Theft

Took a well earned day off on Friday to go out in my boat. Some cheeky little so-and-so decided they liked the look of my Prop and stole it sometime between Monday evening and Friday morning. Was suprisingly disappointed rather than angry about it. Forked out £350 for a new one, still managed to get some boat time that day.

Faith in the rest of the human race continues to diminish.

Enjoy

I'm alive, just letting anyone who still checks here and cares know that. I'm not a poker player and haven't been for some months now. This is not a crisis of confidence or faith in simple mathematics, I just don't feel like playing. Instead I feel like going cycling, or to the gym and have been sculpting myself into a less-rounded individual for the past couple of months.

It feels good, and now the sun is finally here I am enjoying my days more than recent memories can recall. I am sure I'll play poker again, maybe in the winter and maybe sooner, but for now I am just enjoying everything else far too much.

Take care of yourselves and Enjoy !

Wolfram|Alfra

Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input

Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input

Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input

Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input


I get the feeling that Wolfram|Alfra and Lost are connected somehow !

Drinking on a school night !

Hungover. Only myself to blame. Sat outside the pub on a school night… like my legs were incapable of carrying me home or something. Gym tonight to make amends.

No Poker this week, Bravery still in Oz.

Mmmm bacon !

What's better than discovering a bad player at your table? A bad player with lots of chips. -DrPauly

We have a "bad" player in our home game. He's not very good at poker but he is brave. Our game used to be arranged in a SNG format but I would try to get a lot of play out of them with small blind increases. It didn't really work because 4 of us would always rebuy if given the opportunity and 2 would never rebuy. Rebuys put so many chips in play the game would never end. The last 3 weeks we've played a cash game, £20 buyin and blinds of 10p/20p. Rebuys allowed and anyone can cash out whenever they like. Our brave players weaknesses are fully exposed in a cash game. When we played tourneys he would always be there in the final 3, partly due to luck and partly due to an endless supply of rebuys. I'll admit in the early days it annoyed me, until playing online I learnt to accept my fate gracefully. Now when bravery beats me he gleefully talks up how I don't like losing to him, but I can take the talk with a grin. Because I know in a cash game I'll always have a shot at winning it back.

Bravery's strategy is along the lines of -

Never raise preflop, ever.
Rarely fold to a single raise preflop, regardless of other action.
When you think you could be ahead, or the other person has not much, bet everything you have.

The net result of this play over the last 3 games is as follows

TanOrpheus + 100
Hooks + 57
Twister + 17
Bravery - 174

This is made all the more satisfying because in our last session Bravery was up +85 for the night and I was down -50, I ground my way back to a £40 stack and then talked Bravery into making a crazy call when I had Q9 on a 499A7 board. I can't quite remember but I think he'd paired the 4 and I remember all the talk was about whether I had an Ace or not. He decided not and called my allin.
Trust me, you'd love to have him in your game.

*******

Mine That Bird won the Kentucky Derby in the most ridiculous horse race ever run. All the Jockeys in the race bar one were apparently on something nice and speedy and had no idea what pace a 1m2f race needs to be run at. Imagine lining up the ten best 400m runners in the world for a race but 9 of them run it as if it is only a 100m sprint and are then spent for the rest of the distance. The 10th best guy pacing himself blazes past the rest in the final in the final stretch and wins.

This is made all the more clear by the overhead shots if you get to catch a replay of the race. By my reckoning Poineerof The Nile was the best horse in this race, but he blazed away with the rest of the field and was left for dead at the end when you see Mine That Bird running at almost twice the speed of the exhausted field and come from dead last past them all to win. Mine That Bird was not a better animal than the other horses in this race. The horse did have the only sensible jockey in the shape of Calvin Borel, and he should get all the plaudits for finding victory where others were idiotic.
One shouldn't bet on horses and sports, there are too many variables involved. I am yet to learn this lesson.
*******
Ricky Hatton got decked 3 times by Manny Pacquiao and dispatched with 8 seconds left of the 2nd round. Pacquiao proved again he's the best in the world, Hatton proved he never learnt to change his brawling style. Hatton was a exciting fighter but never had the technical ability to adapt strategically to win a fight.
*******
The IT Dept I work in is being downsized, I am very fortunate not to be one of those culled for now. This is partly thanks to natural wastage in my area of expertise (two people left before the bad news started coming) and partly thanks to the extra effort I put in during the time I wasn't blogging earlier this year. I originally started that extra commitment as a push to gain promotion and was disappointed when that didn't happen, now I'm relieved I got my arse in gear when I did and made myself look more like the kind of person who should stay. I'm lucky for now. Many others aren't. I'm counting my blessings.
*******
And finally, if Barcelona beat boring Chelsea in the semi final of the Champions League tonight they will set up what would be on paper the most exciting final in years against Manchester United. Come on Barca !

14.64

iPoker

I played poker on Friday night !

When you have picked yourself up off the floor I'll tell you all about it :o)

Existence

Still here, and trying to keep up to date with google reader (failing miserably) I haven't forgotten about you boys and girls. I will return from the wastelands as soon as possible, the journey has been less fruitful than anticipated but still worthwhile.

