loldonkaments!

Published 2 weeks, 6 days ago in Poker. 0 Comments

So just what have I been up to for the past few weeks? Well I absolutely lost my bollocks (and more than 3/4 of my bankroll) when I logged in drunk one night. According the PokerTracker, I tried taking a shot at 1/2 and obviously failed miserably. I then quickly dropped down to $20NL, and quickly lost a few buyins trying to be creative. Then I flopped a set of aces versus an overaggro donk and got it all in on a 3 flush board vs QQ with the villain having the Qh. Naturally the river didn’t pair the board, obviously it was red and most definitely shaped like the organ in my chest which had just shattered into a million different pieces! Poker has my heart broken at times! Monkey-spew tilt soon followed and I was calling away my stack with great hands such as Nine-Ten off suit! Sick!

With my bankroll crippled, my heart broken and my mind fully tilted, I once again decided to sit down at a 1/2 table with my entire new and improved and vastly reduced bankroll with the intent of either doubling up or going broke and taking a break from poker! About 2 orbits in, I picked up KK in the SB and raised it to 7. I was immediately repopped to 21 by the BB. Now my understanding of this limit is that it’s not unusual to be 3bet light Blind versus Blind, so I elected to just call this as a 4bet would have forced him to fold the vast majority of his range. Anyway the board came Jack high, with two clubs. I check and he throws out a bet that I call. Turn was a blank, I bet out and he puts me all in and I call to be shown KcJc for top pair with the flush draw and a gutshot from what I recall. The river was a beautiful King meaning I doubled up and now had a whole $425 to my name!

It was around this time that I had lodged €100 onto Stars to try spin it up playing some tournaments (or loldonkaments as they’re sometimes affectionately known as). Having spent some time in $4 180man Sit N Go’s trying to get used to the software, I soon found myself running deep in a $10 rebuy tournament where I only had to rebuy once and actually forgot to purchase a top up! I forget how I departed it, but I bubbled the final table finishing in 10th for $250. My doomswitch has since been flicked and I haven’t cashed in a tournament on Stars since! Last night LuckyLloyd from Boards staked a group of us $11 for shits and giggles in a $10 tournament and in the 4th hand in I flopped middle set on a King high board and got it all in on the flop vs AK. Poker Stars rustled up something special for the turn and river though, with a one two combination of Queen Jack enough to almost make me throw my laptop onto the ground! I was left crippled and got what little I had left in with 66 a few hands later only to run into 88. Oh well. Poker is a sick, sick game!

Speaking of being staked, HoLLLaments of Boards has also been staking people into loldonkaments for the past few nights on FullTilt. I joined in on the action for the second night and ran deep in a $28k guaranteed tournament, departing in 25th after I brainfarted and pushed on a flop of 766 after it was checked to me by the chipleader. He had 77 obviously and I was drawing dead! The following night I was put into a 6max bounty tournament which was strange to me. I began by playing like it was a cash game, 3betting light and floating flops which only got me into trouble and left me with half a stack a mere 20 minutes in! My cue to do something else for the night arrived when I found Ace-Ten in the SB after it was folded around to me. My standard raise was called by the BB and I saw a wonderful flop of Ace-Ten-Two. I check raised allin and was called to be shown JJ. Needless to say, a jack reared it’s ugly head on the river!

Last night I was once again staked into a tournament on Full Tilt. a $32k Guaranteed. Of the 8 people who were staked, only myself and Nicky Power reached the money. Nicky was on fire, running better than Maurice Green reportedly getting Kings three times within the first 100 hands! As a result he stormed off into the lead! I wasn’t having as much luck and after taking a few hits (some due to complete brainfarts), I shoved for my last 8BB’s with A8 and ran into QQ. A flop of 885 ensured that I stayed alive. As the bubble was approaching I was getting very aggressive and was raising almost any two cards from late position. I had soon built up an above average stack when my QQ lost a race to AK and then a few hands later my AK couldn’t win against TT. Nevertheless I kept playing aggressively with what was still an average stack and stole the antes and blinds whenever I could and also threw in a few resteals here and there to get myself into the Top 20! I took quite a bit of stick when I called a shortstacks allin with A9 but he was pushing quite a lot and I figured his range to be any ace, any pair, any two broadway cards, any two suited connectors which I am slight favourite against. In fact he had pushed with a gapped connector and there was no help for him on the board. That was the only “race” I won that night and a few hands later my button raise with KT was pushed into by the BB. He felted 99 and I flopped my king but he turned a set. The very next hand I picked up TT and pushed over the top of a Mid Postion raiser who called with AA. I flopped my set of tens but he rivered his Ace.

