dont overplay the bannin

2010-11-21T07:50:00.000-08:00

2010-11-21T04:52:00.000-08:00

2010-10-24T12:56:00.000-07:00

2010-05-03T05:51:00.000-07:00

I had intended to post a couple of weeks ago but for some reason blogger doesnt work at home.
Last month I had a huge computer meltdown where some malware took over everything leading to me having to reformat the HD, I lost my hand history database which is inconvenient but a fresh start is nice.
April wasnt a great poker month for me and id guess i just about broke even. Theres nothing realy interesting to say on that front other than I had to withdraw a bit to pay for the car so im playing off around 7k. Im gona step down to 100nl for a bit as loseing a couple of thousand would be a big deal to me atm.

Now onto my favourite subject right now,I have some awesome pics on my phone of me using a hot water bottle, shoelaces and jump leads to try and start it but ive lost the cable to get them off.

As I hinted the car has some starting problems, thankfully this has been partially rectified by cleaning up the starter motor connections and fitting a choke cable (above).

Choke pull fitted next to battery issolator switch.

Old steering wheel.

New d-type steering wheel giving more leg room. There also a removable steering wheel boss in the pipeline which will give me more room and makes the car more secure.

Daytime running lights fitted.

Managed to leave the fuel cap off at the petrol station so currently stuffed with a rag.

Bought some toggle switches for when i get around to replacing the dash which could do with a spruce up.

One of the racing tyres has a slow puncture so needs replacing.

spin up attempt

2010-03-20T11:43:00.000-07:00

18:00 $100
Right i have $100 sitting in my pokerstars account and an evening free so might as well try a spin up instead of the grind. The target is $1000, ill start small but will most likely need to gamble it up come the end of the night to have a chance.

18:52 $117
Played a few small, $4-$10 range, tourns and sitngoes so far and despite being disconnected for a lot of it ran good to finish up.

19:54 $112
Have been playing a few $6.5 turbos but am still having connection problems so gona switch to HU cash.

20:07 $0
13 hands was all it took :-( all of them horrifically played by me.

new car

2010-03-14T09:26:00.000-07:00

Just made a very frivolous and possibly stupid purchase, but ive been wanting one of these for years so what the hell. It cost a rediculous 5.5k, i barely fit in it and ill have to run two cars but i dont even care.
In other news i got a full tilt "i bust a pro" t-shirt in the post today that i had forgotten about, managed 2nd in poker soc last night after breaking AA on the bubble with my Q5 and i had a $1.1k day last week which was nice.

Hope your all well, Isaac.

life update

2010-03-03T15:45:00.000-08:00

Again I have left it a long time between posts but tbh it’s because I haven’t got anything that interesting to say. You can be sure that if I $h1pped anything big id be on here instantly bragging about it.

Firstly university, I’ve applied to various economics based courses, so far I have been accepted to Sheffield, Cardiff and Swansea. I have been rejected from Durham and am waiting on Warwick. This means that I definitely won’t be in Durham in September, this is unfortunate but I can take some solace in the fact that the friends I knew best have either left already are leaving this year or will be gone by my 2nd year. So I think I will go to Cardiff as its closer to home and it’s in Cymru.

Travel wise me and a group of Durham lads are heading to Barcelona for a week in June so really looking forward to that. Vegas is still up in the air this year but if I do end up going id want to coincide with the ME (wouldn’t be able to play it but the buzz would be cool). I’ve also got an urge to go too Vancouver I wonder why.

Managed to play the £300 DTD monthly event in notts with 147 and ptevey no cashes but we still had a ball catching a glimpse of chip shop girl and bowling alley girl.
Online tourns I’ve played a few 215s only managing a min cash in the mill. I’m now playing the majority of cash at the 1 2 level which is a step forward and even though I try not to follow short term results ptr has me up $4,800 on ft at 200nl, I’m not sure how close that is to the real figure. Unfortunately this is only over 25k hands highlighting what is probably the biggest obstacle to me taking poker to the next level, the lack of volume.

I’ve had a rollercoaster ride in the stock markets notably where I went down about 1.2k in a fortnight; I’m up at the moment but nothing life changing. I’ve also take up contract bridge which is like a different language to me but quite fun so am trying to improve.

its been an embarrassing long time since ive posted

2009-10-09T03:43:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update, since last time ive been to vegas which was just sick. I finished up in poker but not enough to make a serious dent in expenditure.
We basically did all the touristy stuff saw shows (santana and circ), grand canyon hellicopter ride, downtown, strat rides, bellagio buffet, shopping etc etc.
The camera i took was crap so most of the pics were useless but max took some good ones which are now on fb.

Life wise im no longer a student but am living up in durham this year anyway. I have lots of different ideas of what im going to be doing this year but wont outline them right now just incase they dont happen. Im off to ireland in a couple of weeks so wont be sorting/planning things till next month.

As always plans are money dependant so i may have to get a job at some point. It would be nice if i could make decent money from poker but thats easier said than done. Im also doing quite well in the stock market and am holding investments in 7 different companies atm.

Poker wise im trying out an idea 147 had, basically i seem to dabble in most forms of poker and lack direction, so im playing a week of each form to try and find what game is for me.
So far ive done tournaments and 9man turbos, i dont think tournaments are right for me because halfway through an 8 hour session i cant concentrate anymore and my standard deteriorates. I played $600 worth of tourns and cashed for $200 so -$400 overall.
9 tabling the $16 9man turbos turned out better and i was up $200, enjoyed playing these so they are a possibility.

$9827

2009-07-31T07:26:00.000-07:00

I have just narrowly avoided having my third consecutive loseing month, a late surge over the last few days brings me about even for july. Ive stopped playing tournaments for the time being as the sharkscope above shows they were becomming too costly. Other than all that my bankroll is healthy and ive just had a nice upswing so alls well.

Ive stopped being an ignorant twat and given HUSNGS a try this week the $11.5 turbos played 30 with a 20% ROI, i was amazed at how quick they can be and there still be actual play in them.

Investments are going well im up 10% overall with RIO TINTO being the best with a 26% return. The markets are quite volitile but its nice to start off on the up.

$9100

2009-07-15T04:53:00.000-07:00

At this moment in time i have no idea what im going to be doing next year, i have been trying to change course to economics for october however their well oversubscribed this year and its all about quota numbers to the department.

Im now very looking forward to the vegas trip especially as i have never actually been outside the UK before (i have a first passport application in atm so im sweating that all working out so i can actually go). Were gona spend two weeks on the strip staying at Ballys. Hopefully ill make some money between now and then so i can feel confident to jump straight onto the 2 5 tables in vegas.

I also made my first investment on monday in the mining company Rio Tinto which im up 7% on, im gona make a few more investments and hopefully in the process increace my understanding of investing and the markets.

$8500

2009-07-05T03:38:00.000-07:00

I nearly achieved my aim last month where i recovered to $9800 but since then it has been down all the way. I seem to be having huge short term variance lately the likes of i have never experienced before. The graph is the last two months.

I had an interesting situation last night on a 100nl fr table where i was sat to the left of a 80 50 who would pot it nearly every flop and turn, obv i then managed to stack off about four times to him:

$100.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Saturday, July 04, 02:08:38 ET 2009
Table McKnight (Real Money)
Seat 3 is the button
Seat 1: Weiselzelle ( $79.00 USD )
Seat 2: LaRoosk ( $103.95 USD )
Seat 3: nicoleholiday ( $20.00 USD )
Seat 4: WishForWings24 ( $82.10 USD )
Seat 5: Mr_Rahl ( $125.30 USD )
Seat 6: ilwulocal4 ( $103.90 USD )
Seat 7: Frankang ( $94.10 USD )
Seat 8: berserk57100 ( $36.50 USD )
Seat 9: ist4o ( $20.00 USD )
WishForWings24 posts small blind [$0.50 USD].
Mr_Rahl posts big blind [$1.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Mr_Rahl [ Ah Ks ]
ilwulocal4 folds
Frankang folds
berserk57100 folds
Weiselzelle folds
LaRoosk folds
nicoleholiday folds
WishForWings24 calls [$0.50 USD]
Mr_Rahl raises [$3.00 USD]
WishForWings24 raises [$6.00 USD]
Mr_Rahl raises [$21.00 USD]
WishForWings24 raises [$75.10 USD]
Mr_Rahl calls [$57.10 USD]
WishForWings24 shows [Kc, Kd ]
Mr_Rahl shows [Ah, Ks ]
** Dealing Flop ** [ Kh, 8s, 3c ]
** Dealing Turn ** [ Th ]
** Dealing River ** [ 9c ]
WishForWings24 wins $161.20 USD from main pot

$100.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Saturday, July 04, 02:15:23 ET 2009
Table McKnight (Real Money)
Seat 3 is the button
Seat 1: Weiselzelle ( $78.00 USD )
Seat 2: LaRoosk ( $102.45 USD )
Seat 3: nicoleholiday ( $20.00 USD )
Seat 4: WishForWings24 ( $116.50 USD )
Seat 5: Mr_Rahl ( $124.20 USD )
Seat 6: grimreaper00 ( $19.00 USD )
Seat 7: Holly24 ( $20.00 USD )
Seat 8: berserk57100 ( $42.60 USD )
Seat 9: ist4o ( $39.40 USD )
WishForWings24 posts small blind [$0.50 USD].
Mr_Rahl posts big blind [$1.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Mr_Rahl [ Ad 6c ]
grimreaper00 folds
berserk57100 folds
ist4o folds
LaRoosk folds
nicoleholiday folds
WishForWings24 raises [$8.50 USD]
Mr_Rahl raises [$123.20 USD]
WishForWings24 folds
Mr_Rahl wins $115.20 USD
Mr_Rahl wins $18.00 USD from main pot

$100.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Saturday, July 04, 02:30:17 ET 2009
Table McKnight (Real Money)
Seat 9 is the button
Seat 1: X1001 ( $19.00 USD )
Seat 2: LaRoosk ( $100.00 USD )
Seat 3: Heatshock ( $20.00 USD )
Seat 4: WishForWings24 ( $152.40 USD )
Seat 5: Mr_Rahl ( $121.20 USD )
Seat 6: pepesamoan ( $39.50 USD )
Seat 7: Holly24 ( $20.00 USD )
Seat 8: berserk57100 ( $73.70 USD )
Seat 9: val2507 ( $42.00 USD )
X1001 posts small blind [$0.50 USD].
LaRoosk posts big blind [$1.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Mr_Rahl [ 6s 8d ]
WishForWings24 raises [$3.50 USD]
Mr_Rahl calls [$3.50 USD]
pepesamoan folds
berserk57100 folds
val2507 folds
X1001 folds
LaRoosk folds
** Dealing Flop ** [ As, 3c, 4h ]
WishForWings24 bets [$8.50 USD]
Mr_Rahl folds
WishForWings24 wins $8.50 USD
WishForWings24 wins $8.10 USD from main pot

$100.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Saturday, July 04, 02:32:59 ET 2009
Table McKnight (Real Money)
Seat 4 is the button
Seat 1: X1001 ( $18.50 USD )
Seat 2: LaRoosk ( $100.00 USD )
Seat 3: Heatshock ( $20.00 USD )
Seat 4: WishForWings24 ( $130.45 USD )
Seat 5: Mr_Rahl ( $107.20 USD )
Seat 6: pepesamoan ( $39.50 USD )
Seat 7: Holly24 ( $20.00 USD )
Seat 8: berserk57100 ( $73.70 USD )
Seat 9: val2507 ( $77.50 USD )
Mr_Rahl posts small blind [$0.50 USD].
pepesamoan posts big blind [$1.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Mr_Rahl [ 8s Qh ]
berserk57100 folds
val2507 folds
X1001 folds
LaRoosk folds
Heatshock folds
WishForWings24 raises [$3.50 USD]
Mr_Rahl calls [$3.00 USD]
pepesamoan folds
** Dealing Flop ** [ Tc, Qc, 4d ]
Mr_Rahl checks
WishForWings24 bets [$8.00 USD]
Mr_Rahl calls [$8.00 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 7d ]
Mr_Rahl checks
WishForWings24 bets [$24.00 USD]
Mr_Rahl calls [$24.00 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ Ad ]
Mr_Rahl checks
WishForWings24 bets [$72.00 USD]
Mr_Rahl calls [$71.70 USD]
WishForWings24 wins $0.30 USD
WishForWings24 shows [Js, Kh ]
WishForWings24 wins $212.40 USD from main pot
Mr_Rahl doesn't show [8s, Qh ]

$100.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Saturday, July 04, 02:43:07 ET 2009
Table McKnight (Real Money)
Seat 6 is the button
Seat 1: X1001 ( $16.00 USD )
Seat 2: LaRoosk ( $100.00 USD )
Seat 3: Heatshock ( $20.00 USD )
Seat 4: WishForWings24 ( $216.20 USD )
Seat 5: Mr_Rahl ( $124.80 USD )
Seat 6: pepesamoan ( $33.00 USD )
Seat 7: Holly24 ( $58.50 USD )
Seat 8: berserk57100 ( $67.70 USD )
Seat 9: val2507 ( $83.20 USD )
berserk57100 posts small blind [$0.50 USD].
val2507 posts big blind [$1.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Mr_Rahl [ Kc 4c ]
X1001 folds
LaRoosk folds
Heatshock folds
WishForWings24 raises [$3.50 USD]
Mr_Rahl calls [$3.50 USD]
pepesamoan folds
berserk57100 folds
val2507 folds
** Dealing Flop ** [ 3d, 3s, 6d ]
WishForWings24 bets [$8.50 USD]
Mr_Rahl calls [$8.50 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ Jh ]
WishForWings24 bets [$25.50 USD]
Mr_Rahl calls [$25.50 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ Jc ]
WishForWings24 bets [$76.50 USD]
Mr_Rahl calls [$76.50 USD]
WishForWings24 shows [6s, 8d ]
WishForWings24 wins $226.50 USD from main pot
Mr_Rahl doesn't show [Kc, 4c ]

