I'm rich!

Well, sort of. Not through poker though, I'll explain in a minute. First though, after the success of my last post the inevitable happened and I lost the £350; a couple of coolers and it's all over with only a couple of buy ins. I couldn't find a fold with K6 on a K67 rainbow flop out of the SB in a limped family pot for example, he had 77 of course. Losing this didn't really bother me that much it was likely to happen and I knew that, and it's not like it's the first time I've lost that amount of money! I just wish I could bring myself to withdraw more when I win nice sums of cash, but no I always tell myself I want to build a roll and end up losing it, countless times I could have withdrawn decent amounts. Oh well. I went on to lose another £90 from my bank, but stopped there, which I thought rather disicplined. I still managed to bank a win of about £150 or so over the week or so period, and of course made some rakeback, so not all was lost!

So I've not played poker in nearly a week, owing to lack of funds and working overtime at my job, coupled with gym and having some sort of social life doesn't leave a lot of free time. But anyway on to the rich bit. I think I mentioned in a previous post about the money I am owed from my last job, just under £5,000. I have been owed this for nearly a year now and never thought I would see a penny of it really. However some meeting occured with their accountants and we were told we should get something, I filled out some form they sent me and thought no more of it. Well on Friday morning before work I go to check my online banking to see if I had been paid my wages (I hadn't, surprisingly) but to my shock/joy there was an automated credit for £1896 gone into my account!!! I had no idea this was coming and was a little taken aback, but it put me in a good mood for the rest of the day, despite spending all day weeding! I was hoping it wasn't some error my boss had made because the transaction didn't say where it was from at first, I found out when I got home however it was indeed some insolvency money so happy days! They owe me more of course but that should come at a later date.

All it really means though is that I am no longer overdrawn and just slightly in the black with regards to my bank account for the first time in aaaaaaages. But when it says I have over £2,000 available it does look so nice and tempting! I have to remember I have a £2K overdraft though, bank's money not mine! I haven't put any into poker yet, I'm hesitant to, although having money in my bank makes me feel strange and I feel like I need to spend it on things so that I don't waste it playing poker. I will see how it goes, please let me stay away from £10/£20 one time!

Some action

I haven't been playing poker as much as I once did, owing to having a full time job and bit of a lack of funds. I built up a roll on Stars from a $100 deposit. Withdrew the 100 and was left with 270, but I lost it playing mainly HU games I think. Last Sunday I deposited £50 on to Interpoker and played some £50NL and managed to win some. I withdrew £75 for a small profit and played on with the rest. As of Friday night I had got up to £279, and after a hard week at work I settled down with a few beers to see what I could do at £100NL. Frustrating session however, not being able to hit hands, getting pushed about a bit by aggressive Europeans which worked as I was playing scared money. I ended up losing it all.

I had been paid 2 weeks wages on Thursday so as soon as I lost the last pot I automatically reached for the deposit page, ignoring the voice in my head telling me I was gonna lose all my hard earned money, it was impossible to not re-deposit. So I put £100 in, got up to £193 and then lost the lot, again. So again I deposit another £100, I knuckle down, I can beat these clowns I thought, just play good fool! This is getting bad now I was thinking, I can't afford to be losing this money, have debts to pay, but tilt is too strong. I finished the night on roughly £150.

Saturday - play some more, I win a nice pot with AA. It goes like this. Folded to the SB who makes it £3, I make it £14 (a little large but I did this same raise to this same player a few hands before so I know he thinks I'm at it and doesn't wanna get pushed around. Flop 333, so ideal for aces, he checks, I check, gotta look weak. Turn a K, he checks, I bet £15 and he insta-shoves for another £83 or so to me! I can't call quickly enough and ship the pot my way as he shows K8. After this I have about £293 in my account. So I do something sensible for once and withdraw the £200 I had deposited and leave myself with £93. I play more later, super loose and super aggressive on a table with another even looser player who called 99% of my raises pre flop. I get down to £38ish at worst but leave the room on about £200 I think, not entirely sure.

