[Insert funny and witty diary title here]

[BigHawk89]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpOSxM0rNPM

Thought id add a "track of the day".

Great choice for track of the day, have to say im looking forward to this album more than the last few. Sounds good. They are one band i haven’t seen live yet that i really want to see as well.

How you doing at cash at the moment? I'm glad the promos (or should i say DTM's wages) are finished now. May get better tables.

Also if you been trying to talk and i haven't replied at tables i aint being ignorant, its just i havent got the test software now so harder to talk again.

Haven't seen you at tables for abit didn't play much in the promo but still managed to scrape 45 quid out of it. The tables have been a lot better since the promos stopped, made some decent profit already this week. Gotta take your hat off to DTM though he does put in some monster hours and to come top of lower AND middle tiers is just mental!!

Hope you enjoy your break away from poker i did this early last year, had two weeks off then come back refreshed and played much better.

I would recommend seeing arctic monkeys they are amazing, easily my favorite band and makes it a lil bit better they grew up just up road from me.

[AJR14]

I’m enjoying my break. I knew i needed one but it was reinforced when i was talking poker earlier in the week, my mind went blank and it genuinely tired me out. I was pokered out so i stopped.

Now over the last few days i have started to enjoy analysing my hands and watching videos. I have a lot of bad sessions in my HH which can be turned into a positive because bad sessions are good learning sessions.

I’m still not playing for a while, just spending the time enjoying working on my game before that enthusiasm undoubtedly evaporates. I see Sky have put in ANOTHER promo that drains the life out of the games so my break may be longer than i wanted.



“most players revert to a style that matches their personality and stop thinking when things get uncomfortable at the tables. Some may become overly passive, some may become too nitty, some become bad aggressive players and some players just stop thinking altogether and click buttons. One thing every poker player needs to work on is limiting these times or being able to spot you are doing it as soon as it starts so you can try to control it or take a break”

That was said in one video that describes a lot of my problems to a tee. I stop thinking, and revert to a losing style when things aren’t going right. Much work is needed on this.



Comedy street name of the week!

Click to see full-size image.

A trip to Blackburn, a bizarre addiction to Storage Hunters, endless episodes of The Ricky Gervais Show and the odd infuriating game of Fifa is how i have been spending my usual poker time.

I have also been keeping my eye on the Glastonbury programmes. Its tough to not get insanely jealous when i watch. There have been some decent performances and some poor. I am definitely going to be attending one of the coming years. I have never been to a proper festival and i cant help feel i am missing out every time i see one.

In Honour of last nights headliners

Record of the Day: The Rolling Stones - I Can't Get No (Satisfaction)

[AJR14]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpOSxM0rNPM

Thought id add a "track of the day".

Great choice for track of the day, have to say im looking forward to this album more than the last few. Sounds good. They are one band i haven’t seen live yet that i really want to see as well.

How you doing at cash at the moment? I'm glad the promos (or should i say DTM's wages) are finished now. May get better tables.

Also if you been trying to talk and i haven't replied at tables i aint being ignorant, its just i havent got the test software now so harder to talk again.

Haven't seen you at tables for abit didn't play much in the promo but still managed to scrape 45 quid out of it. The tables have been a lot better since the promos stopped, made some decent profit already this week. Gotta take your hat off to DTM though he does put in some monster hours and to come top of lower AND middle tiers is just mental!!

Hope you enjoy your break away from poker i did this early last year, had two weeks off then come back refreshed and played much better.

I would recommend seeing arctic monkeys they are amazing, easily my favorite band and makes it a lil bit better they grew up just up road from me.

Yeah the Arctics are class. I much prefer the older stuff though. Their 1st and 2nd albums are just pure class. You wont hear many debut albums that good.

I’m not sure whats happened to Alex though, i thought he was taking the piss when he was talking between songs until i saw him say it was not intentional after he got stick for it.

[AJR14]

you do realise they play 16-20 hours and yet don't play a single hand well or tough?!?

Yeah i know they struggle with a lot of hands. I was praising their ability to grind it out for hours on end every day, not their playing ability. One of the main grinders is great for other peoples win rate .

[acegooner]

Hey AJR, interesting to hear your comments about cash on sky. The general consensus is sky cash players are awful, but in my opinion there is no doubt that the poor players are being flushed out by these promos. And yet you have others saying that if you are competent, that you can still beat the weaker regs. That may be the case but reg vs reg inevitably means edge is significantly reduced and a combination of run bad/tilt and just clicking buttons through these promos can have negative consequences.

I've played you quite a lot this year and you are one of approximately 5 players at nl20-40 that I rate (discount that spewy donk dohhhh from the list!), so if you are struggling my decision to stay away from cash is vindicated!

