WonkyJim - It's all about the lifestyle!

2011-03-14T11:32:00.002Z

Feb 2011 wasn’t too great. No real MTT highlights online, think the best result was 4th in the 16k for $1500.

We did have a trip to London for the Betfair live game. Played okish until I took a beat and then got too busy blind on blind. Was a decent social do though and enjoyed a funny night out with Bifta (a decent regular Ongame MTT player) and the Klup (a regular Ongame MTT fish :D .)

It was slightly embarrassing in the ME in London as everyone had name tags with their online names. I was sat next to some who’s online name was A.P.Mcoy. I can’t remember the exact details but I remember giving him a ton of stick online a few months ago for betting with air into a dry side pot on the bubble of a satellite.

He was clearly clueless and didn’t do anything to change my mind when we played live. He probably pays as much attention to peoples names online as he does to the game so don’t think he clocked who I was.

The one good thing about Feb was the preparations for the Ongame online GSOP festival running the first couple of weeks in March. At the time of writing the festival is almost over but I managed to pick up about $2.5k worth of tickets for a few hundred $.

Was showing a loss of about £800 for Feb but had all those tickets in the bank so not the end of the world.

I’ve got one more GSOP to play now. Next Sundays $500k mini final. To say I need a result is something of an understatement. I’ve played a lot of games in the past two weeks and took a serious hit on the bank roll having only minor cashed so far. Time after time I’ve got myself into a decent position to run deep only for it to fall apart with some ‘orrid beat on the bubble or just into the money. The worst of these was a bubble in one of the main events with KK vs QQ allin preflop for the chip lead.

It’s just variance in the bigger fields I know, but it still stings a little. Best result in the GSOP so far has been 12th in a 800+ runner field for just over $1k. I must be a couple of £k down in March. Just got to keep pluggin away and get that result. Bank roll is a touch on the low side now, but having said that it’s still twice what it was for most of last year.

Here’s the current sharkscope graph…. Yuk!

The ups and downs of January and some verbal diarrhea

2011-02-11T16:26:00.002Z

Promised to update against my 2011 goals as I go along so here we are. January was pretty good. The highlight was a 2nd in the 40k for $6k. Also had a 2nd and 3rd in the 10k plus two 7th in the 40k. On the down side I took a shot at a few bigger buy in games and missed, including a live trip to DTD for the Monthly £300 deepstack and a couple of attempts at the weekly $500 high roller on Ongame.

At the DTD game I went on a massive heater early on but managed to squander a 40k stack by the end of day 1 in some bizarre hands. At one point I was sat next to a reasonably well known professional poker player/coach/commentator. I'm not going to name names but I have never heard so much crap talked in all my life.. There were also some really dubious plays from him, backed up by more bollox analysis for all the table to digest I've played once before with the name in question back in 2006 at the CPC in St Kitts and I remember thinking similar things then.

I'm not one to criticise the way people play, but when they insist on vocally dissecting every hand badly for the benefit of the whole table and then charge people for coaching then it's fair game i think.

I did break one of my rules already and play a little cash. It went very well until i spunked it all up the wall, so slap on the hand for that one. OPR has me at $7600+ for the month but after cash game and live buyins (plus i tend to go a little wild on the rebuy front sometimes and OPR just works on a rebuy average) it was prob more like $6k up for the month. Last week in Jan I decided to sack it and go skiing.... much more fun than poker.

Almost forgot... picked up a ticket to the London Betfair live game this coming weekend as well.... not sure why BF keep putting on live games where the buyin is about 50% of any expense you will have to shell out but we'll head down to the big smoke tomorrow and sink a few beers and see what happens.

2010 round up and 2011 wish list...

2011-01-05T11:55:00.003Z

Wow it’s been soo long since my last update. Surprised if anyone reads this anymore.

Seems like a good time to run through 2010 and look ahead to 2011. For the last 4 or 5 months of 2010 I really seemed to get my act together and do pretty well on MTTs.

On the live front trips away have been few and far between but I did win the live betfair forum game in a state of complete drunkenness way back in august… despite the original venue closing on the day of the comp.

I also managed to win a ticket to Betfair Live Prauge in October. Only managed about 90mins in the main event though... getting it all in 3 ways preflop for a 300BB pot… me with AA other big stack with KK and short stack with AJ. K on the turn saw me heading for the bar and spent the rest of the weekend in the local cash game having much fun with some really bad old guys from Prauge plus a few of the other Betfair regulars.

Online has been pretty good in terms of $. I’ve managed to settle into a regular pattern on BF playing 4 or 5 MTTs a night. I don’t really feel like I’ve been on a heater and I’ve had some bad luck 7 or 8 deep in some of the bigger comps but I’ve got to be happy with the profit and my OPR rating which hit 9 stars just before Crimbo.

Must say that since Betfair moved to Ongame I’ve become a bit of an OPR junkie. It certainly keeps the mind focused and gives another incentive to win knowing that anyone can look up your results and rating.

Link to my OPR listing is here…

And now that Sharkscope covers Betfair MTTs my graph is looking ok...

Apart from the occasional stuffing at $100 HU poker in 2010 has been pretty good.

2011

New Years Poker targets and resolutions….

1: Keep the blog going.
2: Stick to MTTs or the occasional low stakes cash game.
3: Target to make minimum $30k profit from MTTs online in 2011 (stretch target of $50k)
4: Play more live… 2010 live trips were almost non-existent.
5: Pick up a $10k + win online.
6: Finish in top 100 Ongame MTT players for 2011 on OPR.
7: Improve my top 3 finish % (8 top 3 finishes from 28 final tables since July is not that great)… want this up to at least 35-40%.
8: Play more Sats into the bigger $500+ online games.
9: If I’m playing crap take a few days off.

That will do for now. Think I’ll post regular updates against these targets that can be specifically measured.

Have fun.

Jim

Adios Betfair as we know it...

2010-07-27T12:41:00.001Z

My poker playing volume in 2010 has been woeful. I've had months off here and there, never really got going and suffered from severe bouts of poker lethargy.

I finally got my act together in July with a concerted effort to try and win something and was promptly rewarded with two 2nds in the Betfair 10k within a week for $4k total (just to prove i can still do it when i put my mind to it) plus a few other minor cashes here and there to keep things ticking over.

My regular comps now seem to be a few on Betfair and a few on DTD most nights but this is all set to change today when Betfair merges with the Ongame network. I'm a bit sad really. I quite liked the dinky little betfair nightly comps... well I liked the overlays and a few of the fish to be honest. Not sure what Ongame has to offer but if it's anything like when Hills moved to IPoker it will mean stopping up way past the current requirement of 12-1am for a 1st place finish and I'm getting too old for that shit.

I do like to keep an eye on various promotions that are being offered across the various poker rooms. Every now and then you spot a fantastic opportunity to make a few quid. There have been a few of these in the past. Getting 15 friends to join BF was all that eventually was required to win an entry to a WSOPE side event two years ago. I did very well out of a Hills points race promo last year that no one else seemed to notice as well. I've got my eye on another one at the moment and may well have a stab at it... seems too good to be true on face of it. Don't want to promote it here as it may spoil the opportunity but watch this space.

Finally I feel I must post some form of comment as to the nature of my last post that has prompted a few comments and e-mails. Bingo is the future... plus they paid me shed loads :)

Bingo or Poker

2010-06-29T15:15:00.003Z

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Headsup... everyone should try it!

2010-05-11T12:52:00.003Z

The £150 at DTD on the Sunday was a bit of a waste of time. Had a high stakes cash player at the table on tilt who insisted on calling down every preflop bet and hitting some real obscure hands.

I missed a few flops and lost a race and finally exited with a big blind shove into a button raise...i had KsQs vs 73 all in preflop for about 18BB ...... like i said he hit some obscure hands. It did allow me to make it home in time for a betfair freeroll which i managed to win for $800 that managed to pay for the weekend anyway.

I've been playing some small beer heads up to keep things moving for the past month or so. To be honest I've no idea if I'm any good at heads up or not. I seem to go on a run of 150 games where it's a constant up on the P&L graph only for it all to come crashing around my ears in about 50 games. No idea if this is me tilting, variance, me being crap at HU, crap game selection or what. Here's my roller coaster of a sharkscope graph. If anyone can make more sense of it than I can please feel free to comment.

Also think I may have upset some chap in the dim and distant past. Everytime he sees me playing HU he comes in and calls me all sorts of names. Most amusing and breaks the days up... Hi if you are reading :)

It's only in the past few years that I've played much heads up poker. It really is something any serious MTT player should do. I used to be really really bad HU. I had no clue with regards to starting hands, strategy ... nothing. When you consider the leap in money from 1st to 2nd in most MTTs a small/medium stakes decent MTT player can find himself playing in what is essentially a 2k or 3k heads up game at the end of a final table. The number of people who have no clue heads up amazes me. Even at a high level. With that sort of money involved it's worth investing a few hours and $ playing some HU STTs and just getting a feel for for it.

Just be careful not to let it impact your normal MTT game though... there's been a few nights recently when I've found myself making very dubious loose calls in the BF 12k purely because I've been making marginal calls all evening in HU games.

After the last DTD trip itching for another decent trip out live. Can't play the June or July DTD Deepstacks but I'm toying with the idea of playing a GUKP £300 side event in Coventry next week.

Have fun!

Jim

80k DTD deepstack... different river card please

2010-05-02T13:15:00.004Z

The wife and kids headed up north for a Christening first thing Saturday morning. I got the whole weekend to myself.

I'm pretty sure half of you degenerates have no ties and live foot-loose, fly-by night, devil may care lifestyles? Let me tell you, YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW LUCKY YOU ARE!

I've got to book a weekend to play poker 6months in advance and even then it clashes with something critical nearer the time.

While a I love my family and would not change a thing. A whole 2 days to myself to do nothing but play poker is a rare and chesrished thing indeed.

So up the M1 to Nottingham it was with £500 in my back pocket for buy-ins. I have to say I was feeling pretty good and very confident as we sat down.

Think the best hand I saw in the 1st 3 levels was QQ but buy the time I'd picked the ladies up i'd managed to push onto about 16k from my starting 10k stack. Of course the ladies walked into KK and saw me back to 8k but not to worry. Half the table had me pegged as weak passive and tag teamed trying to push me off pots firing 3 large barrels with air into my maringal holdings. What they failed to take into account was I can't lay a hand down for shit so I happily check called my way to a 35k ish stack by level 6.

Then we had the 1st set back. I managed to find my self holding AcKs on a Tc Js 2c Qh board. Matey boy is betting for England and I close the door on the turn... he snap calls for his stack holding QcJc urggg .... 9c rivers and a 45k pot heads in the wrong direction.

Not to worry I'm still feeling really confident and nip a few decent pots in good spots to get up from 6k to 12k. Then a double up to 24k with AK vs AJ on a Ace high flop.

3rd set back of the day (and the fatal one) came Vs Peter Charalambous . He makes a modest raise from mid position and I flat call on the BB with KsQc. Qc Ts 4s flop sees all our money go in. I must admit he flipped i was happy to see AsJs.... but alas it was a case of replay the river as 9s drops to see me packing.

Very dissapointed to be honest. Felt really good at the table and was still doing ok despite a cooleer and a beat... but you need to win those to get anywhere. Just looking at day 2 chip counts and Peter Charalambous sat well with 100k+, wish him well as he seemed like a really nice fella.

DTD £150 Sunday game kicks off in 25mins so I'm off for a beer to get warmed up :) Wish me luck :)

Back after a break!

2010-04-28T11:46:00.000Z

Hmm been a long time since i last updated. Mainly due to the fact I've not played much poker. A few days after my last post I took down the nightly 18k on Betfair again and then played a few weeks with just a few minor cashes. Round about the end of November I decided to take a break for Christmas and New Year.

Quite enjoyed the break and managed to extend it for January and February and it's only in the last month or so I've returned to playing a few MTTs. I have also been having a dabble with trading on BF with mixed results. Was doing quite well on a certain market that I'd researched and then got a bit greedy. Managed to blow 2months profit on a bizarre in-play cricket cock up trying to get out of a bad position at 1.12. Of course it all went tits up and I did my nuts. Oh well lesson learned.

In the middle of all of this Tom (who's still doing well) ended up in hospital for a week with meningitis and works gone a bit mental at the moment. So not much time for poker.

Been playing the $12k , $3.5k and $5k on BF and a little low stakes HU. Managed to win the $5k back to back during the 1st week in April which was nice. Managed quite a few other final tables that have kept the $$ coming in but seen to have developed a nasty habit of getting a made hand dicked by runner runner gut shots in the $12k and still waiting for something better than 6th in April. Will have it soon though.

Got a live trip planned to DTD this weekend for the £80k deepstack .... its been about 6months since I last played live and I'm really looking forward to it.

Good to be back :)

In the B.O.S.S seat

2009-10-01T10:29:00.004Z

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

2009-09-22T11:26:00.002Z

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

2009-09-21T13:22:00.005Z

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

2009-09-15T10:33:00.002Z

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 :)

2009-06-10T06:26:00.004Z

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?

2009-05-05T13:31:00.014Z

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

2009-04-23T13:40:00.007Z

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....

2009-04-07T08:54:00.002Z

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

2009-02-13T12:55:00.005Z

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

2009-01-26T10:22:00.004Z

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

2009-01-06T16:34:00.006Z

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.

CPC and DTD Anniversary Cup

2008-12-10T15:28:00.004Z

Overdue an update after the Caribbean trip. The trip was lots of fun, I'd not played much poker in the 1st half of November on account of having some shitty chest infection that lingered on for weeks and weeks, I was feeling a touch better as we headed off to Miami on the 15th but still coughing a lung up every 5mins. While the cruise was great the poker on the cruise was bloody awful. Played in a few side events with zero luck. I managed to walk 2nd nut flush into nut flush on the 2nd orbit of the $400 buyin event and things continued much the same for the rest of the trip.

Freedom of the Seas docked in St Thomas

Half way through the week I decided to divert to a little cash action and continued to get donked. I lost a chunk with AA vs TT when half the money was in preflop and then managed to lose with QhJh on a three heart flop to Kh9h. It was time for a rethink and a cunning plan was formulated. The Crypto Card room would not let any of the regular passengers onboard in, so value in the card room was pretty thin. However, they had one of those new dealerless tables in the ship casino and I managed to stumble across a load of tourists donking each other off playing $3/6 NL. I sit down and set to destroying them, all was going well until a few scandies from Crypto spot the action and decide to join in. One had been knocking back the beers and started playing pretty wild when the following hand occurs...

I'm dealt 4h7c in the BB and it's min raised with 6 callers... i tag along for the ride and catch a 5h 6s 8h flop. I check (every flop was being raised) and pissed scandie to my left bets a little shy of the pot, he then picks up no less than 4 callers on its way round to me to I RR a reasonable amount. Scandie jams all in without a 2nd thought.... it then goes CALL...CALL....CALL.... (shrug) CALL.... and its round to me... i'm not passing :). Scandie shows a rag flush draw, there's also 1)a pair and a gut shot draw 2) a gutshot draw 3) top pair top kicker 4)two over cards!!.... US tourists playing 3/6NL you have to love it!!

Good news is everyone has a heart so scandie boy is drawing thin.... but manages to peel off his heart on the turn to take down a $2k+ pot.... wonderful! After that I give up and decide to drink some beer and catch some sun. I did play a couple of STTs which were fun and managed a 2nd and a 1st from about 4 or 5 attempts. One hand of note saw ClintonO bust my Aces with 73 os after calling a PF raise for half his stack... bloody fish :) All in all ended up about $2k down for the trip and licking the wounds a little.

Lifes a beach...

Despite the poker me and the Mrs managed to have a great time. The Freedom of the Seas is one impressive ship and highly recommended. Spent some time on some of the most fantastic beaches I've ever been on and generally spent the rest of the week chillin out with the wife and meeting some great people! The grandparents looked after Jack and it was great to have 'week off'.

On return to the UK it was review the bank roll time again. Just before we left I'd withdrawn a load and this combined with the hit from the trip once again left me a touch on the thin side. I decided sell 30% in the DTD Anniversary Cup as a bit of insurance, and last Thursday once again headed up the M1 to Nottingham to start what would hopefully be a 4 day event. I'd had a little bet on Blonde on the number of runners and went over 133 for $50. My money as pretty safe as it picked up a very respectable 189 runners in the end. Think DTD will be very happy with this for a £1k event, especially considering there were other major events elsewhere in the UK. 20k starting chips, 2 hour levels and a slow structure.... I packed my Ipod.

Had a bit of a strange table to start with. Everyone was playing it very cagey and I managed to pick up a lot of pots as I opened up my PF raising criteria. One bloke announced after 4 hrs play that he'd been counting and I'd raised PF 4 times more than anyone else ... I slowed down a little after he said that! :)

I managed to get up to about 40k from a 20k starting stack then spent hours and hours bouncing between 40k and 25k. I hit a bad patch at the end of day 1 and returned for day 2 with about 28k which was a little below average but still no where near any trouble as the blinds were 250-500. I did manage a little luck vs a short stack with QsQh vs AhAd in a Button vs BB battle. It all went in PF and I luckboxed a 9s Ts Js flop for more outs than I can count. 6s did the business on the turn and I was looking to kick on. Sadly it just didn't happen as I continued to hit 40k in chips and then dwindle back. I hit a low of about 10k before going back to 40k again at the start of level 8 and things were getting a little frustrating.

My exit hand was a little strange.... after about 16hrs of play only putting my self at risk once when short stacked I pick up AK in the SB, I'm playing about 35k with the blinds at 400-800 with a 100 ante. The button raises it to 2400 and I re-raise to 7500. He hardly thinks before jamming his 90k in the middle with a flurry of his hands..... I'm 100% sure I'm racing at worst from the way he gets them in. I figure at 2100 an orbit with 27k behind it's probably about time to take a gamble and kick onto the next level... I call..... my read was correct as he turns 66....a 7 T Q flop adds some outs... as does a T on the turn.... but no luck on the river and I'm leaving the table in about 50th (with 18 paid) feeling a little dejected. Don't think there is too much wrong with call, could have maybe been a little more patient but hey you can't win them all.

Me looking a little worried as the board offers no help to my AK (nicked from Blonde)

Congrats to Bernie who finished 3rd, good lad who I met in Tallin in 2006.

RIP Crypto

2008-11-12T21:50:00.005Z

Times they are a changing on the online poker scene again! It’s been in the public domain for a few weeks now that Hills had announced that they are leaving Crypto and moving to iPoker in Jan 2009. Hills still have some contractual obligations with Crypto and will run duel sites on Ipoker and Crypto for 12months.

All this raises some interesting questions. First off iPoker is totally anti rakeback, so much so that they have removed skins from the site for offering rakeback. Hills will be a reasonable sized player on iPoker it will be interesting to see what happens. If you are looking for potential rakeback on ipoker you could do worse than setting a Hills account up now to see what happens. Even if Hills have to can RB…. They are going to have to offer a pretty big carrot to lure their existing Crypto players with RB deals away to Ipoker.

All this left Crypto in a bit of a dodgy spot as well. Hills makes up a significant % of the Crypto liquidity and without Hills Crypto is pretty much dead. There were rumours that Crypto and Party may merge but today it was announced that Crypto and Boss Media (GTech) networks will merge (Virgin and Poker Heaven etc) as of early 2009!

Looks like they plan to use the Boss Media software… so Crypto as we know it will be no more! :-(

Back to moi and I’ve currently got some rancid chest infection… been hanging around for weeks getting worse and worse… so pissed off with it. So much so that I’ve only played about 3 nights of poker in Nov so far…. All with not much success! There is some light at the end of the tunnel though… started packing for the CPC. Sure some Caribbean sun will sort me out!

How to win 3 sats in 24hrs...

2008-11-03T15:42:00.004Z

I decided to play some Sats for DTD live events last week, so on Monday I entered a £15 Sat to a £130 Sat to the December Anniversary Cup £1k event and a £10 Rebuy to the monthly £330 3-2-1 event. The £330 has the same structure as the £330 deepstack i won in August and I had a pass out and had sold on 30% so I was definitely going to play it.

I managed to win the £10 rebuy and shortly after win the £15 as well... only one seat was available in each so I was very happy but still had some work to do on Tuesday night in the final for a seat in the £1k event. Again just one seat was available so you had to win it.... and win it I did :) Heads up I'd let the other guy back in after being 4-1 up in chips and was slightly behind when a really sick hand occurred. Mateyboy slow played a set of Kings on a K 2 3 flop..... I rivered a 4 holding A5os and all the money went in on the end for me to take it. Very pleased with 3 wins from 3 sats in two days. As you can imagine well chuffed to pick up a £1k buy in for £15!

Unfortunately I didn't run quite as good in the actual live DTD 330.... I donked off a few k from a starting stack of 10k early on when I made a good read but could not get mateyboy to make a laydown with 99 on a 2c 3h 7h 6x 8h when I bet heavy on the end representing the flush having played the hand to nip it on the end with a pair and a missed gut shot (work it out... I'm almost embarrassed).

I slowed down a little after this and didn't have the best table position with Dave Penly to my right and Waheed Ashraf and a pretty rocky DTD regular Peter Conduit to my left. After the early set back things just never got going. It was one of those comps where you think how the fuck have i ever won a MTT in my life. I was getting total filth level after level and missing by a mile on the odd occasion when I did pick up AQ etc. On occasions where I found a spot to play the filth I always seemed to find 2nd pair or a decent draw (that didn't hit) against a flopped monster and it ended up costing me a few. I did pick up Aces and manage to win the blinds on one occasion.... :-)

Things just dwindled and dwindled until I needed to make a move in level 7 .... found a good value spot to jam on the BB with 5 limpers holding J9s... a guy with a massive stack in late position was offering me a ton of protection and all bar the huge stack passed. He flipped 88 for a race which I never looked like winning on a rag flop. Oh well I guess I was due a cold one live.
b
I've just noticed that a guy called Alan Stearn won the 330 after a chop.... slightly amazed as I'd played with him a few times at DTD and had him down as 110% free chips! Oh well... goes to show you never can tell.

Moving onto Caribbean time again

2008-10-27T14:24:00.011Z

Not updated for a few weeks as I've been pretty busy. Spent a week or so reflecting on the disappointment from the WSOPE, the more i thought about it the more I was kicking myself for not making the money. I've been taking it pretty easy for a few weeks playing mainly small MTTs online picking up the odd score here and there.

Was besides my self with joy at receiving the ultimate poker accolade.... a Gatsby award for Live Performance of the Month for the DTD :) Cheers Paul!

Had one live venture the weekend before last for the annual Betfair forum game, it's usually more of a social event than a serious poker trip and this year was no exception. There was a team event on the Friday night In an alcohol infused stupor I managed to run over most of my table before getting heads up vs the currently in form Neil Blatchly . Started 2-1 down heads up and reversed that the 1st hand with some filth... few mins later we were all in on a JJ8 flop... i held J7 and Neil had 9T .... a seven on the turn sealed it and I'd won my table.... unfortunately the rest of the team pissed it up the wall and we finished 3rd for £0!

Saturday was a £100 buy in freeze out and again started drinking early on and got myself into all sorts of silly situations including all in PF with 97 vs QQ and winning and all in PF with 87 vs AQ and KQ and hitting the nut straight. Finally busted out 13th with 9 paid when I lost a big race with A9 against Mrs Dest holding KQ. Mrs Dest who later went on to pick up the win. Well done Dests!!! :) To be honest the weekend was a bit of a blur... but apparently Medusa is the place to go in Brum if you like ropey open minded strippers!

