LOL Hachem

Last things first – a few people that I know from teh pokerz have been fairly supportive with the situation with my Dad. The kind words and wishes I have had from people have actually been pretty amazing. Anyway, the news was fairly positive – the existing tumour has shrunk and the pain in his lower back is almost certainly a disc problem, for which he is receiving physiotherapy. All of this news is about as good as we could have hoped for.

Thus far this month I have played around 9k hands of 50NL HU. This has generated a profit of around $500 (excluding rakeback), relative to an EV adjusted amount of $1,100. It has been absolutely brutal (although hopefully I should come out around the same amount of profit as in June) and I am overall running 8 BI below expectation. This is fine, as the rewards that HU poker brings are matched with high volatility. My main aim for the month is to finish having played over 10k hands, which I should accomplish with all things remaining equal and hopefully I can top the 11k that I did during June.

I played one guy (Italian, obv) and lost 4 BI to him by being all in three times with dominating hands (A9 < J9 and AK < AQ twice). Then I managed to chop two pots vs the same guy (the second a 4 BI pot) with AQ = AT on an AQx board and 77 = A8 on a 678 board versus a complete maniac. I find that these insane opponents are often very good value (partly because they three bet with a lot of hands where you get better value from flatting), particularly after reading DogIsHead’s advice that they should be “cock-slapped repeatedly” into submission, as it is indeed more fun than nitting it up and extracting their money a different way.

With this rather lame whine over, I am fairly happy with how I am playing (I spew a lot less) and one reg typed in chat “there isn’t much value in this for either of us so it is probably best if I quit you” – I have been beaten quite badly by some of the regs before and I actually quite rated this guy’s game, so I’ll take this as a compliment. I’d like to have $4k on Chilli by the end of September and be in a position to move up to $100NL (I’ll probably also seek some coaching at this time).

West Ham’s pre-season has seen us fail to generate any notable results. The jungle drums seem to suggest that Ashton will be off to Stoke – this is a shame, as for a short while he looked the real deal with us, but we can’t afford to carry someone that is permanently injured, particularly on his wage packet and with his reputed issues regarding training. I’m just hoping the 17 year-old we signed from Chelsea for a few buttons isn’t his replacement, as starting with one semi-proven centre forward and a couple of spotty kids is a recipe for disaster and has certain similarities with our previous relegation season.

I’m off to see the Bruno film tonight. The juvenile humour should provide a good end to a dull week at work.

Saving the best until last – Joe Hachem isn’t usually one to keep quiet when there is an opportunity to open it and look stupid, so here he is, true to form – from the Associated Press. As one guy on 2+2 said, “Joe has got disrespect down to an art form, so I trust his opinion here.”

“BC-World Series of Poker-Day 10,0234 - Stacks rise as players drop at poker world series
Eds: APNewsNow. By OSKAR GARCIA, Associated Press Writer, LAS VEGAS (AP)

The 2005 World Series of Poker champion sayshe's lost all respect for a new brand of extremely aggressive pokerplayers who seem to want to gamble all their chips on every hand in the main event.

Joe Hachem said after two hours of poker on Monday that the pacehasn't slowed down at the no-limit Texas Hold 'em tournamentbecause many players are willing to risk their tournament with mediocre hands. Play started with 185 players and 38 were eliminated in two hours, despite starting with many chips relative to minimum bets.

Hachem says the overaggressive style is disrespectful to thetournament, its history and the $8.55 million prize. Hachem is one of two former main event champions left in thetournament, along with last year's winner Peter Eastgate.”

Please Seek Medical Advice Before Final Tabling

It is Monday morning and I’m really not all too keen on working, so I’ve decided on a blog update instead. I squeezed in some donkamenting on Friday night – I played really well to final table the $100NL on Party, after coming back from 3bb when my AK was no match for AQ and held the chip lead for quite a while. I busted fifth when the chip leader at the final table (with a massive 20bb) shoved 55 from the button, I made the mistake of snap calling with AA. He flopped one 5 and rivered the other, which was a fairly frustrating end given that I felt that I had played pretty well and that I have been due for a while.

The tourney was a reminder of how awful people are on Party. One guy (a long time winning player with an average buy in of well over $100) opened for 2.5bb and then folded to an 8bb shove. I don’t claim to be the greatest poker player in the world but I really thought we had moved on since 2005. Still, I guess it can only be a good thing that people are playing this badly and still winning.

The rest of the night was a bit of a wash out and the usual mixture of bad plays by me, suck-outs by my opponents (including losing to JJ with 22 on a 269 board and KK vs AJs on a K92r board), marginal spots and coolers. Which is a pretty standard night of donkamenting for me or anyone else, I guess.

