updateaments

How is everyone? Hope you are all good leading upto this festive period.

Quite a bit going on really, but lets start with the pokers...

I am still doing the stake, no major volume, just grinding between 20-30 games per night when not working. Still 12 tabling, but i might move that up slowly now I have worn the ring-rust off. It's as swingy as a mutherfucker, but I always knew that would be the case, just took a little remembering at the start when I kept on tilting like a twat.

I am now in profit, although my ROI is only at around 5%, but considering the best guys in those games are only at about 9% according to sharkscope, I don't feel too bad. I do feel there are some regs there that make a lot of mistakes, especially when around the bubble. I still make mistakes too, don;t get me wrong, but I am slowly but surely ironing those out and the confidence is starting to return. No doubt a downswing will now come and tear my bollocks off.

I really want to make a decent ROI for my backer in this. He's shown a lot of faith in me and never gets on my back or pushes for more, he just lets me get on with it, which stops it being a chore for me and means I only play when I am in the best moods, which has got to be a win-win all around.

If you are reading this cheers mate.

On a seperate note I went to the casino last night to play some live pokes. Just a £30 freezeout at blackpool (which happened to actually be a re-entry, where they can charge rake again..lol.) I was shocked to only see 28 entries, a few years back that game was regularly stacked out with like 80+ players on Fridays and Saturdays.

It was pretty uneventful for me, Missed a million flops early, everyone was loose as fack and some were just plain fucking awful. I was just trying to bide my time, connect and get the money in. I pretty much hovered between 10-15 BB's most of the night until I had a complete brain-fart and butchered a hand and I mean butchered...

I have 12 bigs, and it folds to me in MP with KTs (spades), blinds were 500/1k. I make it 2400. Short stack next to me shoves all in for 5k total. A retard and I mean the guy was awful, decided to flat this shove from the BB and he had me well copvered.... I was stuck. No way could I get this HU vs shorty because drooler was coming along for ride and if I call I leave myself zero room to mouvre.I fucked up and just called figuring if i even get a whiff of that flop i just push. Flop comes Q9Q and he checks and I check... error number 83217321, lol. Turn, K. No flush draws out there I figure if I am ahead I stay ahead, not really too much to worry about on river once he checks I figure him for a pocket pair. So he checks and I check again (I know what a twat). river is only a bastard Ace. FML. He immediately puts me all in. No way I can call,. what a fucking horrible hand. I probably shouldn't even tell it!

By the time the BB is near me it's gon up to 600/1200, I have about 8k and so push 79o from UTG (we are 7 handed at the time). Guy to my left immediately flats and the rest fold. He only has 99... fml. the case 9 hits the flop and I kiss my own dumb-ass goodnight in 14th or so.

My mate went pretty deep, but he was pissed as a newt and just made a dick of himself. I sat down to rail him a bit, pulling a seat from under a table nearby and when I went to get up realised I was sat on something sticky... some fucking knobhead had left a big piece of chewing gum on the seat. What a twat. So I have to trot off to bogs to try and pick as much off as I can. I can assure you that thoroughly pissed me off. Seriously which adult leaves chewing gum on the top of a chair. I hope someone shits in that persons christmas presents.


Another funny incident, we are walking past the cash table and my mate says "look at that twat there with the headphones trying to look ten years younger"... I look over and I notice it's only Hutch from the forum! hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Actually was good to see Hutch, must be hard work having to grind a living in the casino most nights. Some of those people are just fucking morons. Don't blame him for having the headphones on! Also reminded me about the APAT in March, which should be a great piss-up.

right, think thats enough for tonight.

cheers for reading

BM

Rollercoaster

Up and down like a brides nightie!

The swings are pretty shitty. You know early on if it's going to go bad or good, but you have to plough on through. I am still wayyyyyy too results orientated in the short term as you may have seen if you followed my thread: http://www.raisetheriver.com/discuss/viewtopic.php?f=68&t=14324

This is how my graph looks (profit/loss graph)

Think that says it all.

It's fkin nuts maaaaaaaan.

Will leave you with this:

Steak progress...

I have been documenting my play here: http://www.raisetheriver.com/discuss/viewtopic.php?f=68&t=14324

Only played 3 sessions, but it hasn't gone great. That said I have taken a shitload away from those first few sesssions... Initially I thought I was being too aggro around the bubble, it seems that my play was actually not too bad, but I did find a leak when I was reviewing my play that I am being a bit too aggro with the 7-10 BB range from EP when we are 5-7 handed. I had to tighten my range a lot. I was also calling a little too light in the BB when I had a reasonable stack vs someone I knew could be pushing wide. Turns out my calling range was too wide. I'd often snap with an ace, pair and connected broadways, but wiz showed me that I have to tighten that range up and I have.

Last night I had a brutal hit when my lappy died in the middle of a session. I was deep in a good few with decent stacks. For some reason when my lappy is doing too much it freezes up, but this time I couldn;t get it to fire back up. When I wanted reboot it just kept trying to get me to "fix the problem", but I knew I didn;t want to. The screen would just stay black if I tried to start in Normal windows mode. The frustration nearly made my head explode. I finally got it to work, but when it eventually loaded back up (felt like a fucking age) I had pretty much blinded out of most of the games. I was gutted.

