Making a commitment to one discipline...

Apologies it's been a little longer since my last blog. I was getting into a good habit of doing it at least once per week but until the last few days I'd not played any poker since my last entry, but there is news on the horizion.

So the last couple of days I've been playing some PLO on iPoker using the Slotboom short stacking strategy which has served me well of late. I put in £125, which equated to $200 approximately and was buying in for $15 a piece on $0.25/$0.50 tables. As I was just playing mostly to wind down in the evening following sunny escapades in London-Town over the weekend I was quite happy to cash for £195 after only a couple of hours worth of play, if PLO allowed you to run anywhere near expectation it would have been considerably more LOL.

It had originally been my intention to play PKR as I thought trying the Slotboom method on what would surely be less competent players would pay dividends.... sadly for me I forgot that I asked them to close my account in some sort of customer service dispute a while back.... damn me and my principles lol. Anyways, my purpose for blogging was not to brag over my bountiful £70 win online (FML etc) but was to ask the question which forms the subject of this blog. I seem to be winning regulary playing PLO online, far more often infact than if I dabble in Unlimited Hold Them's... so I'm beginning to ask myself "Should I commit to only playing PLO from now on?"

This isn't an easy thing to do, being poker players many of us like to dip our fingers into as many virtual pies as we can in Internet Pokers and it goes without saying that the softest players are still trapped in a 6 max game somewhere between Kev Bloor and Rob Ho... so why change? It's widely recognised that the online game is on a very slow but gradual switch... PLO is getting more and more popular, particularly amongst the big 2 (Stars/Tilt) and perhaps the next Poker Boom will have room for NLHE and PLO as a forefront. That's all well and good for the long term, but the short term is I'm winning more consistently at PLO than in Hold'em and I enjoy playing it more. That said at this time the game selection is far less and potentially bankroll requirements are even higher, although with my short stacking strategy that applies less often.

I think for me, PLO is an more obvious route to some shorter term success, if only I had the resolve to keep my money in a site long enough to try and build upon it....

The above is likely to change in the near future. The reason being is that my London adventure is likely to be coming to an end very soon, the company wants to move me to the big office in the Isle of Man so I imagine if I make the move I will be playing a F*CK load of online pokers, so if this is case I need to make myself commit to a game and commit the funds to give it a real go. There isn't much in the way of live games on the Island but it is slightly closer to Dublin (gotta look at the bright side, Kev), so from this point forward I'll be considering myself a commited Omaha player with the ocassional vice of playing a donkament here and there.

Wish me luck, F*CK knows I need it!

Ciao Ciao!

A Negative weekend...

So it's been a long week at the office and I was looking forward to playing some live pokers. I'd been dabbling in $50 PLO on iPoker over the weekend and won a few hundy and decided to take it out so I could play live over the weekend, costs £5 for the priviledge of withdrawing via Neteller, but hey-ho, those are the breaks, kinda wish I hadn't bothered now.

The weekend starts well enough, I has a date with a nice lady who works in TV (epic imo), this is the 2nd time I've been out with her and shes awesome company, very funny and best of all, she's really into little old me, so it's a winner, so friday night was played safe, a nice meal in Notting Hill and a few drinks before saying goodnight but not before a bit of groping in the street mind, who said romance was dead?

So, Saturday I headed down to Loose Cannon to play their £30 FO however sadly when i got there the club was closed due to an electrical fault. Almost in devine syncronisation I feel the immediate urge to empty my bowels in violent fashion (must have been the Crispy Dunk from the night before!), just typical when you're immediate escape route has been cruelly denied. So I'm now tight clenching around Cannon Street in true royal guard fashion looking for a bog, I spot an O'Neill's pub in the distance and power clench march my way to it. I frantically search for the men's and almost as soon as my arse hits the seat I'm away.... it was a long one but I felt great after so i thought my day was going to get really good after that.

