Playing on Cake Poker at the mo with 33% rakeback due to Betsafe only giving something like 8% (i emailed them with Kalle's prior response and my reply was basically that I was misinformed? So just waiting with my bankroll of $86on there for now!) Anyways, I used another fairly well known $50free promotion a long time ago and had like $9 sitting in there or something after donking it all off in tournaments way above my BRM! So i sat down the other day and took a crack at some NL4, with the aim of disciplining myself and playing some solid poker.

It's been going well. Very well. Just 1 minor downswing which I corrected the same day, and with rakeback/deposit bonus my BR is at $85 from 5 days of playing NL4. My vpip/pfr is 21/17 which is dependant on position, and I really feel im improving so much more by calling down less and picking some good spots to get decent value. I also made my first royal flush! Woop! (this was followed by the afformentioned -$20 downswing, oops).

Anyway, graph and good wishes to everyone. Hope this site can stay alive after being v quiet recently. I love it, its the community here that got me playing poker, so I am grateful for that above all else!

Other news: Taking a holiday in Austria from Weds-Sunday, I've heard the country is incredibly picturesque and I'm really looking forward to it as I've recently stepped up from middle distance track running (800m-5km) to marathons and can't wait to get out on those mountains for a good 20 miler!

PokerStars Tournament #188959342, No Limit Hold'em
Buy-In: $1.00/$0.10 USD
3749 players
Total Prize Pool: $3749.00 USD
Tournament started 2009/08/24 11:00:00 WET [2009/08/24 6:00:00 ET]
Dear deadlockk,
You finished the tournament in 17th place. A USD 9.38 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

---

Got it all in as 2nd chipleader vs 1st chipleader on a flop of 559 with QQ. I bet, he shoved, i called in a 3bet pot.
He has AK and K on the river.
So disgusted. Would have been double the FT average and winner took $500. Wow. Fuckity Fuck.

As per my more recent blog, I basically donked alot of my bankroll off playing stupidly with bad habits i picked up from pub-poker!! So i sat back down yesterday after a couple of days watching the two $50 dollar free videos and some other videos, donked a bit more with bad habits, and then started tightening up and playing with 2-4 tables of NL2 again. I also entered the propaganda $100 Limit freeroll tonight and won it for $26, and cashed in the "(Another poker website-prob cant name it here)" £500 freeroll too for £4. In addition to this, I am up about 7 buyins from nl2 cash games, plus $5 from Propaganda's loyalty bonus (wonder what rakeback% it works out as, its gotta be high!)

So from a $10 starting point, I am up to $55!

Got to keep my cool and start again.. maybe THIS time I won't tilt and stop playing again. My main leak has been calling down too light, which I am trying to restrict myself from doing as much as possible.

So the last few months have been pretty dry for me in online poker! After having to put it all aside in order to focus on finishing my degree I have donked away plenty of my bankroll leaving me with not so much and basically back where I started :D I think the main problem is my transition from playing live tournaments to online cash is shockingly bad. In live poker it's been pretty good, of course I'm not exactly making much but I am at least break even, and have been finishing highly in my local pub leagues (also venue managing now, so earning a bit of cash on the side which is nice for just playing poker and running the evenings!).

I graduate on wednesday with a 2:1 in Sport Science, and have been applying for jobs in a ridiculously wide variety of sectors, which is purely because of the economic situation and lack of work available. So until I secure that dream job of caretaking an island in Hawaii for some rich toff I will be keeping my job in a local zoo (win!) and waiting on my big poker break.

In terms of playing poker online, a group of me and 5 other friends have started building a bankroll on fulltilt from £0, playing free rolls and using FTP's etc. So far it's been fun, we've had one night with 4 of us on the final table which is crazy luck out of thousands of runners! So the Chris Ferguson challenge is definately on, lol.

Keep posting those hands and blogs, this site is still on my firefox links toolbar, 4th link along, and I check it every day. Keep up the good work :)

I have begun to factor in the NL4 tables and after a very rocky start (which i blame on some terrible coolers and me calling down too lightly after 3 streets, just check out the nasty spikes on the graph which I had to rebuild my roll a fair bit at nl2) I have now broke even after 3k hands of playing at the stake and am hopefully on the way to the glory of NL10! my stats for NL4 are 21/13 at the moment, which I think is probably too passive due to limping in with suited connectors. I don't think it's been very profitable so far either. My bankroll is up at $88 now, and definately going for the Century mark!

An updated graph, this time with my stats (since the deposit) included!

In life; I captain the university athletics team, and am currently trying to organise entries, accomodation, travel etc without the use of a mobile phone after leaving it under the table in a service-station KFC on the M4 on the way back from Wales last weekend! I have a spare,but have nobody's numbers saved on it, DOH! Will be getting it back next weekend fortunately though.

-

and the stats

First trip to an actual Casino last night with 2 other friends for one of their birthdays and being back from uni for easter etc. A £10 buyin, 90min unlimited rebuy with topup.

To make a long story short, I won! When 8 were left from 40 runners, we all agreed to cut a deal and knock £40 off top prize (£500) for 8th place. At this point i was fairly average stacked and my friend was also still in it, so this way we would definately take 2 cashes away; obviously everyone agreed and play continued. I knocked 3 people out of the table after my friend finished 7th and we were down to the final 3. I had about 60% of the chips in play, but agreed to a deal of £380 there and then - I know how swingy HU can be especially if one of them doubled up off each other so I think this was a very profitable move on my part considering they were both taking away less then 2nd prize! Plus it was 2.30am with a lecture for me at 9am (doh); however the night did not end there.

