Down the Silverhatch...

I finally got round to playing some poker last night, although I was only 4 tabling as I watched a superb film, "The Fighter" during my games.I also scored some nice solid and now that I only smoke at weekends there were a few misclicks and wtf moments when I thought I'd won a hand and found I'd lost instead.Stars speeding up the time it takes the cards to fall and discovering the option to close the game right away when I crash out means I've still no idea what went down in many of my knockout hands!

My first game of the night was a bit of a sickener.It was a 575 fpp satellite into an MTT Burnley Mik had mentioned was on tomorrow night on Stars.It was a 6 max game and the other players were probably all spoon fed their dinner as they were so bad I thought they were just randomly mashing buttons for much of the game.

I got heads up with a total drooler and probably blew it by getting a bit impatient when I had been easily outplaying the guy.He had just under 10bb when I shoved with K10s,hit a King on the flop v his A5 and of course watched as the Ace fell on the turn.On checking the main tourney lobby it looks like there's late registration for 3 hours after the main game actually starts so it would probably be a very late finish anyway.( and that's no good with work the next day)

When playing donks at low level sngs there's really no need to over think situations much of the time.I did note down the hand below from a $15 sng and remember thinking it was interesting as it went down.Looking back now though I'm struggling to remember why I played it as I did.I do vaguely recall that Maddi was a loose agro donk and the other villain was a tightish multi-tabler.

When Maddi donk led the flop I think I felt it was unlikely he had a Queen and on such a draw heavy board my hand was still good.When the button flat called my reraise on the flop and the donk called too I was ready to give up and didn't intend putting another chip in the pot.When the board got even scarier on the turn and river and it was checked to me I felt it was worth shoving to try and get the button to fold a weak Queen as I'd already shown real strength on earlier streets and could have slowed down on the turn due to potential draws hitting.I could also have hit one of those draws and I was hoping he'd be asking himself what he could beat and he'd fold when he realised the answer was not much!I probably had the best hand anyway....



Away from the poker I was at the Rangers game on Tuesday night and I don't think I've ever been as angry at a game before.Most of the team looked very rusty and despite missing a few chances in the second half,Malmo probably deserved their 1-0 first leg lead.We did win 2-0 today in the league but I can't see us turning things round over in Sweden on Wednesday in the second leg of the Champions League Qualifier.I hope I'm wrong!

Not much else going on.My wee nephew started crawling this week and I'd like to pass on my thanks to Bullmeister and Burnley Mik for helping keep the wee man entertained with the hard work they put into job of sharing the voice of Big Chris in Roary the Racing Car! Their duet on the theme song is definitely destined for chart success...

In my last post I mentioned the online dating thing can be soul destroying and as soon as I posted it I felt it was a bit over the top.Anyone who regularly plays sit and go games or poker in general through a long downswing knows what real soul destroying is like and in some ways I think playing poker has helped me bounce back quickly after some of the crappy failed dates I've been on.It's not all been bad, afterall I've had a few shags ( and could have had more if I'd been less fussy!),seen a few good movies and had some nice dinners!

It was only when I went back to work fulltime in April that I completely stopped smoking weed during the week and without getting too deep about it all I think it's taken me a few months to discover what kind of person I am without it as I was so comfortable with how I am when I do have a smoke.I just thank my lucky stars I never got into alcohol in the same way or I doubt I'd be here to write this!

Still I am here and it is the weekend so I'm off to roll one up....

Speedy Beats

I was back at Ibrox today for the early start to the football season in Scotland and although I'm usually late everywhere I go,I made it in time to see our world record 54th League Championship flag being raised by the chairman before the game.We ended up drawing 1-1with Hearts and on the balance of play it was probably a fair result.

I've watched quite a few movies recently( True Grit,Paul,Kings Speech,Clerks,Fargo,127 Hours,Hangover 2) and last night I fired up a couple of poker tables and watched Unknown as I played.It's Liam Neesons latest outing and although the plot line is a bit far fetched I ended up only playing two sng's during the film.As per usual my first big hand ended up as a bad beat after my QQ fell to JJ.The Jack came on the flop though and my AK lost to 1010 in the other game.I did play a few micro stakes heads up hyper turbos much later on and although they are a bit of a luckfest they are quite good fun as they only seem to last 5-10 mins max.

Something Stars have done in their latest update is to speed up the time it takes for the cards to be dealt both to the players and on the board.So far I'm loving this improvement because my psychic abilities mean I have an uncanny knack of correctly predicting my opponents two outer on the river.The faster speed means the beats don't seem to hurt quite as much.

Before I settle down for tonight's movies/poker/Black Ops I need to nip out and buy a bandage for Nacho's paw after he badly cut the side of it last night.Thankfully it stopped bleeding and didn't need a vet visit but it's a nasty one.He was limping last night when I let him out late on although he seemed to forget about any pain when he was out earlier chasing pigeons!

