Bloggerment Tonight

Click "Tourneys" and "Private" to find it at the Pokerstars lobby...

Skoda Man

The Big Chap,s-man and the Don Man were over last night for an evening of Modern Warfare and smokes.I had done some three tabling at the $22's beforehand and ran horribly so it was good to play a game where running/playing badly doesn't actually cost $$! After last months $10 profit I'm only up about $60 now for this month at Party and breaking even overall.That may have pissed me off previously but after walking away from the car wreck a few weeks ago I'm not going to moan about being unlucky.( not for a few more days at least!)

I did finally feel well enough to take a Ford Mondeo diesel for a test drive and I wasn't blown away by it.The bottom line is that a Skoda Octavia 2 litre Sport FSI ( petrol) caught my eye on the web at a garage through in Edinburgh and I've agreed to buy it from the local branch of the same garage subject to the test drive going well.They should be bringing it through tomorrow.I'm still taking the co-codamol and can't sleep on my right side ( my fav) and my leg isn't 100% yet either but I'm certainly in a far better physical state than I was 3 weeks ago.The other good news is I did manage to get back on the horse and drive again as I've had a few flashbacks and freaky moments thinking about the accident I was in.



I really haven't played a great deal of poker recently but will be cashing out £700 to cover the difference between the insurance payout on my Focus and the Octavia.I had paid off my previous car loan with poker winnings and paying £700 now means no car loans etc for at least another 5 years or so.Thanks once again to the Party/Stars donks for their contributions!

Ok,thanks for reading.Back soon...

Bloggerment + $55 Turbo Sng

Thanks to all 28 players who showed up to play in Sunday nights Bloggerment tourney.My good mate Al Eleven took it down and won a $5 last longer bet from me after hitting so many flops and rivers that even God now talks about running in "Al Mode".( at least he probably will in his next chat with Mr Cloud!)

I scraped a 7th place finish after shoving K9 from the button into Mr Cloud's AJ and failing to hit.I did get some luck earlier in the game when my QK beat Benwahballs2's 88 all in preflop, but was card dead for most of the tourney.It was good to see some new players like Ben,L4Y SP and Evanzio at my table as well as most of the usual suspects.If any of the new players ( or anyone in general) has a blog and wants linked up just give me a shout.

After the Bloggerment I played a little cash game poker ( three tabling $50 nl full ring) for a change and left with a bit of profit.

On the health front the pain is easing a bit down my right hand side, although for some reason I woke yesterday with a bloodshot right eye and that doesn't seem to have gone away.I did finally get the insurance cheque at last.

Surfing around today online I found a Q+A session with Patrick Antonious and loved this one in particular:

Question from Flo420: is marijuana a bad drug?
Answer from Patrik Antonius: no its a leaf lol


I didn't play any poker at all until late last night when I decided that as I was up a few hundred up for the month, I'd grow a pair and have take a wee shot at a $55 turbo sng and play a $33 at the same time.I've only played a few $55's and have taken one down before.The $33's I've played far more often.Playing only two tables gave me time to Sharkscope the $55 and any fears I had of being way out of my depth were eased.One decent regular and 8 players who have lost about $23k between them!



There were some major donk like moves going on but perhaps $55 donks are still better than $22/$33 donks as there were still seven players left as we hit the high blinds.I'd had a 1310 stack after paying the big blind at 300/600 when the decent reg player shoved his big stack when folded to him in the cut-off and a fishy player on the button called for his last 1060 chips.I reckoned I was ahead of the cut off's range with my A7 and although I hated calling an all-in due to the button also being in the pot,I felt he would be calling with a very wide range in this spot.I also felt I had to take the chance to chip up or be left with less than 2 big blinds and no fold equity v the fish with 6000 chips in my bb next if I passed and paid the small blind in the next hand.( and that's assuming it folded to me)

The button had KJ,the small blind QJ sooted and the King on the flop sent me to the rail.



I'm still not 100% sure calling here was correct( all comments welcome) and perhaps I would have been better shoving the A4 I folded from UTG+2 when the table was still full and the blinds were at 200/400 in order to try and accumulate some chips.I had been tight but with so many fish and being only UTG+ 2 it felt like an easy fold at the time.

Of course no player wants to be shoving A4 or even calling with A7, but these are turbo's and when you're card dead it's still vital to avoid being blinded out.


Ahh well I hope whoever won cashed out and rubbed it on their titties...( I know it's been around a while but it's such a fine song and vid!)

Bloggerment Tonight

Open to all...

Peck the Eyes Right Oot Yer Heid

Just off the phone to the Doc and I've been given a sick line for a further two weeks with an appointment for Dec 3rd at 10.30am.I've been prescribed a stronger pain killer as I'm still in quite a bit of pain down the right hand side of my body.I'd rather have my Aces rivered ten times in a row than sneeze!Apparently it can take 4-6 weeks for torn muscles to repair and I also have a couple of lumps on my leg and a bit of numbness too.

