In the B.O.S.S seat

Well its been a pretty good September. The night after my last post I managed another 2nd in the 3k on BF. Had a bit of a lull for the past few days with a couple of minor cashes. I've been looking round for an alternative game to play in an evening, i like the 18k on BF but the 3k is a bit low stakes now that the bankroll is more padded. Trouble is I struggle to start much before 7:30 cos of the kids and I'm hard pressed to go much past 2am most nights due to kids/work.

So i've been scouting round for a game that fits the bill. Had a couple of stabs at the 50 euro rebuy on DTD and did ok but 150+ euros a night is a touch too expensive and the BR may struggle withstand a bad run in that game. The $50 rebuy on Ipoker is a bit more wallet friendly but finishes a bit too late. There is a 3500 euro gtd game on DTD with a 7:30 kick off. Bit lower stakes than I was after but will play it for a few weeks and see how it goes, may well still play the BF 3k as well until I find a better option. If anyone has any other suggestions pls let me know.

I had a stab at a $100 supersat for the Betfair Online Side Series (B.O.S.S) $1k main event last night as well. 20 runners and i got felted with a bit of a bad beat about 7 deep. I went into semi tilt mode with the remainder of my chips and 50mins later secured one of the 2 seats up for grabs at my 1st attempt. Throw this $1k seat and the £300 DTD monthly seat I picked up at the start of the month into the Sept mix and it's looking like one of the best months i've had for a while.. even with 10 days holiday!

Of course with the Mrs still off on maternity leave any profit seems to find somewhere to spend it's self quickly. I picked up a new position at work a month or two ago and I've had to drive up to Liverpool once or twice a week. Quite enjoy it, it's good to get out of the house and not had too many hold ups on the M6 yet.


The only down side was that the Mrs wanted the number 1 car for the kids. So that left me in her crappy V reg focus. Fuck that! So last week went out in search of a new car. My last car was a CLK which i loved but that went when we needed to "upgrade" to something with a bit more room for the kids and bought a CRV. Was tempted with a Merc again but had some hideous memories of having to stump up a grand every time it went in for a service.


Needed something comfortable, that would eat miles and low maintenance costs. Had a look around and in the end went for a Accord Exec CTDi on a 05 plate. Its in good nick, drives well and like a breath of fresh after the Focus.


Twas a joy going up the M6 this week with Feeder blasting out full volume. I've not listened to that album in ages and it sent me in search of one of my fav videos..... enjoy.....

Heater

After posting the wins yesterday afternoon.. only went and got 2nd in the 18k again last night for another $3600. Gremlin took a night off, which was nice. That's about $8500 in 5 days from 4 entries into the 18k and 4 entries into the $3k.

Just had a look at my stats on HEM since i started recording them in June and ROI is running at 212% and 20% ITM ... doubt the ROI is sustainable for long at that level so I shall ride the wave and enjoy it while it lasts. The Mrs is copping 50% of any wins she she almost cracked half a smile this morning. Bank roll is looking the healthiest it has been for a long time.

DISCO

I'm 100% sure there's evil little fucker of a gremlin that lives in my laptop. His main role i life is to piss around with my wireless connection at critical times when I've got made hands and half my chips in the middle. He's very docile in the early stages of tournies, especially when I'm being dealt total filth. What really gets him going is usually when I've just flat called a huge flop bet with the nut set.

A prime example (although maybe not a made hand) was last week when I'd somehow managed to dodge my way to heads up in the the Betfair 18k again. It's a $1800 difference between 1st and 2nd and I'm feeling really confident sat with my compulsory final table brandy at 2am. I managed to reverse a 150k - 250k deficit despite my opponent jamming every other hand to my standard raise. I'm looking for a spot to finish him off and pick up 99 1st to act.... i make the standard raise hoping he jams, he obliges and I make the snap call..... I wait .. and wait...

"YOU HAVE 8 SECONDS TO MAKE YOUR DECISION" ...

I made my fucking decision 15 seconds ago!!!! I'm sat there waving my laptop in the air trying to make sure the wireless connection is actually connected when 3-2-1... your hand is timed out. 2 seconds later all is normal.... FOR FUCKS SAKES!!!!

I put a mini rant in the chat box and my opponent sheepishly fesses up to Ace Rag. I'm now in a flap trying to get a wired connection sorted before it happens again. I take a hit the next hand then end up going from a commanding position to 2nd place in about 5 hands.



This has happened a few times recently and I'm sure it's always at a critical point. I know twice in the past two weeks it's when i've flopped a set. Anyway $3600 wasn't a bad payday.



