Ten Years of Blogging

I guess the post title is technically true although I'm not sure posting a few times a year really counts as proper blogging. Social media seems to have replaced blogging for the most part anyway and I notice my blogger spell checker doesn't even recognise the word "blogging" any more and suggests "bogging" which might well be more appropriate for this blog!

I had a wee look back over some old posts last night and realised how little I care about all the actual poker content I've posted over the years.It's the stuff about family,friends ( online and irl as the kiddies say) and relationships that catch my eye and make me smile or wince. It's a bit like the lesson I've learned about taking personal photo's and vids ( not that kind!). It's the people in them who count and pics of amazing skylines or views from hotel balconies are pretty dull on their own. I noticed that most watching old cine film my Dad recorded when I was a kid of old houses we lived in.Plenty of boring bricks and mortar footage and only the occasional priceless glimpse of my long passed grandparents.


Anyway life is still going pretty well for me. Nearly nine months with the new Mrs Acorn and things couldn't be better.Christmas and New year were amazing and after a wonderful week in Lanzarote back in Feb we're off for some 4 Star luxury in Tenerife next month. I do feel a bit guilty as I mentioned "keeping a diary" before Xmas and she bought me a beautiful 2015 paper one as a present which I've not touched.Not yet explained I meant an online one and as close as we are I'm not sure I want to expose 10 years of thoughts,feelings and pish about poker to anyone other than my current small link spamming readership.

It has taken me a bit of time to adjust to being in a relationship again and to learn to read properly between the lines during some of our conversations.Ask how she is and "good" means "good"."Absolutely fine" on the other hand means I'm in the bad books!

We're not living together yet but that's going to happen for sure very soon and we get on so well I don't have too many worries about how things will go.( although I guess it's always a bit of a gamble)

I don't do much politics in this blog but seeing as it was election day on Thursday I will say I'm disappointed both by the Tories winning an overall majority and by the SNP winning nearly every seat in Scotland. I do wonder what planet some people are on though when I saw hashtags like "ThankYouEd" on twitter.Yeah thankyou for not being self aware enough to let your brother stand instead of you and thanks for being shit enough to let those smug pricks Cameron and Osbourne in for another 5 years. I did still vote Labour but it was mainly a pro-union anti SNP vote than out of being inspired by their leader or policies. I won a few quid betting on Cameron to win the Tory leadership contest a few years back and looking at the Labour party their best hope by far is Chuka Umunna although if they were daft enough to choose Ed over David perhaps it's not worth betting on.

On the football front if someone had told me Rangers would be playing Queen of the South in a play-off game in the First Division and that we'd be best to keep it tight in the first leg because we're so pish I'd probably have laughed in their face. Here we are though and I just hope we can get through the play-offs,get back to the top league and with the right coaching and investment our great club can regain our rightful place at the top of Scottish football.( always good to win a two drunks chasing a balloon contest!)

Ok,thanks for reading.Time to walk Nacho and get ready for the big game..

Good Place

Life ( touch wood!) is pretty damn great at the moment and I can't remember the last time I felt so genuinely happy with my lot.Things are still going brilliantly with my new girlfriend despite her recent gift of a lovely top that says "I don't need the internet my missus knows everything"! We've even planned for her to move in to my place sometime early next year and as someone who has always considered myself to be fiercely independent it's a strange feeling to be really looking forward to that happening.This compromising lark isn't always the easiest right enough but I'm sure I'll get the hang of it.Who wants to watch the Spanish football on a Sat night when there are minor celebs poncing around on some dance floor anyway eh?! She's actually pretty good about the football to be fair and doesn't mind a bit of COD either so I've won a bit of a watch there.

