It should be a game changer, right ?

 welcome back

my poker friend, Zagga, always thought I was an old git right from the off. To prove him right, it seems, I am taking early retirement. Yup, umpteen decades in the rail industry and enough is enough. Might as well "retire" while I have enough life left in me to spend my money before I shuffle off.

As for you advertisers .. take out our insurance, protect your loved ones .. you can fuck right off. Think I worked all those decades to leave a load of cash to others ? Fuck. Right. Off.

In theory, I should have more time on my hands, time to slum it at the virtual felt. Being older & wiser, I can now pick and choose what I want to play .... NLHE is not an option, lmfao.

Who knows, another post in 1.2 years and I might actually have played a virtual hand or two.

pleasant dreams

Stranger Things - part 1

 welcome back

This is more of "note to self" as opposed to a proper post.

Doing this, as Nathan said "During a downswing, I stuck graphs and charts on the walls, to remind myself, I "used" to be a proven winning player ! "

So, I had a look at the tournament tickets that I have on jokerStars. Turns out the joke is on me. I had an old "steps" tournament ticket. Surprised it was still valid. I won it 10 years ago. Seriously.

Ran with it and turned that $82 ticket into a 2nd place for $500 plus small change.

pleasant dreams

Much Ado About Nothing (3) (( what do you expect, we're still locked down ))

welcome back

Managed some poker on Party - a couple of mtt's - managed to min cash in most of them, so that's a wee bonus. I'm trying mtt's because I have a load of T$ on Party. Not entirely sure how I accrued the T$ but I might as well use them.
Managed some cash play on stars and made a small profit during May. Carry on grinding, I say, lol. Does 13k hands in a month count as grinding ?? lol.

As for coming out of lockdown .... a lot of people round here have no clue what 2m looks like. Scary shit.
As I heard someone on tv say, nothing has changed, SARS-CoV-2 is still out there with no cure and no vaccine.

I also heard some one on tv ask "what is the acceptable death rate ?"

Scary shit. Double scary shit.

I mean, there are just over 40,000 people that have died. That's half the population of my home town. Think of it like that and it brings it in to sharp perspective.

More poker in the post :)

pleasant dreams

Much Ado About Nothing (2) (( title previously used, I'm fcuking lazy, sue me ))

welcome back

So our Gov.uk is thinking about leaving lockdown .... wtf ??

As I heard someone on tv say, nothing has changed, SARS-CoV-2 is still out there with no cure and no vaccine.

I also heard some one on tv ask "what is the acceptable death rate ?"

Scary shit.


Poker in the post :)

pleasant dreams

SARS-CoV-2 and the resulting COVID-19

welcome back

The lockdown continues. The infection rate continues. The death toll continues.

Before you continue, I do not have anything remotely constructive to say. Been warned.

I've given up listening to the daily government broadcast. They might as well put a banner up saying "Same message as yesterday followed by the same stupid journalists questions"

Looking at the facts and figures, published daily, it seems a reasonable assumption that the pandemic is ongoing ergo, it's not going away any time soon ergo, the stipulations in place are not going away any time soon.

The more I think about the news and the repetitiveness of it, the more fatigued it makes me. See you here next week for an update ... repeat repeat repeat

I wonder if any of my online poker accounts still work ....

pleasant dreams

Jemma

welcome back

How good is your memory ? About as good as mine's then. and yes, I had to check. and no, I couldn't believe it's been almost three years .... that's how long ago Jemma's sister, Jet, made her final road trip with me ....

This morning, Mrs Evil took Jemma on that same, final, road trip.

Jemma and Jet

I got Jet and Jemma in 1999 and they were probably two years old. So Jemma made it to 20 years old. Not bad at all for domestic cats.

With Jet no longer with us, Jemma took over the affectionate roll and did as her sister did. Following you around and sitting and pedalling on you at every opportunity.

I knew her time was fast approaching as I'd planned a day off this week .... but she was just too worn out and it couldn't wait.



They say cats are funny. In her last few months, Jemma had taken to frequently flopping down in the middle of the kitchen. Just like her sister.

I had frequently taken to screaming at the kids to "Mind the cat !!"

I got to take my last road trip with my beautiful cat, Jet. Mrs Evil got to take her last road trip with my beautiful cat, Jemma.

Jemma sleeping cats lie.

The kids are a bit older, teenagers, meh ! This time I was pall bearer, grave digger, minister and mourner. I didn't mind. Late tonight I dug out Jemma's final resting place. Next to her sister.

Sisters reunited.

Pleasure to have the company of those two wonderful cats for all those years.

Eternal Sleep photo, soon. You know what ? I miss those cats so damn much.

pleasant dreams

tilt aware

welcome back

so my latest fad is z00m. conventional wisdom indicates that a reasonable starting sample size is 100,000 hands, so this might take a while. On the other hand I might never get there before something else grabs my attention. or before I drop enough buy-ins to convince me it was a bad idea. hopefully, I can get there. one reason I want to get there, is to see if I can get a handle on how swingy it is.
I would like to be able to say that I'm on a "standard" swing at the moment. I'm not. I went on tilt. Full blown motherfucking monkey rage tilt. Cost me 4 buy-ins. Kind of realised I was on that path but as the realization was dawning, the red mist was descending. Lesson learned. Again.
put a bit of a dent in my bb/100 stats. doesn't actually look that bad, but knowing why it looks like that, fucking horrifies me. Putting it in black & white as a constant reminder whilst I z00m.

