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I've withdrawn quite a bit of my roll and I'm going to devote my time to playing RAZZ for October, I've never really given it much attention before - but I guess it can't do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

Easy Easy

2008-02-10T08:12:00.000-08:00

Benjani Woaho, Benjani Woaho
We signed him from Pompey
He scores on Derby Day

To the tune of It's Amore
When the ball hits the net
It's not Scholes or Tevez
It's Benjani

The mighty Man City spanked Trafford United 2-1 earlier today and I celebrated with a cheeky bottle of champagne and several ales and I'm going to have some more in a bit ;-)

The day could not have gone any better, City observed the minutes silence impeccably and then destroyed the fuckers on the pitch. First time in my lifetime that we've beaten the rags at the swamp and not only that, but it completes the double over them for the season............Nice.....and we're back in the hunt for a European spot.....Nicer

Right more beer and celebrations coming right up - laters

Mental Note...Do not play NL10 when tired

2008-02-08T02:04:00.000-08:00

Well, I reckon I must have lost around $65 playing NL10 over the past 2 days and I knew I was tired before going on, but I had to get my fix. A little disappointing as my will power regarding this sort of thing has been very good of late.

Due to feeling tired I made some bad calls, mainly to make a quick profit so I could get some sleep....what a donkey. I have however profited on NL50 & NL100 and so the overall damage to my bankroll is only $35.

Going on the piss tonight after work, having our office Christmas Do...yes that is right, our Christmas do and not only that, it's a double one...2006 & 2007. I work for a local authority and these things take time ;-)

Aims for the weekend are to:

Get a new carpet

Go for a 10 mile hike with the dog & missus

Make $100 at Poker by grinding

Finish watching Sopranos Series 6 Part 1

Good luck at the tables

A new era is about to begin...

2008-02-06T02:28:00.000-08:00

...and it's brought to you by Postman Capello.....let's hope he delivers a First Class team (ba dum tish, thanks very much I'm here all week, available for weddings, bahmitzvas, birthdays...)

Anyhow, I can't watch the bloody England v Switzerland game tonight because I've arranged to take the missus out for a Chinese, I can't exactly cancel it coz she's a poker widow as it is..what a nice lad I am.

Thought I'd just have a quick hours grind at NL10 last night. Fired up 6 tables at FT and before I knew it I was down $30 - had a few bad beats and made a few bad calls

ME = AA

FLOP = A88

opponent All-in - I call

OPPO = 88

TURN/RIVER = nothing useful

It wasn't all bad though, I went onto Cake Poker played some NL50 and made $90, so a $60 profit for the day. I'm hoping to be able to hit a $750 profit for the month (including rakeback), I'm already well on the way, so fingers crossed.

Shit post, but I'm bored at work, so thought I'd write something

Papers Papers...

2008-02-02T11:40:00.000-08:00

...vee must see your papers

I'm still loving the Cake Poker, but do not deposit by Credit Card because when you try to withdraw your winnings - you get an email asking for you to provide about 5 pieces of evidence of who you are..pain in the arse

If you deposit by Neteller, then I don't think you have the same issues because you've already had to go through vetting with your Neteller account.

Had a good morning on Cake Poker, played for around 3 hours and ground out a $120 profit, playing NL20. Some crazy people making crazy moves - superb. (Also won $40 at Full Tilt at the same time, if only every Saturday morning was this profitable

Just started a freeroll MTT at Cake 20 minutes ago and the top prize is $2000 with the top 50 paid - 409 runners. It's a Gold Card Freeroll and I got in because I managed to collect a Gold 2 of spades through Ring Game play. 369 peeps left and am currently 257th. I started with 1500 chips and have 1390 at the minute (card dead) -Quite a few people have started with 2500 chips because they had collected 2 x 2s Gold Cards which entitles them to an add on

Feeling good about my poker today so it'd be great to do well in this.....especially as I was behind before the tourny started ;-)

EDIT
Busted out - I finally got some decent cards AKd in BB, folded round to SB and he goes all in - I call, he shows A4c and catches a 4 on the flop - out I went to a pair of fours - what a twat ;-) Nevermind it was free and at least I can get pissed now

I've struck gold (kind of)

2008-01-26T05:22:00.000-08:00

Myself and a couple of mates have got ourselves some free poker money over the past week and it's time to share with the millions that read this blog (well probably about 2 anyway). I'll keep it simple...

Click here to visit the Casino

Deposit $50

Play 10 x $1 bets in anything you like (Blackjack is good because it has a low variance - you win one, house wins one etc)

Now either set yourself a realistic target (say $80) or go mental and gamble big to win big

Here's the good bit -
IF YOU LOSE YOUR $50 DEPOSIT WITHIN 24 HOURS OF MAKING THE DEPOSIT....

THE CASINO WILL REFUND YOU THE $50 AND YOU CAN WITHDRAW IT BACK TO YOUR CARD/NETELLER etc

I got to $80 and withdrew it - $30 profit in 10 minutes

My mate Steve blew the $50, but got his $50 back by filling out the claim form

My other mate Danny - spun it up to just over $300 on Roulette - Jammy %$£&

I know it's an aff link, but this is a seriously good offer, so click click and click again

sttrow love cake

2008-01-23T01:39:00.000-08:00

I'm persevering with my Sit and Go donkfest at the moment and I managed to grind out about $45 profit from 8 x $6 STTs last night on Full Tilt. Meanwhile I love da Cake, hmmm hmmm, man I love a bit o' cake.

I've joined Cake Poker and it's great. There are not too many players on there (couple of thousand I'd say), but they are offering a $500 sign up bonus which is released in increments of $10 and seems quite obtainable (not sure if there's a time limit - can't see one)

I played cash games on there last night and managed to sneak out with a $40 profit from NL10 which was nice.

There are also some nice quirky little bits to the site. You collect Frequent Player Points, which is obviously pretty standard, but you can also collect Gold Chips & Gold Playing Cards. Gold chips are released into your account when you reach a set amount of FPPs - not too much about 100. These chips have no expiry date and can be used to enter tournaments on the sites - you can play for more chips or you can use 20 chips to play for a few thousand $$$.

Gold cards are also dished out on tables when enough rake has been paid to the house - the winner of a hand will suddenly see on of their cards turn to Gold and these carry different values and entitle you to entry into various freerolls for cash - these are harder to come by and I guess they are a good reward for frequent play - If you collect the full set of cards you get $52,000

Happy New Year....at last

2008-01-14T10:56:00.000-08:00

It's been an up and down month to say the least so far. First day up, second day I stopped off at Donk City for a while, then I've been up ever since, but not without a few wild swings and pitstops back at Donk City along the way.

I have mainly been playing on Full Tilt for the past month and my plan has been to get my Full Tilt balance up to $1200 and then withdraw $200 to Neteller, unfortunately I seem to have some kind of mental block at the $1000 mark. The story has been something along the lines of, roll up to $985, down to $620, up to $1005, down to $838, up to $1010, down to $720, up to $800, which is where it is was yesterday morning.

Starting last night, I decided to try and become a grind machine in order to get my FT Balance up to $1200 by the end of Jan (good to have targets an all that). I played one table at a time and had no distractions (aside from the radio) and I managed to finsh on $920, so a good start.

