Why NFL Sucks

Senator: Mr. Smart, how many arrests did Control make last year?
Maxwell Smart: I don't know.
Senator: Who's the number one man in your organization?
Maxwell Smart: I don't know.
Senator: How many cases were assigned to Control last year?
Maxwell Smart: I don't know.
Senator: What would you do if you were fired, Mr. Smart?
Maxwell Smart: They can't fire me. I know too much.

”Get Smart”

Don Adams, the voice behind “Inspector Gadget” and the great Maxwell Smart himself, passed away aged 82. Man, I loved that show, even though it’s peak run was 20 years before I was born. “Inspector Gadget” was easily my favourite cartoon as a kid, and I remember being ever so jealous when another kid had the Inspector Gadget toy where you could plug everything into it’s head. So rest in peace Don Adams. Apparently he was a big poker player too, or so Vince Van Patten said once.

See that segue, brilliant wasn’t it? Would you expect anything less from the “World’s Greatest Poker Blogger Ever”? Of course you wouldn’t.

Whenever I’m playing poker recently, be it live or online, quads are just coming up everywhere. In 100 hands last night, I saw them twice at the table and I folded what would have been quads twice! Must just be the season for it.

This past weekend, the Australian Rules Football Grand Final took place in front of 95,000 screaming fans with the Sydney Swans coming out on top. By far Aussie Rules is my favourite sport, and Grand Final week is always a special time. It starts on Monday night with the Brownlow Medal, which is like a MVP for the year. Then on Thursday night is the Grand Final Footy Show! My parents used to travel to Melbourne every year to go to the AFL Grand Final, so we would have the house to ourselves for that weekend. A few buddies from school would come around my place and stay the weekend practically, watching the footy and drinking starting from that Thursday night. Ah, good times.

Aussie Rules footy is by far the best game in the world. It confuses people of all other nationalities, and that only adds to it’s lustre. I know my North American friends are getting comfortable with their NFL season by now, so I will try my best to ruin it. Here are my reasons why AFL is better than NFL:

- Non stop action! Why does NFL football stop every 20 seconds? And they spend half the playing time waiting around deciding what they are going to do next. This means a 60 minute game takes 3 hours to play with 20 minutes of actual game time. That’s just not economical. AFL games are 4 x 20 minute periods (which we call “quarters”, clever name) where when play stops, so does to clock. Oh, and to add to the excitement, the playing time left in the game is never shown.
- A cast of thousands! NFL teams have a bench that could easily double as a small town. With 15 men on the field (I think, correct me if I’m wrong), there seems to be upwards of 30 on the sidelines. In AFL, we have 18 men on the field, and only 4 on the bench. If those four get injured, then bad luck you’ll just have to make do.
- That’s not in my job description! It seems every player in a NFL game has one job to do, and they do nothing else. Specialising in a particular skill works I guess, but they really don’t have all around talent do they? What? This guy can run AND catch? Put him in the hall of fame! It’s kind of a necessity in AFL that each player can do everything, otherwise they will get left behind, and this includes being able to kick and handball with both sides of the body. Each player plays offence and defence at some stage in the game.
- This is your captain speaking! How much reliance can there be on one position in a game? How many games can you win with a shitty quarterback? I understand it’s no good throwing a 45-yard pass unless someone is good enough to catch it, but it seems that teams have to be over reliant on the quarter back position. In AFL, the grounds are just too big to rely on one player, you need the entire team firing to get up on the day. Speaking of which…
- Goal to Goal! 100 yards? You call that a football field? That has got to be the smallest field of play for any code of football. 100 yards is roughly 90 mentres, which is nearly half the length of an AFL ground (which are nearly that wide as well).
- The “Spekkie”. What is so spectacular about the game? A massive hit, or a great catch perhaps? Maybe a decent run? It really doesn’t compare on a highlight reel as a “Spekkie” does. In AFL, you are allowed (and encouraged) to jump onto your opponents shoulders to catch the ball. Here are some famous examples…I think only a basketball dunk could compare with a spectacular moment like these.






Now you’ll notice I didn’t go the “how many pads do these guys wear” angle. I know they wear a lot of padding, and they need to because with everything being so specialised, the impacts are going to be greater and more often. I mean some players can have an entire career without ever touching the ball, what is the fun in that?

Feel free to try to defend your game against the might that is Aussie Rules. And don’t come to me saying how much money these guys make compared to AFL players, or how many people watch the Super bowl. That’s just because they don’t know what Aussie Rules looks like or they can’t understand it. I mean, think how many people watch soccer, and how boring is that shit?

"Joker Poker"

Carlos: I'm curious, Mr. Delaney. How did you get the money?
Michael: I guess you could say I sold my soul.
Carlos: Yeah, I see a lot of that.

”Tomcats”

I have played about 20 minutes of poker over the last week, which was a good session but that’s really beside the point. I can’t see myself playing much either for the next month as the wedding season has officially begun. We have had visitors at our house all week and more are due this week, making spare time very sparse.

My one session was a quick $1/$2 NL game, where I doubled up on a well played hand that I can not remember now. That’s right…Maybe it wasn’t as well played as I thought. I had AQh and it was raised to $8 by early position, who was a little loose and aggressive. I called and we were heads up. The flop was all small with one heart, and he lead out with another $10 bet in the $19 pot. I had about $24-$30 left and decided to push, which I thought would induce a fold. If he had AK or a pocket pair though, I was in trouble. Could he call with Ace high? I doubt it, but you never know. Anyway, he thought about it and decided to call with KQ. No miracle king, and I managed to double up and book a nice little profit for myself.

Poker on TV this week, and the first ever Australian poker television show debuted on Saturday night. “Joker Poker” held at Star City Casino here in Sydney showcases Australian comedians competing for charity. I have heard many complaints about “Celebrity Poker Showdown”, but surely they could not be worse than this show.

Firstly, the show combines “jokers” with poker. That is, comedians and poker play, so who does this appeal to? Fans of the comedians and fans of poker. Great, problem is they never advertised who the comedians would be, and secondly they were not trying to crack any jokes as the games went on. And as for the poker? Well, none of the four (yes, a four person “tournament” each week. Guess they couldn’t find enough comedians on short notice) knew anything about poker, so it was bad. I mean, it’s not their fault they don’t have the experience in the game, but you’d think they would have been given a quick tutorial at least. On one hand, three get to see the flop and then first to act quickly folds, and then so did second to act. It doesn’t take much for someone to say “You can check for nothing you know” to save this embarrassing situation.

It was also annoying that the dealer doubled as the announcer, asking for the blinds every hand and reminding them yet again what the blinds were. Speaking of the blinds, a representative of the casino would come out and announce the blind raise when it happened – a task that could be done by the commentators or just a graphic on the screen. But he had his 5 minutes on camera, so good on him. Tool.

The commentators did their best, and their shortcomings were not their fault. Adam Spencer, a good local comedian and former breakfast radio host did his best, but it was obvious he is not a poker enthusiast. For example, on one flop the lead off bet out the minimum $200 and Spencer said “That’s called limping in, isn’t it Lee?” to which his co host replied “Actually it isn’t…” Like I said, not so much Adam Spencer’s fault, but this does limit any credibility the show could have. But what else puzzled me was this wasn’t a live show – can’t a mistake like that be picked up and changed? It’s called editing! Why make your host into a fool for such blunders, give him a chance at credibility!

His co-host was Lee Nelson, a poker pro from New Zealand who has had a fair amount of success and a book or two under his belt. He did a really good job, he was excited enough and any advice/reasoning he gave for a play or what he would do in any given situation was quick and too the point, as well as being easy to understand. He was a very good poker commentator, but my gripe with him is he seemed to forget to look at the camera at all when he was talking, and it was like he was having a conversation with only one person, not an audience. Not a big deal really, but I noticed it.

They did the usual “This is how Texas holdem is played” tutorial at the start of the show, which I can understand. What I don’t understand is why they used footage from the event we were about to watch to illustrate the hands – because it gave away the result of the event in the first five minutes! We already knew which two players were going to end up heads before the first hand was dealt.

And the tournament itself was a shambles. Only four players? I can understand if they want to get the show over in an hour of TV time, but it was a bit of a joke. Secondly, for that 60 minutes we saw 8 hands, of which 6 or 7 had an all-in. Ok, so they edit down the play because they can’t show every hand, but this meant that between ad breaks we would see two hands of action. Oh, and the entire tournament lasted 16 hands. Not 16 that they showed, 16 all up. One player got a good run of cards (including Kings over queens when the other player had queens over tens) and knocked out the other three in succession. He also made the only joke for the entire program, when they went all-in when heads up…”I’m just busting for a piss break!”. Was pretty funny at the time.

So in summary, “Joker Poker” showcases alleged comedians playing alleged poker, combined with a thinly veiled advertisement for the local casino wrapped up with poor production values. It has no appeal for the comedy fans, no appeal for the poker fans, and will be yet another aborted local TV show in the very near future. It was an expected disappointment.

Bye Bye Quads

Chopper: Oh, Keithy. I always thought I was a good bloke.
Keithy George: Ha. What did you ever do that was good?
Chopper: Well, I bashed you. That was good, wasn't it? It was good for a bit of a giggle, anyway.

”Chopper”

Some readers may question why I refer to my significant other as the “Distraction”, and I have the perfect example ready here for you.

