^Few friends went to Parkway Drive last night said it was v good, hadn't heard of them before now though :$

I haven't been to a gig in a long time, do plan on rectifying that this year.

Tomorrow seeing Barns Courtney? in Bodega in Nottingham, tiny venue so should be good fun.

Used to go to Reading festival every year with a big group, was awesome, not too keen now though more likely to go abroad if I were to do a festival again.

You were unlucky not to get that through John.

Nice run anyway.

 

Unlucky JB, would have been awesome to see a win

Have played in Dublin, Killarney and Galway and every single game I played was very good fun. May have been helped by the Guinness but I cannot recall a dull game or atmosphere in Ireland, my favourite place to play poker.

Best of luck to all of the above, enjoy.

Was great, commentary best of any poker I've ever watched

Any idea when this is likely to be down to 9 players this evening?

tricky to say i reckon, no idea of field size for the first one?

30,000 chips, WPT structure and 16 min clock - playing down to a final table and then play is stopped, if that helps.

Don't know why i'm trying to kid myself, will play regardless 

GL all

 What a life!

 

Any idea when this is likely to be down to 9 players this evening?

Didn't end up playing the live event, although gathered some chips through the promotion. From what I saw though and what my team mates would have prefered would be a one day event.

Agree with the above about keeping things consistant.


Fantastic promotion overall and I'm sure people enjoyed it - got us playing on Party which we wouldn't have done if the event wasn't running

I watched some earlier where the Polish guy went from 600-1.4m at dinner, it didn't look like there would be any other winner :O

Great result, congrats Barny

I've just played the 7pm leg, just seen it was a "Players Choice" after reading here - I want to play tomorrow - do I have to state my preference anywhere or is it automatically entered tomorrow?

I assume you could only choose a different venue through this leg if you had already made a day 2?

[Game is live 1/2 Omaha 4/5/6 cards in London]

Good Morning, thought I'd post a hand played recently for some discussion as I enjoy reading this board and seeing opinions

Could well be straight forward but it has had mixed responses from people I ask

Game is live 1/2 Omaha 4/5/6 cards in London

It is 4am and 5 handed with one person away from the table, has been a lot of action through the night the big winners have left the game


Line up

Button: 50 year old, European professional PLO player used to have SNE on Pokerstars, always picks 4 cards, blasts away with blockers and unconnected boards even multiway, will call light and make life a misery at any opportunity, plays higher stakes but this is only game running

Small Blind: Myself, 25, not afraid to get involved preflop or post, known to bluff multiple streets/use blockers/multiway pots but will usually have best of it when lots of money goes in

Big Blind: 50 year old quiet Asain guy known to have ran big home games and won, limp calls preflop all day, 3 bet or raising range preflop AAxxx/KKxxx only from memory (typical for game), when winning very solid when stuck opens up a LOT

UTG: 50 year old Black guy who likes to moan about anything and everything, mostly his luck and dealers, limp calls all day, will call flops and turns and fold rivers with minimal money behind. When stuck he will call down light and get his draws/made hands in on flops and turns. Buys in for minimum but doesn't have much regard when he builds a stack. Plays his hand for what it is, rarely bluff, will check back missed draws. Will bluff with nut flush blocker on occasion, most other times will fold it face up and laugh


BB and UTG both stuck in the game




UTG (800) limps £2
Button (1000) raises to £9 - close to 100% here
SB (Covers) Calls £9?
BB (600) Calls £9

UTG Calls £9

Pot £36

Flop:

SB Check? - Button will attack low flops in 4 card a lot, perhaps not one this connected with a suit though
BB Check
UTG bets pot £36
Button folds

SB Call?
BB pot for £180
UTG Calls in under 10 seconds

SB Calls?

Pot £576

Turn:

SB Pot £576
BB All in for ~£400
UTG Calls with £100 back



Could do something different on each street

Any opinions on the hand from anyone appreciated, I don't pretend to know what I'm doing in these games so feel free to say the opposite to what I did in game 

Can't remember where I read it, but I think I recall you writing recently that any 'pro' not playing the SM each week is forsaking  $5K equity p.a.

I just wanted to suggest that in my opinion, that is wildly innacurate for the majority of lower stakes pro grinders.

52*215 = 11180

5000/11180 = 45

I think anyone who makes a living from the game can have a 45% ROI in the Sunday Million.

If you are a "Pro grinder" you must be making minimum of £20k $30k p.a?

If these low stakes pro grinders have a 30% roi over an abi of $10 they need to have $100,000 of buy ins a year or 10,000 games or 800 a month/200 a week. - All of these seem reasonable to me.

If they do indeed fit in those numbers then their ROI in the Sunday million can't be wildly far from 45%?



Please correct me if i've missed something and don't think i'm attacking you, just putting numbers down to see if i'm doing something wrong.

And while there is basically no chance of them being banned, I kinda feel like we have to address this problem. HUDs are not the issue here, it is "recs" perception of them that is the problem.

Poker is a battle of wits against other humans, what % of the population can lose gracefully at anything competitive let alone when there's money at stake - especially when they believe to be winners in the first place. What % of Fifa matches or Call of Duty games end with "well played mate I was outclassed there" as opposed to excuses and moans, that's without money on the line just ego and pride.

