November accounts

Id forgotten about these, not too sure exactly on a few figures , but it is there or there abouts.

Accounts for November

PokerPlex : down $340
Blue Square: down $160
Full Tilt: up $40
PokerStars: up $110
Playing live: down $680
In total for playing down $1030 !!

Bonus this month of $200 and pokerplex rakeback about $230

So -$600 for the month.

and +$7820 for the year so far.

I didn't think I was that much down for the month, maybe I have forgotten something??
but two months running now where I have actually lost whilst playing, Not going to make the $10k profit milestone for the year that I had felt was a basic minimum earlier in the year.

Still I have been going OK this month and should be posting a fair profit at the end of the month. I have started looking at ThePuntersLounge.com and their online tourneys diary which highlights a whole load of value added games every day ! I picked out the Boylepoker game last night that had a $1000 added and came a tidy 2nd from 44 @ $20 entry for a $470 cash. Nice as would have only been about $200 without the added value !

Got a couple of games coming up and end of year thingys , so catch you all later. Stay Lucky !!!

Christmas greetings all !

It is the season of Merriment, although I have to admit things aren't all merry with me at the moment , but more of that another time perhaps.

Online I have continued to donk away a little by little at Pokerplex and yesterday morning took a hit for $200+ although I did lose one hand of $288 with trip aces going down to a runner runner donkey.
So I decided to have a break from the cash and play some tourneys. It was Suinday evening so had a blast at some DEEP,DEEP fields. I went well in all except the Full Tilt one. On Stars I played 2NLHE and a PLO8 one cashing in all, including the big $10 $200k g'teed with 26,517 runners!! 212th for $200 not bad and could have been better if my AJ had stood up. Must have played this tourney 10 times and think this is the first time I have cashed beyopnd the basic level.

And then my favourite of the night was on Virgin where I played the 15Euro satellite to their Virgin Festival at Newcastle on April 4th/5th. To cut a long story short and the fact there weren't any interesting hands and I never really got myself at risk here are the final positions :

So yee-ha off to Newcastle for a w/end. PsychoDave has already qualified in the AWOP league and I hope a couple of other guys will give it a shot too.......should be fun.

Geeksville.... I am there !

As you see from the above link, I have entered for the PokerStars World series of poker.
It has been running for the past 3 years and works out as a $60k freeroll basically with 3 live packages and a heap of online tournament tickets up for grabs. Seeing as I have been writing this since the start of the year, I've done nearly a 100 entries and probably had less than a thousand views ( think I must have been responsible for 200+ of the hit counter), I feel I deserve something for nothing as that qualifies me as a true geek.
Not been on the stars site for a month or so and a couple of interesting things I spotted.
1. They are attempting to break the world record ofr the worlds largest poker game ( I imagine they already hold it , but hey-ho always improving!), which is going to be a massive 35,000 entries @ $10 and they are gauranteeing $500k so a minimum $150k overlay. Ive already registered, but it does clash with a nice looking £50 local tourney on Sunday so will have to see.
2. They now have got a Russian poker tour to go with their European, Asian and Latin American tours. They sure know how to corner the market ! Only 2 dates so far on the tour and I'm not too sure if visiting St. Petersburg and Moscow in Jan & Feb when it is seriously freezing is the best way to start a new venture!

As for my live exploits, I have a few lined up over the newyear, which I will post later. First though to last Sunday where I played the B'pool night tourney which they g'teed for £3000 , turned into a £900 overlay. Ended up coming 4th for £300, with my penultimate hand the only one of note.
5 left Ive got 51k...Blinds are 6k/12k and I get 10,10 on the button, as I prepare to just push this in,, the short stack under the gun pushes his last 25k in. I am just thinking do I need to call or push here and came to the conclusion that 10s were too vulnerable against multi-hands so would have to push. But the dealer starts talking to the SB who is putting chips in over the line...he has called out of turn. The dealer says the bet will have to stand. I only have an extra 26k so he has to call if I push and thats not really what I want, my right to push and have some fold equity has gone. Figuring everyone will check it down I call as does the BB, flop comes down A,2,7 and SB pushes in! Fair enough as it happens as he had A2 and was protecting it. As it happens next hand Im utg with AQ and SB makes the hard call with AK, Im out for £300 and the last 3 then decide to chop it up for £700 each !
However if I had been given the chance to push I am sure he would have got out of the way and I would have taken down the pot and been upto 98k and we would probably have chopped it 4 ways for ~£600 each. So his out of turn move cost me £300, and at the time it was all smiles and "it doesn't really matter his call has to stand but you can bet if you want to" type of thing.

Back Online and live at B'pool.

Im still alive, call the search party off !

The new Dongle thing developed some mysterious glitch and just wouldn't connect at home. Everywhere else but not at home. Contacted 3 mobile (India branch) and they were very helpfull without actually doing anything. Then last night it has just started working again, don't know why but I hope it will stay good.

So I haven't played online for 3 weeks.

Did play live at The G in Blackpool in their monthly £100 deepstack. Great little tourney this with 15k stack and 45 min levels, starting at 3pm on last Sat. of the month, will try and make it as regular as possible.
I started soundly on a fairly solid tight table and then made a lovely little play just before the break, where i floated a call from a double pot bet on J94 flop with K9 of spades. The turn brought 2 spades giving me the flush draw so I re-raised to 2.5k on her continuation bet of 700. I expected her to fold, but she called and I braced my self for the decision of a big bluff or to just let it go. However the river brough the 5 of spades and I value bet 2.5k again and she was forced to pay me off with top 2 pair. The table then started chatting about the hand, and I could see they had me down as a wild dangerous canon, which I love, but as you all know by now I am a pretty tight nit.
I made one little loose bluff that cost me a quarter of my stack, but then got going and started getting back upto average+ and I hardly got a hand. AK, AQ and Q,Q
being the only good starting hands I got all day ...until... after 7 and half hours I got the bullets in SB and pushed over the top of an early raiser who duly called me with her QQ. First card out was another lady and I was out. 7 and a half hours without getting my chips in at any time and then when I get Aces I get it all in and get dealt what feels like an under the belt blow. Shouldn't be allowed, or at least I should get some back as compensation.
Hell, imagine playing the WSOP for 3 days just on the bubble and getting it in with Aces against some "atit" merchant who gets lucky and takes your large stack home with nothing! STUPID GAME
Gez was down their too and final tabled where they all decided to chop it 10 ways !! Gez a £grand better off. nice one.

Had gone down the week before and played the Sunday night games at the Castle 6pm start --> out at 7:45 so went and played the G game at 8pm --> out by 11:30. LOL

Got to post the November accounts next...not going to be good reading again !

Might be off to B'pool later tonight. keep tuned all.

Cracking Aces

Blue Square League game tonight and still on 1st level. I had to hit on the river but had that many outs , I was totally priced in, remembering it was PL. Think I played the hand great and I imagine the guy couldn't believe what was happening when the chips started moving my way after he had flopped Trip Aces. I even wrote in the chat box "OWNED" ~ I'm such a **$* at times!

Going well on Plex last day or so and back to almost even now for the month, which is a result considering the hole I had dug for myself. No progress up the Plex rake race ladder though. Going to have to have a mental night or two to get in those cash places now. It finishes on Saturday.

Rakerace is nuts

This rakerace is all a bit stupid. It is only $200 I'm after, but feel I have to get there now. I'm upto 26th just 3 off the cash and I guess I'm not the only one thinking the same. I suppose I should look at the fact that if(when) I make it I will also have earnt a heap of extra bonus and rakeback. So I guess it will be more like $400 I'm going to gain by playing so much.

Having said that I had another downswing the other day, losing about $500 over almost 1000 hands. The thing is I'm beginning to get the feeling as though I am going to keep losing, yet still play on ! I don't feel I am playing particularly badly and the players on the tables aren't all winners, yet after a while I sense I'm just unlikely to win and probably going to lose more. Maybe it is a balance of the players on the tables or my position to them that is creating this, but as it is happening across multi-tables I have to assume that I am getting unlucky or playing not well enough. I think it is a bit of both and that I should definitely introduce a stop/loss limit to avoid me possibly "tilting" at all.


Finish with this hand from a Party Poker tourney the other day (my EXIT hand)

Get it all-in preflop with JJ v KK...."OOOPS"

Flop J3K.............................."Ah JESUS"

Turn J..............................."Get in you little beauty"

River K..............................."HUH"


Couldn't complain really, but what a damn tease !

New Month...Same Rollercoaster

Quick post.

November has arrived and my bottomline has plumetted and come back up again.

Saturday played the £150 tourney at Leeds ALEA. Great game, great room and will be back to play it again. 15k chips, 45min blinds and every level going. Basic story is I was going well and then ran KK into QQ on a Q hi flop and then AJ got outdrawn by A7. Probably misplayed the KK hand by not re-raising, but hey-ho.