As I said earlier in this post, Poker is a sick game!

BigSlickEvents Team Event 2008 - Trip Report

Published 2 months, 2 weeks ago in Poker. 0 Comments

Friday 22nd February was the date of BigSlickEvents 2008 Team Event, a €210 event (or €840 per team) which was set to run for two days. You may not have heard me singing BigSlicks praises before, but they run great events. The Team Event was no exception. It boasted a 15k starting stack and 45 min blinds and attracted 31 teams (124 runners). After 14 hours of intense play, my team settled for 2nd place in the team rankings and each took home a share €4000!

I wasn’t really hitting much on Day 1 and wasn’t really in any make or break pots. My button raises were continuously being called and I missed most of the flops. I made a horrible err on one of my button raises where I looked down at Ace-rag of clubs and flopped a flush draw. I checked it down playing the flush draw and didn’t bother looking at my cards. I missed my draw on the river, a 4 of hearts making it two 4s on the board and mucked when I was shown top pair by the BB only to realise afterwards that my Ace-rag was actually Ace-4 :(.

Shortly afterwards I got Jacks in Mid Position and raised it 4 times the BB and was called by the button. I checked the Ace high flop and so did the button, I had a stab at the turn but was quickly called again. With no flush or straight draws on the board I surmised that I was behind and check folded the river to be shown AK. I certainly didn’t put him on that strong a hand and was more inclined to put him on a raggy ace!

I clashed preflop with the player to my right on several occassions. He raised whenever it was folded to him so when he raised to 400 with blinds at 50/100, I made it 1250 with A9. He looked at me and soon folded. Soon after I got AK and made the same play after he raised to 400. This time he called but folded after he checked it to me on a QJ9 board when I bet 2500.

Later on in the night I got AJ of heart on the button. My raise of 3 times the BB was just enough to lure the SB into the hand. I was very happy to see a flop of QKT to flop broadway! There were two diamonds on the board so after the SB checked, I made a pot sized bet that was called after much deliberation. The turn was a blank and once again I made a pot sized bet after it was checked to me. This time the SB didn’t call and I took down a relatively nice pot.

After the 40 minute dinner break, I was absolutely card dead. I was moved table twice which made it hard to establish an image. I stole the blinds a few times from late position on semi-bluffs. I raised from the cut off with pocket fours and was min-reraised by the Button who had been quiet all night. An AQJ flop was difficult to take a stab at, so I just check folded it. I took time to walk around and see how the rest of my team mates were doing. Paddy was up and down, yo-yo’ing from 30k to 20k on an almost hand-by-hand basis! Ollie was flying on 40k and John was just down with 14k having played tight all night. My dealer for the last two levels was extremely slow and we played 18 hands in 90 minutes which was a bit of a joke! I suppose one way of looking at it was that he was keeping me out of trouble!

Play stopped at 2:30am and our chips were bagged and tagged. I was on 12,375, which was well below the average stack of 21k. John still had 14k while Ollie had managed to get it up to over 60k to be third in chips for the day! Paddy’s rollercoaster ride left him with 23k, slightly above average!

Play resumed the next day at 2:30pm. I was seated at a table with position on chip leader Nicky Power. My first big pot of the day was from defending my BB. My BB had been raised by the same player every single orbit since I had been moved to the table the previous night. I hadn’t played back at him once so when he raised it to 2000 with blinds at 300/600 (25ante), I re-raised to 7000 with 2h3h, leaving 12k behind. I knew he was raising very light and given how I hadn’t played back once since he started attacking me, I thought he would fold. Strangely he only called after asking for a countdown of my chips. The flop was very favourable to me coming 2T4. I pushed all-in for my remaining chips knowing and he soon folded, much to my relief. I decided to show my hand which the table seemed to be shocked at with several “I thought you were tight” comments being made. Now that I had the average stack again, I planned on tightening up and showing that hand would help me get action on my big hands.