The reason I want to get to that magical figure of $1200 is that I've applied for a Neteller prepaid card which basically allows you to access any poker winnings you may have been lucky enough to withdraw to your Neteller account. It's basically a prepaid Mastercard and you can only spend what you have in credit so in theory it sounds quite good.

My plan is to hopefully get into a routine of building my FT roll up to $1200, withdrawing $200, building up to $200 withdrawing $200 etc. If I can do that a few times a month (consistently) for a couple of months, then I'll be well chuffed and look at building my FT roll higher and moving up a level.

FOOTBALL
The mighty Man City are through to the 4th round of the FA Cup after a shit game against West Ham last night. Man City will now lose to Sheffield United in the 4th round. We may have a great stadium, great fans, a half decent team and a manager who's shagged half of the UK - but they are still Man City which means disappointing 4th round exit to lower league opposition.

Up the blues

Another lovely day

2007-12-30T13:21:00.000-08:00

I am frightened to say it but I think I am getting the hang of Sit and Gos - bang there goes my luck, I'll probably never cash again.

Seriously though, I only played around 15 x $6 Sit and Gos and I managed to clear about $85 profit which with the $25 I won playing NL50 means another $100+ day. Back in work tomorrow which is depressing as fuck, but off again Tuesday with a sore head no doubt.

I also stumbled across a neat little automatic Blackjack player - which plays the correct strategy so that it reduces the casinos edge - now I'm highly sceptical of these things, if it's too good to be true and all that, but I loaded up InterCasino with $50 and set the program running. You get 100 hands free to evaluate it and after the 100 hands I was on $65 (30% increase). The thing I like about the software is that it's not based around winning at the game, bear with me....it's about reducing the casinos edge so that you can clear your welcome bonus. So Golden Palace for example offer a $300 bonus for depositing $50 - once you have raked so much. So you set the software running for say 8 hours a day for a week and you should have played enough to clear your bonus.

Your table cash may only be $22 (for eg), but you will have released the bonus, which means your profit would be $278. A lot of the casinos which you can use it on have monthly reload bonuses so you can just keep on winning. I've signed up, hopefully it'll cary on working.

Hope you all have a great New Year and good luck at the tables

Super Hot - It's Official

2007-12-29T05:02:00.000-08:00

Just a quickie to say I had a cracking day yesterday - I was on fire and cashed in 11 Sit n Gos in a row - overall profit for the day was $150 which means I'm on target for a nice crimbo bonus. My rating on Sharkscope said I was in SUPERHOT form - damn right. Going to see if I can carry it on today.

Also found out that I can play poker on my mobile phone at Ultimate Bet - which could spell trouble at work ;-)

I hate muppets

2007-12-28T02:51:00.000-08:00

Had a great Christmas and I did well on the cash tables, unfortunately I had a nightmare playing Sit n Gos yesterday, I just seemed to get bad beat after bad beat by absolute muppets calling when there was no way they should have

4 times I had trip Kings busted by a small straight (on turn & river) - 3 were on the bubble
3 times I had AAKK on flop (rainbow flop btw), which was busted by a flush (on turn and river) - all were bubble

There were more but I'll stop moaning now - going to get right back in the saddle and win some money on Sit n Gos today (hopefully)

So overall about $100 up for the last week, but it could have been so much more if it were not for yesterdays SnGs

I'm about 1/4 of the way through David Sklansky's Theory of Poker - easy to follow and a good read so far, if I can stop playing for 5 minutes I'll finish it while I'm off work

EDIT
Thought I'd start off with an easy $2 sit n Go, just to get into the swing of things - boy am I running bad - here's how to go out of a Sit n Go in 2 hands - this is how it's been going for me

Aarrrrghhh 1 (My winning % on flop = 76.77% - on turn = 70.45%)

Aarrrrghhh 2 (My winning % on flop = 83.43% - on turn = 84.09%)

Busy Day Ahead

2007-12-21T01:09:00.000-08:00

In work at the moment, got to leave at 1 to go to the hospital for a pre-op assessment about my hernia...boring

Hopefully be out of there by 3.30ish and straight into the pub to join a leaving do, then bit later on, probably 7ish, my mates are on their way into town for a few scoops before they hit The Verve concert later tonight. I'm not bothering, saw them the first time around and Ashcroft when he supported Oasis at Old Trafford (Cricket Ground not Scumville).

Casually said to my girlfriend this morning getting off the train, "What time you picking me up?", she gave me one of those There ain't no way I'm picking you up, so get that stupid idea out of your head you fucking muppet kind of looks. I'll phone her later, hehe

Had a decent night on the pokes, which puts be in profit for the month. Won a few quid on Betfair SnGs and played just under an hour on $1/$2 on Full Tilt and won $170 so a great nights work all in all. The cards I kept getting on Full Tilt were unbelievable every other hand seemed to be AA, KK, QQ, AKs, AQs and coupled with the fact the table was full of Frenchys whom I am assuming were pissed (as it was 1am over there) meant it was relatively easy. When it got to 12.30am I was considering continuing whilst the going was good but seeing as I had to be up for work at 6.30am I decided to call it a night and quit while I was ahead...good move I think

Merry Christmas

Bubble Boy

2007-12-18T01:39:00.000-08:00

After setting myself up an all singing all dancing spreadsheet to work out the results needed at Sit n Gos to ensure a profit, I decided to get stuck right in as it looked sooooo easy on Excel. How could I possibly lose. I figured I would play different table sizes and different speeds and hopefully after I've played quite a few, if I've still got any money left, I'll be able to determine which type of table my style of play is best suited to...if any ;-)

Here are my results for the last week -

11/12/07 - Profit $72.50 - 8 Entries - 4 Cashes - 1 Bubble

12/12/07 - Loss $180.50 - 11 Entries - 2 Cashes - 8 Bubbles

13/12/07 - Profit $72.50 - 8 Entries - 4 Cashes - 2 Bubbles

15/12/07 - Loss $54.50 - 9 Entries - 1 Cash - 3 Bubbles

16/12/07 - Profit $63.40 - 10 Entries - 5 Cashes - 0 Bubbles

17/12/07 - Profit $10.40 - 2 Entries - 1 Cashes - 1 Bubble

18/12/07 - Loss $23.70 - 9 Entries - 2 Cashes - 1 Bubble

Overall - Loss $90.90 - 57 Entries - 19 Cashes (33%) - 16 Bubbles (28%)

The most infuriating day was 12/12/07 - When I bubbled in 73% of the SnGs I entered - They were all $25+$2.50 6-pacs on Betfair, so what could have been a nice day turned out to be a bit of a disaster. I've got my nose in a few books and hopefully I can improve my play at the end of tournaments to turn those bubbles into cashes.

I managed to get all of my Full Tilt SnG results into a spreadsheet and I'm currently working my through adding as many Betfair ones as possible. On Full Tilt I have a positive balance from SnGs even though I have a negative ROI%. Most of that is down to the $2 SnGs I've played, where my ROI is something shocking like -28%. I tend to find myself messing about too much in games at those stakes and I don't give them much respect. My stats show that the higher the stakes the better I seem to do (apart from my bubble day - lol). My aims for the next few weeks are to work my way up through the SnGs - starting with the $2 ones.

My cash play has been pretty solid over the same period, so I'm actually about $50 up for the past week. Good Luck everybody, crimbo is on it's way

Somebody call the cops....

2007-12-12T01:42:00.000-08:00

it's twisting my melon man

Decided to have my first proper sit down at poker last night for quite a while. I played really well but ended up stuck for about $150, had no distractions, just had music playing and my girlfriend and the dog were downstairs watching tv.