I play a bit more here and there and bank a couple of £50 wins. Want something to show for the money so withdraw £100. I play again today, two rooms of £150NL this time. On one table I make over £200 and leave, I stay on the other though, because it was ridiculously loose. I raised to £9 on more than one occasion pre flop and got calls from all 4 other players. Almost every pot was a family pot regardless of pre flop raises. Lots of the players on the Boss network are crazy Europeans so it can be very profitable! Here is a nice pot I win with Aces, it shows dollars but I'm playing in pounds. Another ideal flop for my hand, I wonder what he had? Annoying that the hand history doesn't show what they had when they muck. I had been raising a lot pre flop quite large with good starting hands but having to check missed flops because the entire table would usually call, so I think my check here is the right play. At best I'm up £150 in this room but leave £80 up. I withdraw £122 to leave me with exactly a £350 roll. So I make it that I'm up £625 since yesterday morning and about £550 on the week, not entirely sure and I can't be bothered to work it out. Of course I'm earning rake back all the time as well.

So I guess it worked out well this weekend, it could have been a different story of course, I need to be careful. At least I have won a bit of money to pay for things like my car tax which is due and over £100 for 6 months! I need a set of new wheels for my car because one of the alloys is totally cracked, not gonna go for anything flashy though I'm not that bothered, no idea where to get them from either and what size etc? Anyway I have a £350 roll now! How long will it last?! I should obviously play lower, but I just have no interest in grinding right now, I don't have the time to put the hours in and it just bores me. I like the feeling of winning big pots, lol.

Will leave with this hand that I played sometime mid week (£ not $!). It was a turbo room and I literally had what felt like about 6 seconds to make a decision on the turn. The hand just confused me and to be honest I didn't really have a clue if I was ahead, if I had had more time to think about it perhaps I would have folded but the turboness got to me!

I plan to play the $20,000 guaranteed tonight on PKR for $22 buy in if I have had dinner in time. It starts in an hour so not looking too promising lol. Might have to play another on there instead, it's been a while.

Edit: This just happened, what a lucky fish, ouch.

*Sigh*

I just spent the last 8 hours of my life playing a $5 MTT on PokerStars. The $10,000 guaranteed became $17,145 when registration ended and there was 3,429 runners. I finished 7th for $360.05, 1st place was $2314.58! These things are so top heavy. Final table I was completely card dead and when I did pick up something mediocre I got 3 bet huge and had to lay it. Ended up blinding away before shoving the button with J9 and being called by the big blind's A10h - jack on the flop but also an ace and it's all over. Bit demoralising as I was playing a great game up until just before the final table and then being card dead. Oh well, $360 is quite welcome at the moment but when you play for soooooooooo long and get close to a (for me) very nice score it's hard to not feel disappointed. I was thinking of how I was gonna spend the money if I won lol. Another time.

Oh well gonna go and make myself some food now it's been a while since I ate! Back to work tomorrow after the 4 day weekend, ho hum!

About time!

RIGHT! It's about time I updated my blog! I'll see what I can remember from when I last posted although I'm sure I'll forget loads. OK, so I was totally broke and couldn't find a job so I did what I always told myself I wouldn't and signed on at the job centre. The process was fairly easy, have a little interview about what sort of work you want etc, then you turn up every two weeks with your 'work diary', show it to them, sign something and get £120 every two weeks. It's a fucking joke to be honest - the work diary, which is supposed to show everything you are doing to look for work is so easy to fake, and they don't seem to give a shit. I used to fill mine out the night before, don't get me wrong I was looking for jobs, but I would make a lot of it up too. It really is too easy to be out of work, and if £60 a week is enough for you, then what's the incentive to get a job? I read in the paper once about a guy who worked on an oil rig who said he had to be drug tested so that he could earn money. And whilst he said he had no problem helping to pay the dole to help get people back on their feet, he did have a problem with people sitting on their arses and using the money to fund their drinking and drug habits. If he had to pass a drugs test so that he could earn the money he is taxed on, why, therefore, shouldn't those claiming the dole have to pass a drug test too? I couldn't agree with him more, and I have a sneaky suspicion that a hell of a lot of people would all of a sudden be losing their dole if this was introduced. Anyway, £60 a week wasn't enough for me, and I wanted to work, I wanted money, not least so I could play some poker again. Also I was borrowing more and more and things were getting a bit desperate, I had to borrow money from my sister to pay my direct debits and god knows what I would have done without my Dad, he always comes through for me and I'm very lucky.

