I agree with Tikay in that there's no conspiracy, however I do think sites vary in the randomness of the deals which I thinkis more the point mick brings up. Party SEEMED (though I cant back it up with figures or hand historys) to have more than it's share of runner runner straights and flushes. also AA seemed to get beat alot by lower pairs which there alwats seemed to be plenty of. I know you play enough you'll see everything and I know A,A isnt 100% against anything preflo but although the evidence was only empirical it seems 'odd'.

I've found UB feels fairly straight. sure the players still shout conspiracy when they suffer a beat but the cards seem to fall genuinely enough for me.

Laddies I found it hard to concetrate on the randomness of the cards because of the randomness of alot of the players.

Try blue square. it's hilarious at the lower stakes

Agreed, just gotta get the bankroll back up after robbing it for christmas and the plan for 2005 is to try and dip my toes into the festivals a bit.  I know there's more to my game and I'm looking forward to testing it more.

Had I not got caught up with Big Dave Smith AQ vs AK who knows. I learned from that though. I thought he was playing the same as he does in Nottingham 20/30 games and didn't read it right when, in hindsight it was obvious he had me beat (or at best even).

I wouldn't say playing scared is quite right. What I said to a guy Julian brought to Nottingham the other week was first good hand you get you have to be prepared to go all in with. double your 1000 to 2000. do the same again and you're getting close to a playable stack. I always aim to have 5000+ for the freeze. even then you're a long way off a final stack. saying that if you double twice more I wouldn't be unhappy finalling with 20k. so theoretically you could final playing only 4 or 5 hands. in fact I'm pretty sure I've made it with 6 in one game.

in response to Tikays mention of my post in the news section I'd like to share a couple of other observations about playing with a short bankroll.

My first ever trip to a casino was to Nottingham Gala January 2004. I was scared witless. I took 60 to what I thought was a 20 rebuy comp. I thought that would be plenty. As it turned out it was a 30 comp so I only had one spare buyin. At my home game I was the aggressive player but as it was my first casino game I'd intended to sit back and watch a while. in the first two rounds there was about 15 buy-ins. everyone seemed to have huge wads of cash and I felt completely out of my depth. However about 30 mins in I found A,A. got all-in and tripled up. then I could relax a bit and play my game but, given how deep the pockets around me seemed to be I was still playing alot tighter than normal. I won't go into details about the hands I got but the deck wasn't exactly hitting me in the face. I think one AK and a QQ. and a lot of marginal stuff I wasn't playing because of the reasons mentioned above. Any way, long story short. Made the final and managed a three way chip count at 4am. I'd taken the top up so my 60 had grown into 1685. That was a Sunday night. I went back the Thursday and Friday that week and reverted to my normal game. I blew 120 both nights (in 20 comps) and was no where near the final. The following two fridays I went back to playing super tight, and finaled both times. each time with no buy ins or top ups. The flip slide of playing so tight was that I finaled really short stacked and finished 10th both times (although I made a profit both times when most wouldn't). Following Friday I finaled again but forced myself to change gears a bit mid comp and got 7th.
I then had a couple of weeks where I didn't make the final but only dropped 60 in 20 comps then after an enforced break from the Casino trips went back in August and got my 1st outright win. 1610 from 60 (20 comp).
I have friends who are quite decent players but the won't play rebuy tourneys because they think the only way to compete is to go wedged up and splash your money about. What I'm basically saying is that it is possible to beat a very loose aggressive game by playing super tight as long as when the time comes to be aggressive you do it properly.
Tikay and Julian encouraged me to have a pop at a 250 rebuy in Sheffield in September. I finished 14th and did OK but for some moments in the night I was over whelmed by the stakes. It cost me 500 and although felt my game was competitive it basically wiped my bankroll out, making Nottingham 20 rebuys a bigger ammount again.
In my first year I finaled 8 times from 27 visits to Nottingham and showed a far greater %age profit than a lot would given that I keep my buy ins low. If some one said "here's 10k, go play poker" then I'm sure I wouildn't need to play as tight as I do but I've found that advice I've read about patience, Discipline, Card selection, etc has been the most valuable to me as a novice player and as I make the transition to intermediate player I'll hope to keep those assetts to my game.

...Discuss

depends on the stakes and how they relate to your general wealth / bankroll / etc If it's early in a tourney where the buy in represents a significant portion of your money you should probably wait for a better spot, given that as you say, you should have raised on the flop and it might be too late to show the strength now. Tikay knows what I'm taking about here. I'm playing uncharacteristically tight sometimes at the moment because I'm on a very limited bankroll. I dont want to be driving home mumbling "bloody K,10" to myself.

I think yo can gamble on the flop but it's perhaps a bit late by the turn. he's not much bigger than you pre and post flop if at all. If he had AK you'd have known about it by then, if he has A,J he could have limped but would probably check the flop. he could well have limped with K,Q but you're near as damn it 50/50 and he's not going to like you playing back at him with that. If he's limped with Q,10 he'd surely check the nut straight unless he fears the flush draw, which of course you have. if this is the case he's less than 60/40.

One thought though is has he bet 3000 because it's more than half your stack to try and get you all in or has he bet 3000 because it's less than half his stack so he can get away from it? I think that might be the key do your decision. is that strong or weak betting?

actually as it happens I wouldn't of been in the hand at all because I was knockedout of three consecutive tourneys holding K,10 in Nottingham (including twice on the bubble) so would sweat at the sight of it.

...And it's over. Noah Boeken has won it, Ram comes in second.
Tikay will post a proper report ASAP.

chip count
Ram = 559 000
Noah  1 050 000

Noah has made something of a come back. now evenly matched at approximately 750,000 chips each

Tikay is having problems at his end so has asked me to keep you up to date.
Bambos with 10,10 all-in against Ram with K,J. Ram hit his king so it's heads up. Ram has around 1 million chips, noah about half that.

couldn't agree more. man should head straight for Binions in may. Well done Julian. Touch of class.

here you go mate, cut and paste this.

what time we off again then?

any more up to date chip counts?

They on a break? what's going on Tony?

killer