per line etc. No joy for the binner crew though as we are also met by Michelle's brother and girlfriend and even they cant improve our fortunes.

Sun was a weird day. I start by winning £180 on BF in the cash games. I cash off and leave $11 for a 60 strong MTT that I end up winning for $200 which is always nice. Then I deposit onto Stars for the first time in 5 years and take $200 up to $550 start stacking a 2-4 and a 1-2 game then get bored and do the lot trying to bluff the bullets twice for my whole stack. I then move to betfair and pull up 3 times for £500 total and end with a £30 loss there after being £200 ahead at one point! :-(

I need to regain focus after a shocking weekend of action. I will redeposit onto Stars again and start playing the British Bloggerment on Sunday nights. I will use this account mainly for small sats and MTTs and aim to build slowly there. I will also be looking for a good sesh on BF, prolly on Tues night as I am busy for the rest of the week.

Weekend...

2007-09-07T04:23:00.001-07:00

Thoughts for the weekend.

Have my mum and dad coming to visit the new house and they are bringing nan down so i think a good plan will be to hit the Gala Bingo on Saturday night (my gambling never seems to escape me!) They do some great prizes there and if you get lucky and manage to scoop one you are looking to the thick end of a bag. That will always come in handy.

Dont know whether i mentioned it before but we bought a wardrobe from the Harvey's sale at the start of the week, i then went and won the £500 that it cost online in the 2.5/5 game which was a nice feeling!

I might be tempted by the £10 super add on rebuy at Reigate tonight. http://thefullhouse.co.uk. They usually get 70/80 runners so the top prizes are usually in the region of £1500.

Will definitely have a go online again tonight after a few days off. Hopefully I will manage to continue on the winning path, im sure we will see when i update the blog at the start of next week.

Plans to do the living room floor, and the garden as well as putting a big 6 foot fence up in the place of the little wire thing we have at the moment. We are looking to do all this come End October when both myself and Michelle should get decent pay packets from work. Michelle looks set to cap on her monthly target and I am in line to hit my quarterly one in my first quarter in the job.

Marching....

2007-09-04T11:49:00.000-07:00

So finally i think i have got my poker game together. I have been mainly playing 2.50/5NL on Betfair and doing pretty well (apart from a short blaze at 5/10NL which was a complete rollercoaster!)

I am up to about $20k profit for the year which is ok considering i have probably tilted more than that away - without monkey tilt I would probably be around $30k profit. I will attach some interesting hands at the bottom of this post so you can enjoy the 30min rush i had last night and the coolers and big decisions i was faced with aswell.

Work is going well at present and i still look like hitting target for this quarter, so am working very hard to make sure that happens which will give me a nice pay cheque for end October.

Ah the end of October...newsflash just in that the Hag is coming to visit from the Czech. We will have the sofa bed in the spare room set up by then and it will be nice for the hag to sleep on a bed rather than his usual couch option....well not really an option unless you include the hard floor in his choices of evening retirement. We will be holding the first game at my place on the Friday (2nd Nov) 1-2 Holdem NL with £50min/£200 max pull ups. Likely line up so far is Binner, Murg, Hag, Jules, Big Adam, Rivers, Wendy should be a great night of many laughs and hopefully some good poker along the way.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1444643 The start of the rush, bit of a sick call off here.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1444740 I got the rest several hand later...dead

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1444748 Part of the rush, another sick call off

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1444752 Think i played this cooler perfectly, saved me money due to good turn play and the obv check call on the river

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1444760 Another tester, must have been on good form to fold!

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1444766 A cooler for Totto, dont know how he doesnt do more here!

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1444770 Its easy to play the nuts!

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1444773 The turn to get me involved.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1444780 Should I call here against a well respected player?

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1444819 Drawing very thin sir....

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1444853 The power of the draw! :-)

Hope you have enjoyed the hands. Lots of ups and downs as usual but i feel that i am definitely more in control of game at the moment than ever before....it's probably trying to prove to the hag and the murg that I am a successful mid-limits player with a future in the game.....

We will see.....

No Poker, House stuff

2007-08-28T04:55:00.001-07:00

Just a quick update since my last post. No news on the poker front as I have been decorating my spare (poker) room. New paint and online poker setup, looking good now. The Bed Sofa will be here soon aswell so peeps will be welcome to stay over.

I intend to play some poker towards the back end of this week. I really haven't been putting in the hours recently. I am up just over $16k for the year so far and I think I have been playing on average 30 hours a month online. I really want to be playing treble that amount so will put in more on a concerted effort in the next few months before xmas. I am looking at a $30k profit year in terms of a target, but it can all go in one bad sesh for me so fingers will have to be crossed I guess.

The new job is going really well at the moment, hitting my target for the first quarter, which is nice and should mean decent money at the end of Sep/Oct. Might be off to Vegas in early 2008 with the company for a sales kick off but they are still deliberating where they will host the worldwide conference week. Fingers crossed again.

Having a quote done for my front garden to be block paved as a driveway, hoping for a figure less than £2k, other things in the pipeline for the house are:

New Lighting in bathroom and kitchen, including the lights under the cupboards.
Flooring for lounge
New fence for garden
Painting the kitchen and front room
Wardrobes
Heated towel rail
Turf and patio for garden

So there are plenty of things to keep me busy for the next year. Hoping to really improve the house then sell it on in 2 years time and move to a bigger 3 bedder.

Some hands....

2007-08-15T13:48:00.000-07:00

Had another decent result last night to go with Sunday's win. Ended up £700 up for the session, which only lasted for an hour. As I havent posted any hands for a while I thought id post some below from the past few sessions. Enjoy!

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1374440 AK wins small pots, J2 wins BIG ones! :-)

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1374446 Pot on turn and river were not good enough here....

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1374458 Think he had AK....any thoughts?

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1374472 Ah the check raise bluff, with the winning hand.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1374484 Dont know what was going through his mind here?

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1374491 Terrible call gift

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1374501 Can he call a reraise pre with 2-5?

On a great training course at work this week. An intensive sales strategy course leade by Jeff Hoffman or 'The Hoff' as he is now known. His company is Basho strategies http:\\www.bashostrategies.com Brilliant guy and basically the best sales training I have ever witnessed.

How do I get involved in the Brit Bloggerment, Burnley Mik, if you are there and you let em know or is it invite only?

I spoke to the Umpire the other day after he came back from Ukraine, Brighton are running one of their numerous poker festivals very soon so I might make the pilgrimage down there for some action. Will have to assess the bankroll situation and thoughts nearer the time.

Czech, Czech, All In

2007-08-12T13:38:00.000-07:00

So, Ive been a touch slack at updating this blog since my last post. I really had had enough of poker and was feeling really depressed about the game.

Things have got a little better since my last post with me winning £1500 online whilst in the Czech Republic, but then giving away £1k of it over this weekend before winning another £1.1K tonight before I posted this. Basically I went on full tilt over the past few days after being beaten by AA twice in short succession after flopping a top pair and on the other occasion a decent over pair to a low flop.

During my stay with the Hag in Czech I won 2 multi tourneys, only with limited runners tho, like sub 50 J and I won decent on the 2.5/5NL game on Betfair before spinning up $600 like you do on 5/10 trying to either get lucky or have a best hand hold up….neither of which happened….

