Pump up the Volume

After a fine evening at the s-mans on Friday I hit the tables on Saturday/Sunday and racked up over 50 sngs at Party and a few at Stars too,making about $120 from Europe’s largest fishbowl and losing about the same at good ole Riverstars.The good news is that I racked up a load more Party frequent player points ( 3900 total) and now have to decide if I’m going to cash in 1500 of them for a straight $50 cash or wait until I hit 12000 for a $500 payment.I’ve probably missed out on a fortune in bonuses and rakeback over the years and some free money would be very welcome.

Yesterday I watched the most boring turgid Old Firm game in years and felt disappointed that Rangers couldn’t grab a win after dominating the second half and being denied a decent penalty claim.My cousin,Two Pies,was over for the game and later we fired the PS3 and enjoyed a nice relaxing Sunday afternoon blasting the Chimera.

Two Pies left to play fives about 7.30 and that was when I hit up Stars.I did play a few of my usual $16’s but also got stuck into some $27,18 player turbs and a few 45 player games too.The 45’s are obviously going to be high variance and I wasn’t too bothered about not cashing as one decent in the money finish covers a lot of buy-ins.I know they say that we want to play with bad players, but I was tempted to the 45’s after seeing Bigjoe2003 ( another of the worlds top sng players and sngicons instructor) was playing in a few.

I hope he wasn’t making a video as I was card dead in one game, ( shoved K7 with a shortstack) and made a complete idiot of myself in the other game where we shared a table, when I lost half my stack making a move, and the rest when I shoved k4 from the small blind in the next hand and was insta-called by the big blind’s A4.

I can see the appeal of playing more 45 player games though as the standard of play was dreadful and it was far fishier than I expected for a $27 game. I just need to avoid playing like a fish myself…

I hate poker snobbery and smart asses who spend time in forums ( 2+2 comes to mind) berating others for not playing a hand in what is generally seem as the “correct” way. Unless you are actually in the hand and aware of all factors I don’t know how much can be gained from forum hand advice.If 90% of all players lose online I’m also not sure I want to always agree with the majority view. ( although I do think the winning 10% are more likely to contribute to forums and study the game)

Having written the above I still had to piss myself laughing at the players lucky enough to be at the tables when a Pokerstars milestone hand was being dealt as part of their 25 Billionth hand promotion at the weekend. There were a load of milestone hands and I did fire up a few low stakes cash tables every time the countdown approached another one ( along with 228,000 others).The chat moderator halts play for a few minutes before the hand to congratulate the table and to tell them the rules.( basically the winner of the hand gets a huge payout in relation to the blinds and everyone dealt in gets something)

Despite getting huge implied preflop odds, the number of players who folded to a raise astounded me. I’d be all in with any two cards to any shove at a cash table and so too would anyone with even a modicum of common sense. Even if they were unsure of the payouts/rules there was plenty of time to check out how the promo worked and play accordingly.

My own thicko moment this weekend came at around 3.30am early on Sunday morning when I spotted fellow blogger Tan Orpheus at my Party turbo table.I was a bit wasted from a few smokes at the time and playing 5 tables, but that wasn't going to stop me saying hello in the chatbox..until I looked again and realised "Table Options" is not a fellow blogger....

Back soon..

Super New Year....

With most of my friends being too distant,attached or flued up,I was left to bring in the new year with a couple of beers n smokes in the company of Nacho, an Irish guy,a Canadian and a German.It was great fun until just after midnight when I grew bored of their banter,knocked them all out, and took the $22 turbo down on Party...

I moved to Stars,took 3rd in a $16 and then took down a $27,18 man whilst supping my beer and chatting on the phone.

I remembered the US/Canadian blogger game,The Mookie,was on at 2am and decided a wee social game would be a decent way to round things off before bed.It's a $10 mtt and I bubbled the final table after shoving A9 from the button and running into rockets.Good chat and good times though!

Yesterday evening I was over at my parents for dinner before the s-man came over with his PS3 for an evening of "COD 5 Nazi zombies" and some more "Resistance 2:Fall of Man".I used to love Half-Life on the PS2 and didn't think much they could improve much on it, but Resistance 2 is simply phenomenal.One day I may even have to buy my own PS3...!

After the s-man left I played a $33 at Party and took it down before hitting the sack.I've had Pokertracker 3 for weeks now and have finally been able to get the HUD ( heads up display) working for my sngs.The stats part of PT still seems screwed up when it comes to reporting sng profits and I'm not sure how to fix it.It shows me as coming 3rd in that $33 I took down and even postion "0" for some games!! Very odd.Still,at least the HUD works and I also have a proper record of every hand played.

I'm not going to review 2008 other than to say the trip to Manchester for the UEFA Cup final,some fantastic weekends and the Full Tilt Million Dollar cash game jaunt in Sept were the highlights for me.

As "super" seems to be the in word with the forum kiddies ( super thin bet,super early,super feckin' everything)I'm off to have a super day.....