Is he as daft as the dog in the clip below? Probably!



This weeks plan is to go to the Gers Champions League qualifier on Tues,catch up with Step A on Wed evening and head over to my parents place on Thursday after work to see them and my wee nephew.

I'm also dipping my toes back into the online dating thing and trying to keep a thick skin about it all.It's such an ego boosting/soul destroying way of getting in touch with women.Ideally I'd still like kids of my own at some point,but I'm going to be 39 in a few weeks and if that's not going to happen then apart from the obvious ( and there's quite a few women on a free dating site available for that!) I'm really not in any rush to get into a relationship.Maybe I'm too selfish and set in my ways for relationship stuff anyway.Time and some more fun dates will tell I suppose!

Just switched on the tv to see the breaking news about Amy Winehouse dying.With her drink/drug problems it shouldn't be too much of a surprise but I still feel quite shocked.Her voice was incredible and her "Back to Black" album is still one of my favourites and helped me get through my break up with the Ex Mrs Acorn a few years ago.RIP Amy.

Late Night,Small Cash

I fired up the Pokernews tourney on Sat night at 8pm only to find it had actually started at 7.With a 30k starting stack and 15 min blind levels my error didn’t cost me many chips and I managed to double up a couple of times with Aces within the first couple of hours.After my weekend mauling at Party it took me a while to settle into the game and in truth I don't think I played very well at all.I didn't do enough 3 and 4 betting and although the structure obviously favoured more skilled players I'm certainly not in that group when it comes to deep stacked multi-table tourneys.

My first real play of the game came about when I raised with 7h6h from early position and was re raised by a fairly loose aggro player in the big blind.I shoved all in over the top of his raise and he called with AK.I nipped to the toilet as the hand played out and when I returned I discovered I'd doubled through and earned some nasty chatbox abuse from the AK villain, which after a few smokes only raised a smile.( I didn't bother replying)

Just under 5000 players started and by 3-4am I was more than ready for bed.A quick look at the payout structure revealed it was very top heavy and I'd need to make the top 10 for a decent cash.( just over $10k was the first prize) I felt I should have been open raising more often around this time, although it was difficult as most of the other stacks at my table were far smaller than mine and the perfect size for shoving over any raises I made.

About 5am I raised with 4d5d from early position and called a reraise.When two diamonds came on the flop I led out and when shoved on I made a tired donkey call and missed my flush v KK.I was veering between being desperate for my bed and telling myself I'd already played for nine hours and I'd be letting myself down if I donked off the rest of my chips at that stage.After that hand I was down to just over 1m chips with the blinds/antes totalling 105k.I effectively had 10 big blinds and plenty of sng experience so that's when I felt most comfortable and I began shoving quite liberally to chip up again.

I finally busted in 41st place for $128 when I called a raise with Aces and check raised the original raiser on a 5 J 10 flop.He had 55 and that was that.I didn't feel too bad as I'd run well enough to get to that position in the first place and I wasn't playing great poker.I was too focused on my own cards even during hands I was involved in.I could put that down to tiredness and the fact that although having a wee smoke helps my game, I was nearly comatose by 3am!

Although I was completely exhausted yesterday after 5 hours sleep at least I'd cashed and the time spent earning that $128 put me off just gambling away my last $260 on Party by playing $55 sngs! I watched "Source Code" last night,played only four sngs and had an early one.
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Walking through Glasgow at lunchtime today I saw a sign stating "Caution:Men Working Overhead" beside an office block and it seemed really stupid to me as it's not as if they guys above cleaning the windows are going to fall and land on me.There's something to mention on my blog I thought...As I walked a bit further I was suddenly soaked by water coming from the cleaners above and the warning sign didn't seen so silly!

Back soon....

Hols Nearly Over...

It's a bank holiday tomorrow and then I'm back to work on Tuesday after two weeks away from the fun factory.During my first week off I took Nacho up to visit the Big Chap in Ledhills which is one of the highest villages in Britain and has the oldest public library in the world.Nacho( half staff/half whippet) more than gave Baxter ( the Big Chaps greyhound) a run for his money and even managed to leave the Big Chap bruised and battered after an accidental collision!My car passed it's MOT,I've been to visit my wee nephew a few times and I spent the rest of my time off playing poker,Black Ops,watching movies and more of The Shield.

On the poker front everything was going well until Friday evening when my doomswitch must have been activated on Party.I read Burnley Mik posting about not winning flips on Raise the River and remember thinking I would love it if it was only flips I was losing! Running into monsters,Running into hands just better than mine,losing when miles ahead,shorties always hitting 2 outers to double up on the bubble.It just went on and on and on.( over nearly 150 games so far).Even after playing thousands and thousand of sng's it's hard to stay sane in the face of such a barrage of constant bad luck, even if I kept telling myself it's only over a tiny sample size and really very standard.