Well, with Loose Cannon (how ironic after that last paragraph) being closed and me still requiring a fix for the day, I headed off to the only game in town I knew I could get to in time, that was the Empire in Leicester Square. I thought it was a £20 FO, but turned out to be a £20/r, I reluctantly jumped into the game with the mind set of a usual 3 buy-in rule for me. Needless to say it didn't go great, as seems to be the way whenever I play rebuy tournaments I get NO HANDS whatsoever so my 1000 chips (60min rebuys) wasn't improving fast, I did nick a pot when a multi-way limp found it's way to me in the SB with A4 and I shoved to try and scoop 5 x 100 limpy limps and the button didn't believe me, he had A7 and called, luckily the board was running high for a split but I spiked a 4 and took it down. I then topped up for an extra £20 giving you a further 2000 chips so well worth it but went out shortly after the break when I ran an ill-timed steal again in a mutli-limp pot into a monster when a guy had limped in with KK.

I wasn't quite ready to go home at that point, I felt kinda hard done by there so decided to try and get a PLO cash game going. Sadly it seemed everyone in the place is about as receptive to PLO as they are to Swine Flu, they didn't really want anything of it, but I managed to collar 5 others on their way in to get a game running. Amazingly in a card room that generally plays so loose the PLO was tight, I mean REALLY TIGHT. Again I saw little action and few hands, i was a adopting a £60 buy-in strategy (£1/£2 £50min/£400max) Rolf Slotboom style that was paying dividends online for me and thankfully it did here too, eventually. I double up twice in the space of 2 hands, the 1st hand with a KK double suited combo hand, making a small raise early only to get jammed and I fired it in and got lucky when a guy flopped 2 pair and the board paired up on the river to save the day. Next hand I get a wanky AA92 but was prepared to jam with these fools, I make the 2nd limp in early position and a guy to my left makes it £10 to go, 2 more callers and I now have a pot big enough to fire some big chips in, myself and the raise get it all in and my AA holds and I decide to call it a day. So Saturday all in all was OK, good poo and good PLO, bad tourny though.

Sunday - I should have been seeing my lady friend again but I just couldn't be arsed, I felt like playing more Pokers (fuck my life....) so checking out the options on the local scene the only game that stuck out was a £20+£5 bounty at The International, fair enough so i headed over and also took additional funds in case I wanted to play cash. The tournament was a bit of a disaster, there was only 12 runners to begin with and a couple of late arrivals joined later and I was out on level 1 when I called a 3 x BB raise with J7s, flop 2, 9, J, our early position raiser fires and I call, turn is a J and we both get it all in and he has 9,9... I don't fill up and end of game. Also as the tournament started the only cash game running broke, so I was truly pissed off and don't think I'll go back to the International again to be honest, it's not my cup of tea at all, how a venue can only get that many runners on a sunday is beyond me....

So, I had back to Leicester Square again to the Empire, again hoping to play PLO, but no such luck and I dip into the £1/£2 NL game playing 2 x £85 buy-ins. I'll take a moment just to give my props to the Empire, it's an awesome casino with good service, nice food, comped drinks (just a tip will do) and very good dealers and I really like the tables and decor there, it's become my room of choice. So, I soon find out that I've stepped into a dream DREAM game, there are 1 or 2 easily identifiable nits on the game who you can abuse if you get chips but generally you know to stay away from, an older Arabian guy who sat down with £1000 who has his name on every waiting list so he can hop games for the most action and a pakistani chap named Hassan who was quite possibly the biggest live-one I've ever played with. Hassan was drunk and looked knackered, I think he'd been there for a while and was very loud, but very funny, not only was he giving money away he was entertaining me so it's all good.

So, a few hands in and Hassan has already given away £400 and I get KK utg, I just limp fully expecting him to raise, he obliges and raises to £15, a tight player calls from position and I just ship my £80 in and he calls me with.... 2, 2 He gives the usual brain-dead comment about 'what if a 2 comes, mate?' It was irrelevant as I flopped top set, but sadly the player I pushed out would have flopped a set of 3's too.... oh well. After this it goes truly pair shaped as I start to get impatient with the lack of hands I'm being, everytime I try to get in cheap with a small pair or suited connector I'm being pushed out and I'd of hit big each time so I'm boiling a bit at this stage. There is a young Chinese couple at the table who has now moved next to each other and I'm fairly sure are colluding (obviously lol) and each time I raised she'd call to my immediate left and he'd min-reraise, it wasn't terribly well hidden but couldn't be proved either, so they were getting the better of me but instead of leaving the game I allowed myself to snap....

