As per yesterdays post I stuck to my plan,had an earlyish dinner and hit the tables after watching a TPE training video to get me in the right frame of mind.I also added No Cash
,Awesome Hutch and Greg's Seo1990
blogs to my sidebar.If any other genuine poker bloggers would like to swap links just drop me a comment or email.( especially if I've deleted your link and you've made a blogging comeback!)

Anyway to the poker and I registered for 19 Mtt's ranging from a $5 Hyper to a $55 standard speed game,rolled a few up and waited for the fun to begin.It didn't and I crashed out of game after game and even fired up some $15 180 player turbo's to keep me busy.With no joy in those either I was left with only a few tables open and my Stars roll down under the $2.6k mark.

Going out of a $25 Hyper in 14th from 897 starters for $161 after shoving AJs from the button into the big blinds AA caused Nacho to look up as I loudly told nobody in particular to "f*ck off"!

I did at least get the pleasure of beating Mr Watch Name again in another hand,although to be fair it was completely standard and it's not as if I outplayed him.



I was still in the $44 ,$25 Gtd Turbo although I was left crippled when I lost the hand below right on the money bubble.



On the next hand I was left with 965 chips in the big blind and got lucky after calling a raise with K10 v KQ and hitting a 10 on the river to stay alive.My A9 beat KQ a couple of hands later and I was back to having 10 big blinds and a fighting chance.I did miss a couple of spots where I could have got my money in ahead and doubled up, but overall having played a ton of sngs/hyper sngs,I'm quite comfortable playing a shortstack.

I managed to duck and dive a bit,stealing around once per orbit to stay alive.There were quite a few big names left in the game too and I found it quite amusing that only last week I'd downloaded an interview with Moorman1 from Oneouter.com and had been listening to it as I walked Nacho and here I was at his table.He's won over $7.5 Million at online Mtt's ( more than anyone else)and with the exception of Burnley Mik
he's considered to be the best Mtt player in the world.

Still,he did say in the Oneouter interview that his greatest fear in poker was tangling with the mighty Zagga at the virtual felt and I'm sure that was reinforced when I completely outplayed him.... in this plays itself, totally standard hand below!



I also kept an eye on the other tables in the tourney and was hoping to play with Stars pro TalonChick at some point.I can't be the only bloke to constantly rewind the bit on her 2+2 Pokercast advert where she threatens to put listeners in a "downward dog" in the sexiest voice I've ever heard! ( well maybe apart from Clare Grogans in Gregorys Girl) What do you mean I am the only bloke that does that? Ahh well!

I mentioned before that in the run up and at previous final tables I've been shaking with excitment and trying very hard to keep myself calm enough to play well.I think I'm over that now as I didn't feel any nerves at all playing this one.Perhaps that was down to so nearly going out after that AK hand and the fact that even when I did make the final table I was very shortstacked and had pretty much satisfied myself with cashing for the $520 that ninth place brought.

As it was I managed to creep up a couple of places before I shoved A2 and lost to J7 for a $1371 payout.


As with nights where I've lost $400-$500 in buy-ins, aside from a quick fist pump I didn't really feel too up or down about it.$1371 may be my 2nd biggest Mtt cash but it really just gives me the fuel to keep taking shots at the $44-$50 level when I should probably be doing it the hard way and learning Mtt's at lower limits,especially with my limited bankroll.

Off work tomorrow for Easter Monday.I read an article in the paper last week that said most kids in the UK think Easter is a celebration of the birth of the Easter Bunny.Made me smile!Hopefully I'll be celebrating more Mtt cashes as I plan to get a bit of a Sunday grind on later.

Back soon...

Congrats to Celtc on their tainted,hollow league title win!

As our captain says,“Celtic went on a great run and there is no taking away from that, but we were just four points behind when we went into administration.

“Losing the ten points was a big blow. Then you know about everything that was going on. We lost games I don’t think we would have lost had we not been put in that position.

“If it was the other way round, we’d have received a massive boost had they been deducted ten points.

“It was a hammer blow to us to get that and we had a bad run of results after we went into administration.

I also liked this article
from the New York Times on my teams predicament this season.

Overall it's not been a bad week.I took Step A over to my Mum and Dads place on Tues evening to see my wee nephew.The wee man has now added putting his thumbs up when asked what the Fonz does.

The girl I met up with last September has been back in touch and we've arranged a date for a week on Tues.She's away looking after her brothers kids this weekend and is off to Amsterdam next Sat/Sun.She did say she was free this Tues but with me being off work for Easter Monday I'd rather leave it until my head is a bit clearer as I intend to enjoy late smoke filled nights tonight and tomorrow night!