I've been trying for a while to get a package for this years CPC. I've made the sunday final cheap most weeks I've tried for it and never had any luck. Last Sunday looked like being the last chance to get a seat and I was in the 6pm final again. Only problem was I'd been away all weekend was feeling like crap and the Mrs was giving me a look to say "If you think I'm sorting Satan out tonite after you have been away all weekend then you can sod off!" With this in mind I said "I'll bath and bed Satan....why don't you start the game off for me sweentness :) "

I finally get in front of the monitor at about 7:30 with about 12BB and 1st hand pick up AKs.... it all goes in and I can't improve against 99. This puts me is a pretty bad mood. Last chance to qualify and I get to play one fking hand!! But wait all is not lost.... there's another last chance starting at 9:45 with a supersat just about to start. I quickly reg and managed to bubble for a place in the final! GREAT! By this time i've really got the hump. In a fit of pique I stump up the 300 and buy direct into the final. The structure is really really good and I get off to a good start with about 60 runners chasing 5 seats. At about 3:30 AM i finally win my CPC package!!

So sunny Caribbean here we come! Not sure how much poker I'l play but me and the Mrs are really looking forward to it. Will be nice to get a break just the two of us.

Got lots of live games coming up and once again I'm offering some staking opportunities... last time £60 paid about £2k so maybe worth a punt... drop me a mail if you are interested....
1st Nov DTD £330buyin 3-2-1monthly (ALL SOLD)
10% for £50 (will sell up to 30%)

Mid Nov CPC Main event $2700 buyin (30% SOLD 20% LEFT)
10% for $360 (will split into 5% if needed- selling up to 50%)

2nd December DTD Aniv cup £1060 buyin (5% SOLD 45% LEFT)
10% for £145 (will split into 5% if needed- selling up to 50%

On a side note I've been scouting round a few Poker web sites looking for some with some decent content... I came across Pokerlistings.com, it's got a good mixture of news, promotions, live coverage but the bit that really caught my eye was the MarketPulse section . It's got live data and general stats from cash tables of all the main sites and throws up some pretty amazing statistics! It even goes down as low as 50c/$1 stats...at the other end of the spectrum, as i look now, i can see that Durrr is in a $600k hole ...erm today! Just need to get the bankroll up to a several million and may take a shot at him ;)

Also worth noting that Bodog are starting their blogger tournies again each Tue and Thurs ... usually some added value and worth a pop for any other bloggers out there.

Good luck

Jim

WSOPE £1500

2008-09-23T11:44:00.005Z

Managed to bag myself a place in the £1500 buy in WSOPE opening event. So it was back from Spain and repack the bags and head off down to the big smoke for a few days of fun with the big boys.

I was playing in day 1b on the Saturday and having read the reports from the Friday it was clear that half of Vegas had already arrived in London and the field was packed with "T.V poker faces" .... Ivey, Hellmuth, Negreanu etc etc etc.

The clock was 60mins but only 6k in starting chips and 25/50 opening blinds meant that there was a bit of play before things got lively.

Nothing much happened for the 1st two levels, I was drawn on a table on the balcony level overlooking the main "pit" where the majority of tables were situated. I was feeling a bit crappy and found myself easily distracted by the circus behind me.

I'd drifted down to just below 5k when I got very lucky in level 3. With the blinds at 100-200 i pick up JJ in the SB facing a single early position raiser who made it 600 to go. He dwells and flat calls my re-raise to 1500. The flat call throws me a bit so I'm guessing 99-QQ maybe AK/AQ The flop comes a bag full of spanners 4c 7c 8s and he bets about 1800.

Now i've only got about 3300 behind .... no room to manoeuvre so I ship the lot. He thinks I've got more than I have and dwells again. When he finally figures out how much it is to play he shrugs and says "I guess I've got to call then" flipping QQ

Oops...I'm heading for an early bath until the turn drops a 9 and river hits middle pin Ten making my Jack high straight. I think the lack of any luck whatsoever in cash games is getting balanced out in the odd live MTT recently.

I then make steady progress through the levels when I get moved at level 5 to a new table with about 11k. The new table is in the pit area and I feel much better. Not sure if it was the move or the ensuing rush of cards that cheer me up but before long I'm motoring towards 30k with AK holding twice vs AQ and once again vs TT along with a flopped set of sixes.

We break for dinner for 2 hours with just 2 hours more to play in the day and I'm on about 28k.

The last two hours went a little slow and again I wasn't feeling on top form. In the end I took it easy and returned for day two with 26.5k in chips.

The combined day ones yielded 410 players and 88 came back for day 2 with I was placed in about 38th with 45 paid. 1st collects about £150k and 45th about £3k.

Managed a good nights sleep and felt good and was looking forward to day 2. I'd been drawn on a table of big stacks and my 26k was 6th on my table where it would have been 1st or 2nd on several of the other tables. Obviously this is good if aiming to go deep.

I pick my 1st decent pot up within 5mins when I limp the SB with 4d7d and the BB decided to show me who's boss... I call his raise and see a flop of Q 7 6 ... I check and he bets 4k into a 7k pot. It just stinks of him trying to push me around with air so I call and bet out on a 5 turn and he passes.

Two mins later I pick up KK in mid position John Kabbage opens for 2500 (blinds 500/1000) and it's re-raised to 9k before I act. Can't really flat call here so I ship it in hoping he's coming for a ride with AK or QQ but they both pass.

At this point I'm up to about 39k and manage to completely fuck up. I raise with 4c5c from mid pos and John Kabbage flat calls from the BB. I like the 2s3s4s flop but end up getting far too much involved against Johns Qs9s. This sees me down to about 20k. I'm scrambling between 15 and 20k for a while with the blinds at 600-1200 when the short stack to my right jams for about 10k. I've got pocket 9s and I'm not passing in late pos so move in. Unfortunately the SB wakes up with KK and we go three ways all in with the shortie showing AQ.

No help for me and an ace on the river sees me packing my bags and heading back north in about 65th place.

Bit gutted to be honest, I know you can't win them all but to come close to cashing in a WSOPE and falling at the final hurdle .. especially when I could have got away from the 45 hand for about 12k less than i did do. You live and learn, and it was fun to mix it up with the super stars of poker and go pretty deep.

Not sure what's next, got the Betfair live game in October in Brum but may have to try a trip to DTD before long. The December DTD Anniversary festival is definitely looking like one not to miss.

Think the live bug has got me :)

Cheers,

Jim

Ship it.....

2008-09-03T09:13:00.002Z

....and ship it out again!

Here's a slightly bemused picture of me picking up the £10,000 1st prize for winning the £300 FO at the DTD August Deepstack festival.

Nice huh? 2nd DTD win within a few weeks and my last 3 visits have gone 2nd 1st 1st! Thinking of moving to Nottingham.

The only trouble was I'd sold 50% on in advance. It seemed like a good idea at the time, honestly. To be fair if I'd not sold on the % I prob would not have played as we were in York on the Friday for Ebor.. of course that was rained off so a 13 hour pub crawl replaced the racing. Then on Saturday morning I had to drive to Manchester to pick Jack up from his grandmas... then drive back to Leamington .... then grab 40min kip and drive to Nottingham still feeling slightly woolly. Hardly the greatest preparation and if I'd not had backers I'd have sacked it i think.

Anyway, 92 runners stumped up the £300 and the field was looking rather tasty with the likes of Lucy Rokach, Micky Wernick, Julian Thew and Lawrence Gosney all coming along for the ride.

The structure was good, with 10K starting chips and 45min clock. Don't think I played a hand for about 30mins then managed to double up within the last 15mins of the 1st level with a succession of decent hands getting paid off...

AsKs vs middle set that didn't bet enough on the flop and called too much on the river with a Ts 4s 2d Js board.

Someone who can't lay TT down on a QQRRR board with me holding AQ.

I mean come on!! Level one of a deepstack event with 200BB and I'm getting paid off like this!!

Things didn't slow down, although I managed to get away from Jacks and Kings pretty cheap when it was obvious I was behind. By the end of level 3 i'm on about 28k.

Levels 4 and 5 were really slow, just kept reminding myself to be patient and my patience paid off when I raised on the button with A8 and pick up a call from a mid position limper. A bingo flop of K 8 8 sees matey boy check jam and flip over KJ for a 10k pot. He was pretty disgusted and mildly insulting.... "I'd say nice hand but that's bollox" was the quote i think :)

Very next hand I'm all in vs a short stack with KK vs AJ for another 8k pot. All this keeps me around the 30k mark give or take.

I then get moved to a much tougher table. I've got bracelet winner Lawrence Gosney two to my left and on the other side of the table is a guy from Cumbria who knows Hawko and favourite trick was to re-jam any raise with any two cards. He'd already pulled off this trick successfully with Jack Rag vs AQ for a monster pot and was playing about 70% of hands. I sat quiet for a while taking it all in and dipped to about 23k in chips.

I pick up a big 3 way pot vs a short stack and Cumbria boy with QsTs on a Js 8s X board when I river the required spade. Cumbria boy passes to my bet on the end and I nearly muck my cards forgetting the side pot and the all in shortie...doh!

My mate Barry Neville is railing Gosney after busting out early.. I wave but I don't think he remembered me :o)

I pick another pot with a turned set of 8s vs top pair and finish the day at the end of level 9 on a healthy 50k with ave begin about 34k with 26 players left...9 paid.

Back for day two and in good spirits and waste no time motoring up to about 170k in chips after getting the hump with Cumbria boys rejams and finally making a call with AK that held up vs Jack Rag. I manage to eliminate him a little later with QdTd on a Qs 4d 6d flop... I bet he raises I push and he calls drawing thin to dead with Jd 9d!

I then took a couple of hits including a fairly brutal all in on the turn vs a med-short stack for a 90k pot with me holding J 9 and him J Q on a 9 T 7 .... he called my flop bet and we both shipped it on a nasty 8s turn! Not much I can do there i think.

Sat at the final table with about 120k. Rather worrying that Julian Thew was chip lead with about 200k. We were down to 8 when I made a huge call with QQ. UTG +1 raises to about 10k (blinds were about 1200-2400 I think) get another early pos caller. The next guy jams for about 85k..... I'm in late pos thinkin WTF!! UGT+1 looks none too happy and I think they are both passing. I had a good long dwell and basically can't put him on AA or KK. So AK or TT-QQ... so I've got most of his range crushed. To be honest I put him on JJ. If he did have AK the chance were high that the early raisers had 2 or 3 of his outs.... so I pushed all in.

Every one else passes and he flips AKos ... not ideal but my mood brightens a little when UTG+1 says that he also binned AK. 5 bricks later and I'm chip lead. I'm pretty good at working my way through a final table from a good position and the game plan was to try and get HU and take it from there.... managed to maintain my stack picking off one or two of the short stacks while one other guy hit some monster hands to motor into the chip lead.

I finally get heads up with him and he's got 770,000 to my 150,000. He offers a deal but I refuse :)

I figured out early doors that his HU game was poor. He overbet everything.... so he won lots of small pots and I won the big ones. Once we got about equal in chips he slowed down and I took advantage of the fear and had him down to about 90k when I let him off the hook. I jammed with A8 and he wins with AQ... next hand he makes a tough call with A2 on a Q 2 T A Q board when I jam on the end with a missed flush draw.... silly i know but there was a reason.

This sees him back up to about 370k. I have a think and go back to plan A.... before long he's back down to less than 100k and i make a standard check call to holding J4 to his all in push with KJ on a 6 4 2 flop. No King and I win my first decent sized live MTT :)

Happy Days!

I feel a holiday coming on... plan after that is maybe play the £1.5k WSOPE event.. if I don't make that then the £500 GALA POKER TOUR Liverpool leg is the same weekend with £5k added and all the names at the WSOPE it could hold some value.

On a side note i'm so fked off cash games I'm never playing another one!!!

Lose with AT on a A T T flop!!
Crazy 3 way all in flop
Crack Aces... erm nope
All in PF AA vs 33
KK on a K Q Q flop... can't lose this one...can I?
I'll name that river in one

I've got another 15 of those all within a day or two... obv by this time I'm steaming and tilt it all in with Ace high on this one.... amazingly I'm in front but...

STEAMING..FIND DOG- KICK -and repeat

Still ...Happy Days!! :)

Good Luck,

Jim

Another DTD trip and one better :)

2008-08-13T19:28:00.003Z

This month I have mostly been.....Winning MTTs.

I quite like playing the dinky £1k gnted evening games on Crypto. They don't last too long and can see a small but reasonable return to a £10 or £25 buy in. I've won them both again in the past week or two for about £900 total, plus a couple of final tables.

Cash play in Aug got off to the usual bad start as set over set killed me about 5 times in 5 days. MTTs win balance most of this out so no real damage. I fancied a change of scene so decided to take another trip to DTD on Friday for the £75 FO.

It was a little disappointing to see a smaller field of only 63 but not to worry. There also didn't look to be too much value at my table. Barry Neville was 2 to my left. From the table chat and the other faces I recognised it was clear that most of the table had a reasonable amount of experience. I did my usual thing of fumbling chips and spending far to long trying to figure out how much was in the pot (ie more than 2 seconds) and as usual, most had me pegged as a bit of value.

Didn't hit much early doors and the 4k stack was down to about 3k when I picked up AsQh. The DTD structure is a little quicker these days and I didn't have much room for manoeuvre. The usual raise and call with a flop of Ac Jc Ragc sees it checked to me, I bet out and and mateyboy jams... I really dont have enough to pass and make the crying call to see him flip AhJd.... I get very lucky and spike a Q on the turn and from that point start accumulating chips at a rate of knots.

1st hand of much interest sees me with about 10k in chips and blinds of 100-200. UTG raises it up to about 600 or 700 and gets three callers round to me on the button with 22. I flat call and Barry N in the BB jams for about 4k. It's passed round to me and 9 times out of 10 I also pass here but a few thought play into my head...

1: Got a shot at eliminating one of the better players at the table.
2: I think Bazza is capable of a move here with not a lot
3: If I call with 22 now no-one else at the table is going to make a move on me and it sets a wonderful table image
4: If I lose I'm still about 6-7k chips (ave was about 6k)
5: Barry never stops spouting crap and I was getting a head ache.

Point 5 was the overriding factor here without a doubt :o) ..... but point 3 is something I've given some thought to, especially when playing live at a table where no one knows you but they are mostly reasonable, observant players. By making a negative EV play that can not damage your tournament position too much (even though it was for a lot of chips at that stage in the game) it can set up numerous +ive EV situations later in the game when things matter a little more. As it happened Barry had 77 and spiked a set straight off the bat ... so that was that. But the play seemed had the desired effect as much shaking of heads and numerous lectures ensued.

I soon got paid off with a nut straight in a 3 way pot after this and motored up to 20k+ chips in no time. It was time for me to bump heads with Barry again. I'm massive in chips and call a three way limp wit 34os for Barry to raise it up behind. The raise chases all bar one from the pot and I elect to flat call. The flop comes a rainbow 2 3 5. Check, Check and a bet from Barry and I move over the top all in. Barry calls for about 5k more and flips JJ. I can't hit 13 outs twice and my headache is getting worse with Bazza chirping away that he always has a hand etc etc etc etc etc zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

It then turns into a bit of a grid as slowly the field is reduced and reduced. Barry gets moved away and the table descends into a peaceful bliss.

There was one hand that was quite interesting. A few people at the table debated what I was holding and I said I'd blog it this week. I must have had about 12k in chips. Blinds were about 200-400. There's a table big stack who's looking to get in on most pots and he limps in from early position. I find 8hTh in the cut off and I'm planning a raise and pick up my chips. I then glance up and notice the big stack watching me carefully. I figure he's coming along for the ride no matter what I bet and elect to flat call instead.

The flop comes 5c 5s 3c and the big stack bets about 1k into the 1200 pot. I've seen him watching me thinking about a raise preflop and decide to represent an mid-over pair raising him to 3k. He dwells for a while then says something along the lines of....

"You were thinking about a raise pre-flop. You've got something like 77-99"

He then passes A3 face up and the table debates my holding for a few seconds..... I'm not giving any info away so I say I'll blog it. Course this is a mistake as a couple of people ask what my blog is and a few have read it. It's nice when a plan comes together though :)

Barry gets moved back to our table and is chipped and in full swing and full volume. Thankfully he's to my right this time giving the tinnitus in my left ear a chance to improve.

1st thing he says is .... "What happened to all your chips... you had loads?"

I have to remind him that I donated them in his direction about 90mins earlier with 34os. "Oh yeah" he says and proceeds to tell me what an awful play it was. I point out that it was only for 1/3 of my chips and I got my money in 1st with 13 outs twice where as he was calling for his tournament life with an overpair and he changes the subject and talks about himself for a while.

A few minutes later someone refers to me as Wonky. This pricks Bazzas ears up and he asks "Why you calling him Wonky?" .... someone tells him I write a poker blog.....

"How the bloody hell can you write about poker when you don't know bugger all about it?" asks Barry

I just smile.

Fortunately blessed relief is not too far away. By this point we are down to 2 tables and about 13 players with the majority of the chips on our table. Barry and one other guy have about 35k-45k in chips which is above final table average. When the pair of them decide to play a massive pot. I'm not 100% sure on the PF betting but Barry is in position and there's a load of chips in the middle preflop. Flop come ten high and Big Stack 1 bets out a chunk leaving himself only about 15k behind. Barry debates out loud that he's sure that he's got the best hand etc etc.... and jams all in. Now it's only 9k more to Big Stack 1 and there's about 65k in the pot. So Big Stack 1 makes the crying call and flips AQ.... Barry..... AJ ??!??!?!?!?!?!

Quite possibly the worst play I've seen in a long time but hey .... what do i know?

Bit later and we are down to the final table of 9 with 7 paid. I'm a bit short on chips with about 22k but so are 8 other people at the table as Mr Big Stack 2 now has about 50% of the chips in play. I take a short stack out pretty quickly with QQ in the BB to his Ace Rag all in. We then go into a monster bubble where every short stack seemed to win from behind.

After over an hour of bubble play it burst (I may blog a few of the interesting bubble hands in the next few weeks) and within about 40mins I'm heads up with Mr Big Stack 2.

He's got about 185K and I've got about 65K. I pass the 1st four hands at 2000-4000 blinds and then find a gear.... I'm up to about 100k when all the money goes in on a A 5 8 A board. I've got A5 and he's got A3. Two mins later and I call his all in with KQs to see KT and no help for him. Just shy of £1800 for the win sees me travelling back down the M1 with a smile on my face at 4am.

Pic nicked from DTD web site... short stacks all round on the bubble.

That's 4 final tables from 6 DTD trips :)

As a side note I'm planning on playing the £300 deepstack at DTD the week after next. £300 is a touch more than I want to shell out for a MTT at the moment so if anyone wants 10% or more (up to 40%) at £33 per 10% let me know. I'll wait for the flames for that one :)

Arseholes

2008-07-22T12:40:00.003Z

Arseholes ---- There's a lot of them about in poker. My favourite type is the hard core low stakes grinder who is stuck playing 50000 hands a month at 50c/$1 NL in order to get enough rakeback to pay his rent. At first it's fun but before long he's become bitter, twisted and abusive as it slowly dawns on him that he's playing poker because he has to and not because he enjoys it.

Don't become a player like this!!

MrOrangeo is a crypto player who falls into this catagory i think. Usually abusive and frequently unpleasent I have to smile every time i sit at a table with him or someone like him. If I had more of a kind heart myself I may feel compelled to give him a hug. Deep down I think he just needs to be loved.

Last week a load of abuse came from him over hand when he bet a few quid into a £12 pot on the turn with a set and allowed me to hit my straight draw on the end. It ended up costing him a chunk and 30mins later we'd still not heard the end of it. All the table was laughing away and pulling his chain as he went into tilt mode.

He then asked me to post a hand where I played AQ very passively out of position in a 3 way Q high flop. Actually he said something along the lines of "LOL post that on ur blog u fat fuck", but never mind.

The flop had two spades and the action had been fairly lively .. i checked looking to check raise and the two others also checked. The turn brought a 3rd spade, it went check check check again. river a 4th spade and check check check saw 2s2h in middle position pick up a £12 pot. Not my finest hand ever I'll admit but my bad play cost me £4. MrOrangeos bad play cost him significantly more.

With that in mind. MrOrangeo...here's one for you...

and while we are at it ..one for your dog

Giving the finger to poker

2008-06-28T05:46:00.002Z

Well poker in June has not been to great. A bad start... a partial recovery and then two days of disaster saw about a 2k loss... shocking, i'm almost embarrassed.

Off the poker table things have not been going much better either. The cut finger mentioned in the last post turned out to be a bit more serious than i thought and last monday I went into hospital for an operation to try and repair the nerve damage. Of course to do this they have to basically peel your finger like a banana.. so im sat here trying to type this on my right hand looking down at hand of Frankenstein to my left.

Fk this! It's time for a holiday. Few weeks in Spain is much needed!

Adios!

J

May Review

2008-06-10T08:00:00.003Z

Started May with the best intentions to play low stakes HU for the entire month and see how much you could make... anyway after about a two of getting very bored and donking off a few hundred quid I got arsed off with low stakes HU. The £900 from the DTD win came in useful and gave a bit of a boost to the confidence. So much so that I went on a bit of a MTT rampage, playing 1 or two a day which is a lot for me. Within 10 days I racked up the following results...

Hills £1500 Gtd: 1st x 1, 2nd X 1, 4th x 2 , 7th x1 from 7 attempts.

Hills Sunday Super Series 1 x 4th from 2 attempts.

Plus a few others that I can't remember now. All this plus a return to the cash tables moved the early May losses into the green to show about £2500 profit by the close of play.

The Mrs desperately wants me to win a CPC package with Hills again this year. Hills are running a $40 Sat to the weekly $250 final so I'm trying to get in via there at the moment. I'm running pretty good and have not yet failed to qualify for the weeks where I've been able to play in it. I'm winning a $250 seat for every 2.5 times I play the sat at the moment so I may just keep playing them even after i win the seat and take the money :)

As i mentioned I've been playin a lot of cash at £1/2 and $1/2. It's amazing how much u can make at this level actually. I've been pretty comfortable playing 4 tables and racking up some rakeback and MPPs on Hills. See how it goes. At any given table there are 4 ROCKS and 1/2 nutters i think. I'm showing a decent + despite being over setted what seems at least once or twice a day. Having said that I had my usual nose dive at the beginning of the June and I'm once again in recovery mode.

On a social note we had a BBQ for Shell and Jacks birthday at weekend I was busy burning meat for 40 and managed to put the knife through my finger severing the nerve on my right index finger :) Happy days! The only good thing was that A&E at Warwick had me in and out in 30mins and by 7pm I was back on the brandy letting someone else take responsibility for the mass food poisoning.

Cheers,

Jim

Another DTD final table

2008-05-20T12:31:00.004Z

Before last week I'd had 4 trips to DTD and made the Final Table twice only to finish a disappointing 9th on both occasions for not much more than double my money. Better than nothing but not much reward for hours or work.

Things improved the other weekend when a last minute decision to attend the Blonde Forum Game at DTD paid dividends. The entry was only £30 but the field was reasonable and the emphasis was on good fun and banter. With about 150 runners I did my usual trick of getting off to a complete flyer and then hitting a wall around level 6/7. Many of the players were pretty tight and keen to make a game of it and so the blinds started to squeeze the average chips a little early and I managed to pick my spots and make the most of some rag cards to keep my nose ahead of the game.

