The Big Three O....

...No. I'm 30 this weekend, things that spring to mind are.... What have I done with my life?, Where am I going? - Answers are 1) Get drunk & have a good time 2) On a pub crawl around Manchester tomorrow, where I will get drunk & have a good time.

It's going to be messy - ain't no doubt about that, starting at 12pm and I've planned a proper route, with an itinerary, so that people can join up at any time and they'll know where I am. I reckon that I'll stick to the route for around 3-4 hours before it just turns into carnage. Got 16 pubs selected for between 12pm & 8pm, so it's going to be a monster pace. I've never figured out how to ask for a half in a pub, it's okay typing it here, but when I say it to a barman it just comes out as pint. Think I'll have to have a few wee JDs etc in a few pub as 16 pints in the first 8 hours might be a bit optimistic.

I had my first proper drink in a month last night (due to the op), in preparation for Saturday and I was bolloxed this morning. Got into work at 10:05 this morning - haha, first week back and late already, never mind.

Onwards & Upwards

Poker Rakeback

Due to an operation I was off work for a month and after 1 week of daytime TV I was climbing the walls due to being bombarded with countless antique programmes and scrotes who are telling the British public that their Uncle is also their Dad & Nephew and she's not happy because he's been having it away with the family donkey.

The antique programmes were ridiculous "Cash In The Attic" being a fine example. The format is always the same, presenter turns up at a big house to be greeted by Tarquin Rothschild III or Felicity Farquarharson.

Presenter - "So what would you do you require money for then?"
Tarq/Fel - "Yaa Yaa, well (snort) I'd really like to extend our 200 foot conservatory for our summer parties (snort)"
Presenter - "Okay so how much money do you need to raise?"Tarq/Fel - "(Snort) Well around £4,000 would be super, Yaa, absolutely super (snort)"
Presenter - "Okay well let us look for.........Cash In The Attic"

Before you know they've uncovered a vase from the Ming Dynasty, an early Rembrandt painting, Van Gogh's ear and all manner of expensive items. These are take off to auction and they always make the money they need....Tits

Excuse the rant, it bears no correlation to the title, which is Poker Rakeback, ahem, so after getting sick of daytime tv, the laptop came out and I set about getting Rakeback deals with lots of Poker Rooms. It wasn't easy and some bluffing was needed (I knew that Poker would come in handy), but in the end deals were struck and I have proudly stuck the links on the right hand side of the page.

All of the deals listed start at a minimum of 30% with more Rakeback on offer depending on how much you Rake. All Rakeback is paid directly into player accounts by the Poker Rooms themselves, so I never touch your Rakeback.

The offers for the rooms listed are exactly the same as the percentages on offer at any of the big Rakeback providers - so all I can say is please help the little guy.

I am willing to pass some of my percentage onto people who sign up through my blog - but I am not officially allowed to do this, so I will have to remove this part of the post after a short while.

For example

Betfair pay you 30% Rakeback
Betfair pay me 5% Rakeback
I'll transfer give you an extra 2%, which means that

You get - 32% Rakeback
I get - 3% Rakeback

That's the best offer you'll get anywhere on the web - basically I'd rather have 3% of something than 0% of nothing, if you know what I mean

Email me here for more details

Pub Champion

I found out that one of the local pubs is signed up for Poker In The Pub so I decided to give it a go last Friday. Sixteen of us started out on 2 tables, with a 2000 chip stack and starting blinds of 25/50. The blinds increased every time somebody was knocked out and after the first person went out, they seemed to rocket up in no time at all.

I played it nice and safe early on, waiting for a good spot which came when I looked down at AKs. I re-raised the pot up nice and high and 3 of us ended up waiting for the flop. A rainbow flop of AK2 was a nice sight and I somehow managed to not smirk and I kept my best poker face in tact. Putting my opponents on Ace-rag (most people seemed happy to play that) I made a pot sized bet which was duly called after some pondering. The turn brought an 8 and I pot it again, which was duly called. The river was a 6 and with no straights or flushes on the board it was checked to my. My spider senses kicked in and I decided to check behind, which was fortunate for me as one opponent had Ace-rag and the other guy had 22 for a set of 2s, which scooped him the pot.