I was reading that the company behind Full Tilt are recruiting and people are taking this as a sign the site will be back soon.With the Tapie group behind it I'll certainly never be depositing another penny on FT.Still,I'm looking forward to seeing how the much talked about big live poker game at Wembley stadium goes next month.....

I suppose I was quite lucky in that I only had a Step 2 tourney ticket on Full Tilt when Black Friday struck.I think I initially signed up via a referal from my mate Al Eleven and took a $25 bonus instead of the 27% rakeback deal most players seemed to be on.That always pissed me off but in hindsight it was definitely a blessing.

I usually write a few bullet points when writing a blog post and expand on them.I had intended writing about how playing Mtt's has really helped me fall in love with poker again after I grew a bit bored of the mindless button mashing auto pilot mode required for hyper/sng games.

I only played about 8-10 Mtt's last night and my new found love of those games was tested to the limit as I crashed to two outer after two outer.I did win a couple of buy-ins at the $50nl Zoom tables before hitting the sack at least I suppose.

There was also a guy from the Moshman staking company on the 2+2 Pokercast this week and he described winning Mtt players graphs as "down,down,down,down,spike" so hopefully if I keep plugging away and getting better I'll hit a few upward spikes soon.

Right,time to head to Ibrox to watch the Gers play St Mirren in front of another full house.The plan is to grab dinner on the way home and get a decent amount of Mtt's fired up.

Back soon...

Poker resuts are about the long term but at 3.30am this morning I was looking at losses of about $800 for the month of March and wondering if I was deluding myself that I was simply running badly and that I was only a few key flips away from making a decent profit.

By 4.15am I'd managed 6th place in a $44 Turbo for just under $500 and although it was still a month of bad beats and lost flips that certainly was a welcome boost.

I played around 21 Mtt's in total yesterday with my buy-ins coming in at around $400-$500 and having bought in for similar amounts most nights when I play I suppose a net loss of $300-ish for the month is really neither here nor there as far as letting me know if I'm going to make a long term profit playing Mtt's.

Anyone that knows me or reads this blog will know I don't do celebrity culture and big names don't impress me.Having said that it did feel quite cool to play at the same table as the WSOP Main event champ Pius Heinz in one game last night, although I managed to completely donk off my stack to someone else within a few minutes of being at his table.

I also had Mike "Timex" McDonald on my left for over 100 hands in another game and even managed to win a couple of decent pots from him.Stick that on your wiki page alongside your $3.4m in tourney winnings Mr watch name!

I knocked John Dayton ( used to watch his training vids on Float the turn) out of one tourney and also shared the same table as this weeks 2+2 Pokercast guest "Mement Mori" as well as guys like Kleath,Busto_Soon and Tournament Poker Edge pro DannyN13.

I'm pretty sure I even spotted the legendary "Blue Scouse" at my $50nl Zoom table ( and up 5 buy-ins!) as I played a few hands before bed.

Watching the TPE vids is certainly improving my game although after years of cash and sng poker I almost feel like I'm starting over again with trying to learn how to play Mtt's.

I'm not sure how many final tables I'll have to make before I stop shaking with excitment when I make one, although I did discover last night that some vigorous excercise in between hands seems to burn off a bit of the adrenaline and lets me calm down and focus on playing well.

Pokestars $3228 ( - $298) Party $0 ( cashed out $597)

Total Roll $3228

Back soon...

What an amazing day I had last Sunday.Stepping off the edge of the basket and zip sliding across the Clyde was a real buzz and from there Two Pies and I headed to Ibrox for the Old Firm game.Due to the points deduction Rangers suffered after going into administration, a win for our rivals would have meant them winning the league at our place.The thought of watching their fans and classless popcorn teeth manager celebrating their tainted title win in front of us filled me with dread and would have been hard to take.

Thankfully Rangers played them off the park and the 3-2 final score line ( they scored two late goals) flattered them.The atmosphere was unbelievable and it's taken me until today to properly get my voice back after singing and generally going mental for the full 90 minutes.We are the people!



I did hit the tables on Sunday evening and managed a couple of small cashes and the seemingly usual lost key coin flip that could have been another final table appearance had I won it.I'm down a couple of hundred dollars this month and will need a good weekend at the felt to make my monthly stats half decent.I'm not too bothered though if I do have another losing month as I'm still learning Mtt's and I'm well aware I'm taking shots by playing $44,$51 games etc on my current bankroll.

