Semi Jackpot again

So, a few more days and not fantastic results.

Wednesday I played 18 tournaments and lost $90

Thursday I played 9 and lost $343

Friday I played 10 and won $132

Giving me a net loss of $121

which is covered by my rake during that period is $161

However, I have been playing the Jackpot Single table tournaments and I managed to finish first or second in 6 in a row which gives me $750 consolation prize.

I actually finished in 1st in 3 of them which is a shame because 6 1st places is worth $90,000 at the moment - although it has been as high as $150,000.

As a result I have decided that I am going to be playing a lot more of these with the aim of winning the jackpot in the next 6 months if I can.

I went out to Manchester G casino on Thursday night playing from 7pm until 5am.

I started out pretty well and was quickly $100 up but that was slowly eroded through the night after a couple of nuggets joined the table where our game of $1-$1 had straddles (blind raises) of $128 on 2 occasions The $128 straddle almost had the guy all in pre flop before he had even looked at his cards. I was on the cut off seat 6 handed when I had K3 in the $128 straddle hand but wasn't prepared to gamble that my better than average hand would win against the two guys who were either all in or committed. It turns out that I would have been a big underdog as the straddle guy had KQ but my K3 would have actually won!

I had my first game of golf in 18 months on Wednesday.

The weather was great and I was able to play more consistantly than the other two guys I know from poker who are both in the Dream Team (Andy Massey and Tim Hickling). Shame I don't get to play more but it was a really enjoyable day and something I must do more of!


Andrew has a friendly tomorrow morning and I'm playing the afternoon so a busy day tomorrow.

Days 1-3

Well the poker week really didn't start well at all.

I get a daily limit of $750 from badbeat to play poker with which gets refreshed at the end of each day regardless of the balance

(ie if I lose $150 today my balance will be $600 1st thing in the morning. Badbeat then top up the account to $750. Similarly they withdraw whatever is in there over $750.)

At the end of the month they then pay out half of the profits plus rakeback (which is approximately 50% of the rake that the online casino charge for playing poker on their site.)

On Sunday, after about 2 hours, I was down to $100 in my account after running really badly in the $50 double up tournaments and so I had to fill that hole before I could even start making some money to pay for this week's enforced, unpaid, holiday!

Fortunately, since then I have made $80 yesterday after only managing to play a small number of tournaments because I was playing the dream team tournament for a good few hours before busting out in 52nd place.

Today I have made $300 after managing to put in a good 5 hours or so which is much better.

I've also paid for a license for Holdem Manager (a poker program that tracks all of the hands I play and the hands of everyone else I play against.) I've managed to get it up and running and I'm having a session with my poker mentor on Thursday where I am looking to get it set up well and look at some of the statistical information it holds to analyse my play.

Got my first game of golf in nearly 2 years tomorrow having been injured last year and really busy trying to get a job this year which has stopped me playing in the society I am a member of.

Liverpool didn't play well on Sunday - they looked exactly like they did last year at the start of the season - desperately in need of games to get match fit. Hopefully they can turn that around quickly as there is not much room for bad spells in the league.

I notice Arsenal have started well but watching them tonight there was a few times that Celtic had overload situations on the counter attack that showed one of Arsenal's weaknesses. I do like the look of Vermaelen though!

Anyway, that's it for now.

If you are new to poker or online casinos feel free to click one of the links but remember to gamble responsibly!

Pro for a week....

I finished at KHT today so I am now officially unemployed for a week then I'm on holiday until I start my new job on September 9th.

Looking forward to both of them but in the mean time I've got to earn £500 next week to make up for my lack of work.

I've been playing a load of double up Sit and go tournaments with the aim of playing 400 by the end of the month as Badbeat have a promotion on at the moment where everyone who plays 400 tournaments and remains in profit gets to play a freeroll for a seat in a £1000 entry GUKPT main event. Having a week off where I can play for 40 hours will at least give me the chance to do that before I fly off on holiday.

I finally managed to cash in the Dream Team event on Monday. Had quite a good start as the table was playing pretty tight and there were a couple of players sat out so I was able to raise a lot in position with junk hands without getting played back at.

Ended up finishing second for $590 but more importantly a load of points for the team and 9 final table points to give me a chance of getting into the freeroll for entry into the Bellagio event at Dusk till Dawn early next year. I'll need another top two finish I think to get into that but at least it gives me a chance.

Tomorrow I'm off to Egbaston with Andrew for the Twenty20 finals day which we are both looking forward to

Since the demise of Setanta we've now obviously for ESPN which is pretty good since it also has baseball on almost every night which is quite good to watch when playing poker because of the breaks between each pitch. The added bonus being that it is shown in HD also which makes a change since virgin only had one channel of HD before ESPN arrived. I think the WSOP final table might also be shown on ESPN too.

Anyway, that's it for now.