STTROW POKER STUDENT

Time to get serious....

2008-10-01T03:05:00.000-07:00

...this month I'm mostly going to try and

A) Not tilt

B) Not play like a twat.

September was okay profit wise but I'm quite annoyed with it to be perfectly honest. The high point was getting to over $1300 up with still well over a week of the month to go. I think that's where the complacency may have set in and I played like a muppet and got a bit tilty and spunked away about $800 over a week.

I managed to rally towards the end of the month by having a break from NLHE and turning my attention to RAZZ. So a $700+ month but I really feel it should have been so much more.

I've withdrawn quite a bit of my roll and I'm going to devote my time to playing RAZZ for October, I've never really given it much attention before - but I guess it can't do any harm...can it? So I don't expect the profits to be too spectacular but it shoud be fun.

Oh also, my mate Tony has asked me to include a link for a deal he's offering

PARADISE POKER - 35% RAKEBACK & 500 Euro Bonus

This is the highest you'll find anywhere

(he's basically giving up some some of his commission)

35% Paradise Poker Rakeback Here

Is It Friday yet?

2008-09-25T03:33:00.000-07:00

Some weeks just get on your tits, this has been one of them. I can't wait until Friday 4pm comes around coz I'll be on a 4 o'clcock rocket straight outta the building. The twat on the next desk to me has been annoying the fuck out of me for weeks now, after reading OneAngryKids blog I may exorcise a few of the stories through here, a little bit of blogging therapy n all that.

The main reason this week has got on my tits is because the guy who sits next to me at work makes Napoleon Dynamite look like The Fonz, the guys a freak of nature. His hair's receding faster than a slug from salt, so he's got this fucked up 2 inch thick hair around the sides, which kinda swirls over the top of his bonce coz he thinks it hides 'the patch'.... It doesn't, he looks like a twat. Worst still he's obviously going a bit grey so he's taking to dying his hair.........ginger - lol lol lol - His Tesco bag burst open the other week and his Herbal Essences hair dye popped out, we all pretended not to notice as he hid it under his wafer thin ham. (Summation of Twatty Bollocks- he's 34, ginger (dyed), never been kissed, didn't have a drink until he was 27, once asked if he could get half of a half in a pub, talks to himself outloud in the office & uses a pen to type on the keyboard - which is very fucking noisy)

An example of how thick he is.......A bloke at work came back from America last week and brought back a selection of sweets for the office, they were in a tray with 4 separate sections. Each section had a different type of sweet in them, which were; Section 1:Fudge, Section 2:Mini-maids, Section 3:Dark Chocolate Squares, Section 4:Fruit Polo rip-offs in a clear wrapper

Twatty Bollocks (TB) was making a brew and I went to the kettle area and helped myself to a Section 4 Fruit Polo Rip-off.

On touching my tongue it was met with a "fuck me that's hanging" as I quickly spat it out.
TB said, "ooh better not have one of those, which one did you try"
Halfway back to my desk I said "One of those fruit polo lookalikes"
TB - "One of these" (pointing to the Fudge)
ME - "Errrr, no, the ones that look like fruit polos"
TB - "Oh these" (pointing to the Mini-maids)
ME - paused seeing if he was really that thick.....yep he is....walked over and pointed to the fruit polo wannabees and said "these ones you daft cunt"
TB - "Oh right"

I promptly picked up another fruit polo minger and took it to 4 different offices asking 8 people what does it look like, 100% of people answered - fruit polo

There's nothing exceptional planned for the weekend. Friday night usually equals too much beer, but for once I've got to drive after work and do a few jobs, so I won't be able to get a refreshing drinkette until at least 8 or 9pm. Still enough time to do some damage but I may stay in and join a new Poker Site... I might give Devilfish Poker a try coz I could do with a new bonus to clear.

Saturday = got some work to do in the daytime, then I might head out for a walk followed by getting the lads round for a poker night....I could do with some cash - lol

Good luck at the tables

PS - OneAngryKid, hope you don't mind me having my own little moan :-)

Been playing.....

2008-09-23T03:21:00.000-07:00

....RAZZ, hence the picture of the RAZZberry, yeah I know it's shite but it's the best that I could come up with.

