Monthly Stats

Party $602 ( =) Pokerstars $4783 ( + $47)
817 6 max Hyper turbos and 58 Mtt's played in Jan.
Total online roll $5385

Away from the poker the bus driver returned to work a few weeks ago ( after 3 1/2 months off with stress) and was removed from managing us for the "foreseeable" future due to the many complaints made by our team about his management style.He announced when he joined us that he was on the bus going places and we were either on it or not hence the nickname.

The new senior management team moved him to a project when he came back but HR told them he was employed as a manager and had to be put back in charge of the team.After an awkward meeting on Monday morning where he tried to clear the air by half apologising and using lots of corporate bullshit phrases he lasted until Tues afternoon before taking the rest of the week off as his family are apparently not well.

I don't know if he'll be back but with him gone and the other bloke in the team leaving recently I'm the only man left in our team.The girls reckon the bus driver is a smelly bawbag and apparently I'm now the team eye candy.That's fine with me but I've warned them I want to be respected as person and not treated like a piece of meat.( tongues firmly in cheek all round)

I do have a decent seat near the window which looks right across to the gym in the building opposite.The running machines are right at the window and I've got the girls in my team trained to alert me when the jiggle factor is particularly high,allowing me to stretch my legs and check out the bouncing titties across the road.( in a respectful manner obviously)

Had a few more things to write about but writers block has kicked in after mentioning titties.Ahhh titties.Back soon....

Monthly Stats + Hats off to Pokerstars!

As much as I try and focus on volume and not short-term results I do still check the Cashier on a regular basis during my sessions and last night when I logged on I did seem to have a slightly higher balance than I remembered.Now considering I was remembering the balance I'd last viewed at 3am after many many smokes,I didn't think much of it.

I've just checked my emails and found one from Stars support letting me know I've been refunded $67 as I played against other players who were breaking Stars terms and conditions.The nature of the rule breaking is confidential ( I'd love to know!) but well done to Stars for picking up on it and issuing refunds.

Now all they need to do is create a $15 6 max hyper turbo level as the jump from $7 to $30 is too much.

Stats for Dec 1st-31st: Pokerstars $4736 ( + $749) Party $604 ( =)
Volume = 1127 games.( mostly 6 max hyper turbos) Total Profit $749
Total Bankroll $5340.

Managed to come close to my record last night,playing 106 sngs over the course of the evening.It gets a bit fast and furious but I can now 8 table the 6 max hyper games ( in one stack) and if I can 8 table those games I reckon I could probably play 10-12 full ring turbo's/Mtts.

I'm only 246 vpps from Goldstar status this month and with an exciting Hogmanay at the tables planned I may just achieve that by midnight.

Thanks to everyone who has read my witterings over the last 12 months and especially to those who take the time to comment.This blog may not be read by millions but with an aging population and the number one spot on google for the phrase "senile old bassa" the only way is up.

Enjoy your Hogmanay and may you have a healthy and happy 2012 with plenty of run good at the tables.Back soon....

November Stats

Pokerstars $3987 ( + $704) Party $604 ( =)
+$704 for November.Total roll $4591

Played 682 sngs in November and as usual that was without playing any poker at all between Mon-Thus each week.I also managed to play 104 sngs in one session last Sat night which is probably a record for me.( all hypers though)

Of the 682 sngs 659 were hypers and after breaking even at them and winning the only $15 ,180 player turbo I played, next month I'm only going to play one $15 game and save myself a lot of time and pointless grinding.If only poker worked like that!

I don't mean to keep referring back to Jared Tendlers book, however I liked the example about a top sportsman getting paid millions to perform but not being paid at all to work out in the gym.Without the gym workout he's not going to be a top sportsman and without playing through the run bad/break even stretch I'm never going to take down the games I do win and make a profit.

Not much else going on.I saw an article linked by Everton Yorkie on the RTR forum which says that Facebook could launch real money poker in the UK from as early as the first quarter of next year.Even if only a tiny % of the huge number of Facebook play money players decided to give real money a go there could be very juicy times ahead! I don't twitter and I don't Facebook but I can see me signing up for the latter in double quick time if this goes ahead.And yeah I would give up on all my principles about privacy,online anonymity etc for a higher hourly profit rate.Show me the money!

