FA Cup competition

I'm running an FA Cup Final competition on behalf of my softball team the Speeders.

Anyone intersted in entering let me know, the details are below:

GOALSCORERS SHIRT NUMBERS COMPETITION – 2012

Rules:

1.    Pick a number that you think will be the total of the shirt numbers of all the scorers in the FA cup final.

2.    Guess the time of the first goal. In the event of a tie the entrant whose guess is closest to the time of the first goal will be declared the winner.

3.    All times and goalscorers will be as published on www.thefa.com

4.    Own goals, extra time and penalties count

Example:

Stephen Gerrard (no 8) scores in the 33^rd minute

Didier Drogba (no 11) scores in the 58^th minute.
Scores are level at full time.

 During extra time:

Stephen Gerrard (No 8) scores again in the 100^th minute.

Jordan Henderson (No 14) scores in the 118^th minute

Liverpool win the FA Cup

The result is calculated as 8 + 11 + 8 + 14 = 41

Whoever’s guess is closest to 41 wins the prize.

 
A list of entries and the results will be posted onto our Facebook page at

http://www.facebook.com/SpeedersSoftball

The aim of the competition is to raise money for the club.  50% of the proceeds will go to the club and the remaining 50% to the Competition Winner(s).

Please feel free to enter as many entries as you can afford (£5 per entry).  Please encourage family, friends, work colleagues etc to participate, the more the merrier!

If we can encourage 50 people to participate, you can win £125 for a £5 stake.

Mid season break

There have been lots of excuses made as to why we didn't do well at the world cup.

One that is always trotted out is that the players are tired because of such a demanding season.

I'm not sure about that because Messi, Ronaldo, Kaka etc also haven't performed.

However, if we assume that we do need to reduce the burden on players then having a midwinter break is not the answer for a number of reasons:

1. The players would still have to play the same number of games but in a shorter space of time.

2. The clubs would undoubtedly want the players to keep up their fitness during the break.

3. The football on their return would not be as good as the players would all be short of match fitness.

4. Fans really enjoy their Christmas football.

5. No-one knows when the weather will be bad and so we could have a break and then when everyone comes back there could be a bad weather spell which would leave no time to finish all of the fixtures by the end of the season.

So what are the alternatives?

I think there are two that would not impact on the clubs or fans that are worthy of consideration.

1. Players are limited to a certain number of matches/playing hours in a season. Each manager would then have to manage when they play each player, staggering the games players miss. To a certain extent a lot of team do this already so by enforcing this it would ensure that each player is not overworked in the season. This would also enable more of the younger English players to get game time during Premier League matches rather than just the Carling Cup.

2. Manager have to declare a mid season break for each player. This break would be for a set period of say 2 or 3 weeks. You could put whatever restrictions you want on this period - like players are not allowed to train or they can only train for a set number of days etc and they can't play in that period either. It would then be up to each manager to manage his squad and stagger the players' breaks throughout the season. You would have to stipulate that players cannot serve suspensions during this period. The benefit of this is that players who get injured and so miss a lot of football anyway could have their break during this injury period since they won't be tired if they have been missing games anyway.

I think all of this makes a lot more sense than having an arbitrary break for a set time... it's bad enough during the close season!

This blog seems to be evolving into a less regular, less poker themed blog so I don't know whether to start bring more poker back into it.

I did play the Friday night side event at Leos last week but that was a pure crapshoot with the blinds steeper than the normal Friday night event. A starting stack of 7500 was worth only 10 big blinds by the end of the first 2 hours. I ended up going out when I was down to 4000 ish chips and raised to 900 with 77 which was called by the chip leader. I lead out for 1000 on the 6 high flop and got reraised all in by AQ for 1800 more. Of course a queen hit the river. I then had a bad couple of hours playing cash to finish a couple of buy ins down in the £1/£2 cash game after. I did meet the eventual main event winner Mark McCluskey in the cash game and had a good conversation with him over a number of things which was well worth the time.

Anyway that's it for now.

World Cup Woes

Whilst commuting to and from work I listen to a lot of people airing their views on Talksport.

Since England's sorry exit from the World cup there has been a lot of drivel spouted by people that is absolute nonsense. One of the biggest fallacies relates to how it was all down to the primadonna players not caring.

Whilst it's true that players might not get the same buzz from winning with England as was so well described by Jamie Carragher, there is no way that the players weren't interested in winning the world cup.

Even if you genuinely believe a certain payer is only motivated by money (and I don't believe a professional footballer would make it if money was their only motivation) that player would still want to win the world cup, if only for the commercial and sponsorship opportunities it would open up!

The second issue that is annoying me is the people (like talksport presenter Adrian Durham) saying that the FA copped out by not sacking Capello.

I think I'm right in saying that he was saying before the world cup that Capello was the best manager for the job yet 4 games later he should be sacked!

Let's put that into perspective, England didn't perform to their best and there seems to have been some problems in the camp that we might have to wait to hear about in someone's autobiography at a later date.

Capello undoubtedly made some mistakes but he will learn from them.

Also, when you actually look at the results, yes we were abysmal against Algeria, and we didn't play great against a US team that beat Brazil last year and we would have won that game but for a bad goalkeeping mistake.

Against Slovakia we played well and then there was the Germany game. Look at what Germany did to Argentina who everyone was raving about before their last match! Yet we managed to pull 2 goals back (ok one was ruled out wrongly) and then we were undone by a great counter attacking team when we were pushing forwards trying to get back in the game!

Despite all of the above we still didn't play anywhere near the level we should have, and that, in my opinion, is because we failed to find a system to accommodate all of our best players.

I believe that the best team is not always your best 11 players and by trying to play Lampard and Gerrard together as he did made our team worse. Clearly he should have taken Adam Johnson and/or Ashley Young to play on the left. Even when he brought Joe Cole in, it was to play on the right instead of the left.

Against the lesser teams in qualification we coped because of the vast difference in quality of players but against stronger opposition we were exploited, especially by Germany who saw what I have been bleating on about all season which is Gerard's inability, or more likely unwillingness, to track back and Germany exposed that side of the field time and time again.

