Spanking the .25nl tables

What do you call a man with no shins? ( answer at end of post)

First off please visit http://dearpokerdiary.blogspot.com/. Another fine blog to add to my link list.

Watched the last meaningless World cup qualifier last night.Typical of Scotland to beat Slovenia 3-0 away from home with 3 cracking goals when qualification was already beyond us.Still a good game and hopefully positive signs for the future.We've not qualified for the last 3 major tourneys and it aint good enough.Not much of a suprise but Brazil are my tip to win it.Their strikers are just incredible players from Ronaldinho to Adriano and I can't see them slipping up.

Mrs A was working so I was taking care of Step A who has just taken another £5 from me for yet another fine school report.Mrs A was up at the school yesterday and the wee one is doing really well and is always helpful and hard working in the class.She may be the only kid I ever have and I'm really proud of her efforts.Its not always easy being a stepdad but I love her to bits and one of my worst fears would be splitting with Mrs A ( we're rock solid after nearly 6 years) and losing contact with Step A.

I've taught her to swim,ride her bike,get a swing going and loads of other stuff.She's a great wee kid and I'm very fortunate to have her in my life.Mind you she's only 11 but almost a teenager in her outlook so no doubt there will be plenty of battles ahead.Especially if she's as headstrong as her mother!

My friend Mark called from Miami to say hes taken another job over there.Mixed feelings about that.Happy for him obviously but sad him and Vicky won't be back on these shores again.I've been friends with both of them since school and we have some great nights when we all get together.He's into his poker and has just started playing for real so look out for Alf11 at pokerroom.He got his name from the time our mate Sandy used to have to be home for before BA ( his mums nickname when we were younger) went on the rampage.( 11.30).
Looking forward to see him and Vics at Xmas.

To the poker and another fine night at the tables.Played a free ( player points paid for it) $5 Sng and again failed to make the money.Lost the first 1/3 of my stack chasing a flush and the rest taking a stand against a constant raiser when I went all in with 44 after yet another raise.He had QQ and out I went.Fairly slack play from me but a good warm up for the cash tables.

Two tabled .25nl for 1.5 hours and came away $72 up.( 288*BB!)It would have been more if I'd made my flush or straight in another pot but the cards were hot last night and I feel I made the most of that by making good value river bets which got called for the most part.My old trait of being too greedy on the river seems to have developed into trying to work out what I'd pay if I was the villan and was holding what I put him on.Yes many fish will call huge river bets with nothing much but in general a well pitched value bet has to be best.

I was running well though.My 10 10 saw a flop of 10 h 7h 7h and one guy chased his flush and another paid me off with 55.The kind of night where I bluffed twice in a row to steal and then the nuts hit me twice in a row after when the table was trying to reel me in.

Actually the 1010 hand was interesting because there were 3 of us in the hand and on the river villanA raised to $6 with me and villan b still to act. villanA only had $2 left but villan B had a decent sized stack.I was fairly sure Villanb was on a failed flush draw but I was tempted to just call the $6 bet to try and keep villanb in the hand but ended up trusting my failed flush read and reraising.He folded and I got Mr 55 's last $2.Villanb did say "thank god I never hit my flush" to which I replied "pity lol".

I may pull some hands out of the session browser ( I assume all Pokerroom players make extensive use of this brilliant feature) and post them but for now I'd rather labour under the illusion that I played brilliant poker rather than that I had a real rush of good cards that any monkey would have struggled to lose with!

One funny moment was when a player raised $1 and I called with 23 sooted along with one other player. Again a bit slack but 23soooted is my favourite strange hand and I was sitting at $92 after a $25 buy in.Anyway when it gets checked down and the raisers A high won it I showed my 23s and the other player showed 36soooted.I had to say "we gave your raise real respect there" to which the other caller added his "lol". Maybe you had to be there......

Nearly finished at a sensible 0.15am just after Mrs A got back but she was in the kitchen on her first full night without cigs and cupboard doors were just about flying off the hinges she was slamming them so hard so I decided to roll another and hit the sack with ( the now calmer) Mrs A about 0.45am.

Been enjoying reading all the US football and baseball chat on other blogs.Never really understood either sport and I always wonder why the worlds biggest sport ( football or soccer) has never really taken off in the US especially after the US hosted the World Cup in '94 and made the quarter finals.Could be down to the weak Major League Soccer.
No top European players and most of the best American players go abroad too.Still good to see the most controversial character in Scottish football,Mo Johnston, in temporary charge of the New York Metro Stars.Good luck to Super Mo.

What's funny is seeing some of the same arguments about big spending teams and zillionaire players that we hear in football ( its not soccer its football!) over here.I wonder if Amercian sports fans feel more distanced from their teams players now that they are probably all multi-millionaires.Not many players playing for the jersey and for the hometown team they love in football anymore and I imagine its the same in the US/Canadadian sports.

Ok What do you call a man with no shins?

To-ny of course..........