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Monday 25 June 2007

I'm an idiot

So on Saturday I barely played, a bit on Skypoker but accepted that the software is dirt so just withdrew the £21 I had in there which was all profit. Went to see Shrek 3 on Saturday night - pretty good but not as good as number 2 and no where near as funny. I didn't play at all on Saturday night but on Sunday I did.

I didn't have a roll anywhere so decided to play a couple of $10 tournaments on Stars, did shit in them. Then moved to Interpoker - min deposit here is £25 however so I did that, then I went down to £15 ish so i decided to play a £10, 10 man STT, i did the rest on first hand of a cash game so I was down to this tournament or be -£35ish for the day. Well I ended up coming 2nd (although should have been 1st I got unlucky), for £30. So I just withdrew this £30 and didn't play for a while.

I had an early dinner which was good because I wanted to play the PokerStars $10,000 guaranteed at 5pm. So I deposited the $22 and played it - 1350+ runners and I ended up getting 108th for $50. I was very disappointed because I feel I played well and lost the bulk of my stack with 1010 to AK all in pre flop, one of those coin tosses I lost when it mattered. Oh well, I then went to withdraw the $50 but PokerStars have changed their policy so you have to wait 48 hours after depositing before you can withdraw! If it wasn't for this stupid new rule I wouldn't have lost it all playing like a donk in a couple of tournies then tilting the rest off in a cash game.

So now I'm pissed off, slightly tilty and eager to play - bad combo. So it was getting late now, about 11:30pm, but I deposited £90 anyway and sat in 2 rooms of £0.25/£0.50, one room was pretty much Heads Up and the other was 6 handed. On the 6 handed game I lost a £57 pot almost immediately when I had AA against QQ all in pre flop. He spiked a Q on the turn. I eventually lost everything in here and so concentrated on playing the other guy heads up. He managed to take about £20 off me when I made some tilty loose calls against him when he had the goods, then he said he was going to bed and I left the room and sat in £0.50/£1 in a tilt attempted spin mood.

I won a bit and had about £40 at one point but then the inevitable happened, i raised 5 10s and was all in on an A high flop with 2 spades against AQ, I didn't hit my flush and that was that. So I ended up losing about £105 yesterday which is not good cos I don't get paid for ages. I have about £95 left in my bank, and about £50 on its way in from Skypoker and Interpoker. However I have £100 worth of direct debits to pay on the 1st June. Thank god I have a £2000 loan coming my way very soon....

Saturday 23 June 2007

Some live poker

Straight after my last post I remembered that Interpoker owed me 8% rakeback for the first half of June, this equated to about £8.65 so I took it to a £0.15/£0.25 table. I had soon worked it up to £17.50 ish - however that didn't last too long and my loose aggressive style eventually got picked off when someone flopped a set. Losing this seemed to really piss me off but I resisted the temptation to deposit.

I then didn't play again until Thursday night when I went to my local Riley's pool and snooker club for the regular £15 FO they have there every week for a bit of live poker. There were 44 entrants and it was £330 for 1st which was very decent. A lot of the players there are worse than clueless, so you need to find a hand and are almost guaranteed to get paid off. I will give a couple of examples of the donk plays at the end of this post.

Key hands were, in my BB and no one raises I have 9d3d and check, the flop comes 3c 3h 3s!!! So I check my random flopped quads wondering if I am ever gonna be able to get paid, well the action checks round and the turn is the 9c! So i have hit the deck pretty damn hard but my quads are good enough I don't need the full house. I check again and a guy bets 1000 the SB (my mate who I went with) folds, and I min raise it up to 2000, he then to my pleasure decides to re-raise me all in but its only 850 more. I obviously insta call and he shows Q7c for the flush draw (told u the players were bad). He actually hits his flush on the river but it's highly irrelevant seeing as how I had flopped 4 of a kind.

Next hand of significance, my friend to my right (hi Jack!) decides to open raise all in from UTG for about 2600 with the blinds at 300/600. I know he is getting short but didn't really want to look down at QQ (cos he's my mate). Anyway its not like I'm folding to this dweeb so I push all in over the top to protect my hand. He flips up 6c7c (some sort of lucky hand - it's no J9 suited but I'll let him have it) and my Queens hold up to give me a nice stack.

Shortly after we go on a break and I sit back down with about 11K in chips and the blinds shortly go up to 600/1200. I watch some abysmal plays and then get dealt JJ in the BB, everyone folds to the button who limps and the SB makes it 4000. I re-raise all in for another 6100 to the SB. He thinks for a very long time so I then know I'm ahead. After much deliberation he decides to call with AQoff. The door card is a J which makes me happy. However the big bully 10 decides to accompany my friend Jack on the flop then gets his mate the King of Clubs to join him on the turn. This completes the guy's straight and I fail to house up on the river meaning I'm out in about 13th place. Annoying, but with the standard of play, its takedownable sometime soon I'm sure. Was nice to play some live poker for a change too and I am looking forward to going next week.

