A good year

Well, it has come to that time where we all must look back on the year and say "where the fck did that go" cos if your like me, it only seems about 3 minutes ago it was new years day 2007. God time goes fast as you get older.

Been a big year for me really, I got married, had a 40th birthday and moved from being an SNG rock to being a cash muff. Quite an achievment for a 12 month period and I came out of it in one piece.

Unlike last year, I have had a good december, in fact, it is close to my best month of the year, approx $600 up taking my yearly profit to $5000, which is $500 more than the target I set myself, which considering my biggest MTT cash was only $340, I can't be any happier.

Next year I plan to concentrate on building up my bankroll. Due to the costs of the wedding, I have had to pull out about $5k of my poker stash to help get the mortgage payments back on track, which took a hit cos of the interest rate rises. But all is ok. The move to cash and the period spent with bad beat has taught me a lot about bankroll managment and I have now set my new targets and goals for moving up the levels. Hopefully, the time it will take to gain the required bankroll will be sufficient for me to increase my skill factor to cope with the "better" players that play at the higher levels.

So my goal for next year is a big jump. My aim is to finish the year $10,000 in profit. I am still going to concentrate on cash and have set the following rules for my bankroll management.

Level     Stake           BR to Play    Sitdown    FallBack
1             25c / 50c     $1500         $50            N/A
2            50c / $1        $3500        $100          $3000
3             $1 / $2         $8000        $200         $6000
4            $2 / $5         $20000     $500          $15000

The fallback figure is when I drop back down a level, should I go on a bad run. I intend to play mainly on Sun to get the bonuses and rakeback, which  hopefully will accelerate the bankroll plan and provide cover for any losing months that I have. Will be concentrating on 6 seaters, with maybe some 10 seaters and Hi Lo cash, just to get the extra MPP needed to get the $500 pm bonus. Current Bankroll on Sun is about $1.8k and I have about the same spread around laddies/stars etc, will play on them occasionally to try and break the boredom of playing on one site and add a bit of variety. The bankroll plan is a little on the conservative side, but I think it is a good starting platform and provides cover for variance. I am nor sure if I will go to the 2/5 level on sun should I be doing ok on 1/2, I may just stay there. I don't expect to do all of the above in 1 year, but it would be nice if I could get to that level asap. Unless my game improves dramatically, I think $1/$2 will be close to my limit, but I would like to have the odd stab at the higher levels, but at the moment I am a def TAG type player so my get run over by the LAG players at the higher levels, but you never know.

For MTT, I will probably play a few, but mainly try and sat into some of the bigger buyin events and def will go for WCOOP/ECOOP/LEOCOP events next year as I didn't bother this year and regretted when a few of my close online buddies made some decent cashes in them.

So that is it for me for the year, hopefully plan to do more with my blog next year and maybe develop www.pokergoth.com a bit more.

But for now its over and out, A big Happy New Year to you all out there and cya at the tables next year.

Goth.

Merry Christmas

And a big thankyou for Santa delivering all the fish early and not letting them hit.......

Apart from the mandatory case of man flu which sent me home from work on wednesday afternoon and kept me stuck in my bed Thursday/Friday, well, when I say bed, I actually mean my comfy armchair in front of my PC. And, if I happen to be stuck there, well, it it would be rude not to play poker !!

It turned out to be a highly profitable few days sick, approx $550 to the better. In fact it would of been a lot better, apart from one unreal player on Sun calling every raise and hitting runner runner on 3 occasions (one with 93os !!) to stack me 3 times. Sometimes I really think they know something that we don't.

My first day off sick on the thursday the cash tables on sun were pretty scarce, so I decided to play the laddies $10 high stack in the afternoon. Not many runners, but I tried to play a bit more aggressively than normal and try a few different things out. It seemed pretty sucessfull and was lying about 2nd in chips when a reraise from me with AK could not get Mr Scandi to fold his mighty AJ for which he duly pushed all in happily chimped his 3 outer, to drop me well down the field. I still managed to make the FT, where with 7 left the sb raised my BB for the 3rd hand running, I looked down and found K9, more than enough to try and teach him that this is MY BB and duly rr all in, without a thought, he insta called with his mighty K5 sooooooooooted and of course hit the 5 to take me down.

On the evening, I decided to enter the 20:15 laddies hi lo muff fest, being as tight as a nats chuff, I did not rebuy or add on. Shortly after the break, I managed to muff it up to about 6k chips and then never looked back, a couple of pieces of sound advice from hi lo Guru LANGERS and I was on the final table, but before long I could not outdo my hero and was muffed by Kunkuwap and went out 6th.  Interestingly I think I have only played this tourney 7 times this year and made the FT 5 times. Maybe I should play it more, but I guess if if I really knew 
what I was doing in the game, I would not make the final table. But 2 MTTs played and two FT's, can't grumble.

Cash has been going well, in particular on the laddies 6 seaters, where I have found the standard of play definitely lower than on Sun, if only laddies could match the Sun bonuses and rakeback, it would def be my home. Then I decided to play the Mansion seaters, now these are unreal, I could not believe the amount or rr all ins I saw with abs pants/fck all hands and called with 2nd pair shit kicker. These guys are sooooo bad, def gonna give these tables a dabble around the pub hours, seems like there could be a lot of value around on them.

Still plan to attack the Sun bonuses in the new year on the 25c/50c 6 seaters, but looking at the results on Ladbrokes/Mansion, it may be that the value is outside of the bonuses.

If I don't see you at the tables tonight. I wish you all a Merry X-mas and a Happy New Year.

Goth

Decision Made

Well, after a great deal of thought and anguish, I decided that it was time to pull out of the Bad Beat trainee trader scheme. After 6 months, I had made a profit, but as mentioned I was struggling to put the hours in that the scheme requires. Over the last two months, I was starting to play a lot of my sessions while tired and not in the right frame of mind just so I could try and fit in the hours. This showed in my results, with a first losing month in October and only a small profit in November. It was a tough decision as it really is a great setup and I think they are going to go from strength to strength. I would like to pay special thanks to Jeff Burke (nenobear) and Matt Myford (younghero2/Enterprise), who were my mentors during this time, these guys really know their stuff and I think improved my understanding of the game a great deal. I think if you are a student with a limited bankroll, the set up is perfect, but bankroll is not really my problem and I def have the discipline, it was just the time that caught up with me.

So my poker playing has now moved on to new ground. I have decided to give Sun Poker most of my business for the next couple of months or so, I am going to use december to realistically work out what I need to do to get the 3400mpp to get the $500 a month bonus, this + the rakeback should work out at about $750pm. All I need to do is make sure I am in profit for the month, or even break, this will then help me reach my new $10k goal for 2008. The ideal aim would be able to play at a level of cash where the 9000mpp was attainable, for the $1000 cash bonus, this along with rakeback would probably be $1700 pm just in bonuses/rake, now if that was sustainable without large losing months, that would be a very tidy sum over the year. Hopefully if things go to plan, I will increase my bankroll by mid 2008 where I can play at stakes which will make this a reasonable prospect, lets just hope that they keep these bonuses going. Just hope and pray the dumbass US gov come to the senses and open back up the big american fishtank again so that crypto can get some more numbers at the tables as it can be a little scarce. Come on Bushy, do us all a favour, fck middle america, we want the whales back at the table...........

Cya around.
Goth

Decision Time

Another frustrating month, I have been struggling to get in the hours for bad beat this month due to other comittments and I think I am gonna come up short of the requirement. Losing my PC for 3 days on and off cos of wireless problems didn't help either, thankfully these are now sorted. I am up slightly this month for bad beat, but it could of been a lot better as ever. Still don't think I am playing aggressively enough to really start dominating the 25c/50c cash where I am still playing, but I am not sure if anyone can ever "own" that level, as there are to many in-experienced players at this level, who always seem to trip you up.

I will reach my yearly target of $4.5k profit at the end of this month when the bonuses are paid out. However it means that I will have reached my target due to bonuses and rakeback, and not through actual play. Now this is a dilemma for me, what do I want to get out of poker ? do I want to make money steadily ?, or do I want to become a very good player who potentially can make a living at it. I really would like to make poker my primary source of income, but my reluctance to move up the levels because of my discipline, I think sometimes holds me back. Even with bad beats money, I still am not playing above 25c/50c. At the moment, I am not much more than a break even player when multitabling, I know I could probably 8 table most of the month, come out around level at least and then make the money out of bonuses and rakeback. I have worked out that I can make $10k a year, even at the level I am at, which is not a bad investment. BUT, this is not making me a better player, it is just turning me into a grinder, pretty much playing abc poker, with the odd move to hopefully add value and an edge. I am also finding I am missing playing MTT's, not having a big win this year, as I said in my previous post, has affected the overall income from poker, next year I am going to start doing more of these.

