Monday already?

Congrats to Hammerheid on winning Saturday nights Euroblogger game and to Spid for taking down the Bloggerment last night.I exited the Euroblogger when Hammerheids A3 pwned my KK and in the Britbloggerment I ran QJ into Spids JJ after a shoving my shortstack.Thanks to everyone who came out to play.

I'm still on bank tilt today after calling my banks Head office who confirmed that it will take 5-6 weeks to process my Full Tilt cashout cheque.It didn't take this long previously and they blame a change of procedure on the long delay.Hmmmmf!

The rest of the weekend was quiet.The S-man popped over on Friday night and brought some Nettle,Milk thistle and spearment tea with him.Yes,we used to discuss sex,drugs and rave music and now we sit like a couple of old Grannies doing deals to swap tea bags...

I thoroughly enjoyed watching Turkey come back from 2-0 down to beat the Czech Republic 3-2.It may not have been the free flowing pure brand of football served up by the Dutch at times but it was certainly exciting to watch.

On the poker front I've won a couple of Party $22's since my last post and have even had a winning ( 24 games ,$75 profit) multi-tabling session at Stars.I'm still not up very much overall for the month but I'm feeling a lot more relaxed about it.

Ok,back later in the week...

Don't think twice...

On Friday night I continued to run badly at Party.I did start with a $22 win there last night and then lost those winnings over the next few games.I'm considering removing my remaining $876 Party total from my overall bankroll and taking a shot with it at $33's and $55's until either I break through or bust.It's really only a wee trick on myself to see if not thinking about my Party money as seriously works out to be good or bad for my bottom line.Will it free me up to stop fretting over beats and to play good poker....or will I semi-tilt the whole lot off?! Hmmmm!

I did thoroughly enjoy watching the Dutch destroy France 4-1 at Euro 2008 with what was at times a mesmerising performance.They are an absolute joy to watch in full flow and must surely be favourites now to go on and win the competition.

Back to the poker and the $16's continue to rip me a new one everytime I play 'em.The bad news was that I went 0/7 without cashing.The only bright spot is that I decided on a couple of $11 180 player turbos as a change of pace and final tabled both of them,coming 5th and 7th for a $90 overall profit for the night.Even in those games I could moan about running A6s ( sb) into tens in the big blind for my 5th place finish or splitting a huge pot with AQ V A10 which would have given me a large lead in the other one....but I won't!

I hope I didn't give the impression in my last post that I was about to quit my job and try and go pro at this juicy yet tough game we all love ( and hate!).It would only even be a consideration if I was offered a large leaving package by my current company and even then this last downswing has probably been enough to put me off that idea.I've also never actually managed to sit down and put in many 6-7 hour sessions successful of 4-6 tabling.I do think I've been unlucky when I have tried ,but I'd want a good few winning sessions of that nature behind me before going pro would be even a speck on the horizon let alone a reality.Nothing to think twice about! Good excuse for this cracking Dylan tune...




Things are still a bit up and down for me in life in general and one nice aspect of working for "the man" is that I can get through a day or two on auto-pilot when required and not be worrying about my job paying bills.All I was trying to say in my last post was that when I first started playing ,going from the little acorn of micro-stakes to the mighty oak of higher stakes pro play seemed a great idea.



After a few years there was never even a remote possibility of that happening at the cash levels I was playing at and I was happy with an extra £200 or so per month earnings.Going down the turbo route will hopefully allow me to at least treble my previous years profits and I suppose that's where I felt the pro door had been left slightly ajar again.

Ok,who asked for more bad beats?!! Here are just a few from last night,some worse than others and fairly typical of how I've been running recently...

1) Never slow play a flopped nut flush eh.

2) Loved this one...

3) Oh how I laughed..

4) Aces v Presto.I should have folded preflop...

5) Ahh lovely Hooks.The hand after this one I was all in with AK V 99 and A8.Lost obviously!

6) Rangers sign Kenny Miller.

Ok,thanks for reading and don't forget to register for the two bloggy games coming up.( see yesterdays post)

I'm off to pick Nacho up and get him walked before Euro 2008 kicks off again with Sweden v Spain...