I do feel though, that Capello will learn from this and we will be better for it next time around.

What we also need to understand though, is that defeat to one team alone should not be a reason to sack a manager which is something that the Argentina team have done amazingly enough considering their good showing up until they met Germany.

Anyway, in terms of poker, not a huge amount going on but I am playing the GCBMPT side event on Friday (why the main event final is on at the same time as the World Cup Final I can't understand!)

I have another blog post in my head about mid winter breaks but I;ll do that one next week and update what happens on Friday.

An accident waiting to happen...

So the world cup has finally arrived but the optimism has already shrivelled up after Robert Green's howler.
As I heard Adrian Durham, one of the talksport presenters say, Robert Green is an accident waiting to happen. Thankfully it came when it's not too late to recover.

Granted he did make a save later on but to be honest, if that had gone in everyone would have been very disappointed and it nearly did!

Since Ledley isn't fit then Dawson needs to play alongside Terry because Carra is too much like Terry and we are very vulnerable with those two playing at the same time but it doesn't look like that will happen!

It's good to see Barry back, hopefully he can play himself back to match sharpness over the next couple of games whilst still managing to get through.

I wish Capello would play Crouch instead of Heskey, whilst Heskey did well to set up the goal, it's nothing that Crouch couldn't have done and his goals per minute must be up there with the best England have ever had.

I've not been playing much recently because I've been really busy, including a fantastic trip to London to watch Emma dancing in a fantastic show at the Albert Hall that was done with the school and the Royal National Ballet. The show was superb and it was great to see how exhilarated the kids were after the show.

Anyway... come on England!!!!

Busy busy busy

Well, after an incredibly busy couple of months I have finally finish the year end accounts and so I have a bit more time to update this blog.

I've not been playing that much lately other than the Friday night cash game in Leo's which is still going well b although I have had 2 losing weeks which are inevitable in this game we love so dearly.

I'm reading a body language book at the moment which is not poker specific but I have seen the smile I look for in it and I have also picked up another indicator that someone is lying which I will be looking out for next time I play.

I'm away for the weekend camping with Andrew and the rest of the AC Mags football team as we are in a tournament on Saturday morning so there will be no poker this weekend.

Things are changing at Liverpool FC too with the news that Rafa has finally been put out of his misery.

I've been a supporter of his but in the last year his relationship with the players seems to have waned and this has lead to the season we have just had so I couldn't see any other option for the club other than to part ways.

To be honest, I still think that we need to sell Gerrard since he is 30 now and so only has a couple more years left in him. If we can get £20-£30 million I think we would have to take it since there is no way that we would sign him if he were currently at a different club because of the cost for s 30 year old.

Whoever we get to replace Rafa is critical since this could be a pivotal moment in our history with the rise of Manchester City, Spurs and the threat of Everton.

My choice would be Hiddynk but I don't know if he is available.

Drunken Cash games

Lately I've been playing tournaments live in the circus but then going to Leo's when I am knocked out because the circus cash game is more like a home game with the same faces playing every week. The alternative in Leo's is so much better because newcomers are welcome and because of the location of the cash tables there is a steady stream of non poker players having a dabble.

It's got to the point where I have been considering skipping the tournaments and going straight to the cash game.

The last two weeks have been particularly interesting.

2 weeks ago, as I sat down I saw the back end of a hand where a tight female player made a raise of £100 all in on the river into a pot of about £90 when the board showed 4 to a straight and she was called by a player who was holding J4 for a pair of 4s!

As the hand was finished she said to him, don't worry, you've got another £1000 in your pocket (apparently he has actually been banned from the Circus for card counting on the blackjack and he had won £1000 on the blackjack earlier that night.)

So as he was considering leaving I said to him that he was unlucky in that hand in an attempt to get him to rebuy and fortunately that worked.

I soon noticed how interesting this game was to become.

He pulled up £200 so I matched that and the very next hand he declared that this hand was going to cost £50 minimum before he looked at his cards.

The blinds are 50p/£1 in this game and I was conveniently sat to his left.

Anyway it was folded to him and he bet the £50 and the girl from the previous hand on his left thought for ages before passing and then it was folded to me and I looked down to see A8. Since he was in for £50 blind I did the honourable thing and went all in as I was well ahead of average and it folded to him and he folded. A nice £50 profit. It turns out that the girl had folded AK!!!! But she didn't want to gamble1

The next hand and he makes it £100 to go blind and I look down to see AJ and so push again and this time he calls and his 10 2 wins with a ten on the turn.

I pulled up another £200 and the next significant hand is when we were 3 handed and there was a raise to £8 from Mr Blackjack which I flat called and the other player reraised to £16 which Blackjack and I called. The flop came AJ6 and amazingly the other player bet £100 into the pot of £48, Blackjack folded and I called to see his KJ which didn't improve.

One of the reasons I like this game is because of the number of players who I see playing the tournaments each week but seem unable to make good decisions when the are very obvious – For example, in this spot it was pointless betting when he did (especially the amount he did) since blackjack was betting every single flop blind as well if he had raised blind and so he would have bet here, I would have called or raised and he could have saved himself £100! – I'm not complaining though!!!

The next hand came when there was no raising pre flop and the board had been checked to the river when there were 4 spades showing and Blackjack bet £100 into the pot of £4. Nothing unusual there except he then told me that he hadn't looked at his cards and the dealer confirmed this so I called with my 6 high flush and he turned over his cards to find the 8s and a higher flush!

Anyway, I finished the night £250 in profit which I was pretty happy with considering the 2 big hands I lost.

Last week was just as interesting with another couple of drunk players.

However, circumstances were very different and these guys were a bit cleverer.

The first pot of note came after one of the drunk guys had just lost £400 of his £465 stack.

The very next hand he pushed his £65 into the middle pre flop (at this point I thought he had done this blind) so I called with AJ and when it was folded back to him he turned over AA!!

Although drunk, he had looked at his hand and correctly deducted that anyone would think he was on tilt (ie me) and his hand held up.

The second hand of note was surprisingly similar.