$100.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Saturday, July 04, 02:43:57 ET 2009
Table McKnight (Real Money)
Seat 8 is the button
Seat 1: X1001 ( $16.00 USD )
Seat 2: LaRoosk ( $100.00 USD )
Seat 3: Heatshock ( $20.00 USD )
Seat 4: WishForWings24 ( $328.70 USD )
Seat 5: Mr_Rahl ( $100.00 USD )
Seat 6: pepesamoan ( $33.00 USD )
Seat 7: Holly24 ( $58.50 USD )
Seat 8: berserk57100 ( $67.20 USD )
Seat 9: val2507 ( $82.20 USD )
val2507 posts small blind [$0.50 USD].
X1001 posts big blind [$1.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Mr_Rahl [ 6h Ah ]
LaRoosk raises [$3.50 USD]
Heatshock folds
WishForWings24 calls [$3.50 USD]
Mr_Rahl calls [$3.50 USD]
pepesamoan folds
berserk57100 folds
val2507 calls [$3.00 USD]
X1001 folds
** Dealing Flop ** [ 3d, 6s, 8s ]
val2507 checks
LaRoosk checks
WishForWings24 bets [$15.00 USD]
Mr_Rahl calls [$15.00 USD]
val2507 folds
LaRoosk folds
** Dealing Turn ** [ Qd ]
WishForWings24 bets [$45.00 USD]
Mr_Rahl raises [$81.50 USD]
WishForWings24 calls [$36.50 USD]
Mr_Rahl shows [6h, Ah ]
WishForWings24 shows [Qs, 8c ]
** Dealing River ** [ 9h ]
WishForWings24 wins $205.00 USD from main pot

$100.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Saturday, July 04, 02:52:29 ET 2009
Table McKnight (Real Money)
Seat 1 is the button
Seat 1: X1001 ( $18.50 USD )
Seat 2: LaRoosk ( $127.50 USD )
Seat 3: Heatshock ( $20.00 USD )
Seat 4: WishForWings24 ( $475.75 USD )
Seat 5: Mr_Rahl ( $125.50 USD )
Seat 6: pepesamoan ( $31.50 USD )
Seat 7: Flying Diamond ( $20.00 USD )
Seat 8: JoeNoodles ( $100.00 USD )
Seat 9: val2507 ( $57.20 USD )
LaRoosk posts small blind [$0.50 USD].
Heatshock posts big blind [$1.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Mr_Rahl [ 6c 8c ]
WishForWings24 raises [$3.50 USD]
Mr_Rahl calls [$3.50 USD]
pepesamoan calls [$3.50 USD]
val2507 folds
X1001 folds
LaRoosk calls [$3.00 USD]
Heatshock calls [$2.50 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 9c, 7s, 4h ]
LaRoosk checks
Heatshock checks
WishForWings24 bets [$17.50 USD]
Mr_Rahl calls [$17.50 USD]
pepesamoan folds
LaRoosk folds
Heatshock folds
** Dealing Turn ** [ 9s ]
WishForWings24 checks
Mr_Rahl bets [$37.00 USD]
WishForWings24 calls [$37.00 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ Ac ]
WishForWings24 bets [$67.50 USD]
Mr_Rahl folds
WishForWings24 wins $67.50 USD
WishForWings24 wins $123.50 USD from main pot

finally getting a little back before he left

$100.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Saturday, July 04, 03:03:24 ET 2009
Table McKnight (Real Money)
Seat 4 is the button
Seat 1: X1001 ( $16.00 USD )
Seat 2: LaRoosk ( $118.00 USD )
Seat 3: Heatshock ( $26.60 USD )
Seat 4: WishForWings24 ( $415.65 USD )
Seat 5: Mr_Rahl ( $100.00 USD )
Seat 6: pepesamoan ( $59.65 USD )
Seat 7: Flying Diamond ( $18.50 USD )
Seat 8: JoeNoodles ( $130.10 USD )
Seat 9: val2507 ( $139.90 USD )
Mr_Rahl posts small blind [$0.50 USD].
pepesamoan posts big blind [$1.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Mr_Rahl [ Ad Kd ]
Flying Diamond folds
JoeNoodles folds
val2507 calls [$1.00 USD]
X1001 calls [$1.00 USD]
LaRoosk folds
Heatshock folds
WishForWings24 raises [$5.50 USD]
Mr_Rahl raises [$20.00 USD]
pepesamoan folds
val2507 folds
X1001 folds
WishForWings24 calls [$15.00 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 8d, 3s, Ac ]
Mr_Rahl bets [$79.50 USD]
WishForWings24 folds
Mr_Rahl wins $79.50 USD
Mr_Rahl wins $41.80 USD from main pot

$100.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Saturday, July 04, 03:11:29 ET 2009
Table McKnight (Real Money)
Seat 3 is the button
Seat 1: X1001 ( $18.50 USD )
Seat 2: LaRoosk ( $122.90 USD )
Seat 3: Heatshock ( $24.60 USD )
Seat 4: WishForWings24 ( $391.40 USD )
Seat 5: Mr_Rahl ( $109.80 USD )
Seat 6: pepesamoan ( $57.65 USD )
Seat 7: Flying Diamond ( $33.75 USD )
Seat 8: JoeNoodles ( $100.00 USD )
Seat 9: val2507 ( $196.40 USD )
WishForWings24 posts small blind [$0.50 USD].
Mr_Rahl posts big blind [$1.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Mr_Rahl [ 7c Qc ]
pepesamoan folds
Flying Diamond folds
JoeNoodles folds
val2507 folds
X1001 raises [$4.00 USD]
LaRoosk folds
Heatshock folds
WishForWings24 calls [$3.50 USD]
Mr_Rahl calls [$3.00 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 7s, 7d, 9h ]
WishForWings24 bets [$12.00 USD]
Mr_Rahl calls [$12.00 USD]
X1001 folds
** Dealing Turn ** [ Jd ]
WishForWings24 checks
Mr_Rahl bets [$19.00 USD]
WishForWings24 calls [$19.00 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ Qh ]
WishForWings24 bets [$36.00 USD]
Mr_Rahl raises [$74.80 USD]
WishForWings24 folds
Mr_Rahl wins $38.80 USD
Mr_Rahl wins $143.00 USD from main pot

$9050

2009-06-21T05:14:00.000-07:00

As usual the last week has been full of the ups and downs that keep life interesting, firstly we had a realy sucessful DUPS festival which was a two day tournament (40 min blinds and a 10k starting stack) and cash games on the side. I also got voted into presidency for next year without competition. I played the tournament like a genius running hot for the first day and a half however managed to throw it away in the following fashon:

We were 6 handed on the final table and on the bubble i have 120k stack which is 1/3 of the chips in play i have a realy good seat, Matt G is to my right and had been the only person to that point that has shown any sign of fighting back against my frequent pre flop raises, i have the tight players to my left and the short stacks taking up the other seats.

Blinds are 1500 3000 and Chris May opens to 7500 middle posistion im in the BB and its folded to me, i look down at T3o and am clearly not folding so flat, on reflection i think a raise would have been good here. Flop comes 783o i check call an 8k bet, turn comes a 2 i check and he shoves a 65k stack, i had no idea where he was at here so called to be shown K7 and i miss the river.

Not the end of the world i have 45k left but lose that the next hand in a battle of the blinds where i run A5 into AT but i think that was standard, congrats to Dan Curtis the eventual winner.

The event wasnt a total loss for me cos at the end of day one we stopped quite early and most people hung around for cash, Matt had the idea of hooking a laptop to the projector so someone could play online and people could watch. I ended up 4 tabling 100nl and 50nl HU in which i kept running well and in two hours was up $500-$600, having people watching probably helped my game as i kept stupid moves to a minimum. I also committed an obsenity that i have been flamed for ever since I intentionally folded AA pre flop to a raise just to see what it was like as i had never done it before. Unfortunately this was all on Matts comp so my HM graff is even more inaccurate now.

I also recieved my results on friday which were a lot worse than i thought they would be, i failed two modules with an overall average of 46%. A couple of posts ago i said i wanted to either get a decent mark or fail miserably, i guess i got what i wanted. Im not sure what im doing from this point but when I figure it out ill put it up here.

Finally we had post season pool tournament yesterday where Aidans A won without Paul proving that were not a one man team. We have won everything this year giving us 3 nice trophies for Aidans cabinet and 3 each for every team member. Perksie was treasurer this year so in charge of buying trophies ensuring we have some nice momentos.

$8421

2009-06-16T09:49:00.000-07:00

Still loseing, around $1500 this month so far mostly at 100nl but some tournies thrown in aswell. I feel im playing good poker and am def running bad so im optimistic, my aim for the rest of the month is to pull myself back up to 10k and have another go at 200nl.

$9055

2009-06-11T05:05:00.000-07:00

Right time for a fresh start, exams are over and im gona see if i can acually make some money at this game over summer.
So far it hasnt gone well i initially dabbled in 100nl HU on cake dropping about $500 also some tournaments on stars. Yesterday i made the decision to go back to 9 tabling 100nl fr until i get the feel of it back, only lost $300 there so a definate improvement.
I want to get better at this game and realise that i dont play perfect poker so im gona start reviewing all of my sessions. I was wondering how other people do this because yesterday i played 3.5k hands and cant possibly go through all of them, should i just review 50bb+ pots?

[x] exams

2009-05-17T03:12:00.000-07:00

[x] im going to write this whole post using checkboxes
[ ] i promise never to do this again
[x] it will make it easier to read than my normal spew

[x] its exam time again so havent played poker for a while
[ ] i will pass all my modules so im considering my options
[x] i could continue with physics
[x] i could cut my losses and do an economics degree
[x] i could put all my funds into hansen knockout and take my shot (hes meant to be a fish rite?)
[x] as always exam results decide this so will wait and see
[ ] i want to fail a couple of modules (would make my decision easy)
[x] getting a 22 puts me in a tough spot

[x] i have managed to put a few hours into my HU experiment this year
[ ] running bad
[x] $60 hourly
[x] graph above

[x] gona head up to the riverside to watch england beat up the windies

New car

2009-04-13T02:03:00.001-07:00

Firstly poker, i had a bad day a few days ago where i lost $700 tilting away the last $400 something i thought i could avoid. Played a load of sunday tournaments yesterday and lost about $140, played well and had a few where i could have went deep so will play then more regular.

Went to Leominster car auction last week and bought myself a car, its a ford focus estate 1.8 petrol 2000 92k miles for £700. It has a bit of bodywork damage but thats what i wanted to keep the price down and to have something with a bit more kick than my fabia. Its at the garage atm as there are a few mechanical problems (to be expected) it sounds like a wheel bearing needs replacing at the least, hopefully it wont cost me too much to get roadworthy.

2009-03-30T18:44:00.000-07:00

As usual my posts are either positive or negative dependant on how im running, fortunately this one is positive as i have finally broke 10k as my roll. Heres the best of a lot of hands in the past week:

http://cakepoker.com/en/HandHistory/Default.aspx?Hand=xczGxcTFxsTCzcTExMXDzYjMzcPFxs0%3d

$200.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Sunday, March 29, 02:27:34 ET 2009
Table Markab VI (Real Money)
Seat 6 is the button
Seat 1: XPC_Factory ( $200.00 USD )
Seat 2: Krasucki ( $194.05 USD )
Seat 3: LexPayne ( $34.00 USD )
Seat 4: Maxorero ( $59.85 USD )
Seat 5: Mr_Rahl ( $219.50 USD )
Seat 6: jlost88 ( $224.05 USD )
Seat 7: czyrsk23 ( $251.15 USD )
Seat 8: MakeIt3Bets ( $200.00 USD )
Seat 9: dymarko ( $91.30 USD )
czyrsk23 posts small blind [$1.00 USD].
MakeIt3Bets posts big blind [$2.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Mr_Rahl [ Ac Qh ]
dymarko folds
XPC_Factory folds
Krasucki calls [$2.00 USD]
LexPayne folds
Maxorero folds
Mr_Rahl raises [$8.00 USD]
jlost88 folds
czyrsk23 folds
MakeIt3Bets folds
Krasucki calls [$6.00 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 6c, Tc, 9c ]
Krasucki checks
Mr_Rahl bets [$12.00 USD]
Krasucki calls [$12.00 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 9d ]
Krasucki checks
Mr_Rahl checks
** Dealing River ** [ 8d ]
Krasucki bets [$32.00 USD]
Mr_Rahl calls [$32.00 USD]
Krasucki shows [Qc, Kh ]
Mr_Rahl shows [Ac, Qh ]
Mr_Rahl wins $104.00 USD from main pot

Car wise ive started looking for a replacement, initially i was gona get something crap but as i keep looking i keep upping the budget so we shall see what i end up with by the end of easter.

End of 2nd term

2009-03-24T16:00:00.000-07:00

Its been a long time since i posted last, dont like leaving it so long between posts but poker has taken a back seat recently. Fortunately i now have a month off and im sure to play a bit. My roll is around the $9k mark so not a lot of change. Im yet to sort a new car, wanted to go straight to a kit car but cant insure one until im 21 so on the backburner again. I got £1100 from the skoda so ill prob get a cheap runaround soon.

I heard a neil channing interview recently and was surprised to hear his views were very similar to mine especially on tournaments vrs cash and letting yourself get into tough spots.

Have the UKSPC next week that im looking forward to, hopefully ill sh1p regardless of my record playing students in poker tournaments (ill win a DUPS tournament one day).

fuck fuck FUCK

2009-02-13T16:30:00.000-08:00

ive had a rediculous day, i drove to pool practice at claypath at about 7:30 after 1 frame theres was a call that a skoda was on fire downstairs. The fire pple had already been called so there was nothing i could do but watch it burn and the occasional pop. The most likely cause is an electrical fault but its hard to say. I have fully comp insurance but the real kick in the teeth is it may be financially better for me to not claim. Im so frustrated atm that the idea of skipping next week and taking a train home is growing on me quick. If it was just the case of jumping in the car and driving id have gone hours ago.
There must be some irony that its friday the 13th today.

pokerwise i cane 3rd in an aspers donkament for £300 at some point between this post and the last one.

update

2009-02-01T07:03:00.000-08:00

Ive only managed 4 hours of my heads up cash experiment at 50nl going well so far but i expect some big swings. Im not convinced ill be able to make money at this so far rake is $4.5/100 hands thats a rediculous 9bb/100hands you have to beat it by just to break even. Despite this i'll carry on as HU cash is a muscle i want to develop.

Im playing a higher fraction of my hands at 200nl these days but i still only have a small sample. Results wise i had a nice steaking score recently but wont count that in my roll which is now about $9.5k.

