Poker: First month

Wed Dec 21st 17:46:57 2005 *

Ended my first full month at $1,305 (£748) or +$1,025 (£588). Only cleared about $70 of bonus money this past two weeks, with a high point of $1,480.

Been on the bad side of variance these past few days and have dropped around $300 for a total bankroll of $1,181 (£677) which includes a $55 reduction to purchase PokerTracker.



Overall I'm happy as my original goal was $600, my 'core roll' is now going to be $1,000 going into January. This'll allow me to play the limits I want with breathing room to move up when I choose.

My main priority right now is going to be getting my ship in order and getting as much money together as I can. I hear over the wires there's a barrage of bonuses coming over Christmas and I need all my money together to take advantage. They're going to all hit at once so it's going to be a big stretch taking down the best of them.

At the moment I'm clearing a $200 bonus at a Prima skin which has an additional $500 of my 'roll tied up, I need to clear 2000 hands over the next day or two to free this up, which isn't easy as this site rarely has more than 6 games going at any level.

Hoping I've finished the downswing now, I posted my first profitable session of the week 6 tabling the $1/$2L tables at Prima for 600 hands at +$9. It's a start. These games are pretty tough too, mostly tight-aggressive which is frustrating because I don't get as many opportunities to play my beloved pocket pairs or AXs.

I've decided to not bother sticking to exclusively limit or NL, both are fun with even winrates at the limits I play, it's a nice change switching between the two.

Currently playing:
$0.25/$0.5NL $30-$50 buy-in.
$0.5/$1L & $1/$2L.

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Poker: Week #3

Thu Dec 8th 20:36:02 2005 *

Been a good week. Lots of stuff happened. Bankroll at $1,042.

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Poker: Fortnight #1

Fri Dec 2nd 08:36:27 2005 *

Finished first 2 weeks. Ended November with $525, or +$245 (£140).

Had all my accounts frozen which stopped play for around 4 days, got it sorted now, was worried they'd seize my funds and ban me, but it worked out.

I ended up only being able to do 3 Prima sites in total. Absolute is out the picture now as they've changed their rake requirements making it twice as hard to clear the bonii.

Had funds tied up in other places so didn't get a chance to stack the PokerStars bonus, no big loss, that site is rigged anyway.

In the next 10 days I plan to clear another $100 Bet365 bonus, then a $100 reload from Party that'll require 1,000 hands but should be able to knock that out in a day 4-tabling. They've also released a new client so you can minimize the windows, meaning on a 1280 display you can get 9 tables in, that'll be yum, my max so far is 6.

So apart from a few mishaps I'm pretty happy, got ridiculously unlucky in big pots, I'd take down a dozen $3 pots then lose the $30's everytime, last week however I've been able to claw some back, only down $20 or so from actual play now.

With $300 tied up at Bet365 I had $200 spare, decided to put it in PokerFantasy, worst games I've ever seen. 'Took a shot' a few minutes ago, playing $1/$2 NL 6max, far too high for my roll and I suck at 6max... only played 3 or 4 orbits. Most memorable hand was getting Q3o on the BB, was raised UTG and I forget how many callers but I was getting 12:1 so called, flop came QJ3r, I check, original raiser bet out, dude to my right calls and I raise allin for $40 or so more, original raiser calls and he has KQo and spikes a K on the turn to take my buy-in.

I promised myself if I lost that I'd leave knowing full well I can recoup that at this site at the $0.25/$0.5 NL tables very quickly... 5 minutes later I join a $0.5/$1 NL 6max game, took down a nice handful of mid-sized pots without ever showing and left after 4 orbits or so +$67 on my buy-in which recouped my previous losses with a sweetener on top.
I won't be playing those limits anytime soon, the donks make it far too dangerous.

Almost at $600 now, once I hit that it'll be my core roll, anything over I'll allow myself to withdraw for December, so I start January with that $600, so by early-mid February I can hit up the $1/$2L tables comfortably.

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Christmas Bonii

Sun Nov 20th 11:39:59 2005 *

November is Bonus month for the bonus whores. Until the end of the month I hope to make around $400 in bonuses.

Golden Riviera (Prima)
Crazy Poker (Prima)
Gaming Club (Prima)
Bet365 (Prima)
PokerStars 20% to $120 (stacking this one for later)
Absolute 200% to $200

Have quite a few more queued up for December.
Should put my bankroll at around the $700 mark at the end of this month, enough to 4-table the $0.5/$1's 6hrs/day for December.
Based on a conservative estimate of 1BB/hr for 4 tables, that's $4/hr then double that for the bonuses/rakeback on top should make around $50/day. Hopefully will only have to suffer this for a month where my roll will be big enough to start getting into bigger games.


Been talking to a friends' army friend from the MoD, who's leaving the army to join an IT course. Now my friend is bugging me to sign-up, and to stop being "a fucking tramp/bum".

The best looking course is:

The Internet Professional Programme (IPP)
The qualifications gained on the programme include:
* CIW Foundations
* CIW Web Languages
* CIW E-Commerce Designer
* Web Project Portfolio
* CIW Site Designer
* CIW Applications Developer
* CIW Server Administrator
* Web Project Management

This sounds good, but Perl and JavaScript?! Was this course designed in 1989?
The Project Management better not involve use of MS Project Manager, this program alone almost made me quit College (that along with MS Access) feel sick just thinking about it.

