and now for something completely different. and now for something completely different.

welcome back

let's cut to the chase and get right to it. Poker.

After countless attempts, countless broken promises and a shitload of prevarication, mystifying rationalizations and misguided belief, I finally did it :)

Yes, I put together a few sessions of beer free poker.

Shocker, huh ? In fact it's such a shocker that I have started two databases. One has a standard date stamp type name. The other is called .... "beer o'clock" :) Hence the double barrelled title, lol.
Well I am only human and I am not going tea-fucking-total. (you'll see in a paragraph or two how un-fucking-tea-total I can be .. oops .... or should that be "wow, really" )

I'd love to tell you it's been a rip roaring success from the off but like all "new" activities, I suspect (hope ?) it will take me a little time to adjust. I tell you what though. It's a bit of an eye opener some of the absolute shit people play. I'd be down right embarrassed to go to showdown with some of their crap, lol. Well, if you've had a few you probably wont remember or you just go "shrug".
Beer free, I tend to say "wow, really". I tend to say "wow, really" rather a lot. Obviously I'm mostly a spectator but it still adds up to a lot of "wow, really". Rather a lot of hands go to showdown when you play limit. To cut a long story short, I'm down $3.50 over 2.5k hands. So, early days but two lessons learnt. Life tilt is akin to monkey tilt and I should not be sitting anywhere near the virtual felt when "things" are going on in the background. Wow, really ??!!
Volume is key. This is something I really really need to work on. It's taken me several days .. a week ? .. to "grind" through those hands and imho, it's fucking pathetic. Wow, really ??!! Real grinders will put that volume in on their morning session, lol. I know I'm only a recreational part timer, but still, it's fucking pathetic if I do say so myself :) So, something to aim for.

Enough babbling. Here are a few pretty pictures. What do you think of my artistic editing skills ??

not exactly the 100k hands I was hoping for :)

I'm afraid I'm only human and after that good work I thought I'd have a beer over the weekend. Wow, really ? Some players at the 25/50c table I was on don't think I'm human at all. They think I'm a fucking fish.
It's too painful to write about and in all honesty, it's really really fucking embarrassing. but PT4 does not lie.

nanostakes gains do not outweigh microstakes losses :(

Hands 1 & 2 - I got bad-beat/coolered/donked, take your pick.
Hands 3 & 4 - I butchered these and got my just desserts.

and as is blatantly obvious, doubling and even tripling my nanostake buy-in's just doesn't cover a buy-in and a half at a microstake table.
The most annoying part about forgetting my parachute is the fact that it started from the very first hand. Some fucking dickhead followed me to the river and got there. I could understand it if we were playing two card bingo but we were not. It's four cards you fucking halfwit ! On a KK3r flop he got frisky. I had a king. The river card brought the flush. Guess what he flipped over ? Ace Two Three Eight .... wtf ? You stoopid stoopid fuckwit. He didn't even have a suited ace ffs ! He had the flush with 2d3d, lol. What a fucking dickhead. Can you tell I was a wee bit annoyed ? So there you go. That started my (free)fall from grace, lol.

and finally. Lessons learnt. Don't play with real life distractions going on in the background, duh. More volume required, of the beer free variety, duh.

I am glad I gave it a go and after the weekend I'll be returning to the beer free variety. Hope you have a good one, whatever your plans and I'll see you next week.

pleasant dreams

The change is as good as the rest

welcome back

"Do you want to play poker against the professionals ?" (posted this quote before, from twittR)

No ? and neither do I. So what's one to do about it ?

Well, stop being pig headed and head on over as a new player (poker sign-up offers) to a good old Brit site. or should that be Irish ? Anyways, they've been about in their current incarnation since the late 80's and I think your money is safe their :)
Their poker client is a skin (runs) on the iPoker network which is pretty much Euro/Brit-centric, so no more playing at silly o'clock, if you don't want to, obv. Pretty sure they (Paddy Power) are the largest bookies in Europe .... but lets get back to the poker !!
They opened their poker business in 2005 and moved to iPoker in 2007. Oft pegged as controversial I think this just gives the company more character than the countless other skins so I've no probs pointing you in their direction.

Now, I honestly would not ask you to do something I wouldn't, so I've been on over to the Power site and signed up :)
Playing under the name of Mysterons , I'll hopefully see you there :) as a small aside, there are variation games running. wheeee !