$200.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Friday, January 30, 04:19:05 ET 2009
Table Majesty Palm (Real Money)
Seat 4 is the button
Seat 1: ghart ( $197.00 USD )
Seat 2: mikeforge2007 ( $130.50 USD )
Seat 3: AmateurJr ( $58.00 USD )
Seat 4: iggi001 ( $30.10 USD )
Seat 5: gregorydr ( $83.50 USD )
Seat 6: lehtinen ( $54.60 USD )
Seat 7: Astro-Nutt ( $196.00 USD )
Seat 8: Mr_Rahl ( $216.15 USD )
Seat 9: torr99 ( $271.20 USD )
gregorydr posts small blind [$1.00 USD].
lehtinen posts big blind [$2.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Mr_Rahl [ As 9s ]
Astro-Nutt folds
Mr_Rahl raises [$6.00 USD]
torr99 folds
ghart folds
mikeforge2007 calls [$6.00 USD]
AmateurJr folds
iggi001 folds
gregorydr folds
lehtinen folds
** Dealing Flop ** [ 2h, 3s, 6h ]
Mr_Rahl checks
mikeforge2007 bets [$8.00 USD]
Mr_Rahl calls [$8.00 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ Qh ]
Mr_Rahl checks
mikeforge2007 checks
** Dealing River ** [ 3d ]
Mr_Rahl checks
mikeforge2007 bets [$17.00 USD]
Mr_Rahl calls [$17.00 USD]
mikeforge2007 shows [Ks, Js ]
Mr_Rahl shows [As, 9s ]
Mr_Rahl wins $62.00 USD from main pot

As usual im looking for a new site. I cleared my reload bonus on stars and my small ft bonus, this combined with willhill dieing makes cakes bonus and RB combination look good.

2009-01-27T05:29:00.000-08:00

Ive just been and got myself a Markus from ikea which is bound to increase my hourly by at least 10bi.

4am as good a time as any

2009-01-23T19:59:00.000-08:00

Have been back in uni a week now and as expected im playing a lot less poker, im starting to branch out a bit and have started a new database just for HU cash. Im also trying to improve my omaha game. Above is the start of my HU experiment graff notice the EV line.

A couple of days ago i was railing 136_fail playing some big SNGs as i opened one of the lobbies i accidently hit the Register To Any button which instantly (didnt even get a confermation message) sat me against a 4 star winner in a $116 HUSNG, oh damm was my reaction considering my SNG skilz this wasnt a good investment. Thankfully i hit some hands and busted him in a few mins with a flopped str8 against TP.

Went to aspers last night/ today and as usual i couldnt even make it passed the 2nd blind level, (next time im gona fold my way to the break just to see whats its like), thankfully the night wasnt totally lost as it gave me more time to play 1 2 cash. I had two £100 bullets in my wallet, thankfully the first was good enough for me to run it up to £260 with a couple of nice hands before leaving at around 1am.
The most exciting thing was James Browning (above) came in to play 5 5 one of my poker heroes from the poker night live days, i was also wearing my poker night live t-shirt at the time under my jumper. I wish i had went all out and embarresed myself by taking my jumper off and asking for his autograph. aah well he plays there quite a lot so may have to sit at 5 5 to pull some moves on him next time.

My roll is still about 8.5 and probably wont be changing dramatically until i get some time to play.

[ ] 2009 poker aims included

2009-01-01T12:53:00.000-08:00

2008 has now passed, poker has been up and down as always fortunately i ended the year on a high.
December has been my best cash month to date however much of the profit goes into filling the hole the previous couple of months made. My roll is now around 8500. Hopefully it will stay above 7k so i never HAVE to go back to 100nl. Saying that im not ready to 10table 200nl and anything else seems slow these days. So ill be mixing in some 10tabling 100nl with 4 tabling 200nl.

A couple of days ago i felt like playing some tournies as its been a long time since ive felt like gambling, i loaded up 8 games of various fields with $10 - £30 buyins and ran well cashing in 3 of them for a total of $450 lol.

I managed silver ironman for december and got a helpful $50 bonus to work off, i managed a similar amount on WH bonus wise however the games seem to be dying therefore rarely play on there anymore. Im also working off a stars reload bonus which is prob isnt worth more than RB but its nice to have a change of scenery.

As for poker aims, ive never been one to set resolutions or targets as the aim in poker is to end up with the most money. Therefore my target is to take my br and make it as big as i can as soon as i can.

snowdon fun

2008-12-24T14:15:00.000-08:00

Climbed Britains 2nd highest mountain yesterday Snowdon for an adventure obv, heading north at 10am a rediculous hour considering i am playing poker till 3am most nights. We decided to take the hard route 'Crib Goch' despite wiki advising us to stay away in bad weather.

"Some less experienced walkers have been known to get confused at this point, later finding themselves out of their depth on Crib Goch."

Obv we did get lost and ended up retracing our steps back to the normal route costing about 90mins, the time lost meant we had to rush to the summet to be sure of getting back before dark. We were on the mountain for 4.5 hours in the end but it was definately worth it.

Poker wise ive only played an hour today but it is officially my biggest cash sesh ever, finishing up $500 9 tabling 100nl.
Fortunately this has brought my br above the 7k mark so its time for another shot at 200nl, my 1k loss in 700 hands at 200nl previously hurt my stats, hopefully ill rectify this and make the permanent move up.

minesweepers my game but ill talk about poker

2008-12-19T16:57:00.000-08:00

Right firstly after going to all the trouble of signing up for the bloggers tourny thing, i havent actually played any. Ill try and make an effort to tomorrow but who knows.

Got back to wales yesterday glad to have a break from work even if they have given us a rediculous amount to do over christmas.

Recently ive been battling with the decision weather to stay on a masters or switch to the shorter BSC course i cant see myself doing anything directly physics related so will prob cut a year off my course and get on with things.

Poker wise things have finally picked up a bit, i still multitabling 100nl on ft slowly increasing the amount of tables im comfortable with (currently at 10 or 11) the rake is crazy bout $35ph i reckon rake hits these stakes the hardest. My br has recovered to $6270 not near 200nl shots but better than it was.
Im probably gona make silver iron man this month and i have a chance at gold normally this is close to worthless but with the year end bonus comming up ill get a bit more of my rake back def a good thing.
Above is loadza graffs starting with december then all hands with uninteresting functions

donkaments def my speciality

2008-12-11T06:42:00.001-08:00

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

The WBCOOP is an online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers.

Registration code: 909423

thank fk for RB

2008-11-29T17:44:00.000-08:00

Ive started something new (basically cos i cant win at 6 max anymore) 7-9 tabling 100nl fr. Sounds realy dull and at first i thought it would be, especially as its realy tight and rake is $20-$30ph. Saying that my LAG style from 6 max converts to about 22 16 at fr which (in my head anyway) is beating the game at a decent rate. Unfortunately the stats dont back that up im down about $600 multitabling 100nl in 5500 hands. Im gona stick with it for the time being cos im enjoying the change and i think i can crush it.
As the title suggests rake back is the only thing keeping my graph looking respectable atm. My win rate has dropped to a depressing 1.6BB/100 and my br stands at $5700.

I did play this hand yesterday that i was happy with and shows that i can fold big pairs ocassionally.

$100.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Saturday, November 29, 09:18:08 ET 2008
Table Low Bridge (Real Money)
Seat 6 is the button
Seat 1: SuperTaise ( $27.00 USD )
Seat 2: missle9 ( $102.90 USD )
Seat 3: foodwatcher ( $54.05 USD )
Seat 4: galasater ( $59.75 USD )
Seat 5: AnthonyC179 ( $107.80 USD )
Seat 6: phmSo69th ( $21.90 USD )
Seat 7: BahBahBaaaahaha ( $40.00 USD )
Seat 8: Mehman666 ( $70.05 USD )
Seat 9: Mr_Rahl ( $124.00 USD )
Mehman666 posts small blind [$0.50 USD].
Mr_Rahl posts big blind [$1.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Mr_Rahl [ Ac Ad ]
SuperTaise folds
missle9 calls [$1.00 USD]
foodwatcher folds
galasater folds
phmSo69th folds
Mehman666 calls [$0.50 USD]
Mr_Rahl raises [$3.00 USD]
missle9 calls [$3.00 USD]
Mehman666 calls [$3.00 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 8h, 3h, 9c ]
Mehman666 checks
Mr_Rahl bets [$8.00 USD]
missle9 calls [$8.00 USD]
Mehman666 raises [$20.00 USD]
Mr_Rahl folds
missle9 raises [$90.90 USD]
Mehman666 calls [$46.05 USD]
missle9 shows [Ah, 6h ]
Mehman666 shows [3d, 3s ]
missle9 wins $32.85 USD
** Dealing Turn ** [ 2c ]
** Dealing River ** [ Ts ]
Mehman666 wins $149.10 USD from main pot

On a sie note im planning on playing the UKSPC in april so wana get a good crowd together to go down to birmingham, if your interested let me know and i can secure you a ticket through DUPS.

playing loseing poker

2008-11-17T15:04:00.000-08:00

There no two ways about it its been a long time since i have been able to play plus EV poker. My br is at about $5700 and i cant afford to let it keep going down at the rate it is. I thought i might post some of my big loseing pots where i (in most cases) cant find the fold button where maybe i used to be able to.

http://www.flopturnriver.com/Poker-Hand-History-Converter-Output-588152.html

http://www.flopturnriver.com/Poker-Hand-History-Converter-Output-588155.html

http://www.flopturnriver.com/Poker-Hand-History-Converter-Output-588157.html

http://www.flopturnriver.com/Poker-Hand-History-Converter-Output-588162.html

http://www.flopturnriver.com/Poker-Hand-History-Converter-Output-588164.html

have found my new fav vid of all time

2008-11-07T04:33:00.000-08:00

Anyone not familier with Tuff Fish wont get this vid and should type it into youtube before watching this one. Anyone who does this and still doesnt find it funny (everyone but me and tony so far) must be a fish imo. Anyway it had me in stitches.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=UPbAuZJv0Yc

No news is not good news

2008-11-02T07:02:00.000-08:00

I havent played much online poker since starting my 2nd year physics, when i have played i havent been winning. Ive been break even for poker for about 2 months now which makes surviving off poker seem an impossible dream especially as my costs have rocketed. Who would have thought that i cost my parents £20min a week just in food.

On a more positive side i min cashed in the soc tourny yesterday after playing it like a genius;
- calling a rock down with 56o on a AKT52 board for about 70% of my stack he showd A7 hearts for the nut flush
- shoving 23o on two seperate occasions doubling up through Lawrence the 1st time when he had 2 overs, tripling up the 2nd time when i was fortunate enough to be shown AK and AJ.

Went to aspers on friday night aswell with paul and callum obv i busted first and joined the waiting list for the £1 2 pl holdem table, something ive been meaning to do for a while (i think it was a goal in one of my earlier posts) i was one bulleting with £100 like a pro ;-) fortunately my AK was too good for QQ early on and i finised up with £160. I will def play it again even though the standard wasnt that bad might even take a 2nd barrel next time.

Finally back online

2008-10-19T04:05:00.000-07:00

Got internet set up yesterday in my student house so ive played very little online pokers since my last post. I still managed to lose a chunk though while playing at 147s house where i had a new biggest pot $620 or so. I wasnt on my laptop at the time so dont have the HH, not a questionable hand so i wont bother describing it.

Durham poker soc had its first tournament of the term yesterday which went realy well a healthy 52 runners with 2 cash tables on the side. If anyone is reading this who goes to durham and doesnt attend poker society (unlikely i know) i urge you to give us a try.

My roll is on $6500 so unfortunately it seems i wont be playing anymore 200nl for a while. Right im gona play a proper sesh today and hopefully it will produce some interesting situations i can write about.

new high/low

2008-09-29T15:36:00.000-07:00

Just participated in a new biggest pot of my life. Quite exciting realy was hoping to break the $500 mark at some point this def felt like big money.

$200.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Monday, September 29, 11:15:58 ET 2008
Table Serieta (Real Money)
Seat 6 is the button
Seat 1: Nick5687 ( $78.00 USD )
Seat 2: Mr_rahl ( $277.85 USD )
Seat 3: Car100713 ( $339.82 USD )
Seat 4: Dougie98 ( $104.89 USD )
Seat 5: Cassini ( $53.50 USD )
Seat 6: Margret ( $403.92 USD )
Nick5687 posts small blind [$1.00 USD].
Mr_rahl posts big blind [$2.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Mr_rahl [ Ad Ac ]
Car100713 calls [$2.00 USD]
Dougie98 calls [$2.00 USD]
Cassini calls [$2.00 USD]
Margret folds
Nick5687 raises [$5.00 USD]
Mr_rahl raises [$16.00 USD]
Car100713 calls [$16.00 USD]
Dougie98 folds
Cassini folds
Nick5687 folds
** Dealing Flop ** [ 7s, 6c, Qh ]
Mr_rahl bets [$35.00 USD]
Car100713 calls [$35.00 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 6h ]
Mr_rahl bets [$70.00 USD]
Car100713 calls [$70.00 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ Ks ]
Mr_rahl bets [$154.85 USD]
Car100713 calls [$154.85 USD]
Mr_rahl shows [Ad, Ac ]
Car100713 shows [Qd, 6d ]
Car100713 wins $562.70 USD from main pot

the bright side

2008-09-29T04:54:00.000-07:00

All my posts have been quite negative of late so time to turn it around. My br is just under $7k atm which means ive broken even for september. Overall summer profits im not sure, on my main site WH ive turned $800 into $4900. As for tournaments ive had realy good results considering how few i have played. Ive also managed to move up from a 50nl player to a 100nl player who is ready to take shots at 200nl which is way above any expectations i had. Ive put in 44k hands in 260 hours my lack of volume clearly holds me back. Summer graph above ^^.

stress

2008-09-27T04:35:00.000-07:00

The Bournemouth trip started well had a nice round of golf and a couple of cash games where i only dropped a few buyins. Unfortunately my back window got smashed by a golf ball forcing me to miss the last round of golf instead I had to drive around bournemouth trying to find a place that was going to replace it for me. With little more than the name of a place i got lost easily (sat nav seems so tempting at times like these). I got a call as i was driving from the garage trying to give me directions i took it because i was already in a mess. As i stopped at some lights some twat behind thinks he will give me some abuse for using a phone on the move, he obv saw the state of my car and assumed i was some lunatic boy racer, ironically the only reason i could hear him was that i had no back window.
This nearly sent me over the edge, getting out and venting my frustration on him seemed like a reasonable option at this point. Im not a violent person but i had had about 8h sleep over two days and had driven hundreds of miles only to have to pay £175 out of my overdraft for a new windscreen. Fortunately i didnt and just pulled into a sideroad and calmed down. I nearly gave up here and wanted to drive home back window or no back window.

