Knock knock + stats Ytd

The title is because ( I made up with my Mum at the weekend) my parents have offered to buy me a new front door for Xmas! What a great idea!

Congrats to Spid for taking down the Bloggerment for the second time.I finished a lowly 12th after overplaying 66 and then running A8 into Hammerheids AJ.

I mentioned overplaying the sixes and both Cogs and Rosie ( both players I respect) have mentioned my habit of overbetting recently.I think it comes from the fact I usually only play turbos and not standard speed games.I have tried to tone down my preflop raise sizes a little but my “bet big or go home” philosophy has served me well and I’m not sure I even want to adjust my strategy too much.

I hit up a couple of $16 turbos afterwards and had my Aces scudded by KJ only a few hands into the first one.Yes the fish called off his whole stack without hesitating with KJ.A king on the flop and Jack on the river left me shaking my head at my poor luck.The second game I played ended with yet another nasty one and I reflected that at least I’ve played enough turbos now to not get too hacked off.

Partys cash tables were calling and I’m pleased to say I won $75 during a very short $100 nl 6 max session thanks to fish who called with crap.I only won two big hands for my profit.In the first one my AK was good on a King high board and for the second I called a raise from a tilty shortstacked moron with A10.We saw an Ace high flop and I checked to the raiser,awaiting his enevitable all in bet ( he had k6 sooted and had missed board totally) and he didn’t let me down.

I read an interesting article on tilt recently which concluded that winners tend to sit on gains and losers chase losses.Despite the impression probably given by this blog I wonder if that’s one of the reasons I don’t play more often.Yesterday I was free all day but my first game was the Bloggerment at 9pm.Most evenings I don’t start playing until later either and I wonder if the desire to sit on my winnings ( lowly as they are) has something to do with it.The other factor is that I usually feel exhausted from work between 7-10pm and it’s only usually after 10pm when I get my second wind and feel like I could stay up all night.

The article also mentioned that bad beats lead to tilt because when people see that they are for example, 80% favourite when their money goes in on a hand ,they mentally bank the winnings, which leads to a major shock to the system when they lose to that nasty 2 outer.Perhaps I reasoned , I deal with beats quite well most of the time because I’m an inherently cynical pessimist who doesn’t mentally bank the pot when I’m a big favourite, because I’m just waiting on the “enevitable” bad beat coming!

Either that or the repetitive nature of the beats has numbed me slightly to them.I’m not claiming I’m immune and several in a row can still awaken my tilt monster but generally I reckon I cope reasonably well.

Ok, here are my updated end of the month stats.I now have only one month to go before the end of my 3rd year of real money online poker and the last time I checked on June 7th I'd made $1599 in profit since Oct 31st '06.The overall total was $4254.Profit since June 7th is $1967.Overall profit this year so far is $3566.I made aprox $4k per year in my first two years and after a poor start to this year it looks like I'll make about the same again.

Full Tilt $1530, Party $1625,Pokerroom $440 ,Pokerstars $685,Ladbrokes $1941.Total $6221. ( + $414 since 20th Sept).This also excludes my Bet 365 "take a shot" roll.

Happy 2nd B/day Blog/ Ytd stats

This will be my last post before I take a break for just over a week in Ibiza with Mrs A.I'm gutted at missing Sundays Britbloggerment game ( on Stars at 9pm bst,password:donkament) though a weeks break from the poker will probably do me good overall.

I played a wee $6 turbo at 'Stars to warm up last night ( no joy) before scanning my current sites for a juicy table.Party poker won the day and I sat down for some $50 nl shennanigans.

I'd chipped up a little when I was dealt 9c10c in late position.Nl can be a funny old game.Big hands tend to win small pots and the most lucrative way to win money is calling raises with speculative hands and hitting big against big pairs/AK/AQ etc.

It's a balancing act though, because if you called everything hoping to hit buy-ins would leak away fairly quickly.Back to the hand and I called the villains $2 raise and saw a lovely 10h 10d 7h flop.

There were only two of us in the pot and as he'd raised preflop, I wasn't too worried that he was drawing to the flush and therefore I just called his $3 continuation bet.

The turn brought a Kd and this time when he bet $6,I reraised him to $12,hoping it would look like I was semi-bluffing on a flush draw and hoping he was on the AK his turn bet suggested.

He smooth called my raise and checked to me on the river.I bet $21 and he called with his AK and called me lucky in the chatbox.

I did lose a little of that profit after trying to be too smart and pull off a bluff against the loosest player at the table.He'd folded a few times to my preflop small blind ( he was the bb) steals but when I tried again with 73off and the flop came King high he called my flop and turn bet and I had to fold to his bet on the river.

Ok, a couple more things before I vanish for a week.When The Cloud mentioned it was his blogs first birthday I checked and realised my blog is just over two years old.( born on 31st May '05).I didn't want to steal The Clouds thunder ( can you steal thunder from a cloud??) last week by mentioning it but I'm quite pleased I've stuck at this ghey blogging lark for so long.

Big thanks to the US bloggers who encouraged me with comments/links when I first started out ( Gcox,Tripjax and Jordan ) and there didn't seem to be many UK poker bloggers.( at least that I was aware of)

The last six months or so have been great, as I've added more and more UK blogging links ( drop me line to swap links) to my sidebar and I feel that we're building a fine wee community on this side of the pond too.I was always envious of the US blogger tourneys ( mostly too late for me to play in) and I think it's great that we now have our own successful Britbloggerment regular Sunday game.( 9pm Stars on Sunday,password: donkament)


Righty it's 9.25pm and I aint rolled a smoke or posted my stats!

Here are my latest stats: Party $963, Full Tilt $1287, Pokerroom $556,Ladbrokes $1379,Pokerstars $69 Grand Total $4254 ( +$8 since May 27th)

YTD Profit since start of 3rd year of online poker real money on Oct 31st until June 7th = $1599.

Edit: Bubbled a $16 when my AK soooted was beaten by A2 off.( I was shortstacked)
Crashed out of a $6 and won $60 at a Laddies $100 nl table when I called a small raise with 107,hit two pair and check raised the flop.The villian went all in for $68 and I called,beating his AK bluff despite the Ace on the turn.


With only 4 1/2 months to go and having made nearly $4k profit in both years one and two, I'm a little disappointed with my ytd figure.I have been playing far more sngs this year and although I've enjoyed adding to my skillset ,I'm never going to make much profit one tabling and I don't really enjoy playing more than two at a time.My Ytd also includes my tilt nightmare in May.Without that included I would have been on track to equal previous years.Poker isn't an easy game and whilst I'll be striving to equal or better last years profits, I just want to stay on track and come out in the black again this year.

Righty ya'll be good out there and best of luck at the tables.

Ibiza here I come....