SABAN POKER BLOG

Now then..

2011-05-29T21:14:00.003+01:00

Been neglecting this blog of late as I concentrated on my challenge over at Betfair. It took me 54 days before I decided I'd had enough, going from $0.01 to just short of $100 bucks before things started to go South.

Lost my trust in the Ongame platform to be fair. I was beginning to see allsorts of patterns where the flop appeared to have something for everyone, and the percentage of river hits for 1 or 2 outers was massive. At first I was frustrated that the calls being made against me were just crackers, but now I'm beginning to think, that actually these guys know of the high chance of hitting and were playing to that.

Anyway after lots of stress and swearing at the screen, I decided enough was enough and decided to withdraw and get rid. I used to enjoy Betfair but that platform as left a bitter taste.

Anyway that kept me busy for a couple of months, so will have to think whats next.

Friday Night Woes

2011-04-18T15:21:00.002+01:00

I've spent the majority of my poker time over the last fortnight grinding away on Betfair attempting to build a roll, I'm documenting my attempts on this blog - Betfair Bankroll Challenge. Its a bit of minefield having to play freerolls and micro stake sit and go's trying to avoid the allin preflop with rubbish every hand merchants, so I was quite looking forward to a game at the Ace of Clubs on Friday, where generally the play is a tad better and the odd raise is respected every now and then.

I'd cashed in the two preceding weeks and was looking to maintain my recent good form, alas it wasn't to be. I had spewed most of my stacking stack with second pair and flush draw type of flops and found myself down at just over 11 BB's. So when just UTG limped, I decided to open shove with A7, the BB got out of the way and it was left to UTG to decide.

Unfortunately, UTG was a player named George, who happens to hold the record of folding the nuts every hand he doesn't play, and suckout with crap the majority he does, so it should have been no suprise to hear, "it's Mike, he could have anything, I call" flipping over his K2 diamonds for half his stack. Of course, his two came on the turn, and off I popped, thinking that I should have stayed at home.

Imagine my suprise on Saturday afternoon, when listening to the football and following the Monte Carlo game at DTD on the Blonde Forum, that I stumbled across a number of forum posts entitled "Black Friday". My first thoughts, were yeah it was crap, George sucked out on me again. Unfortunately it appears its a bit more serious than that, and the future of online poker is in doubt after the FBI have shut down 3 of the biggest sites to US players, although UK players still have the option to currently play, it does take a lot of money out of the game and will no doubt haave further snowball effects. James Atkins has a number of decent links describing the issue more on his blog and "Change100" has a decent write up on how it affects her here if anyone wishes to read further on the subject.

Right then, back to grinding...

It's been awhile

2011-04-06T01:01:00.002+01:00

Long time no see..

The last time I put virtual pen to paper, I was planning on taking my seat in the Betfair London Live tournament. In the end I decided against going, and took a less than seat value cash alternative.

Instead on that day I took my eldest to watch the mighty Morecambe play at Lincoln, if I recall correctly it was a lovely day for the time of the year, although the football was bad for the away fan. Visits to both Chesterfield and Barnet since though have been happy days. As I write its still touch and go whether we'll avoid relegation this year, with 6 games left its probably going to go to the wire, fingers crossed we're still playing league football next year.

On the poker front, I've done nothing of any real note, a few cashes at the Ace of Clubs and a massive downswing online, obviously as a result of the withdrawal curse, infact I've started a new bankroll challenge on Betfair which I'm going to blog about here.

Anyway until next time.

APAT Team Event

2011-01-31T17:29:00.005Z

Spent the weekend in Bolton playing the APAT Team event.

Unfortunately I think we only reached the dizzy heights of 14th out of 25 teams with only 2 players ( Andy & Kev ) getting into the points and only one ( Kev ) making the money. Despite this all the guys played well and I think it was level 6 before we lost anyone.

A great weekend though, and APAT events also make a good social, with us bumping into so many people that we've met before. I had DOV, a mate from the Raise the River forum on my left for the 6 or so hours I was in the tourney and I think we just had plenty of banter throughout , infact he eventually knocked me out when my cheeky BB special of J9s hit two pair on the turn with which I pushed into his set of Jacks.

Looking forward to when APAT announce their season 5 schedule, as hoping to play in a few of these this year.

Dodgy team photo taken from the APAT site

Left to Right ;
Back; Phil Scott, Kev Ridley, Ian Galpin, Dave Bately
Front; Karl Jones, Lou, Me, Andy Cooling

Last Week

2011-01-27T23:45:00.002Z

Last Friday we had our monthly deepstacks at the AoC, its a 10K starting stack with 30 min blinds, that may not be a deepstack in a lot of places, but to us who generally play 5k starting stack 20 minute blinds, its deeper than usual.

Recently I've been playing well ( in my mind ) and was quietly confident of cashing, making it 3 out of 3.

First hand in, I'm on the big bind with rubbish, Lou has been drawn to my left and limps, a couple more limpers until Dave on the button makes it 175 with 50/25 blinds. Both blinds fold, Lou calls and the limpers disappear.

Flop, 10, 10, 4, can't remember the suits, doesn't matter.

Lou checks, Dave bets, Lou raises, Dave re-raises, Lou re-re-raises and Dave goes all in.

Aye, Aye, I think. Dave has either got A,10 or 10s and Lou has either got A,10 or 4s.

Lou goes "feck it, if you've got me, you've got me, I call" and shows 4,4, Dave shows A,10.

Lou holds and Dave goes out in around 2 minutes, breaking the previous AoC record of 3, held by yours truly.

Most would have thought that call obvious, still I was quietly chuffed that I had it right.

A little later, with blinds at 150/75,Grib, on my right, raises to 450 under the gun. I've got KK and decide to re-raise to 1500, Lou then completely stumps me and makes it 4K, it folds round to Grib who passes and is back with me.

What do you do here ? Obviously 99.99999999% of the time, most would push, generally so would I. This time it was different, firstly Mrs Lou " I've got a massive stack due to my spawny first hand" Saban certainly wouldn't raise a re-raiser with garbage and secondly my spidy powers were tuned in.

For the first time ever, I think, I folded KK pre flop. I showed too, to gasps. Lou then tells the table she had Aces. Man, was I tuned in, easy game this.

So, obviously I won right....

Nope. Disappeared in 8th and didn't make the money. All night I had been hammering Kev's blinds with all sorts of rubbish and eventually he started to play back, by going all in every time I raised. Eventually I got fed up and actually called a raise when he had something. Not long after I went out.

This weekend at AoC we have our yearly freeroll for the best players of last year ( Lou starts as chipleader) and then we are off to Bolton for APAT Team Event. I'm captain of our team so looking to put in a good performance.

Online, I've qualified for the Betfair Live in London event but nothing else of note, just keep mini cashing tournies, which is pretty frustrating.

Football - took the lads to Stevenage last week, we were rubbish and 2-0 down after 6 minutes

Betfair Pay Up

2011-01-19T23:51:00.002Z

Wednesday - After my last two posts it only fair that I announce that Betfair fixed their problem and started to pay people their winnings from the weekend today, me included. Its supposed to be rakeback day tomorrow, I'm not holding high hopes that we'll be paid on time after this weeks events to be honest, but we'll see.

Its the deepstack at AoC tomorrow, I cashed again last week, ended up finishing 2nd despite going into the last 3 with 60% of the chips, but a few mistimed bluffs saw me hanging on for 2nd place. Still, will be looking to make it 3 cashes out of 3 tomorrow.

Football - planning on going down to Stevenage with my lads and my brother on Saturday to watch the mighty Morecambe, can't really see us making it four wins on the bounce but fingers crossed.

Betfair Update

2011-01-18T18:36:00.002Z

14 hours after my last post, the following official statement was copied and pasted onto the Betfair Poker Forum

"Betfair Poker is currently offline due to maintenance. Our technical team have taken this decision in order to fix the issue of “trapped funds between poker clients and accounts.

The site will continue to be offline until the problem is resolved. We are unable at this time to give a time when this will be fixed, however, please be assured that we are doing everything we can to get the site up and running as quickly as possible.

All users that have been affected by this issue will be credited in full.
Our sincerest apologies to all users and thank you for your continued patience.

Please come back to the Betfair Poker Forum for updates. "

So, ok, not the quickest off the blocks but at least a start, maybe I'll expect the next update in an hour, or two, three, surely not four, five would definetley be taking the piss and six, well not a chance it will take that long for a courtesy update....................

6 hours and 16 minutes later the following appears on the Betfair forum

"The technical issues with Betfair Poker have been resolved and it is now available for use. Once again, we thank you for your continued patience and apologise for any inconvenience caused."

From the thousands of responses I could have chosen, this one from a user known as Burrr seems to have summed it up whilst still remaining polite;

"its a joke,they say they have resolved the problem.....no they havent
as there are still hundreds of thousands of pounds missing from people"

Obviously I'm a few bucks down, but nowhere near as much as the hundreds some are reporting. I'm sure it will get sorted, eventually..maybe.

Not Looking Good For Betfair Poker

2011-01-17T21:14:00.005Z

Betfair Poker have been struggling all weekend to pay winning players on their poker client.

There have been many complaints of players sitting at a cash table or entering a sit and go, the cash being taken from their accounts but then kicked off the table without refund. Also complaints of MTT and SNG winners not being paid.

Despite this, it took until Monday for the poker client to be taken offline.

Betfair released this email this evening;

"We are writing to you as you are one of the customers who has contacted our call centre to register a query regarding "trapped funds on the poker client".

The Poker team would like to apologise for any inconvenience this has caused you and ask you to be patient while we do our upmost to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.

The issue is a communication problem between our two internal payment systems. Please rest assured that all funds are accounted for and once a fix has been found will be returned to the rightful players."

I like Betfair as a company, but surely this is another kick in the knackers for them, and again, it will take them along time to rid themselves of the reputation of having a dodgy poker client, which they no doubt had before they dumped their own software and moved to the Ongame network late last year.

The point about a communication problem is quite ironic, because although the system failure is causing the problem today, its the lack of communication shown by Betfair during this incident towards it's customers which, should they continue in this manner will be more harmful in the long run.

The problem, as far as I am aware manifested itself early Saturday, yet other than a single post on the Betfair forum on Saturday afternoon, no other official notice was given that there was an ongoing issue until Monday afternoon. During this time the site was open for business as usual, thus allowing more and more customers to be affected.

Betfair is a multi million pound organisation, however the way they have managed the fault from a customer perspective reflects more like a tin pot outfit. In my opinion, they should have closed the site as soon as they knew they had a problem, and advised their customers of such on a more regular basis than has been shown. We don't need to know the in depth technical details, just a simple "still got a problem, still working on it", every few hours on the forum and the home page would have sufficed. Instead its been left to other customers to get the message across that they have problems through other media.

Like I've previously stated, I like Betfair, but I think this weekend will have cost them more than the loss of rake and a few poker players bets on the sports book, the damage to the reputation of their poker client and customer facing service will take longer to recover.

Coin Flip Mug

2011-01-10T21:28:00.004Z

Of course I activated the doomswitch after my last post, got well and truly bum fecked over and over again and eventually tilt got the better of me.

In an attempt to claw my small bankroll back into a slightly larger one, I fell into the "lets spin it all back on coinflips" trap. This is not the first time the red mist has gotten the better of me recently, and I've resorted to throwing almost everything alway on the stupid coin flips on Betfair, in an effort to get back to where I started.

Mug.

During one such episode I believe I went 17 on the trot without a win. 17 coinflips, except they are not coin flips as such, but being dealt 2 cards and the winner after the river takes the loot minus the rake, of course if I was ahead pre I lost, if I was behind pre I lost, if was ahead on the turn I lost and even if my opponent only had two outs which he could hit, I lost.

Understandable if I was playing $1 a time, but no I was deep in, going for the $20+1 games with the mind set if I won just 11 on the trot I would be back to where I started. Obviously this never happened and I would find myself down to just a few dollars before severly reprimanding myself, turning the pc off and going to bed and lying awake for hours, calling the voices inside my head every stupid name I could think off for being so daft.

And then the next day, starting with dust and rebuilding a roll playing $1 SNGs and micro limit tournaments until I go through the same routine over and over again.

Not sure where this tilt is coming from, over than I've been done over so many times recently its like I just don't believe I can get anymore unlucky, but obviously I can. I think it must be a Christmas hangover thing, desperate to fill the bank account after the expense of the holidays and of course, the game is just not playing ball.

I seem to be all over the place on Betfair at the moment, one day its loads of mini cashes in tournaments keeping me afloat, just enough to win a few bucks but then lady luck pulls the rug from under my feet during my descent to the final table and then other days its sit and goes and I can't cash in a tourney for toffee.

Anyway at least the rakeback will be ok, plus I believe I've earn't enough points for an xbox in one of the promotions, so the kids will do well out of it.

Here's the latest graph, online roll is around $100 at the moment;

Away from the computer, we had our first game of the year at the AOC last Friday, I managed to luck box my way into 3rd place. Got lucky a couple of times on the way, and also unlucky a few other times but happy to place.

Football - The mighty Morecambe played like our old school C team and couldn't string two passes together when I made the journey to go up the other week, and then since win two on the bounce. Feck knows whats going on there, but hopefully we can go on a bit of a run and stay up.

Been talking to my lads and we're considering getting a new flag for next season, as the one we have has been around a few years now and dates back from the day when I used to go a lot more regularly both home and away ( only seen them 4 times this season ). Here's an old photo of it;

We're also considering getting a more reliable mode of transport than what we have got currently, purely for travelling to the match in comfort, looking at a VW Caravelle, however Lou's not too keen on this and I've yet to tell her that they go for around £25K a pop, so may need to keep working on that one.

Been keeping a keen eye on the premiership this season too, not been too bothered in the last decade really, but this season has been a belter with it being so close, and now King Kenny is back in the hotseat at Anfield it could bring Liverpool back into the mix. Chelsea knocking 7 in at the weekend in the cup will obviously instill a bit of confidence that they've been missing and could turn them around, and if United and City keep dropping points away from home then its still all to play for, makes for an exciting run in. I just hope Blackpool can stay in mid table if only for Ian Holloways rants which always make excellent viewing on Match of the Day.

Going Forth

2011-01-02T14:15:00.005Z

Took my lads, and met up with my father, brother and nephew and went to watch the mighty Morecambe yesterday against Lancashire rivals Accy Stanley.

We were poor and got beat 2-1, it was a disappointing day football wise, but nice to see the family on New Years Day.

Anyway, to the poker. You may recall I jacked playing online in for a while last year, removed all poker clients and withdrew all my cash and used it elsewhere, until Betfair tempted me back with some free cash. Since then I've made a few quid here and there, playing micro DoNs and MTTs occassionally withdrawing a few hundred quid in the process and currently have an online roll of just over $250 on Betfair, which I take into the new year. Again, once this goes I have no plans to top up. With the aid of my rakeback deal I would like to be in a position of withdrawing a minimum of £100 a month back into my account this year, its not a massive amount but will go towards a day out at the footy.

With all my travelling last year, I didn't get to play much live anywhere other than the AOC, other than an APAT team event at the end of January where I am captaining our team I don't really have any plans this year, lets see how it goes.

Lou was player of the year at the AOC last year, a nice achievement for her, as she has been running that club for 5 years, hopefully she can keep both her form and the club going this year.

I hope to update this blog on more regular basis this year, it kind of got neglected last year as I fell out with the game, so prepare yourself for more randomness.

Anyway time to crack on, here's my graph from when I started playing last year which I need to improve.

2011

2011-01-01T01:46:00.004Z

I wish all my readers a happy and healthy 2011.

I have lots of goals for the new year, but now is not the time to share them.

Have a good one and hope to see a few of you on the road this year.

All the best

Mike

Poland - Its cold there at the moment

2010-12-22T23:57:00.003Z

A week after I had initially planned, I eventually get to Poland for the 3rd time this year. The delay was due to a wise decision taken to close the local airport due to the amount of snow the country had received.

