blonde poker forum

Hello,

Some of you may have seen me lurking and occasionally posting on here slightly more of late. A couple of Sky regs have suggested restarting my diary (I used to have a diary thread on the Sky Poker forum, until I got banned.  ;technophobe; ), and from reading the opening couple of chapters of "The Mental Game of Poker 2", I can see ways in which having a diary thread will benefit me, so have decided to create one on here.

I know that a lot of Sky Poker players visit here too, so a lot of people will already know me, but for those who don't, a brief introduction:

I'm Andy, 19, from Swindon. I've been playing Poker since my 18th birthday (October 2011), but learning/studying the game for longer - I remember staying up on school nights with the telly on as loud as I could get away with, making sure I didn't wake my parents up, watching Sky Poker TV. I did misclick limp Kings yesterday, but apart from that, several years of listening to Tikay has served me well :)

I went to College as soon as I left school, but being gifted, I found the whole education system incredibly frustrating. My life changed when I signed up to Sky Poker and realised fairly soon that I was a winning player. I stopped turning up for College - After all, I hated it, I was only going because my parents had told me it was the only way I would survive (Which I now realise couldn't be further from the truth), and if School was so easy, and College is so easy, then why is University, and eventually getting a job somewhere, going to be any different?

After half-heartedly applying and getting kicked out of colleges a few weeks later for poor attendance, I decided to take the plunge and start playing Poker for a living a few months ago. While I'm still playing relatively low stakes, and my bankroll isn't massive, I still live at home with my Dad, and make enough to pay rent, food bills, and continue building my bankroll, so that one day, I hopefully won't be a lolpro anymore.

Thread will be boring if it's only me posting results every day though, so all posts, Poker or otherwise, are welcome.

(http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/p608/Evilpingu/Dummy_zps9feaa72a.jpg)

In.

GL with this.

1. What stakes are you playing.
2. What games.
3. Any other sites.
4. Favourite Nando's order
5. Best ever day in your Life so far.....

Andy!

Word of advice.

You were doing just fine with your intro until this bit......


several years of listening to Tikay has served me well

Your potential street cred is now in tatters. It is only a matter of time before an internet sheep Posts the tap-in.

Level?


Look forward to reading this, & I wish you well with the Diary, & the poker.

PS - I think you'll enjoy our "Poker Hand Analysis Board" (PHA), here....

http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?board=24.0

You'll not see me dispensing advice there, it's a bit high level for me, but there are loads of really good respondents on there. Some play the game very well, some teach the game very well, but almost without exception, they are all really helpful. Just avoid posting disguised bad beat stories, because you'll get ripped for those, but knowing you as I do, I doubt you'll do that.

Good luck Andy.

1. How do you have your steak?
2. Last film you cried watching (just a little, manlyish tear, if you prefer)?
3. Walk-on song for the WSOP final table (YouTube link)?
4. Most famous person you've met?
5. Favourite advert ever (YouTube link)?

Thanks and good luck with the diary.

How did you manage to get banned form Sky ?

Welcome to the blog section, the very best of luck to you Andy...

Biggest hand won and lost? (stakes or bb's)
Best and worst moment in poker?
Why do you love the game?

Ty

Welcome good luck with your adventures :)

I will be reading Mr Wicked Penguin.

Best of luck man.

First Poker update on here - Found it really difficult to start 30NL tables yesterday, nobody wanted to play and there was only one other reg on the 30NL tables at the same time. The rest of the 30NL regs had all dropped to 20NL instead where there was already 20 or so tables running, and after only managing to get a couple of 30NL games running, I jumped on a load of 20NL waiting lists instead.

Ended that session (Only one today) -£9.75, which considering I played the worst Poker I've played all month, is actually a pretty good outcome. Probably helped that I won a couple of flips for stacks but can't remember losing any. Will definitely have to look back through some hand histories though

Aims for the next three days are to pick up another 509 Poker Points on Sky (To get me to 5k for the month = free £90), which shouldn't be too difficult. Hopefully I can do this without having to play on the last day of the month, so that I can use that time to do some more work on my game away from the table instead.


1 & 2 - Hold'em cash, 30NL on Sky at the moment, with the odd tournament or two thrown in for good measure. I used to grind Sky's "Double Your Money" Sit 'n' Go's, but I'm bored of playing them for the time being. I occasionally play PLO too, but I'm far better at Hold'em.

3 - Most of my volume is on Sky (I'm EvilPingu on there because of the 10 character limit). I use 'Stars Android app when I'm out somewhere and bored to death, but I've never even made SilverStar on there before. Also, can't say no to PKR's lottery freerolls. Possibly getting free tournament tickets for looking in the lobby and clicking the register button? Bargain.

4 - Sadly, the closest Nando's to my house is about 25 miles away - I've only been to Nando's a couple of times, and the last time was about two and a half years ago, so don't really have a favourite order.

5 - Not sure atm, will think about it and answer tomorrow :)

===========

Bed time so will answer more posts when I wake up sometime this afternoon.

If its not too personal and intrusive £30 nl seems quite small stakes to grind a living from. How many hands a month do u try and play and what do u consder a good/ bad month in terms of profit/ bbs won? obv feel free not to divulge if i ool. Ty and good luck.

It is a low level to grind for a living, but at the same time, I still live with my Dad, so the only bills I have to pay are rent and mobile phone contract. I usually only withdraw £300 a month, so 10 BI's really isn't that much. Anything after that goes towards building my bankroll so I can eventually move up.

I've only just moved up from 20NL to 30NL in the last week or two, so I don't have much of a sample size & don't know what my win rate will be at that level yet because I've not played enough hands yet. Generally, I set a target for the amount of Poker Points I want to earn on Sky instead of playing a certain amount of hands. Going to try to qualify for Sky Poker's Priority Club next month which is 10,000 Poker Points (£1 rake = 6 Poker Points). Not sure how many hands I'll have to play to get there, guess I'll find out next month.


Didn't answer this yesterday because I don't really know, there's quite a few to choose from.

Finally decided on the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in 2002. For any F1 fans who are interested, I was in the grandstand somewhere in between Luffield and Woodcote, and I could see the cars coming out of Bridge, through the entire complex and down to Copse (Which meant I could see the start too), so had a pretty good view.

It was really depressing to go to the World Series by Renault meeting a couple of years back and see that spectators were allowed to walk on what used to be Bridge corner, as it isn't being used any more.

Tbh, if you asked me the same question next week I'd probably give you a different answer, because I really didn't know which one to choose from.

I'm only banned from their forum :P Posted a rant about Customer Care on there.


- Biggest hand won was at 200NL, playing a drunk guy who was just going crazy with every hand, he opened to something like £28 so I shoved £200 with A9 suited, snap called by 55, rivered a 9.
- Biggest hand lost was at 300NL, nut flush draw + overcards vs a really aggro opponent who had a made hand although can't remember what it was. He held.
- Best moment in Poker is one of my tournament wins. Nothing beats winning a tournament.
- Worst moment in Poker was after my first big tournament win for £1.8k, when I thought I was Phil Ivey and had 3-4 consecutive days of being on a massive heater, then managed to lose the profit from my heater and half of my tournament bink before withdrawing.

Why do I love the game? It's always been part of my life for as long as I can remember (Not for real money ofc). Used to have "Vegas Games 2000" on my old Windows 98 when I was younger, used to limp into every pot and not have a clue what I was doing. I would call with 7 high on the river just because folding was boring and I didn't have a clue what I was doing. Eventually Sky Poker came along and I started learning the game.

I also love how no two hands are ever the same.

Thanks - Not a level, either ;)

I've posted a few times on the PHA board already, although I stay away from the live poker threads as I'm useless live. There's some very good players on here who I can definitely learn from just by reading some of their posts in PHA.


Thanks :)

1 - Usually medium.
2 - I can't remember every crying watching a film, but I can probably count the number of films I've watched on my fingers (Including the first 45 minutes of The Grinch 3-4 times every year on the final day of school before xmas). The only film which I remember making me want to cry was Schindler's List, but I was a Year 7 kid at the time in a classroom with loads of other boys who would've reminded me about it every day for the rest of my school life.
3 - The intro to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzgGTTtR0kc (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzgGTTtR0kc).
4 - Don't know - Had a couple of Football and Rugby Union players teach PE lessons but that's about it. Don't know who any of them were though - The footballers were random guys from Swindon Town and I only like Rugby League. Apparently one of the Rugby Union players had an England cap so I'll go with him.
5 - Some of the Paddy Power ones recently are brilliant, although can't beat the Cadbury's Gorilla. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnzFRV1LwIo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnzFRV1LwIo)

That was really sad. We don't need to go into detail here - please - but as you know, an effort was made to avoid the upcoming car crash......live & learn, eh?

Anyway, very pleased you have found your way here, & good luck with the Diary.

I do actually enjoy commentating on your play, you make it easy for me, as you do, as far as I can tell, the "correct" things. It is not easy when dealing with Clients to say "look chap, you made a right pigs ear of that". They are Clients, & it is so easy to inadvertently piss them off, nothing is worse than being dissed in front of a TV audience, it is incredibly humiliating, so some careful choosing of words is necessary.

I doubt Tesco, or B & Q or whoever tell their Clients "stop, you are doing it all wrong".

Sunday update:

Very little to report - Played three tournaments including the Super Roller on Sky Poker last night, (£110 buy-in, sold 20% @ 1.0) Unfortunately didn't cash in any of them, for a loss of £105.50. Cash was pretty much break even, but picked up a few Poker Points towards 5k for this month.

Hopefully, an hour or so tonight will knock off the remaining 87 points required for 5k, then I can spend the rest of tonight and all day tomorrow going through some hand histories and reading "The Mental Game of Poker 2". I've also got a free £5 bet on Zimbabwe to beat Bangladesh in the 2nd Test Match. Zimbabwe need 237 runs with 6 wickets remaining at the moment, so I'm not too optimistic, but fingers crossed.

Yesterday: -£104.39
Sky Poker Points this month: 4,913/5,000 = £78.61

hi mate,

what's your biggest flaw, as a poker player?

Listens to advice from the wrong people.......;)

Hi Andy

Matt Bates from "next door"

Will be following the diary, where do you see yourself being pokerwise in a years time? Also, in a years time if you are asked what is the most exciting thing you have done, what will your answer be?

Matt

haha was gonna say :P

I post this and two wickets fall within about 10 minutes. Standard.


Don't worry, I had no intention of going into any more detail than that :) Although sadly, it means I'm now ineligible for TSP. Sigh @ T&C's.

I've actually stopped playing the Master Cash tables recently, apart from the 20NL ones. I often found myself playing slightly outside of my BR because I wanted to be on telly - Not massively out of my bankroll, but just being indisciplined.

Obviously I don't mind being told if I play a hand terribly - Far better than the alternative which is making the same mistake and haemorrhaging money until I realise myself that I'm doing something wrong. But for the majority who care more about having fun than maximising their win rates, they probably care far more than I do about something like that.


Quite a lot of things to choose from, although the most expensive one that I'm aware of is deciding I'm going to bet/fold the river, then bet/calling when they raise me anyway because my hand looks pretty and I don't want to fold even though I know I should.

----

Will reply to page 2 posts later, haven't slept yet & my sleep pattern is screwed :') One day in my life equates to about 26 hours, for some reason. Am I the only one? :o

Nice start.  Look forward to this one developing.  GL with it all.

Very happy to see you start this on here Pengwin! Your last one was a very good read!

Best piece of poker advice?
Favourite well known poker player?

Gl at the tables!

Hello - Didn't know you were on here :p

Where do I see myself in a year? Realistically, if I'm rolled for & winning at 100NL, and have a couple of Hendon Mob flags, I'd probably consider that a good 12 months.

As for the second part, I guess we'll find out in a year's time :) Hopefully moving out.


Best piece of Poker advice - The opposite of whatever I said when I was interviewed by Sky Poker while drunk @ SPT 6max and someone asked me the same question. I can't remember what my answer actually was... Fortunately, I haven't seen that on the channel yet, so I'm praying that my interview never made it past the cutting room floor. I don't know for certain though, so even now it's still a bit of a sweat when I'm watching the live shows.

Enjoy the game, and don't feel obliged to play just because playing might be +EV for you. If you don't feel like playing, don't play.

Favourite well known player - Neil Channing. Was gutted for him when he missed out on the bracelet HU last year, after staying up all night watching the stream.

Monday update:

Woke up at 9pm and had to do online shopping (sigh), so hardly played. Had a couple of Sky's "Double Your Money" Sit 'n' Go's (Same as Double or Nothings on other sites, just a slightly different name) running at the same time, as it's so easy to leave them to one side and not have to do anything until the bubble. Ended up with £13.50 profit.

Yesterday: +£13.50
Sky Poker Points this month: 4,928/5,000 = £78.85

Only 96 people seated on Sky Poker atm, so just waiting for people to wake up and logging in, so I can get some games running and knock off the last 72 Poker Points needed for £90 - Would be a waste to not play for an hour and miss out on £11 or so.

Is this Lambert posting under your name?   ;yellowcard;

GL w/ the diary. Hope you fly through 30nl so you can stop stacking me 3x per session.  ;noflopshomer;

Interesting point for discussion here.  This is all well and good for most recreational players, but what about when you are trying to grind a living?  What if you don't feel like playing all week?  What if you need to play to hit a rakeback bonus, or win a leaderboard, or just to maintain an hourly?

I often don't feel like going to work, but then I don't get paid if I don't.

The Mental Game of Poker touches on this.  It talks about how playing your B game can still be profitable.

What are other people's thoughts and yours of course?

When I've done this in the past, I found myself playing my C-game a lot. If we're playing profitably (but not our A-game), then yes, I agree it's probably good short term to still be playing.

Is it good long term though, as surely playing when we don't want to is going to mean we start enjoying the game less? And that can never be a good thing.

Interesting point about winning a leaderboard - I would still play even if I didn't feel like playing because it's too lucrative to do anything else. But if there's nothing to play for apart from trying to make a buyin or two in that single session, I just don't see what can be gained from playing when we can't be bothered.

Has your enjoyment of poker changed over time?

Not really, although I enjoy different things to what I enjoyed 18 months ago.

-----

Tuesday, 30th April.

Got the 75 Poker Points to take my Poker Points total over 5k, although I lost £62.50 getting the extra £11 because I couldn't win a flip or an 80/20 to save my life. C'est la vie. Also withdrew next month's £££.

Will do the first proper diary post tomorrow.

Today: -£62.50
Sky Poker Points this month: 5,003/5,000 = £90.05

So glad to see a good player get a space in the world of internet.

All the best mate and I can guarantee everyone that this diary will be a good read.

Question for you: With whom did you stay in the first live tournament you have attended?