I limp early with 6, 6 and the girl calls and he makes a raise to £15 as was always the case and 2 others call..... now because of all the hands that I was getting semi-involved in my stack has dwindled down to what I started with and I can't afford to make calls to set-mine so i decide to shove in hope that no one is strong enough to call.... sadly our chinese fellow has a hand this time and flips JJ and I feel rather stupid but in terms of Meta-game it makes me look a softer prospect so all is not lost. I re-buy but largely the same thing happens again and I'm only really in the game at this point to try and get a hand against Hassan who is getting hit in the face by the deck at this point, his earlier shite play is now turned seriously tardy, making opening raises preflop to "£20 to play mate, no bullshit" LOL.... i love that line and I'm stealing it, but then he'd bet the flop for just £6.... he was really getting the better of the table and was up massive before long.... eventually though I lose my resolve again when i see all this action and I'm dying to get involved, I limped 9, 6 suited early and some raises to £15 and 2 callers.... I should fold but there are great odds to hit something so i call with just £60 in front of me, the flop comes 9 high and I pick up runner runner flush and straight draws but get 2 all-in's ahead of me.... I'm like WTF? seriously?!?!

Had I had more money it's an easy fold but my desperation to win something encourages me to call hoping they're drawing or have smaller pairs.... turned out they both had 9's with better kickers and I don't improve. So the moral of the story here is don't stand up a date for poker.... it's an expensive (not to mention degenerate) mistake to make! It was a great game though, I just wish I had more money to carry on playing. Normally patience is one of my stronger game attributes but it's totally abandoned me of late, I guess that's me being rusty from live-play and/or a combination of the fact I've been playing PLO more lately and I'm used to having more involvement, either way I'm not impressed with how I played all weekend, some food for thought and I need to improve sharpish if I'm to take a piece of that juicy London pie.

Ciao Ciao

Matt

A weekend of Live Pokers

I don't really know what got into me this weekend but all I've wanted to do is play live pokers. I decided to make my 2nd appearance at Loose Cannon on Friday night after working, they had a £20 FO but it fairness it was a crapshoot, 3000 chips with a 15 clock and self-dealt so that means slooooooooow hands. As usual I have to interject and take control just so we can play more than 5 hands per level and that always puts me off my game. This lead to me getting fustrated and donking off early making too many fancy plays and heroic calls, but I did find one interesting hand early on before I got 'dealer tilted'.

The hand in question was a 3 way limped pot, I was in early position with 3, 3 and the flop was 4,4,5. Now that doesn't look so bad for 3's but I'm hardly betting for value and I'm not going to inflate the pot early on so I check and the others check too. The turn was the 3rd '4' and I make a small bet (blinds are 25/50 still, pot of 175 and I bet 150). Random loose asian dude in late position just calls. The river is a 3, means nothing to my hand at this stage though, but I had already made my mind up to check it down or possibly check-call as I expected this guy to take a stab at it. He insta bets 800, overbet and he lunched his chips aggressively in my direction across the table, one of the oldest tells in the book, so I know he is weak here, but he might think he is bluffing with a small pair bigger than my own. I decide to trust my instincts and call and he shows 6, 8 for complete air and I got a few looks from the table haha, they must have thought 'this idiot though the 3 helped him'..... no folks I just caught a bluff.