I'm not sure how easy it would be to persuade play money players to play for real money.When I started with play money on Pokerroom back in June '05 I chose Pokerroom because it was only possible to reload for 2000 play chips per day.When Pokerroom withdrew their play money tables at Halloween that year I tried Stars for my poker fix and hated the fact that players were allowed to reload play chips with no limit.Where's the skill in that I thought.( without the slightest trace of irony)

It was that and the big Halloween first deposit bonus on offer at Pokerroom that first persuaded me to make the switch to real cash poker.And hey I'm glad I did or I'd never have become the anti-social,button mashing,carpal tunnel ridden couch potato I am today.Thank the poker gods I've at least made ( yeah prob less than the min wage per hour but still a profit!)some money playing poker and I do actually quite enjoy the game or I'd really be up the creek without a paddle.

As a real money player it's easy to mock those who only use play money.I remember being quite proud of my million play chip bankroll and thinking I must be quite good to have built such a roll.If you know anyone playing Facebook poker who thinks the same as I did then be nice to them,gently encourage them to open a real money Stars account and tell them low stakes sngs's are a great way to start out....

Back soon..

Monthly Stats and Little Flo....

Pokerstars $2917 ( + $542) Party $604 ( + $112) Total Profit for September $654 Total Bankroll $3521

Thanks for the comments on my last post although I'm not sure I'll be putting up any more videos of Nacho after he got himself an agent and is now demanding image rights! We're in negotiations as I've threatened to reduce his pigeon chasing rights and send him to the back of the peeing queue if he doesn't back down...

The Jared Tendler thread I linked to on my last post was an excellent read and although I didn't ask any questions myself, that was mainly because any poker mental game problems I have were already covered by other posters.I'm quite lucky that sng's rarely tilt me and I think part of that is down to having played so many of them and part of it's down to the fact that they're so robotic it's quite easy for me to stay self aware enough to know if I'm not playing my usual game. >

I did get annoyed at myself for a spot of over confidence tilt during a wee heads up hyper turbo game I played last weekend.I felt like I was on top of my game after making a soul reading river call and then spewed off my whole stack on the next hand after making an stupid fancy play.

I stopped posting monthly stats for a while because they felt too short term and if I'd made a good profit as the month was ending I'd play less to make sure any downswing wouldn't impact on my figures.Being about $1k up for September and still multi-tabling the very high variance 180 turbo's last weekend was hopefully a step towards banishing that mentality and was at least something positive to take from what turned out to be a brutal session of bad beats.

My "gulp" limit ( the amount I can lose in one session without losing sleep over it) also seems to have increased after last weekends 180 turbo bankroll battering which I suppose is also good news.There's never usually too much danger of me incurring a big loss as I always play well within my roll.The downside of that is I'm so wary of running badly I very rarely take shots and probably don't have enough gamble in me to try and get lucky on a spin up.

At work today we were having a laugh about daft teenage stuff and the girls I work with liked my favourite poem from my teens.Romantic,touching and even a little biblical I'd say...

Oh Little Flo,
I love you so,
Especially in your nightie,
When the moon flits across your tits,
Oh Jesus Christ almighty!

Monthly Stats

Party $492 ( + $56)
Pokerstars $2375 ( + $368) Profit for August $424

Total Bankroll $2867

After a crap month stats wise in July it was nice to run a bit better in August and get back to being profitable,especially as I'm only playing at weekends.As ever with poker it's all about the long term and not short term swings and there's no point in focusing on a good August,bad July, or the fact I've only made a small profit over two full months of play.As I've mentioned before, playing heads up hyper turbo's has definitely improved my 9 player sng results as more 1st places make a real difference to my profits.It's only over a relatively small sample size, but I do feel more comfortable playing more poker when heads up instead of just blasting all in as often as before.

Away from the poker I had a second date at the cinema last night with the girl from last week.The Inbetweeners started at 7.50pm and after grabbing a coke and having a wee chat in the lobby we headed in at 8pm to see the film.It had already started and another couple of latecomers arrived too and sat in front of us.The film is the characters from the superb tv series going on their first holiday abroad and as the lads were moaning about how bad their hotel was it was obvious we hadn't missed too much.Even when the titles began after only half an hour I assumed that as it was a comedy film this was some type of jokey gimmick and the rest of the film would start again shortly.When the lights came on it slowly dawned on us that we had gone into the wrong screening and we sheepishly made our way to another screen next door where we missed the first 25 minutes,caught up with the middle part of the movie and watched the last half hour for the second time!

The date seemed to go quite well, although she is off to New Zealand next Wednesday for 7 weeks to follow the Scotland rugby team in the upcoming World Cup so I'm not sure it'll go anywhere.She did text me to say she enjoyed the night and will let me know if she can squeeze in another date before she goes.I promised that if she did have time for a meal out before she left we wouldn't start with desert,move on to another restaurant for the main course and miss the starter altogether...

Stats and Bring a Torch!

