A rare visit to a casino

Often at work,with friends etc people take the piss out of my gambling. It is always a laugh for me these days because while I am a avid poker player, and probably to a certain extent addicted to the game, I am not a gambling adict.

To many people I know poker is gambling. Alot of people I know, my mother for example(!) just see poker in the same way as they see going down to the casino and blindly placing £50 on 32 red. The key difference for me is that you can beat poker. You can find a game of players who are worse than you and beat them. I can say with relative certainty that you will never find a roulette wheel in a genuine casino that you can beat!!!

There was a time in a long ago fogotten age when this meant nothing to me and I visited the casino all the time. It has taken a long time for me to be able to trust myself to go into a casino without being there to play poker only. Anyway I have included my visit to a dublin casino last month in my live figures, as I will tonight. Tihs ensures that the boss can see all my ins and outs!!

Fortunately I had a very good night at the casino. I walked in with £100 cash on me and left the card in the car. I played a few hands on 3 card poker without much success, before playing some roulette. I have a set syste covering a set selection of numbers (0/2/4/10/11/17 to 29nd 33). There is no reason for this, its pure luck and thats how I keep it. Anyway after misisng with the first couple of £20 buy ins, I hit the third and had several decent numbers in a row making me up to around about £170.

I then took the unusual decision for me to play a slot machine. I dont normally play these, but justr fancied something different. I put £20 in one, and won £20... I then pu the £20 back in and won £20!!!

I changed machine and put the £20 in... at £0.50 a go it was sime mindless fun, but a couple of decent results later Including 4 worm icons, I found myself with £135!

I cashed up at this point, with £275 in my back pocket(I had bought a couple of drinks). This is when I dedided to have a final £25 roulette spin or 2, as I had a good night and thought "why not"?

This is when I managed to have a very good run. If I hit a number I always double it the next spin, and a couple of nice spins later I was on another £60 or so pounds. Suddenly I had a very hot streak. I had a good bet on 0 and all three of its 17-1 splits, winning around £100 cash + 100 chips @50p each. I doubled all the bets on the number (0,0/1,0/2,0/3) and it came in again!!!

In the end I ended up with £550 for an overall profit of £450!

Anyway this will almost ceratinly be my last visit for a while....

On the poker front I had a bad day on ladbrokes, losing £450. However I managed a good win on poker333, making £358.97, with just over £102 left on the site.

Monthly update -

VC +£1712.57
Laddies +£344.52
Party -£223.55
Poker333 +£862.10
Pokerstars -£250
Live +£183.33

Overall - +£2628.97



Best wishes

Short crap session

rubbish.......

lost £70......

Nothing much to say

Liar.....

OK OK I KNOW I SAID I WAS A HAVING A FEW DAYS OFF!!

Got home this evening to find the planned evening out cancelled. I had a browse around and found what is surely one of the best value tourneys on the net. On the microgaming network, $50 rebuy with a $200,000 guranteed pool.

I deposited and played for almost 6 hours to finish a respectable 15th out of 1500 +. With a buy in and 2 rebuys, I made $1500 for a profit of a little under $1350.

Eventually I made an overall profit of £487.18.

On VC, I missed cashing in three tourneys by less that 10 places, for a very dissapoining night on the site, to find myself -£175

I also decided to play some cash on laddies, mainly to provide a ditraction from the tourney. I find that If I get to the late stages of a tourney having a cash game to keem me occupied stops me from getting to clever in the tourney.

Had a good little run and made a profit of £380.97, for an overall profit on the night of £683.15.

I have a couple of hands from the tourney stored, and intend to do a couple of stratergy type entries later this week.

VC +£1712.57
Laddies +£794.52
Party -£223.55
Poker333 +£503.13
Pokerstars -£250
Live -£266.67

Overall +£2270 this month

Best wishes

Fed up - week off poker

No more poker from today folling these five hands -

QQ loses to AK
1010 loses to 65 os in a raised pot
AK loses to KJ, all in pre flop called by KJ!
KK loses to QJ
aa loses to 33, rivered set

Ladbrokes -2oo

mothly totals -

VC +£1887.57
Laddies +£431.55
Party -£223.55
Poker333 +£15.95
Pokerstars -£250
Live -£266.67

Overall +£1594.28

Havant and Waterlooville 1-1 Braintree Town. oh and some poker...!

