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Adams on Stars

I was listening to the Pokernews Podcast from the WSOP, the one from Tuesday 14th June and they were interviewing Brandon Adams. The interview started out fairly standard, talking about him getting pumped at tennis by PA and usual poker chat. The Black Friday issue obviously came up, Adams made a few good points about how Full Tilt have acted in good faith previously and had never lurched on any responsibility financial or otherwise. He continued talking about how FT had given back to the poker community, through sponsorships etc. Which is all well and good. The interview then took a slightly different turn and he lay into Pokerstars, for raking the life out of the game and barely giving back. In a way he does have a point, FT did give back a little more, sponsor about 5000000000000... players(OK I exaggerate, but that list of red pros is huge) where Stars only handed out sort of marquee signings that will help their business. On one hand I can see his point, but is the tight-Scotsman character Adams painted Stars as the thing that has allowed them to cash-out US-players then I think they have played it correctly.(Despite me missing RB at the micros)

If there is a choice between FTP silence or Brandon Adams raging over a competitor, then I think we should be looking for silence.

Full Tilt, I'm out

I'm out!

After the Ivey incident I really couldn't bring myself to play on FTP any more, I would have hated it if I had become good at poker, grinded up a bit of a roll to find I couldn't get my grubby mits on it. I cashed out just over 48-hours ago, my withdrawal still hasn't been approved, so I may not even see the small amount of cash I did have on FTP. If I do see it, I will add it to the money I have on stars and play there for the foreseeable future. Earlier on today I thought the sky was falling in on that as well as it had been rumoured that stars were pulling out of the Ausie market at the beginning of August. Obviously this wouldn't have affected me directly but after the poker market losing the American money, the last thing that was required was another country to pull out, and a fairly big one at that. As it turned out the rumours, were just that, thankfully!

I have only played one small session on stars, was nice to be back on there, will still take a while to get used to it again I think. My volume has dropped due to being a bit ill, however I hope I am passed that and I can pick up where I left off. IF I get my FTP money back, and move it onto stars, I will be rolled to play NL5, but I am going to make sure I have played 30k hands of NL2 first, which is another 6k hands. Two reasons for this, firstly it will get me back into the swing of stars, secondly, I hope to at least maintain, if not improve my winrate of 5.9 bb/100 over the 24k hands.

Good luck

Update

Well, I promised one, so here it is. I had been taking an un-planned break from poker, but this month I dived right back in, been playing quite a bit, was tough going at the start, but I turned it round.



Basically when I hit that recent down turn I realised a few things:

• I was playing on auto-pilot, and poorly at that!
• I definitely wasn't being positionally aware
• I was spewtarding far too often with weak-ish hands, I still am, just not as much
• I was playing too tight (I always kind of knew that, but felt I could still win)

I haven't just come to these conclusions myself, I have actually been reading a lot of stuff on 2+2, had been a member for ages but never really took notice of the site due to the bad reputation of the forum regs. I think you have to realise that there will be dicks everywhere, and there are A LOT of posters on 2+2 so obviously that will include aforementioned phallic members. There is a huge amount of great info there, you just have to go find it, and of course use it. So if you are like I was, just get on 2+2 and give it a try! Oh and definitely listen to the pokercast, I have been listening for a while now and I enjoy it every week.

Now obviously I haven't mentioned Black Friday, and I'm not really going to, there are plenty of other sources out there to get proper BF info. I will say that at the moment, I am still playing on FTP, but I am actually a little nervous about losing my small bankroll, I was close to moving completely over to Stars, but I think I'd miss rakeback. I have been thinking about this for a while and I'm still on FTP, but there has always been a niggling little doubt in my mind. I may even try somewhere other than stars, so I can get rakeback, but traffic is always an issue for me and stars wins hands down. One more thing on BF, FUCK YOU, AMERICAN GOVERNMENT AGENCIES!

Virus almost had me!

Today I fired up the laptop with the intention to play in that same Happy Hour that I had done yesterday, then my virus software revealed a rootkit, had to restart and it scanned, took ages. I was on tilt! I was angered that it had stolen my Happy hour, I ended up going downstairs and playing World Championship Snooker on my Xbox 360 and listened to the end of the TwoPlusTwo Pokercast that I had started yesterday. After beating Shaun Murphy in a couple frames and a couple randoms in qualifiers to Wembley I had calmed down. I ended up catching the last 10 minutes of the morning Happy Hour, I only played the best part of an hour, but the tables seemed fairly juicy, well I would say that after my introduction. It wasn't my first hand, but it was the first on one of my tables:


Full Tilt Poker $2.00 No Limit Hold'em - 8 players - View hand 1224581
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

BTN: $0.91
Hero (SB): $2.00
BB: $2.47
UTG: $1.93
UTG+1: $0.77
MP1: $1.61
MP2: $6.38
CO: $2.49

Pre Flop: ($0.02) Hero is SB with A A
1 fold, UTG raises to $0.04, 4 folds, BTN calls $0.04, Hero raises to $0.18, UTG calls $0.14, BTN calls $0.14

Flop: ($0.54) 5 A Q (3 players)
Hero bets $0.35, UTG calls $0.35, BTN raises to $0.73, Hero raises to $1.82, UTG calls $1.40 all in

Turn: ($4.77) 5 (3 players - 1 is all in)

River: ($4.77) 3 (3 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $4.77
BTN shows 9 Q
Hero shows A A
UTG shows K J
Hero wins $1.91
Hero wins $2.55
(Rake: $0.31)

I expected at least one flush draw! But to be up against the straight draw and 2nd pair, I was over the moon. Anyway, that's me $0.26 short of covering my losses from the start of the year, infact, with rakeback I am positive, hopefully now the only way is up!

February disappeared!

I played 200 hands in the whole month of February, oops! It was a busy month for me with family and girlfriend commitments, including a long trip up North to watch my football team get pumped 5-0 by Aberdeen, on a crappy windy day, I was not a happy bunny! Well lets just say I never hit any of my goals! Lots of travel, birthday celebrations also hit my personal goals, so lets just say February was scunnered! I did play a couple tournaments, nothing major, I did win one of those 70FPP sats to Sunday 1/4 million, I am yet to enter that, tournament dollars sitting in my account. I may play that this Sunday, we shall see.
Not going to set any goals this month, but after a virtual months break, I hit the cash tables today with a renewed vigour. Previously I have had mixed experience of happy hours on Full Tilt but this mornings one seemed quite juicy, I did need a lucky break on a big hand to turn a profit though. Made a few mistakes, but that's expected when you are rusty from a break. I think I will look to play at this time again, it fits in well with my schedule at the moment, so hopefully my good results and motivation can continue.

Looking at January and towards February

Well, I have been playing some poker and hitting my goals, sort of. I haven't done a written review directly after every session as I have been playing a lot of shorter sessions, so I save them up and do a bulk review. Basically I started off at 5NL with ~$70, unfortunately lost a few buy-in's and decided, grudgingly to step down to NL2. I  will say I felt unlucky to lose at NL5, I did take a few beats, but I also thought I made a few incorrect decisions that walked be down the road to taking the sore one. After I stepped down I felt a little resentment towards the stakes, never really having played NL2 for any length of time before. However, after a few thousand hands I 100% believe I made the right (no matter how tough) choice.
Well, I guess I should post a graph of my hands in January 2011


Basically what you are seeing is me getting myself into tough spots, throwing away money, then I literally win almost every day at NL2. The trough is really when I stepped down, so looking at the graph, the correct decision was made. I have almost scraped back all my losses from the month, not looking to move back up yet, I'll see what happens. Anyway, wanted to post this up the now so I can get my Feb goals in, I may post a more in-depth look at my play using my notes etc. at some point... but don't hold your breath!

In February I will set a couple poker goals, but also I am going to add personal ones too:

1. Play 7k hands NL FR
2. Continue to review sessions, with written notes and summaries
3. Spend at least half an hour reading articles, posting hands, taking part in discussions to improve my game.

Now for the personal side, I want to fight off some flab, to be precise, I want to lose a stone in the month of February. This may seem extreme, but I do weigh *runs and jumps on scales, although not too hard* 19 st 8lb, at 6'1 I have a chunk to lose. I don't want to give the impression that I am a lump of marshmallow, I do have a strong base from previous sporting days, but, how shall I say this, added padding to my core. In the past, I have lost this amount of weight, in fact, it was pretty simple, it was keeping it off that I found difficult.
Right now I am at a stage where I want to improve my health for my life, but I also it will have a positive effect on my poker, I hope, so I shall include it here... Until I fail and become 99% fat. The plan will be as simple as eat less junk + more exercise= healthier me! Simple exercise like walking works a treat, but I hope to be playing footy again soon, as well as doing some weight training when I get the space cleared!

