RIP Benson Da Feeesh

I read today that the British angling community is in mourning after the death of a legendary giant carp called "Benson".Apparently she was caught around sixty times during her fishy life.I loved the quote from one fisherman, "I think she liked having her picture taken".How the fuck did he come to that conclusion?! Perhaps her "smile" may have been slightly forced due to the large hook that was no doubt protruding from her mouth at the time.The good news is that there are still plenty of huge fish at the Party $22's just waiting to replace Benson....

The other big news of the week is that the s-man finally won an online Motorstorm Pacific Rift race, although rumours that his fellow competitors were too busy laughing at the s-man slamming into yet another "tree of death" to race properly are as yet unconfirmed.

I've not played much poker this week, although I did get annoyed with Stars stopping a small money transfer to my account from another player due to an "age verification" issue.Considering I've been playing and cashing out from Stars over a few years now the request seemed silly enough, but even if they had a valid security reason I don't know why they couldn't just have put the transfer on hold instead of declining it altogether.

In the few games I have played I've either run horribly or run hot.Instead I've been playing ps3 games and watching fine movies like the new Seagal film "Driven to Kill" in which Stevie boy plays a Russian gangster type who administers his own brand of justice.( a staple of the Stevie boy franchise)

Not much else going on.I turned 37 today and was out for a fine curry with my family this evening and got a new Gers top from my parents.My Mum wanted "Nacho K9" on the back!

Back soon...

Happy 2nd B/day Blog/ Ytd stats

This will be my last post before I take a break for just over a week in Ibiza with Mrs A.I'm gutted at missing Sundays Britbloggerment game ( on Stars at 9pm bst,password:donkament) though a weeks break from the poker will probably do me good overall.

I played a wee $6 turbo at 'Stars to warm up last night ( no joy) before scanning my current sites for a juicy table.Party poker won the day and I sat down for some $50 nl shennanigans.

I'd chipped up a little when I was dealt 9c10c in late position.Nl can be a funny old game.Big hands tend to win small pots and the most lucrative way to win money is calling raises with speculative hands and hitting big against big pairs/AK/AQ etc.

It's a balancing act though, because if you called everything hoping to hit buy-ins would leak away fairly quickly.Back to the hand and I called the villains $2 raise and saw a lovely 10h 10d 7h flop.

There were only two of us in the pot and as he'd raised preflop, I wasn't too worried that he was drawing to the flush and therefore I just called his $3 continuation bet.

The turn brought a Kd and this time when he bet $6,I reraised him to $12,hoping it would look like I was semi-bluffing on a flush draw and hoping he was on the AK his turn bet suggested.

He smooth called my raise and checked to me on the river.I bet $21 and he called with his AK and called me lucky in the chatbox.

I did lose a little of that profit after trying to be too smart and pull off a bluff against the loosest player at the table.He'd folded a few times to my preflop small blind ( he was the bb) steals but when I tried again with 73off and the flop came King high he called my flop and turn bet and I had to fold to his bet on the river.

Ok, a couple more things before I vanish for a week.When The Cloud mentioned it was his blogs first birthday I checked and realised my blog is just over two years old.( born on 31st May '05).I didn't want to steal The Clouds thunder ( can you steal thunder from a cloud??) last week by mentioning it but I'm quite pleased I've stuck at this ghey blogging lark for so long.

Big thanks to the US bloggers who encouraged me with comments/links when I first started out ( Gcox,Tripjax and Jordan ) and there didn't seem to be many UK poker bloggers.( at least that I was aware of)

The last six months or so have been great, as I've added more and more UK blogging links ( drop me line to swap links) to my sidebar and I feel that we're building a fine wee community on this side of the pond too.I was always envious of the US blogger tourneys ( mostly too late for me to play in) and I think it's great that we now have our own successful Britbloggerment regular Sunday game.( 9pm Stars on Sunday,password: donkament)


Righty it's 9.25pm and I aint rolled a smoke or posted my stats!

Here are my latest stats: Party $963, Full Tilt $1287, Pokerroom $556,Ladbrokes $1379,Pokerstars $69 Grand Total $4254 ( +$8 since May 27th)

YTD Profit since start of 3rd year of online poker real money on Oct 31st until June 7th = $1599.

Edit: Bubbled a $16 when my AK soooted was beaten by A2 off.( I was shortstacked)
Crashed out of a $6 and won $60 at a Laddies $100 nl table when I called a small raise with 107,hit two pair and check raised the flop.The villian went all in for $68 and I called,beating his AK bluff despite the Ace on the turn.


With only 4 1/2 months to go and having made nearly $4k profit in both years one and two, I'm a little disappointed with my ytd figure.I have been playing far more sngs this year and although I've enjoyed adding to my skillset ,I'm never going to make much profit one tabling and I don't really enjoy playing more than two at a time.My Ytd also includes my tilt nightmare in May.Without that included I would have been on track to equal previous years.Poker isn't an easy game and whilst I'll be striving to equal or better last years profits, I just want to stay on track and come out in the black again this year.

Righty ya'll be good out there and best of luck at the tables.

Ibiza here I come....