Pokerroom review

Had an excellent meal out on Sunday.I had my favourite meal of steak and chips. The restaurant had a few birthday balloons for Step A and me and the highlight of the meal was breathing in the hellium and annoying the other diners with loud squeaky voices.My mum had never seen anyone do that before and nearly wet herself laughing.

Mrs A and I rented "Layer Cake" on DVD and although I didn't like it as much as "Lock Stock" or "Snatch" it was still a decent film.

Played 1/2 hour of poker afterwards for $10 profit.

Mark was up last night and we tackled MOH European assault on the ps2 for a couple of hours.Its much better than MOH Rising Sun and more like the first one which was a classic.

Hit the tables (.25 nl) for 3/4 hr after he left and made a quick $33.One guy uttered the immortal line "Dam,I thought you were bluffing" on his way out after I scooped a pot from him with my set of fives.

Took another player for his buy in and he said "I should stop.I've lost $500 today". He didn't stop though and lost another buy-in to another player before leaving.I was tempted advise him to take a break or tighten up but hey this wasn't blogland.This was at the table and players on tilt are a valuable commodity to be taken for every penny as they don't care about losing.

On Sunday night I won a buy in at .25nl when my AK o/s flopped the straight.There were 2 clubs on board and a player I had taken $6 from just a couple of hands before bet into me.
I raised him all in for another $15 putting him on the flush draw or maybe top pair.

Now at $1nl I'm learning to try and pitch my river bet so that an inferior hand will make the crying call but at .25nl a large bet will get the call anyway more often than not.

In this case I raised him all in because I was sure he'd call because I' d just won a pot from him.A lot of ego at .25nl. He did call and had 2 pairs.Queens and tens.

After one of the other players said "nice bet,good read" and was rebuked with "He flopped the straight.How was that a good read?". I was tempted to explain that I wouldn't have put anyone else all in but due to previous plays I was fairly sure I'd get a call but why bother.

http://www.gcox25.blogspot.com/ asked me about Pokerroom so heres my take on it.

I haven't played much on other sites apart from some freerolls but I like Pokerroom for many reasons. The gameplay is quick.The screen and chat box show the pot size and every bet made so you know exactly where you are.

There is an easy system for taking notes on opponents and colour codes.I use red for danger,yellow for weak etc.You can see the notes and colours from the lobby page when looking for a table to join aswell as flop% seen and ave pot size.( taken from last 20 hands).

The session browser is great and records every hand of every session which means its easy to check back on a particular hand or to see how you've done over a set period.Pokertracker does the same but the session browser is very handy.

You can get your own basic stats whilst at the table. Hands played/flop seen/net profit or loss.

The Sng tournaments fill up quickly and the juice is 50 cents on a $5 game not $1 like some sites.If 2 players are all in during a tourney cards are upturned and the % chance of winning is given.This changes as the flop,turn and river are dealt so you can see if your opponent really did suckout on you.

The player softness level is hard for me to judge having played almost all my poker there but the $5.50 5 max turbo sng's seem very soft and are very quick too and I'm winning at the ring games so it can't be too tough.

At .25nl flop seen for a full ring can be as high as in the 60's and quite often theres more money to be made by selecting the right .25nl table than by playing at an ultra-tight table ( low 30's) at a higher level.

If you like short-handed play they have 5 max tables at all levels and again its all about table selection.If you sit down and don't like the style of the other players then simply move to another.That is crucial to being a successful player.

You collect player points for raked hands and they run a Minor Player points tourney on Wednesdays.( too late for me in the UK).This is basically a $3k freeroll.

On Sat is the Major points tourney ( 500 pts) which is a $6k freeroll.If you don't have enough points you can try and qualify through the turbo qualifier a few hours before the main one.

Up unitl recently though the player points have been worthless for anything other than these tourneys but in the last month or so 500 points buys a $10 bonus and 50 more points release the $10. This finishes on Aug 22nd which is a shame as its the first decent promo they have done apart from the occasional reload offer.

One day I will try Party Poker ( bonus code :Iggy) and see if its as fishy as reported but until then I'll probably stick with Pokerroom.Its been good to me so far.

Hope that helps GaryC and anyone else considering playing there.Just give me a shout with any questions on Pokerroom if I've missed anything.Otherwise look out for Zagga when you're
there and say hello.

Nice to get a message in my comments from Jason who also follows Rangers thanks to his Scottish wife.We are the People!!

Rangers play the first leg of our Champions League qualifier tonight V Anorthisis in Cyprus tonight.Making the Champions league is vital for prestige and revenue so they have bring a decent result home before the second leg in 2 weeks at Ibrox.On paper Rangers are the stronger team but as we all know the game aint played on paper.


Called the local Alfa garage for a price to change the timing belt and have been told that they normally change the water pump too as its near the timing belt,hard to get to and goes faulty a lot on my car as its got to work hard to cool the 2.5l engine.The spark plugs need done too and including £360 labour charge the cost will be aprox £750 -£1k.Arghhhhhh!

I don't have to get the time belt done but with 60k miles on the clock its recommended and if it goes then so does the engine and I've got 2 years worth of loan left on it.Got some friends who are going to ask about and see if they can get me a cheaper price.Seems a lot of money to spend when the car hasn't actually broken down.

Ok the Adsl engineer is coming out on Friday morning.Hope he gets it working because the dial up service is dreadful.I had to leave 2 tables last night due to my 12 second delay.Grrrrrr.