So in summary, I think come the new year, I have a big decision to make, do I stay with bad beat or not. It really is a fantastic set up with a great bunch of people and I love being a part of it, but if I can't see myself changing my attitude and lack of confidence, I think the long hours grinding route will be the way forward for me. Maybe results in december will make me change my mind, I guess we are just gonna have to wait and see, this is assuming Bad Beat keep me on as I said earlier I have been struggling with my hours.

Whatever happens, I am going to set my target for next year to me $10k in profit, a very large leap, but for the hours I am putting in now, anything less is not really going to be worth it.

Toodle Pip for now.

October Pain, but still a gain

Well October turned out to be a strange month, on the cash front, on Grand Slam for Bad Beat it was a nightmare. I just could do nothing right and got some serious bad beats, this along with some poor calls by me, resulted in a big loss on the month, prob about $380 down. This is very frustrating, as I now have to win all of this back, to start getting paid again. I must admit, I have played poker long enough to know that I am going to have runs like this, but it is very very hard to take when you miss every flop, every c-bet I put out either gets called or re-reraised. Every time my chips went in 80% fave, the oppo hits his outs. My KK's walked into AA sooo many times it was untrue, and when I did get AA the others inevitably hit their set against me and I just couldn't lay it down due to my chasing. I would like to think that october has taught me a valuable lesson, in that, at the level I play at, if you get rr, you are 99% of the time beat and just lay it down. Here are just a few of the hands I could find of note. Couldn't be arsed to search through the whole of my hands for the worst ones, but these will give you an idea of the sort of month I had on Grand Slam.

http://www.badbeat.com:8080/static/gameReplay.swf?gameID=697427416
http://www.badbeat.com:8080/static/gameReplay.swf?gameID=696905859
http://www.badbeat.com:8080/static/gameReplay.swf?gameID=697402375
http://www.badbeat.com:8080/static/gameReplay.swf?gameID=697491796

On a brighter note, I was up on the cash front on sun over the month and the $200 bonus + the rakeback to come, gives a much needed boost to the bankroll.

Even better news is the fact that on the MTT front I actually had decent results in the few that I played. The biggest payout being a nice little $340 for 3rd place in the ladbrokes 2am $40 Graveyard Tourney, which I got in via a $3 sat. I actually think that in this tourney, I played my best MTT poker ever. It is strange that since playing so many cash hands over the last few months, my MTT game seems to have leaped up to a new level, I think in november I might try a few more satellites into some bigger tournies. I still have never had a $1k+ payout in one tourney, in fact the only time I have won more than $1k in a day was when I won the old laddies $10 evening tourney for about $920 and made the FT of the $5 at the same time. But I guess when you are such a tightwad as me and rarely fork out more than $5 in an MTT, unless you muff through a 3000 runner tourney, the payouts are not gonna be big.

I also won a hi lo MTT on Sun for a small amount of $$$ as there was not many runners.

Another good MTT result, albeit not financially, was the OFC forum challenge on Full Tilt, where I managed to come 32nd out of 3300+ runners, it could of been so much better if my QQ had held up against the mighty AJ, but I did hit quad Q's vs KK earlier in the tourney, so can't grumble too much.

One other good tilt story, was when I was soo fcked off with Grand Slam, I decided to jump on a $1/$2 NL table on Mansion to pent some aggression (bear in mind I play 25c/50c) I sat down with $100, waited for the big blind to come round, where I was dealt 99. 4 limpers into the pot so I decided to take the freebie and the flop came down a wonderful A92. I checked it, so did the did the table, the turn bought an happy 6 for me, I bet the pot, got one caller. The river dropped the wonder card for me being another Ace. So I bet my FH, I then get raised, so I push and get an insta call from my wonderful new friend who had limped utg with AK, the $205 pot come scooping my way and I jumped ship with my ill gotten gains, I hate hit and runners, but somehow this seemed the thing to do.

So overall, I finished the month about $300 up, not quite as much as I liked, but hopefully I won't have anymore losing months for bad beat.

So what will November bring. After speaking to my Mentor Jeff, I have decided to play more 6 seaters to hopefully improve my game and aggressiveness and hopefully bring in a good month to catch up where I was with Bad Beat a month ago. I am in no rush to become a trader like some seem to be, I am happy to grind it out and slowly become a better player, eventually becoming a trader and recieve the benefits that it brings.

On the home front I have invested in a nice new Dell PC with a 24" monitor, dual screened this with a 19" that I had and still using my old PC for other stuff, so its poker poker poker all the way. Just gotta make sure I put the poker tables on the 24" and not the lesbo porn......hmmm

Cya at the tables.
Goth

Back from hols

Been a while since I last updated, but to be honest, not much spectacular has gone on. I played the 150k on mansion 3 weeks running and got shafted twice with KK vs AK all in pre flop, the final one, I was sitting pretty on 13k and can't believe the donk called my rrr all in for his whole tourney life with AK and got rewarded by the flop of AAK - Sick !! The other time I donked myself making a move with 34sooted after calling a preflop raise and hitting a str8 draw and ironically walking into KK. C'est la vie.

Managed to finish September up on both USA(now Grand Slam) for bad beat and on my todd on Sun, only a small profit on Sun, but the bonuses and rakeback made up for it.

Was on holiday last week in sunny yorkshire, yes it was sunny - honest !!! No poker all week, although I did read a bit of SSII and a Hi Lo book as I am looking to play a bit more hi lo as it seems to be a good point builder on sun and decent rakeback due to the split pots.

Did not miss poker at all until I got back yesterday and started playing again. Small profits starting the month off on a good note, lets just hope it continues. Will endavour to update more regularly again, so cya all at the tables.

Goth.

Fitness First

Now I am in my 40's, I have had a look back on my life and realised that if I carry on like I am, I am not going to make my 50's.........Strummer on his diary recently mentioned about physical fitness affecting poker performance and he think he has a point. So it is time for drastic measures. When I hit 30, I was still competing at swimming in masters events and probably weighed in at about 11st 10. Jumping on the scales Monday am, showed a new all time high of 15st 10, the penny dropped, almost as much as me belly when I take my jeans off.

So, time for diet, time for excercise, time for a new lease of life, hopefully this will bring a new clarity of mind to enable me to sit in front of a PC for 6 hours a night muffing the fck out of any scandi that happens to foolishly get involved in a pot with the all new streamlined super Goth.

I have challenged myself to get to 13 1/2 stone by xmas, this is going to be very difficult, but hopefully I can achieve this and then set a new goal for next year. I have put a post on my forum where I will put regualar weekly updates on how I am getting on, this can be found on www.pokergoth.com, follow the links to forums and register for my forum should you wish to comment or take the piss.......

On the poker front, had a bad couple of days for bad beat, which dropped the monthly profit down by $100+ but still managed to finish the month $300 up, it did affect my confidence quite a bit and need to know work on this. On sun, I got the bonus of $200, which gave me a total profit of $5 for the month...doh....however the rakeback of $50 I got back today, jumped it up a bit. I don't think I can have a month as bad as that again, so with this months bonus and rakeback, it should prove slightly more profitable.

Sunday night should be fun as I have qualified for the Mansion 150k and a sun new starter 10k freeroll which will both be running at the same time. Make the FT of both those and I will be a very happy little fatboy.....

Cya on the tables.....
Goth

Double Top

Yes it finally came. On Saturday the 25th August I officially became middle aged, hitting the big 4 0.........The day started with a serious hangover. As the previous 3 nights drinking finally caught up with me, so a long lie in before getting up out of bed to open a bunch of carefully chosen birthday cards which all took the piss as much as possible out of my new found age, including the best one from my mother which she had made up out of old photos of me, including a naked baby one, showing all my male prowess, I only wish it had got a bit bigger than it was then.....thanks mom.....

Out of the money I received from various generous sources and a special birthday jar that Amanda and myself keep for all loose change. I have managed to purchase a 500gb external hard drive, new leather computer chair and a new large desk which is due to be delivered this week. I am hoping these few items should help me take my poker more seriously and thus make more money.

Birthdays aside, I have not played much poker last week due to the partying. However I have been off work all this week so hope to catch up on the lost hours.

