Some 1/2 Hands

Thought I'd update with some 1/2 hands I've played lately. I'm up 5.5 buyins over 2 days (2416 hands), which is fine by me.

Kinda standard, A2 wtf!

http://www.pokerhand.org/?863774

Luck is on my side again.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?863776

The fish (who I am ridiculously up on over time) did a hit and run on me after this...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?863779

Maximum value obtained from a regular who tried to win every pot. I knew he had nothing so let him do his best to hang himself.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?863783

This guy owes me big time. He was pretty easy to read and I've picked up tons of tells on him. He had a flush here for sure.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?863787

Got my money in as a slight underdog with fold equity but lucked out :-)

http://www.pokerhand.org/?863790

Absolutely terrible river call from opponent.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?863793

The $1k - $50k Cardrunners challenge starts tomorrow. I'll be posting every day in March with PT stats/graphs etc... I'm aiming to play 6-8 tables for 6-10 hours per day. Should be fun!

Dial Up Is The Nuts

Well, it is at least for the time being. I moved into my new flat on Tuesday, which took ages, I didn't realise I had so much stuff! Wednesday was spent setting up flat pack furniture, which I did ok but my back was not ok at the end of proceedings. My new computer desk took 3 hours to set up... But it's a good setup and this will def help me having a non cluttered working environment.

I also phoned up AOL to get my broadband transferred to my new number. They said it would take 10-15 days, why I'm not sure, I thought we were in the 21st century but obviously not. They said I could go on dial up for free though which I thought about before realising my new pc doesnt have a modem...

So I went to a coffee shop with internet and forked out £40 for a monthly pass. I messed about with some 50NL but kept getting disconnected before I realised where the best place to sit was. Unfortunately for a coffee shop which advertises itself as very internet orientated, the place has a whole 2 (yes 2) plug sockets. One upstairs, one downstairs. Lol. So basically when you go in there it's like a stealth movement. You first of all get the seat near the power point, and then get the internet best spot. Or vice versa, load of bollocks basically.

Here are my stats for 200NL at the cafe. Please note - I am not a nit. I just play like one. Seriously, every hand had a 3 in it most of the time. Apart from one time when I had 33, and so did the other guy :-) I won't force the action in these instances. I did ok $ wise anyway.

Hands: 640
VPIP: 14.22%
PFR: 12.34%
Profit: $348.45
BB/100: 13.61

Two things I have noticed. Firstly, you dont get many hands in playing 3/4 tables. Secondly, I don't like reeking of smoke each day because even in the 'non smoking area' you still get covered in the stuff.

So I went to PC World this afternoon to buy a dial up external modem. Just to give it a shot. I spent £25 to get it, only to get home and find it had nowhere to connect to on my pc cos my pc is too new for it :-( I went back with my pc and the modem and the guy offered to give me an exchange for one with which has a usb cable instead - even though I didnt have the receipt (tho he did serve me when I went the first time) or a box or half the components! Ship it! I got home. I tried to log on. Couldn't. Ended up on the phone to a call centre for half an hour and finally I am now online, in my flat, but on dialup. Never felt so sweet. It's slow, but I've written this quick enough, been on CR which is bearable speed, and I've datamined 16 tables throughout with no problems. So I can now play in here. Including the £40 fee at the cafe (which I'm gonna go to tomorrow to download all the latest CR vids, some dj mix sessions and maybe watch PB) and the £30 for the new modem, it's cost me £70 to get online. I won about £180 at the cafe so I guess thats ok.

This is also good news because it will allow me to compete to the maximum in the 1k challenge starting next week. I'm buzzing for this.

Good luck at the tables,

FP

Random Stuff!

Well firstly I'll start by talking about the new FTP beta. This is pretty sweet, I think resizeable tables + rakeback = the nuts, so I'm in the process of moving my roll back onto there. I think I'll be playing on there solely in the foreseeable future. I spent ages getting my PAHUD sorted for the new resizeable tables, and today I went out and bought a new graphics card so I can use dual monitors. At the moment I've only got my usual 19" TFT and a 17" CRT with it, but it works fine and I'll probably get another 19" TFT and 4 table on each with no overlap.

That will suit me pretty well for the $1k challenge some of us are doing on Cardrunners. Basically what this involves is starting on March 1st with $1k. Using semi-aggro bankroll management, the first to $50k in the month wins. If no one does that (prob likely) then the person who wins the most wins. It looks like it will be a $100 entry fee which goes to the winner's prize, hopefully which will be lessons from a CR Pro. I'm probably gonna be 8 tabling for 6-8 hours a day doing this, I'm hoping this will motivate me to get a lot of hands in. I'll be blogging every day during March and also updating on the forum. Plenty of hands, and plenty of graphs :-)

I just checked the CR Forum, and saw the crazy pictures of Britney Spears. Can't believe she shaved her head, the difference in her from when she first hit the music scene is crazy!