I also try to play when my Distraction is out of the house or already in bed, but I have been getting more lax about this rule as of late. The other night, I’m having a good session on Titan, up about 25BB in very quick fashion after having hit a few hands when the Distraction comes home, going a mile a minute talking about nothing important (more giddy that it was Friday and work for the week was over). I am two tabling, which is usually my limit anyways, but at one of the table I am dealt A7s in late position. I have been killing the table, with the deck fair smacking me in the face, so I am actually thinking about raising with this suited ace in this position if it is not raised before me. UTG +2 does raise it, so I change my mind and decide just to call – all the while still trying to talk to the distraction. When I look back at the screen to see the flop, I don’t see any cards in front of me. I had folded instead of called.

Now most people would say this was my fault, but we know that is simply not true. How could the “World’s Greatest Poker Blogger Ever” make such a mistake? I was fully Distracted. And what was on the flop? T77, turn was the case 7. The pot ended up being 22BB without me in it. I wasn’t impressed and logged out immediately as there was no chance I could play optimal poker from that point on. It also started a massive down swing that lasted for all but 15 minutes of the weekend.

There are some massive holes in my game, but I just can’t figure out what they are. Is it luck? I don’t know, but there have been a lot of times that I have had cards like AK get done by A5, a few out kicked losses and the such. I am noticing I am winning a lot of small pots and loosing the bigger ones, which is not good. I had a very quick NL session, and flopped a straight with A5 and eventually got all the money in the middle against 66 who had two pair only. That helped, and I cashed out up $69 from that small session. I may think about having more of a crack at the NL games if my bank roll can survive it.

First Impression Count

Rubin: It's supposed to be a challenge, it's a shortcut! If it were easy it would just be “the way”.

”Road Trip”

First impressions of my time at “Titan Poker” – I love you guys. Sure, I played at Noble poker and wasn’t overly impressed, but the new skin is already in my good books after a very juicy 24BB session (which was really only two hands were I held the nuts and got paid off by top pair and flush chasers), and also after I had installed the software I was on for no less than 1 minute when a friendly operator named Mandy appeared with a message on my screen.

“Would you like a bonus $10 for your account?”

Well, I was trying to find out how to deposit at this stage, and had just pressed the cashiers button. I know sites give out free money from time to time, no strings attached, and this would be welcomed I think. In truth, I responded instantly without delay.

“Yes. Yes I would.”

And in turn, all I had to do was deposit in the next few minutes. Would I like help with this? Sorry Mandy, I have already had my deposit go through. 5 and a half seconds later, my initial deposit was $10 heavier and I didn’t have to do anything else for it. First the pleasant blue display, and now this. I think I am going to like Titan Poker already.

It’s amazing how I relate to other people in a similar fashion. They say first impressions count, and that is a definite truth when it comes to me, but it’s not like I make it a rule or anything. Basically, if someone is nice enough the first time they meet me, I’ll hold them in high regard. Once I give the eternal approval of the person, they would have to do something pretty drastic to change that. Some of the rudest and most obnoxious people are my friends because they were nice to me the first time I met them, it just works out that way. Rarely have I chosen to loose a friend, but there is one exception, which is kind of a childish example from my high school days.

In the final few years, I was dating this girl who I had no real interest in besides her very impressive physique. Ok, there are not many girls that read this blog, I can be honest – she had great tits. There, I said it. She was a drama queen and had no interest in sports what so ever, as well as just about anything else I was interested in but I was willing to overlooks those facts.

Since I am talking about some girl in high school and not my current distraction who I am marrying inside 1 month’s time, you can probably guess that things didn’t work out and we broke up for reasons I can not remember. Two weeks later, one of my close friends informed me that after a drunken night he might have kissed my ex-girlfriend and he wanted to apologise to me. I laughed it off, because hey we do these things when you are drunk, but he was well aware of the unwritten rule that you don’t go near your friends ex. What is the shelf life on that rule? At least the amount of time they were together, and in some cases more. But alas, what was done was done and no hard feelings were held.

This particular offending friend had the nickname “Chip” given to him by my little brother. “Chip” refers to the movie “The Cable Guy”, where Jim Carrey’s character just hangs around all the time and won’t leave Mathew Broderick alone. This came from one day when he called my house to see what was happening – I was tired and didn’t want to put up with him so I told me little brother to tell him I was asleep. He decided to come over anyway, and played Nintendo with my little brother in the lounge room for an hour before I came out of my room. So little bro starting calling him “Chip”, and he never knew why.

Anyway, back to the story at hand, he told me about the little indiscretion and I wasn’t too concerned about it. High school was now over with, and we had the summer to fuck around before we would all move away to start University. As sick as I was of the guy, he asked if we could watch some vids and have a few beers at my place the night before he left, which would be two weeks before I was to leave. I said sure, why not, after all it’s his last night in town we can let bygones be bygones and what not.

At about 10.30pm, he left the room as his mobile rang (all you North Americans are aware that we call “cell phones” a “mobile”, right?). He came back and said he was being picked up in 30 minutes. I knew straight away what was going on. My older brother (I am the middle of three boys) was also drinking with us, and he caught on in a flash too. Not only was getting a booty call from my ex girlfriend, he was getting her to pick him up from my place. That was just poor form. I wasn’t about to make a scene or anything, I’m just not that type of person, so I didn’t mention it at all. When she came to pick him up, I said see you later, and then went back to my room to finish off the rest of the beers with my brother.

To maximise the TV’s presence, we had the lights off. When I got back to my room, my brother yelled at me to turn the lights on. And there he was, standing bent over facing away from the window with the curtains drawn, mooning the two people who had done me wrong. It’s at times like these that you remember what family is really about. We polished off the rest of the beers which tasted better now for some reason.

I think the moral to that story is that you have to do something pretty deliberate to go from my good side to my bad, but to be honest I just like telling the story. What happened to those people in the story? I have no idea. I left for University 2 weeks later (after Chip had already returned home because of “home sickness” – now that I think about it, I wonder if the girl had anything to do with that…) and would soon meet up with my future wife.

This story had something to do with first impressions, didn’t it? Or am I just getting to reminiscing about past girlfriends because my bachelor party is coming up soon?

Immortal Poker Beast

Cadet Alex Stone: What about family and unity and all that other bullshit you said?
Major Payne: I never said family don't break up. Don't you watch Oprah?

”Major Payne”

What a rambling post this will be.

Bodog is now finished for me, and I have to say I give the support and software a big thumbs up. My cash-out was processed and in my Neteller account within 24 hours. It’s just a shame there are not enough games on the times I like to play. Anyways, I cleared enough points to deposit out the full bonus amount, and I leave Bodog having cleared the PSO bonus for $90 worth of gear and a profit of $16 – which includes the $160 bonus money. I guess I just didn’t have that good a time with the cards there, but my final session was a massive 25BB in the positive after 20 minutes. What can I say, I just hit a few hands and 1-2 people wanted to call me down to make sure.

I think my next PSO stop will be Titan Poker. Even though it is just Noble Poker by a different name, and I am not a big fan of Noble, the extra juice offered by PSO is just too damn tempting.

I have started reading “The professor, the banker and the suicide king”, and I’m only about 100 pages or so in. I love these stories, and it throws up some interesting background history to some of the pros – for instance, Howard Lederer spent 2 years trying to conquer $1/$2. 2 YEARS! Obviously this was in the clubs of New York and not at Party Poker, but can you imagine what people would say about an online player struggling at $1/$2 for 2 years? I’ve been at that level for 2 months now, and really I don’t know if I am any further along in progress.

The sums of money they are talking about, while I knew these games existed, still amaze me. I can already see why so many other bloggers have given this book big wraps, it is certainly a view into a world most of us only dream of. I won’t go into detail about the actual events as to spoil it for those that haven’t read it yet, but there are some amazing calls by people there – both during the games and just getting the bank roll together.

I also just finished reading “The Death Of WCW”, which my wrestling enthusiast would recognise as a company that was sold for “next to nothing” a few years back when business was bad. As the book states, the company went from the most popular show on all of cable television in 1997 to bust by 2001. Despite all the bad decisions made in that time, the one true nail in the coffin for the company was when they lost their TV time. This is an important point that I will come back to in a paragraph or so…

I keep hearing people talking about when poker will jump the shark, and how all the players will run away to some other craze when the dust settles. But it won’t happen like that, because for every person you hear that lost $1000 playing poker means somebody else must have won $1000 (minus rake and all that, but lets not get distracted). So even though obviously the pool of money among the players grows smaller in time due to the house taking their cut, the money more of less goes from one player to another, and then a new player adds their hard earned to the fire and so on. When you loose $1000 in blackjack, the money disappears into the casinos coffers. In poker, even if it is taken off the table you can bet it will be back some time soon.

Poker may never be as big as it is now ever again. The World Series main event might go back to tournaments under 1000 people when interests wane (and buy-ins rise), but it won’t disappear. Online poker has obviously fuelled this craze over the last few years, and when that meteoric rise reaches a plateau and falls, there will still be survivors. When this eventual “jumping of the shark” occurs, poker won’t die. Party might go from 70,000 people to 10,000, but it won’t die. Even in the casinos, poker was still being played and making people rich or broke long before the internet was a factor. What can kill poker? If the casinos stopped offering poker then it has a chance to die. But then what about online? What about all the underground card clubs? What about home games? If the casinos no longer offered poker, the growth of all these off-shoots would spike very quickly and then start a slow and long decent. The only way poker could die out after this boom period is if the casinos stopped offering the game. And since they have been offering it for longer than I have been alive, there will always be someone willing to start a game.

So in conclusion, poker will reach a peak some day, it just has to, and then far fewer people will make their living from this pastime. But it won’t die, not while people still have money in their wallets, stars in their eyes and gamble in their hearts.

Why I Am Getting Married

Creasy: Forgiveness is between them and God. It's my job to arrange the meeting.

