Happy New Year and a short recap

First of all I wish all of the readers to get well into the new year. Have fun while celebrating. I am toasting to a successful 2010!

To summarize what I wanted to do for 2009:

Lose 20kg
- I managed to lose 20kg by May 2009 and have regained 10kg since then. Still a good and healthy weight loss.

Run the Great North Run
- I was registered for it and had payed the fee. Unfortunately due to my move to Spain/Gibraltar I couldn't attend.

Get my Poker bankroll to $1000
- Since the move to the south I concentrated on live games which made me a almost £3k profit. My online roll hasn't moved massively but stands at about $1200 as well. from the $300 of last year. Pokerwise it was a brilliant year.

2010 aims:

My wedding is due in August and I want to lose 15kg by then.

I want to pay back the make up of my staking deal by May which is about another £1400.

My brother already ran his first half marathon in 2009 and he wants to join me for the GNR in 2010. So I want to run 2010.

Have a fantastic wedding with all the people that accompanied me through my life.

Start my MBA studies and get another salary increase that lifts my lifestyle even more.

Let's see how we do.

Truthans.

What a comeback!

After that -£290 session that I played a while ago I had a sweet return to the felt. I was absolutely card dead all night but managed to bring home a tidy £674.50 profit. Yes! At my highest point I was sitting in this 0.5/1 game with a £1k stack. Sick. Most of the profit came from two hands which I would like to put down here. Reading through will reward you with a look on a picture of my roll nicely put scene within some Christmas decoration and another picture of some fine ham in it's original packaging ;-)


Hand 1:

I'm about 230bb deep and limp/call a raise with T8cc. We are heads up.

Flop: Jc 9s 10s

Hero: checks
Villain: bets pot
Hero: flat calls

Pot: ca. £90 now

Note: From what I know he could have anything here as in the past he was relatively week when pot-c-bet and I think I have a chance to win the pot on the turn as he tends to 2nd barrel a lot and I would check/raise a lot of turn cards. Any T, club, 7 or 9.

Turn: Js

Hero: checks
Villain: bets £35
Hero: calls

Pot: £160

Note: This has to be a scare card for him but he suddenly leads really week. I don't think he has got the J because he doesn't pot-c-bet the flop with TP. I am not entirely sure about this but I have never seen him doing that with a TP hand and I am trusting my read there. Now his turn bet is polarizing his range and makes it a nuts or nothing story.
I decide that I've got outs at least and actually may be ahead and take the bargain on the turn to play a river card as I thought this board left me some room for bluffing him of something like KK or AA which he didn't want to check behind on the turn because he may be has a spade with one of them but didn't feel secure either and went for a smallish bet. He plays overpairs very straightforward normally so this might be in his range.

River: 9d
Hero: bets £105
Villain: folds

Note: Now this is the absolute bingo card for me as it crushes 95% of his range. He can only call with a J or 9 but as we know I was very certain he didn't have either of them, this was a great spot. I said before that his range was polarized and against his air range I would have show down value and could check/call the river.
I decided to go for a donk-bet here as only with that I make him fold all his pocket pairs and his flushes as well. The J fitted perfectly in my hand and I don't even think he is clever enough to rule out me having a 9 in the hand so he probably puts that in my range as well. He folds and shows me AKss for the turned nut flush.

Because everyone was begging and I got offered a fiver to show my hand, I showed him my bare pair and he went steaming.

Hand2 (Villain is same person as above. This hand happened about 90 mins later.)

I found AA utg in that hand and had the option to limp or raise. Problem with a raise is that I probably get about 4 or 5 flat callers behind and have to play that hand OOP in a big pot which is nothing I particularly wanted to do.

I thought limp/raising is a good option. My utg limp/raise range is completely unbalanced but the table was thick enough to not realize that. To my surprise a single raise from MP1 (same villain as before) (although it was a 12bb raise) gets folds and it is back to me UTG. Now I decide to play that hand strangely and only flat my AA here. Given the history between us I think he might go broke very light if I don't appear strong PF. I am more than 400bb deep in that hand and he has about 700bb.

Flop: Ac, Qc, 9c

Hero: checks
Villain: bets ca. £25
Hero: raises to £61
Villain: raises to £175
Hero: raises all in.
Villain: calls ca. £290 more

He shipped his second raise in within milliseconds and looks as if he really wants to win this hand there. I return his raise with an insta-all-in and try to look the same way as I did when I bluffed him about 1.5h ago. "We had that before, didn't we Hannes?

He ends up calling and then mucking when sees my top set. He claims he had KK with the K of clubs. I do not believe it. No one mucks the nut flush draw in a almost 900bb pot. I think he went broke pretty light there due to our history. I didn't put any flopped flush in his range.

So, what do you think about hand 1 and hand 2

5 hands later I got KK in vs the table donkeys KQo - £150 stack. Was very relaxing to sit with a 1k stack in that game.

Here are the promised pictures:

Gibraltar Headlines

A little Christmas Cheer

I love Gibraltar!

Miss World 2009 - Gibraltar

Bayern Munich - Juventus 4:1

Weeeeeeeeeeheyyyy,

finally some good news from my favourite team. We smashed the Italians 4:1! Even better: We did it in Turin!

Sorry Toni, but Europe League can be fun too. ...Yeah I know you only needed to play draw against us in your arena but what can you do when you get outclassed by a superior team!

Gonna put a bet on Munich now to win this cup. Should be good odds.

I am a little drunk actually. Meh...gonna play some HU Cash now and spew a bit.

Sweet night that was!

Friday Night Rollercoaster & PwC

Played 8 hours cash game on Friday night. I played like a dick as I was expecting to finally have a losing session again. Have not had a losing session for my last 14 sessions, so I forced it to be one. Had a super aggro to my right who probably had stats of 80/75 so that increased my Vpip substantially as well.

Was down 380 £after 3 hours. Suddenly went on a little rush and found myself being up £140!

The inevitable monster pot was coming. I misplayed this hand so badly it is unreal. Problem is that I still don't know how to play it. I was about £700 deep when I found 99 UTG. It was the fourth consecutive hand I open raised and the two nits to my left flatted immediately although they normally fold everything. Now it comes round to a PokerStrategy.com player is plays fixed limit mid-high stakes. Hand goes as follows

Game: NL Holdem £1/£2

UTG £700: Raise £9
EP1: Call £9
EP2: Call £9
MP1 £305: Raise £55
Folds back to UTG

UTG: calls £46
EP1: folds
EP2: folds

I just couldn't find a fold here as I thought that it is just too nice of a spot to squeeze. Both EP's will raise the top of their ranges against my open and my range could have been weak anyway. I was pretty sure that the opponent was good enough to make this play. Problem is I didn't know how to proceed with the hand. If I put him on a pre flop move then I could just 4-bet shove PF as I couldn't fold to a 5-bet shove anymore. I flatted which in hindsight was probably worst thing to do.

Flop: 8s7s6c

UTG: checks
MP1: bets £75

Now, how am I supposed to get away from my hand on a board like this? I don't need to call PF if I fold such a board? Right?

Pot is £203 now and opponent has roughly 170 behind. I ended up check-raising him all in and he snapped me with TT's. Blocking 2 of my straight outs and killing my set outs. The board blanked out and I lost this massive pot. Can I check/call the flop here? A bit ugly that hand. A shame I couldn't bink. Would have loved to sit with a £1000 stack in the game.

It's all not too tragic as I can concentrate on winning again and not just expecting to be losing just because it would be about bloody time. I could have kept the losses smaller though.


My girlfriend just managed to bink a job at PricewaterHouseCoopers and is very happy. This is something that makes me very happy! Nothing better than a happy girlfriend that doesn't moan about her shit job anymore. Normal working hours for her as well. Very good! And when we move in our now apartment in January she will have a only 3 Minute walk to the office.

I am going to Hamburg for a week in January and hope to play some cash at the Casino at the Esplanade there. I think it's a NL400 game but supposedly redic soft. Not as much limping as in Gib but opponents are supposed to give full payouts very light.

As a nice finish I give you one more picture of my new bath tub. It was still kinda under construction here:

Sooo many news!

My god, there is so much that needs writing about that I don't even know where to start. I probably forget half the things that were interesting. I left it just far too long for this post. In general I am still enjoying my job and on good days we still reach the 20 degree mark down here.

Firstly, a couple of weeks ago we had our very good German friends over from England where we left them alone with the rain and the terrible football teams of the north east. I took a few days of work, although due to extreme business went in the office for 2 hours on my holiday to get some stuff done. It was all great fun, we had a look at a few places, got smashed in the pubs one night, got smashed at home another night and basically enjoyed being together again. I really missed that. We are living about 30 mins drive away from Gibraltar at the minute which kills a lot of my social life. So having really good friends over was superb. Just like it used to be.

Other than that my girlfriend is looking around for a new job as she can't really identify with the job that she has in gambling at the moment. She has made it through a lot of stages at PricewaterhouseCoopers so far and has another interview early next week. If she can get that job she would be a very happy person and that would make me a similar happy person. Although her job has improved quite a lot during the last few weeks and it seems as if they were to prepare her for a supervisor role.
Yesterday her company had a online Poker tournament for employees only. £1500 guaranteed and only 55 starters. I was watching her table and she gave me her hands through via skype and I obviously crushed the game. We made the final table and with 5 left we were chipleader. I then missed to fire a third barrel against an obvious flush draw when I had no showdown value and gave one of my opponents to much credit for being able to 3-bet light as a resteal and I 4-bet shoved and my J9 couldn't improve against his AK and we busted in 5th for £100. Which isn't too bad for a freeroll.

