Lyon tamers?

The trunk monkey email was going round the work today and I couldn't resist pinching a clip from you-tube.I want one of 'em for Xmas!


Usually I start writing my blog posts and the rubbish you read here just kinda falls onto the page.Not so this week!

It's hard to say I'm going to keep relationship stuff totally private, when I'm feeling happier than I have for years, and in many ways I want to shout about it from the rooftops! Heck this morning some old woman was doddling along in the outside lane and I was already running a bit late for work.All I could think was "any particular reason you haven't moved over?" instead of "MOOOOOOOOOOOOVE outta my way NOW biatch!".

However this is real life, not a soap opera, and although I'm really pleased people use some of their valuable time to read this blog,I'm not going to be live blogging on Rosie and I for many obvious reasons.

Back to the poker...I've not played too many games this week due to being busy and too tired to play well.A couple of 2nd places in $6 and an standard speed $11 sng and too many races lost in my usual $16's have been the story so far.

I did have dinner at my Mum and Dads last night and watched my Mum play a sng to try and work out why she still isn't beating the fish.We watched one of the sngicons videos and although it was excellent,it was a standard speed game and my Mum only plays turbos, which are a different kettle of fish.She is going to try more standard speed games and hopefully that will bring about the improvement required.

Tonight I'll be at Ibrox where Rangers need just a point against the French champions,Lyon,to progress to the Champions league knock-out stage.We beat them 3-0 over in France, but they have improved since then and it's going to be a night of high tension and nerves.The atmosphere at these type of game is superb though and I'll probably be hoarse until the weekend afterwards.

Tomorrow night I'm looking after Step A until midnight and on Friday I have my works Xmas lunch followed by a game of badminton with the s-man.

No real plans for the weekend.I just wish I could back and relive last weekend all over again....

End of Month Stats

Party poker $1668 (+ $46) ,Ladbrokes $1600 (-$53),Bet 365 $1053 (+$393 ) ,Pokerroom $36 ( =) ,Pokerstars $1193 ( + $354).Full Tilt $350 ( + $350) *FT profit for month was +$150 but FT roll missed from my last update

Total Bankroll $5900 ( + $1090 since Oct 31st)

Thoroughly hacked off doesn't begin to describe how I'm feeling about my work at the moment.The job is doing my nut in and my boss ( now sitting next to me) is proposing to change the seating further and place the biatch who tried to get me fired ( 5 years ago) next to me.I've almost reached the end of my tether and I'm feeling very close to heading to the Docs and getting signed off for a while.

After dinner last night I watched Rangers put up a decent fight against the German Champions,Stuttgart,but go down 3-2 in the end.This leaves us needing just a point from our last group game against Lyon at home to qualify for the knock-out stages.

I updated my bankroll stats afterwards and realised I'd missed the $200 I had left on Full Tilt when I last updated my stats.I decided to take a wee shot there and fired up a $33 turbo.No joy in that one so I hit up another one and took it down for a nice wee boost.

I two tabled a couple of Stars $16 turbos and ran into Aces on one and Kings on the other.No bad beats at least,just bad timing.

I was determined to have an early night but I'd already lit my my last smoke, so I decided to take a quick shot at $400nl on Full Tilt.I joined John D'Agostinos table but sadly he was too scared to play with me ( hehe) and simply had his seat "reserved" for my ten minutes at the table.

I bought in for $200,had been blinded down to $190 and had unchecked the autopost button in order to sit out and go to bed when I was dealt 99.There was a preflop raise of $12 before the action was on me.I didn't have much information to go on but the villain had raised a few times during my short time at the table and I decided to flat call.( only 4-5 active players at 8 seat table)

The flop was 3 3 5 and he led out for $16 which seemed a little weak so I decided to 3 bet him ( as they say on the cardrunners videos!) and raised it up to $44 which he insta-called.I checked to him after a 2 fell on the turn as I didn't want to create too large a pot in case he had a higher pair.He checked back and after a 10 came on the river I bet $35 as a semi-blocking bet and crossed my fingers he wouldn't reraise big.He flat called with 66 and I took my $76 profit off the table and went to bed!