”Man on Fire”

It’s been a poker filled weekend, with another new live game going. One of the new players for our regular home games has another game going with his cricketing buddies. I was invited and decided to see what the action was like, along with one other player from our regular game.

They play spread limit holdem, which meant that for the first two rounds of betting, you could only bet between 40c to $1. In the last two rounds of betting, it could only be between 80c-$2. I guess basically it was $1/$2 limit game where you could under-bet. Either way, $20 was the normal buy in and I had a bit of a dilemma.

You see, I love poker, and I love finding new games. I truly believed I could make some money in this small game, even before I even knew about anybody there. I just felt good about this one. Unfortunately, my entire bankroll is tied up online, and the distraction and I had only $40 to our name until pay day sometime this week. I couldn’t go to the game with just one buy in – if I lost in the first hour where would I be? So I took the entire $40 into a poker game. Man, you see why I am getting married to this girl? Our last $40 and she lets me put it on a poker table.

Anyway, the game gets going on a ping pong table, which added to the charm, and on the very first hand a player in middle position flops quad jacks. We would see quad jacks again later in the night (and I suspect quad jacks hit a third time but the winning hand was not shown) and also quad tens. Man, live poker is so rigged.

I was up about $5 then down about ten after my first pocket pair, Cowboys, went up against Aces. I wasn’t hitting any hands but wasn’t loosing much ground so it was ok. The action was very loose passive – pre-flop raises were common but the re-raise was extremely rare and 4-5 callers to the turn were also common. This meant that if I played tight but aggressive with my hands, I only needed to pick up a few pots to get ahead, which is what pretty much happened.

Firstly I had Q7 in the big blind, and got to see a flop with Q7x, with a flush draw. I never took the lead in the hand but let the others bet it through to the river when the flush never came. There was also a King on the board, so my hand wasn’t really a monster but I had a feeling that two pair might be enough. I called one last bet on the river and with four to the showdown, two pair was indeed good. This got me thinking – these guys are a little looser than I had expected. The player who invited us was pegged at our home games as a rock almost immediately, and I expected this game to be a rock garden. How wrong I was – and you could see why the rock played the way he did. He ended the night up about $50.

I had JJ hold up twice, once where I lead the action all the way and hit nothing, only to be called by Ace-high. The other time was pretty much the same where I thought I was up against a bigger pair that missed, but he kept calling. I thought I was in trouble bet fired off a final $2 on the river, and he called with an under-pair that hadn’t hit. At least he knew it was a bad call. My final hand was A4h with 2 hearts on the flop. I admit, I chased to the river when my flush came through to cracked AA.

We tallied up our chips and I walked out $42 richer. I guess my distractions faith in my was rewarded.

Kournikova

Tom Bishop: Alright, so what else? What else do I need to know?
Nathan Muir: Put away some money so you can die someplace warm and don't ever touch it. Not for anyone, ever.
Tom Bishop: Okay, is that it?
Nathan Muir: Don't *ever* risk your life for an asset. If it comes down to you or them... send flowers.

”Spy Game”

It’s not often I go into strategy or the mathematics of poker right here, but today I am going to try my best. You see, I need to explain why I folded the nuts and why it was the correct move. I’m not preaching that it was the correct move, I’m more trying to convince myself that it was the correct move as I go along here.

Ok, so the game was pot limit Omaha hi/lo, which probably already lets you know how this story ends. On the flop (A24 rainbow) with five callers I see a nut-straight draw and also a very good nut low draw. There is a $2 bet (to go with the 50c to see the flop) so I call along with absolutely everyone. The turn brings (3) out my nut low, but nothing better than 2 pair for the high. I decided just to check because I really don’t like going too far with just a low hand, and since there is A234 there is a fair chance I am splitting this low. There is a late bet of $2 again and I call along with the others. The river is a 5, putting the wheel out there on the board. So yes, I still have the nut low, but potentially so does every other bastard in the hand. So what does UTG do? He goes all-in immediately for $15. So here is my maths.

I have invested $4.50 into this pot, as has 5 other people leaving a pot of $22.50. The $15 all-in raises this to $37.50. Lets assume that someone has a 6 high or 7 high straight, so I have no claim for the high pot leaving me with only a claim at the low pot which is $18.75. I would have to invest another $15 at least to see the showdown, where it is extremely likely that I will be splitting that half of the pot at least 2 ways. Turns out one player had a seven high straight, and both people split the low pot. Now if I was also in the hand, the maths would have been like this (excluding rake):

Hi pot = $33.75 to the 7 high straight
Lo pot = $33.75 split three ways, $11.25 each.

I would have invested $19.50 to win $11.25. The decision on the river to invest $15 would have netted me a loss of $3.75 That is not very pleasing, even though I had the nut low. But since I stayed out of the showdown, the pot looks like this:

Hi pot = $26.25 to the 7 high straight
Lo pot = $26.25 split 2 ways, $13.12 each.

So the all-in has invested $19.50 to get $13.12. I have lost $4.50 into a pot but if I followed through to the showdown with the nut low I would have lost $8.25. In fact, my folding saved the UTG player nearly $4, even though he still made a net loss on the hand.

But this got me thinking, what if the player that took the high pot didn’t also have the low? Then the maths would look like this, firstly with me in the pot:

Hi pot = $33.75 to the 7 high straight
Lo pot = $33.75 split two ways, $16.87 to me, $16.88 to UTG.

So the $15 bet on the river would actually be correct to call, because I have already invested the $4.50 so that is lost, but the final bet of $15 would net me a return of $1.87. Again, this is assuming a zero rake, which probably changes things slightly but the general principle is still the same. So then what if I didn’t call?

Hi pot = $26.25 to the 7 high straight
Lo pot = $26.25 to the UTG

So UTG makes a profit on the hand of $6.75 without me in it, and a loss of $2.62 if I am. I however look at a loss of $4.50 if I stay out of the river bet or a loss of $2.62 if I stay in. Looks pretty crappy from my point of view when you are holding the nut low.

Anyway, so I had to fold the nut low in a pot limit Omaha game, and I knew it was the nut low but the money dictated that the correct decision was to fold. It was weird, I was kinda proud of myself for identifying the risks of the bet (even if I didn’t know the exact numbers of it, I knew a call would mean a loss) and made what I believe is the right decision, but essentially this shows what I believe to be a flaw in the game. And an annoying one at that. Sure, I could have made more bets earlier to push other players out, perhaps even push myself out if I could, but there is little chance that anybody was leaving that pot in an Omaha game of this nature. Any money invested into that pot would have been a bad investment from myself.

There you go, maybe this is just another reason why I should stop playing pot limit Omaha.

On to those wacky and crazy names we give to starting hands. I still think the funniest I have heard is the Gay Waiter, but I am always open to hearing more. The German Virgins? Pocket 9’s, not a bad one. But a contentious issue has arisen.

A very clever name for a starting hand has arisen – The Kournikova. I think most of us have heard this one, and the explanation for it is quite apt: It looks good, but never wins. What a great name for a starting hand. But which hand is the Kournikova?

I posted my thoughts on a related thread over in PSO’s forums, and was met with some opposing thoughts. To me, the Kournikova was always KQ. The name “Kournikova” sounds like a KQ to me, and indeed two picture cards in the hand look pretty but KQ isn’t as strong as the beginner may think. An authority no less than the good Doctor Pauly himself was recently quoted as calling KQ by that very name.

But my opposing sparring partner volunteered that Big Slick could also been called by that name. Does AK also fit the description? Well, AK does match the initials of the retired tennis star, and I think the strength of the hand generally is over-rated. And again, an authority no less than the Guinness fuelled Blogfather himself, Ignatius has used this moniker for that very hand in a recent post.

So which one is right? Which hand is the true Kournikova? Who will win? Who really cares? Well I do for one. I need to find out which hand is the official Kournikova, so therefore I will be conducting a poll right here in my comments section to see which hand should be henceforce known as the Kournikova. Please reply with your choice, be it AK, KQ or any other variation which will more than likely knocked back. I will put forth the first vote for KQ.

Or maybe my serch engine results for Kournikova will just rise? If only I could work Sharapova into this somehow...

Poker Shorts

Bob: Listen. Sit down to talk with Shane, and tell her that if anything happens to you, I'll take care of her. I'll raise her, nurture her, love her, then at sixteen I'll boot her out the door.
Frank: Sixteen?
Bob: Sure. I not going to mommy her forever, Okay? I mean, sixteen, sure.

”Osmosis Jones”

5 weeks and 4 days until I officially give away half my shit. I’m actually starting to get excited and nervous about it all, which is unusual for me as I generally rarely get excited about anything in advance. Except potential poker games, and speaking of which…

The usual suspects gathered again on Saturday night for a few more rounds of poker. I was sporting a brand spanking new pair of cargo shorts (city camo in colour) from Amazon that I got for some of the vouchers from Poker Source Online. These are now my poker shorts, and I am destined to good fortunes from the cards whenever I wear them.

Things started well for my shorts, as on about the 8th hand of the first game I was dealt TT. It was raised and re-raised in front of me, so I just called and got to see a flop with an already decent sized pot. The flop was T53, two spades. Top set is good, and I want to drive out any potential flush chasers, but the other two in the pot are pretty good players so it is unlikely they will chase a flush this early in the game for a substantial amount of their stack. They might bet on the come or try a bluff, but not a chase here. Player one (tight, rare bluffs if any) makes a decent sized bet. Player 2 (looser, bluffs pretty well) raises this bet by a decent sized chunk. I am slightly shocked, and feeling a little nervous as I imagine that one has an over-pair and the other possibly a flush draw. How the hell am I not leading the action on this hand? Can I afford to slowplay it to the river? I don’t think I can – besides, the pot is already big enough so that if I call here and then drop it I will be the short stack and have to work uphill from then on. I was feeling like they both forgot I was even in the hand, so I thought about it for a moment and pushed.