RAZZ has been my main fix for the past week, with me starting at 0.25/0.50 and working my way up to $30/$60 stakes one night.

Overall I've made around $700 playing RAZZ whilst I've managed to spunk away about $400 playing NLHE. Switching from RAZZ back to NLHE seems to make me play like a complete gimp, but the RAZZ experience has been good and I'm going to continue playing it some more.

There are not many RAZZ books out there and the couple on Amazon & eBay which are RAZZ specific cost a fortune £40+ each and the books are about 15 years old. I've been busy with some other shite, but when I get a chance I'm going to scour the forums and try and learn the nuances of the game. The main tactic that I've been employing is tight is right i.e. really waiting for that premium starting hand and then jamming the bets in like crazy when it arrives, it seems to work okay because RAZZ is primarily a drawing game and people will call down hoping to hit that miracle card. Occassionally they do and it's annoying but they're the beats that come with any form of poker.

Remembering the face cards of people who've folded is also crucial and should form part of reasoning on whether to get involved in a hand, I've found that when I think I'm behind, I usually am, but sometimes I just can't help chasing that miracle card like a twat [see above :-) ]

Anyway, I'm sticking to 1/2, 3/6 & 5/10 RAZZ for a while whilst I can hopefully become a legend at this form of Poker(ha ha I'm so full of shit - more like a Leg End). If anybody knows any good sites for RAZZ then post the links in the comments

Good luck at the tables

Back Down To Earth

2008-09-10T05:27:00.000-07:00

Well after my stupendous start to the month on Full Tilt's NL50 tables, I have finally crashed back down to earth. From being $1042 up, I am now $606 up following two disastrous sessions (one last night & one this morning), which saw me lose just over 8 buy-ins at NL50.

Some of it was bad luck, suck-outs etc, but to be perfectly honest the majority of it was down to bad decision making on my part whcih saw me throwing good money after bad in the vain hope of doubling a stack up to recoup some of my earlier losses.

Poker doesn't work that way and it fucked me over good and proper.

Suppose I can't grumble with being $600 up for the 10th of September, but it's really fucking annoying. Back to the drawing board and I'll leave playing until the tilty feelings have subsided

Good luck at the tables

No Million Pounds For Me

2008-09-09T01:46:00.000-07:00

Oh well, I had a good go at the Million Pound Challenge but it just wasn't to be - maybe next year. On the plus side, I'm over $1000 up for September after a week of poking around on Full Tilt NL50 and I'm gonna be an iron man baby. Long may it continue, this could well be my best month ever........as long as I don't blow it all in a pissed up moment of madness

The missus has been getting into poker more and more over the past few months and she's managed to turn her $50 starting roll into a healthy $140 on BetOnBet Poker with some guidance from me. She's mainly played 6-max micro stakes but she's recently started playing some micro sit n gos with great success.

Good luck at the tables

Bloody 10s

2008-09-03T02:24:00.001-07:00

Bloody 10s, what a nightmare....I'm still trying to qualify for the Full Tilt Poker Million Pound Challenge and following on from my 29th place finish on Saturday and 23rd place finish on Sunday, I was feeling confident going into another freeroll.

The were 480 (ish) runners and I muddled on through the early and middle stages keeping my stack average or above average throughout, before running a little low towards the end-game.

I did however manage a cheeky couple of double-ups to move closer to the average stack size (38000). With 17 players left, the big blind at 1200 and my stack at around 32000, I was staring at 1010 UTG. I popped it up to 3200 and and had 2 large stacks in mid-position call me followed by a 12000 all-in from a short-stack. Given the positions and fact that the large stacks may have been calling light, I decided to make my move and shoved all-in, only for the first large stack to call and the second one insta-folded.

The short-stack had Ax and the large stack had AA and caught another Ace on the flop to deliver the killer blow. So I had to settle for 16th place, once again close but no cigar, at least this time I was never in a good spot with tens versus aces wheras the previous knockouts I had my chips in when ahead only to be outdrawn.