I went straight home after SPT Brighton :P

I know you mean the 6max at DTD - I can't remember. Some drunk fish. Still don't know to this day how he cashed ;)

---

May 1st update:

I woke up yesterday to discover that Sky was down for maintenance, or whatever alternate word Sky uses to mean the same thing after Black Friday. This gave me the opportunity to read some more of The Mental Game of Poker 2, which I would recommend to anyone who hasn't got the book yet.

Yesterday was a profitable start to the month, although I barely played. Started a session, and within 10 minutes, the tables I had joined broke and I was falling asleep, so stood and left. However, in that time, I did manage to stack somebody :D

Did some targets for this month, too, but Sky have announced a SnG promotion overnight for this weekend (Announce a week or two in advance next time please!). I'm going to have to tweak them before posting in here.

May 1st: +£20.12
This month: +£20.12
Poker Points: 10/10,000

I still can't believe you played the SPT in Brighton and didn't come to say hello.

What a day and night that was. We have to do this again. Can't remember how many beers and sambuca shots I had.

Still I don't know how I managed to cash. I guess each fish has its day or its the alcohol effect. :-)

I didn't really know anyone then, and it was before Team51, I think.

I'm definitely in if Macapaca is paying again, lol. I'll hopefully be at SPT Birmingham but staying sober until I'm out of the tournament this time - You going mate?

-------

May 2nd: +£46.09
This month: +£66.21
Poker Points: 199/10,000

Only just noticed this diary, will defo be keeping an eye on it. You seem to be at a similar stage in poker as me, except i took the potentially questionable decision to go to uni anyway. Still think its a good long term choice but find poker is my main focus for sure. Paying my way through with poker.

Should be good to watch your progress :)

Good excuse mate. :P

I don't know yet mate. Depends. I am playing the BlackBelt event next week so if that goes decent I might be tempted to play the SPT Birmingam.

I finish my exams also on the 3rd but haven't booked my tickets to Greece yet so it depends on this also.

I might just come for the rail or maybe play some cash as I really enjoyed it the last time in Luton. If I decide to come will we share a room again?

I can definitely relate to that - While I was at College, I never really wanted to be there, but didn't want to leave because I knew it wasn't the most sensible thing to do. Staying at home and playing poker was much more fun. Tbh, I regret not finishing College and going to Uni now. As much as I hated College for a variety of reasons, it makes sense to have something to fall back on if Poker doesn't work out, and by not finishing College, I only have a Maths A-Level and GCSE results to my name.

I have considered going back to College after moving out, maybe in September 2014, but that's a long way away...


I'm not sure if I'll even bother with a hotel for a one day event, might stay at the casino and play cash until the first train home in the morning then sleep all day when I get home lol. But if I get a hotel room, then yeah, sure :)

GL with exams - See FB re: East End Live action if you haven't already.

George, Andy - get yer arses up to SPT Birmingham. No excuses, please, be great to see you both.

George can indulge in some more PLO cash with me, too.

May 3rd:

Although my plan at the start of the month was to basically grind 20NL and 30NL all month (Tables don't run all the time at 30NL on Sky, and not the amount that I would like, so I have to add some 20NL instead), this promotion (https://www.skypoker.com/secure/poker/sky_lobby/poker-promotions/the-big-deal) meant a change of plan. With £300 up top for whoever plays the most tournament and SnG hands between Friday and Monday, and very few micro stakes SnG or tournament grinders to take advantage, I decided that from yesterday until Monday would be better spent doing this to try and take down the £300.

(http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/p608/Evilpingu/T24_zps25182296.jpg)

Currently waiting to find out whether yesterday's 140ish Sit 'n' Go's is enough to put me top of the leaderboard after the first day; I have no reason to believe I won't be top as I didn't see many grinder regs on for most of the day yesterday.

As a result, I will reassess and post targets for the month on Tuesday once the promotion has finished. The one thing I will definitely be trying to is earn at least 10,000 Poker Points on Sky for Priority Club, which has many benefits, including a couple of decent sized freerolls with small fields, additional promotions, and the ability to buy-in direct to the Sky Poker Tour before anyone else.

---

May 3rd: +£38.55
This month: +£104.76
Poker Points: 708/10,000 (= £7.08 'rakeback')

GL with the promo Andy.

I think you'll struggle to win it though, couple of guys putting in insane volume.

If supercrazy isn't top on the leaderboard update today I'll be surprised. And Donttelmum 2nd.

Found a loophole w/ the standard sngs, there's 9k chips in play and blinds don't go above 1.5k/3k.

Get HU with a mate (no collusion obv) then suddenly both disconnect, leave it running for 3 days and you'll bank zillions of hands.

Do that on 7/8 tables and you're laughing.

Or I was until I read this.

"Winner’s play will be monitored and customers who are found to agreeing to fold hands to benefit from the promotion (or directly associated with or benefiting from this behaviour) will be removed from the competition will not be eligible to receive any bonuses."

Party poopers :(

With u snging, Rancid up to 50nl, AJ still @ 20nl and Lambert addicted to starcraft, 30nl could be fun this BH weekend :D

Just need to stop paying off vinnybhoy & co and I might make some money :D

Run good!

They've just updated the leaderboard and wow, I'm only 5th and DTM is top. Bloody hell. Going to be tougher than I thought - Better get grinding. Not surprised by any of the 4 names above me being there although confused as I didn't see them much at all yesterday, aside from Supercrazy.

Will be loads of value @ 30NL if you can get games running with hardly any regs around, glglglgl. I'm not there to hero call you down with Ace high when you have a set any more though...

I'll be at SPT Birmingham barring any unforeseen circumstances :)

Long time no speak TK.

I don't know if I am coming yet. As I mentioned above my schedule is a bit bliah. Nothing scheduled.

Money is an issue also. If I end up coming, I will just come to play cash and chat. No tours for me.

You make it tempting now TK. Playing PLO in a casino its a nice dream. I can't find any action in Brighton.

Didn't post in here this morning as the first thing I did when I woke up was to load up as many Sit 'n' Go's as I could, and because the games I'm playing are pretty dull there hasn't really been much to report.

Yesterday was supposed to be spent grinding and doing nothing else, but I logged on to Skype and another cash reg had asked me if I wanted to to go through some hand histories with him. Inevitably, I got distracted by Skype, ended up chatting to loads of people all evening instead of grinding, which was enjoyable but not +EV :')

I woke up this morning to find I had dropped from 5th to 7th on the leaderboard. As it turns out, it's not the end of the world - The guy below me didn't play at all on Saturday, so even though Sky can't post saying how far ahead/behind the other players I am, I know I was quite far ahead of 8th place this morning.

Today's session was just mega tilting. It was one of those sessions where it felt like every time I shoved, somebody would wake up with Aces, or get called by junk which would then get there. However, I only lost £8 or so, and apart from the first quarter of an hour or so of the session (which I know is one of my leaks as it takes a little while for my brain to start working properly) I played reasonably well. Also, the volume played should help me to maintain my position on the leaderboard for the promotion going into the final day.

To be honest, I'm starting to remember why I stopped grinding Sky's "Double Your Money" Sit 'n' Go's a while ago - They're not the most exciting games in the world. Depending on my leaderboard position, I might go back to cash tomorrow, as 4th through to 10th pay out the same, there's no way I'll be able to catch 3rd, and 30NL is going to be more profitable than micro stakes SnG's. It all depends how far I think I am ahead of the guy in 11th place when Sky post the updated leaderboard tomorrow morning.

May 4th: +£26.15
This month: +£130.91
Poker Points: 943/10,000 (= £9.43 'rakeback')

May 5th: -£8.15
This month: +£122.76
Poker Points: 1,210/10,000 (= £12.10 'rakeback')

As it's the end of the week, I shall leave you with this for the time being:

NITROLL OF THE WEEK

I received a £10 discount if I used my eBay account (Which I’ve never used before) to buy something using PayPal. There was no minimum amount that I had to spend, but delivery costs weren’t included, so I went on to eBay and found the cheapest American Football with free delivery. I ended up getting an American Football for about 30p. Bargain! :D

TILT OF THE WEEK

Realising that I don’t have anything to inflate aforementioned American Football with, closely followed by AutoCorrect telling me that realising is spelt with a ‘Z’ while drafting this post in MS Word. NO IT’S NOT.

INTERESTING SPOT OF THE WEEK

While I didn’t have any pots where hundreds of big blinds went in the middle with quads against a straight flush to speak of, I found a couple of spots which were equally satisfying, if unspectacular and far less lucrative. Doesn't help that in the games I'm playing atm, the correct strategy is far nittier early on, and push/fold later, leaving very little room for doing anything unorthodox.

It was early on Saturday Morning and there wasn’t much happening on Sky Poker as a result. However, because of a promotion, I was playing as many SnG and Tournament hands as I could. To my right, I found a guy who was check/folding the flop whenever he missed, and c-betting the flop when he hit. Even though it was one of Sky’s “Double Your Money” Sit ‘n’ Gos, where tight is definitely right, this opportunity was too good to pass up.

It folds around to the guy on my right in the small blind, who minimum raises with blinds at 50/100 and is check/folding flop 2/3rds of the time and making it really easy for me to fold when I don’t flop a monster the rest of the time.

I wake up with 7s 2s, and decide that the best line is to slow play our monster hand by flat calling. The flop comes down Q53 rainbow, and as expected, the villain checks and folds to a small c-bet.

Only a 6bb pot, but it always feels good when we have such a reliable read as this one, and we can do things which are not necessarily ‘standard’ profitably as a result.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“I’m a good Poker player; I just lose lots of money” – A friend in a Skype call

Just started reading your diary Pingu, Best of luck im sure it will be a good read :)

Hows the FPS going?

Cheers :)

I still can't resist a 5bet bluff with an Ace blocker once in a while, lol. Have cut it out of my game for the most part, there's just so much easy money out there without needing to get massively out of line all the time, at least not as much as I used to. There's definitely a time and a place for it though, and I've learned to pick those spots much more carefully than I used to this time last year.

-----

6th May

Really couldn't be bothered to play much yesterday, so didn't :') Remained in the top 10 on the leaderboard promotion though, giving me another £100. FWIW, I would've got £100 for anywhere between 5th and 10th, so I didn't lose any leaderboard money by not playing as I had no chance of catching 4th place anyway.

May 6th: +£12.52
"The Big Deal" promotion: +£100.00
This month: +£235.28
Poker Points: 1,325/10,000 (= £13.25 rakeback)

What sort of monitor setup have you got to grind on?

(https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc1/598745_255691341198713_505054257_n.jpg)

Specs:

2 x 1920x1080 monitors
Intel Core i7-3770k Processor
16GB RAM (Was going to use this as a gaming computer, not just for Poker)
1TB Hard Drive
1.25GB Nvidia Geforce GTX 570 graphics card

And a far messier desk than when that photo was taken, lol.

Enjoyed that little Omaha cash game last night Andy.

Fancy trying to bluff me off 5-6 when the board ran out 7-8-9-10-J........

You are the only person on earth I can make that call against. ;)

Did you finish in profit? You deffo livened it up.

Never bluff a station

Yeah, it was good fun, and a pretty impressive hero call, although probably standard against me as I never have it ;)

I finished with a massive 47p profit from that session, lol.

I've played against you many times in the Dym's on Sky.
Was wondering how easily you adapt when going from one to the other?
Personally, when I go back to cash after playing  the Dym's for a long period I become way too aggressive.
Having  the freedom to play 'normal' poker feels great after the grind of the Dym's. I tend to follow a pattern of winning decent amounts for a spell playing cash and then having a night where I just spew the profits away.
From that I then go back the monotony of the sit and go's until I get bored again and find my way back to the local casino.

You're pretty tough to play cash against by the way. You did unintentionally slow roll me once in an all in pot but apologised straight away in the chat box. I think you were playing about 20 tables at the time, so I'll let you off!

I'm playing the SPT at Birmingham, I'll say hello if I see you.

7th May:

Didn't do an update on Tuesday as I forgot :o Don't worry, this isn't one of those diaries where I brag when I win and don't post when I lose. I only lost £4 or so. ;)

May 7th: -£3.95
This month: +£231.33
Poker Points: 1,473/10,000 (= £14.73 rakeback)


8th May:

I hadn't played a proper cash session since the start of the promotion I was taking part in over the bank holiday weekend, so it was nice to finally be back on a cash table and making some decisions other than standard push/fold stuff. I played quite badly, but being a total luckbox, I managed to win every single flip for stacks that I can remember getting into. Would've been a better session as well if I didn't keep trying to call people down with Ace High, but I can definitely consider myself fortunate to come out of yesterday with any kind of profit.

May 8th: +£68.71
This month: +£303.99
Poker Points: 1,720/10,000 (= £17.20 rakeback)

A while back, before I was playing full time, I used to switch between cash and DYMs every couple of weeks or so. I would usually play DYMs, get bored, play cash for a while, win, have a several BI downswing then sulk for a couple of days before going back to DYMs, lol. I can't recall ever finding it that difficult to switch between the two, to be honest. It helped that back in the day when I was doing that, I was playing 4NL and DYMs, and at micro stakes cash it was all about waiting for a premium hand then bashing the 3/4 pot and pot buttons. I think if I'd been playing a more loose aggressive style at the time, I would've found it more difficult to go from one to the other.

The thing I find hardest, even now, is loving my life when I see something pretty like Ts 8s on the button in cash, then having the same spot in the first level of a DYM where it's just a standard fold pre, and I really want to play it even though I shouldn't. Over the weekend while grinding for that promotion, I lost count of the number of times I'd look at a table, see I'd raised something marginal on the button, then once I'd been stationed in the blinds, I'd think "Why am I even playing this hand in this game?". Inevitably I'd c-bet, get called again, give up, and lose a couple of hundred chips which I didn't need to lose.

It's a shame that there isn't more regular SnG liquidity on Sky, because it would be a way to be able to change it up when you want to play something other than cash, without the monotony of clicking the fold button 98% of the time in a DYM, especially as the MTT schedule isn't brilliant apart from the main, mini, and 9pm slot. I think there's been some attempts in the past to get people to start playing normal SnGs, but they've never really worked out.

I still remember that "slowroll" - I probably do that more than I actually realise because I have decisions on other tables, although I always apologise if I notice I've done it.

Hope to see you at SPT Birmingham :)

Sometimes you actually DO have a hand, then.........

Yeah that monstet 108 sooted ;-)  just messing pretty hand in position

Yes, but don't tell anyone. I like my image... ;)

---

9th May:

I ran like Usain Bolt yesterday.

Started by firing up 6 cash tables for a couple of hours while watching the first two episodes of The Apprentice on iPlayer. Still wondering if/when the candidates will ever learn that picking yourself to be project manager in the first task is a sure fire way to get into a flip to be fired first. As for the Poker, this was one of those really tedious sessions where nothing much happened, and every time I had a hand, someone else had a slightly better one. Won a big flip right at the end of the session though, and ended up with £4.44 profit.

Decided that I felt like playing something a bit different in the evening, so registered for a couple of £5.50 PLO8 tournaments with Tikay, Sky's main and mini bounty hunters, and a £11 rebuy starting at 9pm.

