It’s Oh So Quiet

As you can probably judge from the increased number of blog entries, work is pretty quiet at the moment. With the company being up for sale, a lack of clear price trend in the markets and Christmas approaching, there appears to be something of a “what we have, we hold mentality” going on.

I played some tournaments on Friday. I made the last two tables of the $50 1r 1a on Full Tilt and cashed in the $80k guaranteed on Stars (I was amongst the chip leaders for a while and had 9,000 chips after two hands when people threw chips at me like they were on fire) but failed to win crucial 60/40s. I managed to play most of the evening in a fairly zen state and even managed to type “nh gg” when busting in the 80k when someone shoved J7hh into my AJ and flopped a flush.

I then played some really good HU for a while on Sunday, played for far too long, got tilty and went from $300 profit to a $100 loss fairly quickly and hated myself for it. That said I switched back to Ipoker *spit* on Monday night and played a reasonably long $50NL session without getting tilty at any point.

Outside of work I’ve returned to the gym and an working on being less of a fat cunt. Wonderflop is doing the same thing but has some lame routine involving salads and fruit juice, which sounds a lot like hard work to me. Hopefully he’ll be back on two pizzas for lunch fairly soon to make me feel a lot better about myself.

On a more serious note, I was pleased to see Wayne’s coach confirm that he’d been running like total shit. We regularly go through his sessions and the poor bastard did seem to keep getting violated by either getting massively coolered or sucked out on in every big pot – stuff like this can really knock your confidence so it is reassuring to have a guy that knows (and virtually every source possible confirms that his coach should know).

West Ham contrived to throw a two goal lead away at Hull on Saturday and eventually drew 3-3. Clattenburg awarded a penalty that wasn’t even close to being one and Bullard scored a doubled deflected free kick. We really need to tighten up at the back and concede less from set pieces, but we did look somewhat unlucky. Upson and possibly Behrami are rumoured to be off in January (Upson hasn’t looked all too interested in the last few games) – we can’t continue to sell good players, not replace them and simply hope that everyone around us continues to be shit. Da Costa has been a pleasant surprise at centre-back so far though, so I hope his form continues.

We play Burnley at home next Saturday. I’m looking forward to it – there are four of us going, including a mate of mine who is (I think) Head of Online Gaming at William Hill. He normally has some good poker related gossip, so I’m looking forward to catching up as he lives in Gibraltar and I don’t see him too often. On Sunday I am going for lunch with my parents and Lucy’s parents, which hopefully won’t be too painful.

I spoke to a couple of people at a social gathering on Saturday and sorted out my best man for my wedding. We also agreed on a possible joint stag do in Amsterdam, where I am likely to be hugely violated by my “friends” so two months may not be enough to recover for the wedding.

Good luck at the tables.

GG Shaun Fucking Deeb, We (Alright, I) Hardly Knew You

Trawling TwoPlusTwo yesterday afternoon I was surprised to come across this post from Shaun Deeb. Before I go any further, I should make it clear – I don’t know Shaun and anything that I have picked up here is largely from stuff written on the forums.
When I first read his post I felt slightly sad (which is retarded given that I don’t know the guy) – Shaun is clearly one of the best, if not the best, tournament grinders out there. There was some stuff written by Seabeast a while ago where people were chuntering on about variance he mentioned Shaun and said that to him that it is no surprise that those that work the hardest and treat the game with the most respect seem to have the best results. I guess Shaun’s retirement (at a guess it will be a break and not a retirement, but what do I know?) shows just how playing a heavy schedule day in, day out can take its toll.

I read some stuff from Sheets a while ago where he mentioned that whilst Shaun had his run-ins with people, he gave advice very freely to people he didn’t know. He was always helpful around MTT strategy on TwoPlusTwo and helped out on threads from five dollar players – which I guess underlines his point. HIV mentioned that Deeb had probably taught the MTT community at TwoPlusTwo more than anyone else – I’d tend to agree. He wrote a pretty epic guide to playing the 180s, which was a total gift to low stakes players.

