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

Sick and tired....but....

The poker has picked up.....

Came home from work on Monday ill, first time I have been off sick for over 5 years and the last time was 2 weeks off with a knacked ankle play footy.

So since monday evening, I have been wrapped up in a blanket all fires and central heating on and a box of tissues by my side (a normal practice I know, but these ones were for blowing my nose)

The good thing about the sport of poker, is that not being able to physically move cos of illness, actually helps. So laptop has been on non stop as I have struggled to sleep at night due to constant coughing and the odd throw up session as I can't keep any food down, prob due to the antibiotics for me chest.

Managed to make two final tables, 1st one in the farce that was the disco affected Monday night laddies hangover tour, I even let my timer run down every hand for over half an hour to allow people to get back in, while some of the twats with the bigger stacks tried to raise every pot, some people just have no class at all. Eventually went out 8th with AK vs QQ for a 90k pot, laddies cruelly gave me the A on the flop, then the K on the turn, before dropping the Q on the river to make my heart jump and send me packing. On the final table was angel1975 and angel deserves a worthy mention too, as she was getting a lot of stick cos of her massive stack early on from some of the railbird idiots, who clearly thought, that she had stolen them from disco'd players, they obv do not know her and the class and etiquette she brings to the game, shame on them I say. Maybe they should watch angel play more often, they would then know how she gets those large stacks.....

The other FT was when I came 2nd in a $1 tourney against one of the worst players I have seen, the phrase "don't send a message to someone who can't read" should have stuck in my mind as he ignored every move I made and called down with bottom pair everytime and hit everything. Shame leaguenutz site is being upgraded as that would have extended my lead this months league by a good margin. We are not sure when or if the site will be back, but thats another story.

Managed to break my 17 sng run on Full Tilt out of the money, maybe the tide has turned on this site for me.....but I doubt it.

2 sng wins on stars in a row this morning have now put me back in profit for the month, the 2nd time I have come from over $100 down.

Looks like I am going to be off work for the whole week cos I still feel bolloxed, I also do not want to be risk being ill over xmas with my family and after 5 years in work every day, I think maybe I am owed a day or two.

Goth

All time poker low

Well, it seems that I have lost the plot totally. No matter what I do I can't win at poker anymore. My sng results have been absolutely appalling, I moved back to laddies to play them after a stinking run of 4ths on stars, so bad I withdrew half my roll out of stars. However, my run of 4ths has carried on to laddies as well, 5 out of 8 sngs yesterday ended in 4ths, with most of them the short stack keep doubling and me getting almost blinded out. When I am agressive, I get called with shit and get muffed. I really am at my wits end with sngs at the moment, I have even put some money back in full tilt to try the sngs there again (which I said I would never do !) Also bubbled in 11th in the 23:15 omaha on laddies last night, just to cap a wonderful day off.

On a funnier note, I played live poker twice this week at the broadway casino in brum, very good setup I must say. Now as most of you who know me, I am a $10/$20 max player. So on wednesday, on my yearly xmas shopping day/piss up (first pint of winona at 09:30) drinking all day, I land in the casino at about 8pm. Struggle to fill in the membership form as I have lost the ability to write !! So when you are so drunk you can't see the cards, what do you do. Yes, you got it, you enter a £100 f/o tourney. Fcking great idea I thought.....only 17 entrants, top 3 paid. Amazingly enough I managed to come 6th (no idea how) put lost a few of my chips twice when the dealer looked at me and I thought he wanted to put in my BB, only to find I had flat called with 94 os (sounds familiar lex lol) Also button raising on steal not realising two people are in teh pot !!! Doh.....

Friday night was my works do, so again, drinking starting at about 13:00, fast pace, a £20 rebuy just seemed the thing to do.....6-7 rebuys and 1 add on later, I managed a solid 95th out of about 110, when I button raised with 66, bb called, and I pushed on an AJ2 flop, to find him with AJ. Not quite my normal rock like play lol.

Oh well, maybe I need to play some live poker when not smashed out me brains. I guess beer and poker really do not go together.