Chat soon

All work and no play

Just checking in. My job has changed rapidly in the last month, it has become more interesting and varied but there is a lot more to get done every day as well. Whilst i am really please about it and especially grateful for the opportunity it's something I want to make the best of while I have the chance.

That's why I haven't been around here, or around poker & my pals lately. I hope to be back when things get a little more comfortable, in the meantime I am mostly working, sleeping and eating !

See you on the felt soon !

Life Imitates Art

14 January 2009 - Czech government EU sculpture shows France as a nation on strike

29 January 2009 - France goes on strike… again

It's Le National Sport, apparently !

Sick ?

I feel like crap at the moment, last night about 7.30 I started feeling a bit light headed and I've been weak since. It's nothing to do with getting my KK cracked by AK again either ! I'm either not getting enough sleep or it’s eating all these salads for lunch is making me all girly, perhaps both !

The tournaments are kicking are my butt in the middle stages. Push-monkeys who think a coinflip or worse is a good situation to be in keep hitting against me, and there is little I can do to stop it. It's frustrating, but there are times when you are forced to play for stacks preflop, though I would prefer to make moves on the board where I can actually put a little style into it and work my reads. Not sure I have the energy to play tonight, depends how easy I can make my day at work.

Update : Had lunch, feel better, I'm having a very quiet day making up words to fill in project documents for those above.

Game On !

Fail

I said in my last post that I'm immune to bad beat tilt, I've been to an place with bad beats that makes all others irrelevant, what I didn't say is that I am sensitive to self-destruct tilt. This form of tilt occurs when I play a hand quickly, stupidly and for many or all of my chips. Yesterday it occurred in the 4th hour of the 3582 entrant $5 tournament on Stars.

I had been playing well, finding some really good spots to win chips my cards didn't deserve and then, SLAM!, complacency or carelessness saw me throw chips away and myself out of the game in a snap-call when I HAD to be beaten. The maddening part of course was that I didn't even think about his history or any of his stats before making the call.

In the cold light of today I can see this put on tilt, I went from playing really good to just playing my cards. It was like a fog had descended over the table. I couldn't see my opponents cards anymore and I was full out doubts about my own. I played another 6 tournaments feeling like that. Muppet ! My final attempt at winning something on Sunday was a $5 SNG. We got down to 4 players. I was allin with 10 10 and got bubbled by A Q.

I watched the start of the new series of LOST, if you've never seen it, the following explains why you never should -

"Hurley tells his mom they all lied about what happened after the crash. He tells her about the island – the crash, the smoke monster, The Others, hatches, the button every 108 minutes, the Dharma Initiative, the freighter, the boat, the six of them left."

Say WTF ?

"Hurley: "The rest of the people who were on the plane. They’re still on that island."
He cries.
His mom grabs his arm. "I believe you. I don’t understand you, but I believe you.""

Nobody understands you LOST, and only a few still believe you, please leave now. I feel dumber everytime I accidentally see you on TV.

At least we have action-packed 24 to entertain us tonight.

Cowboy up, Tan, Cowboy up

Warning : this is a bad beat post.

Just an example of how bad I am running about 2/3rds of the way into any tourney I play at the moment, I'm fine with this because as you know I am immune to bad beat tilt, but some are a little harder than others to suck up and move on !

Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Seat 1: mikller ($17348)
Seat 2: itgetsme ($16165)
Seat 3: jsinte ($9615) -
Seat 4: !Walhalla024 ($8289) -
Seat 5: TanOrpheus ($12305) -
Seat 6: bacu7 ($8398)
Seat 7: kifinas33 ($21385)
Seat 8: tikatika2727 ($31816)
Seat 9: seasquirrel ($7410)


PRE-FLOP:

!Walhalla024 posts small blind $400
TanOrpheus posts BIG blind $800
Dealt To: TanOrpheus


ANTE mikller ($75)
ANTE itgetsme ($75)
ANTE jsinte ($75)
ANTE !Walhalla024 ($75)
ANTE TanOrpheus ($75)
ANTE bacu7 ($75)
ANTE kifinas33 ($75)
ANTE tikatika2727 ($75)
ANTE seasquirrel ($75)
FOLD bacu7
FOLD kifinas33
FOLD tikatika2727
FOLD seasquirrel
RAISE mikller ($2400)
FOLD itgetsme
FOLD jsinte
RAISE !Walhalla024 ($8214)
RAISE TanOrpheus ($12230)
CALL mikller ($9830)


FLOP:

Pot: $34549




TURN:

Pot: $34549




RIVER:

Pot: $34549




SHOWDOWN:
TanOrpheus:

mikller:

!Walhalla024:


TanOrpheus collected $8032 from side pot 1!Walhalla024 collected $25317 from main pot

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $33349Main pot: $25317
Side pot: $8032
Rake: $0

Final Board:


Seat 1: mikller showed [Qc Tc] and lost with high card Queen - Net Gain/Loss: ($-12305)

Seat 2: itgetsme folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($-75)
Seat 3: jsinte button folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($-75)
Seat 4: !Walhalla024 small blind showed [5d 7d] and won 25317 with a straight, Four to Eight - Net Gain/Loss: ($17028)

Seat 5: TanOrpheus big blind showed [Kh Kd] and won 8032 with a pair of Kings - Net Gain/Loss: ($-2673)
Seat 6: bacu7 folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($-75)
Seat 7: kifinas33 folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($-75)
Seat 8: tikatika2727 folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($-75)
Seat 9: seasquirrel folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($-75)


Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

!Walhalla024's push isn't as bad as this looks, mikller had been donking around a lot, and we both had 'history' with him, the push-back was presumably intended to get him to fold.