Spent the afternoon at West Leigh Park (WLP) for the conference south match between these two play-off chasing sides, and saw quite possibly the most unreal afternoons 'Football' I think I have seen in years.

The majority of the action took place on the sidelines, with both managers, one of the Hawks coaching staff and one of the Braintree Players all being sent off, the player sent off was also involved with the coaching staff!

After all the antics, the final score of 1-1 was almost forgotten!!

Not much poker as back to work tomorrow and so no chance to play any MTTs or anything

ladbrokes - £67.63
stars -£125

Another uninspiring game

Not much happening again. I have been playing some mixed games on stars, and have found the lower limits relatively wek. I may play a few more of these games and establish whether or not I have the game in the mixed format to win cosistently. I believe I have a decent edge, as Hold'em was not the first game I learned, hence I am not entirely reliant on NLHE

VC -£300
Ladbrokes +£204.78

Overall -£95.22

Month to date

VC +£1887.57
Laddies +£699.15
Party -£223.55
Poker333 +£15.95
Pokerstars -£125
Live -£266.67

Overall +1987.45

best wishes

Poker Stars

Made my first deposit on Stars today. Had a shot at the $50 tourney with a very good $25000, but that lasted 4 hands as My KK ran into a mosnter 78 on a 567 flop..... turn 9!

Generally I wasnt that keen on the software, but the range of games was pretty good and of course the tournies are good. Ill post some better thoughts when I have played a few more hands.....

Onto tonight -

VC - £100
Laddies + £80.44
Stars - £125
Party - £23.55

overall £-168.11

Best wishes....
No disasters, but a losing night

Final update

End of the day, monthly figures now stand at

VC +£2287.57
Laddies +£413.93
Party -£200
Poker333 +£15.95
Live -£266.67

overall +£2250.78

Further update (3)

Ladbrokes improves to +£78.49... decent perfomance in a $2.50 - $5 cash game.

$400 in play. :)

Still cant get going on Party Poker, and I am down £100 here.

Further update (2)

VC + £316.80.... a small cash in a MTT, got muffed though. 4 handed raised pre flop with Q9.... BB called 4x BB raise with, wait for it.... 84 OS! Of course he had hit everything in the tourney, and the flop came 885....

Ladbrokes - £101.62.... grinding my way back towars profit

Further update

Ladbrokes -£200
VC +£278.12

Bad run on cash games including KK cracked twice by underpairs, great run on VC! Odd how these things go

Month to date

Monthly figures correct to 0400 14/2/07

VC Poker - +£2070.77 / +$4038
Ladbrokes - +£335.44 / +$418.18
Party - -£100 / -$195
Poker333 - +£15.95 / +$31.10
Live - -£266.67 / -E440

Overall - +£2045.49

YTD - +£3674.51

A personal diary - how the money works!

I appreciate this is becoming more of a simple diary and area to keep records, but I also hopes it gives my friends and family who read this blog and don't really have much knowledge of the poker world an idea of what I do and how my results go. I appreciate that I haven't really written any article style entries, but I will aim to do that as the year goes on. If and when I play specific live tournies I will try and report as best as I can on them.

An update on tonight -

- £100 on VC - I have had a bad spell on the site in terms of MTT results, despite some good cash sessions. I have a small bonus to clear so I will doubtless be back later in the week.

+ £121.99 on laddies. 2 x good cash sessions at $3-$6 and $2-$4, making and $270 and $350 respectively.

HOW DOES THE MONEY WORK

I know that a lot of people who I have personally passed my blog address onto are in the dark about the nuts and bolts of how the money side of things works. For those people I will just add this basic guide.

