Grant's Glasgow Banter

[Santino67]

Betfair  

After a very traumatic week and now playing a waiting game I decided that some poker may take my mind off things that have been going on and give me something else to focus on tonight. Managed to play the 8.15 $22 MTT with no probs but attempted to do the same in the 11.15 game and various /20c cash tables and was unable to register. Incredibly the site has taken my full buy-ins for these and not responded yet to e-mail i sent about 3 hours ago so I"m not a happy man!!!!

[Santino67]

Sorry I"ve been pretty much out the loop in the past 2 weeks due the sad departure of my mum, but I"m hoping to re-start the blog over the next few days. Her service went fantastically well, performed by my cousin Adam Dillon, who has his own parish in Moffat. Adam hit the perfect tone of sadness and light hearted humour and I"ll never know how he was able to deliver those succinct thoughts aloud, particularly considering he also had his own personal memories of his Aunty Maureen.

I"ve now also had my "lost" funds returned by Betfair (eventually!) so I"m considering my next poker steps carefully. This may also involve a change of site as I"m not impressed by their handling of the above fiasco and the length of time it took to resolve the problem. I"m especially   at the fact I missed out on the London Live sat after playing the 5 mini-league games. Any thoughts and tips on other sites would be very welcome.

I"d also like to thank you all for your amazing support. Since my mum fell ill I was receiving messages from APAT"ers on here and on Facebook, with so many words of encouragement to help me through this spell, You"ll never know how much strength it provided. It"s just confirmed what i re-discovered at Coventry, that the APAT community is stronger than ever, with a fantastic group of active and supportive members.

My final note is happy one   After 4 and a half years without contact from My daughter Corinne, We"ve now been re-united and agreed to meet up again tomorrow. I"m sure there will be slow progress ahead but after missing her for so long I"m delighted at the prospect of any kind of progress at all.

Cheers again for all your messages and support gang, see you all soon at the felt  

[Santino67]

Had a couple of games on Betfair on Tednesday night, namely the old regular $22 MTT 1500 12min game at 11.15 and the $54 2500 12 min game at 1am. Not much to write home about, cashed in 10th in the latter and busted out halfway in the former, being pretty card dead and donking some chips making moves and getting nowhere.

I did though have the pleasure of sharing a table with Mark "Big Redders" Redshaw and enjoyed some good friendly banter with a very likeable bloke......not my first impression of Mark tbh as I first encountered him in Dublin 2008, when I got down to the final 30 very late on the Saturday night and unfortunately got moved to his table, where he had a pretty mammoth chip stack and was pretty relentless in being table captain to my obvious frustration and inevitable downfall lol. Think I went out 26th on that occasion, busted by the table vice captain, a young Irish guy possibly Barry? Smith.

Glad to say I finally got to chat to Mark with Tim Magnus about a month later, I believe on our way home from London after The Vic (I know Ger, i"ve still to address that one   ) , and discovered that beneath those bulletproof shades there lies a thoroughly likeable guy. Another of you APAT gang I look forward to sharing a table with in season 5.

But that"ll have to wait for now, as in only 2 sleeps time I"m off to New York for the appropriately named Annie "Big" Apple"s 40th birthday Really looking forward to getting away for 5 days, especially somewhere I"ve never been before with so much to offer. catch up with you all on my return, Cheers.
 

[samuel_9]

have a good one

[duke3016]

[Santino67]

Cheers for the birthday messages on here and FB. Had a fantastic time in New York and will definitely go back again sometime, though hopefully for more than 5 days. Unfortunately never made it out of Manhattan, hotel was right opposite Madison Square Gardens, 10 blocks down from Times Square and had so much to do and see but not enough time.
Annie Apple got to Broadway to see Jersey Boys on her 40th, surprisingly far more enjoyable than I had anticipated so that was a real bonus. We also made it up the Rockefeller Centre, saw the Statue of Liberty, Ground Zero, Wall Street, Tiffanys, Central Park, Natural History Museum, had lots of great food and drink and walked for miles and miles and miles in the freezing cold.......all absolutely worth every step.