On a side note, deposited £5 into Skypoker and am playing on the beginner tables at £0.05/£0.10 and the standard of play is awful. Already made about £28 profit from a couple of sessions and took out the £5 so am freerolling there and will see what I can do.

Now for a couple of shocking plays I saw at Riley's. Guy to my left (whom I learnt won the previous week) makes a standard enormous raise and is called by someone in position on him (can't remember exact details, blinds were around the 100/200 stage). Anyway flop comes something like K J 9 all hearts and the pre flop raiser checks other guy bets 1000, gets a call. Turn is a non heart and it goes check check. River is another non heart and the pre flop raiser bets 2000 then gets a call! Pre flop raiser shows 22 no heart and the other guy mucks saying something about the A of hearts! Can't believe 22 was good and can't believe A high called but oh well.

Another one, with blinds at 500/1000 guy to my left makes it 3000 to go, big stack new girl who is clueless calls the raise. flop is K 10 2 with two spades, girl checks, man bets 2000, girl calls. Turn a 9, check, 2000, think, call. River a 6, girl checks again, man bets 2000 again, girl calls. Man shows 56 off and girl shows A6 off and takes down a huge pot - unreal. She then proceeds to call an 8000 all in with Q7 off against A8 and spikes a Q on the river to further increase her donkey-gotten stack. These are just a couple of examples of the awful play which can only be a good thing when u manage to get a hand.

Well I think this post has been long enough so I will end it here, not before saying that I got a promotion at work so I will now be a team leader and get a bit more money too which is very nice and makes me happy. Goodbye!

Monday 18 June 2007

Bankroll - £0.00

Well.........just got home from work on Monday and usually I would be playing now but here's why I'm not. So yesterday I played with that £103 and proceeded to lose the lot I got outdrawn on so sick a couple of time (obviously flopping a set of aces is no match for 24o when he won't fold to big bets and hits a gutshot on the river). Couple of hands like this and a bit of tilt later and I had lost it all.

Sooooooo, I wanted to keep playing obviously, I deposited £50 and proceeded to lose that too. Not happy now I went to the bank to withdraw the £260 that I owed a friend (in case I lost it all online), came home and put another £25 on to crytpo. Made that into about £40 then had to pop out. Came back later, had dinner, felt depressed/hungover and had that Sunday feeling which I always get and hate. Anyway I played the £6000 guaranteed on crypto for £20 and sat with the rest in £0.25/£0.50 - got it up to £30 the left the room. Was playing OK in the tourney, then lost my chips in 2 hands, one hand EP made it 450 with the BB at 150 - I pushed from the BB with JJ and he called with AKc and an A flopped, then a few hands later I push with AQ off and 77 calls, flop is Q high with 3 spades, he has the 7 of spades and hits his flush on the river. I then went with my £30 into Heads Up £0.50/£1 - and got outplayed losing the rest of what I had with A5 against AK all in pre flop.

Feeling tilty I wanted to keep playing this guy, so I tried to deposit £50 but the deposit page was not working on Interpoker. So, I thought I would give Betfair a whirl. I hadn't played on here in aaaaaages - not since its crypto days because I didn't like the new software. However, they have improved it a lot and when I got used to it I actually found it very good. I put £50 in here and sat in 2 rooms of $0.50/$1, I lost my stack in one room so deposited another £25 to give me a $50 stack. Now I ran OK and played for ages finally finishing at 2am with £71 left of the £75 I had deposited. I just cashed it all out because I need the money quite bad as my bank is looking VERY low and I have only just been paid!

However I have only spent £79 of my wages on poker, the rest has gone in debts and buying stuff and partying in London. I just love spending money when I have it, I really am very bad with money which is something I need to sort out. Also realised my job's pay is too pathetic so I am going to look for something else, already found a nice poker related one in London so I am going to apply for that and just see what happens.

So I have no roll right now, and really not to much money left to live with this month, but of course, I still want to play. I'm thinking of sticking to tournaments only and see what happens, need to have a serious think about it - shall have to see what the future holds!

Bankroll - £0.00

Sunday 17 June 2007

Not so good...

Time for an update. Well I played on Thursday night for 1.5 hours and managed to make about £24 which was fine, got an early night then cos I was knackered. Then on Friday when I got home after work I played for about an hour before dinner and made $100 so my roll was up to about £330. I had dinner then played for about 2 hours and ran so so bad, I was getting so many rag hands and when I did get a hand I would lose my aces lost to QQ for a big pot when a Q flopped, I had a huge cooler in the small blind vs. the big blind where I held 7J and the board read 4 8 9 10 rainbow and yes he had JQ. It was just one of those sessions where nothing went right and I lost over $200 (I was playing $0.50/$1) so my roll went down to about £212.

I then went out to my mates house to get pissed but I was thinking about poker a lot and at 2 in the morning and pretty drunk I logged on to his computer and put my money in two rooms of £0.50/£1... To cut a long story short I lost it all, can't remember any hands at all but there was this guy who was bluffing continuously and I just wanted to keep playing. But I had no money, so I checked my online banking to see if my pay cheque had cleared and to my joy/dismay not sure really, it had! I thought uh oh here I go tilting away my wages, but I was pissed and listened to the devil on my shoulder not the angel.