1st of all you need to have a real money account on the site or sites you play at. Once you have opened and account you can deposit using several means.I stick to the bigger sites, VC and Laddies on the UK for example which are both well established PLCs. For me this is important because I am much happier that the risk of fraud through these companies or the chances of them going broke and leaving me out of pocket are minimal. Because of this I will happily use my debit card.

Once you have registered your card, its simply a case of selecting how much you want to deposit.It is no different to depositing on pay pal or making payments on any other internet site. Once funded, you can select the game you want and off you go. In order to keep things simple I will use the example of a cash game. If you have deposited £50, and you have a winning session making say, £200, the you leave your game and after the hand that was in progress has finished. You check your balance and hey presto, you have £200 in your account. Its time to withdraw.

On most sites there are various withdrawal methods. With ladbrokes for example, you can walk in to any branch and get your cash, up to £500. Other options include cashing directly onto your card and generally 2 days later there it is. The guideline for a card refund as it is called is 2-3 working days. Some sites don't offer this facility, and VC for example will only refund what you put in. Any profit you have to use an alternative means.

BACS is a direct payment into your bank, and takes 3-5 working days. Cheques can take anything up to a month, although Poker333 sent me one within a week. Cheques are not something I use to often, as often sites send them to you in $. If this is the case you can get hammered by certain banks making money out of your exchange rate.

Online wallets such as Neteller can also be used. These are used by many people who are sceptical about giving out card details.

I have no real plans to play live this week, but if anyone can recommend a game within an hour of Hampshire on Thursday I will be interested.

Best wishes

Chat box

The chat box is a much debated part of online poker. It is I find generally an area for people to express their frustrations, to abuse players and bemoan their bad beats. I often find that people write the oddest comments!

For example -

In today's $2-$4 game I held AK d, and was sat on a stack of around $620. I raised to $20 pre flop with the button ($125) and the BB ($600 odd) calling. The flop came down 9 high with two diamonds. The BB bet out$25 into the $61 pot. The BB often bet into rag flops in raised pots, so I raised to $75 representing a big holding. I know at this point I'm favourite over any lone pair. The button decided to move in for the last $105 he held, a call of $30 more. The button folded and I called.

This is an obvious call. I am calling another $30 to win around $250, and I call here with almost any hand because of the pot odds, especially in a cash game! In any case there are very few circumstances I can be persuaded to pass here, in a raised pot I would need to be convinced by opponent held trips, because even against KK I'm in good shape. The button turned over ace 9, for top pair. This meant that my ace outs were gone, but i was still left with 9 diamonds and 3 kings twice. By my reckoning I'm around 45% tow in.

I make my hand on the river with an 8 to take the pot.

The following exchange occurs in the chat box -

Player x - You fish
Mosside - Are you serious?
Player X - you called with nothing you moron
Mosside - Lol are you serious?
Player x - can pas AK your an idiot
Mosside - so I suppose you would have passed for $30 more?
Player X - Fish
Mosside - Am I the one who called an EP raise UTG with A9OS?
Player x - **** off idiot

Being abused online is not unusual. I often play drawing hands aggressively, so when I do hit the pots can be huge so any out draw or bad beat I put on someone can be expensive. This particular exchange made me chuckle all the more however as I don't think there is any other way anyone is likely to play this hand!!

I often use the chat box to get under the skin of an opponent. I was as bad as anyone when I first started playing as I tended to let the chat box influence my play. Now I will try my best to use the chat box to my advantage. If I get a bad beat, I will moan like hell, and play the next few hands particularly aggressively if I get the hands to do this. Admittedly this is not always possible as often I find that I need to cool off first, but If I do pick up one or two hands I find it possible to represent tilt when actually I'm strong. This often induces a bad call from an opponent, and bad calls is ultimately what makes money when in possession of a big hand.

On to today - I had to re deposit on VC for the first time in almost a week, however I quickly managed to turn $150 into $800 on a $2-$4 cash game. I cashed out the deposit with a £100 on top. I have £200 on line and am currently chip leader in the 0700 $3000 guaranteed rebuy. I'm looking for a top 3 here, as I have not made a good finish in one of these type tourneys for a few days!