The other drunk, who had been taking ages, slowing the game down and talking rubbish all night picked up his cards in the big blind and looked at them and went to throw them away but realised he was in the blinds.

I limped in with AQ UTG as did a couple of other players and then when it came to the big blind he started talking rubbish again and said that he might raiser and – having seen him about to muck his cards before I told him to feel free. He then asked me how much he should raise so I said in pretend annoyance "all of it!" so he did I snapped called and everyone else got out of the way only to see him turn over AA! I still don't know if it was a calculated ploy in pretending to throw away his cards pre flop but it worked a treat – until my AdQd hit a queen on the flop, a second diamond on the turn and a third diamond on the river to give me a flush!

I don't know what he was doing pre flop but I am fairly sure that it wasn't a deliberate ploy in attempting to fold but the all in move was good. To be fair though everyone else on the table was happy that the result ended up the way it did given how much messing around he had been doing at the table.

I will have to look out for him again in case this is all an elaborate trick.

The last hand that stood out involved the first drunk player who had said he was going to raise "all in the size of the short stack (about £20)" after the short stack had raised to £4. I had already called with 99 as had another The dealer told him three times to wait his turn and that it was not all in but if he kept saying it his verbal bet would be binding. The third time he told him all his chips (about £140) would have to go in if he said it again. When he said it again the dealer told him he had to put them all in and the player said ok then. It was folded around to the short stack who called as did I and the other player who was already all in for £16 blind) I called since the drunk player was playing blind and we all turned our hands over with the non drunk player who was all in for £16 blind winning the small pot with KK and me winning the remaining £300.

All in all it was another interesting night and another £300 profit.

On the football front I don't know who to support at the moment. The other week I was wanted Chelsea to beat Bolton to stop Man Utd winning the league but every time Bolton attacked I was hoping they would score until I realised.

Then when United played City I kept hoping City would score until I kept remembering that I wanted City to lose and give us a chance of 4th place.

As for Sunday I don't know who I want to win. A win for us gives united the league and us an outside chance of 4th.

Man Utd fans I am sure will be cheering us on!!!

On the plus side I am glad to see that united have God on their side given the miraculous recovery that happened to Rooney last week when he collapsed in a writhing heap until he looked up to see the opponent who had fouled him get his yellow card and then immediately spring up and trot off as though nothing had happened.

strained relations

Rafa is getting some stick in the papers today about substituting Torres on Sunday in a must win match and rightly so!
Judging by the look of bewilderment on his face when it happened he was clearly not injured and was obviously told to put the
Ice on his knee to stop rafa getting stick. Even more bewildered though was Gerrard who had a look of utter astonishment.

I am going to draw 2 pieces of comfort from that look though:

1. Gerrard has been playing the way Owen did before he left and with the rumours going around I felt that there was a fair chance he was going but
That look of disappointment shows how much he still wanted to win the game.- although selling Gerrard might be in the club's best interests given his age and market value

2. My thoughts that there is a bit of a problem between Rafa and the squad does look like it might have some
Truth in it. I do think now that if we can get Mourinho or Hiddinck then we should!

On the poker front I've not played many tournaments online as I've been dabbling in low limit omaha hilo and spent a couple of hundred dollars learning that I need to be trying to win both halves of the pot. Since I learned that lesson I've won back most of the $200 at the $0.10 0.20 level and I'm enjoying it.

Live I haven't cashed in a tourney but a few good cash sessions has earned me some nice
profits including 1 $800 profit session at $1/$2 in Leo's where top pair was paying me
off every time I had them beat.

Anyway, that's it for now.

I played the $45k guaranteed $50 rebuy on ipoker last night which I never do because it starts too early for me but I was playing the WPT mag Irish open satellite freeroll so had a go whilst I was online.

After starting off really well in the freeroll and being chip leader with 200 left I busted out after losing a couple of big hands in quick succession which often seems to happen.

The first hand involved AK v 33 on a board showing K53 5 Q. I can't remember the betting but he did well representing a very fishy play when ha actually had the goods.

The second hand was K7 versus KT on a KT7 flop where I saw the flop for nothing in the big blind.

So on to the $45k:

I got to the end of the rebuys with not much more than I started with and purchased my add on.
Before long I had someone double me up when I held aces and then, when the blinds were something like 400/800/50 and there was a raise to 6000 all in UTG, I reraised all in to 12000 with JJ and was called by 99 as well giving me a treble up and a decent stack.

I had another couple of really big double ups including one player who open shoved for 25 big blinds holding 6c8c just in the money.

I eventually got to the final table and this was pretty tight with hardly any flops being seen with either the first raise getting through or every reraise shove not being called.

There was one player effectively putting pressure on the medium stacks but whenever I had a hand and tried to invoke the bully he never took the bait.

I had a similar issue with the player to my right who I had a note on saying limp into his big blind and he will raise.

Unfortunately I never had anything playable whenever he pushed and the one occasion he raised on the button and I had 33 I failed to pull the trigger when I should have… chicken!!!!

My last hand was one where I had a bad feeling but failed to listen to myself. The blinds were 5000/10000/1200 and there were 8 left. $12000 to the winner and $1200 for 8th.

The table was playing with a 14% VPIP with no-one very far away from this figure.

I had only recently said to myself that everyone was folding to the reraise shove and when I make one I'll probably get called.

A player who had shoved all in for 100,000 a couple of times raised to 22300 in early position and I had JJ in the small blind. When he raised less than all in warning bells went off in my head and if I had AK I would definitely have folded. As it was I tanked and nearly did fold but decided that since I only had 95000 JJ was too good to fold. I shoved and indeed he did have KK and no help on the board sent me out in 8th for $1200.

There was one other hand that I might have misplayed which was when I had AA and had raised to 15,000 and was called by the big blind – he had me covered with 120,000 effective stacks.

He then lead out for 22000, on a K high rainbow board and instead of calling I raised all in thinking that the 90,000 in the middle was enough to win without the chance of being out drawn but really I should have called and looked to get it all in on the turn.