I play sngs and mtts too, going for volume to overcome variance. Do you have a back up game, or have you just decided to chill for a few weeks whilst you try to analyse your game more?

This is my first post, I didn't realise you cant post on the staking page until you been on here 3 months and posted 300 times. Would have been good to get a piece of Tikay and Stuart Rutter for the ME but mehhh looks like its too late.
 

[AJR14]

After a long break i decided to play a few small sessions over the weekend. Just little hour long sessions here and there. They mostly went well. Made a few mistakes but the majority of losses have been coolers which I’m happy about. Finished with a small profit, which should have been more but profits profit.

One thing that happened before my break was i had seemed to have settled for being back at 20nl and wasn’t too bothered... well, i am bothered. I don’t want to be grinding 20nl. I’ve shown in the past i can get passed this level and am comfortable at 30/40nl so i needed to get that drive back. I’ve set up a little challenge for myself to get back to being rolled for 40nl by the end of the month.

£117 – to 30nl

£317- to 40nl

It shouldn’t be too hard to achieve if i keep my discipline. If i run good it could be done in a few sessions, although it’s unlikely to be done that quick. Not many tables open at 40nl but when i get there i will just open some up and mix them with 30nl. As soon as i hit 40nl i will restart the push for 50nl. Withdrawals will make the challenge go slower but it should be fine.



Finally my guitar received some much needed TLC as well. I haven’t picked it up in ages, in fact the last time was a few days after a house party at mine. Nothing major, just few friends with a load of alcohol.  Anyway one mate turned up real late so we decided to put double the amount everyone else was having in his drinks to catch up, as you do. It didn’t end well. The poor chap ended up throwing up everywhere, including all over my guitar which unfortunately i didn’t realise until sticking my hand in it when picking it up a few days later. The realisation of what it was ended in me breaking a string so other than cleaning it i hadn’t touched it since. So after a 5th clean and new strings I’m getting back into learning that again.

This will be the 3rd time of trying to learn, i start to struggle and then the inevitable boredom makes it go back in its case for a few months. I made the mistake of deciding to learn Oasis’ Wonderwall when i first purchased the guitar, so i can pretty much play that perfectly but i ignored everything else so i struggle with it all.

In fact if anyone knows of any good Youtube or internet sites that offer free learning vids i would really appreciate being nudged in the right direction. I know a couple of decent ones but the more the merrier .


Record of the Day: Peace - 1998 (Delicious).

Heard it ages ago on a horse racing advert, think it was Cheltenham but couldnt find the name until recently. Been making a few appearances on the tele. Starts really slow, i usually just knock it on to 2.00 where the song starts.

[AJR14]

Hey AJR, interesting to hear your comments about cash on sky. The general consensus is sky cash players are awful, but in my opinion there is no doubt that the poor players are being flushed out by these promos. And yet you have others saying that if you are competent, that you can still beat the weaker regs. That may be the case but reg vs reg inevitably means edge is significantly reduced and a combination of run bad/tilt and just clicking buttons through these promos can have negative consequences.

I've played you quite a lot this year and you are one of approximately 5 players at nl20-40 that I rate (discount that spewy donk dohhhh from the list!), so if you are struggling my decision to stay away from cash is vindicated!

I play sngs and mtts too, going for volume to overcome variance. Do you have a back up game, or have you just decided to chill for a few weeks whilst you try to analyse your game more?

This is my first post, I didn't realise you cant post on the staking page until you been on here 3 months and posted 300 times. Would have been good to get a piece of Tikay and Stuart Rutter for the ME but mehhh looks like its too late.
 

Hi Ace. Apologies for the very late reply, haven’t been on for ages so hadn’t seen the post.

I haven’t played cash on any other sites long enough to compare player s across sites but the general level of player at our limits isn’t the best. As you say reg on reg tables are definitely tougher than the average table but with a little more thinking you should be ok. A lot of the regs you can play for 10 minutes and know pretty much exactly whats happening which makes the games still fairly easy. The promos definitely have an effect on win rates but you can still win, just at a slower pace.
 
The worst thing about the promos is definitely the impact it has on the reccy players. Its pretty obvious it will make the games far less enjoyable for most people and they will just load up another site. Something that will damage Sky in the long run. They have had a lot of bad responses to this last one so they may look to stop them for a bit. Hopefully.


Ive played you a lot at 30nl and know you have the game to beat these levels even with the promos on. Sometimes, starting to think the games are tough will start to have a negative impact. Its something that has crept into my thinking. When rising through the levels i didn’t care who i was sat at a table with, i was confident i would win. Now i start to think like 'well this table has player A, player C and player X so i will look for another'. That negative thinking surely must have an impact on our games. As i said earlier, even though the games become different to your average small stakes games during promos the players are usually pretty ABC. Any player that doesn’t adjust to what’s going on in games are easy to read and play, and most at our levels don’t. So even with promos, if you put the fact that they are reg players to the back of your mind you will be fine. You are better than a high percentage of the players at these levels.


