Christmas Cheer & Local Pokers

So, I've been back in Stoke for a number of days, family visits, old flames.. the usual nonsense. So, Boxing Day being as boring as usual it seemed only logical to take a rare opportunity to play some Poker at the Circus. A £20 Freeze-Out seemed conserative enough to tempt me back into action considering how rusty I am at this time, so I popped along with low-expectations and just wanted to have a bit of a time-killer.

I walk in and it felt fantastic to be back, initially there was no one around I knew so I just waltzed around in a bewilderment and a big smile on my face. I head to the desk and to my pleasant surprise I spot a couple of family faces in Shaun 'Shag' & Steve Andreau, Shag in particular being quite receptive which was nice. So I bought in and toodled off to tbe bar, grabbed a coke and sat down to watch some football. Before long I spot Mark 'Rage' Brassington and we enjoyed a handshake and a chin-wag. Mark is one of my favourite characters on the Stoke Poker circuit, ever humble and always a gentleman it was great to see him.

Not far behind was Carlos, again we got to talk about some poker bollocks and life in general and everything seemed back to normal. Sadly I didn't draw any of these faces on my table but did see some other regular characters in Hugh, Ken and eventually Craig Bickerton who registered very late on, always love have Craig on my table as he is good fun and very respectful, although it's probably not so good for your aspirations of winning a tournament! Action is very slow to begin with and as seemingly usual I'm not getting a great number hands, I got AQ on the button on the first level, 3 limpers and I make it 200 to go and get 2 callers, one being a particulary jittery older fellow i've never seen before. I believe the flop was J, 3, 3 so they check and I bet 400 as obligated and the jitter-bug calls, the turn brings a blank for him and he leads out with a large bet and I have no choice but to fold, so I'm 600 down early on.. meh

I get a paultry selection of hands going forward, 4's & 6's were the highlight and I managed to get into the flop cheaply but action forced folds both times and then I find JJ on the button on level 2. One person had limped and I raise to 350 and get a call from the limper and a very conserative small blind, the flop is 8, 8 K which was far from ideal but not the worst flop in the world but with the conversative player in the pot I decided to try and show down cheaply and we all check the flop. The turn brings a low card and SB leads for 400, Hugh who was the limper reluctantly folds and I call. Another low card on the turn and the SB leads again for 600, it's a great bet in fairness to him and I make the crying call and he reveals a conseratively played AK.

At this point I'm down to 2500 and the following hand comes up on level 3, a multiple limp pot, I get 7,7 in late position and normally I might play this harder but don't want to play for all my chips with 7, 7 so just call. The flop comes 4, 5, 6 so I hold an overpair and an OESD, a couple of checks and it goes to Hugh who makes a weak bet of just 300, just 2 x BB and there must be closer to 1200 in the pot... this leaves me stumped.. I can find a case for folding, calling and re-raising here, but with all the action behind I meekly call, this is followed by an all-in and a call and then a reluctant call from Hugh! I decide to fold thinking I can't be in good shape and at least one of these guys has the nuts... wrong! We see one guy with 4, 6 for 2 pair, another with a set of 5's and Hugh who is sitting directly to my right also has 7, 7 and naturally the miracle 8 comes to win him a large pot.

That was the crucial pot for me and I think having played regularly I would have played it differently pre-flop and post-flop and was punished for not following up on my convictions. I went out not too long after when I find a spot for a donk-shove with J2 with several limpers in the pot, it seemed like a good chance to take a largish pot uncontested, but my 2200 was not enough to discourage Ken who held Q10 which held up.

So all around a very pleasant return although my own play was frankly unrecognisable from what I consider my higher standards. I'll be back in Stoke in 2-3 weeks for a gig at the Sugarmill and will certainly be looking to play again.

Ciao Ciao!

Goodbye to an old friend..

Just a quick update today, sadly I've not updated for a few weeks due to zero poker activity, this will change hopefully over the Christmas Period when I head home to Stoke and play a couple of Circus Tournaments and hook up with the old gang.

Today on Google News I was sadly to discover the closure of a friendly little Poker Jaunt in London, Ladbrokes Paddington Casino (as featured in my blog here). As seems to be the trend during the recession and every mounting financial pressure from the UK Government, the little guys just can't compete. I think this venture was always going to be difficult to maintain due to it's highly upmarket location (annexed to Paddington Hilton Hotel) it was always going to be extremely hard to run this at a profit.

I enjoyed a couple of good nights out here when living in London, including one particularly note-worthy night of Poker. With this closing and Loose Cannon effectively no longer offering Poker it seems the choices just lessened every so slightly for the London Poker scene.

Ciao for now.