Oh, the full twittr quote was
"The most stupid question on the internet is: ""Do you want to play poker against the professionals?""
Of course I fucking don't. I don't want to lose my money. I want to play against a toddler, someone with a head injury . . . and a cat that has signed in accidentally by walking across the keyboard."
Now I reckon paddyPower could do something with that .... then again, perhaps you can see why I am not head of marketing :)

pleasant dreams

Running Up That Hill

welcome back

It's almost time mr S, almost.

It's always amused me that Mrs Evil thinks I'm a closet alky. Obviously I have a different opinion, lol. Let's try and clarify the situation.

Do I drink at breakfast ? no.
Do I drink during the morning ? no.
Do I drink at lunchtime ? no.
Do I drink during the afternoon ? no.
Do I drink at tea time ? no.
Do I drink during the early evening ? no.

Do I have a beer once the kids are in bed and whilst throwing about a few virtual cards on the virtual felt ? yes !

imho that's a piss poor impersonation of an alky ! (ah, that feels better, lool)

to the poker.

The first half of October was landslide territory. Not playing well and not running well is disaster territory, ugh. The second half of the month was pretty much the exact opposite and I managed to get back to profit, yay.

Running Up That Hill

I have mentioned that the dollariffic value of my ups and downs is tiny, right ? It's bound to be, considering the "stakes" I play at. Talking of stakes, here's my own take on the various stakes that 'stars offers. Nanostakes rules. right ?

(( I could commit more money to allow me to play higher, but where is the "fun" in that ? Yup, I do not like taking the easy option .... cutting my nose off to spite my face, anyone ?? ))

nano -- 1c/2c , 2c/4c

micro -- 2c/5c , 5c/10c , 10c/20c

zero line -- 10c/25c

low -- 25c/50c , 50c/$1 ,

medium -- $1/$2 through to $3/$6

high -- $5/$10 through to $75/$150

nosebleed -- $100/$200 through to $1k/2K

1k/2k .... oh man, what sort of 'roll do you need to play there ?? Something akin to a box of monopoly money ....

pleasant dreams

By Reason Of Insanity

welcome back

Sorry, I have nothing to report, so those of a short attention span, please click on.

I've stopped by for no other reason, than, the click clack of my keyboard, as I spout endless drivel, is rather theraputic. I think that clearly puts me in the dork category who enjoy their own ramblings.

As I said a month ago, summer is all but over. In my wee part of Lincolnshire we have been blessed with a rather splendid Indian Summer. Seriously, still shorts and T-shirts all round, lol.
So, another month has rolled by and I've still not given it a serious go at the virtual felt. Pretty fucking pathetic imho (and it's way more pathetic in a certain someone else's opinion, oops).
So once again, I'll make myself some anal promises about doing something about it .. tomorrow ..

Once something actually changes and I'll stop by and do some more endless, relaxing, wittering.

One thing that might spur me in the right direction is a certain Urban Legend, attributed to a certain Mr Einstein.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

So, there you have it, I'm pretty much certifiable, sigh. The fact that I've been thinking about that saying pretty much confirms what I already know .... I really need to do something .... different.

I'll stop by when I get around to "different"

pleasant dreams

oh, and remember .... d.f.w.t.e.

oops ! (what else can you say)

welcome back

you know, it always pays to double check the board, especially when a villain check-raises you all-in, oops.
(still can't believe I didn't notice the Kh on the board, sigh, oops)(villain held TcKd, obv.)

pleasant dreams

oh, and remember .... d.f.w.t.e.

a post about a post .... wtf ?! ffs, get a life, lol :)

welcome back

and how has your summer been ?

Mine has been long (longest in three decades, lol) filled with too much beer and way to many late nights but tons of time spent outdoors with the kids.
So summer is pretty much done, the kids are back in school and the beer is all done :( Party. Over. :(

It has been a long long time coming but I finally got around to beer free poker last night. A paltry 250 hands. dropped about a dollar. played reasonably well but probably a wee bit on the tight side. Keen to get a decent session in to try and blow away the beer induced cobwebs (assuming I still have enough brain cells for the cobwebs to cling to, lool).

If I manage it, no doubt I'll be on here wittering away.

pleasant dreams

oh, and remember .... d.f.w.t.e.

In the Heat of the Night

Welcome back

aside from being a very good movie, it sums up last nights antics. Sorry about that.

Sorry Dale.