Anyway enough gushing on like a love sick puppy! Work is going well too.I did a bit of covering social media for the works business customers back in July and must have made a good impression as me and another guy are now the ones who respond to business customer tweets and Facebook posts.It's quite high profile and for the most part I'm loving it.Sure there's an awful lot of complaints and aggressive wankers to deal with and I've usually got a few IM conversations going and tweeting at the same time but the days are flying in and even though I'm back working with a manager who made my life hell a couple of years back I've wised up a bit since then and so far I'm "playing the game" with her much better this time around and we're getting on well.I would still love to have an "honest tweets" day where I could tell some of our biggest troll like customers to dry their fuckin' eyes but unless I win the lottery and it's my last day I guess that's never going to happen..

Not been playing much poker.I've lost my Goldstar status on Pokerstars and I doubt I'll even have played enough games to make Silverstar this month but I can't say I'm really that bothered.I get to play when I'm not seeing the missus and when she is here and crashes out early ( and thankfully sleeps through anything) I fire up a few smokes and hit the tables.

Ok thanks for reading.Back soon...

The Online Dating One Outer

Being of a slightly pessimistic nature part of me was holding off writing this as the old adage about if something can go wrong it usually does seems to apply to me quite regularly! But hey stuff it things are going well and I feel like writing about it!

I mentioned a girl in my last post who cancelled a date on me and I said I may get back in touch with her.Well after quite a few months of texting and missed chances we did finally arrange a date last month.Even then it still nearly went wrong.She said she would be in a pub in town and I said I'd text her when I got parked up and the plan was that she would reply and let me know which pub.I did text and twenty five minutes and no reply later I was just about to head home when she text me the pub name and said she hoped it would be ok as her pal was there.Now she had come straight from work and I could kinda understand her being with a pal but I genuinely thought it would a case of meet up,exchange a few pleasantries and most likely never see each other again.

I entered the pub and having looked around and not seeing two girls sitting together I very nearly headed for the exit before my girls pal spoke up and said my date was at the toilet and would be back in a minute.Turns out I knew a couple of folk she knew so we chatted for a couple of minutes before my date turned up.She had looked pretty hot in her online pics but when I saw her for real I was completely blown away.We just clicked right from that moment and talked and kissed as if we'd known each other for years.( her pal left pretty quickly!) Didn't take long to forgive her for keeping me waiting ( her phone was left on silent by mistake) and we've been on a few amazing dates since then.She says we are both "smitten" and that's exactly how it feels.Not felt like this for a very long time so hopefully this is for real!

I did read a quote I liked last week ( author unknown although it did appear on a Banksy fan twitter account) that says "A comfort zone is a beautiful place but nothing ever grows there" and although the whole new relationship thing is taking me slightly out of my comfort zone everything feels pretty natural so far.

The other good news is that my 2 week holiday from work starts today.Good time to catch up with friends/family,enjoy some late nights playing poker and of course to see my girl.
Not much to report on the poker front.Still playing too many tables most of the time and probably not paying enough attention either.Too busy watching Orange is the New Black ,Justified and listening to podcasts.

It's amazing what you can discover from podcasts though.I found the Joe Rogan Experience because he interviewed top poker pro Isaac Haxton and after really enjoying that one I downloaded the ones with Louis Theroux ,Jim Jefferies and Doug Stanhope mainly because Rogan has US comedians I've never heard of on his show.I went for one with a guy called Scroobius Pip because the bio said he was British.Described as a UK spoken word poet and hip hop artist he certainly came across as a fascinating interesting guy.Here's the link to the pod.

It was only a couple of weeks after listening to it that I decided to check his music/poetry out properly on youtube and fuck me his stuff is good! I'm quite set in my ways when it comes to new music etc this guys passion and lyrical ability is just brilliant.My favourite line ( discussed in the podcast) so far is "You see a mousetrap,I see free cheese and a fucking challenge".I'll link a couple of tracks from youtube at the foot of this post.