10,259 hands played @ -4.64 bb/100

pleasant dreams

honorarium

welcome back

finally. Actually "enjoyed" my last session. Ran at +8 bb/100. No great shakes, it is microstakes. Still, it was the manner in which I played. I actually played "properly" and did not stack off with some redic draw or painfully wrong assumption about the villains hand. I'm actually looking forward to my next session. Do I have my "mojo" back ? Prettty sure I'll only find that out when I run into some -ve variance, but as long as I continue to play well, I think I can hack it. Time will tell.

Oh, welcome back James.

pleasant dreams

Never thought I'd say this - Pokerstars, what a fucking joke

welcome back

So, Pokerstars (Amaya Inc) have announced far reaching changes to their VIP (rakeback) programme.

What a complete and utter fuck up. The new owners (Amaya Inc) are quite simply greedy motherfuckers and have royally stitched up their big money players. Wankers.

So what are the real money ramifications -

supernova elite currently 68% rakeback = $123,000 (really)

next year, elite drop to 45% rakeback = a loss of $42,000 (really)

Let's hope the supernova/elite guys see sense and fuck off elsewhere to play.

I'm more a cash player and it made my eyes water to see how royally fucked the higher stakes cash players get, well, royally fucked ....

• No VPPs for pot-limit and no-limit games with blinds of $5-$10+, 8-game $10-$20+, and other limit games with blinds of $10-$15+ (limit hold’em of stakes $15-$30 and higher).

Unfucking believable -  So high-stakes cash game players go from earning 30-68% rakeback to…zero ?

Zero percent ?

A slight reduction could be expected, or perhaps a slight rake increase.  This is neither.  What this is — is a fucking joke.

Cannot wait to see the fallout from this .. and the resultant fall in Amaya Inc's stock market value.

What a complete fuck up.

pleasant dreams

The Dreaded Pocket Kings (no, really)

welcome back

I was doing so well on partypoker.

Dropped 3 buy-ins today. Talk about pride before a fall.

Dealt pocket kings, I decided not to muck about and shoved .. straight into aces. de facto standard, sigh.
Reloaded. Dealt pocket kings again, I decided to run through the streets with them. Villain hit his straight somewhere along the line, sigh.
Reloaded and ground it up to three and half buy-ins. then pocket kings appeared, again. Being a nit, I elected to run through the streets, again. Despite decent raises pre-flop, two villains decided to come along. I had both of them covered. One of them hit two pairs, the other spiked a flush. Leaving me with three quarters of a buy-in, sigh.
No reload.
A couple of orbits later, I shoved with AQ .. into AK, sigh.

3 buy-ins.

Genius.

pleasant dreams

Orient Express

welcome back

been z00m along on 'stars, that's Omaha z00m, for the record. Last session was 2600 hands, give or take, and I cannot win a flip if your life depended on it ! Never had decent enough volume previously to really notice the variance. I do question myself, you know, how long can this shit last ??!!
I've had a look and pretty much getting the money in ahead, the villains really are 50-50 at best. Still does not stop me cursing the hell out of them though !

So, 4-card-bingo, deffo down for the last few sessions. I find this extremely frustrating, make that quadrupled frustrating, as I'm actually ahead on the z00m 2-card-bingo (NLHE 6-max & full ring), grrrr.

On another front, partypoker front, I'm fastforward into winning position, lol. Again, very frustrating. Also have T$ on party .. no idea why these have been added to my account but hey-ho.
Used ten dollars worth in a small field mtt finishing 13th, top 9 paid. One misclick and one bad play on my part stopped me cashing, ho-hum.
One thing I will say about fast forward is the speed. Sure its 6-max but it does rattle along at a fair old rate of knots, so much so that I can only single table (woose) at the moment.

All in all, the variance train is really annoying me, how long can a cash game downswing last ????

Now I may not be Galfond, Williamson III or a Greenstein, but I am better than the average fish, honest !!!!

Time to fastforward into the future or should I z00m off over the horizon ....

"grins"

pleasant dreams

beta

welcome back

I see that us UK players are the guinea pigs for pokerstars (aka Amaya Gaming Inc) proposed method of accumulating fpp's which of course translate to your VIP level.
Noticed the email from 'stars too late to sign up for the beta test, so like the rest of you, I'll just have to wait until October when they propose to roll it out for UK players only.
Rest of the world have to wait for 2016 .. I wonder what we did to deserve this ?!

There is an official thread, hosted by Pokerstars Dylan, located HERE 2+2 official thread .

There is also the official 'stars website HERE Pokerstars UK - new steps .

Seems there is also a lot of flak being aimed at the "new" owners, mostly coming from the supernova guys.

