Doors and Poker Points

Sat with laptop on knee, watching poker balance dwindle as yet more staggeringly unlikely cards hit the river. I started playing at a place called i4 poker (on the B2B network) - and if you want some advice, steer well clear of this site. This is not whining or sour grapes, but I saw 2 players there over 3 nights and they were raising and re-raising on flops without even a draw and hitting runner runner. One did it so many times at the table I was at, he turned 50$ into 436$ in about 45 minutes, almost every hand he played was so far behind, even the fishiest of fish wouldn't have stayed. It all seemed a little dodgy to me, so I emailed the poker site to advise, but to date they have not replied. Maybe it was my current mood, but I thought, if this was a live casino, you'd do something about it. You'd had to have seen it to understand I guess, but it was very
I made sure I never went heads up against him!

Anyway, there was a crashing noise, followed by Mia crying and I flew up the stairs to find the door hanging on by one screw. She had been banging the door against the door stop (I put in earlier in the day to stop the door banging the bed) and this had basically acted as a lever and her repeated banging had prised the screws out of the door frame. Anyway, made it safe and put Mia to bed, then have fixed it properly this afternoon. She was crying at the shock of the door falling, rather than it hitting her.

Closed and emptied my i4 poker account and was debating where to go next, when I recieved an Email from Poker Room, telling me I had 1200 player points. Not sure what I could do with them, I logged on and found I had enough for 2 5$ SNG's (and some left over). OK, this is free poker, so I fire up a 5$ Turbo and after being a clear chip leader when heads up, managed to finish 2nd when my AK fell to his A2 and then my AJ fell to K10 in consecutive hands. So 15$ profit. Fired up another 5$ turbo and tis time got heads up marginally behind. My raise with AJ was call adn we saw a J 7 2 flop. I pushed, he called and turned over K 10 (????, I thought) but sure enough, the K hit the river and I came 2nd, but at least another 15$ profit.

So this has got me thinking, how many points have I ignored over the last 2 years? CD POker has over 9,000, Titan has over 4,000 and I haven't looked at any other sites. These 2 sites only offer satellites to tournies for points, rather than cash prizes, but I'm going to try a few and see how far I get.

Anyway, no more money is leaving my online account for the foreseeable future, untill all these points have gone, and I can be sure this run I'm currently in, is over.

Good luck all.

BritBloggers III - Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Go Back to the Table

I'll be there. That's as good a reason as any to play, as Poker Stars loves giving my money to other players.

Nah, only joking. Well, kind of. They do like giving away my money.

Still, the sun is shining outside, it's a bank holiday, and I've booked the week off next week, so there are many reasons to be happy. Not least as I spent the morning in the garden and the afternoon in the park with Mia. Frolicking and playing in the lovely sunshine, whilst Cathy paints the bathroom. Something wrong with the roles in our household, but as I said to Cathy, the bathrooms fine, it doesn't need painting. Yes it does, she replied. Well you paint it then.

Actually, I painted the living room once, and it was so streaky, she's never trusted me to paint another room. I'm allowed to do undercoats and exterior painting (she doesn't like ladders), but that's about it. Creosoting fences is OK as well.
However, to redress the balance, I do most of the cooking, becasue, well, I'm good at it and she isn't. She could burn a cup of coffee.

Anyway, back to the tables for a quick hour. No doubt more monsters will be flopped and then taken away from me with the unlikeliest of cards. Unfortunatley, thats the way things have been running for me recently, my last 5 full houses have cost me a few buy ins, all to one outers on the river. My hand history over the past 4/5 weeks would give the conspiracy theorists enough to keep them going for a long time.


Things are getting strange, I'm starting to worry
This could be a case for Mulder and Scully

I'll stop now.

Unbelievable!!

A friend of mine plays at Poker Stars, he's just Emailed me this hand history. I really have sen everything now. Anyone know the odds of this?

