The Way Ahead...

Well the dust has now settled on the St Valentine's Day Massacre... most of the money is in the bank, time to move on.

The SnG grinding wasn't at all fulfilling, even though I'm sure I would have attained my target of $1000 profit in time to pay my entry into a WSOP tournament. Clearly setting monetary targets is now a bit pointless as I'm not going to play big enough stakes, on a regular basis to ever come close to topping the warm-up win.

But if I'm to continue online pokering I do need a goal, I don't seem to be able to play just for the sake of it. So, here it is then...

You may have noticed the PocketFives.com leaderboard thingy on the left here, I put it on there as bit of joke really as it shows me ranked number one in Witney (you probably thought I was 1 of 1, but there is actually one other person from Witney)... anyway it is the Oxfordshire ranking that will now become target of pokering endeavours.

The Oxfordshire leaderboard today

I'm not too sure how the scoring works, some function of prize money and field size I believe, and I have a big gap to make up... but the target is to be the number one ranked player in Oxfordshire by the end of 2010. I've no idea how achievable it is or how good the players around me are, but there it is decision made.

Right I'd better get on with it then!

Tomorrow's Chip Wrapper...

Tomorrow's Chip Wrapper today

Amazing, the quotes contain words that I probably said, but not necessarily in the exact order that I said them. Makes you laugh really... according to the Oxford Mail the winning hand was an "Ace to Four straight." Now, maybe at the Pigeons on a Sunday that might be possible but probably not on PokerStars.

See What I Did There?

An exclusive for my loyal reader, a sneak preview of a soon to be published interview on uk.pokernews.com - LINK

LOL at them using a picture of me and Doyle Brunson and cropping the old boy out of it.

I was able to weave in a mention for a few of the regulars at the Pigeons game... how many can you find?

Proof If Proof Were Needed...

That if you sit a million monkeys at a million keyboards, eventually one of them will hit the correct combination of [FOLD], [CALL] and [RAISE] buttons to win a big online donkament.


It's a job to know what to say about it really, if I'm honest I don't really remember too much detail. There was a pivotal hand after about 90 mins, the blinds were 200/400. I had managed to get to a little under 20k chips quite early, then the guy to my right, who had nicked my BB a few times already, open raised from the SB, I moved in with the monster A4o thinking he can't call for all his chips (10k) without a real big hand... wrong! He snap called with 88. Flop came JJJ, Turn J... that'll do nicely... and just to rub salt in his wounds there was an 8 on the river. Cruel, so cruel. That put me up to 29k and I never really looked back, I think I only once dropped below average chips and then only for a few hands.

Once I had a big stack, the strategy was basically just all-out aggression. If you'e going to beat a field of 4500 pre-pubescent Scandinavian aggro-monkeys, it's no good just sitting back and waiting for the chips to come to you... they won't. Let them know that if they 3bet your raise, their next decision will be, "Do I really want to call that 4bet shove, for all my chips?"

Hark at me... talking like I know what I'm on about!

So, yes, anyway, that's about all I want to say about that... yesterday's news, tomorrow's chip wrapper. (Well, next Thursday's chip wrapper to be more precise... but more about that later.)

Now then, what other news I have neglected to pass on over the last couple of weeks?

You remember the charity swear-box challenge thing I set myself - http://riorodent.blogspot.com/2010/01/january-charity-prop-bet-of-sorts.html - well I took the box upto the Pigeons game the week before last. At the grand opening ceremony it was found to contain six of your English pound coins... Less than £20, so I doubled it as promised and Joy put it into the 'Help The Heroes' jar I believe.

That'll have to do, I've spent long enough trying to string coherent sentences together... it's not like anybody reads it anyway! Until the next time, mon braves.

I'm going to say something... soon...

as soon as I stop looking like this...