No Entitlement

It's not a very catchy post title but all I can do to keep my sanity at the virtual felt just now is to keep telling myself I'm not entitled to win any hand and only entitled to enter the hand in the first place.I use Pokertracker 3 and I'm almost tempted to buy Holdem Manager 2 just to see if I'm setting some kind of record for running below EV using the red line graph thing they have.I'll leave it in but I should probably delete that last sentence because poker is a brutal game with no room for a "Oh poor me and my run bad" kind of attitude.I've been playing poker online for over 8 years now and while the games are getting tougher and the bad beats seem never ending at the moment, I do still take heart from the fact that there are still plenty of terrible players around the low stakes hammering at their keyboards with their big donkey hooves.

Perhaps I should take a break from Mtt's and focus more on the 18 player turbo's where I only usually have to win a few key hands before getting the chance to run over the other players around the bubble.The thing is that despite my poor recent run I'm still ( for the most part!) enjoying registering for 20-25 tourneys on a Fri/Sat night and I love the buzz of trying to build a stack on 9-10 tables at a time.I even discovered re-buy tourneys last weekend and the big prize pools for a small buy-in ( or two!) make me wish I'd taken a closer look at them before now.

Yup,8 years on and I still love the game.I usually watch a couple of training vids per week and I'm a regular listener of several poker podcasts.Mentioning that gives me a good excuse to flesh out another boring post with a few thoughts on some of my favourite ones.

2+2 Pokercast: Still my favourite poker podcast.Plenty of top guests from the poker world and the hosts Mike and Adam always seem to ask the right questions and strike the right note in their interviews.Plus they're big fans of bacon which has to be a good reason to tune in!

Tournament Poker Edge: Listening to their free podcast inspired me to join their training site and I'm glad I did.The pod is usually based around a few of the TPE pro's discussing hand histories and I love that strategy content and the fact the guys are so passionate about the game.

Thinking Poker: A decent mix of strategy and interviews.I tend to prefer the hand history chat and two hosts bounce off each other well in those segments.The only small issue I have is that the hand history chat sometimes get so indepth on the the turn,flop and river I tend to forget what hand the hero held in the first place! I was pleased to see one of the presenters Andrew Brokos is now doing training vids for TPE.His first vids on hand reading are excellent.

The Mental Game of Poker: Author of the book by the same name Jared Tendler interviews some of the top names in poker and as you would expect deals with the main psychological aspects of the game.The interviews are actually more like being a fly on the wall at a counselling session at times and I like his laid back style.

Pokernews: I'm not so interested in the ones they do on location from the latest big donkament tourney but I do like Kirsty Arnett's strategy interviews and the fact she has such a hot American accent definitely helps too!

OneOuter.com: No new podcasts since the end of last August but I've enjoyed listening to a fellow Scot interviewing some of the top poker players in the world and a few characters from the world of gambling too.I'm not even at all bitter that the host's QJ beat my AJ at a tourney table on Stars many months ago! Well worth downloading stuff from his archive.

Duece Plays with Bart Hanson: This is a paid subscription podcast these days but there are still plenty of the free earlier ones available on I-tunes.It's almost all hand history chat and although the host is usually discussing live cash game hands his enthusiasm and knowledge of the game make this podcast easy to listen to and he has a happy knack of explaining things very clearly.Even as a player who has never played a live cash game hand in my life I usually feel like I've learned something after listening to one of his podcasts.




Not much happening away from the poker.I did see on twitter ( no I've not signed up to it or facebook!)that Rosie is now the proud owner of the 2nd cutest dog in the world.( Nacho made me add "2nd"!) I hope Rosie knows what she's getting into as they say you can tell what size a dog is going to be by the size of it's paws as a pup and by the looks of the pics posted, Shiva is going to be Bristols dog answer to Godzilla!


Right before I go I'll share a quick one from the Rangers match at Ibrox last weekend that made smile.We signed a Brazilian central defender Emilson Cribari last August and so far, despite having played at the top level with Lazio, he's not exactly hit top form with us.One of the boys that sits behind me mentioned Cribari had been quoted in the papers as saying he was thinking about leaving and that top clubs in Italy were interested in him.Quick as a flash another boy fired back "Aye,fuckin nightclubs".Maybe you had to be there...!