My brain says that logically each new hand is unconnected to the last etc etc and then my first premium hand of the evening gets cracked and the streak continues.I was even tempted to buy Holdem Manager ( I use Pokertracker) just to find out how far "below EV" I'm running!

Anyway the bottom line is that it's cost me around 25 buy-ins ( sounds better then $550!).I'm sorely tempted to just cashout the remaining $260 on Party or gamble and play a few $55's.I still have $2k on Stars and with the better sng structure,superior software and higher traffic levels I reckon making Stars my only site is probably a good idea.

Burnley Mik also posted a thread about a Pokernews tourney on tonight and I've registered already and will probably donate some more $$ on a last longer bet too.

Not much else going on.I reckon Rosie and Lightning were right about the latest girl I went out for dinner with and after sending her a text to say I hope she has a nice holiday ( she's in the States just now) and not getting a reply I won't be in touch with her again.On the upside it saves me buying her a 40th birthday present although I am stuck with a copy of Kung Fu Panda 2 on dvd that I'll never watch!

I'll maybe get back into the dating thing over the next few weeks and as a wee ego boost I'm thinking of trying to persuade my family to go on the Jeremy Kyle show.I caught a bit of it the other night and was amazed to see that the audience will give you a huge round of applause simply for passing a lie detector test which proves you didn't steal an expensive bracelet from your own Mother."Bravo,well done for not robbing from your own family,you fine upstanding member of the community".....

Ok,thanks for reading and try and run better than me if you're playing poker....

BBC Blofeld Clown

If only relationships were like low stakes turbo sit and go's because if they were I might have a clue what I'm doing! Since my date last Tues we've continued texting each other and had a wee chat on the phone on Fri night.After making a loose agreement to go out again early this week we didn't share any texts on Sat.I sent her one yesterday evening suggesting we go out tonight or Wed and there was no reply.

I decided to send one last message today and she came back to say she got a bit much sun yesterday and went to bed early with her wee girl.Last week she didn't reply to a text because she fell asleep on the couch when she got in.She is still saying she would love to see me again though and she's trying to get a babysitter for Thursday night.( She goes away to Florida on Sat for 2 weeks) After rushing in a bit with previous relationships I'm happy to take it slowly,see how it goes and hopefully build some trust.

Re the trust issue, even if she has been out dating most nights ( does suspecting that make me paranoid or realistic?!) does it really matter if we've only been out once anyway? I'm staying away from other dates mainly because I'm off work for two weeks and want to enjoy seeing friends/family,playing poker/black ops and smoking some fine herbs.I suppose there's also a bit of me that feels it would be unfair to go out with anyone else until I see what develops with this girl.I do really like her, although it's hard finding the balance between playing it cool and not being so casual about it she thinks I don't care.

She actually turns 40 while she's away on her hols and if we do meet up on Thus I need to decide what I get someone for their 40th when I've only been on one date with them.One of her favourite films is Kung Fu Panda and so far someone I know ( ahem) has downloaded Kung Fu Panda 2 onto a dvd for her, but I'm thinking one freebie pirated dvd isn't really much of a gift!

On the poker front I had a decent weekend at the felt and played a few profitable sets of $22's on Party and $15's on Stars.Two Pies was over on Sat night for the Haye fight and I'm glad he decided to treat his big cousin to the pay per view offering as it was a complete waste of money.Haye was like an annoying wasp with no sting and big Wlad just swatted him away with his jab all night.Haye may have talked the talk but he barely laid a glove on his opponent and I certainly won't be shelling out the pay per view fee if there's a rematch.

This week the plan is to go and see my wee nephew and parents tomorrow before heading over with Nacho to see The Big Chap and Baxter.( his dog)My car's MOT is on Wed and on Thurs I'm getting my broadband upgraded to 50 meg.( now someone I know is downloading the latest movies via torrent things a faster connection should help)

I had some clown from the tv licencing at the door earlier.I've never paid for one since I left home about 20 years ago and when I opened the front door using the wee security chain we did the "Are you Mr Acorn"?,"Who wants to know"? dance for a couple of minutes before I shut the door on him.He knocked for a while before finally giving up and putting a warning letter through my door.He had hand written on it in capital letters that "You will just get a fine if you keep refusing to cooperate".The muppet must think he's a James feckin Bond villain or something."Refusing to cooperate" indeed! Still,if I end up in an orange jumpsuit in Guantánamo Bay I suppose it'll be my own fault....

Thanks for reading.Back in a week or so after my hols...