As mentioned before I got a little sick of the fact that my social life actually happens in Gibraltar which is 30 minutes away from where I life. This indicates that either I always need to drive, my girlfriend has to drive or I need a taxi. This indicates that 3 pints with the mates after work just aren't possible. Now that my salary has changed significantly I managed to convince my girlfriend to move to Gibraltar with me. Now we are moving into very new building in the centre of Gib in a apartement in the 14th floor with a huge balcony. The biggest asset of the new flat ist this though:





It's a very sweet area that includes six pools and another six jacuzzi's which are just in front of our door and can be used as freely as we wish and when we wish. The balcony of the apartment is huge as well. The flat itself is quite a bit smaller than our current flat and will only have one bedroom but it is definitely enough for us. Just our guests will need to cope with the airbed in the living room from now on.
I am looking forward to Gib. We are only moving in on the 25.01.2009

Next thing to happen was a quick e-mail by good friend and staker James Keys stating "I am in Gibraltar today. Give me a ring if you get this message" - I thought "sweet" and rung him. He was on a poker trip with a mate (bowburn) and I met up with him in the San Roque Club to rail Bowburn playing the tournament he qualified for. There was some real money on the line and with only 29 starters anything was possible. Unfortunately Bowburn busted in 7th place when he pulled out a resteal shove against a weak open-raiser but got unlucky and ran into SB's QQ's and couldn't hit his 30%. 5th was £5000.

I wasn't really part of the package but enjoyed the free drinks and the free buffet that had been prepared. Had good fun with Keys on the rail and won a bet for a tenner when he said that 10 people or less would bust within an hour and I had 11 or more. At 57 minutes 10 were out and I managed to bink the last bust out to take down the bet just before time running out.
After the tourney Bowburn was quite gutted and so they didn't want to go on a lash in Gib with me and play some cash. I can understand it. I would have puked in the dealer's face several times myself. Because keys had money on the 7th and the 6 th place finisher he would probably still join me in puking.

What else is there to report. Hm... maybe some poker. Online I have been crushing my opponents and busted everyone that played against me except for one hit'n'runner so far. It is good fun as well and I feel that there is so much more reasoning behind my decisions now than about 6 to 12 months ago. I consider myself as a good poker player now. I mean I am not amazing or sick but I feel I didn't get stuck in the game. I feel I evolved and can beat a certain range of different stakes. I wish I was able to put more time in studying stuff but hey whatever. I have read a few good articles about HU play and watched more videos. Still haven't put a lot of volume in but I never really will.

The live games have gone very nicely the last few weeks and I was running golden, golden, golden. Flopping a set with JJ's against QQ's and KK's was certainly one of my favourite moments. I haven't had a losing session for absolute ages and my graph looks rediculously pretty. Unfortunately I promised myself not to post my graph anymore before I had not played 50 sessions.

Here are the current stats:

Sessions: 33
Total Profit: £2011.50
Profit since Staking: £1049.50

Speak soon

Truthans

HU Cash

I am dabbling a bit around in the online poker world. My usual game is NL100 full ring but I am getting bored by that at the minute. I tried my bollocks another time at the short handed tables but I seem to do essential mistakes in my short handed game. I am especially stacking off far too light and have a tendency to be over-aggressive. No idea why I only have those tendencies in short handed games. Just seems to not be my kind of game and I decided to give up on NL 6-max. Maybe I need to switch to the limits where they respect my raises. ;-)

As I have recently read about it in James Keys' blog I thought I give HU Cash on PKR a go as well. Because I have no real clue about that game, I watched some videos on PokerStrategy.com and decided to try my luck at NL25 HU tables. I really enjoyed it and managed to beat my opponent up in a two hour match to claim a 4 stack profit victory. I am not sure if I am tilt resistant enough though to play that kind of game consistently. I was close to implode when my TT got outdrawn by 85o but managed not to blow up after taking deep breaths for 2 minutes. I guess in HU tilt is pretty much the worst thing that can happen to you and bringing your opponent on monkey tilt is probably to most profitable way to approach HU. I have no idea. I used to play fixed limit heads up quite a bit but it is a completely different game and the experience doesn't help for NL HU games whatsoever.

I think I am going to try playing 4 or 5 other opponents on NL25 HU and see how I feel. If I feel I was in control I will switch to NL50 HU but am aiming to play NL100HU. I wouldn't mind doing some bum hunting either but I feel that this might not be necessary on PKR. I think on a site like Stars or FTP even those low stakes games must be kinda tough to beat if you don't put enough effort in.

Our long time German friends which we lived together with in the UK for a while are coming to visit us here in Spain for a week. I got a few days of work and hope to enjoy a nice long weekend. Very much looking forward to the banter the next days. Bought a bottle of Gin, Vodka and Jack Daniel's. I think total the cost was £3.50 ;-)

Just read that Robert Enke committed suicide yesterday and I am actually quite shocked. He was a superb personality and a great goalie! Also he was on a good way to be our number 1 for next year's World Cup. German football lost a great personality and sportsman. RIP.

Laters,

Truthans

Two Faced

This post is solely gonna be about my last nights cash game session so if you can't be bothered to read about poker hands you can stop right here. I just need to write this off my mind. Go to the last 3 lines to get a summary.

They have changed the Poker director in our local Casino and since that the cash games on Friday and Saturday are starting at 8:00 pm which is good for a smooth 8 hours of play. I bought in for the full 150bb stack at 9:00 pm and didn't know yet that this was going to be one of the most volatile and mood changing sessions I have played so far.

My first table was very soft. I had an extremely nitty PokerStrategy.com player to my left who would just fold everything except the top 8% of his range. The rest of the table was either very loose/passive or very tight/passive. With loose I mean VPIP of ca. 80 and the tight players probably around 40. lol. I played pretty solid and check-raised a lot of drawy boards to take down a few £20 - £40 pots. I didn't go to show-down for while until I had pocket 3's. Three way pot, I am the PFA. A52 - I am first to act and it goes check, check, check. Turn: A - I check, check, Button bets £10 into £12 pot. I have a good read on this player and know his betting patterns. He would have bet any ace on the flop. He never checks behind on the flop with an ace. Every time he has got a hand, he over bets the pot as well. I was pretty certain he had air as he does not bet a 5 or 2. River - 6 , I check and he bets 15 in that pot. The only thing I can beat is air but I make the call and he shows me J9. Confidence booster.

Then the first hand I played for a stack. I limped KTo from early mid and call a small raise from the small blind, who is a guy that is pretty drunk and just looked and smelled like a bum. He probably went back to his cardboard-box-home after the game. Anyway, K85 flop he leads and I am raising hoping to get it in. I saw him getting it in with a lot of shit before so I am ahead here the majority of the time. He calls and shoves his last £10 on the blank turn. River is a Q and he shows me pocket QQ's. I didn't really mind as he had the better hand and I had a pretty aggro image, so I probably get QQ in against myself as well. Just a shame the lady pops on the river. I think the pot was not even that big. hm...can't remember.

Then I remember shoving my flush draw into the PFA to my left who had c-bet the flop but the turn should have been a scare card for him and I thought I had FE. He had turned the Nut Straight with a gut shot and I missed my flush outs. Stack down.

I am stuck now and open up my gambling mood. Interesting hand follows.

MP - Limp
CO - Limp
BU - Raise £5

I wake up with TT in the SB and think about 3-betting. Problem is that the button is really passive and I think it is the second hand he raised in two hours. I didn't want to fold to a 4-bet shove and decided to flat call. It goes round to the former limpers and CO suddenly makes it £35 and button snap folds.

No I am not sure what this is. I am pretty sure that he doesn't overlimp AA,KK,QQ or JJ from the CO. Doesn't make sense. He just doesn't do that. I gave him the following range: AJ+, 44 - 99. And personally the whole situation smells more like the small PP and not like overs. Other than that my hand is pretty well disguised and he can't know that I am as strong as I am. I set him all-in and he shows AKs and I hold. Stack up.

Another English drunkard comes to the table and quickly donates another £150 in 10 hands to me. Now I got a bit sick of the table as there were 3 drunk english man at the table who had fun in berating themselves and slowing the game down to about 5 hands an hour. On the second table were 4 PokerStrategy players and no one else but it was a pretty sick line up. Simon "Schnibl0r" Muenz who is a high stakes reg at a variety of games. I think he was one of the best Fixed Limit HU players around a few years ago, playing $500/$1000 but he switched to NL later where he plays up to NL40k at the minute as far as I know. Next player is a dutch guy who is our Pro Team Manager and a NL2k to NL4k reg with a couple of big tourney cashes as well. Then there is our Head of Business Development who is not a good Poker player but he doesn't give a damn about the stakes and one other guy like me on a normal wage that hasn't made shitloads of Poker so far. Everybody is completely wasted except for me and the other "normal" guy. The game plays huge and I see bottom pair taking down a £500 in the first hand when it got a call by A high. I can't believe my eyes. I don't really know how to approach the game and have to fold my huge 3-bets twice when it got 4-bet shoved onto me. We were so fucking deep. Suddenly I find 86 of hearts and PF it's only £8 to call. lol. Flop is a sweet 9,5,7 and I get it in for a £600 pot. I change back to table one.

Lose another big pot in a 3 way all-in on the turn when I got like 6:1 for my straigth draw which didn't get there. Then I win AQ vs. AK on a Qxx,A,x board. All in on the flop. Then I lose a big pot with A8 vs. J9 on a 9,8,3 board where I made a terrible call.

In the end I finish a 7 hour session £18 up. lol. FML. Could easily have been £400. I am really annoyed by myself.

Anyway, £368 profit since staking. £1330 in total.

P.S.: Big congrats are going out to my staker James Keys who shipped a 2nd place finish for approx. $100k in the Baltic Poker Festival. Sick player, who is crushing the scene at the moment.

