Britblogs

I have quite enjoyed being something of a rarity, as a British poker blogger. However, the 'viral phenomenon' of poker blogs has now followed McDonalds, MTV and 'talk to the hand' across the Atlantic, and Britblogs are springing up daily. I might link a few another day, but its worth noting that they tend to be more 'live play' focussed than online.

I didn't play any poker last night; probably a good thing because when I play tonight I will be a little more removed from Tuesday's debacle.

What I did do last night was head north for various boring reasons, which also meant I could see my ex and a couple other friends from my time up there. It was lovely to see her, and she seems so happy - which I have been until my money troubles really started to bite this week.

She has embarked on a lot of dating and 'casual relationships', if you know what I mean, since we split. I have no problem with that, but last night for some reason it got me a little moon-faced, wondering why our sex life died so badly (principally from her side) yet since we split she has been pretty rampant. It doesn't crush me or make me jealous or anything like that... just makes me a bit sad. There was a very specific event which halted our sex life some months after we got together, and I think that remained the root cause thereafter; once a couple stops doing it for whatever reason I think it becomes hard to re-ignite the thing. You have become Two People Who Don't Have Sex, and its uncomfortable trying to change it.

On a more flippant note, my ex has encountered a guy who is truly enormously endowed. Of course I could not resist asking the question... And it seems that if he was a 10 and this other 'small' guy she saw was a 4, then I am 'a 7 or 8'. Which is nice to hear, even if it sounds suspiciously diplomatic. Never mind, I have always played a short stack pretty well.

So what does tonight hold? Well, I am going to see Spiderman 2 straight from work in two hours' time. The cinema is 5 minutes walk away, I'm going alone - the best way to go to the cinema - and I cannot wait. (Does this count as poker content since Toby Maguire plays in some of the big tournaments?)

Once home, I will of course play some poker. It is my last chance for more than a week since I fly off to Corfu tomorrow night.

I am in two minds how to play. Part of me wants to play cautiously, probably heads-up matches where I can't see myself losing my 'roll under any circumstances. Another part of me thinks what the hell, go for it, gamble it up if I can find a half-decent pot limit game - either double my pitiful bankroll up or lose it, because its too small to count for much anyway.

My dilemma was increased by Iggy's latest post, which mentions a concept I first saw proposed by Mike Caro; namely, that you should take more risks with a small bankroll than with a large one.

While I ponder this thorny decision, here are six celebrities I have been told I resemble: Colin Firth (actor, was in 'Love Actually'), Tony Mortimer (ex singer with East 17), John Hurt (who is about thirty years older than me), Max Beesley (actor, ex-boyfriend of Mel B), Jim Carrey (annoying goon), Matthew Perry (in his slimmer moments I guess).

The fact that these six people look very little like each other makes it all very puzzling.

Stop me if you've heard this one before

Jesus, but I am fed up with writing the same things and telling myself the same things over and over and over again and not taking any damn notice!

So I am supposed to be basing my poker on three little words: Game. See. Lection.

And am I doing so? Am I fuck.

Last night I managed to lose the $100 that I nearly lost the previous night, and I don't even have the alcohol excuse. I simply DO NOT BELONG in Omaha games that are full of people who like to bet the pot on flop, turn and river, hand after hand; people who are prepared to gamble that you will fold and if you don't fold then their bottom two might be good or they might hit the four-high flush draw; people who when you do gather up the courage to fight back may well turn out to have the stone cold nuts. I do not have the skills, the judgement, the bottle, nor the BANKROLL to go up against these sort of players.

So, when I find myself in such a game, I should make like a tree, and get outta there. Not sit there like a weak-tight rabbit caught in headlights, too proud and too stupid and too damn STUCK to get out of my fucking chair.

So I lost a hundred at PLO. It could have been different if my first big hand had not seen my get outdrawn as a 60% favourite against two opponents, for an $83 pot.

Meanwhile, I won three out of four headsup games, and I really think that with the current pathetic state of my bankroll (more a banksliver) I need to concentrate on playing those. I think I have now played enough of them to know that at the lowest levels I can genuinely win 6 or 7 out of 10 on a consistent basis. (I've won 11 out of the last 15 and have had runs of 9 in a row and 7 in a row). The returns doing that are not spectacular, but they sure beat an hourly rate that has lately been well into the negative in Omaha. With an increased focus on them, not treating them as side games, I might be able to do a notch better as well.

It is certainly a great feeling a lot of the time playing them, as I play a lot of very bad players who I guess must be novices. I generally have a sense of an opponent's weakness fairly quickly, and can usually predict how I am going to win the match: with this guy it might be simply betting the pot all the time, with that guy it might be trapping when I flop something decent, with him over there it may be that he will call an all-in with Ace high. And so on.

I can sincerely say that I usually lose these only when I get a little unlucky on a big confrontation, and that only about three times ever have I thought my opponent was good enough to really trouble me. Whereas I have played a ton of people who I would happily play all day, every day, for as long as they liked.