Not sure if these proposed changes will shaft my Chrome star ambitions, lol.

pleasant dreams

How many days ....

Welcome back

Missed my aim to get chrome for this month. I thought there were 3 days left 'till the end of August, so I took a night off. There were actually only two days left until the end of the month. doh !

September goals are simple. Get chrome and not go bust :) Easily done if you're only playing off $15, lol.

pleasant dreams

Fizzle.

Welcome back

Just a quick note. Not played poker at all for the past 4 months. Not sure why. Got home from work one Friday night and rather than grab a beer and fire up the tables, I fired up the dvd player. NCIS and Game of Thrones box sets being the main culprits.

Started playing again last week. Usual microstakes. Didn't play very well and my balance dwindled. Down to my last few cents, I decided to go out in a blaze of glory (is that even possible at this level, lol) and fired up the Omaha-8 zoom game. Never really been a fan of 6-max and I've no experience here.

Did better than I expected, using the game plan of even though it's 6-max, it's still a game of the nuts. Seems to be working. After a few? thousand? hands, my bankroll is still on one knee, but I've now got $10.

At these stakes I really can't be arsed firing the hand histories into PT4 so I've no real idea about volume or BB/100 etc etc. If I can continue like this, get the 'roll off its' knees and pick up three stars, I might make the time for some analysis. Just have to see how it goes.

If you're wondering why I don't just reload so I can play at a decent $ level, well .... not deposited money on 'stars for 8 years .. just good old fashioned stubbornness, I guess.

pleasant dreams

Adverb.

welcome back

So this is my first check-in of the year. Oddly enough, I thought it was longer since my last post. So, what's been happening ?

Poker : still dicking about at the microstakes with an alarming LACK of volume. Checked up on some of my favourite bloggers, some of whom have an alarming LACK of blog activity. One of my favourite bloggers is theGrinder , none other than one Aaron B, pro (US) sit'n'go grinder. I tried to leave a comment but got a weird "you must be logged in to comment" messages. Perhaps Aaron is a bit "concerned" that I'm a fanboy, lol. I admit it, I've been a long term fan of both his blog and his work ethic. Anyway, sent him a message, lets see what, if anything, transpires. :)

Synopsis : not much happening at the felt.

Life : About to change, radically. I've been away from the rail industry for a year and a half. During this time, I've worked a number of "dead-end" jobs. All poorly paid and all ones that I've had to work damned hard at. Simply put, working on the railway was a relative walk in the proverbial park.
I have "tried" to get back on the railway. Very very half heartedly it has to be said.
Literally out of the blue, I found myself being pursued by two different companies ! One beat the other one to an actual Offer of Employment and the package on offer was, literally, to good to refuse. A week on Monday I will be resuming my rail career. I'm under no illusions. I think it will take a whole lot of very hard graft to make this work, but I'll give it a shot.

counter-intuitively

The last time I worked in the rail industry, it was pretty apparent that my work ethic was not particularly good. As the years rolled by, it became easier and easier to take the easy option. Must have been really really annoying for those of whom I was in direct contact with.
Working those dead-end jobs, I had/developed a very very good work ethic. I worked damned hard in those jobs. I was never late or off ill or sneaking off early or hiding in the shadows doing fuck all. Exactly the opposite. I have thought about where this new attitude has come from but I cannot quite put my finger on it. Perhaps my sub-conscious doing a bit of reverse psychology on me.
All I know is, is that it worked.
Now I need to take this work ethic and apply it in my "new" career.

If this new contract requires half as much work and hours as I suspect it will, I have no idea when I'll update. I also have no idea if I'll be able to put in any volume at the felt.
Let's hope I can find time for both.

pleasant dreams

rural

welcome back

Pretty sure I've banged on about the cons of rural life before but I just thought I 'd mention it again in passing, cough cough.
Just finished my first week at another new job. The second job in as many months, lol.Neither job is pretty and neither job prettily paid, sigh. I know, it's my location.
There is not much call for academia round these here parts.
Cleaner, driver, factory, farmhand are all in demand .... especially if English is NOT your first language. You are of course paid and treated accordingly, sigh.
The fact that the second largest county in Englandshire does NOT have a motorway passing through it speaks volumes about what the rest of the country thinks of the place !
So I've made myself a promise. If, whilst playing poker, I can match the wishy washy wages I currently earn in the real world, then I'm going to leave my latest job and go and stack the shelves at the local co-op and make up the difference at the virtual felt !!
Trust me, it's not as far fetched as it might seem at first glance. I actually have a shot at this as I am currently on backshift, at least until the end of the year. Assumption: I last in this job until the end of the year. I know me and that is a huge fucking assumption, sigh. This gives me 5 mornings a week when I'm all on my own at home.
The catch ? Getting to bed at a decent hour so that I get up early enough to put in some decent volume at the felt. I know me and that is a huge fucking catch, sigh.
No doubt I'll be back in a week, or a month, or four, to tell you how many jobs I've gone through in the preceding months !!

pleasant dreams