Been doing ok on usa for bad beat, steadily ticking along on the profit ladder, but very much a grind rather than a spurt. Would of been well up, if I had not had 45 in the big blind, 3 limpers, flop came A23, ended up all in against a limper with 33 and the river paired the board for a $100 pot down the pan......

Sun is a different story, I have almost lost all my initial $200 deposit, and I am about 130 points short of getting the full $200 deposit bonus back, so this along with the rakeback, I am only just gonna break even. The play there is really so bad, and I have lost so many pots when a massive fave, if only half of those hands would of stood up I would be at least $500 in profit rather than $180 down. I am going to stick with it though, cos I know eventually these muppets are gonna pay me off big style, and with the $200 a month bonus + rakeback, I am sure this site can make me some decent $$$ at the low levels I am currently playing at.

I have also manged to get a free entry for the Mansion $150k, courtesy of their current promotion to get 100 mcps in a week. Managed to make $100 getting them as well, which is a bonus. Looking forward to playing this tourney, will try and get the points for the next couple of weeks too, as the value is just to good to miss.

Overall, enjoying the cash games at the moment, even with the frustration of gettng shafted on sun. I still miss the thrill of making FT's in the Multis. I might try a few sats to the bigger ones and see if I really have improved my game at all.

Good Luck at the tables.
Goth

No Fun in the Sun

Ticking along nicely on USA on iPoker on the 25c/50c tables, however on Sun I am getting slaughtered, either completey card dea d, or getting dire flops for my good hands when I do get them. Currently about $100 down for the month and in danger of losing $200 to get the $200 bonus !!! I am playing the same basic way, but just don't seem to be getting anywhere. The frightening thng is, I don't yet know why or even work out if the players are better or worse that on iPoker. Hopefully I can last the month without losing my $200 deposit as I would hate to have to reload just to get the 1000 points to get the $200 bonus, which sort of defeats the object. I am going to stick with it though as I do like the site and the interface and the head hunter tournies are great fun.

Got another mentoring session tonight, have been on a good run since the last one, so hopefully can continue this, Matt (enterprise/younghero) had a good result in Luton playing live, bringing home a nice little chunk of bacon, so I think I am in good hands.

With the demise of laddies forum, I am gonna be doing some work on mine to try and get a bit more traffic going, so if you have not yet tried it, go to www.pokergoth.com and click on the forum links then on to Gothmans Poker Strategy forum, hope to see you their and hear your views on this wonderful game of ours.

Goth

All is ok

Well my fears about Crypto weren't as bad as I thought, I am managing to find enough 25/50c tables to be able to get the 1000mpp to get the $200 bonus. The only difficuly I am having is actually winning as well !! I seem to be hoverering around the break even point. But never been more than $40 up the month or lower than $30 down. But will be happy enough for the time being to be level at the end of the month and getting the bonus and the rakeback, at least this will be sticking to my plan.

The trainee trader venture is still going well, although due other comittments I have not been able to do many hours this week, so it means that I will have to hit the tables hard over Friday/Sat/Sun to make up my hours for the week. Had my 2nd mentoring session with Matt from bad beat, the session started off horribly when we called a raise with A5 soooooted, to see the loveley flop of Ax5, ended up all in vs AK, only to find the turn bring a 7, and another 7 on the river and we reload. Fortunatley I only sat with $25, so not much harm done. Justice was server later when Matt made me load to the max ($50) and was dealt A5 on the BB again, bunch of limpers so we just checked. Flop went one better this time and came AA5 and we ended up all in vs one of the other players with A9s, this time it held and a nice little double up.

Should be able to get an hour or so in tonight before I go out on the piss for the quiz, but the next few days will be grind grind grind.....

Goth.

Plans up the spout !!

Well today, being the start of a new month, always brings new hope. I had decided this was the month I was gonna move forward and expand my poker horizon. The plan was to continue as a trainee trader for bad beat (as long as they keep me on that is) two tabling on USA. But also, to start afresh on Sun Poker. I had set up a bankroll plan ready for this new venture starting steadily with $500 available at the 10 table 25c/50c tables, using the monthly bonuses and rakeback till getting to $1.5k and moving up the food chain to the higher levels until eventually reaching $8k and taking $2k out everytime it reaches that level.....Simple I thought. BUT I have hit one slight problem. Crypto seems to be rapidly going down the pan, the numbers there have been dwindling and every time I look, there seems to virtually no action on the 10 seater 25c/50c tables so getting the bonuses at this level could prove a nightmare. When there are a couple of tables open, they seem to always be the same players, I can't get any poker office stats on them yet it looks like you have to be sat at the table to pick up the stats. So, I have a dilemma, do I put $1.5k in and go straight to the .50c /$1 tables. Or look elsewhere. I think for now, I am gonna just suck it and see at the 25c/50c and see how it goes.

Thats the plan for the future out the way. As for the month just gone, it turned out to be my best month of the year. Finished about $350 up on the month for bad-beat, should of been more, but twice I just couldn't lay down KK again even after putting my opponent on AA and being right, losing big pots both times. Winning the MTT on absolute along with a couple of other final table finishes upped the wins as well as some decent results on the absolute 50c/$1 bad beat tables. I stopped keeping very accurate records at the start of June, but reckon I was probably about $800 up for July. Hopefully with extra tabling on sun this month and a few bonuses mixed in, August can surpass that even.

Got another mentoring session lined up for this weekend with one of bad-beats current top profit margin players, so hopefully will pick up a few more valuable tips to move my game forwards.

One thing I have noticed is some of my cash tactics sneaking into my MTT play, not sure if this is a good thing or not, but I managed to come 9th out of 544 in a $2k 500pp freeroll on laddies last night on my wifes account, so it can't be affecting me that much. So back to the grind tonight, hopefully two tabling USA and two tabling Sun Poker, if there is any action.

Goth

Unlucky 13

On Friday, me and tipster, fresh from our Final Table exploits at the MGM in vegas, descended on Broadway Casino in Brum for their weekly £20 rebuy tourney. A decent structure but a bit of a muff fest during the 1 1/2 hour rebuy period as there is only 1000 starting chips.

I started well, only playing two hands in the first hour, both times pushing with AK and getting duly called by the fish with AT and A7. Marc Goodwin, in an article in a magazine recently desscribed the players at this casino as some of the finest in britain, I can only assume that he was on about the cash tables, cos in this tourney, have and Ace is like, well, having two aces. They just can't fold any ace preflop, no matter what the action has been.

I lost a couple of pots, before doubling back up to 2900 when my JJ hit the boat. No rebuys, just the add on and I was comfortable on 3900, which was about average at the break.

First hand back, blinds 100 200 and I found AK utg and raised 600. A shortstacked lady in mid position pushed for the rest of her stack, this would leave me with 1900 chips, so I decided to call, I groaned as she turned over AA, but the poker gods were with me as the flop came KKx and off she trotted, not even acknowledging the "vul" coming from all of the table, myself included (but smugly grinning inside)

A few hands later, I found AK again, but a raise and a rr before me, saw me lay them down, only to find the two of them all in with KQ vs A9, nothing hit and the A9 took it. I decided then, that the next time the buy to my right, who rr with A9, raised, I was going to make a move on him.

I managed to build my stack up to 18k winning a 3 way all in with QQ holding up against AK and KQ. I then made my only real mistake of the game, announcing raise in mid pos with 99, only to find I had not noticed the guy utg had already gone all in for 5k. I was stuck, the table had saw my weakness in my mistake, so I decided to push my stack. Luckly this stopped the Ace raggers calling as the A hit the flop, but the QQ stood, to put me back down to about 12k.

it was the round after that my moment came. I was dealt AT sooted in mid position, blinds were 300/600 now. A short stack limped from early position, which was suspicious and my man on my right made his move. He raised to 1800, I was thinking about Re raising him, when I noticed the player on my immediate left, who had me covered going for his chips, he normally did not do this. His movement and the suspicious short stack, I decided to fold. After a bit of a to do, the players all ended up all in preflop. Short stack flipped over QJ, my man on my right, as expected KQ, and the player on my left showed KK (I was right on my tell on him) I thought at this point I had made a great laydown with my AT suited, until the flop came down TTT. I screamed inside as this would of been a 40k pot and put me a 20k+ chipleader. In hindsight, my laydown was the correct one, but I could not stop thinking what could of been.