Luckily a few hands later on my deal, I got KK (no fiddling....honest guv) and tripled up thanks to two players chasing an ace. From then on I never looked back and myself and the missus safely made the final table. A combination of a succession of decent cards (AA, QQ, AQs) and ridiculous sized blinds saw me storm into the chip lead with around 65% of the chips in play with 5 players left. The missus went out in 4th place after pushing allin with KJs and being beaten by a pair of 8s. It was soon heads-up and I won it on the second hand thanks to making a low straight on a Ace-high board - my oppo of course had Ace-rag and victory was mine.

Everybody had paid £1.50 to enter and my grand prize for winning was - fuck all - not even a pint. You get points towards the leaderboard online. Basically, top two from each pub qualify for the Regional finals, then the qualifiers from that go to the National finals, then the qualifiers from that get an all expenses paid trip to Las Vegas.

There's not long left in this current season, but the new one starts at the end of April, so I might very well give it a go.

Running bad....

...but playing well





I'm really happy with my game at the moment and I seem to be getting my money in good in the majority of situations. Unfortunately however, I am running like a bitch ($130 down in last 2 days). Take yesterday for example on Cake Poker where I was playing NL20, I lost 4 stacks in less than 30 mins.

1. Guy raised all in pre-flop - I had KK, instacall - he had AA - fair enough
2. Guy raised all in pre-flop - I had AA, instacall - he had QJos - board JJ489
3. Guy raised all in pre-flop - I had AA, instacall - he had J3os - board 73JT3
4. 2 limp in I follow with 77 - board Q73 - guy raises to $1, other one folds, I reckon he's holding QJ, possibly KQ at best - I rr to $4 - he pushes all in - I call - he turns over QT - pot stands at $41 - turn T - river Q
5. Also lost a stack on Betfair - holding QQ on a Q38 flop - muppet pushed all in - I called and he hit flush on river

I just had to turn the poker off then because I felt tilty and didn't trust myself to make correct folds etc.

Asides from the bad beats, which are just part and parcel of playing poker - I am happy that I was ahead in 4 out of 5 situations - I reckon my pokerEV graph will show a stark difference between actual all in winnings & expected all in winnings.

An online poker pro (who shall remain nameless), has kindly railed a couple of my sessions recently and been providing hints and tips for me to take on board in certain situations. It's a lot to take on board at first as while he's explaining the last hand the next one is ready to go, but it gets easier to keep up. I've taken loads of notes and will be going through them and typing them up into some kind of a crib sheet, until they've sunk in permanently.

I mainly play ABC poker and this is fine and I have been grinding a profit at NL10 & NL20 without giving much thought to position etc. However, I am keen for my game to develop, so hopefully in a couple of months time, my positional sense and all round skill set will have vastly improved, so that I can regularly take on NL50 games. I have had mixed success at NL50 and although I am in profit overall for that level, it does tend to be win a session, lose a session, win a session etc etc. Consistency is what I'm striving for at that level.

Good luck at the tables

EDIT

And the beat keeps running running running - driving me mental now - got a decent Neteller balance now, so decided to deposit at Ultimate Bet - see if my luck can change - this hand is about 10 minutes into playing on there - would anyone have played any differently? Comment Away ;-)

Hand #51976887-555 at Rocky Hill (No Limit Hold'em)
Started at 25/Mar/08 16:33:46

Hiller is at seat 0 with $23.95.
maxd555 is at seat 1 with $24.08 (sitting out).
aranyka is at seat 2 with $42.22.
JDFSSS_1989 is at seat 3 with $48.18.
sttrow is at seat 4 with $24.37.
The button is at seat 2.

JDFSSS_1989 posts the small blind of $.10.
sttrow posts the big blind of $.25.

Hiller: -- --
aranyka: -- --
JDFSSS_1989: -- --
sttrow: Jh Js

Pre-flop:

Hiller folds. aranyka raises to $.85. JDFSSS_1989
folds. sttrow re-raises to $2.65. aranyka calls.