I suppose I'd better mention the independence referendum too before I finish.I'm firmly in the No camp as I don't believe in money trees and SNP fantasy bollocks.I do believe ( despite Cameron and co being a a bunch of knobs) that Scotland is better off in the Union and hope my fellow Scots feel the same way when it comes to the vote this Thursday.The sooner it's over the better though as some of the stuff being spouted on both side at the moment is truly embarrassing.If you don't agree with someone voting the opposite way you're now an idiot retard or even a racist! Thankfully my friends are a reasonably sensible bunch if we disagree on the vote it's not going affect our friendship.That's the way it should be!

Ok thanks for reading and enjoy the Scroobius Pip vids....

Failure to Comminicate

Thanks to BC n Kaz,Dudley and Juice for the comments left on my last post which once again I've just caught up with after logging into Blogger for the first time in ages.

Part of growing up is the struggle to find out who you really are and who your true self really is.It probably took me until my 30's to realise that I'm not this or that and like everyone else I'm just a whole bunch of contradictions rolled into one imperfect human and to be comfortable with that.

I feel a bit that way about loneliness. I've spent most of my adult life living on my own and I suppose in today's society that can only be a lose/lose situation.I either get to be happy and at ease spending time by myself which means I must be a weirdo/loner or I'm supposed be some kind of sad case who sits at home craving more human contact.



They say if you keep doing always you've always done you'll keep getting what you always got and I think I'm still trying to work out if that's a good or bad thing.In some ways I think I fear boredom far more than being alone.That's why I like to have a smoke and fire up a load of poker tables because I have no time to dwell on anything when I'm frantically clicking buttons all night in a semi-comatose state.With that said it's not just an escape.I loved catching up with friends and family during my two weeks off in June but I also absolutely loved having the World Cup on tv,rolling a few spliffs up and drinking some fine green tea while playing poker.

I still smoke about an oz of weed per month ( only on Fri/Sat/Sun) and have found cutting Sundays out my smoking schedule harder than I thought it would be and again I think that's simply down to boredom.If only there wasn't that horrible Monday hazy brained stoneover to deal with!

Anyway enough of that shit for now.This is supposed to be a poker blog.

I finally got a new laptop a month or so back so can now play a load of tables and run Pokertracker without any trouble.I had over a million hands on my old laptop and I finally sussed out how to show my expected Big Blinds Earned v my actual Big Blinds earned and although that in no way ever tells the full poker story it was almost a relief to see a very large gap between the two figures.If Aston Martin dealers took Sklansky dollars I'd have a few parked outside!

Running badly does not excuse the fact it's taken me until very recently to learn that simply put I'm not a good enough player to play 12-14 tables at a time continuously and still win money. I've made one small change to what I do and so far it's paying off and I wish I'd realised ages ago.Now instead of always having as many as 14-16 tables always on the go I may start a session by still firing up that many tables but now I play them in sets and only start loading more tables when I'm down to 3-4 tables.It's 45/180 ( $8 and $15) turbo's I'm still playing and not continually adding new tables means I can really focus when those 16 starting tables becomes 3-4 final tables.Bubble time and Final tables are where the money is made and being able to actually pick up reads and follow the game flow instead of just relying on the HUD has helped me hugely.

I was down to just a few tables last weekend when I had my best Mtt result in a while,coming 4th in a $16,$10K Gtd turbo for just over $2k.I'm actually still haunted a bit by the final hand of that tourney.When 4 handed the table had all agreed to discuss a deal and it folded to me in the small blind holding K5.Instead of folding and waiting for a host to come and give us the numbers for a chop I decided the Big Blind would never be calling me lightly ( he'd suggested the deal in the first place) in that spot and shoved my chips in the middle.I had him covered but he snap called with A10,I lost the hand and was out a few hands later.( any deal having been called off by one player because my stack was crippled)Still a nice wee cash though!

I also made the final table of the $9.90 tourney last night where only that final table pays out and came 7th after my Aces were busted by 53 rivering a straight.I had min-raised with under 10BB which must have looked as strong as hell but the big stack flat called from the small blind and then called my shove ( just under a pot size bet) on the flop when he hit his five.Should I just have shoved preflop especially as the pay jumps are very steep? Maybe.

