Welcome

Hello all, welcome to my online poker blog.

I've been playing on and off for a decade after being introduced by a friend.

I played regularly for a few years during the poker boom and had a decent record at the micros, particularly Rush and Zoom No Limit Hold'em games (here's one of my graphs).

Around 2012 I began a new career which involved immersing myself completely in study in my spare time, so I had little to no time for poker. However recently this burden has eased and so I have been gradually dipping back in.

I'm an amateur player who still hopes to some day beat the rake.





Tuesday 31 July 2012

Poker Stars buys Full Tilt Poker

Diamond Flush Poker News has all of the details.
NVG (2+2) has a lot of happy people.

Personally, I'm chuffed. I thought that I'd lost my money forever. It's not a life changing amount, but it is almost like another months salary. It will enable me to play the next limit comfortably (although whether I will or not I'm not sure, I think I'll play a little at 50NL but most of my hands at 25NL while I continue to leak fix).

To Poker Stars, I thank you. May the integrity that you continue to show bring you the rewards you obviously deserve.

To any other readers of this blog, if you EVER catch me playing somewhere other than Stars or Full Tilt in the future, then I deserve to be severely reprimanded.

GL!


Tuesday 24 July 2012

Time is once again mine!

Good evening! From a negative post to a positive one! I passed my driving test yesterday with one minor, so all that hard work ended up paying off. It's such a relief that it's over, and all the stress was worth it for the elation I felt when told that I'd passed. And now that it's done, I've now got time free again! Which means poker.

Edit:

It's great to be able to play again. To get in from work and have a free evening, or have a weekend day to myself without the need to spend 3 hours driving. It's also an amazing thing to be able to drive with the added freedom that I feel that I have now. It was worth all of the hassle for me.

I have put in a  few hours this week. I'm about 15k hands away from the 50k hand mark at 25NL Zoom. Once I've got there I'll put up my rather mediocre results and then perhaps consider moving to 50NL.

In an effort to improve my win rates, I've begun to consider taking some more creative lines to extract more value. One line I have taken once or twice is checking great hands out of position rather than auto c-bet. Nearly every regular at these limits - and many fish too - will just bet if checked to. Earlier today I flopped top set on an AT3r. This is the sort of flop that villains are going to fold on a ton when facing a c-bet. So in situations like this I can perhaps check to induce a bluff, then pick it off and lead the turn.

Rumours are flying around that Poker Stars have completed the purchase of Full Tilt Poker. I have no idea how credible these rumours are, but if it's true that would be a good result for all of those players who had funds trapped there (including my ~$1500). I'm not going to jump on the "OMGz Monopolisation..." bandwagon; at the end of the day whatever Stars' motivation is it looks like they're putting hands into their own pockets to return funds to the poker playing masses. Fair play.

Anyway I'm going to get back to the tables and play some more! GL

Tuesday 17 July 2012

A Backseat Hobby

So little time to play lately. I had a few hands tonight, just because I wanted to play but I was so tired I made a stupid call with a straight when someone overbet shoved 10000000000000000000000000000 times pot with the obvious full house. I didn't even think about the awful risk - reward ratio, I just called "cos I got a pwetty straight".

Until I get more time to play (to make myself game sharp again) and until I don't feel so damn tired all of the time I might just cash out. And leave myself a few pennies to play with. It's just life isn't giving me much time to play poker any more, and without that constant grind I just get too rusty. My age probably affects it too; my mind needs to play often to keep my decision making sharp. Unfortunately I cannot do that currently and so I think I'm likely presently a losing player. So it's not worth the money investment and I'm better off spending my $1500 on something else.

I'll sleep on it though. I think that learning to drive is stressing me out because I'm approaching my test and doing 3hrs per day practise on top of my job. As soon as that weight is off my shoulders I may be able to give poker more time again.

But whatever, it's a pretty meagre message I'm giving out tonight. Apologies for that, and hopefully I'll be more positive in my next post. GL