M

Teh Pokers on Location

Quite recently a couple of my Poker playing buddies (Kev B, Kev S and Jools) headed over to the Killarney for the Irish Poker Open having qualified on Ladbrokes Poker (I think? lol). Sadly they were unable to make a big score although Kev B did come home with some change for us endeavours as you'd expect, his tournament game has really progressed in the last 2-3 years.

But it got me wondering about the worth of making journeys to far and beyond with the sole intention of playing Poker. Now not being totally oblivious to the fact that Killarney is in a nice spot of the world, I'm sure our heroes also took the time to see a bit of the area and enjoy a few pints of Guinness along the way, but of course Poker was their main motivation for going to Killarney, so I was wondering if this at affected their game?

Let's consider the cirumstances involved here for our heroes. They'll have had to of taken a number of days off work to attend this tournament, caught a flight to Ireland (Shannon Airport) and then drove 2.5 hours to Killarney and all this before a single card is in the air. Then begins a long and arduous tournament consisting of 15k chips and a 1 hour clock, it's going to be a long road and massively different to the kind of formats our patrons are used to.

Clearly our crew got unlucky along the way, but do these combined factors listed above affect our game? Did they ever once think to themselves "well i've come all this way, I can't make this risk on this hand' kind of thing? Personally I think our players in this instance are too strong for that line of thinking, however I think it's possible that all the other pyschological factors can play on a person, particularly if you don't do this kind of thing often.

I can recall from my own experience playing a low buy-in event at the '06 WSOP that it's a drain on you, whilst I didn't play bad I certainly didn't play great either and come the end of it I was actually 'genuinely pleased' to be eliminated, it was that gruelling. I think for myself, I wouldn't take a long journey with the main purpose of going to simply play Poker for a couple of days (1 big tournament for example), I believe that if you're going for a couple of weeks, say to a big festival and you intend to play over many days you will get better as it progress and you'll reach form before it is time to depart, whereas if it's a 1-2 day trip the factors are not in your favour to perform against locals or regular circuit players are comfortable in these conditions.
Food for thought perhaps for you Poker Playing revellers?

Big Game - The Result

Well just a brief update to accompany my previous blog. We played the big game last night and as expected it was beefy to say the least. Needless to say I didn't see much action early, I had a couple pots I took down some multi-limps when dealt big hands in the blinds and made decent preflop raises. 1st hand I got stuck into was a hand with AA under the gun. It's important to realise at this point that the game has been fairly aggressive, almost no limped pots, and the standard raise pre was to £7, so I limp, a couple behind me and then a raise from middle position to £9, one more caller and re-pop it to £31 and everyone folds. It wasn't particularly dramatic but roused some debate at the table as to what I was holding, which is always a good thing.

I pick a few small pots along the way and I'm up about £120 where a very interesting hand occurs. It's multiway limpage and I have 6, 7 suited on the BB so happy to see the flop here. Comes 4, 5, 6 rainbow, I check and there is a bet and a call, my theory is I have to take control of this hand right away to stop the pot size getting out of my control and maybe force a fold before the river if I can, I think the bet was £12 and I pop it up to £35, they both call. The turn is a 3 which looks like gold and I bet £55 where the original flop raiser shoves.... the other caller debates for a while and mucks looking pissed.... this is a tough spot, I'm finding 7, 8 to be a stretch but it's certainly not impossible, I try to convince myself it might be a deuce but that makes no sense to call my raise so my logical conclusion is we're chopping with one card to come and it's going to cost me £280 to find out. After much deliberation I manage to negotiate a return of my £55 and to see his cards if I fold, so I think this is a good result for me and he shows 7, 9 for the same straight plus a redraw, the other guy also had a 7, so pretty remarkable hand really. In all fairness, Bob played the hand very well, although I think when he made the move he originally thought I had a set when I reraised the flop and went for the kill on the turn. I wish I had the exact numbers to hand to work out if me taking that £55 back and not calling for a chop was a good move, but it seemed to be value to me at the time as I was convinced I couldn't be winning in that spot.

Well the game played on but if I am honest that kinda blew my confidence a little and found myself playing ABC thereafter, although a pretty cool hand came up against Princey who has been very tight all night, I'm feeling frisky and make it £6 utg with 3, 2 suited, and he pops it to £15 from the button, I call. Flop comes 8, J, 10 , we both check to the river and the board is now 7, 8, 10, J, Q and a possible flush on, I'm just thinking I can't really bluff into that versus his range and sheepishly check, he looks at me, smiles he clearly doesn't know where he is at either but I'm giving out all the signals I'm beat, but he checks. 'I play the board' I say.... 'really? So am i' and turns 5, 3 for a pretty big laugh from everyone and we chop a baby pot.

