I've been home from Vegas for exactly a month today, though it seems like forever. It also means it took me the better part of three weeks to write up 7 days worth of goings on in Vegas, which is super slack of me - the next time I go somewhere fun, I will try and put reports up in a more timely fashion.
I don't have any more excursions planned really, though I am feeling The Battle of Malta in November. Quite a way off though, and I will probably change my mind 6 times before making a decision. It seems like a good little festival to go to, and it's only a 3 hour flight from Luton.
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I am looking into moving abroad now I am a little more flush with liquid cash thanks to a profitable trip to Vegas. I am currently still living at home, and while it's a comfortable arrangement for me - I'm going to be 25 in 6 weeks and it's annoying me mentally. Out of my tight knit group of friends I grew up with back in Cornwall, only one has his own place and he only moved out because he managed to knock his girlfriend up. He's convinced his Girlfriend looks like Cheryl Cole, I say she looks more like Joe Cole but whatever lifts your skirt I guess.
I can't really justify moving out on my own in Bedford/Luton though, it's not somewhere I would actively choose to live, and I consider myself a bit of a victim of circumstance that I've ended up here for the past 3 years. It's not the worst place in the world, but I wouldn't spend £500 a month for a box room above a chippy on the infamous Midland Road. Moving back to Cornwall is a out of the question too, as it's an hour and a half to the nearest casino and I can't get by on the monthly £7 freezeout in the old British Legion. £5 buy in with £2 juice. I don't care how many wars you fought in, even the Germans would scoff at 40% rake.
I've narrowed it down to Malta or Estonia and I have the following pros and cons for each.
MaltaPROS- Closest to home - direct flights every other day or so for cheap
- Pretty much everyone speaks English
- Seems super chilled with a slow pace for everything.
- Cost of living is cheap
- Tons of poker players already there
- Several casinos
- Reasonable rent, even better if you can share an apartment
- Tiny island, can get from one side to the other in about an hour
- Nice weather
CONS- Apparently almost every cheap-ish apartment listed online is bullshit and they're all pretty shabby in reality.
- Lots of opportunity to degen with 3 casinos within 30 mins and cheap booze.
- Pain in the arse to ship all my gear over, new electronics are pretty expensive.
- Locals can be unfriendly
- Mad amounts of bureaucracy, everything is paperwork that takes forever
Estonia PROS- Unique location
- Almost everyone speaks English
- Tallinn is a very technologically advanced city
- Cost of living is great, all apartments fully furnished
- Prefer cold weather to hot
- Estonian Tinder is amazing according to other people living there.
- Casino and Poker clubs in the City.
CONS- Pain in the arse to get to, no direct flights from UK.
- Can't live anywhere other than Tallinn
- Mental for snow some of the year
- Can't read Estonian
- May be limited as to what poker sites are legally available (No Pokerstars.com, only .EU etc)
Malta is winning slightly, if only for the ability to fly back and forth to England for under £100 return. Moving away would really force me to commit myself as hard as I can, and not have the safety net of being able to live at home. Worst comes to worst, I can get a job working at Betfair or something I suppose.
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Mini GPS is in Luton as I type. I was all set to go down and play a full schedule for it, but I haven't been. I haven't found the energy or the time to go down after being back on the night shifts for the past couple of weeks. I'm a bit disappointed as it looked like great value and more enjoyable than the 25/25 if only for the fact that a small venue like Luton Genting is holding a decent field event on the higher end of the 'small buyin' comps.
I played a couple of satellites to it on the Genting software, and after Misclick shoving into the nuts for the first bullet, and then doing my re-entry in vs a total punter (who was also engaged in the most obvious chip dumping I've ever seen) with my AK vs his 67 for 30bb all in pre, I just couldn't really be bothered to be in for £300 + expenses + potential extra bullet for a £200 comp. The iPoker software really is the nut low and I usually refuse to play on it, but it was a good value satellite for what it's worth. Plus Shane was going to take a chunk of the action, but seeing as he is on a hideous downswing at the moment I thought I'd save him the £140 or so.
I really wanted to play the DC event tonight seeing as my mixed game has come on leaps and bounds in the past few months, but I didn't wake up in time to get there before it started. I have a thing about late registering for live comps. It's just a weird superstition I have, and I feel uncomfortable for the first couple of levels if I do. Plus people love to knock in 300bb at 25/50 and I like to be there when it happens.
Out of the 6 DC comps I have played in Luton, I've won two with a second and a fourth to go with it. LOL sample size, but a lot of the field in these things just pot themselves to death in the first few levels like it's the only bet option available. A couple of the stronger DC cash game players like Jonny Vac are in Day 2 of the GPS Main as well, which would have made my life a lot easier if I played.
