You know there must be some truth to the thoery!
We all know of a venue which will not allow, regardless of how hard you try any cash return on comps.

My Venue is a local bar owned and run by close friends, we gather together and have a just for fun Tournement freezeout. It doesn’t matter that I doubled up in Hand two, nor does it matter I floped the nuts straight twice, only to be beaten by a full house on the turn.

It’s all a good bit of fun, but i’m starting to truly believe, some venues just won’t allow you to win in.
Well done to Alex Wilson & Leary tonight. It should be me of course but sometimes luck is on the other side.

Let me know about your unbreakable venue?
Leave comments below.

Cash Games First

Since my play in Blackpool last Saturday i’ve spent the following days recovering. 14 hours play would take its toll on anyone especially someone who had to drive 50 minutes home with tea bags for eyes.

I played some cash games Sunday & Monday just to keep my fingers in the pot, each time i either stacked up well only to loose it and bring me back to square 1.
Sunday night cash game in Blackpool: The cash here is actually quite small stakes, blinds 50p/£1 Texas only, i sat with £100 according to the 100 big blind theory and accumulated double my money very quickly with a mixture of straights, flushes and trips. The hands were going my way and i was comfortable with the table.

I ran in to a monster hand as my 8’s Full of Kings full house was smashed by Quad Kings. The player, who’s name i always seem to get wrong, Daz, Gaz, Baz maybe, played his quads perfectly and at best i put him on a straight. Thankfully my brain told me i did nothing wrong and my heart confirmed i just ran in to bad luck and great hand.

Monday night cash game: Much the same as the previous night, up and down, up and down! Pretty stale game over all as unfortunately you do get a lot of drunk… ok Pissed!!! wannabes that come to the table and change the tone, turning what is normally a well reserved game in to a smokey pub tavern bingo game. I shouldn’t complain as these players are normally gold mines to me and this night did not disappoint. My only gripe is although the money can be mostly easy to win, i just prefer to be among good company and involved in good play.

On to the Tournament

Tuesday night: £30 Double Chance + 1 Rebuy Tournament Southport
I decided to play another comp, now that i had many hours of sleep since Saturday. I noticed my play changed completely and it did take me some time to get in to my stride. I lost all my chips within 30 minutes chasing a flush (something i never stake a chip stack on), and further lost 50% of my double chance chips 2 hours later in a series of loose calls.
By the time the break arrived i had a little word in my sensible ear and decided ot buckle down and take the tables a bit more seriously. The stakes are low but its the game we love playing so i try not to be disrespectful.

The night progressed according to my sensible plan, playing the player not the cards gave me a double up early on and again not long after when i acted weak and pushed all in with a Q high Flush which appeared on the 4th Street. The play is difficult to put in words but i knew nobody put me on the flush and the player quite frankly thought ” I was at it “ as he said.

At final table i was card dead for the first 45 minutes. Im glad of this on final table, especially when you have chips to play with. It let me to get a feel for the other guys and allowed me to witness a few signs that i could later take advantage of.

My lack of play did not go unnoticed. Wow you haven’t played a hand all night, are you going to sit on those chips?. Just as i heard this i pick up AQd and bet 12,000 in to a 14,000 blind and limping pot. Everyone, including the outspoken player folded. This taught me, and i hope him, that i am certainly not worried about getting involved with cards i can possibly do something with, besides every hand i didnt play was another education round.

Eventually the table started to drop away like flies, within a 20 minute period we were 7 handed down to 3 handed, and then Heads UP!

Heads up i never felt for a moment i wouldn’t have the advantage, i was by far the chip lead for a start but also i knew my play scared my opponent who had watched and at one point admired how i was building such a large stack so quickly. I had this confirmed when he stood up before we started and shook hands, his comment was

“I know im not going to win this, you will be the first person to beat me heads up in 14 years”.

Psychology Review

Now my reaction was mixed.