Visitors from Germany and my Performance Review

On Friday two mates from Germany which I had not seen for two years came to visit me for a few days. They also brought along an Australian lad who is on a trip through Europe at the moment after he stayed in Berlin for a year and will be returning back to Australia in December time. They started off their trip renting scooters to drive from Malaga to Sotogrande which is a 2.5 h drive on a scooter. Anyway the only lasted one hour before one had a crash, causing some pretty harsh skin damage all over his body and a wound that needed some sewing in the next best Spanish Hospital.
After that first bit of action they brought back the scooters and decided to hire a car instead, which turned out to have been a wiser choice. So the rest of the holiday my mate was on a lot of painkillers and vodka but he was ok. I asked for pictures and hope to get them at one point.

All three of them are really nice blokes and one of them actually is the bass player of the last band band I was active in before I left Germany more than two years ago. We had really good times going on the piss on Friday including a visit in the discos that Gibraltar has to offer which are playing ridiculously bad music.
Saturday we went to the beach for a short while enjoying the Mediterranean Sea and went to get some munch and a cash game in Gibraltar in the evening. Coming back home Saturday Night and sitting on the balcony till 5 am drinking, chatting and watching funny youtube videos and grinding the Bop-it toy.

Sunday was another day at the beach but this time we went to Tarifa to spend a few hours at the Atlantic Sea. Yes the weather and the water are still warm enough to actually go in there, so that's pretty cool. Almost November and we took a little bath in the sea. In the evening we went for a pretty cool all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant that I know, which offers insane value for money.

They did the basic tourist stuff like seeing Gibraltar's monkeys yesterday and in the evening we went for some more exclusive food at a restaurant in the Port of Sotogrande. I had really nicely cooked fillet medallions in Roquefort sauce and really enjoyed the meal.

Other big topic for me was my long overdue performance review at work, which finally happened yesterday night. It went really well and when you get told sentences like "your commitment and motivation are far beyond what is normal and you certainly belong in the top 10 of the company including senior management with that kind of performance" "that was by far the best performance I have seen of anyone in the first 4 months so far" it really slips down a treat!

I spoke pro-actively about a change in salary and asked for a 20% pay rise which I didn't get as my line manager said that it would not be enough and gave me a 33% rise in salary starting from 01/10/2009 and so he handed me as well an envelope with the money I didn't have on my paycheck last month. Clearly, I was amazed by the appreciation of my performance. My line Manager finished the meeting with the sentence: "that was the fastest and biggest (percentage wise) increase in salary that I ever gave".
So all what's left to say is: SHIP IT!

Furthermore my line manager let me know that they see me evolving into another role in the period of the next 6 - 12 months were I could make more use of my potential and promised me another meeting in 6 months time where we are going to talk about what my career path should be looking like. So next year I probably be thinking of doing a distance learning course which will go for 18 months and do an MBA in order to upgrade my current BA(hons) degree and possibly sneak into a role in our Operations Department.

You can bet that I am close to explode of pride at the moment and my motivation batteries have reloaded quite nicely. I am ready to take the next steps.

Btw, I started entering the working life last August and since then managed to more than double my initial wages. Man, my testicles are having the size of watermelons at the moment.

Cash games have been going ok as well with small, but steady profits. So even the stakers investments seems to pay off.

Ok, I'm finished bragging now and return to dancing around like the gay mantis again.

Talk soon

Truthans

A really good day

First of all I am congratulating myself that this blog is now 1 year old. I think I did ok with the blog. Some posts where funny some weren't but it felt good anyway to have something like a diary going. I tried having diaries when I was younger but failed after a maximum of 4 months. I am quite happy that I did a somewhat consistent effort to post on this blog and I haven't had a month yet in which I didn't post. So, well done me. Looking forward to the next year of blogging which should bring some interesting stories. For now I am just going write down what a nice day I had this Saturday.

I woke up at 9:00 and drove my girlfriend to work. Went back home and went back to bed. I didn't really feel tired so I thought I watch a movie and decided to watch Lesbian Vampire Killers. This was good for some early hilarity as I absolutely loved the character called Fletch. Some might argue that the story is flat and in the end it is just a average horror movie parody but I actually quite enjoyed the light hearted entertainment that Saturday morning.

After that I got up and decided to play some online Poker for a few hours which I had not done for a while. The session went good and I finished 2.5 stacks up at NL100. This added to my good mood and I was already dancing around in my flat like a gay mantis wearing boxers.

Next on the plan was the match Germany vs Russia in Moscow. I watched the English live stream on a sports betting website and was blessed with a pretty ok German performance that led to a 1:0 victory on Russian soil. We played 20 minutes with only 10 on the pitch and the Russians had not been beaten on home soil for like eh... I don't know...maybe since Ivan the Horrible reigned. We are qualified directly and I am looking forward to the World Cup next year. Congratulations by the way to England as well, by first qualifying for the Cup and then by really kicking the shit out of Croatia when you lost your last match. Man, what a well deserved revenge.

Now after the football I picked up my girlfriend from work in Gibraltar and we needed something to eat. So we popped in the nearby Morrison's and I convinced the lady to buy those nice looking venison sausages with some interesting seasoning of which I can't remember what it was anymore. Back home in Spain she got the meal cooked (ye good ol Bangers & Mash) and the Sausages were delicious. Fortunately the girlfriend could not manage to eat her 3rd sausage which means that I got 4 of them. I couldn't believe my luck.

On Friday it was her birthday and I bought her Sims 3 besides some other surprises which I am not gonna reveal here. Anyway, on Saturday she then told me that if I would install the game for here I could go to the casino and play Poker. Weeeeeeeeeeee!

I was a little afraid if my laptop was good enough to run this game but I was very fortunate and the game worked absolutely perfect although the installation took absolute ages.

Having had the girlfriend sorted out with her game I grabbed a few chips from the bank roll and made my way to the oh so beloved Gala Casino in Gib. Losing a 3 way all-in PF with AK against KK and AQ saw me being down £75 early on but I couldn't fold to the 4- bet shove anymore when I got 3,5 : 1 on my call. I then moved table and dominated the other table for the rest of the night mixing up my game and getting two light 4-bets through with A4s and 9Ts. I played mostly small pots and never was all-in again that night. In the end I made a profit of £142 which is good. The other cash table had two sick hands happening:

£1100 pot - 4way all-in - Board Js9s8c
888 vs. 95o vs. 6s5s vs. As2s
Board blanks out and the set takes down the pot. Juicy!


£480 pot - 2 way all in - Board Q,5,T rainbow
AA vs. A4o (The Aces raised PF and open shoved the flop, A4o snap called)
Turn: 4, River: 4

This boosts my total profits since June to £1214.
Since staking it is £252

A really good day that was!

Report soon

Truthans

Plodding along

There isn't really a lot to talk about but I thought it was time to throw an update in here. Since my last post I received the much wanted staking and got going on the live felt again. I'll talk about that later.

Other than that I had my car repaired which means I can park in public again as my boot is now locking again. Yeah! Yesterday we had 32 degrees C here which is pretty awesome for 3. October. Today it's 26 or something. Still pretty cool.

I will get my performance review at work and very much hope that I can report of the pay rise in the next post. Fingers crossed.

I am eating to much and have re-gained 5kg since being in the south. This is mostly due to the fact that my company provides free food on a daily basis and I really struggle to keep away from it. I just love those huge Ciabattas with Bacon, Brie and Avocado on them. And the hot food is nice too. Not sure how I am going to handle this problem but I should give it some serious thought before I turn back to be a fat fucking German again. Well, to be honest I just shoved a Pizza in the oven so... I think I should definitely keep hold of my supersize trousers in case I'll need them again. I wish I had the time to go to the gym.

Pokerwise I am going through a pretty awful break even stretch at the moment as you can see from the graph below. Since the staking is going I am up £110 but effort and result are standing in no relation. Played far to many hours for far too less profit.
Played like a dick/moron/donkey for a few sessions when I got back as well. Probably left about £500 on the table just by being a jerk. Anyway I have started to play better again and yesterday played some of the best Poker I have played since June. Finished about £90 up although I was down £150 after 20 mins when KK < QT. I clawed it all back and made profit. Good stuff.

Made a King high call on a 567 two spades, Td, Qc board when my action went check/call; check/check; check/call and he showed me J9 and I tabled KJ. I know this guy very well by now and couldn't do the same against a lot of other players but I just know his betting patterns so good that I was pretty sure to be good here a lot of the time. Had a good run of cards yesterday athough I have to say that I lost KK and had JJ 3 times as well but lost all of them in smallish pots. Anyway I am looking forward to my next exploits at the live felt and hope to have brought my break even stretch to an end yesterday.

Speak soon.

Truthans

Profit since staking: £110
Total Profit since June: £1072
Sessions played: 27

Looking for staking

I had a few thoughts about what I am gonna do Pokerwise. When I started playing cash in Gibraltar I made about £1100 very quickly and never felt that I was particularly running good, just average. Now since my girlfriend arrived and we moved into the new flat, I spent those winnings and was left again with a live bankroll of £0.

Although I wasn't able to play for the last two months due to time restrictions I didn’t worry too much cause I knew building a new roll would be relatively easy.

Now it’s September and I finally find some time again to play some live poker which I had been looking forward to because the games here are very juicy. Unfortunately I had a bit of bad luck recently and crashed my car which sees me spending €1600 on the repair as well as I will have to spend £2000 on a new scooter because we will need two vehicles to get to work. And we sorted out some relatives with a €2500 loan which we’ll only get back at the end of the year.

Furthermore the girlfriend and me decided that 21.08.2010 will be the day we get married and I am forced to save some money towards that as well because I know some of you guys had an interest in coming to Germany for that event and I don’t want you having to eat chicken wings on my Wedding. ;-)

In conclusion that meant that I have only 2 buy-ins left per month to play live poker and that is surely not the way forward because:

1. If I lose those two buy-ins at the beginning of the month I have to wait till the next month to play again.

2. I start playing bad because I am playing scared money “If I lose my second buy in now I will have to leave and wait till next month”

I guess I already proved that I can beat this game at a quite solid rate and am looking for some staking in order to be able to play that game whenever I've got the time and to play it fearlessly. I do realize that staking someone for live cash games is a bit tricky because you will have to rely on my honesty. On the plus side it is a pretty save investment as there is a ridiculous amount of dead money lying on the table.