Not much else going on outside poker.I was chatting to one girl and had a date lined up when she texted to say she wasn't well and couldn't make it.She did text again over a week later to ask about meeting again and I blanked it ( we'd been chatting for a few months and I just had a feeling she was wasting my time) but maybe I'll get back in touch and see if she's still interested.I think maybe there's still a nagging feeling with me that I need to sort my own head out first before letting someone else into it!

Still missing Breaking Bad and was jealous as hell of my mate the Big Chap who sent me a text last night to say he's just starting it on Netflix. Almost makes me want to start all over again with it too.No spoilers but safe to say it's one series that just gets better and better with each season.Loved this clip from the first episode.All so innocent back then...



I don't think anything will ever get close to Walt,Jess and co but I'm loving Orange is the New Black on Netflix too at the moment.Very well written,some amazing characters ( love Crazy Eyes and the stunning Alex Vause) and I love the way it teases the viewer into thinking it's a comedy one minute and a drama the next.Plenty of hot Lesbo action too for those that like their diversity to be visually driven!

Still plodding along at work and for the most part still dealing with complaints.I have also been the voice of twitter for the companies business customers recently and I've quite enjoyed doing that for a change as for the most part I'm just filtering enquiries and complaints to the right teams and not having to actually deal with them.We do get some nutters tweeting at us and sometimes it's hard to reply with how "sorry to hear that" when I'd much rather tell them to "fuck off and get a grip,there's more to life than you crying over some defective product or service".I'd probably run out of 140 characters quite quickly with the honest approach though!

Also still having fun playing with my wee nephew every week although I'm probably not in my sisters good books again.After teaching him he was allowed to be messy and if anyone asked why he replied "because I'm three", he has now turned 4.He usually remembers to say please and thank you but has now been fully trained to respond with "NOW!" while banging the table if he forgets and is asked "what's the magic word".Uncle Acorn is going to hell....

March-ing On

Just logged on to blogger for the first time in a while and saw Dudleys comments waiting to be published along with some fine spammy ones and thought it's about time I updated this wee space of mine.

Not very much to report on the poker front.Still spending most Fri/Sat nights enjoying a puff and 12-14 tabling sngs and mtt's.My laptop has taken to overheating when I play 12+ tables and use Pokertracker at the same time so I'll probably have to bite the bullet and fork out for a new one soon as I can't be doing with 5 mins out the game at a time while the damn thing reboots.I've been using PT and the HUD a lot less as a result and it certainly shakes things up a bit not having basic stats on my opponents to refer to when auto-piloting a load of tables.In some ways I think it's helped my play as it can be too easy to make assumptions based on basic stuff like preflop raise percentages and overall VPIP when even a loose player might tighten up at certain stages of the game and most 12/10 nits know when to open up and raise a lot more these days too.Good to be thinking about game factors when trying to quickly assign ranges and stuff rather than just going by stats.

Away from the poker life has been pretty dull in all honesty.Spending far too much time online browsing twitter and football forums and not enough time doing anything worthwhile.Nearly finished season 3 of The Walking Dead though and I'm certainly loving it so far.Slots in a alongside The Shield in my top three box sets watched so far with Breaking Bad still way out in front at number one....bitches!

Reckoned it was time to force myself back into the online dating thing again.Decided not to go for the honest approach and write an ad stating I'm just a "balding bloke in his 40's who plays Call of Duty all week and likes to smoke weed and play poker all weekend.Works,comes home, flakes on couch and due to most friends being married or living miles away has very little social life whatsoever.Top Flappy Bird score of 28".Aye what a catch!

Of course I do still have the number of a girl I was engaged to years back who wanted to meet up again last year but while we had fun when we did get back together for a one nighter she's probably not the girl for me and I don't want to mess with her head just for the sake of getting my end away!

Ok thanks for reading.Back soon...

U Mad? He Mad

Seeing as Dudley and I seem to to be the only fish left updating poker blogs and he's just posted I thought I'd write a wee update here too.