I don’t mind that move here, as I seem to have a bluffing reputation at these tables so that could work for me. Also I really wanted them to fold it so I could win a decent pot rather than suck out on me and put me on the couch 15 minutes into what would be a 3-hour game. If they both folded here I would be in the chip lead anyway, so all was well.

The tight player agonised over the call, and then folded to the looser player who also had I think about it. He said he wanted to see my cards before he called – I said I would love to show him! He eventually called with 53 for a flopped two pair (I said he was loose) and I had him dead save for running quads, which never came. Wow, I was the commanding chip leader already and also took a bounty later on when I finally knocked him out (he was down to 2 BB, and doubled up 4 times before being knocked out).

I claimed a few more scalps and eventually won the first tournament with a hand I do not remember. I made a massive lay down when there were 3 left (I had surrendered the chip lead by then). I raised into the chip leader with AQd, and he re-raised all-in back. In a 3 person game, I like AQd but I just had a feeling I was behind on this one. I folded face up to the amazement of the other players and asked to see the board anyway. It was no help to me and the other player showed Cowboys to make me feel better.

In game two, one player seemed to be eager to leave. He would raise 3-4 hands per orbit, and was showing a lot of them to be bluffs, with the odd big pocket pair thrown in. I seemed to be getting the worst of it too, and I don’t recall any hand where he failed to raise my blinds. I tried to defend but kept missing the flops so I had to dump them. Eventually, on one of my blinds I re-raised all-in with QJs, and he called with Kto which held up. At least I wasn’t out first.

But this game had the funniest hand of the night when it got down to the final three. In one of these games a few months ago, the loose player I spoke about before made a bluff all-in bet with 23o, and the same aggressive player who knocked me out called with AKs. The board showed AKQJT, so they had to split it up. We still talk about that hand and what a monster 23o is.

Anyway, it comes down to this hand and the aggressive player re-raises all-in against the loose player who is the chip leader. Every player in these games has a $5 bounty on them to go with the prize money. And the loose player starts giggling. I immediately know what he has, as does half the table. He decides to call the all in bet and shows 23s this time. The aggressive player has 93o. Quality cards!

And there it is, a 2 on the flop. To everyone there, except one obvious exception, it was the funniest thing we have ever seen. We are now getting all our old decks of cards and taking the 2’s and 3’s out of them to mail to him on a regular basis.

When the final game came around, one of the so called “dead money” players was hitting amazing hands. He was calling all-ins with things like Queen high earlier in the night and loosing – well now he was calling all-ins with Jack high and winning! He just could not be stopped! All I wanted to do was avoid him until it came down to the money, which I did.

3 way action, and I have folded, and the other player goes all-in on a flop of T52 rainbow. The “dead money” calls and shows pocket fives vs A5. Nothing helps and we are heads up with a massive chip deficit – and it’s about 3 in the morning and my eyes are getting very close to closed.

Very first hand, he raises it like he has every other hand. I have T8d, and figure why not, he’s going to call regardless of what he has and I need to double up 2 or 3 times in a row. I need some luck anyway. So I push, he calls and shows pocket 4’s. There is a four on the flop and he has hit back to back sets to take the win. I have to be content with second.

But this was also a good result – he’s a nice guy and has finished either last or second last in every one of these tournaments. Speaking to the host (his cousin), he agreed that this might keep him coming to the games and give him some confidence. After all, these games are just about fun and the money is never a big issue. Poker at it’s best for sure, and the so-called “dead money” is always welcomed. More so, just players are always welcomed. We haven’t had a game cancelled due to lack of players yet and I don’t want them to start now.

I have finished the PSO promotion of bodog, as I previously posted, and I also clocked a $125 profit in the process. Well, kind of. See, the deposit bonus they give you is credited immediately to your account, which is good. It was $160, so really I had lost $35. I tried to cash out because my “bonus balance” was at $0, but not to be. You need to clear 3 points per dollar of bonus, and no partial amounts are allowed. I was 280 points short, so I tried to run through them on Saturday. Man, was that a mistake!

I don’t know how it happened, but I dropped nearly $200 in a monster 4 hour session. I tried some Pot Limit Omaha again, but lost my buy-in on a 3-way all in. I had four pairs by the turn and the nut flush draw. Unfortunately, someone had the nut-straight draw and took that on the river. Not a good call, but if one of my 15 outs came I would have made a decent profit for the day from that hand alone. Anyways, long story short I lost my buy in and it was my fault.

And in the limit holdem game, I was just damn unlucky. I had top set turn into the best full house which lost to rivered quads. Not too long after this, with a four flush on the board I considered my options. The pot was sizeable, and only the King or Ten of diamonds could beat my nine. Was it worth one more bet to find out if he had either of them? Why not. I called, and he showed me them both for a Royal Flush. Well, I can now say I have lost to a Royal Flush, next is to actually hit one!

Everything I tried failed, no hands held up and no draws came. It was a horrible session with only a few bad beats to speak of but nothing too disgusting. I don’t know if that is worse or better than loosing to bad beats – just slowly bleeding away…But at least the fun of the live game made up for it all.
In my next post, I’m going to tell you about how I folded the nuts and still believe it was the correct move during that -$200 down session, and talk about starting hand names some more, which is one of my favourite topics no less.

Bodog

Steve Zissou: Anne-Marie, do all the interns get Glocks?
Anne-Marie Sakowitz: No, they have to share one.

”A Life Aquatic”

Well my poker loving fiends, where has the time gone? I have started and completed the PSO bonus offer with Bodog poker and my thoughts are about to be articulated into words now.

Bodog poker is set up as an offshoot from a sports book and casino, so you expect some players to drift in for the poker craze. I think they also had a recent marketing push during the WSOP (and lets face, which poker site didn’t?).

I am yet to decipher wether the players here are the best I have seen or the absolute worst. Some of the play is unbelievable. For example, in the last $5 SNG I played in last night – and admittedly if you go looking for quality play you don’t normally start at the $5 SNG tables – it got down to the final three places, in the money, by level four. I was short stacked compared to the other two massive stacks, but this was because I had not played a single hand beyond the flop. Not one, and I had folded my way into the money. Unbelievable. 3 hands later I was chip leader and I had still not seen a turn card. 2 hands after that I was out when I lost my BB to a raise and was then covered by the chip leader – next hand my Hiltons were beaten by AQ on a ragged flop that turned an ace.

The software though is extremely fast, which is almost a bad thing. I had a lot of trouble doing just two tables. It has the usual features that you associate with a poker room and doesn’t really lack in any area that is obvious to me. The tournament schedule seems to be a bit lacking for the hours that I play at, but that happens when you are outside of the peak times I guess.

In the limit game, I gave up raising pre-flop a it was costing me too much. I did book a profit overall, but it was through the most woeful run of play and cards. I was married to every premium hand I had and could not let go, no matter what the flop showed. I lost every single premium hand imaginable. Capped pre-flop 4 ways with aces, T7o turns a straight for the win. What can you do?

There was very little Omaha action available, usually just 5-6 players in total and not many at the limits I wanted to play at. SNG’s though were very regular at all levels and pleasing to me.

I am in waiting for the PSO confirmation on the bonus, which should be done in a few days time and then I will have $90 more worth of Amazon vouchers to spread around.

Off of poker, there are some major developments in the real world at the moment, which may result in a move of city. More details to come as they are known and will be posted in a non-poker post shortly.

The Confidence Game

Christof: Cue the sun!

”The Truman Show”

Confidence in poker is a weird thing. I believe I can do great things when my confidence is high, and on the flip side when the confidence is low it is nothing more than a count down until I loose everything I have at the table.

Confidence for me starts before I even sit down. How much money am I willing to put into this here poker game? It took me a long time to get used to putting as little as $20 into a game – because hey, $20 is still $20. Someone comes out with a big bet of $6? Holy Cow, where did that come from? How could you risk so much!

I think I have only ever entered 2 MTT with buy ins of $20 or more, and never more than $30. I just can’t bring myself to do it yet, as I don’t have the bank roll nor the confidence to endure it.

When I am playing on a high, all the cards are hitting, the premium hands are holding up, the reads are 100% correct and life is good. I had 4-5 back to back session last week at $1/$2 where I would jump out to a 15-20BB win early, and then hover around there and up a little for the rest of the session. These results I was very happy with, and even entertained thoughts of moving up in levels because I was “consistently” beating this game (what did that “Professional Poker Player™” say about sample size?). It was a regular nightly routine and all was good.

Then on just one night everything goes wrong and I lost $70 – still up for the week mind you, but it was still a bit of a hit to me. And what happens? The confidence is gone, gone. My fearsome table image was evaporated, as evidenced in one hand where I was called down all the way by Ace high which beat my busted straight. I actually cringed when I got a half decent starting hand, and automatically go into “How can I minimize the loss on this hand” mode, which is never help full.

In football, there is this saying that you are only as good as your last game. In those terms, this means that how good you played two weeks ago, last month or last year doesn’t mean you are going to keep your spot on the team this week. Only the current form counts. I think this rings true for my poker playing confidence. I win one MTT, all of a sudden I am a tournament specialist. I loose out on the first hand of the next MTT when KK runs into AA and these games look like a lottery now. I spend 5 days grinding decent profit on limit holdem and I’m thinking that rising up the limits is a matter of time. I post one bad session, I’m considering going back to the drawing board all over again.