I nearly quit there and then, I was around $180 down at that point according to PT3, but i re-composed myself and fired up another set of 12. Played well in those despite running really horrible in a few spots and managed to recoup some.

Stats so far:

I know I am on a downswing here, but to be very honest I really think I am gonna turn this around. In reality it's a ~15 buy in downswing and it's nothing. I am gonna crush these fuckers, I can feel the old skills returning and the ring rust slipping away.


COME ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Confidence Booster

Some major developments since my last post.....

Been contacted by someone offering me a stake, but to be fair it's more of a kind gesture as he wasn't really interested in profits and such, but I didn't think that was fair so we negotiated a deal that I think would be fairer for us both and also try and make us both a return and worth playing for.

It's actually really nice for someone to show that faith in you when you confidence is pretty low. I am hopefully going to repay that faith.

So my starting point now will be my old stomping ground, the $7 18 player SnG's. I could have gone higher, but I want to find my feet at a more reasonable level and get my mindset right for the grind. I am going to be running a 100-buy in strategy so that I have breathing room and might not be so results arientated in the short term.

To be honest even the best players only have a small ROI in these so I am not expecting miracles, but I am going to get the feel of the games. We are planning to review things on the 1st of each month and progress things from there.

Pretty excited actually, should give me a kick up the ass.

My backer has asked to remain anonymous and as such I will respect his wishes, but he knows who is is and I would like to thank him on here personally. Cheers mate.

Right, gotta run work calls.

Laters

BM

Such a knob

So I had a couple of days off whilst waiting for Full tilt to become active and I could transfer the $100 to Stars to carry on my grinding... or so was the plan. Instead I was a dickhead....

I tried to transfer the funds across and after pairing the accounts I attempted to transfer the wonga, but for some reason I got an email saying it had failed. During which time I had been reading a bit on the forums about Full Tilt and talked myself into playing some NL10 6max Rush.

To be honest I played awfully. I was getting 3-bet into oblivion so I started playing back and sure as shit they had it everytime and then I lost a 200BB pot when I got it in with my middle set vs a flush draw, which got there and stacked me and then it started.... tilt. I ended up spunking off 5 buy-ins like a tit. I forced myself to stop after that otherwise I would have probably blown the lot.

I then shifted the remaining $50 over to Stars and this time the transfer worked ok.

So, thanks to my own stupidity, I am now gonna have to grind the $1.50's. What a knob-end.

I just played about 6 games last night and the standard was absolutely fucking awful, but there seemed to be a few regs on most tables who were solid. Jesus, regs in $1.50 games, what has poker turned into?

This is going to hgave to be where I start. I am not dropping lower than the 1.50 games so if I bust that, then fuck it, I can not beat the games and will be best off just giving it up.

Lets see how it goes, but prepare yourself for more rants about the RnG and it's sadistic ways.

Trying to take some positives

Ok, so when going on a horrible loosing run it smashes your confidence a lot. You start to wonder what went wrong, are you a donkey etc etc.

So, I have been reviewing my play and I honestly am not making a lot of mistakes. I use SnG Wiz, pokerstove and Pokertracker to review hands and plays and It's left me convinced I was just unlucky. Granted there are spots where I am not pushing wide enough, but in my honest opinion, in a $3 donkament shoving so wide where people are going to be acalling with all kinds of shit is just asking to ride the variance train, for example in th hand below:

If I even alter the BB's calling range to like 40% it's telling me to shove J7o. Yes, against players who have a clue this might be a good value shove, but my confidence is low and I am missing some of these marginal spots on purpose.

Just realised I probably should have opened up the calling range of the big stacked SB too and see how that affects it.... hang on gonna do it now....

It's actually pretty thin. if he calls anything over the top 25% of hands then this is a fold, but upto top 25% I need to be shoving :

22+,A2+,K7+,K2s+,Q8+,Q3s+,J8+,J4s+,T7+,T4s+,97+,95s+,86+,84s+,76,74s+,64s+,53s+

Hmmmmm. If I had any confidence to win a showdown i would be shoving wide here, probably most suited cards and connected cards, two broadways etc, but maybe not as wide as this.

As you can see though below, an example that shows in general I am playing ok, with few mistakes:

Anyways I bust what I had left on Stars thanks to by bad run so now I gotta wait until the 6th and I can get my wonga off Full Tilt.

For anyone who plays SnG's and doesn;t use SnG Wiz you are missing out on a fantastic tool.

laters all.

BM

Getting silly.

Ok, this is a new graph, seperate from the other one I posted and this run on Pokerstars is getting silly.

Pretty sure a dominating ace shouldn't lose so much and neither should a big pair vs a smaller pair, but that the way it is at the moment. Quite disturbing actually.

Here is the graph, just for my own peice of mind really, I know I am playing well, but there is nothing I can do to control how the cards fall.

I am using a 30 buy in strategy, basically as shown below. The swings are somthing I completely forgot about and it's tough. Hope I can get ontop of it before I go busto.

BTW, I am adding the $100 I found in my full tilt account to my roll.

So please Poker Gods, give me a break and so run good!

Bonus

Well last night I took the advice as left by dD and decided to play some 18 mans, my old old stomping ground and I actually ran ok...ish.

Didn't make much, but Stars roll is around a measly $28. I am not gonna give up, despite my last rant (get used to those, I tilt like a crazy bastard!).