Well I was out by the 5th level and as one nice lady had bought me a drink for my dealing I decided to deal for the next hour or so before heading home. Saturday I took a day off and kicked back and enjoyed a footballing feast on TV, that being Man United v Boro and then Madrid v Barca, neither disappointed. Sunday I went along to something new, I stumbled on a site called London Poker Meetup, basically lots of people running pub games all over London in a little community, so I thought I'd give a £20 freezeout a shout, 5000 chips with a 20min clock. I got there and I wasn't expecting too much to be fair, but it didn't really live up to expectations. I was however expecting an ultra friendly game even if the standard of play wasn't to be much.... that wasn't really the case either, it was very cliquey just like you might find in a casino, no one really spoke much, bad equipment and overly cramped, I'm sure it differs from location to location but if I'm going to play 'non-serious pokers' than I'd rather do it in a nicer setting.

So not too impressed there I decided to head to The International (the new name for 'The Gutshot'). To be honest I'd meant to check this out much sooner but it's kinda out of the way for me but I saw a £30 FO on their site and decided to see what it was all about. I nearly walked past it when I eventually found my way, it's a very discreet little building in a very quiet part of Hackney, you have to buzz to get in and it's underground, seemed a bit illict lol. So I go in and find out as it's bank holiday they had a £100 FO with 10k chips, 20min clock. Pretty impressive really, but way too much for me right now as I'm extremely rusty in my tournament game, but they had a little £1/£1 cash game running so sat down for an hour. This is where it got a little bad for me, there was only 4 of us to begin with and myself and 1 other guy wanted to play 1/1 and the others £1/£2, we stood our ground and the game began but they constantly nagged to play 1/2 or even 2/5, they straddled everytime they could, as did the next couple of guys who joined the game.... now this I don't mind, it's just more dead money in the pot for me but when I didn't partake in their little game they got pissy and made stupid comments about it 'being against his religion' or something stupid. Either way I wasn't impressed, even the dealer encouraged them to straddle, so I left £10.50 up lol.

I'll go back, more than likely to play the odd tournament or maybe a PLO cash game as they are gambling freaks, there was a couple of guys there who had not left the club for 48 hours, wtf? So I can say from my London poker experiences so far that Loose Cannon is the best small stakes/friendly game in town and the best high action game is the Empire at Leicester Square. Maybe see the UKPLers in town sometime. Highlight of the weekend was walking down Cannon Street behind a familiar looking guy thinking to myself 'that looks like Mel Judah!' but then I thought why would he play here? I get inside and within seconds I hear someone shout out, 'Hi Mel'. Whoda funked it?

How you became good at poker... a LOL Donkaments tale

I've been playing poker for over 5 years now. it's strange, it still seems like a fairly new addition to my life, I'm sure it does for most people, it would be even weirder to imagine what I'd of been doing during the time I spent playing it. But what I pondered to myself today as I reflected upon the things that I've done in poker was... 'when did I become good?'

Before Kev B can get in and say "what do you mean, when? You're still shite!" let's call it 'when did I become significantly better?' then. I tried to pinpoint to a single instance than made me change the way I thought and played the game, but this isn't true. I can say with certainty that there were certain things that positively influenced me more than others for certain, i'll touch on those later though.

So, I guess to try and piece together this little poker journey I have to go right back to the beginning. December 2004 and Mr Matt Aguilera is chilling at my place and we're bored of playing Pro Evolution Soccer for the night and he is channel hopping, skips to I believe it was channel 123 on Sky Digital at the time and put on Challenge TV... "whats this shit?" I asked. I got a long story about how good Poker was and how he'd been playing it in secret for a little while and going to a local game (Stoke Poker).

I immediately dismissed him, labelled him a degenerate scum-bag as i've never approved of gambling. At this stage in my life I hadn't been to a casino in my life so I surprised myself by how drawn in to the TV I was. It was the 2003 WSOP final, I sat there watched Moneymaker win it and I was hooked. I arranged with Matt to go to Stoke Poker the following week, I guess it all changed for me after that, I became a 'social gambler'. Stoke Poker quickly became a Friday/saturday night weekly event to look forward to each and every week, the worst thing for me I think was doing rather well in my 1st game there, I came 3rd and cashed... last time I did for a while though LOL!