Anyway, back to the daily grind, playing sngs at the moment, 4 playedtoday , only 1 2nd, with 1 on full tilt going out first hand with JJ vs 88. The story of my week I guess

The end of year goal is out the window, just gonna try to keep the yealy profit above $3.5k, might take a gamble at the end in of the month and try a couple of the $50 tourneys just to see what happens, I have only ever played it once and made the final table, so might be worth a gamble.

GL at the tables.
Goth

Muffs Revenge

This time its my turn.....

PokerStars Game #7365486387: Tournament #37666980
$10+$1 Hold'em No Limit - Level VIII (200/400) - 2006/12/09 - 08:34:20
(ET)Table '37666980 1' 9-max Seat #5 is the button
Seat 2: BrazilianEye (7355 in chips)
Seat 4: GothmanUK (2025 in chips)
Seat 5: ausdaryll (4120 in chips)
BrazilianEye: posts the ante 25
GothmanUK: posts the ante 25
ausdaryll: posts the ante 25
BrazilianEye: posts small blind 200
GothmanUK: posts big blind 400

*** HOLE CARDS ***Dealt to GothmanUK [Ad Qd]
ausdaryll: raises 400 to 800
BrazilianEye: raises 3200 to 4000
GothmanUK: calls 1600 and is all-in
ausdaryll: raises 95 to 4095 and is all-in
BrazilianEye: calls 95
BrazilianEye said, "gl

"*** FLOP *** [Kh 7s Tc]

BrazilianEye said, "oops"

*** TURN *** [Kh 7s Tc] [Js]

*** RIVER *** [Kh 7s Tc Js] [8c]

*** SHOW DOWN ***

BrazilianEye: shows [Qs Qh] (a pair of Queens)
ausdaryll: shows [Ks Kc] (three of a kind, Kings)
ausdaryll collected 4190 from side pot
GothmanUK: shows [Ad Qd]
(a straight, Ten to Ace)
BrazilianEye said, "hehe"
GothmanUK collected 6075 from main pot
GothmanUK said, ":-)"

Went on to win it as well....We all need a bit of luck now and then......
Goth

Sick 1 outers !!

I do not normally post bad beats on my site, thats lodgers job...hehe
But after about 3 1/2 hours on a stars deep stack, this happens...and Goths on his way..

PokerStars Game #7285117798:
Tournament #36701669
$10+$1 Hold'em No Limit - Level VIII (200/400) - 2006/12/03 - 16:07:45
(ET)Table '36701669 20' 9-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: p3rcy (46090 in chips)
Seat 2: ttmm (16436 in chips)
Seat 3: SillyNutz (19118 in chips)
Seat 4: GothmanUK (7100 in chips)
Seat 6: jcnk22 (19975 in chips)
Seat 7: snoopie72 (15245 in chips)
Seat 8: mobstyle (46627 in chips)
Seat 9: wvbuckfan(8369 in chips)

p3rcy: posts the ante 25
ttmm: posts the ante 25
SillyNutz: posts the ante 25
GothmanUK: posts the ante 25
jcnk22: posts the ante 25
snoopie72: posts the ante 25
mobstyle: posts the ante 25
wvbuckfan: posts the ante 25
GothmanUK: posts small blind 200
jcnk22: posts big blind 400

*** HOLE CARDS ***Dealt to GothmanUK [Ac 6d]

snoopie72: folds
mobstyle: calls 400
wvbuckfan: calls 400
p3rcy: folds
ttmm: folds
SillyNutz: folds
GothmanUK: calls 200
jcnk22: checks

*** FLOP *** [Th 6s 6h]

GothmanUK: checks
jcnk22: checks
mobstyle: bets 400
wvbuckfan: raises 800 to 1200
GothmanUK: raises 5475 to 6675 and is all-in
jcnk22: folds
mobstyle: folds
wvbuckfan: calls 5475

*** TURN *** [Th 6s 6h] [Ad]

*** RIVER *** [Th 6s 6h Ad] [Tc]

*** SHOW DOWN ***GothmanUK: shows [Ac 6d] (a full house, Sixes full of Aces)

wvbuckfan: shows [As Ah] (a full house, Aces full of Tens)
wvbuckfan collected 15550 from pot

GRRRRRRRRRRRRR !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But Two posts on my blog in one day......gotta be value :-)

GL at the tables
Goth

November Stats

Although November was another profitable month, I have to put it down as a bad one. The % wins and FT's this month were quite bad and the profit for the month came down to just one decent 2nd place which changed my whole month from a loss to a profit.

