Online Poker Player

Poker Websites

2005-10-24T10:16:00.000-07:00

Take a look at:

http://www.thesterlingcartel.com

&

http://poker-mrmoves.blogspot.com

Wow! a new poker post

2005-06-22T11:33:00.000-07:00

Yeah, yeah I know... I've been very busy though, honestly!

Our friends at The Sterling Cartel have announced an offer for new Poker Champs players who join via their website. Check their Poker Champs Review page here and scroll down to the bottom. An extra $25 for earning 5000 bonus points.

Nice.

First Live Poker Tournament Success

2005-04-18T04:27:00.000-07:00

I returned from the Tony G. Invitational last week, I've been so busy I haven't had time to update this blog. Now I've got 5 minutes after lunch I thought I'd do some wittering/gloating

The festival was pretty much a great success for me, I played in the €100 NLHE rebuy and the €500 PLO freezeout. Winning the first event and coming a very tired 14th in the Omaha.

The NLHE tournament was only my 2nd live event and I'm very pleased to come away with almost 6000 Euros, a trophy and a strange "pop-up" certificate! - I changed my Euros, or Litas as they were given to me in that currency, at the airport when I arrived home. It felt very nice to hold that much cash in Sterling

So with confidence at a high, I figure it's time to get right back into another live tournament as quickly as I can. Blackpool looks likely in May, I have my eye on the £300 shootout.

Online I've been in incredible form too. Cashing in 3 of my last 4 MTT's, biggest prize was £560, I felt with a little more focus I could of cashed much higher in one or two of those tournaments.

What a great month

2005-04-01T03:47:00.000-08:00

March was probably my best month since late 2004. Almost everything I played in, I came away with a profit, especially towards the end of the month in two tournaments.

I played in the Pacific Poker $1,000,000 guaranteed tournament. This was tough, 1619 players started but 250 were paid. My aim was to get into the money and change gears. It took 4 hours to get down to 250 by that time I was in good shape in about 35th.

My plan to become more aggressive had to take a backseat as everybody went crazy, so many raises and all-ins! It seemed like everyone wanted to leave real quick! I never saw a decent hand for an hour, player numbers dropped and prize money increased. Eventually I was moved to a new table and was forced to go all-in with about 120 players left. I doubled up and then doubled up again in the next hand, things were looking good again. After 6 hours we were down to 61 players remaining and that's where I finished for $2100.

The whole event left me tired but unable to sleep as I went over key hands which cost me large amounts of chips, without two horrible calls by me I would of made the top 50 easily and from there... who knows. The winner took $210,000 - maybe next time? :-)

Following that I played in a $5k freeroll arranged by Poker News, only 52 players started, unlike other freerollers they were easy to knock off their hands. I took 3 beats in this one eventually going out in 3rd for $750 with AJ losing to A2 (he rivered a flush).

Cash wise was excellent also, I'm showing $800 profit from Party Poker and $650 from Poker Stars. Along with a few other minor results March was superb for me. Just what I needed after a horrible February.

I hope April will be equally as good. Have fun.

Empire Poker

2005-03-20T06:20:00.000-08:00

I just discovered Empire Poker, what a great poker room!

Very easy games if you like no limit texas hold em.

Try Empire Poker - There is a $100 bonus though this link.

You colluding cheat!

2005-03-08T00:32:00.000-08:00

Last night was a much improved Monday night poker game between myself and a few online friends.

We played at PokerChamps in the $10+$1 STT - nothing retirement making if you won it!

It all went very well, the final 3 were from our little group (including me, who finished 3rd) and another guy in 5th made up our four. However, as we were talking and generally taking the piss out of each other and other players, one... "lady" (not sure if that is the correct term) stated she thought we were cheating and reported us to support, they in turn told her they would investigate. She never explained why, I can only assume it was because I asked "do you want the call" when players I knew were all in. I didn't really care what the answer was, I had already decided to call/fold at that point anyway and to an outsider I suppose this could be seen as collusion. We will see what comes of her complaint, quite frankly only a real pair of idiots would openly collude using the poker rooms chat and I told this "lady" should we be colluding she would be out by now and the tournament over. She bubbled in 4th, shame.

Despite that incident it was the best Monday night game for weeks, if not months. I played poorly 3 handed and over valued 2nd highest pairs but it really wasn't much trouble to get into the money. Infact winning at Poker Champs isn't the hardest task in the world. $1/$2NL and upwards is of a good standard but play 25c/50c and 50c/$1 NL with a tight strategy and you'll nearly always profit.

Enjoy your poker.

MARCHing through the poker tables this month

2005-03-05T10:28:00.000-08:00

I've had a good start to the month. February was a losing month for me, something I'm not used to if truth be told.

I'm totally focused when playing and have built up a good profit already at Poker Champs and Party Poker - I'm pleased with Party recently, they have introduced some $1000 NL tables. Most players have an account there, if you don't, click my link and get yourself $100 extra when you make a deposit, pretty cool huh?

I'm confident March will be one of my best months to date. See you at Party and Champs.

Back on but off was fun

2005-02-26T06:15:00.000-08:00

I played my first No Limit tournament offline last week. It was interesting but great fun all the same, I scraped into 3rd for roughly $230 after a series of lucky cards. I'll try it again soon but this is an online poker blog so I won't go into too much detail here.

So February has been a poor month for me really, there are two days remaining and I'm on a loss of $800 - I don't expect to recoup that but I'm hoping by playing low stake NLHE I can at least limit the damage (so far so good).

I have a good feeling about March, I'm going to remain focused and only play when I have the time, so no rushing in for 30 minute sessions!!

Enjoy the weekend.

Unfocused and on tilt

2005-02-18T05:58:00.000-08:00

I've had a mixed week, things started well over at Stan James Poker - I download this Prima site for The Hendon Mobs forum tournament - and made large profits very quickly. Then on Wednesday I played crazy poker and lost $550, I took one bad beat and then played all kinds of crap cards, deservedly losing.

Forunately after a break on Wednesday, I returned a little fresher and recouped $200 at Poker Champs. So the week isn't ending as bad as it could have. This serves as a reminder to stay focused whilst playing, accept bad beats and don't go on tilt.

Maybe I should write across the top of my monitor "STAY FOCUSED, DON'T GO ON TILT!" it may save me a few $$$ in future.

Gus Hansen

2005-02-13T03:23:00.000-08:00

I played Poker Champs last night, if you haven't tried it yet, I really cannot recommend it enough, it's a very nice little poker room. Gus Hansen was playing $1/$2 No Limit Hold Em and from what I was seeing, didn't seem too keen to take anyones money! He was limping into lots of pots and didn't seem to be the aggressive Gus you see on the WPT.

Although I took a small loss it was just good fun to play proper poker vrs players of like mind, only really one guy at the table was easy pickings, sadly I never got any cards or hit any flops to take advantage.

Poker Champs is possibly my favourite card room at the moment, all the better when Gus Hansen is around.

If only I.... (Black Wednesday)

2005-02-11T02:10:00.000-08:00

...hadn't played "out of my league" and taken a heavy loss last Wednesday. The last two days I've been crushing everything in sight at 50c/$1 and $1/$2 NLHE - I even won a single table tournament, quite amazing considering the number of times I've bubbled or just edged into the cash of late.

