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

[monkeyman]

So Sky Poker now has Omaha Hi/Lo. Yeeeeeee Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. What will I spent my profits on?

Might need a bit of time to allow this to develop. There are only a handful of players on the tables so far. Hopefully there will be a steady flow of newbie fish investigating this variant for the first time. Sky contains a higher proportion of totally clueless hold"em players than any other site, so the Hi/Lo should be fun soon.  

[monkeyman]

I no longer know whether to laugh or cry. Tonight"s tournament effort was the V*Roll freebie offering on Virgin. Stop me if this sounds familiar, but the hand in question goes something like this:

1) There are 99 runners with prizes down to 10th
2) 16 players left in
3) Blinds are 300/600
4) My stack is 4500
5) The action folds to the cut off who has 9000 ish chips and limps.
6) I"m on the button and have A J
7) I shove
8 ) Cut off calls with K 10 offsuit
9) Flop hits neither off us
10) Turn is also a blank
11) Anyone care to guess what the river was?    

[pables]

11) Anyone care to guess what the river was?    

Deep?  

[antthecat]

a deuce?

[monkeyman]

The poker is a disaster area at the moment and there aren"t any horses I strongly fancy, so I"ve been looking at alternative gambling opportunities. My evening will probably be spent watching Eurovision,drinking and trying to wind-up as many people as possible on the BBC Eurovision forum. Therefore, having a bet on the outcome of the contest prior to any bottles being opened looks like the plan.
  Having watched the semi finals during the week and after a certain amount of research, I think I"ve cracked it. There are a number of factors to consider when punting on Eurovision. Political considerations play a part, so you"ve got to work out whether the country you are thinking about backing has enough friendly neighbouring countries to get the required votes. The Russian entry this year is a godawful dirge which even Radiohead would reject for being too miserable, but with the influence they have over Eastern Europe, Russia could probably have a pantomime cow farting the national anthem as their entry and they still wouldn"t come last.
   The personnel behind the song are also worth considering. Azerbaijan have being using Beyonce"s choreographer to organise their performance and they also have an adviser who has worked with Britney Spears. They seem to be taking things very seriously, so have to be on the shortlist. In contrast, the UK has employed Pete Waterman, a man who wouldn"t recognise a good song if one punched him in the face, so we"d have no chance even if any of the other countries, apart from Ireland, liked us.
 Pre-tournament exposure for the song can be important too. The German entry has been a hit throughout Europe already and is the most Googled of any of his year"s efforts. However, Germany may also be handicapped by the lack of friends factor.
  The top three in the betting Are Azerbaijan,Germany and Armenia. Unless I have a change of heart in the next few hours the last-named will receive my backing. The song is OK by Eurovision standards and the singer has a strong voice.
However, you might be asking why I have chosen this song over the other two favourites. No, its not because I regard it as a bit of value, but the singer has an absolutely cracking pair of norks. If you can think of a better reason for having a bet, I"d like to hear it. 

[monkeyman]

So the Armenian entry didn"t win but I had an enjoyable evening getting drunk, watching Eurovision and having online chats with a number of people on Facebook. There is one thing that disturbs me a little though. I woke early this morning completely hangover-free, but with the memory of a FB chat with a female acquaintance about which I can"t remember a single thing.  Fingers crossed I didn"t overstep the "Just good friends" line in the sand. Eeeek!

[monkeyman]

At least tonight I made it into the money before the dealers decided to give me my now customary kick where it hurts. Guy two to my right raises, I"m short-stacked and have pocket queens so decide to shove. Raise bloke calls and flips Q 4. Yes you"ve guessed it, there were two fours on the flop. Why, why, why Delilah?

[monkeyman]

At last things seem to be going my way. May was a pig of a month, but already June looks a whole lot better. I"ve taken down a $5 tournament on Betfair and I think I"m going to have to play a load more of those. I"ve gone back to dabbling in Stud hi/lo on Partypoker and that is going really well at the moment. I don"t know whether its because I"ve spent time playing Omaha hi/lo so I"ve got my head round how to play split games, but I seem to be reading the game in a completely different way to when I last had a serious go at it. Results so far are very positive. Added to that the Omaha Hi/lo continues to go well, so hopefully things have turned a corner. Yeeeee Haaaaaaaaaaa.  

