Royal Flush

My colleagues and I have just been offered a years salary upfront to leave the company at the end of this month.My first thought was that giving up a well paid job ( for what I do) in the middle of the worst recession in years would be complete madness.My second thought was that life is too short to spend years stuck in an office job dealing with complaints all day and I should take this chance to try something new.If I already had a degree I'd jump at the chance to do a years post-graduate teacher training and have a go at the career I really wanted to get into when I was younger.

Of course if I didn't have Nacho and close family and friends around I could take the money and sit on a beach in Thailand and play poker for a few years or even stay on these shores and give the pokey a real go.If I make it to old age I'm never going to look back and think "I wish I'd spent more time as a cog in the corporate machine",that's for sure.Despite that we only have this evening to decide, and although I'll give it some more thought, I don't see me taking the plunge.

I've been feeling a bit pokered out over the last couple of weeks.The good news is that I've reviewed every sng exit hand over my recent/current downswing and the vast majority were the nasty suckouts and basic "running bad" stuff I expected to see, with a few daft shoves and silly calls thrown in.Watching hand after hand in the replayer actually made me laugh at how sick and unnatural the downside of variance can be.

A run like that also affects confidence and I'm probably not the most self assured person at the best of times.Although I've put in a lot of games and studying, I'm still constantly surprised that I find myself in the small percentage of players who beat the game for profit.It's probably sad to say, but apart from being a decent salesman in my day,I've never particularly excelled at anything.I'm a decent pool player, but not great, and I was never much of a footballer or any good at other sports.There's no degree of any sort on my cv and I'm crap at everything from woodwork to sewing!

I am however half decent at poker.Otherwise how would I ever have been dealt this hand..Royal baby!

The villain was loose and I was pretty sure I was ahead of his range.

Ok,back soon...

More grinding + Another Royal

I had a slightly frustrating night at the tables.I 8 tabled the $6.50 turbs,made $64 over 35 games and then hit my usual wall of bollocksness at the $16's.$3 profit overall from an 8 hour session at Stars! I did play five quick $14.50 super turbs on Full Tilt and made $76 which was a decent way to finish the night off.(although it was 6am in the morning when I finally went to bed!)

I did hit another Royal Flush on Stars and only require 50 more fpp's to hit Silver status again.According to Sharky I've played 289 sngs on Stars this month and have made....$7!

I've now got 14.7k fpp's at Stars and although I fancied hitting Silver status and using 13.5k to enter the Sun Million I think I may use 5000 fpps to play the $1m 5000fpp Turbo Takedown at 7.30pm tonight.

I wish I could remember which blog originally linked this site.My submission would be that despite not being at all superstitious,I have to say "Hello Mr Magpie" out loud whenever I see one of the damn birds on their own or else it's bad luck! OCD here I come...!

Ok, my brain is too fuzzy to write anymore!

Back soon...

Royal Flush

Stepped down to the $6.50 turbs and ran a lot better,winning $88 over 13 games.After this fine hand I came back and won that game and hoped my bad run may be over.I was wrong.The $16's were calling and once again I felt like I couldn't win a race or get a hand to hold up.Thankfully I won the last game I played and made $31 profit over my total of 25 games.( mostly 5-6 tabling)

PokerStars Game #18921555030: Tournament #96484148, $6.00+$0.50 Hold'em No Limit - Level IX (300/600) - 2008/07/18 - 20:06:59 (ET)
Table '96484148 1' 9-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 3: zagga (1610 in chips)
Seat 7: LOSTFAN815 (3220 in chips)
Seat 8: Sydsneys-dad (22170 in chips)
zagga: posts the ante 50
LOSTFAN815: posts the ante 50
Sydsneys-dad: posts the ante 50
LOSTFAN815: posts small blind 300
Sydsneys-dad: posts big blind 600
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to zagga [Qh 6d]
zagga: raises 960 to 1560 and is all-in
LOSTFAN815: calls 1260
Sydsneys-dad: calls 960
*** FLOP *** [Tc Kh Th]
LOSTFAN815: checks
Sydsneys-dad: checks
*** TURN *** [Tc Kh Th] [Ah]
LOSTFAN815: checks
Sydsneys-dad: bets 600
LOSTFAN815: raises 1010 to 1610 and is all-in
Sydsneys-dad: calls 1010
*** RIVER *** [Tc Kh Th Ah] [Jh]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
LOSTFAN815: shows [9h Ac] (a flush, Ace high)
Sydsneys-dad: shows [Js Qs] (a straight, Ten to Ace)
LOSTFAN815 collected 3220 from side pot
zagga: shows [Qh 6d] (a Royal Flush)
zagga collected 4830 from main pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 8050 Main pot 4830. Side pot 3220. | Rake 0
Board [Tc Kh Th Ah Jh]
Seat 3: zagga (button) showed [Qh 6d] and won (4830) with a Royal Flush
Seat 7: LOSTFAN815 (small blind) showed [9h Ac] and won (3220) with a flush, Ace high
Seat 8: Sydsneys-dad (big blind) showed [Js Qs] and lost with a straight, Ten to Ace

