Flipyouforit

Black Balled

2011-12-27T06:36:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas to one and all, or the one reader I have left, whatever you want. Been a bit chaotic as we have had a bit of a meltdown at work that ended up with me spending 43 out of the last 48 hours before Xmas day at work. This of course left the good lady wife in a bit of a mood as I abandoned her to the last minute preparations and the erstwhile charm of my father.

Just as I was leaving on Xmas eve after 27 straight hours in the office, the wife rung, “still there then?” she asked, this might seem quite an innocuous line of questioning but any married man will tell you that when the wife asks you a question she already clearly knows the answer to, this means you’re pretty much fucked, I mean I just answered my office phone, where the fuck else could I be?

Fortunately the boss had kindly told me to treat her to a meal anywhere she wants and don’t worry about the bill as the company would pick it up, this news defused the wife but I could still tell I wasn’t quite out of the woods yet, “you still going to make it to the hospital?” she asks with more than a subtle tone of expectant disappointment in her voice, fuck I thought as I remembered a semi inebriated promise post ‘works-do piss up’ to visit my 89 year old granddad at the hospital on Christmas eve.

Knowing anything else but an enthusiastic “yes” would result in two days of icy relations I bit the bullet, told her I would meet her there and with 4 hours sleep in three days trudged off to rendezvous with the wife outside Coleridge ward.

I get to the hospital before the missus but don’t know this so traipse in to see the old fella, his in a bit of a state to be honest, oxygen mask on and connected up to monitors here, there and everywhere. One of the machines is bleeping away like Frankie Boyle on Blue Peter and the old fella’s clawing away at the mask and gesticulating desperately for me to come closer .

His struggling for breath as he pulls away the mask and I try to get him to put it back on for his own good, but his desperately trying to tell me something, breathlessly he manages to get some words out but there almost totally inaudible, I desperately look for some nursing staff but they must have skeleton staff over Christmas and my frantic searching fails to find any qualified help.

I rush back to the old fella and try to calm him by letting him know a nurse will be along soon, but he continues to struggle for air and he looks terrible, he motions closer and this time I can just about make out what his trying to tell me, he whispers to me desperately, “Testicles are black”, and then he falls back on to his bed drained of energy.

I say to him, “Jim don’t worry” as I hold his hand, “There’s nothing wrong with you, a nurse will be along in a minute”, He looks at me, his eye’s filled with terror, “No, me testicles are black” I frantically search the ward again to no avail, and when I go back his gone an even whiter shade of pale and his tugging at his pyjama bottoms frantically, again he pleads, “testicles are black”.

I need to help him, I can’t stand to see him this state any longer, so I decide he needs to calm down and the only way this is going to happen is if understand there’s nothing wrong with his under carriage, so I pull the curtains around his bed and reluctantly pull away his pyjama bottoms and then start the task of examining an octogenarians balls for signs of blackening, just at this moment Karen and a staff nurse arrive, and as the nurse is pulling back the curtains and seconds before they spy me nestling an old mans ball sack in my hands the words she speak sends shivers down my spine, she jovially say’s “it’s ok Jim you can stop moaning now, Your test results are back”…..

Not Much to Say

2011-12-05T10:51:00.000-08:00

Life's been quiet, quiets nice after the year with had, I'll take quiet any day.
Been a bit broke so not played much, did win the Yellow belt free roll again, that's four times this year, not bad for a weekly 100 player plus game.

Looking forward to Christmas, hoping my wife will buy me a commemorative pic of me playing the main event, but will probable get socks, ho-hum!

West Ham going pretty well, still It's all destined to end in tears, his the wrong man for this job. Now Gus Poyet yes, attacking, flair football is in West Ham's blood. We don't mind failure as long as its pretty, Curb's and Pardew would both have had us grinding out mid table but they both got the bullet because the fan's couldn't watch it.

Any way, merry christmas, have a good one.

Only Connect and Poker Player Grand Prix 7

2011-10-24T07:03:00.000-07:00

I must admit that Only Connect is a guilty pleasure of mine, if you haven’t seen it it’s a BBC4 quiz show hosted by Vicky Coren who I have a monster crush on. Anyway I occasionally like to waste a bit of my lunch time playing the archived version on the BBC website, use this ‘LINK’ to have a go yourself.

I’ve submitted my own grid, click on the photo below to view it. I don’t think the BBC will use it, it’s a little too risqué but I thought fuck it I’ll send it in anyway.

I played the poker player grand prix at the Empire in Leicester Square, putting a casino next to china town must be a licence to print money, 10am Saturday morning and it was packed with Chinese gamblers.

Fair play to poker player, we all got a few free drinks, buffet and a prize pool with $8,000 to shoot at gratis. Seems a bit churlish to complain but the tournament structure was just ghastly, I know it was all for free but when you consider it’s a poker magazine and some of the guy’s had travelled from up north and one even as far away as Edinburgh then you need to give them a bit of a game, we where crap shooting after level 4 and hour and a half.

In the end I built a stack then lost half of it on a reverse stop and go* and a standard flip, no complaints.

I also got to play one of those heads-up machines, bad picture I’m afraid, but great fun with a human opponent, shit against the machine who kept stacking off with any two.

And my final photo, when I walk my daughter to school we play a game where we make words and sentences from car registrations, this was an open goal.

* AKA, Shoving blindly any flop out of position, usually into the nuts

Full Tilt is a Pansy Scheme!

2011-09-23T01:31:00.000-07:00

Oh knows it’s come to pass that Full Tilt Poker is in fact a Pansy Scheme! It must be true because someone in the US DoJ said so. If you haven’t seen it then here’s the link to the story on the BBC website here,

For those that don’t know how a Pansy or Pyramid scheme as it’s more commonly referred to scheme work’s I have provided a brief explanation.

“The unsustainable exponential progression of a classic pyramid scheme is a non-sustainable business model that involves promising participants Pansy payment or other flowers primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme or training them to take part, rather than supplying any real investment or sale of products or services to the public. The problem comes once you pass a certain point and there just aren’t enough flowers in the world to keep everyone happy”

So that’s the reason its called a Pansy scheme, or maybe its because by the time Lededrer, Furst, Ferguson and Bitar have come out of prison they will all be Pansies, I hope so. To call this a Pansy scheme is of course complete bullshit as it’s nothing more than common theft.

Rafe Furst has written the most self serving piece of crap you could ever possibly imagine, its up on his blog a the moment here. For someone to be so insanely self centred to think that the correct thing to do at this precise moment in time was to write a blog post requesting sympathy and support without once acknowledging that there are many people suffering much worse hardship than poor Rafey is just astonishing. There honestly must be something wrong with the man.

Itchy Chicken

2011-09-20T03:02:00.001-07:00

Fuck the advertising world, I mean what’s wrong with these fucking people. What kind of industry think’s it’s clever to use a an actual bush to symbolise a bit of lady garden topiary (see annoying TV advert for lady razors) yet I come up with a innovative idea to use the worlds greatest wonders to hawk there shitty merchandise and don’t even get a ‘thank you, but not thank you’ in reply.

Well fuck Titelist and fuck Double Bubble… You’d have sold billions if you’d bought into my Chichen Itza proposal.

Raise The River - Proper Mental

2011-09-18T00:24:00.000-07:00

The boy's over at RtR with the help of the new poker news UK editor (congratulation's Mr Pitt) have scored a bit of a coup by convincing Mr Jared Tendler the Co-Author of the revolutionary poker book "The Mental Game of Poker" into a Q&A session starting week commencing the 26th September on this thread.

I bought the Mental Game of Poker back in July, this was a bit of a no brainer for a man like me, I've demolished half a dozen four figure bank roll's whilst on super tilt. The book has helped me, it’s given me a platform to understand my own personal tilt issues which mainly seem to revolve around injustice tilt.

Midlife Crisis Number 4

2011-09-16T09:08:00.000-07:00

I’m forty next year, so obviously I’ve decided I need to slip in another midlife crisis before it’s too late and I’m past my midlife.

So this time I’ve decided to re-launch my career as an advertising mastermind, after watching a football match at a sponsored stadium it occurred to me that world heritage are really missing a trick. They have all these fantastically popular locations just going to waste.

# 1 Christ the redeemer – Rio de Janeiro

First problem with this is it’s just a bit depressing, I mean Christ looks proper cheesed off an no one wants their products associated with the son of god with a cob on.

So the first thing to do is to replace the original image with something a bit more dynamic and youthful, So I give you Christ the Buddy Redeemer

Now seeing as its South America we need to take advantage of there laxer advertising rules….

Yeah you see that Rothmans’s executives bitches, Jesus Christ himself giving the thumbs up to fags, and not just any fag’s, your fag’s! you couldn’t get a more powerfull celebrity endorsement if Dave Beckham pulled fag’s from posh spices fanny. This sir’s is golden.

#2 The Pyramids of Giza

Got to be a bit careful with this one, don’t want to upset the Muslims they can get a bit bolshy. So taddaa….

What’s to complain about! Nothing! Not even Al-Queda could find it offensive to advertise the ever popular, delicious, nutritious and high in calcium Dairylea triangles! Originally I planned to replace the pyramids with actual giant sized soft cheese triangles, but trials with a family pack glued together lead me to believe that the cost would be prohibitive and also that there probable aren’t enough cow’s on the planet to produce enough milk to keep a 105 metre high, soft cheese triangle in a fresh enough state in the desert.

More to follow, probable.

The Wire, Cricket and Poker

2011-09-01T06:30:00.000-07:00

The wire is one of my favourite TV programs, top stuff and you should make the effort if you haven’t caught up. A British actor plays one off the leads, Officer Macnaulty, one of the best written and played ante-hero’s of our times.

My wife has a soft spot for him, so when I read in the paper he was to play Fred West in an upcoming ITV docu-drama I made a mental note to update the wife. So when I get home I say, “Guess whose going to play Fred West in this new drama, I’ll give you a clue, his name also ends in West” She looked at me and said in all seriousness “Kanye West?”. Ohh how I laughed.

Took my mate to the Somerset V’s Essex game on bank holiday Monday, saw a big barny where the Stewards and then the police contrived to turn nothing in to something. My mate is a fellow West Ham supporter and we agreed that neither of us have seen anything as brutal at Upton Park (even a Julian Dicks tackle) than the pepper spray assisted assault led by the local constabulary.

This wasn’t a bunch or looters this was 6 or 7 young lads singing and enjoying a drink, it really was a total overreaction and everybody in attendance where shocked. Anyway was a good game, got very drunk and Somerset won, can’t ask for much more than that.

Poker’s been abysmal, have run so bad its almost untrue, except for home games where I have won 5 of the last 6 and came 2nd in the other. Fuck it, things will turn around they always do.

Special mention to Dave ‘nocash’ Garden, awesome results for the year, hopefully he will post a trip report up on his blog here,

http://nocashpoker.blogspot.com/

You Are The Home Secretary

2011-08-10T07:20:00.000-07:00

Do you remeber 'You are the ref' in Match magazine? Why did they bother to publish that? What kind of 10 year old wanted to be a fucking referee.

I Predict a Riot

2011-08-09T02:01:00.000-07:00

Kaiser Chiefs aren’t stupid are they! I bet there making a fucking fortune this week in royalties, after all every news station needs something to play over the pictures of looters. If I was a recording artist I’d release an album designed to make me money every time a significant global event occurred,

Global Happening Cash Cow Album

Side 1

Track 1 – She/He was lovely, but now she/he’s dead and we miss her/him
Track 2 – Run like fuck it’s a big arse wave!
Track 3 - She/He was a cunt, thank fuck his/her dead
Track 4 - Outbreak! Urrr run away!
Track 5 – Feed the World (ohh yeah, already been done)
Track 6 – Genocide, yeah man its worse than herbicide

Side 2

Track 1 – Rich people getting married, yeah it’s cool
Track 2 – Famous people and African babies!
Track 3 - His famous and a nonce, gonna do time now the soopy ponce!
Track 4 - Earthquake, feel the ground shake!
Track 5 – Jew’s and Muslim’s, can’t get along, Hebron rocks to a massive bomb!
Track 6 – Volcano ash makes me cry, to my holiday home in Mauritius I cannot fly

New Poker TV Idea

2011-08-02T00:49:00.001-07:00

I must say I'm a little disappointed in the level of interest that my previous poker/tv crossover idea 'The Extractors' garnered from TV exec's. I think the problem was it looked a little scary on the budget front, all those sexy locations were sure to get the bean counters in a stir. Also it’s probable a tad high brow for modern TV audiences, so I've decided to shoot for the lowest common denominator, the TV sit-com audience.

No need to worry about expensive location shoots on this one guy's, it can all be filmed on the one set and with a cast list of just one with perhaps a few extras here and there, so here go's for you delectation I present 'Two and half Men’s', taa-da...

So here's the plot outline, Wild and wacky Men 'The Master' Nguyen is tired of having to give percentages to his stake horses who aren’t nearly as good as him anyway, so he decides he should clone himself and this will up his hourly earn. At the last minute it occurs to Men that his clone should have 'lady parts' as 'Men 'The Mrs' Nguyen would be eligible for all those super soft ladies events.

The ‘Master’ and his clone soon start racking up the wins on the pro tour and all is right with the world, but then one drunken night after Men makes a WSOP seven card stud final table he ends up getting so drunk he literally fucks himself, Nine months later and baby Men is born and the real fun begins as the three try to survive the ups and downs of the professional poker tour!

The Extractors! Proposition for TV Executives

2011-07-27T10:03:00.000-07:00

An Overview

The Extractors! Globe-trotting playboys, Tom Dwarn and Phil Ivery are arrested for there involvement in failed poker room Full Tilt Poker, they are delivered to retired Alderney gaming commission Judge Fulton who offers them the choice of spending ninety years in prison or helping him right errors of impunity. Grudgingly, Dwarn and Ivery agree to help solve Fulton's initial case which involves a crooked poker playing businessman and the Venezuelan mafia trying to fix the Miss World contest.

Episode List

1 "Overcall"

Shortly after being forced to become international poker playing spy's by the all powerful AGC, Invitations to the EPT grand final lead millionaire playboys Ivery and Dwarn to Monte Carlo, where they discover the tournament has now been moved to Madrid, they make a wager on a race to the grand casino Madrid, Ivery gets to travel in an Aston Martin vantage with a super model and Dwarn by Bus, in a flamingo hat. The loser must pay the other into the tournament and consent to a naked back rub with Daniel(this is all scene setting to show what whacky crazy guy's they are).

When they arrive in Madrid they discover the tournament is being dominated by a crooked Venezuelan businessman named Fruitez and that fellow poker superstar Kathy Liebert is missing, presumed kidnapped. Phil and Tom agree to play Fruitez in a private cash game HUP4ROLLZ after they allow him to donk them out of the tournament and feign super tilt. The game is to be held in a hill top mansion owned by the Venezeulan mafia who judge Fulton believes are trying to subvert the Miss World contest by ruining Venezuela's chance of winning yet again by entering the kidnapped Kathy Liebert in place of the Venezuelan bombshell chosen by there country men, our hero s escape by using Kathy as a human shield thus foiling the villains plot.

2 "The Golden Herman"

The worlds leading tournament director Thomas Kremser is marked for death when he discovers that evil multi billionaire business man Tekmintyjack has been using his corporations billion dollar satellite as well as overweight teenage German bloggers to see opponents cards and thus cheat on the poker tour. At Judge Fulton's request Dwarn and Ivery challenge him HUP4ROLLZ online where no-one could ever cheat(why would the sites risk it!) and everyone s money is really, really safe, Ivery and Dwarn's aim is to tilt Tekmintyjack so hard he admits in chat that his been cheating on tour and that live poker is in fact rigged.

3 "Take Twelve"

When a supposedly washed up poker player Phil Hellmitt reappears to claim his crown as greatest poker player of all time during the WSOP, a beautiful TV presenter asks Ivery and Dwarn to expose him as an imposter by challenging him HUP4ROLLZ.

4 "Cheap Double Up"

Dwarn and Ivery want to play in the exclusive Pokay Mirrions tournament held annually on a remote Scottish island, shortly after they arrive though Ivery is abducted by key members of the islands establishment and placed in a mysterious hospital where a deadly operation is planned to create multiple versions of Ivery who the islanders plan to use to populate the ultimate farm of rake back pro's housed in an abandoned knitwear factory (which was the islanders only source of (income till it closed down). Dwarn has to crack the local authroties wall of silence by posting on the internet, or something.

5 "Mineri to Midnight"

Dwarn and Ivery are in Italy where a Mafia hitman is on the tail of popular poker pro Dario Mineri after the diminutive Italian insults the local mafia Don by showing 'disrespect' to his raises during the WPT Venice main event. Judge Fulton calls on Dwarn and Ivery to smuggle him out of the country and our two hero playboy's decide that they can sneak Mineri over the border dressed as a teenage girl on a school trip (seeing as he looks quite girly anyway), All looks to be going to plan until they discover Mineri is actually allergic to girls!

6 "Shooting Stars"

Judge Fulton has received reports that all is not well with the online poker nirvana named PokayStars which is located on a fiercly guarded island in the middle of the Irish sea, upon hearing the reports Fulton decides to send the poker playboy's out to investigate under the pretence of a proposed sponsorship deal.

Dwarn and Ivery are shocked to learn the entire corporation is staffed by incorruptible and ruthlessly efficient customer service droids but things take an even more sinister turn when Ivery and Dwarn learn that the sites owners are on the island and are desperately trying to avoid any contact with them. After an exciting chase involving fast car's, quad bikes, helicopters and a peddeloe, Ivery and Dwarn eventually trap the secretive owners on a cliff top and the series comes to a dramatic conclusion when they unmask the mysterious owners of PokayStars, who turn out to be none other than Ray Shitar and Howard Vegeburger the founders of FTP!

Ivery and Dwarn return to Vegas as hero s with there names finally cleared as Shitar and Vegeburgers plan to dominate the online poker world by creating the worlds shoddiest site to make there real investment PokayStars look so fucking golden is dramatically unveiled.

Starting again, Pokerfarm graduate scheme.

2011-07-23T07:54:00.000-07:00

After scoring 0/6 in Vegas, effectively dusting off 16K in buy-ins I find myself a resident in the land of the busto, this is'nt a particulary scary scenario for me, i've been bust before and have always rebuilt, I trust my ability.

I've been considering the Poker farm graduate scheme, the idea of having a mentor appeals to me as I need a bit of work on the mental side of my game and knowing your play will be reviewed should help to keep me playing my A game rather than sliding in to lazy play and bad calls.

I think a deposit of $150 should be enough to complete the 100 MTT's required if i stick to the $2-$3 tournaments.

I've asked Poker farm to clarify some of the details and if all seem's ok I will start next week and track results on the blog.

My $10,000 Slipper’s

2011-07-14T19:20:00.000-07:00

For those of you that wondered what a ten thousand dollar pair of slippers might look like then please direct your gaze upward and wonder no more. All entrants to the 2011WSOP main event were gifted a pair of ‘dear foam’ slippers; to be fair they are bloody comfortable, don’t think there 10K comfortable but damn fine slippers none the less.

Bad start to the trip when I managed to lose my boarding pass whilst waiting for my gate at Gatwick to open, luckily the printer had been playing up that morning during online check-in and I had ended up printing off two copies so I had a spare, I didn’t realise this though until after I had frantically distributed the contents of my carry on across half the airport!

My flight was delayed an hour and a half and when I eventually boarded I really wished I had sprung for the extra leg room, I actually did on the way back and I can tell you if you’re flying Virgin it really is worth the extra $50, there is considerably more leg room.

The flight left about one pm UK time and arrived a mind fucking 14 hours later at about 5pm Las Vegas time. I got robbed blind by a thieving fucking taxi driver (see video)and checked into my suite at the Rio, this took an age but was worth it when I found out Full Tilt poker had paid all the main event qualifiers rooms up front. Feel like a winner already being one of the very few people on the entire planet not fucked in the arse by FTP.

I wander round the Rio, watch Warren Wooldridge’s final table (he came third, being outdrawn for the world, AJ no good against A9 AIPF) then complete the registration process and then grab some dinner eventually at about 10pm try to get some sleep. I fail miserably in what becomes a recurring theme during the next week, I never sleep for more than a two hour stretch the entire time I’m in Vegas.

Eventually about 5am I give up on any chance of sleep and wander round the Rio a bit more, as I’m strolling about two pretty Asian prostitutes smile at me, and being the polite sort I smile back. This I immediately discover is a mistake, because if returning there smiles might not have been viewed by these girls as strong as a binding contract then it was at the very least viewed as a request for a quote, and they were very aggressive in their quotation, I end up hiding in the men toilets rather than facing them anymore! I'm terribly British at times!

I have Breakfast, sleep a bit more then head over to Orleans for their noon $75 rebuy NLHE tournament. It’s a really good little tournament and the standard of play is just awful, 120 runners which I'm told is a record for their Thursday comp(1st day on the Main event I suppose gets the juices flowing). I exit near the bubble making a good call based on a tell with AJ AIPF that gets outrun by A10 the owner of which is this gargoyle looking woman, she really is the archetypical looking show girl gone bad, in her 60's now with obvious fake boobs, too much makeup and bodged facial surgery she should be the poster girl for the natural look, by which I mean her tag line would be something like “please don’t end up looking like this sour faced cunt, exercise moderation when considering cosmetic surgery ”.

Friday I play the HORSE tournament at the Orleans, 80 runners and I bubble in 9th, when my, straight flush, pair and low draw bricks the lots on 6th and 7th. Saturday and it’s time for the main event, I make a genius play and forget to bring photo ID to the table(no one actually tells you to bring photo ID to the table of a tournament you've already shown ID to register for, your just supposed to know I suppose), I then have to rush back to my room and arrive fully 15 minutes late for the biggest tournament of my life. Cleverly though this singles me out to my opponents as a total spaz, and is probably the reason I start to accumulate chips early, after all no-one really wants to tangle with the idiot quite this early!

1st hand I play I call a small raise with 22, miss the flop and duly fold to a bet, this is my game plan, keep it simple(LOL). Two hands later I call a raise with JJ, flop a set and win a 7K pot when I check raise a 2K bet, that gets called, on a potentially scary straitening and flushing board. This gets Carter Gill* who is one of my opponents seated two to my left, convinced I had a set (which I did) and he spends the next few levels advertising me as an ubernit, this is confirmed to him when I raise the button with aces and he pays three streets of value to see them with top pair(King).

The next few levels are the easiest poker I've ever played and I steal selectively so as not to blow my cover but I feel I can win almost any pot at will due to by image (you can probably see where this is going). This early stroll is followed by two hours of hardiest poker of my life. At 58K when the average must be around 35 I get river’d for a decent pot when this annoying little Italian directly on my left who seemingly has been playing every hand for the last two levels with a stack that is yo-yoing the whole time, get his main event life in with AQ v’s my pot committed 99 on a 7 high board.

This idiot for California then takes a 10K pot from off me when he calls my raise with AK and then calls flop and turn with air, and then checks back an ace on the river to crush my 10's, I'm happy I checked the river but thought his play was shocking all day, and called him a fucking fish. He eventually managed to get 1/3 of his stack in against a raise and a re-raise and a cold two bet call, the flop came 10,Q,9 The two bet call led( with KK) a flopped set of 10's moved in and then California man calls, KK folds. The flopped set of 10's (French pro, know the face can't remember the name) rolled over his hand and California man slow rolled him with KJ(1/3 of his stack went in pre!).

Anyway to my demise, on my right I had a solid internet pro(easy read by age and bet sizing, it’s a dead give-away they need to work on!) he was quite agro and raised my blind from the button, I find 99 and smooth call, flop came Q and two low spades, I check planning to raise as folding to him seemed a bit weak (there goes the play it simple game plan), which is what happened, He re-poped me the min so I bumped it hoping to find out if he was drawing or really liked his hand.

He flatted me which convinced me he was drawing or floating or maybe AQ and wanted to find out if I really had it, the turn blanked and I checked, he made a really small bet, I came over the top putting him all in, I just couldn’t see how he could call with AQ or the spades draw, he went into the hole for two or three minutes I could see he was agonizing, eventually he called and I was right he couldn’t and wouldn’t have called with AQ or the spade draw, but he did call with both, I was devastated to see the AQ of spades, I was drawing to one out.

King spades came on the river to make him the nuts anyway, I'd have shoved the king all day so it was probable always going to happen the second I deviated from my keep it simple plan. Previously I posted before It came on the turn, I must have been a bit in shock, and it was for more than 15K it must have been about 24K. I standby the play as horrible as it now looks, I knew he had a marginal holding and I think he has the only non-set hand he calls with there when you consider my table image.

Anyway, I fold for an orbit, the Italian doubles up to over 30K calling a juicy raise with 6-4 and getting there when a three hits the turn against a pair of queens on a 10,5,7 flop, it all went in on the flop. I find Kings in the SB, its raised upfront I re-raise and the Italian shoves, to be honest I can’t call quick enough and nearly puke when I see his aces.

I play the $235 Rio deepstack the next night which was getting over 1K runners a night, after a couple of hours I depart running KK into AA again, blind on blind, again. I move my flight forward as I want to go home, I do play a $125 over at the Orleans, 18 or so left been card dead for ages, find AJ when the BB shoves, his KK sails through!

Did some shopping for everyone and then pissed off home, sleeped for 18 straight hours the night I arrived home, its 3am the night after and I can't sleep again!

I would'nt do it again, I'm glad I did it this time though.

Itch, scratched...

*There's been a lot said about Carter Gill, I played and chatted with him for 8 hours on Day 1 and found him immediately likeable and good company, still this does not mean I'd lend him a chunk of money or vouch for him just that he seemed a decent bloke..

Busted!!!!!

2011-07-09T22:09:00.001-07:00

Sorry Guy's, Busted last level day one. Crusied to 50K from 30K starting stack. Lose, 8K 88 no good V's AQ of short stack crazy Italian, then bluff of 15K in what I thought was a good spot, though he had turned nut flush so not so clever. The end came in a 50K pot where I got it all in KK V's Crazy italians bullets. Really sorry guy's, he was a total nut case, just could'nt find the fold.

Sorry I let you down feel sick.

WSOP Part 1

2011-07-06T02:29:00.000-07:00

Fecking great start, Flight to Vegas delayed!
What can you do at Gatwick for three and half hours?

Howard and Ray on the Dragons Den

2011-06-30T06:50:00.001-07:00

Two gentlemen make there way up a flight of stairs to the dragons den loft, one is carrying a covered flip chart and the other a giant cheese baguette (guess which one).

VOICEOVER: Ray Shitar and Howard Vegeberger are the majority share holders in an online poker site named “StoleItAll.Com”. Ray and Howard are looking to sell one percent of there company, in return they are asking for one hundred million, million dollars. Will any of the dragons decide to go all-in? Or will Ray and Howard bust out?

Ray Shitar: Hello dragons and lady dragon, today I, Ray Shitar and my colleague Howard Vegeburger have a very special offer for you lucky, lucky people. We..