We even managed to play a live tourney and cash game in the Czech in a rather dingy venue not unlike pulling up a table in the Oxford Circus Underground. The Hag finished second in the tourney after his A9 was beaten AI pre against A5 in the decided hand of the evening. I managed to win like 3 buy ins in the cash game after busting the tourney all in blind against AQ. I was low stacked before my blinds and had seen 5 hands in a row that didn’t even add up to ten….so I felt the poker gods might gift me some decent cards if I promised not to look. The only good thing about the cards that the almighty one dealt were that they were live against their opponent, the mighty looking Ace Queen. The flop was obviously high and my 6 high couldn’t even improve the board.

In the cash game, which was a very loose affair, I rivered quads as an all in opponent improved his top pair into a house, but the main pot was with 99 I made a small riase to be mini raised from the UTG opponent. An obvious call turned into poker heaven on a flop of 9K4. I played it as perfectly as one can play the second nuts against top pair top kicker and with all the money in on a non scary turn the opponent thought he had won with a third king on the river, even with the 99 tabled before the final street was dealt…..poker has a long way to come in Czech…..

So I end up spending £10 for the few days I was out there, which included eating and drinking out each day and some general present expenditure amongst other things. 5 bottles of aftershave were bought in duty free and I was off back to sunny (yes you heard right) England.

I hear that the Murg is on a cooler at the moment with second best hands all along, hopefully he will get back on the road to recovery soon. I didn’t manage to play the 100,000 MTT on Stars tonight but did have a crack at a 1.5K MTT earlier on BF, I had my A3h AI pre bet called (yes you heard right again) my KTo for my tourney life (if the opponent had lost he would have had a meagre 20 chips left……marvellous. The Hag is building his roll nicely, making sure he will never go bust again by playing micro limit cash thus funding his MTT shots on Stars.

Work has been good, ordered another 35 DVDs today as well and bought a Sofa bed which has to be made up and will take several months before delivery. We managed to get a great price on this at £499 reduced from £1k in a crazy Harveys furniture sale.

Time to go an catch a much needed early night.

Sick

2007-07-25T13:42:00.001-07:00

Right then as you can guess from the title of this post I have had another bad run. This time for £1100. Marvellous, another dent on the road to recovery, Probably not going to play now until the weekend or maybe until I am in the Czech Rep next week visiting the hag.

Hands have been sick:

JJ vs AK AI pre for $700, First card King.
Nut straight vs nut flush, most of money in on flop with the straight.
73 vs 93 in the blinds for a $1000 pot flop 739 obviously
and the one to cap it of T2, flop TTA, I bet $50 in a 2.5/5NL game, re raise AI for $250 more, I cover and call. He shows QJ! King on the river.

Bored and fed up of the game now. Time for a shower. Adios.

Back on Track....Home game soon

2007-07-22T13:09:00.001-07:00

Ok, Im back to where I was before I went completely giddy on the 10-20NL game about 2 weeks ago. Well actually slightly better off as I cashed 425£ off Sky Poker and 1400£ off Betfair after several decent sessions there. The last session was a killer tho as I bluffed off my first $250 on a re raise pre with A9 and a push on a 3 hearted flop and have my opponent call with AQh for the made nut flush. I then went onto the 5-10NL game on two tables and proceeded to take the roll down to $900 from $2000. I then went on a roll and nailed very decision correctly and take a big swing back up to $3500 total roll before missing a straight and flush draw in a $1000 pot and decided enough was enough and came off moments after.

Start my new job tomorrow morning, having to be in Reading for 8.00am isnt something that i am looking forward to after a month of gardening leave and of course poker. I also managed my first half decent live result on Thurs with a £200 profit obtained from the Stanley casino cash game which included both omaha and irish aswell as NL and PL Holdem.

I shall be hosting my first game in the new house very soon, be sure to listen out for news on that. Should be a good one and quite an occasion. Blinds will probably be 2-2 and we will play PL Holdem.

Big Swings....Like the ones in Giants Parks

2007-07-13T13:40:00.000-07:00

Time for an update people.

As you can see i am finally back online in the new house, which is good and bad news. Good news that I can use the internet to help me with the best man's speech for Petes wedding tomorrow....good luck mate by the way sure you and Offilia will be very happy together in your new house aswell. The bad news is that i have been so excited about playing that i have done my absolute pieces on 5-10 and 10-20NL holdem. I have been very tilted over the past 3 days doing crazy thing like shoving j2 and q3 AI pre against JJ and KK. I have had some beats along the way too AA beaten by 84 when the river brought in the straight, qj vs AsJs on a queen high board with 2 spades. Immediate service on the turn for another substantial pot.

Finally today i have managed to claw back some of the deficit, £1550 of it, still about 1.5K down tho for the first period in the new house.

I will be loading up my new DTD account very shortly, probably at the end of this month when I have received my Betfair rakeback. I have had excellent customer service from DTD after initially having some problems with depositing on their site. Twice Simon (Trumper) has called me and had a chat about high roller schemes, rakeback and helping me with my deposit. I really think they are doing a great job there up in Nottingham and hope that everything goes well for a start in earnest later this year for the new club.

So, I'm in the new house and have been here about a month now. Lots of painting and re decorating has gone on. New light (front and back), house number, bathroom painted and shower curtain on and at the moment I am in the middle of laying a ceramic tiled floor in the kitchen with Michelle's brother Alex, It looks really nice and I will post some pictures very shortly.

I am about to leave for Finchampstead, the big game is running there and is a mixture of Holdem, Omaha and Irish, big pots and loose action. I may not play, I may just do the taxi-ing of Peter to mine before his wedding day tomorrow.

Quick Update

2007-06-19T06:53:00.001-07:00

I have eventually moved into my new house, hence the reason for lack of a blog update in the past week or so.

Started to get on with the domestic stuff like painting bathrooms and fixing pipe work etc, bit of a nightmare but i suppose this is pretty standard when buying a new property.

I havent managed to get online at all and it will be about 3/4 weeks till Sky sort out my new broadband package which is very frustrating at say the least.

Did manage to scrape a game together round the murg's and ended up a $400 winner so that was a decent result after being all in with bottom pair that turned into trips on the turn in a 5-10 game.

I will be soon depositing onto DTD poker and have had some excellent customer service from simon and the team there, cant wait to get going with them and try to qualify for their fantastic high roller scheme, will post more on this as things progress.

Anyway time to roll now, will do a better update as soon as i get broadband in the house and will include some photos of the pad including hopefully the new internet/PC setup.

Home Sweet Home

2007-06-05T11:25:00.000-07:00

I have managed to gather a little bit of momentum since the last blog, which incidentally was the lowest point of my poker career to date. I lost a further £300 after the £3k and since then i have booked wins for £1.5k, £100, £200 and £500 just now.

More importantly I am no longer homeless! Ship! We exchanged contracts on our house yesterday and set a completion date for this Friday around mid day if all goes to plan. The removal van is booked, my mum and dad are helping us move and everything seems set for a relatively smooth ride.....so would seem. Watch this space for more details on the new house. I will definitely try to post some photos of it and my new internet set up when I have the time and money to sort it out.

Some interesting hands over the past few sessions I will post below, I'll start with a couple of omaha hands for a change.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1148864 Firstly how about this for a sick one on 1-2PLO. Started with $100 on there and ended up finishing on over 600 in less than 15mins! Nice return.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1148876 Bit of a sick first call by the chap Perry here, nice pair up on the end.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1148890 Defensive poker here from me then the value bet on the end when I know im good.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1148897 I think ive played this one perfectly....so does he! :-)

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1148912 A good decision pre flop then become massive on the flop to lose on the river.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1148916 Another PLO hand, all the money in when I have the nuts.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1148922 I get lucky, but with lots of outs twice.