Sat down at 6pm and fired up $1/$2 NLHE on Betfair, started with $200 - 6.15pm up to $298 and had obviously had some good cards, but played them well. The the shit hit the fan..

I had KK and re-raised 3xBB - got called by 2 guys

FLOP - K59 (rainbow)

1st guy raises - 2 nd guy re-raises - I do the same - Next minute all 3 of us are all-in and the pot is $770

My hand - KK
Cunt 1 - AK
Cunt 2 - 55

FLOP - K59 (rainbow)
Turn - Q
River - 5

I sat there in stunned silence for a couple of minutes before deciding to win it back on Betfair games (lost another $140) - had a hissy fit and self-excluded myself from the games for 6 months ;-)

I believe that my play was correct and that faced with the same scenario I should do the same again!!

I felt tilty but I wanted to win some cash back so I decided to play some Sit N Gos.

$25 PLO Heads-up - WON ($50)
$25 Turbo NLHE 6 seater - WON ($100)
$25 Super Turbo NLHE 6 seater - 2nd ($50)
$2.50 Super Turbo PLO 9 seater - bubble boy

Also played the $300 guaranteed MTT and came 30/120 - busted out on a 50/50 chance

Then I loaded up a 50c/$1 and won $48

So overall I played some really good poker and still ended up losing money - it can be a sick game at times. Oh well more fun and games tonight then.

PS - I bumped into Venom_G in 1 game of 50c/$1 (think I left that on even after being slightly up) and he has had a mad week or so for someones roll going up or down - check out his blog on the right hand side of the page

Been poorly..got better...

2007-12-11T03:05:00.000-08:00

got beat by the missus...got ripped by my mates

Not been blogging or playing too much pokes because I managed to catch myself some nasty virus which wiped me out for 2 weeks. I ended up with it settling in the main arteries in both legs which meant they were both sore as fuck - great fun.

I think I caught it in hospital, I had an appointment to see the surgeon about my hernia on the Friday - 2 days later I was wrecked, definitely must have picked it up in there...there are quite a few sick people knockin around hospitals you know, so be careful when visiting.

The virus was pretty trippy at night, I only got about 3 hours sleep in the first 3 days and after watching an episode of The Sopranos - I found myself lying in bed thinking I was Tony Soprano, trying to cut some deals to by a house by the beach with some fucking mooks, I was wide awake so it was pretty funky.

Got to go back to the hospital on the 21st for a pre-surgery medical - should be fun when they tell me that I drink too much & have a beer belly (tell me something I don't know), hopefully catch another bug, probably get MRSA when I have the op too - still at least it's time off work.

So back to the missus thing, after successful negotiations with the local pub I managed to get the landlord to stay open for the Ricky Hatton fight. So a couple of mates came over for the fight and we hit the pubs at about 8pm (my mate Danny had already had 7 pints by then - he'd been to the football).

After a few pints elsewhere, we got the best seats in the local for the boxing at about 9.30pm and proceeded to sink more beers and at about 11 I got the poker chips off the landlord and battle commenced. I'd spent about 20 minutes talking about poker with my mates and telling them how I have been doing okay and study my books etc and was feeling more confident every week....me and my big mouth

We played £5 in, winner takes all, blinds increasing every 10 mins. - After an hour I was heads up against my girlfriend and I had slightly less chips than her - my mate wanted us to split the cash and start a new game - I'm too competitive for that, so declined. with KJ in my hand and J83 on the board, I moved all-in to bring an end to it. She called and turned over QQ, with a Q on the turn just for good measure. - First game to her.

next game, first out - went all-in with AQ with QA3 on the board - my mate called and made a straight on the river...he was holding 24 and caught the 5.

Next game - got to heads up against the missus - and she dumped me out again. My mates went to town on me...twats ;-)

I'd won £45 on Reading beating Liverpool earlier so it wasn't all bad news - until the Hatton fight. Great effort from the guy, but I think Welterweight is just a bit too heavy and Mayweather is just a bit too classy for him. I fear that if he fights De La Hoya, he'll be beaten again because De La hoya is more of a light middleweight these days and even coming down to Welterweight I think he'll be too tough for Hatton.

I'd love to see Hatton go back down to light welterweight and kick Junior Witter's head in - he's even more arrogant than Mayweather, but without the talent - he reckons he would beat Hatton - but Ricky would destroy him

One of the highlights of the night was my mate Danny, who's been working out a bit recently deciding to take his top off at about 3am and throwing his t-shirt onto a lads head who was sat with about 7 mates...luckily they realised that Danny was a bit mental and didn't take it any further. Danny was stood up on the chair flexing his biceps and claping his hands shouting "yeah, I'm bigger than Hatton, yeah, come on Ricky, yeah". This went on for about 5 minutes until he finally decided to carry on with the poker we were playing.

Laters peeps

Tag - Tiggy It - Touch.......

2007-11-16T08:45:00.001-08:00

...God it's like being at school - Isa beena taggeda bya SmoothPleasePoker

THE RULES
A) Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
B) Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself.
C) Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
D) Let each person know that they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

THE OUTCOME

RULE A
I've already linked to SmoothPlease and the rules are above

RULE B

I can shove a Watermelon up my left nostril and fire it out of my ear to within 3 millimetres of a specified target
My biggest ever loss gambling on a single event was £580
I once went to Wigan on a night out and fell down the concrete stairs at wigan Wallgate station whilst running for the last train back to Manchester. I didn't have a scratch on me and some bloke on the train gave me his untouched kebab because it was the funniest thing he seen in years.
I went to the Man United xmas party 4 years ago and put Man City posters up in the toilet cubicles, I also called Ryan Giggs a cunt
If you stack my Poker books on top of each other, they are 6000 miles high
If you stack all the poker chips I have ever won on top of each other they are 6 millimetres high
I am the most injury prone person in the world, I currently have a hernia from getting out of bed

RULE C
I have tagged the following 7 people

RULE D
I've let the buggers know

Here I go again on my own.....

2007-10-30T01:52:00.000-07:00

... Donking down the only road I've ever known.

As sure as night follows day, donking follows a win.

What a cock, I'll work out the exact figure at lunch, but I think I donked the best part of $200 yesterday..see what happens when you get cocky...I AM A FISHY PRICK (Vanessa Feltz's Husband has one of those - ha ha - seriously though imagine waking up next to that, pass the bucket)

I played like an absolute muppet, calling large raises to chase an inside straight, folding good hands to small raises and a few bad beats along the way, like the twat who beat me with J5os when I had AK - I raised pre-flop 4xBB he called - the board ended up TJQ55 (no flush on the cards) - After the flop I bet the pot - he calls (with a pair of Jacks - tit), After turn I bet 3/4 pot - he calls (with 2 pair), after river I bet pot - he calls and takes the pot with a Full House. Having never played this guy before, there was no way I could put him on that hand, I figure him for KQ, AQ, QJ (I didn't put him on a pair coz he woulda re-raised me - I think)

I had a go in the Betfair $300 Guaranteed (I think that's what it was anyway) - it cost $5+$0.50 and there were around 160 entrants - I finished 17th for a huge payday of $8.03 - think I busted out with JJ v QQ pre-flop all-in, was tootling along in about 7th at the time.