1. Was this a mind game a chance to make me feel confident enough to call him with loose cards?
2. Was he being genuine and actually told him self he was happy with 2nd place.
3. Did i hear him correctly? 14 years unbeaten record

I of course realised, he was just a nice guy that opted to take the 2nd place prize without much of a fight. And this is pretty much how it ended.

Final Hand was my AK vs AJ we both hit our Ace on the flop with no sign of a K or J after that. Game Over!!

Official Results

Entries: 24
Prize Pool: £1050.00
Winnings: £472 1st Place.

I have used the money to buy in to the Blackpool £200 deep stack next week.

January is a horrible month for the poker community in the UK. All Winnings in December have been allocated to Christmas presents, anything left over is paid to the tax man before January 31st.
While the big dogs continue business as usual, the shorter bank roll players have tough decisions to make “Pay the bills or Play the game”.

Thankfully most chose the latter at this months 15k Deepstack event in Blackpool G casino.
A healthy turnout is what we all wanted to see and it’s just what we got.

It’s no secret the £100 Deepstack is an event structure that closely mirrors that of any £10,000 main event. With a mix of live and online experience, as well as beginners.
What I like most of all is the final table payouts are large enoughto keep the big dogs interested while giving newer players an affordable education to improve their game.

Blinds start 25/50 which means it will be a long night ahead. The winner will ofcourse earn his winnings and hopefully a fresh shirt no earlier than 5.30am. (Yes I did bring a spare shirt just incase).

We are about to be seated so stay tuned for more.

1st Break – 21k Avg stack 16k
Started off by winning the first hand. Played steady while trying to get to know my table.
The best pot won was 14k taking me to 31k with a nuts flush vs a King high flush by the river. I felt good with my value betting, the very area I’m trying to improve most about my game this year.
However with every big win comes a big loss, the final hand before the break went like this.

I’m holding KK on the button, small blind raises the pot of 600 to 800, I call feeling a little suspicious.
Flop: 666
SB: checks, I also check (flopping a full house is sometimes a hard position to get paid off on when your heads up.
Turn: K
SB: Bets 1200, I respond with a flat call (hitting my 2nd nuts hand)
River: Ace
SB: 2000k , I have a think, knowing I’m beat only to a 6 (but th betting history rules this out in my mind) or pocket Aces, I re raise with this in mind. SB flat calls probably thinking the same and turns over the very hand I’m behind to. AA.

This now leaves me with a little over 20k to continue with. I’m not too upset, we both played the hand correct, even if I pumped the pot on the turn he would still go with me in my mind.

Level 4 starts in 5 mins….
Break 2 – 20k

This was a miserable level, cards have been few and far between. The only thing of interest was my all raise with AQ hearts on the button after a 2.5k bet followed by a 6K raise.
My read was perfect and both players eventually folded showing 10’s & JJ’s. Needless to say I didn’t show mine. 8.5k free chips is always nice.
Lost a few pots alng the way to arrive back at 21k. That number seems to haunt me today.

Level 6 starts in 5 mins….
Unfortunatly the battery on my phone dies so there os too much to update at this stage.

In conclusion I managed to scrape together 240k chips with a series of pots and all in races that went my way. I finished in 8th position after being at the final table for an hour.
It’s a long tournament but well worth it. I reccomend anyone try it for themselves.

I busted on the big blind with 7-10D
Flop: 7J10.
Me: Check
P3: All in
Me: Call
P3 shows: AJ
Turn:2
River:J

My two pair loose to Trip J’s. Oh well it’s the way the cookie crumbles.

Total Runners:167
Finished: 8th
Cashed: £460

Official Results Below:

Over the past few days i have been concentrating on researching new applications for the VIT Live product range. The horrid weather outside didn’t put me off taking advantage of working from my quiet office at home, i regularly looked out the window wishing the snow would clear, giving me the opportunity to visit our offices, staff and some customers, but my finger crossing didn’t amount to any good, the snow continued to drop, disqualifying any chance of moving from my position.

No fear, my research has produced some very interesting results. For some time now our regular customer poll results suggested a requirement to reduce long term maintenance costs of on site hardware like servers, PC’s and network devices more than any other item.