Pokerwise not much has changed since my last post.Still spewing off stacks on the rare occasions I get deep in Mtt's and still enjoying 12 tabling the 45/180 turbo's too.Played 1015 sngs last month and 198 Mtt's and have now earned just over 41k in Vpp's for the year which considering I only play at weekends means...I need to get out more!

I did have a much needed decent night at the felt last night,coming second in a couple of $8 ,180 turbos and 7th in the $13.50 KO $8k Gtd on Stars for $460.

I don't get much time to chat when playing 12-14 tables in one stack but if you're reading this then thanks to BerekDoyd ( I think that was the name!) who happened to mention he liked my blog in the chatbox.I was rolling a number at the time and lost track of the table before I got a chance to say anything so please don't think I was being ignorant!

The only other chat that made me smile recently was when I sucked out v an Aussie player who didn't take it well and spent at least the next ten minutes spamming the chat with "Pommy Faggot" over and over.I very rarely say anything but I did manage a "u mad?" followed by a "he mad" just to wind the guy up even more.I do still love the anti-social, no bullshit nature of online poker where you can have a table of people from literally all over the world and nobody says a word to each other.Maybe that says more about me!

I ended up going back to the real cigs recently but I've just ordered a Tornado V3 E-cig Starter kit and hopefully it'll be a bit better than the VIP e-cig I was using before.I still enjoy smoking some fine green herb at weekends although come the new year I'm going to cut out the Sunday puffing and keep it for Fri/Sat only as it's almost half way through Tuesday before I feel properly awake most weeks at the moment!

Right I'm off to go and see Step A and to pick up a Xmas tree!

Nothing Stops This Train

Seeing as I've now been playing real money poker online for over nine years and as this is the longest blogging break I've taken, I thought I'd throw up a wee post.No bullet points to work from or anything.Just gonna let it all hang out a bit!

Still playing poker at the weekends and it's been back to my usual Mtt bad beats,coolers and plain old bad plays so nothing decent to report on that front. I'm still haunted by a hand I played with about 14 players left in large field $5 tourney a couple of months back when I called with 22 from the big blind v a small blind shove.I remember thinking I'm very likely ahead and winning the hand would give me a huge stack but it was a stupid call and it's not been the only one I've made recently! In sng's a daft call/move can be forgotten about because it's easy to move on to the next game but playing like a donk when I finally do get lucky enough to make it through a large mtt field is just burning money.Realising I'm pretty much an Mtt donk has meant I'm trying to cut back on them and stick to 12 tabling 45/180 turbo sngs. These games don't have thrill of a the possible big pay day but pwning bubbles is always fun and despite the games being tougher it's still possible to do that at low stakes without meeting much resistance.

Sitting here scratching my face as I write this because I'm doing the Movember thing and as I'd look really silly with just a 'tash I'm going for the full Heisenberg season 5 look.Finally finished Breaking Bad a few weeks ago and ( no spoilers) it has easily replaced "The Shield" as my all time favourite dvd boxset. So many memorable scenes and quotes!

Anyway bitches that's all for now.

Fish on a Heater

Good weekend at the felt last week.After nearly 8 years of real money online play it finally felt like I was on a heater! If I wasn't such a logical guy I'd assume the guy Stars employs to think up new and creative ways to screw me over on the virtual felt must have been on holiday! I only played the $1 Rebuy because @DannyN13 had mentioned the tourney in one of his TPE training vids.$2k for 1 rebuy and 1 add on isn't a bad return! I did get lucky too though and won 20/22 hands at showdown by the time I made the final table.It'll probably be another 8 years before that happens again.

I was 28/29 at one point after losing a big flip with AQ v JJ and with 14 left got it in with AQ v A10.The flop came A 10 6 and after a blank on the turn I thought it was goodnight Vienna until a beautiful Queen hit on the river.99 held v A3 after that and I was at the final table from 16000 starters sitting 7th from 9.