On the whole it's made me realise how much I miss playing live although it's a little bigger than I would like to play right now, £1/£2 afterall is much bigger than $1/$2 which is as big as i've played live before. The potential for ruin is very big, as demonstrated in one of the last pots of the night where a guy flopped an Ace-High flush versus a straight flush and naturally all the money went in for a £700+ pot, pretty outrageous for a home game lol. I'm not sure at this point where I'm heading in the game, I've considered going back online and maybe playing Limit, either HE or Omaha but I really don't want to play on FTP or iPoker.

Decisions, Decisions

Fun or Finance - Crossing the Line

I hope I'll be forgiven for the relative lack of blogging as of late. After an initial bad run in my PLO experiment I decided I'd be happy saving my money rather than spunking it online and I'm taking a little break. Truth be told I've not really 'enjoyed' playing online poker since I had to stop playing on PokerStars. I know some might say "you can find a game elsewhere' or 'Full-Tilt is just as good' etc, but to me none of them really are and when you're putting serious hours in enjoyment becomes a significant part of the game.

So anyways, that's a little background which brings me to the purpose of this particular blog entry. Although I've stopped playing online for the time being, I still have an itch to get in the game. I think if I were in Stoke I'd be at the Circus quite often this week, but alas the Isle of Man has little live Poker to speak of. That was until a few of us from work got talking during a little drinking session last friday at the local watering-hole. This was when the idea of having a home game was brought up...

Initially I wasn't impressed as I played a baby stakes home SNG here a few weeks ago and couldn't have been more bored. However the guy in question wasn't talk about a typical £10 donkament, he wanted to experiment in a 'modest stakes cash game'.
OK, so he has my attention at this point, I'm all ears.

Now it's important to note at this point that the person I'm speaking about I know is a good player and his circle of poker playing friends often get together to play some fairly folklore soaked Dealers Choice games, so i was airing on the side of caution. Anyways, his idea was to play an NL Hold'em game only, no variations but £1/£2 with a 25p ante.... I think my arse dropped on the spot. That would officially make this the largest live cash game I'd ever played in. After discussions on who might be invited and their penchants for out and out gambling I decided to sign up, although I'm wondering if this is a good idea. Thinking about this more logically I'm wondering if the size of this game will affect my performance, £1/£2 is alot bigger than $1/$2 nevermind having the 25p ante thrown in on top! I'm figuring I'll take 2 buy-ins (£400) and hope for the best.

But this poses the question in the blog title, where does a supposedly fun home game cross the line and become something much more? Needless to say I'll do my best to socialise with my workmates but I'll be taking the game extremely seriously. Or maybe i've bitten off more than I can comfortably chew on this one? Game is this weekend, report will come later lol.

Raking it on iPoker

Recent adventures in PLO have been swongy to say the least. Dispite my relatively poor on Full Tilt I worked my balance back to break even, got my $100 bouns for testing the new client and decided to cash out. Now this wasn't a full retreat, but more of a tactical one. The reason being I'd received an email a few days ago from a website I'd signed up with many agos called 'Rakeback Check'.

They kindly informed me that as CelebPoker was moving to the iPoker network (story as featured at UKpokerinfo.co.uk) they would honour any new account sign ups that registered with them on the boss network which allows 30% rakeback and the new account would inherit your rakeback status upon migration. So this was too an opportunity to miss, iPoker doesn't normally allow rakeback and the PLO game is considerably softer on iPoker, so it seemed like a great deal.

So I played a couple of sessions so far on iPoker with CelebPoker and it hasn't really gone to plan, the first night I played I think I churned out about 500 hands just to reaccquaint myself with the software and finished up a couple of buy-ins, but then the following night I played and really didn't do myself any favours. To be honest a couple of times I got the money in very far ahead and got rattled on the river, shit happens. But I think turned me in ultra aggressive mode, something I blame on the new book I'm reading, Jeff Hwang's Advanced Pot Limit Omaha which unlike the Slotboom book focusses more on short handed games but encourages a very aggressive game.

To be fair in the large part his tactics worked, anytime someone doesn't bet pot, call and then pot bet the next street and it's impressive how often they fold. Sadly that I took this a little bit too much to heart and on more than one occassion I bluffed a stuck into the nuts LOL. Oh well, we live and learn and I've got to make further adjustments in my game in order to successfully going from a tighter full ring game style to a loose-aggressive short handed one. But I'm hoping with rakeback as a fall-back if I can survive the short term swongs than the long term looks quite rosey.

Ciao for now.

1st week of Pure PLO

Following on my last blog, I apologise it's been a while since the last update but having recently moved to Isle of Man and all the drama that goes with it took me a while to find the motivation (nevermind 'the time') to play.

