Rubbing shoulders on Ladbrokes and at DTD...

I made quite a good start to the Ladbrokes WSOP League, finishing 8th of 441 in leg 1. This paid $320, enough to cover the buy-ins for the remainder of the series and scoring 93 points for our team (The Founder Members)... team total - 93 points!!! C'mon chaps keep your end up! :-)

I had some rather illustrious company at my starting table, in the shape of 2007 WSOP Main Event 5th place finalist, Jon "skalie" Kalmar. Other notables in the field of this $20 freezeout were Paul "actionjack" Jackson and Roy "ROYTHEBOY" Brindley... none of whom made the final table.

On to Sunday then... me and Rich head to Nottingham for the £6.5k guaranteed, £100 freezeout at Dusk Till Dawn. On entry to the cardroom, a glance at the list of entries, on one of many TV screens around the room, reveals two surprises. Firstly, with just 15 mins to go to the start time, there are only 27 players registered and secondly, one of those 27 is Dave "Devilfish" Ulliott! Neither Rich or myself are drawn on Devilfish's table... is that good or bad? I'm not sure.

By the time the tourney starts there are 32 players on 5 (9 seat) tables. This was a massive overlay, £3520 taken (if you include the £10 reg fees), and £6500 guaranteed prize pool. However, since we started with 5 tables and a capacity of 45, then it was clear they were expecting (maybe just hoping for) a reasonable number of late entries. (Note: Late entries and Alternates are allowed for the first hour of the tournament.)

The empty seats did indeed fill and one or two alternates were seated as players were eliminated. Then, with 8 mins remaining in level 2 a quite surprising and, as far as I'm aware, unprecedented thing occurs... the clock is stopped and an announcement is made that there are still 7 alternates waiting and that they are going to open another table to allow them all to play!

What really prompted this decision I guess we'll never know... was it because most of these 7 players were quite 'well in', high profile names or was it perhaps, as many were muttering, due to the still large overlay that the management would have to fund. I suspect it was the former as they did increase the prize pool to £7k. One thing I think is certain, if it had been 7 'nobodys' waiting then there wouldn't have been an extra table opened.

So, the tournament finally re-starts, they had moved one guy from my table and another had picked-up his chips and gone to get his money back, in protest at the goings-on. Two of the 'magnificent seven' fill the empty seats... sat on my right, Simon "Chubby" Nowab, World Heads-Up finalist a couple of years ago and two to my left appeared Paul "actionjack" Jackson. Rich had shrinking violet and GUKPT winner, Barry Neville take up residence on his right, in a seat earlier vacated by pro-player and blonde forum legend, Tom "Red-Dog" McCready.

Nothing much to report in the way of memorable hands, I held my own on that first table and had about 8k (5k starting stack) chips when I was moved to re-balance tables. This was the beginning of my end really, blinds and antes starting to bite, moved to new table with 8 players I had never seen before and a run of really crap cards. About 30 mins later and down to about 4k chips, this table was broken and I move to Rich's starting table (he has since been moved to another), two seats to left of Mr Neville... not going to be much pressure on my big blind then!!

The end came towards the end of level 7 (50 ante and 200/400 blinds), I push my last 3k in with AQ from mid position, only to get called by AK in the BB. I counted 19 people still seated at the three remaining tables, so by my reckoning I was 20th... in the top half, but still far from the money (7 places). By the time I got to the bar, Rich had been there long enough to order a sandwich!

I start to watch Rich eat his sandwich but decide the cash games might be more fun, so leave him to finish in peace.

A new 50p/£1 NL cash table had just been opened and there were three people seated when I got there. I bought in for the max £100 and we were soon joined by another player and the game started five-handed. I don't whether it was me or another player that looked fishy, but almost immediately two players left another table to join us!