Will get back on the pokes tonight and take it easy, play less pots and be more aggressive when I'm leading the board. Last night, after a few early setbacks, I slipped into a mindset of trying not lose money - which also meant I wasn't going to win any because I was backing out of puts when I should really have been sticking around - my opponents exploited this, so far play to them...cunts ;-)

Nice results

2007-10-29T02:32:00.000-07:00

Had a sensational night out in Wigan on Friday, the highlights of which were;

Buying 6 pints for £8.55 (that's the proper price)

Getting a Donner kebab for 99p (that's the proper price too)

Getting my mate Dave stuck in the luggage rack on the train

I didn't get any poker in on Friday night, because I could hardly see, let alone fidure out how to turn a computer on. On Saturday morning the girlfriend trotted off to go out with her mate, she was also staying over at her mates - which gave me a free reign ;-)

I emailed Betfair to enquire about rakeback, they said you need a minimum of £100 in a month and I had only done £89 (I have done about the same on that on Full Tilt in October as well, so if I switch all my poker play to Betfair, I shouldn't have a problem).

Well the missus went out and the poker went on, after 2 hours of grinding I had made about 50p, so I decided to check out one of Amatay's free porn links - RedTube - like youtube only better, great find mate. Anyway 3 minutes and 2 tugs later, I decided to have another crack at the poker, I felt I was playing but just not quite well enough.

I was just starting to make some inroads ($35 up), when the doorbell went. It was my bessie mate who'd come round to watch the Man City v Chelsea match. Now I live about a 50 minute drive from his house, so I greeted him with a traditional Mancunian welcome "What the fuck are you doing here nob 'ed, come on in" He said, "You sent me a text at about midnight last night, saying the City game was on you dodgy Albanian satellite dish"...I was on the train on the way home from Wigan at that stage and don't remember sending that, but there you go.... BTW, I got a Satellite system installed from a company in Bacup, Lancashire (they do national installs, I think) called Marconi Digital. It cost me £180 for the dish, decoder and installation. There are then 2 Digital Alb packages you can get, normal & premium (both 12 months). The normal gets you 6 sports channels, which gets you all the premiership footy, champions league, internationals, bundesliga, french league, spanish and loads of other sports - all the premiership games are in English commentary (3pm kick-offs too) - the premium one I got for £220 and you get all the sport plus 3 English film channels (loads of recent stuff, even cinema releases, the Albanians don't give a fuck about copyrights) and 3 hardcore porn channels, 1 of which is 24 hours per day!!

Anyway, we watched Man City get dicked, it was fucking grim, coulda been 10..oh well never mind, Sunderland next up.

Right so my mate fucks off home and I get cracking on the poker again and put in about 3 hours before heading off to the pub with my neighbour. I had an hour on returning from the pub and was about $70 up overall for the day, so I was quite pleased with myself. Sunday morning soon came around and after the usual shitshowerwankshavewankbreakfast routine it was time to get some poker going. I played for about 4 or 5 hours in total and managed to finish $288 up for the weekend. I was a bit pissed off because I was actually $388 up for the weekend, when I got myself involved deep in a pot and made a bad bad call on the river and donked $100 away in an instant...think I got a bit cocky, it was 11.30pm last night and I had already said it was my last hand, because I was nodding off. Must add, DO NOT PLAY WHEN TIRED, to DO NOT PLAY WHEN PISSED.

My favourite hands from the weekend are here...good play or lucky fish, you decide - I'm still learning after all !!!!

Overall though I'm happy with my performance this weekend and I'm looking forward to the week ahead. I said in my last post that I was going to concentrate on the 10c/20c games, but I thought fuck-it because my pokertracker stats for 25c/50c games were good and I have over 30 buy-ins at that level, so I may as well carry on there for a while and if my buy-ins drop then I'll drop down a level.

fishy sttrow over and out

So far, So Good

2007-10-26T06:19:00.000-07:00

Finally gotten around to working out the roll (it's spread around various sites) and things are looking okay. After a good start to the month when I was above my September profit after 8 days I then had a bad run, due to some bad play and some bad beats - you know the script!!

Well my current profit for October is $485 and it'd be nice to break through the $500 barrier.

I had a good time on Betfair last night, blew a buy-in on a 10c table but I managed to turn my $50 buy-in on the 50c table into $130 in just over an hour. I will try and dig out some of the hand histories from that table. It was a six-max table and 4 of the guys on it were ridiculous, they were entering 80% plus of pots and calling down to the wire. I'll dig out the real hand history, but roughly here is an example of a hand. One of them Javoley1 or something like that called me down to the river with this shit

The hand - roughly, pretty accurate I think

Javoley1 5cs 8s
strow Kd Ks

Flop Kc 5d Th
Turn 2d
River 7c

I think I actually cleared him out, he kept putting $15 in, losing it, then reloading with another $15...must have done it 3 or 4 times.

I was looking through my pokertracker stats last night and my best earners are - 50c and 10c games, I was doing okay on $1 games, but I got bitchslapped on my last 3 visits so I'll stay away. I'm about even on 20c & 25c games. So in summary

10c Games UP
20c Games EVEN
25c Games EVEN
50c Games UP
$1 Games DOWN

As I said before, I'm happy with my 10c game and I feel very comfortable at 50c games too, but I think I'll try and stick to 20c levels for a while, until I'm happy that I am as confident at that level as I am on 10c.

I've been running Pokertracker for a while, building up stats etc, but I've never really tried to use it to gain an advantage. Well last night I ran a nifty add-on for it called Gametime Plus and I can definitely see it being a useful tool, I'll write an article on it if I get chance this weekend.

Off to Wigan tonight on the piss with some lads from work....should be fun

English Sport...just like my poker

2007-10-24T01:10:00.000-07:00

What a crock of shit the weekend was for sport, but I still managed to make the most of it.

Saturday morning started off with the usual sore head from the Friday night, followed by a cup of tea and a bit of Poker. After an hour on Betfair I was $40 up so I quit for the day and got myself ready for the day ahead. I got into Manchester City Centre at 12pm, quick haircut, quick bacon butty - in the pub at 12.25pm. Super skills!!

My mate Steve didn't turn up til after 1, using some poor excuse that he'd only got to bed at 8am following popping out for a quick pint at 7pm on Friday...lightweight. Anyway after a couple of games darts and a few cheeky pints, we headed to watch Man City v Birmingham - it was a bit scrappy but a wins a win. I had to meet the missus in town after the match which proved to be slightly problematic as the 1 route back to town was blocked off due to a bit of a riot involving the Birmingham fans (apparently it was the 25th anniversary of their hooligan firm, the zulus - how sweet - they always cause trouble the scum cunts). Now Steve and I are not ones to be intimidated easily so we decided to go against the flow of people and try to get to town, we finally gave up when met with a wall of coppers and some stones flew past our heads...oh and I got shoulder barged by a horse, fucking big them you know!

So down the back streets of Beswick it was and it turned out to be a masterstroke, we stumbled across this pub called The Corner Shop and it's superb - we'll be back again. The wedding evening do was due to start at 7pm and the missus wanted something to eat prior to arrival, so at 6pm I said - Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitttttttt, gotta get to town, phoned the local taxi firm, who said it'll be "about an hour, might be more". Fuck that so we hotfooted it to town and managed to just arrive before the big boss. We managed to grab a bite to eat in Bluu Bar before arriving at the wedding at 7.55pm.