Tonight I'm looking after Step A and will be watching a few downloaded cardrunners vids.( my idea of a break from playing poker!).

Back soon...

Pottered out

I've never been much of a potterer but I've done some amount of pottering about over the last few days! Apart from the blinds,curtains,lightshades and tumble dryer the flat is looking in great shape and though the hit to my poker roll is going to be a bit more than I thought ,it's going to be well worth it.

I've just built a toilet roll holder and storer and ( its a silver stand up thing)and can't believe it has to been unscrewed to get to the "stored" rolls.Hmmm DIY aint my bag!

The first night here the other night felt a little strange.I did have Nacho though and decided to keep to routine and let him sleep in the living room, which being somewhere new he wasn't too sure about at first.I put the gas central heating on ,popped his bed beside the radiator, and he was a lot happier when I went off through to my bed...until the curtain I'd stuck up as a temporay measure awaiting the blinds arrival, fell off and scared the life out of him! He slept in my room for the rest of the night!

I slept a little better last night, although my head is full of wee cogs and wheels all going the wrong way. ( copyright my mate the Big Chap)

I've an awful lot of mixed emotions about the whole split/move back to flat shennanigans and as Mair wrote in my comments section, I reckon it will just take time to adjust.I'm going to Ibrox tonight to watch Rangers first Champions League group game v Stuttgart and after that I'm picking Step A up from the ex's work ( she works till midnight at Chinese takeaway) and will be looking after her until the ex comes back.

Tomorrow night is the Gwen Stefani gig in Glasgow and I'm really looking forward to taking Step A and a friend ( or me if she canny get a friend to go!).I also pick up my curtains tomorrow ( aye,it's curtains for me)and tumble dryer and the new blinds get installed on Friday.

On the poker front thanks to those who made kind comments on my game and recommended moving up.I'm going to post a stats post soon and include my planned Full Tilt withdrawl which should leave me about $4k online.I may move some $$ out of sites I hardly use anymore like Pokerroom because whenever I look at my Stars roll of about $550 it seems to low to be playing $16 turbos never mind $27, which is silly as that $550 is only a small part of my overall roll.

Dd and the SJS ( San Jose Salmon aka Miami Mark aka Al Eleven) have suggested a live game when SJS is back home around mid October.Dd also mentioned inviting Juice and I think it would be a great idea to invite any bloggers/readers that can make it.In similar fashion to how BM and I began the bloggerment I think the best way is to come up with a date and venue and if you can make it that will be great.If not then maybe next time!I only say that because you can never please everyone and the lesson from the bloggerment was to stop trying to do just that and simply choose venue/time etc and see what happened.

Ok, game kicks off in just over an hour and I've yet to microwave my dinner....

Bloggerment tonight...

Dudley may reckon Rangers will struggle against the mighty Barcelona in the Champions league this season but this man doesn't!

To the poker and once again the poker gods were not on my side at the sharp end of a blogger tourney.I felt I played quite well in the Raisetheriver $10 main event and was feeling confident when heads up with Cogsgoigne at the end.We were both about even in chips when I raised with 4h5h from the button,flopped a flush,called Cogs push all in ( he had nut flush draw) and after a blank turn, I was 2nd again when another Heart hit on the river.I've no problem with Cogs shove and it's just the way poker goes sometimes, but after losing to a rivered gutshot when headsup in the charity game a few weeks back,this was another hefty kick in poker stones!

No point whining though and at least the $33 2nd prize covered the cost of my RTR world series.Hats off to BM and co for organising it.

After a quick break and a herbal refreshment I played in one of the $11, 180 player turbo games I'd read about on Raisetheriver.The top prize in these games is $594 and I fancied a bit of that! My exit from the first one gave me plenty of food for thought.There were 22 left with the top 18 spots paying.I had 9.5k in chips and was sitting about 15th when I picked up AK under the gun.( first to act).As the blinds were 1200/800 with antes, I knew I wouldn't have much fold equity left if I laid down my AK and tried to scrape into the money.18th paid only $18 ( for a $7 profit) and I'd already decided I'd rather gamble and build a decent stack if I got the chance around the bubble.