What a difference to the tournament... I was still getting crap cards, but the board was hitting me big time. By the time Rich joined in, after finishing his panini and getting one of the valets to put him over her shoulder and burp him, I was up to about £250. I maintained a stack of between £200 and £250 for an hour so before the table dynamic changed completely with the arrival of a local maniac. There was money a plenty available to the patient man with this guy around, but I decided discretion was the better part of valour for this evening (morning!) and cashed out when my stack hit £211, recouping my £110 tournament buy-in with an extra shiny £1 chip left over. :-)

As for online, I'm still playing a few $20 STTs on Full Tilt (yes, discipline and bankroll management right out of the window!), but at the moment it's like trying to climb a sand dune... two steps forward, one back, followed by two steps forward and three back. I'll persevere 'til the end of the month, for a full month's rakeback, and then re-assess.

I've got some good news and some bad news...

First the good news... I have finally managed to end my 'drought' at the toughest game in town. I pocketed 1st place money in the £10 freezeout at The Pigeons, on Sunday night; the princely sum of £60! :-)

And now the bad news... After finishing 1st in my last two live tourneys, but against my better judgment, I decide to play the rush and head over to The Fox on Monday night for a £10 Omaha re-buy... so that will be a net loss of about £30 over the two days then, FFS! :-(

And some more bad news... a run of 11 straight $10 STTs without a cash saw my resolve and discipline stretched beyond it's breaking point. With just $78 left in my Full Tilt account, I go on 'full tilt' and enter a couple of $30 STTs. I actually came second in one and bubbled in the other!

And a little better news... I played four $20 STTs tonight and finished in 8th, 1st, 2nd & 3rd. The FT balance is back to a little under $200 and I'm still in the game. :-)

And finally, just some news... Paul, myself and two others will taking part, as a team, in a WSOP promotion on Ladbrokes. A series of 14 (I think) $20 + $2 MTTs, with the each member of the winning team getting a $14000 package to play in the WSOP main event.

The Fox Hall of Fame...

So, there I was sitting, refecting on my superb performance - in chopping the £50 freezeout, when heads-up, at the Fox on Monday night - while allowing Coronation Street to flow straight in one ear and out the other... And I decided that, all in all, the overall standard in this little game, tucked away in the Cotswolds, is pretty darned good.

I went through the latest league table and searched for entries in The Hendon Mob poker database... 13 members have entries in THM dbase, covering 18 tournament cashes, in 4 countries over 2 continents. 10 of them are regulars in a game that generally gets 30 - 35 players. Only 6 of the 13 are actually in the top 16 in the league, which, I think, only endorses the high overall standard.

The $10 STT story is not so happy... 9 more tourneys played, with honours more or less even over the first 5 of them, but then it all went 'tits up' and four 'out of the money' finishes in a row has seen the profit drop to about $150. So, currently on a couple of days break to get the bad beats out my system.

The new (fairly) disciplined Rio...

Almost one week into my latest, disciplined, bankroll managed foray into online poker... I have almost stuck to my plan of only playing STTs - a couple of $26 MTTs for no return and about an hour cash session (10c/25c) for a $43 profit.


I have only played $10 STTs, 21 of them, usually 2 at a time in short sessions... showing a profit of $192.


I'm pretty happy with the way it's gone so far, 57% finish in the money is OK but I would prefer that figure to be closer to 65%. It's only a small sample number, so too soon really to be drawing any conlclusions.

Roll on week two!

What's wrong with February?

While others are giving February a hard time, I have grit my teeth and charged headlong into it with a new resolve and determination. I have had my break from online poker, barring a couple of APAT tournaments and the Virgin Festival Satellite. I have said goodbye to iPoker software (Blue Square) - which alas means no more APAT online tournaments - and returned to what is probably my favoutite poker site, Full Tilt.


I am returning to what has always been the most profitable form of poker for me - NLHE single table tournaments. I AM (repeat to self, I AM) going to operate a sensible bankroll management stategy and over the next few years I WILL win enough money to see me through my old age!

And in other news... last Monday was a £30 HOS freezeout, at Barrington, one blind level each PLHE - PLO - PL7S in rotation. All was going swimmingly until the second stud round, when I was dealt 3 cards to a straight, 4th street gave me an open ended straight and with none of my outs visible I proceeded to call off most my chips chasing the straight!! Doh!