Now the hotel was a bit swish and they don't serve any draught beers, because they think it's a bit common. So I handed over £5 for a bottle of Magners, it was £4.20 for a Peroni, but you don't get as much in them ;-) I asked them where they had the rugby was on "I'm sorry Sir, we do not show things like that, even if it was the football world cup final we would not have it on, our owner simply would not entertain the idea" Prick...I managed to find a room of someone who was staying there but unfortunately it was full of nobs and the telly was tiny. A South African player knocked on during the first half and I said "That's a knock on" - some plummy voiced cock said "Well unfortunately you're not refereeing". So I made a sharp exit and watch the rest of the match in Walkabout bar and left the missus behind with some of her mates.

After the do we headed the short trip down the road to Manchester235 - a bit steaming to say the least. £20 on red as soon as I walked in, soon became £40. A couple of cocktails followed before moving onto Blackjack, I left that another £20 up. Next up was 3-card Poker, now I cocked the first couple of hands up, I folded AJ9 & A87 and the dealers highest card was only a Q on both occasions. I was struggling to see by this point as it was now about 3am. After finally getting back to evens on the 3-Card Poker and £80 up overall we decided to call it a night.
However the roulette table on the way out was to appealing for the girlfriend so she had a sit down and took £10 out of her purse. After receiving 10 x £1 chips she tried to put £2 on the middle dozen - I told her it was minimum of £5 on the outside so she upped the stake, then she said croupier - put the rest on 16 & 17...madness I thought, why not spread the remaining 5 out a bit??
No sooner had the croupier placed the chips, than it landed on number 17....schweeeeeeeeeett

Taxi home, picking a kebab up on the way - bish, bash bosh, sorted.

I played in 2 Caribbean Poker Classic Freerolls on Interpoker on Monday night and I did okay. Finished 45th out of 1289 and 135th out of 1600 in the other one. I was in 10th place chipwise when I got busted out on the first one - ended up all in holding QQ with J85 on the board - against a bigger stack. He had AJ and picked up an Ace on the turn - I think I made the right move...tell me if I'm wrong - it would have made me chip leader ;-(

The other one, I was starting to get a bit short stacked - in about 85th place at the time, so I pushed all-in with JJ and got called by QQ - ho hum.

I won another $60 on the cash tables, but I managed to lose all of that last night after getting called all the way down the line by some nonce holding 68 on a 50c/$1 table - I had AA and put in a big raise when the action got round to me 3-4 times the big blind, everyone folded to this guy who re-raised to $8, I re-raised him to $15 and he calls me. Flop 7TA (no chance of a flush on) - I check, he raises $20, I raise him to $40 he calls again. At this stage I'm putting him on AT and figure he has the top 2 pairs. The turn is a 2, I'm thinking happy days - I want to milk him for as much money as possible, I raise $10 and get re-raised to $25 - I call. The river is 9, with no possible flush on the board. I notice that if he had a 6 & 8 he would have a straight, but I can't reasonably assume anyone would call the bets with that hand. Well he did and he had, what a fucker - took me for $75 in the end...he lost all his money (my ex-money) to someone else on the table about 15 minutes later.

Sober at last

2007-10-19T06:50:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a little while since I wrote my last entry, this has mainly been due to the fact that I have been absolutely pissed out of my tiny little mind.

Monday night saw my pool team (Royal George) travelling 200 yards down the road to our arch rivals (Golden Lion) for our final game of the season. Having already been crowned champions, some weeks ago, we decided to turn up in style. Dickie bows and waistcoats all round, we looked like a right set of cunts.

We were quickly 2-0 down until big man sttrow took to the floor, 2-0 was soon 2-2 and we appeared to be back in it. It ended up at 3 games each with 1 game left to be played. Our player for this game was Reidy, who had managed to have side bets totalling £120 on the game. He quickly worked himself a match and bet winning shot on the black. The black was over the corner pocket and the white was unhindered in the middle of the table. He steadied himself and struck the cue ball, the black wobbled left, then right, then left again against the jaws of the pocket, before finally dropping in...closely followed by the white ball - What a cock.

Following the match, several shots and lagers were drunk before we got a carry out back to Reidy's gaff - finally got home at 4.45am and made it into work for 9.15am - still pissed. I vowed to have the rest of the week off the ale but I had forgotten about the England match on Wednesday, so more beverages were consumed again.

On the poker front, I've still not had a chance to calculate my roll but I think I've increased it by about $200 in the last week. Most of my roll is in Betfair, but I don't have a rakeback deal with them, so I am considering either getting my girlfriend to open an account for me to use. Is there any way of getting a rakeback deal added once you are already with Betfair??? I suspect the answer to this question is a big fat NO.

If I get time on Sunday, I am hopefully going to set myself some proper targets and rules and stick to them. Every time I log in to Betfair I end up playing different levels 5c/10c - 10c/20c - 25c/50c - 50c/$1 and various levels of SnGs. I think I need to manage my roll a lot better and set targets for when to move up a level. I find the 5c/10c level pretty easy to be honest but I have played a lot of shit poker on that level recently, I have been making 50/50 calls because I tell myself it's only a quid etc

Super England on the march

2007-10-14T09:41:00.000-07:00

What a cracking day it was yesterday.

Went for a walk in the morning to prepare for the onslaught of beer on my body in the afternoon/evening.

Got in the Royal George at 2pm, grabbed a good spot and waited for it all to begin - The football wasn't the best but a 3-0 win is all that was required. I hope they don't play like that on Wednesday in Russia or they come a cropperski

Luckily the pub put on Chips & Chicken Curry for free after the football, so I got stuck into that to try and soak some of the beer up, it worked....for a while.

Watched the St Helens v Leeds match - what a cracker that was, fast & furious.

The main event of the day though had to be England v France - what a result, I thought Jonny had fucked it a few times, with all the kicks he was missing, but he came good in the end with that stunning drop goal.

After the rugby my girlfriend & I got chatting to a couple of women (Becky & Em) on the next table and when it was over we ended up staggering with them to "The House That Jack Built" (that is an actual pub name!), only been in there about 5 minutes when I was up doing Karaoke, can't remember what, but I'm sure it was sensational.

Anyway turns out that Becky is Iestyn Harris' wife and that he lives in Tod. She put me on the phone to him and I expected to have a meaningful conversation with him, but he just wanted me to pop his wife back on....fair enough I suppose. Numbers have been exchanged, so we'll see if we hook again, nice to have a celebrity in town.

On the poker front, things are looking up, not sure on the profit for the weekend, I'll work it out later and post tomorrow.

Come on Argentina!!!

Anyone seen Piglet, Pooh or Tigger?

2007-10-11T01:22:00.000-07:00

Because I'm a fucking donkey. Following the excitement of Tuesday night & lack sleep (get the excuses in first) yesterday, I managed to donk away $255 of profit for October, my October profit is now down to $132 and the roll is $1149.

I think I got overconfident following my decent start to October and I loosened up my game far too much and called too many 50/50 hands. Couple that with some of the bad beats I received yesterday and you have the perfect recipe for a Poker disaster.

On the positive side of things, I am in profit and not that far behind the overall profit for September. Also, part of the title of this blog is Poker Student and I got taught a few valuable lessons yesterday.