Marginal Moves

Thanks to everyone who showed up for last nights Bloggerment and well done to Rosie for taking it down again after beating Mr Edge ( Mauzj) HU.I finished 7th after running 55 into Aces.Who says presto is gold?!

I played an interesting hand in the bloggerment against Res and Riggstad which caused a bit of debate.Feel free to call me donkey in the comments section!

I had A5 in the sb( 100/200),Res was on the button with 340 after losing a big race a couple of hands previously and Riggstad was in the big blind.Res had just given me a walk in the previous hand ( I had 88 )and when he pushed this time I reckon he thought he would get more respect because he if was pushing any two,he would have been all in on the last hand.He also knows I'm tight and usually don't call lightly.

Anyway I look down to A5,I have 1800 chips and see 640 in the pot including my 100 small blind bet.I reckon Res is pushing an even wider range ( at least 80% of hands) after his last fold.

On checking on Pokerstove it looks quite close.A5 is 55.68% fav v 44.31% if he's only folding the bottom 20% of hands, and fares slightly better at 57% v 43% v a totally random hand.I also didn't expect Riggs to call me lightly (he had K10) as I thought an 800 bet would look like I had a huge hand that wanted to tempt a call.
If I'd shoved it would have looked weaker there.When Riggstad folded it cost me 240 to potentially win a pot of 640.As it happened the board blanked until Res hit his 10on the river.

With 7 or 8 left maybe I should have been focussing on seeing someone eliminated and if it was nearer the bubble I would never have played it that way.As I was relatively shortstacked compared to the rest of the table it didn't matter to me much if there were 7 or 8 in the game.I reckoned if my Ace high held it was worth the extra 640 chips which would have taken me to nearly 2.5k.That would have given me more fold equity and room to play.If my hand had won I'd also hope to be able take advantage of my new crazier image to get action on my bigger hands as I think I'd probably looked fairly tight/agg until that point!

On reflection it's not a move I'd make every time and perhaps it's more for turbo's where there is less time to accumulate chips.I have to confess at that point I hadn't checked to see when the blinds were going up again.

I still think in the context of that game,that it didn't totally suck donkey ass but it was certainly marginal and kept me awake for a while this morning at 6am when I finally went to bed!

That A5 hand did force me to download Pokerstove and learn how to use it properly after messing around cluelessly with it in the past.It was much easier than I expected to use and I'd highly recommend playing about with it.

Later after the Bloggerment I played four $22's at Party and busted one,bubbled,came 3rd and took one down for about $60 profit.I enjoyed using a reverse auto-timing tell trick I've found seems to work quite well.I'm always on the look out for those auto-check button users to take advantage of.If someone quickly auto-checks a hand it's almost certain they have nothing and it's usually worth a bet to steal the pot.

If I notice someone auto-check folding a lot preflop then I will min raise to steal more often.No need to risk more.The reverse move is simply checking a monster as quickly as possible to make it seem like an auto-check.This hand is a good example.The money may well have gone in regardless, but the weak looking quick checks from myself and the other villain ensured the fish went broke.

I ended up winning $116 over 17 games at Stars which was a relief after my recent run there.It was still a struggle though, and it was just before 6am before I managed to turn things around and get into the black for the night.



Ok,off to pick Nacho up,take him for a run and come back and watch more of Euro 2008....

Game Set and Match...

Big thanks to Stephenrhall,Hammerheid and Copa1982 for joining Mr Cloud and me for the Euroblogger game.It was certainly the fastest Blogger game ever as Mr Cloud won in about twelve minutes after my AK soooted was no match for his KK.Don't forget to register for tonights BritBloggerment on Stars...



Before the Euro game I played in the $20, Pocket Fives Open Mtt and crashed out around 300th from 1100 when I open shoved a couple of sooted cards when folded to me and lost to someone hero calling with A10.

I fired up a few $16's and found I'm still in the same rut I was in previously.I had Aces four times last night over 24 games and had them busted each time for example.I did manage a slight comeback towards the end of the session and only finished $6 down overall.I took a break for a while around 1am after I found myself playing one particular game on full blown chip spewing monkey tilt mode.I don't tilt very often and I suppose at least I was self-aware enough to realise what I was doing and take a step back.