I recently managed to get myself fixed up on Full Tilt Poker with a rakeback deal at 27% and the 100% match up bounus, which I plummed in £200 worth so around $325 in USDeeee's. Also FTP have just recently launched a new client which adds some much need game filters amongst other things to the lobby, as such they are offering a free $100 bonus which is released in one go and seems to be accumulating much faster than the normal bouns so that's cool.

Anyways onto the games. Needless to say this has been one of the most fustrating experiences in my days playing Internet Pokers. As followers of my blog will know, I like to employ the Slotboom short stack style in Full Ring PLO games, however this strategy is dependent on being able to trick aggressive players into creating big pots pre-flop versus your premium rundown hands (10,J,Q,K for example) or your strong AAxx combo's. Sadly it seems no one on FTP is willing to play ball. I've never played against such passive opponents before, it's really very confusing as to what they are thinking, never mind what they are holding!

My experience so far has been making small or pot sized raises preflop in order to build a pot, from experience this will result in getting usually 1 maybe 2 callers, however on FTP when someone raises they auto suspect you have AA or KK and you'll get lots and lots of callers. So you'll see the flop and miss with your AA/KK as you often will and they check around to you, you bet like you're supposed to and you'll very often get called and they drop the hammer on you on the turn.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm familiar with floating and do it often, but floating multiway is extremely advanced (if not stupid), so either I'm getting completely gamed or these guys are smoking something exotic. Not to mention I'm getting unlucky, the amount of times I'm getting fucked by gutshots and similarly tiny draws even makes this sensible mind question the integrity of the game on FTP..... well no, not really but I've done some major facepalms this week lol.

So, having played 2100 hands this week I'm $136 down (+$60 in accumulated bonuses) which is really depressing if i'm honest. I'm stuck with FTP at least for the time being whilst I at the very least attempt to nail this free $100 bouns, I'm hoping variance evens out a little or I start to figure out these guys, otherwise maybe I have to admit that I can't beat this game and look elsewhere.

Ciao darlings.

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.

Online Progress Report.... I'm running good zOMG!

Yes folks that's right, after shitty times on Betfair and Full-Tilt I'm finally settling into a home on iPoker, PokerPlex to be precise after a recommendation from a fellow player (ty Chris). Thanks to his intervention they got me immediately onto their 2nd highest VIP tier, which doesn't mean a massive amount off the bat but will allow me to redeem their Deposit & Bottomless bonus offers somewhat quicker and if I keep playing a decent amount I can get a new iPod from their limited shop, but hey I don't mind a free Nano.

So to the Poker... as the graph below indicates the initial road was rocky, I was just above and below even for a while after taking some dodgy beats early on but more recently I've done very well indeed. I attriubute this somewhat to the re-discovery of an old tool, EYEPoker by SpadeIT. It's a tool that allows you to important 'observed' hand-histories into Poker Tracker which is simply golden. So i've had the computer on all day/night collecting 16 tables at a time's worth of HH's so I'm getting a decent breakdown of who the fish are. You can then use EYEPoker to scan the tables in real time and give it a search criteria on what kind of players you want to it find based on PT data. Truly awesome stuff and has made a big difference.

As I'm playing with a limited bank roll (yet again, you big fucking fish!) I'm buying in for around 60BBs. In English, I deposited $200, playing $20NL and buying in for $12 bucks a time. This helps my game in the following ways;

1) I can apply pressure to an opponent with a good raise in a hand knowing that I cannot get pushed off it.

2) Bad Beats cost me less lol

However it has it's fall backs too, such as not getting maximum value for my big hands for instance, but from what I recall from my play thus far I've not been all-in more times than I can count on 1 hand anyhow, so perhaps it's a good course at this level.

I've also added a little to my game. I'm finding myself taking floats more often now when faced with aggression on the flop. For anyone who is unaware of floating, this is when you call with a weak hand in order to bluff later streets, it takes some intuitive reading of how the game has been running to do effectively but when done correctly can really keep your head above water. A typical float play would see me call a preflop raise (i like this play when out of position) against a player with a predictable range, checking for a c-bet or sometimes making a weak lead and then calling a reraise with the intention of betting any card on the turn. Usually calling that flop reraise and then leading for 50% of the pot will take it down fairly often, but use vigiliantly!

Needless to say in the last 2 days I've ran super well, the last 700 hands have been exceptionally kind, everything has gone right and even been given a couple of gifts along the way... check this out.