I notice Betfair are running WSOPE Freerolls again every day this month (except Saturdays) at 18:30 and 22:30. I'm not 100% what the craic is, I guess if you qualify from one of these you get through to a grand final (31 October) and if you win that do you then get a package for the 2008 WSOPE. If anyone knows, then please let me know....not that I probably need to worry about it too much ;-)

Laters from King Donk

Neeeee Naaaaaaaaaaahh

2007-10-10T04:12:00.000-07:00

Had a cracking night on Monday, I played a semi professional player in my pool match - I only had one shot and still beat him ;-)

I broke off, he cleared up in one visit........but he potted the white as he potted the black ball.....so the game was mine. I explained to him that he'd fell for my trap because I'd put a bit of top left hand bottom spin on the right hand side of the ball, but the smelly fat twat was not amused

So that was Monday out of the way, last night was far more exciting. Finished work at 4 and met my mate for a beer, still got a few free beer vouchers knocking about, so we used a few of them, before heading to the Marble Arch pub, which has it's own brewery on the premises.

As part of the Manchester Food and Drink Festival, a journalist/author/smartarse called Jonathan Schofield was giving a talk on local beer tales, some of which were funny (can't remember them though). Anyway, my mate's wife is on her way into town to pick him up, when he gets a phone call... A fucking ambulance ran a red light and smashed straight into his wife's car.

Luckily we were only about a 5 minute jog away, so got down there asap. She was in the back of the ambulance that crashed into her (I guess there are worse things to be crashed into by). The car was a write off and she spent the night in hospital because some fragments showed up on the scan, so she had to wait for the specialist this morning.

She had their pet dog in the car, so I had to bring it home and our dog went fucking mental, so I ended up in the spare room with the spare dog. I got about 2 hours sleep all night and had to get up at 6am to get back over to my mate's house to sort the dog out and drive him around today.

So having booked the day off work, I managed to squeeze some poker in this afternoon...bit shit really not sure how much I've lost but it's a definite loss - will quantify it tomorrow when I update my spreadsheet.

I'm having a crack at qualifying for the CPC in St Kitts via Inter Poker - we all have to dream don't we ;-) I started on a Freeroll and qualified from that, I'm now on the next level up, which has 18 seats available to the next fucking satellite.

Unbelievable

2007-10-08T06:15:00.000-07:00

Well I'm currently sat here on my lunch in Starbucks, having another caffeine & pokerfest - got to get back to work in a mo, been here 50 minutes and I'm $25 up - was $45 but got busted by the same cards by the same guy two hands in a row....unbelievable.

I was holding AJc and the flop came J8A - turn K - river 10

guy had KQ and busted me for 8$ with his straight

Next hand:

I'm holding AJc and the flop came KAJ turn 7 - river 4

guy had QT and busted me for $12 with his straight

Anyway best get back to it - got a big night tonight - last pool game of the season at home, seeing as we're already champions we're expecting a few free beers tonight from the landlord to celebrate, so the nutter from Wigan's stories may have to wait another 24 hours

PS - Won another $50 following on from my last post last night, this could be most profitable month playing poker!! All I have done is make a few minor changes, from listening to good advice - I would recommend Punterz post on table selection as one simple way of increasing your chances

Kerrrrrrrrrrching

2007-10-07T09:38:00.000-07:00

Wow - loving the weekend so far. Got back from the hike yesterday, fucking nearly killed me (seriously, had to climb over a waterfall) but good fun. Got back home just in time to watch the England beat the Aussies - superb. Had a couple of beers to celebrate and then had 1 hour on Full Tilt - $56 profit.

Popped Full Tilt on the laptop in bed this morning at 8.30am - again just did 1 hour - $100 profit - girlfriend was mightily impressed, so I had to get the one-eyed monster out to calm her down

I've been on Ultimate Bet a couple of times since and won another $16 so.

Man City have just smashed Middlesbrough 3-1 to cement third position (for the time being), so overall it's a great weekend. City have Birmingham and Sunderland at home in our next 3 games, so hopefully some more wins ;-)

My mate at work is from Wigan and he's got this mate who is an absolute nutter.....but the best thing is he doesn't know he's a nutter....he's always coming out with some of the most stupid comments ever uttered by a human being....anyway, my mate has been writing down his mates comments for years and has now passed them onto me - my job is to get them onto the internet - so what better place than this blog (I'll dig out the best ones and pop them on here)

I'll post the first one tomorrow (I'll have to think of some different names for the parties involved - don't want it getting back to Mr T%$^£& - Oh shit nearly gave it away there)

Free Beer = Happy Boy

2007-10-05T02:51:00.000-07:00

Well, the best laid plans and all that. My plan was to have a Friday off the beer..........however, yesterday was the launch of the Manchester Food & Drink Festival

To celebrate the fact it was the 10th Festival, Joseph Holts (my favourite beer) put a voucher on Page 3 of the Manchester Evening News for a free pint. The Evening News is free in the city centre, so myself and a few lads from work set about getting as many papers as possible.....some 120 papers later and we were ready for business. We were only supposed to use 1 voucher per person, but we kept getting served by different staff and popping to different Joey Holts pubs....pissed as a fart for free....using names like Everhardt Farquarhartson who live at 69 Flange Avenue etc etc. Oh, and I also had several shots of Benedictine for free too...it's like a good medicine ;-)

I am currently getting about to go on a 9 mile hike with some mates to get some fresh air in the lungs - ffs (wish I hadn't agreed). I should get back just in time to hopefully watch England beat Australia..lol...followed by some dodgy poker no doubt

Poker Tits and Coffee (What a lunch)

2007-10-04T08:26:00.000-07:00

I have the BT Total Broadband package at home - the one with the crap adverts...anyhow, I remember when I signed up that I was supposed to get a few hours per month on the BT Openzone network, so after finally tracking down the username and password, I nipped into the Starbucks next to work and managed to play a bit of poker.

Fucking fantastic - lunchtimes at work are usually boring as fuck (and fuck is boring - I've met him) - I work in Manchester City Centre and have done for years, now I love Manchester to bits and there are loads of places to eat, shops etc, but after 10 years, I've seen the fucking lot, thousands of times.

I went into Starbucks and got myself a large coffee (the mugs are huuuuuuggggeee), grabbed myself a table and set about winning back the price of the coffee. I opened up 4 x 5c/10c tables and off I went - Finished $13 up after 40 minutes and then it was back to reality.

In Starbucks there was a woman sat opposite me with her left tit hanging out (in bra) - she must have been breastfeeding junior before I arrived - he was sound asleep in the pram (I'm not a total reprobate). She had put her tit in the bra but the bra & tit was hanging out of her top. Now we're talking a Keeley sized tit here and she was with a fella - now I kinda figured that this bloke musn't be her fella, but a friend/work colleague. I say that because if it was my missus, I would have told her to put it away...the fact he hadn't (he could hardly not notice it) meant he was enjoying the view. Anyways, they left after 30 mins and it was still hanging out.

Should I have told her to put it away - my mate at work reckons he would have popped it back in for her.

I've not had a sportsbook for over a week now - I'm sorely tempted but hopefully the feeling will subside - MUST CONCENTRATE ON THE POKER

GET YOUR OWN DEALER (it's not drugs...calm down)
The internet never ceases to amaze me, you can quite literally buy anything...Think of an idea and someone has already done it.

If anyone regularly hosts games, or would like to host a big money game but have their own independent croupier/dealer for the night, well you can.

If anyone has used them or uses them in the future, let me know how you got on.