My insurance company ( More Than) made a good offer to replace my car and I've already looked at a few online.I was tempted to go for a Vauxhall Vectra Sri or a Honda Civic Type S but I'll probably go for a 2litre Mondeo TDCI and maybe look at remapping the engine to add a few bhp.( although 0-60 times aren't quite as big a priority as they used to be a few years ago)

I've been keeping busy by playing at Full Tilt under the name Isildur1 and so far things have been going well against Durr and co at the Heads-up nose bleed tables.Ok,lame joke but I have been watching some of the Isildur1 heads up battles with the top HU players online and it's made for fascinating viewing.Here's an excellent take on the emergence of Isildur1 by InternetPokers over at Cardrunners.

I haven't played a great deal of poker over the last week.The Bloggerment on Sunday saw 16 runners and it was great to see some new faces and some very very very old ones like Dudley too.I didn't last long after my 66 fell to Mr Clouds A10 but it was fun while it lasted and I'm looking forward to doing battle again this Sunday.All readers,bloggers and Raise the River members welcome!Read an excellent write-up on last Sundays game by Rubbish here.

Perhaps inspired by watching Isildur1 I've played a few more PLO games since my last post although the one DON ( Double or Nothing where 5/10 players get paid) I played last night seemed to last forever despite it being a turbo.I've also played a few of my usual $22 NL turbo's and they have been as swingy as ever.Up a few hundred for the month,go on a cashless streak for 10-12 games,win 2 from 3 games etc etc.As it stands right now I'm up a few hundred Dollars for the month over about 75 games.

Call of Duty:Modern Warfare 2 also arrived in the post and I've had a wee go at the online team death matches,getting my arse handed to me on a plate by 12 yr olds shouting "pussy faggot" on a regular basis.Managing 6 kills and 12 deaths in one game is my best effort so far.More progress is being made on Motorstorm Pacific Rift where I'm hoping to move up from Gold Veteran to Hero status soon.Drop me an email/leave a comment with your Play Station 3 user name if you fancy a game sometime.

Ok,just time for a bit of info I found in "The Times" re online poker in the UK.With so many new players coming into the game from other countries I'm not sure any fall in UK players would affect Party or Stars a great deal although obviously the more fellow Brit donks at the tables the better overall. I included it as I felt it may be of interest to any fellow poker geeks** reading this.

"Internet poker: The boom in online poker is over in the UK, according to research from Mintel, which found that after growth of 72 per cent between 2004 and 2007, the poker market had stagnated last year and would fall by 7 per cent this year."

**Watching the Poker Million coverage last night Jesse May commentating said that of the two players heads up at the end,Gus Hansen and Taylor Caby,only poker geeks will have heard of Caby.My previous subscription to Caby's Cardrunners site,the hundreds of games I play per month, the poker blog,floattheturn membership and the endless surfing of RTR,2+2 and Pocketfives may already indicate a certain love of the pokers already but I don't think I've ever been a geek!

Ok,thanks for reading.Here's an old classic I felt was worth dusting off.The tv Dolmio adverts Glasgow style....

NSFW:

Sng turbo's n shwings

Everything went well with the baby scan today so I'm still on course to be an Uncle by the end of next June.

My Mum also brought round my 2 week sick line and it's been posted off to my work.I think I must have further torn a muscle in my sleep last night as I'm in a bit more pain today and any coughing hurts even more than usual.

The s-man popped round this afternoon,the Big Chap called and I've also had a couple of calls from work and texts from old friends which are helping to keep my spirits up.I used to give the Big Chap and his neighbour a lift to the Rangers reserve games a few years back and his neighbour called to say there is some particularly pungent green herbs on the go down his way just now so hopefully I can get something sorted later in the week!

The poker continues to go ok although I keep telling myself to have a proper go at the $33's whenever my Party roll breaks through a certain total and I keep chickening out and firing up more $22's.I did cash for 3rd in one $33 and it's not that I'm worried about the standard of play.It's mainly that 10-20 buy-in downswings happen a lot and although I can stand losing $300 or so in a really bad $22 session,I don't fancy dropping over $600 when running bad at higher stakes.

To try and put the swings into perspective I won two and took 2nd in the last three $22's I played last night for a profit of $200.If I play 8 games today,run like crap and cash in none of them that would still give me decent return on investment figure of about 10% over those 11 games in total.10% roi over a reasonable sample size ( at least a couple of thousand games) is very respectable.Obviously 11 games means nothing and maybe I'm not actually making sense ( I blame the pain killers!)but my point is that even if you're maintaining a good roi ,you're still going to see an awful lot of beats and lost flips in a row.

My worst excuse to myself when running badly is to tell myself that some players are obviously going to be in the bottom 5% overall when it comes to luck at the felt and I'm just unlucky enough to be in that 5%.Reading 2+2 threads and seeing graphs of winning players with break-even streaks of a few thousand games helps bring it home to me that going 10 games without cashing or even hitting a 25 buy-in downswing are completely standard and that I will play through it and eventually get back in the black again.