(hopefully he treated my comment with the contempt it deserved and trashed it)

A hot night in more ways than one, obviously. In the run up to the big hand, I was keeping an eye on how many people were playing. It crept up to just North of 400k players. Wow. I don't remember there ever being that many players, even pre Black Friday.

Amazing what a single $100,000 hand can do.

As it turned out, the fatal hand fell on the second lowest buy-in stars offers, a 2c/5c table. I was playing 2/5c but sadly, not of the NLHE variety, lol. Close, but no banana !
The guy who won the hand walked away with $103,800 .. pretty unbelievable for a $5 buy-in. The five other guys at the table also won some bonus money .... a cool $13,000 each.
I didn't realise it but apparently every other player, who was playing the same game at the same stake, would also get a bonus.
Seems that there were close to 9,500 players playing 2c/5c NLHE .. who picked up an average bonus of $85 each. That's a lot of players "winning" 17 buy-ins in the space of time it takes to deal one hand of NLHE.
And I bet its never happened before, that 9500 players can tell their buddies "hey, I won 17 buy-in's last night !"

The more you dig into the numbers, the more amazing this promotion becomes.

Speaking of numbers. Literally 10 minutes after the milestone hand was dealt, the player pool dropped to a paltry 140,000 or so. I was also one of the dropouts. After beating myself up at the virtual felt, I really couldn't play another hand. Can you say "burnout" ?

I'll leave you with the following link. Now, I know the Dutch are pretty liberal .. but perhaps there should be a law against this sort of thing ....

NOT lolcats at all

pleasant dreams

run it twice, that fucking 100 odd promotion, sychophantic arse kissing, i (almost) give up, door closed .. another one opens up ?

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

from the anal TWITr-verse

welcome back

I may be a sad mofu but not so sad that I've actually signed up for the fucking thing. Spot the the guy wi fuck all to do of a lunchtime.

Spotted these on my poker buddy's TWITr ....

The most stupid question on the internet is: "Do you want to play poker against the professionals?" Of course I fucking don't.
I don't want to lose my money. I want to play against a toddler, someone with a head injury . . .
and a cat that has signed in accidentally by walking across the keyboard.

courtesy of one Alex Rousso , I believe.

pleasant dreams

they said .... (7)

welcome back

Control what you can control and forget about the rest. .... (Tao of Pauly)

sooner or later you have to say “we’ve done enough” when it comes to trying to outguess the depths of human stupidity.. .... (theverge )

the difference between what you want and what you have, is what you do. .... (pokerbug )

"don't get cocky, son"

"if a reg plays back at me, he has a hand, respect .. wait for a better spot .. there will ALWAYS be a better spot"

Everybody will eventually run worse than they thought was possible. The difference between a winner and a loser is that the latter thinks they do not deserve it. .... (From 2+2 "Irieguy")

"if you have your health, you have everything"

pleasant dreams

Should have stayed in bed ? Probably.

welcome back

not a lot happening at the virtual felt. Been at home a lot over the past week or four. The Mrs, 3 kids, two cats yada yada yada. And fell off the wagon lots of times, lol, so my balance is yoyoing between 350-400 on a seemingly constant basis. Back on the wagon for tonight so lets see how the weekend progresses/regresses.

Last night was a classic example. Playing cash and one forum game. Could easily have been first out because I played the first few orbits like the table loon but managed to get away with it. Eventually ended up HU with one of the forum ladies. Of course, by this point, the cash tables have been ignored, sigh. Should have won but a bad cold and woolly head decided otherwise, honest. Fairly sure the lady in question will be well chuffed to have kicked the Resident 08 donkeys ass -)

Away from the felt but still cyber related ....

I have an ageing XP desktop with 60gb HDD .. filled the HDD when I backed up the kids iPod thingy to said HDD .. could not figure out how to remove this (about 12GB worth, ugh) .. the pc decided enough was enough and retaliated by running like a very slow snail, oops.

 (I just did auto backup of the apple thingy thinking it would let me decide where the backup would be stored .. err, no. should have picked manual backup, obv. And saved it to the very empty 250GB HDD)

 I could have reinstalled XP from the hidden partition but no-one wanted that as they might lose “something” important from the HDD .. funny thing is, no-one can ever tell you what that “something” is when you ask them

mrs Res was so not impressed by my ineptitude …. And “asked” what I was going to do to sort the problem ….

With XP being on a hidden partition I cant even fire it onto the empty 250gb hdd …. Solution ! buy windows 7 dvd.