I flew into Katowice and despite being delayed whilst waiting for permission to land because of the local weather and at one time the possiblity of being redirected to Krakow ( which would have suited me actually ), we landed at silly oclock in the morning and I was met by one of my drivers for the week.

It had just started snowing and in the 1hr - 1.30hrs it took to drive to Krakow I must have seen around 15 - 20 snow ploughs & gritters, in the preceding week in the UK, I hadn't seen a single one.

So, this guy drops me off in the centre of Krakow outside the hotel, which apparently is the oldest in the city, and says so and so will be here to pick you up at 8am, and shoots off desperate to get to bed himself.

Two massive beats here, firstly its around 04:30 and I'm knackered, and secondly this is the only hotel I've ever stayed where they lock the reception doors for the night. So here I am at the crack of dawn, hanging out of my arse needing to be back up in a few hours, stood on one of the main streets in Krakow city centre, ankle deep in snow with all my kit, ringing the bell to be let into this hotel. Obviously the night porter, decides this is the time that he will be doing his rounds and I must have been stood there a good 10 minutes, pushing this bell, freezing my knackers off thinking that maybe the driver had dropped me off at the wrong place.

Anyway, I finally get in and defrost for a couple of hours before its time to be picked up and taken to the business park around 30Km away, where I am working for the next week. Bad beat number 3, despite all the snow ploughs and the gritters, the weather has hit the roads around Krakow pretty bad, and a little short cut, ends up with the car being stuck on a hill, in arctic conditions and me pushing the bloody thing because we can't get past this sheet ice.

Eventually I get to the office, only to be greeted with suprise, the manager of this site hadn't expected me in until early afternoon - FML.

The day goes suprisingly well, and I take the decision to finish early, around 5.30pm and head back to the hotel to catch up on some kip.Now the business park has it's own rail platform ( same line as Auschwitz ) and train travel is pretty cheap in Poland, so rather than get another lift and be take around 1hr 30 to get back to the hotel, I opt to get the train back to Krakow.

Obviously its a given that the train is late, right, and the temperature as now gone from freezing to its "fffffffffffecking fffffffffffreeezzzzzzing".

On the London Underground, there are periodic warings to "Please Mind The Gap", the tourist board plays on this, and obviously makes a good deal of cash using this statement on allsorts of merchandise. Well compared with the Polish railways, this is nothing but false advertising, possibly a small crack on the floor, because it takes my best olympic hop skip and jump to actually get on the train from the platform when the train actually arrives. Actually, if I'm honest it wasnt my best hop skip jump, because I would have been disqualified for foot fouling if this had been in the Olympics, but trust me those extra few inches were needed to get on, without having to get down from the platform first.

So, I'm on the train and decide that because I don't actually know how many stops I need to go, and that my understanding of the Polish language is probably only just better than that of a 2 month old polish baby, its probably best if I stand by the doors. Mistake.

First of all let me explain one thing about the trains in Poland. They're old. Very old, and standing next to the doors, when the carriages are full, and its freezing outside is a major school boy error.

Why ? I hear you wonder, well I'll tell you why, when the train is still moving you don't expect the doors to open at whatever speed Polish trains go, but if they did you would possibly expect them to close again at the next stop, or even to pull them close yourself. Nope not this one. So after the shock of nearly falling out of the fecking thing, there I was holding on for grim life, whilst my blood turned to ice as the wind chill took its toll, and visions of dying from hyperthermia on this short journey presented itself to me as a very strong possibilty.

Eventually we pull into the main station at Krakow, and fortunatley I can reach the platform with a single stride, although I think I pulled a muscle doing so. It takes around 5 minutes to walk back to the hotel and I settle in for the night.

The rest of the trip went quite smoothly, only one silly oclock work finish, and a nice little bar, showing all the football to keep me occupied in the evenings. The weather didn't get any better, going as low as -18C at one point.

My flight home on the Friday was again obviously delayed for a couple of hours, and apparently I just got home shortly before the airport was closed again, finally meeting Lou at the Ace of Clubs around 11pm. This was my 22nd flight of the year, which is a personal best for me.

I enjoy working in Poland I have some nice colleagues over there, but its no fun when its that cold, next time I'll insist that I'll only go in the summer months.

Amsterdam, Almaty, Aktau, Aytrau and .... Krakow

2010-12-01T11:51:00.003Z

Last week I spent a bit of my hard earned preparing myself for the cold weather in Kazakhstan.

I had planned to visit the cities of Almaty, Aktau and Atyrau working and had read that it got as cold as -34 with the wind chill. Having never been to Kazakhstan before I was fully prepared with a bag full of thermals, off I go to find brilliant sunshine and the temperature only dropping as low as -6 at night. With enough stuff for an artic expedition I was completely over prepared and moaning about the kit I had just forked out for.

Due to customs issues with the equipment I was planning to install, I didn't get to Aktau or Atyrau, so with a lot of messing around with flight bookings, I managed to get home a few days early, so that I could put all that artic kit to use in the UK ! We must easily have a couple of feet of snow around our way, and a brilliant morning as just been had with the family sledging.

By the way if anyone has any plans for popping in to Kazakhstan for a little visit, don't bother. Don't get me wrong, the place is nice enough, as are the people, the food is a little strange with horse meat being a staple diet but the big pain in the arse is getting in and out of the country. After a 7 hour flight from Amsterdam, its too much hassle having to go through all the forms that you have to sign and thats after you have to apply for a visa to enter the country several weeks in advance. If you do go I recommend the Hotel Rixos in Almaty, very swish, just don't drink too much there, at nearly £10 a pint its not somewhere to have a session.

Just before my trip to Kaz, me and Lou spent 3 days in Amsterdam. We got a great little hotel near the central station and had a blast, weather not the best but we'll hope to go back there in the summer.

This weekend I plan to go back out to Poland, my 3rd visit this year, but this time to Krakow via Katowice, obviously dependent on the airport being open and being able to get there of course.

This is a poker blog, maybe there will be some poker content on here in the future.

Cheers

Update

2010-10-31T18:49:00.003Z

Been a while hasn't it ?

My abstaining of online poker was going very well until Betfair kindly put $50 into my poker with the ultimatium that I spent it within a week.I played for one evening, turned it into approx $500 and then logged off. The next time I played was 2 weeks later, today. So far have played for around 4 hours and I'm a quid up, thankfully I don't have to rely on this game to pay by bills.

This month I've spent around 3 weeks working away in Athens, last month my weekends were either spent watching the Mighty Morecambe or in Belfast with a group from the Ace of Clubs. Weekday nights have been filled by working, reading ( 8 books or so completed in last couple of months ) or watching movies with Lou. Maybe I overdid it before when every free minute was previously spent playing online, but these days I'm finding more and more things to do and I'm not really missing the game at all, although a couple of tourney wins would come in handy for Christmas.

2010-08-21T03:49:00.002+01:00

I finished 4th last week at the AOC for a min cash, had no chips all night and was happy to finish that high. My exit hand was when I pushed from the button with K7o and the SB called with A7s. I don't mind the call, I was pushing with any high card as I was that short and the SB cottoned on it.

This week I got to the last two for a slightly higher cash, got it all in with Ad8d against 9d7d, the 7 came on the turn I think and I was all in regardless next hand with no joy. Enjoyed it though, good game and thought I played okay throughout.

Still no online poker in 3 weeks. I feel like an addict counting down each day, now if I just stop doing class A drugs, smoking and sleeping with 3 topless models at the same time then I might just be good enough to go back to Church.

Can't take the lads to the match this weekend due to a family party, such a shame as the venue is only about 90 minutes away and possibly my closest macth, however do have tickets for the next round of the Carling Cup, just need time of work now,

Life after online poker

2010-08-13T17:19:00.003+01:00

Since my last post, a couple of guys asked if I gone busto and if this was the reason I stopped playing so I would like to confirm that's not the case at all.

I also politely declined an offer of MTT staking the other night, as the urge to play online as not returned since my last game almost a couple of weeks ago.

However Lou as advised of her house wish list, which is not too cheap so maybe at some point I may have to return to try and win the extra brass needed to meet her requirements, either that or a few more late nights in the office, but we'll see.

It's amazing how much you can fit in, when you're not stuck in front of a pc all your free time; in the last fortnight, I've started and finished the Dan Brown book Digital Fortress, have started Lost Vegas, a book by Tao of Poker author Paul McGuire, had a fantastic day out with the family and dogs on the East coast, took the lads to see their grandparents in Morecambe - on the North West coast, combining the visit with watching the Mighty Shrimps knock Coventry out of the Carling Cup, watched a few films with Lou and a few football matches from across Europe and have got loads done round the house, as well as a busy schedule at work. I've been going to bed earlier too, so generally don't feel so knackered in a morning. I think there is definitely life after online poker.

I've played live just the once during that time, I got it all in with KQ from the button, the BB made a lovely call with KJ and despite hitting a Q first card out, it was no good against the J that came out on the turn and then on the river too. Hopefully some better luck tonight.

Thanks for the comments in the last post, I've not bought in or plan on playing the APAT games or the IPO Dublin this year as have some other non poker road trips that I'm saving my cash for instead, but won't rule out a few poker road trips later on in the year just yet.

See you later.

No More Online Poker

2010-08-01T14:45:00.005+01:00

I've had enough of being donked by stupid players and random (sic) number generators during online poker games.

I've made some decent money in the past, but now I'm just wasting time and money and left feeling so pissed off after yet another retard play rewarded or runner runners sucking out that I've decided that online poker as gone as far as its going for me. All accounts have been withdrawn and clients uninstalled.

I'll still play the odd live game, but as far as online is concerned, that's all folks.

Just stuff..

2010-07-26T19:54:00.003+01:00

Been meaning to update for a while, but nothing of note to report.

The WSOP as come and gone with just the final table in November to look forward to now, all in all a good year for the Brits and hopefully I'll get a crack at it next time.

I replaced reading various web based updates on the WSOP with Vicky Corens book, which I have meant to read for sometime. A different angle from other poker books and worthy of a look if you haven't already done so.

On the playing side, I actually took down a tourney at the AOC last Friday, its been a while, and for once luck was on my side as I managed to crack AA with 99, AK with A5 and even got my 3 bet with the hammer through on my way to victory.It seems like its normally been me recently who's gone in best and come out worst, so nice to be the victor for a change.

Normal service was resumed the following evening online though, when deep in a PLHE game, my flopped 2 pair with 94o on a 942 rainbow flop led me to get all my chips against JJ, only for a K to come on both the turn and the river. Possibly my only "free" look at the flop from the BB all game and obviously my last.

And thats it, back to the grind. Ciao.

WSOP Dreams

2010-07-10T00:01:00.002+01:00

I have this dream, that one day I will either be lucky enough to win a package or be successful enough in life to afford a trip to Vegas at world series time and play a few events.

We've been to Vegas twice now and we love it but never at WSOP time, therefore as a poker fan I'm limited to following it on the web.

These are the best site that basically I follow every day during this time of year;

Poker news - chip counts as the tournaments play out
Hard Boiled Poker - Diary of a chip counter
Tao of Poker - Possibbly the best poker blog out there

and this year I've enjoyed following various threads on;

Blonde Poker Forum

and Tony Kendall's blog on the Sky Poker Website

Day 2 is starting soon, and in my opinion the above are the best sites to follow the action, if anybody knows of any more please let me know.

Just no good with the ladies...

2010-07-07T01:10:00.003+01:00

Home from the office at a reasonable time for a change tonight. I'm actually quite lucky where I can work from home, which started as being a privilege for the odd occasion in times of need but recently as moved to a regular occurrence upto 3 times a week.

If I didn't have to go into the office occasionally to show my face, I'd be more than happy to work from home every day. So much more hassle free, get too spend an extra hour in bed, as I don't have to waste time driving 30 minutes to the closest park and ride to then sit on public transport for the best part of an hour and obviously don't have to shell out the extra costs for that honour. Another benefit is that at home I don't get colleagues tapping me on the shoulder asking if I can cover some work for them whilst they swan off on holiday.

So I get home at around 6.30 and straight away fire up the pc, logon to the poker site and register for a few tournaments that I've marked out as winnable, and then fire up the work laptop as I have "volunteered" to remotely assist with a small job in Greece at 7pm in the absence of one of my holidaying colleagues. Only a small task which should be finished in time for the 4 tourneys I had planned to start between 8-8.30, as it happens the work laptop doesn't get turned off until around 9 and I'm starting at a disadvantage.

I'm soon back upto a decent stack in all tourneys before getting donked in 2 Ive done well in recently, a limit omaha game and a pot limit holdem.

With a bit of space on the screen I managed to get some double or nothings on the go and won 4 out of 5 played. The one I lost was to such a ridiculous call, I had to laugh, 4th from 8 with 5 getting paid, I get QQ on the BB, early position makes it 400 with blinds at 200/100, I have 2100 and push it all in which is snapped called by guy with 2200 with J10o, obviously he makes a full house by the turn.

In one NLHE tourney I'm back up to average and try and steal in position with AJo, except this time the BB has the Queens which hold and in my last tourney of the night, I'm in the top 20 with 65 left, top 40 get paid when again I get the dreaded QQ, utg+1. Blinds are only 600/300 so when the UTG pushes 30K I make a mistake that the guy has a small pair and that my Q's are good, well he didn't have the pair he had AKo and out I went when the first card on the flop was a king, gutted as that would have put me chip leader if they had held.

Debating with myself if I made a mistake with that call or not. I could have cruised into the cash to ensure a positive return, but at the same time, I would have been in a better position to take it down or a least final table if they had held and these gambles need to be taken in order to win the big bucks.

The moral of the story, ladies, no matter how good they look, will always leave you skint.

Change as good as a rest

2010-07-06T00:09:00.002+01:00

Decided to play on a different site than Betfair for a change.

Yesterday I played 4 small stake MTTs and final tabled 2.

Today I played 11 DoN sng's and cashed in 10, also played 5 tourneys, got donked in 3, min cashed another and final tabled 1.

I think I'll play there again tomorrow :-)

World Cup Busto

2010-06-26T18:13:00.004+01:00

I gave myself a rather small £50 quid loss limit on Betfair, playing at trading the world cup games. I decided early on that if I lost £50 then I should stop, I lasted until the 3rd set of games before it was gone, ironically if I had just put money on the end result and hadn't messed around with greening up I would have still been in profit.

Still it was fun whilst it lasted.

I've played the odd game of pokes online, but my heart hasn't really been in it. Not really sure if its the football that has taken over, the nice weather or that the game has just run its course. I'm still enjoying reading updates on the WSOP around various blogs, forums and news sites and I've enjoyed the small games over at the Ace of Clubs, but currently can't be bothered with the high and lows of online play.

Been reading with interest, the blatchgate scandal on the blonde forum, crib notes here. Very shocking, just goes to show that if something sounds to be good to be true, it generally is.

Anyway, thats all from me for the time being. Cheers.

World Cup >>>>>>> Poker

2010-06-17T21:31:00.002+01:00

Like no doubt many others, poker has taken a back seat for a few weeks whilst I concentrate on the World Cup.

I planned to just have a couple of quid here and there as interest bets only, but after 20 games I find that I'm almost a tenner down from the 165 quid staked across all games so far.

Trading on the Betfair exchange is almost as much fun as actually watching the games, and although I'm only playing for pennies in comparison with the guys who do this for a living, its still a nice buzz when you get all 3 of the match outcomes showing a "green" positive return.

I wasn't expecting to have to lay England, Italy, Spain or even Slovakia in their first games, so I didn't which was a costly mistake, as was thinking that Cameroon were too strong for Japan. Still I'm now starting to get more involved in the trading side, so even if laying means a smaller profit, it seems the sensible action to take to ensure risk free bets and slowly recover my losses.

Anyway that's me. Slovenia and USA team news to jot up on now.

Good Luck

Just Sick

2010-06-10T23:31:00.002+01:00

Feeling so sick right now.