Finally after another phone call and stopping to ask 3 locals for directions i got there and the job was done. I paid for it and drove back to the golf club hoping to get at least some money as it was in their car park when it happened. The receptionist took a photocopy of the invoice and the manager didnt even come to speak to me. At this point i should have kicked off and demanded to see the manager but the receptionist had been so nice to me throughout the two days even saying that if it was her decision the club wold pay the bill i couldnt face kicking up a stink. Im yet to hear from them but will ring them in a couple of days.

Just to make sure my stress levels stayed in the danger area when i got to the severn bridge toll bit i used the coin bin lane only to find when i got there i only had £5.15 in change and the cost is £5.30 obv here they cant just let you through i had to wait for someone to come along and change a fiver for me all the while holding pple up behind.

Poker wise im realy starting to swing the last few days results have been +320 -350 and +500 along with some recent health problems im not sure i can handle the emotional swings anymore.
On a more positive not my br is at $6800 or so, so not a lot of damage has been done over the last month.
Right qualifying is starting so i wot bother with graphs or hands except for this call down i made against a TAG. With metagame considerations i was very confident he was gona 3 bet me pre here. The guy is a 16 13 regular so i was very happy with my read.

$100.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Friday, September 26, 10:49:38 ET 2008
Table Mushsh (Real Money)
Seat 6 is the button
Seat 1: Mr_rahl ( $287.00 USD )
Seat 2: Bboru7 ( $99.85 USD )
Seat 3: Fjeldstad ( $48.39 USD )
Seat 5: Addict_84 ( $171.21 USD )
Seat 6: Scot09066 ( $72.71 USD )
Mr_rahl posts small blind [$0.50 USD].
Bboru7 posts big blind [$1.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Mr_rahl [ Qh Kd ]
Fjeldstad folds
Addict_84 folds
Scot09066 folds
Mr_rahl raises [$3.50 USD]
Bboru7 raises [$11.00 USD]
Mr_rahl calls [$8.00 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ As, Qd, 5c ]
Mr_rahl checks
Bboru7 bets [$16.00 USD]
Mr_rahl calls [$16.00 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 3s ]
Mr_rahl checks
Bboru7 checks
** Dealing River ** [ 3c ]
Mr_rahl checks
Bboru7 bets [$50.00 USD]
Mr_rahl calls [$50.00 USD]
Bboru7 shows [8h, 7h ]
Mr_rahl shows [Qh, Kd ]
Mr_rahl wins $153.00 USD from main pot

time to vent

2008-09-20T10:19:00.000-07:00

damm damm damm damm

My new housemates and me just had a draw to see what unlucky twat ended up in the small room. No surprise it was me i run so bad. Now im stuck being 6 4" in a tiny room for the next year shit. I should know by now never to bet against a 1 in 5 shot.

Poker wise i was playing realy well and running well yesterday, until i decided to add a 200nl table to me 3 100nl. Few hands in set over set for the full buyin this wouldnt be so bad if i didnt then play this hand after.

$100.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Friday, September 19, 10:44:40 ET 2008
Table Kondemgu (Real Money)
Seat 5 is the button
Seat 1: Sheiik ( $41.33 USD )
Seat 2: Donm09011 ( $90.98 USD )
Seat 3: Mr_rahl ( $99.65 USD )
Seat 4: Samtim001 ( $40.00 USD )
Seat 5: Magicfly ( $74.19 USD )
Seat 6: Brya20094 ( $92.11 USD )
Brya20094 posts small blind [$0.50 USD].
Sheiik posts big blind [$1.00 USD].
Samtim001 posts big blind [$1.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Mr_rahl [ Ah 7s ]
Donm09011 folds
Mr_rahl raises [$4.00 USD]
Samtim001 folds
Magicfly calls [$4.00 USD]
Brya20094 folds
Sheiik folds
** Dealing Flop ** [ Ts, 2c, 8s ]
Mr_rahl bets [$7.00 USD]
Magicfly raises [$14.00 USD]
Mr_rahl raises [$88.65 USD]
Magicfly calls [$56.19 USD]
Mr_rahl wins $25.46 USD from main pot
** Dealing Turn ** [ 3c ]
** Dealing River ** [ 5d ]
Mr_rahl shows [Ah, 7s ]
Magicfly shows [Js, Jc ]
Magicfly wins $147.88 USD from main pot

Is min raises from passive stations ever not the nuts.

Cant be bothered to count my br atm but its less than last post.

On a more positive note im off to bournemouth tomorrow for a few days for golf and poker im useless at golf and worse at poker so will see how it goes.

progress update

2008-09-15T07:38:00.000-07:00

I had a couple of days off playing as i wasnt enjoying loseing but started up again last night easing in with a few cheap tournys. Managed to luckbox my way to another win in a $4 180man which now changes the look of my scope graph (above) from a bad player to a bad player who got lucky :-)

Just finised a cash session where I won (hasnt happened in a long time) $80 but my EV was $360 so still running horribly. My monthly stats are now 7k hands for a $1k loss with a All In EV of $-360. Its getting to the point where poker doesnt seem a worthwhile use of my time anymore.
Despite all this my overall roll isnt that depleted its at $6610 im gona stick with 100nl for now but with how its going i cant see me putting much volume in.

honesty is the only policy

2008-09-11T17:04:00.001-07:00

Before diving in had a royal tonight hardly worth writing about but i havent had one since i was playing 2c 5c so what the hell.

$100.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Thursday, September 11, 11:16:38 ET 2008
Table Erthaaprcis (Real Money)
Seat 2 is the button
Seat 1: Mr_rahl ( $189.48 USD )
Seat 2: Nig191112 ( $100.00 USD )
Seat 3: Coamlaja ( $38.00 USD )
Seat 4: Fira01034 ( $19.68 USD )
Seat 5: Ward84 ( $166.00 USD )
Seat 6: Beckham7 ( $50.90 USD )
Coamlaja posts small blind [$0.50 USD].
Fira01034 posts big blind [$1.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Mr_rahl [ Ts Ks ]
Ward84 folds
Beckham7 calls [$1.00 USD]
Mr_rahl raises [$4.00 USD]
Coamlaja folds
Fira01034 folds
Beckham7 calls [$3.00 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ Qs, Js, 6c ]
Beckham7 checks
Mr_rahl bets [$7.00 USD]
Beckham7 raises [$14.00 USD]
Mr_rahl raises [$178.48 USD]
Beckham7 calls [$32.90 USD]
Mr_rahl wins $138.58 USD from main pot
** Dealing Turn ** [ Tc ]
** Dealing River ** [ As ]
Mr_rahl shows [Ts, Ks ]
Beckham7 shows [6s, 7s ]
Mr_rahl wins $100.30 USD from main pot

One of the things i believe is crucial to progressing at poker is being honest with yourself and not deluding yourself that your not winning for whatever reason ( my favourite has to be "when i raise they call me with anything and hit").

The point is my roll is at $6770 atm and looking back that means i havent made anything for about 3 weeks. This month im showing a loss of $600 over 6k hands. HM tells me im running $300 below EV but there was definately some bad play mixed in too. Unfortunately my once 10bb/100 stats for 100nl have now dropped to 6. Ive also put in a couple of hundred hands at 200nl for a minor loss.

Im currently on target to make the $200 monthly bonus on WH which ive wanted to achieve for ages. Unfortunately im finding my other target of 20k hands this month harder to keep up with and its unlikely ill make that.

I might try and go out somewhere tomorrow see if i can regain a positive attitude.

had enough of titan

2008-09-10T13:25:00.000-07:00

Have just withdrawn from titan with $100 profit the TAG games and crap bonus made it an easy decision, i also had a problem with the software emailed them with a screen shot but got no reply.

Had a $4 180man session last night with 147, pg and sm1le trying to play as many as poss however i only had $30 left in my account so could only play 7. Fortunately I luckboxed my way to a win which reduces my recent cash loses wooooooo.

Unfortunately i bust the small sum i had built up on party ill prob move my titan money there if they give me a deposit bonus and eventually onto betfair if keys can hook me up.

loseing sucks

2008-09-08T11:30:00.000-07:00

Not doing great this month mostly due to bad play i cant seem to give people credit and basically think im being bluffed all the time.

Not included in the graph above is a free $30 i got on party which is now $150 sitting on a 100nl table atm im hoping this becomes a mini roll for me on there as im quite enjoying playing there but cant realy justify moving roll there because of the sub par bonus RB etc.

Went karting yesterday which was realy good and saw the new mummy film which i wouldnt recommend.

OOOO as im writing this i just won this pot so maybe a turning point for the graph.

$100.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Monday, September 08, 07:48:36 ET 2008
Table Strindak (Real Money)
Seat 2 is the button
Seat 1: Fredr0609 ( $137.38 USD )
Seat 2: Conccol ( $94.50 USD )
Seat 3: Mr_rahl ( $173.44 USD )
Seat 4: Kassie001 ( $168.61 USD )
Seat 5: Spartan79 ( $87.11 USD )
Seat 6: Bobsmiles ( $72.40 USD )
Mr_rahl posts small blind [$0.50 USD].
Kassie001 posts big blind [$1.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Mr_rahl [ 8h 4c ]
Spartan79 calls [$1.00 USD]
Bobsmiles calls [$1.00 USD]
Fredr0609 folds
Conccol folds
Mr_rahl calls [$0.50 USD]
Kassie001 checks
** Dealing Flop ** [ 7s, 6d, 5s ]
Mr_rahl bets [$3.00 USD]
Kassie001 calls [$3.00 USD]
Spartan79 folds
Bobsmiles calls [$3.00 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 2d ]
Mr_rahl bets [$8.00 USD]
Kassie001 raises [$16.00 USD]
Bobsmiles folds
Mr_rahl raises [$39.00 USD]
Kassie001 raises [$148.61 USD]
Mr_rahl calls [$117.61 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ Jc ]
Kassie001 shows [4h, 3c ]
Mr_rahl shows [8h, 4c ]
Mr_rahl wins $339.22 USD from main pot

Also had this hand where i dont know what i was doing the villan is a 60 5 regular (i know odd stats but she plays her style ok) and she just lost a fairly big pot.

$100.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Monday, September 08, 07:45:11 ET 2008
Table Kondemgu (Real Money)
Seat 1 is the button
Seat 1: Sub0inc ( $104.85 USD )
Seat 2: Trigge003 ( $159.10 USD )
Seat 3: Mr_rahl ( $93.52 USD )
Seat 4: Conccol ( $112.03 USD )
Seat 5: Gurl ( $48.85 USD )
Seat 6: Bobsmiles ( $120.33 USD )
Trigge003 posts small blind [$0.50 USD].
Mr_rahl posts big blind [$1.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Mr_rahl [ Kc Ac ]
Conccol folds
Gurl calls [$1.00 USD]
Bobsmiles folds
Sub0inc folds
Trigge003 folds
Mr_rahl raises [$3.50 USD]
Gurl calls [$3.50 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 9d, 6d, 9h ]
Mr_rahl checks
Gurl checks
** Dealing Turn ** [ Qc ]
Mr_rahl checks
Gurl bets [$5.00 USD]
Mr_rahl calls [$5.00 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ 4h ]
Mr_rahl checks
Gurl bets [$15.00 USD]
Mr_rahl calls [$15.00 USD]
Gurl shows [9c, Kh ]
Mr_rahl shows [Kc, Ac ]
Gurl wins $47.03 USD from main pot

September update

2008-09-06T04:16:00.000-07:00

Ive been away for the last two days visiting some old friends elsewhere in wales so have only played 1k hands this month, saying that ive dropped about $400 so far this month mostly through bad play so hopefully the break has worked to my favour.

I did pass the $7k mark at one point so have played a couple of 200nl sessions for a loss but the games dont seem that different from 100nl. Keys made a good point to me after reading my last post that setting br targets seems to harm my poker I looked back to my posts when i was trying to play 100nl and he was right i seem to have trouble when getting close to the next level.

My bankroll is around $6800 atm im gona play 100nl primarily but no longer restrict myself to it if there is a good 200nl game going on WH.

This hand is an interesting one the villan is a fish who had made some bad calls so far and had stats of 67 22 over 124 hands.

$100.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Tuesday, September 02, 06:37:16 ET 2008
Table Toloa (Real Money)
Seat 3 is the button
Seat 1: Railings1 ( $81.41 USD )
Seat 2: Trigge003 ( $118.02 USD )
Seat 3: Mr_rahl ( $120.75 USD )
Seat 4: Geor91e ( $100.00 USD )
Seat 5: 1bigmac ( $37.46 USD )
Seat 6: Iikzelf ( $91.61 USD )
1bigmac posts small blind [$0.50 USD].
Trigge003 posts big blind [$1.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Mr_rahl [ Ad Ac ]
Mr_rahl raises [$3.00 USD]
1bigmac calls [$2.50 USD]
Trigge003 folds
** Dealing Flop ** [ Tc, 7h, 8s ]
1bigmac checks
Mr_rahl bets [$5.00 USD]
1bigmac calls [$5.00 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 2d ]
1bigmac checks
Mr_rahl bets [$10.00 USD]
1bigmac calls [$10.00 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ 6h ]
1bigmac bets [$19.46 USD]
Mr_rahl folds
1bigmac wins $19.46 USD from main pot
1bigmac wins $35.15 USD from main pot

monthly report

2008-08-31T05:48:00.000-07:00

Overall im happy with my august results i only managed 10k hands but i wasnt here for the first week so aim for 20k next month. Trying to balance putting in more volume and only playing when i feel like it is going to be the hardest bit. Im floundering below $7k still so yet to take a shot at 200nl being close to a target seems to make me become complacent and phrases like "i only need another $100" appear, being so close then losing a buyin seems to tilt me aswell.

My book that i ordered from ful tilt came "tournament poker for advanced players" im only 50 pages in, havent been impressed so far seems like the same point is being said over and over again hopefully there will be more substance further in.

Im getting more and more passive post flop recently with my c bet% comming down to 57% this past week ive picked out a couple of hands to demonstrate my new passiveness where i got the maximum against their hand but think im losing a lot of value against their ranges.