As we neared the money i got very lucky with KJ vs AK when a move on the BB backfired also managed to crack Kings with pocket nines. Made the final table in reasonable shape and continued to pick my way through the field playing some half decent poker.

I ended up heads up vs Jen Mason after about 11hrs of play. Now Jen works for Blonde and was there to enjoy her self. I think the definition of enjoyment for Jen is to make a move on every pot while having red wine fed in on a IV drip, by the time we were HU she was totally plastered and jamming every other pot preflop or on the flop. It was very funny and a decent number on the rail offering encouragement mainly to Jen and a bit to myself .... well I think several drunken verses of "You'll never Wonk alone!" and "Wonking in a winter wonderland" could be classed as encouragement! :)

Jen had about a 3-1 chip advantage so i was looking for a spot to double up and take it from there.... I lost a few chips folding and finally got it in with Ad8s and was insta called by Jen with 22. 3 diamonds and a deuce on the flop made it interesting and a 4th diamond on the turn saw me dragging the pot when the board failed to pair on the end.

It wasn't long before I'd jammed with AK preflop and Jen made the call with T4os ..... wasn't so lucky this time and a 4 obliged on the river to see me out in 2nd place for just shy of £900.

Here's a pic nicked from Blonde of Jen with me to her right trying to keep a straight face!

Great fun and congrats to Jen who was unstoppable. Very happy with my live hit rate 5 trips and 3 final tables makes me think I should play live a little more maybe.

I'm not even trying to make the WSOP this yea as I'm on holiday. However I've noticed that some sites are running good value qualifiers specifically for Bloggers. Bodog is running Tuesday night online poker tournament for Bloggers earning points for a final game, may be worth a look if you are looking to maximise your chances of a Vegas trip this July.

April Review

2008-05-08T10:55:00.003Z

Well dropping the stakes seemed to do ok in April, made a modest profit of about £1500, beats a kick in the nads!! Most of this came from low stakes HU games and a bit of rakeback.

Again this was playing relatively little poker. I've always been a little impatient to put too much effort into game selection but with the game getting a bit tighter over the past year or so I'm starting to give it more consideration. I days gone by mugs abounded at most levels of the game no matter which table you sat at. These days you have to work a little harder for your lunch and seek out the fish... or more importantly avoid the sharks. There are players who i'm about even money against.. especially HU and there really is no point playing them, the rake ends up killing you.

On the MTT front again i've been dabbling low stakes on Crypto Head hunters, I quite like the concept, the players are very happy to gamble against you and taking a few heads covers the buy in even if you don't cash. The only down side is that unless you take a few head along the way the final table money can be a bit of a let down.

The other night i wasn't in the mood for a 'serious session' so I took a look at Sky Poker and had a play on the Open. This is the MTT that runs on TV live while you play, it's low entry fee and a bit of a donk fest but good fun non the less, plus you get to listen to Helen C pull all the plays apart. I managed to go out just b4 the bubble and will prob have another go for the sheer entertainment value.

Toying with the idea of a trip to DTD for the Blonde Bash this weekend. See what the weather is like i think. May I'm still taking it easy on the low stakes stuff ($100 HU max i think) see how it goes.

Get knocked down... but i get up again..and again ..and again

2008-04-22T11:54:00.003Z

I really do need to start doing more regular updates i think! Appologies!

I've just had a read of my last post and had to laugh at the ....

" Time to increase the playing levels a bit in March … see if we can get the bank roll back up to £10k + in the next few months. I'm also dying for a trip to Vegas and really need to sort it out."

I think about 20seconds after I'd posted that I sat at a couple £2/5 tables and walked into a nightmare session. One of those that you inevitably get if you play enough poker, after you take a couple of beats you can almost name the river card every time the money goes in......

You flop the nut straight with a flush re-draw all the money goes in and he makes a bigger flush.
You make a straight and he has top pair and a gutshot draw hits the gutshot or runner runner full house etc etc etc etc etc etc etc

They seem to come in clumps, the 1st one leaves your head spinnin a little and before you know it you've shipped your money into the middle 8 times in a range of hands where you are a 60% to a 96% favourite and lost every one... it's not even like ur tilting and getting it in behind. I've played enough poker to take these on the chin but could have done with an even break from a timing perspective. But if you take a shot.... u know the risks.

The hit was about just shy of £3k and after the 1st week in March I was back to struggling a bit from a bankroll perspective and grinding away, managed to get about £1k back before the end of the month. Again I've been withdrawing money from the bankroll to pay for holidays and stuff which doesn't help (but it beats spunking it down the drain i guess) , both me and the Mrs are still working part time so any 'extras' tend to come out of the bank roll.

to be honest i'm not sure what to play at the moment, i'm stuggling to find a lot of time to put an major effort in so I'm playing fairly low stakes and low volumes.

I emptied the BF account (withdrew not busto) and the put £50 quid back in for a minor flutter on the Grand National, I made the grand sum of £25 and managed to turn that into £500 in a few days playing lowstakes heads up, think I'll keep that account going like that and see what happens.

Had another trip to DTD. I wasn't really in the mood for an MTT and bust out fairly quickly playing fast, loose and badly. The only thing of note was that the guy who took me out was John Kalmar of WSOP final table fame. I then spent the rest of the evening playing in a very amusing low stakes cash game and made a few quid as well as totally pissing off a local with a well timed over the top bluff on an ace high flop when he C bet with QQ. I had to show my rags and he was less than complimentary :)

Betfair are ramping up their WSOPE promotions at the moment, apparently they've set aside $1.5m in promotions to send a load of BF lambs to the slaughter :)

Betfair are usually pretty good at giving value seats away for their sponsored events so well worth a look.

Part of me thinks it's prob not the best idea to be chasin a WSOPE seat at the moment I'd rather have the cash than the $24K entry package. But if you can get in cheap with a shot to change your life for ever then why not! Speaking of the WSPOE, coverage of last years started on Sky Sports this week and should make interesting viewing.

Quiet Feb after a big win

2008-03-04T12:36:00.002Z

No updates for a while. I decided to have a very quiet month in Feb. The main reason being that at the end of Jan I won the Sunday £7.5k added Super Series on Hills, showing a very nice £4.5k return for a £35 investment :).

As it turns out that was the last £7.5k added… there's still a super series game at 4pm on Sundays but the buyin and the added money has been reduced which is a shame.

The win came just in the nick of time as well, so I decided to take it very easy in Feb and just play small MTTs showing a small profit.

I also had another trip to DTD for the Friday £75 FO and once again made the final table but once again ended up a disappointing 9th for not much money. I seem to be getting off to a flyer in live MTTs at the moment… I'd taken 4 people out within 30mins on this trip. Things then went downhill a little and it was lookin pretty grim when with 19 left I had 1 big blind left after losing a race. A treble up and two double ups within 4 hands saw me gain some momentum and hit the final table with average chips only for everything to slow to a stop and go totally card dead. There were several all ins where the low stack should have gone but always seemed to hit… before you know it I'm in trouble and out in 9th.

On a side note I'm sure I must come across as a complete moron when playing live… the gobby live pros always seem to sit there having a dig at me fumbling through counting my chips or having a few seconds think before I pass… this has happened a few times and invariably a few hours later when we both still sat there chipped up I'll get some backhanded compliment … always makes me laugh.

Time to increase the playing levels a bit in March … see if we can get the bank roll back up to £10k + in the next few months. I'm also dying for a trip to Vegas and really need to sort it out.

Another DTD Trip

2008-01-15T12:43:00.000Z

Went along to Dusk Till Dawn again on Friday for what I thought was a £100 FO but turned out to be the 1st day of a new schedule and a £75 FO. Not to worry as the event had sold out at 140 runners and the club was very busy... good to see. I managed to donk myself off in 28th after having on of the best starts to a live MTT i've ever had.

3 hands into the tournie i'm on the SB with the blind at 25/50. Early position raises to 250 and picks up three callers and I come along for the ride with 45os. Flop comes along 4 5 Q .... two of the callers had AQ and next thing you know I'm sitting on a 11k stack from 4k starting. Within 25mins this was up to 19k. No idea where it went wrong from here..... apart from maybe getting a bit over aggro with a big stack and a bit unlucky when 60/40 in front 3 or 4 times on the bounce. Oh well.

Simon Nowab (he runs the key accounts at Dusk Till Dawn) came across to say hello during one of the breaks and I mentioned to him that I'd been playing a lot of HU in the past few months, he commented on how it can kill your MTT and CASH games. I had considered this before and had come to the conclusion that it actually improved some aspects of the cash game for a tight player. But I guess it can go too far the other way as well.

This prompted me to take a look at my woeful MTT record over recent months. I not playing many... maybe 3 or 4 a week, but I can't remember the last time I cashed in one. I think I'm just a bit too keen to race off my chips preflop with a marginal edge.... this is fine in the end game of a HU match but the wheels are bound to come off sooner of later in a MTT with this approach. Must do better.

I'm no longer drawing a wage from my bank roll so there's no real pressure to play at the moment. Focus is on rebuilding the roll to it's former glory and using it to pay for a few fun things so a juicy MTT payout would be nice.
Good luck,

Jim

Thanks SmartMoney (OT)

2008-01-09T14:58:00.000Z

A few months ago Smartmoney posted a msg on the betfair forum about a new series on BBC4 called Flight of the Conchords. He'd already seen it on HBO in the states. Its about 2 New Zealand blokes in a (very poor) band living in New York, it's based on their stand up act i think .. every 5 mins they burst into song and it very funny.

Anyway me and the Mrs turned it on and every Tuesday night laughing our asses off.

It's finished now but I found this on Youtube...

Bret has asked Jerome to help him write a love song for his new girlfriend... :)

Poker had two weeks off for Crimbo and NYear... done ok since then. Off to DTD this Friday if anyone fancies a pint?

Jim

Dusk Till Dawn 1st visit

2007-12-11T15:47:00.000Z

A week last Friday I had the pleasure of going to the new Dusk Till Dawn poker club in Nottingham. The club is reputed to be the biggest poker club in Europe. It has to be said, it is fantastic. With it being the opening weekend we were met with champagne and canapes at the door then onto the bar for a few quick ones before the £100 freeze out started at 7:30pm. An intersting side note is that if ou play online at Dusk Till Dawn you can convert Crypto MPPs into tournie buy ins at Dusk Till Dawn, anyone who plays a fair bit can essentially freeroll in a few live MTTs a month using this feature. Nice option to have.

The club is owned and run by poker players and you can tell. The MTT structure was excellent and if anything may have been a touch... and only a touch slow. The 108 runner game ended up having to do a 5 way chip count at 6am when the time ran out.

I thought that with it being a dedicated poker club on a invite only opening weekend the field would be very good and while there were a few faces amongst the runners I was surprised to quickly assess my opening table as about 60-70% weak passive. With that in mind I didn't waste any time getting busy and had doubled my starting 5k in chips by level 2/3. There was some shocking play at my table from a few... some did not know what they were doing but I was surprised to find out that one of the guys was a big poster on the Blonde forum... goes to show you should not always believe what u read on the internet. He managed to pass his BB to an early min raise with 5 callers?!??!?! FishandChips was one of the few i rated at the table and it was nice to say hi to a fellow blogger.

My favourite hand from the opening levels was against a guy who had a really bad tell. He looked a little like Napoleon Dynamite which amused me no end.

Heads up for rollz Napoleon?

He'd already played and hand vs someone else where he was obviously on a overpair and obviously behind and i'd watched him and thought I had him pretty much pegged. Anyway I'd raised it in mid-late pos with As9s and get min reraised which I have to call. At this point in time I'm thinking AK / AQ for matey boy. He looks like he's got a hand, flop comes J T 2 . Just one look at him and i know he's missed it so I lead out. He flat calls, I'm sure he's got no pair but a touch worried that I'm not going to be able to get him off it. Turn comes a lovely 9 for me. All my money goes in and he obliges with a call for all his stack with AK... i had him well covered.

I managed to double my stack only showing one hand and as is usually the case managed to get dumped back down to earth with a total monster. I managed to flop a set of Kings in a raised and re-raised pot only to lose to 9T on a K T Q J board... how he managed to see a turn with me firing big at it was beyond me. I then floated up and down between 7 and 14k for a long time. A break came when I jammed preflop with JJ vs AK .... the A K 2 flop did not look good but a T on the turn and rivered Q pointed my in the right direction and I doubled up again the very next hand with AK on a KK5 flop. He picked a flush draw on the turn and decided to ask me a question.... he got an answer.

I was then chipped up and in no mood to muck about, a blind vs blind headbut but saw me making what was probably a bad call with QTs to the BBs all in. I'd raised to 4k and he jammed for another 13k extra. He flipped A9 and there were a few gaping mouths when I called with QT.... a ten obliged the river and matey boy exited muttering something about bad players.

We were down to last 17 or so and I was a comfortable chip lead at this point. Here the make or break hand came. I've already posted this on the Betfair forum and it managed to split opinion quite well. I think next time I may well pass but it has to be said ... getting them in is much more fun.

I'm stacked up on about 80k or so, the guy to my left is also on a chunk of about 45k. I raised it up to 4k with 5s6s. He flat calls and the flop comes a rather nice looking 6c 4s 9s. I check looking to check raise and he just sticks his remaining 40k into the pot!?

Now I dwell this up for a long time. Obviously I'm probably behind most of the time, the question is do I want to gamble on hitting one of my 13 or so outs in order to command 25% of the chips in play with 17 players left? :) I finally decide that WTF am im playing 56s for if I pass on this flop and stick 'em in. He sighs and say good call and flips 88. Running red Queens and I'm back in the mire. I make it into the money and then the final table but walk a A9 steal into the BB with Aces and that was my end in 9th place for £220. Oh well always next time, at least I have my second entry on the Hendon Mob results database now!

Dusk Till Dawn is fantastic and what's more it has it's heart in the right place! It deserves every poker players support and I would encourage everyone to give it a visit!

Back to the grind

2007-11-21T17:26:00.000Z

Over the past 4 years or so most of my poker has been cash games. So i decided to go back and have a dabble last week... big mistake. I was playing fairly LAG (too much heads up) and managed to find myself 2nd best in a number of pots that I could not get away from AK on a KK2 flop where hes holding 22 etc. I then missed an up and down straight flush draw with two overcards to top pair. I then folded a up and down straight flush draw with two all ins before me... i held 2h3h so i figured one of them prob had a higher flush draw of course I was wrong and i'd have hit and would have won a huge pot. Anyway that put paid to the cash session and I left feeling a little bruised.

I've not had much luck in MTTs either. I've been playing low stakes 100-200 runners comps with added money or a decent guarantee. The best of which is the outstanding value in the William Hill Super Series MTTs. They run 4 of these a week and they are exclusive to Hills

Sunday 16:00 UK - £7,500 ADDED Buy-In £35 + £4
Monday 19:30 UK - £3,500 ADDED Buy-In £15 + £2
Wednesday 19:30 UK - £1,500 ADDED Buy-In £7.50 + £1 (requires 25 MPPs earnt in the previous 7 days)
Friday 19:30 UK - £500 ADDED Buy-In £2.50 + £0.50 (requires 20 MPPs earnt in the previous 7 days)

I've mainly been playing the £7500 added one, the prize pool is usually around £15000 and so it's fantastic value. Last week I was running really well moving towards the latter stages when I get it all in on a rag flop with Aces... he calls with Kings and the river obliges with a two outer. Was a bit gutted as I was playing well and though I'd have a shot at a win if I won that pot.

Where I have been running good is in Sat and STTs. I'm in the Monthly BF $150k on Sunday for $50 at the first time of asking and I've also qualified 3 times from 3 attempts for the weekly $3000 Passport game for $20, think its just matter of time before I win one. HU is going okish... keep grinding away then seem to hit a bad run of 4-5 on the bounce every few days. The success in the small Sats prompted me to play a few six handed STTs and I've won more than my fair share. I may dabble more in these over the next week or two.

On the live front Dusk Till Dawn opens next week and I'm really looking forward to it!! I'm bought in for the £100 Freeze Out on the Friday night and I'm really looking forward to playng live again.

On the work from I've decided to take a bit more work on. This is really to take the pressure off a small bank roll at the moment. We'll see how it's going and review again is a few months.

Cheers for the support on the comments,

Jim

Busto!

2007-11-06T13:34:00.000Z

Whoops! Well I had been sailing close to the wind for a while. Running the bankroll down to the bare bones and spinning it up was bound to come and bite me on the arse sooner or later. I'd been running okish on the $200 HU games for a few days just showing a small profit from being up 3 or 4 games each day and managed to work off the cash loss from early October. Then the wheels came off, I saw a player that I'm well up against sat on the $400 tables and proceeded to drop 4 games on the bounce, I then went into freefall.... I could not win a game for love nor money and as the red mist settled I was looking at a £2k loss for the day and not an awful lot left in the tank. The next day started pretty much as the previous one had ended and I had to reserve £1k to pay the bills. By 7pm I had £53 left in Betfair, £2.50 in Hills and £1.73 in Bluesquare. So technically not bust :)

Now this left me with a tough decision. I've always said that if i lost the bank roll I'd go back to work full time. Having said that in the past 30months since I went 'semi pro' I've ploughed thousands out of the poker fund into the 'house keeping' fund. There's also the family aspect to consider. Jack is 17months old now and a total terror! I've spent so much time with him over that period and no one will ever be able to take that away. I've got friends who leave the house at 6am and return at 8pm monday to friday and never see their kids grow up. Shell is also still working 3 days a week, so income is low. Neither of us want to give up the lifestyle we have at the moment but the bills need to be paid.

I've had few quid rakeback come in for various accounts and this only adds up to about £1k from not much play in October. With the agreement of the Mrs (mainly cos she does not want to go back to work) for the first time ever I've nabbed £3k from our 'rainy day fund' to create a £4k bankroll starting November the 1st. I've started a new Profit and Loss spreadsheet and the aim is to keep the stakes low, focus on paying the bills while slowly building up the roll to is former glory.

So far so good.... not played much since November started but £600 up from solid play on the low stakes HU games (mostly $100 and $150s).

It's really is time to stop dicking about, get back to basics and earn some money. Failing that the Mrs will have to go back to work :)

Quick update on new improved Hills rakeback payments

2007-10-31T11:53:00.000Z

Hills are improving their rakeback payment structure from Nov 1st and launching a new bonus promotion for new and existing players.

New rakeback will be based on the following MPPs earned per week and payed on a weekly basis...

MPPs Gross %
0 – 1199: 30%
1200 – 1849: 31%
1850 – 2499: 34.88%
2500+: 38.75%

The new bonus is based on MMPs earned per month and you are payed $100 for every 1000mpps up to a max of $500.

Click here to sign up for Hills rakeback.

Why is the beginning of the month always a struggle?

2007-10-23T12:56:00.001Z

Been getting lots of stick for not updating so after a bit of a break I shall now endeavour to keep going with regular updates. Hope there's still people dropping in to read this!

Ever since i started playing poker I've noticed a bit of an annoying pattern in my profit and loss trends. I'd work my socks off to ensure that by my month end I'd show a decent profit for that period, then I'd breathe out, take stock and start working on the next month. Invariably I'd start the new month off by doing my total nuts. I've talked to a few other people and they'd say the same thing. The Mrs does it as well! You then spend the next 2 weeks trying to work your way back to a break even point.

Octobers start of month plummet was particularly spectacular. I'd been playing a bit more cash and started with an afternoon session on the 5/10 tables, I managed to donk off $5000 in about 90mins, the 1st two buyins went south when all in with 2pair and then a set... the hands were virtually carbon copies and was up against top pair top kicker both times. The 1st he catches a better two pair and the second hits a double gutshot straight on the turn and river. On tilt i then walked KK into AA and AA then KK busted vs low sets. Wonderful.

Fortunately things bounced back a little sooner than expected. I managed to win a big chunk of it back in the evening placing 3rd in the BF 16k MTT. I'm playing this once or twice a week at the moment and managed a 1st and 3rd in the past month or two.

I'm still border line in terms of my bankroll... I keep building it up taking a chunk out to spend on something leaving it a touch exposed and then having a bad run to put myself in dire straights.... then knuckle down and build it back up again. I'm curently on my 3rd or 4th cycle of this, it's bad BR management I know but I've got other priorities at the moment.

It's quite scary that 2007 is nearly over. Live poker has been a huge disappointment for me this year, not because I've lost, but because I've not played. No satellite wins and no real trips of any note other than a few excursions to the Broadway in Brum. With Dusk Till Dawn opening in Nottingham next month I'm determined to get up there at least a few times a month. One fantastic thing about DTD is that you can use your MPPs to buy stuff and tournament entries from the live club. Anyone playing a reasonable amount of poker can rack up some decent buyins for free within a month or two. Well worth a look!.

Target St Kitts

2007-07-11T09:49:00.000Z

Well the HU experiment progresses. July has (so far) not been as kind as June and I'm currently looking at a £1500 loss to date, all of which can be traced to a rather ill timed tilt session on Saturday night. Me and the Mrs had a bit of a tiff and I sit down in no mood to mess about. I spot someone who I'm 8-3 up against sat at the $400 HU table on BF and decide to up my game from the usual $250 game. A few hours later and I'm 6-1 down for the session and in a $2k+ hole.... ooops! Apart from that its been a bit sideways, I think I need to work on my game selection a bit more. There are one or two people who I just can't seem to get the better of. Instead of avoiding them I look on it as a challenge and continue to donate! The funny thing is these people are usually not very good.. you can see from their BR leader board or Sharkscope data that they dont win much.... except off me!

I'm probably looking to widen my base in terms of poker rooms as well, I don't think playing HU on one site day in day out is a smart move. The players u can beat a lot tend to avoid you and the players that think they have the edge on you come and find you.

I've set myself two targets for the coming months. Crypto have now started St Kitts CPC sats and I'm under orders from the Mrs to win one. 2nd I've opened a Bluesquare account to take a shot at winning a seat in the GUKPT event in Luton in August. It's £1k entry but we'll see if I can get in cheap.

It's also worth noting that the long awaited rakeback shake up on Crypto has now taken place. Hills and a number of the other Crypto skins have adopted a weekly paid tiered structure based on MPPs earned on the following basis.

0 - 99 MPPs 15.50%
100 - 599 MPPS 23.25%
600 -1999 MPPS 27.13%
1,200- 1,849 MPPS 31%
1,850- 2,499 MPPS 34.88%
2,500 +MPPS 38.75%

All % figures are gross rakeback. Good for the smaller player as you dont have to meet a minimum spend to get something back. Bit of a reduction from the previous offering for the big player but 38.75% is still not to be sniffed at.

Finally a big shout for Deejay and Doobs, both top blokes and part of Team Betfair in LV for the main event. Both going very well at the end of day 2!!

Sunshine on a rainy day

2007-06-26T14:25:00.000Z

Weekend saw an early departure on Saturday morning as me and the Mrs and a group of friends headed south for Ascot. Jack had chosen that morning to take his 1st tottering steps and so despite the slightly bleary eyes from a late Friday night and 6:30am wakeup on Saturday morning I was in good spirits.

Dodging the downpours at Ascot, me and the Mrs had already polished off one bottle of fizz before it was time to look at the card for the 1st race. I'd not had anything to eat and the legs were feeling a bit wobbly so while I went to get some food I left the Mrs to put some bets on.... she managed to put twice as much as I'd asked her and the nag failed to place. The double up on the red hot fav in the 2nd also went south and I was already staring at a £300 hole after two races. 3rd race followed suit. 4th was more disappointing as my pick was nosed out on the line after being in front for the last 300yds.