After my 24 games at Stars I fired up a couple of $22's at Party and failed to cash in either.I've mentioned before that Sharkscope doesn't work for Party Poker.If anyone does know of a site for tracking sng results at Party please let me know.

I've been reading a few poker forums as usual this week and I've noticed that the practice of staking seems to be becoming more popular and I have to say I've no idea what the appeal is!I know I'm a nit when it comes to dealing with bankroll management,however surely if you're a winning player you wouldn't need anyone to stake you for low stakes games.If you're not winning then why would anyone want to stake you at all?

The only way I can see staking being useful is for a winning player wanting to take a shot at a higher level.The other part of these threads which makes me shake my head is the feedback part.Even if you backed that winning player and he won 10/10 sngs at a higher level than usual, I don't think that proves anything at all about his/her game.I realise many people treat it as a bit of fun and a way of helping build the community spirit on forums and I'm not knocking that at all.It just doesn't make much sense to me!

This afternoon I'm watching the Federer v Nadal French Open Final ( Nadal is romping it so far) and later there's more Euro 2008 football.

On the subject of football it seems Rangers are on the verge of resigning Kenny Miller from Derby County and I've never been more angry about a signing in my life.He played for Rangers,moved to Wolves and then did the unthinkable for a former Rangers player,he joined Celtc.I was at celtc park when the wee turncoat scored against us and happily thumped the celtc badge on his shirt and there's no way I want to see him in a blue jersey ever again.If he was actually any good as a player that may have softened the blow, but the fact is he would struggle to hit a cows arse with a banjo let alone score many goals."You can stick your Kenny Miller up your arse" Mr Smith.Don't do it!!

Ok,that's all for today.Time to chill out...

One time,just one time...

I'm not sure why I'm posting today as I have nothing to say really.Unless you fancy reading a whiney dirge of a post I'd suggest moving on to the fine links on the right.

My Gran is still very unwell in hospital,I've hardly slept all week and Pokerstars has continued to take the piss out of me.The phrase "running badly" ( -$126 from 18 games last night) doesn't begin to cover the shafting that site is dishing out to me just now.I've done quite well there and been profitable, but this current run of being sucked out on almost every single time has driven me close to just cashing the whole lot out and moving permanently to Party Poker.

I only played three games at Party last night at $22 level and took one down.Party turbos seem very soft indeed and although variance is still a bitch there,I'm not getting screwed over every single fuckin' time.If anyone wants to see just how badly, have a look for "zagga" on Stars one night and thank the poker gods you don't run like I am just now.I added the "just now" bit in the hope that surely,surely,surely this cannot go on and the variance will start to even out a little.Come and watch me run like a god and ask me what I'm making all this fuss about!If only...

Maybe I just brush all the variance crap out of my mind more easily when I'm not feeling so tired,low and hacked off with the world in general.Perhaps the real deal multi-tabling sng winners would laugh at this self-pitying poor me post, in the same way I look at people posting about 4-5 games of bad beats in a row and think "You've no idea what real variance is".

Maybe I had no idea and I'm only just finding out.I've read about runs of break even runs/downswings of hundreds of games.Perhaps this is mine.The only positive is that I know I'm getting my money in ahead and I know it's just variance.I'm clinging on the logical part of my thinking which says that continuing to make the right decisions will pay off, even although that seems like some mysterious myth at present.Right now on Stars I tell myself "it cannot go on,it cannot go on like this,oh it has...again".

I am only down about $25 on Stars since the 1st of June and I'm still up a couple of hundred over all sites.I just hate losing and I hate it even more when it feels like I'm playing well yet being continually thwarted.I'll never hate the fish though! I did almost ask Mr K8h ( he flopped a flush v my Aces) wtf he was doing calling my raise preflop, but even when running this poorly I know it's those calls and fishy plays which make me money over time.I would also never give any lucky fish the added pleasure of knowing they'd annoyed me with their luck.( and it's the fact they got lucky which annoys,not the fact they chose to call with a weak hand)Better to sook it up,stay on my game and annoy them by chipping back up and cashing.Profit before ego!