A while back I was watching the EPT Monte Carlo main event final table. They brought Shaun in to commentate. Shaun’s grammar is something of a standing joke around the forums so I was interested to see how he came across. He spoke really well and clearly, and along with that, gave probably the most insightful poker commentary I’ve ever heard which let me know exactly how little I know about the game and dispelled any ideas that people may have about him being some sort of variance monkey.

With the Deeb cock-sucking over, we should get down to the serious subject matter – Deeb related humour. Hopefully you will enjoy the following:

1) Shaun’s live record isn’t up to scratch relative to his online record. Here TwoPlusTwo speculates on what Shaun might be thinking just before he busts out of a live event.

2) Shaun and Derek8 have had something of a rivalry going for the Stars TLB and have a mutual dislike of each other, so it was nice to see Derek8 putting personal differences to one side to congratulate his opponent with a nice private message.

3) Shaun’s grammar on the forums has provided a lot of entertainment, spawning the gimmick account “Deeb Spell Check”and Bond 18’s comment following Shaun’s input on his excellent Things It Took Me A While To Learn series (this is excellent reading for any tournament player and would recommend you bookmark it if you are one). “Thanks for your input Shaun. It only took me 78 hours and two seizures to turn it into understandable English.”

So, whatever Shaun chooses to do in future – I wish him all the best and hope he finds happiness. On the plus side, every MTT player’s expected ROI just jumped up a notch with him not being around any longer.

I Rack Disciprine

Or in English (and to non-South Park viewers), “I lack discipline”. I played a pretty interesting 50NL session with Bart (one of Aero’s other students) which we both recorded to give to Aero. He’s going to use this to make a video where both of our cards can be seen, which should be pretty cool. I finished down around a buy-in to Bart, which wasn’t bad – I felt that he was a marginally better player than me and being down a buy-in was probably fairly reflective. I don’t think we managed to get all in at any point, so basically it was a four hundred hand epic nit-off.

After that I was pretty tired and played some $100NL. I felt myself getting kind of tilty and should have quit but, like an asshat, kept playing and made one blatant tilt call that cost me a full stack. I finished down $200 for the night, hopefully I will learn my lesson, and hopefully I will get to the Tommy Angelo video on quitting sooner rather than later before it costs me too much more money.

I’m considering moving back to Chili next month to benefit from the rakeback there. Hopefully I won’t get such a no-lube violation from their RNG this time. I’m not sure as yet, I like the liquidity of the player pool at Stars but the rakeback is a fairly hefty incentive.

I should be able to get a solid donkament session in on Friday night. Hopefully I can continue my epic run good from the last few sessions I have played and push on through for a top three place in something.

The action at the nosebleeds continues. DogIsHead wrote a pretty awesome blog post which gives some pretty good insight. I don’t necessarily buy into some of the USA vs. Europe stuff but the bits on Isildur’s game are fairly insightful and well worth a read.

The highlight thus far for me hasn’t been the sheer amount of cash changing hands but Ziigmund’s charming request for Isildur to loan him half a million dollars. I’m not sure if he got the money, but his novel approach below is an interesting alternative to putting a suit on and going and asking your bank manger for $500,000 so you can go and degen it up.

"Ziigmund: hey u f ag

Isildur1: what u say

Ziigmund: can u lend me 500

Ziigmund: back in 2 hours

Isildur1: ??"

The World Cup play-offs concluded last night. Thierry Henry proved that you can take the boy out of Arsenal but you can’t take Arsenal out of the boy with his handball that lead to the winning goal. I don’t buy all of the nice guy stuff that Match Of The Day and the rest portray, I still remember seeing a young Henry waving the imaginary card at Upton Park when one of our players dared to foul one of his team mates. I’m no Ireland fan but I’d rather them in the finals than France – they would have taken a load of support and are clearly a weaker team than France.

West Ham are away at Hull this weekend. I really wanted to go but we have a big do with a load of friends lined up in the afternoon. It is a relegation six-pointer, I’m hoping we catch a few breaks and defend a bit tighter than we have. On the plus side, Carlton Goal has recovered from injury and will be fit, whilst Phil Brown’s sun tan will continue to glow from the opposition bench. I’ve said it before – he has too much tan and too much jewellery for a bloke and reminds me of a bit of a Northern Alan Pardew. I wonder if Phil will follow in Alan’s footsteps and go roaring up various… I’d better end here to avoid legal action.

