Appetite

After a break from poker during the majority of February, I have returned reinvigorated. It’s surprising how much easier I am finding playing when it is something that I want to do, instead of something I feel obliged to do because I have some spare time or whatever. I think I’m at around 3,000 hands for the month (sick grider, eh?) and around $600 profit (weeeeeeeeeeee!). I’ve run pretty damned well (having held up in two 150bb pots with AA and KK vs. QQ both times), but I think my general level of play has been decent too. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again – playing fish is really absurdly profitable.

For those that don’t play heads-up games, you tend to get hit and run. A lot. This used to bother me, however I’ve tried to let it go – it is nothing more than an occupational hazard. I am now a bit more ruthless with who I am playing – against various fish I tend to play a max of three tables (with a different player on each), however if my fourth table gets filled with a full stack fish and one of the others only have 25bb left I’ll ditch the shorter stack and move on to the guy that is deeper. Getting action against regs is virtually impossible right now, which is amazing given that I’m not that good.

I have been watching the UB stuff developing of late. The whole thing is totally amazing and it is good to see things prompting more discussion on it again. Given the lies that have been told and the fact that the company is still in operation, I think it is important that this is not forgotten.

West Ham turned in their best display of the season to beat Liverpool 3-1 yesterday. I thought we dominated large stretches of the game, created the better chances and ran out deserving winners. Demba Ba and Thomas Hitzelsperger were both excellent and Upson’s return alongside Tomkins at the back was timely, both played very well. Given how other results have gone for us of late this was a timely win and makes staying up look like something of a possibility. Keeping the back four fit will be key.



The cherry on the cake on Sunday was seeing Arsenal’s failboat crash onto the rocks against Birmingham. It looked like a pretty decent game of football and I never tire of enjoying seeing Arsenal lose.

Good luck at the tables.

Back in the Saddle

I’ve had probably as long a break from internet poker, bar when I have been on holiday, as I can remember. I have quite enjoyed the time off. I’ve vowed to try and play more when I want to play, instead of when I feel obliged to do so. So far I feel a lot better about it – my life probably isn’t particularly well suited to meeting volume targets.

I played a bit over the weekend, went on a massive heater (helped by having some fish dump 3BI to me at €50nl) and some decent play by me at times (seriously). I made a few mistakes which I didn’t get punished for, but I was happy to have thought that I’d done something wrong. There is a quick line check thread in HUNL on 2+2, which has been really useful – I rarely post it but the hands and thoughts that people get are great, and it means that “standard” hands get discussed (which is where I think I’m falling down). Thus far I'm up around $600 in February after 1,500 hands. MBN etc.

I have caught up on some of the gossip/stories that have been doing the rounds of late. Some of these bits are quite awesome:
1) Somewhat old and not really poker, but $75k is a pretty epic rolling. It starts getting good around page 30, before that it is largely penix pictures.
2) Sorel Mizzi is allowed to play on FTP again. Don’t worry though folks, as Sorel has started cheating in the live arena instead.
3) There's a lot of bullshit going on with PeachyMer. Cliffs at post 3426, epic Slicknasty rage comic at post 3377.
4) The whole UB thing might get interesting again, with Travis Makar calling into Donkdown Radio with a whole bunch of shit. I listened to the interview, I thought he was FOS a lot of the time but it’s worth hearing all the same. There is also a pretty good post from Haley in her blog on brainwashdodo (link on the right).

A lot has happened at West Ham since I last posted, not all of it particularly good. Matt Upson seems to be out for the rest of the season, which is a huge blow. We play Burnley in the FA Cup tonight, which should see Thomas Hitzelsperger make his long-awaited debut.

At work we’re about to see a bunch more people laid off this week. We have also been involved in a massive spat with another department, which doesn’t bode well, I’m not really overly bothered as the redundancy terms are fairly appealing.

Good luck at the tables.

Failure is an Option

January finish with me balling out of all control. I managed a stunning profit of $0.86 (that's roughly one shiny new fifty pence piece to British readers) plus rakeback. Pretty sure Antonius and Ivy will be ducking me at $500/$1,000 soon enough. I'm lacking motivation to play much at the moment, which isn't helped by me seeming to really struggle to get action on IPoker at the times of day I usually play at. I'll see how that develops, I might need to considering getting some funds on another network (Entraction?) if it doesn't work out.

The North vs. South HU challenge on RTR has seen something of a change in fortunes, with early luckboxing from the North having been erased by great play from the South. It is now pretty much even, and I have a single game left with Snakey to play. The main problem will be if Amatay fucks off travelling before completing all his games, so I'll probably call Heathrow with a bomb scare to try and prevent this.

Elsewhere in poker:
1) Yet more attempted scamming from the same guys that attempted it at the Partouche Poker Tour.
2) In a fairly awesome final table featuring Moorman, James Keys and Antonius, some bloke I have never heard of won the Aussie Millions main event.