$100.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Saturday, August 30, 03:14:59 ET 2008
Table Quilpie (Real Money)
Seat 6 is the button
Seat 3: ROcketRO31 ( $108.85 USD )
Seat 5: marak ( $101.60 USD )
Seat 6: MrRahl ( $95.50 USD )
Seat 10: TheGreatest04 ( $243.25 USD )
TheGreatest04 posts small blind [$0.50 USD].
ROcketRO31 posts big blind [$1.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to MrRahl [ Ks Kh ]
marak folds
MrRahl raises [$3.00 USD]
TheGreatest04 raises [$11.50 USD]
ROcketRO31 folds
MrRahl calls [$9.00 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ Ts, Jd, Jc ]
TheGreatest04 bets [$19.00 USD]
MrRahl calls [$19.00 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 9s ]
TheGreatest04 checks
MrRahl checks
** Dealing River ** [ 8d ]
TheGreatest04 bets [$44.00 USD]
MrRahl calls [$44.00 USD]
MrRahl wins $149.00 USD from main pot
TheGreatest04 shows [4s, 5s ]

$100.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Saturday, August 30, 03:36:31 ET 2008
Table Arzamas (No DP) (Real Money)
Seat 8 is the button
Seat 1: RetardedMonkey ( $121.02 USD )
Seat 3: IDreamOfJenna ( $81.90 USD )
Seat 5: MrRahl ( $99.68 USD )
Seat 6: DonnaKaran ( $98.50 USD )
Seat 8: tt3737 ( $198.33 USD )
Seat 10: AnnaLies ( $107.55 USD )
AnnaLies posts small blind [$0.50 USD].
RetardedMonkey posts big blind [$1.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to MrRahl [ Qc Qd ]
IDreamOfJenna raises [$4.00 USD]
MrRahl calls [$4.00 USD]
DonnaKaran folds
tt3737 folds
AnnaLies folds
RetardedMonkey folds
** Dealing Flop ** [ 2d, 4h, Jh ]
IDreamOfJenna bets [$6.00 USD]
MrRahl calls [$6.00 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 5s ]
IDreamOfJenna bets [$15.00 USD]
MrRahl calls [$15.00 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ 8d ]
IDreamOfJenna bets [$45.00 USD]
MrRahl calls [$45.00 USD]
MrRahl wins $138.50 USD from main pot
IDreamOfJenna shows [Kd, Ac ]

new set up

2008-08-27T07:57:00.000-07:00

My monitor came yesterday and its in great condition for a 2nd hand monitor it definately helps me with playing multiple tables and it should have paid for itself before the start of term.

Im well on my to reaching all my august targets and my br stands at $6817 and i will use 7k as the cut off point between playing 100nl and 200nl.

Im staying at titan poker for the time being as a secondary site even though it doesnt have RB and its bonus only equates to around 15% rake back, compared to willhill which is like 60% altogether.

Above is the normal graph but with allin EV which i have caught up with recently.

monitor in the post

2008-08-25T12:59:00.000-07:00

Thought i might mention my last post it is now thought that the bone growth is a condition called osteochondroma which shouldnt cause me any problems but does need occasional checkups to make sure its not getting too big for its/my boots.
I turned 20 on sunday and had a night out with friends which was good and were planning on going karting later on in the week.

I havent played much recently and the bankroll unfortunately isnt jumping to $7k as quickly as i was hoping im $500 away atm. I thought id make a change from the usual graph it looks the same as the last one anyway, instead im gona post up my august results where ive ran hot over a small sample. The plan for the rest of august is to now secure the $100 monthly on willhill and to get enough points on titan to climb the vip ladder to silver. I would love to be taking shots at 200nl going into september but $500 is a big ask so might have to luckbox out on some people.
I bought myself a monitor (should be here in a couple of days) after a lot of research unfortunately my laptop isnt top of the range so its not going to be as flashy as i would have liked but it will let me four table full size without overlap so fulfils its purpose.

Ive noticed a change in my play recently ive become less agressive and am checking the flop with a piece a lot more. This probably isnt a good thing but ive picked out a hand where it worked out so what the hell.

Normally here i would prob be looking to get a couple of streets of marginal value from the two opponents who were calling stations but i seem to have lost that line recently.

Seat 3 is the button
Seat 1: MrRahl ( $97.55 USD )
Seat 3: ludovikos ( $90.10 USD )
Seat 5: SAMIR1210 ( $121.45 USD )
Seat 6: rattusnorway ( $100.00 USD )
Seat 8: poker9999A ( $51.95 USD )
SAMIR1210 posts small blind [$0.50 USD].
rattusnorway posts big blind [$1.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to MrRahl [ Ah 6c ]
poker9999A folds
MrRahl raises [$3.00 USD]
ludovikos calls [$3.00 USD]
SAMIR1210 folds
rattusnorway calls [$2.00 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 7d, As, 3h ]
rattusnorway checks
MrRahl checks
ludovikos checks
** Dealing Turn ** [ 8d ]
rattusnorway bets [$8.00 USD]
MrRahl calls [$8.00 USD]
ludovikos calls [$8.00 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ 7c ]
rattusnorway checks
MrRahl checks
ludovikos bets [$31.00 USD]
rattusnorway folds
MrRahl calls [$31.00 USD]
MrRahl wins $92.50 USD from main pot
ludovikos shows [5s, 2s ]

be careful what you wish for

2008-08-20T09:57:00.000-07:00

Of late i have been thinking i need more perspective in life unfortunately i got more than expected yesterday.
About 3 weeks ago when in ireland i did my ankle in jumping off a 8 foot wall while on the golf course. I decided that it didnt need medical attention and just rested it for a few days. Yesterday as my ancle still had an odd hard swelling i went to casualty to be sure. The 1st doctor didnt think it was anything but sent me for an xray. The xray showd up something unexpected i have a mushrooming bone growth comming from the side of my tibia. The doctor described it as "suspicious". As there was a possibility of bone cancer the bone specialists opinions were sought. It appears ive grown up with this and the lump is caused by my fibia having to grow around it therefore its unlikely to be anything nasty but i am going to have to see a specialist in a few months to keep an eye on it. After 4 hours in the hospital i drove home with more perspective than i wanted.

a bit more substance

2008-08-18T12:23:00.000-07:00

My posts seem to have lacked substance of late so im gona review some hands and my stats.
Firstly the normal stuff out of the way im still running well and my br is now $6677 and im running at about 10bb/100 hands which im obv very happy with but its still a small sample.

Right this hand is to show how crazy i am (try and build myself an image)
This is a £ table btw just HM doesnt understand that.

$50.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Monday, August 18, 07:45:11 ET 2008
Table Valonci (Real Money)
Seat 3 is the button
Seat 1: Mr_rahl ( $46.75 USD )
Seat 2: Andro10 ( $10.00 USD )
Seat 3: Ben100410 ( $99.41 USD )
Seat 4: Dzou12011 ( $19.00 USD )
Seat 5: Pokertug ( $82.16 USD )
Seat 6: Ste181118 ( $30.41 USD )
Dzou12011 posts small blind [$0.25 USD].
Pokertug posts big blind [$0.50 USD].
Andro10 posts big blind [$0.50 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Mr_rahl [ Tc Jc ]
Ste181118 folds
Mr_rahl raises [$2.00 USD]
Andro10 folds
Ben100410 folds
Dzou12011 folds
Pokertug raises [$4.50 USD]
Mr_rahl raises [$13.00 USD]
Pokertug folds
Mr_rahl wins $10.00 USD from main pot
Mr_rahl wins $10.75 USD from main pot

Despite the above my stats tell of a more reserved player over my whole sample im a 22 14 who 3 bets a relatively small 2.7% of the time, this will probably have to change if i get to 200nl 6 max as im expecting them to be more agressive.

Ive just made this fold so i might as well put it up again this is a ££ table. Hated folding here my hand looked the nuts on the turn and i was getting a good price.

$50.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Monday, August 18, 08:11:37 ET 2008
Table Gundoo (Real Money)
Seat 5 is the button
Seat 1: Mr_rahl ( $110.49 USD )
Seat 2: Roseyboy ( $37.10 USD )
Seat 3: Stephe061 ( $29.07 USD )
Seat 4: Shau29086 ( $18.36 USD )
Seat 5: Ste181118 ( $45.84 USD )
Seat 6: Huyen1010 ( $50.00 USD )
Mr_rahl posts small blind [$0.25 USD].
Roseyboy posts big blind [$0.50 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Mr_rahl [ Kd Qh ]
Stephe061 folds
Shau29086 raises [$1.00 USD]
Ste181118 folds
Mr_rahl calls [$0.75 USD]
Roseyboy calls [$0.50 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ Qd, 6d, Jd ]
Mr_rahl checks
Roseyboy checks
Shau29086 checks
** Dealing Turn ** [ Td ]
Mr_rahl bets [$2.00 USD]
Roseyboy calls [$2.00 USD]
Shau29086 calls [$2.00 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ 6h ]
Mr_rahl bets [$6.00 USD]
Roseyboy folds
Shau29086 raises [$15.36 USD]
Mr_rahl folds
Shau29086 wins $9.36 USD from main pot
Shau29086 wins $19.95 USD from main pot

Finally this is me making a stand against a 40 30 bully

$100.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Monday, August 18, 07:32:58 ET 2008
Table Blackhawk (6 max) (Real Money)
Seat 2 is the button
Seat 1: witchdoctor 007 ( $118.05 USD )
Seat 2: GARCON59 ( $101.50 USD )
Seat 3: Mr_Rahl ( $97.00 USD )
Seat 4: CandyShop88 ( $107.00 USD )
Seat 5: Atiyah ( $101.50 USD )
Seat 6: garyhouse ( $242.15 USD )
Mr_Rahl posts small blind [$0.50 USD].
CandyShop88 posts big blind [$1.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Mr_Rahl [ Ah Ks ]
Atiyah folds
garyhouse folds
witchdoctor 007 raises [$3.50 USD]
GARCON59 folds
Mr_Rahl raises [$11.50 USD]
CandyShop88 folds
witchdoctor 007 calls [$8.50 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ Th, Js, 2h ]
Mr_Rahl checks
witchdoctor 007 bets [$25.00 USD]
Mr_Rahl raises [$85.00 USD]
witchdoctor 007 calls [$60.00 USD]
Mr_Rahl shows [Ah, Ks ]
witchdoctor 007 shows [Jd, As ]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 4h ]
** Dealing River ** [ Kd ]
Mr_Rahl wins $192.00 USD from main pot

Im thinking of getting a secondary screen to get rid of overlap but probably cant justify it against profits still it would be nice to see every table at once and each being big enough for stats. Its my 20th sunday comming so ill do some research feel free to chip in :-).

good side of variance

2008-08-16T18:21:00.000-07:00

I have now decided to include cold turkey days in my normal poker routine i had one a couple of days ago and it helped to refocus me and stop me from being a spewy fish. Since then i have been running realy well and finished up about $350 today. Im looking to hit the 200nl tables soon as i think im ready so im reducing my target bankroll to $7k it currently stands at $6470.
Im craving a live game atm havent played live since leaving durham unfortunately living in the middle of wales doesnt bode well for action.

bankroll benchmark

2008-08-12T16:21:00.000-07:00

After a relatively long breakeven stretch my online br has finally passed the $6k mark, this now brings up the question should i be leaving 60buyins for a level on poker sites as hopefully i wont need 40 of them until i move up or take some off and incur the charges associated.

Ive joined a new site titan poker it provides me with action when willhill is quiet but the bonus is harder to work off than i had hoped and with no RB im not getting a great deal. Ill prob stick with it and work a few $$ off the bonus while i concentrate on making progress into willhills august bonus.

As mentioned in my last post i tried a quick spin up of my final $10 on stars (the rest of the money i had on there bout $30 was donated to known fish on a 5 10c table) i went for 50nl HU and had it up to $80 within an hour from one opponent hasten to say he was not happy after i bust his 2nd buyin.

back to business

2008-08-10T09:10:00.000-07:00

Right im back from ireland and ready to try and make some progress at this poker thing. I have been break even for too long now with my BR at 5600. I got enough fpps during a happy hour yesterday on ft so will order the book i wanted and take my money off there and find a new site perhaps mansion if they still have a decent bonus. Ill probably play the 100k on stars tonoght with my last $10 on there either that or heads up cash and try and get a quick spin up.

passed 20k hands

2008-07-18T05:51:00.000-07:00

Ive passed the 20k hand mark of 50nl and 100nl in the past 2 months and overall it has went better than expected. Since my last post im close to even on the tables mainly because i had a couple of tilty sessions which cost me my potential profit, the graph doesnt tell the whole story as HM still sees £££ as $$$ and i had a big loseing session at £50nl so its about $100 too high.
Ive done some maths and so far im running at around $16 per hour with everything included. This sounds better than it is partly because theres a big touny cash in it and i find it difficult to play well more than a few hours a day which is added to by the tables being tough and empty during the day.
So if i got a full time job this summer id be a lot better off monitarily, i wouldnt be up to 2am most night, i wouldnt have the possibility of loseing hundreds in a few hands and i wouldnt have as many headaches from looking at my laptop screen for hours on end. Despite all this i never get bored of poker im playing a game which is never the same. And im playing a game for a part time wage rather than stacking shelves or cleaning floors.

My roll currently stands at $5750 and im looking to hit 8k before moving up. Im gona do some bonus whoring when i get back from ireland which will hopefully quicken the process.

biggest pot lost yet

2008-07-13T05:27:00.000-07:00

I went from winning my biggest pot yet to loseing an even bigger one.

Table Konnont (Real Money)
Seat 4 is the button
Seat 1: Gusta2307 ( $336.46 USD )
Seat 3: Dar080819 ( $302.84 USD )
Seat 4: Jones85 ( $126.55 USD )
Seat 5: Mr_rahl ( $180.20 USD )
Seat 6: Gede31121 ( $142.25 USD )
Mr_rahl posts small blind [$0.50 USD].
Gede31121 posts big blind [$1.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Mr_rahl [ Ad As ]
Gusta2307 folds
Dar080819 raises [$4.00 USD]
Jones85 folds
Mr_rahl raises [$12.50 USD]
Gede31121 folds
Dar080819 calls [$9.00 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ Tc, Jh, 6h ]
Mr_rahl bets [$18.00 USD]
Dar080819 calls [$18.00 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 8s ]
Mr_rahl bets [$50.00 USD]
Dar080819 calls [$50.00 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ Js ]
Mr_rahl bets [$99.20 USD]
Dar080819 calls [$99.20 USD]
Mr_rahl shows [Ad, As ]
Dar080819 shows [Ac, Jc ]
Dar080819 wins $358.40 USD from main pot

At the time i wasnt bothered by it its just poker but the next morning i tilted off $100 so im guessing loseing this pot caused it. When i started out playing 100nl on willhill i wouldnt have played on with a deep stack against multiple opponents but ive become comfortable with is so hopefully make a $400 pot soon.