(Ray looks over at Howard and motions for him to put down the giant baguette his gnawing on, Howard continues totally engrossed in his sarnie)

Ray Shitar: (whispers urgently to Howard) Put it down you fat fuck…we need this…
(Too Dragons)Sorry, I’ve lost my train of thought, ohh yes we have the deal of a life time for you lucky people, 1% of the greatest money making machine ever invented and all we ask for in return is a mere one hundred million, million dollars.

Duncan Bannatyne: Sounds interesting, can you tell me a little bit about the way the online poker business works?

Ray Shitar: (Looks perplexed) Well people give us there money, and we spend it? (Howard violently jabs him in the ribs) ohhh yeah, sorry what I meant to say is our customers deposit money on our site and then play with there own money against other players and we take a small percentage for providing the services required to facilitate online poker games.

Theo Paphitis: Ray, Howard, I’ve been burnt by online businesses in the past, online processing fee’s can be so heavy they can kill a business stone dead, and with a poker room you have the potential for double the fee’s, inbound and outbound, how do you make this venture profitable?

Howard Vegeburger: Well Theo we only have to process inbound as no-one ever withdrawls.

Theo Paphitis: (Stunned) I’m sorry? Your saying no-one ever withdrawals money from your site! How can that be?

Howard Vegeburger: Well Theo, as you’re merely a successful business man and not a superstar poker player with a brain the size of a planet like me, I’ve drawn you a chart to explain what I like to call ‘The FTP Upside Down Pyramid of Poker’*, it’s the perfect system to make money just disappear.

Howard walks across to the flip chart and dramatically unveils the next page(see bottom of page to view a copy of the illustration)
Theo Paphitis: ummm, very nice chart, Can you please walk us through it?

Howard Vegeburger: Very well, players deposit on our site and we squeeze them through each level to ensure that there’s never ever money to return, you can see there are only three exit points for cash in our system, level one the rake, (pointing to graph) this goes to Ray and I and maybe a taster to you guy’s if you invest, as you can see we then take the money off the site and then rub said money on our tities, as illustrated here and here (pointing to crudely drawn pictures of himself and Ray)
Theo Paphitis: Very nice drawing, if this doesn’t work out maybe you could paint for a living.

Howard Vegeburger: Thank you, exit point two is hats and T-shirt manufacturing costs, this feeds back to the chump players at the bottom who we give the merchandise for earning points by paying on our site. We find this makes them feel like there getting something for there money, even if its just some shitty cap they feel a warm fuzzy glow about the brand. Exit point three is Phil Ivey, Phil loses the money in the Bellagio craps game, and we just write this off against our corporate tax bill so we end up not paying any tax.

Deborah Meaden: But surely players can just request to cash out whenever they want?

Ray Shitar: Yeah, you’d think! (Looks across at Howard and they both start giggling)

Deborah Meaden: Sorry? I fail to see what’s so funny?

Ray Shitar: Sorry, sorry honey, it’s so funny to us because we worked very hard to make our, so called “support services” so fricking awful no-one could ever withdrawal! Brilliant idea hey, Lady! It takes two and half years to receive a cheque! So as our customers are retarded degenerates, after a week there cancelling withdrawals and playing rush poker** and all the time there on monkey tilt from dealing with our customer reps!

Peter Jones: This all seems too good to be true, if it’s so easy to make money at the online game, why do you need our capital?

(Ray and Howard look guilty at each other and then down at there shoes)

Ray Shitar: Well, you know, we had a bit of a problem, the Americans sort of threw us out and we didn’t want to give up on all that money, so well, we sort of did a bit of money laundering and then the American government found out, so there pretty pissed with us.

Peter Jones: How much money did you launder?

Ray Shitar: Not sure exactly, Howard’s the financial wizard, how much was it Howie?

(Dragons and Ray all look at Howard, whose gone back to eating his baguette)

Howard Vegeburger: Not sure really to be honest, (screws up his face)ummm, about two or three billion over two years, maybe a little more, maybe less?

Peter Jones: How fucking much! What kind of fucking idiot thinks he can launder two or three billion unnoticed! That’s like the GDP of a small African country, Jesus you’re a fucking pair of idiots, how did you ever think you could get away with it! Shit, I’m out.

Theo Paphitis: I’m out too! (pointing at Howard) I think that fat fuck would eat all the profits anyway.

Deborah Meaden: As a simple minded woman I don’t understand poker and it scares me, So I’m out as well.

Duncan Bannatyne: I’ve watched celebrity poker club on challenge TV, I understand the game and I think you might have something worth investing in. What is the company balance sheet looking like, how much do you owe?

Howard Vegeburger: Well we owe two hundred million to our US player pool.

Duncan Bannatyne: Ok, maybe that’s manageable, anything else?

Ray Shitar: Ohhh, there’s going to be probably another half a billion in fines from the DoJ in the states.

Duncan Bannatyne: Anything else?

Howard Vegeburger: ohh yeah, with also had our licences revoked by our gaming commission, so we will probably be fined by them, and we might have to move the site to another jurisdiction cos we fucked up and put all the money in a big pot that we just dipped in and out of as and when we felt like it, so that might cost a few bob…

Duncan Bannatyne: Is that it?

(Ray and Howard look at each other)

Ray Shitar: Yep I think so, (Checks with Howard whose nodding his head in agreement) yep that’s its, (sudden look of realisation) no hang on there’s the Ivey thing!

Howard Vegeburger: Ohh yeah I forgot about that, yeah Phil’s suing us for like one hundred and fifty million or so, but that’s it, that’s the lot.

Duncan Bannatyne: You sure?

Howard Vegeburger: Yep pretty sure! (Ray nods in agreement)

Duncan Bannatyne: Well your up to your bollocks in debt, you’ve no licence to operate, your brand figurehead is suing you, the American government is suing you, your credibility is shot to fuck and your customer base is unable to play on your site. But you know what, I think you have something, I’ll pay the price if you give me five percent?

Ray and Howard together: Fuck off!

Duncan Bannatyne: How about four percent?

Ray and Howard together: Fuck off!

Duncan Bannatyne: Three?

Ray and Howard start to pack up and leave

Duncan Bannatyne: You’re fucking mad! It’s worth nothing without my money!

Howard Vegeburger: (Stares directly at Duncan) We would rather see all our customers out of pocket, all our staff out of work and this site in burning flames before we took less than a penny less than we think its true value is.

Fade to black

* Patent applied for
** Patent also applied for

Blogging for the win

2011-06-28T08:58:00.001-07:00

I was reading some of Snoopy’s blog postings on blackbelt poker and it took me back to my brief sojourn as a live tournament reporter or blogger as they are somewhat disrespectfully called.

I had been tremendously lucky in that the first tournament I got to cover is easily the most fun festival in the European poker calendar, the Irish Open. Ton’s of Guinness and a party atmosphere made for 6 long but fun day’s, so when I was asked to cover the London EPT I thought I was in for a blast.

Unfortunately I was not, if you ever get the chance to play or work a major tournament avoid the EPT’s at all costs, there fucking snorefests, nothing but circuit grinders and hoodie wearing euro wankpots, very dull in the most part.

The highlight of day one A was watching Patrick Antonius trying to eat a bowl of spaghetti at the table, whilst playing a hand. The Vic refused to close their restaurant to enable the tournament players to eat there, presumably in case this offended the regular punters pissing away there money on craps and roulette, so the players where forced to eat at the table.

The press room was on the floor below the card room and at least a 700 yard walk up a flight of steps, so day 1 B saw me staying in the poker room and phoning updates through to Nick in the press room, poker news promised to pick up the phone bill but never did, ohhh poker news I loves you(they fucked me for the hotel bill in Ireland, luckily I won €500 in the media event so was not out of pocket).

Anyway Daniel Negreanu was playing, I had interviewed him a day or two before and played with him at a charity event at the Loose Cannon club, playing with him was no accident, the media girl who was managing the draw was holding the ball sack (fnnr) way to low, so I looked at Daniels table and just picked that number. I wanted to play with much more than the other featured pro’s, my mate got drawn next to Dario Mineri and tried to bluff him off the nuts, fecking tool.

Hevad Khan who was a sponsored poker stars player at the time, this was shortly after his deep and deeply annoying run in the Main event went on to win, and he kept the package even though he was already paid in by stars, lulz, he kept the charity money, what a twat.

Anyway the reason I mentioned Daniel was because he got a bit shitty about an update I did, what happened was he managed to get knocked out by Joseph Mouawad the Lebanese guy who went onto win it. I only caught the river so asked Marc Goodwin what happened, I think Goodwin gave me some old shit, probable motivated by the spat over the golf money that was owed by him and Ram Vaswani to Phil Ivey.

Anyway Negreanu writes on his blog complaining about the way his exit hand was written up and how poker needs to be more professional and so does its writers, which im thinking fuck you mate, £75 for an 18 hour day, my day job pays a fuck load more than this shit and nits nowhere near as hard, so this is what you can expect until the news people start shelling out decent wages! Anyway the truth is there’s usually so much floor to cover that you end up having to ask for second hand information when a big name busts out, so when one starts acting a plum because you get something silly like the wrong inconsequential suit on the turn you think fuck him.

Anyway, don’t know what the purpose of that was, on poker front im back on Ladbrokes to try to qualify for Kilarney, that was great fun last year, and well if BurnleyMik can win over there anyone can! Just kidding well done Mick!

Well done to Kev Bloor as well, he had a tasty score this week and there’s not a nicer fella in poker, so WP Sir.

Weird Vegas Dream

2011-06-24T03:33:00.000-07:00

I Watched Rounder’s again last night, this must be at least the 30th time I’ve watched it, sad really as its not much off a film, but still its the best poker film by some way which says a lot about poker films really. Re-watching Rounder’s must have been the catalyst for this really weird dream I had.

I arrive at the Rio and go to my suite and start unpacking, then Stu Ungar starts talking to me(it’s young Stuey, not the totally fucked up version), he keeps screaming at the tops of his voice “be aggressive man, damn it man, be aggressive” over and over in his thick New Yorker accent, I have to tell him to calm down as he is really excitable, then he starts frantically rifleling through my suitcase, then he turns to me and say’s, “Man, I need some action” and jumps out of the window.

Then I go down to the casino floor and start playing pontoon, I love calling black jack pontoon because it just confuses everyone under 21 and that’s always a good thing. Anyway I take the one seat and after a few minutes Chip Reese sits in the five seat opposite me. He just keeps shaking his head at me, Then I decide to split five’s and he nearly jumps out of his seat and starts screaming “you’re being an idiot, we are not here to gamble, we are here to win”, I tell him to calm down but he throws his chair to the floor and storms out, which is all very un Chip Reese.

I got to the buffet and I start walking the line but it never seems to end and there’s nothing I fancy, eventually I fill my plate with chips and pea’s and take a seat. After a few minutes Doyle Brunson sits in the seat opposite, He looks me in the eye and say’s, “You know, the key to No-Limit hold’em, is putting a man to a decision for all his chips”, I nod to him knowingly, then he looks down at my plate and say’s “you going to eat those?”, before I can answer his started tucking in to my chips and pea’s. I sit there and watch him eat my dinner and I’m smiling, then the alarm went off.

Jesus, I really need a break, hard to imagine that in 13 days time I’ll be playing the main event.

My list of Don’ts…

1.) Accept Daniel's offer to head back to his trailer 'for a backrub'
2.) Ask Howard, "How's it going?'
3.) Drink the water, its like $8 dollars a fecking bottle in The Rio
4.) Get moved to the TV table and shout snap after every flop
5.) Wear my full tilt/UB/AP cap and T-Shirt
6.) Keep asking American online players at my table if they know why I can't get on Stars from my laptop on the hotel's wifi?
7.) Ask Freedie Deeb for his autograph whilst telling him he was fucking hilarious in 'Twins'
8.) Don't ask Phil Ivey how married life is going!
9.) Ask Jerry Yang, "where the hookers and blow at Bro?"
10.)Put a $20 down Jenn Tilly's top and wink at her and say, "that's for the twins, Treacle"
11.) Ask David Williams if he has any videos on release, preferably something in regards to worshipping...
12.) Get seated next to Doyle Brunson, call the floor and ask for a seat change because "this old fella smells of an unholy mixture of vic’s vapour rub and werthers originals"

Now I need to start a list of Do’s.

Probable the least surprising announcement from Full Tilt

2011-06-11T08:42:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, due to the current circumstances in the United States, there will be no Pro’s Choice Suite at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino at this year’s WSOP, and we will also be unable to offer prize package winners the dinner attended by Full Tilt Poker pros.

Good luck at the Main Event and we hope you enjoy your WSOP experience.

Regards,
Full Tilt Poker

Selling Shares in Main Event

2011-06-05T06:41:00.000-07:00

Entry fee wired to the Rio, details of staking can be found at RtR here,

http://www.raisetheriver.com/discuss/viewtopic.php?f=65&t=12956

For J

2011-06-01T03:40:00.000-07:00

Paul Roper asked me to pass these onto you...

The first time I went to Vegas….

2011-05-23T02:58:00.000-07:00

The first time I went to Vegas was my first holiday with my then girlfriend (and now wife) Karen and her family, we stayed at their time share just opposite the Bellagio and had our own bedroom connected to the main suite, this was ten years ago.

I had only just moved in with Karen and had bought her a brand new beetle, she really wanted one of these and with the money I had made selling my flat it made me happy to give her something she really wanted. We where due to leave early Monday (much cheaper flights mid week) morning so decided to pop round and see my Mum for a quick cup of tea on Sunday afternoon.

Mum wasn’t her usual self, she seemed quite deflated and subdued which as anyone who knows my Mum well could tell you was really out of the ordinary. When we left I asked her how she was and her eyes started to water, she then hugged me really tight and told me she loved me. As we drove away I had this terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach, I just couldn’t shake the feeling something was terribly wrong.

Five nights into our holiday Karen and I went out for dinner on our own and then went gambling and drinking in the Bellagio, I had this odd feeling all night that something wasn’t quite right and I just couldn’t put my finger on it.

When we got back to the room there was a note under our door telling us to knock no matter what the time was, straight away I knew it was something to do with my Mum, I was sure she would be seriously ill or something and I would be jetting straight home, I was wrong we knocked next door and I was told my Mum had died a few hours earlier.

My Mum had suffered a heart attack, she had taken my nephew Charlie who would have been about eight at the time to see there favourite band, Westlife at Earls court and had died on the steps before the show.

My first reaction was to jump on the next flight home, this would have cost a couple of thousand though and seeing as we where leaving the next day it made sense to stay one more night. I can tell you this, Vegas is no place to be when you’re in mourning.

I’m returning to Vegas soon so these previously deep rooted memories feel much nearer the surface at the moment. It’s also our fifth wedding anniversary on Wednesday, Karen and I had always planned to spend it at the Bellagio, unfortunately Karen won’t be well enough to travel for some time so I will be heading to Vegas on my own this time.

I’m kind of glad I will be ‘flying solo’ as it should make it much easier to concentrate on the job in hand, ie the main event of the WSOP. When I went to Ireland for the Ladbroke Killarney festival I took my good friend Jaime with me and I think this meant my concentration wasn’t what it should have been.

Anyway, for some reason going back to Vegas right now feels right, it feels symmetrical.

Eurovision - we must strategize and mobilize

2011-05-17T02:28:00.000-07:00

This is getting just too much now, with had our arse kicked way too many times and the cause is plain to see, all of Europe hates us. We need to show them we are sorry, we can change and that we love them, so this is my entry for this years Song for Europe it’s called ‘Sorry bout that’ and its sung to the tune of Robbie Williams Angels.

Its a special date,
As Europe contemplates our fate,
And we really know,
They fucking hate us so,
Blue could'nt get us Gold
Cos I've been told,
Europes hate for us is just so old,
We need to get out of the yankies bed
There loves for us is dead
Theres a new path we must tread
I’m loving Europe instead

Doing Nazis over, used to offer us protection
Quite a lot of points and affection
Even when we had a shitty song
and down the votes would fall
And Bucks fizz got to take them
And in the Uk this did break them
Now even Ireland has forsake me
I’m loving Europe instead

Nil Pios, things are really bleak
Lord Webbers song was really sheet,
We look above
and I know its Europe we must love
and as the feeling grows
she breathes flesh to my bones
and when love is dead
I’m loving Europe instead

Givin the world the Beatles, used to offer us protection
Quite a lot of points and affection
even when we had a terrible song
and down the votes would fall
And Lulu got to take them,
I know Eurovision could break me
Now even Malta has forsake me
I’m loving Europe instead

To Sell or Not to Sell?

2011-05-10T11:45:00.000-07:00

Would you sell a piece of yourself in the main event? I'm not sure it would even be worth a 1-1 ratio. My live tournament success ratio isnt bad, 2 of 120 runners in media event in dublin, 2nd in the Vic Saturday night freezeout and 2 final tables from 8 tournies played at Bristol. Probable only played 20-25 live tournies though. Not sure its worth the grief. interested in others opinions.

All I can think about is Vegas, and the f*cking Mirage

2011-05-04T04:38:00.000-07:00

No there great really, once when I was Ops manager for a bank we had a system that needed the branch managers to close the branch on the system or we could'nt run our end of day. They often forgot so we would have to chase them up, one day this happend and we where ringing around the branch and only got one anwser, from the vault extension, where the branch manager had somehow contrived to lock a cleaner in the vault with all the money, and then gone home!

My WSOP Main Event Qualifying Plan (for Daly)

2011-05-02T08:01:00.000-07:00

I deposited £30 on full tilt with the sole aim being to qualify for the main event.

The plan was,

Play HUP $5 sit and go’s with the $50 dollar bank role, every time I got $15 up I would then play the $1 dollar turbo step 0 turbo games till I spent $10, then go back to the $5 HUP sit and go’s again, sort of $10 for qualifiers and $5 for the pot for when the sick bad run came.

My aim was to get 3 step 1 tickets, then I would play all three on the hyper turbo games and try to accumulate three step 2 tickets. Then I would play the step 2 HUP X 4 player games, and rinse and repeat till I had three step 3 tickets, then I would play the standard structured 9 man games at step4,5 and 6. Then when at step 6 play the weekly main event final $640 game. All points earned where spent on winning $1 tickets for the weekly games, with The Hendon Mob Rake Back of 27% it wasn’t that tough to build up a bit of a role.

When I registered this week it seemed to be full of low stakes qualifiers, so I was gutted when I found I had a tricky table with Sorel Mizzi and two gold jersey winners. In the end though I played my two most important pots with the talented pro Mizzi. He doubled me up early when I shoved my top pair on the turn and he called with his pair and a flush draw that missed and later on he pushed me over the 50K mark (60K would be the average for the qualifiers) when he shoved top pair and a flush draw on the turn into my flopped set of threes.

I managed to get too 98K at one point but played terrible to drop back to 50K, made some really bad calls with low pairs (I can imagine Kev Bloor would have been horrified) to try to knock out shorties but of course they always had it and I ended up having a bit of a nervous wait on about average as the shorties won 6 or 7 straight flips to keep the bubble!

Just qualified for the main event!

2011-05-01T17:49:00.001-07:00

Totally stunned,

Animals

2011-03-28T04:43:00.000-07:00

I was playing poker in my home office the other day when my young daughter burst excitedly into the room, “Daddy, Daddy come and have a look at the picture I drew for you” she squealed with excitement. “I’m busy” came my curt reply, and I was busy, having just flopped a set against what I suspected was an over pair I didn’t want to miss a penny in value through a loss of concentration, after all my opponent was sitting deep stacked with nearly four dollars in front of him at .01/.02, this was serious business, this was internet poker.

My daughter trudged slowly from the room, her spirits as crushed as my opponents aces. At that moment a black crow appeared on the windowsill of my office and it squawked loudly at me, there was a malicious glint in its eyes which where focused on me intently, “squawk” it said, by which I mean it didn’t squawk it actually said the word “squawk”.

“Fuck of you cunt” I directed at the crow and then started to make strange shoeing type motions with my outstretched arms which might have worked against your common or garden avian but not against this weird looking brute, it appeared to me at least as if the bird rocked back on his claws and simultaneously tilted its head backwards as if examining me in bemusement, “squawk” it said.

Over the next few days this ‘bird’ became my constant companion, when I went to work I was able to lose him at the secured entrance every morning, but the bugger still some how managed to find its way into the office. Once inside it would sit on the shelf above my desk, sitting still as a statue for most of the day, this patient vigil would occasionally be interrupted by the bird either shouting the words “squawk” with an air of menace or taking a short flight around the office where it would nearly always attempt to shit on me. My colleagues where either extremely polite or genuinely hadn’t noticed the malevolent and slightly cartoonish looking bird that had just recently joined them in there daily grind.

When I returned home of an evening I would manage to lock the demon bird out of my abode, yet it always managed to find a way in the house either through a window or the back door, there always seemed some route conveniently left open for it to continue its malignant vigil over me. I suspected my daughter or wife might be in collusion with the evil avian but of course it must have been as much of an obtrusion to there daily life as it was to mine, although maybe not, every time it said “squawk” I said to my wife, “Bloody thing” and she just looked at me quizzically, the wife has an innate ability to ignore my constant droning regarding the myriad of grievances that seem to blight my existence.

On Wednesday one of the guy’s who worked with me had a child care emergency, he begged me to work his late shift but I told him I couldn’t because I had to pick up my own child. I could have done it, the wife was picking her up, I just lied, I don’t like him very much and he laughed at me on Tuesday morning when the evil crow scored a direct hit with one of its packages and I was covered in bird shit.

At the precise moment I was telling him I couldn’t help him out a penguin turned up, he looked at me and said “Honk”, I didn’t really know what noise a penguin was supposed to make, so I Googled it and was informed by Wikipedia that ‘Penguins make a whole array of sounds, just like any other bird. They can screech, tweet and even make a honking noise like geese. It all depends upon the situation and their communication’, so there you have it “Honk” is accurate, although again I’m pretty sure there supposed to make a noise that relatively closely resembles the word Honk rather than actually say the word ‘Honk’, I looked the penguin square in the eyes and asked him, “do you also screech and tweet?” to which he replied, “Honk”, fucking Wikipedia I thought to myself, you just can’t trust it.

For the next few days the Penguin and the crow accompanied me everywhere, the penguin though was a much more active pursuer, a ten minute spell without the black and white nuisance pecking at my heels or ankle was almost unheard off, by Friday lunch time I had just about enough and adjourned to the pub followed by my small band of animal brothers.

I drank heavily and quickly as to be fair I do most Friday lunch times, but on this occasion at 2pm when the regular Friday drinkers begin to slowly trickle back to the office the penguin caught me with a right smarting nip just below the posterior talotibial ligament and I thought fuck it, and ploughed on through to the 3pm barrier.

As I sat in the pub surrounded by the human detritus that has nowhere better to be at 3pm on a work day than in the boozer, I realised I had a decision to make, carry on drinking, fuck work off for the day and spend the weekend worrying about what was going to happen, or head back now, hope no one say’s anything then steam back to the pub as soon as humanely possible, I meekly choose option 2 and started my way back.

I make my way back through town towards the office, finally reaching the ground floor reception at about 3.30pm, as I board the lift I manage to give the Crow and penguin the slip and finally alone with my thoughts I begin dreading the smart arse comments that will shortly be aimed in my direction, you know the sort of thing, ‘Get lost did you Kev?’, ‘have a nice liquid lunch mate?’ it’s always the right smarmy cunts who feel they have to say something, they pretend as if there having a laugh with you, but all there really trying to do is make sure one of the governors spots that you’ve been at it.

Joy of all joy’s, I reach my office and I realise its totally empty, I quietly slip behind my desk and marvel at my own brilliance. I’ve stolen from the ‘man’ by having a long lunch and I’ve got away with it, Viva la revolution. At this precise moment I’m almost knocked from my chair as I’m clumped around the back of the head viscously. I swing round to see staring back at me a baby elephant, it say’s “trumpet”.

‘Trumpet? This is going to require some Googling’ I think to myself, but before I can fire up IE the Crow and the Penguin catch-up with me. They both give me an the evil eye for having given them the slip so deftly, “Honk” say’s the penguin which is imbued with a level of menace that seems unreal for such a short harmless word. Honk, as in ‘if you ever try something like that again I’ll break your fucking legs, you fucking no mark’ sort of honk.

I was thinking about resolving the ‘Trumpet’ issue via the power of the internet but before I can Google away (I later find out that Wikipedia states, ‘The noise an Elephant makes is a trumpeting gargling roaring and crying sound at the same time’ I later decide to add to the Wikipedia definition ‘A bit like a midget being raped by an Organutan’, I love to help) when my supervisor, Drew came storming over to me.

“Where the hell have you been?” shouted Drew, who was at the time no more than two inches from my face and easily close enough that I could get the full effect of his stale coffee breath. Cards on the table here, I really hate this fucker, a typical example of the Peter principal, we used to be on the same level both employed as senior loan advisors, but Drew was promoted last Christmas and has now spent the best part of the last year proving that this minor step up the corporate ladder as small as it undoubtedly is, was still going to prove to be far too much for his meagre abilities to handle.

He is a total twat as well, I mean the bloke’s name is Andrew, yet instead of taking the down to earth sobriquet of Andy he decides to reinvent himself as ‘Drew’, what a cunt. Sorry, what was I saying? Sorry as I approach middle age I find myself wandering off at all sorts of tangents, Oh yeah ‘Drew(Cunt)’ is shouting at me, and going on about showing him up and trying to sabotage his promotion, which I’m not, because I just could not give a fuck.

Drew has got in into his head that if he can just not fuck anything up for a week or two then his bound to be made the loans director replacing Geoff who everyone liked but was recently sacked after getting caught scamming the company. Not sure scamming was the correct term to use, it gives the impression that Geoff was pulling off some clever Machiavellian plot when he really wasn’t. His plan if you can even call it that wasn’t particularly clever and will be familiar to anyone who has ever tried to Martingale* black jack or roulette.

Geoff would divert any large loan repayments that arrived a day or two early to his own private stock trading account, He would then use this cash to spread across dozens of low risk shares listed on the Dow Jones, wait for a few points up tick which translated into a few grand for himself, cash out and repay the loans. To Geoff this seamed fool proof, any small losses he could write of as defaulted payments and the profits he creamed off for his retirement fund, in fact one sunny autumnal afternoon he decided it would be a good idea to ’up his ante’ as it where and spread a huge loan repayment from an oil company across most of wall street, of course by mid afternoon the next day, September the 11th it didn’t seem such a good idea.

Drew was shouting about some big ethics and standards meeting (a direct consequence from Geoff’s private dealings no doubt) that we had all received a memo about and how I was trying to sabotage his career etc etc, he then stopped ranting and raving and stared straight at me and calmly said, “your pissed again aren’t you?” as slowly a self satisfied smile spread across his face as the words leaked out. “No” I replied vehemently as a wave of stale lager breath crashed into Drew’s face, which had the effect of only increasing the width of his smile as he realised he finally had me by the balls.

“Come along” he said, almost dragging me off into meeting room A where the entire department where congregated under the watchful eyes of the heads of HR, some kind of Christians and lions metaphor would probable be appropriate, but I couldn’t think of one as I was quite a bit pissed and could only think about curry.