I might have possibly been swayed by a hand from earlier in the tournament when there were about 50 left and I was chip leader. A player had raised in early position with JQ and called when I reraised. Then when he lead out on the KT4 flop and I put him all in he called and hit the 9.

Anyway, it was a shame to miss out on the bigger prize money but considering I do not normally play this tournament it was nice to get a good cash and I can play the Irish open super satellite on Sunday.

It was finally good to see Liverpool play a little better last night. I was relatively pleased with our performance in the second half last Monday when Aquilani came on and started to get us playing football again.

Last Thursday was not good to watch but at least we got a few goals last night that could get the confidence back. It is still ridiculously frustrating though, to see us taking a corner when we are 3-0 up against a relegation threatened team and only have 4 players in the box!!!!

Anyway, I said before last week that if we lose 1-0 in Lille then we will probably be out of the tournament but I am a bit more confident now, time will tell!

Football odds

Just about to go to our sportsman's night with Ron Yeats and comedian Mark Rough - raising money for our kids football team.

Before I go I just heard Paddy Power giving the odds for this weekend's fixtures and there looks like a few good value odds there.

Some of them are outsiders but the odds are a bit high in my opinion.

Blackburn to beat Liverpool at Anfield (useless after a European match - and playing pretty badly anyway) 10.5-1

Man City to beat Chelsea at the bridge - 3.8-1. This is not normally such good odds but the Bridge factor could add a lot of motivation to the City players

Burnley to beat Portsmouth at Turf Moor - evens. Portsmouth are woeful and have just gone into administration meaning they will almost certainly be relegated and so their motivation will not be high for a team that will all probably be sold in the summer. Burnley punch above their weight at home.

Stoke to beat Arsenal at the Brittania Stadium - 4.6-1. Stoke (on the back of a great result against Man City) to bully Arsenal - as long as Delap doesn't hurt his arm!

Anyway, I don't expect them all to come in (if they do you could get something around 800-1 for the quadruple) but I expect at least one to come in and you never know.....!

Even the fish can get good hands!

An alternate (first timer) comes to the table and flat calls in early position then leads out on a Q rag flop before proudly showing his J8 bluff.
Next hand he is ready to call when Utg raises so he calls and leads out on an 8 high flop before calling all in to the check raise and catches
An 8 on the river. A few hands later and I call with 22 on the button.
The flop is Q85 and he bets 500 into 1600 which is called by the third player in the hand and me.
-
I'm banking on winning a big pot if a 2 comes...
Turn is the jackpot 2 and we both check to newbie who bets 1000 this time and I decide
To flat call since the board is pretty tame.
The river is a 9 and I check again pretty sure he will bet which he does -5000 this time. And I raise all in 3000 more.
As he goes to call I still think I'm ahead
But he shows 88 for a better set. It just goes to show that even bad players get good cards!!

I eventually went out with 66 running into KK for a quick departure to Leo's where I am currently sat waiting for a seat. In the cash game.


On the football front, it was interesting to see the suggestion that the premier league are considering plans to
Give the 4th champions league place to the winners of a play off.

As a Liverpool supporter we are one of the teams that stands to lose most if this happens but I
Think this would be a great idea. Some of the best games of the season are the playoff finals that decide promotion
And relegation in the championship etc so I think it would add some extra high quality games to watch as well as keeping the
Premier league competitive for almost every team right up to the end of the season.
Add to that the added possibilities for the also ran teams and we would maintain the best league in the world.

I've just seen the Fabianski howler in tonights champions league and it just coinfirms to me that Wenger has lost his edge. Everybody has
Been saying how he needs a goalkeeper and tonight just proves that he doesn't even have a good no 2 either.

I'm not and Arsenal fan, although I love the football his teams play but they play very pretty football until the last third where it counts and then teams just play narrow and block off all the passing routes to
Leave them toothless.

Pokerstars Blogger Championships

Played event three of the Pokerstars Blogger Championships tonight.
After an hour I was sitting pretty in about 20th place and then I saw that there were 1000 runners left and it was midnight!
I decided then that I might as well play recklessly with the intention of spewing away my chips or building a huge chip lead. Fortunately for my bed sanity prevailed and I was out 5 minutes later when my up and down straight draw couldn't get there against top pair and I was out.
I don't think I'm going to play any more until the Main event since winning will probably need me to be up till well after 4/5am.

Day 2

First hand back and I'm in the big blind at 800/1600 200 and there are 2 limps.
I look down to see 9dTd and shove, all fold and I'm up to 19000. Terrible play by the limpers with my stack size!
We then had an all in which was survived but it left the loser with only 5600 chips left.
Then, on my bb the short stack shoved in the cut off which was called by the sb after a good think. I decided to fold with 34o had 34 and folded. As it turned out we would have split the pot 3 ways.
A few hands later and the short stack pushes again from early position. When I saw TT I shoved for 15000 only to run into the big blind holding QQ.
The board came Q75 and paired the 5 on the turn to leave me out short of the money.
Nothing I could have done there.
Enjoyed the game but would have been nice to get some chips at some point!
Good luck to Andy and Jimmy who have both made the final table.

GUKPT side event - Bolton - every hand revealed!

I started off recording the main hands I played in this tournament but I've ended up recording pretty
Much every hand I've played ala Gus Hansen.
Everything has been recorded on my phone so it might not look tidy when I upload this post.
If so, I apologise in advance and I will tidy it up tomorrow,
For now, enjoy it, if you like this sort of thing, if not, skip through!