Something in Doyle’s book is ringing through my head. I can’t remember what he said word for word, so I’m just paraphrasing here. Basically he said that the pros know that the recreational player is happy to win enough for a free dinner, but is willing to loose his entire stack. I see this in my game all too often. If I post a $30 profit early, I feel inclined to cash out. But if I post a $30 loss early, I’ll keep playing until it is either all gone or I am back to level – where I reassess and consider if I can keep going. Maybe this is just a conservative approach that hampers my ability to maximise a good situation? I don’t know, perhaps.

I have been thinking more and more about the Turkish game, and how I would play it differently next time. I think I would need to be prepared to go bust more often – I was so scared for my chips that I sat on one buy-in for nearly 2 hours while every other person had either re-bought or doubled up. I was far too timid and maybe I needed to loosen up a little to create advantageous circumstances instead of waiting for them to happen. The end result could be I’d either walk out $100 richer or $100 in the whole. Hmm….maybe I will wait until after the honeymoon for that one.

Right now I am looking at which PSO offer I want to go with next, I’ve nearly run out of them! Maybe that too will be a good thing for my game, when I finally give up the bonus whoring and just play consistently at a site or sites. But man I just love all the free shit!

The Turkish Game

Dr. Peter Venkman: We've been going about this all wrong, this Mr. Stay Puft's okay, he's a sailor, he's in New York, we get this guy laid we won't have any trouble.

”Ghostbusters”

I was right – out of all the PSO bonus requirements, Full Tilt’s is one of the easiest to complete. Getting the initial deposit bonus however, that can take a while.

I had an awesome session backed up y my worst session to date. Firstly, within just a few points of completing the bonus requirements, I hit a mini rush of cards and had the entire table in fear. I was able to win 2-3 hands per orbit without a showdown, and when it did make it to showdown I had the nuts. Life was good. Then when I went back an hour later, I was getting crucified. The same guy that cracked my Aces twice a few days ago with crap like T8s cracked my Kings with 62o. Flop was 622 and I had to call him down to see what the hell was going on. I think I have lost pots worth $120 to that guy over the past two days.

It was that kinda session for me though, nothing went right. My draws never came, everyone else’s did. I had just a few cents left to work off my first bonus $20 amount, and I spent about $80 getting it. It hurt a bit, but there was not much I could do in the end. For the week I was up, so that was a good thing.

Friday night I went to a new home game, run by a regular at our other home games. He’s Turkish, and so was everyone else at the game, and some didn’t even speak English. Terribly nice guys, but damn do they love to gamble.

First we played a mini tournament, $15 entry plus $5 bounty on each player with rebuys for the first three levels or when the chips run out. I had flopped a straight with QT and had two all-ins in front of me. I had to call with a rainbow flop, and saw that I was against two pair both ways. The board didn’t pair and I tripled up on the first hand I played, as well as collecting two bountys.

When a late arrival came and took the last buy-in, the players started dropping. I don’t think I played very many hands at all, but the new guy hit a great rush of cards and knocked out every other player at the tables. The payouts were for 1st and 2nd only. 2nd got their buy in back and first got everything else, which was over $100 by this stage. They also play heads up for 10 hands only, after which the big stack is awarded the win. I am looking at a 7-1 chip deficit, and when the chip leader offers me another $10 to call it off (since everyone else wanted to get into a cash game) I accepted – but was then talked out of it. The way I saw it, $10 is $10. But really, I would be risking that $10 for the chance at over $100, so why not? Anyway, I busted on the very first hand of heads up when my open ended straight draw on the flop never came, and bottom pair was enough to end it mercifully.

Then the cash game started, and I was blown away. I don’t think there was ever a hand that was heads up pre-flop without an all in. The buy in was $20, 10c/20c blinds and when you busted you could either buy from the bank or buy from another player at the table.

Remember how I said they loved to gamble? I wish we had poker tracker available for live games, because seen flop percentage would have looked something like this:

Me: 8%
Host: 65%
Everyone else: >90%

A raise of 5BB was considered standard, and even 10BB would yield no folds. One player dropped $60 in 4 hands. I thought I would just have to sit back and wait for a hand and then double up.

Man, was I waiting for a while. I was playing normally against a table of maniacs and never really adjusted to it I guess. And that’s when you start thinking about calling with 34s, after seeing flop after flop where you would have had the best hand.

None of my pocket pairs were hitting, and it was getting pretty desperate as I was down below $10 when I won my first pot – which was split, so I made about a dollar on that one.

But I was on a freeroll since I won $20 in the previous tournament, how bad could it be? It was a fun game, with plenty of insults and amazing hands (bet, raise, call on the river, third pair with better kicker wins). I finally went bust when I pushed pre-flop with Kings when UTG raised to $1. I got two callers, and there was an ace on the flop. I knew that was enough to end it for me. Both players had an ace, so when they both called I thought I was in better shape. Sadly, I was wrong and went back to my wallet.

The second time I went bust was with Big Slick, when I pushed again pre-flop when I had again chipped down to about $10. I had four callers this time, with a King high flop. Eventually one player gets the others out of it on the turn, which was a 10. We flip them over and I show TPTK, while he has QJ for an open ended straight draw. The river ace gives me my two pair, but also his straight. It was going to be that kind of night.

I went for my third buy in, and the same thing happened except when I was down to $12 I hit a flush and doubled up! It was getting late, so when one player cashed out, I looked down at $21 and also cashed out to get my last buy in back. I was down $20 on the night, but really the way I was shell shocked and un-prepared for their gambling ways it could have been a lot more. I will go back again, but I need to re-adjust a lot quicker next time. I am still unsure how I should have played.

How Many Aces Must A Man Get Cracked, Before You Can Call Him A Man?

Joey 'Bats' Pistella: I thought you said the good times were gonna last forever.
Bobby Bartellemeo: I thought we'd be dead by now.

”The Crew”

Anybody who doesn’t get a laugh out of that movie isn’t somebody I want to meet. I can’t explain why, but I find the good in any easy going comedy no matter how easy going they may be.

And just quietly, that is my best post title to date. I'm not-so-secretly proud of it.

Full Tilt is still going well, and I suffered my first lot of bad beats there last night and still came out with a little profit, so all is looking good. I have decided that the $1/$2 games are easier than the 50c/$1 games because people know how to fold. Man, look at me! Talking about the finite differences at $1 tables – if I wasn’t the WGPBE it wouldn’t be worth it.

In 138 hands last night, I had the rockets 5 times. 5 freaking times! I took the blinds and a raise 3 times, and lost 10BB pots the other two times with rivered flushes – to the same guy! He called a capped pre-flop out of position with T8h the second time, and said he was “just feeling lucky”. There was even an Ace on the flop, but he chased it all the way. Normally this would put me on tilt, but I just laughed along with him in the chat box and let him get away with it. He cashed out not long afterwards, so I never had a chance to get my money back, but there were plenty of others willing to take his place.

On the good side, nearly every other big hand I had held up which is probably a good thing otherwise I would have been really angry. I also made a bit of a mistake when in a big pot, the river brought out a flush and a straight chance, and I had position over the other guy in the pot. I had top two pair, and was probably beat but I think with a 15BB pot I have to see if he is telling the truth. I accidentally pressed fold though, and even though I am 90% sure I was beaten I wanted to see what he was playing and was willing to pay $2 more for the pleasure. Never the less, we move on.

I finally broke my duck at the full tilt SNG’s (since I know DuggleBogey loves me explaining Australia to my friends on the other side of the world – in cricket, when you get out for 0 runs, it is called a “duck”. So when you “break your duck”, you get off zero. I could have said I lost my cherry, but then I wouldn’t have had all this bracket explaination that fills up the post now, would I?). I was playing in a $10 + $1 when I saw some horiffic play when we got down to the bubble.

Here is the scene:

Rock - $900
Heafy - $1600
Maniac - $4500
Maniac2 - $6500

Blinds were $150/$300.

As to be expected, the two maniacs are raising every hand between them, not letting the two small stacks see a flop cheaply. This is good playing – how ever, they also are getting into a few hands with each other fighting over our blinds. This was amazing, because they were betting furiously on draws against each other! Now I can see why you would attack the other big stack when you are holding the nuts, but when you have 8 outs going to the river? I couldn’t believe it! Sure enough, the chip leader was bounced in eventually by the other Maniac and brought us two small stacks to the money positions with him – I had gained a few chips but lost then when I doubled up the small stack when he had Queens on the BB.

The maniac had over $10K of the $13.5K at the table, and it was clear that we were playing for second. I was happy with that anyway, because even third meant I had finally cashed in these games.

On the BB, I call a minimum raise from the rock with 64o, just because I didn’t want to look like an easy blind steel. The flop comes K69 rainbow, and he checks. I decided to push, because there is a chance he will call with Ace high and I don’t have enough chips to do anything else but push or fold. He calls and shows AK, and I turn a 4 to suck out and eliminate him. Oh well, I guess sometimes the bad beats work in your favour.

Heads up with the manaic, and he has a 10-1 chip lead over me. Lets see how this works. He raises pre-flop, and I push with King high. He fold – but still has a massive lead. Ok, next hand I raise pre-flop with K8. Why? Because I only just found out that Q7o is the “computer hand”, for the unitiated that menas that out of all the possible starting hands you can have, apparantly Q7o is exactly in the middle – the “mean” hand, if you will. Therefore, against any unknown hand heads up, there is a 50% chance that Q7o is ahead or behind, which means that if I am ahead of Q7o, I have a greater than 50% chance of being ahead in the hand! I’m a genius! I also did it because the maniac was trying to muscle me so I wanted to make a stand on this hand and let him know that he can’t push me around – either double me or eliminate me.