Think I'll have another bash on Wednesday - fingers crossed

Good luck at the tables

PS - thanks to Alpha for the railing

Getting Closer

2008-08-31T15:58:00.000-07:00

Had another crack at the Million Pound Challenge Freeroll tonight - finished 23rd out of 394 runners, which is an improvement of 6 places from my efforts last night - I finally busted out when in the BB and short-stacked against 2 guys.

I had Ad9c and flopped 3 diamonds giving me a nut-flush draw and an overcard to the board, this was enough for me to move straight in and unfortunately I didn't catch another diamond or the Ace and I went out to a pair of Queens (excuse the pun).

I've still got some freeroll tickets left so I'll try again tomorrow night

Million Pound Challenge

2008-08-31T05:51:00.000-07:00

I've been away for about 11 days and also without the Internet for the same amount of time - what a nightmare.

Anyway after ploughing through my emails last night. I had an interesting one from Full Tilt saying that I had managed to earn 7 Freeroll tickets for the Full Tilt Million Pound Challenge.

If you win a freeroll you get entry & expenses to their tournament in London in a couple of weeks time. So I redeemed one last night and came a credible 29th out of 365 runners.

I had a couple of beats to deplete my stack, but that's the way it goes. I lost half a stack when a short-stack went all-in pf and looking at 1010 I called - I ended up against 88 - unfortunately for me an 8 appeared on the flop and I failed to improve.

It took another 20 mins before a finally busted out, I was short-stacked and all-in pf with AQs against A8os - the flop brought an A84 and a killer 8 on the turn.

Got 6 tickets left and 2 shots at it tonight......fingers crossed

High Stakes High Jinks

2008-08-19T00:52:00.000-07:00

What was I thinking...........little old me playing $5/$10 Heads-up on Full Tilt. There are two problems with that:

I am no way near bankrolled for that kind of game
My heads-up game has many flaws and needs working on....big time

I'd withdrawn my Full Tilt roll a while back but I got a rakeback payment of around $10 which I managed to spin up to $100 in no time at all. I've steadily managed to grind that into a $1400 bankroll, which to be quite honest I'm really fucking pleased with. So anyway, last night the devil was in me, I started work yesterday at 7.45am and didn't stop until 10pm - so the little devil on my shoulder was saying that I needed a huge adrenaline fix as a treat for working such a long day.

So off to the $5/$10 table it was and I saw a chap waiting with $600 so I thought I'd join with the same.

About the tenth hand in and I'm dealt 8s 7s in on the button - I raise to £30 and I'm called - flop comes Jc 8d 6s and I lead out for $45 and am raised to $110. I honestly feel that I'm still very much in this hand so I call the raise. Turn 9c I still feel that my 8 is good and lead out for $200 only to be re-raised all-in after a long deliberation. I am such a fish that I thought, in for a penny - in for a pound.

He flips over KQ and a a 5 hits on the river turning my pair into a straight and I take down the pot. He left the table.....and so did I

It was fun, but I won't be playing those stakes for quite some time..........very silly of me and this time I got lucky.........good fun though :-)

No time to post

2008-07-29T07:21:00.000-07:00

Jesus H Christ.......I've not had the time to post.

Once again, it's been a while sine the last post & I'm still working on the old poker game in the belief that I'll be able to quit the rat race for good within the next 12 months. So I've got a part-time accountancy job around the corner from my house so that when (hopefully) I'm in a position to quit I'll at least have a guaranteed income each month to supplement the poker.

I've also been helping out my mate with his rakeback website Bargain Man but he's pretty limited with the amount of alterations you can make on it as it's one of those WYSIWYG software sites.

He's hopeful that his new site Rakeback Revolution will be a real success as the web developer working on it is supposed to be shit hot and the draft versions are looking pretty good. I'm going to help him with site reviews etc and some the of the content, but he's got some great little features for the site which should set it apart from the rest out (but I can't mention them). I know he's a mate, but I think it's great to see a Rakeback Site being set up in the UK. End of summer/Autumn it should be going live.

On the poker front, I've not been able to play a huge amount over the past few months, hence the lack of posts, however when I have played, I've tended to do okay.

June profit was around $550 and my current profit for July is around $600, which I'm happy with seeing as I've not been at the tables too much.