Plus it's in Leicester Square, 1.5 hours commute a day. Ken Livingston makes damn sure traveling to London costs an hourly wage, and the course is £5,000, which is 8,562 Big Blinds(!!) which they pay up front and you pay back on completion/employment.


Anyhoo, who is the guy that doesn't have his username show up when he posts comments? lol.. something has forked up somewhere.

I'm going to work on Blogotomy some more soon, once I get going and get back into PHP things should move fast, but spending so much time playing poker results in me wanting to get away from the computer for as much time as possible.

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Green Street, aka Hooligans, aka Green Street Hooligans

Sat Oct 8th 08:36:04 2005 *

Watched Green Street. Tis a good film. I only get to see a film I can rate as anything more than pig faeces once every decade, so it's a welcome change.
It's not watered down much and it isn't explained every step of the way for an international audience which makes it all the better.

It stars Elijah Wood but he does a pretty good job of it. One thing:



He has the body of a 4 year old.
Seriously, MUTATION.

I understand completely why he was chosen for Lord of the Rings now.

We were in this pub which has a strange feeling to it. When you walk in it's like walking into somebody's house uninvited. It's a real regular type of pub, but we went to it because it has the cheapest pool table in a 45-mile radius.

While there the Sunderland V West Ham game was on, with a group of 20 guys or so watching. Strangely enough I was talking about Green Street when West Ham scored, these guys all jumped up shouting. Shit. They're all wearing jeans, a jumper and caps. The uniform. I'm in a firm's pub. Green Street is based on West Ham's firm. I'm in a West Ham firm pub.

I bought 2 pints of coke which I was told was £1.20 each, we got charged £2.20 each. I decided to let it go in this situation.

I also remember the pub was burnt down in an arson attack about 5 years or so ago in which the owner died. We drink our cokes and leave..


Later we go to the cinema to see Revolver.
Now, I'm still on a self-imposed ban from the cinema. Actually it's not completely self-imposed. I got banned about 6 months ago for taking a ceiling tile off in the bathroom and got escorted off by security. It was actually my friend that did it (we were drunk) but they have the staff rotation of McDonalds so it never stuck.

A friend bought my ticket so I decided to let it ride this time.

Revolver is terrible. It tries to be too clever and it just doesn't work. At the end I just wanted to leave but I'm self-conscious when it comes to eating in the cinema so I was on 1 crisp per 10 minutes so I stayed to finish them off. At the end, or near the end, the screen just goes blank, and no one knows if that's actually the end or not, I couldn't be bothered to wait to find out so we just left.

Don't go see it. Don't even bother downloading it, waste of bandwidth.

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Poker: Psychology

Mon Sep 26th 19:16:37 2005 *

It's all about the pyschology...



Damn I'm good.

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bet it's wrong

Fri Sep 23rd 17:04:59 2005 *

Gamblers Anonymous 20 Questions
Most compulsive gamblers will answer yes to at least seven of these questions.

1. Did you ever lose time from work or school due to gambling?
Yes
2. Has gambling ever made your home life unhappy?
Yes
3. Did gambling affect your reputation?
Yes (but only in a good way)
4. Have you ever felt remorse after gambling?
Yes
5. Did you ever gamble to get money with which to pay debts or otherwise solve financial difficulties?
Yes
6. Did gambling cause a decrease in your ambition or efficiency?
Yes
7. After losing did you feel you must return as soon as possible and win back your losses?
Yes
8. After a win did you have a strong urge to return and win more?
Yes
9. Did you often gamble until your last dollar was gone?
Yes
10. Did you ever borrow to finance your gambling?
Yes
11. Have you ever sold anything to finance gambling?
No
12. Were you reluctant to use "gambling money" for normal expenditures?
Yes
13. Did gambling make you careless of the welfare of yourself or your family?
No
14. Did you ever gamble longer than you had planned?
Yes
15. Have you ever gambled to escape worry or trouble?
Yes
16. Have you ever committed, or considered committing, an illegal act to finance gambling?
No (not illegal as such)
17. Did gambling cause you to have difficulty in sleeping?
Yes.
18. Do arguments, disappointments or frustrations create within you an urge to gamble?
Yes
19. Did you ever have an urge to celebrate any good fortune by a few hours of gambling?
Yes
20. Have you ever considered self destruction or suicide as a result of your gambling?
No


Perhaps the most worrying thing about this is that they didn't include an extremely important question. "Are you a winner?" to which I would say "Yes."

Score: 16/20.

Not bad. You win some you lose some.

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In the News: Blair calls for better parenting

Fri Sep 2nd 01:21:47 2005 *

Bad parenting, and the anti-social behaviour it generates, is to be tackled in Prime Minister Tony Blair's first post-holiday speech.

*cough*

Anyhoo, in other news, I was watching Mike Matuscow on FullTiltPoker tonight. Over 2-3hrs he dropped 40k to Spirit Rock. owned.

He said over the night he was down a total of 140k (USD).

Makes my couple hundred $ bad beats seem like nothing.


Been working pretty solid past 2 weeks on a project I'm rather excited about. Should be finished mid next-week and ready for prime time. If it's a miserable failure you'll probably never hear me mention it again.

Once it's finished I hope to start working on Blogotomy again.

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In the News: Iraq stampede kills 'up to 1,000'

Wed Aug 31st 10:18:45 2005 *

What. The. Fuck.

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Poker: rof

Fri Aug 19th 20:40:28 2005 *

`nuff said.

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