Yeh, notes are useful......mmmmmmmm

So here it is, PLO Hi/Lo and I'm on the button with 10,10,7,3 and see a flop of K,7,7. It is checked to me and I check it, too difficult a hand to call a re-raise. Turn is a 5 , check all round. River is a 3, bingo Full House! and no one has bet ( they are all deep) so must be well in front. utg bets the minimum $2 and it gets called twice, I figure they are all palying some Lo or Hi hand so decide to repop it and try to scoop the pot by flushing out all the non premium lo & hi hands. The utg then repops it and Im forced to call hoping he is Lo.


But NO he had slowplayed KK, the nut FH, on all streets and I lose a $120+ pot. I type "wp" in the chat box and begin to curse myself for being so greedy with a hand like mine. Then think I'd better put something about that in his notes. Double click him and realise I already have a note on him. This is it
PLO8 ch F&T NUTSFH (ep) minb on R
which is my shorthand for
PLOmaha Hi/Lo checked the Flop and Turn with the Nuts Full House from early position and a minimum bet on the River. I now cursed myself for not reading this as he had made exactly the same play before and i would NO way have repopped it on the river, but just called it down and saved myself virtually my whole stack.

I don't make notes enough, I should have at least used the ones I have made.
Note to myself: make more notes.

As for my online play taken quite a hit this month on Poker Plex so had a few days off, and will be back in March, Accounts up next post.

Neteller blindfolds me and stabs me you know where

I first started playing poker at the beginning of 2002, over 7 years ago now and started small but built it up quickly with bonuses ( inc. some ridiculous easy to get bonuses on Online casinos....not possible any more i'm afraid all you freeloader you have missed the boat). Almost from the start I used Neteller as an online bank system and used a c/c to deposit , got that credited back to my c/c and have never had to resort to "my cash/bank/credit" since. Probably transfered back and forth on Neteller over $100,000 by now, yet Neteller have just put a hold on my account asked me to produce evidence of my ID !!wtf why now?? Anyway I dont have that much there at the moment but it is the easiest way to move cash into and out of sites, so is damn annoying not to be able to access it.
I have to produce a photo id and utility bill. Dont have a scanner at home and my camera gives too much glare, so had to take everything into work and get it done. They then email me back and say the Passport had expired ( sent on 11th Feb'09 , passport expired on 9th Feb'09 LOL and the utility bill was more than 3 months old) JESUS ! just give me my money back and I will go somewhere else , but NO, cant even get my money before I do this, so will have to repeat at work next week.

This meant I only had $26 in my BlSq account and the Welsh APAT online game this Saturday night costs $55, so had to enter the $5 rebuy sat. For the cost of just the initial buy-in, no more, I cruised my way in.
Thats is two APAT events, The Virgin Festival and even got a mate into the SKY live tour game too, in the last few months. Satellites had always been a weakness of mine but seem to have run/played well recently....I'm definitely more sure of myself on who/when to attack in them. If I run well for the next month or so might go for a few bigger ones !

Right APAT gold medal coming my way if I STAY LUCKY !

Another Week passes by......

... a few things happened, but nothing great so stop reading if you are rushed.

Just finished playing the Pokerstars $200k and couldn't repeat last weeks exploits, but finished a respectable 7,000th LOL, but still over 2,500 from the cash.

I played the Hendon Mob League game this week ( i dont play it regularly but every now and then) and managed to knock out Barney Boatman. Something flashed up on the screen about knocking out a Full Tilt Pro and when I checked my emails I got this:

Hi Robbiebox,

Congratulations on busting Barny Boatman in the following tournament:

Hendon Mob Forum League (76318269)

Your Full Tilt Poker account has been credited with a bounty prize of $10.00.

In addition to your bounty prize money, you've also earned a T-shirt to commemorate your accomplishment. You'll receive a second email that will allow you to claim this shirt and confirm your shipping details.

Remember, Full Tilt Poker offers a bounty for busting any red pro playing in any scheduled real-money tournament with 30 players or more. You can collect a bounty matching the tournament buy-in (not including tournament fee) up to $200.

We're happy to have you playing at Full Tilt Poker - best of luck at the tables!

Sincerely,

Full Tilt Poker

So I have won one of those tacky " I bust a Pro at Full Tilt Poker" T-shirts that I saw 2 people wearing at the APAT comp last w/end. It might as well say "I'm not much of a poker player, but I got lucky once and knocked out this so called pro", personally think the Boatmans are evry average rock type players and would be surprised if they are long term winners as they certainly haven't cahsed much considering the number of tourneys they have been sponsored into, they were just around at the right time and have marketed themselves well.
No way am I wearing it ever, so will have to find some way to give it away.