In the subject of being due, one guy on PXF has won in the space of a week a 30r, 50r, 3r, WPT package and a couple of other things and claimed that he was “due” to win something else at some point soon, which made me piss myself laughing as he is clearly on an enormous heater and may well be “due” for some time.

I’ll leave out any discussion on the Main Event final table, but I’m delighted to see Joe Cade, Ivey and Akenhead there. My favourite poker related story of the week comes from the WPT final table at the Bellagio, where Justin “BoostedJ” Smith leapt up to celebrate winning an all in four-handed and suffered suspected anterior cruciate ligament damage and had to be helped back to the table and will spend the remainder with an ice pack on his knee. Poker, its more dangerous than I thought.

My Dad goes to hospital today for a final assessment on whether his cancer has spread or whether his lower back pain is a slipped disc. I’m anticipating his phone call but in some ways don’t want to receive it at all.

Good luck to England on the final day of the 2nd Ashes Test at Lords today. It promises to be a nail biter. New just in – Flintoff bowls Haddin, Convicts 314 for 6 chasing 522.

Life's Rich Pattern

Saturday’s donkamenting was something of a damp squib. I failed to get anything going in most tournaments, cashed in the $109 on stars and then shoved AQ into AA. I came 3rd in a silly 10r on FTP which I didn’t really mean to enter, for $400 or so – better than a kick in the nuts but I hate myself for not winning it (I basically lost two huge flips 3 handed) as the final table was really weak and I had the run of it for most of the time.

Also spewed really badly in the 50 1r (head says “fold, you are beat here”, fingers say “call, you know you want to”) which was a shame, as both Bakes and CompleteDonk were at my table, and I always enjoy playing against some of the 2+2ers that I see on the forums that are clearly so much better than I am.

Boring bad beat of the weekend came on Party when I had top set on a 3s4s5s board. I bet, get min raised and jam and get snap called by two red tens. Turn is the Ts and that was that. It was a fucking horrendous play from my opponent, who is a winning player, but kind of summed the day up as this tournament was one of the few I made inroads into.

HU cash trundles along – this month has been a struggle, which is fine, as I was running a long way above expectation. I’m strongly considering coaching as I’d really like to be playing 200NL within the next 6/9 months.

I’m enjoying the main event coverage that is going on right now. There are still some big names left in, including a couple of the 2+2 guys and Brit James Akenhead. I’m kind of rooting for Ivey, I would be good to see the guy that is largely considered to be the best all-around poker player at the moment win the major prize. Someone at his table said that he sat down with 300k yesterday and the rest of the table proceeded to throw chips at him for the next few hours until his stack was way over a million.

West Ham are a pre-season hotbed of transfer activity, having been turned down by a goalkeeper from two divisions below ours (to be fair he does get first team football at Southampton). Thus far our only signing is the loan of a Chilean midfielder from Inter. Our squad looks awfully thin and we’ll need either some luck or some money to survive. I’ll start bringing my boots to home games in future.

I went to see the film about John Dillinger last night (I forget the title, it has Johnny Depp in it). It was fairly enjoyable, despite deviating considerably from what actually happened. I’d definitely recommend it, although I got fuck all sleep last night after having bizarrely vivid dreams that involved me shooting several people. Don’t mess bitches, I’m well hard when I’m dreaming.

Lucy thinks she might have swine flu. Three people in her office have been diagnosed with it, which doesn’t bode well, as she’s going to have to find somewhere else to live to prevent me getting infected. J

We had some news on my Dad’s cancer. It is currently in his upper neck, but he has been suffering with a bad back. He went to the Doctor following an MRI scan, who diagnosed it as secondary tumours. This is obviously pretty crushing news, it hit me a lot harder than I thought. A second diagnosis said that it was not secondary tumours but in fact a slipped disc (I can’t imagine that anyone has ever been quite as happy to find out that their father has a quite painful back problem). A third and final diagnosis takes place next week, so my fingers are firmly crossed (which doesn’t make typing very easy).

Whilst on this subject (cancer, not bollocks), former West Ham striker John Hartson has been diagnosed with brain cancer. He is still in his thirties, which is no age to be suffering from something like that – whilst he was no stranger to controversy, his spell with us will be fondly remembered by most that saw him play for us. Hang in there John, if you battle the illness as hard as you battled for us the season you joined and helped keep us up, the result is a foregone conclusion.

Good luck also to Wayne, a sometime reader of this blog. He has had some tough times of late with the economy being in the shit and looks like he has devised a decent plan to get things together. If only the silly cunt would stop banging on about Liverpool and what a good job Rafa is doing, the world would be a better place.