We split the total money between us (200/130/100) based on our position in the tournament as we had agreed to do beforehand (COLLUSION!?) and made our way back to my car... Only to find out the battery was dead as I had knocked the headlights back on as i climbed out (parking was tight on driver's side, woops), so we had to sit around in the freezing cold for about 2 hours for a pickup truck to come jump start us. Apparently, no taxis in brighton have jumper cables!!??

Massively long night, but my first real big taste of a nice cash win playing live at a casino for the first time! Going to continue playing nl2 tonight and see if i can continue my trend from the other day.

Peace.

As i mentioned previously, i had used the baller poker $50 free and that was fantastic to get me going in the poker world (thanks again), and i am eternally sorry for being a total idiot and (being drunk) wasting it all on roulette some time ago.

Today I made my first ever cash deposit on a poker room of £15 ($21.70; propaganda of course - Although no bonus to work towards unlocking now which isn't so good like before). Anyhow, I played this morning and some after lunch, 6 tabling, pretty tight range with some standard Cbetting when IP, and I am really happy with how i played. The main losses came from being rivered by 2pairs a few times whilst ahead on the flop/turn, and TWICE i had set vs higher set! It rarely went all in preflop but when i did i had the nuts, or villain had absolute junk (24s anyone??). I can honestly say i dont think i ever once put my money in behind and sucked out, which is my main concern.

So without a do here's a graph from what i consider to be my first 'real' gambling session online @ NL2 (i say this because there was always a secure feeling at the back of my mind that the $50 wasnt really mine, and was expendable if i made big mistakes).

In other aspcts of life, I ran a half marathon in 1hour 30mins a few weeks ago, ran equal to my PB in an 800m on the track at 2mins flat, and am going to wales on a university expedition next weekend. It's not all good though; i have a 10,000 word dissertation to write including a research project to conduct by May 1st. Doh!


PS. April 18th I'll be playing in a Top16 and Top50 tournament with a £4000 prize pool, can't wait!

So, as i mentioned in a previous blog, the tournament I qualified for from my live poker sessions was held yesterday (Saturday 7th March). A field of about 60 people registered, playing on 8 handed tables until 3 were left who qualfied to the final tables where everyone was re-chipstacked to ~16000. Throughout the day I got some real junky hands, but in general I played very tight and when I won a pot it was a significant stack and multiway. I was happy with how I played anyway, I kept it really simple and hit a few nice hands at the right time which carried me to the final table.

I played 2 hands on this final table due to being sickeningly cold decked (72, 83, T5, all sorts of unplayable shit). I was blinded off to the final 4 players, where I went all in on the SB with 3BB left in me with AK and survived to double up, however after the next cycle I had AdQd on my BB and shoved, getting called with AhTh.

Flop comes, I hit my Q. Kirsty (villain!) needed running straight cards, and after her being named the River Killer during the day we all knew what was coming after hitting a K on the Turn. Yep, the Jack came over and I bust out. Picked up some vouchers for anywhere of my choice (no cash payouts to avoid licensing issues I think) so this will be paying for equipment & clothing for a 4 day expedition in the brecon beacons I am going on at the end of March.

Kirsty won the event after playing poker for only 2 months which is a consolation, and earnt us free drinks and entry that night as she qualified from the same venue as me which I could not complain at the opportunity of getting wasted on someone else's wallet!!!

A fun day. Some good poker. And one nasty beat at the end. Still need to work on my online bankroll though! Any tips on where i should deposit (i am guessing you will say propaganda!) or where I can pickup a free roll to start with again? Screw that stupid drunken roulette session im still furious at myself!

Edit: Obligatory Picture! Final table... Final 3 were women btw, i was the last man standing lol. Crazy. I'm the one with the black shirt on in the middle.

I didn't want to admit to my mistake but the first step in the road to recovery is honesty, so I'll confess my stupidity here.

The other night I got ridiculously drunk and had the fantastic idea of testing the Martingale strategy on a roulette table using my Propaganda bankroll (approximately $60, I am still B/E but playing alot less recently due to 3rd year of university and i prefer just playing in a live poker-league near where i live. Doing well too; qualifying for both £2500 and £4000 payout tournaments next week for finishing top5 and subsequently top16 in the league. I'll post the results here if i do any good)

You can take a stab at what happened, and my $0.09 bankroll is now staring me in the face.

I'm currently debating whether to deposit money in my account or browse around for some other 'free deposit' deals. I tried the ones on Liquidpoker but that was before i found this website and Poker was unlearnt to me back then and I probably blew it on a single buyin (the risk liquidpoker took of not using a quiz system!).

Still reading this every day; Glad the EPT in Copenhagen was a good week for the guys that were able to attend! I'd love to reach that standard one day! Perhaps next weekend could be a lucky break :o) Good luck at the tables in the mean time!

Following last week's 'proper' poker night, we decided to have a game of our own amongst 5 friends in my kitchen.

I didn't win anything after my AQs busted me out to some junk hand, and then the 2nd game my bluff went horribly wrong against AA, but alas the night was awesome and all had some fun. What i like about these games is that you can really play around with your style without much pressure.

A few of us got out some cheeky (yet terrible) poker attire... posted below...


My friend the negative penguin, with a nice big headset.



Chris ferguson wannabe



My emotions, hidden from the table



My unhidden emotions as i find another junky hand.


Going to another proper poker night tonight, might take a camera but expect another blog. This time, the cash game and league points are mine!!!


*EDIT* photos broken, il sort it out later, gota take my new car for a spin and pick up the gf now! Check back 2nite :)

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