My date on Sat night ended up being a waste of time.She was nice enough, but after an hour of small talk the conversation died and when she mentioned she was probably going to head up the road I was happy to reel off the standard "Well it was nice to have met you,I'd better go and get my bus" speech.After my experience with my neighbour and other dates over the last few months I was beginning to wonder if it was my own social skills that were lacking.On reflection though if I don't feel any spark with someone then I'm not going feign interest and pretend otherwise and I guess women on dates feel exactly the same.

The other girl I was texting reckoned the first pub I'd suggested for a meal wasn't up to much and then wanted to speak on the phone first before meeting.On Mon night she'd said was going out with her brother for a couple of hours and would text and then call me later.After she didn't call I pretty much decided to forget the whole dating thing and enjoy my upcoming two weeks off work.

She did text me the next morning to say she'd fallen asleep on the couch when she got in but that did make me a little wary.We eventually spoke on the phone at lunchtime and met up for dinner last night.My initial instinct had been to ignore her morning text and move on, but I'm glad I didn't as she was lovely and we hit it off quite well.She was far better looking than her profile pic,was easy to chat to and we come from similar backgrounds too.

We've been texting each other last night and today and as her wee girl is away staying with her Dad until Sunday I'm hoping we can arrange another date for the weekend.
I'll take things easy with this new girl and see how it goes.If it doesn't work out there are still thousands of awesome girls out there.Here a few choice quotes from "profiles" I was looking at the other night…

For environmentally friendly blokes there's the girl who is "100% recycled Awesome".Another girl who has obviously watched too much reality tv declared "I'm a fan of awesomeness".Hey,aren't we all?!

It's amazing anyone on the site is single as everyone is easy going,honest and loves to laugh.Either that or they're just "totally crazy" or as one girl wrote "zippy and zonkers".The girl who wrote the quote below looked like Noddy Holder.I did like her profile statement although I'm not sure where the "darkside" comes into things...."I'm not over the hill or under it,I'm dancing and laughing around it.Come to the darkside.Bring a torch."

I've added my monthly poker stats for June and have decided to keep the $524 I cashed out on pokers Black Friday in my bank account.

Pokerstars $1989 ( + $395 for June)

Party $803 ( -$74 for June)

Total $2792

Total profit of $321 for June

Back soon....

Monthly Stats

Party $1079 ( +$207) 12 sngs ,Stars $1235 ( - $14) 60 sngs

Total $2314 ( + $193)

I do feel like a bit of a fraud doing a stats post when I only played 72 sngs throughout the whole of Feb.It's almost funny that it's taken me until the last few months to be able to six table with no problems and yet my motivation to hit the felt isn't anywhere near as strong as it used to be.Running way over expectation is the only way to make any money with such low volume and I think the reality of variance hit last year when I hit a long breakeven spell and lost my desire to keep grinding after a hard day at work.I was reading about a 9 man STT grinder who played 2000 games for a $150 profit and it's not very inspiring!

Away from the poker I've been ill this week with a stomach bug and have only eaten half a piece of toast over the last two days.At first I thought it was the weed as I was completely smoke free over Sunday and Monday and only had a few late on Tues night as I'd booked Wed off work.It felt like my throat/stomach were burning and I didn't sleep at all on Tues night and couldn't even keep down a cup of tea yesterday.After watching Rangers lose to our rivals ( nice friendly game with 3 sendings off,a ton of bookings and our assistant manager and their coach squaring up at the end) I kicked Two Pies out and went straight to bed.( only to lie awake all night again)

Still,it's not all bad news as I did receive an email from a wonderfully named Nigerian called "Jah Jah Bongo" promising me a share of millions! A weed smoking Star Wars fan maybe?

When I haven't been sleeping or puking today I've been trying to download the new Black Ops map pack with no success.I'll probably watch "10 O'Clock Live " later on Ch4, although despite it's clever humour it's just not laugh out loud funny which is a shame as I like Charlie Brooker and David Mitchell is great in Peep Show.

Righty,time to try and muster up enough energy to take Nacho out.Back soon...

Monthly Stats

Party $872 ( + $440) Pokerstars $1249 ( + $36) Total $2121. January Profit = $476.

I suppose I should be quite pleased to have made a profit last month considering I only played 105 Sngs on Party.I had to double check my Pokertracker as I was sure I'd played at least a couple of hundred, but I did have a lot of short sessions where I banked a profit after a set or two and went and played Black Ops instead!Moving back up to the $22's has gone well so far over a tiny sample size although Party doesn't always get the traffic outside peak hours to allow the games to load quickly when six tabling.