The month could have been a very good one except for the dreaded AK. 4 out of my last 7 tourneys, when in good position, I have gone out with AK vs AT, why the hell people call preflop all ins for nearly all their chips I just do not no, and of course laddies leaves the T till the river to give me that glimmer of hope that I will win the hand. Then my laptop goes flying across the carpet and the dog goes running up the stairs to hide under the bed......makes me soooooooooooo mad.....

A big disappointment was the sngs, I had a terrible start to the month on them and was well down, a good run on stars pulled it back, but this was for only $7 profit, which is very poor.

Only played a very small amount of cash, so can't really judge any performance on that.

Still, mustn't grumble. Here are my November stats.

Total Profit = $286.11
MTTs Played = 55
MTT Final Tables made = 3 (5.45%)
MTT in the Money = 6 (10.9%) - NB Includes FT's
MTT Total $ won = $660.83
MTT Profit = $311.23%
SNG Played = 46
SNG Profit = $7
SNG ITM = 39.13%
Cash Profit/loss = -$7.65

Need to be $390 up this month to hit my yearly target, which I only have done twice this year, so a good mtt finish is needed, may chase it on the $20 on the last week of the month if not getting any joy on the mtts. Lets just hope santa brings some poker luck for xmas and a nice mtt win for Goth.

Been a while

Since I last updated my blog...still gotta put more effort and time in..Lazy git that I am....

First thing to mention is to wish Graham (aka themoffman) a speedy recovery in his battle against his ill health at the moment. Our prayers are all with you buddy, keep up the fight.

On the poker front, managed to claw back a reall bad start to the month (was $250 down at one point) which for me is a lot. The turnaround was mainly due to a 2nd place in one of the UKBetting payday events, £7 entry, 70 entrants, top 50 paid and £2k guarenteed...£300 for 2nd changed my whole month from loss, to a decent profit so far.

The next bit of luck, was poker poka going tits up and changing platforms, I was getting a hammering on the sngs there. While the site shutdown, I took all me dosh out (just in case it did not come back !!) and moved back to stars, where I have started a decent run of form on the $10 sngs to pull the month back on track. Currently about $310 up on the month, which will give me a good change of hitting my $4k target for the year. One good MTT result should do it....unfortunately, its my mtt's that are letting me down this month, apart from the one big money 2nd above. I have played about 40 this month and only made 2 FTs and 1 money finish.....not good, most exits I have been well in front when the chips have gone in, but its not to be. Still it has to change I guess.

Anyway thats it for now, short and sweet I know...but off to pub now, then down to the villa to see another glorious victory on the mighty O'Neill revival :-)

GL at the tables
Goth

PS Jat, if you still read these blogs...don't be a stranger matey, me games account is running low, need to win some backgammon ;-)

Bad Patches

The yearly goal seems far far away at the moment. Currently about $140 down this month after hitting the sngs hard over the weekend, played over 20 and only 1 one, with no 2nd places and a a fair few 3rds, just can't seem to get a break on them at the moment, either no cards, or walking into monsters when on the rob, always the same story.

Also on laddies, had two bubbles in the high stacks in 6 days, this is a real bummer, especially as one was the monday night 5000 chip hangover tourney, 5 1/2 hours to get bubbled and fuck all is no laughing matter.

Still I am going to plod on with the sngs, played about 30 this month so far, tempted to not play any multis till I am in profit on the sng, but trouble is I enjoy them to much...ho hum...what to do.

Big congrats to Tom (Banqo) by the way who managed a fantastic 2nd in the laddies $50 double chance (no rebuy either...tight fucker)

I am sure I will get through this bad patch, I just hope at the end of it, I will still be ahead of what I was in profit last year, or it shows I am not improving as a player......Which I believe I am, but still very aware of my weaknesses which need to be ironed out.

But for now, call me with anything, cos at the moment you will be able to outdraw me or push me off the pot cos I am a wimp.....But beware, my luck may change.