The very next orbit when on the BB, I looked down at QQ. The same villain raised once again and I once again reraised. He then moved allin and I happily called to see me dominating his 99. I had him covered slightly. This was the biggest pot I had been involved in all tournament. Needless to say a 9 reared its ugly head on the flop and there was no help for me on the turn or river. Having worked so hard to build my stack back up I was gutted to be left with around 6,000!

The very next hand I looked down at 66 and moved all in. This was met by a reraise allin by the player sitting to the left of me. Obviously I knew things weren’t looking very good and when everyone else folded I asked him had he a pair. “I do” he said, “but only a small one” as he turned over 88. A flop of 7d-4s-Js offered little help. The turn, the 3s gave me a gutshot and a flush draw and the Ks on the river completed the suck out! Of course this suck out would have to be the only one of my hands that live updater’s BlondePoker mentioned on their website! I was back up to 15k and was back in the sense that I could now (just barely) afford to be selective in choosing which hands to play and who to play them against.

With the blinds at 600/1200, I looked down at TT. Action was to Nicky Power who raised it to 3300. I moved all in and it was folded around to Nicky who deliberated for sometime before calling with A9 saying that I have 77 or 88 there often enough for him to have enough equity to call. I was looking in good shape and a ten on a rainbow flop put me in even better shape. The turn offered no help to Nicky and I doubled up once again!

My exit hand was a few orbits later, on the last hand of the 600/1200 level. I’m dealt QQ UTG and put in a hefty raise of 5400 (I looked at the blind timer to gauge my raise and it had already moved to the next level). I’m called by the button (the same person that I had lost to with queens earlier) and by Nicky Power on the BB. The flop is Jh3c7h. I bet out 14k and the button goes all in. I think for a short while. Maybe if there wasn’t a flush draw on the board I could have found a way to get out of it. I call for the last of my chips and he shows 33 for a flopped set! I get no help from the turn or river and bow out in 41st place, gaining my team 5 points. Looking back, it was a bad call by him. With me playing a stack of 40k, my preflop raise gave him insufficient implied odds to mine for a set. This was the first hand I played UTG since I arrived at the table the previous night. If he thought position was a reason to call he was wrong as well, because my range is very tight in early position to combat the difficulties of playing out of position. The only possible way I could have escaped from it was if I had limped UTG and pushed over the top of his inevitable raise. He would have been forced to fold then!

That’s pretty much all I have to say about my involvement in the event, read on learn about the key hands that led us to second place in the Team Event.

Continue reading ‘BigSlickEvents Team Event 2008 - Trip Report’

Poker Review: 13th - 19th Feb. A Rollercoaster

Published 2 months, 2 weeks ago in Poker and Life. 0 Comments

I must say that I’m adopting a very unorthodox method of reviewing my weekly sessions. Most peoples week starts on a Monday, or Sunday but I’m opting for Wednesday to be the beginning of my week for the purpose of these reviews? Why, I hear you ask. Well put simply, I moved over to a new skin last Wednesday, so decided that I may as well just start reviewing my sessions from then, instead of waiting for another few days :).

I started by lodging a $850 bankroll which I hoped would keep me out of trouble at $50NL. I had previously taken 4 and 5 buyin shots at $50NL and found it to be beatable but 5 buyins isn’t enough to sustain the negative variance in poker and despite running well for the first thousand or so hands each time, the doomswitch would soon be flicked and I’d find myself missing all my big draws, constantly getting outdrawn on and consequently found myself stacking off the rest of bankroll on 3-barrel 6 high bluffs! This time I swore it would be different!

The usual trend soon began to appear with me running well for the first few sessions (being up $83) before it all went wrong. I finished my first day on the new skin down a buyin. Day 2 started off as the first finished with me once again dropping a buyin on a KK vs AA hand. Maniac had the aces obviously :(. I dropped another buyin to him shortly after when I foolishly called his river overbet with TPTK. He had rivered a set :(. By the end of Day 2 I was down 3 and a half buyins, a small downswing some might say, but it wasn’t just a case of running bad - I was playing badly too. I was raising too lightly in middle position and found myself calling 3bets OOP with very vulnerable hands. I also found myself approaching the shortstacks in far too aggressive a manner. I set about tightening up in early and mid position and tackle the shortstacks in a more cautious but ultimately more effective way (I have to thank the 2+2 forums for a lot of the advice on that shortstackers).

