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.