The next night the little twat is out to mess my evening up again. This time it back fired :) Getting towards the business end of the $3k on Betfair and someone in early pos makes a small raise that gets 3 or 4 callers on the way round to me in the BB with 22. I make the call and once again I'm left staring at a screen that times out. I turn to the Mrs and say... "Watch this.... bet there's a 2 on the flop". sure enough J 2 J !!! I now say "watch this bet there's loads of action" .... sure enough two chaps are banging their heads in the rush to ship their entire stacks to the middle.... chap #1 shows QQ ...chap #2 flips... J J :)

Of course on this occasion it saved my arse... in fact i went on to win the $3k again for $1k. But even so I still make it that the little fucker in my laptop owes me about $1k.

Overdue update

Only seems like a few weeks since i last updated, was a little shocked to see it's been so long. First off family stuff.. Tom is doing really well. It's a case of so far so good, he's ticking all the boxes and the doctors are really happy with him. The service he had had from the NHS has been fantastic. He has a physio once a week to help him keep hitting his milestones and his consultant is sending him for every test under the sun just covering all the bases which is great. He's no trouble at all .... hardly ever cries and sleeps 8pm-8am !!!

Poker is on the back burner a little... strangely I seem to be making more money as a result. I'm just playing 2 or 3 MTTs 4 or 5 times a week and doing rather well. Lost count of the number of final tables I've had on the BF 18K and finally managed to win it at the end of July for $5.5k.



Tearing up the 3k on BF as well with a 1st, 2nd and 7th in my past 8 attempts. Just got back from 2 weeks in Spain.. had a great time....So life is good!!

Had a live trip to a GUKPT £200 side event at G Casino Coventry the other week. Played quite well but missed out on a few vital hands at a time when I needed to move forwards not backwards and ended up crashing out to Paul Jackson with KQs vs his AK in about 20th. G Casino Cov is great location and only 15mins away from me... will be making a few trips i think. Also picked up a £330 sat seat for the DTD monthly for $30 last night. Supposed to play it in Oct but may have to defer till Nov to avoid my Birthday.

Promise to post more often now..honest!!

TJ suited :)

Should have really updated sooner really but as you can see from the picture I've had my hands full for the past few weeks.



Thomas James arrived a couple of weeks ago and considering the problems we'd been having he's doing very well indeed. Past all his initial tests with flying colours it's looking good so far! Still got loads of doctors appointments over the coming months but the consultants are very happy with him and it's a case of no bad news is good news.

Not played much poker.. although i've been staked in quite a few of the daily $20ks on BF and managed a 6th and two 5ths so far.

Will I ever play the WSOP?

Again thanks to those who've wished us all the best! After a bit of a scare last Friday it looks like they are going to induce Shell within the next week. Fingers crossed for that...all getting very scary now.


Not played much poker since the rake race finished. Decided to grab a weeks break with the Mrs and Jack at Centre Parcs last week. Wasn't sure of what to expect to be honest but really enjoyed it. It's especially great for the kids and well worth a go if you can't get out of the UK. Can't remember the last time i had to ride a bike and nearly had a cardiac after lugging Satan 10miles round Sherwood Forrest twice a day. As this photo testifies it's about time I lost a few pounds.



For obvious reasons any aspirations to play poker at the WSOP have been shelved again this year. Keep looking at the sats wanting to have a pop but there really is no point given the current circumstances. Beginning to think I'll never get a chance to play it.

Need to pull my finger out and take advantage of the 60% RB for the next month or two and save some pennies to pay for Shells 9month maternity leave. I've done a deal with the Mrs to donate £200 of every £400 I earn while she is off. It's prob going to make me play a bit better as I've managed to build a slightly better bank roll once or twice recently only to spunk it off the next week. Always seem to do bit better when playing on the margins :)

Also the mind is starting to wander to a holiday at the back end of the year if possible.. would be nice to get a CPC type event to take the family but with the demise of Crypto will have to have a look around and see whats available.

60% Gross Rakeback... and multitable madness

Skip to the end if you just want the rakeback info :)

First of all a huge thankyou fo everyones messages of support and e-mails. Certainly gives you a little lift. Things are still progressing, however, Shell was diagnosed with gestational diabeties at easter which while not the end of the world compared to the other issues, it gives us a raft of other things to worry about. Never rain but it pours right? They are not going to let her go overdue so looks like within 2-3 weeks we'll have a new arrival.