Online dropped $400 in 30 minutes when I decided the value was all at 2/4 PLO. I got it all-in 7 times with the best hand and lost 6 of them , including 3 pots of almost $300. No doubts here, I ran BAD, BAD !
Still made a whole lot back since and probably hardly down now.

I dropped out of the rake race table but back in today at 27 just out of the cash. Stupid idea these rakeraces and I should steer clear, but I will defo make the $200 places now, gives me more incentive I guess.


Blue Square League has started and I have donked out just short of the final table both games with two pieces of play suitable of a monkey.

Friday night going to go and play a local pub game and hopefully see some of the regular crew. Always enjoy these games no matter how I play.

October Accounts

Accounts for October

PokerPlex : down $580
Blue Square: down $460
Full Tilt: up $120
Playing live: NO LIVE PLAY ALL MONTH !!!
In total for playing down $920

Staking : up $240 (ty Aces)
Bonus this month of $240 and pokerplex rakeback about $320

So -$120 for the month.

and +$8420 for the year so far.

So another negative month.....not good !

Pokerplex play was so up and down, in particular 2 three day sessions where I lost about $1000 each time and at all other times I was creeping back up grinding away as it should be. LOL
Was I tilting for those little downswings, didn't feel like it but maybe just a little frustration leads to minor misjudgements or maybe it was just the high variance of PLOmaha. It has made me realise playing for an actual living must be so frustrating.

Blue Square this month was another "bubble" result in the league , finishing 5th again. Could have been very different as I bubbled again in 2 tourneys and 3rd in another two. Losses mainly come from Sneaks who had a downswing on the cash tables, which was fair enough as he had ran real well and we were talking about it being our little Vegas fund. We are still up tho and we have never really got going any month yet. It will just be the league games here from now on I think.

Not played live for two months now, but will be breaking that drought with a lovely little £150 game with 15k chips and 45min levels at ALEA Casino in Leeds today. Hope to have something good to write tomorrow.

Stay Lucky

Yo-Yo Poker

YO-YO Poker
Thats is what I seem to be playing this month.
No nice easy gradual upswing graph for me this month, I have been up ( a bit), down a lot, back to almost even, down a lot again and now clawing back towards even ( fair way to go yet). Expect I will be posting a loss for this month, which is always a bit soul destroying.
However I feel there have been a few positives:
1. Got Dataminers going at last. Eyepoker for ipoker and just bought SpadeeyeOmaha for FullTilt & Party. Got a heap of hands on them and now sorting out how to code the data, but it does mean I am not sitting down with tables full of winners and usually sitting down with tables full of losers. This has to be half the battle even if it hasn't produced great results this month.

2. been great staking Simon Trumper and see him bring in a good return for me.

3. I have just found out PokerPlex are running a rake race for a month from Oct15, well I knew but didn't pay much attention until I looked to see I am on the table list. in 29th place on 26Oct and didnt play much upto then, but have hammered it a bit since so should be up in the cash places now. Cant see me making the top3 but its $200 I didn't know I would get....always like that, like finding a tenner in your coat pocket weeks later.

I will post an update pic each post until the rakerace end.

Aces is Ace ...again !!

You might remember a few weeks back I decided to back Simon 'Aces' Trumper in the WSOPE PLO and then the European PLO which he duly chopped for 22k (£500+ for me from my £25). Well the little tempter thrown in was if he cashed for more than 4k, then all backers would get 2.5% of him in the Thanet GUKPT. So today I have followed it and watched my "horse" make it through over 200 players to the final table. NICE ONE Simon !
He is the short stack at the moment, but with first prize at almost £70k, I could be looking at a tidy sum upto £1,600.

Not played live , and laid off a bit online , but being going fairly well making about $600 at Plex cash and getting a few 3rd places for the BlSq league, so we are back in this months comp now with 6 tourneys to go.

My eyepoker dataminer has been on overtime and I now have more than a million hands on PLO & PLO8 at ipoker. I am being much more selective with tables now using the table scan feature and only sit down at tables where most of the players are losers. I think this is probably the biggest step I have made in terms of online play for a long while and is something EVERY serious player should have. Better explanation with a few screenshots next blog..

For now, c'mon ACES !

Just realised why I dont play big MTTs much any more, just played a 200+ one on Full Tilt for "something to do". Fortunately I did OK and came 4th for almost 300 but it has taken 5 hours !!!

Bad,Bad and more Bad !

I cant stop losing !! official !

I have just kept going downhill. Well Up 'n' down, but ultimately I'm now almost a $1000 down for the month....A DISASTER. Not had a week like this for ......ever.

I don't feel as though I'm playing particularly badly or rashly but everytime I semi-bluff push with a draw I get called and never hit. And every time I get someone pushing on me when I have the goods they seem to hit. Well its not every time but it seems it is more than the odds dictate. There I go sounding like a compulsive gambler (loser?) and blaming it all on luck. Maybe its time I did a bit of analysis, how can I make almost a grand last month and yet lose that much already this month??

* I have played mainly at 2/4 this month and started 6 tableing, so maybe the standard is a little higher than the .5/1 or 1/2 PLO games. Might step down to the lower games or just play the 4 games at once. Hate going backwards but think it could be needed here.

*I've got over half a million hands now logged thru the eyepoker dataminer, so need to look at that and see if any stats are showing differently for me this month vs last month.

* Am I actually playing -EV or just getting a real bad run? My PokerEV software free trial has expired so might purchase that to find out.

Bit of a negative post, but I was so looking forward to hammering this month and seeing how much I could make. I've already played almost as many hands as last month and it is only 6 days in.

On the positive side the Blue Square league started yesterday and although Sneaks didn't cash he has had a bit of a run on the cash tables and we are upto $3k.

Ladbrokes have a great added money series coming up which I will highlight next post.

OOOH Dear ...DOWNSWING

Last post I was bragging about how well Sept had gone and the fact I was flyin in Oct too........well that was a curse as I have not hit a thing since. Everything has missed or been outdrawn everytime it all goes in, I actually feel as though I have played fairly well and not made too many mistakes, but nevertehless I keep losing. I have gone from $250 up to $300 down in the space of 2 days.
While it is hardly going broke, it does show how soul destroying this game must be to play as a pro sometimes. How many jobs do you put a solid hard days work in and go home with less (a lot less) sometimes than you start with.

The general thinking within the poker community is that you should be target setting based not on results but on play. In other words , dont worry how much you are up/down, but concern yourself with the number and quality of hands you play.
So this month I am going for 20,000 hands , which considering I only played just over 5,000 last month is going a bit. I am starting to move upto multi-tabling 6 tables at times and think this will become the norm at busy times soon. It will also give me about 50,000 points on the pokerplex player programme...ONLY need 17 million for a BMW M3 !! http://www.pokerplex.com/online_shop.shtml

Off Poker now ~ It chucked it down all day yesterday and I ran a trip to watch the Rugby League Grand Final at Old Trafford. The coach was half an hour late and I got soaked waiting for it and never dried out once but still didnt stop it being a fantastic day with a great atmosphere. Rugby League is the best sport to watch and I think this will become a regular annual trip.

Sept Accounts

Accounts for September

PokerPlex : up $705
Blue Square: up $420
Full Tilt: down $50
Playing live: NO LIVE PLAY ALL MONTH !!!
In total for playing up $1075

Staking : up $950 (ty Aces)
Bonus this month of $150 and not too sure of what this new pokerplex rakeback will be? I'm guessing about $250

So +$2425 for the month.

and +$8540 for the year so far.

This is a bit more like it and I only played from the 8th onwards ! I think PokerPlex is a lot softer than the Crypto network and has a lot more games on offer, I've already made a good $250+ start to Oct.

As promised here are the Sept. stats from PokerTracker


I also haven't been extremely lucky running fairly true , in fact PokerEV shows that I was slightly "unlucky" in both PLOmaha and also PLOmaha Hi/Lo. Red line is what I "should" have won based on normal luck and the green line shows what I did win.



Boys are in the air to Vegas right now, cant stop wishing I was there. LOL

2 straight flushes but I'm still jealous

Last couple of nights have been a bit opposite: one I felt I was playing well but got unlucky time after time and lost a couple of hundred, whilst the other I seemed to be making bad decisions but got paid off lucky at the end with a few big hands ending me winning a couple of hundred.
At one point I had two straight flushes within seconds of each other. Pics of pokerplex hand histories here. The first one was real nice as I hit my straight flush against his Nuts Ace high Flush to stack him.




However even with these hands , I'm still in mourning as a whole load of the boys are off to Vegas tomorrow and Im stuck here in the north of England blowing my whistle!
Im gonna make sure Devilperch books it outside of term time next year!

