Bloggerment 39 open!

All welcome!

Bodog are also running an online poker tournament for poker bloggers on a Tuesday night at 9.05pm Eastern Time.( 2am Wed for us Brits).

Yesterday I watched Rangers beat Hearts 2-1 at Ibrox after their dodgy goalkeeper fumbled one into the net with less than ten minutes left.Everytime the guy touched the ball from then on there was a loud chorus of "Hee Haw" which reminded me of the poker tables...

After picking Nacho up, my cousin popped round just as I was having dinner and ended up staying to watch the Spanish fitba and have a couple of beers.

The moment he left I was on the IM chat thing and after Rosie went off to bed I played three $16 turbos and managed to win two of them.

Feeling good,I fired up a couple of $27 ,18 player turbos and came back to reality when I got my money in with AK v AQ on a K Q 7 rainbow flop, only for another Queen to hit on the river.In the other game I battled hard and made it down to the last seven.One guy had been playing table captain, but to be fair he was a shark and knew what he was doing.I did wish he'd stop educating the fish though!

I'm usually wary when an excellent player raises ( tight range ) but it had folded to this guy ( roberts34) in the small blind and he shoved v my big blind.I had 88,considered that he was likely to be shoving any two, ( we were both shortish stacks) and made the call, only to go out when his 107c hit the board.

There were certainly a few more good players in the two $27's I played in, but there were also still a load of donks and although I crashed out of both,I felt my decision making was ok.( which is all that counts really)

I should probably have gone to bed at that point, however I felt the cash tables calling and unfortunately for me two of my biggest poker leaks came to the fore and cost me big time.Good old "last hand ( or orbit) syndrome", where I always seem to get greedy and want to force things right at the end of a session, combined with " playing a cash table in turbo tourney mode" syndrome.

I had AQ at a $400nl table ( thought I'd take a wee shot for my last 15 mins of the night)and raised it up to $14 when folded to me.I hadn't been at the table long but had been very tight until then.I was reraised to $46 and altouugh I don't like AQ I felt the villain had been three-betting quite frequently and decided to flat call.As I'd been tight I also felt there was even more reason for the villain to 3-bet there and try and take the pot away from me.

On reflection later, I feel a 4-bet raise to $160-$200 may have been the best play as that way I would have truly followed my instinct that the villain wasn't on very big pair and he would probably have folded.

Bottom line was that the flop came Ace high and I ( cringe!) ended up losing a buy-in to AK.( both of us all in with our monster top pair!).

That was probably the biggest cash game pot I've lost in a long time ,but I still slept like a baby last night and I'm not feeling that sick about it today in all honesty.I won about $1k last month and have to be prepared for setbacks if I want to be playing $100nl and above more often.

I usually managed to mix tourney and cash play quite well with no ill effects.From now on I'll look more closely at sticking to one type of poker per night especially if taking a shot.

Ok,just about to take Nacho up the road and give Step A a lift back from her Dads too and then it's fitba and poker for me....

Bought New Car!

Not long back from the Arnold Clark carshowroom where I've just purchased myself a silver 2005 Ford Focus ST170 like the one pictured! I absolutely love my black Alfa 156 2.5 v6 but it's a 1999 model with 77k on the clock and the repairs were getting more and more expensive.The Focus looks great, drives like a dream and I can't wait to get the loan and plate transfers etc sorted. ( my "Acorn 1" number plate *)

It's still got a year left on the Ford warranty and will hopefully cost a bit less to run too.I spend about £150 ( $300) per month on petrol alone just now for my Alfa.
The Focus ST is just about as quick as the Alfa,has full traction control option and half leather sports seats.I can't wait to get it now!



Poker bit back last night at the tables after a decent start at 'Stars.I was $30 up at my cash table when my Kings were busted by some donkey calling pot size bets with 910 on a 10 high flop and hitting his 9 on the river.

I moved to a Party $100 nl 6 max table and suffered another suckout, which led to me making a daft tilty bluff ( I had Q10c and was on a failed flush draw) against the tables resident fishy calling station, who called my river bet with his 3rd pair.I realised I was tired and had had enough so I watched some of the Party Poker open on Ch4 before heading to bed $80 down.

On reflection I wished I'd shown the character to stay at that last table,tighten up my game and try and take out the fish using my failed bluff to hopefully get me action.Perhaps though, after that nasty combination of suckouts and card deadness, my bed was the best place for me.

I could also blame the bloggers curse for my woes last night.It seems everytime I read about another bloggers poor night at the tables I go and have one myself! More success stories please!

Righty that's all for today.Thanks for reading...

* ok my private plate isn't "Acorn 1" but maybe one day....