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

[Bad hat lady]

Today my self-imposed poker exile finishes and surprisingly, I didn"t feel seriously tempted to play once all week. It feels as though I"ve learnt a lot over the last few days, so there"s only once way to find out.........
 This week I"m housesitting for Ibis and Bad Hat Lady, using her computer, drinking his homebrew and making plenty of use of their reclining sofa. Pokerwise, my plan had been to get back into the routine of putting in the hours on the stud tables of Partypoker and Pokerstars, with the odd tournament thrown in for good measure. Unfortunately, Bad hat lady"s computer doesn"t seem to like the new Partypoker software, so the stud/hold"em mix will be different to how I first envisoned it. Here we go, world domination awaits.

[monkeyman]

Today my self-imposed poker exile finishes and surprisingly, I didn"t feel seriously tempted to play once all week. It feels as though I"ve learnt a lot over the last few days, so there"s only once way to find out.........
 This week I"m housesitting for Ibis and Bad Hat Lady, using her computer, drinking his homebrew and making plenty of use of their reclining sofa. Pokerwise, my plan had been to get back into the routine of putting in the hours on the stud tables of Partypoker and Pokerstars, with the odd tournament thrown in for good measure. Unfortunately, Bad hat lady"s computer doesn"t seem to like the new Partypoker software, so the stud/hold"em mix will be different to how I first envisoned it. Here we go, world domination awaits.

Uh oh! Now why didn"t I think to check that I had logged in as myself rather than allowing my post to appear to be done by Bad Hat Lady, What a total noddy I am.

[ibis]

Bad hat lady says You"re a bit quick off the mark - we haven"t even left the country and you"re already posting messages from her computer. And make sure you don"t spill beer on the sofa!

[monkeyman]

Sunday morning, the curtains are open and there"s not a cloud in the sky. I"ve just completed my first brief session on Pokerstars" stud stables and returned a small profit. To hell with weekly targets and concerns about my profit/loss figure, I play far better when I feel relaxed and right now, for some imperceptible reason, things feel good.
 I"ve just been looking at the cost of holidays in Vegas with the flights starting from Norwich airport. Next year maybe...................  

[monkeyman]

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I"ll begin.........
  Once upon a time, in a land far to the east, there lived a mighty wizard. The wizard had many powers, but was renowned for being able to create huge wealth from thin air. Many was the time when he would take a few brass coins and turn them into a vast pile of gold. The wizard was an expert in all forms of gambling and could often return from an afternoon watching horses run very, very fast with as much as three or four pounds profit.
  In recent times, the wizard had been using his powers to make much money by predicting the identity of playing cards held by people in lands far,far away. The wizard was not a good man and saw nothing wrong in taking money from people without his gifts. In recent times, the wizard had been playing a fun game where all players are given seven cards but their opponents can only see four of each seven. Clearly, a man with mystic powers was at a huge advantage in such a game and much money was made. One day, after the wizard had taken a short break from playing, he sat down to play his favourite game of predicting which seven cards are the highest. For fifteen minutes, he played his game but something was strangely wrong. The wizard couldn"t work out why his card predicting skills were not producing the piles of gold coins he had become accustomed to. Then it struck him. He had sat down at a table where the rules were a little different. He was playing a game where the person with the highest cards took some money, but the person with the lowest cards also took some. The wizard was not a happy man, for he normally only played the seven high cards game and he left immediately. However, so great are his powers, that he still managed to take more coins away than he had sat down with.    

[lukybugur]

So u won a wee bit at Omaha Hi-Lo? Why didn"t you just say so ... ?  

WP that Wizard!

[monkeyman]

Stud hi/lo. I can"t believe it took me 15 minutes to suss that I was playing the wrong game. I was thinking about having a go at the Pokerstars 8 game thing, but I don"t know if I could keep up with all the changes.  

[monkeyman]

Should have stuck to playing games I where I didn"t understand the rules. I have had one of those nights where everything I"ve tried has turned to faeces. I started by running tens full of aces into kings full of deuces then lost four pots where I started with aces or kings in the hole but failed to connect with anything else. Never mind, with my newly-acquired sun-is-shining, not-a-cloud-in-the-sky outlook, I"ll just have to return tomorrow night and thrash the blighters to within an inch of their lives.
  Changing tack completely, I"ve just checked the end of season two rankings and was delighted to see  I"ve managed to hold onto my top ten spot. That gives me the absolute minimum I"ll accept from myself in season three.
  Incidently, sometime very soon (probably next week) I"ll be starting an entirely separate blog on a non-poker website. More details to be revealed when the first entry has been posted.
 