Update on Daz in the WSOPE is he is not the next poker Million, but can have no complaints after going steady enough all day before he got it all in for an above average stack pot with KK against AK only to see the board savage him with a couple of Bullets. I think he enjoyed himself although he did show that he is a bit of a lightweight as he sat next to Jennifer Tilly all day and night without getting a date or even her number ! WUSS !

September accounts up tomorrow with pokertracker stats and Poker EV graphs. oh so exciting !

ACES is Ace !!!

Last post I told you that I had backed Simon "Aces" Trumper in the WSOPE PLO event to the tune of £60 for 1%. Well he got it all-in with a good hand but multi-way it didn't hold up. So when he said he was looking for backers (@£30 for 2.5%) for the European PLO tourney I wasn't gonna bother but then he threw in the extra 'BONUS' of a free 2.5% of him in the GUKPT Thanet Event if he won £4k+. So I got tempted by what sounded a +EV situation and sent a transfer on stars.
Well I forgot about it to be honest and then tonight when I got home I had this very welcome surprise message on Blondepoker.



He only went and won it (well technically 2nd on a chop) for a £22,500 pay day. So a nice little boost to what is proving to be quite a good month even though I am not going to play live at all. And I also now have that 'bonus' 2.5% of Simon in the Thanet GUKPT.

I know I said I'd do it the next post, but have decided to share the graphs/charts from my software programs at the end of the month when I do my accounts and will be more relevant. And this month they should look pretty good !

Staking and more software

There are two more pieces of software, both free, that I have got on the new laptop now. Both for recording my results.

PokerEV ~ This is a very clever piece of software that tries to tell you how "lucky" you have been. Which it does to a certain extent by working out your +/-EV for each hand where you are all in. For the way I short stack PLO that probably works out at about half my big hands so a good indicator of whether I am running hot or icy cold.

PokerGrapher ~ This takes my PokerTracker stats and produces clear graphs for analysis.

I'll put a couple of screen shots up tonight or tomorrow.


Also have took the chance and invested in Simon "Aces" Trumper in the WSOPE PLOmaha that starts today. Cost me £60 ($111) to get 1% of him in this £5250 compatition. He sold 60% of himself within 2 days on Blondepoker and has got a good record, although his record is based around his game from a fair few years ago so dont know if it is a profitable stake or not, but might be interesting. His blurb to sell is here.
http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=36985.0

Software techno

Out last night on the excuse of Sneaks headwetting. So a bit groggy today and didn't bother playing until this evening but set up all my software gadgets on the new laptop and seem to have got them working real quickly. In short I now have:

Poker Tracker ~ keeps records of all my hands, how Im playing, how much I'm winning but probably more importantly also how everyone else on the table plays.

Eyepoker ~ This is a datamining and table selection tool that sits there and collects all the hand details on upto 16 tables and feeds it into the pokertracker at once and I leave it on all the time I'm not playing, already today it has collected info on 48,000 hands !!

PokerAce HUD ~ This displays stats directly onto the poker table so I can see instantly how often a guy raises pre-flop and wether he is a winning player and a heap of other stats.

It might seem to be a bit too much , but INFORMATION IS KING and it WILL help give me a little more edge.

I will put some screenshots up of them over the coming posts.

Played tonight in the last BlueSquare league game and took it down for a nice $500 boost.


Sneaks and I take it in turns to play these and despite not being very successful to be honest, we still have taken our account to $2k+ now from $400 each. Couple of weeks off now before Octobers league starts so will spend some time getting to grips on improving my Omaha game on Plex.

Another Year without Trophies & Medals

So last nights APAT online main event brought me no success once more, although I had a fair run finishing in 19th for $61 when my AK re-push ran into AA. I played some hands well , getting away from a few danger flops, but also didn't maximise a few great BB hands. I had AAx2, KK, QQ, AKx2 on the BB and pushed every time with it to raises, but never got the call I wanted, perhaps correct way to play the AK and QQ, but could have got more by slow-playing the top two hands.
So I finish the APAT season still without a medal, must be 35+ tourneys I have played now in last 2 years and never finished above 6th !! I'll be back next year.

Had a little win in the Middleweight freeroll on BlSq and won a GUKPT sat Token, although they seem to have credited the cash to the account.


No major events coming up. Might play the £100 Deepstack @ B'pool on last Sat of month(27th), but will have to wriggle a free passout as have arranged a trip to the Rugby League Grand Final for the following Sat.

Stay Lucky Guys

Congrats to DazN

Fantastic result for a poker playing friend the other day. Daz who flopped so hopelessly with me down in London has landed himself a biggy.......WSOPE ($25k package)thru betfair and a mammoth sat the other night. He actually qualified through a few sats from a starting $5 fee!So if he takes it down on Oct2nd it will be probably the greatest tournement spin-up ever !!

GOOD LUCK DAZ

As for me, Ive been having mixed fortune, with no success at all on Blue square in the League or the APAT games, but going quite strong in the PLO and PLO8 games on Plex. PokerPlex have just moved across to the ipoker network and have a new deal, not a bad one but not as good as the one from their crypto days. However much greater choice of games and availability at PLO/PLO8 so might work out better for me in the long run.

Tonight is the APAT online main event with a GUKPT package added (and medals of course for top 3!) , would be a tournament I would love to take down. SO Im gunning for a lucky and slightly skillfull evening.

August Accounts

Here goes then, don't think it is going to be great reading...


Accounts for August

PokerPlex : up $160
Blue Square: up $380 (totally due to Sneaks)
Full Tilt: up $60
Playing live: down $680 (tourneys=$430, cash=$250)

In total for playing down $80
No Bonus this month of course and hardly any rakeback, probably about $30
So -$50 for the month.

and +$6115 for the year so far.

Hardly the disaster month I feared once I have totted it all up, but this was due mainly to Sneaks who had a fair bit of success in the Blue Square league when I could hardly play and also due to a reasonable week at beginning of the month on Full Tilt and Plex while I was still online.
The live tourneys bite a little and I can't continue playing them at such a high level so often if I dont hit a result or two. My accounts include only the playing side of things and doesn't factor in the expenses, most of which came out of my 'Poker Fund' for my end of month tour down south.
Having said that, I do feel I am playing well in them and really beginning to recognise players styles, something I didn't do too well before and certainly was very poor (often non existent) at online.

I will be back at the Blue Square league tonight onwards and also got the APAT online series this week to look forward to. They start tonight with the PLO and then have a Stud, 6max NLHE, finishing with the NLHE main event (Which I final tabled in last year ---BRAG!)

Will update a bit more regularly now I'm back "at it", so keep tuned and stay lucky.

Yet another Snap Decision....D'OH

Got myself a new laptop and one of those dongle things. Laptop is great but this dongle is so slow, don't know if I will even be able to download this.....although I guess if you are reading it ..I have! Not downloaded any sites yet, but still hope to be online this w/end to get back playing, especially as I fancy the APAT online series starting Sunday, details here http://www.apat.com/index.php.

Talking of APAT, I played the main event in London last Saturday and went well right from the off, being more than twice the average stack for most of the day and being in the top 10 or so throughout. I played well slightly LAG, and felt I was reading players well. Got a lot of moves through with nothing and paid value on hands where I was strong. I really felt very comfortable and then about midnight with 40 players left of the starting 205 I again made a stupid play without thinking.
I raised to 8k (BB=2k)from mid position with AJ and got smooth called by the very solid guy on my left. My head was screaming at me " whooooa, watch out he has aces" as the guy wasnt one to make moves and I was very surprised to see him not re-raise me. I figured he could have AK as well maybe , but my initial reaction had been that he was calling with Aces. Anyway the flop killed me as it came 89J, so I led out for 12k, without really thinking about bet size, and he pushed pretty much straight away. It was "only" another 23k to call and I did have top pair top kicker, BUT, what the hell did I think I was beating now ????? anyway my mind didn't think and I stuttered out "CALL" in a micro-second. Sure enough he flipped his aces over and I went from very comfortable to short stack push territory. I hung around for another hour or so and was a little unlucky losing my last two hands with the best starting two. However I left a tourney once more pissed off with myself for making a move without taking my time.

A previous post was entitled "will I ever learn?" Well I had better start quickly if I really want to get some results, got to focus the whole tourney EVERY hand.....especially the big pots......will not make a snap decision again for any kind of pot without ensuring I have considered it all. LOL we'll see?

Will have to publish some August accounts v. soon, and that is not going to be good reading.

Here is hoping I get lucky soon.

Offline, I'm afraid

MY laptops hard drive has blown up and something not working on the PC router connection so been offline for a while ( 3 weeks!)

Hope to get sorted this next week and looking to get a new laptop and maybe go down the dongle route so can play anywhere.