Level 2 50/100 with 7500 starting chips. It's folded to my button and I raise to 300 with 88.
The flop is Js 7d2d and after 2 checks I bet 600 into 900 and get reraised to 1700 by the bb so I fold.
I might have been ahead, but I can't call!
Level 3 75/150
Checked kj in the bb, flop k high with 2 diamonds and I check called the button's 350 steal and checked the turn rag
River came a third diamond so I just had to check the river with the intention of calling a medium sized bet on the river
Which didn't come and I won the pot to get back to 7500 chips.
Level 4 100 200 25 ante after a limp I raise KQ and got reraised to 2200 all in by AJ and I had to call the 1700 and a king on the turn meant I had 9900.
I then got moved to a new table between jimmy morgan and steve holden.
One of the first hands and there are 3 limpers and a go to call the 200 with T7 but throw a 1000 and 100 chip in by mistake. With
One caller I have to continue bet on the AK 3 flop which is called. I check behind on the T turn and fold to the pot bet on the riverm Down to 5800.
Next there is a raise to 650 by jimmy so I call with 77 and there is a squeeze to 2200
. Jimmy then did his usual hollywood think before reraising and saying "go on I can't pass with
his KK and I folded leaving me with 5025 chips.
After a button raise to 800 I went all in with JJ and he folded AT, up to 5675.
Moved tables which is a shame because when the blinds go up the limpers on he old table would have been profitable for a short stack.
Raise from buddy to 1500 who folded his KJ to my shove with AA, 7125 chips but would have been better because ash told me he would have set me in in the sb with K9!
Next level 200/400 50 ante.
Down to 4750
Not played a hand that level with junk hands and. Saw 2 flops in the blinds.
Didn't even have any spots to steal.
Second hand in it's folded to me, all in 23o, I pick up the blinds.
Next hand and there's a raise to 1500, I'm all in again with KK. He says he raised blind and. Calls 24hh flop
comes K99 2 hearts but I survive and up to 13000
300/600 50 next, all in or fold.
Raised late pos to 1700 KJ and bb called and check folded in disgust on an ace high flop.
Next hand raised 1600 AT all folded, up to 15500 with the average 19200 and 34 left.
After a raise utg and 2 calls I called 1600 more with 34 and missed.
10500 left.
Folded to me on the button I pushed TJ and won the blinds, 12300, blinds now 500/1000 100.
Raised 88, all folded.

Tight cutoff Raised to 3000 on my big blind when I had Ac 9c, I folded with 12300 behind.

Folded K4hh on button, blinds had nothing but don't want to shove every time.
Next hand Jd7d the same, bb raised the sb limp.
Blinds up in 8 mins I'm going to have to raise next button if folded to me.
Blinds 600 1200 100
A9 on button, all fold, stack is 8300. All in again soon.
Nice time to find AA all fold 11600.
After a limp, I called in the small blind with KJ, it was checked around on the 732 flop,
I bet 2200 on the 9 turn and took the chips, 13100, 18 left.
99 in the bb but a raise and reraise meant I folded, 11500.
4 hands left for the night, blinds are 800/1600 200 tomorrow.
Last hand, after a limp from a guy who just raised 3 hands in a row,
all in 10500 with 6h7h. All fold, including a good player called Raf who folded TT which is a bit tight
Given my stack size but I was raising an early position limp on the blind of
Howard plant and he still had a few to get past, facing at least overcards normally, I would suppose.
Anyway, I'm back tomorrow for day 2 with 18 left, including Andy Booth and Jimmy Morgan out of the Liverpool lads who were on the cruise with us in 2008.
£17,400 in the pot, 10 get paid with the winner picking up about £5000.
Let's hope one of us wins.
Good luck also to terry owens, another Liverpool player who is on the final table of the £50,000 1st prize main event.

Quad twos again?!!

Played cash tonight at the circus in Liverpool.


A couple of hours in I'm sitting on a stack of £600 from a starting stack of £100.


I had built the stack through a few nice pots including one hand where I had limped in the big blind after the button had straddled and I was holding KK.

No one raised and I checked an A63 flop and the button bet £16 into the pot of £16. I called this having expected him to bet most flops. The turn came a 7 and I decided to check again and let him continue his bluff.

The river was a J diamonds that put a flush on the board and I checked a third time hoping to see a check back but he bet £100 on the river.

At this point I am only beating a bluff but my plan all along had been to let him bluff at me. The fact that a backdoor flush had arrived factored into my decision but I felt that he was more than capable of 3 barrel bluffing so I took my time and asked him if my pair of kings were winning.

To cut a long story short, after a couple of minutes I got the smile I was looking for and called to see his 35 bluff and rake a lovely pot.

Anyway, I also had a couple of hands against John, a pretty good lag player, who will raise a lot of his buttons.

On one of these hands John had raised again on the button and it ended up me betting the river and john flat calling with trips that he had made on the river. After that hand we talked afterwards about how john couldn't raise because he was only getting called by a better hand.

There were 2 pots where each of us made quad 2s before the fateful biggest pot of the night.

With a straddle from John on the button I flat called with 99 along with john and a couple of new players. The flop came Kc2h3h and the new player bet 10 into the pot of 18. I called along with John. The turn was a 2, which was checked all around and the river was a wonderful looking 9 giving me a full house of 9s full of 2s. I bet 50 into the pot of about 60 and John thought about it for ages before raising £200.

This is where it got interesting because of our previous conversation.

I have to admit that I did consider folding because of our previous conversation, however, I just called, even though he could have had K2 for a lower full house and he showed 22 for quads and raked the pot.

I've never been so disappointed to walk away with a profit of £80 for 2 hours work!!

Things went from bad to worse when I got to the car park.

Parking is normally £2.50 (after 18:00 apparently) which we get from the casino, however, when I went to pay the machine asked me for £12. After cancelling and checking the tariff on the wall I realised that this was because I had arrived at 17:57. So I reluctantly put my ticket back into the machine to pay my £12 but now the machine was asking for £15!

After looking around for the hidden cameras that had to be filming me for some TV prank show, I check my ticket only to see that it had just clicked past 1:57 which meant that I had gone from the 6-8 hour tariff of £12 to the 8-10 hours rate of £15!!!!

If only I had arrived 3 minutes later.

Needless to say I won't be playing the lottery this week!!!

Silver medal

Not done much recently because of Christmas and everything but I did get the pleasure of a couple of hours cash poker in Manchester whilst Emma was at the Miley Cyrus concert.

Unfortunately lady luck decided that I wasn't coming home with any profit after a couple of hands of interest.

The first one involved effective stacks of £175 in the £1/£2 game that involved a lot of pre flop limping with multiple players seeing the flop.