While more than 64% of our users are Thin Client active (use Dumb Terminals connected to Terminal Servers), the consensus is we should be doing even more to reduce long term spending on annual service and replacement costs.

In 2010 our management team will be announcing a list of incentives which will mean further developing our products to reduce and in some cases eliminate the requirement of a powerful central server. Already i can hear you getting excited

Of course any changes to our products that removes or reduces the amount of hardware required to run, means plenty of more spare cash going straight back to you, the customer.
So why are we so keen to take money away from our shareholders pockets and back to you?

Well frankly it makes sound business sense! For every server we have at a customer location, a dedicated first line support engineer is also required. Also our licensing overheads increase which in turn increases your over annual agreement.

While it is too early to announce exactly what changes we will make this year, i can assure all customers we are doing everything we can to continue our brand of putting the user needs first. As we go forward in to this unsteady financial environment, now is the time to be using our talented in house technicians to develop ways of changing the way our products work, while maintaining solid familiarity and without any need for training or interface changes.

I can however announce we will be looking first at alternative, energy efficient methods of delivering email. (Teaser)!

I am so excited about 2010, studies suggest our climate is steadily improving and the technology sector held its own even when the chips were down. A toast to 2010! a happy new year to you all.

Dearg O’Bartuin
Founder & Project Director

VIT Live

It’s been a while since my last update for Southport & Woodvale Round Table.

Too much has happened to update everything but the biggest event to note is our very successful Christmas 2009 Santa float.
All proceeds collected go to local charities.

I had a great time playing Santa, although the public may question how much weight he has lost lately (sorry i did try to pad my suit out as much as possible!).

The picture below was taken by local press agency Southport GB, you can read public comments by visiting the news article: http://www.southportforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=50417253

Playing santa for charity

Thank you to all those that donated. 75 150 Christmas food hampers have been provided (with thanks to Tesco), we will be distributing these over the holiday period.

Hope your all well,

xx

EDIT:

Below are some additional pictures showing other members packing the food parcels. I couldn’t attend this day but a massive thank you to all members especially George Elland who is the master mind organiser behind this years charity distribution.

Photographs courtesy and copyright www.SouthportGB.gov.uk

Blackpool’s Northern lights kicked off last night. I couldn’t attend the first tournement of the season due to family commitments however tonight I’ll be taking part in the £150 no limit freezeout 2 day event.

I’m not sure what the total prize pool is, I wont know for sure until after registration closes. I’ll also be taking part in a couple of side events and cash games during the season. For now though I must prepare.

Ciao

I had a great night in Liverpool playing the £40,000 guarenteed NL hold’em tournement.
I managed to survive until 15 mins left of the final stage.

Early on my set was busted on the river by Nick Slade’s (gut shot straight). I played the hand wrong, checking on the flop and raising too small on the turn which gave Nick his free card to complete his hand by the river.

To be fair, Nick did admit he was simply buying information and he couldn’t quite put me on a hand.
I don’t think it was meant as a compliment but I will take it that way.
I lost half my stack on that hand but very slowly worked it back up to 15,000 even chips just before the break at level 4.

Nick was knocked out very soon after by 2 pair against his top pair.

My opinion on Nick Slade was actualy very positive over all, he is a well known professional with large prize winnings behind him, which for me over ruled his playful leg pulling of every player. I knew every time he cracked a joke at the expense of another player it was a ploy to gain information cheaply, build his own profile of the individual. I look forward to bumping into him again in Blackpool next month and the UKIPT in December. If I had to put Nick in his animal catagory, “The Jeckell” calls every raise, no matter the price, loose aggressive.

I got my own back when my AK flopped 4 K 9, I raised 2.5k Nick calls Turn was 2 bet of 5k Nick calls again, River was 7 with no possible flush or straight I value bet the same 2.5k to which Nick took some time to eventully call. He mucked and I took the winnings, Nick tells me he had K 10, but I don’t beleieve it for a moment

Returning from the break I kept my chips steady until the last 45 mins of the day. I hit top 2 pairs by the turn card but lost 9k chips by a set of 7’s.