Goth

October Stats

The month did not go truly to plan, I had intended to give the sngs a real push this month, for some reason, I played less than ever. In fact I did not play as much poker as I had liked. I did spend a lot of time railbirding, cheering on the nutz boys and girls and getting a good piss take in wherever possible, its the law you know ;-)

Also losing a whole weekend due to getting shitfaced at the dream team live event at Canary Wharf, did not help the tally...but well worth it

The stats would have been a lot better, I was expecting to get over $500 up as I had a good start, but a bad last week, took over $100 off the profits.

But here are my stats for October

Total Profit = $357.11
MTTs Played = 65
MTT Final Tables made = 5 (7.69%)
MTT in the Money = 13 (20%) - NB Includes FT's
MTT Total $ won = $585.50
MTT Profit = $199.50
SNG Played = 21
SNG Profit = $49
SNG ITM = 38.10%
Cash Profit/loss = $92.91

Not many final tables in the MTT's but winning a decent entry tourney helped ease the pain and the cashflow. Had a limited amount of success on the cash tables this month, mainly playing .25 / .50 on Poker Poka.

This month, I do need to start upping the sng's, gonna try and play at least 100 of these this month, pref 2 tabling on Poker Poka.

A bit less chat and a bit more poker is hopefully going to be the order of the month. This then, all being well will help me hit the magic $4000 profit for the year.

GL at the tables
Goth

In the Bunker...just like me golf...

Saturday saw me travel to only the 3rd live event I have been to, it was the Dream Team Final at the poker bunker, although I was not playing, I was there to support my adopted team "the leaguenutz muffers" as my original team "the northern muffs" folded after week one. I was so looking forward to meeting everyone I have been chatting to online over the last year, I was literally like a kid on XMAS eve.

The travel down to the big smoke was an event in itself, after managing to codge a lift with MADV and pokerkaz, two of my good online friends, as a token of goodwill, I bought Vad (MADV) a full breakfast at our chosen pick up point which was the services off J2 off the M42 (2 miles from me gaff) This proved to be a massive mistake !!!! I am not sure if it was a slightly off egg, or it is a normal bodily function for someone from Halifax, but MADV started farting like something you would not believe, and trust me, roses it was not.....

Apart from the mist in the car, the journey went well until we managed to take a wrong turn off the A40, no problem we thought, we will do a U turn and get straight back on.....over an hour later we were lost with no sign of the A40, no signs to anywhere...It had gone into thin air. We pulled over a couple of times to ask a friendly cockney or two as to directions, or even where we were, but as I was driving, it was the flatulent northerner who poked his head out asking for directions and this was enough to send even the toughest cockney gangster running for the bushes saying "sorry san, I caaan't help you".......We eventually had to admit defeat and bite the bullet, MADV jumped out, flagged down a cabbie, jumped in cab and we had to pay £33 to follow him to our hotel just around the corner from the bunker. We were there and in time, that was all that mattered.

It was then time for a few beers in the hotel bar, meeting up with the gang which consisted of Rob1973 (flew over from his home in copenhagen to watch, great effort matey), LEXUS2, LANGERS, BANQO (just off a plane from Canada ffs) and also the nutzers top scoring dream teamer fryern (didn't even see your mom drop you off m8) We were then off the bunker where we joined up with our leaguenutz boss moffman.

The first person we bumped into outside was stanford, who had just found out there was no sky in the building and was planning an exit to watch the villa vs fulham game which was on at 17:15, he duly vanished after giving the free bar a bit of stick.

Walking into the building, I was wondering if anyone would remember me from my two previous meet ups with laddies players at spixworth in Norwich, I was not to be disappointed as I bumped into strummer straight away, who immediatly set about taking the piss out of me, stating I now look more like a fat surfer than a Goth....sometimes anonomity would be a better option.....but it was all in good spirits.

The tourney got off almost on time and I must admit was a very well run event, the nutz muffers railbirds found a very convenient spot leaning on the bar with a direct view of monkeyjulies table, I think a couple of our group had some serious ideas above there station, ie outplaying a far superior poker player, or did they have something else on there mind ;-)

Davy Lang was unfortunate on the old bar front in the early afternoon as he managed to find a two minute period where the bar was not free when he bought a round, when he found out the beer was subsequently free, being from north, he was not too pleased.