The Wednesday loss made the nice profits since then turn into small profits, despite turning $100 into $500, $150 into $400, winning an SNG and taking $50 from Pot Limit Omaha I'm only a couple of hundred ahead. Yes, Wednesday really stunk! Take that day out of the poker playing week and I'd be $750-$800 positive for the last 3 days. Urgh!

Anyhow, the weekend is here, I'm strangely organised for Valentines Day, having already ordered some roses for my wife, jeez they are expensive! Why we need an excuse to buy the ones we love gifts on certain days, I've no idea. If I want to buy flowers for my wife or a toy car for my son, I'll do it, I don't need to be told it's "this day" or "that day" and I need to go and buy something for some distant relative, who isn't even a blood relation and who I haven't seen for 6 months. Perhaps if the roses weren't so costly I wouldn't be ranting about gifts like that!

I'm going to try the hendon mobs forum league next week, I don't post on there but the tournament looks like fun and part of playing poker is enjoying yourself. I'll let you know how I progress.

Have a good weekend.

A costly poker addiction

2005-02-08T01:47:00.000-08:00

Recently I've been playing NLHE cash games nearly all the time and I've had good results, I'd guess 8 or 9 sessions out of 10 are returning nice profits. This is good, steady poker revenue. Yet, I continue to spoil things by playing STT and MTT events. Yesterday was a prime example of getting ahead in cash then dumping it back in tournaments.

I got ahead by $180 on Pokerstars playing my usual way at $1/$2 NLHE. Great, I'd happily take around $200 a day, everyday. Just before logging off I see a rebuy MTT about to start, it's Omaha Hi/Lo - I cashed often in this type of event in 2004 and really felt quite confident about making the money again in a small field (for Poker Stars standards).

To cut a long story short, 7 rebuys and an add-on later, I'm out 20 minutes after the break, I played truly awful! I'm almost ashamed to go into any detail, a player on my right was pot raising everything and had rebought about 14 times (seriously) he was lining the pockets of everyone on the table.... apart from me! Everytime I called or re-raised him, I'd miss completely and he'd take it down with 2,5,9,Q rainbow. I suppose I was on semi-tilt, looking for an opportunity to bust him, each time I missed I would be more aggressive the next time, classicly over playing A,2,X,X.

Anyway, $80 down I took my leave until later in the evening, once again I got my tournament fix by trying a $20 STT on Full Tilt. I like Full Tilt, I'm not a cartoon lover or anything! and I think the attitude of some of the players here stinks but I've always done well here and really should play more in this room. I cashed in the STT in 3rd, I recovered to almost equal chips when VERY small stacked when we were 3 handed, sadly I blew it again in a poor play but was happy to recoup some money after earlier that day on Stars. Even better was my good run on the cash tables here at the same time, wiping out my Stars loss and nudging me over $200 profit for the day.

Now, I ask myself:

Why am I playing tournaments when cash games are supplying an endless amount of fun and money?

Why am I playing so poorly in tournaments recently when my record in 2004 was good?

I can answer the first one. The prize money for the top places.
The second one. I've really no idea, I think I'm playing the same cards but I wonder if my slightly looser cash game strategy is carrying over to tournaments, where it pays to be tight for a good long while.

I will limit my tournaments to 3 per week for a while, my love of them from 2004 has spilled over into this year but the results are nowhere near the same, time to cut back a little on that poker addiction.

Victor Chandler Poker / Doyles Room

2005-02-05T09:53:00.000-08:00

I was wondering where to play poker today and was surprised to see I had some money left over in an old account at Victor Chandler, about $100 infact, so I gave the $12 rebuy tournament, guaranteed for $1250, a shot. I finished just outside of the money in 14th, after a rebuy and an add-on. The remaining $60 or so I took to 50c/$1 NLHE.

I'm not usually one for questioning the integrity of poker rooms online, however, VC Poker is truly set-up for gathering the maximum rake from it's cash players, the hour or so I played here with my small cash amount, I saw 6 split pots, I can generally see 80 hands an hour which means in that hour 7.5% of the pots were split - This cannot be right, can it? Surely a coincidence and the figure will be much lower overall? Well, I'm not so sure, I remember clearly leaving VC in mid-autumn (fall for you Americans) last year with a bitter taste in my mouth following huge odds outcomes for various players at various tables.

I was involved in 1 of the 6 split pots which went like this:

I have 7,8d

Flop: 4h,5d,6h

I've flopped the nuts here and instead of making a small bet and risking the heart chasers, I check, hoping someone will try and take the pot down then and there. The SB bets $1 - leaving him $16 left. BB calls, the rest fold, I raise $16, hoping one of them (the SB please) will call.

He does and shows 4,6o - Pretty much as good as it gets for me, he has 4 outs to win it.

Turn: 7s
River: 8s

Result, split pot.

Other instances of rake boosting I saw were:
AK vrs AK vrs AQ vrs TT
AK vrs AK vrs AA
QQ vrs KK vrs AK

So aswell as the amazing splits there were LOTS of action hands, too many for my liking in approx 80 hands and 1 hours play.

I worked my $60 up to $160 after flopping a set of nines vrs Q,K who flopped his Q - despite my large bet he felt the need to raise all-in. The standard of play which I adore is spoilt by completly rigged software in favour of boosting rakes. This sickens me and I've sworn to myself that I'll never play at this site again.

By all means try it for yourselves, you may disagree with me and think the cards are fairly dealt with no intention of rake boosting, in that case good luck to you, I'll take my business elsewhere in future.

Poker players who love to tell you how to play

2005-01-31T02:45:00.000-08:00

I'm going away for a few days this week... in about an hour infact, so no poker related things until Friday after this post.

Last night I played the WSOP round 2, warm-up on Bugsys Club - I haven't played here for some time, however, I thought I'd give it a shot as it was only $11. Things went well early on, I turned my 10,000 stack into 12,000 in the first two rounds. At this point I was being distracted by my wife for a few things and to be honest, as my heart wasn't 100% in it before the game started, I decided to open up a little, if I got knocked out, I wasn't going to be too concerned. Almost straight away I got 5,5 in late position, normally I would call or fold if a big raise came in on this hand, however a short stack doubled the blind and I went all-in. Hoping to steal the pot then and there, if he called I hoped for Ax and the coin flip. He did call and showed Q,Ko - he never improved I made a set, then the boat and he left, with good grace.

What occured next was quite amazing, I was delivered a series of abusive posts by a player who folded 7,7 from the big blind, he ranted and raved about what an idiotic re-raise I made and how moronic the play was. Of course, a 7 hit the flop and he would of won the hand, that was clearly the trigger for his tirade. I found that so unbelievably childish! He read me completely wrong and didn't want to go in with his sevens, a good fold as he was taking the game very seriously, unlike me (shamefully!) but this was no excuse for his attack on my play, no matter how poor it was (and I do concede, I've made better plays) - I hadn't made any comments about this player up until this point and when I pointed out perhaps he shouldn't pass comment on others player's actions he flew off into a "freedom of speech" rant instead. Quite amazing, I had this image of him stamping his feet and threatening to tell his mommy.

In the real world, across a poker table I'm almost completely sure he would of said nothing if the same situation occured. People are so brave behind their computer screens, so willing to put you right on everything they disagree with, no just in poker but on every subject, take a look at some random forums today, you'll find a debate that starts sensibly, quickly turning into a slanging match through various forms of typed abuse.