5th race saw a 10-1 shot come in 2nd and returned some money back in my direction. 6th bailed out the day and paid ticket, taxis and all 3 bottles of bubbly we'd consumed by this point , as another 10-1 shot stormed home. Can't remember what happened in the 7th as we had another bottle to celebrate not losing. After this the day starts to blur a little.

We got a taxi across to Basingstoke in time for the start of the now legendary Duffs home game. 53 runners at £100 a head saw a decent enough prize pool. A few more beers to top up the levels and we were off. I vaguely remember playing like a total headcase and bulldozing the table while yo-yoing up and down my stack. I've been assured that I was suffering from acute verbal diarrhea much to the amusement of most of the table. The cards went well and when they didn't I stuck them in and picked the pot up taking care not to put the stack in too much danger ( i think). Managed to upset one of the Bf forum guys with a KJ vs AK suck out but and i had him well covered.

Mrs Splash was also playing and went stage left early doors after walking into Ariston JJ with AK and no help. Quote from Mrs Splash on Ariston "Talks a lot doesn't he?"

Next thing I know (I may well have dozed off at some point) its final table time and Im chip lead with about 105k. 4 hands later I'm down to about 15k after highstack refused to lay down top pair decent kicker on a flush board. One double up with AK and another with a very lucky A5 vs QQ where i somehow managed to river three 5s and it was game on again. (On a side note I was going to title this entry "Sunshine on a rainy day... makes my fives trip trip waheyyy!" but decided it was far too naff!

The decisive hand of the night came via what i think was a mistake by the guy to my right when we were 4 handed. There were three big stack and one short stack. Blinds are something like 6000-12000 and the short stack jams for about 30k.... the big stack just flat calls and leaves me no choice but to call with K3os. Flop makes me 2 pair and him an up and down. He checks, I bet, he jams and i call. No help for mateyboy and I take two out to leave me heads up with about 75% of the chips.

By this time its 4:30am and Im cream crackered and in no mood for tactical raise pass play, I call an ALL IN with Ace Rag and he catches one of his two under cards to make it about 50/50 chips wize. Two minutes later and Js9d sees a Jd 4 d7d all the money goes in and he flips 6d 5c for an up and down. A diamond obliges on the river and it turns out I've got him covered by just 500 chips.

So Wonky is Duffs Homie Champ for 2007 :) £1800 plus a nice trophy for the trouble.

The HU stuff is still going very well. Still trying to catch Hawko on the BF leader board. Made up a lot of ground but may have to wait until next month in order to mount a full challenge for the top spot. Buzzer is currently 2nd and I'm pretty confident I can overtake him in the next week. Without a total tilt session this week, the month should be safely looking at a five figure +ive ....... boy it's good to be back!

Mojo returns!

2007-06-21T21:21:00.000Z

Well so far so good on the heads up experiment. I’m sat here trying to figure out why I didn’t do this a while ago. In the space of two weeks I’ve managed to eradicate 5months of decidedly average cash games and build the bank roll back up to a decent level. To be honest it’s a big relief and feels bloody good to win a decent chunk.

I’ve really been working hard at it on the $200-$400 games on BF and Crypto and showing a very good return on both. Even though I had a bit of a late start in June on these I’m well placed on the Betfair High Stakes STT monthly league. I think hawko (Mr G Reaper) will take some catching in 1st spot but if I can put the hours in I’ll give it a go. The HU STTs on Crypto are gradually gaining more players but these sort of games are ideal for playing across multiple sites to ensure I can always get a game.

BF is now playable and they seem to be ironing out most of the bugs that were causing all those problems pre Christmas. The new resizable screens are good. I think the games are a touch softer than Crypto in places, there is some value in the MTTS but they still lagging a bit behind Hills on the rakeback stakes running at 30-36% compared to Hills 30-55%.

The prize for winning the Dream Team weekly league was an entry to a $750 WSOP sat on BF. It’s just about to start now so I’ll be off. May well post some pics from Duffs home game/ ascot over the weekend.

Good Luck

Jim

Two big chances go begging!

2007-06-13T10:34:00.000Z

Well I'd like to say the holiday in Spain was totally relaxing, but 4 couples and 5 babies (4 of which were under 12months old) made for a bit of a hectic week. Jack, who usually sleeps like a log from 7.30pm to 7am was ill and very grumpy for the last 4 days and promptly gave it to me on our return. The 'break' seemed to work well for the poker though the last few days in May proved quite profitable with a £2k + and saw a nice bounce back from what could have been a very poor month.

The 1st week in June saw two golden opportunities to qualify for major tournaments, the first being the final of the BadBeat Dream Team league. Our team (ChipsMonkies) were hands down winners of the league and this translated to bigger starting stacks in the live final for the 4 team members playing. I was up in Manchester for Jacks birthday but Doobs kept me updated with progress. In the end we just lost out in 2nd place when Doobs jammed with Kings on the final table only to be called by QT! A king on the flop looked to seal it but running J and A sealed the ChipMonkies fate and saw the 8 EPT seats go begging.

Not all was lost as each team member picked up a few hundred quid for the two final table places and a complimentary entry to this Thursdays $750 WSOP qualifier on BF. I also played in a $7000 WSOP ten seater freeroll with Hills. Only 5 from 10 turned up and one of those was 30mins late!! I ran ok early on when it didn't matter and very badly as the blinds started to kick in. I picked up Jacks on a ten high flop and had to pass when I was re-raised all-in by the table rock. 10mins later and it's me and Mr Rock again. I'd told him that I didn't have enough to pass to a re-raise again and AQ on a Ace high flop looked good enough to me.... in go the chips and he flips AK. Very disappointing, but when it's not your day, it's not your day.

I've decided to have a bit of a change in June poker wise, Crypto have finally introduced Heads Up Sit and Go tournaments. I've played a few of these on Betfair recently with a few quid I had in the old BF account and i've enjoyed some success. I've decided to play little or no cash in June and concentrate on these HU games to see how it goes. So far so good, I'm mainly playing £100-£200 games and already managed to tilt a few of the better players with some quality nutcase play. The target is to play 400-500 of these a month and aim for a ROI of > 5% plus rakeback. I'm still finding it hard to put the hours in, it seems like every weekend we've got something on or somewhere to go. The house is finished downstairs now and we've just had 2 weeks of non stop parties for Jack and Shells birthdays. Hopefully I can pull my finger out and knuckle down. The good thing about the HU games is you can squeeze one or two into a spare half hour as opposed to sitting down for a few hours for a cash session. It also places less pressure on a depleted bank roll than cash games do, so hopefully it will suit.

The Mrs has booked some tickets for the Saturday at Royal Ascot (23rd) so I need to dust off the suit, it's on the same day as the legendary Duffs Home game in Basingstoke so me and MrsSplash will be making the trip across (half cut I should imagine) to play in the £100 Freeze out. I'll prob take the camera and post a few pics for the Betfair forum readers.

Cheers,

Jim

Slow painful death?

2007-05-18T07:17:00.000Z

I saw a documentary about air disasters a few years ago. There were several crashes caused by faulty steering column on a certain make of plane. In normal operation it was fine but if the pilot jammed the stick hard right or hard left it would fail to respond. If the pilot let go and centred the stick and then gently moved the stick right or left it was ok again. Of course when a pilot was reacting to a sudden abnormal wind sheer he'd jam it hard left and nothing happened. The plane would go out of control and the pilot would be pushing the stick harder and harder when all he needed to do was let go.

I'm feeling at bit like those pilots at the moment, I'm playing a bit too much poker and things are not going too great. Had some shocking suckouts again in the past week or two. I then react with bad play and end up doing more money. I should know better. In the great scheme of things it's not a total disaster but I've never had a run like this before.... I've done huge chunks in a short period in the past but this is the 1st extended run of just losing a bit each month. It's almost laughable when you look at the figures, but it's exposed how fragile a £10-£15k roll can be when you a taking a regular salary out.

Jan: Lost 2k (no biggie right?)
Feb: Lost 1k (no biggie right?)
March: Break even
April: Break even

Now add to that £1k a month salary (plus some house spending) and it's a £9k down swing!

There's still a bit left in the bankroll, but any plans to go to Vegas for the WSOP have been canned (again!). As with each time I've had a bad patch in the past I find my mind turning to alternative sources of income. I put a few wheels in motion in this respect last year, some success but perhaps should have given it more effort. The trouble is when you are riding high at the tables on a fat roll it does not look like a worth while activity. So, here is a note to self! If I ever drag myself out of this slow painful bankroll bleed and get things back on course then I need to put a bit of effort into other 'non poker' income generating activity!! Please feel free to remind me of this the next time I post a decent win!

In the mean time I'm taking my hand off the steering column a little, reducing the hours and taking a break. A week of R&R in Spain should do the trick.

Good luck,

Jim

How to dump half the bank roll in two days

2007-05-01T14:47:00.001Z

Well it's not quite as bad as it sounds! But it could be better. I was having a think about the roll and the house and all the other stuff that's going on at the moment. Having just laid out the best part of £60k on doing up the house I decided to liberate some of the bank roll to pay for some of the finishing touches... you know the essentials like a load of Denon AV kit, a new 40" Bravia, some Kef surround speakers and a new music server.

A bit of retail therapy always cheers you up, and with me spending most of my time on $2/5 at the moment the roll could handle it. Having just paid out for all this I decide to hit what looks like a couple of gentle £2/5 games. Now never let it be said that the poker gods don't like me spending the roll on frivolous items of consumerism but the cards that came off the deck had to be seen to be believed....

You think you a pretty safe on with Ah2h on a Jh Kh Th flop don't you? Erm not when matey boy is holding Qh9h! I was busy nursing the wounds and explaining to the Mrs how this was a 'once every two years hand' and not a problem when I rivered the nut full with Pocket aces (9 9 2 T A) only to see mateyboy flip over the stone cold coconuts of quad nines after all the money had gone in?!?!?!?!?!?!? Tilt-arama ensued as I had Kings cracked twice and aces cracked by a set of 2s in quick succession. £2k down the hole fast as you like!

Just had to pay the monthly £1k wage bill out of the roll as well! Oh dear! All this leaves the bankroll in need some TLC and replenishment from somewhere....the new improved rakeback due in the next day or two should help a bit I guess. But if I dont sort it out could be back to work in a few months time.... the irony being I'm only a few £k down on my high ceiling point for profit!

At least the house is finished and the sun is shining! May have to 'ring fence' the last few hundred for some patio furniture and a decent BBQ! Sausage anyone?

Adios,

Jim

Flamed!

2007-04-24T10:05:00.000Z

Thanks for the 'anonymous' comments on the last post. Something had to liven 2007 up so I'll respond.....

Q: "For a pro you are raking NOTHING. why not jim?"

A: Raking about £3k-£4k a month at the moment... true it used to be a lot more, but with an 11month old and a new 'project' house there are only so many hours in the day. I think balance is important.

Q: "me thinks your getting skint ?"

A: Sorry to disappoint but ... no. I'll concede the Bank roll is a touch below where i'd like it to be, but it's still 5 figures which is enough for this level. Also a decent chunck of this is tied up as $ cash at the moment after the sucess of late 2006. This has impacted the online liquidity.

Q: "Even i am higher than you on will hill rake table and i only play 1/2. so JIM 4 a pro your shit "

A: Well done! But maybe try socialising more? I'm still a semi-pro by the way and since when did number of hands played decide if a player is 'shit' or not?

Q: "you should be creaming the whill and the superb rakeback"

A: Agreed, but rakeback isn't the be all and end all... 55% gross is a great deal though.

Q: "you say 2/5 pounds traffic slow. it aint at all. infact its never been so busy. so y dropdown lol."

A: It is much slower than 2/5$ .... although it has picked up in the past week or two a touch and I've had the odd dabble. But there's much more action on the $ tables, the same number of MPPs for the promos, less rake, and less risk for a depleted online BR.

Any chance you are going to reveal yourself from your anonymity? :)

Slow start to 2007 but 55% gross rakeback!!

2007-04-11T12:11:00.000Z

No updates for a while, two reasons... the first is that I've had the builders in the house for the past 10 weeks and the place has been like a bomb site and i'm totally pissed off with it.

The second is that the poker has been dull as hell.... 2 steps forward and 2 steps back for all Jan Feb and March! Add to this that I've mainly been playing $ tables (the pound tables have been dead) and therefore the stakes are a bit lower .... nothing really exiting to write home about!

April brought some good news however. I won a chunk in the first week and then a new rakeback deal with Hills based on a tier system with a max cap of 55% gross rakeback! I thought it was an April fool at first but apparently not..and it's cheered me up no end. This has to be the best deal around for UK highrakers and its not too shabby for lower rakers either with the tiers being based on the following table..

Monthly Rake % RakeBack
£0 - £49.99 0.0%
£50 - £249 30.0%
£250 - £499 32.5%
£500 - £999 35.0%
£1,000 - £1,499 37.5%
£1,500 - £2,499 40.0%
£2,500 - £3,499 42.5%
£3,500 - £4,999 45.0%
£5,000 - £6,499 50.0%
£6,500+ 55.0%

They are also offering a $1000 new player bonus for all new players in April. This is tiered again and based on MPPs earned before 31st May. The key thing is here that there are no deductions from your rakeback for any bonuses earned!!! Aagain a great offer that puts the competition in the shade... fill your boots!

0 - 249 mpps £25 Paid To Play bonus
250 - 749 mpps Further $50
750 - 1,999 mpps Further $100
2,000 - 4,999 mpps Further $300
5,000+ mpps Further $500

To sign up for the new player offer and the 55%MAX rakeback deal use this link or the banner at the top of the page and e-mail me with your user ID to check you have been tracked correctly.

Looking forward to the rest of April and beyond I really need to pull my finger out and qualify for some big tournies. I'm doing ok in the WH MPP WSOP promo but prob will end up with a seat in a 6pack for a 7k package as opposed to a seat outright.

Looks like I will be at Duffs home game for the 300 buy in in a few weeks as well, there does not look to be much value in the field but the piss up will be fun.

Big sorry to Pokerqueen and Shaa... i told you weeks ago I'd link you up.. sorted now.

Whooops!

2007-02-12T10:57:00.000Z

It was 12months since I wrote this article on my live debut at the Broadway festival. I thought I’d give the same comp a go this year and I had a trip to Birmingham last week to buy into the £300 double chance freeze out. I wrote a long trip report last year and the critical hand that busted me late in the day was a call with AK when I probably didn’t need to. Hopefully this year could see an improvement on last years performance and offer a chance to look back to see if my live game had improved much having played 3 or 4 big buy in comps over the previous 12 months.

There were plenty of familiar faces in the crowd, lots of ‘T.V faces’ and a few of the Betfair forum regulars, Rob (highstack) had made the trip and Ben Mayhew (Sunday8pm) was also in attendance being backed by RobYongs “Dusk Till Dawn” crew who were also in attendance.

I didn’t like the look of the table much, the draw had Paul Jackson, Bambos , Sunday8pm and Rob Yong all sat at one end of the table, the chatter was constant as Sunday8pm went into re-raise overdrive from the word go… with a 6k stack, 25/50 blinds, 124 runners and one hour levels…. I was asking myself the question “Why?” but it seemed to be paying off and irritating the locals and the more ‘mature’ characters sat at the table.

Now comes one of the funniest hands I’ve played in a long time. By about level 3 I’d worked the stack up to a healthy 10k…. Sunday8pm had hit about 20K at one point but had taken a couple of hits and had about 10k as well. Not many had departed and the blinds/structure were low and slow.

I pick up Aces in an early position and raise it up to find 4 callers. The flop comes a nice Ad 3d 3c …. and I’m thinking of how to get paid on a flop that’s hit me in the face and most likely missed everyone else. I bet smallish, two pass and Sunday8pm obliges with a call. Wonderful with any luck he’s hit the three with a cute pre-flop call or on the flush draw. The turn is a blank and I double my bet throwing 2k at the now 5k pot. Ben thinks for a while, stacks his chips (I thinks he’s about to pass) but no he re-raises all in!!

Now I must admit I did dwell for about 5 seconds… simply trying to put him on a hand. I make the call and he turns over 10 J os! Nice move.

Afterwards he said he was trying to push me off AK… that was almost as funny as the move itself. Paul Jackson looked none too pleased as he’d backed him for the event. I told Ben I’d have to blog this hand… sorry mate!! :)

Not long after that I picked up another big pot when I caught an up and down on the end and the bloke who’d flopped two pair jammed all in after letting me catch. I was a huge chips leader at this point with about 34k I chips with a few other people in the late teens. But the night was still young and as the hours progressed I floated up and down between 35k and 22k taking 2 steps forward and 2 steps back. I finally caught another big hand vs Bambos who was starting to get a bit desperate on about 8k when he jammed with 88 . I called with pocket tens only to see a KK8 flop and once again I was back down with about 24k instead of 40k+.

It’s about 3:30am with play due to finish for the day at 5am and I pick up AK and make a raise, a local bloke to my left jams and he just about has me covered. Now I’m transported back 12months almost to the minute and faced with the exact same decision. I dwell for a minute or two, it’s the night of the snow storm and it occurs to me if I’m going to have to face a horror journey to get back here for the final it may as well be for a chip stack worth playing. The clock is called and I pass face up and he shows QQ .

Another hour goes by and I’m still frustrated and starting to look a little low in chips now compared to the average. The snow is coming down and I make the decision to play for the double up or busto. I get involved in a pot with Jh8h with a big stack, I’d raised early and he’d flat called despite my tight reputation at the table. The flop comes 8 high (8 4 5) and I bet out, he reraises and I’m pretty sure he’s trying to bully me off the pot so I jam leaving him sighing and having to call for a relatively small number of chips. He shows 86os. I smile and flip over Jh9h…HANG ON A MINUTE!!! WTF!!! I’m sure it was J8 a few minutes ago!! Whooooops!

My only defence was that it was 5am and I’d been up for 23hrs. I did catch a 9 on the river by the way. The only problem was he’d turned the 7 for the gutshot straight!

All in all very disappointed. Think I got a little unlucky at key times that stopped me from building on the chips I’d picked up early doors. The exit hand was pure comedy… I’ll be checking my cards on every street from now on!

Promos are all happening on Crypto again, in response to various promos by other sites Hills have also come up with a WSOP promo for the players earning the most MPPs in the next few months. I’m currently in about 14th spot with the top 10 getting a WSOP package, the next 6 playing a 6 pack for a package and then further down the ladder playing tournaments with 10, 12 , 18 and 24 runner. So if you are in the top 80 MPP earners for Hills then you have a decent shot at a WSOP package.

Poker in this life...and the second

2007-01-20T08:59:00.000Z

After not much poker in Nov/Dec I decided that i should play a fair bit in Jan. Out of the blocks at a fair rate of 1200 hands a day on average and within 2 weeks days I was playing like a total numpty and donking off money left right and centre. I guess I'm learning a little bit, while I played a bit too much and hit a bit of a short term burn out i at least had the good sense to spot this and stop playing at lunch time. The planned afternoon of poker went out of the window and I pondered what to do.

I'd just read an article on some bloke who'd made millions on Second Life. This is the online virtual reality life game thing that's had lots of coverage in the media in the past few month. I decided to see what all the fuss was about and downloaded it. An hour or two later and I'd created my avatar and figured out the basic controls in the training section and I was out and about in the 'real' world. After half an hour of pottering trying to figure out what to do I see an advert for a casino....DING!!!.

In the game you are given 250 Lindon$... the currency of Second Life. Now believe it or not these L$ actually have real world value and you can buy more via your Credit card or Paypal etc and cash them out when you wish. There is a proper exchange rate that fluctuates due to market demand and people can make things and sell them or offer services for money within the game ! So on my afternoon away from poker down I pop to the local casino. I make my way past the slots and the 1st table I see is a NL hold em cash game. 10 minutes later with the help of a very nice lady I've managed to sit down and buy in for my L$250 in a L$5/10 game. I've not idea how much these L$ are worth but 30mins later I've cleaned everyone out and I've got L$1200.... I then decide to look at the exchange rate and wooohoooo I'm 5 US$ up !! :) Most of the players were from the states and v poor.... I wonder where they stand in relation to the new legislation?

This prompts me to go in search of some higher stakes games and I manage to find a 100/200 L$ game and a L$5000 sit and go.. yeah right! High Stakes. Again I do ok in the games runnig up to 20000 L$ but have to pass on the sit and go as I'm a bit time restricted. All in all much fun... considering the rake the host charged I can see how people are making some money on this thing. Before I logged off the cash was burning a hole in my pocket and I needed somewhere to spend it after a fun night at the tables. Where should I go???.....

This Second Life may have more parallels with real life than I originally thought... how sad! ;o)

Review and 2007

2007-01-13T16:13:00.000Z

The last post seemed to get the comments going, I'll have to be a miserable sod more often. Suppose it's time to peek out of the corner of one eye and look back at 2006 and then stare 2007 head long in the face and see what's next.

I'd say 2006 on balance was just about a success. I fell a little short of my set cash target of but still managed to exceed the basic criteria that I set out when I started playing for a living. That is, I covered the short fall in salary comfortably and managed enough on top to cover the new extension on the house. As anyone will know who's read my musings over the past 12months, things came very close to going tits up in March/April and but for a twist of fate I'd have ended back in full time employment. A month off and a new addition to the family proved to be the break from poker that was required. I cashed virtually everything out of the bankroll and started again.... with a bang! Almost immediately a 7k WSOP package won and converted to cash saw the much needed liquidity restored to the bank roll and from there it was onward and upwards, a 12K CPC seat, and two 8k BFAPT seats plus no losing cash months since May and everything was back on track, business as usual and hopefully a lesson or two learned. I was very pleased with 1st of all picking up the satellite seats and secondly my performance in each of the live events I played. It's amazing what you can do when your back is against the wall.

And so to 2007! Seeing as though I managed to miss my target of £50k I guess I may have to have another stab at it. Although I've managed to donk off 4k in the first week in Jan it would seem that I'm already giving myself an uphill battle. On the live front I'd be amazed if I manage to win as many sats in 2007 as I did in 2006..... I'm setting the sights on a WSOP seat a EPT seat and at least one other live major events either won or qualified via promos. I've got orders from the Mrs to make sure that at least one covers a week somewhere exotic for two people, she quite likes the idea of not having to pay for a holiday again.

I'm determined to keep the blog going. I'll be keeping an eye on the developments regards to rake caps etc (the crypto cap did not materialise on Jan 1st as many people had forecast but still may happen), I'll also be looking hard at trying to improve the edge further.....Finding the best deals, the best promos and searching out the value.

All the best for 2007....unless you are playing me!

Jim

The Poker Trap

2007-01-02T14:34:00.000Z

When ever 'normal' people talk to me about my working arrangements they always focus on the risk of having to rely on the game for a slice of regular income. I don't really see this as much of a risk, if the worst came to the worst I could always go back to full time 5 days a weeks 9 till 5. Sure I'd most likely hate it, having tasted the freedom and flexibility that playing poker offers it would be tough to return to the hard slog. But if the chips were down (the pan) it's an option. Even if I were to quit work 100% and things went pear shaped I would most likely not have too many problems in getting a decent job on a half decent salary. I have nearly 10 year experience in the IT industry so I'm lucky I have these options.