[monkeyman]

Things really have turned a corner. After winning a grand total of 1 tournament in the first 5 months of the year, I"ve now managed 2 in the space of a week. Tonight"s epic was a freeroll on GCasino where for bettering 875 competitors after 5 hours and 39 minutes, I won the princely sum of £70. Added to that, I can do no wrong on Partypoker"s stud hi/lo tables at present and things couldn"t be rosier.

[monkeyman]

Here"s an an extract from my diary for the next few days:

7/6/10 - 10.00 board train at Norwich Station
         - 12.30 Sit down with a pint somewhere in Covent Garden
         PM - (1) Move on to Victoria and Albert Museum  
                (2) Stop for coffee somewhere around Trafalgar Square/Leicester Square
                 (3) Head on to Wembley and book into room at Ibis hotel
         Evening - (a) Have a pint or two in Green Man at Wembley
                       (b) Go to Wembley Arena to see Harlem Globetrotters
                       (c) If it is still serving, return to Green Man for another pint or two

8/6/10 - Decide to be really tight and not spend £6.95 on cooked breakfast at hotel. Instead feast on delights bought from Lidl"s near Wembley Park underground. 
         - Tell absolutely no-one that I"ve even considered getting on underground to head to Somerset House for a Tai  Chi session. That would make me a laughing stock and I probably won"t be out of bed in time anyway
         - Assuming the service is running, get on Bakerloo line at Wembley Central, head for Elephant and Castle then
           nip along road to Imperial War Museum  
         - Pub lunch
         - Venue for above must serve real ale
         - Assuming not too much ale is consumed, again pretend to know the meaning of the word "culture" and head to  either Tate Britain or Tate Modern
         - late afternoon/evening to be arranged. Will absolutely not invest any of bankroll on a cash table at The Vic.
            Won"t even consider it, oh no, not I.

9/6/10 - Get on Metropolitan Line at Wembley Park to head to Liverpool Street ready for the 10.00 to Norwich
         - Spend most of journey home telling self to not be silly enough to consider trying to qualify for WPT London.    

[monkeyman]

Phew, saved myself from any possibility of giving in to temptation and heading for an evening on the cash tables at The Vic. Tuesday night I"m now off to Camden Dingwalls to see Thirteen Senses

[Mikeyboy9361]

Monkey, you are not the only one waiting for a medal, and I too have posted elsewhere that I would like to receive my medal at some time in the future, but lets be realistic, its only a bit of metal, and what Des and the guys do for the rest of us is worth more than any lump of iron so keep things in perspective and keep supporting APAT.

[monkeyman]