The only other outing was The Pigeons last night and the least said about that the better.

So that's it then... February? Bring it on... a new dawn!

And another month goes by...

It's difficult finding the enthusiasm to update a poker blog when you're not playing much poker. I am still not playing online very much, just picking out a few tournaments here and there... mostly the $10 APAT tournaments, managing to pick up another bronze medal in one of them, but otherwise making early exits.

There is another Virgin Poker Festival coming up in April, this time at proper casino that sells Guiness - the excellent Aspers, in Newcastle. Again entry to this £105, two day event, can only be obtained by winning an online satellite... I played my first one last night, a €5 re-buy and won a festival seat at the first attempt, with only €10 invested. I need to find to hotel closer than the airport this time though... £20 cab rides back put unecessary strain on the finances!!

For some unknown reason I entered a $100 (total prize pool) freeroll on dtdpoker earlier in the week... 2755 runners and 100 paid, after about 3 hours I busted out 117th just short of the cash and a 30c payday!! Strangely I seemed to play much better in this than I have been inthe APAT tournaments??

As for live poker, 'The Mob' had a group outing to Dusk Til Dawn just after Christmas, for a £50 freezeout, unfortunately Rich didn't bother pre-registering online and the tourney was sold out by the time we got there, I think he was about 50th on the 'Alternates List'. Neither myself nor Paul came close to troubling the cashier... I also went on to lose a buy-in in a £1/£2 cash game, so not a very successful trip really.

Next was the APAT Welsh Championships, at the Grosvenor Casino in Cardiff, myself and Rich representing 'The Mob'... I lasted almost to the end of the second level!!! I'm not one for 'bad beat stories' but I did lose most of my chips when my 'nut' flush got rivered by a straight flush... I then went on to have a flopped full boat beaten by quads!

Two trips to The Fox, at Barrington, saw me stand up before the break in a £10 re-buy... with £50 invested, I could just tell it wasn't going to be night! The second visit, for last Monday's £50 D/C freezeout, saw me taking 4th place money. I had been going quite nicely all night, the wheels finally falling off just short of the finish line when my AK didn't improve against QQ... no way out of that really when you're 4 handed.

GC shoots Government in the foot...

For a few years now the Labour government has been trying to tempt online poker sites to set-up and be regulated in the UK... obviously they can see that they are missing out on a very lucrative tax income. It would appear that the UK Gambling Commision are not singing from the same hymn sheet...

(Copied from http://www.aworldofpoker.com/news.php?id=218)

UK Gambling Commision Bans UK Operators

UK Gambling Commision Bans UK Operators from Offering Overseas Event Seats. New ruling by the GC will change the face of satellites to overseas events for British Poker players.

UK gambling licensees were told by the UK Gambling Commission that they are no longer allowed to offer seats to tournaments outside of the Commission approved white list areas. The impact is obvious, with any UK-based operators holding satellites to non-UK poker events. The ruling was made as offering prizes outside of the UK advertises non-UK approved events, hence violating the Gambling Act of 2005.

Section 331 of the Act details that a person commits and offence if they “advertise foreign gambling other than a lottery.” Initially the clause was inserted to distinguish which operators were allowed to advertise on television, but it has since become evident it doesn’t apply just to the direct form of advertising referenced.

A release from the Commission said, that 'unless the overseas tournament is based in the European Economic Area, Gibraltar, or in white-listed jurisdictions, the advert is likely to amount to the advertising of 'foreign gambling,' which constitutes an offence under Section 331 of the Gambling Act 2005.”

It is not totally clear how the legislation will affect poker sites offering satellites to events like the WSOP, EPT and Aussie Millions, although most of the online poker rooms are not based in the UK. Statements clarifying the positions of the online firms are expected in coming days.

Brick and mortar venues will certainly be affected though, and for many of the new pub league initiatives which have come about in the last 18 months, this will be a major blow as some offer seats to the WSOP or other events abroad. Those who are found guilty of violating Section 331 could face up to 51 weeks in prison and a fine.

