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