Good luck at the tables.

Value Range

Stuff has been fairly uneventful (for me, at least) on the poker side. I’ve played more heads-up, with some considerable improvements to me not being an epic tiltbox (more on this later). Due to her indoors being around a lot, I haven’t played any donkaments at all. FTOPS and stuff are going on right now, and congrats to Max (HotKarlMC) for his second place in the PLO event.

Well done also to Joe Cade for winning the little heard of WSOP main event. This was all the more significant for me backing him at 14/1 – thanks for the seventy-odd quid Joe, your mega gazillions that you picked up are insignificant in comparison.

As you are I’m sure aware, the action in the high-stakes cash games on Full Tilt has been frenzied this week, with Swedish newcomer Isildur1 tearing it up and beating Durrrr out of what looks to be in excess of $5m. This can be read about over on 2+2 and at multiple other places. I won’t try and describe what’s going on – much like what’s in Cameron Diaz’s knickers, I’m really interested in what is in there and think about it a lot, but I have no first hand experience and therefore am probably unqualified to comment.

One guy on 2+2 had drawn up a list of big winners/losers at the high stakes games in the last couple of years. The extent to which the French-Canadian bloke that recently went into space has funded these games is pretty incredible. It is pretty impressive to see a new guy (or new account, whichever) come in and shake things up and I’m sure the level of railtardery has gone up a notch over there in the last week or so.

Back to the infinitely less interesting heads-up that I have been playing. I think my game has come on quite a bit, although I’m still unsure in a lot of spots. However, on the recommendation of Wonderflop, I have started watching the Tommy Angelo “Eightfold Path to Poker Enlightenment”. I’m only as far as episode three, but it really is pretty incredible. For anyone that tilts at all (and that’s probably most of us) – do yourself a favour, sign up for a month at Deuces Cracked and watch it. You’ll recoup your money in no time – it is that good.



Thanks also to Yorskshire Pud for his recent comments on this blog. Matt’s excellent work has been given the obligatory link over on the right and hopefully his write up will get some additional traffic through here. Obviously the write-up didn’t come without a bribery, so Matt – the hamper will be with you for Christmas. However, the economic climate is harsh, therefore the contents will be exclusively from Tesco’s value range. Thank me later. ;)

Elsewhere there has been little going on. In-ger-lund lost a friendly to Brazil and got fairly well outclassed. On the football – an apology to Alan Wiley, who refereed the West Ham vs. Everton game well last week. My thoughts on Wiley are well documented (if you haven’t read previous posts: I think he is a thundercunt) but he did his best to let a reasonably physical game flow and didn’t book players mindlessly, without ever letting things get out of hand.

Good luck at the tables.

For Sale

Well, it has been an interesting week. I had a couple of deep runs on Friday night as my good run continues, coming 7th in the Stars $20 1r 1a for $1.2k (I went totally card dead at the last two tables and ended up busting shoving JQ into AK). I busted around 30th in the FTP $28k (the field was 1,500 runners), getting QQ in vs KK blind vs. blind. I also cashed in the $129 bounty on FTP. HU cash games have sucked, so I shan’t dwell on that.

My horse has also been running good, clearing all his make-up and paying out a substantial profit due to two scores on consecutive nights. Well done to him, he thoroughly deserves it after a pretty long rough run (he tends to play the larger fields so I guess its no surprise



Elsewhere West Ham were 2-0 up against Sunderland and in control, Sunderland pulled one back and then had a man sent off before half time. From this position we somehow managed to draw after getting a good going over in the second half. We’re at home to Villa and Everton tomorrow and on Sunday, and really need a minimum of four points although I can’t see us getting them.


Elsewhere my employer has been put up for sale by our 51% owner, RBS. It kind of leaves things up in the air for a multitude of reasons, however I can’t see either the business being sold or me being laid off in a hurry. I’m on a three month notice period minimum so whatever, even though it is going to be a total clusterfuck as far as the business is concerned unless things are handled well (which they won’t be, if past evidence is anything to go by).