Hand #1487530461 begins at 2009/03/12
Dealing down cards
Dealt to EiN7 [As Js]
gaia91 posts the small blind of $0.10
GingerLynn posts the big blind of $0.20
PPPolutioNNN raises to $0.60.
EiN7 raises to $1.80.
T1LTwhept folds.
gaia91 folds.
GingerLynn folds.
PPPolutioNNN calls $1.20.
Dealing Flop [7h 8c Qs]
PPPolutioNNN checks.
EiN7 bets $1.95.
PPPolutioNNN calls $1.95.
Dealing Turn [6s]
PPPolutioNNN checks.
EiN7 checks.
Dealing River [3s]
PPPolutioNNN bets $48.42, and is all-in.
EiN7 calls $9.13, and is all-in.
PPPolutioNNN shows [9s 8s]
PPPolutioNNN has Flush, Queen High
EiN7 wins $25.06

Tough break for that guy, but the all-in on the river is suspect. I presume he wants it to look like a bluff and would have worked if I had not had such a monster. It's an easy game when you run well folks, I'm feeling good about my cash game for the first time in months. I've always had a crutch that my cash game is nowhere near as strong as my tournament game, maybe this is the case and I'm 100% sure I have much to improve upon in side-games but the nack is there at the moment and bugger me..... i'm actually enjoying it.

GL and have a good weekend folks.

Matt

Can you ever see yourself 'NOT' playing Poker?

I recently asked myself this question..... it's a weird one isn't it?

The reason I ask myself this is because so many people I admire and respect, both as players and as people have walked away from the game which they once really enjoyed and/or made a killing out of. For those who read my blog from the Stoke Poker Scene then I'm referring to people like Jon Marlow, Parsy, Matt A and they're are probably numerous others that have drifted out of the game. They seem happy without it and find other pursuits more enjoyable now, good for them I say, you probably shouldn't play Poker if it causes you misery that's for sure.

I've found myself in similar situations before, where the cost of playing poker (not necesarily financially) became more than worth the bother, I'm talking about the Stoke Poker debacle, The Ben-Gate saga and my ongoing dispute with Grosvenor Casinos as 3 things that caused me misery over time. Thankfully the 1st 2 are well in the past, forgiven and forgotten and can be put down to experience (or lack of), the latter however is just an on-going indicator of the more shady things a poker player has to put up with over time.

Saying that, I went through a stage where I simply couldn't face going to a casino, even when I was doing well. I became resentful of spending my free time in Casinos everynight, sometimes with people I like but quite often with people I wouldn't give the time of day to and you don't always see it but it can affect you outside of the game. I know Poker has contributed to me losing at least 1 important relationship in my life and whilst they generally don't say it, my family think I have a gambling problem..... crazy really when you wouldn't really catch me never a pit game and I don't tend to bet on anything with the exception of a couple of quid on football at the weekends, but that is a stigma I don't enjoy.... at all.

It's not all bad of course.... how could it be? We wouldn't play if it was all bad right? I'm the 1st to admit to myself that I've wasted a good understanding of the game during it's best years in terms of bringing new people into the fray by not playing often enough, not playing long enough, not building my roll and finding excuses to do other things. That said, I am a winning player, Poker has made me money that I'd not of got from anywhere else that's for sure.

I've not won fortunes or anything silly like that and I'm not going to pretend otherwise, but it's afforded me a few luxaries in life I'm grateful for, such as expensive new TV's, Computers, Laptops and my dream holiday to Vegas and playing in the $1000 buy-in at the 06' WSOP, that is something I am unlikely to repeat and never will forget. You also cannot underwrite the value of friendships made through playing Poker,

I've moaned that I've met some truly horrible people through playing live but I've also met some of the finest people I know and don't take my relationship with these people for granted at all.
But to me.... it really doesn't matter about what's good and what isn't good about the peripheral aspects of playing Poker. What matters to me and what always has been the most important thing is.... MONEY. I could have walked away from the game many times over due to the reasons I listed above but have chose not to and the reason for that is this....

There is a big fat fucking poker-pie and I want my slice. I want my share of the free money flying around. I don't pretend to bet he best player on the planet, but I am good enough to beat the game. Whilst there is money to be made in Poker and I'm still good enough to win my share of it, I simply will not walk away. That is the be all and end all....

But what about you folks? Do you now play for fun? Play for the glory or the money? And can you see yourself able to walk away easily when the time suits you, or are you here for the long-haul?

Ciao

Matt

In the words of Jean-Luc Picard....

So today out of boredom I decided to deposit some money into Betfair Poker. My rationale behind this was as follows;

1) A good sign up bonus

2) Biggest Sports Betting Site in Europe = donkalicious

3) I can accquire Rakeback

So anyhow I register, sign up for the RB program and sit down to play some $0.10/$0.20 4 tabling some 6-max action. Well I was right about the play being atrocious, got lots of bad calls sometimes in my favour and obviously sometimes not....