So that’s what I am looking for:

• £ 1500 staking for live cash games in Gibraltar (NL£100 – NL£200)

What is on offer:

• 50% of the winnings in those games
• I am happy to ship winnings after every session if wanted
• I post results after each session
• In case of emergency I am happy to ship back the monies (or what’s left of it ;-) )
Things to consider:
I am not looking for a two months staking. It should be seen as a longer term investment as I am obviously not able to play a gazillion k hands in a live game.
I will probably ship back the monies as soon as I have made myself a profit of £1500. So that means a maximum profit of £1500 is in for you.

I have never been staked before so all details are negotiable to your convenience. I just want to play those juicy games without scared money. I hope there is somebody of you interested because those games are running every night of the week and I am itching to make some dosh. Drop me a line if you are interested or have any questions, would be cool.


Off topic:

I have posted no pictures of Gibraltar since I am living here because my camera is fucked as well (talking about bad luck) but there was a company bbq a few weeks ago and I want you to have a look at the video. Working in Poker is fun: click


Truthans

Life Tilt

I run like god at work but when I want to go home it turns around and I run like a huge piece of elephant shit. I just managed to crush my car against a pylon in the garage of the office building. It was the same fucking pylon I crashed my car against the first time about a week ago. Before that somebody vandalized my car and kicked of my side mirror and kicked a bump in my left front wing. And the other incident was me having left my car key in the boot while I had already remote locked it. Meaning key in the car, car locked -> Sunday -> calling locksmith service -> paying €105 for 5 minutes work to open my car again. It seems as me and my car are cursed. I managed to run it down from as good as new to being a complete piece of shit in 9 weeks.

I was so happy about my "new" car and now even my old citroen Saxo that I had before would look like a fucking Mercedes S-Class in comparison.

Fucking hell. Means the money that I wanted to spend on a new 125cc scooter is probably going into the boot of my car.

Payrise in September as far as I got told. I hope they will be doubling, tripling or quadrupling my wages. I wish.

I haven't played Poker for ages cause I am working too much probably doing something like 90 - 100 hours a week but getting praised for my commitment and results all over the shop.

Anyway. I am fucking angry, annoyed and aarrggh! Could you please punch some walls for me Nathan? I am too soft and am afraid to break my hand as I seem to run like shit as soon as I leave the office. Hm...I could punch a office wall tomorrow.

Laters.

Man am I busy!

The last two weeks been great! The job is going superb at the moment and I get involved in a lot of really cool things and I am getting more and more responsibility and am starting to supervise a team and to make changes to things where I find then necessary. So cool.

Other than that I am owing you the result of my one month journey of live cash grinding. The challenge ended on Wednesday 15.July when my girlfriend arrived.
Challenge accomplished ladies and gentlemen. I am a proud little fucker now. Just a shame I can't grind as much anymore now.

Booooom:

Stats

Tournaments:
Played: 5
buy ins: £160 (rake included)
Winnings: £250
Profit: £ 90

Cash:
sessions played: 15
profit: £ 952
profit per session: £63
estimated hourly winrate: £16

Total: £ 1042

Weekend ahead

I actually wanted to post some hilarious videos that I've got of myself but I need to do a couple of very annoying things before I can put them up here. So I'll do that whenever I feel like it which will probably be around 2013 I guess. Maybe earlier. Who knows.

Next week my girlfriend will finally be with me which I am very much looking forward too. Those 5 weeks where the longest period we have ever been apart from each other in over 4 years.

On the other hand that means that this is probably the last weekend were a can grind the local poker games freely as a fish in the open sea. Next week I'll go back in the tank.

I have a fair chance to actually complete my challenge and reach the £1000 pounds profit mark within the next few days. So please wish me good luck and some running good.

Casinohans

Stats

Tournaments:
Played: 4
buy ins: £120 (rake included)
Winnings: £250
Profit: £ 130

Cash:
sessions played: 12
profit: £ 731

Roulette:
sessions played: 3
profit: -£38

Total: £ 823

88,3 kg

I'm still in the company flat as I haven't got any Internet in the new flat so far but that should be sorted next week. Telefonica said that they will need 4 days to sort me out. I think that's abosolutely brilliant. Yesterday I began to bring some of the heavy boxes to the flat and basically starting to move in. I parked my car in the underground garage and from there I put all my stuff in the lift and wanted to go on the floor where my flat is. I obviously blocked the lift door so I could calmly put all teh boxes from the car in it.
Eh, well, the lift didn't like that and decided not to do anything anymore. It's about 37 degrees outside and I can't get the lift moving. "you are joking me" "oh my god that can't be true!" "oh, fuck off you fucking piece of fucking technology" "MOVE YOU FUCKER"

Those are pretty much exactly the things I was screaming towards the lift getting louder at the end. So I considered my options.

1. Bring the stuff upstairs using the staircase (I live on the first floor so from the undergroung garage it is two floors up and an estimated 36 - 44 steps.

2. Bring the stuff back to the car, drive up in front of the house to the ground floor and get the stuff up to the flat using the staircase between floor 0 and floor one something between 16 to 22 steps.

3. Get the stuff back in the car and wait till the lift gets repaired next week and try again then.

4. Leave the stuff where it is, go down the road and find some kids that would carry the stuff up into my flat for a rediculous underpayment.

Well I went for option one and had gone up and down 11 times so far. Sweating like a polar bear in a sauna. One box left in the lift.
I just came back out from the appartment to go back down to get this last fucking box when I can hear "ding dong" from the lift that arrived on my floor, opening the doors and showing that it carried up the last box for me. If I would not have been that exhausted I obv would have exploded and probably puked in the lifts face but I just didn't have any energy left. It was completely silent around but it felt like I heard the lift laughing at me in ear-deafening noise.

I'll definitely get him back. At the latest that will be the first time when I come home pissed and have a wee into the corner of that cunt. I called the lift Eddie btw.


Contrary to what I said last week I didn't go and play cash that day and didn't go the next day either. I went the last two days and they have truly been exciting rollercoaster rides.

Friday started super bad again running KK into AA again! The pot was actually a 4 way all-in with two shorties involved as well that had KJ and A9s. Was an early hit. A few hands later I see KK again and make standard raise UTG and get called by UTG+1. Everybody else folded! Wtf! I flop a set, make a super weak c-bet and opponent snap folds. I make £5.50 profit in that hand.

Suddenly a second table opens and a group of young spaniards and two girls sit down at the table. Me and my mate from work instantly stand up sit down at the other table with the max buy-in of £150. UTG raises to 6 and I make it 16 with AA UTG+1. UTG calls with now about £50 behind and we see a 734 rainbow flop. The girl checks to me and my bet gets check/raised by her. I move all in and she goes in the tank and finally calls me with AK. Ship.

I am not gonna write everything down as most of you guys are probably sick of reading about a poker hand. So I am only gonna report two more hands.
I got 52cc OTB. There are 4 limpers in already and CO makes it 4. I call and the BB suddenly makes it 10. One limper calls, CO calls. How could I fold here for £6 into £35. Flop is KJ5 two clubs. This is probably the best I could have hoped for. BB bets 10 and the two other players fold. I decide to play my draw passively and flat it. Turn is blank and BB bets 10 again. I flat it again and the river is the much needed Queen of clubs. BB now checks and I decided to move all in (something I learned to do in the right spots against a certain kind of player) for about 90 quid and the spaniard snap calls with AJo. LOL. When he saw my flush he was like "oh no, didn't see the flush, oh no" Brilliant. Third pair FTW.

Now in between I lost two biggish pots with 98 and top two against the turned higher top two and with 88 on a 8KK board when the turn brought another K to counterfit my set and make AA hold up.

I am down quite a bit when the dealer announces "last three hands". In the penultimate hand I find 88 again we see a six way raised pot. I flop a set again. Cut off bets 20. I call. BB calls. UTG calls. ?!?.

I decide to donk the turn for £60 and get two calls. I move all in on the river when the board pairs and get two calls again. I show my hand and both of them muck. I win a £500 pot to bring a tidy £270 profit for the night. Man was I happy about this hand.

Yesterday was fun as well but I don't think anyone wants to read more poker stuff now. So may be later. Yesterday's profit was £75 btw.

Just if you are wondering about the title of the post. Yesterday I stepped on my scale the first time for weeks and 88,3 kg was what it said to me. Meaning I have lost ca. 22 kg so far this year. This is more than 3 Stone!

Tournaments:
Played: 4
buy ins: £120 (rake included)
Winnings: £250
Profit: £130

Cash:
sessions played: 10
profit: £599

Roulette:
sessions played: 3
profit: -£38

Total: £ 691

Pictures of my new place!

Some pictures of my new appartment.






This is a bit ugly atm but it will probably become the office anyway. Definitely needs some changing.





Both of the bathrooms have huge mirrors.









I...

Love...

the terrace!!!

Yuck

Still no proper post. Sorry. Had a horrible session last night with £250 down the pan. Getting 4's in vs. K's on a QJ4 rainbow board for the river to be a King. That was just 20 mins after I had 97 on a 68T board against the same player. Got it in obv and he showed J9. The turn brought the queen. From there I tilted and spewed. Last hand I played I check/raise bluffed a PF 3-bettor on a 346 board when I had basically no pair and no draw with A9 and he had flopped the nuts with 57. Disgusting.