Anyway I decided to play it safe(?) and deposited £75 and sat back in the same room. Now this bluffing guy was my target and I managed to get in lots of pots with him and was able to call him down real light with hands like A5 and an A flopped and he would bluff every street with like 83off in has hand or something. Well I ran well then and span that £75 into about £180 before leaving the room which was breaking up and bluffing fish man had left. I then withdrew £100 and took the rest into $2/$5 in an attempt to spin it up, and also bluffing fish man was in this room playing the same donk way. I started off OK in here before losing my stack on a K high flop with KQ and ran into KA, another K on the turn made no difference cos the river was a 4 and he won the $420ish pot. Well it was 4am then and the birds were starting to sing and the sun was coming up so I thought it best to call it a night so I did. I wasn't too annoyed because I banked the £100 which was £25 more than I deposited although I had no roll anymore and knew I wanted to play again the next day.

So, Saturday came and I was planning on going to London, but wanted to get a session in before I went, so I deposited £50 and sat in 2 rooms of $0.50/$1 with a $50 stack in each, now I ran very good in both rooms and left each with about $130 (would have been about $90 more but some donk called my $5 raise pre when I had AQs and proceeded to call my all in on the turn when the board read Q 6 6 10 with 2 hearts, he called for his whole stack with 93h - a 9 high flush draw on a paired board with 1 card to come for his whole stack, and of course he hit - joke. Nevertheless I made about £75 here which was nice, so I withdrew £25 making me even on my wages, and that left me with about £103 of my original roll.

All in all not good but not a total disaster, at least I have not technically spent any of my wages. Had a great night out in London, spent far too much money but its better than wasting it on poker. Now very tired and hungover but keen to play again. Might also try and qualify for the Poker Stars WSOP 150 seats tournament, will have to see.

Bankroll - £103.65

Thursday 14 June 2007

The first blog...

Hello, me, and welcome to your secret blog that no one is going to know about at least for the time being. It's time to assess your play, bankroll managing skills, tilt tendencies etc. because its time to start becoming a winning player. I have played as high as £10/£20 before and had a bankroll as high as £6500, but various factors contributed to me losing; drunkenness, no respect for money, having too much (free) money available to me (student loan for example), and most importantly of all, a tendency to tilt BIG TIME and literally throw money away on purpose. It makes no sense, but I would like to put all that behind me. I work a full time job now earning £6.50 an hour, I cannot afford to lose my hard EARNED cash anymore, so something needs to change.

The majority of my play will be on crypto at Interpoker, I like the simplicity of the system on crypto, I like the way the hands r turned up before the cards r dealt when 2 or more people are all in in cash games, and various other things. Downside it has a lot of scandinavians who are reputedly good, but to be honest I much prefer playing good players, because u get less suck outs. Having said that there are plenty of fish and I intend to not be one of them and, providing I don't tilt this should not be a problem......famous last words......

Well as it stands I managed to work up my bankroll from what was pretty much my last £30, well it was. I got saved by a lucky river; was playing £0.25/£0.50 Heads Up in a 6-max room, I had AJ, he raised to £2 i re raised to about £6 and he pushed, I dwelt for a long time, before calling my last £30, a bad call but it was just so tempting to press the call button I couldn't resist. Well I did, he had 77 and I hit an Ace on the river, giving me £60, this pretty much saved me because losing that pot would have meant I had no money to play with (as I have nothing in my bank thanks to blowing a load earlier in the month on £1/£2).

Well I have managed to work that £60 in to £258 so far, mainly through cash games, the odd STT and MTT as well. My STT stats for my new Interpoker account are very good as I have been playing very solid so far, however the real money is to be made in cash games and the odd MTT win - but of course these are rare so I will be playing mainly cash games.

I gave the new £0.05p/£0.10p stakes a go on crypto in an attempt to bankroll manage myself, but I soon realised these stakes r just too painfully small and the level of players so bad that it is just too frustrating to play for an hour, make a whopping £4 then lose it all and more to some fishy donks lucky river. So no, I switched to £0.25p/£0.50p and had a lot more success, the standard is better and I think I concentrate more and play better when the money is higher. Its not ideal bankroll management by a long way with only 5 buy ins, but I just cant play lower because I dont play well. Of course there is every likelyhood I will go broke and have to redeposit from my wages which I get paid this weekend, however I already owe loads from that measely pay cheque so I dont really look upon this as an option. Quite simply I will have to not lose, lol I realise how stupid that sounds but its true.

I also don't get a lot of time to play these days because I work full time. During the week I will play for about an hour a night if I play at all, so most of my play is at the weekends. Well, I am going to wish myself luck and hopefully I can steadily increase my roll, the amount of times I have gone broke is stupid tho so I can obviously see this happening to me again, only time will tell. I am hopefully getting poker tracker to help my play develop further and I might even give £0.15p/£0.25p a go cos I am more 'rolled' for that level, lol, I wish myself luck! - I think I will need it!

Bankroll - £258.59