I probably do need to avoid playing $6.50 PLO turbo's as despite winning a $16 the other night I'm still crap at them.I usually have to check the chat box for the dealer summary to tell me which hand won at showdown and a couple of times I've been genuinely surprised when the pot ships to someone else when I thought I held pretty much the nuts! 2 cards goot,4 cards bad.I blame Dudley!

Ok,I do have another post I wrote a month or so back that I may fire up but I don't intend posting much over the next week or so until I feel better.I do intend getting onto Amazon and ordering COD:Modern Warfare 2.I never really got into the other COD games,preferring the Medal of Honor series but with plenty of time on my hands over the next wee while I think I'll give the new COD a go.

Thanks for reading and don't forget to register for Sundays Bloggerment game on Stars.It's only $5.50 and is open to all....

The Return of...

...The Bloggerment!



Yep,it's back this Sunday and will be coming soon to the Pokerstars Lobby under the "Private" tab.( click on Tourneys first).It's open to all bloggers,readers and Raisetheriver forum members.Feel free to chat it up or play the silent chip stealing assassin! Bounties are on offer and I'll pay $5 to anyone knocking out Dudley ( Resdent Evil) after just getting a text from him suggesting the crate I swerved to avoid last Monday was put there by a rep from the Foxes Welfare Society!

On the health front I called the Docs this morning and was referred to Accident and Emergency at the hospital due to the slight popping sound I can hear when lying on my front.They literally took the piss,gave me another x-ray and the outcome was that they reckon I've torn muscles in my back and it'll just take time to heal, which in the grand scheme of things is good news.Called the Doc back for a sickline and I've got an appointment for Wed morning.Hopefully a week or two off and I'll be fighting fit again.

*Edit: Just had a call from the Docs to say they've read my hospital notes and I've been given a 2 week sickline with no need to go on Wed.

My sis popped round last night with Spag Bol,Chile and a DVD box set of The Wire and Prison Break.Oh and the Frankie Boyle live dvd too.After she left I played some poker and watched Slumdog Millionaire.I'm actually up a couple of hundred dollars at the $22's this month over not too many games, but as the swings are huge that really doesn't mean very much.

I also called the insurance company and they say I should get a call within a couple of days to negotiate a payout for my wrecked Focus.I like the look of a Honda Civic v-tec Type S I spotted and may raid my poker account if required too.

Ok,Back to feeling like I've been attacked by a Fire-Truck...

Thanks + Car Pics

Thanks to all who commented,called,emailed etc after my last post.I've finally stopped coughing up blood today ( not major amounts or I'd have listened to my folks and gone to the Docs)and the Ibuprofen is helping the pain I'm still feeling from my bruised kidneys and sore back.Burnley Mik commented that I wrote that last post in a fairly matter of fact manner and in truth I don't think it all really sunk in until Wednesday night when I went to bed and couldn't stop shaking.

My Dad sent me these pics today after collecting my stuff from the car which has now been officially declared a write-off by the insurance co.Looking at them makes me realise I may have been unlucky that the pallet blew into my path but I was running one helluva lot better when it came to where the lamppost hit the car!

I'm still in too much pain to pick up the free ( won't seem free when I get next years insurance renewal through the door!)courtesy car I've been offered although I'm hoping to be well enough to get it next week sometime.More importantly I'm also going to have to miss my 2nd Gers home game in a row and I can't remember the last time that happened!

On the dating front although the lady is lovely,she is also 43 and doesn't want more kids.She asked me by text before we met if I was open to falling in love and I replied that I'd been there and done that ( obv the ex Mrs A was 12 yrs older and couldn't have kids)so I'm not sure we've much of a future.She did stay over last Saturday and we both agreed we had a fine time so hopefully a repeat will be on the cards at some point,possibly when I'm not feeling like I've been trampled on by a herd of rhino's!

On the poker front I've only played a few games and there's not much to report.It did seem crazy that I ran so hot in September at Party and then from the 1st October the deck was as cold as ice.Actually it's probably not that crazy as hot/cold swings over a couple of hundred games are standard sng fare.

Ahh well at least this weeks shennanigans are a good excuse to post this top tune!

Back soon...

Crash,Bang,Wallop

The date went well on Sat night.She looked stunning and we seemed to click.

Unfortunately tonight I was driving home from work at a when a wooden crate blew into my path.I swerved to avoid it,spun a couple of times and ended up walloping a lamppost.Other drivers stopped and helped me out the car before the ambulance arrived to take me to casualty.Bottom line is I've bruised my kidneys,hurt my lower back and leg.Coughed up a tiny bit of blood probably due to a few wee glass shards from the windscreen but I'll be alright.I reckon I'm in for an uncomfortable few days but the police that attended the scene reckoned I was lucky to walk away as the car is almost certainly a write-off.My sis and brother in law have been great and sent me a wee vid of Nacho happily munching his bone.I'll get him back in the morning.

Anyways I'm full of painkillers and some of my own herbal medicine so I'll leave it there for now.Anyone any idea the market value an insurance co would pay out for a 2005 Focus St170 with 35k on the clock....