The combination of runnig shit and playing worse can be really fucking expensive.
Wouldn't even be that dramatic if the villain wouldn't be one of the most annoying fuckholes I ever played with. What a fucking dickhead. I think I need to put in a very suitable and appropriate sentence of Mr Ptevey's blog here just because it makes me feel better: "Eddie, whoever you think you are, I am coming round to your house and pissing in your face and shitting on your wife."

aahhhh what a relieve.

Today would normally be the break from the Casino as I should get some sleep. But I will go and I will be running hot. hm... such a shame. Stayed away from the Roulette now for a while and will leave it like this.

What a shit post this is but at least I got it off my mind now. I really felt like telling somebody about how bad I ran yesterday. Hey you, somebody, thanks for listening. What you mean? You are deaf? FML.

One little positive side note before I'll go on drowning in self-pity. I found a beautiful appartment which I will be moving into next week. I'll really have to find out how to post pictures as that would make you, dear readers, throw up in the places you live in. No offense. :-) Just one detail for now: I've got a Jacuzzi!

Tilthans

Tournaments:
Played: 4
buy ins: £120 (rake included)
Winnings: £250
Profit: £130

Cash:
sessions played: 7
profit: £153.50

Roulette:
sessions played: 3
profit: -£38

Total: £ 245.50

Just Stats

I'll just post some stats for now before I forget the numbers.

Tournaments:
Played: 4
buy ins: £120 (rake included)
Winnings: £250
Profit: £130

Cash:
sessions played: 6
profit: £403.50

Roulette:
sessions played: 3
profit: -£38

Total: £ 495.50

Hi Hi, He He, Ho Ho

this is going to be solely about Poker and it is probably not going to be extremely entertaining either but I feel like writing a little report about yesterday’s cash session. I felt good in the evening and decided to give the Casino another go. It is so brilliant to have that opportunity within walking distance.

When I arrived there was a £20 re-buy just about to start but I gave it a miss and thought I grind the Roulette a little before the cash games start. Meh, the Roulette did some extremely weird things yesterday and after two hours I found myself down £45 which in the end I was actually quite happy about considering that I had my last 25 of the 100 I was planning to play on red just a few spins before. There was a run of 16 times a number higher than 18. That cost me some money. Sick wheel.

Anyway I got some chips changed and went with 2 stacks two the .5/1 table that was just starting. At the beginning the table was relatively tough with about 5 solid/good players and one typical Spanish short stacker who represented the value at the table. I chipped up a little at the beginning check raising FD+Pair on the flop and following this through with a bet on the turn (which I missed) to make my opponent fold TP.

Then there came a hand where I lost a little:
I call a MP (good/solid player) raise with KQs from the SB and flop is Q,5,7 rainbow. I check call a bet hoping to keep the pot small on this dry board with the only scare card being an Ace. Turn is a 3 and it goes check, check. River is another 3 and there are basically no hands that make sense that could have me beat except maybe AQ still unlikely. Who checks the turn with TPTK on a dry board like this? Anyway I lead for ¾ of the pot and get re-raised.

1. Question: Why did I lead the river? Well I thought I might be able to get a call from 88 – JJ, QJ, A7 and couldn’t see that I could be behind here on the river.

2. Question: What’s his fucking range here? I mean if you ask me there is no hand that should check the turn and raise the river on this board. There a plenty of hands that might be calling behind. I just couldn’t figure the raise. (Help appreciated)

3. How often is he bluffing here? That’s what ran through my head. Normally in a Casino a raise on the river 98% of the time is a monster/the nuts. But he was a solid player and I thought he was able to bluff here with a missed AK, AJ, AT, KJ. I am so not sure about this?!?

In the end I called and he showed me a set of 5’s. I still think that the check on the turn doesn’t make a lot of sense, except that it makes me call the raise on the river maybe? Almost any hand that calls a bet on this flop will call another bet on the blank turn. I hate the check. I still think that this could be a lead and a call with positive EV on the river as I think he is paying me off with one of the above mentioned hands and he is bluffing often enough as well. Don’t know. I am far too lazy to do a EV calculation atm. What do you think?
Some more details to the hand:

Pot Pre: £9
Pot on flop: £23
Pot on turn: £23
River: I lead for £11 (any comments on the bet sizing?)
He raises to £31
Pot: £65 with £20 to call

Would be nice if I could get some comments on this hand and what you think about my reasoning.

Shortly after that I double to about £140 (sat down with £100 at beginning) with KK’s and suddenly this game develops to become the wildest I have ever played. A Spaniard in his 40’s sits down at the table with about £300. The max is normally £150 but no one complaint. He started shoving his £300 in PF over a single raise to £4. He kept shoving, 3-bet, over betting like a hippopotamus on LSD. People obv realized that and started trying to make a hand in order to get his stack in miles behind. A French lad (my special friends) bought in for £60 and left the table two hours later with £650 !!! I mean wtf. Unfortunately for some of the other players, the Spaniard was incredibly lucky and was distributing bad beats all over the shop.

My favourite:

£600 pot

The Spaniard donk-shoves for his whole stack (ca.£800) on a 3,7,9 flop with two clubs. One player calls with his £250 remaining chips and shows KK. Spaniard shows 78 with no clubs. Turn: J; River: T !

Man the other guy was steaming.

During my last few sessions I learned how to play in that game and feel very comfortable. I played rock solid and finished the Session with a £211.5 profit.

Happy days.

Truthans

So the stats for the "busto or convertible challenge" are:

Tournaments:
Played: 2
buy ins: £60 (rake included)
Winnings: £250
Profit: £190

Cash:
sessions played: 3
profit: £216

Roulette:
sessions played: 2
profit: -£34

Total: £ 372

First Week impressions

well to be honest I haven't even been in Gibraltar for the week. Last Tuesday I had my first day and started off with a busy 11 hour shift in the office. This is going to be fun over the next months. Anyway on Wednesday I only stayed in the office till lunch time and then got off to Hamburg with the boss. As we were bloody late we had to go at 250 km/h (ca. 130 mp/h) in order to catch our flight. Man was I close to throw up in his Mercedes SL. Btw the speed limit is 120 km/h (ca 65 mp/h). Well we caught the flight and I had a few interesting days in Hamburg including a 5 star meal, free drinks everywhere, a 5 star hotel and the pleasure to be driving through Hamburg in a Aston Martin DB7. Unfortnately the boss was driving and I didn't dare to ask if I could have a go.

There were a few more cool experiences I made but I need to be relatively careful with the publishing of information on the web. Actually before I went in the offices in Hamburg I had found out that the heads of some departments had googled me in order to find out who I am. Well they found a profile of me on a social networking website and went through some pictures. Party pictures never really make a good first impression. Guess that was a bit blind of me. Anyway I sorted that out and it's all good again. Was still fucking embarassing. They told me actually that they had planned to print some of the pictures and hang them on the walls in the office before I come in. I'm glad they didn't!

Well I got back Saturday morning and was allowed to drive the boss's Mercedes SL from Malaga to Gibraltar and he kept saying "come on go a bit faster, go on, gogogo"
But I was reluctant to drive at a speed of more than 210 km/h which is still 90 km/h faster than permitted. Was superb fun though.

Let's talk about some Poker. My first tourney (£30 FO) last Sunday ended just before the final table when I run QQ in KJ and the cash session ended with a £13.50 profit. I only played cash for an hour in order to get pissed with some new found friends.

Yesterday was a lot better though. I won the £5 re-buy tourney in the Casino for a £250 payday. One of my best tournament results ever and the even more astonishing thing is that I went into heads-up play with a 6:1 chip disadvantage. I fought back and kept shoving, check raising and generally outplaying my Spanish opponent until I found myself with a 3:1 chiplead. He then started to tilt and shoved every hand blind. I waited to find an Ace which came relatively quick, called him, won the hand and therefore won my first Casino tourney.

The following cash session was a bit more of a disappointment as I played very solid with four super loose calling stations at the table and managed to make some profit until I ran KK OTB into BB's AA. Yuck. 300bb down the drain. Reload. Again played solid and made profits until I flopped a set of 8's and got it all in against a set of Q's. PUUUUKE. A little later I got my Aces cracked by QJ where I wasn't good enough to fold the river although I clearly was beat. Was a bit steaming I guess. But now we are getting positive because in the last 2 hours I finally fought back and my hands held up. After being £250 down in the first 3 hours I managed to finish with a loss of £9. What a comeback! Seriously that made my night. Just imagine how profitable this game could be if you just run average! I am really looking forward to this.

So the stats for the "busto or convertible challenge" are:

Tournaments:
Played: 2
buy ins: £60 (rake included)
Winnings: £250
Profit: £190

Cash:
sessions played: 2
profit: £4.50

Roulette:
sessions played: 2
profit: £11

Total: £ 205.50

Suspicion confirmed! (Trip report inside)

This is going to be my first Gibraltarian blog post while the outside temperature is about 4,788 degrees Celcius. I really want to write down some funny stories from my epic trip to Gib as my last few entries been somewhat meh.

Fml the first part of the trip was so boring that I haven’t even got a single funny encounter to write about. Last time I posted I left the flat and headed to the Port of Tyne. Well, up on the ferry, to the bar, two pints slip in, go to bed, wake up, off the ferry in Amsterdam, 7 h drive, home. I was only supprised that I didn’t get checked by the police leaving drug land (NE) in my rundown Saxo packed with shit. If they’d stopped me and said “please unpack your car. General drug check.” I would as usual have puked directly in their face. Didn’t happen. Boring.

At home I packed the stuff from the Saxo in my Mum’s Focus as she was friendly enough to give me her car for the trip. Ship the AirCon! Next morning saw me leaving towards Gibraltar. First of all through the whole lot of Germany. Fucking German's favourite hobby is driving, which means that the full motorways didn’t make for a pleasant journey.

Heidi: Hey Fritz sweetheart what are we gonna do today? Going to the beach? For a long walk? Sit in the park? Go for a drink? Meet friends? huh?