Away from the poker I enjoyed a fine meal out last night at a local Italian place with the girl I met up with last week.We're going out again to the Cinema this Sunday.

I'm still of work on Wednesdays and my new manager is going to ask HR again about changing my contract to four days per week for the next six months.It would probably be easier if I asked for a permanent reduction in hours but it may not be so easy to increase them again if my circumstances change and I need a higher monthly income again.

Ok,thanks for reading.Back soon.

Monthly Stats

Party $4907 ( + $700 over 94 sngs) Pokerstars $554 ( + $206 over 14 sngs,2 mtt's and an RTR HU forum win) Full Tilt $95 ( =)

Total $5556 ( + $906 for Sept)

Party Graph for Sept

Monthly Stats

I finally met up with Hot Chick today at lunchtime and the good news is that she is even hotter in person than she is in her photo's ! We seemed to hit it off quite well and hopefully a proper dinner date is next on the cards...


I'm loving my new Ipod thingy and wish I'd joined the digital music age years ago! The only problem I've had is that I can't listen to any more Frankie Boyle podcasts as I walk round the town due to the high chance of me being locked up for laughing and grinning like even more of an idiot than usual!

In other news I'm in correspondence with the lovely Vicky Coren.We're discussing her childhood at the moment and anyone else claiming they got the same generic email from her representing Pokerstars is obviously blatantly lying!

To the poker and I've had another go at trying to help my Mum at the micro-limit sngs and have to say I'm pretty astounded by just how terrible most of the villains are.When I began playing nearly 5 yrs ago $25nl was the lowest level available for cash play and I began playing sngs at $5.50 so I've never had to venture into the fish infested waters of the lowest levels.Without doubt adjustments are required.Raising 5bb preflop at the $3.40's still seems to attract three callers!Anyway after a good start my Mums tiny roll is nearly busted and only a few Double or nothing $1.10 games have kept it solvent.

I'm still unsure about posting monthly stats but I'll keep posting them until the end of October ( end of 5th yr of online play) and see how I feel then.Once again I didn't put in much volume but can't complaint at my results for August.

Party $4200 ( + $672 over 149 games ) Pokerstars $348 ( -$62 over 66 games) FT $ 95 ( =)

Total $4643 ( + $610)

Monthly Stats

Party :$3528 (+$487 over 168 games) FT $95 ( -$8) ,Stars $410 ( +$253 over 8 games)
Total $4033 (+ $732 for July)

I had a decent July at the virtual felt, especially considering I played under 200 sng's.In fact I barely played at all during the first ten days of July and my poker psyche felt all the better for it.

Off out tonight.Back after the weekend...

Monthly Stats

It's been a funny old month at the virtual felt.I ran well at Party,moved over to Stars and managed to run my $536 roll down to $1.58 before bouncing back slightly to finish on $157 there.Actually, I didn't find that my pish poor Stars run funny at all.After my Party success I was hoping to make at least $1k this month but the poker gods obviously decided otherwise.

I played the Turbo-Takedown and cashed for $85 on Sunday before losing those winnings and a bit more at the $16's through a combination of poor play,lost races and bad beats.

Last night I watched Andy Murray win at Wimbledon whilst 4 tabling the $6.50,18 player turbs.I actually ran quite well, won a couple and cashed in a couple more.I even replied to someone in the chatbox when they mentioned that "you don't see that playing live".I'm usually Mr Silent at all times and a lot of the time these days I have the stats or info showing rather than the chat, but it was only a $6.50 game and I had a friendly chat with the guy after telling him online poker is definitely not rigged!

I'm pretty sure the vast majority of players have no idea ( not my knowledgable readers obv) how variance works and the type of downswings which are completely standard even if you're a solid winning player.Perhaps that knowledge comes with experience.Here are the stats for a Party grinder ( great name btw).Playing 842 games and being down over $300 must mean he's a bit of a fish eh?



Errr no,he's actually ranked number 1 on the Holdem 9-10 turbo $16-$35 total profit for '09 leaderboard.



It's not how hard you can punch but how many you can take and keep coming back for more.

Party Poker $3041 ( + $738) Stars $157 ( -$379) Full Tilt $103 ( =).

Total $3301 ( + $359)


Back soon...

Monthly Stats

Just a quick boring monthly stats post today.

Party $2917 ( + $101),Pokerstars $466* ( + $272),Full Tilt $194 ( - $290). Total $3577 ( + $83 for month).

*cashed out $1k ( £683) from Stars 29/4/09.