So those are some hands mainly from the +£500 session. The Nitendo Wii arrives tomorrow morning so fcuking ship that! Looking forward to playing baseball and ten pin bowling aswell as tennis etc.

Probably wont update now for a while as I wont have the internet up and running when I first get in the new house. Gonna go for the Sky package with all the channels, telephone and internet, seems the best one around.

On another note I have applied today to be an affiliate for Dust till Dawn poker where if peeps sign up through me they will receive 30% rakeback and I will gain a very small percentage on top of that, watch this space. DTD looks set to become the major live and online site in Europe and the guys there have really done a great job so far in building and promoting this venture, good luck all at DTD.

Biggest Loss Ever!

2007-06-04T03:07:00.000-07:00

So, as you can see by the title of this blog I have just been on the receiving end of the biggest loss in one session of my poker career. $6,000 to be exact in one 3 hour session on Betfair playing tilted on the games from 2.50/5NL up to 10-20NL. Not a nice feeling at all coming off the back of major problems with my house leaving me homeless until it is sorted - hopefully this week.

Anyway I will post some hands from the session so you can see exactly how unlucky (on some) and how bad I played (on most).

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1145203 One big draw missed after the pot bet on the turn that i have to call.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1145205 A bit of 2.50/5 action

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1145206 I knew he had 'nothing' in this hand, thought even my King high was good.....think this was the real start of the tilty feelings

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1145209 More 2.50/5NL action

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1145210 sick river and sick bet by Tilty McGrilty of Tiltsville

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1145212 Another shocking piece of play.....its all coming back to me now in Celine Dion fashion.

Couldnt fins the hand where my KK is beaten by JJ all in pre for $2k with a Jack out on the first card of the flop, that was the beat that really sent me giddy :-)

Anyway dont know what to do with myself at the moment....feeling terrible about my play, I am homeless, the Nintendo Wii that I ordered last week hasn't arrived yet. Marvellous.

Until next time.....

King of the ocean

2007-05-30T14:55:00.000-07:00

Ok so it has been a little while since the last update. Overall the poker recovery has marched forwards with me constantly picking up small wins here and there just outweighing the occasional big loss (yes they are always big losses where I am concerned).

I decided to play live for the first time in a while on Monday. I drove down to North Camp to visit TC Poker for their £10 re buy tournament and loose cash action. Anyway I ended up doing £90 in rebuys and the additional top up in the tournament, I have never EVER seen poker played like this anywhere in the world, absolutely absurd. For example Everyone limps for 100 points and I look down on the BB and find AT off (A premium hand in this game as you will see!) So i well up for a few seconds contemplating the best way to play this 'monster'. I have 3.5k in chips and the average in the tournement is probably 2.5k so I am relatively healthily stacked. I decide to move in and let the shot takers dance for their chips. I get called UTG and called by Grandad G next to the UTG caller, the utg had about 6k and GG had 3k. Cards on their backs. 87 suited for UTG and wait for it....... Q3 off for GG. Anyway the dealer deals out a board that contained both an 8 and a 3, so my premium hand finished in distant third on that oaccasion.

Another tiem i decide to move in with AQ then get called by wait for it..... q3 suited this time to see a flop that contained a rosy red three. It literally was crap shoot poker and by the interval there was 90k on the table and we had 4 of the chip leaders in the whole of the tournament on it! Actually i must tell of one final hand before I move on to the freezeout stage. AK called AI pre flop by KQ and the KQ gentlemen hitting ALL of his measly 3 outs....yes QQQ onboard.....who said this was a game of skill.

So we move to the freezeout (I very nearly didnt due to sheer frustration) I build to about 10k and pick up JQ, call a limp raise and see the miracle flop 89T, I lead out for 1k, 3 callers. turn pairs the Ten and I lead for 4k, another 2 callers. River pairs the 8 for a board of TT889. Check, check, all in for 6k. I instacall in frustration more than anything and the bettor smakes a big sigh. He goes on to show an 8 for the hand. Marvellous.

I proceed to iron out £200 in the cash and decide its time for an early night. I go back online when I get in and win £650 for a £350 winner on the night. I decided to jump straight into a 5/10 NL game with 250$. I had built my stack up to around $400 when this hand happened:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1134092

I then lose a $600 pot on the river when a King hits against my top pair of Jacks. Afterwards i regroup and get involved in the battle of the kickers on this hand:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1134103

Im not going anywhere on the flop and decide the best thing to do is get the money in there and then. When he calls Im thinking that i need to hit my kicker or flush. Im thinking i have 3 jacks, 2 queens and the rest of spades as clean outs.....actually I have every card but a ten that isnt a spade.

The next day i proceed to iron out £500 in double quick time. I was in for £500 and recovered to being even but with all my money on a 5/10NLHU game. This hand was an absolute killer, thinking back at it i should move on the flop to find out where i am or definitely fold the turn when the pot is bet out again from first position. I put him honestly on KQ, KK or AA. Only one of those hands I was beating, so i silly move in on my behalf that cost me $1000.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1134130

Today i have recovered again though to book a win of £350, some hands of interest were:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1133988 check my misclick out on the river bet!

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1133991

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1134008 An ill timed bluff after missing my draw

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1134011

I am off to Wales now for a week as we are waiting for our house purchase to go through, completion date is next Fri. £20k was sent today as a deposit and between now and then we do not have anywhere to live so it is off the the parent's place for a holiday of sorts in south Wales.

Havent heard yet from the Murg out in Austrailia, heard he was due to be swimming with sharks. Attenborough wouldn't know who the predator was in a pool of sharks and Murgs, perhaps we have a new king of the Ocean?

Recovery continues....

2007-05-22T03:39:00.000-07:00

Right then lots to update since the last blog.

I have managed to profit about £2,000 since the last blog so things are finally looking up once again.

My plan is to drop down the limits from 2.50/5NL and 5-10NL to 1/2NL and 0.50/1PLO. After a good run to tend to go mad and do my nuts, usually on the Friday night on Betfair! So I think by dropping down the levels this will dilute the pain in terms of monies lost because I will be buying in for $100 on the 1-2 tables not my usual $250 on the 2.5-5 tables. Notice my continued trend of always buying in with half of the max amount, I don't know why I do this, it must be a psychological thing.

As promised in earlier blogs I am committed to improving my Pot Limit Omaha game and have been having good results of late on the 1-2 game as well as the 0.50/1 tables. I do find though that the 0.50/1 game is impossible to get anyone to fold pre flop, a raise to 3.50-6 dollars is nearly always called by all players as the ones round the back ate always getting favourable odds for their investment.

I got a phone call from the Professor the other day asking if I was adept at delivering speeches....to which I replied 'I guess....' He then went on to ask me to be best man for his July Wedding. This is truly a great honour and something that I am very proud to be part of. Unfortunately his wedding falls on the weekend that I had scheduled to go to Brno to visit the Hag, this has had to be put back to August 2nd and I am likely to be joined by the umpire who celebrates his birthday that weekend.

Ended up getting a ticket for the Champions League final but had to reluctantly give it to a mate who was going with his wife because of my house moving being imminent and flights being so damn expensive....last check was close to £1k for return to Athens :-(

I have played a bit of live poker in the last week, playing at Sovereign Poker in Farnborough on Wednesday for a £160 profit. Best hand of the night was A3o flop A37 all diamonds. Everyone called the fiver bet to see a turn of a black 3 for my house. 1st positions bets £25. I call after deliberating for a while deciding what my best course of action will be for the river. River brings a black 6 and the guy bets £20 into the pot which is now at about £100. I raise all in for £75 more and he calls with A6. A good river card to bring me my action.

