“I raise”

No it’s not some form of algebra, heaven forbid we’d be here all day. This is the language of online poker.

Thank you, nice hand, good game, good luck.

Short hand abbreviations, because lets be honest we don’t have enough time for language when we have all this action happening at our fingertips.

ty (thank you), quite clearly the most pointless statement in history. You’ve just taken a guy for all his money and even more moronicaly he has said nh (nice hand), so naturally you say ty. What you actually meant to say, and what the underlying connotation of this was… "sucker!" or "good god I can’t believe you called that!" or very rarely (I hope) "christ on a bike I got lucky there!", but no, you say ty.

nh (nice hand), of the 4 abbreviations dicussed and in contradiction to what I have said above, this is the only one actually worth using. If I lose a big pot I will say this. Especially if it was ridonkulous. If this guy just called my AA check raise all-in on a KJ2 flop with A2, and hits his 2 outer trips on the river, so what, shit happens, don’t get angry get even, and don’t tap the aquarium. I say nh here because I want him to do it again. I’m not going to go crazy and berate the guy, jeez 95 times in a 100 I take all his money, so what if every now and again he wins, it’s a long term game.

gg (good game), I don’t have time for this. You’ve either been knocked out, in which case I’m long gone before any pleasentries have even started, or it’s being said to someone else, and inevitably they probably haven’t played a "gg" as they’ve just bust.

gl (good luck), give me a f’king break. It’s a cut-throat game with money at stake, only an idiot would want his opponent to have good luck. I propose a new abbreviation….

FOAD, no explanation neccesary  , this could be followed by a few "LOLLL" "OMGzz!!!11!!!" just so they understood.

So remember folks, think before you type, I could be judging your intellect.

Well my week off poker is going well, yesterday I played 9 Single table tournaments, 2 Sattelites and an MTT. I’m still running hot, which is nice. Here are my notes from yesterday…

$22 STT,out 1st hand, KK v QJ, donkey flopped a straight. Not a great start to the day.

$11 Satt (to the Sunday million tourney) out 4th hand 2 pair vs overpair, counterfieted by the board pairing after both all-in, giving him a higher 2 pair.

$22 STT, out in 5th, card dead and ran into monsters when making moves.

$33 STT, 2nd place for $84, all in heads up 77 33, obv he hits a set.

$22 mtt, early busto, notes simply say "because I’m a donkey" heh, nice.

$22 stt, 2nd for $54. Was an interesting hand I busted on heads up….

Villain raises pre-flop, to 600, I call with Q5c, flop is 7c8c4d, giving me a gutshot and flush draw, I check raise the guy pretty big happy to take it there, but he decides to move me all-in, the pot is huge and I figure I can’t be far behind, if anything my draws mean I’m in front, he turns over K4!!! Bottom pair no draw. This meant I had 15 outs and was a 60/40 favourite, but obv I miss and he wins the game.

$22 STT, 1st for $90, notes say "I kick ass"

$22 STT, 3rd for $36. Busted by table maniac calling my A7d all-in with 10Jo, obv he hits.

$22 STT, 1st for $90, again notes simply say "I kick ass" heh.

$11 STT with a mate, 3rd for $18… wohooo.

$22 STT, 3rd for $36, on entering 3 handed play, I doubled the short stack with A6 losing to his A5, then lost to big stack JJ losing to 88, whoop dee doo.

$16 WSOP double shootout, 2nd place for $72, notes simply say "I’m a fucking idiot" I was really annoyed about this, as I’d dominated the game, and outlasted 60+ people to get heads up for a seat in the $630 WSOP qualifier, I then played the very first hand absolutely terribly and busted costing me over $550. gutted.