There are a group of players that on one hand I envy and on the other hand I kind of feel a bit sorry for. I envy them because they are bright (many have or are getting uni degrees) , they are young and they have more disposable income than I could ever have dreamed of when I was 21. Of course the piles of cash of come from Poker. They travel the world stopping in 5 star hotels and want for nothing. Life is good for these guys.

But this lifestyle once discovered and tasted comes with a down-side. Once you've had the money it's tough to go back to anything else. A 2:1in Economics from Leeds Uni is all well and good but most graduate jobs start off on not much money. Sure if you do well you can progress in most companies within a few years, but having tasted such a life who'd have the patience to work 45hr weeks for a few hundred quid, half of which gets donated to Mr Brown?

Now while the poker is new and fresh, then great! But the trap is that you can't afford to do anything other than play poker, even if you want to. You don't have a fall back plan and quite justifiably can't be bothered looking one. Before you know it you could be 35 years old looking for something more from life and find yourself stuck on the shelf playing poker till the end of your days! Scary thought, isn't it?

A new Dawn

2006-12-14T13:06:00.000Z

1st of all forgot to say if anyone signed up for the 36% Rakeback deal with Hills on the last post drop me a mail and I'll check if you are set up ok.

The 'Dusk Till Dawn' crew were in St Kitts all decked out in their new branded clothing. For those who don't know DTD is a new poker club that is being built in Nottingham, it's owned by a bloke called Rob Yong. Rob decided a year or two ago that it would be great to build a 'proper' poker club in the UK, and boy does this look like a proper poker club. From looking at the floor plans it's going to be the biggest and the best in Europe. It's also the 1st club in the UK to jump through the hoops with the authorities and actually apply for a licence.

I've followed the progress of the club on the Blonde Forum for the past 12months or so. It's actually quite scary what they have put on the line in terms of the commercial venture. I'd encourage anyone who's not had a look already to take an hour out and read his diary on the Blonde forum it's obvious that Rob is building this club as a poker player for poker players with commercial considerations coming 2nd!

The club is looking to open in April and today sees the launch of the online element. DTD is joining Crypto and has some interesting offerings in terms of promotions aimed at the high end and pro online players. The DTD $$$ club offers a graduated Rakeback scheme for all players capped at a max of 30% gross rakeback for those earning 5000 MPPs on Crypto a month.... about 1k gross rake a month I think.. not the greatest % I know.. but within a month or two this will be as good as it gets on Cypto plus there is added value on two fronts. DTD also allow you to carve up your rakeback and use some of it to buy into major live events as part of the DTD team... now here comes the value....

1: If you cash in the event you will be bought into another event at £5k
2: If you final table you will get £20k of events
3: If you win you receive a £100k sponsorship package from DTD.

This means that any half serious online player will be eating/drinking and playing rake free while playing live at DTD.

Now the value for the tournaments is loaded at the backend I know, you have to cash to get something back... but for the decent players who can go deep its a shot at a great lifestyle... even for just nosing into the cash at one event you get the next one free. It also looks like there will be benefits associated with the club ( club membership benefits and live promos etc) for the big online players as well, it's a good example of the extra value the card rooms are going to have to offer once they all adopt the same rakeback payments for all players. The big plus about Betfair was the way they engaged their player community with Team Betfair etc... DTD looks like it could take this to a new level.

Take a look at the DTD siteand have a read... you can also get a little extra (either bonus or freerolls to be decided) when you enter the bonus code wonky when you download the new online card room from the DTD site.

RIP Rakeback?

2006-12-06T16:40:00.000Z

Interesting moves are afoot in the online poker world. It would appear that the rooms have had enough of being squeezed and cutting each others throats with higher and higher rake back offers in attempts to lure (or hold onto) the big players. With players playing one room off against another to squeeze a few extra % the average rakeback deal has increased significantly over the past few years... a line in the sand was inevitable sooner or later.

Last week I had an e-mail sourced from the Prima Network, they are capping rakeback across the entire network at 30% gross for all players. Anyone caught offering more than this will be shot at dawn. Further more, affiliates are only allowed to mention rakeback to new signings after they have signed up for the site. So no more dangling carrots. Now I don't play on Prima so not really a problem until it becomes a trend across more networks...errrm....!

A little bird told me about a month ago that Crypto were planning to do a similar cap. Surely not I thought at the time! But it looks like it's going to happen. Apparently, all the Crypto managers had a meeting in St Kitts and it's been agreed that a 30% cap will be applied to all Crypto players early in 2007. From what I was told it's not a 100% done deal yet but looks very likely. For the casual player this is not too much of an issue but if you are raking £8k a month and have a half decent deal at mid 30s% then this is costing you 5K a year... not a massive amount to some high rakers... but it's a WSOP main event buy in and I'd rather have it in my pocket than someone elses.

I've highlighted the benefits of avoiding the rooms that use $ accounts previously , it will be interesting to see where the best value poker room is for UK players once the dust settles with some new poker rooms coming onto the market, the rake changes and the shake up to the US market. What with everyone on Crypto at the same rakeback and BF still struggling to come up with a site that does not give you a migraine and allows you to play more than 5 hands without a disconnect it will be interesting to see what everyone can come up with now to keep their noses ahead of the pack. All the value will be in the promotions the skins run, I'm not talking about $50 bonus, I mean added value in terms of £X rake for an EPT /WSOP package etc.

The deal a group of us did with Hills last month after we jumped from BF was all good value for the player at 36% gross, but may be short lived in light of the news, if anyone wants to get on for a few months before crypto cap it then feel free, clear your cookies and click HERE....

Early exit but everything irie!!

2006-11-30T15:49:00.000Z

Well St Kitts is fantastic, I managed to bring a faulty plug adaptor and blew up the baby monitor and the laptop but hey… in the Caribbean nothing gets you down. Even a day 1 exit from the main event didn’t dampen the spirits too much. It was a bit of a strange day to be honest. The table I drew was really really tough and I could not hit a flop for about 4hours, AK 4 times and missed everytime and QQ once with an AK flop. Still plenty of play left with 15k starting chips and only 155 runners in a 4 day event and even though the chip stack got down to about 6k I managed to dig in once again and get back up to about 20k by level 6 playing a little on the deserved tight passive image I’d done so well to foster for the 1st 4 hours.

20K was just a touch below ave when I was moved to table one. My 1st impressions were that it was a bit softer (then I spotted a WSOP bracelet on the wrist to the guy to my right! ) won a few then I managed to donk off a few chip with an ill timed move and needed to get busy when I picked up AsAc 1st to act and put my standard raise in. Two callers and I’m liking the 4d 4s 9d flop. Check – Check and last to act bets 3500 into a 6k pot. I tank in my last 11k and he calls with the nut flush draw…. Two diamonds later and its back to the pool for me in about 95th! Again not to worried about the play, get it in favorite and win and I’m sitting OK for day two where anything can happen… just not to be.

The hotel is great, the food is good and WH upgraded us to a suite so it makes life much easier with Jack having a bit of space. I’m about 1k up from the (wild) side action after getting paid in full with quad 8s buy TT!?!?! Me and the Mrs just going to chill for the rest of the week and maybe play a few STTs and a little cash…. Best to take it easy when the rum punch is flowing ;)

Cheers,

Jim

Singapore Report and off to Kitts

2006-11-26T15:05:00.000Z

Got back on Saturday evening and legged it up to Manchester on Sunday as Michelle had bought us tickets to see The Killers at the Manchester Apollo on Monday… back down to Leamington on the Tuesday to let the guys in for having a new kitchen fitted and start packing for St Kitts …. Head of to Kitts on Thursday 23rd. I think I need to go back to work for a rest. The first few days in Kitts will be strictly R&R.

As for the look back at the Singapore Main event, it was relatively uneventful to be honest all very ABC for most of the time, I got into trouble early on day1. AK on a AKQ flop a fair chunk went in on every street until the river when a J fell…. I just didn’t have him for JT at all but checked the river, he value bet and I called and he shows a fairly disgusting QT!

From then on it was a grind back up from 5k (started with 10k) , I touched 3900 at one point but was not too worried as there was still plenty of play in that stack in the early stages. I worked it up to 15k and then dipped to about 10k as the blinds started to bite a bit, the table raiser made it 2.5k to go and I look down to find AA, it was just a question of when the chips go in, I flat call hoping he catches a piece of the flop and sure enough he bets out when the flop comes Q high… what I didn’t bargain for was the fact that he was holding QQ, I push to his bet and he calls in a instant ..as you do!

I walk away from the table when a collective gasp at the turned Ace has me called back to fight another day. I know I’m going deep from this point.

A little while later and I’m lucky enough to pick up AA again and get action again. A mid stack had pushed to my preflop raise obliged again and I’m somewhat surprised to see Scott Grey push all in behind him, automatic call and its AA v KK (Scott) and AQ. This sees me chipped up for day one in about 10th spot with 68k with 70 of 315 runners returning for day 2.

Day two was spent picking fights with the short stacks and mostly winning. The bubble came and went in a flash… so no repeat of a 4 hour bubble as in Estonia thank god! With about 30 left it was my turn on the TV table next to Tony G, sadly no huge hands on the TV table for me so I will prob end up on the cutting room floor… good fun though.

Eventually went out in 15th after re-raising all in to a Singaporean chap who’d been making some interesting moves all day. I’m hold AJ and more importantly the table ROCK image …. Still he calls with 77 for 80% of his chips. I catch the jack first off the deck but I’m drawing thin as you like when he hits his set on the next card. He finished 2nd for the best part of $300k and I picked up $15k. Better than a kick in the nuts I know but I win the coin flip and I’m on the final table with a shot at paying off the mortgage! It didn't do the confidence any harm...next time!!

Later that evening Rob ended up winning the $500 side event after receiving some very bad news from home, I can honestly say it was the strangest days I've had in a long time. And while the money is no compensation for what happened I hope it sets him and the Mrs up for the next year or two and whatever they may bring!

In St Kitts now, and finally managed to log on… will post an update in next day or two once I drag myself away from the pool. ;o)
Cheers Jim

Singapore Day 2

2006-11-17T07:42:00.000Z

Out in 15th for about $15k... happy with the way I played and would not change much, but not so happy to miss out on the final table and a shot a being able to pay off the mortgage... will post a few details once I get chance but in the mean time here are a few pics...

Early Day two with Rob looking on.....

Tank in the tank.....

On the TV table :) ....

Tank cashes for 11kUS (18th I think?) , Noseyboy and Tankdad...

Bit crowded in on the final two tables....

More Pics from Day 1

2006-11-16T01:45:00.000Z

More pics from day 1.....

1 of tank as promised...

Nice Outfit Flushy?!?!?!?!....

Singapore Day 1

2006-11-15T19:06:00.000Z

Gawd im knackered... anyway just a quicki and some pics of the BF forumites Still very happy to still be in with 70 odd left from 313 starting and above ave chips. Sorry if i miss anyone out or get a name wrong!

Before the kick off... Doob, Tank , Matty , Rob the OEP , Ruru and Dibble

Ken Barlow and Deejay and Gus Hanson..

Matty at the end and Farrer with the nice head gear...

Waheey and Doobs...

Mandyloo and feck knows what sat next to him.. yank fish i was told :)

Pennick giving Tony G the eye on the TV table...

finally Tank stacked up in the biggest game of his life ordering 2 large brandys and 'diet' cokes!?!??!!? Ummm it wont upload... anyway u get the idea...BED! GN!

Singapore!

2006-11-14T10:13:00.000Z

Well the play hard for the 1st few days in Singa def happened! Sat here in my room with a stinking hangover. Tomorrow is the main event and I’m feeling a bit crap…. Water and OJ today and should be ok though.

The trip has been loads of fun so far, the hummer was entertaining (although the booze they provided was a bit naff) Pic of Rob, Me and Hawko enjoying the ride....

The flight wasn’t too bad and we arrived in Singa on time to be greated by the BF team. The only bad news was that I (and 150 other players) had to swap hotels today due to some ‘over booking’. To be honest it’s probably a good idea considering the state of my head at the moment.

1st night was the BF welcome do few beers then off to Raffles for several Singapore slings. Met a few people who I know from the tables, 350BHP, Mikka plus loads of forumites.

Last night we went out for a meal that Martin Green booked…. Japanese…. So it was sushi and kobi beef all round and much fun was had trying to figure out WTF we’d just eaten. As usual Dubai was on form ordering everything off the menu.

Not played a hand of poker yet. May play a few STTs tonight to warm up!!

Cheers Jim

PS the winner of the 1st annual Singapore Dubai looki likey contests was.....

;)

Sort out the taxi will you...

2006-11-08T14:43:00.000Z

True to form I've come down with a stinking cold a few days before we are due to fly off to Singapore. Hopefully it will be cleared by the weekend. Hawko and Kirk are coming down to Leamington to stop the night before we fly. Rob (Highstack) was in charge of getting half of Team Singapore Schlong to the heathrow from Leamington Spa... blinded by his new found fortune after his MTT win last week and no doubt egged on by Hawko I came home to find the details of our transport in my mail inbox....

Last I heard hawko was trying to persuade 4 strippers to make the trip with us was busy making sure we had enough bottles of plonk to entertain us on the way down. I can see the bank roll taking a hit on this trip already. I think the best thing to do will be play hard for the 1st few days and work hard for the latter half of the week. At the end of the day this will be the biggest buy in comp I've ever entered. The plan is to take the camera and update the blog every day or so from Singapore. No doubt there will be some entertaining stuff to report on.

Jim

The power of the collective

2006-11-03T09:46:00.000Z

Well I decided to give BF a go… OMG I can’t believe they managed to get it so wrong. Not only did it have the basic design issues I listed in the last post but there were also problems with cash tables randomly closing down mid game, PLO games paying out to the losing hand and cash outs going walk-a-bout!! BF had such a good reputation and it’s going to take ages to rebuild it now. Real shame.

Anyway this left me and a few other players scrambling around to try and find a decent deal with another poker room. I approached a few rooms on behalf of a number of medium / high rakers I knew and managed to get a decent group deal out of a very reputable crypto skin who also offer £ accounts so no nasty exchange rates to deal with.

The deal included a seat in a major event for the mega rakers (and I mean MEGA) and very good % gross RB deal, in fact about as good as I’ve seen for a £ based Uk account. Just shows what you can do if you make a few calls and have a few people together. I’m not going to spam it on here cos it was aimed at people who rake a half decent amount a month and I don’t want to dilute it for everyone.. but drop me a mail if you a regular player and want the details.

On a side note I noticed last night that BF had me listed in the market for the APT. Mum will be sooo impressed! Congrats to Rob (Highstack) for his big win on BF this week… Good timing !! :o)

Good Luck..

Jim

Times they are a changin!

2006-10-30T14:11:00.000Z

Today sees the launch of the new BF stand alone site. They have split from Crypto and going it alone. I had an advanced look at the new site last week for a freeroll tournie. I have to say I think BF have got it wrong here. The site looks ok but suffers from some fundamental flaws. For a start I will not play on a site where there are no hand histories stored, not only does this mean I can't use poker tracker but it also means I've got no easy means of auditing monthly progress.. hands played etc.

The screen format is also an issue. I do most of my 'work' laying on my arse on the sofa playing on the laptop and the screen resolution will only support two tables max on the new BF site as it does not allow you to overlap tables. 90% of the time I'm playing on 3 tables so I'm dropping 30% of my productivity by making the move. There are a few other niggles as well, the interface needs some work and it's a pain in the arse to try and raise by a specific amount. Software aside, I have had no doubts that BF now offer one of the best 'poker' packages to the serious UK player. Their promotions, support , RB deals and general sense of community are second to none. I also do genuinely believe that BF listen to their customers and will be updating the new site as soon as possible to correct these problems. I come from a business IT background and it's all too easy to say BF should have put these changes in before they launched the site. I think they would have liked to but I'm sure that things like severance notice with Crypto were also driving the deadlines and what they could achieve in the timeframe. It's also a concern that if they rush the changes in then the system stablility will be comprimised. They have some nice promos to keep people sweet as well but a few hundred quid is not going to swing the issue .... for the time being I can not play on this site.... at the end of the day it's business!

The problem I've got now is where do I play? The Mrs has hijacked my Hills account, it will be interesting to watch the player liquidity levels on Crytpo over the next few weeks to see how much the BF move hits them.. the big fear is that there will not be enough players to support a decent number of cash games on either site. This would be a disaster... it's my livelihood that's being messed around with here!! Add to the mix the turmoil caused by the Gambling bill in the US and it makes for interesting times ahead!

On a happy side note I played a £200 six pack on Friday... i never play sixpacks ! But I played like a looney in the latter stages and won, heads up i got it in with A8 (my lucky heads up hand) vs AJ and spiked two pair on the river! Whoohooo!

A nice problem to have

2006-10-23T18:54:00.000Z

Keeping a decent P&L account and a careful eye on my bankroll is all well and good. But these sat wins have left me with a small dilemma. How do I account for a $8k package win on the P&L spreadsheet?

Do I stick the full value down in the + column? What happens if I don't cash? Do I then take it out? I don't want a big $11k loss in November because I didn't cash in Singapore or St Kitts do I? I could wait and just stick down any concrete returns from the events? But I want some recognition for what I've won each month... it's nice to look back and the end of each month/year and review the final figure, it gives me a warm glow... usually!!

And then what about all the odds and sods that come with the packages, the spending money, the flight money, the hotel money!?! Do I account for that or not? I'm guessing not but come the end of the year I will have won $20k+ worth of sats and could end up showing nothing for it on the balance sheet. That can't be right ,can it? If I were not taking the family to Kitts then I'd have to fork out a few £K on a holiday from savings and surely that saving should be recognised in some way? And what about the extra money I spend while on the trips on beer, stuffed donkeys and bottles of XO in duty free? .... does that come out of the poker roll or my (joint!!) current account !? Dunno!

I'm starting to see why the guys who play live a lot have such trouble drawing a line between poker bank roll and day to day living money to pay the bills/buy dinner with. I know… It's a nice problem to have, but feel free to let me know if you have a solution.

Another day... another seat!

2006-10-10T08:12:00.000Z

Well last week was interesting! Lots of cash games with some moderate success and two tournaments, the 1st being a freeroll to the BFAPT in Singapore in November and the second being another BFAPT satellite using 4000mpps (reward points on crypto) to buyin. I've got more MPPs that I know what to do with so I thought why not?!

As with the previous weeks WH Grandprix I was feeling pretty confident in the freeroll and building up a steady stack, I look down to see AdKd and make a reasonable raise from an early position with 1 caller .

Flop comes 4d 9d 8d ... lovely! I lead off and get raised..lovely...i flat call... turn Jd .... I lead off with a modest bet and he calls... river As .... all the money goes in and he flips Jd7d for a turned straight flush!!!! LOVELY

Sunday comes along and there are about 80-90 runners in the MPP tournie all chasing 2 seats. It's not a freeroll as such and people have to play a bit to get 4k MPPs so there were a lot of familiar names in the line up and not too many muppets.

I tick over nicely without looking at the tournament window and after an hour or two I see the field has halved and I'm mid table. Again, i'm feeling pretty good about my play and only took one serious hit for about 40% of my chips when I pushed with a nut flush draw into a short stack who'd already flopped a full house and rivered quads... oops!

It didn't take long to recover and I'm sitting ok with 20 runners left, as one or two more get picked off I'm starting to dwindle a little in chips and decide it's time to move up a few gears... a double up with KK vs AQ helps me along a little but I'm still a little short. I pick up the monster that is T3os in the SB. Everyone folds to me and I push in for 9k to pick up the 2k blinds and antes... but oh no the BB whos also playing 9k decides that this is the time to make a stand and calls with A6!!!! Shocking call imo and he gets what is deserved with a 3 on the flop and a 3 on the river.

I work it up to an above average 26k by the time the final talbe is underway. I'm in the SB and pick up TT ... Mavis is on the button playing 13k and raises to 3k.... I push in (again!! ;o) ) and Mavis dwells for a second or two and makes call with his tournament life on the line with A8os! No help for mavo and im sitting pretty with 40k in chips (about 160k in play and 8 left) , again I don't like this call at all.

I decide to sit tight for a while and let the short stacks donk it out , I also went pretty card dead at the same time... about 6 orbits go by and I don't find a card. Funds are getting towards 30k and I've got Deejay on MSN thinking I'm starting to bottle it and dare not play a hand... as if!?

A Rag raise from early position looking for some respect and I can't call an all in for 18k... down to 25k. A bit of up and down and I'm still on about 30k with 4 players left.... a shortie pushes for 10k on my BB and I've got 2.5k in there already and make the call with pocket 6s. KT is shown and 5 cards later he’s out and it's 3 handed.

I'm on 40k, the guy to my left is on 90k and to his left 30k. This remains as the status quo for a long time, I'm struggling to get at the shorties BB as I can't afford to take the big stack on with a marginal hand. As such I give a lot of my SBs to the big stack uncontested, this is fine as the shortie is getting hammered on his BB and he wasn't attacking my BB much as I'd moved over the top a few times. The net result was I was bleeding chips... but he was bleeding them faster.

This was all fine and dandy until the big stack gifts him a double up and the situation is reversed and I'm on 25k and hes on 37k!! Time to find that gear again and before long i'm on 35k and he's on about 30k with the blinds starting to hit hard at 4.5k every 3 handed orbit.

It's wasn't going to be long until all the chips were in.... I look down to see Ad8d ... now I won the Vegas sat with A8 , i won the CPC seat with A8, karma was calling an I stick them from the button on the shorties BB. He calls in a flash and turns over AKos .... ooooops!

--- FLOP ----- [2d 2h Qc]
Paired board gives me a small life line!

----- TURN ----- [Qd]
Shocking turn for him..splits the pot unless he catches one of two aces or two kings, but I've still got 12 outs to win it...

----- RIVER -----][Td]
Rivers me a nut flush and a $8k seat to the BFAPT.... Had to feel for the chap! Ridding my luck a lot in this one I know, but fortune favors the brave!

Results in these sats are now getting silly.

Cheers,

Jim

‘Bangbus is not a clueless Twat’

2006-09-26T19:46:00.000Z

I think I’ve had just about the most frustrating weekend of poker I’ve ever had, we had nothing planned for the weekend so I decided to catch up and play some hands. 5000 hands and £300,000 worth of pots later and I was £20 down on the BF account!

To be honest I’m relatively happy. There were some shocking suck outs and I still draw even so I can’t be playing that bad.. and I only tilted once (does not happen too often)

I’d been banging my head against a brick wall for a few hours when the following hand comes up..

dealt to DonkeyJim [6s 7s]
pescados: folds
PokaHunta: calls £5
Bangbus2: raises to £20
mag-c: folds
Isomerkii: folds
DonkeyJim: calls £15
PokaHunta: calls £15
----- FLOP ----- [6d 7h Ks]
DonkeyJim: checks
PokaHunta: checks
Bangbus2: checks
----- TURN ----- [6d 7h Ks][3s]
DonkeyJim: checks
PokaHunta: bets £50
Bangbus2: folds
DonkeyJim: raises to £216 and is all-in
PokaHunta: calls £166

He flips K5os!!!!

Of course the 4 gutshot rivers… well that was it! Bangbus2 makes some comment about ‘Should not have called the raise anyway’ …. I thought it was aimed at me and I went nuts… on reflection I think he was taking about Hunta, but I threw my toys big style. I told Bangbus I’d name this weeks blog entry ‘Bangbus is a clueless Twat’ …sorry Bangbus. It was a small pot as I’d not reloaded , but sometimes the pot does not matter.