As for live play, played the APAT PL Omaha tourney and after a good start, I got away cheaply from a couple of nut flops that would have turned into disaster and was quite pleased with myself. Then went card dead for a while and donkeded off a 3k bluff with nothing. Whilst not desperate, I was then down to 2/3 average and when with 6 limpers the board flopped 772 (2clubs) with me in BB with 10,8,7,3, I called aggresive button bet only to be check raised by another aggressive player from mid-position. I figured he had the 7 or a club draw, but felt he was likely to have nothing higher than a 10 with his 7, as he could be playing a hand like 5678 etc, if he had it at all. So I called getting about 2:1 for my money and he had QQ72 and with no help from the board I exited fairly early realy. A little dissapointed really as I had been looking forward to this game for a while and felt considerably better than most at the table where I had seen a lot of poor and questionable plays in just the 140 min I was in.
Went with Daz Naylor to the Gutshot after, to check it out and play their evening game. Very dissapointed with the place after all that I had heard~ quite grubby and small. The players were a strange bunch with plenty of characters and the standard of play wasn't bad. Got to the final 2 tables but never really got much above average and for what seems like the 10th tourney running, I get knocked out the first time I had all my chips in the middle and called.

Due a little bit of fortune me thinks....maybe today will be the day as I am playing the APAT World game at the Vic.

So till later, stay lucky !

Will I ever learn ???

Went to Stoke to play their "Anniversary Cup" £100 (+£2000 added) comp on Sunday. It brought in a fantastic 158 runners and I have to say that I enjoyed the comp a lot. They run a £100(+£1000) every month and hope to play this when ever I get the chance with no work the following Monday~ that wont be often!.
My table was pretty tough, with a couple of guys i recognise from the TV, including Red Dog and some Greek dude, also was Michelle Shiels who I had played against at the APAT team game where she had impressed me and she was back from two chops at the Broadway Festival.
Lost 2000 chips fairly early with some missed flops and a 1k bluff, then managed to get back level thrigu small pot poker. After the break had a big pot where I knocked out Michelle when a continuation bet with KQ on a J,10,3 board was pushed back at me and I decided I had to make the pot sized call with all but my whole stack, figuring I likely needed any A,9,K or Q to win it ~ so 14 outs x2 . She had 22 , said she had "sensed" weakness, I hit a K on turn and that was it. Then took out a short stack and a lovely bluff on a co-ordinated board with diddly squat had me at 21k with average at about 12k. So looking good!
Then I went card dead for an hour or so and found myself back below average and the blinds and newly introduced antes beginning to bite. So when I looked down at 77 , I thought "this was it" and prepared to move all-in for about 8xBB. But, the chip monster on my right decided to raise first, "hey that is not in the plan" I think, but nevertheless move my chips all-in without more than 3 sec thought (remember my exit hand at APAT). He dwelled for about 30 sec, and I was thinking I had a fair chance of doubling up against a Ax or maybe even a smaller pair, before calling and flipping QQ.
Bit annoyed with myself, I had got to a state where I needed to make a move, but again I hadn't thought enough before throwing my chips in. And this wasn't really the case, I had hardly any fold equity, and I shouldn't be putting them in without it unless I have a Monster.
I will now write out lines as a punishment:

THINK, THINK, THINK.
THINK, THINK, THINK.
THINK, THINK, THINK.
THINK, THINK, THINK.
THINK, THINK, THINK.
THINK, THINK, THINK.
THINK, THINK, THINK.
THINK, THINK, THINK.
THINK, THINK, THINK.
THINK, THINK, THINK.

Defragmented the Laptop for the first time the other day and it has messed my PokerTracker up, so will blog up the techno section I promised when I got that back sorted.

Stay Lucky Guys

10,000,000 to 1 !!!

Ok so I did play tonight. Just a $1 tourney to this new promotiuon Pokerstars are running for EPT freeroll with an added $6k on top of the EPT London Package. And they are running this for the next 10 weeks , each week ! I made it in this tourney for this Sunday by the way
Worth getting on and playing 4x Sats a day ( 1x freeroll,1x$5, 1x10FPP & 1x$1).

Anyway the post title is the fact I got Aces dealt to me three times running !!!!



And I even showed them and told the whole table when I bet that I had them !! LOL

July Accounts...Early this month!

Not going to play tonight, so might as well get them up now.

Accounts for June

PokerPlex : down $90
Blue Square: down $240 (combined disaster month with Sneaks)
Full Tilt: up $170
ClassicPoker: up $500
Nasty Duck: down $70
Playing live: down $120

In total for playing up $150
Bonus of $250 and rakeback in region of $200
So +$600 for the month.

and +$6165 for the year so far.

7 months into the year and less than $1000/month. I shouldn't aim for a set amount/month but more a certain #hands played or reach a set bonus /month really. So I will think about that over next day or two and post back.

I have a lot of live tourneys coming up, but intend to get playing as much as possible and complete the bonuses and I think this August I will start to play a bit more @ FullTilt as I like the site (+ I get 27% R'back too) and it is always busy in the PLO games there 24/7. I will also see if I can take advantage of any of their promotions http://my.fulltiltpoker.com/promotions?key=cGxheWVyaXg9MjgwMjI0JnRva2VuPVBEQTY3S0Q3TTRSQUJXRDQ0SFc1OA--
Second thing I intend to do is review my play and the software tools I use and how I use them. Apologies immediately to all the Poker technophobes who think it should just be a straight game of skill.LOL

Up the Online limits and the future is Live

I wet to play yesterday on Crypto and found hardly any games at my usual limits, so decided it was time to move up a bit as I had been going well for the last week or two. So logged into 4 $1/2 PLO tables and proceeded to crash, down over $300 within 30 min. I made a bit of a recovery and gained back a bit more this morning, but it just goes to show the variance involved and how you really need a bankroll and shouldn't move up until ready. I'll probably continue to mix it at 1/2 and 0.5/1 for a while.

I've also played a couple of freerolls. I did a treble entry across 3 crypto sites on a "goodwill" freeroll for a sat to the 20k g'teed. Got one of 10 seats from 500 and then proceeded to the final table of the 20k before running QQ into AA and the a shortstacker luckboxing out on me, to leave in 9th for $500. Not bad for a freeroll result but left a little dissapointed as I had been in top 2 for most of tourney and 1st place was $6k.

As for Live poker, I have a few things lined up. so here is the diary of events:

Sun 3rd Aug~ £100 D/C @ Stoke Circus (with £2k added) .... this is the anniversary cup that i chopped 3 way last year and then blagged the trophy from Lucy Rokash. So looking for a similar result this time.

Wed 27th Aug~ £50 APAT PLOmaha Champs @ Vic, London.......mmmm deep stack Omaha tourney....luv it!

Sat 30th Aug~ £75 APAT NLHE Champs @ Vic, London.....another 10k, 40 min jobby !

Wed 3rd Sept~ £250 GUKPT PLOmaha Festival event @ Bolton....My B'day next day so this is a treat to myself.


I have started a 'stake me' thread on Furness forum for the GUKPT PLO tourney @ Bolton and already have sold 40%. I feel this is a great way to be able to play these comps that I couldn't really bankroll and if i get some result in this one , Im sure I will get similar or better backing for the B'pool one and maybe more in the future. However it does put the pressure on, can feel it already !! LOL
Im only selling 50% so just 10% left to sell so get on quick. Basically £3 for 1% and I feel I will be +EV in this so good value. Reply as a comment or on here http://www.furnesspoker.co.uk/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1190&p=5605#p5605

APAT ...firsts and regrets

Apologies to all my world wide readers...I beleive I have readers all over the UK ( Barrow for example) and even 1 overseas (Walney Island).........for the lack of entries. There has been a few poker related 'happenings', so will put a few updates up over next day or two.

APAT team champs last w/end. I had entered us on the APAT forum as a chance entry thinking we could scratch a team of 10 together for it. However that gave me the thankless job of Captain which meant having to 'pick' a team for it, forgetting players along the way and managing to get them in when others couldn't make it . Then having to justify team selection to others (which I couldn't really do because the team had been picked without any real criteria~ I hadn't realised it would be such an issue). I like to think I get on pretty much with everyone, or try to anyway, but others are more fussy, and their views came along and then people who weren't in wanted to play and such like. Robo had said to me "thank god you are doing it" and I know what he means now. Anyway I had it all organised with the last minute drop outs, reserves to take their place and transport issues with 4 non-drivers so that all 10 of us were there at Blackpool in plenty of time.