I got to see a cheap flop in the big blind with J9 and about 6 checked the Th9d3s flop. When the 9h came I checked and it was folded to the button who bet £12 into the pot of about £16 I raised slightly less than I wanted to because I didn't pick up enough chips in my hand so the raise was to £25 and everyone folded except the big blind who went all in. I studied before calling expecting at worst that he would have something like 89. He turned over Ah2h for the turned flush draw and the dealer turned over the 6h to give him the flush.

I wonder if everyone else thinks along these lines?

I quite liked his bet on the turn with the flush draw but when I raised with 5 others still to act he must I must have either a nine of at worst a flush draw. By raising he is chasing away the flush draw that would get him paid and almost always getting a call from a 9.

The other hand involved what I now think was a bad play by me.

After limping I called a late position raise of £16 with QsTh, 3 of us see the flop.

The flop came KsJs2s to which two of us checked to the raiser who went all in for £50 holding what I thought was likely to be top pair maybe with a spade then the first player announced that he thought the raiser had a big pair and then called the £50. At this point I felt certain that the first player had a poor 2 pair because of what he said and so if I raised now he would "know" that I had him beat and I had the up and down draw with also the second nut flush draw so I went all in for an extra £70. He called with his K2 and the dealer dealt the 2d to give him a full house.

Afterwards K2 man told me that he knew he was behind when I went all in (even though he wasn't)

My thinking at the time was flawed because the play might have been right if there was extra money in the pot that the raiser couldn't have won, giving me a side pot and a free shot at the main pot. The other flaw is whether my raise was big enough for him to fold 2 pair to my reraise. I'm not sure how big the reraise would have to be in that spot to make him fold. I know that I am representing the flush but as he has outs/ I'm liking my play less and less now the more I think about it...

Feel free to criticise me here!

Another hand that comes to mind is where I was UTG and raised to £12 with AA only to be reraised to £35 all in by UTG+1 and then called in late position by a guy who was playing 80%+ hands. I reraised another £40 and he folded having another £100 behind. I lost the race against 99 but thinking now, I possibly should have called pre flop in the hope of getting some more money from the late position player post flop? He did seem to be playing all these hands but then playing carefully post flop with top pair type hands so maybe reraising was right considering the strength he showed pre by calling the rereraise.

Two other things I saw also made me laugh. One was a guy straddling his own big blind!!!! The second was overhearing a local who was thinking about playing the £30 freezeout tournamant saying that there was no value, but if it had been a double chance tournament he might have played for the value! I think he was totally missing the point of what value represents in poker!

The only other thing to mention is that I came second in the APAT online WCOAP stud tournament to win a silver medal and entry into the next live APAT tournament. I haven't played many stud tournaments but I really enjoyed it and I am thinking of playing a few more as even a novice like me could see loads of mistakes being made by players who I know to be competent at holdem.

Anyway, bed for now.

It's a squad game

There have been a few instances in recent years where football teams have sent out sub strength sides in various situations.

Arsenal and the other big teams in the League and FA cups,

Bolton fielding a weakened team against Sporting Lisbon in the Uefa Cup

Everton and Celtic in the Europa League tonight

However, one of the most controversial decisions was made by Mick McCarthy on Tuesday when he made 10 changes for his match at Old Trafford against the champions Manchester United.

McCarthy has been widely criticised by many for, amongst other things, letting down the away fans, devaluing/cheating the Premier League, giving away points.

But was he wrong to do this?

Let's look at this problem from an expected value perspective.

Wolves were 18-1 to win and 6-1 for the draw with their first team. If we assume that the bookies are usually right then their chances of winning were around 6% and drawing they were 16%. With 3 points for a win and 1 point for a draw that would give them an expected value of 0.18 + 0.16 = 0.34 points for the fixture.

Even if we go to the extreme and say that the reserve team's chances of winning or drawing are halved. That means this decision has cost Wolves 0.17 points.

Now the chances of Wolves winning their next fixture against Burnley are evens - 50% and the odds on the draw are 3-1 - 33% giving an expected value of 1.83 points.

The question is how much more chance do they have of winning given the fact that Burnley played a difficult game in midweek and Wolves were able to rest their injury ravaged squad.

Clearly they only need to increase their chances of winning by 5% in order to break even. On top of that is the fact that the match against Burnley is a 6 pointer since they are both likely to be near the relegation zone in May.

My view is that this was a very brave and sensible decision by Mick McCarthy.

Similarly I can understand when the bigger teams use squad players in the Carling and FA Cups. Based on the premise that the players being used should still be good enough to win the games.

What I disagree with is when teams field weakened teams that have no chance of winning the match in these cup competitions. In particular the Bolton decision in the Uefa cup last year.

Bolton had fought all season long the year before to gain entry to this competition only to then give away their chances at the business end of the tournament when anything could happen to give their fans an opportunity to get to a semi final, final or even with the tournament - look at what happened to Greece in Euro 2004.

It's fine when there is nothing to play for, as is the case with Everton and Celtic tonight.

Poker wise I had a good night on Tuesday winning 1 and final tabling 2 of the other 3 MTT's I played for $800 profit. Didn't fare so well last night when I tried the deepstack in Bolton that was a nice little tournament which I will be trying again in the near future.

Under Pressure...

On Wednesday night Liverpool take on Fiorentina in what is predominantly a dead rubber. All that rests on the outcome is a mere £600,000 prize money since Liverpool have now qualified for the Europa League and Fiorentina are through to the group stages of the champions League.

The atmosphere is likely to be strange, compared to what would ordinarily be another special European night at Anfield.

There is, however, one other factor that will make Wednesday very interesting. That of the full home debut for Alberto Aquilani.

There has been a lot said over the last month or two relating to Liverpool's lack of form and the loss of Xavi Alonso (a fantastic player and one of the best passers in the world.)

There is an incredible amount of expectation being placed on the shoulders of Aquilani before he has even played 30 minutes of football for the reds, due to his delayed introduction to the team through injury and then lack of match fitness.