Pot of the weekend was running AA into Mikka with KK…nice to see £1200 moving back in my direction. She seems to be bulldozing half the players on 2/5 5/10 at the moment.

With me now playing the on Betfair, the Mrs is using the Hills account, she’s got about £400 in there, so me nicking £110 to play the WillHill grand prix sat was out of the question. I could not be arsed trying to move money around so I decided to enter the poxy £13 sat and have it running in the background. 28 runners and 2 seats in the £110 entry sat on the sunday…. I get sucked out when someone catches a gutshot in 3rd place but still pick up £50 for the Mrs… I threw another tant and jumped back into the 22:15 £13 sat. This time it had 30 odd runners and an added seat… 4 go through and I win it easily. I’m starting to think that cash games are not my true calling.

Sunday night arrives and I make a cracking start in the £110 sat. Theres 2 x 6k seats up for grabs in the WH GrandPrix and the chance to make a total arse of yourself on the TV. I double up at the end of round 1 when some bets the flush draw into my 2pair and misses.

Level 3 and I’m sitting well on 5.5k I call a big raise with 99 in a 3 way pot. Flop comes

K 9 T ….

Lots of raising and re-raising and I’m all in heads up against another bigstack who I just have covered…. He flips AK os and I’m on my way to a final table with a big chip stack…. That is until the turn brings another Ten….and the river a King.

As you can imagine not impressed. I managed to spin a few hundred chips into 2k but was well behind the pace at that point. Running AQ into AA was a sorry end to the proceedings.

Needless to say the lucky sod (Jeff Kimber) who sucked out went onto win it… I checked him out on the hendon mob player database and he's had a few results .. hairy arms though! I told him that he had to tell the TV interview how fucking lucky he was in the sat and if it wasn’t for me he’d be BFH…wonder if he will??

Who needs to pay for a family holiday?

2006-09-20T11:32:00.000Z

Well after the ear chewing I got from a few people at the Betfair forum game (hi to those who I met by the way) and a few comments on the blog I figured it was about time to update and try to keep regular updates coming, I'll try for 2-3 a month. If truth be known I've just been so bloody busy recently, playing poker for a living is all well and good until living gets in the way of playing poker. The baby makes it tough to get a 'decent session' in ... of poker that is! We've been away on holiday and we are currently in the process of moving house. All this puts the squeeze on the number of hands I can play in a month. From running at 30,000-40,000 hands a month I'm lucky if I can hit 15000 at the moment.

Things have been running ok. At the end of July I accidentally entered a sat for the CPC in St Kitts on Hills, I could have sworn it was an added package, but it turned out to be 1 package guaranteed. 40 players in there meant that there was little or no value what so ever... but that does not really matter if you win it does it? So come November its off to St Kitts with all the family tagging along for the ride. This also has the plus side of not having to pay out for a family hols that we were due, I asked Shell if I could add the 5K saved from the savings to my bank roll... needless to say, it's not going to happen ;)

Almost 100% of my play now is on the Betfair account, I put together a team for the BFAPT Team Rake promo and 'Team Singapore Schlong' (dont ask!) is currently winning by the narrowest of margins. Basically for every 19k we rake we get one $8k seat and travel to Singapore. 10k gets a travel package only and there's a 5k bonus for the team who rakes the most. At the moment it looks like we will hit the £100k rake mark (omg, thats a lot of rake!!) by the time the promo ends on Oct 21st. I'm currently a touch behind the curve in my rake target but one or two people who joined have donated their rake to me (they don't want to go and owed me one) so their rake should get me a package all being well.

The bank roll is recovering to a healthy state slowly but surely I'd still flag it as 'AMBER' but it's just about at a level where I can 3 table £2/5 NL again, but I still need to keep and eye on things. While the cash so far this year has not been the best (it's still +ive but those two shocking months put a big hole in my annual profit) I've been really pleased with the target to attend some big events, Tallin, Vegas (ok I cashed the ticket!) , St Kitts and maybe Singapore is a pretty decent return considering you can count the satalittes I've entered on two hands. Think the long/mid term plan is to stay working part time, keep the cash ticking over and look to hit a little luck in one of these big events and go deep. It may take 3 months or 10 years but as long as I can get into a few a year at no or little cost to the bank roll then I'm free rolling for an achievable (well i think so!) and significant payout.... as with most things poker, a little patience goes a long way.

Good Luck and take care..

Jim

Doing a Hawko

2006-07-21T19:35:00.000Z

It’s been a while since I posted…. But I’ve not been doing too bad so I thought its about time I gave an update a la hawko ;) To be honest had my hands full with the little man. Hardly played a hand in the 1st few weeks of June and then started playing a little and showed a tidy £2k profit for not many hands played at all.

I’ve mainly been playing £1/2 NL … now not so long ago I’d have laughed at the idea of playing at these lowly limits, but I’ve quite enjoyed it! There’s always a choice of games, you invariably get paid with a hand, the average pots are not a million miles away from the ave pots on 2/5 (which is looking dead on crypto over the past month or so) and it’s populated with total muppets !

Towards the end of June I started to play a bit more and at the moment I’m trying to get at least 5000 hands a week in.

A few weeks ago the invite came through from BF to play in the WSOP 7k package freeroll. This was what I got for the aborted attempt to rake qualify for a full package on betfair. I had £0 in my BF account but logged on and was surprised to see only 12 people show up (from 31 invited) to play for 2 packages! I think the fact that the game was at 6:30pm and BF only gave us 24hrs notice had something to do with the poor show… but others loss is my gain. Perhaps I was a little hasty in condemning the BF account as a cursed account … cos I won the package. After discussion with BF I opted to take the cash as opposed to the trip and after shelling out £500 to 3rd after a 'bit of business' showed a nice profit of £3300 for 90mins effort.

A half decent few weeks on the cash tables to boot and my bare bones bank roll of £1k form a month or two ago is flying toward the £10k mark and I’ve hardly played! I’m trying to remember what all the fuss was about… maybe less is more .. who knows? Anyway I’m starting to enjoy it again and considering what to do next. Also managed a minor cash at duff home game last week… Nice to meet all the BF forum nutters.

BF have finally got their act together and put together a competitive GROSS rake package… I think this puts them at the front of the pack now. Just hope the room split from crypto does not destroy the player equity of both sites. I think I’m going to give the cursed account another shot.

BF have also launched a team rake promo for the Betfair Asian Poker Tour… If any BF high rakers fancy teaming up then let me know sooner rather than later.

Cheers,

Jim

Jack High!

2006-06-05T12:39:00.000Z

Jack Joseph decided to pitch up two weeks overdue...mum and son both fine and I'm up to my neck in nappies! If I ever get time for another hand of poker it will be miricle!

Take it easy

2006-05-11T14:36:00.000Z

It’s been good to have a break. For the past two weeks I’ve hardly played poker. I took the decision to cash all but £1k of the bank roll out into savings and get back to basics. In May I’ve played about 4000 hands so far all at £1/2NL. Normally, I’ve have played about 4 times this many at higher levels.

The shocking run I’d had on the Betfair account seems to have come to an end. I’ve been using the Hills account as I’ve no chance of hitting the WSOP package with the number of hands I’m playing at the moment and WH account is on a better rake deal.

Since the change I’ve even managed to suck a few people out! You know your luck has changed when you call and all in from a short(ish) stack with JK on a J 6 4 flop … he flips 66 and I hit runner runner to make a jacks over kings. Also had an amusing hand this morning and was paid in full after calling a big preflop re-raise with 5s6s only to see a flop of 4s 7s 8s. The only mildy annoying thing is that these are for £100-£200 pots… not the £500-£1000 pots I was getting killed on in March/April. But so far so good, it will be interesting to see if I can rebuild a decent size BR from £1k, it’s already over £2k with no real effort at all… if I keep things simple and ticking over there would be no money pressure to go back to work full time.

I’d like to thank everyone for their support, both in the comments and the people who’ve had a chat on MSN. Rob suggested I have a dabble in a few MTTs and having not played any for a while I thought it would be fun to have a stab at some of the smaller ones… managed a 3rd place at my 1st attempt with 150 runners, it was only a £20 buy in but I really enjoyed it so may well play a few more. Tonight is the Virgin Poker bloggers free roll for a $1500 WSOP seat, I’ve just had a look at the structure and it could be a long slog for one seat!! 70 runners, 2500 starting chips, 15min levels and a 10-20 start for the blinds!

Time for a change

2006-04-27T09:08:00.000Z

Not written for a few weeks… I guess I’ve been suffering from bad beat blues. The first few days in April were ok but since then it’s been pretty abysmal. I’ve not lost massive amounts as I had reduced the stakes well down. But the beats had been fairly shocking, it seemed like almost every day I would be taking a massive hit or two and struggling to recover. I would be getting it in on a 554 flop holding 54 only to be called by an over pair and end up losing. When I have QQ and the flop comes QJJ the guy has jacks. When I hit middle set he rivers a higher set, it goes in on a AK flop holding AK and he’s been slow rolling AA etc etc etc.

Now taking hits like this day after day, week after week is bearable if you pick up the odd pot as well. But it seems that the gods were not for letting this happen. I’d hold AA vs his AK and flop would come As Ks Js 2s Tc !! This has happened 3 times in a week!

The trouble with a run like this is that it impacts your ability to play normally. After a while you start to see ghosts and become worried about playing the nuts on the turn in case the river does you. You become a calling station, and still end up getting your money in, but on the opponents terms and not your own. As things start to spiral the cards dry up and you can’t find your way into a pot, when you do pick up AKs on a King high flop you cling to it and overplay it walking slap bang into matey boy with bottom two pair. It short you end up playing like a total twat and this simply compounds the miserable run even further.

Things came to a head this week when after a brief resurgence I managed to blow 5 buy ins at £ 1 / 2 NL … It does not get much worse than this, if you are doing your nuts at this level then something is wrong! Afterwards I sat down and reflected. I came across a recent post on Dpommos blog where he quotes someone else’s mantra about recovering from a downward spiral and being a profitable poker player. At the end of the piece there is a sentence that resonated with me.

From time to time I will check my play and if I’m playing badly I will stop playing.

I’m playing badly… so I’ve decided to stop playing. I could go on but I’m sure in this frame of mind I’d dump the rest. So I’m banking it in the baby fund for security, Shell has just finished work for 9 months and now’s not the time to be living on the edge. I’m probably going to go back to work full time.

Poker has always been fun, but the past two months have been no fun at all. To compound this I’ve been playing more and more for the WSOP promo (shame cos I’m not far off on course for it… if anyone fancies taking over the account mail me and we can maybe talk) , over the past few years it’s gradually taken more and more of my time up, ive put on a few pounds and let my social life slip a little. Considering I’m going to be a dad in the next few weeks, now seems as good a time as any to claim my life back.

You could say that but for a small loosing run I’d still be happy playing every waking hour and I guess you would be right, but things have a funny way of working out and in some ways I’m glad to have made this decision. Poker has been good to me, I’ve made a lot of money over the past few years, I guess that’s more than most can say. It was good while it lasted and while I have more discipline than most it obviously is not enough.

I may well continue playing some casual poker for fun… With FUN being the operative word. I’ll probably keep the blog updated once every few weeks of so as well.

Do you really want to be playing full time when you are 80?

2006-04-06T09:01:00.000Z

March is over, and I don’t mind admitting I’m glad to see the back of it. It’s the 1st losing month I’ve had for a while, so I suppose one was due sooner or later. I’ve been playing more $2/5 in the last week and so far so good, I’ve yet to post a losing day in April. The end of March was quite half decent as well, a nice little run and some good news from Mr William Hill in the form of a $1k consolation for hitting the bubble in Tallinn… very generous and again a big pat on the back for Hills for looking after their clients.

I used some of the money from Hills to enter the $600K on Crypto on Sunday, I was feeling a degree under the weather and should have stayed in bed. I never really got going in all honesty and pushed all in pre flop for my last 1000 chips with AKs, a 5k stack made a call with 99 and that was me heading for an early bath. I was really glad to see Hawko make the final table, I know he’s been having a tough time the last few months and $30k payout is just what he needed!

I’ve been keeping a little graph on my progress towards the Betfair WSOP rake promo. So far so good, up to the 31st March I’d generated about £9k… quite scary when you think about it! This just about puts me on track for the full $15k WSOP package (need £28k rake required by 25th June) however with me playing more $2/5 and the baby due in May I may well have to lower my sights to one of the lesser packages that BF are offering… £20k rake gets you a $4k package and £24k rake gets a $8k package. We’ll see how it goes.

Pensions seem to be in the news a lot at the moment, so I thought it apt to do a little piece. I can see you all stretching for the link to Pommo's blog already!!

If you are playing poker for fun or side by side with a full time job then hopefully you do not need to worry about providing a pension from your poker funds because you will already have a great one sorted out with your work?? Yes??

If however you are working as a poker professional then it is something you really, really need to be concerned about. We’ve all seen the figures on the TV, most people with a normal job can not be arsed sorting out a decent pension so how can a poker pro sort one out?

It’s more a case of how can a poker pro (or anyone else for that matter) not afford to sort one out!! Poker = job, and while I enjoy the work and I will probably always play to some extent until my last days, but I really don’t want to be sat there multitabling 8hrs a day when I’m 75.

With poker earnings not being subject to UK income tax , the tax implications of pensions skew things a little. It probably does not make any sense to set up a traditional pension. The whole advantage of a traditional pension is that you don’t pay tax on the funds when you pay into the pension. If you are not paying tax on the income anyway the advantage is lost. Plus you are restricted in how you can spend the fund, you have to buy an annuity with the option to take a lump sum tax free.

If you are still working part time then it makes sense to put as much of your taxable pay from the job into a pension scheme, this maximises the tax benefits and allows you to retire at a half decent age! This is currently what I do.

If you are full time poker then there are a number of options, you can do worse than stick it all into an equity ISA, you can put several thousand pounds per annum into an equity ISA and all earnings from them are TAX free and not subject to capital gains tax. You also have the freedom to do exactly what you want with the money, although this could be disadvantage if you go through a bit of a lean streak and are tempted to dip in! You need to pick your funds with care as they are subject to the ups and down of the stock exchanges…. but then so is your run of the mill company pension.

These are just my musings, please don’t take them as gospel!! I hope they have given some of you food for thought though. Please feel free to comment if you have any ideas or have been looking at some of the points I’ve covered. Before you take any action I would also recommend seeking the advice of personal financial advisor/ accountant.

For all you 20 somethings who keep putting thinking about things like this off, I’ll leave you with this passing thought.....

If you are 30 years old and wish to retire at 65 with a pension of £23000 per annum (todays prices) then you need to be saving £1000 per month from now on in a private pension!

Live and kicking (myself even harder!)

2006-03-28T11:49:00.000Z

There’s a good reason why I don’t play many tournaments…

You may have to stick with me on this it could be a long one. After the arrival in Tallinn on the Friday there was a 500euro comp in the evening. It kicked off at 5pm but I decided to catch up on some sleep in the afternoon. If I woke up before 5pm I’d play if I didn’t I would hit the cash tables / single table tournaments in the evening.

I woke up at 9pm and headed down to check the action. Apparently the cash games were getting raked to death… up to £15 in some pots and run in Estonian Krons (it’s a hard enough working out pot odds without having to do a currency exchange as well)

I decided to play a few single table games and relax before the main even. The STTs were friendly and most were kicking off for about £50 with 10 runners.

I lost the first one with a stupid move, by the time the 2nd one got going quite a few players were out of the 500 tournament and we were joined by two of the Hills sponsored pros (Julian Thew and Steve Vladar) a few locals and a few scandies and Brits. I chopped the 1st one with a local when 50/50 in chips (he had to go apparently and with the half the locals in there having mob connections I was in no mood to argue!), it was interesting only in the fact that I got down to 3 handed without having to show a hand, for some reason I was getting respect. The 3rd one I won as well and in the 4th I cashed in 3rd place. So far so good, it was good to meet a few people and have a chat with Julian Thew… nice chap!

A decent nights sleep and I was ready to go for the main event! It was looking pretty well set up for my game… hour levels, 63 runners , 15000 starting chips and with William Hill adding 25k we were playing for 151,000 euros with a final table of 9 getting paid. There was the expected invasion of Scandies, a few internationals and locals,and about 15 Brits. Hills are obviously targeting the Scandinavian market at the moment and deserve credit for adding the 25k.

My table looked ok. I had Steve Vladar two to my left and having played with him for a few hours the night before and seen him play on TV a few times I was happy have known player near by. Also on there for a short time was Matt Tyler who had a finger in every pot going until he was moved.

1st hand and I’m not off to the greatest start. I pick up AJ and put a raise in I get a couple of callers including Mr Vladar. Great flop for me … Jd with two rag hearts. I decide to lead off with a mid pot bet and get raised by SV, this chases everyone else out of the pot and I flat call. I thought about a re-raise but I know he’s very tight, and I’m little worried he’s got the over-pair or hit his set. Turn is a black rag and I check he bets about 1300 into the 2000 pot. The one place I didn’t put him was the flush draw, so I call and decide there and then that if the 3rd heart drops I’m betting it after I’ve checked the turn… The heart comes on the river and I lead off with a 2000 bet and he thinks for a few seconds and calls showing JhTh flush.. not the best of starts and 4500 down.

This changed the game plan a little, as I could not really afford to take another big hit, so it was batten down the hatches see if I could grind it up again. I then go card dead for a long time, picking up the odd pot here and there but drifting down to about 8-9k by the start of level 4.

I then pick up 44 in a pot with 4 limpers, flops comes 4 K Q. I fire a small bet in looking for a bite and sure enough one of the other three has hit something and puts a raise in. I smooth call. Turn comes an ace, and I stick a mid sized bet in and he flat calls. OK he’s on K rag. River is a great card for me, another K. I bet out and he flat calls and mucks showing a king. Back up to about 14k.

I then limp with Ah3h and call a small raise from Steve Vladar. Flop comes 3 3 J, I lead off and get the raise from SV. At the moment I’ve got him on AJ and I think I’m going to get paid in full. I flat call his raise, turn another J !! Bugger! I check and look up to see him checking and looking like he’s lost the winning lotto ticket. Crafty sod had the Jack beat and has QQ, KK, AA. I stick a little value bet in on the river and he shakes his head and folds. I asked him in the break if I got lucky with that jack and he said yes I had the jack beat. I’m starting to enjoy myself!

Things go quiet through levels 5 and 6 and I pick up a few chips here and there. I’m up to about 20k when I get moved to a much tougher table. Within a few hands it’s fairly obvious that there are several scandie ‘at-it’ merchants who are re-raising with rags every other hand. I’m safe in chips and keep my head down until I get a better feel for the table picking up the odd pot here and there to keep my nose in front. The scandie to my right was all over my blinds and I was looking for a spot to take him on. That came when everyone folded to his SB and he raises to 1.2k, I’m 99% sure he is at it and re-raise him to 4.5k playing 5h6h, I’m a bit worried when he calls but when the flop comes 5d 8h 4h I’m over the moon.

He pushes all in for 24k and has me covered… I’m not laying that down, I think I’m already in front with the 5 to be honest but even if hes on AA I’ve still got 17 outs twice to improve. With 10k in the pot and I stick ‘em in. Sure enough he sighs and flips Q7os. Just to rub it in a bit the river is the 7 making his over pair and my gutshot straight.

I get moved again they announce that play will finish ahead of schedule in 2hours time. The new table was again a tough one with lots of scandies. Including one hyper aggressive chap in a suit (who I later found out was Ken Lennard) who was two to my right on my BB. I had Steve (another Hills qualifier) on my SB and it wasn’t to long before we locked horns. I re-raise him with KK and he calls… the flop comes 6 7 T (two clubs) and he pushes all in… again he has me covered and I have a think, I’m 50/50 on the call, one of my Kings is a club…and my calling station instinct kicks in. He says “oh shit!” turning over two total rags that just about give him an up and down draw… 4 8 !! He does not catch his straight and I’m up to 60k ish.

I bleed off 15k to Ken Lennard when I call his 'button steal' with A9s flop comes T high and I bet after his check and he pushes all in.... it was only 17k more to me to call but I fold… if I lose it I’m back in the shit with 20odd thousand.

There’s only about 40mins of play left in the day and I tell myself once more not to do anything silly. Steve Vladar is now again to my left and has not played a hand for about 2 hours slowly bleeding off his chips. He’s playing about 28k and I’m on about 47k. It’s all fold to my SB and I wake up with JJ and put my normal raise in. He pushes forward for all his stack and I’ve got a decision to make.

Ok, I know he’s tight so he’s probably got a hand. I also know he’s a half decent player and if he’s not played a hand for ages and is getting low on chips then he needs to get paid. If he’s got AA KK (maybe QQ) he has to gamble and let me see a flop in order to get paid. So it’s not AA KK … that leaves me with mid pocket pair or AK/AQ. If it a mid pair I’m miles in front, if its AQ/AK I’m favourite and I’ve got chips in the pot, if it’s QQ I’m still in the game 20k or so left if I lose it… CALL!

He flips AK and picks up an extra two outs on a Q T Rag flop… another Rag and another Q seals his fate and I’m up to about 80K. Play finished shortly after and I’m happy to see that there is no massive chip leader… but 3 of us on 80K!!

DAY2

22 returned for day two, the average stack was 40k, so I was very happy. There were a few short stacks and being scandies they were not hanging around. The starting requirements for a push from these guys was not high and I called a 15k all in preflop with AsJs and he flips AQos, we both catch our kicker but no more help and I take an early hit.

Decided to be patient and find a spot to take on one or two of the guys who were getting desperate. I didn’t have to wait long and I raise with KK and find action from a mid stack who pushes all in with AKos… No help for him and I’m up to about 100k.

We are down to about 15 when all fold to my SB. I raise with A6suited and get the call. The flop comes A 6 Q. I put in a probe bet and he takes the bate and pushes all in, I beat him to the pot and another 40k comes my way after he flips JT!

It then took a while to get down to 11 players. It was tough to find a spot with Ken Lennard still raising a lot and playing his flops pretty well. I did take him on once or twice and I think the score was probably 2-1 to him.

The play went on and on and the blinds steadily rising started to bite into my stack as I dwindled down towards 100k and was pretty much card dead. Finally the 11th player went and we were hand for hand on the bubble. There were no really short stacks but the blinds were putting pressure on everyone. Play went on and on and on! I must have watched about 5 all in races where the short stack could have easily gone out, Matt Tyler got very lucky when his tournament was on the line when he pushed with TT and was called by QQ. He caught a ten on the flop and it was to prove costly for me.

I really needed to start playing some hands but short of re-raising with total trash I was drifting into trouble. I picked up A9 and put my standard raise in and get re-raised all in. I did the same with KK and everyone folds! The guy to my left is getting into a little trouble on 35k and I’m on about 85k. All fold to me on the SB and I push in with 83os looking to pick up the 9k blinds and 2500 in antes. I think he’s got enough to fold on the bubble, especially as there are shorter stacks on the other table. Unless ,of course, has a monster… sods law being what it is… he calls with AK, and I’m relieved to have live cards but he picks the pot up with A high.

This leaves me around the 50k mark and in the shit along with 3-4 other players. I need to find a spot urgently with it costing 11500 every 5 handed round as we had been playing on the bubble for what must have been 2 hours. I push with AJ and all fold, a few more races on the other table can’t give us a bubble boy! All fold to my BB and then I have to give one up to a raise. I’m still hanging in there with 35-50k.