On a bonus front I managed to log into Full Tilt today (the revitalised Pokerstsars owned version) and found I actually have $100 in that account, not $50 like I thought. So when they finally move back to real money games I will have a bit of a bankroll to try and build there.

A very kind poker colleague (he knows who he is) lent me his Deuces Cracked account and so I downloaded a shedload of videos to watch. I am on nights the next 3 nights so hopefully if we are quiet I might get some time to sit down and study them and maybe learn something.

"Knowledge is power" - Sir Francis Bacon

It's actually good to be back in the poker circles. I missed you guys.

Right gotta shoot,

Cheers

BM

Why bother?

Started really getting the idea of playing more and decided to hit the $2 180's with my measly $100 bankroll, but Pokerstars soon scuppered that by absolutely fucking brutalising me straight away.

As you will see in the graph below it hasn't been much fun. I haven't had any huge stacks, it's just been losing every all in last night (or almost all of them) and then tonight I start off running very hot, even hitting a royal flush, but as soon as I got deeper the old luck returned and just fucked me up hill and down dale.

Horrible fucking start, almost knocked the stuffing out of me at the first hurdle.

Top line is what I should of won, green line is what I actually won.  Why fucking bother?

bankroll is now at $21 and the motivation has completely fucked off.

I haven't deposited using my own money for a long time and times are tough right now so i am not sure I can justify it.

Might just be the quickest return ever.

Going for a spin up now, it's either double or fuck it.

cheers.

4 months on....

Wow, where has time gone?

Tonight for the first time in a very long time I played some poker. Only a tiny bit of Zoom and a few micro MTT's, but I played. Actually going pretty deep in one of the games. Fairly enjoyed it too.


Life has been hectic for the last few months. Really lost interest in poker, the games were getting tougher and tougher and the player pools smaller and smaller, meaning ridiculously small ROI's for average players at best. I ended up drifting away.

I did a few things, I did quite a bit of matched betting. It was ok, but once you get through all the sign-up offers the easy money is gone. You then have to put in the leg work to find offers and then find the best way to exploit them and it can be pretty heavy going at times. Very simlar to poker in many ways that you are always looking for an edge that is within the rules. I got tired of the 'grind' of it pretty quickly.

I had a go at football betting, trying to find good matches and placing lots of small accumulators, doubles and trebles etc, whilst also trying to find the value in the matches. I failed, the games are just too unpredicatble.

I tried some horse trading and using trading software, it was good, but the potential for a big loss if you made a mistake worried me too much to properly enjoy it.

I tried the system of laying the draw in footy. Basically the odds of a draw usually start off somewhere between 3-4 in decimal, you lay the draw and then when one tream scores the odds of the draw normally push out and so you can 'green-up' on the exchanges. Once again it had its pitfalls and wasn;t worth it.

Finally and just recently I have been punting horses using a points system based on the info I can get about each race and the horses competing. This actually went ok, but the margins are ridculously small for the amount of work you have to put in studying. Also there are days like today when silly priced horses, with no form at all come bolting in and piss a race priced at 66/1.

The problem was poker gave me a nice little side income that paid for Xmas and Holidays, when the games got so much tougher and my passion for the game wained I was basicallylooking for something to take it's place.

I have finally given up.

I now have a small bankroll and am considering a comeback...... watch this space..

hope you are all well and good.

BM

It's alive Igor!

I is not gone just yet, innit!

Not sure how it will go, but I have slowly but surely been recapturing the poker bug. I have been playing a few hands on Betfred, on the rtr deal and also been playing some 6-max zoom on stars.

I certainly feel rusty at the tables, but not uncomfortable, I can still hold my own. This is in cash games btw.

I have to admit I do worry a little bit when playing Betfred that I could be bumping into Poker Bots as I read it is absolutely infested with them, but to be honest right now I am not sure what to look for to identify them quickly.

I am unlocking the bonus at a decent rate, I just need to get back into the hang of being able to multi-table effective. Right now I am only comfortable playing one of two tables, but that will change as it comes back to me.

I am also toying with the idea of learning a completely new variant, maybe working on Razz or Stud, not sure yet. There seems to be tons of action at PLO, but I have history at that game, as all the forum guys know. LOL.

To be honest though last nights exploits by the Forum guys have really livened my appetite back up, when grindmoreplz went and chopped the Sunday million for a sweet $127k! How can that not inspire you as a player?

So, I will take it slowly and see how it goes.

Cheers for reading.

BM

ZOOM

Ok, I have to admit it, Zoom is great! It's the replice of Rush poker, except the player pools are fkin huge!

2000 players in the Nl10 games last night, I was highlighting the blind 3-bettors and out of about 20 or so I highlighted I think I only re-sat with one of them. This is really gonna fuck up the multi-tabling HUD botters (inc me) because it's gonna take years to collate info about most players and lets be honest thats the best thing for the game IMO.

Keep this zoom simple, allow the hands to be imported for results and for reviewing your own play and stats etc, but don't allow HUD's to be used at the tables because:

1. It will slow the games down whilst people wait for the HUD to catch up.

2. It keeps it on a level playing field for the fish.

Remember this is coming from someone who has used a HUD for a long time. Just for once, in online poker, I'd like them to keep it a level playing field.