The tourney carried on, I made the best of my good hands and managed to get away when I was beat, until eventually it came down to the last 13. The blinds were now 1000/2000 and I was down to about 12k. It was folded around to me in the SB and I pushed with K8 sooted. The big blind had me well covered and called with AQ, annoyingly I hit my 8 on the river, but it gave him 4 to the flush and I was out after 6 hours in 13th place, with top 11 being payed.

Strangely I was not disappointed, as I felt I had played really well and only making mistake with the 99 and giving the player on my right too much respect and laying down AK.

Playing sobre (ish) def has its advantage as I can now remember things about a lot of the players who, I know, will be there next time.

Hopefully I can move one step further and make the FT, 3.5k+ for the winner is not to be sneezed at and from what I have seen, I do have the ability to play live at least as well as I do play online.

Just a bit more luck and balls the sized of plum12's at the moment and I will be ok.

Till the next time.
Goth.

Skalie the Hero

Well what can I say, this week is all about the great man himself, Jon Kalmar AKA "Skalie" after almost not entereing the WSOP main event, he qualified in the very last sat and then the rest is history, Jon went on to make the final table and end up coming 5th and taking home a cool 1.2 Million Dollars. An unbelieveable performance, skalie also played the game in true spirit and was a credit to the game of poker. He was also to donate a portion of his win to charity which just shows you the stature of the man. Utmost respect to you fella, you are an inspiration to us all. When I first started playing poker in dec 2003, the first few months were spent play $5/$10 STT's where I regularly used to come up against skalie, it just goes to show that with hard work and dedication, the dream is there for us all to chase.

Not to be outdone by Jon, I actually won my first MTT of the year "SHOCK" I have not played many this year, but I logged into Absolute Poker, to try and find out why my withdrawal from my account had not come out (I have recently emptied all my dormant accounts of sites I don't play anymore, and was more than happy to find about $2k dotted around) it seems that for some reason they cancelled my neteller withdrawal, so I thought while I am logged in, I'll have a look around. I noticed a $5 hi lo MTT just about to start and thought "why not" 3 hours later I was heads up. I flopped two pair on a KT8 board with T8 in my hand and ended up all in vs my oppos K8 in hand, runner runner spades gave me a back door flush muff and Gothman left the tourney in first place....woohoo. Only $137 and entry into some freeroll muff fest this coming weekend, but its always nice to win an MTT. Played it again last night and made the FT for the 2nd time on the trot, but got double muffed and went out 8th.

On the cash front, been grinding out very small profits and basically just ticking along. Had my first mentor session from Bad Beat and found it very interesting, I was glad to see that I was not doing much wrong, just lacked a little aggression which I was given some good advice on, also found I was wasting a lot of $$ over the course of the month limping from the small blind with shite just for value when other limpers are in the pot, I didn't really give this much thought, but if you are playing 10,0000 hands a month, I guess it adds up.

Still gonna stick with the cash for the foreseeable future, signed up to sun poker to play on there as well and get some rakeback and some of the decent deposit bonuses that they have on offer. Hopefully once I can get my 2nd monitor plugged in, I can then two table usa and two table sun poker at the same time and slowly build my roll up to a decent level. I also need to start doing some stts on stars as I have a $100 reload bonus still to get and need another 750 points to get it.

Quiz night tonight again, so out on the piss. Playing live at Broadway casino in Birmingham tomorrow night, so out on the piss. Friends 50th birthday party on saturday night, so errr out on the piss !! I think there is a trend forming here. Must be good next week, gonna set some new life goals, this time, will try to stick to them..........watch this space.

Goth

Grind Grind Grind

Sometimes, I feel just like a bot, sitting in front of my PC, playing hours and hours on end, for what reason I ask myself ?? Money of course I reply. Well, is it really worth all the hassle, the bad beats, the extreme bad launguage, the frightened dog, the bad calls, the ever diminshing bottle of Jack Daniels..........Well at this moment, I am not that sure, I have been putting a fair few hours in on the low level cash tables, but only had limited success. I keep trying to play solid hands in decent positions, but at 25c/50c tables, position and pot odds might as well be in a foreign language to most, put this with the sick beats, the slow playing my big hands that go wrong has left me only about $160 up after 6 weeks solid play. I won more than that coming 3rd in the laddies Hi/Lo the other weekend in 4 Hours !!!!

Should be speaking to my mentor in the next day or so, hopefully he can put my mind straight on the reasons I do what I do and that playing cash is the way forward to decent sustainable profit when played correctly, although I really do miss playing the odd MTTs and my old bread and butter the STTs.

The hours are starting to take there toll and I am thinking about 4 tabling instead of two, this way, I should be able to take more days off and play a few MTT's on my other logins, maybe even a bit of cash on other networks with some rakeback, just to tick over the bankroll and make it all worth while as you see bits of the winnings trickling into the old bank account and bringing my oversized mortgage down a bit.

Been following the WSOP updates and was gutted to find Kunku rivered in a huge pot with KK vs 22, sick sick sick, if he had piled up a very large stack he def could of gone all the way. Poker can be so cruel sometimes.

GL at the tables
Goth

The story so far.

Still annoyed with myself for not updating this blog as often as I would like, promised myself again to make a better effort, especially as have a lot of hands I would like to talk about.

Finished my first month as a trainee trader for bad beat approx $61 up............Hmmmmm, 200 table hours for $60, not quite what I was hoping for, but I guess its better than $60 down.

Still playing the 25c/50c 10 man tables. Generally sitting with $25 (not the full $50) this is due to the fact, if I am two tabling. I have only got 1 reload on each table. Two bad beats means I am finished for the day.

It was a strange sort of month, with what could of been a very profitable month destroyed by 5-6 large pots lost to incredible bad beats, but I guess thats poker, but still gets me angry.

My calmness is still getting tested to its limits, yesterday, I was $130 down at one point, having to reload 3 times on one table. Firstly calling a raise from a rock when I was on the button with J9, I had already put him on AA or KK, so thought I would see the flop. The flop was a perfect J97. I check raised him and he pushed. I called, he did indeed have AA, the turn bought his 7 for a higher two pair and me reloading. Second reload was a standard AA loss, large raise by me 3 callers, flop comes down all spades, I don't have the A of spades. I put in a pot sized bet of about $10, get rr. It folds around to me, I decided he has the bare A and push, he calls and shows AT spades.....Reload....I can't even remember the 3rd reload. Also reloaded on other table, can't remember why either. This had led me to a rather tilty mood as I was about $130 down at this point. I scraped a bit of loss back on one table, then, still angry, I was dealt KK. The rock of rocks raised, I min re-reaised him, he then Re-Re Raised me. I now know for a fact he has AA. So what do I do, I think fck it, the table owes be and I will probably muff him and I push.. Flop coms KxJ, Turn J, river x. He shows AA, and I take a muffy $85 pot. If I wasn't tilting I would have folded. But I am still not sure if I should ever ever lay down KK preflop in a cash game, even though I "knew" he had AA. One for the forums I guess, or if you can offer advice, please post on here.

I await a decision this week off bad-beat as to whether I carry on this month as a trainee trader. I have still not had any contact from my mentor, people keep saying they should contact me. Should I be allowed to carry on, I think I will push it a bit more, as at the end of the day, I did do the trainee thing to try and learn, I believe I am learning a lot, but without the mentoring, I think I will not be able to force out the weak traits that are in my game. Quite often I am in a situation where I think, If I do this, he will fold, but still just can't find the edge to do it. My instincts are getting a lot better, it just needs someone to "push" me to follow them through.

If I do get the all clear to carry on, I will try and post some of the key hands on here that I face and try and get some feedback/advice off anyone who cares to offer it.

Till then, its back to the grind, prob have today off as its "Quiz Night" and the braincell is in need of its Vitamin C..............Winona, here I come.