Last thing for today is the boxing match that two of Denmarks best players have organised between each other as a sporting bet. It is Gus Hansen v Theo Jorgenson, who are best mates and are playing for $25k if Gus wins , $35k if Theo wins. That is just chicken feed to these two so it really is a personal challenge. The one thing that has caught my attention are the odds Nordicbet are offering on a bloody nose at any stage of the fight. A massive 11 to 1, which I think is exceedingly good value, I am going to fill my boots or have a little dabble on that anyway. Think the fight is live online too ! Will try and find the link and post it later.

Stay Lucky Dudes

Played two big tourneys this w/end and came 53rd in both !
So APAT tourney on Saturday at Walsall, had me arriving late due to babysitting times. But 2hr 20 min to Walsall was impressive and meant I arrived only missing one set of blind and just the 150 chips lost from my 10,000. I didn't get any starting hands of note and didn't connect with a thing on the board, but was able to take down a few unwanted pots and stayed at about 11k for the first 2 hours. A loud fella named Scouse was keeping everyone entertained and I clashed with him in two hands where I made good value calls on the river with pocket pairs and this got him a little excited and he started berating me for my play. Out of order stuff really, with a few insults and use of the words retard and idiot, I love that banter/wind-up stuff though and replied with a "not the idiot who bet with nothing" and "I wasn't playing the cards, just the player", give him credit though he came back with "well played Phil" which I thought was a good line. However he didn't know me at the time and I think several players would have taken offence at his comments. He did buy me and a couple of others a beer after he was knocked out and then watched the footy where he got a little excited and expressed himself FULLY! There were a number of players who swore loudly throughout the tourney including a lady so drunk she fell asleep at our table and had to be given a nudge every time it was her turn to act. A few other incidents happened and now there is a fully fledged thread on APAT forum regarding "beer and poker". I personally like to have characters at a poker table and beer often "creates" more character, although swearing out loudly never sits comfortably with me in a public place and I hope that a general consensus comes from the thread http://www.apat.com/forum/index.php?topic=2791.90
The table split and for the rest of the night I got moved to a pleasant table and was stayed card dead and got a little low, until I rode my luck a bit when I moved on the turn with bottom pair and flush draw, got called by top pair and hit on the river. I made a nice move with a re-raise bluff and was avereage or slightly above until just as we reached the last level my AK re-raise ran face first into AA. A King on the flop, so even If i had played it cautiously I still would have gone out in 53rd and 40 min short of Day2. Still thought I had played well with so few cards and so many missed flops, so quite pleased.

Got back after driving home in the snow, to put the kids to bed and sit down to play the $10 entry $200k gtee on Stars. This is now becoming a regular tourney for me and was full last night with 30,000 runners! I gradually built my stack steadily, made the cash and then chipped my way up the prizepool ladder. A few weeks back I had come 216th, well that milestone passed and then we got down to the last hundred and I was starting to get quite excited with first prize of $28,500. With 53 players left I got KK on the button and it was folded round to me, picture story to follow:


So All-in pre-flop....M A G I C



So a little dissapointed, as the pot would have put me right in the mix for a massive payday, but hey-ho $480 and a 53rd from 30 thousand players is a PB in this event....



.........One day it will happen LOL.

Crashes and a $500 pot

Off to the Walsall APAT event today, not leaving till the last minute now, so going to have to rush down. Not a great move as I watched a Fire service presentation on Road safety yesterday at work and have to say found it quite moving....it brought back vivid memories of a motorway pile-up I witnessed 17 years ago and it is incredible how clear a moment like that can be. Even got a little choked up when I told the kids about it at the end. So hope the conditions are good and snow is well clear down there.