PokerStars Game #8892567085: Tournament #44757897, $150+$12 Hold'em No Limit - Level X (300/600) - 2007/03/13 - 23:38:17 (ET) Table '44757897 24' 9-max
Seat #8 is the button
Seat 1: Radicalguy (15758 in chips)
Seat 2: DFGrizwald (10528 in chips)
Seat 3: basebalman (5730 in chips)
Seat 4: RandALLin (11550 in chips)
Seat 5: BadcardsAA (33967 in chips)
Seat 6: richcondo (7236 in chips)
Seat 7: wandd (14544 in chips)
Seat 8: ComeOnPhish (11200 in chips)
Seat 9: rosseg (12734 in chips)

*** HOLE CARDS ***
DFGrizwald: folds basebalman: folds
RandALLin: raises 900 to 1500
BadcardsAA: folds richcondo: folds
wandd: raises 1900 to 3400
ComeOnPhish: raises 7770 to 11170 and is all-in
rosseg: folds Radicalguy: raises 4558 to 15728 and is all-in
RandALLin: calls 10020 and is all-in
wandd: calls 11114 and is all-in
rosseg said, "my god!"
*** FLOP *** [Tc 2c 6h]
rosseg said, "so sick!"
rosseg said, "JEEEEZZZZ"
*** TURN *** [Tc 2c 6h] [Jh]
*** RIVER *** [Tc 2c 6h Jh] [6c]
RandALLin said, "CLUBS"
ComeOnPhish said, "OMG"
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Radicalguy: shows [Ks Kd] (two pair, Kings and Sixes)
wandd: shows [Ad As] (two pair, Aces and Sixes)
Radicalguy said, "OMFG"
rosseg said, "never seen anything like it jesus christ"
wandd collected 5988 from side pot-2
RandALLin: shows [Ac Ah] (two pair, Aces and Sixes)
RandALLin collected 525 from side pot-1
wandd collected 525 from side pot-1
ComeOnPhish: shows [Kc Kh] (two pair, Kings and Sixes)
ComeOnPhish said, "wtf"
RandALLin collected 22625 from main pot
wandd collected 22625 from main pot

He assures me he saw this happen, I have no reason to doubt him.

Lifes Big Experiences

We were sat listening to a Counting Crows CD, in the kitchen as I was cooking meatballs and a tomato sauced to pour over some pasta. A song called 'Have You Seen Me Lately'came on. The song is about finding fame, and coping with the changes, but can be related to 'normal life' too.

Basically, as you go through life, you build up lots of big and small experiences. Working in the travel business, I've been fortunate to see some of the worlds most outstanding areas of natural beauty like the Grand Canyon, Nepal as well as the UK and Europe. Conversely, I've also been to man made structures and cities like Hong Kong and New York, Eiffel Tower, the Colloseum in Rome, which, in different ways, are also impressive.
We've also had a child, which is obviously the biggest experience, yet also the most simple. In effect all you do is plant a seed, let it grow for a bit, then bring it into the world, though this is all done because of the love and respect you have for each other. Almost anyone can do it, whether you are a genius or an idiot.
Some people let the big experiences take over their lives, forgetting that the most enjoyment can be had from the simple things. The guy in the song mentions travelling the world (in effect, his work) and singing in front of hundreds of thousands of people, yet misses watching his loved one breathe in and out as they sleep. Just as he launches into a song, it will start raining somewhere, for someone. (Though, as Bruce Springsteen sings 'I work down at the car wash, all it ever does is rain').
So what's the biggest and smallest of lifes experiences? Watching Mia complete a jigsaw puzzle that she has been trying to do for days, the look on her face as she gets that final piece in place and realises she has completed the challenge? Watching your football team win the European Cup? Sat in a bar in Spain watching the news channel and seeing two planes fly into New York's skyline, knowing you have friends there?

Interesting conversation followed as we talked about our big and small experiences. We are very lucky in many ways, our biggest and smallest experiences have come together, yet we still have many individually, which has made for a pretty rounded relationship.
Worth remembering that many of them cannot be bought and sold, for any price.

Obviously, the conversation was brought on by what we faced this morning, and we were both very happy to learn that the lump was a cyst, and that within a few hours, it was drained and Cathy was given the all clear. Not a very nice procedure, but better than some of the alternatives. The staff at the hospital were excellent and processed all the mamograms and ultra sound with the minimum of fuss. The time it was all done in was also fantatsic and we were back home in half a day. NHS do get somethings right.

