Went down Empire again yesterday for a bit to check out what was going on. The £5k PLO was playing out and seemed to be a chocca field of known faces. Was watching a table with Mike Matosow, Andy Bloch and John Juanda sat next to each other for a while. Was cool to watch and chat a bit with them. Then Lane Flack joined the table around the time when Mike sucked out on John in normal style and about 20 mins later, durrr took John's now empty seat. Was good fun to watch. Also I beat Paul again heads up, who should be approaching that world record in a few hours. He's also raised about £30k for charity so far so best of luck to him for the rest of the challenge.

Anthony

Popped down to the Empire Casino, Leicester Square yesterday because a live pro friend/acquaintance of mine, Paul Zimbler, is trying to simultaneously break the world record for longest official poker session (currently 75ish hours) and raise a load of money for charity by getting each of his opponents to donate to I think it is the Make a Wish Foundation.

As it is WSOPE time at the moment, there were lots of big names around which was cool and I even got to wish Barry Greenstein a shana tova (new year greeting in hebrew as it was Jewish new year at the weekend) which was kinda fun.

I beat Paul fairly easily twice (he was only 4 hours into the challenge at the time so he can't really have excuses) so got to sign the winners' t-shirt alongside names such as Doyle Brunson. Apparently the t-shirt will get auctioned at the end so no doubt I've added a few hundred to the value!

Was good fun all in all and Paul had already raised over £10k by the time I was there (Doyle had given £600 and some other dude had given £1k) and with various big money names like Hellmuth and co promising to play, no doubt he will make a tonne of money for charity which is cool.

If anyone is over there or planning to head over, then it would be cool to meet up and get some overly priced beers at the Empire.

Anyway, back to class now.. blah...

Anthony

So I was talking to patonius tonight and it got me thinking that its time for me to stop playing this silly game and move on with my life. I feel that given what I know about myself that I should have progressed further in poker in the time that I've been playing and feel that the time I'm spending playing is somewhat wasted when I could be doing other things with my life. I made a few k this year which is cool but I'm not even consistently beating a level like .25/.5 and since I don't really have the hours to spare to really work hard on my game, then maybe I will never even get there.

As I blogged recently, I split with my girlfriend 3 weeks ago. I met a girl yesterday who I am seeing again this week so I think that this is a decent spot in my life where I can change direction slightly and move away from poker.

Thats not to say that I havn't enjoyed the game. I would rather stick around but feel that for my own sake, I should get a clean break away so I won't be playing at all. I just cashed out what I had in my accounts and will be cancelling my video subscription on leggo. Thanks to everyone who has made me laugh, helped me with poker and non poker stuffs and good luck to you all going forward. I'll probably keep checking the site every so often, mainly to watch bobbo's video blogs but I don't expect to be around too much.

Cya'll around
Anthony

PS I shipped a $20 hu fo on stars the other day. yay!

Was just playing at local club. Pot emerges where we're on turn and I have Ks8s on 965Tss after a raise preflop and the flop being checked through 3 handed. On turn I lead £25, next guy calls and preflop raiser makes it £125 with about £60 left. Me and the other guy have about £400 and there is prob £270 in the pot including the turn money. I tank fold at which point turn caller says 'if I call, will we make it friendly?' Preflop raiser says yes, river comes, caller checks saying 'I havn't even looked' other guy thinks and says 'we had an agreement' and checks back.

Surely this is clear collusion?

I was annoyed about it and got up shortly after

Been a while since I last posted. Main reason for this is that I split with my girlfriend last week which sucks majorly since we had been together 2 1/2 years and I was planning on getting engaged but thats the way the cookie crumbles etc. The subsequent week was horrific for me at poker, assumedly because I was mentally farked. I spewed fairly (for me) large quantities of monies both live and online.

Fortunately, I had my biggest winning session live the other day (£1,530 or something) which more than recovered for the losses. Also, I got my lappy fixed which means I now have hold em manager installed and just ran my first session with it. I ran like ass, with everyone making runner runners on me but was up slightly until I 3 barrelled an A93ss flop w/ Tc8c to be called every street by A8. My own fault I guess for running a bluff against low limit tards.