GL
Goth

The woes of cash

Been very lazy lately, a lot has happened in my poker life in the last 2 weeks since I posted. Firstly we had Dream Team II at the poker bunker in canary wharf. A great weekend was had, I would love to tell you all about it in great detail, but the beer has clouded quite a bit of my memory, was great to meet up with all of the crushed nutz lads/lasses (we were far the best turned out by the way, in our team uniforms) also good to meet some new faces, a big up to Steve (plum11/plum12) for organizing the mini bus to the big slick on the Friday night, where I managed to go out about 15th in the rebuy tourney there, when my 77 failed to hold up against the chippies AT. Kaz has put a bit more of the story of the weekend on her page (link on side of blog) as she can recall more than I can ;-) Apologies to Virgin Trains for me puking up in the bog on the trip back to Brum, but I did got most of it in the pan (or very close)

June also saw the start of me being a trainee trader for bad-beat, which I have found a real challenge. Cash, has never been a real strong point of mine, but I have always held my own and made a small profit from it over the years, this was meant to be my chance to improve my game and learn from those far superior that me (not that difficult I know !!) I decided to build slowly and try and build up a $100 profit at 10c/20c then move up, I did not envisage encountering the amazing muppetry that is around on USA poker at that level. So after 4000+ hand and 60 table hours for about $30 profit, I decided to move up anyway to 25c/50c. I don't know why I am shocked but the play is just as bad at that level. I feel like I am being robbed at the moment, I def feel like I am playing some semi decent poker, although I am grinding out hands rather than winning the pots with constant aggression, but steadily moving up to about $50 profit after the 1st day at the level. Then yesterday came along and smacked me truly in the face. I was playing two tables, and within 4 hands, I lost my stack on both. Table 1 went as follows.

I get QQ in early position, raise to $2, get rr by small blind to about $4 (hes just landed on table) I flat call. flop comes KQ2 rainbow, happy days I think (if he has KK, so be it) I check. He bets about $7, I decide to go all in over the top, he thinks for about 5 seconds, then calls. To save you the suspense, he has called me with A5......Ace Fcking 5 !! The turn brings a 3 and the river the more than obvious 4, to give him the 5 high straight and all my chips. I don't often jump in shock, cos I have seen most things in poker, but that was just unreal. I was speechless, the other players on the table did the abuse for me amazingly enough. He then proceded to lose all the $100, reload another $50 and lose that in the next 10 mins !!!!

Meanwhile on the other table, I call a $2 raise with 88 and the flop comes 8 high. I end up all in against TT (not the worse call to be fair) but the river brings the T for me to lose my stack again.

Finally after reloading I call a raise with JT sooooooted and flop comes xTT, happy days, I check he bets $2.50, I raise, he calls. turn comes rag. I bet $5 he calls. River brings a king. I think, I bet the software has fcked me and he has KK, I then think no, it couldn't be that cruel, so go all in, he calls instantly and shows KK Aaaaaaaaaaagggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh. I am not one to think online poker is rigged, but todays session is unreal.

I am now down to about $30 of my $200 daily allowance and think fck it, I don't care if I lose the lot today. I go all in with an open ended and hit to double up, then after flat calling bets chasing two open ended str8 draws and missing, I win both bit pots by rr them all in on bluffs both times and getting them to fold. I finish the session with $120 and only $80 down, but annoyingly down overall for the month.

It is interesting that it was only my tilting that led me to be ultra agressive with massive bluffs on the river, but it has given me a bit more of an insight in what you can do in cash games if your balls are big enough.

Not had a chance to speak to my mentor yet as he has been away playing live, looking forward to but I am not sure how my sanity, or my marriage can hold up if I have many more days like this playing cash. Guess I have a lot to learn.

Watch this space for more regular updates on my quest for cash glory, hopefully this blog won't turn into a bad beat whingers corner.

Goth

For Better or Worse

Well, I thought it was getting better.....but its just got a lot worse.

The bad run on stars went to 11, then pulled it all back, then another bad run, along with a few satellite entries, small lossed on cash, has taken me to about $250 down on the month. I must admin I am finding it very difficult to handle the swings. The only good thing, is that I know I am playing well, the outdraws have been, well, fcking unreal, which if I sit back and look at it realistically, means I must be doing something right, but looking at my graphs, it just don't look like it, but I will play through it.

Next month sees a big change in what I will be doing, I will be playing almost solely cash and with the help of bad beat as a trainee trader, I really hope I can learn a lot and move up to the next level. Its a bit annoying that I am doing this on the back of my first losing month this year, but I still think I am doing things right on the sng front. I still am unsure how my game will transfer into a cash arena, as I always think I am being bullied more in cash games than tourneys and tend to make some poor calls, playing more cash, should hopefully eradicate this problem and hopefully make me a more profitable player and move up the levels.

I will not be publishing my stats for a while, as I have decided to drop my yearly goal and concentrate solely on becoming a better more agressive player, should this prove succesfull the profits should be on at least the same level I make now, hopefully a lot more.

We have been discussing a few things on kaz's forum of late and I think we haev all realised that we want to learn more and take the game a bit more seriously, hopefully if we can all chip, we can all become better players.

On a more fun note, we are all off to Canary Wharf the weekend for Dream Team II, hopefully we will have as much fun this year as we did last, we are going down on the Friday this time and will be playing a live tourney at the bigslick on the friday night for a bit of practice and hopefully take home a few ££££

Will update you the outcome if I can remember any of it.

See you all at the bunker if you are going, i'll be the fat long haired one stopping the bar from falling into the room ;-)

Goth

A real struggle

May has been a nightmare, my bad run on the stars sngs eventually went to 12 in a row, out of the money, 6 of which were 4ths, was sooo tempted to take all of me dosh out of stars, but then thought whats the point, all sites are the same, its just our perception thats different. At this stage I was about $240 down for the month overall, after not having too much success on the cash tables either. I decided the only way to get out of this, was to play my way out, I know in the long run, I win on the stars $10 sngs, so I have just started to play them even more. Its good to say the luck has turned around slightly and I have pulled back over half my monthly losses so far, the ai'm now is to grind them out and try and get back into the black for the month. Its a good time to do it at the moment as stars are giving double fpp points, every little helps.

I won't be playing much poker today as it is one of my fave days of the year, its FA cup final day. Which basically means a day in the pub watching footy, talking bollocks and getting rat arsed. So if you do see me playing on the tables later on today, I apologise in advance for any drunken muffings I give out ;-)

I have also applied to be a trainee trader at bad beat, I really want to improve my cash game and bad beat has some excellent cash game players, who hopefully will be able to show me where I am going wrong. If it doesn't work out, so be it, but hopefully I will be given the chance to try.

Anyway, bacon buttie has now firmly in me belly, lets just hope I don't get to see it again later. Off to the pub it is, cya later.

Goth

For Fourths Sake !!

May so far has been a real rocky ride, I started off well, going about $100 up quite quickly in a few days, then a bad run on mansion playing cash, turned this into an almost $100 loss for the month, picked this back up to $50 profit again grinding it out. Then yesterday was a complete nightmare. Pokerstars are doing a great promotion on their 10 Billion hand. So this lead for me to put in $400, as if I am going to play there, I might as well get some bonus back. This with the next 10 days getting double FPP's seemed the perfect chance to build up some decent points. However, Stars seemed to want to get its bonus back off me in the first few days, I started off well getting a 2nd in my first STT, then 6 on the trot not making the money, this was made even worse with the last 4 all being 4ths !!!! all being muffed, by idiots calling all in ins with J8 soooooted and the like. What is a man to do.

Played a couple of sats as well and got no where, so I am now back to $100 down for the month. Got a lot of grinding out to do.

I am still toying with the idea of playing more cash and feel I am starting to get slightly better, I have a couple of cash players giving me some advice, but I am sticking firmly at the 25c/50c level at the moment, although playing on mansion you come up against the same players quite a lot and the bad beat traders are easy enough to spot, courtesy of meds passion for star trek, so I try and keep away from some of them.

Last day of the footy season today and I am hoping that west ham get there just deserts and get relegated, they cheated end of story and should of been docked points. Anyway, there is only room in prem for one Claret and Blue Army.....Up The Villa !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Goth

April Stats

Not a bad month considering I lost 10 days play due to travelling to vegas etc. Helped by eventually obtaining the Stars bonus, which helped put me on track for my yearly target. So here is my stats from April

Total Profit = $401.77
MTTs Played = 8
MTT Final Tables made = 1 (12.25%)
MTT in the Money = 1 (12.25%) - NB Includes FT's
MTT Total $ won = $ 150.00
MTT Profit = $97.60
SNG Played = 52
SNG Profit = $140.85
SNG ITM = 48.08%
Cash Profit/loss = $1.82
Syndi Profit/Loss -$22.00
Bonus Earned = $200

Started well this month on the STT's, but cash has been a disaster so far, so only slightly up on month at the moment. Gonna play the Stars 25k $5 rebuy muff fest at 23:00 tonight, will play as a $15 f/o (rebuy at start and addon) and try and dodge the muffs, then hope to pick up a few hands after the first break. I have only played it 3 times, but made the money once, but you really have to be prepared to spend $50 or get very lucky, but its a fun event.

