Sore Bottom

"The only thing in this life that is certain, is that nothing is certain"

Thanks dD for your insightful comments on my last post. Prison and the inability to sit down, all thanks, of course, to the 16 mile bike ride I did in the week. Considering my lack of excersise for the last few months (well, years actually), I feel fine. My legs worked properly the next day, I didn't have to stop every 5 mins doing an impression of an ashtmatic needing help.
Where I did suffer, was in the bottom area. Maybe the bike seat wasn't comfortable enough, maybe the ride was too bumpy. Either way, it is very uncomfortable, and I think the less said about that, the better.

My SNG challenge is progressing nicely at the moment, especially at Virgin. Well, only at Virgin, as my Poker Stars run goes along the lines of: win, lose, lose, lose to basically break even. Better than losing though!
Virgin is proving very fruitful, and my 100$ profit target has been acheived. I think I'm going to stick at 5$ for another few days, just to safeguard my roll. I did play in 2 10$ ones and bubbled in both, but 5$ are proving of a poor standard, so I might milk them for a bit longer.

Just playing in one now, and this makes a great example. I get deal AA and raiseup to 120. One caller, then another player raises up to 350$, I put a raise up to 1000, one folds the other moves all in. I call and he turns over A6. Not even 'sooted'! The flop came out 7 8 9, and I thought for a minute his stupidity was going to be rewarded, but my aces held firm, and I'm currently chip leader. Some just can't fold an Ace!

Anyway, half an hour more, then it's off to the park, walking like I've been horse riding for the past fortnight. Wish me luck.

Mixed Night

“It is not enough to possess a talent: one must also possess your permission to possess it - eh my friends?”

Continued my Sit and Go run last night, kind of.

I played 6 x 5$ at Joker Stars where I bubbled 3 times and went out before the money in the other 3. Decided to try out a 13$ 6 max game and got 2nd. Although a minus for the evening, I was about 21$ down, this basically wiped out the 23$ profit from the previous night, so back to where I started here.
Played a few at Virgin, where I seem to be having better success and increased my profits from $31 yesterday, to a total of 70$. Played and won 4 on the bounce at PL rather than NL (entered the first one thinking it was NL), where the standards seem to be pretty poor. One lasted about 20 hands, even with the restricted betting! Nothing I did in most of them, just let the others knock themselves out. The last one I played would have seen the profits increase further, but I went heads up with the chip leader when I had AA and he, for some reason, called with J8 (????). When the flop came out 4 5 6 – I had a feeling what was coming and bubbled when the 7 hit the river. Very annoying, but no complaints overall.

So the profit stands at 70$ overall in the first two nights, and I’m pretty pleased with this so far. If I can be 100$ better off by the weekend, I can try out some 10$ in between the regular 5$ ones.

Not been playing for as long as usual as I am soooooo knackered it is untrue. Mia is continuing her desire to sleep on the floor by the door, with no blankets or cushions, and every time she turns over she hits the security gate and cries out in her sleep before nodding off again. Being woken up 3 or 4 times in a night is not great over a 3 week period, and it is starting to take it toll on all 3 of us. She was up at 6am this morning, and her usual 12/13 hours sleep a night is down to about 10 – so she must be due some catching up. If we could get her to stay in her bed, she would probably sleep for a week – but for some reason, she is not having it.
Done some research and I don’t think it is an unusual occurance, lots of kids go through strange sleeping habits, but the general consensus is that, if she is sleeping, leave her to it, she will go back to her bed when she’s ready. Maybe a spell of cool weather will do it?

Anyway, 16-mile cycle ride with a group of kids tonight, so I probably won’t be sitting down for a week!

Wash and Go

“He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you”

Following on from Mik’s comments on my last post about me needing a new challenge, I think he is spot on. At work, I am constantly setting goals and objectives to my staff as well as myself, and I could do with taking a leaf out of this book when it comes to poker.
Constantly setting targets allows you to gauge your success against these objectives, and I think I need a bit of a focus, maybe I have lost my way. I did consider Tan’s comments of playing a bit of heads-up poker, and see how this suited my game – but I am sticking to my promise of not playing a cash game for the remainder of the month and am starting a Sit and Go challenge. I’m not taking 2 bottles into the shower, I’m going to Sit and Go (groan).

So, my plan is to play a set number of SNG’s at various levels and track my progress to see what profits / losses I can achieve.

First nights play was pretty successful.
Played 6 SNGs (5 x 3$ and 1 x 5$) at Joker Stars and cleared a $23 profit
Played 6 SNG’s (3 x 3$ and 3 x 5$) at Virgin and cleared a $31 profit

54$ up so far with a starting bankroll of 160$, so a nice start. Once I’ve built up my profits to 100$ I will play at 5$ level and drop the 3$. Not sure what profit level I should have achieved before I move up to 10$ buy ins, but the play is generally pretty soft at the above levels, not sure how big a jump in class it is at the 10$ level? Any advice would be welcome.
My play was much calmer, and I saw few flops with my patient play. Seems to come naturally on a tournament table, but for some reason doesn’t transfer to the cash table play. Strange. Maybe need to get Mulder and Scully on to this one.