So my instant success had me believing I was considerably better than I could have realised at the time, I think it was a really long time before I cashed again at Stoke Poker and for a friendly little game there were a hell of a lot of good players there now I look back at it. I got very annoyed with it at one point, I used to sit there and try to figure out why I wasn't winning, blaming everyone but me, I recall one week I really layed into Steve when he made a bit of a hero river call against me and caught my bluff, I was a right mard arse but i guess that's the competitive nature in me, i hate to lose at anything, this made me a bit of a twat at the time but served me well later on.

So gradually I grew out of the bad habits I had at the start, like playing K9 and Q10 every time I was dealt them without fail and really tightened up.... it was really needed though to be fair, I can remember thinking Rob Ho was one of the tightest players on the planet at the time.... oh how wrong I was LOL. So I read a few books, particulary the 1st two Harrington books and that really altered my game tremendously. A stand out memory for me was in the event that was organised by Danny Gelboy that saw a number of preliminary single table games at his house and a final table to be played at Stoke Poker. I qualified for the final table and was doing quite well, although it wasn't to be, but the stand out memory for me was in a hand with Claire Ward... now anyone who has played Claire will know she is textbook solid, so he raises have to be respected. Well i somehow found it in myself to lay down AK preflop to Claire in a particular hand and I showed it....

OK, big deal.... but at the time it was. I'd never layed a hand like that down before in a tournament, her face was of shock and I never got to see her hand, but whether I was beaten or not I think i got a bit of respect for that, it had shown some progression in my game, a deeper thought process, I often recall that hand for some reason, it seemed pivotal. Soon after that I started to cash a little more often, including a couple of wins at Stoke Poker and I was feeling a hell of alot more in control of a game. It wasn't long after this that a few Stoke Poker folks decided to step into something bigger and we started to attend the £10 rebuy Friday night at Stoke Stanley's. Sadly for reasons I won't go into on a blog, this venture led to a downfall at Stoke Poker which was very sad and a great game was lost, but it opened a door to a more lucartive game.

I think our little team which consisted of myself, Matt A, Rob Ho, Kev, Jue and Rob Ho, really slided into that game very quickly, i think we the 1st of alot of the new breed there that really gave the old-guard a headache, i think we were all pretty successful there off the bat, I remember Matt and Rob particularly getting some good results there almost immediately. I made many final tables at Stanley's including a 3-way chop at final for a £1000 a piece almost, that was a night with 130 runners! Those were the days, it was the best game in town for sure but sadly I never won a £10 rebuy tournament outright, but did win a couple at the new Stanley's that were freezeouts but for smaller prizes.

So I was into the live poker scene, winning money, spoiling myself with big TV's, a 24 inch Monitor for my computer for some serious online action, a brand new Computer to boot and most importantly..... a trip to Las Vegas and the WSOP 06. So yeah, within 18 months I was going from playing a small but friendly and competitive local game to the biggest game in the world.... seems kinda stupid when you look at it like that, but really it wasn't, it was a fairly logical next step. I had originally intended to go with Matt A but he decided a new guitar, new Xbox 360 and a TV was better than a holiday of a lifetime... I however had my heart set so decided to go it alone anyway.

So I book at in Flamingo, put $1500 aside to buy-in for the cheapest NL event and also bought a $300 seat at mandalay bay for a UFC event that was on at the time, to really make the most of being there. 1st night there was memorable to say the least, I crashed in my room after unpacking for a few hours as I'd not slept for 2 days then proceeded to go to the Flamingo card room at around 6pm for a little bit of cash... a few hours then bed I said, uhuh, not to be. Next time I checked my watch it was 6am and I was a whopping $20 up but had more fun than I'd had in ages. I had the bug real fucking bad there and then.