I'm not exactly pleased overall with only $83 profit especially as that includes bonus money cleared at Party.At least it's better than last months stats horror show!
The good news is that I've made back $474 over my last 53 games at Party and that $2917 figure seemed a million miles away when I hit a low point of $2131 earlier in the month.If only I could get a hand to hold at the FT $22's.( fish slapped again tonight hence stats edited)

Ok,I'm off to take Nacho out before it rains again.I doubt I'll be posting again until after the holiday weekend is over.

Have a good one...

Monthly Stats

I may edit these later if I manage to squeeze in any games before the lads night planned for this evening.Ran like crap at the $24,45 player games last night and finished with a couple of horrible $33's on Party too.That's poker though and it's still been a decent month considering I've only played around 300 sngs.

There are a few minor differences to my actual totals.I only made $444 at Party for example because some of the profit shown on Sharky since Feb 1st was included in last months stats.This is mainly due to 5 hour time difference and games played on or around the monthly cut off point.I also made $$ from FT cash games at the beginning of the month and did a few transfers between Stars and FT to other players.( mainly to help those with no Stars funds be able to play the RTR forum game)



Pokerstars $1560( + $7 ),Party $2905 ( + $444),Full Tilt $503 ( + $336).

Total $5077.Monthly profit $787.

The Ugly,Bad and the Good + Mthly Stats

First up I'm pleased to post this exclusive photo! Dudley's not been around for a few weeks but I think I've spotted him.I hope he's heading for Full Tilt to register for tonights Brit Blogger game...



If I only had normal luck I'd be stinking rich by now.MF may be joking, but we all know it's troooo!

Prepare to skim because here a just a few of last nights little beauties.My hand first and all losers...KK v QQ,K5 v J9 (late in game),JJ v 99,A6 v A4,1010 v 47 o/s,AK v AQ,55 v A10,AA v KJ,AK V AJ,KQ v K10,QK V Q10.Zzzzzz I know, but I feel better for getting them off my chest!

That was the bad and ugly.Thankfully despite bubbling in my last game of the night,I did quite well on Stars and won about $300 overall, including a $27,18 player win.I also played Dr Paulys PLO game and donked out quite early on.

To the monthly stats and after the month I've had I'm just grateful to be ahead at all!I've taken £100 out of Bet365 to cover my lads vet bill and may take out more to help towards Xmas .

The patient..


Party $2529 ( - $15),Pokerstars $8248 ( + $286),Full Tilt $730 ( + $2),Ladbrokes $423 ( + $50),Bet 365 £187/$285 ( + $14 at poker and less $153 cashout),Pokerroom $36 ( =).Total $12404 ( + $337 Nov 1st -Nov 30th).Total including cashout $12251.

With the pound gaining slightly against the Dollar I'm still debating withdrawing a big chunk of my roll.I don't like the idea of it sitting in my current account as somehow it wouldn't seem like part of my poker roll despite the fact I could re-deposit any time.I am disciplined enough to keep it separate from my household money and it would be earning interest at least so I probably will go down this route before the pounds gains too much.( Great advice over at Poker Pains as always!)

I've run badly recently and not lost thousands and even a 40 buy-in downswing at $55 is only just over $2k.I suppose I partly see my roll as savings and I also like having so much because if I do keep running as badly as I have in November,I'll still have enough to cover the bigger stuff next year like car expenses,holidays,Council tax etc.The vague plan of paying my car loan off at some point still appeals too.

Righty, time to take the patient up the road.More football,dinner and the Brit Blogger game are planned for later...

Annual Stats

I did end up going out with my cousin last night and whupping him at pool before heading home later on and hitting up a couple of $22's,taking one down and coming 2nd in the other.

I did manage to make the most of one timing tell when the blinds were around 100-200 in my first game.I looked down to 88 in the cut off and was deciding if I was going to limp or raise when a solid regular ( I'm starting to recognise a few names) insta-limped from UTG.( first to act preflop). The limper had about 1200 behind and my own stack had been whittled down to 1.4k by this point.

It's always dangerous to use your own ranges to assign hands to others but I was as certain as I could be that the villain was limping 55-99 or a KQ,AJ,A10 type hand.( not that I limp AJ or A10 from utg!).99 worried me a bit, but against his range I felt I was well ahead and a shove would force him to fold ( giving me 400 from the pot ) or he may call off with 55-99.It folded round,I shoved,he called with 77 and I doubled.If he'd taken a second or so longer to act I may not have shoved my 88, but the instant nature of his limp made it easier to pin him to a hand.I hope that makes sense and doesn't just look as if I posted it to look like a smart arse!