Thurs I made the trip down to Brighton to visit the umpire, play a little online and see what action was happening at the Grosvenor Festival. The main event there was a 4 day £1,000 NL Holdem tournament, 300 runners and a prize pool of over £300k with £92k set aside for the lucky winner.

The Murg drove down to Brighton and we started off with the Umpire and I side by side online on Betfair, different tables and games with the Umpire playing mainly PLO and me favouring NLH.

I managed to profit £700 in 3 hours of play and we then decided to make the journey down to the Seafront to the Casino. I went straight up to the card room desk and put my name down for the £100PLH table and was informed that there was one seat remaining, which I duly took and sat in with 4 black £25 chips.

The table was full of all sorts of players, from the very young to the very old, black and white. My first impression of this table was amazement of how many chips were in play and how many of them were pink (denoting £100) Guys were sitting with stacks - yes plural of these and I counted a rough 13/15K on the table, obviously making my £100 very vulnerable.

Anyway I fold a couple of hands then pick up JT to a £15 pre flop raise, I call and flop the nuts with AKQ against a guys AJ. Quickly march onto £250 from the initial £100. Then the Umpire sits down at the table as a seat becomes available over the top of someone's unmanned stack. £500 is his pull up and I immediately notice the difference between our respective 'rolls'.

After about 3 hands I call a £5 extra bet because the whole table has called with the monster that is 62s. The dealer deals out a 623 flop giving me top and bottom pairs. I decide I am check raising all in on this flop. The umpire bets the pot everyone else folds and I raise all in for £150 more which the Umpire calls after umming and arring a bit. Turn 9, River 8. He tables 86o for the bigger two pair, another outdraw from the Umpire to the Binner....lots of history there! :-)

I feel my head go slightly hot after this as I pull up the further £200 in my wallet. This head heat lasts 2 hands (in which I call £25 pre flop with t6o!!) then I shout at myself internally to calm down and not to waste valuable money on shit calls.

I pick up AcJs to a £35 pre flop raise and decide to see a flop with 3 other players. Flop brings JK2 with 2 clubs. The turn is a Qc and all the money goes in with me against a loose player. His rag King holds for a decent sized pot and I am down to the felt in terms of money in the wallet.

I leave the table and make my way to the cash machine and withdraw £500 from there to sit back in the game with. I pull up £200 then whittle that down so have to pull up my final £300. AJ comes to me again and I see a flop of JT4. I have called £35 pre flop to see this sort of flop so I'm not in the mood to fold now when the loose player of the table bets £150. I move in immediately knowing he will call the remainder which he does. There is £600 now in the middle and the worse turn card in the world comes down from the Poker gods. a Q. He looks like he loves that card and I am resigned to losing the pot and take a quick £800 loss in a big game. River is a blank and I quickly table my cards hoping that maybe he is playing something that hasn't hit the board, I cant actually think of a hand that the queen hasn't improved. He shows J7 for one of the only hands I can beat and shakes my hand saying he is happy I have won. £600 with one pair is a rarity these days in the live games, have to go back to Reading Rugby Club back in the day for that sort of hand taking down that sort of pot.

The final hand of note from Brighton was my 66 and a board of 88769 against the Umpire's J8. That one made me another £250 profit for an eventual profit of £70 from the game. I decided to leave at this point. Only a couple of hours into the game but at my highest point.

We drove back to the Umpire's and I managed to negotiate another £700 profit online from a 1-2 game and a couple of 2.50/5 games for an overall profit of 1.5K for the night.

I travelled to the new Luton casino on Sat night for the £5k Guaranteed £20 re buy tournament. I saw no cards whatsoever in the tourn and ended up finishing in 75 out of 85 runners. I sat down in the £250NLH cash game and ended up losing that 200 quid when my T9s didn't improve on a board of J862 with 2 spades. I bluffed £85 off on the blank rivered 2 and was called by a tight player with QJ. Earlier I managed to lose with a house of sixes on a board of 69373 to a pre flop raised 99! sick.

Looking to play again soon and will post some hands as soon as I have uploaded them on my home PC.

Recovery session

2007-05-08T03:41:00.001-07:00

So the recovery starts in earnest with a heads up bowl stake match against the murg. 0.25/0.50NL cash game where the murg proceeds to luckbox 4 stacks out of me by hitting slightly better than me this was topped off with 8 high winning a $35 pot (stacks are only $25). I moved in with 53s on a k2h7h board, called by the 8 high flush draw and it remaining massive after the river drew a blank.

I decide to play one 2.5/5NL table while im playing the murg to try to make the session worth while in terms of profit.

I am up to $450 from $250 on that table when I take on the murg again on another small limit hu table. I take 2 stacks off him there including a lucky river for my A8 against his 45 on a A245 board with a 2 on the end after the money went in on the turn.

I then turn the original $250 into over $2k in an hour, good reading of the table and some nice hits like AK all in pre against JJ with a King on the flop.

AA won $300 in another pot when my pot bet was called on the flop and turn.

Other hands were good but cant actually remember them at the moment, might post some later when i'm back at home with the hand histories.

Managed to get round to sorting out all my DVDs prior to the house move at the end of May, I cant believe how many I have managed to accumulate in the last 3 years, incredible!

Lots of stuff to look forward to in the next few months:

England vs Brazil at Wembley have a ticket for that
Liverpool vs AC Milan in the Champs league final, am in the ballot for a ticket for that.
Long Weekend in Brno, Czech Republic visiting the hag for some poker and drinking
The Professor's stag night, will be Laurent Perrier all the way
Moving into my first house!

Will keep you posted.

Poker Pig

2007-05-06T13:57:00.000-07:00

So the weekend hasn't gone entirley to plan as I witnessed one of the worst games in Premiership Football history with Liverpool making 9 changes from their regular first team and Fulham looking every bit a 2nd division team.

I lost £650 online on Friday night to a mixture of 2nd best hands and badly run bluffs. One hand of interest and the final nail in my Friday night coffin was j2s in a 5-10NL game, everyone calling the mandatory $10 raise so there so 120 in the pot when the flop brough TQK with 2 spades. An aggressive player bets $50 utg and i move in for another $200 on top. Everyone passes behind back to the orginal bettor who wells up for 15 seconds and calls. The fourth and fifth streets bring utter blanks and his A8s wins with the high card. This sort of situation has been very typical of my form of late, lots of second best hands with no help for me as the dog.

Saturday morning I end up £350 down after a comeback late on.

I play again on Saturday evening after the footie round at Murg's house a typically good venue for my online results recently. I cash on £350 onto betfair and take that up to $3700 in 2 hours. Several hands of note are:

I have 44, call a raise of the pot pre to see a flop of A45 with the 45 being of spades. FP bets $30, i raise the pot to $120 and then the button re reaises all in for $450 total. FP folds, I call thinking im ahead to 2 pair or a big ace. He has indeed got an ace but a suited A9 of spades. He misses i hold up for $1000 + pot and suddenly my luck seems to be swinging to the good again. A couple of other hands that were interesting were KQ vs KJ on a King high flop for $600 and a bluff picked off with one pair for $180 on the river.

In another good hand I call a pot raise from a tight player with T8s to see a flop of TT5, he bets pot, i smooth call and the turn is another low rag. He pots again and I move in for the difference, he has 99 and the river doesnt help him.

