Update

Well right at this minute I am participating in some freeroll sng's on full tilt, havent managed to come first in any as yet, have final tabled a lot, SERIOUSLY, too many. The chance of a free(litterally) package to the WSOP is something I HAVE to take a shot at. The new site is going great, loads of action on the forum, we also got a mention on Sky Poker, thanks to Tony K.

I am also hoping to be playing my second live tournament with a £30 freezeout at Stanley Cascades in Lieth. I have no idea what kind of level of play to expect, I know a lot of the players work in Scottish Widows, so it will be fun beating up on them. The tournaments are run by officepoker.net, I was told there will be 50+ runners so that makes for a prizepool in excess of £1500, which aint bad, hopefully I will get my mits on some of that come Saturday evening.

AA Vs 72

I'm still undecided whether Hua playing the 72 was plain stupid or an act of genius. To be fair pre-flop no body had shown any aggression, with two limpers why not raise from the big blind and attempt to take the the pot there? Hua wasn't to know that Furst had pocket aces, when the flop hit 77Q Hua was in prime position. Both players were playing to trap the other, it was a great hand to watch. When the money went in Hua was a 95% favourite to win the hand, and then the A hit giving Furst the Full House. It just goes to show that any hand can win in NL Texas Hiold'em.

Our new site is born

UK Poker Paper

This is our new site, the forum is up and running! UKPI members use your same logins and passwords. We hope to have the whole site up very shortly, on which my interview with Joe Beevers will be. hope to see you all there!

www.ukpokerpaper.co.uk

Full Tilt Freeroll

I was sitting online, so I thought i'd give one a go. The tourny started with 2696 runners, 27 places paid, a MASSIVE $15 for first place. The early stages of these tournaments call for a tight-aggressive style I feel, there are lots of maniacs around, but remember maniacs can catch hands sometimes. I doubled up in the first few hands with a pair of twos from the big blind catching trips on the flop. I then litterally did not play a hand for half an hour, when again I had nines in the hole which caught trips on the turn, where i doubled up again. Five hands later I was dealt QQ, and I some how managed to dodge either of my two opponents catching, one had 66 and the other had KJ(?!) So after quickly doubling then tripling up, I was sitting on around 17K, which put me in 31st position out of 906 remaining at the time. With my large stack I was able to play a few more hands and picked up a few medium sized pots, which boosted me above 20K, with the blinds at 50/100 I was in pretty good shape. With less than 3 minutes to go to the break, I decided to play hard ball with a pair of 6's, i raised a medium stack all in on the flop(893 rainbow) he decided to call me and then proceded to catch a full house with an eight then an ace, thats life. Even with this mistake, I had comfortably made the break with just over 16K chips and being 52nd out of 729 freerollers remaining. For a freeroll there is still a massive amount of play left in the game at this stage, the average stack is 5.5 K and the blinds are only just about to go up to 60/120. Its good to see you can still get an ok poker game for free!

The second hand after the break I get 9T of diamonds in mid-late position, I am first in so I open with a pot sized raise, I recieve one caller. The flop comes Jd Qh Kd, So im on with a straigh draw, flush draw and an outside shout at a straight flush. I reckon I should have bet but I never, we both checked, then the next card was 8d, that meant I had hit my flush, so I put out a pot sized bet, which again Phatmama called, the last card was 4s which changed absolutly nothing and I put out yet anonther pot sized bet, and again PM called, all she had was a pair of Jacks. I picked up a nice pot which pushed me over the 21K mark. Phatmama was some player, cant believe she lasted so long, she played EVERY single hand, credit to her though, she just pushed me at the wrong time, I had caught top pair with my K9 and all she had was A high, so that helped me up to 26k in chips and in 28th position with 562 left. I had yet another slip up, I was dealt 77 in late position, so I raised pot sized, and was re-raised by the next player who had taken Phatmamas place. I felt compelled to call, so I did. The player Had AQ, an hit an ace on the flop, that was me bumped down to 18K but still well in the game. The blinds have been raised to 150/300 with an ante of 25, this has made play a little more frantic again, I have bumped up to 21K im chips again, so happy days! I have now reached the second break with 15K chips, I never really lost any big pots I just lost a few small ones and blinds and antes eating away at my stack. I am 95th out of 188 remaining, I still need to make a move or two, and I will risk going out to get up the ladder. The blinds have now been raised to 250/500 with ante of 50. At this point, I have to admit I was tempted to play AT off suit from mid position, but thankfully an early raise and a call put me off. A few hands later, I was really feeling the pinch, in the big blind I recived A6 of diamonds, so I checked, two diamonds came on the flop, so I pused my remaining 11K into a 6K pot, still recieved two callers, as it turned out one of the players caught a straight and i missed my flush, which was unfortunate. I finished 168th out of 2696, which isn't bad, but it isn't in the money.

A Very Sad Day

Yesterday saw the closure of the best poker site/forum that I have seen, I am, as you can imagine, a little upset with this news. My life at UKPI started around a year ago, I stumbled in there as a matter of chance, and happened to bump into a really nice bunch of people, so I never really left. When I joined, I was not at all a good poker player, not that I am now, but with all the help and advice I recieved on the site, I can at least say i'm competent. There have been a number of events in the last few months that surely have contributed to the closure, which are all regretable, its now time to move forward. My final thanks to James W for setting up the site, and therefore introducing me to a number of great people, as well as everything else that came with the site.

The good news is that we are in the early stages of making a brand new site, details will follow....