If Carlsberg did dull poker blogs, they'd do this one

[monkeyman]

My son recently bought a Mazda 3 ( 3 years old) , and it is a belting little car!

The spooky thing about yesterday"s visit to the local dealership was that one of my brothers was there at the same time to purchase a second hand Mazda 6 and we made our arrangements completely independently of each other.
  I plan on doing 2 more tests, but whatever else I drive, the Mazda 2 has set a high standard  

[monkeyman]

After a long wait since the last occasion, I have at long last actually won something playing live poker. OK, the more pedantic amongst you might argue that winning 15 bottles of Stella and a tin of Roses represents a net loss on the £25 + 3 entry, but I don"t care. There"s a principle at stake; I won something, so there.  

[monkeyman]

I"m currently on retreat from real poker due to my determination to start from scratch and build a ring-fenced bankroll. This is incredibly frustrating as I normally develop a nervous twitch when I"m not playing deepstacks and there aint many of them down at the fish levels. The upside is that by playing these tournaments as if I have a shortstack from the word go, my risk/reward ratio is looking pretty darned healthy. So far this month, my profit stands at $80 without having entered anything with a buy-in greater than $2.20. All I"ve got to do is to keep my percentage returns going as I move up through the levels and world domination is mine. Mwaaaa haaa haaaaaaaaaaaa.
  I"m still test driving new cars and below is a summary of what I"ve looked at so far:

Mazda 2 - Best car I"ve looked at so far but not sure if I want to pay the few hundred quid more it costs above some of the other models.
Nissan Micra - Feels about 5 years older than the Mazda in every respect and a definite no.
Skoda Fabia - Drives OK, but not as pleasant as the Mazda.Cheap to run,reliable etc so considered as I don"t have money to burn.
Renault Twingo - Cheapest car I"ve looked at and plenty of kit as standard, but probably a bit too small for me.
Kia Rio - FFS. Is this really a car?

I"ve also got tests booked in a Renault Clio and Citroen C2. I may also find time to try a Hyundai I20 as well.  

[monkeyman]

Now that the test driving/car ordering is out of the way (There"s a Renault Clio coming my way soon),its time to concentrate on the poker again.
   The last week or so has been incredibly frustrating. Before yesterday, I had cashed in 5 consecutive tournaments. This wasn"t as profitable as it sounds as I"ve tended to get as far as the prizemoney then run into a monster. My last 2 departures have been all in with AK into AA and QQ followed by AK into another AK and AA. On the plus side, I"ve found another tournament or two to play in. Ultimatebet sent me an email earlier in the week saying I had a few dollars left in my account with them. I"ve not used their site in ages, and thought I had taken all my money out, so can only assume I"d not allowed for some bonuses accrued from when I was trying to grind out a few dollars playing stud. I"ve been delighted to find, praise the lord, that they do deepstacks (5000 chips/12 minutes blinds) at fish levels, so at least there"s another tournament I can play other than the $2 one on VCbet I"ve been farming recently.  The downside is that Ultimatebet seems to attract more slack-jawed,foul-mouthed numpties who spend all their time putting explicit comments in the chat box than any other site I"ve played on. There is an argument for blocking all chat, but I prefer not to, as I have never seen anyone who repeatedly abuses an opponent make a final table. Its far better to put up with all the comments about performing intimate acts with close relations to find out who the weaker players are  

[monkeyman]

AK into AA yet again tonight. Its a good job I at least started the month well    

[monkeyman]

Jeeze this is dull. I can"t believe I"ve managed to stick to my self-imposed regime all month; nothing but hold"em MTTs all month and nothing with a buy-in bigger than $6. As I"ve mentioned before, the best way to make money at this level is to forget any fancy tricks and just wait for a decent hand then bet it heavily. Whilst I am showing a reasonable return so far ($70 profit on tournies between freeroll and $4, most at $2) it does mean that all my poker has become incredibly tedious as I"m playing like a robot to a strict set of rules. Hopefully, I"ll be able to retain my sanity until my bankroll has increased sufficiently to move up a grade or two.
   Yesterday I went to Carrow Road to see Norwich hammer Huddersfield 3-0. Whilst there, I overheard this conversation; "You know where they get the word "sadism" from? The Marquis de Sade. He was an evil man. Bloody french. Probably ate too much soft cheese". No, I don"t know which planet this guy was on either.            

[monkeyman]

I"m stuck at home this morning as I"m waiting for a call from my solicitor, so to keep myself occupied I"ve decided upon a little MTT action.  I started by getting knocked out by shoving from the button into an unopened pot with pocket , getting called by KQ and seeing a King on the river. I then went over to Betfair and went out in the second level when I was dealt AA on the button, raised to just over 4x the BB and had three callers. The flop came , the player to my right bet, I shoved and all three called! Two of my opponents were chasing the same heart flush draw and the other had KQ off (!). Needless to say the turn was a heart and I departed from my second tournament in not much more than 30 minutes. Unpeturbed, I then registered for a $1 tournament on Pokerstars and was dealt aces first hand. Even better, the player to my right went all in with AK, I called and for once my hand held. That makes it the first contested all in I"ve won for 11 days. Tonight I"ll probably have another go at the VC bet tourney which has been so kind to me recently. The sooner I build up enough of a roll to move up a level or seven the better, as there aint a whole lot of poker played when you"re swimming with the fishes.  