I saw a sign by my local social club this evening saying that there was going to be 'poker' there tonight from 6.30pm onwards. I take a walk over there at 9.00pm just to see what the game is like and it turns out to be one of these annoying 'play for points not for cash' games. I probably the most annoying to watch poker game in the history which was shown by a player calling a bet of 200 another player raising 500 in total, the orginal raiser calling then the orginal caller of the first raise deciding to re raise another 200 ontop of the 500 and it being allowed to go without any objection! Incredible....at least if these games are to be run around the country then at least play by the correct rules.

My dismay was confounded when what can only be described as a warthog in seat one caught a favourable river to be followed by an outburst of whopping and snorting as if she'd won the lottery. Heads turned towards the beast but no one seemed bothered that such an animal was sitting in a public place drinking and playing cards....perhaps this could become the norm in years to come with animals like trained apes and monkeys playing in the WSOP.....just maybe.

It's only on loan...in ancient Greece We'll bring it back home!

2007-05-03T03:22:00.000-07:00

I had a brilliant night in Liverpool on Tuesday for the Champions League Semi Final. Left Camberley at 11.00am and was in the Sandon pub singing the anthems at 15.30. I had a great view of the game, 10 rows back in the main stand on the 18 yard line of the Kop end goal. Brilliant. Left the ground at 11.30 after nearly an hour of post match singing and celebration. An atmosphere I will never forget.

Cashed off my monthly rakeback from betfair last night, £230. The comeback will now start. I need to build a decent roll for the Czech Republic trip in July and ready for the house moving at the end of May.

I am toying with the idea of playing some PLO in the next few weeks, maybe low stakes at 0.50/1 and 1/2. Seems like a very mechanical game as opposed to the game based mostly on judgement that is holdem. Omaha really is a game where your holding counts for everything and you are either drawing to a monster/nut hand or already have the made hand....there isnt much in between. Will keep everyone posted on those developments.

Going to watch Liverpool away at Fulham on Sat which will be my first ever prem away game......its usually so hard to get tickets for the away section of premiership games due to the small allocation so I have been lucky that they were available on general sale.

I have also won an England vs Brazil ticket for Wembley in an online ballot, those tickets go on sale tomorrow at 11.00 so thats my morning taken up hitting the redial button!

Tomorrow night should be a game at Tadley supporting the Umpire who has decided to run a Friday night game. Should be £1-2NL HU so will probably take £300 for that and hope to book a win for drinks in Fulham on Saturday.

Until next time...adios.

Getting Bored of Poker....

2007-04-29T01:57:00.000-07:00

So in the end I decided against the loan of £500 from the professor and decided instead to rest my eyes on the corner sofa until 6.00am when the game eventually broke. I awoke yesterday at 16.00 and decided to grab an hour online and proceeded to lose £320. One hand of not was T7 on a flop of 96K, I call a small bet hoping to spike the middle pin 8 for the nuts and it duely appears on the turn giving me the nuts. There are 2 spades on the board now and the original bettor pots the pot, I instaraise him all in and he calls quickly with k7s. The river brings the almighty deuce of spades for the flush and another $500 goes in the blink of an eye.

I wake up today for another online battle and proceed to iron out another £350 in an hour. A couple of ill timed bluffs and a couple of rotten beats and second best hands send me packing.

I am really considering the worth of the game at present. It just seems to be a constant battle against variance and my tilt factor. I win 5 grand in a month then do it the next sort of thing. I think my battle plan next time I have a good month I will move down the stakes for a period to reduce these sort of swings.

Anyway I have been given the go ahead to go and see the Hag in the Czech Republic some time this year, so things are looking up. I am still waiting for my mortgage to come through and am due to exchange contracts for my new house at the end of May, will keep you posted on progress.

A bored and demoralised binner signs out.

Online and the big Game

2007-04-27T19:18:00.000-07:00

So another day of ups and downs. Im in for £700 online and take £250 to a $5-10NL game, turn that into $2100 when a player that has moved in cold for $500 pre flop before decides to repeat the act. I look at QQ and call quickly. AAJ on the board and i'm playing AK for a $1000 pot, marvellous. I finish that session £60 down as I cash off $1400 or so.

Then the murg and I travel to the big game in Bracknell and proceed to lose £600 in 2 hours and only a bowl of Beef chow mein to show for it, if Carlsberg did chinese food this would probably be the most expensive chinese food around!

I play online whilst at the game and take a deposit of £250 up to nearly $3k in the same time as my nuts are being done in the live game. So anyway I show a £700 profit for the day as we speak (at 3.30am).

The professor has offered to tick me a monkey so I may take him up on this before the night is over, omaha isnt my strong point to say the least but there is value here.....we will see.

The Dog hand....

2007-04-27T03:50:00.000-07:00

I had a terrible session last night and ended up £1k down after about 2 hours total playing 2.5/5nl and 5/10nl on Betfair. Hands that I can remember were KK raise the pot pre flop get a caller and a board of 885, all the money goes in with me up against 89, no help and im down a stack in the first few hands. I then promptly do another stack as Bluffy the Vampire Slayer becomes of me and I move in and get called by second pair.

I end up migrating to a 5/10NL table sitting with $500. One hand of note was QQ at the back. First position raises to 35, 3 callers I raise the pot and get 2 callers that see a flop of J63. I bet the pot and everyone drops for a nice $600 excluding my bet.

The defining hand of the season reads like this. I have AA and 900 in front of me. I check raise the pot pre and get 2 callers with 500 in the middle. The cards are dealt to the tune of K26. I bet the pot in first and get re raised for a further $80 all in by the original pre flop raiser. The button folds and I know that I am calling this last 80 dollars against a king of some sort. Probably KQ,KJ or even AK. The invisible online dealer man turns a 9 then a ten on the river and the dog hand claims the 1.7K pot. Woof Woof.

Bankroll now at £1.7k- so will try to claw that back this weekend in a big live game tonight with the likes of the Professor, Chinese Tony, The Wong, Murg et al.

Update Time

2007-04-26T06:07:00.000-07:00

Decided it was time for an update to this blog due to taking some lyrical inspiration from some fellow Betfair chums met at Duffs home game last weekend.

Well what has been happening in the life of the Binner since last post 2 months ago? Quite alot actually.

Buying a house which is due to complete at the end of May
Had a profitable March for about £5k
Done most of it back in April :-)
Had some sick hands and have been playing well above my bankroll at 10-20 on occasions.

So the details are hard to remember really so will give details of some of the hands along the way.

I'm in for £1150 one Saturday afternoon on the 2.50/5 and 5/10NL HU on Betfair. I receive a big beat heads up with what I can only describe as 'a limit holdem player' playing NL, you know the ones....check call, check call, all in....call with third pair....... that sort of opponent and man not to be bluffed, one of life's non believers....lol he was probably a woman! Anyway here is the link for the hand http://www.runittwice.com/gamedetails.aspx?ID=LBJRBBK5730267 I think that I played this one perfectly, unfortunately the dealer dealt the worse possible card on the turn to leave me clasping thin air and the two fat ladies left in the deck.

I then migrate in true binner fashion to a bigger game, a norm for me when im doing my nuts lower down, get it back in double quick time type ideology. Proceeded to play no nonsense holdem for 4 hours at one 10-20NL table which had me down to 340 dollars left on 3 different occasions. The hand of the session was here http://www.runittwice.com/gamedetails.aspx?ID=CPMHITE3278305 where my AA held against QQ for a close on $4k pot. I hated the instacall from him on the flop and hated TTOTT even more....(The ten on the turn for those unknowing). Anyway ended up coming off that table at a shade under $5k for a healthy profit for the session.