Pictures to follow  

[Santino67]

This ones just for Ian, apologies for not catching a pair together and the fact i think it"s Blue and not Great, other than that i"m happy with it  

[pables]

Thanks very much Grant, it surpasses any expectations I previously had  

[Santino67]

Thanks very much Grant, it surpasses any expectations I previously had  

Tried my best mate, you almost got a Robin"s a**e instead lol

[Santino67]

Had a nice wee cash of $309 on Thursday night Betfair 1am game for finishing 4th and felt good coz I"ve not been getting much play, so decided tonight would be a good night to follow it up. How wrong can one person be  

Played the 2 * $22 games at 8.15 and 11.15, was busted in both with AA and KK by 9/6 and 5/2 respectively after playing the hands in a very standard way. Both times raising preflop and 3/4 bets on flop then getting re-raised and a further call to my shove. Bingo"d both times by river to 5 outer in first hand and flush in latter.

Had fun in the Furness game in between and had a very enjoyable chat on a well know Social Network (c) site with Debbie afterwards.

And then the poker got even worse.........going along nicely in the $54 game at 1am and got up to 3.5k, picked up  :as:   in late position and made standard raise, got re-raised by SB, called from the BB and had odds of 7/2 to peel a flop. Happy Days thought it was Friday at 5 to 5 and Crackerjack  had just came on TV  js :: SB bets 300, BB shoves for 1500, I flat and SB shoves so i obv ship the rest.

SB flips  kc ks BB flips  


Turn  kd
River  

FML think it"s time to give it up  

On a more serious note, I played the hands properly just got very very unlucky on all 3 occasions. Would play them all again the same way in future as I was fave all the way against them.

[Santino67]

Played my usual $22 game at 11.15 last night after having a night off on Wednesday and things seem to be going a similar way. Didn"t pick up much in early levels and table waqs extremely aggro so didn"t get involved much till i got soem info from the hands that were being flipped over. With blinds at 40/80 and not much more than my starting stack of 1500 I run into one of the aggros when he raised in EP and called my re-raise when I had  :as: js on the button.

This guy"s range is pretty wide, I"ve watched him for about 40 mins now play similar ways with A6, Q10, KJ etc so think I"m ahead. Flop comes 2/2/3 rainbow and he insta shoves for the rest of my stack, putting all my info together I still think I"m ahead so call. He flips A8 and all"s good till the 8 hits on river FML. Can"t even buy a split pot just now and out another tourney after making the right play.

Had been chatting a short while before to Debbie Kimm and realised I"ve missed the cash games from Betfair (pre merge), so decided to play a wee cash game to get rid of the cobwebs and played a single 15c/30c game. Glad to say this went better and I ended after 2 hours with over treble my starting stack and cashed out $92. May focus on this for a while as it used to be a regular part of my game and I particularly enjoy the social side of it, having some good chat with opposition and not moving table every 15 minutes. In last night"s game I came across MLudlow who suggested he had notes on me, claiming a took him down a number of times with "Mad Hands"  . I obviously disagreed with him, only to pick up 3/5 very next hand and raise in cut off with 2 callers behind. Hit a 5 on flop, check check, bet and got 1 caller. Blank on turn checked to me again, bet 2/3 pot get a call again. 3 on river and same story check, bet, call. Took down a nice wee pot and got the "I told you so" speech from Mr Ludlow  

Maybe I"m taking MTT games too seriously and focus more on preserving my stack, there"s never that fear of being donked out in cash games as my bankroll takes that away. Maybe I"m just riding a wave of tournament suck outs and bad luck that"s making me feel negative at the moment. One things for sure, when I get outdrawn in a cash game and lose a fairly big pot I don"t get upset, i just re-load. When it happens in MTTs it often leads to being busted out the tourney and leaves a sour taste.

Anyone any thoughts on this?

[Santino67]

Well changed my mind again and decided to play the regular $22 11.15pm game again. 154 runners tonight and I"m running good, at 3rd break sitting chip leader at FT with 66k . Updates to follow

Update is pretty ugly  . First level after break saw 2 shorties busted, then at 800/1600 it all went severely pear shaped. Next shortie on list shoved 5BBs into my my BB with AJ, I call with A9 and no help. Same player very next hand does same with A9 and I re-shove on SB with JJ, he hit 99 on flop! 2 hands later I ran 10/10 into KK, get flopped an open end but no more help and lights out for me with $98 in 8th place after all that hard work  :"(

promising night that ended up very disappointing, sigh.

[Quasar]

unlucky Grant. Better luck tonight.

Going to practice some of the things we chatted about. See if it can improve my game. Can"t make it any worse  

[Santino67]

Great performance Debs, very well done. Hope it lifts the confidence again, just what you needed I reckon

[Quasar]

Great performance Debs, very well done. Hope it lifts the confidence again, just what you needed I reckon

Thanks Grant, for the tips and the railing. What a brilliant night lol