What I'm up to

Well not much at the moment, I keep attempting to get into it and failing, but hopefully the leatherass book has given me some ideas that will help push me. I am going to concentrate on NL FR cash, I was going to only play that, but I think I would miss tourneys, so I will allow myself some tourneys, mainly if they are included in some sort of league, I had read about the 2+2 pokercast league which is affordable buy-ins, think it's pretty short and congested timetable though. I heard the next one starts in February, hopefully they run often, will change my pace.
I have set myself a couple goals, not too hard, although one is something that will take a lot of getting used to, but it should be a part of everyones game, but I'm glad it isn't.

• Play 6,000 hands on NL FR cash by Feb 1st '11 (started today)
• Do a written review after every session(I will do it in my notebook, I may put some stuff up on here)

That's all at the moment, told you it was simple! Getting myself to do the review will be rewarding if I stick to it, and do it properly! Just a quick mention on the update on FT(don't know how new it is) I love how you can sit out next BB at all tables at the click of one button now, the best, yet a simple addition IMO. Anyway, off to start my review of my first session 2011, wish me luck, it wasn't the best session, hopefully that means its a learning session!

Happy fishing.

Treat your poker like a business

I saw this title and the book instantly appealed to me, it is something everyone should do, and I expect many would like to. The author of the book obviously has an excellent pedigree, grinding a living out of poker for over 6 years, during 2007 he achieved Pokerstars elusive Supernova Elite status.
This book will probably mention things that many of you will already know, but still need to do or take heed, from personal experience anyway. It is split into two main sections, treat your poker like a business and strategy, the former being packed with short sharp chapters on almost any topic you would expect to crop up on your poker business radar. The topics range from the poker rooms chat box to multi-tabling even to a small section on dealing with taxes. There are two guest writers in the book, Jared Tendler adds some insight into the psychology of becoming a poker pro and Dusty's wife writes a chapter about maintaining a relationship with a pro poker player. The strategy section is clearly based on higher stakes than I would be currently playing but basically outlines some very common mistakes and gives a line or two for common situations that will pop up time and time again during a grind.
Overall I would recommend this book, it does come with a fairly high price tag, as most poker books do, but if your poker is stuck in some kind of rut, this book could give you a helping hand into seeing why. Must take heed of the information!
I believe the sequel to this is out sometime in 2011, I will be keeping an eye out.














Anyway I haven't done much poker recently, just read this and thought I would write a tiny bit about it.

Been away

I had almost reached my 10k hands goal then life threw up some stuff that was more important than my micro poker play. Here is a graph of my 9.5k hands

I would like to be back onto poker again soon, as I was actually enjoying it once again. I may have come to accept that I will never be able to make a decent amount of money from the game, which is somewhat disheartening.

Inspiration

I have been floundering around looking for some, there are probably thousands of poker inspiration stories. One of my poker friends, one which I used to spend a lot of time sweating playing games with has recently done very well for himself. Pizzicato, used to play the micro stake games with me, donking around, at least as much as I did, he then decided to get a bit more serious about it. While he was getting serious, I kind of lost interest in the game, various reasons really, anyway he put in A LOT of hours. To give you an example of just how many hours he put in I will tell you how many $2.20 turbo 180-man games he played on Pokerstars, a whopping 9,000. I am sorry, but anyone that plays as many of those games, in the time that he did it deserves all the success they get. I think after 70 of those I would pull my hair out! Whether that says more about me or him, I am unsure. Anyway, Pizzi is now mainly playing MTT's and boy is he playing them, he just finished 51st in the Sunday Million on Sunday, well Monday for us. On the previous Thursday he also took down the Stars daily 90k, there were various other great results recently which I cannot remember. But I wanted to say well done Pizzicato, and long may it continue!

Anyway, recently I have been playing a bit of casual NL10, not really caring either way how I do. But the recent happenings above had made me really want to get up that poker ladder, so the first thing I have done is stepped down to NL5 FR and vowed to play 10k hands, and see where it gets me. With proper session reviews and everything!

Thats all I have to say for now, catch y'all later!

P.S Hope you like the banner, I was just toying so I made a quick one, not sure I like the idea yet. May have to look into changing the whole template and editing it etc. instead.

Little spraff

What's going on?
Well, I have started playing some NLHE cash again, its quite fun, but I had a small blow-out, just one buy-in, but I REALLY hate when these happen. I would like to understand why, my first guess would be boredom, not but I didn't think I was at the time. But I think I wanted to create some action, for no apparent reason I wanted to be Billy big Ballocks and make someone else fold.
There have been many famous blow outs, I think the most famous one I know of is Andy Black at the WSOP, in 1997 I think, it led him to become a buddhist. Strange move, but I imagine I would need some shocking change after that experience, especially gauging how annoyed I get when I throw away a couple bucks! I have been playing on pokeridol, a new site on the ongame network it has been pretty fun, they have some good promotions, check out by clicking the banner above.