Long story short, found selling win8 pro at intro price of £50 (MS have withdrawn this offer and win8 basic is £100 and the pro version is £190 .. result !!!! )

Other wee problems regards the ageing desktop -

It had a CD drive - win 8 pro is on a dvd
Buy new dvd drive
New dvd drive is SATA i/f
Desktop has IDE motherboard .. aaaarrgh !!!!

This is now getting redic but I need to solve it as H will string me up if I cant get the new windows installed, sigh

Buy an IDE/SATA converter (small pcb that plugs into IDE port on motherboard)
Buy SATA data cable
Buy SATA power cable
Buy two IDE (molex) to SATA power adapters (one for the small pcb and one for the dvd drive)
Buy IDE “Y” power splitter cable

Takes me back to building PC’s and installing hooky copies of win95/98 and win NT4 and NT server lol, ah those were the days

Anyways, after a whole lot of forkn about, I get the BIOS to see the new dvd drive and the blank 250gb hdd ….  insert win8 disk …. A bit more forkn about wi the install options and it formats the hdd to NTFS with 298 available .. that’s when I realised it was a 300gig hdd lol

Within an hour, maybe less, its installed and boots to the metro screen J

(quick trial clicking various tiles and it seems to be working)

It’s at this point I realise mrs Res wont have a clue how to use the damn thing and she wants it “usable” come hell or high water. Had to rip out all the new stuff and put all the XP stuff back in, ho hum.

In York today & tomorrow so will put the win8 stuff back in at the weekend, will let you know if its as “bad” as the critics make out.

(( I’m in the wrong job, I should be a writer or something of that ilk ))

I lead such an exciting life, huh ?

pleasant dreams

Inspiration .. Found .... the return of the Doc

welcome back

lets get the poker nonsense out the way first. Another wee 1200 hand sesh last night in which I managed the not to shabby rate of +8 bb/100. Obv not retiral money but still feels good to get a third run-good session in on the trot.

Things have got a lot quieter at the cash tables now that 'stars 95 billion promotion has now been consigned to the history books. I was looking at the higher levels that I don't normally play when my eyes almost popped out their sockets.
Well fuck me sideways, there he is, sat at a 50c/$1 table !
The he in question, was none other than mr Supernova himself (or is that mr supernova fucking elite ?).

Talk about temptation ? It was all I could do to NOT join the waiting list !

To be fair, that was the only cheap table he was at. All the others had a slightly higher buy-in. You know, like, $75/$150 .... ugh, fucking nosebleed just thinking about them, lol.

Now, although I don't frequent the $1 tables, I'm pretty sure that they do not normally have a very big waiting list. This one was the only full $1 table .... with 9, yes that's nine ! count the fuckers ! in the waiting list. Yeesh, nine deep at the bar .... that's a whole lot of waiting ....

Now, they may or may not, have been queueing up to play the guy (I obv didn't recognise any of the other players at the table) but it just seems a tad odd .... the guy never (usually) plays this low and they're queueing up left and right ....

In other vaguely related poker news. Dr Pauly is back !

Yes, yes, I know. He has never been away, ffs. I have to admit, I was a huge fanboy of the Tao of Poker but for whatever reason I'd never really paid attention to the Doc's other sites. If there's one poker blog you should read (even although it is on "indefinite hiatus") it is the Doc's tao of poker. I think the main attraction is the fact that he tells it as he sees it, not much sugar coating going on over there !
Oh, if I can find the link to his stories regards his degen crew I'll post it here ....

pleasant dreams

baby steps .. who cares ? right direction .. all that matters

welcome back

changes still ongoing, had some small joy at the virtual felt.



not sure this is the right direction ....

First session and it feels like learning to play all over again, lol.

surely it this way ....

After a few sessions, I might actually be doing something right.









pleasant dreams

one small step ....

welcome back

post session EDIT - 550 hands, $5 tables were breakeven affairs, not bad considering the amount of randoms playing any four cards, lol. Hard to put these guys on hands -)) the three $10 tables were a lesson in ball breaking card dead frustration, standard I guess for such short sessions -((

New month and I've started to implement small lifestyle changes. Too late to save February obv but gotta start somewhere.
February graph is posted below. First three weeks were acceptable but the arse fell out of it towards the end of the month. I'm fairly sure I know exactly what those leaks were, ugh.
Nothing else for it but to get back in the fucking saddle.

