Grinding it out, one day at a time

I slagged off Prima and it’s software before I have really given it chance. What kind of donk moves to a new site and immediately sits down at four 6-max NL tables and expect to be profitable? LMFAO, what a knobhead! So I have decided to give Prima until around Christmas to try and win me over! After deciding this I got to thinking about bankroll management, stop gaps and the like and have come up with a new system that I am going to stick to religiously.

• Always have at least 20x, preferably 25x the maximum buy in for any given level

• Never have more than 10% of my bankroll in play at any given time

• If I lose 5% of my roll in a day, walk away until tomorrow

• When moving up, if 5x buy ins are lost, drop down to the previous level

This means that I will be, for the time being, be limited to be playing a single table of NL10! I can hear Cadmunkey laughing his bollocks off as I type this. I had to withdraw around $400 in the past couple of weeks for Xmas related shit so I only have online around $248-$250 (I think), which is around 25x buy ins for NL10. I will be adding some cash on December 22nd when I get paid but I can’t count this amount as my roll as it isn’t readily available yet for pokery and I honestly don’t know how much I will be able to put online so I have to work with what I have got I guess!

Enough ramblings. With me not going to the Xmas bash I decided to get in a few cans and hit the cash tables on Prima. I tried out the mini view and managed to fit 4 tables on my screen with no overlap. That’s how bad my laptop is, I could only fit 4 screens on, bet Cadmunkey could fit a couple of hundred on his fucker! Anyway, I only played for about 20 mins but this was enough for around 120 hands as the speed is pretty quick at the 6 max on Prima and I managed to ship about $5 in the process, mainly due to the shit software! On one table I sat at I clicked “Wait for BB” and the “Auto-post blinds” buttons but it seems that the auto-post blinds button overrides everything else so the piece of shit posted for me UTG and I was dealt T7s! FFS Cue me flopping bottom pair and an OESD on a 789 flop and losing around $6. After around 15 hands PAHUD displayed the stats but they were all over the shop in this mini-view so I turned it off and played blind for a short while and misclicked more than a dozen times due to the buttons being in weird places compared to what I am used to. After a while it was starting to piss me off so I closed all 4 tables.

I then had the bright idea to sit at an NL50 game, and despite only consuming 2 cans of Scrumpy Jack cider I felt like I’d had a bit more! Anyway, first hand in KK and took the blinds. 2nd hand 99, and again I took the blinds with my raise. 3rd hand AA, I kid you not! I raise to $2 and villain reraises to $8 I raise him to $30 and he folds and I don’t show and I guess I now have a big Bull’s Eye on my back. Very next hand I get QQ and this is getting stupid! I raise one limper and am called. Flop is 6c2d9h and I lead out and villain min-raises me. Turn is 6s and he bets out 1/3 of the pot. I opt to raise him as something was screaming “BOAT BOAT” at me and I wanted to find out now so I raise to the size of the pot and he insta-pushes all-in. Easy fold you say. Well it would be if the fucking buttons were clearer and in the normal place! I click call instead of fold and he flips 22 for a turned boat and I can’t suck out and lose $40. Bastard.

So I’m a bit pissed off at this point and join a $3.50 MTT with a guaranteed prize pool of $1.25k which had attracted around 600 players and the prizes were pretty good. As the game started I noticed it was 6 handed, FFS! I couldn’t be arsed so donked around for the first orbit then sat out because I just didn’t fancy a SH tournament. God knows how I did because I didn’t check back! I then entered a “Rounders” SnG which is basically the same format as the Party Steps, with the top 2 going through to round two. The first level is a $5.50 and the 2nd level is a $27.25 entry with the top 2 going through and the 3rd place getting to try level 1 again. Well to cut a long story short I won a ticket to level 2 which I will give a shot at some point tonight once Pudding Jr hits the hay!

So my account is around $50 lighter this today which is never a good thing but I suppose I did win $30+ the day before so all is not lost. I really need to re-evaluate what I’m going to do because I can’t see myself sticking with Prima to be honest.

Have a great weekend and thanks for reading!