Days figure…

Out $247 / In $480

So Sunday I played in the Stars WSOP 150 Guaranteed tourney. At a $370 buy-in this was officially the most expensive tourney I had played in. With dreams of flying out to Vegas next week I sat down at 9pm Sunday along with 7400 other players!!! With a prize pool of $2.5million, this was officially the largest online tournament EVER! Impressive, nice to be a part of history. This also meant that were I to qualify, I would have to beat 7200 people to claim one of the 250 seats there were up for grabs. To cut a long story short, I managed to outlast 6000 people but still fell short. I was very unhappy with the way I played this tourney, I played far too timidly and never felt comfortable. I was blinded down to virtually dead after an hour and a half then finally picked up QQ which I managed to triple up with against AK and A8, however I ran completely card dead after this and was unable to ever build up a decent stack. C’est la vie, I’ll be going next year for sure!

 

I was planning on not really playing any poker this week as I really put in a lot of hours last week and had quite a few late nights. However I get bored easily, and I may aswell be bored making money rather than bored watching telly.

Sooo…

Monday night I only played for an hour and a half, I fired up a $30+3 STT, and a $20+2 180 MTT.

The STT was good, I don’t really remember any stand out hands but I played pretty solid and took 1st place which was good for $135. The MTT I also played pretty solid but lost a coinflip and then made a badly timed bluff which sent me busto in about 40th place.

Tuesday… lastnight I played in a $20+2 Seven Card Stud MTT, I really enjoyed this tournament and it was as much a learning experience as a hunt for the money. Only 40 players started and it paid top 5, I eventually busted in 5th place, good for $65. Not much money at all but I was very pleased with this, what with 7 card stud not being my strongest game at all.

I also played in three $20/180 MTT’s, these were all very short, 3 outered early on in all 3

AK anhilated by AQ

AK anhilated by AJ

and AK anihilated by AJ (WTF is AJ the new AK or something?!)

Frustrating but I can live with it. It’s these people making those calls that make us all money in the long run.

Oh well, tonight I’m playing football so may give poker a miss altogether.

Haha, the world definitely needs another poker blog, for sure!

Yah, I can’t really be arsed sharing my private deepest thoughts with the world, so figure I’ll use this as a poker blog. Also I’m not the greatest at updates (notice the 2 month gap betweem signing up and my first real post!), so figure it wouldn’t be fair keeping people waiting on the cliffhangers of mylife

Well this is as good a time as any to start a poker blog for me, last week I took 1st place in 3 MTT’s in the space of 4 days, which setup my most profitable week ever of poker.

Weds

I played in the donkey $10+1 MTT and decided to LAG it up, it worked, I hit hands, I outlasted 800 starters and managed to get heads up, 1st hand of heads up we agreed a deal giving us both $1300. Nice.

Thurs

$20+2 PL Hold’em MTT, 128 runners, I ran pretty card dead for the 1st hour and was struggling to stay in the game, then after the break I managed a quick double up and then ran over the tournament, making the final table in 2nd place stack size. I then lucked out a couple of times on the final table, I wasn’t happy with the way I played at all, but the cards hit me, and I ended up heads up again. The guy actually tried talking smack at me headsup, calling me a  "luckbag" or somesuch comment, which I found amusing. I finished him off in about 10 mins of back and forwards eventually trapping him with 2 pair against his overpair. Another 1st place and $800!

Sat

$20+2 Stars 180 runners STT. This tourney was great, I doubled up really early after limping with a mid pocket pair and flopping a set, I then proceeded to destroy the entire field. I was one of the top stacks most of the way through the tourney and never once felt in any danger. If I can, I’ll try find my stats from the game, as I was raising and re-raising tons of pots and taking it down through pure aggression. The final table I was without a doubt running the show but it took much longer than expected as I was cut in half stack wise about 10 times. This is how it would go…. Andiell wins pot / Andiell win pot / Andiell win pot  / Andiell win pot / Andiell loses huge pot to short stack / rinse and repeat. Anyways, I eventually managed to take a few folks down and we got heads up, and 1st hand I decided to push with a huge chip lead with 10Jo, the other guy called with a mid pocket pair and I hit a J on the turn. Game over, my 3rd 1st place in 4 days, and another $1080.

Profit for the 4 days $3180.

Ahh happy days!