Since we figured out last month that it was looking like there was going to be a baby I decided to occupy my time and take my mind off things by playing a bit of poker. With Hills moving to Ipoker I was taking a look at the 3rd party tools and scripts and came across two gems that make life easier and certainly make multitabling more bareable if not a joy on Ipoker.

First off is BETPOT. This is a customisable one click autobetting tool, you can basically assign actions to hotkeys or mouse presses and customise the standard betting on each street depending on the position and action before you. Clever stuff.

It also highlights tables that require action, saves your table layouts, allows one click sitdown and buy in at the tables and a load of other stuff. Well worth a look if you want to play a few tables.

The second one is MiniMaxMod. There are a couple of pieces of software out there that allow you to modify the way Ipoker looks and feels. MMM is the best I've come across... you can turn nightmare normal Ipoker screen into this with a few clicks....



It also allows you to resize tables so you can fit the right number of tables for you on screen with no overlap and no wasted space. I've never been much of a multitabler. I think the max i played on Crapto was 4. With the new software I was soon cruising with 6 and then jumped to 9 and 12 without much effort. This multitalbe experiment tied in with a Hills rakerace and I decided to see if I could rack up 100,000 Ipoker Points before the 20th April for a chunky bonus of £1400. Just about managed it after a bit of a push in the last week. All this was at 25c/50c NL.... I'm not daft enough to 12 table 2/5 and I dont think the bankroll could survive a bad hour :)


Some good news is that Hills are giving a rakeback boost to people that have previosuly opened a rakeback account via my blog :) A huge 60% gross rakeback in May and 50% in June and July base on the following rake requirements....



Drop me a mail at jimshell@talk21.com if you have any queries.

Cheers,

Jim

Not the best of beats....

Well the past few months have been a bit of a nightmare, in fact… I can honestly say they’ve been the worst few months of my life. I’ve been lucky so far in my 35 years, nothing truly disastrous has ever happened. My family is healthy, I’ve never really wanted for much and always been comfortable.

I’ve mentioned previously that Shell is pregnant with our 2nd child. In January we went along to the hospital for a 22 week routine scan that found……

“something we are not sure about… it’s probably nothing”.

We were asked to go back again a week later and “just make sure”. A week later the problem was still there and we were referred to a specialist in Birmingham for a detailed 3D scan. After this we were taken into a little room and told that there were a few problems they had found with the baby. A problem with the kidneys, a problem with the fluid spaces in the brain and a problem with the development of a part of the brain called the cerebellum. They said that taken individually each of these problems may not be too serious but taken together they added up to say that something was wrong somewhere.

We immediately had lots of tests taken to try and identify what the issue was, tests for chromosomal problems like Downs Syndrome etc… and an agonising 3 week wait to get the results which eventually came back clear. To this day they do not know what has caused these problems.

Shell also had to have 2 MRI scans to check the other parts of the babies brain were developing, at one point it was touch and go as to if there was going to be a baby or not. It goes without saying that poker has not been a priority during the past month or two.

Fortunately, it now looks like there is going to be a baby! However, we are still left with the problems with the baby’s brain that will not change and can not be cured.

The kicker comes with the prognosis; it’s so wide you could drive a bus through it. They don’t really understand the impact this is going to have. Some people have similar problems and go through their entire lives in relative normality and some are severely handicapped. Throw into the mix the wide range of physical and learning difficulties in between these two extremes and you are left with just about any outcome.

The odds of such a problem occurring are huge… greater than 40,000-1 ….. Not the best of beats is it? Shell is due mid May, and while our expectations of what this baby will eventually achieve with it’s life have been altered severely we’ve all got our fingers crossed that everything is going to be ok…. or if we are being honest … not that bad.

Hills Rakeback when moving to Ipoker

Just a quick update to let you know that anyone who set an account up via my link with Hills will keep their current rakeback deal when Hills move to Ipoker in the next month or so. You will also keep your monthly loyalty bonus. If you are not sure what your rakeback deal or bonus is drop me a mail at jimshell@talk21.com

Also anyone setting a new account up with Hills in the next few weeks with transfer across to Ipoker with the standard 30% RB and loyalty bonus. This is obviously a great opportunity to get a decent rake back deal on Ipoker.

Clear your cookies and click the link at the top of the page to set an account up. Drop me a e-mail at jimshell@talk21.com with your player name and I'll check it's been set up ok.

Cheers,

Jim

40% Rakeback at Betfair...and I do like to follow up on a promise

Take a look at the last line my previous blog entry. It took me four attempts before coming good. :)




As usual I had a huge HU deficit at one point 380000-35000 down only to come back and give some Romanian a lesson in HU. That in it's self was quite satisfying as he had about 10 mates railing and they were all total arseholes. With the $ as it is that came in at just over £1k.