Ive got 980mpps to my 1000mpp bonus for this month so $100 in the bag. It looks like betfair wont become my second acount as apparently im already signed up through another affiliate which will be a website planting a cookie on my comp when i visited their site grrrr. Roll stands at $5600.

biggest winning session ever

2008-07-09T14:31:00.000-07:00

I just finished my biggest winning cash session ever, nearly $500 in two hours one hand even had my heart racing a rarity in poker these days and one of the biggest pots ive had.

Game #6079664243: Hold'em NL ($0.50/$1) - 2008/07/09 - 22:10:38 (UK)
Table "Lend" Seat 5 is the button.
Seat 1: Stefa1210 ($161.18 in chips)
Seat 2: Gurl ($99.50 in chips)
Seat 3: Decky1888 ($74.37 in chips)
Seat 4: Mr_rahl ($256.11 in chips)
Seat 5: Andye1510 ($192.60 in chips)
Seat 6: Kev140615 sits out
Stefa1210: posts big blind $1
----- HOLE CARDS -----
dealt to Mr_rahl [Ac Ah]
Gurl: folds
Decky1888: folds
Mr_rahl: raises to $3
Andye1510: folds
Stefa1210: calls $2
----- FLOP ----- [2h 7s 9s]
Stefa1210: checks
Mr_rahl: bets $4
Stefa1210: raises to $13
Mr_rahl: raises to $36
Ray21012 joins the table at seat #6
Stefa1210: calls $23
----- TURN ----- [2h 7s 9s][5h]
Stefa1210: checks
Mr_rahl: bets $45
Stefa1210: raises to $122.18 and is all-in
Mr_rahl: calls $77.18
----- RIVER ----- [2h 7s 9s 5h][9h]
----- SHOW DOWN -----
Stefa1210: shows [Jh Js] (Two Pairs, Jacks and Nines, Seven high)
Mr_rahl: shows [Ac Ah] (Two Pairs, Aces and Nines, Seven high)
Mr_rahl collected $319.36 from Main pot

Im well on my way to getting the $100 bonus this month before going to ireland as long as i dont tilt and have to stay away from the tables or my internet connection breaks all will be well. Recently ive been trying to get some basic knowlege of other poker games i have always dabbed in omaha but never omaha hi low, stud or razz. Ive put in a few hours in these games in micro limits and i think i will put in a few sessions of HORSE for my enjoyment and education.

Ive opened up a betfair poker acount for my new secondary site replacing ft as im yet to hear if i have RB and i get the 1st deposit bonus (i already had a betting acount) i probably wont be playing there till next month.

One thing that is bothering me is the way i played this hand, the fact that this situation has come up before been discussed on the DUPS forum and i didnt implicate what i learnt last time. The villans stats are 17 11 over 600 hands. Looking at the forum the hand is idential in the way i played it even the villans stats are similar. http://www.dur.ac.uk/poker.society/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1120

Game #6068914553: Hold'em NL ($0.50/$1) - 2008/07/08 - 22:05:10 (UK)
Table "RivaRidge" Seat 4 is the button.
Seat 1: JINJOG ($65 in chips)
Seat 2: Mr_rahl ($111.70 in chips)
Seat 4: ST500 ($118.75 in chips)
Seat 6: BruceNewb sits out
Seat 7: sainty ($122.98 in chips)
Seat 8: pjuske28 ($40 in chips)
Seat 9: Brendywoo ($38.20 in chips)
Seat 10: Digodigo ($23.49 in chips)
sainty: posts big blind $1
----- HOLE CARDS -----
dealt to Mr_rahl [Qc Qh]
Brendywoo: folds
Digodigo: folds
JINJOG: folds
Mr_rahl: raises to $3
ST500: raises to $10
sainty: folds
Mr_rahl: calls $7
----- FLOP ----- [7h 8h Td]
Mr_rahl: checks
ST500: bets $16
Mr_rahl: raises to $40
ST500: raises to $108.75 and is all-in
Mr_rahl: is all-in $61.70
Returned uncalled bets $7.05 to ST500
----- TURN ----- [7h 8h Td][8d]
----- RIVER ----- [7h 8h Td 8d][Jd]
----- SHOW DOWN -----
ST500: shows [Ad Ac] (Two Pairs, Aces and Eights, Jack high)
Mr_rahl: shows [Qc Qh] (Two Pairs, Queens and Eights, Jack high)
ST500 collected $221.40 from Main pot

running well

2008-07-06T04:15:00.000-07:00

I played a good few sessions yesterday running well on a saturday is definately +EV. I flopped a set on 5 out of 18 opportunities. The graph above is about $80 short because i was playing some £50 tables for action which HM recognises as $$ games, if anyone knows how to manipulate results on HM to fix this it would be appreciated. So my br now stands at about 5300 the question now is if i do hit 6k soon should i take shots at 200nl, obviously i want to advance in the game and the quicker the better but i have only put in around 12k hands at 100nl and have no idea if im actually a winning player at this level. If i do hit it soon i may try and hit 8k before moving up just because the swings have the potential to be huge in cash.

I have also given up on full tilt not because of losses but the lag i get makes it impossible to play even one table and as my HUD isnt working with pokerstars im looking for a new site, if possible i want RB a decent bonus and plenty of action.

its a swingy game

2008-07-03T17:23:00.000-07:00

Im now comming to terms with the fact that i may lose $1000 in a few sessions and i have to be able to deal with that. A 10 buyin swing is big but not uncommon to cash players. This also changes my view on my required bankroll to play cash i think i will increase my previous 20x to 30x which still might be a bit low but im confident in my ability to drop down limits if required. So this means i need a $6000 bankroll to play 200nl my online monies currently stand at $4900 or so.

Reading over this now im reminising about the time approaching on 2 years ago where i deposited $20 on poker333 and at the time if someone would have told me i would lose $1000 in 10 days i would have withdrawn and got a job instead. I remember watching fellow poker night live viewers playing the tv table which were usually 50nl and thinking they were huge games. The standard in those 50nl games were far higher than normal 50nl due to all the regulars, the first time i played in them i started out getting totally outplayed with one player floating me every time i c bet, up to that point the float had never realy been used in the games i was used to so the first few times he did it he got the better of me, i do have one thing to thank him for his play induced me to double barrel, a play which i use a lot nowadays.

Over the last few days I have been running better and definately playing better. On willhill i have switched to only 6max tables where the lose players congregate and playing 2 tables max. I have cut out any distractions like poker vids while i play and concentrate fully on my opponents taking lots of notes and trying to exploit their weaknesses. I played a couple of fr sessions on ft and the games are unbelieveably tight now im might even go as far as saying its no longer profitable to play a 10 8 game paying no attention as everyone seems to do it with the rake killing the game.
Although the graph doesnt look as good as it did today i reached the $2k profit mark again on willhill with the bonus and rakeback comming in yesterday. So i have found some confidence again which is good as i will need to play early this month to get the $100 bonus (heading to ireland around the 20th and wont be able to play online from then)

State of mind, questions need answering

2008-06-29T05:43:00.000-07:00

Ive had a few days off poker as my sharp loss in profits caused me to lose confidence and enthusiasm for poker. If there is anything i have learnt from my online poker grind is that if you dont feel like you can win then you wont and its best to just take some time off and come back fresh. As a result of this break i wont make the $200 monthly bonus on willhill but i did get enough points for the $100 one which realy helps cut losses.
Continuing my theme of profits after my exams which is when i started playing a lot i have attached my graph ive added lines representing showdown winnings and non showdown winnings. Im no expert at analysing this type of thing so peoples opinions would be nice, interestingly my money seems to come from non showdown pots and im breakeven at showdown.

Another question that has been bothering me is should i be adjusting more now that i have moved up, comming from the lower limits my game has plays in it like always getting the money in with an overpair. Anyone who has made this transition i would be interested to know if you felt the need to change your game/style. Im wondering if i should be more willing to fold in marginal situations now im playing 100nl. Im gona put up 2 overpair hands on the DUPS forum which i may have played wrong.
Finally i thought i might put up my stats and see what people thought my leaks might be im particularly interested if people think i might be over-agressive.

VPIP 21 PFR 13 AGG FACTOR 4 AGG FREQ 37 FLOP C-BET 75%

back in wales

2008-06-23T05:03:00.000-07:00

Quite a lot has happened since my last post i passed my exams meaning im gona carry on with physics in durham, poker soc held its first festival which went well apart from the new president winning it FIX and i have returned home to wales for a month or so before heading to ireland to visit family.

On the poker front ive dropped a few buyins on willhill lost more than i should have in a few pots and a couple that look tilty, the most interesting hand where i made a mistake is this one post analysis shows that i wasnt getting nearly the right price against this tight players range.

Game #7522744454: Hold'em NL ($0.50/$1) - 2008/06/22 - 23:20:19 (UK)
Table "Eaglesnest" Seat 6 is the button.
Seat 1: Chrism ($30.10 in chips)
Seat 2: johan13 ($105.80 in chips)
Seat 3: Mr_Manic ($147.65 in chips)
Seat 4: number18 ($95 in chips)
Seat 5: ST500 ($112.05 in chips)
Seat 6: n1sarah ($179.40 in chips)
Seat 7: Mr_rahl ($96 in chips)
Seat 8: ArthurDen ($101.15 in chips)
Seat 9: Strudel ($152.40 in chips)
Seat 10: BamMico22 ($98.50 in chips)
Mr_rahl: posts small blind $0.50
ArthurDen: posts big blind $1
----- HOLE CARDS -----
dealt to Mr_rahl [Ks Ts]
Strudel: folds
BamMico22: folds
Chrism: folds
johan13: calls $1
Mr_Manic: folds
number18: calls $1
ST500: folds
n1sarah: calls $1
Mr_rahl: calls $0.50
ArthurDen: checks
----- FLOP ----- [5h Js 2s]
Mr_rahl: checks
ArthurDen: checks
johan13: checks
number18: bets $4
n1sarah: calls $4
Mr_rahl: calls $4
ArthurDen: folds
johan13: folds
----- TURN ----- [5h Js 2s][Kc]
Mr_rahl: bets $10
number18: calls $10
n1sarah: raises to $116
Mr_rahl: is all-in $81
number18: folds
Returned uncalled bets $25 to n1sarah
----- RIVER ----- [5h Js 2s Kc][3d]
----- SHOW DOWN -----
n1sarah: shows [2h 2d] (Three of a kind, Twos, King high)
Mr_rahl: shows [Ks Ts] (A Pair of Kings, Jack high)
n1sarah collected $206 from Main pot

Im playing a session while writing this on full tilt which is quite interesting im sat on two fr 100nl tables which are very tight so in response im playing a 30 25 game leading to me getting paid off nicely here.

Full Tilt Poker Game #6937788555: Table McKnight - $0.50/$1 - No Limit Hold'em - 7:56:22 ET - 2008/06/23
Seat 1: OzWilko ($20)
Seat 2: Goso ($20)
Seat 3: Robbie_Neilson ($103.05)
Seat 4: Martamars ($90)
Seat 5: nellie1972 ($149.05)
Seat 6: MikeSt ($103.95)
Seat 7: Mr_Rahl ($102.60)
Seat 8: Imperceptus ($104.45)
Seat 9: kaypel ($142.20)
kaypel posts the small blind of $0.50
OzWilko posts the big blind of $1
The button is in seat #8
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Mr_Rahl [Ac Ad]
Goso folds
Robbie_Neilson folds
Martamars folds
nellie1972 folds
MikeSt folds
Mr_Rahl raises to $3
Imperceptus folds
kaypel raises to $12
OzWilko adds $1
OzWilko folds
Mr_Rahl has 15 seconds left to act
Mr_Rahl calls $9
*** FLOP *** [As Jd 3h]
kaypel bets $15
Mr_Rahl calls $15
*** TURN *** [As Jd 3h] [5c]
kaypel checks
Mr_Rahl checks
*** RIVER *** [As Jd 3h 5c] [Jh]
kaypel has 15 seconds left to act
kaypel bets $40
Mr_Rahl raises to $75.60, and is all in
kaypel calls $35.60
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Mr_Rahl shows [Ac Ad] a full house, Aces full of Jacks
kaypel mucks
Mr_Rahl wins the pot ($203.20) with a full house, Aces full of Jacks

He mucked 34o to my surprise

Unfortunately i seem to be in a bad patch atm the session ive just played i lost $122 despite the hand above, holdem manager tells me that my EV winnings was plus $114 basically because i cant win a coin flip atm or anything close.

tourny win

2008-06-17T02:03:00.000-07:00

Over the past couple of days i have been running badly in cash games all standard stuff realy, however this bad run lead me to play a tournament last night instead of cash as i was hoping for a couple of hours of poker with a limited loss potential. WillHill only had one filling up that looked ok a $17 freezeout. It started slowly with me loseing some chips and starting to feel tilty. Fortunately i pulled on some resolve not to give up and was soon healthy again, i also didnt want to throw away chips while being railed by paul as he already sees me as easy money :-). I found WillHill's tournament realy nice to play they have good blind levels and a 12min clock the only problem is the lack of traffic. Matt and Sam also joined the rail as there was no Aidans game going they agreed with most of my plays but in general they seem less likely to make moves than me.
Long story short I won it for $550, i think i played well got lucky a few times at the end. I find it quite funny that in my last post i declared my tournament failings and a couple of days later hit a score. So now im declaring my lack of physics knowledge, im getting my first year results in 2 hours maybe they will turn out better than expected :->.