In the first PLO8 tournament, I ended up flopping the nut house, getting the lot in against a short-stacked Tikay, and rivering quads with no low hand possible. Eventually went on to finish 2nd for £18, with another big pot on the FT where I got stacks in against 2 opponents and scooped with a wheel + 5 low. The second PLO8 tournament never really got started, and I went out 26/52 without really making much of an impact on the tournament aside from contributing £5 to the prize pool.

In the £33 main event, I picked up a bounty in the first couple of hands with 55 > 33 on a 543 board. However, my inability to bet/fold against passive players cost me in my exit hand where I turned TPTK with Q88K board, got raised by someone who obviously had trips but I still called anyway -_- FML.

Fortunately, the £11 rebuy went better. Much better...

(http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/p608/Evilpingu/Boom_zps2430054d.jpg)

HU lasted exactly one hand, with me 4betting A9s and getting called by his 10s which held. He had a pretty big chip lead going into HU and was probably a better player than me too, so didn't really have much chance of winning once I got HU, but £511 is a very welcome boost to the bankroll :)

Also had a 45 minute cash session once I got down to 1 table in the rebuy - Loaded a dozen 20NL tables and ended up 5 buy-ins up, helped by getting AA v QQ v JJ against two other players with £20 stacks. Somehow it didn't go in pre-flop, they both flatted my 4bet, but once the flop came 888, and I checked to them, there was no way either of them were getting away from their hands. Closed these down once I got close to being ITM in the rebuy so I could concentrate on that instead.

May 9th: +£567.79
This month: +£871.78
Poker Points: 1,945/10,000 (= £19.45 rakeback)

FISH HEATER ITT

P.s well played nice bink skillz

10th May:

How quickly things change. Went from binking £500 and crushing cash yesterday to getting absolutely owned today in 30NL games where the standard was so poor that I was raising 4x pre for the first time in as long as I can remember.

Played for about 3 hours, starting with 10 tables but eventually dropping to 7 as games started to break. Not going to bore people to death with the details of people binking 2 outers and me playing awful. Unticking the "Auto Post BB" box at the end of the session, only to run AK into AA summed up my session, really.

Also received an e-mail about a SnG promotion on PKR. Played one SnG, then decided that full ring was boring so gave up.

May 10th:
Sky -£117.28
PKR -$6.00
This month: +£754.50, -$6.00
Sky Poker Points: 2,308/10,000 (= £19.45 rakeback)

12th May

No update yesterday as I didn't play on Saturday.

For once, I decided not to bother with Sunday tournaments, and didn't start my session until about 10pm. When I did start, it seemed to be going the same way as Friday's cash session - After an hour, I was 3-4 buy-ins down at 20NL (I was playing this level as there wasn't much 30NL running on Sky at the start of the session)

Eventually, I started playing better, and when stacks went in, I stopped getting two outered as well, which really helped. Despite managing to value own myself for an entire stack, and a few more times for some smaller pots, I finished the session with a 5 buy-in profit.

Falling behind on the Poker Points, which is slightly frustrating, but not the end of the world. It's still recoverable if I put enough hours in between now and the end of the month.

May 12th:
Today: +£100.97
This month: +£855.47
Sky Poker Points: 2,581/10,000 (= £25.81 rakeback)

nice month so far :D keep it up

14th May

I know this diary has been 99% Poker so far, so I plan to do more non-poker updates in the future, however, real life really isn't that exciting atm.

The last couple of days have been really frustrating. Although I made a few quid, it's been really, really tough to get any games running at 30NL. Sadly, many of the regulars at this level on Sky only care about themselves and seem to think short-term. There's maybe three winning regs who will play me HU when a game breaks, and the rest will either stand once the game is 3 handed, or worse, they'll untick the "Auto post blinds" button, stay long enough to grim me then leave.

Fortunately, the note section allows me to type lots of swear words in about grimmers, so I don't fall into the same trap twice.

There was an incident yesterday where I had position on a reg, the table broke, and we were 3 handed with a weaker player. The other reg sat out as he wouldn't play short handed vs me, though I'm certain he would've played the other guy HU all day long. The weaker player then stands, not wanting to play HU against me - After all, he's not bothered about win rates, is a regular losing player at this level, and if he wanted a HU game, he would've sat at a HU table. The reg stands too, so we end up with a guy giving money away who's now sitting on a waiting list on another 30NL table waiting for some action instead of playing, and one less table running. Marvellous.  ;frustrated;

Coincidentally, I saw a thread on the Sky forums on Monday about how there's very little 30NL/40NL action on Sky during the day, and it's because of regs like this who don't understand that they have a responsibility to keep games running if they want weaker players to join and eventually lose their money to us. If that means playing a few hands of HU in a game where long term, the only winner is going to be rake, then so be it. Unfortunately, some people are too stupid to realise that it is in their own best interests to keep games running, and only see "HU vs. EvilPingu when there's people giving money away on other tables? No thanks".

Although Sky has a promotion called "Early Bird" (50% extra rakeback on 3 handed or less tables) to encourage regs to keep playing in this spot, I don't think it's working. It's not something that I even consider when trying to start a game, and from what I've seen, other regs don't care either, as it's not encouraging them to keep games running, at least not HU vs other regs, anyway.

=========

On a slightly more cheerful note, satellites for the next leg of the Sky Poker Tour in Birmingham started today. Played a couple, didn't bink a seat, so just waiting for direct buy-in to open, or make sure I get Priority Club this month (10k Poker Points) and snap e-mailing them at about five past midnight on June 1st to buy-in and hoping it hasn't sold out by then. Failing that, there's always the alternates list...

Also, the last week has been rather uneventful, so there's no point doing the "X of the week" thing that I did last week. However, I'll leave you with a hand of the week from today's cash session :)

Hero £32.41, Ahrt  Tc
Villain £32.26, Hand ???

We're 3 handed @ 30NL, button limps, villain makes it £1.50 in the SB and we 3bet to £3.90, limper folds and villain calls.

Flop  6h  3s  2h

Villain checks, hero c-bets £3.90, villain raises to £11.70, hero flats.

Turn 9s

Villain checks, hero checks

River 7h

Villain shoves for £16.66, hero calls.

Ace high is good as villain shows Kh Qd :)

========

Results:

13th May
Today: +£40.04
This month: +£895.51
Sky Poker Points: 2,655/10,000 (= £26.55 rakeback)

14th May
Today: +£16.17
This month: £911.68
Sky Poker Points: 2,898/10,000 (= £28.98 rakeback)

You need to wok on your sat strategy, trying to beat me in a flip on sky? Really!?!? Keep trying the sats, you will get in on the cheap I am sure

I should've known better. Lesson learnt.

15th May

Sky Poker was playing up at the start of my session today, and wouldn't load tables properly. Got my buy-ins for the games affected refunded by Customer Care, but really frustrating as the site being unplayable for me meant hardly any volume, (and therefore, Poker Points) today puts me even further behind my target of getting into Sky's Priority Club next month. C'est la vie. Hopefully everything will be back to normal tomorrow morning (or should that be later this morning?)

This also left me with a dilemma. I keep my bankroll in one place, my Sky Poker account. Due to not having much money in my bank account as my roll is all on Sky Poker, I stuck £100 on 'Stars, converted it to dollars, and played a few $3.50 HU Hypers before deciding it wasn't worthwhile. Tbh, I need to start keeping my roll in a bank account and leave maybe 50 BI's for whatever cash level I'm playing at the time in my Sky account, for the interest as much as anything else, but it would avoid a repeat of anything like this as I'd be able to deposit and grind elsewhere for the night.

Outside of Poker, I can't wait to see the Ashes Warmup New Zealand test series start tomorrow. I'm really excited to see how Joe Root performs in his first test match in England, as well as Swann and Bresnan returning from their injuries (if both get in the team). It's a shame that we've only got two tests because of some silly limited overs competition that nobody really cares about next month. We've got a ODI World Cup, we don't need a Champions' Trophy too.

I don't do tips (or sports betting in general, for that matter) often, but going to keep an eye on the prices for Nick Compton to miss out on the 1st Ashes test if Bairstow gets some big runs in this series and/or Compton fails in this series as it may force England to pick Joe Root to open and Bairstow to play at 6 when KP comes back in. Currently 100/30 on Sky Bet which is a bit rubbish atm, but could be some value there in the next few weeks depending on performances and how the prices are affected by them.

===

Results 15th May
Today: -£7.40, +$16.50
This month: £904.28, +$10.50
Sky Poker Points: 2,909/10,000 (= £29.09 rakeback)

Problem with this is you're relying on the England selectors being pro-active for once.

They're massively in to consistency of selection, they don't really like changing anything within what is seen as, and tbf has been, a winning formula for a long time now.

We're probably just about the 2nd best team in the World right now, but we're a longgggg way behind the Saffers. We were no.1 a few years back, we're getting left behind due to (imo) conservative policies on and off the field.

Picking Compton in the first place was a regressive step, when there are younger, more talented options available.

Picking him for this first test against NZ will be a huge mistake.

As this is primerily a poker diary, the comparison to 'results orientated' thinking is evident when the pundits say "Well how can you drop Compton after he's just scored 2 hundreds?"

Well because it's best for the future of the team obv.

Root should open these 2 games in preperation for the Ashes.

I'm not 100% sure about Bairstow yet, (I'm a Yorkie too). I guess he deserves another go. But I think we did away with Eoin Morgan @ 6 too soon.

If I were picking my Ashes 1st test 11 right now I think he'd be the best man to bat 6.

Bairstow can do alot of damage too and will no doubt play 50+ tests, being the eventual successor to Prior. He's class.

Number 6 position is close though, something that can't be said about the no.1 position!

Be pro active Andy Flower 1 time ! :D

Nice work w/ the profit btw.

*edit, Also I think if you're going to bet you'll have to take that price or not bother. If it goes out, it means Compton got runs. You're effectively backing Compton to fail in the 2 tests. Doesn't matter if Root fails too, they're just looking for an excuse to drop Compton rather than having the balls to do it pro-actively. Take the price, it's decent and whatever happens you wont get better value.

So we have some cricket experts itt?

Thought on Swann, as England Top Bowler v New Zealand?

Looks more likely now we've won the toss :D

Still no chance though imo.

He's been below his best for a while now, out-bowled by Monty in Asia in the winter, injured in NZ, and hasn't started the season great with Notts either. Coming back from an operation I wouldn't expect to see any dramatic improvement.

Early season English wickets, against a side that struggles away from home, I'd be surprised if he got much bowling.

I'd probably have gone for the 4 quicks in this test, with Finns height/pace being the '4th option' rather than Swanns spin. Bresnan should have got the gig as a pitch up first change bowler. (first change likely be after 6 overs when Broad goes back to trying to nock peoples heads off again)

The selectors obviously have the Ashes in mind, and want to give Swann every chance to get some overs/form/wickets. And of course they're 'frittened' of change.

2nd test (of 2) is at Leeds, if it's cloudy he probably wont even get a bowl. Can you tell I'm not expecting great things from this NZ batting side? :D

Toss up between Jimmy and Broad for top series bowler. Jimmy ofc has the superior skill and will get the more prized wickets. (Do the hard work)

Broad will chip in by getting 9,10,Jack out 4 times and end up with flattering figures as always.

We've won the toss and are batting anyway.

After watching the IPL day in day out for 2 months, I can't wait to watch Cook and Trott block for 4 hours this afternoon.   ;cupcake;

Compton failed, I guess that price on him to miss the Ashes will have come in abit.

Looked dire, uninspiring, just a grim blocker.

Useless at gambling, Trott and Cook both 10/11 to be next out. (as of dinner)

Not sure how they've worked that 1 out, Cook 30 not out off 90, absolute run machine, looks set to bat for 3 days.

Trott 4* from 20, scratching around (literally), been dropped already.

Looks like good value, I've even had a few quid on myself!

One of those "it's a flip but we've got 57% equity" type bets ;)

Ball turning before lunch day one. not a lot in it for the seamers

Very similar to a pitch Midd v Surr a few weeks ago. slow and low and got better days 2 and 3

Headingley next match, batsmans paradise this season


this is why you are completely wrong on Swann. 9/2 is a good price compared to half that for Anderson/Broad..


i would have root opening in the Ashes too. Compton is an LBW candidate all day against Starc and Siddle

Not sure about this, didn't look a batsmans paradise when we were skittled out for 120 on day 1 of the season v an avg Sussex attack.

As always at Headingley it will depend alot on overhead conditions. It will be a good wicket, but I fancy there'll be more there for the seamers than Swann over the 5 days.

Broad/Anderson/Finn >>>>>>  Groenewold/Footitt/Leach/Overton/Kirby & co.

The Yorks superior seam attack has also skittled Derby out for < 150 to win the game on the final day, and reduced Somerset to 50/6 before rain saved them on the final day again (seamers doing the damage both times)

V much doubt NZ will get more than 450 over the 2 innings @ Leeds.

You'll need Swann to take 8/9 here. Weather around isn't going to help, timely showers could spice up the wicket/give the quicks a rest, doubt Cook will 'go back' with Swann after a rain break.

Didn't look at the prices, & I'm not a betting pro or anything, was just assessing it objectively.

Sounds like some of you'z have had a punt, would love it to be a winner, will do our Ashes hopes (home and away) the World of good should it be a winner!

Canny see it though.

the capitulations (derby, somerset) you refer to were 4th innings on worn pitches. first inning in these games were 505-9d, then 475 played 677 etc etc

We need ok weather to neuter the seamers

Another factor to consider is Yorkshire are skint, and could not afford to bid for an Ashes Test

They need this game to go five days, and it will be prepared to favour batsmen so all five days gate receipts are gained (unless its washed out)

Day 4 yea, v Somerset effectively day 3 and a half.

Supposed to be the best time for the spinners to bowl yet it was the quicks that did the damage.

(Monty/Rashid both v capable county spinners had little impact)

I doubt Swann will get much out of the pitch in the first innings, so where is he going to get his wickets should it deteriorate and favour seamers on days 4 and 5?

NZ strength is their middle order, early wickets up top very very likely, exposes their strength to the moving ball, can't see Swann getting much of a look in.

If he does, BMac will try to take the initiative and hit him out of the attack.

Agree they'll prepare a good wicket. They can't control the weather though, if it's overcast/humid, gl NZ!

Maybe Swann is the value bet in the market, but doesn't sound like there's much value to be had to me!  ;whistle;

Yeah, I think you're right. I still managed to get 10/3 on Compton not playing in the 1st Ashes Test at lunch today after his dismissal, so put £30 on. Fingers crossed...

Runs for Root and Bairstow now would be nice :)

16th May

I was delighted with how I played yesterday. There were still some issues with Sky's software, although not unplayable like on Wednesday, so I could still play on the site. As tables weren't spawning properly yesterday afternoon, I ended up 6 tabling, with a single 50NL table. Atm, my roll is at the stage where I could comfortably play 50NL, but I like to be over-rolled for the level I'm playing.