Now we just had to win the thing!
The APAT events are great tournaments with 10k chips, 40 min clock and every level all the way, only thing missing is antes. The team were all on different tabels and we settled down knowing we could take our time. However I wasn't going to miss the chance to get chips and limped or called small raises with 8 small pocket pairs in the first 2 rounds ! However didnt connect with any of them and after bluffing the turn on one ended up with just over 7k of my chips left after only 30 min. I was beginning to think things were going to be tough as the table was of a high standard with some good players on it. Then I got a hand that got me back to level before I got this hand:

I am BB with JcQc, button stealer raises and I call.
Flop comes AcKc2d......I decide to check and decide what to do on the size of his continuation bet, but he checks too.
Turn 10c .....-BOOM!!-.....


I have to check my hand to make sure. Immediately I could feel myself flustered ( not felt like that for years since I was a casino novice ). I didn't know what to do, where were the TV cameras? They should see this!!! Then the dealer says "I dealt a Royal Flush last week", I made a joke of it " do you think I will get a chip set for it"~ that might throw them off my scent. LOL
I managed to get as much as I could from it on the turn and river I think with 1k & 2k bets being called by his two pair, and although I stalled for the TV cameras they never arrived in time and I flipped it over rather undramatically. My first live Royal Flush to go with my 10 online ones ( got another one at Omaha on Wed this week too) and I did end up getting that GUKPT chip set to boot.

From there on I played fairly well, with a couple of occasions where I maybe didn't maximise a few pots, but generally good, staying at about average all the way and without ever having my stack all-in until after 9 hours of play I made this mistake.

I am under the gun (10 handed) and look down at AK. I raise to 6.5k (BB=2k) all folded round to chip leader on the BB. He looks down and makes it 15k to go. I think for two nano seconds and push all-in my 38k stack. He calls with KK and Im gone.
I was so sick with myself for this play, I had fought for 9 hours and to give up my stack without any thought left me pi**ed off with myself. He had been fairly tight and passive , had only shown premier cards....what could he have AA,KK QQ maybe JJ and also AK. Couldn't see him making the re-raise with AQ, so in essence I was beating none of his range and seriously dominated with 40% of it. He was always going to call, so I didn't even have any fold equity. STUPID PLAY and what I really regret is doing it so quickly without thinking. I know it is easier with hindsight, but do beleive now that if I had thought I would have come to the conclusion above and could have made a hero fold~ " I think I am making a big but good laydown here" and show them type of thing. Hopefully I will live and learn from it. THINK THINK THINK before big decisions.

The team ended up in 10th out of 20 thanks to the efforts of Snapper and Wendy. Unfortunately in my planning I hadnt accounted for non-drivers making day 2, so they both had to get the train down and ended up just short of the money too. So a bit of a dissapointing finish for them.

Next year I am sure we will enter again and probably make a w/end of it and stay over. Typical Jock that he is , Wolfy spotted B&Bs at £11 per night !! Christ , I would eat my moneys worth there the next morning.

I WILL post again in next couple of days with result of a nice freeroll I played and a few live tourneys i have my eyes on.

Stay tuned and stay lucky JON

June Accounts.....late posting

Bit boring, hence I have never got round to posting them:

Accounts for June

Littlewoods : down $200
Blue Square: down $330
Virgin: down $40
Playing live: up $230

In total for playing down $340
Bonus of $400 and rakeback in region of $160
So +$220 for the month.

and +$5565 for the year so far.

The extra bonus from Littlewoods has helped this month, back to Plex next month.

0k last night..~.. played the ipoker $250k and doubled up after 10 min when I limped utg with AA and got a 6Xbb Raiser and a caller , I overbet All-in and sure enough he took me for a squeeze play and called with QQ. Feeling very pleased with myself I then got a run of cards and was always up there in top group until break.
After the break I went card dead beyond belief and this lasted 3 hours. I somehow got within site of the bubble(paid 150 places out of 1100) and decided to hold on for it ($250). Then I got AA with 3 places to go to the bubble and me on 2xBB. I told the table I had aces, but still got called and he pushed with top pair on the flop. Wasnt prepared to let this go for just $250 so called and held on --> think it was the right play, by folding i was sure of making first pay level but that was it.
As it was I went on to steal a couple of times and edge my way to 51st where I got AQ and decided to call an initial raiser, he had K10 and hit, so i popped out for $750....which is a nice little boost. If my AQ had hung onto the lead I would have been capable of making last 30 or higher and with $52k first prize who knows how high I could have gone.
As I qualified from a sat with a fair overlay($6k) and then the main event also had an overlay($30k+), I think it is a tourney I might play more often. I love extra value !!!

Live Omaha ! Love it...........

...................but I'm still a DONK !

we had the first local Omaha tourney last night. It was NL, because PL would be too hard ! LOL

£10 with £5 rebuys and unsurprisingly it was rebuy crazy.
I doubled up first hand when I called an all-in with top two pair and nut flush draw, just to see him playing a lower two pair. He-he. After the rebuy , the standard just improved a little, not a lot, just a little. I got up to almost a quarter of chips in play with 5 left when I made a move I didn't need too. Playing against the chip leaders 4xBB raise, who was playing tight,I called in position with AKQ6 hoping to hit and take him off it. Flop came down J,10,2 (2 clubs) and when he checked I moved in with what i beleived to be 13 outs and confident of him passing.He shrugged his shoulders and said "I call". "OK" I thought, but he flipped over a Monster in AAQ9 with 2 clubs....He had an Overpair, upndown straight and nut flush draws. Suddenly my 13 outs was reduced to 6 and with him having extra outs too. Probably down to 15% for me.
It was the right move in a normal tourney, but I was well in control here and didn't need to take on the only one who could hurt me like that. Daft play, but great fun tourney hope they have one again soon.

Anyway just to brighten up my gloom, played one gane tonight and made it through a $32 qualifier for Sundays $250,00 gtee on ipoker.



Roll on Sunday---------Im due A big CASH !!

More Value

Just thought I would add this. On Classic I got an email offering me money back if i entered sat for tomorrows £40k with an old alias I had forgotten all about. So i joined 82 others for £5 and hit one of the top 10 spots and a £120 seat tomorrow. About 8th time i have satellited into this weekly Sunday game in 2008.....Yet to cash in it though. LOL

I am AKAKAman

Got a problem now , because this clashes with the Omaha tourney (v good value imo) and also a possible drink with mates watching the Euro Final. mmmmmmmmmmmm decisions

Blackpool Fiasco

I went to the Grosvenor at Blackpool last night to take part in the £150 link game Grosvenor had planned across the North of England. What a disaster they simply haven't promoted it at all or run sats and the numbers were embarassing. 24 @ B'pool but none of the the other 7 casinos could manage more than 6!! EVENT CANCELLED

At almost 10pm, we eventually got a game going of £75 (+ 1 r-buy or add-on). I quite enjoyed the game and steadily built my stack inc. a large number (for me) of steals at pots people didn't want. Didn't bother with an add-on and when I got QQ twice and both times it managed to dodge an ace v AQ & AJ I was onto the final table in 3rd place. 8 handed though I managed to pick up AA and when I was re-popped by KK it looked like I would have almost half the chips in play. However the poker gods threw in a King on the turn, leaving me short and I donked out pushing with Ace-rag into a pair of 8s.

I picked up £200 in 6th place for a small profit , but came away really having enjoyed myself. I played well, the standard was good too for a change (cant really remember a play I thought was poor by anyone) and I spent a lot of the evening with Howard Plant on my table. The guy is one of those guys who just cant be quiet with non-stop jokes and one-liners all night, not everyones cup of tea, but I like him and he makes the evening entertaining. Thought about posting a few of his gags here, but its the sort of thing where "you need to be there".

Not played much online recently as I have fulfilled the months bonus requirements, although I have provisionally signed up at Badbeat.com. Not too sure about it, but will write more about that and the APAT forum challenge in the next post. Also a very boring Accounts for June post soon too.

Due a Bad Beat ...or ten

I've not updated for a week, so you might have guessed things haven't really gone my way. Cash Im down a little , due to a little bad luck and some poor plays. On the tournament side though , I have been playing well but getting well and truly smacked with the devils luck baton.
I had a few close sats the other day came 7th in the GUKPT with 2 seats and then on Thursday came 11th with 6 seats up for grabs in the Virgin festival sat. In both, I went out on coin flips that would have put me in the top 2.
I then got a few bad beats always arriving on the river and then tonight, I have realised it is Blue Square holding a grudge, when after 10 min in the league $40PL game, it gave me KK and I duly got it all-in pre-flop to see my opponent flip over Queens. Board xxx, x , and yes....Queen on the river.
So a few minutes later I am in the $109 GUKPT sat. 1st hand utg goes all-in and plenty of piss taking in the chat box, "one move, 75xBB, nice play" and so on. Very next hand of the tourney I get AA, so decide from utg to go all-in. Before I get any snide comments I get a call. "Oh Yes Happy days!" I think as he flips over AK of clubs. Board comes low, but two clubs and then the mighty poker lord teases me by turning a blank before dropping the cruel club on the River.
"mmmmmm never put you on AA" says the luckbox.
"I know , you muppet" I think.
"Re-buy for $100" asks the dealer
"Dont think I will bother."