Fritz: How about driving up and down our motorways till our tyres have completely disappeared?

Heidi: Oh yes Fritz, you always know exactly what the deepest possible satisfaction is for me. I love you!


Germans. lol.

The Polish btw do the same. Only problem is that they do not have speed-limit-free motorways with 3 lanes. So they come to Germany to drive up and down the motorways, enjoying their favourite hobby together.

Arrrgh

After Germany the trip was expected to get interesting as I was going to go through the whole lot of France. Before the trip four rumours occured and had to be confirmed or destroyed.

Rumour 1: France is one of the most beautiful countries in the world!

I can confirm this. The countryside is quite inspiring and impressive. Why did we give that back in 1944?

Rumour 2: There might be French living in that country!

Sad but true. Nothing else to add.

Rumour 3: French people are different!

Again, true. When the sun goes down they are sitting at the side of the roads looking like zombies and waiting for a few frogs trying to cross the street, just so they could eat them alive. Was quite scary to witness.

Rumour 4: The French besides the English are the only other folk in Europe who do not speak any other language than their own.

Well I don’t know it of all European countries but for the French it is (I’m afraid) true again. Midnight I arrived in a place called Moullins and with the help of the SatNav managed to find a so called “Formule 1 Hotel” which in France is a chain of cheap road hotels. Of course the receptionist did only speak french and after about 14h in the car almost made me puke in his face.

“FOR FUCKS SAKE MATE, I DO NOT SPEAK A FUCKING WORD OF FRENCH! DEUTSCH; ENGLISH; ESPANOL. I ONLY WANT A FUCKING SINGLE ROOM FOR ONE FUCKING NIGHT”

Receptionist: shum lu plum le po le dans me plubilibab de bib de blub?

AAAAAARGH

After 30 mins I got a room without a shower or toilet. FML.

Unwashed and without a morning shit I went on. Oh, btw I decided not pay the horrendous road tolls France is asking for and went the whole way on the toll free roads which was the reason for seeing so much of the countryside. Haha, you don’t get my money you french people!

The rest of the trip was an absolute pleasure and was superb driving by me. No blocked roads in France or Spain. Was loving it. In Spain I went for the toll road which came as a bargain of about €70 from the very top to the very bottom. FML. (I am really starting to love the abbreviation)

Had a 2.5h kip in between and arrived in Gibraltar 9:30 this morning. Well done Hannes! Met with a lady from the company and she moved me into the flat. City centre. All new. AirCon. All good. I settled in and sorted my clothes out. Skype’d with the gf and then thought I’ll go for a walk and get myself 200 cigarettes for 9.90. Yes, not even a quid for a pack! I am going to polute the environment even worse than Middlesborough and Stockton together! Suddenly I recognised that it is fucking hot and I am terribly prepared for the bank holiday in Gibraltar tomorrow. Making my way to Morrisons and getting:

The most expensive anti-transpirant deodorant armpit roll on thingy
The most expensive normal deodorant
Sun loction - protection factor 40 – (I just realise that it is already to late. FML. Ouch)
Shaving Gel
Pasta
6 pack Beck’s (not Beck’s Vier)
2 Bulmers

I should be sorted. I am so not used to this climate that I am sitting in boxers in the flat although its got aircon. Already changed the boxers 3 times today as well. But I didn’t do that the last two days so I guess it’s ok.

30 Pound FO in my new local Casino tonight followed up by my first cash session as a local.
4 Weeks of free grinding while the gf is still in England. Hopefully I can buy the much wanted cabriolet after that. I guess the challenge for the next 4 weeks is called “the busto or convertible challenge” lol. I am taking bets if you can make a good suggestion for some odds.

Personally I think this was a relatively amusing post so I very much hope it at least made you smile once. If it did, let me know please.

Sorry for the spelling. The spell check doesn’t work for some reason.

Wish me good luck for tonight.

Gibraltarhans

Good Bye England

I am sitting in on the floor in my completely empty flat and lots of memories from the past two years are running around in my head. My ferry to Amsterdam is leaving in a few hours and I will head to the port in a few minutes. I managed to get almost all the personal belongings of me and my gf in my tiny little Saxo. Well except those mountains of things that I had to sell obviously.

My last few days in England were great as I had the chance to properly say good bye to almost everyone that I met during my time here. Last Saturday I went out with my former Uni mates from Germany and some English mates who I did a little bit of music together. I got absolutely hammered and had a quality night, getting very emotional at the end.

Sunday saw me going to Aidan's Beer Festival with a mate and meeting all the quality lads from the Poker Soc there. The afternoon was pure fun with really good banter. I got slightly drunk again and said good bye to this amazing bunch of people. That day I planned to leave my car at Aidan's and pick it up next day but being the lazy fuck that I am I decided that I could still drive and did that. So glad that I didn't get caught or killed somebody.

Yesterday I said good bye to my other Poker lads from my Pub game which was very emotional as well.

I really want to point out that I feel very fortunate that I had the chance to get to know so many amazing people and therefore really got a deep insight in a different culture. Thanks for everything guys you made two years of England a lot of fun!

It is always difficult to stay in touch but it would be really nice if we could do so and hopefully see us all again on my wedding next year. Keep it up! Keep it German! :-)

I am not gonna spoil this good bye post with Poker but the blog will now move to Gibraltar and hopefully I will have some cool stuff to report. So, see you guys on here in the near future.

Hasta Luego

Truthans

SHIIIIIIIP IIIIIIIIIIIT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After not getting any news on Friday I just received the good news that PokerStrategy.com offers me the position as Executive Assistant to the CEO!!! Benefits for me include:

6k more pay than I get now

Moving to Gibraltar

Moving in an appartment which is payed for by PokerStrategy in the newly built Ocean Village in Gribraltar

An estimated number of 20 Poker related Business trips per year. (including events like EPT's)

A chance to climb the career ladder in one of Poker's biggest companies.

I can use all my language skills.

300 days of sun a year.

Living at the mediterranean sea

Living in a "you can smoke wherever the fuck you want" country.

Litre bottles of Vodks for £4

Zigarettes £1.50

A free company laptop


shipshipship ship shipididipidi ship dip dip.

ship

More news later. I'm too exited now.

Regards

Shiphans

Gibraltar + Poker

Gibraltar was very nice. Got there on early Thursday afternoon last week. Quickly put my stuff into the hotel. The hotel was an absolute shithole. How can you put an applicant into this hotel bwin? It didn’t even have a real window just some glass flaps which you could either open or close. It is difficult to explain. I should have taken a pic. I had to iron two of my shirts so I thought I get this straight out of the way. So I got the key for their ironing room which was another 100% disgust. With the iron not being able to create water damp it was almost impossible to get the crinkles out of the shirts. I needed the same amount of time for two shirts as I normally need to iron my whole fucking wardrobe, my girlfriends and the wardrobe of our neighbours together.
Yeah I try to earn an extra penny wherever I can. You should see me in my ironing outfit. Completely naked but wearing a far too short apron. Business is running better since I lost weight.

After that mess I had a nice slow walk through the city enjoying some 27° C in the sun. I then found the newly built Gala Casino and obviously couldn’t resist. It being 4:00 in the afternoon meant that there was no Poker on yet. So I multitabled their auto roulette tables and won myself £80 till about 7:30pm. Keeping in mind that I only small balled it with £1 bets only on the evens. In between I got a few more pints in. Gibraltar is so good for me. I bought two packs of Marlboro lights for £1.50 each and the best thing is you can smoke fucking everywhere! Paradise! So I was smoking and drinking all the time while grinding the roulette in the casino.
At 20:30 there was a £20 + £10 Bounty + £5 Rake freezeout which I played and managed to go bust in the first hand with 99 vs QQ. I’m such a massive fish. Don’t even know if there are sufficient big enough ponds left in the world to accommodate my massive fishiness. Got back to the roulette and won another £5 with small balling the roulette machine.

Went back down in the Poker room later to playe the .5/1 NL cash game. There were a few more Germans at the table and I got to talk to them. All 3 of them worked at one of the companies I was supposed to have an Interview with next day. One of them guys owned me so hard in two hands that I just felt raped. Classically outplayed by a superior player. I definitely have to admit that. First hand I call his raise in the small blind with 97ss. Flop is 9KK and I check call his potsize bet hoping to get some more info on the turn. Surely he is never betting a K there. Turn is an A and he leads for the same amount as he did on the flop. This made my alarm bells ring and I thought this is a super weak second barrel. I couldn’t really figure a hand he would second barrel there with so weak but I thought I can definitely make him fold TT or JJ and AT, AJ, AQ. What I did was shoving my stack over his bet and he snaps me with pocket AA for the second nuts. Yuck. That was a complete misread. I played really well before that hand but couldn’t really get my aggression in at the right spots. Another hand I had against a Spanish player. I raised PF with 67o and got called from the small blind. The final board read something like K5T28 no flushdraws but I still decided to triple barrel this hand and couldn’t make villain fold QQ. He was close though and needed about 5 mins to make the call. I think my river bet was a bit small to be honest. A bit bigger and I would have made him fold I think.