It was $690 for 9th and just over $1k for 8th and with one guy having a tiny stack I was put in a few tough ICM spots where I held back from making moves in order to move up the pay ladder.After he crashed out and I was 7/7 I shoved J10s and was called by KJ and that was that.I do think overall I could have been a bit more aggro at the final table but I was also trying not to do anything rash and I don't think I missed too many spots.I'd also got lucky to get there ( shoved 52 blind on blind into A4 and rivered a straight with about 50 players left)and just felt happy with a decent nights work.

I was hoping the heater would continue last night but unfortunately it was back to the usual beats and coolers.Mtt's are very much like sifting through shite for gold.Disgusting,horrible and nasty most of the time with the very occasional moment of pure joy when hitting a decent score.

Right off to to watch the Rangers game...

July Update

Well my two weeks off work flew in and it feels like I was never away.It's weird because the night before I was due back at work I was absolutely fine and not giving it a second thought and then I spent the rest of the week after I started back in a deep pit of despair!I have applied for another job doing something a bit different from dealing with complaints and staying on the same grade I'm on.I was part of a downgrading at the start of the year but have ended up doing the same job as those on a higher salary due to the best corporate excuse of the 21st Century,"Business needs".

On the poker front I've now played over 700k hands since Sept 2010 and although I've had a few deep Mtt runs and the occasional final table recently I think I need to give up on those games for now and focus on building a roll playing 45 and 180 player turbo's.( $7's and $15's) I can pretty much play up to 16 of the 45/180 turbo's on auto-pilot whereas when I do the same with Mtt's I'm missing a ton of important game flow stuff and have to rely mainly on my HUD.Mtt's are just so much more fun to play but who needs fun when there's money to be made!

Right,the Wimbledon final is on just now and it's far too nice a day to be writing blog posts.Come on Andy!

Bring Me Sunshine

I thought I'd throw up a wee post to celebrate that happy day tomorrow when I punch the air as I leave work knowing it'll be two weeks before I have to go back to my office monkey routine.Not going anywhere but just looking forward to the break and hoping the sun stays out for the duration.Things have actually been going reasonably well at work.I get on well with the new boss I've had since January and she gave me an excellent annual appraisal ( not that I care but it makes for an easier life).

Not much else going on really. I've been off cigarettes now for 3 weeks and using the electronic ones instead and so far I'm feeling far better for it. I've now discovered I can just hold the vapour in my mouth without having to inhale and I I'm still enjoying my herb at the weekends ( and probably for most of the next two weeks) but 4 non smoking days out of seven is a step in the right direction and if I can bring myself to shell out a small fortune for a top quality vapouriser for my weed then maybe I'll quit smoking entirely. I've vaped weed before and it was ok but I must admit I do enjoy rolling and smoking when I hit the virtual felt at weekends.

On the poker front I've now played over 200,000 hands this year and earned 13,500 Vpp's. After an awful run at the start of the year things seemed to have turned round a bit too. I'm now mixing in a ton of 45/180 player turbos ( $7's and $15's) when I'm not playing Mtt's and although it's taken me a while ( I specialised in 18 player turbos back in the day) I think I'm starting to adapt my push/call ranges to the games as they are today.With more regs and less fish it's certainly not quite as easy as it was to run over the table around the bubble but there's still a huge edge to be had at that crucial stage of the game and with variance being such a bitch for everyone there's more chance of there being some fish left to stomp all over in the larger field multi-table sng's like the 45's and 180's.

I've also continued to play in the twitter @RFCfanspoker play money game I mentioned in my last blog post.Before these games I hadn't played with play money since I started back in 2004 and although I've won a couple they certainly take a bit of adjusting to as there's no cash at stake and nobody seems to have a fold button!See my previous post if you're not a tim and fancy a free fun game on Stars.

For anyone interested I'm still spouting crap on twitter: @heavysprinkles.

Ok,thanks for reading.Back soon...