There was a little dog with a ball that kept most of the drunks amused (lexus2 more than most. hehe) I had visions of someone getting a bad beat and watching the poor little fella flying across the room, but luckily he was safe. The muffers team, did not have the best of time with it, with moff getting caught by benny early on and banqo/fryern not getting much help from the dealer. Vad had a very tough table for most of the tourney, but managed a very creditable 25th, one of the higlights being when he managed to get hamsterboy to get all his chips in the middle with 62 when vad had AA, timing is so cruel sometimes.

The lack of STT's and cash tables, meant to get a poker fix, I had to enter a singapore satellite, just to get my hands on some cards, which I was not really interested in playing. The one good think that came out of it was that I had the pleasure of being seated to another online friend of mine angel1975 who was celebrating her birthday, she was even more of a pleasure to talk to in the flesh than she is online, how ariston could muff angel with 77 vs her JJ to knock her out the tourney, I do not know, I hope he feels ashamed of himself, I also had the pleasure of meeting rugrat, who I have admired from afar on laddies, but he seems like a real nice guy too. In the Sat itelself, I managed to get short stacked and walked my 55 into QQ, with angel calling with 23 sooted for value as well and the board gave a Q and 22, so I was stuffed from all corners.

My next venture was a £20 sng, this turned out to be be an adventure in itself, with ShaneMcg Reraising all in with 62 sooted and getting called by KK, Shanes sober screams of "how the hell can you call with KK off suit" had the table in stitches, unfortunately he failed to muff and he left the table almost as quick as he had sat down.

The tourney seemed to go on forever, and was quite a tight affair, I believe I owe a big apology to p0kerwid0w, for muffing her AK with KQ, then when shortstacked on the BB announcing I am all in blind, which did not stop her raising me all in anyway with JJ, I flipped my cards only to find KK (blush)

I then had a good run of cards, which left me heads up with person X (sorry, can't remember who it was) I had a fair chip lead but after a couple of gambles to finish it off, we were almost level. It was then I realised that we were the only two playing and that they were shutting the bunker around us, so we did a deal and took £80 each, which I was more than happy with.

It was then back to the hotel, straight to the bar for a round of drinks, then up to robs/davys room armed with a pack of cards and one of MADVS many laddies chipsets, for a £10 rebuy tourney. I think I managed to ruin my rock image during this tourney after re-raising Vad all, then hearing the dreaded words of vad "I know I am way behind Goth, but as it is a rebuy I am gonna gamble and call" chuckles rawed out as I then went bright red and had to show my 6 9....My rep is in ruins...lol

But the luck of the cards prevailed and at the end of the night, I was left eads up wiith lexus2, while the rest of the room were either snoring or filling the room with obnoxious gases, or in davys case both at the same time !!! . I got Dealt AA and a 3rd A flopped, a check and a sigh from me, saw lex move all in and the mini tourney was mine.....It was 5.30am and it was time for bed for a well earned sleep.

Tom (Banqo) and I were the only two to make breakfast, and following a couple of beers and watching the Manu vs liverpool game in the hotel bar, it was the long journey home. I managed to land home about 19:30, Vad I believe, eventually rolled in about midnight in halifax after surviving the torrid trip from the saarf to the North, thankfully in one piece.

A big thankyou to everyone I met over the weekend, especially pokerkaz and MADV, as we spent so much time together. I was shocked to find a few of the people I met even mentioned they read this blog (you can leave comments you know..lol), so I hope a few of the stories of the above bring back some good memories and I can't wait till the next event and to meet you all again.

Goth...hic..hic..

Bunker Time

Well the week has not been to bad, making a slight profit over the week, with the odd MTT money finish paying for the weeks entries. Amazingly enough, I have not played any STT's for over a week, just not been in the mood. I have only been playing my normal MTT's on laddies + a couple of value ones on UK Betting, courtesy of a nice little tip from lodger, Only made £17 there in the 3 tournies I managed to get in before they stopped the $3k guaranteed, 50 places paid only 50 runners approx !! But still, free money is always nice.

Been dabbling in cash a bit more this month, not a serious amount, managed to win a $35 pot (big for me..lol) with KK when pushing all in on a flop of QJ9 and managing to find another player with QT and him not hitting, which was nice.