A game on gcasino, out in 57th from around 1000 runners, with AK v KQ, board comes KQxxx

A game on Betfair, the football promo, out in 35th from 733 runners, after being chip leader for a long period, when I get it in with AK v AQ, board comes Qxxxx

WSOP Satellites on Betfair, I win a $1 game, I win the $5 game, I win the $16.50 game and get into the $60 game, 13 runners 1 seat into the $510 game and $270 for 2nd, I come 3rd after being Chipleader with 3 left.

Small Blind is crippled and pushes into my big, I think that's an any 2 push that, I have A2s and call, he has 94 same suit, board comes 942xx

Not a problem.

Next Orbit, same again, this time I have A8s, this time he has 85o, board 85xxx

On his BB, I have A9o and push, this time he has 88 which hold and I'm out for feck all.

...... and I have toothache.

Just Sick.

Back from the East

2010-06-03T23:09:00.004+01:00

First of all, thanks to those who have left comments recently. They haven't gone unnoticed, they are appreciated its just that I've just been too lazy to respond.

I spent the last week working in Warsaw which forced a little break from the virtual felt, which was probably needed as I getting stressed with the run of bad form.

I do love travelling with work, getting to work out in the field if you like, not just stuck in the office writing on messaging programs and emails to get your point across, but actually speaking face to face, mainly in piegon english mind and getting the job done with the guys I spend so much time online with.

Going abroad a lot gives the chance to see things that you wouldn't normally see everyday, but this occassion I hadn't even left UK shores, when my train pulled up in Kings Cross whilst on my way to Heathrow, and there was the Harry Potter Steam Train waiting at the platform. A magical moment, I had found platform 9B, with its false walls, camera's and a security guard shouting at people for using flash photography. Not sure why, but my kids didn't seemed as excited about the occassion as I was, when I told them on the phone before disappearing down the underground to finish the rail part of my journey.

Work went well, if a little tiring due to all the hours we had to put in, but it was a very successful trip, and great to get home again. Again, I think with travelling regular, you appreciate home and whose waiting for you there more so, when your not round them 24/7.

Anyway, looks like the little break worked wonders back on the virtual felt, just played a few small games and satellites on Betfair and have run quite well in them so far, a 1st and 2nd in a couple of small comps restoring a little bit of lost confidence, along with a few other smaller cashes.

Hopefully it will continue for a while.

Good Luck to all those planning to travel to play poker over the summer, be it Vegas, Morrocco or elsewhere.

Cheers

World Cup Song

2010-05-26T12:23:00.004+01:00

This made me LOL, worth sharing

End of an Era

2010-05-20T22:39:00.002+01:00

Well thats it. End of an Era. Farewell to the playground of my youth.

Here's some tunes to cheer us up;

Shit Weekend

2010-05-17T00:28:00.003+01:00

Another shit weekend on the virtual felt.

Lost count of the amount of times all the chips were in and I got sucked out on.

In one of my last games of the evening - 12K GTD on Betfair, I had AA cracked by JJ, KK cracked by QQ infact it seemed everytime I built up my stack I would be dealt a monster which would get sucked out on. I eventually went out in 39th from the 186 with the only time I can recall being behind was my exit hand with A6s v A10s blind on blind, the software flirted with me, putting a 6 on the flop but in true form the flush was delivered on the river. That would have put me in the top 10 with 18 getting paid if that had held.

Its frustrating but at least my opponents had genuine hands in this game, in others I was making the right call and the software would punish me for it, A6 v K2 springs to mind in a satellite for a game tomorrow, 2 on the flop and no help. AQ v A2 was another, I mean, come on who calls allins with A2o for majority of their stack - they do on Betfair.

I think I bubbled 6 or 7 satellites today, whereas a few months ago I would have only played 2 or 3 and qualified at the first attempt for the games I was aiming for.

Dragging me down a bit as I feel I'm playing well but results don't show that, you need a little bit of luck to go with your play in tournaments and I feel that lady luck has deserted me of late.

In other news Morecambe got hammered 6-0 in the first leg of the league 2 playoffs. That just topped the weekend off good and proper. At least I don't have to worry about missing Wembley due to work commitments as I can't see us turning that result around after the display today.

Ace King - The Worst Hand In Poker ?

2010-05-13T23:03:00.003+01:00

72off suit is susposedly the worse hand in No Limit Texas Holdem Poker. You can't make a straight using both cards, nor a flush, and if you pair its unlikely to be the best pair out there.

However, at least you know your behind with 72o and its very easy to lay it down, except for when playing it for the comedy value.

I'm beginning to think that my worse hand is Ace King, because I'm going through a phrase of where I can't win with it. I know that its not a made hand, its just 2 high cards, but even still generally you stand a decent chance when holding it. Not me though. If I'm in front pre flop, I'm behind by the time the river has been dealt and if I'm behind pre flop, that's where I stay. On the other side of the coin, if I am against it but in front pre, you can guarantee that I'll lose and I can't recall a recent time I sucked out it.

It's starting to do my head in a little bit.

The latest example was tonight in the Betfair 12K GTD. I had already folded AKs pre a couple of hands earlier to an allin raise and reraise, and was still sitting comfortable in around 6th spot from the 15 remaining from the 166 that started, when I got dealt it again and without thinking my action through I insta called an allin and lost to a pair of 9's. I went out a couple of orbits later in 13th, when I should have really have made the final table. This is fair enough, worse hand lost , but when I add up the amount of times I've gone out holding that hand its becoming spooky.

Online the other night I lost with it 3 times in Betfair tournaments, the craziest call was to push and be called by J3o which duly hit the 3 on the river.

In the $16.50 PLHE/PLO Mixed SCOOP event on stars, I played for nearly 6 hours to make a measly $10 going out in around 500 odd place from the 6000 odd runners, only to raise the pot pre and then get it all in on a KQx flop, obviously the one guy who had stayed with me had KQo.

At the AoC last week, I raised from the BB, got one caller and flopped 2 pair, fantastic I thought until we got it all in on the river, in a case of I know that he knows that I know type affair, obviously the villians QJ had made the straight on the turn.

In Newcastle, my exit hand was A10 v AK, In Manchester my exit hand was AK v QQ, in a Sheffield head hunter event a couple of months ago, exit hand AK v 65 .

It's a hurdle I need to work through because it's seriously affecting my result's. Has anyone got a good guide or point me in the direction of " When and Where to play AK"

Cheers

A Short Report from the NPF Team event

2010-05-06T18:41:00.004+01:00

Well as expected, the Newcastle Poker Forum Team event was an absolute blast . Those guys certainly know how to put on a good show.

The day started off slowly, struggling with a slight headache from those "just a quick couple of pints" the night before, that somehow turned into a quick gallon, Lou and Me were picked up by a couple of mates Grib and Rob around 9am and got to Newcastle within 3 hours with plenty of time to spare. We then drove around Newcastle around 12 times looking for the hotel but fortunately somehow managed to get checked and to the casino before the self imposed team 1.30pm cutoff.

I wasn't expecting to play but as it happened, the Furness forum were a couple short so I ended up playing after all. Felt I was playing pretty well despite no real cards of note. Infact my best hand was pocket tens late on in day 1, which crippled me when I called what I felt was an allin button steal, however the guy had played me perfect and had two queens. I went shortly afterwards around 70th position pushing A10 into AK. It was enough to win me the last longer bet between me and Lou though, as she had gone out half an hour earlier by running A7s into QQ, blind on blind.

Day 2 saw me return to my schedule, supping a few cold ones whilst railing the remaining AOC players. We only had 2 in from the 30 odd left, but bloody hell they did well, Rob finishing in the last 18 and Phil going on to winning the lot. Those two results coupled with Kev also scoring in the points ensured that the Ace of Clubs finished in 3rd place overall. A fantastic result for our little club.

The rail for the final table was excellent and there was plenty of atmos generated by the NPF supporters, in reply we just gave Phil a few monkey noises as he is known as Moneyboy online, and shouted "pigs tits" a few times for the guys railing at home via the online live stream.

If you want to read more about the game, between us we put up 168 posts on twitter here.

Once the poker had finished, the party really started, and it was great to chat b*llocks to loads of people over a few pints, especially Dave, Card guard and Mr E and their better halves from NPF. Dov, NoCash, Rubbish, Mr O, Snake and Dd from RTR and Mr Heart Attack from Kracked Kings amongst many many others .We eventually left the casino at 8am on Monday morning, after running the bar pratically dry.

A cracking weekend and a massive thank you to NPF for their hospitality as always.

Newcastle Poker Forum Team Event

2010-04-30T14:48:00.002+01:00

As mentioned in my last post, we're making the trip up to Newcastle this weekend to play in the NPF Team Event.

I'm not playing as was due to be else where, but looking forward to standing on the rail enjoying a few cold ones whilst supporting my club mates.

Since learning to play poker and actually going out and playing in a few tournaments around the country, its suprising to actually find how small the circle of amateur poker players is. This weekend will be no different as no doubt we will bump into others that we have met and played against before, so there is always someone to have a chat over a pint with, the social aspect of the game is always a major plus for me. Therefore standing on the rail wont bother me too much this time, it doesn't hurt if you've not busted from the game your watching.

Last year we had a cracking time up in Newcastle, as the guys who run the forum up there put on a fantastic weekend, and I have high expectations of them doing the same again as they are a good bunch.

Anyway if anyone wishes to follow the tournament, here's a couple of links

NPF live updates - http://www.newcastlepoker.com/live/

AOC Twitter - http://twitter.com/Aocpoker ( Get updates via SMS by texting follow Aocpoker to 86444 in the United Kingdom ).

I'll most likely write an update of my experience once the hangover clears ;-)

Been a while

2010-04-25T20:07:00.002+01:00

Been a while since I last posted, so thought an update was about due.

Both online and live poker taken a back seat recently, mainly due to other commitments with work. When I have had time to play, I've just not been bothered with any NLHE games and played a fair few low limit PLO8 games instead, cashing in around 1 in 3/4 for no major scores.

Have taken a week off work, next week and the intention was to get back to the grind, but the opportunity to go sailing has cropped up so will be doing that instead. When I return, I will be joining the Ace of Clubs team in Newcastle for the NPF team event. I'm not playing as initially was due to be Poland, but that's been pushed back so will have a weekend of beer and rallying on my mates instead.

And that's about it. Best of Luck.

Game of Luck

2010-03-14T17:12:00.004Z

Flying high in 2 online tourneys the other night when lady luck decided to kick me in the head.

Top 9 paid on Betfair and I was 2nd in chips when I decided to steal the chip leaders big blind with Q9dd, my raise was met with a call and the flop came 9 high with 2 diamonds, a 6 and a 3. The BB led out and I decided to shove there and then to take the chips, he suprisingly called with 76hh and the turn brought a second 6 and with no diamond hitting the river I went out 3 places away from the cash.

Feeling sick about that call I entered another game. Again top 9 paid although this time I was in the bubble position with 16 left and needed a double up to get to a safe spot within the top 5. On a very chipped up table I was delighted to get dealt AA and pushed, it folded around to the BB who made an excellent call with K2o for 75% of his stack, obviously the RNG (sic) then put 2 deuces on the flop and that was game set match for me.

How these guys thought they were ahead when they made these calls is beyond me.

Anyway to even the balance I got lucky for a change on Friday night at the AoC in the head hunter game. Very short on chips at the final table after a few too many 3 bets that went wrong, I managed to get back in the game with 3 spots of luck in my favour.

First a push from the SB into the BB with 65s who called with AJ and I binked a 5 which held, next another push with K3s again for the blinds which got there ahead of A5, and then under the gun I managed to run my AA into the BB's KK. Another lucky escape later on saw me split a spot with K9 against K10 when a J came on the river to give us both a straight. Eventually I got to heads up with Voice of Joe and luck visited me again when we both got it all in, him holding 66 and me KK which held for the win.

So I suspose I should give the moaning a break for a while.

Its the APAT League game tonight on Betfair and I'm in playing for Sheffield. Last week I couldn't make it but two of our team made the final table, including the aforementioned VoJ, so hopefully I can have a good run this week and contribution to some team points

Talking of APAT, they have produced an electronic magazine, which is pretty good, although I'm not to sure of the ugly mug they chose for the cover.

Last Nights AoC

2010-03-06T13:24:00.003Z

I've not played much live so far this year mainly due to work reasons, but last night I was able to play for my 7th time this year and only my 4th visit to the AoC.

A few new faces had turned up as well as a few guys I'd not seen for a while so it was set to be a good night.

I had increased my starting stack of 5K by a thousand playing pretty tightly by the time we got to the 3rd level - 75/150, so with just one limper before me I decided to raise from the cutoff to 400 with 57o, the blinds got out of the way and the limper obviously calls ( if he hadn't there would not be a story to tell would there !).

The flop comes a very nice A,3,4 rainbow giving me two inside straight draws and a nice A on the board to follow up my preflop raise with, so when checked to I made a pretty small continuation bet of 500, around half the pot to find out where I was and happy to take it there and then if folded too. The limper check calls which tells me he's probably got a low A and that I probably need to hit one of the outs to my draws to win this hand now as a lot of people like to play any A at the AoC.

The turn hits me smack in the face with a very beautiful 6, and I'm checked to again. I decide to put another small bet in rather than slow play my straight in the hope of claiming a few more chips. With 2025 in the pot, I make it 700, which is still small enough to look weak and hopefully get another call.

Bingo - my opponent did better than call, he appeared to take the weak bait and reraised me to 1900, I have 4400 behind and really want to get it all in if possible, but made a mistake of saying raise 2500 more without thinking how it would still leave 700 behind, it didn't matter though as the villian advised me that he was putting me all in.

The cards were flipped and the guy can't believe I've got a straight after he had proudly showed his A6o for 2 pair. So 12K pot, can only lose now if 1 of 4 cards hits on the river.

And bang - there it was, a rivered A, giving villain a full house to beat my straight, leaving me to go and sit at the bar whilst Lou makes her way to the final table for the umpteenth time this year.

Live poker, its sooo rigged.

Disappointing Results

2010-02-28T01:20:00.003Z

Disappointing few games on betfair over the last day or two.

First of all, I qualified for the $12K GTD from a $6 sat which was not a bad result, but then ended up going out in 12th place from 180 odd runners, when on a blind steal. I pushed from the small blind with A7, which was bettered by the big blinds K10. Should have been happy with the $144 return but was playing well enough to go better.

In a roll building attempt, playing double or nothing sit and go's, I have sofar pushed JJ, QQ and KK ( twice) into AA , and also had KK bust by QQ and AA bust by KJ.

Moving on to other MTT's, A6, has hit turn and river 6 to out do my QQ, AJ lost out to KJ and A10 gone against A8.

In the APAT PLO MTT, I managed to get to 16th with the top 9 getting paid, when I pushed over the top of an early raiser with AA82 double suited, only for a guy behind to repop again with AAQ10, which hit a straight on the turn. Was pushing a final table position here also.

So after all the games I've played in the last couple of days, I'm up £30, yet if variance had gone my way it could have been about £3K.

Pretty Disappointing.

Pulp Fiction

2010-02-25T01:23:00.004Z

If I had to list the top ten of films I had ever viewed in my life, then without hesitation, the Quentin Tarantino classic Pulp Fiction would be included.

Maybe one day, I'll consider and list my top ten, but for now let me speak about this classic.

The movie databases reminds us that it was released in 1994, however if I had been involved in a pub quiz and there had been a question to name the year, without looking it up I would have sworn it was earlier as it is probably the first non classic disney / World War / ghostbusters / back to the future film thatI have viewed which was worth remembering.

An early part of the script goes as follows;

(VINCENT) In Paris, you can buy beer at MacDonald's. Also, you know what they call a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in Paris?

(JULES) They don't call it a Quarter Pounder with Cheese?

(VINCENT) No, they got the metric system there,they wouldn't know what the fuck a Quarter Pounder is.

(JULES) What'd they call it?

(VINCENT) Royale with Cheese.

(JULES) (repeating) Royale with Cheese. What'd they call a Big Mac?

(VINCENT) Big Mac's a Big Mac, but they call it Le Big Mac.

(JULES) Le Big Mac. What do they call a Whopper?