Has it really been a month?

How time flies… apologies to my reader for neglecting this diary for nearly a month.

Since the PokerStars Steps debacle I have officially given up with online poker… twice!! I have deleted all poker client software from my laptop - except Dusk Til Dawn, as you can buy-in to their live tournaments via the online poker room; and Blue Square, for the occasional attempt at an APAT online satellite.

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At the end of November I played in the inaugural Virgin Poker Festival, at the Broadway Casino in Birmingham. The tournament went OK (wheels didn't fall off 'til fairly late in the evening) and the Virgin staff did their best to make it a fun weekend, BUT I'm afraid no amount of effort on their part could gloss over the horrendous mistake that had been made with this choice of venue - NO GUINESS!!! - Come on Virgin, get your act together. :-) (A little bird tells me that the 2nd Virgin Poker Festival is being considered for next springtime, at Aspers in Newcastle… Top venue, believe me).

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The Friday after the Virgin tourney I was due to take part in the 'invite only' Dusk Till Dawn opening weekend £100 freezeout, but in the end decided to leave it until after christmas for my first visit - just too many events one after the other… and the less said about the Pigeons game on Sunday the better!!

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The very next weekend was the APAT UK Championships at the G Casino in Manchester… I had really been looking forward to this one, with Ricky Hatton fighting in Vegas on the Saturday night (Sun morning), I was expecting the atmosphere in the casino to be superb. Well, the weekend started badly and didn't really improve!

About 4.00pm Friday evening my car radiator decided to spring a leak, a few miles from home… after an hours wait in a freezing cold car the breakdown truck turned up and took me home. Since I had it on good authority that the G Casino in Manchester would have Guiness (thanks Dewi), I decided that the car could wait 'til Monday and set about checking the train times for Saturday morning.

So, up at 6.00am on Saturday morning... showered, fed & watered and out the door at 7.00 for the 5 minute walk to the bus stop, followed by a 20 min wait for a bus! Arrive at Oxford Station in good time for the 8.36 train to Manchester Picadilly… at least the train was on time and I eventually got a seat (after Birmingham International). Somewhere around Stockport it started raining - it didn't stop raining until just south of Macclesfield, on the way home, Sunday! Arrived in Manchester, at about the same time as Paul 'the game' and bumped into him at the metro station… 3 stops on the tram to Victoria and then about a mile by taxi and we are at the casino by about 12.30.

For the most part I was pretty happy with the way I played the tournament and the only real error was my last hand, it was about about 10.30pm and I had been up for 18 hours - well that's my excuse… I mis-read a large raise from the cut-off as an attempt to steal my BB, I moved in over the top with A4s… unfortunately matey had AKo and called without too much hesitation… that, as they say, was that!

So a few hours to kill before the Hatton fight, time for beer then… and you'll never guess who I found at the bar? No, not Des Duffy… but none other than young Dewi. It would have been rude not join him wouldn't it?

A 'couple' of beers later I see an empty seat at a £1/£1 PLHE cash game and sit down with £100. The details of the game escape me now but over the next hour or two I remember the following… being down to about £50 and getting another £40 out my wallet… being down to around £30 and getting the last £20 note out of my wallet… being down to exactly £12 and saying, "I won't need much to get this last £12 in the middle!"… next hand getting it all-in pre-flop with J9s and getting 3 callers… a Jack high flop and a 9 on the river, giving me the main pot of about £50… 'the game' appearing at my shoulder (he had just been knocked out of the tourney), getting all-in, for something over £100, on the turn with TPTK and the Nut-Flush draw… catching the flush on the river to beat a flopped straight… and finally cashing-out about £320!! :-) Time for more beer!