• Watching you wind and grind
• Fat woman
• Fat women’s boobs
• Being kicked in the bollocks
• Big tits at work
• Retards

I worry about some of these people sometimes but would love to see their faces as they are sat there pants round ankles and cock in hand and they get diverted to this little blog! LMFAO @ wankaments

I didn’t want to play in the $2 games so I fired up a $5.50 one that had 12 players already registered and ready to donate their stacks to me! 1500 starting chips and 15 minute blinds with the first level being 10/20 moving gradually to 15/30, 25/50 but then doubling to 50/100. Not a bad structure really and with there only being 5 to a table I should have been in my element with my recent 6-max successes! Only the top 3 were paid with a distribution of 50/30/20. From the off there was one guy, from Sweden, who was thinking he was LAG but really he was just reckless and I targeted him for a double up. He loved to raise and reraise and when I was dealt KcQc I was pretty happy. I raised 3xBB and he min-raised me 7xBB more. This was his standard gameplan. For some reason I just pushed all-in thinking that even he’d be able to lay down something like 99-JJ here. He types in the gay chat “Hmmm, since I have Aces I’ll call!”. Sure enough he has black Rockets and I’m in a whole world of pain. Flop comes J6A and I am now a serious underdog to his top set. Turn is a 4 and I now need one of the four tens in the deck, making me around an 11/1 dog. River is…….you guessed it a TEN! Alleluia! I river my straight, doubled up and now had a horrendous table image, great

During the 25/50 level I had an M of around 50 still so was seeing flops when i could and raising and 3 betting and accumulating chips. Then in one hand the whole table limped and I was in the BB with JJ and raised 200% of the pot. One shortish stack UTG pushes all-in and I call. He shows me K9o FFS!! Flop brings him a King and the turn gives him 2 pair but the river brings……a JACK, and my set knocks yet another guy out! By this stage I was chip leader and really dominating but the cards were also hitting. I was paid off when I was in the BB with 84o and turned a straight to beat villain’s set and also flopped a baby flush which held up against a badly played overpair. Everything was going great, Prima must have given me one of those good accounts like JohnnyBax etc get given when they sign up to sites

On the final table there was a bit of banter and some guy said “Whoever knocks the short-stack out will win this!” to which I replied “I’ll be knocking the lot of you out, this is my game!” Cue the chat being full of comments about being a “Yorkshire twat”, a “lucky fish” and an “arrogant dickhead”, I replied telling them it’s called confidence in my game and knowing I am better than the other four guys! I don’t think an orbit passed without me raising or coming over the top of raises and they were laying down hands and pushing the chips towards me. The average stack was 4500 and I had around 8.6k when I raised 2.5xBB UTG with AdKd with the blinds at 100/200 and the villain to my immediate left pushed all-in for his remaining 3k. All fold to me and I make the call. he shows TT and the race is on. Flop doesn’t help and the turn is a brick but the river brings…..a KING! Ship your stack! One of the guys at the FT was on my starting table and commented that although I’d played well I was a “lucky son of a bitch” which I obviously agreed with! So we were now down to 3 and in the money and it was time to go hyper aggressive with my big stack as I had the win in sight. Out of the 22.5k chips in play I was holding around 12.5k, villain 1 had 6k and the other 4k. I’m dealt JJ on the button and make a 3.5xBB raise and villain 1 goes all-in for his 6k. He’s played pretty tightly and I announce that I’m prepared to race him as I think he has AK or AQ. He in fact has 99 and he can’t suck out and we’re now down to 2 with a 4.5/1 chip lead and the win in site. 2 hands in I raise with 44 and am min-raised by villain. I put him all-in and he insta-calls showing KK. Oh FFS! Flop and turn are no help but you obviously know what the river brings….a FOUR! River that two outer, Ship the $37.50 1st prize!

So the game was really enjoyable and the river cards were so kind it was untrue but overall I was pleased with my game despite the KQ vs AA hand I got my money in with the best of it each time. The standard of play was pretty weak-tight and there weren’t too many maniacs and I can definitely see myself playing in a few more of these games for sure. This one lasted about an hour and a half which isn’t too bad but investing this much time means that I’ll have to take more than my fair share of 1sts to make them worthwhile. Still getting used to the software though because the action buttons are in a strange order and the way you raise seems strange but otherwise no real complaints. I like how you can get the software to highlight a player in red if he’s folded and green if he is active which helps multitabling and the look of the site isn’t too bad. I’m going to hit the cash games tonight as Prima have a great little mini-view option which means I can easily fit 5 tables on my decrepit laptop’s screen which should be good for at least 350 hands an hour. If I get used to this mini view and the play at Prima I will 100% be leaving this site and joining one with rakeback as I should be able to hit 5000-7000 hands a week with ease and the rakeback will enable me to move up stakes quicker and make losses less painful!