(VINCENT) I dunno, I didn't go into a Burger King. But you know what they put on french fries in Holland instead of ketchup?

(JULES) What?

(VINCENT) Mayonnaise.

(JULES) Goddamn!

(VINCENT) I seen 'em do it. And I don't mean a Little bit on the side of the plate,they fuckin' drown 'em in it.

(JULES) Uuccch!

Lou and me had a similiar conversation the other night

(Me) you'll never guess what they serve in Maccy Ds here

(Lou) what

(Me) a burger, with a McChicken sandwich with bacon and mayo on top

(Lou) so did you have one

(Me) nah, I couldn't prounouce it, I had a big mac instead

Yes folks, this week I spent my time in the newest historic city in Europe, Warsaw, the capital of Poland.

85% of this City got destroyed in World War 2, yet they rebuilt bits of it based on what it was previous, from materials that made up buildings elsewhere around the country. Warsaw is a fasincating city, as is Poland as a country. Despite it being the capital of Poland for the last 500 years and always central to European wars its pretty interesting to see a city that has been mainly built from stratch in the last 60 years. Maybe I'll go again as a tourist one day.

Whilst away, APAT announced some exciting details for their upcoming season - see here . Hopefully we'll get on a few road trips this year.

On my return, I visit the recently new casino in Sheffield - the G Casino, to play the £15 + £5 + £4 headhunter. From 34 runners I finished 4th for £60, getting unlucky I feel to call an allin with AK to see I was up against 65o, which obviously hit the 5 on the flop. I took 7 heads throughout the game for another £35 so happy with the return. Actually I enjoyed the game in decent facilities with decent dealers so maybe I'll go there again also.

Sunday Razz

2010-02-08T01:12:00.003Z

Another week over, where I've not played too much online.

I travelled to Frankfurt in Germany earlier in the week and came back full of cold, so spent the majority of the remainder tucked up in bed.

So, tonight feeling better, I thought I would try and spin that $215 ticket up by entering the weekly $10K GTD Razz game on Stars. It's been a while since I took razz seriously and played regularly, but still think that this is one of my best games, and I would have more chance of cashing in this, then wadding through the thousands in the sunday warmup/millions luckfests.

Unfortunately the stars rng is not really a friend of mine, and despite being chip leader of the game for the first hour or so, I still ended up departing in 40th place a few hours later without a cash after losing numerous pots on the trot when in front on either 6 street or drawing to the wheel after 4th and hitting 3 bricks.

I played a smaller $11 Razz game after this, and again led from the start, 5 paid and with 11 left I was certainly playing well and confident of a podium finish, only to go out in similar fashion to the game before in 10th place.

I don't like to critise the others who play this game badly, after all, generally their mistakes mean that I do well, but that rng on stars, well that just f*cks me off no end.

WBCOOP

2010-01-31T23:33:00.003Z

That's the end of the bloggers week for me.

I played all the WBCOOP events over on stars, I came away with 2 SCOOP tickets ( 1*$11 and 1*$16.50), suffered 3 bad beats ( one only a handful of places away from a 3rd ticket ) and made 2 mistimed bluff's.

During the week I also managed to start with a zero roll, cashed in a few freerolls, run that up further on the micro levels razz tables, a game I've not played in ages and then lose it in PLO H/L tourneys a game that I should really stay away from.

Another bonus was finding a step 2 ticket, which apparently I had won on the 16th Dec 2008, anyway that got recycled in a NAPT qualifier step and is now a $82 step 3 ticket, which I doubt will last over a year like the last one.

So thats me for online poker for a few weeks. I have enjoyed playing on stars again, but with a busy work schedule including a couple of business trips abroad in the next couple of weeks I doubt I will get much time playing online and when/if I do, I'll probably play the smaller easier to beat games on Betfair.

EDIT - That $82 ticket is now a $215 ticket, couldn't help myself so played it and came 4th and got the chance to play again, which I did straight away and then won that one. Decision now whether to play the step 4 or play a $215 MTT.

APAT / WBCOOP

2010-01-26T21:34:00.002Z

So we took a team to the APAT Team Event in Manchester at the weekend.

Mary who won this event last year was the first out of the entire field and I wasn't too far behind her, going out within the first 2 hours so the team were at a disadvantage early doors.

Personally I thought all the members of the team were good enough to go deep on their day, but it wasn't to be and only Lou, Mark and Kev went deep into day 1, with just Kev making day 2 and the points.Potentially it could have been all 3 but lady luck played against Lou and Mark late on, but still, well played all, especially Kev who made sure that we didn't finish bottom of the team table.

I actually had a cracking start, increasing my stack by 3K in the first couple of levels but then blew it all within a couple of orbits midway through level 3, a mixture of bad luck and bad play sealing my fate, the exit hand being the classic QQ v AK race which I obviously lost.

On the Sunday, I had the misfortune of playing in the worse run tournament I have ever experienced, a £20+5 with a 1 £10 addon self dealt game, which took 8 hours to get to the final table, fortunately I went out in 22nd from the 72 runners, losing a K7 v J10 flip and only had to bear it for around 7 hours. This place is hosting the pokerstars UKIPT in a couple of weeks, I hope they have a better time.

Don't let the poker spoil a good weekend though and it was a pleasure to enjoy the company of both the AOC team and other team players that we had not seen for a while.

Back to online last night and a 56th place finish from the 1740 in the first bloggers game on stars, saw me gain a $16.50 scoop ticket, which didn't really seem worth the late night.

APAT Team Events - Live Updates

2010-01-23T02:07:00.008Z

Going up to Manchester shortly to play in the APAT Team Event.

Live Updates will be here LIVE APAT UPDATES

This is my seat draw

Table 4-1: Michelle Bricknell (Voyage In Poker)
Table 4-2: Leigh Wiltshire (APAT)
Table 4-3: Mike Saban (Ace Of Clubs)
Table 4-4: Rod Buckman (Bristol & South West Poker Meetup)
Table 4-5: Tom (Punters Lounge)
Table 4-6: Paul Murphy (A World Of Poker)
Table 4-7: Peter Smithson (Newcastle Poker Forum)
Table 4-8: Jim Lynott (London Poker Meetup)
Table 4-9: Adam Doherty (PokerPlayer)
Table 4-10: David Davies (Chezger)

This is Lou's seat draw

Table 16-1: Lou Saban (Ace Of Clubs)
Table 16-2: Sam Swannack (Bristol & South West Poker Meetup)
Table 16-3: Billy Wallace (Punters Lounge)
Table 16-4: Valerie Morris (Voyage In Poker)
Table 16-5: Steve Redfern (APAT)
Table 16-6: Ed Herman (London Poker Meetup)
Table 16-7: Neil Atkins (PokerPlayer)
Table 16-8: Glenn Laming (Chezger)
Table 16-9: John Hare (A World Of Poker)
Table 16-10: Dave Stephenson (Newcastle Poker Forum)

Both of us have got some decent players on our starting tables, lets see how it goes.

Leave you with this tune, loving this at the moment

Ace of Clubs

2010-01-17T18:06:00.005Z

It was the first week back at the AoC this week, after last week was cancelled due to the weather.

The format for this year as changed, instead of the 6 monthly snowballs with the min of £500 added, which we've had for the past 4 years we're going to be having an 8 man single table £200 freeroll every quarter, where the top 2 from each monthly leaderboard will get an invite to play.

If you finish in the top 2 more than once, then that player will start with double the starting chips, finish in the top 2 3 times, then you'll start with 3x starting chips and so on.

It's not massive cash, but it gives us the opportunity to give cash back out to the members on a more regular basis.

We also changed the schedule of games, which will be as follows per month every Friday;

week 1 - £50 added
week 2 - Headhunter
week 3/4 - normal freezeout
last week - road trip

Road trips will be within an hours drive of the club, so up as far as Leeds or down to Nottingham, going on the majority vote, which will give the guys who dont play elsewhere a chance to experience a game against different opposition.

So with the changes, it keeps it interesting and hopefully we can keep the club running another year.

This week I had no luck playing, it was as expected a small field with only 15 playing, I went out in 7th taking only 1 head. Blinds at 150/300 I raised the button with J9dd to 1000, the SB pushed for 2400, the BB called so I thought that I'd take a look. Flop came down 942 rainbow, so when the BB checked to me I put the rest of my stack, just over 4K in the middle, to try and isolate which was snapped by the BB with 33 !

All the cards went on their backs, with the SB tabling 1010, so as long as my hand holds over the BB I'm still in profit.

Was never going to happen, as the turn brought a 5 and the river an Ace for the BB to take us both out. Lou ended up cashing in 4th place.

We're taking a team upto Manchester this coming weekend to play in the APAT Team championship and looking forward to that, but will probably mean another small field on Friday, as most of the team are going up then.

DTD Super 50

2010-01-09T21:45:00.003Z

Visited DTD to play in their first Super 50 event today, which was a £10K guaranteed tournament with 10K starting chips and 24 minutes blinds.

270 entrants with 40 odd alternates and another 40 turned away. In the end 274 runners got to compete playing for a first prize of over £4K, 27 paid. What a cracking turnout, DTD were obviously impressed as they decided at short notice that they are going to run the same format again next week.

Once again DTD delivers.

Unfortunately my game doesn't reach the same high standard and today I played like a complete wet fart. It started well, I took the blinds with JJ in the first hand, and that was my peak 10,075. Other than AQ - chopped and A10o - took blinds, I had no quality hands for the rest of my time and had to try and force the action, and basically got caught out the majority of the time.

With KQs I took the blinds and then QJs was the only other hand I won with, when I 3 bet a limper when on the button, this was called but the villian folded when I cont bet the flop.

I played Q9s badly when I bet from the CO and was called by the button. Flop came K9x, I bet again was called, turn was blank, bet again was called and then the river went check check. The villian had JJ.

This played on my mind an orbit later when I tried to take the blinds with A9, blinds at 100/200, I make it 600 to play, button flats. Flop comes 922 rainbow, I make it 1000, button thinks and then raises to 3500, I fold showing the 9, only for the bugger to show me a 9 back.

Eventually after playing such quality hands as 108o and 74o badly, I dwindle down to a quarter of my starting stack, and decide as its level 6 blinds 200/400 a25, that there is 825 in the middle and I need to start picking this up and that I will push the next time I get to be first in the pot. Well no sooner had I had this thought, it folds to be on the button, I look down at what looked like a stunning hand - 43o and in it goes, only for the small blind, who to be honest owned me today, install calls with AJs. First card out A, second card J and thats goodnight godbless to my tournament out in 230th place after less than 3 hours.

My thoughts on the structure, well 24 minutes is just too fast, there's no time to be waiting around as once you get to level 6 and beyond, it seemed to me that the average stack to M ratio was pretty low around 5 or 6. However its a £50 tourney with a fantastic prize pool in a quality venue which needs to be over in a day, so can't really complain. You just need to be picking up cards early or getting lucky unlike me if you decide to play trash.

So, played terrible but do love that place and no doubt will play this tournament again if the chance presents itself.

WBCOOP

2010-01-07T19:22:00.001Z

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! Bloggers can register for to play for free in the WBCOOP, if you don’t have a PokerStars account you can get your Poker Download here.

Registration code: 085003

Betfair Leaderboards part 2

2010-01-04T16:59:00.003Z

Finished 15th in the low stakes leaderboard this last week, I reckon if I'd put another evenings play in, I would have cracked the top 10, there's no way of getting in that top 5 though unless your playing full time, as the difference in points between 15th and 10th was just 1200 points however between 15th and 1st was nearer 10,000.

So, although I ran deep in loads of games, the results haven't been as good as they should have been, with the Betfair river being against me the majority of the time. Its a great site for bad players, but your edge only works if your cards hold up.

Oh well, might just take a little longer before I can book that 2 week holiday in florida courtesy of Betfair poker tournaments.

2010

2010-01-02T00:06:00.003Z

Happy New Year

In the past I have tended to jot down some optimistic goals for the coming 365 days, however I don't think I have ever reached them, so this year I wont bother.

Let's just hope that we all have a happy healthy year.

Best Wishes.

Betfair Leaderboards

2009-12-28T15:57:00.005Z

Just taken a look at the Betfair MTT leaderboards for week 21st - 27th December.

Basically they are split into two and show the top 100 players at both low stakes tournaments ( Buyins of $22 and under) and high stakes ( Buyins above $22) for the previous week.

The leaderboards are a good guide to obviously the players who are on form, but also gives an indication of who are the regular ( professional ? ) players who are working on the site, and its no suprise that I recognise the names above and around me as I run into them time after time.

I was quite pleased to see that I had made both top 100 lists again, but didn't expect to be so high up on the low stakes especially after the self imposed Christmas break where I didn't log on from Christmas Eve lunch time until Boxing Day evening.

Back to work tomorrow, so its going to be quite difficult to get in the volume to repeat this week results, but I'll give it my best shot in the evenings.

Screenshot of my placing in the low and high leaderboard for 21-27th Dec

Perseverance

2009-12-28T00:36:00.003Z

Horrible day online today.

One of those days when you knew that 2 outer was going to get there on the river. Absolutely nothing going right, a flopped straight would lose to the river flush, sets lost to river straights, AK's losing to AQ's and so on. Proper frustrating, I even started playing crap cards in the hope I would suck out, that didnt work either. In one game whilst heads up for 1 seat into a bigger game, approx even stacks, I pushed with 98o, knowing that the villian could only call with a decent hand, of course he snaps with 10,3, which held.

I was even contemplating phoning Betfair to ask what they done with my account and requesting that they check my hand history for some kind of super user activity against me.

Anyway, eventually, cards started to hold and villians started to find the fold button and I managed to get a return. I don't think I coud handle the pressure of playing online tournament poker for a living, its too stressful when it seems everything is going against you.

Here's the best results - 7th in the EWS for just over $200 and 1st in a turbo for $480

Merry Christmas

2009-12-24T16:23:00.001Z

Merry Christmas all, hope you and your family have a great day.

All the best

Lucky Swings

2009-12-23T13:22:00.005Z

I had a terrible day online yesterday.

After a lot of success recently with turbo satellites on Betfair, I'd been asked to document a few tips for one of my mates, so after I'd written these up on the AoC forum the night before, I kind of knew I was tempting fate and true to form, yesterday turned out to be a stinker.

If there were 2 seats available, I came 3rd, if there were 9 I didn't make the final table. I played a few other regular tournaments between $5 - $20 and made no headway there either.

Deciding I then needed to recover what I'd lost, I then donked off even more on the $24, $60 and $108 double or nothing tables. As a side note, I really need to rethink my strategy here, I rarely buyin to the bigger tournaments on Betfair $50 -$100, sometimes I do but the majority of the time, I feel I have to qualify for them rather than buyin directly, and yet I don't think nothing of playing $60 & $108 double or nothings, must have a screw loose somewhere there.

Anyway, things went from bad to worse, when in 2 $60 DoN's and 1 $108 DoN, the internet went down.

I didn't think I was playing bad, but the river and luck were against me. I'm sure I was on tilt and the wisest move would have been to withdraw what I had left and turn off the machine. However.

I decided to play some cash PLO to try and scrape some funds back, which wasn't the cleverest of ideas as I lost nearly 3 buyins within minutes, all with the best hand on the turn. It had been a crap day. Fortunatley the clock struck midnight and those 3 buyins down turned into 4 buyins up, but it was a grind and took the best part of 3 hours. I could have stayed on, but it had become important to lock in a profit on the cash session because the tournament and SnG day had been so bad.

So today,I get up knowing that my starting balance is not as bad as it could have been, and maybe today lady luck may be on myside instead of against me.

So one quick tournament to try it out - the $22 Super Turbo luckfest Lunchtime money game on Betfair, if there is a test of luck, this is the game to play. I wasn't getting many hands, but the ones I played were holding and eventually I found myside in a money position, short but finally a cash. And then Lady Luck paid me a personal visit, I like to think of it as an apology for yesterday, which I have gladly accepted.

Down to just 17 chips after the blind and ante were paid, with 18 left, I somehow found myself on the final table.