First cash session with just 6 tables was really tedious - Partly because I was playing so few tables due to nothing spawning, but also there wasn't anything happening. It was just 2 hours of being break even. Eventually finished with a massive profit of 13p.

Tournaments in the evening didn't go too well. I played Sky's Main (£33 Bounty Hunter) and Mini (£5.50 Bounty Hunter), a £11 Rebuy (1 Rebuy + Addon), and 2 x £11 Bounty Hunters. My only cash was a min cash and 5 bounties in one of the £11 Bounty Hunters - Really frustrating as I had a decent stack for most of the tournament until someone decided that limp/calling a shove with 77 was a good idea, but I'm happy to play people like that all the time.

Mercifully, everything else went much better. I fired up some 30NL tables, and this happened:

(http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/p608/Evilpingu/30NL_zps5772bf8d.jpg) (http://s1158.photobucket.com/user/Evilpingu/media/30NL_zps5772bf8d.jpg.html)

Was actually up to £260 at one point, but didn't get a screenshot then.

Also, I managed to qualify for the Sky Poker Tour at the 3rd attempt, for a total of £48 spent on satellites. Really looking forward to going as I haven't been to an SPT yet this year,

I'm really tempted to grind these because there's a lot of value in doing so, but I believe that satellite grinding is "misunderstood" by some players on Sky. There's always forum threads on there moaning about satellite grinders stopping people who want to qualify for an event from actually qualifying. As far as I'm concerned, 1/5th of the field is going to qualify in a 1 in 5 satellite, and if you're not good enough to finish in the top 20% of a satellite field then tough luck, you don't deserve to qualify.

However, for an event like the Sky Poker Tour where everyone desperately wants a seat, even though I'll never agree with what they're saying, is it really worth getting into the spot where somebody says "I would be at SPT but a satellite grinder who already has his seat knocked me out"? Nobody would be complaining if I played, my entry generated an extra seat or extra £22, I went out first hand and they got the extra seat or cash generated by me entering, but people won't consider that. Is it worth the hassle just because it's +EV to play a tournament? Wouldn't think twice if it wasn't an SPT, but not sure I can be bothered.

Also managed over 500 Poker Points yesterday, which I'll need to do more between now and the end of the month if I want to get into Priority Club next month.

Results 16th May
Today: +£80.93, +1 SPT Seat
This month: £985.21, +1 SPT Seat, +$10.50
Sky Poker Points: 3,432/10,000 (= £51.48 rakeback)

Earlier, one of the commentators, think it was Michael Holding, came out with "If he gets in, then it's a good run", referring to a quick single taken by the New Zealand batsmen.

If a batsman would've been run out by half a pitch most of the time, but the fielder misses the stumps and it goes for 4 overthrows, that doesn't make it good running.

At the same time, if you take a single and you're going to get in 99% of the time, but the other 1% of the time someone will come up with a brilliant piece of fielding and run you out by a couple of inches, then it's still a good run.

It's either a good run or a bad run, regardless of the result.

So tilting.

There's a million and 1 examples of it, some are massive, others quite obscure, but it's really annoying when you get into that mindset of picking up on every single thing.

Fk u poker.

"was it a good decision to bat first having won the toss? time will tell..........."

fduwvhjofejvoejv

Touched on it earlier in the thread about the difference in quality of the coverage between the tests on Sky and the IPL.

Direct comparison on day 1 of the test.

Anchor

IPL = Matt smith and/or Isha Gua  
Sky = David Gower.

Studio analysts

IPL = Akash Chopra & Simon Hughes
Sky = Michael Atherton & Michael Holding

Pitch Report

IPL = Shouty Shafstri
Sky = Sir Ian

Opening Commentators

IPL = Simon Doull & Danny Morrison
Sky = Nasser Hussain & David Lloyd

Strauss joining for the Ashes later in the year too, and hopefully Shane Warne will be there again.

Wasn't a spectacular day yesterday, but despite watching pretty much the whole day live I had to re-watch the highlights on 4 to hear the thoughts of 2 Yorkshire legends, Vaughan & Sir Geoffery.

The ch.4 coverage back in the day was very very good. Wish Sky would sign Sir Geoff up and put him on with Bumble.

Comedy gold.

Big morning this morning, Jimmy could end up with 9 fer if he can get it right (and it's not raining). 1/2 early and the rest could be blown away.

Broad/Finn didn't look particularly threatening :(

^Edit

One straight away this morning.

Broad gets the ball @ Jimmys end and gets B Mac 1st over

"Well done Cook for getting the right bowler at the right end" - Athers

pffffft.

Nearly right, Finn got the soft enz'

Root (Compton?) bet looking really good now.

nasser is a world apart from the rest in the fact he does not change his opinion on a player after one session like botham and lloyd are prone to do.

As to the earlier post Compton is booked in for the ashes now and i do not have a problem with that.

I am just about old enough to remember the end of the last really bad england side that actually had a lot of talent most of which had one or two tests and were then chucked back to county cricket to regress against journeymen, and most of which never returned to fulfill there potential.

If we still persisted with the chop and change system Prior, Anderson and probably Cook would not be the players or have the test records they do today. Thanks to the selectors sticking with them, Prior especially it was not that long ago was regularly referred to on Sky as not being a good enough glove man for test matches.

Do you think he's the best man for the job?

However, it's thanks to the selectors sticking with players that Bopara is in the Champions' Trophy squad even though he shouldn't play for England ever again because he's rubbish, and Kieswetter somehow played 46 ODIs when my Gran could've scored a ton against Scotland and taken some of the stumpings he missed!! Consistency can be good sometimes, but there's also times when selectors are paid to make fairly obvious decisions, like dropping Bopara and Kieswetter, but they've remained consistent, and players have continued to disappoint.

I thought Cook should've been dropped before the 2010/11 Ashes, and replaced by Adam Lyth (Michael Carberry had his blood clot then so couldn't pick him), but Cook's obviously proven me and any other critics wrong since. Consistency has it's ups and downs, although overall it's been a success. One of the downsides for me it that it may mean it takes longer before Joe Root eventually opens for England.


I don't mind Nick Compton. But there's no way England can leave Root out for the first test vs. Australia, Root can open, and Compton is the 6th best player in the top 6 when KP comes back. If you pretend KP is playing this series instead of Bairstow, then any changes to that batting line up would surely be at the expense of Compton, with Root moving to open. I can't see the selectors doing anything else if they make changes.

This series is a fight between Compton and Bairstow for the last batting spot, and Compton being the man 'in possession' of that final spot in the team. With neither Bairstow or Compton really making any impact in this series vs. NZ so far, I think they'll probably stick with Compton, but there's still another test at Headingley, a Champions' Trophy, and some first class cricket between now and the 10th of July. And let's not forget Eoin Morgan, either. If he wins us the Champions' Trophy, he's a decent chance to play the 1st Ashes Test.

I'm just happy with anyone that isn't Bopara tbh...

of course it has its ups and downs

however whatever anybody's opinion is its hard to argue that in all forms of the game england have performed a lot better since the consistency of selection than before.

The odi side used to change every series with a collection of "bits and pieces" players who were never international class but were picked because the media clamored for them as they were in good county form. In 2006 England almost had to  qualify for the champions trophy for gods sake!

at the moment yes i back him to have a decent summer with root in the middle order

Played some cash over the last few days, nothing much of interest to report so haven't posted. There's been hardly any 30NL action on Sky (3-4 tables max) and attempts to start tables have often been in vain, so began adding the occasional 50NL table in recently. I don't feel out of my depth against these players, which is a good thing. Planning to build up my roll before I actually move up to 50NL though as I like to be over-rolled for whatever level I'm playing.

Results 17th May
Today: +£20.82
This month: £1,006.03, +1 SPT Seat, +$10.50
Sky Poker Points: 3,513/10,000 (= £52.68 rakeback)

Results 18th May
Today: +£10.40, +$0.25
This month: £1,016.43, +1 SPT Seat, +$10.75
Sky Poker Points: 3,757/10,000 (= £56.36 rakeback)

Haven't played much on 'Stars recently, but will be playing Storm and SCOOP 22-L (and the Bigger $16.50 Turbo but I'm already out of that as I lost a flip) today alongside whatever I end up playing on Sky tonight.

19th May

Didn't play any cash today. Instead, I ended up playing SCOOP 22-L, Sunday Storm, a $16.50 Turbo, and a few random SNGs on both 'Stars and Sky. The plan was to play SCOOP 21-L as well, but I couldn't be bothered to get up at 4pm, and didn't want to late reg as the value comes from playing bad players who don't have a clue how to play deep at the start.

Picked up on a few things that I need to work on, not least shoving ranges from UTG to UTG+3 in full ring. This is due to learning to play on Sky Poker, where everything is 6-Max, and being relatively inexperienced when it comes to full ring. Several times in both the Sunday Storm, SCOOP, and $16.50 Turbo, I found myself with 15-20bbs, a mediocre hand, and not having a clue what to do with it. This ended up being my downfall in both SCOOP 22-L, and the Sunday Storm.

Mincashed in the SCOOP, but could've been so much better if I knew how to play 9 handed.

Results 19th May
Today: +£56.52, -$8.05
This month: £1,072.95, +1 SPT Seat, +$2.70
Sky Poker Points: 3,912/10,000 (= £58.68 rakeback)

Hi Andy.

Saturday Night got quite busy for 30nl. Think there was 2 full when i started and i managed to get 6 more going in 10 minutes. Filled up really quick, so there are a lot of players who will play 30nl just no idea why they dont play there a lot of the time. I havent seen 30nl like that for a while but then Sunday went back to hardly any tables running. So frustrating! I hope it starts to pick up soon.   

Hellllllo!

Been catching up on this diary, gotta say i'm very impressed with your work ethic and determination, quite impressive amount of discipline so far lets hope it holds as it looks like you have a good temperament for all this :)

21st May

Didn't play yesterday as my sleep pattern is completely screwed and I woke up at about 10pm.

Didn't do a Monday update after my session either - It was a really tilting hour or so. Kept running top two pair into straights, nut straight into flushes, flopped set into straights, etc. A hand where I overbet shoved the river with the nuts against a fishy opponent (who had two pair and no fold button) kept the damage to just a couple of buy-ins. Also tilt spewed a buy-in at the end of the session with TT v AA, opponent flatted my 4bet pre and I played the hand crap after that.

I've had 5 losing days so far this month, 3 of those less than £10. The other two were this one, and a -£117 earlier in the month. In both instances I didn't play the next day. This is something I need to work on, although not really sure where to start. Will have to have a look through both "Mental Game of Poker" books. Still haven't got around to finishing the second one yet anyway. :/

Looking at 600 Poker Points a day now to reach my target and get into Priority Club next month. Have made it tough for myself by not playing enough at times this month, but it's still achievable. There's also a cash promotion, similar to the SnG one earlier this month, which should result in more volume. Doubt I'll be able to bink it as there's a few guys who will be playing a ridiculous amount of tables for 12+ hours a day, but I should be able to get into the top 20 and win myself a few quid extra.

https://www.skypoker.com/secure/poker/sky_lobby/poker-promotions/the-big-deal

As it's based on the number of hands that you are dealt into, I expect to see a lot of people folding and waiting for Kings and Aces, which wasn't uncommon back in the day before Sky Poker had weighted contribution. Looking forward to opening the button with  9h 4d against people playing dozens of tables and not adapting :)

Results 20th May
Today: -£59.40
This month: £1,012.55, +1 SPT Seat, +$2.70
Sky Poker Points: 4,016/10,000 (= £60.24 rakeback)

There's usually a decent amount of games running at the weekends, especially Friday and Saturday nights. There was a Friday night a couple of weeks ago where I managed to get 12 tables running at 30NL. It's a shame that only a couple of tables usually run during the week and you have to play 30NL with either 20NL or 50NL tables at the same time.

Thanks :) There's still lots of things I need to work on though, especially volume and longer sessions. Might do a cash hand counter next month then people can lol at how little I play ;)

I've barely played since Monday. My only session lasted exactly 1 SNG (Which I won) on Sky Poker software started playing up. Then spent all day on Wednesday waiting for some builders, who didn't turn up until Thursday morning, more than 24 hours late. As a result, I spent most of the day on the Xbox instead.

They've also removed the entire floor in the bathroom, as water was getting underneath it, and won't be back until next Tuesday (So I expect to see them next Thursday afternoon)

Looking at 750 Poker Points a day on Sky to get into Priority Club, which I haven't managed once this month, but I now have to manage it 8 days in a row. There's a cash promotion on for the first 4 of those 8 days, so hopefully playing loads to try and bink that will get me within a couple of thousand points of my 10k target, then it'll just be a case of grinding out the last few points in the final 4 days of the month.

Results 23rd May
Since last update: +£18.00, +$19.80
This month: £1,030.55, +1 SPT Seat, +$22.50
Sky Poker Points: 4,036/10,000 (= £65.24 rakeback)

I haven't posted in here for a few days as there really hasn't been much to write about. I didn't even make the top 20 of the promotion that Sky were running over the bank holiday weekend as my volume was rubbish, and it was based on the number of raked hands you were dealt into. A lot of people were grinding 4NL for this promotion so they could be dealt into as many raked hands as possible when people limped everything, which for me was never an option as it would've been a waste of my time. I'll leave that to the other Lolpros instead ;)

In that time, we managed some small tournament binkage and ran terrible at cash, which means my win rate doesn't look quite as pretty on my spreadsheet :( Not the end of the world, though. I need 29 more points to reach 5k on Sky, which I will manage tonight barring my computer blowing up or something. This means a 33% increase in my rakeback for this month (2p per Poker Point instead of 1.5p). Realistically, there's almost no chance of me getting the 10k points required for Priority Club on Sky now.

Also withdrew £1k from Sky Poker to take to SPT Birmingham with me. I don't know what the lowest cash games are at Broadway Casino, but I should easily have enough money with me no matter what.

--------

My Cricket bet on Nick Compton not making the first Ashes test is looking like good value right now. In 4 innings vs. New Zealand, he's only scored 39 runs at an average of 9.75, including not very many off about a million balls on the 3rd evening after we didn't enforce the follow on, which along with Trott's awfully slow batting, meant there was a very real possibility that if it rained more on the 5th day, we could've drawn the game. By contrast, Root scored 253 runs in as many innings, and Bairstow managed 136 at an average of 45.33

I felt it was an awful decision to not enforce the follow on, and I wanted us to draw the game in the hope it would encourage Cook to be more positive in the future with his captaincy. Unfortunately, it'll go down in history as a 247 run victory and we'll get the usual "Captains and coaches are judged by results" crap.