Been a bit lazy on my pot check on bad beat lately, not filled it in for about 10 days, so need to get that sorted.

But the big event this weekend is the Dream Team live final, although I am not playing, I am going to cheer my leaguenutz buddies on. Also being in London, will have to paticipate in the odd shandy, to fit in with the southern softies.....Or to put it another way, drink the cockney puffs under the table....

Can't wait to meet a lot of my online buddies, share a few bevvies and tales of bad beats and monster pots. Sure to play a few sng's and hopefully come back with at least the same amount of money that I am taking. I also hear there is going to be a longest drive competition.. I intend to win this, hopefully will be a nice big prize :-)

Good Luck at the tables and hope to see some of you there on Saturday.
Goth

The long and the short

Sunday night was a tale of tourneys a short one and a long one.

First off the short one, the leaguenutz special was on pokerstars this week, now bearing in mind my last post regarding conspiracy theories (incidently, I won the sng I was playing while typing it up, so not too sure)....I took out $200 from my stars account to put into poker room and absolute, there are lot of theories regarding cashouts and losing. 3 hands approx into the tourney, wildrick raises minimum from early pos, langers rr min, I look down and have KK, I decide not to fck about (ie don't even think what they could have) and go all in, rick folds langers flips over AA and I am out......incidently had rick stayed in the hand, he would of hit 2 pair with his 98 and took us both out, so it was an all round stitch up.

As for the long, laddies have at last listened to the demand of its non bingo players (us rocks) and have put some decent high stack tourneys into the schedule, one of which being a $4 +.40c 4000 chip 15 min blind at 19:45, this is perfect for me as a leaguenutz tourney.

I played my normal game for most of the night, had a few good hands at the right time and eventually went into the final table in 5th place, with 290 runners, I was almost just happy to make the final table, sat back and played my good hands strongly to pick up chips and slowly watched everyone else knock each other out and moved up the money. Down to last 3 and I was by far the short stack, it was at this point I laughed at a railbird (allinkev) wishing me good luck, and said that I needed a miracle, then as if by magic, I had all the confidence in the world to just go for it and I started playing more agressively than ever, it was almost as if I had an angel looking after me ;-)

Got heads ups with Gamblor, with about 280k to his 800+ but after watching him when down to the last 5, always felt I had a chance, kept plugging away raising like a madman, trying to not let him breath....managed to claw back a good lead then a small raise with TT, he came over the top all in, called str8 away, he flipped over 55. A T on the flop brought the bacon home and made little Gothman a very happy bunny. The tourney lasted a whopping 5.75 hours, which for a $4 tourney is a long long time, but the $319 first prize, made it worth wating for.




Goth

Conspiracy theories

There is always talk of conspiracy theories within the online poker world, but sometimes things happen that make you wonder.

I have recently started playing on Poker Poka a lot for my sngs, only at $10. But I must say, Ihave had a great run. Lots of good cards and hitting my hands, also giving out a few bad beats.

Before this morning, the last two games there seemed to be a change, no cards and eventually getting muffed to go out, not in the money. Then this am, I play another 1, get dealt KK utg blinds 10/20. I raise to 100. Chip leader on 1.9k calls, short stack goes all in for 550 chips. I RR all in to elimate the flat caller but he calls immediately. Short tack flips over AK (fair enough) the flat caller turns over 36 sooted. The flop drops a 3, as soon as I saw this I knew I was done for. The river dealt the mandatory 3 to give him a the 3.5k port and after about 8 hands I was out in 9th position. WTF would he do that, his name was turbotilter, but maybe my starters run is over and the balance has to be redressed. Going to see what happens over the next 10 sngs on this site. But at the moment, I am treading cautiously.

September Stats

Stats for September are as follows:-

Total Profit = $199.33
MTTs Played = 60
MTT Final Tables made = 8 (13.33%)
MTT in the Money = 11 (18.33%) - NB Inlcludes FT's
MTT Total $ won = $342.13
MTT Profit = -$14.97
SNG Played = 33
SNG Profit = $240
SNG ITM = 60.61%
Cash = -$16.70

The rest of the balance was made up syndi share money/in out and a few ladders games played, but no money.

