UB Scandal is too much - Im out of AP

I wrote a post last week about morals in poker. My current issue is whether or not to play on Absolute Poker in the face of the UB scandal. I have been aware of the problems up until the beginning of June and posted before that I wanted to take my cash out from the site. In the month that I had travelling and resetting up home the scandal at UB has got worse.

Thankyou to gnome for the comment in my previous post. He has posted before about the dangers and concerns felt by the poker community regarding the blatant cheating at UB.

I cannot comment with any real depth about the cheating as I havent had time to really study the recent developments. All I can tell you is that its fucked up!

So, with that little nudge I removed all my $ from AP last night. I have 'supposedly' 5 days delay until it hits my account via VISA. fingers crossed this money comes back. I deposited $500 in Feb and requested $5500 cashout.

Here are my final AP Graphs and PT Stats.

Homeless in the poker world i'm searching out a new home. I need somewhere that I can use Pokertracker3 - HUD setup, somewhere with rakeback and where the competition is not too tough i.e. Full Tilt. While Pokertracker3 gets itself aligned with some more sites I am limited. So until then I have signed up with BlueSq, an iPoker skin. This is a UK site with links to the Grosvenor Tour in London and other UK live tournaments. As far as I can see there are no rakeback offers for iPoker skins anymore so I will clear the $500 bonus and reevaluate from there. Rakeback is so important to long term income when playing cash games.

So BlueSq loaded up, I decided to play the $0.25/$0.50 to get used to the software. I set up Pokertracker3 to auto import and adjusted the HUD to show my usual numbers. Played around 150 and run into this beauty. Mr McShove has no reason to feel he is beat here.

Nice Start.

Be Nice to Fish

I managed to squeeze in a thousand hands this weekend ending up around $400 profit. The bad beat jackpot got hit on a $1/$2 table while I was playing. Take a look at this beauty of a payout.





Yep $200,000 for the loser and $100,000 for the winner. And as expected there was a barrage of beggers knocking on the door in the chat asking for a mere $50. Lowlife scum.

I played one hand which I think worthy of noting. The pot was small but its the chat that registered with me.

Stage #xxxxxxxx: Holdem No Limit $0.50 (ET)
Table: B Seat #3 is the dealer
Seat 3 - RYVERRAT ($118.20 in chips)
Seat 4 - I ($21.36 in chips)
Seat 5 - D ($52.35 in chips)
Seat 6 - X ($11.95 in chips)
Seat 1 - P ($105.19 in chips)
Seat 2 - W ($32.32 in chips)
I - Posts small blind $0.25
D- Posts big blind $0.50
*** POCKET CARDS ***
Dealt to RYVERRAT [Qd Js]
X - Calls $0.50
P - Folds
W - Calls $0.50
RYVERRAT - Calls $0.50
I - Folds
D - Checks
*** FLOP *** [Jc Jd 10h]
D - Checks
X- Checks
W - Checks
RYVERRAT - Checks
*** TURN *** [Jc Jd 10h] [7c]
D - Bets $1.75
X - Folds
W - Calls $1.75
RYVERRAT - Raises $6 to $6
D - Folds
W - Folds
RYVERRAT - returned ($4.25) : not called
*** SHOW DOWN ***
RYVERRAT - Does not show
RYVERRAT Collects $7.15 from main pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total Pot($7.50) Rake ($0.35)
Board [Jc Jd 10h 7c]
Seat 1: P Folded on the POCKET CARDS
Seat 2: W Folded on the TURN
Seat 3: RYVERRAT (dealer) collected Total ($7.15) HI:($7.15) [Does not show]
Seat 4: I (small blind) Folded on the POCKET CARDS
Seat 5: D (big blind) Folded on the TURN
Seat 6: X Folded on the TURN

D: 89 is good
RYVERRAT: hey can you see my cards ?
<<>>
X wins ($1.70 chips).
D: calculated guess
D: folded my trips jack
RYVERRAT: vnf
D: ty
RYVERRAT: most players couldnt fold that wp
<<>>
P: wins ($7.15) with (Two Pair, queens and jacks).
D: i know, ty

Player was playing a 16/10 and this highlighted the fact to me that I could push him off hands. He may have been lying about his trip Jacks but his stats reinforced his comments. I then spent the next hour or so pushing him around and making him fold most hands. Information like this is key. We are all playing a game of untruths and guesswork. There is no reason to let your competition know that you can lay down a big hand. Fold the hand and dont say a word.

I could have also berated the guy saying he was weak for folding a Jack. I could have called him all sorts of names for getting my hand wrong but I find its easier to take money off of people when you are nice to them. It keeps the game respectful and they will reload as they are enjoying the game more.