[monkeyman]

I suppose I"d have to class yesterday as a success as I made profit again, but I"ll try not to convert my profit into pounds-per-hour. After 5 hours play in a $1 tounament on Pokerstars I finished 60th of 3850 for, wait for it, $6.59. Not sure if it was worth the effort. After a poor start which saw me down to 600 chips, I also managed a 4th place of around 50ish in my regular competition on VCBet for a whopping $17 profit. At least its a very small step in the right direction.
   Changing tack completely, despite my apalling record in APAT live nationals I"m beginning to think that its about time I put in an appearance in a higher buy-in event open to pros. If anyone has any thoughts about whether the GUKPT, Gala Tour or Pokerstars UKIPT is the best bet, please let me know.
  Merry Christmas.    

[monkeyman]

I think its time for a slight revision of my self-imposed rules. Although I"ve changed the title of this blog to include mention of Chris Ferguson, I"ve no intention of being as strict with myself as he was during his zero to $10000 challenge. I just need to fine tune some of my parameters to aid me move up through the levels as quickly as possible. Change number one is that I must never, under any circumstances play Omaha. I"m rubbish at it, so I may as well donate my entry fee to charity as enrol in another tournament. Change number two is to stop playing $1 tournaments. They aren"t poker in any sense apart from they fact that they happen to use cards and finishing 60/3850 for a return on $6.59 after five hours play, as I did 2 days, ago is a complete waste of time. There are one or two $2 tournaments around ($100 added tourney on VCBet, $2 deepstack on Ultimatebet) that are worth playing, otherwise my limit will be $5.50/$6 until my bankroll can sustain several lost buy-ins a bit further up the food chain.        

[monkeyman]

I don"t normally do bad beat stories, but I"m going to have to make an exception. I"ve just shoved with kings, had a caller who also had kings and a second caller who had eights. Needless to say, the river was an eight. Pokerstars, why do your dealers hate me? FFS.

[monkeyman]

If I had to describe my December poker in one word, "Frustrating" would do the trick. I"ve just busted out of a $3 tourney on Full Tilt and, whilst not on a bad beat, it sums up my month. There were 525 runners and a top prize of $393.75. About 1.5 hours in, I hit a rush of good cards and went into the overall lead. From there, I was never in any danger of not cashing. I went in 28th when I shoved into an unraised pot 12xBB from the cut off with pocket eights. The button, who had me covered by another 1.5xBB, called with QJ offsuit and it goes without saying there was a queen on the flop. Winning that pot would have put me in 10th place. What I find particularly frustrating is that this was the first of my shoves to be contested; I haven"t won a single pot all month when I"ve put myself all in and my shove has been contested. I suppose the problem with playing nothing but MTTs is that the effects of a prolonged bad run will be magnified by the relatively small number of opportunities for variance to even out. As it happens, I"ve made enough from the small cashes I"ve managed to be in profit anyway. If everything that"s gone against me this month rights itself in  January, I"d better start looking at which tournaments a couple of levels up I"ll be playing through the early part of 2010. One time.....    

[monkeyman]

In a bored moment after being knocked-out of yet another tournament, I took the unwise step of thinking about holidays that I can"t afford. Clearly, my main consideration when deciding where to go is "Do they have poker tournaments there?" and as I"ve been to Vegas twice, I started looking at Atlantic City. Ok, there doesn"t seem to be any direct flights in, but there are a couple of carriers who fly non-stop to Philadelphia which is then a short Greyhound bus (50-60 miles, $12) ride away. The big advantages when compared to Vegas are the reduced travelling time and the fares being about £100 lower, plus they seem to have modest buy-in deepstacks more freely available than the crapshoots which are prevalent on the strip. I know this blog has recently been as interesting as an evening stuck in front of the TV with a box set of Gordon Brown speeches, but there are still plenty of you who stop by for a look occasionally. Has any of you been to Atlantic City? If you have, what did you think of it?      

[lazarus]

Did u say your from Norwich Monkey

[monkeyman]

Did u say your from Norwich Monkey

Sure am. Are you too?

[monkeyman]

The Stella is beginning to kick in, so time for a few brief resolutions before the year is out:

1) Play live more, even if that means playing shovefests at my local Rileys
2) Give up Omaha. I"m bloody awful at it.
3) Never ever sit down at a cash table. I"m bloody awful at that too.
4) Get some poetry published (although those that have heard my readings might argue that my poetry is bloody awful)
5) Laugh hysterically as Ipswich Town get relegated at the same time as Norwich City are promoted. Roy Keane is a truly bloody awful manager of a bloody awful club in a bloody awful town.