Monthly stats: Stats include $2000 Stars cashout on 21st Oct.
Pokerstars $7962 ( + $291), Full Tilt $728 ( + $123),Party $2544 ( + $741),Ladbrokes $373 ( - $30) Bet 365 $424 ( -$43) ,Pokerroom $36.Total $12067 ( + $1082 for month)

Annual profit total = $15667.

To the stats and that's me at the end of my fourth year of real money online poker and I'm happy to say it's been my most profitable ever.I made around $4.5k per year over the last three years playing cash games and would have never have dreamt that switching to sngs would be so lucrative.Unless I can learn to play more than four tables effectively they'll never make me rich, but I'm happy making a few dollars per game over a few hundred games per month.

Almost all of those games have been 18 player turbos on Stars, although having played single table $22's and $33's on Party, I feel just as comfortable with that format now.Stars has been my main poker home over the last year,but Party's games are just too soft to ignore.My main observation is that Stars players ( in general) play the bubble better than Party donks who seem far more keen to knock each other out given the chance.

I've only played a few Mtt's over the year and had my biggest cash ever of $4.2k in the Stars $50k gtd back in July.I did promise myself I'd play more Mtt's and haven't stuck to that at all.Maybe that will change over the next year.

I've never really been the type to set myself goals for the year.Improving my multi-tabling skills,playing more Mtt's,getting in more volume,trying not to obsess so much over short-term results and playing more PLO are this years loosely set targets.

Ok,that's all for now....

End of Month Stats

My Gran passed away early on Saturday morning.She had been suffering from severe dementia and had no quality of life at all.It was expected and although I feel a little numb,I'm glad she's at peace now.

I'm just back from the Old Firm game at the Piggery after watching Rangers thrash our rivals 4-2."So fuckin' easy,Oh this is so fuckin' easy" and "Come on over to my place,Hey you,We're havin' a party" were my favourite chants of the day.

The first Rangers goal was a beauty and it seems a moment of high emotion like that was enough to bring things to a head and I finally broke down a bit and cried.Perhaps some of the numbness melted away.It happened again at other moments during the game and even although I feel alzheimer's disease means the person suffering dies slowly before you over a period of a few years ,I think I've realised the actual end is still tougher to cope with than I expected.I suppose it's also at times like this ( been single again for a wee while)that I miss having a partner and someone to turn to, although I appreciate the support from family,ex 's and friends.I am ok, although I expect the funeral on Thursday will be hard.

My cousin offered to come round last night but I didn't feel like company.I just wanted to smoke a ton of herb ( nowt new there then!) and throw myself into the poker.No great poker recap.I did win over the last couple of nights and did reach my goal of breaking the $8k profit barrier according to Sharkscope.

Here's my graph for the month.I watched a Brian Townsend vid and if he finds playing more than four tables too hard then I think it's ok for me to admit I'll probably never be an 8-12 tabling player.That wee experiment and general downswing certainly cost me this month, but thankfully since I moved back to 3-4 tabling, my poker mo-jo seems to have returned.



Profit Overall/August:



All time graph:



Overall finishing positions:


Ok,I'm having dinner over at the ex Mrs A's shortly after picking Step A up.I probably wont play much tonight apart from the Brit Blogger game and the RTR league game so I'll just post my monthly stats for August and be done with it.

Pokerstars $11791 ( + $447),Party $1289 ( + $268),Full Tilt $157 ( - $21),Ladbrokes $336 ( =),Bet 365 $478 ( - $42) Pokerroom $36 ( =) Total $14087. ( + $652 for month)


Don't forget there's $50 added to the prizepool for tonights Brit Blogger game and nobody looks to have a runaway lead yet in the race for the big prizes....

Monthly Stats

After arriving home from Rangers poor 0-0 draw on Wednesday night ,I fired up a few $7.50 Super Turbs and managed a few in the money finishes.This was after two dreadful $16 turbos on Stars.The first one saw me raise with AK,call a fish shoving with A4 and losing when the 4 came on the flop.In the other game I was totally card dead and ended up shoving K4 from mid position just after the blinds rose to 200/400.The table was fishy and expecting a call,I closed the table and waited for the beep and wee box popping up to tell me "You have donked out 7th".I wasn't wrong!

Last night I was so tired I had a 25 minute nap around 7-ish before heading over to the s-mans place to watch a highbrow French arthouse film .Errr ok,it was actually "The Hitman" and was complete nonsense, but the company was good and I didn't get back until around 11.30ish.

I fired up four $16's to round off July at the virtual felt and managed a 1st,2nd and 4th for a nice $152 profit.It may not have been a great month for me at the turbos, but hopefully I have at least improved my multi-tabling skills as I felt quite comfortable tiling 4 games and I was still able to pick up a few basic reads.