So I began a process of rebuilding. I was very fortunate to hit a gutshot in the following hand to earn back a buyin.

Absolute Life Poker 0.25/0.50, hand converted by the iPoker Converter at Talking-Poker

saw flop | saw showdown

Button rakatam ($22.05)
SB GuardianSaint ($58.50)
BB PeppeT78 ($15.00)
UTG cesena ($22.80)
UTG+1 cannacaz ($12.90)
MP Tuomasso ($56.05)
CO-1 Hero ($65.55)
BB HUGOSPEWGO ($50.00)

Preflop: Hero is in the CO-1 with T 9
3 folds, Hero raises to 2.00, HUGOSPEWGO calls 1.50, 3 folds.

Flop (4.75) 2 K J
Hero bets 3.00, HUGOSPEWGO calls 3.00.

Turn (10.75) Q
Hero bets 7.00, HUGOSPEWGO calls 7.00.

River (24.75) A
Hero checks, HUGOSPEWGO moves all-in for 38.00, Hero calls 38.00

Hero shows T 9
HUGOSPEWGO shows K A

Hero wins 100.75 with A straight, Ace high.

I soon lost it though with Q8 on the button when I stacked off when my middle pair was no good against a turned house on a 55QK board :S. Horrible play! The next thousand or so hands were all steady going. I didn’t lose to much and constantly plugged away at the blinds while also picking up a few nice pots with some fortuitous flopped sets.

It wasn’t until today that I finally got back into the green, starting the day flopping a flush in the first hand I played on the button when I raised with 89c and the flop came J47c and he called my bets all the way with KJ with all the money going in when the K hit the river! I picked up another buyin when I hit bottom set with 33 and called the villains cbet on a rainbow flop. He hit his ace on the turn and stacked off with his A5!

So here are my stats for the end of the week:

Hands: 2539
VP$IP: 17.57%
PFR: 13.4%
AF: 2.91 (6.13/3.05/1.59)
Att. To Steal: 37.12%
W$WSF: 41.52%
Total Won/Lost: $103.37 (4.09 ptbb/100)
Cashback and Bonus: Approx $40

Net Profit/Loss: $143.37

poker.jpg

Another Resurrection!

Published 2 months, 4 weeks ago in Poker and Ramblings. 0 Comments

It’s been over 5 months since I last posted on this hallowed piece of webspace. My last entry was in the middle of Summer as I struggled to make something out of nothing and bonuswhore my way to 1k playing online poker. In that 5 months a lot has happened. Firstly, “life rake” took care of my ambitions to reach the magic 1k mark with a quick flurry of unfortunately timed friends birthdays whittling down my bankroll to something so laughable that I began to see Blackjack as a quick way to make money! The mental and physical state of being “El Busto” shortly followed.

Poker wasn’t the only thing that changed in my life! I’ve also begun life as a third level student pursuing the world of marketing as a viable career. I wish I could say that I’ve been a model student, attending every lecture under the sun and contributing tonnes of innovative thinking to the course. But alas, I’d be lying if I said I was and in reality my attendance is poor and my effort is minimal!

Five months on from my last post, I’ve suddenly been bitten by the bug and have that desire to post once again! It’s through this blog that I hope to resurrect my poker bankroll and you’ll be seeing me post critical and honest reviews of my sessions in the hope of being able to maintain a high standard of self-discipline that will hopefully see me progress from the micro-levels of present to that $1/$2 games by time the Summer is around. It’s also only natural that the blog will also become an outlet for my thoughts on marketing. Who knows, I might even have something decent and worthwhile to say about the field should I start attending my lectures!

I have high hopes for AdamsRants this time around. This time I’m doing more than resurrecting a blog - I’m resurrecting my career! Of course we’ll have to wait and see if there’s any truth behind that but I hope that you’ll be with me every step of the way!