Well, that's it for me, all chat is being turned off in future, all poorly or non-moderated forums will be ignored, I don't see the point anymore, the little enjoyment from talking about poker is nearly always trashed by small minded players who cannot see any other side of a debate except their own. Good luck to them, more time playing, less time bickering.

Have a good week, I'll be back on Friday.... God knows I need a holiday!

Back at Poker Champs

2005-01-25T01:49:00.000-08:00

The one thing I love about playing No Limit Hold Em is that if you play a solid, tight game and you find the right table, you're almost certain to profit. Of course someone will suck out on the river on you, it happens all the time but in the main you'll come out ahead.

I played Poker Champs yesterday in 3 short sessions, down low at 25c/50c - I don't play stakes lower than this and even this level feels like playing for peanuts (sorry if that's your regular stake!) I more than doubled up within 20 minutes, a combination of aggressive short hand play followed by tight, only playing big cards play paid off nicely. So up we go, $1/$2 NLHE - I recognise a few names here, they obviously know there is dead money in these waters, I gave a tight table image and was able to steal blinds with average hands (AT, KJ etc) eventually I got paid off when holding JJ, not my favourite hand but on as raggy board with your opponent holding AK (I assume) they strangely pay out!

So a good day overall, winning at Poker Champs is always nice as you get that bit extra on the Friday from the Rake Back. If you haven't got a Poker Champs account yet, give it a try by clicking Here

Enjoy your cards.

A quick dip in the Pacific

2005-01-22T13:02:00.000-08:00

I've had a few sessions on Pacific Poker now, the standard is pretty poor even at $200 NLHE. I was doubled up at that level by a maniac raiser last night and took a reasonable profit from $100 NLHE today. I withdrew my entire bank and have left Pacific, probably for a while, if not for good. The reason? It's an utterly terrible poker room, the looks, features and even games are horrible to play. Small details like the speed the cards are dealt have been ignored. I think it's criminal that a company as large as 888 casino cannot put together a smooth running poker room that doesn't make your eyes bleed after a few hours!

A night off tonight, it's been a good week at the tables.

I feel I may play William Hill or Poker Champs for the remainder of the month.

Enjoy your cards.

Starry starry goodnight

2005-01-21T05:34:00.000-08:00

So much for seeing how far my $200 on Stars would get me. I got up to over $400 last night and decided enough was enough, the waters are even better at Pacific Poker, so I withdrew my $400 and will be playing at Pacific for a while.

In the cold light of day I realise I should of just left the money in Stars, I don't need it for Pacific and it would of been fun to see how well the experiment could of progressed. I'm sure I'll be back, I've noted my withdrawal figure in preperation for next time.

So the weekend is here, I don't really have any plans as usual, perhaps I'll try some tournaments on Pacific, maybe there'll be some value around on the football.

Enjoy yourselves.

So many fish swim in the Pacific

2005-01-20T04:48:00.000-08:00

I've just download Pacific Poker

Wow!

Fish frenzy, I've doubled my deposit in the first hour.

You need to get over to Pacific Poker if you play a lot of texas hold em.

Enjoy!

Cash hero, tournament zero

2005-01-20T04:14:00.000-08:00

Starting balance: $200
Current stars bank: $316
Profit: 58% ($116)
Sessions: 3
Average profit per session: $38.66

I decided to try a sit n go tournament on pokerstars last night, $15 PL Omaha Hi/Lo - Turbo. I'm not a turbo / speed sit n go fan, towards the end they become even more of a crapshoot than usual but last night I was short of time and hoped a quick cash would be enough for the evening.

Hand #1
I got Ah2h3h9d

There are 4 limpers before me (surprise, it's Omaha!) So I hoped to clear a few out by pot raising. 2 folded.

Flop:
7hJhKh (bingo!)

I check, one of the others bets the pot (BINGO!). I pause and call. 3rd guy folds.

Turn:
6c

Other guy is now all-in, no need to pause, I call straight away. At this stage I leave my chair to get a drink, sure he has a flush, Q high.

River: Th

Nightmare river! He has the straight flush! I returned to my chair to see myself out and had to check everything twice until it dawned on me.

I wouldn't say I tilted after this but probably saw 60% of flops with my cards in the subsequent cash game! I still got out ahead, in the cold light of day I'm amazed I did but the fact that I did hammered home how poor the players at 50c/$1 NLHE are. The session ended with a slight increase to the profits, I'm pleased to get over 50% after 3 sessions, this bodes well for future increases. Must avoid those damn sit n go's!!

Stars update

2005-01-19T05:43:00.000-08:00

Starting balance: $200
Current stars bank: $289
Profit: 44.5% ($89)
Sessions: 2
Average profit per session: $44.50

As you can see, the profit on Stars has increased slightly after a short session last night, I only played for a very short period at 50c/$1 NLHE, about 40 hands. The experiment will continue again tomorrow evening, I have no targets set, I'll just see how far I can take it without busting. I will stay at 50c/$1 for now, if by chance I make it to $600 I will move up to $1/$2, however, that would be a reluctant move as 50c/$1 is proving very easy money at the moment.

I've been following the Aussie Millions results, some good English wins down under this year, I wish I had more time to try and qualify for some EPT events online, I'd like to try a "big" event this year, just to get a feel for it. I wonder if it'll happen.

Stay safe.

The stars at night

2005-01-18T06:50:00.000-08:00

More success on Pokerstars recently, despire two poor showings in MTTs I have come away from two cash sessions with a 30% increase to my bankroll there. That sounds a lot right? Not really, you might remember I cashed out a few days ago, I deposited $200, a small amount, just to see how far I could take it playing NLHE. The figure is $262 today.

I'll be keeping a running total from now on (unless I bust out) for interests sake. Without checking records I think I've played 12 cash NLHE sessions on stars lately and I honestly can't remember a losing session, apart from one of $70.

So the figure is $262. I expect I'll play a little this evening, work & family permitting. It would be nice to cash out in an MTT again soon, I'm disappointed with that area of my game of late.

Stay safe.

Some poker bloggers need shooting!

2005-01-17T13:25:00.000-08:00

I refer to:

pokerbastard.blogspot.com
The self styled "bastard" has nothing to write about apart from his own little world, "gutshot this", "gutshot that"... I know "this" something that isn't public knowledge, I know "that". I thought this blog might be amusing at first, recently it's utter crap. Give it up!

They guy who posts on it is suspiciously like:

camelpoker.blogspot.com

Posting on the same day, same viewpoints about everything, "bastard" even went so far as to give him a "bastard award"

If it is the same person, how VERY F'KING SAD!

Poker Stars, home of the poker fish

2005-01-15T07:22:00.000-08:00

Still at Poker Stars, had a great day so far with profits almost at $600, I decided to cash out as I've been running hot for a few days there. My last hand saw me hit a set of Aces for a pot of $180, it was enough to push me through the playing requirement for the bonus so I had another $150 added aswell. Very nice!

The 50c/$1 and the $1/$2 No Limit Hold Em games on Poker Stars are very fishy now, it wasn't long ago I found these stake levels and upwards more challenging. Over time I hope my poker has improved but I feel with the poker boom in full swing, more fish have joined Poker Stars and they are mighty tasty!

I'll be back there again in future for sure. For now I've emptied my account to take some profits, it's always nice to step back for a few days after a good run and work out the good and bad areas of your play, so I'll be doing that until next week. A few days away from poker should hopefully bring me back hungry for more.