I mentioned being unhappy at Party poker charging me an admin fee for keeping $600 there and not playing for 3 months.At least the cashout was quick and hit my bank account this week.Despite trusting Stars I'm still not sure if I'll deposit on there now or keep it my bank account for use at Stars if my roll there dips below the $2k mark.

Away from the poker I had a laugh at work today when one of the women in my team was telling me of a funny incident in the smoking room a few years back.She looks after her granddaughter Charlotte at weekends and loudly announced that after a tough week she was looking forward to a bit of Charlie at the weekend to cheer her up.Apparently jaws dropped all round and until it was explained to her my colleague had no idea why!

Back soon..

First up thankyou to Rosie for kindly sponsoring me here
for Sport Relief and for the twitter mention too.If any other readers would like to add to the pot there's still time and it's maybe worth pointing out that Sport Relief money is used to help people who need it all over the world and not just in the UK.Some of the stories on last nights TV Sport Relief show were truly heart breaking.It's hard to feel sorry for myself about any poker bad luck when there are families of 8-10 people living in shacks no bigger than a garden shed and drinking water from the same river they use as a toilet.

Reading over the info I was sent about the zip slide tomorrow I was slightly worried to discover I'll be going up the mobile crane in a basket and not in a sealed lift! The other part that was supposed to be reassuring was where it said that if anyone gets stuck half way across they lower the rope from one side.That's fine if it's being done on dry land but not if I'm half way across one of Scotlands biggest rivers!

Quite a few family,friends and work colleagues are coming to watch,support me and according to one of them "to sabotage the rope".With friends like that....

After the zip slide Two Pies and I will be heading a few minutes up the road to Ibrox to join the rest of our fellow Rangers supporters in wearing our red and black scarfs with pride and letting our rivals know that they can "Stick your tainted title up your arse"!

No concrete news yet on Rangers being taken over although apparently bids have been submitted by several interested parties including a Chicago consortium called "Club 9".

It's not been a bad week considering I was back at work after enjoying being off last week.I took Step A for a Mc'ds on Wednesday night and paid her to clean my flat afterwards.I did try and keep the "with age comes responsibility" and "the world doesn't owe you a living" lectures to a minimum.These were prompted by her deciding an interview for a job based just outside Glasgow was no good because it would take her over an hour to get there each morning.

On the poker front I've fallen out with Party Poker and come close to a few big( for me!)cashes on Pokerstars since my last post.Party had emailed me previously with a marketing spiel that implied they were crediting my account with £25 as I hadn't played there for a few months.When I logged on to their site I found it required hands to be played to clear the bonus.That didn't tempt me.Last week I got an email from them telling me I was being charged an admin fee ( about $6) because I wasn't using the account.Well after paying a further $3 cashout fee ( and probably being ripped off with the exchange rate too)I've cashed out my $597 balance and won't ever return.Robbing b*stards!

I was working until 6pm last night and by the time I got home,had dinner and walked Nacho I was too late to register for all my favourite usual 16-18 tourneys on Stars.I did play a few though including late registering for a $16,$27k Gtd turbo MTT ( 2100 players) and a $15,180 player turbo.

Those were the two I ended up going deep in.The $15 ended when someone called my AK shove with 33 and I failed to hit but the $16.50 exit was a really sore one.We were five handed on the final table bubble with $267 for 10th,over $400 for 9th and a top prize of nearly $6k.On my right was a player called DirtyBrasil.He is a top pro and "back in the day" I used to love watching his training vids on Cardrunners.I'm pretty sure this is a standard call.He was running at 27 vpip/22pfr and as expected with his stack size and skills he was running over the table and raising with a wide range at this point.

Although I had just paid the blinds I had slipped into 10th place and although the pay jump would have been nice if I'd folded into at least 9th and the final table,I was playing to win and if my tens had held I would have been in with a decent shout.If you think it was a daft call please let me know in the comments because I've played less than 600 Mtt's in my entire life and I'm sure I'm still making plenty of mistakes.



Watching a TPE vid on the studying/working side of the game showed me I really need to work harder on that side of my game if I'm to improve.Just watching pro training vids isn't enough and I need to review more hands,download pokerstove again and mess about with chosen hands v opponents ranges to gain more knowledge.

Thanks for reading and if I don't end up at the bottom of the Clyde tomorrow I'll be back soon....

