Morning readers, hope the weekend is as bright and sunny as it is here in Cheshire!

Life is very busy in my household at the moment. The office is contnuing to grow and I now have over 40 staff in the office, and business is running about 25% ahead of budget - with September's achieved in the first 2 weeks of trading! Our financial year starts 1st July - so with the first quarter almost over, we've had a great start to the year.
Staff are stretched with workloads very high, this being our busiest month of the year usually - so really trying to keep everyone happy, calm and motivated. Lots of cakes and chocolate on Friday, and lots of my stupid jokes!
It also means I'm getting to the office earlier, and leaving later, and then taking over when I get home for the last hour or so before Mia goes to bed. Not played a great deal as I've been too tired, but managing to steadily build my BR, even though I'm playing at the 10c BB level.
My 50$ stack of a couple of weeks ago now sits at around $130 - which ain't bad at the 10c level!
The problem is at this level, is the general standard is just so bad, it's hard to put anyone on a hand. You raise with AK (e.g.) hit a K high flop with 2 suited cards and your opponent (who you know has done this several times already with either a flush or str8 draw) pushes all in with his smaller stack. You're pretty confident you're ahead at this point, but can you avoid the flush or str8? Sometimes I fold, sometimes I call. Last night, after calling a particularly bad player,he shows a flush draw, a gutshot (neither hit) and trips. Then, on the 4th occasion, he had lowest pair with top kicker, so my hand won 3 out of these 4 confrontations - but the moral of the story is you just can't predict or second guess what your opponent is holding, so it's just a lotto at some times. Guess you've just gotta keep playing the %'s. Trouble is with online poker, %'s don't mean a great deal!

Anway, Cathy is still upstairs, not feeling too great at the moment so she is having a morning in bed, and I'm taking Mia out shopping (for colouring and reading books) and then off to the park to give Mummy a bit of peace and quiet.
Beacuse of this, no live poker this weekend, so will have to play online if the urge takes me!

Good luck all.

Pokery fun

The fun bit refers to some live play I participated in over the weekend. Certainly not at the blogger game where a combination of an afternoon's drinking, serious tiredness and, at times, a distinct lack of knowing what was going on!
I logged on to a few blogs to see where I could get the monkey from, and was pleasantly amazed to see the finishing table and see that I wasn't last - someone beat me to it by a couple of hands! So, that pleasure awaits me for another time, or hopefully not!
The hand that did me was my KJ running in to Amatays KK, on a J high flop. Bad read on my part, I put him on an AQ or AK hand - and got it really wrong when I raised him and then pushed on the turn. Hay-ho, ces't la vie and all that.

Anyway, back to the nice bits. Played in another live tourny on Saturday and feel that this is real poker. The stuff online is like Texas Hold 'em on LSD by comparison.
Anyway, played in another £5+1 and there was about 60 in when we kicked off around 3pm. Don't think I played a hand for the first 50mins, lots of new faces and I tried my best to watch the different styles and methods in play. Didn't have an aggressive player at the table for this first bit, but met one a little later. The players at this table were playing the cards, and after almost an hour of me being incredibly tight, I got dealt KK and this seemed to spark me into action. Got a couple of callers to my 6 x bb pre-flop raise, one folded to my half pot bet on the raggedy 10 high flop, and the other fold to my bet on the turn, which I think was a Q.
I told him as I bet I put him on AK, and that he'd never call past the flop, not sure if this put him off - but if it did, I had an advantage I may use later on.
Anyway, this seemed to give me a bit of impetus, and after raising next hand with A 10 suited, and everyone folded, I turned on the aggression almost every hand, from position, for the next 6 or rounds and took advantage of the passive table I was at.
My stack was about 4 times my starting amount, when I was moved to another table and boy, what a difference. 2 seats to my left was a maniac like I haven't seen in a live game before. Unfortunately, sat next to my right, were 2 more!
I never had a hand to challenge for ages, and my stack was dwindling, and AK came my way. I flat called, hoping for a raise after me, and sure enough, maniac 1 raises and maniac 2 calls. Back to me and I just push. There is something quite satisfying doing this live. Calling 'All in' and pushing your chips slowly to the middle. Anyway, after a few mins, maniac one calls and maniac two folds. This was a huge pot, the biggest I have contested live. He turns over AQ sooted.
I flopped a K, but he flopped 2 more hearts and after a slow motion turn and river, there was no runner runner trips, nor a flush on the river, and I won a huge pot!
I'd lost track of the rest of the tourny by this point, guess I was in the 'zone', you hear sports-people talk about. Being an athlete myself, cough cough, well, compared to dart's players I am!
Anyway, lost track of time and other tables and I was moved away to another table about 10 hand after my AK v AQ hand. I was a bg chip leader at this next table, seemed to be all the stragglers here, so I took full advantage and pushed my big stack around!
Feeling good, I was moved again and was about to ask the tourny director how many times I could be moved, when I realised it was the final table! No more moving now.
I think I was about 2nd or 3rd at this point, but with no electronic scoreboard or chip counter, it was just guesswork looking at other players stacks. After a break we resumed, and I was able to portray a pretty aggressive table image after getting AQ, JJ and KK in the next 5 hands. The next hand I had the mighty 7 2 on the button, and had decided to raise if here was no raise before me. Alas, someone pushed and I had to fold. The table shortie pushed and I was in the BB with 10 8 sooted. With only another blind and a half to call, and no one else in the hand, I thought I had good odds, so decided to call. He had AK but I spiked an 8 and he went out.
A period of card-deadness hit me and before I played another hand, we were down to the last 4.
For the first and only time, I got AA at this point and fortunately for me, ran into the 'shortie' with JJ so was probably chip leader as we went to the last 3.
The other 2 then seemed to go on some sort of personal battle against each other, and I was happy to sit back for a few rounds and see what they did without me involved. Before too long they were both all in and we were down to heads up.
It did swing back and forth a bit, finally ending when I re-raised with AQ and ran into his 88 - and with no A or Q to be seen, he won and I got 2nd.
Nice payout, another really enjoyable live experience and I feel my live play is strong and I'm looking forward to trying to get a regular involvement.
Best we forget and I not talk about my game the previous weekend, when I busted out 5th. Unfortunately, 5th from the start, not the end.
Can't win 'em all, eh?