We ran our Saturday night home game which ran from 9 till 4 after 5 'definates' dropped out on the day, ended up £11 to the good there after losing several £100+ pots to the Umpire at the end of the night.

Last Fri I played in 'The Big Game' no not the Bellagio DC game, the Bracknell round of each game. £3-3PL Holdem and Omaha. At the heat of the night there where roughly 6/7K worth of chips on the table with the local legend Chinese Tony plumping up his stack whenever it fell below £1k. I was in 50/50 with the Murg, he played the omaha and i played the holdem.

We lost a pot holding AhQh64 on a board of 5h7hQs2c

Up against a bear Q5 we managed to pull on offsuit deuce on the river for QQ22A and a losing hand. So many outs and the blankest of blankey blanks hits the end.

We also managed to lose with aces vs aces vs kings

King first card to leave us chasing dreams......

Later on in the evening, at probably 5 in the morning, I came downstairs from a break of nature to find all our money in the middle and Chinese Tony contemplating a call for £200. the board read 2c4s8cJd, I ran round to see the Murg holding 8853 no clubs.Tony called pretty quickly for someone calling £200 on a draw with only one street to come. I knew before he turned his hand over what he had.....the baby flush draw....I start to break out into sweat, The Murg is motionless, hardly breathing. I wonder if he has passed out behind his cheap mirrored glasses. Trish the dealer burns and turns.....a Jack. 8's full...must be good.....send.....Suddenly the Murg bursts into life like a man that has overslept for work and is awoken by the postman. Tony has indeed just got a baby flush draw and the £750 pot gets shipped to the animated Murg.

I take over the holdem round and march us on to over £900 where we decide enough is enough and will take a £200 profit each after being in for £480. Players seem to scowl a little as we leave with a chunk of the chips in play, we had to leave at that point because otherwise it would have been an 11.00am job.

In the last week i have managed to lose £1.5k online and on tilt....just absolutely giddy, terrible play and terrible decisions blah blah.

I have taken a challenge by the Hag to turn $44 into $444 in the quickest possible time. I will play tomorrow night online till 11 then go to the Bracknell Game hopefully with a win booked and under my belt. Will keep you all posted on the results of the challenge. I will probably sit and go for $5 until i get to $150 then spin it up on the cash tables. This could be the start of many bets of this nature as I am constantly claiming greatness in all levels of the game.

Will update early next week folks.

AB

777 is the new 666

2007-02-08T02:18:00.000-08:00

Woke up today and the whole world was covered in a layer of white, beautiful to the eye but not good news for the Green Submarine (my adored Peugeot 106). Decided to take the day off work and play some online poker with others that have given up the office to take on the poker world.

I started off brightly on 2 $2.50/5NL tables, winning about $300 with some solid poker and some good choice bluffing when it was needed. I then pick up 77 and decide on the turn that seat one's bet of $12 into the pot smells of weakness so I raise to $42. A sneaky chappy round the back decides to call the bet and the orginal bettor folds graciously. The river brings a flushing card....the next thing i know i have pushed my entire stack into the middle to be greeted by a LOL by the player to act then a half timer call with the A5c for the nuts. Marvellous....a $700 pot goes to a more deserving man than me.

I decide to reload for another £100 and am sitting on 2 tables now with $192 and $100 respectively. I pick up JTd on the $100 table and limp, everyone limps and the sb raises to $42....he only has another $70 or so left so I decide via tilt to move in hoping that i am a 50/50 shot against a small pair. He calls and the flop brings a KQ then a 9 on the turn and its all over, he shows 77 and leaves.

I continue playing quite loosely and pick up KJ which is worth a pot bet pre in this state of mind. A loose player calls next to me and the flop obliges with a J52 texture. I bet the pot, he calls, pot on the turn when another rag hits, again another call and then an all in on the river which is called...I am now fearing Jrag but i scoop the $440 pot.

I build my stacks on each table up to $600 and $700 when i pick up KK. I check raise for the pot to $55 which is caller by one player. Flop comes J89 with 2 diamonds. I check trying to slow this pot down as my opponent has $450 left in front of him which would cripple me. He moves in cold for the lot and I have to pass....I think i may be ahead but at best a 6-4 shot or maybe even a big dog against a made hand on the flop. Interesting hand this one, I dont think i played it correctly, maybe I should have bet the pot on the flop to see where i was, by checking i allowed the player to push against me with a flush draw, AK or something like AJ.

Anyway i build my stacks upto $800 and $700 when i manage to lose a monster pot on a board of 745 with 2 spades and I am holding the dreaded 77, I am up against A2s as it turns out, all the money manages to find its way into the middle on the flop and the Aces hits the turn and a spade on the river for a $900 pot. What can I do about these pocket sevens! The other week I lost a $2000 pot with 77 vs 76 on a flop of 74T turn 5 river 3, all in on turn. That was probably the most sickest pot i have ever come across and had the misfortune to be in.

After my latest beat with the 777, which indeed is the new devil hand in my book, i decided to cash off the roll on Betfair and keep the £230 profit for the day, which is an ok days work I guess but could have been another £500 better off had the black spade of justice not fallen on fifth street in my biggest pot of the day.

Credit card down to £1400 now, looking to get it under the grand mark in the next few weeks before my 3 day poker binge in mid February.

Adios Amigos

Rollercoaster

2007-02-06T08:45:00.000-08:00

Ok so in the past week I have been on an online rollercoaster ride with the wheels quite literally coming off....and I still think that I can succeed in this game.

I have been playing 5/10 NL on Betfair and been playing a very loose aggressive game and being doing my pieces all over the place. I lost £1.1k on Friday night including last months rakeback, this was a sick result and i definitely tilted away over £500. Several ill timed bluffs like a re raise on the end of a board showing A58q6 with A2 against QQQ, the re raise was $373 more after he bet the pot (around $100), he called realtively quickly with only 3 hands beating him....first stupid move of the night.

Another hand that i can remember was me making a pot raise pre with k8o, getting 2 callers and the board coming down 873, me check raising the player all in for $400 more with top pair and him instaclling with 64 and hitting a 5 on the river after I turned what i thought was the miracle King.

The last hand was just one of those decisions in NL holdem that you get faced with all the time if you are playing against proper NL Holdem players, the all in or fold decision. These types of decisions can make heros out of us or leave us clinging on the hope of the 3 outer.

Basically it ran like this. I have $700 in front of me with KJo, guy bets the pot, I call the 35 then it gets raising the mandatory to 70 round the back, a strange move here on a 5/10NL table and it made me think a small pair or ak so i call for what i think may be a 3 outer.

Flop is perfect for me including a Jack and 2 small cards. Original bettor checks, i check and the raiser bets the pot for over $200. I have over $600 left in my stack and have a big decision here, either raise all in and be against AK, a bigger pair than jacks, or something else that i havent considered like small pp trips. So i decide to push the remaining $600 or so into the middle and hope my read on the pre flop raise is correct.

It isn't, he has the boots and calls swiftly, the turn immediately brings a rocket to leave me dead. Marvellous, how can I put him on AA with the min raise against 2 guys with over $700 each in their stacks....the play worked perfectly for him but surely you want to be commiting more pre flop with the aces in that spot, espescially when the stacks are deep at the table. Your thoughts on this will be appreciated.

I went to bed a very unhappy soul, knowing that i have tilted away a big chunk of roll and with nothing in the bank and lots on the credit card the future did not seem bright.