On another point, I have started reading the naked trader, book about trading on the markets, something I have always been interested in. At the start of the book, there is a section about mindset, and a lot of it is very similar to the mindset conducive to good poker. Anyway, if you are interested, here is a link to the book on amazon.

Guess what?

Yes, I have lost my mojo again. I couldn't do it, other things are just more urgent/tempting than poker at the moment. Which is unfortunate as I was really starting to find my way in Omaha. Not even the new BADLY needed Ipoker software update has tempted me back as yet!
I will be back, you mark my words, I will get bored of something else pretty shortly and get back on the poker train :D

All aboard!

Few thoughts

I have completed one of my goals by purchasing Omaha Manager, woohoo. I have also bought the Slotboom and Hollink shorthanded book, so I will be getting cracking on that. So far I have noticed that he "discussed this a lot in the previous book" which is quite annoying and also it seems to be quite shortstacked based which isn't me, but I will toddle on and read it. Possibly purchase the Jeff Hwang book after I have finished it.

Now onto actual poker, I started off quite well, but then I got a bit cocky and over elaborated a few plays and completely threw away a chunk or two. I will try and get back to basics and get into a session. I won't post any stats or anything right now as I have only played 1.5k hands or something.

GL

2010 goals

I haven't played much poker over the last year or so, I definitely lost interest, as well as other things in life getting in the way. But the last few days I have been playing some 6-max PLO, and I must admit I have really enjoyed it. I also threw in a qualifier to the DS championship in Dublin, which I won, but I through away the chance in the next stage. I will have another crack next week as I think a weekend in Dublin could be really good craic! Just incase you may get disappointed I apologise in advance. I will set these goals, and try to hit them but if my interest in poker subsides again please don't hate me.

1. Get my roll on Poker770 from ~$50 to $500 using 6-max PLO
2. Qualify for a land based event entry fee over £200 (I know it is small but it gives me more scope and chance)
3. Read a poker book, hopefully get an omaha one to help me along.
4. Add Omaha to my Holdem Manager, should be done by Monday I would imagine.


That is all I can think of at the moment.
--
Sent from my mobile device

Blogger Tournament

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! The WBCOOP is a free online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers, so register on WBCOOP to play.

Registration code: 437375

Again?

Am I going to play some online poker again? Well I am going to try.

To see if I have the testicular fortitude for this game, I am going to attempt to play 250 NL HU matches between now and November 30th 23:59:59.

No real bankroll goals, will be playing whatever level I have at least 25 or 30 buy-ins for, starting at $1. I will either pass with flying colours or die trying.

Money making

Poker is a game in which random Timmy Mallets can win thousands or even millions of dollars, it's a game for dreamers. If you have played any amount of poker and tell me that you haven't thought of winning that one poker tournament that changes your life by injecting millions of dollars into your life, I wouldn't believe you. Even though I play micro cash and small tournaments, I still honestly believe that I can win the WSOP main event and become Poker's next big thing. I think this is one of the things that keeps me playing poker, the chance of making it big. However if I am honest I don't give myself the chance, there must be something wrong with me. The WSOP main event is happening right now, and I never even gave myself a proper chance of qualifying. Why would some one dream of winning that big score, and then not follow through on my dream? It is one of my big flaws, I am sure I am not the only one. In my life I have slipped into being a thinker instead of a do-er. I would really suggest you don't do that. When you see that satellite, enter it, whether it be for an EPT, WPT or that online big Sunday poker tournament! You may just surprise yourself and win, that is of course part of the reason we play! I know I will be playing more satellites and trying to attain my dreams, really doing it!

Now you have taken the plunge, what do you do, you are reaching out of your comfort zone, well great! If you don't push yourself your Poker skills will stagnate and you will revert to being a poor player. It has happened to me on numerous occasions. "Clicketty, click, click" The same monotonous beat and bets. My advice to you would be just relax, play your game, but actually pay attention to everything going on, you may not win this time, but make sure you learn from your experience. Many poker players, better than you and I will have paid for their Poker education, and most likely a lot more money than a few satellite entry fees. This is one of the main reasons why the game is so accessible to people. Previous WSOP ME winners have qualified for $20 odd, and won millions! i think the way to look at it is "someone has to win it, that someone should be me!" There are THOUSANDS of online Poker satellites so get on and go for it! Next time you are watching the EPT, do not sit there and think "Oh, I could do that better than him!" Actually go and prove it!

Good luck guys!