online poker

Monday 29 June 2009

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

Tuesday 23 June 2009

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

Sunday 21 June 2009

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

Sunday 14 June 2009

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

Wednesday 10 June 2009

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

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