So anyway, after that little tangent, I raised pre-flop with K8o. He re-raised me the minimum, so I went all-in. He folded again – this was getting fun. His 10-1 chip lead was now 3-1 and I hadn’t seen a flop yet.

So he lets me see the next one, and with 53o I hit the three on an ace high flop. He makes his minimum raise again, so I push with my bottom pair no kicker. This time he calls, with JQ. Did I mention there was a Jack also on the flop? Anyways, the turn was a 5 and I had performed the same suckout to take the chip lead. I even apologised for this one though.

Long story short, we get all in on a AKx flop, where he had Ax and I had AK. That’s pretty unlucky heads up, but what can you do? It was pay back from the poker Gods for me for loosing so many chips with AA last night. Besides, even though I did suck out pretty hugh twice I felt like I was in controll all along and when you come back from a 10-1 chip disadvantage you need a little luck, don’t you?

First Glance at Full Tilt

Guard: You won't get away so easy.
Aladdin: You think that was easy?

”Aladdin”

I have made the move to full tilt, along with many working bloggers and celebrity pros. My initial reaction was man, this place looks nice. All those pretty cartoon characters for players, not bad. My Godfather is always feeling normal, as he looks far too weird to be angry, happy or sad.

The software does feel sluggish to me, or perhaps it just takes some getting used to. Another big change is all tables have only 9 players, while every other site I have every played at has 10 person tables. This is no real big deal in ring games, but does make a difference to the SNG structure. I am finding that there are fewer low limits games going on, but the site does have a lot of bigger games and players available. It was almost sad to see Phil Ivey sitting with $12K at a NL table all on his lonesome. I should have bought in for $10 and see if I could double up on the first hand, just to say I doubled through Phil Ivey. Actually, that doesn’t sound like a bad idea, if the minimum buy in was only $10, which I’m sure it isn’t.

The tournament schedule is horrendous for me. During the week I play at times that are about 4-5am US time, are if there is a tournament on it is some $300 buy in crap that would cost me half my bank roll to play. I haven’t played in a tournament yet so I don’t know how good/bad their structure is as yet.

My initial theory on how easy it would be to clear the raked hands bonus for PSO is proving to be true, which is a welcome change. The amount needed to clear it is 200 Full Tilt points. Each $1 raked from any hand you are dealt cards equals one point. Now at $1 level, $1 rakes don’t occur very often. But you can earn partial points. So here is my math: usually a raked hand at any other site only counts if the hand is raked 25c, so using that at Full Tilt I need to clear 800 hands. But this is less if the hand gets raked 50c, 75c or the rare $1 (I’m micro limit and proud, baby. I try to squeeze as much value out of my tiny bankroll as possible!), so the 800 comes down for those hands. But what is really great is every $1 spent in tournament commission is worth 7 points. While that is about $0.42 value per dollar according to their site, it is still more bonus than other sites are prepared to give for these bonuses.

After two days I have 60 odd points, and these are from very quick sessions. I’m already more than a quarter through the PSO bonus, and I am up $50 to boot. That includes two losses in SNG’s, where I am yet to finish ITM at Full Tilt. My cash games though are thriving at the minute.

I have been playing $1/$2 holdem and 50c/$1 Omaha Hi/Lo fixed limit. I’m now comfortable at the $1/$2 level to bet without the nuts, which is a huge step for me. I have to admit I have been getting some nice cards too, but my upped aggression has allowed me to do this. For example, a check-raise with bottom pair gave me two free cards which hit trips. If I was re-raised on the flop or even bet into on the turn, I was done with the hand, but the aggression put fear into the other players and allowed me to draw. This is a welcomed change for I used to just sit back and wait for Aces before I bet, then drop them when a 3-flush hit the board. Baby steps.

The Omaha hi/lo games have been a blessing to me since I learned to accept draws, both my own and my opponents. Hi/lo does add another element to it, because it is hard to know if the opponent is looking to go for the low pot only or is going for the high pot only, or both? That makes it more fun to me, and also FOUR CARDS! Man, I could hit anything! Lol.

I finished up a 25 minute session at a full table of 25c/50c Omaha hi/lo up $20 after scooping a few pots and having the others folded to me. There is something special about having two callers all the way to the river when I have the nut high, and then they split the low. Sure, I don’t make as much as I could, but it was nice of them to come along for the ride. On one hand, in a four-way pot on the button I bet on the turn to try to get at least one player to fold, and it was no good and all four come for the river. I had no low draw and only two pair for the high, so unless I hit my boat I’m done with the hand. The river made a low possible, and I was not calling one bet. Luckily, there was not one bet to be had. I checked also, and saw the nut-low split three ways, and my two pair Queens and fours was good enough for the high. It’s a beautiful thing.

The Shield vs 24

Vic Mackey: Good cop and bad cop have left for the day. I'm a different kind of cop.

”The Shield”

Before I get back to poker, I want to talk TV first. Now I apologise in advance because Australian TV is so far behind the American equivalent, but you will understand hopefully where I am coming from.

My flatmate has bought series 1 and 2 of “The Shield” on DVD. We became interested in the show when the series three episodes were shown on late night TV, but I can’t stay up until 1am on a Wednesday for a TV show when I have a normal job. So he gets the DVD’s and we all start watching (The flatmate, the distraction and me). We also have a great tradition in our house of watching the show “24”, and the forth series is about half way through on TV now. We watched all 3 other series on DVD also.

“24” used to be a highlight for us, now it just pales in comparison. “The Shield” has ruined 24 for us. We were watching episodes of “The Shield” while waiting for 24 to come on, and we were disappointed when we had to switch over. Everything happens so fast in “The Shield”, and damn if Vic Mackey isn’t way more interesting that Jack Bauer. We are only half way through series one, and it has already become my favourite show at the moment.

Now for all things poker. As a final say on Poker Rewards, my cash out was cleared in about 48 hours, which is good enough. Shame, it could have been such a lovely relationship between the two of us, but instead it has to end like this.

Where to next? Damn I am such a bonus whore. I just don’t like playing unless I’m working off a bonus somewhere. I’m thinking about giving the PSO Full Tilt a try, as the raked hands requirements seem to be achievable for me even if the deposit bonus isn’t. Also, by the time I finish that bonus and collect more Amazon vouchers, WPT Season 3 will be released!

Besides, it only seems right that I try to support the employer of so many bloggers out there. I wonder if I will run into Phil Ivey or Howard Lederer at the 50c/$1 tables?

Tournament, that’s what I said I wanted to talk about. Why do so many sites love the rebuy tourneys? Ok, that’s a silly question, it’s obvious there is more rake in a rebuy tourney for the same number of people. Am I wrong though in suggesting that the majority of players prefer a freeze-out than a rebuy tourneys? Or is it the opinion that SNG’s fill this void?

I always prefer the freeze-out, mainly because I know how much I’m going to loose from the get-go. I have played and cashed in a few rebuy tournaments, but they were for $1 and $2 at the most because I was just worried about how many rebuys and add-ons would cost me. The play early during a rebuy tournament is laughable, half the time because players want to loose so they can rebuy back to their original buy-in. This creates two opportunities – you could either double up very quickly or you can loose to some awful suck-outs.

Either way, call me old fashioned but I say once your chips are gone, you are gone.

Goodbye Poker Rewards

John Hobbes: Can I ask you a personal question?
Gretta Milano: Everything is personal, if you're a person.

”Fallen”

How we all doing folks? It’s been a big poker weekend for both the WGPBE and WWPCTP. On the chip tricks – I went 0-12 trying the shuffle at my home game on Friday night. That was with 6 chips. Anyway, lets get to the cards to see how we went.

Friday night was on with 8 runners, two new guys who turned out not to be homicidal maniacs and not complete donkeys either. Which was a shame, because either could have made for an interesting night. When I host these games, the reports back here are a little sketchy because when playing in my house, there is n need to drive home so I tend to hit the beers, and then the memory goes except for a few hands.

Early in the frist game, on the big blind I was distracted and look back to the only the small blind call, so I raise it with the hammer. Small blind folds and I show – but opps, UTG had already called my raise. I pushed my chips across and got myself ready for a long night.

I don’t even remember how it happened, but I know I bubbled on the frist game. Second game got underway and after what was probably some brilliant moves I was in the money and coming second when for the first time of the night I get the lovely Aces. UTG I raise it up a little, and the big blind (and chip leader) goes all-in. Naturally I call and he shows 99 – The German Virgins as he likes to call them. What can you do? Three handed 99 is pretty good. Long story short – the turn is a nine and I have to go sit on the couch while they finsih this game.

And then the final game gets started about 1am, and on the 5th hand I have the aces again UTG. I make it 3BB to go and everyone folds. I show anyway because it’s late and I’m getting drunker. Next hand in the BB I get AQd, and the button raises in position. I make a re-raise to see if he is genuine, and he rasies back. Ok, this should scream strength, but I had Aces last hand – their not alowed to come out again next hand, are they? So I push. Ok, so I was a little drunker than I thought because the raise/re-raiser was the tightest player at the table, and I don’t think he made a position raise all night. He called, showed the Aces and I was dealing for the next three hours. Down $25 for the night, but it was pretty good.

Saturday night I stepped into another tournament at Poker Rewards, and due to the complete lack of beer I have a very good recolection of an action filled tournament. 130+ players for the $10 freezeout, here are the key hands for me.