One more thing - more MTT’s as well. I’m going to start with freeroll qualifiers and see where I go, and have also downloaded CD poker where I have over 6000 points and will use these points in entering satellites to get free entry to some $3 and $5k tournaments. Hopefully.

And, I’m going to remain positive at all times.
No sulking.
Positive Mental Attitude.
Works wonders.

Another Bridesmaid

2nd again
Heads up with Amatay again
Rivered 5 or 6 times, again
(he has some kind of hex on me!)
Final hand, 67% favourite pre flop, but twas not to be

Ces’t la vie, again

On another note – was it just me, or was A 10 shown sooooo many times last night? :-)

Was kind of expecting this, Poker Stars had not been playing nicely (as I say to Mia). I had Amatay a few times but he rivered a K against my 88, rivered a str8 against my TPTK to name a few – but he played his hands well, and I can only say well done on being the first back-to-back winner since the tourney began. This game is as much about luck as it is skill (well, at Joker Stars it’s mainly luck!) and I’ve been in his position before, so congrats again on the win.

Headed over to the cash tables in a pretty bad frame of mind after the day, and should have shut the laptop down and gone to bed. But no, I chased those ghosts and hit some incredible beats.
Ad Kd v my 22 – flop came 2 x x (2 diamonds) so I bet 3 x pot. He called, turn x – so I put him all in for another 50 or so $’s. He calls. Despite this poor call, he rivers his flush and I reload. Few hands later, I get 77 and raise it up about 5 x bb. One caller, flop has 2 colours with a 7 – This time, I push all in, totally eradicating any possible call for the flush. But no, he calls, turns over 2 of the same colour and again rivers his miracle card. Believe it or not, this happened twice more so I was not best pleased, to put it lightly. I behaved like a 3 year old and had a sulk.

Then, I emptied my Poker Stars account of all but 24$, enough for the next 4 Blogger tournies, and (in true 3 year old style) am seriously thinking of giving up online poker. Been thinking this for a while, tbh – this isn’t a knee jerk reaction to one days play. Just getting fed up with the most ridiculous events that seem to happen on a daily basis.
‘Flopping a set is like gold dust’ so Mr Harrington says in is book. He’s obviously not played online poker at this level before, as my Poker Office shows that if I get called to the river when holding a set, I lose about 42%. Hardly gold dust. And, for the record, I never slow play a set, because of the reasons above, unless a very scary board and a caller.

So, it’s time for a break from the game, and what I plan to do is withdraw what I have online, and play a few more live games. I’ve seen a few statistically unlikely cards in live games, for sure, but nowhere near the number of times I’m seeing at the moment.

Probably shouldn’t be posting in this frame of mind, but the break is definitely on, and apart from the Blogger Tourny, I do not intend to play any online poker for the remainder of the month. I’m going to read a few more poker books, re-read the books I have already and see where I’m going wrong. This year has been a bad one for me, and although I have clawed things back these last 2 months, I’m now back in a minus for the year and I don’t want to lose control.

I’ll keep posting and certainly keep reading the links to the right, amongst others. Who knows, after a week I may find I am back at the tables like a junkie wanting his fix – who knows?

Joker Stars

This must have gone through my head so many times today. In my various sessions at this wonderful poker site today, I was dealt KK 8 times - 8 times! On the first 7, an A flopped and my single opponent had one every time. Then, the 8th time - I flopped another K - nice! Not. Runner runner flush stole it from me.
So I was pretty gutted - as well as minus 100$ from my BR.
Moved to a 1$ NL table - which was probably not the best thing to do in my frame of mind, and 2nd or 3rd hand in, won 65$ when my AA ran into KK (on, the irony) and he couldn't fold.

Seems Burnley Mik's curse has headed my way -just fired up a table to get into the groove, and hit trips to lose to higher kicker, then another set losing to a rivered str8. So mixed feelings as I head towards the Blogger Tourny - and I hope Joker Stars treats me better or I've a feeling the monkey could be on these pages next week......

Also, has anyone ever seen this before? At a cash table, a player uses his 'time bank' if he does not act in time. One player wasn't acting and had a time bank of 320 seconds. So me and the rest of the table had to wait 5 minutes for his time bank to work it's way to zero before the game. I had already raised with pocket 10's so had to wait, otherwise I'd have left the table. Seems ridiculous to me.

Anyway, hope we have a good turnout for the tourny tonight - 10 already with a few familiar faces missing.

Good luck to one and all (especially me!).