To the stats and July '08 was by far the most profitable month I've ever had playing poker.I may need to play more Mtt's!

Pokerstars $11344 ( + $4562) ,Party $1021 ( + $27),Bet 365 $520 ( - $14),Full Tilt $178 ( + $69),Ladbrokes $336 ( =) ,Pokerroom $36 ( =).Total $13435. ( + $4644 profit for July)

I should probably cash some money out and at least have it earning interest for me rather than the poker sites.I really haven't given much thought to plans for August at the felt.I'd like to continue to learn to multi-table the turbos and I'd also like to run a bit better when playing them too!

I suppose I'm slightly wary of playing a ton more $50 Mtt's and blowing though a couple of grand thanks to inexperience and general variance, although I now have enough of a cushion to do just that.I'm far too much of a bankroll nit for my own good.

When I began playing with real money the lowest cash tables available at Pokerroom were at $25nl and the play was so bad that it would have been hard to go broke with even a small bankroll.I've probably got a cheek considering how bankroll nitty I am, but when I see fellow bloggers/forum players sticking strictly to buy-in rules at the lowest levels, I want to shake them and tell them to try just a little higher, because unless they run really badly,there's not much chance of busting due to the fishy fishness of the competition.

Of course in the past when pros like Amatay have encouraged me to move up I've balked at it for all sorts of reasons from lack of confidence to simply gulping at the thought of how much a very standard "bad night" at that level may cost me.This probably makes me a total hypocrite! It doesn't stop me thinking that any solid winning player at levels below $25nl should at least step up a little and try to push on.

I would also encourage players to find a style that works for them.Too often I read people on many of the forums I frequent stating that someone should ammend their play based on supposed optimal stats taken from books etc.I have to admit when I first watched Cardrunners cash vids I was surprised how aggressive preflop the players were and certainly whenever I've ( and it's not been often since I discovered turbo sngs) played $100 or $200nl, I'm certainly more pro-active and less of a nut peddler than I was.

Having said that, table selection is the secret to cash game success and I did quite well at $50/$100 nl by selecting crazy wild tables and playing a fairly passive game preflop and crazy aggro myself postflop.Some of my Pokertracker stats are on my old slow laptop and although I've no way of getting a screenshot they were as follows: 27464 six max hands at Ladbrokes.Vpip 30.39% Preflop raise = 6.87%.Flop agg 1.38,Turn 1.30,River 2.67. bb/100= 7.45 .Total winnings $1869.



I think my point is ( there is one!) that there are many ways to skin a cat and the best way is to adapt to the particular circumstances at the time.If you play high aggro tables full of maniacs ( my cash game preference) then a passive,limping game may well be the best ploy for example.( of course I'd move to major aggro mode myself whenever I felt I was well ahead either pre or post flop).

Ok,tonight the ex Mrs A is coming over for some more flat cleaning.I have Nacho until Sunday too, although it's raining so hard I doubt we'll get our usual game of football at the local pitches.

Back soon...

Bloggerment and Monthly Stats

My newly decorated flat....




Thanks to Sir Al,Dudley and Mr Cloud for comments left on the last post re the Britbloggerment.I was also intrigued by Sir Al mentioning a possible Euro-centric BBT.Anything along the lines of the US/Canadian BBT would be fantastic.Mr Clouds comment on possibly changing the game a little also interested me.All and any ideas welcome!

Personally I quite fancied increasing the buy-in as maybe people feel the slow standard mtt format takes too much time for $5.Perhaps though, it's best to leave the buy-in as $5 and try another tourney midweek ( Tues/Wed?) with a $10 or $20 buy-in? I've never set up a game on Full Tilt but moving the $5.50 Britbloggerment there and making it a turbo ( cos turbos rule!)is another possibility.

I noticed when I went to write this post that this blog is now three years and nearly 850 posts old.Thanks to all who read,comment and advertise on this wee space.It's very much appreciated as this blogging lark is sometimes a real struggle to keep things anywhere near fresh and interesting.

Last night for example I played 33 turbos,ran like shit and lost $90.Not much to expand upon there! I did make Silver VIP on Stars and will probably play the $20k freeroll later.

Ok,I will expand upon my $90 loss! I feel I played well most of the time ( donked out of the first game of the night)and had just a few breaks gone my way then it would have been a profitable outing.I could only reply "np nh" to one guy who said "sorry dude" after one of last nights rivered two outers!