Level 2: I’ve missed some flops and have gone down to $800 from a starting stack of $1500. On th ebig blind, there is a small raise and 4 callers in front of me. I see AJo in my hand and decided to push it here – if I loose, at least I haven’t wasted a heap of time in this tournament. Call…call…call…fold. Wow, this looks like trouble. I was up against AKo, AQs, and TT. There is a jack on the flop and I am more than quadrupling up here.

The next few rounds I manage to get my stack up to $4K without seeing a showdown. I notice there is nobody outside Europe playing in the tourny.

Level 6: KK gets beaten by JTs, an all-in from the short stack that I can’t really blame him for. At least it didn’t hurt too much.

QQ against a different player with AK holds up.

Level 8: I manage to get some more chips, sitting at about 3rd at the table with 39 people left, but 2 of the top three chip leaders are also here. I get AQd on the button, the same hand that I got knocked out with last night. I raise anyway and get a call from both the blinds. Flop comes AAQ. As Keanu Reeves would say, “Whoa”. Actually, I was a little pissed because now I know I’m not getting any action. Check, check, and naturally I check as fast as I can. Turn is a 8, check check check. River makes a possible flush out there, which may help. SB checks, BB bets a decent size which I double, hopefully this is small enough to make at least a flush call to see. SB goes all-in, and the BB calls this for 90% of his stack. Awesome, I push and he calls for the rest of his. I was up against a flush and pocket 8’s, but when your holding the nuts and there is two all-ins in front of you (and you have them both covered), nothing is sweeter. “All you can eat, baby!”. I now have the chip lead with $27K, second place is $19K.

Level 9: I held my chip lead for a while, but when the short stack was on the BB I put him all-in with KK. He called with Q9s, which I think I can’t blame him for since his stack was about 4BB. Queen on the flop, 9 on the turn. Damn, at least it wasn’t a big hit.

Level 10: I’m still chip leader, but not by as much anymore. I get JJ on the BB, and there are 2 callers to me so I raise about 4BB at this tight table. All I get is the SB re-rasing over the top of me. If I call and loose, I would be down to $17K – 9th out of 14. I think this is a call anyway because he would have rasied with a big pocket pair. He shows 84o, and thought I was tryign to make a move – well, the flop brings an 8 and the turn is a 4. Not happy.

From here on, it was blind steals and all-ins. I managed to sneak into the final table in 8th, but I was really feeling unlucky. If Kings and Jacks both held up, I would have had 50% of the chips going into the final table. Alas, it was not to be. Eventually with QJ on a Queen high board, I pushed and was called but the chip leader holding KQ. I took 8th, good enough for $50 plus change. It was a good payday for me, but it really should/could have been more if the cards went my way. Ok, so I was lucky with the AJ early, and maybe calling an all-in with JJ at a tight table can be questioned, but I really felt like I under-achieved in this one.

Did I mention through out the tournament I had to shut down and reload the poker room 4 times? Man, that software is crap. At about level 8 when it was getting close to the money and I had to miss a few hands while I did this, I decided enough was enough. Poker Rewards is the worst poker site I have ever played at so after this tournament, I was cashing out. I’ve cleared the PSO bonus, screw the deposit bonus. I’m not playing 1400 more raked hands at this poor excuse for a poker room.

Another stupid piece of their software is that you don’t get paid until the tournament is completely finished, so my final $50 was tied up for the next hour. I decided to wait around and cash out the second that money fell into my account. But watching an online tournament where you should still be playing (both players who sucked out on my Kings and Jacks finsihed higher than me in 7th and 4th.) is not all that exciting. So I decided to play some ring games to pass the time. There was 1 table running on the $1/$2 Holdem (and 8 people waiting – you can see why Scurvy complains about them not opening new tables) which was ok anyway, so I sat down at a 5c/10c Omaha PL table. Max buy in is $20, but I went in for $10. I figure if I loose it all, who cares it is just a time waster.

I get up to about $14 when an interesting hand comes along. I have AsKsQh7h. Not a bad place to start. Flop comes Ah4s7s, pretty good for me. One player bets, I call and we have three runners. Turn is Th, and I think I’m in good shape. I make a pot sized bet, and then other player raises again the pot limit, putting all but $1 of his money into the middle, making the third player fold. Now lets see my thinking here…Omaha is a game of draws, and this isn’t Hi/Lo so I don’t have to worry about a split pot or anything. I have two pair, worthless in Omaha, but I have outs. I have the nut spade flush draw (9), nut-1 heart flush draw (9 maybe if it’s good.). On top of that, the other two jacks would also give me the nut straight (2 more), and finally another Ace would give me a nice full house (2) and another 7 will give me a full house also, but I think that might not be good (2 for now). Ok, so I have 24 outs listed there – what does he have? Either he has a weaker flush draw, the same straight draw or a set. If he has a set, then I loose a maximum of 2 outs – For if he has a set of Tens, then I’ve lost the ten of spades and the 4 of hearts for my outs. 22 outs from 44 cards left, and there is more in the pot than I am holding, I think I can call on this draw. Now obivously all this went through my mind very quickly as you don’t have that long to make a decision in an online ring game, so how was my judgement? Did I miss anything that could have made a difference, do I really have 22 outs?

In any case, the river was Kh, giving me the nuts so when he put his last $1 in I called and scooped up a nice result. He re-bought for another $16 but I decided not to give him a chance to get some money back. Turns out he didn’t have a set and was drawing to a Jack high heart flush. I cashed out at $36 at waited five more minutes for the tournament to finally end. I took my money and ran away from Poker Reawards for good.

It’s a shame, I nearly made a 100% profit on my initial deposit there. The games are juicy, there tournament schedule was pretty good for me, but they just made too many mistakes and I am a player scourned.

I have more to say on tournament scheduling, but this post is long enough so I will save that for next time.

Cheerio.

Poker Chip Tricks

Nick the Greek: Dunno. Seems expensive.
Tom: Seems? Well, this seems to be a complete waste of my time. That, my friend, is 900 nicker in any store you're lucky enough to find one in. And you're haggling over 200 pound? What school of finance did you come from Nick? "It's a deal, it's a steal, it's the Sale of the fucking Century!" In fact, fuck it Nick, I think I'll keep it!
Nick the Greek: Alright alright, keep your Alans on!
[Peels off notes from his wad]
Nick the Greek: Here's a ton.
Tom, Eddie: Jesus Christ!
Eddie: You could choke a dozen donkeys on that! And you're haggling over one hundred pound? What're you doing when you're not buying stereos Nick? Finance revolutions?
Nick the Greek: 100 pound is still 100 pound.
Tom: Not when the price is 200 pound it ain't! And certainly not when you've got Liberia's deficit in your skyrocket. Tighter than a duck's butt you are. Now, lemme feel the fibre of your fabric.

”Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels”

I know I have quoted that movie before, but it is such a quality flick that it seems to have too many quotes in it to ignore. I always get that last line wrong too, so this will help me avoid that little mix-up.

Tasteless joke of the day – heard this one on the TV last night. You have been warned.

Apparently, as part of a new reality show, Brittany Spears plans on filming the birth of her child. Won’t it be interesting if she has a caesarean? It will be just like one of her concerts – the lips will be moving but nothing comes out.

You were warned.

Last night I finally finished off the 600 raked hands at Poker rewards to claim the PSO bonus. Shame I didn’t read the forums first, I could have changed that 6000 PSO points into 9000 points, but oh well. Even though the voucher hasn’t gone through yet, I have already spent the money. I will be receiving Chappelle’s Show season 1, “The Professor, the banker….etc” which I hear nothing but great things about, and “Death of WCW” the second book by R.D. Reynolds of Wrestlecrap fame – whose link I have over to the side below the blogroll. Again, I’m happy with the choices I have made.

But I am left with a dilemma. My hatred for Poker Rewards and their support is well warranted, and I am increasingly frustrated with the faults of their software. Unfortunately, in those 600 raked hands (including some MTT and SNG money) I am up 69% on my original deposit. What also annoys me is that if I play another 1400 hands, I clear the deposit bonus for another $200. Is it worth it? Can I stick it out? I have just started on the $1/$2 tables where nearly every hand is raked so they all count, and I have been doing ok at them in a very small sample – 3 positive sessions out of 3, but none of them a monster session. My other option is to go bonus chasing else where, which is always nice too.

When you live at micro limits, you can’t but help being a bonus whore. I guess that is something that keeps the little fishes alive at this level, and who am I to complain?

On to the games last night, I am finding the tables tight at the moment, and this has worked in my favour. A pre-flop raise has never been re-raised since I started at $1/$2, and more often than not it gets me heads up. I seem to have developed an aggressive table image very quickly, because I get called down often. Which is fine I guess – they want to see if I actually have anything. But after I have been called all the way to the river and then collected the pot with top pair, no kicker 4 times, I get to see a lot of flops on a free-roll. Then the nasty flops start hitting me square in the face, and 25o makes straights on the turn. Then that really pisses people off, which I like. It seems in these short sessions, people are more than willing to call me down with second pair or Ace high – I am making modest progress money wise without getting any monster hands.

An interesting thought came in the audio commentary with Eric Lindgren and Daniel Negreanu. They were talking about making big lay downs, which obviously can save you a packet. What they were concerned about (and this obviously only concerns live play) was showing when you made a big lay down. The heralds two problems: Either you made the correct decision, but now the other players know you are willing to lay down big hands and will try to bluff. Or number two, you’ve made the wrong decision and laid down your hand to an inferior one, giving the other player a major confidence boost and letting him know that he definably can bluff you.