END OF POST, TILT IS SETTING IN

New Month...new start

So June is here and I am starting afresh.

New league on BlueSquare and main bonus will be at Littlewoods this month.

Blue Square has started brightly. First 2 tournaments have been 3rd ($150) and then out on the bubble (6th) when my AA was a victim of a horrible runner runner flush. Still two final tables and a good 16 points for the league.

Littlewoods are offering a special $400 bonus for 1500MPPs or less than 4MPPs per 1$. I also get 30% rakeback here too, so good deal all round.

Got the $40 Pot Limit League game tonight and the GUKPT Luton Sat that I got 2x$109 tickets for still.

All is not Gold

Just when I seemed to be doing no wrong, last few posts have all been success, then nothing goes right.
The 2 ECOOP games just never went anywhere.
In the Omaha I was chip leader after 4 hands, but that was as good as it got. 2 hours later I was just another also ran. Maybe should have pushed a little earlier, I had a chance and played pussy poker. Got to be more assertive in these bigger slower tourneys, hard to come back from a small stack as they are so much deeper.

Tonight in the NLHE got back above starting stack after 2 hours and then got re-raised 3 hands running, couldn't call any of them. Again a bit pussy like poker I folded AK twice. I think a more LAG approach might suit me better in these games. Although to be fair I was fairly card quiet and never hit big with any speculative hand. In the end tried to re-shove a LAG with 66 and he called with AJand hit them both on flop. Only 2nd time i had pushed and first i was called. If I had of won I guess I would have been upto average....they say you got to win the 50:50s. So I wasn't unhappy with the move , but "one Time" would have been nice.

Also lost $175 on Full Tilt in about 30 minutes last night....should see the luck chart !!

Back to Littlwoods for this June as they have a nice £300 special bonus on.

Another Sat win and May Accounts

Another win in a $40sat for tonights $250 European Online hampionship PL Omaha event. I was low for the whole tournament , never getting above 2500 chips, but managed to hang in there. Check the value out in these sats.. $3000 overlay for this one with 20 g'teed seats.....fantastic.....wish i had played a few more now.



Accounts for May

Poker Plex : up $300
PokerStars: down $30
Blue Square: up $830
Full Tilt: up $110
Virgin: up $60
Gala: down $80
Playing live: up $130 (up @ cash, down @ tourney)

In total for playing up $1320
Bonus of $250 and rakeback in region of $250 (150@plex &$100@FullTilt)

So +$1820 for the month.

and +$5345 for the year so far.

Bit more like it, although it has mainly come in the last 10 days. Of course I haven't included the two ECOOP qualifications in that figure or the 2x$109 GUKPT sat tikets. I will only include actual cashes in my figures. If I had though then months profit would be +$3366 !! VERY NICE

Tonights and tomorrows games are both on ipoker @7pm start. I will be on MSN on robbieboxseal@hotmail.com feel free to log in and say hi.

Am I a Luckbox !

'Stay Lucky JON' is my signature at a few forums and I can now find out if that is true.
Last night I was introduced to a new piece of software called "pokerEV" and it is Brilliant!
It can tell you how lucky you are on all hands that go to a showdown. Which is great for giving you more of an idea if you are still beating the game in the long term.

This is my graph at Pokerplex for the last week, playameing PL Omaha. A traditionally "lucky" game.



The green line is my REAL winnings and the red line is my EXPECTED winnings (or in other words what I 'should' have won). As you can see I was running good(lucky) for most of the week and then this morning have hit a bad run of all-ins and slumped a bit with my "luck" now pretty neutral for the week as a whole.

I just keep on rolling !

At last ! I did it ! Took down the BlueSquare league play-off game. I must have come in the top 4 at least 6 times before without success. But tonight I did it and a $1060 ticket to the $1.5 Million gteed European Chamionship of Online Poker (ECOOP). This will be my biggest event , in terms of buy-in and prize pool.



The big hand (luckbox) moment came when 4 handed. I pushed in with J,9 of diamonds to get called by the small blind and then to see the Big Blind and chip leader re-push, which forced out the SB. BB had AK and the flop brought two diamonds, and the 3rd on the turn. SB had been holding KQ suited and would have hit a FH. Nice protection for me !! hehe

I tried to do a deal with Blue Square to get the online seat transferred to live GUKPT seats but they were having none of it. Shame, as I really do want to play one of these bigger events and last year winning this would have given me a GUKPT main event seat. Also did a deal for 25% of the action in the ECOOP with "Logie66" when heads up. Funny, at the time it seemed a good idea, doesn't seem quite such a good deal now ! LOL

Sunday 7pm if you want to watch/play......not going to be fast tho.....5000chips and half hour blinds!!

Deal 'em good , till the early hours.

In the shade

Well Im back blogging again today.....because I'm still winning !! Its so easy LOL

An hour on Pokerplex for about +$80 and then an hour on Full Tilt for +$120.

I find FullTilt a really good site with LOTS of PL Omaha games. I also get rakeback @ 27% rate through thehendonmob.com I dont get a bonus there but like Pokerstars they have a pretty good online store and I'm almost half way to getting these little beauties

Play-off game on BlueSquare tonight and trying to arrange a way to go to Blackpool on Saturday for a cracking 15k deep stack,45min clock £200 jobby. Sneaks is up for it too.

Little surge of form !

Just an update as I seem to be winning and it is always nicer doing the blog when winning.

Poker plex has been all short stack PL Omaha this month, mainly $0.5/$1.

Last week has been good, here are the last 1000 hands on the pokergrapher again.


No Live games planned soon, next ones are probably a Grosvenor £150 link game (more of which in a later blog)and hopefully the PLOmaha rebuy locally on the 27th and 29th respectively.

110 chips to champ !!

Final Blue Square league game tonight. I started in 5th place, 4 points behind 3rd and no chance of catching top 2.

3rd and 4th got eliminated early, so I needed to come 7th or higher to get 3rd and 2x$109 GUKPT sat tickets. So there I am in 8th waiting for someone to go and it doesn't happen, next thing I'm low but hanging in. I go 3 circuits with my BB taking it down each time when all-in. At one point I have 110 chips and average is 5k !! I am really just hanging in desperately for 7th, cashing(top 3 only)is not a consideration. LOL
Then someone goes out, so I push in next two hands and amazingly three minutes later I am up to 5k myself. On this surge of fortune, I rush through to a chip lead and take the last 5 players out to win the tourney and $750 (+ the 2x$109 tickets)




Poker is a great game!

It's not Terry's

What a game!!

ManU v Chelsea, I'm talking about. A real proper game with both teams going for it, none of this boring "we dont want to lose this" type of game, but two teams who have great players and are so well matched. In the end it was classic drama too, almost film script type stuff, I dont like the idea of penalties (should be played out properly from a sporting ethos) but it is great entertainmant for the spectator. Don't share the sympathy for Terry, I like the guy he is a passionate and honest player even if he is too slow to be rated as highly as he is, but if he is going to take the glory for scoring the winner then he has to take the heat for when he misses too. He didn't cry, thank god, but from the look on his face you could tell he wanted a chinese type earthquake to hit just so he could jump in the hole and get swallowed up !!

Due to babysitting had to watch it at home until the missus arrived half way thru extra-time, so I popped down the local. Everyone was pissed, seems great when you've been drinking all game but when you turn up sober it just seems so yobish. Sneaks was in there (maybe pissed) and I forgot to mention his recent GUKPT at Newcastle, where once again he made the 2nd day, but then fell fowl of an IDIOT who called Sneaks (AQ) pre-flop raise from late position with (5,10), because he thought Sneaks was "at it". The flop came down Q,10,5. Absolutely Bogus flop and that was it ~ chips went in , no help . Unlucky mate. Bolton is his next GUKPT date in Sept.

Talking of big comps , the leagues haven't gone quite as I wanted, the Gala just hasn't taken off at all and dont think I will bother again there until next league starts. The Blue Square one has me in 5th, but no chance of catching 1st with just Sundays game to go. Can get 3rd tho, prizes for top 4 only.

Off all next week, so might try to get a live game in somewhere.

Tonight off camping with the family Hi-De-Hi.