So I have played a little bit, just to test the waters and I have to admit it is good fun. I was just one tabling last night along with playing the APAT National League game and finished up around 3.5 buyins up, despite a sick beat vs a moron, but lets be honest it was nice to see people stacking off with A8 on a 668 board vs my QQ. (8 on turn).

As for the APAT game I played alongside.... disaster. I gave some of the players too much credit. I basically lost a majority of my chips on a 7h8h3s board, when I had opened in LP with 9h10h. Guy in BB flatted. He check-called flop bet. Turn was 10c. He checked again, so I bet almost pot. He flatted again. River was Qc. He checked and I decided not to fire the third bullet as that river didn;t change much and my hand had a little showdown value, plus it didn't seem like he was folding whatever he had.

He turned over Qh 6h.. what??? horrible wanker got a majority of my stack. Fucking river saved his stupid ass. I just tilted after that limp-shoved 88 from UTG with about 14BB's and ran straight into JJ. gash.

I'll prolly play again for the next couple of weeks, but I am gonna have to adapt my game for it I think as playing my loose style doesn't seem to be working right now. I do prefer the new structure though as it's more like a turbo.

Righty, off to do some matched betting, maybe a little Zooming and some Battlefield 3.

Laters

BM

APAT league game 1

Representing the North West of England. Not really played much poker for a while, but 1 tabling is gonna be slooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow, so I'll prolly live blog it, if I can be arsed.

Stay tuned.....

18.19 - 41 mins of registration left, 371 players. Wonder how we are gonna work out who is playing for which team seeing as though all the locations are the default "United Kingdom". No way I am gonna keep trolling all the way through the huge APAT thread where each player has posted their ID.

19.05 - get a text of bullmeist telling me to hurry as most on my table are sat out. Reply telling him he is still a donko who won't last ten mins, but cheers for the heads up.. muhahahahahaha

19.13 - ran into a player called "fishy1977" - definately lives upto his name after calling a flop check-raise and turn bet with a bare flush draw, only to catch his TP on river. lolz. starting stack $5k. Already down to 4.5k

oh FWIW fishy is in BB to my button...could be fun...

19.29 -  decent sized hand.  I raise Ep with AKo. SB 3 bets for 2nd time in 2 hands. he either has monster run of cards or likes to 3-bet a lot. I flat his 3-bet IP.  flop was 3Q8. He checks, so i check behind. turn 2. Check check. river he checks, i bet like half pot for value, he snap re-raises.... hmmmm. Line didn;t make much sense as flop was 2 hearts, why would he check a set down like that? I decide he is bluffing and call. He was, he had AJss. If the flop wasn;t a drawy one I would have prolly found a fold.  Anyways upto $6.5k.

19.39 - I just noticed...

19.46 - FML little lad decides he wants me to read his story tonight. Out of game for a short while...

19.58- back.

20.08 - flopped the goods with J8s, didn;t really get any action. All is quiet on the western front... although just realised also in is kronsdat, Mair, No Brains and Yorky Puds. gl guys.

20.23/ fk me one-tabling is like pulling teeth. This is painfully slowwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. Card dead ATM too. One horribad player at my table has a juicy looking stack.

20.25. Nice re-steal spot. fishy player limps, button, an aggro player raises to iso. So I three bet him with my 38o and take it.  ez pz.

20.27.. ut oh AA now.. lets see it get cracked... as it happens.... guy to my right raises (same guy who iso'd earlier). I 3-bet him... again. He 4-bets... I 5-bet shoved. he snap folds. FML. I really reallt considered flatting that 4-bet and letting him stack off on flop. damn. upto $10k chips now.

20.33 -  |Moved to a new table. open raise 1st hand A3hh. BTN calls. flop AT5 two spades. I just lead at it. He folds. 11k now.

20.43 - took out a shorty with my 77 vs his A6. upto 13k. blinds 125/250 w 25 antes.

20.48 Couple of weird hands. both vs same player. very strange. Anyways won one and lost other. Currently sat on $12.8k.

21.13- going slowwwww. Only raised 1 hand and was shoved on, had to fold. trying again now....FML. shoved on again. can't call with A5s. Will have a hand one day....

21.30 - FML. guy shoves from MP into my BB again. 3rd time straight. He is a 8BB stack. So this time I have A2o so call. He actually has a hand 8 and makes a set first card out. thanks stars. next hand I get AA and everyone folds.

21.31 - Stars strikes AGAIN. two limpers I shove my stack with Ajo. one shorter stack calls, I have him slightly covered. He only has AA. FML. Ace on flop for anotehr set.

21.32. OUT. ROTFL Pokerstars = wankers. I have 2 BB's and shove K4s. Villain has 66 and flops quads. GTFO.

So, in the last three hands I was in there were two sets made against me and one quads. Mwhahahahahaha yeah sure pokerstars, perfectly normal. hahaha.

random

Unfortunately this won't really be a poker post, so if thats what you are after reading, stop now and don;t waste your own time. :o)

Life is very tough ATM. With the wife still not working and with two children under school-age we are in a bit of a tough spot. We looked into her going back to work, but the costs of childcare (£35-£40 PER DAY, PER CHILD) would mean we would be looking at the best part of £350+ per week. Unfortunately the wife has always worked in Admin and Call centre jobs, most of which don;t really pay much above the National Min wage and as such she couldn;t even earn enough to get back to work. Sigh.