I was four-tabling again and there's no doubt that decisions become a bit tougher,as I'm able to pick up more reads just playing two tables.I will give myself more time to adapt and get used to four tables as it's only really 4-6 tabling which brings in decent $$ at sng's.I think I've done quite well playing two, but if I have to sacrifice a percentage of my roi to increase my overall hourly profit then I think it will be worth it in the end.


I do genuinely feel I'm not running well just now and I'm hoping to ( one day soon!)have a 30 game session where I win a good few hundred to balance up all the crap over the last week or so.My Sharkscope stats say I've played 320 turbos this month at Stars and made $669 running at 17% roi which is okay, but I hope to run a little better and make more next month.I realise too that most poker players think they always run badly and have worse luck than the next player and if I do consistently keep losing when four-tabling then I'll cut it back to two and take stock.Either that or I'll keep filling my blog with bad beat tales!

Much more exciting stuff going on elsewhere in blog land.Amatay reckons he can make $10k from $33 sngs in the month of June and people are lining up to bet against him.Betting is temporarily closed but I'm hoping my $50 bet will be accepted if he reopens it.I've played against him in the Bloggerment and have no doubts he's a skilled player, but I think $10k in a month is going to be very tough to achieve.

0k,monthly stats time.I will be playing later after picking Nacho up and dropping Step A at her Dads and will come back and edit them to reflect todays play.I've also intend to cashout ( don't tell Stars,I'm running badly enough there as it is!!) enough to cover my car insurance,credit card balance,car service + MOT+ 4 new tyres and also the £580 Uefa cup final ticket I bought.

Pokerstars $6304 ( + $686) ,Party $1845 ( +$133),Ladbrokes $1049 ( +$356),Full Tilt $792 ( + $8) ,Bet 365 $587 ( + $17),Pokerroom $36 ( =). Total $10613 ( + $1200 for month)

Although it's felt like a tough month at Stars, the Party $33's and occasional $55's have gone well over a tiny sample size and my cash wins at Laddies have helped boost my profits too.It's the first time my bankroll has ever been over $10k and I've now made $6789 after 7 months ( since Oct 31st '07) of my 4th year of online poker.

Well my bankroll was over $10k and now it's not! Here are the new stats after my cashouts.

Pokerstars $6304,Party $1097 ( had to deposit $50 by debit card as original deposit there made on an old unused credit card. - $800),Ladbrokes $249 ( -$800 to switch card),Full Tilt $92 ( -$700 by cheque),Bet 365 $587,Pokerroom $36.Total $8332.

Righty,off to pick my boy up...

Monthly/half yearly Stats

I did feel better for writing all that stuff down yesterday.Chatting to Rosie and later the terrible twins soon snapped me out of my dark mood.

I watched the Man Utd v Barcelona game and only played a couple of games of poker later,coming 2nd in a $16 and winning a $6 turbo.I was tempted by another sng at midnight but contented myself with watching a cardrunners video and getting to bed at a semi reasonable hour.The new fixed shifts at work are no fun at all.I'm a night owl,not a morning person and somehow I have to get my backside into work for 8am every Thursday and Friday from now on.I also have Nacho tonight which means an even earlier start!

Just back from dinner at my Mum and Dads and after the Chelsea v Liverpool game I've sandwiches to make and Nacho to walk.


On the poker front I've only played 155 turbs at Stars this month compared to about 240 last month.I've run at a fine 44% roi over that tiny sample size and made $695.



Overall my next aim is still to get my overall sng profit figure at Pokerstars over the $7k mark.




Here are my updated monthly stats...

Pokerstars $5618 ( + $643) ,Full Tilt $784 ( + $66), Party $ 1712 ( - $44),Ladbrokes $693 ( + $140) ,Bet 365 $570 ( - $88) ,Pokerroom $36 ( =). Total $9413. ( + $717 since April 1st).

I began playing for real money back on Oct 31st 2005 and I count my years figures as starting on Oct 31st every year.In the first 6 months of this poker year ( since Oct 31st '07) I've made $5589.**This is more than last years total profit figure and after three fairly static years of making about $4k ,I feel like I've finally found my poker calling at the two table $16 turbos.So much for the old cash for dough,tourneys for show adage!

** Recalculated on 5/5/08 as I realised I can't add up properly!

My bankroll is bigger than it's ever been although I will be making a decent sized withdrawl to pay for things previously mentioned.( season ticket,holiday,car service etc).

Righty,tomorrow is Rangers biggest game in years against Fiorentena in the Uefa Cup semi-final.My nerves are feeling shredded already! It's going to be one hell of a tough task to win or get the scoring draw required to take us to the final.I just hope the team can dig deep and somehow do enough to make the Manchester final.If they do I'll follow follow them there...