Starting to have a change of heart about publishing my profit stats, as I think it is making me be too careful. I think I am also going to play a few more sats, which at the moment I don't do, so will publish these if I carry on as well, my biggest MTT win this year so far has been $150, so I need to get into the bigger events, so I can get the one or two big payouts you need in a year to move your roll to the next level.

Also thinking about moving back up to the $20 STT on stars again, or 4 tabling the $10, either way, I would like to get up the next VIP level and see what I can do with the points for a bit of extra profit.

Got a lot of ideas what I want to concentrate on over the coming months, but not sure what I will decide. Will let you all know once I do.

Almost up to 300 STT for this year on Stars, will publish my full stats on there once I have, makes some strange reading, well I think so.......

Goth

Viva Las Vegas

What can I say, if you haven't been to vegas, make sure it is on your next holiday destination. What a great place and if you can, stay at the Bellagio, I have never been in a hotel like it. The customer service there was incredible, I can't recommend them highly enough, although looking at the people I bumped into, I would not like to play poker there, it was packed full of stars, the highlight being seeing Barney Boatman, 15th in the Q in the shop trying desperately to buy a can of red bull and a bag of nuts in one of the big tourney breaks.


Our wedding went better than to be expected, the staff in the chapel at the Bellagio were fantastic and everything went smooth and Amanda looked stunning in her red wedding dress, which was a major shock to me as I thought it was going to be ivory.

We had quite a few friends over from the UK and had a wonderful buffet in our penthouse suite on the evening, the rooms even had their own bar and came with our very own barman called jimmy, which was a bonus as we had to send him out 3 times to restock it due to over consumption.

The other reason for going to vegas was to play poker, as we were only out there for a week and spent a fair bit of time sorting the wedding out etc, I agreed to play just the one tournie. Tipster was staying at the MGM grand and had already made the FT of one of their $65 morning tournies, but came 7th with top 5 paid. So we both entered the $125 evening one there. The standard of the players was truly apalling. I just sat there waiting for hands and betting big when I hit and always got paid off. I won a couple of races and before I knew it, both tipster and I were both on the final table. 57 entrants, top 5 paid. tipster was on my button, so we agreed early on to keep out of pots unless we had big hands. Unfortunately, 3 hands into the FT, I looked down and found AQ sooted on tipsters BB, the blinds were quite big with large antes, so I couldn't hang around, I had about 12k in chips, blinds were 800/1600 with 200 antes, so I raised to 5000, got 1 caller on the button. The flop came down AJ2, with the J and 2 off my soot. Perfect I thought, with 12k in the pot I only had 7k left, so I pushed, he called instantly and showed JJ and had flopped a set. No flush to save me and I was out 10th. I was gutted, but still happy to have made an Final Table in Vegas. The good news is, tipster went on to finish 4th to get $570, we had agreed a 75/25 cut, so I got my buyin back so all was happy.

I will def be trying for the wsop next year, will give this year a miss to give others a chance ;-)

Still feeling the effects of jet lag which helped my stats for April, as I ended up playing the Laddies Graveyard for the first time as I could not sleep and ended up on the FT going out 7th after getting my 99 muffed by A4 sooted.

Going to vegas has altered my feelings about poker, instead of just doing it as a hobby and making a few extra grand a year, I really want to learn more about the game. I had an offer off Bad Beat at the beginning of April to be a trainee trader, but couldn't take it up because of the wedding, I am waiting to hear back from them to see if I can try again in future months, cash is not a strong point of mine, but I think with a bit of help I could turn a steady profit.

Won't be able to play as much this week as I would like as there is lots of footy on and I am still off work, so the pub beckons, but I hope to fit a few mtts and stts and a bit of cash in during the sobre periods.

I have done my stats for April, but will publish them in a few days, will also try to keep my blog updated more often as I am getting lazy. I hope to try to improve all aspects of my life now that I am married, hopefully starting financially, but hey, don't we all dream of that.

GL at the tables.

Goth

Off to Vegas to get Married !!!!!

Sorry girls but, but you all had your chance ;-) but I will flying out to Vegas tomorrow morning with my beautiful girlfriend of 10 years Amanda to get wed. We will be tying the knot on wednesday afternoon, in the south chapel at the Bellagio Hotel. Then its back up to the suite with our friends and family for a buffet and a few bottles of bubbly and even more bottles of red wine and god knows what else we can shove down our throats.

I am really looking forward to it and I even have permission off the wife (to be) to play a poker tournie while we are over there. My best man Ian, who plays under the nick tipster69 on laddies and the_tench on crypto will be with me by my side as we intend to "try" and stay sobre enough that we can see the cards that we are being dealt (see previous post about playing live together !!) We believe there is a regular $130 buy in at the MGM which has a restricted entry so the fields don't get to big, so this is prob the event we intend to muff it up in. In fact I think I need to win the tourney in order that I can check out of the Bellagio without having to do a weeks washing up to pay the bill !!!

Hope to take plenty of photos and will put them up on www.pokergoth.com on my return for you all to laugh at.

On the home poker front, I have not been playing as much as I would have liked as I have had a lot of things to sort out, but I have at last managed to get the $150 bonus on stars, so I can go back to MTT's for a while to break the monotony of playing sngs, although I am seriously considering hitting the sngs real hard on my return and 4 tabling them every chance I got, stars would seem to be the best place to do this, I'll see how I feel on my return from Vegas, if I do well, I might even try and start playing live more regularly (without the influence of beer) just to see if it can help my overall game.

I've got all 3 harrington books to read on the plane on the way over, so as long as I don't get off the other end pissed as a fart, hopefull i'll learn summat on the way over.

So, I will see you all soon. Good luck at the tables, and may all your rivers dish out a good muffing.

Goth.

March Stats

Well March was a very strange month indeed. As I mentioned earlier got off to a flying start, then hit a real bad run on the stars sngs to be down for the month, picked up again to get back to level, then with the help of a couple of bonuses from new sites I have joined and a 2nd in the laddies midday high stack the month turned out reasonably well. If I had had just an average month on the sngs it would have been a very good month, but hopefully the worst of it is behind me for a while. The good news is that I should finish the stars bonus in the next couple of weeks, then will probably move on to Mansion as I have $400 worth of bonuses to collect there.

Anyway here are my stats for March:-

Total Profit = $326.38
MTTs Played = 9
MTT Final Tables made = 2 (22.22%)
MTT in the Money = 7 (77.77%) - NB Includes FT's
MTT Total $ won = $ 142.61
MTT Profit = $54.09
SNG Played = 87
SNG Profit = $25
SNG ITM = 40.91%
Cash Profit/loss = $89.30
Syndi Profit/Loss $7.99
Bonus Earned:- $150

Overall profit for year is $1173.51, which actually puts me slightly behind the schedule I had set myself, but well up on this stage last year, so can't moan at the moment.

Looking at the MTT results, maybe I should be playing more of them again, but I have vowed to cut them down until I have finished my goal on stars. Will then see what happens then.

Goth

Late Live Results

Haven't updated for a while, which is a shame, cos I know you are all dying to know how I got on, I did actual post what happened on the pokerkaz forum and I am too lazy to write it again so i'm just gonna cut and paste and edit it a bit.

We started drinking straight after work, which in hindsight was not a good idea. The beer really started to kick in after the break and the end of the rebuy period, which I managed to no have to rebuy. However, I had a small row with the mgmt as I was convinced I had 4300 chips before the add on and when I returned I still had 4300 acusing them of stealing 1k of chips. Waking up the followiung morning, i remember clearly thinking the add was after the break so I hadn't done one, which is a bit embarassing. Then, not having cards for while, it all folds around to me on small blind I raise massive with QT sooted, only to find that utg was all in, my raise stands so had to go all in myself, the BB then goes all in and I think I am walking. We all flip over, UTG has A6, BB has JJ, Q on flop, thankyou very much, gg u2

I then played my normal game picking up the odd pot now and then and got down to last 20, getting short stacked, middle pos get dealt 96os, early raiser, so i'm def folding. I go to push my cards in, but little miss winona plays the sneaky hand switch trick and i accidently push me fcking chips in instead of me cards, I only notice this when the dealer says all in !!!!!!!!!!!!AGGGGGGGGGGGGGGhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. The BB also calls. 9 on flop, they check it down and Goth takes the pot looool

I then get completely card dead then for next half hour, eventually pushed with AJsoooted and was all in vs KJ and in true laddies style, the king drops on the flop and I go out 13th, with top 10 only paid. Tipster was vul, he played great solid poker and could of folded into the final table, but made one move at the wrong time and went out 15th, needless to say he was gutted, but he has the bug, we are def going to do this once a quarter now, so will let you know when we next go.