Good luck at the tables.

Carlton Goal

I squeezed in some more donkamenting last night and managed a respectable fifth place in the Party Super Monday $162 buy-in for $2.2k. I thought I played fine and the generally shit standard of play (even from some players with healthy levels of profit) bodes well for tournament poker, at least on Euro sites, remaining profitable for quite a while. Overall I’ve had a nice little run of late, picking up some solid scores and renewing my confidence in my MTT game.

I have played very little heads-up, apart from a 400 hand session against a total lunatic which ended when he quit me after getting over 200bb in vs. my second nut flush with a lower flush and OESFD. My results have been absurdly good so I’m due a pretty awful run soon, but I shall enjoy this whilst it continues.

The stag weekend was a lot of fun. It was the usual shit – drinking with some quad biking and clay pigeon shooting. I didn’t know many people on there but they were a good bunch of lads and the wedding should be a good laugh.

I got a lift back on Sunday and went to the football in the afternoon. Having gone 2-0 down (both goals down to soft defending), I was expecting fuck all. Fair play to Zola, he made two substitutions that changed the game. Hines was very lively and prepared to run at players and Diamanti displayed plenty of enthusiasm (which appeared to rub off onto his team mates) and his usual quality delivery from set pieces. Cole was (again) top quality and must have impressed Capello. Once we started having a go at them in the second half the crowd got going and we had them rattled for a while. The silence from their support was also particularly enjoyable. Hopefully we can use this as a bit of a springboard as things really haven’t been looking good.

I probably won’t be playing all too much in the next couple of weeks, although I have a lesson with Aero tonight. Good luck at the tables.

Cheese?

I’m going to be needing some to go with my whine. And it is a totally unjustified whine really, just so you know. And I’m not so much pissed off about it, just slightly deflated. And I don’t really even have any right to be, and I know that.

Anyway, last night I played a bunch of donkaments having stolen out of work half an hour early. I was in two minds whether to play the $50 1r 1a on FTP, but decided to anyway as the field is modestly sized, which I like. I ended up final tabling that and coming 7th for a shade under $1k, which is nice. I was down to < 1bb in this at one point when I called a 20bb open shove from the CO with TT and lost to KJ, which is a totally standard spot.

Elsewhere (and here’s the whinge) I was deep in the FTP 163, 18k for 1st place, approaching the bubble. I get KK all in vs AK when we’re into the money for a massive chip lead, obv the guy rivers and ace. So down to 20bb and in the middle of the pack, I open QQ UTG+1, 20bb stack in the small blind (who I suspected was loose/spewy) jams (I’m never light here, virtually never folding and have him dominated a bunch of the time when he has me dominated never), I snap vs his KQs, he flops a straight and turns a flush and that’s me. So I’m left in the $55, into the money, in decent shape (20th out of 50 or so), I lose KQ < KT, AJ < 99, 99 < AQ and I’m out of that as well.

Here’s what is really disgusting – my attitude. Over the last week I’ve played the best tournament poker of my life, by quite a long way. I turned a decent profit in the last week, and last night alone. I should be happy – I have absolutely no right to complain. Guys that play more regularly than me go through this day in, day out. As a tournament poker player, in fact as a poker player in general – stuff like this is totally standard, and when you’re turning a profit of any kind you really can’t grumble.

One of my pet hates is people that make money playing poker and complain about how bad they run. I mean, we all run bad (or perceive ourselves as running bad) at times. A lot of the time. And I vent occasionally (which is basically all I am doing above) but I try to keep a lid on it, it isn’t productive and is about as fun for the recipient (who also has to pretend to care) of the venting as having their nuts beaten with a steak tenderiser.

Cliff Notes: I’m a cunt

With that out the way, there’s (yet another) multi-accounting scandal going on with Bryn Kenney and Lildolhem (and others) brewing. I quite enjoy stuff like this, providing that people keep up the number of drama bombs to ensure stuff remains interesting.

I’m off on a stag do this weekend to Bournemouth. I’m looking forward to it, my liver isn’t.

GL at the tables.