Then the second hand against the German. I open raise KTs from early mid. The german and another one calls. Flop 5-2-Q two diamonds. I check and it’s checked around. Turn J. I check, German bets, other player folds, I call not knowing where I really am but thinking that I am in good shape with lots of outs. River is 8 diamonds. I pretend some deliberation as if I was thinking about check-raising a flush and then checked to the German. He now put a super small value bet of about 1/3 of the pot in. And I was not expecting a bet at all as I can not figure a hand that would bet the river. From what I know he would not have checked the Q on the flop. Even if has the Q he probably checks the river behind. He never bets the J on the river. He was unlikely to have a weird two pair like J5,J2,J8. He could have checked a flush draw on the flop and bet it on the turn but I thought that this would be a strange line for him as well so I thought a flush is possible but unlikely. Only hand that makes sense is 9T. I thought there was only this hand that bets the river and everything else is a bluff. I think about making the call with K high as I didn’t want to raise in case he really has 9T but making the hero only costs me £15 and I have a fair chance of winning that pot. I decided that there is no other K there that has me beat as AK 3-bets PF, KJ checks behind, KQ bets flop and possibly checks river behind. But I figured that there were too many random aces out there that have me beat and could be bluffing there. AT, A9, A7,A6. I folded in disgust and got shown 67 for 7 high. I then played a bit tilty and played about 5 flopped OESD very aggressively but could never get there and ran in top pair or two pair each time. Left with a £ 180 loss and the terrible feeling of another disappointing session. I think I have to step away from the live games for a while as I seem to do a few fundamental mistakes at the moment. I am not Tom Dwan and should therefore not try to win every pot.

Yesterday’s game at 147’s Poker basement was a bit of a disappointment as well. I played some perfect poker for about the first 25mins and then started to blow up slowly and ended up calling AI with JT on a 578 rainbow board when I 3-bet pre from the button and Tony donked into me on the flop and I was 1000% sure he had air there. I thought I either hit one of ten outs or I’ll go to bed. Well he had AJ and I therefore only 7 outs. Didn’t hit. Went home.
Online is going break even at the moment but that’s ok. Won’t complain as I feel I am playing well. The times I get my money in behind or call of too light are getting fewer and fewer but the times when I seem to pick up bluffs well with second or third pair kind of hands seem to stay the same. I am definitely improving my game at the moment at a good pace. I might have to book a losing Poker year this year but I feel if I keep trying I will keep learning and am on a good way. If I compare how I am playing Poker at the moment with the way I played it a year ago it seems like I made lightyears of progress. But this might be an illusion that I keep projecting to myself. We’ll see.

The job Interviews went very well in Gibraltar and I am hoping to get some positive news today. Sickest thing about the Interview at PokerStrategy was that I had my first Interview with them in the morning and it went on longer than expected 2 h instead of a scheduled 1h. Good sign?
After my second Interview at bwin the PokerStrategy people said that they wanted to see me again. Good sign? So I got back there and the guy that held the second PokerStrategy Interview with me was the Head of Finance and it was the German guy that owned me twice at the Casino the night before. Ups. Bad Sign? In the second Interview I wasn’t as good anymore as in the first one but after 6 hours of interviewing someone might have some understanding for that. I was super impressed by the company and really do want this job. I am going to be sooooo disappointed if I can’t get it.

If I get positive news today. I will get hammered.
If I get negative news today. I will get even more hammered.
If I get no news at all. Well, then I go to bed at 8pm.

Truthans

Stats:

Weight lost: 17.3 kg (2.72 stone)
Weight to lose: 7.7kg (1.21 stone)

Poker

Stars: - $ 84
PKR: + $ 265
Live cash: - £ 51.5
Live tourney: - £ 122

It had to happen

My visit at Aspers on Friday quickly pulled me back to ground after feeling sooo good about life and Poker for the last few weeks. I quickly busted the tourney making a terrible call with TP to find that I was outkicked. I bet and then called the shove with TP and he showed me AQ to my KQ. I got up and wished good luck to everybody when the dealer put a K on the turn and I couldn’t believe my luck and apologized to the other player. Well, Ace on the river. And I haven’t even read the book. A re-suck-out definitely hurts more than a normal suck-out as you come from the emotional high of having sucked out on somebody and therefore get smashed back to the ground from a higher point when you get re-sucked-out on. It is never over before it is over I guess.

I then played some Roulette as the cash tables had not started yet. The Roulette was good to me and made me £ 40.

I got to the cash tables and bought in for £ 120. After my last live cash session in B’ham I felt quite good about playing that game but I was clearly mistaken. I managed to stack off with 77s in the third hand I played. I am so fucking angry about the way I played that hand it is unreal. SO FUCKING ANGRY ABOUT MYSELF! Hand goes like this: Straddle to £4 is on. A few limpers join the fun. I find 77 on the button and make it £ 21 to go. Straddler calls and limper to my right calls. Q45 rainbow flop. Checked to me and I make it £ 53 basically committing myself. I get shoved on and make the disgusted call and get shown AQ. I reload for another £120 and decide to rock it up. I get small pay offs with TP hands and pocket QQ. Then lose a bigger pot with a straight to a flush. Last hand of the night was AJs. I called an UTG raise from late position. As did two others. Flop JT6 rainbow. UTG bets, one player calls I shove my £90 over the top. Player to my left calls with his last £40, UTG goes all-in as well and the other player states “there is too much in the pot to fold” and he is clearly right with that. UTG shows AJ and the other both players are showing KQ for the up and down + overs. 9 on the river to make the straights and I am going home at 1 am. I played so fucking badly all fucking night. The table was actually very nice with about 4 complete idiots at the table. One guy was in for £ 800 by the time I left. He was massively pissed and kept making gifts to people with terrible bluffs und 4th pair kind of hands. Only problem was my seat. I had all the good players (5) to my right and they kept isolating the fish nicely so I never really got the chance to get involved. I know normally its good to have the dangerous players to the right but on this table it was a weird dynamic as the 4 fish were sat next to each other on my left hand side and the other 5 capable players were sat to each other on my right hand side. I find the best position at this table is clearly the seat right after the fish. You can raise or min 3-bet lots of the time and therefore make the other nits fold and get the fish heads up.
But I could have easily made a profit at this table if I would not have decided to stack off early on and to then win it back by desperately trying to find a shoving spot. I’m such a donkey.

In B’ham I played my absolute A game and was super in the zone. Furthermore there was one big difference between the B’ham and the Aspers cash game. In B’ham the table was full of nitty students that were playing underrolled and therefore they were easy victims to run over if you are aggressive. In B’ham all night only one player joined the table for about one hour which I would call a massive fish. The style I played there fitted perfectly in the environment. In Aspers it’s the other way around. You get half the table with loose passive people that don’t care about calling a 4-bet with J9o OOP and the other half of the table is just sitting tight waiting to make a hand and trying to get paid off. I just need to change my approach next time as there is no reason to be overly creative. I should have limped a few more suited Aces and connectors or something in position in order to make a hand but when I was in position with a hand like this, one of the regs had already made a pot size raise and after the limpers being in already it was normally something between 9 and 20 quid when it came round to me. I definitely learned another lesson.

Most annoying about the 77 hand is that I just randomly assumed that I could run over the table although I was only at the table for 3 hands so I had no read or information at all at this point of time. I just should have limped behind in position flop a set or not and play the hand straight forward without getting too fruity when having no information about the table. This is not supposed to be another whiny whinge post. I didn’t get sucked out on or anything. I was just in the worst seat at the table and played terribly. So I fully deserved to get £240 stuck.

I am still positive about my game at the moment and as I am going to Gibraltar this week I will have a good opportunity to turn things around again and I promise I will! I will be spending my Thursday evening in the Gala Casino in Gibraltar probably play their £20 FO and play some £ 0.5/1 later on. Yes they have got 0.50/1 tables there. Brilliant isn’t it!

So what exactly have we learned:

I am not fucking invincible

Other people give a fucking shit about how good I am feeling

I have no fucking, in stone carved right to get all the money of the fish

Not everyone who does look like a fucking fish turns out to be one

I am a fucking massive fish if I am not playing my A or at least B game

Do not fucking over think a hand against a moron player but have a proper fucking thought process against a capable player before making a decision

Apply some fucking seat and table selection rules to the game. If you can’t get a better seating position than the toilet seat just do not fucking play

As mentioned before I am not crying or am in a bad mood or anything. I am just a angry about my own idiocy.

Online I made the step up to NL25 and had some first profits. The level of play does not seem to change on PKR between NL10 and NL100. You rarely get more than 3 capable players on a full ring table. I hope the game stays as soft as it is and I hope I can keep up the running well.

Didn’t get on the scale this morning so I can’t update the weight stat. I suppose no one is really interested in that stat anyway.

TriTraTrallala Trutfish

Poker:

Stars: - $70
PKR: + $294
Live cash: + £ 163.50
Live tourney: - £ 82

Life is good

I am a quite happy and relaxed person at the moment. UKSPC holidays + Easter + 2 days off from work having flu, really reloaded my batteries. I got some great news from my job search in Gibraltar. I managed to take down two interview appointments for next week. One of them is a great job and a good opportunity. The job I really want is being the Executive Assistant for the MD of the following website: www.pokerstrategy.com

This would involve travelling the world, having an own marketing team to manage and the organisation of live promotion events. Obviously the job will have its boring sides as well but I only picked the good ones here to show off. 25k + bonuses don’t sound too shabby either and with a free-to-live in flat for the first 6 months this is a supreme job. I want this job so much. If everything goes like I wish then I might be living in Gibraltar at the beginning of June! Keep your fingers crossed for me.

The other job is a customer service role for bwin and nothing I am really keen on but bwin is the company that will pay for my flights and accommodation for the interviews so I am willing to please them with my attendance although I can’t see myself taking that job. I will be going to Gibraltar next Thursday morning. Looking forward to it. Means I get another short week at work. Yeehaa.

Oh this reminds me that I got offered a promotion at my current job as well. Basically promoting me into the ranks of a Sales Manager. No specific details so far but my salary would increase by a few k and I would need to travel Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg for one or two weeks a month. So this sounds great as well. Good times.