There's no way any other top test team would've batted again in that spot. I can understand Zimbabwe and Bangladesh batting again there because they wouldn't be good enough to bowl a team out cheaply twice, and it's more likely for them to collapse in the 4th innings. But we're better than that. If we care about being #1 in the world, or anything other than winning the Ashes then we absolutely HAVE to enforce the follow on. It's New Zealand ffs. We've just bowled them out for 68 last test and they were 120/9 in the first innings of this one. We don't need to set them 450+ to win, especially when it's forecast to rain on Day 5 anyway!

Most teams in sport tend to be far too negative for my liking. Another example is American Football. 4th & 1 at the opposition's 40 yard line - Too many coaches would punt the ball away here. Remember that 260lb full back who you probably signed as an undrafted free agent because he'll only get the ball once or twice all game anyway? Of course not, you'd rather have field position than try to pick up a 1st down and kick a field goal at the very least. No wonder the full back position is dying. But the other team can't score points if you keep possession. Do whatever is optimal, don't call the punt team onto the field because you're scared of what the newspapers will say on Monday Morning if you make a brave (but correct) call and it goes wrong. Just because far too many people in the world are results orientated doesn't mean coaches in professional sports should be too just to appease them.

If I was Bill Belichick, I'd call a 2 point conversion after almost every touchdown.

Rant over.

Anyway....

Results 28th May
Since last update (5 days ago): +£264.33
This month: £1,294.88, +1 SPT Seat, +$22.50
Sky Poker Points: 4,971/10,000 (= £74.57 rakeback)

I don't mind the decision to make them not follow on but bat with intent and purpose. We bat low and have good aggressive players so you can take calculated risks and score quick runs. Trotts innings and us batting on after lunch made little sense and we had a boundary rider on the off side when they needed a record score to win.

Hi,

Been reading your diary with great interest and I'll certainly be following it in the time to come as I feel I can relate to your story in many ways. I am a very keen poker player (obvs, as I'm on here), but only really play micro stakes, mainly on Sky, more for the enjoyment of it. I too am also 19, but I have taken the alternative route through to you and am currently in my first year of university, so poker is on the backbench atm during the exam period haha! I also follow cricket with keen interest and completely agree we should have enforced the follow on and even after we hadn't I think our batting approach was terrible. If we were going to bat I think we should have been doing what Bairstow and Root were doing at the end and just going for it... the way that Trott and Compton played was completely non-nonsensical imo.

Cheers,

Rory Mathews

Hey Andy,

Great to see you've got your diary back up and running. It's tempting to move mine over here tbh just so I can post pics/vids without waiting years for them to be approved... and you get a lot more traffic/input on here.

I've been proper lazy recently, hardly playing any 30NL and just donking off loads of money in donkfest high variance MTTs and shit like £3 all-in sats which is just stupid... unless there's overlay :p

Gonna be ditching the MTTs for a bit and get back on the grind for June. Maybe succeed this time round at a Priority run, but it's pretty sigh that they've changed it to Rewards now, no 3+ month bonus etc.

Possible prop bet on who will be rolled for 100NL first? :)

as shane warne once said

the follow on the most overrated "on" in the world

Who's your american football team?

(Don't say the Pats, please!)

Or the dolphins

And obviously not the jets

None of those - Raiders :) I assume naming every other team in the AFC East means you're a Bills fan? Really looking forward to seeing EJ Manuel in the NFL next season.

I don't understand why we still opened with Compton and had Trott at 3. If you need quick runs, Root should open, bring Bell in at 3, move Bairstow and Prior up, then you've still got Trott and Compton if everything goes wrong.



Yeah, totally agree. Compton I can understand as he's out of form and probably feels his place in the side is under threat, although it was still a poor innings in the context of the game. Trott's innings just seemed selfish, as though he cared more about his average than the team.

Still toying with the idea of going back to College at some point, probably September 2014, once I've (hopefully) moved out, but idk for certain yet. Depends what I feel like doing this time next year.

What's your alias on Sky?

Absolutely. I don't follow college football, so everything I know is anecdotal. 

We need a better secondary and I'll be interested to see how our new offense takes shape.

My alias is rmathews

May Results
Considering my disappointing volume, not helped by a 4 day period where I played about 1 hour of Poker, and the level I'm playing, I'm really pleased with my profit at the end of the month.

My profit is about the same as my withdrawals for the month, although that includes £1k which I intend to take to SPT Birmingham to play live cash, which will go back into my Sky Poker account assuming I haven't lost it all.

Profit/Loss: £1,375.34, +1 SPT Seat, +$6.18
Sky Poker Points: 5,686/10,000 (= £113.72 rakeback)


Next month
At the moment, I'm not really sure what the plan is for June. I want to try to get into Priority Club on Sky again, but I know I'll not be playing for at least 3 days because of the SPT, and this month is a day shorter anyway. It's probably still possible, but unlikely, because my volume is usually rubbish.

Therefore, I'm going to set myself a slightly lower, but more realistic target of 7k Poker Points on Sky this month, which is still an improvement on last month, then try for Priority again in July. If I get there this month instead, it's a bonus.

There's also a cash promotion, although it's 7 days long and overlaps with the SPT, so I have very little chance of getting on the leaderboard. Might be near the bottom of the top 20, idk. I'm really not sure why Sky have chosen to do another "Play as many hands as you can" type promotion within a week of the last one finishing. It's going to mean even more reg filled tables for another week, and I'm worried that'll scare away people who won't have a chance of putting in enough volume to win anything, which probably accounts for 95%+ of Sky's customers.

Equally worrying is the lack of encouragement for lower volume players to play on the site as a result of the promotion. The first cash promotion of this nature on Sky that I can remember being involved in, in October last year, had a random draw where playing a certain amount would get you a ticket. You could accumulate tickets for more chance of winning in this random draw, and there was 100 x £20 awarded randomly which everyone had a chance of winning, alongside the £10k in prizes to whoever raked the most, if I remember correctly. That is all it would take, IMO, to give lower volume players encouragement to play.

Personally, I'll just be playing my normal volume next week because of SPT. If I get on the bottom of the leaderboard and get an extra buy-in or two, then so be it. If not, meh.

Will be running a cash hand counter this month so that people can laugh at how bad my volume usually is, too :p

Results
Profit/Loss: £0.00
Sky Poker Points: 0/7,000 (= £0.00 rakeback)
Hands Played: 0

How about a view on playing freerolls  rotflmfao

Get ur bleeping grind on!

Haven't posted in the last couple of days, maily because I've been too tilted to do so and would've bored everyone to death with bad beat stories and how terribly I played.

Originally, I intended to put in a lot of volume over the weekend so that I could get ahead of my volume target this month, thus allowing me a couple of days off at the end of the month, or a few days to maybe try to qualify for last month's target of Sky's Priority Club if I reach my 7k target for the month with enough time to spare. Instead, I only played an hour on Saturday. Nothing seemed to be going my way, and I couldn't win a flip. Called it quits and was pleasantly surprised to find I had somehow only lost 2 buy-ins in that session.

Sunday was no better, although this was due to me being an aggro donk and getting owned by everyone else. A couple of buy-ins were lost to me thinking "X is a reg and knows I am LAG". So of course, I level myself into thinking that they'll know this and adapt by getting in worse than the standard AK/QQ+ against me, when they probably don't care what rubbish I've had that has gone to showdown and what my 4bet bluff range might be in a particular spot, they still won't start getting Jacks in pre, no matter what I do. They're having fun and winning a few quid from exploiting the worse players at this level, so why should they start doing anything different, especially when that means stepping out of their comfort zone of putting tons of money in with non-premium hands pre-flop? It might not be optimal for them to fold Jacks pre-flop to me, but I need to stop pretending that everyone is suddenly going to start getting in 100 big blinds with AQ/AJs/TT+ against me, because not everyone will care to adapt to my wider pre-flop 3bet and 4bet ranges.

Another few buy-ins managed to go in the direction of one particular unknown player who I have never seen before, although hopefully I'll see him more in the future ;)

As a result of dropping over a dozen buy-ins in my last few sessions at 30NL and the subsequent loss of confidence in my game, I spent most of today going through hand histories with friends on Skype. This reminded me that I'm not as much of a donk as I thought. Some really unusual spots came up in this discussion too, which I may post in the PHA section in the next couple of days if I remember to do so.

Because of this lack of confidence, I tried to mix things up a bit by playing a 3 table 20PLO session. 40 minutes and 4 buy-ins later, and it was back to Hold'em for me. Two and a half days into the month and we're already down over £300. Marvellous.

Fortunately, today's 30NL session went much better, and saved this post from being as miserable as it otherwise would've been. Before the session, I said to myself that I wasn't going to get involved in any levelling BS. Put away the cold 4-bet with the ace blocker for one night and see what happens. Instead, think about what my hand is, what my opponent's range is, how my hand plays against that range, and whether to raise, call, or fold. Easy game ;) I managed to pull back 4 buy-ins in this session, despite losing both my flips and KK<AA AIPF. Probably the best session I've ever had at 30NL in terms of how well I played, tbh, even if the result could've been a couple of buy-ins better if I ran slightly better.

I'm not sure whether I'll be anywhere on Sky's latest cash promotion as there were a lot of regs who were there for the duration of my session. Not too bothered as the other regs will get 2 days more than me because of the promotion clashing with SPT, but if I accidentally bink a buy-in or two by doing what I was going to do anyway, then it's a bonus.

Results 3rd June
Since last update: -£192.84, -$5.60
This month: -£192.84, -$5.60
Sky Poker Points: 796/7,000 (= £7.96 rakeback)
30NL hands played: 3,768 (-£85.96)

I've never been, I'm tempted to play one of their £66 deepstacks sometime though.

Sky Poker Tour Update

Last Month, I managed to qualify for the most recent leg of the Sky Poker Tour in Birmingham, which took place on Saturday. When I qualified, I was considering going to Birmingham on Saturday morning, play, then go home either Saturday evening or get the first train home on Sunday morning depending how I performed in the tournament, although it wasn't long before some other Sky regs convinced me that I should be there on Friday night as well.

They were right.

I got a text at about 5pm to meet up in a bar with some Sky regs somewhere near New Street station, before going around a few hotels in Birmingham city centre to pick up people and allow others to check in, usually getting a pint from the hotel's bar while we were there. It had already been arranged for a group of about twenty of us to go to Akbar's curry house later that evening. A few people went back to the casino for the side event, but given that it was a deepstack starting at 9pm (LOL), it was an absolute no brainer to not play this and be up until stupid o'clock. I heard several rumours of when the tournament actually finished, the earliest being 5am and the latest being 8:30am after a 7 way chop as the casino closed at 9am. I don't know exactly when the tournament finished, but having the normal Friday night deepstack starting at the usual starting time when the casino should've expected to have more than the usual amount of people due to it being labelled an SPT side event was a pretty dumb move on the casino's part IMO.

As a result, most of us went to a pub a couple of hundred yards down the road from the curry house where we stayed until shortly after 11pm when they stopped serving drinks for the night. We eventually ended up back at the casino shortly after midnight, and I didn't end up back in my hotel room until about 4:30am. It was lovely to meet some of the Sky Poker regs and do something other than play Poker.

Saturday, by contrast, wasn't so fun. I started the day running bad by missing breakfast by about 5 minutes, and my tournament lasted exactly one hand - AA v JJ AIPF. I still don't really know what the best line is here, although I'm leaning towards just folding to the 3bet.

The blinds were 25/50, and we had 7.5k starting stack. It's a one day event with 30 minute clock. The opponent was a random player who I didn't know from the site, and they didn't show up when I checked the Hendon Mob database after the table draw was published, either. I'd usually open to 150 but I was thinking "I have Jacks, live players are terrible LOL, let's go to valuetown", so decided to make it 200 instead so that the pot was bigger when I inevitably got stationed by someone, This is when the hand starts going wrong. The guy to my left 3bets to 700, and I'm hating my life.

The blinds were in seats 1 and 2, I was seat 6, the villain was in seat 7.

There was a chance the random guy knew me from watching me on Sky's televised "Master Cash" tables, although I'd taken my name badge off before the tournament started to stop people from knowing who I was and potentially gaining that advantage. As I've never heard of this guy, this isn't something that ever comes into my thought process here.

At this point, we either:
1) Fold - I have Pocket Jacks. It feels really bad to fold to a 3bet, even in the first hand of a live tournament vs a random unknown player.
2) Call - We're out of position. We check to the pre-flop aggressor and we're always going to be in awkward spots post-flop unless we flop a Jack because it's the 1st hand so he should never be doing this light. Donk betting in a 3bet pot is awful readless. Set mining Jacks in a 3bet pot given the amount we have to call and the stack sizes is unprofitable too, IMO. How often do we check/call the flop then check/fold on a later street? Being out of position makes this a poor option.
3) 4bet - Do we want to get Jacks in here? Probably not. Do we want to 4bet and fold to a 5bet? Again, probably not.

I hated every option available to me, and in hindsight, the best option is probably to just throw it in the muck once we get 3bet. I really don't know as I don't really play enough full ring or live Poker tbh. Nobody would ever know I folded Jacks there either, and I would still have 7.3k chips. As I believe I'm better than 90-95% of the field, this probably makes it easier to fold too, as I should be able to bully people who don't know how to play a 10-20bb stack correctly and don't know how to adapt to having antes later on (There's no antes on Sky).

Being an aggro donk, I decided that when in doubt, I should snap 4bet to 1.7k and get it in without thinking about it. If I'd thought about this for 30 seconds, I would definitely not be 4betting here. Villain turns over Aces and holds. Gg me. The only consolation was that if I'd flatted, I probably stack off anyway because the flop was low and monotone, and I had Jc as well as having flopped an overpair.

Inevitably, I post what happened on Facebook and get the usual "You're shit at Poker, WTF are you doing putting your tournament life on the line with JJ?" from certain players. This shows exactly why getting JJ in here is bad, because the vast majority of people are never, ever getting it in with worse here readless.

As I was already in profit from satellites anyway, this result isn't a disaster, but it was a massive disappointment to go out first hand nonetheless.

I had to wait for ages for a £1/£1 cash game to start, as the casino didn't have enough dealers. I got into a £10 SnG which I chopped HU for £35. Probably lost a few pence of equity but whatever. When the cash game did eventually start, nobody could decide what to play. We eventually ended up playing £1/£1 NLHE + PLO. I spent the following 3 hours topping up constantly, because I couldn't win a pot. Already down a buy-in, I managed to get KKxx in the PLO round, and get into a pot against an awful player. Flop comes K54 rainbow. Top set on a dry board. Finally, my luck is changing. The session had been a grind, but maybe I'll stack this fish and end up winning a few quid after all. The villain ended up somehow getting to the river with a bag of spanners and hitting a backdoor flush. Marvellous.