Ok thanks for reading and yeah Dudley I'll try and get round to updating my links before my next post!

Poker Time

Nacho's staying with Step A this weekend so I'm starting my Saturday night at the felt early.( no need for a 15 min walk at 7.30!) Smoked three doobs already and registered for 28 tourneys on Stars with buy-ins between $2.20 and $33.Time to grab something to eat and roll a few more for the rollercoaster ride ahead.Just need to win a few of those Aces v A8 coin flips for a change...

No Change Please

Things are looking up on the health front after the anti-biotics the dentist gave me for the nasty gum infection I had did the job.The Doc reckoned my dodgy stomach was due to a virus that lingered but it's fine now too and I'm fairly sure it was the nasty stuff from my gums that was the cause.At least I lost 1/2 stone though.Feels good to be healthy again!

Life at the virtual felt last weekend was sickening again.I came 15th in a $7.50 Mtt after having my Kings busted by QQ and finished 16th in the $11,$18k Gtd after getting Aces in v QQ and KK only for a Queen to come on the river.

Friday night was brutal too and after running KK into Aces three times last night it just seemed to be never ending.I did finally manage to find a wee bit of run good in the $33 Saturday Speedway,managing a 26th place finish for $238.I lost a flip with AK V 88 to exit that one.It did hurt a bit but I really don't mind losing genuine near coin flips like that.It's all the 99 v 98 and the villain rivers a straight type shit that I just can't seem to escape at the moment.Ahh well time to man up and keep at it!

I did run better in the local newspaper competition stakes when I entered a comp to win 10 free driving lessons.I won the comp and passed them on to Step A who was very pleased with the prize.( though it cost me £50 to pay for her new provisional licence!)
She had her photo taken for the paper and it made me smile when I sent her a text on Wed to say she was on page 10 and got the reply "Oh dear god".

Picking up my new HTC One X mobile this week.While no doubt some people would be excited about upgrading ( I have the HTC Desire just now) I'm only doing it because my rental would go up if I stayed on the same deal.The phone I have does everything I want it to do and I really can't be arsed transferring my Vids to youtube and all my contacts over to the new one.( it's a different sized Sim apparently).I also have 200 photo's I'll need to somehow save somewhere.

Maybe it's just me but when I see " Come look at our shiney new website layout/upgraded product" etc I just wonder why the hell people can't just leave things as they are.At least Shreddies went back to the original ones after trying out "exciting new Shreddies" ( or some such pish) a wee while back.

At least I'm not the only old grumpy git around now as the S-man hit the big 40 last week too.I always feel better hanging around with him as he looks at least 20 years older than me too.Hopefully we'll finally get round to going to see "Skyfall" in the next week or two.Looking forward to going to see "The Life of Pi" with my Mum on Tues night as we both loved the book.I'm currently reading "The Hundred Year Old man who climbed out the Window and Disappeared" and it's a great read too, although I think it would be too surreal to make a movie out of it.

I've also discovered ( probably years after everyone else) Freepass Tv and Project Free Tv and have already watched the first couple of episodes of "The Walking Dead".I have the boxset of season 4 of "Breaking Bad" to start soon and now I've found these sites it looks like I won't have to wait unti June for season 5 to be released in the UK.Better call Saul!

At work things are getting a bit better under my new boss.There's been a regrading done and I'm hopeful I'll get a bit more flexibility with my hours.( I'm on a flexi contract but have to work to a schedule 4 days from 5 for "business needs").I've written on here about going to a 4 day week at work and I've already mentioned to my boss that when the latest flex/hours thing gets sorted I'd like to look at doing a nine day fortnight from now on.Working 9 days out of 10 and having a long weekend every two weeks would make work a lot more bearable and the extra 20 or so days off every year would be far easier on my pocket to absorb than cutting my hours by 20% to four days per week.

Quick couple of youtube links before I go.The first one is to one of my favourite films "Life in a Day".It's a snapshot of life around the world on July 24 2010.Some of it's rubbish and some of it's truly amazing.Well worth watching if you've not seen it though.