But my gripe, hence the title of this blog is the god-awful Software.... talk about trying too hard. I've never seen anything quite so fiddly in all my life, mutli-tabling is an absolute nightmare as it doesn't make it terribly clear on which table is live and/or waiting for action at any time, sound effects play on all tables as opposed to just the one you are currently playing which is grinding.... and you can only mute or unmute the sounds and they are the best (lesser of all the evils) indicator that you have action waiting. Whilst you can resize tables manually, the auto resize functions are quite terrible and to top it all off the bet slider is extremely fiddly which leads to you manually typing in your bets constantly.... this defeats the object of multi-tabling.

So after donking around for a while and making a small loss I've decided that I simply cannot play on this site, it's tooooooo tilting even when the cards fall, just a generally enjoyable experience. I think it's 888 next and failing that then i'll just stick to iPoker for a while, it's generally unimpressive but very no frills and functional so we can give it a good go.

Ciao Ciao.

Check Dem Gwaphz

Check out my awesome Graph. After feeling like I've been banging my head against a brick wall for god knows how long playing 6-max NL I decided to switch it up and try a little $0.50/$1 FL.

Needless to say it's a bumpy ride as expected, some of the play is quite amazingly bad, you can see that downswing at 1200 hands or so was me flopping sets to get busted by runner runner straights/flushes on more than one ocassion, it was a slow grind back up to break even but I got there. I'm in 2 minds whether to carry on or not as at the minute it's 1) Matt minus $5, Full Tilt Poker +$52.65 in rake over 2000 hands and I can't get a rakeback deal as I didn't sign up through an affiliate back i 2005.... whats my motivation here?

Oh well, hope everyone had a good weekend!

Ciao Ciao

LOL Downswingaments

So it begins.... if've been a little bit up, a little bit down in my 1st few days playing FTP, pretty much grinding even. A couple of nights ago I had a good session making a buy-in profit after a bad start so I was becoming optimistic for my chances on FTP.

Sadly this did not last. I start a session last night that started.... unbelievably well, hands we getting paid off, draws connecting and a couple of nice C-Bet floats/steals and I was about 3 buy-ins up in no time. Then it all start going wrong when I lost a pot with a flush v bigger flush, shoved AK into AA from a button raise on my BB and it goes on.

I then had a run in with a guy who was either a soul-reader or very loosey goosey, at these stakes I'm leaning towards the latter but who knows what devine inspiration could have been involved here, the lord revealeth thyself in mysterious ways indeed. Sadly I don't have the HH's as I'm doing this from work but 1st hand I 3x BB it up with KQ and he min-reraises back from the blinds... LOL. So I call and it's raggy, he checks I bet 3/4 pot he calls, I bet hald the pot on the turn and river which were all fairly inoxuious for him to call me down with AJ high.... what a guy. The next one I have 99's and jack it up, he min-reraises me again, I pop him back a notch and he calls. Board of 2,5,10 and I'm thinking my 9's are still good, I lead, he calls. Turn is J and I check as the texture of board gets nastier and he checks. Rag on the river and I make a half pot bet thinking as he's shown little aggression I'm probably good (perhaps a check behind was wiser here) and he just smooth calls with AJ again..... why call on the flop to make your hand to then check/call it down? zOMG?!?!?

Next hand I'm in late position again with A8s and pot bet from the button and he calls on the BB, 8 high flop looks nice, I make a large C-bet (nearly pot) to look weak and wanting to take this down, hoping he'll go spazzy on me and raise... which he duely does, I call to ensure no danger cards hit the turn, i've 1/3 my stack in at this point and the turn is another under card, he makes a small bet and I shove, he calls and has JJ this time.... so i lost the best part of 3 buy-ins to a complete moron on an inspired heater... nice.

The cap the next off I lost a hand where I raised it up with KQ, flop comes Q high with 3 hearts, I have the Kh, I bet pot, get shoved into, a massive over bet which in this spot is normally a flush draw so I insta call and he indeed just has the A of hearts, flush misses but makes the ace on the river to stack me, so cruel and then lose a monster pot with AA, when a limper and a raiser in early position come to the flop with me after I jack it up, 9 high flop, aces still looking nice, I make a big bet on the flop and i'm reraised by the original raiser and I shove and he has KK, makes a set on the turn....

I manage to get out of FTP with half my original deposit in tact, it was a fucking horrible run, from 3 buyins up to losing 6-7 buyins on the night, utter utter balls. I think thats my time on FTP over for now, I hate the frickin' software anyhow and this loss is a good enough excuse for me to try something else. When the finances are looking a bit smarter I may try party or even iPoker (Spade-It ftw folks, get mining them tables!) and see what happens, might go back to FTP for the odd tournie but I just hate the client too much to sit in front of it for hours every night playing cash. Grrrrrrrr.

Ciao Ciao lovers.

M x

Moving to the enemy...