Drew shepherds me to front of the room and plonks we in a chair right under the nose of Clair O’Nion our school mistress like head of Human resources who insists her surname is pronounced OO-NIGH-UUN which she imbues with a French twang which conjures up images of some Parisian starlet and not UNG-YEE-OON which is how everyone else pronounces it and conjures up images of a root vegetable.

Miss OO-NIGH-UUN is your prototypical head of HR, a thug and bully of the political correct variety and she scares the shit out of me. As I feel the alcohol radiating off, I glance up and can see the bullet point displayed on the overhead projector, ‘Alcohol abuse in the work place – Zero Tolerance Policy’ I can literally see the booze sweating out off my pores and a polluting the entire room, I have never felt so conspicuous in my life as I do right now, this record thought lasts only a few seconds as the door burst open and in come my animal companions.

The animals look really pissed off with me, the elephant steps forward say’s ‘trumpet’ and then smacks me around the head with his trunk really fucking hard, so hard in fact that my head starts to spin and with the alcohol in my system inhibiting my ability to regain focus and balance soon after I up chuck a good few pints of lager and scampi fries all over Miss OO-NIGH-UUN’s expensive shoe’s, the stench of stale beer and part digested fishy snack treats is unmistakable.

Miss OO-NIGH-UUN although plainly disgusted stands up and addresses the room, ‘Clearly we cannot pretend there is not a problem as this branch, we can no longer ignore the elephant in the room’, Drew shoots up out of his chair, ‘I’ve tried to warn him about his drinking Mrs Onion, but he just won’t listen, he needs to be fired, immediately’ Miss OO-NIGH-UUN look at him like the piece of sputum that he is and then at the top of her voice screams, ‘its OOOOOO-NIGHHHHHH-UUNNNNNN you silly little man!’, Drew shrinks back in visible shock as his envisaged moment of victory begins to slip away.

Miss OO-NIGH-UUN continues, ‘We give you this place to run for a few weeks and look at it, you’ve turned it into a bloody menagerie’ Drew looks totally bemused, ‘a bloody zoo you idiot ’ Miss OO-NIGH-UUN clarifies, ‘and to top it off a bloody elephant just assaulted an employee, if he sues you’ll be lucky to keep you job you blithering idiot’.

Miss OO-NIGH-UUN and the other human resources people gather around and try to clean me up whilst offering there apologies for the viscous assault, Drew is marched of and the whole office can here the dressing down he receives from Conference room B and begin to arrange a pint to celebrate.

Miss OO-NIGH-UUN refuses my offer to pay for her shoes to be cleaned and insists I leave work immediately, and I do, and ten minutes later I’m sat back in the pub no accompanied by half the office celebrating the likely removal of the office dictator. As the sad and weary afternoon drinkers are replaced by the fun Friday night crowd it dawns on me I have been sans my animal companions since the incident at the office.

I head for the bar and my run of luck continues as I purchase a pint with a fiver and am given changed from a twenty, I neglect to inform the bar man of his mistake and as I turn around I hear something say ‘ROAR’, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, so I do neither.

89 Diamonds

2011-03-10T14:49:00.001-08:00

An Open Letter

2011-03-01T03:46:00.001-08:00

Karen,

I thought this might help you understand and remember what happened whilst you where away from us,

At approximately 4am on the 9/2/11 you woke me, immediately I could tell you where in some distress, your breathing was extremely rapid and you dashed to the bathroom, I asked if you where Ok and you said no, there was a panic in your voice that chilled me to the bone. I followed you in to the bathroom and just as I did you crashed to the floor face down, when I checked you where not breathing, I turned you over and you began to breath again, really heavily though, so heavy in fact that it sounded like snoring, I then called 999 and after what seemed an age (but was only a few minutes) an ambulance crew arrived.

The paramedics set to work trying to stabilise you, I felt totally helpless and pathetic so busied myself getting Becky up and dressed and putting some of your clothes in a bag so you would have something to wear later on when you came home, I also called your Mum and Dad. The paramedics loaded you in to the ambulance and we travelled with you to the hospital, you where conscious and talking throughout the journey so I felt very confident that you would be fine.

We where separated at A&E with Becky and I being led through to the public waiting room, after 15 minutes or so a nurse came through and led us through to a private relative’s room, I was relived to be away from all the drunks but I began to suspect this might be more serious than I had at first suspected.

Shortly after a doctor came through to see me, he asked if I had anyone who could look after my daughter for me, I tried our friends Jaime and Emma who are the only people locally I would trust, I desperately tried three or four times over the next few hours but couldn’t reach them. The doctor explained to me that they have had to resuscitate you twice as your heart had been stopped by a blood clot , this news exploded in my brain, its hard to ignore the seriousness of the situation when a doctor tells you your wife’s heart has stopped and she has had to be brought back to life. He told me to prepare myself, but didn’t say what for, at this moment inwardly I just totally crumpled, externally I tried to look in control for the sake of Becky.

I spent the next hour clinging to our daughter for dear life, it occurred to me that as she’s only seven years old and a total innocent she couldn’t possibly deserve to lose her mother, it just seemed less likely that something as outrageously unfair as this could happen to an innocent child, where as I presume I have at some point or other done something to deserve this (I haven’t, but you know what I mean).

I had rung your mum and dad when the ambulance had arrived and now called them again to inform them of the seriousness of the situation, I also called my Dad and Matt(best friend), they all began the journey from Essex to Somerset (where we live).

The doctor took me through to see you, since I had first spoken to the doctor you had suffered three more cardiac arrests making it a total of five, you where unconscious and on a respirator, they then moved you to ICU (intensive care unit).

Becky and I where escorted to ICU and after an hour or so we where allowed in to see you, at this point your where on a respirator and also on a dialysis machine, Becky (our 7 year old daughter) burst into tears as soon as she saw her you, you where on so many different life support systems it was just a mess of wires and you where a disturbing shade of blue.

Your Mum and Dad arrived at about 12am and my Dad at 1pm, the doctor went through the same process of explanation with each of them detailing that a blood clot had travelled from your leg through to your heart and lungs, it’s called a pulmonary embolism (this seems quite common as I’ve overheard it a lot in my last two weeks in ICU). They also explained that an internal investigation was underway as you had been under the care of the hospital, (you had visited the hospital three times for appointments because you suspected a blood clot in you leg and where in quite some pain in the week leading up to this event)

There’s a private rest area provided for the relatives of those in ICU, over the coming weeks I spend a lot of time in there and after a while I notice the same look on everybody who walks into that room for the first time, it’s a mixture of shock, panic and grief, it’s the Zombie look and I begin to refer to this rest area as Zombieland.

That evening we leave the hospital at around 5:30pm arrange to meet with Mat at McDonalds for something to eat, the McDonalds we go to is on an industrial estate on the edge of town and most of patrons on this particular evening are in good spirits as they grab a bite to eat before heading off to the nearby bowling alley or multiplex, the joviality in the air makes for a very stark contrast to the mood of our party.

I head back to ICU with Matt and everybody else heads off to our house for some rest, the second we walk though the doors of ICU the emergency cardiac arrest alert systems go off, I know instantly its you, minutes later a nurse confirms this, the staff are a little bit ambiguous about what has just occurred and I’m still not sure if it was an equipment malfunction or if your vitals took another dive. An hour or so later a doctor speaks to me and reasserts that you are still in a critical condition and that your vitals are not stabilising, the doctor tells me the next 12 hours are crucial.

I feel dizzy and sick, I can’t decide whether to call home and tell your Mum and Dad or not. On the one hand they should know anything I know, but on the other hand it just seems like this would worry them even more and all that has happened is that the situation hasn’t really changed, but seeing as the situation was already totally critical it seems like unnecessary additional burden, Matt convinces me to tell them so I ring and I’m vague about what has occurred, sort of a compromise as I don’t see any real reason to worry them anymore..

I try to sleep but can’t, I pop in and visit through the night during the occasional gaps where the ICU medical team aren’t working on you, these are really dark times, I can’t see there being much chance of you surviving and the thought scares me, I think back to some for the great days we spent walking in the hills during the summer and the fact we might never have the opportunity to spend time together again brings me to the brink, I walk out in to the private courtyard of the ICU department and as the rain pours from a nights sky pregnant with rain the thought of telling my seven year old daughter that she will never see her mummy again breaks me and I sob for what seems like hours.

I pull myself together make a cup of tea and watch the poker on the TV in Zombieland, it’s the final of the world poker open and Sam Tricket is running over the table. Shortly after it ends a doctor comes through to see me, it’s about 2am and he says they need to operate in the next few hours or you won’t make it. Your liver has a tear probably caused during one of the many resuscitations and is causing profuse internal bleeding which means they can’t administer the clot busting drugs as they thin the blood and exacerbate the bleeding. The only real option is major surgery to try to stop the bleeding.

A surgeon has been paged and is on his way in, I am presented with a consent form which I have to read and sign. The surgeon arrives about 5am and we have a chat, they take you down for surgery about 7am and you are down there for about 3 hours. Matt has stayed with me throughout and we go for breakfast, I’m extremely grateful for his support and after a hearty fry up in the hospital canteen we return to ICU and meet with the doctors who don’t know if the operation has been a success, they will observe for the next 24 hours and then decide what to do. Over the next 24 hours your vitals finally begin to stabilise and on the Saturday morning you are operated on again to check the bleeding has stopped, which it has so they remove the padding they used to stem the flow of blood.

The sense of relief when the surgeon tells me the bleeding has stopped is incredible, I find it hard to put in to words what I need to say to the man who saved my wife’s life, I mean what can you say other thank you from the bottom of my heart.

On the Monday I ring our insurance agency, it turns out we don’t have critical illness cover, when I explain to the chap my wife is in critical condition he cheerfully say’s, well Sir don’t despair if your wife’s condition is upgraded to terminal your covered for that so just call us back, my loathing for this man is beyond measure.

This to my eternal shame makes me consider that death might not be the worse case scenario in this situation. The absolute truth is that I now know that I will look after you no matter what, if I had been asked the week before if I could look after my wife if she was left permanently disabled either mentally of physically I would of course had answered yes but in truth I wouldn’t have been sure. Now though I know for an absolute fact that no matter what has happened I would look after you, I knew looking at you in the ICU ward that I would, I just love you and always want to be with you no matter what.

Still its a worry and the doctors keep telling me that there is a danger because of the amount of times your brain was starved of oxygen that you could have suffered brain damage, this fear never leaves me and is always there day and night, its shouldn’t be but a big worry of course is being how we would financially cope. I take consolation in the fact that you have fought so hard and come so far, I’m extremely proud of you and know you will use every last ounce of strength to return to Becky and I.

Everyone in Zombieland except me seems to wants to share there tragic story, they all seem incredulous such a thing could happen to them, yet in they roll a fresh batch everyday. I try not to be rude but I have my own problems at the moment and don’t want to share in others.

I do eventually get cornered by one lady, she’s in her 60’s and totally on her own with no children or relatives to support her. I talk with her most day’s as it’s such sad situation to be totally on your own at a time like this. All this makes me glad I have my daughter and family to support me through this very difficult time, In addition to this your good friend Michelle has been tremendous and all your friends who work with you at the hospital have helped out, some leaving meals for me and Becky during the first few day’s, we really are very lucky.

Over the next few day’s I get into a routine,

7am wake up Becky and give her breakfast
7am-7.30 Get myself washed and dressed
7.30 – 8 am get Becky washed and dressed
8,30am Walk Becky to School
9.00am Go to work
11:00am -1:30pm Got to the hospital
1:30 – 14:30pm get some lunch
15:15 picky Becky up from school and walk to the hospital
16:00 – 17:30 visit with you (although you are unconscious) then cab home
18:00 – 19:30 get dinner for Becky and make sandwiches for next day and make sure we both have clothes ready
19:30 Put Becky to bed
20:00 Relax

On the Wednesday I’m stopped in the hallway of the hospital by a man, I’m struggling to recognise him when he say’s, “you don’t recognise me do you” I shamefully say “no” he then introduces himself as the surgeon who operated on you. I’m ashamed, apologise profusely and thank him for the work he has done, he says no need to apologise and he understands how after a while it just becomes a blur of faces.

Its strange walking into ICU, I’m now acutely aware of the blur of faces I see everyday almost all of whom have worked tirelessly to save your life, your Mum and Dad buy them a tin of Roses to share but it hardly seems a fair trade, a life for a tin of assorted chocolates.

After 10 days you are finally brought round and moved to HDU (high dependency unit), when you wake up the first thing you say to me is, “Where the bloody hell have you been?”, Every one laughs. You spend 4 more days in HDU, then a weekend in a Cardiac ward and for the last three days you have been on a new ward.

It will be three weeks from your admittance to hospital tomorrow, the date is now the 1st of March and you are now in a recovery ward. Your recovery is going better than anyone of us could have ever dare dreamed and you have shown immense physical and mental strength throughout.

You are struggling with your short term memory at the moment, the doctors are sure this is a consequence of the trauma you have suffered and with time you will fully recover. As a consequence you are filling in some of the gaps yourself and this can lead to confusion, again this is perfectly normal and its important that you try not to worry yourself too much, remember you are surrounded by people who care about you and would never harm you.

I have decided to publish this immensely personal letter in the hope that anyone who reads it looks at there life insurance policy, because being without critical illness cover at a time like this and the additional financial worries it brings is not a nice place to be.

I’d also like to say thank you to all my friends and family who have been immense and my collegues and bosses who have been very supportive, I love you all.

Kevin

St Margaret’s Hospice Charity Poker Game - Wellington Rugby Club 4th May

2011-01-25T07:26:00.000-08:00

Have just started planning this event with some friends, most of us have been touched by cancer at some time or another and it would be great to raise some money for a very worthwhile cause in St Margaret’s hospice.

Lot’s of things still to arrange and confirm but if anyone out there in poker world can help get chips, cards, donations, advertising/links etc together or just fancied coming down for a game, a laugh and a lot of cider then please leave a note.

All and any help gratefully accepted….

Kev

PICNIC and The New Series of the IT Crowd

2010-07-05T08:25:00.000-07:00

The IT Crowd is back, if you’ve missed it then I suggest you catch up on 4OD as its returned stronger than ever. Graham Linehan is a total genius and a poker player to boot and this weeks ‘Countdown’ episode really was fantastic. Linehan once told a story about playing in a major poker tournament and one of the famous players sat with him asked, “What do you do then? You look familiar” so he responds “Well I wrote a few comedies and that, you might of heard of Father Ted?” to which the poker player looks at him unimpressed and say’s “yeah I heard of it” then a few minutes later, “It’s the characters that make it though isn’t it”. Linehan didn’t say who it was but you could so imagine the Devilfish saying something so fucking arrogant and stupid.

PICNIC is my favourite phrase at the moment, so I did a little poster for the office wall.

A Social Guide – Part 1

2010-07-05T05:58:00.000-07:00

After a weekend spent dealing with inconsiderate adolescents who seem to be totally devoid of any social skills I have decided to publish a new guide explaining to the younger generations how to behave in polite society...

How you is supposed to behave and that, Init…. PART-1

At the Cinema

Enjoy the film but remember you’re not at home it’s a cinema, so…..
Do

Enjoy the film
Switch of your phone
If you have to move to allow others access to there seat try not to be a right twat about it
Enjoy any food or beverages you might have purchased in a considerate manner

Try to be mindful of the people around you so…..
Don’t

Leave your phone on, because even though it might be on mute it lighting up like a fucking Christmas tree when you check it to see if any of your ‘homies’ has called you in the last minute or two is a fucking ball ache
Talking all the way through the film, because people have paid to watch and listen to a film, not two college boys talking about the white stripes for two hours
Get up from your seat every ten minutes thus forcing the six people between you and the aisle to also get up, if you have the bladder of a two year old girl don’t buy the super max size fizzy pop or maybe sit on an aisle seat
Eat like an animal, just because they gave you your popcorn in a bucket it doesn’t mean you have to eat it like a pig

But most of all don’t go to watch Shrek 4, act like a twat all the way through the first half of the film, start and end every sentence with the word ‘Fuck’ and then act like the injured party when one of the many Dad’s there drags you out of the cinema by your spotty scrawny neck you nasty little cunt, yea please do call the “Poleaase” I’d like to see them laugh in your fucking face.

I think I might be a right cunt? Are you?

2010-07-02T03:35:00.000-07:00

I was pondering this the other day, am I a cunt or not? Now I think I say to myself at least three or four times a day, “I’m such a cunt” every time I make a piss poor call, every time I suck out on someone, every time I spill a cup of tea, this seems to be the first thing out of my mouth, or more usually the first thing I say in my head, because muttering about cunt’s is rarely acceptable even in the most relaxed office environments.

A few weeks ago my wife asked me if I could do her a big favour and leave work early to pick up our daughter from school as her hours had been changed and the child minder was on holiday, I agreed and she was grateful. Then last week I found out I was going to have to give a big presentation on this day, at three o’clock to be precise, the exact time I should be picking up my daughter, I wasn’t looking forward to having to ask the wife to fix something up.

Then I get home and forget about it, during dinner my wife say’s, “I’m really sorry love but my hours have changed again, I don’t need you to pick up Becky on Thursday now, can you do it on Monday instead?” Now I presume a normal person would just say, “ohh, that’s lucky I have this thing etc”, But oh no not me, “Oh for gods sake, I had to wangle out of something to pick her up, now I have to rearrange everything again now and then duck out of a different meeting on Monday, Jesus sort your life out”, I then proceed to make her feel bad for the rest of the evening for no other reason than I can, now I’m no psychiatrist, but that definitely looks like a case of malignant cuntism to me..

So this set me on the train of thought, “What is it that makes a person a proper cunt?” And it occurred to me this is probably quite a complicated question because when you think about it, ‘one mans cunt, is another man’s top bloke’, I mean how often have you been told “oh, you’ve just got to meet Trev his a top bloke, a right laugh” and when you meet Trev he turns out to be a cunt of the highest order.

I think we need to break this down into a sort of ‘cuntometer’, so if we take all the things that we believe make someone a cunt and give them ratings we could maybe create a cunt bench mark, luckily event’s over on blonde poker give us the perfect starting point.

I got bored and can't be arsed to finish, it you get the idea though....

Good Luck to all those chaps trying to get there money back.

Quincy Capers

2010-07-01T02:06:00.001-07:00

Read this, its very good and only going to get better.

http://quincycapers.blogspot.com/

Got P.M.T BAD…

2010-06-23T02:46:00.000-07:00

Got a bad case of P.M.T, pre match tension… Haven’t been this bad for a while, England perennially disappoint but you just have to feel there’s a performance there somewhere, please God, please…

The highlight of the world cup so far has been winding the Mr’s up, last night I told here Messi was one of three brothers, the other two are also on Barcelona’s books and are named Sloppi and Scruffi, she bought that one. I also told here that the Greek’s had a player on the bench called Snuffleupadopolos, mind you some of those Greek players names, it's like they’ve all been dipped in Greek before being sent off to Africa, I mean Socratis Papaststhopoulos sounds so made up, and didn’t Avraam Papadopoulos used to run the laundrette in Albert Square?

Anyway hope you all enjoy the match, here's couple of pics of the ‘Wooly mammoth in the box' Snuffleupadopolos…

When footballers become divorced from reality and the real world then what is the most likely outcome? If Ronaldo was offered the chance to either win the world cup or star in a Hollywood block buster which would he chose? Would Wayne Rooney rather win the world cup than have a line of clothing at Debenhams be hugely successful and Mr’s Rooney get the job on GMTV? Who knows hey.

If all that matters to footballers is fame and money then what becomes of the world cup? Is winning the champion’s league with Barcelona more important than winning the world cup with Argentina to Lionel Messi? I’d have once thought this question ridiculous but now I’m really not so sure.

Maybe the Man U’s, Real’s and Barce’s have what they wanted, maybe they are football and the rest of us are peasants stealing crumbs from there table, if after all the world cup stops being important to the clubs properties i.e the players then it can’t matter to the rest of us. That would suck huge amount of balls, one day well take our game back from all these overpaid fuck pots, I blame Jimmy Hill for getting the maximum wage abolished.

Gwyneth’s Giant Fanny

2010-06-01T05:07:00.001-07:00

Weirdest fucking dream of my life Friday night, I presume I was really small or the world was really big, anyway I’m attached to a bungee cord and am bouncing in and out of Gwyneth Paltrows fanny, I’m picking up these giant sausage rolls (or normal size depending on your perspective) from the floor and I have to collect them and stack them inside her minge on these old steel shelves that are painted battle ship grey.

I told the wife and she came up with the quite literal translation that I want to pack Gwyneth Paltrows fanny with my meat, nice. This is actually true as I would like to but I remember vividly that the dream was not sexual, all I can remember was frantically thinking “Where am I going to put all these bloody sausage rolls when Gwyneth’s fanny is full?”

I’m going to post it on Dream moods once I get home and can register an account, they have a list of common perceived meanings of dreams listed on there site, apparently Bungee Jumping represents your ability to bounce back from adversities and setbacks in your life and sausages symbolise material values or the phallus and thus refers to sexual feelings or tension.

So it appears I’m either bouncing back from a set back and am concerned about my material value or I’m sexually tense and want to pack an A-list Hollywood star’s snatch with picnic fodder.

It might have been mood related, before I went to bed I was watching Michael Moore’s latest film, Capitalism a love story and had been imbued with a sense of loss. I know Moore has his own agenda its just so much of what he say’s is clearly true, we do appear to have created political and economic systems that have made great men obsolete, the very act of climbing the slippery and greasy poll of political or corporate greatness almost excludes the men of vision and ability. All you end up left with is the Machiavellian and unworthy, shame.

Why I Quit Poker and Why I think Black Belt Poker is Marvellous…

2010-05-20T07:41:00.000-07:00

First of all…. My BBP Time Line

I signed up last year depositing £25 quid (Yes I’m cheap)

Took my money out again once I trebled it (I like to play for free)

Wrote an article for UKPI that I thought raised a fair question regarding the value of BBP to the causal player (Orange and Purple Belts)

Took part in a reasoned and open debate about this article with the site staff, owners and customers

Took part in the first orange belt free roll added after the debate, don’t think it was introduced as consequence of the points made but was still quite embarrassed when I won a seat to the academy day!

Attended the academy day as free roll winner, had a day’s worth of top value tutelage and it really made a difference to the way I view the game

Entered into the Vic’s weekly £50 as part of academy, took 3rd for £500 and won one of two added seats for a last longer for the academy day players only to BBP live worth £200+.

Had 3am dinner with Mike Carroll and Andy Brisland which was fun and informative.

As purple belt awarded months subscription to deucescracked.com gratis, if you’ve never used a training site then I would really recommend you give it a go. I can’t do the sit down and learn method so I just put a lot of the sessions on in the back ground and kind of treated it like eaves dropping on a really good poker player having a chat, worked for me.

Decided to take a break, then decided on something a bit more permanent, all the time whilst receiving these bonuses for playing at BBP I was still accruing BBP points, decided to use them all then walk away, bought a job lot of tournament tokens for mini WCOOP and the nightly $9,500 GTD. Finished 22 in mini WCOOP and 2nd in the nightly for over £1,000 pounds, which I’ve cashed out and will be booking a cottage for a week for the family.

So no stamping of feet…. I gone busto….. this games so fcking stupid… moment, I’ve just decided that I want to concentrate more on my career and family, especially family, I want to make the most of living in the best part of the world and the magical years watching my daughter grow up.

Thanks for the emails and offers, especially Barry, I had to fight really hard to not take up your offer as I love what you do and working with you, just I’m having an Michael Corleone moment, (every time I think I’m out, they drag me back in!)

I wish Black Belt Poker had been available when I had more time on my hands, the improvement they have led me to over the last year has been amazing and for any up and coming player I can’t recommend it enough, and to think I once questioned the value on offer!

Oh if there’s any designers out there please contact me, they are starting to petition for ideas for a mascots for the London Olympics and I have some ideas I need turning into visuals,

1.) Rippie – A blood soaked cartoon character dressed up in 18 century formal attire with sharp knifes appended to each hand, obviously a nod to Jack the Ripper.
2.) Hoddie – As above but with a grey hoddie instead.
3.) Ethnicitie – A nod to the capitals cultural diversity, Pin stripe trousers, sari and a burkha with a Rastafarian hat, the characters skin is grey to celebrate the homogenised slush of old London town.

I think I’ll be back in a few years, but for now its good bye.

Impressed

2010-05-14T03:45:00.001-07:00

Quite impressed that my followers have been increasing whilst I have been away, probably a fair comment on the quality of the writing in that the appeal of my blog actually went up when I stopped updating it.

Poker, poker, poker, what to say, I pretty much stopped playing online, which is weird because I was in nice profit for the year and with the help of Black Belt Poker through the live coaching I received at the academy and access to deuces cracked I feel as if my game has really leaped forward, but I also feel that I just don’t want to play anymore.

I have fell out of love with the game and three months later and although I’ve had a little dabble here and there I just don’t think I will be returning to play, well at least not in the volume I did previously. I’ve just found lots of other things I would rather be doing, saying that I will have a stab at the ECOOP here and there and I do have a regular monthly home game which is always fun. I miss most of my friends in poker, although some seem to be giving me a wide birth( Rich, Gaz what did I do?) and my experience of the game over the past 8 years has been almost universally positive.

Well anyway, family life is very good, looking forward to the summer and loving our new house. Hope every thinks well with you guy’s.

I Is a Big Jessie

2010-02-17T07:48:00.000-08:00

Oy Vey, why can nothing in life ever be fucking easy, I can’t remember the last time I said to someone, “Sir, I have this problem that needs remedying, its yada yada yada” and they turned to me and said, “Ok, it will take this long and cost this much”. This just never fucking happens, it’s always, well if this happens, you got to worry about this and then this and all this other shit, fuck, fuckety, fuck, fuck.

Also why do we love cry during films? Is there some deep need to cry now and again? Maybe to remind ourselves we are human? Maybe it’s because we have some link with the characters that feels deeper than the viewer experience should do. Maybe there a formula to making people cry, over Christmas I was watching the ‘Bridge to Terabithia’ with Karen and Becky, it’s a decent film but none of us where that engaged, then the tragedy happened (won’t spoil it for you) and we all cried our eye’s out, I rung my mate Matt about ten minutes later, he was watching it with another friend Paul and they where balling there eye’s out, course I told him he was a poof.

Maybe you can tell a lot about someone by the scenes of film that make them cry, my own guaranteed tear jerker’s are;

Shawshank redemption – Only cry in the very last scene when there walking on the beach

The road to perdition – all the way through, but the line at the end always gets me; ‘When people ask me if Michael Sullivan was a good man, or if there was just no good in him at all, I always give the same answer. I just tell them... he was my father’.

Saving Private Ryan – When Tom Hanks dies.

Schinlders list – The girl in the red coat.

The Great Escape – When the blind fella, Blyth dies, Good on James Garner though.

Field of dreams – With all got Dad issues haven’t we, when ray gets a 2nd chance to catch with his dad, that’s pretty powerful.

Good Will Hunting – It’s not your fault, its not your fault. I’m welling up here

Titanic – When Kate Winslet puts her tits away, just kidding, I never cry during Titanic.

I’d be really interested to know what others think and what gets you blubbing, I really like balling my eyes out now and again but maybe I’m just a great big poof.