Now I’m not even going to pretend that I can talk poker theory with these two guys, but I have to agree with what they are saying – and I am very guilty of the offence. I think it is an ego thing, trying to show that you made a big lay down because you know they have a monster hand, look how smart I am! I suppose there is a reason why a lot of pros preach the mantra “never ever show your hand”, makes sense. Some players claim they can try to control the other’s emotions and thoughts by showing their hand – and hey, all the power to you if you are good enough to do that. For me, I just don’t think I have that kind of control over myself, let alone another punter at the felt.

Which brings me to one last thing about egos at the table. This was also off the WPT DVD I was watching (which is over a year old, I know, but screw it it’s new to me.). I see this happen all the time in both live and online play: One player calls an all-in and then finds out they are dominated and says “Yeah, that’s what I put you on”. Wow, how smart are you buddy? You knew you were a 7-2 dog and you still called for all your chips. Who are you trying to impress?

Man, stupid people shit me.

Finally, I have added a new link on the side for “Poker Chip Tricks” for two reasons. One, it fricken awesome! Two, I am the world’s worst chip tricker and I want to learn. I can’t even shuffle the chips and I am getting nowhere fast trying to teach myself. I will report back here to see how helpful they are in getting me, the world’s worst chip tricker, into a some-what reasonable shape to dazzle the punters in the live games.

Absolutes in Poker

Ronna: I need a favour.
Todd: Wow, I didn't know we'd become such good friends, because if we had, you'd know that I give head before I give favours and I don't even give my best friends head so your chances of getting a favour are pretty fucking slim.

”Go”

Hmm, it seems I might have to ban anonymous comments on this blog, as attractive as the offer for an easy degree is, I may have to pass.

Had a good quick session last night, up in the end at $1/$2 as well as taking the cookies in a 20 person SNG. In the SNG, with seven players left (and one was absent) I was able to steel the blinds about 3 times every orbit – and I was coming 4th! Before long I had a 3-1 chip lead over the second place player and just waited for the short stacks to be blinded out. It was a shame, the absent player survived twice when the big blind forced him to be all-in, and thus finished in forth place collecting $10 for their trouble. When we got to heads up, I had $20K vs $8K or there abouts, and needed to end it quick. It was back and forth steeling and bluffing, nothing exciting really, but then I wanted to watch something on TV (actually it was a Joe Haschem interview on “Rove”, a show kinda like Jay Leno) and called an all-in with Queen-high. He had King high and I hit two queens on the flop. Yeah, whatever.

I moved up to $1/$2 (big jump huh?) because I got to thinking about what I consider a “good” session. Just recently I read on an Australian poker forum about a local player who went from 50c/$1 to $30/$60 in 9 months and has made over $80K this year. It could be all bullshit because I don’t know him personally, but he also plays live at the only poker room here in Sydney and many people were willing to back up his claims and verify his poker tracker results that he posted. Anyways, basically he said what a lot of other players at higher levels than myself say, and that is that they average around 2BB/100. This is enough to make decent coin and keep moving forward as an average. Which got me thinking, that means if after 100 hands at my levels, if I have gone from $60 to $66, I’m above average.

Now the first goal of any player is to make the correct decisions at the correct time, that is the ultimate. But after evaluating my play it is only naturally to have a look at the doe-ray-me situation. If I sat down with $60, I’d want to cash out at $100 or more. Every time. While it’s good to set high goals, I don’t think I understood that I can make 2-3BB per 100 hands and still be considered a good session. As it turns out last night was 10BB over 128 hands, so that is a good session, all be it a small one and just one table. It will be interesting to see what the long term results are of this, it is just a new way for me to look at my results and gauge how I am going. I think I have hit a new state of willingness to observe and learn.

Damn, if this keeps up I might even start playing 3 tables at once! Shock! Horror!

Nah, for some reason I can still only handle two at a time at the moment.

While in my some-what philosophical state, and with me preaching the evils of slow playing last post, one thing I do believe in poker is there is no such thing as an absolute when it comes to how to play a hand. There is no way style that is optimal 100% of the time – well, maybe calling your opponents all-in with the nuts is. I don’t know, I’m just dribbling here. I mean, even if you flop a Royal Flush, it might work if you come out betting UTG – might make it look like a steel attempt and induce a bluff? It all depends on the situation you are in.

One last thing: You know you have matured as a poker player when the following sentence makes sense and you don’t giggle when you hear it:

“He was betting on the come into my nuts.”

So I’m not that mature yet, sue me.

Slowplaying Premium Starting Hands

Cardinal Roark: Will that bring you satisfaction, my son? Killing a helpless, old, fart.
Marv: Killing? No. No satisfaction. Everything up until the killing, will be a gas.

”Sin City”

Welcome back, and I’ll be damned if Sin City isn’t one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time. It is even responsible for getting my action loving roommate impressed enough with Clive Owen to get him to watch “The Croupier”. Man, this movie just got better as it went.

I have to apologise again for the shenanigans that grounded the Heafy Honeymoon Classic. I know a few people out there downloaded the software at least, only to have the tournament deleted without any warning to myself. Just last night I finally regained the use of my home PC, so I can return to the tables after a 2 week absence. I managed to have a look at Poker Rewards once more and they have refunded my buy-in, but this may be because the tournament was supposed to run on Saturday and that has now passed. I still have not received any correspondence from their help department – I have about 100 raked hands to complete for the Poker Source Online bonus and then I’m out of there. Suffice to say it was a disappointing experience all round really, which is a shame because I liked their tournament schedule; well, up to the part where they delete them for no reason.

Live games have been going well though, has a good session a week ago and gearing up for another one this weekend. I walked out with more money than I walked in with, so I guess it was ok last time. To be honest, in the first game when it came down to the last three I was the short stack and got a great run of cards. I was raising so much that they just thought I was trying to push them around, but it was just raising with premium hands! I made a poor call when I sucked out to win the first game, but then lost to a 2 outer on a brilliant call to loose the second game so it is all balanced in the end.

Since my forced absence, I have been watching a ton of poker, namely the 2004 WPT (season 2). I’ve been loving it, as this is a regular thing for me. Poker on TV has only just started on free-to-air (they are showing the 2003 WPT late Saturday nights) and I don’t have Pay TV anymore since we moved. I can see why so many people say that these shows breed bad players – every hand seems to have someone bluffing. I guess that is what happens when you condense 8 hours into 2. But it is really good, a highlight of my night since I couldn’t play online. I have now started to watch with the audio commentaries, and the two tournaments with Phil Laak and Antonio Esfandiari are great to listen to. They do give a little bit of insight into their thought patterns and share some good stories also. I’m looking forward to listening to the other audio commentaries now.

Simple pleasures, that is all I ask for. Sitting in bed, watching poker on DVD (skipping the “The game is texas holdem” parts), life is allright after all.

Listening to the commentaries showed me something that should have been obvious, and probably is to everyone out there, but I never put enough thought into it. When trying to figure out if I am in front or not, I consider what hands beat mine. This is pretty straight forward, but I don’t really consider how the hand has been played and what range of hands my opponent would play that way thus far into the pot. To put it better, I think what hands can beat mine, not what hands he could play that way that beat mine.

I’ve also come to a bit of a revelation about monster starting hands. Maybe it is from hearing too many bad beat stories (and I don’t mind reading/writing my fair share), but when players are dealt AA, KK, QQ or even AK there is no unwritten la that you must win the hand. In most circumstances, you may be a heavy favourite, but it is never a guarantee. One trap that many beginning players fall into is not only expecting to win with these hands, but expecting to win big. How else can you explain people slow playing Aces so often? Some people look at winning the blinds with these hands as a failure – and indeed, sometimes that is true. But sometimes the blinds are all you can expect to win with a premium hand. I’d rather win the blinds than loose my stack to a flopped two pair. These starting hands are only guaranteed pre-flop.

Slow playing Cowboys or Hiltons is also a big no-no. How many times have you held either of these starting hands and then been so disappointed when an Ace hits the board? At especially at the micro limits I play, you just know there is at least one Ace that has limped in. To me, slow playing pre-flop should be reserved for heads up play or extremely short handed, and even then only sparingly. But then again, I’m still very far down the food chain in this poker world.

Funniest thing I heard at the game the other night – one of the players was talking about how they went to the casino with their cousin when he was in town. Parking at the casino here in Sydney is pretty pricey, so instead they parked out the front where the parking metres were. They parked and then got out of the car and his cousin walked off without putting any money in the parking metre. He said “Hey, aren’t you going to put any money in the metre, what if you get a fine?”. And the priceless response…

“We’re here to gamble aren’t we?”

You can’t fault his logic.

Tournament Cancelled

For some unknown reason, Poker Rewards have decided to cancel the Heafy Honeymoon Classic tournament that I had FINALLY set up through their bug-filled software. It seriously took me weeks to get it done, and 4 un-answered emails to support really showed their committment. So anyway, I finally got the tournament organised and up on the site, then I put done my $22 to join up and wait for others - this past weekend, I noticed not only did the tournament get removed from the site without any notice to me, but my buy-in was not refunded!

Couple this with the fact that my home PC is on the blink again, I am not very happy at the minute. I have emailed support again and dispite thier claim of 24 hour support ("just email us your phone number and we'll get right back to you" - my ass) I have not recieved any communication back from them except for an automated response email saying they had recieved my email and would respond in a few hours.

So the tournament if cancelled for now - I really apologise to those of you who have tried to help with promoting the tournament and using the affliate links. if you have downloaded the software but have not deposited yet then I urge you DON'T DEPOSIT! I'm sorry for those that already have, email me and if I recieve 1 cent of affilaite money from it I will be more than happy to send it across.