Liverpool clearly have a very good set up with the two holding midfielders Mascherano and Lucas, when they play the top teams. However, when they play teams who are happy to sit back, Liverpool suffer because Lucas and Mascherano are generally dropping off to receive the ball from the central defenders when Agger, in particular, is more than capable of bringing the ball out ala Alan Hansen in his prime.

Aquilani is seen as the answer to all these problems, but you only have to look at the problems Newcastle United have when relying on a new messiah to save the club (Kevin Keegan, Alan Shearer)

I am very concerned that the weight of all this expectation is going to be very difficult for Aquilani to bear. He is coming into a team that is struggling, without having had a proper pre-season, lacking in match fitness, and, depending on how Rafa plays him, potentially a new formation.

I only hope that our very knowledgeable fans bear this in mind and do not expect miracles immediately.

Poker wise, things have been going well in the last couple of weeks. I've started playing cash live again, and, apart from losing a pot with AA when I was reraised all in by Q9 (the reraise was less than a quarter of the actual raise) I've won some nice pots including the quad pot previously mentioned and another healthy pot with set over set.

What is more pleasing is that I have finally made a final table after a long run of missing out. Along the way I survived a huge limp reraise with QQ against AA when the flop brought 3 diamonds and his Ace of diamonds left me drawing to the only remaining queen which duly came. It makes a nice change when the odd hand like this comes out in my favour rather than against and even more pleasing because the guy slammed the table in celebration when I called his reraise as he turned over his aces.

I went on to come third in the tournament after having taken advantage of the short stacks on the bubble even though everyone had agreed to put £5 each into a saver for the person who bubbled. I was against this because I am not scared of busting out on the bubble and it is the time when people play really tight and real poker can be played.

I was also pleased with a couple of folds I made on the final table.

The first one came when a relatively short stack raised half his stack and I had AQ with plenty of chips behind. I had a think about it and asked him how many chips he had which he answered whilst staring at me. I was pretty sure he wanted me to call so I folded and told everyone what I folded to a couple of people saying I was stupid before the short stack showed his AK.

The second time we were 5 handed when a guy limped in early position which he had been doing all night with KQ type hands. I was in the small blind with K2 and 3 of us saw the flop of 665. I checked, as did the big blind and limper made a bet that I was certain was nothing but as I was contemplating the raise or out of position float, the big blind leaned back in his chair acting very uninterested so I folded and he called. When the K came on the turn Mr limp inevitably went all in and lost to the trip sixes!

Anyway, in typical fashion I busted out when all in pre flop with AK against A2 for £425 when second paid £650 and first was £1200 but as I've said many times, that's the way it goes in poker!

Finally, I have finished with badbeat after 9 months.

There were two reasons why I started with badbeat, firstly because I had run my bankroll down playing on the cruise, and secondly because I wanted to take advantage of their mentoring scheme.

My mentor was (I think) mainly a single table tournament (STT) player and we started out having sessions every week or two where he would watch me play a couple of STT tournaments. During this period he would watch my hands by using a screen capturing program.

As the weeks went on the gap between sessions grew a little bigger mainly because there were never any sessions in his diary during the evenings for me to book a session. I would book one whenever there was a spot free and I did e-mail him a couple of times to say that there were no sessions available for me to book a session on the online diary system.

In all the 9 months of this I never once had a single comment said to me about how I could have played a hand differently. The only comments that were ever said to me were along the lines of "Oh that was a really good move!"

When I went on holiday in August I was moved to a different skin on ipoker. My ROI on the original skin was around 10% over 1000 games with a profit of $4000 (and I don't think that included the 2 jackpot consolation prizes and a MTT win of about $2,000 in total.

For some strange reason, on the new skin I couldn’t win an argument and over the course of 500 games I lost all of the profit I had made over the previous 7 months. I wasn't doing anything differently and so I don't know whether it was down to having a different image on the new skin, whether it was just variance or because I was playing a lot more double or nothing tournaments. Anyway, about a week ago, I got an e-mail saying that my daily loss limit was being reduced from $750 to $500. At this point I e-mailed my mentor saying that I had got the message and was half expecting and talking about the point above regarding different skins, but I didn't get a reply.

The next thing I heard, was about 5 days later when I got an e-mail from the admin team saying that on the direction of my mentor they were dropping me from the trader scheme and I was more disappointed that my mentor didn't even contact me to let me know!

To be honest, I had already e-mailed a contact on another ipoker skin enquiring about rakeback deals because I was considering making the break anyway since I felt that the mentoring side of badbeat was as good as a chocolate fireguard and I had a big enough bankroll to play the levels I was playing at anyway.

However, that doesn't take away from the fact that the way things were handled were unprofessional.

After all, although my combined profits for bad beat were -$500, I had still generated over $2000 in rake and so they were still in profit from my stint there. The other factor is that, by dropping me they were, in effect, saying that I had become a worse player since joining, which says all I need to say about the mentoring system.

I was considering leaving before the holiday in August but they announced a series of online sessions where strategy would be discussed (I had previously suggested that they hold some live seminars similar to the ones held by Blackbelt poker during their audition process) but the one I attended was held online and was unsuccessful because of issues with connections and so got cancelled part way through.

Anyway, I'm not concerned but disappointed that, what should be a good concept, was unsuccessful.

The APAT online championship is on Sunday so I might have a run at that and some other MTTs because, since I joined bad beat I've not really played many MTTs which I think are my best format. I've also not played any satellites to the GUKPT or other tournaments either so I'll go down that route and see where it takes me over the coming months.

Good Beat

There are quite a lot of poker stories online that relate to bad beats and I try not to put any that I have on here.

Memory is very selective and there is a psychological term called highlighting that is used to demonstrate that we tend to only remember the things that have significance to us.

People always think it is uncanny how you might talk about something that you have not seen in a while and then you see a load of them in a short space of time.

Well the reality is that you probably have seen them but not noticed them.

You can try this yourself for example if you ask yourself when was the last time I saw a red mini. Chances are you will say it was ages ago. I bet you see more than one in the very near future and you will probably keep saying to yourself, 'there's another one.'