9 left
8 left
7 left
6, 5, 4, 3, 2.......

One ? no...alas she wasn't that kind, but I'll take a second place finish for just over $400 after such a shit day yesterday.

Who says there is no luck in this game.

A Solution to Betfair Irregular Satellite Problem .. IMO

2009-12-21T18:39:00.000Z

I think Betfair must have my number on speed dial at the moment. Just took another call, apparently they are calling their regular big buyin tournament players and were enquiring if I was considering buying into the $510 Aussie Millions online final and they wanted to advise of the added value.

Well when I stopped laughing at the thought of firstly being one of their regular big buyin tournament players ( satellites ftw ) and then secondly buying directly into a $510 online satellite, I listened to the guy on the phone advise of added Vienna trips and online games which were being awarded, but are not yet advertised. Actually sounds like a lot of added value, perhaps Betfair are struggling to sell this tournament and are trying to drum up support.

I appreciated the call, but this brings me back to a problem I've mentioned before with Betfair's live tournament / festival satellites. The regular online sats are fine but the sats for non regular betfair hosted games need work.

The Aussie Millions final is a $29K GTD game, 2 packages being awarded at $14.5K each, as mentioned the buyin is $500+10, so 1 aussie package for every 29 entrants, which in my opinion is the problem. Fine if you manage to qualify for the final from stage 1 which is $1 or stage 2 which is $5. But stage 3 is $50+5, which even I dont see the point of buying in direct to, as you need to win the 1 in 11 chance, to then have a chance at the 1 in 29 game - to much luck involved in my opinion.

Its possible, that Betfair only have so many seats that players on their network can win, and by using this satellite tree, that restricts the number who will qualify, however if this is not the case then they really need to alter the number of steps to make the qualification route more attractive.

My thinking on this is that you make the final more expensive which makes the number of players to packages awarded ratio better, ok by upping the price of the final, potentially you may not get anyone buying in directly however the number attempting to qualify for the final would be more.

So for example, the current tree is;

step 1 = 1+0.10 with 1 seat for every 5.50 in prize pool to next step ( roughly 1 in 6 )
step 2 = 5 +0.50 with 1 seat for every 55 in prize pool to next step ( roughly 1 in 6 )
step 3 = 50 +5 with 1 seat for every 510 in prize pool to next step ( roughly 1 in 11 )
final step = 500 + 10 with 1 package for every 14,500 in prize pool ( 1 in 29 )

I would prefer to see something along the lines of

step 1 = 5 +0.50 with 1 seat for every 25 + 2.5 in prize pool to next step ( roughly 1 in 6 )
step 2 = 25 + 2.5 with 1 package for every 150 + 10 in prize pool to next step ( roughly 1 in 7 )
step 3 = 150 + 10 with 1 package for every 750 + 10 in prize pool to next step ( roughly 1 in 7 )
step 4 = 750 + 10 with 1 package for every 3000 + 10 in prize pool to next step ( roughly 1 in 7 )
final step = 3000 + 10 with 1 package for every 14,500 in prize pool ( roughly 1 in every 5 )

Again, in my opinion, everyone is a winner here, Betfair would no doubt see more traffic and direct buyins on the first 3 steps than what they're currently seeing, thus generating more rake, and at the same time more packages will be won.

Anyone like to share their thoughts on this - agree / disagree ?

DTD 19th Dec

2009-12-20T17:51:00.004Z

It was my birthday yesterday and Lou had arranged for an AoC road trip to DTD. It was a cracking night with approx 14-15 making the journey, we decided to play the £15+5 and keep it light and have a few beers. Here's the result.

Customer Service

2009-12-18T16:12:00.004Z

Betfair must have been reading my last couple of posts, as I taken a couple of calls from them in the last 24 hours.

The first one was an offer where they would match a buyin on my main account, if I was to buyin to a tournament upto $60 before midnight Sunday. I had planned to move the roll onto my main account anyway, so good timing with that.

The 2nd call was to offer me a rakeback deal initially just on mine, but then added Lou's account also. With 3 months backpay. I think a friend of ours enquiring about a deal for me, started off a chain events where they must have thought it was better to sort me out direct rather than go through an affiliate, either way, I'm pleased that they took the time to give me a call and sort it out. The 3 months back pay is a superb bonus too, as we've been hammering the tourneys on there, so hopefully that will all add up.

Offline, its the AOC snowball tonight - £500 gets added from club funds, so hoping for a good run in that, and then a bunch of us are going for a night out to DTD tomorrow.

Another Betfair Result

2009-12-16T00:38:00.002Z

Finished 4th from 195 in the $12K GTD on Betfair tonight, qualified for it through an $11 sat and took home $960, so not a bad result.

Half goes back in the bank, half goes towards playing more satellites. I think there is some quite good value to be had in the Betfair satellites for the regular "HOT" games on that site, however the sat's they come up with for the live games they sponsor or any live or irregular events are in my opinion pretty crap. I wont get onto to it tonight, but I will in the future and it doesn't take a mastermind to work out how they can improve.

I mentioned the other day, that I stuck a few quid on the DTD site, well I had a couple of final tables on there in the last 24 hours or so, but nothing major. I played a €11 head hunter game, finished 8th from a couple of hundred or so without taking a head, my reward was a massive €10.65, I suspose the clue is in the title really isn't it. I also came 8th again in another little €6 game, a bit better return but nothing bank breaking. I played a couple of sats for the £300 and £150 live games but got nowhere, I will though, eventually.

A little roundup

2009-12-13T21:44:00.004Z

So, its about time I got round to writing an update.

Since winning that $3K about a fortnight ago, I put a massive chunk back into the bank account so I wouldn't donk it off and to help towards Christmas expenses, and then set about playing loads of sat's for the bigger games to see if I could hit repeat. Well I qualified for the bigger games on Betfair loads of times, on average at least a couple of their "hot" games a night, but other than a few mini cashes here and there, success has been a bit rare in tournament play.

I continue to stay in the top 100 for both the Betfair high and low weekly leaderboards, which shows how close I'm getting but recently just no cigar at the end of the game.I'm not too concerned though, I've pulled around £5k off Betfair in the last 4 months and I've no intention of putting it back, so even if I don't score another big result soon, I'm very happy of how the site as contributed to this years profits. My biggest school boy error though is playing on accounts that don't receive any rakeback, which would have increased profits, so I need to sort that out for next year.

I recently also moved some of my roll and put a little bit on the Boss DTD site, so hopefully I'll be able to build that up and start playing some of the decent sized tourneys on there.

I played the APAT WCOAP Stud event last night on Bluesq and final table bubbled. I only mention it because, I rarely play stud, but can distinctly recall final bubbling 3 times in stud tournaments, aswell as last night, once live at DTD and once when my mate Martyn won a trip to Vegas in a freeroll. I bubble loads playing NLHE, but those times have not stuck in memory like the stud games, so maybe I need to play some more to overcome this bubble rut I'm in with the game.

Outside of poker, I've been too a few gigs recently, I saw Kasabian at Sheffield Arena, Los Campesino's / Cribs at Doncaster Dome and then Madness at Sheffield O2 Academy, all of which I enjoyed. I also managed to get some James tickets for next year, so really looking forward to that.

Right, thats me back upto date. Be Lucky.

I'm back

2009-12-03T23:44:00.003Z

Many many many thanks to my mate Mark Barsley who lent me a laptop this week. I will try and find time later in the week to write a blog including my movember mustache picture.

Its been an excellent week for both of us online, but this has got to be the highlight, just finished 1st from 83 in a $100 game for $3K .

Sunday 22/11/09

2009-11-22T12:32:00.003Z

Not to much to report on this weeks poker, a few min cashes in the few games I've played online and second at the AoC on Friday.

I could use a major result now with the most expensive time of the year coming up, so hopefully this week.

I see from Bary Carters Blog that the new G Casino in Sheffield is due to open in a fortnight, and he also posts on the Blonde Poker forum, that they have been earmarked to host a couple of the smaller GUKPT events in next years schedule. This is pretty exciting news for me as it means hopefully that I'll now have a decent card room closer to home than the hours drive to DTD. Although its unlikely I'll be playing any other live games other than AoC, until after the new year now.

Took the family to watch an Ice hockey game last night - Sheffield Steelers v Hull Stingrays, first time I've ever watched ice hockey live and despite not knowing all the rules, we had a good family night out although I spent a bomb, so an experience we probably wont repeat again until after we've got Christmas out of the way.

Thats it for now.

A tiny win

2009-11-14T23:37:00.002Z

Not posted an outright win for a while, so happy with this 1st place, even if it was only in a $5 PLO game for 80 odd bucks.

Ace of Clubs Tonight

2009-11-14T03:03:00.002Z

First hand, I'm dealer, 8 to a table, blinds 25/50, 5000 starting stack.

UTG bet 200
UTG + 1 raise 800
UTG + 2 all in for 5000
UTG +3 major tanks and then folds

everyone else folds, we find out that UTG had AJs, UTG + 1 had QQ, UTG + 2 had AKs, as did UTG+3

what a deal !

Next hand, I'm the CO

UTG bet 175
UTG +1 all in for 6075

everyone folds, UTG+1 shows 53o, wp sir.

Next hand
UTG makes it 300, everyone folds

Next hand all folded to the BB

Next hand, I'm UTG

I raise with KK to 175, called by UTG+1 and button, SB makes it 800, I think, yes mate your trying to win this game with in the first level so push rest of chips in to try and add 20% to my stack there and then, all folds to SB who instacalls with AA, which hold on a board of 10,8,10,2, A. Later find out that UTG+1 had 10,10 ! My timing is so off.

I'm out, not only in first level but in first orbit, not even paying a blind. Crazy table, crazy night, game finished within 3 hours.

It was the first night at the club since Lou picked the team for the APAT event. We knew there would be mates and members who would be disappointed by not being selected and tonight could be a difficult night. Hopefully Lou got her point across and explained why she selected who she did and how there would be opportunities in the future, however there was one guy who refused to talk to us, proper shame, a nice lad and a good player but we couldn't justify a place for him over others. He didn't take it well.

This is the problem when it comes to team events, when you are picking a team from people who you have built a relationship with and in the majority of cases have become friends. Not like a online forum where they might be picking people on results documented online and team selection confirmation is a yes or a no via a private online message. We have to face people who haven't been picked. In the main, the Ace of Clubs has become a close knit group, obviously some are more closer than others, but when it comes to a big game, we all will support each other, and hope that the other records a big score. So when it comes to telling people they haven't been selected, (especially when there are 14/15 names who in my opinion who would hold their own against the best) then it becomes very diffcult.

Lou and me disagreed for hours when picking this team, it was very hard to justify one over another, and in the end we agreed on a team formula for this event and hopefully that will be good on not just poker playing abilites but also on the representing the club front which is equally important to us.

I enjoy pushing our club forward and hoping our mates do well outside of our games, but disappointing mates by not selecting them for a team, when we can only pick so many is a task I need to learn to not get so emotionally wound up over if we are to play more of these types of games in the future.

Its Sunday night, I should be in bed its work tomorrow

2009-11-08T23:36:00.004Z

So I listened to the majority of the WSOP Main Event Final Table last night and most of this morning via the Bluff website.

Must say I'm surprised Darwin Moon made it in the last 2 with some of his crazy calls, but still quite pleased and now Akenhead and Ivey are out, I would like to see him win it outright, even if he's not quite going to be the Poker Ambassador that the poker world would like to see. Pleased to say with all my trading on Betfair, I'm in profit whoever wins, so wont be staying up to listen to the heads up.

I got away with a number of lucky calls also this weekend, on my way to winning the game at Ace of Clubs on Friday night. I got away with my pocket 6's against 1010, on a 4,5,7 flop, when put allin only for the 3 to bink on the turn. I got it all in again a little later with AQs again against 10's in a blind on blind situation when down to 5, flop was no good but the turn and river both delivered an Ace. A little later when down to 3, I had raised and then made a snap call with KJ only to face KQ, however the J on the flop made sure I was good to go to heads up. Heads up took an age and in the end we decided to split the majority and play a hand for the rest, which I took, so pretty happy overall.

Talking about the AoC, I'm delighted that we have been invited as one of the 20 teams to play in the APAT team event next year. Me and Lou both played for Raise the River forum in the last one, and I'm pleased to see that they have been invited along with other big forums that we're members of, so hopefully it will fantastic to compete in this event with AoC against alot of people we know and should be a good weekend to look forward to. The downside is that when picking a team of only 8, Lou has to disappoint a few people, which is never nice, especially when they are your mates.

Online I'm rarely playing currently, but just had a quick session on Betfair. The standard really is terrible at times on there, and despite qualifying for a couple of their "HOT" games tonight, I didn't achieve any spectacular results in those, and infact went on major tilt, when my 11x BB push with QQ from the BB was called by a bigger stacks limped 22, only for the 2 to come first card out. Fortunately I managed to win an $11 turbo from 99 runners for a $300 return and ensure another positive session.

Outside of poker, I'm still on with my tache growing for Movember, and I'm quite pleased to say that I've now got 26 hair follicles on the top lip, 27 if you count the one with split ends, although I might have to use Lou's mascara to darken them a bit if they stay blonde ! .

Another night another cash

2009-11-05T00:31:00.004Z

Played one of my Betfair challenge games tonight, didn't do that well finished around the top third but not close enough to the cash.

Played another couple of games on Betfair, including a $44 tourney which I came 3rd for $217 so not bad return and another profitable night. However I had a decision to make and can't decide if I made the right one or not, what do you do here ?

***** Betfair Poker Hand History for Game 600245980 *****

NL Texas Hold'em $40 Buy-in + $4 Entry Fee, Level:11 Blinds(600/1,200-75 ante) - Thursday, November 05, 00:00:42 GMT 2009

$1,200 Guaranteed NL Hold'em #293662

Table 1 9-max (Real Money)

Seat 8 is the button

Total number of active players : 3

Seat 1: Legato ( 42,474.25 )

Seat 5: derbyred ( 31,694.50 )

Seat 8: MagicMojo77 ( 10,831.25 )

Tourney Level:11 Blinds(600/1,200-75 ante)

Legato posts ante [75]

derbyred posts ante [75]

MagicMojo77 posts ante [75]

Legato posts small blind [600]

derbyred posts big blind [1,200]

** Dealing down cards **

Dealt to derbyred [ Ad, Kc ]

MagicMojo77 raises to [3,300]

Legato goes all-in

Legato raises to [42,399.25]

I eventually folded, as did the initial raiser, I think its a good fold but then again there's a few "what if's" lingering.

Betfair EWS Result

2009-11-04T00:25:00.002Z

Lou gave me a shot of her laptop tonight to play a couple of games, I didn't do too much in the first $11 game I played, but fared a little better in my second game - $55 Eyes Wide Shut, coming 4th from 107 runners for $428, disappointed to not finish higher but still, not a bad result.

Movember - Prostate Cancer

2009-11-02T00:57:00.006Z

This is a poker blog, I try to keep away from personal opinions - apart from the odd music video or football result, but this is pretty important, so I thought I'd share.

Prostate Cancer is the most wide spread cancer in men in UK. 35,000 will be diagnosed this year in the UK, with one fella unfortunate enough to die from it every hour.

Movember is a bit of a take the piss way of raising awareness and funds to combat this disease, by not shaving. Movember ( replacing November ) is where guys get to look stupid and grow silly taches in the hope that the Prostate Cancer Charity can earn funds to work towards helping change established attitudes and habits and make men aware of the risks they face, thereby increasing early detection, diagnosis and effective treatment.

So, I had my last shave yesterday, and for the entire month, I risk going without ( wink wink nudge nudge) - due to being "prickly" to do some good. At the last count, on my upper lip I had 6 hair follicles, so I reckon this is going to be very embarrasing for me, when all I can produce is a pencil tache, rather than the full biker handle bar, but hey its for a worthy cause.

Please support me, I'd be grateful for anything you can donate from your winnings in "Movember" at the following link http://uk.movember.com/mospace/209479/. I'll update the blog as when I can get a photo online of how I'm getting on.