So it has been back to the online poker for the last 10 days and for the first 7, I had one of my worst runs on stars ever with a run of beats that would normally require at least a couple of new laptops and a trip to the vets. But I have perservered and I have managed to get back to $200 up for the month so far, when I had actually gone into negative figures at one stage, which was very soul destroying.

Only about another 60 $10 sngs on stars to get the $150 bonus and Amanda is away on her hen weekend in Dublin, which means its beer and poker all weekend woohoo !!

So see you all at the tables.
Goth

Off to play some live poker

Tonight I am off to play some live poker at the Broadway Casino in Birmingham, they have a £20 rebuy tourney that starts at approx 9pm. This late start creates a slight problem in that, I finish work at 5pm, I can't be arsed to go all the way home to come back again, so there is the dilemma. What do you do for 4 hours before the tournie starts, take a gentle walk, pop to the library, phone relatives and friends.....No fcking chance.....its the pub, its beer and its gonna be plenty of it. Even at a conservative pace, its gonna be 5 winonas before we land in the casino, then it will be registration and back to the bar. I have no self discipline, my thinking behind this is if I have a shit tournie, at least i'll be pissed and had a good time. The thought of being sobre and losing £120 in muffy rebuys to some twat calling all ins with 63 off suit and flopping quads to crack your aces does not bear thinking about. So beer it will be.

Hopefully this will be good practice for when I go off to Vegas next month to get married, tipster69 (AKA the_tench on some sites) my best man is coming with me, he likes the odd tot too so it could be a long session, lets just hope if I make the final table I don't throw up on it.

I'll let you know how I get on.
Goth

There Here !!!

The poker gods that is, and as strummer quiet often says, when they land, they land with a big slap around the chops and a squeeze of the the old bollocks.....

Started off the month ok, got to about $180 up, then it all started going wrong, trips into higher trips, trips into made straights, you know the story. My stars sng rate has dropped to below $2.50, if it wasn't for the bonus, a measly $150, i'd leave the site for a while and move on for a bit. I know these runs happen and I am just going to have to play though it, but it really does get to you after a bit.

Just will have to keep plugging on, at least the small amount of cash I am playing is covering the sng losses at the moment, but at this rate I think I will do well to be in profit at the end of this month.

Hope you are all having better luck than me.

Feb Stats

Bit of an up and down sort of month. Just grinding out the stars sngs to get the bonus still. Just could not hit the firsts often enough to pull in a good month, seemed to keep getting muffed into 3rd place, but still a profitable month so can't complain. No big wins as I only played 13 MTTS. Would like to have won more over the month, but it could of been a lot worse.

Total Profit = $278.27
MTTs Played = 13
MTT Final Tables made = 2 (15.38%)
MTT in the Money = 5 (38.46%) - NB Includes FT's
MTT Total $ won = $ 94.61
MTT Profit = $19.21
SNG Played = 83
SNG Profit = $203.71
SNG ITM = 53.01%
Cash Profit/loss = $50.95
Syndi Profit/Loss -$20.60 ($19 still to come back)
Bonus Earned:- $25

Hope to do better this month, but still gonna push the sngs if I get the time.

GL at the tables
Goth

Answered my own question + New Forum

Well, it didn't take long to solve the Cash vs SNG question, 4 short sessions on laddies and a $120 loss over them, has made me think maybe it was just a good run of cards that put me $200 up and not my own play. It is amazing at one moment, you are hitting the nut hand everytime and someone is all in with you with the 2nd nut hand. A week later and its the other way round. My big hands are walking into bigger hands or I am getting nothing at all. I shall still persevere playing a little cash, but I think I am still going to concentrate on the sngs for now. Saying that, I have played 6 on stars this am and I have only got 1 3rd, but I think this is due to serious lack of concentration watching soccer am and the Man U/Fulham game while playing, as well as updating this blog and making the odd change on www.pokergoth.com.

On the subject of my website, I have decided to add a new forum to the site, hopefully to get some serious poker chat going instead of the abuse that goes on via the ladbrokes forum, which to be honest, I think I am gonna stop reading it as it is starting to get on my nerves. Follow the link to forums off the pokergoth home page and please feel free to join the forum and put your poker views across.

More good news for the site, I am hoping to shortly offer 30% rakeback to anyone who joins Mansion Poker via my links. I have been very impressed with Mansion so far, all the dealings I have had with them have been very positive, I just hope they start getting the numbers that they deserve. This is the total opposite to DTD poker, who have stated that they do the affiliate side manually !!!! ffs, I know for a fact that at least 4 poeple have joined via my links, yet they have a record of only 1, which is someone I have never heard of. They also constantly ignore my emails, I am more than a little disappointed with the site so far as I thought with the people involved the site would have been a lot more professional than they are. Lets see if they can redeem themselves in the future.

Will be down the pub later on to watch the rugby, hopefully we can turn the irish over and bring some pride back to our shores.

Also good luck to James tonight in DTD 12k G, £50, he is playing for our mini syndi, sot get in there and bring home the bacon.

Goth

SNGS Vs Cash + Quality Muffing

Most of my poker career so far has been carried out on the sng tables of various sites, starting on our spiritual home Ladbrokes, migrating on to Full Tilt and then onto my current sng home Stars, two years ago I was playing $20 on ladbrokes regularly and ticking over a small profit, this was until I had a dreaded 13 in a row not placing in the cash. In those days I used to take my winnings out on a frequent basis and spending it as and when, so I was actually playing above what my bankroll should be. Since then I have dropped down to the $10 level and with the help of the odd MTT win built my roll up to the level where I should now move back to the $20 level and not move down again. During this period of timeI did not touch the cash tables as I always felt my main style of play was a little too conservative to give long term profit like it does on the sngs. However, just lately, I have been playing more and more cash games and enjoying what I am seeing. I have been mainly playing the laddies .15 / .30 cash tables between the hours of 23:00 and 1.00 on the 10 seater tables and I have been pleasantly surprised on how successful I have been. My hourly rate at this level at the moment is almost double that of my sngs. So, I have a dilemma, what do I concentrate more on, cash or sngs with the odd MTT or drop the sngs for a while and play more cash and MTT's. Any advice would be appreciated as I am in a bit of a dilemma at the moment.

On another note we have set up a little syndi via the pokerkaz forum, where 10 of us play a $10 sng, winner takes all and agrees to play in $100 worth of tournies (min entry $25, so no 100 x $1 turbos lenny hehe) and then share out the winnings amongst the players. Last week Lexus2 won the syndi (was only a $50 one test the water) and made the final table on the Vegas $50 to give us a small profit on our first week. This week, I managed to leave my rock hat at home and jumped on the muff bandwagon, betting with shit and calling all ins with anything that added up to nine or was sooted. So when heads up with James and with a slight chip lead, when he re-raised me all in with his AJ and I looked down and saw 6 3 sooted, I just had to call. A bunch of low cards on the flop gave me the open ended str8, and everyone knew the laddies river would reward the muff. I duly took home the $100 1st prize. I could feel a tear in lennys eye as his proud padwar had turned jedi under his watchful tutorage..........Long live the muff.

I have not decided which tourney to play yet, but the $100 100K guaranteed on Mansion looks favourite at the moment, probably on Saturday night. I just hope I can do the boys proud and bring home some more beer vouchers.

You know where to download it if you haven't already ;-)

Goth.

Bad Beat or Bad Sports ??

Had a bit of a shock this week. I had noticed recently that the Bad Beat website had taken its Blogs section off, which was a shame, cos I used to use it as a link to other peoples blogs to have a nose, but I thought nothing of it. Then at the start of the week ShaneMcg put a post on the forum asking why they had gone. In true ladbrokes style, nobody from the Bad Beat site could be bothered to respond. I therefore put a post on responding to Shane stating that now the Blogs link had gone, if he sent me a list of the blogs he regularly looked at, I would stick them all up on my new iccle site so he could have a central point to link to them all, which I thought was a nice gesture on my part. But low and behold, Bad Beat decided that I must be a massive threat to their $5 million corporation and almost immediately removed my post.....WTF....are they scared of. It seems to me that the so called site for poker players is no more than a large corporate whore and all that counts to them is the $$$ fuck the players, show them the $$$, all I was trying to do was help a fellow player with a few links.....I have lost a lot of respect for Bad Beat after that. I may understand why they took it off, but some common courtesy from them to me would be all it would have took in the form of an email or comment on the forum. Small things like that make all the difference, but that seems to be beyond them.