Went to the BBP academy last weekend, was excellent, have written a full report for BPP part 1 is here;

http://www.blackbeltpoker.com/articles/read/Academy-Review

Took down 3rd in the Vic weekly £50 for £460, which was nice, stacked off in the end with 3-7 sooted! I never bust out with a real hand, not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing.

Black Belt Academy

2010-02-09T01:58:00.000-08:00

Will be attending the black belt academy on Saturday, the full schedule is below..

12.30 – 1.00 Registration
1.00 – 2.00 Alex Rousso – Metalearning
2.00 – 2.30 Live Hand exercises – pros review your play
2.30 – 2.45 Break
2.45 – 3.30 Nik Persaud – Fundamental Theorem of Poker
3.30 – 4.00 Live Hand exercises – pros review your play
4.00 – 4.30 Break with sandwiches and drinks
4.30 – 5.00 Interactive exercise: what happened next?
5.00 – 5.45 Channing reveals: Neil explains some TV hands he played
5.45 – 6.15 Live Hand exercises – pros review your play
6.15 – 7.00 Hugh Kirton – Psychology of Poker

With all this is entry to the Vic £50+5 regular weekly tournament which starts at 19:30. This causes a few problems, the last train home leaves Paddington at 20:30, so I’ll be looking to go very deep or go very early. Then what happens if I go deepish, about 1 or 2am, I have to way up the price of a hotel against the cost of knocking around a casino for 5 or 6 hours!

Anyway looking forward to it.

Black Belt Poker World Heads-up Poker Cliché Championship

2010-02-04T04:10:00.000-08:00

As a poker journalist of absolutely no note, I occasionally get invited by confused PR people to media focused poker events. Recently I was fortunate enough to be gifted a dream ticket to attend as a guest of Black Belt Poker ‘The World Heads-up Poker Cliché Championship’ in London.

This made for TV event had attracted the biggest cliché spouters in the poker world and after 4 day’s of intense competition the 64 original entrants had been whittled down to two and we had thee dream final which would see Luke ‘Fullflush’ Schwartz taking on Tom ‘Durrrr’ Dwan for the championship.

This event will be televised on Sky Sports 3 later in the year so if you don’t want to know the results look away now; for those of you that want to know the outcome I present for your delectation the full transcript of the match, including commentary;

[Fancy title sequence ends and camera pans from the poker room floor to Jesse May and Neil Channing in the commentary booth, Jesse’s hair as per usual looks as if its been styled by Crazy Meg the Woolwich bag lady and his suit is crumpled and stained, Neil Channing is wearing a black belt poker t-Shirt and jeans]

Jesse May (JM): Hello and welcome to the grand final of the Black Belt Poker World Heads-up Poker Cliché Championship, I’d like to welcome Neil ‘BadBeat’ Channing who will be sharing the commentary booth with me today.

Neil Channing (NC): Thanks Jesse

JM: So we have the dream match up, two ‘young gun’ poker cliché slingers at the very peak of there powers, you’re a betting man Neil, where are the Channing dollars going tonight?

NC: To be fair Jesse, there both great players so it’s going to be marvellous, but to be fair I have to admit a bit of a soft spot for the boy full flush, his a real emerging talent, and I’ve had a tickle on him.

JM: Well down to the felt we go, I’ll hand you over to our tournament director for the evening, Thomas Kremzer.

[Thomas Kremzer is impeccably dressed as ever and standing behind a well lit poker table with a microphone in his hand, Luke Schwartz is seated at one end and Tom Dwan at the other]

Thomas Kremzer (TK): Welcome to the Black Belt Poker World Heads-up Poker Cliché Championship, our two finalists are Luke ’Fullflush’ Schwartz, from London, England
[Ripple of applause]
Who will be playing from Las Vegas in the United States of America, Tom ‘Durrrr’ Dwan
[More polite applause]
The match will be played out over 3 legs with the first player to win two legs declared the Black Belt Poker World Heads-up Poker Cliché Champion.

(Voice over) JM: So what can we expect in the opening exchanges Neil?

NC: Well Jesse, to be fair, both players are to be fair, pretty aggressive, I expect a pretty fast star, its going to be marvellous.

TK: Good luck Gentleman, Shuffle up and cliché

[Both players shuffle forward in there seats]

Luke ’Fullflush’ Schwartz (LS): Sick

NC: A Classic opening cliché there Jesse, his setting something up for later.

Tom ‘Durrrr’ Dwan (TD): Standard

JM: Just what you would expect from Dwan a solid defence, Neil is he trying to take the initiative early?

NC: Probably, marvellous isn’t it

LS: Totally sick
TD: Double standard
LS: Sick, sick, totally sick
TD: Standard variance

NC: Interesting early introduction of a mathematical inclined cliché by Dwan there Jesse, his much more of a mathematically inclined poker clichér so I’m not surprised he would try to lead the match in that direction against Fullflush who is after all much more of a ‘feel’ clichér, just surprised he has unveiled this tactic that early, marvellous

LS: Priced in to the call, totally sick
TD: Bad call that
LS: Implied Pot odds
TD: Ahem, reverse implied pot odds

JM: Ohhh it’s a classic trap and Schwartz looks in real trouble here, his in alien territory running uphill without a paddle, Neil, this could be all over

NC: Yes he looks bang in trouble here, to be fair

[Luke Schwartz has a look of intense concentration on his face as he searches for a response, Dwan looks across to Kremzer signalling that his looking for a ruling, Kremzer is about to speak when]

LS: Metagame considerations init

JM: Ohh his slipped the noose, Neil what a clichér this boy is

NC: Yes great work there Jesse, it takes a real master of the game to know that you really can justify just about anything with metagame considerations, marvellous.

[Now its Dwan’s time to look worried, Schwartz cockily leans pack in his seat and orders an egg sandwich from a passing valet]

TD: 1st level thinking
LS: 2nd level thinking
TD: 3rd level thinking
LS: levelled

[Dwan’s looks really shocked, rocks back on his chair and starts moving his jaw back and forth]

NC: That’s a classic move by Schwartz, Dwan’s really on the ropes here

JM: Yes Schwartz is really taking it to him early, Dwan really needs to break away into more familiar territory

TD: [Quizically] Double level?

[Dwan looks unsure and simultaneous Schwartz swings around to face Kremzer with an ohh cmon look on his face]

[Kremzer flips open a copy of Hoyle’s book of poker cliché’s]

TK: No this is not allowable, the first leg goes to Schwartz

[Schwartz gives a muted ‘Yes’ under his breath and both players get up and walk about for a few seconds before composing themselves and returning to the table]

JM: A classic opening leg Neil, Schwartz came off the ropes to really beat Dwan up, can he come back from this?

NC: Yes a marvellous leg Jesse, Dwan is an experienced clichér, I ‘m sure his been in similar spots before, this next leg should be a classic, marvellous.

[A pretty young valet approaches the table and hands over a sandwich and the bill for said consumable to Schwartz who stands up angrily and his face starts to turn purple]

LS: Don’t you fucking know who I am? I am poker! I am FULLFLUSH!!!

[At this point Schwartz throws the sandwich at Durrrr and charges out of the building screaming PWN’ed over and over]

NC: Marvellous.

Credits roll…..

Chhhannges…..

2010-02-02T03:49:00.000-08:00

Been really busy the last few months, completed the purchase of our house and moved in. It’s great, really love it and its frankly mahussive as a lot of these old Victorian places often are, I now have an office which I love and a 30-40 foot garage that I’m toying with doing a Mr Mac on and turning into Taunton’s first poker club!

Sad news that we gave up on ukpokerinfo, just couldn’t get the love going that it once thrived on. No big bust up or anything, I still think James, Rich, Gaz and Brasso are thoroughly top blokes, its just the poker world has moved on a bit and to be honest when you have to produce such a high volume of content then it just becomes a lot of soulless regurgitation of marketing bullshit. I realised how disillusioned I had become with it when I needed to take a break whilst I moved house, the one piece a day requirement had been a very uncomfortable weight I had been carrying and decided I could do without it.

Would like to carry on writing so please don’t be shy in sending in the offers of work! Sad to say goodbye to UKPI but I will always be proud that The Rage chose his BBP screen name from the Russ Bansen pieces, which I really enjoyed writing, they are probable my favourite pieces I wrote for UKPI. By the way nice work rage for winning the league on BBP, great job sir.

Things has been difficult at work, had a nasty bought of gastric flu which was complicated by my diabetes, so I’m trying much harder to be a good diabetic, the sad death of Amir Vahedi (rest in peace) from diabetic complications last month serving to underline something that I often forget, it’s a serious illness and its easy to get complacent.

On the poker front I continue to be king of the swingers, I dusted of 2K in about 2 hours, then rebuilt from £100 to 1K in about 3 days, then dusted all that off in about 20 minutes, getting so fucking unlucky against a superstar it just denies believe when in successive $500 sit and go’s I got him to commit his whole stack with nought but a gut shot on the turn and both times hitting, I was so angry I nearly spat out my spleen in rage.

My last tilt session left me with £50 left! Still double my initial deposit I suppose  Have ground this up to £200 and am on my way back, its quite reassuring I suppose that even in today’s poker world with the generally much higher standard of player that I can still crush low/mid stakes HUP sit and go’s to the point where I can guarantee I will rebuild for another shot.

Problem I have is game selection at the highest levels, I just can’t have the same attitude I have at my normal stakes which is that I’ll pretty much play anyone, there are a number of sharks higher up that you just don’t want to be playing. To this end I’m doing a lot of research at the deeper end of the pool and next time I take a shot at the $200 and $500 (and I will because I think I can beat them) I’m going to be a bit more selective.

Going to the Black belt poker academy on the 13th full details here, if you haven’t signed up for black belt yet please do me a favour and do so via the link on the right. I will be playing a lot this month as I need to make purple belt this month so I can buy in with my belt points for the London Live event here!

PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker Time Again

2010-01-18T10:41:00.000-08:00

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! This PokerStars tournament is a No Limit Texas Hold’em event exclusive to Bloggers, you too can take part by registering on WBCOOP

Registration code: 878988

The Long Road Back

2010-01-02T07:55:00.001-08:00

After two months of grinding I had the long overdue meltdown this afternoon, shocking how bad you can actually run.

Even Jedi’s Die

2009-12-30T06:19:00.000-08:00

Was watching the film biography of Beatrix Potters life last night, the love of Beatrix’s life is played by Ewan Macgregor and he snuff’s it before they get married, my wife said. “He can’t die his a Jedi”, which inspired me to write probably the worse poem ever;

Even Jedi’s Die

It’s a fact of life, death will come to us all,
Even the mightiest Jedi, will eventually fall,
From Younglings to Masters, our light will fade,
Not Obi Wan though, when the sand people raid
(They scare easily, but will return in greater numbers)

In Phantom Menace, it was Qui-Gon Jinn,
Darth Maul somehow, put a big hole in him,
In episode two, Droid’s shot them to shit,
But Yoda brought clones, before they all snuffed it,

In Episode Three, it was Mace Windu's turn,
Anakin Skywalker, put him in an urn,
In episode four, it was Obi Wan’s big showdown,
He should have done one, when Darth came to town,

The Empire Strikes Back, but Yoda avoided,
Cos the Emperor didn’t get him, it was natural causes,
And in Episode six, it was Vadar’s turn,
On A funeral pyre, his body did burn,

So there you have it, light saber or not,
At some point or other, we’ve all had our lot,
And with Jedi powers, you’ll know when it will come,
But please act surprised, you rebel scum,

By The Emperor

Nostalgia

2009-12-29T07:25:00.000-08:00

Nostalgia = one really fucking ugly word, just look at it, a total monstrosity, which coincidentally is another really ugly word, but the difference is monstrosity is supposed to look ugly where as surely nostalgia should be good looking thing, because nostalgia is a beautiful thing isn’t it?

Maybe nostalgia is ugly, how would you best define the word? Id have a go at ‘The remembrance of things past with a golden hue that is nearly always a lie’, yeah I suppose even a well intentioned lie is still ugly in its nature.

I started thinking about Nostalgia because with it being Christmas my mind keeps wandering back to my own childhood growing up in the seventies, you might argue but I would say it's a pretty unlucky kid to have a worse time in the first decade of the 21st century (sorry I hate the use of the noughties, its cock) than we had(Being abused or the very poor aside, i'm pretty sure having life take a big shit on you is comparable decade by decade). When I grew up Findus lasagne was exotic and everything I wore for 10 years was made of nylon, the house was always cold because we didn’t have central heating and we had three channels to choose from. Yeah it was shit.

Frankly our toy’s where shit as well, who would play Subbuteo now with all the bending down and hurting your knee's when you crushed your full back when you can play it for nearly real on the PS3. I could start a ‘kids these day’s don’t there born’ rant but then we where the same, imagine growing up in the 50’s and getting a fucking orange and a kite for Christmas.

Will things one day change? Surely at some point western civilisation will reach its nadir and start to slowly slide backwards. Christmas could be the prefect early warning system, mark my word’s the first year the overall British children’s national Christmas experience is worse then the previous year its time to pack your bags and move to China, come in the western world, your time is up.

Every previous generation probable had the same thought, but I can’t help but feel we are probably at humanities high water mark. In 40 years we have pretty much taken billions of years of saved resources and pissed it away on packaging stuff that doesn’t need it (Apples? why do we do that) plastic carrier bag’s and petrol to transfer people from A to B when someone already at B probable could have done what they travelled from A to do.

Anyway I’m rambling, seasons greetings to you all, good luck to the degen’s who will be leaving us and the new one’s that will come along to take there place, good luck to this years superstars who occupy that statistical outlier that ensures they are bullet proof, until variance of course comes and snaps there fucking necks. Good luck to all my friends and DIAGF my enemies, you know who you are, and good luck to Franco Zola, you’re going to fucking need it.

Best present: Flight of the Conchords CD of the BBC radio show, great.

Worse present: Mong Cap

And how come no one in the blogosphere ever offer's to help edit my book, wankers.

And you can fuck off too…

2009-12-24T02:55:00.000-08:00

Seeing as every other blog is wishing seasons greetings I thought I would swim against the tide, so ‘You can all fuck off’. And my poor mood has absolutely nothing to do with the fact I will be working/on call for 90% of the holiday season.

I am looking forward to Christmas though, we had our Christmas shop delivered last night, I was up stairs having just got out of the shower when the delivery van pulled in and I watched the driver unloading as I got dressed. I can hear from upstairs as the wife opens the door and the driver starts telling her how he just slipped on our icy path and strained his back. I watched him every step of the way and he never put a foot out of place, lying cunt. So I go down stairs and put the fiver I had placed on the mantel piece as a tip back into my wallet, he tried to shake my hand and I just show him the door, fucking chancer.

A Tale of Two Tournies

2009-12-21T03:34:00.000-08:00

***WARNING BORING POKER POST, AS OPPOSED TO JUST BORING OTHER SHIT POST***

I don’t really play MTT’s much these day’s, the reasons for this are,

1.) Field sizes are in the main fucking ridiculous, and those greedy bastards won’t shut registration anymore so you end up after an hour with more punters than you fucking started with!
2.) I just don’t have 6-9 hours free very often.
3.) Everyone learned how to play them properly.
4.) I’m just not as good as I used to be at them, hundreds of thousands of HUP hands has made me impatient.

But now and again I dip in to them, and this weekend saw my daughter tucked up in bed with the flu and the wife working overtime so I had Saturday free, I jumped into the $10 re-buy on I-poker and a $33 freezeout on Stars.

An interesting hand comes up in the stars game when deep into the money, I’m a bit short on 30K (avg 45). The two players to my left are having a ding-dong and have been all in several times against each other with complete shizz, I’m on the BB with 99, numpty one moves in which I’m insta calling, but then numpty two in the small calls which gives me pause for thought, I think about it a while and decide I have to call, I’m shown AQ and AJ and come third to AJ riverd straight and AQ flopped queen. Not sure about my call, think its borderline at best, I do think though that any baby ace was in either players range, so I dunno, either way nice return on my money.

After 5 hours I was on the final table of the I-Poker re-buy with 6 left when I lost a 3 way pot AIPF for the chip lead my JJ vs AJ vs 88, an 8 on the flop and I’m gone, 5th though paid enough that I could buy direct into the BBP live event so that’s what I did and it looks like it going to be a cracking event, see BBP or UKPOKERINFO for details.

I’ve done very well from BBP, I’ve taken a $50 roll and run it up to $1,800, I’ve won entry to the boot camp, I’ve paid into the BBP live event and I still haven’t spent any of my BBP points, I’d recommend it to anyone.

People

2009-12-18T02:18:00.000-08:00

There are woman in the world who you should just fuck, no relationship, no friendship you just fuck them. When I was about nineteen I met a girl like this, being young and stupid I confused sex with love and decided I had fallen for this girl, I can’t remember exactly how but pretty soon we ended up engaged to be married.

This girl proceeded to fuck a number of my friends and pretty much any other bloke she could, and I allowed myself to sink to the very deepest levels of personal humiliation; to this day I still feel a sharp emotional pang when I recall some of those events, twenty years has done little to lessen my embarrassment.

Part of me always knew what was going to happen and I never blamed her as it wasn’t her fault, she was just a girl that liked to fuck a lot, it was on me really because you wouldn’t buy a Mazda MX5 and complain about the boot space, you bought it in the first place because it’s a sporty ride (actually you shouldn’t buy it at all if you’re a man because it’s a woman’s car). Deep down I wonder if I wasn’t just training myself to be more careful in future, like a small immunisation shot you can handle to avoid something later in life you couldn’t.

This probably comes across as really sexist but it’s not meant to be, there are plenty of men that no woman should ever get into a relationship with, they have no conscience and without a conscience a man will just fuck anything. You can still have fun with people like this just so long as everyone knows the score then no one gets hurt, problems only occur when we try to make people into something other than they are, because you just can’t fight your natural tendencies, you are what you are.

Recently for a writing assignment I have been working with someone who is just completely incompetent, which combined with little to no talent at the job he was recruited to perform and a terrible work ethic made him about as useful as tits on a bull.

What he did have was a staggering natural ability to delude himself, which is natures gift to all those blessed with no talent and no natural drive, because without the masking agent of self delusion the imbecilic would be unable to shelter themselves from the natural consequences of there incompetence ie, they will fail at every single thing they ever try to do.

I learned from my mistakes, he can’t and for this sake alone I pity him….

But I still think his a cunt.

Wankerd

2009-12-14T06:59:00.001-08:00

I got completely wankerd on Friday night at the works do, seems like I got away with it as no-one has come charging at me screaming, “you animal!” this morning.

I don’t know what it is but I never seem to be able to just go out and have a drink and a laugh, I seem to be on a self destruct from All-Bar-One (see what I did there) and I always black out and can’t remember anything. I’m not really a bad drunk, I’m just highly suggestible, someone say’s I think we should throw the boss in the river then you know ‘In the Tone he goes’.

Been going out for pub lunches and what have you quite a lot seeing as its that time of the year, at lunch the other day we get to talking about the New Year and someone mentioned they where off on holiday in January and I said “MBSFN” and someone laughed.

An older woman who was with us said, “What does that mean?, you young* people and your acronyms” and then a girl who was with us said to the older woman, “Why do you always put LOL and the end of your messages Agnes” and the Agnes said “It means Lot’s of Love Doesn’t it?” so the girl put her straight and Agnes looked really worried for a while, after a couple of minutes she turns to her husband and say’s, “That’ll be why Jean hasn’t spoken to me for a week, she was burying her Mum last week and on the morning of the funeral I sent her a text message saying ‘Good luck with the funeral today, LOL Agnes and Mike**’ True story.

Got totally owned playing Heads-up cash the other day for what seem like the first time in ages, really thought at the time I had just been unlucky but the more I examined in the more it was clear I had made some big mistakes. And thanks to Steve Holden for the UKPOKERINFO link on his blog, TY sir.

* Yes I know I’m not young, fuck off.
** Names have been changed to protect me from the innocent

Is I a human Being or Is I Being a Poker Player Quiz?

2009-12-09T05:47:00.000-08:00

I do love the Killers, I was listening to them the other night and the ‘Are we human or are we Dancer’s?’(Although why these two things, being human and a dancer would have to be mutually exclusive is beyond me? Answers in the comments section please) track got me thinking about poker in a round about sort of way.

There are lots of opportunities in the game of poker that if you follow the correct course of action in search of profit could be termed as somewhat morally questionable. So I give for your delectation the; Is I a human Being (or a good one at that) or Is I Being a Poker Player Quiz?

1.) You’re sat at a poker table with Shannon Elizabeth, It’s a 2K buy-in that you won a satellite online for a total outlay of $5. Shannon tells you she really needs to start making an impact on the game or risk losing her latest sponsors support, She offer’s you a naked backrub in your room if you chip dump to her, what do you do?

a.) Your young free and single so its an easy choice, you dump your stack into hers all-night long (fnnarr fnnarr)

b.) You say you understand her situation but aren’t prepared to damage the integrity of the game for a quick fumble even though she has got great titties.

c.) You give her the signal that you are trying to dump off to her and move in your stack, she calls and your aces hold. She gives you a filthy look and you say “Already seen em love, try keeping your kit on in a film just for once”

2.) You start playing in a regular private game which starts out fun but rapidly starts getting quite serious and pretty soon big money is changing hands. One of your best friends who you went to school with, your family go on holiday with every year and you are the godfather of his children and he the godfather of yours starts losing stacks of money to you. His losing big primarily because he has a two monumental tells and you are the chief beneficiary of this information. After a few months you notice his children start to come round your house to scavenge food and there clothes look thread bare and worn, do you?

a.) Tell him he has a problem, arrange an intervention with family and friends and tell him the he needs help. Once he has admitted he has a problem offer him as much support as possible including attending GA sessions, just don’t let them cure you by accident.

b.) Tell your friend about his tells, and rely on your poker skills to make money from here on out.

c.) Send him various leaflets for high interest low collateral lenders and once all these options are exhausted put him in contact with the local loan shark.

3.) You’re playing the first day of the main event; you have amassed a humongous stack and are chip leader by some way. The extremely polite and courteous gentlemen sat next to you is a terminal cancer patient who is playing courtesy of donations from friends and family who all wanted to make the dreams of this thoroughly wonderful human being come true by giving him the chance to play in the main event before he finally shuffles off to the poker table in the sky. You know it would mean the world to him to just make day two but his short on chips and moves his 3 BB stack in on the last hand of the day. It folds round to you in the big blind, you look down and see two black aces, you should?

a.) Not make a big thing about it; just quietly fold the hand saying you had crap.

b.) Call, and tell everyone you had to call to protect the sanctity and integrity of the game.

c.) Act as if you have a really tough decision to make, dwell for about ten minutes until all the other tables have finally completed play for the day and a big crowd begins to gather round yours to see what’s happening. Then announce call and slam your aces face down on the table yelling “TAA-DAA, how do you like them apples cancer boy?”

4.) The phone rings and your busy playing poker so don’t pick up, you hear the message being left though and its from your father telling you that you mother has just been rushed to hospital with a suspected stroke, you have just played the first hand of the Sunday million what do you do?

a.) Rush out the door only stopping to grab your phone so you can call everyone you can think off to rush to the side of the woman who brought you into the world.

b.) Try and double up early or go bust, if you go bust decision made, if you double up take the phone of the hook.

c.) Fire up more tables to distract you from the news.

Mostly A’s

You’re a good person, just don’t be surprised when both poker and life fuck you over at every opportunity.

Mostly B’s

You’re neither a particularly good poker player nor a particularly good person, I don’t know why but the words ‘Phil’ and ‘Hellmuth’ leap to mind. My own personal advice would be to crawl out of your own arsehole before it’s too late.

Mostly C’s

You’re a poker playing machine and destined for greatness, but your not a very nice person, I suspect this will be off scant concern to you though when you are surrounded by semi naked model’s sipping Crystal with Patrik and Phil discussing how much fanny your going to pound tonight on a bed of hundred dollar bills soaked in the fresh tears of your vanquished opponents.

PokerCosmos Customer Support

2009-12-03T02:32:00.000-08:00

Dear PokerCosmos Support,

I have been using your excellent site for the past three weeks and must say that everything is first rate and you guy’s are just the bomb! I don’t imagine you guy’s get many letters of thanks so I thought I would let you know that I’m one very happy customer.

I’d also appreciate it if you could pass on my thanks to the guy’s in your marketing department, there constant efforts to find and recruit new ‘fish’ ahem, sorry customers to the site for sharks like myself to devour are greatly appreciated and have helped me run my initial deposit of $50 to over $300!

Thanks

Josh Spencer

Dear Josh,

Thank you for taking the time to write us an email expressing your gratitude. We at PokerCosmos pride ourselves on the level of service we supply to our customers and are glad you are enjoying your time spent on our site.

Best Wishes

Gary Customer Services

Dear Gary,

Thanks for your thanks, since our last email I seem to have been struggling to win of late. I’m sure it’s just a blip but boy your site seems to hate me! I still love PokerCosmos though and will make another deposit on pay day so I can get back to feasting on those fish again!

Thanks

Josh Spencer

Dear Josh,

Poker can be a tough game with up and down swings, stick with PokerCosmos and I’m sure you’ll turn it around soon. In the mean time though why not take advantage of our latest reload offer to restock your bankroll.

Best Wishes

Gary Customer Services

Dear Gary,

I’ve used the reload bonus a couple of times now but every time I get something going I seem to hit a run of sickening river cards. Maybe you could check your RNG for me because right now every river card seems to kill me! Just kidding still love the site, but wow seriously check the RNG!

Thanks

Josh

Dear Josh,

We constantly monitor our RNG and it is audited regularly by industry leading testing firm CompuTest, so I can assure you it’s as close to perfect randomisation as can be possible. Maybe you could read up on variance and its role in the game of poker? There are some very interesting articles freely available in the public domain on places such as 2 + 2 and pocket fives, in the mean time we are running hourly free rolls why not try your luck in some of these until things turn around?

Best Wishes

Gary Customer Services

Dear Gary,

Free rolls! C’mon man I’m a balla! Look, I do appreciate your advice but I know pretty much everything there is to know about variance and poker in general, I’ve read Phil Hellmuths book, twice! I’m also an online veteran of nearly six months, check out your RNG man, you really need to look at it as I’ve been riverd like a million times this month and it’s emptied my account, again!

Thanks Josh

Dear Josh,

I have attached a report on the fairness of our systems RNG algorithms, it was undertaken by the same company that calibrates the computers at NASA so I can assure you they are regarded as a highly trusted and independent authority within computing circles.

Best Wishes

Gary Customer Services

Dear Gary,

Did they calibrate Challenger? As I remember it blew the fuck up. I’ve made another deposit this month and again all but a few dollars have been stolen from me by your crooked computers. You really need to take a look at your fucking RNG you douche bag, every fucking time I get riverd by your fucking cheating system, I must be losing nearly half of my coin flips and every time it comes on the river. Jesus do you and you’re company have some kind of vendetta against me?

Josh

Dear Josh,

I’m sorry you are having a bad run of it at the moment, as I mentioned in an earlier correspondence poker can be a game with a large amount of variance so it might just be a case of waiting for things to turn around. I might suggest though that if things don’t turn around soon it might be worth taking a short break from poker or maybe even seeking out some advice on your play? You’ll be glad to hear though we will be launching a new 35% reload bonus next week.