To start us off, here is a picture of a very clean shaven me and my good looking mate Kev from the Ace of Clubs last night at a Halloween party.

Good News Bad News

2009-10-28T00:36:00.002Z

My life is never simple. Don't get me wrong, its not all bad....just half of it. For every good thing there is something quickly there to bring me back down to earth. To prove this, I thought I would make a few notes from tonights experiences;

Good News - my night to play in the Betfair Challenge

Bad News - working late

Good News - office carpet cleaning, everybody got to leave early

Bad News - get to experience rush hour on way home

Good News - get home and see I'm registered to play the $55+5 $12GTD courtesy of Betfair

Bad News - laptop on its last legs and powers itself off 3 times within 30 mins prior to game

Good News - laptop runs ok for over an hour

Bad News - laptop turns itself off again when I've limped in MP with 78s

Good News - Lou has Betfair installed on her laptop and is in the next room

Bad News - Lou has about 4 games of her own going on, on different sites

Good News - Lou manages to log onto my Betfair account, in time to see a 10,9,7 rainbow flop

Bad News - I have no time to work out what to do, so I push which is met by a call, and I lose and am out v.early

Good News - I'm still in the $22 $3.2K GTD

Bad News - laptop wont power up again and gets a little tap

Very Bad News - laptop has now got a smashed screen, the little tap might have been a little on the hard side

Good News - poker tilt as just evaporated

Extremely Bad News - just remembered all my poker results spreadsheets are still on laptop

Good News - I can't see how bad I've been running this past week

Bad News - I've already pre registered for a satellite into the "Eyes Wide Shut $55 $5K GTD", a $33 $1K GTD game and a $16.5 $1K Hourly turbo

Good News - my mother in law as a laptop and she only lives about 5 minutes away

Bad News - that would mean visiting the mother in law

Good News - my Niece volunteer's to nip up and get it

Bad News - I now have no excuse but to wash up whilst she's gone

Good News - I win the satellite into the $55 EWS game.

Bad News - I run well in the $16.5 game and look to cash, until I make a "move" with AKs, obviously this is looked up by a bigger stack KJ, who hits 2 Jacks on the flop

Good News - I run well in the EWS game and look to make the final table

Bad News - I lose a blind v blind battle when I put the BB all in, I've got KQ, obviously he has QQ. I'm now the short stack on the bubble

Good News - I'm a black belt in the art of being a short stack ninja and still limp into the cash

Bad News - I need about 10 double ups just to pay the next blinds

Good News - I somehow make the final table and push myself into 5th in chips

Bad News - My allin with AQ is met with a call from big stacks QJo, obviously J on the flop

Good News - $196 return from $5 satellite entry

Bad News - first place was $1600, enough for a new laptop

Good News - I've made the final table in the $33 game

Bad News - its proper tight and only 5 get paid

Good News - I get myself 2nd in chips and in the cash

Bad News - I lose another blind on blind battle, this time I have 22 in the BB, SB makes a gay raise, I call. Flop J, 10, 2. SB pushes, I install call

Good News - SB has Q 10 o

Bad News - turn comes K, river comes 9, I'm now uber short

Good News - $120 return from $33 buyin and another FT

Bad News - still not enough for a laptop, not sure when I'm going to be able to play again

Good News - I might get something other than socks for Christmas

Most Haunted

2009-10-27T00:19:00.005Z

The Most Haunted team are basing their live halloween show from the town of my youth this year - Morecambe.

To be honest, I'm suprised that they don't spend more time there, as I can recall dating some right horror's in that area when I was a kid. If Lapland is the place which exports phoney santa's at Christmas, then look to Morecambe as a chief exporter of Witches and ghouls at this time of the year.

If your not familiar with the show, basically its a team of people who are trying to make contact with lost souls from the other side, with a number of ghost busting techniques. They've been running for the best part of 10 years, but I've yet to hear that they've had any major success to their questions of " is there anybody here" or their pleas of " do something to me if you can hear us".

Just one time, please, how good would it make for TV, if they got the answer " Yes, I'm here, now fook off" before Yvette Fielding is lifted off her feet and thrown into the nearest wall.

To continue with the halloween theme, but moving onto poker, my online results have been pretty terrifying in the last week. I've not had a decent return for about a week, and around 300 bucks down in the last 7 days. I seem to be the bubble man at the moment or very close to it. You must get extra points for the Betfair leaderboard for bubbling, because I managed to finish 38th last week, which is my 3rd consecutive top 100 leaderboard finish on the small stakes leaderboard since I've been taking notice.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still pulling in a few cashes, but nowhere near as well as I was doing a couple of weeks ago, my volume as increased to try and get back on track, meaning larger losses, when results don't go my way. Confidence is dipping and on the wrong side of variance at the moment. Tonights key hand that sticks in my mind was coming over the top of a serial raiser when in the last 7 of a $44 game, top 5 paid, I had AQs, he called with K6o, flop K6x, turn K river x. GG.

On the flip side, played at the Ace of Clubs on Friday, and not only did I cash for the first time in weeks, I won it. It was a smaller field than normal, but a win's a win.

Lou played her second challenge game tonight, she came very close again, but missed out on the money when she got her chips in with AQ against JJ which held, going out in 26th place from approx 180. She did pull up this royal flush though, the first one either of us has had in years.

Betfair Challenge

2009-10-22T00:22:00.003+01:00

Great start to our Betfair challenge games tonight from Lou who finished 15th from 165 to get us our first cash ( $216) , currently 26 games to go.

21st Oct

2009-10-20T23:54:00.004+01:00

I've had a miserable few days online, suffering beat after beat, and I think only cashing in around 4 tournaments from the 30 odd I played. I wont bore you with the detail but I was starting to tilt as the outcome of a hand was becoming predictable.

Anyway, just finished 4th from 171 in a $20 game for just short of $275 which has softened the blow slightly. I fancied playing the 20/20 at DTD at the weekend, but only if I won enough online, I need a load more of these results this week before I make that trip.

Los Campesinos!

2009-10-18T02:43:00.002+01:00

I've not run very well tonight, only making just the one final table from the five tournaments I played, running close to the money in 3 of the others but not close enough, out 23 / 119, 28 / 115 and 35 / 178.

Probably my best result of the night was coming across a group called Los Campesinos! on you tube tonight, theyv'e been around for around 3 years, but I don't think I've heard of them before tonight. They sound very good and I must have listened to their entire back catalogue on you tube tonight. I see that they're playing Doncaster, supporting the Cribs in December, I might have to book a couple of tickets.

Here's a taster

Still Second

2009-10-16T00:07:00.004+01:00

Was a bit slow in getting warmed up tonight, playing 5 tournaments very badly and busting early, playing too impatient and trying to win it all within a couple of levels.

A break followed by a quick sit and go to regain the feeling of success, refocused the mind and I ended up playing better on my 6th tournament attempt of the night, coming 2nd in a $44 game for almost $400 which gave me a nice profit for the day.

I felt I was slightly unlucky with my exit hand, blinds at 3K,1.5K I raise with 77, villian re pops, I decide to push, he decides to call with AJ, J on the river ends the game, to be fair though the guy had played an excellent game on the final table, sucking up all the chips around the bubble and deserved to win, so although disappointed with a bad luck on the exit hand, overall I'm happy with the 2nd place.

So, now I need to work on getting rid of this impatience, which has recently appeared trying to win a tournament or at least cash within the first 5 minutes of playing.

Lou's having a party.

2009-10-14T23:17:00.003+01:00

Party Poker kindly gave Lou and me some free cash to play on that site. I'm currently focused on Betfair so let Lou play off the cash.

Well so far, she's been running over the step games on there, getting up to the $170 buyin games from the micro stakes and also coming 5th in a micro stake tourney for some nice little returns.

I'm hoping she can keep running good so we can take some of that cash out and put it towards some of other life costs.

I'm still on Betfair, I didn't play yesterday, but tonight I cashed in 2 of the 4 tournaments I played and also doubled up in one of the $108.90 double or nothing games to reclaim some of the funds I lost the other night.

So, so far, things are still looking good for Team Saban in the online poker world, no great shakes but moving in the right direction.

They caught me

2009-10-13T00:47:00.004+01:00

Looks like Betfair finally caught up with me and my decent run tonight, playing 10 tournaments and not coming close to the cash once, denting my roll to the tune of $150.

I should have stopped playing early on, when it became clear it was not going to be my night, I think this has to be my favourite beat in a $22 game, getting some mug to call, only for the cards to go against me. Can't beat that.

Dealt to derbyred [ Ac, Ad ]
nahoj1 folds
gabr folds
joorczakos raises to [100]
derbyred goes all-in
derbyred raises to [2,330]
MANBEARP1G folds
AASutcliffe folds
joorczakos calls [1,325]
joorczakos goes all-in
Returning uncalled bet [905] to derbyred
** Showdown ** joorczakos shows [ 9c, Td ] derbyred shows [ Ac, Ad ]
** Dealing Flop ** [ Ah, Qc, Jc ]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 9s ]
** Dealing River ** [ 8h ]
** Hand Conclusion**joorczakos wins 2,925 from main pot with a straight, Queen to Eight

Sunday 11th Oct

2009-10-11T22:20:00.002+01:00

4th in a $27 Deepstacks for $132 on Betfair was the poker highlight of my day. Eventually the game ended up an all in fest and I went out when pushing 77 into the BB's 10's.

I fancied playing the $109 PLO Betfair Online Side Series game ( BOSS ) but being unable to qualify via a satellite I decided it was too much for my small bankroll, especially for such a swingy game. In the end I opted for the $55 +5 $10K GTD NLHE game instead, but never really got going, eventually out in 92nd place from the 291 runners, pushing KJ from the button into KQ on the BB.

By the way, I wonder if Betfair realised that the acronym of their series was the name of one of their poker room rivals, probably a bit of a school boy error there.

Whilst playing the BOSS game, also played a freeroll with 750 entrants, with the first prize being a couple a tickets to go and watch Man Utd next year. I finished 20th and bagged a small free sports bet, but could have been worse, I could have finished first.

Sigh

2009-10-11T02:59:00.004+01:00

Sigh...

Just had a nice little run on Betfair, cashing in 4 tournaments on the trot, but dammed if I could win one of them.

7/152 for $106.40 in the $22 3K GTD.

8/78 in a $22 Turbo for $72

10/108 in the $11 1K GTD, AK loses out to A5 on the FT bubble for chip lead

and finally 2/98 in a $5.5 game A10 v 66 all in pre when roughly evenly matched in chips in a very friendly and chatty game.

So pretty happy with the run, but as ever always wanting that little bit more. I see I also got into the top 100 small stakes tourament leaderboard on Betfair for last week, so pretty pleased with that and something else to try and do better at.

Still playing Betfair

2009-10-09T01:06:00.003+01:00

I've put in a few hours in on Betfair again this week, despite our team challenge finishing ( still waiting for the 2nd bit to start by the way,with the 27 x $109 games ) and have been enjoying playing, I suspose it helps when your getting decent results and putting some cash back in the bank to keep the bank manager happy.

I suspose I'll continue to play on there whilst the goings good.

Here's another one for tonight, winning the small $5 Omaha game.

Check in the Dark

2009-10-02T12:29:00.005+01:00

After a few decent results online recently, I decided that I should treat Lou to a nights entertainment out somewhere, something nice to eat and a drink or four.

So when Kev, one our buddies from the Ace of Clubs massive, mentioned that he fancied playing the £20 freezeout at the Gala in Nottingham, that seemed to tick all the right boxes and after a mass rush to finish work at a reasonable time, we got picked up by another AoC pal - Karl and we were off.

I can't recall the last time we went to play at the Gala in Nottingham, its been a while, probably pre DTD, however my opinion of the place was always a good one.

The card room is separated from the Casino, holds about 8 tables for tournament play and another couple for cash. The tables may be a bit worn but still decent enough, the tournaments are run by casino staff but are the games self dealt, however a dealer is nominated for the table from one of the regulars and is generally of a better standard than your usual casino dealer. We all tip him the price of a pint, he gets a meal voucher from the casino and everyones happy.

So, we get to Gala, its a £20 freezeout with £500 added. The casino take a quid rake and then another 3 for the dealers, so £24 in total. 7000 starting chips starting at 25/50 with the first level 30 minutes and the rest 20.

Typically, both me and Lou are sat at the same table and just tred water for the first few levels, Karl was doing the same elsewhere, but on the table next to us, all we keep hearing is "another one gone" and Kev is sat there with a massive stack and a big cheesey grin.

The blinds get up to 300/150, runners at around 60 left, I lose a few pots and find myself with only a couple of thousand left and looking for a hand to push, when all the lights in the card room go out except for the odd emergency light and exit sign.

Did it stop us ? not at all, play continued, and we got another 2 or 3 hands in, during which time I literally did check in the dark, before the casino manager informed us that we would have to stop play, whilst they sorted the power out.

Once outside it appeared that half the street had lost power, so we waited, and waited, and then nipped to a local bar so Lou could use the facilities and have a quick pint, before getting the call that people were being admitted again over an hour later.

The break and the beer must have done me good, as I then went on an unstoppable run, whilst Lou and my mates fell to the wayside, building that 2000 chips into 200,000 and having a third of chips in play by the time the bubble burst and we got to the final 9 and the money.

Unfortunatley the final table didnt run as smooth, and once we had dispatched the shorter stacks, I found it impossible to get a hand through, my bluffs were being found out, my marginal hands were being reraised and the hands I had that were ahead preflop, weren't after the river. Eventually I went out in 6th place pushing pockets 7s against AKo which got there on the river.

Pleased to final table, but disappointed I didnt do better.

So when we got home a 5am the next morning, Lou had had her night of entertainment, her drink or four and although I missed it, apparently the steak sandwiches were quite tasty.

Romance. Its what I'm about.

Made it

2009-09-30T22:44:00.003+01:00

I mentioned several posts ago about an online challenge that a few members of the Ace of Clubs and Punters Lounge were involved with.

Well, we eventually finished 2nd, which was good enough to take the prize of 27 buyins to the $18K GTD on Betfair split between the team. This is being staked by Betfair Pro John Tabatabai and there are a few conditions in place, but we're still chuffed to have won the prize. The 1st place team who beat us by only $24 also get the same prize.

Overall, team colleague Mark and I finished 2nd and 3rd respectively in the highest cashers with a 241% and 132% roi, so again some nice results.

Outside of this competition, but still on Betfair, in the last couple of days I also won a small $5.50 Omaha tournament for another $87 and came 4th in the lunchtime NLHE turbo for $182, so alls quite good at the moment and the roll is moving in the right direction.

Not a bad start

2009-09-27T23:50:00.003+01:00

Following on from my earlier post today, I played a handful of sit and go's double or nothings, cashing 3 out of 4, a $22 MTT which I played poorly and then a quick satellite into a $22 MTT on Betfair, where I qualifed. This then led to me managing to outlast the other 176 entrants for a nice little return of $1062.

Not a bad comeback

Back to the grind ?

2009-09-27T17:29:00.003+01:00

2 weeks since my last post, I have only played a handful of sit and go's online and my recent outings in the AoC games have been pretty fruitless.

I spent last week in beautiful Tel Aviv in Israel and although it was great to see some of my work colleagues over there, next time I visit, I hope its for a holiday with Lou, rather than just with work.

Anyway back now, and hopefully I can put in a few hours this week and make a couple of quid in the process.

Punters Lounge Betfair Comp

2009-09-13T22:10:00.003+01:00

Punters Lounge Betting Forum are currently running a team competition on Betfair, sponsored by Betfair Pro John Tabatabi, where over the course of Sept, the team with the most gross profit from a schedule of MTT's will win a months worth of entries into the Betfair nightly $109 MTT to split amongst the team. There are a few other conditions, but in a nutshell, its one tourney a night and you need to cash.

Voice of Joe suggested we put in a team from the Ace of Clubs, as several of us are PL members, so we told him if he designed some fancy spreadsheets, wore the captains arm band and brought the half time oranges, we were in.