So I was looking for work with little success. It's a cliche right now but there really is fuck all work out there at the moment, even the most basic office positions are getting so many applicants, it's not a good time to be looking for work. A friend of mine used to work for Ocado and I thought this seemed like a job I might enjoy. I checked out the website and they had positions locally for drivers, I hesitated though, wanting to find out a little more before I filled in the application. Joppa went through the process and I was waiting to see what he wrote about it before I went ahead and did it, cos I'm such a fucking pussy sometimes and I wanted to avoid scary group interview type situations, I thought I would let someone else do it first, taking the easy route again. Alas when I decided to just go ahead and fill out the online form, the job had gone, fml.

So this went on, looking for jobs on the net, going into agencies etc, but I was getting no where. It came to a head when my step dad had had enough of me and launched into a tirade about how I take the piss shouldn't be taking food from the house not paying rent bla bla, and that he would make my life hell if I stayed there. I took that as a hint and moved out to a friends house that night, things weren't looking too good. I was in e-mail correspondence with my Mum whilst I was away and I think he was getting grief from her so we arranged to have a meeting and sort out our differences.

It just so happens that whilst I was 'moved out', I got a call from a mate of mine offering me work. About 2 months working as a gardener in some rose gardens. I said yes, of course, and I have just finished my third week there. The money is crap, £45 a day take home, and it's hard work as you can imagine, especially this last week cos I have been pretty ill, puking and shitting water on Monday night, only now just feeling better, too much info? tough haha. However, I'm working with my mates from school and we have a laugh, when the weather is nice it's great (I got sunburnt in my first week!) and it feels good to actually be working again. Something happens when you work, despite how horrible it is to have to get up early enough to start work at 8, you feel good for it. I'm a much happier person than when I didn't have a job. I had been out of work so long, I was sleeping too much and feeling generally depressed a lot of the time, I can relate a lot to what Joppa and Would-Be write about, I believe it's healthy to be working, and you sure as hell appreciate your weekends more!

So, now I am earning money and getting paid weekly, £225 a week, not great but beggars can't be choosers and in the current climate I am lucky to have work and I certainly appreciate the value of money more! I owe quite a bit obviously so most of what I am getting is going straight to others, but it feels good to pay it back, albeit slowly. The rose gardens open in June so when this job is over it's back to the hunt, I can't wait lol!

ANYWAY, I have rambled on far too much, there is more I wanted to say but this doesn't need to turn in to my life story and it's a poker blog anyway. So, poker. I didn't play for a long time because I was broke, I borrowed some money from a couple of mates on Stars, but it never really went anywhere. When I got hold of a bit of significant money though I wanted to play on Interpoker because of rakeback which I can't stress enough is the most amazing thing to happen to online poker ever, rakeback that is. So crypto is dead, it will always have a good memory for me because it was on crypto that I went on the best spin up of my life a couple of years back, turning £20 into about £8,000 in about 10 days. I won't forget the night I came home drunk after bragging about how I was gonna make millions at online poker, only to lose the lot in a few short hours at £10/£20. I didn't feel anywhere near as depressed as I should have about losing such a vast sum of money, easy come easy go, I thought, oh to have that money now!

So Interpoker is now on the IPN (Independant Poker Network), the software is a bit sucky, instead of 6-max they have 5-max which I actually like, and you can still play in pounds or euros or dollars, and I'm still getting rakeback! So it's all good really. I currently have a roll of about £140 and will see what I can do with it, I still don't have any BRM so I will as easily lose it as spin it up.