So I had been there for 3 days and going well in cash games but had not really played any tournament poker prior to the WSOp event, perhaps a mistake but on day 4 it was the big day. Nervous as hell putting £750ish of my hard earned into what was in retrospect a massive gamble, whilst the clock was 60mins starting with 25/25 we only had 1500 in chips and one of the most memorable hands I ever played came on the very 1st hand. It folded round to the SB (how often does that happen in level 1 of a Stoke donkament folks?) and he 150 to go, I look down at JJ. I immediately didn't like this, I wanted better or a fold, something easy but I was on auto-pilot, I re-popped it to 450 and he flat called. So here I am in the biggest game of my life and I already have 1/3 of my chips in the pot on the 1st hand LOL. The flop comes Queen High and he checks and I check behind. The turn comes a blank and i bet 400 and he folds saying he had AK, seems reasonable and i was delighted to get some chips under my belt.

I was doing very well, whilst not felting anyone I got my stack up to around 4000ish and our table broke, I was moved to a table that contained 2 people I recognised. One was Paul Sexton, a guy I'd seen on the WSOP previously who has a famous poker playing brother and father... but also 2 seats to my right was none other than Phil 'The Unibomber' Laak. That was pretty awesome for me, whilst I didn't play a hand directly with Laak at any point he seemed very curious about what I was playing often asking to see my cards and what not. I ran a few bluffs that day and was often shown what they were folding, I couldn't believe it alot of the time, folding top pairs isn't really the norm in Stoke. I got eliminated after nearly (I say nearly in the loosest possible terms) getting someone to lay down AA to my Top pair in a 3 way hand but it wasn't to be. I was out 6 hours after, having beaten 2/3's of the biggest field in WSOP history at that point, I was pleased with how it went but kinda relieved in a way that it was over. I was emotionally and physically drained and wanted to go to my room sharpish LOL.

I came back from Vegas and I played at the Grosvenor the very same night, brimming with confidence, I felt invincible. Now, going to Vegas doesn't autotmatically make you better than the local crowd and that wasn't what I was trying to imply, but I felt my game had moved on, I'd seen a different way to play the game and I was forever changed by my attendence at the WSOP 06, no doubt that is the single biggest influence on my game ever. Shortly after coming back I had a very consistent string of Final Table appearances at Grosvenor and Stanleys and things were going exceptionally well. Sadly for me things got in the way, a mis-hap in poker with a group of friends, my work committments and a person relationship i had at the time put a stop to me playing so often and I almost fell out of the game completely.

I don't think i've ever really recovered from that period, shortly after that came the Grosvenor banning incident and that has really put an end to any aspirations of playing live tournament poker in the UK ever again. That said there is a positive, it made my online game stronger but I long to play in the big casinos again, I miss the interaction, the somewhat easier wins and the rush of live final-table poker. Maybe one day it will come good.

But folks, what experiences made you better at the game? Can you point to your development at one particular instance or was it a series of them. I'd love to know.

Ciao Ciao
Matt

A little card room review - The Loose Cannon - London

Last Thursday night was the tri-monthly PokerStars staff event at Loose Cannon in London. This was my 1st time going to either a staff event or the venue itself so it seemed like a great excuse to kill 2 birds with 1 stone despite the late night offering and being up early for work the next day.For those who are unfamilar with Loose Cannon, it's found on Cannon Street in Westminster (hence the name...) but is not a dedicate Poker Venue, it's also a sports bar and accomplishes both traits rather well. It's a trendy building once you get inside, lots of well lit brick arches, very London (if that makes sense), card room magic features as standard and it houses some really comfortable tables with very plush, thick rail padding.

So the event was pretty cool in itself. PokerStars put on a free bar (all those lovely Bulmers Pear haha!) and a little bit of food and even put on prizes for the event. The structure was simple but not typical, it was 1500 starting chips playing 25/50 with a 15min clock, so it played alot like a sit and go, 2 table shoot out. Basically Stars put prizes from the FPP store up for grades, the winner of each table going to a final to play for a 1st prize of a Wii, 2nd prize of an 8gb IPod and 3rd prize a digital camera. The runner up on each table played for a Nintendo DS, a 2gb Ipod and a mini-chip set.