My Poker Challenge - €0 to €1k! - Weeks 2 and 3

Published 8 months, 3 weeks ago in Poker and Life. 0 Comments

Well I missed my usual date for reporting my progress last week because I was too busy getting my Leaving Certificate results and binge drinking for the entire day! For those that are interested, I got 365 points which is statistically an above average leaving cert but when I compare the points I got to the amount of effort I put in then I can safely say that my return on effort was exceptionally high! How does this affect my life? Well come October I’ll be studying Marketing in the local “university level” Institute of Technology for the next four years. The main advantage of this regarding my poker playing is that I’ll be living at home and will therefore still have access to the Internet and be able to play.

I’m currently running along very smoothly and I’m pleased to say that last week saw me make my first every final table in a MTT - a $1500 Value Guarantee Tournament - which I went on to win! I earned $300 for that which is a massive return considering the tournament cost $1 to enter, I didn’t need to rebuy and purchased my addon at the end of the rebuy period bringing my total investment to $2!

Going into the first tournament break, I was only slightly above the average chip amount but I was patient, played my cards and picked my spots and found myself to be one of the chipleaders going into the second break! It nearly all fell apart in the mid-late stage of the tournament when I found AA for the first time in the tournament and induced an all-in bet preflop from a villain who turned over KK and hit his King on the flop taking around 70% of my stack with it! I had, up to this point, been playing tight and picked up the blinds whenever I sensed weakness but now with the relatively short stack I found myself having to take risks and on several occasions found myself at the wrong side of 70-30 situations which I somehow wiggled my way out of! Once I built up my stack again and as play approached the bubble, I found myself being able to steal blinds at will and soar onto the final table with a healthy chip lead. I knocked out 6 (I think) of the final table to go heads-up against a relatively short stacked opponent. I soon became the shortstack as I ran into AK and AA in consecutive hands but recovered through aggressive play and finally knocked the villain out for my biggest poker win yet when my ATs topped his A9o!

At the end of the week I decided to revert back to cash play but played very poorly and was down $30 (~150 buyins) within an hour and concluded that I should stick to Sit N Go’s and MTTs if as I had found them to be both great value for money and great fun to play. I may opt to go back to cash table play in the future, in fact I may have to by necessity as Cash play is very popular in the card rooms here, but for now I feel that as long as I’m making money playing tournaments then I shouldn’t change a thing!

Today I played my first bit of poker since Friday. I opted for 2 $5 dollar 6-Max Sit N Go’s as I find that there are a lot of soft players who are willing to gamble at the early stages who make it much easier to reach the money. I don’t mind letting one gambler double-up at the expense of another in the early stages as I feel that I can play better poker than them in the long run and overcome their chip dominance and topple them when playing heads-up. I won both the Sit N Go’s, netting $21 from each! I had been having mixed success in the Sit N Go’s last week when I started playing them but I now believe that I have adapted my game to counter the trends and styles of play that I’m encountering on the tables which is ultimately turning me into a more profitable player!

Following my two Sit N Go victories, I decided to enter into the $1500 Value Guarantee Tournament on VCPoker which had a $3 buyin with unlimited rebuys within the first hour, an optional addon at the first break and a field of 80 players. The first few levels were very hectic as players were going all-in with almost ATC. I read that the logic behind this is that you are pumping the table full of chips which (as the supposedly better poker player) you intend on winning back after the rebuy period has lapsed. While I’m sure that this strategy does work from time to time, I believe that winning the chips from the rebuying players through tight play is a sounder and more profitable way of playing (well, certainly at this level it is). Once again I was playing tight poker and was picking my spots to steal the blinds. I was very happy that I brought the best hand to the showdown in 100% of my shown hands within the first two breaks. I was the chip leader going into the 3rd hour of play but suffered a few bad beats and made a few bad calls which probably affected my table image resulting in me being unable to steal as many blinds as I would have liked. I still controlled over 15% of the chips at the bubble and was placed 4th until I called an all-in bet by the short stack with my pocket tens only to have another shortstack reraise all-in with QJ. He hit his Queen on the flop and a forth club on the river gave him his flush.