Last month, I flew out of the blocks to get up about $500 very early, this month it was the total opposite, I went about $200 down and managed to pull most of it back during the last week, mainly due to a great run of $10 sng on Poker Poka, I just can't seem to go wrong on there at the moment (prob gonna regret saying that)

The leaguenutz monthly league was won by rob1973, very well played to him. But the achievement of the month has to go to Omaha god Jat7065, who in the LEOCOP event 3, p/l omaha event, played one of the finest games of agressive omaha I have ever seen to win the event outright taking home a cool $16.5k and the prize laddies gold bracelet. A huge big handclap for jat on this achievement, it could not have happened to a nicer bloke. Hats off to you m8. Also well done to MADV who managed to finish a very creditible 22nd in the same event ;-)

Profits for the year currently at approx $2970, so it is gonna be nip and tuck as to whether I can make my 4k target for the year. Hopefully get a couple of good MTT results and this should see it through.

Although saying that, I am probably gonna concentrate on the sngs a bit more this month and just play the mtts for leaguenutz entries. Most of the nutz players are currently on a big laddies downer at the moment, mainly due to very piss poor customer services, with at least 3-4 of them moving on and not playing laddies any more, have to say I agree with them, after all the moans over the last 2 years, they are still struggling to keep up with the opposition with regards customer service, lets hope they sit up and listen soon. Hopefully Graham can sort something out on one of the other sites so we can keep the leaguenutz monthly entrants high and satisfy everyone as to where they want to play and still compete in the nutz league.

GL and see you at the tables.

New Fave Site

For the time being, I have a new fave site, Poker Poka. I only dropped $100 odd in the site in the summer to play the Bad Beat WSOP tour and this was the site I was lucky enoughh to chimp my way to winning one of the events and $800, but to he fair have never gone back. In a desperate bid to get back into the black this month, I sat down and started to play some $10 sngs and I was stunned on just how poor the play was. They just seem to go all in with any old shit, as long as you don't get muffed, this should be a profitable place to play sngs on.

In the space of just 13 $10 sngs I have managed to get myself back in profit for the month, albeit only about $35, but as I was $200 down at one point it is a bit of relief. Out of the 13 entries, I have made the dosh 10 times, with 2 wins 5 2nds and 3 3rds. So I think I might give this a shot for a while. Hourly rate is currently at approx $14, but with such a small sample it is not wise to judge it on, but if stays like that, might dump the mtts and play them a lot more :-)

Leaguenutz had two specials on Sunday on stars, 1 NL and 1 FL, Managed to get 3rd in the NL to cover the entry costs and some good points, but Fixed Limit Holdem, what the fck is all that about. It was a real muff fest with people calling all draws and hitting everytime, I found myself not being able to let go of bottom pair as I did not know what the fck I was doing lol, Still some good muffing still managed to come 5th and some more points.

Leocop has started and I am now disappointed I did not try to qualify in any of the events as there looks like a lot of money up for grabs and with some decent players playing for a change, it may be possible to make some moves and get respect for them rather than the mupps on the $5 tourneys who call me with anything when I do my 1 bluff a week, I am a rock remember :-)

GL to all the leaguenutzers in the Leocop events, would be great to see one of them make a big finish.

Goth

Pulling back slightly

Still down this month overall, but I have had a couple of decent results. Managed to dodge all the muffers in the leaguenutz weekly special on sunday night and take first place for some well needed nutz points. This week it was moved to Poker Stars, although the numbers were slightly lower than normal, I hope we can move around a few of the other sites, it is always good to have a change of scenary and get away from out "spiritual" home we call ladjokes.

On Sunday night the barrowpoker boys had invited the leaguenutz members to play in a $200 freeroll on a new site call Thirdbullet (checkout www.thirdbullet.com)

Third Bullet is like no site I have played as there are some animated characters and if you type in lol you actually get a laugh sound and depending on your chosen character you get a girly giggle or a deep manly laugh. Some of the female characters have some great breasts as well, so well worth a look in :-)

With only 17 entries it was good value and some great poker was played, I unfortunately managed to knock out me best mate pokerkaz when she hit her flush and I had a higher one, luckily she forgave me, so I did not get too much of a roasting. After a couple of hours play and a couple of top muffs. I ended up heads up with our glorious leader moffman. After flat calling with AJ sooted managed to trap graham to get all his chips in with A8 and took the first prize of $70, which for a 17 man freeroll was great value. The site does not have many players at the moment, but might try a couple of cheap sit and goes to evaluate it a bit more. Will let you know what I think in a month or so.