No football bets this weekend (yet) I couldn't really pick out any value anywhere, sadly it's getting towards the stage of the season where you get more unpredictable results, after February I won't be placing many bets at all.

Enjoy your weekends.

Sporting Life Poker

2005-01-13T04:38:00.000-08:00

I was surfing around this lunchtime, looking through various poker sites, one of those is The Sporting Life site. I used to be a great fan of this part of their site, there seemed to be endless new content to read through, just recently it's gone very crap though. Apart from Simon Trumper's diary, which is always an interesting read, the other articles of "news" are terrible... why aren't they guys covering major events like the WPT? How hard is it to employ someone to update the results and write reviews of events around the world? The forum is a joke aswell, NOBODY uses it!

I'll be reading Sporting Life's poker pages less in future.

I played a little cash yesterday and after a poor start, began to build up a small profit after skipping around tables on 50c/$1 NLHE - I'm very comfortable at this level, without trying to boast I feel better than most of the players I'm up against, a simple strategy works very nicely here most of the time.

Lots of work to do right now so no time for poker today.

Stay safe.

Shana Hiatt Nude

2005-01-11T01:48:00.000-08:00

One good reason for watching the WPT and joining Party Poker

The beautiful Shana Hiatt, once posed nude for Playboy.

Wow!

Making the money but only pennies

2005-01-11T01:39:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I played two multi table tournaments on PokerStars.

The first was Pot Limit Omaha Hi/Lo an $11 rebuy tournament. There was a low turn out, only 110 or so players, after everyone had rebought and added-on there were just far too many chips around, it got to the stage where I was 11th and last but still had 25,000 chips with blinds at 1000,2000. In the end I went out in 11th which paid a few dollars profit.

The second, No Limit Hold Em, $11 again but freezeout this time and over 650 players! I couldn't believe how bad these players were, after an hour and on the break, there were only 270 left. Almost 400 out in an hour! Incredible. I stupidly had a glass of wine too many whilst playing this and my focus was poor, I still finished 40th and got paid, again only a few dollars profit. Next time I'll be ready for it, first place was $1,600 and I knew today, in the cold light of day, I was good enough for the top 10 here.

So I spent about 6 hours playing MTT yesterday and made about $30. Not great! However, on the flip side I cashed both times and with a little more patience / less alcohol probably would of seen higher finishes in both and a little more money.

Might try some cash games today.

Stay safe.

Still riding the rollercoaster

2005-01-10T03:00:00.000-08:00

Those of you who follow the football would have noticed Newcastle win 0-2 - they just wouldn't grab that 3rd goal for me! Oh well, it was a free bet and £40 extra would of been nice but it didn't hurt my bank balance.

I'm still peaking and dipping on my poker rollercoaster. After yesterdays post I went on to stars again and lost $200, I won a $12, six seat SNG and a $20 Heads-up Pot Limit Omaha game so was going along nicely, then got ahead by $40 on a 50c/$1 No Limit Hold Em table.... after all that things started to dip, I tried to buy a hand on the river with AQ on a raggy looking board containing 2,6,7,9,J. I was called by pockets 8s, he'd read me perfectly, he was probably worried I had a bigger pocket pair or perhaps AJ but credit to him, the call was going to leave him with about $8 and looking at a re-load but he made the correct choice. I moved to PLO $1/$2 after that and the table was very tight, I began picking up $4 and $5 pots without trouble and got myself ahead by about $30 very quickly, then I found a chaser when I had a set of Jacks, I didn't improve and their open end straight draw hit the river, costing me 80% of my stack.

My wife on the other hand made a money finish in the WSOP Round 2 event at Bugsys Club - going out with TenTen vrs 33 after a 3 hit the flop, very unlucky, she won almost every coin flip she got involved with and only asked for my advice two or three times during the tournament. At least someone made some poker money last night!! :-)

I had an hour on Stars again today, better luck this time doubling my $100 before leaving to get on with some work, I had a nice run of 5 or 6 hands - KK, AK(twice), TT(which flopped a set) QTs which flopped a flush. Feels like such an easy game when they hit like that.

Back to poker basics

2005-01-09T05:30:00.000-08:00

I've had a reasonable weekend so far, mostly due to a great football result. I won't go into too much detail but the profit was £300 ($560-ish) from the football and a few hundred from poker on Saturday morning.

I've been playing low stake No Limit Hold Em on Poker Stars and Poker Champs with good results. I tried a couple of multi table Stars tournaments on Friday, 9th was a pleasing result in the Pot Limit Omaha game (160 players) I played, in the PLO8 I was rubbish and got kicked out half way in.

Back to stars this morning, good solid play until trying to buy a pot by representing a turn King, sadly my opponent tried to buy it on the flop and HIT the turn King! LOL!! That cost me $40 but overall I'm pleased with my game, I'm starting to like Hold Em again, I just hope it continues to like me for a while.

I earned myself a free football bet today due to my success yesterday, about to kick off is Yeading vrs Newcastle United, I've stuck my free £25 on Newcastle to win by more than 2 goals at 8/11 - the win returns about £18 but as the £25 was free, in effect it returns £43 for zero stake.

Have a relaxing Sunday.

Riding the poker rollercoaster

2005-01-05T13:54:00.000-08:00

I've been back to Pokerchamps and have gone up and down in the profit column. It's frustrating as I know I can beat the game here, just a couple of stupid errors and unlucky beats and profits get wiped out. I will persist!

Anyway, William Hill have announced a £100,000 guaranteed tournament for the New Year, very attractive it looks too!! If you haven't got an account there just click my link and get yourself 50 quid for free and £5 an hour!

Online Poker 2005

2005-01-02T06:40:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year everyone.

I've had a reasonable start to 2005. On New Year's Eve I played in the $50 OmahaHi/Lo MTT on PokerStars. 80 others decided to do the same and it was a nice tournament, by that I mean I didn't really see any horrific bad beats. I got myself into 5th with 30 players to go and over played two pair on the flop, I did have a low draw that never appeared and I was crippled, down to 26th!

I was pleased with myself after that happened, I didn't tilt, I kept playing my solid game and dragged myself back into the money (7th, top 9 paid) with 13 players to go. Here I was weak/passive to the extreme, I was determined to get paid and let a reasonable stack slip. I finished in 8th - about to be anted out by the blinds I went all-in on QJ23 - A pretty reasonable drawing hand, of course I ran into AAxx, despite making trip J the other guy hit the flush and that was me out for $180.

I've stuck with Stars for the last two days, yesterday playing a few dozen small stake NLHE heads-up matches and profiting nicely there too. Today I took a horrible beat in a $100 Sit N Go but recovered to turn $150 into $350 on NLHE $2/$4 - Two lucky hands really, one was big blind crap that hit a flop the other was AK suited, chased the nut flush on the flop but hit the K instead! - the other guy was NOT best pleased, infact I checked back 10 minutes later and he was still complaining to his friends only the amounts and severity of the beat he took had increased for some strange reason!! ;-)

Now I'm ahead on Stars for a nice amount I'm going to withdraw and take it back to PokerChamps - hopefully there can at least get some rake fee back on Friday and take advantage of the poor playing standard.

Back to work tomorrow, so much to do there may well be no time for poker for a few days.

Stay safe.

Pot Limit Omaha

2004-12-26T14:19:00.000-08:00

I haven't played Pot Limit Omaha for a while but it's always been a favourite poker game of mine. I'm surprised it doesn't get more coverage on the web. A recent discovery of mine was Pot Limit Omaha - they seem to be heading in the right direction, certainly for novices to Pot Limit Omaha at least.