This meant that I was in less than satisfactory shape going onto the final table. I was 7th in chips with 28,000 bu the blinds were 5k/10k and when play started at the final table I found myself UTG+1 meaning the blinds were going to nip me in the arse and decimate my remaining stack within 3 hands. I folded my first hand, a hand that resulted in a player being knocked out, but decided to push all-in with Ts7s UTG while I still had the ability to push people off hands. I figured that if I could pick up the blinds here, I would be able to survive another orbit, giving me a chance to pick up some playable hands or result in some of the other shortstacks being eliminated. Needless to say, my push was folded all the way round to the chip leader on the button who called with pocket kings. The flop gave him a set, the turn gave me a gutshot draw but the river was a blank, and so I finished up in 9th place for $45!

So overall it’s been a very successful fortnight for me. Unfortunately iPoker doesn’t provide any tournament summaries so it’s nigh on impossible for me to calculate how much I have won/lost using any method other than: adding my current NETeller balance (€344.05) and my current poker account balance (€27.03). When I do this, I get €371.08!. So after three weeks, I am over a third of the way to completing my goal and as college looms I’m starting to realise that the €1k could very well come in handy in the very near future!

The CAO Points Race - Not Over Yet!

Published 8 months, 3 weeks ago in School and Thinking. 2 Comments

This year saw an awful lot of contradictory reporting on behalf of the Irish media who were reporting on the exams. At times it seemed as if they were merely out to scaremonger the already stressed out candidates. “CAO Points Race Not Over!” they would report and point to the fact that more candidates applied to the CAO this year than last year implying that points too would rise across the board. However as a candidate myself, I knew two things that the reporters didn’t take into account when writing their hastily put together insights into the mechanics of the college system - A) Colleges are ever-expanding - this means that while the number of applicants may have risen, the number of places to be allocated were also rising and B) It didn’t take a genius to realise that many people who were sitting the Leaving were people who had little or no intention of going to college and instead wished to take up a trade or pursue a PLC course!

I knew that these two things would result in points remaining relatively static with some courses obviously rising and some falling but todays headline in the Irish times “CAO Points continue to fall” offered false hope to a number of borderline candidates who grew ever more optimistic about the prospect of being offered their first preference course! It’s true, points fell in more courses than they rose in but competition was still fierce amongst candidates applying for business/administration courses and many courses are listed with a * following the first round offers indicating that not all candidates who had the minimum amount of points were offered a place for that course, instead finding that a random number assigned to them in February sealed their fate!

So contrary to what the media is reporting, the points race isn’t over yet! Many of the students who will not receive a college offer within the next few weeks will opt to pursue a PLC course and then apply to college next year and the trend seems to be that more and more mature students are finding their way into college meaning that next year will see what I predict to be record numbers of applicants to CAO. The third level colleges may be expanding and adding many new courses to their repertoire as each year passes, but there’s only so much expansion they can do in a year and I’m not hesitating in saying that next year could see the Points Race really get started!

Three Support - A Positive Experience

Published 8 months, 3 weeks ago in Geekiness and Ramblings. 0 Comments

I remember back in May when I was choosing a new phone provider, one of the companies that my friends were urging me to stay away from was the relative newcomer to the Irish market - Three. All over the net there were horror stories about poor customer support that only got worse after they outsourced their call centre to India. Apparently they didn’t want to even know about you after you bought your phone, let alone help you with any problems that you may be having and on the odd occasion where you did by chance get through to an agent who was willing to help, you found that you couldn’t understand them or be understood! Nevertheless, I opted to plunge for them, hoping that a) nothing would go wrong and b) if it did, their customer care could solve it! 3 months down the road, something did go wrong but I’m happy to say that my experience with 3 Support is a positive one…

I was impressed with almost every aspect of Three’s services. While their call tariffs were expensive, their texts were cheap and cheerful and I was saving a massive amount of money compared to my previous operator, O2. I was particularly fond of their “walled-garden” which offered tonnes of 3G services free of charge and I made certain to buy their data package addon which allowed me to access any website for as little as €5.99 per month! However, I did always feel that the term they dubbed their service - “Mobile Broadband” - was a little too generous as oftentimes pages would load up at a snails pace as their remote proxy struggled to process requests and oftentimes died just as you had managed to page you wanted!

I wasn’t really that bothered about it, because I didn’t really use it that much but it was when I was suddenly asked to reverify my age that I started to get a bit frustrated. Three require that all customers who wish to have access to “almost every website” must first go into a Three store with a passport so that their account can be verified. That’s fair enough but I verified my age in May and now it was asking me to do it again! It was around this time that I spotted this vast thread on Boards.ie which seemed to indicate that Three were now taking people off of their web proxy by request!