£410 down and tilted, I stopped playing cash and went to rail some friends - One was a team mate and another was a friend who I had 10% of, and there was a couple of other familiar faces in there too who I wanted to do well. But the only thing on my mind was my exit hand earlier and how this fish had managed to stack me (Yeah, entitlement tilt. Must reread "The Mental Game of Poker"). I looked at the table to see that someone had snap moved to his left as soon as I left the table, and within a few minutes, the fish had left the table with my money. However, I wasn't enjoying being in the casino any longer, and was just staring at the ceiling looking pissed off, anyway. I left the casino, although I felt bad for not sticking around to rail people who were deep in the tournament who would've probably railed me.

As for the venue, it was terrible. The most tilting thing was that there was a dealer on the PLO cash table who didn't know how much pot was in a £1/£1 cash game when I announced "Pot" with no straddles or action before me, so until that dealer left I had to actually work out how much "Pot" was and announce that amount when raising pre-flop. If the dealer doesn't know how much pot is, then don't put them on a table where there's PL games being played ffs. I was also disappointed that they couldn't have spread the tables out a bit more, as the tables were cramped to the point where I couldn't get out from my seat when I busted the tournament until I'd asked the guy behind me to tuck his chair in!

Maybe it wasn't really as bad as I thought and we're just fortunate to have great venues like DTD in this country. Genting Birmingham was very impressive when I was there for the GPS in February, as well. Broadway was definitely the worst place I've played Poker to date, though.

-----

In the meantime, my downswing at the start of the month seems to have ended. I've only played 4 of the last 8 days online because of SPT, but results have definitely improved, and I was delighted with how I played on Monday, too, especially considering I usually play terribly after something like what happened at the SPT because I start lacking confidence in my own game, so it was great to immediately get back to winning again. I need to start putting in some volume, though.

-----

Results 11th June
Online since last update: +£178.78, +$6.70
Live since last update: -£385.00
This month online: -£14.06, +$1.10
This month live: -£385.00
This month total: -£399.06, +$1.10

20NL hands played: 2,517 (+£211.96)
30NL hands played: 3,968 (-£108.95)
Sky Poker Points: 1,523/7,000 (= £15.23 rakeback)

Think you're probably being a bit unfair to Broadway. I wasn't there this weekend but sounds like they were doing their best to offer your game of choice which isn't normally spread there. Obviously they're going to be stretched at times like this and there won't be a limitless supply of experienced poker dealers.

I have no connection with Broadway except from playing in cash games there. In my experience the poker room is well run and excellent value for money since they charge an hourly fee rather than raking.

I agree. It was cramped but it's a busy casino on a Saturday night, where they're running an SPT (with all the rigmarole that entails), an evening comp that gets 100+ runners plus 6-10 cash games. Not many places that can do that, let alone give you much space.

As for running the other comps, it's down to players as to whether they turn up and play it. The Friday night comp regularly gets north of 100 runners, so the casino would be mad to turn those punters away because there's also a tour event.

Wasn't ideal, but I think you've hit the nail on the head about DTD spoiling us all.

Extremely unfair on the Broadway. I ran the event, and have ran several there and they did an excellent job juggling a completely full tournament with demands for cash, sit and gos and the rest

The staff, Mark and Jana running the room for example, were superb

and if I may say so some of the attitudes in your post jar a little. taking your name badge off so people don't recognise you? Hendon mobbing players? a general air of disrespect for live players?

Its a £100 community tour, and I suggest you'd enjoy the experience more if you played it as such

try and enjoy yourself a bit more?

you play online a lot (Fair enough) so treat live as a way of relaxing maybe you will enjoy it more

when i still occasionally play live poker i do so as a way to relax from being at the pc most of the day, infact i am probably one of the live "fishes" you speak so highly of

"The most tilting thing was that there was a dealer on the PLO cash table who didn't know how much pot was in a £1/£1 cash game when I announced "Pot" with no straddles or action before me, so until that dealer left I had to actually work out how much "Pot" was and announce that amount when raising pre-flop."

really most tilting thing to have happened ? hardly a big deal is it

Lee

a no baseball cap policy tilts you?

really?

You understand why they'd have such a policy, surely?

you've been in really stressful life situations all around the world and a no baseball cap policy tilts you?


Not sure I understand much about anything these days lol

open 150, peel 3bet ainec.

As someone who speaks to you often I'll comment.

I think The SPT was pretty well run, the wobbly table thing mentioned was rather annoying i must admit, would have hate to have got chips then suddenly the table wobbles and half of them are in the middle and im pot stuck with 72o. I didn't play cash so can't comment there and i think they stopped the Sit and Goes being run after a while.

While i think you may have benefited from joining me/others on the rail and having a good old drink i respect your decision to leave.

Broadway did well in my opinion, although i feel some things could have been better, i haven't spent alot of time at DTD due to location(and lack of a driving licence), but i feel even the self dealt game at my local casino often has better dealers than what was on offer. Thats not a critism though as one dealer who i thought was pretty bad said he was a reserve, thus i think the casino did make a pretty strong effort.

Once Tikay stopped shouting things, and the casino floor took over it was also impossible to hear who was being called. Again i won't complain.


I feel I've now been harsh here. I hope its came across as constructive.

I hope to see you at the 6 max for what its worth, maybe ill pick somewhere to eat this time around :)

Just found your Diary Andy!

Not read it all, but only wanted to say one thing....

You owe me a Budweiser at the next SPT  8)


GL.....try not to get banned off this forum too  rotflmfao

Tbf to Broadway I liked that they charged an hourly fee, and their samosas at the dinner break were awesome.


Yeah, maybe I was slightly harsh on Broadway because when I think of what I expect from a cardroom or casino, I think of DTD and Genting Star City. It's still the worst venue I've played at to date though, IMO.


It annoyed me because that's what the dealers are being paid to do, and should be trained to do. I'm allowed to say "Pot", and therefore, if the dealer doesn't know how much a pot raise is, then they shouldn't be dealing a pot limit game.

I don't agree with this post tbh.

Hendon mobbing players when the table draw came out seems like an obvious thing to do to me so that I have some idea of how good every player on my table is before sitting, as I didn't recognise any of them. I would do the same if it was any other tour, so I don't see how it 'only' being a £100 tour with a more friendly atmosphere means I should take it any less seriously. £110 entry is still a lot of money, and so is the >£5k for first place.

Name badge at the tables - Why should people have information on me for free when everyone else is a random person who I have never played against before and I still have to get reads on them? If people are talking at the table and someone asks me my name, then I would have no problem telling them who I am. If everyone is sat in silence apart from announcing their actions, then I see no reason to wear a name badge as it's giving everyone else free information (My online alias, and therefore, access to their notes on me) for nothing.


I'm assuming this is what you were referring to about disrespect towards live players - I wouldn't say that's being disrespectful, I was simply stating my (rather naive) thought process behind why I chose to raise bigger than I usually would pre-flop in this hand, based on what people tell me about live Poker and me being fairly new to live Poker.

+1 to b, c and d. I also heard a lot of people complaining about a, although I didn't experience it myself.


+1, would have done this 99.9% of the time.

Andy.

Pot Limit is quite a game, but we are not obliged to bet "POT", & really, WE should know what the pot is, it is just as much our responsibility to know it as the Dealers.

A good Pot Limit player will KNOW what the pot is, always. This is not NL, nor is it Online. Different skills requiired, & whilst a good Dealer SHOULD know, so should a good player.

As to the quality of the Venue, believe me, you have been spoilt by DTD, which is different gravy completely. Welcome to Live Poker!

PS - Was great to see you there, & I hope the chat with you know who (no names please) went well. 

I'm assuming this is what you were referring to about disrespect towards live players - I wouldn't say that's being disrespectful, I was simply stating my (rather naive) thought process behind why I chose to raise bigger than I usually would pre-flop in this hand, based on what people tell me about live Poker and me being fairly new to live Poker.

Don't fall into the sheep-like mentality of "all "Live" poker players are joke bad", it is bollox. It misses one crucial fact - the vast majority of "Live" players are also, & usually predominantly, Online players. Not so lolz then, as the story goes. They are, in the main, THE VERY SAME PLAYERS.

On Saturday, YOU were a "Live" player. That does not make you bad, or a lolpro.

Think for yourself Andy, swim against the tide. There are good & bad Live players, & good & bad Online players.

Respect for ALL players is, imo, crucial. Take liberties against so-called bad players, those who won't fold, & don't think Level 4, & you'll pay the price, big time.

I regret not sticking around to rail the final table, especially as there was a Team Diamond member and Clare on there too.


 rotflmfao

(http://beagamecharacter.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Challenge_accepted.png)

Somehow managed to fade paying for any rounds this time, so will definitely buy drinks next time I'm at an SPT 8) Probably going to wait a week, decide whether I want to play or not, let the likes of MattBates and TommyD qualify (as they're more likely to qualify sooner), then hopefully play some satellites when the fields are slightly softer. Might satellite grind after that to cover expenses too.

Try playing chess in a working men's club on a Wednesday night on a wobbly table in the Black Country, where you can't get your legs under properly because of the shelf for your drink underneath, some of the pieces are from different sets, it's freezing cold and, to cap it all, they're starting some bingo next door for the oldies. Every twenty seconds, you get a slightly muffled "David's den: number ten...seven and six: was she worth it?"

I've played more live comps than I have online, I reckon. Or at least it's closer than most. So maybe I'm biased when I say 'behave!' :)

Baseball caps should be banned from poker, along with sunglasses.

Amount of time I have taken shades to a live poker game - every time.
Amount of time I have actually wore the shades in a hand - never.
Amount of time I have worn them for the paparazzi (well, Tighty) - every time, unless he catches me out.

What next?......ban man bags FFS

Because they are ridic. Hoodies are fine, but wearing the hood up.should be banned too. Most of the people who wear the hood up, don't actually know what they are trying to hide. They just saw it on WSOP 2007.

I'm to say I do not have one friend who would wear a hoody up while playing :)

Seriously jj, I see these guys in 25quid freezeouts, hoody up, glasses on, baseball cap covering their face, taking 2 mins to fold j4 o utg at 25/50. It's a joke. Barelyany decent players do that kinda shit any more.

Stop derailing this diary - hadn't you better get to the Big Brother house you little Scottish tramp

LOL i did this in vegas, brought sunglasses to see if it made a difference but didnt use them at all. Dont think i ever will but if others do, thats up to them

Andy i half defended you on fb, but getting in JJ preflop is bad in that spot IMO, firstly as pointed out shouldn't really adjust your open without having some reason to eg. if they are calling light on the table and you have played a few hands and decide its optimal.

As its first hand of the day, im guessing you sort of levelled yourself getting all in pre which isn't awful as early on most of the field would hate to bust and you could even get QQ folded there in theory. But tbh one your 3 bet i would be folding, as its early it doesn't matter too much although it seems nitty especially to you/me, noone will know this but you and its better to sit and get a feeling of the table before making such plays.

I would flip the above if you knew a few on the table Fwiw, because then it isn't so bad.

Dont mind the hendon mob checking, but you have to where your name badge! that's part of the fun oh your evilpingu, it builds a good table for me. Both games i've played even people who think im aggro you just have to adjust, part of the game but next time leave it on and have some fun at the table. Hope to see you at the next DTD one, not 6 max as on holiday :P

13th June update

I got absolutely owned tonight. Don't think I even played that bad for most of it, either.

Sky's MTT schedule isn't great, but it's definitely playable on a Thursday night, especially when I still have to try to qualify for the next SPT @ DTD (Will probably grind these once I've won a seat anyway). I played 8 tournaments - 5 Bounty Hunters, a £11 Rebuy (took a Rebuy at the start + Addon for £33 total), and 2 SPT satellites at £12 and £48 respectively.

I couldn't even manage a single bounty in the Bounty Hunters, even in the tournament where I finished 19th with 13 paid. Couldn't win any flips for a bounty vs shorter stacks once I'd accumulated chips either, which was frustrating as even though I didn't cash, it would've at least made my profit/loss for tonight look not quite as horrific. I'm reconsidering whether to bother with Bounty Hunters on Sky any more, because even though I know there's massive value in them, I don't particularly enjoy playing them, my results aren't great in them, and it's taking up a space for a cash table on my screen too.

SPT satellites were more of the same. One was basically a winner take all because there were 24 entrants and 1 seat, with a few quid for 2nd place. I got to the FT of this, but ended up going out in 5th. The other was me shoving 12bb with 6h 8h into a player who I had tagged as a nit, who then snapped me off with Kc Tc in a satellite. Maybe I need to tweak that note slightly!

The £11 rebuy was mega tilting. I built up a stack 3 times, only to lose it again to people getting there. Again, if I can hold and not lose spots where I'm a 95% favourite on the flop, I probably go on to cash, but that's Poker, and tonight was just one of them nights, unfortunately. Lost count the number of times I ended up saying "Hold!!! Hold!!! Oh, for f*** sake", lol. Despite the lack of cashes, I was still happy with how I played, which is the most important thing.

I was already -£165 on MTTs before I started playing cash, where I got coolered to death again. Looked through my Hand History quickly and there's only one hand which I'd play differently, on  3d 6d Th  Qs in a limped pot where I've checked in the BB with  Tc  6c - I lead the flop, bet again on the turn and get check/minraised by a player tagged as a passive fish. I 3bet the turn and shove on the river for value, which was pretty spewy as I'm behind his range of hands. Obviously, given the action and my reads, I was never good and should've folded to the turn clickback.

That hand aside, there's not really anything that I think I should've done differently. Just run better tomorrow, hopefully.

Results 13th June
Online since last update: -£202.69
This month online: -£216.75, +$1.10
This month live: -£385.00
This month total: -£601.75, +$1.10
Sky Poker Points: 1,935/7,000 (= £19.35 rakeback)

Hand Counter
20NL hands played: 3,411 (+£226.17)
30NL hands played: 4,401 (-£181.27)

I watched your sat as had some interest in it. The same player bust me a couple of stages earlier limp calling with K9 sooted. I would say they where a nit in my experiance till that point, however on the bubble of the SPT sat you where in i think it was 3 seats and £176 for 4th, they snap called off a shove with 62 sooted, despite a player having 2BB elsewhere, turns out they wanted the money. So i assume, they where calling with 'equity' in spots because the reg'd the wrong thing at stage one, and just ran good through. Or at least thats the view I'll take until proven otherwise.

Unlucky in some of your other things, sounds like you ran pretty brutal throughout the day.

Hope to see you at the 6 max, and like you i will grind sats once i make it, so you won't be alone if the usual quaters complain.

Just want to weigh in momentarily. I don't want to de-rail your diary, but if you forgive my trespass I hope that it'll provide some insight for you.

Most Poker Rooms in the UK don't cater, on a daily basis, to 100+ runners. I run a busy Card Room and to be honest, I probably average out at around 60 runners a night. If I am hitting 100, that's a busy evening and they tend to strain resources because you're not typically prepared for it - you man your business to what you usually get, as opposed to always expecting more than you get.