Since everyone has gone to bed early, I'm putting in a small session tonight. Somewhere North of 500 hands I hope. Time to play with the drunks and not as a drunk -))

pleasant dreams

Fuck you and you're fucking plan. I'm going to fucking bed.

welcome back

whiny bitch post alert, I will refrain from tl;dr , probably .... (and this post will be very quickly followed by another, less damaging post, in the vain hope that no cunt notices this one, lol)

Before we get to the bitch slapping put me downs, I played at the virtual felt last night. I made a pretty "serious" attempt at mass multi tabling. Seriously, with 16 tables open, I was putting whole tables on tilt with the unintended resulting lag that my attempt was causing. Good times -))

On a related note, I played one small field mtt as well. A forum game. Last nights was 2-7 NL single draw. I really like the forum games although I'm pretty sure I'm -EV in them. I do think I get a reasonable amount of respect in them and not too many of the regulars think I'm too fishy.
I can usually go deep in them .. this usually has a huge detrimental effect on my cash tables as I find myself overly concentrating on the forum game. (really ? you were out 13th from 15 runners last night - Ed) Last night was the exception. With the cash tables beeping away like a slot machine on fucking speed, I pretty much ignored the forum game. Missing decent starting hands and spots to steal pretty much left and right. I even failed to take into account the long blinds structure.
Into the second hour and still with a very playable stack, I thought "fuck, time to make some moves". You can see where that mistake got me. Shoving while drawing to a 7 low with one discard I pulled a Q, villain pulled T low, oops. Wrong play at the wrong fucking time, ouch.

And the cash tables ? Apart from tilting a load of people with my ineptitude, what a fucking roller coaster. Sadly, like their real life counterparts, more down than up. Like their real life counterparts, what a blast !
In fact, so much so, I failed to notice my "good friend" Daniel Negreanu sent me an email on behalf of 'stars ....

Dear ,

congratulations! You are now a SilverStar VIP until at least the end of next month

See ? See that ? We are such great buddies that the cunt has forgotten my name !! and he is not the only cunt who has forgotten my name !!

Before we get to one of last nights monster hands, the attainment of a third star on my fishy avatar, was pretty much out of the blue. I knew how many points I needed for silver but had pretty much accepted I would not be getting there this month. I had resigned myself to it being a bit Elvis Costello (if you're unfamiliar or to fucking lazy to find out, it's Less Than Zero)
In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think that last nights session was pretty fucking sic, well, as sic as it can be for a part time fish, lol.

I ran across a post which basically said "If you make the correct decision whilst playing a hand, then you will "win" the hand, regardless of the outcome" if I can find the original I'll post the link as its a very good article. The authors basic slant is to "win" at poker has nothing to do with dollar amounts but is all about making the correct decisions .. make enough of them an you might even make a few dollars along the way.

imho, I won this monster hand. Correct decision, wrong outcome.

It was quite unusual in that it was a pl08b table $25 buy-in. Up against a $30 stack and a $16 stack.
I get dealt 62AA ....
I limp in , big stack raises to 75c , shorty flats , I re-raise to $4 .. big stack re-pops it to $13 .. shorty pushes all-in for $16 .. with only $8 behind , I shove all-in -)) the big stack obv calls .... $64 pot -))
shorty decided 5KJ5 was good to go .... binks the full house, collects $46
me ? I collect the side pot of $15. The big stack had 3Q2A rainbow .. and a $7 stack.

And that concludes today's poker lesson, lol.

So, after last nights fun and games, I'll move right along to the serious shit ....

This post wont paint me in a particularly good light, and why should it ? Basically, I've let my family down over the past few years, I've just not been their for them. It's all too easy as a work away from home dad, to ignore the pressures they are under. This attempt to change these failings will fall on deaf ears. No surprise as I've generally failed in the past. Pretty sceptical myself but I have to start somewhere. As I've been told, actions speak louder than words. Time. for. some. action.

nemesis : when I look in the mirror, there he fucking is.

Stop enjoying yourself until you are debt free.
well, tomorrow is the start of a new month. As good a time as any to try and implement some life changes. Small changes, aimed at reducing my personal outgoings. Fancy a sandwich for lunch ? Make my fucking own. Paying corporate America is the height of my fucking laziness. The less money I waste, the more money available for family things -))

As I've said before, I'm not sure how this will affect my desire to play poker. Will I want to attempt to put some real volume in ? or will I think that this is a stupid computer game that is a complete and utter fucking waste of time ?

