Creative License

Well, not so much creative license as an idea from everyone’s favourite German, Joka (Jonas). He suggested writing about this hand from the latest episode of HSP. Original thought isn’t one of my strong points, so all royalties from this part of the blog go to him. Luckily these amount to a total of $0.00, so I shan’t be further crippling the UK’s balance of payment deficit and Jonas is still going to have to take that job working in insurance.

Anyway, onto the hand. Asking me to comment on a high stakes cash game is kind of like asking me to comment on the workings of the Indian Railway network – whilst I might find both interesting, I’m not qualified to talk about over. In this instance, it won’t stop me having a go though.

When Dwan 5 bets Lederer here, why on earth doesn’t he stick it in his eye or fold? I’m assuming Dwan’s table image is LAG. I just don’t really know what The Professor (sic) is thinking. He clearly needs lesson for Jonas (see my description of his AK hand vs. Moorman in the WSOPE ME in an earlier entry). Howard – if you’re out there buddy, drop Jonas a line, he’ll coach you in how to play tricky hands like this for an hourly rate. Until then, stick to coming up with great comments like “he’s a freak and a very weird dude”.

There is little to update on the poker side or otherwise. I’d like to get some donkamenting in tonight and possibly on Sunday and next Tuesday as her indoors is likely to be out.

The weather has been glorious in London this week. I’m serious. No, really. West Ham take on Chelsea tomorrow, where I expect us to take our standard drubbing and it to revert to being overcast and raining, with Lampard playing the pantomime villain role (and scoring at some point). Hopefully Zola will manage to avoid another love-in with his former club, as much as I like him it showed disrespect to his current employers at the game at Stamford Bridge. Whatever happens, they’re still cunts, no matter how many millions of roubles they have funding them.

FU Jokerstars etc

This is basically a bad beat whine, so don't read if you are expecting any content worthy of your time (much like the rest of the blog really). I didn't get to play on Thursday, but squeezed in a little play today and on Friday.

Deep in the early PS 109. I am 4/35 or so, and think I have been playing well. I raised KK on button, get reshipped by AK, by 4th st there are 3 diamonds on board (I have the Kd, villain has no d) and he spikes one of the two remaining outs on the river to reduce my stack by 60%. Standard spot, so we move on. I then get all in with 44 vs 99 and fail to improve in a standard spot. Then I get TT and raise, flatted by SB (who has retardedly flatted me with AK previously and then called down two bets when I flopped TPTK with AT). Flop is all rags, I bet, he check raises all in with no fold equity and I snap call . The turn is an A and I am crippled. I then shove AKs into KK on the money bubble and its gg me.

I was absolutely fucking livid afterwards. I wouldn't mind but I run like a land mine victim on Stars, I wouldn't mind that changing, just briefly.

On the plus side West Ham picked up a point at Aston Villa with a late equaliser from Diego Tristan, which improved my mood by a notch. It was also further improved by some crude turd gags with the guys on Skype.

Anyway, onwards and upwards.

Hoop

Eurodonks 1 U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A 0

Friday’s donkament session ended with a 7th place finish and $1.7k score in the $109/$50k guaranteed on Stars. It was a nice result and I certainly ran well enough, but basically put in a pretty dismal FT performance after going in 2/9. I’d like to think I’ll learn from some of the mistakes I made. Overall I was again pleased with most of my play during the evening, despite spewing off a big stack in the $162 on Party.

I spent a little time playing against Timex in the aforementioned Party donkament (and even 3-bet his early position raise light, which gave me a slight lazy one). I didn’t sit with him for that long but it is always good to play against some of these guys.

I also got in a few hands of PLO over the weekend. Whilst I’m very bad at the game, it is played terribly and (if you can cope with the volatility) is definitely a game that should be profitable at the lower limits. Given that at some point I am likely to switch to cash, this will probably be my game of choice.

Otherwise the weekend was knackering, with various family visits which left me utterly exhausted. We’ve provisionally booked the wedding venue, which is something of a weight off my mind (and one less thing for Lucy and I to argue about).

West Ham unsurprisingly lost 1-0 away at Spurs. Whilst its never pleasant to get rolled by a Spurs side that blows hot and cold, a forward line with a combined age of nearly 70 that cost us a grand total of zero, I expected nothing less. Our squad was thin in certain areas going into the transfer window and the sale of our most lethal forward (replaced by a promising youngster is clearly nowhere near ready for big boys football) will probably cost us a spot in the UEFA Cup (or whatever it is called) next season. It’s a shame, particularly given the good work that Clarke and Zola have done – despite having their hands tied in the transfer market.

Congratulations to J.Thaddeus, who took home the SCOOP ME for the best part of a million bucks yesterday. I don’t know who he is (apart from that he is from Galway) but have played against him a few times. I’ve always regarded him as a strong opponent but didn’t know that he was quite good enough to achieve this. With a German coming second, it was a good weekend for Eurodonks.

John Duthie, despite being considered something of a mark, came second in the $25k HU event. Congratulations also go to him, however I do wish he would kill the idiot that co-commentates with him on the EPT and also does the music festivals/some of the football on Channel 5 because he knows fuck all, is an irritating cunt and has a really good job.

It is Lucy’s birthday next week – she still hasn’t decided what she wants, so I assume yours truly will be on some ridiculous dash next weekend to buy something. I did manage to book a table for dinner, however. We have to go and see the Catholic priest (I’m not Catholic, I’m not even religious) in order to sort out stuff as we are getting married in a church.

I’m also considering going to play in the £200 Spring Poker Festival event at The International, conveniently located a mile from my flat. I’m unsure as yet, I don’t like live poker and can’t really be bothered with a lot of the dumb things that livetards try and spew into your brain whenever you have the misfortune to sit at a table with them. Lucy is out on Thursday so I may get some online donkamenting done then.