Suprisingly, Dewi was nowhere to be seen… apparently he had become overwhelmed with excitement and anticipation (or Guiness) while waiting for the boxing, that he had passed out somewhere and had to be assisted back to his hotel… About 3.30am a few of us decide to take up residence soewhere with a decent view of a TV in good time so as to be assured a good view of the fight, and we wait… and we wait… the bar closes… and we wait… and we wait… and finally, sometime around 5.00am, the fight starts. 10 rounds later and a rather dissappointing fight is over and the whole world and his dog pile out of the casino looking for a taxi… there are none to be had!! Now the hotel is about 3 miles away and I don't fancy that walk through some of the less salubrious areas of Greater Manchester. So I am just about ready to walk the mile or so back to Victoria station when a familiar face emerges from the casino (GiMac), who I know is staying at the same hotel… that's 'andy 'Arry!

And finally to bed at about 6.00am… not a day I want to repeat in a hurry!

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Leg 3 of the APAT Regional Series, Bristol Harbourside, on Saturday 15th Dec, saw both me and 'Golden Delicious' make early exits… we both showed a small profit at BlackJack though so not all bad.

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On Monday I made a half-hearted attempt to win a seat at the APAT Welsh Championships in the $22 satellite on Blue Square, not really bothered about spending a weekend in Cardiff, in January… Remember the saying, "Be careful what you wish for!"… I had a complete maniac seated to my right, he had been making, and showing, outrageous all-in bluffs as well as simply overbetting real hands… "Your time will come", I think to myself… and so it comes to pass, a few limpers including Dr Maniac, I raise it up 10xBB with QQ… just one caller, you can guess who… flop 223 rainbow… Dr Maniac checks, I bet the pot, he calls… "Great", I think… turn 3… "Excellent, please let him have an Ace", I think, as I push all-in. Hoping that he will put me on an Ace and think he's calling to split the pot. Call he does, with A4o… Get in there!... River 5. And that's all I have to say about that!

At least I'm good at 'clickfests'. :-)

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So there we are bang upto date again, I will try and keep it that way!

A couple of steps closer to the Caribbean...

… I'm sitting at the other end of the sofa!!

I'm afraid my long term in-ability to beat the SnGs on PokerStars, at any level, was just too much of an obstacle to overcome in my quest for a little winter sunshine at the EPT PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. After two more frustrating sessions my $209 (£100) budget was reduced to 50c and I have conceded defeat… Head is hanging in shame! :-(

It's not all bad news though, in an attempt to 'tilt-off' my last 50c I actually ended up with $1.59, playing 1c/2c Limit Omaha H/L. Who knows? I may get it back up to $7.50 and have one more crack at it… no wait! I have a better idea, I'll just withdraw it and buy a pint of Guinness. (hmmm, will $7.50 still be enough to get a pint??)

I don't know what it is about SnGs on Stars, I just don't seem to be able to show a profit - as is plain to see by anyone that uses sharkscope.com - yet on most other sites I have played on regularly, SnGs have always been my most reliable method of making a shilling or two… one of life's great mysteries I guess? :-)

Oh well, who cares about all that… live poker to look forward to tomorrow. It's the two day Virgin Poker Festival at the Broadway Casino, in Birmingham. I won my £105 seat in my second attempt at the $10 online satellites way back in September, with 200 runners and £5000 added by Virgin, it adds up to a nice bit of value on offer. I just hope I make it to the second day and into the money.

In search of Atlantis (Session 7)...

Well one week in and it's right back to square one! I played both the Step 3 and the Step 4 tournaments last night - dumped out of both, with no return... Go direct to Jail, do not pass Go, do not collect £200!! :-(

Played the Step 3 first, things were going quite nicely, until I pick up KK and this happens - http://www.pokerhand.org/?1711481 - Shortly after I push my last 865 chips in with AKs and run into QQ!

And then, 2nd hand of Step 4, KK again - http://www.pokerhand.org/?1711470 - The odds of me winning, as this hand progressed were as follows...

Pre-Flop 70/30
On the Flop 87/13
On the Turn 91/9

I think that classifies as a 'bad beat'.
It's a cruel, cruel game!

Going to take a day off today and go to church, in search of divine inspiration.