Poker been going good, was about $200 up until this am when I got muffed for $45 on stars cash when I pushed all in on an AKx flop with AK and got instacall from QT, the J on the turn gave him what I knew was coming.

Bit depressed today as a lot of the nutz crew are all meeting up in liverpool for a days drinking, gambling and then to the casino on the night. I am getting married in april, so not doing anything big till after this. I will post more on this in the next couple of weeks.

Prob go down the pub to watch the villa vs reading lunchtime, our new signings look like they really could turn the club around. Hopefully will not get too pissed, so I can play poker later.....

Goth

www.pokergoth.com and January Stats

Well my website is up and running, please pay it a visit and let me know what you think, still got to adjust the colours and add a lot of links, but i'm a lazy git and fit it in while I am playing sit and goes, prob not a good idea as i've played 6 tonight and only got 1 2nd so far. On a little bad run on stars at the moment, i'm sure its down to lack of concentration, must work harder on this.

Still January turned out to be a good month and was over $650 up at one stage before finally settling on the stats below:-

Total Profit = $590.36
MTTs Played = 29
MTT Final Tables made = 6 (20.69%)
MTT in the Money = 10 (29%) - NB Includes FT's
MTT Total $ won = $418.38
MTT Profit = $256.48
SNG Played = 67
SNG Profit = $214.50
SNG ITM = 50.75%
Cash Profit/loss = $123.78

Happy with month overall, will settle for all this year being like that ;-)

Goth

Cash Crash

I played in the 500pp freeroll on laddies fully expecting to make it through to the monthly 50k final as the last time I played in it, the play was so so poor, I just must get through. However I did not count on finding QQ in my bb, with about 4 limpers, I put a very large raise in hoping to take the pot down there and then, they all folded except for 1, who rr me all in. I decided he had a mid pair and was gambling or hoping I was just defending my blind. I called immediately and was happy when he turned over JJ, but the J on the turn prempted a bit of laptop slapping and a couple of keys flying across the lounge........grrrrrrrrrr.

So it was back to the cash tables, with only a 2 day period to get another 500 pp, this was going to be tricky playing .15c / .30c 1 table at a time. But I perservered and I am currently up to about 300, hoping to get the rest tonight. The honeymoon period is def over after not having a losing cash session all month, 3 out of the 4 sessions I played yesterday were losing ones and having to reload twice, this could turn out to be an expensive freeoll. Highlight was having my AA cracked by 55 on a JJ5 flop, I guess it was my own fault as I saw the flop, bet big and could not lay down my AA when RR, I even put him on 55 and not a Jack and still called, what a numpty. Eventually finished the day about $55 down, my biggest losing day this month.

Hopefully tonights session will get me to the 500 points needed without too much damage to my meagre cash roll.

Goth.

Plodding Along

2007 has started very well on the old poker front. Assteady profit on the MTTs, sngs, and even cash...yes, Gothman the rock, is winning on cash....AND on Ladbrokes, wtf is going on. While other poker colleagues seem to be taking an absolute hammering by the famous laddies river, I seem to be dodging all, I guess if someones winning, others are losing. As long as I am the winning one...who cares :-)

Currently just over $600 up for the month, with the best result being a 2nd in the one of the laddies $3 high stack tournies. This turned out to be the most frustrating heads up battles I have ever had. We were about equal stacks heads up, when the player (can't remember his name) decided that even with playable blinds was gonna be "all in or fold" He added to this, a lot of word play, ie "ooh, I have 5 2, I can't lose" then went all in. How do you play against this, every raise I did with hands like QJ KT etc, he would just go all in. The only way I could beat him was to trap. I then found KK in the SB, and duly flat called and waited. He being the muppet he was, went all in. My KK stood up and I was now 850K chips to his 50K, with blinds at 6K/12k. Easy...job done. But no. 5 mins later after he went all in every hand, I had finished 2nd..........He obv could not play heads up poker so decided to gamble and it payed off, maybe his tactic was not so bad after all, but i can't say I was amused.

So no MTT wins, but 6 Final tables and 4 other cash finishes in only 23 tournies, I can't really complain.

The 300 $10 sngs to get my $150 deposit bonus on Poker Stars has slowed down. Not had a win for while, plenty of 2nds and 3rd, but the wins have dried up. Now only about $200 up on them in approx 50+ games, not really looking forward to grinding out another 250 just to get the bonus, but I probably will do it over the 6 months instead of the 3 that I had planned.

On another note, I have decided to set up my own website, it is still very much in its infancy, but I plan to try and develop it over the next few months, it is very basic as I know fck all about html at the moment, but if it takes off I might develop the site more.

If you want to have a quick peak at the initial stages it can be found at :-

www.pokergoth.com

Feel free to email any comments or requests either on here or email the address on the site itself, only had a play for a couple of hours so far, so please don't be to harsh.

I have applied for a couple of websites affiliates, hopefully these will get approved, then I will be banging on all your doors to get you too sign up via my links or ELSE ;-)

Goth

A decent start

Well the new year as ever brings new hope, new goals, dreams of a better life and more success. So far, all is well. The $10 sngs on stars are going well with an ITM of 52.8% at the moment, along with an hourly rate of $6.77. Only played 36 so far as I seem to still be getting distracted by "other" stuff.

MTTs have not been too bad, played about 18, with 3 final tables, the best finish being a 3rd in the laddies $4 19:45 high stack, with 3 other cash finishes giving me a small profit on them so far.

Also been dabbling on the low level cash tables to get the player points to get in the monthly 50k freeroll on laddies. Had 8 sessions so far and left the table in profit in all of them, never having to reload once........but I am sure this will come to an end.

Currently about $360 up for the month, so hopefully if I can keep going as consistantly as I am it could be a very good start to the year. Was only $106 up in Jan last year, so I am going to try and track my progress against this for my target.

I have changed my playing style slightly and loosened up a bit, which seems to be paying off at the moment, but I doubt I will ever be able to lose my basic "rock" style of play, but a few more moves here and there seem to be working.

Good Luck to all and may the river be kind to all this year.
Goth

Out with a whimper + Yearly Stats

Well, I failed to hit the goal, too much chasing it ended in some poor decisions being made and 3 times during month I was over $100 down, at one stage was over $180. In fact if it wasn't for a few good hands on cash tables I could have had a really bad month. As it was, I ended the month $11 down, only the 2nd time in the year I had a negative month. Overall I can't complain, I made more profit this year than last. Considering I only had one big mtt win (had 3 in 2006) it shows I must have been a lot more consistant, especially in MTTs.

Anyway, here are my stats for 2006

Overall Profit = $3602.52
MTT Played = 605
MTT Total Winnings = $6100.52
MTT Total Profit = $2091.07
MTT Final Tables = 69 (11.45%)
SNG Profit = $1310.40
Cash Profit = $186.32

Better than a kick in teeth, but not the 4k I had set my target for, i'm more pleased with making Final Tables 11.45% of the time. I haven't broke down the placings yet, but I think I do have problems getting there with a big stack, so I guess I have a lot of 6th-10th places rather than top 5 finishes, I will break them down later this week and whack um up on here.

Not sure what I am going to concentrate on this year, enjoyed playing the cash tables in december, but only cos I was winning on them, I know how easy it is too lose big pots against poor players and then go on tilt.

Have set my target for this year at $4.5k profit. Gonna hit the $10 sngs really hard in Jan on stars as I have put $600 back in to get there 25% deposit promotion, need to play 300 $10 sngs to get $150 lol, but hopefully make some profit on the way. Started off well, played 3, won two and 1 3rd. Also played 4 MTTs on laddies so far, with 1 Final table and one other cash finish, so the month has got off to a good start. Long may it continue.

It also seems that leaguenutz is no more, as no one has heard anything since the site went down before xmas. We have lost our forum on there, but Wildrick and pokerkaz have set a new one up for us to chat and talk bollocks on. I have put a link on the side of my blog, please feel free to join the site and have some fun and maybe even learn a thing or too about poker....

So Happy New to you all and good luck at the tables, except when i'm on them witih you.
Goth