I then pick up TT under the gun. No way on Gods earth am I passing! ALL IN! My mate Ken calls and flips AQos… the poker gods waste no time is putting me out of my misery with a Q on the flop and I’m out in 10th, 9th place paid 4.5K.

With so much bubble play it did not take long for players to fly out on the final table. Matt went deep with a 4th place finish and Ken L continued his run of good fortune and good play out drawing AQ with A4 on the river to seal the critical pot of the final stages and form there went forward to win it taking 55k.

Needless to say… I’m a bit gutted! The money is not the end of the world but missing the chance to get interviewed by Rhowena Colclough on the TV is the real sickner :o)

Ken L came and had a word with me after and told me I played too tight on the bubble. He’s right. I just could not believe it was to last 2 hours combined with the fact I was pretty much card dead for that time.

As you can imagine I’ve been replaying things over and over in my head seeing where it went tits up. Other than trying to bluff some pots on the bubble with trash (which I did once or twice) I’m not sure, I probably need to take a look at this area of my game. Watching that man Mr Lennard has given me some food for though.

Taking the positives from the weekend… I finished about a £1k up and it was great fun.. and I’ve got a William Hills cap! I met some great people… big hello to Gav, Steve, Jake , Julian etc.

I just need to put it behind me and look forward. After the Broadway and Tallinn it’s given me some confidence that I can go deep along with some of the best players in Europe. But there is still room for a massive improvement especially in one or two areas!

As for the reason I don’t play many tournaments…I’ve forgotten already! ;o)

Good luck
Jim

Tallinn bound

2006-03-24T17:25:00.000Z

I’m starting writing this on the plane out to Estonia. Despite Robs advice I’ve decided to travel with laptop and plan to do one or two updates and maybe a couple of pics while I’m out there.

It’s not been the best preparation so far! I got to the hotel at Stansted at midnight and had the alarm set for 5am after a fitful sleep. I also managed to leave my contact lens box at home and had to sleep in them, my eyes are like piss holes in the snow at the moment.

Any thoughts of sleep on the plane were soon scuppered as just behind me is a group of lads on a stag do. Most of them are ok but in amongst them is the MOST ANOYING COCKNEY I’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting in my entire life. He reminds me of a cross between two Fast Show characters, Colin the annoying office prankster with the voice and laugh (every 30 seconds) of Arthur the not very funny old time music hall comedian. He’s just offered the air hostess his passport in exchange for another round of beers, I encouraged her to take his offer on two counts, the first being with any luck the Estonian police would subject him to a rubber glove job if he pitched up without his passport and secondly we would not have to put up with him on the way home.

It’s good to get a break away from March. I can’t remember a time when I ran as bad as I have been doing. Things have perked up a little in the last few days but prior to that it was scary. I’ve always laughed when people talk about golden accounts but I’m starting to believe it! I switched to Betfair from Hills for the WSOP promo towards the end of Feb and ever since its been 3 steps back and one step forward. I’ve had some shocking beats, set over set more times than I can count and everytime I hit a decent flop the turn and river seems to deliver 4 to a flush or straight. I could probably bore you with about 60 such hands but I won’t.

Having said all that the bank roll is a touch bruised but far from knackered and things have definitely been on the up the past few days. I plan to enjoy the weekend in Tallinn and come back refreshed. I may well drop a gear and beat up the lower NL tables for a week or so.

Good Luck,

Jim

Perceptions

2006-03-20T10:15:00.000Z

It’s been quite and amusing 10 days since my last post. A number of the regular players from £2/5 drop in here now and catch up on the blog. The last entry was a post about losing months and the damage they do to your average earnings, it was prompted by a losing week. Quite a few people have taken this as some indicator that all is not well at Wonky towers!! The bank roll can handle a losing week/month, but it does not mean I have to like it.

Advice has been flooding in from all corners (thanks by the way!) What has been so strange is the range of advice. I’ve been told to loosen up, I’ve been told to tighten up, I’ve been told to move up in stakes, I’ve been told to drop down in stakes! If there was a crisis at Wonky towers I don’t know if I’d be coming or going!?

This got me thinking of people’s perception of me and how I play. I’ve been getting a fair bit of ear ache at the tables (nothing really nasty, just comments) in the past month or two from various players, but again the range of abuse has been from both ends of the spectrum.

Take DavidJames who’s a regular on the £2/5 Crypto tables… it’s an apt name as he’s partial to the odd calamity. He’s constantly having a dig, I’m too tight, I’m easy to read, I’m sooo lucky , he's no idea how i ever wi a hand... when it comes to people like this then I’ll let the stats do the talking. The flip side of the coin is “OMG u fish!!” crew, again I get these comments all the time! So am I tighter than a gnats chuff or looser than a slappers knickers elastic?

Who knows? All I can say is that if I’m pissing people off to the point where they have to give me an ear full everytime I play them, I must be doing something right! ;)

Good Luck,

Jim

The curse of the poker player: Losing months

2006-03-08T19:59:00.000Z

Well the 1st week in March has almost been as good as the 1st week in Feb! CRAP!

Considering that I took the Mrs away for a long weekend in Brussels and I’ve been away for 4 days in March the poor performance is pretty impressive. It must be something to do with getting a good month closed down and then relaxing and playing like a total arse for 3 or 4 days. The only light at the end of the tunnel is that as far as trends go, months where I have a bad start usually end up ok and visa versa! So it’s up hill all the way from here to avoid a poor month I guess.

I need to sit down and have a good look at the stats and hands where I’ve been getting hammered. Periodic lessons learned sessions are always healthy. I usually do this after each month end. Look back and identify where things went wrong and what can you do to stop it happening again… this months start would suggest I need to work on it a little!

I’ve been trying to boost my average monthly earnings. Now this may sound really obvious but I think the impact of a bad month is seriously underestimated by most people. If you are playing for a living then losing months are a pox on your balance sheet that will kill your average income.

Looking back at my 2005 I had a really good month in early summer where I cleared more than £15K, this was followed by a bad month where I dumped £8K and a month where I just about broke even. I have no doubts that the 8k loss would not have been sustained if I’d not won so much the previous month. At the time I justified it in this way. The figures sound fairly impressive for the level I was playing at but when you look at the impact of such wild swings on your average monthly earnings …..

Net 7k profit across three months… 2.33K ave per month. Now don’t get me wrong this beats a loss but it’s only marginally more than the average rakeback per month. Compare to someone pottering along playing a less volatile (dull?) game and creaming 4k a month out without too much effort.

This all sounds fairly obvious, but I’ve lost count of the number of good players I know who go on a decent 3month run, think they can run over everyone and then throw it all away in a short space of time.

There’s nothing more depressing than losing 6k in a month and working hard the next month to get it back… you look back at the past 60 days and think “Shit! I’ve played 50000 hands and I’m exactly where I started!”

If you can turn your bad months into a break even months then in this example you’d have 3k a month ave to show for your efforts. Work hard to avoid losing months and when you come to your year end audit the healthy profit will look after its self.

Thanks for all the feedback by the way! Much appreciated.

Good Luck,

Jim

February Review

2006-03-01T09:58:00.000Z

It has to be said that 3 days into the February campaign things were pretty down cast. £5k deficit and an amber light on the bank roll. Since then I’ve managed to put together a great run and with the exception of the last week which has been a bit rollercoaster I was playing solid winning poker.

In the end the net positive after rakeback was getting on for 5 figures. I’m really pleased with this especially considering the 5k I had to make just to get back in the black. Throw in the Tallinn trip as well I think this is one of the most successful months I’ve had for a while….. all the more to spend at Mothercare!

Last night I decided to go down to the local pubs £10 rebuy after a bit of prompting from Rob. The month had been good and the opportunity to lock in the profit, sink a few pints and blow off some steam was appealing. I’ve got a pretty good record in the local game, over the past 12 months I must have played it about 8 times. So far I’ve won once, 2nd once and final tabled on one or two other occasions. Last night I managed to make the final three with a small chip deficit when a 3 ways equal split was proposed for £350 each. 3rd place payed £150 so it was a pretty good deal for me and a nice way to finish off the month.

I mentioned earlier that the last week has been a bit of a roller coaster. I think this is down to two factors. The first is that there seem to be loads of crazy players hitting the 2/5 tables at the moment. The volatility at the tables has been high. When half the all in calls you face are stone cold bluffs you are going to win some big ones with not much but also look a little silly on occasions when you walk into a monster.

The other factor is that I’ve been playing a few more hours and playing 4 tables on occasions as opposed to my usual 2 or 3. This extra play is chasing the Betfair promo WSOP $15k package, it should be achievable with a little extra effort. As a result I’ve lost concentration on occasions (i've not idea how some people can play 8 tables!!) and it is more difficult to play anything other than ABC poker when playing more than 2 tables, you become more predictable and stop picking up the little steals here and there that keep the balance healthy.

In order to combat this I’ve come up with a little handy hint to keep the mind fresh and your opponents on their toes. Nominate one of your multitables as your focus table and put that at the front in the centre of your screen. Play ABC poker on the other tables, but play ‘real poker’ on the focus table, make some moves, steal some pots, keep them guessing. Every 30mins or so, rotate the tables so one of the ABC tables becomes the ‘focus’ table. A simple and effective means of preventing stagnation when multitabling.

Good luck

Jim

PS: It’s good to see that the Blog is getting lots of traffic! The comment button is there for a reason! Say hello! Tell me I’m talking crap! Whatever! Just use it!

EDIT: Bugger!! Rob just pointed out that an option for me to approve all comments had been set. I've just had a look and ive got 20 odd comments for approval from the past month! Doh!! A few of u have asked me for info, i'll reply/send it out today. SORRY! Normal service has now resumed.

MONSTER!!

2006-02-22T15:01:00.000Z

This was a hand of interest from last weekend, it kind of played it's self but took a few years off my life! It was the single biggest pot I’ve seen on £2/5 NL tables on crypto and was a nice one to pick up. I’d only been playing for about 30mins on Sunday morning and on one table I’d already managed to turn my £500 sit down into £1165.

Hawko was at the table and we always seem to have fun running moves past each other. I’m on the small blind and first to act makes it £15 to go. Hawko smooth calls and I look down to find AA and smooth call as well.

The big blind who is playing £937 decided to push all in!! Magic!! But wait! The initial raiser (only playing £257) decides to join the fun and calls all in!

Without 2 seconds thought Hawko adds in his full stack of £548 all in!!

Action on me, preflop pot of £1757… 900 odd to call and I’m on AsAd!!

I think about letting it go for a split second! I’m already £665 up at the table, I’ve only got £15 in the pot and it’s going to be one hell of a 4 way race and I’m 50% fav at best. But to cover my money I only have to beat the BB as his stack is so much bigger than everyone elses. I call and we flip over….

1st to act short stack AcTc
Hakwo KdKh
Me AdAs
Big Blind QcQh

Now I don’t like the all in by the QQ… it’s a muppet move, especially with a big stack, I bet he plays a lot of tournies.

The AT call is a tilt call by the short stack looking to get lucky.

Poor old Hawko has been stitched up like a kipper by the big blinds all in. He fancies him self to be in front as his smooth call with KK shows no strength at all and the BB all in just stinks of a vulnerable pair. He can’t put me on a hand either with my smooth call so he drops his pants and sticks in all his chips. As soon as he sees me call he knows I’m on AA.

2d Td Ts is the flop.

Now while not the best flop in the world, I’m not too bothered as the AT is only playing for a 1k side pot. Providing I can avoid a K or Q I’m still going to pick up a nice pot.

Turn is 4d

My eyes now flick to the suits and a moment of panic as the 1st one I see is Hawkos Kd… back to mine and I breath easier as I spot the Ad.

River Jd …. Gives me the nut flush and a very health pot of £2691.99 … £1754 of which is pure profit!!

Nice! Needless to say after the bad start Feb is now cruising along nicely.

On a side note Betfair have just announced a series of guaranteed WSOP packages for high rake cash players. At my current average I’d get a $8k WSOP package if I move to BF for the next 4months!!! With a little more play that would become a $15k package!! WSOP here we come!!

Live and kicking (myself!)

2006-02-17T14:53:00.000Z

Live play is something that I’ve only dabbled with over the past year or so, I quite enjoy the live cash games at the festivals as they tend to be really loose and full of action. When it comes to live tournaments I’ve only played a couple of the smaller buy in events at one or two festivals and the £25 weekly buy in down the local pub.

The Mrs always groans when I go to play live because she thinks I’m going to lose. But thinking about it my live record is not too bad considering the number of event I’ve played. I won a £20 rebuy Super Sat at the Luton fest last year for £500 (and took the money), apart from that I’ve only played in a £50 and a £100 at Blackpool last year and Duffs (from betfair) £100 home game.

With Estonia looming I thought it would be a good idea to get a bit more live experience under my belt. The £100 rebuy and the £300 at the Broadway Heart of England Festival looked like good candidates. They were both 2 days events with hour clocks and room for plenty of play.

The £100 on Tuesday was a bit of a none starter as far as I was concerned. In the first 4 hours the best hands I picked up were 99 (twice) and AKos. I managed to pick up a few pots here and there but eventually had to get my dwindling stack in with AT on a QQT flop… a big stack obliged with JK and a 9 on the turn sent me packing a little frustrated at not being able to get going.

I was in two minds about returning on the Thursday for the £300. The 5am finish to the day before didn’t leave me feeling on top form. It would be the biggest tournament buy-in I’ve paid in direct (both live and online) but having said that it's no big deal when you consider the level of cash games I play in everyday. I finally decided to drag myself over to Brum to see if I could improve on the previous days outing. I’m glad I did.

The field was rich and varied. There were a few people who had never played a game before and then a load of seasoned pros arriving for the bigger comps later in the week. When I went to take my seat I had Steve Jelinek to my left and Bambos Xanthos to my right. I’d recently seen both of these on the William Hill Grand Prix that is being screened on Sky Sports at the moment (on every Tuesday and one of the best poker shows I’ve seen in a long time!) and so I had half an idea on how they played.

The guy to Jelineks left was knocking down the pints and had never played in a comp before. He devoured Jelineks chips almost as quickly as his lager with a Khigh over flush. I had a fairly patient start and managed to accumulate about 8K (6k starting) by the end of the 2nd level.

As the night progressed I gradually started to settle down and become more comfortable. I don’t think I take to the live game naturally like some players. In the past I’ve found myself making decisions that I would not make online and playing hands less subtly than is normally the case. The same was true in this game to a certain extent. Every now and again I’d find myself making silly bets or calls and 3 seconds later thinking… WHY DID I JUST DO THAT?!!?

Myself and Bambos both got moved to the same table and I was nursing a 10-15k stack for some time as more and more players were making an exit. I made a conscious decision to step up a gear and really started to enjoy my self. I re-raised Bambos three times preflop and he was starting to get the hump, the only time we saw a flop he walked his AQ into my AK.. which was nice. On the 4th time he layed down he said …

“Next time I call you!!” … he showed AJ and I declined to show my AK.

10mins later he was packing his bags so we never got to lock horns again.

The chap 2 to my left was a decent player (he was Welsh and a mate of Ewan Jones, I may be wrong but I think he was called Nick). I’d played a few hands and had not lost many but was still stuggling to push past the 15k barrier. I finally found a spot on the BB after ‘Welsh Chap’ had min raised it to 1600 from an early position. He picks up 3 callers and I look down to see AQ, I don’t have to think about it too hard… No one is showing much strength (except maybe the early position min raise) and with 7600 in the pot I push allin looking to pick it up.

Everyone folds apart from a short stack who has about another 4k left. He flips Q8s and I’m VERY happy. That is until the flop comes 456, the turn is a killer 8… and the river a very welcome 7 for a split pot!!

Shortly after that I pick up a 15k pot from the table rock with a total bluff into a scary looking flop and turn of Td Jd Ks Kd. I’d re-raised him preflop with 6d6s and he obviously gave me credit as I pumped a couple more strong bets in.

I’d raised the Welsh guys BB a number of times (including the occasional ham fisted raise) and he’d passed a few and called a few but was generally coming out with the worst of it and was starting to get the hump.

I picked up QhJs on the button and everyone passes to me. I raise to 4k (about 3 x the BB) and my Welsh friend calls with a hint of irritation. Flop comes rags with 2 spades and we both check. Turn brings a third spade and he checks. I chuck in 3k and he flat calls.

The river comes Qs. He reaches for his greens and launches 7k into the pot. Now, I thought at the time he was a bit too confident in the way he did it, I just had the feeling that he is simply betting out on the scare card, what more I know he's capable of the move- or maybe I’m just a calling station!? I flat call and pick a decent pot when he flips Kh rag.

By this time it is pushing 4:30am with play due to complete for the day at 5:15am I’m sat on a very healthy 50k stack, there are about 22 runners left with 720000chips in play and the blinds at 800/1600. I actually think to myself..

“Bit tired, nothing silly , come back tomorrow fresh and ready for action”

Unfortunately, it was not to be! After the QJ incident my Welsh mate is passing quite a few comments and appears to be a bit unhappy with my assault on his BB… we tangle again when I raise his BB with KQ. He is lucky to catch one of his rags on the flop but we both check down and he picks up the minimum.

With about 15mins of play left it’s my SB and again I’m in a pot with my mate. He raises to 2.8k from an early position and everyone folds to me, I wake up with AK and make it another 5K to play… saying “It’s nothing personal” as I chuck them in.

He snaps back “No..neither is this…ALL IN!!”

The situation is about 18k in the pot, and he pushed for another 30K. I’ve got just shy of 45K left in front of me and a decision to make.

Up pops the devil on one shoulder and the angel on the other…..

Angel: Jim, you’d pass this normally.
Devil: Fuck that! There’s 18K in the pot your getting about better than 3/2 on your money.
Angel: Yes, but look you’ve got 45k left…. That’s a big stack!!
Devil: But look at the prize money … only £700 for 10th… 15k for 1st!!!! Play to WIN, get this pot and you will be chip leader. There’s only 19 players left.
Angel: But he must have a pair. It’s a race for most of your chips.
Devil: Don’t be a pussy, he’s really got the hump with you messing with his BB… I bet hes got TT or JJ at best. CALL!
Angel: Oh fuck it CALL!

And so I call… I know I’m behind. I normally would not have a problem passing this… Perhaps the fact it was 5am and I’d been playing for 9hrs came into it somewhere. The ‘play to win’ element is also something I’ve been trying to work into my tournament game and may have also skewed my judgement a little.

He flips KK and it’s 70%/30%

I pick up a gutshot draw on the flop with a Q and a T. I then pick up a flush draw on the turn… 14outs on the river … but it was not to be!

I know it’s a poor call. File it under lessons learnt… Please feel free to comment on it.

A blind goes through me and I’m down to about 10k, there’s 5 mins of play left in the day, and I look down to see AcKc. I make it 5 to go and everyone folds to the BB who puts me all in. I call and he flips…KK again!!!!

No help again and I’m out in 18th (120 runners). The only silver lining is that I don’t have to return today to play a micostack.

I shake hands with my Welsh friend and confirm that there are no hard feelings. I wonder what he thought of me? Probably, that I’m a bit rash and inexperienced, and I guess he’d be right. There is one way to fix that though ,isn’t there?

Despite the manner of the exit, I really, really enjoyed myself. Once I’d picked up a few hands I got into the swing of things I surprised myself with how much confidence and lack of fear I played with. It was a quality field and I was happy to go so deep. Although a little foolish and unlucky not to cash, it’s given me something to think about and now I can’t wait until the next one…roll on Estonia.

Good luck,

Jim

Wild start to Feb and Estonia here we come!!

2006-02-13T11:11:00.000Z

Well Feb has been a little crazy so far. I got off to the worst possible start as I managed to drop 2.5K on the 1st! This was swiftly followed by more losses on the 2nd , 3rd and 4th!! The month had hardly started and I was already staring a 5k negative in the face, the bank roll was flashing amber and it was time to sit down take stock and see how the month could be rescued.

I decided to take a day off and have a look back at how I had been playing… the answer came back- not very well. I managed to get my head straight and for the next week played some great cash poker, making great laydowns and some good calls. Hey presto 4 days later and I’m back in the black and showing a 2k plus for the month to date.

Now, obviously I’m really happy with the recovery. It just shows what you can achieve if you really put your mind to it and your back is against the wall. But it would have been very nice to win 7K in 4 days without having lost 5K beforehand. All I need to do now is more of the same and make sure I post a bumper month.

On Sunday evening I spotted the Hills Baltic Open Super Satellite about to start. It was great value, only 36 runners at 220euros each playing for 4 x 3.2k packages which included the buyin to the 2000+200 main event.

The game was also a 6 seater which suits me just fine. It was one of those tournies where I ducked and dived without putting my stack in jeopardy and before you know it I was chip leader with about 15 runners left. I managed to blow half my stack when my flopped set ran into a made flush on the turn, but the table was fairly passive and I managed to grab most of it back fairly quickly. The chip leader status was maintained more or less until the last six. The final table started fairly even in chips… three players between 11k and 16k and the other three around the 8k mark. The other big stacks wasted no time in paying off the short stacks and everyone played tight for a long time on similar stacks until we lost the 6th player.

Here was where my stack started to dwindle, I had trouble finding a decent spot and had to lay down a half decent hand on the SB after I’d raised the BB and he pushed for all my chips. Patience was the order of the day! But I was looking increasingly like the table short stack on 8k with the others between 12k and 20k. With the blinds at 300/600 with rolling antes the pressure was starting to mount playing 5 handed on the bubble at 1200 a round.

I managed to nick a few pots to maintain my chip stack around the 8k mark when two similar sized stacks got into a preflop raising war and ended up all in, this obviously was great for me as the loser would either be out or down to just a few hundred chips.

Mateyboy #1 flips AcKs and my heart sinks as mateyboy#2 flips AdKd, a split pot looms and it looks like I’m going to have to gamble to survive…. that is until no less than four diamonds hit the community!! Mateyboy #1 curses his luck and is out the next hand as 3 players check him down for his last 800 chips.

I’M OFF TO ESTONIA!!!! :o)

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not the biggest win ever at a 3.2k package but I’m really, really chuffed.

I’ve often looked across with green eyes at friends winning these sats and jetting off to the far flung corners of the world. But playing 99% cash games I was never going to join them was I? One of my goals for 2006 was to enter some satellites and qualify for a few bigger buy-in events. Well get that box ticked!

The only downside is that Shell is well into her 3rd trimester (everything going well so far) and she can’t fly. So it looks like I’m going on my tod!

Two sides of the same coin

2006-02-08T11:58:00.000Z

Tournament or cash? A recurring gripe from many people takes the form of…

“I’m a successful tournament player and I’ve spent 6months building up my bank roll, last week I decided to give the NL cash tables a try, it’s full of fish but I’ve blown 80% of my roll, I can’t understand it!”

So why is it that so many people who are perfectly competent STT and MTT players struggle so much when it comes to playing with real money. I think there are several reasons, first of all the bank roll required to play successful tournament poker is much smaller than the roll required for cash games. The no limit cash games can be especially brutal and your hard earned can evaporate at an alarming rate. Before you know it you’ve reloaded 4 times and your sphincter is tighter than a multi-tabling Scandinavian. It maybe that these losses are in permissible range for a decent bank roll but the impact on the average tournie roll can be catastrophic.

It’s about this point where the tilt monster raises his head and it’s harder to draw a line under a loosing cash session than it is a tournament. In a tournament, you lose, that’s it, you’re out! You can’t get back in and get revenge on the fishy bastard who just sucked you out, in a cash game the option and the temptation to reload is always there.