After another late night grinding Mtt's this will be a short post.Next Sunday before the Old Firm game Two Pies and I will be zip sliding across the River Clyde in Glasgow for Sport Relief.The money raised is spent by Comic Relief to help change lives across the UK and the world's poorest countries.

If any of my kind generous readers would like to sponsor me please click here .It would be much appreciated.I'm paying the actual zip slide costs myself so all money raised goes to the charity...

I've been enjoying my week off so far with plenty of MW3 during the afternoons and hitting the poker tables in the evening.I've been sticking to Mtt's with a few $15 180 Turbo Mtt's thrown in too.So far this month I've played 198 Mtt's and have bought in for between $200-$500 per night in total buy-ins.These range from $5 Hyper turbos to $55 Hot turbo Mtt's.

I've had a few deep runs and a whole lot of bad beats and lost flips at key times but overall I'm really enjoying the challenge of playing deeper stacked tourney poker.It's not like me to break my strict bankroll management rules and take shots, ( which is what I'm doing with my bankroll and my nightly buy-in totals)however it's quite exciting to be playing real poker ( instead of just push/fold) for decent money.

The other major difference in my mindset is that instead of having part of my roll put aside for bills I don't have any cashout plans and unless I go as low as $1500-$2k ( including the $600 I have on Party) there's really no need to get too worried about having a losing month or two.Even if that does happen I'll probably just step down a bit and keep grinding Mtt's.

I've also joined the Tourament Poker Edge training site ( after letting my Floattheturn membership expire) and I reckon just watching some of the pro-players Mtt vids has already helped improve my game.

I'm also reading "The Raisers Edge" written by a few top Mtt pro's and although it's a bit dry there's a lot of good stuff in it too.It advocates the LAG style of play and although I did try and get a bit more aggro I found I wasn't picking my spots well enough and at this stage I'm just not good enough yet at Mtt's to be able to play that way.

The book does actually say that with todays games becoming more and more aggressive ( more 3-4-5 betting than ever before etc) that a tighter approach may actually be more profitable.I will still raise to steal once a table oribit or two and I love 3 betting light against habbitual blind stealers.Overall though I'd see my style at moment as being a nitty with plenty up my sleeve!

Ok,to the post title and after a few small cashes last night I was down to a couple of tables.It was nearly 4am,I'd smoked about 12 joints by this point and apart from hourly 5 min breaks I'd been grinding 8-10 tables for about 9 hours.

I made the final table of a $13.50 Standard Speed Knock-out Tourney with over 600 starters and as ever the pay out structure was very top heavy.I'd already cursed after folding AK to a raise and a reraise.The re-raiser was a total nit and I knew he had something big despite it looking like a standard squeeze move.He did have QQ but I would have rivered the King and would have taken a huge chip lead.As it was someone shoved A3 into my AQ in a blind v blind battle and when I 3-bet another player with QK he called with QJ and my hand held to bring me right back into contention.

When we got down to three players the other two were quite weak and I really felt I was finally going to bink a Mtt.I started off being quite aggro and chipped up nicely before taking my foot off the gas a little to try and retain my fold equity against these slightly fishy players.

When the hand below came up I'd let "IcallyouAA" raise my big blind and get away with it twice in a row and with the other guy being quite short I felt it was time to 3-bet and try and take it down there and then.

What happened next kept me awake long after I'd gone to bed feeling completely exhausted.I've set up the bet slider short-cut buttons ( under Options/bet slider on Stars) to allow me to bet either 2.5bb,2.25bb or "Max" preflop.When "IcallyouAA" makes his standard min raise I wanted to make it slightly bigger than min raising him back and ended up mashing the 2.25 button then the max key and then tried to reduce the amount using the slider.

I thought I'd done this and then to my horror my screen showed I'd 3-bet most of my stack instead of to 84k.Of course the villain lived up to his name,snap called and although I kept my head together as best I could I ended up jamming into his AQ with two live cards a few orbits later for $656 which I suppose at leastd put me back in the black for March.

Bought my scarf from RedblackRangers.com
All profits are being used to directly support the club by buying up tickets for upcoming home games.These will be given away to children’s charities, schools, football clubs, BBs, etc

Things did seem to look up a bit yesterday after the players accepted a deal to take huge pay cuts until the end of the season and there are also rumours that HMRC are willing to do a deal on the tax case that's been hanging over us.

Away from the football that's me off work now until the 19th.No plans other than to visit friends and family and play a ton of Mtt's and Modern Warfare 3.I started on the Mtt front last night and managed to final table the $9 Final Table only pays turbo tourney again,this time making 6th for $458 to finish the night with a profit after only a managing a couple of tiny cashes from the other games I played.