Ive attached another graph of cash game winnings since finishing exams overall im now up $2k on willhill.

willhill weekends

2008-06-15T06:03:00.000-07:00

I had my first experience of tournament directing yesterday with me being left to organise the saturday poker soc tourny. Unfortunatly we only got 10 players due to various factors so we had a sitngo. I was first out (big surprise) but had some interesting hands. Im slowly and reluctantly comming to realise that my tournament stratagy may not have max potential, i tend to play crazy poker lots of bluffing and pushing light. The hand i went out on is a good example of this I tried to push through a full table and a limper with 10bb with 23 off. Paul went on to win it playing his sitngo game.

So there we go i admit it i need tournament education hopefully when i get around to getting a few more fpps to get Slansky's tournament poker for adv players i will improve.

I also ran a cash game after the tournament unassociated of course with the society which by general consensus turned out to be 2p 5p. I lost about 3 buyins readily nothing more to say realy.

The weekends are definately the time to play on willhill as the 100nl games fill up with action players so im gona try and get some long weekend sessions in in the future. Ive been playing this morning and thought i would put up some interesting hands i had, feel free to berate my marginal plays :-)

In this first hand i noticed the villan was a lag who didnt like folding to continuation bets so i expected to have to double barrel to find out if he had something which im more tha willing to do.

Game #7439860764: Hold'em NL ($0.50/$1) - 2008/06/15 - 12:10:56 (UK)
Table "Angelica" Seat 6 is the button.
Seat 1: jornb67 ($30 in chips)
Seat 2: nuts1 ($109.25 in chips)
Seat 3: Keronda ($313.55 in chips)
Seat 4: liu0171 ($21.50 in chips)
Seat 5: mrdonkey ($40.70 in chips)
Seat 6: Mr_rahl ($111.80 in chips)
Seat 7: Jimmy-san ($97 in chips)
Seat 8: ST500 ($116.95 in chips)
Seat 9: Pelj01 ($41.40 in chips)
Seat 10: psYchrAis ($77.20 in chips)
Jimmy-san: posts small blind $0.50
ST500: posts big blind $1
----- HOLE CARDS -----
dealt to Mr_rahl [Jh Ts]
Pelj01: folds
psYchrAis: folds
nuts1: folds
Keronda: calls $1
liu0171: folds
mrdonkey: folds
Mr_rahl: raises to $4
Jimmy-san: folds
ST500: folds
Keronda: calls $3
----- FLOP ----- [9c 2d Ks]
Keronda: checks
Mr_rahl: bets $7.20
Keronda: calls $7.20
----- TURN ----- [9c 2d Ks][4s]
Keronda: bets $15
Mr_rahl: raises to $46
Keronda: folds
Returned uncalled bets $31 to Mr_rahl
Mr_rahl: doesn't show hand
Mr_rahl collected $51.25 from Main pot

In this second hand i dwelled for a while trying to decide whether this was a good bluffing spot.

Game #7440293184: Hold'em NL ($0.50/$1) - 2008/06/15 - 13:59:40 (UK)
Table "Eaglesnest" Seat 5 is the button.
Seat 1: Tellerman ($248.10 in chips)
Seat 2: Chasinbux ($34.97 in chips)
Seat 3: karting ($110.40 in chips)
Seat 4: basket114 ($99.48 in chips)
Seat 5: Nath10063 ($52.76 in chips)
Seat 6: Weih09101 ($17 in chips)
Seat 7: Mr_rahl ($98.95 in chips)
Seat 8: psYchrAis ($76.65 in chips)
Seat 9: Kenny7 ($100 in chips)
Seat 10: BeeingPA ($105.25 in chips)
Weih09101: posts small blind $0.50
Mr_rahl: posts big blind $1
----- HOLE CARDS -----
dealt to Mr_rahl [Th 6d]
psYchrAis: folds
BeeingPA: folds
Tellerman: calls $1
Chasinbux: calls $1
karting: calls $1
basket114: folds
Nath10063: folds
Weih09101: calls $0.50
Mr_rahl: checks
----- FLOP ----- [6h 8c Jh]
Weih09101: checks
Mr_rahl: checks
Tellerman: checks
Chasinbux: checks
karting: checks
----- TURN ----- [6h 8c Jh][9c]
Weih09101: bets $1
Mr_rahl: calls $1
Tellerman: calls $1
Chasinbux: folds
karting: folds
----- RIVER ----- [6h 8c Jh 9c][Ac]
Weih09101: checks
Mr_rahl: bets $6.50
Tellerman: folds
Weih09101: folds
Returned uncalled bets $6.50 to Mr_rahl
Mr_rahl: doesn't show hand
Mr_rahl collected $7.60 from Main pot

playing less

2008-06-10T15:15:00.000-07:00

Recently i havent been putting in the hands online this is for various reasons the most interesting is i went on minor tilt a few days ago and had to take a day off to regain my composure. The downside to this is that i havent accumilated very many mpps on willhill towards the monthly bonus and tomorrows rakeback wont be as much as the last two weeks. Fortunately im still running well over the small sample since my exams finished as the graph shows. I am now playing mostly 100nl which i think is progress event though i dont have a big enough sample to draw any conclusions ,my mental state for this level is also falling into place and i feel i could lose a buyin or two without it affecting me.
Last sunday i cashed in the 100k which is good for me unfortunately i couldnt make it passed the first money posistion so worthless realy.

Today i closed Aidans cash game book totaling up the money for the last time, i finished on around £110 profit which im obviously happy with as its about 35 buyins and the next biggest winner made £45. Sadly this money is mostly eaten up by the money i spent on toasties during the games but putting in lots of hours of live cash has given me confidence for playing live and hopefully prepared me to play the aspers cash game when i come back after summer.

I havent put very many hours into the 10nl thing i said i would do in my last post but from the sessions ive had it looks harder than i thought, if rakeback is taken into consideration then it becomes a lot easier especially as its 8 tabling but ill put a few more sessions in for my interest in the comming weeks.

upswing

2008-06-04T01:46:00.000-07:00

Its nearly two weeks since i finished my exams and im still riding an upswing which is now the largest from cash ive ever had. The graph above shows the last two weeks and i would estimate $800 to $900 profit after bonuses and RB.
As expected I am playing less now exams are over but this month i intend to reach 2000mpps on will hill for a $200 bonus. I am currently dabbling in 100nl but 50nl is still the bread and butter for me partly because there isnt a lot of action on will hill at 100nl and partly because dont have 20 buyins on will hill. for 100nl. I am comming to realise my bank roll management might be too conservative and my definition of bankroll clashes with the general definition of the poker community "bankroll is the total money set aside for poker" which in my case would be all my poker account balances, scarily this would allow me to play 200nl a level it would take me a long time to reach on my system. Ive been thinking on this for a while and am yet undecided on my viewpoint but i will be trying to make 100nl the norm from now on.
My reluctance to move up quickly is easily explained by my last attempt to move to 100nl on full tilt with 17 buyins loosing about $500 very quickly forcing me to move some money to ft not a disaster but i did go back to my 20 buyins to play system. The benafits of this is it is a very disaplined way to play and online cash is a lot about managing money and disapline.
I have acquired a lot of poker educational videos from Guy which i will be watching over the next couple of weeks accelerated poker learning and all that.

Recently the question of what is easier money cash games or sit n goes has interested me a lot and i have found the hardest thing about this question is what levels are equivalent, to get an idea i have defined a bankroll of $200 and off this size i would play 10nl (20 buyins) or $6.5 sitngos (30 buyins). So im assuming 10nl is equal to $6.5 sitngoes. To compare potential profits in each $/hour seems to be the best way. Now i can stock a lot of 10nl hands with relative ease and i consider myself a winning cash game player but i am no sitngo grinder enter 147_star Paul Williams a winning sitngo player. He is the perfect candidate he is a consistent winner who has logged thousands of $6.5 sitngoes. By looking at his stats and talking with him we have concluded that 6 tabling he could run at a conservative $6/hour. So im addition to my normal levels i will be putting some hours into 8 tabling 10nl and using my new software to give me a hourly rate.

running hot

2008-05-29T08:48:00.000-07:00

Right i thought i might sum the last week, after finishing exams last wednesday i hit the cash tables on will hill with the aim of clearing 1000mpps to get their monthly $100 bonus. I played mostly 50nl and started off loosing fortunately i started running well for a few days and im looking at $500 profit for the week after bonus and rakeback. This is an encouraging start even if i do run like a god.

dealt to Mr_rahl [7c 7d]
mstr9000: folds
Wasp: folds
johan13: folds
Taalari: raises to $2
lobo777: folds
jooncha: calls $2
sunszamar: folds
catface8: folds
MrClash: folds
Mr_rahl: calls $1.50
----- FLOP ----- [Jc 6c 7s]
Mr_rahl: bets $4
Taalari: calls $4
jooncha: calls $4
----- TURN ----- [Jc 6c 7s][7h]
Mr_rahl: bets $10
Taalari: calls $10
jooncha: calls $10
----- RIVER ----- [Jc 6c 7s 7h][8c]
Mr_rahl: bets $25
Taalari: is all-in $18.65
jooncha: calls $25
----- SHOW DOWN -----
Mr_rahl: shows [7c 7d] (Four of a kind, Sevens, Jack high)
Taalari: mucks hand [Jh Jd]
jooncha: mucks hand [Ac Qc]
Mr_rahl collected $12.70 from Side pot #1
Mr_rahl collected $101.20 from Main pot

I expect my online poker will slow down a bit now as the exam period is comming to an end and there will be other distractions including Aidans 2, 4p cash game prying me from the laptop. Im planning on sticking with will hill for the time being due to its bonus and loose play the only drawback is that the traffic at my limits is low and at certain times of the day its not worth playing.
I have finally payed for some poker software going for holdem manager in the end so hopefully i will be able to make some sense of my results soon.

its been a while

2008-05-21T08:02:00.000-07:00

I havent posted in over a month exams have taken up most of that time and ive hardly played any poker since being back in durham. However this is all about to change i had my last exam this morning and now have a month to do what i want. Exams didnt go well and id be surprised if i passed my physics modules but i cant do anything about it for the time being so ill just enjoy this month and play lots of poker.
My sports betting didnt go to plan over easter with ronnie dominating the field but overall i only lost £20 so nothing major. I staked tony in march some time $40 to play micro stakes online as he clearly has the tallent to beat the game and was broke at the time, this immediately went well for us and i agreed to cash myself out of the deal about a month later when his bankroll hit $360.
I got elected into the poker exec for next year which im enthusiastic about and i will be helping Gamble organise the poker festival planned for the end of term.
Right time to hit the cash tables.

progress at last

2008-04-11T14:55:00.000-07:00

I finally broke the $2k mark on full tilt today and started playing .50 1 again. Im up about a buyin for the day and i think im playing good poker. Im sticking to my strick bankroll management for the forseable future so may have to step down again if i drop below 2k but hopefully this will be the day i leave the low stakes tab behind and become a medium stakes player (in full tilts eyes anyway). Im still at the stage where sitting with $100 seems like a lot but that will wear off quickly if i can stay at this level for more than a few days.
Im still having software issues with trial versions of poker tracker 3 and holdem manager not working its something to do with postsql databases but its beyond me so im gona get dave a computer science friend to hopefully help me.
Unfortunately i dont have any graphs to put up but going over the money quickly in my head i would say im down about $200 since getting back from uni, not the profits i was hoping for but im optamistic about the future.
There are only two "sports" that i have any knowledge on and thats snooker and F1, im still waiting on the snooker to start but had a couple of bets on the F1 last weekend firstly that Kubica wouldnt be leading after the first lap and laying against Raikonen for the win. I won both the bets for a small profit and will be upping the wagers in the future as i have been a winning bettor in these sports for a while.
Hope all is well with all u mere mortals (mr gamble :-)) isaac

nearly there

2008-04-04T04:02:00.000-07:00

My full tilt account currently stands at $1957 so im very close again to having 20 buyins to 100nl. However every time i have got to this point over the past couple of weeks I have failed to make it over the 2k mark so im very tempted to wait for my rakeback to come through to put me over the barrier. This disaplined approach to moving up limits may seem over the top to many of you especially considering my online bankroll is well enough to play 100nl however I think getting back into playing 50nl has cut out the stupid mistakes that I was making a couple of weeks ago in 100nl as i have now returned back to my online poker mindset and hopefully winning poker. I would attach a graph of my play but my unupdated version of pokeroffice is close to useless and seems to choose what days it wants to work and which sessions to log. I have looked into other products and will be investing in one of them once i can get the trial versions working which at the moment i cant so I will get a computer genius friend to help me with that. I have also concluded that as well as playing a lot of poker i need to accelerate my poker learning so far all i have done in this area is to start into Bill Chen's The Mathematics of Poker again which is heavy reading but interesting stuff. Future reading will be centred around tournament stratagy as this is a weak part of my game. I havent played any live poker since being back but have organised a home game for sunday night which i will probably account for in my next post.
Isaac

stagnant

2008-03-27T07:19:00.000-07:00

Since the last post the old bankroll on full tilt has been pretty stagnant at just under 20 buyins to 100nl. I have decided that i wont play 100nl on ft again until i have 20 buyins on there as this has always worked in the past for me. Hopefully ill be turning around the -33.5 BB/100hands at 100nl soon. I have found that since i last played lots of hours of 50nl full ring on ft (last summer) the games have tightened up a lot and i often find myself on tables where all the players are seeing 20% of flops. To get action i now have to keep a high turn over of tables moving on when the grinders set in. The only monetary positive i can take from all this is that im generating rakeback and expect to get about $60 back for the past two weeks. Ive set aside £45 for betting on the world snooker championship comming up next month, the only bet planned so far is laying against ronnie for the win when he beats Liu Chuang in the first round. Paul if ur reading the offer of a last longer with selby and higgens is still open to you :-).

new found optimism

2008-03-25T05:25:00.000-07:00

I found a bit of my old poker confidence again last night. I had been down a few buyins at 50nl and was on the verge of giving up for the day when i finally made a good read;