Hello guys, its good to be back. After 5 years playing the game, a few months ago I finally took the decision to open a bank account to keep my poker money entirely separate from all other funds and decided to finally get my head around the idea of bankroll management. Since then I"ve virtually given up tournament poker to concentrate on grinding away on the cash tables. As I had nothing at all interesting to write and I"ve not played in anything APAT related for a while, I gave up posting on here. However, things changed a bit last night...............
   When this year"s GUKPT schedule was announced, I was delighted to see there was a "Club" event planned for Great Yarmouth. Financially, it makes sense for me to play this rather than any APAT live event. As the Grosvenor Yarmouth is only 20 miles from home, spending £200 on a tournament entry with no travelling involved is no more expensive than a £75 event when I have to fork out on extra petrol and at least one night in a hotel.   As £200 represents the highest buy-in tournament I"ve taken part in, my trip down the road to the east coast in 2 weeks has been my major focus for several months.
    On thursday night, I took part in a Nuts poker pub shovefest just because I haven"t played live in ages. I didn"t have anything planned for this weekend, so friday night I was looking for a bit of microstakes deepstack action and took part in a 2.75 euro game on Ladbrokes. Ok, my reward of 15 Euro-ish isn"t anything to write home about, but I was pleased with my 9th placed finish from 498 starters. On saturday night, I returned home after a short trip to the gym and again went looking for a deepstack tournament. My decision to participate in last night"s English Online Championships had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with brand loyalty. I was looking for something to give me the best possible preparation for Yarmouth and if there is another 10000 chip 15 minute blind tournament out there, please point me at it immediately. Although the cost of last night"s tourney and the GUKPT club entry represents a far larger proportion of my bankroll than the Chris Fergusons of this world would advise, it far from bankrupts me and leaves a huge number of buy-ins in my account for the cash level I"m currently playing at. In addition, with a GUKPT main event seat for the winner and 4 seats for the APAT event at Luton on offer, with only around 100 competitors this meant that the upside was potentially huge and well worth the risk.
    Things didn"t start well. A few minutes into level 2 and I called a late position raise from the big blind with           A 5. I flopped 2-pair, but my opponent had A 4, so the fours that came on the turn and river gave him a full house. I lost about a third of my stack, but in some ways was actually quite pleased as I think the damage could have been a lot worse. I don"t know quite how I managed it, but I remained in the bottom ten players from then for about the next four hours by finding the occasional hand, a shove here and a cheeky little bluff there. It wasn"t until the final two tables I really got moving and if I remember rightly, I reached the final table in around 4th place. I don"t think I"ve ever played in a tournament where I"ve picked up a hand at exactly the right time on as many occasions as I did last night. For the final hand, I had A 7 of hearts and if my memory hasn"t been blunted by the late night, my opponent had K 10 spades. The flop gave me middle pair to my opponents flush draw, all the chips went in and he hit one of his outs on the river. I"ve never played in a professional event and the GUKPT seat for the winner was what I had my eyes on throughout, but I"m not going to complain about my luck as I had plenty of it and quite honestly the winner played better poker than I did on the final table so deserved his victory.
  With no disrespect meant to anyone I played last night, when I was runner up in the same event last year, the final table collectively had an almost ridiculously good poker CV for a group of amateurs. Apart from WSOPE-cashing and Oh-FFS-how-many-more-APAT-tournaments-is-he-going-to-win Paul Pitchford taking the thing down, there were live and online national winners as well as several players who have had big paydays in pro events. However, I think I"m right in saying that, in common with every other time I"ve made an APAT final table, I won big early and managed to stay amongst the front-runners throughout. I think last night was my most satisfying APAT result to date as I"ve never had to work so hard for so long. I"d go so far as to say that I don"t think that last year I"d have been capable of losing a chunk of my starting stack early, getting nowhere for fours hours and still final tabling. Maybe that suggests that I"ve improved by playing cash games.
  October could be a very,very good month. See you in Luton.            

[pables]

Gr8 write up Simon, sorry I couldn"t join u on the final table this year. You played well, particularly enjoyed your befriending of Cgull then letting him double you up.

See you at Luton

Ian

[monkeyman]

Sod all poker played in the last few days. I had my arms twisted a few months ago and agreed to go to a Butlins 80s weekender at Skegness. The original plan of taking it easy friday night went completely out of the window and I ended with a hangover which didn"t disappear until I had my first beer the following night. Saturdays at these events are traditionally fancy dress. I went as Superman and think this was one of the best decisions I have ever made . Its amazing how dressing like a complete tit can help to start conversations. The woman dressed like one of the cast of Moulin Rouge, who decided a cape was an ideal means of sheltering from the north sea winds was an interesting start to procedings, the Brummie Batgirl was even more entertaining, but by the time I ran into the group of women dressed like "Where"s Wally?", I couldn"t tell whether they were also from Birmingham,Liverpudlians (If I had to put my money on anything, this would be the option) or they were from an as yet undiscovered planet. Sunday wasn"t quite as eventful but I was no less sober by the time I"d finished. To top things off, I decided that rather than rest, monday night was best spent watching a heavy metal band in a 700 capacity sweatbox/club. Who needs sleep anyway?
  I managed to get a bit of cash play in tonight and am now firmly focussed on saturday"s GUKPT club event at Yarmouth. There should be one player there who has final tabled a UKIPT event this year, but apart from that I"ve got no idea what the standard of play will be like. Should be fun and after I"ve won both there and at Luton the following week....................