When you're hosting something like the SPT, APAT etc, it requires you to find another 10/12 dealers to ensure that you can start at the beginning with 20 members of staff, plus all the extra staff needed to work a night shift. This is usually a challenge in and of itself. I'm still waiting for the day where every dealer turns in, and on time at that. By virtue of this increase in capacity you're going to use dealers that, for example, haven't dealt poker for years or they are newly trained.

While I am sure as a player at such an event you expect a certain level of quality, I do think it's worth appreciating that these businesses are doing their utmost to accommodate you and they're usually venues where these events are a far greater level of business, in attendance terms, compared to the norm.

So, yes, you inevitably get new dealers, some very rusty dealers and some gems in the rough. I think the important thing, though, is that in my experience both staff and customers alike get in to the spirit of the event and enjoy it for what it is - a social gathering, a bit of fun and theatre.

As for 'Pot Limit', I can deal the game and not stack the pot. The numbers can go into 5 digits and I'll still fire you the answer before you've finished pronouncing the word pot. That doesn't mean I don't have the odd moments where I go blank. It happens. Pot limit is very taxing on concentration and it's tough on dealers in these events where they are working all day, not getting many breaks and they're trying to keep it all fun and enjoyable for the benefit of everyone playing.

I've never played at the Broadway, but in my experience of SPT and APAT they're a wonderful group of people and they're generally forgiving and understanding of the extra effort these venues go to try and make their experience fun. I am sure the Broadway did their very best to make the event a success.

Regards,

George
G Casino Luton

Thanks for the insight - Off to bed so will re-read and may respond again tomorrow, but no problems with the thread being derailed at all. Derailments are usually more interesting than most of what I write anyway :)

14th June
Couldn't sleep last night because my sleep pattern is awful. There's hardly ever anyone playing on Sky at night, so I ended up loading PT4 and playing on 'Stars instead. It's very rare for me to play on there, and I don't really keep much money on 'Stars either, only a couple of hundred dollars for splashing about in homegames and to play something on my phone, so I was only playing a couple of tables of $10NL 6-max, more to alleviate boredom than anything else. I won 2.5 buy-ins, and my profit line has moved slightly closer to my EV line by virtue of miraculously winning a flip on 'Stars. The VPP earned also meant I also binked $10 from stellar rewards too, a reward for the endless hours of 1 tabling HU hypers and Zoom while bored to death at various family members' houses over the last few months. Boom.

Should really transfer a decent % of my roll over there so that I can play at a decent level whenever there isn't much traffic on Sky, or better still, keep my roll in a bank account separate to non-poker money, gain interest on it, and leave maybe 50 BIs on Sky. But that would be me using common sense, so it'll probably never happen :')

Woke up this morning evening, and went back to grinding on Sky Poker again. Played for a couple of hours, and there were a few spots where I could've maybe saved a few quid, but was happy with how I played overall. I didn't run great either, but still finished a buy-in up. Felt like I was maybe raise/folding slightly too often in some spots, so that's something to look at when I review my hand histories in the next couple of days.

Results 14th June
Online since last update: +£22.60, +$36.45
This month online: -£194.15, +$37.55
This month live: -£385.00
This month total: -£579.15, +$37.55
Sky Poker Points: 2,182/7,000 (= £21.82 rakeback)

Hand Counter
20NL hands played: 4,782 (+£248.77)
30NL hands played: 4,401 (-£181.27)

Hi, can you tell me how you get a count of hands played on Sky?  - thanks

Yeah, sure.

Firstly, you need to record the start and finish times of your session. Go into your hand history, and below "Hands from last X hours", click "More search options", and it'll replace the "Last X hours" with "Hands from X until Y". Put in the start and end times of your session, and it will tell you how many hands you played in that time period.

Unfortunately, there are two drawbacks with this method, although both are easily solved.

1) Sky's hand history will only show a maximum of 500 hands in one search, and if you try to search for more hands than that, it'll display "More than 500 hands found". For example, if you play between 8pm and midnight on multiple tables, you'll almost certainly play more than 500 hands. So you'll need to search the first hour of your session, note down how many hands you played, do the same for the 2nd hour, 3rd hour, etc, until you get to the end of your session. Then when you know how many hands you've played in each hour, simply add them together for a session total.

If breaking your session into 1 hour chunks is still giving you "More than 500 hands found", then you can always break your session into smaller intervals, and do the same as above.


2) Playing across multiple limits - There's nothing to filter down to one specific level. If you're playing two levels at the same time, you'll need to order your hand histories by limit - Simply click the limit column on your hand history.

If you're playing 50NL and 100NL, for example, this will show the 50NL hands first, then the 100NL hands. Click through the pages until you find the one where it changes from 50NL to 100NL. You have the total hands played already displayed at the bottom, and each page has 10 hands on it. This means you simply look at how many full pages of 50NL hands you have, multiply it by 10, and add the number of 50NL hands on the page where it changes from 50NL to 100NL, and you'll get the number of 50NL hands played in that session.

To work out the number of 100NL hands in that session, subtract the 50NL hands from the total hands.

Usually, you will get both of these things combined, as if you're playing multiple levels of cash then you're probably playing quite a lot of tables. It can take a little while to work out hands played at each level using this method, but the lack of HUDs on Sky means it's the only way, and once you get the hang of it, it only takes a few minutes at the end of a session.

15th June
Another day of really crap results. I guess the downswing was inevitable at some point, there was absolutely no way that 24bb/100 at 20NL over the last couple of months and ~25k hands was going to be sustainable or make moving up to 30NL easy. The move up to 30NL started not too badly, but has nosedived since the beginning of this month. Today, I played well at the start of the session, but got tilted by AK chopping with KQ when I got the money in on KK96 and the river double paired the board, and getting JJ in against 97 on T92, river 7. Played my C-game for the rest of that session and suffered the consequences.

On the subject of tilt, I'm finding myself getting tilted far more easily than I used to recently. Think this comes down to my Dad constantly reminding me that he wants me to move out so he can move in with his girlfriend, and the pressure of needing to get that money from somewhere. When I got kicked out of College, he was annoyed that I wouldn't be going to University in September, and therefore, may not be moving out this summer. I rather stupidly said although I wasn't going to Uni, I could "easily earn more money in a month than you earn at work, have a £10k bankroll by September and move out".

Overconfidence. Sigh. Will learn to keep my mouth shut one day  ;yellowcard;

My Dad ask for my results every day, as if they're actually relevant because he doesn't understand variance. Trying to explain things like this to a non-Poker player who believes that "Gambling is for morons" but still buys a lottery ticket every week is never going to work, as I'm sure anyone who has tried will know. Being a pessimist too, he likes to constantly remind me every time I don't win the main event on Sky have a losing session that there's no way I'll have enough money to move out any time soon. Definitely adds a lot of unwelcome pressure, especially when I'm going through a downswing.

I'm expecting to have to withdraw a few of hundred quid to pay the credit card bill for this month before I get slapped with interest on it, too. Air miles ftw even though I don't have a passport. Nits gonna nit. It's getting quite depressing watching my bankroll going down continuously atm - Well over 1k less than at the start of the month because of withdrawals and the downswing - but it justifies being a massive bankroll nit. Going to cut out 30NL tables from my grind for a while, rebuild and regain confidence at 20NL and SnGs unless I see one of my two "favourite players" at 30NL. Although even one of them stacked me twice last night...

Sky have decided it's a good idea to put on a rake race for the 3rd time in as many weeks. I'm not sure if they're deliberately trying to scare off depositors or something, but I don't see what the point of it is. Good short term, bad long term, and if this was the plan they might as well have one big rake race instead of 3 tiny ones. Anyway, it means that there'll be a ton of regs around atm, and that's the last thing I want when I'm lacking confidence in my game. Might switch back to SnGs and leave cash alone for a while as a result, depends if there's enough worse regs than me atm for it to be worthwhile playing cash tables against 5 other regs.

Hopefully I'll bink the Sunday Storm and write something more cheerful tomorrow ;)

Results 15th June
Online since last update: -£130.75
This month online: -£324.90, +$37.55
This month live: -£385.00
This month total: -£709.90, +$37.55
Sky Poker Points: 2,276/7,000 (= £22.76 rakeback)

Hand Counter
20NL hands played: 5,066 (+£218.39)
30NL hands played: 4,790 (-£281.64)

Many thanks for taking time re: Sky hand histories - very helpful

A good way to think about sessions is that you played x hours so you have earned x times your hourly rate (actual result is just variance right ? ) This might be good for your mindset and as an answer when your Dad asks.

Do you get much chance to play live? I know it's basically shot taking if you're not comfortably rolled , but on the other hand I'ld expect anyone doing ok at 20/30 nl to have a big edge in a lot of the 0.50/1.00 to 1.00/2.00 live gasino cash games I play in. Might be a good way to bolster the bankroll. 

hard to build up a bankroll when you have to pay living expenses out of it all the time, can feel like you're running on a treadmill not getting anywhere. moving out will most likely dramatically increase them as well. maybe think about getting a job for 6 months or so to pay the exes and keep everything you win in the BR until it's fat enough to pay the rent and withstand the downswings.

GL

16th June

I DIDN'T LOSE MONEY!!!!!

That is all.

Results 16th June
Online since last update: +£19.56, -$12.00
This month online: -£305.34, +$25.55
This month live: -£385.00
This month total: -£690.34, +$25.55
Sky Poker Points: 2,510/7,000 (= £25.10 rakeback)

Hand Counter
20NL hands played: 5,233 (+£247.85)
30NL hands played: 4,790 (-£281.64)

Apologies for no updates - I haven't played since Sunday, but I'm going to start grinding again today.

In the meantime, I've created a FrogStars account and received the verification code in the post, so I can now play on there, too.

Hand History - No problem :)

I don't play live cash much at all, as I'd only be comfortable playing 1/1 with my current bankroll. Because I don't have a car, I have to pay for public transport everywhere, and it's probably going to be more profitable for me to grind online instead, probably even before taking into account transport costs. Could definitely do with getting out and playing a little bit more live cash though, even if it's not the most profitable thing for me to play atm, just to get more experience playing live.

Someone mentioned KC Club earlier in this thread, and really that's the only place to play in Swindon that I am aware of, pub games aside. Playing anywhere else involves getting on the train to Bristol or Reading.

Definitely considered this over the last few days - Going to see how the rest of the month goes, then go from there.

Friday 21st June

Haven't played for the last 4 days - Due to my recent downswing, I really couldn't be bothered to play.

Got back on the tables (Well, sort of, didn't play that much) today, including my first few games on Pokerstars.fr, having received my AVC code in the post. Knowing that I'd have to deposit Euros, which means having to buy euros from the bank when using my debit card to make my first deposit, I decided against depositing a significant amount of money, and instead, hoped to bink in my first few tournaments. If anyone knows how to get a better exchange rate when depositing on/withdrawing from Pokerstars.fr, it would be much appreciated :)

I managed a final table in a €20 turbo, but could only manage 7th for €175. Need to improve my ability to get there from behind on final tables, as it's a huge leak in my game :P Any cash is welcome the way this month has been going, but at the same time, it was still disappointing to get so close to a sizeable bink and miss out.

I will more than likely be up all night tomorrow watching the Le Mans 24 Hours. No specific plan of what to play yet, will probably be a load of 'Stars and 'Stars.fr tournaments with a couple of Sky cash tables thrown in if there's any juicy games running.

Results 21st June
Online since last update: +£21.06, +€143.00
This month online: -£284.28, +$25.55, +€143.00
This month live: -£385.00
This month total: -£669.28, +$25.55, +€143.00
Sky Poker Points: 2,517/7,000 (= £25.17 rakeback)

Hand Counter
20NL hands played: 5,282 (+£268.91)
30NL hands played: 4,790 (-£281.64)

Monday 24th June

It seems that my run bad this month has finally ended :D Well, sort of.

The Le Mans 24 hours grind never materialised, so I didn't play at all on Saturday. The Sunday grind consisted of a variety of 'Stars.fr MTTs. I've never really grinded MTTs before, and having to get used to the blinds/antes/structures being completely different on every table takes some getting used to, so I've only been playing 6 tables at once, although the plan is to increase that gradually. I managed my 2nd final table in as many sessions, this time in a 6max tournament with around 250 runners, and a couple of smaller cashes too. It shouldn't be long before I take down a couple of tournaments down on there, and the standard is pretty awful, which makes my life easier.

I had a deep run in both the main and mini events on Sky Poker tonight as well, and for a while it looked as though I had a decent chance of final tabling both and winning some extra money from the final table jackpot promotion. For those who don't play on Sky and don't know how this works, there is a "main" event at 8pm and a "mini" event which starts 15 minutes later. If you final table both of these (The main usually gets around 300 runners on a Monday, the mini usually gets closer to 500), you win some extra money, with the jackpot being an additional £5k for first in each event.

We get into the money of both of these tournaments without too much trouble, only had to win a couple of 70/30s in each to get there. Anyway, we're sat something like 13th out of 17 remaining in the main, and 5 out of 14 in the mini. Not ideal, but we've got a decent shot at winning a decent chunk of cash for final tabling both, in addition to the prize pool in each tournament.

At this point, I shove with Aspades Qs in the mini. We've been 4 handed and there's been 14 left for about quarter of an hour, and people in the chat box were talking about how they hate playing 4 handed because it's too fast and they're getting blinded down too much blah blah blah (You're screwed when you get short handed at the final table then, or if Sky ever bring antes into their tournaments, aren't you?). The big blind had me covered, and decided to snap call with K2o because he was bored of playing 4 handed and nobody was being knocked out. The 2 comes on the turn, gg my chances of winning the jackpot. Most frustrating tournament exit that I can remember, as I'd played so well to get into that position for it to be undone by someone calling for such a stupid reason, and because of the circumstances.

"Look at what you could've won!"  ;technophobe;

But I'd take AQ vs K2 AIPF all day long, so I can't complain too much, and I'd love him for making such a bad call if I'd held, so meh, whatever, that's Poker I suppose. Still tilted though.

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWs2S6etF50

Wish I had one of those. Smashing watermelons with a baseball bat looks fun :')

I was still deep in the main though, and with about £1.3k for the winner and only 13 left in that too, there was still some significant money left to play for. Unfortunately, this mini tournament exit hand tilted me enough to stop my playing my A-game, and I check/shoved a flopped nut flush draw in not a great spot - The opponent c-bet pot, and he wasn't that great either, so this was basically him holding up a sign saying "I have an overpair to the 887 board", but I still shoved when I had no fold equity, as I have 11 outs = GAMBOOOOL. He actually had 98, but my read of "Super strong range" was spot on. With my reads, I should've probably folded, and found a better spot, rather than taking a spot which if it was actually +EV then it's so super marginal, especially as I felt I had an edge on the remainder of the field. Of course, I didn't bink, so what was looking like being a very lucrative evening actually ended pretty badly, considering the position I had got myself into.