There is also a massive misconception held by the majority of tournament players about cash games as well. I was playing in a live cash game recently and a chap who has a reputation for playing solid tight tournament poker made a call for all his chips with 2nd pair with 3 spades out in the community. He lost and when I questioned the call, he said …

“It’s a cash game isn’t it? I can reload. I wouldn’t have called in a tournie!”

Now it may have been that he was just blowing off a bit of steam, but you hear the sentiment repeated time and time again. They think that you should play looser in a cash game when in fact the opposite is true.

In a tournament the blinds are constantly moving forward, putting you under pressure. This pressure towards the middle/end of the game forces you to make more elaborate ‘moves’ and get your chips in with half decent hands more frequently. Top pair could be a behemoth of a hand in the latter stages of a tournament and may well merit getting all your chips in, thanks to the ever increasing pressure a lot of the time you will get action from an inferior hand.

But is the same true in a cash game?? Without the pressure of the increasing blinds the value of your hands is reduced…so why play looser?? No one at the table is being forced to overplay their hand and if you start to over play your hand the only action you are likely to get is from someone with a better hand.

Doubling up is a frequent occurrence in a tournament due to the nature of the game. In a £1000 sit down NL cash game you can blow it in one hand with ease and if the cards are not going your way you can wait all day for the chance to get it back!

In my opinion betting out (or as is more frequently is the case , calling) with a good, but not great hand is the main reason why tournament players come unstuck in cash games.

They sit there thinking….

“I can always reload! It’s a great hand!”

When they should be thinking…

“I value my chips! Is this the best spot to get my money in!”

Post Christmas Depression

2006-02-02T03:25:00.000Z

Well the January month end has been and gone and looking back Jan was a pretty disappointing month. It saw some big up swings and some big downswings. I somehow managed to get to the 20th Jan looking at a 5k loss for the month to date. This was (as always) due to 3 or 4 days of nasty beats and no action followed by a tilt day where the best part of 3K went south. It always amazes me how easy it is to blow a stack in minutes that may take weeks to rebuild.

I have ventured more onto £5/10 in Jan and when reviewing the tracker statistics to see where it all went wrong I was half expecting to see the majority of the losses coming from those tables. True, one or two bad sessions did stick out but there were more than enough good sessions to compensate. The true culprit was some shocking sessions on 2/5.

On one occasion I was overflushed 3 times in one session, each time it was marginal… 7 high into 9 high, J high into Q high and then to cap it off Q high into K high with the Ace out in the community. I also felt that I was getting hammered when I held big pairs more than usual, I lost count of number of times AA and KK got cracked once a flop was out.

Poker tracker confirmed this, the % win with AA was low 80s and only 75% when it saw a flop! I’d expect these figures to be around 90% and 85% respectively.

Kings faired worse; in Jan I picked them up 126 times and only won £880 with them!! I made more that that with every other pocket pair bar 22 and 33. Any month where your premiums are being hammered to this extent is going to be a struggle!

Fortunately, the tide turned in the last 10 days. Some solid poker meant that the loosing sessions were minimised and when the cards were going my way the profits for the days were well into 4 figures. The only cloud has been twice in two days where I have been sat on a 1K+ profit for the day and I managed to piss most of it away in one evening session! The 2nd of these occurred last night where I walked into some monsters to blow away earlier positives. It does not get much better than AsQs on Qh Ts 6s flop…..unless the other guy is nursing 66.

In the end I turned out to be a fairly neutral month, the best part of £2k rakeback helped keep things afloat and a modest profit made it a just about acceptable if not decent start to 2006.

Looking forward I need to stamp out the big swings. The current bank roll is not robust enough for prolonged sessions on £5/10 and needs to be bolstered further over the next quarter, the next target is to work it up to a £20k baseline. I may well dabble in some live events in Feb as well, there’s a Festival at the Broadway in Brum and I quite fancy some of the midweek events.

Cheers,

Jim

Life without poker tracker

2006-01-30T17:47:00.000Z

For various reasons I’ve been without poker tracker for the past 10days and I’ve come to realise even more what a great bit of software it is. Playing 30k hands a month it’s impossible to remember and classify every person you come across. I’ve been using PT for so long now it’s quite scary when it’s not there, I’ll often make a call based on just the basic info PT provides. I've only ever used it for cash games but recently they have added support for Crypto STTs and MTTs.

Also, a must have is GameTime+, it’s a free add-on for PT that overlays the key PT stats directly onto the poker table. You can configure it so that hands are uploaded every few mins and updated on the screen in real time…. Very useful when some bloke you have not played against for 4months sits next to you. I’ll get round to covering some more detailed aspect of PT in later blogs. I’ve added a link into PT here on my page, and yes it is my affiliate link, I shall spend the $10 for each purchase wisely! :o)

On the game front, I didn’t play much over the weekend as we were away visiting friends. After a bit of a turbulent week everything came up roses on Friday as good cards were paid off hand after hand for a nice £2.5K in double quick time, that was on £2/5 as well. It put a ray of light into what was otherwise a poor January, but more of this later.

The hand of the day was a joy to behold and more or less played itself, however it does validated the point I made a few blog entries ago about not laying down bottom/middle set.

I picked up 4h4d on the button and called £10 to see a 3 way flop.

4s 2c 6h

All the money from all three players went in on the flop for a £1302 pot…. First guy flips 77 and the second flips 99!! There were no miracle cards for anyone and I was left there and updating my player notes for these two jokers with a smile on my face.

If only it was always this easy, it just demonstrates the crap people will not only stick their chips in with… but call with as well!!

GL

Jim

PS Congrats to Hawko who finally won a seat to a EPT event :)

Looking after you margins Pt2 .. Rakeback

2006-01-25T14:01:00.000Z

I’m always amazed how many people playing regular poker at a fairly decent level still don’t have a clue about rakeback. Rakeback can make a bad month look Ok, when it comes to getting an edge it is one of the biggest ways to boost that bank roll month after month.

To be fair most of the mid level semi-pro grinders have decent deals set up, but it’s always worth keeping an eye out and making sure the figures add up, as an example below will demonstrate.

First of all, what is rake back?
sorry to those of you sucking eggs here)

Rakeback usually applies to cash games (but some rooms do offer to return a % of tournament entry fees as well). In each hand the house takes a % of the pot, this is usually 3% capped at £3 (as Rob mentioned in the comments from the previous post there is a $3 cap on the $ tables so why does anyone play the £ table!?!?!?). Rakeback is where the house will credit you back with a % of the rake that you have contributed over the previous month.

How do you get it?

Several methods of receiving rakeback….

1: Contact the poker room direct and ask for a deal, you are more likely to get a deal if you play a lot of poker.
2: Sign up with an affiliate who will pay you the rakeback themselves (some risk here!)
3: Sign up with an affiliate who has a deal with the poker room so that the room will credit your account direct. (as search on the web will reveal numerous examples)
4: Sign up direct with one of the growing number of rooms who are offering rakeback to each and every person on the site, irrespective of the amount they play.

Is it worth while!?…

Rakeback can turn a non-profit making player into a profitable one, it’s as simple as that… it’s not unusual for people to receive £1K + per month in rakeback. As a rule the more you play the better the deal, 20%-35% is the norm. Some of the guys who multi table 24x7 receive several thousand pounds per month in rakeback alone. As a rough guide you will get about £70 per 1000 hands playing £2/5 NL on a 30% RB deal. If you are playing 30000 hands a month, you are earning significantly more than the annual UK wage just in rakeback.

Things to keep an eye out for…

If you are going to do the deal through an affiliate then do some research and get one that is reliable. Try and get one that has the poker room pay direct into your account. There have been some horror stories of affiliates doing a runner with the monthly payments. If in doubt it is possible to negotiate direct with the poker room in some cases.

The headline % is not always what it seems to be. I was caught out with this for a month when a rival poker room offered me a better deal. You need to ask if the % rakeback is based on your gross rake generated or the net rake (after the room has deducted costs).

Several months ago I was on a 25% deal … this was based on the gross rake I generated. So if I generated 4K rake in a month I’d get 1k back.

I was then offered a 30% deal. However, it was not obvious this was based on net rake after poker room costs. The costs were 30%. So the net rake was only paid on 70% of my gross rake generated!

70% of 4K is 2.8K…
30% of 2.8K is 840…. I’m loosing out to the tune of £160 a month!!! WTF!

A lot of players are still on this deal with a well known card room and accept their monthly payments without question…like I said it pays to check the numbers and look after your margins.

For those of you with poker tracker I’ve got a useful bit of code that you can drop into the Access database. This will work out how much rakeback you should be receiving on a monthly basis. Drop me a mail if you want a copy.

Cheers,

Jim

Looking after your margins...pt 1

2006-01-18T10:15:00.000Z

Now those of you who know me will recognise that I tend to like to do things well, I'm a great believer in you pay for what you get. I drive nice car, I like good wine, good food, good hotels and I'm lucky enough to live in a nice house in a nice area....I like to think that if something's worth doing, and you can afford it, then it's worth doing properly.

Now just because I'll pay an extra tenner for a bottle of vino from Oddbins does not mean I'm going to give free money to others (last night on 5/10 was an exception by the way!) ... and especially not to the poker companies who are already raking it in (literally!)

Poker = business, and in business you look after your margins, so if you can find an edge or a saving you need to exploit it, no matter how small a dividend it pays.

So here's my 1st pearl of wisdom... and I'm slightly hesitant to write this because it does not seem to bother many people...... maybe i'm missing something really obvious.

Most people who read this will be UK based. The on-line poker skins that offer £ accounts are in the minority but there are still plenty of them around.... Hills, Betfair , StanJames etc etc. Most of the US rooms Stars, Party etc etc will only offer $ accounts.

I can not understand why any UK based player would want to play on a $ account.

I'm not talking about $ tables (where you cash in and out at the same rate) I'm talking about the currency of the account where the poker room holds your money.

I had a conversation with the (self proclaimed) best player on Crypto 2/5 recently. He'd just joined Sun poker room on the Crypto network as they give a better rakeback deal and via an affiliate you can get a trip to the LV and a few $K to buy in to some of the minor WSOP events. Now the trouble is Sun only do $ accounts. I asked him to check his last withdrawal statement , it worked out at about £1.1k in his bank account, I ran the same transaction through Thomas Cooks web site and they would have given him £1.2k for the same amount in $ he cashed out!!!

This was a month or so ago and I didn't make a note of the exact figures .... but a self imposed gift to the card room of this size is not the smart move for a serious player.... no wonder they can afford to give a few % extra rake. Also, this does not include the exchange hit for moving the £s in either!

Since then I've spoken to a few people (non-casual players) that I know play on skins with $ accounts, I've asked them all about the exchange rates in and out and without fail the answer has been "Umm .... dunno!" ....madness!

As I said, I've not looked into this in detail and measured it as I dont have a $ account anywhere, feel free to comment and tell me I'm talking crap. It would be interesting to run some a tests to see exactly how much the hit is and extrapolate it across a 12month period to see how much it really does cost per annum. I can't find any info published by any of the main rooms or neteller on their daily exchange rates either..... I can't think why!

I have seen somewhere that there are complex ways to reduce the hit by paying in via Switch to Party Poker and then using a $ Neteller a/c, it goes something like this.....

£ Bank Account... switch payment to PartyPoker account in $.... Party withdraw to Neteller $ account.... Neteller to Sun poker room $... win a fortune.... Sun poker room to netteller... neteller to Party.... party $ to switch £ bank A/C

I'm not sure how much this would save (or if they let you do it) , again it needs some measurement........ IMO its easier to play on £ account.

Cheers,

Jim

Two little ducks get fu......

2006-01-12T20:33:00.000Z

I said that I wouldn’t bore you too much with the days to day hum-drum hands and figures. Well that rule didn’t last long!

I had the misfortune to lose the single biggest cash pot I’ve ever lost today, so that’s got to be worth a post hasn’t it?

I’d had a fairly dull morning session on £2/5 running 3 tables with no action. I decide I needed to do something else and took the opportunity get a few jobs out of the way over my lunch break. A few hours later I returned and spotted some value on a £5/10 table that looked a little lively, so I jumped in and kicked another £2/5 session off. I then proceeded to hit the deck in the face on both tables and within an hour I’d doubled to £2000 on 5/10 and trebled to £1600 on 2/5… lovely!

On reflection I should have jumped ship with the £1000 profit on 5/10, as I told Rob in the comments on my last post, I rarely venture into £5/10. Anyway, to cut a long story short I ran slap bang into the other guy on the table who was anywhere near covering my stack with 22 on a 2s 4d Qs flop... all the money went in on the flop for a £3615 pot! He flips 44.

Maybe I could have got away from his re-raise all-in, but I’m with Harrington when it comes to laying down sets on those kind of flops... I don’t!

You see people get the money in with far less time after time, imo it’s a loosing play laying down this hand in the long run. I probably walk into set over set about once or twice a month. I view it as an expense and I usually pay them off.

It didn’t upset me that much to be honest. It’s not like I got sucked out and I’d basically lost most of what I’d won in the previous hour… easy come, easy go!

The only frustrating thing is that it happened in the biggest game I’d played for some time, while I’m sat with over £2k and against the other big stack at the table.

Them’s the breaks.

Good luck

Jim

First 6 months and measuring success

2006-01-10T20:17:00.000Z

I’ve be playing to pay the bills now for about 6 months. There’s no doubt it does have an impact on your game, especially when you first start.

I record a daily profit and loss account and operate on a 'month end' basis. At the end of each month the online account is cleared down to a set level (or increased!), the living expenses are deducted from the bankroll, any excess is creamed off and the bankroll and reserve figure for the month ahead are calculated.

So far it’s been pretty good. Of course success is relative, some people win or blow my annual income in a single session! Having said that the sums we are talking about are significant.... but not obscene.

A basic measure of success is paying the bills, as I've already stated, the agreement with the Mrs was to stump up a poker subsidy of £1k per month to the house current account. If this dries up then I have to go back full time. If I can pay this out without touching the bankroll then its a neutral month. In reality my rakeback (more on rakeback in a later post) should more than cover this, so all I'd have to do is keep out of the red at the tables to meet the basic objective. Easy huh?....

So hows it gone so far....?

I'm not sure its a great idea to plaster the £ figures all over the blog, I certainly won't be doing it on a daily basis as a lot of people do. However, if people are going to read this and continue to read it then its only right that you have an idea of what a good/bad month could entail. Poker, afterall, is all about the "money" and as such I'm happy to list a quick summary of what it's been like for the first few months with some figures to back it up....

August: This was a good month, we were thumping the Aussies at the cricket and confidence was high for the new venture, with a full bankroll to start off. A hospitality invite to day 2 at Trent bridge from Betfair did nothing to dampen the mood! I'd also just received an annual bonus from work that took the pressure off the finances for the 1st month. Things went well at the tables and month end saw me looking at a positive of around £8k. This was a great start, the bank roll was maxed out and this enabled me to boost the reserve fund, pay the bills and squirrel away a nice lump sum away from the poker funds.

Sept: Things went a little quiet in Sept. I had a bad start and then spent the rest of the month struggling to get it back in the black. I've found that i'll often have a dip after a good month and it's something I need to work at sorting out. The 2nd half of the month was better and once the rakeback was paid in I was able to pay the bills and cream a little off as well.

Oct: Hmmmm here where it all went wrong! The first 20 days were very good. Heading for a month somewhere similar to August, then for some reason a few bad days put me on tilt and before you know it I'm a few £K in the red for the month... this is not good and a big swing considering my bank roll. I've had a few swings like this in the past and fortunately they are becoming less frequent. I think the key is spotting it early and walking away for a few days.... this time I didn't!! After I'd 'paid the bills' the bank roll was about £3k down and would need to be topped up from profit over the next few months. It's worth noting that if I'd not had such a good start to the month then the roll would be in dire straights! Maybe the roll level I maintain needs to be upped? Having said that I feel that if I've not had such a good start to the month then I would not have tilted so badly and reality would have kicked in a little sooner than it did.

Nov and Dec: These were carbon copy months, the bank roll was down and needed a top up, so solid, low risk poker was the order of the day. I started off playing more $2/5 as opposed to £s to make it easier, a good start saw confidence return and I was soon on the £ tables with the odd dabble in $5/10. I managed to deliver and both months showed a healthy £5-6K positive. This was helped in December by a 17th place in the Crypto Christmas Cracker Tournie (I tend only to play in the odd big prize tournie) for about £1.7K. The roll was topped up, the bills paid and nice sum creamed off the top again.

So all in all, not a bad 2005. Room for improvement? For sure... but I'd consider it a success. I've definitely been playing a little better since I went part time. I'm slightly more thoughtful in the games now and have cut down on the 'bad months' that can damage your average performance so much.

Targets are being set for 2006 and a modest £40k pa should be very achievable playing £2/5NL with a level head. We shall see!

PS... I've enabled anonymous comments on the blog so feel free to say hi, it's good to know people are reading. Also if anyone wants to swap links to their blog, then drop me a mail.

Cheers,

Jim

ActionJack slips Wonky a big purple one!

2006-01-08T14:06:00.000Z

Last night was the Blonde bash at the Broadway casino in Birmingham, 100 odd members from the Blonde forum made it to Birmingham to play a £30 double chance frezeout. MrsSplash tagged along for her 2nd live game ever and lots of fun was had by all. Great mix of people from beginners to seasoned pros from the circuit.

I had Paul ‘ActionJack’ Jackson to my left in the tournie, nice chap. Things were going pretty well at the 1st break, I’d turned my initial 5k into 9.5k and was well above ave…..

AJ was friendly enough and with regards to the big purple one….. it was a 5k chip!

I’d like to talk you through the pot where I got my hands on it but he actually just needed change. I told him I’d title todays blog “Action Jack slips Wonky a big purple one!” , he said “No… people will think I’m gay!!”

All I can say is……….. I’m comfortable with my sexuality! ;)

After the break played one pot badly and lost about 4k. As a rule it’s not the greatest idea to try and bluff at someone who’s just picked up 400k in Monte Carlo… especially in a £30 comp!

Went card dead for a little while and then go moved to the same table as the Mrs… she’d was sat there nursing a mico-stack and seemed happy to see me! Three hands later and I’m on the BB for 800 with pocket Jacks…. I’ve got about 4k left, someone in mid position pushes in for about 3k … everyone else is folding and I’m about to get them in when Jen from blonde pushes in from the SB….. now Jen can play a bit and I’ve got a decision to make…. after a brief dwell I stick em in and I’m happy to see mateyboy on JTos and Jen on AQos….. not quite so happy to see the Ace on the flop and the case Jack is not forthcoming….

The scant consolation was that the Mrs took great satisfaction form outlasting me…oh good!

A few beers at the bar with Rob (highstack) , Lisa (Zelda) and her fella Sven and Ian(Diva) and it was onto a cash game.

To say the cash game was crazy would be an understatement. It was low stakes 1 / 2 PLHE .. most were sitting with £200-£300. 1st hand was re-raise, re-raise, re-raise between Tony Kendall and M3boy from Blonde…. Tikay picked it up with 55 with plenty of nice overcards out! It set the tone for the game to follow....

I didn’t pick up a decent hand all evening, won a couple of minor hands to keep ahead of the blinds and took 2 mid sized pots down betting out the scare card with not a lot (honest ;) ) ….. Apparently in the 2nd of these I pushed Highstack off top pair … sorry Rob!

Shell was a bit knackered by this point so I decided to take the small profit and call it a night. The evening was great fun and very friendly! I would encourage all to take 5mins to check out the Blonde forum on www.blondepoker.com.

Cheers,

Jim

Bank Roll

2006-01-07T00:33:00.000Z

When it come to playing serious poker…. and by that I mean poker that makes a difference to the bread and butter on your table… not the stakes! … The most important thing has got to be bank roll.

I’ve posted variations on this post on the Blonde forum, the Hendon Mob forum and the Betfair forum in that past and it’s always been well received, while I’m maybe not the the greatest player ever , I’ve got mi head screwed on when it comes to control and discipline. :)

When u have to rely on poker for income it’s simply essential that you avoid going broke.

On one of the shows on the poker channel the other week someone said (cant remember who, may have been Mike C)

A fantastic player with poor bank roll management will make less money in the long run than an average player with fantastic bank roll management.

Ive been playing for about 30months now and gradually worked my way up the ladder playing mainly cash games with the odd tournie dabble. When I was thinking of going part time in Jan 2005 I posted on the HM forum and got a fantastic response from the community (thanks by the way to , Junior and JT etc)

http://www.thehendonmob.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5874&highlight=

Once I’d bit the bullet in Aug 2005 having to rely on poker to pay the rent / keep the mrs happy was a little scary, but it did help focus the mind.

Out of my bank roll every month now I must pay the short fall in wages and top up my pension with the difference, that was the deal with the mrs (plus some DIY round the house )

The only thing that could ruin this new found life style that I love so much is going broke, as such I worked out a fairly robust bank roll system to insure against that eventuality, so far it’s worked just fine………...

The only thing it needs to work is discipline. Harder than it sounds!!

Rule 1: Keep living money and poker money totally separate.

Rule 2: No leakage!! Roulette , BJ, the nags!

Rule 3: Keep detailed daily records.

Work on the principle of having two pots Main Bank roll and a Reserve.

I started out with a nominal figure as a main bank roll. For the sake of argument say £10k.

Out of this I need to pay myself a wage of say 1k a month come hell or high water. If I make more than the required 1k in a month.

50% of the excess is paid into the poker reserve (instant access high rate savings account) and 50% goes to the household slush fund for holidays and fun stuff for me and the Mrs….. as it worked out after a few months this turned out to be the Mrs maternity fund!!!

Continue like this each month until the reserve gets to a comfortable level.... say 5k or maybe 10k?

You can only dip into the reserve when the main bank roll drops to 10% of its starting level (not happened yet, but got close once!!!)

Associated with the BR are strict rules on the level of game I can play. When it drops below 30% of its starting level I have to drop limits to protect the bank roll etc. Having the safety net of a reserve just takes the pressure off on a bad run and building it up in the manner outlined means you tuck away a little for a rainy day every time you have a good month.

To most of you I guess this sounds fairly draconian! It does need strict discipline to enforce, however it was set up to maintain my new lifestyle for as long as possible.

I cant imagine going back to full time work now and if I went bust that’s what id have to do!!

Cheers Jim.

Introduction.....

2006-01-06T18:14:00.000Z

Well everyone else has a blog, so if you can’t beat them!

The blog is mainly for me to reflect on, however I think I can give a slant that most poker blogs don’t cover, sure there will be some hands and a few rants about two outer rivers , but I’m also keen to look at how quitting the rat race for poker works from a practical perspective.... finance, bank roll, health, working every edge etc etc

I’d been thinking about it for several months but the timing never seemed quite right. For many months the poker winnings had been rivaling the pay packet, but it’s a serious leap of faith walking into see the boss and explain why you only want to work half a week from now on. Finally in August 2005 I took the decision and with the blessing of the Mrs I went part time at work. From then I had to rely on poker for a serious slice of my monthly income.

Now for some people this maybe isn’t a big deal… but with a big mortgage and a baby on the way (I didn’t know it was on the way at the time!!) the pressure was on to perform and pay the bills.... this was no longer a hobby... it was serious!!

As far as I am concerned poker is a business now. Over the coming weeks and months, in addition to detailing the daily ups and downs, I’m going to lay out the sensible business case for what it takes to play poker for a living.... hope it can help some of you!!

Cheers,

Wonky