To finish, my brother found this 9min clip on YouTube of a garage MC I haven't heard for a few years. He used to be the best MC on Soundz FM before it got shut down, probably the best pirate about 4-5 years ago IMO. If you like garage music, this is a good taste of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvxRH8eSd1U

Good luck,

FP

Ouch...Bad Run

Ok, so my quest to find a decent flat has now finished. Found a sweeeet one yesterday, move in on Tuesday. Will hopefully post some pics when I get everything organised - if anyone can tell me how to do that, it will be muchos appreciated. It's brand new and fitted to a very high standard which obviously is all good.

I've played quite a lot over the last couple of days. I played 2/4 yesterday, and 1/2 today. Had some brutal suckouts, gave myself about 6/10 yesterday, 5/10 this afternoon and 8/10 tonight. After my poor afternoon session, I decided to watch a couple of CR vids and I really picked up a lot. God knows why I don't watch every one of them, every time I do watch them I just learn a ton. I played a lot better in the evening, but the cards just didn't fall in my favour. I was getting my money in in decent spots with solid hands/draws but I just couldn't win the pot. I also made much more use of my HUD as well, that helped a lot. Often it's been the case for me that I just look at stuff like position and my hand rather than my opponent's tendencies. I was focusing on that a lot more and it worked pretty well. I had to deal with a couple of sick 2 outers though. Here's some hands.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?823278

Opponent showed no strength, so I value bet my tptk on the river. He obviously had 2 pair.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?823284

AK allin for 1/2 a buyin. Obviously he has AA. Didn't even realise he limped UTG till just now :-)

http://www.pokerhand.org/?823288

Nice play, buddy. Thanks for the 2 outer.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?823291

I felt this line had the best chance of getting max fold equity against an overpair. He tanked it up big time before shoving. I'd do this again all day.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?823298

Some things do go my way...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?823303

Hmmm... Can I ever win with top set against a flush draw?

http://www.pokerhand.org/?823311

If I could play this hand again, I'd shove the turn. But opponent was over-aggro 2+2er so I figured he'd hang himself on the river.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?823314

Dunno what this guy had. He only raised 3% of the time, as well.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?823319

Cheers Poker Stars

http://www.pokerhand.org/?823322

Merci beaucoup, poisson

http://www.pokerhand.org/?823324

Poor guy. Maybe he can get away from it, but he wasn't very good anyway.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?823328

I'd have put a lot of money on him having AK here :-)

And that's about it basically. I'm gonna go out playing fruits tomorrow and watch a couple of CR vids as well.

I hope everyone is running well, and hopefully I will too :-)

FP.

Finally Get Some Playing Done

After about 10 days of barely playing, due to laziness but mainly flat hunting, I resumed playing tonight.

I don't want to over exaggerate, but I felt I played some of the best poker I have ever played. The problem was, the poker gods didn't co-operate, and I dropped about $250 in a couple of hours 6 tabling 2/4. However, I feel very confident about my game, and can take a lot of heart from this session.

Here's some hands from today. I'm really going to try to add a lot of hands here in the future.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?817397

KK < AT all in pre, obv

http://www.pokerhand.org/?817404

Can't work out if I played this one well. I think I did play it ok, and probably lost the minimum on it. No reads on opponent, apart from that he limped too much.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?817419

Top set < Flush draw, obv

http://www.pokerhand.org/?817424

Ok river call, or just spew? I think it's ok cos he could easily have Kx.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?817439

Anyone like a double barrel on the turn to fold out 77/88/TT/JJ, which I put him on (as well as 99)? I think I could have taken that pot away from him. Opponent was about 25/8 and pretty passive.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?817446

Lol @ this hand. He actually tanked the river before calling off the extra $21 into the $850 ish pot. Ship it!

http://www.pokerhand.org/?817451

Was going for a turn checkraise. Ended up giving the fish a free card. Lol @ his river CALL with a flush.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?817458

Finally get a hand to take someone to valuetown on.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?817462

Tough river call with a straight, when he's representing the flush.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?817474

Tough cooler for the other guy, he wasn't too deep though.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?817483

Looks like he got caught floating...