I was very much out of the game by this stage and waited for any good hand to double / tripple up. I finally decided I couldn’t go into day 2 with 6k chips so when I picked up 10d Jd I went all in.

Unfortunaly my callers QJ held up and neither of us hit the board. Q high plays.

Next month ‘Northern Lights’ Blackpool £1000 main event
Until then, have a great Halloween.

Mak Avel | (Dearg)

I discovered a weird problem with my Apple mighty mouse this morning. The scroll wheel no longer worked horizontally or vertically.

I searched online to try find a solution but to no avail. The solution seems so simple its almost hard to believe. Simply pickup a clean piece of paper, turn the Mighty mouse upside down and rub the track ball up, down, left and right until it starts to work again.

TIP. do this while looking at a website that requires scrolling so you can see the fix immediately.

Nice apple!

There are some games in Poker you will just never forget!

Last night i played the last game of the season for Southport’s Poker league. The night was topped up with £450 extra to the pot and as it was the final chance for all players to qualify for the Regional championship, the turn out was great.
I already ranked 6th over all however i wanted to improve.

The players were a friendly bunch with lots of banter and bad beats. I couldn’t complain about much of my game, i felt like i played most hands just right. My chip stack was steadily around the 100,000 chips mark by the first break, however i did loose 40k calling two All-Ins from the short stack only to have egg on my face.

Final table was a little silly at times, we didn’t get to see many flops with most players going All In at least every two hands, you never got to see the Turn or River without paying big money. Anyone chasing a straight was on a suicide mission.

After five hours of play i finally knocked it down to the final two players, i was heads up with someone who was actually quite drunk by this stage, i knew i could of taken advantage so instead of paying it out, we agreed to split the prize money. My allocated points at this stage was more than enough to rank runner up over all this season.

I move to the Regional Championship sometime in October, dates to be announced.
Anyone else playing next month, good luck, see you then.

Entrants: 30
Position: 2nd (Based on prize split)
Payout: £310
Results

I don’t normally take part in the Sunday weekly tournament at Mint casino in Southport, but today i had a feeling the night could be good.
My girlfriend wasn’t too happy, Sunday is the only night we have together, however on this occasion she let me off the hook as long as i get up at 7am to take her to work, I’m writing this update at 03:19 so wish me luck.

I arrived late again to the table, this time due to the traffic plaguing our home town after the annual Southport Airshow, it took me 30 minutes to drive 2 miles so next year i think I’ll walk.
I started with 7,000 chips and made a catastrophic mistake of not looking at my hand correctly. This lost me 4,000 chips when the board showed a pair of 4’s and i think i have K 4, in fact i had K 5 so imagine my shame when i turn the cards over to everyone’s amazement, i was the brunt of jokes for a while on this.

3,000 chips is no way to win a tournament easily so when the break came i topped up adding a further 7,000 but a cost of a further £30.
Play was a little slow after the break but i noticed players getting knocked out regularly on the table next to me and before long only two tables were left. I had 20,000 chips after 3 hours which was pretty short stacked, i didn’t feel comfortable and convinced myself i should be at home with the girlfriend. I made silly mistake number 2, ALL IN BLIND!! (Never do this at home kids).

I was lucky, i hit 2 pair on the board and doubled up, next hand i was in position with KK and had 3 all In’s before me, i snap called and took the lot my pocket K’s stood up against Pocket 10’s, A6 and A10 suited 80,000 to take with me to final table.
Final table was slow and tight as the prize money in these events is good for 4th place £175.
Final 3 players and the option was put to me if i wanted to do a deal, split the top prize three ways. I normally say NO to this every time, but i was lucky to be in my seat after the mistakes earlier and eventually agreed.

Entrants: 35
Position: 3rd (Based on chip count)
Payout: £400
Results

ps. Tomorrow i play a new tournament in Liverpool Circus Casino £30 Freeze-out which also has a great Pot Limit cash game after. First prize £1,000+. Pot Limit cash games are new to me so that will also be a first. Speak soon.