I hope you guys reading this had a nice Christmas, I've been driving around visiting family, enjoying my son opening his presents and generally eating too much!

More time for poker next week, I have a feeling I'll be chalking up a few hours of Omaha :-)

Stay safe.

Gus Hansen

2004-12-21T05:10:00.000-08:00

This morning I spent 2 hours on 50c/$1 NLHE on Poker Champs. It was nice to see Gus Hansen entertaining us mere mortals at the lower stakes by playing for a while, although I get the feeling his heart wasn't in it when he said "All-in every hand until I win one".

He didn't win one and dumped several hundred before leaving, sadly I never got a sniff of his cash but progressed nicely throughout the morning for a tidy $100 profit. The standard today was much better, 3 or 4 players were on the table that I knew could play. Fortunately the rest were crap and contributed plenty enough to go around :-)

I'm very pleased with my NLHE play at the moment, I'm playing for short periods and cashing out when I have a good profit, I'm also pleased with Poker Champs. This site won't be to everyones tastes but I'm finding I turn to it first in almost every session, probably because of the huge amount of rake back you can make just from a few hours play and probably because of the high number of poor players still contributing.

Ho Ho Ho - Poker Santa

2004-12-21T01:25:00.000-08:00

It was the Monday tournament yesterday, myself and two others bothered to play a £20+£2 on William Hill. Carnage all round, none of us got higher than 6th. I was knocked out was AT vrs KT when KT went all-in on the T high board only to catch runner-runner clubs for the flush.... yes the standard really was THAT good!

It's supposed to be the last one next Monday, I really cannot be arsed to play it anymore, the first 10 weeks or so were great, there were 6 or 7 players I knew and it was more of a laugh than anything else, since then players have given up posting on the forum where the game is arranged and I haven't seen them playing anywhere for weeks. I suspect they've gone bust, only two are reasonable players, the rest are pretty average at best. I'm going to post less on that forum too, I've given free advice to a number of players, told them of ways to increase their bankroll through other means, even going so far as to let some of the "smaller" players win the weekly tournament when heads-up vrs me, to give them a confidence boost.

The weekend was a let down, I ventured on to Poker Stars and lost over $500, it was mostly beat after beat on $1/$2 Pot Limit Omaha that did the damage, however I threw away a comfortable money place in a $50 MTT after playing like a fool.

Sunday afternoon I moved back to Poker Champs - I'm on fire here recently, throughout the afternoon and indeed yesterday more than anything I was crushing everyone in sight. Yesterday I got my Poker Stars losses back which cheered me up no end, just playing a nice tight strategy at $1/$2 NLHE. There are a lot of eastern European players here, they have a very aggressive style which is easily picked apart. I'll have little time left to play now until the 27th, today and tomorrow I have some work to complete but I'm hopeful of getting a few hours in. Thursday I'm taking my wife away for her birthday, just a nice hotel a couple of hours drive away, not my idea of fun but if it pleases her and gives me less earache for a day or two that's fine. Friday I have no plans but suspect some work will come up although I won't be home to do it until the afternoon. Saturday is Christmas day and that means most of the day at the in-laws house, present opening, dinner eating, game playing. Sunday means I go to my mothers house for the afternoon/evening for more eating and game playing - although it's more likely to be everyone sat around watching TV until they decide to leave rather than playing games, my mother doesn't make any fuss though, she puts on a lot of food at her expense and tries to look happy for everyone. That brings us to Monday the 27th. I'm hoping I can play a lot of poker between the 27th and January, with the wife and kid around I doubt it'll occur.

I still have to go out either today or tomorrow to get one more gift for the wife, I've bought her a laptop for a Xmas/Birthday gift but I should get her something else to open on her Birthday at least. A laptop case seems sensible.

What would I like from Poker Santa I hear you all yelling? ;-)

I'd like to win a big MTT in 2005, just one.
I'd like to work part time / play poker part time to set hours rather than one full time for one week, one full time the next.
I'd like my wife to go a year without getting flu, an infection, tooth problems, stomach pains.
I'd like my boy to sleep in until 9am on the weekend.

I'm not asking for much Poker Santa and I have been very good this year.

21 again?

2004-12-17T05:10:00.000-08:00

I didn't play last night, a few months ago I picked up a cold which turned into an extremely nasty case of sinusitis, I didn't see a doctor straight away and it took about 10 days on antibiotics to finally leave my head. The last few days I've been getting over a cold, not a bad one, just a blocked nose and a mild sore throat, yesterday my sinuses started throbbing and I was blowing some really disgusting looking crap out of my nose, just like a few months back. I took some pain killers and watched the TV instead of playing poker, my God! there's some crap on UK TV right now, despite there being around 700 channels on Sky satellite, nothing was interesting enough to watch for more than 2 minutes.

Today I don't feel too bad, I still think I've got sinusitis again due to the dark green gunk coming from my nose every hour or so, I hope I'm wrong and it's just the death throws of my cold.

Tomorrow, it's my birthday (21 again? title) - I've really stopped celebrating birthdays since I was about 23, much to the annoyance of my wife who has pestered to take me out somewhere, even suggesting the newly opened casino about 30 minutes drive away. I really cannot be bothered though, I suspect the cold and lack of sleep (the kid, don't ask!) has brought on a bout of lethargy, besides I don't want to dump a few hundred at a new casino on my Birthday, I'm getting old and that's depressing enough, losing money isn't going to improve that.

I've had a good run of late and so don't think I'll play much over the next few days, perhaps try the cash games on Poker Champs again on Sunday, although I have 4 poker articles to prepare this weekend ready for Monday.

Have a good weekend.

Poker Chumps II

2004-12-16T04:57:00.000-08:00

Only a couple of hours at the tables this morning but the fun continues on Poker Champs this time $1/$2 NLHE. Watching the table prior to joining I see 6 players with stacks between $50 and $100 and 1 player with $350. Max. buy-in was $100 I believe so it was clear who had been crushing who here!

I put $75 in, a busy day ahead I didn't want a 4 hour session, so I had a mental note to leave on $175 if I could or take a $75 loss and try to get it back another day. Things went superbly, I dipped to $55 early on but recovered and never saw under $100 after that. The most memorable hand from the session was AA in big blind. UTG raised the pot, everyone else folded.

Time for a little Hollywood. I have the mouse over call but wait a good 10 seconds, as if pondering my move.

The flop is rags, 3,7,9. I feel he has Ax or a medium pair like Tens. I check. He bets half the pot. Again, a longer pause this time and a call.

The turn brings deuce of diamonds, leaving two diamonds on a board full of rags. He bets the pot this time. He's either worried about the flush draw or thinks I'm chasing an Ace (well, I wouldn't mind if one did appear!!!). He has about $50 left. Time to see how strong he is, I raise him all-in. He calls straight away! I think he may of hit a set.

River is a Q, he mucks his hand. Phew!

I can't remember the last reasonable pot I've taken with AA before this, I've won a few for pocket change and lost a few too. The play on Poker Champs in general is awful, it's so easy to set traps and get action.