Well with 2 weeks still to go, we are top of the league, a position we've occuppied for the past week, and I'm delighted to add that tonight, through a mix of skill with a large portion of luck, we managed to extend that lead further, when I bagged 1st place in the $22 deepstacks. Lou also managed to cash in her first game yesterday and last the longest out of all other team reps playing, so a good weekend allround.

Obviously I am delighted personally for us, but also for Voice of Joe who had the vision to get an AoC team playing, and hopefully we can continue the good form between us and stay at the top until the end of the challenge.

Not So Strong

2009-09-08T01:50:00.003+01:00

No the title doesn't describe my poker, ok well maybe it does a little.

This is the title of the latest track from the UK's greatest band to still be performing - James - to be publicly released, this time via a free download on their webpage www.wearejames.com , its been played at a few gigs over the last year or two but looks like it could finally feature on their next album, unfortunately I can't find a quality live youtube video to share so this one will have to do.

Enjoy

Lou FT's DTD

2009-08-29T20:41:00.003+01:00

We were meant to be playing the APAT events at DTD this weekend, but due to unfortunate circumstances we thought we were unable to play, so sold our seats and then turns out we could have played after all.

Anyway we went down to rail a few of our mates from the Ace of Clubs, meet up with mates from elsewhere and generally have a bit of a social, whilst there we also decided to play the £25 MTT.

I final table bubbled and Lou and another mate from the ace of clubs final tabled, which from the 124 runners is not a bad result.

SNG Progress

2009-08-21T18:26:00.003+01:00

I've played around 70 of the 27 man games on stars in the last week, final tabling around 50% of them and steadily making an average of $2 profit a game, its slow going but with my current set up I just can't get any more games on the go at once.

Currently I'm playing on a single laptop with a dodgy graphics card, so I'm need of a new pc with the ability to link up a second monitor so that I can get more volume in and hopefully more profit. Catch 22 though, got to earn the cash before I can spend it.

Also I think my return should be a lot better but the amount of runner runner suckout's and river bad beats is just laughable, at one stage I played around 18 games yesterday without cashing once, suffering suck out after suck out. Fortunatley a late win, kept me in profit for the day.

Anyway I'll stick at it with SNG's only on stars and keep the MTT's for the APAT league on bluesq and other leagues that I get involved with from time to time.

Update

2009-08-15T17:26:00.003+01:00

Strange going's on at the Ace of Clubs last night.

3 times I got a walk in the Big Blind and all 3 times I held pocket Aces.Never known getting a walk before never mind have Aces on each occasion I did. It obviously was not going to be my night and eventually I bubbled after losing my stack in two consecutive flips against the other final table shorty, AJ v 55 which hit a set and then 78s v 33 which also flopped a set.

Online, I've taken the decision to stop playing tournaments on pokerstars. Having time off work this week, I played the following in the space of around 48 hours

$11 NLHE 114/2942 $41.19 returned
$3.3 Razz 41/96 $0 returned
$11 NLHE 979/1474 $0 returned
$5.5 NLHE 90/5569 $39.69 returned
$11 NLHE 132/2924 $38.01 returned
$7.7 PLHE 23/54 $0 returned
$11 NLHE 3011/4809 $0 returned
$11 PLO 307/520 $0 returned
$11 NLHE 1007/2758 $0 returned
$5.5 NLHE 1521/3600 $0 returned
$5.5 NLHE Rebuy 1147/2541 $0 returned
$11 NLHE 57/2849 $45.59 returned
$11 NLHE 76/1582 $23.74 returned
$11 PLO 35/497 $24.85 returned

So for around 24 hours play I made around an $87 profit, which is obviously positive but at the same time very frustrating to not do better and also I was getting very p*ssed off with the amount of time I was getting donked on.

In need of a better return, therefore, I've decided to concentrate on the 27 man sit and go games, and in the space of 3 hours play, I'm currently $64 up, so hopefully I can master this format and make it pay.

Why Bother ?

2009-08-11T23:34:00.002+01:00

Why bother ? Play for five and half hours, outlast five and half thousand other players, only 90 left from the 5669 that started, only to push to take the blinds and get called by somebody for a quarter of their stack with K5o, obviously the K hits and is good.

I need to stop playing these mammoth mine fields. Catch 22 though isn't it, need to win big in order to play the tournaments that don't have such large fields and where luck isn't the major factor of the game. These small cashes are getting me nowhere fast.

Another rant, apologies, frustration boiling over...again.

Rain

2009-08-05T00:35:00.004+01:00

It never rains but it pours.

Just like our British summer, I've not experienced a good day for ages.

Bad players, making bad calls are just getting lucky I keep telling myself.

But they keep getting lucky and now I'm about fed up of my own voice.

Whats getting me down is the frequency of people who are putting their tournament life's on the line by calling off the majority of their stacks with rubbish, when they are not in a position where they need to and the majority of the time the pendulum is swinging in their favour.

Not too long ago, and still a heavily debated subject in the poker world was the discussion whether poker was a game of luck or skill. In the top money live and online games then I suggest that skill is a majority factor, but in the low limit world then my current opinion is that it is now definitely luck.

I can accept being outplayed, I accept that lucky draws and bad beats are a part of the game. If I raise with Ax and get called, the flop comes A35 and after several rounds of betting we get to a showdown and the villain shows 24 for the straight then fair enough, well played. If I push with AK and get called by AQ and the Q hits the board, then fair enough. What bugs me, is that if you 3 or 4 bet allin with a premium hand and your muppet opponent puts his life on the line with J6o and hits a set, it just winds me up. What did they think they were beating ffs ?

I seem to be experiencing this type of play across several variants alot recently. Obviously we want these people to be playing as for someone its easy chips, which lead to making the money. For me however, recently this is not the case.

I seriously think that the world of low limit online poker is now becoming a game of bingo, pick up any two cards and call an allin.The online site will reward the worst hand with its random (sic) card generator.

Tonight, I experienced JJ v 1010 v A9o allin, in that order. The A9o hit his flush with the 9 and the 10s rivered a set. I don't mind the 10's with the call but the A9 ? Although in all honesty thats one of the better examples. Another was when I protected my BB with AK, blinds at 500/250 several hours into a game over 20BB deep and in the top chipleaders on the table. The button who had only a couple of BB more than me made it 1500, becoming experienced now that no raise appears to be respected I pushed which was met by an instant call with KJs. Obviously J on the flop, gg me. Why risk your tournament after playing for so long with KJ all in preflop ? makes no sense to me.

And then there is the rubdowns, you used to see in the chat box, "gg" ( good game ) "ul" ( unlucky ) "wp" ( well played ) and so on, now if you get unlucky all you see is "lol" ( laugh out loud ) or variants of "loser". Why ?, you just got lucky with a bad call, why be an aggrogant tosser and rub it in.

I had an experience the other night, where I had taken a dislike to another player on my table with his sarcastic abuse in the chat box to all and sundry. Rather than just try and ignore it, I decided that I would try and target him and rid him of his chips. When he made it 4 x BB from middle position and it folded around to me in the SB, I just called with pocket 7s, looking for a non dangerous flop. The flop came 8,9,10 rainbow which was good enough for me to put my remaining chips in with the open ended straight draw. He called with AKo. The turn came 8 and the river came the 10 to give him a higher kicker with 2 pair.

NH ( nice hand ) I wrote. His response was, " well that was a stupid move putting all your chips in with 3 overcards " !!!, I didn't respond by asking what did he think he was beating at the moment of calling after the flop. Just another typical low level online player of the moment.

Rant over, for tonight at least.

PLO Weekend Success

2009-07-25T22:35:00.002+01:00

A nice little result on Bluesq earlier, coming first for $248 in the $5 PLO rebuy, at the same time coming 15th in the $15+1.50 PLO game on stars for another $50 odd. It all helps.

Razz Tilt

2009-07-22T22:04:00.004+01:00

I knew it wouldn't be long before Pokerstars and its Razz games tilted me, here's a few hands that took me from being in a position to win a seat into the forthcoming $215 WCOOP Razz game to first out on the final table.

I had the villian allin on 3rd street

Villian: shows [5d 9s 4c Ks Kc Ac Tc] (Lo: T,9,5,4,A)
mikesaban: shows [Ad 6c 2d 7s Js 7c Qh] (Lo: J,7,6,2,A)

I had the villian allin on 4th street

Villian: shows [3s 5c 9s Ts 4h Kd Qd] (Lo: T,9,5,4,3)
mikesaban: shows [6d 4s 7c Ac Qc Js 7h] (Lo: J,7,6,4,A)

and finally I'm put allin on 4th street

Villian: shows [2s 3s 6d 3h Kc Jc 8s] (Lo: J,8,6,3,2)
mikesaban: shows [4h 2h 5d 3c Ks Qc Qh] (Lo: Q,5,4,3,2)

Joy oh Joy.

Back on the Razz

2009-07-19T23:16:00.002+01:00

I used to play a lot of Razz.

Then I realised that not only did I think I was pretty decent at it, but so did several sites that publish online rankings and I got pretty bigheaded and wanted to better my rank.

I then tried to improve on those rankings by playing every game I could online when I wasn't at work. Obviously I then did rubbish in everyone and lost a bundle, so I fell out with Razz and the online sites who provided the games for a while. I had a brief return in January, winning a nice score for coming first in a $26 game on Full Tilt, but other than that, I can't really recall playing much razz at all this year. Until this weekend.

NLHE bores me online now, I enjoy it live, but online generally its not very interesting, you can play well for several hours, make the correct call when somebody has you covered but puts you all in and then their 73o hits 2 pair on the flop and its game over. It frustrates me to say the least.

I enjoy playing PLO and PLO8 online, as there is a fair bit of action and you have to think more about what the other player holds but again it can be very frustrating when somebody makes a call with trash pre and then on the flop but manages to get there on the river. Half of the time these guys dont know what they are doing or really care as they have about 12 games on the go at the same time, they'll do well in one with this strategy.

So I decided to play Razz again this weekend, for a change. I played 3 tournaments and a little bit of cash. In the cash I made a small profit and in the tournaments I finished 4/104, 27/88 and 2/32, cashing in 2 of the 3. I enjoyed it and made some money at the same time, which is what its all about. Maybe there will be a return up the rankings again soon.

Lou's currently concentrating on the micro stakes 27 man sit and go's on Stars and she's doing quite well, cashing out several times in the last week, which all goes to putting food in the kid's bellies, so not only is she a mother and housewife, but a semi pro poker player to boot.

Just another night in the mad house

2009-07-08T16:41:00.001+01:00

"MUM. MUM. Dads shouting at his computer again."

"Mike, give it a rest, the lads are trying to sleep"

That was last night's hint, that maybe I wasn't going to beat the Fat Controller and his merry band of misfits last night and it was time to pack it in for the day. Another night of lucky draws and good (sic) calls had got the better of me yet again, and once when it looked like I had overcome all odds and was going to take down a small 30 man sit and go, with over 10K in chips above my nearest rival, the internet provider decided to cut out. I got back on in time to finish 5th and take the smallest cut of the prize pool.

It was no suprise I was a little verbal and tilted, but when it gets so bad it wakes the kids then it really is time to call it a day.

After shutting down all poker apps, getting a brew and moaning about the nights results to Lou, I had finally calmed down and decided to check out the latest news from the WSOP.

One year, I promise myself I will get there, but for now I have to follow live updates from Poker News and the behind the scenes take from the excellent blogs from two proper writers Shamus and Pauly.

I came across these blogs from WSOP updates years ago and have always followed their progress since.I suspose the WSOP is always the best time to seek something new out and last night, during my tilt come down, I came across another such excellent site for Online poker news.

Poker Junkie is the name of the site and aswell as comprehensive news and reports from both the WSOP and online action, there is a tun of other stuff on there to make it a one stop shop, such as strategy articles, blogs, video's and even a bankroll tracker tool. If that's not enough you can play around with the hand evaluation and the calculator tools or take advantage of some of the cracking rakeback deals on there.

Take a look, its cheaper than going on tilt on IPoker and it wont make you wake the kids, I should know.

Variance Issues

2009-07-06T18:41:00.003+01:00

Variance is running quite well for me at the Ace of Clubs currently, where I won again on Friday, making it two outright wins on the trot and 4 cashes out of the last 5 outings.

Having hands like A3s beating QQ, A7o making a runner runner straight against KK and K9 outdoing A8 may not do me many favours in popularity stakes on the night, you need these lucky suckouts if your going to win. These hands only tell part of the story of the night, I needed chips before I could raise and then call with these, so that my stack wouldn't be too damaged if I missed but these are the ones that stick in people's minds.

On the flip side, I feel variance is going the otherway online, where despite numerous small cashes recently, when it matters I feel like I'm not only playing against the other player but also against the fat controller of the poker software company. Whereas live, if I can get some chips behind me, I can make them work, online I am struggling to either intially get those chips in the first place or keep them when attempting to make them multiply.

It is quite frustrating that I've not had a big score online for a long time, but as long as I can keep cashing when things seemingly are going against me, then hopefully good fortune online will eventually come back my way and those minor cashes will improve into majors.

Snowball Result

2009-06-27T17:44:00.002+01:00

Well my predicition for number of runners for the summer snowball was well out. Ony 22 ended up playing, so with the extra £500 added, the value was pretty good.

Pleased to say that in the earlier hours of this morning, I ended up doing a deal for £300 plus seat into the xmas snowball with the runner up taking £276+ plus change. The top 5 were paid.

I had a game plan which worked a treat, I wont share it as I'll be using it again in the future, but I think must have taken the majority of the field out without really that many premium hands.

So a good night, ended very well for me, but feeling it today.

Back to the grind at work Monday, unless my 6 numbers come up tonight on the lottery, which would be just perfect right now.

AOC Summer Snowball

2009-06-26T16:20:00.003+01:00

Its the summer snowball at the Ace of Clubs tonight. £500 added to the £20 buyin, 10K starting chips with 20 min blinds, as opposed to the usual Friday night £10 buyin 5K starting chips 20 minutes.

Only 42 members have played enough qualifying games to play tonight but I estimate that we'll probably only get around 35 turn up with probably the top 5 cashing.

A top 3 finish for the pair of us would be very welcome tonight, here's hoping.

Heads or Tails

2009-06-21T02:33:00.004+01:00

A Horseshoe. A Rabbit’s foot. A Four-leaf clover.

These objects are traditionally known for being lucky charms. Items that the owner relies on to avoid misfortune and bring good.

Lets take the horseshoe. In time’s gone by, people would nail a horseshoe the open end pointing skywards to their house front door. Being made of iron, this was said to protect the house from evil witches and fairies. If the horseshoe is to slip then, the magic or luck is thought to drain away.

A rabbit’s foot, or to be a exact the back left foot of the rabbit, in Africa was thought to protect against voodoo, providing of course that the rabbit had been killed during a full moon on Friday the 13th.

Finding a four leaf clover is pretty lucky in itself, as experts believe there to be ten thousand common 3 leaf clovers to every one four leaf type. Each leaf is said to represent something important, hope, faith, love and the fourth being luck.

Of course, these are not the only items that are thought of as being lucky. Some people will associate an item of clothing with an event where they experienced good fortune, an example being a poker shirt for somebody who has worn the same shirt on several occasions and had success each time.

Whatever the object, the belief of the owner that this item will assist them with good fortune, is, in my opinion frankly quite ridiculous.

Let me tell you the story of Ian and his lucky pound coin.

Six of us from the Ace of Clubs travelled to DTD in Nottingham for the £50 Saturday night tournament. It had been arranged as there were several birthdays being celebrated over the course of a couple of weeks, so it had been decided to pick the middle Saturday night and go and play some poker and have a few beers there.

The party included Andy, Julie, Ian, Mark Kelly, Mark Barsley and myself. Andy being a good chap volunteered to drive and we were advised the night before that he would pick us up in one of his horse boxes. He actually turned up in a very luxurious people carrier. Julie took the front passenger seat, Ian and I spread ourselves out in the middle enjoying as much leg room as British Airways first class, and Mark and Ian, the two taller of the other passengers slummed in the cheap seats at the back with their legs upto their chins.