So, it's a snowy day in good old London Town and naturally the world comes to a complete stand still, we really are quite wimpy when it comes to minorly adverse weather, however that did afford me an extra day off this weekend with no buses or tubes running \0/

So I decided to stick $100 in FTP as I can no longer play on Stars due to my employment with them. This really is a crying shame as not even their nearest rivals are anywhere near the quality of software or games as PokerStars, but not much I can do about that, it's the next best game in town so I gotta be happy with it.

As I didn't really fancy grinding away at cheeseburger stakes like I normally would on a new deposit (FTP is notorious for shamefully large rake on <$0.10 games) that I'd jump in at NL $25 6-max and 4 table it playing $15 buy-ins (60BBs). I like doing this with a shorter bankroll, my stack will allow me to take some decent pots down and shove with more reckless abandon on hands like JJ, AQ, AK for the lulz.

So without going into too many specific hands (purely I don't have them at work lol) I spend the day clocking up about 3000 hands, unlocking a whopping $10 of my deposit bonus and pretty much breaking even. the amount of times I got done for set over set, or trips vs Boats was somewhat discouraging, but hey that's Pokah! There does seem a noticeable shift in aggressive preflop play compared to the same levels on Stars, there is so much re-popping going on from any postional raises (not necesarily steals) it's quite hard to work out if you are being messed with or they have something, so this is going to lead to some juicy swongs in the near future I can tell! But importantly I haven't been afraid to return the favour which helps keep that BB per hour slightly above the red.

I'll update again when i've hit 10K of hands and who knows.... you might get GWAPHz!

Ciao for now douche-bags.

M x

27/01/09 - Ladbrokes Casino, Paddington - London - £10 Rebuy

Hey douchebags,

As promised, here is the follow up to the Casino review with the actual event report. So... I'm bored after a long day at work and I had home but I'm feeling the twinge to play some Poker... I ponder depositing into Full Tilt but resist temptation to do so and decide to hit FIFA 09 on Xbox Live instead...

After getting my arse handed to me by complete luck-boxes I'm into the semi-tilt (Joypad biting rather than smashing at this point) and decide I need to go out. I'd considered playing at Ladbrokes Casino the night before but gave it a miss as I have to be up early for work but tonight "fuck it".

So I hop onto the #7 busy and thanks to the miracle that is the Oyster Card it only costs £1, that somehow makes London travel cheaper than Stoke! (zOMG!) and within 20mins I am at the Casino. I pop down the stairs and head to the card room to register. Now one thing I failed to mention in my casino review was that this casino feels every so slightly like Broad Street Stanley's to me (for those who can remember). It's underground with a low ceiling and a little dark (although much more plush) but it has that slightly seedy but safe feel to it rather than tacky neon that you get in you're typical modern casino, so it kinda felt familar.

So I'm watching the rest of the folks register as I think I'm one of the 1st, eyeing up the competition, you can quickly tell who is going to be of concern and who is going to be feeding your stack alot of the time, just listening to how they talk and their mannerisms. There was a handful of older guys, you know the types who wear the same 'uniform' to go gambling every night, a few middle aged chaps with too much dosh and a minor interest in Poker and then the wannabe young superstars who are giving it 'the bigg'un'. There was this one guy who really made me laugh, he much of been late 30's and was wearing this quite incredible black hoodie with a large Ace of Spades on the back made from sequins (mind my spelling) but you just know that was his special poker 'comforter' lol.

I get an interesting table draw, there are 4 tables and I have good mix on my table, old guy to my left who was playing most hands, a group of 3 younger guys who talked a good game and clearly knew each other and 1 seemingly Arab older gambler who was pretty nuts. So I'm folding a few hands as I want to get a feel for what everyone is playing. Doesn't take me long to see that the hand selection is far from extraordinary, as you might expect for a rebuy tourny. So it gets to 2nd orbit and the blinds are 50/100 and I haven't played a hand, folds aroudn to mid-late who calls, button calls also, I complete with A3 of clubs and the BB checks.

FLOP - Kc, 9c, Jx

I check it, BB checks, Mid-late checks and the button opens it up for 100, I call, BB folds and mid-late calls. The Turn brings a low-club and I have the nuts. I check again, mid-late checks and the button bets big this time around 300. I just call, mid-late calls also. River is a red deuce. I find the reserve to check it one last time, mid-late checks and thankfully the button bets 500 again, I shove for the extra grand, mid-late folds and the button quickly calls so I gathered he may have had a small flush, but flips Q10 for a flopped straight. Unlucky him but made it too cheap for me so I collect around 5K for that hand.

I get another couple of hands in JJ and TT that I'm fortunate enough to be able to make small raises with 1st preflop and get out on the flop to some multi-way heat without losing too many chips, I then get in a hand with the Button guy from the previous hand where he makes a minimum raise against my BB and an UTG limper calls, i come in for the ride with A9.