League rumbles on

The two leagues have been rumbling on and in the Gala league played a fair few games , but just got nowhere AT ALL !! not even final tables once in 6 attempts !
The Blue Square league has gone better. Tonight I ended up 3rd for $300 and 10 more points, which puts me into 3rd place. Should have been more but the league leader sucked out with a river to stay in and is going to have a large lead going into the three last events. I made a squeeze play from the BB with trash and ran into an all-in push from the Button which i had to let go ( he showed KK) and one big hand really destroyed me later when on a 679 board all the chips went in with me holding A10 hearts ( 2 on board) for flush and gutshot draw against LAGs 69 two pair. I missed .....sigh.

An intersting hand happened early in freezeout section. All the chips went in pre-flop between 4 of us and the lead changed on every street!
Pre-flop: It was AA v 88 v AK v (my)QQ
Flop: 8J2
Turn: Q
River: 10

Everyone felt the emotional roller-coaster on that hand, fortunately I was big chip Daddy and stayed in.

Current BlueSquare league standings here http://www.bluesq.com/bluesquare/bspoker/bluesquarepokerleague.shtml

Champions league final tomorrow, got to babysit the kids , so I'll watch it and play the BlSq league game as well. Might get out to the pub later , good mate just returned from getting married in Mauritious and he is a MAN U fan. Just fancy them to edge it tomorrow, but too close to bet on with the odds being so tight.
Did you know Derby made the European Cup semis in 1974 under Cloughy and it was later found out that Juventus had bribed the Ref. And look at us this year.

Bonus chasing

ipoker ( that is mainly Blue Square for me) are having their billionth hand promotion at the moment. With the billionth probably going to be dealt in he next 48 hours. Along the way they have milestone hands every 200k and 5 million, so decided yesterday to have a blast and catch one of them. Got logged onto 6 tables playing short stacked PL Omaha...can't do much damage here I thought. I only had a few thousand hands till the milestone so was probably only playing about 10 hands per table. I will just sit here mega tight and hope to get lucky and hit the magic numbered hand for a nice 1k bonus.
The bottom line is ...I missed the magic hand....but did get drawn into moving all-in 4 times for $40 in that 10 minutes and lost them all !! so a rather costly $170+ spent in 10 minutes fishing for a bonus.

I'll try and have another go when the big one comes around as that carries a nice $50k bonus, no matter what stakes you play. Lets hope it happens early moning here about 8 am, when it is the quietest.

The Simpsons

D'OH as Homer Simpson would say.
Just been on the phone and thought I had already registered for tonights Blue Square league, but hadn't and now too late D'OH, still compensation was I got to watch Bart and family with my daughter ( only thing Dad and 5yo daughter can watch together and enjoy).
Ive been going well too, 2nd in league just a point behind leader, thanks to a second place last night.

I had managed to just sit quietly and watch everyone donk themselves out with some questionable calls...... imo. So there I've ended up 2 handed and staring at the wrong stack in a 35k v 145k match. I go into a mammoth heads-up battle and slowly, without a big hand clash, claw my way to a 135k v 45k lead and then get it all-in with KJ v K7. The guy flukes a river flush and I can feel my focus go, I dont go on tilt, but I kind of know I am not going to win it now. And sure enough I just seem to lose/blow a few pots before I end up with it all-in with A9 v AJ and that is that! $375 instead of $625, 12 points instead of 15 and 2nd space in the league instead of 1st!.

As for the phone call it was some simple Indian lass trying to sell me a cheap balance transfer to a MBNA card. I had great fun forcing her to admit that I should transfer it to a Virgin C/card instead of MBNA as they were offering better terms. Took me 14 minutes though, and my chance to enter the BLUEsquare game was gone. D'OH

bit of tourney success

Played a couple of the Gala and Blue Square league games last few days.

2 bad beats in the Gala games have left me with no points to worry about, remember it is best 5 only that count before mid June so not worried yet. I think this is my best method of getting a UK Tour seat.

In Blue Square league, I bubbled the final table in the first 2 comps and then tonight I managed to get a 2nd place for the first cash ($300) for 13 BSq league games. I was unlucky a lot of times too, especially with AA when i got it all-in with the eventual winner only for him to turn a 9 to trips up his pocket pair.

Also played the Barrow online game last night and took it down , although the highlight was outplaying Honeymonster on one hand only for him to do it to me next hand with his trips v my top pair Ace kicker, but wait another hook hits on the river to luckbox me the top Full House.

oh yeh Honey .....Mission accomplished !

Dealing myself Bad beats

Great sporting success for Barrow this w/end , the soccer have made the play-off final and the Rugby are now 5 from 5 and top of the league !

So going into last nights Poker tournament, I was kind of confident of continuing success in 'my' sporting arena. Quiet early table and I managed to nudge my stack up 20% or so. Then this happened:

Dealing for the missing button , I was the small blind @ 200/400. Two limpers, and i got QQ so I raise to 3k leaving myself just under 8k so i can get away if a Ace or King flops. No fears though the flop comes Jxx. Easy push for me and get called by BB who has JJ, no way out really. I then even dealt him the case J on the turn for Quads !So I potter off to the cash table, feeling dissapointed with the poker gods , but nothing more. The cash game has a few hyper LAGs on it, so picking your spot is the game. Double up + against one of them and then this happens:

Dealt AA on the button, me dealing again, Ive dealt mnyself so many good hands at this place, I have started to feel guilty about it. Early position raiser to a £1, 5 callers so I re-raise to £5 and get 4 callers !! "No respect", yet torn between thinking good, but not this many callers. Flop comes a reasonable Q,Q,10. I have to push when it is checked to me and I get a caller, thinking he has the Q, I reluctantly flip my bullets for him to show K,10 of hearts. Only a 10 can save him, so I flip over the turn (5) and river(3) ...no ten.. and I am about to scoop the pot when the cheering alerts me to the fact that I have dealt runner runner hearts to give him the flush and the £50+ pot. FFS!

Despite that setback I managed to turn £50 or so profit and then late on we managed to get an Omaha game going with 7 players. Fantastic , it was No Limit as Pot Limit was going to prove too difficult at that time. Great fun, some real good Omaha hands clashing and about 5 Full Houses were hit on the flop!!
The best part was the standard of play was awfull, with only one guy really having any idea how to play and I outplayed him beautifully in the only hamd we clashed in. I have to say I was quite dissapointed to only leave a further £59 up in the hour,I felt that confident and saw over 90% of flops.


Half way thru the first Blue Square league game for May and going OK, more later in the week.

May , leagues and little bonus

I've decided for May to just go a little slower on the poker playing front. This is especially true with the poker plex bonus, where I always seem to end up playing like a nutter in the last week or so to make the bonus while ignoring all family life, and strangely my wife doesn't seem to appreciate my efforts at increasing the Robbiebox clan wealth.

So instead of playing for a $500 bonus by getting 3400 MPPs, I have gone for the $250 bonus which only requires 1500 MPPs. I still get the 30% rakeback on top, but now I am also earning a little quicker too as each bonus 1$ only takes 6 MPPs instead of 6.8 MPPs as before.
Obviously I cant earn as much, but i can spend more time on a couple of tournament based leagues with gauranteed tourneys and extra end of league prizes. Namely the Grosvenor GUKPT league on Blue Square Poker and the Gala GCBPT league on Gala Poker.

I won't go into much detail, but will post the links to both .

http://www.bluesq.com/bluesquare/bspoker/bluesquarepokerleague.shtml

Basically the Blue Square league runs for 3 weeks every month, all 15 tourneys counts (so a bit more commitment required) and there is good added value to each tourney, especially in latter games although end of league prizes aren't great.

http://www.galapoker.co.uk/club/pn41.go?page=promotion5&lang=20&sid=377209244272317914151914&ms=MS

The Gala league runs for 6 weeks every 2 months, where just your best 5 tourneys count (so doesn't matter too much if you miss a few) , the gaurantees for each tourney dont look great but the end of league prizes are good ($9000+ worth) with GCBPT live packages for top 3.

So expect to hear about my triumphs or tears over this in the next few blogs.

But first of all is a live charity event here in Barrow tomorrow night, dealem 'up !

April accounts

April feels like a dissastorous month. I have made both a gross and net loss !! First month for ages i have posted a net loss and it has left me a little dissilusioned with online poker. I will have to refocus my efforts for May and intend to make use of the two National Poker tour online leagues....and their added value...more in a later post on this.

Accounts for March

Poker Plex : down $1070
PokerStars: level
Blue Square: down $250
Full Tilt: up $45
Playing live: NO PLAY

In total for playing down $1275
Bonus of $500 and rakeback in region of $350

So -$425 for the month.

and +$3525 for the year so far.

Losing just over £200 shouldn't really be a major problem to my bankroll, but I have made the mistake of withdrawing into my main account and using it for general living. This was due to my Nat West card needing renewing so couldn't deposit , thus my bankroll gets hit hard and I cant replenish it.

Got a live local tourney on Sunday, not played one for ages or met everyone, so really looking forward to that !