Poker Champs & their poker chumps

2004-12-16T01:54:00.000-08:00

I hit Poker Champs last night and was amazed at how poor the players there are. Although in truth I was playing a very low stake NLHE game 25c/50c

Max' buy-in was $25. I left with over $100, that's 4 times my buy-in. I took around an hour, to me that is an amazing return. Had I been playing $1/$2 and turned $100 into $400 I would of been over the moon. Sadly this was the highest NLHE game going at the time, I didn't fancy $3/$6 fixed limit, it seems the bigger games occur at the weekends but if you want an easy few hundred, you can't go wrong here.

Try and ignore the poor looking graphics on Poker Champs. You get used to them after a few minutes and the returns on your investments will make you play here every day.

Two steps forward, one step back

2004-12-15T03:22:00.000-08:00

I finally made my Full Tilt bonus this morning, however, it cost me $60 in losses to earn it! At one stage I was $140 down, playing for a $120 bonus!

Finally some cards stuck and I picked up a few pots, was tempted to playing another 30 hands or so, there were enough fish around to make it worthwhile but I figured I'd had a good run of late and withdrew everything in my account.

Last night I played Poker Champs - Gus Hansen's poker room. I can't believe how easy the hold em games are there, it's a fish frenzy! - If you don't have an account there I suggest you give it a try, I picked up over $400 in 2 hours, that's going to earn me a good rake back come Friday.

Poker Abuse

2004-12-14T02:21:00.000-08:00

It never ceases to amaze me how rude and abusive some players are. I've played on dozens of poker platforms and taken some verbal (typed) abuse on them all but the very worse, sore losing, foul mouthed players are Americans. I'm sorry if you're American and you don't feel the need to shout your mouth off because you took a beat or don't like the way others play. Full Tilt is full of these morons, as I've been playing there more and more, I've noticed this attitude amongst lots of their players that is non-existent on other sites, or at least very rare. Today for example:

I played a $20 + $2 SNG, NLHE. Pretty standard stuff, with 3 to go the chips were like this.

Big Stack 6.5k
Me 3-ish k
Other guy 3.5k

All approx amounts.

I hit K,T in BB and made top pair with the Tens. I check, Big stack bets half the pot. I reraise the pot. There is a pause and he goes all-in, I call. He has 3,5 (2nd pair) and I take it down to become big stack. Shortly afterwards I knock the former chip leader out when he went all-in with Q,T vrs my A,Q. So it's me versus the abusive guy, on around 10.5k vrs 2.5k - I feel I can enjoy this and really kick his ass and take the winnings in 5 - 10 hands max.

This guy has already commented on my play a couple of times, now he's really quiet. I know he's concentrating as even my "nh's" and "unlucky's" go unanswered. I have him down to 1.6k and he goes all-in. I have pocket 8's and call. He has 2,T and flops a 2. No problem, I'm about to say "GG" and leave when the river hits another 2! - No problem, I'm still way ahead and I know now if he's getting low he'll be in with anything.

Some 30 hands later! I can't believe the game is still playing, chips are closer around 8k vrs 5k. I get 7,5s in the hole in BB, he limps sa he did on 90% of other pots.

Flop: J,8,9 (single spade to give me 3 part flush but more interesting, straight draw with 6 or 10 for the straight.)

He bets half the pot. I call

Turn: 2 (spade again) - Now I have the straight and flush draw, a total of 17 outs.

He bets the pot this time. I feel this is the make or break hand, if I call I may need that flush as there's a chance he has the straight already, more likely he has top pair.

River: 3 (spade!)

He goes all-in. Just for a moment, I think he may have JA with a better flush. If I lose this hand I give him a huge chip lead. I see sense and call. He has top two pairs.

Now, the ranting and raving which followed was almost beyond belief!
"d - ick"
"your girlfriend likes my moves!"
"and your mom"
"luck, pure luck"

I LOL'd at him and thanked him for his contribution. Just what is the point of all that? He finished 2nd, he made $32 for an hour of his time, alright I hit my drawing hand to beat him, remember he also rivered trip 2 to beat me pocket 8s, a much less likely river but I said nothing.

This is now the trend on Full Tilt. To try and abuse your opponent, even after the game when it is utterly pointless! I know I won't be dragged down to the gutter like that, if Full Tilt wasn't such a fish pond I'd never bother there again.

Free Poker Cash

2004-12-13T06:05:00.000-08:00

A nice surprise this afternoon, was given some free cash by PokerBoss at William Hill - They're just giving away £10,000 in December to cash table players.

Easy poker money!

Pacific Poker UK Open

2004-12-13T02:32:00.000-08:00

After much driving around yesterday I got home in the late afternoon, a little earlier than expected and managed to squeeze in a couple of hours on Full Tilt.

I left down $10 this time, so it was a complete waste of time really apart from the amusement of winding up 3 or 4 players. I was labelled "dum" by one guy. Now, I can take name calling abuse online, people feel pretty much untouchable behind their monitors and to get upset or angry because of it would be useless but to be abused in such an illiterate way made me fall around laughing, the same guy would type "bs" when his big hands would lose, despite them being almost always coin flips (AK vrs JJ for example). Most amusing of all though was cracking some guy's KK with 6,7o. He raised x2 the BB, a dangerous weak raise which invites Ax to call IMO, I was half in with the BB and two other callers made it a worthwhile call.

Flop: 9,7,5 rainbow

I think I'm in pretty good shape here, I don't smell the pocket pair. It's checked to the aggressor who bets half the pot. I start to sense the pocket pair but think I may be able to take this down anyway should the straight hit or look more obvious. It's folded to me and I call

Turn: A

No I'm worried he may have Ax and I check. He checks too! Now he's really screaming pocket pair! A bet then from him would of ended it, even I don't chase 3rd highest pair with a crap kicker and weak straight draw.

River: 6

I know I've got him by the balls now. Just a question of what to bet to get the call. I put in half the pot which irritatingly he called straight away, as if he would of called any bet there.

Still, he flipped over his Kings and I took it down much to his disgust.

"nh!!!!!!!!"
"keep calling with 6,7"
"I'm not leaving whilst you have chips"

Just a few of his high blood pressure inspired remarks. I added a note to his name, next time I'm going to try and give him a stroke.

The title of this post is "Pacific Poker UK Open"
The final was last night and I quite enjoyed it. There are several, more high profile bloggers who are constantly attacking poker on UK television, whilst I agree Celebrity Poker Club is crap and some of the American celeb shows are equally as poor, I think the PPUK Open was a worthwhile watch. It showed that there is no gulf in class between full time pros and regular internet or part time celeb players.

The final three were Matthew Stevens, Yvevgeny Tennis Guy (now poker pro) and Phil Taylor, Donnacha O'Dea was asleep for the majority it seems, finally getting 99 and lumping it all in when everyone else has x3 his stack, expertly played Don!. I was hoping the pub landlord would win it but sadly he was out in 4th.

I wish the "know it all" pros who pick up on minor errors in commentary would just let it go for a while, poker on TV is a good thing, why? Because it inspires new players to try their luck online, this increases the fish numbers in our pond and without the fish, we'll all go hungry.

Andy Bloch

2004-12-11T02:48:00.000-08:00

It's early over here. Well.. reasonably early, I thought I'd get on Full Tilt and push towards that bonus cash a little more, you never know! I might actually get there before it expires in January.

Straight away I see Howard Lederer is playing low level NLHE, with a waiting list of 24 players! I watched for a moment, just wondering how many dumbass questions players would ask him, there was quite a number!