So, hopefully, it will all be back to some form of normality from now on.

Maybe I'll even start seeing KK win? You never know......

(PS -thanks for the comments and well-wishes, both in the comments box, by Email and by phone - it is very comforting to know you are surrounded by people who genuinely care, no matter how they know you.)

BritBlogger

Enjoyed the Blogger Tourny last night, congrats to Richard for winning and Nick for coming 2nd.
From a personal perspective, I thought I played quite well early on, and built a nice stack in the first stages, thanks to my flush taking out Rosie's str8 (sorry R). There was a death threat shortly afterwards, but I know she didn't mean it!!
Was top of the pile for the first few rounds, then hovered between 2nd and 3rd as Richard built a nice early lead. He had a memorable hand when his KQ v Mookie's JJ saw a flop of KQJ. Another K on the river knocked Mookie out and Richard had a commanding lead.
I did hit another flush later on when I was given a free card and hit on the river - can't remember who this was against, think it was AlCantHang, and moved back to 2nd place.
Then, the bane of my poker life at the moment, my first and only high pair of the touny fell to me. QQ on the BB and there was a 4/5 x bb rasie before me. I re-raised 3 x his bet and he called. We saw a flop of 10 9 3 and I pushed all in. The villian called and showed A 10. As per the way things have been running for me recently, the A hit the table and I was severly depleted. Don't think I could have done this much differently to be honest, maybe pushing all in after his pre-flop raise, but my read was that he would call anyway, so the outcome would not have changed. My chip stack down to 3 figures, I never really recovered from this.
Managed to steal Kat's last blind just before she turned up and stole a couple of blinds for 2 rounds before pushing with A9 with just 800 chips left, and ran into A10 and neiher improved, so out I went.

Overall, don't think there was much else I could have done - but I enjoyed the banter and look forward to this being a regular thing, and I improve on my 10th place finish next time.

Off the above table, had a good night on the cash tables through the evening, making back my losses from the previous night thanks to my AA standing up against KK and JJ. A low flop helped everyone think they had the best hand and I made a good few Euro's on this hand. Shortly after, my nut flush beat a Q high flush and I was sitting pretty and a little happier.

No poker tonight as we 'look forward' to the hospital visit tomorrow morning at 9am. I'll cook us a nice, light meal tonight and maybe open a vintage Perrier (no alcohol allowed 24hours prior), still,obviously. Hopefully there will be a good movie we can curl up to and keep our minds off what may happen tomorrow.

Luck needed in a different way...........

Sick

#['p;,lol

Mia wrote the above, can't really delete it, these being her first words on the information super-highway that is the internet. Funny how 'lol' got at the end, maybe she thought the first 6 characters were so funny, she had to laugh out loud.

Poker and life are mirroring each other quite amazingly at the moment. The ups and downs of anyone's life can sometimes make for fascinating reading, however, I don't think mine falls into this category.
The mood in the house seems to swing at the drop of a hat. I don't talk about 'lumps' as I'm trying to change the subject and lighten the mood, rather than talk about it every 5 mins and make us think about it more. This is sometimes interpreted as me not caring, whch is not the case. The difference between men and woman never more apparant.

Anyway Cathy has gone shopping to the Trafford Centre wth her mum (who doesn't know a thing), so at least we both have some breathing space. I spent the afternoon in the garden with Mia, playing and weeding.

Had the most amazing run of bad luck on the tables last night, dealt KK 9 times and not one won. I was staggered, 4 ran into AA, another 3 flopped an A and a str8 and flush meant it was a very depressing night. I don't think this could happen anywhere other than online, and just what I didn't need with my current mood.

On a more happy note, looking forward to the Blogger tourny later, hopefully should be a bit of fun and lighten my mood a litle. Sorry,this is probably a depressing post, so I'll tell a joke o lighten the mood somewhat.

Why do women wear make up and perfume?

Because they're ugly and they smell.

Funnier from a 10 year old though.