Nothing else of note to add after that really. Made the final table of the 23:15 omaha a couple of times this week, including a 3rd last night, so slowly getting back to level for the month, would of been better, but spent $3o on the the 10K added PMV which did not help a small player like myself and got no hands at all, so a bit of a waste really.

So GL at the tables and don't forget to muff the muffers
Goth

Bad Months

Sometimes, you know you are just gonna be in for a bad month. This is gonna be one of mine I reckon. I am currently $83 down on month so far. My $20 sngs have gone down the pan, after 51 tournies, my hourly rate is now less than my $10 ffs. I just can't seem to get a break. I have only won 3/51, which, to be frank, is a fucking joke. I just don't know whats happening. I think I am just going to have to give stars a break for a while. Will prob move on to Poker Poka and play their STT's for a while at $10 until I get my roll on there up to $1100 (currently at $880)

Still playing laddies tourneys for leaguenutz points, played about 20 this months so far, with 2 FT's and one money finish so breaking even approx so far on this front.

Also played a bit of cash on Titan to try and get my bonus, but after 1 1/2 hours for $1.65 profit and only 44 points (need 1000 for each $10 to be released) it could take while I reckon lool. So may have to either move up a bit or forget it.

Still getting bollockings for not updating my blog more, must make a bigger effort, been saying it for ages though.

Off to pub this afternoon to watch the Villa, so cmon you mighty Villains.................Will back to laddies for the 20:30 no doubt to try and dodge the muffings.

Goth

August Stats and Stars SNG horror show

Around about the 25th of August, it looked like it was gonna be a really good month, was about $550 up at the time, then I hit a horrendous run on the Stars $20 sngs, going 7 on the trot without making the money, with only one 4th as well. It was a mix of bad play from me, poor cards and my big hands running into bigger hands, everytime I tried to steal I had AA/KK etc sat right behind me. This has knocked my stars hourly rate down to $5 p/h from $10. But still that is poker and I am sure I will bounce back, just has a 3rd while writing this, so hopefully the bad run has ended.

Anyway as promised, stats for August are as follows:-

Total Profit = $314.49
MTTs Played = 65
MTT Final Tables made = 11 (16.92%)
MTT in the Money = 14 (21.53%) N.B includes final tables
MTT Total $ won = £1083.94
MTT Profit = $315.84
SNG Played = 27
SNG Profit = $17 (lool)
SNG ITM = 37.04% (piss poor, I know !!)

The MTT prize money is out of proportion to the profit due to my biggest payday being the $50 2nd chance, which I did as a share with some of the nutz guys so had to give them an equal share. Only had 1 MTT win, which was in the 23:15 Omaha on laddies and 1 2nd. But I am pleased with making the final table almost 17% of the time, just need a few more top 3 finishes to boost the profit margin, might grab MADV to give me a few more tips on this, but more agression required on the FT rather than hope other people drop out to move me up the money.

As you can see, it was the sngs that let me down this month, I really do need to start playing more of these, but it only needs a poor run on the $20's, like I had last week to really put a dent in the profits. The 4k target for the year looks miles away at the moment, but lets hope it picks up again and the $ come rolling in.

Also came 3rd overall in the August Leaguenutz, which was the 2nd time I have finished in the top 3, had a bit of luck with this as rob1973 could not play for over a week, or I am sure he would have took 3rd or higher. Would have had 2nd if LANGERS had not found out that the 21:15 hi lo on laddies is his own private tourney and won it on a few occasions with many final tables, watch out for him in LEOCOP in this event, unless he gets muffed, he has gotta be a tip for the FT in this and hopefully win it, keep it up fella. Congats also to LEXUS2 for winning it for the 2nd month running, top performance.

Thats it for today, found me digi camera following the house move, so might put some pics up soon to brighten the blog up, but I hate to disappoint all those drooling female poker groupies I have, there will be no topless photos of me, you will just have to see Davy Lang for that fix (see langers blog link)

Goth