So we are painted into a corner and a tough one financially. Everything around us is rising in price very quickly, Diesel is flying up, insurance took a huge leap, gas and electric, water bill has risen, food costs are ridiculous etc etc. Most of you know what I am talking about.

Now, to add to all that the company I work for has been trying to lay people off, after lots of Union consultations it's been worked out that to save compulsory redundancies every worker will have to give up 1 paid day of work per month.

Don't get me wrong I want to save jobs, but this is gonna hurt even more.

I have also just found out that they will be taking the working tax credits off us because the threashhold for a household has been lowered from £40k to £26k, so I am now over this. We have no recourse, no chance to appeal this, it's just a case of tough shit.

It's going to be a very very tough financial fight for the forseeable future. Horrible feeling not being able to see an end to it either, especially with all the government options being just as shit as the other IMO.

So, at the moment we are feeling pretty tender and I guess it could be much much worse, but it's my blog and I felt like having a little moan about how all this recent economic shit is affecting me personally.

**poker alert**

if this had all happened a few years ago I reckon I could have put myself into a position where I could have easily subsidised our household income through poker, but these days even that has been squeezed to within an inch of it's life.

ok, sorry for that just wanted to have a little moan about shit.

Cheers

BM

regrets

I has a few :)

When it comes to poker though, I think I made too many withdrawals, to be fair real life stuff often took over, like holidays, Xmas etc, but now it leaves a bit of a sour taste.

I also wasted too much on the nags, that was a big downfall too.

My bankroll is mega depleted and I just cannot find the motivation to grind through the small stuff. The reward just doesn't feel justified for the effort. I admire those micro stake grinders who can grind thousands and thousands of hands/ sit n Go's because doing it to even the variance out and to try and build a roll is not only soul destroying, but also incredibly tedious and slow.

I do want to play, but I don;t particulalry want to have to "grind" my bollocks off for a 3% ROI, etc.

The games are very tough these days and the players pools are mega-depleted. Problem for me is I remember the good days, when the tables were full of idiots. When you could sit down, play tight and always make money, but these days playing like that doesn;t really get you far, especially at cash.

Such a shame all the governments started stepping in.

I really really pray for another poker boom.

Please poker gods, one time, do it!

pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

WBCOOP so far...

I have so far regged for 3 events..

Event 1 - I live blogged that so obv how it went.

Event 2 - PLO - Lol, got in late, 1st hand I played KK87 double suited. Flop K85, BB leads, I raise, he flats. Turn 4, he leads again and I ship , he snaps my head off with KA67 for the turned straight. LOL PLO fkin stinks.

Next event I played, well regged for, was event 5, the NLHE Shootout. I fancied this as a SnG player, but because of commitments with reading the kids stories and bath time I didn;t manage to get sat down until 50 mins after it started and I was already busto! FML.

I am also regged for tonights event 8, the NLHE at 7pm GMT. Again I will probably late to sit down, but hoefully I can finally put a run together in one of these.

If any of my fellow bloggers are playing these I hope you are doing goot.

Run Good.

BM

WBCOOP - Event 1 - Live Blog

Ok, just got back in. Had to pick up little lad, so it'a now  1606 UK time.  I have 8,970 chippies from the original 10k starting stack. So plenty deep enough.


One time please.


I will update any hands I get involved in.


bcurrently 16.07 - I have Pocket tens in SB. One limper in MP. I have to open this.... oooh two more limp-alongs. blinds 60/120. I pop it up to 660, they all fold. EZ game.


16.08 - I have 59 soooooooooooooooted OTB. It folds to me I open 2.5x. SB flats. Flop K54 rainbow. Half pot C-bet takes it. Easssssssssssssssssssssssy.


lol. 16.09 _ have 22. Hijack min raises. I flat in CO. SB 3-bets to 720. HJ folds. I call (we are deep). Flop KAA. muhahahahaha GTFO> Check tun and he bets river. easy foldaments.


Current stack 9360.


Just checking out the player list for familiar faces, see Daleroxxu is 19th ATM.


16.16 - T7o On button. Folds to me, I open 2.5x. BOTH blinds call (fish obv!) Flop is J64 two hearts. Both check - I hate this flop, not betting it. Turn 10c. Now then. SB check, BB leads 627 into 1035 pot... hmmmm. fold I reckon. Yep I fold like a cheap suit. SB flat calls. River As. Half pot bet from BB takes it. Think his range is lots of small pairs there, for sets etc. Type of flop you get check-raised into oblivion on.


16.21 - QKo in MP - I decide to open, the table is pretty placid. BB calls. flop 468 rainbow. he checks, I half pot, he folds. EZ.


16.22 -  TT UTG. I open 3x. Lets see what goes... One caller. Flop is A26 rainbow. I check, he bets. I decide I am gonna float him with a view to checking turn and hopefully betting river to take it away. No joy though he fires big at turn and I have to go away.


current stack 7,808


16.26 - 56s OTB. CO raises and I flat. flop 49Q all diamonds, I have spades. FML. He bets, I once again go into fold-mode.