Full Tilt Poker Game #5767454694: Table Dancing Leaf - $0.25/$0.50 - No Limit Holdem - 18:06:11 ET - 2008/03/24
Seat 1: Ixibat ($10)
Seat 2: WULLFMAN ($23)
Seat 3: GrrrMyLove ($38.95)
Seat 4: SCOTTAJR ($17.85)
Seat 5: Domino516 ($80.15)
Seat 6: scep99 ($39.45)
Seat 7: AA_REAL_MAN ($126.15)
Seat 8: Mr_Rahl ($51.35)
Seat 9: govornater ($31.25)
GrrrMyLove posts the small blind of $0.25
SCOTTAJR posts the big blind of $0.50
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Mr_Rahl [9d 9c]
Domino516 calls $0.50
scep99 raises to $2
AA_REAL_MAN folds
AA_REAL_MAN is sitting out
Mr_Rahl calls $2
govornater folds
WULLFMAN calls $2
GrrrMyLove folds
SCOTTAJR folds
Domino516 calls $1.50
*** FLOP *** [7h Tc 2d]
Domino516 checks
scep99 bets $4.50
Mr_Rahl calls $4.50
WULLFMAN has 15 seconds left to act
WULLFMAN folds
Domino516 folds
*** TURN *** [7h Tc 2d] [5s]
scep99 bets $17.75
Mr_Rahl has 15 seconds left to act
Mr_Rahl has requested TIME
Mr_Rahl raises to $35.50
scep99 has 15 seconds left to act
scep99 is sitting out
scep99 has timed out
scep99 folds
Uncalled bet of $17.75 returned to Mr_Rahl

In this hand i nearly insta folded when he made a pot size raise on the turn but then thought about it and couldnt see why he would do this with an overpair or even a 10 especially when there wasnt any easy draws he could be trying to price me out of, so i put him virtually allin and took the pot down. I went on to recover all my losses for the day and turn a slight profit, its very likely that this still will be my biggest loosing month ever but at least I havent given up. I have attached a graph of the easter break so far.

online activity

2008-03-24T06:44:00.000-07:00

Right lets get sitngos and tournaments out of the way first, im not a particularly good player/ big winner in either of these formats. My sitngo game can only be described as poor you can find my full tilt and pokerstars results on sharkscope (username on both is Mr_Rahl). As for tournaments it looks slightly better again you can see full tilt and pokerstars results here http://officialpokerrankings.com/pokerstars/Mr_Rahl/poker/results/BFD7ADE2CBEB442F9D7DFC80FCE67518.html?t=2
http://officialpokerrankings.com/fulltiltpoker/Mr_Rahl/poker/results/A0BC74604B874929891F10A34D948052.html?t=2
Selecting full tracking will give you lifetime results for these sites. I have a couple of nice results on ultimate bet and poker333 but I don’t know how to get at them so full tilt and pokerstars will have to do.
Now onto cash games which I primarily play. I have been a 50nl player for about 9 months and have 16 thousand hands logged on poker office (I have played more than this its just poker office hasn’t been the most reliable program). As it stands at the moment at 50nl I am up $740 over these hands at a rate of 4.65 BB/100hands. I’m not a huge multi-tabler but that might have something to do with playing on a laptop where I like a maximum of 3 tables at once.
I returned home about 8 days ago looking forward to be able to play on full tilt (I can only play on pokerstars with no rake back when in uni which poker office wont seem to work on) and logging some hands. After assessing my situation my online bankroll was well enough to start playing 100nl and have a good go at it. Unfortunately all hasn’t gone to plan during the last week as I have dropped about $400 in those games and my overall 100nl stats are 985 hands at a loss of $660. Even though this is my biggest monetary loss to date a four buy in downswing happens. This loss is bothering me not because of the money but because of my play in those 1000 hands. I would be content if I had this loss while playing my normal game or even an average game as I have been on a bit of a bad run but some of the plays I have been making have just been stupid. Here are a couple of examples.

Full Tilt Poker Game #5749544997: Table Elizabeth (6 max) - $0.50/$1 - No Limit Holdem - 10:37:06 ET - 2008/03/23
Seat 1: Mr_Rahl ($58)
Seat 2: Fr4nt1c ($100)
Seat 3: Minken39 ($71.75)
Seat 4: FT2007 ($101.50)
Seat 5: tisme x ($46.10)
Seat 6: spucke ($84.70)
Mr_Rahl posts the small blind of $0.50
Fr4nt1c has 5 seconds left to act
Fr4nt1c posts the big blind of $1
The button is in seat #6
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Mr_Rahl [3h 3d]
Minken39 folds
FT2007 raises to $3.50
tisme x folds
spucke folds
Mr_Rahl calls $3
Fr4nt1c folds
*** FLOP *** [Qh 9c 2s]
spucke is feeling happy
Mr_Rahl checks
FT2007 bets $6
Mr_Rahl has 15 seconds left to act
Mr_Rahl raises to $18
FT2007 has 15 seconds left to act
FT2007 calls $12
*** TURN *** [Qh 9c 2s] [7c]
Mr_Rahl has 15 seconds left to act
Mr_Rahl bets $36.50, and is all in
FT2007 calls $36.50
Mr_Rahl shows [3h 3d]
FT2007 shows [Ks Kd]
*** RIVER *** [Qh 9c 2s 7c] [2c]
Mr_Rahl shows two pair, Threes and Twos
FT2007 shows two pair, Kings and Twos
FT2007 wins the pot ($114) with two pair, Kings and Twos

In this hand the villain had raised the previous two hands so even though I had him down as a tight aggressive good player I didn’t give him any credit in this hand and made a silly push on the turn.

Full Tilt Poker Game #5739794301: Table Munoz - $0.50/$1 - No Limit Holdem - 16:27:35 ET - 2008/03/22
Seat 1: olegvin ($103.35)
Seat 2: Texas_Crossfire ($118.70)
Seat 3: spicycabbage ($100)
Seat 4: Mr_Rahl ($120.15)
Seat 5: Siman Says ($82.95)
Seat 6: Rio Jim ($67.65)
Seat 7: tanto666 ($87.15)
Seat 8: damoventy ($143.90)
Seat 9: xjhacking ($134.15)
xjhacking posts the small blind of $0.50
olegvin posts the big blind of $1
The button is in seat #8
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Mr_Rahl [2s 2h]
Texas_Crossfire folds
spicycabbage folds
Mr_Rahl raises to $3
Siman Says folds
Rio Jim folds
tanto666 folds
damoventy folds
xjhacking folds
olegvin calls $2
*** FLOP *** [Qc Qh 8h]
olegvin checks
Mr_Rahl has 15 seconds left to act
Mr_Rahl bets $4
olegvin calls $4
*** TURN *** [Qc Qh 8h] [5d]
olegvin checks
Mr_Rahl bets $9
olegvin raises to $18
Mr_Rahl calls $9
*** RIVER *** [Qc Qh 8h 5d] [7h]
olegvin bets $19
Mr_Rahl has 15 seconds left to act
Mr_Rahl folds

Here the villain was again relatively tight and I donked off money to him, maybe it had something to do with being min raised.

Full Tilt Poker Game #5710070474: Table Center (6 max) - $0.50/$1 - No Limit Holdem - 10:55:58 ET - 2008/03/20
Seat 1: attl ($58.20)
Seat 2: NevarBluffin ($84.50)
Seat 3: BadPete_1 ($109.90)
Seat 4: KennoClassic ($199)
Seat 5: Mr_Rahl ($72.60)
Mr_Rahl posts the small blind of $0.50
attl posts the big blind of $1
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Mr_Rahl [Jc Ts]
NevarBluffin folds
BadPete_1 folds
KennoClassic folds
Mr_Rahl raises to $4
attl calls $3
*** FLOP *** [Ah As Kc]
Mr_Rahl bets $6
attl calls $6
*** TURN *** [Ah As Kc] [5c]
Mr_Rahl bets $14
attl calls $14
*** RIVER *** [Ah As Kc 5c] [2d]
Mr_Rahl bets $48.60, and is all in
attl calls $34.20, and is all in
Uncalled bet of $14.40 returned to Mr_Rahl
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Mr_Rahl shows [Jc Ts] a pair of Aces
attl shows [Kh 2h] two pair, Aces and Kings
attl wins the pot ($113.40) with two pair, Aces and Kings

This hand again shows my bad timing and over aggression.

finally up to date

2008-03-22T15:17:00.000-07:00

I started uni in October 2007 looking forward to living away from home and moving on with my life. After the commotion of freshers week I found my first poker game a £3 sitngo in college which I bubbled in. Fortunately there was another game available heads up omaha sitngos with Matt Gamble. I offered to play for £1 a go but we eventually agreed to play for fun as we were still unknowns to each other. At the time I had played few live games and gave away the strength of my hands readily. One memorable hand occurred when I had the nut straight on the turn on a non-paired board with two spades. The river came a third spade and gamble pulled off a well timed check raise bluff sensing I didn’t like the spade to take the pot and the pride.
I started to play poker society tournaments every Saturday evenings and cashed in the first two. Through Gamble and showing an interest at poker society I got an invite to a 5p 10p student home game at James Key’s house the society president.
Gamble assured me it was a loose game with some crazy play. Unfortunately on this occasion I was one of the biggest fish, I played tight weak nervous and got destroyed dropping four buyins. This result sounds like a disaster but I was ecstatic about it, the play had shown me how far I had to go and the next level of play to aspire to.
I played a lot of poker over the two terms with most of it being live. The most notable action being the New Inn game, a game set up by locals and played in the New Inn. Gamble again assured me it was fishy but I was wary this time. It is a gamblers game 25 50p with a £10 buy in with a few locals and a few students. For the first hour of my first attempt I took a while getting into the swing of things, this was a bigger game than I was used to as a 50nl player online and this game effectively being 100nl with people looking for a gamble. I had to survive 2 all-ins in the first hour to avoid re-buying, once when I had an up and downer and once when my opponent had the same draw, fortunately I won both of these hands. After that I started to get comfortable (a couple of pints might have helped) and around 12-1am we had a lock in. For the rest of the game I thought I played well, this I believe was partly due to the fact that I stopped viewing the chips in monetary value and just counted then as chips, and cashed out about £100 at 3am. This is my biggest win on a single cash table to date, overall in the New Inn game I’m up about £120 but I feel I ran well in two of the three sessions. They are great fun games and a social occasion more than anything and I feel I have learnt a lot playing against the regulars improving my game greatly.

In late February Gamble as social secretary of poker soc organised its first social of the year a trip to aspers casino in Newcastle on a Friday. I had been awake since 7.30am and had already put in a few hours poker before Keys picked up the aidans crew at about 7pm to go to Newcastle. I had been meaning to visit aspers from before I got to Durham so was happy to be finally going. There were about 12 of us altogether planning on playing the £20 freeze out and having a few drinks. We arrived in aspers with plenty of time to have a drink before registering for the tournament, me and Gamble agreed to swap 10% of ourselves to make things more interesting. I was very happy with my table as it appeared some of my opponents had no idea how to play the game however I played too tight and at the first break my chip stack was the same size as it had started. After the first break the blinds started to rise quickly and it turned into a bit of a craps shoot, I was out shortly afterwards when I overplaying KQ pre-flop. Fortunately my investment in Matt paid off when he cashed for £90 or so cutting down my losses for the evening.
As we were leaving aspers at about 2am I suggested we carried on the poker back in Durham, a group of us were up for it so we started playing a 5 10p cash game when we got back to aidans in the early hours. This turned out to be one of the most entertaining games I have ever played. There were seven of us playing in the jcr and we eventually got £200-300 on the table. I had a cup of tea at about 4am which gave me an edge over the sleeping Matt and Nick. Somehow we managed to play until midday having some food when breakfast opened at 8am. You can find Guy’s account of the night here http://diaryofagrinder.blogspot.com/2008_02_01_archive.html
That brings us to now and the easter break, ill cover my online status and results in the next post. Isaac

how it began

2008-03-15T18:31:00.000-07:00

For those of you that don’t already know me my name is Isaac Blake and I am in my first year at Durham university studying physics. I’m starting this blog as I find myself regularly checking other peoples blogs so its time to give something back.

I finished school in 2006 but hadn’t got accepted into any universities that I wanted mostly due to poor GCSE grades. When I got AAAB in my a-levels I decided to wait a year and try again.
So I was on a unplanned year out and fully expected to have to get a job for most of it as there wasn’t much money in the bank and I had my car to keep running. I turned 18 at the end of august and soon found poker. I owe most of my initial interest in poker to Poker Night Live on sky 843 (unfortunately they got cancelled last year). The advice and banter on pnl lead to my first and only deposit on their supported site poker333.
Initially I played $1 sng’s and worked my way up through the levels. At the time I had heard that 20 buyins was what was needed to be rolled, on reflection im lucky I didn’t go broke through variance and had to step down a few times. When I found that $5 sng’s weren’t making as much for me as I would have liked I tried the 2 5 cent cash tables and haven’t looked back since. Not exactly sure of the timescale but after about 5 months I had a bank roll of $600-$800 and was playing 10 20 cent.

In feb 07 I got an email from poker333 about a $100k free roll I was eligible for in aid of some anniversary. I met the entery requirements they set me and registered for the tournament. On the first Sunday in march I sat down to play the tournament, to my great surprise there were only around 830 entrants. This was clearly a far bigger tournament than I would likely be playing in the near future with a cost per entrant of about $125.
I gave all my attention to the game and played solid poker identifying the weak players. Unfortunately I was having problems with migraines at the time so was forced to take pain killers and a cloth about half way through just to keep me at the computer. Normally this would put me out for the rest of the night and I did consider packing it in after a few hours but I decided to stick it out. I had one crucial hand at the 1 in 3 paid stage when the blinds were getting high and my chips went in with AK against QQ and JJ luckily a K flopped and gave me the chip lead accelerating me through the bubble. The prize money started at about $200 this was big money for such a small bankroll.
As people got knocked out the minimum prize money increased, I played a steady and patient game and still feel I played some of the best poker I have ever played. I found myself heads up at about 3am. The final hand of the tournament the villain had a 2 to 1 chip advantage on me and pushed from the button, as the blinds were so big I called with A3o expecting it to be ahead and he flipped KQo. Unfortunately a Q flopped and it was over I got $17.5k for 2nd and the villain got $37.5k. I instantly checked my balance to see if it was real and sure enough the money was in my account. At 3am I woke my parents to tell them the good news they were stunned and thrilled at the result.
At this point I would like to say I skipped the lower limits and started at 2 5 dollar cash, but I didn’t and withdrew $17,000 the next week. This left me enough to deposit $600 on full tilt to take advantage of the rake back and bonus.
In September 2007 (just before I started university) my bankroll stood at about $4000 online mainly from cash on full tilt and a few tournament cashes on top, the highest being $500.
Sorry about the history lesson in this my 1st post but I though it necessary to get it in before I can look at the future. Hopefully in the second post ill cover my first two terms of uni and aims for the future. Feel free to comment Isaac.