I reckon the ICM calculations would probably say to lay down AK here and make the money first ( ye old better to make 20% profit than lose 100% of buy-in scenario)but I was after the beeeeg money and pushed all in....only to run into a bigger stacks JJ and go out when my hand failed to hit.

I played one more short 180 player turbo and went out when my Jacks fell to Tens.( ten on flop sealed it).Tens were the hand of the night.I laid 'em down to Mr Clouds AA preflop in the RTR game and pushed BM off a hand with them too in the same game!

I hit the cash tables and although I lost $100 of my Inter take a shot roll ( overplayed A10 on an Ace high flop) I won $80 at Laddies.

Here are a couple of my favourite hands from last night..

In this first one I called a raise with A7s and when the villain led out for half the pot post flop it was a marginal decision to call.I reckoned I could win if I hit another 7 ,an Ace or if a scare card fell.When the perfect scare card which completed both the flush and straight draw it was the perfect time to reraise and take the pot.

This hand was one of my smaller winners but I liked it because I all the factors were in place to get away with a small semi bluff.If someone had the 6 or 7 I would have expected a bet post flop due to the flush draw being out there.When nobody bet and the Ace fell on the turn it was easy to bet the scare card and take it down.

Righty that's it for today.Don't forget to register for tonights Britbloggerment.......

Bloggerment Banner ideas

As the title says Burnley Mik and I have decided that although there have been some brilliant banners made for the Bloggerment games ,we would prefer ( like the Americans do with their Mondays at the Hoy,Mookie etc) to have one banner which people could post permanently on blogs,forums etc.See Mookies blog for an idea of what I'm on about.

If anyone has any design ideas please email me,leave a comment or post on the Raise the River forum.Thanks.



I think I may have found a new poker home at Bet365 which I only deposited at to play in last weekends charity tourney.

On Monday night I ran my $60 up to $160 and last night I increased that by another $100.This was after I'd got back from watching a scrappy 2-0 win for Rangers over footballing giants FC Zeta.


I began by playing some of their extreme turbo sng's and I couldn't believe how soft they were.I won a couple of $5 ones before making the top 2 ( good way of saying I came 2nd twice!) a couple of times in ten seater, $10 games.The $5 shorthanded games were almost like play money and I was amazed to find I'd made $50 profit in around 45 minutes overall at these sngs.


The extreme turbos format means the blinds rise almost twice per orbit which is very fast indeed, however it also means a tourney can be over within 10-15 minutes.It would be easy to say there's no skill involved in these donkfests, however I reckon there's still a definite edge to be had there and the speed of the games makes them a certain ev+ proposition over the long run.

After my tourney fun I had no trouble finding a juicy wee $50nl 6 max table with a $17 average pot and 47% flop seen.Four players calling a 5bb preflop raise seemed the norm at this table and it truly reminded more of $25nl than $50.I did quite well and left $50 up after 1/2 hours play.

I did get my Aces busted by Mr 67 o/s who called my all in bet ( he had a $15 stack) after a flop of 6 K Q ,only to hit his 7 on the river, although that just made me smile and appreciate just what a fish tank I'd discovered!

The software seems identical to Ladbrokes and the players are even worse.I just wish the "buddy" system was not by invite only and it was possible to simply add fish and find them easily again without their acceptance.

Overall since splitting with ex Mrs A I've found myself being far more focussed at the tables rather than flailing around in the self-pitying tilt mode I'd half expected of myself.Financially moving back home to my flat will be far tougher than my current situation but I'm not exactly poverty stricken.It will mean more saving and a definite effort to keep the credit card balance in check.I didn't have a poker hobby when I lived there previously though, and I'm hoping I can continue to use my poker profits for the larger expenses such as car insurance,Rangers season ticket,decorating etc.

Ok,thanks for reading...