Today I'm walking Nacho,watching a Rangers pre-season friendly and hitting the tables.Something I have learned recently is that I much prefer to cascade the tables when playing over four.I seem to be able to handle six without losing the place and now all I need to do is run a little better and make some decent profit again!

Ok,don't forget to register for tonights Euroblogger and tomorrows Britbloggerment.The numbers have been low recently and it would be nice to see some new people playing! I'm dead money on Stars just now...so come and get it!

Edit: Normal service resumed..

Britbloggerment 2 + end of month stats

Password:Donkament
Time: 4pm EST

Don't forget to register!


To the poker and I'm not sure if my wee rant in my last post worked but last night was one of my best nights at the table for a while and this came after I won $40 at a very fishy $30 nl 6 max game at Laddys on Fri night.I also had a blast playing at Katitudes birthday tourney on Full Tilt where I scraped 7th place from 26 after I pushed my K7 into QQ when folded to my short stack.

I write here about taking a shot at $100 nl and above and forget that I was playing fairly regularly at those stakes and higher over a year ago.Just as I felt I was starting to get used to my forays up to levels like $2-$4 6 max nl ,I hit a really bad patch and never really recovered to play those stakes again.

I began by playing a player point Sat to Ladbrokes $50k freeroll on Monday and eventually made the top 29 from 296 to qualify.It was amazing the number of players who had no idea of the format and one big stack ( who had continued to play almost every hand despite being guaranteed a seat) was shocked and ask "is that it?" when the chatbox was full of "wp" etc when we beat the bubble.Oh and after folding one ( folded the hole cards) a few months back I was delighted to get my third ever Royal Flush during that Sat.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?954527 Royal


After the sat I took a break and watched the excellent "Red Eye" with Mrs A before she began watching her favourite crap Horror Zone channel and I hit the tables again,this time at Party poker.

I wouldn't have called the initial raise here if there hadn't been another caller along for the ride.I was also in the big blind which made it slightly cheaper and as ever I was at a high average pot table and reckoned my chances of getting paid off if I hit were high.The villain was unlucky to hit his set and go down to my flopped straight but I was just happy to maximise my profit on the hand.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?955131 $50 hand


I was still at the same table when I was dealt 55.I was happy to call a 4bb raise and even happier when I flopped dem quad biatches! Doublesas book "Pressure Poker" once again paid for itself ( although not easy to screw this hand up !) as I led out with a weak lead bet into the raiser hoping he's put me on a flush draw and raise.He'd raised with 910 preflop and the 10 on the turn and 9 on the river ensured he paid me off.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?955163 5555!

My Party table eventually tightened right up and I spent a while studying the lobbies of all the site I play at seeking a juicy table.Found one at Laddys and won another $16 before that table died and I headed to a $100 nl game at Pokerroom.

It was getting very late by then but I felt like I was in my poker groove and I managed to avoid any suckouts and leave $40 up as my table seemed to be the one players came to take a shot at.Perhaps another advantage (especially late on at weekends) of high average pot tables is that they seem to attract the tilted and stuck players who are quick to get their money in the middle and leave.

Stats time and I'm going to include my 'Stars roll for the first time.

Ladbrokes $1351,Pokerroom $780,Party $553,Full Tilt $1217,Stars $317. Total $4218.( +$439 since 15/3 and + $548 for month)

Oh and on another note I remember reading Mr High on Pokers "Jordans everywhere" post about the people who share his name and resisting the urge to post a link to the UK's very own Jordan.Well watch out America because I believe one of the US stations ( E -entertainment) has bought the rights to her reality show.She may have a couple of healthy plus points but I reckon it will still be a show made for the mute button.

Ok,time to go try and find a wee car for Mrs A.Hopefully see y'all tonight at the Blogger tourney....