Bernie Marsden 7/5/51 - 24/8/23
Guitarist in Whitesnake when they were a Uk blues rock band in the late 70s/early 80s, usually paired with Mickey Moody. Co-wrote classics like Here I Go Again, Fool For Your Lovin, Walking in the shadow of the blues, trouble, and more.

Rock music moved ion, and Dave Coverdale fired all his old mates in favour of big haired shredders to appeal to the MTV generation, and the old guard like Bernie got left behind.

Whitesnake’s Saints & Sinners was one of the first three rock albums that got me into proper music (the other two being AC/DC’s Back in Black and Iron Maidens Live After Death).

I saw him do a 30 minute Q&A / Play Along to blues backing tracks at last years Guitar Show in Birmingham. Marshall had just launched a Signature series amp in his name. A fitting tribute to a great player from the early days of British Hard Blues Rock.

RIP Bernie.

Bernie at his best, 1980
https://open.spotify.com/album/2bEy5Ez92ta5JKkCX9VCxv?si=PVHcpDrqQ8SM6rLfa0us8w

Everyone from 10-15 years should come back and post in my opinion.

Some good times

We had a great Vegas trip.
Played poker at Horseshoe, Caesar’s, Venetian, MGM Grand and Golden Nugget(plus made it to the waiting list at Bellagio). For $1/$3 & $1/$2 I have to say, Horseshoe was a stand out favourite. Dealers and Floor staff were excellent, games were friendly and fun, waitresses never far away. Venetian and Caesar’s were all business, and Nugget was a fun but rough game (nearly a fight on hand 1 of a new table). Mixed in some table games and slots at the above, plus Flamingo, Cromwell, New York New York, Paris and Rio.

Didn’t eat fancy, but good eats at Off the Strip and Favourite Bistro on Link Promenade, Britannia in Venetian, Cabo Wabo and Beer Park on the strip, and Cosmo Buffet.

Penn & Teller was great, and Zombie Burlesque was silly.

Grand Canyon was a great day out. So hard to comprehend the scale of it, even when you’re looking at it.

Squeezed in the new Punk Rock Museum on the last day, including a chat with the boss, Fat Mike.

Have a ball Adam.

What a well timed bink you had a couple of weeks ago.

Certainly was.

The Vegas trip  is finally here,we fly on Tuesday 25th.
Life’s thrown a few curve balls at me since booking the trip, not least being made redundant after 17 years at the same place. When I come back I’ll be setting up a business, so this holiday is a much needed break before the hard work starts.

Got a Grand Canyon trip planned for Wednesday, shows Thursday and Sunday (Penn & Teller and Zombie Burlesque), Fremont Street Friday,,Cosmo Buffet Saturday, Dinner somewhere nice on the Monday, then weave in some cash sessions at Horseshoe, Bellagio, Venetian, Caesar’s, Golden Nugget, and maybe Wynn if I can find a reason to be up that way.

I’m usually a tournament player, but I can’t really find a slot in the itinerary for one in Vegas, so multiple cash sessions is better. Perfect timing for DTD to be putting on their cash game week before I go. I’m heading out today and tomorrow to get my eye in a bit before Vegas.

Bit of a different result in this months DTD100. Although I made it to day 2 with a familiar 31BB stack, and was as low as 3.5Bb at 50k/100k, I managed to buck the trend, final, and do a 3 way deal for £13k and a WPT seat. Came up short in the heads up for the trophy and extra £2k, but still makes a nice change from spending a whole weekend earning a couple of hundred min cash.

I tried to adjust my play as suggested, but I found the standard of play at most of my day 1 tables was the worst I think I’ve ever seen in one of these. Most of the table were playing any two, and you basically had to show down to win any pot. Chip stack was a roller coaster for two days. In the end, the suggestion to just run good was what worked. I was far from a card rack, but I got lucky in a few key spots (cracked AA with JJ, best KK with AQ), and won a couple of key flips.

Hopefully I can turn this into a run of final tables.