So my table was alot of girls and a couple of guys all of which had no idea what they were doing (amazing how that can be possible for the world's biggest poker site huh? LOL) but it made for a great fun game. I managed to negociate through the mine field to finish runner up on my table losing a flip with 10,10 vs AJ against the one capable player at the table (Swedish, obv), our table finsihing 1st out of the 10 as I took out 3 players in one hand lol. So it took an good hour before the rest of the field had sorted their games and we had cash games on the side, thank god! I got chatting to a nice Estonian girl at the bar who at been at my table and managed to get her to take my number before jumping into a big of 0.25/0.25 PLO action.

This girl said she'd be my good luck charm... and she was. I bought in for just £10 expecting to donk it off whilst killing time before my final table, I managed to play a little 'Rolf Slotboom' style to build myself a pot, I make a small raise with AKJ9 double suited (not premium but good enough for this game) knowing full way that the button was hyper aggro- and would pot it for me, he obliges and one of the blinds call, i shove my full £10 in and get 2 callers, I hit 2 pair and he misses his flush draw and i take down a nearly £40 pot off the bat. I soon after apologise to the table for bailing but get on my final table. Most at final are either drunk or stupid so this should be easy, right? Well yes it should have been but as usual my donkament poor luck continued...

Without being able to recall all my hands I had 4 spots where I had the money in as a massive favourite and lost everytime, admittedly I ran hella lucky when critically short stacked to triple back up on a rivered gutshot (all-in pre, obv) but bitch that is lady luck eluded my yet again and my Estonian charm had since departed. I ended up finishing 4th on the final so bubbling... typical for me at the moment but a great game for a freebie. sadly I made the mistake of going back on the Omaha table and lost my £40 as quick as I'd won it LOL.

But I'll certain check out Loose Cannon again at some point to see what their own events are like. From my initial experience the dealers were decent ( a reasonable 6/7 out of 10), the cash chips were nice and clunky but tournament chips were generally everything a home game player can buy so that kinda sucks.

I give Loose Cannon a 7/10 score, it has a very Grosvenor Stoke feel to it which makes it relaxing to play at, but I'll re-evaluate this the next time I attend.

A moral quandry of sibling proportions...

I read an interesting post on 2+2 earlier today that really got me thinking. The post was from a user who asked the forum if the fact that he and his wife playing together in a local game (often on the same table) was considered immoral. This really got me thinking as I've often had mixed feelings about this when playing particularly in the Stoke Casino games where this is very common place.

A few interesting points were raised in the article, such as this particular player and his aforementioned wife did not discuss their courtship with other players at the table and the majority of responses agreed they had no obligation to inform the table of this, it only becomes a problem when collusion occurs. That's the moneyshot right there, how hard must it be to not play against your spouse differently than you would against Rob Cook for instance?

It's a subjective matter that's for sure and everyone will feel differently about it which is why it's interesting to discuss. I for one, whilst I don't neccesarily frown upon it could or would never do it myself, the thought of playing competitive poker against a spouse simply doesn't appeal to me in the slightest, it would really affect my enjoyment and my ability to play properly. I think it would be hard for anyone couple to not 'soft play' each other ever so slightly even if their ultimate ambition is to win it for themselves, although there is a case for the opposite in one forum couple (whom i shall not name..... hi dad) whose integrity simply can not be questioned, so I guess it's different wherever you go.

From personal experience, I don't think i've ever played against a pokering couple that I would even consider as competent players (with the exception of the aforementioned) so it beggars the question, can you play in the same game as your spouse and play to a very high standard? If you just play recreationally then it doesn't really matter but if you take your game seriously or even just semi-seriously then i don't think you can. Emotions get in the way, it's simply too hardwired to avoid. I can remember many times that I've seen blokes get their backs up over someone needling their lady for info in a hand, or giving her some verbal probing (ooerr!), but naturally you'd take exception to it, right? So why would you want to put yourself in a situation where your emotions affect 'money decisions'?

So, what do you think folks.... is it moral or immoral? Is it good for your game or does it not matter? Is it any worse than playing in a game where you have friendships with a large % of the players in the field?