Here's the link Dial A Dealer

Time to get studying

2007-10-02T02:26:00.000-07:00

Not posted for a while, been busy doing exciting things like rearranging furniture in the house and decorating and setting up my pc in the bedroom.

Following a successful bit of betting on the Rugby World Cup I have treated myself to a LG Flatron 24" Widescreen Monitor (Resolution 1920 x 1200)

http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/LG_24_inch_L245WP_Black_TFT_L245WP/version.asp

I heartily recommend it to anyone in need of a new monitor. I have the Multiroom Sky box plugged into it and my xbox 360, this type of monitor really shows off the power of the xbox.

The main gist of this post is that I have finally decided to give up the sportsbook gambling and concentrate on my poker following Punterz comment on my last post.....this is something that I knew I needed to do and Punterz comment has give me the kick up the arse I needed - many thanks !! (Read Punterz blog, it's a good read!!)

I have been a habitual gambler for years and have had my fair share of ups and downs, big wins...big losses - There is no such thing as a dead cert, a few years ago I once lost £250 betting on Arsenal at home against someone shit (can't remember who - must have blocked it out of my mind)....They were 2-0 up at home with about 10-15 minutes to go, so I took the in-running price on Betfair and went out to the pub. They drew 2-2 and because I had gone out I didn't have a chance to lay any of my bet to minimise my losses..a bad day at the office!

I started playing poker regularly earlier this year and I registered for Rakeback with Rakebrain.com and purchased Online Holdem Inspector (I think that's what it was called) to help me quickly learn the game. I deposited $200 into Interpoker and within 3 weeks I had released my $200 matching bonus and won an additional $200 on the tables and add to that a few $$$ from Rakeback and the software had paid for itself.

If I'm perfectly honest I did feel bad about using it as I felt that I was not only cheating people at the table, but also cheating myself - I am an honest guy and as much as the software helped me to stop making bad calls and bets at crucial times, I get more satisfaction from achieving something through hard work.

So I ditched the software and started playing for real, I still managed to do okay and slowly but surely I have been drawn under the Poker Demon's spell. I have since joined several poker sites and released the bonuses available to me, the site I am currently playing most on is Full Tilt (desperately trying to release all of my bonus).

So back to the initial point of this rambling and lengthy thread....the gambling is gone and I will devote myself to studying poker, Step One is to finish reading all the books I bought...Step Two is to read them all again and make useful notes....Step 3 is to learn the notes I make inside out

In between all of this I will play as much poker as possible (I have a full time job)

I truly believe with the right amount of dedication and studying I can eventually earn a nice little supplementary income (maybe not to the levels of the blogs I enjoy reading, but I guess everyone has to start somewhere)

Poker Fish - Rugby King

2007-09-18T05:21:00.000-07:00

The world cup is proving to be profitable - I placed bets on

Australia to beat Wales by 12 points or more = WIN
New Zealand to beat Portugal by less than 114 points = WIN
Fiji to beat Canada by 3 points or more = WIN
Ireland to beat Georgia by less than 49 points = WIN

Add those to my wins on Wigan v Saints & England v South Africa and I've had a good weekend.

Had a cracking day on Sunday, I was at the Royal George for 12.30pm, started on the Greene King IPA before getting on the lager when a few of the boys turned up.

The poker tourney was winner takes all NLHE and it was only £5 to enter - I finished second to a woman who had never played poker before in her life, she called every single bet and never folded a single hand - incredible luck and I was out of there

Luckily a lad in the pub fancied a £5 with me on City v Villa - I had City he had Villa (draw = dead bet), so I was back to square one..

Time for another poker tourney....£5 in and this time I managed to be the second one knocked out

5 on our table - everyone folds to me (SB)

My Hand KQ
I called the Big Blind (25)
BB raised (50)
I Called (50)
Flop K3Q
After some gentle raising & re-raising we both end up all in
BB Hand = 25 and I'm laughing my cock off
Turn = 5
River = You know what's coming.....another fucking 5
Me = Two Pair Kings and Queens... BB = Three of a kind Fives

Story of my life, I then proceeded drink my own body weight in beer and sambuca, before dazzling the locals on the Karaoke, Mustang Sally, Bad Bad Leroy Brown and The Spitting Image Song (Put a chicken in the air, shove a deckchair up your news and pretend your name is Keith)...Monday morning was not pretty and came around far too soon

Monday evening saw me venture back into the Royal George for a bit of pool practice before heading off to The Cross Keys for crunch game. We won 4-3 and I should be getting a trophy for 7/8 balling a lad - he broke, I cleared up in one visit, job done.

We're now 4 points clear at the top of the league with 3 games left (2 points for a win), so things are looking rosy.

Been neglecting the poker over the past week, mainly due to being shitfaced most nights, so I fully intend to have a few hours tonight

Rugby Disaster = Gambling Joy

2007-09-15T00:18:00.000-07:00

After managing to lose my bet on Argentina earlier in the week (I had them to win by 31 points and they won by 30)......my luck appears to have finally changed

The Argentina bet wasn't a total disaster - I managed to hedge my bet and win 40 from the same match on Betfred, so I was only £10 down

Next up was Italy v Romania and Betfred were once again being very generous with their handicaps offering odds of 10/11 on Romania beating Italy with a 28 point headstart - they only lost by about 7 points so kerching for me ;-)

Last night it was the big matches..

Wigan v Saint Helens
England v South Africa

I backed Wigan to beat Saints with a 6 point start at 10/11 and they won by 8 so happy days - I only had a fiver on it, because I wasn't too sure but wanted a bit of interest in the match.

I then backed South Africa to beat England by 30.5 points on Betfair and although I was pissed off at the result the £100 profit from by bet made me feel a bit better

I've not played too much poker this week because I have been pissed out of my head nearly every night, so not much to report on that front

Whilst writing this I finally got a decent flop on the 25c/50c tables on Full Tilt - I was dealt A2 in the BB and managed to see the flop which was 2AA - some guy raised $10 - I reraised he was all-in with $50 on his very first hand - I called and my Full House held on to his trip Aces

So that's a nice start to the day

Right got a busy day ahead

Now - Take Dog Out
9.30am - Play golf - 9 holes (badly)
12pm - Got some work to do - shite, shite and more shite

Best get cracking - hopefully get a few handicap rugby bets on today

MY TOP TIP FOR TODAY

Australia vs Wales

On Betfred the odds are 10/11 for Australia to beat Wales by more than 11 points (I know this game is in Wales, but it's easy money)

Top of the League

2007-09-11T10:59:00.000-07:00

It was a huge fixture last night as 1st played 2nd in my local pool league....we managed to sneak a 4-3 win and we are still top of the league with 5 games to go. My record is played 10, won 8, lost 2, so I've had a fairly decent run so far.

Long live the Royal George (first Monday in 5 weeks that I've managed to get out before midnight!!!)

I've never looked forward to a Sunday so much this early in a week......the plan is thus

12pm - Get into the Royal George
12.30pm - Poker tournament (majority of players have never played before - is that good or bad?)
12.35pm - Break for Sambuca
12.40pm - Resume Poker
3.55pm - More Sambuca
4.00pm - Watch the mighty Man City play Villa
4.45pm - Sambuca
5.00pm - 2nd half
5.45pm - Sambuca
6.00pm - Karaoke
6.15pm - Sambuca
8.00pm - Kebab
8.30pm - Collapse at home

I've been playing 7-card stud the last couple of days, great fun and I am up at it - might get hold of a book to learn a few tactics (anyone recommend one?)