I'm waiting for a Neteller transfer to complete and then I'll be looking for a new site

PS...I will try to start posting again........honest

I'm in Paradise

2008-05-23T08:23:00.000-07:00

Sorry it's been a while since I last posted, but seeing as this is a poker blog, I've not really had much to say coz I've not played much poker at all. I think I was spending too much time on the tables and not enough time with the missus etc

So now that I'm into a routine where I'm not on the tables every single night, I now hit the tables when I know I have a good block of free time and my results have definitely improved as a result.

I withdrew my Full Tilt balance at the beginning of May and then I got paid $6 rakeback for April (shows how much I played in April) last week and I have since managed to get it up to $116, which I'm pretty chuffed about. I also withdrew my entire roll from Cake Poker and set up a new account at Paradise which is where I will be playing for the next couple of months. It is a total fishfest and I made around $300 in my first week on there. My Pokerstars balance has also crept up by around $25 this month and my Ultimate Bet balance by around $35, so all in all it's been a decent month considering I haven't played too much.

I am going to put a good effort into moving my game onto the next stage over the next few months and following some sound advice I have opened up my range of opening hands....so far so good

Good luck at the tables

Poker Night....At Last

2008-04-18T04:54:00.000-07:00

Managed to grab a quick couple of hours on the tables last night and managed to make a $69 profit for the day from playing NL20 at Cake Poker (only 69 I've had for a while).

The missus is out on the lash around Manchester tonight so I'll be home for 5, take the dog out and grab a quick bite to eat before settling down for a decent sized session at the tables.

My target for reaching $400 profit for April by Sunday looks more than attainable - only $50 to go and I'll be annoyed if I don't make it. I'm still really happy with my game at the moment and I am pleased to be close to $400 from playing NL10 & NL20, especially as I haven't really played anywhere near as much as usual this month. For one reason or another I've been having to grab an hour or two, here or there and in a strange way it's benefited me, because knowing I only have an hour or so to play increases my concentration - if that makes sense.

Looking forward to tomorrow, got my mate Steve coming over early in the morning, after the bacon butties we'll be setting off on a 5 hour hike - followed by a pub lunch, followed by watching footy, followed by a home game of poker, followed by the Calzaghe fight - think I might need the alarm clock because I'll be wrecked.

Good luck at the tables

Back to blogging

2008-04-17T05:06:00.000-07:00

A while since my last blog, thought I'd give my few regular readers a holiday. Still trying to shake off the tonsilitis which I came down with on my last blog entry. Been a fortnight now and it's starting to drive me mental.

My mum broke her ankle, so I've had to be the dutiful son and make the 66mile round trip to visit her and get shopping etc for her. My brothers live closer but they're useless.

Went up to Scotland last week and managed got 3 nights in a quality static caravan (believe me, it is nice....for a caravan) for £20 - got it that cheap through a friend of a friend type thing. I arranged it as a surprise long weekend for me and the missus. When I mentioned it to her, she kindly let me know that she'd arranged to go visit her Mum & Dad that weekend but had forgotten to tell me. So I invited Bob the neighbour and off we went for a lads weekend.

We stayed at a caravan park in Kirkpatrick Fleming, right above Bruce's Cove where apparently Robert the Bruce hid when he was on the run from the English - judging by the state of it inside he must have had a liking for Walkers Cheese and Onion crips.

After travelling up on Thursday, we set off for a walk on Friday morning to climb over the Grey Mare's Tail and do a decent circular route. It was a bit of a fucker to get up, as this was my first proper bit of exercise since my op and all seems well with the old hernia, so plenty more walks & exercise coming up. I do think that there is a correlation between your level of physical fitness and mental fitness.

The day after a decent work out I always seem to be fresher when donking away at the tables - maybe it's just be - but healthy body = healthy mind.

Scotland was a good craic with plenty of beer consumed and plenty of places visited - I even managed to get internet access on my laptop in the caravan - only at dial-up speed (which made it painful) - but I managed to have a couple of late night games and added more profit onto my April total.