West Ham got dumped out of the Carling Cup, crumbling to an aerial assault lead by Birmingham circus freak Nicola Zigic. For the third time this season. Having done the hard work and got an away goal, I was very annoyed to go out one step from Wembley. Fair play to them, they probably deserved it over the two legs. In a sulk I gave the FA Cup game to Forest a miss, which we won 3-2, and drew Burnley at home in the next round.

I thought we did well enough in the transfer window. Bridge and Keane will definitely improve the first XI, I have never seen Ba play but a German dude I know reckons he is alright. We also signed some kid from Dulwich Hamlet, who could easily be the next Steve Jones or Dean Martin (for anyone old and nerdy enough to remember them). Blackpool away tonight and Birmingham at home on Sunday are two massive games for us, sadly Blackpool signed Andy Reid and James Beattie, both of whom always score against us, the bastards.

I shan't comment on the Andy Carroll or Torres deals, it is fucking boring and gave Sky material to spam their TV channels with. The main thing is that Carroll now has a whole new city of people that he can get into fights with.

Good luck at the tables.

Back to Square One

Despite my hatred for the cunts at Chili Poker, I have to hand it to them, they have seen sense and shipped me the run good since I started playing there again. I have erased all the massive losses I racked up at the start of January and am back to even again for the month. Huzzah!



I drew 1-1 with Hutch in the North vs. South Challenge and am 1-0 up vs. Snakey (he failed to set up the other game, must have been scared) when he attempted to set a tarp with teh pocket king king and I flopped two pair and turned a boat. I am looking forward to the next one, I also have NoCash (hopefully tomorrow) and Ant left to play.

Rather amusingly, two of the HU4ROLLZ challenges on 2+2 have concluded before reaching the full number of hands. Gary_Neville threw the towel in against Chemztry having started well and then been generally violated (I think this was a combination of Chemz being really good and running well in some massive pots), I know he took a shit load of action on himself, so I hope he recovers soon. Also, WhateverSon vs. TooCuriousso failed to conclude after the youngster ran like shit taking a shot at £1k NL and then seemed to spit the dummy. I dunno, TC handled it pretty well and gave him a good part of the $5k side bet back, so fair play to him.

If anyone wants to read a rather good and amusing post, I’d recommend the most recent entry on Vegas One Day (see my blogroll). As a man that spends around half of his working day passing time on the web, I can imagine how he felt, although I didn’t go quite as far as having an MTT schedule to play each day. I won’t spoil the story, but DoV is one of my heroes (despite his alarming views on Liverpool FC) and you should take five minutes and have a read.

We got told our pay and bonuses today at work. I won’t go into details but it I was fairly pleased with how it went, hopefully this place will keep me on as it appears to be a reasonable place to work based on what I have seen in the first six months. My boss is something of an acquired taste, however he is a decent guy at heart and is happy to go into bat for his staff.

West Ham won their FA Cup game against Barnsely and drew Nottingham Forest (one of the few other clubs in English football that I don’t hate) at home in the next round. We edged out Birmingham 2-1 in a cracking cup tie in the Carling Cup semi-final first leg, and then got rolled by Arsenal in the league fielding a really weak side. Martin O’Neill seems certain not to be coming, and the board look to be back-tracking after massively undermining Avram Grant in the last couple of weeks. Whilst his debut was poor, the signing of Wayne Bridge can’t be a bad one (on loan and even with his feet cut off he would still be our best left back).

I hate the transfer window, it’s an excuse for the cunts at Sky to stand outside football grounds like they know what is going on, when in fact they are just a cunt with a microphone stood outside a football ground without a clue, telling you who has driven in and out over the last few hours, and then repeat it on an endless loop on one of their channels.

Good luck at the tables.

Sour Times

First and foremost, Happy New Year to everyone. I’ve been rather shit at updating here of late, partly due to being rather busy at work (I did fuck all for 50 weeks last year and then got overwhelmed in the last two weeks of December), and partly due to me being a lazy, useless bastard.

I have played quite a lot of poker over the Christmas period, and managed to successfully donate a lot of cash to the poker community as a result. The usual combination of run bad and tilt-induced poor play were the reason, although I have made something of a fight back in the last few days. I switched my play back to my old IPoker skin, their rakeback deal is so much better than the William Hill one, although I will keep limited funds on there as I think they are shady, or at best incompetent.

I need to get my ass in gear and complete my part of the North vs. South HU challenge. The match between myself and BurnleyMik finished and honourable draw, featuring an epic suckout from Mik and me fading Mik’s massive draw with top pair when he made the key error of having far too many outs to actually hit any of them.

I had a pretty good Christmas, catching up with a lot of family from both my side and the wife’s. It was nice to get out, and I’m glad that this cold snap has eased, it was getting seriously fucking boring.