VC - +£2170.77

Best wishes

A couple of days off

I have taken a couple of days off as I had a bit of a ull session Sunday, and felt that I simply burned out. I had played an awful lot recently without picking up any major results, and I felt my game was getting a bit stale.

I want to play the $20,000 guranteed at least three times this week, with the aim of making the final table at least once.

I also intend to set up an account on Poker stars and Ful tilt, as I have read some good reviews on these sites.

Best wishes

Matt

Where Im at, update on goals.

Current totals

A quick post to update my total. I cashed £116.37 after a few small cash game wins, and im currently nicely positioned 40 players from the money in a $7000 guranteed rebuy.

VC Poker - +£2070.77 / +$4038
Ladbrokes - +£214.45 / +$418.18
Party - -£100 / -$195
Poker333 - +£15.95 / +$31.10
Live - -£266.67 / -E440

I am generally sticking to VC at this time. The structure of the tourneys suits me better, and there are so many weak and easy to read players. My only problem at the moment is that when I pick up on that weakness, especially in tourneys, unless we are near the money getting the weak players to fold their weak hands is a challenge, hence despite the fact I make a good bet or bluff, I am often caught out by people who struggle to release. When I spent a bit of time considering this prior to writing this entry I asked am I simply easy to read?

I would like to think not, especially as I am consistantly winning by playing aggressively. This aggressive style probably provokes some of those weak calls by my opponents, but it is also helping me to get paid of in spots I have no right to get paid off in. A prime example today when the BB raised me all in after I had made a button raise. This was a $2-$4 game, and the BB had $450 to my $180. I called with JJ as I wa convinced he had a weak ace. I was horribly wrong as he showed 9-6 OS for a total bluff......!

Anyway the running monthly total shows a healthly profit of £1934.50. Unfortunately with Dublin and other bills including the years council tax (Over a £1000 !!!!) my bankroll has sat pretty still, however I am just currently bang on my £200 a day target.

Target Update

To date I have averaged 193.45 pounds profit per day. What I have realised I havent taken into account is the fact that there are days I simply cannot play due to work. I am thinking f revising this target to around about £3000 a month, to take into account work etc. For the time being I am going to keep a rough look out, but untill I havefirmly built a bank roll and can set a defininate goal I am going to keep these goals and targets fluid.

For the time being my aim is to keep improving and try and play some larger off line events for experience pupose. I will almost certainly have to qualify online as I will never justify paying a huge one off tourney entry fee!

Anyway back to my tourney, its getting close to the cash.

****0700 stop press****

Tourney was a failure, but I found a very juicy cash game and was able to cash out another £197.40, whilst still leaving over $800 on VC.

Best wishes

Not alot to update

Not a massive amount of play today as I have been in London doing the whole tourist thing!

Played a litle on VC tonight, and really just went around in circles. No decent money finishes, but a couple of cashes meant I have pushed my balance up a little on the site ($400-$550), however with no deposits or cashouts to date today, its a +/- 0 day.

Please check out the links which I am starting to add as we go. If anyone would like to link this to their site then feel free.

Best wishes

Quick update

A quick update -

after an evening not doing alot in cash or tourneys, going up andd down like a yo you i finally made 5th in a $4000 guranteed, paying just over $500, managing to cash out 191.76 to leave me with plenty of bankroll for some more touneys later in the weekend.


VC + £191.76

Best wishes

Back to work - MTTs

Back to the internet, which is still the best area for me.

At the time of writing I have just won a $3500 guranteed rebuy on VC, with first paying $1292. I played a little cash on poker 333, and depsite being up to £100 up, I ended up cashing a profit of £15.95.....

At the time of writing I am £491.24 up on the day on VC. Bringing my montly totals (now icluding live to -

Ladbrokes - +£214.45
Party - -£100
VC - +£1762.64
Poker333 - +£15.95
Live - -E440 / -£266.67

Overall - +£1626.37

Best wishes

Dublin

Spent two nights and three days in Dublin this week. Whilst I enjoy going to London, I find Dublin much more relaxing and much more friendly. Whilst London generally there is more money to be won and more variety, the cash games in Dublin are generally looser and better fun. Also the exchange rate on the Euro makes the game cheaper!!