Best Wishes

Gary Customer Services

Dear Gary,

You fucking retard, you can stick you reload bonus up your arse. I’ve been playing poker for nearly six months and I know that I’m playing nearly fault less poker but your cheating fucking site keeps sending bad rivers at me. I hope you die of cancer for flicking the doom switch, fuck knows what I ever did to deserve this.

Josh

Dear Josh,

You know what, your right. It's my last day here on Friday so I don’t care anymore and I’m going to just tell you the truth. We received your first letter a few months ago we all thought it was such a turgid, pathetic, grovelling piece of shit sent by a fucking arsehole who had been playing poker for three months and following a bit of an up swing now thought he was better than Phil ‘Fucking’ Ivey.

In fact your correspondence was just so appallingly self serving and clearly written by someone so desperate for a pat on the back that he decided to write to a group of strangers looking for it with the outside hope of maybe some branded poker tat like a t-shirt or a cap thrown in that we decided to punish you. So we flicked the doom switch on your account, and not just the normal level of suck outs, no we put you all the way up to level ten or a ‘Matusow’ as we call it because your letter sickened us all that much.

Best Wishes

Gary Customer Services

Dear Gary,

Jesus REALLY? Is this true?

Thanks Josh

Dear Josh,

No, I actually leave on Wednesday as I have some holiday left to take.

Best Wishes

Gary Customer Services

Weeee...

2009-11-30T14:07:00.000-08:00

Won a seat on a BBP orange belt comp to the upcoming boot camp..

Builders and Kev’s Immutable Law of Poker #1

2009-11-27T02:32:00.000-08:00

Had to take a builder round to the new house yesterday to get a quote for the work that needs doing according to the survey we had done, this was always going to be difficult because we are buying the house from a builder. Now I hate dealing with builders at the best of times, they have a way of making me feel like an idiot because I don’t understand what flashing or recessed joints are, actually scratch that they make me feel like a child or maybe more accurately un-manly, yes more accurately they make me feel like less of a man because I don’t know how to build things.

Anyway it turned out to a complete waste of time and the survey was absolute tosh, I ended up feeling like a complete cock for wasting everyone’s time and had to listen as they both spoke in building terms I didn’t have a fucking clue about and made occasional jokes about my complete oblivion to the concepts they had so easily mastered, fucking hated every second of it.

Had been progressing nicely on BBP, was rolled for the $30 games and have been practising a bit of game selection. This morning I sharkscope this one guy and his down something like 10K over 1,400 games, play him and his shocking, really bad. Easy win.

Do a search on him and find his sitting three $100 tables, think good time to take a shot. Open up on two tables, win one game AK v’s KQ AIPF when he was short, then lose second game, most of my stack being swiped AK v’s Q6 AIPF, when he rivers a queen.

Next game lose to a cooler, QQ v’s KK, next game flop nut straight and lose to same flopped straight with straight flush draw that flushes on river. Lose next game JJ into QQ and lose final game AK v’s AQ, riverd queen.

So a ¼ of my BBP bankroll lost in about 40 minutes, so I present to you dear reader’s ‘Kevs Immutable Law of Poker #1 - When ever you take a shot, prepare to run like absolute fucking shit’

Is it OK to fail?

2009-11-22T23:09:00.000-08:00

I was wrestling for a title for this post for a while, I nearly went for ‘Succeeding at failure’ which probable gets more to the nub of my current concerns, in that I’m doing well at failing in poker.

I joined Black Belt Poker a while back now, the idea being that with the points based system it would encourage me to concentrate on the things a poker player should worry about, IE playing at the correct level, volume and ROI. None of this has really happened, I’ve multiplied my starting role by twelve yet I still spend most of my time playing the $5 and $10, I just enjoy crushing the small stakes rather than struggling in the mid stakes, I know it’s pathetic.

Is it ok to fail to meet your full potential though if the activity still gives you a lot of pleasure? I mean I have posted a story I started on a while ago, I’ve just re-read it for the first time in ages and it fails on so many fundamental writing levels, but the thing of is it that I remember really enjoying writing this. If I take pleasure from something is it ok not to do test yourself to the maximum and always do you r best?

I have started writing some poker fiction for ukpokerinfo (see links below), its very difficult to write poker fiction about today’s players without coming across as a colossal fan boy but maybe that’s’ just what I am!

http://www.ukpokerinfo.co.uk/flip-you-for-it-part-1-3130/

http://www.ukpokerinfo.co.uk/flip-you-for-it-part-2-3161/

THE OFFICE OF JAMES McNAUGHTON

A modern psychiatrist’s office, a traditional couch at the back and big tall book shelf’s. To the forefront are two modern chairs which face each other, James McNaughton and Glenn Drayton sit about two foot apart. There are framed pictures of JM with celebrities around the wall. GD is dressed in fashionable jeans and a tight T-Shirt, JM in a classic blue shirt and casual formal trouser.

James McNaughton: So the football’s going well, I watched the final world cup qualifier, you played very well.

Glenn Drayton; Taa, thanks.

JM: What did it feel like when the final whistle blew and you know your going to play in the world cup finals?

GD: Mainly I felt relieved, I had laid the number of bookings and one more yellow card and I would have lost a ton of money, also we get a tidy bonus for qualifying for the finals.

JM looks a little disappointed at his reply, but recovers quickly.

JM: What about national glory? Surely leading you country to the world cup finals is the pinnacle of any player’s career? Did it bring you no joy at all?

GD: Oh, yeah well of course. Yeah great stuff.

JM: Glenn, it’s important to take time to recognise you personal achievements. I bet Gemma’s looking forward to the trip out to the finals?

GD: I dunno, I suppose. Where not really talking much at the moment, there’s a lot going on and it’s not a good time for us.

JM: Why? What’s been coming between you?

GD: Well she was away filming for a few weeks and there where rumours in the paper about me and some model, but well there’s always some rumour about me and some model.

JM: Where you unfaithful?

GD: Of course, the rumours are nearly always true.

JM: Do you love you wife?

GD: Yeah she’s my whole world.

JM: Why cheat on her then?

GD: You have to see some of these girls Doc!

JM: Ok so what happened then.

GD: Well she went all moody and distant, then got caught shop lifting.

JM: Oh dear, what did she steal?

GD: A hedge trimmer from Homebase, Its cost me ten grand a man to keep it out of the papers. Waste of money really, someone will blab eventually. I just wanted a bit of time really.
(Pause and GD looks down at his feet)

GD Cont:
I don’t understand why she did it, we have a gardener! We don’t even have a hedge, it’s been all landscaped, like an Italian villa where we stayed on our honeymoon.

JM: Shoplifting is often a cry for some attention.

GD: Attention! She’s on the front of some bloody magazine every single week and her own TV show, How much bloody attention does she need!

JM: Well presumable more than she’s getting!

GD: Jesus!

JM: How about you? You mentioned earlier you had a big bet on the game, so do you think you have control of your gambling at the moment?

GD: Well I think it’s under control.

Incredulous

JM: Really?

Snaps back

GD: Yes really!

JM: I know it’s not easy for you to open up, but it’s the only way we can move forward. You came to me to help you control you gambling and cheating, to do that you have to express yourself.

Pithily

GD: Well I haven’t cheated on her this week and I’ve only had one bet.
JM: Glenn, its Monday.

GD: Oh yeah so it is.

JM: Does Gemma know about your gambling?

GD: Yeah she has an idea, probable noticed when I smashed up the wide screen last night after some tool missed a three foot putt.

JM: Oh.

GD: Yeah, Oh. JM: Can I ask how much you lost?

Coldy

GD: Well you can ask,

(Pauses looks down at his feet again)

GD Cont: Well I earn 100 large a week and this stung, Ok?

JM: What was the motivation for the bet? Incredulously

GD: Well I fucking thought he was going to win, why else would I back him.

JM: No I mean was there an emotional reason for the need to place a big bet? Where you bored or had it been a particularly trying day?

GD: I needed the cash to be honest, money is leaking out all over the place. Family, friends everybody’s nipping me.

JM: Maybe you need better financial management?

GD: What better than Gemma’s 17 year old cousin Martin who failed GCSE maths but Gemma’s mum think deserves a chance? Jesus, her families into everything I own, there like weeds every time I pull one up two more take its place.

CUT TO:

The reception area of JM’s building, its bright airy and very modern.
(JM is walking across the foyer, absentminded he is fumbling in his suit pocket. He looks up and see’s GD talking to the pretty receptionist, GD is leaning in close to her and she is looking star struck)

GD: Well I can get a suite at the Dorchester, they don’t usually let you have room’s by the hour, but they know me there.

(JM enter men’s toilets)

CUT TO:

Men’s toilets, clean and modern in the style of the building.

(JM enter and gives the toilets a cursory once over to make sure no one else is in earshot, he pulls out his phone and furtively dials)

JM: Charlie, its Jim! I have something for you.

(Waits for response)

JM: I’m sure your going to love this.

(Waits for response)

JM: Usual place, usual time,

Deviously

JM Continues: Usual amount?

(JM smiles upon the response)

(GD walks in, JM looks momentarily shocked but quickly recovers and acknowledges GD with a smile)

JM: OK, see you latter got to run!

(Puts phone away)

JM: Bloody agents!

GD: Tell me about it! Didn’t know you had an agent?

JM: It’s this whole Psychiatrist to the stars label the papers have pinned on me.

GD: Yeah, I’ve seen your bit on UP,UP,UP Britain.

JM: Also I’m currently writing a self help book and I’m in talks with a satellite channel called UK menopause or something about a daytime show.

GD: Well as long as you don’t talk about me!

JM: Of course not, I take the Hippocratic oath deadly seriously. I could get struck of if I didn’t, and rightly so!

(Both men walk towards the urinals)

GD: Race you! Tenner says I win!

Smiling

JM: Not sure this is helping your treatment!

(Both start peeing hard)

JM Cont: When I win you can just take it off my bill.

GD: A tenners just a drop in that fucking ocean. I Don’t know how you sleep at night.
Piously

JM: I sleep soundly in my Big house, secure in the knowledge I have helped many to live a more rewarding life.

(GD Laugh’s sarcastically, then stops peeing and raises his arms in triumph)

GD: I win.

(JM Looks down and briefly studies GD’s penis) JM: Well that was not a fair race, my piss had much further to travel! I’m sure you understand why a sporting hand shake Isn’t forthcoming.

CUT TO:

A sparsely populated Starbucks coffee shop.

(JM is seated with a giant cup in front of him, CFW dressed in a grey suit and wearing a bow tie acknowledges from the door and makes his way over and sits down when JM motions for him to do so)

JM: Hello Charlie.

CFW: Good day to you Sir.

(CFW Open his brief case and passes a thick padded envelope to JM, he then takes out a children’s juice box and JM stifles a giggle which CFW ignores)

JM: I hope its all there Charlie, last time it was 2 thousand light.

CFW: There’s 52 in there, to make up for the mistake with the last payment. I counted it personally, we sacked the conniving bugger from the cash office.

JM: You caught the thief then.

CFW: Well we caught someone, and to the man upstairs,

(CFW tilts his head and looks upowardly, JM follows this motion and looks quizzical)

JM: What God?

CFW: No not God, much more important than God old man, I’m talking about Dougie Simon’s the papers owner.

(With a worried look)

JM: Oh, him

(leaning in and talking conspiringly)

ICW: Yes dear boy, him.

(Pause, then ICW rubs his hands together and says jovially)

ICW CONT:

What have you got for me then?

JM: Well I’m sure if you wave enough padded envelopes under the noses of a few security cards at the home base on the king’s road they might have an interesting story to tell you?

(Pauses and smiles, then leans in to CFW)

JM CONT:A Story about the TV presenter wife of the captain of the England football team and a stolen hedge trimmer.

ICW: Interesting, a hedge trimmer you say?

JM: I know and they don’t even a hedge, let alone one that needs trimming.

ICW: How did she try to sneak it out? That a lot of equipment to sneak out in your undergarments!

JM: God only knows, I’m sure your reporters will provide all the lurid details for public consumption. When will you run the story? Will you save it form the weekly editions?

ICW: No can’t keep something like this under wraps for that long.

JM: will you break it tomorrow?

ICW: Lets see, Have my boys up the Chelsea road by three, someone will blab by four and the story written by five, plenty of time to make tomorrow’s earlies.

JM: I’m on UP,UP,UP Britain tomorrow, you know I will have to be hard on you for disclosing this for profit.

ICW: Don’t worry old boy, water of a ducks back. I know its late notice but there’s a thing at the cricket club tonight. Can you make it?

JM: Sorry don’t think so.

ICW: Shame, now you’re a celebrity you could have helped out with the charity auction

JM: I promised the wife I would be home for dinner, and I have to be up early for UP,UP,UP Britain!

(ICW Suck noisily from his juice box, JM looks on incredulous with a slight smile)

ICW: Old man, you might think I look foolish but I think the same of you sitting there with your five pound cup of tea!

CUT TO: JM’s beautiful family home in the leafy suburbs.

(JM entering the kitchen, where his wife is doing something complicated with a joint of beef, she’s wearing her midwife’s uniform)

JM: Hello love.

Karen McNaughton: Hello, how was you day.

JM: Oh fine, and yours?

KM: Oh very busy, always full on at the end of September, Lots of drunken Chrimbo conceptions to deal with.

(JM not really paying attention to his wife whilst looking through the cupboards)

JM: Yeah, sure, did you pick up Rachel’s birthday cake? I need to drop it off at the restaurant by Friday.

(Rachel enters the kitchen, 12-13 year old girl, dressed in Goth clothes and make up)

JM: Hello honey.

(No response)

KM: Answer your father honey.

Rachel McNaughton: Hurrr.

(Both parents look at each other despairingly as Rachel starts to take unhealthy looking drinks and snacks from the fridge)

KM: Don’t take all that honey, dinner’s in a couple of hours.

(Sarcastically)

RM: Hurrr,
Pause

RM CONT:
Oh look its fridge police, everybody run!

(RM exits kitchen, both parent look on bemused)

JM: Whatever happened to that sweet little girl who used to draw pictures of me as superman.

KM: Better get used to it, five more teen years to go.

JM: What’s for dinner?

(KM looks back at him strangely whilst holding a giant side of beef)

KM: Erm, Guess?

JM: Beef!

Pause

JM Cont: Fancy some wine with dinner?

KM: Sorry, can’t I’m on call tonight.

JM: Shame, I need a drink.

(JM exists though side door)

CUT TO:

(JM in his garage opens a concealed safe and puts in the padded envelope. Three or four other envelopes are clearly visible and this makes JM smile, he turns picks a bottle of red wine from a small wine rack and exists)

CUT TO:

The family dinning room, bright and modern room with a beautifully laid table.

KM: Have they moved the time of your segment again tomorrow?

JM: No its still eight fifteen.

KM: What will you talk about?

JM: Not sure, will see what’s in tomorrows a paper.

KM: You really should prepare better, what if there’s nothing to talk about in tomorrows papers? JM: Oh, I’m there will be something to talk about honey.

(KM turn towards RM and cheerily)

KM: What do you think Dad should talk about on the telly tomorrow?

RM: Pregnant teenage Goths, we need all the help we can get.

JM: Don’t even joke about that, its not funny.

RM: LOL

JM: LOL, that not even a word.

RM: Jesus, your just so,

(Pause)

RM Cont:

…..So MEH!

JM: MEH? Again that’s not a word either!

RM: Mum can I go now.

KM: Ok back by half eight and no hanging around the park, its full of hoodies.

RM: MEH.

(RM Stomps out)

JM: Why does she hate us so much?

KM: Don’t worry love, only half a decade and she goes to Uni!

JM: LOL

KM: Seriously though love, I wish you would prepare better for UP,UP,UP Britain. You wouldn’t want to look stupid on TV now would you?

JM: Honestly love, I have a very good idea what to talk about tomorrow. I wouldn’t want to upset Pam, I don’t want to be sent to the naughty corner!

KM: Jesus, I forgot about that.

JM: What honestly? Your telling me you forgot about the dinner party when the queen of breakfast telly sent her husband to the naughty corner for spilling lemonade on our hall carpet?

KM: Its not funny, the whole country thinks its some kind of act with them! She’s a complete monster, that poor man.

JM: You don’t know the half of it, remember she used to be a patient of mine.

KM: Come on spill the beans!

JM: Come on now love, you know I can’t tell you that! Remember the Hippocratic oath!

KM: Arse.

CUT TO:

Studio of UP,UP,UP Britain!

(All camera’s pointed on Rick and Pam, a middle aged couple wearing awful matching jump suits)
To camera

Pam Sealey: And after the break we have or resident head doctor, Dr James McNaughton with his weekly look at mental health issue, Insane in the membrane.

Rick Sealey: Well Pam, I wonder what topic the good doctor will be covering today.?

(Pam looks at him with complete contempt)

PS: Yes Rick, I wonder? The wife of the captain of the England football team, TV presenter and pride of the nation is splattered all over the papers after being caught shop lifting after presumable suffering a mental breakdown of some sort, and you wonder what mental health topic he will be covering today? Wow Rick, just wow.

(RS looks crestfallen and the horrid UP,UP,UP Britain music plays them out to a break, Rick then scuttles away. PS stands up and stretches and JM walks in, sits down and the studio hands start to Mike him up)

PS: What he going to talk about! It’s a good job I’m there in the morning to dress that retard!

(PS Shaking her head)

PS CONT: Jim, lovely to see you. Juicy topic this morning. What was that crazy tart thinking about! And a hedge trimmer of all things!

JM: Yeah, and she doesn’t even have a hedge.

PS: At least Winona was stealing designer outfits! Imagine the shame of getting caught in Homebase bad enough!

(UP,UP,UP Britain music plays them in)

PS: Welcome back, and now joining us on the sofa is psychiatrist to the starts, DR James McNaughton. Good morning James.

JM: Good morning Pam.

PS: Well shocking news in the paper this morning, for those that have not heard. Its claimed that former model now turned TV presenter Gemma Drayton, famously married to England football team captain Glenn Drayton,

(Dramatic pause, then attempting to conceal her joy)

PS CONT: Has been caught shoplifting a hedge trimmer from Homebase, such sad news James.

JM: Yes Pam its tragic, this is the classic cry for attention, its so very sad the news has come out like this, the shock and shame will be very hard to overcome.

PS: Yes, James, what kind of damage will the terrible way this news has been broken,

(PS holds up news paper with humorous pun, something like HOMEBASE HEADCASE!)

PS CONT: Likely to cause this poor girl.

JM: Well Pam the manner this news paper has chosen to release this devastating private information will put back her mental recovery by months if not years.

(Looking directly at the camera)

JM CONT: I really think it’s irresponsible the way this news paper has chosen to publicly humiliate this poor young girl. This news was not published in the public interest. Its pure exploitation of a poor young ladies in a fragile mental state to sell more papers. Pure greed Pam!

PS: Strong Words Doc.

JM: Sorry Pam,

(JM looking sincere to the camera)

JM CONT: This papers actions make me sick to my stomach.

PS: Well Gemma and Glenn are national treasures, what’s the correct next step for them?

JM: Well I think some time away from the media spotlight to reflect followed by professional counselling.

PS: Excellent advice Doc, I just hope Gemma takes it and I hope you don’t mind me saying but I hope she follows the footsteps of so many top celebrities and beats a path to your door.

JM: Well Pam my doors always open to those who need my help.

PS: Thanks Doc, now over to Rick whose in the TV centre car park with a rapping pensioner from Stoke who claims to be the real fresh prince.

(Camera pans away, you can hear in the back ground Rick interviewing an octogenarian rapper)

JM: Thanks Pam for touting me for the business!

PS: Well you know honey, I’ll always be in your debt.

JM: No you don’t Pam, It’s my job.

(PS turns to a monitor and looks at Rick flashin Gangster signs with a confused old man dressed like Dr.Dre)

PS: Dear God, look at that fool.

JM: The country loves him Pam, and you.

(They air kiss and part)

CUT TO: The reception area of JM’s building, its bright airy and very modern.

(JM is walking to his office, The Pretty receptionist is frantically trying to gain his attention without causing a scene)

(Looking uncomfortable and guilty)

Receptionist: Mr McNaughton, Glenn Drayton here to see you. I know he didn’t have an appointment but after the news this week, well I just though you would see him.

(Looks down at her feet)

Receptionist Cont:I’m sorry.

JM: No that’s fine Dawn, I haven’t seen the news yet this morning. How is his wife?

DAWN: Well they said on UP,UP,UP Britain! That she will survive the suicide attempt, although she will probable never wear a plunging neck line again.

CUT TO: JM’s office

(JM walks into the room, he greets Glenn with a silent impassioned hug)

JM: Glenn how is she? Such an awful business.

GD: She’s going to be OK, although the doctor’s say her choice of clothing might be restricted.

JM: Such a shame, if there’s anything I can do.

GD: Well I know your busy, but please you’re the only person I would trust with my baby!

JM: Of course Glenn, anything for you and Gemma. CUT TO: Dark office, Deep rich coloured wood stained furniture’s.

(JM is sitting on an antique psychiatrist couch, a grey haired man is sitting with his back to the camera in a chair facing JM)

DR IAIN: So you have agreed to counsel the kleptomaniac suicidal TV girl then?

JM: Well of course she’s the most high profile client imaginable. This will really raise my profile.

DR IAIN: Do you feel anyway responsible for the girls current predicament? No feeling’s of guilt or remorse?

(Silence as both digest the words)

DR IAIN CONT: She tried to kill herself following your actions, you betrayed the Hippocratic Oath? Nothing? No remorse at all?

JM: OK, I did betray the Oath. But lets be clear on this, this story was always coming out, nothing could stop that. That was inevitable.

DR IAIN: Well that we can never know, you made sure of that.

JM: Somebody would have made some money out of it, misht as well be me. At least I give a percentage of my earnings to charity!

DR IAIN: Oh yes you have mentioned this before , Fifteen pounds a month I believe you said?

JM: Well I didn’t say it was a very big percentage.

DR IAIN: Tell me how’s the family?

JM: Great. Karen’s like mother Teresa with all the time and effort she puts in at the hospital and Rachel hates me.

DR IAIN: I’m sure your daughter doesn’t hate you.

JM: She does, the way she looks at me. I miss the days when she looked at me like I was the greatest man in the world. I missed when she used to draw me as superman, I miss my little girl.

Staying Sharp

2009-11-17T10:47:00.000-08:00

This is a guest article written by the popular Betfair writer Marcus Bateman,

One of the true hallmarks of great players is that they all have some way to keep themselves sharp for long periods of time.

To some players, this ability just seems to come naturally to them, such as Doyle Brunson and the late Chip Reese, who both prided themselves on being able to stay in good games for days if need be regardless of the conditions around them; for others it becomes an area helped by diet and exercise, such as Daniel Negreanu's adherence to a very strict regime during big tournaments; and for others it has been more fatalistic methods, using drink or drugs to keep themselves going for days, such as the ultimately tragic story of the great Stu Ungar's decline into cocaine addiction.

Poker is a game where you are constantly looking for an edge over other players, and staying sharp is a great example of an area that can provide a huge edge if you get it right. Even a player of equal (or even greater ability) than you can prove profitable to you if they lack the ability to stay sharp for prolonged periods.

Fatigue and mental tiredness are extremely damaging to a poker player, and just like the effect they have on you when driving, or doing any other reasonably complex task, these factors can very quickly start to seriously impair your playing ability.

Not only can they make you a losing player if not addressed, they can also severely limit your opportunities in very good games. Often weak players enjoy playing for long periods at odd times of day, and some of the most profitable games that exist require you to be able to keep yourself going at a decent standard for long periods.

The key thing to remember about mental fatigue and tiredness is that different people all have different ways of dealing with it. Most revolve around a balanced diet, eaten at regular intervals during playing time, a good exercise regime, and some method of mental activity outside of poker. This is particularly crucial to a predominately online poker player who may go for days without even venturing outside their home.

(As fatigue is often so hard to spot, it is crucial that you try and adhere to at least some of these each time you play, as often the absence of them may not be missed by your conscious brain, but will almost certainly be missed by your wallet.

Staying sharp is one of the simplest and most effective edges you can give yourself in poker, and one that hundreds of players ignore, with the result that they drastically hit their win rate. Do not let this happen to you, a simple regime of diet and exercise might not seem much, but it can add up to a huge edge in the long run.

If you enjoyed this article and would like to see more information on the great game of poker why not pay a visit to the dedicated Betfair Poker site.

Nasty Run, Disaster Avoided

2009-11-16T05:58:00.000-08:00

You have some swings in poker that are just very difficult to deal with and like most humans I’m not very well equipped when it comes to dealing with the randomness of being, probably more pertinently though I’m fucking awful at dealing with the savage randomness of number generators.

This weekend I played 3,300 hands of poker, a mix of NLHE sit and gos, HUP mainly but a few 2 and 3 table tournaments. As I say Things went quite poorly and although I don’t really need poker tracker to tell me when im running bad it’s nice too have the raw data, after 3,300 hands I was losing money with AA though to 99, in fact the only pairs I where winning money with was the 88,55,33 and not by much.

I definitely lost more money with some hands than I needed, stubbornly holding onto
kings on an ace high flop immediately springs too mind, I’m fairly happy that this is not so much a leak as an inevitable consequence of the constant raining down of beats.

Angry and tired I registered for a few $500 HUP Sit and Go’s in a make or break move, then for some strange reason I unregistered and took a break, I played Doll house and then Jenga with my daughter and then settled down with the rest of the family to watch a film called, ‘Nine’. Load of shite to be honest.

In the evening I played the bloggerment which was a lot of fun, you kind of wish all poker was this much fun but I suppose it would make the game very unprofitable as being permanently sat on a table full of knowledgeable poker players is a recipe for disaster. FWIW I came 2nd to a deserved winner Dream of Vegas (link on my blog roll).

I surveyed the damage this morning and it won’t take me long to get it back, and well this might just be the start of some improved emotional control, who knows, stranger things have happened.

Online Rounder’s Script Part 3

2009-11-11T01:39:00.000-08:00

I started this a while back and got side tracked, the two previous parts get a ton of hits so thought I'd continue with it,

Part 1 is here;
Part 2 is here;

Micky: Hey, Mum.
Mum : How'd it go?
Micky: Oh, great. [Sighs] I am sick of that paper round.
Mum : Don't worry.
Micky: Mmm.hey, you know, I think I'm hooked up for this summer.
Mum: Hooked up how?
Micky: I impressed the manager of John Menzies, I think I might be in line for a holiday job.
Mum: Tell me more.
Micky: Well, All the movers and shakers of the local retail outlets were playing cards, and...Just hear me out now, hear me out.
They were playing cards and I read his hand blind.
Mum: So, instead of coming home and doing your GCSE course work, you went and played cards...
Micky: No, I wasn't even playing. They were playing.I just caught his eye by reading his hand, that's all.I mean, as long as I don't fuck up the DFS inserts, I think the job's mine.
Mum: What kind of job is that gonna be, Son? Delivering copies of card player? if you get in this way, you'll always be a hustler to them.
Micky: [muttering under his breath] Shit. I didn't even play.
Mum: you watch your language when your under my roof... Son, you must stop all this online pokerin nonsense, sixteen hours a day locked up on your own, staring at a computer screen eight tabling micros limits for ten dollars an hour, well its just a dream son.