Next hand - Dealt to TanOrpheus [9c 3d] - TanOrpheus: folds

Then -
Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Seat 1: mikller ($4968)
Seat 2: itgetsme ($16015)
Seat 3: jsinte ($9465)
Seat 4: !Walhalla024 ($25242)
Seat 5: TanOrpheus ($7557) -
Seat 6: bacu7 ($9323) -
Seat 7: kifinas33 ($21235) -
Seat 8: tikatika2727 ($31666)
Seat 9: seasquirrel ($7260)


PRE-FLOP:

bacu7 posts small blind $400
kifinas33 posts BIG blind $800
Dealt To: TanOrpheus


ANTE mikller ($75)
ANTE itgetsme ($75)
ANTE jsinte ($75)
ANTE !Walhalla024 ($75)
ANTE TanOrpheus ($75)
ANTE bacu7 ($75)
ANTE kifinas33 ($75)
ANTE tikatika2727 ($75)
ANTE seasquirrel ($75)
RAISE tikatika2727 ($2300)
FOLD seasquirrel
FOLD mikller
FOLD itgetsme
FOLD jsinte
FOLD !Walhalla024
RAISE TanOrpheus ($7482)
FOLD bacu7
FOLD kifinas33
CALL tikatika2727 ($5182)


FLOP:

Pot: $16839


TanOrpheus said, "KK no good tonite :("

TURN:

Pot: $16839





RIVER:

Pot: $16839



TanOrpheus said, "gg"
!Walhalla024 said, "jsus"
!Walhalla024 said, "why learn poker"

SHOWDOWN:
tikatika2727:

TanOrpheus:


tikatika2727 collected $16839 from main pot

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $16839 Rake: $0

Final Board:


Seat 1: mikller folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($-75)
Seat 2: itgetsme folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($-75)
Seat 3: jsinte folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($-75)
Seat 4: !Walhalla024 folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($-75)
Seat 5: TanOrpheus button showed [Kd Kc] and lost with a pair of Kings - Net Gain/Loss: ($-5257)
Seat 6: bacu7 small blind folded before Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-475)
Seat 7: kifinas33 big blind folded before Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-875)
Seat 8: tikatika2727 showed [Ks Ac] and won 16839 with a pair of Aces - Net Gain/Loss: ($9282)

Seat 9: seasquirrel folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($-75)


Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Play goot, run not so goot

Played OK last night, ran bad. Was never allin as worse than a 50-50 but everyone else got there and I didn't. Called it a night early when I got allin on a K-9-3 rainbow flop with KQ and the slightly shorter stacked BB called with K8 - the 8 on the turn was a sign to stop :)
It may have done me a favour in the long run though as I caught up on a bit of sleep and should be much the better for it when I play this weekend.

I didn't deserve to win anything last night anyway, I have bad karma for laughing so much at the guy we've got with us on work placement until June. He's done 2 years of an IT degree and doesn't know how to reformat dates. Actually he doesn't know anything. At first I thought they just didn't teach him much but he's not listening to the things we tell him either. Even googleing "reformat date with .Net" seems to be a stretch. We get a lot of laughs out of it but I do feel a bit cruel about it sometimes, I have to claim I was being cruel to be kind.

There's a live Jersey game at a local bar tonight, can't decide whether to go or not. It would be nice to play live again but somehow I feel like I'm being shafted when I'm paying rake & having to deal for myself. That is more to do with me hating dealing than anything though I guess.

Out with the old....

Seeing as there's been a clear out in the USA, I've spent a little time dropping some of the many many many links on my sidebar again. There are a couple of new ones in there too. The blogs that got deleted are either not updated often enough or get a lot of posts that I just skim over when they pop-up in my reader. If I aint reading it there aint much point in linking to it huh !

One new blog to highlight is Chardrian's. When I had my "year of playing religiously" in 2006 Chard was one of those who'd just started knocking on the door of big tourneys. Since then, while I've been playing very little he's been practicing good bankroll management playing MTT's and has got his roll up into the $60k stratosphere. It's great to see someone I "knew" a few years ago doing so well. I wonder what he'd say to his 2006 self now if he had the opportunity ?!

Despite being absolutely knackered this week I've started playing some good tournament poker. How do I know ? Because I'm picking up chips I don't deserve with my crap cards, laying down losing hands with my good cards, and most of all smiling at the 'bad beats' with calm acceptance. The calm has always been sign for me playing my best poker.

Watch this space, a victory is just around the corner. . . !