I hope its the former. On good days I'm pretty sure I'm a 6/10 on the poker skill tree -)) That translates to me thinking I'm just above average and good to go for .. oh, maybe a dollar an hour ??!!

and on that highest of high notes, I bid you adieu, sirs et madames.

pleasant dreams

made for sharing (2)

welcome back

and welcome aboard mr subliminal. Your question has saved me from writing up today's post "the nemesis" which quite clearly points out (to myself) why I am a fucking asshole. ugh. Kinda glad that one can wait.

The exact post in question can be found dqb-permutated via this link. I suppose third party thanks should of course go to well known American blogger degen waffles. Either way, thanks guys, kept me amused for most of a very non-productive work day. -))

and honest, "nemesis" will get written up in short order, sigh.

pleasant dreams

made for sharing

welcome back

Zero poker here, I'll get to that shit later. Ran across this shit in a 2007 post by mr subliminal and its still there after all these years, wheeee.

I'll give you a taste in case you don't have a sense oh humour. I mean, I would not want you wasting your time by clicking thru and finding nothing funny.

quote
The problem with America is stupidity. I'm not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself ?

quote
what should I give sister for unzipping?
Um. Ten bucks?
no I mean like, WinZip ?

Pointless ? Childish ? In these dark days, I need a fucking laugh.

The QDB or Quote Database Home is here and the top 100 quotes are here.

Now don't be fucking lazy, there is something for everyone.

pleasant dreams

the great white whale - pt 2

welcome back

the graph below shows my return to cash as of the first of this month. More or less in response to a chat I had with a person who was asking how much I spent (ie lost) playing poker each month. Don't get me wrong, I lose a small fortune when the MTT demon gets out the fucking bottle -(( The chat went something like this ....

so how much ?
well, I have a £50 allowance if I bust
wow, that's 600 a year
no, no, I'd only use that if I bust
I don't understand
look, I've not spent a penny of my cash on poker for 4 years
so where does the fifty quid go ?
(sighs) hookers and lap dances ....

at this point I get a really weird look (they know I do not live in Vegas)

(sighs) ok, ok, drugs and alcohol
oh right, fair enough
(huge sigh)

pleasant dreams

but Mommy, I'm frightened

welcome back

looking over last nights session, it seeems that I was the table fish, lol. A truly horrendous evening at the felt, although I should be at least a little thankful that I was not playing mtt's or there would have been no chance of a late late comeback to end the session 50bb's down.
So how do you recover from a trainwreck evening at the penny tables ? Why you go and play way way higher than sense or bankroll dictate !!

Here is the graphic trainwreck, complete with comeback

and how "high" should you play ....

why, obviously you should play 100 times higher than normal ....

I won 3.5bb's which equates too $7 .. yup, I played $1/$2 .... sick puppy, I know.

pleasant dreams

( speaking of dreams, I did see a guy playing the $3/$6 tables whose blog I've been following for a while and every time I read, I think "one day mr K, one day ...." )

the great white whale

welcome back

I oft wonder why I play mtt's

pleasant dreams

Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore. (2)

welcome back

so carrying on from where I left off the other day.

waffles is pretty prolific and guarantees a post every other day. It's the place I check on for my daily dose of madness ! lightning is also a regular poster, although I don't visit his blog often. The sound effects are painfully annoying.

James is already on my blogroll and believe it or not, I'm included on his roll. Mark plan3t Gong was pretty sporadic and has not been about since last November, so who knows if he'll return.
another Mark (same one ? who the fuck knows, lol) another sporadic poster.

Donkey Face really is very sporadic but I have actually met and played poker in a home game with him. How can I ever forget Mr Edge and Mr Juice ....

Short-Stacked Shamus on the other hand pretty much guarantees a post every day. He writes on a wide variety of topics which he pretty much always manages to somehow relate to poker.

Jordans' high on poker reports in once or twice a month whereas hammer player has pretty much given up the ghost.

EvertonYorkie - EY's deleted blog. Amagay dahling - once the darling of the blogosphere (self fucking proclaimed it has to be said, eh ? jonesUcunt , lol) and GrindersWarehouse have also deleted.

Dr Pauly officially retired, pity. Then again, getting wasted and following your inner degen demon for sports gambling is way more fun than writing to keep the sheeple amused !