[Tussles Micky's hair affectionately]

Get yourself a good education and one day you might be running your own Newsagents!...
Micky, I need you to do me a favour tonight.

Micky: Oh Muuumm..
Mum: I need you to meet your cousin at the clinic, there letting him out.
Micky: Can't you pick him up in the car? you know how much he sweats when he has to walk more than ten yards.
Mum: Now don't be mean; Arthurs lost a lot of weight,
Micky: I should think so, his been at fat camp for nine months!

[Micky Narrating] My cousin Worm's was once the subject of a channel four documentary, called Britain’s fattest pre-teen's, at age nine he weighed twenty two Stone. That's where he got his nickname; Worm's, cos when he had eaten all the food in the house he would start digging up the garden in a desperate bid to find something, anything that was remotely edible, he mostly ate worms thus the nickname, oh and one time he ate a family of moles he had unearthed.

Fat Kid 1: [Makes Buzzer Sound] - Pow!
Worm's: W-Was that, like, your strong finish or something?

[lays down happy families card on top of a stack of cards and scoops up pile of Cadbury’s finger's]
Fat kid 1: Motherhumper!
Worm's: You leave me no choice, the way you play.
Fat kid 1: That's the fourth time you done played that Mr Bun the baker on my arse.
Worm's: No, no, no, no, no. Dowling had it three hands ago, and two hands ago I got the baker, so I don't want to hear you bitchin', okay?
Fat kid 1: Yeah, but he shot the moon on that hand, didn't he? -
Worm's: Yeah, I saw that.
Fat kid 1: So it helped you.
Worm's: Now... Okay, you're right.
Fat kid 1: You ain't walking outta here with our Chocloate fingers, Worm's.
Worm's: You know the drill, okay? I'm not gonna eat'em. I'll hold on to 'em.if you want 'em back, you can trade me for 'em, or try to play double or nothing tomorrow.
Fat Camp Councillor: Patterson! What the hell you sittin' there for? You're processed. Come on.
Fat kid 2: Processed? This motherhumper's gettin' the jump.
Fat kid 3: Come on, man, have some decency here, Worm's.
Fat kid 1: You can buy all the Biscuits and cake you want in half an hour.
Worm's: What are you talking about? I won these fair and square.
Fat kid 1: Your diabetic, you can't even eat Biscuits, Worm's.
Worm's: Jesus, you guys are such fuckin' babies. You know that? If you're determined to die of heart failure, you really oughta learn how to play cards.
Fat kid 2: Ain't a good idea to add insult to injury, yo.
Fat kid 1: That shit will come back and hurt you. - You know what?
Worm's: Not in this lifetime. Enjoy your salad.

[Micky Narrating] Worm's dad ran a burger van, when he wasn't too fuckin' drunk. That's when we did. Of course, we ate more than we ever sold. Then his Dad gave up the Van and went on disability, and we moved up to harder fast food, playing online poker to feed our habits, By the time we where eleven we where grinding micro limits to feed our habit, at least ten visits a day too KFC is more expensive than a crack addiction and we just couldn’t earn enough so started cheating.

Then one day his Mum and Dad decided to cash in and appear on a Jeremy Kyle special, the show was called "Please stop my fat c*nt of a kid eating me out of house and home", that's when social services got involved....

They hauled him up before the juvenile magistrate, offered him a deal.Tell us who else was cheating online to pay for salty, fatty, snack treats and we'll go easy on you, put you on Atkins and maybe a little light exercise.

Worm's didn't say a fuckin' word. Got himself sentenced to nine months in a fat camp for criminally obese children. Not many guys would stand up for a friend like that.

Worm's: Ta-da! - [Both Laugh]Micky... God. I knew you'd be here. - Aw, man - You never let me down.
Micky: Did you get those money transfers I sent you?
Worm's: Oh yeah, those head up sit and go's kept me sane after all that fruit, veg and exercise. I've got the Nash equilibrium tables down cold.
Micky: Ok, queen four of suit, push or fold.
Worm's: Push.
Micky: Ok, Jack six suited, push or fold.
Worm's: Push.
Micky: Ok, eight four unsuited, push or fold.
Worm's: Push. Micky, it’s all push... You been online? Is your game sharp?
Micky: No, man, I'm off it.
Worm's: What, are you... you gettin' cold cards?
Micky: No, man, I mean I quit.
Worm's: [Laughs] What, are you shitting me? -
Micky: No, man, I... I got cleaned out. -
Worm's: Micky? You lost?
Micky: Yeah, man, l... It was a real blood game over at UltimateDebt, I sat down with the KGB77698_Balla and he emptied my pockets.
Worm's: Jesus, what were you thinking? So, you're just a school kid now?What are you doing for money?
Micky: I'm doing a paper round.
Worm's: Oh, God, you're killin' me, we gotta get you back on the game.The old partners here, we're gonna run like..... Something very quick
Micky: No, no, no, I'm off it, I mean, I really am. Done.
Worm's: You are, huh? All right. I know a game perfect for the two of us. It's a forum game, on the Boss network... prime pickings... no-one who knows anything about poker play's on there anymore.
Micky: I'm really off it.
Worm's: Do you have any money on Boss?
Micky: Ten maybe, twenty dollars.
Worm's: Whoa, Jesus, what have you been livin' on?
Micky: I'm livin' a little light, I told you.
Worm's: Hey, thanks, but I mean, that's, like three sit and go's.
Micky: So forget this game. I'll get you backed on Blonde or 2+2 tomorrow.
Worm's: No way. I gotta get started. [Chuckles]I mean, I'm already behind here.
Micky : You just got out. What's the big fuckin' hurry?
Worm's: The hurry is, other than you, my friend, there's about five other people,like, eagerly awaiting my release, I've been getting money from Tony G's new staking site, "TakeashotmissUgetshot.Com" and well I'm a little behind.
Micky : How much do you owe?
Worm's: Ten - I can't even figure it with the juice.
Micky : Ten!
Worm's: Hey, look, I can get started on this easy if it's you and me working together.
Micky : I heard you asking before, and I hear you asking now, but I can't do that.I just can't do that. I've made promises, to me mum.
Worm's: Hey, you know what? What am I saying? I totally understand, I do.

[Both Hug and head off in different directions]

If you enjoyed this please leave a comment, this stuff takes a lot of effort and feed back is always appreciated.

Taunton Poker Night III

2009-11-07T03:14:00.000-08:00

Having spent £65 on a lovely bit of baize (which has had the wife worried as I’ve sat around stroking it since its purchase) I was really looking forward to this one. Had a little bit of a fiddle with the structure so opened with a double chance, double buy-in that started with a slow structure that really speeds up after the first hour and have increased the speed of the final two games to make them genuine turbo games.

The first game was taken down by J.P Litston with Phil Joyes in 2nd and debutant Michael Lawrence a credible third.

The second game was won by me, my pocket nines the undoing of Russ Baker’s K7 heads-up. The third game was taken down by Phil Joyes with Mark Williams finishing second.

New boys Andy Tozer, Mark Williams and Michael Lawrence all played well and we now have a regularish line up of eight runners with more enquiring so its starting to get a bit of steam behind it.

Special mention to the luckless Jason Lovegrove for helping with the dealing duties and Andy Tozer for taking the sickest beat of the night, AcAd V’s 10d8c on a 6d7d3d board, with an off suit 9 popping on the turn!

Thanks to all who played

Would appreciate any fellow bloggers adding a HTML button for the UKPOKERINFO site HTML is here;

HUP SuperTurbo’s On I-poker

2009-11-04T15:10:00.000-08:00

Loving the HUP SuperTurbo's, have an ROI of 8% over 700 games which although minus the rake only equals 3% this is negated by the fact you can play such high volume. I don’t get a lot of time to play at the moment so managing 700 games in a months is a lot for me, so the maths look something like this 700 X $5 = 3500, 8% of this equals $280 minus the rake equals $105 + rake back which is 25% of $175 which is $38, which from a $50 bankroll is quite an impressive jump.

Now am I just running super hot or is this a very easy and robotically exploitable form of poker? My strategy for these games is so simple it seems ridiculously easy and can be taught in a couple of sessions, so surely this can’t be sustainable?

I gave Hutchy a training session the other night and plan another tonight so if he can repeat the trick over the month well know we have an easy strategy for building a roll up quickly, I won’t have the time to repeat it myself this month as I have something major at work to get done and apart from a home game coming up I won’t get much poker played at all from now till the new year, I then move home again!

This might seem like small beer but at 10-15 games an hour 2 or 3 tabling this means you could play maybe 700 games a month at only the $20 level to make about $600-$700 which is a nice return for not too much work.

RACIST

2009-10-27T09:12:00.000-07:00

I don’t know what the fuck this is…..

Martin was very upset; he had lost his ethno-statement of reference and licence or ESTORAL as they where more commonly referred to and although he had been repeating slightly differing versions of the printed statement contained on the back since the age of four he just could not for the life of him remember the exact wording in its current form without the help of his little laminated card for reference.

And with out these words to protect him, this put him in the most dangerous position possible, he might actually offend someone my making a statement that could be classed in some form or another to be RACIST. In truth the little card supplied by the world government to all citizens when they reached the age of four had long become an emotional attachment to Martin in the same way that a small child would become emotionally invested in a comfort blanket. Martin needed his ESTORAL, so being without it meant he felt doubly insecure, as if the thought of being dragged off to one of the cities many Racial and Cultural realignment centres wasn’t terrifying enough.

Somewhat dejected Martin stood in the middle of his kitchen dressed only in his under pants and distractedly started to prepare his breakfast of grey toasted bread and jam. Martin really hated grey bread, the government scientists who developed the recipe had managed to create something with the texture of brown bread and all the nutrition of white bread and with the taste of neither, which considering the many billions spent on creating a racially neutral food stuff it seemed a shame they had only really managed to produce a form of semi-digestible cardboard.

Martin shook himself from this revolutionary thinking and reiterated to himself that the great need for a racially undefined breakfast food stuff was crystal clear, after all it had been a breakfast meeting between two world leaders in 2119 that subsequently lead to an argument over the merits of white as opposed to brown bread that then escalated into the starting of the first ethno wars.

Martin sipped on his morning coffee which he took grey as incidentally did everyone on the right side of the law following the banning of white and black coffee (some people in the pro choice movement still resisted) which was brought about as a direct consequence of the Kenco riots of 2141. On his second or third sip a memory from the night before leaped into his consciousness and he knew immediately where his ESTORAL card was, Jesus why did he have to open his big mouth.

Memories flooded forth, how could he have been so stupid! It must have been all the beer on an almost empty stomach, shit the portions at the Café Biege where pathetic yet surprisingly expensive. Drunk, that was the only reason to explain why he said at the top of voice, “I quite like this African-Acid-House-Funky-Jazz”. The room which had been pulsating with music went deathly silent as everyone stopped what they where doing and just looked at Martin with a mixture of pity and contempt.

Everyone at work would know, and if he didn’t send of his ESTORAL and plead guilty too expressing a cultural preference someone would be sure to report him and he would get more than the mandatory three points added to the penalty section on the front of his ESTORAL and then he almost certainly would be picked up in a hover wagon and taken to a Racial and Cultural realignment centre, and then who knows what.

As Martin pulled out of his garage in his state of the art hover car he pondered the argument put forward by so many dissidents, that seeing as cultural convergence had meant that by the early years of the 23rd century no noticeable differences in skin pigmentation remained in existence and all humanity was now a sort of grey then that surely all racism and cultural discrimation must have died.

Martin was mulling this over in his mind, "There right" he thought "All the racial and cultural controls, monitoring and enginering are completely unecessary, with evolved past that" and at this precise moment he was cut up, “You fucking charcoal mother fucker, go back to your own sector! your lot don’t belong around here, fucking Charkies are everywhere” screamed the Battleship grey, sector 97G born and bred Martin Hales.

You Can Trust UB (sly wink)

2009-10-21T00:35:00.000-07:00

I wrote them a letter after the Hellmuth WSOPE debacle....

Dear UltimateBet,

Following the embarrassing scenes witnessed during Phil Hellmuth’s supposedly grand entrance to this years WSOPE main event, it occurred to me that this years rather weak effort might be a direct consequence of you guy’s running a little short on creative juice after the previous years endeavours.

With this in mind and with the aim to continue to support UltimateBet and Phil Hellmuths tremendous work in promoting the great game of poker by staging these elaborate media events, I am submitting to you three proposals for the 2010 WSOPE, I expect no payment for this as helping Phil is reward enough for any poker player.

Kind Regards Kevin Stevens

Proposal 1
Keeping with a British theme is important to the overall flavour of the event so tapping into the rich history of the British Isles is key. We would suggest that Phil would mimic the legendary Icenian queen, Boudica. This would involve Phil arriving outside the casino driving a scythed chariot which ideally would be pulled by two celebrities who represent the nobility and greatness of the British Isles, we are thinking Paul Burrell and Sarah Ferguson here but at push anyone from Hollyoaks would probably do. Then in a scene to represent the great uprising against the Roman occupiers, Phil would drive down Oxford Street and cut the legs off from under Dario Mineri and that fat pirate bloke, Max something.

Proposal 2

Phil arrives dressed as Winston Churchill complete with fat man suit and bow tie and is being chauffeured by Prince Phillip in a vintage Roll’s Royce. He then proceeds to imprison Katja Thater who is dressed in long black leather SS style coat, stockings and suspenders and nothing else in a wooden stock located outside the Empire casino, Leicester Square. Phil then proceeds to spank her bottom with a cricket bat emblazoned with a union jack whilst Sir Richard Attenborough plays land of hope and glory on the recorder nearby.

Proposal 3

To commemorate Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson’s heroic victory at the battle of Trafalgar and the complete thrashing handed to the cowardly Spanish and French navies. Phil would arrive dressed resplendently in the full uniform of an Admiral of the Queens navy, he would then play David Benyamine and Carlos Mortensen in game of Battleships (TM Hasbro) but with one minor difference to a standard game, the Spanish and French only get to fire every 25 turns as there ships are so crap. Once Phil has sunk his opponents fleets Benyamine and Mortensen would be tarred and feathered by a group of Chelsea pensioners and paraded down Oxford Street.

They replied back....

Dear Kevin,

Thank you for your interest and support. We have taken your recommendationsto heart and will look to further improve Phil's entrance to the WSOPE.

Personally, I enjoyed your second proposal related to the image ofChurchill.
In appreciation of your feedback I'd like UltimateBet to send you some gear.Can you send us your shirt and hat size as well as a mailing address we candirect a package to?

Regards,Andrés Riggioni
TBT AgencyOn behalf of UB Marketing

And yesterday this came in the post!

New House

2009-10-20T02:36:00.001-07:00

After years of legal wrangling, squatting tenants and moving house seemingly every 6 months we have finally got to the position that we can put an offer in on a house and lay down some roots. I made and offer on this place (see photos) last week about 8% under its valuation and was surprised when it was immediately accepted, I guess it really is a buyers market.

Becky is so excited about finally being able to choose her own bedroom wall colours and decorations, its weird it might seem strange but I guess we all missed out by not being able to do things to the place you live, it’s the little things sometimes.

Poker has been hilariously sickening, had a boat undone by runner, runner royal flush and every time I flop a set against an over pair they catch on the turn and river with the money in, thing is though I just don’t give much of a fuck as I have so many other things to worry about at the moment (some good, some bad) and poker has assumed it’s correct proportion in my life.

Have not written too much to be proud of late although the _FULL-FRONTAL_ interview (on WWW.UKPOKERINFO.CO.UK) is pretty good even if I do say so myself and the Black Belt Poker article caused a bit of a stir when I posted a link on there boards.

I hope people don’t get the wrong idea about that article; I was just acting like a discernible customer and believe I just wrote what a lot of people where thinking.

Full-Frontal

2009-10-15T07:09:00.000-07:00

Interview with Luke “_Full-Frontal_” Schwonz

You have to look back to the 1970’s and the emergence of a young Stu Ungar to find another player who has come even close to having the same seismic impact on the poker scene that Luke “_FULL-FRONTAL_” Schwonz has had upon his emergence as a true great of the game, this month.

UKPOKERINFO where fortunate enough to be granted an interview with the great man and couldn’t resist the chance to get inside the mind of Full Frontal!

UKPOKERINFO: So Luke wh…

FULL-FRONTAL: FULL-FRONTAL pooolease beyartch, or the F-Man, but never Luke unless you want me to bring it broseph.

UKPOKERINFO: Ermmm, sure whatever you want, F-Man.. Erm what’s it like being the most feared player in the game and a true legend of poker… for the last month or so?

FULL-FRONTAL: Man all these old dudes just keep dissing me and are like (putting on a very bad Texas accent) “You ain’t no legend of the game until you played for seventy years”, well fuck them, init, I’m the best there’s ever been, I’ve proved that in the last month, init.

UKPOKERINFO: Is this what the altercation at the EPO between you and Doyle Brunson was about?

FULL-FRONTAL: No that old fool be tripping because I drove his old man cart to the One-Stop down the road and loaded it up with diamond white, I’m not paying those fucking DTD prices, init.

UKPOKERINFO: Doyle’s not the only high profile player you’ve upset, wasn’t there some altercation between yourself and Daniel Negreanu lately?

FULL-FRONTAL: Yeah! That guy’s such a fag, he criticised the way I played a hand against him, so I like put him over my knee and spanked his arse like a bongo.

UKPOKERINFO: Really, how did he take that?

FULL-FRONTAL: He liked it; I was more upset than he was as I could feel his baby chubby rubbing against my leg, disgusting init?

UKPOKERINFO: Errm, moving on.. You’ve been dominating on line poker of late, is there anyone you fear?

FULL-FRONTAL: No there all pussies and I’m the king of poker, my game is so deep no-one can touch it, I’ve been crushing for nearly a month now so I’ve proved it. Dwan, the Dang’s there all scared of me.

UKPOKERINFO: Its funny though whenever you sit down there is instantly a waiting list of sixty plus players, its almost as if a number of high stakes online players just think you a great big fish whose running hot and there waiting in line to break you?

FULL-FRONTAL: No they all want to play me because I’m the best and they all want to prove themselves against the best, that’s what it is init.

UKPOKERINFO: OK, Sure.. whatever you say. Where do you think you will be in say 18 months time?

FULL-FRONTAL: Well I would think within the next month or so Full Tilt will be beg me to stop breaking there high stakes regs and join there team with a percentage, within a few months of that they will make me a partner and within a few months of that I’ll own the whole company.

UKPOKERINFO: So you believe you have the attribute to be a succeful business mad.

FULL-FRONTAL: Yeah deffo, my daddy.. erm old man was a business man, you know on the streets man…

UKPOKERINFO: What streets?

FULL-FRONTAL: Fulham mostly, his a merchant banker, errmm word. Init, I cut you!!

UKPOKERINFO:

You have to look back to the 1970’s and the emergence of a young Stu Ungar to find another player who has come even close to achieving the same seismic impact on the poker scene that Luke “_FULL-FRONTAL_” Schwognz has had upon his emergence as a true great of the game, for nearly the whole of last month.
UKPOKERINFO were fortunate enough to be granted an interview with the great man and couldn’t say no to an opportunity to get inside the mind of _FULL-FRONTAL_ over a coke and an egg sandwich!
UKPOKERINFO: So Luke wh…
FULL-FRONTAL: _FULL-FRONTAL_ pooolease beyartch, never Luke unless you want me to bring it broseph. And when you call be _FULL-FRONTAL_ don’t forget to pronounce the underscores.
UKPOKERINFO: Ermmm, sure whatever you want, _FULL-FRONTAL_.. Erm what’s it like being the most feared player in the game and a true legend of poker… for the last month or so?
_FULL-FRONTAL_: Man all these old dudes just keep dissing me and are like “You ain’t no legend of the game until you played for seventy years boy”, well fuck them, init, I’m the best there’s ever been, I’ve proved that in the last month, init.
UKPOKERINFO: Is this what the altercation at the EPO between you and Doyle Brunson was about?
_FULL-FRONTAL_: No that old fool be tripping because I drove his old man cart to the One-Stop down the road and loaded it up with diamond white, I’m not paying those fucking DTD prices, init.
UKPOKERINFO: Doyle’s not the only high profile player you’ve upset, wasn’t there another incident involving Daniel Negreanu at the same event?
_FULL-FRONTAL_: Yeah! That guy’s such a fag, he criticised the way I played a hand against him, so I like, put him over my knee and spanked his arse like a bongo.
UKPOKERINFO: Really, how did he take that?
_FULL-FRONTAL_: He liked it; I was more upset than he was by the end as I could feel his baby chubby rubbing against my leg, disgusting init?
UKPOKERINFO: Errm, moving on.. You’ve been dominating on line poker of late, is there anyone you fear?
_FULL-FRONTAL_: No there all pussies and I’m the king of poker, my game is so deep no-one can touch it, I’ve been crushing for nearly a month now so I’ve proved it. Dwan, the Dang’s, Ivey there all scared of me.
UKPOKERINFO: It’s funny though whenever you sit down there is instantly a waiting list of sixty plus players, it’s almost as if a number of high stakes online players just think you a great big fish who’s been running hotter than the sun and there all just waiting in line to break you?
FULL-FRONTAL: No they all want to play me because I’m the best and they all want to prove themselves against the best, that’s what it is init.
UKPOKERINFO: OK, Sure.. whatever you say. Where do you think you will be in say, 18 months time?
_FULL-FRONTAL_: Well I would think within the next month or so Full Tilt will beg me to stop breaking there high stakes regs and join there team and they might even give me my chat back, tards.
UKPOKERINFO: So how did you lose your chat?
_FULL-FRONTAL_: Well I was playing the biggest spaz-tard of them all, Durrrr and I sucked out on him because he played the hand so poorly, then he started having a go, so I had a go back, yet Full Tilt chat banned me and did nothing to him!
UKPOKERINFO: What did you say too Durrrr?
_FULL-FRONTAL_: I said I wished his mother and father and all his family died in a grease fire, then on the day of there funeral he found out he had cancer and his balls dropped off and then the day after that his gay lover left him cos he had no balls and the day after that he was arrested for being a donkey rapping shit eater and by the time he came out of prison he had an arsehole like a clowns pocket and none of the gays would want to touch him, so he killed himself
UKPOKERINFO: Ohhh… and what did Durrrr say to trigger this?
_FULL-FRONTAL_: Nice hand.
UKPOKERINFO: Just nice hand?
_FULL-FRONTAL_: Yeah, but you see he didn’t actually mean nice hand.
UKPOKERINFO: Ohh.. I get it. Do you think being from the streets might hold you back in the business of poker?
_FULL-FRONTAL_: No not really, my daddy.. erm old man was a business man, you know on the streets man…
UKPOKERINFO: What streets?
_FULL-FRONTAL_: Fulham mostly, his a merchant banker, errmm drug dealer, word. Init.
UKPOKERINFO: Well Luke go….
At this point _FULL-FRONTAL_: punched our reporter in the face and stole his egg sandwich and ran out from the casino shouting PWN’ed over and over again.

On the Line

2009-10-12T05:03:00.000-07:00

My mothers family are Irish and moved to London when they where all young children from a small town in the far south of Ireland called Cappoquin. My Mum was one of five girls and two boy’s so our extended family was big and as was much more the norm back then much closer than you seem to see with modern families. I think modern children suffer from this lack of closeness to their extended family and it might explain a lot of our social problems, I remember feeling distinctly part of a tribe when I was younger and felt many guiding hands through my youth, as the saying goes “It takes a village to raise a child”.

Anyway enough of the cod social analysis, when I was young my two oldest cousins on my mothers side where my heroes. I thought they where just the dog’s bollocks, later in life this was to be brutally shattered but when I was ten they where just the business. They had proper Irish names, they were cool and they were older than the rest of the cousins so started work when we were still kids. They gave me all there cool casual hand me down’s, I suppose because we were clearly struggling more than most as my Dad had gone AWOL. I’ll never forget what it felt like for a kid who was used to being dirt poor getting to turn up too school in a grey Lyle and Scott cardigan, it was just fucking ace.

One of my cousins started working in Claybury mental institute which was a pretty fucking scary place at the best of times, but for a 17 year old starting his working life as a porter on the night shift must have been hellish, especially as one of his duties was to move the deceased to the crematorium which was attached to the main hospital by a 200 yard underground tunnel. He quit after escaping air from a cadaver he was transporting made the body sit bolt upright on a gurney and say ‘help me’ as he was half way through the dimly lit underground passage at 3am. Jesus.

He landed on his feet though when he was accepted as a trainee tube driver which was and still is a well paid job. He worked out of the Hainault depot once his apprenticeship was complete and manned trains on the Central line. One day as the train he was driving was entering Bank underground station a scuffle broke out on the packed platform, no one quite knows what happened but an office manager named Paul Haslam turned to see what was happening behind him and as he did so he was bumped backwards and his foot slipped over the edge and his weight dragged him over the edge of the platform and he fell in front of the oncoming train.

My cousin never saw Paul Haslam as he was below the driver’s eye line, lying prostrate on the track. An enquiry later stated it wouldn’t have mattered as there was never going to be enough time to stop the train before it hit him anyway. Mr Haslam was carried the full length of the platform under the wheels of the slowing train and the top half of his torso was severed from the bottom.

By all rights he should have been dead but the pressure and the weight of the wheel upon his body had created a sort of closed loop of his circulatory system and he remained alive, a doctor was called and he declared there was no hope for Paul he would be dead within the hour.

My cousin told me how he stood and watched as they secured a phone extension (this was pre-mobile phone days) and they ran a phone from the controllers office to the track and Paul Haslam phoned home for the last time. His 11 year old daughter Sarah picked up the phone as her Mum had gone to collect her brother from an after school football match.

I’d love to tell you that he passed on a message that made his families impending suffering and loss easier to bare, but the truth is I don’t know what was said and I can’t imagine what you could and would say to you’re eleven year old daughter at a time like this. Tragic.

Anyway we have been house hunting recently and a few weeks ago we had arranged to look at a house in the Galmington area of Taunton, nice and quiet and good schools in case your interested. Anyway we arrive at the place we are booked to view and we introduce ourselves to the lady of the house and she gives us the tour.

Just left of the kitchen is a small room only about four or five foot wide which is being used as an office, presumable because there’s not much else that can be done with it. In the office there is the usual stuff, computer and desk, printer, fax machine etc, straight away though my eye is drawn to a framed news paper cutting taken from the Evening Standard that has been hung on the wall. Staring back at me from the lead stories is a picture of my cousin and various other people standing around looking shocked and confused, the headline reads “Bank Tube Tragedy”.

I know I shouldn’t but I can’t help myself, So I turn and ask her one question, “What did he say?”, she seems momentarily confused and then smiles and say’s “Just I love you all and goodbye”. I can’t think of anything to say so just nod and move on to the next room and the rest of the tour was awkward and my wife kept looking at me trying to get clues to what had just happened.