On the online Poker front I keep doing ok. I normally planned my first shots at NL25 yesterday but I felt very fruity, fresh and good so I bought in with a full stack at a NL100 table. I was one tabling and trying to concentrate on picking good spots. I got in a lot of very tricky decisions early on and had lost half my stack after 10 hands.
I decided not to give up as I still felt good and reloaded to a full stack. Immediately after my reload two epic fish sat down at the table. One to my left and one to my right. The guy too my right played some beautiful 90/2/0.5 (those stats are just guessed as I can’t use PT with PKR) and the guy to my left played some 70/5/0.5. It was brilliant. The rest of the table was pretty tight so when I was in HJ,CO, BT my favourite opponent was normally the open limper. I always raised there with basically any hand. The guy to my left came along most of the time as well and the blinds folded mostly. A simple C-bet was enough to take about 95% of those pots without any problems. Fortunately the fish to mi right had cracked two other players AA and KK at the very beginning with J7 and J5 and was therefore sitting on a $300 stack. I kept making the same move for 2 h and they kept folding to me. So good. Despite being half a stack down after 10 hands I managed to finish close to a full stack in profit. Good times.

My diet is going a bit slowly at the moment but this is mainly due to me being lazy with the working out and eating and drinking like I used to for the last two weeks. I just feel like playing more Poker at the moment. I am sure this will turn around when the next downswing arrives.

I’m going to Aspers tonight and will be donating my 20 quid to their Friday crapshoot, a few more quid to the Roulette and hopefully win it all back at the 1/2 cash games.

DiDabbaDabba DabbDaDa Life is good weehaa.

Stats:

Weight lost: 16.3 kg (2.56 Stone)
Weight to lose: 8.7 kg (1.37 Stone)

Poker:

Stars: - $ 70
PKR: + $ 256
Live cash: + £ 403.50
Live tourney: - £ 60

UKSPC 09 Fairy Tales

Let’s talk a bit about the 3-day UKSPC trip. I picked up “147 Super Star” at about 9:00 am on Wednesday and from there us both good looking young men made our way down to B’ham. To make the drive appear a bit shorter we started playing some 1p/2p HU cash game while I was driving. As last year we stuck the cards of the board to some blue tack spots on the cockpit. The game finished when there was still one hour to go to B’ham but “147 tight ass” refused to reload after he donated 4.50 Pound to me. He obviously was afraid to go broke! He could easily have made a profit from the game but he wasn’t good enough to fold 77 to a 5-bet-shove of mine when my range clearly can only be AA or KK. :-) I had QJss and flopped the flush draw which got there on the turn. Good start to the trip I thought. At least he is respected by all to be a world class HU player. But then he had to play me...unlucky him...

Once in B’ham we popped in the casino and it seemed like everybody (Isaac, Nick, Paul) had to play day 1A and I was on day 1B. That basically meant that I had to do something else and therefore met up with Nathan in a pool place. I managed to run like god on amphetamines and gave Nathan a very tough time in beating me at 9 and 8 ball. I had a 2 -0 lead in the 9-ball game actually but then still lost 2-3. So close. As this trip was supposed to be a nice break from the diet for me I was smoking, drinking and eating like *insert name of fat, smoking and drinking celebrity here (Paul Gascoigne e.g.).”

9:00 pm came round soon and that was when the 10 pound side event started. I was already majorly pissed by that time. Anyway I had to queue for 30 minutes only to get on the alternates list and then wait another 30 minutes to get a seat. As I finally had a seat I limped my first hand (I already had to pay a penalty) and folded to some action on the flop. The next hand I folded. Then I got T3dd on the button and shoved 20 BB’s after only one MP limper was only in the pot so far. Small blind folds, Big Blind SNAP calls with K5o and the limper snap calls with AA. Oh dear. I flopped a pair with flush draw but couldn’t get there and was out after three hands. What a waste of time. Oh by the way the hand was won by K5 as he turned 2 pair. The guy with AA was very disgusted.lol.

I think afterwards I started to donate money to the casino at the 3 card poker. Lost a coinflip to Mr Keys for I have no idea how much money and got nicely hammered. After tournament play for the day was over everybody decided to head to our appartment to play some proper 5p/10p. Beforehand we stopped to buy some booze: tons of lager, a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, a bottle of Frosty Jack’s Cider ???, and a porn magazine with DVD so we were all fine prepared to repeat our last year’s cash game session. I quickly popped to my car with Isaac to get the chips and when we got back the two professional Poker players had fallen asleep and I was unable to wake them up. That’s what those guys do huh? Tell you that they’ll come and lose some cash at your table but only need a place to sleep in the end. I crumbled a biscuit over Mr Keys head which reminded him all next day about this disappointment by itching horribly. So we played four handed but I cannot really remember about this cash game as I was absolutely hammered but I think I finished like 60 or 70 quid up. As far as I now I couldn’t get away from 45s pre flop and always managed to hit.

Next morning I was still very pissed and started the day with a lager and some frosty jack’s and then headed to the casino where I had another two lager and after them I basically had the same level of drunkness as the night before. I came to my table and trash talked my cock off. Declaring half of the talble to be big online MTT winners. I think my banter caused general amusement although the dealer was pretty annoyed be me. The dealer btw looked like a woman with a terrible hair cut and when I asked her/him for the name she/he said David! I started laughing thinking that it was a joke but it turned out she really was a he! Upps! The table was obviously super tight so I open-raised basically every second hand with all sorts off trash and even min-raised blind UTG as I wasn’t allowed to straddle. I picked up KK in the second hand and was all-in on the turn but didn’t get called and won a few chips and kept winning chips in small pots. Then I lost half my stack when I flopped a straight against one of the ladies at the table and got loads of action from her top pair but she rivered a backdoor flush. That’s unlucky. I then got bored and shoved my AQ on a JTxQx board when villain had a straight with 98 and slow rolled me when he was thinking for about ten minutes and eventually called. “I thought you might have AK.” I mean wtf!? Anyway I busted after 2.5 hours and that was longer than I expected. In the afternoon we went to Riley’s to play some Pool/Snooker. Being the moron that I am I offered to play Snooker for money against “147 Ronnie O’Sullivan” if he gave me 4:1. I still can’t believe what an idiot I am. I might as well just stick it in his pocket without playing. At least I crushed him in the HU cash game!

Later I managed to win three 9-ball matches against Isaac in a row. Obviously not playing for money. How can you be such a good pool player Isaac and lose three times in a row against a pissed German moron?

Made the way back in the casino for the side event. Before the event started I got stuck another 130 Pound at the roulette tables. Betting on red always red but it kept bringing black about 17/20 times. Registered for the side event on time and got seated next to Nick which obviously had to be good for some action. Normally we agreed to shove the first hand regardless but Nick voided the bet as we were at the same table. Chicken! I busted this tourney after 5 hands. Limp-fold JT, fold flop with AK, fold pre, fold pre, limp-shove 66. I run into 99 and TT but clearly my limp shove can only be AA or KK here again. :-) One guy at the table tells me that he already folded a 6 so I’m hoping for my one outer. TT flop a set and I am drawing dead but to make it worse I managed to hit the one outer on the turn. The pot gets taken down by the 99 as they spike a flush on the river.

Well I get myself to the bar and am working hard to keep myself nicely pissed. I get to talk to Imran (one of the organisers) and he introduces me to some people. Most importantly to Chris “John Kane” or something who suposedly is a 2+2 legend and used to be a 1000NL reg before his parents forced him to get a job. There is a soft Omaha game going and everybody begs him to play it and take stakings. I have only 70 Pound left in the wallet and run to the cash machine. The cash machine is outdrawing me and is not giving me any more money as I already withdrew my daily maximum. What a sick beat. The staking deal was brilliant. He said I give you your money back regardless + you can have 10% of the winnings. No staking for me due to lack of cash in the wallet. He lost the whole stack very soon anyway so no winnings missed. A nice group of us now sits down at the 1/1 pound table to play some cash. This cash session was the best I played my whole live so far. Here a few hands: I straddle the first hand and get dealt AT. Imran had raised from EP and I called from the straddle. Flop: TJx. I check, Imran bets, I raise, He shoves, I call and he has 99 SHIP!!! Up to roughly 140 Pound. One orbit later I straddled again. Imran raises, Chris 3- bets, Unknown player 4- bets, comes round to me and I find 44 and have a sick feeling about this hand and 5-bet shove it. Everyone folds and I take down the pot pre flop and showed that I had the nuts! :-) I then lose a few pots and am all-in in the dark on the flop with AJss against one 60ish year old guy. Turn is a J and he mucks his hand on the river. From there it went up up and up. I got a bit lucky when I raised K7ss from the cut off and got called by the MP limper and I manage to flop a flush. We get it in on the flop and he has a set of 6’s but my flush holds. I had a few brilliant moments. One of the best being a 6-high tripple barrel bluff I got through which won me 10 quid in a side bet as well which I had for showing a tripple barrel bluff. Was the only one that I attempted as well. Spot perfectly picked imo. A few hands later I picked up a bluff/super light 3-bet by a student player when he committed himself pre and we get it in with my A9ss against his T7o and I hold. I made plenty of well timed floats, 3 and 4 bets, bluffs and good value bets and got lucky to never get coolered with set over set or anything. When ever I got my money in I was ahead and held. I finished this cash session on a 400 Pound stack!!! Having bought in for only 70 Pound this is a pretty sick result. Especially because I didn’t hit and run I was at the table when we started and I was still at the table when everything was over. I played from beginning to the end. This nice session obv helped to cover some losses and costs and I will keep having sweet dreams about how well I played there. There are so many more small stories and details to tell about but this post is already longer than it should be.

I am ill at the moment so can’t go to the gym. I am doing some extreme dieting atm and finally got rid of the gained weight from B’ham. I hope to get below the 90kg mark in April.

I am running really well on PKR as well, basically crushing the NL10 there and had a minor tourney cash as well. Shot taking at 25 NL will follow soon.

Stats:

Weight lost: 15.3 kg (2.40 Stone)
Weight to lose: 9.7 kg (1.52 Stone)

Poker:

Stars: - $ 70
PKR: + $ 170
Live Cash: + £ 403.50
Live Tourney: - £ 55


That’s it. Thanks for reading.

Truthans