Now it's pretty much anyones guess if taking the Mik is going to post in any given month and the dear diary guy may or may not still be with us. Kinda hard to tell as his posts are timestamped but not datestamped.

about poker, DOA, delicate shove, river bed, done chasin are all dead and fucking buried. No idea if more Pud still posts at betfair .. t'internet police have barred that one at work, ho-hum.

wolfs head is very uneven but hey, he is from the Land of the Free, lmfao.

Our very own was a Great Gatsby packed it in long long ago and Tripjax is pretty much in the few and far between gang.

Guiness and Poker .. was this Al ? before he went awol ? again, t'internet police have intervened .... as they have with This Is not a .. Poker Blog, grrrr

Klopzi, was Klopzi, dead'n'buried.

I think NoCash aka noShoes has given up (another guy I've played live poker with. The story of No Shoes is fucking hilarious) as has greg is gone.

One guy who has not given up is Rubbish. hi, I'm rubbish You still playing poker, bro ? Again, he is one of the motley crew I've attended live events with .... his opening line when he first met us all "Hi, I'm Rubbish At Poker .. " fucking classic !

Poker News Whispers disnae exist and rossi has a new blog address .. cough cough !!
the Main's domain - dead domain .. wowser, black belt poker b b p going strong.

The living obit - alive and kicking (sic)

Again, true blonde may or may not be.

Thanks Zagga, thats a couple of hours I'll never get back, bastard. I'll quite happily manage your blog .. first hour $5 .. after that is $10/hour -))

If anyone else wants to make use of my blog management skills, let me know, $8/hour seems about right -))

pleasant dreams

Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.

welcome back

do you ever go to a site, looking for something in particular, then after following a few "links", you seem to end up somewhere completely unconnected to your initial query ?
Happens to me all the time. I usually put it down to being a "blonde" moment, lol.
Due to a slight lul (cough cough) at work, I currently have way to much time on my hands. More of that later. for instance, started off reading the main article on wikipedia about "dreadnought" class battleships and ended up reading about twitter, wtf ?

In an experiment to see if I could actually stay on track, I thought I'd take the first blog I read as a start point, then click through to the first blog on his blogroll and see where I ended up. The idea being to read the current post on each blog in his blogroll to see if I could find anything worthwhile to add to my RSS feed collection.

So I started here at littleacornpoker and the first click through took me here Low limit grinder. No recent posts. Next stop sports punter which should have been glaringly obvious that it's not a poker related blog. No recent posts. Next up wildcat poker which is dead in the water.
The next three links are familiar .. Dodging 42 outs, Raise the River and Very Josie. 42-outs links to this very blog but should link here. rTr blog is extinct and VJ has officially stopped blogging.

This is going to ramble, I need a coffee ....

they said .... (6)

welcome back

sooner or later you have to say “we’ve done enough” when it comes to trying to outguess the depths of human stupidity.. .... (theverge )

the difference between what you want and what you have, is what you do. .... (pokerbug )

"don't get cocky, son"

"if a reg plays back at me, he has a hand, respect .. wait for a better spot .. there will ALWAYS be a better spot"

Everybody will eventually run worse than they thought was possible. The difference between a winner and a loser is that the latter thinks they do not deserve it. .... (From 2+2 "Irieguy")

"if you have your health, you have everything"

pleasant dreams

"airing my dirty laundry in public" .. that simple, huh ?

welcome back.

here is a copy of an email I sent. I hope the recipients respond but I'm not holding my breath. Said recipients have zero interest in poker. They have less than zero interest in my poker. By default, I believe they have zero knowledge of poker as well.

Disclaimer - I'm simply trying to get an idea across, therefor the math is NOT real world. 

This started out as a short message .. but sort of grew out of proportion as I went along. The long and the short of it is .. I'll be playing tonight, beer in hand. Ergo, pretty much free chips if you run into me later on in the evening.

After tonight, I'll pretty much be beerless .. yup, I'm pretty much life skint. So if you run into me after tonight and kick my ass, I'll have no excuses what so ever.

So much for a short explanation !

So last time I played poker was Tuesday night, email attached of the small-field mtt tournament which I won. This is the reason I play poker. It’s about real money.

I've never made much overall because I may win before the beer kicks in but mostly give it back once I've had a few. I think I'm pretty good (but almost all poker players think that !) since I have not had to deposit money on a poker site since 2009 (.. or was it 2008 ?). I really think I can make some good sweetie money playing non-alcoholic poker.

and it will only be sweetie money to start. Let’s be honest, playing cash games at the 1c/2c level and $1 or $2 tournaments (in my "spare" time) i.e. micro-stakes,  means that I can only expect to make micro-prizes.