I told Karen afterwards and we didn’t buy the house, the kitchen was shit.

Back from Killarney

2009-10-05T06:03:00.000-07:00

Played like a drunk monkey,

Part 1 of report here

Killarney and the Poker News Cup

2009-09-30T22:07:00.001-07:00

As I pack my bags to head off too Killarney with dreams of winning the 100K first place money and my wife’s threats of if you don’t win, don’t come back ringing in my ears (As if im going to win and come home, Vegas Baby!) I have been spending some time getting some much needed MTT practise in on Carbon poker as it’s something I do s rarely now I specialise in HUP poker.

As I browse the site I spot an article for the poker news cup in Australia and it reminds me of the year of the year of near misses. At the time I was working for Poker News and travelled to Ireland with Barry Carter to cover the Irish open, there was a media event the night before the tournament started with 1st prize an entry to the Irish Open, 100 or so runners we get down to heads-up, first hand I get dealt a big ace and he gets dealt aces. FML! Got paid at least, €500.

I played the party poker WSOP steps and made it to last step a $1100 buy in for a 11K package, I make it too heads-up with a slim chip lead, raise with AK flop come AJ5, call the money goes in, my opponent has J5 and I can’t improve. Next hand im all in with J5 and lose.

Then I played the Poker News staff event to win a seat in Melbourne at the poker News cup, Play really badly, suck out everywhere and make head-up with a commanding chip lead. Head-ups I can’t pick up a hand and am slowly being eaten away, then I run a massive bluff on a 887 board I check raise all in with, J5! Get insta called by A7 and that’s all she wrote, the guy who beat me was an Aussie journo who lived in….. Melbourne!

Adjusting Bankroll for Game Selection

2009-09-30T21:24:00.000-07:00

I’ve recently opened up an account on Carbon poker to start a new HUP sit and Go challenge. I heard good things about the fishiness of the sites clientele from a friend and that’s all I needed to hear.

I was browsing the Carbon poker website and came across an article on Bankroll Management where they suggest a bankroll of 100 buy-ins, which might be a about right for NLHE MTT’s but a little conservative for sit and go's in my opinion.

In the article they don’t say much about the game you are playing and I think this is an often neglected factor when determining the number of buy-ins your bankroll can sustain, NLHE MTT’s and sit and go’s are much swingier than Limit hold’em and a game like limit Omaha hi-lo is even less volatile than this.

My point is that no one can give you a definitive number that decides what buy-in your bankroll can support, it depends on your game choice and ability to a great extent. Personally I will happily play off a 25 buy-in roll for HUP sit and go’s.

Downgraded

2009-09-29T01:16:00.000-07:00

I’m feeling rather chipper this week, had a nice birthday all though very busy and a little concerned that I seem to have been downgraded by certain relatives; I used to be worth a £25 voucher now I’ve been downgraded to a mere £15! Might be the recession or maybe I should try to be less of a c*nt. During the day I took Becky to the pictures to watch cloudy with a chance of meatballs, which is a really good film.

Then in the evening we had friends and my Dad over for dinner with me cooking Mexican and drinking far too much Thatcher’s Gold whilst playing the Pogues at full volume so Jamie and I could get in the mood for our trip to Killarney this week.

Flying to Shannon from Bristol on Thursday, only flight we could get and its with one of the budget airlines so I’m having to play the economy airline game, you know the rules, you have to try to get the flight for the stated price and they try to charge you for the little luxuries of air travel, like oxygen and seats.

Been thinking about the tournament too much and having weird dreams all week which see me seated at the festival final table naked with Andreas Hoivold to my left, he then looks at my willy, stands up and shouts at the top of his voice “Mitt ord dvs en liten kuk” to howls of laughter from the assembled Scandies in the crowd. I Might be a little nervous, it’s been a while since I played a £500 Deep stack.

Good news on the TV front as this week saw the following series return to air in the states;

Dexter Season 4
Heroes
Family Guy
Simpsons

Huzzah something decent to watch. Foot’s still a bit of a mess and having to be careful with it, thanks for all the concern.

Used this picture for a UKPOKERINFO Totally Made Up True Poker Facts, proper scary.

A Sock Full of Blood

2009-09-22T05:24:00.000-07:00

Nice title even if I do say so myself, I like good titles, the best title I have ever seen for anything ever in the whole world was the name of a gay porn movie, ”Shaving Ryan’s Privates” so now you know. I like gay porn, I’m not ashamed. Well a bit, if I was gay I’d be the worse gay man in the world, I’d be totally crap at being gay as I just can’t be bothered to take any interest in myself anymore, I mean whose looking at you once you pass 35 anyway?

The title derives from an accident I had the other day when I slammed my foot into a wall, I was in the kitchen and just wasn’t paying much attention to where I was going. I knew I had done something very nasty when the pain was so intense I couldn’t even manage to swear. I immediately felt something squelchy in my sock so looked down and there was a big pool of bright red blood seeping out. I took of my sock and realised I had managed to knock the toe nail on my little toe clean off, during this process it had pushed its way backwards through the skin on the top of my toe coming clean out the other side, which I wouldn’t have thought possible if I hadn’t seen it for myself.

This latest accident has just compounded what is already a foul and thoroughly depressed mood. I just can’t be bothered with anything right now, this might have something to do with my impending birthday although probably not, I just don’t have much energy, I’m hoping its just a hangover from the lurgy and I get my shit together soon as I’m off to Ireland to play the Killarney festival nest week

Anyway I hope I can shake this depression, I know it’s a depression because I’m starting to think about things much too deeply, which is the always the first sign and one of the most dangerous things a person can do, ironic that most of life’s thinkers tend to end up being saddled with depression. I suppose its cause and effect, as the more you think about things the more depressed you get as you realise just how absurd and random life is.

I’m feeling a quite isolated and depressed about my time spent writing about poker, it’s deprived me of quality family time and what for? I never seem to make any money out of it, all this time spent and I’ve earned a pittance, I should go back to building websites in my spare time or something else. I’m just getting a bit tired of putting in so much and getting so little back in return.

To me poker writing feels like every bad relationship I have ever been in, you know ones where the value of the partnership is greatly slanted between one or other of those involved. It’s always the person who cares the most who ends getting damaged, they put in all the work but they always end up the looser because the other party just doesn’t care as much, they are made totally powerless by the other person’s apathy, to me this sort of sums up how unfair life is. Success in life is slanted to the shallow and the selfish; it’s a rigged deck really

Unclean!

2009-09-16T03:37:00.000-07:00

Had the big red X painted on our door for the past week as Swine Flu swept through the family. Its horrible, it really is, I would recommend that if you’re family, friends or neighbours get struck down stay away and treat them like pariahs, or better yet go round and burn down there house to kill the evil virus, the law can’t prosecute you because this is the advice being given on the Swine Flu Pandemic hotline so fire up the torches and dust off your pitchforks its time for mob rule.

That advice line is terrible, its so shit its just untrue, twice we tried to get the Tamiflu antiviral pills and twice denied because they gave us the wrong code. The pick up point is ASDA some two miles away and we are without out a car at the moment so it was a monumental pain in the arse and cost a small fortune in taxis.

I’m not used to feeling this confined and its all been a bit weird, the other night I had to watch the football with the wife rather than go down the pub! This is something I would normally avoid, the wife finds it impossible to just sit and watch a game, every few seconds its, “Why’s he picking it up with his hands?” “Why’s he got a different kit on too the others?” “Why’s that bloke keep falling over?” It was the England V’s Croatia game and when she saw Beckham she asked, “His the best in the world isn’t he, why’s he not playing?” I didn’t have the energy to explain what was wrong with that statement so just smiled.

Then she asks, “Do footballers have holidays? Yes love of course they do I answer, “Do they get to pick the matches they miss then?” Hey what? No they have them during the off season love, they can’t just miss a match “Oh, when is the off season” The summer I answer, “Ohh, I bet that makes it really expensive going away during the school holidays” Yes I’m sure that the Beckhams really feel it in the pocket love, I answer sardonically.

Not much doing on the poker front, been too ill to play really. I have started a HUP sit and Go challenge on black belt poker but haven’t put much volume in yet. The plan is to start with £30 and turn it into a £1,000 using BR management, I have had to start on the $2 sit and go’s which is a fucking chore but I’m up to £65 quid now so im not far from being able to move on to the $5. Would love to know what I’m running at because I can’t have played more than 80 games so must be something like 60 wins and 20 defeats, which is totally unsustainable even at this level. I did start a new PT database just for this challenge but its gone all weird and is not recording anything, I suspect I have arsed something up.

UKPOKERINFO has seen its troubles in the last week, its hard to keep everyone on the same wavelength, disagreements are almost impossible to avoid but we seem to be working through it and pulling together as a team, which is good news.

Big thanks to Barry Carter who has been a great help hooking me up with contacts etc, very good of him. My favourite article of the month on UKPOKERINFO would be one of my own (Quelle Surprise) and it’s the letter to cake poker, please check it out here, (when I get round to putting in the link).

Hope you’re all well and manage to stay Swine flu free, because the government couldn’t organise a card game at DtD.

Japanese Porn Baron’s

2009-09-07T07:56:00.000-07:00

Honest question to all the Japanese Porn Baron’s who have decided to spam the shite out me and my poker blog? Why? Honestly, Amatays blog has a much bigger and far more perverted reader base than mine will ever have, go and drive him mad with 25 comments a day Arigatou gozaimasu.

Wife’s got Swine flue, so I’m running around like a blue arse fly, well she say’s she has swine flue though how can I really be sure? She might have just fancied a bit of a break from the domestic drudgery of every day life, as she has retired to bed with an armful of DVS’s, she has season 1-5 of the Wire on the sideboard so I don’t envisage she’s planning to recover any time soon.

Had a bit of a poker epiphany, I’m just bad at the game these day’s. Will write about it on UKPOKERINFO in the next day or so but the crux of it is I’m just playing shit and need to get back to basics.

Mr Anon, the fact that you have no voice other than the one us bloggers chose to give you and we can take it away as and when we please, well this just makes me smile.

Job Fair

2009-09-04T07:39:00.000-07:00

Bit strung out at the moment, since I returned to work this week I’ve had a lot of complex reports to prepare for submission onwards and upwards and most of it has required a lot of budgetary input and I’m shit with numbers. On top of that I have a massive hangover from the works quiz night where my team came a spectacular last place and I need to recruit two new team members bloody quickly.

So the day before was spent at the Somerset job fair representing the company; these job fairs attract a broad spectrum of candidates, both the desperate and also the hopeless. Desperate for decent candidates I stepped forward to represent systems which basically involves standing around with a clipboard as parents drag there lazy offspring around and when they occasionally stop to ask for information you tell them what little Johnny needs to do to have a career in the fast paced world of retail computing.

My favourite candidate of the day had a tattoo in four inch high italics on both sides of his neck, one word said ‘bird’ and the other ‘jail’. I spent ten minutes of my life telling this chap how he would go about a career in IT, I should have mentioned a high collared shirt would have been a wise investment.

There where a lot of very beautiful women present, most of them working for recruitment companies or in HR for local concerns. Our own HR department is primarily staffed by beautiful young women, one of whom jokingly told me off for getting one particular candidate to fill out his own contact form, I truthfully whispered to her that I was testing to see if he could actually write, at that precise moment he looked up and asked me what availability meant, I put him on the maybe pile.

This is more time spent with beautiful young women than any IT man is built for and probably had something to do with a dream I had last night that saw me standing in a room full of beautiful women who where all topless, they would take it in turns to approach me and I would touch there boobs and make notes on my clipboard, as they walked away I would say ‘Well be in touch”.

Weird, I’m clearly turning in to a sex case, I used to loathe middle aged men who stared at young women’s bosom’s although I of course still liked looking but in my youth I was much more subtle about it, In my dotage this seems to have gone out off the window and I just can’t take my eyes of a big pair of boobs these days, I suppose we always become the things we hate.

The Return!

2009-09-01T03:48:00.001-07:00

Not just my return to blogging but also of the football season, slightly inauspicious start for West Ham. A good away win followed by a piss poor defeat to Spurs, mind you I’m quite enjoying there flying start to the season, typically Spurs fans are already getting carried away and are planning there champions league away trips for next season, this of course just serves to make there inevitable slide into middle table obscurity all the funnier!

Played quite a bit of poker of late, busting a couple of accounts playing too high and running like shit, my own fault though so no complaints and it was all free money so what the hell if I try a spin up that goes tits. Been writing like a demon for UKPOKERINFO, it’s a lot to keep on top of with a full time job and a family so it was nice during my two weeks at home to have the time to get it all done with out something suffering, which to my shame is usually the family because as sad as it is they are usually the easiest people to let down.

I have been following a couple of threads on Blonde and THM about poker writer Carl ‘The Dean’ Sampson with some mixed feelings. I like many have read quite a few of Carl’s articles in WPT magazine, Blonde, 2+2 and THM and have to admit to thinking to myself that some of his advice has been just plain wrong. But poker is a game of interpretation so making summary decisions like this feels a bit spurious, after all there are people who play in a style that I could never make work but they manage to do so. As much as anything I think its probable Carl’s writing style and self promotion that has got the back up of so many people in the poker community, he does seem to state his opinions as facts which is always going to irritate proven long term winners who disagree with what his saying.

In typical internet stylleeee there was a large number of personal attacks aimed in all directions which the argument could have done with out because it’s an interesting topic in its own right; I mean, do you have to be a massive winner from the game to be able to write about it? I’m interested in all this of course because I do so much writing myself and it made me think, can I justify offering my opinion on certain topics? I mean I’m not Moorman am I? I would say for instance that if I where offering tactical advice about mid stakes Omaha then this would be out of order unless I could prove I was a long term winner at this game and this level, which I can’t because I’m shit at O!

But to talk about general concepts? I don’t think you need to prove your crushing poker; I feel everyone should feel free to proffer an opinion on certain aspects of the game and as long as they don’t falsely inflate there credentials to do so then I don’t see an issue with anyone writing about the game they love. Personally I tend to stick to talking about general concepts I find interesting and try to make sure I don’t offer any advice on anything other than games I have proven I can beat, which is all low stakes stuff. Personally I would hate to end up in a spot like Carl, trying to justify myself to the poker world because you’re all a bunch of cynical bastards!

Shagged

2009-08-14T07:41:00.001-07:00

My brain is just at squeezed at the moment; this is how I feel (see photo) as if something is draining the very thoughts from my head. I have two weeks off from Monday and intend to switch off and take a big long break from poker*.

Lost more money this morning playing cash on Cake then I will earn all day, that’s a little depressing to be honest. River blasting is for losers. See you all in couple of week’s, run well.

Thank you for the link Mr O, I enjoy your blog.

*Yes I know I have a seven article a week obligation Rich!

Gerbil’s

2009-08-03T05:57:00.000-07:00

I spent two hours of my life yesterday watching a film about gerbil’s who are secret agents working for the CIA, I shit you not. The joy’s of parent hood.

I’m in agony at the moment as my knee has swollen up like a balloon following eight miles on the country walk, the things I do for family unity. I think I’m finished, I envisage Karen one day telling me to get my coat on she’s taking me to the pub, I get in the car and she drives off, then we pull up outside the vet’s and I start to ask questions, “When are we going to the pub love?” she looks at me sympathetically, “Soon, love, soon”, and I carry on “Why are we stopping here then?” and she look’s lovingly, “The vet’s just going to give you a quick injection, then all the pain will go away”.

Didn’t play much poker this weekend, started a 180 manner but then had to give Becky a bath so Karen finished it off from 16 players out and took down the win! I’ve been obsessed with these tournaments since watching the Lipofunds video that BurnleyMik posted on Raisetheriver where he claims to make 100K a year from these, that’ll do for me!

Was a great weekend over on UKPOKERINFO as we ran updates from DTD and the stoke circus anniversary comp, the updating team of Peskie, Pudd, Brasso and Billyboy did a grand job and James and Chris is work on the reporting tool will put us at the forefront of poker live reporting, until someone else rip’s it off of course.

Poxy Swine Flu

2009-07-27T06:00:00.000-07:00

God I wish I could just get it; Half of Somerset has gone down with it and I just hate all this bloody uncertainty. I don’t know whether I need to ensure I have enough clean pants for the rest of the week or not. I’d be really pissed off if I died of Swine flu after spending all afternoon doing the washing.

Where has all the poker content gone, I really miss the WSOP made life so easy, get up in the morning check the final tables of today’s event, find a Brit, 200 words and voila back to bed.

I’m running so poor in poker it’s just untrue, so I’m not going to talk about it. I joined a download site and got 5GB’s worth of training videos over the weekend, unfortunately this meant I immediately got banned for having a crappy share ratio, clever software they have! Top work to Nocash for the CBMPT 10th place, well done sir.

Paul if you read this, I’m so sorry, it’s just not fair. Thoughts are with you all.

Weeeeeeee, July Goals

2009-07-20T00:50:00.000-07:00

Chuffed to finish the week winning a package to the Ladbrokes Irish Festival in Killarney. Set myself the following goals for July;

1.) Qualify for the Killarney festival - Check!

2.) Write 20 articles - Done about 60 so far!, Check!

3.) And write one which is actually OK - I'm not one to big up my own work, but this is really love this article, Here . Check!

4.) Borrow more training vids, maybe even watch some of them - Thanks to NOCASH, Check!

5.) Play 50+ HUP games on Stars with ROI of 20% or better - umm only played 5 so far, won them all though, nocheck.

Over all im a happy camper...

Cream Crackerd

2009-07-15T05:30:00.000-07:00

I really am so very, very old! Been wrecked all week following a late night on Monday when my best friend came to stay the night; he was working in Bristol so popped down. This was all far too much following directly on from Sunday as I played in the Killarney final and another late night.

Got near to a seat again then decided to piss away a playable stack with K6. I then sat in a HUP 3 handed cash game and won the buy-in to this Sunday’s final, so from the £40 I was given for father’s day I have managed to grind three €120 buy-ins to the weekly final! Not bad I suppose, I would have been more than happy with one shot for my £40. Just a pity I’ve played so poorly and run quite cold in the finals.

Been feeling very funny in myself, I told Karen that I think I might be approaching my midlife crisis, I’ve started to listen to dance music from my youth and have a desire to pick up some disco biscuits and hit a club. I’m fairly sure either or both would kill me but I have the urge non the less.

All my memories of my early twenties seem to have developed a golden hue around them, it’s like having a cross between a Hovis advert and Ibizia uncovered running in my head. Funny how much we can alter our perception, I know I was terribly depressed as in my mid twenties and always very lonely not matter how many people I was surrounded by, but my mind is desperately trying to tell me I’m missing out on something, anything.

I know that deep down I am a very happy family man, but right now it feel’s like something is clawing at me, I fell very restless. It almost feel’s chemical, like my body screaming at me this might be my last chance to plough another furrow. Sure it will pass.

Been busy writing for UKPOKERINFO, love some of the stuff James W has been developing, the live update system is going to blow peoples socks off. Good luck to James Akenhead, on 8.5 million in the last 27 of the main event, he deservers it after that 10 7 shizz last year.

Sunny has been doing live update on the hitsquad blog here.

Over Protective, Moi?

2009-07-08T03:39:00.000-07:00

Had yesterday afternoon off to attend Becky’s sports day, but it was cancelled so caught up on some UKPOKERINFO work. I do wonder at what point we started to feel the need to attend our kid’s sport’s days? No one ever turned up to mine when I was a kid! Actually when did we start paying so much attention to our kid’s?

I spend at least 50 or 60 hours a week with Becky. When I was a kid I only ever seemed to see my Dad on our annual week in Great Yarmouth. Ok, that’s a slight exaggeration, I would also see him for two hours a week, between the time he woke up and the time he went to the pub on Saturday and Sunday.

I seem to spend huge amounts of time with my daughter, all day Saturday we went into town and on Sunday we went to the pictures, and I still felt guilty on Sunday for spending the early evening writing. Its weird, I just don’t think I’ll ever feel comfortable with the time I give her, nothing will ever be enough.

I think today’s parents probable concentrate far too much on there children, when I was a kid I was pretty much left to get on with it. You just don’t see kids out and about much on there own anymore, everyone’s too scared to let them out of sight.

It’s all bit hysterical isn’t it, I can’t believe there where any less nonce’s around in the seventies and eighties then there is now, we just seemed to accept certain realties like ‘You can’t watch them every hour of the day’ back then, nowadays parents are obsessive about knowing where there kids are every minute of every hour of every day.

I remember as a kid just disappearing all day with me mates, over the woods and that sort of thing during the holidays. Just don’t imagine that goes on much today, I’d be getting texts from me mum every five minutes to make sure I wasn’t on my way round Garry Glitter’s house to see his ‘kittens’.

I’ve started writing a film script, the idea just hit me like a ton of bricks and it’s fighting to get out. Mind you my last effort to write fiction went down like a hot dog in a mosque, the link’s here (The Home Game), please somebody read it and leave a comment!

ohh and I've qualified for the weekly Killarney final again, so better luck this time hopefully.

Non-Stop Scribbling

2009-07-06T04:06:00.000-07:00

Been busy all weekend, trying to keep on top of the UKPOKERINFO workload whilst looking after my daughter and being on call, we are having to put a lot of volume through the site at the moment following the re-launch. Looking good as well, it’s a strong team we have.

Wasn’t sure about my title for the Hellmuth WSOP 2009 entrance piece (here), should have gone with my initial idea for the headline, “Hellmuth redefine’s the term arsehole”.

Steve Holden completed an excellent interview about his experience with Black Belt Poker (here) and it is refreshingly honest; a big thanks to Steve.

On the poker front qualified for the Killarney festival weekly final in the week and played it last night, got dealt nothing but still managed to get within site of the prize, Squirmy railed me the whole way (well after he bombed out!) and he nagged me into playing well when I wasn’t really in the mood, had to keep nicking to stay afloat but eventually went for one too many. Such is life.

Totally Made Up True Poker Conspiracies #1

2009-07-01T05:38:00.001-07:00

Following the application of the UIGEA, the founders of Full Tilt Poker begin to find it increasingly difficult to move there profit back in to the US without breaking the law and exposing themselves to legal action. So they formulated a cunning plan, they picked a mid stakes player and rigged the RNG on the site to give him unbelievable good fortune, quickly he moved up to the highest stakes possible.

The Full Tilt head honcho’s begin to transfer all there profits into Gus Hansen’s account (I know bare with me) where he proceeds to play PLO for high stakes. Gus then does what he does best and spews off millions of dollars a day to the ‘new superstar’, at one point a low level employ inadvertently switches of the RNG fix and no one actually notices as Gus sucks at PLO so much. The ‘Superstar’ now has to find a way to transfer his money from the site to his American bank accounts, which he does via a number of semi legal transactions, thus taking all the risks.

With all his new found fame and wealth, poker’s latest ‘Superstar’ decides the only correct course of action is to move to Las Vegas where he could then also dominate the live high stakes poker scene at the Bellagio, like he does online. He proceeds to piss away every penny he earned in Bobby’s room to the high stakes players who play there, who just happen to be all be Full Tilt founding members.

So if you start to run super good on Full Tilt then watch out, you could be there next mark!

Totally Made Up True Poker Facts No1

2009-06-26T08:28:00.001-07:00

Phil Hellmuth was once so enraged at a dealer after seeing his pocket aces cracked for a big pot, that he climbed on the poker table and pulled out his cock and socked the dealer in the jaw with his member. That dealer later became a junior senator for the state of Illinois and Americas 44th in total and first African American president, Barack Obama.

Online poker phenomenon Johnny Lodden is so popular in his home country of Norway that his image has been used to successfully market anything and everything! In fact the ‘Lodden popsicle’ a lemon flavoured frozen treat is the biggest selling lollipop in the Sørlandet region of the country.

Scotty Ngyuen's older brother played the actor in The Deer hunter who shout's "Di Di Mao" at the American prisoner's.

It’s a little known fact that Umberto Brenes is the dictator of Costa Rica, and he once had a man put to death for not properly respecting one of his raises.

Did you know Ross Boatman keeps a pet dragon locked in his basement and forces it to act as a cheap alternative to a water boiler.

Don’t ever, ever, ever rent out your sole property

2009-06-23T01:37:00.000-07:00

Long weekend with Sunday being the wife’s birthday BBQ finds me in poor health this week, I can hardly walk, my knee’s completely fooked. I feel like one of those 12 years old geldings you see running at crappy race tracks like Southwell or Ponterfract, No good for stud and can’t keep up with even these useless plodders anymore… Glue factory next for me.

We are in the middle of a hellish property issue with the tenant of our flat in Essex. She is refusing any access to the property, has changed the locks and has stopped paying her portion of the rent. Notice to vacate passed on Friday and she is refusing to budge. Then yesterday we got a phone call from the letting agency asking for us to send a man around to clear out the chimney as a bird seem’s to have got stuck! The fucking cheek, sorry you fucker our tenancy agreement ended on Friday.

The wife’s been very depressed about it all, we seem to be treated like c*nts by all the agency’s now involved (the homeless agency are particular twats BTW), as if where some big property baron’s bullying this poor tenant, we have spoken to her once in five years and that was a polite two minute conversation to let her know we had decided to sell.

This is our only property, and it’s mortgaged to the hilt and we had to rent it to pay our bills. If we can’t sell, and it looks like our sale will now full through because we are having to get an eviction served (thousands more of our money to solicitors no doubt, after spending 16K to get the lease fixed) and she is refusing access for a survey then we ourselves will be out in the street come January. The letting agency are an absolute joke, if you’re under any perception that these people will assist and protect you then forget about it, that is a complete fallacy, they have been as useful as a cock flavoured lollipop.

Been running horrid in poker but breaking even! It’s very weird had top set over bottom set crushed twice all in on the flop, once by turned quads and the other by runner, runner four high flush! But for some reason I’m nicking enough here and there to make up for losing every big pot I play, so can’t grumble really. Looking to qualify for the Killarney poker festival this week, could use a lads holiday.

Having my cake and eating it

2009-06-19T03:12:00.000-07:00

Some fella paid me for a link and an article mentioning his site with some money directly into an account; it’s on the cake network which is like stepping back to 2005 as the standard of play is delightfully poor. I’ve run up to a 2K this week, a 7th place in there nightly 10KG was good for about a ¼ of that and running sick good with some hilarious plays from my opponents. One hand that netted me two hundred dollars sticks in the mind,

President Rejects Moves to Repeal Anti-Gaming laws

2009-06-18T01:28:00.000-07:00

Stocks of all the major online gaming concerns fell sharply during after noon trading as a reaction to the news filtering out that the freshly re-elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is unlikely to repeal the laws that prevent ordinary citizens taking part in online gaming in Iran.

The largest site Poker Whores have been the worse affected publicly traded operator losing some 30% of there value in a two hour trading period with the downward trend expecting to continue this morning when the global trading markets reopen.

As a further reaction, online poker forums where overwhelmed yesterday afternoon after the story broke with online poker players threatening to give up the game largely due to the fact that the predicted and much anticipated return of ‘The Iranian fish’ was now unlikely to happen anytime soon.