This is the reason why people always moan that they always lose with AA of their favourite hand is 45 sooooted. In reality what happens is that they only remember the times when they lost with aces and forget every time they win with them because there is no reason to remember the things that go right.

Well, last night I had a 'good beat' where it turned out I got very luck in a hand.

I was playing cash in the circus in Liverpool and I had about £250 in front of me in the £1/£2 pot limit game that has a lot of callers pre flop and a standard raise does little to thin the field.

I limped in with a pair of 3s in late position. The flop came down 873 rainbow and I can't remember who lead out for about £10 into the pot of £10, I called with the cut off and button behind me who all called and 4 of us saw the turn which was an off suit J. There was then a pot sized bet of about £30 which was also called and I was about to raise when I had second thoughts. Because of the number of people in the hand I felt that 9 10 was a very conceivable holding and I didn't want to get all in when someone was sitting the with the straight so I flat called again and the other two folded.

At this point I was now more confident that I was ahead.

The river was a lovely 3 giving me quad 3s and the nuts (the best possible hand)
The player who had bet the turn (I've only played against him a couple of times but he looks a good solid player) then lead out for £100 and I pushed all in which with his pair of 8s in his hand giving him a full house and a real cooler of a hand.

I actually felt bad even though I won a huge pot because I had gotten so lucky on the river, although the majority of the money didn't go in until I was ahead I know how sickening I would have felt had I lost in his position.

So the moral of the story is to remember that we don't always received bad beats but we all give them out as well, whether you are Phil Ivery or Phil 'Aquaboy' Benton – sorry phil if you are reading this – I couldn't resist!

Out of Hand

I watched the Ireland game last night and have to say that if FIFA don't sort themselves out soon we might as well stop watching football.

Thierry Henry has been a fantastic player and a great ambassador to the game but what he did last night will probably undo all that good work and will be the only thing he is remembered for.

He strikes me as the sort of person who would never do something like that in the cold light of day, but in the heat of a match it happened instinctively.

He has now come out and admitted it hit his hand but that it was accidental. Well the first touch probably was accidental but for the second touch he was almost placing it into the right spot and I have absolutely no doubt that it was intentional.

I noticed that straight after the game he was sat down consoling Richard Dunne and I think it was only then that the enormity of what he had done sank in. When he got up he had the look on his face of someone who had just lost or made a big mistake and I think that he was probably regretting what he had done.

However, we all know that there is nothing that FIFA will do about it. They insist that they will never bring in TV replays because there are no replays available at grass roots level. Well if that is the reason then they had better get rid of the assistant referees, 4th and 5th officials because we never have them either at grass roots levels.

The must bring in TV replays for incidents like this. We don't need every throw in and corner challenges, even if they give each team 2 challenges. It works everywhere else so there is no excuse.

On the poker front nothing significant has happened but I did have to laugh last night in an 18 player $30 SNG. I was chip leader after this one player had gone all in for 14000 chips into a pot of 2000 with a flush draw when I was holding top set. We were down to the bubble (there were 4 players left with only 3 getting paid) and the 3rd place prize money was $109 and one of the players was sitting out due to a connection problem.

The blinds were 300/600 and I had 17000 chips with everyone else having between 2000 and 4000 so I was able to raise every hand safe in the knowledge that the other two players would have to fold almost everything they had.

The funny thing was that, once we were heads up the same guy said in the chat box that I was "very loose!" not really understanding what I had been doing!

Call or fold

Went to Blackpool again yesterday and played the bounty tournament.

Unfortunately there is not much to report since I played one hand badly and that eventually lead to my demise.

The hand in question involved me limping on the button with Q3 after a couple of early limps, something I've been experimenting with lately trying to use position to my advantage.

In this hand the flop came down Qs 7s 5d. The other players all checked and I bet 700 into the pot of 1000. Everyone folded until the last player who thought for ages and then decided to call.

My thoughts here were that he didn't have much at all but thought I was stealing the pot with position. The turn was an 5s and here he checked and I felt that if I checked I might get something on the river so I checked too. The river was a 9s or something similar putting 4 spades on the board. He then bet 600 into the pot of 2400 which I felt was probably screaming for a call with a flush but I thought there was a chance he was trying to buy the pot knowing that I would need a spade to call. Rather reluctantly I called and he showed JcTs for the flush and showing that he had indeed called with nothing.
Looking back I suppose I was being greedy trying to get more chips on the turn rather than looking to take the pot down there and then.

Anyway this left me with 2200 chips as the blinds rose to 150/300 and so after there had been 3 limps on my big blind I shoved with 89 and I got 2 callers. The K82 flop lead to a check and a bet with the bettor having K6 who called with the aim of getting my bounty pre flop and succeeded.

I then went over to the £0.50/£1cash table and had an even quicker experience.

The first hand involved 3 limpers when I had AJ on the button so I raised to 5 and was called in 2 spots and then the villain pushed all in for £180+ which we all folded to.

Next I was involved with the villain in a 3 way pot where he checked called the flop with AdQd in an unraised pot. He then lead out for £10 into a pot of £20 when a second diamond came on the turn and then he bet £6 into the £50 pot on the river when the flush came and reraised when raised holding the nuts.

A few hands later he raised to £5 again from the small blind and I called with 2 of the limpers holding As Jh in the big blind. Now when he raised he was shaking like he did when he bet the AQ on the turn before and I had him down as having a big hand here and called with the aim of stacking him on the right sort of flop.

The flop came down AhQhTh and he went all in for £200. I had £112 in front of me and I've got the ace, straight draw, second nut flush draw and the Kh would give me the royal flush.

This put me in a really difficult spot and after a think I decided that I couldn't fold.

The question is should I have?

What hands would he do this with?

I felt that KK holding the Kh was a fairly good chance as was AK, AQ and AT but AQ and AT less likely given his percieved strenght pre flop.

I didn't think a flush was at all possible.

So I felt I was probably behind but with the best possible draw and no chance of drawing dead.

AK and the Kh was my worst case scenario.

Any opinions would be welcome here.

Needless to say I left straight after although, given the overbetting in the short space of time I was there I regretted that 10 before I even got to the door.