Next day i decided to go for broke and play fearless 5/10NL poker with an initial buy in of £250. I took it to £820 in half an hour so that eased the pain somewhat. The big lick 96 held in a pot for $1100 when the flop brought 87T, all the money went in at that point and the worse possible turn and river popped up - running JJ. So unless I was up against 2 pair I was dead or spilting at best.

I won the pot! couldnt begin to imagine what he had? maybe top 2 or something of that ilk, anyway that pot sent me on my way to nearly £600 profit for the session and a dent out of the nightmare the previous evening.

I think i will carry on playing 5/10NL tables because i do believe i can beat the game, we'll have to see in the weeks coming. These will be some of the most important weeks of my poker career to date, I have no roll and am literally going to go for broke on the whim that i believe i am good enough. Watch this space.

AB

Update

2007-02-01T05:16:00.000-08:00

Right then thought it was time for another blog update, has been nearly a month since I have got my arse in gear enough to write an update in this rather flimsy lightweight blog account. I think the main reason is the fact that the poker has been terrible over the past month and this culminated with a £750 loss at Soverign Poker in North Camp on Sunday...was a £5 re buy tourney aswell....ended up doing my nuts in the £50NL cash game.

Played really well in the £5 re buy and only spent £5 total in that, every single time my money went into the middle I was a favourite to win the pot, JJ hit quads by the turn on one board and 88 beat off AQ and QJ AI pre in another. Eventually I lost a big race pre flop with a5 vs KQ after I decided to re raise a weak player that i belived to have a weak ace or kq, kj etc. He called and the flop obliged and duly brought a Q, another case of the flop gods defying pure mathematics (im sure there is a god of flops out there, we have gods for everything else.....so why not!).

I have taken my credit card from 1600 to about £400 then back to £1750 and now it sits on just over 1200. Really need to get this down before James gets here from Czech Rep towards the end of feb so we can play some good live action. Overdrawn in the Bank aswell now which isnt good considering I have just been paid, so will have to rely on the credit card from petrol and monthly expenses.

Out this weekend for a friend's birthday in Fleet, promises to be a night of much mirth and merriment. I enclose the invitation/itinery:

Team,

Most of you know already, but we can't do the do-nut thing anymore because the ski slopes are full. Tried over at Aldershot and Bracknell too but no luck. Therefore healthy physical will be replaced by drinking and watching others play sport.

So the new plan looks a little like this:

Saturday 3rd Feb 2007: Dave's Birthday 2007 - Drunken Sport-a-Thon & Fleet Pub Tour.

1:30pm Meet in the Links for some Lunfast(*1) and a few early afternoon pints / G&T's(*2).
2:30pm Retire back to Casa-de-Hayward(*3) to begin drunken sport-a-thon simal-cast(*5)(*7).
3:00pm Chelsea begin 4-2 loss(*4) to Charlton.(*6)
4:00pm England kick off their 6 nations campaign with an impressive performance from returning rugby superstars including number 10 Johnny Wilkinson, number 13 Mike Tindall and number 11 Jason Robinson who will lead England to a massive 140-7 victory(*4) over the Scotts majoritively made up of power house driving run's from Tindall, lightning speed breaks from Robinson and drop kicks from Sir Wilkinson.
5:15pm Arsenal begin 3-1 win(*4) over Middleborough
7:00pm Official end of drunken sport-a-thon. Music, drinking games and high sprits to commence.(*8)
8:00pm Fleet Pub Tour commences. Start at the Heron on the Lake. 8:00pm sharp. (1 pint, one shot)
8:30pm The Links (1 pint, one shot)9:00pm Emporium (1 pint, one shot)9:30pm Propaganda (1 pint, one shot)
10:00pm Arthur(1 pint, one shot)
10:30pm The Oatsheef (1 pint, one shot)
11:00pm Super Jaxx V3 (Many many many vodka's)
2:00am One happy drunken mess of a 23yr old Dave. Whoop Whoop.(*9)
3:00am Kebab from Tiger Woods
3:30am Cool down to evening, guests to either continue drinking or find corner to sleep in.
4:00am Dave's drunken birthday threesome TBC(*10)

(*1)lunfast is a cross between breakfast and lunch and is widely considered to be the new 'Brunch', only better and more fun.
(*2) Only seriously cool people can get away with drinking G&T in public (i.e. myself and Stephanie Udall). Just ordering a G&T, let alone consuming one, without being seriously cool first can lead to rapid loss of social value and could lead to a life time of loneliness a drug addiction. You have been warned.
(*3)Casa-de-Hayward also know as Big Dave's Love Shack, Super Dave's Super Sexy Palace of Fun and Good Times and as 9 Bramshott Place Fleet Road Fleet Hampshire GU51 4QF.
(*4) Scores provided for entertainment value only and should not be used for or considered to be a real prediction of the future. The management accept no responsibility for loss of revenue or personal belongings due to bets being places on these scores.
(*5) Sporting Simultaneous Broadcast where either by using the picture in picture or a second television we will be able to watch all of the days sporting events at the same time despite the Rugby clashing with the Footy.
(*6) Saturday Afternoon Games are not broadcast on Sky Sports, this event will either be pay per view or not broadcast at all. In these cases we will either pay for the game or switch to sky sports news centre for live updates. Other alternatives during this time are to display Sky Sports News on one tele and that mornings Soccer AM on the other.
(*7) You will need to provide your own beverages for the afternoon drunken sport-a-thon however snacks and party food will be provided.
(*8) Weather permitting other activities for the day to include garden rounder's, bike rack walking (lofty, sit this one out) and twister.
(*9) Happiness guaranteed. Dave being coherent or awake however cannot be guaranteed.
(*10) TBC = To be confirmed. Those wishing to take part please send height, weight, bra size and other vital measurements / statistics to ??@hotmail.co.uk. Winners will be notified in writing 24 hours before the event. Once an application is submitted this will be held as a legally binding contract of consent.

Kind Regards

Birthday Boy

p.s. I want balloons.

Promises to be a good night methinks.....

Until next time, AB

Resolution let down

2007-01-04T14:27:00.000-08:00

hmmm, already broken one of my new years resolutions. Have played 2.50/5 and 5/10 since my last post. According to Poker Tracker I am $1300 up since 12th December, not bad I guess. I received £65 from Betfair for rakeback for dec and spun it up to $500 on a 2.5NL table just now before doing the whole lot when a chump on the table sent me on absolute tilt. Realised i was on tilt when i was back down to $190 so should have come off then. Terrible. Bad mood management.

In general my play has been a lot more consistant since i have started blogging and recording my results in poker tracker.

Best friend James will be down from Czech Rep in February so gonna wait until then to blaze live, probably do Reading Casino and TCs Poker. Distinct lack of live roll though at the moment because no commission due from work and a lIverpool Trip on Tues to watch Liverpool vs Arsenal in the Carling Cup Quarter at Anfield.

Anyway, until next time.....

New Years Poker thoughts

2006-12-29T09:55:00.000-08:00

Right then...new year....new goals. First thing is first I am going to commit to keeping this blog updated regularly, every few days I reckon. I am really looking forward to 2007 think it has all the makings of a great year for me with my new job at Cisco and my first trip planned for vegas.

So over to my poker goals for 2007.