My biggest pot for a long time, so for the $500 pot, this is the playback.
PLO Hi/Lo $1/$2 and I have $121 in front of me, everyone else inthe hand is much deeper. I get dealt Ad3d4hJs and see a flop of 2dQd8h so have Nut Lo draw and also A flush draw for the probable Nut Hi --> With two cards to come I need any 34567 for the Lo and any Diamond is my only real way of taking down the Hi.
Anyway the flop betting goes crazy with me getting caught in between the raisers and forced to call all-in against 4 opponents by the end of the round. On the turn of another Queen we lose one as the other two end up getting it all in for atotal pot of almost $1000 and the River comes another Queen, putting trips on the board and destroying any chance I had of taking anything.
One of the guys had 10A39 with two diamonds giving him almost the same lo draw and taking away two of my Hi draw outs and the other guy had Q8xx and took down the grand with Quad Queens. I stuck it into the Omaha8 calculator http://www.thehendonmob.com/pokercalc/index.html and found I was only 34% to win on the flop which surprised me as I thought I would be much higher.
Those pots make a big difference to my bottom line come the end of the month,, By the way if you are reading this and know how I can display hand histories a little better please send me the link in a comment.

Right off to become Emglish amateur champion. Stay lucky geezers i intend to !

OK Jan accounts up now

First here are the Accounts for January

PokerPlex : down $340
Boylepoker : down $20
Full Tilt: up $50
PokerStars: down $30
VirginPoker: down $20
Playing live: up $110
In total for playing down $250

Bonus this month of $520 and pokerplex rakeback of $430

So +$700 for the month.

and +$700 for the year.



Again this shows the power of rakeback and bonuses, and in Feb I will be earning 25% extra bonus for my play as I am now on 7star VIP at Plex



It was also a good month comeback , because I plumetted early in the month to over $600 down, and recovered quite well. Here are my PT stats for the month, showing almost 15,000 hands played. If I can manage that amount this month I will be bringing in $1k+ in bonus and r'back, and if I can win at the rate of the last 2 weeks will end up with $3k or $4k. "IF", "IF" and "IF" .....one month it will happen!

As for live games this year, I really want to focus just on games with deeper stacks, so the monthly £100 ones at Stoke and B'pool are good, APAT games, Virgin Festivals and maybe a side event or two at GUKPT are ones that spring to mind.
One event that I would love to play is the PLOmaha Hi/Lo side event at the GUKPT festivals, only times you can play this game live in the UK but problems are they are only on twice and both times at the Vic in London and they are £500 comps...a bit out of my B'roll really. First one is on 21st March and if I run like God this month and make a fair whack then I might just go for it anyway. The other way is to try and get staked, I got a fair staking from local guys when I planned to play the Bolton GUKPT PLOmaha last Sept and on blonde and punters lounge forums there are active staking sections. Could do with pushing my PT stats into the green as ammunition to get staking there though.

Ducks, Bulldogs and Jan Accounts

Last year I had 1258 views of my blog and 1 month in Jan I have had just 94 views, so my blog is becoming less popular. Not surprising when you consider the poor quality of entry and the fact I haven't had anything really interesting happen to me in the poker world for the last 4 months.

Well Saturday I took down the local comp , disposing of several fish along the way, just had to hit once with AK v 55 but apart from that was never in any trouble, aside a few blatant steals when down to 3. Ended up splitting it heads up with Snapper for £215 which was a nice way to finish the month after a long time off the cash in local games.
A few of the regular players were well plastered, making for an entertaining Saturday night. Also there were two card gaurds that took notice, Robo's stupid "nasty Duck" that was only nasty in the sense I wouldn't want one.
And also Bully's 2 brass bulldogs which he proudly put one on each card every hand.
These are not the real ones but you get the idea.
A bit of a gimmick , but I imagine it would get you noticed and that can be a good thing. I've just read an article about how Pokerstars Pro Haved Khan deliberately was outrageous in the 2006 WSOP so that it drew attention to him and he managed to get a sponsored deal out of it, even though his performance wasn't really that great. He has now cashed a few times, including one big win to make him a "name", but apparently he has played every tourney going (all paid for by Stars) just so he could get some results to be worth talking about. Quite a little business plan, as playing big tourneys from your own bankroll seems to be a very difficult way to get +VE out of poker. If I ever make a big tourney late stages will have to think of some "gimmick" to give me that PR edge !!

Maybe I should dress up in fancy dress, Robo did think I looked like Gimli from Lord of the Rings.

I don't see it myself, but then again I wasn't on my 13th pint of Stella or trying to distract people from my own uncanny similarity to a Butch Gay bloke from San Fran ...............say no more.

I was going to post Jan Accounts, but will save that to later in the week when I get the rakeback details, also will try and target a few live games/ambitions for the year.
APAT game tonight on BlSq, dont forget to get involved in this comp, doesn't matter if you miss the first one you can join in at any time and with 20 weeks it wont make much difference.