Unfortunately for me, this trip was not successful ending up losing E440. For the purposes of my records I will use the exchange rate £1 - E1.65.

BAD SLOW ROLL

On the first night, I quit early for fear of tilting of a lot of money. In generally a bad beat wont tilt me anymore, however I was very badly slow rolled and this really angered me, so much so I really felt like simply punching the perpetrator. I didn't like feeling this way and so after a few more hands and a bit of thought, I felt it wise to walk away.

This is the scenario. The game is PLHE, E50 game blinds of 1-2. At the table is a guy three to my right. I would describe him as a stereotypical uneducated (in the game) bluffer. He would raise with any attractive cards in any position, and then bet any flop and keep betting until someone passed. I felt I had a read on this guy and he managed to get all of his chips in on a board of Q82 with KJ. I called him down with 78 suited, and the turn and river didn't help him. He re bought for E100 and the very next hand raised again. I was BB by this point and called with 56d. There was a further player in the pot who was in EP and had limped then called the raise.

The flop came down J63 rainbow. I checked as did the limper, and the raiser bet the pot, and I again re raised, trying to shut the limper out. This worked and the bluffer called. The turn came a 5 and the river a 4.

I declared two pair and tuned my cards over, confident I was ahead. He showed me the ace of hearts, and the dealer began to push the chips my way. As he did the bluffer revealed a seven for a runner runner straight. I struggled (and boy did I struggle hard not to launch myself at him). This for my mind is completely unacceptable. Lets face it, it only cost me E100, but the pot was 215 and the fact that he had so blatantly slow rolled me was a disgrace. To the dealers and the clubs (fitzwilliam) credit, he immediately and quite rightly criticised the moron for what his behaviour.

The funny thing was when he turned to the player on his right and called me the idiot for raising with second pair...........!!! (I love players like this - How am I the idiot if I call when I'm ahead?) Then when I challenged him on calling me an idiot, he said "I wasn't calling you an idiot", to which the person he was talking to looked at me uncomfortably as if to say - "yes he did" Anyway after a few more hands I walked away, knowing I was angry and knowing I was not in the right frame of mind to play.

Night two came and went, and i enjoyed an hour or so playing with Barry Martin, who was at the club with Derek Kelly for dinner. As someone who uses the club the guys have been part of in London, it was nice to gt to meet Barry, although Derek didn't come over.

Overall still love Dublin!

Best Wishes

Montly totals

On a downer at the moment....!

Ladbrokes - + £214.45
Party - - £100
VC - +£1271.94

overall +£1386.39

YTD + £3015.41

Matt

Not much going on

Im not playing much, despite being on leave because of different bits and pieces.

Got back into the cash action tonight. Lost a buy in (£100), then the second went buy the way side....

$2-$4 6 seater on Laddies, and im on the button with the action folded to me. I have moved from $196 - $320.

A7 spades. I raise to $16. The small blind who has $200 insta calls, as does the big blind who has a monstrous $2300.

The flop comes 9s8s7d.

I bet the pot, and the SB calls. The big blind passes.

The turn brings a third 7. I now have trips with the best kicker, the nut flush draw. I am of course half considering 10/J as the SBs hand, but that is really the only hand I worry about. Had he have made trips on the flop he would have had to raise to protect.

I move all in for around $210. I do this because he is the sort of player who owuld over read this bet, and may call with a weak hand such as 2 pair.

He calls, after some delay and the river is a horrible looking jack if he has a pair + draw. Even worse. He turns over J7D for a boat. Another $500 river beat.....

Anyway as I write, the chips have come back to me when I call semi bluff all in with 10-9s, with a board of As 7s 8H. I make a flush on the river to win $625. He is however still haunting me......