K

Thx

Bai

Matt x

A little bit o' Omaha

So it's the bank holiday weekend, I'm crashing at my sister's in Stoke and I'm bored. So what else is a guy to do? No no, I didn't gatecrash Cobridge lights, I read a poker book (of course!).

Thanks to the PokerStars libary (they have a copy of just about everything worth reading free to borrow) I saw this particular title standing out from the usual Sklansky and Harrington-esque titles and decided it would kill a little boredom on the train and any quiet spots over the weekend. I'm about 1/3 of the way through and I can already say it's a brilliant read and I can't wait to finish it.

I'd consider myself to be an already competent PLO player, infact when I 1st started doing this blog I was mostly playing cheeseburger stakes PLO and was making much more than I was playing Hold'em. Seems like a obvious choice to switch game.... well when I finish this book, I might just do it. The great thing about Omaha is that even now it's still a niche game to most, they're are good Hold'em players to be found on every virtual table and in every casino but hardly any good Omaha players. It attracts gamblers with it's endless possibilities for making hands and big draws and they're is always going to be people with bottomless pockets willing the play the game, whereas in Hold'em it's often the opposite type of player, it seems like a no-brainer doesn't it?

Well having read that 1/3 of Rolf Slotboom's book I was really excited about jumping into a game to kill the boredom of the slow weekend. Now the good thing for a tight walleted guy like me about the Slotboom strategy is that it preaches short stack play and in a manner that is exceptionally +EV. I won't go into details, just read the book if you enjoy PLO, but I punted £50 in PokerPlex on iPoker which was about $70 and was looking to buy into a $20 for about $8 a time (full ring as opposed to 6-Max, this is part of the strategy) however, there are lots of full 6-max tables but very few full ring tables being played. This didn't really suit the strategy I was hoping to employ, but I began with 1 x 6 max table in a $20 game, buying in for $8 and a full ring $50 game buying in for $20.

It started off very well, before I knew it I had more than double through on the 6-max table and was getting lots of great spots on the other table but was getting a little unlucky so missing out on some huge pots where I had invested very little to win 4-5 times my stack. I played for about 90mins and had made about $50 profit and came off as the table had become tight and lots of small stacks which was condusive to my Slotboom strategy.

So after enjoying an afternoon of Soccer Saturday with the day's football drama and more back jokes from Jeff Stelling and hiliarious commentary from Paul Merson, I headed over to Matt A's to watch a live stream of the Stoke game and took my laptop to continue my session. I went much better over there. I couldn't find a table at $50 full ring so I decided to step up the game and play $100 Full Ring PLO, buying in for $35. I had a maniac to my immediate left with $250 at the table, in normal circumstances this might not be great, but for this strategy it was absolutely perfect. The idea being that I simply limp in with a super strong/premium Omaha hand, like AAxx or a double suited rundown hand like 8,9,10, J etc then he will, we get a few calls behind and then the pot is this deep enough for me to shove my stack into and theoretcially get only a call from the maniac and lots of dead money in the pot to give me a massive +EV situation.

It worked to great effect, I ended up doubling through the maniac, then after losing a few $'s I doubled through again with a hand which didn't even emply the strategy, I had bad hand in the SB which I completed which was 10,10, x x, the flop came 10, K, 10 and I led out into it hoping someone had a piece of it, either a big draw or a K they didn't want to let go of. Well, I got raised right back by a guy who limped UTG and I just called. turned was a 9 which was a great card as it completed straight and flush draws, I made a small bet into this to appear weak (like a blocking bet) and I got a strong raise right back at me, I just called again. The river was a J, so all likely draws got their and he bets pot, I shove for about $20 more and I'm called and he has KK for an absolute cooler on his part. Very unlucky for him and quads make me $150 up for the day, so around £100 in real money.

I cashed out for £100 profit on a little afternoon dabble, purely as I don't want to play again until I finish the book, then I'll look to do the same again. A pleasing day and maybe the start of a more serious venture into PLO going forward.

Happy Easter folks.