The other is Rangers fans singing "Derrys Walls" to the tune of Amazing Grace back when Dudley was in his late 50's in 1972( a fine year!).I don't know any German but I think even the commentator was impressed by the atmosphere it created.Hair raising stuff!






Ok,thanks for reading.Back soon...

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to any readers I still have left after taking a wee break from posting.I've had three main reasons for not posting.Bad runs,bad runs and sore gums!

At the felt I feel like I've never run as badly in all my time playing poker and frankly bad beat stories are boring to write about and boring to read.Of course MTT variance is known to be pretty soul crushing and if I'm only playing aprox 45-50 Mtt's per week the long run is going to be very long indeed.I did take 3rd in a $7.50 tourney for $483 and 4th in a 6 max $2.20 $2.20 game for a similar amount but overall it's been awful.

My own stupidity doesn't help either at times.The other night I had a very decent stack of chips with 43 players left in the $27,$20k Gtd Knock-out tourney on Stars.From my hazy memory I recall thinking "I need a cookie" just before I made my fatal error. It folded round to me and as the small blind only had aprox 10bb I shoved my 40bb stack with 8c4d hoping to pick up the blinds on a steal.The big blind duly folded and the pot didn't come my way.With horror I realised that someone in early position had already raised and I'd come over the top of him with my shove.He called with AQ and his hand held to leave me in 43rd place for $80.I was the sickest player on Stars at that moment.( that's bad sick,not good sick for younger readers!)

Away from the poker I've not been in the best of health over the last wee while.Lets just say my bad runs were not just at the felt! My stomach was so bad I even had to turn down the chance to meet up with an ex girlfriend for some NSA.When she started texting me the week after to arrange a meet she decided it would be better to leave the sexual part out of it.She was taking a break from a guy she was seeing and her head was messed up blah blah.Of course being a gent I agreed to meet and after a nice meal we ......booked into the budget hotel nearby!

As well as a dodgy stomach I've also had a sore mouth and swollen badly bleeding gums for over a month.I finally got to the dentist yesterday and now have antibiotics for a nasty gum infection.It was quite a relief really as I was starting to get quite paranoid about it being something far worse.With that daft worry and things getting very stressful at work before Xmas maybe it's no wonder my stomach was gubbed!

L ( old friend I ended up sleeping with after her leaving night back in August) sent me texts to say she would be back in Glasgow for Xmas.She did text me "Merry Xmas" and "Happy New Year" when she was back.Although I should probably have made the effort to see her ( more NSA!) I just didn't feel up to it.Maybe later this year!

I did manage to catch up with the Miami Trout ( Al Eleven in the old Bloggerment games) and his Mrs at another friends house with the S-man in attendance too.A fine evening was had by all and I hope they're back in the UK sooner rather than later.( not easy with twin 2 yr olds in tow)

On the football front after a slightly stuttering start Rangers are nearly 20 points clear at the top of the 3rd division.Along with Two Pies I was at the game v Queens Park at Hampden last week.Despite being demoted to the 3rd division we still have the highest average ( just under 50k)home attendance in Scotland for our games.The only show in town!

I don't even miss the big games against our hated rivals.After what went on with them and the Scottish media when we were in turmoil I don't care if we never play them again.In fact if Two Pies and I had been more organised we would have ( if there were any tickets!) gone down to Burnley for their big game v Bastard Rovers in December to get our fix of proper tribal hatred!

The Rangers v Celtic rivalry may be one of the fiercest in sport but it's not the oldest.That honour goes to Rangers and Queens Park.( see match programme pic below)

Just time for a quick one about my old ( thank fuck I've got rid of her now) manager sending out an email to the whole office describing her new team as "hardcore moaners".When the "Face like a bulldog chewing a nettle would like to recall this message" email came through a minute later it was too late as most of the office were gathered round in wee groups laughing at her first email.

Right,better go and grab some dinner,walk Nacho and hit the felt for tonights run bad fun! I'm down to under $500 and it'll be small Mtt's and 180's until I rebuild my roll again.

Thanks for reading...