Really regretting opening a can of Relentless about 2 minutes before busting, expecting to final table both tournaments and still be grinding now. Gg sleep pattern.  ;yippee;


Results 24th June
Online since last update: +£72.03 , +€96.87
This month online: -£212.25, +$25.55, +€239.87
This month live: -£385.00
This month total: -£597.25, +$25.55, +€239.87
Sky Poker Points: 2,552 (= £25.52 rakeback)

Hand Counter
20NL hands played: 5,282 (+£268.91)
30NL hands played: 4,790 (-£281.64)

Sigh UL mate, saw on fb you were close today have been there myself im sure you will get another chance still sucks shame you couldn't bink ME to make up for it

right direction now so onwards and upwards GL

25th June
Discovered that my Dad owns a DVD box set of the first 4 series of "The Big Bang Theory". Gg afternoon grind.

I haven't played cash for a little while - Tonight was the first time in about a week playing 20NL properly. I can't remember ever playing so well and so badly within the same session. It was really bizarre - One minute I'd play like Phil Ivey, then a couple of minutes later I would make calls which would probably be bad enough to get me banned for chip dumping*. There was one particular hand where I got check/raised on a King high flop, I had K9, and I narrowed my opponent down to KQ, possibly KJ, or a very unlikely AK because there was no 3bet pre-flop, along with his turn line and river sizing. Because I was outkicked by all of these, it's obviously a call with K9 on the river, right? I wasn't sure whether to be happy with my hand reading ability when he showed KQ, or annoyed at literally giving away £3 for no apparent reason when I knew I was never good :')

Stations gonna station.

Got a feeling I leaked a lot in smaller pots, which is something to look back at when I can be bothered to read hand histories tomorrow morning.

Main and mini on Sky went not so well tonight. The mini lasted one hand, as somebody decided to open shove 100bb first hand and I had AKs. Congratulations, you played your Aces brilliantly, sir. The main was going nicely until I decided to shove and lose 3 times in half a dozen hands (It was a turbo, effective stacks were tiny so it was push/fold) to finish around 65th with 55 paid.

* Before anyone misinterprets what I wrote, I wasn't actually chip dumping.

Results 25th June
Online today: +£18.36
This month online: -£193.89, +$25.55, +€239.87
This month live: -£385.00
This month total: -£578.89, +$25.55, +€239.87
Sky Poker Points: 2,768 (= £27.68 rakeback)

Hand Counter
20NL hands played: 6,999 (+£303.77)
30NL hands played: 4,790 (-£281.64)

With all due respect Tikay, think you should take off them SPT tinted glasses and not try to defend the undefendable (it comes across as you defending the dealer because it was during an SPT weekend). 

As players, it is not our responsibility to KNOW what a "pot" bet should equate to. A good player SHOULD/would know but ANY dealer dealing a Pot Limit game MUST know exactly what the "pot" bet at any given time is. So it is not our responsibility as much as the dealers at all, the responsibility starts and finishes with the dealer. If a dealer can't fulfil that responsibility he should not be dealing on that particular table ainec.

27th June

Running kinda okay. Playing crap. Also need to stop playing Bounty Hunters on Sky just because they should be +EV, as I don't enjoy them and always play terrible in them as a result.

Results 27th June
Online since last update: -£80.70, +$11.00, -€67.63
This month online: -£274.59, +$36.55, +€172.24
This month live: -£385.00
This month total: -£659.59, +$36.55, +€172.24
Sky Poker Points: 2,880 (= £28.80 rakeback)

+1 to the bit in bold IMO. If a dealer doesn't know that a pot raise unopened in a £1/£1 cash game with no straddle is £4, then they shouldn't be dealing pot limit.

2nd July

Over the last few days, there hasn't really been much of interest to write about. I decided that, rather than bore people to death with how bad my Zoom EV graphs from the last few days of last month look on PokerTracker, I was better off not posting that.

On the last Sunday of every month on Sky Poker, there's a £110 "Super Roller", with a guarantee of around £25-30k. Although I shouldn't really play £110 MTTs with my roll, it's only once a month, and it's too good value to resist, so I played the most recent one on Sunday. There's a massive amount of satellite qualifiers who get in to the tournament through £3 All In satellites which run in the hours leading up to the tournament. People who can't afford £110 will flick in the £3 and have a punt to try and get into a big tournament, and there's usually one or two fairytale deep runs from someone who has cashed from a £3 All In satellite, which makes people think "Maybe I'll be that lucky person next month", but at the same time, these people are usually value, and scared money towards the bubble. It's always fun when you know these people who got in for £3 would be delighted with a min cash, and you've got them on your left.

Despite not playing my A-Game, I still managed to finish 18th for around £240, give or take a couple of quid. In hindsight, with the table draws and spots I had, plus a bubble dynamic which I failed to exploit, I should be disappointed with 18th as it would've been far better if I played anything close to my A-Game, but given how June went for me, I can't complain too much about taking a shot in something and cashing.

-------

July started with the 4th cash 'rake race' on Sky in 5 weeks. Although I'm playing as much as I can atm, as I haven't really grinded much recently, this is just overkill from Sky. I believe that if you look after the depositors, the grinders will come because they will see the standard on the site being lower than where they currently play, and think "Ooh, value".

I'll probably make some money from this promotion, but I really wish it wasn't happening tbh. There's still more than enough weaker regs around at 20NL to make the games easily beatable, despite every table having at least 4 regs on it.

Results 2nd July
Online since last update: +£240.10
This month online: +£240.10
This month total: +£240.10
Sky Poker Points: 804 = £8.04 (No target set this month)


=======

Also, some sad news from the world of Cricket. My favourite batsman retired yesterday :(

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5GAiWEQipQ

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_NsFh-Z4aE

Although it's been obvious for the last few months that he'd probably played his last test match for New Zealand, watching a New Zealand game won't be the same knowing that I'll never get to see his comically bad batting ever again.

What's going on bro?

Not heard much from you for ages, and I saw you didn't even manage a top 20 in the cash promo, you been taking a break?

+1

Whats happening Pingu?

You play a lot of Zoom btw? Is it easier or harder than your average game? Im assuming its the same as rush on FTP.

Yo,

Haven't been intentionally taking a break - I just didn't play at all after Tuesday. The plan was to grind all week, but I ended up getting guilt tripped into going to Nan's on Wednesday, and couldn't play at all on Thursday because I got a letter through the door saying that there were roadworks outside and they might turn the electricity off at any time. By then, I was quite far down the leaderboard, and I was never going to catch the people I wanted to catch, so couldn't be bothered. Ended up grinding 'Stars and Blackjack instead ;)

Hopefully the tables will be back to normal tonight now that the stupid promo has finished and people aren't 214082035230 tabling any more to play as many hands as possible to win £300. Sky are absolutely killing the games with these promos. If people don't deposit, there are no games. Some (most) promos should make losing recreational players want to deposit and play on Sky.

How difficult is it to run a prize draw alongside the rake race and give the guy who deposits £20 a week and plays £1.10 tournaments a chance to win some free stuff for playing on the site? There's many micro stakes players who I can think of who are more loyal to Sky than I am, yet they aren't rewarded for that because the latest promotions only benefit the really high volume grinders. So frustrating watching them run rake race after rake race after rake race after rake race after rake race. Actually, cross that last one out, there's only been four in the last five weeks, although I could be forgiven for losing count...

PLEASE give something to the recreational players. The vast majority of people who benefit from rake races should be beating the games anyway, without Sky's help. The people who want rake races don't see (Or I feel in some cases, choose not to see) the effect it's having on the games at all levels - They only care that they're getting an extra £x for playing Poker which is what they'd be doing anyway if there was no promo. Therefore, their feedback on the promo is only in their best interests, and not in the best interests of the site.

Anyway, rant over, that's why I've not been on Sky much the last few days. Haven't really posted on here because nobody's been replying, so thought I'd stop posting "I won 1 buy-in today" and post less, but hopefully post some more interesting stuff.

FWIW, I will probably play some cash later.

"Haven't really posted on here because nobody's been replying, so thought I'd stop posting "

I have a number of replies to make, in a constructive spirit, but I've been a little waylaid with other matters. I will do them though, as soon as time permits.

Keep posting, it's all interesting.

Only been splashing about at 4am due to my sleep pattern being screwed and nobody being on Sky at that time. I don't really play much Zoom at all tbh. Would say it's slightly tougher, single tabling fish don't get bored so quickly because they're just insta mucking everything, but bad players are still going to be bad, whether they're playing Zoom or not. You just have to remember they'll have a hand more often.

Ofc, even the fast fold button doesn't stop the worst players playing any two cards.

Outside my house right now:

(http://i1124.photobucket.com/albums/l566/Evilpenguinho/20130725_235805_9.jpg)

It's just gone past midnight. I'm not impressed.

The first time they came was a couple of weeks ago, at about 9am on a Sunday Morning, with a pneumatic drill. To say I didn't appreciate being woken up by it would be an understatement. Anyway, they screwed something up and had to come back today, and this time, some plonker managed to stick a pneumatic drill through the water main. So they're now outside my bedroom doing roadworks, and I have no water supply. Yay.

Not much has happened on the Poker front recently - I managed a decent cash on a FrogStars MTT recently, coming 2nd (Although I did a deal while chip leader, got more money than the other guy, and I didn't care about playing properly HU afterwards, so I'm counting it as a win), and have made a decent profit across other sites, pays the bills this month plus a few hundred quid more towards my bankroll, so I'm happy.

Have also been playing MicroMillions on 'Stars, and although I'm about break even, there's only been one deep run in a $1 rebuy for just under $70. I've probably been slightly lucky that most of the cashes have been in the 'bigger' events and I've been screwing up the $2 ones, so hopefully there's one or two more deep runs in bigger buy-ins to come before the end of the series.

Keep going with the diary, I like your style and work-ethic I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes, I actually have a lot of faith based on the small amount of information I have :)

Keep it up.

Oiii oiii wakey wakey!

You have at least one brag to put up here so get this thing updated ty  :hello:

Big +1. Always like to read a diary about life as well as poker, keep it going Andy.

Is that Mr Acegooner from next door?

Pretty sure it is - welcome!

I keep a little Diary here, you are always welcome to contribute, it is full of incredibly interesting stuff.....


http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=25486.34785

If "how long does it take to boil a kettle?" is more your thing, or "do I put the milk in first when pouring a cup of tea?", then you want The Kettle Diary, which is here.....(WARNING - EXTREMELY BORING)

http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=30601.msg1819143#new

Good to see you here.

[ ] I have won anything worth bragging about
[X] Cashed in the Super Roller

---

Unfortunately, last month didn't end too well. A couple of brutal sessions, including one where I lost 9 BI's to a mixture of getting 1 outered and playing crap, wiped out quite a bit of last month's profits, so I ended up with only slightly more money than I had at the start of the month after withdrawing to pay the monthly phone and credit card bills. However, despite a disastrous Thursday tournament grinding session where my biggest "cash" was someone's £3.75 bounty, this month has started much better. I won a few buy-ins at 20NL last night on Sky, before an equally profitable, and unplanned, 'Stars 10c/25c Zoom Omaha session - I was talking to a friend on Skype who was bragging about how much he was crushing. Challenge accepted. Half an hour and 4 buy-ins later he was (relatively) quiet :p I've been playing terribly recently, but today felt like I was playing well again, instead of being on autopilot and expecting to print money.

In the last couple of days, I've also got my first horse. There's a really good low/mid stakes DYM reg on Sky who hasn't been around for a while and has spent what used to be his bankroll on real life stuff. He asked for staking on a private Facebook group that I'm a member of so that he can start playing again. He's got a pretty impressive win rate for these games, I've played a few hundred SNGs against him too and know he's got a really good game, so I snap offered to stake him, 50/50 split after makeup. Too good an opportunity to turn down, really.

Outside of Poker, it's looking very likely that I'll be moving out by the end of the year. It really depends on a few other things at the moment, but hopefully I'll be able to post more info in the next couple of weeks.

Thought you had a pretty bink on winmax irrc, saw brag on that said fb group no?

Good luck with horsey should be a good deal IMO hope he does well for you. Also pleased to hear your off auto pilot as its easy to fall into and keep up the play good buddy.

O dear gooner has joined the building...

Didn't realise there was a reply on here :o Oops!

Definitely wasn't me - Probably Conor if it's a Losethemax brag. My biggest 'cash' on there so far is some poor guy's €1 bounty.

Over the last few days, I've accidentally switched from grinding cash to playing tournaments.

How does this happen by accident, exactly?

Recently, the 20nl tables on Sky has been rubbish. There's a lot of regs at this level who sit down, play super tight, never adapt to each other, and take money off fish who sit and play any old junk. The problem is there's not many fish right now, because the fish have better things to do at 2pm in on a weekday afternoon in the middle of August than lose money at Poker. I'm not criticising the regs in any way for the way they play, it's their money, and they can play the game how they want. However, this makes the games absolutely no fun at all.

Looking at a table with minimum 3-4 of these players on it, and the same thing on almost every single 20NL table that is running, makes you think "Okay, I can beat this game, I should win a buy in or two if I play for a couple of hours on a dozen tables, but can I really be bothered to sit here playing these people when I can be doing X instead?", and the answer is often "No".

Decided I needed to get out of this habit of not playing just because the game looked incredibly boring, so the plan was to play tournaments to make sessions more exciting and possibly bink a few quid, while also playing the lucrative-but-dull cash tables to keep the bankroll going consistently in the right direction.

The plan worked perfectly, except I forgot about the playing cash part.

(http://i1124.photobucket.com/albums/l566/Evilpenguinho/Untitled.png)

(http://i1124.photobucket.com/albums/l566/Evilpenguinho/Untitled2.png)

BOOM BOOM!

Good work Andy.

Never forget why we play this game - to enjoy ourselves.

Keep it going now.

Saw a hand of yours in Skypoker TV, the one Tikay analysed in Master Cash, you with KK in SB against tens in BB. Well done!!! Great diray btw! GL

Thanks :)

Can't remember the hand - I'm really bad at remembering hands online as there's so many of them. I'm on the telly quite a bit though, I often play the TV tables as they're 200bb deep so there's a much bigger edge, and I can get people to make bigger mistakes down the streets. There was once a time where I used to play them to give myself a LAG image, but I got bored of donking off loads of money ;)


Very true - No point playing the game if you're not enjoying it.

 


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lol

Hey Andy,

Just seen this mate, bring back the diary!

Remember when I first started playing/ watching the show a while ago your name always appeared, who could forget that alias? Always seemed to be crushing:)

Bring back the Pingu Diary

Great shout, defo bring back the diary Andy!

Had to bump to stop this diary falling off the first page.

Getting it back up and running yet andylad?

I am not 100% but I think he has a diary on sky and just updates on there when he plays. Some people just seem to update diaries when they win.... nice to see your diary get a post this week Lambo.

 rotflmfao

Nh wp sir.


Nah, don't fancy reopening it for the time being.