16.27- TQcc - I open CO. Button flats, as he always seems to do when i open. tithead. Flop is K2Q. I c-bet half pot, he calls. Turn is a 6. he leads for 1/4 pot (WTF?), I have to call. River As. I check, he checks. He shows KJo and takes the pot. Sigh.


stack now 5,983


16.29 - I have J9dd. MP opens. I flat IP. Flop 249 all spades. He checks, i decide to lead for value if he has a big spade. He snap calls. Turn 3d. he checks, so I decide to check behind (bad play I think). River he leads for 1200 (just under half pot). I crying call. He has AQss for the flopped nut flush. FML. Jesus it's brutal. Outflopped for fun right now.


stack = 3,340 (blinds 75/150)


16.34 - ATo on butn. I open 2.5x. BB calls. flop is K8Q. Sigh. Check-check. turn 6. check check. river 9h. check check. He has T9o. sigh. T9o to a raise. What a muppet. ofc he hits the 3 outer on river. FML. Brutal.


not much I can do riught now.

whey! finally won a pot. 16.36. I had A3cc. one guy limps Ilimp behind. flop comes A53 all hearts. I just fire straight at it and they all fold. (I wasn;t folding that there anyways. It was shit or bust).


shyte. blinds just went up to 100/200. I haver a mighty 3,300.

Ahhh eighty eight now at my table. Well respected tweeter. still in a world of pain though with my 16 BB's.


No room left for play. Push-foldaments now.

16.44 - I am still here, honest. I am waiting for a hand I can shove in someone's eye, but knowing my luck I'll run it into AA.... makr my words....

Donk on my left busted when he happily stacked off with AQ into AK, he only had about 40 BB's at the time...lolz. All those chips and so few braincells. Shame he didn;t donate to me.

Looks like they replaced one donk with another. He just got it in with QK VS AA on a xKxx board. Money goes in, he hits Q on river for trips. sickness,.

16.49 and it's all in the middle..... I shove ATo from CO with my 12 BB's. BB is sitting out. SB is thinking.... ut oh he calls. He has A5cc. HOLDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD, hold on flop... HOLDDDDDDDDDDDDDD , I hold turn and river and double up. weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.


Current stack 5125.

16.53 - AK in BB. folds to SB. He min raises to 500. I re raise to 1350. he flats. Flop 8TQ.  Too much in middle, so I shove. He insta snaps and has J9s. Seriously? I mean fkin seriously? He flops the absolute joint against me. These flops have been fucking awful all game for me. I am out 320th/527.

Seriously though J9 and he flops like that. GTFO, what a piss-take.

and as that say... thats all folks.

pkFDKEJNFO[UIWEJF049UIR0IEJFMDOUJAFKSHBFIAHBSsodfgjdogjweifjuwoefnlkjfnknc bkjdsnflkdefnmolkdfnljsfgnkjsgbkjgnkdfgnlkmcfnlsv

didn;t get to me... honest...

With the best intentions..

..I really was going to playa lot of poker in the next few months, but a lad I work with has been oining me to play Battlefield 3 online with him. I got it at Xmas, but haven;t really gotten into playing it... well fk me, now I am into it and I absolutely love it.

It's taken me away from poker and I spend my evenings online now kicking ass with my squad :)

Incredible game and so involved.

I am sure it'll wear off soon and I can get back to the grind, but for now it's:

Fuck yeah!

mini venture back to 6-max cash

Hasn't gone very well. I am definately out of practice and playing a little bit too aggressive. I have been a bit unlucky in the overall, but it's only a tiny sample size.

The biggest shock when checking my stats is how much I am losing from the button. Now looking through some of the hands I am not massively concerned because I have hit a few bad beat and coolers, including a flopped set that we got in and he hit a set with his over pair on the turn, plus KK not being good enough vs TT.. etc etc.

I'll post up my stats from the small sample and would appreciate if anyone could point out any obv leaks.

Positional Stats:

All in EV Graph:

Showdown Graph:

Still very suprising how many decent players there seem to be who can play an aggro style well. I still feel like I am making too many mistakes post flop, especially trying to barrell hands when I have 3-bet light from the button. I'll get the wing of it.

I am still planning to mix this and SnG's, just to enjoy both really. I don't want to limit myself to grinding just one thing and then lose motviation to play again.

On a seperate note I have set up a new poker club for the forum:

- Open the main poker lobby, then click on the Home Games tab



- Click the 'Join a Poker Club' button


- Enter my Club ID number: 604280


- Enter my Invitation Code: rtrpoker

I am planning on starting up a weekly game for the forum again, including bloggers. Most likely on a Sunday evening and we'll have a little season to see how it goes.

I am also planning on representing the North West in the APAT National Online League. Details here: http://www.apat.com/forum/index.php?topic=10355.0 Anyone can play and now it's on Stars I expect they will get a much better reception.

laters feeeeesh

BM

Pwnage from the throne!

Yesterday I played a few hands of NL10, again did'nt go too well. People just are not spewing enough, it blows my mind that NL10 is as tough as a remember NL50 being maybe a year or so ago. The online poker scene really really does need another boom. I guess there are a few hopeful things in the pipeline such as the return of the USA and even talks of Zynga Poker, which has millions of casual facebook donks playing, thinking of taking the real money poker route. You can read about there HERE. I guarantee ever poker player wants that to happen!