Flop is A, A, 3

I check, utg checks and the our aggressor bets again 400. I call, the limper goes out.

Turn is an 8 - this time he bets 1000. I'm slightly concerned now that I could be outkicked here, I'm content to show this one down if possible so do not get overly aggressive with it. I just smooth call. The River brings a rag, I check it and so does he. He shows KK and I take another pot, slightly disappointed I missed a bet there but I was content with the pot. So I''m up to around 7000 chips, I lose a hand again with JJ where I call a short stacked 1500 chips all-in who found aces but replish them where I find an interesting spot.

I'm the SB and it's 5 limps around to me and I find 7, 7 and decide this is too good a spot to not steal the dead money, blinds are 100/200 and I jack it up to 1800 total, BB comes in for a fresh rebuy of 2000 and the rest go out, I make up the small change and I'm delighted to see 3, 3 in his pocket, 7's hold and I take his 2k plus around 1k in dead money and back up to 8.5k. That gets to the end of rebuys and I top up for £10 more and i'm sitting on around 10.5k.

First hand back and I'm the button, one of the young guys from the group who i'd say was the trickiest on the table and well stacked around 18k min raises.... I have 5, 5 and I call, the blinds go out. I know this guy will C-Bet any flop so I'm prepared to play alot of flops here unless it's all paint. K, K, 3 and it doesn't get much better for my hand than that, he bets out 1000 (blinds are 200/400) and I call. the turn is a 3, I fucking love this card, as it now makes Ace-High seem very good indeed and he may feel if he can't win that he might be on a split at least. He bets 1800 on the turn and I call. River is an 8, he checks and I check behind happy to show it down and he shouts "I got Ace-High Baby" expecting it to be good, I think he was surprised at my hand, congrats me on a nicely played hand but I wasn't sure if he was being sarky to be honest, but I always like being able to use someone's aggression. against them and a 6k pot with a marginal hand, nice!

That gets me to around 15k or so and I find another couple of spots to steal dead money from the pot to build an extra few K. I'm sitting on 18k when we hit the final table. This wasn't as much as I'd like but 9-handed I was top 4 in chips so that's just fine. I have the young aggressive guy to my right on the final which I didn't like but there you go, the rest of the table was somewhat open to examination. I'm BB for the first hand at 600/1200 and it folds around to a lady on the button, shes the obligatory lady-gambler at the casino (every casino has one.... no Jules not you!) sitting in a big parker coat and jeans as if she's never had central heating or something lol, but she was ultra serious and she jacks up my BB just as I expect her to. I'm really leaning towards re-popping her here, she definately doesn't have to have a hand here to make the play.... so i stare down at 2, 4 off suit..... my aggressive tendencies desert me and I don't have the heart to make a move, if it was something barely connecting further up the chart I may have repopped her or played a stop and go but the hand just isn't worth the trouble considering I've never seen her play and I dump it...... but I don't like it.

A couple of hands later and the action folds to a gentleman in mid-late who I can only describe as Errol Brown's twin, it made me giggle everytime I looked at him, but his poker left something to be desired. I listened to him talk in the break and knew he was a fish. You know when you hear a person talk about hands like KJ, A10 with massive over excitement..... and therefore know he is easy money, well that's Errol Brown. So anyways, he limps and so does our aggro-lady. I look down at KQs on the button so there is 2 x 1200 here plus 1800 blinds, I simply have to make a play here. I jack it up 4800 on top. I thought this would get through, the young guy in the blinds makes a painful call... as does Errol, so we have a big pot now.

FLOP - K, 10, 7 with 2 hearts (i have spades sadly) but I waste no time jacking in my last 10K. Young guy slowly mucks, mentions a tight fold so I'm guessing he has Jacks here and wanted a safe board to shove into, Errol starts playing with his chips... takes ages and then does that sudden chip slam (like they've just had a devine epithany) and he shows me J10! I'm loving it and flip my hand and he says "I knew you had it, yep"..... i never tire of hearing that. So, Mr Brown has a J of hearts in his hand, naturally.... you know what's coming. 8h on the turn giving him a gutter and flush and Ah on the river to crash me out...... I was flabberghasted. I sat in shock for a few seconds and then left the table saying goodluck to everyone, not going back to my old routine of getting pissed at the table or berating his play as his play was perfect for me, I want his call all day but yet again I'm beaten upside the head by the deck.

It's very disappointing as I was enjoying the game, playing confidently and somewhat impeccably and yet again get the money in as a massive favourite only to get punished by lady-luck, been the story of all my live-games of recent months at jade-Rooms and Coachman's so it has to change soon...... right?

Oh well, it was an enjoyable venture and I shall no doubt play their again but I'd be lying if I said that one isn't stinging even the morning after.

Ciao Ciao guys.

M