We contacted the chairwoman of the Tehran Women’s Poker Association(TWPA) Mr’s Samrah Begum(name changed to protect her identity) for a local reaction, “This is just a disaster” she proclaimed, “We really thought this was going to happen this time” Samrah continued, “The rules preventing normal Iranians from pursuing there preferred pastime are draconian to say the least, I laugh when I see American players posting complaints on two plus two about the UIGEA because they have had there money confiscated by there government” she said ruefully, “Only last week one of our members had there hands confiscated by our government for playing online poker, lets see you insult someone’s mother in the chat box with no hands after that Yankee infidel”.

Online Poker Shock Revelation

2009-06-12T13:16:00.000-07:00

My God! Full tilt have been trying to tell us all along that it’s been rigged! Ohhh the wasted hours! If I’d just bothered to read the key just once!

'Die Glückliche Zeit'

2009-06-12T09:06:00.000-07:00

'Die Glückliche Zeit' means happy time in German, it was what the Nazi U-boat crews called the early years of the war when they had the run of the Atlantic and could blow the shite out of allied convoy’s and be left pretty much unmolested.

Later during the war in the Atlantic when the Allies radar, aerial patrols and convoy protection covered pretty much the entire distance of the shipping lanes from here to the US, they would fondly reminisce about 'Die Glückliche Zeit'.

That’s how I feel today as my umpteenth late SNG button shove is called by K9 because he knew he had my range and not because his an idiot, I wonder where ‘Online Poker’s happy times’ went when the majority folded everything but the nuts to shoves.

A friend of mine has recommended looking out for US targeted websites and Playing online poker at places like Betus might help but probable won’t be the complete answer.

There’s also some merit to looking for poker rooms with sports book’s attached, there’s an argument that sports books attract those here to gamble which is what us poker players are looking for, so again they have Online betting at Betus so more reason to look in to there room.

Maybe though the genie is just out of the bottle and there’s so much educational material online that all the once fish have been converted. Personally though I think a lot of the fish have not been bothered to deposit because its so much effort now. So lets all join in wishing Barney Frank all the best in getting the UIGEA repealed as soon as possible, because my bottom lines being killed!

Where's Boydy, The answer...

2009-06-12T07:41:00.000-07:00

There you go...

Full Blown Monkey Tilt

2009-06-11T07:34:00.000-07:00

Raining beats, I hate these fucking luck sacks,
I’m so far down I can’t see the sun any more,
Screw this, I’m due some luck,
Move up and make the luck count when it comes,

Check raise, slide that bar all the way up,
Fear rises in the pit of my stomach,
This is the game, this is the thrill, this is why we play,
I know it’s a race, it’s always a race,

Let’s see a flop then, make it a good one, one time, just one time!
Bink, he flops his ace, don’t need to calculate the odd’s I know,
Long shot, very long shot, but there’s always runners,
A turned club would be handy, Bink, A club,
Now any club, just any riverd club and the pot's mine,
Bink, missed the lot, thanks a fucking lot.

Reload, fire-up again, this time it’s my turn to win, I’m due,
Big slick, pump it up, re-raised, lovely let’s get it in,
He can’t fold two’s! Bink, sets on the flop, dead on the turn,
Fucking stupid game, reload, reload

King Queen, raise it up, raise it up,
Re-popped, my hands not strong enough, but I’m due,
Jam the fucking lot in, ace king, fuck long way behind,
Queen on the flop, yes I’m due that’s only fair,
Bink, ace on the river, fuck…fuck…

Why must I lose every single race!
Well stop racing all the time you nut sack,
Retorts my inner poker player,
Cheer’s mate, you brake to watch accidents,
And laugh at the disabled do ya?
Reload it’s my turn, I’m due…

The Power of Ten

2009-06-09T04:57:00.000-07:00

I’m fucking insane, I really am. I’ve just started a new project with its own blog because I like to keep my silly projects separate from the general crap I write. Anyway 4 session’s now and I’m two buy-ins up! Wow, nearly two dollars, each session is about an hour long so that’s about 50c an hour or 20p!

A big waste of time many would think, but I don’t agree, nothing in life is free and knowledge costs more than most to acquire. When I did my heads-up challenge my edge grew very quickly. When I look back at the graph's for the period, it went 100 game's or so at 5-6% ROI then it just jumped to 20% in the next 50 or so games and stayed there for another 1000 games, the penny just dropped because I was concentrating so hard on just one thing. So to me this is all ground work for my move to dominate the world of ‘Limited Holding Them’ Specialisation FTW.

Been a funny couple of week in politics, I genuinely feel like the election of two BNP MEP’s is one of the lowest ebb’s in our nations recent history. There’s definitely an element of the protest vote going on at the moment following the expenses revelations from Westminster, and it’s not something you can just ignore. But there is clearly something wrong when so many people in Europe’s most diverse society feel isolated and marginalised, I’m naturally a bit of a Liberal but I don’t think we can just disregard this as a bunch of crackpot racists, there’s too many unhappy people.

Decided to stop the online rounder’s script’s, it’s a lonely old life being a blogger so when you put some work into things that don’t quite work out it’s upsetting, without comments us bloggers would just give up so please remember this next time you see something that makes you smile.

It bothers me I never seem to get linked on forums or anything like that, I’ve tried to write some original content and I must assume it’s not up to much I suppose. I get hits from all over the world, last week a bloke from central china followed Google search to an old post of mine called; Pants, Arse, Cock. Wonder what he was looking for, presumable not some bloke from Somerset complaining about his car blowing up. But anyway with the number of hits I get I would have hoped to get more followers by now, I must be crap

Online Rounder’s Script Part 2

2009-06-01T06:01:00.000-07:00

Online Rounder’s Part 2

[Micky Narrating]You don't hear much about guys who take their shot and miss, except for Sbrugby, but that was funny. But I'll tell you what happens to 'em.
They end up humping fucking heavy supplements on a Sunday morning,
trying to figure out how they came up short.
See, I had this picture in my head.
Me sitting at a televised High Stakes Table, Dwan to my left,
Robbel to my right.
And I let that vision blind me at the table against KGB77698_Balla.
Now, the closest I get to the big time is $10 free rolls and watching Degenyamine
And I’m delivering this lousy paper round handed down.
To online rounders who forget the cardinal fuckin' rule...
Always Multi account, and collude, and buy accounts and shit like that

[Micky Narrating] The Newsagents game.
I'd heard about it for years on the street, before I was even in secondary school.
A rotating group of ten or so Newsagents, tobacconists and convenience store managers
They all have money, and in my playing days...
it would have been pretty sweet to have any one of them owing me favors.
Only problem is, no one can get in the game anymore.
One online rounder, Crispy Creme, sat under some pretence,
but they found out he was an online-pro, probable because he kept saying LOL and PW’Ned out loud and calling everyone a beyatch with a fat mumma. When they found out they stopped his subscriptions to poker player and WPT magazine, he cried for a week.

Newsagent 1(Abe): Oh, Micky.
- You got some left over supplements for me? –
Micky: Yes, I do.
Newsagent 1(Abe): Put 'em on the counter, it's all right.
Newsagent 2(Gene): Kid, he paying you for this late night shit?
Micky: No….These bastard Sunday papers are so heavy, I actually started delivering them at 6am this morning. Oh, well, knowledge is my reward [holding up a copy of the Sunday sport] and he also lets me have a few back issues of Asian babes now and again sir.
Newsagent 2(Gene): [Chuckles] - Let me tell you, it ain't worth it.
Newsagent 1(Abe): - All right. I call. - Micky is delivering those DFS inserts for you next week... Gene.
Besides, he could use the background if he's gonna...
Deliver for one of you fellas during the summer holidays, right?

[Micky Narrating] The amazing thing is, in this collection of great local convenience shopping minds, there isn't a single real card player.

Newsagent 3: I call.

Newsagent 4: Raise

Micky: Um, where going to raise-it-up
Newsagent 1(Abe): Micky? [Whispers] Michael, I would have just called.
Micky: No, you're good.
Newsagent 5: All right, I call.
[Mike Narrating] I don't know if I'm going to bring my career in media service delivery to a crashing halt...
before it even starts, but I just can't help myself.
Newsagent 3: - Good. - I'm in.
Newsagent 4: - [Clears Throat] - Read 'em and weep. Threes check.
Newsagent 2(Gene): Check to Martin and Lewis over there.
Newsagent 5: - Check to the raiser.
Newsagent 6: Czechoslovakia.
Micky: What's the limit?
Newsagent 1(Abe): Big bet's 10p.
Micky: Okay. Good. There's 10p.
Newsagent 4: You've seen half a hand. How the fuck are you betting into us?
Newsagent 2(Gene): You sure this is wise, Abe? It's your money the kid's bettin' with.
Micky: It's plenty wise. We know what we're holding, and we know what you're holding.

Newsagent 2(Gene): [Chuckles] The fuck you know what we all got.
Micky: Summer job delivering Argos catalogues say’s I know what you're holding.
Newsagent 2(Gene): I don't bet with jobs like that. Let's just say I'll put you at the top of the list if you're right.
Micky: Okay. [Clears Throat] Well, you were looking for that third three,
but you forgot that the owner of News’n’Booze folded it on Fourth Street,
and now you're representing that you have it.
The 7-11 Owner. made his two pair, but he knows they're no good.
The bloke who runs WH Smiths was trying to squeeze out a diamond flush, but he came up short,
and Mr. Patel thinks where playing Razz and hopes his 8 high is going to win.
So, like I said, we bet 10p.
Newsagent 2(Gene): - Well, kiss my ass. - Kiss my ass.
[Group Laughs]
Newsagent 2(Gene): - What'd you have, Abe?
Newsagent 1(Abe): Nothin' but a busted straight.
Newsagent 2(Gene): Oh, come on. - It's good enough to win. Take it down.
All right, kid, your first assignment. Pull up a seat next to me.
Micky: Oh, I'd like to. I can't, I can't. I don't play cards.
Newsagent 2(Gene): Get outta here! - I like the kid, Abe. - Good kid.
Newsagent 1(Abe): Smart kid.

Part three here

Online Rounder’s Script Part 1

2009-05-29T03:37:00.000-07:00

Online Rounder’s Script Part 1

[Man Narrating(Micky)] Listen, here's the thing.
If you can't spot the fish in your first half hour on the site,
then your not running tracking software, so you are the fish

Guys on forums will tell ya... they play for a living.
When there really playing micro stakes,
It’s like any other job, not that I’ve had one, I’m fourteen,
You don’t gamble, you chip dump and buy accounts,
Your goal is to win one big tournament a week, that's it.
Get your money in with any old shit, and pray that you hit
Don't fold anything. Ever.

[Logging onto a poker site]

This is Russ Hamilton’s place UltimateDebt,
You won’t find it in the Yellow pages,
Because it’s in Nicaragua,
Or some other 3rd world shit hole with no extradition treaty
But if you're looking for high stakes,
this is the only site on the web where you can still deposit from the US
Using your Dad’s master card with no ID verification

[Pointing at screen]

His avatar doesn't look like much, a chimpanzee smoking a cigar
but KGB77698_Balla has five million posts on 2 + 2.
He's the one guy in the online game you don't want to fuck with.

Msn chat box pops up

Knish_247 is an online legend.
He's been an online rounder, earning his living at cards...
since he was 18 years old, that’s nearly 2 years which makes him a veteran in the online game

[Typing on MSN]

(Knish_247) What are you doin, sitting 25/50?
(Rounder22789) Um, I'm reserving a seat for a Headz up 4 rollz game.
(Knish_247)- LOL Donkuargumanets. - [sends chuckle, emoticon]
'Cause I hope you're not thinking of putting more then 5% of your roll in play?
[Narrating] He's as close to a friend as there is on 2+2.
[Narrator] But tonight, I don't want to deal with him.

(Rounder22789) - I can beat the game. –
(Knish_247) Maybe. Maybe this is a game can be beat. But you know you can beat the Sit and Go’s on Ipoker
(Rounder22789) yeah but the software makes be vomit, and I want to shove all in everytime the little French guy with the beret makes a raise.
(Knish_247) Okay. I understand, back to battle.

[Starting to play online]

[Micky Narrating] The game in question is Unlimited Texas Holding Them.
And a game like this doesn't come together often outside of Full Tilt
The stakes attract live pro’s,
and they in turn attract the online sharks.
Unlimited Texas Holding Them. Is the GW Bush of poker, its very simple.
Each player is dealt two cards face down.
Five cards are then dealt face up across the middle.
These are community cards everyone can use to make the best five card hand.
The key to the game is playing the man, not the cards. Or being very lucky,
There's no other game in which fortunes can change so much from hand to hand.
A brilliant player can get a strong hand cracked, go on tilt...
and lose his mind along with every single chip in front of him.
This is why the World Series of Poker is decided over an Unlimited Texas Holding Them table.
Some people, pros even, won't play No-Limit.
They can't handle the swings.
But there are others, like Doyle Brunson,
who consider No-Limit the only pure game left.
Like Papa Smurf said..."I’m all-in Gargamel, And you can suck my blue balls."

[Micky Narrating] Here's the beauty of this game.

[Text appers in the chat box]

(KGB77698_Balla) Go ahead, Dick. Make your standard C-Bet.

[Micky Narrating] I just got top two pair on the flop,
and I want to keep him in the hand.
Against your average guy, I'd set a bear trap, hardly bet at all.
Let him walk into it. But KGB77698_Balla is too smart for that.
So, what I've got to do is over-bet the pot,
make it look like I'm trying to buy it.

[Micky Typing in the chat box]

(Rounder22789) I bet 192.63

[Micky Narrating] Then he plays back at me, and I get paid off.

(KGB77698_Balla) I call because I need the money to pay your mumma to suk my dick.

[Micky Narrating] My guess is KGB77698_Balla on a flush draw.

The sites software say’s in a robotic voice; Burn and turn.

[Micky Narrating] There's my money card, nine of hearts.
I got a full house.

Both Check

[Micky Narrating] Now I hope a spade falls and KGB77698_Balla makes his flush.
That way he'll bet strong, and I'll beat him with my nines full over aces.

(KGB77698_Balla) I'm going to bet... Bet... 674.67

Clicks on the Time button.

[Micky Narrating] I want him to think that I'm pondering a call,
but all I'm really thinking about is posting this hand on the interweb.

(Rounder22789) I'm gonna go all in, 'cause I think you’re a pussaaaaa.

KGB77698_Balla waits then requests time and then types in

(KGB77698_Balla) You been pw’ned beyatch!

[Micky Narrating] I know before the cards are even turned over.
Man, I lost all my money, my whole roll.

Black Belt Poker Grading and She Killed My Account!

2009-05-26T05:03:00.000-07:00

First of all I will announce my position, Snoopy is one of my favourite people in poker. When I first covered a few live events he was incredibly generous with the time he proffered to help out a newbie with a ton of stupid questions, Including;

Me: Whose that bloke over there with the cowboy hat?
Snoops: That’s Doyle Brunson.
Me: Really, I thought he was black?
Snoops: No that’s Phil Ivey.
Me: Where? (looking around and then pointing) over there?
Snoops: No that’s Jennifer Tilly.
Me: Ohhh, cheers mate.

I thought he was treated so shabbily by Blonde and was happy he landed on his feet with black belt poker. Both Snoops and Jen (who is also very nice but I have spoken too much less) are very talented and I can see BBP becoming a genuinely terrific place to visit. Nik I’ve had a few laughs with table side when he was railing EPT London and Neil I’ve never spoken too, but he seems a very nice chap.

I was quick to sign up to the site and although it needs work looks like something that the poker community will really use. So all positive, until I started reading a lot of blogs of people I like and respect, It does appear to me that a lot of the grading techniques are flawed, what you learn from grading people at levels they won’t ever want to play or care about is beyond me but Steve Holden who experienced the whole process has done a much better job than I could ever at pointing out possible improvements here.

What I will comment on though (and I have on Steve’s blog) is that I believe announcing to the players who have worked hard for a solid month chasing there dream of sponsorship, which in the process has also lined your companies pockets with rake back, that they have failed over the radio is absolutely despicable. The personal touch is everything.

On the personal front I will be making an online deposit this week for only the second time in the last five years, started free rolling up last week after six months off from poker, I’d told the wife about the money and she went and blew the lot! She was very sheepish and admitted to a bit of a tilt session, I said I’d put some money online by way of compensation so any suggestions on good reload bonuses (I have accounts, everywhere!)let me know.

Wedding anniversary this weekend, lost brownie points earlier in the week when wife overheard me talking to a mate, “Yeah, well it’s the most important weekend of the year for me”, Queue wife looking over lovingly and thinking ‘His so romantic’, me continuing, “Yeah, the final weekend of the premier league season and the play off finals, I’m in heaven”. Queue evil looks and salad for dinner.

The in-laws came for the weekend and bought us a Wii for our anniversary, nice one! We did the whole coastal thing this weekend, Kilve for a picnic and rock pooling on Saturday, Ilfracombe for lunch on Sunday, and the beach at Sidmouth on Monday. Got to love living in the West Country.

I took the wife to a very nice restaurant on Saturday night called the willow tree, the nearest juicer was the pitcher and piano, most of the locals refer to it as the library as ‘quelle surprise’ the building once housed the towns library, it’s a magnificent building. On the outside it has a stunning red edifice with ornate carvings, tall stained glass windows and a wonderful little garden, on the inside it has a sweeping staircase and marvellous chandeliers and chequered floor tiles. Bit of a waste for a pitcher and piano really!

Something very strange must have happened in the 70’s to architects and town planners, the Taunton library being a prime example because they left this beautiful building to stand idle and dwindle to dereliction so they could move the library to a newly built brick monster that’s about the same size and 400 yards away, fucking idiots.

Anyway something of a local ‘joke’ when talking about somewhere to go for a pint is to use the phrase ‘a quiet night in at the library’, its so annoying and I hate this phrase as well, I mean how can you even have a quite night in at the library, do you actually live in a fucking library? Are you a librarian? If not then it makes no sense! On Saturday we went in for a pre-meal early evening drink and where both a little surprised when we walked in to find a queue at the bar as early evening it’s usually pretty dead.

Anyway we eventually get served and make our way to our usual seats. I spot a notice up on the wall for speed dating. So that’s why the place is so busy this early, the speed dating starts in half hours or so.

I can hear the large woman whose running the show telling everyone to line up and take there number badges. It occurs to me that everything in the modern world is done quickly now, speed dating leads, to speed weddings, quick kids and quickie divorces.

We are at the edge of the tables that are being used and to all intent and purpose we look like where involved in the speed dating. The first ‘Round’ of dates starts and I need a pee, I stand up and well what happened next isn’t my fault, I suffer from a rare and little known disease called “Jacobsen’s congener” this is where if something occurs to me to be funny then I have to follow through regardless of whether or not its actually funny or whether there will be serious consequences to my actions. Ohh, how I suffer.

Anyway as I get up from the table, I say at the top of my voice, “Would anyone mind swapping early? This bird’s just dropped her guts and I’m not having that!” The look the wife gave me!

A letter from the future

2009-05-22T02:27:00.000-07:00

Found this on my doormat this morning its dated 2059, very strange.

Hello Dad,
It’s been five years now since your untimely passing, just how much you suffered during your final three weeks of life trapped within the walls of that abandoned, yet surprisingly still fully stocked beer and pornography warehouse we will never know.

I thought I would write you this letter as it was you who first instilled into me a great love of politics, only natural I suppose as you where a relatively young man during the golden age of politics, the early two thousands.

Time’s are bleak father, the future of our country looks far from assured and we enviously cast an eye across the Atlantic to the United States of America and see daily mass demonstrations by the people campaigning to see President Lyndsey Lohan, (she really did pull herself together) stay in office beyond her permitted two terms. Here in the UK we face a stark contrast and are left praying desperately for the end of the reign of our twin dictators, Ant and Dec, Oh why did we allow the bureaucrats turn our national elections into a phone vote!

You were so fortunate Father to experience the events following the great clean out of 2009, where every grubby little “expense fiddling” bastard was thrown out of politics and in the ensuing election the people finally found candidates that truly represent there ideal’s and morality.

How I remember the joy on your face following the night of the “Domestos” election’s as they later became known. As Independent candidates won elections across the country as the corrupt and the inept where swept from our political system.

I remember so clearly your joy over the coming years as the independents made there mark right across our political landscape. Really who would have thought having a semi-retired school teacher who had spent 40 years in the education system and knew it warts and all, as the minister for education would have lead to the finest years of educational governance in our nation’s history.

And indeed that having in place ministers that actually understood the concepts of sound financial management and had fiduciary competences and capabilities that stretched beyond the ability to ‘flip’ homes every six week’s and charge the public for refurbishments, whilst then selling the new fixtures and fittings on E-bay that this would lead to economic recovery from the worse down turn in eighty years.

I write this letter Father, sat at my IKEA desk which I fondly remember you brought for me as a house warming present for my first flat, it really has stood the test of time. The television keeping me company as my husband and children sleep upstairs, A sense of shame for how the following generations have allowed the political systems to degenerate from there hay day engulfs me as BBC93449 closes for the evening,(We literally now have more channels than there are people to watch them all, yet amazingly there’s still nothing good ever on) and I flinch as our recently instated national anthem, ‘Let’s get ready to rumble’ blares from the TV speakers and the images of our ‘beloved’ leaders looking dignified and magisterial flashes into view, and something surprising occurs to me, after all these years I still don’t know which ones Ant and which ones Dec.

Your Loving Daughter

Rebecca Susan Stevens

It’s weird to think that at some point the idea was to have people represent us who we knew where competent, we liked and trusted. We probable never had this and maybe never will but just imagine our governments being run by people who knew what they where doing and who are not solely motivated by self interest and self promotion, maybe I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.

Pokerin again and Supermarkets

2009-05-18T03:21:00.000-07:00

Pulled a muscle in my back and was signed off work for a week, couldn’t really move much so thought I would see how much I could free roll up in six days.

******bad beat story please skip to the next paragraph. Managed to place 13/6987 for one dollar J on party poker, had 3.5 million chips when I played a hand against the only guy who barely had me covered. I raised 250, 000 with AK (with ace hearts) from UTG and get called by matey boy with KQ, he bets 250,000K on an all low heart flop and I move all-in for another 3 million or so. He dwells up for an age and then call’s with KQ, now pair and no heart. Bang a non heart queen hits on the turn LOL.********

In one week I managed to free roll up, $42 on all I-poker sites, $40 on poker stars and $17 on Party. It was fun, I love the challenge of turning nothing into something.

I hate supermarkets #1

I used to get chucked out of Bars, Clubs and Casinos for behaving badly, Now its tea room’s and supermarkets. I guess that’s middle age for you, I’ve been chucked out of both Sainsbury and Tesco’s in the past few weeks, I’ll start with Oliver’s lot.

Whilst doing the weekly shop where we had collected over £100 worth of items which where now being steadily run through the till I had the temerity to request a carrier bag, “No, we don’t give them out anymore” replied the checkout assistant giving me the sort of look she would usually only reserve for Gary Glitter or Ashley Cole.

I incredulously reply, “Excuse me? How am I supposed to carry my shopping home” I look across at Karen who visibly begins to shrink as she senses the imminent creation of a scene by her erratic husband. “Maybe, you have mistaken me for the six armed Indian deity Vishnu” I reply politely “or perhaps some form of pelican that can carry vast amounts of food in the pouch under my bill?” the checkout girls presses a button and a light above her head flashes to life, “Surely that’s the only reason to deny me a rather simple request to provide a few poorly constructed bags of polyurethane which in all likely hood will split and distribute you overpriced food all over my fucking drive anyway?”

“Its up to the manager, I’m not allowed to give them out” replies the checkout assistant. Eventually the manager turn’s up, she’s a hard faced middle aged bitch and I know there is little chance this will be resolved amicably. A long row ensues, with the current shitty state of the environment being laid squarely at my feet and my requirement for a couple of bags to get my shreddies home and me pointing out that her employers are a bunch of money grabbing c*nts who will screw every fucking penny they can out of the environment to keep some smarmy chef c*nt in hair gel.

I’m pretty sure I won on points, either way we ended being asked to leave and decided in future to do our shopping online, to be honest it only costs a fiver and I’m pretty sure most of us would be happy to pay this amount to get out of this regular torturous trip.

So one week latter we order from the same supermarket but do it all online, this time the shopping turn’s up carried to our door in a big crate by some bloke, this crate contains all our items, nearly every one in its own individual carrier bag. Fucking hypocrites, Mr Oliver you can stick your supermarket up your arse.

I hate supermarkets #2

Not sure I should post this, as it just show’s me up to be a real tosser, but you can’t fight the truth I suppose. I’m rushing to work and decide to pop into Tesco’s on the way to pick up a prawn salad (I’m on a health thing, well I was for a about two days).

I’m at the display for the lunch stuff and the salad’s are all stacked up nicely and there’s a shelf stacker in his mid thirties busy at work. I pick up the first salad for the top of the pile and I’m about to grab a drink and head off and I notice all the lettuce is brown around the edges. I look at the date and its today’s, so I start to look for a fresh one and there all at the back. I grab one and knock all the others over, to I pile them back a bit haphazardly and just as I’m heading off the shelf stacker angrily say’s “that’s not very good is it?” I reply “Sorry I can’t be arsed, you shouldn’t stick all the good ones at the back you twat” He then call’s over some bloke in a jacket (I think this means his important in the supermarket world. Must be a status symbol as the bitch the week before at Sainsbury’s also had a jacket).

The bloke say’s, “Shaun what’s the problem”. Shaun replies, “This man insulted me” which of course is true, I did call him a twat. I thought about starting a barny about there policy of trying to fuck all there customers into buying the shit that won’t last ten minutes by stacking and restacking at the front but then just looked at Shaun and said, “Your at least thirty mate, why don’t you get a proper job you little twat” flung down my salad and walked out.

Still alive...

2009-05-08T06:19:00.000-07:00

Been very busy, just finished leading a project at work that involved managing a very large team. I always have to be careful as some guys from work read by blog, but it feels weird I've been really enjoying the challenge of my job of late.

Poker Front I have played two tournaments in two months! Came 3/500 when my AK got done by A5 for all the monies and 90/2000+ when I could'nt fold 10's to obvious aces pre flop.

I life we are under offer for our flat in Essex, for a truelly abysmal price but its got to the point we just want out. You would'nt believe the misery that place has caused.

I've also been asked to leave both Tesco's and Sainsburys in the past month, this must be some kind of record, especially as neither incident involved the inbiding of alcohol. If you press me I might tell you.......

Things that really f*@k me off, #2

2009-03-16T02:22:00.001-07:00

#2 People who are unable to grasp the concept of bi-directional travel as offered by "the common-or-garden lift"

Something I see so much, you get in the lift on the fifth floor and select the ground floor. The lift stops on floor one and matey-boy gets in. Lift proceeds on its course to the ground floor and matey-boy look’s at you with a confused expression “Ohh, I wanted to go up”. Well don’t push the fucking down button you fucking twat!

Your forty years of age for gods sake, how can it not have crossed your mind that that the reason there are two buttons on floor one is because there are two directional choices, up and down! Pressing the down button will miraculously summon the lift in a downward direction and vice a versa for the up button. Why the fuck did you think there where two button’s? Aesthetics!