Feels good to get a off to a decent start for March but if I'm going to have buy-ins totalling $200-$300 per night over the next week or so and the following weekends a profitable start only really provides a small buffer against the usual brutal swings and variance.

Hopefully every little thing will be alright...

Thanks to Dudleys run good text messages I had a decent weekend at the felt, winning about $400 over the course of 51 Mtt's.Results wise the highlights were a 4th place from 630 runners in a $9 turbo which paid $613 and 7th from 1245 players in a $25 hyper game last night for $508.

Whereas the hyper sngs are mainly a mindless button mashing grind I'm still finding I have to switch off the tv and focus when 6-8 tabling Mtt's.I think I'm beginning to get addicted to the buzz of going deep and making final tables.( even if I am yet to bink anything outside a 180 turbo) Part of the reason I've always shunned Mtt's in the past is the time they take to play but with turbo and hyper turbo's being so popular these days that isn't so much of an issue.

I had hit the tables on Saturday night after being at Ibrox to see Rangers lose 2-1 to Hearts and all the talk amongst the near 50,000 crowd was of the teams future and the hope we can avoid going out of business altogether.It just seems to be one bad news story after another coming out in the media at the moment.

Times may be tough but having the Rangers FC badge as my avatar on Pokerstars led to my favourite poker moment of the year/century so far.There I was happily minding my own business when some celtc supporter at my 6 max $15 hyper table started spouting off in the chat box about how he would be partying when Rangers close down.I was playing about 6 tables and didn't have the time or inclination to chat back but I did get my moment a short time later when he shoved all in and I looked down to QQ.


Now slowrolling is not big and it's not funny but all of a sudden I seemed to forget how to click on the call button.Tick tock went the time until my powers of recall magically returned with just one second of my time bank left.My hand held up v his A2 and he started going tonto in the chat box,calling me every name and wishing my family had died in the Ibrox disaster.Sick comments but as I sparked up another and sat with a huge smile on my face I was just delighted I'd managed to get under his no doubt unwashed greasy pock marked skin! Giruy!

Back soon..

Results wise I had my worst ever month at the virtual felt.The good news is that since I realised I can afford this years big bills without touching my poker bankroll I'm really not too bothered.Bankroll management has always been a major focus for me and as a hobby player it's been nice to gamble it up a bit for a change and take some Mtt shots, even if I feel like I've not been able to win a flip or get a hand to hold up recently.

I didn't post my KK v the villains A10 hand below as a bad beat story but because it made me smile at the up and down nature of poker even over the course of one hand.I get it all in preflop and when the cards flip over I go "yeah".The A A 6 flop leaves me saying "Noooo" before I hit my miracle King on the turn.Yeahhhhh!! The 6 on the river giving him a better full house completed the cycle with yet another "Nooooooo"! That's poker!


Taking a look at Sharkscope I see that a lot of my losses have come from playing Hyper Turbo Mtt's.If I'm going to take shots at the $51 and $25 games on a regular basis where the edge is tiny and swings are huge then losing months like this one are going to be quite normal.Hopefully they will be balanced out by more months with decent scores.

Despite running horribly I'm also still adjusting to Mtt's and although I never feel outclassed in low stakes sng's I can't say the same in some of the $44 Mtt games.I even had WSOP main event runner up Martin Staszko at my table in one game.

The poker plan for March is to keep playing Mtt's,run better and to try and keep improving my game.

Pokerstars $3526 ( - $1257) Party $602 ( =) Total roll $4128

I try and avoid bad beat stories because as we all know they are boring as f*ck. However as it's been my worst month ever ( and I've been playing online since Oct '05)and I feel like I deserve a moan. I'll keep them to the hand below and a quick whinge about my AK getting horsed by AQ in the $55 Stars Red Spade Open last weekend.



Away from the poker there's not been much going on.On the weed front my regular guy is spending some time on a holiday behind bars and another mate of mine is looking after his mobile phone.He called me the other night to say a text had arrived that said "got weed if need".After all the messing about on previous excursions to score I was dubious but I called the texter and arranged a meet up not too far from where I stay.

Look out for a big guy over 6ft and 19 stone he said.Parked the car at the side of the road and sure enough a couple of mins later this tough looking shaven headed bloke steps off the pavement and heads toward my car.I put my window down and say "Alright mate".He says the same back and I go to open my passenger side door.He keeps walking.Wrong guy!

Back soon...