There was a level of excitement on the journey down. We were all in a jovial mood and expectations for the coming game were high, especially from Ian, who was in top form having recently cashed in consecutive tournaments at the Ace of Clubs. His recent good results were not down to an improvement in his game, his ability to pick up on reads or the fact that probability and variance were on his side, no, the results were all down to his lucky pound coin which he used as a card marker and chip protector whilst playing.

Legend has it, that the lucky pound was discovered as containing magical powers, as this was his buyin for a 13 man game of chase the ace which he won. The facts that he introduced more rules and get out clauses to this game which aided his success is neither here or there. The most bizarre being that if you and another both hold an Ace then that counterfeits the entire point of the game so everybody who doesn’t hold an Ace loses a life. Also I should mention that this coin, had been swapped with several other coins which were similar in appearance and value every time he nipped out for a smoke break during the game the night before so there was some doubt about its authenticity. We wont let facts get in the way of a good story though, Ian had his lucky pound and it was going to be his night.

We arrived at DTD and the atmosphere was electric. The place was packed due to the Sky Poker Grand Final taking place that day. I knew a number of others there from various poker groups around the country so it was a great social gathering with the beers flowing as we caught up with old acquaintances.

Onto our game, 168 runners playing the £50+6 tournament, with a starting stack of 4000 chips and a 24 minute clock. The top 16 would get paid.

I’ll keep my tournament details brief. I was sat on the same table as Andy who raised the first 6 hands, claiming to have a monster every hand, by the fourth hand he was being called by half the table who didn’t quite believe him. I hit quads whilst holding the hammer in the big blind, however unfortunately didn’t get paid off. I lost two thirds of my stack with A6 suited on a board of A62 as the guy holding A10 hit runner runner Jack’s to have 2 pair with a better kicker, I got back to starting stack but never really threatened, eventually going out in 78th place.

Julie went out in 141st and started tucking into the wine, Andy in 62nd and started on the orange juice, Mark Kelly gone in 39th place and headed to the bar and then disaster struck,………….. Ian out in 24th place, 8 places away from the money. His lucky pound had got him close, but not close enough, however it was not yet spent.

Ian had been sitting next to Michelle who is one of the Sky Poker TV show presenters for a large period of the evening. Upon his departure he left her his "lucky" pound whilst he went for a smoke break and a grilling from his better half Julie for flirtation with said TV presenter. On his return, he joined the rest of us, railing Mark Barsley who was still in the tournament. Michelle had been moved to this table and with horror, Ian discovered that she had left his pound on the previous table. It didn’t take him long to get reacquainted with it though, and it was soon back on the table of play.

"What you doing leaving my lucky pound" Ian asked, "Well it didn’t bring you much luck did it" Michelle responded. However he eventually persuaded her to believe in the powers of the lucky pound and it was soon being used as a chip protector. When her cards started to run dry, he advised her " to rub it harder, it will bring you luck" and then eventually when she had no choice but to push in with 52o and binked a 5 to beat her opponents A10s, the entire club heard " what did I tell you, that’s the power of the lucky pound".

The table had an audience now. A number of others who were involved with Sky Poker had come to support their girl. Ian recognised one and said "I’m sure I know you", "yeah, I’m Rob, I’m a presenter on Sky" came the response, as quick as a flash, Mark Kelly chirped up "that’s Ian, he works for Tesco", which brought laughter not just to other railers but several of the players sat on the nearby table.

Mark Barsley eventually got knocked out in 11th place, Michelle went out in 10th, both made the cash.

Fast forward a week to the Ace of Clubs. Ian proudly advises all on how well his lucky pound had run the weekend before. With one game to go he was at the top of the monthly club leaderboad and it was looking like the power of the lucky pound would strike again as one by one his nearest opponents got knocked out of the tournament, only one dark horse could overtake him – Mark Kelly, but he had to win the tournament outright to leapfrog Ian by a fiver. In true fairy tale fashion obviously this occurred.

What happened to the power of the lucky pound, Ian was asked, seconds before a small metallic circular object was launched to the other side of the room.

A Magpie. Friday the 13th. A Pound Coin.

These objects are known for being unlucky charms. Items that a person considers will bring misfortune.

Crossroads

2009-06-18T22:01:00.002+01:00

I've been meaning to blog all week about a visit to DTD last Saturday.

It was the Sky Poker grand final at DTD during last weekend and along with several of our mates from the Ace of Clubs, I made the journey to play in the £50 Saturday night tournament. I met up with a lot of people I know from various poker groups around the country and it was a great social event.

One our of mates, Ian, entertained the group of us who had travelled, with his flirting ability with one of the female Sky Poker presenters, wont mention any names but she had blonde hair and her name rhymes with sea shell by using a single pound coin. Not just a pound coin, but His lucky pound coin. We were just bystanders railing another mate - Mark, mentioned on this blog several times, who by the way went on to cash, however the comments made very entertaining, if not at times cringeworthy railing for the audience, with at times included most of the other Sky Poker presenters.

I had a story to tell, and with that many quotes to.. er...quote, it could have been quite entertaining. But time has passed and my head has been filled with other things recently, that I'll let it go, maybe save it for another time.

So, what's filling my head ? well I've recently celebrated my 10th anniversary with the company I work for. Its a nice milestone, it's a good job, pays ok, but, is this it ? I'm unsure what the next step is, I certainly don't want to be doing the same thing as I am today in another 10 years. I think a change is due, a new challenge, something to look forward to in the morning. I'm bored if I'm honest, I need a new direction. Any offers ?

Anyway enough depression, here's a little tune to cheer us up. Enjoy.

DTD Visit

2009-06-11T21:04:00.003+01:00

We played at DTD last night, in the £25+6 tournament.

Its the first time I've been there for a couple of months and they've had to put the rake up to help with the new absurd tax laws, where I understand they are being hammered for every table they have. Its so typical of this country, regardless of who's in power, there seems an attitude that if somebody or something is doing well, they need to be brought down to their knee's by means of taxation or some other punishment. I really do hope that the poker community and people of Nottingham continue to support DTD so that it can remain open, as it would be a massive injustice if it had to close or reduce the quality of its service, because of these new laws.

Anyway, enough of the rant. I've been to DTD several times this year, but last night was the quietest I've seen it. There were 121 in the tournament and a few cash game tables on the go, which I don't suspose you can complain about, but the last few times I've been, were during the monthly £300 tournament and the Norweigan Championships when the place was packed to the rafters, and it certainly makes a big difference to the atmosphere when its full like that.

S0 121 runners, 3k starting chips with 24 minute blinds, to be honest, I don't like this structure, its too fast and there is not enough time to play, you need to make chips quickly to survive, but there again on the flip side, during the week, not every tournament can be a two dayer minimum.

Both me and Lou got seated at the same table much to her disgust, but thinking through the night I don't think I attacked her chips once.... I can do without the earache when we get home.

I made some chips pretty earlier, then played 1010 very poorly and lost a load and struggled to get back into the game to a level where I was comfortable. With blinds at 50/25, I had already got up to 4.5K, I raised 1010 UTG to 175 and got the 1 caller. The flop came J8x rainbow, I bet 300 and got raised to 750, I had attempted to steal this guys blind on the two orbits that had gone round and he had played back at me everytime, so I beginning to feel that he might be trying to outplay me, I asked him how much he had left and he showed 1 green 1K chip, so I just called thinking that I might be ahead still but if not I could push him off it on the turn.

The flop came the Q, putting QJ8x on the board, which slightly improved my hand with the inside straight draw, so I chuck a green chip out, to which my opponent responds by telling me actually he's got 1300 and chucked them in - so maybe he found some, I don't know, but obviously I know I am behind and am drawing to the 9, of course he shows QJo, and the river blanked. So I lose around 3K on that hand and need to double again.

No cards or opportunity to get them in first mean that I quickly go down to around just 800, when on the big blind now at 150/75, an early raiser just makes it 300, a couple of limpers I have to call here with any two, and surely very pleased to see the hammer - 72o different colours. I make the call and the flop comes 765 rainbow, first to act I shove the rest of my chips in and only the initial caller makes the call with A4h, turn comes another 7 and the river is paint so I'm back in the game.

Several orbits later, clinging on by the skin of my teeth, I managed to get into the pot first from the cutover for all my chips with J8o, the BB calls and shows J3o, magic, I hit an 8 on the turn just for good measure and get to stay alive for a little bit longer. The blinds go around again and I find my self on the cutoff again with no action infront of me, this time all the chips go with K9o, a different BB this time calls with A3o - flop K9Q, turn and river blank and I'm now upto around 6K with an average of 8, so very short but still in. A few blind and ante steals ensure that I stay in, but not getting anywhere fast. I get moved tables and then mess up big time. On the button, the cutoff raises to 2K when blinds 800/400 ante 100, I only have 4K now after the blinds have gone through, here I should push or fold, but I see QJs and decide to call. Big mistake, the flop comes all low and black - I have hearts. Obviously the CO puts me allin and I can't call, so I fold and have 2K left. The next couple of hands are trash then I get 68s with 1800 left, I decide that this is the hand to make a last stand with and in they go. I get 2 callers, so there is 7400 in the pot which I can win, this would have been my highest peak all night, but unfortunately the cards all came high and red - I had clubs and I departed in 30th place, with the top 12 being paid.

So no joy, put I enjoyed the run, even if I don't favour the structure. Lou finished in 70th apparently going out with JJ v AQ.

By the way, I'm sure that it was announced DTD are going to have £10 rebuys to the £300 event from now on, on a Wednesday evening, 9pm start with 5 seats guaranteed, if I heard right, then I hope to be making a few more visits on a Wednesday evening during the coming weeks.

Independent Vegas Comp

2009-06-08T22:26:00.004+01:00

What was that about races when it mattered ?

I played the Independent newspaper final tonight for a trip to Vegas, 32 runners, played ok, got lucky in a few hands and made it to the last 3. Got all my chips in on a K high flop with K9 against K7 to put me a 4-1 chipleader headsups, 7 on the turn, finished 3rd for £200. FML.

Finally

2009-06-08T01:22:00.004+01:00

Not great but ......

7 / 133 for $170

Losing every Race

2009-06-07T18:45:00.002+01:00

It has been a terrible month so far, I feel like I'm losing every race when loitering around the cash stages in both NLHE and PLO tournaments. In SNG's, my best day this week was only to win as many as I lost, thus still down due to rake. The only brightspot was cashing on Friday night at the Ace of Clubs, but again it was only a 4th place, when my push with A2o preflop could not beat the K5o of the BB who flopped his house.

I've got a couple of games scheduled for the next couple of nights, so I'll play them and then have a few days break.

A Poor Couple of Days

2009-06-04T01:28:00.004+01:00

Since I got back from Dublin, I decided I would take my Omaha experiement to the next level and move up to the 10c/20c cash tables.

So on day 1 after I had recovered my sleep, I got myself ready for a day of grinding. Well that didn't go too well and I ended up the best part of 6 buyin's down. I got well and truely donked in a few big pots, and it put me on tilt bigtime and has made me think if Omaha cash is how I want to progress. Fortunatley I got myside out of the hole slightly on the double or nothing PLO tables.

Day 2, I decided I could continue my recovery from the day before on the DoN, and at the same time I could earn enough loyality points to get to the next bonus level so that I could cash them in at a decent rate. With the DoN's you need to be cashing two thirds of the time to make it profitable due to the rake, and I did the opposite, played 55 in total and only cashed in 22 of them. Another shocking day, and the best part of another 200 bucks down. Again I got proper donked on several times early on, and should have just turned the laptop off, but got into the mindset of the worse hand always seems to suck out on the river, alas that tactic never worked for me.

Here's a graph from my results spreadsheets which give an indication of how bad the day was and at what point I went on monkey tilt.

In amongst this bad run, I was playing in a $22 NLHE tourney, top 40 cashed, I went out in 46th pushing my A10s from the cutoff into the A8s of the SB, who had me outchipped and turned an 8 after we both hit the Ace on the flop and had got all the chips in on the flop.

So 300 bucks down in a couple of days and has severly dented the good results from the last couple of weeks. The only brightside is that I made the next VIP level, unfortunately, I have a bit of challenge to build the bankroll back to maintain that, but at least I can cash all my points in now.

Probably just variance today, but I'll have to consider dropping back down the levels and rebuilding.

No Sleep Til Bedtime - Dublin review

2009-06-01T18:44:00.005+01:00

I was in two minds on Friday evening as I left work, do I play the Ace of Clubs game or give it a miss due to an early start to get to Dublin. In the end the lure of a game won, and I along with 29 others played.

Roll on approx 1.30am the following morning, I go from Hero to Zero in around 4 hands and blow up on the bubble, when If I'd not tried to personally take everyone out, I would made the cash easily. So too late to go to bed, I decide that another pint would be ok, and could catch up sleep on the plane.

When we got home at 3.30am, one of our mates ( Mark Barsley ) who was also coming to Dublin, was already there waiting for us with his lad who was giving us a lift to the airport - oops.

7.30am arrives and we're in Dublin Airport, the beer is now a distant memory and tiredness starts to kick in. We manage to get to find our hotel, check in, back into town for some breakfast and then back to the hotel by 11am for a quick hours snooze, before up again at 12pm to find the card room, all over of 100 yards away, register as members, back out to the pub for a wake up pint and ready to play again at 14.30.

I have never been as knackered playing poker as I was then, and it definitely affected my game. Its true what they say about preparing well, and I certainly didn't. I was bouncing all over the place earlier on, up to 21K one minute, down to 9K the next.When the dinner break came at 19.30, I went back to the hotel for a shower in the hope of staying awake. My high for the day was 44K, but I finished on 17,600, after throwing away a quarter of my stack in the last hand of the day when trying to steal from the cutoff and being met with 2 all ins by the time the big blind had made his decision.

Lou had busted in around 60th place, having little too play all day.

Picture from the APAT site late on day 1

Me and Mark both returned back on day 2 as one of the remaining 29 players, after a few hours sleep and feeling a lot better, I was obviously one of the shorties and need of some quick action. Mark had around 40K. First hand in, allin with A3o, folded round for the blinds and antes,several hands later I was back up to 36k. People were exiting pretty quickly and there was a little bit of hope on reaching the final 15 and making the money, however down to 3 tables, ours and one other of 6 and one of 7, I allowed the 4000/2000 blinds ante 300 to come through me, and then pushed on the button with 77 for 26,300, unfortunately the big blind woke up with AQo and an Ace on the turn saw me depart in 19th place. So disappointed not to finish higher, but still pleased with the day 2 finish.

Mark busted in 24th place.

I then played the local clubs €30 self dealt tournament, 8 tables paying the top 9. Again I started off on a flyer, but the weekend took its toll around 4 hours in and I made a string of crazy calls and busted out in 14th place, when again I should have made the cash.

So, 3 tournaments and 3 near misses but overall a very good weekend, but next time, more sleep required.

Back to the grind this week.

Late Edit - Video Interview prior to start of day 2 have been published on the APAT website here

PLO Charge

2009-05-29T01:04:00.003+01:00

Still cracking on with this PLO game, but fancied a break away from the micro stakes cash and double or nothings tonight so had a crack at a small tourney, and as the screenshot show, I finished 2nd so pretty pleased with that.

Getting a bit f%$ked off with Talk Talk internet connection currently though, its fine all day but as soon as it gets to 8pm, bang numerous disconnects all night until about 2am in the morning. Of course I know this is down to the network not currently having enough capacity which is being upgraded over the course of the next couple of months.....apparently, but its really beginning to piss me off. And then to make matters worse, once I get the line back and try and log back into bluesquare, I continue to get error messages advising me I'm still logged in and that takes around 5 minutes to get back on - proper pain in the arse, especially when on a final table and heads up, not good at all.

By the way if you don't know, the WSOP has started, he's my 3 favourite places to keep upto date with whats going on, in no particular order, worth checking them out

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