2 hands later UTG I pick up QQ and make it $16 to go. Mr loose calls and its folded around to the BB where there is a call. The flop comes 7/4/3 to hearts. The SB checks and I bet $40 loking for Mr loose to hang himself. He does - moving in for $240. However from nowhere the SB also goes in for $400!! I have an easy pass. Mr loose has J4 suited in hearts for a pair +draw, and the SB has a made straight Unfortunately the made straight holds up. I say this because the SB is a good player and much tougher to extract chips from.

At the time of writing im back down to $440 having lost a pot against a small stacked newcomer, all in his AJ vs my 1010......

Right - the end - Am away for the next few days in Dublin.

Best wishes

Evening update

A quick update for you - cashed in a$5000 guranteed but got killedin the biger rebuy events.

Popped £100 into ladbrokes and worked it up to $400 when the floowing hand came up.

There is a player on LB who I consider to be worth targetting. He calls lots and lots of raises pre flop and then plays very predictably after it. I always over raise pots when he is at the table knowing he makes this the best play.

The following hand came up -

$2-$4 NL 6 seater.

I am UTG and raise to $24 with QQ. Player X is on the button and calls. the small blind passed and big blind calls. The flop came 8 high with 3 suites. I dont mess about here, and decide to bet $72, the size of the pot - rake. Player x calls.

The turn comes a 4 - I bet all my chips. The reason I do this is because feel he has a hand like A8, A7,99 or 1010, and I dont want to let him catch up cheaply and Ill happily take the pot here.

After invoking his extra time he eventually calls my massive bet, and turns over 99. This is the perfect result for me, having spent an hour grinding looking for a spot like this, even throwing away AA at one point on a very scary board.

I am gobsmacked when the river comes a 9,

There is so much skill in this game it is untrue, but to get my opponent into that spot and then be killed like that was crazy.

Overall on the night, in terms of money, I am down £100.

A quick note for the stats I put on here. These figures include all desposits and transactions onto poker sites from my bank avvount. Hence If I state I made £4, that is my net result on the day.

Hence If I deposit £600 and withdraw £900, I may well have won £800 however taking my losses into account I have only 'won' £300. This is not a true representation of the figures I despoit at the moment, and I appreciate for the majority of regular poker players this will be basic book keeping.

Im off to Dublin Tuesday for a couple of nights - with the intention of playing at the Fitzwilliam.

Best wishes

Hitting the tourneys

First of all, a result from Saturday evening. Having had a couple of hours spare, I decided to enter a $27 speed NLHE rebuy on VC. The very first hand came up with one of those"What would you do in the first hand of the WSOP" scenarios. The blinds start in this format at 20-40 with each player holding 2000 chips. Normally I rebuy instantly and go from there, however in you cannot rebuy untill hand 2.

The very 1st hand I picked up AA and raised to 200. Ordinarily this is a bit on the large size, however in these touneys it is pretty standard. With that, all hell broke loose. The cut off moved in, the button moved in, the small blind folded and the big blind moved in. I was up against 2 K Js and an A 10!. I quarupled up, and for once didnt need to rebuy and as it turned out didnt need to add on either.

I again played well and aggressively form 3-4 tables in, and made the final table about 5th in chips. Eventually I got heads up, with a 4-1 deficit. I managed to get ot the stage with 800,000 chips in play where I had 380,000. With huge blinds of 50,000-100,000, I managed to get all my chips into the middle pre flop with AQ agasint K5..... Unfortunately a turned 5 ended my touney, but having brought in for just 27 + 1.35 the $1300 second place prize was more than decent.

These tourneys seem to attract a lot of mediocre players, who seem to be under the impression that there is no skill involved. I find that if I play sensible poker I consistantly make mney out of these tourneys.

With a little bit of cash game success, I managed to cash £730.36 / $1424.20.

I am hitting the tourneys tonight, with the aim of a good cash finish in the $20,000 guranteed or preferably the $50,000!!!

Month to date -

Party Poker - -£100 / -$195
Ladbrokes - +£814.45 / +$1597.93
VC - +1371.94 / +$2675.28

Overall - +£2086.39 / +$4068.46
--------

Yesterday saw Havant and Waterlooville go top of the conference south with a grounded out 1-0 win against Basingstoke. Well done the boys!