Once I have rebuilt my bankroll I will definitely be sticking some back onto Full Tilt as I have discovered their 90 man, deep stack SnG’s with 10 minute blinds. FT’s blind structure was always superb but with 10 minute intervals now it is almost tailor made for me and my MTT game as it should allow me to try out a new LAGgier style that I’m trying to implement.

What ever your game I hope the river is as kind to you as it was to me!

I’m pretty happy with the stats over the first 1.5k hands, despite it being a practically irrelevant sample size. I enjoyed playing, not just because I was winning but also because in the past I’ve run at 18/8/2 which may be fine for full ring but is so exploitable at 6-max. Play more hands aggressively was much more fun than being a nit! Yeah sometimes it was costly as people would start to look you up and I sometimes got caught with bottom 2 pair vs sets or top 2 pair but overall the profit outweighed these loses massively. I can honestly say that I would not have enjoyed playing against me had I been one of the villains!

Anyway, she’s gone now and me and my trusty, knackered laptop have moved to pastures new, here’s hoping they are as profitable and weak as Tribeca.

Any comments on the stats are welcomed. Good luck at the felt

Well today I am half way down my 3rd 500ml bottle of water and all I have done is piss! It’s unreal! Yeah I don’t feel thirsty and to be honest I was feeling sleepy around 1345 and this seems to have passed but I think that’s due to the frequent trips to the toilet and the noise of the hand dryer waking me up, nothing else! One thing’s for sure, I won’t be getting a urinary tract infection anytime soon as nothing has got the chance to live there and cultivate before an hourly tidal wave is set upon it! God knows what will happen why I start to incorporate a healthier eating plan and exercise!

No real point to this post, just bored and thinking out loud!

Time for another wazz I think

So what are my initial thoughts and impressions of this move? Well I didn’t play last night as I went to Mrs Pudding’s for beers and Chinese takeaway (I’m at the pinnacle of physical fitness obv.) but I did download the new software and set up a new account as requested by their customer support. I encountered a couple of problems but their customer support rang ME and it was soon sorted out. I can’t tell you how pleasing and reassuring it is to be able to email, have live chat and be able to phone someone who actually speaks English as their first language! I rarely need to use support / customer services but when I do it often involves asking a few questions and a lot of the foreign agents struggle to understand the Yorkshire accent, even though mine isn’t really broad, and I’m never confident that they know what they’re doing!

One worry I had was the actual look of Bet365’s software. Normally I don’t really care as I’m not staring at it for 6-8 hours a day but go have a look at it if you get chance, it is awful. GG retinas! Thankfully Bowmans must have realised this and have changed the horrific green to a more suitable dark blue and it actually looks ok. I’m not too impressed with the lobby but how long do we actually spend in their anyway? The cards look decent and the game speed seems quick enough and from what I hear there is a nice stream of fish on the Prima network. As far as I’m aware it is Poker Tracker and Poker Ace HUD compatible and the PAHUD is meant to work with the mini-view which would be awesome as I could play 5-8 tables using this and really start flying through the stakes.

One thing that got on my nerves a little was the fact I was half way through clearing a $100 bonus on Bowmans and this has been declared void as their rewards scheme, loyalty bonus, whatever you want to call it are totally different. I’d started planning to use that $100 towards my starting bankroll for 2007 so I may have to now start with closer to $400 than $500. As I have lost this bonus Bet365 gave me a whopping $10 free to play with and also a $500 bonus to clear. This bonus clears at a rate of $5 per 100 “Loyalty Points” but I can’t seem to find out how these points are earned so I can’t work out at present how many raked hands I think this bonus will take. At my stakes it’s bound to clear slowly but it’d be nice to be able to clear $30-$50 before the New Year as this means I won’t have to add as much to my online roll from my bank!

One thing I’ve noticed is they don’t do NL25 and have NL20 instead, guess their software doesn’t like splitting the SB/BB when the BB is an odd number? Anyway, this means I have around 13.5 buyins online at present so am still within my comfort zone. Just wish I hadn’t had to cash out the $380 for bills etc otherwise I’d probably give NL50 a shot and see how that went, but such is life. I’m working my bar shift tonight but should hopefully be able to get online for a couple of hours after I finish and test out the Prima players. I’ll be playing 6-max NL20 but I may use their free $10 to play in some of the 15 and 20 seat short-handed SnG’s that Beatme has been having some decent success in as of late.

I’ll post my crazy Tribeca graph and stats when I get in from work and should have an update on my initial thoughts on Prima tomorrow.

Thanks for checking in, now get back to those damn tables!

Looks like I’ll get to sample the Prima network afterall