Over the years the decline has been incredibly sad to see. Countries, one after another, either being banned or being ring-fenced off from player against players in other countries. Especially annoying is the fact that France, Italy and maybe now Spain being ring-fenced off when there is supposedly a "free trade" agreement accross the whole of Europe. That just takes the piss IMO. We, as the United Kingdom, get our arse reamed by the majority of the EU, but every other country interprets the rules to suit them however they please.

Goverments should keep their nose out, unless it's to actually protect the interest of their citizens and not the interest of their coffers. All every online poker player wants is a safe, regulated and level playing field on which to enjoy the game and also have the ability to decide who we play against. Crying shame IMO that politics killed the game I used to love.

Anyways, pokertsras launched their new App for android and it's awesome. Last night I was taking a dump and played 3 hyper turbo's ($7). Won two and got a 2nd! Can;t beat making money whilst having a crap, not thats the life :)

As for the bankroll.... currently stands at ~$170. It went down with the cash sessions, but recovered with the success in the Hyper turbs.

lol Even NL10 is fairly solid!

Played another 500 or so hands on Stars last night and I swear that 75% of the players I came across were fairly solid. WTF is wrong with people these days? No one is prepared to stack off with less than two pair, they are playing their draws super hard, which makes them hard to play against and they don;t get attached to hands and all this at NL10....rotfl. gtfo online poker!

Yes, of course every now and then a donk sits down, but IMO, in the main, most of the players I came across were definately competent.

No money on pokerstars, everyone's solid? - makes me wonder.

Had 1 cooler last night and immediately titled off another buy-in the hand after when I 4-bet shoved AK into AA, oh and had KK done by AK for a buy-in. What's new? lol.

I was just suprised at how few mistakes people were making, I figured at NL10 the majority must at least be donks or people with a small clue, but from the small smaple I have over two nights, it doesn;t seem to be the case.

On a seperate note, I am loving the new mobile App! We had to wait a while, but it was definately worth the wait. Wp Stars.

Straying from the path...already.

I suck.

Last night I just didn;t feel like playing some SnG's, but I did feel like playing some cash, so I fired up 6 tables of 6-max NL10.

Bit of a brutal start when i got it in with a set of 7's vs a turned set of Q's and then had a flush with 97dd inot a Q high flush with Q8dd. (he called my button raise from his BB spot).

Shit happens I guess.

I was playing extremely fast and aggro and went down quite a bit early on, but once people started trying to adjust to my aggro I toned it down a little and got paid off once or twice on my big hands. :)

Still finished off down $16 though after about 700 hands, but I did enjoy it and strangely even with the coolers I never even felt like tilting, I just enjoyed the game for it's face value...fun.

Last day at work today, but prolly a quiet night with the Mrs tonight being Valentines day and I have been at works for 13 hours of it.

I think I am probably gonna mix up the cash and SnG's over the next week, just to keep the variety in my play and also to keep my eye in should pokerstars release Rush poker.....

check these out:

Pokerstars Mobile

Rush poker coming?

Pokerstars WBCOOP

Seeing as though I am finally back playing poker and blogging I might as well take advantage of the fact Pokerstars is putting on some little special for us poker bloggers. You can see more details here: http://www.pokerstars.co.uk/tournaments/wbcoop/


The rules are a bit weird in that you’ll be given 10 tickets to play, but there are 30 events, they should deffo be letting people play more that 30% of the games IMO, unless I have mis-understood it?. I could really do with the bankroll boost at the min!

What would I do with the $5k?

Well it would be great to get my bankroll back to what it used to be a year or two ago, starting all the way back down at the micro’s is extremely demotivating when you know you didn’t lose your bankroll, but rather had to withdraw it for real life stuff.

That said if I did manage to get the $5k, which if I am not working I probably will with my mad skillz… muhahaha, I will probably split it into two. Use half to book a nice holiday for me, the wife and kids and the other half to go back into my poker bankroll so I can move back to playing some cash and more MTT’s, both of which are out of my reach right now with my crappy $177 :o)

I am not gonna spend the whole post blowing smoke up Pokerstars’ ass, they obv have online poker crushed right now, as any online player with any experience will know.

My Poker

So am still grinding the $3.50 18 player SnG’s on Stars. I am back into the old routine of 16 tabling, but due to work commitments I can’t really get more than 1 set running in the evening right now, so my overall volume is pretty low.

I sacked off my other strategy idea because I decided that although in theory my idea was good, in reality quality is NOT greater than quantity, especially when it comes to your bottom line profit and the other extras such as Stellar Rewards and FPP’s.

Hoping I can continue to push on from the good session the other night and get my bank roll heading back in the right direction.

My ultimate aim for this year is to get myself into a financial position (bankroll wise), where I can start playing sats for live games like the UKIPT and the GUKPT events. I also fancy some of those Genting Games and maybe some APAT games. After watching live streams of some of these events recently I have really gotten the taste for it. Would love a deep run in one of those!

Right now though it’s back to tackling the micro stakes donks on Pokerstars and trying to fight my way through the variance and the maniacs.

I am feeling good to be back into poker and I have the renewed enthusiasm for the game. I have been watching poker vids on pokertube and also listening to the 2+2 Pokercasts on my way to and from work. I have also been following the top stories in the industry and getting back more involved with raisetheriver.