Players can take comfort in having excuses as to why they lose and any chance they have, I know I really hate losing at anything. If it isn't HUDs it's rigged poker sites or "guys with 5 red stars always get rewarded like team pros and people who pay more rake" Kings run into Aces way more often online so they take more rake.

These are the thoughts from thousands of recs, spoken in cardrooms all over the world, forums and facebook, they won't be swayed. Not everyone is as intelligent as an average Blonde poster.




Edit: Dave's post is great as usual.

Was about to say you wouldn't find people advertising the best panning spot for gold back in the gold rush days.

If that was to happen now you would for sure find the same morons posting their finds and locations on social media to get some likes or attention or quick recognition from online peers.

But I want to be better than someone at poker, not at operating and interpreting software programmes.

If we follow this to it's conclusion, shouldn't I be allowed to use my motorbike to win the Tour de France?

The closest example would probably be Chess grandmasters - I don't know if your game can deteriorate or if the curve is anywhere near as fast as poker but I imagine if a top player stopped playing or cut his hours tenfold he wouldn't be able to compete at the top level either. Players now can evaluate their plays using computer programmes and tens of thousands of games have been recorded they can study from, if they refuse to use these resources they will probably lag behind too.

If that's the closest example then you've got problems because quite frankly it's shit.

The deteriorating chess grandmaster isn't having to go to work for 8 hours a day and then funnel a % of his hard earned wage to the other grandmasters is he?
 

Lol, I've been up a long time and just finished playing 12 hours of live poker without a Hud or seating script, just my brain, my conversation/terrible jokes and money (I rebought no less than 20 times in a cash game over the course of the night/morning) I was prepared to lose. It was very enjoyable for all at the table (pros, recs, fish, dealers, supervisors, valets whatever term want to use for any of the people present) with laughs all night long even from those who lost significant money - a fun game and enjoyable atmosphere to play in and I'm sure thats why most of us choose to play, these guys won't be sitting at home playing on their computers, they want to come out have a beer, flirt with the staff and have some banter with the characters in the game. Online really doesn't compare to a good live game of cards and I don't think it ever has or could. Didn't read any of it back just typed and pressed enter, why it may not make any sense and this one probably won't either.

He doesn't have to do that, no. But if he wants to be better than his opponents he will have to practice some more, just that that hobby needs a chess board and pieces to play, doesn't cost him anything but time.

I really haven't put a lot of hours into online poker in a few years now, when I do it's full schedule of Sunday MTTs otherwise its 5 and 6card PLO, without a seating script, without a HUD or any form of 3rd party software. Actually a big % of my hours has been HUD-less cash on sky.

I'm on the Recs side of this argument and firmly believe all the softwares should be banned, but I don't think it's "unfair". I'm sure in any business or industry the people who are trying to make the most money are using every tool or piece of software they can get their hands on to maximise profits. Economies of scale for Tesco are going to be more prevelant than a local family run Greengrocers - does that make it unfair on the small shop that they haven't got the same resources than Tescos do?

Perfect decision to quit playing if you no longer think you are getting value for money or enough enjoyment, more people should be doing the same but a lot can't/won't give it up finding excuses as to why they seem to lose over time. It does make me sad seeing the same guys do their money over and over and I'm always happy for them when they walk away a winner even with my money, even worse when some who had given up the game for a period of time but come back to it. Some people just have too much disposable income and too much love for the game I guess. It's a catch 22 playing poker for a part of income, if I could play vs the house or robots and win i'd far rather do that, I'm not sure there's too many professional players that like the idea they are making others worse off by playing the game.

Online has been in steady decline for a long time and I really don't think it can be stopped now, it's too far gone, make the games as rec friendly as possible over night and it still can't be saved, the decline may slow but won't ever come close to what it was.

I'll stop posting now and get to bed, read this back and be embarassed when I wake up



Edit: Forgot to say a big thank you for typing out that post I read it with a big smile, great post haha

But I want to be better than someone at poker, not at operating and interpreting software programmes.

If we follow this to it's conclusion, shouldn't I be allowed to use my motorbike to win the Tour de France?

Can use a mountain bike with flat tyres instead of investing time, money and training into improving the design and materials used to create the bike and how you ride it. Just like a 20 stone kebab eating, beer drinking enthusiast can enter a triathlon using a tricycle and wearing stilettos  - he's probably not going to win.

I had a discussion about this article around a poker table tonight, mostly players who have played/play semi-professionally in times gone by, they thought it was very scary that "Patrick Antonious" big name professional was now saying this.

My point was you wouldn't expect Michael Phelps to rock up to the olympics 4 years later without doing any training or eating correctly and win gold medals, I'm sure he could turn up to his local or regional pool and win some medals now with his knowledge just the same as Ricky Hatton when he binged out after fights.


The closest example would probably be Chess grandmasters - I don't know if your game can deteriorate or if the curve is anywhere near as fast as poker but I imagine if a top player stopped playing or cut his hours tenfold he wouldn't be able to compete at the top level either. Players now can evaluate their plays using computer programmes and tens of thousands of games have been recorded they can study from, if they refuse to use these resources they will probably lag behind too.


tl/dr

I also wish HUDs, seating scripts, poker trackers, sharkscope or other result recording websites were never invented and would very much support them all being banned.