Have got £50 on Argentina to beat Georgia by 30.5 points in the Rugby World Cup - Georgia are winning 3-0 after 10 minutes, so this could well be my second £50 loss of the World Cup (will lay it, if it's looking dodgy) ....3-3 now but come on you Argy twats, score some points

Argy Bargy Costs Me 2 Ponies

2007-09-08T00:23:00.000-07:00

For fucks sake........I'm not sure who I hate the most this morning.....the French or the Argy gits.

Apologies to anyone who followed my superb tip for the opening match of the Rugby World Cup....This was probably one of the biggest shocks ever at a World Cup and just so happens to be the one I placed my first bet on.

The two headlines on the BBC homepage carry the words SHOCK with regards to the result, but that doesn't really comfort me.

All in all in topped off a crap day for me yesterday - I was going on a gold day from work and awoke to find that my car battery was dead, after stopping a big breasted women to give me a jump start, I then noticed that the rear left tyre was flat..so after finally sorting all that out, I arrived at the golf club just in time.

I proceeded to finish 16th out of 16 people and I am also as red as a nun at a porn shoot - think I should have put some suntan lotion on.

After that my mum phoned up to say that her sink was leaking, so I popped round to sort that out (another hour) and I didn't get home until 10pm, so for the first Friday in living memory I didn't have a beer.......I'll make up for it today

Two final words from me...........French Pricks

Quick - Get a bet on

2007-09-06T13:59:00.000-07:00

The Rugby Union World Cup starts tomorrow and I've managed to find myself a superb little bet.

Betfred are offering odds of 10/11 for France to beat Argentina with a starting handicap of -11

Basically if France beat Argentina by 12 points, then you'll double your money

I think France will be firing on all cylinders tomorrow, with it being the opening game and the toughest of their group

I've had £50 on it, so hopefully I'll have doubled that by tomorrow night.

Another bet worth considering before the world cup starts is having France Each-Way to win the World Cup.

The E/W gives you 1st or 2nd and the odds are 7 to 1 - with the home advantage and the way they've been playing - it looks like another decent bet

Good luck

Another night - Another dollar

2007-09-06T06:55:00.000-07:00

Well I had some fun last night, I decided to play some STT's on Full Tilt.

In all I played 6 x $2.25 and I managed to cash in 3 of them (2nd, 2nd 1st) and made a whopping $5.95 profit in total

Feeling overjoyed at the prospect of beign $5.95 closer to being able to purchase my new monitor I decided to really push the boat out by entering the $1500 GTD MTT (Buy-in $16.50) on Betfair. There were 101 of us battling it out for the big money prize.....I had a horrendous run of cards and when I eventually made the right move at the right time I got called by a muppet who had 2 4 Offsuit - I had JJ, the flop fell in his favour and I ended up losing one third of my stack and I dropped from 30th spot down to 65th out of 80 remaining.

I eventually ended up in a showdown with another short stack and holding 99 pre-flop and trip 9s post-flop I pushed all-in. Only problem was he had 10 10 and ended up with trips after the turn.

Ho-hum, another valuable lesson learned - back to the drawing board

Having moved from a profit situation into loss I decided to play for cash and hit the NL Hold'em tables at Full Tilt (if you know what I mean).

I tinkered around with the 5c/10c games for a while but decided to be bold and moved up to the 25c/50c games

Fortune favours the brave and within 25mins I had turned my $50 into $101
I showed down some mug as I was holding trip Kings and there were no Aces on the board - I took $25 from him and he had the cheek to call me a clown, saying that he owned me.

I replied with "Yawn"

His response was "How about I throw my prick in your mouth whilst you're yawning?"

I told him that once I had stopped chewing on his money, he could try but I'm not really into that kind of thing....GAYBOY

He then added another $10.63 to the table and told me that I wouldn't be so lucky next time.....2 hands later I had pocket aces and got another on the flop - once again with no chance of a straight on the board or a flush - the genius tried to bet me out of the hand - I pushed him all in and he was gone

I love this game....fingers crossed I can win a couple of $$$ tonight

Poker Wannabe's First Post

2007-09-05T02:28:00.000-07:00

ABOUT ME
I've been a gambling nut for years (football, horses, flip of a coin) and now I've finally been seduced by the world of poker. I'm from Manchester and still work there, but for the last couple of years I live in a semi-rural town called Todmorden with my Girlfriend and our mental Springer Spaniel.

A few months ago I decided to download the poker software from Betfair and see what all the fuss is about - I've hardly stopped playing since.

There have been ups and downs but I've pretty much managed to break even from all my play (I think)

STILL LEARNING
I am currently working my why through the second Dan Harrington book (only 380 pages to go) - the first book was/is tremendous and I improved my STT and MTT results immediately. The 2nd book is all about the endgame of tournaments, so I'm hoping I can pick up a few tips to help me kill games off.
After I've finished the Harrington books I have a couple of David Sklansky books to go through - luckily they are about half as thick as the Harrington books, so I'm hoping I'll be able to rattle them off and absorb the info asap

POKER SITES
I currently have accounts with:

Betfair - strow
Full Tilt - sttrow
Bodog - sttrow
Ultimate Bet - sttrow
Inter Poker - sttrow

I started out playing Low Stakes FL Hold'em and I did quite well, especially on Inter Poker - turning my $100 into $280 inside 2 weeks - I have since dumped the FL games and only play NL now.

TOURNAMENTS
I managed to win a WSOPE $3 Buy-in on Betfair, which then allowed me to enter the $30 Buy-in. I made the Final Table and got down to the last 2 players - I was the chip leader with 22,200 chips and the other guy had 1800 chips - I somehow managed to blow it and lose - that's why I bought the books ;-)

Another notable, if slightly annoying result was finishing 26th out of 1486 in a WSOPE Freeroll - There were prizes for the top 25 players (about $1 for 25th place - but better than nowt), so I was pissed off about just missing out, but not as pissed off as I was about the bad beat I was dealt. I was in about 12th place when I was dealt Ah Kh, so I put in a sizeable raise, everyone folded apart from one mug who re-raised me - I called - out came the flop 8d As 3h - I checked, the mug bet - I called - out came the turn Kc - Happy days or so I thought - I decided to try and take the pot there an then and went all-in with my remaining chips. I was called - only to discover I was facing trip 8s - The river threw up a 9c and I was out of there.

Over the last week I have played numerous Sit n Gos on Full Tilt - I made $200 profit on my first day and my ROI was about 24% - I then got a bit cocky and tried playing 2 x $22 and 2 x $33 SnG's all at the same time - that's what happens when you've had a few beers. I managed to donk it all away. I still think I'm in profit from my SnG's but I am going to keep a record of how I get on - starting tonight.

I intend to play 10 x $2 Buy-ins (9-Players) and 10 $2 Buy-ins (6-Players) on Full Tilt and see how I do - If I make a nice return, I will then use the winnings to do the same number of Buy-Ins at the $6 level

TARGETS

In order to help concentrate my mind I have my sights set on a Iiyama 24" LCD Monitor which has a resolution of 1920 x 1200 from Micro Direct for the bargain price of only £317.96.

I aim to be able to buy this from my winnings by 31st October

I'll keep you posted as to how I get on