Ive just seen your looking to put in a lot of Hypers. I used to play them as well a while ago. No major volume, just 5-10 at a time for something different. They went ok, well it seemed like it did but I’ve never checked results on them so i could be down lifetime. I don’t really have a back up game, i just go away and work on my game. I don’t have another format i consider myself to be good at so playing something else will probably be –ev.

Gl with Hyper challenge. Are you going to moving back to cash once you finished the Hypers or are you going to stay with them? Do you consider Hypers your best format? Why Hypers and not normal HU games?

[AJR14]

Have a HH as well. Ive put it here because it may be completely standard so wont be suitable for PHA. I may be completely over thinking here.


I have a bit of history wit this chap. I consider him of the best at this limit and someone i generally try and stay away from. We have a bit of history in 3bet/4bet pots around the blinds and will usually play with fairly weak hands and play post flop. These spots usually are in the typical bluffing postions like btn v blind etc. There used to be a lot of bluffing, both of us calling down with 2nd/3rd pairs etc through the streets. I have adjusted to this and tightened up a lot, something that took them a while to adjust to but they were kind enough to let me know in the chat box when they had finally cottoned on to what i was doing.

Although bluffing has dried up a bit between us recently, it can still happen. They will get it in light if they think im bluffing but they will usually have outs.

20nl both 100bb's deep

So i pick up   and they open to 60p UTG. Folds around to me in the BB where i make it £1.80. they call. My usual sizing would be £2.00. Im not sure why i went £1.80 but they may have realised i hav gone smaller than normal.

Im not happy with my 3bet here. if ihad the hand again v this chap im calling almost always

Anyway onto the flop.

The flop comes.   pot: £3.70

I bet £2.00, they raise to £5.50

Ive never hit this situation with this player. I would be folding a lot to some players. But when they raise i start to go through all the value hands and start to wonder why they raising. Ive played a lot v this player and i would fully expect them to call ANY value hand but obv i could be way out. i dont think they turn a smaller PP into a bluff. Again could be way out.


Is this spot totally standard and I’m over thinking it? i suspect that may the case and i shuld just fold. What are the thoughts of any readers. Would you be calling? Folding? Ive completely ruled out shoving.


Lets say we call (which i did) and they shove £12.90 into a pot of £14.70 on a   turn card (which he did) what do we do?

[AJR14]

Only quick updates today as the first 2 sessions back into the challenge have been pretty slow. I’ve got a decent general game plan set out to get up to 50nl which is taking a little time to get going but I’m confident will work.

I got beaten up a bit the first night and was having to fold big hands a lot. I seemed to be facing a lot of aggression from everyone. I suspect they were just running hot rather than targeting me but i will keep my eye on it. The most pleasing thing to come out of the last few sessions is keeping my discipline, something i can struggle with when feel like I’m being battered around.

I did make a few mistakes as per, and i stacked off  3 times v the same poor reg which may have been questionable for 2 of them but all in all I’m fairly happy with how I’m playing, i just need the cards to start helping me out.

Last couple of sessions: -£30
30nl target - £147
40nl target - £347


Also just seen more pictures of Gazza leathered. It’s such a shame to watch one of the most talented footballers in such trouble. Looks like it’s only a matter of time.

Record of the Day: James – Waltzing Along. Their Fresh as a Daisy album (A singles collection album) is a cracking album. Highly recommend, Some classics on there.

[AJR14]

There is one thing that i dislike more in the poker world than the rigged threads, and that is the complete lack of response from the industry on these issues. Poker is full of people moaning that it’s rigged. Its going to happen, people don’t like losing and they certainly don’t like losing money and rather than look at their own failings as a player they scour the globe to find someone or something to blame.

In a gambling industry where everything is built for the house edge, from bookies with their odds to slot machines fleecing pub goers money means people are always going to be suspicious in this industry.

So why don’t sites do everything in their power to prove to these people it isn’t rigged and reduce these fears? Surely it will benefit the whole of the online poker industry?

I see it all the time (at least once a session at the tables), “online poker is rigged”, “This sites a joke”, “bots”, “the miracle pause before the river”, “sites look after the bigger rake earners”, “the withdrawal curse” but what i never see is a site showing them evidence that will put down the idea and make people realise they are wrong. It’s clear to most that the sites conform to industry rules and are externally adjudicated so why can’t the results be used to show suspicious players that there is nothing untoward happening.