1 final bit of good news is that I found out I have a cash ISA account that I had forgotten about which means I am significantly more rich than I was in my mind when I woke up yesterday. Doesn't give me enough for a house in the current market but I'm certainly making good progress.

Anthony

So as if Monday's £940 win wasn't enough, I ended up playing again last night. Noone was down at my local club so I went down to the game at my local snooker club (not much further). It was 1 round plo 1 round plhe 1/2 and the game was dreadful. I was about even after a couple of hours but then started making some hands and next thing I know, BAM I'm £1140 up. That puts my profit for the month so far about £2750, ALL from 1/2. So sick. Glad to be taking a week or so off now mind.

In other news, it seems my flat mate broke my iron so I'm pretty annoyed about that. Needed it today to get some ironing done but oh well.. I guess I can afford a new one now!

Can't remember if I blogged about it but I adopted a rockhopper penguin called Roxy at london zoo for my girlfriend for valentines day. I got an e-mail before telling me that Roxy died. I'm really sad to read the news and can't find any more info anywhere on the internet. Poor Roxy

Since my win the other night, I went down to my local club twice more (3 times in a week is pretty I feel but I'm on a week and a half break from poker come wednesday). Sunday night I went with a mate who doesn't really play much poker. I dropped £210 after weak player makes it £10, I flat w AJ in cutoff, bb (good player) makes it £50, weak guy calls and I decide bb is squeezing enough and shove. bb calls KK, weak guy shows ATs and KK holds. Funnily enough, my mate got stacked early w tptk vs flush draw on turn but finished even.

Went down again last night and sat with £200. Got stacked earlyish when I stuck it in with dummy straight against top straight in a pretty spazzy spot. Reloaded for £150 and ran it up to £1100ish so thats pretty sick. Biggest pot of the night for me was a marginal 1: utg (bb in hand above) makes it £10 6 handed. Calls round to me in bb with QsQh and I make it £50, bb calls and 1 other calls. Flop 875cc I check, bb leads for £200 with £100 behind, 3rd guy calls allin for £85. I am tanking it for ages and as were talking, I'm moving towards a call but then my girlfriend calls. I say I'll ring her back, stick £300 in, turn K river Q and I ship. bb had something like 6c5c so pretty sick that I held on but I had felt there was enough dead money in the pot to make it worth calling.

At work now and got lots to get on with so going to get my skates on. To any Jews reading, have a Chag Sameach.

Anthony

After having a losing March, I got April off to a flier. Made about $300 playing PLO on PKR in not many hands (Im loving how redic easy that site is, even without ********) and went down to my local club last night. 1/2 game, I sat with £150 at about 10:30. I left around 12:45 with just over £1k in my stack. £940 is comfortably my biggest live cash win and it felt great to crush it hard. Was making all the right decisions it seemed and was excellent. There were a few interesting spots but I'm on a quick lunch break so maybe I'll post them soon. Its pretty sick that I cleared my monthly goal (£1k per month) on day 2 but there we go.

I cashed out my interpoker roll the other day for a few reasons:
1) the new software is even worse than the old. Its really tilting playing there and its tough to get any volume in for a few reasons.
2) I ran bad 1 night and wanted to make sure I didn't tilt blow lots of monies.
3) Lots of reasons to do with the software

I looked for a new site and saw 50% rb offer on fatbet. Unfortunately, they have like 2 games going at a time so next I tried cake poker. 33% rb wasn't bad and it looked busy. To be honest, I am really liking the software in general and there are plenty of games going on at all hours. I just have a few questions though:

1) What the **** are gold coins and are they actually of any use?
2) What the **** are gold cards and are they actually of any use?
3) How do I see when my bonus will have cleared?

I put $500 into the account, lost a bit playing cash, made a bit in the donkament I blogged the other day, had the account at $680 but then ran it down to $540 tonight running like ass in plo. Account is now at $591 after some hold em. I just want to get some volume in to get used to the software and get going with ******** ready for next month.