And that’s enough poker talk for now. Its one of those mornings where I wonder how on earth I managed to win $1200 in three months… and then think, well I did and so I can do it again.

Don’t want to think about it any more, so here is a list of my entire DVD ‘collection’:
8 Mile, Die Another Day, The World Is Not Enough, Roger Dodger, Open Hearts, Last Orders, High Fidelity, Totally Bill Hicks, Heat, Glengarry Glen Ross, Spiderman

Playing drunk

Ninety minutes of play and I was stuck a hundred dollars... beating the arm of the chair in frustration, aiming futile curses at my opponents and at my stinking useless cards, wondering why I hadn't just gone to bed in my drunken state.. how could this have happened again?

After a night of snooker, pool and beer I headed home on the bus. I felt quite sick, and tired, and told myself I was not playing poker when I got home.

However, when I got back I found I had the lounge to myself for a change, and just could not bring myself to pass up the opportunity for some solitary play. So with a hot sweet cup of tea by my side I dived in, despite feeling wobbly.

Actually, playing drunk doesn't always harm me - sometimes I am so conscious that I really oughtn't be playing that I play with commendable tightness. And that was more or less how I played last night. But the cards just would not come. Precious little in the way of starting hands, absolutely nothing flopped, and if a dubious half-a-hand did flop for me then fierce action compelled me to surrender.

For the most part I managed to avoid tilting, settling for drunken whimpers of pain and frustration rather than making it worse with bone-headed plays. I did tilt off the remnants of one buy-in, when I felt I had just enough of the flop to be worth calling down a guy who was betting very frequently but proved to have two pair which I didn't outdraw.

I was just about ready to go to bed and call it a bad night, with the game getting short-handed and my luck getting no better, when... when... I made the nut flush on the turn, got a call of my raise and my hand held up. And then moments later I flopped the nut straight and got it all-in versus two opponents; despite having no redraw I won that hand too and in the blink of an eye was ahead by $10 and three busted-out opponents had left.

Time for bed. I had also won two heads-up matches while waiting for some sort of Omaha hand, so it turned out to be a moderately decent two hours or so of play. The heads-up wins were quite routine really - that makes five wins in a row by the way. My best streak is nine.

I went to bed knowing I had dodged a bullet, and resolving not to play drunk and tired again, at least not until the next time I felt like it...

Postscript: Today my bank has started to play hardball with me after tolerating my overdraft-exceeding ways for some time. I am in a real fucker of a situation just as my holiday comes up. I really need to keep winning!

Really geeky

I got another comment, but I'm concerned about it - is Boy Genius really ticked off with my comments about his stated height and weight? Or is he just bantering with me? I do hate to cause offence, although I gotta take issue with his comment about out-dated olde worlde measurement systems. Stones and pounds is not really very different to simply quoting pounds, and in fact the UK (led reluctantly by Europe) is moving more and more towards kilograms. I don't actually know what I weigh in kilos, but I think its about 70.

Back to the poker: I played Friday night, before spending the rest of the weekend at the coast with my girl. I only played a couple of hours, because I - GASP!! - stopped when I got tired. Is some self-discipline creeping in to my game and life?

It went okay, nearly thirty dollars won. I lost three big bets in five card stud, then found a great PLO game. Sadly, I only turned a tiny profit in that, losing two pots totalling fifty dollars to fairly horrible outdraws. Don't get me wrong, Omaha is very much a battle between made and drawing hands, where the draw can oftentimes be favourite. But these were rubbish hands - one of them a lower straight than mine, which hit a three-outer gutshot to outstraight me on the river. The other a naked flush draw, which the guy played aaaaall wrong.

In fact, my entire profit for the evening came from three $10 heads-up matches, of which I won all three. Two were against the same guy who turned out, oddly, to live in the same village as me and work in the same street as my job as well.

Whenever I hit a little run in these heads-ups, I start doing the maths and trying to work out whether I could/should make them my staple. If I was playing them consistently, keeping notes on opponents to seek and avoid, I reckon I would do okay. The chap from my village showed the usual profile of somebody I would beat regularly - namely, he was prepared to call all-in on the river when I had an overpair and there was a one-gap straight on board, yet he could only show down third pair. Yep, the kind of guy who takes any large bet to be an elaborate gutsy bluff. Maybe its because I bet so frequently in heads-up. Well sure, I do, but I don't get involved in monster pots with nothing.

Anyway, I was happy with my play in all three forms of poker for the night, so that is good.

Me and the girl booked our holiday; we fly on Friday to Corfu. We had a nice weekend too, mainly kicking back and watching DVDs which included Spiderman, possibly the fifth time I have seen it. I am waiting very impatiently for the sequel to arrive in the UK on Thursday, and may even be really geeky and watch it at the first possible showing at five past midnight.