West Ham had a good Christmas, picking up 8 points out of 12, and then went up to Newcastle and got smashed 5-0. We beat Barnsley in the FA Cup on Saturday and have Birmingham in the first leg of the Carling Cup semi tomorrow. The Birmingham game still isn’t sold out, which is fucking embarrassing and doubtless lots of cunts that didn’t go will be chuntering about how they deserve a ticket if we make the final, which we probably won’t. After that it is Arsenal at home on Saturday in a rather annoying 5:30 kick-off, which is convenient for anyone but the cunts that are actually attending.

Avram Grant’s position remains in doubt, to be honest I doubt anyone else will come in and do a decent job with the shit we have in our squad and we’re skint, so I’d rather spend the cash it would cost to fire him on something important, like a left-back.

Cuntfair

November was a pretty awesome month for me on the cash game side, finishing up $1,200 plus rakeback. This basically erased all my losses from my incredibly awful October. In December I’m down $300 or so over 3k hands. My horse has delivered some nice scores of late as well, although I need to speak to him regarding what to do if this whole legislation thing blows up.

In other poker news:
1). Betfair are absolute cunts. This may not be poker, but this is absolutely not on. Take the mistake on the chin, pay it out and shut the fuck up.
2) The whole US legislation shit makes me really sad. I’m not really going to comment on the ins and outs, I don’t even know if it is going to happen. It’s just such unbelievable bullshit that in “the land of the free” someone is suggesting you can’t play poker on the internet, all over a few tax dollars and to let the big casino operators have a crack. It may even work out well, but I can imagine that rake rates are going to be horrendous and I think a lot of people may just pack it in now. I have met a lot of good people from all over the world through poker and a lot of them are going to lose their hobby and a source of income if this shit happens.

I was up in Edinburgh last week. It’s an awesome city, I would recommend a trip to anyone. The train took ages because of the snow, but I was surprised I got there at all given that a lot of the country was over a foot deep in the stuff. It was fucking cold though, I’m pretty sure I saw a penguin walking down George St at one point. It does provide a good opportunity to roll out this picture though.

West Ham beat a terrible Wigan side in the league and then, with a weakened side. I met celebrated fish Amatay for a quick beer beforehand, I could tell that he was in awe of my presence (joking, obv). Obviously it was good to put a face to a name, I’m pretty sure the next time we go out he’ll be getting his credit card behind the bar. We then trounced the Man Utd stiffs 4-0 in the Carling Cup (I had a ticket but also had a stinking cold, it was freezing outside so I opted to watch it in front of the telly). I thought we were absolutely excellent, with Jon Spector appearing to have turned into Scott Parker in midfield. We lost 1-0 at Sunderland on Sunday. I thought we defended way better than we have, so the acquisition of Wally Downes appears to be an astute one (James Tomkins has gone from fourth choice centre back to playing really well in the space of a week) although we didn’t create a great deal.

We take on Man City on Saturday. I think we have improved but am now of the opinion that we are going to go down. I just don’t think we have the quality in what is basically a much tougher league this year.

Good luck at the tables.

PS I read an issue of Viz on the train. The letters page was brilliant. My favourite was “I watched the Simply Red last ever performance on TV the other day. I’m not a fan, but I wanted to be sure.”

Backed Up

I have been suffering from some back problems recently (a worsening of a long term thing). Last Thursday I woke up in absolute agony, and barely made it into work. I had a session of physio booked that day, who sent me back to the doctor, who has referred me to a specialist (next Monday). The result of all this was that I couldn’t make it away this weekend, so her indoors went with her friends, and I sat at home and played INTERNET POKERS.

My back is slightly better, I can walk without much pain, although getting out of bed can be excruciating. I hope this doctor can help me out, he fucking wants to as he was formerly a club doctor for Millwall and I don’t want to have to put him in line.

So far this month I’m up approximately $700 playing cash over around 10,000. I played an epic match later on Saturday against Fuentalbilla, who plays the weirdest style I have seen from any winning player. He is a winner at $1/$2, and by the end I thought I had the best of him (I finished up around $200 over 1,000 hands). I played some tournaments on Friday, taking 5th in the Party $30r to approximately break even on the day.

More important than any of this, fuck the Durrrr challenge, the Gary_Neville vs. chemzstry HU4ROLLZ match has pissed all over it. Sick action (mandatory 100% button opens and chemz’s 30% three bet ratio have meant lots of massive pots) and lots of side bets, plus a willingness from both players to play whenever possible has lead to this being one of the best things in online poker for a while. The smack talk has now started and I highly recommend tuning in the next time these two get it on, it has been awesome.

Slightly less epic, but more fun, is the www.raisetheriver.com North vs South HUSNG challenge. Doubtless us southerners will win, shag their women and drink their beer, because we are massively superior.

West Ham were lucky to lose 3-0 at Liverpool at the weekend. We were absolutely pathetic. There are rumours of Avram’s no. 2 departing, him moving upstairs and Wally Downes, Steve Lomas and *spit* Di Canio coming in to coach. Not sure whether this is good or not, but the first thing someone needs to do is sort our fucking left back out, who has been beyond pathetic and is probably the worst player in the division. Wigan at home on Saturday, which I expect us not to win.

Good luck at the tables.