Flop (board: 5h Jc Tc):

sttrow bets $4.90. aranyka calls.

Turn (board: 5h Jc Tc 7h):

sttrow bets $13. aranyka goes all-in for $34.67.
sttrow goes all-in for $16.82. aranyka is returned
$17.85 (uncalled).

River (board: 5h Jc Tc 7h 3d):

(no action in this round)


Showdown:

aranyka shows 8d 9d.
aranyka has 8d 9d Jc Tc 7h: straight, jack high.
sttrow shows Jh Js.
sttrow has Jh Js Jc Tc 7h: three jacks.


Hand #51976887-555 Summary:

$1.94 is raked from a pot of $48.84.
aranyka wins $46.90 with straight, jack high.

Another MTT Final Table

Played my first MTT since my 2nd place on Cake Poker and crashed out in 5th place of the Feed the beast 10c Rebuy & Add-on on Betfair.

It cost me 30cents in total and I walked away with $10.54 in 5th place from 208 entries (so a good ROI - lol). It was a bit annoying as the top 3 walk away with entries to tournaments which could be worth a few hundred $$ - potentially more

This is what the top 3 get in prizes - randomly distributed (apparently)

The 99 x buy-ins that are going begging:

• 10 x The Easter Beast Lunch Money $2.5k GTD Super Turbo worth $22 each
• 12 x $25k GTD Easter Beast Curtain Raiser worth $215 each
• 10 x $111k THE EASTER BEAST worth $550 each
• 25 x $25k Second Chance Easter Beast worth $109 each
• 5 x $7.5 Goodbye Easter Beast worth $55
• 1 x EPT Monte Carlo $60k Final worth $1,050
• 5 x WSOP Europe $50,000 Final worth $550
• 5 x WSOP Vegas Final worth $550 each
• 5 x $16k GTD worth $109
• 20 x Betfair $11k GTD Regular worth $90 each
• 1 x Easter Beast – Mega Package worth over $950

The “Easter Beast - Mega Package” contains buy-ins to:

• The Easter Beast Lunch Money $2.5k GTD Super Turbo
• $25k GTD Easter Beast Curtain Raiser
• $111k EASTER BEAST
• $25k Second Chance
• $7.5 Goodbye Easter Beast
  (Buy-ins total over $950!)

Early play was manic, with everyone going all in - including myself

I got lucky a few times early on and got myself up to around 30th and managed to stay thereabouts for the next couple of hours.

My money was in good most of the time and to be honest my first scary moment was late on when my sevens stood up and improved SEE HERE

The exit was a little sickening, with Keeble catching his flush with a runner runner SEE HERE

Following the flop, my odds of winning were 72.73% and following the turn 68.18% and following the river fuckall%

Nice little confidence boost all in all, even if it was a mega cheap tourny (I'm not proud). Been running like shit the past couple of days and have dropped around $160 of my March Profit. Still a couple a while to go to the end, so am hoping to post a decent profit (for me that is)

Jonny Five is Alive

Don't worry I've not Short Circuited. Well the operation was lots of fun......not, I've been walking about like Stephen Hawkins for the past couple of weeks after catching an infection, which resulted in the local GP get squirted with some nasty shit when he removed my dressing.

Suppose that'll teach him for earning £100k per year. Seriously though, great professional job by everyone at the NHS, we're lucky to have them in this country.


Not been able to play loads of Poker, but my Antibiotics have kicked in now and I'm feeling pretty good, so hopefully I can cane it for a few days. I played 6 MTTs over on Cake Poker last week and managed to cash in 5 of them, which was nice if somewhat unexpected. The best cash was 2nd place in the $1500m which earned me $270 for a $10 buy-in. It was disappointing though, because I was the chipleader going into headsup and I then proceeded to play like a donkey and ended up all-in with a coin-flip. Mind you I would have taken 2nd place if offered before the tourney began ;-)

I somehow managed to salvage the disastrous mid-feb crash and post a profit for the month. My play has been solid when I've managed to play so far in March and long may it continue...I seem to have found some extra discipline.

Anyway, it's good to back, see you on the tables