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welcome back

Poker volume still rubbish. What a surprise, lol.

I'd really like to change that this coming weekend. Honest.

EDIT .... it's not this weekend, it's next weekend, bugger :( .... END EDIT

I was supposed to be going on a long weekend break with the family this weekend. Then one of my elderly cats decided she wasn't feeling particularly well. After a $$ painful trip to the vets, it became quite clear that going to the cattery was not going to be an option for my poor wee moggy. guess whose name came oot the hat to be a moggy nurse for the weekend ? Cancelling the holiday would have been financial madness, not to mention having to keep super grumpy kids here as well :(

So, just me and my two old moggy's at home this weekend. What's a man to do ....

This made me smirk .... played two hypers, got nowhere. Third one I finished 12th. Think I'll quit these as I am now two buy-ins up !!

pleasant dreams

Little Things

welcome back

I have this strange urge. I want to play. I want to blog. Obviously helps if I actually have something to blog about, lol. If my playing urge comes to fruition, I'll drop some notes on here. Tonight's a bust. There is some stupid wee footie game on. Tomorrow is the same. Another pointless game :)

If I do run over you at the tables, you can blame Juffin Halli

pleasant dreams 

Comfort Zone

welcome back

Poker - lucky if I've played 1k hands in the past 3 months. Seems like working for the man for three decades was not the only thing I was burnt out on.

Rather than go back to work for the man, I'm currently investigating the self-employed market. Scary shit when you've been PAYE all your life. Well and truly out my zone. The more I trawl the net and sign up for job sites, the more recruiters who phone me, promise the earth but nothing materialises, the more I edit my CV, the more comfortable I'm beginning to feel.

Moving up a buy-in ? Learning a new variation, anyone ?

The poker parallels are quite surprising. On any given job site, knowing when to fold (not apply) or raise (apply), is probably the same as sitting at the virtual felt. That's a ton of patience and whole lot of folding.

Once something, virtual or real world, turns up, I'll be back, probably.

pleasant dreams

Haunted by the designated driver

welcome back

First, real life, then to the virtual felt.

One of the outlaws cousins has taken not well and been shipped off to hospital. He has had heart problems for a while (apparently) and was told to retire. Did he ? Did he fuck ! Now he is paying the price. To remedy his latest problem he needs work done on one of his heart valves. This operation will be carried out at a large hospital in the neighbouring county of Nottinghamshire. He is due to transfer there tomorrow. His wife will face a 2 hour each way drive to visit him.

So where does yours truly fit into this equation ?

Well thanks to my generosity and kindness I offered my services as the designated driver :) (ie the mrs and mother-in-law "volunteered" my services without asking me)(I may work flexi-time, but fuck me, I'm going to be down a shit ton of hours by the time this is all done and dusted. Thanks darling) .... I briefly thought of telling her where to get off, then I thought, what if it was me ? I'd sure as hell want to see some friendly faces every day so I very quickly changed tack and told them "sure, no problem".
So starting, probably, tomorrow, I'll be doing a lot of driving. It's not a particularly long drive, mileage wise, but it's all "A" roads, not a dual carriageway or motorway in sight, hence it's 2 hours each way. Lets hope the scenery is good, lol.
Due to the nature of the poor blokes problem, his wife is obviously very worried and I expect she'll want to visit every day for the next week or two. I guess this will obv depend on the blokes rate of recovery.
Anyway, I hope the op goes to plan and I wish Mr A a speedy recovery.

and back on the virtual felt ....

Not good. My 8-game experiment came crashing down about my ears across several multi-table sessions. Pissed me off no end. No one to blame but me, I'm afraid.
Time to put Plan B into operation.
No beer on a Saturday afternoon so I put in a short, timed session. The most obvious thing to me, was to cut back on the number of 8-game tables. Less is more :) so one table of 8-game and four to five pl08b tables. I felt it went quite well and after loading all the HH's into my dB's this feeling was borne out by the results. Here they are -

pleasant dreams

A haunting week

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managed to fit in a couple of sessions. Nothing of note to report, so just a quick update of my 8-game progress. After dropping back to zero profit (about the 2k hands played) I've stayed away from the bigger table and stuck to 20c/40c. Correct decision for the time being, imho. :)

pleasant dreams

Returning to old haunts

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I've been expanding my pokerr horizons and dabbling with that there 8-game. I put in a bit of practise at the fun tables :) And if ever the saying "no fold button, huh ?" were true, it's never truer than at the fun tables, lol.
Being the nit I am though, I try to play as if the fun money mattered. I'm pretty much the only player who can fold pre-flop at these tables. Smashed it for a while, then got bad beat the fuck out the door and gave it all back, obv. It is fun though.
Then I gave it a go at the cash tables. I think I'll do just fine but I do need to learn to walk before trying to run. That just equates to sticking to 20c/40c while I build up a decent sample size whilst staying the fuck away from 50c/$1 tables. (I was up a buy-in and a half at $1 table, got cocky, gave it all back, oops).
At the moment I only have a nano sized sample to go with the nano stakes buy-in.

pleasant dreams

He might be mad but I'm certifiable.

welcome back

and the hot news from the Res camp is ....




Correct. Absolutely sweet F A.

I continue to dribble chips away at the nano stakes, spending more money on booze and cigs than I ever have on poker. Time to clean my act up. Don't worry, I'm way more sceptical than you on that one but you never know :)

The only news I have is the fact that TN1 no longer works at all. I might be a small money fish but I do like to multitable. Need to look into some alternatives, sigh. Sure 'stars has auto hot keys but they do not recognize input from an xbox controller. TN1 did and so does TN2. Just started the 60 day free trial and who knows, I might just have to bite the bullet and pay the bastards their yearly subscription. Unless of course the old registry edit ruse works with TN2 ....

I'll be back "soon" with an update and of course, more "hot news".

pleasant dreams

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

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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 ?

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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