Poker is good right now, well apart from the micro donks! :o)

Cheers for reading

BM

Cull..

Just a quick post. I have been through my list of bloggers who either no longer update or are no lomger playing and removed the links. There a couple of friends I have left up, but if you wanna link up and you update regularly give me a shout.

weeeeeeeeeeeee

I ran goooooood!!! Fuck me it was immense! All my big pairs held when against smaller pairs and when against AK. It was surreal, I was waiting for the crushing blows, but althought there were a few it wasn;t like it has been, it was incred!

Thank fuck for that, I started questioning if I could even beat $3 games these days. Finally into the green.

I know for a fact the poker gods are gonna punish me for having a run-good session like that. They are gonna kick my bollox in next time I play. In fact I might as well lube myself up tomorrow night before I hit the tables because it's coming and it's gonna get me goot.

Although my All In EV graph doesn;t really show it, I know I ran good. I actually enjoyed playing instead of sitting here dreading the suckouts.

I essentially won ~15 buy-ins, which took me from neg. to positive.

Bankroll now at a mighty $177.10.

Take it dry

91 Tourneys. $34.11 LOSS FML. Pokerstars is just giving it me dry right now.

fuck fuck fuck fuck fuckety fuck.

God damn i forgot how bastard frustrating this game is.

Should be quieter now for the next 7 days as it's a back to back at work.

treading water

Not getting anywhere fast.

These stats sum up my $3 games so far:

As you can see from the stats in the top left. 66 games played, $14 down. FML.

This is my all in EV graph, to show how I am running at all in situations and tbh it looks better than it actually feels, but I guess thats the same for every player.

I have to be honest I got a bit bored yesterday and didn;t have time to fire up a set of these 18 players, so I smashed out a few Hyper Turbo's. lol

I played 11 of the $7 ones for a small profit of $13.45 and some $1 ones for a laugh and played 17 of those for a $5.76 loss.

I am having real issues with Table Ninja at the min. When I have 12 tables running if two tables come to the front at the same time awaiting action, whatever I click on one also happens on the other, which as you can imagine is a fucking nightmare. I was all in all over the place and folded some strong hands when I didn't want to. I checked their support forums, but cannot see anything about it.

anyways, so far i't s been a real grind.

Current BR stands at $120.76

Bad Idea...

...Not my plan, but I decided to deviate a little and play some micro MTT's last night after all it was Sunday!

Let's just put it midly and say it didn't go well. My very first all in was AKhh vs AKcc and he rivered the flush..lol donkaments. I built a huge stack in the $1 rebuy, but then again I guess so did everyone else, it was spastic city. I got into a huge pot with a guy who called my 3-bet shove with 88. I had AK and ofc I miss and it's gg me.

I got stacks in a few others too, but in the end it just didn;t go my way. Some soul sucking beats from some truly fucking awful players, but what do I expect it is the micro limit stuff. Anyways I pissed away a total of $36.49 of my tiny bankroll. Sigh I am a twat sometimes.

I played some more SnG's after that, just six, but finished with a small profit.

Stats so far:

MTT played:  9 = loss of $36.49.
SnG's played 46 = loss of $13.11

Current Roll stands at $114.80

Only played about 12 SnG's doing it my way, but I do feel more in control of my game than I do when just in push/fold mode, although inevitably it does come down to that at the end. Too early to judge properly, so I'll just carry on for now.

Bumped into fellow blogger Rossi in a few, he seemed pretty solid and seemed to be going ok, but made the mistake of raising me on the bubble instead of shoving into me! I was CL at the time so just put him to the sword with my might 47o :) I knew he couldn;t make the call on the bubble with 2 shorter stacks on the table. Sorry mate, no friends at the tables .

Cheers for reading.

BM

My way now..

Ok first 34 SnG's played and $28 down:

Which obv sucks dick.

I was trying to play the usual optimum strategy... super tight and the move into push fold mode. I think my ranges were about right. A couple of mistakes according to SnG Wiz, which seem fair, but usually just coming down to luck.

It feels to me playing this strategy right now is just leaving way too much to luck, if you run bad it kicks your ass. I mean basically if you don;t have a huge hand early you are rely on pushing your edges, but then you need to be winning the showdowns when you are called. For me it all feels very marginal right now, I am probably completely wrong and I guess it's been proven lots of time what the optimal strategy is.

I am gonna now try it my way, ok it will mean I can;t play as many tables because I am going to have to actually 'play' more poker. I am planning to loosen up much more in the early stages to try and get a bigger stack when it comes to the push fest later. There are so many horrbile players limp-calling for fun it HAS to be profitable to play pots with them whilst the stacks are super deep and we have an edge. Also, with the nature of SnG's picking up those chips early might actually be a decent and critical advantage.

I feel confident enough in my post flop play (especially vs micro stakes sng donks) to give this a whirl. Lets see how it goes.

One time?

Cheers for reading

BM

The return of the donk!

Once again I am slowly catching the poker bug. Unfortunately funds are hugely depleted so my starting roll is a whopping £100. lol. I have deposited it into Pokerstars and it equates to $159.

I think my starting point will be S n G's, probably the $3.50 18 player games.

Time to start building a roll again.

Fingers crossed it goes well!!