Kind of a tough session, with some ridiculous beats. But on another day I think I could have booked a very solid profit. Hopefully that day will be tomorrow. I'll update again then, gonna play loads tomorrow. Have finally rediscovered my enthusiasm for playing.

Good luck at the tables,

Dan.

Waste of a week

Well, since my last post I haven't done much apart from look at other flats. Haven't found much which has impressed me.

To be honest I am amazed at the lack of thought in this market, from both the owners and the estate agents. The estate agents are clueless, have no idea even of rough room measurements, don't have brochures and can spell to the level of a 5 year old. Landlords seem clueless too. I went to view a brand new flat on Friday. It has no wardrobes, and no washing machine. No wonder they are having problems letting it. I'm sure there is a huge opportunity for someone rich enough and relatively knowledgeable to make an absolute fortune in the lettings area.

I've got about 5 more to look at. They actually look very good, well 3 at least look very decent. Question is this: Do I get the top of the range one which is £850 per month, or do I spend like £700ish and get something pretty decent but not totally amazing? Kinda tempted to offer them less on the awesome flat if I like it when I go to see it on Monday. It's been on the market for 2 weeks and was for sale before then, so no doubt they might want to get it sorted asap.

I haven't done much playing because of this, but hopefully that will get itself resolved next week. I've done about ten coaching sessions though this week.

Cardrunners members who like a challenge check out this:-

http://www.cardrunners.com/fusetalk/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=23&threadid=14555&enterthread=y

This should be pretty cool if we get enough people interested.

Good luck everyone.

Screwed Up Society

Because it doesn't respect people who try to better themselves off their own back. It's totally ridiculous.

A few years ago I got turned down for a mortgage. Not because I was playing fruit machines for a living (that was ok, apparently, and all they needed was an estimate of my income), but because my credit number was low because I never borrowed. How fucked up is that? I'm like 'Ok I have money in my pocket, savings, why borrow or use a credit card? That's good money management' Society is like 'He must borrow, and use a credit card to see how he reacts to borrowing'. Hmmm. So I just stayed at home and lost £25k in a business instead.

In fact, that was another instance where trying to better myself ran into severe problems. I got screwed by everyone and their mother and got out before I got into even bigger trouble.

And then it comes to a point recently. I decide that it's time to move out of my parents and rent a flat (with a view to buying one in 6-12 months time). I find a nice brand new flat to rent and cos I knew there would be trouble I said I'd pay 6 months up front. That's fine for me and I didn't mind doing that. Now, if I was a landlord, I'd say 'Sweet, this guy is offering me 6 months payment which I can make 5% interest on, with no risk of them defaulting'. They said 'He's a poker player, I don't want him in my flat'. That is serious. I'm like, for fucks sake what can I do? I even proved that I'm covering all my rent and bills in my coaching income, but apparently that didn't help... Lol.

This leads me onto my next point. I never really felt sorry for homeless people before, or people down on their luck. But if it's this hard for me to RENT a flat with plenty of savings etc, how on God's Green Earth do people on the streets or just out of prison sort themselves out? They basically get crushed by society and have little/no chance. A lot of these people are probably decent guys who have had a couple of things go against them and they never get a second chance in society.

I am actually gonna look at a few more flats tomorrow. Hopefully I won't find any more anti-poker landlords...

Shout out to all my poker players still living with their parents!

Jol Out?

Well here I am, sitting at my PC after wasting the last 7 hours. I just got back from Tottenham v Man United and it was an utter disgrace.

Firstly, Ronaldo is a cheating f**k who needs someone to put him in the stands, preferably injuring him for a long time.

Secondly, do Scholes and Gary Neville have an amnesty for bookings against them? Scholes commits 3 bookable offences and doesn't get one card.

That's my views on Manchester United over, they played pretty well but my Sunday League team could have done against Spurs today, we were embarrasing.

Firstly - why do we play Gardner at centre back? The guy is terrible. We buy Rocha and don't play him instead of a player who was our fourth choice centre back a couple of months ago.

Next - why didnt we buy a left back or left mid in the transfer window? We have loads of money from the Carrick deal/sponsorship from Mansion/Puma so splash out! Even if it cost £10m, just buy Gareth Barry and/or Gamst Pedersen. They would improve our team SOOOO much.

To finish - why don't we have any fighters in midfield? We are a soft touch and we are getting exposed by teams in this area. Zokora is awful and its a testament to our scouting network that we paid £8m for him. He can't pass, head, tackle or shoot.

Oh yeah, and why didn't we recall Routledge when Lennon is always ill/injured?

An absolute joke, and I'm afraid the responsibility needs to lie with the management.

That is all.