Poker and Morals

To set the scene a little, I played a £50 buy in game last night. Blinds were £0.25/£0.50 and walked away with £350 profit. 7 buyins in the space of 4 hours. I think that works out to roughly 175bb/hour. It was a very slow game, probably 25 hands per hour so only 100hands played. This equates to 700bb/100. The game was funny with open raises of £10 into a £0.75 pot. Ill have me some of this.

It was a 9 person game with some regular players and one really drunk bad player. Heres my first moral dilemma.

Picture this guy. The dealer tells him its £14 to call. "£14... ?" (stares blankly for a few secs) "So how much is that then?". Another hand sees him calling all in and putting his cards in the middle rather than his chips. He calls all in on a gutshot straight draw and says "£50? Thats like 8 pence to me." This said not in a show off way but a drunk who has no idea of the value of this money to other people. He is showing his cards accidently to the guys sitting near him. He is smashed.

Now this guy is not a friend. He is a colleague of a friend. He is a real nice guy, not an ass. He just loves to gamble it up and play the social game of poker than we love. But he does it with complete disregard for money and without any thought of strategy.

It is so easy to take money from this guy, its like taking candy from a child. He is completely defenceless to any poker player with a little skill. But is it right to continue?

The poker player in me is trying to get a seat to his left, trying to isolate him in pots and wanting him to rebuy. Im wanting to invite him to bigger games and really take advantage of the huge differential in skill. A huge whale waiting to spew his chips.

The other part of me is thinking that this degrades the skill of the game and its as easy as clubbing a baby seal. This doesnt make me feel like a great player. It doesnt use any brain matter. It is just a padding to my bankroll. These people are friends and friends of friends, they are not random guys at a card club or casino. They are all part of a regular game.

He is happy playing.

He can afford to play like this.

But is it morally right to let him ?

On Your Marks, Get Set, ........

Im finally back online. After almost a month of no online poker playing and a 2 week break I am ready to pick up where I left off and start making some decent money.

I played for about 15 mins last night on AP $0.50/$1 to get my feet wet again and was happy to see that nothing much had changed. Its damn easy to spot a good table right off the bat. Open limpers = profit. Let me say that again. Open limpers = profit. AP was full of them last night in the short time I played. I made a quick $60 and left. I hate leaving money on the table but I am still unpacking boxes from the move.

The f*ckers at the real job have banned access to 2p2. This is a huge dent for me. 2p2 has been a great site for me to browse and comment on. They have left the door open for me at pocketfives so I can atleast keep up a little reading throughout the day.

Playing a live game tonight at a club where I used to run a poker school. I will be organising weekly games down there to start increasing my live roll.

My next post will have some proper poker content back with graphs, analysis and stats. $15k by year end is still my goal for my online roll.

Oh btw, bought a new car. For anyone interested, google TVR Sagaris. Got one in black and it shifts!

Vegas trip. Beaten by the Missus.

Im now back to my home of England. I have my broadband ordered for next week so will be back on the tables soon.

My 2 week fly drive around California was great. Vegas was obviously the highlight for me. We stayed at the MGM for 3 nights and I think I only managed to play around 7 hours of poker. Vegas with the missus does not equal much table time. Turn back the clocks to last year when I spent almost 2 weeks in Vegas on my own and I played more poker than I slept but when you are with the missus its hard to break away to a table and leave her standing there. Itching to get to the tables I started to show her a few table games with the plan to break away when she was comfortable. Table games are -ev obv but I saw it as an increased rake added to the poker rake that I needed to beat. The poker games are so easy at the MGM this had to be a good move.

Missus +$750 on 3 card poker
Me -$18 on the $2/$5 (7 hours)

Can you believe the above. She ends up hitting a straight flush paying 40-1 on a $10 ante. This and a few other lucky hands puts her to a nice profit and more shoes/handbags purchased. Me, I played twice, buying in for the max $500 and getting it all in ahead at the beginning of both sessions and losing. I then spent the next few hours on both sessions clawing my way back to even. Not the profitable session I was expecting.

The MGM were only running $1/$2 NL and $2/$5 NL so I couldnt get involved in anything higher. I could have headed to another casino but with the missus comfortable and me in a seat I didnt feel like moving. The $2/$5 games were full of regs with not many limped pots. There were a few bad players and I tried mybest to LAG it up. I made one noticable mistake calling a $200 bet into a $900 pot with a made straight on a paired board 3 way. I was up against an obvious full house and an unobvious quad kings.