Then over at O8B, I see Andy Bloch is playing $2/$4 PL heads-up vrs some other guy, they both have stacks of around $600, I don't really want to sit down and lose that much trying to chase a $100 bonus, so I decided $200 would be enough, if I lost that I can make it up playing some crappy fish later. After only a few minutes the other guy left so I'm playing heads-up vrs Andy Bloch, former MIT student, blackjack card counter and pretty damn good poker player.... so no pressure! I managed to take a few hundred from him before he announced he was tired and going to sleep, to be honest, I was thinking about leaving anyway, I'd hit some pretty nice cards and had Andy betting into me - I suspected he'd hit a monster sooner or later and I'd be in trouble.

A good start to the weekend which is sure to get worse as I go Xmas shopping and visiting family in the next two days.

Enjoy yourselves.

Hit and run / Felicia Lee

2004-12-09T13:45:00.000-08:00

So I got a couple of hours in this evening. Stupidly I keep playing $2/$4 limit Razz, I loved the game at first but now it's starting to annoy me, I dropped $80 there and decided to move to NLHE $1/$2 - 6 handed, my old hunting ground, old faithful. Turned $100 into $240 pretty quickly despite a $500 stack player limping every time. So for an hours work I was quite happy considering the day I've had! Won't be playing Razz for a good long while!

Please visit Felicia Lee's blog if you haven't already. I read her blog all the time, she is very down to earth and obviously a great stud poker player, I hope she doesn't give up the game despite her recent posts and health problems.

Not enough hours!

2004-12-09T04:48:00.000-08:00

Very little time to sit down and play in the last day or two.

I did hit a $1/$2 NL table last night on Full Tilt. After an hours play and around $10 worth of bonus added to the bonus account I was exactly $6 ahead! I suppose I shouldn't expect to gather hundreds every session, I stopped there and went to watch the football on TV. Only to catch my wife panicking, she's got an interview today and like the empty headed sweetheart she has become of late, forgot to return her comfirmation about attending the interview!

She left this morning at 8 and it's now 5 hours later (it's one of those all day assesment things) so I assume they decided to interview her anyway. She's been complaining about lack of preperation, lack of sleep (due to our screaming son at 4am) and dental pain - she had an extraction on Tuesday (2 days ago). I'm hopeful it'll go well for her, she hates her current job and really wants to become a teacher, she's never liked any job she's had though, each change resulted in a similar conversation along the lines of "It's more money, better hours, closer to family" but this time, although the hours are good the pay is crap, she'll probably earn around 17,000GBP a year when she qualifies and only 6,000GBP a year for the first 12 months of training - Compared to the 30,000GBP a year she currently earns, it's not great!

Anyway, this is a poker blog (really!?) and the title of this post is "Not enough hours!" - for the next few days there simply won't be enough hours for me to get to a table. Today, I have my son at home with me, I usually have him for 1 day a week, just him and me and it's almost always enjoyable, as he's learning to talk and recognise things. Come the end of the day I'm always shattered though so don't expect to have the energy and concentration to play poker today. Tomorrow, my son is usually with his grandparents to allow me to work, occasionally they can't be home to babysit him, so I have him for two days this week. This leaves me with a few hours to complete any work outstanding on Friday evening and Saturday. This weekend we'll be Christmas shopping and on Sunday making a 3 hour drive to my parents house to deliver the gifts ready for the big day. The next time I get any time for poker will probably be Monday.... If I have any energy left!

If you're bored this weekend and just sat around playing a few hands, think of me and how much I'd rather swap places with you!

The Poker Gods are smiling

2004-12-08T01:49:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was one of those days when everything went right (well almost!) I'll tell you what happened in a moment.

Firstly, the Monday tournament was a let-down. Myself and two others bothered, one of those was a first timer. We played a small limit sit n go, I got knocked out in 6th - this earned me 2 points on the Monday tournament leaderboard, I'm currently 1st on that by 8 points, probably because out of 15 weeks I've only missed 2 or 3 games. Still, I offered a cash prize for 1st, if the others can't be bothered I'll just reward myself! :-)

Back to yesterday. I played for around 4 hours in total, all ring games. Starting on the ugly Betfair I played some O8B, I got myself ahead by $150 then made a few slips, the table left one by one until I was the only one remaining, at that stage I was at almost $200, that's $100 profit. Not overly disappointed with that result for 30 minutes work. I decided to do some real work for a few hours - I write for a poker website so set about finishing my assignment on poker terms over there and wrote a poker news article too - After which I returned to Uglyfair to play Omaha High. Omaha High is a game I've come to like over time, when I first discovered it I thought it was a lottery, that everybody saw the flop etc. After more experience I've realised it's probably more skillful than Hold Em, certainly more challenging on the brain.

After a couple of hours of kicking ass I was ahead by $350 - It was a session where everything I played seemed to hit and stand up, every draw I chased hit the turn or river, at one stage I had a nut flush draw, the board paired the turn and I faced a $150 call, I correctly folded to see the river make my flush and the heavy bettor turn over trip Jacks, no boat! That would of made my day very nice indeed but I don't gamble my stack on a 9 outter draw vrs a paired board, not these days anyway!

So into the evening. I place a small treble football (soccer) bet, two of the teams are winning with 5 minutes to go, I'm thinking "as usual, I can win at poker or football but not poker AND football" stupid really, as if there is a higher power at work limiting my winnings!! Not this time, Yeovil scored late on and the treble was up. Not for a huge amount due to the short odds but still another £70 ($130).

Whilst watching the football results I was playing Razz on Full Tilt Poker. $5/$10 limit, Full Tilt have this crazy bonus program going on, I'm about half way through my bonus points for a free $100, so figured a little $5/$10 would help that along nicely. I started badly but recovered to take away $160 profit. Bringing my total return from the day to almost $750.

I'm not going to retire just yet but that's the best day I've had since back in late October. A couple more like that will really boost my December income.

Today I have some more work to do for the poker website. It's good work, I enjoy talking (writing) about poker (can you tell?) however, this work is a feature about STRIP POKER! - Not a problem as I'm not prudish, however, the cleaning lady might be!! Might start that one when she's left the house :-)

Call me!

2004-12-06T05:24:00.000-08:00

I'm not a fan of Betfair... SHOCK, HORROR!! - Don't get me wrong, the betting exchange is great, I've used it in the past and have been more than happy. Betfair Poker is possibly the ugliest poker room on the net. I know, I know... it's cryptologic and they all use the same software, William Hill, UKBetting, Inter Poker etc etc. But Betfair's is slightly different. The cashier is through the Betfair website, which means no Neteller. WAKE UP BETFAIR!! Almost every poker player I know uses Neteller, so you're limited in deposit options. The software itself it's pretty standard but the tables are painful to look at. EVERYTHING is a shade of blue, making it very hard to see who's in play, sat out very quickly, especially if you have a large monitor like me.

Anyway, I'm just being picky really. The players on that platform remain as bad as ever, I just stepped away from O8B $0.50/$1 PL - I joined to make the table 4 handed and took a few river beats straight away, down $100. I wasn't worried I was outdrawn each time, so reloaded, still composed, tried again, turned the $100 into $140 within 10 minutes and the table started to fill, after a while we were playing 9 handed. Now if this was NLHE I would of left straight away, I prefer short handed NLHE but for some reason PL O8B I like a good 9 or 10 players. I digress - The play which followed was brilliant FOR ME, I hit a monster pre-flop hand. AA2K, for me that is one of the top 5 hands in O8B and I have no problem jamming the pot with it. So I raised the max. pre-flop and got one caller.