I don’t believe sites are rigged, if i did i wouldn’t play but I’m just starting to get wound up by the fact nothing is being done and it just seems to be either brushed under the carpet or ignored. There are a hell of a lot of people that are suspicious, it’s not just one or two people so surely some sort of strategy needs to be introduced to help keep these players playing and not just ignore them. 

For example, on other forums i look at i have seen a few rigged moans over last few days which is normal but what i haven’t seen is someone come on, from the site, and say anything. It’s left to regular posters to shoot the theory down with no back up for what they are saying which doesn’t help. Why can’t someone official step onto the threads and have something prepared that will make the original posters think “oh yeah, it isn’t rigged”. Even if people don’t want to be convinced of a sites authenticity and won’t listen surely the sites should give it a damn good go. These players are left for the idea to manifest itself to a point where they leave and tell their mates why they left which then puts the idea in their mates head because nothing has been do to alleviate the idea previously. It is left to the regular posters who will respond in a manner that will wind up the original poster and only serve to drive them away from sites quicker.

I don’t want to sound rude but a lot of the players that claim wrong doing will be losing players (i know not all will be but it usually is the losing aspect that brings it out in people), which means they are depositing players which is exactly who the whole industry want on the sites, so sites taking time out to ease these players fears will be hugely beneficial to everyone.

Just to clarify this isn’t me claiming sites are rigged, this is just me musing as to why sites don’t do everything in their power to put sceptics minds at rest and increase trust in the whole industry. They may do, and i have completely missed it, but the fact i have missed it is exactly the problem unless i always seem to have my eyes closed

People will have far more experience in this than me and will probably know why sites don’t come out and say more on the subject. There may be many reasons but i feel at a time that people are saying online poker is dying and people don’t put enough money into online poker anymore this is surely one section that the industry could and should look to do everything to keep them in the game. These are existing players leaving because of it so surely it needs looking at. 



Onto my poker now, i managed to get myself back to 30nl and then proceeded to run like shit for 20 minutes and had to move back down pretty swiftly. Pretty brutal 20 minutes that led to my first bit of tilt since my break so finished early. I will be back at 20nl today and hopefully get back to 30nl in time for tonight or at the very least tomorrow night.

£64 to 30nl Target

£264 to 40nl Target



Records of the Day. I dug out my The Jam 12” LP Snap album and put it on the record player while i was writing this so going to stick a few songs on today.

The Jam - In the City



The Jam - Eton Rifles



The Jam - Thats Entertainment. My personal Fav

[TightEnd]

what do you think an operator could say to convince a sceptic otherwise?

"We have an RNG audited by xyz and "

would that do it? I think not

what else can they say?

[AJR14]

what do you think an operator could say to convince a sceptic otherwise?

"We have an RNG audited by xyz and "

would that do it? I think not

what else can they say?

I have no idea how the industry could go about it due to my own lack of understanding, there will be people far better placed than me to look at it.

I think a lot of the issues around the rigged argument actually is peoples lack of understanding on how sites work. That will always lead to conspiracies for some. Fully detailing how the sites work, how its tested etc and the results in lay mans terms may help with the full reports available if anyone wants to read for themselves. i have no idea if that would work or not, or even if all that is already out there. One word i have i seen banded about a lot is transparancy, again i'm not sure how the industry could go about that but surely its time they look into it when they have nothing to hide?

I dont know if any of that would be possible or if it would even work. It would be up to the sites to formulate a plan they feel would work which i believe they need to do fairly soon simply due to the ever increasing number of people claiming wrong doing.

Also just want to clarify this isn’t about one site, my moaning is aimed at the online poker industry as opposed to one site in particular.

[titaniumbean]

what do you think an operator could say to convince a sceptic otherwise?

"We have an RNG audited by xyz and "

would that do it? I think not

what else can they say?

actually have the audit and stuff to back it up.

it's like ftps emails kept saying we segregate, when they clearly didn't.

some brands give you more worries than others obviously, but some brands have awful awful customer facing attitudes.

[Jac]

I assume you're referring to the never ending stream of threads about "online rigged"  on Sky?
When Tikay is around, he will, to his credit respond to all of these tedious threads with wonderful patience.

Just recently with him not posting on there (god knows where he's been?) there seems to have been a few more of these which haven't been nipped in the bud.

[AJR14]

I assume you're referring to the never ending stream of threads about "online rigged"  on Sky?
When Tikay is around, he will, to his credit respond to all of these tedious threads with wonderful patience.

Just recently with him not posting on there (god knows where he's been?) there seems to have been a few more of these which haven't been nipped in the bud.

Agreed, i've said many times Tikay does a great job over there and is a credit to Sky. I just think that if you change the standard “we comply with rules and have no reason to do otherwise” response with hard evidence to back it up you will start to eliminate the problem and more people will keep playing.