I sent Three customer care an email and within an hour I was contacted by a Three representative who apologised for the Age Verification issue and said that Tech support were provisioning measures that would mean that I wouldn’t have to verify my age again and also they were going to update my account so that I would no longer be using their proxy! The only downside to it was that I would have to wait up to 48 hours for these changes to take place but I suppose it was going to be worth it!

The next day I decided to check and see if I was off the godforsaken proxy and when I went to visit a site, it loaded instantly! I also went to download the GMail web app which was, like all other third party apps, blocked by Three. It worked! I then tried the Opera Mini mobile web browser and it worked flawlessly! Opera Mini really will change the way I can browse. It introduces a tonne of interesting and efficient features to help enhance my web browsing experience and I can see myself using it for a while to come!

So congratulations to Three for coming up trumps when the day that I had been dreading finally came and I had to contact you! Three have been taking a lot of slack lately regarding their mobile broadband service and their efforts to help people with issues but I can safely say that this was a reassuring experience for me and my approval rating for Three has never been as high!

My Poker Challenge - €0 to €1k! - Week 1

Published 9 months ago in Poker and Life. 2 Comments

So one week has passed since I started my challenge of making zero money into one thousand and so far I’m exceeding my expectations, but unfortunately it isn’t my poker that’s being the shining light, instead it’s moreso my cunning use of bonuses which see’s me up €115.

My initial €8 ($10) bonus on VCPoker was quickly chewed up as I foolishly played where I am most comfortable, at the $20NL Ring tables. I could only play on one table at a time and had to sit each time with my entire bankroll in play. At this point I didn’t have Poker Tracker or Gametime+ running but I found that I didn’t need either to help me read my opponents and make moves which were working and after solid play for two hours I had more than doubled my money to €23 and could now afford to sit at two tables, once again without PT or GT+ running. Once I switched to multi-tabling however, my fortunes started to turn as I could no longer focus solely on the one table and couldn’t gain any insights into my opponents through observation.

I lost half my bankroll in a hand where I was trying to play the player, not the cards. A few hands prior to it, I looked down at AJs in mid position and made it $1 to play, all folded except for the button who made it $2.40. I thought about it and folded and then I told him what I folded and this is the key reason why I did what I did the next orbit when I looked down at KTo and raised once again to $1. Once again, all folded except for the button who once again made it $2.40, I realised that this was the exact same play as before and remembered that I had told him that I folded AJs so any reraise I put in would be indicative of me having a hand greater than that. I also considered that he was making a move, as he knew that he had previously knocked me off AJs with the same raise. I shoved and he called. The board came down Q84 J 4 which didn’t help me in the slightest and he turned over AKo to rake in a pretty substantially sized pot which included half my entire bankroll! He must have been bricking it when he saw the Queens and Jacks as he could have only made that call if he had put me on AJ or AQ. I felt hard done by, but in retrospect it was a very optimistic play that deserved to have me bust out!

With only a tiny amount of money to play with, I decided to look for other “no deposit needed” offers on other sites and accidentally came across the casino site, CasinoClassic which proudly advertised that it offers €500 to new members to play with for one hour and you get to keep anything that you win above that amount. It seemed too good to be true and in hindsight it was as I was required to deposit €20 to access the bonus that I had won after the hour trial (which was the maximum of €200), when I deposited the money I learned that I had to wager my bonus 30 times before I was able to withdraw anything and my favoured game, Blackjack, only counted for 10%, so I would have had to wager 300 times €200 (€60,000!) before any of my bonus money was unlocked! I decided instead to play European Roulette and wager 50% of my bankroll on Red and 50% on black. I was risking 100% of my money for a 87.5% chance of merely breaking even but by breaking even I would be unlocking a bonus ten times my initial deposit! After every few spins I’d check the banking window to see if I could withdraw and finally I saw that I was able to withdraw €120 of my bonus into the safety of my Neteller account. What I learned from my brief encounter with an online casino was that they are to kept away from. They lure you in with a big promotion and use the small print as an excuse to have you keep playing for your money. They also don’t have an option to let you know how much you’ve wagered which can only spell trouble for those who are immersed in their games!