You are probably surprised to know that I practice good poker bankroll management. i.e. I play these tiny stakes to avoid going busto. You will also be surprised to know that if I did go busto, I would wait till my £50 pocket money hits my poker account (yes, that’s how I perceive my xxxxxxxxxx account) before I would deposit money onto a poker site.

In a nutshell, I'll continue small stakes poker, continue practicing good poker bankroll management and start to play non-alcoholic poker (no choice since I just won’t carry spare cash about that I can blow on the booze)

As a side note, I need to get the money off Neteller and also off that trading site, whatever the hell it’s called these days.

You once asked why I played "so many tables" at the same time ?

Variance.

I'll try to explain.

If you have the best starting hand before the community cards are dealt, then you'd expect to win that hand and any money that had been bet on that hand by yourself and by any other player who played in that hand.

If poker were that simple then it would be very boring. (and no-one would ever ever make any money in the long term.)

So you start the hand with the very best starting hand and two other players decide to play their hands as well (matching any bets that you make). This single hand of poker ends when the five community cards have been dealt and once the betting has finished.

Assuming the three of you are still in the hand, it’s time to flip over your cards and see who has the best finishing hand. The guy with the best hand at this showdown wins the money that has been bet.

The "problem" is, of course, that people do not just play the very best starting hand.

Even though you started the hand as the favourite and with two others in the hand, you will only win 2 out of three times. It's mathematically, statistically and any other "....lly" you can think of, impossible to win one hundred percent of the time, if the hands go to showdown. And the more people in a hand, the less likely you are to win said hand !!

As a general rule of thumb, the lower the stakes, the more often a hand will go to showdown.

In the above hand, if all the betting takes place before the community cards are dealt .. and you lose the hand .. this is commonly referred to as (negative) variance.  ((strangely enough, no-one seems to talk about positive variance i.e. when the best starting hand actually wins))

The above example is an extremely simple one (yes, I'm that simple) and is highly unlikely to occur like this in real life.

If we stick with this simple example model.

You'll only get dealt the very best starting hand once every 221 hands .. you'll win every two times out of three .. so you'll basically only win two out of 663 hands dealt .. eek !

Keeping with the simple, if you only play one table, it could take 5 hours to be dealt those first 221 hands .. I don’t think anyone has that much time to waste.

So, too overcome variance (i.e. the times your best starting hand does NOT win) players want to play a lot of hands.

You cannot play a lot of hands playing only one table.

To play as many hands in as short a time as possible .. play at as many tables as you can, simples.

I know it’s a really really simple hypothetical model but I'm just trying to get the general idea across.

Oh before I forget, here is the email regards my win in that small field multi-table-tourney.

PokerStars Tournament #671827734, Triple Stud

Buy-In: $2.00/$0.20 USD
68 players
Total Prize Pool: $136.00 USD
Tournament started 2013/01/15 19:20:00 WET [2013/01/15 14:20:00 ET]

Dear ResdentEvil,

You finished the tournament in 1st place. A USD 37.50 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

 

As you can see, I "won" $37.50 .. minus the $2.20 entry fee .. so let’s call it $35.

My net profit for Tuesday night was actually only $22 .. err, how come ?

I'd be more than happy to win that every night. Sadly, I'm subject to variance as much as the next guy and it’s entirely possible that I may not have won any cash at all. In fact, it’s more likely variance will intervene and I won’t make any cash at all.

To overcome this I played in six or eight tournaments on Tuesday night, won bugger all in the other tournaments but cashed in this one for an overall profit on the night.

and that’s the overall idea .. play a shit load of tournaments or cash tables, play good poker, overcome the negative variance and make a profit.

Tried to keep it simple and just look at the length of this email ! If I tried to explain in real world terms, this email would be easily 10-times as long !

Congratulations if you actually read this thing in one sitting ! and I sincerely hope my explanation has not been lost in the translation :)


Seriously, if you read it all, nice one.

pleasant dreams

thay said .... (5)

welcome back

 the difference between what you want and what you have, is what you do. .... (pokerbug )

"don't get cocky, son"

"if a reg plays back at me, he has a hand, respect .. wait for a better spot .. there will ALWAYS be a better spot"

Everybody will eventually run worse than they thought was possible. The difference between a winner and a loser is that the latter thinks they do not deserve it. .... (From 2+2 "Irieguy")

"if you have your health, you have everything"

pleasant dreams