What a load of twaddle this post is! I could have posted about the email I got from a company asking why I didn't have their paid for advert on my blog anymore.I didn't realise I had an agreeement with said company and it looks like someone has sold ad space on my blog and pocketed the profits without my knowledge. I'm not the most organised person in the world but it looks like somebodys fuckin' at it.Donald Woulard III.Email:kangoboy81@hotmail.com is the scammer.I do have his website address too but won't be giving him a free link here.Please feel free to add his email addy to as many spam lists as possible!

Ok,on the good news front I'm off work next week and will be able to catch up a bit on last weeks lost sleep and that should help lift the dark mood I've been in recently.

Euro 2008 starts shortly and I'm looking forward to a fine feast of football over the next few weeks.It's just a shame Scotland didn't quite make it.If the Dutch were not in such a tough opening group I'd probably tip them.They are though, so I'm going with Spain or Germany to win it.

Ok,off to pick my boy up.Don't forget to register for tonights EuroBlogger game on Stars....

Here's another fine football chant which made me smile..."What a waste of council tax,We paid for your hats"..

Bella Bella

Picked up Nacho last night after deciding to move up in the world and buy this weeks food shopping at Marks n Spencer.When I first moved back it was a novelty to go back to the same ready made meals I used to buy,but that wore off very quickly and I don't mind paying a bit more for some decent scran.My boy even got some luxury pork strips to munch.

All this was after work where the feckin' numpties have removed all the bins from around our desk areas in order that we use a recycling area.Hmm I wonder where they are going to dispose of aprox 1000 plastic bins! Doh!

There is huge hype in Scotland just now over the impending final qualifying game against the World Champions,Italy,at Hampden tomorrow ( 5 pm ko).We have done incredibly well to still be in with a chance considering we're a country of 5 milliomn people and we are in a group with Italy,France and the Ukraine etc.

We have to beat Italy to be sure of making it and I'm afraid it would just be typical of Scotland to beat France home and away but still fall at the final hurdle.Never say never as the Scotland team has a great fighting spirit but I just can't see that being enough to beat the clinical Italians.Roll on!

On the poker front I took 2nd in the one $16 turbo I played which means another $2 Sklansky dollars earned!

I had a good laugh chatting it up with Rosie,Juice and The Edge before heading off for 20 minutes of cash play before bed.After Amatays latest comment I hit up a $200nl table ( at 365) and was amazed at just how soft it was.I never made very much over my short time there but I saw some very fishy play indeed.

I had to take a little extra time over my actions.I had A10d on the button and nearly folded to an $8 raise as $8 seemed a little high until I realised it was only 4bb and not a maniac $50 nl bet!

Oh,The Bloggerment returns to it's usual time this week after last weeks confusion.It's 9pm gmt/4 pm est at Stars,pass: donkament.

Back soon...

Final Countdown

Just a quick post today as I'm up to my eyes in it trying to organise my move back home.

I thoroughly enjoyed watching Scotlands win yesterday and although I still think it's a tough task to qualify for Euro 2008,we've still got a chance.It's the big one v France on Wednesday in Paris.I can't see us taking anything from it, as they'll be out for revenge after we beat them last time out at Hampden, but you never know in football.

On the poker front I lost yet another race to go out the RTR league game before the final table.That run continued into the $16 turbos where I couldn't win a race either,no hand held up and when I did have a monster there was a bigger monster out there!

I stuck to my game and eventually managed a 4th place ( top 4 pay at 18 player turbos) and a win which helped a little.

At the cash tables I blew the last remaining cash at Interpoker ( £15) after pushing all in with AK preflop ( something I rarely do at a cash table) ,getting called by A3 and losing when the 3 hit.With calls like that I may need to reload there sometime as the play was very soft indeed.

I played some $300nl 6 max on my 365 account and lost $80 which I wasn't too bothered about as $80 wasn't even the size of the average pot at my table! ( $106 ave). I'm still trying to adjust my mindset because at $50 nl an $80 loss would be almost two buy-ins and would be a bad night, whereas it only takes a few raises/missed flops etc to do in $80 at the higher level.

Righty that's all for today.Don't be forgetful like this chap! Register for the Bloggerment right now!