1) Do not go broke, like Ben Grundy puts it this should be the first goal on anyones list!
2) Build a $10k Bank roll for 2008
3) try to limit my anger management and TILT, If i feel het head syndrome then it is time to come off and reset with a fresh head later.
4) Keep a dedicated record of ANY wins and losses no matter how large or small, I havent been a winning player recently and I believe that I am skilled enough to succeed in the game so now need to proove this to Mr HSBC Gold Card.
5) dont play anything over 2-4NL, have done alot of money playing 5-10 and 10-20 over the past 6 months, time to be more professional in my bankroll management.
6) Qualify for a major tournament via a sattelite

I think these goals are achieveable for sure if I get off to a reasonable start in January. I only want to be playing about 10 table hours per week really and will be mostly online because of work commitments. I definately want to cut my teeth in the MTTs as there can be some excellent value there and some big pay days. First thing is first though I need to pay off the credit card which stands at 1250 as I type then will settle down on a couple of sites and start to build a bankroll.

I have started using http://www.pokerdominator.com/ to track my results, this is a pretty good poker tracker and is free to use which is always nice going into January my last 7 sessions have been good winning $725 including a $500 loss and a $150 loss in a live game at TC Poker in Farnborough.

Anyway time for a Fish and Chips now so signing out until next time....

Unbelieveable 5 hands!

2006-11-28T12:20:00.000-08:00

Well then it has been a while since I have updated this blog and alot has happened in the month that has gone. My games have varied from 1-2 up to 3-6NL and I have been playing a mixture of Partypoker and Laddies. To be fair I have had a rough time of things in the past month and have actually considered giving up the game. One hand to talk of was the following:

I have KK utg, call, called all round by 4 other players in a 1-2nl game, I am sitting with about 300 so up 150 for the session.

Flop the nuts with K36, 2 diamonds, bb bets, I call, button calls. Turn is a 3, still 2 diamonds and I have the big house. Call another bet, again called by the button. River is an offsuit 8. anyway all the money ends up going in and I am up against 3333. Sick

In another big hand of note, I hit a runner runner 2nd nut flush only to be shown AQs for the nuts, thats another 300 dollar gone. Did a lot of tilting in between these hands and had other hands where KT beat my AK all in pre and several other hands that got busted in a big way.

So anyway, pay off my credit card with savings and decide to give poker a miss....at least thats what I thought!

I wouldnt say im an addicted gambler, but i dont think i can now leave the game due to the +ve that it brings and the nice sideline that the money gives me. So i amback in the game now and about 600£ up for the last week. I was involved in 4 of the weirdest (is that a word.....if not should be!!) hands I have ever seen, basically i managed to win over $1K in 4 hands on a 2-4 table, all against the same player! Here they are below:

JOHNO14 posted small blind ($2)
> pbenny1 posted big blind ($4)
> MindBender__ is waiting for the big blind to play
> Binner brought $186.39 to the table
> Game # 628,113,973 starting.
> Dealing Hole Cards(Jh 9d )
> thebkawz folded
> Gozza1 folded
> Binner raised for $8
> JOHNO14 folded
> pbenny1 called for $4
> Dealing the Flop(9h 9s 5d )
> pbenny1 checked
> Binner bet for $15.78
> pbenny1 called for $15.78
> Dealing the turn(7d )
> pbenny1 bet for $73.49
> Binner went all-in for $162.61
> pbenny1 called for $89.12
> Dealing the river(Jd )
> Binner shows a Full House, Nines full of Jacks
(9h 9s 9d Jd Jh )
> pbenny1 mucked
> Binner wins $372.78 with a Full House, Nines full of Jacks

next

> pbenny1 posted small blind ($2)
> MindBender__ posted big blind ($4)
> Game # 628,114,341 starting.
> Dealing Hole Cards(Ac Ks )
> thebkawz folded
> Gozza1 raised for $12
> Binner called for $12
> JOHNO14 folded
> pbenny1 called for $10
> MindBender__ called for $8
> Dealing the Flop(Jh Kd 2c )
> pbenny1 checked
> MindBender__ checked
> Gozza1 checked
> Binner bet for $23.28
> pbenny1 called for $23.28
> MindBender__ folded
> Gozza1 folded
> Dealing the turn(10s )
> pbenny1 checked
> Binner checked
> Dealing the river(6h )
> pbenny1 checked
> Binner bet for $58.08
> pbenny1 folded
> Binner mucked
> Binner wins $149.64

next

> MindBender__ posted small blind ($2)
> thebkawz posted big blind ($4)
> Game # 628,114,831 starting.
> Dealing Hole Cards(3c Jc )
> Gozza1 called for $4
> Binner called for $4
> JOHNO14 called for $4
> pbenny1 raised for $24.75
> MindBender__ folded
> thebkawz folded
> Gozza1 folded
> Binner called for $20.75
> JOHNO14 folded
> Dealing the Flop(6c 4d 5c )
> Binner checked
> pbenny1 checked
> Dealing the turn(Qc )
> Binner bet for $49.98
> pbenny1 called for $49.98
> Dealing the river(9d )
> Binner checked
> pbenny1 bet for $141.89
> Binner went all-in for $354.33
> pbenny1 folded
> Binner mucked
> Binner wins $656.68

next

> thebkawz posted small blind ($2)
> Gozza1 posted big blind ($4)
> Game # 628,115,310 starting.
> Dealing Hole Cards(Jc Ac )
> Binner called for $4
> JOHNO14 called for $4
> pbenny1 called for $4
> MindBender__ folded
> thebkawz folded
> Gozza1 checked
> Dealing the Flop(2c 10d 6c )
> Gozza1 checked
> Binner checked
> JOHNO14 checked
> pbenny1 bet for $24.60
> Gozza1 folded
> Binner called for $24.60
> JOHNO14 folded
> Dealing the turn(3c )
> Binner checked
> pbenny1 checked
> Dealing the river(7s )
> Binner went all-in for $628.08
> pbenny1 went all-in for $589.38
> Extra chips returned to Binner, $38.70
> Binner shows a Flush, Clubs
(Ac Jc 6c 3c 2c )
> pbenny1 mucked
> Binner wins $1,242.96 with a Flush, Clubs

I love my check raise in hand 3 and the stone cold move in on hand 4 that got called, fancy calling 600$ into a 60 pot....sick

I have been venturing up to a local poker club in North Camp Hants run by the true gentleman Tony Chapman, Readings only poker gent.... check out http://www.tcpoker.co.uk for more info. They are the only poker club i know in the south that play NL cash games rather than the preferred PL variety that they all seem to go for to booster the rake.

Anyway, until next time

Binner

Another fine mess

Basingstoke Game Running Strong

I'm back

Vegas....1 week and counting

More Action

Might be time to give up the game...

OK

****Edit*****

Big cash game and online nightmare

Up a bit

Weekend update and new approach

Vegas...Majorca....Basingstoke

Back...

My Poker....

The Art of the Speech Play :-)

Update

NL100 and Sports betting

Monkeys playing for stacks

TV Murg

Guess I'm back.....

All Over

Standard big loss after a win

Surely not a weekend win?

Flawed Genius

Self Harm

Very Low

Finally a small win!

Jesus is dead!

Big Plans

Another Bad Loss!

In then out of trouble. Still down tho.

Weekend Woe

Weekend...

Marching....

No Poker, House stuff

Some hands....

Czech, Czech, All In

Sick

Back on Track....Home game soon

Big Swings....Like the ones in Giants Parks

Quick Update

Home Sweet Home

Biggest Loss Ever!

King of the ocean

Recovery continues....

Recovery session

Poker Pig

It's only on loan...in ancient Greece We'll bring it back home!

Getting Bored of Poker....

Online and the big Game

The Dog hand....

Update Time

777 is the new 666

Rollercoaster

Update

Resolution let down

New Years Poker thoughts

Unbelieveable 5 hands!

Edit*