Flop: 3,9,10

I'm confident I'm ahead. I bet the pot. The other guy (who's short stacked by the way) raises all-in. Now I think I'm behind and he's hit his set, probably Tens or Threes. I don't want to but I'm heavily invested in the pot and a fold now for another $15 or so would be weak, so I call.

He turns over 2,4,10,J

(When you've stopped laughing, feel free to read on)

Turn and River were blanks for both of us and I scoop it.

I'm trying to figure out why this guy played the hand. It's too easy to say "Ohh he's a fish, a gambler, etc" - He'd already lost around $120, I'm more inclined to believe the red mist came down and his plan was to call and buy the hand on the flop no matter what appeared. I watched him get outdrawn on two rivers previously and I'm almost certain he was just pissed off at the cards being cruel to him.

2,4,10,J are reasonable cards when heads-up. I like J,10, there are plenty of options for that hand and 2,4 isn't an awful low end if you catch an Ace, Three. The Flopped 3 and 10 were enough to push him over, he probably put me on A2 and hoped the 10 was good.

Monday tournament tonight, hopefully be one or two players are up for it. Have been as many as 6 or 7 in the past, I suspect they are losing money online and that's why it's down to 3 or 4 at best.

Report to come later.

A couple of Ace holes

2004-12-05T04:23:00.000-08:00

I've been trying my luck on Full Tilt Poker this weekend with mixed results. I see they have NL O8B, so tried that out at the micro table. I couldn't believe the advice that was thrown around by these guys, I finished up doubling my $10 (max buy in) stack but really just stayed for the amusement factor of one or two guys telling everyone else how they should play.

It's amazing that poker players, scrabbling around for a few dollars want to IMPROVE how their opponents play. Of course, that isn't the real reason, they are simply pissed off at being out drawn and feel that's their only outlet to vent. Sometimes I really just wish they'd be abusive rather than constructive though!

Today.
Hit the $5/$10 fixed limit tables and really got some momentum going, had my Aces cracked early on by 6,7s and that took around $100 from me but that was my only beat of note, went on to take $300 profit, most of which came from my second pocket Aces which stood up vrs JKo (same guy who cracked my earlier Aces) - I jumped ship before giving any of that back.

I really like Full Tilt Poker, it's just a shame it's so targetted towards Americans, right now it's lunchtime in the UK and I can't find a suitable ring table & there are very few worthwhile Sit N Go's to join in. Only around 300 players online.

Tomorrow it's the regular Monday night tournament I play vrs a few other online players, the last two weeks have been O8B, 10 players sit n go, resulting in a 2nd and 6th for me. I'm due a win again but already "regulars" are crying off. We'll see what occurs at 8pm tomorrow.

Fish bring home the bacon

2004-12-03T06:57:00.000-08:00

I haven't put in nearly enough hours online of late. Last month I played a total of 75 hours, almost half what I played in October and because of a few poor spells, November finished my worst month of the year, around $1000 profit (I have been making close to $5000 on occasion).

So this month, t'is the season to kick some fishy ass at the tables. I'm already $700 to the good this month thanks to some cash game O8B at $2/$4 - $3/$6 and $4/$8, today was particually good with one player from San Diego willing to pay me almost everytime I was in a pot. If you play on Poker Stars his name is YMASTER29 - If you are reading this good sir, thank you for starting my month off so nicely. Perhaps a little practice might be in order before you try O8B again?

Actually scrap that! Get in touch and lets play s'more for a few hours!

My target this month is $3000 - I have to get back on track but with Christmas and a few birthdays this month I know I'll be short on time in a week or two. Follow my progress on here.

Out on the bubble

2004-12-01T07:56:00.000-08:00

Well PokerStars was down when I tried to login. So I moved to Party Poker and tried the $30+$3 O8B tournament. What a waste of time!!

After over 2 hours we were down to 23 remaining, 20 got paid, and I have just below average chips (was around 15th) and not really concerned as I'd played solid Omaha throughout the tourney.

I hit a strong hand, A289 - Not amazing I know, but with nut low and reasonable straight chances it was worth the limp bet. I thought if I could take down one reasonable sized, 2000 - 2500 pot I'd cruise into the last 15 or so and hopefully press on for a final table from there. So with 5500 chips I call the blind, 400.

Flop: A3J

Not a disaster flop for me with two others in there, I'm fearful of the A3 holders but reckon a reasonable lowon turn or river and I should see something back. I still have the top pair albeit with a poor kicker. There is a 600 bet. I call, leaving me with 4500 chips - still not out of the tournament even if I fold from there.

Turn: 9

Alright, now we're looking good for the high. A3 is not a concern anymore but AJ is, I still have a low chance but a slim one. There is a 1000 bet. The size of the bet concerns me, it smells like a set but it came from the big stack on the table. I'm hoping he has A,2,4,x and is drawing to the nut low with a top pair for high. I call.

River: J

Sh*t! Now I'm worried, I have two pairs, A and J with a crappy 9 kicker. It's checked to me, with 3500 chips left. I reckon a biggish bet would be enough to make any Aces drop out for fear of the trip Jacks. There is no low on the board. I put 2000 in and get the prayer matt out. First guy folds, I assume he was drawing to the nut low, last guy with only 2200 chips calls me. He has Ace, Ten. His Ten kicker beating my Nine.

I couldn't believe it, after 2 hours of solid play and with a healthy stack I cripple myself. Even in the cold light of day, if I was in my callers position I would of folded. He basically has the same cards as me, any number of hands has it beaten and he calls his tournament on it. You could argue I should of checked but really I had made the correct assessment of my opponents hand, I knew they weren't strong or had missed their low cards, the check on the river smelt like total fear from them. I went out with A2xx a few hands later, raising all-in.

Still, you live and learn, next time I play this guy I'll know what he likes to call with, next time he'll be shipping his stack over to me. I hit a money finish this morning in a $30 sit n go on Party then picked up $50 in cash from the ring table so the month has started quite well. December cannot be as bad as November, can it?

Omaha hi/lo (Omaha 8 or better)

2004-11-30T09:33:00.000-08:00

Having played Omaha high for a while now, recently I've been hitting a lot of Omaha hi/lo - or Omaha 8 or better as some might know it - tables, I've had several good results in single tables tournaments and a high money finish in a multi.

I have to say I'm addicted to the game, I'm utterly shocked there isn't more information regarding it on the web, starting hands, strategies etc.

I'll be trying the $20+$2 Omaha h/l on PokerStars later today. Will report back my progress when I'm knocked out.

Play Poker

2004-11-30T09:30:00.000-08:00

Play Poker Here have started monthly reviews of online poker rooms.

Sign up through them to William Hill and Poker Champs this month for great extra bonuses.

Poker chat

2004-11-29T07:29:00.000-08:00

If you're interested in poker chat and discussion, one of the best sites for this is Chat About Poker Users can submit poker related articles, reviews etc. The poker forum is totally dedicated to online poker players too.

Welcome to Online Poker Player

2004-11-29T06:37:00.000-08:00

Welcome to my blog.

In the coming weeks, months and years I hope to share my experiences with you, good and bad.

I will also share with you great bonus deals given by online poker rooms, poker book reviews, book web site reviews and everything online poker related.

If you are European, check out William Hill Poker They give away £25 / $40 every month and pay you to play in their online poker room.