The guy that beat me heads up was involved in the most incredible hand I’ve ever seen. All in pre-flop three ways.
  v v  
Flop  
Turn  
River  

Scooped a massive pot knocking out two other big stacks.
Nice lad, glad he tookm1st over all.

Thanks Alex. I have started to defend a lot wider than I used to as you describe. 3 betting wider as you suggest I could definitely do more of though. I will look into that.

I do slip back into Harrington style ABC poker sometimes, and I have to remind myself to losen up a bit.

DTD100 / Easter Cup weekend comig up, so hpoing for a bit of mid/late game run good.

Played this month's DTD100, and as per standard in the Opening post, made day 2 again, but still no big score. I finished 29/1306, £400 payout, 2x£100+£20 bullets, so +£160. Pretty card dead as usual, so ducked and dived as best I could, and also as usual, spent most of the tournament in the 20-40BB zone. Never really built a stack, although I did get off to a reasonable start on the second bullet. Just grinding, while watching others around be smash big pots with set over set, flush over flush, big pair over big pairs, etc.

What I feel I'm doing right is switching gears at the right times when I get short. I'm moving from playing properly > looking for 3 bet shove spots > open ripping with gradually lowering standards for hand selection. I get my self back in the game quite often by finding the right spots. Would just be nice once in a while to get some momentum early and build a stack. Looks fun.

I only got back to playing last year, but a problem I had before my break is still present. Basically, for years I've become the master of the min cash. My Hendon Mob is getting ridiculous:
https://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/player.php?a=r&n=49583

I make the money more often than I don't, but it doesn't seem to matter if I hit day 2 with a decent stack or really short, I never make it out of the first two or three payout levels. I did try to change my early/mid game strategy to either build a big stack or bust early, but I'm jut not wired for the variance. I play better, and enjoy the game much more when I'm being patient, picking spots and keeping broadly in line with tournament average stack, but inevitably, that means I hit day 2 with 20-40 BB, grind a couple of levels, then bust with a depressingly marginal profit.

When I buy in to something like this week's £500 UKPC, I am not playing for a min cash, I want the £95k and the trophy, but in the back of my mind, the min cash is there, and I wonder if I'm maybe subconsciously creating a self-fulfilling prophecy with how I play.

Maybe I should be pleased I'm putting myself in the position to get hit in the face with the deck one day and go deep, or maybe I'm doomed to a lifetime of min cashes because my mid-game play is off pace.

Interested in thoughts or advice.

I did spot you at DTD on the Friday and the Monday, but wasn't sure you'd even know who I was so didn't say

Very sad. Didn’t know him well, but seemed like a nice lad, always good for a laugh at the table, but  also a nightmare to play against. Felt like he could see through cards sometimes.

“The late Pete Linton?”
What happened there?

As it gets closer I'll look at the schedules and see what i can find. The reason I mentioned seniors is I had noticed a few months ago when I was first looking into this, there was I think a $1100 Seniors event at Venetian and I really liked the idea of celebrating my 50th with something like that.

I'd like to play a lot of short cash at a variety of iconic places, and maybe just one or two 'proper' sessions/tournaments

No I haven't sorted anything like that yet, but it does lead onto my next topic, cash/bankroll.

As I said, trip will be a broad mixture of poker, other gambling (not fussed myself, but the friends will want to hit some blackjack and slots), sight seeing, drinking, a show, etc.

In terms of poker money, am I best to take cash, e-wallet, blend? As mentioned, likely buyins will be on the low end for Cash, $1-$3 most likely. If there's a single good tournament somewhere around the $1000 mark, I'll carve out a day in the calendar.

Also, that tax form I see mentioned, do I need to do that in advance, or if I bink a $1k Seniors tournament for 5 figures, can I do it at the time?

I read through the first few pages. Most seemed to be about check in, parking, pool capacity (August, half pool closed), some niggles about rooms, and some about noisy neighbors or thefts from rooms (surely very isolated experiences).

Not sure.

Didn't make day 2 of Goliath, so decision time