Also won £1500 (but had to give £750 on a share) for 2nd in a freeroll on Saturday. Throw in a couple of decent results in the usual tin-pot MTTs I've been playing and all in all not a bad week for poker.


If you are after a decent rakeback deal Betfair have just launched a new promotion offering 40% gross rakeback for new accounts if you rake over £1500 a month. This is running Feb-April to start with. All you need to do is clear your cookies, click this Betfair link , set up an account and get playing. Feel free to mail me at jimshell@talk21.com and I'll can check the account is set up ok.



I wrote all the above a few days ago and not had time to publish it until now.. the plan was to head to DTD for the next £300 Monthly special 1st weekend in Feb, but I've had to cancel for family reasons. In fact it's been a pretty grim week for one reason or another. Sometime stuff happens that puts poker in perspective, may have to wait a while for the next update.

All the best.

Jim

Quadraphobia

Well didn't play much in December and showed a minor profit rounding off a reasonably profitable but far from spectacular year. The bank roll is still fked as most of the winnings got spent. With bambino number two on the way mid 2009 it don't look like much is going to change on that front. So it's survival and grab a slot in bigger comps cheap where ever I can.

Once the new year was safely out of the way I as itching to play some poker and the new £50k, £300 buy in at DTD looked just the ticket. Managed to get a backer for 30% to take some of the sting out of it and headed up the M1 once again.

When I got there it was packed with a big queue to register. I managed to pay in just before Simon Trumper announced that 12 dealers had called in sick and they only had enough to run 21 tables of nine. With 180 already registered and at least another 50 in the queue there were going to be some disappointed punters.

Eventually common sense dictated that some tables would be self dealt until dealers became available and the final number of entrants came up just shy of 300 for a £89k prize pool and a £27k first prize.

Day 1 went ok, was stuck on the 10k starting for 4 or 5 levels before I slow played KK into AA... lucky for me the flop came K high and I managed to get a nice double up to get things moving. It was one of those days where i never really settled as I was moved 3 times. I ended up on an average 30K overnight with 90 runners coming back for day 2 chasing 27 paid places.

Things got going well on day 2 moving quickly onto 44k when I was moved again. Shortly after I was moved came the hand that would make or break me... I managed to get it all in pre-flop with KK vs QQ only for the fker to spike quad Queens on the turn. That crippled me and left me scrambling. I did manage a minor recovery when I doubled up with Kings, but the very next hand I lost a chunk with TT into a flopped set of 4s on a low board. I would have lost more but he jammed to my flop bet and let me off the hook.

I finally busted with 33 vs JJ when really short and that was that... out in 65th.

The KK vs QQ hand comes my way and I'm pretty sure I make the money and who knows from there. Bit gutted to be honest. I'm looking to play this £300 every month from now on funds permitting.

The Blonde poker guys seem to make a habit of snapping me looking pissed off just as i'm about to exit... here's this months entry...






After the break in December I've been playing a few more minor MTTs online. There is one which is totally doing my head in. The nightly $5k gtd deepstack on Betfair. I really like the structure and I've final tabled several times but never managed to win it. I always seem to lose a chip lead from 15-20 out and finish 9th for cock all money! I don't blow it.... I just get totally sucked out. I must have played it about 12 times since the start of December and on three occasions I've flopped set over set and lost to quads!!! I mean come on... threeee times. The most recent one was last night and after the QQQQ at weekend I was right for chucking the laptop out the window.

Some greek bloke was tilting the whole table with his overraises...fk knows why he wasn't chuckin bricks at police men with the rest of his countrymen.

I'd already layed a monster down to his allin against my better judgement and I'd told the Mrs I was going to nail him. 10mins later I've got half his stack and another guy almost felts him... but he managed to scramble back to a decent stack by the time we are about 15 deep. At this point I'm chip lead and cruising.

I pick up AA in early positon. There's a short stack itching to get it in on a value pot and Greek boy sat just behind him. I juice the pot with a min raise and short stack takes the bait and jams. Greek boy has obviously read the script and moves all in to isolate for the 40th time. Bingo!!!

First bleeding card off the deck is a Ten... but its ok cos the 3rd card is an Ace :)

4th is another Ten!! I mean come on!!!

The only scant consolation is that the fking idiot busted out on the bubble in 10th with an Ace high all in bluff into two pair and I just managed to scrape 9th place again for a few hundred.

I'm going to win the $5k before too long... watch this space.