Made it ....with 8 minutes to spare

11.52pm was bonus completion time, lost it all if i didnt get them played by midnight. The Chelsea v Liverpool game was another thriller with extra-time , so that slowed me down a lot. Was multi-tabling 6 tables for a while.

Lost a little more so defo made a loss for April.

Will post month accounts tomorrow and a slightly different plan for May.

end of the month rakerace

quick update.

got a big day of playing tonight, still over 300 MPP's to get by midnight.

Tried to get them yesterday , but got caught watching the Man.utd v Barca thriller. Real edge of the seat stuff~ not a Man u fan but good to have an all English final !

As for my bankroll , it has continues to spiral downwards, so the bonus and rakeback will be much needed by the time I get it.

Could be the first negative month when I post the accounts tomorrow, next 24 hours will tell.

I am Homer.....Simpson that is

Last night we had a family night in watching The Simpsons Movie on Sky Box office. It had some poor reviews when it came out last year, but I thought it was great Simpsons stuff. It had the traditional mix of child humour (my daughter loved it!)and satirical adult humour with a million digs at the US government. Surely with the way the US openly accepts this stuff the Democrats must get in this time. Or is satire just lost on the average Yank ??

Bottom line is if you got a family well worth a viewing.

As for Poker, it was good to see Sneaks make the second day again in the Manchester
GUKPT alhough he couldn't make the cash this time round.

I had originally planned to go down and play a side event in this on Thursday then changed my mind and plumped for the Bolton Omaha game, but come the evening I was just too knackered so didn't bother going anywhere.
Haven't played live at all for almost two months now and really could do with a game or two. Bolton in two weeks or even thinking of the DTD 321 Omaha.

Of course these all depend to a certain amount on Bankroll and this month has continued to go poorly. In fact I am in danger of actually posting a net loss for April. Down about 300 on Poker plex and similar amount on Blue Square ( played 8 league tourneys and haven't cashed once!), so Bonus and rakeback is only just going to cover all that.

another 600MPPs to go for the month so better get playing, 4 tabling 7 card stud at moment in attempt to stop the rot !

Downswing

Been an up and down time since the last blog. Unfortunately a much bigger down then up.

I was going well with my short stack Omaha strategy and up almost 300 for a week, but then it just seems to have gone off the rails and I can't win a session. Combination of bad beats and poor play has resulted in a 600 downswing leaving me now 300 down for the month, fair to say confidence has gone a little.

Got beaten twice tonight with top FH versus Quads and last night bubbled in the Blue Square game with AK all-in 3 ways versus AQ and AA.

Better stop there before it turns into a bad beat novel. Should have a few days off really, but only got a week to get the last 1200 MPPs for the bonus, which hopefully should ensure i still stay in the black for the month.

Maybe my visit to Bolton tomorrow for the PL Omaha game will revitilise my play and fortune.

until later ......

Downswing

Long time....no see.......Blogger

Yep , im still alive and still playing poker.

Im sorry to have kept my legions of addicted online fans waiting for this latest post.

Ive had to go back to work and really enjoying it at the moment. Its amazing how 4+ months off work makes you fresh again !! LOL

Snapper came round and fixed my laptop up so I can now sit in front of the telly and make small chat with the missus while racking up the bonus and rakeback play.

As far as playing goes, I had a shocking start playing $3/6 Om8 and losing almost $300 in the first two days. Won it back now and am about even for the month, but means that barring a big MTT hit this month, a small profit after r'back+bonus is all I can expect.
Online I have started playing a bit of short handed PL Omaha and NL Holdem, with a fair amount of success. Read a fair bit about it on the 2+2 forums and despite some thinking that the old traditional buy-in for the maximum is correct as you can maximise winnings, it is becoming obvious that minimum buy-in gives you an unfair advantage against a table full of big stacks. I intend to make the most of this before everyone catches on and the sites start to increase minmum buy-ins. I'll try and post more on this in a later entry this week.

Live play was going to be the £100 f/out on Thursday 24th at the Manchester GUKPT, but Bolton have started a £40 PL Omaha tourney (max x2 rebuys) and I really fancy this. Might get to Bolton and make my mind up then.

Until Later, dealem Crypto

End of March.....accounts

March has been a less fruitfull month, due to the slow start because of Crypto wanting to change bonus/rakeback deals. ALso no live success this month to boost figures.

So for March

Poker Plex : up $60
PokerStars: up $60
Blue Square: down $175
Full Tilt: up $105
Playing Live: down $110 (£55)

In total for playing down $65

Bonus of $200 and rakeback in region of $150

So +$285 for the month.

and +$3950 for the year so far.

Obviously a very dssapointing month compared to last 4 or 5 , but I guess I at least didn't lose. I also lost about $150 tonight on OM8 $2/4, where I ran real bad for an hour 3 handed and left me a bit dissapointed for the month.

Still April is a new month and can get started on the full bonus and rakeback straight away.

Hope to have a few adventures and tourney successes to report, I do need to go and play live more often.

Time Out

Went 6 days without playing any Poker!!

Mainly due to a Stag 'DO' in Glasgow which in effect wiped out 4 days and the fact I have reached the $200 bonus, but aint going to make the $500 for March, so no great need to play. Will play only a little next couple of days, as it is mates wedding tomorrow.

Will do an end of Month accounts next and prepare myself to get back onto track in April, oh and of course back to work

The Play @ DTD

So my actual play at DTD, was quite good , although at the end of the day I didn't cash in the tourney and played 4 hours of cash, finishing a massive £2 down.

The tourney started with me hitting the 2nd Nut Flush on the turn of the second hand, but managed to resist raising and so kept the pot small and when the 4th Diamond hit the river , I managed to escape with a very minimum loss to the K high flush also made on the turn. In fact I played really well winning without showing a hand for 2 hours and managed to get my stack from 4k upto 12.1k by the break, although that was as good a sit got as I then got dealt nothing and blinded away before pushing with 33 against a limper only to end up 4-way all-in v 99 v JJ v KK. LOL
The first table I was at was fairly quiet and then the second table contained a couple of know-it-all loud mouths. In fact the first time I showed my cards was against one of these, when a low board with a pair was checked all the way to the river. Gobby number 1 put a big almost pot sized bet out, and I just knew he had none of it, so called with my AJ. He then did that annoying thing of waiting for me to turn my cards over first, which wasn't happening, then he said "I just got an ace" and showed the Ace only. I continued to wait. "Can you beat that?", well even if i could I was still going to wait and see his other card. eventually he flipped over a 4 I think , and i turned over my AJ to take it down. Murmers of "good call" went round the table.
About 3 hands later I made a small pre-flop raise and continuation bet, checked the turn and then bluffed at the river and had to endure a stare from Gobby number2 before he passed and I took it down. The fun then started as for 10 minutes over the next 4 or so hands these two analyzed what I could have been holding based on how I played it. They did this out loud and kept asking me if i had so and so, I just smiled and shrugged my shoulders. Out of about 10 different hands they suggested , not once did they suggest I could have been bluffing. I had these 2 well spooked !

As I mentioned , this was a sabout as good as it got and I faded away and eventually out a couple of hours later. So off to give cash a bit of a go. They had no Omaha going which was a real dissapointment , because that is what I was looking forward to , but sat down at a fairly lively NLHE game. A few young lads here, students I think, but typically LAG players who weren't bad. One of them had the most unreal luck, losing 4 or 5 big pots when holding the best of it.
The funny moment here is to do with the dealer.The DTD dealers were good, but this one was a young , probably 20yo milky bar kid look alike. Anyway a hand played out where I bet small every street and won at showdown. He then went to pass the chips to the guy on my right. A few quick "hoy"s and I got the chips. The young upstart then told me "you need to keep your cards directly in front of you sir". I thought they were but just took the piss with a " ooh, I am sorry, won't happen again". At this point he started with " well i cant gaurantee you will get your chips next time sir, you do need to keep the cards in front of you".
I was a little flabergasted at this point, but without making a big scene, I launched into him quietly but just loud enough for the table to hear. " So lets get this straight, you hand the pot to the wrong player and I am the one who gets a telling-off. I thought you just might have noticed it was mine, seeing as I bet every street and I flipped the cards over. Just thought as dealer that is something you might have noticed, you know who is betting and who has cards, that is the sort of thing dealers often notice ....thats all" and gave him a big smile. Rest of the table were pissing themselves and the lad never had the balls to spoke to me again all evening. DTD allows tipping of the dealers , but strangely enough this lad never got a tip from me.

As for the cash, must have had almost 20 pairs and never hit trips once! Had two big all-in hands, one where I got lucky with AJ pre-flop shove against QQ and then one where I was unlucky on the turn with top pair and upndown straight draw against a guy who hit 2 pair on the river.

enough for tonight, tea is ready.