So after a bit of luck, my bankroll was back up to €100 (I’m subtracting the €20 of my own money that I had to deposit to unlock the bonus). I then set about joining as many other poker sites that I could in order to avail of bonuses and exclusive freerolls and started playing in $5 “6 Max” Sit N Go’s on iPoker with a great deal of success. I was looking set to cash in on my third consecutive game when I pushed all-in on the bubble with JJ and the villain (who I had covered slightly) called with J5o. I was a 95% favourite to win the hand, he needed twin fives to win and of course he hit them both on the flop, leaving me drawing to a one outer which never hit. I was left with 350 chips with the blinds at 150/300, so in the next hand, I pushed from the SB with my remaining 200 with K7o and was called by the Button who turned over K8o to knock me out in third spot and out of the money.

After one week then, my bankroll is now at €115.93 with an additional $7 to be unlocked on Titan Poker if I start earning points. Overall it’s all looking pretty rosy, not bad for a shoddy weeks work :).

My Poker Challenge - €0 to €1k!

Published 9 months, 1 week ago in Poker. 1 Comment

For those that know me, you will know that ever since February of this year I have taken a keen interest in Poker and have been playing online quite a bit since then in an attempt to grind out some extra income. I have been quite successful too, accruing no less than $800 on two poker sites, Ladbrokes.com and Green Joker Poker but I recently became quite worried when I started playing Blackjack, sometimes at up to $120 a hand! Thanks to some exceptionally good fortune, I managed to turn what was a $700 loss within 20 minutes into a $150 profit before the hour was up. I got lucky, very lucky and have decided to withdraw all my money from my account and into my savings account where I can’t touch it!

I still wanted to play poker though and was intrigued to learn of poker pro Chris Ferguson’s Zero-Hero challenge where he is attempting to turn zero into $10,000 within a year. Such a challenge appealed to me because it would allow me to really hone my poker skills and any money earned would be an added bonus as I can’t really complain if I lose a portion of my bankroll when my only investment has been time and I like any hobby, I don’t mind investing time if my return is entertainment and enjoyment and I enjoy playing poker and feel this challenge would help me continue to carry on enjoying poker!

Chris Ferguson had no choice but to start by playing freerolls to start his bankroll, but I decided to search for a poker site which would be favourable to my challenge and found VC Poker who have a $10 no deposit required bonus, they also run many cheap MTT’s starting from as little as 60c and run their own freerolls in addition to the ones that the iPoker network offers. I figured that this site would be ideal to start off on as it would allow me to play many exclusive lucrative MTTs against soft opposition.

I intend on updating my site weekly with reports on my progress. I have no timelimit on my challenge and don’t mind grinding a small profit in the micro-stakes cash tables if I think it is the best way given my bankroll! So wish me luck in my endeavour and I’ll report back this day week!

Bebo Introduce Visitor Tracking Map.

Published 10 months ago in Bebo and Ramblings. 13 Comments

bebo

I noticed this a few days a go and was surprised that the guys over at Mashable didn’t pick up on it. The map, which is accessible here, allows users to check who has been visiting their profile within the last 24 hours and where they hail from.

This has been a feature that many web-security experts have been recommending be implemented on Bebo and other social networks for a long time. I would be inclined to agree with them as a feature such a this allows more transparency and can potentially cut down on the phenomenon which has become known as “Bebo Stalking”. Think about it, would you hypothetically stalk someone if they knew you were doing it? Most likely not.

It may seem like an innocent addition but such a feature gives users increased information about their profile which can be used to keep them safe but what I really like about it is that it also adds to the Bebo experience as a whole. It’s nice to be able to see who’s been visiting your profile and by using the Google Maps interface they can potentially add more features to it in the future such as a social connections map which could map out how many of your visitors are connected to each other.

The only complaint I have about the addition is that users have the option to set themselves as private and are actually set to private by default. I would have preferred if all users under the age of 18 were set to private (and were warned about the dangers of setting their profiles to public) while over 18 year olds should automatically have their profiles set to public. This, I believe, would further add to the Bebo experience and enhance the effectiveness of Bebos security.

visitormap.JPG

Social Sites

BEBO

Online Now

web tracker