[monkeyman]

  I"ve just made an amazing discovery which may just revolutionise how I approach my game. I"ve just spent a bit of time poring over hand histories, comparing this to my notes of how well each session went financially, analysing how well I do on each of my regular stud sites and the results were an eye opener. What I"m about to say may be surprising to some, so you might care to ensure you"re either seated or have something alcoholic to hand to calm your nerves. What I"ve found is that when when I make money its because...................wait for it................I play well and when I lose its because I make poor decisions. Luck doesn"t come into it, poker is a game of skill! Do you think that anyone else has ever come to the same conclusion?        

[monkeyman]

This week has been tough so far. Playable hands have been at a premium and even when my initial holding has been good, later streets have been against me. I even managed to lose a hand despite being dealt rolled-up aces. Miraculously, I"m still in front for the week, even so it looks like world domination is to be slightly delayed.  

[monkeyman]

5000 hits! Hells bells, I never expected that many when I started this blog. I suppose that means I"d better keep spouting my inane gibberish for a bit longer.

[Chipaccrual]

  What I"ve found is that when when I make money its because...................wait for it................I play well and when I lose its because I make poor decisions. Luck doesn"t come into it, poker is a game of skill!

With that sort of insight, I think you are about ready to write a poker strategy book.

This could blow the poker world apart (and the legal world for that matter)

[monkeyman]

I"ve had another absolutely shocking week having had every conceivable bad beat possible at both omaha and stud (I think the choicest one of all was managing to turn rolled-up aces into a loser). Nevermind, I made a few pennies earlier in the week playing hold"em on Skypoker and last night managed to navigate a freeroll shovefest for a GUKPT qualifier. My tactics of all-in or fold will probably be repeated in tonight"s $22 rebuy as I"ve no intention of rebuying, but I might have to think about it if I make it through to the final qualifer tomorrow as it happens to be a freezeout.    

[monkeyman]

I"ve just crashed out of my GUKPT satellite and it was strange for a number of reasons. Firstly, five people, myself included, qualified from last night"s freeroll, yet only ten took part tonight. A few minutes in, there was a raise in front of me, I had aces, so minimum raised and to cut a long story short, three of us were all in. My aces held up in the face of a pair of kings and a pair of queens. Shortly after, I lost a third of my newely acquired stack by running AQ into aces. My departure came when I shoved with AK and received two callers. My opponents had QQ and A2 and if at this point you thought that A2 sounds like a winning hand, you"d be correct, as the flop came 345. Ho hum, back to the cash tables.
  It could be argued that tonight"s tournament was strong evidence to support the existence of karma, as my executioner and I had clashed in last night"s shovefest. Sparks flew when there were six of us left, one of whom was sitting out, with five seats in today"s competition. The guy sitting out was the shortstack, so a couple of us typed messages to gather support for the idea of playing the game so that the absent player was eliminated. Needless to say, one brain-donor decided not to bother and as a result, the absent player qualified. I took it upon myself to compliment the dissenter on his excellent decision making and I typed a number of comments which, for added emphasis, had gaps between the letters of the most important words. I suppose tonight"s tournament serves me right then.    

[monkeyman]

  What I"ve found is that when when I make money its because...................wait for it................I play well and when I lose its because I make poor decisions. Luck doesn"t come into it, poker is a game of skill!

With that sort of insight, I think you are about ready to write a poker strategy book.

This could blow the poker world apart (and the legal world for that matter)

Leigh, i think you just might be onto something there. As I"m equally inept in most poker variants, I was thinking of producing something along the lines of Supersystem. Clearly, due to a lack of gold bracelets, credibility or any discernable poker talent, I"m going to have to think hard about (a) my target market and (b) whether any publisher is going to be dumb enough to print anything with my name on (although I am starting another blog this week on the website of a publishing/printing company).
   I"ll have to admit that I"ve not written much so far, but my chapter on seven card stud will start with this gem:

Golden rule number one - It is far easier to play badly and lose money than to play well and recover your losses.