The only issue I have with DC at Genting is that they have a tiny amount of games to choose from. Irish - 4/5/6 - Courchevel - Superstud and Superlowball. Have we not passed the point where Irish is basically just taking up space and replace it with a game that's more popular these days like 2-7 or Badugi? You might get one hand of Irish in a DC comp from Terry who picks it for a laugh to throw everyone off, and it's almost never picked in cash games. Last week a few of us were messing about playing Badugi and Double Turn/Double River Omaha and that was more fun than playing the same old DC games. Just trying to emphasize the 'Choice' in the phrase 'Dealers' Choice'.
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I played the first live comp back from Vegas at Genting last week. £20 unlimited rebuy with a £10 addon at the break. I didn't know it was unlimited rebuy or addon until they announced it, so I was being a total nitball for no reason and was very confused by everyone shipping it in like loons on the last level before cigarette time.
Had to take one rebuy after I butchered a hand vs a bit of a fun player and he got there on the river.
Raise
to 300 at 50/100 from the Cutoff and get one caller out of the BB.
The guy who called just calls every hand and has shown down
,
and
in the past 3 hands, all called down the river with some marginal pair that is never good.
FLOP -
He leads for 1000 as an overbet, which I think is far too weird so I raise him to 2300 and he just calls.
TURN -
He checks and I bet 2700, and he shoves for 5200. This is where I screwed the hand up. I thought he had 2x black 5k chips and some change, but he actually had 1 black 5k chip and a black card protector on top of his chips which were on his cards. From my seat I can't see the slight difference in size between the two. It's not an intentional angle, just one of those things.
I have to sigh call it off with my 5 outs or whatever and he flips up
. Somehow despite me turning this hand into a car crash, we are winning.
Until he spikes a
on the end. Who knows eh.
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On the second bullet we breeze through fairly well, get AA in vs K4 on 934r when we just get straight shoved into for like 40bb for a big double up. Sit on 120k for second break with 2 tables left and about 1.2mil in play.
Then I cock another hand up.
on the button at 1500/3000/300.
I open for 7000.
Andy Lyew 3bets to 20,000
Some geezer cold calls out of the BB
I decide to peel the button getting a solid price now.
Flop is
Andy checks
Other guy just rips it all in for like 90k
I am stuck in no mans land and now think it's infinitely better to just 4b shove pre now because I am like 80% sure Andy is 3betting wide here.
I tank call it off because I figure that this guy has either just overcalled with 66-TT or some random Ax of hearts that he decided not to fold. Sucks if he has a set, but if Andy is setting up a check raise after I bet like 23k in position with top pair, then he is gravy and gets it all.
He has
, and binks the
on the turn.
Yet again we do in decent chips by taking late stage flips we didn't really need to take.
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Cash games were super sparse tonight on Skimpot road. Just me and this other kid waiting for people to come along. I tried reeling some
victims willing contenders in, but nobody would take it. So we played heads up for a bit, then we figured we were just treading water so we did PLO flips instead running it twice. They didn't rake us during this which was nice. Managed to finally lose both runs and do in £120 while everyone else who busted seem to be winning chunks on the blackjack.
We had to adhere to the rules by pot/pot/pot/potting until we were all in, despite my requests to make the game £25/£50 PLO to get around this very minor annoyance. Apparently saying "yeah but you can tell people there was a £25/£50 game here!" came across a little patronizing for a small cardroom.
I'm starting to prefer Genting to the G now, and it seems other people are as well. Apparently there was some huge cock up at a late night cash game a few weeks ago where several people were all in and a couple just jammed stacks in so hard that Tom the dealer couldn't do a sidepot because all the chips went flying into the middle of the pot and nobody knew who had how much etc. So the he just said "fuck this", put the deck down and quit on the spot because everyone else went home and there was no floor to fix things. He works at Genting now, surprise to see him there but he is my favourite dealer and usually brings the run good.
Out of curiosity - if you were the floor, how would you fix this?
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Online has been pretty deece this week as well. Went back to back in Pokerstars comps for double victory. Won the $27 No Limit 2-7 Single Draw and the a $2.20 2-7 Triple Draw the night after. A balling total win of $660. Which got us out of the close to 200 big bet downswing in the limit mixed games that week.
Just need that live win that has been avoiding me since November of last year. We've had a couple of silver medals, but really want to get hold of a live win just to get this monkey off my back.
Using my yearly one time for a £25 Luton comp. Seems like not much as changed in the last year after all!
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