Best wishes

!STOP PRESS!

Im pleased to announce my first decent touney result ince early Jan and pre this blog.

$20 NLHE rebuy with $3000 guranteed prize pool this morning - 6th for $196 with one rebuy + no add on.

$27 NLHE speed rebuy with $5000 guranteed this evening - 1st for $2099.63. I felt I played reall well from 4 tables out. The top 18 payed, and 18th was a considerable $120, so people will play scared and I felt I took advantage well. I was chip leader from the start of the final apart from for one hanb, where I lost a 60/40 in my favour shot. I recovered in the next hand to double up and go on to win.

Current month on VC moves into profit - +£641.58

Best wishes

A tale of two hands

Well February is here and the sumer is a coming.... My new cricket bats have arrived from India and so now I am keeping the street entertained with the rythmic knocking in of the bats! I am not sure if there taste in bat beats is the same as mine.

Anyway onto the poker. I have spent one off my favourite periods of the day playing - 0030 hrs GMT - 0500hrs GMT. This is my favourite time for a number of reasons:-

1- I find that there are a few drunks who no matter what day of the week it is will still appear for some post pub poker. These players I often find are very keen to draw, and as such I always look to extract cash out of them when I hit my big hands. I also find you can make sickiningly obvious little raises with the nuts or near nuts and they still insist on calling.

2- I find that some of the better players who have spent the evening building stacks, start getting tired and making little mistakes. If you are careful they can be decent sources of income.

3- Tourney players who have spent a hard evenings work winning or making good money in a tourney often appear late when they are tired, and are ripe for attacking. I often find players who specialise in tourneys struggle in internet cash games. It is my view that even good tourney players online struggle with cash players because of ten they cannot play sufficently well on the flop. It is very rare that these players find any other move than pushing in. I am very much the same when playing tourneys, tending to put the pressure on pre and on the flop. I am always very much aware when switching between tourney and cash of the different stratergy required.

4- I work shifts in my job, and so dont generally suffer from the tiredness issue because I am used to being awake overnight.

A tale of two bad beats to night, ironically 1 for me and 1 against me. Both pots were worth approximately $600 and in both we sucked out on each other. In the first hand I held QJ in a raised pot with two callers. When the flop came 10-9-8 with , I was very pleased. I was even happier when my pot sized bet was raised all in on the flop by an aggressive nutter. When the turn and river came 8-7, and no flush was made, I didnt see how I could be losing unless he had made this play with trips. When he turned over 7-8 for a runner runner boat I was not impressed!

Anyway about an hour later in a raised pot, I came up against the same player with a board of A Q 9 I held AJ. I made a big bet and the mr nutter moves in. 3 hands previousy he had caught a weak kicker to make aces up, and this hand had played out in a similar fashion. The turn brought me a jack and the river was a blank. I won with two pair..... He claimed AK.

Now Normally I moan when I am the sufferer of bad beats, It is a bad habbit which I am desperately trying to get out of..... I dont do it in the live scenario, so why should the internet be any different? Any way my opponent in this scenario was adamant he had AK in the conversation that followed. He spent a good couple of minutes moaning about what a fish I was.
As I said to him - sometimes, what goes around comes around. He claimed I was a fish..... if he was honest and had AK I was only 7% to win and got very lucky...... He must have forgotten hewas only 3% to win the earlier hand!Fickle poker players.....

Anyway an update on proceeedings tonight - at the time of writing its 0435 hrs and I am +£519.45. This is despite a disasterous start to the monthly VC tourney run where I dropped £300 very quickly in their tourneys and cash games. I am definately avoiding VC poker cash games, and sticking to the right tourneys. I think my problem was I didnt approach them in the right frame of mind, having played so much cash lately.

Right - enough said.

Ladbrokes + £814.45 / +$1597.93
VC - £300 / -$585
PP - £100 / -$195

Best wishes