Customer support from hewlett packard is very, very good.  I would buy another laptop from them purely because of this.

Mukesh Morjaria is worth a punt - he isnt on the paddy power list, but is @ 140 on Betfair. 

He is on great form, and told me that he is really going for this one.

Thanks for the comments guys.  Yeah the AT hand was basically the one where I could have done things different etc.  Way I saw it was that none of the short stacks would really want to risk their tournament v me so I tried to use my stack to bully. 

I agree with Canuck in that I don't have to get involved with marginal hands when I already have enough chips to get to heads up though.

Also, for me personally at this stage of the tournament (well from the 50/100 level), I never limp.  Especially not with my stack in this example.  It's raise or fold for me from this level.

Nem, i used to own the same pair of rose tinted specs that you now own,  England players are not the sharpest knives in the drawer, and when things are going wrong in a game, they need someone to change things and re organise, Sven is blessed with having the best crop of players that any manager has had for a very long time... and i just dont believe he uses them right.  i dont doubt his ability to prepare a team for a game, but its during the game and at half time that you need a motivator and a passionate manager.

do yourself a favour, dont build your hopes up of us winning the world cup... expect us to qualify from the group stage and then anything above that is a bonus. 

Agree, Kev.  If England do well in the world cup it will be despite Eriksson not because of him. 

If we can lose to Northern Ireland in a competitive game how can we beat the likes of Brazil etc?  Suddenly one lucky win v Argentina and we can win the world cup according to most.  We have a good, if not great team but a poor bench and the worst manager in the competition. 

How many other top 10 teams squads would Crouch, Jenas (and I am a spurs fan too), Green, James, Hargreaves, even Defoe get into?

As for Crouch, he has had one good half season for Southampton and how long is he going to live off that for?  People forget he couldnt even get on the bench for a poor Villa side and how many goals has he scored for Liverpool this season?

Get all your money and lay england on the exchanges.

Has anyone seen any of these?  Some cracking stories amongst them.

The gang that created races for themselves to win on were IMO skanked by the bookies by not paying them out, they played the system and won fair and square.

I can't believe the guy who 'chip changed' on roulette got away with it for so long and didn't get barred!

The worst scam?  Definitely the Aussies who painted a horse to look like another one lol!

Also, another one that interested me was the guy who invented the tool to raid fruit machines.  He was caught when he tried to pay 30k in pound coins into his bank over a year.  The detective interviewed said that they knew he must be scamming as you can't win on fruit machines, backed up by a machine company!  Not sure about that lol...

I can't believe I blew these chips!!  Was it just fate?  I don't think I could have done any different.  Opinions please!

We are down to 4 players in a S&G on stars.  13500 chips in play, I have 7k.  One guy has 3k and the other two have about 1700 each. 
Blinds 100/200 ante 25.

I make a raise in first position with AT offsuit to 700.  BB goes all in for 1700 ish.  I have to call 1000 ish into a pot of 2500.  The other thing is the BB I have played with a lot before, and he knows I make a lot of laydowns to reraises, so I wouldnt give him as much credit for a hand as he loves to come over the top of my raises.

So I call, he has AK which holds up.  Down to just over 5k.

I then pay several rounds of blinds and am only marginal chip leader when I find QQ with 3900 chips ish.  For some reason (blinds still 100/200) I decide to go all in from the button (I tend to do this a lot short handed rather than making standard raises), the second in chips calls with AA. 

Down to 300 chips. 

I manage to fluke my way back up to 750 when utg I get T9 and with the BB next hand push all in.  Same guy calls again with AA.  Goodnight! 

Within 5 minutes I blew over half the chips in play 4 handed to go out before the money!  Could I have done anything?

Another action board on pokerstars?  Perish the thought!

A personal motto: Never EVER put my money whether earned or ill gotten on friendly matches.

It's a hornet's nest of soft play, football style

That said, if you put a gun to my head, I'd always go for the draw...irrespective of the match...look at ther stats for the incidence of draws in friendly matches....

Agreed totally.  Draws must be the favourite in these games.  Anyone thinking of backing england tonight @1/2 needs their head examined.

how is irish poker played only one ive not heard of

You get 3 hole cards and have to dump one of them on the flop.  It's like hold em on the rounds after that.

I'm doing a bit of a quest on the $20 + $2 STTs on Stars, out of interest what time do you find the best to play them? 

Without a doubt I find the mornings in UK the best time.

Well done on your results so far!

Cheers mate.  Is it in the congestion zone?

Well done Tight End, what was the buyin there on a Monday night?

The prize structure for the shootout in Brighton gave the same for 3rd-6th in the final.  This was pretty odd in my opinion. They also paid 12 positions total out of 41 runners, with 7th-12th (runners up on each table) getting money back.

if poker wants to be taken seriously then it needs a proffesstional tour that people can aspire to join, at present we havent got one anyone with enough money can play the top players.

aslong as there is a way into the proffestional tour for the aspiring players then an invited tour where the player play for the sponsors money is a good thing its what happens in every other sport

each year the bottom player in the tour have to play off to get there place on the tour and the top up and coming players get invited into play offs

works for every other indivaul sport ie golf tennis snooker darts sqaush

below the top level the rest play on they just dont compete on the professional tour we stick to playing the same games we always have in our local casino and with a good run of form hope to win our way onto the tour

if the pro tour kicks off there is room for a secondary tour in europe and then britain etc etc

but before we can get sponsor to put money into a tour instead of the players always stumping up we need to have an organistation and we need to have a signature tour getting us the publicity

there will always be us amateurs plays and putting up our own money just as we do each week when we play the weekly medal at golf etc etc

Agree totally with Ironside.  This would be a great step forward in my opinion.

At the moment you have TV companies dictating high level poker tournaments adding little or nothing to the prize pool and often detracting from the actual event by shortening clocks etc...

In other sports such as Golf or Snooker, the individual players don't have to pay to enter tournaments but have to finance themselves with things like travel expenses, and the prize pools are created by sponsors and TV companies.

Only in this way, I believe, will there be a reliable test to who is the world, or europe's, or even the UK's best (or most consistent) poker player.  There could be a series of a number of qualifying tournaments, of which you might have to enter say 20 to qualify, to reduce the luck aspect of it, and the top players enter the professional poker tour, the rest in a satellite tour like they have in Golf for example.  Then the players with the worst results have to qualify with the rest to retain their 'tour card' as in Golf.

Heard Arsenal could be looking for a new manager soon.....perhaps Souness could be the man to take them forward, lol!!!!!