I went for a 4 mile walk with the missus last night in a place called Barley, which we would have found a lot sooner if the AA routeplanner had not sent us down a dead-end road. The guide for the walk last night said it was a 1hr 30m walk, I was pretty chuffed at storming through it in 45mins (must have some fitness left over). Last night was a dummy run for Saturday morning when my mate's coming over and we're going to tackle Pendle Hill, which at over 1800ft high, is pretty fucking big.

I'm hopeful I should be able to hit the tables pretty hard tonight and tomorrow night and my target is to get the April profit up to $400 from the $281 which it currently stands at.

Feeling Okay

2008-04-03T09:38:00.001-07:00

Played a couple of hours NL10 & NL20 on Ultimate Bet & Cake Poker the other day. It was a slightly rocky start due to some typical suck outs. Look at this muppet & I also had a monster bad beat, when after building my stack up to $45 on a NL20 table, I managed to lose it all in one fell swoop.

I haven't got a hand history for it (because I keep forgetting to sort it out on UB), Anyhow, there was a fishy who had a $48 stack and through his wild and crazy play I had seen his stack go up and down more times than Jenna Jameson, he'd gone from $20 up to $50 down to $8 up to $30 down to $12 and then finally back up to $48 all in the space of 20 hands or so (if that many).....I'd been hoping to get a decent hand to play against the calling station him and this is where I came in.

Dealt the AdQd it came round to me with 4 callers to a 70c raise - I re-raised it up to $2.20 and got 2 callers.

FLOP - QcQh4s

I bet pot - 1 guy folds - fishy stays with me as I suspected

TURN - Ts

Okay, there's a flush draw now on the board but to be honest I'm not overly concerned about him having a FH, because when he actually held the nuts he was going all in straight away, without trying to get value. So I bet pot again - he calls.

RIVER Kd

Only 1 hand beating me here - I'm all-in, he calls and flips over KK for a FH and a $90 pot. I am pleased to say that the fish donked it all away within the next 20 mins and I got the majority back :-)

April has been a steady month so far with me showing a $167 profit from NL10 & NL20. I've mainly played at Cake Poker & Ultimate Bet, but I'll be joining a new site later this month when my Cake Poker bonus expires.

Came down with tonsilitis yesterday - turning into Amatay - must stop getting ill!!

No porn here.......

2008-04-03T01:25:00.000-07:00

....I've had a little tracker on the blog for a while now, so I decided to see how people actually find the blog. Well, basically if you're searching for student tits - you're going to find me.

There have been quite a few disappointed punters so far. Basically my blog title has the word student in it and then there was the time I played poker in starbucks which adds the tits part to the search term.

Here's a selection of search terms people have recently used.

17 March - Jonny Poker Tits - Ohio, United States

22 March - Poker Tit - Birmingham, United Kingdom

22 March - Student Tits - Pretoria, South Africa

28 March - Tits hanging out of bras - London, United Kingdom

29 March - Tits Poker - Barcelona, Spain

29 March - Student tits - Brussels, Belgium

So if you've stumble across this blog to find some plump titties, then sorry, the little feathered fella will have to do. If you are after some Kleenex action, then why not hop over to Amatay's blog and follow his special links - he's got the goods man.

On the poker front, I got a bit sick of reading strategy books, so for the past month I read Big Deal by Anthony Holden. It's a great read and gives an insight into how the professionals live, he's basically a UK journalist/author and a keen poker player who decided to go pro for 12 months and the books his record of what happened from 1988 WSOP to the next one. Some of characters he met along the way and some of the proposition bet stories within it are fantastic - well worth a look. I've just ordered his new book from amazon, Bigger Deal and it chronicles 2006-2007, hopefully it's just as good.

I'm hoping to finish off Sklanskys Advanced Poker book before getting my teeth stuck into the Barry Greenstein book, Ace On The River (now that's a big book!!)

Made $61 last night playing on Full Tilt and Cake Poker - played a mixture 90-man SNGs, NL10 & a 9 man-SNG. Decent night all in all, nothing too spectacular. Had the usual KK all in pre-flop only to see my opponent flip over AA, can't be laying KK down pre-flop on NL10 though lol

Good luck at the tables

Poker Rakeback Saved My Month

2008-04-01T07:40:00.000-07:00

March was a strange old month poker wise - I feel kind of annoyed about how it went. I managed to grind out a $400 profit in total but nearly half of that is Rakeback anyhow. I played some of my best poker this month and after an exciting start to the month I was hoping to have my best ever month and then all of a sudden I started running really bad. For the past 2 weeks I've been losing nearly every coin-flip & race & I've also had more suck-outs than Hugh Grant.