Couple of other things I want to mention, I bought Street Fighter IV for my PS3 and it's brillllllliant. Also, I went to see Marley and Me a couple of weeks ago at the cinema, being a dog lover and all. Pretty good film, not remotely the slapstick comedy type film you would believe it to be by the way it is marketed. So I really wasn't prepared for what has to be one of the saddest endings to a film I have ever seen. The sadness is eeked out for about the last 25 minutes of the film and boy do they do a good job! I was actually trying so fucking hard to not cry seeing as I was in a cinema and all, but my god, I defy anyone, dog lover or not, to not shed a tear at this film, practically everyone in the cinema was crying! Seeing as I have an old dog it just made the situation worse! Good film though lol. I would like to end on a quote from the end of the film, this is gonna make me seem like a total dog loving saddo but I don't care cos I thought it was just a great quote and in the context of the film is really quite touching. OK I do sound like a saddo but I don't care, so here it is:

"A dog has no use for fancy cars, or big homes, or designer clothes. A waterlogged stick will do just fine. A dog doesn’t care if you’re rich or poor, clever or dull, smart or dumb. Give him your heart, and he’ll give you his.

How many people can you say that about? How many people can make you feel rare, and pure, and special? How many people can make you feel...extraordinary?"

Big update coming...

It's been far too long, a lot has happened. A big update coming this weekend. I know you have all been waiting with baited breath, your patience to be rewarded all 3 readers.

Edit: OK so it's gonna have to wait a bit, I've been too busy and can't be arsed right now!

Fell at the last hurdle

Firstly lol at this picture! I haven't posted in a while because I haven't played in a while because I have no money to play with! I bust the Stars roll obviously so since then have had a break. Wanting to play however I used up my points on PKR. I had about 95,000 and used 40,000 to enter some $25 multi which was uneventful. The other points I used on their Heads Up phase tournaments - 5,500 points for a level 1 ticket which is worth $4. There are 10 stages in all with the winner of the final stage getting $380 and the runner up a meagre $95. If you lose stage 3 you go back to stage 1, lose 5 go back to 3 etc. To start with I ran bad and never got past level 2 or maybe 3. I got all the way down to when I had enough points for just one more crack....

...so I used it up, and ended up winning 9 games in a row putting me all the way through to the Final Phase! Of course I lose this though, ffs! My AA got cracked early on by KJ when the guy called a big pot bet on flop to hit his gutshot on the turn with ease. I fucked it up though whatever. I so wanted to write a post about being a 10-wins-in-a-row-heads-up-king, but alas, such is my life! I then went off to tilt a away a buy in at $50NL and sat with my last $45 which is now on $86, I doubt it will last long. I'm job hunting right now so I look forward to a mundane life, not!

Edit: Yep, it's gone. What a fucking waste of time, so demoralising, fuck my life!!!

A little more positive...

Ok, so I'm back a lot sooner than I thought and that's cos some money randomly appeared in my bank, so I put it on Stars... about £24. I played a wee bit of $50NL cash earlier for a small profit and just now played an 18 person S&G for $11 and finished 2nd. Now this is by no means on par with winning a WSOP bracelet but it feels extra good because I was down to 188 chips within about the first ten hands. Now usually most people, myself included, would simply give up at this point and shove the chips in on the very next hand. However, I was determined to fight back, play well and a few well timed shoves and I somehow got back in the game. I would have won it too I had a huge chip lead HU and I was one card away but he dinked a 9 on the river. I was also playing $50 NL cash at the same time to stop me from getting bored and sat with $25, this time leaving when up, on $80.

This is all pretty small time but it's just the fact that I didn't give up and played my best to come back from being almost out to one card away from winning the thing. It's just a confidence boost really and I thought I would come and write down how I was feeling, a world apart from the last couple of days, I guess it's just nice to win a bit.

I was also reading an article in some magazine called Stacked that PKR randomly sent me about people feeling that they have the worst luck, especially when it comes to MTT's. A good quote from the article to think about - "Surprisingly few poker players seem to really understand the nature of variance and the maths that underpins the game they play. Yes, they may understand odds but I'm talking about long term expectation on the table... I hear a lot of players moan when their AK doesn't hold up against AQ. They believe they are cursed because they lost a hand when they felt they should have won. Even when someone has a 7:3 chance of winning they could lose five times in a row without it being too uncanny. There are many players that don't see the poker Matrix and simply believe that they are the unluckiest players alive". How true is that? I guess until you can accept that you will get sucked out on again and again you will always have a problem as a poker player, it's something I am definitely going to try and work on, deep breaths...

I have now got $145.15 on Stars, I wonder what will become of it?