I did manage to play for an hour at the Mirage. We were there for the Cirque du Soleil Beatles show which was fantastic. I sat at a $2/$5 NL table that was a feeder table for the main $2/$5 table. The table broke pretty quickly and I was left playing Heads Up with a guy wearing a 2p2 shirt. I asked him if he posts there and he told me he owned it. I was sitting next to Mason Malmuth. I had a great conversation with him regarding his views on Absolute & UB scandals and also his views on poker and 2p2 in general. A very interesting chat that I may wrote up in another post soon.

The other highlight to my trip was seeing Jenna Jameson at a UFC fight. Dont pretend you dont know who she is. Ive seen more of her bits than my own missus.

Im heading over to a club where I used to run my poker school this afternoon. This will hopefully be my cash cow for live games. I made a ton of cash there before and hope to do the same in the next 6 months.

8th of July is my return to the online tables. I feel refreshed but out of practice. I think I will start at the lower levels for a few thousand hands to get back into the swing of things.

Until then......

AFK until July

I am leaving Australia to head back to the shores of the UK. I am doing a little travelling in between (via Vegas) and will be back online in early July.

AP Bankroll $5265

My challenge to turn $500 into $5,000 by June - DONE
My revised challenge - To turn this amount into $15k by Dec 31st

Unfortunately I wont be playing in any WSOP events this year but will sit down at a few of the loose cash games at the MGM and maybe play a $500 buy in tournament somewhere along the trip. I will put the full report up here when I get back.



Good Luck all

Full Respect for WGCRider

For those that have been in a hole and have not heard WGCRider quit his challenge.

He took on a mammoth task of making $10k in 1 month at the 25nl tables. He gave it a great shot but unfortunately it took its toll on him.

wp Doug.

http://dougkpolk.blogspot.com/

Cbetting at Micro/Nano Levels

Ive recently been helping some players of the lower rungs of the 6max cash games with some decent success. One of the leaks I have noticed at the micros 10nl and the nano 5nl / 2nl is the use of cbetting on missed flops. Cbetting in itself is a profitable play most of the time. But I believe this is for 25nl and above.

CBETTING(Continuation betting): Leading out on the flop after you were the raiser preflop

The micros and nano levels are full of calling stations. They are ripe with players that will call you with middle pair, bottom pair, gutshot draws etc. This means that the range of hands that will call you are wider than the higher levels. In turn this means cbets, when missed, are less profitable. Players at these levels are level 1 thinkers. "What have I got and what is on the flop". Not many of them think what has the other player got and am i way behind here.

ABC poker is the key to winning at these levels. Tight, aggressive and no fancy play. You have to realise micro/nano level is not real poker. This will come at not so higher levels. Down here is for bankroll building from small amounts. Its for the casual player that has $5-$200 online that is probably not reading this blog and has no idea about the winning style of play.

At micro/nano level you will get paid off in the long run on your good hands.
You will lose money on bad beats. (this is a good thing)
You will lose money on bluffs and missed cbets.

10NL and under - Cbet when you hit not when you miss. Try it.

Any thoughts ?

5K target hit !

I hit the $5k mark ahead of my target time. I had a bit of a heater on Saturday/Sunday. Not many hands played but most hands holding up in large pots and hitting great cards.


This was the hand that took me over. The hand history is not working well. Villain had 77.
http://weaktight.com/217659


So May's graph and PT stats





Full year stats






I am going to be moving my home back to the UK shortly after a 2 week driving holiday through the US with a 3 day stint in Vegas obviously. This will leave not a lot of time to play some decent cards online. I think from Mid June to Mid July I may not play anything at all.

New Target - End of Year $15k
This is a revised target from my original $10k by year end. $0.50/$1 is my home at the moment but I will start to look at the $1/$2 tables and maybe sit in on a game if I think its worthwhile.


Bankroll range
$3000+ up to $0.50/$1
$5000+ up to $1/$2
$10000+ up to $2/$4


The reason I say up to is that I will play a table at a lower level if it is worth it. Profit is profit and continuous hunting for the fish is a profitable move at any level. If i find on one session that the players are too nitty or too many regulars then I can easily switch to a lower table and make more $ until the tables change.


This one hand made me laugh
http://weaktight.com/215213

The hand in itself is very poorly played by villain and this starts off with the pf call with T7o in the sb. The chat that follows is worse....


Villain: nh
RYVERRAT: ty
RYVERRAT: ul
RYVERRAT wins ($195.50) with (Three of a kind, tens).
RYVERRAT: tough beat
Villain: shouldnt have called
Villain: one of my favorite hands
Villain wins ($6.91) with (One pair, fives).
RYVERRAT: :)


Are you kidding me.... ? Players believe in favourite hands ? haha. Im surprised his hooves didnt get in the way as he typed. EEE AAAWWWW.