Still I have to remember that getting your money in good is a winning play long-term and the idiots who beat you with J3 versus your AA all-in pre-flop are the losers long-term. However if I couldn't see that Rakeback ticking over whilst I was treading water on the table I may have gone insane.

April's a new month & a fresh start - time to start running good and go on a variance upswing ;-)

The Big Three O....

2008-03-28T04:54:00.000-07:00

...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

2008-03-27T03:55:00.000-07:00

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

2008-03-26T03:16:00.000-07:00

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....

2008-03-25T04:47:00.000-07:00

...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.

Guy raised all in pre-flop - I had KK, instacall - he had AA - fair enough
Guy raised all in pre-flop - I had AA, instacall - he had QJos - board JJ489
Guy raised all in pre-flop - I had AA, instacall - he had J3os - board 73JT3
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
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

2008-03-19T15:56:00.000-07:00

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

2008-03-11T10:48:00.000-07:00

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

Operation

2008-02-21T01:56:00.001-08:00

Enforced Poker lay off coming right up :-(

For a little while anyway :-)

Going into hospital on Monday for an operation on a para-umbilical hernia (sounds great). Basically in hospital for 7am on Monday, general anaesthetic. Tad worried about the General Anaesthetic as asome lads at work have sowed some seeds in my mind. One of them is one of the most mild mannered blokes, you'll ever wish to meet....after he came round from his op and was on the ward, he spent the next few hours swearing and calling everyone cunts.

Next up comes the lad, who when given his pre-med (little shot you have to relax before they put you under), well most people get a little drowsy but this guy had a weird reaction and ended up going a bit hyper and jumped from bed to bed while the nurses tried to catch him. He then lifted his gown up in the middle of the ward and started waving his knob about.

Should be fun, now the seeds have been sown.

As for Poker, hopefully get a few hours in on Saturday get back into profit - I have been a donk this past week, nothing spectacular, just consistently dickish play

Reeeeespeck

2008-02-17T13:06:00.000-08:00

Great to see the Manchester/Salford Massive in Full effect

although these guys are even tougher!!!

LMFAO

Poker can be an Ass

2008-02-14T02:47:00.000-08:00

Some nights you sit down and start playing and you just feel very comfortable (about your poker that is, not necessarily in a physical sense, being physically comfortable would involve Keeley Hazell), so feeling suitably comfortable I fired up 6 tables of NL10 whilst I had my tea (meat pie & chips - it's great being a Northerner) and managed to rack up $28 in about 30 mins on Full Tilt. I then observed a particulary loose NL100 table on Cake Poker and decided it could be profitable (how wrong I was).

I sat down and within 20 mins had my $100 Buy-in up to $127 and I was still feeling supremely confident, especially seeing some of pre-flop all-ins occuring (QTos v A3os). The session then took a sinister twist and I suffered a couple of horrific beats, twice I got KKK cracked by AAA with the final Ace coming on the river and in between those I had AAKK cracked by 444.

As I said the table was extremely loose and the guy with 44 raised to $3 and got 2 callers - I re-raised to $9 with AK and only the initial raiser calls - flop comes A49 rainbow - game on I think and I can already see the $ signs ticking over - he bets pot - I flat-call - the turn is a K, he pushes all-in I call - he flips over 44 and the river is blank and I wave goodbye to the $140 pot. So overall Wednesday was a $135 losing night ;-(

Anyway, suppose it's my own fault because I've withdrawn most of my roll recently in order to chip away at my credit card, which means that I'm just short of being sufficiently rolled to play NL100. Profit for Feb hovering around the $25 mark, which is annoying as I was over $200 up after a couple of days into Feb.

So back to the NL10 & NL20 this weekend for the Credit Card grind, will be happy to get up to $200 profit for the month now